tupungato/iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The White House first learned one of its senior staffers met with the grand jury hearing the case presented by the special counsel into alleged Russian meddling into the 2016 election not from the staffer but from media reports, sources with knowledge of the investigation tell ABC News.



Former Trump campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis recently testified before that grand jury into his role on President Donald Trumps campaign. Clovis currently serves as the senior White House adviser to the Department of Agriculture.



Clovis testimony comes on the heels of another Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, pleading guilty to lying to federal authorities. As part of Papadopoulos admission of guilt, details of emails were disclosed that showed him describing to top Trump campaign officials communications he had with contacts in Russia.



The correspondence between Papadopoulos and a group of foreign nationals detail that within weeks of being described by Trump as an important part of his national security team, Papadopoulos was in London meeting with people who said they could deliver dirt on rival candidate Hillary Clinton, including thousands of emails.



The emails indicate multiple top level campaign officials that Papadopoulos communicated with including one listed as a campaign supervisor.



Sources familiar with the emails tell ABC News the campaign supervisor was Sam Clovis.



Clovis appeared to encourage Papadopoulos to engage with Russian contacts; in one instance Clovis responded directly to Papadopoulos, hailing him for his great work and saying I would encourage you to make the trip, if it is feasible, referring to a trip the young campaign adviser pitched to go abroad.



An attorney for Clovis confirmed his role in the communications to ABC News, adding that he has not spoken to Papadopoulos since the 2016 election and any trip he would have taken would not have been authorized by the campaign and would have been done on his own personal time and money.



A White House source familiar with the investigation tells ABC News the White House was surprised to learn Mr. Clovis had been contacted by the Special Counsels office as part of their separate probe of Mr. Papadopoulos activities.



Clovis lawyer, Victoria Toensing, told ABC News he is not under investigation.



The special counsels office has been calling witnesses for the last several months for both interviews at their Department of Justice offices in addition to testifying before a newly impaneled grand jury. White House staffers who have been called to meet with Mueller have usually kept the Presidents legal team in the loop.



Clovis was the presidents pick to serve as undersecretary at the Department of Agriculture and was scheduled to face a Senate confirmation hearing next week. However, as scrutiny mounted into his testimony and qualifications for the post Clovis wrote President Trump on Thursday asking his name be withdrawn from consideration.

In his letter of resignation, Clovis said the "political climate inside Washington...has made it impossible for me to receive balanced and fair consideration for this position."



"The relentless assaults on you and your team seem to be a blood sport that only increases in intensity each day," he said to President Trump.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Lenovo Delivers Solid Revenue Growth in Second Quarter FY 2017/18

TOKYO, Japan : Lenovo Group (HKSE: 0992) (PINK SHEETS: LNVGY) today announced results for its second fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2017. Revenue was USUSD 11.8 billion, a 5 percent increase year-over-year, and an 18 percent increase over the first fiscal quarter.





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Quarter-to-quarter revenue gains were achieved in all three of its main businesses, namely data center, mobile, and PCs and smart devices, demonstrating that strong execution of Lenovo's three-wave strategy is producing consistently improving results across its portfolio. In the second fiscal quarter, Lenovo's pre-tax income grew by US$104 million, rebounding significantly from the previous quarter's loss.Following last quarter's launch of the most comprehensive portfolio lineup in its history, Lenovo's Data Center Group (DCG), supported by a revamped channel structure and recorded year-over-year revenue gains outside China most notably in Europe and North America for the second quarter in a row. With new Moto phones performing well in key markets, Lenovo's Mobile Business Group (MBG) also saw year-over-year revenue improvements, with strong shipments momentum in West Europe, North America, and Latin America, and generated solid overall revenue growth for the third consecutive quarter.And Lenovo's PC/Smart Devices Group (PCSD), which was again profitable in all geographies, saw a record-high 21.3 percent market share in its Europe/Middle East and Africa region; launched Star Wars: Jedi Challenges, a new AR product partnership with Disney, and celebrated the 25th anniversary of the iconic ThinkPad at the close of the quarter.Additionally, Lenovo today finalized a joint venture agreement with Fujitsu, wherein the two companies will combine resources - leveraging Fujitsu's capabilities in global sales, customer support, R&D and manufacturing, together with Lenovo's global scale and presence.As Lenovo continues to pursue high-growth opportunities and new partnerships, particularly in key markets, this new joint venture will strengthen Lenovo's PC leadership worldwide, and help support continued profitable growth."In the last quarter we continued to make progress in transforming our business by executing our 3-wave strategy. We maintained industry leading profitability in our PC business and outgrew the market year-on-year. In our Data Center business our transformation is taking effect with a strengthened sales force, new global channel structure and programs, and new product competitiveness. Our mobile business turnaround is still in progress, and in most markets we saw strong premium to market growth," said Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo Chairman and CEO. "The combination of strong execution and building solid foundations continue to be Lenovo's strength. The turnaround of our business in Brazil is a good example of that. We will continue to invest in building foundation and core competence for the two new growth engines, which will bring stable and sustainable returns."The Company's gross profit increased 0.3 percent year-over-year to US$1.6 billion, which was a 18.2 percent improvement quarter-to-quarter. Gross margin was 13.7 percent a slight quarterly increase. Operating profit increased by US$94 million quarter-to-quarter. Basic earnings per share was 1.26 US cents or 9.85 HK cents. Lenovo's Board of Directors declared an interim dividend of 6.0 HK cents per share.BUSINESS GROUP OVERVIEWLenovo's PC and Smart Devices (PCSD) business group recorded an impressive year-over-year revenue increase of seven percent, up 20 percent quarter-to-quarter to US$8.4 billion. The average selling price for our PCSD products was up six percent year-over-year, as Lenovo continued to focus on innovation, a higher-value product portfolio, and de-emphasize lower-value offerings.PCSD which includes PCs, tablets and smart devices, was again profitable in all geographies, maintaining its industry-leading profitability at 4.4 percent, as customers continued to take advantage of Lenovo's improved product mix which led to the quarter's improved results. Lenovo's PC shipments were 14.5 million units, flat year-over-year, compared to a slight dip for the overall market. Lenovo's tablet shipments were up 8.9 percent year-over-year to 2.97 million units, in a market that fell 9.4 percent.During the quarter Lenovo and Disney introduced to rave reviews Star Wars: Jedi Challenges, a new augmented reality product that allows fans to experience Star Wars in ways never before possible. Jedi Challenges features a smartphone powered Lenovo Mirage AR headset, Lightsaber controller, Tracking Beacon, and hours of Star Wars gameplay, available this holiday season. Pre-order momentum has been very encouraging. Lenovo also celebrated the 25 anniversary of its iconic ThinkPad, with over 125 million units shipped since its introduction and still going strong with models such as the ThinkPad X1 Carbon.In our Data Center Group (DCG), which includes servers, storage, networking, software and services, we saw solid year-over-year revenue growth in both the North America, and Europe/Middle East and Africa markets. In particular, in North America we achieved a DCG revenue increase of ten percent, as investments in a revamped channel structure, a new product portfolio, sales training and new partnerships continued to drive the transformation of the data center business for the second consecutive quarter.Lenovo also saw improvement in China with a seven percent revenue increase quarter-to-quarter. While the last few quarters in China have been challenging, the improvements that have been put in place including new leadership and an expanded sales force, are helping to turn this business around there and drive new customer wins across hyperscale, big data, and private cloud. Lenovo's global accounts grew strongly again 18% year on year and services bookings grew over 100% year on year setting up a strong foundation for the future. Software Defined Infrastructure showed continued strong growth in the second quarter. Lenovo's data center momentum is evidenced by recent successes in high-performance computing, with continued wins and projects from some of the world's largest customers and universities.Lenovo's Mobile Business Group(MBG), which includes Moto and Lenovo-branded smartphones grew revenue slightly year-over year, and a notable 19 percent quarter-to-quarter, driven by strong momentum for Moto-branded smartphones and the third consecutive quarter of growth. Both Moto G and Moto E models saw year-over-year demand increase significantly, while Moto Z activation increased 18 percent quarter-to-quarter. The attach rate for Moto Mods improved to 37 percent, up from the previous quarter's 30 percent.Worldwide, Lenovo shipped 15.3 million smartphones, a 10 percent increase year-to-year and a 37 percent increase quarter-to-quarter. Included in this total increase were strong performances in Western Europe (shipments up 71 percent), Latin America (up 69 percent) and North America (up 67 percent). In Latin America, Lenovo achieved record market share of 17.7 percent, growing by 6.5 share points year-over-year.Lenovo continued its strategy of protecting its leading position in Latin America by expanding share and improving profit there, while attacking in mature markets such as North America, where we gained 1.7 share points year-over-year, and in Western Europe. Lenovo also continued to pursue healthy growth in key emerging markets such as India, where we grew 14 percent year-over-year and 83 percent quarter-to-quarter.
SES GS Awarded U.S. Government Satellite Solutions Contract

Luxembourg : SES announced that the U.S. General Services Administration's (GSA) Future Satellite Communications Service Acquisition (FCSA) program has awarded SES Government Solutions, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SES, a spot on the Complex Commercial Satellite Communications Solutions contract (CS3).





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"We are very proud to be part of the CS3 team of awardees," said Pete Hoene, President and CEO of SES Government Solutions. "CS3 gives the U.S. Government and its agencies another contract vehicle to leverage the uniquely scalable and secure end-to-end managed-services SES Government Solutions provides.It will allow the U.S. Government to take advantage of our most innovative offerings including high throughput connectivity on our multi-orbit satellite fleet."Industry awardees will be able to bid on opportunities with a budget ceiling of $2.5 billion. The Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract vehicle has a ten-year period of performance consisting of a five-year base term plus a three-year and two-year option.CS3 helps to ensure that critical government communications are delivered using the top capabilities available in the market. According to the General Services Administration, CS3 awards were given to the highest technically rated offerors with a fair and reasonable price.Complex solutions can include any combination of fixed and/or mobile satellite services, service enabling authorizations, components, and ancillary equipment such as terminals, teleports, and peripherals.
The Largest Provider of Finance Education, CAKART.in, Felicitated by Government of India at Industry 4.0 Conference

Bengaluru : At the recently concluded Industry 4.0 Conference, CAKART.in, the largest provider of finance education was specially felicitated by the Government of India for its contribution to government's Digital India initiative.





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Honorable Cabinet Minister Sri Anant Kumar felicitated and commended CAKART.in for bringing good quality, affordable education to masses through the use of technology. He said, "Employment and jobs for all is a priority area for the government.And, good education across different streams is must to make our youths employable not only in India, but also all across the world. CAKART.in and companies who are using technologies to create better, affordable education is also doing a great service to the nation." He exhorted more companies to join the digital India initiative in the sphere of education.CAKART.in helps finance experts around the world to create excellent courses and study material using technology. The courses from CAKART.in help students preparing for around 80 prestigious examinations. These exams are undertaken by around 25 million students around the world every year.The USP of CAKART.in is its focus on data science. Using advanced data science, the study pattern of millions of students are captured. Based on the data, personalized changes are made on the go to help new students learn faster and better.For instance, it is critical for an aspirant just going to appear for a CA exam that she receives information on revision, last minute exam checklist, and deep level analysis of all past CA final result, IPCC result, CPT Result data. Whereas, for a student who is starting to think about taking CA exam, information is centered around various aspects of CA Final Syllabus, CA Final Registration and CA Final study material.Similarly, for all 80 finance exams covered by CAKART.in, students are provided with customized information at each phase of their preparation. Technologies such as AI, Machine learning, data analytics and process automation help CAKART.in serve varied requirements of more than a million students every month.Finance students, especially in India, face many challenges while pursuing their career. Students of class 11/12 commerce stream, B.Com or M.Com have to make do with relatively mediocre quality education provided in nearby schools, colleges or tuition classes. Many students also aspire to prepare for prestigious and very difficult exams such as CA, CS, CMA, CPA, ACCA, US-CMA, CFA, CIMA, FRM, etc. The paucity of good quality experts and exorbitant fees charged by local institutions force many to abandon their ambitions.CAKART.in plays a crucial role here. It provides students means to prepare for more than 80 exams directly from the comfort of their homes. The faculty is world class; the overall expense incurred is almost 30-50% of the regular cost. It cannot get better than that for students.
North India Real Estate Witnessed 15 percent Growth this Festive Season

New Delhi : This festive season has brought cheers on the faces of realty developers. As per the recent reports, North Indian realty sector has witnessed a growth of over 15pc in demand. The demand has been spread across commercial and residential projects, both.





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Also, the demand was seen in multiple developing zones in North India. Majorly the demand was reported in the NCR region but tier II cities like Mohali, Panipat, Karnal, Dehradun, etc. fared equally well.TDI Infratech's CONNAUGHT PLAZA, a commercial offering in TDI CITY, Mohali saw a huge list of top retail brands like Garam Dharam, Warehouse Cafe, Beer Cafe, Looks Saloon, Bikanerwala and Neo Fitness picking up retail spaces. Talking about the increase in demand for commercial projects, Akshay Taneja, MD, TDI Infratech Ltd. says, "Commercial projects have always been in demand due to the high returns which one receives. This festive season witnessed an upheaval in demand for commercial real estate where retail was in focus. And it is bound to grow more in coming times."Talking about NCR realty, Deepak Kapoor, President CREDAI - Western U.P. & Director, Gulshan Homz says, "NCR realty due to its multiple offerings under different pocket sizes suits everyone's needs and hence has a constant demand of end user. With festive offers and also with RERA in place, the sentiments were quite positive which eventually resulted in increased demand for group housing & commercial projects, alike."Saya Group, which is all set to deliver over 500 units in its project Saya Zion, Greater Noida West will be again delivering its project before time. Vikas Bhasin, MD, Saya Group says, "A lot of bookings in the sector have taken place and simultaneously possessions have been offered. Families are taking possession considering the auspicious time and this momentum will be carried till end of the year. What this entire scenario will allow is the market to behave in a systematic manner so as to allow the positive sentiments flowing regularly which will help the sector to follow a well-directed roadmap to better shape the upcoming year. We will also be soon starting possessions for our project in Greater Noida West."Realty major Sikka Group has handed over possession of approximately 400 units in which 300 families have already shifted in its project, Sikka Karmic Greens, Sector 78, Noida. Commenting on the same, Piyush Sharma, Senior Vice President, Sikka Group says, "Possession is the key to success in real estate now. Projects need to be constructed within stipulated time and offered possession within time as well. This year has been a year of possessions and it has resulted in increased demand this festive season."Gaurav Gupta, General Secretary CREDAI - Ghaziabad & Director, SG Estates says, "Budget housing is in major demand for housing units in the price bracket of 30 to 50 lacs. Areas like NH-24, Siddharth Vihar & Rajnagar Extension in Ghaziabad saw a huge upsurge in demand this festive season. With UP- RERA in place, a positive sentiment has come in the market."
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Yes Solar Solutions Brings the Tesla Powerwall to North Carolina

CARY, N.C: Last month, Steve Calvert became the first homeowner in North Carolina to install a Tesla Powerwall, which is the latest version of the Tesla battery.





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Steve's home already has solar panels and a solar hot water system, and his was the first Tesla Powerwall installation for Yes Solar Solutions, a Tesla Powerwall Certified Installer. The company began quietly selling the Powerwall this year, sent its first purchase order to Tesla in June and now has a waiting list of customers for the batteries.Learn more about equipping your North Carolina home with solar panel power here.How it WorksSolar storage has been around for a while. In the past, deep cycle batteries tied to inverters have been used to store energy generated by solar. Batteries plus a fossil fueled generator have been another option. But the Powerwall lithium-ion battery technology with the built-in inverter is a game changer.The lithium-ion batteries allow charging and using storage on a daily basis. Coupled with solar panels to provide power to the home, any excess will then go to the Tesla Powerwall. And any further excess goes to the grid. The energy is stored until needed. Steve is elated with his Powerwall. "When the sun goes down, instead of drawing from the grid, I can use the energy already generated. And I can program it to draw and store energy from the grid when the electricity rate is lower. My next step is an electric vehicle now that I have the Powerwall."Certified InstallationYes Solar Solutions became the first Tesla Powerwall Certified installer in North Carolina this year. "It was a very thorough approval process," commented Yes Solar Co-Founder and President Stew Miller. "Submitting profit and loss statements, company training and certifications, and then a very comprehensive training process for all our sales and installation personnel ensured we were the right partners and could deliver the Tesla Powerwall quality." The fact that Yes holds both General Contractor and Electrical licenses was a benefit.What the Powerwall Includesa14 kilowatt hours of energy storagea5 kilowatts continuous power and 7 kilowatts peak outputaBuilt-in inverteraSleek designaWall or floor mounted, inside or outsideaAbout $6,200 plus installation
RCG Philippines Offshore Delivery Center Celebrates 20th Anniversary

ISELIN, N.J: RCG Global Services, a leading North American systems integrator, celebrated the 20th anniversary of its Philippines offshore delivery center this month. Hundreds attended the event at the New World Hotel to celebrate the anniversary.





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Clients, peers, friends and supporters joined the celebration to mark the two decades of RCG's achievement in providing offshore software development, testing and production support."We were honored to have Ambassador Sung Kim, the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of the Philippines, join our celebration," said Rob Simplot, CEO & President of RCG Global Services. "The Philippines is an established alternative to India as a world-class offshore software development destination. Our Philippine operation focuses on predictable solutions that meet the unique needs of each of our clients, and at the heart of our success are the dedicated and talented people who serve our clients on a daily basis."In 1997, RCG operations in the Philippines began primarily to serve the Y2K remediation needs of Fortune 500 clients. "While we still support legacy systems including mainframe and AS400 applications, we have significant engagements focused on native mobile app development for iOS and Android, responsive web site development, cloud-enabled enterprise system implementation, ubiquitous testing using AI, and advanced analytics with big data (hadoop)", stated Rick McGonegal, President & General Manager of RCG IT Philippines.Highlights of RCG's offshore delivery center in the Philippines include:a100% owned and operated subsidiary of RCG.aCMMI Level 5-certified project management and solution development methodology.aISO 27001 and PCI compliance certifications.aRobust network infrastructure providing a secure, virtual extension of the client's IT environment.a24-hour, multiple-shift capability with over 70% of our people working US day shift.aStrong affinity for US business culture and language.aUS accounting and business practices.The RCG offshore delivery center is strategically situated in the heart of the Makati business district.
Direct Relief to Airlift 76 Tons of Medicine and Medical Supplies to Puerto Rico

MIAMI: Direct Relief is preparing to airlift 152,604 lbs. of urgently needed medical resources to the Department of Health, hospitals, and community health centers in Puerto Rico, where severe medical shortages persist one month after the devastation of Hurricane Maria.





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The Direct Relief-chartered MD-11 cargo jet will depart Miami for San Juan on Oct. 28 with $21 million (wholesale) in medications and supplies, including extensive quantities of intravenous solutions, nutritionals, insect repellant, and prescription medications for a range of acute conditions and chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension.The medicine and supplies were donated by 44 healthcare companies. Each of the 300 items in the shipment has been specifically requested by 19 tertiary hospitals and emergency centers, 20 nonprofit community health centers, and the Puerto Rico Department of Health.Direct Relief for the past eight years has been supporting a network of nonprofit community health centers in Puerto Rico on an ongoing basis.a Prior to Hurricane Maria, the organization had been coordinating with the Department of Health to assist with the medical evacuees from neighboring islands after Hurricane Irma two weeks prior.a Over the past month, Direct Relief's emergency response in Puerto Rico has included 54 shipments to 27 facilities totaling $3.6 million (wholesale).Direct Relief also has committed an initial $300,000 in financial assistance to Puerto Rico's primary care association and its 20 nonprofit members that collectively operate 62 clinical sites in 53 municipalities throughout Puerto Rico.
Actress Sharon Stone Praises Barrow's New Leader

PHOENIX: Academy Award-nominated actress Sharon Stone today visited Barrow Neurological Institute to publicly welcome the Institute's new leader, Michael Lawton, MD. Dr. Lawton, who succeeded Robert Spetzler, MD, as Barrow's President and CEO in June, was Stone's brain surgeon in San Francisco after she suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm in 2001. Stone credits Dr. Lawton with saving her life.





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"I am proud to welcome to Barrow the man who saved my life," says Stone. "The majority of people who go through what happened to me do not survive, let alone recover. I'm able to be here today and walking and talking because of Dr. Lawton."Dr. Lawton was recruited to Barrow after an extensive national search that considered many of the foremost names in neurosurgery. He was previously at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) serving as vice chairman and chief of vascular neurosurgery in the Department of Neurological Surgery.During a press conference at Barrow, Dr. Lawton announced plans to increase the Institute's faculty, expand its campus, and grow Barrow's prominence as the leading neurosciences institute in the United States."I'm thrilled to join Barrow as its new leader and I'm honored that Sharon took time out of her busy schedule to welcome me on behalf of the patients I've treated," said Dr. Lawton. "When I was deciding what to do in medicine, I wanted my work to have a profound effect on patients' lives and so I chose neurosurgery. When a patient thanks me for saving their life, there is no greater reward. When that patient is a Hollywood legend and American icon like Sharon, it doesn't get any better."During Stone's visit, Dr. Lawton unveiled his vision for the Institute. "I come to Barrow with the promise of expanding the Institute's amazing accomplishments and legacy of bold innovation. The extraordinary team here will establish Barrow as the best neuroscience center in the world and will help patients like Sharon Stone make remarkable recoveries."The new leader of Barrow outlined his three key initiatives including: transforming Barrow's home with the addition of an innovative neuroscience workspace in the spirit of "Googleplex," launching the Barrow Artificial Intelligence Center, and establishing a major research program called the Barrow Aneurysm and AVM Research Center.Dr. Lawton underscored that as Barrow grows its clinical and research programs, the Institute's physical footprint also will need to expand. Barrow, which is located at Dignity Health St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, is planning to construct a 5-story building on St. Joseph's campus that will capture the "creative energy of the neurosciences community."The goal of this expansion is to bring to Barrow the "same excitement as Google's headquarters in Silicon Valley, where the most-talented neuroscientists, neurosurgeons, and neurologists in the world collaborate and collide, physically and mentally, to innovate and advance our field," he said.Dr. Lawton heralded the new Barrow Artificial Intelligence Center, saying it will make the Institute a global leader in developing clinical tools for neuroscientists, as well as better outcomes and possible cost savings for patients. The Institute has recruited one of the world's leading artificial intelligence medical experts to lead the center and transform the speed and accuracy of neurological diagnosis and treatment."Artificial Intelligence will change the practice of medicine in the next decade," says Dr. Lawton. "With our new supercomputer that is more powerful than IBM Watson, we now have resources that no other neuroscience institute in the nation has and we will be leading in this space."The Barrow Aneurysm and AVM Center will study these two deadly causes of stroke. Barrow is one of the busiest centers in the nation for treating these conditions and has a long history of clinical innovation in the management of these patients. Four top scientists recruited from around the country will form the nucleus of this research team."There's a dire need for increased research on brain aneurysms and other causes of bleeding in the brain," said Dr. Lawton. "A brain aneurysm ruptures every 18 minutes in the U.S. and 40 percent of those ruptures are fatal. Two-thirds of survivors suffer permanent neurological deficits. The federal government currently only spends approximately 83 cents per year on brain aneurysm research for each person afflicted, which is simply not enough."Dr. Lawton is no stranger to Barrow and Phoenix. Before taking the position at UCSF, he spent his seven year medical residency training at Barrow under his predecessor, Dr. Spetzler, who retired in June. While at UCSF, Dr. Lawton built a prominent cerebrovascular service and amassed a clinical experience in vascular neurosurgery unheard of for someone his age. He has treated more than 4,300 aneurysms, 800 brain arteriovenous malformations, and 1,000 cavernous malformations and is highly regarded by his peers around the globe for his surgical skills, patient care, innovation, and research efforts.Barrow, which performs more brain surgeries annually than any hospital in the United States and is home to the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center, has long been a world leader in health care and has treated thousands of patients from around the world. It is consistently ranked as a top hospital for neurology and neurosurgery by U.S. News & World Report.
Direct to the heart of Europe, Hainan Airlines launched successful inaugural from Shanghai to Brussels

BRUSSELS: On 25 October 2017, Hainan Airlines flight HU7921 departed from Shanghai Pudong International Airport and, after a 12-hours flying, made a smooth landing at 7:30am at Brussels Airport, marking a successful maiden flight between Shanghai and Brussels.





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Hainan Airlines opened the route between Beijing and Brussels in 2006 and Shanghai to Brussels route is the airline's second direct service between Belgium and mainland China. By building this air bridge, Hainan Airlines will help the two countries enjoy the benefits brought by the "One Belt, One Road" initiative.Three return flights is to be operate on the Shanghai Pudong to Brussels line every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The aircraft used for the first flight was a Beijing 787-9 Dreamliner equipped. Business class is equipped with 180 degree lie-flat massage chairs, BOSE noise-canceling headphones and Bulgari washbags so passengers are able to enjoy a quiet journey with their own private space.From its founding, Hainan Airlines has operated safely for 24 years, providing over 6 million hours of safe air and is placed the third on the "Global Airline Safety Ranking" by JACDEC. In 2017, the company has received a five-star rating from Skytrax 7 times in a row, and also entitled as "World's Top 10 Airlines" by Skytrax for the first time. The company is universally praised for its quality service both in China and overseas.
Global City Leaders: Cut Obesity By A Quarter To Prevent 100M New Diabetes Cases By 2045

BAGSVARD, Denmark: An international coalition of cities is calling for an ambitious global goal to prevent more than 100 million new cases of diabetes by 2045.





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The target is set out alongside new research in a report launched today by the Cities Changing Diabetes partnership at a global summit in Houston, Texas. The report comes with the stark warning that achieving the goal requires cutting rates of obesity by a quarter.Experience the interactive Multichannel News Release here: https://www.multivu.com/players/English/8202451-cities-changing-diabetes-global-obesity-rates/Bending the curveCases of diabetes are accelerating in every part of the world meaning that today, one in 11 adults live with the condition.1 The report - Bending the Curve on Urban Diabetes - urges governments, city and health leaders to make changing the trajectory of the disease a top global priority in order to 'bend the rising curve' of diabetes prevalence.Bending the curve means holding the rise of diabetes at a ceiling of one in ten adults living with the condition. To do this, ambitious action is needed on the single biggest modifiable risk factor for diabetes: obesity.2 Obesity must be reduced by 25% globally by 2045, from today's level of 14% of the population in order to bend the curve.1If nothing is done, the research projects that 1.4 billion adults (22.4% of adults) will live with obesity by 2045.1 This would result in diabetes prevalence reaching one in nine adults - a staggering 736 million people, and almost 300 million more than today.1The impact of diabetes at this scale would be tragic for individuals, families, health systems and economies. As a consequence, annual diabetes-related health expenditure would spiral to more than 1 trillion US dollars in 2045, up from 775 billion US dollars today, an increase of over 39%.1 And that is a conservative estimate.In contrast, bending the curve would prevent an extra 111 million people developing diabetes, more than the combined populations of the nine cities in the coalition, and would save society 200 billion dollars annually by 2045.1The solution starts in citiesWhile half of the world's population lives in cities, they are home to two-thirds of people with diabetes - a number set to rise to three quarters of people with diabetes by the 2040s.3Responding to the findings, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said: "Action against diabetes has to start in cities. The way cities are designed, built and run is fuelling an urban obesity and diabetes pandemic that is already shortening millions of people's lives and resulting in billions in healthcare costs primarily related to the cost of treating complications."The Cities Changing Diabetes programme was co-founded by Novo Nordisk, University College London and the Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen. The partnership comprises nine global city partners - Copenhagen, Houston, Johannesburg, Mexico City, Rome, Shanghai, Tianjin, Vancouver and Xiamen - together representing 75 million citizens - to pioneer new approaches to map the challenge, understand the areas of greatest risk and vulnerability, and design interventions that are delivering real impact.Programme researchers are today releasing their findings alongside a bespoke projection tool at the Cities Changing Diabetes Summit in Houston, Texas. The tool enables individual cities to quickly and reliably assess the scale of their local diabetes and obesity challenge to guide future action.Furthermore, for the first time, the Cities Changing Diabetes programme will make publicly available the most innovative and effective approaches from pioneer cities around the world. The 'Urban Diabetes Toolbox' arms city and health leaders in any city to create their own action plan to tackle urban diabetes and obesity.Before addressing the 300 Summit delegates, Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen, president and chief executive officer, Novo Nordisk said:"The urban diabetes pandemic is playing out in every major city around the world and the stakes are high. We're calling upon all city leaders and their healthcare counterparts to come together to meet this challenge head on. Now is the time to fully measure and understand the local burden of disease and to create local action plans that together can combine to bend the curve on global diabetes. That means taking ambitious action on the biggest modifiable risk factor for diabetes: obesity."
Hong Kong Airlines celebrates launch of Embrace the World and Cadet Pilot Programme

HONG KONG: Hong Kong Airlines has launched the 2017/18 edition of Embrace the World, having held the annual Awards Presentation and Kick-off Ceremony. The strong comeback of the student sponsorship scheme was reinforced by the unveiling of the airline's inaugural Cadet Pilot Programme.





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"Embrace the World" rewards students with outstanding achievements with free air tickets to give them the opportunity to travel and explore the world. So far, more than 2,000 students have benefitted from the programme.Officiating guests included the Under Secretary for Transport and Housing, Dr So Wai Man, as well as the chairmen of the programme's collaborators - Hong Kong Island School Heads Association, Kowloon Region School Heads Association and New Territories School Heads Association.This year, Hong Kong Airlines will sponsor 1,800 return air tickets across five categories: 1) Best Secondary School students; 2) Students with financial difficulties participating in overseas competitions; 3) Primary and secondary school study tours; 4) Kindergarten principals and teachers; as well as 5) Colleges and universities.Hong Kong Airlines will also host several career talks, where secondary school students will get the chance to learn from the airline's frontline staff. Students will be invited to visit an aircraft cockpit and the airline's catering facility to learn about aircraft operations to further develop their interest in aviation."We're delighted that "Embrace the World" is back and stronger than ever," said Mr Tang King Shing, Vice Chairman of Hong Kong Airlines. "The programme truly embodies Hong Kong Airlines' commitment of nurturing home-grown success."The "Embrace the World" event also saw the introduction of 10 new cadet pilots who were selected to join Hong Kong Airlines' first Cadet Pilot Programme, and will embark on a 70-week flight training at the L3 Airline Academy Training Centre this November. Following completion of the programme, successful cadets will receive their official appointment as Second Officers of Hong Kong Airlines."Our growing network now boasts nearly 40 major destinations worldwide. Hong Kong Airlines is going through a period of unprecedented growth, and there is clearly a demand for new pilots. We are proud to do our part in contributing to the industry," said Mr Tang."I'm very happy to be a part of the Embrace the World programme, and together with my fellow cohort, we are honoured to be Hong Kong Airlines' first cadet pilots," said Chester Wong. "While we may come from different walks of life, the 10 of us share the same goal. We want to fly, and we'll work hard to achieve our dreams."The ceremony was also held to recognise those who had participated last year in four categories - "Outstanding School Award", "Outstanding Teacher Award", "Go Green Awards" and the "Best of the Best Student Award", - of which the 10 winners will fly to the L3 Airline Academy Training Centre in New Zealand for a special learning experience.
China Pacific Construction Group Featured at Times Square

NEW YORK: On October 23rd, an image of China Pacific Construction Group, a privately-owned Chinese Fortune Global 500 enterprise lit up the big screen overlooking New York's Times Square with a quote of wisdom from its legendary founder, Yan Jiehe.





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"Learning, thinking and acting in the growing stage; modesty, toughness and boldness in the mature stage; talent, virtue and tolerance in the successful stage," reads the quote, which comes from Mr. Yan's book New Analects and caught the eyes of many at the Times Square. This is the creed Mr. Yan lives by in both business and life, and is the fruit of the Chinese billionaire's over-35-year-long career in the construction industry. From the humble beginning of RMB 120,000 in his first venture in Nanjing, China, to becoming a dominating force in the industry across Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America, Mr. Yan never lost concentration on his most valued commodity: reputation.Prizing reputation-building over profit, Mr. Yan's famous quote "It's better to lose RMB 80,000 than to lose RMB 50,000," a strategy forged during his contract of Nanjing's three ring-road culvert project in 1992 and a case study at the Harvard Business School, was what earned him his first fortuneaRMB 8.6 millionaand put him on the map of China's construction industry.Founded in 1995 in Nanjing, Pacific Construction quickly picked up important contracts, such as construction of the Hongzehu Road, which initiated the Chinese-style BT (build-transfer) model of "construction before delivery," an adaptation of the BOT (build-operate-transfer) model. The project also laid a practical basis for the promotion of PPP (public-private partnership) in China. Known as the "first order of China's PPP," the Hongzehu Road project was completed with a legendary quality of no damages in 20 years and has been praised as a project constructed with conscientiousness and honor.After 25 years of ups and downs, from the initiation of BT to the promotion of PPP, Pacific Construction now has become the largest city operator in China, undertaking the investment, construction and management of more than 3,000 parks in over 1,000 cities all over the country.In 2011, Mr. Yan passed his titleaChairman of the Board of Directorsato his 25-year-old son Yan Hao. It marks the leap forward of Pacific Construction's leadership to a novel era of teamwork.In 2014, for the first time, Pacific Construction was ranked among the Fortune Global 500 companies. It has since been rising incessantly and climbed to No. 89th on the list in 2017 as the top private enterprise in global construction.Pacific Construction has created six brands in public welfare activities at great expense with four continuous sessions of Huatuo CEO Forum. While leading Chinese enterprises' overseas trips, together with Chinese political elites, Mr. Yan's family has talked and worked with many economists and international political leaders, such as former U.S. President Bill Clinton.In response to the national appeal, Pacific Construction was the first to participate in the poverty reduction of the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" in the PPP model, initiating the targeted poverty alleviation model with local government that integrates three approaches: promoting constructions, developing industries and improving education.In its answer to the call of the "Belt and Road Initiative," Pacific Construction accelerated its process of internationalization by signing contracts in Mongolia, Chile, Ghana, Greece, Macedonia and Austria, etc. The company signed an infrastructure construction project of 3 billion Euros with the Republic of Albania and the Republic of Montenegro, entering the "16+1" cooperation "Blue Corridor." By joining hands with CREC, Pacific Construction signed a subway project of 2 billion dollars with the government of Ukraine, which created a trans-boundary and cross-institution partnership.Since 2016, Pacific Construction has been devoting to constructing the core of the "Silk Road Economic Belt" after moving its main operations to Xinjiang, and became the first Fortune Global 500 enterprise headquartered in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.Besides the over-RMB 400-billion cooperative agreements in investment and construction with multiple areas in Xinjiang and local construction corps, Pacific Construction has also been steadily propelling a batch of key programs.Meanwhile, exchanges and collaboration with countries along the Silk Road have accelerated. In the southeast, Pacific Construction signed an investment agreement of RMB 450 billion with the government of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region to assist its infrastructure construction. The company put RMB 50 billion into forging a modern service industry with the standard of Bama, the Chinese "wise village" known for its untainted natural resources and remarkably long lifespan of its villagers.Pacific Construction also established its Southeast Headquarter in Nanning to get a head start in the new pattern of marine exploitation while accessing AFTA from all directions.In 2017, Mr. Yan Jiehe traveled to America with his New Analects (English version) a his new work on traditional Chinese culture. During his brand roadshows and study tours, Mr. Yan received warm welcome from all societies in the country as well as positive responses within the business circle, initiating multiple cooperation projects under intense preparation.Starting out from a canal and entering the Pacific through Yangtze River, the company is heading from Pacific Construction to Constructing the Pacific.Yan Hao, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Pacific Construction, said, "Never forget why you started, and your mission can be accomplished. Pacific Construction shall seize the opportunity in policy, carry forward the entrepreneurial spirit while taking full advantage of 'source, wisdom and capital,' as a Fortune Global 500 enterprise, to engage and construct the great cause and the epic project of the 'China Dream.'"
Data Shows That Younger Generations Trust Less

NEW YORK: A global survey from momondo.com found that younger generations are less trusting than older generations. momondo is launching a new initiative designed to foster tolerance between children all over the world. The new film launched by momondo shows what happens when children from all over the world spend a month together in Brazil.





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The initiative builds on insights from momondo's global survey, which concluded that traveling increases trust in others. 48% of people believe that people are less tolerant of other cultures today than five years ago. The study found that only 36 % of young people between 18 to 35 years have trust in other people. In comparison, 40 % of 36 to 55 year-olds and to 50 % of the 56 to 65 year olds reported they have trust in other people.The survey concludes that travel can help break down prejudice and change how we see other people. 61% of respondents believe that there would be less intolerance if people traveled more.Children from all over the world met up for a month this year at a school camp in SAo Paolo, Brazil. The exchange curriculum was tolerance and friendship. The children had the opportunity to make cross-border friendships and learn about tolerance and open-mindedness. There were four American children aged 11 among the many other nationalities at the CISV village.The school camp was headed by the organisation CISV International and sponsored by hotel and travel search site momondo. The sponsorship is part of momondo's new initiative to increase tolerance and respect in the next generation. The initiative is part of momondo's Lets Open Our World campaign, which last year released the campaign film The DNA Journey."Children are our future. That is why we are launching this new initiative, which hopefully encourages the next generation to be more open-minded. The initiative builds on our vision of breaking down boundaries between people, and creating a more open and tolerant world," says MaryBeth Lauro, momondo's US spokesperson.Expert: It is easier to fight prejudice among childrenAccording to Rachel Kuck, Doctoral Candidate at University of Michigan School of Education, and member of the Educational Programmes Committee at CISV International, it can be easier to fight prejudice among children than among adults:"In some ways, it is easier for children to fight prejudice because many times they do not have the life experience that has reified negative assumptions about other groups of people that an adult might have."Children describe their feelings in postcard to parentsThe children were asked to write down their emotions on a postcard to their parents at the beginning of the camp and then again two weeks later. In the postcards, the kids wrote about how their views of the other children's differences changed during their stay. momondo collected excerpts from the children's postcards in "Dear mom and dad", a short film showing the children's positive development."Our survey shows that 70% of respondents believe tolerance and respect for others are among the most important qualities children can learn in their home life. This is why it's very uplifting to hear the children from the CISV camp share how the experience of spending time with other children from all over the world gave them a better understanding of other nationalities and cultures," says MaryBeth Lauro.Free educational kits to help spread the messageTo help spread the message, momondo and CISV have developed educational activities designed to help children understand the importance of mutual tolerance and respect. The educational activities "Equally Different" and "Our colorful World" teach children how easy it is to apply and remove labels and stereotypes. momondo has created an activity sheet, a curriculum and supplementary short films that illustrate the importance of openness.The materials can be downloaded for free here: http://www.letsopenourworld.com, where you can also get more information about momondo's sponsorship of CISV and read about the other activities momondo is working on to create a more open world.
Embedding a decision support tool in the hospital electronic health record increases detection of acute kidney injury, reducing its severity and improving survival, according to new research from the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC.

The results, published today in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, address one of the most costly and deadly conditions affecting hospitalized patients, providing evidence that computers analyzing changes in renal function can alert doctors of acute kidney injury before the condition is obvious clinically.

"Acute kidney injury strikes one in eight hospitalized patients and, if unchecked, it can lead to serious complications, including the need for dialysis and even death," said senior author John Kellum, M.D., professor of critical care medicine and director of the Center for Critical Care Nephrology at Pitt's School of Medicine. "Our analysis shows that implementation of a clinical decision support system was associated with lower mortality, less need for dialysis and reduced length of hospital stay for patients diagnosed with acute kidney injury, among other benefits."

Acute kidney injury is common in hospitalized patients, particularly those in intensive care units and older adults, and refers to a sudden episode of kidney failure or damage that happens within a few hours or days. It causes a build-up of waste products in the blood that can affect other organs, including the brain, heart and lungs.

While kidney function is monitored using simple blood tests, subtle changes can elude or delay detection of a problem. Failure to recognize and manage acute kidney injury in the early stages can lead to devastating outcomes for patients and increased costs to the health care system. Benefits of earlier detection of acute kidney injury include earlier intervention to mitigate loss of kidney function, and reduced hospital and long-term health care costs as a result of avoiding progression to severe and permanent kidney damage.

In 2013, Kellum's team released a computer program within the electronic health record system across 14 UPMC hospitals. The program monitored levels of blood creatinine, a standard measure of kidney function, over time and analyzed changes in those levels. If the levels rose too high or fast, the program fired an alert in the patient's electronic health record informing doctors that acute kidney injury could be present. It also helped determine the stage of injury based on changes from the patient's baseline kidney function.

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To determine what effect, if any, the computer program was having on physician behavior and patient outcomes, Kellum and his colleagues analyzed records from more than half a million patients admitted to UPMC. They started a year before the alert system was deployed, and continued for two years after. Patients with acute kidney injury had a small yet sustained decrease in hospital mortality of 0.8 percent, 0.3-day shorter length of stay and a decrease of 2.7 percent in dialysis rates. Even after adjusting for age and severity of illness, these changes remained highly significant.

In absolute terms, the changes are small, but given the annual frequency of acute kidney injury in hospitalized U.S. patients of about 12 percent  or 2.2 million people  these results would translate into more than 17,000 lives and $1.2 billion saved per year.

"Ultimately, we see this as confirmation that a fairly simple clinical decision support system can make a difference," said co-author Richard Ambrosino, M.D., Ph.D., medical director of clinical decision support and reporting at UPMC's eRecord. "More sophisticated systems are possible and should have an even greater impact."

Kellum, who also is associate director for acute illness at Pitt's Institute for Precision Medicine, plans to make improvements to the clinical decision support application in the future.

"Working with pharmacists to adjust patient medications and machine-learning experts to better predict which patients will be at greatest risk for adverse events, my team and I hope to make an even greater impact on patient outcomes," said Kellum. "Incorporating protein biomarkers and even genomics into the system could one day revolutionize patient care, not just for acute kidney injury, but for other illnesses."
insights from industry Dr Michael Graz &

Dr Graham Dixon Managing Director & COO Neem Biotech

An interview with Dr Michael Graz and Dr Graham Dixon, conducted by Alina Shrourou, BSc

How prevalent is Cystic Fibrosis and how is it diagnosed?

There are about 77,000 people known to have cystic fibrosis. That's from the various cystic fibrosis registries available globally. The World Health Organization suggests that this number may be low, because there's no reporting on cystic fibrosis from the developing world. The accepted number, at the moment, is about 80,000. That's the one that is used for most of the work that's being done on cystic fibrosis.

Credit: Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Registry Highlights 2016

Diagnosis is mainly done by newborn screening. Although, there is late diagnosis for adolescents and adults that were born before the newborn screening came in. This late diagnosis is usually used for patients that have only been exhibiting mild forms of the symptoms, and its only when they start developing complications later in life that cystic fibrosis is diagnosed.

Diagnosis also varies from country to country, with various countries having different approaches on how to do screening. In some countries, newborn screening is performed on every child that is born, whereas in some countries, like the UK for example, it is based on parental choice.

Why is Cystic Fibrosis under diagnosed in developing countries?

For many years, cystic fibrosis was thought to be a disease of Caucasians. It's only been reported for the last couple of years, that the mutation does also occur in other race groups.

Up until now, in mostly non-Caucasian countries, there was no screening for cystic fibrosis because it was not seen as a disease of any note. It's not because of any specific healthcare standards, but because it wasn't thought to be prevalent in those countries.

Can any other complications occur in individuals diagnosed with CF?

Apart from the effects on the lung, you can get digestive issues. Cystic fibrosis also affects the functioning of the kidneys and pancreas.

Some of the antibiotics that are used have known side effects such as hearing loss or potentially kidney damage over and above the complications just found in the patient, and yet the patient population is willing to use those treatments because the benefit outweighs the risk.

What are the current challenges in Cystic Fibrosis research?

You can put cystic fibrosis research in two sections. The first is the treatment of the actual disease state, which is looking at disease-modifying agents, of which there is one effective one available, but for only a small subset of the cystic fibrosis population. There is a lot of focus on how you can potentially correct the mutation.

The other type of research is about treating the symptoms and comorbidities. Both have their own challenges.

There are several different mutations that affect small percentages of the population. Many of the drugs have been developed against a certain mutation, so they don't have a whole spectrum of activity. That's why you see, in treatment, many companies are now even up to triple combinations of drugs to try and get around that. That creates challenges.

If you're trying to deliver three drugs to the same place, they must all have the same pharmacokinetics, etc. The combinations have to be carefully developed and put together. To find a disease-modifying drug that would be applicable to all the population would be a great breakthrough.

Why is a combined approach often needed with CF therapies? Is the condition facing antimicrobial resistance?

With most areas of infection, not just infection in cystic fibrosis, multiple therapies are starting to become regularly indicated. This is to overcome the potential for antimicrobial resistance or to overcome the fact that there is such a prevalence of antimicrobial resistance that you need multiple prongs of attack in order to be able to clear an infection.

Because of the chronic nature of the infections in cystic fibrosis patients, often the only way that these infections can be managed is with very potent antibiotics - antibiotics, which in other cases would be used only as a last resort. These are given in some form of combination in order to give the patients the best quality of life.

What is antimicrobial resistance and why is it becoming more of an issue?

Antimicrobial resistance is the result of an evolutionary mechanism in bacteria. That mechanism allows bacteria to survive in difficult environments. For example, bacteria that can grow at the bottom of the ocean next to thermal vents, or in ice, or survive in the saline environment in the sea.

The bacteria develop mechanisms to cope with their environment. Antimicrobial resistance is effectively just a mechanism bacteria use to cope with the stress, which is caused by the antibiotics that we use.

Resistance has been there ever since bacteria have been around. If you look at the data from ancient bacteria that were taken from underneath the ice cap, these already exhibited some of the enzymes that confer antimicrobial resistance, before they'd ever been exposed to what modern medicine calls an antibiotic.

Antimicrobial resistance is considered to be either intrinsic or extrinsic. If it's intrinsic, the mechanism is inherent in the bacteria, usually by an enzyme that they've developed over time because of this evolutionary stress. If extrinsic, it means that that they effectively inherit the genetic material necessary in order to make them resistant.

Transfer of the genetic information to confer resistance is a natural phenomenon, that makes microbes, viruses and fungi, become very difficult to deal with. This is especially the case for bacteria, which seem to have the most ability to become resistant. When antimicrobial resistance is transfered between species, this becomes a significant problem if the resistance transfers to a bacterium that is already resistant to most of the other classes of antibiotics.

Even though the problem of antimicrobial resistance is large within its own right, the situation is made worse due to the decrease in R&D performed in big pharma because anti-infectives are often the poor relation compared to some of the other therapeutic areas. When they look at the business cases for disease indications such as oncology, diabetes, etc, these look much more attractive in a commercial sense.

What is the importance of events, like the North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference, to you and the rest of the CF research community?

As in any therapeutic area, there's a great advantage in getting people from diverse backgrounds together for a common goal. This meeting is probably the premier research meeting in the world in cystic fibrosis. Its a great opportunity to discuss and share the challenges, and of course to network too.

I think it's particularly important, from our perspective as a relatively small biotech situated in Wales, to try and get known in the US. It's particularly the case in cystic fibrosis because there is a very strong Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, which is actively involved in the US, both in terms of research and development, but also in terms of the patients.

For us to be able to go and present a poster, to be able to engage with the US scientists, medical professionals and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is a great opportunity for us.

Please outline the information you will be presenting at the North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference next month.

We are presenting a poster as well as also doing an oral presentation as a short summary. It's about the symptomatic treatment of cystic fibrosis. We're looking at trying to help with the infections that occur in these patients. One in particular, Pseudomonas aeruginosa - a pathogen that creates chronic infection.

Credit: Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock.com

Pseudomonas aeruginosa survives for a long time because it produces what's known as a biofilm. The biofilm is an extracellular matrix, which protects it from the environment. In some cases, the environment can be trying to treat the bacteria with antibiotics, to kill it.

We will be presenting our information on a novel mode of action, which aims to sensitize the bacteria to the antibiotic to allow it to be killed. It breaks down this biofilm, and that then allows the antibiotic to get to the bacterium and do what it's supposed to do in killing the bacterium.

What are quorum sensing inhibitors and how do they work? Can bacteria become resistant to them?

Quorum sensing is the means by which bacteria communicate using chemical signals. It was first described in the late '90s by Bonnie Bassler, who wrote the seminal paper on Vibrio fischeri, where they showed how you could get them to luminesce in the presence or absence of signals.

Once that was established that bacteria can not only communicate but can switch on or off specific genetic programs based on this communication, people have been postulating, "Well, if you can interfere with that signal somehow, then you can switch off these genetic programs."

In our case, our quorum sensing inhibitor targets a very specific quorum sensing mechanism. It's the type 2 secretion mechanism in Pseudomonas, which is based on homoserine lactone, which is the signaling molecule.

The signaling molecule switches on the virulence factors in the bacterium. These virulence factors are things like the production of flagella so that the bacteria can move to the site of infection. As well as the production of the extracellular polysaccharide that they then protect themselves with. Also, the production of some of the disease-causing agents such as a toxin, and quite specifically to cystic fibrosis, Pseudomonas also produces what is called the cystic fibrosis inhibition factor, often just called cif. The expression of this factor is also controlled by this signaling mechanism.

What you want to do is to be able to switch off that mechanism. You can do that in a number of ways. You can either try and bind the signaling molecules, which, considering that they swarm through the environment, is the harder thing to do. Alternatively, you can bind the actual receptors for those molecules.

That then means the signal can't get to the point that it needs to get to, to trigger the next event. Or you might even block the mechanism much further into the cell at intracellular signaling or even at the genetic level.

All of these approaches have been looked at. Ours, quite specifically, targets the outer edge of the cell, where we interfere with the receptors of the molecule.

It would not be right of me to say that bacteria will never develop resistance to this, but because youre not actually exerting stress on the bacterium, but rather just preventing it from receiving a certain signal, you're much less likely to cause a mutation in that system.

How else is Neem Biotech helping to tackle antimicrobial resistance?

Most of the creative science in antimicrobials is now done by biotech companies, such as Neem Biotech, and then passed on to the big pharma when it's been taken to a certain stage, de-risked, where they can take it forward through to launch.

Our approach is much broader with our collaborations within alliances, for example with the BEAM Alliance - a European-focused group of small biotech companies that are all working in the space of antimicrobial development, to try and get a voice for the small company to be heard at a political level. BEAM has been recognized by the WHO as an alliance, and were pleased to announce that were invited to the meeting of the G20, where the G20 in Hamburg make their comments on the battle against antimicrobial resistance. Being involved in that and getting a voice out there, is just as important as actually working on the scientific issue.

Then also, we have our collaborations with international experts in the field of antimicrobial resistance, where we do joint research, or we have world-renowned people advising us so that we ensure that the approach that we're taking encompasses as many of the scientific challenges that we may be facing.

We also engage with patient groups. Here in the UK, the Cystic Fibrosis Trust; in Germany with Mukoviszidose Institut; and whilst Graham is in the US for the North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference, we are also going to start talking to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Involving the individuals that you're developing your treatment for is important, because there is very much a need for them and their challenges to be considered when doing our research.

Are there ways that we can slow down the growing issue of antimicrobial resistance?

The most important activity in slowing down antimicrobial resistance is antibiotic stewardship. Antibiotics must only be used when there's no other intervention that you can use to stop, halt, prevent or treat the infection. Thankfully, this is being pushed worldwide.

Unfortunately, sometimes the other processes that are suggested to minimize or to advocate stewardship are more expensive than the antibiotic. One of the biggest killers in the developing world are infections that come from poor hygiene and sanitary conditions. It's unfortunately more expensive to produce clean water than it is to give someone a basic antibiotic.

Stewardship is a great idea and is being applied extensively in the developing world. We can already see very significant decreases in the prescription of antibiotics here in the UK, it's been quite significant over the last couple of years. In Germany, there are also national programs around stewardship. Furthermore, there have been a number of proposals at both national and global level around what can be done.

The development of rapid diagnostics, obviously, is important, because if you can define the bacterium that's causing the problem and choose the right antibiotic from the outset, rather than just empirically hoping that you'll hit the bacterium, this will help to minimize the generation of resistance.

Can we keep up with antimicrobial resistance? What do you think the future holds?

People are putting a lot of effort into novel approaches, including vaccines, new antibiotics, new mechanisms, those are all things that can help. The more alternative approaches that you have, the less you're dependent on antibiotics as a last resort, which then generates the resistance. If you can minimize the usage and dependence on one class of antibiotics, then they will last longer before resistance becomes a major problem.

As previously mentioned, a lot of the work now is going on in small biotech companies, so more funding is becoming available for these companies to work on antimicrobial resistance.

As long as those companies and basic science continue, I think we can keep track with the resistance. By definition, every time you bring out a new class of antibiotic, it shouldn't have resistance already there in the bacterial population. We just need to keep coming up with new ways and new classes and alternative approaches.

Where can readers find more information?

For more information about Neem Biotech: www.neembiotech.com

About Dr Michael Graz

Dr Michael Graz is Managing Director of Neem Biotech. With PhDs in cell biology and rational drug design from the University of the Witwatersrand and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University respectively, Michaels career has included lectureships, consultancy and interim management roles in the life sciences in South Africa, the UK and the USA.

In the recent past he has held the role of Managing Director in an diagnostic enzyme production SME and, since 2012, at Neem Biotech, an R&D biotechnology SME.

An entrepreneur at heart, he previously led a successful aquaculture startup venture in Chile. Watching the farm and processing facility being built and taking shape into a commercially viable organisation comes high up on Michaels list of career highlights.

About Dr Graham Dixon

Dr Graham Dixon is Neem Biotechs Chief Operating Officer and Head of R&D for the Zaluvida Group. He obtained a PhD in biochemistry at Swansea University and has spent over 25 years in Big Pharma, VC funded and publicly listed biotechnology companies.

As Chief Scientific Officer, Graham has led over ten positive proof of concept programmes in humans and been a part of several new drug approval programmes in biotechnology companies as diverse as Onexo, Sensorion, Addex Therapeutics, Galapagos, Entomed and F2G.

In Grahams experience, every successful programme that takes a molecule from an idea through to its embodied form in the clinic is another career highlight.
Blood biomarkers that predict accelerated loss of lung function have been identified in a study of fire-fighters who worked in the aftermath of the World Trade Center disaster.

After the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11 2001 rescue and recovery workers, including the Fire Department of the City of New York, spent long hours working at the scene. The vast dust cloud ensuing from the disaster contained large-sized particulate matter, caustic dust and products of combustion.

As a consequence of inhaling such contaminated air, many of the New York City fire department rescue and recovery workers presented with lung injury and loss of lung function. A great disparity in the evolution of symptoms was observed among those affected. Although the decline in lung function stabilised in the majority of cases, there were some individuals who experienced continued decline and some whose lung function improved.

It was discovered that many of the individuals experiencing rapid decline in lung function had higher levels of eosinophils. These cells form part of the body's immune system and are commonly implicated in respiratory disease. Further analyses were thus conducted to assess whether there was a correlation between the concentration of white blood cells and excessive loss of lung function after lung damage.

Blood smear sample showing eosinophils and neutrophils. Credit: Chamaiporn Naprom/Shutterstock.com

Five-years of data from over nine thousand fire-fighters who worked at the World Trade Center disaster site were analysed. Accelerated loss of lung function, defined as a reduction in forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) of >64 ml/year above expected, was recorded in 13% of the fire-fighters. An improvement in lung function was reported for 8% of the fire-fighters.

Those individuals experiencing a rapid loss of lung function were found to have higher blood concentrations of both eosinophils and neutrophils. There was also a correlation between high eosinophil levels and airflow obstruction. Furthermore, the risk of developing airflow obstruction was four times higher among those fire-fighters who presented with an accelerated decline in lung function compared with those experiencing the expected FEV1 decline.

Review of medical notes from before the disaster revealed that the fire-fighters who had elevated eosinophil and neutrophil levels before attending the World Trade Center disaster were those who experienced accelerated FEV1 decline.

Michael D Weiden, associate professor of medicine and environmental medicine at New York University, commented:

After 9/11, about one in eight firefighters who worked at the World Trade Center had accelerated loss of lung function over the next 15 years. Even in those who had never smoked we found that accelerated loss of lung function increased their risk of airway obstruction and COPD".

Although it may not be possible to extrapolate these findings to other populations, it is hoped that they will motivate further research into the treatment of on-going lung injury.

Sources
Mexican doctors have safely reused donated pacemakers after sterilization, shows a study presented at the 30th Mexican Congress of Cardiology. The findings create the possibility for patients to receive a pacemaker who otherwise could not afford one.

The annual congress of the Mexican Society of Cardiology is being held in Guadalajara, Jalisco from 2 to 5 November 2017. Experts from the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) will present a special program.

"There is no report of the number of pacemaker implants per year in Mexico, but we implant close to 150 new pacemakers per year in our hospital," said first author Dr Carlos Gutierrez, a cardiologist at the General Hospital of Mexico "Dr. Eduardo Liceaga" in Mexico City.

"According to government reports, more than half of the population in Mexico does not have access to social security or private insurance that covers a pacemaker implant and 44% live in poverty," he continued. "This suggests that many Mexicans cannot afford a pacemaker. Previous studies have shown the safety of reusing pacemakers after sterilization."

The current study included 33 patients with a pacing indication who could not afford a new pacemaker or a battery change. Patients received a reused device at the General Hospital of Mexico in 2011 to 2017. Devices had been donated by relatives of deceased patients and had a minimum of six years of battery life.

After confirming that the pacemakers were functioning correctly, they were washed with enzymatic soap and sterilized in an autoclave for 38 minutes. Pacemaker function was rechecked after sterilization.

Patients were 72 years old on average (the age range was 20 to 106 years) and 52% were female. The indications for a pacemaker were sinus node dysfunction in ten patients (30%) and advanced atrioventricular block in 23 patients (70%).

Of the 33 patients, 25 received a reused pacemaker. Eight patients already had a pacemaker and received a reused generator (battery). During the implant procedure there was one haematoma which resolved without further complications. There were no complications during the six month follow-up period.

Dr Gutierrez said: "This was a small study but it shows that with a thorough and standardized sterilization process, explanted pacemakers with a battery life of more than six years can be reused safely. This provides an effective option for patients who cannot afford a new device or a replacement battery."

"This practice could be implemented in many other centers that have equipment to sterilize and reprogram pacemakers," continued Dr Gutierrez. "We also need to promote the donation of pacemakers with little use from deceased patients."

Dr Erick Alexanderson, President of the Mexican Society of Cardiology, said: "This study has encouraging results which open up the possibility of pacemaker treatment for many more Mexicans who need it."

Professor Jose Zamorano, course director of the ESC program in Mexico, said: "Pacemakers are implanted in many patients across the globe every year. This study highlights a practical way to give access to this life-saving treatment to even more patients who need it."
The number of reported cases of child neglect in the United States of America increased as a result of the spike in unemployment following the financial crisis of 2007-08, according to new Oxford University research. The first study of its kind suggests that unemployment can cause an increase in child neglect because parents have more limited access to the resources required to provide for a child's basic needs, such as clothing, food and medical care.

Defined as the physical, mental, sexual or emotional abuse or neglect of a person under the age of 18, child maltreatment is a prolific problem in American society, with about 700,000 cases reported in 2015 alone. Neglect describes a situation when parents' inability to provide for their child's basic needs harms the child's health, safety and/or wellbeing.

Child maltreatment is widely understood to have significant consequences in later life, affecting mental health, the chances of employment and the likelihood of substance abuse, among other things. However, the causal effects of economic hardship, and the knock-on impact on maltreatment, are significantly less understood.

The study, conducted by two researchers from Oxford University, has for the first time, considered and quantified these causal effects, specifically whether unemployment causes child maltreatment.

Using nearly a decade's worth of data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), produced by the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (NDACAN), the team observed every reported incident of child abuse and neglect made to the state Child Protective Services for nearly every county in the U.S. from 2004 to 2012.

The findings reveal a significant link between unemployment and child neglect, with a 1 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate leading to a 20 percent increase in reported neglect. However, there does not seem to be a relationship between unemployment and other forms of child abuse.

Elisabetta De Cao, Research Fellow in Oxford's Centre for Health Service Economics & Organisation, said: 'There is increasing research on the causal effect of economic conditions on domestic violence, but this work has never been done for children, which is a very different dynamic.'

The research also considers the value and impact of social (government provided) and private safety nets (partner, family, friends, health insurance), and whether access to these resources can have a mitigating effect on unemployment.

Access to state provided unemployment benefits were found to make a huge difference. Initially offered to people for a maximum of 26 weeks pre-recession, during the economic crisis it was extended in some states, and ranged significantly from 48 weeks to up to 99. In states that were more generous, offering 87 weeks of unemployment benefits or more, child neglect increased by 14% but in states that offered a maximum of 55 weeks of benefits, reported incidents of child neglect rose by 21%.

Dan Brown, PhD student in Economics at Oxford University added: 'Our study shows that unemployment causes an increase in child neglect, with little evidence of an effect on other types of abuse. During hard times, if parents lose their jobs and don't have access to safety nets, they no longer have the means to provide for their children, which ultimately leads to neglect.

'We also found an indication that after a job loss people spend less on basic goods, like food and beverages. In doing so, this can lead to a higher likelihood of neglect.'

While state help offers significant value, the research revealed that access to private safety nets also has a positive effect. A key private safety net the authors looked at is health insurance. The effects of unemployment on child neglect were notably greater in counties where more children did not have health insurance, and were, therefore, less protected.

In terms of demography, African American children were found to be least likely to have two employed parents living with them, and were accordingly more at risk of neglect when one parent lost a job, than Caucasian or Hispanic children.

Of the potential policy implications of this report, and how the US government can use the findings to better protect children, Elisabetta said: 'In general policies that are designed to enable parents' employment security could prove an important contribution to reducing child maltreatment. There is an indication that cutting these services will lead to an increase in neglect. We need to better understand whether parents face barriers to creating private safety nets, which could help people to cope during bad economic times.

'If we can reduce the number of neglected children, it will have a positive long-term impact on society. These children will go on to have better outcomes in adulthood, which will have positive labor, health and economic effects.'

Although the team studied the effects of unemployment in the USA, they are in the process of replicating the study in the UK, which arguably has a more generous welfare system. The results of this work are expected in the next year.
University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers are examining racial and gender disparities in dialysis patients as well as the impact of poor functional status and pre-dialysis hospitalizations on elderly dialysis patients. Silvi Shah, MD, assistant professor in the Division of Nephrology, Kidney CARE Program at the UC College of Medicine, presented this research at the American Society of Nephrology meetings in New Orleans, Oct. 31-Nov. 5.

The research team presented four separate studies, all based on data from the United States Renal Data System (USRDS), the largest database for patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD). Three of the four studies accounted for elderly patient pre-dialysis health status, while the fourth examined racial and gender disparities and the type of vascular access in hemodialysis patients.

"One in every four ESRD patients who gets started on dialysis is over 75 years of age," says Shah. "With increasing age, they have increasing frailty and higher prevalence of comorbidities, including congestive heart failure, hypertension and diabetes. In addition, acute hospitalizations are frequent in elderly patients with chronic kidney disease. The question at times becomes if they should be offered dialysis or be given more conservative treatment--no dialysis, just medical management."

The poster presentation, "Impact of Pre-Dialysis Hospitalizations on Outcomes Among Elderly Dialysis Patients" showed that pre-dialysis hospitalization is common and is associated with a higher risk of one-year mortality in elderly dialysis patients. The research analyzed data of more than 231,000 adult dialysis patients from 2007 through 2011. The data showed that 88 percent of the elderly patients had at least one acute care hospitalization, while 66 percent of them had two or more hospitalizations in the two years prior to the initiation of dialysis.

Pre-dialysis cardiovascular related hospitalization was associated with 48 percent higher risk of mortality, pre-dialysis infection related hospitalization was associated with 41 percent higher risk of mortality and a history of both cardiovascular and infection related hospitalization was associated with 83 percent higher risk of mortality. The researchers concluded that pre-ESRD hospitalization is very common and should be considered while comparing mortality as an indicator of quality of dialysis care.

Another key factor in the risk of one-year mortality of ESRD patients is functional status, as reflected in the presentation "Impact of Poor Functional Status on Outcomes Among Elderly Dialysis Patients." Poor functional status is defined as the inability to walk, the inability to move and/or needing assistance with daily activities. This research examined data on almost 50,000 dialysis patients in 2008, finding that poor functional status is associated with a 48 percent higher risk of one-year mortality.

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"Physicians usually do not consider pre-dialysis health status like pre-dialysis hospitalizations or absence of nephrology care when they start elderly patients on dialysis," says Shah. The researchers found that patients with poor functional status have increased one-year mortality after adjusting for pre-dialysis health status and should be assessed for conservative treatment options instead of dialysis.

"Dialysis care, including one year mortality, continues to be under a microscope for quality, and payment for performance by Medicare," says Charuhas Thakar, MD, professor and director of the Division of Nephrology Kidney CARE program. "It is important that we leverage the advantage of large linked data sets like the USRDS and Medicare to learn about how pre-dialysis health status and disparities continue to impact post-dialysis care."

"We are fortunate to have developed teams with analytical expertise so as to mine such data, and learn ways to improve quality and efficiency of dialysis care," says Thakar, who serves as a mentor and a senior investigator on this project.

The study "Racial and Gender Disparities in Long Term Clinical Outcomes Among Elderly Dialysis Patients" is unique in that, according to Shah, previous studies looking at race and gender disparities in patients at the start of dialysis treatment haven't taken into account pre-dialysis health status.

"What we wanted to see in this study is if there is any difference across race and gender when we consider the pre-dialysis health status," says Shah. "What it tells us is blacks, Hispanics and Asians are less likely than whites to die within one year of initiating dialysis when we take into account pre-dialysis health status. Females were also less likely than males to die within one year of initiating dialysis. We have to further investigate why this is happening. It could be process of care factors or possibly genetics."

Race and gender were also examined as factors in the "Racial and Gender Disparities-Type of Vascular Access in Hemodialysis Patients" research presented. In treatment of dialysis patients, arteriovenous (AV) access is preferred over central venous catheters because of a reduced risk of infection. This study of almost 98,000 dialysis patients in 2008 found females are 17 percent less likely than males to initiate hemodialysis with AV access in adjusted analyses and in terms of race, Hispanics are 12 percent less likely to use AV access for first outpatient hemodialysis in adjusted analyses.

The data showed that despite receiving less pre-dialysis nephrology care, blacks are 7 percent more likely than whites to use AV access for first outpatient hemodialysis in adjusted analyses. The research team concluded that further investigation of biological and process of care factors is warranted to reduce these disparities.

Source: https://www.healthnews.uc.edu/news/?/29535/
Neem Biotech are presenting at #BiotechShowcase. Join us Wednesday at 215-230pm Franciscan C, Hilton, San Francisco https://t.co/cyw8hosjTW

Neem Biotech is a Wales-based R&D life sciences centre that brings with it significant expertise in the biology and chemistry of bioactive compounds, and transforms these into platform technology resources for application in the fight against global threats to human and animal health.

These threats include antimicrobial resistance, liver health in the presence of obesity and other areas of unmet medical needs and/or rare diseases. Particular areas of interest for Neem Biotech include chronic lung infection in cystic fibrosis, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and infection control in wound healing.

Neem is fully owned by the life-science group Zaluvida. It aims to enhance the life expectancy of patients and the quality of life of both patients and their families.
Who is Mister Terrific and what are his powers?

Michael Holt AKA Mister Terrific is a mainstay of the Justice Society and he could be coming to the DCEU
The Great Pyramid of Egypt

New Delhi : The Great Pyramid or Khufus Pyramid, built around 4500 years ago, still contains secrets untapped. The scientists have recently discovered a large empty space within Khufu's pyramid that may indicate the presence of a hidden chamber.

The fear of damage to the historic monument has kept the archaeologists away from a few rooms inside the monument for years. But now, a new technology has enabled them to locate pyramid's hidden chambers without destroying it.

The archaeologists discovered the space using muography, a technique that utilizes an elementary particle (called a muon) capable of penetrating dense matter.

Through this technique, scientists were able to uncover a large void above the Great Gallery. About 70 feet above ground level, it is at least 100 feet long. While the researchers want to avoid using the word "chamber" explicitly at this point, as they stressed in a recent press conference, they are still examining possibilities as to what space could be.

Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities is very strict in its regulation of the historical sites. Thus, it will be very unlikely that the scientists will get permission to drill or dog inside the pyramid to confirm the findings and/or explore the possible treasures hidden in the chamber.

According to experts, it is possible that space might be completely empty, making the effort futile.

The Great Pyramids are one of the Wonders of the World and were built nearly 5,000 years ago, and many mysteries still remain regarding their construction, and the transportation of the materials used to build them.

The Pharoah Khufu's pyramid is the largest one in Giza. Built during the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt, Khufu's pyramid was the tallest construct on Earth for almost 4,000 years.
North Korea condemns US bomber flights near Korean peninsula

Pyongyang : North Korea on Friday condemned two US bombers flying near the Korean peninsula claiming that the exercise was a trial run for a surprise nuclear attack, media reports said.

US Air Force B-1 bombers, accompanied by fighter jets from South Korea and Japan, conducted a flyover near the Korean peninsula on Thursday, CNN reported.

The Two B-1B Lancers from Anderson Air Force Base in Guam rendezvoused with the Japanese and South Korean jets as part of the planned "bilateral integration" exercise -- at one point flying over Seoul.

In response, Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said: "The gangster-like US imperialists are ceaselessly resorting to their frantic nuclear threat and blackmail to stifle North Korea with nukes at any cost.

"On Thursday they let a formation of B-1B nuclear strategic bombers stationed at the Anderson Air Force Base on Guam stealthily fly into South Korea again to stage a surprise nuclear strike drill targeting North Korea.

"The reality clearly shows that the United States is the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean Peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war," KCNA added.

The "continuous bomber presence mission" was planned in advance and was "not in response to any current event", Air Force spokesperson Capt. Candice Dillitte said on Thursday.

The flyover comes after two more US aircraft carriers joined the Japan-based USS Ronald Reagan in the Asia-Pacific region last week, CNN reported.

The Pentagon said the movement of the carriers and their accompanying strike groups was long planned, as the USS Nimitz heads back to the US West Coast after a deployment in the Middle East and the USS Theodore Roosevelt heads to that area to replace it.

On Monday, US, South Korean and Japanese officials issued a statement urging North Korea to "refrain from irresponsible provocations" and walk away from its "destructive and reckless path" of weapons development.

Thursday's development comes ahead of President Donald Trump's Asia tour, which runs from November 5-14, to visit Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, and whose agenda will be partly focused on dealing with the North Korean crisis, reports Efe news.

The US has repeatedly deployed the B-1Bs in recent weeks with the apparent aim of deterring Kim Jong-un's regime from continuing its weapons tests.

Washington and Seoul agreed last week at their annual security meetings to "enhance rotational deployments of US strategic assets in and around the peninsula," including bomber jets, submarines and nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.
200 dead at nuclear test site in North Korea, according to Japanese media

A massive tunnel collapse at a nuclear test site in North Korea has resulted in the death of at least 200 people, according to an unverified report from the Japanese media.

Although there still isnt any official confirmation that the tunnel collapse actually occurred, according to Japans TV Asahi, an unnamed North Korean source claimed that up to 100 people were trapped in the tunnels before rescue teams went in after them, at which point the structure collapsed, raising the death toll to at least 200 people.

The date on which the incident occurred is also unknown. Although it is believed to have happened on October 10, South Koreas Yonhap news agency said that its still unclear when exactly the tunnel collapsed. Yonhap reported that the disaster occurred as a result of North Koreas sixth nuclear test, which was conducted at the same site.

Not long before the tunnel collapsed, Seoul warned North Korea that one more nuclear detonation could be the straw that breaks the camels back, so to speak, with enough force to destroy its mountain test site once and for all and potentially even trigger a radiation leak. Despite these continued warnings, it is unlikely that Kim Jong-Un will stop testing nuclear missiles any time soon. (Related: Here is what war with North Korea would actually look like.)

In addition to warnings from South Korea, including the countrys weather agency chief Nam Jae-Cheol, U.S. experts have also stated that further nuclear testing could result in more tragedies in the future. Five of North Koreas recent missile tests have been carried out under Mount Mantap, but after three small earthquakes that occurred near the site of the blasts, the region is now said to be suffering from Tired Mountain Syndrome.

While there is no way to tell how much more destruction will occur as a result of North Koreas nuclear tests, the fact remains that both natural and manmade structures will continue to weaken as these tests go on.

At this point, the fact that Kim Jong-Un is a crazed, unstable warmonger isnt exactly up for debate. For several months now, the North Korean regime has been making numerous threats against the United States, claiming that they will not hesitate to use their military capabilities if it reaches that point. (Related: Analysts confirms that North Koreas nuclear missiles can now reach New York City, Boston, and Los Angeles.)

As President Trump prepares for his much anticipated tour across several parts of Asia next week, Trump is already receiving stern warnings from people like Anita Kumar, a reporter for McClatchy News to watch what language he uses out of fear that the North Korean regime may be provoked. Kumars warning comes on the heels of claims made by experts who have suggested that North Korea could conduct its 23rd missile test this year during President Trumps time in Asia between November 3 and November 14.

What experts are telling me, though, is that there might be a missile test by North Korea while President Trump is traveling, she said. Thats going to put him on the spot while hes in China or South Korea. So that would be huge. Hed have to decide then and there how to react.

While it is certainly a possibility that North Korea could intentionally conduct another nuclear test that coincides with Trumps Asia tour, many would argue President Trumps tough rhetoric is something that Americans should get behind instead of constantly discouraging it. Of course, it will anger the North Koreans, but the most important thing that the United States can do in the face of this enemy is stand strong and show the world that we are not the same passive country that we were for eight years under Barack Obama. America needs to show her teeth, and thankfully, our commander-in-chief seems to agree.

Sources include:

Dailymail.co.uk

Express.co.uk

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Potential modernization plans of the Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) were revealed in unprecedented detail by a former rear admiral in a university lecture, perhaps delivered within the last 2-3 years. The admiral, retired Rear Admiral Zhao Dengping, revealed key programs such as: a new medium-size nuclear attack submarine; a small nuclear auxiliary engine for conventional submarines; ship-based use of anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs); next-generation destroyer capabilities; and goals for PLAN Air Force modernization.

This information was from an article by Richard D. Fisher, Jr. at the Center for International Maritime Security.

Zhao is a former Director of the Equipment Department of the PLAN.

Admiral Zhao described a new unidentified 7,000-ton nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) that will feature a new type of powerplantnew weapon system and electronic information system. It has a sound isolation raft and propulsor which should reduce its acoustic signature, 12 cruise missile tubes in front of the sail, and a bow and sail similar to the current Type 093 SSN. The 7,000 ton weigh suggests it may reflect the lower-cost weight and capability balance seen in current U.S. and British SSNs.

This might be the rumored next generation Type 095 SSN. China plans to build 14 Type 095s.

Small Nuclear Powerplant for long duration AIP diesel submarines

There was a slide showing a new low power/low pressure auxiliary nuclear powerplant for electricity generation for fitting into conventional submarine designs, possibly succeeding the PLANs current Stirling engine-based air independent propulsion (AIP) systems.

The cost of typical AIP diesel submarines are 100 million USD to 250 million USD compared to 1  5 billion USD for typical nuclear submarines. There are large AIP diesel submarines that can be around 1 billion dollars.

AIP subs have submerged (AIP) endurance of 14-30 days, and total endurance of 45 to 90 days. .Nuclear subs typically have endurance submerged or not of 90-100 days, limited by the food storage for the crew. AIP submarines using no air have to use the less powerful non-air power source and engines which limits speed to about 4-5 knots.

A nuclear auxiliary power system for SSK-sized submarines would be an affordable conversion to an all-nuclear powered submarine fleet. While nuclear auxiliary powered submarines may not have the endurance of SSNs, their performance could exceed that of most AIP powered submarines while still being very cheap.



Admiral Zhao suggests that the PLAN is developing a new nuclear reactor-powered auxiliary power unit to charge the batteries of smaller and less expensive conventional submarines, allowing the PLAN to more rapidly increase its numbers of nuclear powered submarines. (CJDBY)

Zhaos slides detailed hypersonic weapons and laser and microwave weapons.

Another slide with a future destroyer with integrated electric power system, full-spectrum stealthiness, integrated mast and integrated RF technology and new type laser/kinetic energy weapon appear to be China copying many of the US Zumwalt-class destroyer. The US only built three Zumwalt destroyers.

China is also developing stratospheric long-endurance UAV and a stratospheric airship.
Singapore wants to bolster its status as a wealth management and foreign-exchange center as part of plans to create more financial-sector jobs and mitigate the effect of rapid changes in technology.

Singapore adding financial jobs when globally 30% of banking jobs are being automated by 2023

In a plan unveiled Monday, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said it aims to create 4,000 net new jobs in financial services and financial technology, and achieve real growth in the sector of 4.3 percent annually, faster than the overall economy.

Banks around the world are cutting jobs as the industry is transformed by digital technology, and the application of artificial intelligence and robotics. Vikram Pandit, who ran Citigroup Inc., has predicted some 30 percent of banking jobs will disappear over the next five years.

The financial sector accounts for about 13 percent of Singapores gross domestic product and employs around 200,000 people.

Singapore, Hong Kong Fintech

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has published an Industry Transformation Map (ITM) to be a stronger financial center.

Singapore wants to grow its financial sector by creating 3,000 financial services jobs and 1,000 fintech jobs.

Singapore had 73 venture backed fintech deals from 2013-2016.

Hong Kong and Singapore have signed an agreement to cooperate on fintech including a project using blockchain for trade finance.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) together with banks including HSBC Holdings PLC and Standard Chartered PLC tested late in 2016 the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT), also known as blockchain, to build a trade finance platform. Singapore is also developing a platform.

Linking the two is part of a broader plan between HKMA and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to collaborate in blockchain and other financial technology (fintech) projects, the pair said in a joint statement.

They plan to use blockchain technology to make trade finance more efficient and reduce the risk of fraud in letters of credit (LOC) and other transactions.

ong Kongs project can digitize trade documents, automate processes, allow sharing of required documentation among authorized participants, and reduce human errors and the risk of fraud.

China is looking at many large scale blockchain applications

Here is a sample of seven blockchain applications in China.

* A 400 million yuan ($60.4 million) asset-backed security(ABS), which was backed by Baidus blockchain technology, was issued on the Shanghai Securities Exchange on Sept 19

* Qschou.com, a crowdfunding site serving critically ill patients, is using blockchain technology for donors to track their charity donations

* Alihealth, the medical arm of Alibaba, and the government of Changzhou city in East Chinas Jiangsu province, have rolled out a pilot program to integrate medical data sparsely located in different hospitals, with the help of blockchain technology,

* a shared ledger of a blockchain Tencent has built, anxious parents only need to register information on their missing child once and the information will be shared instantly via different child-finding platforms that are connected by this blockchain,

* Tencent has launched a blockchain solution product called TrustSQL, which the tech giant hopes will improve efficiency and reduce risks in various sectors, including the finance and sharing economy.

* China Merchants Bank announced that it had successfully incorporated blockchain technology into its business regarding global cash management, cross-border direct settlement and unified account management

* A copyright trade and protection portal using blockchain technology went online in Shanghai, the first of its kind in China. This is by a local IT startup company called Yuanben.

China Fintech IPOs

Several fintech companies in China are indeed preparing for IPO in the US or HK

* Jianpu Technology Inc, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chinese fintech firm Rong360, has filed for a $200 million IPO in the US. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan are bookrunners for the deal, according to a stock exchange filing.

Jianpu has reached more than 56 million registered users and in the first half of 2017, over 2,000 financial service providers nationwide offered more than 100,000 financial products on the platform, including consumer and other loans, credit cards and wealth management products.

The platform enable users to obtain personalized search results and recommendations that are tailored to their particular financial needs and credit profile. It also provides financial service companies with tailored data, risk management and end-to-end solutions.

* Chinese micro lender Qudian, which raised $900 million through its IPO on NYSE, exceeding the $750 million target.
Marie Curie Nobel Lecture

Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1911*

Radium and the New Concepts in Chemistry

Some 15 years ago the radiation of uranium was discovered by Henri Becquerel1, and two years later the study of this phenomenon was extended to other substances, first by me, and then by Pierre Curie and myself2. This study rapidly led us to the discovery of new elements, the radiation of which, while being analogous with that of uranium, was far more intense. All the elements emitting such radiation I have termed radioactive, and the new property of matter revealed in this emission has thus received the name radioactivity. Thanks to this discovery of new, very powerful radioactive substances, particularly radium, the study of radioactivity progressed with marvellous rapidity: Discoveries followed each other in rapid succession, and it was obvious that a new science was in course of development. The Swedish Academy of Sciences was kind enough to celebrate the birth of this science by awarding the Nobel Prize for Physics to the first workers in the field, Henri Becquerel, Pierre Curie and Marie Curie (1903).

From that time onward numerous scientists devoted themselves to the study of radioactivity. Allow me to recall to you one of them who, by the certainty of his judgement, and the boldness of his hypotheses and through the many investigations carried out by him and his pupils, has succeeded not only in increasing our knowledge but also in classifying it with great clarity; he has provided a backbone for the new science, in the form of a very precise theory admirably suited to the study of the phenomena. I am happy to recall that Rutherford came to Stockholm in 1908 to receive the Nobel Prize as a well-deserved reward for his work.

Far from halting, the development of the new science has constantly continued to follow an upward course. And now, only 15 years after Becquerels discovery, we are face to face with a whole world of new phenomena belonging to a field which, despite its close connexion with the fields of physics and chemistry, is particularly well-defined. In this field the importance of radium from, the viewpoint of general theories has been decisive. The history of the discovery and the isolation of this substance has furnished proof of my hypothesis that radioactivity is an atomic property of matter and can provide a means of seeking new elements. This hypothesis has led to present-day theories of radioactivity, according to which we can predict with certainty the existence of about 30 new elements which we cannot generally either isolate or characterize by chemical methods. We also assume that these elements undergo atomic transformations, and the most direct proof in favour of this theory is provided by the experimental fact of the formation of the chemically defined element helium starting from the chemically-defined element radium.

Viewing the subject from this angle, it can be said that the task of isolating radium is the corner-stone of the edifice of the science of radioactivity. Moreover, radium remains the most useful and powerful tool in radioactivity laboratories. I believe that it is because of these considerations that the Swedish Academy of Sciences has done me the very great honour of awarding me this years Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

It is therefore my task to present to you radium in particular as a new chemical element, and to leave aside the description of the many radioactive phenomena which have already been described in the Nobel Lectures of H. Becquerel, P. Curie and E. Rutherford.

Before broaching the subject of this lecture, I should like to recall that the discoveries of radium and of polonium were made by Pierre Curie in collaboration with me. We are also indebted to Pierre Curie for basic research in the field of radioactivity, which has been carried out either alone, in collaboration with his pupils.

The chemical work aimed at isolating radium in the state of the pure salt, and at characterizing it as a new element, was carried out specially by me, but it is intimately connected with our common work. I thus feel that I interpret correctly the intention of the Academy of Sciences in assuming that the award of this high distinction to me is motivated by this common work and thus pays homage to the memory of Pierre Curie.

I will remind you at the outset that one of the most important properties of the radioactive elements is that of ionizing the air in their vicinity (Becquerel). When a uranium compound is placed on a metal plate A situated opposite another plate B and a difference in potential is maintained between the plates A and B, an electric current is set up between these plates; this current can be measured with accuracy under suitable conditions and will serve as a measure of the activity of the substance. The conductivity imparted to the air can be ascribed to ionization produced by the rays emitted by the uranium compounds.

In 1897, using this method of measurement, I undertook a study of the radiation of uranium compounds, and soon extended this study to other substances, with the aim of finding out whether radiation of this type occurs in other elements. I found in this way that of the other elements known, only the compounds of thorium behave like the compounds of uranium.

I was struck by the fact that the activity of uranium and thorium compounds appears to be an atomic property of the element uranium and of the element thorium. Chemical compounds and mixtures containing uranium and thorium are active in direct proportion to the amount of these metals contained in them. The activity is not destroyed by either physical changes of state or chemical transformations.

I measured the activity of a number of minerals; all of them that appear to be radioactive always contain uranium or thorium. But an unexpected fact was noted: certain minerals (pitchblende, chalcolite, autunite) had a greater activity than might be expected on the basis of their uranium or thorium content. Thus, certain pitchblendes containing 75% of uranium oxide are about four times as radioactive as this oxide. Chalcolite (crystallized phosphate of copper and uranium) is about twice as radioactive as uranium. This conflicted with views which held that no mineral should be more radioactive than metallic uranium. To explain this point I prepared synthetic chalcolite from pure products, and obtained crystals, whose activity was completely consistent with their uranium content; this activity is about half that of uranium.

I then thought that the greater activity of the natural minerals might be determined by the presence of a small quantity of a highly-radioactive material, different from uranium, thorium and the elements known at present. It also occurred to me that if this was the case I might be able to extract this substance from the mineral by the ordinary methods of chemical analysis. Pierre Curie and I at once carried out this research, hoping that the proportion of the new element might reach several per cent. In reality the proportion of the hypothetical element was far lower and it took several years to show unequivocally that pitchblende contains at least one highly-radioactive material which is a new element in the sense that chemistry attaches to the term.

We were thus led to create a new method of searching for new elements, a method based on radioactivity considered as an atomic property of matter. Each chemical separation is followed by a measurement of the activity of the products obtained, and in this way it is possible to determine how the active substance behaves from the chemical viewpoint. This method has come into general application, and is similar in some ways to spectral analysis. Because of the wide variety of radiation emitted, the method could be perfected and extended, so that it makes it possible, not only to discover radioactive materials, but also to distinguish them from each other with certainty.

It was also found in using the method being considered, that it was in fact possible to concentrate the activity by chemical methods. We found that pitchblende contains at least two radioactive materials, one of which, accompanying bismuth, has been given the name polonium, while the other, paired with barium, has been called radium.

Other radioactive elements have been discovered since: actinium (Debierne), radiothorium and mesothorium (Hahn), ionium (Boltwood), etc.

We were convinced that the materials which we had discovered were new chemical elements. This conviction was based solely on the atomic nature of radioactivity. But at first, from the chemical viewpoint, it was as if our substances had been, the one pure bismuth, and the other pure barium. It was vital to show that the radioactive property was connected with traces of elements that were neither bismuth nor barium. To do that the hypothetical elements had to be isolated. In the case of radium isolation was completely successful but required several years of unremitting effort. Radium in the pure salt form is a substance the manufacture of which has now been industrialized; for no other new radioactive substance have such positive results been obtained.

The radiferous minerals are being subjected to very keen study because the presence of radium lends them considerable value. They are identifiable either by the electrometric method, or very simply by the impression they produce on a photographic plate. The best radium mineral is the pitchblende from St. Joachimsthal (Austria) which has for a long time been processed to yield uranium salts. After extraction of the latter, the mineral leaves a residue which contains radium and polonium. We have normally used this residue as our raw material.

The first treatment consists in extracting the radiferous barium and the bismuth containing the polonium. This treatment, which was first performed in the laboratory on several kilograms of raw material (as many as 20 kg) had then to be undertaken in a factory owing to the need to process thousands of kilograms. Actually, we gradually learned from experience that the radium is contained in the raw material in the proportion of a few decigrams per ton. About 10 to 20 kg crude barium sulphate containing radium are extracted from one ton of residue. The activity of these sulphates is even then 30 to 60 times greater than that of uranium. These sulphates are purified and converted to chlorides. In the mixture of barium and radium chlorides the radium is present only in the proportion of about 3 parts per 100,000. In the radium industry in France a much lower grade mineral is most often used and the proportion indicated is far lower still. To separate the radium from the barium I have used a method of fractional crystallization of the chloride (the bromide can also be used). The radium salt, less soluble than the barium salt, becomes concentrated in the crystals. Fractionation is a lengthy, methodical operation which gradually eliminates the barium. To obtain a very pure salt I have had to perform several thousands of crystallizations. The progress of the fractionation is monitored by activity measurements.

A first proof that the element radium existed was furnished by spectral analysis. The spectrum of a chloride enriched by crystallization exhibited a new line which Demarcay attributed to the new element. As the activity became more concentrated, the new line increased in intensity and other lines appeared while the barium spectrum became at the same time less pronounced. When the purity is very high the barium spectrum is scarcely visible.

I have repeatedly determined the average atomic weight of the metal in the salt subjected to spectral analysis. The method used was the one consisting in determining the chlorine content in the form of silver chloride in a known amount of the anhydrous chloride. I have found that this method gives very good results even with quite small amounts of substance (0.1 to 0.5 g), provided a very fast balance is used to avoid the absorption of water by the alkaline-earth salt during the weighings. The atomic weight increases with the enrichment of the radium as indicated by the spectrum. The successive atomic weights obtained were: 138; 146; 174; 225; 226.45. This last value was determined in 1907 with 0.4 g of very pure radium salt. The results of a number of determinations are, 226.62; 226.31; 226.42. These have been confirmed by more recent experiments.

The preparation of pure radium salts and the determination of the atomic weight of radium have proved positively that radium is a new element and have enabled a definite position to be assigned to it. Radium is the higher homologue of barium in the family of alkaline-earth metals; it has been entered in Mendeleevs table in the corresponding column, on the row containing uranium and thorium. The radium spectrum is very precisely known. These very clear-cut results for radium have convinced chemists and justified the establishment of the new science of radioactive substances.

In chemical terms radium differs little from barium; the salts of these two elements are isomorphic, while those of radium are usually less soluble than the barium salts. It is very interesting to note that strong radioactivity of radium involves no chemical anomalies and that the chemical properties are actually those which correspond to the position in the Periodic System indicated by its atomic weight. The radioactivity of radium in solid salts is ca. 5 million times greater than that of an equal weight of uranium. Owing to this activity its salts are spontaneously luminous. I also wish to recall that radium gives rise to a continuous liberation of energy which can be measured as heat, being about 118 calories per gram of radium per hour.

Radium has been isolated in the metallic state (M. Curie and A. Debierne, 1910). The method used consisted in distilling under very pure hydrogen the amalgam of radium formed by the electrolysis of a chloride solution using a mercury cathode. One decigram only of salt was treated and consequently considerable difficulties were involved. The metal obtained melts at about 700C, above which temperature it starts to volatilize. Is it very unstable in the air and decomposes water vigorously.

The radioactive properties of the metal are exactly the ones that can be forecast on the assumption that the radioactivity of the salts is an atomic property of the radium which is unaffected by the state of combination. It was of real importance to corroborate this point as misgivings had been voiced by those to whom the atomic hypothesis of radioactivity was still not evident.

Although radium has so far only been obtained in very small amounts, it is nevertheless true to say, in conclusion, that it is a perfectly defined and already well-studied chemical element.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be stated for polonium, for which nevertheless considerable effort has already been spent. The stumbling block here is the fact that the proportion of polonium in the mineral is about 5,000 times smaller than that of radium.

Before theoretical evidence was available from which to forecast this proportion, I had conducted several extremely laborious operations to concentrate polonium and in this way had secured products with very high activity without being able to arrive at definite results as in the case of radium. The difficulty is heightened by the fact that polonium disintegrates spontaneously, disappearing by half in a period of 140 days. We now know that radium has not an infinite life either, but the rate of disappearance is far less (it disappears by half in 2,000 years). With our facilities we can scarcely hope to determine the atomic weight of polonium because theory foresees that a rich mineral can contain only a few hundredths of a milligram per ton, but we can hope to observe its spectrum. The operation of concentrating polonium, as I shall point out later, is, moreover, a problem of great theoretical interest.

Recently, in collaboration with Debierne, I undertook to treat several tons of residues from uranium mineral with a view to preparing polonium. Initially conducted in the factory, then in the laboratory, this treatment finally yielded a few milligrams of substance about 50 times more active than an equal weight of pure radium. In the spectrum of the substance some new lines could be observed which appear attributable to polonium and of which the most important has the wavelength 4170.5 A. According to the atomic hypothesis of radioactivity, the polonium spectrum should disappear at the same time as the activity and this fact can be confirmed experimentally,

I have so far considered radium and polonium only as chemical substances. I have shown how the fundamental hypothesis which states that radioactivity is an atomic property of the substance has led to the discovery of new chemical elements. I shall now describe how the scope of this hypothesis has been greatly enlarged by the considerations and experimental facts which resulted in establishing the theory of atomic radioactive transformations.

The starting-point of this theory must be sought in the considerations of the source of the energy involved in the phenomena of radioactivity. This energy becomes manifest as an emission of rays which produce thermal, electrical and light phenomena. As the emission occurs spontaneously without any known cause of excitation, various hypotheses have been advanced to account for the liberation of energy. One of the hypotheses put forward at the beginning of our research by Pierre Curie and myself consisted in assuming that the radiation is an emission of matter accompanied by a loss in weight of the active substances and that the energy is taken from the substance itself whose evolution is not yet completed and which undergoes an atomic transformation. This hypothesis, which at first could only be enunciated together with other equally valid theories, has attained dominant importance and finally asserted itself in our minds owing to a body of experimental evidence which substantiated it. This evidence is essentially the following: A series of radioactive phenomena exists in which radioactivity appears to be tied up to matter in an imponderable quantity, the radiation moreover not being permanent but disappearing more or less rapidly with time. Such are polonium, radioactive emanations and deposits of induced radioactivity.

It has been established moreover in certain cases that the radioactivity observed increases with time. This is what happens in the case of freshly prepared radium, of the emanation freshly introduced into the measuring apparatus, of thorium deprived of thorium X, etc.

A careful study of these phenomena has shown that a very satisfactory general explanation can be given by assuming that each time a decrease of radioactivity is observed there is a destruction of radioactive matter, and that each time an increase of activity is observed, there is a production of radioactive matter. The radiations which disappear and appear are, besides, of very varied nature and it is admitted that every kind of rays determined can serve to characterize a substance which is its source, and appears and disappears with it.

As radioactivity is in addition a property which is essentially atomic, the production or the destruction of a distinct type of radioactivity corresponds to a production or a destruction of atoms of a radioactive substance.

Finally, if it is supposed that radioactive energy is a phenomenon which is borrowed from atomic transformation, it can be deduced from this that every radioactive substance undergoes such a transformation, even though it appears to us to be invariable. Transformation in this case is only very slow and this is what takes place in the case of radium or uranium.

The theory I have just summarized is the work of Rutherford and Soddy, which they have called theory of atomic disintegration. By applying this theory it can be concluded that a primary radioactive substance such as radium undergoes a series of atomic transmutations by virtue of which the atom of radium gives birth to a train of atoms of smaller and smaller weights, since a stable state cannot be attained as long as the atom formed is radioactive. Stability can only be attained by inactive matter.

From this point of view one of the most brilliant triumphs of the theory is the prediction that the gas helium, always present in radioactive minerals, can represent one of the end-products of the evolution of radium, and that it is in the form of alpha rays that the helium atoms which are formed when radium atoms distintegrate are discharged. Now, the production of helium by radium has been proved by the experiments of Ramsay and Soddy, and it cannot now be contested that the perfectly defined chemical element, radium, gives rise to the formation of another equally defined element  helium. Moreover, the investigations done by Rutherford and his students have proved that the alpha particles emitted by radium with an electric charge are also to be found in the form of helium gas in the space where they have been recovered.

I must remark here that the bold interpretation of the relationship existing between radium and helium rests entirely upon the certitude that radium has the same claim to be a chemical element as have all the other known elements, and that there can be no question of regarding it to be a molecular combination of helium with another element. This shows how fundamental in these circumstances has been the work carried out to prove the chemical individuality of radium, and it can also be seen in what way the hypothesis of the atomic nature of radioactivity and the theory of radioactive transformations have led to the experimental discovery of a first clearly-established example of atomic transmutation. This is a fact the significance of which cannot escape anyone, and one which incontestably marks an epoch from the point of view of chemists.

Considerable work, guided by the theory of radioactive transformations, has led to approximately 30 new radioactive elements being envisaged, classified in 4 series according to the primary substance: these series are uranium, radium, thorium and actinium. The uranium and radium series can, in fact, be combined, for it seems to be proved that radium is a derivative of uranium. In the radium series the last known radioactive body is polonium, the production of which by radium is now a proven fact. It is likely that the actinium series is related to that of radium.

We have seen that helium gas is one of the products of radium distintegration. The helium atoms are detached from those of radium and its derivatives during the course of the transformation. It is supposed that after the departure of four atoms of helium, the radium atom yields one atom of polonium; the departure of a fifth helium atom determines the formation of an inactive body with an atomic weight believed to be equal to 206 (20 units below that of radium). According to Rutherford this final element is nothing more than lead, and this supposition is now being subjected to experimental verification in my laboratory. The production of helium from polonium has been directly proved by Debierne.

The relatively large amount of polonium prepared by Curie and Debierne has allowed an important study to be undertaken. This consists in counting a large number of alpha particles emitted by polonium and in collecting and measuring the corresponding volume of helium. Since each particle is a helium atom, the number of helium atoms is thus found which occupy a given volume and have a given weight. It can therefore allow us to deduce, in a general way, the number of molecules in a grammolecule. This number, known as Avogadros constant, is of great importance. Experiments conducted on polonium have supplied a first value for this number, which is in good agreement with the values obtained by other methods. The enumeration of alpha particles is done by an electrometric method due to Rutherford; this method has been brought to perfection by means of a photographic recording apparatus.

Recent investigations have shown that potassium and rubidium emit a very feeble radiation, similar to the beta radiation of uranium and radium. We do not yet know whether we should regard these substances as true radioactive bodies, i.e. bodies in the process of transformation.

To conclude I should like to emphasize the nature of the new chemistry of radioactive bodies. Tons of material have to be treated in order to extract radium from the ore. The quantities of radium available in a laboratory are of the order of one milligram, or of a gram at the very most, this substance being worth 400,000 francs per gram. Very often material has been handled in which the presence of radium could not be detected by the balance, nor even by the spectroscope. And yet we have methods of measuring so perfect and so sensitive that we are able to know very exactly the small quantities of radium we are using. Radioactive analysis by electrometric methods allows us to calculate to within 1% a thousandth of a milligram of radium, and to detect the presence of 10-10 grams of radium diluted in a few grams of material. This method is the only one which could have led to the discovery of radium in view of the dilution of this substance in the ore. The sensitivity of the methods is still more striking in the case of radium emanation, which can be detected when the quantity present amounts, for example, to only 10-10 mm3. As the specific activity of a substance is, in the case of analogous radiations, approximately in inverse proportion to the average life, the result is that if the average life is very brief, the radioactive reaction can attain an unprecedented sensitivity. We are also accustomed to deal currently in the laboratory with substances the presence of which is only shown to us by their radioactive properties but which nevertheless we can determine, dissolve, reprecipitate from their solutions and deposit electrolytically. This means that we have here an entirely separate kind of chemistry for which the current tool we use is the electrometer, not the balance, and which we might well call the chemistry of the imponderable.

*The lecture was held in the lecture hall at the Royal Academy of Sciences. The Royal Academy of Sciences were at the time located in the Westman Palace, a building behind Adolf Fredrik church in Stockholm, Sweden.

1. H. Becquerel, Compt. Rend., (1896).

2. P. Curie and M. Curie, Compt. Rend., (1898); (1899).

3. M. Curie, Rev. Gen. Sci., (1899); Rev. Sci., (1900).

From Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1966

To cite this section

MLA style: Marie Curie  Nobel Lecture. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2022. Wed. 16 Nov 2022. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1911/marie-curie/lecture/>
Albert Einstein Facts

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

Albert Einstein

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921 Affiliation at the time of the award: Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut (now Max-Planck-Institut) fur Physik, Berlin, Germany Prize motivation: for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect Albert Einstein received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1922. Prize share: 1/1

Life Albert Einstein grew up in Munich, where his father founded an electrical engineering company. After studying at the ETH university in Zurich, Einstein worked at the patent office in Bern, during which time he produced several pioneering works in the field of physics. He was later employed at universities in Bern, Zurich, and Prague, and from 1914, in Berlin. After the Nazis seized power in Germany, Einstein immigrated to the US, where he worked at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Einstein married twice and had three children by his first marriage.

Work If metal electrodes are exposed to light, electrical sparks between them occur more readily. For this photoelectric effect to occur, the light waves must be above a certain frequency, however. According to physics theory, the light's intensity should be critical. In one of several epoch-making studies beginning in 1905, Albert Einstein explained that light consists of quantapackets with fixed energies corresponding to certain frequencies. One such light quantum, a photon, must have a certain minimum frequency before it can liberate an electron.

To cite this section

MLA style: Albert Einstein  Facts. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2022. Wed. 16 Nov 2022. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1921/einstein/facts/>
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Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have opened a criminal inquiry into transactions arranged by the producer Harvey Weinstein involving $600,000 raised at an AIDS charity auction, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

The office of the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York is examining whether fraud occurred when the money went to a theater that had staged a musical produced by Mr. Weinstein, said the three people, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The fashion designer Kenneth Cole, chairman of the board at the New York-based AIDS charity, amfAR, said the organization received a subpoena last month.

In September, The New York Times revealed details of the transactions and a civil investigation by the New York State attorney generals office. Two weeks later, The Times reported sexual harassment and misconduct allegations against Mr. Weinstein, who is now the subject of multiple assault investigations in London, Los Angeles and New York City.

Mr. Weinsteins spokeswoman, Sallie Hofmeister, did not comment on the inquiry, but released a statement on Thursday saying that over the course of the last 23 years, Mr. Weinstein has helped raise between $30 million and $40 million for amfAR, adding that he has personally pledged $1 million to the organization.
The response from much of the younger section of the party has been fury. Mr. Williamson, though only 41, is known for his ties to the old guard. He was immediately described by two members of Parliament (though anonymously) as a snake or a parasite. This, after all, is the man whose job it has been to know exactly what his party members sexual transgressions are and to use them as weapons to ensure political loyalty, rather than deciding that some of them merit action by the party or the police. Mr. Williamson is at the heart of the old Conservative culture, not a representation of the new.

The problem for Mrs. May is that almost overnight, the previously moderate, quiescent center of the party has been galvanized. Until now they, unlike the hard-line Brexiteers, have followed a policy of declining to make trouble for the prime minister, recognizing how tough the task ahead of her is and giving her the benefit of the doubt. Not anymore, one said to me grimly.

These Tories are seriously afraid that unless something changes, they could be heading for electoral and economic disaster with a combination of a chaotic, ill-planned Brexit and the appearance of complacent and entitled nastiness. They know that Mrs. May, a principled woman, is personally blameless and embarrassed by the atmosphere of sexual scandal. But they have lost faith in her ability to control her party or her cabinet, and by her evident timidity when faced by Boris Johnson, her scheming, ambitious, incompetent foreign secretary.

Conservative members of Parliament fear that this void at the top of their party will have political consequences. Mrs. May has a tiny working majority in Parliament, and to prepare for Brexit she has to spend the next months passing immensely complex legislation transferring four decades of European rules into British law. She needs every vote she can get.

Now many of these moderate members of Parliament, distrusting her judgment, are saying that they are going to insist on amendments that would create a softer Brexit, retaining closer links with Europe, rather than the hard Brexit that the partys Euroskeptics have been driving Mrs. May toward. (Whether they stand by these threats once temperatures cool remains to be seen.) There are at least 150 of us, one Conservative said. And now were going to have a voice.

But there is a limit to this threatened rebellion. No one yet wants to see Mrs. May out of power for the same reason that has kept her there since she failed to win the election: Every faction fears that whoever replaces her may be worse. Its influence over an embattled prime minister that everyone seeks, as they compete desperately for their visions of the future and their own political survival.
But a small percentage of men are not satisfied with this room and they cross over to the next room, the predators room. In this room, the pleasures of sex get mixed up with the pleasures of power.

Harassment is not just sex and its not just power; its a wicked mixture of the two. Harassers possess what psychologists call hostile masculinity; they apparently get pleasure from punishing the women who arouse them.

There hasnt been enough research into what goes on in the minds of harassers, but the studies we do have suggest a few things.

There are no standard personality types. But predators do seem to start young, often beginning their predatory behavior in college. They are not looking for a relationship. Narcissistically, they are unwilling to acknowledge what their victim is feeling. They have morally obliterated that person. But they are far from irrational. They perpetrate their acts in male-dominated environments where they think they can get away with harassing women.

There are three points to be made about this situation.

First, one key element in any relationship is how well you see the other person. In the first room people see each other deeply. In the second regime they see each other in a degraded way. In the third regime the harasser doesnt see his victim at all. The men who have recently been exposed say they had no idea how much pain they were causing.

Second, the line between the prospector room and the predator room is getting blurrier. On campuses, the few predators use the general prospector atmosphere as a perfect playground for their exploitation. More important, in the public mind the line between unwanted sexual attention and force is growing indistinct.

In the political world, for example, partisans of left and right rationalize their support for Bill Clinton or Donald Trump because they could tell themselves in effect, Oh, hes just a horny prospector. By treating such behavior as locker-room talk or laddish behavior, they helped smooth the ground for all the predators to come.

Finally, one core problem is the collapse of the first room, the room of love.

It is necessary but not enough to have a negative vision of what men should not do. It would also be nice if there were some positive vision of how sexuality fits into a rich life, how it flourishes in the private sphere as a (very fun) form of deep knowing. If we had a clearer concept of a beautiful relationship wed also have a clearer concept of what predatory behavior looks like and what it takes to eradicate it. In a degraded environment, the predators, who are few and vicious, are more likely to be tolerated by the many, who are numb.
The bill would also lavish benefits on real estate partnerships, hedge funds and other pass-through businesses, which send their profits directly to their owners without taxes being withheld. Republicans want those business owners to pay taxes of just 25 percent on that income, rather than ordinary rates, which go up to 39.6 percent. Republicans argue that this will benefit small businesses. In fact, a large majority of small-business owners already have personal tax rates below 25 percent. This provision would aid a small group of developers, investors and other tycoons who work in professions or industries where it is relatively easy to set up pass-through businesses. Like, yes, Mr. Trump and his family, who make their money from one such industry: real estate. Lets not forget that Mr. Trump has not released his tax returns, something every other major-party presidential nominee has done for nearly 40 years.

Republican lawmakers argue that they will put in protections to prevent people from turning their salaries into pass-through income. But their promises ring hollow when they are not even bothering to close the carried-interest loophole used by private-equity and hedge-fund managers to treat some of their income as capital gains, which are taxed at a lower rate than wages. Mr. Trump railed against that tax provision during the 2016 campaign.

On personal income taxes, Republicans say they are simplifying and cutting taxes for most people. But that is not really true. They propose reducing the number of tax brackets to four, from seven, while raising the lowest bracket to 12 percent, from 10 percent. They want to double the standard deduction but eliminate personal exemptions. One new benefit that could help many families would be a $300 tax credit for tax filers and their dependents who are over 17, like an aged parent. Strangely, it would end after five years. By contrast, the bills cuts to corporate and other business taxes would be permanent.

The changes that could affect middle-class families the hardest include the elimination of the deduction for state and local income taxes. And the property-tax deductible would be capped at $10,000. Many people in high-tax states, like California, New Jersey and New York, would be especially hard hit. Those families would also be squeezed by the proposal to cap the mortgage-interest deduction for home purchases starting Thursday, the day the bill was introduced, at $500,000. Reducing this deduction is worthy of consideration, but it ought to be part of a comprehensive reform of housing subsidies that wont put home buyers in high-cost areas at a disadvantage.
MUMBAI, India  Indias smartphone users love Paytm for sending money and WhatsApp for sending messages. Now each company is getting into the others business.

Paytm unveiled an updated version of its service on Friday that integrates chat features, including photo and video sharing, into its market-leading digital wallet.

The move is a pre-emptive strike against WhatsApp, the global messaging app used by about two-thirds of Indias 300 million smartphone users. WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, has been developing a person-to-person payment service for India that it plans to introduce in the next few months.

Deepak Abbot, Paytms senior vice president of product, said his company had decided to add the communications feature, called Inbox, because its executives saw millions of people using its service to send money to other individuals without any way of discussing those payments inside the app.
SAN FRANCISCO  After years of trying unsuccessfully to build a social network to rival Facebook, Google finally got something out of all of its failures: cover.

Members of Congress grilled the executives of Google, Facebook and Twitter this week in a trio of hearings focused on the role that social media played in advancing a Russian disinformation campaign before the 2016 election. Googles representative at two of the hearings, Kent Walker, the companys general counsel, made a point of distinguishing the search giant from its internet brethren. Repeatedly and unequivocally, he answered questions at the hearings by saying, Were not a social network.

Tech companies have taken a pounding in the court of public opinion in recent months. In the eyes of their critics, they have become too big, too powerful and too unmindful of their influence. And this weeks congressional hearings cast added and unflattering light on the industrys growing embarrassment over the Russian election meddling.

Without sufficient oversight, these companies never imagined hostile intelligence services would misuse their platforms in this way, said Renee DiResta, an independent security researcher at Data for Democracy. The people running it appear to not fully appreciate what theyve designed.
Never mind that its title is a synonym for rubbish, and evokes images of teeming garbage dumps and the overstuffed closets of hoarders. Junk, Ayad Akhtars eagerly anticipated drama of dirty dealings on Wall Street in the 1980s, is, for better or worse, the tidiest show on Broadway.

Just check out the set that awaits audiences arriving at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center, where this latest offering from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Disgraced opened on Thursday night. The designer John Lee Beatty has created a honeycomb of boxy cubicles, bordered in light, that suggests a graph-paper storyboard.

Its a vision that exhales a cool efficiency and the promise that everything can be arranged into a symmetrical set of coordinates. And so it proves to be, in a show that unfolds with the crispness and legibility of a conscientiously assembled spread sheet.

This may sound like an odd modus operandi for a play that considers the messes people make of their lives in pursuit of gain and glory. Whats more, Junk, based partly on the fall from grace of the supertrader Michael Milken, is not without classic popcorn elements of heavy-breathing financial melodrama  entrapment, betrayal, a compromising sexual liaison, showdowns between brokers at dawn and even a collateral suicide.
The travel website TripAdvisor has apologized to a Texas woman for repeatedly deleting her review of a Mexican resort that detailed how she had been raped there by a security guard.

TripAdvisor issued the apology to the woman, Kristie Love, 35, after The Journal Sentinel of Milwaukee published an investigation on Wednesday about her 2010 episode and accounts by other travelers who said the website also removed their warnings about assaults and rapes at hotels.

The Journal Sentinel found that two other women reported that they had been sexually assaulted at the same Mexican resort in recent years.

We are horrified that this victim experienced this assault on her vacation in Mexico, and other travelers should be aware of this incident, TripAdvisor said in a statement on its website on Wednesday.
WASHINGTON  The House on Friday is expected to pass legislation to refinance the Childrens Health Insurance Program and send federal funds to community health centers. But a partisan morass over how to pay for the legislation all but ensures that state governments and millions of children will get little relief from the uncertainty that has faced the programs since funding officially expired a month ago.

For two decades, the Childrens Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, has provided prescription medicines, checkups and hospital care to low- to moderate-income children with broad bipartisan support. But the program has been in limbo since Oct. 1, and House action will not end the logjam  a testament to the level of partisan rancor that grips Washington.

The Senate will almost certainly balk at the House bill, which is likely to pass largely along party lines.

Unsure when Congress will provide more funds, some states have begun drafting notices to inform families that they could lose coverage. And lawmakers have shown little urgency in responding.
WASHINGTON  Hillary Clinton received a Democratic Woman of the Year Award  who else would it be?  at the Womens National Democratic Club on Thursday, and the first tears were shed about three minutes after she took the stage.

In a room full of purple suffragist sashes and elected officials, Nuchhi Currier, the president of the organization, choked up when she said the outcome of the election  358 days ago  was very different from what had been anticipated.

As the first anniversary of President Trumps election win approaches, frustration and sadness over the loss of the first woman to be nominated for president by a major party has only seemed to grow more palpable among her supporters. Mrs. Clinton has frequently channeled their anger over the past 10 months, since Mr. Trump took office, and the awards ceremony was no different.

I got more votes than anybody except Barack Obama in 2008, Mrs. Clinton reminded her rapt crowd.

Over 55 minutes, Mrs. Clinton criticized the Trump administrations cavalier approach to its dealings with Iran, attacked the administrations apparent willingness to embrace Russia amid accusations of meddling in the election, discussed her approval ratings, promoted her election memoir and lamented a toxic environment for women across industries, especially in her own.
WASHINGTON  An anti-immigrant group led by the white nationalist Richard B. Spencer was told on Thursday that it could not hold its annual conference in a federal office building, just blocks from the White House, because of security concerns raised by the buildings management company.

The decision prompted new questions over when, and how, nativist groups are allowed to speak in public spaces.

Mr. Spencer is the president of the National Policy Institute, which promotes itself as a research and educational foundation. It had planned to hold its meeting on Nov. 19 at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in downtown Washington, where the conference took place last year.

Mr. Spencer, who lives in the Washington area, did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday. He told The Washington Post that he was shocked when he learned that the building turned down his request to use its space, saying that it seemed to be a First Amendment issue.
CARACAS, Venezuela  With the threat of default looming over Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro said late Thursday that his government would initiate a restructuring and refinancing of the countrys foreign debt.

The announcement came at the deadline for a $1.2 billion payment by the state oil company on a maturing bond, which Mr. Maduro said his government would instead deliver on Friday.

Speaking on national television, Mr. Maduro said that his government was fighting a battle for the financial stability and tranquillity of Venezuela.

Were going to win this battle, he vowed.

The move is an acknowledgment of how serious the governments financial problems have become, and throws further into doubt the future of the country, which has been grappling with an economic crisis that has caused dire shortages of food and medicine.
Islamic State fighters executed at least 741 Iraqi civilians in Mosul, including women and children who had tried to flee, during the nine-month battle by government forces to retake the northern Iraq city from the militant group, the United Nations said Thursday.

In a 53-page report detailing atrocities in Mosul that amount to international crimes, the United Nations said the executed civilians were among at least 2,521 who were killed during the battle for the city, mostly from Islamic State attacks, including indiscriminate shelling and the use of improvised bombs and  increasingly  explosive-laden drones.

The report said the militants also carried out mass abductions of civilians, used thousands of civilians as shields in combat with Iraqi soldiers, and forcibly recruited boys as young as nine from families then deployed them as Cubs of the Caliphate wearing explosive belts.

The report, produced by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, could be used for war-crimes prosecutions.
LONDON  With his visionary designs for tanks, helicopters and airplanes, Leonardo da Vinci had a creative genius that was, as we know, far ahead of his time. But does that mean his work belongs in an auction of contemporary art?

Christies thinks so. The auction house is including the Leonardo painting Salvator Mundi, or Savior of the World, dating from around 1500, in its Nov. 15 sale of postwar and contemporary art in New York, along with works by Mark Rothko and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Christies has finessed the jarring incongruity by marketing the old master alongside Andy Warhols Leonardo-inspired silk-screen Sixty Last Suppers. This 1986 painting, which is more than 30 feet wide, is estimated to sell for $50 million.

The work of Leonardo is just as influential to the art that is being created today as it was in the 15th and 16th centuries, Loic Gouzer, co-chairman of postwar and contemporary art at Christies, said in a statement announcing that a Renaissance painting would be included in the auction.
In 1941, the artist Jacob Lawrence created the Migration Series, 60 paintings documenting the Great Migration, the movement of African-Americans to the North from the South in the early 20th century. In 2011, 70 years later, Step Afrika!, a company dedicated to the percussive art of stepping, brought those paintings to life.

Lawrences series, created when he was just 23 but well on his way to becoming one of the eras most influential African-American artists, is a milestone. So too in its way is Step Afrika!s production of The Migration: Reflections on Jacob Lawrence. It shows that stepping, in which performers use their feet and hands to turn their bodies into percussive instruments, can fill an evening. More important, it shows that stepping has reach: It can tell a story.

Other dance forms, including modern and tap, are woven into The Migration, which has its New York premiere at the New Victory Theater on Nov. 10. But stepping, popular in African-American fraternities and sororities, is the critical ingredient. As Jakari Sherman, the works director and primary choreographer, said, What we end up with is a living, breathing, performed exhibition of visual art.

In order to make the paintings come alive as theater, Mr. Sherman invented an art metaphor: The stage would be the canvas; the bodies the brush strokes; and the movement the paint.
The Popcast is hosted by Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic for The New York Times. It covers the latest in pop music criticism, trends and news.

Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine is a book the Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner asked the journalist Joe Hagan to write about his life. At first, Mr. Hagan resisted the offer, but Mr. Wenner ultimately persuaded him to take the assignment.

Now the book is here, Mr. Wenner does not like it and we have convened a Popcast to discuss it.
Ms. Hershberger argues that the opera deliberately confronted a postwar climate in which women who had joined the wartime work force were expected to resume traditional domestic roles. Stein is setting the stage for women to re-engage with a lot of the same questions theyd considered previously and thought they had addressed, she said in an interview.

Thomsons score is almost entirely original, but it sounds deceptively familiar. Music reminiscent of the folk song The Water Is Wide underscores discussions of marriage; snare drum rolls and vibrant march tunes propel the public debate scenes. The composer described the music as a memory book, a souvenir of all those sounds and kinds of tunes that were once the music of rural America and that are still the basic idiom of our country.

The Hudson production has a communal ethos that complements Thomsons musical lingua americana. Those behind it, including Mr. Schlather; Tambra Dillon, the director of Hudson Hall; Caroline Crumpacker, from the nearby Millay Colony for the Arts, a co-producer of the opera; and Joan Retallack, a Stein scholar and poet who taught at Bard College, view the performances as an opportunity to strengthen social and civic bonds. To that end, the staging, which stars the mezzo-soprano Michaela Martens as Anthony, will feature an ensemble of Hudson Valley residents.

Structured as an exhibition, spaces on the ground floor beneath the performance hall will house a pop-up canteen, experimental reading room and conversation series. We want to use this form of opera to allow people a gathering space, Mr. Schlather said, where you come together at this cultural hub for two weeks to collectively experience this fabulous opera, to experience each other and meet new people.
I AM THE BROTHER OF XX

By Fleur Jaeggy

Translated by Gini Alhadeff

128 pp. New Directions. $14.95.

THESE POSSIBLE LIVES

By Fleur Jaeggy

Translated by Minna Zallman Proctor

60 pp. New Directions. $12.95.

If Fleur Jaeggy is less well known than many of her European contemporaries  writers like Joseph Brodsky and Thomas Bernhard  its perhaps because her books are small and few. But over the past four decades the 77-year-old Swiss Italian writer has given us at least two real masterpieces: Sweet Days of Discipline (1989, translated by Tim Parks), and S.S. Proleterka (2001, translated by Alastair McEwen). These are haunting books, both with narrators struggling to retrieve a past that exists only in their memory and through notes and photographs. Like W. G. Sebalds novels, they depict the mind in a holding pattern, circling around subjects that, being absent, can never be reached.

In both these books, Jaeggy recounts a Swiss childhood in the 1940s and 1950s, seemingly a lot like her own: boarding school, a tyrannical grandmother, a divorced mother and father both geographically and emotionally remote. As a writer, she is foremost a portraitist, describing figures from the past as they moved into and out of her narrators lives. A fellow student had a fine, high forehead, the kind of forehead that makes thought tangible. A fathers journal entries, read years after he has died, are silent and absent. Names and dates. Nothing else. Written by a man even more absent, precise in his absence. Its hard to capture in a line or two the strange precision of Jaeggys prose, even harder to explain why her often halting short sentences and sudden shifts in tense or perspective are wonderful rather than irritating. The writing moves the way a camera might, circling around, trying to capture its subject from various angles at once. Out of many perspectives emerge people rescued from paling memory, and if their faces are forgotten, if certain features have faded, as in a painting, all that remains are our own voices, which we feel cant be answered.

Image

Now two new Fleur Jaeggy books arrive, very different from one another, both turning her interest in portraiture into a theme in itself. The first, I Am the Brother of XX, is a collection of stories, monologues and memoir, less cohesive than her previous books but with the same stark, surprising prose, here translated by Gini Alhadeff. These are grim tales, often violent. In The Heir, an old woman signs over her estate to a young assistant who leaves her to die in a house fire. In The Aviary, a man psychologically tortures his wife out of an obsessive love for his dead mother. The title story and a few others are less traumatic, and there are some lovely personal remembrances, mostly of literary friends. Yet even in these softer, melancholic pieces, darkness seems never far away, and literally isnt, since much of the book is filled with tales of death and madness.
LATE IN THE EMPIRE OF MEN

By Christopher Kempf

78 pp. Four Way. Paper, $15.95.

Image

Kempfs debut collection succeeds in familiar  if not quite traditional  ways: Long sentences and interwoven plots contrast the poets confined early life in blue-collar Ohio with the measure of freedom he found on the West Coast. Kempfs neighbor died in uniform in Iraq; that loss becomes for Kempf an emblem of American, and Midwestern, bad faith: there is a logic / the economy of a small town tends / toward. War / & wreckage. California has its own dooms  The endangered / sequoias vanish above us, turning / over & over their old / air  but it also comes to stand for another, more surprising, more emotionally volatile subject: the new kinds of sexuality, and self-realization, possible online. Clearing the History likens the poets own move west, away from his fathers sexless marriage, my parents / slow dying together, to the fresh start you might give your web browser after viewing porn. As for adolescence, Before I was a man I was a man / made of pixels: So begins a poem about the computer game Oregon Trail. Embodiment, and adulthood, and sexual discovery, are sadly irreversible but ought to give pleasure; so the poet concludes, telling his partner (as they drive east through Nevada), We will pass / through many states still, you / & I, but we, we say, / were in California once & young.

MyOTHER TONGUE

By Rosa Alcala

88 pp. Futurepoem. Paper, $18.

Image

Alcalas third book feels like the opposite of Kempfs first. He wrote a clear, fluent collection largely about men; she uses empty spaces, hesitations and semantic difficulties to address mothers and daughters, herself as mother and herself as daughter, and the messy emotions and miscommunications that move between languages (in her case, English and Spanish), as well as between and within female bodies, in breastfeeding, menstruation, giving birth. Alcalas short, wry lines, self-interruptions and open spaces remind us how little precedent there is for honest writing on these topics, compared with the epic traditions of fathers and sons. Her overall mood remains haltingly elegiac, with quips, false starts and white space, though she can also deploy irony to point up injustice, as in the prose poem Voice Activation: Luckily, I have no accent and you can understand perfectly what I am saying to you. Her circumlocutions can point back to the avant-garde community within which Alcalas early work grew, seeking a style that isnt meant / to be sold / or bought. Elsewhere she is pellucid, as well as laconic, and might make you cry: Three times on Saturday / I remember you / as dead, / mama. / I reach under / my shirt / surprised / to find / the nipple dry.
The Deadliest Idealism

To the Editor:

I admired Martin Amiss scathing autopsy of Communism (The Deadliest Idealism, Oct. 22), but must take issue with one of his statements. In discussing how the truth about Communism gradually entered the mainstream of Western thought, he says that the first consciousness-shifting book was [Robert] Conquests The Great Terror (1968). Actually, the book that could and should have gotten that process rolling came out 45 years earlier, in 1923  My Disillusionment in Russia, by Emma Goldman, the anarchist who was at that time probably the most famous non-Communist leftist in the world. Whatever hopes Goldman had held for Bolshevism had died when she watched the violent suppression by the Bolsheviks of the Kronstadt rebellion in March 1921.

The Kronstadt rebels Petropavlovsk resolution called not only for freedoms of speech, assembly and the press, and the release of all political prisoners, but included this most un-Marxist demand: The granting to the peasants of freedom of action on their own soil, and of the right to own cattle, provided they look after them themselves and do not employ hired labor.

It should also be noted that many other leftists saw through Bolshevism while it was still Lenin  not Stalin  who stood at the helm. Goldmans fellow anarchist Prince Kropotkin; the German socialists Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht; and the American writer and editor Max Eastman all rejected the promise of this baleful new creed right at its birth. Unfortunately, as Lionel Trilling observed, the facts that revealed Communisms true character were not hard to come by but the wish to ignore them was resolute.

THOMAS ANTHONY DIMAGGIO

YORK, PA.





To the Editor:

Martin Amis correctly identifies Vladimir Nabokov as one of the earliest literary testifiers against Communism. Curiously, he makes no mention of writers from the left, such as John Dos Passos and George Orwell, who overcame their biases in favor of the revolution and by the mid-1940s were decrying the excesses of Soviet totalitarianism.
Six new paperbacks to check out this week.

HITLER: Ascent 1889-1939, by Volker Ullrich. Translated by Jefferson Chase. (Vintage, $22.) A new biography dispenses with myths of greatness and destiny that circulate about Hitler: In Ullrichs telling, he emerges as a mediocre, unremarkable man who seized on a moment of political rage to rise to power. This book, the first of two planned volumes, ends on the eve of Germanys invasion of Poland, setting off World War II and eventually leading to his downfall.

PERFECT LITTLE WORLD, by Kevin Wilson. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $16.99.) Izzy, a teenager pregnant with her teachers baby, agrees to join a utopian family experiment that resembles a commune. Its a novel you keep reading for old-fashioned reasons, our reviewer, John Irving, said. You also keep reading because you want to know what a good family is. Everyone wants to know that.

TRUEVINE: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mothers Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South, by Beth Macy. (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $17.99.) George and Willie Muse, two albino African-American brothers, were exhibited in a circus for years during the 20th century, a situation close to slavery. How they came to join the show is murky, but the core of Macys reporting focuses on the boys mother, Harriett, who doggedly sought to bring them home.

HISTORY OF WOLVES, by Emily Fridlund. (Grove, $16.) In Fridlunds debut novel, northern Minnesotas austere landscape sets off a grim coming-of-age story. When a young mother and her son arrive in town, Linda, a teenage loner with a fractured home life, is drawn to them. She soon begins babysitting the child, Paul, and finds herself in an ambiguous family dynamic, made worse after his father returns from Hawaii; the moral choices Linda makes haunt her decades later, when she finally tells her story.
Thursday, November 2, 2017

The Kansas Supreme Court has accepted the consent disbarment of an attorney.

At the time the respondent surrendered his license, a disciplinary complaint was pending, alleging that the respondent violated Kansas Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4 (2017 Kan. S. Ct. R. 379) (misconduct), for engaging in criminal conduct. The respondent was charged in the Sixth Circuit Court in Platte County, Missouri, with three felony offenses and one misdemeanor offense.

This court finds that the surrender of the respondent's license should be accepted and that the respondent should be disbarred.

Fox4 KC.com reported

A Liberty, Missouri attorney faces charges of sexual exploitation of a minor because investigators say he had numerous chats online that were sexual in nature, with an undercover officer posing as a 13-year-old girl.

Jerome M. Patience, 39, of Independence, was charged in Platte County Circuit Court after allegedly chatting with the girl for nearly a month in 2016.

Patience is charged with attempted sexual exploitation of a minor and allegedly urging her to take pics while performing a sexual act. He is also charged with two counts of attempted sexual misconduct involving a child: one for sending a picture of his genitals and another for asking the girl to send explicit photos of herself. Finally, Patience is charged with attempting to furnish pornographic materials to minors for sending the picture of his genitals as well as written descriptions of sex acts to the girl.

Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd filed the charges on Wednesday, June 7th.

According to court documents, on May 24, 2016, Patience allegedly began chatting with an undercover officer who was posing as a 13-year-old girl on the Internet. Investigators say the detective posing as a young teen girl, posted an ad on Craigslist, stating that she was looking for someone to hang out with because school was out.

The detective reported receiving an e-mail from a 'Seth Johnson', who police claim was actually Patience.

The two allegedly chatted until June 22, 2016, during which time Patience or the girl mentioned nine times that she was 13-years-old.

Police say during the chats, Patience allegedly spoke of sex with her and showed interest in meeting. However, Patience allegedly said he was afraid to meet her because it was illegal, and he would lose his job and his family. He also allegedly wrote that he did not know where they could meet that I can trust that it doesnt get me arrested.

Investigators ultimately identified the Liberty law office from which Patience was conducting his chat. He told the girl that he only chatted while at work and not during the evening or weekends. He also reportedly told the girl he thought was 'Allie' that he had been married for 15 years but that his wife does not like to have intercourse with him.

"I am just a normal guy that loves sex and actually looks for it," he allegedly wrote. The detective, posing as the 13-year-old girl, replied, 'w a 13yo?'

Police say he answered that when he answered her ad, he did not know she was 13.

On August 25, 2016, investigators served a search warrant at the law firm. Patiences computer was allegedly open to the Yahoo account from which he had conducted the chat with the undercover officer from the Western Missouri Cyber Crime Task Force.

Patience is currently being held in the Platte County Detention Center in lieu of a $30,000 cash bond. At the time of his arrest, he was working as an attorney at McClelland Law Firm, 200 Westwoods Drive, according to police.

FOX 4's Marcus Officer is making calls and scheduling interviews to bring you more on Jerome Patience on FOX 4 newscasts. Look for her story-wrap on FOX 4 News at 5 & 6 and on all our digital platforms: fox4kc.com, the fox4kc app, and FOX 4 News Kansas City Facebook page.

(Mike Frisch)

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2017/11/the-kansas-supreme-court-has-accepted-the-consent-disbarment-of-an-attorney-at-the-time-the-respondent-surrendered-his-lice.html
Friday, November 3, 2017

The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board recommends the reinstatement of a disbarred double-dipping judge

This is a readmission matter based upon the filing of a petition and application for readmission to the practice of law by William A. Roe ("Petitioner" or "Mr. Roe"), Louisiana Bar Roll Number 11384, a disbarred attorney and retired judge. In September 2009, Petitioner was found guilty of three counts of misdemeanor unauthorized use of a movable. He received a sentence of six months, with three months deferred, two hundred forty hours of community service, $1,500 in fines, and eighteen months active probation. The conviction was based upon the following facts: During the years 2005-2007, Mr. Roe attended LSBA judicial seminars in Sandestin, Florida. As a judge in Plaquemine Parish (25111 JDC), Mr. Roe had access to a "bond fund" from which he took advance funds to pay for his trip to Sandestin. Upon returning from Sandestin, Mr. Roe applied and received reimbursement for his expenses from the Louisiana Supreme Court. He did not use these reimbursement funds to pay back the "bond fund," resulting in him receiving double compensation for the same expenses. This conduct was discovered by a legislative auditor investigating other matters in the 25111 JDC.

The Board disagreed with the hearing committee and found the petitioner met all criteria

In concluding that Petitioner failed to demonstrate that he recognized the wrongfulness and seriousness of his conduct, the Committee appears to have taken a narrow view of Petitioner's testimony, ignoring that he has acknowledged the serious consequences of his conduct and his responsibility for it. However, the Board finds that the testimony above clearly demonstrates that Petitioner acknowledges that his actions were wrong, that they brought embarrassment upon the judiciary, and that he was responsible for them. Additionally, as further evidence that he recognizes the wrongfulness and seriousness of his conduct, Mr. Roe consented to disbarment for his criminal conduct, which means he accepted and acknowledged his criminal conduct and that it violated the Rules of Professional Conduct.

(Mike Frisch)

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2017/11/the-louisiana-attorney-disc-this-is-a-readmission-matter-based-upon-the-filing-of-a-petition-and-application-for-readmission.html
From marijuana to property taxes, the candidates for governor in New Jersey have spent more than a year outlining their plans for the states future. Heres a look at what Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, the Republican, and Philip D. Murphy, the Democrat, hope to do.

Property Taxes

New Jersey has the highest property taxes in the country.

Police and Firefighter Raises

A law that effectively limits annual raises for police officers and firefighters to 2 percent expires at the end of 2017.

New Jersey Transit

The much-maligned transportation network has experienced increasing delays.

Pensions

The states unfunded pension obligation has been described as an economic time bomb.

Environment

Following President Trumps election, climate change and environmental issues have become more prominent in the race.

Minimum Wage

The state has been debating whether to raise the minimum wage from $8.44 an hour to $15 an hour.

Marijuana

The state is weighing whether to legalize the drug, and, potentially, how to tax it.

Gun Control

Strengthening New Jerseys already strict gun control laws has been debated following the massacre in Las Vegas.

Consolidation
BJP seeks stay on Bhansalis Padmavathi ahed of Gujarat elections

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The BJP has sought a temporary stay on the release of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's movie Padmavati. The party wrote to the Election Commissionof India and the Chief Electoral Officer in Gujarat to arrange for a pre-release viewing of the film by select Rajput representatives.

BJP spokesman and Kshatriya leader I K Jadeja said the party would prefer that 'Padmavati' is either banned or its release postponed in poll-bound Gujarat.

The movie is set to be released early in December while Gujarat elections are scheduled on December 9 and 14.

"We have received representations from Khastriya community opposing any purported distortion of history and character of Rani Padmavati in the movie. History says that Padmavati never met Alauddin Khilji. Any distortion in the movie which hurts sentiments of Rajput/Kshatriya community should be avoided as Gujarat is going to polls in December," said Jadeja.

OneIndia News
Calcutta HC calls for a report on Dengue from West Bengal Government

India

oi-Amitava

While the Calcutta High Court has asked for a report on Dengue from the State Government, West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi has shot a letter to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressing concern over the deaths caused by different vector diseases in the State.

A Raj Bhawan statement on Friday stated that the Governor had come to know about incidents of Dengue, Malaria, Chikunguniya and Scrub Typhus in the State from news reports and other sources.

"I have written to the Chief Minister stating that the Government should take all necessary measures for to combat these diseases affecting many" stated Governor Tripathi talking to media persons.

The opposition parties including the Congress, BJP and the Left Front have launched separate agitations against what they claim to be an attempt by the State Government to hush up the facts and figures relating to the dengue affected and deaths.

The High Court on Friday called for reports from the State Government regarding Dengue, in the form of an affidavit, to be submitted within November 10.

There are multiple PILs in the Calcutta High Court on dengue affected and deaths. All the PILs have prayed for actual figures of dengue deaths and also demanded compensation for the next of kin of the deceased and affected.

Recently Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had claimed that there has been 13 dengue deaths reported from the Government hospitals in West Bengal.

"We have received reports of 27 deaths from private nursing homes, However these deaths have been attributed to malaria, dengue, swine flu and other vector borne diseases. We are verifying these reports" she had stated.

The CM had further stated that there is no need to panic as the death figures are the lowest in the West Bengal compared to other states.

"A report uploaded 15 days ago states that in Gujarat 435 people have died owing to vector borne diseases; Maharashtra 695; Rajasthan 230; UP 165; MP 141; Kerala 111; Assam 87 and Orissa 83" Banerjee had claimed.

She had blamed dengue on the freak weather (untimely rainfall) and conspiracy by some private nursing homes and business houses by spreading panic.

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Story first published: Friday, November 3, 2017, 22:19 [IST]
Delhi LG cant sit on files, stultify governance, SC observes

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Lieutenant Governor of Delhi cannot sit on files and stultify governance, Justice D Y Chandrachud of the Supreme Court observed orally. He is bound to pass the difference of opinions between him and the council of ministers to the President for an early resolution, the judge also observed.

The observations were made during the hearing on a batch of petitions filed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The AAP government had argued against the High Court order which declared that the LG had complete control of all matters regarding the National Capital Region.

The government wants the SC to lay down a law on whether the LG can unilaterally administer the NCR without being bound by aid and advise of the elected government.

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Story first published: Friday, November 3, 2017, 6:51 [IST]
Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier

"When you shake a veteran's hand today, look them in the eye and give them a heartfelt thank you," said USAF Ret. Col. Jen Fullmer, parade grand marshal, who spoke at the event.
Explained: Can Mukul Roy be disqualified as MLA for jumping from BJP to TMC

Plea in SC to decide disqualification of Trinamool's Mukul Roy as MLA

My privilege to work under PM Modi, says Mukul Roy

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Former Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Mukul Roy formally joined BJP on Friday. Roy had resigned from the Rajya Sabha and quit the party in October.

After joining the BJP, Roy said, " Today I have joined BJP and it's my proud privilege to work under PM Modi."

Roy met BJP President Amit Shah, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and others.

Last month, he was suspended from the TMC for six years for indulging in "anti-party activities" after he had announced on September 25 that he would quit the party.

#Delhi: Former TMC Leader Mukul Roy who joined BJP today meets BJP President Amit Shah, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal & others also present pic.twitter.com/bNnTQPyYl6  ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017

The TMC had accused him of hobnobbing with the BJP. Roy was once the second-in-command in the TMC after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Happy to inform that Mukul Roy is joining BJP, we welcome him: Ravi Shankar Prasad,BJP pic.twitter.com/IQQjorBoxA  ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017

Subsequently, Roy had described the BJP as a secular party and said the TMC would not have tasted success without the backing of the saffron outfit at the national level in its initial years.

Roy had denied reports of floating a new political party in the state.

He is joining the BJP ahead of by polls to two assembly seats in West Bengal that will be held in November.

OneIndia News
FM Nirmala Sitharaman hints at possibility of Centre considering restoration of state status to J&K

J&K: Special representative to begin peace talks on Monday

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Centre's special representative will be in the Kashmir Valley on Monday to commence peace talks. The Centre had appointed former Intelligence Bureau director, Dineshwar Sharma as the special representative for peace talks in Kashmir.

Sharma said that he is open to meeting with the political leadership and other prominent voices in the Valley in a bid to ensure that peace returns in the state.

I will go to the Valley with no blinkers on, he had said while also adding that he would meet all persons with a genuine grievance.

Kashmiri separatists have already made it clear that they are not keen on engaging with the former IPS officer from the Kerala cadre.

In a joint statement, recently issued by Hurriyat Conference leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and JKLF chief Yasin Malik, they had stated that the appointment of a peace interlocutor was a delaying tactic "adopted under international pressure and regional compulsions.

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Story first published: Friday, November 3, 2017, 6:47 [IST]
Cash transactions over the limit at hospitals, banquet halls may land you in trouble

Kerala to have online monitoring facility to check availability of medicines in govt hospitals

Private hospitals should take care of security issues on their own, says SC

Ktaka private hospitals strike: Why the protest is against patients rights, undemocratic

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

Recommended Video

Karnataka Private hospitals close door for a day, protesting pro patient bill | Oneindia News

Bengaluru, Nov 3: The private hospitals' lobby is very powerful across the country and Karnataka is no exception. As the Centre and the state governments since ages have refused to improve infrastructure and facilities in government-run hospitals and dispensaries, private hospitals have literally turned into "sharks" where patients are treated at an exorbitant rate without any monitoring.

Since most of the government hospitals in the country are in shambles (again Karnataka is no exception), patients in need of care and attention have no other option but to visit private hospitals that have been refusing to come under any law and scrutiny.

It is the same attitude on the part of the private hospitals' lobby in Karnataka that is being reflected when private hospitals in the state have decided to call for a day-long strike on Friday to oppose the Karnataka Private Medical Establishments (Amendment) Act.

The southern state has over 45,000 private hospitals, diagnostic centres and clinics and all these establishments will remain closed on Friday, causing major inconvenience to patients in need of medical attention.

While inpatient services (that is, continued treatment for those who are in hospitals) and ambulance services are expected to continue, out-patient and diagnostics services in medical establishments are likely to be hit, said the State unit of Indian Medical Association.

All 177 branches of the IMA have been directed to ensure establishments of their members remain closed.

"This is a warning to the government. If they do not address our concerns and demand, we will escalate the strike on November 10," said HN Ravindra, president-elect of IMA.

Now, why the private hospitals are on strike?

The reason, if the Bill is passed in the state Assembly in the forthcoming winter session then it will enable increased government regulation on private hospitals: including fixing of fees and cost of treatment, and a district-level grievance committee that can take action against erring hospitals.

Thus it shows that once again the private hospitals' lobby, which is of course very rich and politically connected, doesn't want to adhere to any rules and regulations that are in the interest of the patients.

The amended Bill is likely to be presented in the upcoming winter session of the legislature to be held in Belagavi and the lobby has already started bullying the government and patients by closing hospitals for a day.

Moreover, senior members of the private hospitals' lobby in the state have threatened the government that if their demands were not fulfilled then they would continue with similar strikes in the future.

If the private hospitals are dead against the amended Bill, health rights activists and government medical associations are in favour of it.

The Karnataka Janaarogya Chaluvali (KJC), a network of civil society and grassroots organisations working on health issues in the state, has condemned the strike in strong words.

"We condemn the continued opposition by private medical establishments to protect patients' rights, democratic accountability and transparency under the proposed amendments to the KPME Act 2017," stated a press release of the KJC.

"The private medical establishments in the state continue to oppose and resist attempts by the government to hold them democratically accountable, adhere to patient rights and safety guidelines, regulation of cost and grievance redressal mechanisms.

"The private hospitals have continued with their misinformation campaign deliberately twisting and misrepresenting various provisions in the Amendments to suit their interests," added the press release.

According to the KJC, the Bill contains several citizen-centric provisions while also ensuring adequate space for private hospitals to have their say particularly in regulation of costs and in grievance redressal.

"Therefore the intense and vitriolic opposition to the Bill by the private and corporate hospitals is unjustified and painting it as 'draconian' is not only a gross misrepresentation but also betrays their own malafide intentions of subverting a progressive legislation," added the press release.

In fact, the KJC will hold a meeting at Press Club in Bengaluru on Friday afternoon to put forth citizens' response to the KPME (Amendment) Act 2017 and present a factual comparison of the KPME Act 2017 and the KPME (Amendment) Act 2017.

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Story first published: Friday, November 3, 2017, 8:20 [IST]
Karnataka pvt doctors strike today: Govt hospitals on high alert

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

All private hospitals across Karnataka will be shut today on account of the doctors' strike. Private hospitals in Karnataka handle nearly 70 per cent of the outpatient cases. Private hospitals are protesting against stringent clauses in the Karnataka Private Medical Establishments (Amendment) Bill, 2017.

The government has directed doctors in state-run hospitals not to go on leave on Friday , and instructed district health officials and surgeons to ensure its hospitals are fully functional.

Private hospitals, including super-specialty ones, have put up notices on their premises about the OPD strike on Friday. The Karnataka chapter of the Association of Surgeons of India has said OPD services will remain closed on Friday .

All government hospitals have been asked to prepare for an expected increase in patient load during the day of the strike. "We have directed all doctors and staff of district, taluk and primary health centres to be present to ensure that patients are not inconvenienced," said Ajay Seth, Additional Chief Secretary (Health and Family Welfare).

The grievance is that the amendment to the BIll will enable increased government regulation on private hospitals: including fixing of fees and cost of treatment, and a district-level grievance committee that can take action against erring hospitals. The amended Bill will be presented in the forthcoming winter session of the legislature to be held in Belagavi.

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Story first published: Friday, November 3, 2017, 7:05 [IST]
Kerala Love Jihad: Hadiya not being tortured by parents say police

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

In a report submitted to the Kerala Women's Commission, the police have said that Akhila alias Hadiya is not being tortured by her father. The commission had sought a report after a video of the lady surfaced in which she is alleged to have accused her parents of torture.

The report stated that she is guarded by the police and there is no physical torture being meted out to her. The police, in its report, also stated that she was not given any drugs.

On October 31, the Supreme Court observed that the consent of the girl is prime in the Kerala 'love jihad' case, adding that she is a major. The court also asked the father to produce Hadiya on November 27, the next date of hearing in the case.

Kerala Love Jihad: Present Hadiya before us on November 27, 3 pm says SC

Four months ago, the Kerala High Court had sent Hadiya with her parents, K M Asokan and Ponnamma, after annulling her marriage with Shafin Jahan.

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Story first published: Friday, November 3, 2017, 6:14 [IST]
Keralas never ending tryst with the Islamic State

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Kerala's tryst with the Islamic State appears to be never ending. The police have now confirmed that 6 more persons from the state have joined the ISIS and could possibly be at Afghanistan. Now the official toll of those who have joined the ISIS in Afghanistan is 28.

The police say that all these persons belong to the PFI. The signals are worrying, an officer with the Intelligence Bureau said. In all the police state that there are 648 persons. Sources in the Intelligence Bureau say that out of the 648 who are missing 297 are women. While not all cases are suspicious in nature, central agencies do not rule out the possibility of many having joined foreign terrorist outfits.

Terrorism however is not the only issue in the case of these missing persons. Authorities have also been told that some of them could have even been sentenced to death in the Gulf on charges of drug trafficking. Such information is not forthcoming since most of these traffickers travel on fake passports and hence their relatives get no information about them.

The recent problem to haunt Kerala is that of Love Jihad. The NIA which is probing one such case says that it may not be an isolated one. It appears to be a sustained and coordinated racket involving a large number of people from the state.

The latest development comes in the backdrop of the NIA submitting a report to the Union Home Ministry about the PFI. The ministry was contemplating a ban on the PFI after the report suggested that some of its members could be involved in acts of terror.

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Story first published: Friday, November 3, 2017, 8:16 [IST]
Man allegedly keeps wife and minor daughter locked up for 5 years

India

oi-Amitava

By Amitava

Close on the heels of a 96 year old being locked up in a room in Kolkata by her son who had left on a holiday to Andaman; a woman and her daughter were rescued from a locked room.

However the mother- daughter incident is shrouded in mystery. The incident occurred in the Jalangi area of Murshidabad around 200 km from Kolkata.

Police rescued the 36 year old and her 11 year daughter from a locked room in a house. They were allegedly locked in the room by the husband of the woman for around 5 years.

According to Nikhil Sarkar who lodged a complaint at the Jalangi police station claimed that his sister Manju and her daughter had been locked up by Manabendra Mondal, a carpenter by profession.

Police accompanied Sarkar and rescued the Manju and her daughter from a locked room inside the house. Even the windows of the house were covered with black plastic sheets to bar prying eyes.

"Based on the complaint police have started investigation. Manabendra is missing" stated Debasish Sarkar, Officer in Charge, Jalangi Police Station.

The most baffling part of the incident is that Manju did not complain about her husband. The woman who is a graduate instead preferred to remain in the dingy room claiming that they were happy and had no problems.

She had to be coaxed to come out of the room and visit the police station. It was evident that they were having problems in the daylight and with the crowd.

After the formalities were over the duo returned to their residence. Neighbours claim that they had not seen the mother and the daughter for the past 5 years. The 11 year old had stopped going to school after Class 1.

Manabendra used to leave home in the morning after locking the door and used to return late at night.

Sarkar alleged that Manabendra had remarried and that his second wife was also staying in the same house hence Manabendra used to keep his first wife and daughter locked up in a room.

Sarkar further alleged that he had last spoken to his sister nearly 5 year ago over the phone. "When I had visited her recently a voice from inside the house pretending to be my sister asked me to leave immediately and threatened to commit suicide if I didn't leave. I was compelled to leave" added Sarkar.

Sarkar claimed that the "voice" was none other than Manabendra's second wife.

In another incident on October 25, 96 year old Sabita Nath was allegedly locked up in a room by her elder son Vikash, a bank employee, before leaving for a vacation to Andaman. The incident occurred at Anandapur, Kolkata. The 96 year old was without food for 3 days. Later she was rescued by her daughter Jayashree Kayal who had gone to visit her on Sunday. Kayal lodged a police complaint.

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Story first published: Friday, November 3, 2017, 20:10 [IST]
Man rapes 8-year-old to use her blood for removing obstacles to his marriage

Man who spent days locked up with dead mother, responding to treatment

India

oi-Amitava

By Amitava

Anirban Bose of Paikpara, North Kolkata, who had recently hit headlines, is responding to treatment claimed doctors treating him. The 47 year old suffering from mental illness had spent near 6 days with the decomposed body of his mother without even being aware of her death.

The incident had occurred at the middle income group (MIG) housing complex on Raja Manindra Road, Paikpara, North Kolkata. The residents of the housing complex had complained at the local police station of unbearable stench coming from the ground floor of the one of the buildings.

On Tuesday night police forced open the door of the apartment to find the dead-body of 67 year old Meera Bose. Her son Anirban Bose was locked up in the adjacent room.

When questioned he stated that he was locked up in the room without food and water and that his mother was in the other room. Post mortem reports claimed that Meera had been dead for more than 5 days.

The ordeal did not end here. Finding no relatives or friends to take care of Anirban, suffering from mental problems, the police left him behind locked doors in the same apartment.

With the intervention and pressure from the media, police on Wednesday returned to rescue Anirban and handed him over to Calcutta rescue, an NGO, with the consent of distant relatives.

Anirban is now under treatment at the Hope Foundation Hospital in Taratala, Kolkata. On Thursday medical tests were conducted on Anirban. He also underwent counseling sessions.

Though showing signs of schizophrenia and suffering from mild memory loss, Anirban who is docile in nature, could remember details like his name, father's name, his family.

"He is responding to treatment" stated Samiran Mullick, the CEO of the Hospital talking to media persons.

Anirban even divulged that he had undergone a spinal cord surgery in Assam while working in a tea company there. Following the surgery his health had deteriorated and he had quit the job.

Anirban has had a sound educational background and had studied in reputed educational institutions. However since Anirban's father's death in 1997 the family plunged into abject poverty.

His father was a free lance photo journalist. Such was the condition that the apartment in which Anirban used to live with his mother had no electricity owing to nonpayment of bills.

Anirban was given a haircut, shave and a bath on followed by a hearty lunch on Thursday, the first in many months.

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Story first published: Friday, November 3, 2017, 10:36 [IST]
'Medicine can also be studied in Tamil medium!' - CM Stalin's efforts are getting a growing response

Mayor Priya is not the puppet but the savior - How did Chennai recover from the floods?

Memories of 2015 floods haunt Chennai as city receives 183 mm rainfall

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

Chennai, Nov 3: Chennai is living on the edge as the capital city of Tamil Nadu recorded a whopping 183 mm of rainfall between 8:30 am on Thursday and 08:30 am on Friday.

The record rainfall has brought the city to a standstill. The city is partially experiencing floods as waterlogging has been reported from several areas.

The unprecedented rainfall has caused panic among the residents as they fear a repeat of the 2015 floods in Tamil Nadu that had created havoc in the city, leading to the death of at least 150 people across the state.

In fact, schools and colleges were closed on Friday as a precautionary measure to avoid any problems to the children. The city's schools and colleges were not functioning since Tuesday due to rains.

The state government has asked the Information Technology (IT) companies to announce holiday for their employees on Friday. Along with Chennai, several coastal areas of the state have been battered by rains since Tuesday.

"Rainfall activity will continue over north coastal Tamil Nadu with heavy to very heavy rain over Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram and Chennai districts during the next 24 hours," a special bulletin issued at 8.30 am said on Friday.

According to skymetweather.com, "While there has been a break in Chennai rains during morning hours on Friday, these showers will once again make an appearance during the afternoon and evening hours. Thus, during the next 24 hours, heavy rains will occur in Chennai."

The local administration has issued an advisory to Chennai asking people to stay indoors and venture out only if it is really necessary.

"Fishermen and locals have been advised against venturing out along and off the coastal areas. People living in the low lying areas have been asked by the administration to move to safer places," added skymetweather.com.

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Story first published: Friday, November 3, 2017, 11:35 [IST]
RaGa and the Gujarat Ke Ladke

India

oi-Oneindia

By Smita Mishra

Rahul Gandhi, or for that matter, the Congress party's strategy in poll-bound Gujarat has left many people baffled. The strategy, which was confusing at its best is now looking down right contradictory.

While there is no doubt that the Nehru-Gandhi scion is devoting ample time and effort towards the campaign, his basic politics is raising too many questions now. From statements like 'the wind has changed this time' to 'even if Congress doesn't form the govt, Rahul is still a winner', the lack of confidence in the Congress Vice President's capability to ensure victory is already visible everywhere.

Of the many questions raised on the Congress strategy, the first of course is, why so much of stress on the Gujarat ke ladke, the Hardik, Jignesh, Alpesh trio? This being the first assembly poll in Gujarat after Narendra Modi moved to Delhi, it is natural that the opposition should exploit the anti-incumbency sentiment to the fullest. With complaints over demonetization and GST coming as an added bonus, it was also quite expected that Rahul's campaign would focus on these issues particularly in a state where trading has been the mainstay of the people for centuries.

If anti-incumbency of over two decades, woes of demonetisationand complaints over GST were the issues which the Congress campaign managers wanted to go to war with, it is even more baffling why the Congress leadership is going all out to woo young leaders like Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mewani who clearly stand for identity politics of their respective castes and nothing else? Ditto with Hardik Patel whose sole stress is on the interests of Patidars and nothing else. But contradiction has been an element of Rahul Gandhi's politics for last several years. From tearing up of the legislation moved by his own Prime Minister to standing solidly behind the Yadav ruling families of both Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, he has often gone ahead and done what he himself denounced.

To come back to the Gujarat equation, Hardik Patel, AlpeshThakor and Jignesh Mewani represent three distinct segments of the Gujarat society. If Hardik is the product of the aggressive Patidar movement, Alpesh may be called the by-product since he rose against the Patidar andolan to lead his OBC caste. Jignesh is the face of Dalit angst and unease who continue to face social oppression in the country at the hands of so-called 'upper castes'.

Hardik wants job guarantee through OBC reservation for the Patidar youth. His argument is that Patidars are no more the landlords they once were and landholdings have shrunk thus pushing the community to poverty. Alpesh is even newer than Hardik although belonging to a family actively involved in politics. His contention is that in no case should the OBC quota be further divided, a clear indication towards the Patidarandolan. Jignesh is up in arms against all powerful castes which include Patidars and OBCs. So how is the Congress leadership planning to balance out all these contradictory interests and still convince them to vote for the party? We do not know. That the delay in clearing the picture is owing precisely to these contradictions has already been pointed out by many. Alpesh has formally joined Congress (which he was already a part) and declared support for the party. Jignesh has extended support but keeps stressing that he will not join. Hardik has been changing his stance three times a day.

Presuming that all three come out completely in support of the Congress, how would that shore up the Congress party's fortunes in the state? That would depend largely on how much support of their respective castes do these young leaders enjoy? As of now the question remains untested. Does any of them enjoy 'the leader' status of his caste like Nitish Kumar of the Kurmis in Bihar? Do Gujaratis even vote en bloc as a caste or isn't their voting pattern governed more by commercial and trade interests? Jignesh and Alpesh have led their people in street protests but their electoral power is still open to jury. Hardik, of course, was around when the Congress did well in the rural areas in the local body polls.

Though it may be remembered that these polls were conducted when the Patidarandolan was at its peak and much water has flown since then. Hardik himself is a tad wiser after seeing the fate of the quota legislation (on economic criteria) struck down by the judiciary. Obviously the reason why he is not opening all his cards yet.

The longer these Gujarat Ke Ladke take to negotiate with the Congress, the greater the chances of their caste voters staying with the BJP.



(Smita Mishra, Adviser, Prasar Bharati)
Amid regional tensions,US bombers conduct exercise in South Korea

International

pti-PTI

Washington, November 3: Amid high regional tensions, US bombers accompanied by Japanese and South Korean warplanes flew a mission in the South Korea region, the US Air Force said.

Two supersonic B-1B Lancer bombers yesterday took off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, then flew south of South Korea and west of Japan where they were joined by Japan Air Self-Defence Force fighters, the US Pacific Air Force said in a statement.

"The Lancers then transited overland to Korea to integrate with Republic of Korea fighters in the Yellow Sea," the statement read, adding that the aircraft later returned "to their respective home stations."

The statement noted that the exercise was part of the "continuous bomber presence" mission in the Pacific and was planned in advance. It "was not in response to any current event," the statement said.

Still, the operation follows an October 10 "show of force" in which two Lancers staged the first night-time joint aviation exercises with Japan and South Korea. Regional tensions on the Korean Peninsula remain high and Pyongyang may be preparing for another missile test, South Korea's spy agency reportedly said Thursday.

North Korea in July launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles apparently capable of reaching the US mainland -- described by leader Kim Jong-Un as a gift to "American bastards." It followed up with two missiles that passed over Japan, and its sixth nuclear test.

US President Donald Trump, who has warned of "fire and fury" in response to North Korean threats, begins on Friday an Asian tour that will include a visit to South Korea.

Trump's trip is set to be dominated by the North Korea nuclear issue.

PTI
Donald Trump warns ISIS will pay 'big price' for every attack on US

International

pti-PTI

Washington, Nov 3: US President Donald Trump on Friday warned that the Islamic State will continue to "pay a big price" for every attack on the US, days after eight people were killed in the deadliest terror attack in New York since 9/11.

Trump's strong statement came after the ISIS terror group claimed that the attack on October 31 was carried out on its behalf by a domestically radicalised Uzbek immigrant to the US.

"ISIS just claimed the Degenerate Animal (sic) who killed, and so badly wounded, the wonderful people on the West Side, was 'their soldier'," Trump said in a tweet. "Based on that, the military has hit ISIS 'much harder' over the last two days. They will pay a big price for every attack on us!" Trump said before he boarded Air Force One for his maiden trip to Asia.

Trump reiterated his tough message against ISIS just before he boarded Air Force One, on his way to Hawaii the first stop of his Asia trip. "What we're doing is every time we are attacked from this point forward and it took place yesterday, we are hitting them 10 times harder," Trump said.

"So when we have an animal do an attack like he did the other day on the West Side of Manhattan, we are hitting them 10 times harder," he said. "They claim him as a 'soldier', good luck. Every time they hit us, we know it is ISIS, we hit them like you won't believe," he said.

PTI
Even if not contesting 2020 polls, Hillary Clinton will not be entirely out of scene

Hillary Clinton will be sorely missed in 2020 presidential election, says Donald Trump

Hillary Clinton says Julian Assange must 'answer for what he has done'

Donald Trump orders disclassification of documents on interference in 2016 presidential polls

Hillary Clinton retweets own tweet, she put after her 2016 defeat

Hillary,DNC violated campaign finance and money laundering laws: Trump

International

pti-PTI

Washington, November 3: Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) violated campaign finance and money laundering laws with the joint fundraising agreement they signed in 2015, President Donald Trump is alleging without evidence.

In a two-part tweet today, Trump asks, "where is our Justice Department?" Trump's accusation follows Politico's publication of an excerpt from former acting DNC Chair Donna Brazile's upcoming book.

Brazile alleges she found "proof" that the 2016 Democratic primary was rigged in Clinton's favour. Brazile writes that she believes no laws were violated.

The fundraising agreement, signed in August 2015 during the primary process, was unusual for an open seat.

Months later, Clinton's chief challenger, independent Senator Bernie Sanders, signed his own agreement with the party.

"This is real collusion and dishonesty," Donald Trump says.

PTI
Malnutrition rates soar among Rohingya children in Bangladesh: UN

International

pti-PTI

Geneva, Nov 3: Life-threatening levels of malnutrition have risen dramatically among Rohingya refugee children who have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh, the United Nations warned today.

The UN children's agency said preliminary data indicated a full 7.5 per cent of the children crammed into one of the camps in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar district were at risk of dying from severe acute malnutrition.

More than 600,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar's Rakhine state since late August during military operations that the United Nations has described as ethnic cleansing and the world's most acute refugee crisis.

Around half of them are children. "It's very worrying to see the condition of children who keep arriving," UNICEF spokesman Christophe Boulierac told reporters in Geneva after a recent trip to the camps. The agency and its partners are already treating more than 2,000 acutely malnourished children at 15 treatment centres, and are in the process of setting up six additional centres.

UNICEF said its preliminary findings were based on a nutrition assessment conducted last week of children under the age of five in 405 households in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox's Bazar. "The Rohingya children in the camp, who have survived horrors in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State and a dangerous journey here, are already caught up in a catastrophe," UNICEF Bangladesh Representative Edouard Beigbeder said in a statement. "Those with severe malnutrition are now at risk of dying from an entirely preventable and treatable cause," he warned.

Malnutrition rates among children in northern Rakhine were already above emergency thresholds before the latest crisis erupted. "The condition of these children has further deteriorated due to the long journey across the border and the conditions in the camps," the UNICEF statement said. Some 26,000 people now live in the Kutupalong camp, where they are faced with an acute shortage of food and water, unsanitary conditions and high rates of diarrhoea and respiratory infections, the agency said.

UNICEF said it was planning two additional assessments in other sites in Cox's Bazar this month, including at a makeshift settlement, to help determine if the numbers found in Kutupalong might apply to the entire area. "We need far more attention to the crisis, and far more resources for the response," Beigbeder said, stressing that "these children need help right now."

PTI
India's stand on Rohingyas gracious so far but housing them would be risky

'Rohingyas are Myanmar nationals; it's a mistake to call them Bangladeshis'

International

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

Dhaka, Nov 3: At a time when the international community, including the United States and China, has supported the stand of Bangladesh for "safe, sustainable and dignified" repatriation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, the major roadblock lies in the fact that Myanmar is yet to admit that the minority Muslim community members are its own citizens.

At least 605,000 Rohingyas have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh to avoid violence and persecution in their homeland since violence broke out on August 25.

On Thursday, Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi decided to visit violence-hit Rakhine State, where majority of Rohingyas stay, for the first time. Talks are also on between Bangladesh and Myanmar on the issue of repatriation of Rohingya refugees.

According to reports, Myanmar has agreed to take back at least 150 to 300 Rohingyas on a daily basis, provided they have valid papers.

Bangladesh Ambassador to the US Mohammad Ziauddin in an interview to VOA described the violence against the Rohingya minority as "ethnic cleansing". He said the Rohingyas are "Myanmar nationals," and it is a mistake to call them Bangladeshis.

When asked about if it is a mistake on the part of Myanmar government to call Rohingyas as Bangladeshi nationals, Ziauddin said, "Yes, of course."

Regarding the issue of Bangladesh being open to letting Rohingyas be citizens of the country, if they choose to, Ziauddin stated that "the Rohingyas are Myanmar nationals".

"It is always preferable that they should go back to their own home from where they came. This is where they built their roots so they like to go back to their roots. For that, we need to have a proper environment. And I am sure with Myanmar, we have a really good relationship.

"This, also we believe, is on the basis of this kind of relationship that we have; historically, we will be able to resolve this. I believe Myanmar is going to see sense in taking them back. And these people will definitely go back, once they get the sense of confidence of returning, once they see that the environment is very friendly now," he added.

OneIndia News
Why does China always block the ban on Maulana Masood Azhar

International

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Recommended Video

China blocks India in UN once again, refuse to declare Masood Azhar as terrorist | Oneindia News

China was at it again. It blocked declaring Maulana Masood Azhar as a terrorist in the United Nations once again. This is a set back for India which has handed out ample proof of his role in the Parliament, Pathankot attacks as well as the ruckus Azhar has been causing in Jammu and Kashmir.

OneIndia had reported on October 30 that China is all set to block the Azhar ban again.

China all set to block Masood Azhar ban again

This is not the first time that China has used its powers to block the ban. It has happened several times in the past, despite India urging China not to come in the way of declaring Azhar a global terrorist. Why does China continue to block the ban on the pretext that there is not enough proof against the Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar.

China is ill-advised:

Indian officials say that China is adamant, ill-advised and its decision to yet again block the ban mindless. This is not the first time that China has played truant when India has sought a ban on terrorists from Pakistan. While the bid to block a ban on Azhar has been done several times, similar actions have been seen in the cases of Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, Lashkar-e-Tayiba operatives Abdul Rehman Makki and Azam Cheema. China has also blocked questions on how the likes of Hafiz Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the Lashkar's top bosses have been able to access funds in Pakistan despite a UN ban.

What is the motive:

Officials explain that it is not just bi-lateral. China has called Pakistan an all weather friend, while Azhar the man himself has called China the almighty. Apart from these aspects and the fact that Azhar guards China's assets in Pakistan it is also to ensure that India does not become supreme in the region. China would not like India having its say in the UN.

China has also been instrumental in blocking India's NSG bid several times. It is a case of being supreme and throwing its clout around says an informed officer in New Delhi.

The officer says that although all nations say it openly that the war against terror is important, the fact of the matter is that all are divided in their approach. There are different equations at play. The stakes in Afghanistan are very high. Russian President Vladimir Putin in fact changed the country's long standing policy against the US in Afghanistan.

US was able to take over Afghanistan after Putin allowed the US set up base in Central Asia. China too has a major stake in Afghanistan and the recent statement by the Taliban in which it said it would not target infrastructure projects in Afghanistan is also significant. China has high stakes in Afghanistan and would not want that to be disturbed.

Any move in the UN on Azhar is likely to change China's equation with the Taliban which is considered to be close to the Jaish-e-Mohammad boss. More control in the UN for India would also tilt the balance against China. Officials explain that the reason for the block goes beyond the all weather friend or Azhar playing bouncer for Chinese investments in Pakistan theories. It is all about supremacy in the region.

OneIndia News
Has Denmark Found an Effective Treatment for Problem Gambling Through an App?

Published November 3, 2017 by Brett C

Problem gambling in Denmark may be nipped in the bud with an app. The Danish Gambling Authority (DGA) created a responsible gambling app that may provide a workable solution for a universal problem.

The Danish Gambling Authority (DGA) launched a potential breakthrough with an innovative app named MitSpil. The Danes have always operated at the forefront of online gaming technology, and they have tackled problem gambling head on. The mobile app is a player-friendly resource designed to track game time, and monitor gambling-related activity. The analysis generated by the app is geared towards providing customized reports and data related to gambling activity.

A Possible Solution for Compulsive Gamblers?

The release of a gambling app is not a novelty per se  there are many gambling apps on the market that prevent players from registering and gambling for real money. The problem is that they only work if players are prepared to take the initiative. Gambling addiction is a universal problem, but the Danes are confident that the latest app will serve as an effective preventative measure for players. Players are required to interact with MitSpil by inputting their winnings and their losses over time. This allows players to understand precisely how much they are being affected by their gambling activity.

Intuitive App for Gambling Addiction

The app instantly notifies players when their gambling activity results in a negative return. In other words, when losses exceed winnings, players will be alerted to a problem. The app was released in November 2016, when it served as an informative resource for players. At the time, players used the app to understand the negative impact of problem gambling activity on their lives. Version 2 of the app is a major upgrade and provides in-depth analysis on actual winnings and losses over time. The app contains a feature which alerts players to blank periods of data input.

MitSpil v.2 is a Possible Rare Solution to Problem Gambling

The design and structure of MitSpil v.2 is geared towards making it as easy as possible for players to input their winnings and losses during their gaming sessions. It is also designed with a user-friendly interface to attract millennials who are likely to try the services offered by this Danish gambling app. According to the National Center for Social Research in Denmark, some 10,000 Danish adults between the ages of 18  74 suffer from problem gambling. The most threatened demographic in Denmark are males between 18  39 years of age. The app goes some way towards addressing the monetary problems of gambling addiction for players. Danish gamblers are encouraged to take responsibility for their compulsive gambling habits.
From Truthdig

Co-written by *Kevin Zeese



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This week, the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which promoted giving Palestine to the Jewish people, will be celebrated in London. Around the world, there will be protests against it calling for Britain to apologize for the damage it inflicted. Students from the West Bank and Gaza will send letters to the British government describing the negative impacts that the Balfour Declaration, and the Nakba in 1948, continue to have on their lives today.

As Dan Freeman-Maloy describes, the Balfour Declaration is also relevant today because of the propaganda co-existing with it that justified white supremacy, racism and empire. British imperialists believed that democracy only applied to "civilized and conquering peoples," and that "Africans, Asians, Indigenous peoples the world over -- all were -- 'subject races,' unfit for self-government." That same racism was directed at Jewish people as well. Lord Balfour preferred to have Jewish people living in Palestine, away from Britain, where they might serve as useful British allies.

In the same time period, Bill Moyers reminds us in his interview with author James Whitman, the laws in the United States were viewed as "a model for everybody in the early 20th century who was interested in creating a race-based order or race state. America was the leader in a whole variety of realms in racist law in the first part of that century." This includes immigration laws designed to keep "undesirables" out of the US, laws creating second class citizenship for African-Americans and other people and bans on interracial marriage. Whitman has a new book documenting how Hitler used US laws as a basis for the Nazi state.

Injustice Is Legal

The US government and its laws continue to perpetuate injustice today. For example, contractors who apply for state funds to repair damage from Hurricane Harvey in Dickinson, Texas, are required to declare that they do not participate in the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanction (BDS) movement. And Maryland Governor Hogan signed an executive order this week banning any state contractors from participating in the BDS movement, after local activists defeated similar legislation for the past three years.

Participation in boycotts should be protected under the First Amendment, as the right to protest Israeli apartheid should be. But, that right may also be taken away. This week, Kenneth Marcus was made the top civil rights enforcer at the Department of Education. He runs a group called the Brandeis Center for Human Rights, which actually works to attack individuals and groups that organize against Israeli apartheid on campuses. Nora Barrows-Friedman writes that Marcus, who has been filing complaints against pro-Palestinian student groups, will now be in charge of investigating those cases.

Dima Khalidi, the head of Palestinian Legal, which works to protect pro-Palestinian activists, explains that in the United States, "talking about Palestinian rights, and challenging Israel's actions and narrative, [open] people up to a huge amount of risk, attacks, and harassment -- much of it legal in nature, or with legal implications." These attacks are happening because the BDS movement is having an impact.

This is just one obvious area of injustice. Of course there are others such as immigration policies and travel bans. And there are racist systems in the United States that are not based in law, but are enshrined in practices such as racially biased policing, slave-wage employment of prisoners and the placement of toxic industries in minority communities. The Marshall Project has a new report on racial bias in plea bargains.

War Propaganda

The media, as it did in the early 20th century, continues to manipulate public opinion to support military aggression. The NY Times and other mass, corporate media have promoted wars throughout the history of US empire. From the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in Iraq to the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam and all the way back to "Remember the Maine" in the Spanish-American War, which began the modern US Empire, the corporate media have always played a large role in leading the US into war.

Adam Johnson of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) writes about a recent New York Times Op Ed: "Corporate media have a long history of lamenting wars they themselves helped sell the American public, but it's rare so many wars and so much hypocrisy are distilled into one editorial." Johnson points out that the New York Times never questions whether wars are right or wrong, just whether they have Congressional support or not. And it promotes the "no boots on the ground" view that it is fine to bomb other countries as long as US troops are not harmed.

FAIR also points out the media's false accusation that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Meanwhile there is silence about the secret Israeli nuclear weapons program. Iran has been compliant with the International Atomic Energy Agency, while Israel has refused inspections. Eric Margolis raises the critical question of whether the Trump administration put the interests of Israel, which opposes Iran, before the interests of the US when he refused to certify the nuclear agreement with Iran.

North Korea is a country that is heavily propagandized in the US media. Eva Bartlett, a journalist who has traveled to and reported extensively about Syria, recently visited North Korea. She presents a view of the people and photographs that won't be found in commercial media, which give a more positive perspective on the country.

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From The Hill

Republicans are writing a tax bill behind closed doors, treating Congress like Russia, where only one party is allowed to govern, and planning to jam the bill to passage through a force-fed vote under a phony deadline without any pretense of detailed analysis and thoughtful debate that every American taxpayer should demand.

Do Republicans really want to repeat the procedures and results of their health-care fiascos of 2017?

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) can prevent this travesty and insist on the regular order of bipartisan governing.

Democrats will win by supporting tax cuts for hard hit Americans and opposing Marie Antoinette tax cuts offered by Republicans that benefit those who have the most, through provisions bought by special interest donors and enacted by hasty votes after shady deals made behind closed doors.

Since Marie Antoinette met her fate, the most famous words identified with her are "let them eat cake." Donald Trump is the Marie Antoinette of American politics. He tells his base to eat the cake of despising those he scurrilously attacks on his enemies lists, while he lets crony capitalists who back him feather their nests in the murky swampland of his presidency.

Trump's ratings continue to fall because even voters who trusted him -- especially white voters without college degrees -- increasingly see through his populist act and realize the crony capitalist truth that defines his presidency.

A lesser-known aspect of the Antoinette legacy is that at the time of her demise, while France endured a punishing financial crisis, she was scorned as "Madame Deficit." Citizens deeply resented her lavish and garish deficit spending while the royal court aggressively opposed social and financial reform at a time of economic unfairness, hardship and pain.

A tax bill that raises the federal deficit by more than a trillion dollars, increases taxes on many middle-class citizens by attacking popular deductions and lowers taxes on the wealthy is a Marie Antoinette tax bill. Fiscal frauds can fabricate phony revenue estimates, but history teaches that someone will ultimately pay the tab, and endure the pain, and it will ultimately be middle-income and poor Americans.

Certain Republicans propose Marie Antoinette tax increases such as attacking deductions for 401(K) retirement plans, charitable donations, mortgage interest for home purchases and state and local taxes while proposing Marie Antoinette tax cuts or loopholes that provide huge benefits for the most wealthy individuals and corporations.

Let's consider what could become the mother of all Marie Antoinette tax cuts, which would allow low tax repatriation of some $3 trillion of assets now held abroad by some of America's most profitable multinational corporations.

Such a tax cut, standing alone, would lavish an enormous reward on mega-profitable firms that hoard vast sums of money abroad to avoid paying taxes, after making vast sums of money abroad by exporting American jobs to nations where that profit now sits idly.

Let's make a deal. If that money comes home at a discounted tax rate of 14 percent it will provide a one-time surge of revenue measured in hundreds of billions of dollars. To fairly distribute the benefits of repatriation this money should be directly targeted to help poor and middle-class Americans through rebates, creating a health-care public option with low premiums, or some other mechanism.

McCain was right to call for a return of the Senate to regular order. It would be far better for America to pass a fair and carefully considered tax bill in early 2018 that is achieved through bipartisan talks, than to force-feed an unjust one-party bill on short notice without thorough consideration that could be as disastrous as GOP health care fiascos throughout 2017.

If Republicans hastily pass Marie Antoinette tax cuts in December 2017 they may be politically decapitated by unhappy voters demanding real change in November 2018.
From Truthdig

Donald Trump's primary enablers, the corporate Democrats, may be poised to blow it again in upcoming elections in Virginia on Nov. 7 and Alabama on Dec. 12.

Both races are critical to stopping the Trump onslaught, and if the Democrats don't act, the GOP could steal them. Independent election protection activists are working to reach the candidates and state parties. Their success or failure in preventing the theft of these two key elections will say much about the American future.

The Virginia governorship will be a key pivot in upcoming battles over gerrymandering. The far-right candidate, Ed Gilllespie, who now is running about even with Democrat Ralph Northam, could conspire with a GOP-controlled legislature to rig districts for the next decade.

In Alabama, a U.S. Senate victory for Roy Moore -- a former judge with a history of racism, sexism and homophobia -- would super-charge fascist theorist Steve Bannon's ongoing putsch. Polls show Moore running even with Democrat Doug Jones for Jeff Sessions' vacated seat.

In both states aggressive campaigns to disenfranchise voters of color could make the difference. The presence of easy-to-hack electronic voting machines also demand intense scrutiny from an active, engaged Democratic Party.

But the charisma-free trio of Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Tom Perez appear incapable of opposing the Trump lunacy.

A new report entitled "Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis" by media critic Norman Solomon and other progressive activists explains what killed the Democratic Party and makes clear that the corporate Democrats in the Senate, House and party prefer Trump running wild in the White House over the social democrats represented by the nation's most popular politician, Bernie Sanders.

The social democrats are the 30 million or more Americans who supported Sanders in last year's primaries. They are the sole grass-roots force preventing a total Trump fascist coup.

But the Perez-led Democratic National Committee has purged Sandernista social democrats across the board. The party machinery is now in the hands of corporatists with no connection to the grass-roots activists who were once the soul of the party and embody its only chance to get back in power.

The Clinton corporatists long ago sold the party infrastructure to Goldman Sachs. As wealthy militarists, they stripped the DNC of any meaningful connection to the aggrieved grass roots of the dying American working and middle classes. Their core commitments are far closer to those of Donald Trump than they are to Bernie Sanders. They are far more comfortable with Trump in the White House than they would be with Sanders or someone else truly committed to social democracy.

They are also more than willing to let the GOP steal elections, since the Democrats have effectively won every presidential election since 1992.

But in 2000, Al Gore let Florida Gov. Jeb Bush steal the presidency for his brother George W. In an election allegedly decided by 537 votes, Gov. Bush stripped more than 90,000 primarily black and Hispanic voters from the registration rolls. He then flipped some 20,000 digital ballots from electronic machines in Volusia, Fla., and other counties at critical moments in the election night vote count.

Gore did seek a recount in four counties. But when the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to stop it, he conceded. Gore won the nationwide popular vote by more than half a million. He eventually won a recount in Florida. But despite his hundreds of millions in personal wealth, he's never done anything to fight the corruption of our electoral system. Instead he's joined the corporate chorus blaming Ralph Nader for daring to run a campaign that had zero impact on Gov. Bush's theft of the 2000 election.

In Ohio in 2004 John Kerry was the rightful winner of an election stripped and flipped by Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who now sits on Trump's Jim Crow Presidential Commission on Election Integrity to institutionalize election theft on a nationwide basis. Despite his personal millions, Kerry has never lifted a finger to make sure such a theft never happens again.

With Barack Obama, the grass roots rose up to put him in the White House. But the party shunned them once in office, and sat silent while the GOP took a thousand federal, state and local offices, many of them through illegal registration stripping and electronic vote flipping.

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Israeli commanders, stationed along Syria's southern border and the Golan Heights and Quneitra Valley, with some of their forces now operating daily more than 14 km inside Syrian territory, reportedly are expressing plenty of confidence these days. One reason is because they believe that Iranian-Hezbollah forces are losing the high stakes struggle to win the hearts and minds of Syria's and Lebanon's civilian population. A conflict referred to by Israel and others in the region as the "war between the wars." A contest which has undergone some dramatic changes in recent months. The idea of the war between the wars involves Tel Aviv's calculation that Israel needs to operate, far beyond Israel's borders if necessary, to contain Iran and Hezbollah. And as tensions escalate across the border, the IDF is trying to win over some of its Syrian civilian population enemies.

One key positive element in the proposition was reiterated last week by members of the US Congressional Israeli lobby explaining that Israel is now able to stop virtually all of Iran's arms shipments to Hezbollah in Lebanon. And additionally that Israel's military knows the location of hundreds of small sized Hezbollah military/weapon bases across Lebanon and monitor them hourly. At least 122 attacks on Iran-Hezbollah convoys or weapon depots over the past few years being mainly small signature, late-night-early morning bombings are claimed to be major successes. Lobby spokespersons claim that Israel will continue this measure with likely impunity because serious retaliation from Hezbollah or its allies would mean major escalation which Tehran cannot risk.

In addition to claiming that Iran and Hezbollah are now largely contained in Syria, Israeli officials apparently now believe that time is on Israel's side during a cold war but not during a hot one. This, as the war in Syria continues to kill evermore Iranian and Hezbollah fighters creating political problems for both among their population bases.

Israel, as part of the cold war is also expanding its recruitment of additional intelligence sources. The alleged intensive recruitment is focusing on Hezbollah neighborhoods across Lebanon as many in the formerly supportive population continue losing faith in the "Resistance" and succumbed to large sums of cash-no questions asked- being offered by Washington and Tel Aviv. Israel is also recruiting among Syrians, particularly in South and North Syria and recently has taken to revealing ID's and personal information of Hezbollah and Iranian commanders that earlier would not be disclosed. One example is last week the IDF "outed" Munir Ali Naim Shati, (known in this observers Dahiyeh neighborhood of Haret Hreik as Hajj Hashem) the head of Hezbollah's southern command in Syria. Mr. Shati is in charge of Hezbollah's 3000-plus fighters in southern Syria and of the "Resistance" project to establish a military base near the Israeli border in the Golan Heights. Several Iranians IRCG officers as well as Hezbollah's Jihad Mughniyeh (son of Imad, Hezbollah's military commander killed in Damascus in 2008 by a joint CIA-Mossad operation) and Samir Kuntar were killed in 2015 allegedly by Israeli air strikes. Some claim both were killed by friendly forces for political reasons. Some hold Iran's Al Quds force of responsibility for the killings in order to send a message to Hezbollah's leadership about towing the Tehran line more assiduously. Another claimed victim of the same Tehran-Dahiyeh tension was Mustafa Badreddine, whose role was being in charge of Hezbollah forces since the beginning of the rebellion on 2011 when Hezbollah quickly entered Syria. He was allegedly killed in May of 2016 on orders of Iran's IRGC commander Qassim Soleimani. Badreddine reportedly complained that Al Quds commander Qassim Soleimani, a political rival of Nasrallah's, was sending Hezbollah fighters needlessly to their death in Aleppo's front to spare risks to Tehran's IRGC fighters.

Some of Hezbollah's recent actions involving its erstwhile unquestioning Shia supporters in Lebanon have also encouraged Tel Aviv in 'the war between the wars.' One example was documented on 10/23/2017 when Lebanese police, green lighted by Hezbollah, raided unlicensed street vendors near the main headquarters of Hezbollah, resulting in vitriolic expressions of discontent targeting the Party of God. Lebanon's politicized Internal Security Forces (ISF) supportive of Hezbollah, was instructed to use bulldozers to demolish stores in the Hay al-Sollom neighborhood, where the residents for years have sold coffee and mobile phones. In reaction to the destruction of their livelihoods, scores of mainly Shia residents poured into the streets and began burning tires and blocking roads. Several of the protesters were shown on Lebanese media cursing not the Lebanese government, but rather condemning Hezbollah and its leader Hassan Nasrallah, who they blamed for the loss of their livelihoods and involvement in Syria's civil war. One woman addressed Nasrallah directly after she discovered her shop -- her family's only source of income -- a pile of rubble: "We all provided martyrs for you in Syria. I have three injured sons. And this is how you're treating us?" Another man yelled at the camera, "Syria can go to hell, along with Hassan Nasrallah!"

One veteran Lebanese journalist, Hanin Ghabber explained recently: "It is no coincidence that this exceptional act of revolt occurred in one of Dahiya's poorest neighborhoods. As much as the Syria war has changed Hezbollah militarily and expanded its regional role, it has also changed the Lebanese Shia community and its perceptions of the group. Class divisions in Dahiya are more drastic than ever -- the poor neighborhoods are providing fighters while the upper middle class and rich neighborhoods are benefiting from the war. "

Several Lebanese analysts argue that Hezbollah is paying the price for getting involved in Syria on orders from Tehran. And part of that price is its lost image as a "Resistance" organization as well as costing the lives of thousands of young Shia men. And since Hezbollah became focused on fighting in Syria, it could no longer offer law and order given the growing number of the drug cartels, petty criminals, and illegal construction and growing lawlessness. Shia street clashes are increasing in Dahiya and criticisms of Hezbollah are escalating. Lebanese Shia seek a reasonable livelihood and basic services and have little interest in Hezbollah's battle against so-called "Takfires" in Syria.

Israel's accelerating "Hearts and Minds" initiatives in South Syria are also undermining support for Hezbollah and Iran. In early 2013, seven injured Syrians appeared at the border fence separating Syria from Israel, pleading for help. Israeli forces, after deliberations that reportedly reached some top military and government officials decided to treat the Syrians who reportedly would have died without immediate emergency medical care.

Four years later, the IDF claims it is providing medical and food assistance and various types of humanitarian aid to thousands of Syrians both inside Syria and within Israel as part of what it calls its "Good Neighbor" policy. An Israeli official defines this initiative as intended to assist desperate Syrians ravaged by years of civil war, and in the process stabilize the border region by showing Syria's heretofore enemy population that Israel is not, in fact, the devil. Reportedly, no ID's are asked for by Syrian's arriving at the border and medical teams are advised not to inquire about patients political affiliations.

The destitute population in South Syria, some rebels and some supporters of the government, as well as increasing numbers who claim to be apolitical, plus countless thousands of internally displaced Syrians, are learning of Israel's "Good Neighbor" policy. Consequently, the number seeking and receiving aid is growing. One reason is the failure over the past seven years of the International Community to deliver humanitarian aid including food, water, clothing, and medical aid to Syria's besieged civilian population.

Whether this is a significant advantage for Israel in its still cold war against Iran and Hezbollah remains to be seen but it is unlikely to be a game changer given the deepening involvement in Syria of regional and global powers. As well as the fact that all sides continue to largely ignore the Syrian civilian population unless a clear political advantage is likely to result.


Israel's ancestors are many

(Image by Gilad Atzmon) Details DMCA



Rabkin delves deep into the Russian Yiddish roots of Israel and brings together many startling facts that suggest there was a much better option for Palestine and the Jews, one that was scuttled by secular Jewish fanatics inspired by their experiences before and after the Russian revolution. What is Modern Israel is packed with fascinating quotes and historical tidbits. Some of Rabkin's insights from his book and a lively podcast interview.



*He decries the use of 'holocaust' in depicting the tragedy of WWII, as it is a religious symbol, and the deaths were hardly a burnt offering to some god. Rabkin uses 'genocide'. He also insists that it is not the "Jewish lobby" and "Jewish state", but the Zionist lobby/state, as most Jews are not Zionists, certainly not approving of Israel's bombings, invasions, and illegal settlements. The lesson of the genocide for Zionists was 'be strong and kill and hound suspected antisemites.' For Rabkin, it is the opposite: a rejection of Zionism and Israel as a Jewish state.



*Israel is a stark example of demodernization, something that is happening around the world in different ways, as a reaction to the weakness of secular multiculturalism. Marshall McLuhan just uses 'tribal' to describe the larger 'global village' return to 'oral' cultures, which as in preliterate society, were tribal "politically engaged, emotionally charged, tightly woven".** But demodernization is effective to juxtapose the wildly modern nature of Israel as a opposed to what I call postmodern states in the current geopolitical order. It still has an independent foreign policy, like the US, and unlike Canada and Europe. Combine this 20th-century Jewish racist form of premodern tribalism with high tech, and you have a recipe for disaster.



Russian-Soviet connection





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After 9 plus months in office, Donald Trump has accomplished little. He's very unpopular and has failed to fulfill his major campaign promises, Major Republican donors are withdrawing funding. In response, Trump has embarked on a desperate campaign to cut taxes. Even though Republicans control Congress, tax reform faces an uphill battle.

According to the political website 538 (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/) Trump's popularity has remained stable for five months; it's currently at 56.4 percent disapprove and 38 percent approve. Nonetheless, Trump's base is sticking with him; the latest Gallup Poll indicates that 78 percent of Republicans approve of Trump.

Trump's poor performance has affected the Republican Party. In the aftermath of the GOP's latest failure to "repeal and replace" Obamacare, GOP fundraising has tanked (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/us/politics/republican-donors-obamacare-repeal.html?_r=0)

In a desperate effort to assuage the biggest Republican donors, Trump and the GOP congressional leadership have embarked on a tax-reform initiative that promises big tax cuts for corporations and billionaires. (Senator Elizabeth Warren says that, over ten years, Trump's plan will add $2 trillion to the deficit.) Given the composition of the Republican base, it's not a sure thing that the GOP tax-reform initiative will succeed.

Recently Pew Research (click here) updated their landmark study of American political behavior. Pew Research divides Republican voters into four segments: Core Conservatives, Country First Conservatives , Market Skeptics, and New Era Enterprisers; for a total of 42 percent of the electorate. To push tax reform through Congress, Trump needs to unite these four segments.

Trump's problem is that he has made different promises to each group. Core Conservatives (13 percent ) are deeply skeptical of the social safety net and favor lower tax rates on corporations and high-income individuals. This is the most politically active of the four Republican groups and is primarily composed of non-Hispanic white men.

The key Core Conservative issue is tax reform. Representative GOP Core Conservative politicians are Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Most of the support for Trump's tax reform initiative will come from Core Conservatives.

Country First Conservatives (6 percent) are older and less educated than other Republican-leaning typology groups. They are predominantly white non-Hispanic and and, of the four groups, the staunchest supporters of President Trump.

Pew Research says the key Country-First Conservative issue is immigration. Pew notes that no (zero) Country-First Conservatives agreed with this poll statement: "Immigrants today strengthen our country because of their hard work and talents." "Nearly two-thirds of Country First Conservatives... say that 'if America is too open to people from all over the world, we risk losing our identity as a nation.'"

Country-First Conservatives have vastly different attitudes about corporate taxes than do Core Conservatives; only 35 percent of Country-First Conservatives want to see business taxes lowered. (Representative Country-First Conservatives are Iowa Congressman Steve King and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.)

Pew Research doesn't assign a distinct category to Conservative Evangelical Christians. Members of this group -- which overwhelmingly supports Trump -- are split between Core Conservatives and Country-First Conservatives. According to Pew Research, "68% of Country First Conservatives... say that it's necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values." 44 percent of Core Conservative share this sentiment.

Identification as a conservative evangelical is an important consideration because the most important issue for this group is not tax reform but rather the set of issues that evangelicals lump under "religious liberty." (When conservative evangelicals talk of "religious liberty" they usually mean the freedom to discriminate against a particular group -- gays, blacks, immigrants, whomever -- on the basis of a fervent religious belief.)

Market Skeptics (12 percent) stand out from other Republican-oriented groups in their negative views of the economic system: "An overwhelming majority say it 'unfairly favors powerful interests.' Most also say businesses make too much profit, and they are the most likely Republican-leaning group to want to raise taxes on corporations (55%)." This is the Republican group least inclined to support tax cuts for corporations and billionaires.

The key issue for Market Skeptics is reduction in the size of government. Many would call them Libertarians; Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is a representative member of this group.

New Era Enterprisers (11 percent) are a catchall GOP category. They are younger and less socially conservative than the other groups. "While they are not affluent, a large majority (72%) say they are generally satisfied with their financial situation." Interestingly, this is Republican group least approving of Trump's conduct in office: 39 percent view it negatively and 38 percent have mixed feelings.

After Core Conservatives, New Era Enterprisers are most likely to support tax reform. They believe the economic system is fair and have a positive view of corporations.

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Did you ever stop to think that our challenges with healthcare, education, immigration, debt, and the environment go on and on? The reasons for this are many but primarily persist because of our leaders' approach to these challenges. We need less spin, groupthink, pandering, intransigence, and dysfunction, and more truth, collegiality, and synergy, and we as a people, need to shun the former and elevate the latter.



TOWARD TRUTH, FREEDOM, FITNESS, AND DECENCY

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Without science, technology, and study we experience things on a very limited scale--a few years, 1/100 of an inch, a few miles, and only as they directly affect us. With science, technology, and study, we see galaxies, solar systems, microscopic life, molecules, atoms, secondary effects, and how things affect others.

Perceiving what is true is also difficult because people do not communicate truthfully. We all want to have others see us in a positive light. We all mask our interests and create narratives, telling others what we want them to hear and what we think they want to hear.

We also see things as it advantages us to see them. If an approach to education, healthcare, immigration, the environment, tax rates, or debt benefits our professional group, political party, and/or ourselves, then we favor it regardless of its functionality and long-term effects on others.

And evolution has wired us not only to pursue self-interest but also to absorb our groups' thinking. Groupthink creates social cohesion and aids survival, but it also clouds our perception of truth and what works best. No matter with which groups we affiliate--Conservative, Republican, Democrat, Caucasian, Hispanic, African American, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or other--we generally see our challenges and the world as those in our group see them. We recognize groupthink as outsiders but not as insiders.

To discern truth, our initial perception is only the beginning. We must ponder our perceptions, utilize science, obtain additional perspectives via reading and traveling, verify what others tell us, and consider competing points of view. Perceptions supported by more and more evidence over time make them iteratively more accurate, us more intelligent, and our solutions more effective.

Growing up in rural Central New York, God, church, country, community, family, education, and work represented most of what was important. Those who protested Vietnam, wanted to expand social programs, and wanted to protect the environment were not appreciated. This was the early groupthink that I absorbed.

Then, I went half way across the country to Purdue University, traveled to 24 countries, lived in Communist Poland, immersed myself in science, married a woman from Poland, and did graduate work at Cornell University. And all a sudden, life and the world were less simple. My family and friends spanned the country, world, and ideological spectrums. There were two sides to Vietnam; women, minorities, and other people throughout the world did not have the opportunities that I had; and we were doing immense damage to our planet. My perspectives and the perceptual inconsistencies they precipitated increased exponentially during this time. And ever since, I have eagerly sought new perspectives, pondered them, and worked to resolve any inconsistencies.

By nature and nurture, I am independent and skeptical--suspicious of my own and others' perceptions, spin, self-interest bias, and groupthink. I realize that everyone can make important contributions to our well-being, and as we involve people with different perspectives in our organizations, they function better. Most interests are represented. Progressives identify potentially advantageous changes and push for their implementation. Conservatives defend the status quo and identify the adverse effects of changes. Moderates, at their best, pilot the proposed changes, examine their effects, mitigate any negative effects, and support the changes that prove advantageous. Like the defense, judge, and prosecutor in a criminal trial, those in each group should perform their roles in a respectful and orderly manner.

Our leaders', news media's, and our own spin, groupthink, pandering, and intransigence are not healthy. Having predominately conservatives in our rural areas, religious institutions, and two major news sources, and predominately progressives in our cities, educational institutions, and most other major new sources is not healthy. We obtain better--fairer, more effective, and more widely supported--outcomes when we expose ourselves to competing points of view, populate our organizations and communities with people representative of all walks of life and political views, appreciate one another, and work together.
On October 26, a spectacle was performed in the Tel-Aviv District Court, which was perceived by many as a court hearing, where Judge Abraham Heiman ordered the extreme and unusual, ongoing detention of bloggers Lori Shem-Tov and Moti Leybel for the duration of their criminal prosecution. Now, indisputable evidence has emerged, showing that Judge Heiman engaged in fraud upon the court, and the Israel Prison Service is holding the bloggers in custody with no lawful foundation - arbitrary arrest. Conditions in the Israeli courts are clear and present danger to Liberty and Human Rights.



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Figures. Political prisoners Lori Shem-Tov and Moti Leybel, Judge Abraham Heiman

__________



Tel-Aviv, October 29 - on October 26, an unusual hearing was purportedly conducted in the Tel-Aviv District Court for reviewing the ongoing detention of the defendants in the Bloggers and Vengeful Judges affair. In such hearing, conducted in open court, in the presence of the defendants and their counsel, Judge Abraham Heiman purportedly rendered an unprecedented decision, ordering the bloggers' continued detention for the duration of their prosecution. Arguing for their release to house arrest, defense counsel had cited in a previous hearing a long list of murder and organized-crime cases, where defendants were released to house arrest. The prosecution had argued that the bloggers were unusually dangerous. Among the arguments: "Negative feelings regarding the authorities", "they are active in the social sphere, and influence others", "they have followers, who show up for court hearings, believe that the Defendants are innocent, and that their long detention is abusive".

At the end of the October 26 spectacle in the Tel-Aviv District Court, the defendants were taken back to jail by the Israel Prison Service, purportedly based on Judge Abraham Heiman's decision. [i]

Lori Shem-Tov and Moti Leybel are activists, who protested against corruption of the family courts in general, and in particular against the taking of children from their biological parents - mostly, poor parents). The issue of taking children from their parents has plagued Israel for its entire history. First -- as stealing children by the authorities, and more recently -- under the guise of court actions. [ii]

The Israeli authorities consider Shem-Tov and Leybel "internet terror ring". Both have been detained by now for 8 months - since late February 2017.

Lori Shem Tov and Moti Leybel are in fact political prisoners in Israel. [iii]

The case also raises questions regarding US DHS involvement in the repression of social protest in Israel, a matter that is likely to become a key issue in this case, based on publications, which were maintained by US-based Wordpress. [iv]



An epidemic of fraud in the courts

But was the October 26 truly a court hearing, pursuant to the law of the State of Israel? Or was it only an "informal, off-the-record hearing"? And was a lawful decision ever rendered regarding the bloggers' ongoing detention? Or are they perhaps held under arbitrary, unlawful arrest by the Israel Prison Service?

Such questions are not typically raised by the public, which trusts what they see in court to be a true court hearing. However, in Israel, since the 2010 transition to electronic court-file management and implementation of Net-HaMishpat case-management system an epidemic of fraud by judges has erupted.

Such circumstances have been documented in academic papers, which were presented and published, subject to peer-review in international e-government conferences. [v]

The best detailed case of such fraud upon the court is the Judge Varda Alshech "Fabricated Protocols" scandal (2011-2013). Alshech generated falsified court-hearing protocols and ordered their use to initiate a retaliatory semi-criminal process against an attorney, who appeared before her.

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Many Leaders Make Hate Acceptable







from higher perspective

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Hate is spreading like an oil stain over the Earth. Hate is even further encouraged by populists who purport to speak in the name of the people. Populist politicians try to obtain the support of the electorate by all means without worrying about the viability of their proposals. They invariably rage against the 'elite'.









Ever since Trump took office, the number of reports of racist violence, murder and death in the US has increased exponentially. There is a "rising tide of violent crime", according to figures from the FBI, with Las Vegas and Charlottesville as recent examples. More and more people feel that their radical ideas are legitimized by Trump.





The number of hate crimes in England and Wales has increased by 29%, according to home office statistics. While racial hatred lies behind most of the crimes, there has been an increase in all forms of hate crime -- abuse and attacks aimed at people with disabilities have increased by more than 50%. .bbc.com/news/uk-41648865





In many European countries, a climate of intolerance prevails and continues to grow. This is partly due to the rise of Muslim fundamentalists and neo-Nazism in Europe, which has caused a significant increase in anti-Semitic violence, but also in general xenophobia and other forms of hatred, mostly aimed against minorities.





Democracy under pressure





In Turkey, democracy has now left the streets of Istanbul, leaving little more than a shadow of its former self. Human rights activists are being prosecuted. In an ongoing case against Amnesty International, the human rights organization was labeled a 'terrorist organization'. Ridiculous, of course. Erdogan used to do a lot of good things for Turkey, and he has certainly modernized his country and made it economically strong, but that time is long gone. For a full report: .amnesty.nl/landen/turkije





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From Reader Supported News



Relatives and citizens demand justice for Alex Villamayor

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Millions of Americans travel overseas every year, whether it's across the border to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, Cancun, or to more exotic locales. But nobody expects to die violently while abroad, and especially not a 16-year-old.

That's what happened to Alex Villamayor.

Villamayor was an American citizen living with his parents in Paraguay. As the summer wound down, he made plans to begin his freshman year of college in Maryland. But first, he accepted an invitation to spend a weekend at the family ranch of a teenage friend in Paraguay.

That weekend ended with Villamayor dead of a gunshot wound to the head.

Paraguayan authorities were quick to rule the death a suicide. But this didn't make any sense. There was no gun residue on Villamayor's hand, and the gun was placed in such a way that it would have been nearly impossible for him to have fired the shot.

Moreover, Alex was a happy kid -- an honors student -- with a supportive family. As far as the people closest to him could tell, he was going places in life and seemed excited about the future.

The Villamayor family did what every family is supposed to do in a terrible situation like this: They immediately contacted the American embassy and the FBI for assistance. They asked embassy officers there to press for a proper investigation. But the Paraguayan authorities had already botched the case.

Under intense pressure from the Villamayors, the case was reinvestigated and the cause of death was changed to homicide. But the area where Alex died wasn't sealed off. Witnesses weren't interviewed. And the classmate who'd invited Alex to the ranch fled the country and is now incarcerated.

Meanwhile, the US embassy said it would "monitor the situation." I've worked in American embassies around the world, so let me tell you what that means: it means that they don't intend to do anything.

Indeed, all the embassy did was send a diplomatic note to the Paraguayan government asking for "clarification" of the investigation.

The family then contacted their elected officials. And this is where Donald Trump ought to come in. He's made a mantra of putting "America First." Now is the time to do exactly that, even if the Villamayors' other elected representatives won't.

After Alex's aunt, Kim Luk, contacted her senators for their help, Maryland senator Ben Cardin and former senator Barbara Mikulski wrote back saying that the embassy was "working with the family" on the case, apparently not even realizing that it was the family who had contacted them in the first place.

Cardin's staff had the gall to send a follow-up letter saying that they'd "spearheaded a call to the embassy." Mikulski's office didn't even pretend to be interested in the case. She was retiring.

To his credit, then-representative Chris Van Hollen, who replaced Mikulski in the Senate in January 2017, has taken up the case and has pressed the State Department for action. But that begs the question: Where's the State Department in all this?

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Having no inside information, and after having done virtually no research on the matter, I have a theory as to why Kevin Spacey's career is being utterly destroyed. Personally, I've never really liked Spacey. He's always struck me as an arrogant, egotistical so and so. But there is no denying that he is a transcendentally gifted actor, and with "House of Cards", he became a bona fide cultural force.

I don't want to get into a critical examination, or even a review of the sum and substance of "House of Cards". But it was perhaps the most bold and uncompromising portrayal of the American political system in history (at least that ever made it to US TV screens).

It was also perhaps the most controversial. The fact that's its logo was an upside down American flag, I think alone speaks volumes. I often sat there stunned watching as I wondered how they were even allowed to broadcast this, let alone the fact that it was so popular.

Well, perhaps I wasn't the only one out there so perplexed.

I began wondering what was going on after a gap of several months emerged between the 5th and 6th season on "House of Cards". Season 6 should have been ready to go early in 2017. But as late as September, there still seemed to be no announcement. Then, just a few weeks ago, we learned that finally the 6th season was about to go into production.

For me, this unexplained delay was somewhat fishy in itself. But when, almost immediately after the "go", some report came out about a boy of 16 (now he is said to have been 14 at the time) being allegedly (Spacey says he must have been drunk because he has no memory of it ) harassed by Spacey in 1986, comes to light. It was then announced that the 6th season of "House of Cards" will be the last. Then, production on the show became "suspended" indefinitely. And, now, with other reports of Spacey's "toxic behavior", "House of Cards" has been cancelled altogether.

As I said, I've never been a fan of Spacey the man. And, I'm not suggesting that any of the accusations are untrue. They may be. But what has me "concerned" is that the initial accusation was said to have been over 30 years ago, and it didn't even involve any physical contact.

This of course certainly doesn't excuse any of the accusations if they are true. But they are not the main point of this post.

The timing and nature of the first accusation just seems very questionable to me, particularly following so quickly on the heels of the announcement regarding the start of production of season 6 of "House of Cards", after an unexplained postponement of several months.

Even Bill Clinton, who plays poker with Spacey, once told him that (aside from the murders) "House of Cards was a pretty accurate depiction of how Washington works. I just suspect that the Powers that Be had a problem with that, and that Spacey just wasn't playing ball, as I suspect Spacey wouldn't.
Americans who work for social justice regard Trump as their enemy. He tramples treaties and governs by insults. But he is the honest face of a machine that has for decades sent jobs overseas, foreclosed homes, sent troops to war, militarized the police, corrupted elections, polluted the land, punished the poor, enriched the rich.

Every prior president has served this machine. We believed LBJ would destroy our generation. We thought Nixon was the scariest thug in the basement. We thought Ford was a clumsy stooge. We feared Reagan would explode the world. We thought the Bushes aggressively dumb. Even Clinton and Obama yielded to bankers and bombers.

All presidents have allowed the machine to become larger. Now it is so large that it can smash the middle class during the next market crash. Therefore, politics will probably become even cruder after Trump, as the middle class becomes angrier. That's how Hitler rose.

There is no easy fix. Electing excellent people is not good enough. Once elected they are surrounded by greed. Demonstrations and petitions are not good enough. They're easily ignored. And Hope is just another word for helpless.

Completely reversing dangerous trends, to build a stable economy based on ecology and justice, requires us to rebuild our nation, our cities, our own lives, starting where we live. New infrastructure will reduce fossil fuel use to a fraction. This gigantic task will fully employ the next ten generations.

At the same time, the middle class can rebuild itself as a powerful and generous Mutual Class. The Mutual Class gets ahead by getting together. We protect our homes and happiness without attacking the poor, by creating housing co-ops on land trusts, by starting health co-ops, starting solar co-ops and insulation co-ops, by expanding urban agriculture, establishing free universities that teach neighborhood management, moving our money into credit unions that support the above, and even printing our own community currencies.

These practical local and regional models reclaim direct control of land, law, and money, for people who are eager to fix problems rather than gripe. As they merge nationally they will pull authority toward sanity again.
From Alon Ben-Meir Website

The Iraqi Kurds' referendum that was conducted several weeks ago won an overwhelming majority in favor of independence, but was rejected by much of the international community, especially by the US and the Iraqi government. Self-determination, however, is unstoppable because it is a core of human rights. No power can indefinitely prevent any group from eventually realizing its national aspirations, regardless of how difficult it might be and how long it takes.

The Kurdish resolve, along with many other ethnic and cultural groups, to achieve political independence must be seen both in the context of their decades-old aspirations for self-determination and the arbitrary borders that were drawn regardless of ethnicity, history, culture, and religious affiliations, largely by the victorious powers in the wake of World War II.

Moreover, although globalization has brought nations closer to one another, it has at the same time kindled the need to preserve the cultural and historical uniqueness of many ethnic nationalities who are fearful of losing the national identity they cherish, which distinguishes them from other sects and ethnicities.

The international community, led by major powers including the US and the EU, has thus far failed to accept the inevitability that many ethnic groups will persist in the fight for their right to independence. Denying them that right can only lead to violent conflicts and regional instability.

Since the end of World War II, the birth of new nation-states has nearly quadrupled. When the United Nations was created in 1945, there were only 51 independent countries who became member states of the UN, which has grown to 193 countries at the present. In addition, there are three other nation-states who have different designations. The Holy See and Palestine are UN observer states, and though Kosovo is not recognized by the UN, it is recognized by over 100 member states.

Since 1990, 34 new countries have been established (14 of them directly resulting from the dissolution of the USSR in 1991). I venture to say that given the growing number of ethnic groups who are sworn to achieve self-determination, an additional 10-15 new countries will declare independence by the year 2030.

Self-determination is becoming an ever more potent national quest born out of the need to be free, as an increasing number of ethnic groups find themselves with no hope for a better future while being denied the right to live their lives as they see fit. As the late President Reagan observed, "freedom is one of the deepest and noblest aspirations of the human spirit. People, worldwide, hunger for the right of self-determination, for those inalienable rights that make for human dignity and progress."

There are many groups that seek self-determination that have gone further than the Kurdish Iraqis have, such as Catalonia which has already declared independence, and many others who are in various stages in their march toward self-rule.

Catalonia has been fighting for independence from Spain since the mid-17th century, motivated by their culture and history. Their modern wave of separatism has intensified since the death of dictator Francisco Franco and the adoption of a new Spanish constitution in 1978 acknowledging a right to autonomy.

The Palestinians have been seeking independence for more than seven decades, and will remain relentless until they realize their national aspirations. In this particular case, the international community is fully supportive of the Palestinians' quest and will undoubtedly continue to push for that end, regardless of Israel's strong objections.

Kosovo was the center of the medieval Serbian Empire. From the mid-15th century to the early 20th century, it was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. Subsequently it was incorporated into Serbia, and ethnic tensions flared up between the predominantly Muslim ethnic Albanians and the largely Eastern Orthodox Serbs in Kosovo. This development led to a war in 1998-1999 between Kosovo and the Republic of Serbia, which exacted among the Albanian population a death toll of 11,000 and created 1.5 million refugees.

There are many other ethnic groups who have for centuries been part and parcel of their country of residence and have now been awakened anew, demanding to exercise their right to independence.

Scotland joined the UK in 1707 under the pretenses of economic prosperity. Minor and major rebellions dotted the period from the union, but did not receive much traction until legislative movements for "home rule" began in the 1880s. Over the years, the movement turned into one for independence, which has been met most recently with a failed referendum for independence in 2014. Another vote is likely to occur once the terms of Brexit are formalized, demonstrating that even after 300 years, national aspirations are still alive and well.

Quebec's independence from Canada has been debated seriously since the late 1960s on account of linguistic and cultural differences. There were referendums in 1980 and 1995, and the Clarity Act (recognizing a vote by any province to leave Canada) was passed in 2000. Although recently the sovereignty movement has splintered, the sentiment for independence continues to resonate.

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From The Guardian

The spying provision that allows warrantless access to our emails is being debated in Congress. We must all urge our representatives to oppose it

Lost amid the constant headlines about hearings on social media companies and Russia, is that Congress is having the most important debate on privacy rights in years.

While it's an uphill battle, if enough pressure is put on representatives in the coming months, there is a real chance some of the most controversial NSA surveillance powers exposed by Edward Snowden could be substantially restricted.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) -- the controversial spying provision that allows the NSA to spy on hundreds of thousands of foreign individuals and warrantless access to Americans' emails -- expires at the end of the year. The Trump administration and intelligence agencies are lobbying for the law to be permanently reauthorized, but a bipartisan coalition of congressmen are pushing for important reforms.

Section 702 is the law that's behind the Prism program first revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013. At its essence, the law authorizes two types of broad spying powers: "downstream" surveillance, where the secret FISA court approves surveillance orders on broad categories of people overseas who may be talking to Americans, which the NSA can access at a lower standard than a traditional probable cause warrant. And "upstream surveillance," where the government uses its covert access to internet backbone and scans large amounts of email and web traffic that goes into and out of the United States.

How many Americans are affected by the law? We literally have no idea -- because the government refuses to disclose it. But we do know it's likely unconstitutional. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have been challenging the constitutionality of the law for years, but so far the government has thrown up so many procedural and catch-22 secrecy hurdles, there's never been a definitive ruling on the law.

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From Counterpunch

Israeli footprints are becoming more apparent in the US security apparatus. Such a fact does not bode well for ordinary Americans.

US Senate Bill S.720 should have been a wake-up call. The Bill, drafted by the Israel lobby group, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), as part of its "2017 Lobbying Agenda" is set to punish any individual or company that boycotts Israel for its violation of Palestinian human rights.

The severe punishment could reach a million dollars in fines, and up to 20 years in jail. Although political boycott has been sanctioned by the US Supreme Court, the Congress wants to make a boycott of Israel the exception, even it means the subversion of US democracy.

Still, protests are largely muted. The mainstream US media is yet to take US lawmakers to task, as hundreds of those elected representatives have already endorsed the unacceptable initiative.

Criticizing Israel is still a taboo in the US, where the Congress is beholden to lobby pressures and kickbacks, and where the media's script on the illegal Israeli military occupation of Palestine is even less critical than Israel's own media.

However, the infiltration of the US government is not new. It is only becoming more emboldened, due to the absence of enough critical voices that are capable of creating a semblance of balance or a serious debate on the issue.

For years, ordinary US citizens have been far-removed from the entire discussion on Israel and Palestine. The subject felt alien, marred by Hollywood propaganda, religious misconception and the lack of any understanding of history.

But in recent years, Israel has become an integral part of American life, even if most people do not spot the Israeli influence.

"In the aftermath of 9/11, Israel seized on its decades-long experience as an occupying force to brand itself as a world leader in counter-terrorism," reported Alice Speri in the Intercept.

The successful branding has earned Israeli security firms billions of dollars. The massive payouts are the result of the exploitation of American fear of terrorism, while presenting Israel as a successful model of fighting terror.

In the last two decades, hundreds of top federal agents and thousands of police officers have, thus far, received training in Israel or through seminars and workshops organized on Israel's behalf.

Groups like AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs are, to various degrees, involved in turning the US police force into militarized units similar to the structure of the Israeli police.

As an occupying power, Israel has blurred the lines between the police and the army. In areas like occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem, both apparatus behave in a similar pattern. They "shoot to kill" as a result of the slightest provocation or suspicion. Sometimes, for no reason at all.

Alex Vitale, an author and a Brooklyn College professor of sociology, described the nature of the regular trips made by federal agents and police officers to Israel.

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Tilel street, Aleppo before it was destroyed by the US 'coalition'.

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The six-year illegal war of US aggression in Syria caused significant damage to the country and people of Syria. The Syrians that have lived through this horror are unlikely to ever fully recover from the horror they've experienced, and it is they that have had to bear the brunt of the devastating consequences of the US led war of aggression. There is no longer any question of who has been largely responsible for the chaos and suffering of innocent civilians?

In an interview with Reuters, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said that the United States, Britain and other countries opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad wouldn't support the reconstruction of the Syria until there was a political transition "away from Assad".

Acting US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Satterfield confirmed that Syrians would not be able to rely on any assistance to rebuild their country unless there is a change of government. The American diplomat said that restoration of Syria directly depended on regime change, and that it should be determined exclusively at talks held in Geneva. This is political blackmail pure and simple by a group of Western and Gulf Arab states that cynically call themselves "Friends of Syria". They are telling the people of Syria and the world that because the people elected a government not acceptable to the West then their country has been destroyed to punish them.

It is difficult to accept the position of the Western countries since the U.S.-led Coalition's air strikes caused most of the destructions in Syria. According to Airwars monitoring organization, since the beginning of the "counter-terrorism" operation in Syria, the Coalition Air Forces have inflicted more than 14,000 indiscriminate air strikes, which led not only to the destruction of infrastructure but also to the death of at least 5,500 civilians.

For example the city Raqqa has been turned into ruins due to the joint operation of the Western backed Coalition and their proxy mercenary terrorists calling themselves the "Syrian Democratic Forces" (SDF). It is no surprise that representatives of the U.S. Trump administration refused to comment further on the issues of restoration.

Only Syria's allies Russia and Iran provide real assistance in the restoration of cities and the provision of humanitarian aid to the millions of internal refugees. Over the last few days, Russia delivered several tons of products and essentials to civilians in Aleppo and Eastern Ghouta.

Columns of humanitarian aid are also coming from Tehran. Iran helps Syrians in Deir Ezzor with food, medicines, and clothing. Moreover, the Iranian government plans to organize the delivery of more than 200 tons of humanitarian aid to Aleppo.

At the same time, during the meetings held within the framework of the 59th Damascus International Fair, the Syrian government signed a number of mutually beneficial agreements on joint construction with India, Iran, and Lebanon.

Only the few countries not aligned with the West are interested in normalizing the situation in Syria. The West led by the United States has spent multi-billions of dollars for the destruction of Syria but now say they will not give a penny for reconstruction. The US never takes responsibility for the destruction of countries such as Iraq, Libya and Syria nor admit its guilt.
Nov 3, 2017 : Powder Coating Machine Market Forecast 2023 Sherwin Williams, Masco, Axalta Dupont

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A market study  Global Powder Coating Machine Market Forecast  examines the performance of the Powder Coating Machine market Size 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Powder Coating Machine market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Powder Coating Machine market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.Get Free Sample Of Report:The Global Powder Coating Machine Market 2017 report includes Powder Coating Machine market Size, Revenue, market Share, Powder Coating Machine industry volume, market Trends, Powder Coating Machine Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Powder Coating Machine Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2023.Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Powder Coating Machine Market Forecast 2017:1. Sherwin Williams2. PPG Industries3. Valspar Corporation4. RPM International Inc5. Masco6. Axalta Dupont7. Akzonobel(Rohm and Haas)8. TIGER Drylac9. Midwest Industrial Coatings (MICI)10. Trimite Powders11. Erie Powder Coatings12. Nortek Powder Coating13. 3M14. American Powder Coatings15. IFS Coatings16. Allnex17. Vogel Paint18. Prismatic Powders19. Forrest Technical Coatings20. Hentzen CoatingsPowder Coating Machine Market : Type Analysis Thermoset Powder Coating Thermoplastic Powder CoatingPowder Coating Machine Market : Application Analysis Indoor Usage Outdoor/Architectural Usage Automotive IndustryFirstly, the report covers the top Powder Coating Machine manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Enquiry for More Info@Further, the Powder Coating Machine report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Powder Coating Machine industry, Powder Coating Machine industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Powder Coating Machine Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.The Powder Coating Machine research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Powder Coating Machine market revenue worldwide.Finally, Powder Coating Machine market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Spire Market Research is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244United States
Nov 3, 2017 : Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices Market Forecast 2023 Novartis AG, AstraZeneca, Merck

Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices

https://goo.gl/S4hTd6

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-pulmonary-drug-delivery-devices-sales-market-2017-demand-insight-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022

A market study  Global Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices Market Forecast  examines the performance of the Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices market Size 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.Get Free Sample Of Report:The Global Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices Market 2017 report includes Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices market Size, Revenue, market Share, Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices industry volume, market Trends, Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2023.Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices Market Forecast 2017:1. Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH2. Novartis AG3. GlaxoSmithKline4. AstraZeneca5. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries6. Merck7. MannKind8. Bristol-Myers Squibb9. Mylan N.V.10. Omron Corp.11. F. Hoffmann-La Roche12. 3M Healthcare13. Sunovion Pharmaceuticals14. Koninklijke Philips N.V.15. Gerresheimer AG16. Bespak17. AptarGroup18. SHL Group19. Nypro Healthcare20. Hovione21. Chiesi Farmaceutici S.P.A.Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices Market : Type Analysis Dry Powder Inhalers Metered Dose Inhalers NebulizersPulmonary Drug Delivery Devices Market : Application Analysis Asthma COPD Cystic FibrosisFirstly, the report covers the top Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Enquiry for More Info@Further, the Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices industry, Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.The Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices market revenue worldwide.Finally, Pulmonary Drug Delivery Devices market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Spire Market Research is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244United States
Nov 3, 2017 : Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes Market Forecast 2023 Archroma, Huntsman, Kiri, Yorkshire

Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes

https://goo.gl/ZG9Y1p

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-reactive-textile-fiber-dyes-sales-market-2017-demand-insight-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022

A market study  Global Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes Market Forecast  examines the performance of the Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes market Size 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.Get Free Sample Of Report:The Global Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes Market 2017 report includes Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes market Size, Revenue, market Share, Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes industry volume, market Trends, Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2023.Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes Market Forecast 2017:1. Archroma2. Huntsman3. Kiri4. Yorkshire5. Milliken Chemical6. RUDOLF GROUP7. Nippon Kayaku8. Sumitomo9. Everlight Chemical10. Atul11. Kyung-In12. Bodal Chemical13. Anand international14. Organic Dyes and PigmentsReactive Textile Fiber Dyes Market : Type Analysis Vinylsulphone Dye (VS) Monochlorotriazine Dye (MCT) Bi-functional DyesReactive Textile Fiber Dyes Market : Application Analysis Polyester Fibers, Cellulose Acetate Fibers, etc. Cotton Textiles Wool, Silk, Polyurethane FibersFirstly, the report covers the top Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Enquiry for More Info@Further, the Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes industry, Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.The Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes market revenue worldwide.Finally, Reactive Textile Fiber Dyes market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Spire Market Research is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244United States
Nov 3, 2017 : Plasma Analyzers Market Forecast 2023 Sysmex, Beckman, Abbott, Siemens, Horiba

Plasma Analyzers

https://goo.gl/KvKbSu

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-plasma-analyzers-sales-market-2017-demand-insight-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022

A market study  Global Plasma Analyzers Market Forecast  examines the performance of the Plasma Analyzers market Size 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Plasma Analyzers market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Plasma Analyzers market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.Get Free Sample Of Report:The Global Plasma Analyzers Market 2017 report includes Plasma Analyzers market Size, Revenue, market Share, Plasma Analyzers industry volume, market Trends, Plasma Analyzers Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Plasma Analyzers Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2023.Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Plasma Analyzers Market Forecast 2017:1. Sysmex Corporation2. Beckman Coulter3. Abbott Laboratories4. Siemens Healthcare5. Horiba6. Bio-Rad Laboratories7. Boule Diagnostics Ab8. Mindray Medical9. Nihon Kohden10. Roche DiagnosticsPlasma Analyzers Market : Type Analysis Reagents Fully AutomatedPlasma Analyzers Market : Application Analysis Research Institute Hospital Clinical Testing LabsFirstly, the report covers the top Plasma Analyzers manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Enquiry for More Info@Further, the Plasma Analyzers report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Plasma Analyzers industry, Plasma Analyzers industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Plasma Analyzers Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.The Plasma Analyzers research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Plasma Analyzers market revenue worldwide.Finally, Plasma Analyzers market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Spire Market Research is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244United States
Nov 3, 2017 : Mud Motor Market Forecast 2023 Halliburton, Schlumberger, Hunting, Ramset

Mud Motor

https://goo.gl/wEvKh1

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-mud-motor-sales-market-2017-demand-insight-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022/

A market study  Global Mud Motor Market Forecast  examines the performance of the Mud Motor market Size 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Mud Motor market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Mud Motor market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.Get Free Sample Of Report:The Global Mud Motor Market 2017 report includes Mud Motor market Size, Revenue, market Share, Mud Motor industry volume, market Trends, Mud Motor Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Mud Motor Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2023.Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Mud Motor Market Forecast 2017:1. Halliburton2. Schlumberger3. National Oilwell Varco4. Scientific Drilling International5. Horizontal Technology6. Cougar Drilling Solutions7. Hunting8. BICO Drilling Tools9. Dynomax Drilling Tools10. Gyrodata Incorporated11. Dr. Schulze12. Ramset13. APS Technology14. Lilin Machinery GroupMud Motor Market : Type Analysis Diameter200mmMud Motor Market : Application Analysis The Oil Industry Natural Gas IndustryFirstly, the report covers the top Mud Motor manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Enquiry for More Info@Further, the Mud Motor report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Mud Motor industry, Mud Motor industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Mud Motor Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.The Mud Motor research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Mud Motor market revenue worldwide.Finally, Mud Motor market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Spire Market Research is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244United States
Nov 3, 2017 : Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles Market Forecast 2023 Fiat Chrysler, Volkswagen, Ford, General Motors, Toyota

Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles

https://goo.gl/sBzLci

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-natural-gas-powered-vehicles-sales-market-2017-demand-insight-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022

A market study  Global Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles Market Forecast  examines the performance of the Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles market Size 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.Get Free Sample Of Report:The Global Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles Market 2017 report includes Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles market Size, Revenue, market Share, Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles industry volume, market Trends, Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2023.Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles Market Forecast 2017:1. Fiat Chrysler2. Volkswagen3. Ford4. General Motors5. Toyota6. Iran Khodro7. Nissan8. Volvo Group9. Hyundai10. Honda11. Suzuki12. Mercedes-Benz13. Renault14. PSA Peugeot Citroen15. Great Wall MotorsNatural Gas-Powered Vehicles Market : Type Analysis OEM Car ModificationNatural Gas-Powered Vehicles Market : Application Analysis Personal Use Commercial UseFirstly, the report covers the top Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Enquiry for More Info@Further, the Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles industry, Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.The Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles market revenue worldwide.Finally, Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Spire Market Research is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244United States
Nov 3, 2017 : Notebook Computer Market Forecast 2023 Acer, Apple, Asus, HP, Lenovo

Notebook Computer

https://goo.gl/5cGLMk

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-notebook-computer-sales-market-2017-demand-insight-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022

A market study  Global Notebook Computer Market Forecast  examines the performance of the Notebook Computer market Size 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Notebook Computer market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Notebook Computer market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.Get Free Sample Of Report:The Global Notebook Computer Market 2017 report includes Notebook Computer market Size, Revenue, market Share, Notebook Computer industry volume, market Trends, Notebook Computer Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Notebook Computer Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2023.Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Notebook Computer Market Forecast 2017:1. Acer2. Apple3. Asus4. HP5. Lenovo6. HCL Technologies7. LG Electronics8. Microsoft9. Positivo Informatica10. Sony11. ToshibaNotebook Computer Market : Type Analysis Note Type Portable Type Laptop TypeNotebook Computer Market : Application Analysis Study WorkFirstly, the report covers the top Notebook Computer manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Enquiry for More Info@Further, the Notebook Computer report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Notebook Computer industry, Notebook Computer industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Notebook Computer Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.The Notebook Computer research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Notebook Computer market revenue worldwide.Finally, Notebook Computer market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Spire Market Research is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244United States




Bill Guild's classroom - see the last readings

Education Readings





By Allan Alach

allanalach@inspire.net.nz I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at





Now What: Recovering from the Standards Era

The damage caused by the National Standards policy of the previous government will not be easily undone. The side effects have had somewhat of a cancerous impact on our education system, and a careful approach will be needed in order to support teachers through this next transition.

The end of National Standards and the role of researchers and academics

Article by Professor Martin Thrupp, one of the loudest academic voices who battled against Enuf measuring - time to taste the apple national standards.

Its great, though, that New Zealand primary schools will now be able to spend less time shoring up judgements about children  judgements that have often been pointless or harmful  and instead spend more time making learning relevant and interesting for each child. Removing National Standards should also allow teachers to be less burdened, contributing to making teaching a more attractive career again.

Longworth Forest selected as part of Finnish "HundrEDs 100 Global Education Innovations Project

Longworth Forest was established in Poraiti, Napier, in 2014 by Linda and Bruce Cheer, and seeks to provide children 5 - 7 years of age with safe and semi structured opportunities to experience risk and challenge, to problem solve and enterprise, all at the childs own pace. It is a child led approach which gives children the power to initiate and drive their own learning, to make meaningful choices and to discover and develop their interests. Through regular outdoor play, children learn to develop positive relationships with themselves and others as well as a bond with nature and an understanding of their place in the natural world.

My Students Are Addicted to Screens

Teaching kids real maths

I've been doing some research about teaching mathematics, and decided to start by reading and l have been listening to the thoughts of the British technologist Conrad Wolfram, who for a number of years has been arguing that we need to rebuild a maths curriculum for the computer age and that students should be calculating "just like everyone does in the real world". His argument is that school maths is very disconnected from the maths used to solve problems in the real world, and that it needs to be more practical, more conceptual and less mechanical.

A Troubling Side Effect of Praise

Teachers often use praise to reward good behavior or correct answers. But theres a potential downside to this common choice: Praising young children for being smart can increase the likelihood that theyll cheat, according to a new study in Psychological Science by an international team of researchers.

Contributed by Bruce Hammonds:

Are We Innovating, or Just Digitizing Traditional Teaching?

A few months ago, I noticed an increased amount of discussion around the notion of blended learning. Many of these conversations started on a similar note:  We re blendedall of our teachers use Google Classroom (or Edmodo, Schoology, Canvas, Moodle, etc.). However, in probing further, I often discovered that these tools had merely digitized existing content and classroom procedures.

10 Tips for Creating a Fertile Environment for Kids Creativity and Growth

Theres a common misconception that the best way to encourage childrens creativity is simply to get out of the way and let them be creative. Although its certainly true that children are naturally curious and inquisitive, they need support to develop their creative capacities and reach their full creative potential.Supporting childrens development is always a balancing act: how much structure, how much freedom; when to step in, when to step back; when to show, when to tell, when to ask, when to listen.

Why Learning and People Should Come First

My primary objective for all multiday workshops is to illustrate the vital role that technology can play in improving teaching, learning, and leadership. Most of the first day is spent on emphasizing the importance of a pedagogy first, technology second mindset. The bottom line is that if we dont get the instructional design right first, then the chances of technology improving learning outcomes is slim to none.

From Bruces goldie oldies file:

The transformative Power of Interest : Annie Murphy Paul - Dan Pink and Carol Dweck

Anne Murphy

If there is just one message I could share with parents, educators, and managers, it would be about the transformative power of interest. Annie Murphy Paul . The development of every students unique set of talents and gifts is the challenge for a 21stC of education and so far few schools have yet to appreciate this challenge.

The rise and fall and rise again of teacher expertise

Schools need to be seen as 'professional learning communities' that respect creative teachers as true co-leaders with principals who can develop such learning communities can create creative schools with extraordinary teachers, and make learning stretching, creative, fun and successful. A new sense of excitement could well be on the horizon. Only those who have been around long enough will know this sense of possibility is not new  but this time perhaps the time is right?

Back to the future.

Twenty five years after retiring Bill Guild ( currently 91 and still an enthusiast) has been invited back to his old school to share his ideas about quality teaching and learning. It is a half a century since Bill took up his appointment at the school.. Tapping into the wisdom of the past is a powerful idea - and it turns out Bill's wisdom is very current .Bill was part of a small group of Taranaki teachers who worked hard to develop creative classrooms in the 1970s.








Nov 3, 2017 : MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat Market Forecast 2023 Mahle, Stant, Borgwarner, Hella, Kirpart

MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat

https://goo.gl/WY1FrP

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-map-controlled-automotive-thermostat-sales-market-2017-demand-insight-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022

A market study  Global MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat Market Forecast  examines the performance of the MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat market Size 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.Get Free Sample Of Report:The Global MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat Market 2017 report includes MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat market Size, Revenue, market Share, MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat industry volume, market Trends, MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2023.Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat Market Forecast 2017:1. Mahle2. Stant3. Borgwarner4. Hella5. Kirpart6. Vernet7. TAMA8. Nippon Thermostat9. Gates10. BG Automotive11. Fishman TT12. Magal13. TembMAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat Market : Type Analysis Insert Thermostat Housing ThermostatMAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat Market : Application Analysis Passenger Car Commercial VehicleFirstly, the report covers the top MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Enquiry for More Info@Further, the MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat industry, MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.The MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat market revenue worldwide.Finally, MAP Controlled Automotive Thermostat market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Spire Market Research is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244United States
Nov 3, 2017 : Medium Voltage Motor Control Market Forecast 2023 ABB Ltd, Siemens AG, Fuji Electric, WEG SA

Medium Voltage Motor Control

https://goo.gl/8thNcX

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-medium-voltage-motor-control-center-sales-market-2017-demand-insight-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022

A market study  Global Medium Voltage Motor Control Market Forecast  examines the performance of the Medium Voltage Motor Control market Size 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Medium Voltage Motor Control market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Medium Voltage Motor Control market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.Get Free Sample Of Report:The Global Medium Voltage Motor Control Market 2017 report includes Medium Voltage Motor Control market Size, Revenue, market Share, Medium Voltage Motor Control industry volume, market Trends, Medium Voltage Motor Control Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Medium Voltage Motor Control Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2023.Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Medium Voltage Motor Control Market Forecast 2017:1. ABB Ltd2. Siemens AG3. Eaton Corporation4. Schneider Electric5. Fuji Electric6. Rockwell Corporation7. General Electric8. Mitsubishi Electric9. WEG SAMedium Voltage Motor Control Market : Type Analysis Intelligent ConventionalMedium Voltage Motor Control Market : Application Analysis Commercial IndustrialFirstly, the report covers the top Medium Voltage Motor Control manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Enquiry for More Info@Further, the Medium Voltage Motor Control report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Medium Voltage Motor Control industry, Medium Voltage Motor Control industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Medium Voltage Motor Control Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.The Medium Voltage Motor Control research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Medium Voltage Motor Control market revenue worldwide.Finally, Medium Voltage Motor Control market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Spire Market Research is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244United States
Nov 3, 2017 : Metal TV Cabinet Market Forecast 2023 Sauder, DeFehr, IKEA, Amarna, Alphason

Metal TV Cabinet

https://goo.gl/9aod3Z

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-metal-tv-cabinet-sales-market-2017-demand-insight-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022/

A market study  Global Metal TV Cabinet Market Forecast  examines the performance of the Metal TV Cabinet market Size 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Metal TV Cabinet market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Metal TV Cabinet market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.Get Free Sample Of Report:The Global Metal TV Cabinet Market 2017 report includes Metal TV Cabinet market Size, Revenue, market Share, Metal TV Cabinet industry volume, market Trends, Metal TV Cabinet Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Metal TV Cabinet Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2023.Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Metal TV Cabinet Market Forecast 2017:1. Sauder2. DeFehr3. Santa Fe Rusticos4. IKEA5. Amarna6. Alphason7. BDI8. Optimum9. Munari10. Schnepel11. Simpli Home12. Baxton Studio13. Sonax14. Furinno15. Winsome WoodMetal TV Cabinet Market : Type Analysis Stand  alone TV cabinet Modular TV cabinetMetal TV Cabinet Market : Application Analysis Commercial HouseholdFirstly, the report covers the top Metal TV Cabinet manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Enquiry for More Info@Further, the Metal TV Cabinet report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Metal TV Cabinet industry, Metal TV Cabinet industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Metal TV Cabinet Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.The Metal TV Cabinet research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Metal TV Cabinet market revenue worldwide.Finally, Metal TV Cabinet market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Spire Market Research is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244United States
Nov 3, 2017 : Laser Diffraction Market Forecast 2023 Malvern, Sympatec GmbH, Horiba, Shimadzu, Retsch, Microtrac

Laser Diffraction

https://goo.gl/Kqf8NY

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-laser-diffraction-sales-market-2017-demand-insight-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022/

A market study  Global Laser Diffraction Market Forecast  examines the performance of the Laser Diffraction market Size 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Laser Diffraction market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Laser Diffraction market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.Get Free Sample Of Report:The Global Laser Diffraction Market 2017 report includes Laser Diffraction market Size, Revenue, market Share, Laser Diffraction industry volume, market Trends, Laser Diffraction Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Laser Diffraction Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2023.Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Laser Diffraction Market Forecast 2017:1. Malvern2. Sympatec GmbH3. Horiba Scientific4. Shimadzu5. Retsch6. Microtrac7. Beckmancoulter8. Fritsch9. CILAS10. LaVision11. Quantachrome Instrument12. Artium13. LS Instruments14. Zhuhai OMEC Instrument15. Bettersize16. Jinan WinnerLaser Diffraction Market : Type Analysis Multifunction Single functionLaser Diffraction Market : Application Analysis Industry ResearchFirstly, the report covers the top Laser Diffraction manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Enquiry for More Info@Further, the Laser Diffraction report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Laser Diffraction industry, Laser Diffraction industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Laser Diffraction Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.The Laser Diffraction research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Laser Diffraction market revenue worldwide.Finally, Laser Diffraction market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Spire Market Research is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244United States
Nov 3, 2017 : LNG Cryogenic Pump Market Forecast 2023 Sumitomo, Ebara, Flowserve, Fives SA

LNG Cryogenic Pump

https://goo.gl/NMmttv

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-lng-cryogenic-pump-sales-market-2017-demand-insight-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022/

A market study  Global LNG Cryogenic Pump Market Forecast  examines the performance of the LNG Cryogenic Pump market Size 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the LNG Cryogenic Pump market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of LNG Cryogenic Pump market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.Get Free Sample Of Report:The Global LNG Cryogenic Pump Market 2017 report includes LNG Cryogenic Pump market Size, Revenue, market Share, LNG Cryogenic Pump industry volume, market Trends, LNG Cryogenic Pump Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, LNG Cryogenic Pump Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2023.Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global LNG Cryogenic Pump Market Forecast 2017:1. Sumitomo Heavy Industries2. Ebara Corporation3. Flowserve Corporation4. Fives SA5. Brooks AutomationLNG Cryogenic Pump Market : Type Analysis Centrifugal Positive DisplacementLNG Cryogenic Pump Market : Application Analysis Energy & Power Metallurgy Chemicals ElectronicsFirstly, the report covers the top LNG Cryogenic Pump manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Enquiry for More Info@Further, the LNG Cryogenic Pump report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of LNG Cryogenic Pump industry, LNG Cryogenic Pump industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. LNG Cryogenic Pump Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.The LNG Cryogenic Pump research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the LNG Cryogenic Pump market revenue worldwide.Finally, LNG Cryogenic Pump market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Spire Market Research is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244United States
Nov 3, 2017 : Low Voltage Motor Control Center Market Forecast 2023 Siemens AG, Eaton, Schneider, Fuji, Rockwell

Low Voltage Motor Control Center

https://goo.gl/izCXLu

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-low-voltage-motor-control-center-sales-market-2017-demand-insight-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022/

A market study  Global Low Voltage Motor Control Center Market Forecast  examines the performance of the Low Voltage Motor Control Center market Size 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Low Voltage Motor Control Center market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Low Voltage Motor Control Center market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.Get Free Sample Of Report:The Global Low Voltage Motor Control Center Market 2017 report includes Low Voltage Motor Control Center market Size, Revenue, market Share, Low Voltage Motor Control Center industry volume, market Trends, Low Voltage Motor Control Center Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Low Voltage Motor Control Center Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2023.Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Low Voltage Motor Control Center Market Forecast 2017: ABB Ltd. Siemens AG Eaton Corporation Schneider Electric Fuji Electric Rockwell Corporation General Electric Mitsubishi Electric WEG SALow Voltage Motor Control Center Market : Type Analysis Intelligent ConventionalLow Voltage Motor Control Center Market : Application Analysis Commercial IndustrialFirstly, the report covers the top Low Voltage Motor Control Center manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Enquiry for More Info@Further, the Low Voltage Motor Control Center report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Low Voltage Motor Control Center industry, Low Voltage Motor Control Center industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Low Voltage Motor Control Center Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.The Low Voltage Motor Control Center research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Low Voltage Motor Control Center market revenue worldwide.Finally, Low Voltage Motor Control Center market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Spire Market Research is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244United States
Oven Bags and Pouches Market - Technological Advancements, Evolving Industry Trends, Market Strategies And Key Players

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=31070

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/oven-bags-and-pouches-market.html

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Players wanting to steal a march over their competitors in the global oven bags and pouches market are focusing on product development. The market at present is seeing an upswing on account of the changing lifestyle of people worldwide which has driven up demand for convenient packaging solutions. Since oven bags and pouches are easy to use and can withstand temperatures up to 220-degree centigrade, they are seeing swift uptake.Hampering demand for oven bags and pouches, on the other hand, is the concerns about the health hazards presented by them on account of the migration of the volatile and non-volatile organic compounds from the oven bags to the food items placed in them. Emergence of new products such as stand-up ovenable pouches is however helping to overcome such challenges by opening up new avenues of growth.A report by Transparency Market Research forecasts the global oven bags and pouches market to rise at a steady CAGR of 8.0% from 2017 to 2025 to become worth US$3.9 bn by the end of 2025 from US$2.0 bn, in 2016.Get an exclusive sample of this report @Popularity of Nylon in North America and Europe Drives its GrowthMaterial type, packaging type, packaging size, sales type, seal type, end use, and region are some of the parameters based on which the global oven bags and pouches market has been segmented. Depending upon the type of material, for example, the main segments of the market are nylon, PET, aluminum, and others namely PP, PE, etc. Of them, nylon is popular in North America and Europe and is projected to grow its market share by registering a CAGR of 8.4% from 2017 to 2025. The segment of PET is again expected to rise at a CAGR of 8.2% in forecast period. On the other hand, aluminum and other materials are anticipated to shed some of their market shares owing to the health hazards they pose.Based on the type of packaging, the global oven bags and pouches market can be classified into bags and pouches. Currently, the segment of bags leads the market because of their widespread use in food processors and also by individuals. The pouches segment gained noticeable market share in the recent years due to introduction of ready to eat meals in ovenable pouches. The pouches segment is estimated to witness a CAGR value of 8.5%, in terms of value, over the forecast period.Browse Press Release of this Research Report @Rapidly Changing Consumer Preferences Propels Market Growth in the Middle East and AfricaFrom a geographical standpoint, Europe dominates the global oven bags and pouches market vis-a-vis both value and volume. The region is predicted to consume 3,682,045 thousand units of oven bags and pouches by 2025-end. In terms of value, the region will likely clock a CAGR of 7.4% from 2017 to 2025 to attain a value of US$1.60 bn by the end of the forecast period. Europe currently accounts for an estimated 42.5% of the global oven bags and pouches market, in terms of value.Vis-a-vis growth rate, the Middle East and Africa is predicted to surpass all other regions by rising at a 10.2% CAGR during the forecast period. The region, along with South Africa is expected to see rising demand for oven bags and pouches on the back of changing consumer preferences towards ovenable packaging solution. Asia Pacific too will see impressive growth  around 9.8% CAGR from 2017 to 2025  to reach a value of US$450.6 mn by the end of the forecast period.Some of the noteworthy players in the global oven bags and pouches market are S. C. Johnson & Son, Reynolds Group Holdings Ltd, Sealed Air Corporation, Mondi Group, Berry Global Group, Inc., The Clorox Company, and DuPont Teijin Films U.S. Limited Partnership.About TMRTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Contact TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Selective Emitter Solar Cell Market Estimated to Flourish by 2026

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Global Selective Emitter Solar Cell Market: OverviewEfficiency and cost plays a vital role in the area of solar energy typically in the case of solar cells. Nowadays, there are solutions evolving for the improvement of performance in multicrystalline silicon that is based upon photovoltaic industry. Selective emitter is currently used to overcome the limitation of electrical performance in screen printed solar cells. There are two different zones in the emitter structure, one is lightly doped in the grid fingers and another is heavily doped directly under the metal contacts in the cell. In order to produce the structures of selective emitters, laser -assisted doping technique boosts regions of silicon that are beneath the contacts of solar cells. There are several other techniques to gain selective emitters that includes dissemination masking, screen printed phosphorous doped paste, and etch-back. These techniques includes over doping by POCl3 of the emitter, adding a dopant in the metallization paste. There are several advantages of a selective-emitter cell that includes a low contact resistance because of heavy doping under the metal grid, improvement in front-surface passivation of lightly doped region in the grid. The selective emitter solar cell market is expected to expand at a healthy CAGR in the forecast period.A sample of this report is available upon request @Global Selective Emitter Solar Cell Market: Drivers and RestrainsThe rising market of solar panels and cost efficiency of solar panels in the electricity generation as compared to other sources of energy is driving the selective emitter solar cells market. Also the improved efficiency of selective emitter solar cells and less time required to produce the electricity as compared to other solar cells technologies further contributes in the growing Selective emitter solar cells market. Moreover, the increasing concerns amongst people for eco-friendly products is bolstering the Selective emitter solar cells market.However, the high initial cost of selective emitter solar cells and the technicality and complexity associated with its manufacturing can hamper the growth of global Selective emitter solar cells market.Global Selective Emitter Solar Cell Market: SegmentationOn the basis of doping techniques, the selective emitter solar cells market can be segmented as follows:Etch-backScreen-printed phosphorus doped pasteDissemination maskingOn the basis of fabrication techniques, the selective emitter solar cells market can be segmented as follows:By masking and etchingBy self-alignmentBy self-dopingOn the basis of end-use industry, the selective emitter solar cells market can be segmented as follows:Energy and PowerElectronics and ElectricalAutomobilesOthersGlobal Selective Emitter Solar Cells Market: Region Wise OutlookThe global selective emitter solar cells market can be divided into seven regions, namely North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan and Middle East and Africa. North America is a dominant region in the global selective emitter solar cells market owing to its presence in the energy and power sector. Asia Pacific ranks second in the market share of global selective emitter solar cells market because of the growing electronics and electrical industry. The flourishing automobiles industry in Europe is the major cause to map this region in the global selective emitter solar cells market. Latin America is also gaining importance in this market due to the investments of this region in the energy and power sector. Middle east and Africa is at a nascent stage in the global selective emitter solar cells market but is anticipated to have a considerable CAGR in the forecasted period.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @Global Selective Emitter Solar Cells Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in the global selective emitter solar cells market are:Tata Power Solar Systems LimitedTrina Solar LimitedSolarWorld AGSuniva IncJinkoSolar Holding Co. LtdPionis Energy Technologies LLCAlps Technology IncBorg IncItek EnergyAbout UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Current and Projected Air Freshener Market size in terms of volume and value 2014-2020

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Air fresheners are products used to release fragrances in order to eliminate foul smell or odour from the environment. These products are only applicable for use in indoor environments such as homes, offices, hotel rooms, cars and others. In recent years, this functional commodity has evolved to be used as a decorative product. Air fresheners comprise chemical agents such as artificial or original essence, aerosol propellants, solvents such as mineral oil, 2-butoxyethanol and other glycol ethers, which help in neutralizing odours and freshens the air.Request For Report Sample:On the basis of types, these products can be broadly segmented into room sprays and diffusers. Room sprays fall under the category of aerosol sprays, which are mostly available in cans or glass bottles with attached spray nozzles. Room sprays are highly functional and instead of simply masking foul odours, they release a pleasant fragrance. On the other hand, diffusers disperse fragrance into the air. Furthermore, these are widely classified into active and passive diffusers. Active diffusers require an external energy source of energy to release fragrance. These products are designed to function on a plugged power source or with batteries. Passive diffusers do not require any external energy source and diffuse fragrance from various forms of underlying substances or layers. The various types of passive diffusers include adjustable solids, reed diffusers and gel products.Besides room sprays and diffusers, the air freshener market is further segmented into specialty products. These types of air fresheners comprise a variety of products designed to add fragrance to a room or space, and are available in various forms such as potpourri. This type of air freshener comprises forms of dried botanical and other natural ingredient such as flowers, fruits, wood chips and spices that may have fragrance oils added to them. Another is sachets, small pouches or bags filled with scented powder. Another type is incense, which is produced from a mixture of fragrant gums, resins, woods and spices and is available in varied forms such as sticks, cones, rods, coils, small blocks, wands and powders. Furthermore, fragrance oil burning lamp is another type of air freshener. This type acts as a catalytic diffusion lamp, purifying the air while releasing fragrance. Yet another type is the non-electric or evaporative air freshener. This type releases fragrance when scented oil is added to an oil warmer, which is heated using a tea light candle.Globally, the demand for air fresheners registered stable growth during the last five years, and is expected to witness favourable growth during the forecast period. This is attributed to product innovations, increased adaption of enhanced products and rising affluence. Changing and improving lifestyle and demographic factors, as well as increasing population in developing countries is driving demand for air freshener products in Asia Pacific and Rest of the World.The key drivers in the air freshener market includes product innovation and launch of new product ranges capable of delivering freshness as well as enhanced ability to eliminate offensive odours. These properties serve to enhance consumer preference for such products and offers value for money. In addition, rise in disposable income and purchasing power parity has shifted the demand of consumers towards enhanced products, which is further expected to fuel market growth.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):The key players in the global air freshener market include Procter & Gamble, SC Johnson, Reckitt Benckiser, Henkel, Church & Dwight, California Scents, ST Corporation, Scotts Liquid Gold, Inc., Amway, Kobayashi, Liby, Houdy, Farcent, Jiali, Ludao, Mengjiaolan and others.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Janitorial Services Market Size to Grow Steadily during Forecast period 2015 - 2021

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https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com

Janitorial services, also known as cleaning services, are generally used to keep workplaces free from unsightly dirt and provide a clean and germ-free environment. Cleaning is one of the most commonly outsourced services in various facilities such as educational buildings, corporate buildings, hotels, hospitals, retail outlets, and commercial and residential buildings. Janitorial services include both indoor and outdoor cleaning services, which include cleaning, trash pickup, floor polishing, and window washing.The global janitorial services market is primarily segmented into two categories: residential and commercial. The residential market consists of maid services, window, carpet, window and other services. The commercial cleaning segment primarily focuses on window cleaning, vacuuming, floor care, and related services.Among the two segments, the commercial segment accounts for a relatively larger share of the janitorial services market. Janitorial service is a highly labor intensive market and growth of the market largely depends on growth of the real estate market.Due to its dependence on the real estate market, the janitorial services market suffered a downturn during the economic recession post-2008. The market also suffered a decline due to collapse of various mortgage obligations. Many government entities and industrial companies make a long-term contract to clean facilities, such trends help in the growth of global janitorial services market.Request For Report Sample@Many companies outsource their building maintenance and cleaning services, in order to reduce the cost .Through outsourcing, the janitorial services industry creates many employments. Introduction of latest janitorial equipment in the market provides a competitive edge to the janitorial service industry. Such new cleaning equipment provides better janitorial service and this also helps in the growth of janitorial services market.Some of the major global companies such as ABM Industries and ServiceMaster offer various janitorial services. They together hold more than 35% share of the global janitorial services market. Introduction of new technologies and solutions to clean properties efficiently and safely and process improvements are expected to boost growth of the global janitorial services market during the forecast period.Asia Pacific is one of the prominent markets for janitorial services. Rising economy and escalating construction of commercial and non-commercial buildings in the region further increase demand for janitorial services. China and India are the two major countries in Asia Pacific, which hold the highest share of the janitorial services market. In North America, the U.S. holds the largest market share and is expected to grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period. The global janitorial services market is expected to grow at a single-digit growth rate during the forecast period from 2014 to 2020.Visit For TOC@Some of the major companies operating in the global janitorial market areABM Industries, CleanNet USA, Jani-King Internationa,ServiceMaster, Anago Cleaning Systems, Chem-Dry, Jan-Pro International, Aramark,Stanley Steemer, BONUS Building Care, Coverall, Pritchard Industries, Red Coats, UGL Unicco Services, Sodexo, and Vanguard Cleaning Systems.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Ourresearch model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and marketresearch methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.Contact USPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Web:Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Packaging Films for Food Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast to 2015 to 2021

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Packaging film is a thin plastic layer used to preserve, protect, market and distribute various food items. It provides protection for loss of nutrients, color, aroma, taste, and maintaining the functional properties of food. Packaging films also help protect food from the harmful effect of microorganisms. Plastic films such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polyethylene terephthalate, polyvinylchloride, polyamide, and ethylene vinyl alcohol are used to package food.They also protect food from dirt, germs, liquids, and gases. Packaging films are used to pack various food products such as dry foods, liquid & semi-solid food, meat, cheese, snack items, biscuits, dairy products, and other bakery items. They help increase the shelf life of food and also protect food from ultraviolet radiation. Based on material, the global market for packaging films for food is segmented into polyethylene, polypropylene, polyester, polyvinyl chloride, polyamide, ethylene vinyl alcohol, and others.Request For Report Sample@Asia Pacific is the largest and fastest growing market for packaging films for food. China, Japan, and India are the major markets in this region. Increasing demand for fresh and healthy packaged food in these nations has helped the growth of this market. North America is the second-largest market for packaging films for food. The U.S. has the largest demand in this region. The U.K., Italy, and Germany are the major markets in Europe. Growing economy, rising disposable income along with increasing expenditure on food items in Europe are driving the growth of the packaging films for food market.Visit For TOC@Some of the major players in this market are AEP Industries Inc., Amcor Limited, Berry Plastics Group, Inc., Bemis Company, Inc., Charter NEX Films Inc., DuPont Teijin Films, Coveris Holdings SA , The Dow Chemical Company, Graphic Packaging Holding Company, Hilex Poly Co LlC, Innovia Films Ltd, Jindal Poly Films Ltd., RKW SE, Sealed Air Corporation, Taghleef Industries Group, and Wipak OY.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Ourresearch model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and marketresearch methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.Contact USPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Web:Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Oil and Gas Robotics Industry Analysis Report: Radiant Insights

Radiant Insights, Inc

https://www.radiantinsights.com/research/emea-europe-middle-east-and-africa-oil-and-gas-robotics-industry-2017/request-sample

https://www.radiantinsights.com/research/emea-europe-middle-east-and-africa-oil-and-gas-robotics-industry-2017

https://www.radiantinsights.com/research/global-level-indicators-market-professional-survey-report-2017

https://www.radiantinsights.com/research/global-fluorescence-microscope-market-professional-survey-report-2017

In this report, the EMEA Oil and Gas Robotics market is valued at USD XX million in 2016 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2022, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2016 and 2022.Geographically, this report split EMEA into Europe, the Middle East and Africa, With sales (Units), revenue (Million USD), market share and growth rate of Oil and Gas Robotics for these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast) Europe: Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Benelux; Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Israel, UAE and Iran; Africa: South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Algeria.Request a Free Sample Copy of this Report @EMEA Oil and Gas Robotics market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Oil and Gas Robotics sales volume (Units), price (USD/Unit), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players including iRobot Corporation ABB Ltd Fanuc Corporation Delaval Group Lely Group Kuka AG Yaskawa Electric CorporationDownload Full Research Report @On the basis of product, this report displays the sales volume (Units), revenue (Million USD), product price (USD/Unit), market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into Remotely Operated Vehicles Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Uavs & Unmanned Ground VehiclesOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume (Units), market share and growth rate of Oil and Gas Robotics for each application, including Inspection Monitoring & Surveillance OtherRead more related reports by Radiant Insights: Level Indicators Market Fluorescence Microscope MarketAbout Radiant Insights, IncRadiant Insights is a market research and consulting company offering syndicated research studies, customized reports, and consulting services. Market research studies are designed to facilitate strategic decision making, on the basis of extensive and in-depth quantitative information, supported by extensive analysis and industry insights. Using a patented and robust research methodology, we publish exhaustive research reports covering a host of industries such as Technology, Chemicals, Materials, and Energy. Radiant Insights has a strong base of analysts, consultants and domain experts, with global experience help for delivering excellence in all research projects.Media Contact:Michelle Thoras201 Spear Street 1100,Suite 3036,San Francisco,CA 94105, United StatesTel: 1-415-349-0054Toll Free: 1-888-928-9744Mail: sale@radiantinsights.com
Footwear Adhesives Market Report  Actionable Insights and Recommendation 2017 - 2027

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Footwear adhesives are of significant importance in the manufacturing of footwear. Their primary use is in the principle area of sole attachment. Footwear adhesives present a more conventional solution for sticking soles and other parts of footwear over traditional methods, such as stitching and pinning. The up-heave in demand for high fashioned footwear is anticipated to have a major influence on the overall footwear adhesives market throughout the forecast period. Footwear adhesives are sticky in nature, exhibit high-quality bedding properties, and are considered to be rock-solid sealants. Properties, such as moisture curing, thermal coefficient of expansion and resistance to multiple elongations under various loads have created remarkable opportunities for the footwear adhesives market across the globe.Footwear adhesives can be customized as per the industrial requirement. The increasing demand for footwear adhesives as sealants has led to significant growth opportunities in a number of countries. Relatively durable and high-performing material footwear adhesives offer strength to footwear, with efficient workability.Request For Report Sample:Special care is taken in footwear industries to modify practices in the manufacturing of footwear adhesives to avoid its hazardous effects on manpower. On this note, manufacturers are expected to incline towards the usage of water-based footwear adhesives over solvent-based ones over the forecast period.The useful applications of footwear adhesives make the study of this market an important read.Footwear Adhesive Market: Drivers and RestraintsAttributing to convenience in use, footwear adhesives are expected to witness noteworthy growth in the global footwear industry. Recent developments have introduced water-based footwear adhesives in the market; they are formulated as environment-friendly substitutes for traditional footwear adhesives. Manufacturers are expected to replace solvent-based footwear adhesives with water-based ones, owing to growing health concerns among consumers. Further, water-based footwear adhesives offer vital improvement in terms of economy and efficacy to industries.Increase in the demand for various international brands, along with ever changing fashion trends in regions, such as the U.S. and Europe has proven to be a prominent driver for the footwear adhesives market. Rising demand for high performance footwear, such as sportswear, and protective shoes, among others is expected to gain significant prospects for the footwear adhesives market in the coming future.However, high cost of raw material in the manufacturing of footwear adhesives could impede growth of the market. Addition of new polymer materials in producing uppers and soles for footwear has led to bond failure, due to the introduction of plasticizers in adhesives films.Attributing to rising environmental concerns, several governments are taking measures in their respected countries to curb diseases, such as shoemakers paralysis, which is caused due to exposure to harmful gases released in the manufacturing process of footwear adhesives. Such measures may affect growth of the market over the forecast period.Footwear Adhesives Market: SegmentationThe footwear adhesive market can be segmented on the basis of product type:Solvent based footwear adhesivesWater based footwear adhesivesRadiation cured (UV/EB) footwear adhesivesHot melts footwear adhesivesFootwear Adhesives Market: Region-Wise OutlookGeographically, the Asia Pacific region holds a remarkable share in the production of footwear. Emerging countries, such as India, China, and Japan are expected to witness sturdy growth in the footwear adhesives market. Whereas, developed countries, such as those in North America and Europe are expected to exhibit moderate growth in the market. Countries in Latin and Central America, such as Brazil and Mexico are expected to hold a fair share of the market in the coming future. A major shift of footwear manufacturers from Vietnam to Bangladesh and China for economic production has switched the focus of footwear adhesive industries towards these regions.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Footwear Adhesives Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants in the footwear adhesives market, identified across the value chain are:H.B. FullerJubilant Industries Ltd.Henkel (China) Investment Co. Ltd.Chadha Corporation Pvt. Ltd.Eastman Chemical CompanyChemical Technology Pty Ltd.Great Eastern Resins Industrial Co. Ltd.Bostik Ltd.Artecola QuimicaKECK ChimieABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market InsightsAbhishek Bhudoliya616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Weatherization Services Market size and Key Trends in terms of volume and value 2014-2020

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Weatherization is a process of sealing the cracks and insulating the walls and windows to stop air and heat from getting through. It is a service provided at low cost to the tenant or owner of a home. Weatherization services consist of cost-effective energy efficiency measures for residential and multifamily housing with low-income residents. It reduces the building energy use by 36%. The benefits of weatherization includes reducing the energy bills of recipients for a long period of time. Some measures, such as insulating walls or roofs, can provide savings for a house for 30 years or more. There was a significant increase of around 1 million weatherized home from year 2012 to 2013. Americans spend 30% of their annual income in energy bills and with the help of weatherization those bills can be reduced up to 50%. Other benefits includes reduced environmental impact, improved indoor air quality, lowers heating and cooling costs, makes your home more energy efficient, makes your home safer and healthier etc. More efficient heating and cooling equipment can provide cost saving for 10-15 years.Request For Report Sample:Weatherization services can be segmented by type and by applications. On the basis of type, it can be segmented as, Attic Insulation, Sidewall Insulation, Perimeter/Rim Joist/Floor Treatment, and Health & Safety Inspections. On the basis of application it can be segmented as, Window and Door frame, Air conditioner, Heating and Cooling Duct, Ventilator and Siding, Gutter and Downspouts. Some of the major trends in weatherization services are, focus on energy efficiency and renewable energy, education and training related to these activities.Basic weatherization work includes Sealing drafts and air leaks, improving the efficiency of your heating system, Hot water heater tank blankets, Adding insulation installing other energy-saving devices etc. Weatherization today covers a complete series of energy efficiency measures that are based on detailed analyses of individual homes. These analyses take the whole-house approach, which maximizes energy and saves dollar. Because of this vital approach and analyses, weatherization has become a leader in advancing home energy science and helps to boost a new industry, providing home energy efficiency services to the wider public. Other factors which promotes the growth of weatherization are, reduced use of energy and increased saving, reduced pollution due to low energy consumption, increased comfort level because of safety measures, government energy grants, and tax rebates, etc.Some of the global players in weatherization services are Green Home Inspections & Energy Audits, Inc., Home Insulation Company, Go Green Squads, American AWS, and M&M Weatherization Company. These key players provide various services such as air sealing, insulating of attic and walls, installing energy star windows and doors, duct testing and sealing, home energy audits, blower door testing, furnace and water heater safety test, sealing air leaks, Provide information about maintenance and energy conservation and many other services.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):These companies exercise various strategies to be competitive in the market such as competitive prices, business expansion through partnership for example Home Insulation Company is in partnership with RESNET (Residential Energy Service Network), use of latest technologies to reduce air infiltration and to apply insulation, , use of quality products in order to offer quality services, for instance, Green Home uses 2-Part Closed Cell Spray Foam which has the highest R-value ( measure of thermal resistance used in the building and construction industry) on the market which is used for roof tiles, wall cavities etc., recruitment of highly trained employees and lot more other strategies. These strategies help these companies to grow in this competitive market and mark their significance presence in weatherization service market.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Rust Remover Market Report Offers Intelligence and Forecast till 2017 - 2027

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Rust removers have distinct formulations used to remove rust stains. Rust (Iron Oxide) stains are often reddish brown or dark red in color. Rust strains are made of water and air moisture. Rust removers generally contain either oxalic acid or phosphoric acid. These strong acids react with iron oxide and convert it into a weaker acid. Rust removers are widely used across different industries, such as automotive, marine, aviation, construction and maintenance industries, etc., where rust removal is inevitably a necessary task required to improve the reliability and total life span of products and equipment. Furthermore, rust removers are also used in commercial as well as residential sectors. With increasing applications of iron and steel in various sectors, the demand for rust removers is also expected to grow in near future, thereby augmenting the growth of rust removers market during the assessment period.Global Rust Remover Market: Market DynamicsThe rust remover market is being driven by the huge demand from the manufacturing industry. The continuous growth in automobile and construction activities in developed and developing regions is expected to predominately affect the global rust removers market in a positive way. Moreover, to cater to the needs of the ever increasing population of the world, the transportation sector is expected to evolve, thereby driving the rust remover market with itself. Owing to increasing offshore treading, defense and leisure activity, the marine sector is expected to grow at a high rate during the forecast period. As vessels are surrounded by saltwater and operate in extreme working conditions, the metal gets damaged and the vessels become rusty over a period of time. Hence, rust removers are extensively used in marine industry. The marine sector is expected to propel the rust remover market at an exponential rate. Some of the key players in this market are investing on research and development of safe, non-toxic and marine environment friendly products.Request For Report Sample:Rust removers require some serious elbow grease to remove rust. This might prove to be a restraint for the market. That aside, most of the rust removers contain oxalic acid as an active ingredient, which is extremely toxic. Hence, health issues and regulations can prove to be a major restraint for the rust removers market. Similarly, increasing usage of rust resistant materials such as carbon fiber and reinforced plastic materials in lieu of iron and steel, resistant is expected to hamper the growth of rust remover market. Moreover, customer preference is shifting from rust removers to rust convertors because of their ease of application. Companies are focusing on developing fast acting, economical, safe, non-toxic and environment friendly rust removers.However, irrespective of these impediments and threats, the rust removers market is expected to grow at an exponential rate during the assessment period.Global Rust Remover Market: Market SegmentationThe global rust remover market, on the basis of end use, can be segmented as:Automotive IndustryMarine IndustryAviation and aerospace industryConstructionResidentialCommercialMaintenance and repairGlobal Rust Remover Market: regional outlookAsia Pacific is estimated to be the principal consumer of rust removers. The region is expected to witness high demand for rust removers owing to the huge demand from automotive and manufacturing sectors. The growing construction and infrastructure activities in India, China and Japan are expected to boost the rust removers market. China is one of the prominent consumers and manufacturers of rust removers. North America is expected to witness high growth rate for rust removers market owing to increasing demand from residential, aviation & aerospace sectors. Increasing demand from the U.S. military department is also expected to drive the rust removers market. Europe is expected to witness steady growth during the forecast period.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Global Rust Remover Market: Key ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants operating in the global rust remover market include:TrimurtiCorrosion Technologies, LLCNorthern Technologies International Corporation (NTIC)The Dow Chemical CompanyChempace CorporationThe Lubrizol CorporationEuropages SAResearch Solutions Group, Inc.Chemtool IncorporatedChoksey Chemicals PVT. LTD.FerrylJenoliteEmergo Metal TreatmentABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market InsightsAbhishek Bhudoliya616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Growth Opportunities in Oxy-fuel Welding Equipment Market: New Research Report 2017 - 2027

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Oxy-fuel welding process is a welding techniques utilizing a compressed mixture of high energy density fuel and oxygen to generate a flame capable of elevating the temperature of the material to be welded. The three welding processes that falls under oxy-fuel welding are Oxyacetylene welding, Oxyhydrogen welding, Pressure gas welding and air acetylene welding. Among these four welding techniques, oxyacetylene welding is the most prominent technique adopted for the purpose of welding taking up more than 80% of the market share. The equipment that is used to propagate the welding technique can be broken down into simple components comprising of gas cylinders, flow regulators, mixing chamber, conveyance tubes and nozzle. Manufacturers of such equipment in the current scenario are more focused on producing individual parts than the standalone systems owing to less cost and ease in assembling. Oxy-fuel welding process is widely preferred in application areas where the availability of electrical power is a constraint while the welding process can be done with or without the use of filler material.Oxy-fuel Welding Equipment Market DynamicsThough oxy-fuel welding technique has limited application in industrial scale operation, its utilization in repair and fabrication industry is the most prominent. Small scale repair shops run by a single or few welders typically adopt oxy-fuel welding technique due to lower investment costs and ability to weld large variety of materials has increased its popularity hence biding well for the growth of the oxy-fuel welding equipment market. Oxy-fuel welding technique is the least complex among all the welding techniques requiring minimum set up operation. This technique requires the assembly of simple devices such as fuel tank, torch, mixing chambers among others hence, in-depth know how of such techniques is not necessary making it practically useful for people who are new to welding. The non-requirement of electricity in order to initiate the welding process is another factor helping in driving the oxy-fuel welding equipment market even further.The growth of oxy-fuel welding equipment market is likely to be restrained by the erratic availability of fuels adopted in this technique. Oxygen and acetylene are the two most popular fuels along with hydrogen used as the power source to generate the welding flame in this welding technique. Inadequate supply of such fuels can lead to increase in its prices which can further lead to decrease in demand for oxy-fuel welding equipment thereby retraining the market to improve in the upcoming years. Another restraint associated with the market is the fragility of entire assembly and the dangers associated with pressurized gases that are used with it. Last but not the least, the weld quality produced from this technique is on the lower scale among all the welding processes hence requiring skilled personnel to achieve a weld of desirable quality, thereby retraining the growth of the market.Request For Report Sample:Oxy-fuel Welding EquipmentMarket: SegmentationOxy-fuel Welding EquipmentMarket can be segmented as follows;By Process type, the market can be segmented as:Oxyacetylene WeldingOxyhydrogen WeldingPressure Gas WeldingOthersBy End Use Industry, the market can be segmented as:Energy & UtilitiesAerospaceTransportationMetal FabricationMaintenance and RepairAutomotiveOthersOxy-fuel Welding EquipmentMarket: Regional OutlookThe oxy-fuel welding equipment market can be related to the performance of the end use industry in each of the seven geographical locations across the globe. The North American market is anticipated to hold a healthy potential for the growth of the market owing to increase in fabrication and repair activities across the region especially in the U.S. The presence of large number of retailers and specialist sellers of oxy-fuel welding equipment is expected to aid in the growth of the market even further. The market in the Asia Pacific region also holds high potential to improve further in the future owing to large presence of small scale welding workshops that rely on cheaper welding options, particularly in China, ASEAN and IndiaRequest For Report Table of Content (TOC):Oxy-fuel Welding Equipment Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the major players in the Global Oxy-fuel Welding Equipment market, identified across the value chain include:Illinois Tool Works Inc.Koike Aronson, Inc.Colfax CorporationThe Eastwood CompanyAmerican Torch Tip CompanyQuality Components Co. Inc.Rexarc International, Inc.Detroit Torch & Mfg. Co.Flame Technologies, Inc.Rotarex S.A.Uniweld Products, Inc.Tewelding EngineersABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market InsightsAbhishek Bhudoliya616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Laser Therapy Devices Market Estimated to Expand at a Robust CAGR During 2017-2027 | Future Market Insights

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The global laser therapy devices market is slated to touch a value of about US$ 1,900 Mn in the year 2022 and display a moderate CAGR during the assessment period. As per the forecast of Future Market Insights, the gas laser segment is slated to touch a value of more than US$ 470 Mn in the year 2022. This represents a robust CAGR during the assessment period of 2017-2022. The gas laser segment is estimated to account for nearly one-fourth of the revenue share of the device type segment by the year 2017 and is forecasted to gain market share by 2022 over 2017.Browse Full Report @As per the forecast of Future Market Insights, the specialized clinics segment will reach a value of about US$ 825 Mn in the year 2017. This represents a moderate CAGR growth during the forecast period. The specialized clinics segment is forecasted to account for more than half of the total revenue share of the end user segment by the end of the year 2017 and is expected to gain in market share by 2022 as compared with the year 2017.As per the forecast of Future Market Insights, the ophthalmology segment is slated to reach a value of more than US$ 560 Mn in 2022. The ophthalmology segment is expected to gain market share by the end of the year 2022. The largest share is contributed by the North America region in the ophthalmology segment. Future Market Insights forecasts the United States laser therapy devices market to exhibit a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 4% from 2017 to 2022.Request to View Full TOC @The report has also included the profiles of some of the leading companies in the laser therapy devices market like Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., Lumenis Ltd., Boston Scientific Corporation, Danaher Corporation, IPG Photonics Corporation, Alma Lasers, Ltd., Coherent, Inc., Fotona d.d., Biolitec AG and Hologic Inc.In the field of medical science, lasers are used in specific wavelengths of light, from red to near infrared, in order to create beneficial and therapeutic effects. Such kind of results include improved time of healing, reduction in pain, increased blood circulation and a reduction in swelling. A trend in the laser therapy devices market includes a shift towards pain-free and non-invasive procedures. The procedures related to medical aesthetics, both invasive and non-invasive, are becoming increasingly popular amongst the younger population. These procedures using lasers have replaced the traditional surgery and they give superior results with minimum complications. Moreover, non-invasive laser procedures like removal of scars, resurfacing of the skin, facelifts, laser hair removal and liposuction are becoming increasingly popular as they promote a younger looking appearance with minimal side effects.Buy Full Laser Therapy Devices Market Report @ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Laminated Tube Packaging Market Likely to Grow at a CAGR Of 7.65% during 2016-2022

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Laminated tube packaging market is going to dominate the global tube packaging market.Arizton Advisory & Intelligence has published an exclusive report on the Tube Packaging Market  Global Outlook and Forecast 20172022. The report includes the analysis of key segments of the tube packaging market and provides the market size and forecast of each segment.View Report: Tube Packaging Market  Global Outlook and Forecast 20172022.Laminated Tube Packaging MarketAnalysts at Arizton say that laminated tube packaging is the fastest growing segments in the packaging industry and is likely to grow at a CAGR of 7.65% during the period 20162022. The key players in the market such as Essel Propack and The Albea group are collaborating with various cosmetic and pharma companies, and are developing innovative technologies concerned with the manufacturing process of laminated tubes.Laminated tube packaging is a packaging technique processed from laminated materials and are widely used in cosmetics, daily necessities, medical products, and others. These tubes are manufactured from web-like materials that consist of a series of layers and longitudinal edges of the laminate are welded to form the tube body. Based on the contents and products, these tubes come with different layers such as aluminum, plastic, ceramic, or polyester. Laminated tubes are usually supplied to the toothpaste industry; however, they are now extensively used in the cosmetics and other markets as well. Manufacturing of laminate tubes is carried out by using the laminate feedstock, a simple poly-foil-poly structure, which includes polyethylene on the sides of a thin gauge of foil and some paper is incorporated as well.The report further provides the market size of the following segmentsMaterial Type: Aluminum, Plastic, and LaminatesEnd Users: Beauty and cosmetic, Pharma and health, Food, Oral care, and House careMajor Geography: APAC, Europe, Latin America, MEA, and North AmericaKey Countries: Canada, China, India, Japan, and the USThe laminated tube packaging market is followed by the plastic packaging segment. The rise in demand for airless tubes and the availability of innovative and high-quality printing techniques on the tubes are a few of the growth drivers of the plastic tubes market.Source:About Arizton Advisory IntelligenceArizton  Advisory and Intelligence is an innovation and quality-driven firm, which offers cutting-edge research solutions to clients across the world. We excel in providing comprehensive market intelligence reports and advisory and consulting services.Arizton has gained a paramount standpoint in the market research arena as it offers top of the line solutions to clients to assess market landscape and to finalize foolproof business strategies. We are committed to provide inclusive market research reports and consulting services to clients from diversified industries including Consumer Goods & Retail Technology, Automotive and Mobility, Smart Tech, Healthcare and Lifesciences, Industrial Machinery, Chemicals and Materials, IT and Media, Logistics and PackagingArizton comprises a team of exuberant and well-experienced analysts who have mastered in generating incisive reports. Our specialist analysts possess exemplary skills in market research. We train our team in advanced research practices, techniques, and ethics to outperform in fabricating impregnable research reports.Arizton Advisory & IntelligenceChicago, Illinois, 60605Mail: enquiry@arizton.comCall: +1-312-465-7864
Global Juice Concentrate Market Driven by Rising popularity of Convenience Foods

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Global Juice Concentrate Market: SnapshotStiff competition prevails in the global juice concentrate market and based on product differentiation few companies are gaining competitive advantage over others. Launch of new products with respect to taste and flavor is what companies in this market are focused on to steal a march from their competitors.Download exclusive Sample of this report:Some of the key growth drivers of the global juice concentrate market are rising popularity of convenience foods, rising consciousness about the importance of good health, and longer shelf life and cost effectiveness of juice concentrates over fresh juices.Proving to be a roadblock to the growth of this market is increasing awareness about the harmful effects of excess fructose consumption.A report by Transparency Market Research forecasts the global juice concentrate market to be worth US$117.89 bn by 2025 increasing from a value of US$89.56 bn in 2016 at a CAGR of 3.4% therein.Fruit Juice Concentrate Garners Leading ShareThe segments into which the juice concentrate market is classified based upon type are fruit juice concentrate and vegetable fruit concentrate. Fruit juice concentrate garnered leading share of the market in 2016. This is because fruit juice concentrates are widely used for a number of foods and beverages such as curds, ice creams, etc.Browse Market Research Report @In terms of form, the segments of the global juice concentrate market are clear concentrate, frozen concentrate, and powdered concentrate. Clear concentrate mostly dominates the market followed by powdered concentrate.Online distribution channel and offline distribution channel are the segments into which the global juice market is segregated based upon distribution channel. The offline distribution channel is mainly sub-segmented into hypermarkets and supermarkets, departmental stores, and others. In 2016, offline held the leading share of the market; however, online distribution channel is expected to grow immensely in the forthcoming years. The rising number of supermarkets and hypermarkets, especially in emerging economies is a key factor for the leading share of the offline distribution channel.The application segments of the juice concentrate market considered in this study are beverages, soups and sauces, bakery products, dairy products, confectionery products, and others. In 2016, beverages stood as the leading segment in terms of market share. This is mainly because of large-scale applications of juice concentrates in foods and a high demand for fruit and vegetable juices based beverages.Advancements in Food Processing Industry Has Enabled Europe Emerge DominantBy geography, the juice concentrate market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa.Europe held the leading market share in the global juice concentrate market in 2016 and the region is expected to hold on to its lead position over the forecast period. Technological advances in the food processing industry is a key factor driving growth of this regional market. France, Belgium, Germany, and the U.K. are key domestic markets for juice concentrate in the region.North America held a small share in the global juice concentrate market in 2016. Rising health consciousness regarding excess consumption of fructose and increasing healthy food choices is having a negative influence on the juice concentrate market in North America.Asia Pacific is anticipated to be the most attractive market for juice concentrate in the forthcoming years. An increasing middle class population in the emerging economies of the region and changing lifestyle are key factors stoking growth in the region.Some leading players in the global juice concentrate market are Archer Daniels Midland Co., Dohler Company, Ingredion Incorporated, SkyPeople Fruit Juice Inc., Diana Food, AGRANA Group, Sunopta Inc., SVZ International B.V., The Ciatti Company, and Kanegrade Limited.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Unmanned Underwater Vehicles Industry Type, Application and Global Regional Forecast Report 2017-2025

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Unmanned underwater vehicles are autonomous robotic machines that travel and operate underwater without the intervention of human inputs. The major use cases of unmanned underwater vehicles are in military operations, commercial industries, and scientific research.Heavy investment in unmanned underwater vehicles by military groups of developed countries, demand for deep water exploration and upstream processes by oil and gas companies, and rising adoption across educational institutions for scientific research are considered as major drivers towards the growth of unmanned underwater vehicle market. However, technical issues during underwater operation and low battery life may hinder the growth of unmanned underwater vehicle market. Increasing adoption of unmanned underwater vehicles is expected to fuel the market in the forecasted period.Request Sample is Available atThe Unmanned Underwater Vehicle Market Analysis to 2025 is a specialized and in-depth study of the unmanned underwater vehicle industry with a focus on the global market trend. The report aims to provide an overview of global unmanned underwater vehicle market with detailed market segmentation by type, application and geography. The global unmanned underwater vehicle market is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period. The report provides key statistics on the market status of the leading market players and offers key trends and opportunities in the market.The report provides a detailed overview of the industry including both qualitative and quantitative information. It provides overview and forecast of the global unmanned underwater vehicle market based on type, and application. It also provides market size and forecast till 2025 for overall unmanned underwater vehicle market with respect to five major regions, namely; North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South America (SAM). The market by each region is later sub-segmented by respective countries and segments. The report covers analysis and forecast of 15 counties globally along with current trend and opportunities prevailing in the region.Inquire before Buying atBesides this, the report analyzes factors affecting market from both demand and supply side and further evaluates market dynamics effecting the market during the forecast period i.e., drivers, restraints, opportunities, and future trend. The report also provides exhaustive Porters Five Forces analysis.Also, key unmanned underwater vehicle market players influencing the market are profiled in the study along with their SWOT analysis and market strategies. The report also focuses on leading industry players with information such as company profiles, products and services offered, financial information of last 3 years, key development in past five years. Some of the key players influencing the market are Kongsberg Gruppen, Teledyne Technologies Incorporated, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Saab AB, Oceaneering International, Inc., SUBSEA 7, ATLAS ELEKTRONIK GmbH, International Submarine Engineering Limited, Fugro N.V. and L3 Technologies Inc. among others.Complete Report is Available atContact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@theinsightpartners.comAbout Us:The Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Media, and Telecommunication industries.533, 5th Floor, Amanora Chambers,Amanora Township, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Man Portable Anti-Armor Weapons Industry Type, Modes, Technology, Growth and Regional Analysis Report 2017-2025

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Man portable anti-armor weapons refers to the military weapons such as missiles, rifles and grenades those are shoulder fired weapons. These anti-armor weapons are easily carried by the soldiers from place to place in order to destroy the enemy main battle tanks, aircrafts or armored vehicles. These weapons are highly effective in destroying the intended targets whether static or moving.The major factor which helps to boost up the market for man portable anti-armor weapons market include development of lightweight and highly effective anti-armor weapons whereas this market is affected by the malfunction of the rocket and missile launchers which may act as a restraining factor in its growth. Innovations in the existing technologies will add new opportunities for this market in the coming years.Request Sample is Available atThe Global Man Portable Anti-Armor Weapons Market Analysis to 2025 is a specialized and in-depth study of the man portable anti-armor weapons industry with a focus on the global market trend. The report aims to provide an overview of global man portable anti-armor weapons market with detailed market segmentation by type, modes, technology and geography. The global man portable anti-armor weapons market is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period. The report provides key statistics on the market status of the leading market players and offers key trends and opportunities in the market.The report provides a detailed overview of the industry including both qualitative and quantitative information. It provides overview and forecast of the global man portable anti-armor weapons market based on type, modes and technology. It also provides market size and forecast till 2025 for overall man portable anti-armor weapons market with respect to five major regions, namely; North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South America (SAM). The market by each region is later sub-segmented by respective countries and segments. The report covers analysis and forecast of 16 counties globally along with current trend and opportunities prevailing in the region.Inquire before Buying atThe report provides a detailed overview of the industry including both qualitative and quantitative information. It provides overview and forecast of the global man portable anti-armor weapons market based on type, modes and technology. It also provides market size and forecast till 2025 for overall man portable anti-armor weapons market with respect to five major regions, namely; North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South America (SAM). The market by each region is later sub-segmented by respective countries and segments. The report covers analysis and forecast of 16 counties globally along with current trend and opportunities prevailing in the region.Besides this, the report analyzes factors affecting market from both demand and supply side and further evaluates market dynamics effecting the market during the forecast period i.e., drivers, restraints, opportunities, and future trend. The report also provides exhaustive Porters Five Forces analysis.Also, key man portable anti-armor weapons market players influencing the market are profiled in the study along with their SWOT analysis and market strategies. The report also focuses on leading industry players with information such as company profiles, products and services offered, financial information of last 3 years, key development in past five years. Some of the key players influencing the market are Lockheed Martin Corporation., Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL), Thales Group, Raytheon Company., General Dynamics Corporation, BAE Systems Plc, Saab AB, Nammo AS, MBDA Missile Systems and KONSTRUKTORSKOYE BYUR MASHYNOSTROYENIYA (KBM).Complete Report is Available atContact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@theinsightpartners.comAbout Us:The Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Media, and Telecommunication industries.533, 5th Floor, Amanora Chambers,Amanora Township, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Ostomy Care Accessories Market Reflecting a US$ 503.7 Mn by 2021

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According to the latest market report published by Persistence Market Research titled Global Market Study on Ostomy Care Accessories: High Demand for Safety and Ease Of Use Accessories to Drive the Market During the Forecast Period , the ostomy care accessories market has been estimated to be valued at US$ 347.2 Mn by the end of 2015, and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 6.8% during the forecast period (2015-2021) to account for US$ 503.7 Mn by 2021.View Full Report TOC, Figures and Tables @By region, Europe has been estimated to dominate the ostomy care accessories market with over 42.1% share by 2015 end and is expected to remain dominant throughout the forecast period. Skin protection and skin barriers are the largest segment in global ostomy care accessories market. The global skin protection and skin barriers segment are expected to increase at a CAGR of 6.6% in terms of value during the forecast period. Belt, tapes and adhesives are the second-largest segment in the global ostomy care accessories market and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 6.8% in terms of value during the forecast period.Report Overview @Asia-Pacific represents the most lucrative market, followed by North America for ostomy care accessories This is primarily due to increase awareness about ostomy care accessories available in the market, growing operational activities by key players and rising demand for better healthcare facilities in India, China, Bangladesh, Philippines and Indonesia. Asia Pacific has been estimated to account for 15.1% market share in the global ostomy care accessories market in 2015, which is expected to increase to 15.6% market share by 2021.Buy Full Market Report @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.ContactPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
The High Speed Industrial Motors Meter Market is Projected to Grow at a Substantial Rate

QYResearchReports

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report High Speed Industrial Motors Meter to its huge collection of research reports.The exhaustive report here gathers various viewpoints having a place with the general High Speed Industrial Motors Meter market which verbalizes the present-day information and future exposures with reference to the dynamic forces at play. The prime purpose for the examination report is to offer the endorser with an expansive layout and make available the beneficial facts and records. The quantifiable and testing clarifications behind the examination other than executes information on issues, for instance, drivers, shackles, and projections to gage the delayed consequence of the general High Speed Industrial Motors Meter market through the cross of the said gage period in the examination report. The report in like course passes on a brief and world class record of the predefined market traces, which joins a few events of the veritable concentrations at work which are studied to trigger change in the market or may cause any negative impact.Get free sample copy of the report with TOC at:This report other than stations into the general High Speed Industrial Motors Meter market by in a general sense inspecting the thing and industrialized chain of the market. This is required to likewise help in passing on true blue data and information on compound parts of the fitting market, for instance, material identifying with strategies for the overseeing body in the ordinary and general strata, transport and transmission structure, objectives, and reasons for premium got for the contributed mean.The report uses a few indicated industry examination and entire contraptions. They allow the examination assemble pass on a revealed basic evaluation of the general High Speed Industrial Motors Meter market and help endorser and market troupes to be admonished regarding hypothesis and business judgments. The wide reasoning of the examination gives a market position on an unquestionable and moment scale. It assembles fundamental and discretionary research structures along these lines. The operators have figured the recorded experiences and rose it from the forward and in turn around change the situation to design a structure for the general High Speed Industrial Motors Meter market in the years ahead.Read complete report with TOC at:Global High Speed Industrial Motors market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingABBSiemensMitsubishiGEHITACHINidecToshibaRegal BeloitWEGTecoEmersonMEIDENSHAWolong ElectricRockwell AutomationFranklin ElectricZhongda MotorXIZI FORVORDAAmetekAllied MotionJEUMONTOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoPMDCEMDCTo check available discount on this report, visit at:Table of ContentsGlobal High Speed Industrial Motors Market Research Report 20171 High Speed Industrial Motors Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of High Speed Industrial Motors1.2 High Speed Industrial Motors Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category)(2012-2022)1.2.2 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 PMDC1.2.4 EMDC1.3 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Segment by Application1.3.1 High Speed Industrial Motors Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Oil & Gas1.3.3 Power Generation1.3.4 Mining & Metal1.3.5 Industrial Machinery1.3.6 Others1.4 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 North America Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of High Speed Industrial Motors (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022)2 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.1 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.3 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Average Price by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.4 Manufacturers High Speed Industrial Motors Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 High Speed Industrial Motors Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 High Speed Industrial Motors Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 High Speed Industrial Motors Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion3 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)3.1 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Capacity and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.2 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Production and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.3 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.4 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.5 North America High Speed Industrial Motors Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.6 Europe High Speed Industrial Motors Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.7 China High Speed Industrial Motors Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.8 Japan High Speed Industrial Motors Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.9 Southeast Asia High Speed Industrial Motors Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.10 India High Speed Industrial Motors Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)4 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2012-2017)4.1 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Consumption by Region (2012-2017)4.2 North America High Speed Industrial Motors Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.3 Europe High Speed Industrial Motors Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.4 China High Speed Industrial Motors Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.5 Japan High Speed Industrial Motors Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.6 Southeast Asia High Speed Industrial Motors Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.7 India High Speed Industrial Motors Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)5 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type5.1 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Production and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)5.2 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)5.3 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Price by Type (2012-2017)5.4 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Production Growth by Type (2012-2017)6 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Market Analysis by Application6.1 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Consumption and Market Share by Application (2012-2017)6.2 Global High Speed Industrial Motors Consumption Growth Rate by Application (2012-2017)6.3 Market Drivers and Opportunities6.3.1 Potential Applications6.3.2 Emerging Markets/Countries...About QYReseachReports.comQYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact US:Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-618-1030Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Aircraft Sensors Market to Undertake Strapping Growth During 2017  2022

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/aircraft-sensors-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/report-toc/31466

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The global aircraft sensors market is forecasted to receive a strong push in its growth momentum on the back of advancements in technologies, massive investments forwarded by private equity groups, and the elevation in the demand for aircraft. Adherence to the requirements and regulations of authorities such as local aircraft regulatory bodies and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) could pamper the growth of the market. Nonetheless, there could be more factors improving the demand for aircraft sensors in the coming years, which are explicitly discussed in a recent publication. Players are expected to embrace a wealth of opportunities prevailing in the market.Transparency Market Research (TMR) predicted the global aircraft sensors market to rise at a 6.4% CAGR to reach a revenue estimation of US$2.5 bn by the end of 2022. In 2017, the market proved the estimation of a US$1.8 bn to be true.View Full Report TOC, Figures and Tables:Global Aircraft Sensors Market: Major InsightsThe rise in the demand for aircraft carriers could augur well for the growth of the international aircraft sensors market. Low-cost carriers, in particular, are expected to be highly demanded in the aviation industry. As a result, narrow-body aircraft could experience a hefty rise in its demand in the coming years. By the closure of 2035, as per Boeings Outlook 2017, the fleet size of narrow body aircraft is foretold to touch 32,280 on a global platform. The Asia region could account for a decent share of the total anticipated deliveries by 2035. However, the demand for aircraft sensors is projected to be higher in North America, thus explaining its lead in the global market.The international aircraft sensors market is prophesied to be cataloged into three important segments, i.e. turbofan, turboprop, and turboshaft, as per product classification. By application, the market could be classified into commercial, military, and general. Amongst these significant applications of aircraft sensors, the commercial segment is envisaged to take a leading share in the market while expanding at a CAGR of 6.7%. The dominance of this segment could continue to show face until the end of the forecast period. In 2017, it showcased its prominence by securing a majority share of 51.3%. Even its annual absolute growth could be greater than other segments in the segmentation class.In terms of geography, the international aircraft sensors market is anticipated to testify the lead secured by North America by the end of 2022. Besides an attractive region, North America is prognosticated to be a choice market with a US$1.1 bn foreseen to be earned by 2022 end. Europe and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) could be other lucrative regions of the market. By the concluding forecast year, Europe is envisioned to garner a US$0.4 bn, whereas the MEA could rise at a 5.1% CAGR.Global Aircraft Sensors Market: Vendor LandscapeThe analysts authoring the publication explain the nature and future changes in the competitive scenario of the worldwide aircraft sensors market. Various companies are profiled in the publication, including UTC Aerospace Systems, TE Connectivity Ltd., Honeywell International, Inc., Zodiac Aerospace SA, and AMETEK, Inc.Report Overview, with TOC:About us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Aircraft Engines Market to Undertake Strapping Growth During 2017 - 2022

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https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/report-toc/27203

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The global aircraft engines market is foreseen to draw a handsome demand owing to the rising requirement of advanced and new commercial and private aircrafts. This could be because of the foray of new airline companies into the industry and network expansion of firms currently operating in the market. The ongoing need to supersede or replace out of date aircrafts could be another factor improving the demand for aircraft engines. GE Aviations introduction of the M601H-80 Turboprop Derivative Engine II-49 and other new trends along with fast technological advancement could result in the speedy substitution of older aircrafts.The global aircraft engines market is foretold by Transparency Market Research (TMR) to earn a revenue of US$92.3 bn by the end of 2022 at a 6.4% CAGR. In 2017, the market bagged a revenue of US$67.8 bn.View Full Report:Global Aircraft Engines Market: Major InsightsThe international aircraft engines market is prognosticated to fortify its growth while taking advantage of the snowballing size of air passenger traffic powered by economic development in several nations of the world. The demand for fuel-efficient aircrafts is prophesied to propel due to popular trends observed in the markets for different aircraft equipment. As a result, airline carriers could be encouraged to launch more budget aircrafts, further advancing the growth of the market.Canada holding a leading position in the manufacturing of turbine-powered aviation engines for commercial and business copters and aircrafts is foreknown to up the growth of North America. On the other hand, Asia Pacific could ride on the buildout of inter-regional trade in India and China.The international aircraft engines market is anticipated to be segregated as per application and product, where each category could include a leading segment. In terms of application, the market is predicted to be classified into commercial, military, and general. Out of these applications, commercial could exhibit a dominating revenue of US$46.0 bn by the completion of 2022. It could rise a CAGR of 6.7% and showcase a higher absolute growth of US$2.5 bn annually. According to a categorization by product, the market is expected to witness the presence of segments such as turbofan, turboprop, and turboshaft.On the basis of regional segmentation, the international aircraft engines market is envisioned to include key segments such as North America, which could dominate with a colossal revenue share. By the closure of 2022, this region could earn a valuation of US$41.2 bn. Japan, however, could be among the lethargically growing markets, which is envisaged to bag a US$5.8 bn by the same year. Europe and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) could gather a closer revenue earning by the end of the forecast period. Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ) is projected to exhibit a speedier growth in the market. In 2017, APEJ collected a share of 15.6%.Global Aircraft Engines Market: Vendor LandscapeSome of the prominent companies looking to strengthen their status in the worldwide aircraft engines market are forecast to be Rolls-Royce plc, GE Aviation, Pratt & Whitney, CFM International, Engine Alliance, IAE International Aero Engines AG, MTU Aero Engines, Safran, and Honeywell Aerospace.Report Overview, with TOC:About us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Nov, 3 2017: Mushroom Fermenter Market Forecast 2023 Quanhe Fungi, Bioengineering, Tongling Bio, Sartorius

Mushroom Fermenter

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Mushroom Fermenter Market Research 2017A market study  Global Mushroom Fermenter Market  examines the performance of the Mushroom Fermenter market 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Mushroom Fermenter market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Mushroom Fermenter market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Mushroom Fermenter Market 2017 report includes Mushroom Fermenter market Revenue, market Share, Mushroom Fermenter industry volume, market Trends, Mushroom Fermenter Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Mushroom Fermenter Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Mushroom Fermenter Market 2017 : Bioengineering Eppendorf DCI-Biolafitte Sartorius Infors HT Applikon Biotechnology MARUBISHI Tongling Bio Zhenjiang Ritai Quanhe Fungi Jingxin Tongmao GS-bio Yongxiang Machinery Lianyungang Best Huihe MachineFirstly, the report covers the top Mushroom Fermenter manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the Mushroom Fermenter report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Mushroom Fermenter industry, Mushroom Fermenter industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Mushroom Fermenter Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Browse Full Report Here:The Mushroom Fermenter research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Mushroom Fermenter market revenue worldwide.Finally, Mushroom Fermenter market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:"Spire Market Research" is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244, USAWeb:Email: sales@spiremarketresearch.com
Ultraviolet Disinfection Equipment Market is Supposed to Reach more than US$ 3.5 Billion Globally By 2020

Ultraviolet Disinfection Equipment Market

https://www.marketresearchengine.com/ultraviolet-disinfection-equipment-market

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The significance of different disinfection methodology like UV disinfection is growing by the day, as these strategies are higher than typical chemical based disinfection. The key driving factors for the market are value effectiveness as compared to alternative new disinfection ways, new government initiatives for UV disinfection, and issues of emerging nations to provide safe drinking water, environmentally friendly disinfection system and the use of UV led in disinfection saves energy. However, there are some restraints like low price of typical disinfectants like chlorine, lack of treating the residuals by UV disinfection equipment and decline in the share of food & food and surface disinfection applications. The key opportunities for the market exist healthcare & chemical industries for air treatment application and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the UN for water treatment.The UV disinfection equipment market would garner revenue of USD 3.6 billion by 2020. The analysts forecast global Ultraviolet disinfection equipment market for the mining sector to grow at a CAGR of 14% during the period 2016-2022.You Can Browse Full Report:The major driving factors of Ultraviolet disinfection equipment Market are as follows: Cost effectively as compared to other new disinfection methods The new government initiatives is expected to drive the UV disinfection equipment market Increasing concerns in emerging nations regarding safe drinking water It is an environmentally suitable disinfection system The advent of UV LED saves energyThe restraining factors of Ultraviolet disinfection equipment Market are as follows: Cost of conventional disinfectants is low as compared to UV lights Lack of residual ability of UV disinfection equipmentThe opportunities of Ultraviolet disinfection equipment Market are as follows: Healthcare and chemical industries offer growth opportunities in air treatment applications Millennium development goals of the UN offers growth opportunities in water treatmentThis report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global Water and Wastewater Management market for 2016-2022. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sales of robotic pharmacy prescription systems.The scope of the report includes a detailed study of global and regional markets on Ultraviolet disinfection equipment Market with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.Request Sample Report:The Ultraviolet disinfection equipment Market has been segmented as below:By Application Analysis: Water treatment Wastewater treatment Air treatment Process water treatment Surface disinfectionBy Regional Analysis: North America Europe Asia-Pacific Rest of WorldTable of Contents1 INTRODUCTION2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY3 MARKET OVERVIEW3.1 Market definition and scope3.2 Key findings3.2.1 Top factors impacting the world UV disinfection equipment market3.2.2 Top investment pockets3.2.3 Top winning strategies3.3 Government initiatives and regulations3.4 Maintenance needs of UV equipment3.5 Porters five force analysis3.5.1 Suppliers power is low as the buyers are highly educated3.5.2 Bargaining power of buyers is high as they hire services in large scale3.5.3 Threat of substitute products is very high as alternative disinfectants are available in the market3.5.4 Barriers to new entry is high due to easy access to distribution channels3.5.5 The industrial growth is slow which increases the intensity of rivalry3.6 Value chain analysis3.7 Case studies3.8 Market share analysis, 20143.9 Market dynamics3.9.1 Drivers3.9.1.1 Cost effectivity as compared to other new disinfection methods3.9.1.2 The new government initiatives is expected to drive the UV disinfection equipment market3.9.1.3 Increasing concerns in emerging nations regarding safe drinking water3.9.1.4 It is an environmentally suitable disinfection system3.9.1.5 The advent of UV LED saves energy3.9.2 Restraints3.9.2.1 Cost of conventional disinfectants is low as compared to UV lights3.9.2.2 Lack of residual ability of UV disinfection equipment3.9.3 Opportunities3.9.3.1 Healthcare and chemical industries offer growth opportunities in air treatment applications3.9.3.2 Millennium development goals of the UN offers growth opportunities in water treatment4 WORLD UV DISINFECTION EQUIPMENT MARKET BY APPLICATION5 WORLD UV DISINFECTION EQUIPMENT MARKET BY GEOGRAPHY6 COMPANY PROFILES6.1 Aquionics6.2 Atlantic Ultraviolet Corporatio6.3 Calgon Carbon Corporation6.4 Trojan Technologies (Danaher Corporation)6.5 Koninklijke Philips N.V.6.6 Xylem Inc.6.7 Severn Trent Services6.8 Xenex Disinfection Services LLC6.9 American Ultraviolet, Inc.About UsMarket Research Engine (MRE) is a next-generation provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. MREs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each Market Research Engines research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862Country: United StatesWebsite:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Global and Europe 3D Printing Gases Market Growth, Industry Trends and Forecast, 2017- 2022

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This report presents a comprehensive overview of the 3D Printing Gases market in Europe, which shares the history data information from 2012 to 2016, and forecast from 2017 to 2022.Download free PDF request sample @This report provides a detailed analysis of the market, including its dynamics, structure, characteristics, main players, growth and demand drivers, etc. As a Detailed Analysis report, it covers all details inside analysis and opinion in 3D Printing Gases industry.This report focuses on Global and Europe market, including details as following:Key PlayersBASF SE (Germany)The Linde Group (Germany)Air Liquide S.A. (France)Praxair Inc. (U.S.)Air Products and Chemicals Inc.Iwatani Corporation (Japan)Airgas Inc. (U.S.)Matheson Tri-Gas Inc. (U.S.)Messer Group (Germany)Iceblick Ltd. (Ukraine)Key RegionsEuropeGermanyUnited KingdomFranceItalySpainRussiaNetherlandPolandOthersUnited StatesChinaJapanIndiaOthersKey Product TypeBy 3D Printing Gases typeArgonNitrogenGas mixturesBy 3D Printing GasesnologyStereolithographyLaser SinteringPoly-jet 3D Printing GasesnologyOthers (Binder-jetting 3D Printing Gasesnology, etc.)By storage, distribution, and transportationCylinder & Packaged DistributionMerchant Liquid DistributionTonnage DistributionOtherVisit Full Report Here, By the Link @Key ApplicationsDesign & ManufacturingHealthcareConsumer ProductsOthers (automotive, aerospace & defense, etc.)About UsRadiant Insights is a market research and consulting company offering syndicated research studies, customized reports, and consulting services. Our market research studies are designed to facilitate strategic decision making, on the basis of extensive and in-depth quantitative information, supported by extensive analysis and industry insights.GET IN TOUCH201 Spear Street 1100, Suite 3036, San Francisco, CA 94105, United StatesTel : 1-415-349-0054Toll Free: 1-888-928-9744Mail: sales@radiantinsights.com
Digital Isolator Market to Undertake Strapping Growth During 2017 - 2022

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/digital-isolator-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/report-toc/16361

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The global digital isolator market is forecast to up its growth while riding on worthwhile applications such as gate drivers. This application, in particular, could expand at a telling rate in the near future. In the industrial sector, gate drivers could be engaged for driving motors. However, their wider usage could be attributed to the high demand in developed countries such as the Nordic, Japan, Germany, and the U.S. for the electrification of automobiles on a large scale. Moreover, gate drivers could be applied in electric vehicle engines.The global digital isolator market, according to Transparency Market Research (TMR), is predicted to record a CAGR of 6.2% between 2017 and 2022. By the final forecast year, the market could be valued at a US$1,598.0 mn after progressing from a US$1,183.8 mn drawn in 2017.View Full Report TOC, Figures and Tables atGlobal Digital Isolator Market: Major InsightsThe international digital isolator market is foretold to gain momentum from the rising demand for technologically sophisticated electronics that make less noise, across a range of industry verticals. Furthermore, industry players could receive choice opportunities to grow in the market with the rise of industrial automation. Asia Pacific could be a fine instance of the increasing inclination toward industrial automation. Nonetheless, this region is foreseen to gain growth also on the back of its strongly developing manufacturing base and the presence of key electrical equipment and device manufacturers.The international digital isolator market is anticipated to see a classification as per isolation, data rate, channel, and vertical. In terms of isolation, the market could testify the superiority demonstrated by giant magnetoresistive in terms of revenue until the end of the forecast period. By 2022, this segment is anticipated to rake in a US$608.1 mn and expand at a 7.1% CAGR.With respect to data rate, the international digital isolator market could be segmented into less than 25 mbps, 25 mbps to 75 mbps, and more than 75 mbps. In terms of channel, 2 channel, 4 channel, 6 channel, 8 channel, and others could be significant segments of the market. By vertical, the market could expect a contribution from industrial, healthcare, automotive, telecommunication, aerospace and defense, energy and power, and other verticals.Regionally, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ) is envisioned to set the tone for a higher growth in the international digital isolator market while exhibiting a dominating share in the coming years. It could expand at a 6.4% CAGR. North America is prognosticated to secure a US$476.1 mn by the closure of 2022. Europe could attract a slightly lower revenue by the same year and register a 5.0% CAGR. Latin America is projected to be another important region of the market. However, Japan could be a slower growing market for digital isolator, and so could the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region.Global Digital Isolator Market: Vendor LandscapeCompanies such as National Instruments, Murata Manufacturing, NXP Semiconductors, Maxim Integrated, ROHM Semiconductor, Broadcom Limited, Silicon Labs, Infineon Technologies, Analog Devices, and Texas Instruments could look to showcase their prominence in the worldwide digital isolator market.Report Overview, with TOC:About us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Intelligent Pumps Market to Undertake Strapping Growth During 2017 - 2025

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https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/report-toc/33092

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Presence of numerous small, medium and large players  both local and global  makes the global intelligent pumps market fragmented in nature. In order to bolster their positions in the market, savvy players are resorting to various strategies. One of them is formation of carefully considered alliances, especially by global players.Manufacturers are also expending money on development of technologically superior intelligent pumps to cater to the different needs of customers. They are also seen leveraging an extensive chain of distributors to reach out to their customers.View Full Report TOC, Figures and Tables @Some of the key participants in the global intelligent pumps market are Grundfos Holding A/S, Goulds Pumps, QuantumFlo, Inc., Kirloskar Brothers Limited, and Alfa Laval.A report by Transparency Market Research predicts the global intelligent pumps market to register a CAGR of 6.4% between 2017 and 2025. Rising at this pace, the market which was worth US$424.4 mn in 2016, will likely attain a value of US$748.5 mn by 2025.The global intelligent pumps market can be divided based on the type of component into pump motor, variable speed drive, control system, etc. Of them, the segment of variable speed drive accounted for about 40.0% share in the market in 2016.Region-wise, North America, Latin America, Europe, China, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa are a few key segments in the global intelligent pumps market. Among them, Asia Pacific is outpacing all other regions in terms of growth rate, which is predicted to remain about 7.3% from 2017 to 2025. The regions growth is mainly driven by China and India that manufacture cheap pumps. While China banks on export to the Middle East and Africa for revenue, India banks on the demand on the home turf from the burgeoning industrial and agricultural sector to drive sales. Swift pace of urbanization is also responsible for high growth in India.Operational Efficiency Stokes UptakeThe main unique perceived benefit of intelligent pumps is their operational efficiency. They minimize the need for manual operations by automating regulation and thereby control of the flow or pressure of water or other fluids. They also offer real-time operating data on the pumping equipment. Adds the lead analyst of the TMR report, The wireless monitoring systems and pump control help to overcome the existing challenges faced by pump system end-users. For example, they help to do away with the need for a large in-house maintenance staff in order to repair and monitor the equipment to prevent equipment failure, and this serves to bring down costs. This also helps to offset the steep installation cost of intelligent pump.Stringent Energy-efficiency Standards Promote GrowthStringent energy-efficiency standards in developed countries, thrust on adoption of smart water and wastewater systems, increasing power generation capacities across the globe, and considerable investments in non-oil and gas sectors in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are also promoting growth in the global intelligent pumps market.Report Overview, with TOC:About us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
J.P. Morgan Private Bank Market 2017By Identifying the Key Market Segments Poised for Strong Growth in Future

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SUMMARYWiseGuyReports published new report, titled Super League In-Depth Analysis: J.P. Morgan Private Bank"Super League In-Depth Analysis: J.P. Morgan Private Bank 2017", is a comprehensive analysis of J.P. Morgan Private Banks wealth management operations. It offers insight into the companys strategy, financial results, and marketing activities. It also covers recent merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, customer targeting, and product innovation.JPMorgan Chase & Co. is a US-based financial services company and the parent holding company of both J.P. Morgan and Chase. J.P. Morgan Private Bank is a brand used by its Asset & Wealth Management (AWM) business segment to cater to individuals and institutions with more than $10m in investible assets.Specifically the report - Insight into J.P. Morgan Private Banks growth strategy.- Overview of the firms organizational structure.- Clear presentation of its geographical coverage and expansion strategy, including M&A activity.- Analysis of the firms financial performance, including comparison with other J.P. Morgan Private Bank managers.- Examination of key target client groups.- Analysis of J.P. Morgan Private Banks product and service proposition and how it is unique compared to those of its competitors.- Review of J.P. Morgan Private Banks marketing and social media activities.GET SAMPLE REPORT @Scope- In 2016 the company shifted the focus of its private banking unit towards HNW individuals with more than $10m in liquid assets, up from the previous cutoff of $5m.- J.P. Morgan continues to expand both in the US and abroad. In Q1 2017 it announced it would be launching asset management operations in Mexico and Colombia.- J.P. Morgans focus on technological developments enables its AWM division to improve efficiencies and better serve clients.Key points to buy- Examine the financial performance and key ratios for J.P. Morgan Private Bank and benchmark this competitor against other J.P. Morgan Private Bank managers.- Explore J.P. Morgan Private Banks recent M&A and growth strategies and their impacts on its AUM growth and financial performance.- Understand J.P. Morgan Private Banks client targeting strategies and examine whether these have been successful.- Learn more about J.P. Morgan Private Banks marketing strategy, social media presence, and digital innovations.Table of ContentsExecutive SummaryStrategyFinancial PerformanceCustomers & ProductsMarketing & AdvertisingAppendix..CONTINUEDWise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.WISEGUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Rising Expenses on Bridal Wears Significantly Boosting Global Bridal Gowns Market: APEJ holds Leading Share in Revenue

MRRSE

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https://www.mrrse.com/bridal-gowns-market

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The new report on the Global Bridal Gowns Market offers a comprehensive outline of key market dynamics during the forecast period (20172022). The research incorporates a detailed historic overview of the share and size of various segments during 20122017 and analyzes various trends boosting the demand of prominent segments. In addition, the report offers revenue share of major regions and provides an evaluation of important developments influencing these regional markets. Furthermore, the study analyzes their role in generating revenue during the forecast timeline. This helps market participants get a reliable idea of the growth of these markets. In addition, the study takes a closer look at recent product innovations and offers an extensive profile of market players.Click here For Free Sample Report @The bridal gowns market is estimated to rise from US$32,454.2 Mn in 2017 to a valuation of US$43,502.8 by 2022 end. The worldwide market is projected to rise at a CAGR of 6.0% during the forecast period.Bridal Gowns Market: DynamicsThe study provides detailed insights into key drivers and trends, restraining factors, notable opportunities, competitive dynamics, and lucrative avenues in various regions. The analysis offers an insightful opinion on key factors driving the popularity of some styles of bridal gowns over others. The rising demand for various styles of bridal outfits as a part of lavish and wedding is a key factor boosting the market. The advent of new, innovative bridal lines from various retailers, which can be tailored to suit the varied body sizes of brides is accentuating the market.The rising affordability of exotic styles of bridal gowns in various regions is providing a robust impetus to the market. The continuous launch of exotic designs with amazing workmanship is boosting the market. The rising disposal incomes of middle-class populations in various emerging economies has stimulated them to splurge in wedding gowns. The advent of e-commerce and the mass marketization of bridal outfits in developed countries are key factors reflecting negatively on the market. Nevertheless, the adoption of new fashion trends in bridal wear in developed and developing regions is a key factor expected to open up exciting avenues for market players.Read Complete Report with TOC @Bridal Gowns Market: SegmentationThe report covers the share of various segments and offers a comparative analysis of the revenue across various regions. The research also provides an in-depth insight into year-on-year comparison of the market sizing in these regions.On the basis of style, the bridal gowns market is segmented into ball gowns, mermaid-style dresses, trumpet dresses, A-line dresses, sheath wedding dresses, tea-length wedding dresses, and others. Of these, the segment of ball gown holds the major share in the market and is expected to rise at an absolute growth of US$ 564.2 Mn, annually, which is larger than any other style segment. The dominance of this style is largely attributed to its sophistication and its ability to be a versatile fit for brides of all body shapes and sizes.On the basis of sales channel, the report segments the global bridal gowns market into modern trade, franchise outlets, women's clothing stores, boutiques, bridal stores, and e-commerce.Based on geography, this report segments the worldwide bridal gowns market into North America, Latin America, Middle East and Africa, Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), and Japan.Among these, APEJ holds the leading share, vis-a-vis revenue and is expected to retain its dominance throughout the forecast period. The regional market is projected to rise at 6.4% CAGR from 2017 to 2022. A lavish spending on wedding in various cultures is a key factor expected to fuel the regional market.Companies profiled in the report are:The report offers a detailed profiling of various retailers and their offerings. It further evaluates the strategies adopted by them to consolidate their presence in various regions. Some of the prominent players operating in the market are Kleinfeld Bridal Corp., Davids Bridal, Inc., Elie Saab France, Harrods Limited, JLM Couture, Inc., Justin Alexander, Inc., Maggie Sottero Designs L.L.C., and Moonlight Bridal Design, Inc.Get Inquiry about this Report @###About MRRSEMarket Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of Market Research Reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.ContactState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:Read More Industry News At:
Global Hybrid Operating Room Market Outlook and Detailed Forecast on Market Revenues during 2017 - 2022

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The Global Market for Hybrid Operating Room is witnessing a substantial rise in its valuation, thanks to the technological advancements in the field of operating room equipment. With the increasing government support, the market is expected to continue to rise at a high growth rate in the near future. A comprehensive assessment of the global market for hybrid operating rooms has been offered in this research study that intends to present detailed information with deep insights into this market to readers in a bid to assist them in gaining a better understanding of it.Click here For Free Sample Report @Global Hybrid Operating Room Market: Scope of the StudyThe report estimates and forecasts the worldwide hybrid operating room market on the global as well as the regional levels. It consists of a comprehensive analysis of the value chain for each of the segments. The assessment of the value chain also offers an in-depth information about the value addition to the market at each of the stages. Further, the study discusses the drivers and the restraints of this market, coupled with their impact on the demand for hybrid operating room equipment during the period from 2017 to 2022.The report also discusses the key market indicators, which impact the growth of the global hybrid operating room market considerably. It assesses the opportunities in this market by examining the market trends thoroughly. The drivers, limitations, opportunities, and the scope mentioned in the report have been justified by utilizing quantitative and qualitative data and have been verified by the primary and secondary resources. Moreover, an analysis of the average price trends and the substitutes have also been presented in this research study.Global Hybrid Operating Room Market: SegmentationThe research study provides a comprehensive overview of the worldwide market for hybrid operating room by evaluating it on the basis of the type of the component, end user, application, and the regional spread. Based on the type of the component, the market has been categorized into surgical instruments, operating room fixtures, intraoperative diagnostic imaging systems, and audiovisual display systems and tools. Based on the end user, the market has been divided into hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs).Read Complete Report with TOC @By the application, the market has been segmented into cardiovascular, neurosurgical, thoracic, and orthopedic disease treatments. In terms of the geography, the market is classified into Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), the Middle East and Africa (MEA), Europe, Latin America, North America, and Japan. These market segments have been evaluated on the basis of their current, historical, and future trends.Global Hybrid Operating Room Market: Competitive AnalysisThe research report includes a thorough competitive analysis of the global hybrid operating room market, taking the profiles of the leading players and their market shares in consideration. The leading players profiled in this report are Toshiba Corp., Trumpf Medical, IMRIS Inc., Eschmann Equipment, Stryker Corp., MAQUET GmbH, Skytron LLC, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Siemens Healthineers, and GE Healthcare. The product literature, annual reports, press releases, and relevant documents of these players have been reviewed for a better understanding of the competitive scenarios of this market. The company profile includes a number of attributes, such as the overview of the firm and its business, brand, and finances. The business strategies, recent developments, key competitors, and the number of employees have also been discussed in this section of the report.Get Inquiry about this Report @About MRRSEMarket Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of Market Research Reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.ContactState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:Read More Industry News At:
Petrochemicals Capacity Market 2017 -Develop Market-Entry and Market Expansion Strategies

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SummaryGlobal petrochemicals capacity will experience considerable growth in the next nine years with increase from 1,447.9 mmtpa in 2016 to 1,619.3 mmtpa by 2025. Large capacity additions with more than 700 planned projects are expected to come online primarily in the China, US and Iran in the next nine years. NW Innovation Works Inc, Janus Methanol AG and Petroliam Nasional Berhad are the top three companies by capacity additions expected to come on-stream over the next nine years.Global petrochemical industry is expected to spend around US$243.1 billion by 2025 for the upcoming projects. The US, Russia and China are the top three countries by capital expenditure for projects by 2025.GET SAMPLE REPORT @ScopeReport provides information and insight on -- Historic and forecast global petrochemical capacity by region- Global petrochemical planned plants details- Capacity share of the major petrochemical producers in the world- Global petrochemical capital expenditure forecast by regionReasons to buyThe report will clarify -- Understand the key trends in the global petrochemical industry- Understand the regional petrochemical supply scenario- Identify opportunities in the global petrochemical industry with the help of upcoming projects and capital expenditure forecast- Understand the current and likely future competitive scenarioTable of Content: Key Points1 Table of Contents 21.1 List of Tables 31.2 List of Figures 72 Global Petrochemicals Industry 82.1 Key Highlights 82.2 New Project Announcements 92.3 New Project Cancellations 102.4 Planned Petrochemicals Projects in the World 203 Appendix 1063.1 Definitions 1063.1.1 Installed Capacity 1063.2 Abbreviations 1063.3.1 Coverage 1063.3.2 Secondary Research 1073.3.3 Primary Research 1073.3.4 Expert Panel Validation 1083.4 Disclaimer 108ContinuedACCESS REPORT @Get in touch:LinkedIn:Twitter:Facebook:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Electro Hydraulic Servo Valve Market Size, Industry Analysis Report, Regional, Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2017  2022

Reports Monitor

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https://www.reportsmonitor.com/world-electro-hydraulic-servo-valve-market-research-report-2022-covering-usa-europe-china-japan-india-south-east-asia-and-etc/

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Electro Hydraulic Servo Valve MarketElectro Hydraulic Servo Valve Market report provides key statistics on the market status of the Electro Hydraulic Servo Valve Industrialists and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the Electro Hydraulic Servo Valve Industry.World Market Electro Hydraulic Servo Valve research report provides the newest industry data and industry future trends, allowing you to identify the products and end users driving Revenue growth and profitability.The industry report lists the leading competitors and provides the insights strategic industry Analysis of the key factors influencing the market.For Requesting a Sample Copy of This Report, Please Visit @The report includes the forecasts, Analysis and discussion of important industry trends, market size, market share estimates and profiles of the leading industry Players.Global Electro Hydraulic Servo Valve Market: Product Segment AnalysisNozzle Flapper Valve, Jet Action Valve, Dynamic ValveGlobal Electro Hydraulic Servo Valve Market: Application Segment Analysis:Aerospace, Steel Industry, Power Industry, Chemical IndustryThe Players mentioned in our report:Moog, Bosch Rexroth, Honeywell, Eaton Vickers, Woodward, Voith, EMG, Schneider Kreuznach, AVIC, Parker, Oilgear, CSICGlobal Electro Hydraulic Servo Valve Market: Regional Segment Analysis:USA. Europe. Japan. China. India. South East AsiaBrowse Full Table of Contents and Report Description @Table of ContentsChapter 1 World Electro Hydraulic Servo Valve Market share1.1 Major Production Market share by Players1.2 Major Revenue (M USD) Market share by Players1.3 Major Production Market share by Regions in 2017, Through 20221.4 Major Revenue (M USD) Market share By Regions in 2017, Through 2022Chapter 2 Supply Chain Analysis2.1 Industry Supply chain Analysis2.2 Raw material Market Analysis2.2.1 Raw material Prices Analysis 2012-20172.2.2 Raw material Supply Market Analysis2.2 Manufacturing Equipment Suppliers Analysis2.3 Production Process Analysis2.4 Production Cost Structure Benchmarks2.5 End users Market AnalysisContinuedAbout UsReports Monitor (ReportsMonitor.com) is a platform to meet the market research and business intelligence requirements. Our aim is to change the dynamics of the Market Research industry by providing quality intelligence backed by data. Your requirement for market forecasting is fulfilled by our exclusive quantitative and analytics driven intelligence. We have a vast collection of reports, covering maximum industries worldwide. Our process is meticulously planned and executed in order to use maximum resources and explore the market for getting genuine insights. Decision makers can now rely on our distinct data gathering methods to get factual market forecasting and detailed analysis.Contact UsJay MatthewsDirect: +1 513 549-5911Email: sales@reportsmonitor.comWebsite:
DC Drives Market Forecast Report Offers Actionable Insights 2016 - 2024

DC Drives Market

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DC drives are types of electric devices that are primarily used in DC motors to regulate its speed, direction, horsepower, and torque by monitoring the input ampere or voltage or both. DC drivers control the speed in DC motors, field current, and the motor flux. DC drives are used in motors because these motors consume a large amount of energy that is provided to the industries and thus add to the operational costs of the businesses. Using DC drives helps in keeping energy consumption in check and thus cutting down the operational costs. Italso helps in increasing the service time of the motors.A variety of industrial systems use DC drives for obtaining precise machinery control. Among the end-users of the DC drives, the oil and gas sector is on the forefront. These DC drivers are utilized to monitor the speed of compressors and pumps that are used in the oil and gas industry. Some other prominent end-user sectors are mining, power generation, wastewater, metals, textiles, conveyers, and automotive industries. It is expected that water and wastewater sector will also lend a significant hand in boosting the global DC drives market because of the fast growing urbanization in developing economies around the world.The global DC drives market is highly competitive and is divided with the existence of large automation corporates and high amount of smaller companies. The market is expected to be on the rise because of the increased industrialization around the globe.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):DC drive is an electric device used to control speed, direction, torque, and horsepower of a DC motor. It is a variable frequency drive that consists of separate armature and field circuits. The speed in DC motors is proportional to the armature voltage and inversely proportional to the motor flux; therefore, an increase or decrease in the applied voltage varies the speed of the motor. The field current can be decreased if speed larger than the base speed is desired. The motor flux can be decreased by lowering the current. Decreasing the electric field current also reduces the armature counter electromotive force. A larger armature current flows if there are smaller counter electromotive forces. The armature current increases the motor speed through the rise in the motor torque. DC drives are suitable for variable-speed machines and are generally simpler to use as compared to AC drives. DC drives are also less complicated due to single power conversion and less expensive for comparable horsepower ratings. The DC drive technology is efficient, dependable, and comparatively easy to use and implement. Hence, it is used to lower operational costs and increase the shelf life of electric equipment.DC drives are used in various industrial drive systems for precise control of machinery. The oil & gas sector is the leading end-user of DC drives. These drives are employed to control the speed of pumps and compressors in the oil & gas sector. Common applications of DC drives include cranes and trolleys, belts and conveyers, and compressors and pumps. DC drives are also employed in applications needing synchronization of multiple machines for continuous production. This includes pulp & paper and tire industries. These drives are largely used in locomotive applications, as they include thyristors with high power rating. DC drives are also employed in industrial blowers, machine tools, and fans.Request For Report Sample:Increase in demand for energy and electricity is driving the global DC drives market. Decrease in energy consumption due to the high efficiency of DC drives provides lucrative opportunities for retrofit applications in the manufacturing industry. The DC drives market can be segmented based on the strength of voltage (medium and low voltage) and power rating (low, medium, and high power). Demand for DC drives is high in the oil & gas industry. Other major end-users of DC drives are power generation, water & wastewater, and mining industries. The global DC drives market is highly competitive and fragmented with the presence of large automation companies and high number of smaller companies in the unorganized sector. China is the leading market for DC drives due to the rapid industrialization in the country. Other developing countries such as Brazil and India are also witnessing high demand for DC belt drives. Industrially developed countries are relatively mature markets. Thus, the DC drive market in such countries is expected to expand at a sluggish pace in the near future. Growth of the DC drive market in the Middle East is also anticipated to be moderate in the next few years due to the decline in demand owing to the slowdown in the oil & gas industry.Key players operating in the belt drive market are Emerson Electric Co., Siemens AG, Rockwell Automation, ABB Ltd., Schneider Electric SE, Crompton Greaves Limited, Toshiba International Corporation Ltd., Danfoss Group, Parker Hannifin Co., American Electric Technologies Inc., GE Power Conversion, and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation.About UsTransparency Market Research is a market intelligence company providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers.We are privileged with highly experienced team of Analysts, Researchers and Consultants, who use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Nortropinone Hydrochloride Market Report Offers Intelligence and Forecast till 2016 - 2024

Nortropinone Hydrochloride Market

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Nortropinone Hydrochloride Market: OverviewNortropinone hydrochloride is available in solid power or crystalline form. It is white or off-white in color. Nortropinone hydrochloride is also known as 3-nortropanone hydrochloride or 8-azabicyclo [3.2.1] octan-3-one hydrochloride. It is insoluble in water; however, it is highly soluble in certain organic compounds such as methanol, chloroform, and dichloromethane. Nortropinone hydrochloride is an immediate intermediate or a product of tropinone.Another precursor from which nortropinone hydrochloride can be obtained is 1-chloroethyl chloroformate. Nortropinone hydrochloride is used as a metabolite of atropine, which is employed to treat various medical conditions such as heart disorders, ulcers, and spasms of bladder and biliary tract.Among all the applications, nortropinone hydrochloride is used more in industrial processes other than commercial or domestic.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Nortropinone Hydrochloride Market: TrendsNortropinone hydrochloride is extensively used as a pharmaceutical intermediate and as a metabolite of tropinone. It is highly hazardous and hence, care must be taken to avoid excessive usage of nortropinone hydrochloride in medical formulations. Moreover, utmost precautions must be taken while handling the compound when it is being used for any kind of chemical process.Nortropinone hydrochloride is also used as an inhibitor in reactions that involve 11 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 enzyme. It plays an important role in the process of drug discovery, as it is an excellent linker component or building block and is useful in exploring a vast range of therapeutics and drugs. Linker components are the substances or chemicals which are capable of getting attached on the target site (e.g. a protein molecule), once it has been administered to the patient.Owing to the hazards and toxicity associated with the use of nortropinone hydrochloride, there exist chances for manufacturers or consumers to look for an alternative compound, which would be less harmful and toxic. This can prove to be a major restraint for growth of the market for nortropinone hydrochloride at the global level as well.However, nortropinone hydrochloride plays a key role in the stages involved in the identification of the target during the process of drug discovery. This use of the compound is expected to drive the global nortropinone hydrochloride market in the near future.The market for nortropinone hydrochloride is highly vulnerable to the changing trends, as it cannot be efficiently substituted by any other chemical compound in terms of use in the process of drug discovery, while its toxicity can affect its rate of utilization for a wide range of applications.Request For Report Sample:Nortropinone Hydrochloride Market: Region-wise OutlookGeographically, the market for nortropinone hydrochloride can be divided into North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and Middle East & Africa. North America leads the global market for nortropinone hydrochloride, as the drug discovery industry in the region is large-sized.Asia Pacific follows North America, as the drug discovery industry in Asia Pacific is expanding rapidly. The growth of the market of nortropinone hydrochloride in Asia Pacific is due to high investments made in the pharmaceuticals industry and the need to develop better drugs for public health.Demand for nortropinone hydrochloride in Europe is expected to rise in the next few days, due to growth in activities related to development of efficient drugs against chronic diseases.The market of nortropinone hydrochloride is expected to grow at a sluggish pace in the region of Latin America which would be followed by Middle East & Africa.About UsTransparency Market Research is a market intelligence company providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers.We are privileged with highly experienced team of Analysts, Researchers and Consultants, who use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Luxury Hotel Design Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022

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Research Beam has added a report on Global Luxury Hotel Design Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022Get Sample@Luxury Hotel Design Market is provided in the report based on product scope and market status & outlook. The market is segmented on the basis of type, end-users/application, and geography. The report provides information about the production, price, revenue, market share, and growth rate of each type. Geographically, the market has been analyzed across North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, and India. The status and prospect through 2012-2022 for each of these regions are listed in the report.The report entails the qualitative and quantitative analysis of current and future market estimations. It also divulges details about the mode of research methodology used for the study. It includes data from primary as well as secondary resources. The report is a useful resource for industry players, new entrants in the marketplace, and investors as it helps them plan their business to gain fruitful and meaningful outcomes. It makes them aware of the production, capacity, revenue, supply, consumption, export, import, the challenges and risks associated with the industry, and much more. Factors that drive the growth of the market are detailed in the study. Key players are profiled in the report and their developments in recent years are mentioned, which helps in understanding the competitive outlook of the Global Luxury Hotel Design MarketSave Upto 15% on this report @The Global Luxury Hotel Design Market report has a mention of the industrial chain, sourcing strategy, and downstream buyers. This incorporates the overall industrial chain analysis, upstream raw materials sourcing, raw materials sources of the product major manufacturers in 2015, and downstream buyers.The report also throws light on the marketing strategy used for the study. It includes marketing channel (direct marketing, indirect marketing, and marketing channel development trend) and market positioning (pricing strategy, brand strategy, and target client).The Global Luxury Hotel Design Market report also covers an analysis of the market effect factors. This includes the technology progress/risk (substitutes/threat and technology progress in the related industry), consumer needs/customer preference change, and economic/political environmental change.The key players which provide solutions in the Global Luxury Hotel Design Market HBA Rockwell Group Gensler Wilson Associates Leo A Daly HKS Pierre-Yves Rochon ForrestPerkins | Perkins Eastman Stonehill Taylor Architects Daroff DesignInformation about the production, capacity, price, revenue (value), and market share of each of these manufacturers from 2012 to 2017 are clearly described in the report. In addition, the report details the basic information, manufacturing base, area of sales, and competitors of each of the players. The trends and marketing strategies such as mergers and acquisitions, adopted by each of the manufacturers provide an understanding of the level of competitiveness prevailing in the industry.Check Full Report With TOC@About Us:Research Beams uniqueness lies in its highly ethical reports at economical rates because we value your relationship and growth more than money. Your growth is our aim. With the arsenal of different search reports, we help you here to look and buy research reports that will be helpful to you and your organization. Our research reports have the capability and authenticity to support your organization for growth and consistency.Contact Us:Global Head Quarters5933 NE Win Sivers Drive,#205, Portland, OR 97220United Statesphone+1 (800) 910-6452mail help@researchbeam.com
Automotive Connectors Market Projected to Grow Steadily During 2017 - 2025

Automotive Connectors Market

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An electrical connector is device that joins electrical terminations to form a circuit. Electrical connectors consists of plugs (male-ended) and jacks (female-ended). Automotive connectors form connection in a vehicle similar to connection of blood vessels in a human body.Automotive connectors are of two types: sealed and un-sealed. Majority of sealed connectors are used in engine compartments and un-sealed connectors are used inside vehicles. Wire to wire connection connects two terminal wires to form a circuit. In wire to board connectors, the electrical connections through wire terminals are inserted into the printed circuit boards (PCB) and a circuit is made. A board-to-board connector is used to connect PCBs and other electric components. Each terminal of a board-to-board connector is connected to a PCB.On the basis of connection type, the market is segmented into wire to wire connection, wire to board connection and board to board connection. By system type, the market is segmented into sealed connector system and un-sealed connector system. By vehicle type, the market is classified into heavy commercial vehicles, light commercial vehicles and passenger vehicles.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):By geography, the market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa and Latin America. North America is a major market for automotive connectors. The U.S is the largest market in North America and is the second largest automotive market in the world. Canada and Mexico are other significant markets in this region. Europe is another major market for automotive connectors. Germany is a prominent market and is also the largest automotive market in Europe. In Germany, Media Oriented Systems Transport (MOST) cooperation standard is developed among automakers and other stake holders to develop plastic optical fiber (POF) technology in the automotive sector. This is anticipated to increase demand for automotive connectors in Germany and Europe. The U.K, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Netherlands are other significant markets in this region. Asia Pacific is one of the largest automotive connectors market in the world. China is a major market in this region and is the largest global automotive market. Japan, South Korea, India and Australia are other significant markets in this region. Middle East & Africa and Latin America are other major automotive connectors market in the world. Turkey, Iran, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina are major countries in the above regions. Currently, Brazil is in recession which is expected to be over by 2017.Request For Report Sample:Rising demand for automotive safety requires sophisticated automotive sensors which are anticipated to increase demand for automotive connectors. The percentage share of electronics is rising as a share of vehicle components. Rising demand for electronics is anticipated to increase the demand for automotive connectors. Most of the electrical connections in a car are made of copper cables. Recently, designers have started to replace copper cables with plastic optical fiber (POF) to increase data transmission, reduce vehicle weight, and increase design flexibility. POF requires sophisticated automotive connectors. Rising demand for POF in the automotive industry is anticipated to increase the demand for automotive connectors. A major opportunity in automotive connectors is the increasing acceptance of hybrid and electric vehicles across the world. Major automotive manufacturers intend to produce increasing number of electric vehicles.About UsTransparency Market Research is a market intelligence company providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers.We are privileged with highly experienced team of Analysts, Researchers and Consultants, who use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Automotive Solenoid Market Competitive Intelligence and Tracking Report 2017 - 2025

Automotive Solenoid Market

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Global Automotive Solenoid Market: OverviewSolenoid is mainly a coil that is enfolded around a resolutely packed helix. When explained in terms of physical science, it is also a coil whose length is actually greater than its diameter and the coil is enveloped around a metallic core that produces a smooth magnetic field at the time when electric current moves through the solenoid. At several cases, the purpose of solenoids is to restrict the fluctuations in the electric current. It is then instead of electromagnet, it is referred to as an inductor. However, it should be noted that not all electromagnets and inductors are solenoids.Coming to automotive solenoids, it may be employed for a broad range of purposes such as automatic transmission and for starting the car. A solenoid in automobiles is a crucial piece of the starter and it functions as a sort of contact for power to reach the starter from the respective battery. As the generation of vehicles is expanding at an enduring rate, so is the interest of manufacturers solenoids. Another factor that is probably going to pick up force is the utilization of solenoid in the programmed transmission of automobiles. Contemporary programmed transmission autos utilize a water driven liquid under pressure with a specific end goal to change gears. The trend of engine downsizing is also expected to gain traction in the years ahead, thus benefitting the market in return.A solenoid is a coil that is wrapped around a firmly packed helix. In physical science, solenoid is a coil, the length of which is considerably larger than its diameter, wrapped round a metallic core that generates an even magnetic field in space when electric current passes through the solenoid. It is a kind of electromagnet, the purpose of which is to produce a meticulous magnetic field. Sometimes the function of solenoids is to inhibit the alterations in the electric current; the solenoid is then called an inductor, and not an electromagnet.However, not all inductors and electromagnets are solenoids.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):An automobile solenoid may be used for a variety of purposes including car start and automatic transmission. A solenoid in cars is a vital part of the starter and it works as a kind of liaison for electricity to reach thestarter from the battery. As the production of vehicles are increasing at a steady rate, so is the demand for solenoid. According to OICA, 94,976,569 cars were produced in 2016, a 4.6% rise from the 2015 figures of 90,780,583 cars. Therefore, the automotive solenoid market is likely to gain traction in the coming years owing to the increasing demand for cars.Another factor that is likely to gain momentum is the use of solenoid in the automatic transmission of cars. Contemporary automatic transmission cars use a hydraulic fluid under pressure in order to change gears. Each time a gear is changed, the cars computer system activates a solenoid (transmission), which then directs the transmission fluid into the body of the valve in order to employ the right gear. As the need for automatic transmission is increasing around the globe, the market for automotive solenoid is poised to grow at a considerable rate as well.Request For Report Sample:The global automotive solenoid market is segmented on the basis of function, vehicle type, application, and geography. By function, the market is segregated into fluid control, gas control, and motion control. The motion control segment in the global automotive solenoid market owing to the growing prevalence of automation of body control applications in a vehicle. In terms of vehicle type, the market can be divided into passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, and electric vehicles. The passenger vehicles segment accounted for the maximum market share of the market in 2016 owing to high number of passenger vehicles and in every vehicle, automotive solenoids are used. The electric vehicle segment is likely to as the use of solenoid in electric vehicles cars is gaining momentum owing to high number of solenoids being used per car. Based on application, the market is classified into engine control and cooling system, fuel and emission control, body control and interiors, HVAC system, safety and security, others. The body control and interiors sectorheld the maximum market share in 2016 owing to its varied applications in all passenger vehicle as well as commercial vehicles and the incorporation of the same from the manufacturers end.In terms of geography, the global automotive solenoidmarketcan be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America,and Middle East &Africa.Asia Pacific is likely to dominate the global market during the forecast period. The region consistsof some of the major developing countries including India,China, and South Korea. This has resulted intoa rise in automotive solenoid volumes, with original equipment manufacturers catering to both domestic and overseas demand.About UsTransparency Market Research is a market intelligence company providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers.We are privileged with highly experienced team of Analysts, Researchers and Consultants, who use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Clopidogrel Market - Global Industry Analysis and Forecast 2025

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Global Clopidogrel Market: SnapshotClopidogrel has remained, ever since its first approval in 1997, the antiplatelet therapy of choice among physicians for the treatment of patients with conditions such as acute coronary syndrome or percutaneous coronary intervention. The drug was the first thienopyridine to hit the market, which gave it an excellent head start over a number of drugs for these conditions that are either available in the market or are in clinical trials. As a result, the drug did not face much competition and has taken over the global market, with its array of application constantly expanding.The substantial and high-level evidence gathered over the years support the use of Clopidogrel for reduction of mortality and morbidity patients with acute coronary syndrome, myocardial infarction, and a number of other indications. As a result, the drug has developed a formidable presence in the global market over the years. Moreover, the drugs relative ease of use, low rate of incidence of adverse reactions, and good tolerability have made it the de-facto antiplatelet agent for the reduction of atherosclerotic events in patients.Request Sample Copy of the Report@These factors have helped the global Clopidogrel market to tread along an excellent growth path in the past few years and the market is expected to embark upon a healthy growth path in the next few years as well. However, the overall profitability of the market has reduced to a certain extent owing to entry of a number of generic products post the patent expiry of Clopidogrel manufacture in 2013. Nevertheless, the vast pool of patients prescribed Clopidogrel on an annual basis across the globe will allow market players excellent growth prospects in the next few years.Global Clopidogrel Market: SnapshotClopidogrel is an antiplatelet agent of thienopyridine, which is primarily used to prevent the blood clots and help against cardiovascular problems associated with the blood clotting. The medications for inhibiting blood clots after a recent heart stroke also use clopidogrel, which is a white colored powder that is insoluble in water at neutral pH but freely soluble at pH1. Clopidogrel was the second most successful drug trailing behind Pfizers Lipito in 2010. Sold under the brand name Plavix, and marketed by Sanofi and Bristol-Myers Squibb, the demand for clopidogrel is escalating due to the increasing number of heart attack cases across the globe.Request TOC of the Report @The patent of clopidogrel manufacturing got expires on Market 31, 2012 and is expected to prompt pharmaceutical companies to venture into clopidogrel drug manufacturing. Moreover, companies such as Dr. Reddys have acquired the approval to manufacture clopidogrel 300mg. Furthermore, several other organizations such as Roxane Laboratories, Aurobindo Pharma, Sun Pharma, Torrent Pharmaceuticals, and Apotex Crop have gained approval for marketing clopidogrel 75mg. Clopidogrel is also used with aspirin to treat worsening chest pain and to keep blood vessels open and present blood clots after certain heart related operations.Global Clopidogrel Market: Trends and ProspectsThe primary factor for the increased demand for clopidogrel is the mounting population across the world who are suffering from cardiovascular diseases and related problems. Additionally, the changing lifestyle and increase in number of patients related with cardiovascular diseases among the emerging economies in the Asia Pacific region are also expected to be the major consumers for clopidogrel in the next six years. Moreover, the patent expiry of clopidogrel drug is anticipated to open floodgates for various pharmaceutical companies to venture into production of clopidogrel drug.Get Discount @According to the World Heart Federation, nearly 15 million people suffer from heart attack or related problems globally. Out of these, roughly six million of these patients die while another five million are disabled permanently. This vast patient base is the primary factor that will sustain the demand during the forecast period.Global Clopidogrel Market: Geographical OutlookCurrently, North America and Europe contribute to the maximum demand for clopidogrel, owing to factors such as robust healthcare infrastructure and high affordability of the residents in this region. However, several countries in the region of Asia Pacific, such as China, India, and Japan are aggressively working towards improving their healthcare sector with the help of favorable policies by the localized governments and increasing disposable income among the urban population. Asia Pacific is home for nearly half of the worlds population, which makes for a high quantity of patient base. Additionally, these regions also have skilled labor at low cost which is encouraging players in the market to invest actively and tap the unmet demand.Some of the key players in the global clopidogrel market are Pfizer, Dr Reddys, Apotex Corp, Roxane Laboratories, Aurobindo Pharma, Torrent Pharmaceuticals and Sun Pharma.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Craft Beer 2017 Global Market Key Players  D.G. Yuengling, Boston Beer Company, Gambrinus Company, Lagunitas Brewing Company, Sierra Nevada, Minhas  Analysis and Forecast to 2022

Craft Beer Market

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Craft Beer Market 2017Wiseguyreports.Com adds Craft Beer Market Market Demand, Growth, Opportunities, Analysis of Top Key Players and Forecast to 2022 To Its Research Database.Report Details:This report provides in depth study of Craft Beer Market using SWOT analysis i.e. Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threat to the organization. The Craft Beer Market report also provides an in-depth survey of key players in the market which is based on the various objectives of an organization such as profiling, the product outline, the quantity of production, required raw material, and the financial health of the organization.Global Craft Beer market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer;The top key players including ;D.G. Yuengling and SonThe Boston Beer CompanyThe Gambrinus CompanyLagunitas Brewing CompanySierra Nevada Brewing Co.New Belgium Brewing CompanyBell's Brewery, IncDeschutes BreweryMinhas BreweryStone BrewingChimay Beers And CheesesOmer Vander GhinsteFeral Brewing Co.Stone & Wood Brewing Co.VagabundRequest a Sample Report @Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Craft Beer in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoAlesLagersOn the basis of the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales), market share and growth rate for each application, includingOn-tradeOff-tradeThis report provides valuable information for companies like manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, traders, customers, investors and individuals who have interests in this industry.If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Complete Report Details@Major Key Points in Table of Content:Global Craft Beer Market Research Report 20171 Craft Beer Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Craft Beer1.2 Craft Beer Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Craft Beer Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category)(2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Craft Beer Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Ales1.2.4 Lagers1.3 Global Craft Beer Segment by Application1.3.1 Craft Beer Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 On-trade1.3.3 Off-trade1.4 Global Craft Beer Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global Craft Beer Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 North America Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Craft Beer (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Craft Beer Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Craft Beer Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022)7 Global Craft Beer Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 D.G. Yuengling and Son7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Craft Beer Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 D.G. Yuengling and Son Craft Beer Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 The Boston Beer Company7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Craft Beer Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 The Boston Beer Company Craft Beer Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.3 The Gambrinus Company7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.3.2 Craft Beer Product Category, Application and Specification7.3.2.1 Product A7.3.2.2 Product B7.3.3 The Gambrinus Company Craft Beer Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.4 Lagunitas Brewing Company7.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.4.2 Craft Beer Product Category, Application and Specification7.4.2.1 Product A7.4.2.2 Product B7.4.3 Lagunitas Brewing Company Craft Beer Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.4.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.5 Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.7.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.5.2 Craft Beer Product Category, Application and Specification7.5.2.1 Product A7.5.2.2 Product B7.5.3 Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Craft Beer Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.5.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.6 New Belgium Brewing Company7.6.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.6.2 Craft Beer Product Category, Application and Specification7.6.2.1 Product A7.6.2.2 Product B7.6.3 New Belgium Brewing Company Craft Beer Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.6.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.7 Bell's Brewery, Inc7.7.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.7.2 Craft Beer Product Category, Application and Specification7.7.2.1 Product A7.7.2.2 Product B7.7.3 Bell's Brewery, Inc Craft Beer Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.7.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.8 Deschutes Brewery7.8.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.8.2 Craft Beer Product Category, Application and Specification7.8.2.1 Product A7.8.2.2 Product B7.8.3 Deschutes Brewery Craft Beer Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.8.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.9 Minhas Brewery7.9.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.9.2 Craft Beer Product Category, Application and Specification7.9.2.1 Product A7.9.2.2 Product B7.9.3 Minhas Brewery Craft Beer Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.9.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.10 Stone Brewing7.10.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.10.2 Craft Beer Product Category, Application and Specification7.10.2.1 Product A7.10.2.2 Product B7.10.3 Stone Brewing Craft Beer Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.10.4 Main Business/Business OverviewContinued.Buy now @Contact Us:NORAH TRENTPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Sales@Wiseguyreports.ComPh: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)ABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.ADDRES:WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Maritime Security Market Predicted to Witness Surge in The Near Future

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Global Maritime Security Market: SnapshotMaritime security involves measures to combat intended damage to ships, ports, and sophisticated infrastructure meant to support marine trade, marine defense, and marine life. It involves utilization of advanced technologies to detect danger and raise alerts well in advance. Inspection is one of the primary activities that maritime security personnel is engaged in and at times also involved in forced boarding of vessels. These actions are termed as visit, board, search, and seizure.Maritime security is one of the key tasks of modern naval forces across the world. For instance, the U.S. Coast Guard is chiefly involved in marine security post the series of catastrophic events of 1917.The task force is engaged in combating sea-based terrorism and other unlawful activities such as piracy, hijacking, and human trafficking. Ships engaged in maritime security are also involved in assisting seafaring vessels in distress.Request Sample Copy of the Report@The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is the regulatory body that provides assistance and guidance to member governments to provide safety of life on the sea and for conserving marine ecological balance. Since its inception in 1959, the IMO has endorsed several conventions to address security challenges related to devastating terrorist activities across the world. Of the several pursuits of the IMO, the organization is seriously engaged in enhancing travel and transport by sea as safe as possible. The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), 1974 is regarded as the most important international treaties for the safety and security of merchant ships. The convention has been amended several times thereafter with the inclusion of tacit adoption agreement.Global Maritime Security Market: OverviewMaritime security is aimed at providing protection to ports, vessels, and the sophisticated infrastructure related to the shipping business against intentional damage through sabotage, subversion, or terrorism. It provides advanced technologies to help detect potential hazards and communicate the same to the concerned officials in no time. It also offers solutions to help combat the potential threats such as transactional crimes, environmental hazards, illegal seaborne immigration, piracy threats, and terrorist attacks. These threats would not only disrupt international trade but can trigger political unrest, which renders maritime security highly imperative for the maritime industry.Request TOC of the Report @Spurred by the aforementioned factors, the global maritime security market is poised to exhibit growth at an impressive pace. Contrary to these, the volatile nature of the international sea trades and recent economic downturns could pose threat to the market. Nevertheless, with leading market players gearing to offer integrated and smart security solutions, the market will have significant opportunities to gain from over the course of the forecast period.The report provides a comprehensive overview of the global maritime security market covering the factors encouraging its expansion and those restraining its growth. It also studies the markets trajectory across various segments. Chapters dedicated to study the vendor landscape profiles some of the most prominent brands providing maritime solutions. The key strategies adopted by these companies and their impact on market operations are studied in detail. The report also gauges the effect of Porters five forces on the overall market operations.Get Discount @Global Maritime Security Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe increasing threat to maritime security and the rising awareness regarding the same are the chief drivers of the global maritime security market. With regulations in favor of deploying advanced security standards, coupled with the proliferation of international sea trade, the market is most likely to witness lucrative opportunities for the growth. While economic downturn and ungoverned marine localities pose a threat for the market, potential technological advancements and the innovation of integrated solutions hold promise for the markets growth in the forecast period.Various countries have specific standards and rules in place to regulate maritime security solutions and systems. These regulations play a crucial role in designing and integrating security systems. Furthermore, several nations around the world have their own rules and policies, adhering to which is mandatory to coordinate and maintain hindrance-free international trades. Such regulations have proven favorable in aiding the growth of the maritime security market in the respective nations. Furthermore, the market is expected to gain from the rising adoption of smart containers.Global Maritime Security Market: Regional OutlookRegionally, North America held the largest share in the global maritime security market, trailed by Asia Pacific. Due to the increasing incidence of security breaches, governments are implementing stringent policies to ensure improved maritime security. Given the scenario, the market is expected to witness rising opportunities in Brazil, Russia, China, and India (BRIC). As per TMR, Asia Pacific is likely to exhibit lucrative opportunities for the global maritime security market.Global Maritime Security Market: Vendor LandscapeSome of the most prominent companies operating in the global maritime security market are Harris Corp., Bae Systems Inc., Northrop Grumman Corporation, Elbit Systems Ltd., Honeywell International, Inc., Kongsberg Gruppen, The Raytheon Company, Genetec, Thales Group, Hikvision Digital Technology, Tyco International Ltd, and others.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Farm Animal Insurance Market Growth, Trends,Size, Status and Forecast 2022

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Research Beam has added a report on Global Farm Animal Insurance Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022Farm Animal Insurance Market is provided in the report based on product scope and market status & outlook. The market is segmented on the basis of type, end-users/application, and geography. The report provides information about the production, price, revenue, market share, and growth rate of each type. Geographically, the market has been analyzed across North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, and India. The status and prospect through 2012-2022 for each of these regions are listed in the report.Get Sample@The report entails the qualitative and quantitative analysis of current and future market estimations. It also divulges details about the mode of research methodology used for the study. It includes data from primary as well as secondary resources. The report is a useful resource for industry players, new entrants in the marketplace, and investors as it helps them plan their business to gain fruitful and meaningful outcomes. It makes them aware of the production, capacity, revenue, supply, consumption, export, import, the challenges and risks associated with the industry, and much more. Factors that drive the growth of the market are detailed in the study. Key players are profiled in the report and their developments in recent years are mentioned, which helps in understanding the competitive outlook of the global Farm Animal Insurance MarketSave Upto 15% on this report @The Global Farm Animal Insurance Market report has a mention of the industrial chain, sourcing strategy, and downstream buyers. This incorporates the overall industrial chain analysis, upstream raw materials sourcing, raw materials sources of the product major manufacturers in 2015, and downstream buyers.The report also throws light on the marketing strategy used for the study. It includes marketing channel (direct marketing, indirect marketing, and marketing channel development trend) and market positioning (pricing strategy, brand strategy, and target client).The Global Farm Animal Insurance Market report also covers an analysis of the market effect factors. This includes the technology progress/risk (substitutes/threat and technology progress in the related industry), consumer needs/customer preference change, and economic/political environmental change.The key players which provide solutions in the Global Farm Animal Insurance Market PICC Zurich (RCIS) Chubb QBE China?United?Property?Insurance American Financial Group Prudential XL Catlin Everest Re Group Endurance Specialty CUNA Mutual Agriculture Insurance Company of India Tokio Marine CGB Diversified Services Farmers Mutual Hail Archer Daniels Midland New India Assurance ICICI LombardInformation about the production, capacity, price, revenue (value), and market share of each of these manufacturers from 2012 to 2017 are clearly described in the report. In addition, the report details the basic information, manufacturing base, area of sales, and competitors of each of the players. The trends and marketing strategies such as mergers and acquisitions, adopted by each of the manufacturers provide an understanding of the level of competitiveness prevailing in the industry.Check Full Report With TOC@About Us:Research Beams uniqueness lies in its highly ethical reports at economical rates because we value your relationship and growth more than money. Your growth is our aim. With the arsenal of different search reports, we help you here to look and buy research reports that will be helpful to you and your organization. Our research reports have the capability and authenticity to support your organization for growth and consistency.Contact Us:Global Head Quarters5933 NE Win Sivers Drive,#205, Portland, OR 97220United Statesphone+1 (800) 910-6452mail help@researchbeam.com
Cold Insulation Market is Expected to Grow at a CAGR of 5.2% from 2016 to 2027

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Global Cold Insulation Market: IntroductionInsulation is a material or a blend of two or more materials that can be used to avoid heat loss or heat gain to save the valuable energy. The material is available in any size, shapes as per different applications. Insulation materials have the ability to protect the environment from green house gasses. Insulation increases the working efficiencies of the system where it is installed. Strict laws for energy preservation, environment protection, sustainable development has prompted rise in demand of insulation products. Insulation materials can serve as acoustic and also thermal protection. Thermal Insulation can be divided into two sorts as indicated by temperatures they serve: Cryogenics and Refractory. The Global Cold Insulation Market is expected to grow at a rate of 5.2%Cold Insulation Market: ApplicationsAccording to applications, Oil and Gas accounted for the largest consumption (40%) of materials due to increase in LNG transportation, cryogenic insulation demand. The Chemical application i.e. the increase use of liquid forms of industrial gases, for e.g. liquid nitrogen in various applications such as surgery, manufacturing has led to rise in insulation demand The Chemical application accounted for 22% of the total demand in 2012Global Cold Insulation Market: Key Players Bayer Material Science Huntsman Corporation (U.S.) Evonik BASF SE Armacell International Holding Gmbh The DOW Chemical Company Owens Corning Aspen aerogels Dongsung Finetec Corp Dow Chemicals Certain Teed Kingspan Groups PLCRequest a Sample Copy @Global Cold Insulation Market: Regional AnalysisAsia PacificAsia Pacific has show immense growth in the Cold insulation market with widespread application in the chemical, refrigeration, oil and gas and HVAC market. Low cost of setting up a manufacturing unit, relatively cheaper and skilled labor and low operating cost all have played a major role in boosting the growth rate of the Asian Cold Insulation market. Asia consists of markets such as India, China, Korea etc which support the cold insulation market with their favorable government norms and policies. China is one of the biggest markets in this region with its growth rate strong enough to sustain efficient manufacturing.North AmericaNorth American Region is another leading region for the Cold Insulation market. In the North American region USA is the biggest market capturing around 70.1% in 2012. Already established entities like Huntsman, Rockwool, Owen Corning provide a great scope for the Cold Insulation market in this region. The Canadian market for Cold Insulation was estimated to be 62.4 thousand tons in 2012 and the US cold insulation market was estimated to be around USD 542 million. Heavy investment in R&D and technological development has led to development of new techniques and material which have minimal effect on environment which results in healthy boost in the Cold Insulation Market.For further information on this report, visit @Every report of Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with the detailed analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain the deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives the clear picture of current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report also gives a broad study of the different market segments and regions.Table of Content1 Report Excerpts2 Market Definition2.1 Scope Of The Study2.2.1 Research Objectives2.2.2 Assumptions & Limitations2.2 Market Structure3 Research Methodology3.1 Research Process3.2 Primary Research3.3 Secondary Research3.4 Market Size Forecast3.5 Forecast ModelContinue..About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Safety Sensors and Switches Market : Key Developments, Outlook, Analysis & Forecast to 2025

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Global Safety Sensors and Switches Market: SnapshotThe global market for safety sensors and switches is expected to gain massively from the automotive sector in the next few years. The automotive sector is going through a phase of significant transformation owing to increasingly stricter emission control norms, rising demand for vehicle safety, and fuel efficiency standards. In a bid to transform in accordance to the rapidly changing preferences of buyers and the rising demand for vehicles conforming to the aforementioned features, automakers are using more sensors in vehicles.In the near future, it is believed that the top-line growth of companies operating in the global safety sensors and switches market will be largely driven from the increased use of sensors and switches in public and private transport vehicles, driven on the back of the steady global automotive production growth. The market will also benefit from continuous technological developments and the rising production of smart sensors and switches on a global front. The increased consumer preference to vehicles with additional safety and comfort features will also drive the uptake of safety sensors and switches across the automotive industry, thereby driving the global safety sensors and switches market.Request Sample Copy of the Report@Application areas such as advanced driver assistance systems, smart tire pressure monitoring systems, and hybrid vehicle systems will be some of the key areas requiring the usage of safety sensors and switches. Furthermore, regulatory authorities in China are advocating that original equipment manufacturers in the country start putting smart tire pressure measuring sensors in all new vehicles starting 2019.Global Safety Sensors and Switches Market: OverviewSafety sensors and switches are used to track the presence of any foreign object or identify disturbances happening within a specified radar. Owing to the benefits they offer, the demand for safety sensors is significantly high across diverse industries such as aerospace, manufacturing, automotive, pharmaceutical, mining, and others.The report presents a comprehensive overview of the various factors influencing growth exhibited by the global safety sensors and switched market between 2017 and 2025. It provides an in-depth analysis of market size and drivers, besides discussing the potential restraints in great detail. Besides this, the market also includes regional highlights and snapshots of the segments that would prove most lucrative for the sales of safety sensors and switches.Request TOC of the Report @Global Safety Sensors and Switches Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe increasing demand for improved security measures to ensure protection to workers and production unit against hazards is the chief factor driving the global safety sensors and switches market. The market is also gaining from stringent regulations implemented to ensure high standards of national and international security. Contrary to this, different regions are governed by different regulatory bodies, which have separate set of policies. This could be a constraint limiting the scope for the markets expansion. For instance, in North America regulatory bodies such as the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL), and the American National Standard Institute (ANSI) govern machinery safety policies.Nevertheless, with the demand from industries such as aerospace, automotive, oil & gas, pharmaceutical, semiconductors, food & beverages, and mining rising at a phenomenal pace, the pace of gains for the global safety sensors and switches market is expected to remain high through the course of the forecast period. All these industries utilize heavy machineries, which require advanced security measures to ensure protection against potential hazards. This consequently has translated into high sales opportunity for the global safety sensors and switches market.Get Discount @Global Safety Sensors and Switches Market: Regional OutlookRegionally, APAC, Europe, North America, and Rest of the World are key segments in the global safety sensors and switches market. Among these regions, the market is expected to witness lucrative opportunities in APAC. The rising demand from India, China, Brazil, and Latin America has been aiding the expansion of the market in Asia Pacific. Furthermore, the increasing disposable income, urbanization, and the rising demand witnessed in the automotive, food & beverages, and pharmaceutical industries will spur the demand for safety sensors and switches in the region.In addition, the persistently rising demand in North America and Europe will ensure that the pace of gains witnessed by the market remains high throughout the forecast period.Global Safety Sensors and Switches Market: Vendor LandscapeThe report presents a detailed assessment of the markets vendor landscape, for the purpose of which it profiles some of the leading vendors operating therein. Some of the leading companies operating in the global safety sensors and switches market are Pepperl+Fuchs GmbH, Rockwell Automation, KG, Omron Corp., K.A. Schmersal GmbH & Co., and others. The report also conducts SWOT analysis on the leading market players to gauge their strengths and weaknesses. The analysis is also intended to offer insight into the opportunities and threats that the companies could witness over the course of the forecast period.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Cards and Payments in Malaysia Market 2017 by Current & Upcoming Trends

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Summary"The Cards and Payments Industry in Malaysia: Emerging trends and opportunities to 2020", report provides detailed analysis of market trends in the Malaysian cards and payments industry. It provides values and volumes for a number of key performance indicators in the industry, including credit transfers, payment cards, cash, direct debits, and cheques during the review-period (2012-16e).The report also analyzes various payment card markets operating in the industry, and provides detailed information on the number of cards in circulation, transaction values and volumes during the review-period and over the forecast-period (2016-20f). It also offers information on the country's competitive landscape, including the market shares of issuers and schemes.GET SAMPLE REPORT @The report brings together research, modeling, and analysis expertise to allow banks and card issuers to identify segment dynamics and competitive advantages. The report also covers details of regulatory policy and recent changes in the regulatory structure.This report provides top-level market analysis, information and insights into the Malaysian cards and payments industry, including -- Current and forecast values for each market in the Malaysian cards and payments industry, including debit, credit and charge cards.- Detailed insights into payment instruments including credit transfers, cash, cheques, direct debit, and payment cards. It also, includes an overview of the country's key alternative payment instruments.- E-commerce market analysis and payment methods.- Analysis of various market drivers and regulations governing the Malaysian cards and payments industry.- Detailed analysis of strategies adopted by banks and other institutions to market debit, credit and charge cards.Scope- Malaysias payment card market has recorded strong uptake in contactless technology, with all major banks including Maybank, Bank Simpanan Nasional (BSN), CIMB Bank, Public Bank, and Hong Leong Bank now offering contactless cards. The number of contactless POS terminals stood at 33,721 in 2016, increasing almost sevenfold from 4,839 terminals in 2015. To further encourage contactless payments, banks are launching innovative products. Maybank collaborated with Visa in January 2016 to launch an NFC wristband, Maybank Visa Payband, to enable its customers to make payments with a wave of the wrist.- A growing preference for secure electronic payments, growth in the young population, and deeper smartphone penetration saw banks, payment service providers, and telecom companies launching new payment solutions to gain market share. Samsung Electronics, CIMB Bank, and Maybank all launched mobile wallets between 2016 and 2017.- BNM launched the Malaysian Chip Card Specification initiative in 2014 as part of a shift towards EMV standards. According to BNM, complete migration to EMV standards with contactless functionality is expected to be completed by January 1, 2018. As a result, from 2015 banks gradually started to replace domestic debit cards with EMV-compliant cards with contactless functionality.Reasons to buy- Make strategic business decisions, using top-level historic and forecast market data, related to the Malaysian cards and payments industry and each market within it.- Understand the key market trends and growth opportunities in the Malaysian cards and payments industry.- Assess the competitive dynamics in the Malaysian cards and payments industry.- Gain insights into marketing strategies used for various card types in Malaysia.- Gain insights into key regulations governing the Malaysian cards and payments industry.Table of Content: Key Points1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 21.1. Market overview 21.2. Key facts 41.3. Top five industry events 52. PAYMENT INSTRUMENTS 112.1. Current payment environment 113. E-COMMERCE AND ALTERNATIVE PAYMENTS 133.1. E-commerce market analysis 133.2. Alternative payment solutions 153.2.1. PayPal 153.2.2. CIMB Pay 153.2.3. Samsung Pay 153.2.4. JomPAY 153.2.5. MPay 163.2.6. Masterpass 163.2.7. Visa Checkout 163.2.8. Alipay 163.2.9. Maybank Pay 163.2.10. MOLPoints 173.2.11. Mobile Money 173.2.12. Celcom AirCash 174. REGULATIONS IN THE CARDS AND PAYMENTS INDUSTRY 184.1. Regulatory framework 184.1.1. Revised eligibility requirements for credit card issuance 184.1.2. Regulations to enhance credit card security 184.1.3. Agent banking requirements 184.2. Anti-money laundering 194.3. Foreign direct investment regulations 195. ANALYSIS OF CARDS AND PAYMENTS INDUSTRY DRIVERS 206. PAYMENT CARDS 237. DEBIT CARDS 257.1. Debit card market analysis 257.2. Competition in the debit card market 277.3. Debit card comparison 298. PAY-LATER CARDS 308.1. Pay-later card market analysis 308.2. Competition in the pay-later card market 32ContinuedACCESS REPORT @Get in touch:LinkedIn:Twitter:Facebook:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Cyber Liability Insurance Market Growth,Trends,Size, Status and Forecast 2022

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Research Beam has added a report on Global Cyber Liability Insurance Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022Get Sample@Cyber Liability Insurance Market is provided in the report based on product scope and market status & outlook. The market is segmented on the basis of type, end-users/application, and geography. The report provides information about the production, price, revenue, market share, and growth rate of each type. Geographically, the market has been analyzed across North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, and India. The status and prospect through 2012-2022 for each of these regions are listed in the report.The report entails the qualitative and quantitative analysis of current and future market estimations. It also divulges details about the mode of research methodology used for the study. It includes data from primary as well as secondary resources. The report is a useful resource for industry players, new entrants in the marketplace, and investors as it helps them plan their business to gain fruitful and meaningful outcomes. It makes them aware of the production, capacity, revenue, supply, consumption, export, import, the challenges and risks associated with the industry, and much more. Factors that drive the growth of the market are detailed in the study. Key players are profiled in the report and their developments in recent years are mentioned, which helps in understanding the competitive outlook of the global Cyber Liability Insurance MarketSave Upto 15% on this report @The Global Cyber Liability Insurance Market report has a mention of the industrial chain, sourcing strategy, and downstream buyers. This incorporates the overall industrial chain analysis, upstream raw materials sourcing, raw materials sources of the product major manufacturers in 2015, and downstream buyers.The report also throws light on the marketing strategy used for the study. It includes marketing channel (direct marketing, indirect marketing, and marketing channel development trend) and market positioning (pricing strategy, brand strategy, and target client).The Global Cyber Liability Insurance Market report also covers an analysis of the market effect factors. This includes the technology progress/risk (substitutes/threat and technology progress in the related industry), consumer needs/customer preference change, and economic/political environmental change.The key players which provide solutions in the Global Cyber Liability Insurance Market AIG Chubb XL Group Beazley Allianz Zurich Insurance Munich Re Group Berkshire Hathaway AON AXIS Insurance Lockton CNA Travelers BCS Insurance Liberty MutualInformation about the production, capacity, price, revenue (value), and market share of each of these manufacturers from 2012 to 2017 are clearly described in the report. In addition, the report details the basic information, manufacturing base, area of sales, and competitors of each of the players. The trends and marketing strategies such as mergers and acquisitions, adopted by each of the manufacturers provide an understanding of the level of competitiveness prevailing in the industry.Check Full Report With TOC@About Us:Research Beams uniqueness lies in its highly ethical reports at economical rates because we value your relationship and growth more than money. Your growth is our aim. With the arsenal of different search reports, we help you here to look and buy research reports that will be helpful to you and your organization. Our research reports have the capability and authenticity to support your organization for growth and consistency.Contact Us:Global Head Quarters5933 NE Win Sivers Drive,#205, Portland, OR 97220United Statesphone+1 (800) 910-6452mail help@researchbeam.com
Rail Freight 2017 Global Key Players  CN Railway, DB Schenker, SBB Cargo, Union Pacific Market Analysis And Forecast To 2022

Rail Freight Market

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Rail Freight Market 2017Wiseguyreports.Com Adds Rail Freight -Market Demand, Growth, Opportunities, Manufacturers, Analysis of Top Key Players and Forecast to 2022 To Its Research Database.Description:This report studies sales (consumption) of Rail Freight in Global market, especially in United States, China, Europe and Japan, focuses on top players in these regions/countries, with sales, price, revenue and market share for each player in these regions, coveringCN RailwayDB SchenkerSBB CargoUnion PacificRequest for Sample Report@Market Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Regions, with sales (consumption), revenue, market share and growth rate of Rail Freight in these regions, from 2011 to 2021 (forecast), likeUnited StatesChinaEuropeJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaSplit by product Types, with sales, revenue, price and gross margin, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided intoIntermodalsTank WagonsFreight CarsSplit by applications, this report focuses on sales, market share and growth rate of Rail Freight in each application, can be divided intoOil IndustryGas IndustryOthersEnquiry before Buying @If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Table of Contents:Global Rail Freight Sales Market Report 20171 Rail Freight Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Rail Freight1.2 Classification of Rail Freight1.2.1 Intermodals1.2.2 Tank Wagons1.2.3 Freight Cars1.3 Application of Rail Freight1.3.1 Oil Industry1.3.2 Gas Industry1.3.3 Others1.4 Rail Freight Market by Regions1.4.1 United States Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.2 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Rail Freight (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Rail Freight Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Rail Freight Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)2 Global Rail Freight Competition by Manufacturers, Type and Application2.1 Global Rail Freight Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1.1 Global Rail Freight Sales and Market Share of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Rail Freight Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Rail Freight (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Global Rail Freight Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Global Rail Freight Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.3 Global Rail Freight (Volume and Value) by Regions2.3.1 Global Rail Freight Sales and Market Share by Regions (2012-2017)2.3.2 Global Rail Freight Revenue and Market Share by Regions (2012-2017)2.4 Global Rail Freight (Volume) by Application..9 Global Rail Freight Manufacturers Analysis9.1 CN Railway9.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.1.2 Rail Freight Product Type, Application and Specification9.1.2.1 Intermodals9.1.2.2 Tank Wagons9.1.3 CN Railway Rail Freight Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.2 DB Schenker9.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.2.2 Rail Freight Product Type, Application and Specification9.2.2.1 Intermodals9.2.2.2 Tank Wagons9.2.3 DB Schenker Rail Freight Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.3 SBB Cargo9.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.3.2 Rail Freight Product Type, Application and Specification9.3.2.1 Intermodals9.3.2.2 Tank Wagons9.3.3 SBB Cargo Rail Freight Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.4 Union Pacific9.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.4.2 Rail Freight Product Type, Application and Specification9.4.2.1 Intermodals9.4.2.2 Tank Wagons9.4.3 Union Pacific Rail Freight Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.4.4 Main Business/Business OverviewContinued..Buy now @Contact US:NORAH TRENTPartner Relations & Marketing Managersales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)About Us:Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Spanning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.Addres:: Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt Ltd: Pune  411028: Maharashtra,: Ph: +91 841 198 5042
Tablet & Notebook Display Market Business Rising Awareness, Financial Plan and Industry to Witness Huge Growth in the Coming Years 2022

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Market Research Future published a research report on Global Tablet & Notebook Display Market Research Report- Global Forecast 2022  Market Analysis, Scope, Stake, Progress, Trends and Forecast to 2022.Market Synopsis of Tablet & Notebook Display MarketMarket Scenario:Tablet and Notebook display market has been growing rapidly from past few years. As the demand for the tablets and notebook are increasing, the manufacturers of these products are increasing the production of tablet and notebook displays. Displays are one of the important components of any devices, which allow the user to interact with the device by use of interface. The notebooks and tablets are being widely adopted as a substitute of mobile phones and laptop and desktop, the market for tablet and notebooks display is going to rise.Study Objective of Tablet & Notebook Display Market To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global Tablet & Notebook Display Market To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth To analyze the Tablet & Notebook Display market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, porters five force analysis etc. To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of the World (ROW) To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective To provide country level analysis of the market for segment by technology, by type and sub-segments. To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market To track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the Global Tablet & Notebook Display Market.Get Sample of Report @Key PlayersThe prominent players in the market of Tablet & Notebook Display are- AU Optronics (Taiwan), Innolux Corporation (Taiwan), Samsung (South Korea), Japan Display (Japan), Toshiba (Japan), LG (South Korea), Sharp corporation (Japan), Chi Mei Corporation (Taiwan), Apple (U.S.), Tianma Microelectronics (China) among others.Industry News In September 2016, AU Optronics launched gen 6 LTPS (Low Temperature Poly-silicon) which can be used in mobile, tablets and notebooks. In September Innolux Corporation announced the mass production of 120Hz high color saturation notebook panels.Market Segmentation Segmentation by Technology: LCD (TFT and IPS), OLED and AMOLED. Segmentation by Type: Capacitive and Resistive.Get complete Report @The reports also covers brief analysis of Geographical Region includes:Americas North America US CanadaEurope Western Europe Germany France Italy Spain U.K Rest of Western Europe Eastern EuropeAsia PacificAsia China India Japan South Korea Rest of Asia PacificThe Middle East & AfricaThe report for Global Tablet & Notebook Display Market of Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with the detailed analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain the deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives the clear picture of current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different market segments and regions.About Us:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Media Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Cloud System Management Software Market is a Productive Investment in the Coming Years!

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Research Beam has added a report on Global Cloud System Management Software Market Research Report 2017. The report entails the qualitative and quantitative analysis of current and future market estimations. It also divulges details about the mode of research methodology used for the study. It includes data from primary as well as secondary resources.View Complete Report:The report is a useful resource for industry players, new entrants in the marketplace, and investors as it helps them plan their business to gain fruitful and meaningful outcomes. It makes them aware of the production, capacity, revenue, supply, consumption, export, import, the challenges and risks associated with the industry, and much more. The report has a mention of the market drivers and opportunities. Key players are profiled in the report and their developments in recent years are mentioned, which helps in understanding the competitive outlook of the global Cloud System Management Software market.Save Upto 15% on this Report@A brief overview of the global Cloud System Management Software industry is provided in the report based on product scope and market status & outlook. The market is segmented on the basis of type, end-users/application, and geography. By type, the market is further bifurcated into Web-Based, Installed. The report provides information about the production, price, revenue, market share, and growth rate of each type. Application wise, the market is segmented into Household, Business Use, Industrial Use, Education, Others. Regarding this segment, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption, market share, and growth rate. Geographically, the market has been analyzed across North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, and India. The status and prospect through 2012-2022 for each of these regions are listed in the report.The projections in the report are made by studying the current and future market potential from 2012 to 2022 in terms of value and volume. The market forecast is provided on the basis of capacity, production, consumption, import, export, revenue, price, trends, and growth rate.Request Sample Report@The global Cloud System Management Software market report also provides an analysis of the manufacturing cost of the product. This includes the key raw materials, the proportion of manufacturing cost structure, and manufacturing process analysis. The key raw materials encompass the price trend, key suppliers, and market concentration rate. The proportion of manufacturing cost structure incorporates the raw materials, labor cost, and manufacturing expenses.The global Cloud System Management Software market report has a mention of the industrial chain, sourcing strategy, and downstream buyers. This incorporates the overall industrial chain analysis, upstream raw materials sourcing, raw materials sources of the product major manufacturers in 2015, and downstream buyers.The report also throws light on the marketing strategy used for the study. It includes marketing channel (direct marketing, indirect marketing, and marketing channel development trend) and market positioning (pricing strategy, brand strategy, and target client).The global Cloud System Management Software market report also covers an analysis of the market effect factors. This includes the technology progress/risk (substitutes/threat and technology progress in the related industry), consumer needs/customer preference change, and economic/political environmental change.Enquire About Report@The key players which provide solutions in the global Cloud System Management Software market include including Vmware, IBM, Microsoftsoft, Hewlett Packard, BMC, Cisco, Adaptive Computing, Dell, HP, Redhat, Rightscale. Information about the production, capacity, price, revenue (value), and market share of each of these manufacturers from 2012 to 2017 are clearly described in the report. In addition, the report details the basic information, manufacturing base, area of sales, and competitors of each of the players. The trends and marketing strategies such as mergers and acquisitions, adopted by each of the manufacturers provide an understanding of the level of competitiveness prevailing in the industry.Contact Us5933 NE Win Sivers Drive,#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesToll Free: +1 (800) 910-6452Int'l: +1-971-202-1575help@researchbeam.comAbout UsIt is crucial for market players to take leaps strategically and update themselves with recent trends, opportunities, and emerging investment pockets. We, at Research Beam, adhere to these factors and offer a wide range of reports that are detailed and enable our clients to achieve their goals with long term planning coupled with competitive advantage.Our database includes a broad array of various market reports from numerous publishers across the globe. These reports of several market categories and sub-categories help our clients to find the exact report they are looking for. We are instrumental to provide quantitative and qualitative insights in their area of interest and bring reports from various publishers under one umbrella to save their time and money. Our clients across the world are gaining profits from the information given in the reports sourced by us.We also provide customization services by coordinating with the publisher and ensuring that our clients requirement are fulfilled. Our team bridges the gap between our clients & publishers and assists them with expert inputs. We offer relevant and precise research reports to fulfill business requirements at the best price.
Global Software Defined Security Market is Forecasted to Reach a Figure of About US$ 3,800 Mn in 2022

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A new report added to the repository of Market Research Reports Search Engine Global Market Study on Software Defined Security: North America to be the Most Lucrative Market During the Assessment Period (2017 - 2022) is a comprehensive repository of information, providing market share, size, and forecast.Get Free Sample Report@Persistence Market Research delivers yet another unbiased, comprehensive and insightful report titled Software Defined Security Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012-2016) and Forecast (2017-2022). In this report, the global software defined security market is explored in great detail, and the market dynamics of the global software defined security market has been covered comprehensively, explaining to the report readers the drivers, restraints and trends operating in this highly competitive market. Also, analysis of the data over different parameters has been done in order to arrive at market numbers concerning the global software defined security market. Besides, competition landscape of the global software defined security market is also covered in this report, giving information about the key companies operating in the global software defined security market.Report StructureIn the first part of the report, the executive summary and the introduction are given. The executive summary gives a summary of the global software defined security market and gives the pertinent market numbers that are most significant, which include the historical CAGR growth from 2012 till 2016 and the forecasted CAGR from the year 2017 till the end of the forecast period in the year 2022. Information about lucrative markets from the point of view of leading revenue share and highest CAGR are also given in the executive summary.Download Full Report with TOC@In the introduction section, the software defined security market is defined in detail so that the report readers are clear about the scope of this market.The next section of the report gives information on the key dynamics of the software defined security market. Key points covered in this section include the global economy, fiscal stimulus and bottom line of enterprises.In the subsequent section of the report, information is given on the cost structure analysis and pricing analysis of the global software defined security market. An analysis on the market presence of key participants (intensity map) is also offered in this section.Market SegmentationThe next part of the report consists of the global software defined security market analysis and forecast by component type, end user, application and region. This section of the report contains important market numbers in the form of year-on-year growth comparison, market share comparison and revenue comparison. The global software defined security market is also analyzed across key regions- North America, Latin America, Europe, Japan, APEJ and MEA.Make an Enquiry@The last section of the report contains the competition landscape, where leading market players operating in the global software defined security market are profiled in detail. This information is in the form of company overview, product overview, key financials and key developments pertaining to that particular company. The competition landscape also features the SWOT analysis of the selected companies, which gives the report readers information about the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and the threats that such companies operating in the global software defined security market are facing. The competition landscape is an invaluable part of the report as it contains all the necessary information to study the leading companies operating in the global software defined security market and how they implement their strategies and vision to stay in the pole position in this highly competitive market.Research MethodologyPersistence Market Research leverages a proven and tested research methodology to determine the revenue estimations of the global software defined security market. In-depth secondary research is used to arrive at the overall market size and top industry players. A list of industry players (manufacturers), distributors, retailers, and industry experts is developed along with a comprehensive discussion guide for detailed and exhaustive primary interviews. Data thus obtained is validated using the triangulation method, where primary and secondary research along with Persistence Market Research analysis contribute to the final data. This data is then scrutinized using advanced tools to glean pertinent insights into the global software defined security market.Check Discount@About MRRSEMarket Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of Market Research Reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.Contact UsState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:Read More Industry News At:
Industrial Internet of Things Market- Market Insights, Future Growth.

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The industrial internet of things is a term used to describe the interconnectivity of industrial processes and manufacturing equipment by adoption of IOT technology. The adoption of sensors in industries have given the birth to industrial IOT market. Sensors help convert information from analog to digital. Data networking and computing power have increased the demand for sensors in the automation industry. Continuous development of sensors technology and adoption of data, computing, and connectivity technology, analytics and artificial intelligent, human machine interaction, and digitalization are major factors driving growth to the industrial IOT market.Request Sample Copy of this Report Industrial Internet of Things Market TaxonomyOn the basis of service, the global industrial internet of things market is segmented into:Professional servicesManaged ServicesThe managed service segment held the dominant position in 2016 and is projected to maintain its dominance throughout the forecast period. Increasing government initiatives towards digitalization and increasing government investments to boost the adoption of IOT technology in various industries such as utilities and manufacturing are expected to drive growth of the IOT market. The professional services segment is expected exhibit the highest CAGR over the forecast period.On the basis of solution, the global industrial internet of things market is segmented into:Real-Time Streaming AnalyticsSecurityData ManagementRemote MonitoringNetwork Bandwidth ManagementOn the basis of platform type, the global industrial internet of things market is segmented into:Device ManagementApplication ManagementNetwork ManagementOn the basis of verticals, the global industrial internet of things market is segmented into:AgricultureManufacturingAutomotive& machineryFood and BeverageChemicals and MaterialsElectronics and UtilitiesHealthcare and PharmaceuticalsMetals and MiningOil and GasRetailTransportationOthersThe manufacturing segment held a dominant position in 2016. This segment is projected to maintain its dominance throughout the forecast period. The high adoption of wireless connectivity, sensors, and software solutions help create communication networks using IP connectivity. This in turn, helps reduce the production cost and time.Industrial Internet of Things Market Outlook  Asia Pacific holds significant market shareOn the basis of geography, the global industrial internet of things market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, and Africa. North America holds a dominant position in the global industrial internet of things market and is projected to retain its dominance throughout the forecast period. Growing digitalization and high adoption of IOT solutions by manufacturing and automation industries have contributed to growth of the market in North America. Similarly, the Asia Pacific is projected to exhibit the highest CAGR over the forecast period. India, china, Japan, and South Korea are some of the major countries that help drive growth of the market for IOT in the Asia Pacific region. Dense population, increasing disposable income, and large scale industrialization in the region are boosting growth of the market. In addition to this, the increasing adoption of digitalization by various industries to reduce the production time and operating costs also create a conducive environment for growth of the industrial IOT market in Asia Pacific.Key Players in the Global Industrial Internet of Things MarketABB, ARM Ltd., Cisco Systems, Inc., Dassault Systemes, General Electric, Honeywell International Inc., Huawei Technology Co., Ltd., Intel Corporation, Rockwell Automation, Inc., and Texas Instruments Inc. are some of the major players in the global industrial internet of things market.For More Information About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Mr. ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.comVisit our news Website:
Armor Materials Market to See Strong Growth and Business Scope from 2017 to 2022

Armor Materials Market to See Strong Growth and Business Scope from 2017 to 2022

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ReportsMonitor.com has added Global Armor Materials Market Research Report 2017.The study document titled Global Armor Materials industry gives helpful observations into the general trends as well as the points that propel this World-wide market. This industry examine completely covers the salient highlights of the Global Armor Materials market regarding the industry structure and even landscape designs, difficulties and desire ideas, along with projected current market effectiveness .Get Your Free Sample Report @Top Key manufactures of Armor Materials Market are Du Pont, DSM, Honeywell, Saint-Gobain, Allegheny Technologies, 3M, Alcoa, Royal TenCate, Saab, CoorsTek, Morgan Advanced Materials, CeramTec, Tata Steel, AGY Holding, PPG Industries.The Armor Materials Market, presents critical information and factual data about the global Armor Materials Market, providing an overall statistical study of this market on the basis of market drivers, market limitations, and its future prospects. The widespread global Armor Materials opportunities and trends are also taken into consideration in Armor Materials industry.On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each Type, primarily split into Metals & Alloys, Composites, Ceramics, Para-aramid Fiber, UHMWPE, Fiberglass, Others.By Application, the market can be split into Vehicle Armor, Aerospace Armor, Body Armor, Marine Armor, Civil Armor.Some points from TOC:1 Global Armor Materials Market Size (Sales Volume) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)2 Global Armor Materials Market Size (Sales Volume) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20163 Global Armor Materials Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)4 Global Armor Materials Market Competition by Players/Suppliers5 Global Armor Materials Sales (Volume) and Revenue (Value) by Type (Product Category) (2012-2017)6 Global Armor Materials Players/Suppliers Profiles and Sales Data7 Armor Materials Manufacturing Cost Analysis8 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers9 Global Armor Materials Market Size (Value and Volume) Forecast (2017-2022)Have a query on this report? @All aspects of the Armor Materials industry report are quantitatively as well as qualitatively assessed to study the global as well as regional market comparatively. The basic information such as the definition, prevalent chain and the government regulations pertaining to the Armor Materials market are also discussed in the report.About UsReports Monitor (ReportsMonitor.com) is a platform for companies looking to meet their market research and business intelligence requirements. Our aim is to change the dynamics of the Market Research industry by providing quality intelligence backed by data. Your requirement for market forecasting is fulfilled by our exclusive quantitative and analytics driven intelligence. We have a vast collection of reports, covering maximum industries worldwide. Our process is meticulously planned and executed in order to use maximum resources and explore the market for getting genuine insights. The prime focus is to get reliable data, Decision makers can now rely on our distinct data gathering methods to get factual market forecasting and detailed analysis.Contact UsJay MatthewsDirect: +1 513 549-5911Email: sales@reportsmonitor.comWebsite:
Kiosk Market Analysis, Trends, Forecast, 2016-2024

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Declining costs of hardware and introduction of highly sophisticated technology at a sustained pace are making kiosks a medium of enhanced profitability and increasingly a means of improving the customer experience for a number of industries. While kiosks have existed in the global market for many decades, their sales have taken off only in the past few years.Transparency Market Research states that the global kiosks market held an opportunity of US$12.2 bn in 2015. The market is expected to expand at a 10.9% CAGR over the period between 2016 and 2024 and rise to a valuation of US$30.8 bn by 2024.Download exclusive Sample of this report:Vending Kiosks Emerge as Most Popular ProductIn terms of products, the segment of vending kiosks dominated the global kiosk market, accounting for over 45% of the global market in 2015. Vending kiosks dominate owing to the fact that the choice of what they can be used to offer to the consumer is rising at a substantial pace in the global market. The segment is expected to exhibit a healthy 11.5% CAGR over the period between 2016 and 2024. However, the segment of charging kiosks is expected to expand at the fastest pace across all chief product types in the kiosks market over the said period. The segment is expected to exhibit a CAGR of 13.5% from 2016 to 2024. Demand will be primarily driven by the rising consumer base of electrical vehicles and mobile computing devices across the globe.Need for Enhanced Consumer Experience and Quick Service Drive Increased Adoption of Kiosks in Retail SectorThe retail sector was the largest segment by end-use in the global kiosk market accounting for 54.5% in 2015. Most of the retail outlets are offering self-checkout kiosks to customers for faster processing of the purchases. Not only is the factor of faster services stimulating the adoption of kiosks in the retail sector but the fact that kiosks help save space in the physical world. As many as six self-checkout kiosks can fit in the space required to set up a single traditional checkout system. This factor can act as a huge determinant of the overall success of a retail outlet with limited operational space.Obtain Report Details @Dominant but Mature Regional Markets for Kiosks to Witness Sluggish GrowthFrom a geographical standpoint, North America dominated the global kiosk market in 2015. The region accounted for a share of nearly 42% in the global market in 2015 and is expected to remain a key contributor to the overall revenues of the global kiosk market in the next few years. Europe accounted for the second-largest share of 22% in the global kiosks market in 2015. From 2016 to 2024, the mature kiosk markets in these regions will witness moderate growth. The North America market will expand at a 10% CAGR and the Europe market will expand at a 7.2% CAGR over the said period.MEA and Latin America to Present Most Promising Growth OpportunitiesIn the years to come, the global kiosks market is expected to witness the most promising growth in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) and Latin America regional markets. The banking and finance and aviation industries in these regions will drive the increased need for a variety of kiosks in the next few years. The kiosks market in the MEA region will expand at an enormous CAGR of 17.30% over the period between 2016 and 2024. Asia Pacific kiosks market will also exhibit modest growth over the period, at a 6.4% CAGR, much of which will be driven by the retail industry.The competitive landscape of the global kiosk market features high competition and the presence of a large number of companies. Investments aimed at the development of products with innovative and technologically advanced features are rising in the market and many new vendors are making inroads at a rapid pace. Some of the key companies operating in the market presently are International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) Corp., KIOSK Information Systems Inc., Wincor Nixdorf Ag, Slabbkiosks, NCR Corp., and Meridian Kiosks LLC.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Cable Assembly Market Report for Period 2011 till 2023 Samtec, Molex, WL Gore & Associates, Epec, PSC Electronics, Fischer Connectors SA, Carrio Cabling and Others

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Global Cable Assembly market report provides detailed analysis of companies namely RF Cable Assembly, Minnesota Wire, Fischer Connectors SA, Times Microwave Systems, Carrio Cabling, Walker Component Group, Micro-Coax, CMA, Samtec, TE Connectivity, Molex, WL Gore & Associates, Amphenol DC Electronics, Epec, PSC Electronics, FCI and Others. This report study includes global market statistics and analysis for example, company performance, historical analysis 2012 to 2016, market forecast 2017 to 2023 in terms of volume, revenue, YOY growth rate, and CAGR for the year 2017 to 2022, etc.Also known as a wire harness, cable harness, wiring assembly, or wiring loom, a cable assembly is a grouping of cables or wires that transmits signals or electrical power. In binding the cables together, a cable assembly works to prevent disruption to the signal that might be caused by vibration, abrasion, moisture, fire, or electrical malfunctions (sometimes called shorts). A cable assembly can be created using a number of different casings straps, cable ties, cable lacing, sleeves, electrical tape, conduit, braiding, a weave of extruded string, or a combination of the these materials but the purpose is always to increase the efficiency of the products. Cable assemblies are designed according to geometric and electrical requirements, which are translated into a diagram that is used in the preparation and assembly of the harness. First the wires are cut to the desired length followed by a marking process (either manual or automated) for identification purposes. Next, the wires are stripped to expose their metal cores and assembled together with any extra terminals or connectors housings required. The bundle is then clamped onto a form board or assembly fixture. This finished mass is fitted with any protective sleeves, conduit, or extruded yarn. The entire process is usually completed by hand because of the intricate processing required at various stages of production, such as routing the wires through sleeves, taping, crimping terminals onto wires, inserting one sleeve into another, and fastening the strands with tape, clamps, or cable ties.Request for Free Sample Copy of Global Cable Assembly Market 2017Top Company Profiles and Analysis included in this report:TE ConnectivityMolexWL Gore & AssociatesAmphenol DC ElectronicsEpecPSC ElectronicsFCIRF Cable AssemblyMinnesota WireFischer Connectors SATimes Microwave SystemsCarrio CablingWalker Component GroupMicro-CoaxCMASamtecOthersGlobal Cable Assembly Market: Key Product TypeData cable assemblyHigh Speed Cable AssemblyConventional Cable AssemblyOthersGlobal Cable Assembly Market: Key Application TypeCommunicationsMedical EquipmentMachineAutomotiveOthersGlobal Cable Assembly Market: Key RegionNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Others)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Southeast Asia and Others)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia and Others)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa and Others)The Global Cable Assembly Market analysis report provides detailed value chain for analysis of Global Cable Assembly Market. The value chain helps to analyze major upstream in raw materials, major equipments, manufacturing process, downstream customer analysis and major distributor analysis.The report also covers in-depth description, competitive scenario, wide product portfolio of prime players active in this market and business strategies adopted by competitors along with their SWOT analysis. Side by side, it also explicitly provides information about mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and all the other important activities happened in current and past few years. The Global Cable Assembly Market report explores manufacturers competitive scenario and provides market share for all major players of this market based on production capacity, sales, revenue, geographical presence and other major factors.Enquire before Buying @Table of Contents:1 Market Overview1.1 Objectives of Research1.1.1 Definition1.1.2 Specifications1.2 Market Segment1.2.1 by Type1.2.1.1 Data cable assembly1.2.1.2 High Speed Cable Assembly1.2.1.3 Conventional Cable Assembly1.2.2 by Application1.2.2.1 Communications1.2.2.2 Medical Equipment1.2.2.3 Machine1.2.2.4 Automotive1.2.2.5 Others........................Continue (Global Cable Assembly Market Research Industry Report is prepared with the help of extensive primary and secondary sources, directories, journals, newsletters and with the help of third-party application like Hoovers, Factiva, Bloomberg, Businessweek, etc.About Us:Market Reports Company is a global research and consulting company. We provide customized reports. We can study and analyze any market based on wide range of parameters. We can provide market insights for any particular region, country across the globe within shortest possible turn around time.What we offer: Customized Reports: we provide customized report study on any market or industry. Region Specific Study: If you need region specific or if you are searching for particular region market study then, we have expert research team for that. How we work: We work in all domains and industries, you name it and we provide the market research industry report analysis of it. Expertise: Superior Research Team, 24*7 Customer Care ServiceContact UsJason Smith,Sales Manager, Global Business Development,Website:Email: jasonsmith@marketreportscompany.comContact us: +1-888-220-3424Address: 20 N State Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60602 United States
Tracheostomy Market Report for Period 2017 till 2022 Boston Medical, Fuji Systems, Smiths Medical, TRACOE Medical, Pulmodyne, Medtronic and Others

Tracheostomy Market

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Global Tracheostomy market report provides detailed analysis of companies namely Boston Medical, Cook, Fuji Systems, Pulmodyne, Well Lead, TuoRen, Medtronic, Teleflex, Smiths Medical, TRACOE Medical, ConvaTec and Others. This report study includes global market statistics and analysis for example, company performance, historical analysis 2012 to 2016, market forecast 2017 to 2023 in terms of volume, revenue, YOY growth rate, and CAGR for the year 2017 to 2022, etc.Tracheotomy is a surgical procedure which consists of making an incision on the anterior aspect of the neck and opening a direct airway through an incision in the trachea (windpipe). The resulting stoma (hole), or tracheostomy, can serve independently as an airway or as a site for a tracheostomy tube to be inserted this tube allows a person to breathe without the use of their nose or mouth. Both surgical and percutaneous techniques are widely used in current surgical practice.Request for Free Sample Copy of Global Tracheostomy Market 2017Top Company Profiles and Analysis included in this report:MedtronicTeleflexSmiths MedicalTRACOE MedicalConvaTecBoston MedicalCookFuji SystemsPulmodyneWell LeadTuoRenOthersGlobal Tracheostomy Market: Key Product TypeTracheostomy TubeTracheostomy IntroducerOthersGlobal Tracheostomy Market: Key Application TypeICULTACOthersGlobal Tracheostomy Market: Key RegionNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Others)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Southeast Asia and Others)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia and Others)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa and Others)The Global Tracheostomy Market analysis report provides detailed value chain for analysis of Global Tracheostomy Market. The value chain helps to analyze major upstream in raw materials, major equipments, manufacturing process, downstream customer analysis and major distributor analysis.The report also covers in-depth description, competitive scenario, wide product portfolio of prime players active in this market and business strategies adopted by competitors along with their SWOT analysis. Side by side, it also explicitly provides information about mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and all the other important activities happened in current and past few years. The Global Tracheostomy Market report explores manufacturers competitive scenario and provides market share for all major players of this market based on production capacity, sales, revenue, geographical presence and other major factors.Enquire before Buying @Table of Contents:1 Market Overview1.1 Tracheostomy Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Tracheostomy Tube1.2.2 Tracheostomy Introducer1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 ICU1.3.2 LTAC........................Continue (Global Tracheostomy Market Research Industry Report is prepared with the help of extensive primary and secondary sources, directories, journals, newsletters and with the help of third-party application like Hoovers, Factiva, Bloomberg, Businessweek, etc.About Us:Market Reports Company is a global research and consulting company. We provide customized reports. We can study and analyze any market based on wide range of parameters. We can provide market insights for any particular region, country across the globe within shortest possible turn around time.What we offer: Customized Reports: we provide customized report study on any market or industry. Region Specific Study: If you need region specific or if you are searching for particular region market study then, we have expert research team for that. How we work: We work in all domains and industries, you name it and we provide the market research industry report analysis of it. Expertise: Superior Research Team, 24*7 Customer Care ServiceContact UsJason Smith,Sales Manager, Global Business Development,Website:Email: jasonsmith@marketreportscompany.comContact us: +1-888-220-3424Address: 20 N State Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60602 United States
North America to Attribute Largely to IoT in Supply Chain Management Market Growth By 2025

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Supply chain management (SCM) is a foundational business process that impacts almost every enterprise. For a manufacturer, it means moving parts into factory for production and finished products to the point of sale. This usually involves a third party logistics (3PL) companies. Their role is to manage ways through which resources are outsourced wherever required. This can sometimes insert inefficiency and lack of visibility to process, which is removed by the development of Internet of Things (IoT) that continuously changes the way supply chains are managed. IoT is a way through which massive amount of data is coupled with new communication options. This collaboration of sensors, communication devices, servers, analytics engines, and decision-making aids connects the physical and information worlds more closely.A sample of this report is available upon request @Sensors are used since a long time to monitor the process which starts from manufacturing of products and ends with the delivery to their point of sale. But using those sensors to intelligently connect people, data, things and process, is where IoT comes into application. With the IoT, sensors embedded equipments can communicate data about various parameters such as temperature and utilization, which can be used to process workflow and can result in optimizing supply chain performance. This is a leading trend of IoT in supply chain management market.IoT opens up various use cases for supply chain management that includes asset tracking and fleet management. Asset tracking can be based on RFID tags which provides real time data about the whereabouts of product in warehouse. Impact of IoT in fleet management is based on factors such as weather and traffic congestion increases availability and efficiency of the asset.Management of supply chains through IoT, facilitates design of more optimized supply chain which provides solutions such as demand planning, risk diagnosis and logistics assessment. Collaboration of sensors with intelligence, allows proactive warning of risk in supply chain. Emergence of sensors and increasing requirement of managing supply chains are the factors driving the growth of IoT supply chain management market. Declining prices of IoT sensors is also expected to trigger market growth. Manufacturers are focusing more on close connectivity in their supply chain network, is responsible for driving IoT in supply chain management market. Smartphones are increasingly used by supply chain managers to access information. Their reduced prices and increased functionalities has surged adoption of IoT in supply chain management.Installation of IoT devices, requirement of skilled personnel for installation and maintenance are some key restraint hindering the growth of the market. Security is another factor that is expected to restrain market growth over the forecast years.The global market for IoT in supply chain management is segmented on the basis of product, mode of transport and end use vertical. The product segment can be further classified as hardware, software and solution. Hardware segment is further categorized into sensors, cameras, screen/display, networking hardware (antennas, routers, hub, RFID, NFC), positioning hardware and others. Software segment is further categorized into fleet management and tracking. However, on the basis of end use vertical, market can be segmented into food &beverage, healthcare & life sciences, manufacturing, retail & wholesale, transportation& logistics and others. Based on solution, it can be segmented into transportation management, Inventory &warehouse management support service, demand planning & forecasting solution and others. Further, mode of transport for supply chain management can be segmented into roadways, airways, railways and marine.North America is expected to dominate the market for IoT in supply chain management during the forecast period. The increasing adoption of smart connected devices and the technological advancements support the growth of IoT in supply chain management market.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @Some of the key vendor in the IoT in supply chain management market includes. Alcatel-Lucent AT&T, Cisco Systems, IBM Corporation, Intel Corporation, Cubic Corporation, Siemens AG, Thales SA, TomTom NV, TransCore, LP, Verizon Communications , Denso Corporation, Garmin Ltd , Hitachi Ltd and Iteris Inc..About USTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a next-generation provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact Us-U.S. OFFICE:State Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207
Car Dvd Player market: research analysis and growth forecast by manufacturers & regions from 2017-2022

Car Dvd Player Market

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Car Dvd Player MarketReportsMonitor Publish a New Market Research Report on - Global Car Dvd Player Industry Market Research ReportSummaryBased on the Car Dvd Player industrial chain, this report mainly elaborate the definition, types, applications and major players of Car Dvd Player market in details. Deep analysis about market status (2012-2017), enterprise competition pattern, advantages and disadvantages of enterprise Products, industry development trends (2017-2022), regional industrial layout characteristics and macroeconomic policies, industrial policy has also be included. From raw materials to downstream buyers of this industry will be analyzed scientifically, the feature of product circulation and sales channel will be presented as well. In a word, this report will help you to establish a panorama of industrial development and characteristics of the Car Dvd Player market.The Car Dvd Player market can be split based on product types, major applications, and important regions.If you want sample of Car Dvd Player Market ReportMajor Players in Car Dvd Player market are:Planet Audio, T-View, XTRONS, Alpine, Rockville Audio, RCA, Epsilon Electronics, Philips, AAMP Global, VOXX Electronics, Power Acoustik, Pyle, XO Vision, EmaticMajor Regions play vital role in Car Dvd Player market are:North America, Europe, China, Japan, Middle East & Africa, India, South America, OthersMost important types of Car Dvd Player products covered in this report are:Car Headrest DVD PlayerOverhead DVD PlayersOtherMost widely used downstream fields of Car Dvd Player market covered in this report are:Passenger CarCommercial CarIf you want to Check Discount on Car Dvd Player Market ReportTable of ContentGlobal Car Dvd Player Industry Market Research Report1 Car Dvd Player Introduction and Market Overview1.1 Objectives of the Study1.2 Definition of Car Dvd Player1.3 Car Dvd Player Market Scope and Market Size Estimation1.3.1 Market Concentration Ratio and Market Maturity Analysis1.3.2 Global Car Dvd Player Value ($) and Growth Rate from 2012-20221.4 Market Segmentation1.4.1 Types of Car Dvd Player1.4.2 Applications of Car Dvd Player1.4.3 Research Regions1.4.3.1 North America Car Dvd Player Production Value ($) and Growth Rate (2012-2017)1.4.3.2 Europe Car Dvd Player Production Value ($) and Growth Rate (2012-2017)1.4.3.3 China Car Dvd Player Production Value ($) and Growth Rate (2012-2017)1.4.3.4 Japan Car Dvd Player Production Value ($) and Growth Rate (2012-2017)1.4.3.5 Middle East & Africa Car Dvd Player Production Value ($) and Growth Rate (2012-2017)1.4.3.6 India Car Dvd Player Production Value ($) and Growth Rate (2012-2017)1.4.3.7 South America Car Dvd Player Production Value ($) and Growth Rate (2012-2017)1.5 Market Dynamics1.5.1 Drivers1.5.1.1 Emerging Countries of Car Dvd Player1.5.1.2 Growing Market of Car Dvd Player1.5.2 Limitations1.5.3 Opportunities1.6 Industry News and Policies by Regions1.6.1 Industry News1.6.2 Industry PoliciesContinueList of Tables and FiguresFigure Product Picture of Car Dvd PlayerTable Product Specification of Car Dvd PlayerFigure Market Concentration Ratio and Market Maturity Analysis of Car Dvd PlayerFigure Global Car Dvd Player Value ($) and Growth Rate from 2012-2022Table Different Types of Car Dvd PlayerFigure Global Car Dvd Player Value ($) Segment by Type from 2012-2017Figure Car Headrest DVD Player PictureContinue.Full Report AccessReports Monitor is a platform to meet the market research and business intelligence requirements. Our aim is to change the dynamics of the Market Research industry by providing quality intelligence backed by data. Your requirement for market forecasting is fulfilled by our exclusive quantitative and analytics driven intelligence. Decision makers can now rely on our distinct data gathering methods to get factual market forecasting and detailed analysis. Our process is meticulously planned and executed in order to use maximum resources and explore the market for getting genuine insights.Address: Office C & D - 4th Floor, Siddhi Towers, Above Rupee Bank, Kondhwa Road, Pune 411048, Maharashtra, India
Exhaust Fan Market Report for Period 2011 till 2023 Johnson Controls, Loren Cook, Twin City Fan, Howden, Nortek, Polypipe Ventilation, Munters and Others

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Global Exhaust Fan market report provides detailed analysis of companies namely Air Systems Components, Nortek, Polypipe Ventilation, Zhejiang Shangfeng, Yilida, Munters, Volution, ACTOM, Greenheck, Twin City Fan, Howden, Systemair, Soler & Palau, Johnson Controls, Loren Cook, Ventmeca and Others. This report study includes global market statistics and analysis for example, company performance, historical analysis 2012 to 2016, market forecast 2017 to 2023 in terms of volume, revenue, YOY growth rate, and CAGR for the year 2017 to 2022, etc.An exhaust or ventilation fan is a fan which is used to control the interior environment by venting out unwanted odors, particulates, smoke, moisture, and other contaminants which may be present in the air. It helps to force out stale air and pull fresh, clean air through your facility for a more comfortable working environment. Exhaust fans can also be integrated into a heating and cooling system.Request for Free Sample Copy of Global Exhaust Fan Market 2017Top Company Profiles and Analysis included in this report:GreenheckTwin City FanHowdenSystemairSoler & PalauJohnson ControlsLoren CookVentmecaAir Systems ComponentsNortekPolypipe VentilationZhejiang ShangfengYilidaMuntersVolutionACTOMOthersGlobal Exhaust Fan Market: Key Product TypeCentrifugal FansAxial FansOthersGlobal Exhaust Fan Market: Key Application TypeCommercial BuildingsIndustrial FactoriesOthersGlobal Exhaust Fan Market: Key RegionNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Others)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Southeast Asia and Others)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia and Others)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa and Others)The Global Exhaust Fan Market analysis report provides detailed value chain for analysis of Global Exhaust Fan Market. The value chain helps to analyze major upstream in raw materials, major equipments, manufacturing process, downstream customer analysis and major distributor analysis.The report also covers in-depth description, competitive scenario, wide product portfolio of prime players active in this market and business strategies adopted by competitors along with their SWOT analysis. Side by side, it also explicitly provides information about mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and all the other important activities happened in current and past few years. The Global Exhaust Fan Market report explores manufacturers competitive scenario and provides market share for all major players of this market based on production capacity, sales, revenue, geographical presence and other major factors.Enquire before Buying @Table of Contents:1 Market Overview1.1 Objectives of Research1.1.1 Definition1.1.2 Specifications1.2 Market Segment1.2.1 by Type1.2.1.1 Centrifugal Fans1.2.1.2 Axial Fans1.2.1.3 Others1.2.2 by Application1.2.2.1 Commercial Buildings1.2.2.2 Industrial Factories1.2.2.3 Others........................Continue (Global Exhaust Fan Market Research Industry Report is prepared with the help of extensive primary and secondary sources, directories, journals, newsletters and with the help of third-party application like Hoovers, Factiva, Bloomberg, Businessweek, etc.About Us:Market Reports Company is a global research and consulting company. We provide customized reports. We can study and analyze any market based on wide range of parameters. We can provide market insights for any particular region, country across the globe within shortest possible turn around time.What we offer: Customized Reports: we provide customized report study on any market or industry. Region Specific Study: If you need region specific or if you are searching for particular region market study then, we have expert research team for that. How we work: We work in all domains and industries, you name it and we provide the market research industry report analysis of it. Expertise: Superior Research Team, 24*7 Customer Care ServiceContact UsJason Smith,Sales Manager, Global Business Development,Website:Email: jasonsmith@marketreportscompany.comContact us: +1-888-220-3424Address: 20 N State Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60602 United States
Biopolymers Market Supply-Demand, Industry Research and End User Analysis, Outlook

Biopolymers Market Supply-Demand, Industry Research and End User Analysis, Outlook

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ReportsMonitor.com has added Global Biopolymers Market Research Report 2017.The study document titled Global Biopolymers industry gives helpful observations into the general trends as well as the points that propel this World-wide market. This industry examine completely covers the salient highlights of the Global Biopolymers market regarding the industry structure and even landscape designs, difficulties and desire ideas, along with projected current market effectiveness .Get Your Free Sample Report @Top Key manufactures of Biopolymers Market are BASF SE, E.l.du Pont de Nemours and Company, FMC Biopolymer A.S., Plantic Technologies Ltd., Archer Daniels Midland Company, NatureWorks LLC, Novamont SpA, Danimer Scientific, Total Corbion, Galatea Bio Tech.The Biopolymers Market, presents critical information and factual data about the global Biopolymers Market, providing an overall statistical study of this market on the basis of market drivers, market limitations, and its future prospects. The widespread global Biopolymers opportunities and trends are also taken into consideration in Biopolymers industry.On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each Type, primarily split into Bio-PET, Bio-PE, Biodegradable Polyester, Biodegradable Starch Blends, PLA, PTT, PHA.By Application, the market can be split into Packaging, Textiles, Consumer Goods, Agriculture, Automotive, Electronics, Construction, Others.Check Discount on this report@Some points from TOC:1 Global Biopolymers Market Size (Sales Volume) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)2 Global Biopolymers Market Size (Sales Volume) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20163 Global Biopolymers Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)4 Global Biopolymers Market Competition by Players/Suppliers5 Global Biopolymers Sales (Volume) and Revenue (Value) by Type (Product Category) (2012-2017)6 Global Biopolymers Players/Suppliers Profiles and Sales Data7 Biopolymers Manufacturing Cost Analysis8 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers9 Global Biopolymers Market Size (Value and Volume) Forecast (2017-2022)Have a query on this report? @All aspects of the Biopolymers industry report are quantitatively as well as qualitatively assessed to study the global as well as regional market comparatively. The basic information such as the definition, prevalent chain and the government regulations pertaining to the Biopolymers market are also discussed in the report.About UsReports Monitor (ReportsMonitor.com) is a platform for companies looking to meet their market research and business intelligence requirements. Our aim is to change the dynamics of the Market Research industry by providing quality intelligence backed by data. Your requirement for market forecasting is fulfilled by our exclusive quantitative and analytics driven intelligence. We have a vast collection of reports, covering maximum industries worldwide. Our process is meticulously planned and executed in order to use maximum resources and explore the market for getting genuine insights. The prime focus is to get reliable data, Decision makers can now rely on our distinct data gathering methods to get factual market forecasting and detailed analysis.Contact UsJay MatthewsDirect: +1 513 549-5911Email: sales@reportsmonitor.comWebsite:
Magnesium Citrate Market Report for Period 2011 till 2022 Jungbunzlauer, Global Calcium, Penglai Marine, Hengheng Fine Chemical, Dongtai Food Ingredients and Others

Magnesium Citrate Market

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Global Magnesium Citrate market report provides detailed analysis of companies namely Penglai Marine, Dongtai Food Ingredients, Yunbo Chemical, Xiyang Chemical, Hengheng Fine Chemical, Jungbunzlauer, Global Calcium, Gadot Biochemical Industries, Sucroal and Others. This report study includes global market statistics and analysis for example, company performance, historical analysis 2012 to 2016, market forecast 2017 to 2023 in terms of volume, revenue, YOY growth rate, and CAGR for the year 2017 to 2022, etc.Magnesium citrate is a magnesium preparation in salt form with citric acid. Its often used in nutrition supplement, food & beverage industry and pharmaceutical industry.Request for Free Sample Copy of Global Magnesium Citrate Market 2017Top Company Profiles and Analysis included in this report:JungbunzlauerGlobal CalciumGadot Biochemical IndustriesSucroalDr. Paul LohmannPenglai MarineDongtai Food IngredientsYunbo ChemicalXiyang ChemicalHengheng Fine ChemicalOthersGlobal Magnesium Citrate Market: Key Product TypeAnhydrous TypeNonahydrate TypeOthersGlobal Magnesium Citrate Market: Key Application TypeNutrient SupplementFood & Beverage IndustryPharmaceutical IndustryOthersGlobal Magnesium Citrate Market: Key RegionNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Others)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Southeast Asia and Others)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia and Others)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa and Others)The Global Magnesium Citrate Market analysis report provides detailed value chain for analysis of Global Magnesium Citrate Market. The value chain helps to analyze major upstream in raw materials, major equipments, manufacturing process, downstream customer analysis and major distributor analysis.The report also covers in-depth description, competitive scenario, wide product portfolio of prime players active in this market and business strategies adopted by competitors along with their SWOT analysis. Side by side, it also explicitly provides information about mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and all the other important activities happened in current and past few years. The Global Magnesium Citrate Market report explores manufacturers competitive scenario and provides market share for all major players of this market based on production capacity, sales, revenue, geographical presence and other major factors.Enquire before Buying @Table of Contents:1 Market Overview1.1 Objectives of Research1.1.1 Definition1.1.2 Specifications1.2 Market Segment1.2.1 by Type1.2.1.1 Anhydrous Type1.2.1.2 Nonahydrate Type1.2.2 by Application1.2.2.1 Nutrient Supplement1.2.2.2 Food & Beverage Industry1.2.2.3 Pharmaceutical Industry1.2.3 by Regions........................Continue (Global Magnesium Citrate Market Research Industry Report is prepared with the help of extensive primary and secondary sources, directories, journals, newsletters and with the help of third-party application like Hoovers, Factiva, Bloomberg, Businessweek, etc.About Us:Market Reports Company is a global research and consulting company. We provide customized reports. We can study and analyze any market based on wide range of parameters. We can provide market insights for any particular region, country across the globe within shortest possible turn around time.What we offer: Customized Reports: we provide customized report study on any market or industry. Region Specific Study: If you need region specific or if you are searching for particular region market study then, we have expert research team for that. How we work: We work in all domains and industries, you name it and we provide the market research industry report analysis of it. Expertise: Superior Research Team, 24*7 Customer Care ServiceContact UsJason Smith,Sales Manager, Global Business Development,Website:Email: jasonsmith@marketreportscompany.comContact us: +1-888-220-3424Address: 20 N State Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60602 United States
Primary Battery and Cell Market Report for Period 2011 till 2023 Panasonic, Hitachi Maxell, ZEUS Battery Products, Newhop Battery, Electrochem and Others

Primary Battery and Cell Market

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Global Primary Battery and Cell market report provides detailed analysis of companies namely Newhop Battery, Electrochem, Tadiran, Engineered Power, Saft, BiPOWER CORP, Vitzrocell, Hitachi Maxell, ZEUS Battery Products, EVE Energy, Tenergy Corporation, Panasonic and Others. This report study includes global market statistics and analysis for example, company performance, historical analysis 2012 to 2016, market forecast 2017 to 2023 in terms of volume, revenue, YOY growth rate, and CAGR for the year 2017 to 2022, etc.Request for Free Sample Copy of Global Primary Battery and Cell Market 2017Top Company Profiles and Analysis included in this report:VitzrocellHitachi MaxellZEUS Battery ProductsEVE EnergyTenergy CorporationPanasonicNewhop BatteryElectrochemTadiranEngineered PowerSaftBiPOWER CORPOthersGlobal Primary Battery and Cell Market: Key Product TypeBioalcoholsBio-Glycols&DiolsLactate EstersD-LimoneneMethyl SoyateOthersGlobal Primary Battery and Cell Market: Key Application TypeHome ApplianceScience InstrumentOthersGlobal Primary Battery and Cell Market: Key RegionNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Others)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Southeast Asia and Others)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia and Others)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa and Others)The Global Primary Battery and Cell Market analysis report provides detailed value chain for analysis of Global Primary Battery and Cell Market. The value chain helps to analyze major upstream in raw materials, major equipments, manufacturing process, downstream customer analysis and major distributor analysis.The report also covers in-depth description, competitive scenario, wide product portfolio of prime players active in this market and business strategies adopted by competitors along with their SWOT analysis. Side by side, it also explicitly provides information about mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and all the other important activities happened in current and past few years. The Global Primary Battery and Cell Market report explores manufacturers competitive scenario and provides market share for all major players of this market based on production capacity, sales, revenue, geographical presence and other major factors.Enquire before Buying @Table of Contents:1 Market Overview1.1 Objectives of Research1.1.1 Definition1.1.2 Specifications1.2 Market Segment1.2.1 Upstream1.2.2 Downstream1.2 Market Segment1.2.1 by Type........................Continue (Global Primary Battery and Cell Market Research Industry Report is prepared with the help of extensive primary and secondary sources, directories, journals, newsletters and with the help of third-party application like Hoovers, Factiva, Bloomberg, Businessweek, etc.About Us:Market Reports Company is a global research and consulting company. We provide customized reports. We can study and analyze any market based on wide range of parameters. We can provide market insights for any particular region, country across the globe within shortest possible turn around time.What we offer: Customized Reports: we provide customized report study on any market or industry. Region Specific Study: If you need region specific or if you are searching for particular region market study then, we have expert research team for that. How we work: We work in all domains and industries, you name it and we provide the market research industry report analysis of it. Expertise: Superior Research Team, 24*7 Customer Care ServiceContact UsJason Smith,Sales Manager, Global Business Development,Website:Email: jasonsmith@marketreportscompany.comContact us: +1-888-220-3424Address: 20 N State Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60602 United States
Future of the Jordan Defense Industry Share, Growth, Revenue, Trends and Forecast 2017 - 2022

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To Understand the Jordan Defense Industry Status worldwide, Market Research Hub (MRH) has included the latest Forecast report titled Future of the Jordan Defense Industry, to its vast database. This study offers data about the prime regions operating in the Defense and Security sector, along with their production, consumption, revenue and market share details. Further, the intelligent report also anticipates that the market would grow at a constructive CAGR until 2022.Request For Free Sample -SynopsisThis report offers detailed analysis of the Jordan defense industry with market size forecasts covering the next five years. This report will also analyze factors that influence demand for the industry, key market trends, and challenges faced by industry participants.In particular, it provides an in-depth analysis of the following -- The Jordan defense industry market size and drivers: detailed analysis of the Jordan defense industry during 2018-2022, including highlights of the demand drivers and growth stimulators for the industry. It also provides a snapshot of the countrys expenditure and modernization patterns- Budget allocation and key challenges: insights into procurement schedules formulated within the country and a breakdown of the defense budget with respect to capital expenditure and revenue expenditure. It also details the key challenges faced by defense market participants within the country- Porters Five Force analysis of the Jordan defense industry: analysis of the market characteristics by determining the bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitution, intensity of rivalry, and barriers to entry- Import and Export Dynamics: analysis of prevalent trends in the countrys imports and exports over the last five years- Market opportunities: details of the top five defense investment opportunities over the next 10 years- Competitive landscape and strategic insights: analysis of the competitive landscape of the Jordan defense industry. It provides an overview of key players, together with insights such as key alliances, strategic initiatives, and a brief financial analysisScope- Jordans defense expenditure rose from US$1.5 billion in 2013 to US$2.1 billion in 2017, at a CAGR of 8.28% due to the countrys precarious security environment aggravated by the responsibility of hosting a large refugee population. Attempts to modernize its military equipment will therefore drive its defense expenditure over the forecast period.- In Jordan, the military is one of the largest employment generators in the public service sector. Salaries account for a higher percentage of the countrys total expenditure on defense and security. During the historic period, 96.6% of the defense budget was allocated to revenue expenditure including salaries, logistics, operational costs, training, and maintenance. The remaining 3.4% was allocated to capital expenditure. Over the forecast period, the government will maintain its current allocation to capital expenditure, averaging 3.3% of the total defense budget.- The MoD is expected to invest in border security systems & equipment, armored vehicles, and patrol boats among others.Reasons to buy- This report will give the user confidence to make the correct business decisions based on a detailed analysis of the Jordan defense industry market trends for the coming five years- The market opportunity section will inform the user about the various military requirements that are expected to generate revenues during the forecast period. The description includes technical specifications, recent orders, and the expected investment pattern by the country during the forecast period- Detailed profiles of the top domestic and foreign defense manufacturers with information about their products, alliances, recent contract wins, and financial analysis wherever available. This will provide the user with a total competitive landscape of the sector- A deep qualitative analysis of the Jordan defense industry covering sections including demand drivers, Porters Five Forces Analysis, Key Trends and Growth Stimulators, and latest industry contractsBrowse Full Report With TOC -Table of Contents1. Introduction 71.1. What is this Report About? 71.2. Definitions 71.3. Summary Methodology 101.4. About Strategic Defence Intelligence 122. Executive Summary 133. Market Attractiveness and Emerging Opportunities 153.1. Current Market Scenario 163.1.1. Primary threat perception 163.1.2. Military doctrine and strategy 173.1.3. Military Fleet Size 193.1.4. Procurement Programs 233.1.5. Social, political, and economic environment and support for defense projects 243.1.6. Political and strategic alliances 243.2. Defense Market Size - Historical and Forecast 263.2.1. Jordanian defense budget to post a CAGR of 6.31% over the forecast period 263.2.2. Jordanian aggregate defense expenditure - inclusive of US military aid - will post a forecast-period CAGR of 5.30% 283.2.3. Hostility among neighboring countries and foreign military aid to drive defense expenditure 313.2.4. Jordanian defense expenditure as a percentage of GDP to average 4.2% over the forecast period 323.3. Analysis of Defense Budget Allocation 343.3.1. Revenue expenditure to continue to take precedence over capital expenditure 343.3.2. Financial Aid from the US contributes a major share of the countrys capital expenditure 363.3.3. The countrys capital budget allocations else remain low 373.3.4. Per capita defense expenditure to grow steadily over the forecast period 393.4. Homeland Security Market Size and Forecast 403.4.1. Homeland security expenditure to post a forecast-period CAGR of 2.87% 403.4.2. Internal conflicts and unauthorized activities in refugee camps will be the key factors driving HLS expenditure 423.4.3. Jordan considered at moderate risk of terrorism 433.4.4. Jordan faces a moderate level of threat from terrorist organizations 443.4.5. Jordan has a terrorism index score of 2.9 463.5. Benchmarking with Key Global Markets 473.5.1. Jordan ranks among the lowest defense spending countries in the world 473.5.2. Jordan defense spending will remain minimal when compared to top regional spenders Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Kuwait 493.5.3. Jordan ranks low in terms of defense expenditure as a percentage of GDP 503.6. Market Opportunities: Key Trends and Drivers 513.6.1. Demand for border security systems expected to rise 513.6.2. Demand for armored vehicles likely to surge over the forecast period 523.6.3. Procurement of patrol boats expected to increase 524. Defense Procurement Market Dynamics 534.1. Import Market Dynamics 534.1.1. The majority of Jordans military equipment is generated through foreign imports 534.1.2. The Netherlands, the US, and Belgium were the dominant suppliers of defense equipment to Jordan 544.1.3. Aircraft and missiles dominated Jordanian defense imports 554.2. Export Market Dynamics 56ContinueEnquire About this Report -About Market Research Hub:Market Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of market research reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients.Contact Details:90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free : 800-998-4852 (US-Canada)Email : press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite :Read Industry News at -
Top Growth Opportunities-Savory Snacks in Saudi Arabia

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ReportsWeb.com published Savory Snacks Market from its database. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market."Top Growth Opportunities: Savory Snacks in Saudi Arabia", provides an overview of the savory snacks market, analyzing market data, demographic consumption patterns within the category, and the key consumer trends driving consumption. The report highlights top growth opportunities for the savory snacks market in Saudi Arabia and outlines new product development that effectively targets the most pertinent consumer need states, and offers strategic recommendations to capitalize on evolving consumer landscapes.This report identifies the key demographic groups driving consumption, and what motivates their consumption. When combined with an in-depth study of market and category dynamics, readers are able to identify key opportunities, and what they need to do in order to target them. The report uses a unique method of quantifying consumer trends to highlight the degree of influence they have on consumption within the category. The report also identifies the most important trends within the market and shows whether beliefs over what influences consumer behavior within the category are accurate.For more information about this report @Get access to -- Key consumer demographic groups driving consumption within the Saudi Arabian market. The figures showcase the number of times consumers of specific ages and gender consume Savory Snacks, as well as identifying whether these demographic groups "over" consume in the category (i.e. they account for a higher proportion of occasions than the proportion of society they represent overall)- A study of market value and volumes over 2011-2016 for Saudi Arabia, supplemented with category, brand and packaging analysis that shows the current state of the market, and how it will evolve over the 2016-2021 period- The degree of influence that the 20 key consumer trends identified by Publisher have on Savory Snacks consumption volumes, with granular analysis on the extent that degree of influences varies between gender and age group- Insight into the implications behind the data, and analysis of how the consumer needs will evolve in the short-to-medium term future- Examples of international and Saudi Arabia-specific product innovation targeting key consumer needsScope- The savory snacks market in Saudi Arabia saw healthy growth during 2011-2016, and is set to expand further in the five years to 2021, reaching a CAGR of 8.2%. This growth is being driven by a variety of social, political, and economic factors, which point to a more favorable business environment for investors, underpinned by GDP growth and increased spending power.- Premiumization had a moderate importance on the market over the past five years, but a higher level of premiumization is expected in the market in the forthcoming years, with consumer confidence is set to grow, due to higher government investment and decreasing unemployment in Saudi Arabia.- Internationals Savory Snacks brands dominate the sector, outperforming domestic brands in Saudi Arabia.Request a sample copy @Reasons to buy- This report brings together consumer analysis and market data to provide actionable insight into the behavior of Saudi Arabia's Savory Snacks consumers.- This is based on Publisher's unique consumer data, developed from extensive consumption surveys and consumer group tracking, which quantifies the influence of 20 consumption motivations in the Savory Snacks sector.- Category, brand, and packaging dynamics are also examined. This allows product and marketing strategies to be better aligned with the leading trends in the market.Table of Contents1. Introducing a top growth market for savory snacks2. Market insight - identifying the opportunities to move into3. Retail and distribution insight - key channels and retailers driving growth4. Company and brand insight - the competitive landscape defined5. Consumer insight - who, what, when, where and why6. Product and packaging insights7. White spaces and innovation opportunities - space to move into8. Appendix and DefinitionsList of TablesVisualization of 10 countries growth opportunitiesVisualization of 10 countries growth opportunities (continued)Reward and risk assessmentMarket value and split, 2011-2021Winners and losers by category, value, 2016-2021Volume growth by category, 2011-2021Winners and losers by category, volume, 2016-2021Key consumption volume shares by consumer group, 2016Top categories by value and CAGR, 2011-2016Companies MentionedPepsiCoDalmaza Food IndustriesThe Kellogg CompanyNational Biscuits & ConfectioneryLactalis GroupAl HomaiziBest FoodGandour IndiaParamount FarmsThe Lorenz BahlsenConAgra FoodsTyrrells Potato ChipsInquire for Report @Contact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@reportsweb.comReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer Bauxite Mining and our customer support Bauxite Mining is always available to help you on your research queries.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Tourism Potential Index 2017

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ReportsWeb.com published Tourism Market from its database. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Publisher's "Tourism Potential Index 2017", provides a ranking of 60 major developed and emerging markets around the world to inform the reader of potential growth opportunities in the tourism sector.Publisher's Tourism Potantial Index is designed to provide a standardish view of the underlying level of potential for expansion in the tourism sector across 60 major markets in both the developed and developing world. The first part of the ranking is based on the forecasted average annual growth in international arrivals. The second part of the rankings - a star rating, is based on analysis of current conditions and a risk-adjusted assessment of growth potential.For more information about this report @The star rating is based on four pillars, and each country is additionally separately ranked according to these; these include significance, competitiveness, attractiveness and convenience. Significance outlines how important tourism is for the country as a whole, competitiveness provides value for money in terms of pricing, general consumer goods and specific tourism services, attractiveness considers cultural, economic and other assets which draw both leisure and business travellers to the country, and convenience examines the difficulty in travelling to the country, getting in, and getting around.Scope- Iceland is ranked first, with a large surge in international arrivals between 2015 and 2016 and the highest forecasted average annual growth rate for 2016-2021 out of all 60 countries. Iceland is benefiting from the increased number of flights that Icelandic LCC WOW Air has added to Reykjavik.- Chile is the highest ranked South American country. The country has witnessed fast growth in terms of international tourists in the last few years, partly due to increased airline access and improved international marketing campaigns.- Egypt has the lowest forecast of all countries, with projected growth on 1.1% on an annual basis. Its tourism industry has struggled to rebound since the 2011 uprising, due a string of incidents such as the downing of Metrojet Flight 9268 in October 2015, which was predominantly carrying tourists.Request a sample copy @Reasons to buy- Publisher's Tourism Potential Index 2017 uses analysis and data to provide the reader with valuable insight into tourism markets around the world which have significant growth potential.- The index gives the reader a clear understanding and actionable insight into where there are future opportunities.Table of ContentsMethodology BriefOverviewMarket ForecastOverview Star RatingAttractivenessSignificanceConvenienceCompetitivenessRiskCountry In Focus - HungaryCountry In Focus - MauritiusCountry In Focus - MoroccoCountry In Focus - ArgentinaCountry In Focus - SwitzerlandAppendixCompanies MentionedWOW AirMetrojetSheratonShangri-LaAir Arabia MarocInquire for Report @Contact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@reportsweb.comReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer Bauxite Mining and our customer support Bauxite Mining is always available to help you on your research queries.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Black Foam Glass Market  Global Industry Size, Share, Analysis, Trend & Forecast 2017

Black Foam Glass Market ? Global Industry Size, Share, Analysis, Trend & Forecast 2017

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ReportsMonitor.com has added Global Black Foam Glass Market Research Report 2017.The study document titled Global Black Foam Glass industry gives helpful observations into the general trends as well as the points that propel this World-wide market. This industry examine completely covers the salient highlights of the Global Black Foam Glass market regarding the industry structure and even landscape designs, difficulties and desire ideas, along with projected current market effectiveness .Get Your Free Sample Report @Top Key manufactures of Black Foam Glass Market are Pittsburgh Corning, GLAPOR, Earthstone, JSC Gomelglass, REFAGLASS, Zhejiang DEHO, Huichang New Material, YaHong, ZhenShen, Zhong Tai Tian Cheng, Zhengdi, ShouBang, Xin Shun Da, YongLi, Aotai.The Black Foam Glass Market, presents critical information and factual data about the global Black Foam Glass Market, providing an overall statistical study of this market on the basis of market drivers, market limitations, and its future prospects. The widespread global Black Foam Glass opportunities and trends are also taken into consideration in Black Foam Glass industry.On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each Type, primarily split into High Porosity, Low Porosity.By Application, the market can be split into Cryogenic Systems, Heat Transfer Fluid Systems, Chemical Processing Systems, Commercial Piping and Building, Others.Check Discount on this report@Some points from TOC:1 Global Black Foam Glass Market Size (Sales Volume) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)2 Global Black Foam Glass Market Size (Sales Volume) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20163 Global Black Foam Glass Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)4 Global Black Foam Glass Market Competition by Players/Suppliers5 Global Black Foam Glass Sales (Volume) and Revenue (Value) by Type (Product Category) (2012-2017)6 Global Black Foam Glass Players/Suppliers Profiles and Sales Data7 Black Foam Glass Manufacturing Cost Analysis8 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers9 Global Black Foam Glass Market Size (Value and Volume) Forecast (2017-2022)Have a query on this report? @All aspects of the Black Foam Glass industry report are quantitatively as well as qualitatively assessed to study the global as well as regional market comparatively. The basic information such as the definition, prevalent chain and the government regulations pertaining to the Black Foam Glass market are also discussed in the report.About UsReports Monitor (ReportsMonitor.com) is a platform for companies looking to meet their market research and business intelligence requirements. Our aim is to change the dynamics of the Market Research industry by providing quality intelligence backed by data. Your requirement for market forecasting is fulfilled by our exclusive quantitative and analytics driven intelligence. We have a vast collection of reports, covering maximum industries worldwide. Our process is meticulously planned and executed in order to use maximum resources and explore the market for getting genuine insights. The prime focus is to get reliable data, Decision makers can now rely on our distinct data gathering methods to get factual market forecasting and detailed analysis.Contact UsJay MatthewsDirect: +1 513 549-5911Email: sales@reportsmonitor.comWebsite:
Acoustic Wave Sensor Market: New Study Offers Insights for 2017 - 2025

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An acoustic wave sensor is an electromechanical device which depends on the modulation of an acoustic wave to sense any physical stimulus. Acoustic wave sensors are highly sensitive to any disturbance or change to the surface. Acoustic wave sensors are finding increased applications across various industry verticals which includes automotive, healthcare, foods & beverages, and military for sensing temperature, humidity, mass, magnetic fields, viscosity, pressure, strain, etc.A sample of this report is available upon request @The acoustic wave sensors family consists of surface acoustic wave (SAW), shear horizontal surface acoustic wave (SH SAW), shear horizontal acoustic plate mode (SH APM), flexural plate wave (FPW) or Lamb wave mode, and thickness shear mode (TSM) devices. If the wave travels on the surface of the substrate, it is known as a surface wave. The commonly used wave devices are the surface acoustic wave sensors. When the acoustic wave propagates through any surface, a change in the characteristics of the propagation path results in alterations in the amplitude, frequency, or velocity of the wave. This change can be monitored by measuring the phase characteristics of the sensors and compared to the corresponding physical quantity being measured. Acoustic wave sensors function mostly in gaseous and vacuum mediums and a fraction of them can operate when in contact with liquids. These sensors use the phenomenon of piezoelectric effect in their operation. The most commonly used acoustic wave device is the thickness shear mode resonator (TSM). The TSM typically consists of a thin disc of quartz with parallel circular electrodes patterned on both sides. When a voltage is applied across these electrodes, it results in the shear deformation of the crystal. The crystal resonates as electromechanical standing waves are created and hence the name. The displacement is maximized at the crystal surfaces which makes the device sensitive to surface stimulus.Low manufacturing cost associated with the sensors and its wireless nature are the main factors propelling the growth for the acoustic wave sensor market. The requirement of SAW is significant in the automotive industry and hence this is the also a major growth driver. SAW sensors are used extensively for security and surveillance purpose. The requirement for resonator sensors is prominent in the automotive industry for keyless entry and tire pressure monitoring as the resonators are not altered by fluctuations in source and circuit voltage. Various technical issues associated with energy consumption and sensitivities of acoustic wave sensors can hamper the growth of this market. Nevertheless, the market is expected to experience a encouraging growth during the forecast period.The acoustic wave sensor market has been segmented on the basis of type, by device type, by industry vertical, by sensing parameter, and geography. Based on type, the market has been divided into Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) Sensor and Bulk Acoustic Wave (BAW) Sensor. Based on device type, the market has been divided into resonators and delay lines. Depending on the industry vertical, the acoustic wave sensor market has been segregated into automotive, military, foods & beverages, healthcare, environmental and others. As per geography, the acoustic wave sensor market has been divided into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East & Africa, and South America.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @Some of the major players in the acoustic wave market include Abracon LLC, Avx Corporation , Defiant Technologies, Sensortechnik, Djb Instruments Ltd, Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd, Qualtre Inc., Sensor Technology Ltd., Siemens AG, Teledyne Technologies Inc., Vectron International Inc, and Transense Technologies PLC.About USTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a next-generation provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact Us-U.S. OFFICE:State Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207
Saudi Arabia-Defense and Security Modernization Market Analysis and Forecast to 2021

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ReportsWeb.com published Defense and Security Modernization Market from its database. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.In terms of the level of conflict, Saudi Arabia was ranked 12th globally as it faces protests in Riyadh, terror plots from IS, and a perceived nuclear threat from Iran. Saudi Arabia ranked highest in terms of regional militarization and sixth globally due to the government's escalating modernization efforts. It ranked 18th globally in terms of societal safety and security, and 12th in terms of domestic and international conflict.Saudi Arabia's defense industry revenue and capital expenditure to grow:Saudi Arabia's revenue expenditure stood at US$25.5 billion in 2016, and will post a forecast-period CAGR of 15.5% to reach US$56.8 billion in 2021. Modernization programs, the United States Military Training Mission to Saudi Arabia, and the construction of military prep schools will drive this growth. Saudi Arabia's capital expenditure stood at US$20.3 billion in 2016, and will post a forecast-period CAGR of 14.0% to reach US$42.3 billion in 2021 due to the procurement of aircraft, C4ISR, and advanced weapon systems. The country's total defense expenditure stood at US$45.8 billion in 2016, and will post a forecast-period CAGR of 14.9% to reach US$99.1 billion in 2021 due to the procurement of advanced military systems as a part of modernization efforts owing to the threats emanating from instability in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.Homeland security to drive capital expenditure:Homeland security capital expenditure stood at US$6.6 billion in 2016 and will post a forecast-period CAGR of 3.1% to reach US$7.8 billion in 2021. Growth will be driven by investments in high-tech border fencing along boundaries with Iraq and Yemen to protect oil infrastructure, and combat human trafficking.For more information about this report @Homeland security to drive capital expenditure:Homeland security capital expenditure stood at US$6.6 billion in 2016 and will post a forecast-period CAGR of 3.1% to reach US$7.8 billion in 2021. Growth will be driven by investments in high-tech border fencing along boundaries with Iraq and Yemen to protect oil infrastructure, and combat human trafficking.Strong ties with US and UK:Strong military ties with US and UK provide Saudi Arabia with access to advanced military technology. In 2015, the US and Saudi Arabia signed a US$1.3 billion deal to develop a large consignment of air-ground munitions and spares. The deal includes the delivery of GBU-10 Paveway II Laser Guided Bombs, BLU-117/MK-84 2000lb General Purpose Bombs, and GBU-12 Paveway II LGBs. Saudi Arabia continued to expand its fleet of F-15 fighters and invested in modernizing their remaining fleet to F15SA standards. The country will also procure Typhoons from the UK.Scope- Industry Snapshot and Industry View - Key defense and security industry statistics including total expenditure, revenue expenditure, and capital expenditure are analysed to reveal the key issues and trends driving market performance in the Saudi Arabian defense and security market.- Industry SWOT Analysis - Discover the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats impacting market performance and investment in the Saudi Arabian defense and security market.- Industry Benchmarking - Benchmark how the Saudi Arabian defense and security market is performing compared to regional and global markets in terms of total expenditure, revenue expenditure, and capital expenditure to gauge potential for growth or market entry.- Competitive Landscape - Analyze and compare the performance of the leading players in the Saudi Arabian defense and security market by business segment on metrics such as arms sales, along with detailed overview and product offerings of the leading defense and security players in Saudi Arabia.Request a sample copy @MarketLine's premium reports provide a comprehensive overview of each market within a country's defense industry; benchmark key performance indicators against regional and global peers; review industry trends and drivers; evaluate the competitive landscape and innovation potential of singular markets; and conduct data-driven SWOT analysis to ascertain a structured assessment of the performance of each territory represented.Reasons to buy- How is the market performing in terms of: total expenditure, revenue expenditure, and capital expenditure-- How risky is it to invest in the Saudi Arabian defense and security industry compared to other Middle East and African countries-- What is driving the performance of key industry segments such as Homeland Security, aircraft, and others-- Who are the leading players in the Saudi Arabian defense and security industry and how does their performance compare-- What trends are being witnessed within the Saudi Arabian defense and security industry-- What are the Saudi Arabian defense and security industry's Strengths and Weaknesses and what Opportunities and Threats does it face-- What are the recent developments, innovations and deals in the Saudi Arabian defense and security industryTable of ContentsConflict &Costs Index 3Industry Snapshot 7Industry View 18Industry SWOT Analysis 23Industry Benchmarking 29Industry Performance 48Competitive Landscape 63Innovation 66Deals 68Key Developments 71Appendix 75Inquire for Report @Contact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@reportsweb.comReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer Bauxite Mining and our customer support Bauxite Mining is always available to help you on your research queries.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
United States Portable Spas Market Competitive Analysis and Forecasts till 2022

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Reports Monitor adds United States Portable Spas Market Report 2017 to Its Database.In this report, the United States Portable Spas market is valued at USD XX million in 2016 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2022, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2016 and 2022.United States Portable Spas market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Portable Spas sales volume, price, revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingALBIXON a.s.Aqua DolceAQUALUX INTERNATIONALBeachcomber Hot TubsCal SpasCaldera Spas?COAST SPASHotSpring? SpasJacuzziMASTER SPAS?Thermo SpasUSSPA, s.r.o.Villeroy & BochWellisStorvattGET SAMPLE REPORT @Geographically, this report splits the United States market into seven regions:The WestSouthwestThe Middle AtlanticNew EnglandThe SouthThe Midwestwith sales (volume), revenue (value), market share and growth rate of Portable Spas in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast).More detailed information, please feel free to contact :On the basis of product, this report displays the sales volume, revenue, product price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoHot TubsSwim SpasOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume, market share and growth rate of Portable Spas for each application, includingCommercialResidentialTable of Contents1 Portable Spas Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Portable Spas1.2 Classification of Portable Spas by Product Category1.2.1 United States Portable Spas Market Size (Sales Volume) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)1.2.2 United States Portable Spas Market Size (Sales Volume) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Hot Tubs1.2.4 Swim Spas1.3 United States Portable Spas Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 United States Portable Spas Market Size (Consumption) and Market Share Comparison by Application (2012-2022)BROWSE FULL TABLE OF CONTENTS and REPORT DESCRIPTION @About Us:Reports Monitor is a platform to meet the market research and business intelligence requirements. Our aim is to change the dynamics of the Market Research industry by providing quality intelligence backed by data. Your requirement for market forecasting is fulfilled by our exclusive quantitative and analytics driven intelligence. We have a vast collection of reports, covering maximum industries worldwide. Our process is meticulously planned and executed in order to use maximum resources and explore the market for getting genuine insights. Decision makers can now rely on our distinct data gathering methods to get factual market forecasting and detailed analysis.Contact Information:Jay MatthewsDirect: 1 513 549-5911Email: sales@reportsmonitor.comWebsite:
Market Insights on Growth of Level Sensor Market During 2017 - 2025

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A level sensor is a device which is used to determine the level of fluids that flow in open and closed systems. Level sensors are connected to a monitoring system which displays the output. This device is used for two types of level measurements, namely continuous and point level measurements. In continuous measurements, the level sensor is used for measuring level of fluids to a specific limit. In point level measurement, the level sensor determines if the level of the liquid is high or low.A sample of this report is available upon request @A variety of level sensors are available in the market. Ultrasonic, capacitance, and optical level sensors are the most widely used level sensors. Fluids play an essential role in various medical, industrial, and consumer equipment. Every equipment utilizing fluids contains a vessel that consists of the fluid which is supplied into a large or small tank. Sensing the liquid level is critical and it has to be done using dedicated devices to check the level of fluids in the container or tank. Major applications of level sensors include pharmaceutical applications, food and beverage applications, and wastewater treatment plants.Demand for level sensors is driven by the anticipated demand from its end-users in the fields of engineering, healthcare, energy and power, oil & gas, wastewater, and industrial manufacturing. Technological advancement has led to the introduction of innovative level sensors in the market. Wireless transmission of data to monitoring systems is an evolving technology in the level sensor market. Demand for non-contact sensors has grown on account of increase in non-contact measurement. The digitization in the oil & gas industry is expected to offer huge growth opportunity to the level sensor market. Level sensors are manufactured in a variety of sizes, shapes, and made of various materials. The level sensor market includes several small and large players. Presence of a large number of players in the market makes it price sensitive since level sensors are available at competitive prices.The level sensor market is segmented on the basis of technology, monitoring system type, application, and region. The level sensor market by technology is classified into contact level sensors and non-contact level sensors. The contact level sensor market is further segmented into level sight gauge, RF capacitance, resistance tape, displacer, contacting ultrasonic, and bubble tube. The non-contact level sensor market is segmented into radar, non-contacting ultrasonic, load cells, and nuclear. The level sensor market by monitoring system type is classified into continuous level monitoring and point level monitoring. The continuous level monitoring market is further segmented into magnetostrictive, resistive chain level, magnetoresistive, hydrostatic pressure level, air bubbler, and gamma ray. The point level monitoring market is segmented into vibratory probe, rotating paddle, admittance, magnetic and mechanical float, pneumatic, and conductive. By application, the market is segmented on the basis of application of level sensors across industries such as energy and power, oil & gas, healthcare, water treatment plants, chemical industry, wastewater treatment plants, pharmaceutical industry and others. On the basis of geography, the level sensor market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), Middle East & Africa (MEA), and South America. The report also provides country level analysis for each of the segments. The U.S., Canada, Germany, Italy, France, U.K., China, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, Africa, Brazil, and Argentina are the countries included in the market study of the level sensor market.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @Some of the key players in the level sensor market include ABB Ltd, Emerson Electric Co., Siemens AG, AMETEK, Inc., Honeywell International Inc., Fortive Corporation, KROHNE Messtechnik GmbH, NOHKEN Inc., TE Connectivity Ltd, Texas International Incorporated, and Madison Company.About USTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a next-generation provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact Us-U.S. OFFICE:State Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207
Switzerland BFSI A2P SMS Market Future Forecast Assessed On The Basis Of How The Market Is Predicted To Grow

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According to a new market report published by Transparency Market Research entitled BFSI A2P SMS Market - Switzerland Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2015 - 2023, the Switzerland A2P SMS Market for BFSI industry was valued at US$130.6 mn in 2014 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 8.0% from 2015 to 2023, reaching US$262.5 mn by the end of the forecast period.The BFSI sector in Switzerland is expected to witness strong demand for the A2P SMS market over the forecast period. This is primarily driven by the growing application of A2P SMS in the banking industry for which includes messages related to banking transactions, online security, account balance, bill payments notifications, and money transfer carried out on a particular banks merchant site.Sample With Latest Advancements @Moreover, the other factors such as strong mobile subscriber base and low unemployment rate are acting as a major elements which are expected to further boost the market demand over the coming years. However, the market demand is anticipated to subdue after 2018 due to continuous decline in number of banks operating in Switzerland and growth of internet penetration.The Switzerland A2P SMS market for BFSI industry has been classified on the basis of applications into pushed content services, customer relationship management (CRM), promotional campaigns, interactive services, and inquiry related services.Browse Our Press Releases For More Information @By application, CRM was the leading segment in the Switzerland A2P SMS market for BFSI industry accounting for 32.6% of the total A2P SMS market revenue share. Besides, the promotional campaigns application segment is predicted to grow fastest with a CAGR of 10.0% throughout the forecast period. This is owing to the introduction of new banking products and services including various mobile banking apps.View Report @GMS, Dialogue Communications Ltd., Infobip Ltd., FORTYTWO Group Ltd., Silverstreet BV, Symsoft AB, Beepsend AB, Ogangi Corporation, Syniverse Technologies, LLC, AMD Telecom S.A., and mBlox, Inc. are some of the few major players operating within the Switzerland A2P SMS market, which have been profiled in this study. Details such as financials, business strategies, recent developments, and other such strategic information pertaining to these players has been duly provided as part of company profiling.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Supercapacitor Market Future Forecast Assessed On The Basis Of How The Market Is Predicted To Grow

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A few top players accounted for a share of more than 10% in 2014 in otherwise fragmented landscape of the global Supercapacitor Market. The global market is intensely competitive characterized by the presence of a number of small- and mid-sized companies fiercely competing against each other. For instance, Maxwell Technologies Inc. accounted for the major share of approximately 25.0% in 2014. However, owing to intense rivalry amongst players the leading manufacturer is gradually losing its dominance, which is further predicted to decline over the years. In the recent years, the global supercapacitors market has witnessed a surge of new entrants with the number of players increasing to more than double. A major chunk of the players are from various countries of Asia Pacific.Some of other prominent players operating in the global supercapacitors market are Nippon Chemi-Con Corporation., LS Mtron, Supreme Power Solutions Co., Ltd., Ioxus, Inc., and Nesscap CO. LTD. In the coming years, the competition in the market is likely to intensify further. The future horizon looks exciting with several players engaged in developing cutting-edge energy storage technologies to meet the rising demand for robust energy harvesting systems in a number of end-use industries.Sample With Latest Advancements @The global market for supercapacitors stood at US$1.21 bn in 2014 and is projected to rise at a significant CAGR of 22.3% from 2015 to 2023. Expanding at this pace, the opportunities in the market is projected to surge to US$7.37 bn by the end of the forecast period.The major product types in the market are pseudocapacitor, hybrid capacitor, and double layer supercapacitors. Of these the hybrid capacitor is predicted to rise at the major CAGR of 23.5% during 20152023 and is projected to lead the market in the coming years. Among key regional markets, Asia Pacific is projected to rise at the leading CAGR during the forecast period. The growth of the regional market is primarily fueled by the substantial demand for advanced energy storage systems in the electronics industry.Browse Our Press Releases For More Information @Peak-output Auxiliary Power Supply for Smart Electronics to Boost MarketThe drive for supercapacitors essentially stems from the need for high-performance, flexible energy harvesting systems in a wide variety of applications. The rising demand for peak-output auxiliary power supply for a number of smart electronic appliances is a key factor driving the market. The need for rapid charge and discharge capabilities to extend battery lifespans in various end-use industries, especially automobiles, is a crucial factor leading to the preference of supercapacitors over conventional dielectrics. The growing demand for high-output in next-generation energy systems has led to the adoption of supercapacitor to be used along with a secondary battery.The intensifying demand for a cost-effective, durable, and powerful rechargeable electricity energy systems in several hybrid and electric vehicles has bolstered the uptake of supercapacitors.The application of capacitors for longer cyclic lives is also advocated by environmental conservationists, since the performance of conventional power systems, including lithium ion batteries, is constrained by the need for their frequent replacement over the product life-cycle. In addition, strengthening emission-control regulations, especially in countries of North America and Europe, is predicted to boost the supercapacitor market.The non-biodegradability of these batteries can cause significant environmental concerns. In recent years, the proliferation of IoT devices is a key trend bolstering the uptake of supercapacitors in developed and developing countries. These devices are multi-functionalized and hence require vast processing speeds.View Report @Government Funding in Developed Markets to Provide Impetus to R&D ActivitiesThe high cost of development of supercapacitors and the limited commercialization are crucial factors likely to hinder the market growth to an extent. Nevertheless, intensifying inclinations by governments toward the development of next-generation energy harvesting systems. Substantial funding by governments in several developed regions, such as North America, is anticipated to offer sustained impetus to research and development activities undertaken by manufacturers. Furthermore, the growing focus of governments in various developing and developed nations on the adoption of renewable energy, such as development of photovoltaic cells, is likely to open up lucrative growth avenues for market players over the forecast period.The rising prominence of smart sensors for industrial and consumer applications and the growing popularity of hand-held devices are key factors expected to unlock exciting opportunities in the coming years.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Embedded System Market Future Forecast Assessed On The Basis Of How The Market Is Predicted To Grow

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The global Embedded System Market is anticipated to witness a drastic growth opportunity in the coming years, as reported by Transparency Market Research (TMR). The aggressive contention in the worldwide market for embedded systems is relied upon to stay serious over the coming years, inferable from the substantial offers held by few key players. The general extent of provincial players is to a great degree because of the enormous measures of capital required to stay side by side in this quick paced market. Some if the leading names of this market are Atmel Corporation, Fujitsu, Texas Instruments, Samsung Electronics Corporation, and Freescale Semiconductor.Advent of wireless connectivity such as RapidIO and Infiniband norms has upgraded the execution of mechanical and in addition electrical systems. Moreover, it offers enhanced information examination that for the most part works on cutting edge embedded systems. IPv6 standard is a growth of TCP/IP, and is probably going to be the one of the propelled Internet Protocols (IP) installed in working frameworks (OSs). Growing demand from end utilize enterprises, for instance, human services is probably going to drive inserted framework market estimate development. Growing health care consumption combined with raising life span of the populace result in the requirement for cutting edge and reasonable restorative hardware. The decrease in inserted equipment cost and additionally rising demand in human services segment is expected to surge the business over the coming years.Sample With Latest Advancements @The worldwide market is expected to reach an evaluation of US$233.19 bn by 2021, which is the end of the forecast period. The market is expected to showcase a CAGR of 6.4% from 2015 to 2021.Advent of Automobile Industry Propels the Automotive Market Segment to LeadThe demand for embedded systems in the automotive business is relied upon to take up 18.3% of the market an incentive by 2021. This will be a pivotal offer, like this present industry's offer in market an incentive in 2014. Vehicles are one of the more flawless application fields for embedded systems because of the little size of these systems. They can without much of a stretch fit into different parts in an auto, which has prompted auto producers advancing their plans and ideas around the utilization of embedded systems and different gadgets.Browse Our Press Releases For More Information @The genuine estimation of embedded systems has just been acknowledged by ventures in the course of recent decades. The rising versatility that embedded systems give in the businesses of car, barrier and aviation, and customer hardware is very enormous and it doesn't appear to reduce at any point in the near future. Embedded systems have made considerable progress from their utilization in business-basic and security basic applications and are currently being utilized as a part of items that are composed around them.Advent of Smart Gadgets to Provide Lucrative Market OpportunityThe rising interest for embedded systems in North America is predicted to produce an income of US$89.87 bn, which will be the main offer at the time. The demand for embedded systems in this district has dependably been high because of a head begin this locale picked up from early infiltration in the U.S. This district has housed an incredible number of the key players as of now working in the worldwide market, including Intel Corporation, Texas Instruments, and Freescale Semiconductor.Browse Our Table of Content @"Savvy gadgets are presently one of the more looked for after electronic gadgets on the planet today, in all modern and business viewpoints," expresses a TMR examiner. "An ever increasing number of individuals are seeing the upside of utilizing cell phones that can perform exceptional errands that would some way or another require stationary PCs," the investigator includes.The current rate of advancement of gadgets and embedded systems has been especially solid, making critical extent of utilization and usefulness of brilliant gadgets and associated hardware. The current embedded systems are utilized to make and keep up correspondence between these gadgets and in this way make the shrewd system that enterprises are searching for to enhance operational effectiveness.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Circuit Breakers Fuses Market Future Forecast Assessed On The Basis Of How The Market Is Predicted To Grow

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According to a new market report published by Transparency Market Research Circuit Breakers and Fuses Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2015 - 2021, the circuit breakers and fuses market was valued at USD 20.75 billion in 2014, which is expected to reach USD 31.11 billion by 2021, growing at a CAGR of 6% from 2015 to 2021.Circuit breakers are electric switches which operate automatically to protect the electric circuit from damage by turning itself on/off when faced with overload or short circuit. The basic function of the circuit breaker is to identify any malfunctioning and breakup in the current flow. Whereas fuses are a kind of low resistance resistor which acts as a sacrificial appliance designed to protect overcorrect protection from either load or short circuit.Sample With Latest Advancements @Growth of industrial and construction industry in emerging markets and increasing demand for electricity and reliable power delivery are factors driving the circuit breakers and fuses market. Moreover, electronic devices are vulnerable to failure due to power fluctuations. Private agencies and governments around the world have recommended and mandated the incorporation of device protection components such as fuses and circuit breakers in electronic devices.Geographically the circuit breakers and fuses market has been broadly segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World (RoW). In 2014 North America was the largest contributor in the circuit breaker and fuses market. The North America market accounted for 34.8% of the total market share. The market for circuit breakers and fuses in North America is likely to grow significantly in the future due to rising demand for electricity.Browse Our Press Releases For More Information @The global circuit breaker and fuses market is segmented by the voltage level of installation into low, medium and high voltage circuit breakers. By arc quenching media type the circuit breaker market can be segmented into air, vacuum, oil and SF6 circuit breakers. Further, the fuses market is segmented into low voltage fuses and high voltage fuses. The low voltage fuses are further segmented into Plug-in fuses and cartridge fuses. The low voltage circuit breakers were a major contributor in the global circuit breakers and fuses market in 2014. This growth is attributed to vast and rapid development of power grids.The global circuit breaker and fuses market by industrial application has been segmented into: construction, automotive, industrial, consumer electronics, power generation, healthcare and military. The power generation segment was the largest contributor in the circuit breakers and fuses market. In 2014 the power generation segment amounted for USD 5.41 billion. There is growth in demand for efficient and smart power generation which is required to address the futuristic demand for electricity. As power generation increases, the market for protection devices such as circuit breakers and fuses is expected to grow.View Report @Key players in the circuit breakers and fuses market are ABB Ltd. (Switzerland), Alstom SA. (France), Eaton Corporation (Ireland), G&W Electrics Company (U.S), General Electric Corp. (U.S), Siemens AG (Germany), Schneider Electrics SE (France), Pennsylvania Breaker LLC (U.S.), Toshiba Corporation (Japan), Maxwell Technologies Ltd (U.S.) and Mitsubishi Electric (Japan) among others. This report provides strategic analysis of the circuit breaker and fuses market and the growth forecast for the period 2015 to 2021. The report covers competitive analysis of various market segments based on the type of circuit breakers and fuses, industry applications and in depth cross section analysis of circuit breakers and fuses market across different geographic segments.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Bubble Wrap Packaging Market Dynamics 2017: Opportunities, Risks and Driving Factors to 2022

Bubble Wrap Packaging Market Dynamics 2017: Opportunities, Risks and Driving Factors to 2022

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ReportsMonitor.com has added Global Bubble Wrap Packaging Market Research Report 2017.The study document titled Global Bubble Wrap Packaging industry gives helpful observations into the general trends as well as the points that propel this World-wide market. This industry examine completely covers the salient highlights of the Global Bubble Wrap Packaging market regarding the industry structure and even landscape designs, difficulties and desire ideas, along with projected current market effectiveness .Get Your Free Sample Report @Top Key manufactures of Bubble Wrap Packaging Market are Sealed Air Corporation (North Carolina), Veritiv Corporation (Georgia), Pregis Corporation (U.S.), Tarheel Paper & Supply Company (U.S.), Jiffy Packaging Co (U.K.), iVEX Protective Packaging Inc (U.S.), Barton Jones Packaging Ltd (U.S.), Automated Packaging System (U.S.), Abco Kovex Ltd (Ireland), Future Packaging and Machinery (PTY) Ltd (Johannesburg).The Bubble Wrap Packaging Market, presents critical information and factual data about the global Bubble Wrap Packaging Market, providing an overall statistical study of this market on the basis of market drivers, market limitations, and its future prospects. The widespread global Bubble Wrap Packaging opportunities and trends are also taken into consideration in Bubble Wrap Packaging industry.On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each Type, primarily split into Polyethylene, Kraft Paper, Aluminum Foil, Others.By Application, the market can be split into Automotive, Pharmaceutical, E-Commerce, Electronics, Others.Check Discount on this report@Some points from TOC:1 Global Bubble Wrap Packaging Market Size (Sales Volume) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)2 Global Bubble Wrap Packaging Market Size (Sales Volume) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20163 Global Bubble Wrap Packaging Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)4 Global Bubble Wrap Packaging Market Competition by Players/Suppliers5 Global Bubble Wrap Packaging Sales (Volume) and Revenue (Value) by Type (Product Category) (2012-2017)6 Global Bubble Wrap Packaging Players/Suppliers Profiles and Sales Data7 Bubble Wrap Packaging Manufacturing Cost Analysis8 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers9 Global Bubble Wrap Packaging Market Size (Value and Volume) Forecast (2017-2022)Have a query on this report? @All aspects of the Bubble Wrap Packaging industry report are quantitatively as well as qualitatively assessed to study the global as well as regional market comparatively. The basic information such as the definition, prevalent chain and the government regulations pertaining to the Bubble Wrap Packaging market are also discussed in the report.About UsReports Monitor (ReportsMonitor.com) is a platform for companies looking to meet their market research and business intelligence requirements. Our aim is to change the dynamics of the Market Research industry by providing quality intelligence backed by data. Your requirement for market forecasting is fulfilled by our exclusive quantitative and analytics driven intelligence. We have a vast collection of reports, covering maximum industries worldwide. Our process is meticulously planned and executed in order to use maximum resources and explore the market for getting genuine insights. The prime focus is to get reliable data, Decision makers can now rely on our distinct data gathering methods to get factual market forecasting and detailed analysis.Contact UsJay MatthewsDirect: +1 513 549-5911Email: sales@reportsmonitor.comWebsite:
Sea Freezer Beverage Wine Coolers Market Future Forecast Assessed On The Basis Of How The Market Is Predicted To Grow

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According to a new market report published by Transparency Market Research Freezer and Beverage & Wine Coolers Market - SEA Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2014 - 2022 the SEA market for freezers and beverage & wine coolers, in terms of revenue, was valued at US$ 1,011.0 Mn in 2014 and is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 6.4% during the period 2014 to 2022. Growth in demand for packaged foods and non-alcoholic drinks and high economic growth with increase in establishments such as hotels, cafes and food chains are key factors driving the growth of SEA freezer and beverage & wine coolers market. In addition, growth in number of modern grocery retailers such as hypermarkets, supermarkets and superstores apart from independent outlets in the region is further expected to drive the growth of this market over the forecast period.The SEA freezer and beverage & wine coolers market was dominated by the freezer category with a market share of around 58% in 2014. Food and packaged food, dairy, confectionary and ice-cream industries in SEA are driving the freezer market. Wine coolers market is forecast to grow at a significant rate during the forecast period 2014 to 2022. Food & beverages and tourism industries are expected to drive the demand for wine coolers in the SEA region.Sample With Latest Advancements @Ice cream freezers, chest freezers and upright freezers are three different types of freezers analyzed in the report. The SEA freezers market was dominated by the ice-cream freezers with a market share of around 42% in 2014. The demand for chest freezers from convenient stores and traditional retailers is expected to grow during the forecast period. The segment is projected to grow at fastest CAGR at 7.0% in the region throughout the forecast period due to strong demand for packaged foods, confectionery products and canned food items.By capacity range, 300 to 500 litres freezer segment with approximately 32% share in the overall SEA freezer market in terms of revenue was the largest among all freezer types. Most of the FMCG manufacturers/establishments, food chains and ice-cream chain outlets enter into agreement with freezer manufacturers. These FMCG manufacturers provide assistance by providing freezers to the local convenience stores and also aid hypermarkets by constituting a mini outlet within the premises of the hypermarket.Browse Our Press Releases For More Information @By country, Indonesia was one of the largest contributors to the SEA freezers and beverage & wine coolers market in terms of revenue in 2014 on account of large demand from rapidly growing middle class population. The stable economy has led to rising disposable incomes, which have increased the purchasing power of consumers at foodservice outlets.Vietnam held the second largest revenue share of the overall SEA freezers and beverage & wine coolers market in 2014. Beverage coolers market in Thailand is expected to achieve significant growth during the forecast period from 2014 to 2022. Strong GDP, economic growth rate and rapid urbanization and advent of BPO and KPO industry across the SEA region are expected to primarily drive the growth of freezer & beverage and wine cooler market in SEA. Opportunities from other countries including Philippines and Malaysia are expected to further drive the growth of SEA freezer & beverage and wine coolers market during the forecast period from 2014 to 2022. Leading companies operating in SEA region in the freezer and beverage coolers market include AB Electrolux, Concepcion Industrial Corporation (CIC), Frigoglass SA, General Electric Corporation, Hoshizaki Singapore Pte Ltd., Midea Group, Sharp Electronics Co. Ltd. and South East Asia Hamico Export JSC. Also few of the domestic manufacturers include PT. Royal Sutan Agung (Indonesia), The Cool Company (Thailand), PT. Indotara Persada (Indonesia), and SAMEMAX Refrigeration Sdn. Bhd. (Malaysia) among others.View Report @Indonesia led the SEA Freezer and beverage & wine coolers market in 2014 with the share of around 36% in 2014 of the overall SEA freezer and beverage & wine coolers market. The reason behind this being more number of consumers are demanding and purchasing packaged foods, ready-meals, frozen foods, sauces and dressings. The market in Thailand is expected to grow at fastest CAGR in both the categories namely; freezers and beverage & wine coolers market during the forecast period.The key manufacturers in SEA freezer and beverage & wine coolers market are AB Electrolux, Concepcion Industrial Corporation (CIC), Frigoglass SA, General Electric Corporation, Hoshizaki Singapore Pte Ltd., Midea Group, Sharp Electronics Co. Ltd., South East Asia Hamico Export JSC and The Cool Company among others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Optical Brighteners Market Technological Advancements, Evolving Industry Trends and Insights

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In the highly consolidated global Optical Brighteners Market, the top four vendors, including BASF SE, AkzoNobel N.V., Huntsman Corporation, and Eastman Chemical Company, accounted for over 54% share in the market in 2015, states TMR in a recent report. BASF SE, the leading company of these four, accounted for nearly 22% of the market in the same year.Key players in the market are focusing on expansion across lucrative emerging markets in Asia Pacific. BASF SE, for example, inaugurated a new research and development center in Navi Mumbai, India in March 2015; it already has a sprawling chemical production complex at Dahej in Gujarat, India. Mergers and acquisitions with specialty chemical manufacturers in developing regions, focus on the production of organic products, and production of quality intermediates are among other prominent strategies adopted by key vendors in the market.Sample With Latest Advancements @Booming Textile and Cosmetics Industries to Provide Substantial Growth OpportunitiesThe textile industry is one of the most prominent consumers of a variety of optical brighteners. In the past few years, the flourishing growth achieved by the textile industry, especially across emerging economies such as India and China, has greatly influenced the total global demand for optical brighteners. According to the Indian Ministry of Textiles, the textile industry in the country is expected to expand at a strong CAGR of 11% over the period between 2009 and 2020, aiding the increased consumption of optical brighteners in the Asia Pacific market.The market for optical brighteners is also expected to substantially benefit from the booming cosmetic industry globally. Rising disposable incomes and a vast surge in the global demand for skincare and suncare products have encouraged the growth of the global cosmetics market in the past few years. Being another prominent consumer of optical brighteners, the growth of the cosmetics industry has in turn also boosted the overall global intake of optical brighteners.Browse Our Press Releases For More Information @Stringent Government Regulations and Declining Paper Industry to Hinder Markets GrowthStringent government regulations pertaining to the usage or exclusion of certain chemicals in consumer products owing to their potential health hazards on the user have resulted in complete bans on certain chemicals or have restricted the usage per product of some. This has significantly affected the global market for optical brighteners in the past few years.Along with this, the declining paper industry has also had severe implications on the overall development of the global optical brighteners market. The rising use of smart technologies such as computers, smartphones, and tablets across a number of industrial applications and processes have significantly reduced the amount of paper that was traditionally required to maintain records. The paper industry being one of the key consumer of optical brighteners, decline in its growth prospects has also dented growth opportunities of the global optical brighteners market.View Report @Asia Pacific to Play Pivotal Part in Growth of Global Optical Brighteners MarketTransparency Market Research states that the market will exhibit a 4.1% CAGR from 2015 through 2023. At this pace, the market, which had a valuation of US$1.12 bn in 2014, is expected to rise to US$1.71 bn by 2023. In terms of volume, the market is expected to expand at a 3.8% CAGR over the said period. Of the key chemicals used as optical brighteners, the segment of stilbene accounted for over 65% of the global market in 2014 and is expected to retain its dominance in the next few years as well. Geography-wise, Asia Pacific accounted for a 38% of the global markets revenues in 2014.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Industrial Gloves Market Technological Advancements, Evolving Industry Trends and Insights

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The global Industrial Gloves Market is envisaged to experience tremendous competition, leading to neck-to-neck struggle among the leading companies for the top spot. A third of the overall market share is predicted to be held by leading names such as Ansell Ltd., 3M Corporation, Showa Group, and Honeywell Safety Products. On a regional level, local vendors are predicted to give a tenacious fight. Market players and entrants are foretold to adopt innovative strategies in their products and employ cost reduction to maintain and influence market position. Portfolio expansion via acquisitions and mergers could also help gain trust of the customer base.According to TMRs report, the worldwide market for industrial gloves, which stood at US$5.13 bn in 2015, is expected to arrive at US$11.01 bn at the end of 2024. The market is prognosticated to showcase a 9.6% CAGR over the forecast duration of 2016 to 2024. Disposable gloves is expected to be leading market segment, showcasing a 9.7% CAGR.Sample With Latest Advancements @Disposable Gloves to Remain Dominant Owing to Hygiene IssuesIndustrial gloves market is segmented by type into disposable and reusable gloves. Reusable gloves need to be sterilized and decontaminated time to time. In an industry, this adds to the work process. In production industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, healthcare, and food, wherein gloves need to removed and put back on frequently, it is not feasible to use reusable gloves. This is the primary factor behind the popularity of disposable gloves- making them the leading market segment.The market for industrial gloves in Asia Pacific is predicted to be promising over the forecast period. On account of the food and beverage industry, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals, industrial gloves are slated to witness high demand. Increase in stringent worker safety mandates in this region is also expected to contribute to the fast growth of the region. However, North America and Europe are prognosticated to hold over 60% of the market revenue over the forecast duration, due to considerable surge in chemical and pharmaceutical businesses.Browse Our Press Releases For More Information @Rise of End-Use Industries Provide Ample Market OpportunityThe worldwide industrial gloves market is anticipated to exhibit high growth due to a number of factors that promise to propel the industry positively. The rapidly flourishing chemical, pharmaceutical and food and beverage industry will lead to high demand of industrial gloves. Each of these industries require the use of gloves on a tremendous basis, and the food and beverage industry is predicted to be largest market share holder. The food and beverage industry requires strict hygiene standards, and could prove to be a significant market driver.The rise of industrial gloves usage across Europe and North America is foretold to be a key factor of the global market growth as well. These regions have recorded almost two-third of the total market revenue, and the increasing awareness of worker safety is expected to aid in maintaining the regions market position.View Report @The market could face some challenges in the form of lower awareness levels, and threat of local market players. The high cost of international products may lead to preference to lower quality and local product usage. Emerging economies may fall prey to lower cost products and hamper the overall market growth. However, with key players focusing on regionalization of their enterprise and making their product cost effective, these market constraints are expected to be overcome easily, leading to general market rise.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Radiopharmaceutical Market is estimated to reach US$7.4 bn over Forecast 2016-2024

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This report on the radiopharmaceutical market analyzes the current and future scenario of the global market. Increase in incidence of various diseases, development of new sources for radioisotope production, and rise in demand for nuclear medicine are boosting the radiopharmaceutical market. Increase in incidence of cancer and cardiovascular diseases, growth in awareness about effective use of radiopharmaceuticals, and rise in preference for SPECT and PET scans are some of the factors expected to drive the growth of the global radiopharmaceutical market during the forecast period.The radiopharmaceutical market report comprises an elaborate executive summary, which includes market snapshot that provides information about various segments. It also provides information and data analysis of the global market with respect to the segments based on radioisotopes, source, end-user, and geography. A detailed qualitative analysis of drivers and restraints, and opportunities has been provided in the market overview section. Additionally, the section comprises Porters Five Forces Analysis to help understand the competitive landscape in the market. This section also provides market attractiveness analysis in terms of geography and market share analysis by key players, thus presenting a thorough analysis of the overall competitive scenario in the global radiopharmaceutical market.Click to get sample PDF with TOC:Based on radioisotope, the market has been segmented into Technetium-99, Lutetium-177, Rubidium-87, Iodine-123, Yttrium-90, and Gallium-62. Technetium-99 is the most widely used radioisotope across the globe; around 70% of radiopharmaceutical companies depend on Mo-99 to produce Technetium-99, as per the World Nuclear Association. The market segments have been analyzed based on available approved products, cost-effectiveness, and preference for technological systems by physicians and patients. The market size and forecast for each of these segments have been provided for the period from 2014 to 2024, along with their respective CAGRs for the forecast period from 2016 to 2024, considering 2015 as the base year.Based on source, the radiopharmaceutical market has been segmented into two major categories: nuclear reactors and cyclotrons. The market segments have been extensively analyzed based on increase in demand for radioisotopes for nuclear medicines, availability of radioisotopes and raw materials, radioisotopes short half-life and number of production units used for production of radioisotopes. Different types of end-user utilize radiopharmaceutical products to treat diseases either through imaging techniques or the therapeutics method.Under the end-user segment, hospitals plays a major role followed by ambulatory surgical centers, diagnostic centers, and others (such as universities, research laboratories, and pathology labs). The market size and forecast in terms of US$ Mn for each segment have been provided for the period from 2014 to 2024. The report also provides the compound annual growth rate (CAGR %) for each market segment for the forecast period from 2016 to 2024, considering 2015 as the base year. Application segment signifies the usage of radiopharmaceutical products through different disease indication such as oncology, cardiology, neurology, nephrology, gastroenterology, immunology and others. Oncology segment is the dominant sector which emphasizes the use of different radioisotopes for treating various cancers and overcome the side effects of therapeutics. Brachytherapy is a sub segment of oncology application which signifies the methods of treating cancer through implants, surgery or radiation technology. The segment is expected to have a significant growth during the forecast period.Geographically, the global radiopharmaceutical market has been categorized into five major regions and the key countries in the respective region: North America (the U.S. and Canada), Europe (the U.K., Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Rest of Europe), Asia Pacific (India, Japan, China, Australia, and Rest of Asia Pacific), Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, and Rest of Latin America) and Middle East & Africa (South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Rest of Middle East & Africa). The market size and forecast for each of these regions and the mentioned countries have been provided for the period from 2014 to 2024, along with their respective CAGRs for the forecast period from 2016 to 2024, considering 2015 as the base year.Enquiry:Radiopharmaceutical Market: Competitive LandscapeThe report also profiles major players in the global radiopharmaceutical market based on various attributes such as company overview, financial overview, product portfolio, business strategies, SWOT analysis, and recent developments. Major players profiled in this report include Advanced Accelerator Applications (AAA), Eckert & Ziegler, GE Healthcare, IBA Radiopharma Solutions, Lantheus Holdings, Inc., Mallinckrodt plc., Nordion, Inc., Siemens Healthineers, and Positron Corporation.ResearchMoz is the worlds fastest growing collection of market research reports worldwide. Our database is composed of current market studies from over 100 featured publishers worldwide. Our market research databases integrate statistics with analysis from global, regional, country and company perspectives. ResearchMozs service portfolio also includes value-added services such as market research customization, competitive landscaping, and in-depth surveys, delivered by a team of experienced Research Coordinators.Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn at:
Global Thermoset Composites Market Research Study including Growth Factors, Competitive Analysis by Regions from 2017 to 2024

Global Thermoset Composites Market

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The Global Thermoset Composites Market accounted for USD 42.0 billion in 2016 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 6.8% during the forecast period of 2017 to 2024. The upcoming market report contains data for historic years 2014, 2015, the base year of calculation is 2016 and the forecast period is 2017 to 2024.Request for Sample Copy of the Report @Major Market Competitors: Global Thermoset Composites MarketSome of the major players included in this report: AGY Holdings Corp. Carbon Mods Chongqing Polycomp International Corporation Cytec Industries Inc. Hexcel Corporation Hexion Inc. Huntsman Corporation Johns Manville Corporation Jushi Group Co., Ltd Kemrock Industries and Exports Limited Mitsubishi Rayon Co., Ltd. Owens Corning PPG Industries Inc. SGL Group Taekwang Industries Co Ltd. Teijin Limited Toray Industries Inc.The market is segmented on the basis of fiber type into glass fiber, carbon and other.Browse Full Report with List of Tables and Figures @On the basis of resin type, the market is segmented into polyester, epoxy, vinyl ester and others.On the basis of manufacturing process, the market is segmented into lay-up, filament winding, injection molding, pultrusion and others.On the basis of end-user, the market is segmented into aerospace & defense, wind energy, transport, sporting goods, marine, construction & infrastructure, pipe & tank, electrical & electronics and other.Request for TOC:On the basis of geography, the thermoset composites market report covers data points for 28 countries across multiple geographies such as North America, South America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Middle East & Africa. Some of the major countries covered in this report are U.S., Canada, Germany, France, U.K., Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, China, India, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Brazil among others.Major Market Drivers: Use of thermoset composites for manufacturing of structural composite parts for aircraft Increasing demand for lightweight materials from the transport sector Increasing usage of thermoset composites in the wind energyMarket Restraint: Issues related to recyclability Issues related to testing of thermoset compositesAsk For Analyst Call:Other ReportGlobal Aluminum-Extruded Products Market  Industry Trends and Forecast to 2024Global Aluminum-extruded Products Market, By Product Type (Mill-Finished, Anodized, Powder-Coated) By Alloy Type (1000 Series Aluminum, 2000 Series Aluminum Alloys, 3000 Series Aluminum Alloys, 5000 Series Aluminum Alloys, 6000 Series Aluminum Alloys, 7000 Series Aluminum Alloys) By End-user (Transportation & Logistics, Construction, Automotive, Electrical & Electronics)  Industry Trends and Forecast to 2024Report Access:About Data Bridge Market Research:Data Bridge Market Research set forth itself as an unconventional and neoteric Market research and consulting firm with unparalleled level of resilience and integrated approaches. We are determined to unearth the best market opportunities and foster efficient information for your business to thrive in the market. Data Bridge endeavors to provide appropriate solutions to the complex business challenges and initiates an effortless decision-making process.Contact:Vishal DixitData Bridge Market ResearchTel: +1-888-387-2818Email: Sales@databridgemarketresearch.comInvestor:investors@databridgemarketresearch.comVisit BlogFollow us on LinkedIn:
Global Online Personals Dating Services Market (PlentyofFish, OkCupid, Zoosk, eHarmony) Analysis, Share, Growth, Trends & Forecast to 2022

Online Personals Dating Services Market

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HTF MI recently added a new research study in its database that highlights the in-depth market analysis with future prospects of Online Personals Dating Services market. The study covers significant data which makes the research document a handy resource for marketing managers, analysts, industry executives, consultants, sales and product managers, and other key people who are in need of ready-to-access and self analyzed study along with graphs and tables to help understand market trends, drivers and market challenges. Some of the key players mentioned in this research are Match, PlentyofFish, OkCupid, Zoosk, eHarmony, JiaYuan, BaiHe, ZheNai, YouYuan, NetEase, United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia.Get Access to sample pages @The research covers the current market size of the Global Online Personals Dating Services market and its growth rates based on 5 year history data. It also covers various types of segmentation such as by geography, by product /end user type, by applications [for all & only for LGBT] in overall market. The in-depth information by segments of Online Personals Dating Services market helps monitor performance & make critical decisions for growth and profitability. It provides information on trends and developments, focuses on markets and materials, capacities, technologies, CAPEX cycle and the changing structure of the Global Online Personals Dating Services Market.The study also contains company profiling, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information of various international, regional, and local vendors of Global Online Personals Dating Services Market, some of them are Match, PlentyofFish, OkCupid, Zoosk, eHarmony, JiaYuan, BaiHe, ZheNai, YouYuan, NetEase, United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia. The market competition is constantly growing higher with the rise in technological innovation and M&A activities in the industry. Moreover, many local and regional vendors are offering specific application products for varied end-users. The new vendor entrants in the market are finding it hard to compete with the international vendors based on quality, reliability, and innovations in technology.The research study is segmented by Application such as for all & only for LGBT with historical and projected market share and compounded annual growth rate.Global Online Personals Dating Services (Thousands Units) by Application (2016-2022)Market Segment by Application 2012 2016 2022 Market Share (%)2022 CAGR (%)(2016-2022)for all xx xx xx xx% xx%only for LGBT xx xx xx xx% xx%Total xx xx xx 100% xx%Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @The research insights solutions to the following key questions: What will be the market size and the growth rate in 2022? What are the key factors driving the Global Online Personals Dating Services market? Who are the key market players and what are their strategies in the Global Online Personals Dating Services market? What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the Global Online Personals Dating Services market? What trends, challenges and barriers are influencing its growth? What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the vendors in the Global Online Personals Dating Services market? What are the key outcomes of the five forces analysis of the Online Personals Dating Services market?Buy this research report @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the Global Online Personals Dating Services market.Chapter 1, to describe Online Personals Dating Services Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Online Personals Dating Services , with sales, revenue, and price of Online Personals Dating Services , in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the Global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Online Personals Dating Services , for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application [for all & only for LGBT], from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Online Personals Dating Services market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Online Personals Dating Services sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.Get customization & check discount for report @Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact Us:HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road, Edison, NJ USA - 08837sales@htfmarketreport.comPh: +1 (206) 317 1218
Global Preserved Vegetable Market 2017 - Garlico Industries Ltd., Gopi Dehydrates Pvt. Ltd., Oceanic Foods Pvt. Ltd.

Global Preserved Vegetable Market

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Apex Market Reports, recently published a detailed market research study focused on the "Preserved Vegetable Market" across the global, regional and country level. The report provides 360 analysis of "Preserved Vegetable Market" from view of manufacturers, regions, product types and end industries. The research report analyses and provides the historical data along with current performance of the global Preserved Vegetable industry, and estimates the future trend of Preserved Vegetable market on the basis of this detailed study. The study shares "Preserved Vegetable Market" performance both in terms of volume and revenue.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here:Top Manufacturers Analysis of This ReportAccelerated Freeze Drying Company Limited (AFDC)Garlico Industries Ltd.Gopi Dehydrates Pvt. Ltd.Maharaja Dehydration Pvt. Ltd.Oceanic Foods Pvt. Ltd.The market research report explores the Preserved Vegetable market across the globe along with major regions and countries. The research report provides a detailed study on each and every aspect of "Preserved Vegetable Market". The research report studies the entire value chain from raw material to end user industries. The report also shares import/export statistics along with production and consumption for all major regions and countries. Moreover, the research study classifies the Preserved Vegetable market based on major product types, application and end users industries of Preserved Vegetable. Besides, the report also covers geographical segmentation for Preserved Vegetable market. The report further provides production, capacity, price per region, gross margin, production cost, for all major regions and countries listed in report.The competitive landscape of the global market for Preserved Vegetable is determined by assessing the major industry participants, production capacity, production capacity utilization rate, Preserved Vegetable market's production chain, pricing by each manufacturer and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Preserved Vegetable market globally.Inquire Before Buying @The Global Preserved Vegetable market 2017 is further analyzed on the basis of product pricing, Preserved Vegetable production volume, data pertaining to demand and Preserved Vegetable supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. The report provides upstream and downstream analysis covering major raw material used in manufacturing of Preserved Vegetable along with detailed manufacturing sources. The report also shares list of major raw material manufacturers along with their manufacturing locations. Detailed raw material price trend analysis along with manufacturing cost analysis is also incorporated into the report. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, SWOT analysis and market attractiveness analysis has been implemented in the research study to present a comprehensive, detailed study of the industry for Preserved Vegetable across the world.Apex Market Reports offers elevating market research globally. We have collection of various syndicated reports of different categories. Apex Market Reports provides you to best services, weather youre searching for new trends in market or competitive scenario in emerging market.Customers can buys different reports across various categories such as Chemical and Material, Biotechnology, Healthcare, Food and beverages, Automobile and various sectors. Our Website offers safe and secure online ordering experience, convenient payment options.Frank ValadezCorporate Sales Specialist155 North Wacker Drive, Suite 4250Chicago, IL 60606Phone: +17739042683Email id - sales@apexmarketreports.comWebsite -
KACO new energy sets up presence in Taiwan.

Country Manager Stanley Yu discusses KACO new energy?s inverter technology at PV Taiwan 2017

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Neckarsulm, 3. November 2017  At the beginning of the year, the inverter manufacturer KACO new energy strengthened its presence in the growth market of South East Asia by appointing a Territory Manager. This announcement set the course for rapid expansion in Taiwan, one of the fastest-growing markets for photovoltaics. The company now has its own representation marketing the Made in Germany technology on the island, where the government plans to install new photovoltaic capacity of more than 18 gigawatts by 2025.The Taiwanese government is planning to expand the installed photovoltaic power from around 1.5 gigawatts at present to 20 gigawatts by 2025. The short-term goal is to add 1.52 gigawatts in the next year and 6.5 gigawatts by 2020. By focusing on the major expansion of solar power and other renewable energies, sun-drenched Taiwan will be able to complete its gradual withdrawal from nuclear power. The government is intending to invest more than 29.3 billion euros in the project.A wise investment, as it can be assumed that, over the long term, this will help reduce costs for imported fossil fuels and allow Taiwan to become increasingly less dependent on these. What's more, it will reduce the very high environmental burden resulting from the use of fossil fuels.This reasoning applies to many countries in the Asia-Pacific region with growing economies, which is what led KACO new energy to step up its engagement in the region by appointing a Territory Manager in February of this year. The company made use of the market information and contacts obtained through this move to establish a presence in Taiwan very quickly.Backed by the German inverter pioneer's years of international expertise and extensive product portfolio, Country Manager Stanley Yu is well equipped to face the challenges of the Taiwanese solar market.The island nation of Taiwan has only limited suitable space available for solar power plants. Of the 20 gigawatts announced, 17 will be generated by ground-mounted systems and 3 by rooftop systems. Although the Taiwanese Ministry of Economic Affairs has prioritised the expansion of transmission lines and associated infrastructure, it must be possible to integrate the solar power plants in all available building, land or coastal areas.Inverters from KACO new energy provide power outputs ranging from small rooftop systems to large-scale megawatt parks. Owing to our integrated system solutions and the continuously high power of the inverters, even under difficult climate conditions, we can satisfy any requirement, says Stanley Yu.The product portfolio for Taiwan will be made up predominantly of blueplanet 5.0 TL1, blueplanet 20.0 TL3 and blueplanet 50.0 TL3 inverters, which are used for solar power plants of less than 500 kilowatts. The variant OD+ of the blueplanet 50.0 TL3, in particular, has lasting resistance to the salt air corrosion that can occur directly on the coast. Making up the fourth in the set is the soon-to-be-launched blueplanet 125 TL3 with 1500 volts of input voltage, a new, highly efficient solution for the megawatt range.About KACO new energy:KACO new energy, headquartered in Neckarsulm, Germany is one of the worlds largest manufacturers of inverters for grid-feed solar power. The product line-up covers the full power range, from single units designed for a family home up to complete systems for solar parks producing megawatts of electricity. Since 1999, KACO new energy has supplied inverters with a cumulative power output of 10 gigawatts. This offering has been extended to include solutions for PV self-consumption and energy storage, devices for grid management, as well as products and value-added services for utility-scale projects. KACO new energy is the first company in the photovoltaic industry to achieve CO2-neutral production and in 2014, celebrated the 100th birthday of the original parent company which, at the end of the 1930s, was one of first ever inverter manufacturers.More atPress information can also be found atprintable image material atContact:KACO new energy GmbHKornelia LauserDirector Global Marketing & Power Plant SolutionsCarl-Zeiss-Str. 174172 NeckarsulmGermanyTel. +49 7132 3818-0Fax +49 7132 3818-703pr@kaco-newenergy.de
Trend of IoT Sensors Market in Global Industry : Market Analysis, Growth and Status 2017-2023

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Albany, NY, 3rd November : Recent research and the current scenario as well as future market potential of "IoT Sensors Market (By Type - Accelerometers, Gyroscopes, Magnetometers, Pressure Sensors, Temperature Sensors, Light Sensors, Others, By Application - Consumer Electronics, Healthcare, Automotive, Industrial, Building Automation, Retail and Others) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2015 - 2023" globally.Internet of Things (IoT) is a network that is embedded with sensors, electronics, network connectivity, and software enabling physical objects to gather and exchange data. As IoT rises into dominance, sensors are playing a pivotal role for measuring the physical quality of objects and enumerating it into a value, which can be read by another device or user.Get PDF for more Professional and Technical insights @IoT devices are equipped with sensors which are capable of registering changes in pressure, temperature, motion, light, and sound. In the physical world, more and more objects can now communicate with each other through embedded IoT sensors, actuators, and tags. The global IoT sensors market has been segmented on the basis of types, application and geography. In addition, an exhaustive cross sectional analysis of the global IoT sensors market across four broad regions has been covered under the scope of the study.A surge in demand for IoT sensors in the automotive industry and the booming Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) market are strongly driving the growth of the IoT sensors market. Furthermore, increase in demand for consumer electronics and growing demand for smart devices is boosting the market growth. Smart devices account for a considerable portion of consumer electronics. Thus, increasing global sales of consumer electronics is fueling growth of the IoT sensors market. While smartphones and related products are already used to a large extent, smart electricity, gas and water meters are expected to witness rising demand over the next few years. The conjoint effect of all these trends and drivers is thus set to bolster the growth of the global IoT sensors market during the forecast period.Stringent government regulations and policies across the globe are encouraging the development of smart cities and this is offering a potential growth opportunity to the global IoT sensors market. IoT sensors would be used in smart cities in smart meters, smart grids, intelligent traffic management systems, and smart parking among others. Further, technological advancements in the medical industry are set to offer a substantial opportunity for the growth of the IoT sensors market. The deployment of healthcare devices using IoT sensors could transform the healthcare industry by focusing on better patient care, lowering costs, and increasing efficiency. The IoT sensors market has huge opportunity and scope in the emerging markets of Asia Pacific and Rest of the world (RoW). Emergence of new players in the developing markets such as China, Japan, India, Australia, Russia, and Brazil coupled with the adoption of better and advanced technologies has led to the increase in competitiveness in the market.The competitive profiling of the key players in the global IoT sensors market across four broad geographic regions is included in the study. These include different business strategies adopted by the leading players and their recent developments as in the field of IoT sensors. The market attractive analysis of the major application areas has been provided in the report, in order to offer a deep insight of global IoT sensors market.A comprehensive analysis of the market dynamics that is inclusive of market drivers, restraints and opportunities is included in the purview of the report. Market dynamics are the distinctive factors which impact the market growth, thereby helping to understand the ongoing trends of the global market. Therefore, the report provides the forecast of the global market for the period from 2015 to 2023, along with offering an inclusive study of the IoT sensors market.Make an Enquiry about TOC @Some of the major players in the IoT sensors market are: Infineon Technologies (Germany), STMicroelectronics N.V. (Switzerland), IBM (U.S.), Robert Bosch GmbH (Germany), Honeywell International Inc. (U.S.), Ericsson (Sweden), InvenSense Inc. (U.S.), Libelium (Spain), ARM Holdings Plc. (U.K.) and Digi International Inc. (U.S.) among others.The global IoT Sensors market has been segmented into:Global Sensors Market, by TypesAccelerometersGyroscopesMagnetometersPressure SensorsTemperature SensorsLight SensorsOthersGlobal IoT Sensors Market, by End-Use Industry:Consumer ElectronicsHealthcareAutomotiveIndustrialBuilding AutomationRetailOthersGlobal IoT Sensors Market, by Geography: The market is broadly segmented on the basis of geography into:North AmericaU.S.CanadaMexicoEuropeU.K.GermanyFranceItalyRest of EuropeAsia PacificChinaIndiaBrowse Report @JapanRest of APACRest of the WorldLatin AmericaMiddle EastAfricaResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMozMr. Nachiket Ghumare,90 State Street, Albany NY, United States - 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA-Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn @Follow me on :
Global Artificial Intelligence Market: Market Expected to Cross Overall Valuation of US$3,000 Billion by End of 2024

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Artificial Intelligence Market: Market Expected to Cross Overall Valuation of US$3,000 Billion by End of 2024" to its huge collection of research reports.The Artificial Intelligence Market report provides analysis of the global artificial intelligence market for the period 20142024, wherein the years from 2016 to 2024 is the forecast period and 2015 is considered as the base year. The report precisely covers all the major trends and technologies playing a major role in the artificial intelligence markets growth over the forecast period. It also highlights the drivers, restraints, and opportunities expected to influence the market growth during this period. The study provides a holistic perspective on the markets growth in terms of revenue (in US$ Bn), across different geographies, which includes Asia Pacific (APAC), Latin America (LATAM), North America, Europe, and Middle East & Africa (MEA).The market overview section of the report showcases the markets dynamics and trends such as the drivers, restraints, and opportunities that influence the current nature and future status of this market. Moreover, the report provides the overview of various strategies and the winning imperatives of the key players in the artificial intelligence market and analyzes their behavior in the prevailing market dynamics.The report segments the global artificial intelligence market on the types of artificial intelligence systems into artificial neural network, digital assistance system, embedded system, expert system, and automated robotic system. By application, the market has been classified into deep learning, smart robots, image recognition, digital personal assistant, querying method, language processing, gesture control, video analysis, speech recognition, context aware processing, and cyber security. Thus, the report provides in-depth cross-segment analysis for the artificial intelligence market and classifies it into various levels, thereby providing valuable insights on macro as well as micro level.The report also provides the competitive landscape for the artificial intelligence market, thereby positioning all the major players according to their geographic presence, market attractiveness and recent key developments. The complete artificial intelligence market estimates are the result of our in-depth secondary research, primary interviews, and in-house expert panel reviews. These market estimates have been analyzed by taking into account the impact of different political, social, economic, technological, and legal factors along with the current market dynamics affecting the artificial intelligence markets growth.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @QlikTech International AB, MicroStrategy Inc., IBM Corporation, Google, Inc., Brighterion Inc., Microsoft Corporation, IntelliResponse Systems Inc., Next IT Corporation, Nuance Communications, and eGain Corporation are some of the major players which have been profiled in this study. Details such as financials, business strategies, recent developments, and other such strategic information pertaining to these players has been provided as part of company profiling.Below is the list of acronyms used in the report:SMAC  Social, Mobile, Analytics, and CloudIoT  Internet of ThingsTable of ContentChapter 1 Preface1.1 Research Scope1.2 Market Segmentation1.3 Research MethodologyChapter 2 Executive Summary2.1 Market Snapshot: Global Artificial Intelligence Market, 2015 & 20242.2 Global Artificial Intelligence Market Revenue, 2014 - 2024 (US$ Bn) and CAGR (%)Chapter 3 Global Artificial Intelligence Market Analysis3.1 Key Trends Analysis3.2 Market Dynamics3.2.1 Drivers3.2.2 Restraints3.2.3 Opportunities3.3 Value Chain Analysis3.4 Global Artificial Intelligence Market Analysis, By Types3.4.1 Overview3.4.2 Artificial Neural Network3.4.3 Digital Assistance System3.4.4 Embedded System3.4.5 Expert System3.4.6 Automated Robotic SystemBrowse More Details @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
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Law is a set of rules that are created and enforced upon people by the governmental institution in order to regulate their behavior. In the field of law, the lawyers are expected to know about various common, criminal and international laws. The academic paper work on the law should be precise and accurate. They should also make sure that the assignment or report or essay is structured as per the university guidelines. Students facing trouble in completing their law assignments and require law assignment help always have an option of availing help from law assignment help services since they can get you qualitative grades with their help.If the college students starts dealing with the tricky and lengthy law concepts along with completing other academic tasks, they will be left with no in hand time to focus on other academic paperwork which will eventually make them restless.Writing assignments on law can be considered as the most difficult and challenging form of academic tasks. The increasing number of assignments assigned to the students is found to be connected with depression, anxiety, and other stress issues pertaining to academic students.Why Do Students Prefer Law Above All Other Courses?People usually favor professions that offer challenges, compensation and development. As a law student you will uncover everything. Law gives various chances that can be in-demand such as attorneys, experts, judges, lawful secretaries, etc.Law gives a workplace which shows signs of change frequently and advancing to make new fields and point of views. One has to give proper attention to all the little details delivered in the class. Students find law problematic because of the difficult terminology it incorporates. Irrespective of the difficulty level, the experts at law assignment help services deliver students with the most reliable and affordable assignment writing help.University students face difficulty in writing their law assignments mainly because of the difficult topic they are assigned with. Some common topics that require law assignment help are criminal law, personal law, tort law, civil law, international law, constitutional law, etc.Students seek help from law assignment writing experts because they lack time and resources to make a qualitative and informative assignment. Not all students have enough time to research and make assignments as per the guidelines and therefore they look for law assignment help services.The simplest reasons why students fail to submit their law assignments on time is uninteresting topics and lack of knowledge. Law students often seek assistance because they lack interest in the topic and hence the assignment services formulate their assignments in the best possible manner and at affordable prices.Students approach assignment help websites saying do my law assignment because they know that only law assignment writing experts at various help websites can cater the best law paper work within the hand in time.It is always advisable to avail help from assignment writing services to get the best law solutions. Their main aim is to provide qualitative solutions to students that are capable of attracting good grades.The experts write assignments in an organized manner as per the students requirements that facilitate the reader. The assignments made by these experts contain completely original and error free content. Plagiarism is not a concern with these assignments writing services, they provide a Turnitin report with every paper work that proves their zero percent plagiarism policy.My Assignment Help OZ is one common place that provides assignment expert writing help to students from across the globe. The expert writers provide reliable assistance with their academic writing projects. My Assignment Help OZ was started eight years back with the intention of helping graduate and undergraduate students. The team as earned the trust of numerous customers from all over the world. These clients back the experts in their claim of being the leading help provider.Company Name: My Assignment Help OZEmail: help@myassignmenthelpoz.comPhone: +61 450 589 265Country: AustraliaWebsite:
Analysis of Biometric Point-of-Sale Terminals Market in Global Industry : Insights, Development, Research and Forecast 2017-2024

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Albany, NY, 3rd November : Recent research and the current scenario as well as future market potential of "Biometric Point-of-Sale Terminals Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024" globally.Biometrics technology is used for identification and authentication of people with the help of their biological and behavioral characteristics. An employee is asked for his user ID as soon as he logs into the retail PoS system. However, without typing in his password, he can simply scan his finger on the biometric fingerprint reader. Every time an employee tries to access a password-protected area, he is required to scan his finger. This leads to increased accountability, which ensures protection from accidental and intentional damage to the companys data.Get PDF for more Professional and Technical insights @Based on technology, fingerprint identification, iris-retina scan recognition, palm-vein identification, iris recognition, voice recognition, and facial recognition are the segments of the global market for biometric point-of-sale terminals. Of these, fingerprint identification has been dominating the market. The prominence of this segment can be attributed to the convenience, ease of access, and high accuracy offered by this technology.Global Biometric Point-of-Sale Terminals Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe rising incidents of fraud at point-of-sale terminals has been a key growth driver of the global biometric point-of-sale terminals market. Growing number of restaurants are adopting biometric technology at merchant point-of-sale terminals to keep track of employee attendance and time and ensure security while making payments. Several government authorities and private sector businesses and companies have been deploying these technologies. As a result, the growing demand is expected to translate into greater expansion of the global market for biometric point-of-sale terminals.As hackers worldwide find new ways of targeting vulnerable point-of-sale terminals, the demand for biometric point-of-sale terminals is likely to grow. Installation of skimmers that read and transit data from swiped cards on point-of-sale terminals and use of point-of-sale RAM scarpers have been some major techniques adopted by hackers, necessitating the deployment of this technology to prevent these thefts.On the other hand, lack of standardization might slacken the growth of the market. However, the emergence of new technologies in sensors and hardware is likely to encourage further expansion, outpacing the negative impact of this market restraint. For instance, electroencephalogram (EEG) and keystroke have been recently introduced for precise identification of individuals in the biometric point-of-sale terminals market.Global Biometric Point-of-Sale Terminals Market: Regional OutlookBased on geography, the global market for biometric point-of-sale terminals has been segmented into Asia Pacific, Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Western Europe, and North America. In 2015, North America emerged as the leading regional segment, accounting for a major share in the global market for biometric point-of-sale terminals.Make an Enquiry about TOC @Asia Pacific is slated for significant growth owing to the increasing number of non-cash payments by consumers, favorable government initiatives, greater penetration of technology, and rising purchasing power of the people. In India, for instance, YES BANK partnered with Lastmile.mobi to develop a point-of-sale terminal that allows biometric authentication for carrying out cash withdrawals, transfers, and balance enquiries, among many other functions. The Middle East and Africa (MEA) might also exhibit considerable growth as its industries flourish.Companies mentioned in the reportSome of the major companies operating in the global market for biometric point-of-sale terminals are DERMALOG Identification Systems GmbH, Biyo Bright Co., Ltd., KEMP Technologies, M2SYS Technology, Bitel Company Limited, Danal, Inc., Ingenico Group, Cross Match Technologies, Inc., and Fujitsu. The market appears to be highly fragmented in terms of competition due to the presence of a large number of vendors. Being in its nascent stage, the market holds immense potential for advancement. As the number of new entrants and technological advancements are rising, the level of competition among the market players is expected to intensify.Major regions analyzed under this research report are:EuropeNorth AmericaAsia PacificRest of the WorldThis report gives you access to decisive data such as:Market growth driversFactors limiting market growthCurrent market trendsMarket structureMarket projections for the coming yearsBrowse Report @Key highlights of this reportOverview of key market forces propelling and restraining market growthUp-to-date analyses of market trends and technological improvementsPin-point analyses of market competition dynamics to offer you a competitive edgeAn analysis of strategies of major competitorsAn array of graphics and SWOT analysis of major industry segmentsDetailed analyses of industry trendsA well-defined technological growth map with an impact-analysisOffers a clear understanding of the competitive landscape and key product segmentsResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMozMr. Nachiket Ghumare,90 State Street, Albany NY, United States - 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA-Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn @Follow me on :
Construction Poland Market Top Key Players  Budimex Group, Skanska , STRABAG , Trakcja Group and Forecast to 2021

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Poland Construction MarketDescriptionWiseGuyReports.Com adds Construction Market in Poland 2015-2019 Research To Its Database.The construction market in Poland is expanding rapidly a result of increased investments in various infrastructures such as transport and commercial properties. The construction outlook of Poland looks promising ahead of EU structural funds 2014-2020. Massive investments are being planned by the government particularly in the transport and energy sector.The analysts forecast the construction market in Poland to grow at a CAGR of 4.52% over the period 2014-2019.Covered in this ReportThis report covers the present scenario and growth prospects of the construction market in Poland for 2014-2019. To calculate the market size, the report considers the GDP of Poland and construction investments in the country. It provides a detailed segmentation of the construction market in Poland by sector. The report forecasts the investments in the residential and non-residential and civil engineering construction sectors in the country for 2015-2019.Get sample Report @The Construction Market in Poland 2015-2019, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects in the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key Vendors Budimex Group Skanska STRABAG Trakcja GroupOther Prominent Vendors Mostostal Warszawa Mota-Engil Central Europe PBG GroupMarket Driver Investments in Real Estate Market For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket Challenge Emission Control For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket Trend Demand Energy-efficient Buildings For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey Questions Answered in this Report What will the market size be in 2019 and what will the growth rate be? What are the key market trends? What is driving this market? What are the challenges to market growth? Who are the key vendors in this market space? What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?Enquiry About Report @Table of Contents -Major Key PointsExecutive SummaryList of AbbreviationsScope of the Report03.1 Market Overview03.2 ProjectsMarket Research Methodology04.1 Market Research Process04.2 Research MethodologyIntroductionEconomy Overview06.1.1 Ease of Doing Business in Poland and Dealing with Construction Permits 07. Construction Market Overview07.1 Upcoming Projects in PolandMarket Landscape08.1 Market Overview08.2 Market Size and Forecast08.3 Five Forces AnalysisMarket Segmentation09.1 Residential and Non-residential Market in Poland 2014-2019 ($ billions)09.1.1 Market Size and Forecast09.2 Civil Engineering Market in Poland 2014-2019 ($ billions)09.2.1 Market Size and ForecastVendor Selection CriteriaMarket Growth DriversDrivers and their Impact'Market ChallengesImpact of Drivers and ChallengesMarket TrendsTrends and their Impact..CONTINUEDAbout UsWise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, Industry research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports understand how essential statistical surveying information is for your organization or association. Therefore, we have associated with the top publishers and research firms all specialized in specific domains, ensuring you will receive the most reliable and up to date research data available.NORAH TRENTPartner Relations & Marketing Managersales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)
Global Neuromorphic Chip Market During 2015 - 2023: Market Expected to Reach Valuation over US$1.80 Billion Owing to Evolution in AI

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Neuromorphic Chip Market During 2015 - 2023: Market Expected to Reach Valuation over US$1.80 Billion Owing to Evolution in AI" to its huge collection of research reports.The neuromorphic computing is executed on hardware by threshold switches, transistors and oxide based memristors. Neuromorphic chips are the amalgamation of memristors and transistors deployed over a silicon fabrication chip, which assists to lessen memory consumption in real time manner.Moreover, neuromorphic chips are the digital and analog very large scale integration (VLSI) system which performs as neural systems models. Implementation of neuromorphic chip is likely to increase scalability, performance and sensitivity of machines.The neuromorphic chip market is driven primarily due to the increasing demand of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is a machine learning technology that provides the skill to machines to learn with partial programming. This involves the advancement of computer programs and machines which are competent enough to update themselves when being exposed to real time data. Moreover, an innovation in the field of miniaturization of integrated circuits has increased the scope of applications for neuromorphic chip. The neuromorphic chips are small and scalable enough to get easily implemented in different end use products. Rising demand of neuromorphic chip in the field of Internet of Things (IoT) technology is driving the growth of the market. The chips are likely being planted in large supercomputers to enhance the speed of machine learning along with some other neural network-based computations.Growth of neuromorphic chip market is hindered due to high cost associated in manufacturing of such chips. Manufacturer faces different tribulations in integrating biological synapses in to a minute hardware which requires just a single micron of space. Complexities in hardware designing are also major restraining factors in this market. The complicated neuromorphic synapses are difficult to implement in hardware. As of 2015, in developing countries, developments in the field of neuromorphic computing have negatively affected due to lack of availability of technological resources and lack of availability of competent infrastructure.Implementation of neuromorphic chips in diverse end use products of different industries including automotive, semiconductor & electronics and healthcare can be identified as future growth opportunity for the market. Neuromorphic chips have application level opportunities in industrial and service robotics.Based on function, the market is segregated into signal processing, data processing, image recognition and others. On the basis of application, the neuromorphic chips market is segmented into defense and aerospace, automotive, medical, industrial and others. On the basis of geography, the market report is segregated into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World (RoW). The scope of the report offers an insight into neuromorphic chips market in these regions based on revenue (USD million).To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The competitive profiling of the key players in the global neuromorphic chips market across four broad geographic regions is included in the study. These include different business strategies adopted by the leading players and their recent developments as in the field of neuromorphic chips. The market attractive analysis of the major application areas has been provided in the report, in order to offer a deep insight of global neuromorphic chips market.A comprehensive analysis of the market dynamics that is inclusive of market drivers, restraints and opportunities is included in the purview of the report. Market dynamics are the distinctive factors which impact the market growth, thereby helping to understand the ongoing trends of the global market. Therefore, the report provides the forecast of the global market for the period from 2015 to 2023, along with offering an inclusive study of the neuromorphic chips market.Major market players in this market are Intel Corp. (U.S), Qualcomm Inc.(U.S), International Business Machine Corporation (U.S), General Vision Inc.(U.S), Brain Corporation (U.S), HRL Laboratories LLC (U.S), Vicarious FPC Inc.(U.S), Lockheed Martin Corporation (U.S), Hewlett Packard Corp.(U.S) and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (South Korea) among others.The Neuromorphic Chip market has been segmented as:Global Neuromorphic Chip Market: By FunctionSignal processingData processingImage recognitionOthersGlobal Neuromorphic Chip Market: By ApplicationDefense and AerospaceAutomotiveMedicalIndustrialOthersGlobal Neuromorphic Chip Market, by Geography:North AmericaEuropeAsia PacificRest of the WorldBrowse More Details @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
False Lashes (False Eyelashes) 2017 Global Market Key Players  Ardell, ESQIDO, Kiss, Revlon, MAC, Makeup Geek, Elf, Benefit  Analysis and Forecast to 2022

False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Market

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False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Market 2017Wiseguyreports.Com adds False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Market Market Demand, Growth, Opportunities, Analysis of Top Key Players and Forecast to 2022 To Its Research Database.Report Details:This report provides in depth study of False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Market using SWOT analysis i.e. Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threat to the organization. The False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Market report also provides an in-depth survey of key players in the market which is based on the various objectives of an organization such as profiling, the product outline, the quantity of production, required raw material, and the financial health of the organization.Global False Lashes (False Eyelashes) market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer;The top key players including ;ArdellESQIDOElfKissRevlonShu uemuraMACMakeup GeekBenefitNARSBio TakaraHuda BeautyVelourSephora CollectionLilly LashesRequest a Sample Report @Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of False Lashes (False Eyelashes) in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoHandmade EyelashMechanical EyelashOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales), market share and growth rate of False Lashes (False Eyelashes) for each application, includingDrugstoreSupermarketSpecialist RetailersInternet SalesIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Complete Report Details@Major Key Points in Table of Content:Global False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Market Research Report 20171 False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of False Lashes (False Eyelashes)1.2 False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category)(2012-2022)1.2.2 Global False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Handmade Eyelash1.2.4 Mechanical Eyelash1.3 Global False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Segment by Application1.3.1 False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Drugstore1.3.3 Supermarket1.3.4 Specialist Retailers1.3.5 Internet Sales1.4 Global False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 North America Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of False Lashes (False Eyelashes) (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022).7 Global False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 Ardell7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 Ardell False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 ESQIDO7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 ESQIDO False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.3 Elf7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.3.2 False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Product Category, Application and Specification7.3.2.1 Product A7.3.2.2 Product B7.3.3 Elf False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.4 Kiss7.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.4.2 False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Product Category, Application and Specification7.4.2.1 Product A7.4.2.2 Product B7.4.3 Kiss False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.4.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.5 Revlon7.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.5.2 False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Product Category, Application and Specification7.5.2.1 Product A7.5.2.2 Product B7.5.3 Revlon False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.5.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.6 Shu uemura7.6.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.6.2 False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Product Category, Application and Specification7.6.2.1 Product A7.6.2.2 Product B7.6.3 Shu uemura False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.6.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.7 MAC7.7.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.7.2 False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Product Category, Application and Specification7.7.2.1 Product A7.7.2.2 Product B7.7.3 MAC False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.7.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.8 Makeup Geek7.8.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.8.2 False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Product Category, Application and Specification7.8.2.1 Product A7.8.2.2 Product B7.8.3 Makeup Geek False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.8.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.9 Benefit7.9.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.9.2 False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Product Category, Application and Specification7.9.2.1 Product A7.9.2.2 Product B7.9.3 Benefit False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.9.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.10 NARS7.10.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.10.2 False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Product Category, Application and Specification7.10.2.1 Product A7.10.2.2 Product B7.10.3 NARS False Lashes (False Eyelashes) Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.10.4 Main Business/Business OverviewContinued.Buy now @Contact Us:NORAH TRENTPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Sales@Wiseguyreports.ComPh: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)ABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.ADDRES:WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Ultrasonic Sensors Market Expected to Reach US$1.67 bn by 2023

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Ultrasonic Sensors Market Expected to Reach US$1.67 bn by 2023" to its huge collection of research reports.The ultrasonic sensors are used for liquid level measurement, object detection, distance measurement, anti collision detection and pallet detection among others. Ultrasonic sensors are used to improve the operational efficiency and provide additional safety in manufacturing facilities. This is one of the major factors fueling the demand for ultrasonic sensors globally.The need for demand of automation and focus on improvement of production efficiency has increased across industries such as automotive, chemical, construction, and food and beverages among others. Moreover, increasing demand for advanced features such as automatic steering controls, park assist system, blind spot detection and adaptive cruise control is also expected to have a positive impact on the demand for ultrasonic sensors globally.The rising concern for driver safety has ensured the integration of antilock braking systems (ABS) in most of the vehicles. Moreover, the ultrasonic sensors are used to control steering, acceleration and braking while parking the vehicle. In addition, the ultrasonic sensors also gather location information of the vehicle. In addition, the emerging concept of wearable medical devices is also aiding to the growth of the market. The wearable medical devices are embedded with various types of sensors such as ultrasonic, temperature, heart rate sensors and pressure sensors among others. The ultrasonic sensors can be used to visualize the internal parts of the human body without causing any negative impact. These factors are driving the growth for the market during the forecast period.By types, the market is divided into ultrasonic proximity sensors, ultrasonic retro-reflective sensor, ultrasonic through beam sensor, ultrasonic 2 point proximity switches. On the basis of application the ultrasonic sensors market segmented into liquid level measurement, object detection, distance measurement, anti collision detection, pallet detection and others. By industry the market is categorized into automotive, power and gas & oil, chemical, agriculture, construction, pulp and paper, material handling, food and beverage, medical and healthcare and aerospace and defense among others. Moreover, the report also provides cross sectional analysis of all the above segments across different countries within different regions such as North America, Asia Pacific, Europe and Rest of the World.In 2014, among the different types of ultrasonic sensor, the ultrasonic proximity sensors occupied the largest market share. However, the ultrasonic through beam sensors segment is anticipated to witness the fastest growth rate. The rapid growth of this segment is attributed to the increasing demand for microprocessor controllers and ability to detect fast moving objects in short range.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Among the different applications of ultrasonic sensors, the liquid level measurement sensor held the largest market share in 2014. Increasing use of liquid level measurement sensors for level surface detection, non contact level measurement and monitoring liquid level changes in tank among others is aiding to the growth of this segment.Geographically, the Asia Pacific ultrasonic sensors market is predicted to experience the fastest growth from 2015 to 2023.The rapid expansion of production facility and the falling prices of the sensor components is fuelling the growth in this region.In order to get a better understanding of the ultrasonic sensors market, a key trends analysis has been included for all the segments. Furthermore, the market share of the major players in the optical position sensors in semiconductor modules and chips market has also been discussed in terms of market share revenue held globally. In addition, the key players in the market have also been profiled in terms of their product segments, financial overview, recent developments and business strategies adopted by them. The leading players in the market include Pepperl+Fuchs GmbH, Siemens AG, Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Rockwell Automation Inc., Microsonic GmbH, Baumer Group, MaxBotix Inc., OMRON Corporation, Honeywell International Inc., Branson Ultrasonics Corporation, Gems Sensors & Controls, Senix Corporation and Crest Ultrasonics Corp. among others.The global ultrasonic sensors market can be segmented as follows;-Global Ultrasonic Sensors Market, By TypeUltrasonic Proximity SensorsUltrasonic Retro-Reflective SensorsUltrasonic Through Beam SensorsUltrasonic 2 Point Proximity SwitchesGlobal Ultrasonic Sensors Market, By ApplicationLiquid Level MeasurementObject DetectionDistance MeasurementAnti Collision DetectionPallet DetectionOthersGlobal Ultrasonic Sensors Market, By IndustryAutomotivePower and Oil & GasChemicalAgricultureConstructionPulp & paperMaterial HandlingFood and BeverageMedical and HealthcareAerospace and DefenseOthers (Metal working, Printing, Textile)Global Ultrasonic Sensors Market, By GeographyNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaMexicoEuropeU.K.GermanyFranceItalyRest of EuropeAsia-PacificBrowse More Details @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Touchscreen Display Global Market: Strategies, Application, Growth Estimation and Key Players LG Electronics, Samsung, Fujitsu, Philips, Nichia

Touchscreen Display Market

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HTF MI published a new industry research that focuses on Touchscreen Display market and delivers in-depth market analysis and future prospects of Global Touchscreen Display market. The study covers significant data which makes the research document a handy resource for marketing managers, analysts, industry executives, consultants, sales and product managers, and other key people who are in need of ready-to-access and self-analyzed study along with graphs and tables to help understand market trends, drivers and market challenges. The study is segmented by Application/ end users [Consumer Electronics, Healthcare, Banking & Finance (BFSI) & Other], products type [Capacitive, Resistive, Infrared, Surface Acoustic Wave & Other] and various important geographies like United States, EU, China, Japan, South Korea & Taiwan].Get Access to sample pages @The research covers the current market size of the Global Touchscreen Display market and its growth rates based on 5 year history data along with company profile of key players/manufacturers such as LG Electronics, Samsung, Fujitsu, Philips, Nichia, Seoul Semiconductor, Epistar, NEC, AOC, 3M, Sharp, Palas & Oasis Touch Technologies. The in-depth information by segments of Touchscreen Display market helps monitor future profitability & to make critical decisions for growth. The information on trends and developments, focuses on markets and materials, capacities, technologies, CAPEX cycle and the changing structure of the Global Touchscreen Display Market.The study provides company profiling, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information of key manufacturers of Global Touchscreen Display Market, some of them listed here are LG Electronics, Samsung, Fujitsu, Philips, Nichia, Seoul Semiconductor, Epistar, NEC, AOC, 3M, Sharp, Palas & Oasis Touch Technologies. The market is growing at a very rapid pace and with rise in technological innovation, competition and M&A activities in the industry many local and regional vendors are offering specific application products for varied end-users. The new manufacturer entrants in the market are finding it hard to compete with the international vendors based on quality, reliability, and innovations in technology.Global Touchscreen Display (Thousands Units) and Revenue (Million USD) Market Split by Product Type such as Capacitive, Resistive, Infrared, Surface Acoustic Wave & Other. Further the research study is segmented by Application such as Consumer Electronics, Healthcare, Banking & Finance (BFSI) & Other with historical and projected market share and compounded annual growth rate.Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), and market share and growth rate of Touchscreen Display in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), covering United States, EU, China, Japan, South Korea & Taiwan and its Share (%) and CAGR for the forecasted period 2017 to 2022.Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @The research insights solutions to the following key questions: What will be the market size and the growth rate in 2022? What are the key factors driving the Global Touchscreen Display market? Who are the key market players and what are their strategies in the Global Touchscreen Display market? What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the Global Touchscreen Display market? What trends, challenges and barriers are influencing its growth? What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the vendors in the Global Touchscreen Display market? What are the key outcomes of the five forces analysis of the Touchscreen Display market?Buy this research report @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the Global Touchscreen Display market.Chapter 1, to describe Touchscreen Display Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Touchscreen Display , with sales, revenue, and price of Touchscreen Display , in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the Global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Touchscreen Display , for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in United States, EU, China, Japan, South Korea & Taiwan;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application [Consumer Electronics, Healthcare, Banking & Finance (BFSI) & Other], from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Touchscreen Display market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Touchscreen Display sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.Get customization & check discount for report @Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact us :HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA  08837sales@htfmarketreport.com+1 (206) 317 1218
Virus Filtration Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2016 - 2024

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Virus Filtration Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2016 - 2024" to its huge collection of research reports.Virus filtration is an important procedure in the pharmaceutical industry. It ensures the purity and steady consumption of valuable products, besides optimizing the economic process and preventing loss. Virus filtration feed streams generally exhibit high purity and heavy product concentrations. Retrovirus and parvovirus filtration membranes are two ultrafiltration membranes tested (and their performances compared) using realistic model feed streams consisting of minute virus of mice (recommended from FDA). This approach provides an industry-relevant benchmark for the engineering competence of virus filters. Asymmetric membranes operate in direct flow and in a constant pressure mode in accordance with the industrial practice of virus filtration. However, new developments in research and development using flux method allow to image at the performance of virus filtration and similar ultrafiltration membranes, which also provides insights into designing virus filtration membranes.Hike in R&D expenditure, development of the biopharmaceutical industry, and increasing government funding for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries are driving the global virus filtration market. According to the parenteral drug association, parvovirus filters in the downstream process have become an industry standard and a common regulatory expectation in the recent years. The filters consistently demonstrate highly effective retrovirus retention without impacting the quality of the product across a wide range of parameters and are an effective method to reduce virus risks in biopharmaceutical manufacturing. The filtration technique needs to be approved by the U.S. food and drug administration (FDA). Regulatory agencies in Germany and France require the manufacturing processes to be evaluated and the units to be cleared of the multiple models of relevant viruses before being marketed as authorization. These stringent government validation practices are expected to be a hindrance for the global virus filtration market.The market has been segmented by product type, application, end-users, and geography. In terms of product type, it is classified into the following categories: virus filters, kits and reagents, filtration systems, and others. It majorly has biological applications, besides being employed in medical devices, water purification, stem cell products, vaccine & therapeutics, and others. Based on end-user, its divisions include pharmaceutical & biotechnology companies (which use virus filtration techniques in order to prevent unavoidable contamination in products), medical device companies, and contract research organizations. Filtration systems and devices are becoming popular because they deliver a high level of retention assurance and productivity across a broad range of feed stream characteristics. Rising industrialization coupled with the rapid evolution of the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and water purification sectors, along with demand for medical devices & implants are likely to propel the virus filtration market by 2024.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Geographically, the market is distributed over North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. North America is the dominant region due to the increasing modern industrialization, sophisticated infrastructure, patient awareness, and high per capita health care expenditure here. Moreover, the emerging trend of single-use techniques provides a boost to the pharmaceutical & biotechnology market, in turn motivating the virus filtration market. This is followed by Europe where there exist favorable government policies regarding health care infrastructure and awareness programs about the various diseases which can spread among the population through the air, water, or even products generated from industries. In 2013, the ICH (international conference on harmonization of technical requirements for registration of pharmaceuticals for human use), a project that brings together the regulatory authorities of Europe, Japan, and the U.S., discussed the scientific and technical aspects of drug registration in order to streamline the testing requirement for research and development of new medicines and eliminate unnecessary delays in their global development. The market in Asia Pacific is projected to expand swiftly due to rising population, changing lifestyles, rising number of awareness programs for patients, and the ever-increasing per capita expenditure. In addition, economic growth supports pharmaceutical and biotechnology units in developing countries such as India, China, and Singapore. All these factors collectively support the virus filtration market in Asia Pacific.Key players operating in the market include Merck KGaA, GE Healthcare, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Lonza Group Ltd., Pall Corporation, Charles River Laboratories International, Inc., Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, Sartorius AG, Asahi Kasei Medical Co., Ltd., and WuXi PharmaTech (Cayman) Inc.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisThe regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland and Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, and North Africa)The report has been compiled through extensive primary research (through interviews, surveys, and observations of seasoned analysts) and secondary research (which entails reputable paid sources, trade journals, and industry body databases). The report also features a complete qualitative and quantitative assessment by analyzing data gathered from industry analysts and market participants across key points in the industrys value chain.A separate analysis of prevailing trends in the parent market, macro- and micro-economic indicators, and regulations and mandates is included under the purview of the study. By doing so, the report projects the attractiveness of each major segment over the forecast period.Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsMarket segmentation up to the second or third levelHistorical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volumeReporting and evaluation of recent industry developmentsMarket shares and strategies of key playersEmerging niche segments and regional marketsAn objective assessment of the trajectory of the marketRecommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketBrowse More Details @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Construction Romania Market Top Key Players  Hidroconstructia , REALDESIGN TRUST ,S.C. Heberger Constructii , Tecton Trust and Forecast to 2021

Construction Market

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/97792-construction-market-in-romania-2015-2019

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Romania Construction MarketDescriptionWiseGuyReports.Com adds Construction Market in Romania 2015-2019 Research To Its Database.The construction market in Romania has been witnessing a positive rebound since 2013 after a double digit growth decline in 2008-2010 because of the global economic crisis. The market growth is led by resurgence in the real estate market and increased investments in the infrastructure sector. Rising income levels and an increase in the employment rate are propelling the demand for residential property, particularly from the middle income group. Further, the boom in the service sector particularly in IT, retail, and BPO is driving the demand for office space in the country. The government is also placing huge emphasis on the development of energy-efficient buildings. Moreover, a decrease in construction tax from 1.5% to 1% from January 2015 is further accelerating the market growth.The analysts forecast the construction market in Romania to grow at a CAGR of 3.38% over the period 2014-2019.Covered in this ReportThis report covers the present scenario and growth prospects of the construction market in Romania for 2015-2019. To calculate the market size, the report considers correlation between the GDP of Romania and construction investments. It provides a detailed segmentation of the construction market in Romania by sector. The report forecasts the investments in the building and civil engineering construction sectors in the country for 2015-2019.Get sample Report @The Construction Market in Romania 2015-2019, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects in the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key Vendors Hidroconstructia REALDESIGN TRUST S.C. Heberger Constructii Tecton TrustOther Prominent Vendors Delta ACM PAB RomaniaMarket Driver High Demand for Residential and Commercial Buildings For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket Challenge Poor Infrastructure Quality For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket Trend Demand for Energy-efficient Buildings For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey Questions Answered in this Report What will the market size be in 2019 and what will the growth rate be? What are the key market trends? What is driving this market? What are the challenges to market growth? Who are the key vendors in this market space? What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?Enquiry About Report @Table of Contents -Major Key PointsExecutive SummaryList of AbbreviationsScope of the Report03.1 Market Overview03.2 Key Projects DeliveredMarket Research Methodology04.1 Market Research Process04.2 Research MethodologyIntroductionRomania: Economy Overview06.1 Ease of Doing Business in Romania06.2 EU Structural Funds 2014-2020Industry Overview07.1 Upcoming Projects in RomaniaMarket Landscape08.1 Market Size and Forecast08.2 Five Forces AnalysisMarket Segmentation09.1 Building Construction Market in Romania 2014-201909.1.1 Market Size and Forecast09.2 Civil Engineering Construction Market in Romania 2014-201909.2.1 Market Size and Forecast10. Vendor Selection CriteriaMarket Growth DriversDrivers and their ImpactMarket ChallengesImpact of Drivers and ChallengesMarket TrendsTrends and their Impact..CONTINUEDAbout UsWise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, Industry research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports understand how essential statistical surveying information is for your organization or association. Therefore, we have associated with the top publishers and research firms all specialized in specific domains, ensuring you will receive the most reliable and up to date research data available.NORAH TRENTPartner Relations & Marketing Managersales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)
Global Military Smart Weapons Market 2017 Share, Trend, Segmentation and Forecast to 2022

Global Military Smart Weapons Industry

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Global Military Smart Weapons IndustryIn this report, the global Military Smart Weapons market is valued at USD XX million in 2016 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2022, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2016 and 2022.Global Military Smart Weapons market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingThe Boeing CompanyDenel SOC LtdKongsberg GruppenLockheed Martin CorporationMBDAOrbital ATKRaytheon CompanyTextron IncTry Sample Report @Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Military Smart Weapons in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoSmart RadarSmart GPS/INSSmart Bombs & MissileSmart MunitionsOtherOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales), market share and growth rate of Military Smart Weapons for each application, includingReconnaissanceSearchingFightingOtherFor Detailed Reading Please visit WiseGuy Reports @Some Major Points from Table of content:3 Global Military Smart Weapons Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)3.1 Global Military Smart Weapons Capacity and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.2 Global Military Smart Weapons Production and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.3 Global Military Smart Weapons Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.4 Global Military Smart Weapons Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.5 North America Military Smart Weapons Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.6 Europe Military Smart Weapons Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.7 China Military Smart Weapons Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.8 Japan Military Smart Weapons Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.9 Southeast Asia Military Smart Weapons Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.10 India Military Smart Weapons Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)4 Global Military Smart Weapons Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2012-2017)4.1 Global Military Smart Weapons Consumption by Region (2012-2017)4.2 North America Military Smart Weapons Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.3 Europe Military Smart Weapons Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.4 China Military Smart Weapons Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.5 Japan Military Smart Weapons Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.6 Southeast Asia Military Smart Weapons Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.7 India Military Smart Weapons Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)5 Global Military Smart Weapons Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type5.1 Global Military Smart Weapons Production and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)5.2 Global Military Smart Weapons Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)5.3 Global Military Smart Weapons Price by Type (2012-2017)5.4 Global Military Smart Weapons Production Growth by Type (2012-2017)6 Global Military Smart Weapons Market Analysis by Application6.1 Global Military Smart Weapons Consumption and Market Share by Application (2012-2017)6.2 Global Military Smart Weapons Consumption Growth Rate by Application (2012-2017)6.3 Market Drivers and Opportunities6.3.1 Potential Applications6.3.2 Emerging Markets/CountriesIf you have any enquiry before buying a copy of this report @7 Global Military Smart Weapons Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 The Boeing Company7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Military Smart Weapons Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 The Boeing Company Military Smart Weapons Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 Denel SOC Ltd7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Military Smart Weapons Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 Denel SOC Ltd Military Smart Weapons Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.3 Kongsberg Gruppen7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.3.2 Military Smart Weapons Product Category, Application and Specification7.3.2.1 Product A7.3.2.2 Product B7.3.3 Kongsberg Gruppen Military Smart Weapons Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.4 Lockheed Martin Corporation7.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.4.2 Military Smart Weapons Product Category, Application and Specification7.4.2.1 Product A7.4.2.2 Product B7.4.3 Lockheed Martin Corporation Military Smart Weapons Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.4.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.5 MBDA7.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.5.2 Military Smart Weapons Product Category, Application and Specification7.5.2.1 Product A7.5.2.2 Product BContinued..For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comAbout UsWise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports understand how essential statistical surveying information is for your organization or association. Therefore, we have associated with the top publishers and research firms all specialized in specific domains, ensuring you will receive the most reliable and up to date research data available.Contact Us:Norah Trent+1 646 845 9349 / +44 208 133 9349Follow on LinkedIn:Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Spanning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt LtdPune  411028Maharashtra, GlobalPh: +91 841 198 5042
Bright Colours and Powerful Shapes - Discover new art by Wilhelm Beermann from Dusseldorf Art Academy

Wilhelm Beermann, "Untitled (The Bather)", 2017

www.wilhelmbeermann.de

www.rpr-art.com

Young artist Wilhelm Beermann shows his latest paintings online at RPR ART until November 30, 2017. This is the second exhibition by the recently founded art advisory business that dedicates exhibition space to selected talented artists from Dusseldorf Kunstakademie.Wilhelm Beermann was born in Herten, Germany, in 1985. An avid painter from his early childhood, he started his studies in visual arts at the Art Academy in Mainz. In 2014, he continued at the Art Academy Dusseldorf, class of Professor Thomas Grunfeld, from where he graduated in 2017. Since 2013, his work has been shown in numerous exhibitions. The artist lives and works in Dusseldorf.I paint because it is the only activity that calms me down. But books or screens also work quite well. The object in front of me must be rectangular; then my eyes find peace, says Wilhelm when asked why he paints.He quotes Gauguin and Cezanne as profound influences for his work: I frequently go to museums and allow myself the liberty of being a big fan of different artists. It all started with Gauguin. I was maybe eleven or twelve." He also believes that painting has a lot to do with imitation: The living subject and the works of great artists in the back of the head  both influences the resulting work. Hence, his brightly coloured paintings reflect his admiration for painters such as Mondrian or Matisse.However, Wilhelm claims, that his paintings are not necessarily "about" something: they are the counterpart to unspecific experiences, a random product from the abundance of everyday influences: "My form language employs constructivism and colour-field painting and is also reminiscent of hard-edge or minimal. At the same time, what surrounds and interests me in everyday life slips in consciously and unconsciously. such as in his paintings Untitled, The Bather (2017), and Untitled (2016).The young painters ambition is to create images that do not portray a specific period or space, but instead act as a mirror and thus are always new for the beholder. I believe that a picture can open up a reflective experience in a visual, cognitive, emotional, and spiritual way for both its creator and the beholder. (Untitled, 2017).This consequently led to his decision to predominantly work with lacquer and the smooth surface of aluminium, which underlines the viewers reflection in the picture technically as well. He applies different and competing compositional rules using even unconventional tools such as sanders or solvents for his art. Before putting the paint on the carrier, he makes sketches and works out a plan. However, he has never managed to complete a picture according to plan, he explains and points out that the painting is complete when the compositional elements are positioned in such a way that they enter into a continuous interplay.See Wilhelm Beermanns artwork on his websiteand buy selected pieces atthrough November 30, 2017.Read our full interview here.For further questions regarding the artists work or more picture material:Contact: Dr. Ruth Polleit RiechertEmail: rpr@rpr-art.comMobile: 0049-(0)173-6730052RPR ART is an art advisory business that helps you find art you like and invest wisely. The company supports young talents from art academies.RPR ARTDr. Ruth Polleit RiechertOelmuehlweg 33C61462 KoenigsteinGermany
Electric Guitars Market,Industry Analysis,Share,Growth By 2024

MRRSE

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https://www.mrrse.com/electric-guitars-market

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https://www.mrrse.com/

https://www.industrynewsanalysis.com/

Electric guitars are a type of guitars in which strumming the strings themselves is not the primary source of the sound. Rather, the vibrations caused by the movement of the strings are captured and magnified electronically in order to produce a louder output. The sound of an electric guitar can also be electrically modified, since an electrical representation of the vibration of the string is produced in electric guitars. This can then be modulated with the help of dials and other controls on the electric guitar as well as pedals. This is the primary factor distinguishing electric guitars from acoustic guitars; the sound produced by the latter comes directly from the vibration of the strings and thus cant be modulated electronically.Click Here For Free Sample Report :The increasing interest held by the global population in music is a major driver for the global electric guitars market. Electric guitars are essential in popular genres of music such as rock and metal. Due to the popularity of these genres, the number of individuals attempting to learn to play the guitar is increasing. This is the prime driver for the global electric guitars market.The report examines the historical trajectory of the global electric guitars market and presents information detailing its development up to the base year. Further, detailed analysis of the current market figures is presented along with forecasts for the markets growth in the coming years. The report uses industry-standard analytical tools and databases to gain accurate information and precise analytical insights. The major segments of the global electric guitars market and the key players operating in it are also profiled in the report to provide a comprehensive coverage of the market.Global Electric Guitars Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe increasing disposable income of individuals in developing economies is allowing them to indulge in hobbies such as music. This is a major driver for the global electric guitars market. The continued popularity of rock music is another influential factor driving the global electric guitars market, as the two are intricately connected in the eyes of the masses. The increasing number of rock bands also bodes well for the global electric guitars market.On the other hand, electrical guitars can be too expensive for most amateurs. An important reason for this is that, unlike acoustic guitars, electric guitars need an amplifier. This is a major restraint on the global electric guitars market, particularly in developing countries. The increasing popularity of acoustic guitars has also checked the electric guitars market, as acoustic guitars are much cheaper than electric guitars and require less maintenance. However, advanced guitar playing techniques are easier to perform on electric guitars, since they have softer strings than acoustic guitars and no frets.Global Electric Guitars Market: Geographical OverviewThe global electric guitars market is dominated by North America due to the high interest in rock music, the high disposable income of the population, and the high number of rock bands in the region. The U.S. has a close relationship with the development of the global electric guitars market, with two of the most popular electric guitar designs  the Gibson Les Paul and the Fender Stratocaster  being designed in the U.S. The U.S. was also where rock and roll music began, providing an immense boost to the global electric guitars market.Global Electric Guitars Market: Vendor LandscapeMajor companies in the global electric guitars market include Gibson Guitar Corporation, Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, and Paul Reed Smith Guitars Ltd. The global electric guitars market is highly competitive, with frequent technological advancements and changes in consumer preference making it hard for companies to maintain a competitive edge.Read Full Report @The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.The study is a source of reliable data on: Market segments and sub-segments Market trends and dynamics Supply and demand Market size Current trends/opportunities/challenges Competitive landscape Technological breakthroughs Value chain and stakeholder analysisThe regional analysis covers: North America (U.S. and Canada) Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others) Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia) Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand) Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, North Africa)The report has been compiled through extensive primary research (through interviews, surveys, and observations of seasoned analysts) and secondary research (which entails reputable paid sources, trade journals, and industry body databases). The report also features a complete qualitative and quantitative assessment by analyzing data gathered from industry analysts and market participants across key points in the industrys value chain.A separate analysis of prevailing trends in the parent market, macro- and micro-economic indicators, and regulations and mandates is included under the purview of the study. By doing so, the report projects the attractiveness of each major segment over the forecast period.Highlights of the report: A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent market Important changes in market dynamics Market segmentation up to the second or third level Historical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volume Reporting and evaluation of recent industry developments Market shares and strategies of key players Emerging niche segments and regional markets An objective assessment of the trajectory of the market Recommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketSend An Enquire @Market Research Reports Search Engine(MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of market intelligence reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.State Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United StatesTelephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite :Read More Industry News At:
Global Behenyl Alcohol Market Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, Forecast 2016 - 2024

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"The Report Behenyl Alcohol Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, Forecast 2016 - 2024 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"Behenyl alcohol, also known as docasanol, is a saturated fatty alcohol that is traditionally used as an emulsifier, emollient, and as a thickener in nutritional supplements and cosmetics. It is also used to thicken or neutralize formulations.Get Sample copy of this Report @In recent times, docasanol has been approved as an antiviral agent by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It is effective in reducing cold sores caused by the herpes simplex virus. Docasanol with the purity level of approximately 70% is used widely. Docasanol with the purity level of more than 80% is seldom used. This product accounts for a minimal share of the total market for fatty alcohols.Growing usage of behenyl alcohol in pharmaceuticals and organic cosmetics industries is the key factor fuelling the demand for the product at the global level. Europe is the major producer of rapeseed in the world. Most of the companies based in Europe arrange for raw materials at a price lower than their rivals from other regions such as North America and Asia Pacific. Further, Europe is home to more than 450 large- and small-scale manufacturers. Rising consumption of anti-aging products is expected to drive the behenyl alcohol market in Europe. Additionally, abundance of low-cost raw materials and labor and increased demand for organic cosmetics are expected to drive the demand for behenyl alcohol in Asia Pacific.However, oversupply of fatty alcohol is a major factor hampering the growth of the behenyl alcohol market at present. Further, higher prices of behenyl alcohol as compared to other forms of long-chain fatty alcohols is another major hindrance to growth of this market. Side-effects of using behenyl alcohol include headache, difficulty in breathing, facial swelling, confusion, chest pain, and dizziness. Severe side effects include diarrhea, soreness, rash, burning, dryness, and swelling. These may refrain consumers from using products infused with behenyl alcohol. This can greatly hinder the overall growth of the market.Increased market penetration by major manufacturers of behenyl alcohol in underdeveloped markets is anticipated to create growth opportunities for the market in the near future.View Report @ On the basis of applications, the global behenyl alcohol market has been segmented into emollients, emulsifiers, and thickeners. On the basis of end-uses, the market can be segmented into cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and nutritional supplements. Cosmetics find the maximum application of behenyl alcohol as compared to other end-user industries.Geographically, Asia Pacific leads the market for behenyl alcohol, with Japan and India being the top exporters across the world. However, South Korea is one of the leading importers of behenyl alcohol in Asia Pacific. India is the major producer of behenyl alcohol and rapeseed. Several companies based in India export rapeseed to other regions such as North America and Europe and to certain key parts of Asia Pacific. Latin America is expected to witness steady growth owing to increasing size of the industry for organic cosmetics in key countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Further, Brazil is one of the major importers of behenyl alcohol. It imports from suppliers based in North America and Europe.The global behenyl alcohol market is dominated by major players operating in the industry. Joint ventures and partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, product innovations and expansions are some of the key strategies adopted by players to ensure sustenance in the market. Kao Corporation, BASF S.E., VVF Chemicals Ltd., Sasol Ltd., Godrej Industries, and Nikko Chemicals are key players operating in the market for behenyl alcohol.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.Request for Enquiry @The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisThe regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland and Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, and North Africa)The report has been compiled through extensive primary research (through interviews, surveys, and observations of seasoned analysts) and secondary research (which entails reputable paid sources, trade journals, and industry body databases). The report also features a complete qualitative and quantitative assessment by analyzing data gathered from industry analysts and market participants across key points in the industrys value chain.A separate analysis of prevailing trends in the parent market, macro- and micro-economic indicators, and regulations and mandates is included under the purview of the study. By doing so, the report projects the attractiveness of each major segment over the forecast period.Check Discount @Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsMarket segmentation up to the second or third levelHistorical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volumeReporting and evaluation of recent industry developmentsMarket shares and strategies of key playersEmerging niche segments and regional marketsAn objective assessment of the trajectory of the marketRecommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketAbout usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Contact usMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Printer Ink Cartridges Market: By Top Manufacturers - HP, Canon, Epson, Brother, Ricoh, Lenovo & Lexmark

Market Research Report

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Printer Ink Cartridges Market: By Top Manufacturers - HP, Canon, Epson, Brother, Ricoh, Lenovo & Lexmark" to its huge collection of research reports.In this report, the global Printer Ink Cartridges market is valued at USD XX million in 2016 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2022, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2016 and 2022.Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Printer Ink Cartridges in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaGlobal Printer Ink Cartridges market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingHPCanonEpsonBrotherRicohLenovoLexmarkNinestarPrintRiteOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoOne-piece Ink CartridgeSplit Ink CartridgesTo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @On the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales), market share and growth rate of Printer Ink Cartridges for each application, includingInkjet PrintersInkjet Fax MachineAll in One MachineTable of ContentsGlobal Printer Ink Cartridges Market Research Report 20171 Printer Ink Cartridges Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Printer Ink Cartridges1.2 Printer Ink Cartridges Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Printer Ink Cartridges Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category)(2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Printer Ink Cartridges Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 One-piece Ink Cartridge1.2.4 Split Ink Cartridges1.3 Global Printer Ink Cartridges Segment by Application1.3.1 Printer Ink Cartridges Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Inkjet Printers1.3.3 Inkjet Fax Machine1.3.4 All in One Machine1.4 Global Printer Ink Cartridges Market by Region (2012-2022)2 Global Printer Ink Cartridges Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Printer Ink Cartridges Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.1 Global Printer Ink Cartridges Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Printer Ink Cartridges Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Printer Ink Cartridges Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.3 Global Printer Ink Cartridges Average Price by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.4 Manufacturers Printer Ink Cartridges Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Printer Ink Cartridges Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Printer Ink Cartridges Market Concentration RateBrowse More Details @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Global Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Sales Market Report 2017

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Sales Market Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.The dynamics of the global market for Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices is shaped by several trends and factors, a detailed evaluation of whose impact is adequately covered in the report. The research study presents insights into key macro-economic and micro-economic factors influencing the growth of the Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices market. The report covers major changes in regulatory policies and recent government interventions to help stakeholders assess their impact on the growth trajectory. The emergence of different types of risks, including operational and tactical, and key challenges that are expected to stir the strategic dynamics is covered in the study. The study highlights prominent trends and delineates their impact in shaping the consumer demand for products. The evidence-based findings offered in the report cover regional and global factors pertinent to the expansion of the Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices market.Get Report Sample and Customization:The study tracks recent technological advancements and developments likely to cause disruption in demand among end-use industries. To this end, the report takes a closer look at the investment portfolio of various stakeholders who are spending on research and development activities to develop new products and services. A close tab on the government funding in major regions helps market participants evaluate the prominence of these technologies. Furthermore, a number of new entrants and emerging players hoping to gain actionable insights to formulate their strategies can glean through the study. The quantitative and qualitative analysis takes into its ambit vast volumes of data from credible secondary sources, such as industry bodies and associations, and incorporates reliable inputs provided by a wide range of primary sources. The findings are also useful for established players to be proactively prepared for any disruptive shifts.Global Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices sales volume, Price (USD/Unit), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingJohnson & Johnson (DePuy Synthes)Stryker CorporationBiomet, Inc.KLS Martin, L.P.PitkarB. Braun IndiaSyncronei Medical IndiaMedtronicTMJ ConceptsBoston Medical ProductsComplete report with detailed table of content is available at:Table of ContentsGlobal Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Sales Market Report 20171 Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices1.2 Classification of Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices by Product Category1.2.1 Global Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20162 Global Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Competition by Players/Suppliers, Type and Application2.1 Global Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1 Global Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Sales and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices (Volume and Value) by TypeTo Get Discount Of This Report Click here @List of Tables and FiguresFigure Product Picture of Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) DevicesFigure Global Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Sales Volume Comparison (K Units) by Type (2012-2022)Figure Global Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Sales Volume Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 2016Figure China Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Europe Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Japan Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Southeast Asia Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure India Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Global Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Sales Volume (K Units) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Global Craniomaxillofacial Fixation (CMF) Devices Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)About UsQYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact US:Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Global Aerial Imaging Market From 2017 - 2021: Key Players - Google, Inc. (Alphabet, Inc.), Fugro Worldwide, NRC Group ASA & Nearmap Limited

Market Research Report

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https://www.researchmoz.us/global-aerial-imaging-market-size-trends-and-forecasts-2017-2021-report.html

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Aerial Imaging Market From 2017 - 2021: Key Players - Google, Inc. (Alphabet, Inc.), Fugro Worldwide, NRC Group ASA & Nearmap Limited" to its huge collection of research reports.The report titled Global Aerial Imaging Market: Size, Trends & Forecasts (2017-2021), provides an in-depth analysis of the global aerial imaging market by value, by region and by end-users. The report provides a regional analysis of the aerial imaging market, including the following regions: North America and Asia-Pacific.The report also assesses the key opportunities in the market and outlines the factors that are and will be driving the growth of the industry.Growth of the overall global aerial imaging market has also been forecasted for the period 2017-2021, taking into consideration the previous growth patterns, the growth drivers and the current and future trends.At present, the aerial imaging industry rivalry remains low. The market is fragmented with many small players offering a wide variety of services and coverage areas. Industry is likely to see a period of consolidation, with larger firms acquiring or pushing out unprofitable smaller businesses. Key players of the global aerial imaging market are Google, Inc., Fugro Worldwide, Nearmap Limited and NRC Group ASA, who are also profiled with their financial information and respective business strategies.Country CoverageNorth AmericaAsia-PacificCompany CoverageGoogle, Inc. (Alphabet, Inc.)Fugro WorldwideNRC Group ASANearmap LimitedTo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Executive SummaryAerial imaging refers to capturing and producing photographs or images of the ground (terrain, plains, plateaus, hills, mountains, etc.) from an elevated position. The camera is not supported by the ground-based structure.There are numerous end-users of aerial imaging technology. These include, government, civil engineering, insurance, telecommunications, law enforcement, media, environment, among others. The aerial imaging technology has its own advantages and disadvantages.The global aerial imaging market has increased at a significant CAGR during the years 2012-2016 and projections are made that the market would rise in the next four years i.e. 2017-2021 tremendously. The global aerial imaging market is expected to increase due to growth in number of theme parks, increase in the solar photovoltaic industry, growing construction industry, etc. Yet, the market faces some challenges such as, adverse weather conditions, presence of alternatives such as drones and satellite imagery and numerous rumours surrounding the privacy issues, etc.Table Of Content1. Executive Summary2. Introduction2.1 Aerial Imaging: An Overview2.1.1 History of Aerial Imaging2.1.2 Applications/End-User of Aerial Imaging2.1.3 Advantages and Disadvantages of Aerial Imaging2.1.4 Aerial Imaging and Other Alternatives: A Comparison3. Global Market Analysis3.1 Global Aerial Imaging Market: An Analysis3.1.1 Global Aerial Imaging Market by Value3.1.2 Global Aerial Imaging Market by Geography3.1.3 Global Aerial Imaging Market by End-UserBrowse More Details @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
CHINA VETERINARY VACCINE MARKET BY TYPE AND APPLICATION, FORECAST TO 2022

Vet Vaccines

https://www.linkedin.com/company/24-life-sciences

Vaccines are products designed to trigger protective immune responses and prepare the immune system to fight future infections from disease-causing agents. Vaccines stimulate the immune systems production of antibodies that identify and destroy disease-causing organisms that enter the body. Vaccines provide immunity against one or several diseases that can lessen the severity or prevent certain diseases altogether.This report focuses on the Veterinary Vaccine in China market, to split the market based on manufacturers, Regions (Province), type and application.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers Merck Merial Boehringer Ingelheim Zoetis Virbac Ceva Elanco/Eli Lilly Sindh Poultry Vaccine Centre Bio-Labs VaksindoMarket Segment by Regions (Province), covering South China Southwest China East China Northeast China North ChinaMarket Segment by Type, covers Live Attenuated Vaccines Inactivated Vaccines DNA Vaccines OtherMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into Livestock Swine Chicken Dog Cat OtherThere are 18 Chapters to deeply display the China Veterinary Vaccine market.Chapter 1, to describe Veterinary Vaccine Introduction, product type and application, market overview, market analysis by Region (province), market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the manufacturers of Veterinary Vaccine, with profile, main business, news, sales, price, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017Download FREE Sample of this Report @ https://www.24lifesciences.com/report-sample/china-veterinary-vaccine-market-by-manufacturers-regions-province-type-and-application-forecast-to-2022Table of Contents1 Market Overview1.1 Veterinary Vaccine Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Live Attenuated Vaccines1.2.2 Inactivated Vaccines1.2.3 DNA Vaccines1.2.4 Other2 Manufacturers Profiles2.1 Merck2.1.1 Profile2.1.2 Veterinary Vaccine Type and Applications2.1.2.1 Type 12.1.2.2 Type 22.1.3 Merck Veterinary Vaccine Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)Get the Complete Report & TOC @ https://www.24lifesciences.com/healthcare/china-veterinary-vaccine-market-by-manufacturers-regions-province-type-and-application-forecast-to-2022REACH US AT-We would like to hear more from you!New York City Zone 01, United StatesEmail: help@24lifesciences.comInternational: (+1) 646 781 7170UK(Toll free): +44 800 088 5734Follow Us On LinkedIn :-Life Science Market Research(LSMR) firm is specialized in market research , that helps companies in the field of life science to achieve growth and success by providing market intelligence. We have a highly qualified team of researchers and analysts. They analyze the major drivers, restraints and opportunities that shape life science market.New York City Zone 01, United States
Healthcare BI Platform - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth Trends, and Forecast 2015  2023

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"Healthcare BI Platform Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth Trends, and Forecast 2015 - 2023" The Report covers current Industries Trends, Worldwide Analysis, Global Forecast, Review, Share, Size, Growth, Effect.. .Description-' 'Business Intelligence (BI) platforms help build BI applications by providing competences in analysis, platform integration, and information delivery. As healthcare organizations are realizing the untapped potential of huge amounts of data, they are implementing solutions that utilize business intelligence to help collect, sort, and mine valuable insights from this data. The complex data gathered from numerous sources (operational, patient data) is analyzed and used by healthcare providers with the aid of BI platforms for the larger population.. .Get Sample Report With TOC @' 'This research report provides a detailed analysis of trends in the healthcare BI platform market. It also comprises a broad analysis of the industry drivers, restraints, and opportunities. The report also provides a comprehensive assessment of key market player strategies. The market for healthcare BI platform has been segmented into various functions: clinical analytics, financial analytics, operational analytics, and others. Financial analytics is expected to be the largest healthcare BI platform function over the forecast period, whereas clinical analytics is expected to be the fastest growing functional segment over the forecast period. The global healthcare BI platform market has been extensively analyzed on the basis of deployment type into on-premise and cloud. Cloud is expected to be the fastest growing healthcare BI platform segment by deployment type over the forecast period. On the basis of model type, the healthcare BI platform market is segmented as self-service BI and corporate BI. Self-service BI is the latest trend in the BI market and is expected to be the fastest growing segment over the forecast period. The market size and forecasts in terms of revenue (US$ Mn) for each of these segments have been provided for the period 2013 to 2023, considering 2013 and 2014 as the base years. The report also provides the compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) for each segment of the market for the forecast period 2015 to 2023.The healthcare BI platform market is segmented based on geography into North America, Europe, Middle-East and Africa, Asia Pacific, and Latin America, and a detailed regional analysis is provided. A country-level analysis is also included in the report, covering the countries in each region. North America is expected to be the largest and fastest growing healthcare BI platform market among all regions. Europe is one of the mature markets for healthcare BI platform, whereas Asia Pacific is expected to be one of the most attractive markets in the near future.Market estimates for the healthcare BI platform have been assessed considering different political, environmental, social, technological, economic, and legal factors. The share of leading players of the global healthcare BI platform market is provided for the year 2014. Company profiles (CPs) of market leaders elucidate on details such as company overview, segmentation, recent developments, business strategies, and financial information in the healthcare BI platform market. Companies profiled in the report include SAP SE, Oracle Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, SAS Institute, Inc., IBM Corporation, OpenText Corporation, and Information Builders. The report would allow healthcare organizations and research and development agencies to make informed decisions about healthcare BI platforms, and thus gain competitive advantage in the market.Segmentation of the Global Healthcare BI Platform MarketGlobal Healthcare BI Platform Market, by FunctionClinical AnalyticsFinancial AnalyticsOperational AnalyticsOthers (Regulatory Reporting, etc.)Global Healthcare BI Platform Market, By Deployment TypeOn-premiseCloudGlobal Healthcare BI Platform Market, By Model TypeSelf-serviceCorporateGlobal Healthcare BI Platform Market, By GeographyNorth AmericaEuropeAsia PacificMiddle East and AfricaLatin America. .Report Enquiry and Other Query @ResearchMoz is the worlds fastest growing collection of market research reports worldwide. Our database is composed of current market studies from over 100 featured publishers worldwide. Our market research databases integrate statistics with analysis from global, regional, country and company perspectives. ResearchMozs service portfolio also includes value-added services such as market research customization, competitive landscaping, and in-depth surveys, delivered by a team of experienced Research Coordinators.Researchmoz Global Pvt. Ltd.90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United States,Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free),Tel: +1-518-621-2074
Evaporative Condensing Unit Market - Detailed Analysis and Forecast upto 2025

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Global Evaporative Condensing Unit Market : SnapshotThe applications of evaporative condensers in commercial HVAC have been common over the past few decades. However the recent rate of advancement in this field has been enormous, thanks to the incorporation of newer and better materials, faster and cost-efficient manufacturing processes, and the increasing demand for the perfect HVAC system. The basis of evaporative condensers lies in the enhancement of heat rejection through the evaporation process. In this process, water is sprayed on a coil with air being blown simultaneously through the coil. This air comes from the natural heat of a room and causes the sprayed water to evaporate, thereby becoming cooler and aiding in the cooling of an environment. An evaporative condenser can be used at lower temperatures in order to minimize the load on a compressor, thereby allowing for a reduction in the total power drawn by the HVAC unit. Evaporative condensers can also be used reduce the overall downtime of an HVAC unit, while also making it less expensive in terms of repairs and maintenance, when compared to the air-cooled condensers. This is because evaporative condensers operate at a much smaller pressure difference than the latter. The benefits of using evaporative condensers further increase through the growing demand experienced by this market, coming from the rapidly evolving industrial sectors of all regions in the world, and especially the emerging economies. The relatively high use of high-performance evaporative condensers in refrigeration is also something to watch out for over the coming years, as the growing demand for refrigeration shelves, displays and containers in the food and beverages industry is likely to keep the players in the global evaporative condensing unit market on their toes.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Evaporative Condensing Unit Market: OverviewEvaporative condensing units are installed for refrigeration needs across various industries such as chemical, power, and commercial industries among others due to their energy efficient features. The booming food and beverage industry displays an extensive demand for evaporative condensing units for several end-users such as cold stores, restaurants, warehouses, and food processing units. The developing food processing and storage facility industry in emerging economies is anticipated to fuel the growth of the refrigeration application segment of the overall market.The global evaporative condensing unit market can be segmented on the basis of design, end-use, application, and region. The most applications of evaporative condensing units are refrigeration and air conditioning; of the two, the refrigeration application segment is anticipated to lead the global evaporative condensing unit market.Request TOC of the Report @The key end users of evaporative condensing units include but are not limited to: Commercial, chemical, and power.The market study presents a thorough overview of the global evaporative condensing unit market, with insights into key growth drivers, restraints, and trends that will impact the markets future development. The report also delves into the latest trends and opportunities that companies in the global evaporative condensing unit market can leverage for growth.The report is prepared by gathering data from primary and secondary research sources and using standard research methodologies. The detailed assessment of the global evaporative condensing unit market presented in this study will assist managers, policy makers, and business analysts make informed business decisions.Global Evaporative Condensing Unit Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe development of advanced evaporative condensing units is primarily driving the growth of the global evaporative condensing unit market. Evaporative condensing units that are technologically advanced are being preferred owing to their extended shelf life and durability and they also facilitate improved performance of air-conditioning and refrigeration systems.Get Discount @Furthermore, evaporative condensing units are used in large commercial industries, particularly the ones that require above 100 tons of refrigeration.Global Evaporative Condensing Unit Market: Regional OutlookThe global evaporative condensing unit market can be segmented into the regional segments of North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. Among these, the Middle East and Africa are expected to dominate the global evaporative condensing unit market in the coming years. Saudi Arabia is expected to contribute significantly to the growth of the Middle East and Africa evaporative condensing unit market due to the high economic growth in the country.In the coming years, the Middle East and Africa evaporative condensing unit market is expected to display a significant growth rate. This is due to the development of the chemical industry, which in turn displays substantial demand for evaporative condensing units in this region.The rising concerns about the high global warming potency of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) refrigerants have negatively impacted the growth of the evaporative condensing unit market in North America and Europe. In Europe, refrigerants need to meet EN 378 and ISO 5149 standards in order to be certified as non-toxic and non-flammable. Moreover, the European Environment Agency keeps a check on ammonia emissions from industrial units, commercial, domestic, and agricultural sectors and has laid out stringent regulations for the use of ammonia.In the U.S., the need to obtain EPA SNAP approval is compulsory before ammonia can be used in refrigerants.Major Companies Mentioned in ReportSome of the leading companies in the global evaporative condensing unit market are Baltimore Aircoil Company Inc., SPX Corporation, Evapco Inc., and Mammoth Inc. among others.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Methyl Tertiary-Butyl Ether Market Research Report : Key Growth Factors and Forecast 2026

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The MTBE market in Asia Pacific was valued at US$6.7 bn in 2015 and is anticipated to reach US$10.9 bn by 2026, expanding at a CAGR of 4.6% therein.View Full Report:The MTBE market in Asia Pacific has been segmented on the basis of region into China, India, and ASEAN. China accounts for a significant share in the MTBE market, followed by ASEAN and India.Gasoline is one of the major applications of methyl tertiary-butyl ether; therefore, a rise in the demand for gasoline in the automotive industry in China is anticipated to propel the demand for MTBE in the country. The China MTBE market is also projected to be augmented by the ongoing expansion of various end-use industries that employ downstream products with MTBE. This market depends majorly on imports from India, the ASEAN sub-region, and several countries in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. However, of late, existing players in China have been focused on increasing their domestic production to meet the local demand. Untapped local players producing MTBE in small quantities are likely to boost the production of methyl tertiary-butyl ether in China, making the country a key producer in the next few years.Countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand primarily account for the production of MTBE in the ASEAN sub-region of Asia Pacific. A consistent growth in various end-user industries and the easy availability of raw material are key factors responsible for the growth in this market.Major players operating in the MTBE market in Asia Pacific include Reliance Industries Limited, Malaysia Sdn Bhd (Petronas), Petrochemical Corporation of Singapore, ExxonMobil Chemical Company (Singapore), Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Bangkok Synthetics Co., Ltd. (Thailand), Pertamina (Thailand), Sinopec Jinling and Wanhua Chemical Group Co Ltd, and Bharat Petroleum.Request to view Sample Report:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.ContactTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Butene-1 Market Trends, Analysis, & Type Forecast to 2026

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The market is estimated to exhibit a 4.1% CAGR from 2016 through 2026, rising from a valuation of US$508.6 mn in 2015 to US$787.8 mn by 2026. Of the key applications of butene-1, the segment of polyethylene co-monomers account for over 65% of the overall market. In terms of geography, China held a nearly 64% share in the market and is expected to continue dominance over the forecast period as well. Presence of a large supplier base and vast production facilities have made the China butene-1 market oversupplied.View Full Report:On the basis of geography, the butene-1 market in Asia Pacific has been examined for countries such as China, India, and ASEAN countries. China held a 64.7% share in the market in Asia Pacific in 2015 and is expected to remain the dominant regional player throughout the forecast period as well. Since polyethylene is the chief application segment of the butene-1 market, growth of the polyethylene industry in China is anticipated to boost the demand for butene-1 as well, allowing China to remain the dominant market for butene-1.Growth in industries such as consumer goods and rising demand for automotive interior and exterior products in China, which has fueled the polybutylene-1 in the country, is also expected to boost the China butene-1 market over the forecast period. The butene-1 market in China is oversupplied owing to the availability of raw materials and presence of key players. The situation has helped satisfy the demand for butene-1 in rest of Asia Pacific. Production of Butene-1 in the ASEAN sub-region is primarily contributed by countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Philippines. Growing end-user industries and availability of raw materials in ASEAN are anticipated to drive the demand for Butene-1 in the sub-region.The market is dominated by few companies and poses difficulties for the entry of new vendors. Notable players operating in the butene-1 market in Asia Pacific include Petrochemical Corporation of Singapore (Private) Limited, China Petrochemical Corporation, China National Petroleum Corporation, PetroChina Company Limited, and ONGC Petro additions Limited.Request to view Sample Report:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.ContactTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Ceramic Sinks Market Outlooks,Development Trends and Dynamics 2017-2022

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Ceramic Sinks Market is set to Grow according to the Expcted CAGRThe report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Ceramic Sinks industry market by types, applications, players and regions. This report also displays the production, Consumption, revenue, Gross margin, Cost, Gross, market share, CAGR, and Market influencing factors of the Ceramic Sinks industry in USA, EU, China,India, Japan and other regions, and forecast to 2022, from 2017.The report is split segment wise considering the following key regionsNorth America,Europe,China,JapanAnd more.The report covers major commercial contenders and there market valuation including the prices, revenue, growth rate and market share with below mentioned top playersTOTO,Blanco,Kohler,America Standerd,DuravitAnd moreAccess a sample report on:The report discusses the following contentTOCChapter 1 Ceramic Sinks Market Overview:Product Overview of Ceramic SinksClassification of Ceramic Sinks by Product CategoryChapter 2 Global Ceramic Sinks Competition by Players:Global Ceramic Sinks Sales (Unit) and Market Share (%) by PlayersGlobal Ceramic Sinks Revenue (Million USD) and Share by Players (2012-2017)Chapter 3 Global Ceramic Sinks Competition by Types:Global Ceramic Sinks Sales (Unit) and Market Share (%) by TypesGlobal Ceramic Sinks Revenue (Million USD) and Share by Type (2012-2017)Global Ceramic Sinks Price (USD/Unit) by Type (2012-2017)Chapter 4 Global Ceramic Sinks Competition by Application:Global Ceramic Sinks Sales (Unit) and Market Share (%) by ApplicationGlobal Ceramic Sinks Revenue (Million USD) and Share by Application (2012-2017)Global Ceramic Sinks Price (USD/Unit) by Application (2012-2017)Chapter 5 Global Ceramic Sinks Production Market Analysis by Region:Global Ceramic Sinks Production (Unit) and Market Share (%) by RegionNorth America Ceramic Sinks Sales and Growth (2012-2017)Europe Ceramic Sinks Production and Growth (2012-2017)Browse Full Report from:To summarize the Ceramic Sinks market research report covers the current as well as future prospects of Ceramic Sinks market. It is primary as well as secondary research performed to predict the diversity, growth, revenue and market share for 2017 to 2022.About UsReports Monitor (ReportsMonitor.com) is a platform for companies looking to meet their market research and business intelligence requirements. Our aim is to change the dynamics of the Market Research industry by providing quality intelligence backed by data. Your requirement for market forecasting is fulfilled by our exclusive quantitative and analytics driven intelligence. We have a vast collection of reports, covering maximum industries worldwide. Our process is meticulously planned and executed in order to use maximum resources and explore the market for getting genuine insights. The prime focus is to get reliable data, Decision makers can now rely on our distinct data gathering methods to get factual market forecasting and detailed analysis.Contact UsJay MatthewsDirect: +1 513 549-5911Email: sales@reportsmonitor.comWebsite:
Ceramic and Porcelain Tiles Market By Analysis of Major Industry Segments, Share 2024

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The ceramic and porcelain tiles, bathroom materials, and furniture and accessories market in Morocco is expected to rise from a valuation of US$1.5 bn in 2015 to US$2.7 bn by 2024.View Full Report:Casablanca and Tangier to Present Promising Scope for Growth in MoroccoFull-body porcelain tiles led the ceramic and porcelain tiles market in Morocco, accounting for a 34.6% share in 2015. The segment is also projected to witness strong growth over the coming years. Registering a 7.3% CAGR from 2016 to 2024, glazed porcelain is likely to emerge as the most attractive investment option for the market. Thin tiles are a relatively newer generation of ceramic and porcelain tiles and the segment is expected to be highly lucrative in the near future.Within the bathroom materials market in Morocco, ceramic led the market for floor as well as wall materials. On the other hand, porcelain was the most rapidly expanding segment in both cases. The bathroom furniture and accessories market is dominated by the bath and sanitary ware segment and faucets are anticipated to register a high growth rate during the forecast period.Casablanca led the ceramic and porcelain tiles, bathroom materials, and furniture and accessories market in Morocco, accounting for a share of more than 30% in 2015. Tangier, on the other hand, is projected to be the most lucrative market, exhibiting a CAGR of over 6% from 2016 to 2024.Casablanca led the ceramic and porcelain tiles, bathroom materials, and furniture and accessories market in Morocco. In terms of revenue, Casablanca held a share of more than 30% in 2015. Casablanca is the economic capital and leading financial hub of Morocco. Major industrial facilities and the headquarters of several Moroccan and international companies are based in Casablanca. The increasing demand for affordable housing within the middle-class population and the rising efforts of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Policy (MHU) to develop social and residential housing are likely to fuel the residential construction sector. This, in turn, is estimated to boost the Casablanca ceramic and porcelain tiles, bathroom materials, and furniture and accessories market during the forecast period.The Casablanca market is followed by Agadir and Tangier. A rise in the number of construction projects in these cities is estimated to be the key driving factor during the forecast period. A significant expansion in the construction industry in other cities such as Rabat, Fez, and Marrakech is projected propel the ceramic and porcelain tiles, bathroom materials, and furniture and accessories market in MoroccoThe ceramic and porcelain tiles, bathroom materials, and furniture and accessories market in Morocco is primarily dependent on the presence of unorganized regional players and a handful of key international players, such as Roca, RAK Ceramics, NG Kutahya Seramik, PORCELANOSA, and Marazzi. Transparency Market Research has observed that a few regional companies with a significant presence have established a strong and loyal customer base in various cities across Morocco. This has intensified the degree of competition with other local players as well as with international companies supplying imported tiles and other bathroom materials.Request to view Sample Report:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.ContactTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Hospital Lighting Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022

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According to MarketIntelReports' Global Hospital Lighting Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022:Browse 118 Pages and an in-depth TOC on  Hospital Lighting Market 2017-2022Healthcare lighting plays an important role in improving the patient experience and the healthcare staffs ability in meeting different levels of care needed by the patients. As a result, the Hospital Lighting Market will attain new heights. A good illumination ensures the safety of the patients and easier flow of the activities. This promotes the growth of surgical headlight. The hospital LED is expected to be the leading segment due to the growing deployment LED lights in different parts of the hospital. The florescent lighting system is also gaining importance and is being installed in hospitals due to its low cost and power saving capabilities. Troffers will have the largest share in the market.Scope & Regional Forecast of the Hospital Lighting MarketThe Hospital Lighting Market will have a healthy growth in the future due to growing number of healthcare institutes in developing countries like India and China. Low operational costs will augment the growth of the hospital lamp. North America is expected to have a larger share in the market due to its support for modernizing the operation theatre lights.Proper lighting in the hospital makes the patient calm during treatment and provides better illumination for the doctors and staff to improve productivity. The products offered by the hospital lighting system are surgery lamp, surface mounted lights, and wraparounds. Emitting diode, flourescent, and incandescent are the technologies used in these products.For complete details: Request a sample download @Increasing population and changing disease pattern will drive the demand for the lamp light in the healthcare industry. The lighting systems in hospitals are now finding a balance between natural and artificial lights in the hospital corridors and lobbies.To meet the demand of the growing population, medical providers are ensuring a proper environment in the hospital using efficient lighting system to reduce errors and inconvenience of the visitors. These factors will surely benefit the growth of the hospital lighting industry.Segmentations & Key Players Involved in the Hospital Lighting MarketThe Hospital Lighting Market can be broken down into various segments as follows:Product Type- Type1, Type2, Type 3.Application- Corridors, Normal care area, Intensive care area, Operation room, and Parking areas and garages.Region- North America (USA, Canada and Mexico), Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy), Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia), South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.), and Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa).Some of the key players involved in the Hospital Lighting Market are as follows:PhilipsTRILUXZumtobelCreeAcuity Brands LightingPurchase Report @About us:MarketIntelReports (MIR) aims to empower our clients to successfully manage and outperform in their business decisions. We do this by providing Premium Market Intelligence, Strategic Insights and Databases from a range of Global Publishers.MarketIntelReports currently has more than 70,000 plus titles and 75+ publishers on our platform and growing consistently to fill the Global Intelligence Demand  Supply Gap. We cover more than 15 industry verticals being: Automotive, Electronics, Manufacturing, Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare, Chemicals, Building & Construction, Agriculture, Food & Beverages, Banking & Finance, Media and Government, Public Sector Studies.Contact us:Srikanth VishnuSales ManagerMarket Intelligence Reports PTE. LTDNorth Bridge RoadHigh Street CentreSingapore (179094)sales@marketintelreports.comTelephone: 1-302-261-5343
India climbs six positions and is ranked 60th in Global Innovation Index this year : Prof. J.D. Agarwal

Addressing a large audience, while delivering Key Note Address on Innovations in Management and Social Sciences, Prof. (Dr.) J.D. Agarwal, Sr. Professor and Founder Chairman, Indian Institute of Finance and Editor-in-Chief, Finance India at Amity University, Gwalior said India improved 6 ranks this year and ranked 60th overall in the Global Innovation Index this year and is also among the top 50 economies in Market sophistication (39th) and Knowledge and technology outputs (38th).The conference was inaugurated by Lt. Gen V.K. Sharma, Vice Chancellor, Amity University, Madhya Pradesh. Other speakers who shared their thoughts were Prof. Ashish Chandra, Professor, University of Houston, USA and Mr. Rick Cran, Founder and CEO, Cran Enterprises. The conference was attended by over 600 delegates and students, Researchers and faculty members.While speaking on Innovations, Prof. Agarwal said that the world has moved over the years from Bullock carts to Planes & Bullet Trains; from Single storey houses to multi Story buildings; from satellites to drones; from handwritten texts to typewriters to computers, lap tops and now mobiles &selfies; from telephones to apps and whats up video conversations etc.. Innovation presumes creativity, but creativity does not necessarily entail innovation.Creativity is thinking new things, Innovation is doing New things opined Prof. Agarwal. Education, research, practice, adoption of appropriate technology both indigenous &brought from foreign countries combined with Indias ancient knowledge produce innovations which have amused the world. Out of Box thinking would lead to new products & services; development of new processes; search for alternative raw materials; new strategies to attain the millennium goals & to meet challenges; effective and efficient use of Human Resources; education, training & Maximization their contribution and implement; need to design and Implement Innovation policies to revolutionize Sustainable Growth.While defining Innovation, Prof. Agarwal strongly said Innovation is "new idea, device or method". However, Innovation is often also viewed as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or existing market needs. While revolution is a fundamental change in political power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time when the population rises up in revolt against the current authorities or systemHigh technology may not generate jobs and wealth, while low technology developments and the exploitation of indigenous knowledge can lead to significant economic growth and improve welfare.Innovation depends upon Social Receptiveness in any field felt Prof. Agarwal. Internet Banking; Mobile Banking; Use of Solar Panels ; Creation of Green Bond in raising fundsInnovations in widely being done in the Management, said Prof. Agarwal. New models to maximise Profits: Profit is the result of Innovations; minimise costs; offer Better quality & durability of products or services; to Increase in the market share; satisfy consumer base with New Products/services; marketing strategies, financial technology, new places & markets, establishing call centres and Venture capital, startups, Information technology firms have been developed, tested and implemented in the past few years.Innovation is disruptive said Prof. Agarwal, it need organisational and institutional innovation. The way e-commerce and finance has changed the way we do business todaySpeaking on Innovations in Social Sciences, Prof. Agarwal opined that in business & Economics Innovations can become a catalyst for growth. He specifically narrated rapid advancement in transportation & communications; Construction; Maximising Welfare of people; Creating jobs; Minimising poverty : NREGA; Aadhar & Jan DhanYojana; Digitial Economy: cash less or less economy as few of the innovation in Social science area.Speaking on the Role of the Government, Prof. Agarwal emphasized that the Government should take the role of a Gardner. There is a need for efficient innovation policy to create an innovation climate. Government can reduce obstacles in competition and regulatory and legal frameworks and sponsor projects can respond to need and demand of the surroundings. Education System can help build creative and receptive young innovative minds. Greater need for Technology Centers, Science Parks or Export ZonesProf. Agarwal listed Saleforce.com; Tesla; Amazon.com; Shanghai Raas Blood Products; Netflix; Hindustan Unilever; Asian Paints in top 10 most Innovative Companies.Prof. Agarwal lauded Indias Civilised Past. He said that India has today become self reliant. India invented theNumber System and also Zero. Aryabhatta was the first to explain spherical shape, size ,diameter, rotation and correct speed of Earth in 499 AD.The World's first university was established in Takshila in 700 BC. Students from all over the World studied more than 60 subjects.Sanskrit is considered the mother of all higher languages. Sanskrit is the most precise, and therefore suitable language for computer software - a report in Forbes magazine, July 1987.Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans. Charaka, the father of medicine consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago. Infinity and Theory of Continued Fraction was discovered by Bhaskaracharya II.Indians discovered Arithmetic and Geometric progression. Arithmetic progression is explained in Yajurveda. Apart from this large number of formulas were developed in India. Detailed knowledge of anatomy, physiology, aetiology, embryology, digestion, metabolism, genetics and immunity is also found in many Indian texts.IIF setup in 1987 pioneered business finance education in IndiaIndian Institute of Finance45A, Knowledge Park IIIGreater Noida - 201308
Wine 2017 Global Market Analysis by Manufacturers, Trends, Segmentation and Opportunities Forecast

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Pune, India, 3rd November 2017: WiseGuyReports announced addition of new report, titled Opportunities in the Global Wine Sector: Analysis of Opportunities Offered by High Growth Economies.Summary"Opportunities in the Global Wine Sector", report brings together multiple data sources to provide a comprehensive overview of the global Wine sector as part of our global series. It includes an analysis on global Wine sector with consumption analysis highlighted for all regions. The report also identifies high potential countries by region that have been identified by creating a risk-reward analysis with multiple parameters.GET SAMPLE REPORT @The global Wine sector was valued at US$305.9 billion in 2016 and is forecast to record a CAGR of 4.7% during 2016-2021. Asia-Pacific, is forecast to register the fastest value CAGR during 2016-2021, with four countries in the region projected to register a double digit growth during the same period. A growing population of youngsters reaching the legal drinking age (LDA), improving economy, and the rising middle income population across APAC, MEA, and LATAM regions will remain the primary factors driving growth in the sector globally. Of the three markets, Still Wine held the largest share, accounting for 80.6% of global value sales in 2016.Scope- The report provides an overview of global and regional markets covering - Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe - highlighting sector size, growth drivers, latest developments, and future inhibitors for the region.- It also identifies top ten high potential countries and provides deep dive analysis of top countries in each region.- The report draws on the sector data by analyzing key distribution channels for Wine in the global market. Sector data is also used for studying the level of competition in the sector by identifying the top brands at a global and regional level with insights on sector shares of private label products.Reasons to buy- To have a thorough fact based analysis with information about the global Wine sector across the six regions in value terms and the underlying factors that are driving the sales- To gain confidence to make the correct business decisions based on a detailed analysis of the global Wine sector and to identify high potential countries over the next 5 years- The analysts have placed a significant emphasis on the mega trends that drive consumer choice and will provide a clear picture about the future opportunities that can be explored across the regions, resulting in revenue expansion- To gain competitive intelligence about leading brands in the Wine sector at global and regional level with information about their sector share, business descriptions and product profiles.Table of Content: Key Points1. Executive Summary2. Sector OverviewCurrent scenario and future outlookGlobal Wine sector overview - what are the growth drivers, latest developments, and future inhibitorsRegional Wine sector overview - what are the growth drivers, latest developments, and future inhibitorsKey challenges in the global Wine sector3. Shift in alcohol Consumption PatternsChange in consumption levels in the overall alcoholic beverage industry, 2011-2021Reasons for shift in consumption patterns4. Identifying high potential countriesAnalysis of 10 countries on the basis of Risk-Reward analysis (market assessment, economic development, socio-demographic, governance indicators, and technological infrastructure)5. Analysis across regions - Asia-Pacific, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, and Eastern EuropeHigh potential country analysisFuture outlook6. Case Studies7. Competitive LandscapeLeading brands by regionLeading brands by market8. Market Share of Private Label9. Key Distribution ChannelsShare of key distribution channels - global and regional level10. Key Packaging FormatsContinuedACCESS REPORT @Get in touch:LinkedIn:Twitter:Facebook:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Motorized Quadricycles Market to Witness Widespread Expansion During 2017 - 2025

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Global Motorized Quadricycles Market: IntroductionMotorized quadricycles are small and fuel-efficient vehicles used for local transportation in rural and urban areas. Motorized quadricycles have emerged as an alternative to small city cars and motorcycles. With a speed range of 45 - 100 kmph and weight of up to 400-500 kg, motorized quadricycles have become a popular means of internal transportation. Quadricycles are largely used in European countries. They are exempt from stringent regulations and safety tests that are applicable for passenger cars; also, they are road-legal and may not require a full license to be driven. As per the directive 2002/24/EC & CE, quadricycles have been categorized into: light quadricycles (L6e) and heavy quadricycles (L7e). Light quadricycles are limited to a speed of 45 kmph, while heavy quadricycles are not speed limited and may have a speed of up to 100 kmph. Motorized quadricycles must meet environment regulations w.r.t emissions, however this isnt a key concern for manufacturers as a major share of motorized quadricycles are electric; gas powered quadricycles hold a low market share. Despite some existing restraining factors, the motorized quadricycle market is expected to witness noteworthy year-on-year growth over the forecast period. It has been witnessed that elderly population accounts for a majority of the demand for motorized quadricycles owing to low cost, light weight and ease of handling of the vehicle. This trend is expected to exist throughout the forecast period.A sample of this report is available upon request @Global Motorized Quadricycle Market: DynamicsLow cost, ease of handling and lack of stringent regulations are some of the prominent factors driving the sale of motorized quadricycles. Quadricycles are many folds cheaper than city passenger cars and thus appeal to huge masses, particularly the elderly population who do not seek high power and high speed vehicles. Motorized quadricycles are easy to handle; these usually have a CVT transmission and require comparatively low maintenance as compared to other passenger cars. Majority of motorized quadricycles are electric powered and thus, are environment friendly. Furthermore, the motorized quadricycle market lacks stringent regulations. Regulations for driving quadricycles vary from country to country. In some countries, no license is required to drive a quadricycle, while in some countries a valid driving license and a minimum age of 18 years are prerequisites.The recent one-off tests conducted by Euro NCAP brought the quadricycle market to limelight. The frontal and side crash test conducted by the organization highlighted that quadricycles significantly lacked passenger safety even at a low speed of 50 kmph. The frontal and side impact tests highlighted the lack of minimum safety equipment in quadricycles. This has created pressure on manufacturers to transform their vehicles and ensure a high level of safety during crash, while maintaining cost of the vehicle; as surge in prices would not be acceptable to customers. At the same time, this incident may also restrain customers from buying quadricycles due to the lack of safety.Global Motorized Quadricycle Market: SegmentationBy product type, the motorized quadricycle market can be segmented into:Light QuadricyclesHeavy QuadricyclesBy mode of operation, the motorized quadricycle market can be segmented into:Electric QuadricyclesFuel Operated QuadricyclesBy price range, the motorized quadricycle market can be categorized into:EconomicMid-rangePremiumGlobal Motorized Quadricycle Market: Region-wise OutlookPresently, Europe leads the demand for motorized quadricycles in the global market, and the region is expected to remain predominant in the motorized quadricycle market over the forecast period. Flexible regulations in the region are expected to be the major driver for market growth and thus, increased adoption of quadricycles is expected over the forecast period. After Europe, North America and Latin America are anticipated to be major upcoming markets for motorized quadricycles. However, slow adoption rate is expected in some countries of these regions. The Asia Pacific motorized quadricycle market possesses significant growth opportunity owing to robust economic growth and increasing vehicle ownership per capita. However, some of the countries in the region create moderate demand for quadricycles, as quadricycles here are only limited to internal transport application and are not authorized to be driven on roads. Safety concerns for passengers and poor road infrastructure in some countries of the Asia Pacific region are expected to hamper demand for motorized quadricycles in the region.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @Global Motorized Quadricycle Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants in the global motorized quadricycles market are:Aixam-MegaGrecavGroupe RenaultBajaj Auto. Ltd.Ligier AutomobilesClub Car, LLC.TECNO MECCANICA IMOLA SPA (Gruppo Tazzari)The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to market segments such as geographies, application, and industry.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsAbhishek BudholiyaPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Global Adult Toys Market 2017  2022: Doc Johnson, Durex, FUN FACTORY, Lelo, California Exotic

Adult Toys Market

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Global Adult Toys Market Research Report 2017 is latest research study released by HTF MI evaluating the market, highlighting opportunities, risk analysis, and leveraged with strategic and tactical decision-making support. This study recognizes that in this quick-evolving, competitive environment, up-to-date industry information is essential to monitor performance & make critical decisions for growth and profitability. It provides information on trends and developments, focuses on markets and materials, capacities, technologies, and on the changing structure of the Global Adult Toys Market.The Global Adult Toys Market consists of different international, regional, and local vendors. The market competition is foreseen to grow higher with the rise in technological innovation and M&A activities in the future. Moreover, many local and regional vendors are offering specific application products for varied end-users. The new vendor entrants in the market are finding it hard to compete with the international vendors based on quality, reliability, and innovations in technology.Get Access to sample pages @Global Adult Toys market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includes Doc Johnson, Durex, FUN FACTORY, Lelo, California Exotic, Shenzhen Jizhimei, Church & Dwight, Nalone, Liaoyang Baile, Lover Health, Nanma, LETEN, SVAKOM, Tenga & BMS FactoryGlobal Adult Toys (Thousands Units) and Revenue (Million USD) Market Split by Product Type such as Vibrators, Rubber Penis & OtherMarket Segment by Type 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022Vibrators xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%Rubber Penis xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%Other xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%The research study is segmented by Application such as Women Use & Men Use with historical and projected market share and compounded annual growth rate.Global Adult Toys (Thousands Units) by Application (2016-2022)Market Segment by Application 2012 2016 2022 Market Share (%)2022 CAGR (%)(2016-2022)Women Use xx xx xx xx% xx%Men Use xx xx xx xx% xx%Total xx xx xx 100% xx%Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), and market share and growth rate of Adult Toys in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringMarket Segment by Regions 2012 2016 2022 Share (%) CAGR (2016-2022)North America xx xx xx xx% xx%Europe xx xx xx xx% xx%China xx xx xx xx% xx%Japan xx xx xx xx% xx%Southeast Asia xx xx xx xx% xx%India xx xx xx xx% xx%Total xx xx xx xx% xx%This independent 111 page research with title Global Adult Toys Market Research Report 2017 guarantees you will remain better informed than your competition. The study covers geographic analysis that includes regions/countries like North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia & India and important players/vendors such as Doc Johnson, Durex, FUN FACTORY, Lelo, California Exotic, Shenzhen Jizhimei, Church & Dwight, Nalone, Liaoyang Baile, Lover Health, Nanma, LETEN, SVAKOM, Tenga & BMS Factory. With n-number of tables and figures examining the Adult Toys , the research gives you a visual, one-stop breakdown of the leading products, submarkets and market leaders market revenue forecasts as well as analysis to 2022Further it focuses on Global major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information. Whats more, the Adult Toys industry development trends and marketing channels are analyzed.Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @The study is organized with the help of primary and secondary data collection including valuable information from key vendors and participants in the industry. It includes historical data from 2012 to 2016 and projected forecasts till 2022 which makes the research study a valuable resource for industry executives, marketing, sales and product managers, consultants, analysts, and other people looking for key industry related data in readily accessible documents with easy to analyze graphs and tables. The report answers future development trend of Adult Toys on the basis of stating current situation of the industry in 2017 to assist manufacturers and investment organization to better analyze the development course of Adult Toys Market.The research insights solutions to the following key questions:What will be the market size and the growth rate in 2022?What are the key factors driving the Global Adult Toys market?Who are the key market players and what are their strategies in the Global Adult Toys market?What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the Global Adult Toys market?What trends, challenges and barriers are influencing its growth?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the vendors in the Global Adult Toys market?What are the key outcomes of the five forces analysis of the Adult Toys market?Buy this research report @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the Global Adult Toys market.Chapter 1, to describe Adult Toys Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Adult Toys , with sales, revenue, and price of Adult Toys , in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the Global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Adult Toys , for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia & India;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application [Women Use & Men Use], from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Adult Toys market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Adult Toys sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.Get customization & check discount for report @Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact Us:HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road, Edison, NJ USA - 08837sales@htfmarketreport.comPh: +1 (206) 317 1218
Latin American Dairy & Soy Food 2017 Market Analysis by Manufacturers, Trends, Segmentation and Opportunities Forecast

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Summary"Opportunities in the Latin American Dairy & Soy Food Sector", report brings together multiple data sources to provide a comprehensive overview of the Latin America Dairy & Soy Food sector. It includes market overview, high growth country analysis, health & wellness analysis, top brands, key distribution channels, packaging formats and case studies.The Latin American Dairy & Soy Food sector is one of the smallest in the world in volume and value terms. Milk is the largest market in the Latin American Dairy & Soy Food sector, followed by Drinkable Yogurt and Yogurt. Amongst the high potential countries in Latin America, Brazil is the largest market in terms of value and volume sales, while Colombia is forecast to grow at the fastest CAGR in value terms during the period 2016-2021. Rising disposable incomes and the demand for healthy food options in the region is driving the growth of Dairy & Soy Food sector in Latin America. Rising production costs and rising prices of cattle feed are the major challenges faced by manufactures in the region. Ninho, Paulista, Elege, Batavo, and Itambe are the leading brands in the Latin American Dairy & Soy Food sector. Hypermarkets & Supermarkets is the largest distribution channel in the Latin American Dairy & Soy Food sector.GET SAMPLE REPORT @ScopeThis report brings together multiple data sources to provide a comprehensive overview of the Latin American Dairy & Soy Food sector . It includes analysis on the following -- Market overview: Includes sector size, market size and growth analysis by markets.- Change in consumption: Provides a shift in the consumption of Dairy & Soy Food by markets across different countries in the Latin American region.- High potential countries: Provides Risk-Reward analysis of 6 countries across the Latin American region based on market assessment, economic development, socio-demographic, governance indicators, and technological infrastructure. Out of 6, a total of 4 high potential countries are shortlisted.- Health & Wellness analysis: Provides insights on the Health & Wellness products in terms of value and percentage share in the overall Dairy & Soy Food sector during 2011-2021. The analysis includes key Health & Wellness attributes and consumer benefits driving the sales of Dairy & Soy Food in 2016. It also covers the market share of leading companies offering Dairy & Soy Food with health and wellness attributes in the same year.- Brand Analysis: Provides an overview of leading brands in Latin America region, besides analyzing the growth of Private Label in the region.- Key distribution channels: Provides analysis on the leading distribution channels in the Latin American Dairy & Soy Food sector in 2016. It covers seven distribution channels - Hypermarkets & Supermarkets, Convenience Stores, Food & Drinks Specialists, eRetailers, Dollar Stores and Others that include - Cash & Carries and Warehouse Clubs and Other Retailers.- Preferred packaging formats: The report provides percentage share (in 2016) and growth analysis (during 2011-2021) for various packaging materials, container, closure, and outer types based on the volume sales (by pack units) of Dairy & Soy Food.Reasons to buy- Manufacturing and retailers seek latest information on how the market is evolving to formulate their sales and marketing strategies. There is also demand for authentic market data with a high level of detail. This report has been created to provide its readers with up-to-date information and analysis to uncover emerging opportunities of growth within the sector in the region.- The report provides a detailed analysis of the countries in the region, covering the key challenges, competitive landscape and demographic analysis , that can help companies gain insight into the country specific nuances- The analysts have also placed a significant emphasis on the key trends that drive consumer choice and the future opportunities that can be explored in the region, than can help companies in revenue expansion- To gain competitive intelligence about leading brands in the sector in the region with information about their market share and growth ratesTable of Content: Key Points1. Executive summary2. Market size and growth analysis (Regional analysis )Market Size Analysis - Latin America compared to other regionsGrowth analysis by regionGrowth Analysis by CountryGrowth Analysis by market3. Growth potential by countries in Latin AmericaRisk and reward analysis - Opportunity scores4. Market size and growth analysisOverview - Value and volume growth analysis by countryGrowth Contribution Analysis by CountryShare of Dairy compared to other Food sectorsChange in consumption levels by country and Dairy sector sPer capita consumption and expenditure analysis5. Country ProfilesBrazilChileColombiaPeru6. Success Stories7. Company and Brand AnalysisBrand Share Analysis in the Dairy sectorLeading brands in Latin America Dairy sectorPrivate Label penetration in the Dairy sector8. Health & Wellness AnalysisHealth & Wellness Analysis - OverviewHealth & Wellness market growth analysis by countryHealth & Wellness Analysis - Key product attributes and consumer benefitsLeading Health & Wellness companies by market share9. Key Distribution ChannelsContinuedACCESS REPORT @Get in touch:LinkedIn:Twitter:Facebook:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Ductless Heating and Cooling Systems Market - Trends, Share and Growth & Forecast upto 2025

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Ductless Heating and Cooling Systems Market: SnapshotOwing to factors such as growing demand for energy efficient devices, infrastructure development across various economies, rising income of people in the emerging countries, and lower operating cost, the demand in the global ductless heating and cooling systems is expected to expand at a significant CAGR during the forecast period of 2017 to 2025. On the other hand, lower capacity than ducted air conditioners and high initial cost is expected to challenge the market from attaining its true potential in the near future. However, trends such as growing use of ecofriendly refrigerant and growing concern for indoor air quality will keep the market in good condition until 2025.Application-wise, the global ductless heating and cooling systems market is gaining maximum demand from the residential building, considerably more than the commercial and industrial building sectors. Residential building includes all sorts of structures such as apartments, houses, cottages, and condominiums. In these structures, ductless heating and cooling systems are used to maintain the temperature, and since they are easy to install and consume less energy, the demand is escalating. Residential buildings frequently use mini split ductless heating and cooling systems as they offer lower capacity and lower operating cost.Request Sample Copy of the Report @This report on the global ductless heating and cooling systems market has been compiled to serve as a credible business tool for the audiences such as the manufacturers of these systems, end-use market participants of different segments, government and research organizations, and environment support agencies. The includes assessment of all the factors that may impact the demand in the near future as well as profiles of some of the leading companies in order to understand the competitive landscape.Global Ductless Heating and Cooling Systems Market: OverviewThe global market for ductless heating and cooling systems is estimated to register a healthy growth rate in the next few years. The rising demand from the construction industry, especially from developing economies is likely to accelerate the growth of the overall market in the next few years. Furthermore, the development of new product and technological developments are anticipated to supplement the markets growth in the next few years. The research study has provided a detailed analysis of the market, focusing on the key growth factors that are estimated to encourage the growth of the market. Moreover, the key segmentation and the competitive scenario of the market have also been included in the study.Request TOC of the Report @Global Ductless Heating and Cooling Systems Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe rising demand for energy efficient devices and the rapid pace of infrastructure development across diverse nations worldwide are some of the major factors anticipated to fuel the growth of the global ductless heating and cooling systems market in the next few years. In addition, the increasing income of consumers and their rising inclination towards enhancing their lifestyles are expected to accelerate the growth of the overall market in the next few years.On the contrary, the requirement of high initial cost and lower capacity of ductless heating and cooling systems in comparison with ducted air conditioners are projected to curtail the growth of the global market in the coming years. Moreover, several concerns related to the government regulations for refrigerant are likely to restrict the growth of the overall market. Nevertheless, the rising awareness among consumers regarding the concern for indoor air quality and the rising use of ecofriendly refrigerant are expected to contribute towards the development of the market.Get Discount @Global Ductless Heating and Cooling Systems Market: Region-wise OutlookFrom a geographical perspective, in 2015, Asia Pacific led the global ductless heating and cooling systems market and is anticipated to remain in the topmost position throughout the forecast period. The robust growth of the Asia Pacific market can be attributed to the tremendously rising population and the economic growth in several developing economies. In addition, a substantial contribution from India, China, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, and Indonesia is expected to contribute extensively towards the development of the Asia Pacific market in the coming years.Furthermore, the increasing use of ductless heating and cooling systems in commercial and residential buildings is anticipated to accelerate the growth of the market in the near future. The rising demand for ductless heating and cooling systems from China and the untapped opportunities in India are projected to fuel the growth of the overall market in the next few years. The research report has provided the market share, size, and growth rate of the regional segments in order to offer a clear picture of the global market.Key Players Mentioned in the Research Report are:At present, the global ductless heating and cooling systems market is highly competitive and fragmented in nature. The entry of new players in the global market is expected to result in a stiff competition among key players throughout the forecast players. Some of the prominent players operating in the ductless heating and cooling systems market across the globe are Daikin Industries Ltd., LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Whirlpool Corporation, Trane, Electrolux, Johnson Controls, United Technologies Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, and Hitachi, Ltd.The research study offers an in-depth competitive landscape of the global ductless heating and cooling systems market. The company profiles of the leading players in the market have been provided, along with their financial overview and business strategies. In addition, the SWOT analysis, recent developments, and mergers and acquisitions if any have been listed in the scope of the research study.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Global Wingsuits Market Forecast to 2017-22: Intrudair Skydive & Base Gear, Phoenix Fly, TonySuit

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Global Wingsuits Market Research Report 2017 is latest research study released by HTF MI evaluating the market, highlighting opportunities, risk analysis, and leveraged with strategic and tactical decision-making support. This study recognizes that in this quick-evolving, competitive environment, up-to-date industry information is essential to monitor performance & make critical decisions for growth and profitability. It provides information on trends and developments, focuses on markets and materials, capacities, technologies, and on the changing structure of the Global Wingsuits Market.The Global Wingsuits Market consists of different international, regional, and local vendors. The market competition is foreseen to grow higher with the rise in technological innovation and M&A activities in the future. Moreover, many local and regional vendors are offering specific application products for varied end-users. The new vendor entrants in the market are finding it hard to compete with the international vendors based on quality, reliability, and innovations in technology.Get Access to sample pages @Global Wingsuits market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includes Intrudair Skydive & Base Gear, Phoenix Fly, TonySuit, Squirrel Equipment & ...Global Wingsuits (Thousands Units) and Revenue (Million USD) Market Split by Product Type such as I-Bird, T-Bird, Tri-Bird, R-Bird & OtherMarket Segment by Type 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022I-Bird xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%T-Bird xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%Tri-Bird xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%R-Bird xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%Other xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%The research study is segmented by Application such as Free Flight, Skydive & Other with historical and projected market share and compounded annual growth rate.Global Wingsuits (Thousands Units) by Application (2016-2022)Market Segment by Application 2012 2016 2022 Market Share (%)2022 CAGR (%)(2016-2022)Free Flight xx xx xx xx% xx%Skydive xx xx xx xx% xx%Other xx xx xx xx% xx%Total xx xx xx 100% xx%Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), and market share and growth rate of Wingsuits in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringMarket Segment by Regions 2012 2016 2022 Share (%) CAGR (2016-2022)North America xx xx xx xx% xx%Europe xx xx xx xx% xx%China xx xx xx xx% xx%Japan xx xx xx xx% xx%Southeast Asia xx xx xx xx% xx%India xx xx xx xx% xx%Total xx xx xx xx% xx%This independent 109 page research with title Global Wingsuits Market Research Report 2017 guarantees you will remain better informed than your competition. The study covers geographic analysis that includes regions/countries like North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia & India and important players/vendors such as Intrudair Skydive & Base Gear, Phoenix Fly, TonySuit, Squirrel Equipment & .... With n-number of tables and figures examining the Wingsuits , the research gives you a visual, one-stop breakdown of the leading products, submarkets and market leaders market revenue forecasts as well as analysis to 2022Further it focuses on Global major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information. Whats more, the Wingsuits industry development trends and marketing channels are analyzed.Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @The study is organized with the help of primary and secondary data collection including valuable information from key vendors and participants in the industry. It includes historical data from 2012 to 2016 and projected forecasts till 2022 which makes the research study a valuable resource for industry executives, marketing, sales and product managers, consultants, analysts, and other people looking for key industry related data in readily accessible documents with easy to analyze graphs and tables. The report answers future development trend of Wingsuits on the basis of stating current situation of the industry in 2017 to assist manufacturers and investment organization to better analyze the development course of Wingsuits Market.The research insights solutions to the following key questions:What will be the market size and the growth rate in 2022?What are the key factors driving the Global Wingsuits market?Who are the key market players and what are their strategies in the Global Wingsuits market?What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the Global Wingsuits market?What trends, challenges and barriers are influencing its growth?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the vendors in the Global Wingsuits market?What are the key outcomes of the five forces analysis of the Wingsuits market?Buy this research report @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the Global Wingsuits market.Chapter 1, to describe Wingsuits Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Wingsuits , with sales, revenue, and price of Wingsuits , in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the Global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Wingsuits , for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia & India;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application [Free Flight, Skydive & Other], from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Wingsuits market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Wingsuits sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.Get customization & check discount for report @Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact us :HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA  08837sales@htfmarketreport.com+1 (206) 317 1218
Electronic Trial Master File Market Asia Pacific Excluding Japan to Show High Potential for Growth

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Future Market Insights has analysed numerous aspects of the electronic trial master file (eTMF) market and has included actionable insights in a systematic manner in its new research publication titled Electronic Trial Master File (eTMF) Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012-2016) and Opportunity Assessment (2017-2027).The extensive research study on eTMF market portrays various facets of the global market such as trends, opportunities, value chain analysis, competitive landscape, drivers, restraints, regional analysis along with key recommendations that can be considered by the reader to achieve his/her strategic objectives in the long run.The research study also covers future market projections with respect to value for a period of ten years starting from 2017 till 2027. The comprehensive analysis on each segment and sub segment of the global market portrays a real time picture of the global market scenario.Obtain Report Details:Global Electronic Trial Master File (eTMF) Market: Dynamics Impacting GrowthThere are numerous aspects that influence the growth of the global market for electronic trial master fie (eTMF). Factors such as business benefits for various organizations, government regulations making electronic trial master file (eTMF) mandatory, creation of common platforms for trial management that can lead to increased sales of the eTMF platform, integration of eTMF application with CTMS system, increased adoption of eTMF in clinical trials coupled with increased research related to life sciences, improvement in electronic trial master file (eTMF) applications and increased research and development budget and rising awareness are pushing the growth of the global electronic trial master file (eTMF) market. However, the market is not void of limitations. Challenges faced by the market include duplication and maintaining eTMF in its entirety that are restraining the growth of the global market.Global Electronic Trial Master File (eTMF) Market: Segmental HighlightsIn this research study, global electronic trial master file (eTMF) market is segmented by component, by deployment, by end user, by functionality and by region.By component, software segment is expected to lead the market in terms of value and is estimated to reach US$ 130.7 Mn by the end of the assessment year. The services segment in this category is projected to grow at the highest pace during 2017-2027By deployment, the cloud segment is highly lucrative and is adopted on a large scale. It is projected to grow at the fastest CAGR of 16.4% throughout the forecast period and is estimated to reach a noteworthy valuation by the end of the assessment yearBy end user, the Contract Research Organization (CRO) segment is anticipated to grow at a higher pace in the coming years to register a CAGR of 15.6% during the period of assessmentBy functionality, clinical operations segment is poised to dominate the market in terms of value and is estimated to reach a higher valuation of about US$ 970 Mn by the end of the assessment period. The auditing segment is projected to grow at a faster pace than other segments in the coming yearsMake Enquiry @By region, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) is expected to show higher growth pace in the eTMF market whereas North America is likely to lead the market with a value a bit less than US$ 130 Mn by 2027 endGlobal Electronic Trial Master File (eTMF) Market: Forecast AnalysisAccording to the analysis carried out in the research report, the global electronic trial master file (eTMF) market is anticipated to grow at a robust rate to register a CAGR of 14.0% throughout the period of assessment, 2017-2027. In 2017 this market was valued at about US$ 51 Mn and is estimated to reach a valuation of around US$ 190 Mn by the end of 2027.Global Electronic Trial Master File (eTMF) Market: Competitive ScenarioThe research study includes a dedicated chapter on competitive scenario which deals with various key players involved in the eTMF market. Analysis on aspects such as SWOT analysis, geographical reach, strategies, product portfolio, expansion plans, mergers and acquisitions, key developments, distribution channel analysis etc., of the key players have been covered in this study. Companies like Veeva Systems, Medidata Solutions, Inc.,MasterControl, Inc.,Data Reduction Systems Corporation,Transperfect Global Inc., Aurea, Inc.,Phlexglobal Ltd., Arivis AG,Wingspan Technology Inc., and Montrium Inc.,are profiled in this section.About FMIFuture Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centres in the U.S. and India.FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customised and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. We continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of end industries to ensure our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.FMIs team of over 200 research analysts provides market intelligence at global, regional, and country level. Our analysts are committed to provide independent insights, relying on our cognitive defusion training module, which conditions them to look at data objectively and unbiasedly.Contact FMI616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531Email:sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Set-Top Box (STB) Market by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022

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ReportsWeb.com has announced the addition of the Global Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Market Research Report 2017-2021 The report focuses on Global major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specification.2017 Market Research Report on Set-Top Box (STB) Industry was a professional and depth research report on Set-Top Box (STB) Industry that you would know the world's major regional market conditions of Set-Top Box (STB) Industry, the main region including North American, Europe and Asia etc., and the main country including United States, Germany, Japan and China etc..The report firstly introduced Color-Coated Steel Insulation Sandwich Board basic information including Color-Coated Steel Insulation Sandwich Board definition classification application and industry chain overview; Set-Top Box (STB) Industry policy and plan, Color-Coated Steel Insulation Sandwich Board product specification, manufacturing process, cost structure etc. Then we deeply analyzed the world's main region market conditions that including the product price, profit, capacity, production, capacity utilization, supply, demand and industry growth rate etc.Get Sample of this Report @In the end, the report introduced Color-Coated Steel Insulation Sandwich Board new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis and Set-Top Box (STB) Industry.In a word, it was a depth research report on Set-Top Box (STB) Industry. And thanks to the support and assistance from Set-Top Box (STB) Industry chain related technical experts and marketing experts during Research Team survey and interviews.The report including six parts, the first part mainly introduced the product basic information; the second parts mainly analyzed the Asia Set-Top Box (STB) Industry; the third part mainly analyzed the North American Set-Top Box (STB) Industry; the fourth part mainly analyzed the Europe Set-Top Box (STB) Industry; the fifth part mainly analyzed the market entry and investment feasibility; the sixth part was the report conclusion chapter.Get complete access of this reportMarket SegmentsMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (Global, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Table of Content1 Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Definition2 Asia Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Product History of Development3 Asia Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Key Manufacturers Analysis3.1 Company A3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Product Picture and Specification3.1.3 Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value3.1.4 Contact Information3.2 Company B3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Product Picture and Specification3.2.3 Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value3.2.4 Contact Information3.3 Company C3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Product Picture and Specification3.3.3 Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value3.3.4 Contact Information4 Asia Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Productions Supply Sales Demand Market Status and Forecast AnalysisGet Discount @5 Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Development Trend6 North American Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Product History of Development7 North American Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Key Manufacturers Analysis8 American Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Productions Supply Sales Demand Market Status and Forecast Analysis9 Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Development Trend10 Europe Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Product History of Development11 Europe Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Key Manufacturers Analysis12 Europe Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Productions Supply Sales Demand Market Status and Forecast Analysis13 Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Development Trend14 Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Marketing Channels Analysis15 Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Development Environmental Analysis16 Set-Top Box (STB) Industry SWOT Analysis and New Project Investment Feasibility Analysis17 Global Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Productions Supply Sales Demand Market Status and Forecast Analysis18 Set-Top Box (STB) Industry Development TrendContact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@reportsweb.comReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.Pune:505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Wind Power in United Kingdom Market Outlook to 2030 Update 2017-Capacity Generation Levelized Cost of Energy Investment Trends Regulations and Company Profiles

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ReportsWeb.com has announced the addition of the Global WIND POWER Market Research Report 2017 The report focuses on global major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specification.Wind Power in United Kingdom, Market Outlook to 2030, Update 2017-Capacity, Generation, Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), Investment Trends, Regulations and Company Profiles"Wind Power in United Kingdom, Market Outlook to 2030, Update 2017-Capacity, Generation, Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), Investment Trends, Regulations and Company Profiles" is the latest report from GlobalData, the industry analysis specialists that offer comprehensive information and understanding of the wind power market in United Kingdom.The report provides in depth analysis on global renewable power market and global wind power market with forecasts up to 2030. The report analyzes the power market scenario in United Kingdom (includes conventional thermal, nuclear, large hydro and renewable energy sources) and provides future outlook with forecasts up to 2030. The research details renewable power market outlook in the country (includes wind, small hydro, biopower and solar PV) and provides forecasts up to 2030. The report highlights installed capacity and power generation trends from 2006 to 2030 in United Kingdom wind power market. A detailed coverage of renewable energy policy framework governing the market with specific policies pertaining to wind power is provided in the report. The research also provides company snapshots of some of the major market participants.Request a Sample copy atScope:-The report analyses global renewable power market, global wind power (Onshore and Offshore) market, United Kingdom power market, United Kingdom renewable power market and United Kingdom wind power market. The scope of the research includes--A brief introduction on global carbon emissions and global primary energy consumption.-An overview on global renewable power market, highlighting installed capacity trends, generation trends and installed capacity split by various renewable power sources. The information is covered for the historical period 2006-2016 (unless specified) and forecast period 2016-2030.-Renewable power sources include wind (both onshore and offshore), solar photovoltaic (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), small hydropower (SHP), biomass, biogas and geothermal.-Detailed overview of the global wind power market with installed capacity and generation trends, installed capacity split by major hydropower countries in 2016 and key owners information of various regions.-Power market scenario in United Kingdom and provides detailed market overview, installed capacity and power generation trends by various fuel types (includes thermal conventional, nuclear, large hydro and renewable energy sources) with forecasts up to 2030.-An overview on United Kingdom renewable power market, highlighting installed capacity trends (2006-2030), generation trends(2006-2030) and installed capacity split by various renewable power sources in 2016.-Detailed overview of United Kingdom wind power market with installed capacity and generation trends and major active and upcoming wind projects.-Deal analysis of United Kingdom wind power market. Deals are analyzed on the basis of mergers, acquisitions, partnership, asset finance, debt offering, equity offering, private equity (PE) and venture capitalists (VC).-Key policies and regulatory framework supporting the development of renewable power sources in general and wind power in particular.-Company snapshots of some of the major market participants in the country.Complete report is available atReasons to buy :--The report will enhance your decision making capability in a more rapid and time sensitive manner.-Identify key growth and investment opportunities in United Kingdom wind power market.-Facilitate decision-making based on strong historic and forecast data for wind power market.-Position yourself to gain the maximum advantage of the industry's growth potential.-Develop strategies based on the latest regulatory events.-Identify key partners and business development avenues.-Understand and respond to your competitors' business structure, strategy and prospects.Table of Contents:1. Table of Contents 22 Executive Summary 103 Introduction 133.1 Carbon Emissions, Global, 2001-2016 133.2 Primary Energy Consumption, Global, 2001-2025 153.3 Wind Power, Global, Technology Definition and Classification 173.4 Wind Power Market, Technology Overview 183.5 Wind Power Market, Turbine Components 184 4 Renewable Power Market, Global, 2006-2030 215 Wind Power Market, Global, 2006-2030 386 Power Market, United Kingdom, 2006-2030 567 Renewable Power Market, United Kingdom, 2006-2030 718 Wind Power Market, United Kingdom, 2006-2030 869. Renewable Energy Policy Framework, United Kingdom 10210. Wind Power Market, United Kingdom, Company Profiles 11511. Appendix 158List of Figures:-Figure 1-Wind Power Market, Global, Cumulative Installed Capacity Share by Country (%), 2016 10Figure 2-Power Market, The UK, Cumulative Installed Capacity, Share by Source Type, 2016 11Figure 3-Carbon-di-oxide Emissions from Energy Consumption, Global (MT), 2001-2016 13Figure 4-Primary Energy Consumption, Global (Mtoe), 2001-2025 15Figure 5-Renewable Power Market, Global, Cumulative Installed Capacity by Source Type (MW), 2006-2030 21Figure 6-Renewable Power Market, Global, Cumulative Installed Capacity Split by Source Type (%), 2016 and 2030 23Figure 7-Renewable Power Market, Global, Net Capacity Additions by Source Type (MW), 2016-2030 25Figure 8-Renewable Power Market, Global, Comparison by Cumulative Installed Capacity of Technology, 2016-2030 27Get Discount atContact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@reportsweb.comReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.Pune:505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Combat Management System Market to Flourish with an Impressive CAGR During 2017 - 2025

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IntroductionThe main objectives of a combat management system are planning for combat mission, coordination of units while performing combat missions, placing intelligence statistics on the map and investigation of errors by retrieving the history module. The combat management system delivers an accessible, services-based framework. Moreover, this system also directs accurate and fast-reacting fusion, analysis and transmission of great amounts of sensor data to guarantee the efficient deployment of ships and other resources within the framework of combined operations, particularly in the complex threat scenario of littoral warfare. Adapters included in these combat management systems boundary components are vital to the tractability of the architecture to maintain a wide range of communication, sensors and weapon interfaces.A rise in the need for safety in defence and naval services and improving control operation and efficiency to navigate vehicles necessitate combat management systems. Technological advancement in combat management systems ameliorates the efficiency and essence of defence combating ability. C9LV in naval combat management systems has lately been engineered to encounter the demands of minor platforms and is used to provide prevailing capability with a small footprint. These systems provide full awareness with weaponry governance. The combat management system market is projected to improve in the upcoming years with improving naval defence systems in all regions.A sample of this report is available upon request @Combat Management System Market: DynamicsDrivers:In the recent market scenario, combat management systems have emerged as the best technology for naval combat operations. The level of innovation and encroachment deployed in combat management systems has steadily increased over the years, owing to the demand for improvement by countries in their own armed forces. Increasing frequency of anti-ship missile threat and the possibility of navy combat maneuvers in the near-shore sea side provinces necessitate significant improvement in the self-defence capabilities of ships. Attributing to such conditions, navy ships need automated combat management systems. One of the key factors expected to drive the combat management system market is situational awareness in the naval defence system.Restraints:The advent of wireless, sonar and radar combat management systems has escalated situational awareness, but also the number of threats to mariners. Add in airborne and stand-off weapons, the coercions begin to appear too often to manage. These factors hinder the combat management system market growth.Trends:SIGMA-E, the combat management system, is intended to ensure combat governance of naval defence ships and their task force on the basis of computer based procedures of decision creating about combat employment of forces and their mobilization. BMS-Lince is the most progressive command and control system currently in combat management system operations.Combat Management System Market: SegmentationThe combat management system market can be segmented on the basis of components as:SoftwareHardwareThe combat management system market can be segmented on the basis of sub-systems as:Self-defence management systemTrack management systemSituational awareness systemUnmanned vehicle control systemDisplay systemIdentification systemWeapon management systemThe combat management system market can be segmented on the basis of platforms as:DestroyersFrigatesSubmarinesAmphibious shipsCorvettesFast attack craft (FAC)Aircraft carriersTo view TOC of this report is available upon request @Combat Management System Market: Regional OutlookThe growing automotive market in countries, such as India and China, makes Asia Pacific one of the faster growing markets for combat management systems. Chinese and Indian markets are prominently credited to escalate ship building activities and conveyances of combat vessels in the region. North America, followed by Europe, is expected to show stagnant growth during the forecast period. Latin America and Middle East and Africa are anticipated to witness healthy growth in the combat management system market over the forecast period. The Middle East growing ship building industry will be a reason for the hike in the combat management system market in the region.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsAbhishek BudholiyaPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
The Value of Industrial Racking System Market Estimated to Soar Higher During 2017 - 2025

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Introduction:Warehousing of industrial output has generated the need for material handling equipment, and industrial racking systems offer a solution for this requirement. From aerospace to construction, all industries require well maintained storage systems for proper preservation of their product line, which is the main factor spurring growth of the industrial racking system market. The industrial racking system offers optimum techniques for storage in different forms, such as pallet racks, light duty and heavy duty racks, shelving racks and others. Conventional storage racks have insecure working conditions, due to which the racking system evolved with new technologies, including satellite pallet racking, auto-shuttle racking and gravity flow pallet racking.Mobilized pallet racks have helped organizations eliminate or reduce building construction costs, building expansions, auxiliary warehouses and lessened ongoing operational costs by capitalizing the use of their storage floor space. The industrial racking system makes warehouse design and product flow optimization flexible with low initial investment. Furthermore, there is rising demand from industries to provide storage facilities for their goods and bonded warehousing is an added new field, which is now increasingly being made available to these organizations. Specialized fumigation service is another offshoot of the warehousing business, which boosts the demand for industrial racking systems.Global Industrial Racking System Market: DynamicsDrivers:Growth of industrial racking systems can be attributed to their ability to maximize storage space and safety. Pallet racking provides accessibility for each pallet and this is perfect for gaining supply chain efficiency. In industrial racking systems, optimal storage design becomes a wooing factor for market growth. Qualities, such as storage density, low maintenance and others, achieve greater market hype for the industrial racking system market.A sample of this report is available upon request @Restraints:Industrial racking systems are not designed to withstand seismic activities, such as earthquake, tsunami, and flood. Moreover, goods stored in an industrial raking system should be restrained to prevent them from creeping and falling from the racking system. The aforementioned natural disasters make racking systems unsuitable for storage purpose. These are factors hindering growth of the industrial racking system market.Global Industrial Racking System Market: SegmentationThe industrial racking system market can be segmented on the basis of application, design and carrying capacity.On the basis of design, the industrial racking system market can be segmented as:Open frame rackRack enclosuresWall-mount racksPallet racksCantilever racking system2 tier storage system3 tier storage systemMulti ties storage systemShelving racksPigeon hole rackFifo racksSlotted panel racksSection panel racksOn the basis of carrying capacity, the industrial racking system market can be segmented as:Heavy duty racksMedium duty racksLight duty racksOn the basis of application, the industrial racking system market can be segmented as:AgricultureConstructionChemicalPharmaceuticalTextileTradeFoodGlobal Industrial Racking System Market: Regional OutlookThe Europe market is expected to dominate the global industrial racking system market, owing to the high adoption of automation in the automotive industry in countries, such as Germany, France and others. The Asia pacific region is anticipated to grow due to a rise in the number of manufacturing facilities in some countries, such as India and China. India is predominantly an agricultural economy and agriculture commodities need warehousing for storage purpose, in turn necessitating industrial racking systems. North America, followed by Asia Pacific, is expected to exhibit significant growth due to the elevated demand for safety handling equipment and growing construction industry in the U.S. market. Consequently, the Latin America market is expected to show steady growth in the industrial racking system market over the forecast period. Demand from the Middle East and Africa region for material handling equipment is slated to be sluggish, due to steady industrialization in e-commerce, food and packaging, pharmaceutical and chemical industries.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @Global Industrial Racking System Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants in the industrial racking system market are:KardexDaifuku Co., LtdVelca Racking Systems Pvt. Ltd.Toyota forkliftsSSI SchaeferUniversal Storage Systems (SA) (Pty) LtdSteel kingBulldog rackRacks Industries LimitedNorth American SteelArpac Storage Systems CorporationConstructor GroupHannibal IndustriesRedirackCWH Storage System SDN BHDFoothills SystemsThe research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to market segments such as geographies, application, and industry.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsAbhishek BudholiyaPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
North America Sleep Apnea Devices Market

Sleep Apnea Devices

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Bharat Book Bureau Provides the Trending Market Research Report; on North America Sleep Apnea Devices Market, the report segmented into polysomnography devices, respiratory polygraphs, pulse oximeters and actigraph systems.In this report, The North America Sleep Aapnea Devices Market is expected to reach USD7, 718.7million by 2024, from USD 4174.1million in 2016 growing at a CAGR of 8% in the forecast period of 2017 to 2024.Based on geography, the North America medical aesthetics market is segmented into 3 geographical regions, such as,U.S.,Mexico,Canada,North America sleep apnea devices market competition by top players including -Koninklijke Philips N.V. dominated the sleep apnea devices market, followed by Natus Medical Incorporated, and Nihon Kohden along with others such asCareFusion Corporation,Curative Medical Inc.,ResMed,Fisher and Paykel Healthcare Limited.,SomnoMed,BMC Medical Co., Ltd.,Compumedics Limited,NatusMedical Inc.,DeVilbiss Healthcare,Global Medical Holdings,Itamar Medical Ltd.,Weinmann Medical Technology,Cleveland Medical Devices Inc.,SOMNOmedics GmbH,Deymed Diagnostic,NovaSom,Medtronic.Request a sample copy of Sleep Apnea Device Market Report @The North America sleep apnea device market is segmented on the basis of product type, end user and geography.On the basis of type, sleep apnea device market is categorized into: diagnostic devices and therapeutic devices.On the basis of product type, the diagnostic sleep apnea device market is segmented into polysomnography devices, respiratory polygraphs, pulse oximeters and actigraph systems.On the basis of product type, the therapeutic sleep apnea devices are segmented into positive airway pressure devices (PAP), continuous positive airway pressure devices (CPAP), automatically adjusting positive airway pressure devices (APAP), masks, adaptive servo ventilation, airway clearance system, oxygen concentrators, oral appliances and accessories.On the basis of end users, the North America sleep apnea devices market is further segmented into hospitals, sleep clinics, community healthcare and home healthcare.To read the complete report, click the link:About Bharat Book Bureau:Bharat Book Bureau is the leading market research information provider for market research reports, company profiles, industry study, country reports, business reports, newsletters and online databases. Bharat Book Bureau provides over a million reports from more than 400 publishers around the globe. We cover sectors starting from Aeronautics to Zoology.Contact us at:Bharat Book BureauTel: +91 22 27810772 / 27810773Email: poonam@bharatbook.comWebsite:Follow us on : Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus
3D printing medical devices adding high business value to the healthcare industry, to witness a CAGR of 18.3% during 2017-2023

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The global 3D printing medical devices market is projected to grow from USD 762.0 million in 2016, to USD 2,469.0 million by 2023, at a CAGR of 18.3% during 2017  2023. The global 3D printing medical devices market is mainly driven by the growing demand for customization of medical solutions coupled with increasing technological innovations and expanding applications of 3D printing in various medical procedures.The report segments the 3D printing medical devices market on the basis of Components (System, Material, Software/Services), Technology (Droplet Deposition (DD), Photo polymerization, Laser Beam Melting, Electronic Beam Melting (EBM), Laminated Object Manufacturing), Application (Prosthetics and Medical Implants, Surgical Devices, Bio printing, Others), and Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Rest of the World). The report studies the global 3D printing medical devices market over the forecast period (2017-2023).3D printing of an object uses additive process, in which objects are created by laying down successive layers of material based on digital models. 3D printing in healthcare industry is used to manufacture medical devices, with complex features that match a patients unique anatomy. The device helps in reducing surgery time, decreases risk of infections and aids physician training by use of prototypes.Browse full research report with TOC on "Global 3D Printing Medical Devices Market Outlook, Trend and Opportunity Analysis, Competitive Insights, Actionable Segmentation & Forecast 2023" at:Key findings from the report In the component segment, the System segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR over the forecast period 2017-2023 Surgical Device application segment is expected to register highest CAGR during the forecast period due to growing demand for accurate and fast surgical procedures North America holds 42% market share of the global 3D printing medical devices market. However, Asia-Pacific is expected to register highest CAGR during the forecast period Human tissue engineering startup Prellis Biologics receives funding to create human organs with 3D printing and create opportunity for future prospect Some of the key companies operating in the global 3D printing medical devices market include Stratasys Ltd, Arcam AB, 3D Systems Corporations, Materialise NV, Envisiontec GmbH, Organovo Holdings, Inc., Renishaw plc, Bio3D Technologies, SLM Solutions Group AG, and Cyfuse Medical K.K, among others.3D Printing Medical Devices- Transforming the healthcare industryWith the rise in healthcare expenditure across the globe and technology becoming more accessible, 3D printing offers ample opportunities in the healthcare industry. 3D printed medical solutions in experimental stages have shown promising results, particularly in the field of bioprinting and cancer treatment. The growth in the 3D-bioprinting segment is mainly attributed to high demand for organ and tissue transplantation, and increasing investment in research and development in this area. German chemicals company BASF and French biotech firm Poietis signed an agreement to develop technology in the field of 3D-bioprinting, mainly focusing on the improvement of laser-assisted, bioprinted skin models. In the case of cancer patients, 3D printing is being used to create exact 3D models of the patients organs which allow doctors to find the exact location of cancer and fine tune the radiopharmaceutical dosage, to kill the cancer cells without causing too much damage to healthy tissue. Growing application and adoption of 3D printing medical devices holds high potential for market growth by adding business value to the healthcare sector.3D Printing Medical Devices-regional insightsNorth America held the major share of the global 3D printing medical devices market in 2016, holding over 40% share of the global market and is expected to continue its dominance in terms of revenue over the forecast period. The growth in the region is mainly attributed to the rapid adoption of 3D printing technology, along with advanced healthcare infrastructure and intensive focus on research and development.Asia-Pacific is expected to register highest CAGR during the forecast period owing to high investment in healthcare infrastructure and increasing purchasing power in the growing economies such as China and India. Europe is expected to show robust growth in the 3D printing medical devices market, registering second fastest CAGR during the forecast period.About Energias Market Research -Energias Market Research launched with the objective to provide in-depth market analysis, business research solutions, and consultation that is tailored to our clients specific needs based on our impeccable research methodology.With a wide range of expertise from various industrial sectors and more than 50 industries that include energy, chemical and materials, information communication technology, semiconductor industries, healthcare and daily consumer goods, etc. We strive to provide our clients with a one-stop solution for all research and consulting needs.Our comprehensive industry-specific knowledge enables us in creating high quality global research outputs. This wide-range capability differentiates us from our competitors.Contact:Manas NagiBusiness Development ManagerFor any queries email us:info@energiasmarketresearch.comTo purchase report: sales@energiasmarketresearch.comCall us: +1-716-239-4915Visit:
Away from Home Tissue Products Market Analysis, Segments, Growth and Value Chain 2017-2022

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Global Away from Home Tissue Products Market: SnapshotThere is a growing demand for various home tissue products for managing sanitation and hygiene across hotels and foodservices, healthcare institutions, businesses and commercial institutions, educational institutes, and public places. The growing significance of a better hygiene in hotels, restaurants, and catering sector and in workplaces has bolstered the demand for various away from home tissue products. The rising focus on adequate hygiene in the sector is boosting the adoption of HACCP paper towels. In several regions, the mounting concern of contagious diseases has led to the demand for various away from home tissue products to be used in public places and commercial facilities. The advent of away from home as well as recyclable tissue products at affordable prices is expected to boost the adoption across various end users in several regional markets. The advent of ergonomic dispenser designs and premium products made from 100% recyclable materials is a notable trend opening up exciting avenues for market players.Download exclusive Sample of this report:global away from home tissue products marketThe global away from home tissue products market stood at US$24,610.0 Mn in 2016 and is projected to reach a valuation of US$31,449.9 Mn by 2022 end. The market is estimated to rise at a CAGR of 4.2% during the forecast period of 20172022.Toweling Expected to be Most Lucrative Product SegmentThe major product types of away from home tissue products comprise napkins, toweling, toilet tissues, facial tissues, and sanitary products. Of these, the toweling segment holds the major share of 45.3% by 2022 end, amounting to US$14,252.2 Mn. The segment is anticipated to be worth US$11,626.0 Mn by 2017 end, representing a share of 45.3% of the product market. The segment is projected to clock a CAGR of 4.2% during the forecast period. The annual growth of the segment is pegged at US$525.2 Mn annually over 20172022, representing the leading absolute growth. The vastly rising demand for toweling as away-from-home tissue products among various end users, especially in the healthcare and food service industries, is attributed to the notable versatile applications of these products.Browse Market Research Report @North America Currently Leads but Asia Pacific excluding Japan to be at Forefront by 2022 endThe various regions for the market for away from home tissue products are North America, the Middle East and Africa (MEA), Latin America, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan, and Europe. Of these, currently North America is the leading market in 2017, mainly attributed to the rapidly rising demand for environmental-friendly hygiene products. However, over the years, the APEJ market is projected to rise at higher CAGR and stay ahead of the pack by the end of the assessment period.The North America market is projected to rise from a valuation of US$7,372.7 Mn in 2017 to reach US$8,305.8 Mn in 2022. On the other hand, APEJ market stood at US$ 6,204.2 and is expected to lead the market with a worth of US$8,841.4 by 2022 end. The expected dominance of the market is likely to be attributed to a burgeoning demand for away from home tissue products for managing hygiene and catering in several developing and developed countries in the region.Meanwhile, the MEA away from home tissue products market is projected to rise at an impressive CAGR of 4.7% CAGR from 2017 to 2022 and and reach US$3,021.6 Mn by the end of the assessment period.Competitive AnalysisA number of leading players operating in the away from home tissue products market are focused on developing high-quality, eco-friendly sanitation products for various end-use applications, in a move to strengthen their positions in various regions. Key companies operating in the market include Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Georgia-Pacific LLC, Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget, Cascades Inc., Procter & Gamble Co., Sofidel Group, Weifang Lancel Hygiene Products LTD, Asia Pulp and Paper, Kruger Inc., and MPI Papermills.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Trends in Controlled Release Cannabis Pills Market Detailed in New Research Report Cannabis is a psychoactive drug extracted from a genus of flowering plant of Cannabaceae family. It is also called as, marijuana. Over the last few decades use of cannabis for the medical purpose has increased and is described as medical marijuana. Increasing research in this area has suggested that it can be prescribed to treat a number of health conditions such as, chronic pain, insomnia, muscle spasm, and reduce nausea and vomiting during chemotherapy among other health conditions. Companies are increasingly investing on the research in the field of medical marijuana or cannabis. These research has led to the development of controlled release cannabis pills that can provide long lasting effect.



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Controlled release cannabis pills market is expected to show a significant growth over the forecast period owning to the increasing adoption of controlled release cannabis pills or capsule among people and prescribers as these drugs has lower side effects and can be used without much of the concern of feeling of unease. Long lasting effect of controlled release cannabis pills and increasing number of government legalizing distribution of medical marijuana is also expected to fuel the growth of controlled release cannabis pills market. Even though number of government legalizing the medical marijuana is increasing but regulatory bodies are posing as a restraint for the growth of controlled release cannabis pill market as they cannot legalize the use of narcotic substances under federal law.



An Israeli-American company, Cannnabics Pharmaceuticals has developed a revolutionary technology to put the medicinal compound of cannabis into a controlled release cannabis pills. This drug provide a long lasting effect up to 10 to 12 hours. The market of controlled release cannabis pills is expected to show a significant growth over the forecast period as these drugs can be administered orally to fulfill the urgent unmet need that is not possible with the tradition smoking and vaporizing way of administration. Standardization of drug and sustain release is also expected to fuel the growth of controlled release cannabis pills market.



Controlled release cannabis pills are sold directly by the manufacturer or distributor to the patients who has license to get medical marijuana prescription. Requirement of license under the federal law can restrict the growth of controlled release cannabis pills market. Currently, there are there types of controlled release cannabis pills or capsules available; High THC Capsule, THC/CBD Balanced Capsules and High CBD Capsules. Minimum side effect by controlled release cannabis pills such as, disorientation and dizziness that are common in non- controlled release cannabis pills is also expected to drive the growth of the market. Increasing number of players and research in this highly potential controlled release cannabis pills market is also expected to boost the growth of the market.



Controlled Release Cannabis Pills Market: Region Wise Outlook



The controlled release cannabis pills market can be segmented into regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Middle East & Africa. North America dominates the controlled release cannabis pills market and is expected to continue to dominate the market over the forecast period. Increasing adoption of controlled release cannabis pills in US to treat conditions such as, chronic pain is expected to drive the market. Various state governments in the US has also legalized the use of marijuana for medical purpose. Due to these factor market of controlled release cannabis pills is expected to show significant growth in the region.



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Controlled Release Cannabis Pills Market: Key Players



Some of the major players in the global controlled release pill market are, Cannabics Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Wana Edibles, and Intec Pharma. These players are focusing on collaborative agreement for the distribution of controlled release cannabis pills. Also, increasing investment on further research on controlled release cannabis pills to prove the benefit of drugs.



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Global Virus Filtration Market Size, Share - Industry Trend and Forecast 2016 - 2024

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Latest industry research report on: Global Virus Filtration Market | Industry Size, Share, Research, Reviews, Analysis, Strategies, Demand, Growth, Segmentation, Parameters, ForecastsVirus filtration is an important procedure in the pharmaceutical industry. It ensures the purity and steady consumption of valuable products, besides optimizing the economic process and preventing loss. Virus filtration feed streams generally exhibit high purity and heavy product concentrations. Retrovirus and parvovirus filtration membranes are two ultrafiltration membranes tested (and their performances compared) using realistic model feed streams consisting of minute virus of mice (recommended from FDA). This approach provides an industry-relevant benchmark for the engineering competence of virus filters. Asymmetric membranes operate in direct flow and in a constant pressure mode in accordance with the industrial practice of virus filtration. However, new developments in research and development using flux method allow to image at the performance of virus filtration and similar ultrafiltration membranes, which also provides insights into designing virus filtration membranes.Complete Report Details @Hike in R&D expenditure, development of the biopharmaceutical industry, and increasing government funding for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries are driving the global virus filtration market. According to the parenteral drug association, parvovirus filters in the downstream process have become an industry standard and a common regulatory expectation in the recent years. The filters consistently demonstrate highly effective retrovirus retention without impacting the quality of the product across a wide range of parameters and are an effective method to reduce virus risks in biopharmaceutical manufacturing. The filtration technique needs to be approved by the U.S. food and drug administration (FDA). Regulatory agencies in Germany and France require the manufacturing processes to be evaluated and the units to be cleared of the multiple models of relevant viruses before being marketed as authorization. These stringent government validation practices are expected to be a hindrance for the global virus filtration market.The market has been segmented by product type, application, end-users, and geography. In terms of product type, it is classified into the following categories: virus filters, kits and reagents, filtration systems, and others. It majorly has biological applications, besides being employed in medical devices, water purification, stem cell products, vaccine & therapeutics, and others. Based on end-user, its divisions include pharmaceutical & biotechnology companies (which use virus filtration techniques in order to prevent unavoidable contamination in products), medical device companies, and contract research organizations. Filtration systems and devices are becoming popular because they deliver a high level of retention assurance and productivity across a broad range of feed stream characteristics. Rising industrialization coupled with the rapid evolution of the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and water purification sectors, along with demand for medical devices & implants are likely to propel the virus filtration market by 2024.Request For Sample Report @Geographically, the market is distributed over North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. North America is the dominant region due to the increasing modern industrialization, sophisticated infrastructure, patient awareness, and high per capita health care expenditure here. Moreover, the emerging trend of single-use techniques provides a boost to the pharmaceutical & biotechnology market, in turn motivating the virus filtration market. This is followed by Europe where there exist favorable government policies regarding health care infrastructure and awareness programs about the various diseases which can spread among the population through the air, water, or even products generated from industries. In 2013, the ICH (international conference on harmonization of technical requirements for registration of pharmaceuticals for human use), a project that brings together the regulatory authorities of Europe, Japan, and the U.S., discussed the scientific and technical aspects of drug registration in order to streamline the testing requirement for research and development of new medicines and eliminate unnecessary delays in their global development. The market in Asia Pacific is projected to expand swiftly due to rising population, changing lifestyles, rising number of awareness programs for patients, and the ever-increasing per capita expenditure. In addition, economic growth supports pharmaceutical and biotechnology units in developing countries such as India, China, and Singapore. All these factors collectively support the virus filtration market in Asia Pacific.Key players operating in the market include Merck KGaA, GE Healthcare, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Lonza Group Ltd., Pall Corporation, Charles River Laboratories International, Inc., Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, Sartorius AG, Asahi Kasei Medical Co., Ltd., and WuXi PharmaTech (Cayman) Inc.Have Any Query? Ask Our Expert @The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisThe regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland and Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, and North Africa)The report has been compiled through extensive primary research (through interviews, surveys, and observations of seasoned analysts) and secondary research (which entails reputable paid sources, trade journals, and industry body databases). The report also features a complete qualitative and quantitative assessment by analyzing data gathered from industry analysts and market participants across key points in the industrys value chain.A separate analysis of prevailing trends in the parent market, macro- and micro-economic indicators, and regulations and mandates is included under the purview of the study. By doing so, the report projects the attractiveness of each major segment over the forecast period.Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsMarket segmentation up to the second or third levelHistorical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volumeReporting and evaluation of recent industry developmentsMarket shares and strategies of key playersEmerging niche segments and regional marketsAn objective assessment of the trajectory of the marketRecommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketAbout usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Contact UsState Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:Email: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Plywood Market Dynamics, Forecast, Analysis and Supply Demand 2013 - 2019

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Plywood is a wood panel prepared from thin sheets of wood veneer. Plywood is one of the most widely used wood products. It is inexpensive, flexible, re-usable and workable. Plywood is used as a substitute for plain wood due to its resistance to cracking, splitting, shrinkage and twisting. Plywood generally offers higher degree of strength than plain wood. On the basis of applications plywood is classified as softwood plywood, hardwood plywood, tropical plywood and decorative plywood among others.Request Report Brochure @The market for plywood was mainly driven by increasing demand from housing market. The demand has increased owing to growing significance of plywood in the buildings & construction industry and its advantages over conventional metal, wood, and plastic. In addition, plywood is also used in marine applications for building decks. Structural panel market is likely to be the major opportunity for the plywood market. The major restraint for the market would be higher cost of plywood as compared to OSB (Oriented Starboard) which offers similar features to that of plywood. .In terms of demand, North America was the leading region for plywood market. The demand has been substantial from housing market. North America was followed by Europe, where the demand is huge from housing and construction market. The demand for plywood is mainly from the U.K. and Germany. Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing market for plywood. The demand is this region is driven by Japan, India and China owing to construction activities in this region. The Rest of the World is expected to exhibit lower demand for plywood in upcoming years owing to higher prices compared to OSB.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Some of the key manufacturers in the plywood market are Ainsworth Lumber Co. Ltd., Boise Cascade LLC, Atlantic Plywood Corporation, Eksons Corp. Bhd, Century Plyboard (India) Ltd., Greenply Industries Ltd., Georgia-Pacific Corporation, Uniply Industries Ltd. and Weyerhaeuser Company among others.About Us  Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a next-generation provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among othersContact Us:Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street, Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Neem Extracts Market Analysis, Segments, Growth and Value Chain 2013-2019

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Global Neem Extracts Market: SnapshotDerived from neem leaves, seeds, and bark, neem extract has gained much importance over the decades for its medicinal properties. Its usage in the cosmetics, agriculture, and pharmaceutical industries can be attributed mainly to the fact that an increasing number of people around the world have realized the adverse effects resulting from prolonged use of chemical-based personal care and agriculture products.Download exclusive Sample of this report:In the pharmaceutical industry, neem extracts help in regulated digestion, lower cholesterol and blood pressured, eased palpitations, and reduced blood clotting. In the personal care sector, neem extract is used in body lotions, fairness creams, and hand creams among others owing to zero side effects resulting from its application. The global neem extract market is slated to value US$1,126.8 mn by 2019, exhibiting a double-digit CAGR during the forecast period.Growing Preference for Natural and Herbal Ingredients Ups Demand in Personal Care IndustryBy way of application, the global market for neem extract is divided into pharmaceuticals, personal care, animal feed, and chemicals and fertilizers. Fertilizers are a key application area for neem extracts owing to the soaring demand for bio-insecticides and bio-pesticides, mainly in agriculture-centric regions such as Asia Pacific. Growing awareness among consumers and strict government regulations pertaining to the harmful effects of chemical fertilizers on personal health and the overall environment has played a major role in the rising uptake of neem extract as a key ingredient in many biofertilizers.Browse Market Research Report @The personal care and cosmetics industry is also a key application segment, with an increasing number of consumers leaning toward herbal beauty care products. Natural ingredients are in great demand and neem extracts  with their plethora of benefits  are a key ingredient. In addition to this, the antioxidant, antimicrobial, and anti-inflammatory advantages presented by neem extract makes them an important element in the pharmaceutical sector.Market to Remain Strong in Asia Pacific owing to Easy Availability of Raw MaterialThe global market for neem extracts is segmented on the basis of geography into Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, and Rest of the World. Asia Pacific has been identified as one of the leading and most promising markets for neem extract, mainly due to favorable climatic conditions. Apart from this, major focus on agricultural activities in the region, the greater availability of raw material, and increased importance given to neem by people owing to its medicinal properties are factors also contributing to the growth of the Asia Pacific market. Considering that India is a key exporter of neem extract, the regional market has been gaining added impetus.The Europe and North America markets for neem extract have been gaining prominence of late as regulations get even stricter regarding the use of synthetic agricultural ingredients in personal care products and cosmetics. Therefore, as herbal ingredients gain preference among consumers, the adoption of neem extracts in beauty products in these two regions will continue to rise.Neeming Australia Pvt. Ltd., Parker India Group Pvt. Ltd., Ozone Biotech, Prithvi Exports, Fortune Biotech Ltd., P J Margo Pvt Ltd., E.I.D Perry India Ltd., Trifolio-M GmbH, and Agro Extracts Limited are some of the prominent names in the neem extracts market, hinting at the fragmented nature of this market. An increasing number of smaller players has also rendered the neem extracts market rather fragmented. This can be attributed to favorable climatic conditions in several parts of APAC, growing scope of application of neem extracts in a wide range of industries, and low manufacturing cost.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Remote Patient Monitoring Devices Market Professional Survey Report 2017

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The Global Remote Patient Monitoring Devices Market was valued at US$ 754.9 million in 2015 and is projected to expand at a CAGR of 7.1% during the forecast period (20172025), as highlighted in a new report published by Coherent Market Insights. Technological developments like the innovative portable monitoring device, rising incidences of unhealthy lifestyle related disorders and the enhancing healthcare infrastructure are expected to be major factors driving growth of the global remote patient monitoring devices market over the foreseeable future.Request a sample pdf Copy of report:According to the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine 2017, around 30 million people suffer from sleep deprivation and sleep disorders, also known as sleep apnea. Sleep apnea can even cause serious health consequences by increasing the risk of diabetes, hypertension and heart attack if not diagnosed or treated. The collaboration of Telenor Connexion and French eHealth provider, SRETT, in 2014, provides a connected solution for remote monitoring of patients affected by sleep apnea. SRETT has developed a universal solution T4P for all types of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) device. The T4P is the only solution adapted to fit all CPAP devices on the market. The connected T4P collects and analyzes data from the CPAP remotely and in real-time, thereby reducing travel time and hospital visits. The patient data is uploaded automatically to healthcare professionals facilitating personalized and ongoing monitoring of patients condition.According to the World Health Organization 2017, one third of ischemic heart disease is attributed to high cholesterol. The raised cholesterol is estimated to cause 2.6 million deaths (4.5% of total) and 29.7 million disability adjusted life years. The remote patient monitoring device provides easy-to-use and portable system with correct assessment of the cholesterol levels.Cardiac arrhythmia is a condition characterized by the hearts failure to beat slower or faster than normal. According to the World Health Organization 2013, 33.5 million people or 0.5% of the global population is estimated to have Atrial fibrillation, a major condition leading to cardiac arrhythmia. The remote patient monitoring devices provide real-time remote continuous cardiac arrhythmias detection and monitoring platform, allowing easy diagnostics facilitating early clinical intervention of cardiac arrhythmia among high-risk patients. The innovative devices allows the patients to lead a normal life while being remotely monitored in real-time by ambulatory ECG sensor. For instance, Nihon Kohden introduced the Bedside Monitor, BSM-3500 in 2016, which is designed to meet the needs of ambulatory surgical centers and specialty centers. The device offers advanced patient care which includes real-time mini trends for early detection of vital sign variability during outpatient procedures and is also designed to integrate with electronic medical records systems.Ask for customization:Key takeaways of the Remote Patient Monitoring Devices Market:The global remote patient monitoring devices market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 7.1% during the forecast period (20172025) as there exists a huge demanding market especially in Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa.The cardiac monitors dominates the market in the product segment, as these portable devices continually monitor electrical activity of the cardiovascular system while performing daily activities.The cardiac arrhythmia dominates the market in the application segment, as the cardiac monitors available for monitoring cardiac arrhythmia are easily usable and largely available in medical healthcare facilities and home care settingsHospitals and home care settings are the major end users of remote patient monitoring devices market, as these devices offer reliability and accuracy with periodic measurements of physiological parameters like heart activity, blood pressure, body temperature, pulse rate and other clinical conditions.Some of the major players involved in global remote patient monitoring devices market are Abbott Laboratories, GE Healthcare, Omron Healthcare, Medtronic, Nihon Kohden, Smiths Medical, Philips Healthcare, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. And Kokinklijke Philips N.V. and St. Jude Medical.To know the latest trends and insights prevalent in the remote patient monitoring devices market, click the link below:About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Mr. ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.comVisit our news Website:
Tube Packaging Market Volume Forecast and Value Chain Analysis 2016 - 2023

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A tube is a hollow and cylindrical container, made up of plastic, aluminum or paperboard and is primarily used for containing viscous liquids such as ointment, toothpaste and adhesive among others. During manufacturing and filling processes, both ends of the tube are treated in a different way. There is an oval orifice on one end of the tube body, which can be closed by caps and closures. The other end is folded or sealed after addition of contents. Tube packaging containers are extruded and customized with printing, labeling, punching, slicing, crimping and other fabrications in order to create a functional and unique package.Request Report Brochure @Some of the key driving factors for tube packaging market are significant growth in packaging industries coupled with innovative packaging and excellent barrier properties and trending mindset of end-users towards sustainable packaging among others. Moreover, this packaging technique has a wide range of application areas in different segments of industry which increases scope of its applications. In addition, there are other geographical drivers which are also responsible for the growth of the market. However, due to presence of large number of manufacturers, the global tube packaging market is witnessing intense competition. Hence, in order to ensure proper growth in the market, major players are likely to adopt certain key strategies in the future, such as mergers and acquisitions, partnerships and expansions among others. Global economic meltdown and packaging raw material price volatility are two major restraints for tube packaging industry.Global tube packaging market can be broadly classified into different segments based upon materials, applications, product and geography. By material type, this market is segmented into laminated tubes, aluminium tubes, plastic tubes and others. Laminated tubes have excellent barrier property and thus will drive the global tube packaging market even further in the future. There are different application areas of tube packaging, such as cosmetics and oral care, food and beverages, pharmaceuticals and consumer goods. The cosmetics and oral care segment is anticipated to witness huge growth in the future due to improved lifestyle globally, followed by pharmaceutical segment. In terms of product types, the market for global tube packaging is further classified into squeeze tubes, twist tubes and others. Increasing demand for convenient packaging is likely to drive the market for squeeze tubes.The global tube packaging market is significantly large in Europe and North America, majorly due to increasing per capita income and consumer spending. Currently, Europe is dominating the market in terms of revenue. Moreover, Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing segment. The key factors attributed to the demand for sustainable and innovative packaging in emerging economies, such as China and India among others. Moreover, there has been remarkable transition of end-userss preference from traditional packaging to innovative packaging in parts of Middle East and Africa, which is eventually helping the market to develop even further in the future.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Some of the prominent players in the market for global tube packaging are Sonoco Products Company (U.S.), Essel Propack (India), Visipak (U.S.), Huhtamaki OYJ (Finland), Amcor Limited (Australia), Albea Group(France), Montebello Packaging (Canada), Unette Corporation (U.S.) and Worldwide Packaging (U.S.) among others.About Us  Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a next-generation provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among othersContact Us:Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street, Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Crash Barrier Systems Market Revenue, Opportunity, Forecast and Value Chain 2016 - 2024

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Global Crash Barrier Systems Market: OverviewThe global crash barrier systems market is estimated to grow at a progressive rate, owing to the rising opportunities in emerging economies across the globe. Furthermore, the rising investment in infrastructure development, including airports and roads, especially in developing nations and the high growth of the automotive industry are some of the key factors estimated to accelerate the growth of the global market. The research report analyzes the global crash barrier systems market on a global basis and throws light on the key growth prospects and the latest trends in the market.Request Report Brochure @The report talks about the market dynamics that are expected to affect the overall industry and examines their impact in the next few years. Furthermore, the key segmentation of the global crash barrier systems market has been presented in the study in order to offer a strong understanding of the overall market. The key growth factors, recent developments, restraints, and the limitations in the market have been highlighted. Furthermore, a thorough overview of the competitive landscape of the market, presenting insights into the company profiles and their product portfolios.Global Crash Barrier Systems Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe rising awareness among consumers regarding the importance and benefits of safety measures is one of the vital factors expected to encourage the growth of the global crash barrier systems market in the forecast period. In addition, the growing focus of key players on offering additional rigidity to the barrier system in order to maximize safety is likely to drive the demand for crash barrier systems in the near future.On the other hand, the high-cost severity owing to the barrier collision is one of the vital factors projected to restrict the growth of the global market crash barrier systems in the forecast period. In addition, the volatility in the cost of raw materials and the interference of highway agencies are some of the other factors likely to hamper the growth of the market in the near future. Nevertheless, the rising popularity and demand for flexible crash barriers are estimated to generate promising opportunities for the key players in the global market.Global Crash Barrier Systems Market: Region-wise OutlookAccording to the research study, the global market for crash barrier systems can be classified in terms of geography into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Rest of the World. Among these regions, Asia Pacific is expected to grow at a fast pace throughout the forecast period and account for a massive share of the global crash barrier systems market. The tremendously rising population and the growing need to offer safety systems are some of the key factors estimated to encourage the growth of the crash barrier systems market in Asia Pacific.Furthermore, the rising number of accidents taking place in developing economies in Asia Pacific, owing to the casual approach towards road safety regulations is anticipated to generate promising opportunities for the key players operating in the market. In addition, the growing focus on industrialization and the rapid growth of the construction sector are some of the primary factors estimated to fuel the growth of the overall market in the next few years.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Key Players Mentioned in the Research Report are:Some of the leading players operating in the crash barrier systems market across the globe are Nucor Corporation, Arbus Limited, Hill & Smith Holdings PLC, NV Bekaert SA, Valmont Industries, Inc., Transpo Industries, Inc., Lindsay Corporation, Trinity Industries, Inc., Avon Barrier Corporation Ltd., and Tata Steel Limited. With the increasing number of players, the global market for crash barrier systems is expected to witness stiff competition in the next few years. The growing emphasis on new product development is expected to generate promising opportunities for the growth of the overall market throughout the forecast period.About Us  Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a next-generation provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among othersContact Us:Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street, Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Finalists Revealed For The Virtual Customer Assistant Category Of The UK National Innovation Awards 2017

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London, November 2nd 2017  Directors Club United Kingdom is delighted to announce the final shortlist for the Virtual Customer Assistant category of the UK National Innovation Awards 2017.Congratulations to the four finalists: Genesys, IMImobile, Jacada and Nuance.Jon Snow, Chairman of Directors Club United Kingdom, acknowledges the finalists achievement, The standard of first-round entries was extremely high. Receiving nine entries from three continents, the judges on the shortlisting panel had a very tough job choosing the final four.The final judging process will take place between November 30th and December 7th with the winner and runner-up announced on December 8th.Over 50 UK leaders from customer service, customer contact, customer experience, digital, IT and the c-suite will judge the final.Seefor judging faculty qualification and registration.About The UK National Innovation AwardsThe UK National Innovation Awards (the Nationals) have been designed by the Directors Club United Kingdom to recognise business technology innovations and their impact on customer experience, employee engagement, operations performance, product creation, and profitable growth.As technology and innovation are at the heart of this initiative, the Nationals totally reimagine the concept of B2B recognition and award giving.The outcome is a unique programme that uses an all-digital platform to execute the entire awards process (with the exception of mailing the winners trophy).The aim is to have an as-near-as-possible zero carbon footprint and environmental impact.Uniquely, the Nationals are judged by the business leaders who employ the technologies.Visitfor more information.About Directors Club United KingdomTodays Directors Club has its origin in a small supper club in Londons Mayfair.The Directors Dining Club, as it was known, had its home at Claridges Hotel and brought together business leaders of the day to discuss trends and disruptive forces for change.In February 2010, Jon Snow (founder and chairman) re-constituted the dining club as the Directors Club and so a business lifestyle and networking institution was born.The Club motto To endeavour. To achieve captures the spirit of the organisation and the ambitions of its members.Visitfor more information.Sam Heggie-CollinsBromyard House - Bromyard AvenueLondonW3 7BFsam.heggie-collins@directorsclub.org.uk
Global Basmati Rice Market 2017: Kohinoor Rice, Aeroplane Rice, Matco Foods, Sungold

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report Global Basmati Rice Market Research Report 2017 to its huge collection of research reports.This report on the global Basmati Rice market has been developed by a selected group of professional market research analysts, with a solitary goal to present the existing scenario of the market for Basmati Rice and shed light on its growth prospects. The report targets audiences such as manufacturers of Basmati Rice, government agencies, and other research consultancy service providers. The report presents extensive assessment of the crucial factors that may influence the demand in the global Basmati Rice market, studies the challenges or pitfalls, and make a note of the latest trends, which the existing players must take into consideration in order to keep up in the market competition.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @This report on the global Basmati Rice market provides estimations related to the market size in terms of value (USD million). It includes both bottom-up and top-down views so as to estimate and authenticate the size of the Basmati Rice market and of numerous other associated submarkets in the overall global market. The opportunities that may open up in the market for Basmati Rice by manufacturing countries, type, and application are presented for the duration of 2017-2022 have also been provide in the research report.As the study report targets the shareholders of the global Basmati Rice market, it is only wise that some of the leading vendors that currently ply their trade in this market are profiled so as to represent their product portfolio, market share, and recent tactical decisions. This chapter is also focused at grasping the potential of the emergence of new players. Leading players in the global Basmati Rice market have been singled out with the help of secondary research, and their market dominance in respective regions have been assessed through rigorous primary as well as secondary research methodologies.The major players in global Basmati Rice market includeKRBL LimitedAmira Nature FoodsLT FoodsBest FoodsKohinoor RiceGet discount copy @List of Tables and FiguresFigure India Basmati Rice Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2023)11Figure Pakistan Basmati Rice Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2023)11Figure Kenya Basmati Rice Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2023)12Figure Global Basmati Rice Revenue (Million USD) Status and Outlook (2012-2023)13Figure Global Basmati Rice Production (K MT) Status and Outlook (2012-2023)14Table Global Basmati Rice Capacity (K MT) of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)15Table Global Basmati Rice Capacity Market Share (%) of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)16Figure Global Basmati Rice Capacity Market Share (%) of Key Manufacturers in 201617Figure Global Basmati Rice Capacity Market Share (%) of Key Manufacturers in 201718Table Global Basmati Rice Production (K MT) of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)18Table Global Basmati Rice Production Share (%) by Manufacturers (2012-2017)19Figure 2016 Basmati Rice Production Share (%) by Manufacturers20Figure 2017 Basmati Rice Production Share (%) by Manufacturers21About UsQYResearchReports.com is an unimpeachable source of market research data for clients that comprise acclaimed SMEs, Chinese companies, private equity firms, and MNCs. We provide market research reports on various categories such as Energy, Chemicals, Alternative and Green Energy, Manufacturing, Machinery, Pharmaceuticals and Materials, and Glass.Contact usBrooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
APAC Absorbable and Non-Absorbable Sutures Market Expected To Be Worth US$ 1 Billion Globally By 2024

APAC Absorbable and Non-Absorbable Sutures Market

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Everyone on this planet has the right to live long and healthy with this concept the standard of living of the people globally are increasing day by day with this increasing standard of living and the new available facilities and latest innovative developments in the field of healthcare people have become more health conscious and are making the things economically affordability for the patients by the organizations in the healthcare and hospitals sector. The APAC market is predicted to be the best growing geographical phase for absorbable and non-absorbable sutures market.The APAC Absorbable and Non-Absorbable Sutures Market is expected to exceed more than US$ 1.2 Billion by 2024 at a CAGR of 5.3% in the given forecast period.You can Find full report here:The major driving factors of APAC Absorbable and Non-Absorbable Sutures Market are as follows: Geriatric growing population Medical tourism is increasing Improvement in healthcare infrastructure has led to increase in number of surgeries Economic growth in developing economies Growth in affordability of patients towards healthcare and insuranceThe restraining factors of APAC Absorbable and Non-Absorbable Sutures Market are as follows: Limitations in the field of surgical sutures Price pressure faced by companies Reactions to the patients from surgical suturesThis report provides:1) An overview of the global market for APAC Absorbable and Non-Absorbable Sutures Market and related technologies.2) Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2013, estimates for 2014 and 2015, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2024.3) Identifications of new market opportunities and targeted promotional plans for devices related to APAC Absorbable and Non-Absorbable Sutures Market.4) Discussion of research and development, and the demand for new products and new applications.5) Comprehensive company profiles of major players in the industry.The scope of the report includes a detailed study of APAC Absorbable and Non-Absorbable Sutures Market with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.Request Sample Report:The APAC Absorbable and Non-Absorbable Sutures Market has been segmented as below:By Product Analysis: Automated Suturing Devices Disposable Suturing Devices Reusable Suturing Devices Sutures Segments Absorbable Sutures Natural Absorbable Sutures Synthetic Absorbable Sutures Non-Absorbable Sutures Nylon Sutures Prolene Sutures Stainless Steel SuturesBy Application Analysis: Cardiovascular Orthopedic Gynecology Opthalmology General Surgery OthersBy End User Analysis: Hospitals Ambulatory Centers Clinics Community Healthcare OthersBy Regional Analysis: Japan South Korea India China Indonesia Philippines Australia Thailand Malaysia Rest of APACTable of Contents1 INTRODUCTION2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY3. MARKET LANDSCAPE SUMMARY4. PREMIUM INSIGHTS5. ASIA-PACIFIC ABSORBABLE AND NON-ABSORBABLE SUTURES MARKET, EPIDEMIOLOGY STUDIES6. ASIA-PACIFIC ABSORBABLE AND NON-ABSORBABLE SUTURES MARKET, BY COMPETITIVE MARKET ASSESMENT7. ASIA-PACIFIC ABSORBABLE AND NON-ABSORBABLE SUTURES, BY PRODUCT TYPE7.1. OVERVIEW7.2. AUTOMATED SUTURING DEVICES, BY PRODUCT TYPE7.2.1. DISPOSABLE DEVICES (2014  2022)7.2.1.1. MARKET VALUE (USD MILLION)7.2.1.2. MARKET VOLUME7.2.2. REUSABLE DEVICES (2014  2022)7.2.2.1. MARKET VALUE (USD MILLION)7.2.2.2. MARKET VOLUME7.3. SUTURES, BY PRODUCT TYPE7.3.1. ABSORBABLE SUTURES, BY TYPE (MARKET VALUE & VOLUME)7.3.1.1. NATURAL ABSORBABLE SUTURES (2014  2022)7.3.1.2. SYNTHETIC ABSORBABLE SUTURES, BY MATERIAL7.3.1.2.1. VICRYL (2014  2022)7.3.1.2.2. MONOCRYL (2014  2022)7.3.1.2.3. POLYDIAOXANONE (2014  2022)7.3.1.2.4. POLYGLYCOLIC (2014  2022)7.3.2. NON-ABSORBABLE SUTURES, BY MATERIAL (MARKET VALUE & VOLUME)7.3.2.1. NYLON (2014  2022)7.3.2.2. PROLENE (2014  2022)7.3.2.2. STAINLESS STEEL (2014  2022)8. ASIA-PACIFIC ABSORBABLE AND NON-ABSORBABLE SUTURES, BY SURGERY TYPE9. ASIA-PACIFIC ABSORBABLE AND NON-ABSORBABLE SUTURES, BY END-USER10. ASIA-PACIFIC ABSORBABLE AND NON-ABSORBABLE SUTURES, BY COUNTRY11. ASIA-PACIFIC ABSORBABLE AND NON-ABSORBABLE SUTURES MARKET: COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE12. ASIA-PACIFIC ABSORBABLE AND NON-ABSORBABLE SUTURES MARKET, COMPANY PROFILES12.1. ETHICON, INC. (A J&J COMPANY)12.2. B. BRAUN MELSUNGEN AG12.3. SMITH & NEPHEW12.4. BOSTON SCIENTIFIC CORPORATION12.5. MEDTRONIC12.6. DEMETECH CORPORATION12.7. CONMED CORPORATION12.8. W.L. GORE & ASSOCIATES12.9. ZIMMER BIOMET12.10. MILTEX (A INTEGRA LIFESCIENCES CORPORATION COMPANY)12.11. TELEFLEX INCORPORATED12.12. MEDLINE INDUSTRIES, INC.About UsMarket Research Engine (MRE) is a next-generation provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. MREs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each Market Research Engines research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862Country: United StatesWebsite:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Home Healthcare Market - Canada Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2014 - 2020

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The Canada home healthcare market is exhibiting a CAGR of 8.9% in the forecast period of 2014 to 2020. According to a research report released by Transparency Market Research, the Canada home healthcare market is expected to reach US$18.94 bn by the end of 2020, after being recorded at US$10.45 bn in 2013. According to the report, the Canada home healthcare market is primarily driven by the rising number of patients who suffer from ailments such as diabetes, arthritis, cancer, and multiple chronic diseases. This rising prevalence of diseases, coupled with a growing population of geriatric Canadian citizens, is boosting the Canada home healthcare market at a rapid rate.Request to view Sample Report:Other drivers of the Canada home healthcare market include technological advancements that allow for a more efficient healthcare service that can be delivered at an optimum time, and a growing awareness of citizens towards the Canada home healthcare market and its services.Between the different segments of the Canada home healthcare market according to type, the market is led by diagnostics and monitoring devices, a segment that held over 30% of the market in 2013. This segment is boosted by consistent government efforts taken to increase awareness among citizens regarding the existence of diagnostic and monitoring devices and their benefits. The home mobility segment earned the lowest revenue for the Canada home healthcare market in 2013. This is attributed to the low market cost of the instruments sold in the home mobility segment, such as walkers, crutches, cranes, and rollators.In terms of services, the Canada home healthcare market is led by the segment of telehealth and telemedicine. The segment is progressing at a CAGR of 11.0% by 2020. The telehealth and telemedicine segment generated 2% of the usual revenue recorded in the Canada home healthcare market in 2013. The Canada home healthcare market services are constantly driven by factors such as high cost-effectiveness, easier access to rural locations, and high quality care of patients.From a geographical perspective, the Canada home healthcare market was led by the province of Ontario in 2013. At the same time, the Canada home healthcare market in the Quebec is expected to rise at a rapid CAGR of 9.2%. The report cites increasing population of chronically ill people as the key reason for the high growth rate of the Canada home healthcare market in Quebec.Key players involved in the Canada home healthcare market are Home Care Ontario, The Canadian Home Caress, We Care Health Services, GM Healthcare, 3M Healthcare, Omron Healthcare, and Johnson & Johnson.Canada Home Healthcare Market is available @ US$ 5795:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Anti-aging Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.30% from 2014 - 2020

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The Asia, Europe, and South America anti-aging market was valued at US$15.3 bn in 2012 and is predicted to reach US$30.9 bn in 2020. It is expected to expand at a CAGR of 9.30% from 2014 to 2020. As per the report, the anti-aging market in Asia, Europe, and South America is majorly fuelled by the increasing number of baby boomers, thus increasing the demand for various methods of curbing and reversing the prominent signs of aging. The market is continuously growing and a number of products, devices, and services have entered the market in recent years due to the consistent demand to lessen the signs of aging. Amongst these, in 2013, the anti-aging products held the biggest share in the anti-aging market due to increasing awareness amongst people and the economical prices of these products.Request to view Sample Report:On the basis of product type, the market is segmented into dermal fillers, UV absorbers, botox, anti-stretch products, anti-wrinkle products, and hair color. Amongst these, in 2013, anti-wrinkle products held the biggest share in the anti-aging products market in Asia. The anti-wrinkle product segment stood at more than US$8.1 bn in Asia in 2013. This is due to the broad range of anti-wrinkle products available in the market and the rising awareness owing to a number of promotional campaigns held in Asia. Anti-wrinkle products also held the largest share in Europe in the same year. The demand for these products is high in European countries owing to their increasing availability at economical prices. On the basis of service, the market is segmented into anti-adult acne therapy, anti-pigmentation therapy, liposuction, chemical peel, abdominoplasty, hair restoration therapy, sclerotherapy, and eyelid surgery. The anti-aging services market is expanding swiftly in Europe on account of the rising disposable income of consumers owing to ongoing recovery from the economic crisis in Europe. Within Europe, the anti-aging services market in Italy held the biggest share in 2013 owing to increasing demand for hair restoration treatments and breast augmentation. The anti-aging services market is predicted to record the highest growth rate in Spain in the forecast horizon due to the rising aging population and the increasing prevalence of obesity.On the basis of device type, the market is segmented into microdermabrasion devices, anti-cellulite treatment devices, radio frequency devices, and laser aesthetic devices. Anti-aging devices are the most prevalent in South American countries. Radiofrequency devices and laser aesthetic devices held the biggest share in South America, especially in Brazil, due to their high effectiveness and safety.Alma Laser Ltd., Allergan, Inc., Beiersdorf AG, Cynosure, Inc., Coty, Inc., LOreal SA, Valeant Pharmaceutical International, Inc., Solta Medical, Inc., and PhotoMedex, Inc., among others, are the major players dominant in the market.Asia, Europe, and South America Anti-aging Market is available @ US$ 5795:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Angioplasty Balloons Market to 2023: Trends, Business Strategies and Opportunities

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According to a TMR analyst, The global market for angioplasty balloons is likely to witness a 3.5% CAGR from 2015 to 2023. The market is expected to rise from a valuation of US$1.93 bn in 2016 and is anticipated to reach US$2.55 bn by 2023. The segment of normal balloons is anticipated to lead the global market for angioplasty balloons for the years to come. Nevertheless, the segment of drug coated balloons is likely to gain popularity over the coming years. Region-wise, the market is dominated by North America closely trailed by Europe. It is expected that North America will continue leading it reaching a valuation of US$993.70 mn by the end of 2023. "As indicated by the CDC, almost 610,000 deaths have taken place every year in the U.S. alone because of heart maladies as of late. This number is required to increment significantly further," states a TMR expert. He further includes, "There were about 8 mn individuals in the U.S. experiencing peripheral artery sickness in 2011. These numbers are likewise set to increment after some time, because of elements including the quick expanding geriatric populace, the rising number of diabetics and obese natives, and the general increment in negative way of life decisions and high anxiety levels. These numbers just point to a developing demand for medicinal gadgets, operative devices, and embeds."Request to view Sample Report:With the quantity of coronary surgeries anticipated that would increment radically in the coming years, the interest for angioplasty balloons will in like manner indicate increases. Despite the fact that the entry rate by new angioplasty balloons producers is modest, the current players have as of late been embracing outrageous evaluating techniques to pick up market entrance and share. The price cuts they put on angioplasty balloons is getting them more clients, however is definitely diminishing the general income created in the market from a worldwide viewpoint. As expressed by Healing Hearts, the costs of angioplasty balloons alongside other gears have decreased by nearly 40% in the most recent decade in India, one of the significant destinations for medical tourism worldwide. This is seriously harming the extent of innovative work endeavors facilitated by driving players and is required to hamper the market development rate extensively soon. Producers can rather concentrate on the arrival of new items as of now in the pipeline. The accomplishment of these items will enormously enhance the demand for angioplasty balloons and the general development rate of its worldwide market.The core players namely Abbott Laboratories, Cordis Corporation, and Boston Scientific held a share of 71.7% collectively in 2014 in the global angioplasty balloons market. TMR also states that the existing players might be threatened by the entry of new players in the market over the next couple of years, but the threat might stay moderate for some time now. This is mainly due to the expensive research and development involved in this field and the strict government policies that tend to differ from region to region. Moreover, the growth of the market is likely to have a slow place to make enough scope for the entry of new players. The race to stay ahead has given rise a plethora of innovations taking and product launches.Global Angioplasty Balloons Market is available @ US$ 5795:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Aplicaciones Tecnologicas responsible for the protection of the church of San Roque in Lisbon

The emblematic church of San Roque in Lisbon, as well as the museum next to it, are already protected, both building and contents in their interior, by our lightning rod DAT Controler Plus, which was chosen due to the security offered by its certificates and tests passed in independent laboratories.This church, owned by the Santa Casa de la Misericordia of Lisbon, was built in 1540. In addition to the Church, this space also houses the San Roque Museum, whose assets are part of the city's cultural heritage and cannot suffer any damage.With almost five centuries of existence, both the building itself and its interior are very important for the history of the country, therefore being essential to ensure its protection against lightning. The various certificates DAT Controler Plus ESE lightning rod has (Certificate of protection radius, AENOR Certificate, Certified current withstand 100 kA, 20 impulses -10/350 s- and Certificate of performance in rainy conditions) offered the desired efficiency.We design and manufacture of ese terminals, surge protection devices, storm detectors, earthing systems and exothermic welding.APLICACIONES TECNOLOGICAS S.AAplicaciones Tecnologicas SAParque Tecnologico de Valencia C/Nicolas Copernico, 446980 PaternaValencia ESPANA
Defibrillators Market Research Report by Geographical Analysis and Forecast to 2020

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According to a TMR analyst, the Saudi Arabia defibrillators market is expected to be worth US$49.8 mn by 2020 steadily rising at a CAGR of 8.3% from US$28.6 mn in 2013. The market will be driven by the ALS defibrillators segment as the opportunity in this product segment is anticipated to reach US$36.5 mn by 2020. An increasing adoption of ALS defibrillators in the ever-expanding healthcare sector has created a remarkable opportunity for this product segment over the past few years. However, the affordability of AEDs is expected to propel this segment as well. Amongst the end users, hospitals held a dominant share in the overall market as ambulances are the first point of contact in case of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) in out-of-hospital settings. Furthermore, hospitals, being the primary caregivers, have a high adoption rate of ALS defibrillators as they facilitate monitoring of various health parameters at the same time. During the forecast period, the hospitals segment in the Saudi Arabia defibrillators market will reach a valuation of US$37.6 mn, expanding at a CAGR of 7.5% between 2014 and 2020.Request to view Sample Report:Technologically advanced defibrillators that provide audio and video medical assistance in Arabic languages have boosted the overall market in recent years. As these machines require highly-skilled persons to operate them safely, the integration of vernacular language has enabled less-skilled professionals to also use these machines in a non-hospital setup. Features such as voice assistance have further increased the uptake of defibrillators across Saudi Arabia. Initiatives taken by public and private medical organizations to safeguard human life have also worked in favor of this market. For instance, the installation of AEDs in aircraft and in religious places to resuscitate pilgrims in case of emergencies has given this market a substantial boost in the past few years. The lack of government interventions and supportive regulatory framework has hampered the sales of defibrillators across Saudi Arabia. The market is also being restrained by the poor collaboration between the public and private enterprises to raise awareness about defibrillators. Analysts predict that poor knowledge amongst overall population about sudden cardiac arrest and the importance of defibrillator and CPR has largely discouraged the overall market.The expensive import duty that public hospitals, as well as private units, have to pay to own defibrillators has created a negative impact on the overall market. Furthermore, lack of interaction with the consumers and the poor branding and awareness campaigns are further dissuading the market growth. To stay ahead of the competition, players should focus on enhancing the quality of their products, suggest the lead author of this research report. Integrating features such as remote patient monitoring and telemedicine are anticipated to be game-changing strategies for the players operating in the Saudi Arabia defibrillators market in the coming years. Furthermore, these features might also help by facilitating a prompt or a right line of treatment that paramedics should take in case of an emergency. The key players operating in the Saudi Arabia defibrillators market are HeartSine Technologies, Inc., Cardiac Science Corporation, Philips Healthcare, Physio-Control Inc., Schiller AG, and ZOLL Medical Corporation. These players are anticipated to focus on improving and assuring product quality to end users to build goodwill with products that are safer, observes Transparency Market Research in its latest research report. Companies will also endeavor to expand their market share by raising awareness about defibrillation through impactful promotional campaigns.Saudi Arabia Defibrillators Market is available @ US$ 3795:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Technology in Wealth Management: Drivers for Adoption and Future Trends

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Summary:ReportsWeb.com published Technology in Wealth Management:  from its database. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Original Content:"Technology in Wealth Management: Drivers for Adoption and Future Trends", report provides a comprehensive analysis of how technological developments are affecting the wealth management industry, including both traditional providers and new digital entrants to the market. Among others, the report leverages findings from our Global Wealth Managers Survey and Mass Affluent Investor Survey.Investing in technology has leapt to the top of most wealth managers' agendas. The emergence of robo-advisors has triggered interest in changing investor demographics and new approaches to client segmentation. On the other hand, shrinking margins and pressure on cost-saving have fueled organizations' internal needs to seek efficiencies, and these can be achieved with the help of technology. Although ultimately the human element will remain prominent in the world of financial advice, the industry will continue its technological advancement.Specifically the report--Provides an overview of trends in the wealth management and wider financial services industry related to technology.-Analyzes key drivers behind the adoption of technology and digital solutions in wealth management, looking at both external and internal factors.-Examines how providers need to adapt to changing client behaviors and preferences in the HNW and mass affluent segments.-Investigates the future model of robo-advice service and how hybrid digital-human solutions can help to grow business.-Assesses how different software and tools, including big data and blockchain, can improve the operating efficiency of incumbent wealth management organizations.-Identifies where the biggest investment gap in the wealth management industry lies, providing an opportunity for IT vendors.For more information about this report:Scope-Lower returns increase investors' price sensitivity, luring them into the arms of low-cost digital providers.-Although the average robo-advice client falls into the mass affluent category, HNW investors will also recognize the benefits of digital platforms.-With millennials building up their wealth, and intergenerational change on the horizon, financial advisors need to prepare themselves for a new generation of clients, while not abandoning their existing clientele.-Combining the best of human and digital capabilities will lead to successful hybrid advice model development.-Investment in technology is focused on the front-end, the back-office being lower priority.-Adoption of technologies such as big data and blockchain remains low in wealth management, and the industry will wait for other branches of financial services to test the waters.-Despite some high-profile partnerships between incumbents and fintechs, established IT vendors remain better positioned to work with large wealth management organizations.Request Sample Copy atReasons to buy-Understand what has driven change in the wealth management industry's approach technology.-Discover key drivers and barriers for technology adoption in the industry.-Learn about how changing client expectations and how you can prepare for the new digitally-savvy generation of HNW individuals.-Examine the most successful robo-advice providers and reasons for their popularity.-Recognize which key areas of operations within wealth management organizations can most benefit from technology, and how.-Find out about the industry's approach to the most innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and blockchain.-Identify opportunities for wealth managers to work with established IT vendors, as well as fintech start-ups.Companies Mentioned:BNY MellonDeutsche BankMorgan StanleyCalPERSBettermentNutmegVanguardCredit SuisseJ.P. MorganUBSInquire for Report atReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028Phone : +91-20-67278686E-Mail : info@reportsweb.com
In-depth Analysis and Forecast Of The Solar Photovoltaic (PV) in Czech Republic, Market On The Global As Well As Regional Level

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"The Report Solar Photovoltaic (PV) in Czech Republic, Market Outlook to 2030, Update 2017 - Capacity, Generation, Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), Investment Trends, Regulations and Company Profiles provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About Solar Photovoltaic (PV) in Czech Republic Market"Solar Photovoltaic (PV) in Czech Republic, Market Outlook to 2030, Update 2017 - Capacity, Generation, Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), Investment Trends, Regulations and Company Profiles", is the latest report from GlobalData, the industry analysis specialists that offer comprehensive information and understanding of the Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market in Czech Republic.Get Sample copy of this Report @The report provides in depth analysis on global renewable power market and global Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market with forecasts up to 2030. The report analyzes the power market scenario in Czech Republic (includes conventional thermal, nuclear, large hydro and renewable energy sources) and provides future outlook with forecasts up to 2030. The research details renewable power market outlook in the country (includes hydro, small hydro, biopower and Solar Photovoltaic (PV)) and provides forecasts up to 2030. The report highlights installed capacity and power generation trends from 2006 to 2030 in Czech Republic Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market. A detailed coverage of renewable energy policy framework governing the market with specific policies pertaining to Solar Photovoltaic (PV) is provided in the report. The research also provides company snapshots of some of the major market participants.The report is built using data and information sourced from proprietary databases, secondary research and in-house analysis by GlobalDatas team of industry experts.View Report @ScopeThe report analyses global renewable power market, global Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market, Czech Republic power market, Czech Republic renewable power market and Czech Republic Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market. The scope of the research includes -- A brief introduction on global carbon emissions and global primary energy consumption.- An overview on global renewable power market, highlighting installed capacity trends, generation trends and installed capacity split by various renewable power sources. The information is covered for the historical period 2006-2016 (unless specified) and forecast period 2017-2030.- Renewable power sources include wind (both onshore and offshore), Solar Photovoltaic (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), small hydro power (SHP), biomass, biogas and geothermal.- Detailed overview of the global Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market with installed capacity and generation trends, installed capacity split by major Solar Photovoltaic (PV)power countries in 2016 and key owners information of various regions.- Power market scenario in Czech Republic and provides detailed market overview, installed capacity and power generation trends by various fuel types (includes thermal conventional, nuclear, large hydro and renewable energy sources) with forecasts up to 2030.- An overview on Czech Republic renewable power market, highlighting installed capacity trends (2006-2030), generation trends(2006-2030) and installed capacity split by various renewable power sources in 2016.- Detailed overview of Czech Republic Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market with installed capacity and generation trends and major active and upcoming Solar Photovoltaic (PV) projects.- Deal analysis of Czech Republic Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market. Deals are analyzed on the basis of mergers, acquisitions, partnership, asset finance, debt offering, equity offering, private equity (PE) and venture capitalists (VC).- Key policies and regulatory framework supporting the development of renewable power sources in general and Solar Photovoltaic (PV) in particular.- Company snapshots of some of the major market participants in the country.Send An Enquiry Request @Reasons to buy- The report will enhance your decision making capability in a more rapid and time sensitive manner.- Identify key growth and investment opportunities in Czech Republic Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market.- Facilitate decision-making based on strong historic and forecast data for Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market.- Position yourself to gain the maximum advantage of the industrys growth potential.- Develop strategies based on the latest regulatory events.- Identify key partners and business development avenues.- Understand and respond to your competitors business structure, strategy and prospects.Table of Contents1 Table of Contents 21.1 List of Tables 51.2 List of Figures 62 Executive Summary 72.1 Global Carbon Emissions to Increase at a Lower rate During the Forecast Period 72.2 Technological Advancements and Government Support Driving Global Renewable Power Installations 72.3 Coal-based Thermal Power is the Dominant Source of Power in the Czech Republic 82.4 A Nuclear-Powered Future Expected for the Czech Republic 83 Introduction 93.1 Carbon Emissions, Global, 2001-2016 93.2 Primary Energy Consumption, Global, 2001-2030 113.3 Solar Photovoltaic (PV), Global, Technology Definition and Classification 133.4 Report Guidance 144 Renewable Power Market, Global, 2006 - 2030 154.1 Renewable Power Market, Global, Overview 154.2 Renewable Power Market, Global, Installed Capacity, 2006-2030 164.2.1 Renewable Power Market, Global, Cumulative Installed Capacity by Source Type, 2006-2030 164.2.2 Renewable Power Market, Global, Cumulative Installed Capacity Split by Source Type, 2016 and 2030 184.2.3 Renewable Power Market, Global, Net Capacity Additions by Source Type, 2016-2030 204.2.4 Renewable Power Market, Global, Comparison by Cumulative Installed Capacity of Technology, 2016-2030 224.3 Renewable Power Market, Global, Power Generation, 2006-2030 244.3.1 Renewable Power Market, Global, Power Generation by Source Type, 2006-2030 244.3.2 Renewable Power Market, Global, Power Generation, Source Comparison Based on Power Generation, 2016-2030 264.4 Renewable Power Market, Global, LCOE Comparison of Power Generating Sources, 2016 285 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, 2006-2030 315.1 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, Overview 315.2 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, Installed Capacity, 2006-2030 325.2.1 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, Installed Capacity Share by Region, 2016 and 2030 345.2.2 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, Installed Capacity Share by Country, 2016 and 2030 365.3 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, Power Generation, 2006-2030 385.3.1 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, Generation Share by Region, 2016 and 2030 405.3.2 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, Generation Share by Country, 2016 and 2030 425.4 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, Investment Trends, 2016-2020 446 Power Market, Czech Republic, 2006-2030 466.1 Power Market, Czech Republic, Overview 466.2 Power Market, Czech Republic, Installed Capacity, 2006-2030 476.2.1 Power Market, Czech Republic, Cumulative Installed Capacity by Fuel Type, 2006-2030 476.2.2 Power Market, Czech Republic, Share in Cumulative Installed Capacity Split by Source Type, 2016 and 2030 506.2.3 Power Market, Czech Republic, Net Capacity Additions by Fuel Type, 2016 and 2030 526.2.4 Power Market, Czech Republic, Comparison of Technologies Based on Installed Capacity, 2016-2030 546.3 Power Market, Czech Republic, Power Generation, 2006-2030 566.3.1 Power Market, Czech Republic, Power Generation by Fuel Type, 2006-2030 566.3.2 Power Market, Czech Republic, Comparison of Technologies Based on Power Generation, 2016-2030 597 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, 2006-2030 617.1 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Overview 617.2 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Installed Capacity, 2006-2030 627.2.1 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Cumulative Installed Capacity by Source Type, 2006-2030 627.2.2 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Cumulative Installed Capacity Split by Source Type, 2016 and 2030 657.2.3 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Net Capacity Additions by Source Type, 2016-2030 667.2.4 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Comparison of Renewable Power Sources Based on Installed Capacity, 2016-2030 687.3 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Power Generation, 2006-2030 707.3.1 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Power Generation by Source Type, 2006-2030 707.3.2 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Comparison of Renewable Power Sources Based on Power Generation, 2016-2030 738 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, 2006-2030 758.1 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Overview 758.2 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Installed Capacity, 2006 - 2030 768.3 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Power Generation, 2006-2030 788.4 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Investment Trends, 2016-2020 808.5 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Project Based Analysis, 2016 828.5.1 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Major Active Plants, 2016 828.6 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Deal Analysis, 2016 838.6.1 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Deal Volume vs. Deal Value, 2006-2016 838.6.2 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Split by Deal Type, 2016 859 Power Market, Regulatory Scenario, Czech Republic 869.1 Renewable Energy Market, Overview 869.2 National Renewable Energy Action Plan 869.3 Green Investment Scheme: New Green Savings 2014 869.4 Feed-in tariff 879.5 Tax Exemption for Renewable Energy Use 879.6 Excise Tax Exemptions for Biofuels 879.7 State Program to Promote Energy Savings and Use of Renewable and Secondary Energy Sources 879.8 Operation Programme Environment 889.9 National climate change plan 8910 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Company Profiles 9010.1 Company Snapshot: Solaria Energia y Medio Ambiente S.A. 9010.1.1 Solaria Energia y Medio Ambiente S.A. - Company Overview 9010.1.2 Solaria Energia y Medio Ambiente S.A. - Business Description 9010.1.3 Solaria Energia y Medio Ambiente S.A. - SWOT Analysis 9110.1.4 Solaria Energia y Medio Ambiente S.A. - Major Products and Services 9310.1.5 Solaria Energia y Medio Ambiente S.A. - Head Office 9310.2 Company Snapshot: Scatec Solar AS 9410.2.1 Scatec Solar AS - Company Overview 9410.2.2 Scatec Solar AS - Business Description 9410.2.3 Scatec Solar AS - SWOT Analysis 9410.2.4 Scatec Solar AS - Major Products and Services 9710.2.5 Scatec Solar AS - Head Office 9910.3 Company Snapshot: S.A.G. Solar GmbH & Co. KG. 10010.3.1 S.A.G. Solar GmbH & Co. KG. - Company Overview 10010.3.2 S.A.G. Solar GmbH & Co. KG. - Business Description 10010.3.3 S.A.G. Solar GmbH & Co. KG. - SWOT Analysis 10010.3.4 S.A.G. Solar GmbH & Co. KG. - Major Products and Services 10210.3.5 S.A.G. Solar GmbH & Co. KG. - Head Office 10310.4 Company Snapshot: Gentley a.s. 10410.4.1 Gentley a.s. - Company Overview 10410.4.2 Gentley a.s. - Head Office 104Buy Now @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Ceramic Sanitary Ware Market: Competitive Intelligence and Tracking Report 2012 - 2018

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DescriptionImproving sanitation levels, low energy, and labor costs are driving the market for sanitary ware products. Also, changing consumer preferences is boosting the development of new luxury sanitary wares like private spas, shower systems, saunas, and larger baths among others. Asia Pacific leads in the production of ceramic sanitary wares due to low cost manufacturing and presence of large number of small and medium players in these regions. Asia Pacific region holds the maximum market share followed by Europe, South America and North America.China, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, and Columbia are among the top manufacturing countries of ceramic sanitary ware products. Asia Pacific is expected to continue its dominance on the global market due to the steady growth of ceramic sanitary ware industry in China, India, and Thailand.Request For Report Brochure@The global market for ceramic sanitary ware is set to grow due to the changing lifestyle, increasing spending on hygiene, and growth of real estate market. With the passing time, ceramic sanitary products are valued as life style products.Market SegmentationBased on TechnologySlip CastingPressure CastingBased on ProductWashbasinUnder Counter BasinsOver Counter BasinsSemi Counter BasinsWall Mounting BasinsCounter Top BasinsPedestal BasinsWater ClosetsCisternLow Level CisternHigh Level CisternClose Coupled CisternBidetsOver-Rim-Supply BidetRim-Supply BidetThis research report analyzes this market based on its market segments and important geographies. Major geographies analyzed under this report areNorth AmericaEuropeAsia PacificRest of the WorldThis report is a comprehensive analysis ofCurrent industry trendsMarket growth driversRestraintsIndustry structureMarket projections for upcoming yearsThis report also includes analysis of recent technological developments in this market, Porters five force model, and complete company profiles of top industry players. Report provides review of micro and macro factors significant for existing market players and new entrants along with detailed value chain analysis.Visit For TOC@Market PlayersSome of the key players dominating this market include American Standard, Annwa Ceramic Sanitary Ware, Ceramica Althea, Cersanit SA, Corona Organization, Duratex SA, Duravit AG, Ideal Standard International, Kohler Co., Lecico Egypt SAE, Lixil Corporation, Roca Sanitario SA, Sanitec Corporation, and others.About Us  Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a next-generation provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among othersContact Us:Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street, Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1- -618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Air Fresheners Market Projected to Grow Steadily During 2016 - 2024

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Global Air Fresheners Market: OverviewThe global air fresheners market is expected to grow at a progressive rate in the next few years. The rising demand for several fragrance products is one of the vital factors estimated to encourage the growth of the market in the next few years. The untapped markets in several developing economies are anticipated to generate opportunities for the market players throughout the forecast period.The research study on the global air fresheners market offers a detailed overview, emphasizing on the key aspects that are predicted to influence the overall development of the market throughout the forecast period. In addition, the growth factors, barriers, latest trends, and limitations in the global market have been discussed in the scope of the research study. A detailed analysis of the competitive landscape of the global market has been included in the study.Request For Report Brochure@Global Air Fresheners Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe rising importance and popularity of aroma therapy and the growing disposable income of consumers, especially in developing economies are estimated to encourage the growth of the global market in the next few years. In addition, the rising living standard of consumers and their rising inclinations towards high spending in order to create an ideal atmosphere at home are anticipated to fuel the growth of the market in the near future.Furthermore, the introduction of new products and fragrances is predicted to accelerate the growth of the global air fresheners market in the next few years. The rising focus of key players on marketing activities and advertising campaigns is another important factor predicted to supplement the growth of the overall market in the coming few years. Moreover, the improvement of distribution channel across the globe resulting in easy availability of products for consumers is predicted to augment global air fresheners market in the near future.Global Air Fresheners Market: Region-wise OutlookThe global market for air fresheners has been classified in terms of geography into Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, and the Rest of the World. To provide a strong understanding of the market, the market size, share, and the growth rate of each regional segments have been provided in the research report. In addition, the key factors that are predicted to fuel the growth of these regions have been highlighted in the report.According to the study, Europe is anticipated to lead the global air fresheners market throughout the forecast period. The high growth of this region can be attributed to the improving lifestyle of consumers and their rising disposable income. Furthermore, North America is anticipated to witness a strong growth in the next few years. The rising demand from the U.S. is considered to supplement the growth of the market in the near future.Key Players Mentioned in the Research Report are:Some of the leading players operating in the air fresheners market across the globe are Church & Dwight Co. Inc., Procter & Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc., Car Freshener Corporation, Air Delights Inc., Godrej Household Products Ltd., ACS Giftware Industrial Ltd., Ada Electrotech (Xiamen) Co. Ltd., and California Scents. The rising focus of these players on innovations and the expansion of the product portfolio are anticipated to encourage the growth of the global air fresheners market throughout the forecast period.Visit For TOC@The research study offers a detailed analysis of the global market, focusing on the key aspects that are expected to supplement the overall development of the market as well as these players. In addition, the marketing strategies and business policies that are being adopted by these players have been discussed at length in the research report. Product portfolio, SWOT analysis, and financial overview of these companies have also been included in the research report.About Us  Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a next-generation provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among othersContact Us:Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street, Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1- -618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Advanced Farming Market Size Share - Industry Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024

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"The Latest Research Report Advanced Farming Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"The agriculture sector, which directly or indirectly serves about 7.5 billion people globally, is being threatened by the overexploitation of resources, increasing pollution, and climate change. This has inflicted damage to the environment, the life cycles of both plants and animals, land, and crops, which has in turn impacted the agriculture sector. Amid these concerns, advanced farming is said to radically transform the practice of farming. Advanced farming is the application of the right technology in lieu of traditional farming techniques to improve productivity, yield better crops, and minimize manual labor. Advanced farming utilizes modern technologies such as high-precision positioning (HPS) and variable-rate technology (VRT), which results in the improved monitoring of crop health while reducing wastage. Advanced farming, coupled with farming management systems (FMS) also help farmers to make informed decisions and track and monitor animal health. With a growing number of advanced farming projects, farmers can even track activities on their farm on a desktop or mobile device, even from a remote location, through training and consulting.Get Sample Copy of this report @There are many factors driving the advanced farming market. Increasing global food demand is expected to be one of the major drivers of the market. The need for advanced farming methods amid growing land degradation is also expected to propel this market. The support programs run by government, timely initiatives from the United Nations (UN) and the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) is also anticipated to boost the market growth. Growing adoption of customized machinery across large farms for tillage, sowing, and plant protection and so on is also expected to further drive the market.There are, however, many restraints to the advanced farming markets growth. The high initial investment associated with advanced farming is expected to be one of the major restraints. Inappropriate infrastructure development and lack of information & knowledge on modern & advanced agricultural technology are also expected to hinder the growth of the advanced farming market.The global advanced farming market can be segmented on the basis of technology, application, services, deployment, and region. On the basis of technology, the market can be sub-segmented into variable-rate technology (VRT), automated steering systems, high-precision positioning systems (HPS), integrated electronic communication, and remote sensing. On the basis of applications the market can be segmented into forest farming, livestock farming, horticulture, fleet management, and aqua farming. On the basis of services, the market can be divided into integration services, training & consulting, and maintenance services. On the basis of deployment the market can be segmented into cloud-based and on-premise.View Report @On the basis of geography the market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, and South America. North America and Europe are expected to witness prominent growth owing to their developed economies and markets, followed by Asia Pacific and Middle East and Africa.Some of the major players in the global advanced farming market include John Deere & Company, Raven Industries, Inc., AGCO Corp., AgJunction Inc., Trimble Inc., Cisco Systems, IBM Corp., Smart Fertilizer Management, Blue River Technology, Microsoft Corp., Intel Corporation, ThingWorx, and Growing Smart.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisSend An Enquiry Request @The regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland and Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, and North Africa)The report has been compiled through extensive primary research (through interviews, surveys, and observations of seasoned analysts) and secondary research (which entails reputable paid sources, trade journals, and industry body databases). The report also features a complete qualitative and quantitative assessment by analyzing data gathered from industry analysts and market participants across key points in the industrys value chain.A separate analysis of prevailing trends in the parent market, macro- and micro-economic indicators, and regulations and mandates is included under the purview of the study. By doing so, the report projects the attractiveness of each major segment over the forecast period.Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsMarket segmentation up to the second or third levelHistorical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volumeReporting and evaluation of recent industry developmentsMarket shares and strategies of key playersEmerging niche segments and regional marketsAn objective assessment of the trajectory of the marketRecommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketCheck Discount This Report From Here @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA: Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Home Care Market: Challenges and Opportunities Report 2012 - 2018

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Home care market is growing considerably as the number of people opting for home care services rather than medical care in hospitals is increasing day by day. Home care services are cost effective and hence mostly referred by patients. The global market for home care products is growing significantly due to increasing adoption of this trend in developed economies; however, it is expected to witness an increase in demand in developing countries in near future due to the growing awareness about home care services.Growing health awareness, improving standards of living, and increase in per capita income of people are some of the reasons driving the growth of home care industry. Currently, there are number of players engaged in the business of home care product manufacturing. Wide range of product availability and variation in prices is also fuelling the market growth. Packaging innovation and technological developments for better results are some other factors driving the market growth.Request For Report Brochure@Despite of the economic downturn in past few years, there is a growing demand for home care products from developing markets like India and China due to tremendously growing population; however, some hard pressure consumers in US and Europe are forced to cut back.Market SegmentationBased on ProductAir CareBleachDishwashingInsecticidesLaundry CarePolishesSurface CareToilet CareThis research report analyzes this market based on its market segments and major geographies. Geographies analyzed under this research study are North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and Rest of the World. This research report provides complete analysis of major market segments, current market trends, factors driving market growth, restraints, industry structure, and market projections for upcoming years.Report also provides analysis of technological improvements in this industry, Porters five force model analysis, and complete company profiles of top market players. It provides review of micro and macro factors significant for existing market players and new entrants along with detailed value chain analysis.Visit For TOC@Major PlayersSome of the key players dominating this market are Abbott Laboratories, Baxter International, Devilbiss Healthcare, Drive Medical, Graham-Field Health Products Inc., Hard Manufacturing Co., Hollister, Invacare, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Medline Industries Inc., Philips, Sunrise Medical Inc., and others.About Us  Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a next-generation provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among othersContact Us:Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street, Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1- -618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Air Bags Packaging Market - Industry Size, Share, Growth, Trend and Forecast 2016 - 2024

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"The Latest Research Report Air Bags Packaging Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trend and Forecast 2016 - 2024 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"Air bags packaging Market: IntroductionPackaging plays an important role for attracting the customers towards the product offered by the manufacturers. Apart from that, packaging is also used for protection during transportation, identification as well as it aids to differentiate from the competitors products available in the market. Air bags packaging is one of the most popular packaging solutions adopted by food & beverages, pharmaceutical and electronics product manufacturer. The demand for air bags packaging is gaining traction, owing to its light weight and its flexible nature to pack different product forms in same pack format.Get Sample Copy Of This Report @Air bags Packaging: Market DynamicsGlobal air bags packaging market is primarily driving by the increasing growth in e commerce industry as air bags packaging is used widely preferred packaging solutions in the e commerce industry. Also, air bags packaging is anticipated to be driven by the growing demand of third party logistics across the globe. Third party logistics providers focus in warehousing, integrated operation, and transportation services. Third party logistic providers are adopting air bags packaging for packaging solutions. Moreover, air bags packaging minimizes the shipping costs of the manufacturer owing to the property of its light weight. Air bags packaging is extensively used for packaging consumer durable products that in turn accelerates the demand of air bags packaging market during the forecast period. Furthermore, mounting growth of pharmaceutical industry is positively influencing the demand of air bags packaging market. Air bags packaging is used as packaging solution for automotive parts which is expected to further propel the growth of air bags packaging in the upcoming decade. Air bags packaging is also used in the beverages packaging especially for wine that is expected to intensify the growth of the market. Over the past few year, air bags is used as a packaging solution for industrial goods. But some government regulations regarding the usage of plastic can pose a challenge for the air bags packaging market. Manufacturers of air bags packaging are now using biodegradable plastic as an alternative material.View Report @Air bags packaging: Market SegmentationThe global air bags packaging market is segmented on the basis of application, material type, function and distribution channelBased on the application the global air bags packaging market is segmented into:FoodBeveragesElectronics & semi-conductorPharmaceuticalIndustrial goodsAutomotive partsBased on the material type, the global air bags packaging market is segmented into:PVCPSPEOthersBased on the function, the global air bags packaging market is segmented into:Void FillCushioningBased on the distribution channel, the global air bags packaging market is segmented into:ConventionalE- CommerceAir bags packaging Market: Regional outlookIn terms of geography, the global air bags packaging market has been divided in to five key regions including North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Middle East & Africa. North America is expected to remain its dominance during the forecast period owing to the huge growth of pharmaceutical along with the healthy growth of cosmetic & personal care industry. Europe is also expected to witness slightly slower growth due to the mature market. Asia pacific region is anticipated to register highest CAGR as compare to the other region due to the healthy growth of e commerce industry in developing economies. But Latin America and Middle East & Africa region is expected to witness very slow growth in the next decade.Air bags Packaging Market: Key playersSome of the key players in the global air bags packaging market are Airpack, S.p.A, Inflatable Packaging, Inc., Smurfit Kappa Group Plc., and Bayer Corporation etc. Many unorganized players are also presence in the market for that key players are focusing to mergers & acquisition activity to penetrate into the developing countries.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.Send An Enquiry Request @The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisThe regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland and Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, and North Africa)The report has been compiled through extensive primary research (through interviews, surveys, and observations of seasoned analysts) and secondary research (which entails reputable paid sources, trade journals, and industry body databases). The report also features a complete qualitative and quantitative assessment by analyzing data gathered from industry analysts and market participants across key points in the industrys value chain.A separate analysis of prevailing trends in the parent market, macro- and micro-economic indicators, and regulations and mandates is included under the purview of the study. By doing so, the report projects the attractiveness of each major segment over the forecast period.Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsMarket segmentation up to the second or third levelHistorical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volumeReporting and evaluation of recent industry developmentsMarket shares and strategies of key playersEmerging niche segments and regional marketsAn objective assessment of the trajectory of the marketRecommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketCheck Discount This Report From Here @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA: Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
South Africa Midstream Oil and Gas Industry Outlook to 2022 - Market Forecasts for Oil Storage, Pipelines and Gas Processing

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"The Report South Africa Midstream Oil and Gas Industry Outlook to 2022 - Market Forecasts for Oil Storage, Pipelines and Gas Processing provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About South Africa Midstream Oil and Gas Industry Market"South Africa Midstream Oil and Gas Industry Outlook to 2022 - Market Forecasts for Oil Storage, Pipelines and Gas Processing", is a comprehensive report on midstream oil and gas industry in South Africa. The report provides details such as name, type, operational status and operator for all active and planned (new build) oil storage terminals, major trunk pipelines and gas processing plants in South Africa till 2022. Further, the report also offers recent developments, financial deals as well as latest contracts awarded in the countrys midstream sector.Get Sample copy of this Report @Scope- Updated information related to all active and planned oil storage terminals, major trunk pipelines and gas processing plants in the country, including operator and equity details- Key mergers and acquisitions, partnerships, private equity and initial public offerings in the countrys midstream oil and gas industry, where available- Latest developments, financial deals and awarded contracts related to midstream oil and gas industry in the countryView Report @Reasons to buy- Gain a strong understanding of the countrys midstream oil and gas industry- Facilitate decision making on the basis of strong historic and forecast of capacity data- Assess your competitors major oil storage terminals, major trunk pipelines and gas processing plants in the country- Analyze the latest developments, financial deals and awarded contracts related to the countrys midstream oil and gas industry- Understand the countrys financial deals landscape by analyzing how competitors are financed, and the mergers and partnerships that have shaped the marketSend An Enquiry Request @Table of Contents1 Table of Contents 11.1. List of Tables 31.2. List of Figures 42. Introduction 52.1. What is This Report About? 52.2. Market Definition 53. South Africa Oil Storage Industry 73.1. South Africa Oil Storage Industry, Key Data 73.2. South Africa Oil Storage Industry, Overview 73.3. South Africa Oil Storage Industry, Storage Operations 73.3.1. South Africa Oil Storage Industry, Total Storage Capacity 73.3.2. South Africa Oil Storage Industry, Storage Capacity Share by Area 93.4. South Africa Oil Storage Industry, Storage Capacity by Major Companies 103.5. South Africa Oil Storage Industry, Storage Capacity by Terminal 123.6. South Africa Oil Storage Industry, Asset Details 133.6.1. South Africa Oil Storage Industry, Active Asset Details 133.6.2. South Africa Oil Storage Industry, Planned Asset Details 204. South Africa Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry 284.1. South Africa Oil Pipelines 284.1.1. South Africa Oil Pipelines, Key Data 284.2. South Africa Oil Pipelines, Overview 284.3. South Africa Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Crude Oil Pipeline Length by Company 284.4. South Africa Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Crude Oil Pipelines 294.5. South Africa Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Petroleum Products Pipeline Length by Company 294.6. South Africa Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Petroleum Products Pipelines 304.7. South Africa Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Oil Pipelines Asset Details 314.7.1. South Africa Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Oil Pipelines Active Asset Details 314.7.2. South Africa Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Oil Pipelines Planned Asset Details 374.8. South Africa Gas Pipelines, Key Data 394.9. South Africa Gas Pipelines, Overview 394.10. South Africa Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Natural Gas Pipeline Length by Major Companies 394.11. South Africa Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Natural Gas Pipelines 414.12. South Africa Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Gas Pipelines Asset Details 424.12.1. South Africa Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Gas Pipelines Active Asset Details 424.12.2. South Africa Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Gas Pipelines Planned Asset Details 505. South Africa Gas Processing Industry 585.1. South Africa Gas Processing Industry, Overview 585.2. South Africa Gas Processing Industry, Planned Gas Processing Capacity 585.3. South Africa Gas Processing Industry, Asset Details 595.5.1. South Africa Gas Processing Industry, Planned Asset Details 596. Recent Contracts 616.1. Awarded Contracts 616.1.1. Cloughs CMR Marine Secures Contract From Sunrise Energy 616.1.2. Chemtoll Secures Contract From Petroleum, Oil and Gas Corporation of South Africa (SOC) 636.1.3. Massive Quantum and Silver Solution Valves Secures Contract From Petroleum, Oil and Gas Corporation of South Africa (SOC) 647. Financial Deals Landscape 667.1. Detailed Deal Summary 667.1.1. Acquisition 667.1.2. Equity Offerings 697.1.3. Debt Offerings 707.1.4. Partnerships 718. Recent Developments 728.1. Other Significant Developments 728.1.1. Feb 27, 2017: Oil tanking MOGS to develop crude oil storage terminal in Saldanha Bay 728.1.2. Oct 03, 2016: South Africa To Announce Preferred Bidders For Gas Projects In March 2017 728.1.3. Jul 26, 2017: SNC-Lavalin awarded contract on Sasol's Fine Ash Dam 6 Project in South Africa 729. Appendix 749.1. Abbreviations 749.2. Methodology 749.2.1. Coverage 749.2.2. Secondary Research 749.3. Contact Us 759.4. Disclaimer 75Buy Now @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Hyperuricemia Market Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024

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"The Report Hyperuricemia Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"Global Hyperuricemia Market: OverviewHyperuricemia is condition in which the level of uric acid in the blood increases to abnormally high levels. Various factors are responsible for hyperuricemia, which include insulin resistance, renal failure, obesity and alcohol consumption which is found to be the most prevalent factor. Scientists are still trying to confirm obesity as a predisposing factor for hyperuricemia,Get Sample copy of this Report @ According to data published in National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, U.S. an average of 17 million U.S. citizens suffered from alcohol use disorder in 2011. In another statistics published by World Health Organization (WHO) global alcohol consumption in 2010 was around 6 liters of pure alcohol per person aged 15 years above. The incidences of alcohol abuse are increasing across the globe and also act as a major contributing factor to disorders such as liver cirrhosis, and hyperuricemia. Approximately 70% of the uric acid produced in the body is filtered by the kidneys, while the remaining amount is eliminated by intestine. In individuals suffering from renal failure, the elimination of uric acid by the kidney decreases, leading to increased uric acid levels in blood. Further, an article published in the Journal of the America College of Cardiology in the year 2012 suggests that hyperuricemia is found to be associated with dyslipidemia of insulin resistance, systemic inflammation, and hepatic steatosis independent of obesity and metabolic syndrome. Another article published in the journal Arthritis Care & Research in 2013 also suggests further confirmation of obesity as a factor leading to hyperuricemia.However pre diabetes and insulin resistance are found to be one of the factors leading to hyperuricemia. Articles published in Current Opinion in Rheumatology and BMC Cardiovascular Disorders published in 2013 and 2012 have confirmed the factors.Global Hyperuricemia Market: Trends and ProspectsVarious drugs especially cancer drugs are also found to cause hyperuricemia. High level of uric acid in the blood for a prolonged period of time is also a major cause of gout. These factors will increase the prevalence of hyperuricemia as drive the market in the future. Currently ULORIC (febuxostat) manufactured by Takeda Pharmaceuticals is widely prescribed for treating hyperuricemia. However the drug is not prescribed for treatment of high uric acid without a history of gout.View Report @Various clinical trials are carried out by research institutes and companies in order to discover most efficient drug for rearming the disorder. Ardea Biosciences, Inc. is conducting phase 2 clinical trials for testing efficiency of RDEA806 for treatment of hyperuricemia. Hebei Medical University is conducting phase 3 trials to test the hypothesis that prednisone is superior over allopurinol in renal function improvement in heart failure patients with hyperuricemia. TWi Biotechnology, Inc. was awarded with U.S. patent in 2014 for AC  201 which is effective in treating hyperuricemia. Similar research and development activities will add more products to the market and expand its reach globally. Lesser competition and wide scope for research and development activities have made the market more attractive. As newer drugs receive regulatory approvals, the market is expected to boost in the near future. Due to high cost of branded drugs, the market will have a restricted growth in the regions of Asia Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa which majorly comprise of under developed and developing economies.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisRequest for Enquiry @ The regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland and Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, and North Africa)The report has been compiled through extensive primary research (through interviews, surveys, and observations of seasoned analysts) and secondary research (which entails reputable paid sources, trade journals, and industry body databases). The report also features a complete qualitative and quantitative assessment by analyzing data gathered from industry analysts and market participants across key points in the industrys value chain.A separate analysis of prevailing trends in the parent market, macro- and micro-economic indicators, and regulations and mandates is included under the purview of the study. By doing so, the report projects the attractiveness of each major segment over the forecast period.Check Discount @Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsMarket segmentation up to the second or third levelHistorical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volumeReporting and evaluation of recent industry developmentsMarket shares and strategies of key playersEmerging niche segments and regional marketsAn objective assessment of the trajectory of the marketRecommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketAbout usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Contact usMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Fall Detection System Market Market Is a Treasure Trove for Solution Providers

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This report helps to analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the global Fall Detection System Sales market.DescriptionThe Global Fall Detection System Sales Market report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the Global Fall Detection System Sales industry. This report evaluates the Global market for "Global Fall Detection System Sales".The Global Fall Detection System Sales Market report provides complete analysis of the Global Fall Detection System Sales Market by analysing all round market dynamics such as regional market opportunities, drivers, challenges, constraints, threats, and other market trends.The Global Fall Detection System Sales Market report contains latest Business Data resulting from various Research sources that helps Decision Makers to deliver a Distinctive and Trustworthy Analysis for Companys Growth.Get a PDF Sample of Global Fall Detection System Sales Market report @:The Global Fall Detection System Sales Market Survey starts with Industry overview of Global Fall Detection System Sales Market covering Major Regions Status, Industry Chain Structure, Definitions and Specifications, with a detailed focus on Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis including Raw Material Suppliers, Equipment Suppliers and Manufacturing Process.In Next Part, the researchers has collected and presented information on Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis which comprises of Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, R&D Status and Technology Source of Major Manufacturers in 2017.In following segment, with Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin, Business Region Distribution Analysis, Competition between various Company Profile has been given along with Product Pictures and Specifications in Global Fall Detection System Sales Industry Report.The Key Players Mentioned in Global Fall Detection System Sales Market Report are: Philips Lifeline Connect America ADT Corporation Tunstall Healthcare Group Ltd. Medical Guardian LLC Bay Alarm Medical Singapore Technologies Electronics Limited Mobilehelp Mytrex, Inc Semtech Corporation Alertone Services, LLC Lifefone Intel Blue Willow Systems BEWIS Sensing Xi'an iHelp Wearable Electronic Co.LtdIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.The Global Fall Detection System Sales Industry Report is also a Great Source of Marketing Type Analysis consisting:1. Global Fall Detection System Sales Regional Marketing Type Analysis2. Global Fall Detection System Sales International Trade Type Analysis3. Traders or Distributors with Contact Information of Global Fall Detection System Sales by Regions4. Global Fall Detection System Sales Supply Chain AnalysisSome Points From Table of Content:Chapter One: Fall Detection System Market Overview1.1. Product Overview and Scope of Fall Detection System1.2. Classification of Fall Detection System by Product Category1.2.1. Global Fall Detection System Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)1.2.2. Global Fall Detection System Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3. Wearable Systems1.2.4. In-Home Landline Systems1.2.5. In-Home Cellular Systems1.3. Global Fall Detection System Market by Application/End UsersChapter Two: Global Fall Detection System Competition by Players/Suppliers, Type and Application2.1. Global Fall Detection System Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1. Global Fall Detection System Sales and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.1.2. Global Fall Detection System Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.2. Global Fall Detection System (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1. Global Fall Detection System Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)Chapter Three: United States Fall Detection System (Volume, Value and Sales Price)3.1. United States Fall Detection System Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.1.1. United States Fall Detection System Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.2. United States Fall Detection System Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.3. United States Fall Detection System Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)Chapter Four: China Fall Detection System (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4.1. China Fall Detection System Sales and Value (2012-2017)4.1.1. China Fall Detection System Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.2. China Fall Detection System Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.3. China Fall Detection System Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)4.2. China Fall Detection System Sales Volume and Market Share by PlayersGot any Query? Feel free to ask us @:Lastly, the Report provides Development Trend Analysis for 2017-2022 years which will forecast Market Size (Volume and Value), Sales Price, Consumption Forecast, Market Trend (Product Type) and Market Trend (Application). Also the List of Major Consumers is analyzed and Contact Details are provided to easy communicating.Finally, the Report is concluded with Various Methodology, Analyst Introduction and Data SourcesOrbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a single point aid for all your market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customized reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas  75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +9164101019Follow Us on LinkedIn:
Global Atrial Septal Defect Market Size Share - Industry Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024

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"The Latest Research Report Atrial Septal Defect Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"Global Atrial Septal Defect Market: OutlookAtrial septal defect is one of the most common congenital cardiac diseases and usually affects women more than men. It is characterized by a hole or defect in the interatrial septum that separates the hearts two upper chambers, i.e., atria. The opening in the septum usually closes when the baby is born, but in few cases if the opening does not close, the hole is referred to as atrial septal defect. Huge and long-term atrial septal defects may lead to serious heart and lung damage. In some cases, extra blood volume can overfill the lungs and increases the blood pressure of the lungs, leading to pulmonary hypertension. Most of the congenital heart diseases are caused by certain genetic defects. The three most common types of atrial septal defects are ostium secundum atrial septal defect, ostium primum atrial septal defect and sinus venosus atrial septal. Various symptoms associated with atrial septal defect are as follows:Difficulty in breathing (dyspnea)Frequent respiratory infectionsSwelling of legs and feetHeart palpitationsFatigueGet Sample copy of this Report @Global Atrial Septal Defect Market: Key SegmentsBased on diagnosis, the atrial septal defect market can be segmented as follows:Electrocardiogram (ECG): ECG records the electrical activity of an individual and identifies heart problemsChest X-ray: With the help of X-ray, condition of the heart and lungs are detectedCardiac catheterization: In this test, a catheter is inserted into the heart via vein and any congenital heart defects can be diagnosed including amount of oxygen in the bloodTransesophageal echocardiography (TEE): The test provides an ultrasound image to provide a clearer image of the atriaPulse oximetry: This test helps to detect whether oxygenated blood is mixing with deoxygenated blood, thereby confirming any type of heart defectThe medications which are used to reduce the signs and symptoms of atrial septal defect include beta blockers (Lopressor, Inderal), anticoagulants (Coumadin) and anti-platelet agents (aspirin). In some instances, surgery is also done to repair an atrial septal defect such as open-heart surgery and cardiac catheterization.View Report @Global Atrial Septal Defect Market: Regional AnalysisBased on geography, the atrial septal defect market can be segmented into four major regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World (RoW). Out of these regions, North America holds a leading position in the market followed by Europe. The prime factors which are driving the growth of atrial septal defect market in these regions are high prevalence of genetic heart disorders, and growing awareness of the population regarding atrial septal defects. Moreover, technological advancement in the treatment of congenital heart diseases is also accentuating the growth of the market. Asia Pacific is the most lucrative market for the growth of atrial septal defect market. The advantageous factors which would propel the growth of the market in Asia Pacific are presence of large population base and emerging economies such as China, Malaysia, India and Vietnam. Furthermore, favorable reimbursement policies and increasing disposable income of the Asian population would further boost the growth of atrial septal defect market in the coming years.Global Atrial Septal Defect Market: Companies Mentioned in the ReportVarious pharmaceutical companies are constantly trying to come up with novel therapeutic developments for the treatment of atrial septal defect. Some of the top major players operating in the atrial septal defect market are Asklepion Pharmaceuticals, LLC, Actelion Ltd., Novo Nordisk A/S, Abbott Laboratories, INO Therapeutics, LLC and others.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisSend An Enquiry Request @The regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland and Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, and North Africa)The report has been compiled through extensive primary research (through interviews, surveys, and observations of seasoned analysts) and secondary research (which entails reputable paid sources, trade journals, and industry body databases). The report also features a complete qualitative and quantitative assessment by analyzing data gathered from industry analysts and market participants across key points in the industrys value chain.A separate analysis of prevailing trends in the parent market, macro- and micro-economic indicators, and regulations and mandates is included under the purview of the study. By doing so, the report projects the attractiveness of each major segment over the forecast period.Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsMarket segmentation up to the second or third levelHistorical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volumeReporting and evaluation of recent industry developmentsMarket shares and strategies of key playersEmerging niche segments and regional marketsAn objective assessment of the trajectory of the marketRecommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketCheck Discount This Report From Here @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA: Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Solar Photovoltaic in Czech Republic Market Outlook to 2030

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ReportsWeb.com published Solar Photovoltaic Market from its database. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market."Solar Photovoltaic (PV) in Czech Republic, Market Outlook to 2030, Update 2017-Capacity, Generation, Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), Investment Trends, Regulations and Company Profiles", is the latest report from GlobalData, the industry analysis specialists that offer comprehensive information and understanding of the Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market in Czech Republic.The report provides in depth analysis on global renewable power market and global Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market with forecasts up to 2030. The report analyzes the power market scenario in Czech Republic (includes conventional thermal, nuclear, large hydro and renewable energy sources) and provides future outlook with forecasts up to 2030. The research details renewable power market outlook in the country (includes hydro, small hydro, biopower and Solar Photovoltaic (PV)) and provides forecasts up to 2030. The report highlights installed capacity and power generation trends from 2006 to 2030 in Czech Republic Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market. A detailed coverage of renewable energy policy framework governing the market with specific policies pertaining to Solar Photovoltaic (PV) is provided in the report. The research also provides company snapshots of some of the major market participants.The report is built using data and information sourced from proprietary databases, secondary research and in-house analysis by GlobalData's team of industry experts.For more information about this report @ScopeThe report analyses global renewable power market, global Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market, Czech Republic power market, Czech Republic renewable power market and Czech Republic Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market. The scope of the research includes--A brief introduction on global carbon emissions and global primary energy consumption.-An overview on global renewable power market, highlighting installed capacity trends, generation trends and installed capacity split by various renewable power sources. The information is covered for the historical period 2006-2016 (unless specified) and forecast period 2017-2030.-Renewable power sources include wind (both onshore and offshore), Solar Photovoltaic (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), small hydro power (SHP), biomass, biogas and geothermal.-Detailed overview of the global Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market with installed capacity and generation trends, installed capacity split by major Solar Photovoltaic (PV)power countries in 2016 and key owners information of various regions.-Power market scenario in Czech Republic and provides detailed market overview, installed capacity and power generation trends by various fuel types (includes thermal conventional, nuclear, large hydro and renewable energy sources) with forecasts up to 2030.-An overview on Czech Republic renewable power market, highlighting installed capacity trends (2006-2030), generation trends(2006-2030) and installed capacity split by various renewable power sources in 2016.-Detailed overview of Czech Republic Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market with installed capacity and generation trends and major active and upcoming Solar Photovoltaic (PV) projects.-Deal analysis of Czech Republic Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market. Deals are analyzed on the basis of mergers, acquisitions, partnership, asset finance, debt offering, equity offering, private equity (PE) and venture capitalists (VC).-Key policies and regulatory framework supporting the development of renewable power sources in general and Solar Photovoltaic (PV) in particular.-Company snapshots of some of the major market participants in the country.Request a sample copy @Reasons to buy-The report will enhance your decision making capability in a more rapid and time sensitive manner.-Identify key growth and investment opportunities in Czech Republic Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market.-Facilitate decision-making based on strong historic and forecast data for Solar Photovoltaic (PV) market.-Position yourself to gain the maximum advantage of the industry's growth potential.-Develop strategies based on the latest regulatory events.-Identify key partners and business development avenues.-Understand and respond to your competitors' business structure, strategy and prospects.Table of ContentsTable of Contents 21.1 List of Tables 51.2 List of Figures 62 Executive Summary 72.1 Global Carbon Emissions to Increase at a Lower rate During the Forecast Period 72.2 Technological Advancements and Government Support Driving Global Renewable Power Installations 72.3 Coal-based Thermal Power is the Dominant Source of Power in the Czech Republic 82.4 A Nuclear-Powered Future Expected for the Czech Republic 83 Introduction 93.1 Carbon Emissions, Global, 2001-2016 93.2 Primary Energy Consumption, Global, 2001-2030 113.3 Solar Photovoltaic (PV), Global, Technology Definition and Classification 133.4 Report Guidance 144 Renewable Power Market, Global, 2006-2030 154.1 Renewable Power Market, Global, Overview 154.2 Renewable Power Market, Global, Installed Capacity, 2006-2030 164.2.1 Renewable Power Market, Global, Cumulative Installed Capacity by Source Type, 2006-2030 164.2.2 Renewable Power Market, Global, Cumulative Installed Capacity Split by Source Type, 2016 and 2030 184.2.3 Renewable Power Market, Global, Net Capacity Additions by Source Type, 2016-2030 204.2.4 Renewable Power Market, Global, Comparison by Cumulative Installed Capacity of Technology, 2016-2030 224.3 Renewable Power Market, Global, Power Generation, 2006-2030 244.3.1 Renewable Power Market, Global, Power Generation by Source Type, 2006-2030 244.3.2 Renewable Power Market, Global, Power Generation, Source Comparison Based on Power Generation, 2016-2030 264.4 Renewable Power Market, Global, LCOE Comparison of Power Generating Sources, 2016 285 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, 2006-2030 315.1 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, Overview 315.2 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, Installed Capacity, 2006-2030 325.2.1 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, Installed Capacity Share by Region, 2016 and 2030 345.2.2 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, Installed Capacity Share by Country, 2016 and 2030 365.3 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, Power Generation, 2006-2030 385.3.1 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, Generation Share by Region, 2016 and 2030 405.3.2 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, Generation Share by Country, 2016 and 2030 425.4 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Global, Investment Trends, 2016-2020 446 Power Market, Czech Republic, 2006-2030 466.1 Power Market, Czech Republic, Overview 466.2 Power Market, Czech Republic, Installed Capacity, 2006-2030 476.2.1 Power Market, Czech Republic, Cumulative Installed Capacity by Fuel Type, 2006-2030 476.2.2 Power Market, Czech Republic, Share in Cumulative Installed Capacity Split by Source Type, 2016 and 2030 506.2.3 Power Market, Czech Republic, Net Capacity Additions by Fuel Type, 2016 and 2030 526.2.4 Power Market, Czech Republic, Comparison of Technologies Based on Installed Capacity, 2016-2030 546.3 Power Market, Czech Republic, Power Generation, 2006-2030 566.3.1 Power Market, Czech Republic, Power Generation by Fuel Type, 2006-2030 566.3.2 Power Market, Czech Republic, Comparison of Technologies Based on Power Generation, 2016-2030 597 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, 2006-2030 617.1 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Overview 617.2 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Installed Capacity, 2006-2030 627.2.1 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Cumulative Installed Capacity by Source Type, 2006-2030 627.2.2 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Cumulative Installed Capacity Split by Source Type, 2016 and 2030 657.2.3 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Net Capacity Additions by Source Type, 2016-2030 667.2.4 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Comparison of Renewable Power Sources Based on Installed Capacity, 2016-2030 687.3 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Power Generation, 2006-2030 707.3.1 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Power Generation by Source Type, 2006-2030 707.3.2 Renewable Power Market, Czech Republic, Comparison of Renewable Power Sources Based on Power Generation, 2016-2030 738 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, 2006-2030 758.1 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Overview 758.2 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Installed Capacity, 2006-2030 768.3 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Power Generation, 2006-2030 788.4 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Investment Trends, 2016-2020 808.5 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Project Based Analysis, 2016 828.5.1 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Major Active Plants, 2016 828.6 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Deal Analysis, 2016 838.6.1 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Deal Volume vs. Deal Value, 2006-2016 838.6.2 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Split by Deal Type, 2016 859 Power Market, Regulatory Scenario, Czech Republic 869.1 Renewable Energy Market, Overview 869.2 National Renewable Energy Action Plan 869.3 Green Investment Scheme: New Green Savings 2014 869.4 Feed-in tariff 879.5 Tax Exemption for Renewable Energy Use 879.6 Excise Tax Exemptions for Biofuels 879.7 State Program to Promote Energy Savings and Use of Renewable and Secondary Energy Sources 879.8 Operation Programme Environment 889.9 National climate change plan 8910 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Market, Czech Republic, Company Profiles 9010.1 Company Snapshot: Solaria Energia y Medio Ambiente S.A. 9010.1.1 Solaria Energia y Medio Ambiente S.A.-Company Overview 9010.1.2 Solaria Energia y Medio Ambiente S.A.-Business Description 9010.1.3 Solaria Energia y Medio Ambiente S.A.-SWOT Analysis 9110.1.4 Solaria Energia y Medio Ambiente S.A.-Major Products and Services 9310.1.5 Solaria Energia y Medio Ambiente S.A.-Head Office 9310.2 Company Snapshot: Scatec Solar AS 9410.2.1 Scatec Solar AS-Company Overview 9410.2.2 Scatec Solar AS-Business Description 9410.2.3 Scatec Solar AS-SWOT Analysis 9410.2.4 Scatec Solar AS-Major Products and Services 9710.2.5 Scatec Solar AS-Head Office 9910.3 Company Snapshot: S.A.G. Solar GmbH & Co. KG. 10010.3.1 S.A.G. Solar GmbH & Co. KG.-Company Overview 10010.3.2 S.A.G. Solar GmbH & Co. KG.-Business Description 10010.3.3 S.A.G. Solar GmbH & Co. KG.-SWOT Analysis 10010.3.4 S.A.G. Solar GmbH & Co. KG.-Major Products and Services 10210.3.5 S.A.G. Solar GmbH & Co. KG.-Head Office 10310.4 Company Snapshot: Gentley a.s. 10410.4.1 Gentley a.s.-Company Overview 10410.4.2 Gentley a.s.-Head Office 10411 Appendix 10511.1 Abbreviations 10511.2 Bibliography 10511.3 Market Definitions 10611.4 Methodology 10611.5 Coverage 10611.5.1 Secondary Research 10611.5.2 Primary Research 10711.5.3 Modeling and Forecasting 10711.6 Contact Us 10711.7 Disclaimer 108Companies MentionedSolaria Energia y Medio Ambiente S.A.Scatec Solar ASS.A.G. Solar GmbH & Co. KG.Gentley a.s.Inquire for Report @Contact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@reportsweb.comReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer Bauxite Mining and our customer support Bauxite Mining is always available to help you on your research queries.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Green Tea Market Insights and Analysis for Period 2016 - 2024

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Global Green Tea Market: OverviewThe green tea market is gaining immense popularity across the globe and is anticipated to witness robust growth throughout the forecast period. In addition, convenient and attractive packaging is expected to drive the demand and encourage the growth of the market. The increasing number of players entering the global green tea market is expected to strengthen the competitive scenario throughout the forecast period.The research study offers a detailed analysis of the global green tea market, providing insights into the key growth factors and the recent developments in the market. On the basis of flavors, the global green tea market can be categorized into aloe vera, wild berry lemon, cinnamon, jasmin, vanilla, basil, and others. Furthermore, the market can be classified on the basis of product type and geography. To offer a strong understanding of the market, the estimated growth rate and share of each segment have been provided in the scope of the research study.Request For Report Brochure@Global Green Tea Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe rising awareness concerning the health benefits and the growing focus of consumers on leading a healthy lifestyle are some of the vital factors that are estimated to encourage the growth of the market throughout the forecast period. In addition, the tremendously rising number of obesity cases and people suffering from cardiovascular diseases is estimated to boost the demand for green tea across the globe. As green tea is believed to reduce the effect of LDL cholesterol, cancer cells, and cures head and bodyaches. In addition, green tea also helps significantly in fat reduction. These factors are estimated to fuel the growth of the overall market in the next few years.On the other hand, the higher price of green tea in comparison with black tea and the lack of awareness, especially in developing economies are anticipated to restrict the growth of the global green tea market in the next few years. Nevertheless, the expansion of the product portfolio and the increasing marketing activities and advertising are projected to offer promising opportunities for the key players in the global green tea market.Global Green Tea Market: Region-wise OutlookThe global market for green tea can be classified in terms of geography into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Rest of the World. Among these, China is considered as one of the leading producers and exporters of green tea and is expected to remain in the topmost position throughout the forecast period. In addition to this region, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan are anticipated to witness substantial growth in the near future, thus propelling the Asia Pacific green tea market.Furthermore, the growing awareness regarding the health benefits of consuming green tea and the easy availability are some of the key factors that are expected to encourage the growth of the Asia Pacific green tea market in the next few years. On the other hand, Europe is likely to witness robust growth, thanks to the rising health consciousness among consumers. The lucrative opportunities in this region are anticipated to attract a large number of players to invest and enhance their market presence across Europe in the near future.Visit For TOC@Key Players Mentioned in the Research Report are:The rising awareness regarding the benefits of green tea has resulted in a high demand across the globe. Some of the leading players operating in the global green tea market are Tetley GB Ltd, Nestle S.A., Tata Global Beverage, DSM Nutritional Products, Associated British Foods LLC, Unilever Group, Oregon Chai Inc, Northern tea Merchants Ltd., AMORE Pacific Corp, and Numi Organic Tea.About Us  Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a next-generation provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among othersContact Us:Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street, Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1- -618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Brazil Lula Central Project Panorama - Oil and Gas Upstream Analysis Report

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"The Report Brazil Lula Central Project Panorama - Oil and Gas Upstream Analysis Report provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About Brazil Lula Central Project Panorama MarketBrazil Lula Central Project Panorama, GlobalDatas latest release, presents a comprehensive overview of the asset. This upstream report includes detailed qualitative and quantitative information on the asset, provides a full economic assessment and reflects several parameters including (but not limited to) geological profile, asset development and specific challenges. Based on this analysis, future outlook for the asset is presented with possible trends and related scenarios identifying upside/downside potential.Get Sample copy of this Report @Scope- Overview of the asset based on an analysis of the economic indicators- Key financial indicators including Net Present Value and Internal Rate of Return- Review of factors affecting the economic outcome of the field including development overview, geology, challenges, reserves and production with qualitative perspective on of the overall assets life with GlobalDatas analysis on the assets future outlook- Detailed production profile for the asset, giving annual output rates for each commodity produced- Cash flow statements from our economic analysis of the asset including capital expenditures, operating expenditures and tax liability- Individual valuations for equity holders- Sensitivity analysis for asset value considering a range of factorsView Report @Reasons to buy- Understand the economic and non-economic factors that affect production of an asset- Benefit from an asset valuation derived from detailed research and modeling by our analysts- Basic view of various scenarios and its effect on the asset for risk or strategy planning- Utilize the quantitative and qualitative evaluation to ascertain trends within the region to inform decision making- Identify economic trends of an asset to determine investment requirementsSend An Enquiry Request @Table of Contents1 Table of Contents 11.1 List of Tables 21.2 List of Figures 22 Project Panorama 33 Project Update 44 Outlook 55 Asset Summary 66 Development Overview 117 Geology 148 Challenges 159 Reserves and Production 1710 Economic Analysis 2011 Appendix 2311.1 Contact Us 2311.2 Disclaimer 231.1 List of TablesTable 1: Project Details 3Table 2: Participation Overview 6Table 3: Key Valuation Metrics 6Table 4: Asset Valuation Metrics 8Table 5: Cash Flow Summary 9Table 6: State Take Summary 9Table 7: Production Summary 18Table 8: Production Data 19Table 9: Project Cash Flow 211.2 List of FiguresFigure 1: Annual Cash Flow 7Figure 2: Full Cycle Expenditure And Revenue Split 7Figure 3: Remaining Expenditure And Revenue Split 8Figure 4: NPV Sensitivity 9Figure 5: Percentage NPV Difference 10Figure 6: Production 17Buy Now @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Viscosupplementation - Analysis and Market Forecasts

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"The Report MediPoint: Viscosupplementation - Global Analysis and Market Forecasts provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About Viscosupplementation MarketOsteoarthritis (OA) constitutes a growing public health burden, and is the most common cause of musculoskeletal disability across the globe. Intra-articular viscosupplementation with hyaluronic acid (HA) has become an increasingly accepted therapeutic alternative to knee replacement surgery in the symptomatic management of OA over the past decade. Going forward, palliative pain treatments are likely to continue to fare well as healthcare reform kicks in and lag times for knee replacement become the norm. Growth of the viscosupplementation market will be highest in the US and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, where there is a significant pent-up demand for early intervention in the management of OA.Get Sample copy of this Report @The increasing prevalence of OA and the lower cost of prescribing viscosupplementation compared with knee replacement surgery have prompted the medical community to take a closer look at this therapy. However, there is a growing concern among physicians that the updated American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) and Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) treatment guidelines for knee OA will result in increased insurance denials for viscosupplementation. Moving forward, industry consolidation and intense competition in the viscosupplementation arena will cause increasing numbers of companies to augment their research efforts to differentiate their products from the lower-end competitors. The motivation to incorporate the favorable properties of different agents into a more effective viscosupplementation product has led to the manipulation and development of next-generation HA formulations consisting of not only HAs, but also pharmaceuticals, such as corticosteroids.HighlightsView Report @Key Questions Answered- Future growth in the viscosupplementation market lies in the one-injection segment. What are the current adoption trends in different geographies? How will one-injection segment drive the market revenue growth in the upcoming years?- In the US, some commercial insurers have completely excluded viscosupplementation treatment from their coverage. Even when the criteria for coverage have clearly been met by the patient, denials are common. Has this impacted the procedure volume growth in the US viscosupplementation market?- Reimbursement is the single greatest barrier to the market growth for viscosupplementation procedures. How does the current payer mix look like in different countries?- In recent years, there has been an expansion in the use of intra-articular HA viscosupplementation for treating OA at hips, shoulders, and other small joints. What are the current adoption trends in different regions?- Because the most prevalent treatment regimen varies from region to region, the competitive landscape in the viscosupplementation space can be quite different across the geographies covered in this report. Who are the leading players in the viscosupplementation market in different countries?Reasons to buy- What Do Physicians Think quotes provide a unique insight into how healthcare professionals are reacting to events within the industry, and what their responses could mean for industry strategists. This information is essential for all strategic decision makers in every organization allowing them to act on high quality information.Send An Enquiry Request @Table of Contents1 Table of Contents 81.1 List of Tables 131.2 List of Figures 172 Introduction 202.1 Catalyst 202.2 Related Reports 203 Treatment Modalities Overview 223.1 Treatment Paradigm 223.1.1 Physical Therapies 223.1.2 Medications 223.1.3 Hyaluronic Acid Viscosupplementation 233.1.4 Surgical Intervention 254 Industry Overview 264.1 Procedural Trends 264.1.1 Overview 264.1.2 US 304.1.3 5EU 334.1.4 Asia-Pacific 374.1.5 South America 424.2 Market Access 454.2.1 US 454.2.2 5EU 464.2.3 Asia-Pacific 474.2.4 South America 474.3 Reimbursement 484.3.1 US 484.3.2 5EU 524.3.3 Asia-Pacific 584.3.4 South America 614.4 Mergers and Acquisitions/Key Partnerships 624.4.1 Meda AB Acquires Rottapharm|Medaus for $3.1 Billion (October 2014) 624.4.2 Founders of Anteis Establish Aptissen (March 2014) 634.4.3 Bioventus Acquires Durolane Assets from Galderma (February 2014) 634.4.4 Zimmer to Combine with Biomet in a Transaction Valued at $13.35 Billion (April 2014) 634.4.5 Johnson & Johnson Acquires Synthes for $19.7 Billion (June 2012) 645 Market Drivers, Opportunities, and Barriers 655.1 Driver: Rising Prevalence of OA 655.2 Driver: Multimodal Treatment Paradigm for OA 665.3 Driver: Viscosupplementation Delays Total Knee Replacement 675.4 Driver: Side Effects of NSAIDs, Corticosteroids, and Narcotics 685.5 Driver: Direct-To-Consumer Marketing 705.6 Opportunity: Expanding Indications 715.7 Opportunity: New-Generation HA Derivatives 725.8 Opportunity: Increased Use After Arthroscopic Surgeries 745.9 Opportunity: Self-Pay Market 745.10 Opportunity: Emerging Countries 765.11 Barrier: Unfavorable Reimbursement Scenario 765.12 Barrier: Pricing Erosion 775.13 Barrier: Cost-Effective Pharmacological Therapies 785.14 Barrier: Will The Rising Popularity of PRP Injection Impact the Viscosupplementation Market? 785.15 Barrier: Cost-Conscious Patients in Emerging Countries 816 Unmet Needs 836.1 Lack of Consensus on Clinical Efficacy of Viscosupplementation in Knee OA 836.2 Insufficient Evidence to Prove the Clinical Efficacy of Viscosupplementation in Other Joints 856.3 Better Understanding of the Basic Science 876.4 Ultrasound-Guided Injection 90Buy Now @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Cloud VPN Market Size, Status and Forecast by types, application, products 2022

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"The Report Global Cloud VPN Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"This report studies the global Cloud VPN market, analyzes and researches the Cloud VPN development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, likeCisco Systems (US)Microsoft Corporation (US)Google (US)NCP Engineering (Germany)Huawei Technologies (China)Robustel (China)Oracle (US)Contemporary Controls (US)Virtela (US)Singtel (Singapore)Cohesive Networks (US)Array Networks (US)Get Sample Copy Of This Report @Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaMarket segment by Type, Cloud VPN can be split intoSite-to-SiteRemote AccessMarket segment by Application, Cloud VPN can be split intoLarge EnterprisesSMEsView Report @Table of ContentsGlobal Cloud VPN Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of Cloud VPN1.1 Cloud VPN Market Overview1.1.1 Cloud VPN Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Cloud VPN Market Size and Analysis by Regions1.2.1 United States1.2.2 EU1.2.3 Japan1.2.4 China1.2.5 India1.2.6 Southeast Asia1.3 Cloud VPN Market by Type1.3.1 Site-to-Site1.3.2 Remote Access1.4 Cloud VPN Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Large Enterprises1.4.2 SMEs2 Global Cloud VPN Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Cloud VPN Market Size (Value) by Players (2016 and 2017)2.2 Competitive Status and Trend2.2.1 Market Concentration Rate2.2.2 Product/Service Differences2.2.3 New Entrants2.2.4 The Technology Trends in Future3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 Cisco Systems (US)3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Cloud VPN Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 Microsoft Corporation (US)3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Cloud VPN Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 Google (US)3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Cloud VPN Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 NCP Engineering (Germany)3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 Cloud VPN Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 Huawei Technologies (China)3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 Cloud VPN Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.5.5 Recent Developments3.6 Robustel (China)3.6.1 Company Profile3.6.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.6.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.6.4 Cloud VPN Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.6.5 Recent Developments3.7 Oracle (US)3.7.1 Company Profile3.7.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.7.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.7.4 Cloud VPN Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.7.5 Recent Developments3.8 Contemporary Controls (US)3.8.1 Company Profile3.8.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.8.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.8.4 Cloud VPN Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.8.5 Recent Developments3.9 Virtela (US)3.9.1 Company Profile3.9.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.9.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.9.4 Cloud VPN Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.9.5 Recent Developments3.10 Singtel (Singapore)3.10.1 Company Profile3.10.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.10.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.10.4 Cloud VPN Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.10.5 Recent Developments3.11 Cohesive Networks (US)3.12 Array Networks (US)4 Global Cloud VPN Market Size by Type and Application (2012-2017)4.1 Global Cloud VPN Market Size by Type (2012-2017)4.2 Global Cloud VPN Market Size by Application (2012-2017)4.3 Potential Application of Cloud VPN in Future4.4 Top Consumer/End Users of Cloud VPN5 United States Cloud VPN Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States Cloud VPN Market Size (2012-2017)5.2 United States Cloud VPN Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Mr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:Email: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Research Focused On the Health Information Systems (HIS) Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022

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"The Report Global Health Information Systems (HIS) Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"This report studies the global Health Information Systems (HIS) market, analyzes and researches the Health Information Systems (HIS) development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, likeAgfa GevaertGE HealthcareMcKessonPhilips HealthcareSiemens HealthcareNextGen Healthcare Information SystemsShanghai TengchengNeusoft3M HealthM Health Information SystemsCarestream HealthCernerEpic SystemsInterSystemsMerge HealthcareGet Sample Copy Of This Report @Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaMarket segment by Type, Health Information Systems (HIS) can be split intoDistrict Level Routine Information SystemsDisease Surveillance SystemsLaboratory Information SystemsHospital Patient Administration Systems (PAS)Human Resource Management Information SystemsMarket segment by Application, Health Information Systems (HIS) can be split intoMedical IndustryPersonal HealthcareView Report @Table of ContentsGlobal Health Information Systems (HIS) Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of Health Information Systems (HIS)1.1 Health Information Systems (HIS) Market Overview1.1.1 Health Information Systems (HIS) Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Health Information Systems (HIS) Market Size and Analysis by Regions1.2.1 United States1.2.2 EU1.2.3 Japan1.2.4 China1.2.5 India1.2.6 Southeast Asia1.3 Health Information Systems (HIS) Market by Type1.3.1 District Level Routine Information Systems1.3.2 Disease Surveillance Systems1.3.3 Laboratory Information Systems1.3.4 Hospital Patient Administration Systems (PAS)1.3.5 Human Resource Management Information Systems1.4 Health Information Systems (HIS) Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Medical Industry1.4.2 Personal Healthcare2 Global Health Information Systems (HIS) Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Health Information Systems (HIS) Market Size (Value) by Players (2016 and 2017)2.2 Competitive Status and Trend2.2.1 Market Concentration Rate2.2.2 Product/Service Differences2.2.3 New Entrants2.2.4 The Technology Trends in Future3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 Agfa Gevaert3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Health Information Systems (HIS) Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 GE Healthcare3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Health Information Systems (HIS) Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 McKesson3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Health Information Systems (HIS) Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 Philips Healthcare3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 Health Information Systems (HIS) Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 Siemens Healthcare3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 Health Information Systems (HIS) Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.5.5 Recent Developments3.6 NextGen Healthcare Information Systems3.6.1 Company Profile3.6.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.6.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.6.4 Health Information Systems (HIS) Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.6.5 Recent Developments3.7 Shanghai Tengcheng3.7.1 Company Profile3.7.2 Main Business/Business OverviewAbout usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Mr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:Email: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Digital Therapeutic Devices Market: Worldwide Industry Analysis and New Market Opportunities Explored

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The global digital therapeutic devices market is divided among a large number of players that features stiff competition, notes a fresh market study by Transparency Market Research (TMR). Going ahead, the competitive scenario is likely to intensify as more and more medical device companies make a foray into this market with their technological expertise.However, some of the companies hold a strong foothold than the rest in the global digital therapeutics devices market, namely Proteus Digital Health, WellDoc Inc., Noom Inc., Propeller Health, Canary Health, BiogeniQ Inc., Glooko Inc., Claritas MindSciences, Nanobiosys Inc., Jintronix Inc., Zest Health LLC, HealthMine Inc., BioTelemetry Inc., Digital Therapeutics, Omada Health Inc., Livongo Health, Ginger.io, Inc., 2Morrow Inc., Mango Health, Twine Health Inc., Firstbeat Technologies Ltd, Big Health, Dthera Sciences, Virta Health Corp, Meru Health Inc., Pear Therapeutics Inc., and Blue Mesa.Obtain Report Details @Partnerships and collaborations are what leading players in the market are focused on to enhance their technical expertise and deliver novel solutions, explains the author of the study. For instance, in January 2017, Glooko announced a partnership with Ascensia Diabetes Care to deliver diabetes technology data solutions. Established players are also focusing on emerging economies in Asia Pacific that display a substantially high demand for digital therapeutic devicesAs per estimates presented by a TMR report, the demand in the global digital therapeutic devices market will expand at an impressive 15.6% CAGR during the forecast period between 2017 and 2025. The market for digital therapeutic devices is estimated to touch a revenue valuation of US$2,082.3 mn by 2025-end, substantially up from its evaluated worth of US$590.8 mn in 2016.Get A Brochure Of Report @Amongst the key product segments, insulin pumps held the leading market share in 2016 due to increasing prevalence of diabetes. Geography-wise, North America dominated the global digital therapeutic devices market in 2016.The growth of the digital therapeutic devices market is primarily driven by increasing use of technology for therapeutics of medical conditions. The presence of savvy consumers who are aware of the availability of technologically advanced products for treating a medical condition coupled with rising disposable income that enables them to opt for these products is favoring the digital therapeutic devices market.Moreover, several governments are also taking initiatives for the adoption of digital therapeutic devices that marks a significant change from traditional healthcare practices. For example, in July 2016, Japans Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry announced plans to start a demonstration project to improve diabetes management through IoT and digitization of health information.The increasing prevalence of chronic diseases is positively influencing the digital therapeutic devices market. According to Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease (PFCD), chronic diseases are the leading cause of death and disability in the U.S, and account for over 1.7 million deaths each year.Make An Enquiry @Further, rising incidence of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases are some other factors likely to drive the growth of digital therapeutic devices market in the forecast period. As per statistics of the World Health Organization, in 2015, diabetes was related to 1.6 million deaths globally. Another 2.2 million deaths were related to high blood glucose in 2012.However, factors such as data security breach and the high cost of digital therapeutic devices are some of the key challenges restraining the growth of the digital therapeutic devices market.The review presented is based on the findings of a report by Transparency Market Research, Digital Therapeutic Devices Market (Product - Pain Management Devices, Rehabilitation Devices, Respiratory Therapy Devices and Insulin Pumps; Application  Preventive (Pre Diabetes, Obesity, and Smoking Cessation) and Treatment/Care (Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases, Central Nervous System Disease, Respiratory Diseases, Musculoskeletal Diseases, and Medication Adherence); End-user - B2C (Patients and Caregivers) and B2B(Providers, Payers, Employers, and Pharmaceutical Companies)) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 20172025.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Pharmacovigilance and Drug Safety Software Market: Industry Outlook, Growth Prospects and Key Opportunities

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The global pharmacovigilance and drug safety software market is projected to create new opportunities in the coming years on account of the escalating complexity of drug safety regulations. Among the key contributing factors of the market could be tighter regulatory inspections implemented to control the rise of the incidences of drug-associated adverse events and spiraling concerns pertaining to patient safety.Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are predicted to largely adopt pharmacovigilance software for curbing the burden on medical outlay and facilitating clinical trial programs. The fortifying growth of contract research organizations (CROs) that perform pharmacovigilance for pharma firms could also strengthen the growth of the global pharmacovigilance and drug safety software market.Obtain Report Details @As per Transparency Market Research (TMR), the global pharmacovigilance and drug safety software market could earn a US$187.0 mn by 2022 end after advancing from a US$143.6 mn achieved in 2017 at a CAGR of 5.4%.The world pharmacovigilance and drug safety software market is envisaged to gain momentum from crucial applications in clinical research for performing post-marketing surveillance roles and conducting clinical studies. On a global platform, some of the most commonly used pharmacovigilance software could be Argus and ArisG.The benefits that such software bring to the table, including decreased redundancy in data and ease of access, could strongly fuel the demand in the market. In the foreseeable future, the usage rate of pharmacovigilance tools is envisioned to receive a good boost due to the rising pressure on drug manufacturers to identify early indications of drug-related adverse interactions and increasing withdrawals of high-profile drugs.Get A Brochure Of Report @The world pharmacovigilance and drug safety software market is forecasted to be cataloged according to software type, end user, and delivery mode. In terms of segmentation by type of software, fully integrated software, issue tracking software, drug safety audits software, and adverse event reporting software could be prominent markets for pharmacovigilance and drug safety software. The adverse event reporting software market could rise at a 6.2% CAGR.By end user, the world pharmacovigilance and drug safety software market could see a segmentation into business process outsourcing (BPO) firms, CROs, pharma and biotech companies, and other pharmacovigilance service providers. On the basis of mode of delivery, there could be important segments such as on-premise and cloud-based keeping the hopes alive for growth.Make An Enquiry @Geographically, North America could secure a top position in the world pharmacovigilance and drug safety software market while raking in a US$79.2 mn by the end of 2022. Between 2017 and 2022, Europe is prophesied to make its contribution to the market by creating an absolute revenue opportunity that could be greater than that expected to be achieved by Asia Pacific except Japan (APEJ) during the forecast period. Markets such as Japan, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa (MEA) could be other key segments of the market.Some of the crucial companies functioning in the worldwide pharmacovigilance and drug safety software market could be UMBRA Global LLC, AB Cube, United BioSource Corporation, Sparta Systems, Inc., Oracle Corporation, EXTEDO GmbH, Ennov Solutions, Inc., and ArisGlobal.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Nuclear Power in Czech Republic, Market - Capacity, Generation, Investment Trends, Regulations and Company Profiles Outlook to 2030, Update 2017

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"The Report Nuclear Power in Czech Republic, Market Outlook to 2030, Update 2017 - Capacity, Generation, Investment Trends, Regulations and Company Profiles provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About Nuclear Power in Czech Republic Market"Nuclear Power in Czech Republic, Market Outlook to 2030, Update 2017 - Capacity, Generation, Investment Trends, Regulations and Company Profiles", is the latest report from GlobalData, the industry analysis specialists that offer comprehensive information and understanding of the nuclear power market in Czech Republic.Get Sample copy of this Report @The report provides in depth analysis on global nuclear power market with forecasts up to 2030. The report analyzes the power market scenario in Czech Republic (includes thermal conventional, nuclear, large hydro, pumped storage and renewables) and provides future outlook with forecasts up to 2030. The research details nuclear power market outlook in the country and provides forecasts up to 2030. The report highlights installed capacity and power generation trends from 2006 to 2030 in Czech Republic nuclear power market. A detailed coverage of nuclear energy policy framework governing the market with specific policies pertaining to nuclear is provided in the report. The research also provides details of active nuclear reactors in the country, market size of major equipment and company snapshot of some of the major market participants.View Report @The report is built using data and information sourced from proprietary databases, secondary research and in-house analysis by GlobalDatas team of industry experts.Scope- A brief introduction on global carbon emissions and global primary energy consumption.- Historical period is during 2006-2016 (unless specified) and forecast period is for 2017-2030.- Overview on the global nuclear power market with installed capacity and generation trends, installed capacity split by region in 2016, installed capacity split by major nuclear power countries in 2016 and investment trends.- Power market scenario in Czech Republic provides detailed market overview, installed capacity and power generation trends by various fuel types (includes thermal conventional, nuclear, large hydro and renewables) with forecasts up to 2030.- Details of Czech Republic nuclear power market with installed capacity and generation trends, installed capacity by reactor type, installed capacity share by contractor/owner and information on major active and upcoming projects.- Key policies and regulatory framework supporting nuclear power development.- Company snapshots of some of the major market participants in the country.Reasons to buy- The report will enhance your decision making capability in a more rapid and time sensitive manner.- Identify key growth and investment opportunities in Czech Republic nuclear power market.- Facilitate decision-making based on strong historic and forecast data for nuclear power market.- Position yourself to gain the maximum advantage of the industrys growth potential.- Identify key partners and business development avenues.- Understand and respond to your competitors business structure, strategy and prospects.Send An Enquiry Request @Table of Contents1 Table of Contents 21.1 List of Tables 41.2 List of Figures 52 Executive Summary 62.1 Global Carbon Emissions to Increase at a Lower rate During the Forecast Period 62.2 Nuclear Power to Grow at a Slower Pace than Other Power Generating Sources 62.3 Coal-based Thermal Power is the Dominant Source of Power in the Czech Republic 62.4 A Nuclear-Powered Future Expected for the Czech Republic 73 Introduction 83.1 Carbon Emissions, Global, 2001-2016 83.2 Primary Energy Consumption, Global, 2001-2030 103.3 Report Guidance 134 Nuclear Power Market, Global, 2006-2030 144.1 Nuclear Power Market, Global, Overview 144.2 Nuclear Power Market, Global, Installed Capacity, 2006-2030 154.2.1 Nuclear Power Market, Global, Installed Capacity Share by Region, 2016 and 2030 164.2.2 Nuclear Power Market, Global, Installed Capacity Share by Country, 2016 and 2030 174.3 Nuclear Power Market, Global, Power Generation, 2006-2030 204.3.1 Nuclear Power Market, Global, Generation Share by Region, 2016 and 2030 224.3.2 Nuclear Power Market, Global, Generation Share by Country, 2016 and 2030 234.4 Nuclear Market, Global, Investment Trends, 2016-2020 255 Power Market, Czech Republic, 2006-2030 275.1 Power Market, Czech Republic, Overview 275.2 Power Market, Czech Republic, Installed Capacity, 2006-2030 285.2.1 Power Market, Czech Republic, Cumulative Installed Capacity by Fuel Type, 2006-2030 285.2.2 Power Market, Czech Republic, Share in Cumulative Installed Capacity Split by Source Type, 2016 and 2030 315.2.3 Power Market, Czech Republic, Net Capacity Additions by Fuel Type, 2016 and 2030 335.2.4 Power Market, Czech Republic, Comparison of Technologies Based on Installed Capacity, 2016-2030 355.3 Power Market, Czech Republic, Power Generation, 2006-2030 375.3.1 Power Market, Czech Republic, Power Generation by Fuel Type, 2006-2030 375.3.2 Power Market, Czech Republic, Comparison of Technologies Based on Power Generation, 2016-2030 406 Nuclear Power Market, Czech Republic, 2006-2030 426.1 Nuclear Power Market, Czech Republic, Overview 426.2 Nuclear Power Market, Czech Republic, Installed Capacity, 2006 - 2030 436.3 Nuclear Power Market, Czech Republic, Power Generation, 2006 - 2030 456.4 Nuclear Power Market, Czech Republic, Project Based Analysis, 2016 476.4.1 Nuclear Power Market, Czech Republic, Major Operational Nuclear Reactor, 2016 476.4.2 Nuclear Power Market, Czech Republic, Top Active Nuclear Reactor Sites, 2016 486.4.3 Nuclear Power Market, Czech Republic, Major Upcoming Nuclear Reactors, 2016 496.4.4 Nuclear Power Market, Czech Republic, Upcoming Projects by Status 506.5 Nuclear Power Market, Czech Republic, Deal Analysis, 2016 516.5.1 Nuclear Power Market, Czech Republic, Deal Volume vs. Deal Value, 2006-2016 517 Power Market, Regulatory Scenario, Czech Republic 537.1 Renewable Energy Market, Overview 537.2 National Renewable Energy Action Plan 537.3 Green Investment Scheme: New Green Savings 2014 537.4 Feed-in tariff 547.5 Tax Exemption for Renewable Energy Use 547.6 Excise Tax Exemptions for Biofuels 547.7 State Program to Promote Energy Savings and Use of Renewable and Secondary Energy Sources 547.8 Operation Programme Environment 557.9 National climate change plan 568 Nuclear Power Market, Czech Republic, Company Profiles 578.1 Company Snapshot: Doosan Skoda Power s.r.o. 578.1.1 Doosan Skoda Power s.r.o. - Company Overview 578.1.2 Doosan Skoda Power s.r.o. - Major Products and Services 578.1.3 Doosan Skoda Power s.r.o. - Head Office 588.2 Company Snapshot: CEZ, a.s. 598.2.1 CEZ, a.s. - Company Overview 598.2.2 CEZ, a.s. - Business Description 598.2.3 CEZ, a.s. - SWOT Analysis 608.2.4 CEZ, a.s. - Major Products and Services 628.2.5 CEZ, a.s. - Head Office 639 Appendix 649.1 Abbreviations 649.2 Bibliography 649.3 Market Definitions 659.4 Methodology 659.5 Coverage 659.5.1 Secondary Research 669.5.2 Primary Research 669.5.3 Modeling and Forecasting 669.6 Contact Us 669.7 Disclaimer 67Buy Now @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Middle East Industrial Protective Footwear Market: Emergence of Advanced Technologies and Global Industry Analysis

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A new research report has recently been published by Transparency Market Research, titled Industrial Protective Footwear Market - Middle East Industry Analysis, Trend, Size, Share and Forecast 2014 - 2020. The research study talks about the product segmentation, current trends, drivers and restraints, and competitive analysis of the Middle East industrial protective footwear market. The detailed analysis of the major players, coupled with valued inputs by industry experts, assist the new entrants in formulating their policies effectively and determining the growth factors of and opportunities in the market.Browse the full Industrial Protective Footwear Market - Middle East Industry Analysis, Trend, Size, Share and Forecast, 2014 - 2020 report atAccording to the research study, in 2013, the Middle East industrial protective footwear market was worth US$218.7 mn and is estimated to reach a value of US$432.4 mn by the end of 2020. The market is projected to exhibit a healthy 10.40% CAGR between 2014 and 2020.Industrial protective footwear is designed in order to provide safety to the workers. The footwear bears a protective reinforcement that protects the foot from compression or falling objects. Industrial protective footwear is widely used for workplace safety in diverse industries. The increasing number of worker accidents and implementation of rigid regulations are some of the major factors expected to augment the growth of the Middle East industrial protective footwear market throughout the forecast period.Get A Brochure Of Report @In addition, the increasing awareness regarding workplace safety, increasing labor force, and rapid industrial development are further driving the demand for industrial protective footwear in the Middle East. Government rules and regulations in the Middle East are expected to have a strong impact on the industrial protective footwear market in the next few years.On the basis of application, the industrial protective footwear market has been classified into pharmaceuticals, food, manufacturing, construction, oil and gas, chemicals, transportation, and others. Among these, the oil and gas segment accounts for the largest share in the industrial protective footwear market in the Middle East. On the other hand, the chemicals segment in the UAE is projected to exhibit a healthy 11.30% CAGR between 2014 and 2020, whereas the chemicals segment is projected to grow rapidly in Saudi Arabia, registering a 22.70% CAGR between 2014 and 2020.On the basis of geography, the Middle East industrial protective footwear market has been divided into major countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, and Bahrain. Among these countries, Saudi Arabia is considered as the major regional segment, accounting for the highest demand for industrial protective footwear across the Middle East.Make An Enquiry @The market share and forecast figures of each region have been included in the scope of the research study. The potential of the industrial protective footwear market in the Middle East is estimated to attract new business ventures into this market in the forecast period. Nevertheless, government regulations and duties are anticipated to act as a restraint on the growth of the market.Furthermore, the research report covers the vendor analysis and competitive landscape of the Middle East industrial protective footwear market, including the company overview, products offered, financial overview, business strategies, SWOT analysis, and recent developments if any. Some of the prominent players operating in the market are Jal Group, Rahman Group, Oftenrich Holdings Company Limited, Saina Group Co. Ltd., and Cofra Holdings AG.Key Segments of the Middle East Industrial Protective Footwear Market:Middle East Industrial Protective Footwear Market, by ApplicationConstructionManufacturingOil and GasChemicalsFoodPharmaceuticalsTransportationMiddle East Industrial Protective Footwear Market, by Country:Saudi ArabiaBahrainKuwaitUAEAbout UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Europe Industrial Protective Footwear Market: Advanced Technologies & Growth Opportunities in Global Industry

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Transparency Market Research has published a new report on the Europe industrial protective footwear market. As per the report, the Europe industrial protective footwear market is expected to expand at a 2.10% CAGR from the period between 2014 and 2020. The report, titled Industrial Protective Footwear Market - Europe Industry Analysis, Trend, Size, Share and Forecast 2014 - 2020, states that the Europe industrial protective footwear market is predicted to progress from US$2.2 bn in 2013 to US$2.6 bn by 2020.Browse the full Industrial Protective Footwear Market - Europe Industry Analysis, Trend, Size, Share and Forecast 2014 - 2020 report atThe industrial protective footwear market includes all kinds of safety footwear used for the protection of workers working in various industries including construction, chemicals, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, and manufacturing. The increasing incidence of worker accidents across various industrial areas has led to growth of the Europe industrial protective footwear market in the recent past.Going forward, strict government regulations mandating safety measures within work premises are expected to propel the Europe industrial protective footwear market during the period between 2014 and 2020.Increasing industrialization and the increasing number of workers across Europe are two of the primary factors expected to boost the demand for industrial protective footwear.Countries such as Germany, Italy, and France are predicted to create new growth opportunities in the Europe industrial protective footwear market in the years to come. The number of foreign manufacturers of industrial safety products and protective footwear is expected to increase in the coming few years.Get A Brochure Of Report @To sell new industrial safety products across the European region, foreign manufacturers need to abide by the rules of the European government. The duties and regulations imposed by the latter are predicted to hamper the growth of the Europe industrial protective footwear market in the years to come.The Europe industrial protective footwear market is segmented on the basis of application and country. By application, the Europe industrial protective footwear market is classified into construction, chemicals, oil and gas, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, transportation, food, and others.In 2013, the manufacturing segment was the largest segment of the Europe industrial protective footwear market in terms of volume. The manufacturing segment is predicted to expand at a 3.20% CAGR during the period between 2014 and 2020. Manufacturing is expected to be the largest application segment in Germany due to the presence of many manufacturing utilities in the country.Make An Enquiry @The food segment is predicted to be the fastest developing segment of the Europe industrial protective footwear market, expected to progress at a 3.50% CAGR from 2014 to 2020. The others segment is predicted to expand at a 3.10% CAGR from 2014 to 2020. Some of the leading companies in the Europe industrial protective footwear market are Jal Group (Italy), Saina Group Co, Ltd. (China), Rahman Group (India), Cofra Holdings AG (Switzerland), Oftenrich Holdings Company Limited (Taiwan), and others.Considering the rules and regulations of the European government, foreign manufacturers are focusing on improving the quality of their products so as to maintain their position in the market. Mergers and acquisitions are predicted to help the leading companies maintain their dominance in the Europe industrial protective footwear market in the years to come.Key Segments of Europe Industrial Protective Footwear MarketEurope Industrial Protective Footwear Market, by applicationConstructionManufacturingOil and gasChemicalsFoodPharmaceuticalsTransportationOthersEurope Industrial Protective Footwear Market, by Country:ItalyGermanyU.K.FranceAbout UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Opportunities in the Asia Pacific Wine Sector: Analysis of Opportunities Offered by High Growth Economies

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"The Report Opportunities in the Asia Pacific Wine Sector: Analysis of Opportunities Offered by High Growth Economies provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About Asia Pacific Wine Sector Market"Opportunities in the Asia Pacific Wine Sector", report brings together multiple data sources to provide a comprehensive overview of the Asia-Pacific Wine sector. It includes market overview, high growth country analysis, health & wellness analysis, top brands, key distribution channels, packaging formats and case studies.Get Sample copy of this Report @The Asia-Pacific Wine sector is the second largest in the world in value terms following Western Europe and the third largest by volume following Western Europe and North America. Still Wine is the largest market in both value and volume terms, while the Fortified Wine market is expected to grow at the fastest pace in both value and volume terms. Amongst all the high potential countries in Asia-Pacific, Japan is the leading market in value terms, while Australia is the largest market in volume terms. Rising demand for premium quality Wines, growing urbanization and growing interest in western cuisines are driving growth in the Asia-Pacific Wine sector. High taxes, popularity of local traditional alcoholic beverages and erratic weather are the major challenges faced by Wine businesses in the region. Changyu, Tonghua, Shangri-La, Great Wall and Accolade are the leading brands in the Asia-Pacific Wine sector. On-Trade is the dominant distribution channel in the Asia-Pacific Wine sector.View Report @ScopeThis report brings together multiple data sources to provide a comprehensive overview of the Asia-Pacific Wine sector. It includes analysis on the following -- Sector overview: Provides overview of the sector size, value and volume growth analysis, across regions.- Change in consumption: Analysis on the shift in consumption of Wine by markets across key countries in the Asia-Pacific region.- High potential countries: Provides Risk-Reward analysis of top 4 high potential countries in the Asia-Pacific region based on market assessment, economic development, socio-demographic, governance indicators, and technological infrastructure.- Country analysis: Provides deep-dive analysis of 4 high potential countries covering value growth during 2016-2021, key challenges, consumer demographics, and key trends supported with product examples. It also includes analysis of the key challenges faced and future outlook for the region.- Brand Analysis: Provides an overview of leading brands in the Asia-Pacific region, besides analyzing the growth of private labels in the region.- Key distribution channels: Provides analysis on the leading distribution channels for Wine across the key countries in the Asia-Pacific region in 2016. It covers six distribution channels - On Trade, Hypermarkets & Supermarkets, Convenience Stores, Food & Drinks Specialists, e-retailers and Others that include - Other Retailers, Dollar Stores, Variety Stores & General Merchandise Retailers, Department Stores, Vending machines.- Preferred packaging formats: The report provides percentage share (in 2016) and growth analysis (during 2011-2021) for various Package Material, Pack Type, Closure Type and Primary Outer Type based on the volume sales (by pack units) of Wines.Reasons to buy- Manufacturing and retailers seek latest information on how the market is evolving to formulate their sales and marketing strategies. There is also demand for authentic market data with a high level of detail. This report has been created to provide its readers with up-to-date information and analysis to uncover emerging opportunities of growth within the sector in the region.- The report provides a detailed analysis of the countries in the region, covering the key challenges, competitive landscape and demographic analysis , that can help companies gain insight into the country specific nuances- The analysts have also placed a significant emphasis on the key trends that drive consumer choice and the future opportunities that can be explored in the region, than can help companies in revenue expansion- To gain competitive intelligence about leading brands in the sector in the region with information about their market share and growth ratesSend An Enquiry Request @Table of Contents1. Executive summary2. Market size and growth analysis (Region analysis)Market Size in Context - Asia Pacific compared to other regionsGrowth analysis by regionGrowth analysis by countryGrowth analysis by market3. Identifying high potential countries in Asia PacificHigh potential countries in Asia PacificIdentifying high potential countries - MethodologyIdentifying high potential countries - Risk, reward and opportunity analysis4. Market size and growth analysis (High potential countries in Asia Pacific)High potential countries in Asia Pacific - OverviewGrowth contribution analysis by countryShare of wine compared to other Alcoholic Beverages sectorsChange in consumption levels by country and marketsPer capita consumption and expenditure analysis5. Country Profiles (High potential countries in Asia Pacific)JapanSouth KoreaSingaporeAustralia6. Success Stories7. Company and Brand AnalysisBrand Share analysis in the wine sectorTop companies in Asia Pacific wine sectorTop brands in Asia-Pacific wine sectorPrivate Label penetration in the Asia-Pacific wine sector8. Key Distribution ChannelsLeading distribution channels by countriesLeading distribution channels by markets9. Key Packaging FormatsGrowth analysis by key package material and pack typeGrowth analysis by closure type and primary outer type10. Challenges and Future OutlookKey ChallengesFuture OutlookBuy Now @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Acne Vulgaris Market : Opportunities, Sales, Growth and Regional Analysis By 2025

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Global Acne Vulgaris Market: SnapshotAcne vulgaris-one of the commonest skin disorders-has a multifactorial pathogenesis and is found mainly among adolescents. The pathogenetic mechanism usually consists of four key factors: increased sebum productions, follicular epidermal hyperproliferation, the colonization of bacteria Propionibacterium acnes (P. acne), and effects of inflammation. Successful management of the disease requires a better understanding of various pathogenetic factors and identifying the etiology of the acne in patients. Recent researches in targeted therapeutic modalities have given rise to a host of treatments that meet the specific expectations of the patients and provide enhanced tolerability as well. New treatment options focus on a permutation and combination of anti-acne agents, which are available in the market in varied compositions and formulations.A vast assortment of topical and systemic drugs available in the market is set to expand therapeutic options for a greater number of patients depending on the stage and symptoms of the disease. Some of the prominent therapies recommended for treating acne vulgaris are: use of topical retinoid, combination therapy, hormonal therapies, antibiotics, and oral isotretinoin.Request Sample Copy of the Report@Benzoyl peroxide and topical retinoids are the most widespread treatments preferred by dermatologists. Available in different formulations such as lotions, washes, gels, and creams, they can target a wide spectrum of bacterial agents in cases of mild-to-moderate acne vulgaris and have significant anti-inflammatory effects. The efficacy of retinoids have already been proven for over three decades. Dermatologists prefer this as the first-line of treatment for mild-to-moderate noninflammatory and inflammatory acne lesions. Globally, the most intensely researched topical retinoids for the treatment of acne vulgaris are adapalene and tretinoin. A host of topical antibiotics formulations are helpful in inhibiting the growth of commensal bacteria P. acne and reducing inflammation. Most common topic antibiotics available are clarithromycin, azithromycin, and nadifloxacin; however, lack of clinical studies restrain their adoption in various emerging markets.Global Acne Vulgaris Market: Brief AccountAcne vulgaris is a chronic and most widespread disease of the sebaceous follicles of the human skin. This basically affects the pilosebaceous units which are present in the skin of the chest, back, and face. Many patients elect medical treatment and care as they are mostly concerned about their appearance. Nevertheless, several patients opt for acne vulgaris treatment because of painful and scarring nodules. This type of disease basically begins at puberty owing to an increase in the androgen levels that eventually triggers a rise in the production of sebum from the skins sebaceous glands. This disease is generally characterized through morphological structures including nodules, comedones, and pustules/papules. The disease is eventually treated in terms of acne, the distribution type, severity, and the therapeutics can thus be targeted on the basis of various pathogenic components present. In order to treat the skin disease properly, combination therapy is employed.Request TOC of the Report @The market intelligence report is a comprehensive review of the growth trail in terms of current, historical, and future scenarios of the global acne vulgaris market. It offers an evaluation of the dynamics that are expected to impact the development of the market and the chief trends have also been specified in the research study. The research study also offers a broad lookout on the competitive landscape of the market through Porters five forces analysis. The research publication provides references of mergers and acquisitions, the research and development activities, details on licensing and collaborations. The report probes into the strategies related to marketing, shares, and product portfolio of the key participants operating in the global acne vulgaris market.Global Acne Vulgaris Market: Trends and ProspectsMain driving aspects for the growth of the acne vulgaris market comprise high occurrence of acne vulgaris, growing incidences of several skin infections, growing demand for innovative therapeutics, and rising awareness and affordability among people worldwide. Acne vulgaris is extremely predominant in many parts of the world. Currently, mounting concerns and awareness among people across the globe over the harmful effects of this kind of skin disease will further aid in the growth of the acne vulgaris market.Get Discount @The recent launch of drugs like Galdermas Epiduo, which efficiently targets acne vulgaris, has further boosted the progress of the market. Several drugs which are under different phases of clinical trials such as AndroSciences ASC-J9 and Photocures Visonac (a type of phototherapy) which will soon be commercialized in the global market, will further provide lucrative growth opportunities to vendors operating in the market. Nevertheless, numerous pharmaceutical companies are unwilling towards investing in the research and development activities owing to the poor return on investment from this sector. This might prove to be a restraint in the growth of the market.Global Acne Vulgaris Market: Regional AnalysisGeographically, North America accounts for the leading share in the global acne vulgaris market closely trailed by Europe. The key dynamics responsible for the growth of this market in North America are the high prevalence of acne vulgaris along with high awareness and affordability of among people for their treatment.Global Acne Vulgaris Market: Companies Analyzed in the ReportSome of the key vendors in the market are AndroScience Corporation, Ausio Pharmaceuticals, LLC, Boehringer Ingelheim GlaxoSmithKline plc, GmbH, Photocure ASA, Galderma S.A., Hygeia Therapeutics, Inc., Quest PharmaTech, Inc., Sol-Gel Technologies Ltd. and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Global Nanosilver Market for Electrical & Electronics, Healthcare, Food & Beverages, Textile, Water Treatment and Other End-users - Industry Analysis, Trends and Forecast 2015 - 2023

Nanosilver Market

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Nanosilver Market for Electrical & Electronics, Healthcare, Food & Beverages, Textile, Water Treatment and Other End-users - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2015 - 2023" to its huge collection of research reports.This report analyzes and forecasts the market for nanosilver at the global and regional level. The market has been forecast based on volume (tons) and revenue (US$ Mn) from 2015 to 2023. The study includes drivers and restraints of the global nanosilver market. It also covers the impact of these drivers and restraints on demand for nanosilver during the forecast period. The report also highlights opportunities in the nanosilver market at the global and regional level.The report includes detailed value chain analysis, which provides a comprehensive view of the global nanosilver market. Porters Five Forces Model for the nanosilver market has also been included to help understand the competitive landscape in the market. The study encompasses market attractiveness analysis, wherein end-users are benchmarked based on market size, growth rate, and general attractiveness.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The study provides a decisive view of the global nanosilver market by segmenting it in terms of end-user. These segments have been analyzed based on present and future trends. Regional segmentation includes current and forecast demand for nanosilver in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. The report also covers demand for nanosilver in end-user segments in all the regions.The study includes profiles of major companies operating in the global nanosilver market. Key players in the nanosilver market include NovaCentrix, NSM (Nano Silver Manufacturing SDN BHD), Advanced Nano Products Co., Ltd., Creative Technology Solutions Co., Ltd., Ames Goldsmith Corp., Applied Nanotech, Inc., SILVIX Co., Ltd., NanoMasTech. and ras materials GmbH. Market players are profiled in terms of attributes such as company overview, financial overview, business strategies and recent developments.The report provides the estimated market size of nanosilver for 2015 and forecast for the next eight years. The global market size of nanosilver has been provided in terms of volume and revenue. Market volume has been defined in tons, while market revenue is in US$ Mn. Market numbers have been estimated based on end-users of nanosilver. Market size and forecast for each major end-user have been provided in terms of global and regional markets.In order to compile the research report, we conducted in-depth interviews and discussions with a number of key industry participants and opinion leaders. Primary research represents the bulk of research efforts, supplemented by extensive secondary research. We reviewed key players product literature, annual reports, press releases, and relevant documents for competitive analysis and market understanding. Secondary research includes a search of recent trade, technical writing, Internet sources, and statistical data from government websites, trade associations, and agencies. This has proven to be the most reliable, effective, and successful approach for obtaining precise market data, capturing industry participants insights, and recognizing business opportunities.Secondary research sources that are typically referred to include, but are not limited to company websites, annual reports, financial reports, broker reports, investor presentations, SEC filings, Plastemart magazine, TPE magazine, internal and external proprietary databases, and relevant patent and regulatory databases such as ICIS, Hoovers, oneSOURCE, Factiva, and Bloomberg, national government documents, statistical databases, trade journals, market reports, news articles, press releases, and webcasts specific to companies operating in the market.Primary research involves e-mail interactions, telephonic interviews, and face-to-face interviews for each market, category, segment, and sub-segment across geographies. We conduct primary interviews on an ongoing basis with industry participants and commentators to validate data and analysis. Primary interviews provide first-hand information on market size, market trends, growth trends, competitive landscape, outlook, etc. These help validate and strengthen secondary research findings. These also help develop the analysis teams expertise and market understanding.The report segments the global nanosilver market as follows:Nanosilver Market - End-user Analysis- Electrical & electronics- Healthcare- Food & beverages- Textile- Water treatment- Others (Including personal care, detergents, etc.)Nanosilver Market - Regional Analysis- North America- U.S.- Rest of North America- Europe- France- Germany- Italy- Spain- U.K.- Rest of Europe- Asia Pacific- China- Japan- ASEAN- Rest of Asia Pacific- Latin America- Brazil- Rest of Latin America- Middle East & Africa (MEA)- GCC- South Africa- Rest of MEABrowse Detail Report With TOC @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMozState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Global Natural Gas Liquids Market, By Type (Ethane, Propane, Normal Butane, Isobutane, and Pentanes Plus) Analysis, Size, Share, Growth Trends and Forecast 2016  2024 | New Release

Natural Gas Liquids Market

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Natural Gas Liquids market, By Type (Ethane, Propane, Normal Butane, Isobutane, and Pentanes Plus) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024" to its huge collection of research reports.The natural gas Liquids market report by Transparency Market Research provides in-depth analysis of the natural gas Liquids market globally. The report segments the market on the basis of type and geography. The report analyzes the global natural gas Liquids market in terms of production (Kilo barrels/day) for the 20162024 period. For this research study, the base year is 2015, whereas the forecast is from 2016 to 2024. The report provides a comprehensive competitive landscape and features companies producing and processing natural gas liquids. This report includes the key market dynamics affecting the natural gas Liquids market globally. The analysis in the report provides detailed insights into the global natural gas Liquids market. Major dynamics such as drivers, opportunities, and restraints of the market were analyzed in detail and are illustrated in the report through tables. The report also provides a detailed industry analysis of the global natural gas Liquids market with the help of Porters Five Forces model.The natural gas Liquids market has been segmented on the basis of type into ethane, propane, normal butane, isobutane, and pentanes plus. Ethane was the largest type segment of the natural gas Liquids market globally, accounting for more than 45% of the global share, in 2015. Sales of ethane increased due to its growing applications across the globe. Propane was the second-largest type segment accounting for more than 20% of the global share, and Isobutane was the smallest type segment of the natural gas Liquids market globally, accounting for less than 10%, in 2015. Isobutane was the smallest type segment owing to its limited applications and market value. The global natural gas Liquids market growth is anticipated to be hampered by increasing use of alternatives such as naphtha.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The natural gas Liquids market was analyzed for North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. The Middle East had the largest production of natural gas liquids, followed by North America and Europe. The market for natural gas liquid in the Middle East accounted for more than 35% of global market share in 2015, whereas the market in North America stood at around 30%. The U.S., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Canada, and he UAE were the leading countries in these regions with respect to natural gas liquids production. Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia Pacific also had significant natural gas liquids production in 2015. Europe held around 10% market share of the global natural gas Liquids market, while Asia Pacific, Africa, and Latin America accounted for less than 10% of the global market share in 2015. These regions are expected to increase natural gas liquids production during the forecast period owing to rising demand and growing investments in natural gas liquid production and processing infrastructure.Some of the key market participants in the natural gas Liquids market include BP Plc, Chesapeake Energy Corporation, ConocoPhillips Company, Exxon Mobil Corporation, Linn Energy LLC, Range Resources Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell Plc., SM Energy, Statoil ASA, and Swift Energy Company. The report provides an overview of these companies, followed by their financial details (if available), business strategies, and recent developments.The natural gas Liquids market has been segmented as follows:Global Natural Gas Liquids market: Type Analysis- Ethane- Propane- Normal Butane- Isobutane- Pentanes PlusGlobal Natural Gas Liquids market: Regional Analysis- North America- U.S.- Canada- Mexico- Europe- Norway- Russia- U.K.- Netherlands- Asia Pacific- Indonesia- Australia- India- Rest of Asia Pacific- Middle East- Qatar- Iran- Saudi Arabia- U.A.E- Rest of Middle East- Africa- Algeria- Nigeria- Rest of Africa- Latin America- Argentina- Brazil- Venezuela- Rest of Latin AmericaBrowse Detail Report With TOC @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMozState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Insurance Company Profile: LV Develop Business Strategies Of

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"The Report Insurance Company Profile: LV provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About Insurance Company Market"Insurance Company Profile: LV=", provides a comprehensive review of the company and its UK business. This includes its business structure and strategy, its financial performance, and activities around insurtech and digitization. The profile also provides a full SWOT analysis.Get Sample copy of this Report @LV= serves 5.8 million customers across the UK and offers both general insurance products and protection, pension, and investment products. Its brands include the direct sales brands Britannia Rescue and LV= Frizzell, the brokerage brand ABC Insurance, and the main LV= brand.Scope- In 2016 LV= adopted a new strategy in order to keep up with the changing landscape of the insurance industry, which has been influenced by new business models, start-ups, fintech, and investment in big data.- LV= is investing heavily in its Pioneer Programme, which will replace its legacy policy systems and enhance its car and home distribution capabilities, as well as improving the way customers contact the business and its proposition development and pricing.- In August 2017, LV= announced a partnership with Allianz Group to set up a personal insurance joint venture under the LV= brand in the UK market.View Report @Reasons to buy- Learn about LV=s organizational structure and its core business segments.- Gain insight into its underwriting and distribution strategy.- Understand the group's advertising strategy.- Discover LV=s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats it will face going forward.Send An Enquiry Request @Table of ContentsOperationsCorporate StructureHistoric MilestonesWhat Does LV= Do Today?General Insurance Business OverviewLife Insurance Business OverviewProduct OverviewStrategyFuture StrategyPartnershipsAdvertising ExpenditureSWOT AnalysisStrengthsWeaknessesOpportunitiesThreatsAppendixBuy Now @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Payments in Norway 2017: What Consumers Want

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"The Report Payments in Norway 2017: What Consumers Want provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About Payments in Norway Market"Payments in Norway 2017: What Consumers Want", report examines the consumer payments market in Norway, considering payment cards, online payments, P2P payments, and newer payment technologies such as mobile wallets and contactless. The report also examines the main regulatory players overseeing the market.Get Sample copy of this Report @The card reigns supreme in Norway, with few individuals using cash on a daily basis and most possessing a minimum of two payment cards. Norways strong card and payment industry is the result of a robust economy, an efficient domestic debit card scheme (BankAxept), and increasing consumer appetite for credit. The average number of monthly card transactions and the average annual spend per card is higher in Norway than in more developed markets such as the US, the UK, France, Germany, and Australia. Electronic payments have gained ground during the last 10 years, as the government has invested substantially in building long-term infrastructure for cashless transactions. Affordable and widely available financial products, a consumer preference for e-payments, a competitive marketplace, and a transparent business environment will aid the move towards a cashless society.The report includes -- Analyzes consumer attitudes to financial services by lifestage.- Analyzes the major payment card types in terms of both card holding and usage.- Identifies the major competitors in card issuing and how their position in the market has changed over the last five years.- Considers consumer attitudes towards P2P tools, mobile payment tools, and contactless cards, and how companies in Norway are deploying these tools to meet customer needs.- Explores the online payment market in Norway by merchant type and payment tool, as well as providing a five-year forecast for the development of the market.View Report @Scope- All domestic debit card-based POS transactions and ATM withdrawals are carried out by BankAxept, whereas all international transactions and online purchases are carried out by international schemes.- Contactless technology in Norway is in its developmental stage, with only a few banks offering contactless cards.- Norwegian consumers are frequent online shoppers, and according to the E-commerce in the Nordics report published by PostNord in 2016 around 85% of consumers purchase goods online at least once a year.Reasons to buy- Understand the key facts and figures in the consumer payments market in Norway.- Learn what trends drive consumer behavior at the macro level and plan your strategy accordingly.- Find out what products the major competitors are launching in the market.- Discover consumer sentiments towards various payment tools in the Norwegian market and use this knowledge to inform product design.Send An Enquiry Request @Table of ContentsMarket OverviewMegatrendsCard-based PaymentsE-commerce PaymentsAlternative PaymentsPayments Infrastructure & RegulationAppendixBuy Now @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Scanning Probe Microscopes Market - Industry Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024

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"The Latest Research Report Scanning Probe Microscopes (SPM) Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"Global Scanning Probe Microscopes (SPM) Market: OverviewScanning probe microscopes include imaging technologies that measure surface of small molecules, atoms and fine scales. This technique uses interaction of sharp, electrically charged probe with the surface of samples at particular points. This electrically charged probe is used to interact with sample that helps researchers to understand the properties of sample specimen. In addition, scanning probe microscope scan sample surface with sharp probe in order to observe three dimensional images at high magnification rate. Scanning probe technology is widely used for the study of macro-molecules and biological specimens. Additionally, scanning probe microscopy technique is used for the measurement of wide variety of inorganic (e.g. to measure surface chemistry of the molecules), synthetic (e.g. identify surface of polymers) and biological materials (like polymers and polymer matrix). In addition, scanning probe microscope technology can also be used for manipulation and observation of environmental non-conductive specimen.Get Sample copy of this Report @Global Scanning Probe Microscopes (SPM) Market: Trends and ProspectsThe market of scanning probe microscopes is witnessing positive growth owing to development of advanced technologies in this field coupled with wide application areas of scanning probe microscopy in science, environmental and engineering field. For example, RHK Technology, Inc. offers innovative and well engineered RHK UHV Scanning Probe Microscopes. This microscope provides variety of applications in science and environmental field. In addition, Danish Micro Engineering A/S offers ProberStation 150 scanning probe microscope. This microscope offers accurate sampling and flexibility for customer specific modifications by combining with other types of analytical heads. Thus, these types of offering will help key manufacturers to attract more number of customers hence drives the market growth. In addition, various advantages of scanning probe microscope as compared to conventional optical microscopes will further drive the market growth. For example, scanning probe micros offers highest possible magnification i.e. more than 800 to 1000 times greater than conventional microscopes. Thus, this advantage will offer proper analysis of sample specimen hence drives the market growth of scanning probe microscopes. Moreover, these types of advanced microscopy is rapidly growing in developing countries like North America and Europe due to their innovative features and novel applications in variety of disciplines that will further boost the overall market of scanning probe microscope. However, high cost of these types of microscopes will restrain the market growth.The market of scanning probe microscopes can be segmented on the basis of:By TechnologiesAtomic Force Microscopy (AFM)Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM)Near-Field Scanning Optical Microscopy (NSOM)OthersView Report @Global Scanning Probe Microscopes (SPM) Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, North America is the largest market of scanning probe microscopes due to the launch of novel and innovative products by domiciled key manufacturer coupled with increasing uptake of these technologies by consumers. Europe is considered as the second largest market of scanning probe microscopes. The growth of this market is attributed to the presence of large number of companies like NanoTechnology GmbH, Danish Micro Engineering A/S and others. This factor would help European market to grow consistently in future and hence stimulate the market growth. Additionally, Asia-Pacific region in emerging markets for scanning probe microscopes because of increasing awareness about scanning probe microscopy technology among customers.Global Scanning Probe Microscopes (SPM) Market: Companies Mentioned in the ReportVarious key players contributing to the global scanning probe microscopes market comprises Danish Micro Engineering A/S (DME), Klocke Nanotechnik, Agilent Technologies, Omicron NanoTechnology GmbH, Hitachi High-Tech Science Corporation, RHK Technology, Inc., Bruker Nano, Danish Micro Engineering, Schaefer Technology and others.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisSend An Enquiry Request @The regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland and Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, and North Africa)The report has been compiled through extensive primary research (through interviews, surveys, and observations of seasoned analysts) and secondary research (which entails reputable paid sources, trade journals, and industry body databases). The report also features a complete qualitative and quantitative assessment by analyzing data gathered from industry analysts and market participants across key points in the industrys value chain.A separate analysis of prevailing trends in the parent market, macro- and micro-economic indicators, and regulations and mandates is included under the purview of the study. By doing so, the report projects the attractiveness of each major segment over the forecast period.Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsMarket segmentation up to the second or third levelHistorical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volumeReporting and evaluation of recent industry developmentsMarket shares and strategies of key playersEmerging niche segments and regional marketsAn objective assessment of the trajectory of the marketRecommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketCheck Discount This Report From Here @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA: Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Airport Information Systems Market by Technology, by Core phase, by application 2017 - 2025

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Global Airport Information Systems Market: SnapshotIn the past, due to failed traditional screening systems, air operations and passenger safety have been threatened. In order to avoid such mishaps and security breaches, many prominent airports worldwide have heavily invested in real-time monitoring for the efficient examination of operations and detection of possible threats.Airport information systems comprise departure control systems (DCS) and airport operation control centers (AOCC). AOCCs are vital for both passenger and non-passenger software systems. Important information such as flight movement is gathered from air traffic control (ATC) systems and is directed to the airport operational database, and is then transferred to be displayed across screens at airport terminals. The airport authorities have made noteworthy investments in this segment owing to the crucial function of AOCC.Based on geography, the market can be classified into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. Escalating air traffic and development in the safety standards at airports have driven the growth of the North America market and this region is anticipated to continue growing during the forecast period as well.Request Sample Copy of the Report@Many established players operating in the market are constantly launching solutions and generating new clients. To maintain a competitive edge over others, several leading market participants are seen acquiring local market players and new companies. Constant upgradation, joint ventures, and collaborations are other business strategies favored by the companies.Global Airport Information Systems Market: OverviewThe increasing consideration for safe operations, improvement in end to end customer service, and operational planning in the aviation industry are driving adoption of airport information systems. Airport information systems (AIS) are installed for an end to end information exchange with respect to arrival and departure of flights, cargo operations, operational fitness check, and aircraft turnaround time. AIS utilizes geographical information system (GIS) for creating, analyzing, and managing data.Airport information systems are grouped into infrastructure management, environmental management, biometrics access control, radio communication, intrinsic GIS capabilities, and network services.Request TOC of the Report @The report segments the global AIS market on the basis of airport and geography. On the basis of airport, class A (more than 30 million passengers), class C (10-20 million passengers), class B (20-30 million passengers), and class D (below 10 million passengers) are the components of the market. The report presents a pin-point analysis of market drivers, market challenges, and trends that will be prevalent in the global AIS market for the 2017-2025 period. The report elucidates technological breakthroughs that have led airport information systems to reach new heights. This is because technology is a key parameter for integration of information across disparate networks.The report analyzes the global airport information systems market from a competitive standpoint as well. The report analysis helps in leveraging lucrative opportunities for market participants, which will lead to a leap in the traditional market dynamics. The progression of the global AIS market is analyzed for North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and Rest of the World regions for the forecast period.Get Discount @Global Airport Information Systems Market: Technological MovementsTechnological movements have been instrumental in the growth of the global AIS market. This is because major airports across the world have moved towards open systems, which allows access to information across disparate operating systems, hardware, and networks.Global Airport Information Systems Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe global AIS market is on a growth trajectory over the last many years. The market is expected to display substantial growth in future with a single digit increase in CAGR by 2019. The growth of the global AIS market is mainly driven by increasing consideration for passenger safety at all inflection points. The deployment of airport information systems results in efficient information processing at airports and provides a platform for safe and reliable management of information.However, factors such as resource outages and lack of standardization are restraining the growth of the global AIS market. Nevertheless, economic development in emerging nations of Asia Pacific is providing immense growth opportunities to the global AIS market. The development of ultra-modern airports in countries such as India and China are displaying the demand for airport information systems to serve the need for central control centers for information processing.Companies Mentioned in the ReportSome of the major companies operating in the global airport information systems market are SITA, Rockwell Collins Inc., Siemens AG, IBM, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Amadeus IT Group SA, INFORM GmbH, Ultra Electronics Holdings, and IKUSI.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Medical Cable Assemblies Market Production, Operations, Price and Gross Margin 2018

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report Medical Cable Assemblies to its huge collection of research reports.This report on the global Medical Cable Assemblies market has been developed by a selected group of professional market research analysts, with a solitary goal to present the existing scenario of the market for Medical Cable Assemblies and shed light on its growth prospects. The report targets audiences such as manufacturers of Medical Cable Assemblies, government agencies, and other research consultancy service providers. The report presents extensive assessment of the crucial factors that may influence the demand in the global Medical Cable Assemblies market, studies the challenges or pitfalls, and make a note of the latest trends, which the existing players must take into consideration in order to keep up in the market competition.Get free sample copy of the report with TOC at:This report on the global Medical Cable Assemblies market provides estimations related to the market size in terms of value (USD million). It includes both bottom-up and top-down views so as to estimate and authenticate the size of the Medical Cable Assemblies market and of numerous other associated submarkets in the overall global market. The opportunities that may open up in the market for Medical Cable Assemblies by manufacturing countries, type, and application are presented for the duration of 2017 to 2022 have also been provide in the research report.As the study report targets the shareholders of the global Medical Cable Assemblies market, it is only wise that some of the leading vendors that currently ply their trade in the global Medical Cable Assemblies market are profiled so as to showcase their product portfolio, market share, and recent strategic business decisions taken for enhancing their market presence. This chapter is also focused at grasping the potential of the emergence of new players and what kind of new market opportunities lie in front of them. Leading players in the global Medical Cable Assemblies market have been singled out with the help of secondary research, and their market dominance in respective regions have been assessed through rigorous primary as well as secondary research methodologies.This report studies Medical Cable Assemblies in Global market, especially in North America, China, Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan and India, with production, revenue, consumption, import and export in these regions, from 2012 to 2016, and forecast to 2022.Read complete report with TOC at:This report focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringMinnesota WireITT CorporationSmiths InterconnectTE ConnectivityAmphenol CorporationDelphi AutomotiveEsterline CorporationFisher ConnectorsMolexSamtecLemoAxon CableDC ElectronicsAmphenol AldenOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoCable AssembliesCustom ConnectorsEncapsulated ElectronicsBulkhead ConnectorsECG CablesLeadwires AssembliesTable of ContentsGlobal Medical Cable Assemblies Market Professional Survey Report 20171 Industry Overview of Medical Cable Assemblies1.1 Definition and Specifications of Medical Cable Assemblies1.1.1 Definition of Medical Cable Assemblies1.1.2 Specifications of Medical Cable Assemblies1.2 Classification of Medical Cable Assemblies1.2.1 Cable Assemblies1.2.2 Custom Connectors1.2.3 Encapsulated Electronics1.2.4 Bulkhead Connectors1.2.5 ECG Cables1.2.6 Leadwires Assemblies1.3 Applications of Medical Cable Assemblies1.3.1 Diagnostic Imaging1.3.2 Therapeutic And Surgical1.3.3 Patient Monitoring1.3.4 Patient Care1.3.5 Healthcare IT1.4 Market Segment by Regions1.4.1 North America1.4.2 China1.4.3 Europe1.4.4 Southeast Asia1.4.5 Japan1.4.6 IndiaTo check available discount on this report, visit at:2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Medical Cable Assemblies2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Medical Cable Assemblies2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Medical Cable Assemblies2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Medical Cable Assemblies3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Medical Cable Assemblies3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Medical Cable Assemblies Major Manufacturers in 20163.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Medical Cable Assemblies Major Manufacturers in 20163.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Medical Cable Assemblies Major Manufacturers in 20163.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Medical Cable Assemblies Major Manufacturers in 20164 Global Medical Cable Assemblies Overall Market Overview4.1 2012-2017E Overall Market Analysis4.2 Capacity Analysis4.2.1 2012-2017E Global Medical Cable Assemblies Capacity and Growth Rate Analysis4.2.2 2016 Medical Cable Assemblies Capacity Analysis (Company Segment)4.3 Sales Analysis4.3.1 2012-2017E Global Medical Cable Assemblies Sales and Growth Rate Analysis4.3.2 2016 Medical Cable Assemblies Sales Analysis (Company Segment)4.4 Sales Price Analysis4.4.1 2012-2017E Global Medical Cable Assemblies Sales Price4.4.2 2016 Medical Cable Assemblies Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment)5 Medical Cable Assemblies Regional Market Analysis5.1 North America Medical Cable Assemblies Market Analysis5.1.1 North America Medical Cable Assemblies Market Overview5.1.2 North America 2012-2017E Medical Cable Assemblies Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.1.3 North America 2012-2017E Medical Cable Assemblies Sales Price Analysis5.1.4 North America 2016 Medical Cable Assemblies Market Share Analysis5.2 China Medical Cable Assemblies Market Analysis5.2.1 China Medical Cable Assemblies Market Overview5.2.2 China 2012-2017E Medical Cable Assemblies Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.2.3 China 2012-2017E Medical Cable Assemblies Sales Price Analysis5.2.4 China 2016 Medical Cable Assemblies Market Share Analysis5.3 Europe Medical Cable Assemblies Market Analysis5.3.1 Europe Medical Cable Assemblies Market Overview...6 Global 2012-2017E Medical Cable Assemblies Segment Market Analysis (by Type)6.1 Global 2012-2017E Medical Cable Assemblies Sales by Type6.2 Different Types of Medical Cable Assemblies Product Interview Price Analysis6.3 Different Types of Medical Cable Assemblies Product Driving Factors Analysis6.3.1 Cable Assemblies of Medical Cable Assemblies Growth Driving Factor Analysis6.3.2 Custom Connectors of Medical Cable Assemblies Growth Driving Factor Analysis6.3.3 Encapsulated Electronics of Medical Cable Assemblies Growth Driving Factor Analysis6.3.4 Bulkhead Connectors of Medical Cable Assemblies Growth Driving Factor Analysis6.3.5 ECG Cables of Medical Cable Assemblies Growth Driving Factor Analysis6.3.6 Leadwires Assemblies of Medical Cable Assemblies Growth Driving Factor Analysis7 Global 2012-2017E Medical Cable Assemblies Segment Market Analysis (by Application)7.1 Global 2012-2017E Medical Cable Assemblies Consumption by Application7.2 Different Application of Medical Cable Assemblies Product Interview Price Analysis7.3 Different Application of Medical Cable Assemblies Product Driving Factors Analysis7.3.1 Diagnostic Imaging of Medical Cable Assemblies Growth Driving Factor Analysis7.3.2 Therapeutic And Surgical of Medical Cable Assemblies Growth Driving Factor Analysis7.3.3 Patient Monitoring of Medical Cable Assemblies Growth Driving Factor Analysis7.3.4 Patient Care of Medical Cable Assemblies Growth Driving Factor Analysis7.3.5 Healthcare IT of Medical Cable Assemblies Growth Driving Factor Analysis...About QYReseachReports.comQYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact US:Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-618-1030Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Internet Protocol Television Market: Worldwide Industry Analysis and New Market Opportunities Explored

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Integration of advanced technologies with current Internet Protocol television (IPTV) systems is anticipated to boost the worldwide IPTV market, indicates Transparency Market Research in its latest report. The publication, titled IPTV Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2014 - 2020, states that expanding at an impressive CAGR of 18.10% from 2014 to 2020, the global IPTV market is projected to grow from US$24.9 bn in 2013 to US$79.3 bn by 2020.Browse the full IPTV Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2014 - 2020 report atThe global IPTV market is fueled by declining cost of IPTV services, rise in global Facebook subscribers, demand for video-on-demand and HD channels, introduction of interactive services across several end-user segments, and supportive government initiatives to increase broadband penetration. In contrast, lack of proper infrastructure in developing countries, competition from cable and satellite TV operators, and need for large investments threaten to hamper the growth of the IPTV market.By type, the IPTV market is bifurcated into enterprises and residential. The former is further divided into small, medium, and large enterprises and in 2013, this segment dominated the overall IPTV market. Enterprises across several industries such as hospitality, finance, energy, education, media, healthcare, and transport have been depending on IPTV as a tool to communicate with employees, improve training, satisfy compliance requirements, minimize travel costs, and set up additional revenue outlets. IPTV services in these enterprises are also used to distribute on-demand content, company-wide briefings, events, and live as well as archived news.Get A Brochure Of Report @On the basis of geography, the global IPTV market is divided into North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa. Globally, Europe dominated the IPTV market in terms of revenue and in 2013 accounted for 38% of the overall market. The growth in this region is supported by increased IPTV subscribers, driven by development of supportive infrastructure, reduced IPTV subscription prices, increased broadband penetration, and rising demand for improved viewer experience.Make An Enquiry @Asia Pacific, on the other hand, is anticipated to be the most rapidly developing regional IPTV market by 2020. Asia Pacific excluding Japan is projected to register at a remarkable 21.10% CAGR from 2014 to 2020. The major contributors in this region are India, China, Indonesia, and South Korea, where expanding broadband infrastructure, proliferation of IPTV subscribers, growth of the middle-income group, and declining service cost have greatly supported the IPTV market.The most prominent players operating in the global IPTV market include Etisalat Group, Bharti Airtel Limited, ARRIS Group, Inc., China Telecom Corporation Limited, AT&T Inc., Amino Technologies PLC, MatrixStream Technologies, Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., Broadcom Corporation, NTT Communication, Century Link, Orange S.A., Deutsche Telekom AG, Verizon Communications, and Iliad S.A. Each of these vendors have been reviewed in the research report based on aspects such as company overview, business strategies, financial overview, and recent developments.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Market : Industry Analysis & Opportunities 2017 - 2025

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Global Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Market : SnapshotAccording to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) has turned into a glaring health burden across the world and possesses high rates of permanent disabilities and fatalities. It has been estimated by the NIH that approximately 9 out of 100,000 people across the world suffer from some variation of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage, a number which is more concerning in the U.S. wherein 30,000 people are diagnosed for SAH each year. Among these cases, raptured cerebral aneurysms accounts for nearly 80% of the non-traumatic aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. Going forward, these numbers are expected to mount even further, and thereby prove to be boon for the players in the global market for aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.Smoking, hypertension, history of intracranial aneurysms in immediate relatives, chronic alcohol use are some of the common causes of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage, while the symptoms include headache, facial or orbital pain, unilateral third nerve palsy, bilateral lower extremity weakness, and vision loss. With no absolute therapy available and severity of the implications, early detection of SAH is of utmost importance and hence, there are vast opportunities available for the players venturing in the aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage market. In addition to that, the NIH study reveals that aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage is more prevalent in developed region of North America including the U.S. in comparison to Japan and China in Asia Pacific. With the presence of several key players in the healthcare sector in North America, the research and development pertaining to aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage is expected to drive the global market for the same.Request Sample Copy of the Report@Global Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Market: OverviewAneurismal subarachnoid hemorrhage is a type of stroke and accounts for almost 7% of all strokes. It is listed under medical emergency conditions and can cause severe disability or can be fatal as well. Subarachnoid hemorrhage is sudden bleeding into the subarachnoid space of the central nervous system that may occur due to head injury, rupture of cerebral aneurysm, and aneurysm in other blood vessels. The most significant cause of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage is trauma. Some other causes of this condition are migraine, intra-cerebral hemorrhage, meningitis, and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. In addition, lifestyle factors, smoking, genetics, hypertension, and excessive alcohol consumption are also significant factors for subarachnoid hemorrhage.The report is an all-important tool to understand the progression of the global aneurysm subarachnoid hemorrhage market between 2017 and 2025. In this report, the various market forces and growth indicators are analyzed at length to present a clear picture of strengths, weakness, threats, and opportunities of the market until the end of the forecast period in 2025.Request TOC of the Report @Global Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Market: Market SegmentationThe global aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage market is segmented on the basis of diagnostic test, therapy, and geography. By diagnostic test, CT scan and MRI are the components of this market. Lumber puncture is mandatory in cases where imaging shows indefinite results. Xanthochromia is another diagnostic test that helps in the detection of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. Cerebral angiography and transcranial Doppler ultrasound are also used for detecting aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.The regional segments of the global aneurysm subarachnoid hemorrhage market are North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and Rest of the World. As per an article published by Elsevier in 2014, countries such as Japan and Finland have high incidence rates of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.Get Discount @Global Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Market: Drug AcceptanceIn May 2013, Arbor Pharmaceuticals received FDA approval for Nymalize containing nimodipine for patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage. Currently, Arbor Pharmaceuticals possess the commercial rights of Nymalize solely in the US.The primary treatment for aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage involves stabilizing the patient by repairing the cause of bleeding with the help of vasospasms such as calcium channel blockers such as nimodipine. Anti-anxiety medications and pain killers, when administered, helps relieve headaches and pressure in the skull. Phenyton is used to treat or prevent the occurrence of seizures.The treatment also focuses on alleviating symptoms and preventing complications such as permanent brain damage. Surgery is advised in cases where removal of large volume of blood is required to alleviate pressure on the brain. Aneurysm clipping, endovascular coiling, and craniotomy are some of the surgical procedures carried out for aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. Endovascular coiling involves placing coils in the aneurysm and stents in the blood vessel in order to lessen risk of further bleeding.Companies and Institutions Mentioned in the ReportSome of the leading companies in the global aneurysmal subarachnoid market are Arbor Pharmaceuticals, Edge Therapeutics Inc., and Actelion Ltd. Key institutions that contribute to the global aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage market are Chinese University of Hong Kong, Utrecht University, University of Miami, University of Cambridge, and the University of Calgary among others.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
UK SME Insurance: Competitor Dynamics 2017

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"The Report UK SME Insurance: Competitor Dynamics 2017 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About UK SME Insurance Market"UK SME Insurance: Competitor Dynamics 2017", looks at which insurers lead the way in the SME segment and how they are developing their propositions, as well as highlighting how competitor positions vary between micro, small, and medium enterprises. It examines which insurers are winning over brokers and which companies SMEs are placing their business with.Get Sample copy of this Report @AXA and Aviva dominate the SME insurance space across the vast majority of the 16 commercial products listed in our 2017 UK SME Insurance Survey. Other insurers present in the market play to their strengths when servicing SMEs. Hiscox and Zurich are popular providers for liability products, while Allianz and Direct Line are strong in commercial motor. The main story from the 2017 results is of AXAs lead narrowing. While Avivas share also fell, the margin in market shares between the two has reduced in the vast majority of the nine lines that AXA and Aviva place first and second respectively.View Report @Scope- AXA and Aviva lead the SME insurance space, with 13.9% and 11.3% of SMEs respectively holding a commercial insurance policy with these providers.- AXA remains dominant across the 16 product lines, but Aviva is closing the gap.- Brokers place the most SME business with Allianz, Aviva, and AXA.Reasons to buy- Benchmark yourself against the rest of the market.- Ensure you remain competitive as new innovations and insurance models begin to enter the market.- Adapt your distribution strategy to ensure it is efficient and still meets customer purchasing behavior.Send An Enquiry Request @Table of Contents1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 21.1. AXA and Aviva continue to lead the market 21.2. Key findings 21.3. Critical success factors 22. THE SME MARKET AND ITS LEADING COMPETITORS 72.1. Introduction 72.2. Allianz and Aviva continue to lead the way for brokers 72.3. Avivas dominance in non-packaged insurance has been challenged 92.4. The increasing focus on cybercrime is an opportunity for insurers 112.4.1. Some insurers are looking to innovate to gain an edge in a tough market 112.5. The key players 122.5.1. AXA is looking into its commercial motor offering 122.5.2. Aviva revamps cyber cover 132.5.3. Allianz focuses on Brexit 132.5.4. Hiscox embraces technology 132.5.5. Zurich targets education 132.6. Technology is emerging in the market 142.6.1. New entrants are rare, but the Financial Conduct Authority sandbox is showing promise 153. PRODUCT POSITIONING 163.1. AXA is the dominant insurer, but Aviva is closing the gap 163.1.1. Aviva performs well in commercial motor lines, while Allianz is popular with larger SMEs 173.1.2. Hiscox is popular in non-motor lines 183.1.3. Direct Line remains strong in motor lines 193.1.4. NFU Mutual is strong in niche commercial motor lines 194. NPS 374.1. Hiscox has the edge in customer satisfaction 375. APPENDIX 415.1. Abbreviations and acronyms 415.2. SME 415.3. Methodology 425.3.1. GlobalDatas 2017 UK SME Insurance Survey 425.3.2. GlobalDatas 2017 UK Commercial Broker Survey 425.4. Bibliography 42Buy Now @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Technology in Wealth Management: Drivers for Adoption and Future Trends

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"The Report Technology in Wealth Management: Drivers for Adoption and Future Trends provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About Technology in Wealth Management Market"Technology in Wealth Management: Drivers for Adoption and Future Trends", report provides a comprehensive analysis of how technological developments are affecting the wealth management industry, including both traditional providers and new digital entrants to the market. Among others, the report leverages findings from our Global Wealth Managers Survey and Mass Affluent Investor Survey.Get Sample copy of this Report @Investing in technology has leapt to the top of most wealth managers agendas. The emergence of robo-advisors has triggered interest in changing investor demographics and new approaches to client segmentation. On the other hand, shrinking margins and pressure on cost-saving have fueled organizations internal needs to seek efficiencies, and these can be achieved with the help of technology. Although ultimately the human element will remain prominent in the world of financial advice, the industry will continue its technological advancement.Specifically the report -- Provides an overview of trends in the wealth management and wider financial services industry related to technology.- Analyzes key drivers behind the adoption of technology and digital solutions in wealth management, looking at both external and internal factors.- Examines how providers need to adapt to changing client behaviors and preferences in the HNW and mass affluent segments.- Investigates the future model of robo-advice service and how hybrid digital-human solutions can help to grow business.- Assesses how different software and tools, including big data and blockchain, can improve the operating efficiency of incumbent wealth management organizations.- Identifies where the biggest investment gap in the wealth management industry lies, providing an opportunity for IT vendors.View Report @Scope- Lower returns increase investors price sensitivity, luring them into the arms of low-cost digital providers.- Although the average robo-advice client falls into the mass affluent category, HNW investors will also recognize the benefits of digital platforms.- With millennials building up their wealth, and intergenerational change on the horizon, financial advisors need to prepare themselves for a new generation of clients, while not abandoning their existing clientele.- Combining the best of human and digital capabilities will lead to successful hybrid advice model development.- Investment in technology is focused on the front-end, the back-office being lower priority.- Adoption of technologies such as big data and blockchain remains low in wealth management, and the industry will wait for other branches of financial services to test the waters.- Despite some high-profile partnerships between incumbents and fintechs, established IT vendors remain better positioned to work with large wealth management organizations.Reasons to buy- Understand what has driven change in the wealth management industrys approach technology.- Discover key drivers and barriers for technology adoption in the industry.- Learn about how changing client expectations and how you can prepare for the new digitally-savvy generation of HNW individuals.- Examine the most successful robo-advice providers and reasons for their popularity.- Recognize which key areas of operations within wealth management organizations can most benefit from technology, and how.- Find out about the industrys approach to the most innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and blockchain.- Identify opportunities for wealth managers to work with established IT vendors, as well as fintech start-ups.Send An Enquiry Request @Table of ContentsEXECUTIVE SUMMARY 21.1. Adoption of technology in wealth management will accelerate 21.2. Key findings 21.3. Critical success factors 22. WEALTH MANAGERS AND TECHNOLOGY: GENERAL TRENDS 92.1.1. Private banking has traditionally competed upon the basis of relationships and alpha 92.1.2. Private banks have recently awoken to the need for digital innovation in their service delivery 92.1.3. Robo-advisors have lit a fire under the industry in regards to the utility of digital solutions 92.2. Wealth managers are investing in front- and back-office tech 102.2.1. Client-facing solutions have been seen as a higher priority, but back-office is still a focus 102.3. Understanding technology is essential in order to benefit from it 112.3.1. Other branches of financial services will continue to lead in technology 113. TECHNOLOGY IN WEALTH MANAGEMENT: DRIVERS FOR ADOPTION 123.1. Drivers for technology investment have come from many different quarters 123.2. Lower fees and simplicity attract investors to digital platforms 133.2.1. Wealth managers once again need to adapt to a step-change in fee tolerance 133.2.2. Price-sensitivity fuels interest in low-cost, digital-only investment managers 133.2.3. User-friendly platforms are welcome among more hands-on investors 153.3. Intergenerational change is fueling the need for a shift in how wealth management services are provided 173.3.1. Wealth managers must incorporate digital services ahead of millennials coming into wealth 173.3.2. The current aging HNW demographic remain loyal to their advisors 173.3.3. As wealth is passed on, wealth managers client demographics will change 173.3.4. Wealth managers should not underestimate the utility of digital services to older clients 183.4. Large wealth management organizations struggle with costs 183.4.1. Expenses have been growing faster than revenues 183.4.2. Staff reductions require better advisor effectiveness 193.5. Regulatory requirements have weighed on the efficiency of many firms 203.5.1. Mounting compliance requirements have resulted in higher costs for wealth managers 203.5.2. The fiduciary rule in the US will encourage firms to invest in technology 214. THE NEXT STEP FOR ROBO-ADVICE: HYBRID OFFERINGS 224.1. Incumbent wealth managers feel the pressure from robo-advisors 224.1.1. Automated investment platforms will try to win private banks audience 224.1.2. Robo-advice platforms can complement wealth managers services 234.1.3. Digital players are yet to find their ultimate place in the market 244.2. Robo-advisors only really launched into the market following the financial crisis 244.2.1. Challenger brands are not able to compete with incumbents on reputation 244.3. Traditional wealth managers are venturing into robo-advice 254.3.1. Inclusion of the human element is key to bringing in significant AUM 254.3.2. Security and trust remain essential in investment management, making brand a key consideration 264.3.3. The roles of humans and technology are not fixed 274.3.4. Client segmentation and tailored targeting strategies are essential 274.3.5. There is HNW appetite for digital solutions 284.4. Hybrid human-digital offerings are the future 294.4.1. The hybrid proposition must not undermine a providers image, values, or core business 304.4.2. The right combination of human and digital elements will resonate with a wide audience 315. DIGITAL EFFICIENCY TOOLS 325.1. The industry invests in technology that allows savings 325.1.1. Wealth managers are investing more in tools supporting front- than back-office 325.1.2. Drivers of investment in efficiency tools have mainly been cost-related 325.2. Innovative communication platforms save time on travel and meetings, but will not replace human contact 335.2.1. Improving communication flow between clients and advisors has been the focus of North American wealth managers 335.2.2. Portfolio management software will be most beneficial in markets with low discretionary mandates penetration 355.2.3. Digital workflow tools support the administrative duties of relationship managers 375.3. Automating compliance work will trigger efficiencies 385.4. Big data analytics can help tailor products, but on the top level only 415.4.1. Analysis of investors history of trades provides information about their attitudes 415.4.2. Less than a third of wealth managers use big data 415.5. Blockchain remains untouched territory in wealth management 426. WEALTH MANAGERS COLLABORATION WITH IT VENDORS 456.1. The wealth management industry presents an opportunity for IT solution providers 456.1.1. Emerging markets have been early adopters of innovative solutions 456.1.2. Wealth managers look for support in client acquisition and gaining efficiencies 466.1.3. The opportunity for IT vendors lies in developed economies with big established firms struggling with outdated systems 476.2. Fintech startups are seeking partnerships with bigger brands 486.2.1. In an industry that requires scale, start-ups have been eager to partner 486.2.2. Fintechs will struggle to attract wealth partners in North America 496.3. Established IT vendors have an advantage over fintechs 506.3.1. Upgrading is still a fraught endeavor for wealth managers, and they appreciate the experience and capacity of established suppliers 506.3.2. IT vendors should provide not only pure IT services, but also advice 51Buy Now @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
The Global Military UAV Market 2017-2027

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"The Report The Global Military UAV Market 2017-2027 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About Military UAV MarketThe global military UAV market will be driven by internal and external security threats, territorial disputes, and modernization initiatives undertaken by armed forces across the world.Significant UAV customers include countries in the North American and Asia Pacific region, and the global UAV market will be dominated by the US throughout the forecast period. Asia Pacifics share of the global UAV market is also projected to increase, largely due to a number of international territorial conflicts and insurgency issues.Get Sample copy of this Report @In particular, it provides an in-depth analysis of the following -- Market size and drivers: detailed analysis during 2017-2027, including highlights of the demand drivers and growth stimulators. It also provides a snapshot of the spending and modernization patterns of different regions around the world.- Recent developments and industry challenges: insights into technological developments and a detailed analysis of the changing preferences of military UAVsegments around the world. It also provides trends of the changing industry structure and the challenges faced by industry participants.- Regional highlights: study of the key markets in each region, providing an analysis of the key segments of the market that are expected to be in demand.- Major programs: details of the key programs in each segment, which are expected to be executed during 2016-2026.- Competitive landscape and strategic insights: analysis of the competitive landscape of the global market. It provides an overview of key players, together with information regarding key alliances, strategic initiatives, and financial analysis.View Report @SynopsisThe Global Military UAV Market 2017-2027 report offers a detailed analysis of the industry, with market size forecasts covering the next ten years. This report will also analyze factors that influence demand for military UAV, key market trends, and challenges faced by industry participants.Scope- The global military UAV market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.32% over the forecast period.- The market consists of six categories: UCAV, HALE, MALE, TUAV, VTOL-UAV, and MUAV. It is expected to be dominated by the UCAV, followed by HALE UAV and MALE UAV. The North American region is forecasted to dominate the sector with a share of 34.4%, and the Asia-Pacific market is dominated by China, India, and Australia. Russia and the UK occupies a major market share in the European region.Send An Enquiry Request @Reasons to buy- Determine prospective investment areas based on a detailed trend analysis of the global military UAV market over the next ten years- Gain in-depth understanding about the underlying factors driving demand for different military UAV segments in the top spending countries across the world and identify the opportunities offered by each of them- Strengthen your understanding of the market in terms of demand drivers, industry trends, and the latest technological developments, among others- Identify the major channels that are driving the global military UAV market, providing a clear picture about future opportunities that can be tapped, resulting in revenue expansion- Channelize resources by focusing on the ongoing programs that are being undertaken by the internal ministries of different countries within the global military UAV market- Make correct business decisions based on thorough analysis of the total competitive landscape of the sector with detailed profiles of the top military UAV providers around the world which include information about their products, alliances, recent contract wins and financial analysis wherever availableTable of ContentsExecutive SummaryGlobal Military UAV Market - OverviewMarket DynamicsDemand Drivers: Analysis of factors that trigger spending within the sectorTrends: Prevalent practices, industry consolidation and procurement patterns within the marketTechnological Developments : New products, processes and innovations recently inducted within the sectorKey Challenges: Obstacles affecting sector growthMilitary UAV Market - Segment AnalysisSegment Analysis: UCAVMarket size and CAGR growth analysis, 2017-2027Change in market share, 2017-2027Segment Analysis: HALE UAVMarket size and CAGR growth analysis, 2017-2027Change in market share, 2017-2027Segment Analysis: MALE UAVMarket size and CAGR growth analysis, 2017-2027Change in market share, 2017-2027Segment Analysis: TUAVMarket size and CAGR growth analysis, 2017-2027Change in market share, 2017-2027Segment Analysis: VTOL-UAVMarket size and CAGR growth analysis, 2017-2027Change in market share, 2017-2027Segment Analysis: MUAVMarket size and CAGR growth analysis, 2017-2027Change in market share, 2017-2027Regional ReviewDefense capital expenditureCapex forecast, 2017-2027Factors influencing military modernization programsMilitary UAV Market - Regional AnalysisRegional overviewFactors driving spending within the regionRegional expenditure on each sub-segment , 2017-2027Market Size and CAGR growth analysis, 2017-2027Change in market share, 2017-2027Trend Analysis - Key Defense MarketsCountry -wise breakdown of expenditure for each regionSub-segment wise analysis for each countryMajor Programs for each countryMarket Size and CAGR growth analysis, 2017-2027Change in market share, 2017-2027Key Programs AnalysisDescription of key programsDelivery period, units and total expenditureCompetitive Landscape AnalysisCompetitive analysis - 18 leading companiesMajor Products and ServicesMajor Alliances and Recent ContractsFinancial Analysis covering Revenue, Operating Profit and Net ProfitBuy Now @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
US Offshore Deepwater Gulf of Mexico Vito Project Panorama

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US Offshore Deepwater Gulf of Mexico Vito Project Panorama, Publisher's latest release, presents a comprehensive overview of the asset. This upstream report includes detailed qualitative and quantitative information on the asset, provides a full economic assessment and reflects several parameters including (but not limited to) geological profile, asset development and specific challenges. Based on this analysis, future outlook for the asset is presented with possible trends and related scenarios identifying upside/downside potential.Scope-Overview of the asset based on an analysis of the economic indicators-Key financial indicators including Net Present Value and Internal Rate of Return-Review of factors affecting the economic outcome of the field including development overview, geology, challenges, reserves and production with qualitative perspective on of the overall assets life with Publisher's analysis on the asset's future outlookGet More Information@-Detailed production profile for the asset, giving annual output rates for each commodity produced-Cash flow statements from our economic analysis of the asset including capital expenditures, operating expenditures and tax liability-Individual valuations for equity holders-Sensitivity analysis for asset value considering a range of factorsTable of Contents1 Table of Contents 11.1. List of Tables 21.2. List of Figures 22. Project Panorama 33. Project Update 44. Outlook 55. Asset Summary 66. Development Overview 107. Geology 128. Challenges 139. Reserves and Production 1410. Economic Analysis 1611. Appendix 1911.1. Contact Us 1911.2. Disclaimer 19Get Sample Copy of Report@List of TablesTable 1: Project Details 3Table 2: Participation Overview 6Table 3: Key Valuation Metrics 6Table 4: Asset Valuation Metrics 7Table 5: Cash Flow Summary 8Table 6: Fiscal Take Summary 8Table 7: Production Summary 15Table 8: Production Data 15Table 9: Project Cash Flow 17List of FiguresFigure 1: Annual Cash Flow 6Figure 2: Full Cycle Expenditure And Revenue Split 7Figure 3: Remaining Expenditure And Revenue Split 7Figure 4: NPV Sensitivity 8Figure 5: Percentage NPV Difference 9Figure 6: Production 14Buy This Report@About ReportsWeb:ReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.Contact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@reportsweb.com
Global Soluble Coffee Market Professional Survey Report 2017 - Nestle, Bustelo, Starbucks, Mount Hagen, Giraldo Farms, Tchibo, 365 Everyday Value

Soluble Coffee Market

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Soluble Coffee Market Professional Survey Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.This report studies Soluble Coffee in Global market, especially in North America, China, Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan and India, with production, revenue, consumption, import and export in these regions, from 2012 to 2016, and forecast to 2022.This report focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringNestleBusteloStarbucksMount HagenGiraldo FarmsTchibo365 Everyday ValueChock Full ONutsPrivate LabelMedaglia DOroJacobsMountain BlendSankaFolgersNescafeMaxwellTasterFerraraTata CoffeeMocconoTo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoSpray DryingFreeze DryingBy Application, the market can be split intoSupermarkets & HypermarketsConvenience StoresOnline SalesBy Regions, this report covers (we can add the regions/countries as you want)North AmericaChinaEuropeSoutheast AsiaJapanIndiaTable of ContentsGlobal Soluble Coffee Market Professional Survey Report 20171 Industry Overview of Soluble Coffee1.1 Definition and Specifications of Soluble Coffee1.1.1 Definition of Soluble Coffee1.1.2 Specifications of Soluble Coffee1.2 Classification of Soluble Coffee1.2.1 Spray Drying1.2.2 Freeze Drying1.3 Applications of Soluble Coffee1.3.1 Supermarkets & Hypermarkets1.3.2 Convenience Stores1.3.3 Online Sales1.4 Market Segment by Regions1.4.1 North America1.4.2 China1.4.3 Europe1.4.4 Southeast Asia1.4.5 Japan1.4.6 India2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Soluble Coffee2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Soluble Coffee2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Soluble Coffee2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Soluble Coffee3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Soluble Coffee3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Soluble Coffee Major Manufacturers in 20163.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Soluble Coffee Major Manufacturers in 20163.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Soluble Coffee Major Manufacturers in 20163.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Soluble Coffee Major Manufacturers in 20164 Global Soluble Coffee Overall Market Overview4.1 2012-2017E Overall Market Analysis4.2 Capacity Analysis4.2.1 2012-2017E Global Soluble Coffee Capacity and Growth Rate Analysis4.2.2 2016 Soluble Coffee Capacity Analysis (Company Segment)4.3 Sales Analysis4.3.1 2012-2017E Global Soluble Coffee Sales and Growth Rate Analysis4.3.2 2016 Soluble Coffee Sales Analysis (Company Segment)4.4 Sales Price Analysis4.4.1 2012-2017E Global Soluble Coffee Sales Price4.4.2 2016 Soluble Coffee Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment)5 Soluble Coffee Regional Market Analysis5.1 North America Soluble Coffee Market Analysis5.1.1 North America Soluble Coffee Market Overview5.1.2 North America 2012-2017E Soluble Coffee Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.1.3 North America 2012-2017E Soluble Coffee Sales Price Analysis5.1.4 North America 2016 Soluble Coffee Market Share Analysis5.2 China Soluble Coffee Market Analysis5.2.1 China Soluble Coffee Market Overview5.2.2 China 2012-2017E Soluble Coffee Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.2.3 China 2012-2017E Soluble Coffee Sales Price Analysis5.2.4 China 2016 Soluble Coffee Market Share Analysis5.3 Europe Soluble Coffee Market Analysis5.3.1 Europe Soluble Coffee Market Overview5.3.2 Europe 2012-2017E Soluble Coffee Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.3.3 Europe 2012-2017E Soluble Coffee Sales Price Analysis5.3.4 Europe 2016 Soluble Coffee Market Share Analysis5.4 Southeast Asia Soluble Coffee Market Analysis5.4.1 Southeast Asia Soluble Coffee Market Overview5.4.2 Southeast Asia 2012-2017E Soluble Coffee Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.4.3 Southeast Asia 2012-2017E Soluble Coffee Sales Price Analysis5.4.4 Southeast Asia 2016 Soluble Coffee Market Share Analysis5.5 Japan Soluble Coffee Market Analysis5.5.1 Japan Soluble Coffee Market Overview5.5.2 Japan 2012-2017E Soluble Coffee Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.5.3 Japan 2012-2017E Soluble Coffee Sales Price Analysis5.5.4 Japan 2016 Soluble Coffee Market Share Analysis5.6 India Soluble Coffee Market Analysis5.6.1 India Soluble Coffee Market Overview5.6.2 India 2012-2017E Soluble Coffee Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.6.3 India 2012-2017E Soluble Coffee Sales Price Analysis5.6.4 India 2016 Soluble Coffee Market Share Analysis6 Global 2012-2017E Soluble Coffee Segment Market Analysis (by Type)6.1 Global 2012-2017E Soluble Coffee Sales by Type6.2 Different Types of Soluble Coffee Product Interview Price Analysis6.3 Different Types of Soluble Coffee Product Driving Factors Analysis6.3.1 Spray Drying of Soluble Coffee Growth Driving Factor Analysis6.3.2 Freeze Drying of Soluble Coffee Growth Driving Factor AnalysisContinue...Browse Detail Report With TOC @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMozState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Analysis of Mechanical Seals Market in Middle East to grow at a CAGR of 5.32% during the period 2017-2021

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ResearchMoz added Latest Research Report titled " Mechanical Seals Market in Middle East 2017-2021 " to it's Large Report database.About mechanical sealsMechanical seals converge/connect parts of systems or mechanisms to prevent the leakage of fluids. The plumbing systems in the oil and gas, power, water and waste water, manufacturing, aerospace, automotive, electrical and electronics, and petrochemical industries use these seals to prevent fluid leakage by maintaining the pressure flow. The plumbing mechanism that the industry employs determines the type of seals that are required for joining the parts.Technavios analysts forecast the mechanical seals market in the Middle East to grow at a CAGR of 5.32% during the period 2017-2021.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the mechanical seals market in the Middle East for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the demand for mechanical seals from various end-user industries.Request for Sample PDF of Premium Research Report with TOC:Technavio's report, Mechanical Seals Market in The Middle East 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendorsAESSEALChestertonEagleBurgmannFlowserveJohn CraneBrowse more details @Table of ContentsPART 01: Executive summaryPART 02: Scope of the reportPART 03: Research MethodologyPART 04: IntroductionKey market highlightsPART 05: Market landscapeMarket overviewMarket size and forecastFive forces analysisPART 06: Market segmentation by product typeMarket overviewPART 07: Market segmentation by end-userMarket overviewOil and gasPowerWater and wastewaterPetrochemicalMetal processingPulp and paperFood and beveragePART 08: Key leading countriesSaudi ArabiaUAEQatarKuwaitOmanAbout ResearchMozResearchMoz is the world's fastest growing collection of market research reports worldwide. Our database is composed of current market studies from over 100 featured publishers worldwide. Our market research databases integrate statistics with analysis from global, regional, country and company perspectives. ResearchMoz's service portfolio also includes value-added services such as market research customization, competitive landscaping, and in-depth surveys, delivered by a team of experienced Research Coordinators.Contact Us:Mr. Nachiket Ghumare90 State Street, Albany NY, United States - 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074 / Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn at:Follow me on Blogger at:
Mammography Devices Market is Expected To Be Worth US$ 2 Billion Globally By 2022

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Mammography refers to a typical screening and process used to screen the breast tissues for the existence of malignant tissues. It includes an in depth imaging within the breast with a low-dose x-ray system for the first detention of cancer. Screening mammograms involves checking for carcinoma among women World Health Organization has no signs of the diseases. Diagnostics X-ray photograph is employed to visualize carcinoma when a lump or alternative symptoms of the sickness. It may also be wont to judge the changes found throughout a screening diagnostic technique.The Global Mammography Devices Market is expected to exceed more than US$ 2.09 Billion by 2022 at a CAGR of 6.1% in the given forecast period.You can find full report:The major driving factors of Global Mammography Devices Market are as follows: Increasing incidences of breast cancer Aging population is rapidly increasing Increasing awareness resulting in early breast cancer screening Government funding for treatment of carcinoma Growing technological advancement in breast imaging modalitiesThe restraining factors of Global Mammography Devices Market are as follows: Stringent regulations for approval of procedures Side effects related with mammography High investments in installing breast imaging systemsThis report provides:1) An overview of the global market for Global Mammography Devices Market and related technologies.2) Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2013, estimates for 2014 and 2015, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2022.3) Identifications of new market opportunities and targeted promotional plans for devices Mammography Market.4) Discussion of research and development, and the demand for new products and new applications.5) Comprehensive company profiles of major players in the industry.The scope of the report includes a detailed study of Global Mammography Devices Market with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.Request Sample Report:The Global Mammography Devices Market has been segmented as below:By Product Type: 3D mammograms Digital System Analog System Screen system Digital system 3d system Biopsy systemBy Technology Type: Breast tomosysnthesis CAD DigitalBy End User Analysis: Hospitals Ambulatory centers Clinics OthersBy Regional Analysis: North America Europe Asia-Pacific Rest of the WorldTable of Contents1 INTRODUCTION2 Research Methodology3 Executive Summary4 Premium Insights5 Market Overview6 Breast Imaging Market, By Type6.1 Introduction6.2 Ionizing Technologies6.2.1 Full-Field Digital Mammography (FFDM)6.2.2 Analog Mammography6.2.3 3D Breast Tomosynthesis6.2.4 Positron Emission Tomography and Computed Tomography (PET-CT)6.2.5 Molecular Breast-Specific Gamma Imaging (MBI/BSGI)6.2.6 Cone-Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT)6.2.7 Positron Emission Mammography (PEM)6.2.8 Electric Impedance Tomography6.3 Non-Ionizing Technologies6.3.1 Breast Ultrasound6.3.2 Breast MRI6.3.3 Automated Whole-Breast Ultrasound (AWBU)6.3.4 Breast Thermography6.3.5 Optical Imaging7 Breast Imaging Market, By Region8 Competitive Landscape9 Company Profile9.1 Introduction9.2 Hologic, Inc.9.3 GE Healthcare9.4 Siemens Healthcare9.5 Philips Healthcare9.6 Fujifilm Holdings Corporation9.7 Gamma Medica, Inc.9.8 Toshiba Corporation9.9 Sonocine, Inc.9.10 Aurora Imaging Technology, Inc.9.11 Dilon Technologies, Inc.About UsMarket Research Engine (MRE) is a next-generation provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. MREs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each Market Research Engines research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862Country: United StatesWebsite:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Global Vodka Market Professional Survey Report 2017 - Popov, SKYY, Titos Handmade, New Amsterdam, Grand Teton, UV Blue, Deep Eddy, Taaka, Platinum 7X

Global Vodka Market Professional Survey Report 2017

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Vodka Market Professional Survey Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.This report studies Vodka in Global market, especially in North America, China, Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan and India, with production, revenue, consumption, import and export in these regions, from 2012 to 2016, and forecast to 2022.This report focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringPopovSKYYTitos HandmadeNew AmsterdamGrand TetonUV BlueDeep EddyTaakaPlatinum 7XBurnettsUVNikolaiWestern Son TexasSmirnoff RaspberryHangar OneKarkovRain OrganicsTo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoPoland VodkaRussia VodkaSweden VodkaBy Application, the market can be split intoDirect SellingDistribution SellingBy Regions, this report covers (we can add the regions/countries as you want)North AmericaChinaEuropeSoutheast AsiaJapanIndiaTable of ContentsGlobal Vodka Market Professional Survey Report 20171 Industry Overview of Vodka1.1 Definition and Specifications of Vodka1.1.1 Definition of Vodka1.1.2 Specifications of Vodka1.2 Classification of Vodka1.2.1 Poland Vodka1.2.2 Russia Vodka1.2.3 Sweden Vodka1.3 Applications of Vodka1.3.1 Direct Selling1.3.2 Distribution Selling1.3.3 Application 31.4 Market Segment by Regions1.4.1 North America1.4.2 China1.4.3 Europe1.4.4 Southeast Asia1.4.5 Japan1.4.6 India2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Vodka2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Vodka2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Vodka2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Vodka3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Vodka3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Vodka Major Manufacturers in 20163.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Vodka Major Manufacturers in 20163.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Vodka Major Manufacturers in 20163.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Vodka Major Manufacturers in 20164 Global Vodka Overall Market Overview4.1 2012-2017E Overall Market Analysis4.2 Capacity Analysis4.2.1 2012-2017E Global Vodka Capacity and Growth Rate Analysis4.2.2 2016 Vodka Capacity Analysis (Company Segment)4.3 Sales Analysis4.3.1 2012-2017E Global Vodka Sales and Growth Rate Analysis4.3.2 2016 Vodka Sales Analysis (Company Segment)4.4 Sales Price Analysis4.4.1 2012-2017E Global Vodka Sales Price4.4.2 2016 Vodka Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment)5 Vodka Regional Market Analysis5.1 North America Vodka Market Analysis5.1.1 North America Vodka Market Overview5.1.2 North America 2012-2017E Vodka Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.1.3 North America 2012-2017E Vodka Sales Price Analysis5.1.4 North America 2016 Vodka Market Share Analysis5.2 China Vodka Market Analysis5.2.1 China Vodka Market Overview5.2.2 China 2012-2017E Vodka Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.2.3 China 2012-2017E Vodka Sales Price Analysis5.2.4 China 2016 Vodka Market Share Analysis5.3 Europe Vodka Market Analysis5.3.1 Europe Vodka Market Overview5.3.2 Europe 2012-2017E Vodka Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.3.3 Europe 2012-2017E Vodka Sales Price Analysis5.3.4 Europe 2016 Vodka Market Share Analysis5.4 Southeast Asia Vodka Market Analysis5.4.1 Southeast Asia Vodka Market Overview5.4.2 Southeast Asia 2012-2017E Vodka Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.4.3 Southeast Asia 2012-2017E Vodka Sales Price Analysis5.4.4 Southeast Asia 2016 Vodka Market Share Analysis5.5 Japan Vodka Market Analysis5.5.1 Japan Vodka Market Overview5.5.2 Japan 2012-2017E Vodka Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.5.3 Japan 2012-2017E Vodka Sales Price Analysis5.5.4 Japan 2016 Vodka Market Share Analysis5.6 India Vodka Market Analysis5.6.1 India Vodka Market Overview5.6.2 India 2012-2017E Vodka Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.6.3 India 2012-2017E Vodka Sales Price Analysis5.6.4 India 2016 Vodka Market Share Analysis6 Global 2012-2017E Vodka Segment Market Analysis (by Type)6.1 Global 2012-2017E Vodka Sales by Type6.2 Different Types of Vodka Product Interview Price Analysis6.3 Different Types of Vodka Product Driving Factors Analysis6.3.1 Poland Vodka of Vodka Growth Driving Factor Analysis6.3.2 Russia Vodka of Vodka Growth Driving Factor Analysis6.3.3 Sweden Vodka of Vodka Growth Driving Factor AnalysisContinue...Browse Detail Report With TOC @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMozState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Future of the Jordan Defense Industry - Market Attractiveness, Competitive Landscape and Forecasts to 2022

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"The Report Future of the Jordan Defense Industry - Market Attractiveness, Competitive Landscape and Forecasts to 2022 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About Future of the Jordan Defense Industry MarketThe Future of the Jordan Defense Industry - Market Attractiveness, Competitive Landscape and Forecasts to 2022, published by Strategic Defence Intelligence, provides readers with detailed analysis of both historic and forecast defense industry values, factors influencing demand, the challenges faced by industry participants, analysis of industry leading companies, and key news.Get Sample copy of this Report @SynopsisThis report offers detailed analysis of the Jordan defense industry with market size forecasts covering the next five years. This report will also analyze factors that influence demand for the industry, key market trends, and challenges faced by industry participants.In particular, it provides an in-depth analysis of the following -- The Jordan defense industry market size and drivers: detailed analysis of the Jordan defense industry during 2018-2022, including highlights of the demand drivers and growth stimulators for the industry. It also provides a snapshot of the countrys expenditure and modernization patterns- Budget allocation and key challenges: insights into procurement schedules formulated within the country and a breakdown of the defense budget with respect to capital expenditure and revenue expenditure. It also details the key challenges faced by defense market participants within the country- Porters Five Force analysis of the Jordan defense industry: analysis of the market characteristics by determining the bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitution, intensity of rivalry, and barriers to entry- Import and Export Dynamics: analysis of prevalent trends in the countrys imports and exports over the last five years- Market opportunities: details of the top five defense investment opportunities over the next 10 years- Competitive landscape and strategic insights: analysis of the competitive landscape of the Jordan defense industry. It provides an overview of key players, together with insights such as key alliances, strategic initiatives, and a brief financial analysisView Report @Scope- Jordans defense expenditure rose from US$1.5 billion in 2013 to US$2.1 billion in 2017, at a CAGR of 8.28% due to the countrys precarious security environment aggravated by the responsibility of hosting a large refugee population. Attempts to modernize its military equipment will therefore drive its defense expenditure over the forecast period.- In Jordan, the military is one of the largest employment generators in the public service sector. Salaries account for a higher percentage of the countrys total expenditure on defense and security. During the historic period, 96.6% of the defense budget was allocated to revenue expenditure including salaries, logistics, operational costs, training, and maintenance. The remaining 3.4% was allocated to capital expenditure. Over the forecast period, the government will maintain its current allocation to capital expenditure, averaging 3.3% of the total defense budget.- The MoD is expected to invest in border security systems & equipment, armored vehicles, and patrol boats among others.Reasons to buy- This report will give the user confidence to make the correct business decisions based on a detailed analysis of the Jordan defense industry market trends for the coming five years- The market opportunity section will inform the user about the various military requirements that are expected to generate revenues during the forecast period. The description includes technical specifications, recent orders, and the expected investment pattern by the country during the forecast period- Detailed profiles of the top domestic and foreign defense manufacturers with information about their products, alliances, recent contract wins, and financial analysis wherever available. This will provide the user with a total competitive landscape of the sector- A deep qualitative analysis of the Jordan defense industry covering sections including demand drivers, Porters Five Forces Analysis, Key Trends and Growth Stimulators, and latest industry contractsSend An Enquiry Request @Table of Contents1. Introduction 71.1. What is this Report About? 71.2. Definitions 71.3. Summary Methodology 101.4. About Strategic Defence Intelligence 122. Executive Summary 133. Market Attractiveness and Emerging Opportunities 153.1. Current Market Scenario 163.1.1. Primary threat perception 163.1.2. Military doctrine and strategy 173.1.3. Military Fleet Size 193.1.4. Procurement Programs 233.1.5. Social, political, and economic environment and support for defense projects 243.1.6. Political and strategic alliances 243.2. Defense Market Size - Historical and Forecast 263.2.1. Jordanian defense budget to post a CAGR of 6.31% over the forecast period 263.2.2. Jordanian aggregate defense expenditure - inclusive of US military aid - will post a forecast-period CAGR of 5.30% 283.2.3. Hostility among neighboring countries and foreign military aid to drive defense expenditure 313.2.4. Jordanian defense expenditure as a percentage of GDP to average 4.2% over the forecast period 323.3. Analysis of Defense Budget Allocation 343.3.1. Revenue expenditure to continue to take precedence over capital expenditure 343.3.2. Financial Aid from the US contributes a major share of the countrys capital expenditure 363.3.3. The countrys capital budget allocations else remain low 373.3.4. Per capita defense expenditure to grow steadily over the forecast period 393.4. Homeland Security Market Size and Forecast 403.4.1. Homeland security expenditure to post a forecast-period CAGR of 2.87% 403.4.2. Internal conflicts and unauthorized activities in refugee camps will be the key factors driving HLS expenditure 423.4.3. Jordan considered at moderate risk of terrorism 433.4.4. Jordan faces a moderate level of threat from terrorist organizations 443.4.5. Jordan has a terrorism index score of 2.9 463.5. Benchmarking with Key Global Markets 473.5.1. Jordan ranks among the lowest defense spending countries in the world 473.5.2. Jordan defense spending will remain minimal when compared to top regional spenders Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Kuwait 493.5.3. Jordan ranks low in terms of defense expenditure as a percentage of GDP 503.6. Market Opportunities: Key Trends and Drivers 513.6.1. Demand for border security systems expected to rise 513.6.2. Demand for armored vehicles likely to surge over the forecast period 523.6.3. Procurement of patrol boats expected to increase 524. Defense Procurement Market Dynamics 534.1. Import Market Dynamics 534.1.1. The majority of Jordans military equipment is generated through foreign imports 534.1.2. The Netherlands, the US, and Belgium were the dominant suppliers of defense equipment to Jordan 544.1.3. Aircraft and missiles dominated Jordanian defense imports 554.2. Export Market Dynamics 564.2.1. Defense exports expected to grow during the forecast period 564.2.2. Pakistan and Kenya accounted for the largest shares of Jordans total defense exports 574.2.3. Defense exports mainly include aircraft and armored vehicles 585. Industry Dynamics 595.1. Five Forces Analysis 595.1.1. Bargaining power of suppliers: high 605.1.2. Bargaining power of buyers: low 605.1.3. Barrier to entry: medium 605.1.4. Intensity of rivalry: low to medium 605.1.5. Threat of substitution: low to medium 60Buy Now @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Future of the Kenya Defense Industry - Market Attractiveness, Competitive Landscape and Forecasts to 2022

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"The Report Future of the Kenya Defense Industry - Market Attractiveness, Competitive Landscape and Forecasts to 2022 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About Future of the Kenya Defense Industry MarketThe Future of the Bangladesh Defense Industry - Market Attractiveness, Competitive Landscape and Forecasts to 2022, published by Strategic Defence Intelligence, provides readers with detailed analysis of both historic and forecast defense industry values, factors influencing demand, the challenges faced by industry participants, analysis of industry leading companies, and key news.Get Sample copy of this Report @SynopsisThis report offers detailed analysis of the Kenya defense industry with market size forecasts covering the next five years. This report will also analyze factors that influence demand for the industry, key market trends, and challenges faced by industry participants.In particular, it provides an in-depth analysis of the following -- The Kenya defense industry market size and drivers: detailed analysis of the Kenya defense industry during 2018-2022, including highlights of the demand drivers and growth stimulators for the industry. It also provides a snapshot of the countrys expenditure and modernization patterns- Budget allocation and key challenges: insights into procurement schedules formulated within the country and a breakdown of the defense budget with respect to capital expenditure and revenue expenditure. It also details the key challenges faced by defense market participants within the country- Porters Five Force analysis of the Kenya defense industry: analysis of the market characteristics by determining the bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitution, intensity of rivalry, and barriers to entry- Import and Export Dynamics: analysis of prevalent trends in the countrys imports and exports over the last five years- Market opportunities: details of the top five defense investment opportunities over the next 10 years- Competitive landscape and strategic insights: analysis of the competitive landscape of the Kenya defense industry. It provides an overview of key players, together with insights such as key alliances, strategic initiatives, and a brief financial analysisView Report @Scope- The Kenya government has been steadily increasing its defense budget 2015 - 2017. Defense expenditure registered a CAGR of 4.01% over 2013-2017. The country allocated US$1.1 billion to its defense sector in 2013, which increased to US$1.2 billion in 2017. This trend is expected to continue during the forecast period, owing to the governments well-defined military modernization plans to better equip its armed forces.- Revenue expenditure allocation decreased from 65.6% in 2013 to 64.2% in 2017. Conversely, the countrys capital expenditure increase from 34.4% to 35.8% during the historic period. Over the forecast period, Kenya is expected to allocate an average of 34.0% of its defense budget to capital expenditure, while the remainder will be assigned to revenue expenditure.- The MoD is expected to invest in acquisition of CBRN Detection Equipment and Armored Vehicles.Reasons to buy- This report will give the user confidence to make the correct business decisions based on a detailed analysis of the Kenya defense industry market trends for the coming five years- The market opportunity section will inform the user about the various military requirements that are expected to generate revenues during the forecast period. The description includes technical specifications, recent orders, and the expected investment pattern by the country during the forecast period- Detailed profiles of the top domestic and foreign defense manufacturers with information about their products, alliances, recent contract wins, and financial analysis wherever available. This will provide the user with a total competitive landscape of the sector- A deep qualitative analysis of the Kenya defense industry covering sections including demand drivers, Porters Five Forces Analysis, Key Trends and Growth Stimulators, and latest industry contractsSend An Enquiry Request @Table of Contents1. Introduction 71.1. What is this Report About? 71.2. Definitions 71.3. Summary Methodology 91.4. About Strategic Defence Intelligence 102. Executive Summary 113. Market Attractiveness and Emerging Opportunities 133.1. Current Market Scenario 143.1.1. Primary Threat Perception 143.1.2. Military Doctrine & Strategy 163.1.3. Military Fleet Size 183.1.4. Procurement Programs 213.1.5. Social, Political and Economic Environment & Support for Defense Projects 223.1.6. Political and Strategic Alliances 223.2. Defense Market Size Historical and Forecast 233.2.1. Kenyan defense budget to grow at an estimated CAGR of 3.70% during 2018-2022 233.2.2. Border security, terrorist group threats, peacekeeping missions, and the need to modernize outdated defense equipment to drive Kenyas defense expenditure 253.2.3. Defense budget as a percentage of GDP will remain at an average of 1.4% over the forecast period 273.3. Analysis of Defense Budget Allocation 293.3.1. Share of capital expenditure is expected to increase during the forecast period 293.3.2. Capital expenditure is anticipated to record a CAGR of 3.36% during the forecast period 313.3.3. Kenyas per capita defense expenditure is expected to increase during the forecast period 333.4. Homeland Security Market Size and Forecast 353.4.1. The homeland security market in Kenya is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.60% during the forecast period 353.4.2. Human trafficking and illicit drugs trade to drive homeland security expenditure 373.4.3. Kenya falls under highly affected category in the terrorism index 383.4.4. Kenya faces high level of threat from terrorist organizations 393.4.5. Kenya has a terrorism index score of 6.6 413.5. Benchmarking with Key Global Markets 423.5.1. Kenyan defense expenditure expected to remain low compared to leading spenders 423.5.2. Kenya will continue to remain as a small contributor in the global arms market 443.5.3. Defense budget as a percentage of GDP is expected to increase over the forecast period 453.6. Market Opportunities: Key Trends and Growth Stimulators 463.6.1. CBRN Detection Equipment 463.6.2. Armored Vehicles 474. Defense Procurement Market Dynamics 484.1. Import Market Dynamics 494.1.1. Defense imports increased during the period 20112015 494.1.2. Weapons manufactured in Spain comprised the majority of imports to Kenya 504.1.3. Aircraft, Missiles, and Air defense systems accounted for a total share 88.8% in Kenyan defense imports 514.2. Export Market Dynamics 524.2.1. Kenya defense exports were negligible during 20132016 525. Industry Dynamics 535.1. Five Forces Analysis 535.1.1. Bargaining power of the supplier: high 545.1.2. Bargaining power of the buyer: low 545.1.3. Barrier to entry: medium to high 545.1.4. Intensity of rivalry: high 545.1.5. Threat of substitution: medium to high 545.2. Market Regulation 555.2.1. Kenya does not disclose any offset obligations imposed by the country 555.2.2. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is determined on a case to case basis 555.3. Market Entry Route 565.3.1. Budgeting Process 565.3.2. Defense procurement process 565.3.3. Equipment manufacturers enter the market through government-to-government deals 575.4. Key Challenges 575.4.1. Corruption and lack of transparency are the factors which hinder the growth of the Kenyan defense industry 575.4.2. Low defense budget to act as obstacle for foreign investors 57Buy Now @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Cell Culture Market Growth by 2022- Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Trends, Key Vendors, Drivers and Forecast

Cell Culture Market

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Cell Culture Market Report communicates about the manufacturing process. The process is analysed thoroughly with respect three points, viz. raw material and equipment suppliers, various manufacturing associated costs (material cost, labour cost, etc.) and the actual process of whole Enterprise Cell Culture market.Cell culture is the process by which cells are grown under controlled conditions, generally outside of their natural environment. Cell culture is one of the major tools used in cellular and molecular biology, since it provides excellent model systems for studying the normal physiology and biochemistry of cells and the effects of drugs and toxic compounds on the cells. It is also used in the development of biological compounds.Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Cell Culture market in EMEA, covering Europe, Middle East and Africa, This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Get Sample PDF of Cell Culture Market Report @Cell Culture Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers: Life Technologies, Corning (Cellgro), Sigma-Aldrich, Thermo Fisher, Merck Millipore, GE Healthcare, Lonza, BD, HiMedia, Takara, BBI.In this introductory section, the Cell Culture industry research report incorporates analysis of definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure.Cell Culture Market Segment by Regions, regional analysis covers: Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Turkey)Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Israel, UAE and Iran)Africa (South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Algeria).Cell Culture Market Segment by Type covers: Classical Media & Salts, Serum-free Media, Stem Cell Media, Other.Cell Culture Market Segment by Applications covers: Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing, Tissue Culture & Engineering, Other.Pre Order Enquiry for Cell Culture Market report @There are 13 Chapters to deeply display the EMEA Cell Culture market.Chapter 1, to describe Cell Culture Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Cell Culture, with sales, revenue, and price of Cell Culture, in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the EMEA market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Cell Culture, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, to analyze the market by regions, manufacturers, type and application, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 8 and 9, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 10, Cell Culture market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 11, 12 and 13, to describe Cell Culture research findings and conclusion, sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, appendix and data source.Apart from the mentioned information, growth rate of Cell Culture markets in 2022 is also explained. Additionally, type wise and application wise consumption tables and figures are also given.About UsReports Monitor (ReportsMonitor.com) is a platform for companies looking to meet their market research and business intelligence requirements. Our aim is to change the dynamics of the Market Research industry by providing quality intelligence backed by data. Your requirement for market forecasting is fulfilled by our exclusive quantitative and analytics driven intelligence. We have a vast collection of reports, covering maximum industries in EMEA. Our process is meticulously planned and executed in order to use maximum resources and explore the market for getting genuine insights. The prime focus is to get reliable data, Decision makers can now rely on our distinct data gathering methods to get factual market forecasting and detailed analysis.Contact UsJay MatthewsDirect: +1 513 549-5911Email: sales@reportsmonitor.comWebsite:
Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Market Research Report 2017 - Chemtex, Darcy Spillcare Manufacture, ENPAC, Oil-Dri Corporation of America, 3M, New Pig

Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Market

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Market Research Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.In this report, the global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits market is valued at USD XX million in 2016 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2022, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2016 and 2022.Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Oil and Chemical Spill Kits in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaTo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingChemtexDarcy Spillcare ManufactureENPACOil-Dri Corporation of America3MNew PigSafetec of AmericaSynder IndustriesUnique Safety ServicesAmerican Textile & SupplyGlobal Spill ControlOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoDisposableReusableOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales), market share and growth rate of Oil and Chemical Spill Kits for each application, includingEnergy IndustryChemical IndustryOtherTable of ContentsGlobal Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Market Research Report 20171 Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Oil and Chemical Spill Kits1.2 Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category) (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Disposable1.2.4 Reusable1.3 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Segment by Application1.3.1 Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Energy Industry1.3.3 Chemical Industry1.3.4 Other1.4 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 North America Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Oil and Chemical Spill Kits (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022)2 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.1 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.3 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Average Price by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.4 Manufacturers Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion3 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)3.1 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Capacity and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.2 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Production and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.3 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.4 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.5 North America Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.6 Europe Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.7 China Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.8 Japan Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.9 Southeast Asia Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.10 India Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)4 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2012-2017)4.1 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Consumption by Region (2012-2017)4.2 North America Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.3 Europe Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.4 China Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.5 Japan Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.6 Southeast Asia Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.7 India Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)5 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type5.1 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Production and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)5.2 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)5.3 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Price by Type (2012-2017)5.4 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Production Growth by Type (2012-2017)6 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Market Analysis by Application6.1 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Consumption and Market Share by Application (2012-2017)6.2 Global Oil and Chemical Spill Kits Consumption Growth Rate by Application (2012-2017)6.3 Market Drivers and Opportunities6.3.1 Potential Applications6.3.2 Emerging Markets/CountriesContinue...Browse Detail Report With TOC @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMozState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Analysis of Oil Derrick Market by Type, End-User, and Geography 2017 - 2025

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Global Oil Derrick Market: OverviewOil derrick is a type of derrick used in various onshore and offshore oilfield operations. It consists of a complex set of equipment and forms a critical part of drilling rigs. Over the past few the market for oil derricks is gaining traction for various offshore oil and gas rigs. Derrick is used to support massive structures of the hydraulic or electric top drive used in oil rigs. Since derricks are usually large structures, they are mostly assembled piece by piece or disassembled while moving from one location to another. Specialized derrick designs find wide uses for drilling in deep-water locations where they are positioned in the middle of the deck to help lower the drill stems through a moonhole.Technological advancements brought about by manufacturers are focusing on increasing the load capacity of the derrick so that the weight of casing suspended from oil rigs can be increased. Consequently, this allows drillers and roughnecks to amplify pressure and rotational torque to the drill string. As a result, the rig capacities can be upgraded.Continuous automation in drilling rigs has led to the development of rigs that require less number of personnel and workers on the drill floor. This is highly imperative since the safety of the workers employed for operating a derrick may be severely compromised at times. In addition, the use of lightweight composite materials such as graphite, fiberglass, and Kevlar significantly reduces the weight of the derrick, thereby reducing the cost of offshore rig operations and enhancing the efficiency of the rigs used. Modifications in design are poised to expand the applications of oil derricks.Request Sample Copy of the Report@Global Oil Derrick Market: General OutlineThe global oil derrick market is predicted to witness a substantial growth as the exploration and production activities in oil fields see a rise. In fact, there has been a significant rise in the drilling activities of oil and gas fields worldwide in the recent past. The market is also expected to ride on the increasing demand for energy.The fundamental idea behind the implementation of oil derricks is controlling reservoir drilling in the oil and gas sector. The perpendicular stock-still component of a traditional derrick is capable of bearing immense weight of several tons.With an augmented production of tight oil formations and oil sands in North America as anticipated by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the need for quality drilling equipment is expected to be strengthened. The increasing demand for such equipment will in turn ensure a profitable advancement of the international oil derrick market. In 2013, the EIA announced a 1 million barrels per day (MMBD) increment in the global oil supply, which increased to 1.7 MMBD in the next year.Request TOC of the Report @Global Oil Derrick Market: Growth FactorsThe crucial recovery in the growth of the global economies at the outset of 2014 ignited a notable increase in the world liquid consumption. Although the recovery was at a moderate level, it proved to be significant to increase the consumption from a sluggish 0.9 MMBD to 1.3 MMBD in 2014, as per the statistics of the EIA. In this regard, the economic advancement at an international level has emerged as a major driver for the worldwide oil derrick market.Regions such as Asia Pacific and the Middle East are also predicted to contribute to the growth of the global oil derrick market alongside North America with the discovery of new oil and gas fields. However, long hours of exploration and expensive operational activities could be among the few restraints of the market, which also include fear of heights and risk of falling from heights when mounting a derrick or rig. A few laborers working in the oil and gas fields may also complain about exposure to engine and crude oil fumes, mud, or gas.Nevertheless, such minimally affecting depressions of the market are foreseen to get recompensed with the elevation in the demand for petroleum and petroleum products. The recent swell in the demand for shale gas and its production is one of the illustrative instances of the potential growth opportunities in the global oil derrick market.Get Discount @Global Oil Derrick Market: Segment AnalysisWhile the primary function of oil derricks is to control drilling in the oil and gas fields, there are some specialized designs that are also used to perform uncommon functions, such as extracting precious resources from the earth. In terms of design, the global oil derrick market includes three segments, viz. jack-up derrick, drilling derrick, and rotary derrick.Oil derricks are deemed to be responsible for executing a constitutive portion of the drilling process. Considering the requirement and depth of the targeted well in an oil and gas field, the corresponding type of derricks is chosen. Jack-up derrick is one of the largely used types which finds usage in the exploration activities. As North America is heavily involved in exploration and production activities, it holds a dominant share in the jack-up derrick market.Global Oil Derrick Market: Key PlayersThe global oil derrick market is envisioned to be impacted by some of the prominent players, which are Superior Energy Services, Inc., Weatherford International Ltd., Quail Tolls, Schlumberger Company, Precision Drilling Corporation, Total Oilfield Rentals LP, Superior Derrick Services LLC, Chesapeake Oilfield Services LLC, Oilfield Hire and Services, and Raven Oilfield Rentals.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Microfluidics market will Possibly Cross US$ 11 Bn by the end of 2026

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Applications of microfluidics in drug delivery and diagnostics will continue to fuel the market for microfluidics over the next few years. The US$ 2.9 Bn microfluidics market will possibly cross US$ 11 Bn by the end of 2026. North America is expected to contribute over US$ 3 Bn to the total revenues in 2026. The collective share of North America and Asia Pacific will be over 40%, states Future Market Insights in a recently published market report outlook, titled Microfluidics Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 2016-2026.The report by Future Market Insights analyses the global market for microfluidics over a 10-year forecast period, 2016-2026. The market is likely to witness a robust CAGR of 14.4% over the assessed period.Browse Full Report @Geographically, North America, followed by Western Europe are expected to remain the dominant regions for microfluidics, capturing respective market value share of over 26% and over 21% share by 2026 end. Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) will possibly represent the most lucrative market, expanding at a significant CAGR of over 14% throughout the forecast period. This growth is attributed to growing use of microfluidics devices and kits for in-vitro diagnostics. North America and Western Europe will also exhibit significant growth rates over 2016-2026.Request to View Sample Report @Some of the most prominent players in the global microfluidics market, include Agilent Technologies, PerkinElmer Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Qiagen NV, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., Fluidigm Corporation, Abbott Laboratories, and F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.Almost all the leading companies serve point of care testing application and survive the competition with an individual differentiating strategy. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. and Abbott Laboratories, through active engagement in agreements and collaborations with leading regional companies, highlight a growing trend of strategic mergers and acquisitions among the top companies.Buy Full Microfluidics market Report @Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Helicopter Seating Market is Expected to Reach US$4.3 bn by the end of 2025: MRRSE

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A comprehensive research report titled Helicopter Seating Market: Global Market Share, Industry Analysis, Trends, Growth and Forecasts 2017-2025, included in the research library of Market Research Report Search Engine (MRRSE) conveys a brief market understanding including trends, challenges, opportunities, restraints and drivers that have deep influence on the growth of the global helicopter seating market. This research study covers a detailed segmentation across important geographies of Asia Pacific (APAC), North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa (MEA) and Latin America. An in-depth market analysis along with forecasts for the assessment period 2017-2025 is presented in the report on the global helicopter seating market and a statistical data analysis has been carried out with a continuous market tracking since 2012.Get free Sample Report@Global Helicopter Seating Market: ForecastThe global helicopter seating market is expected to grow at an exponential CAGR of 12.0% during the assessment period 2017-2025. The market is estimated to be valued at US$ 1.7 Bn in 2017 and with this enormous growth rate, is estimated to reach US$ 4.3 Bn by the end of 2025.Global Helicopter Seating Market: Category AnalysisGlobal helicopter seating market has been segmented into categories such as type (passenger, crew and others), application (utility, VIP, air medical applications and others) and by geography.Utility segment by application is poised to dominate the global helicopter seating market with respect to revenue share, followed by the medical applications segment. The VIP segment is expected to experience low sales owing to a higher price per unit; however, will have a significant relevance in the global helicopter seating marketNorth America is anticipated to dominate the global helicopter seating market. United States is the main contributor of growth in the North America region. North America is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.1% during the forecast periodEurope also shows high potential in the growth of the global helicopter seating market owing to an increase in air medical services and use of helicopters in this sectorThe Asia Pacific region is projected to grow at a robust CAGR of 13.8% during the assessment period 2017-2025 and is a vital growth region for the global helicopter seating market in the coming yearsBrowse Full Global Helicopter Seating Market Report with TOC :Global Helicopter Seating Market: DynamicsThere has been a rise in the application of helicopter seats in the tourism sector as well as in the military and defense sectors. This has contributed to the growth of the global helicopter seating market. According to market observations, monopoly is absent in this market and hence there is no entry barrier. This presents good opportunity and scope for the global helicopter seating market to expand in the coming years. However, a main challenge faced by small sized and medium sized players is in establishing a manufacturing work place for helicopter seating as it needs huge resources and capital funds. Increase in expenditure in the military sector and increasing investments by manufacturing players dealing with aircraft seating has greater impact on the global helicopter seating market. Technological advancements have made it possible to develop technically sound products. Due to developments in technology, helicopter seats can offer safety and comfort. Moreover, incidences of accidents have gone down due to improvements in helicopter seating manufacturing technologies. This has contributed to the growth of the global helicopter seating market. Also, consumption of helicopter seating in military helicopters on a large scale coupled with increasing demand for VIP helicopters is fueling revenue growth of the global helicopter seating market. A growing aviation industry and increasing demand for quick transportation from high net worth individuals are the main motivators of revenue growth in the global helicopter seating market.Global Helicopter Seating Market: Competition LandscapeThe research report on the global helicopter seating market covers a detailed analysis on the various key players present in the market, in a separate competitive analysis section. Tier players such as UTC Aerospace Systems, Oregon Aero, Inc., Zodiac Aerospace, Stelia Aerospace, Rockwell Collins, Inc., and Martin-Baker Aircraft Co. Ltd., are included.Enquire About this Report@About MRRSEMarket Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of Market Research Reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.Contact UsState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:Read More Industry News At:
Global Cloud DVR Market: Leading Key Players- Ericsson, Concurrent, Nokia, Cisco, Imagine Communication

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HTF MI published a new industry research that focuses on Cloud DVR market and delivers in-depth market analysis and future prospects of Global Cloud DVR market. The study covers significant data which makes the research document a handy resource for marketing managers, analysts, industry executives, consultants, sales and product managers, and other key people who are in need of ready-to-access and self-analyzed study along with graphs and tables to help understand market trends, drivers and market challenges.Get Access to sample pages @The research covers the current market size of the Global Cloud DVR market and its growth rates based on 5 year history data along with company profile of key players/manufacturers such as Ericsson, Concurrent, Nokia, Cisco, Imagine Communication, ARRIS, Hansun Technologies, Huawei, ADB, COMCAST, ABOX42, Broadcom, Comtrend, Edgecore Networks, United States, EU, Japan, China, India, Southeast Asia, Satellite, IPTV & Hybrid. The in-depth information by segments of Cloud DVR market helps monitor future profitability & to make critical decisions for growth. The information on trends and developments, focuses on markets and materials, capacities, technologies, CAPEX cycle and the changing structure of the Global Cloud DVR Market.The study provides company profiling, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information of key manufacturers of Global Cloud DVR Market, some of them listed here are Ericsson, Concurrent, Nokia, Cisco, Imagine Communication, ARRIS, Hansun Technologies, Huawei, ADB, COMCAST, ABOX42, Broadcom, Comtrend, Edgecore Networks, United States, EU, Japan, China, India, Southeast Asia, Satellite, IPTV & Hybrid. The market is growing at a very rapid pace and with rise in technological innovation, competition and M&A activities in the industry many local and regional vendors are offering specific application products for varied end-users. The new manufacturer entrants in the market are finding it hard to compete with the international vendors based on quality, reliability, and innovations in technology.Global Cloud DVR (Thousands Units) and Revenue (Million USD) Market Split by Application such as Commercial Use & Home Use with historical and projected market share and compounded annual growth rate.Get customization & check discount for report @The research insights solutions to the following key questions: What will be the market size and the growth rate in 2022? What are the key factors driving the Global Cloud DVR market? Who are the key market players and what are their strategies in the Global Cloud DVR market? What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the Global Cloud DVR market? What trends, challenges and barriers are influencing its growth? What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the vendors in the Global Cloud DVR market? What are the key outcomes of the five forces analysis of the Cloud DVR market?Buy this research report @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the Global Cloud DVR market.Chapter 1, to describe Cloud DVR Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Cloud DVR , with sales, revenue, and price of Cloud DVR , in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the Global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Cloud DVR , for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East & Africa;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application [Commercial Use & Home Use], from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Cloud DVR market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Cloud DVR sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact us :HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA  08837sales@htfmarketreport.com+1 (206) 317 1218
Advanced Driver Assistance Market: Advanced Technologies & Growth Opportunities in Global Industry

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According to a new research report published by Transparency Market Research (TMR), the global advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) market is projected to reach US$50.48 billion in 2020. TMR states that the market, having a valuation of US$14.80 billion in 2013, will display an impressive 19.2% CAGR between 2014 and 2020.The report, titled Advanced Driver Assistance Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2013 - 2020, is available for sale on the company website.Worldwide, increasing disposable incomes are boosting demand for sophisticated automobiles, which will lead to significant growth of the automotive sector. In developed countries such as the U.S, the U.K., and Japan, increasing emphasis on safety pertaining to automobiles stands as a key factor driving the ADAS market.Browse the full Advanced Driver Assistance Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2013 - 2020 report atIn recent years, increasing importance of consumer safety and installation of ADAS in low-cost cars is also aiding the growth of this market. With the rising geriatric population worldwide and changing family structures, there is surging demand for comfort driving that employs the latest technology.ADAS technologies assist everyday driving tasks by reducing the demands on the driver and adding comfort, which helps enhance luxury and comfort, complementing safety with these benefits.However, production complexities and cost pressures associated with environmental factors that affect the systems performance hinder the growth of the global ADAS market, states the report.Get A Brochure Of Report @Adaptive cruise control registered as the largest segment of the market, accounting for 18.15% of the overall market in 2013. However, the tire pressure monitoring system segment is anticipated to witness the fastest growth, at a CAGR of 21.1% from 2014 to 2020. Additionally, drastic and rapid economic reforms and mandatory legislations all over the globe will spur the growth of the market in coming years.In 2013, North America held the largest share of the global ADAS market. This was mainly due to strict safety and environmental regulations and favorable consumer preference to own advanced vehicles with the latest technology. Consumers in the region are inclined towards owning automobiles with advanced comfort systems and equipped with features that are compliant with health and safety regulations imposed by the government.Make An Enquiry @The ADAS market in the U.S. and Europe has a huge potential due to mandatory implementation of certain ADAS features in the automotive sector by regulatory agencies. For instance, the advanced driver assistance system characteristics like pedestrian protection and tire pressure monitoring system will be compulsory in Russia in coming years. However, Asia Pacific is expected to exhibit the fastest growth, at a CAGR of 20.5% from 2014 to 2020.Increasing vehicle demand, growing purchasing power, and changing buyer preferences are attributed as the major factors propelling the ADAS market in Asia Pacific. In the rest of the world, favorable policies in countries in Latin America and the Middle East and Africa is contributing massively to the growth of the ADAS market. The report profiles some of the key participants in the global advanced driver assistance system market that are Autoliv Inc., Denso, BMW AG, Robert Bosch GmBH, Audi AG, and Continental AG.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Luxury Goods Market: Industry Analysis & Outlook (2017-2021) - Kering SA, Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA, Luxottica Group SpA

Luxury Goods Market

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Luxury Goods Market: Industry Analysis & Outlook (2017-2021)" to its huge collection of research reports.Luxury goods refer to products or services of superior quality that are distinguished from normal goods because of their unique craftsmanship, exclusivity and the reputation associated. They are characterized by their quality, price, scarcity, uniqueness, status, ancestral heritage and personal history. Luxury goods can reach the customers in three ways, through retail, wholesale or online. The wholesale route gives wider market exposure; retail channels give the opportunity for having direct contact with the customers, while the online mode gives flexibility to the customers.Growing affluence and rising consumer consciousness has ensured sustained growth in the global luxury goods market, which is helmed by personal luxury goods at the forefront. Key factors driving this growth are rise in HNWI population, increasing net household wealth, growing wealth inequality, rising internet users and growing urban population. The major trends observed in the market are higher sales via off-price stores, and inclining sales via e-commerce platforms. Further, the growth of this market is hampered by factors such has geopolitical instability, need for better data analysis and struggling Chinese currency.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The report Global Luxury Goods Market: Industry Analysis & Outlook (2017-2021) analyzes the development of this market, with focus on the EMEA, the Americas and Asia-Pacific markets. The major trends, growth drivers as well as issues being faced by the market are discussed in detail in this report. The four major players: LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, Kering SA, Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA and Luxottica Group SpA are being profiled along with their key financials and strategies for growth.Table of Content1. Introduction1.1 Luxury Goods & Characteristics1.2 Types of Luxury Goods1.3 Channel of Distribution2. Luxury Goods Market2.1 Global Luxury Goods Market by Value2.2 Global Luxury Goods Market Forecast by Value2.3 Global Luxury Goods Market by Products2.4 Global Luxury Cars Market2.4.1 Global Luxury Cars Market by Value2.4.2 Global Luxury Cars Market Forecast by Value2.5 Global Luxury Hotel Market2.5.1 Global Luxury Hotel Market by Value2.5.2 Global Luxury Hotel Market Forecast by Value2.6 Global Luxury Food and Spirits Market2.6.1 Global Luxury Spirits & Fine Wine Market by Value2.6.2 Global Luxury Spirits & Fine Wine Market Forecast by Value2.6.3 Global Luxury Food Market by Value2.6.4 Global Luxury Food Market Forecast by Value3. Global Personal Luxury Goods Market3.1 Market by Value3.2 Market Forecast by Value3.3 Market by Consumer Nationality3.4 Market by Category3.5 Market by Region3.5.1 Europe Market by Value3.5.2 Europe Market Forecast by Value3.5.3 Middle East Market by Value3.5.4 Middle East Market Forecast by Value3.5.5 The Americas Market by Value3.5.6 The Americas Market Forecast by Value3.5.7 Japans Market by Value3.5.8 Japans Market Forecast by Value3.5.9 Chinas Market by Value3.5.10 Chinas Market Forecast by Value3.5.11 South Korea Market by Value3.5.12 South Korea Market Forecast by Value3.5.13 Australia Market by Value3.5.14 Australia Market Forecast by Value4. Market Dynamics4.1 Growth Drivers4.1.1 Rise in Population of HNWIs4.1.2 Increasing Net Household Wealth4.1.3 Wealth Inequality to Boost the Sales of Luxury Goods4.1.4 Rising Internet Users4.1.5 Growing Urban Population4.2 Trends4.2.1 Off Price Stores Gaining Momentum4.2.2 Rising Sales Via E-Commerce4.2.3 Chinese Dominance in Client Base but not in Share of Millionaires4.3 Challenges4.3.1 Unstable Geopolitical Environment4.3.2 Information Analysis4.3.3 Struggling Renminbi (RMB)5. Competitive Landscape5.1 Global Luxury Good Market5.1.1 Revenue & Market Cap Comparison5.2 Global Personal Luxury Goods Market5.2.1 Global Fine Jewellery Brands Comparison5.2.2 Global Luxury Watch Brand Comparison5.2.3 Global Premium Handbags Brand Comparison5.2.4 Global Luxury Footwear Brand ComparisonContinue...Browse Detail Report With TOC @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMozState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Asia Pacific Makeup Market: Key Players and Production Information analysis

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According to a recent market research report published by Transparency Market Research, the Asia Pacific makeup market is estimated to expand at a CAGR of 7.1% during the period between 2013 and 2019. The report, titled Asia Pacific Makeup Market - Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2013 - 2019, projects the makeup market in Asia Pacific to be worth US$22.31 bn by 2019. The overall market stood at a valuation of US$14.76 bn in 2013.Browse the full Asia Pacific Makeup Market - Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2013 - 2019 report atRise in number of working women and changing patterns in mens grooming has propelled the growth of the Asia Pacific makeup market. Makeup has become an integral part of personal care. Improved standard of living and rise in disposable income has further boosted the growth of the regional market.Rapid expansion of the fashion and film industries in Asia Pacific has also contributed towards the markets growth. During the forecast horizon, the demand for organic or herbal makeup products is anticipated to increase owing to concerns over the adverse side effects of harmful chemicals used in the synthetic makeup products.Get A Brochure Of Report @On the basis of product type, the Asia Pacific makeup market has been segmented into face makeup, eye makeup, nail makeup, and lip makeup. In 2013, the face makeup segment accounted for the largest share in the market, closely followed by the lip makeup segment.The report studies the Asia Pacific makeup market across eight countries: New Zealand, Australia, China, Japan, Malaysia, India, South Korea, and Singapore. The report anticipates China to emerge as the largest market for makeup products in Asia Pacific by 2019. The rapid growth of the Chinese makeup market can be attributed to the increasing pool of middle-class citizens with disposable income. Japan is expected to closely follow China in terms of consumption of makeup products.Make An Enquiry @During the forecast horizon, South Korea and Malaysia are expected to register significant demand for makeup products owing to the changing consumer preference for international brands. In New Zealand and Australia, the makeup market is estimated to expand at a CAGR of less than 4.50% during the forecast period. In India, the market is expected to grow robustly at a CAGR of 15.2% during the period from 2013 to 2019.Describing the competitive landscape, the report profiles some of the key players in the Asia Pacific makeup market such as LOreal S.A, Proctor & Gamble Company, Revlon Inc., Unilever Plc., Coty Inc., and Estee Lauder Inc. The market is highly fragmented due to the presence of a large number of companies operating in the region.The report further provides detailed information about the key players including their product portfolio, business strategy, financial overview, and recent developments. The key players are focusing on offering organic or herbal makeup products due to the growing preference for organic products over synthetic products.Asia Pacific Makeup Market has been segmented as:Asia Pacific Makeup Market, by TypeEye MakeupFace MakeupLip MakeupNail MakeupAsia Pacific Makeup Market, by GeographyAustraliaNew ZealandJapanChinaIndiaMalaysiaSouth KoreaMalaysiaSingaporeAbout UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Data Migration Market Size & Analysis  Forecasts To 2025

GLOBAL MARKET ESTIMATES

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REPORT DESCRIPTION: DATA MIGRATION MARKETData Migration Market InsightsThe data migration market is projected to grow at a high CAGR from 2017 to 2025. Data migration is a process of transferring data to another system. It incorporates change in database system, storage, and application. Proliferation of technologies, devices, operating systems, and platforms are projected to drive the demand for data migration solutions over the forecast period.Technology developed has given rise to effective and efficient systems that are designed & customized for applications in specific sectors. New system introductions are very prominent in this technologically oriented period. Introduction of new systems would result in the need for data migration. Similarly, activities undertaken for consolidation in the industry such as mergers, acquisition, expansions, and restructuring initiatives would give rise to the need for data migration solutions.Data Migration Market: Type InsightsThe data migration market by type is segmented into storage, database, application, business process, and cloud migration. Storage migration does not involve changing the format of the data, however, in order to make use of upgraded storage systems that are easy to access remotely, demand for storage migration solutions are expected to increase over the coming years.Organisations are continuously seeking effective ways to analyse information accumulated by the company for several years. Database migration is used in such scenario due to increasing need to accumulate information in one system or server.Data Migration Market: Data Movers InsightsData migration projects require the selection of an appropriate data mover. Data movers are segmented into host-based, array-based, and network appliances. Host-based data movers are most effective for use in application migrations.Host-based data movers uses a software or server to covert data received to the format that suits the new application. Technological & software upgrades are projected to increase the use of host-based movers. Array based movers are used majorly in storage migration.Request for a sample copy of the data migration market report at:Data Migration Market: Applications InsightsData migration in key sectors such as aerospace & defence, government intelligence, and BFSI among others is a very critical process as information could be lost or damaged during the transfer process. Some of the factors considered while transferring & integrating data include, source system exploration, data assessment, designing & building the migration plan, execution, and transition. Companies and the defence & public sectors require very well designed transfer procedures which are customized to choose requirements of respective industries.Data Migration Market: Regional InsightsDemand is expected to grow tremendously in developed as well as developing countries of the world. The need for highly advanced technologies, software, and high storage space requirement for information collected over a long duration is projected to boost demand for such solutions.North America and Europe are expected to generate high demand for storage and application migration solutions. Asia Pacific and the Middle East are two of the developing region in the world. Upcoming companies and the high growth observed in countries such as India, China, and Japan are projected to boost demand for data migration solutions.Data Migration Market: End-Use LandscapeThe end-use landscape entails a list of current and prospective consumers prevailing across the regions. This section provides company addresses, contact details, products, and regional presence of companies who are purchasing or are likely to purchase data migration solutions over the coming years. Some leading consumers of data migration are Japan Ministry of Defence, JPMorgan Chase, and Barclays Investment Bank.Data Migration Market: Competitive LandscapeSome of the companies operating in this market include Globanet, Xoriant, Utopia, Talend, Capgemini, CCR Ltd, QuantumIT, and Ofni Systems among others. In November 2016, IBMs cloud platform bluemix launched technologies to enable faster migration of data to cloud.Request for a sample copy of the data migration market report at:Were constantly identifying and analysing high growth markets and revenue pockets. In consultation with various industry experts, our team of highly-skilled industry analysts study these markets through sophisticated tools and fail-safe, industry-approved methodologies.Name: Global Market Estimates Research & Business ConsultantsAddress: A-9, Silver Croft CHSL, Mumbai:400064, IndiaContact No,: +91 9146632316Email Address: sales@globalmarketestimates.com
Commercial Telematics Market: An Insight On the Important Factors and Trends Influencing the Market

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Transparency Market Research, a leading market research and analysis firm, has released a new report, detailing the global commercial telematics market. According to the report, titled Commercial Telematics Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2014 - 2020, the global market is rising at an 18.0% CAGR from 2014 to 2020, to grow from a valuation of close to US$14.7 bn in 2013 to US$46.2 bn in 2020.Browse the full Commercial Telematics Market (By Type - OEM Telematics (Embedded and Hybrid) and Aftermarket Telematics (Embedded and Portable); By Application - Fleet/Asset Management, Satellite Navigation, Infotainment, Insurance Telematics, Telehealth Solutions, Remote Alarm and Monitoring, and Others) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2014  2020 report atThe global market for commercial telematics is segmented on the basis of market type into OEM telematics and aftermarket telematics. This refers to the stage when the telematics systems are introduced into the vehicle, with OEM telematics systems being installed during manufacture and aftermarket telematics being bought and installed by the customers themselves. Among these two sales channel segments, aftermarket commercial telematics dominate the market, with a 59% share in 2013.These services are majorly used to provide services such as satellite navigation and infotainment options. The advent of modern wireless connectivity has enhanced both these application sectors, with wireless streaming of infotainment options catching on rapidly among the customer pool.Due to growing government support for the installation of safety telematics services such as satellite navigation and GPS location tracking, the OEM commercial telematics market is expected to expand at a higher CAGR than aftermarket telematics in the forecast period.Get A Brochure Of Report @Government regulations in developed countries with some of the highest concentrations of vehicles, such as the U.S., the U.K., and Germany, are supportive of and often mandate the incorporation of commercial telematics in new vehicles, particularly passenger vehicles. This will help the global commercial telematics market massively.Among the product types within OEM telematics, embedded commercial telematics hold a dominant 68% share in the commercial telematics market. Hybrid telematics are the other category of commercial telematics and are expected to remain behind embedded commercial telematics in the coming years.Within the product category of aftermarket commercial telematics, the major sub-segments are portable and embedded commercial telematics. Unlike the OEM commercial telematics sector, embedded telematics trail in this category, with portable commercial telematics leading with a 71% revenue share in the aftermarket telematics market.Make An Enquiry @The main reason for this is the easier upgrading possible with portable telematics, explains a lead TMR analyst. Replacing embedded telematics systems can be a bothersome task, which doesnt affect automobile manufacturers, but aftermarket buyers are attracted to portable telematics.According to application, fleet and asset management and insurance telematics are the two major segments of the global commercial telematics market: while fleet and asset management led demand from the global market in 2013 with a 30% share, the insurance telematics market is expected to rise at a rampant 34.70% CAGR in the forecast period.The major commercial telematics market players profiled in the report include Verizon Communications Inc., MIX Telematics Ltd., Masternaut Limited, Omnitracs LLC, WirelessCar AB, and OnStar LLC.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Beverage Glass Packaging Market Professional Survey Report 2017: Beatson, Verallia, Orora, Saint-Gobain

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report Global Beverage Glass Packaging Market Professional Survey Report 2017 to its huge collection of research reports.The thorough report here assembles different perspectives having a place with the general Beverage Glass Packaging market which verbalizes the present-day data and future exposures with reference to the dynamic powers at play. The prime reason for the examination report is to offer the endorser with a sweeping format and make accessible the gainful certainties and records. The quantifiable and testing illuminations behind the examination other than executes data on issues, for example, drivers, shackles, and projections to gage the postponed outcome of the general Beverage Glass Packaging market through the cross of the said gage period in the examination report. The report in like course passes on a brief and world class record of the predefined market follows, which joins a couple of occasions of the veritable fixations at work which are concentrated to trigger change in the market or may cause any negative effect.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @This report other than stations into the general Beverage Glass Packaging market by in a general sense examining the thing and industrialized chain of the market. This is required to moreover help in passing on good ol fashioned information and data on compound parts of the fitting market, for example, material relating to methodologies for the directing body in the standard and general strata, transport and transmission structure, targets, and purposes behind premium got for the contributed mean.The report utilizes a couple of demonstrated industry examination and whole contraptions. They permit the examination collect pass on an uncovered fundamental assessment of the general Beverage Glass Packaging market and help endorser and market troupes to be advised with respect to theory and business judgments. The wide thinking of the examination gives a market position on an obvious and minute scale. It amasses key and optional research structures thusly. The administrators have figured the recorded encounters and rose it from the forward and thus around change parade circumstance to plan a structure for the general Beverage Glass Packaging market in the years ahead.Table of ContentsGlobal Beverage Glass Packaging Market Professional Survey Report 20171 Industry Overview of Beverage Glass Packaging1.1 Definition and Specifications of Beverage Glass Packaging1.1.1 Definition of Beverage Glass Packaging1.1.2 Specifications of Beverage Glass Packaging1.2 Classification of Beverage Glass Packaging1.2.1 Colorless Glass1.2.2 Colored Glass1.3 Applications of Beverage Glass Packaging1.3.1 Pickled Foods1.3.2 Dry Foods1.3.3 Other1.4 Market Segment by Regions1.4.1 North America1.4.2 China1.4.3 Europe1.4.4 Southeast Asia1.4.5 Japan1.4.6 IndiaBrowse Complete Report with TOC @2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Beverage Glass Packaging2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Beverage Glass Packaging2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Beverage Glass Packaging2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Beverage Glass Packaging3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Beverage Glass Packaging3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Beverage Glass Packaging Major Manufacturers in 20163.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Beverage Glass Packaging Major Manufacturers in 20163.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Beverage Glass Packaging Major Manufacturers in 20163.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Beverage Glass Packaging Major Manufacturers in 20164 Global Beverage Glass Packaging Overall Market Overview4.1 2012-2017E Overall Market Analysis4.2 Capacity Analysis4.2.1 2012-2017E Global Beverage Glass Packaging Capacity and Growth Rate Analysis4.2.2 2016 Beverage Glass Packaging Capacity Analysis (Company Segment)4.3 Sales Analysis4.3.1 2012-2017E Global Beverage Glass Packaging Sales and Growth Rate Analysis4.3.2 2016 Beverage Glass Packaging Sales Analysis (Company Segment)4.4 Sales Price Analysis4.4.1 2012-2017E Global Beverage Glass Packaging Sales Price4.4.2 2016 Beverage Glass Packaging Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment)5 Beverage Glass Packaging Regional Market Analysis5.1 North America Beverage Glass Packaging Market Analysis5.1.1 North America Beverage Glass Packaging Market Overview5.1.2 North America 2012-2017E Beverage Glass Packaging Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.1.3 North America 2012-2017E Beverage Glass Packaging Sales Price Analysis5.1.4 North America 2016 Beverage Glass Packaging Market Share Analysis5.2 China Beverage Glass Packaging Market Analysis5.2.1 China Beverage Glass Packaging Market Overview5.2.2 China 2012-2017E Beverage Glass Packaging Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.2.3 China 2012-2017E Beverage Glass Packaging Sales Price Analysis5.2.4 China 2016 Beverage Glass Packaging Market Share Analysis5.3 Europe Beverage Glass Packaging Market Analysis5.3.1 Europe Beverage Glass Packaging Market Overview5.3.2 Europe 2012-2017E Beverage Glass Packaging Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption AnalysisGet discount copy @List of Tables and FiguresFigure Picture of Beverage Glass PackagingTable Product Specifications of Beverage Glass PackagingTable Classification of Beverage Glass PackagingFigure Global Production Market Share of Beverage Glass Packaging by Type in 2016Figure Colorless Glass PictureTable Major Manufacturers of Colorless GlassFigure Colored Glass PictureTable Major Manufacturers of Colored GlassTable Applications of Beverage Glass PackagingFigure Global Consumption Volume Market Share of Beverage Glass Packaging by Application in 2016Figure Pickled Foods ExamplesTable Major Consumers in Pickled FoodsFigure Dry Foods ExamplesTable Major Consumers in Dry FoodsFigure Other ExamplesTable Major Consumers in OtherQYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Global Mylar Sales Market Report 2017 Key Players : TLP, RH Nuttall

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Mylar Sales Market Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.This given report on the global Mylar market, is a result of a research conducted by a group of market research analysis experts with an aim to act as a reliable business material for stake holders. The report offers information on the current market scenario and the prospects that may arise in future as well. Use of well proven research methodologies is done in generating this report which offers both qualitative and quantitative analysis of all the aspects that may influence the growth of the global Mylar market. The potential of lesser factors of the Mylar market can be evaluated by analysing its multiple segments such as products, end users, types, application, services, and others, whichever are applicable. The report also inspects the future scenarios of Mylar market in all the important regions across the world, such as North America, Latin America, Middle East and Africa (MEA), Asia Pacific, and Europe. The market potential of the Mylar of each region is provided by examining their related policies government, growth prospects, and demand percentage.This report on the global Mylar market provides estimations regarding the market size in terms of value (USD million). The opportunities open in the market for Mylar by manufacturing countries type and application, and presents forecast for the duration of 2017-2022 has also been discussed extensively in this research report.This report studies sales (consumption) of Mylar in Global market, especially in United States, China, Europe and Japan, focuses on top players in these regions/countries, with sales, price, revenue and market share for each player in these regions, coveringGanapathy IndustriesTLPRH NuttallDupont Teijin FilmsGanapathy IndustriesKNOW MORE WITH FREE SAMPLE STUDY @One of the important features of the study report is the company profiling chapter, where several leading players of the Mylar market have been inspected. Moreover, the competitive landscape of the global Mylar market is researched along with identification of chances of upcoming players that are present in the market. The report give out some of the prominent companies in the global Mylar market and inspects their tactical decisions such as mergers, collaborations, and acquisitions, new product announcements, and investments. Crucial information about the companies such as market share, business sales price, margin, and revenue generation, are provided in the research report.Table of Contents1 Mylar Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Mylar1.2 Classification of Mylar1.3 Application of Mylar1.4 Mylar Market by Regions1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Mylar (2012-2022)2 Global Mylar Competition by Manufacturers, Type and Application2.1 Global Mylar Market Competition by Manufacturers2.2 Global Mylar (Volume and Value) by Type2.3 Global Mylar (Volume and Value) by Regions2.4 Global Mylar (Volume) by Application3 United States Mylar (Volume, Value and Sales Price)3.1 United States Mylar Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.2 United States Mylar Sales and Market Share by Manufacturers3.3 United States Mylar Sales and Market Share by Type3.4 United States Mylar Sales and Market Share by ApplicationRead Comprehensive Overview of Report @9 Global Mylar Manufacturers Analysis9.1 Ganapathy Industries9.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.1.2 Mylar Product Type, Application and Specification9.1.3 Ganapathy Industries Mylar Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.2 TLP9.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.2.2 Mylar Product Type, Application and Specification9.2.3 TLP Mylar Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.2.4 Main Business/Business OverviewList of Tables and FiguresFigure Picture of MylarTable Classification of MylarFigure Global Sales Market Share of Mylar by Type in 2015Figure Global Sales Market Share of Mylar by Application in 2015Figure Global Mylar Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Global Mylar Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Table Global Mylar Sales of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)Table Global Mylar Sales Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)About UsQYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact US:1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Needle-Free Diabetes Care Global Market 2027 Top Key Companies  Zogenix Inc., Glide Pharmaceutical Technologies Ltd., Bioject Medical Technologies, Inc.

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https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/needle-free-diabetes-care-market

Global Needle-free diabetes care market Information by Types (oral insulin, inhaled insulin, insulin patch) By Application - Forecast to 2027Market Research Future adds new report of Global Needle-Free Diabetes Care Market Research Report- Forecast To 2027 it contains Company information, geographical data and Table of ContentMarket Highlight:Persisting needle pricks to avoid the complexities of diabetes may show up a little cost to pay. Regardless, infusions can overwhelm for youths, youngsters and those as of late determined to have diabetes and can be essentially startling for those with a fear of needles. Imbuing Injections using cutting edge needles is respectably effortless, yet notwithstanding everything some think that its obnoxious. Needle-free insulin transmission is the most charming method for diabetes treatment that scientists have been searching for in any event in the previous 60 years. Moreover, with more than 220 million people analyzed to have diabetes around the world, it's a lucrative business. The global market for Needle-free diabetes care is expected to grow at Remarkable CAGR and is expected to reach US$ million by the end of the forecasted period.Get a Sample Report @Competitive Analysis:The global Needle-free diabetes care market is consolidated with high amount of competition which includes some of the major players like Zogenix, Inc., 3M, and Antares Pharma Inc. Glide Pharmaceutical Technologies Ltd., Injex Pharma AG, and Pharmajet, Inc., Bioject Medical Technologies, Inc., and Akra Dermojet.Market Segments: Global Needle-free diabetes care Market has been segmented on the basis of types which include oral insulin, inhaled insulin, insulin patch & pumps, others. By application pain management and insulin delivery.Regional Analysis of Needle-free diabetes care Market: All around North America is the biggest market for Needle-free diabetes care, vast offer of this market is centered around the ascent in new innovations, fear of needles and agony less insulin infusions will play central point in the development of the market. The North American market for Needle-free diabetes care is required to develop at a CAGR and is relied upon to reach at US$ Million before the finish of the estimated period. Europe is the second-biggest market for Needle-free diabetes care, which is required to develop at great CAGR.Browse Report Details @Brief TOC1 Introduction2 Research Methodology3 Market Dynamics4 Market Factor Analysis5 Global Needle Free Diabetes Care Market, By Types6 Global Needle Free Diabetes Care Market, By Application7 Global Needle Free Diabetes Care Market, By Region8 Competitive Landscape9 Company Profile10 Conclusion11 AppendixAbout Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Global Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Sales Market Report 2017 : Korber, IMA S.p.A.

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https://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/global-pharmaceutical-packaging-machines-sales-market-report-2017.htm

Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Sales Market Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.The thorough report here assembles different perspectives having a place with the general Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines market which verbalizes the present-day data and future exposures with reference to the dynamic powers at play. The prime reason for the examination report is to offer the endorser with a sweeping format and make accessible the gainful certainties and records. The quantifiable and testing illuminations behind the examination other than executes data on issues, for example, drivers, shackles, and projections to gage the postponed outcome of the general Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines market through the cross of the said gage period in the examination report. The report in like course passes on a brief and world class record of the predefined market follows, which joins a couple of occasions of the veritable fixations at work which are concentrated to trigger change in the market or may cause any negative effect.This report other than stations into the general Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines market by in a general sense examining the thing and industrialized chain of the market. This is required to moreover help in passing on good 'ol fashioned information and data on compound parts of the fitting market, for example, material relating to methodologies for the directing body in the standard and general strata, transport and transmission structure, targets, and purposes behind premium got for the contributed mean.Global Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines sales volume, Price (USD/Unit), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingIMA S.p.A.Robert Bosch GmbHBausch & Strobel Maschinenfabrik IlshofenBradman Lake GroupKorberLoveshaw CorpMarchesini Group SpaMg2Multivac GroupTo Download Free Sample Report With TOC:The report utilizes a couple of demonstrated industry examination and whole contraptions. They permit the examination collect pass on an uncovered fundamental assessment of the general Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines market and help endorser and market troupes to be advised with respect to theory and business judgments. The wide thinking of the examination gives a market position on an obvious and minute scale. It amasses key and optional research structures thusly. The administrators have figured the recorded encounters and rose it from the forward and thus around change parade circumstance to plan a structure for the general Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines market in the years ahead.Table of Contents1 Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines1.2 Classification of Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines by Product Category1.3 Global Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Market by Application/End Users1.4 Global Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Market by Region1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines (2012-2022)2 Global Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Competition by Players/Suppliers, Type and Application2.1 Global Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.2 Global Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines (Volume and Value) by Type2.3 Global Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines (Volume and Value) by Region2.4 Global Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines (Volume) by Application3 United States Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines (Volume, Value and Sales Price)3.1 United States Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.2 United States Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Sales Volume and Market Share by Players3.3 United States Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Sales Volume and Market Share by Type3.4 United States Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Sales Volume and Market Share by ApplicationAccess the Report and full TOC @9 Global Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Players/Suppliers Profiles and Sales Data9.1 IMA S.p.A.9.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.1.2 Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Product Category, Application and Specification9.1.3 IMA S.p.A. Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.2 Robert Bosch GmbH9.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.2.2 Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Product Category, Application and Specification9.2.3 Robert Bosch GmbH Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.2.4 Main Business/Business OverviewList of Tables and FiguresFigure Product Picture of Pharmaceutical Packaging MachinesFigure Global Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Sales Volume Comparison (Units) by Type (2012-2022)Figure Global Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Sales Volume Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 2016Figure Global Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Sales Comparison (Units) by Application (2012-2022)Figure Global Sales Market Share of Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines by Application in 2016Figure Global Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Market Size (Million USD) by Regions (2012-2022)Figure Global Pharmaceutical Packaging Machines Sales Volume (Units) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)About UsQYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact US:1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Global Soft Cheese Market Professional Survey Report 2017 : Arla Foods, Fonterra

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https://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/global-soft-cheese-market-professional-survey-report-2017.htm

Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Soft Cheese Market Professional Survey Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.The thorough report here assembles different perspectives having a place with the general Soft Cheese market which verbalizes the present-day data and future exposures with reference to the dynamic powers at play. The prime reason for the examination report is to offer the endorser with a sweeping format and make accessible the gainful certainties and records. The quantifiable and testing illuminations behind the examination other than executes data on issues, for example, drivers, shackles, and projections to gage the postponed outcome of the general Soft Cheese market through the cross of the said gage period in the examination report. The report in like course passes on a brief and world class record of the predefined market follows, which joins a couple of occasions of the veritable fixations at work which are concentrated to trigger change in the market or may cause any negative effect.This report other than stations into the general Soft Cheese market by in a general sense examining the thing and industrialized chain of the market. This is required to moreover help in passing on good 'ol fashioned information and data on compound parts of the fitting market, for example, material relating to methodologies for the directing body in the standard and general strata, transport and transmission structure, targets, and purposes behind premium got for the contributed mean.This report focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringArla FoodsBongrainDevondale Murray GoulburnFonterraLeprino FoodsFriesland CampinaGroupe LactalisAlmaraiCalabro Cheese CorporationBega CheeseBletsoe CheeseBrunkow Cheese FactoryKNOW MORE WITH FREE SAMPLE STUDY @The report utilizes a couple of demonstrated industry examination and whole contraptions. They permit the examination collect pass on an uncovered fundamental assessment of the general Soft Cheese market and help endorser and market troupes to be advised with respect to theory and business judgments. The wide thinking of the examination gives a market position on an obvious and minute scale. It amasses key and optional research structures thusly. The administrators have figured the recorded encounters and rose it from the forward and thus around change parade circumstance to plan a structure for the general Soft Cheese market in the years ahead.Table of Contents1 Industry Overview of Soft Cheese1.1 Definition and Specifications of Soft Cheese1.2 Classification of Soft Cheese1.3 Applications of Soft Cheese1.4 Market Segment by Regions2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Soft Cheese2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Soft Cheese2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Soft Cheese2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Soft Cheese3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Soft Cheese3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Soft Cheese Major Manufacturers in 20163.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Soft Cheese Major Manufacturers in 20163.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Soft Cheese Major Manufacturers in 20163.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Soft Cheese Major Manufacturers in 2016Browse Press Release of this Research Report:8 Major Manufacturers Analysis of Soft Cheese8.1 Arla Foods8.1.1 Company Profile8.1.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.1.3 Arla Foods 2016 Soft Cheese Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.1.4 Arla Foods 2016 Soft Cheese Business Region Distribution Analysis8.2 Bongrain8.2.1 Company Profile8.2.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.2.3 Bongrain 2016 Soft Cheese Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.2.4 Bongrain 2016 Soft Cheese Business Region Distribution AnalysisList of Tables and FiguresFigure Picture of Soft CheeseTable Product Specifications of Soft CheeseTable Classification of Soft CheeseFigure Global Production Market Share of Soft Cheese by Type in 2016Figure Global Consumption Volume Market Share of Soft Cheese by Application in 2016Table Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Soft Cheese Major Manufacturers in 2016Table Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Soft Cheese Major Manufacturers in 2016Table R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Soft Cheese Major Manufacturers in 2016About UsQYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact US:1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
You Are Not Alone by Kate Silvas Encouragement for Parents Dealing with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) Available now

You Are Not Alone, by Kate Silvas

Adoption and foster care is not easy, especially when your child suffers from Reactive Attachment Disorder or RAD. Parents and primary caregivers of RAD children face rage, rejection and defiance. They feel tired and isolated. They feel alone. No more. You Are Not Alone reminds these parents -- and all of us -- of the Truth. We are not forgotten. We are not forsaken. We are not alone.This book by former journalist and parent of RAD adoptees, Kate Silvas, pierces the darkness, encouraging every parent and every reader, both with and without RAD.You Are Not Alone is a book of hope. It contains a series of scripture-based meditations 3written especially for parents of children with RAD. Based on her own experiences, the author wrote the book as a way of healing and offering hope to those who find themselves in a uniquely difficult relationship. While intended for that specific audience, the message in You Are Not Alone is also useful for all who find themselves in difficult relationships. This book is not a self-help book. It instead points the reader to seeking help from God -- the most reliable healer in the Universe."The strong words and imagery will hit home to all those who have opened their doors and hearts to RAD children and found the experience to be like chewing broken glass. This little book is a tool that can lead to the healing you crave in many areas of life even if you have never heard of or experienced RAD. It is real and authentic and I found myself in every page. We all have battles, sometimes of epic proportions. Youre probably in one now and the really, really good news is the means to win yours is closer than you think." -- Danyelle DanielA native of Long Island, New York, Kate Silvas is a graduate of Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, where she earned her BA in Communications and a MS in Urban Administration. Originally an aspiring journalist, Kate has spent the last two decades serving in a number of different roles in economic development and public administration in South Texas. An accomplished writer and speaker, Kate has served as a Christian missionary to Russia and Belarus, working with orphans in summer camps. An adoptee herself, Kate and her husband, Emilio, adopted three foster children in 2009. They live in Converse, Texas.Bush Publishing and Associates announces the immediate release of You Are Not Alone by Kate Silvas, available in hardcopy and digital download on Amazon.com. Bulk distribution available for book stores and church bookstores through Bush Publishing & Associates. For more information about You Are Not Alone or quantity pricing contact us at: info@bushpublishing.com.###For more than 15 years Bush Publishing and Associates has helped bring the stories of both first-time and seasoned authors to print through our traditional publishing program. Our publishing and marketing team have facilitated best-seller status and book to major film through our fresh approach to publicity. To learn more about publishing and publicity packages, visit our website at bushpublishing.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIN. Email us at info@bushpublishing.com.Bush Publishing and AssociatesCityPlex Towers 2448 E 81st Street,Suite 4805Tulsa, Ok 74137
Clinical Intelligence Market Comprehensive Analysis & Global Forecast to 2023

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https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/clinical-intelligence-market-4478

Clinical Intelligence, also known as clinical data analytics, is a blend of technologies involving the use of data analysis to improve healthcare delivery. The data is gathered at the time of delivery of care into the information system and then analyzed to determine the performance indicators that may affect the productivity of a healthcare organization. Analyses of clinical data is useful to know the loopholes in the organizations processes that hinders its growth. Various technologies available for clinical intelligence provide data about the factors contributing to the success of delivery of care.The market for clinical intelligence is expected to grow at an exponential rate owing to an increase in the adoption of healthcare IT, urge of the use of Electronic Heath Records (EHR), rising importance of software solutions in insurance claim processing and fraud detection. Furthermore, increasing number of software companies engaged in healthcare IT and EHR influences the market growth across the globe.High cost of clinical intelligence software solutions may restrain the market growth in developing countries.The global clinical intelligence market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.5% during the forecast period.Get a Copy of Sample Report @Key Players in the Global Clinical Intelligence Market IBM (U.S.) Cerner Corporation (U.S.) Epic Systems Corporation (U.S.) Allscripts (U.S.) QSI Management, LLC (U.S.) General Electric Company (U.S.) eClinicalWorks (U.S.) McKesson Corporation (U.S.) Greenway Health, LLC (U.S.)SegmentsThe global clinical intelligence market is segmented on the basis of type, components, application, and end user.On the basis of type, market is segmented into retrospective performance measures & predictive analytics, performance measurement systems, Clinical decision support (CDSS) System, quality improvement, clinical benchmarking, population health management and others. Quality improvement is further segmented into six sigma. Population health management is further segmented into over-utilization of health services and under-utilization of health services.On the basis of component, the market is segmented into software, hardware, and services.On the basis of application, the market is segmented into Clinical, Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) claim, fraud, supply chain, financial management and others.On the basis of end user, the market is segmented into hospital, clinics, TPAs, and others.Browse Full Report Details @Regional Analysis of the Global Clinical Intelligence MarketAmerica is the largest market for clinical intelligence owing to an increasing extensive use of software solutions for healthcare administration and available resources. North America accounts for the largest market share owing the presence of major healthcare IT companies enjoying global presence namely IBM, Allscripts, GE Electric Company and QSI Management, LLC. According to National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, patient engagement EHR functionalities became more prevalent in the U.S. hospitals from 2013 to 2015. Furthermore, the use of Decision Support System is found to be increasing among tertiary care centers in the U.S.Europe is the second largest market for clinical intelligence which is estimated to adopt a steady growth in the near future due rising number of healthcare providers using clinical management softwares and technological advancement in healthcare IT especially EHR and patient engagement platform.In Asia Pacific, the market is expected grow at the fastest rate with factors such as rising demand for healthcare IT, increasing healthcare expenditure and rising number of healthcare software solution providers. Furthermore, increasing burden of diseases and increasing demand for patient records management also boost the market growth during the review period.The Middle East & Africa also show a steady rise in the market owing to low demand for healthcare IT, especially in Africa owing to low healthcare expenditure and need for primary care services.ContinueWe are thankful for the support and assistance from Clinical Intelligence Market Research Report - Global Forecast till 2023 chain related technical experts and marketing experts during Research Team survey and interviews.About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Media Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Complete Analysis on Dental CAM Milling machine Market & Global Forecast to 2022

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https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/dental-cam-milling-machines-market

Dental CAM Milling Machine Market-Overview:CAD/CAM dental systems is a software used to both design and mill dental prosthetics. CAD (Computer Aided Design) consist of digitally scanning and designing prosthetics, while CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing) is the process of sending final models to the output device and manufacturing them through milling or 3D printing. DGSHAPE devices and software are particularly manufactured to perfectly fit into this digital workflow.The dental CAM milling machine global market and is expected to reach $1415.6 million by 2022. Lab Scale milling machines holds the largest share of 65.2% of the market.Get a Copy of Sample Report @In the last few years computer-Aided Design and Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) have occupied many practices and is so precise that dental restorations made by CAM milling machines often fits more better than those made manually in a dental laboratory. Patient satisfaction is constantly increasing as the tooth gets repaired in a single day instead of having to return for repeat appointments. This time saving factor is hugely helping the market growth of Dental CAM Milling Machine Market. CAD/CAM dentistry technology is assisting patients move on faster than ever before. By using the technology dentist can completely control the final result. CAD/CAM technology was developed to solve 3 important challenges. The first challenge was to ensure adequate strength of the restoration, especially for posterior teeth. The second challenge was to create restorations with a natural and beautiful appearance. The third challenge was to make tooth restoration easier, faster, and more accurate. In some cases, CAD/CAM technology provides patients with same-day restorations. All these factors benefitted the growth of dental cam milling machine market globally.The global dental CAM milling machine market has been estimated as vastly growing market and expected that the market will reach high growth figures. There has been high adoption of the CAD CAM systems and dental CAM milling machines in the field of dentistry in the last few years. The benefits like high accuracy and the precision provided by the dental CAM milling machines in the process of dental restorations is boosting the growth of the Dental CAM Milling Machines Market globally.Some of the factors restraining the market growth of CAD/CAM milling machine market are Computers can be affected by software problems, viruses and corrupted files meaning work could be lost. Lesser workers are needed, so unemployment will increase and conventional skills will be lost.Dental CAM Milling Machine Market-Competitive Analysis:Being launched at IDS Cologne, hall 3.2, stand G18, Renishaws incise dental milling system will permit dental laboratories to create zirconia frameworks in-house. Styled and sized to match carve dental scanning machine it uses a highly accurate Renishaw contact probe for job set-up and monitoring of the cutting tool. Organized with Renishaws central milling option, dental laboratories now have access to a dental CAD/CAM system that offers both in-lab and out sourced manufacturing options.Several major players in this market are: Axsys Incorporated, B&D Dental Technologies, DATRON AG, Dentsply Sirona, KaVo Dental GmbH, Planmeca OY, Straumann, and Yenadent Ltd.Browse Full Report Details @Dental CAD/CAM Milling Machine Market- Segmentation:Dental Cam Milling Market- Regional Analysis:Geographically, Europe is the biggest market for dental CAM milling machines. North America is the second-largest market Primary US is contributing in the market growth of dental cam milling market. Next market of Asia pacific is expected to be the fastest growing market for dental CAM milling machines. However, Middle East & Africa are expected to have a limited growth but it is expected that these regions will also help greatly in the market growth in the forecasted period.Dental CAD milling machine market can be segmented into 4 divisions:Segmentation by Type: in-lab scale milling machines, and office scale milling machines.Segmentation by Application: crowns, dentures, bridges, veneers and inlays/onlays.Segmentation by End User: dental laboratory, dental clinic, and research/academic institutes.ContinueWe are thankful for the support and assistance from Dental CAM Milling Machine Market Research Report- Global Forecast To 2022 chain related technical experts and marketing experts during Research Team survey and interviews.About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Media Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Suture Needls Market 2021: Industry Review & Forecast

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Market Research Future published a research report on Europe, the Middle East and Africa Suture Needls Market Forecast to 2021  Market Analysis, Scope, Stake, Progress, Trends and Forecast to 2021.Europe, the Middle East and Africa Suture Needles Market Forecast to 2021 The report firstly introduced Europe, the Middle East and Africa Suture Needles Market including classification, application and industry chain overview; Then we deeply analyzed Europe, the Middle East and Africa growth forecast indicators by the as well as the regional market conditions that including the product price, profit, utilization, supply, demand and industry growth rate etc. In the end, the report introduced medical suction device market SWOT analysis, PEST analysis, market share analysis and competitive landscape, company profiles by analyzing the major players. It is a depth research study on Europe, the Middle East and Africa Suture Needles Market. We are thankful for the support and assistance from Europe, the Middle East and Africa Suture Needles Market chain related technical experts and marketing experts during Research Team survey and interviews.Get a Copy of Sample Report @TABLE OF CONTENTS1 INTRODUCTION1.1 DEFINITION1.2 SCOPE OF THE STUDY1.2.1 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES1.2.2 ASSUMPTIONS & LIMITATIONS1.3 MARKET STRUCTURE2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY2.1 RESEARCH PROCESS2.2 PRIMARY RESEARCH2.3 SECONDARY RESEARCH2.4 FORECAST MODEL3 REPORT EXCERPT4 FORECAST INDICATORS4.1 INTRODUCTION4.2 GROWTH DRIVERS4.3 GROWTH BARRIERS4.4 GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES4.5 MACROECNOMICAL INDICATORS5 MARKET ANALYSIS6 EUROPE, THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA MEDICAL SUTURE NEEDLE MARKET, BY NEEDLE TYPE6.1 INTRODUCTION6.2 ROUND BODIED6.3 CUTTING7 EUROPE, THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA MEDICAL SUTURE NEEDLE MARKET, BY NEEDLE CURVATURE SHAPE7.1 INTRODUCTION7.2 1/4 CIRCLE7.3 3/8 CIRCLE7.4 1/2 CIRCLE7.5 5/8 CIRCLE7.6 STRAIGHT7.7 HOOK7.8 OTHERS8 EUROPE, THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA MEDICAL SUTURE NEEDLE MARKET, BY NEEDLE END TYPE8.1 INTRODUCTION8.2 EYED 8.3 EYELESS (SWAGED)9 GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATION9.1 INTRODUCTION9.2 EUROPE9.2.1 GERMANY9.2.2 FRANCE9.2.3 U.K.9.2.4 ITALY9.2.5 SPAIN9.2.6 REST OF EUROPE9.3 MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA10 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS10.1 COMPETITIVE/STRATEGIC SCENARIO11 COMPANY PROFILES12 APPENDIXES12.1 DISCUSSION BLUE PRINT12.2 INDUSTRY EXPERT QUOTES12.3 BIBLIOGRAPHYContinueWe are thankful for the support and assistance from Europe, the Middle East and Africa Suture Needls Market Forecast to 2021 chain related technical experts and marketing experts during Research Team survey and interviews.About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Media Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Healthcare Archiving and Ediscovery Market 2023: Complete Research Study

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https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/asia-pacific-healthcare-archiving-and-ediscovery-market

In healthcare, many organizations are not fully prepared with the right information technology systems to address data storage and retrieval requirements. These organizations have to comply with numerous rules and regulations, governing the management of medical records. Therefore, there is need of an information governance solution, with an eDiscovery platform.Healthcare data is of two types namely, structured and unstructured. Structured data can be referred to as alphabets, numbers and can be easily processed and stored whereas unstructured data can be referred to as email, images, audio and video files which constitutes a scattered data. In Asia Pacific, healthcare archiving and eDiscovery market is driven by an increase in the demand for information technology in healthcare, strict regulations governing the use of medical records, and extensive use of software system for healthcare management. Risk of managing healthcare data such as using pirated software, data security issues and threat of cyber-attacks may act as obstacles for the growth of the market.The Asia Pacific healthcare archiving and eDiscovery market is expected to grow at a CAGR of approximately 8.5%.Get a Copy of Sample Report @Key Players:Some of the key players in this market are Actiance Inc. (U.S.), Barracuda Networks, Inc. (U.S.), Commvault Systems Inc. (U.S.), Global Relay Communications Inc. (U.S.), Google Incorporation (U.S.), International Business Machine (IBM) Corporation (U.S.), Microsoft Corporation (U.S.), Allscripts (U.S.) and Siemens (U.S.).Segments:Asia Pacific healthcare archiving and eDiscovery market is segmented by types including archiving and eDiscovery. Based on storage method, the market is segmented into on-premise system and cloud system. On the basis of data storage, the market is segmented into revenue cycle management, electronic health record, practice management system, laboratory information system, radiology information system, picture archiving system and other systems.Browse Full Report Details @Regional Analysis:Asia Pacific market for healthcare archiving and eDiscovery consists of regions namely Japan, China, India, Republic of Korea, Australia and rest of Asia Pacific. Rising patient pool, demand for information technology by healthcare professionals and need of cost effective storage of medical records of the patients are major drivers for the market growth. Furthermore, increasing patient pool, awareness regarding importance of medical records in legal matters also contribute to the progressive growth of this market. Additionally, government incentives and initiatives to promote healthcare IT, and technological advancements are some of the other drivers of this market in Asia Pacific. On the contrary, high cost of these software and their installation act as a barrier to the market growth in developing countries of Asia Pacific.ContinueWe are thankful for the support and assistance from Asia Pacific Healthcare Archiving and Ediscovery Market Research Report- Forecast till 2023chain related technical experts and marketing experts during Research Team survey and interviews.About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Media Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Surgical Equipment Market Size, Share & Global Forecast to 2023

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/631

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/asia-pacific-surgical-equipment-market

Surgical equipment plays a vital role during the surgeries. It is one of the important aspects in the medical as well as medical technology. With the developing surgical procedure, the trade of the instrument is developing. The instrument must have good quality and elaborative ornament to be prefer widely. Surgical equipment are widely used in neurosurgery, wound closure, urology, cardiovascular surgeries, orthopedic surgery, and others. Increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, increasing number of hospitals, increasing geriatric population, and increasing healthcare expenditure boost the market growth. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 60% of the worlds total diabetic population is living in Asia Pacific region. Additionally, diabetes is one of the major cause for cardiovascular diseases, which in turn, result into increased cardiac surgeries. Moreover, development in technology and increased government initiatives have a fuelled the growth of the market, from the last few years. On the other hand, high cost of the devices, and shortage of skilled labor may slow the growth of the market.The Asia Pacific surgical equipment market is expected to grow at a CAGR of ~7.8% over forecasted period 2017-2023.Get a Copy of Sample Report @Key Players: Integra LifeSciences Corporation (US) Boston Scientific Corporation (US) Smith & Nephew (UK) B. Braun Melsungen AG (Germany) Ethicon US LLC. (US) Stryker Corporation (US) COVIDIEN (US) CONMED Corporation (US) MEDICON (US) Synergetics USA, Inc. (US) Erbe Elektromedizin GmbH (Germany) KARL STORZ & Co. (US) KLS Martin (Germany).SegmentationAsia Pacific surgical equipment market is into product type, application, and end users.On the basis of product type the market is segmented into surgical sutures & staplers, handheld instruments, electrosurgical devices, electrosurgical generators, monitoring devices, and others. Surgical sutures & staplers are further segmented into absorbable and non-absorbable sutures. The handheld instruments are sub-segmented into forceps, sutures, visual scope, and others. The electrosurgical devices are further categorized into electrosurgical instruments (HET bipolar system, electrosurgical pencils, smoke evacuation system, and other), and electrosurgical generators.On the basis of application, the market is segmented into neurosurgery, wound closure, urology, cardiovascular surgeries, orthopedic surgery, and others.On the basis of end user, the market is segmented into government hospitals, private hospital, and other.Browse Full Report Details @Regional Analysis:Asia Pacific surgical equipment market is segmented into Japan, China, India, Republic of Korea, Australia, and Rest of Asia Pacific. Increasing number of hospitals, rising geriatric population, and increasing healthcare expenditure drives the growth of Asia Pacific surgical equipment market. Moreover, increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, government initiatives, and increasing patient inflow have fuel the market growth. China holds the major share in the Asia Pacific surgical equipment market owing to huge geriatric population and rapidly developing economy. Moreover, India and Australia contributes considerable share to the market.ContinueWe are thankful for the support and assistance from Asia Pacific Surgical Equipment Market Research Report- Forecast Till 2023 chain related technical experts and marketing experts during Research Team survey and interviews.About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Media Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Manuka Market is projected to grow at a CAGR over 4.3% during the period 2017-2023

Manuka Industry

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https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/manuka-honey-market-3112

Market Research Future published a half cooked research report on Global Manuka Market which is estimated to grow more than 4.3% during the period 2017-2023.Market OverviewThe increasing sale of Manuka is driven by changing consumers preference and adoption of healthy food consumption trend. Wide application of Manuka across bakery and confectionery industries and increased production of sugar alternatives is increasing its sale in the market. The health benefits obtained from manuka backed up by its high anti-oxidant content and anti-microbial properties is also supporting its sale amongst the consumers. Increasing consumption of healthy sweeteners helping in reducing the cholesterol content has a positive impact on the Manuka market as a potential sweetener. The consumption of Manuka is found to be high in and Asia-Pacific and is evaluated to increase at a positive growth rate in various countries of Europe and North America.Market ForecastGlobally, the Manuka market share is estimated to escalate at a higher growth rate due its high nutritional profile. The honey is known to boost up the immune system thereby improving the bodys metabolic functions. The high consumption of Manuka is backed up by its fair content of essential amino-acids, vitamin B and Minerals. The rising demand for sweeteners with rich and strong flavors in the bakery and confectionery industries is supporting its sale on a global level. The nutritional value of manuka honey also has increased its demand in pharmaceutical industries due to its medicinal properties.All these factors contribute to the calculated CAGR of 4.3% of Manuka market during 2017-2023.Access our Sample Report @Competitive analysis-The major key players in Manuka Honey market areComvita Limited (New Zealand)Watson & Son Ltd (New Zealand)Manuka Health (New Zealand)API Health (New Zealand)Wedderspoon (New Zealand)Mossops Honey (New Zealand)Cammells Honey (New Zealand)Manuka manufacturers across various regions follow the strategy of improving their existing product as well as increasing the manufacture of organic manuka to add more value to their products to expand their business. This is one of the major factors due to which the demands of Manuka is experiencing a surge. New Zealand is amongst the dominating countries holding a major share in Manuka market and exports the product in various other countries which include U.S., China, Australia, Japan and others.Regional AnalysisThe Global Manuka Market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and rest of the world (ROW). Asia Pacific holds a major market share followed by Europe. The high demands for Manuka from the developed countries of these regions is contributing to the positive growth of Manuka market. New Zealand, Australia, China, Germany and Spain are the major importers of Manuka. Asia-Pacific is found to be the major exporter of Manuka and exports majorly to countries of Europe and North America.Market Segmentation-Global Manuka market is segmented by Specialty-Food Type, Application, Distribution Channel and RegionAccess Full Report @Table of Content1 Executive Summary2 Market Introduction2.1 Definition2.2 Scope Of The Study2.2.1 Research Objectives2.2.2 Assumptions2.2.3 Limitations2.3 Markets Structure2.4 Stakeholders3 Research Methodology3.1 Research Methods3.1.1 Primary Research3.1.2 Secondary Research3.2 Forecast Model3.3 Market Size Estimation4 MARKET DYNAMICS4.1 Introduction4.1.1 Trends In Supply/Production4.1.2 Trends In Demand/Consumption4.1.3 Value Chain Analysis4.1.4 Porters Five Forces4.1.5 Supply Chain Analysis4.1.6 Macroeconomic Indicators Analysis For Top 5 Producing Countries5 MARKET TRENDS5.1 Consumer Trends5.2 Feedstock Analysis5.3 Trends In Production And Consumption5.4 Trade (Import-Export) AnalysisCONTINUED.At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR) and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have the prime objective to provide optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies depending on products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments enables our clients to know more consequently do more, which gives them answer for their each and every important question. In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meeting with industry experts and does industrial visits for its research analyst members.Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028 Maharashtra, India
Electric Utility Vehicles in Asia-Pacific Market 2017 Share,Trend,Segmentation and Forecast to 2022

Electric Utility Vehicles in Asia-Pacific Market

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/2459539-asia-pacific-horse-riding-apparel-market-by-manufacturers-regions-type-and

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WiseGuyReports.Com Publish a New Market Research Report On - Electric Utility Vehicles in Asia-Pacific Market 2017 Share,Trend,Segmentation and Forecast to 2022.Horse riding apparel, also known as equestrian clothing, the equestrian clothing mainly composed by several body parts, like boots, helmets, breeches, etc. The purpose for wearing equestrian clothing was to provide safety and comfort for riders, also the equestrian clothing itself can represent a fashion icon for both riders and normal consumers.Get a Sample Report @For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comScope of the Report:This report focuses on the Horse Riding Apparel in Asia-Pacific market, especially in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, India and Australia. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, countries/Regions, type and application.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report coversAriatDECATHLONShanghai Goldtex Clothing & Bags Co.PikeurGPAHorsewareCASCOSorelKerritsEquetechVESTRUMMountain HorseKEP ITALIAKYLINUVEXDevon-AireEquidorfSSG GlovesNoble OutfittersMarket Segment by Countries, coveringChinaJapanKoreaTaiwanSoutheast AsiaIndiaAustraliaMarket Segment by Type, coversClothesBootsHelmetsGlovesMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided intoFemaleMaleAsk Query @There are 19 Chapters to deeply display the Asia-Pacific Horse Riding Apparel market.Chapter 1, to describe Horse Riding Apparel Introduction, product type and application, market overview, market analysis by countries, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the manufacturers of Horse Riding Apparel, with profile, main business, news, sales, price, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the Asia-Pacific market by countries, covering China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, India and Australia, with sales, price, revenue and market share of Horse Riding Apparel, for each country, from 2012 to 2017;ContinueTable Of Contents  Major Key Points1 Market Overview1.1 Horse Riding Apparel Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Clothes1.2.2 Boots1.2.3 Helmets1.2.4 Gloves1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Female1.3.2 Male1.4 Market Analysis by Countries1.4.1 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.2 Korea Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Taiwan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 Australia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Market Dynamics1.5.1 Market Opportunities1.5.2 Market Risk1.5.3 Market Driving Force2 Manufacturers Profiles2.1 Ariat2.1.1 Profile2.1.2 Horse Riding Apparel Type and Applications2.1.2.1 Type 12.1.2.2 Type 22.1.3 Ariat Horse Riding Apparel Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.1.4 Business Overview2.1.5 Ariat News2.2 DECATHLON2.2.1 Profile2.2.2 Horse Riding Apparel Type and Applications2.2.2.1 Type 12.2.2.2 Type 22.2.3 DECATHLON Horse Riding Apparel Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.2.4 Business Overview2.2.5 DECATHLON News2.3 Shanghai Goldtex Clothing & Bags Co.2.3.1 Profile2.3.2 Horse Riding Apparel Type and Applications2.3.2.1 Type 12.3.2.2 Type 22.3.3 Shanghai Goldtex Clothing & Bags Co. Horse Riding Apparel Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.3.4 Business Overview2.3.5 Shanghai Goldtex Clothing & Bags Co. News2.4 Pikeur2.4.1 Profile2.4.2 Horse Riding Apparel Type and Applications2.4.2.1 Type 12.4.2.2 Type 22.4.3 Pikeur Horse Riding Apparel Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.4.4 Business Overview2.4.5 Pikeur News2.5 GPA2.5.1 Profile2.5.2 Horse Riding Apparel Type and Applications2.5.2.1 Type 12.5.2.2 Type 22.5.3 GPA Horse Riding Apparel Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.5.4 Business Overview2.5.5 GPA News2.6 Horseware2.6.1 Profile2.6.2 Horse Riding Apparel Type and Applications2.6.2.1 Type 12.6.2.2 Type 22.6.3 Horseware Horse Riding Apparel Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.6.4 Business Overview2.6.5 Horseware News2.7 CASCO2.7.1 Profile2.7.2 Horse Riding Apparel Type and Applications2.7.2.1 Type 12.7.2.2 Type 22.7.3 CASCO Horse Riding Apparel Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.7.4 Business Overview2.7.5 CASCO News2.8 Sorel2.8.1 Profile2.8.2 Horse Riding Apparel Type and Applications2.8.2.1 Type 12.8.2.2 Type 22.8.3 Sorel Horse Riding Apparel Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.8.4 Business Overview2.8.5 Sorel NewsContinue.For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.Office No.528,Amanora Chambers,Magarpatta Road,Hadapsar,Pune-411028.
Liquid Fertilizers Market To Reach $13,530 Million By 2023

http://bit.ly/2iZ4PN4

http://bit.ly/2zaKrzc

http://bit.ly/2xXPUpc

The global liquid fertilizer market was valued at $11,108 million in 2016 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 2.8% from 2017 to 2023 to reach $13,530 million by 2023. Liquid fertilizers provide the required nutrients to plants at the specific time and varied conditions. These fertilizers are expected to be absorbed by plants through leaf pores and roots. These fertilizers are rich in growth hormones and micronutrients; hence, widely used to row crops, such as maize. They appear to act in the form of a catalyst, increasing a plants nutrient uptake. Liquid fertilizers help in the rapid establishment of seedlings and fast pace early growth. Fertilizers containing sodium, potassium, and phosphorous are able to dissolve quickly in water, which eventually saves the cost of application and allows its utilization. Micronutrient fertilizers are often applied to soil by foliar methods. Furthermore, nitrogen-based liquid fertilizers are expected to account for the major share of the liquid fertilizer market.For More Info, Get Sample:This report projects the trends and opportunities of the global liquid fertilizers market. It includes a qualitative & quantitative analysis with comprehensive research methodologies and reliable projections to understand the present overview and predict the market behavior during the forecast period.The market is expected to witness major growth, owing to the rise in a requirement for food and the development of the agricultural industry. The need for micro-nutrients, increase in soil efficiency, growth in demand for biofuels, investments in R&D activities, and the introduction of new policies by the government agencies and private players fuel the liquid fertilizers market growth. Biofuels are obtained from components other than petroleum products and are extracted from energy crops, such as wheat, soybean, corn, rapeseed, and sugarcane. Thus, the demand for biofuels is expected to increase the market growth.The global liquid fertilizers market is segmented based on type, production process, mode of application, crop, and geography. On the basis of type, it is divided into potassium, micronutrients, phosphate, and nitrogen. On the basis of a production process, it is bifurcated into organic and synthetic. On the basis of application, it is categorized into the soil, fertigation, foliar, and others (aerial & starter solutions). Based on crop, it is classified into oilseeds & pulses, fruits & vegetables, grains & cereals, and others. Geographically, it is analyzed across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA.Key market players in this sector Agrium Incorporated, AgroLiquid, Haifa Chemicals Ltd., Israel Chemical Ltd. (ICL), Kugler Company, Rural Liquid Fertilizers (RLF), Yara International ASA, Agroliquid, Compo Expert GmbH, and K+S Aktiengesellschaft.Enquire About Report :KEY BENEFITS FOR STAKEHOLDERS This report provides a quantitative analysis of the current trends, estimations, and dynamics through 20172023, which is expected to assist in identifying the prevailing market opportunities. Major countries in each region are mapped as per individual market revenue. The region- and country-wise liquid fertilizers market conditions are comprehensively analyzed. Key players of the liquid fertilizers market are also listed. This study evaluates the value chain to understand the competitive environment across geographies. An in-depth analysis of segmentation is provided to elucidate the prevailing market opportunities.Also, Request For Discount:Table Of Contents CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER 2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CHAPTER 3. MARKET OVERVIEW CHAPTER 4. GLOBAL LIQUID FERTILIZERS MARKET, BY TYPE CHAPTER 5. GLOBAL LIQUID FERTILIZERS MARKET, BY PRODUCTION PROCESS CHAPTER 6. GLOBAL LIQUID FERTILIZER MARKET, BY CROP TYPE CHAPTER 7. GLOBAL LIQUID FERTILIZER MARKET, BY MODE OF APPLICATION CHAPTER 8. GLOBAL LIQUID FERTILIZER MARKET, BY GEOGRAPHY CHAPTER 9. COMPANY PROFILESAbout UsWe have a large database of quality and precise market research reports that will be very beneficial for your organization. Reports that we sell are authentic in nature and from reputed publishers, hence it can definitely help you with your growth opportunities. Research Beam will always make sure to bring most ethical and high-quality reports. We value your relationship with us and look forward to a long term relation.Contact UsGlobal Head Quarters5933 NE Win Sivers Drive,#205, Portland, OR 97220United States+1 (800) 910-6452help@researchbeam.com
Crop Sprayer Market Growth and Worldwide Forecast 2022

Crop Sprayer Market

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https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/crop-sprayer-market-2867

Market Highlights:Sprayers are generally used for spraying insecticides and pesticides on crops and plants so as to control the diseases and pests. They are used in agriculture sector. Also they are used to spray in herbicides so as to control the micronutrients and weed for the crop growth. Growing the adoption of advanced farming techniques is ultimately increase the adoption of crop sprayers is the key factors driving the growth of the crop sprayer market. Additionally, growth in agricultural sector is also fuelling the demand of the market. On other hand, non-repayment of loans is the restraints that may hamper the growth of the global crop sprayer market.Global crop sprayer market is expected to reach USD 4,462.1 million by 2022 with 4.68% CAGR.Request a Sample Copy @Key Players of Crop Sprayer Market: Chafer Machinery Ltd (U.K) Zhejiang Ousen Machinery Co., Ltd. (China) CNH Industrial (U.K) Bucher Industries (Switzerland) Deere & Company (U.S.) Taizhou Sunny Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd. (China) Exel Industries (France) STIHL Holding AG & Co. KG (Germany) Hymatic Agro Equipment Pvt. Ltd (India) ASPEE Group (India)Brief TOC:1 Executive Summary1 Introduction1.1 Definition1.2 Scope of the Study1.3 Assumptions1.4 Market Structure2 Research Methodology2.1 Research Process2.2 Primary Research2.3 Secondary Research2.4 Market Size Estimation2.5 Forecast Model3 Market Dynamics3.1 Drivers3.1.1 Growth in Agriculture sector3.1.2 Government Initiatives3.1.3 Farm Mechanization3.2 Restraints3.2.1 Relative lack of awareness3.2.2 Non-Repayment of loans3.3 Opportunity3.3.1 Scope in the Developing Nations3.4 Challenges3.4.1 Access to capitalContinueAccess Report Details @Scope of the Report:This study provides an overview of the global crop sprayer market, tracking two market segments across four geographic regions. The report studies key players, providing a five-year annual trend analysis that highlights market size, volume and share for North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC) and Rest of the World (ROW). The report also provides a forecast, focusing on the market opportunities for the next five years for each region. The scope of the study segments the global crop sprayer market by its product, capacity and region.By Product Fuel-based Electric Hand-heldBy Capacity Ultra Low Volume Sprayers Low Volume Sprayers High Volume SprayersBy Region North America Asia Pacific Europe Rest of the WorldMarket Research Analysis:On the basis of region, global crop sprayer market is segmented as North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and RoW. Asia-Pacific accounts for the largest share of 32.4% in the global crop sprayer market in 2015 mainly due to the countries such as India, China, and Indonesia are major agricultural promoting countries. North America was the second-largest market in 2015, valued at USD 919.7 million in 2015. North America is the major producer of wheat, corn and soybean, which require the use of agricultural equipment such as crop sprayer, thereby driving the growth of the market. The region is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 4.80% during the forecast period. Europe is anticipated to grow with a CAGR of 4.30% during the forecast period.About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Grinding Machinery Market Size Will Observe Substantial Growth By 2023

Grinding Machinery Market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/3753

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/grinding-machinery-market-3753

Market Highlights:Grinding Machinery is used for the common form of abrasive machining. The process involves material cutting which consists of an abrasive tool whose cutting elements are grains of abrasive material known as grit. These grits are characterized by sharp cutting points, high hot hardness, and wear resistance.The growth of global grinding machinery market can majorly be attributed to growing global automotive industry and rising demand from end-use industries. Also, the growing number of innovation in grinding machines, is expected to boost the market growth. Several companies have continuously been focusing on evolving grinding machinery market by developing technologically advanced grinding machines. This has led to the introduction of advance machinery that helps in the manufacture of precise and accurate products in lesser time and at lower costs.The global grinding machinery market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 4.2% during the period.Request a Sample Copy @Key Players of Grinding Machinery Market: Amada Machine Tools Co. Ltd. (Japan) DANOBAT (Spain) ANCA Pty Ltd. (Australia) Junker (Germany) Korber AG (Germany) Fives (France) Gleason Corporation (U.S.) Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies (U.S.) Makino Milling Machine Co. Ltd. (Japan) JTEKT Corporation (Japan)Market Research Analysis:The global grinding machinery market has been analyzed based on the three segments, namely types, end-user and regions. On the basis of types, the global grinding machinery market is segmented as cylindrical, surface, gear, tool & cutter and others. The market is collectively driven by cylindrical, surface and gear grinding machines segments.Based on end-user, the global grinding machinery market is bifurcated as general machinery, automotive machinery, precision machinery, and others, among which, general machinery accounted for the largest share in 2016 and is anticipated to continue the dominance during the forecast period. The growth of this segment is driven by factors such as rapid growth in emerging economies, rising innovation & up gradation of machines and the establishment of new manufacturing units.Scope of the Report:This study provides an overview of the global grinding machinery market, tracking two market segments across four geographic regions. The report studies key players, providing a five-year annual trend analysis that highlights market size, volume and share for Asia-Pacific, North America, Europe and Rest of the World (ROW). The report also provides a forecast, focusing on the market opportunities for the next five years for each region. The scope of the study segments the global grinding machinery market by its types, by end-user and regions.By Types Cylindrical Surface Gear Tool & Cutter OthersBy End-User General Machinery Automotive Machinery Precision Machinery OthersBy Region Asia Pacific North America Europe Rest of WorldBrief TOC:1 Executive Summary2 Research Methodology2.1 Scope of the Study2.1.1 Definition2.1.2 Research Objective2.1.3 Assumptions2.1.4 Limitations2.2 Research Process2.2.1 Primary Research2.2.2 Secondary Research2.3 Market size Estimation2.4 Forecast Model3 Market Dynamics3.1 Market Drivers3.2 Market Inhibitors3.3 Supply/Value Chain Analysis3.4 Porters Five Forces Analysis4 Global Grinding Machinery Market, By Types4.1 Introduction4.2 Cylindrical4.3 Surface4.4 Gear4.5 Tool & Cutter4.6 Others5 Global Grinding Machinery Market, By End-User5.1 Introduction5.2 General Machinery5.3 Automotive Machinery5.4 Precision Machinery5.5 OthersContinueAccess Report Details @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Global Microgrid Market Top Dominating Companies like ABB Ltd., General Electric Company, Eaton, Siemens AG, Schneider Electric, Caterpillar Inc., S&C Electric Company trends by 2024

Global Microgrid Market ? Industry Trends and Forecasts 2024

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Global Microgrid Market Report is a compilation of the several factors driving and restraining this market along with a thorough run-down of the sales volume of each product within carefully categorized sub-segments of the market.The Global Microgrid Market accounted for USD 18.2 billion in 2016 growing at a CAGR of 14.6% during the forecast period of 2017 to 2024. The upcoming market report contains data for historic year 2014, 2015, the base year of calculation is 2016 and the forecast period is 2017 to 2024.Request for a sample copy of this research report@Global Microgrid Market By Geography, Offering (Hardware, Software, Services), Connectivity (Grid Connected, Remote/Island), Grid Type (AC, DC, Hybrid), Vertical (Healthcare, Institutions, Industrial, Military, Electric Utility)  Industry Trends and Forecasts 2024Key Questions Answered in Global Microgrid Market Report:-Our Report offers:-What will the market growth rate, Overview and Analysis by Type of Global Microgrid Market in 2024?What are the key factors driving, Analysis by Applications and Countries Global Microgrid Market?What are Dynamics, This Overview Includes Analysis of Scope, and price analysis of top Vendors Profiles of Global Microgrid Market?Who are Opportunities, Risk and Driving Force of Global Microgrid Market?Who are the opportunities and threats faced by the vendors in Global Microgrid Market?Business Overview by Type, Applications, Gross Margin and Market ShareWhat are the Global Microgrid Market opportunities, market risk and market overview of the Market?Market Drivers And Restraints: Increased demand for automated grid systems Growing government initiatives Increasing concerns about carbon footprint High installation cost Land acquisition and registration complicationsMarket Segmentation:On the basis of offering :- hardware, software, and services.The hardware segment is further sub-segmented:- switchgears, power inverters, smart meters, reciprocating engines, energy storage systems and power generators.The services segment is further sub-segmented:- Engineering and design, monitoring and control, and operations and maintenance.On the basis of connectivity:- Grid connected, and remote/island.On the basis of grid type:- AC, DC, and hybrid.On the basis of vertical:- Healthcare, institutions, industrial, military, electric utility, and others.On the basis of geography:- North America, South America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. U.S., Canada, Germany, France, U.K., Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, China, India, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Brazil among others. In 2017, North America is expected to dominate the market.Talk to our experts @Competitive Analysis:The report for Global Microgrid Market include detailed vendor level analysis for market shares in 2016 for Global, North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa and South America specifically. Also impact and development analysis of key vendors is registered in the market and factored on the basis of Vendor Positioning Grid Analysis which measures the vendors strengths and opportunities against present market challenges, measure providers ability to identify or satisfy present market needs, map providers market vision to current and upcoming market dynamics among others. The report also measures technology life line curve and market time line to analyze and do more affective investments.Get Detail TOC @Major Market Competitors:ABB Ltd.,General Electric Company,Eaton,Siemens AG,Schneider Electric,Caterpillar Inc.,S&C Electric Company,HOMER Energy LLC,Power Analytics Corporation,Advanced Microgrid Solution,Pareto Energy Inc.,Green Energy Corporation,NREL,Sustainable Power System,among others.Read more about this Report @Data Bridge Market Research set forth itself as an unconventional and neoteric Market research and consulting firm with unparalleled level of resilience and integrated approaches. We are determined to unearth the best market opportunities and foster efficient information for your business to thrive in the market. Data Bridge endeavors to provide appropriate solutions to the complex business challenges and initiates an effortless decision-making process.Vishal DixitData Bridge Market ResearchTel: +1-888-387-2818Email: Sales@databridgemarketresearch.comInvestor: investors@databridgemarketresearch.comVisit Blog:Follow us on LinkedIn:
Multi-Tasking Machine Tools Market Analysis, Growth, Size, Share & Forecast 2023

Multi -Tasking Machine Tools Market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/4072

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/multi-tasking-machine-tools-market-4072

Market Highlights:The Multi-tasking machine has the ability to perform various operations without manual intervention. It assembled with multi-tasking machine tools that complete all operations required to completely manufacture the part in single machine setup. It include milling, drilling, turning, and others operations. Multi-tasking machine reduces work-in-process, cuts labor costs, and increases part quality by eliminating multiple fixturing. Increasing demand for superior-quality products and CNC machines driving the growth of the market. Additionally, government initiatives to promote machine tools also have the positive impact on the growth of the market. However, lack of skilled labor is the factor may hamper the growth of the market.The Multi-tasking machine tools market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 2.9% during the forecast period.Request a Sample Copy @Key Players of Multi -Tasking Machine Tools Market: Doosan Machine Tools Co. Ltd. (U.S.) Yamazaki Mazak Corporation (Japan) Nakamura-Tome Precision Industry Co., Ltd. (japan) J Jyoti CNC Automation Ltd. (India) Takisawa machine tool co., ltd. (Japan) Tongtai Machine & Tool Co., Ltd. (Taiwan) Trevisan Machine Tool. (U.S.) DMG Mori Co., Ltd. (Japan) Accuway Machinery Co., Ltd. (Taiwan) Okuma India Pvt. Ltd. (India)Market Research Analysis:Global multi-tasking machine tools Market has been segmented based on product type, application and region. On the basis of product type, the market is segmented into milling, drilling, turning, and others. The milling tool dominates the product type segment of the market. Milling cutters and gear cutters find a wide variety of use in the automotive and aerospace industries. Drilling, and Turning segment is expected to contribute significantly during the forecast period.On the basis of application, Automotive sector dominates the market. Whereas, Aerospace sector is the fastest growing application due to growing use of multi-tasking machines in the aerospace industry is the cutting of various materials and alloys which are difficult to cut.Brief TOC:1 Executive Summary2 Research Methodology2.1 Scope of the Study2.1.1 Definition2.1.2 Research Objective2.1.3 Assumptions2.1.4 Limitations2.2 Research Process2.2.1 Primary Research2.2.2 Secondary Research2.3 Market size Estimation2.4 Forecast Model3 Market Dynamics3.1 Market Drivers3.2 Market Inhibitors3.3 Supply/Value Chain Analysis3.4 Porters Five Forces Analysis4 Global Multi-Tasking Machine Tools Market, By Product Type4.1 Milling4.2 Drilling4.1 Turning4.2 Others5 Global Multi-Tasking Machine Tools Market, By Application5.1 Introduction5.2 Automotive5.3 General Machinery5.4 Aerospace5.5 othersContinueScope of the Report:This study provides an overview of the global Multi-tasking machine tools market, tracking two market segments across four geographic regions. The report studies key players, providing a five-year annual trend analysis that highlights market size, volume and share for North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC) and Rest of the World (ROW). The report also provides a forecast, focusing on the market opportunities for the next six years for each region. The scope of the study segments the global multi-tasking machine tools market by its product type, application and region.By Product Type Milling Drilling Turning OthersBy Application Automotive General Machinery Aerospace OthersBy Region North America Asia-Pacific Europe Rest of the WorldAccess Report Details @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 524/528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Sorghum Seed In United States Market 2017 Share,Trend,Segmentation and Forecast to 2022

Sorghum Seed In United States Market

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/1471973-united-states-mosquito-repellant-market-by-manufacturers-states-type-and-application

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/1471973-united-states-mosquito-repellant-market-by-manufacturers-states-type-and-application

WiseGuyReports.Com Publish a New Market Research Report On - Sorghum Seed In United States Market 2017 Share,Trend,Segmentation and Forecast to 2022.According to the report, global revenue for Mosquito Repellants market was valued at $ 3100.77 million in 2016, and is expected to generate revenue of $ 4776.76 million by end of 2022, growing at a CAGR of slightly above 7.34 % between 2017 and 2022.Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Mosquito Repellant in United States market, to split the market based on manufacturers, states, type and application.Get a Sample Report @For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comMarket Segment by Manufacturers, this report coversSC JohnsonSpectrum BrandsReckitt Benckiser3MZhongshan LANJUGodrej HouseholdAvonTender CorporationDainihon JochugikuNice Group Co., Ltd.ColemanManaksiaOmega PharmaSawyer ProductsMarket Segment by States, coveringCaliforniaTexasNew YorkFloridaIllinoisMarket Segment by Type, coversCoilsVaporizerMatsAerosolsCreamsMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided intoUrbanRuralAsk Query @There are 17 Chapters to deeply display the United States Mosquito Repellant market.Chapter 1, to describe Mosquito Repellant Introduction, product type and application, market overview, market analysis by States, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the manufacturers of Mosquito Repellant, with profile, main business, news, sales, price, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the United States market by States, covering California, New York, Texas, Illinois and Florida, with sales, price, revenue and market share of Mosquito Repellant, for each state, from 2012 to 2017;ContinueTable Of Contents  Major Key Points1 Market Overview1.1 Mosquito Repellant Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Coils1.2.2 Vaporizer1.2.3 Mats1.2.4 Aerosols1.2.5 Creams1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Urban1.3.2 Rural1.4 Market Analysis by States1.4.1 California Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.2 Texas Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 New York Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Florida Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Illinois Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Market Dynamics1.5.1 Market Opportunities1.5.2 Market Risk1.5.3 Market Driving Force2 Manufacturers Profiles2.1 SC Johnson2.1.1 Profile2.1.2 Mosquito Repellant Type and Applications2.1.2.1 Type 12.1.2.2 Type 22.1.3 SC Johnson Mosquito Repellant Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.1.4 Business Overview2.1.5 SC Johnson News2.2 Spectrum Brands2.2.1 Profile2.2.2 Mosquito Repellant Type and Applications2.2.2.1 Type 12.2.2.2 Type 22.2.3 Spectrum Brands Mosquito Repellant Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.2.4 Business Overview2.2.5 Spectrum Brands News2.3 Reckitt Benckiser2.3.1 Profile2.3.2 Mosquito Repellant Type and Applications2.3.2.1 Type 12.3.2.2 Type 22.3.3 Reckitt Benckiser Mosquito Repellant Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.3.4 Business Overview2.3.5 Reckitt Benckiser News2.4 3M2.4.1 Profile2.4.2 Mosquito Repellant Type and Applications2.4.2.1 Type 12.4.2.2 Type 22.4.3 3M Mosquito Repellant Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.4.4 Business Overview2.4.5 3M News2.5 Zhongshan LANJU2.5.1 Profile2.5.2 Mosquito Repellant Type and Applications2.5.2.1 Type 12.5.2.2 Type 22.5.3 Zhongshan LANJU Mosquito Repellant Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.5.4 Business Overview2.5.5 Zhongshan LANJU News2.6 Godrej Household2.6.1 Profile2.6.2 Mosquito Repellant Type and Applications2.6.2.1 Type 12.6.2.2 Type 22.6.3 Godrej Household Mosquito Repellant Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.6.4 Business Overview2.6.5 Godrej Household News2.7 Avon2.7.1 Profile2.7.2 Mosquito Repellant Type and Applications2.7.2.1 Type 12.7.2.2 Type 22.7.3 Avon Mosquito Repellant Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.7.4 Business Overview2.7.5 Avon News2.8 Tender Corporation2.8.1 Profile2.8.2 Mosquito Repellant Type and Applications2.8.2.1 Type 12.8.2.2 Type 22.8.3 Tender Corporation Mosquito Repellant Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.8.4 Business OverviewContinue.For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.Office No.528,Amanora Chambers,Magarpatta Road,Hadapsar,Pune-411028.
Heat Guns Market Report for Period 2011 till 2023 Hitachi, Makita, Milwaukee and Others

Heat Guns Market

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Global Heat Guns Market report provides detailed analysis of companies namely Hitachi, Makita, Milwaukee and Others. This report study includes global market statistics and analysis for example, company performance, historical analysis 2012 to 2016, market forecast 2017 to 2023 in terms of volume, revenue, YOY growth rate, and CAGR for the year 2017 to 2023, etc.A heat gun offers instant, powerful, controlled heat that can be focused on an object, surface, or specific area. Safer than open flame, heat guns have largely replaced primitive means of applying intense heat. It is similar in appearance and construction to a hair dryer, but the air it emits is at a much higher temperature. Air is forced over the element and heated. Typically, the air emitted can reach temperatures between 200 and 1,000 Fahrenheit (93 to 537.7 Celsius).Request for Free Sample Copy of Global Heat Guns Market 2017Top Company Profiles and Analysis included in this report:BoschBlack & DeckerWellerSteinelHitachiMakitaMilwaukeeDewaltWagner SpraytechJensenPorter-CableDongcheng ToolsDevonKressRupesOthersGlobal Heat Guns Market: Key Product TypeVariable Temperature Heat GunDual Temperature Heat GunOthersGlobal Heat Guns Market: Key ApplicationHouseholdCommercialIndustrialOthersGlobal Heat Guns Market: Key RegionAsia-PacificNorth AmericaEuropeSouth AmericaMiddle East & AfricaThe Global Heat Guns Market analysis report provides detailed value chain for analysis of Global Heat Guns Market. The value chain helps to analyze major upstream in raw materials, major equipments, manufacturing process, downstream customer analysis and major distributor analysis.The report also covers in-depth description, competitive scenario, wide product portfolio of prime players active in this market and business strategies adopted by competitors along with their SWOT analysis. Side by side, it also explicitly provides information about mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and all the other important activities happened in current and past few years. The Global Heat Guns Market report explores manufacturers competitive scenario and provides market share for all major players of this market based on production capacity, sales, revenue, geographical presence and other major factors.Enquire before Buying @Table of Contents:1 Market Overview1.1 Objectives of Research1.1.1 Definition1.1.2 Specifications1.2 Market Segment1.2.1 by Type1.2.1.1 Variable Temperature Heat Gun1.2.1.2 Dual Temperature Heat Gun1.2.2 by Application1.2.2.1 Household1.2.2.2 Commercial1.2.2.3 Industrial1.2.2.4 Others1.2.3 by Regions2 Industry Chain2.1 Industry Chain Structure......................Continue (Global Heat Guns Market Research Industry Report is prepared with the help of extensive primary and secondary sources, directories, journals, newsletters and with the help of third-party application like Hoovers, Factiva, Bloomberg, Businessweek, etc.About Us:Market Reports Company is a global research and consulting company. We provide customized reports. We can study and analyze any market based on wide range of parameters. We can provide market insights for any particular region, country across the globe within shortest possible turn around time.What we offer: Customized Reports: we provide customized report study on any market or industry. Region Specific Study: If you need region specific or if you are searching for particular region market study then, we have expert research team for that. How we work: We work in all domains and industries, you name it and we provide the market research industry report analysis of it. Expertise: Superior Research Team, 24*7 Customer Care ServiceContact UsJason Smith,Sales Manager, Global Business Development,Website:Email: jasonsmith@marketreportscompany.comContact us: +1-888-220-3424Address: 20 N State Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60602 United States
Sorghum Seed In United States 2017 Market By: Industry Size,Growth,Analysis,Applications,Opportunities, and Forecasts to 2022

Sorghum Seed In United States Market

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/1271306-united-states-sorghum-seed-market-by-manufacturers-states-type-and-application

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/1271306-united-states-sorghum-seed-market-by-manufacturers-states-type-and-application

WiseGuyReports.Com Publish a New Market Research Report On - Sorghum Seed In United States 2017 Market By: Industry Size,Growth,Analysis,Applications,Opportunities, and Forecasts to 2022.Sorghum is the fifth largest cereal grain in the world. Sorghum plantation is increasing continuously as the crop is gaining importance as a versatile plant that can tolerate drought, soil toxicities, a wide range of temperatures and high altitudes. Sorghum seed is reproducing system of sorghum, it plays an important role for the continuation of species.Get a Sample Report @For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comScope of the Report:This report focuses on the Sorghum Seed in United States market, to split the market based on manufacturers, states, type and application.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report coversAdvanta SeedsMonsantoKWSNufarmDupont PioneerChromatinDyna-Gro SeedProlineHeritage SeedsAllied SeedSustainable Seed CompanyBlue River HybridsSafal Seeds & BiotechSeed Co LimitedMarket Segment by States, coveringCaliforniaTexasNew YorkFloridaIllinoisMarket Segment by Type, coversForage Sorghum SeedGrain Sorghum SeedSweet Sorghum SeedMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided intoSorghum PlantingSorghum BreedingAsk Query @There are 17 Chapters to deeply display the United States Sorghum Seed market.Chapter 1, to describe Sorghum Seed Introduction, product type and application, market overview, market analysis by States, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the manufacturers of Sorghum Seed, with profile, main business, news, sales, price, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the United States market by States, covering California, New York, Texas, Illinois and Florida, with sales, price, revenue and market share of Sorghum Seed, for each state, from 2012 to 2017;ContinueTable Of Contents  Major Key Points1 Market Overview1.1 Sorghum Seed Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Forage Sorghum Seed1.2.2 Grain Sorghum Seed1.2.3 Sweet Sorghum Seed1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Sorghum Planting1.3.2 Sorghum Breeding1.4 Market Analysis by States1.4.1 California Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.2 Texas Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 New York Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Florida Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Illinois Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Market Dynamics1.5.1 Market Opportunities1.5.2 Market Risk1.5.3 Market Driving Force2 Manufacturers Profiles2.1 Advanta Seeds2.1.1 Profile2.1.2 Sorghum Seed Type and Applications2.1.2.1 Type 12.1.2.2 Type 22.1.3 Advanta Seeds Sorghum Seed Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.1.4 Business Overview2.1.5 Advanta Seeds News2.2 Monsanto2.2.1 Profile2.2.2 Sorghum Seed Type and Applications2.2.2.1 Type 12.2.2.2 Type 22.2.3 Monsanto Sorghum Seed Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.2.4 Business Overview2.2.5 Monsanto News2.3 KWS2.3.1 Profile2.3.2 Sorghum Seed Type and Applications2.3.2.1 Type 12.3.2.2 Type 22.3.3 KWS Sorghum Seed Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.3.4 Business Overview2.3.5 KWS News2.4 Nufarm2.4.1 Profile2.4.2 Sorghum Seed Type and Applications2.4.2.1 Type 12.4.2.2 Type 22.4.3 Nufarm Sorghum Seed Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.4.4 Business Overview2.4.5 Nufarm News2.5 Dupont Pioneer2.5.1 Profile2.5.2 Sorghum Seed Type and Applications2.5.2.1 Type 12.5.2.2 Type 22.5.3 Dupont Pioneer Sorghum Seed Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.5.4 Business Overview2.5.5 Dupont Pioneer News2.6 Chromatin2.6.1 Profile2.6.2 Sorghum Seed Type and Applications2.6.2.1 Type 12.6.2.2 Type 22.6.3 Chromatin Sorghum Seed Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.6.4 Business Overview2.6.5 Chromatin News2.7 Dyna-Gro Seed2.7.1 Profile2.7.2 Sorghum Seed Type and Applications2.7.2.1 Type 12.7.2.2 Type 22.7.3 Dyna-Gro Seed Sorghum Seed Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.7.4 Business Overview2.7.5 Dyna-Gro Seed News2.8 Proline2.8.1 Profile2.8.2 Sorghum Seed Type and Applications2.8.2.1 Type 12.8.2.2 Type 22.8.3 Proline Sorghum Seed Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.8.4 Business Overview2.8.5 Proline NewsContinue.For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.Office No.528,Amanora Chambers,Magarpatta Road,Hadapsar,Pune-411028.
Prostate Cancer Diagnostics Market Report for Period 2012 till 2022 MDx Health, Beckman Coulter, Myriad Genetics and Others

Prostate Cancer Diagnostics Market

https://goo.gl/TBbzii

https://goo.gl/TBbzii

https://goo.gl/TBbzii

http://marketreportscompany.com

Global Prostate Cancer Diagnostics Market report provides detailed analysis of companies namely MDx Health, Beckman Coulter, Myriad Genetics and Others. This report study includes global market statistics and analysis for example, company performance, historical analysis 2012 to 2016, market forecast 2017 to 2023 in terms of volume, revenue, YOY growth rate, and CAGR for the year 2017 to 2023, etc.Request for Free Sample Copy of Global Prostate Cancer Diagnostics Market 2017Top Company Profiles and Analysis included in this report:Genomic HealthAbbottOPKOSiemens HealthcareDiaSorinbioMeriuxRocheMDx HealthBeckman CoulterMyriad GeneticsAmbryGeneticsOthersGlobal Prostate Cancer Diagnostics Market: Key Product TypeTumor Biomarker TestsImagingBiopsyOthersGlobal Prostate Cancer Diagnostics Market: Key ApplicationA PeriodB PeriodC PeriodD PeriodOthersGlobal Prostate Cancer Diagnostics Market: Key RegionEuropeNorth AmericaChinaJapan & KoreaThe Global Prostate Cancer Diagnostics Market analysis report provides detailed value chain for analysis of Global Prostate Cancer Diagnostics Market. The value chain helps to analyze major upstream in raw materials, major equipments, manufacturing process, downstream customer analysis and major distributor analysis.The report also covers in-depth description, competitive scenario, wide product portfolio of prime players active in this market and business strategies adopted by competitors along with their SWOT analysis. Side by side, it also explicitly provides information about mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and all the other important activities happened in current and past few years. The Global Prostate Cancer Diagnostics Market report explores manufacturers competitive scenario and provides market share for all major players of this market based on production capacity, sales, revenue, geographical presence and other major factors.Enquire before Buying @Table of Contents:1 Market Overview1.1 Objectives of Research1.1.1 Definition1.1.2 Specifications1.2 Market Segment1.2.1 by Product1.2.1.1 Tumor Biomarker Tests1.2.1.2 Imaging1.2.1.3 Biopsy1.2.2 by Application1.2.2.1 A Period1.2.2.2 B Period1.2.2.3 C Period1.2.2.4 D Period1.2.3 by Regions1.2.3.1 Europe1.2.3.2 North America......................Continue (Global Prostate Cancer Diagnostics Market Research Industry Report is prepared with the help of extensive primary and secondary sources, directories, journals, newsletters and with the help of third-party application like Hoovers, Factiva, Bloomberg, Businessweek, etc.About Us:Market Reports Company is a global research and consulting company. We provide customized reports. We can study and analyze any market based on wide range of parameters. We can provide market insights for any particular region, country across the globe within shortest possible turn around time.What we offer: Customized Reports: we provide customized report study on any market or industry. Region Specific Study: If you need region specific or if you are searching for particular region market study then, we have expert research team for that. How we work: We work in all domains and industries, you name it and we provide the market research industry report analysis of it. Expertise: Superior Research Team, 24*7 Customer Care ServiceContact UsJason Smith,Sales Manager, Global Business Development,Website:Email: jasonsmith@marketreportscompany.comContact us: +1-888-220-3424Address: 20 N State Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60602 United States
Radiopharmaceutical Market Report for Period 2017 till 2022 GE Healthcare, Mallinckrodt, Eli Lilly and Others

Radiopharmaceutical Market

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https://goo.gl/aD6gvn

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http://marketreportscompany.com

Global Radiopharmaceutical Market report provides detailed analysis of companies namely GE Healthcare, Mallinckrodt, Eli Lilly and Others. This report study includes global market statistics and analysis for example, company performance, historical analysis 2012 to 2016, market forecast 2017 to 2023 in terms of volume, revenue, YOY growth rate, and CAGR for the year 2017 to 2023, etc.Radiopharmaceuticals are radioactive compounds administered to the patient, and monitored via specific imaging devices, for diagnosis and therapeutic purposes. It is composed of a radioisotope bond to an organic molecule. The organic molecule conveys the radioisotope to specific organs, tissues or cells. The radioisotope is selected for its properties. Radiopharmaceuticals are used in the field of nuclear medicine as radioactive tracers in medical imaging and in therapy for many diseases (for example, brachytherapy). Many radiopharmaceuticals use technetium-99m (Tc-99m) which has many useful properties as a gamma-emitting tracer nuclide.Request for Free Sample Copy of Global Radiopharmaceutical Market 2017Top Company Profiles and Analysis included in this report:BayerTriad IsotopesLantheusGE HealthcareMallinckrodtEli LillyBracco ImagingSIEMENSNavideaNordionIBA GroupJubilant PharmaOthersGlobal Radiopharmaceutical Market: Key Product TypeSPECT RadioisotopesPET RadioisotopesOther Diagnostic RadioisotopesTherapeutic RadioisotopesOthersGlobal Radiopharmaceutical Market: Key ApplicationOncologyCardiologyOthersGlobal Radiopharmaceutical Market: Key RegionNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Others)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Southeast Asia and Others)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia and Others)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa and Others)The Global Radiopharmaceutical Market analysis report provides detailed value chain for analysis of Global Radiopharmaceutical Market. The value chain helps to analyze major upstream in raw materials, major equipments, manufacturing process, downstream customer analysis and major distributor analysis.The report also covers in-depth description, competitive scenario, wide product portfolio of prime players active in this market and business strategies adopted by competitors along with their SWOT analysis. Side by side, it also explicitly provides information about mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and all the other important activities happened in current and past few years. The Global Radiopharmaceutical Market report explores manufacturers competitive scenario and provides market share for all major players of this market based on production capacity, sales, revenue, geographical presence and other major factors.Enquire before Buying @Table of Contents:1 Market Overview1.1 Radiopharmaceutical Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 SPECT Radioisotopes1.2.2 PET Radioisotopes1.2.3 Other Diagnostic Radioisotopes1.2.4 Therapeutic Radioisotopes1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Oncology1.3.2 Cardiology1.3.3 Other1.4 Market Analysis by Regions.......................Continue (Global Radiopharmaceutical Market Research Industry Report is prepared with the help of extensive primary and secondary sources, directories, journals, newsletters and with the help of third-party application like Hoovers, Factiva, Bloomberg, Businessweek, etc.About Us:Market Reports Company is a global research and consulting company. We provide customized reports. We can study and analyze any market based on wide range of parameters. We can provide market insights for any particular region, country across the globe within shortest possible turn around time.What we offer: Customized Reports: we provide customized report study on any market or industry. Region Specific Study: If you need region specific or if you are searching for particular region market study then, we have expert research team for that. How we work: We work in all domains and industries, you name it and we provide the market research industry report analysis of it. Expertise: Superior Research Team, 24*7 Customer Care ServiceContact UsJason Smith,Sales Manager, Global Business Development,Website:Email: jasonsmith@marketreportscompany.comContact us: +1-888-220-3424Address: 20 N State Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60602 United States
Corian Acrylic Solid Surface Market Report for Period 2017 till 2022 LG Hausys, Lottechem, Hanwha and Others

Corian Acrylic Solid Surface market

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Global Corian Acrylic Solid Surface market report provides detailed analysis of companies namely LG Hausys, Lottechem, Hanwha and Others. This report study includes global market statistics and analysis for example, company performance, historical analysis 2012 to 2016, market forecast 2017 to 2023 in terms of volume, revenue, YOY growth rate, and CAGR for the year 2017 to 2023, etc.Acrylic solid surface is a man-made material usually composed of a combination of marble dust, bauxite, acrylic, epoxy or polyester resins and pigments. It is most frequently used for seamless countertop installations. Solid Surface Top Seamless Integral Kitchen Sink, Integral Cove Slash with Wall Panel. Solid surface was first introduced by DuPont in 1967 under the name of Corian.In this report, -corian acrylic solid surface means acrylic solid surface.Request for Free Sample Copy of Global Corian Acrylic Solid Surface Market 2017Top Company Profiles and Analysis included in this report:DuPontLion ChemtechLG HausysLottechemHanwhaDURASEINARISTECH SURFACESSwanWilsonartMonerte Surfaces MaterialsGelandiKingKonree InternationalSYSTEMPOOLOthersGlobal Corian Acrylic Solid Surface Market: Key Product TypeCasting Molding Solid SurfaceExtrusion Molding Solid SurfaceOthersGlobal Corian Acrylic Solid Surface Market: Key ApplicationCommercialResidentialOthersGlobal Corian Acrylic Solid Surface Market: Key RegionChinaJapanKoreaTaiwanSoutheast AsiaIndiaAustraliaThe Global Corian Acrylic Solid Surface Market analysis report provides detailed value chain for analysis of Global Corian Acrylic Solid Surface Market. The value chain helps to analyze major upstream in raw materials, major equipments, manufacturing process, downstream customer analysis and major distributor analysis.The report also covers in-depth description, competitive scenario, wide product portfolio of prime players active in this market and business strategies adopted by competitors along with their SWOT analysis. Side by side, it also explicitly provides information about mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and all the other important activities happened in current and past few years. The Global Corian Acrylic Solid Surface Market report explores manufacturers competitive scenario and provides market share for all major players of this market based on production capacity, sales, revenue, geographical presence and other major factors.Enquire before Buying @Table of Contents:1 Market Overview1.1 Corian Acrylic Solid Surface Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Casting Molding Solid Surface1.2.2 Extrusion Molding Solid Surface1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Commercial1.3.2 Residential1.4 Market Analysis by Countries.......................Continue (Global Corian Acrylic Solid Surface Market Research Industry Report is prepared with the help of extensive primary and secondary sources, directories, journals, newsletters and with the help of third-party application like Hoovers, Factiva, Bloomberg, Businessweek, etc.About Us:Market Reports Company is a global research and consulting company. We provide customized reports. We can study and analyze any market based on wide range of parameters. We can provide market insights for any particular region, country across the globe within shortest possible turn around time.What we offer: Customized Reports: we provide customized report study on any market or industry. Region Specific Study: If you need region specific or if you are searching for particular region market study then, we have expert research team for that. How we work: We work in all domains and industries, you name it and we provide the market research industry report analysis of it. Expertise: Superior Research Team, 24*7 Customer Care ServiceContact UsJason Smith,Sales Manager, Global Business Development,Website:Email: jasonsmith@marketreportscompany.comContact us: +1-888-220-3424Address: 20 N State Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60602 United States
Petoskey hockey skates off with loss to Cheboygan in opener

PETOSKEY  Whether it comes as a season opener, a few games in or midseason, the rivalry between the Cheboygan and Petoskey hockey teams is one thats circled by both teams.
After ten starting days and a long Day 2, only 12 hopefuls out of a 4,115-entry strong field were left at the end of level 31 in the 2017 World Series of Poker Europe Event #5: THE COLOSSUS 550 No-Limit Hold'em the previous last night. They returned to Europe's biggest poker arena in the King's Casino in Rozvadov to determine the seventh winner of a coveted golden bracelet on Czech soil and it was Matous Skorepa who defeated Florian Fuchs in heads-up to take home the first-place payout of 270,015 and third Czech bracelet of the series with his maiden WSOP cash.

Fellow countrymen Michal Schuh and Lukas Zaskodny, who defeated Allen Chainsaw Kessler in heads-up in Event #6: 2,200 Pot-Limit Omaha a few days ago to join the champion's club, were the first to congratulate Skorepa. "I'd like to say it was easy but it wasn't. I needed to be lucky. I've been preparing for this tournament for almost a year, Skorepa added with a big smile on the face. "I'm pretty excited but I just called by mom and she calmed me down. I'm excited of course and pretty happy."

Up next besides work is a vacation for the Czech: The summer was really busy so I couldn't go for a vacation so I need to disappear and just relax." Throughout the final table, Skorepa always seemed very relaxed and didn't let any setbacks get to him. The pivotal hand on his way to victory saw him all in and at risk with queen-nine against the pocket aces of eventual 4th place finisher Ivaylo Sivinov, and Skorepa rivered a straight before knocking out Sivinov soon after. Just before the hand got underway, he had jokingly predicted a double up in this very hand.

"Something strange with me, if I play small cash games or small tournaments its the same for me as if I was playing a big tournament. It was like, ok a ten, yeah perfect, lets go. Everyone on the final table was shaking but not me. If you believe it, then it will happen."

In the winner interview right after his victory, Skorepa admitted I just played it like it's a bounty for me, with a grin on the face. When asked if he is going to play any more events and in particular the upcoming Main Event, Skorepa had a rather unusual answer. Actually, I don't think so because I need to go to work tomorrow. I run a restaurant and don't have a waitress, if somebody want to work at my restaurant  and I need to be there.

The best cash to date for Skorepa was for 8,000, while runner-up Fuchs also bested his previous highest score of $12,420 by taking home 166,855 for his efforts. Among the other finalists was Makarios Avramidis, who won the first-ever bracelet for his home country at the 2015 WSOPE in Berlin, and the Greek had to settle for 5th place and 68,771 this time around.

Final Result Event #5 THE COLOSSUS

Place Winner Country Payout 1 Matous Skorepa Czech Republic 270,015 2 Florian Fuchs Austria 166,855 3 Jonathan Khalifa France 123,241 4 Ivaylo Sivinov Bulgaria 91,711 5 Makarios Avramidis Greece 68,771 6 Roman Motovsky Czech Republic 51,968 7 Pascal Pflock Germany 39,576 8 Nebojsa Ankucic Austria 30,376 9 Gaetan Cauchy France 23,499

Action of the Final Day

With two six-handed tables back in action and plenty of short stacks around, it took quite some time until the first seat open. Eventually it was Philipp Lutkemeier that ended up second-best with pocket sixes against the pocket eights of Ivaylo Sivinov, and the German was drawing dead after the turn already. Ruben Garcia Blancas check-raised all in with king-ten suited for second pair on a jack-high flop and again it was Sivinov that dealt the final blow. The Bulgarian called with queen-four suited for the flush draw and got there on the river.

[Removed:35] was all in and at risk with ace-king and Matous Skorepa and the Czech flopped top pair with queen-jack suited to set up the official nine-handed final table. Skorepa and start-of-the-day chip leader Jonathan Khalifa were at the top of the counts with near identical stacks.

Gaetan Cauchy became the first casualty of the final table in the fifth hand, three-bet shoving ace-eight out of the big blind. Matous Skorepa called with pocket nines and held a full house on a queen-high board to eliminate Cauchy. It was the third WSOP cash for the Frenchman, who had to settle for a payday of 23,499.

Nebojsa Ankucic reached the final table with just four big blinds and managed once before getting involved into a three-way all in showdown. Pascal Pflock was at risk with pocket threes, Ankucic held king-jack suited and Jonathan Khalifa looked up both with king-queen suited. While Ankucic flopped best with second pair and a flush draw, Khalifa got there with a broadway straight on the turn and a blank on the river reduced the field to the last six hopefuls.

Two Czech players reached the final table and they would clash when Roman Motovsky got it in with king-jack suited. Matous Skorepa called with ace-queen off suit and a king-queen high flop was followed by an ace on the turn, the river blanked and Motovsky ended up in 6th place.

Makarios Avramidis, who was the only finalist with a WSOP bracelet already, eventually bowed out in 5th place after running with ace-six into the pocket aces of Jonathan Khalifa. It was yet another deep run for the Greek, who fell just shy of becoming the first Greek to win two WSOP bracelets.

The roller coaster ride of Ivaylo Sivinov came to an end in 4th place. After topping the leader board, the Bulgarian lost a big pot with queen-ten versus pocket aces on a ten-high flop, then had his aces cracked by the queen-nine of Matous Skorepa and lost the remainder of his stack with ace-eight against the pocket tens of Skorepa.

In hand #69 of the final table, Jonathan Khalifa took a big flip with pocket nines against the ace-ten of Matous Skorepa and the latter rivered a ten to leave his opponent in shambles. Skorepa entered heads-up against Florian Fuchs with a commanding lead and steam-rolled over the Austrian in the first few hands to reduce Fuchs to fewer than ten big blinds. A shove by Skorepa with king-eight suited was called by Fuchs with king-four off suit and the Austrian found no help to crown a champion in Skorepa.

Among the big names to cash on Day 2 when all survivors of the ten starting days combined were such big names as Barny Boatman (233rd Place - 1,500), Kevin MacPhee (231st Place - 1,500), Kristen Bicknell (195th Place - 1,625), Max Pescatori (166th Place - 1,625), Mike Leah (165th Place - 1,625), John Racener (128th Place - 1,777), Marcel Luske (104th Place - 1,777), Alex Foxen (83rd Place - 2,393), Hossein Ensan (76th Place - 2,824), Kenny Hallaert (62nd Place - 4,035), Ognjen Sekularac (49th Place - 4,886) and Lukasz Wasek (14th Place - 14,404).

With seven out of eleven golden bracelets already awarded, another champion will be crowned later tonight in Event #9: 25,000 No-Limit Hold'em High Roller, and the PokerNews live reporting team will provide all the action from the floor until November 10th 2017.
The problem with time-sensitive topics like social networks, reality TV, or even the concept of the Hipster in the observational essay, is that they demand updates. Mark Greif covers these topics (and more) in Against Everything: Essays. While they are at their surface level observational, Greif retains a critical academic distance from such topics and specific subjects. Sometimes Greifs insistence on maintaining the professionalism of the pontificator can exhaust the reader. Where is he going? Why is he here? He updates his original observations in these essays whose topics are always going to be fluid, always moving, but even the most forgiving readers may find themselves smothered in this sea of words.

Greif notes in his preface: This is not a book of critique of things I dont do. Its a book of critique of things I do. He continues to note that the book is about asking questions, about asking why we do or think what we are supposed to do or think. Greif was apparently driven by his mothers admiration for Henry David Thoreau, and anybody born and raised in the Massachusetts area, prone to navel-gazing and attracted to loners, understands the attraction. Thoreau was the standard bearer of the back to nature movement, especially in the 60s. In Thoreau Trailer Park: The Meaning of Life Part IV (2012), Greif effectively illustrates the power of the man, even after all these years:

It is hard to remember what Thoreau said because it is all so disturbing.

Greif provides a comprehensive background of the man and his times, the philosophy of stripping away all the artifice of ones life and starting fresh. The informed reader remembers one of Thoreaus greatest adages: Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. Rather than keeping the man in his time, letting the adage exist only on a T-shirt or coffee cup, Greif nicely connects Thoreau and his movement to the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations of the time (2011-2012) .The Zucotti Park those young people occupied was comparable, for Greif, to Thoreaus Walden Pond. Greif readily admits to bourgeois sensibilities and is shocked when he sees that those arrested during the demonstrations did not dress for their court appearances:

In the encampment [they] wanted to create a democracy not of symbol but of fact As crowds chanted, This is what Democracy looks like when the police threatened us, I cringed to hear how the words advertised our weakness.

This essay works best because  like most of the topics he covers  it provided an opportunity for participation. More than that, Greif makes the effort (and succeeds) to build a bridge between the stubborn individualism insistence of Thoreau to the idealism of the brief but significant legacy of the Occupy protesters. Its this type of reportage and personal involvement that makes the reader wish Greif had expanded his observations about this topic and those people during that time into a book-length manuscript. Its placed at the end of Against Everything: Essays almost like a promise of what could have been.

Against Exercise is both funny and cunning in the way Greif builds the logic of his argument. On running: [It] is most insidious because of its way of taking proselytizing out of the gym. For Greif, all the grunting and sweating and displays of body that take place in the confines of the gym are tantamount to worshiping in a chapel. Facing mortality, the gym-goer believes himself an agent of health-whereas he makes himself a more perfect patient.

Afternoon of the Sex Children, from its title onward, is a more serious and focused examination of how our culture imposes sexuality from a young age. He takes us from womens magazines (instructional) to mens magazines (pornographic) and concludes that in magazines like Playboy, putative teen models are made situationally immature  portrayed with images of the student life Its the idealization of childhood, transformed into fetishization that makes for disturbing yet effectively argued prose. If liberation implied freedom, the sexual liberation movement had to come at a cost.

One of the cruel betrayals of sexual liberation was the illusion that a person can be free only if he holds sex as all-important

Greif goes on to argue that liberalization turned back to gorge itself on youth. Its difficult to read, especially when he explores the darkness of the child molester, but some of his proposed rehabilitative solutions are reasonable. He proposes that we (as a culture) adjust our perspectives of idealized beauty so that we extinguish the worship of youth. The de-emphasis of sex and the denigration of childhood can still be put on the agenda of a humane civilization. Its here where Greifs observations and the logical paths he takes to such conclusions that make Against Everything an important collection.

On Food breaks down Michael Pollan and foodies and The New Food Order with varying degrees of success. Pollans philosophical commitment to tradition

distorts his thought in a particular direction. In Octomom and the Market in Babies, sort of an extension of Afternoon of the Sex Children, Greif examines the life and tabloid times of Nadya Suleman, the woman who was famous for a moment in 2009-2010 for being implanted with eight fetuses she brought to term (along with the six children shed already borne) and extends to examinations of the glorification of childbirth, the inconsistencies of the movie Juno, and the trials of a woman with more than a passing resemblance to Angelina Jolie, another super Mom:

Octomom just timed it badly. She raised fears that babies have become a rare commodity, a status item, property  at a moment when property itself was being allocated to the wrong people.

Greif gets a little bogged down with The Concept of Experience. It certainly is a strong essay connecting sex and intoxication, recklessness, and the quest for immortality. Travel becomes the main new experience people remember when sex and intoxication stop being the sole authoritative ones. He brings in aestheticism and perfectionism, drawing Gustave Flaubert and Henry David Thoreau into this equation. The arguments are strong and build in a proper way, but Greif seems to have bitten off more than he can chew here. The pieces isolated into a different, separate context would have been more successful.

The three music-based essays, Radiohead, or the Philosophy of Pop, Punk: the Right Kind of Pain, and Learning to Rap suffer from that aforementioned stubborn academic distance. The first essay could and should have been two separate ones. Greif certainly paints an effective picture of the strange and distant Thom Yorke and company that make up Radiohead, the interfiling of human speech and machine sounds with the keening, vulnerable human singing of Thom Yorke. Unfortunately, he gets bogged down in pronouncements about music criticism:

We dont even agree about how the interconnection of pop music and lyrics, rather than the words spoken alone, accomplishes an utterly different task of representation and bad critics show their ignorance when they persist in treating pop like poetry, as in the still-growing critical effluence around Bob Dylan.

Published first in 2005, this essay is ponderous and thick as it drives through the difficulty of Radiohead and the problems of pop music, but Greif does no service to either topic by allowing it to stand alone now. Again, the prose of strong and the presentation is dramatically, effectively rendered, but Greifs didacticism is the biggest barrier between the uninformed reader and an appreciation of the forms (Radiohead and Philosophy of Pop) as they exist in 2017.

Punk: the Right Kind of Pain is more successful because Greif combined his examination of the form with a clear and focused look at the Velvet Underground. The unity of their work has to do with the pleasures of force, both suffering and exerting it Greif is also able to successfully combine this examination of the Velvet Underground with his love of and for the Grateful Dead. Both entities were known for extremely long, wandering, repetitive, live improvisations. Greif ends with an examination of the legendary Punk band Fugazi, and this picture of their fans is frightening and exciting:

I watched the eyes of boys right near me, blanked, numb, as others whirled in pointless energy I sorrowed that all this seemed unworthy of the band, the music

Learning to Rap is a tougher essay to enjoy, but if the reader has gotten this far then enjoyment really isnt the key to Greifs essays. Appreciation is a better term. He cites a transcript of a conversation between Richard Pryor and Barbara Walters about the n word. You said it very good, Pryor notes, hearing her quote the title of his 1976 comedy LP. Thats not the first time you said it. This is a long, involved, deep essay that didnt need his personal narrative about learning to rap. We know the story of the white bourgeois male attracted to rap and hesitant to recite the lyrics. Greif would have better served his topic had he removed himself from the equation and looked at stars from what he calls the pre- and post-crack eras of the musical style. For all its pontification, Greif still seems to understand his reader will probably be frustrated:

I imagine someone could object: this isnt really how you listen to popular music, is it? Youre inhuman! Do you really judge art by a criterion of its politics  as if you had to hear an editorial, backed with a beat?

In The Reality of Reality Television, written in both 2005 and 2015, Greif reflects (in the latter half) on Keeping Up with the Kardashians. For Greif, the show has a tranquilizing power: it displays the conceit of an economy in which doing nothing is enough. Greif notes that most of the shows discussed in the first half of the essay were gone by 2015, so the reader is left with a question: Why not separate the text and expand the better half (the second part)? The same can be said for WeTube, which is only two years old. The text is complete, but the subject is always changing. In 2010s What Was the Hipster? Grief presents a eulogy when in fact the subject is truly an evolving paradigm.

Against Everything is an exhausting and at times exhaustive text, 16 essays chopped into eight thematically-connected sections. The essays that work (about Octomom, Thoreau, the second half of The Reality of Reality Television) are strong because Greifs execution is in consort with his ambition. The ones that fall short of their goals will more likely alienate than unite the reader with the text. For all its annoyances and problems, Against Everything is a powerful book from an intensely disciplined writer who seems to have met the mission statement in his Preface:

And I speak as myself now, still learning to be different than I am.

Joining Greif on his journey towards transformation should be even more interesting as time progresses and he sees that sometimes its not best to juggle so much in an essay. Sometimes, like Thoreau was fond of noting, its all about coming to terms with the need to simplify.
Based on the authors mid-90s stay with her Chinese host family, Kaitlin Solomines debut novel adapts her experiences on a Fulbright scholarship. Solomine, in the guise of what father Baba and mother Li-Ming nickname Lao (familiar) K, dramatizes that couples history over the past half-century. Solomine strives to turn these tales about, so that the teller Li-Ming begins the narrative, but Baba about two-thirds of the way takes over  at least by way of his wifes manipulated perspective.

Lao K prefaces her translation of Li-Mings novel of the same title with the editorial admission that so much of what Im telling you is already imagined, reconfigured so convex angles are made concave, mirrors reflecting mirrors reflecting an uncertain, setting sun. That sun may stand for the pre-millennial, post-Mao plus-some China, which bulldozed and buried under skyscrapers and ring roads crushes whatever Beijing once boasted or lamented as its byways and hovels. From the start, Li-Mings approach reflects Lao K-by way of Solomines post-modern reluctance to claim the Chinese outlook as accessible to her own mindset.

Certainly this tamps down

Empire of Glass firmly within our centurys inculcated unease with any hint of appropriation or conjuring up of The Other or the Oriental. In one of many footnotes enabling her American voice to comment on the Chinese novel Solomine embeds within Lao Ks English-language artifact, the predicament of transmission from one register and two lives into literary fact as fiction reifies itself. Its snugly framed by the padded weight of a fattening diction.

The narrative spans Babas childhood learning his fathers trade of glass-grinding into lenses which, depending on the buyer, may gull or ease his sense of sight. Metaphors multiply, as Li-Mings courtship with Baba, re-educated in a rural desolation, conveys her own commitment to channel the occluded and nimble sensibility of Han Shan, the legendary 9th century poet known to us as Cold Mountain. His Daoist-Buddhist leanings tilt him towards the mystic, but his insistent return to the quotidian allows no reader to remain in the clouds. Li-Ming incorporates Cold Mountain, so much that Baba seems secondary to her love for this enigmatic recluse who wrote his verse onto the rocks.

We inherit the deaths created for us long before. Even as a teen, soon after the communist victory, Li-Ming looks back to Han Shan, and places her mortal span within whatever stoic wisdom those poems from the Tang dynasty sketch. Her outlook reverts back, despite her youth, to what hints as fate. Her future groom compares her to the swift, the bird which flies endlessly from the nest, never stopping for years and landing only to breed. The resulting story-line spins out their family life.

Yet, filtered at the removes of Li-Ming creating in third-person the indirect voice for Baba, then Baba emerging in first person through her imagination, and then Lao K conveying the manuscript through English translation, further mingling embellishment into whatever the real-life hosts of Karine Solomine as a teenager from the coast of Maine told her around twenty years ago, wellso many layers muffle the action. Momentum dwindles. Dullness settles. This assumed lassitude may faithfully express what the novel nods to in letters as confessions or secrets during Maos Cultural Revolution. This happens mostly off-stage, as the novel strives to capture, rather, the daily grind.

Yet it winds up drawing more attention, especially early on, to Solomines effort to create fresh images. In April, snow arrives: fallen catkin blossoms drifting to earth in a city overpopulated with poplars and willows, too many females of the species lending seeds, expectations unmet.

Empire of Glass in a previous draft earned awards; this diligent and meticulously rendered style expresses the hothouse invention of the literary milieu within which small presses publish experimental fiction.

Whether this encourages or enervates a patient reader depends on delight or tolerance of this mandarin approach. It can lighten up. Li-Mings cheery-faced older female friends Lao K describes as drifting in and out of the apartment like ants, unsuccessfully, to transport a rotting piece of fruit. It may nod to poesy, as on lazy Beijing afternoons with dust caught like a yawn between the suns fingers. But as most of the narrative relies on Li-Ming rather than Lao K, these initial, artsy touches dwindle into a quotidian fidelity true to routine. Some strain for effect when Li-Ming takes over.

On a cold autumn night, moons kissed mirrored reflections on frosted patches beneath gutters. This angles off a verse from Cold Mountain, but its trajectory skitters. Above the conscripted Baba as he stumbles through a muddled series of jumbled events on the wartime North Korean border, a fading full moon struggled against dawn, its face patronizing and sullen. Li-Mings in charge, but we hear the tone of Solomine through Lao K. Can the conceit of translation account for this doubling?

Ultimately, in the wake of Tiananmen Square, McDonalds stands as the go-to place to celebrate in Beijing during the stint of Lao Ks stay. By the time the novel-within-a-novel concludes, its Starbucks. Solomine chooses not to delve too deeply into Chinese complexity, even as naturally she strives to express the foreignness of the encounter she has had in fact and fiction. Characters from Chinese may or may not be hinted at or defined. Similarly, some romanized terms fail for a reader not acquainted with them to clarify through context. Not all mysteries of this East open to our West.

Solomine keeps at a studied distance despite Lao Ks immersion in China. Solomine acknowledges in the role of Lao K her ineradicable status as an outsider, no matter how intimately she addresses Baba and Li-Ming in their mother tongue. Lao K admits in passing to being suicidal at the age of 16, and the daughter of a mother who succumbed to that choice. Grim determination to not turn away from fate echoes from Cold Mountain. This stoic stance takes over as the narrative progresses, until its stubbornly if inevitably left hanging in the choking Beijing air.
I love silent movies. Silent film is a voluptuously expressive, entirely self-contained art form thats both of its time and often powerfully resonant, as critics like to say. Mostly I just sink into the images, spellbound, viewing another world quite different from my own yet directly connecting with it. Luckily for me, I live in the next best era for enjoying silent cinema.

The silent era supposedly ended with that fad known as the talkies, or at least thats the rumor, though silent techniques are still employed in commercials and music videos. Be that as it is, youll find more people watching silents today than during any decade since the 20s, thanks to a busy restoration and preservation industry that thrives through festivals, revivals, the internet and home video. Here I survey the recent output of several companies servicing this niche, and they arent the only ones. Its truly a time of wonder when I can be swamped in gloriously scored silents that look better than ever.

Milestones new double-DVD set, The Champion: A Story of Americas First Film Town, showcases a documentary a little over half an hour long, then provides an avalanche of bonus features to feed my silent jones.

The documentary concerns Fort Lee, New Jersey, located on the shore across from Manhattan. During the 1910s, the New York-based movie studios shot outdoor films here, and it quickly became a center for independent film companies that were trying to avoid the Patent Trust with which Thomas Edison harassed all film producers for several years. Avoiding the Trust was among the reasons that many companies relocated to California, along with the weather and a few other issues, but Fort Lee was for several years the center of Americas film production.

The film concentrates on one particular building purchased by Mark Dintenfuss for Champion Films in 1910. It was the towns first permanent studio, to be followed by many others, and this building remained standing until it was demolished in 2013. The documentary shows footage of this demolition and interviews members of the Fort Lee Film Commission, who produced this film to promote awareness of the areas history. Marc Perez directed the film as a straighforward collection of talking heads and old film clips narrated by critic Matt Zoller Seitz.

Among the other studios mentioned is Solax, destroyed by a fire. This studio is described as being owned and run by Alice Guy-Blache, the worlds first woman filmmaker and essentially the inventor of narrative cinema. Its noteworthy that the 1935 silent documentary included among the bonuses, Theodore Huff and Mark Borgattas

Ghost Town: The Story of Fort Lee, only ascribes Solax to her husband Herbert Blache  whos not even mentioned in The Champion. Historys a funny invention.



Champion: A Story of Americas First Film Town (Milestone)

The Champion is dedicated to the memory of Thomas Hanlon, who made the 1964 documentary Before Hollywood There was Fort Lee, N.J., available on DVD from Image with bonus films. The 1964 film is more concerned with showing film clips, while The Champion concentrates more on historical background. The same historian, Richard Koszarski, wrote liner notes for the Image DVD and wrote the book that inspired Milestones release, for which hes an associate producer.

As Ive indicated, the secret power behind Milestones package is all the extras. Aside from the 1935

Ghost Town doc, Disc One offers five one-reelers shot at Fort Lee, all with new piano scores by Ben Model. Three were Champion productions while two were products of Champions acquisition by Carl Laemmles pioneering Universal Film Manufacturing Company, which used the studio for its Victor series devoted to early movie star Florence Lawrence.

Dintenfuss is assumed to have directed

The Indian Land Grab (1910), one of a flourishing bucolic western sub-genre at this time known as Indian romances. Many of these were made by James Young Deer and his wife Red Wing (also known as Lillian St. Cyr), the latter even starring in Cecil B. DeMilles early Hollywood production The Squaw Man (1914), but well be here all day if we start digressing.

Anyway, the Indian romances portray Indians, here in full war feathers at all times so we can tell theyre Indians, as positive and noble people, often involved in interracial romance. We dont know who the actors are in this particular example, and its just possible some of them might even be Indians. This film must have been blazing a trail, for Koszarskis liner notes observe that contemporary reviews found the interracial affair offensive, whereas it was the central advertisement of

The Squaw Man only a few years later.

The primary action here involves the Indian hero going to Washington D.C. to prevent his tribes land being stolen by unscrupulous white politicians. He does this by posing and gesturing. One senator has thrown his daughter at the Indian as a ruse, leading the latter to kiss her in front of everyone and move his lips to Now shes mine! Then he leaves in a huff and the woman, ashamed at her part in the proceedings, falls in love for real and follows him with a letter from the President, presumably in Great White Father mode, which everyone assumes is worth the paper its written on. Celebration ensues.

Probably directed by Ulysses Davis, the 1911

Daughter of Dixie belongs to the flood of Civil War melodramas made to mark or cash in on its 50th anniversary. While the Indian film employed an old-fashioned series of four-square unbroken shots, usually introduced by a title card explaining whats about to happen, the Civil War film has annexed D.W. Griffiths style of suspenseful cross-cutting between the escaping Union sweetheart and the Dixie girl who holds a Confederate troop, including her own brother, at bay with a long rifle in the drawing room. Everyone is all very noble and the final shot shows no hard feelings anywhere. Good thing nobody died.

While the Indian film was in excellent shape, this print is poor and jittery, though not so bad as the nearly incoherent

Marked Cards (1913), one of the last Champion productions. Koszarski says it seems to derive from a bootlegged reissue. Its something about a woman made to marry a scoundrel to save her brother from prison and might be an example of a story invented on the fly.

The two Florence Lawrence pictures from 1912 show an attractive, spunky young woman who still projects the charisma that made her a star. Shes paired in both films with Owen Moore, who was then Mary Pickfords husband and liking it less and less.

Not Like Other Girls, directed by Lawrences husband Harry Solter, has the girl tease the boy without mercy until she changes her mind and conforms to expectations in the wake of tragedy. Flos Discipline finds her punishing a school of unruly boys and their master into submission.

A Grocery Clerks Romance (1912) is Mack Sennetts first release through his new Keystone company to showcase his own sense of comedy. The one-reeler makes hay with a plot about an anarchist bomb, a not inappropriate metaphor for Sennetts sensibility on the cinema scene. The hero (Ford Sterling) spends the movie hitting on a married woman by scrubbing her laundry while the husband goes drinking and gets himself tied up with bombs, to the lotharios joy. Rodney Sauer and the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra also provide joy, musically speaking.

Directed by Etienne Arnaud for the French Eclair company, the 1912

Robin Hood is the first film on its legendary subject. Beautifully tinted and toned, mostly in greens for its forest shots, it comes across as a handsomely mounted, somewhat ramshackle and barely coherent series of scenes, with much evidence that even its current 30-minute running time is missing material. Sauer and Mont Alto provide a lush, rousing score. The Fort Lee Film Commission restored this important item from a 16mm print that the original owner had previously tranferred from a decaying 35mm print before it fell apart. Most of the obvious deterioration is at the beginning.

Produced by Sam Goldwyn and directed by Harry Pollard, the one-hour 1918 feature

The Danger Game is a fluidly directed melodramatic comedy that showcases a charming performance by Madge Kennedy as a young madcap named Clytie (for Clytemnestra?) who falls for a slick cad and tries to experience life so she can write about it. Her fatcat daddy spoils her by printing her debut novel while saying things like, If you werent so old, what a lot of good spanking would do you. Then she meets another slumming masquerader (Tom Moore, older brother of Owen) who takes her to a dive that, just a couple of years later, would be a speakeasy.

We know where the storys going, and it does so with verve and without outwearing its welcome. This is another beautifully tinted print, in fine shape and well scored by Donald Sosin. This film is probably the one that delivers the most satisfactory aesthetic pleasures and might have headlined its own release if it were famous enough.

The 1925 blockbuster

The Lost World is very familiar to silent film fans and has floated around forever in prints running about an hour. Flicker Alley, in association with Lobster Films in France, has done a magnificent job in assembling all known elements, including an abridged Czech print discovered in the 90s, the standard one-hour American print made for 16mm personal sales, and  surprise  several reels discovered by a collector early in this century, into a 110-minute reconstruction that comes as close as possible to its original ten reels.

The full meticulous story of this restoration, supervised by the late David Shepard, is recounted in Serge Brombergs liner notes and in Nicolas Ciccones superbly informative commentary track. Ciccone even explains the technical differences between tinting (coloring the white portions of the image) and toning (the black portions).

What matters for the general viewer is that this thing looks beautiful. We can notice subtle differences in quality between various elements if we look for them, but most viewers will merely be enthralled by Arthur Conan Doyles story of a South American plateau where dinosaurs battle in stop-motion glory, as enhanced by Robert Israels score. With effects supervised by stop-motion animator Willis OBrien, this film was the forerunner to his work on

King Kong (1933), and it many ways its a similar story.

Wallace Beery plays the domineering Professor Challenger, with Lewis Stone and Arthur Hoyt (brother of the films director, Harry O. Hoyt) as his fellow fuddy-duddies along for the mission. Bessie Love and Lloyd Hughes provide bland romantic interest that doesnt waste too much time, while Bull Montana wears a very striking costume as a local apeman. The only annoying and mercifully minor element is the blackface performance by Jules Cowles as a useless appendage symbolized by his broken arm. Ciccone admits the embarrassing nature of this racism to modern viewers; he blames screenwriter Marion Fairfax for altering the character significantly from Conan Doyles novel, which he discusses in depth along with scenes cut from the script and other scenes filmed but cut prior to release.

The festival of extras include effects outtakes; a 1917 short made by OBrien for Thomas Edison thats basically a forerunner of

The Flintstones using stop-motion cavemen; The Ghost of Slumber Mountain, the 1918 film by Herbert M. Dawley and OBrien thats controversial over the degree of OBriens involvement in the stop-motion dinosaurs (the men had a falling out); and test footage from an unfinished OBrien project called Creation (1930).



Joseph Depew and Helen Rowland in Timothys Quest (1922) (IMDB)

In its admirable determination to make silent films available to anyone who wants to spend a buck, Flicker Alley has embarked on a program of made-on-demand discs, including some Blu-rays of otherwise impossible-to-find titles. One of these is a superb discovery called

Timothys Quest. This 1922 production is the only feature made by Dirigo Film Company, a regional outfit devoted to making films in Maine and based on Maine writers.

For this first and last effort, Dirigo employed two ringers. Popular author Kate Douglas Wiggin, a regional sentimentalist most famous for

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, contributed her own house for the filming of her story. The director was veteran pioneer Sidney Olcott, whose most famous extant film is the 1912 Kalem feature shot in Palestine, From the Manger to the Cross. His visual command is evident from the opening frames, which sets the scene with a bare stage indicating a messy slum alley, then abruptly superimposes the welter of human subjects who populate it with bustling life.

Whether composing for lighting effects, placing the camera on a wagon, or indulging subjective moments via in-camera tricks to reveal the characters thoughts, he fashions a beautifully made film  as we can fully appreciate, since this print is in great shape, with lovely tints and a score by Eric W. Cook and the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

Olcott, a former actor, is excellent with the actors. He extracts natural and winning performances from child stars Joseph Depew and Helen Roland, who play orphans, while the adults walk a delicate and credible line between comic caricatures and the pathos of pain buried under those facades. The implied backstory involves unwed pregnancy and death, along with repressed romantic feelings and pride, that give bite to what would otherwise seem easy sentiment. Instead, like the best sentiment, it aint so easy, and this gives its directness an impact.



A Page of Madness / Kurutta ippeji (1926) (IMDB)

This picture is a remarkable discovery because I hadnt heard of it, whereas the on-demand Blu-ray of Teinosuke Kinugasas 1926 Japanese film

A Page of Madness is remarkable because Ive seen the movie twice before, and it was always the same miserably faded print. This digital scan of a 16mm print, while very far from like new, is still something of a revelation in that the directors avalanche of avant-garde visual techniques yields a clear, comprehensible image that whirls into a stew approaching his original, independent, determinedly art-based vision.

In the scenario by future Nobel-winning author Yasunari Kawabata, a man (Masao Inoue) works at a mental asylum because his wife is a patient, and he fears for the future of his marriageable daughter. The viewer can gather much of this from the striking mix of expressionism and visual trickery, which include funhouse mirrors and multiple superimpositions. The film leaves most of the story to the viewers interpretation (which would have included the Japanese narrators public performance, absent here) as the man may or may not be infected by his surroundings into his own descent into madness. A new score by the Alloy Orchestra proves up to the avant-garde nature of the imagery and visual rhythms.

Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), psychoanalysis, and a Japanese literary movement emphasizing the senses and emotions, as explained in a bonus segment of academics discussing the film. In the absence of the Japanese narrator, or

benshi, we have a somewhat non-narrative, atmospheric film that begins with a dancing woman and ends with dreams about wearing masks and the repressed anger of the serving class and the mans despair. According to the historian in the bonus, were missing a concluding scene that resolves one of the storys issues.

But thats not all! In a generous move, this feature is paired with another short experimental feature: Henwar Rodakiewiczs

Portrait of a Young Man, shot from 1925 to 1931 with no particular plan except to explore the concepts of visual movement and repetition with various effects. The opening titles explain that its a portrait in terms of what its maker likes: the sea, leaves, smoke, machinery, sunlight, the interplay of forms and rhythms. These floating, swirling, elemental visual textures, showing the most fundamental use of black and white in nearly abstract patterns, are scored impressionistically on piano by Judith Rosenberg. The film is structured in three movements to emphasize its nature as a visual symphony.

More Classics Go DigitalKino Lorber, the pioneer in putting silents on home video since the VHS era, continues to reissue some of their previous DVDs in the Blu-ray format with new extras.



Gloria Swanson in Zaza (1923) Photo by Hulton Archive   Image courtesy Getty Images (IMDB)

Zaza (1923), the first of eight collaborations between diva Gloria Swanson and director Allan Dwan, finds the glamorous Swanson combining the elegance of her recent sophisticated roles with the physical comedy of her stint with Mack Sennett for an appealing romantic melodrama. As Dwan historian Frederic Lombardi explains in a commentary, the original French play was a workhorse that had served many divas in France and the US, and there had been an opera and a previous silent film.

The whole point of the story had been that a showgirl forsakes her affair with a married man because she cant have him exclusively. She suffers nobly in renunciation, which incidentally satisfies middle-class morality after keeping the audience titillated. By updating the 19th Century tale for the jazz age, the filmmakers also modernize the morality to a certain extent. In a whirlwind of emotions, Zaza tranforms from an impetuous, cat-fighting, lower-class strumpet who makes a feathered and frilled spectacle of herself in swings and gazebos into a woman of maturity and nobility wont allow herself to wreck a family by becoming the other woman.

Incidentally, its good for her career as a serious artist as she moves from the music hall to the legitimate theatre as the timeline skips handily over the Great War, so there could be a message about borrowing conventional middle-class respectability vs. earning it oneself as well as a message about how the war changed everything. Shes rewarded for her decisions over the course of time in a manner thats sensible and non-sensational and sent the audience out with a sigh and a satisfied tear.

Swanson handles the emotions and costumes with conviction, not to mention style, while Dwans photographers and designers create a handsome and smooth production for Paramount. The new piano score by Jeff Rapsis uses the 1923 cue sheet, with its recurring motif of Plaisir DAmour to denote the stages in Zazas maturity.



Louise Brooks and Richard Arlen in Beggars of Life (1928)  1928 Collection George Eastman House (IMDB)

Swanson didnt make the transition to talkies very well, and someone who made it even less well was Louise Brooks. William Wellmans

Beggars of Life (1928), her best Hollywood film before she went to Germany and made two masterpieces for G.W. Pabst, casts her as a teenager who dresses up as a boy to mix among hobos and train-jumpers in a parallel world of poor fugitives known to author Jim Tully, who wrote the original book.

The film opens in a beautifully evocative fashion, as a tramp (Richard Arlen) enters a farmers house to beg for food and discovers the man has just been killed by his orphaned ward/servant (Brooks), who offers a vivid flashback of defending herself from his advances. The story becomes something of a slice-of-life road movie about these drifters, and the girls disguise is exposed by a master hobo called Oklahoma Red (Wallace Beery), who makes all kinds of trouble before an unlikely heroic ending with the exciting destruction of a train.

Brooks scholar Thomas Gladysz provides a very informative commentary on this excellent restoration, and a looser, more personal commentary comes from the directors son, William Wellman Jr., who states that this was his fathers favorite of his silent productions. Thats saying something, since Wellman made

Wings (1927). Both commenters observe that while Beggars of Life was well-reviewed, it didnt do very well, perhaps because it didnt match the tenor of a decade that was still roaring right before the Crash.

And thats not all

Weve mentioned that Ben Model provided scores to some of the one-reelers on Milestones DVD of

The Champion. In addition, Models own Undercrank Productions offers Kickstarter-funded DVDs on demand through Amazon, and two arrive in time for Halloween. The spookiest is the double feature of Whispering Shadows (1921), a one-hour feature paired with the 1917 short The Devils Assistant.

The latter is, surprise, another classy production from Harry Pollard, who made the above-mentioned

The Danger Game. Its highlighted by red-tinted hallucinations of a smoky hell in which sinners writhe on the ground and in the lake while a winged devil teases them. The real-life devil is the greedy doctor who peddles morphine and tries to lure the heroine into a fate worse than debt.

As for the main feature, Emile Chautards

Whispering Shadows is a bit of tommyrot in which the heroine (Lucy Cotton) receives frustratingly vague psychic vibes from her late parents in a manner almost too late to save her beau (Robert Barrat) from a convoluted embezzlement plot with a handsome villain (Philip Merivale). This edition comes from a Library of Congress print in a home-use 28mm format, while the short film was preserved from deteriorating 35mm nitrate print and is housed at USCs Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive. Both films have new organ scores by Andrew E. Simpson, and these are effective in amping up the spooky moments.

Although none of the three films on

Lon Chaney: Before the Thousand Faces are horror movies or place special makeup demands on Chaney, this disc counts as a Halloween treat for his fans. All three movies are missing some reels, though Chaneys roles seem to be complete in each one, and the missing material is covered with title cards. Jon C. Mirsales has produced and scored these digital restorations of Universal Productions that were all directed by Joseph De Grasse and written by his wife Ida May Park, who was also a director.

Chaney plays a backwoods brute in

A Mothers Atonement (1915), which provides a dual role for Cleo Madison as the brutes daughter and her own mother, both of whom escape the forest for the dangers of the big city. The two 1916 productions are vehicles for Dorothy Phillips. If My Country Should Call is a rather wet tale of a woman so afraid of having her husband and son killed in war that she sabotages her sons health; this was propaganda anticipating eventual US involvement in the Great War, and incorporating contemporary rumors of war with Mexico  events mentioned in the Dawson City film were about to get to, so hold that thought.

The last and strangest tale is

The Place Beyond the Winds, in which Phillips heroine begins as a backwoods girl so oppressed by her over-religious father that she creates her own pagan god (a cow skull) who allows her to sing and dance. Theres a lot going on in a story that includes a local fugitive (played by De Grasse) who killed a man for seducing a woman back home, an Indian half-breed (Chaney) who lusts after the heroine and later has a change of heart, and various city slickers and country bumpkins. The rural scenes take up most of the surviving footage and are handled briskly and picturesquely.



Mae Marsh in Polly of the Circus (1917), one of the films from the Dawson City collection. (Kino Lorber)

Two of these three Chaneys come from the cache of films discovered in 1978 at the Yukon town of Dawson City, where theyd been buried and frozen, and that happens to be the topic of Bill Morrisons

Dawson City: Frozen Time. He collages a multitude of clips with onscreen titles to present the history of this town, founded during the Yukon gold rush of the late 1890s and displacing indigenous natives to do so.

Its a boom-and-bust story of consolidation and eventual stagnation that keeps circling back to the towns movie theatres, which were at the end of the distribution line. The films were stored because studios didnt want to pay return shipping, and hundreds of reels were eventually used to fill in a swimming pool, where they remained buried in permafrost for decades. The National Archive of Canada and the Library of Congress have restored 533 reels comprising 372 partially decomposed silent films, usually the only remnants of these titles.

Morrison uses clips from 124 of the rediscovered movies to comment on the towns history, including clips from newsreels to highlight stories of capitalism, labor and race relations in a broad American context. He also incorporates clips from elsewhere, such as Charles Chaplins

The Gold Rush. Alex Sommers scores the films with a brooding modern ambience, himself contributing piano, mellotron, sampler, celeste, metallophone, bowed vibraphone, harp, guitar, sub bass, percussion and abstract vocals. We hear various other strings, gongs, and a four-voice female choir. The result is a meditation on silent cinema and times passage that feels tuned in to today.

The sampled films include the aforementioned Chaney item

If My Country Should Call, Thomas Edisons The Butler and the Maid (a 1912 decomposed fragment also available as a bonus), D.W. Griffiths Brutality (a 1912 segment, also included as a bonus, about a wife terrorized by a drunken brute of a husband), Tod Brownings The Exquisite Thief (a 1919 reel, also provided as a bonus, in which a glamorous woman robs a dinner party at gunpoint and gets in a car chase), and several titles wed love to see: Maurice Tourneurs The Closed Road, A Girls Folly and The Rail Rider (all from 1916), Ida May Parks Bread (1918), Allan Dwans The Half-Breed (1916), Lois Webers The Scandal Mongers (1915) and The Mysterious Mrs. M (1916), Alice Guys The Pit and the Pendulum (1913), and Grace Cunard and Francis Ford co-directing and co-starring in The Purple Mask (1916).

So many silent films, so much frozen time, so little liquid time. Its a happy problem.
Two years ago, longtime companions but independent artists Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams released their eponymous debut record to near-universal acclaim. Both are widely respected veterans of the music industry. Campbell is a veteran of both Bob Dylans and Levon Helms touring bands as well as a much sought after studio musician (assisting in projects with Little Feat, Phil Lesh, and Jorma Kokkonen) and producer (David Bromberg Band, Hot Tuna, Richard Shindell). It was his long association with Helm that lit the fire for him to pursue his muse and turn his talents to songwriting and producing for himself. Williams, meanwhile, has contributed vocals to a range of artists including Peter Wolf, Buddy Miller, Elizabeth Mitchell, and Amy Helm.

Campbell and Williams follow up Contraband Love offers 11 more cuts of prime Americana, great songwriting, and masterful playing but with a darker tone. The album cover photo finds Campbell and Williams posed and poised in a room that has seen better times, its wallpaper torn and faded, the wood floor unswept and dust-covered, the windows covered by dingy curtains that filter the sunlight into sepia-toned gold. Its an apt image to convey the mood of the albums eleven songs outlining promises unkept and love displaced or mishandled, often in the face of addiction and loss.

In The Other Side of Pain, Williams sings from the perspective of the other woman, the lover in the shadows, denied the full benefits of her hearts investment: Hows it look from the other side where the sun shines / And you can be happy in the light of day? Save Me From Myself finds Williams singing from another damaged perspective, this one the addict who would drag down anyone who loves them, a theme picked up in the title song where Williams sings of holding onto a self-destructive lover, knowing that the potential for breaking any fall is minimal: But the angels have all begun to cry / They cant help a liar who believes his own lies. Campbells mandolin combine with Glenn Paschas mournful accordion and Justin Guips airy brush strokes on drums to create a sense of lightness before the dark sets in. Campbell himself gives voice to the addicts struggle in Three Days in a Row, amplifying the sense of how brief success in keeping clean only adds weight to those external forces that would drag the addict back into self-prescribed oblivion.





But all is not darkness or the seduction of oblivions sweet embrace. The duos harmonized vocals on Carl Perkins exquisitely phrased love song Turn Around are alight with the spark of their longtime commitment, the instrumentation, which features one of Levon Helms final performances on drums, loping along in a close-dancing spiral. Campbells own When I Stop Loving You follows to keep the dancers on the floor in a close, slow embrace while he and Williams sing of the sun going out and the stars falling before their love will ever find its end. Meanwhile, the honky-tonk stomp of It Aint Gonna Be a Good Night argues the importance of holding onto each other, come what may.

In all, Campbell and Williams have created another great album of new songs that evoke the old classics of the roadways (and roadhouses) stretching along the Deep South between Nashville and New Orleans and the lesser-known, dustier trails along the way. Americana risks becoming a tagline for any group with a banjo and some bib overalls, but when done right and true, like here, one understands that the label is a compendium beyond its parts. The true Americana isnt a sound; its a feeling. Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams make you feel it with every song.
The global economic crisis of 2007-2008 plunged numerous nations into austerity. Like previous recessions, the poor and working-class suffered the most. Portugal, which joined the EU with Spain in 1987, was one of the worst affected European countries, requiring a bailout of 79 billion. Its residents experienced unexpected tax hikes and budget cuts, and many became unemployed for the first time in their lives. Hugo Santos, vocalist and guitarist for the Portuguese doom/post-metal act Process of Guilt, recalls living as a metal musician in such a financially devastated country.

The economic downturn was especially hard for the vast majority of Portuguese people, Santos begins. It affected our lives, our jobs, ending with some of us having to move to other cities in search of work. It had a strong impact on Process of Guilt, from our rehearsal routines to limiting our chances to tour outside Portugal. It consolidated our perspective about a world ruled and ruined by egomaniacs whose only desire is to have more power, more money, more possessions. It helped us to realize that if we cant change the world, at least we can change our perspective about the world.

He continues, There were too many years of listening about the financial crisis, about all the sacrifices we should do in order to make a couple of guys more wealthy and happy, about all the sins that we made in the past and that the [Portuguese governments] austerity program was a sort of redemption. After eight years I cant understand why all this was necessary. The taxes are still overwhelming, the wages are still low, and the prices are still rising, so, from my perspective, everything looks the same or worse.

Indeed, things do appear worse when you also consider the current political unrest and the amount of mass killings happening worldwide on what seems like a weekly basis, not to mention increased racial tension and the irreparable destruction of our natural environment. Nobody is unaffected. With their latest album, Black Earth, Process of Guilt try to make sense of the chaos we live in by drawing parallels between our outward destruction of Earth and the internal pain we can cause ourselves. Hugo is quick to point out, however, that while he discusses personal/global experiences, the album does not have an overarching concept.

We dont have a strictly socio-political tone to the album, he says, instead our approach is based around thoughts that we believe are the root of the disorder we see every day. Right now, it seems that our main way of living is to judge everything as quickly as we can, in order to make statements to reaffirm our egos, again and again.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=http://processofguilt.bandcamp.com/album/black-earth target=_blank&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://processofguilt.bandcamp.com/album/black-earth&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;BLACK EARTH by PROCESSOFGUILT&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=http://processofguilt.bandcamp.com/album/black-earth target=_blank&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://processofguilt.bandcamp.com/album/black-earth&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;BLACK EARTH by PROCESSOFGUILT&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

You can tell by the quality of Black Earths five tracks that Process of Guilt are not only deep-thinkers but also meticulous song-writers, focused on condensing musical and lyrical ideas to their most potent forms. Their location in the world  a country not particularly known for its metal scene outside of the work of the legendary Moonspell and a handful of lesser-known black metal acts which formed in later years  has given the band a resolute DIY work ethic. On the one hand, Hugo says that the upside of being a DIY band is the total freedom they have to make the music they want to create without undue label pressures or interferences. On the other, he admits the DIY approach comes with its own problems.

The major difficulty is obviously the lack of monetary support, notes the songwriter, and the low media exposure. If to this scenario you add our geographical location, away from the European center, and from the major touring routes, its a perfect headache for a band. Today we still see the same tours with the same bands that made their success in the 90s and almost every new band that appeared during the 00s has had to find their own way in a vicious world, sometimes without any support whatsoever besides from their own fans.

Twenty-five years ago, long before life got complicated in the ways highlighted above, Hugo was introduced to heavy metal through the usual genre figureheads  Iron Maiden and Metallica. However, it was a certain Teutonic thrash acts seminal albums which cracked open the gateway to extremity for him.

I remember listening to Kreators Extreme Aggression and Coma of Soul on the same tape back in 1992, and everything changed afterwards. By then I was already in touch with heavy metal, but Extreme Aggression was the first album that opened my ears to more underground styles. From those early times, I remember a few bands that were huge to me, and still are in one way or another, like Entombed  the Clandestine tape was played to its maximum resistance  Autopsy, along with so many others that were releasing awesome music Sepultura, Death, Carcass, Obituary, Napalm Death, Godflesh, Ministry, Gorefest

Process of Guilt subsumed the deafening sounds released by the above-mentioned bands, amongst others, to forge their own music. As of today, their closest contemporary comparison is probably Gojira  albeit if they were influenced more by Celtic Frost, Unsane or Swans rather than Morbid Angel or Meshuggah. Black Earth highlight Feral Ground, for instance, is pure primal power; its gnashing main riff a punishing lesson in rhythmic control. Because of concise, forceful songs like Feral Ground and the title track, Black Earth is by far the finest album this group has released.

We also consider this to be our strongest release to date, Hugo agrees. We just tried to be as focused as we could be [during recording] and did our best at that particular time. Our songwriting process is based on a trial-and-error method. We like to take our time to explore rhythms until we find the right one. We do throw away a lot of music that we feel is not good enough by our own standards and sometimes this slows down the creation process in a nerve-wracking way.

Were told that it wasnt until the late 90s/early 00s that metal bands started to pop up everywhere in Portugal. Prior to that the metal scene was very small and centered around one or two bigger bands located near the main cities. Those bands were still at very embryonic stages, and recording studios were clueless as to how to track their music. For then-burgeoning musicians like Hugo, interested to explore metals slower stylings, the Gothic doom-death of The Peaceville Three proved influential and many bands formed as a consequence.

The first releases of Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, and Anathema caused a huge impression in the Portuguese underground, Hugo confirms, and subsequently Sculptures EP Like a Dead Flower, Inhumans Strange Desire, Heavenwoods Diva, and Desires Infinity produced slow and heavy music that attracted a lot of people. There were also other bands with some doom parts in their music but one way or another they didnt manage to record full-lengths. I dont know if those bands started a movement in Portugal, especially because all of them were geographically apart, but there was a feeling that an audience existed in Portugal for those doomier bands.

When Process of Guilt started, some of the previously mentioned acts were already disbanded, and there wasnt a proper scene happening anywhere [in Portugal], he explains. Right now, there still arent many bands playing heavy and slower music, besides Wells Valley or Sinistro. But were still here, and we definitely feel part of the Portuguese underground music scene.

Process of Guilts original line-up remains intact despite going through ups and downs over the last 15 years. What do they attribute the stability to?

Its one of those things we dont spend too much time thinking about, Hugo says. [Process of Guilt] is something that we do, and need to do. Its part of what we are. But, it has been a while, and we acknowledge that what weve accomplished in the past has helped build what we are today. At the beginning only Nuno [David, guitars] and I were friends, and I was in touch with Goncalo [Correia, drums], who had already played with Custodio [Rato, bass] in another group. So when I thought about starting a band, they were the first names that popped in my head. It just happened that we connected really well and never envisioned this band in any other way. We had some bumps throughout the process, but we share the same purpose in making heavy music as Process of Guilt and, so far, its still working for us.

Process of Guilts dogged DIY survival during harsh economic times in a country not particularly well-known on a global level for its metal is proof that if you continue to stubbornly follow your passion good things can happen. The sweetest fruit of their labors to date, Black Earth, is undoubtedly one of the best metal albums to come from Portugal  the personal and professional struggles Process of Guilt have experienced have been positively channeled into art reflective of the tense, recession-battered environment it was created in.

Where we come from will always play an influence in what we do, Hugo concludes. We are a product of this context. We want to take our music everywhere we possibly can. We are committed to doing that.
If legend and half-remembered first-hand accounts are to be believed, going to see the Replacements in their heyday was something of a gamble. Either you got a blistering set from one of the greatest rock n roll bands ever to traverse the United States, or you got a shambling mess of a performance replete with tongue-in-cheek covers of country standards and glam-rock also-rans. (The bands alcohol intake prior to hitting the stage was the primary determining factor as to which version of the band you got.)

For Sale: Live At Maxwells 1986 offers both sides of that dangerous coin for audience who either never got to experience the chaos of the Replacements in person or for those who are willing to relive what had to be a frenetic night of booze and rock. This is the Replacements at their finest and their most frustrating.

The mere existence of a live Replacements record conjures thoughts of the dingiest, worst-sounding bootleg tape youd have ever heard in your life, but For Sale is not that. The show, recorded at the famed Hoboken club Maxwells around the time of the bands infamous Saturday Night Live performance, was recorded with the intention of releasing a live album alongside the brilliant Tim. However, the chaos surrounding the band that year  which culminated in the departure of guitarist Bob Stinson  meant that the recordings were lost to time, forgotten by the time the band went to record Pleased to Meet Me later that year. Seymour Stein pushed for the live Replacements album, hoping that capturing the bands frenetic live energy would make them even more of a sensation. The veracity of that statement is irrelevant, yet another line of woulda, coulda, shouldas in the Replacements history, but For Sale definitely captures that aspect of the bands storied past, for better and for worse.

If the Replacements knew that they were being recorded for an album, they certainly gave no indication of that. For Sale is defiantly off-the-cuff in its approach. The band dont even bother to introduce themselves, choosing instead to launch right into a few of the more rocking songs in their catalog (Hayday, Color Me Impressed, and Dose of Thunder) before Westerberg uses a tuning break to lead the rest of the band into an impromptu cover of the Sweets Fox on the Run. The rest of the show is filled with stop-start improvisation, with Westerberg prematurely ending Left of the Dial before its blissful coda to jump into God Damn Job.

Yet, even as the band are less than concentrated on their performance, theyre still capable of moments of absolute transcendence. Early in the set, the band deliver the one-two punch of Unsatisfied and Cant Hardly Wait, and they more than do each song justice. (Wait was still in the early stages of completion here, but the more guitar-heavy rendition might appeal to a certain strand of Mats fan.) They give Answering Machine even more of a dramatic sweep with a full-band rendition that is somehow even more of a gut-punch than the original. And, though their Sweet cover leaves a bit to be desired, they more than do justice with T. Rexs Baby Strange and the Beatles Nowhere Man. (Kiss Black Diamond is also here, but anyone with a copy of Let It Be knows that they spun crap into gold with that one.) While the band ended the set abruptly with the short and snotty Fuck School, their innate skill as live performers often overcomes their need to not give a shit.

While the live performances are only a part of the Replacements legend, theyre a crucial one that we sadly might never see again. When the band briefly reunited in 2013-2014, they were as tight and as enjoyable as ever, but that devious nature and mischievous spirit seemed lost to time. Its likely that Seymour Steins prediction was incorrect and that For Sale would have turned off mainstream audiences had it been released in 1986. However, for those of us now who recognize the Replacements as the messy, brilliant rock band that they were, this album provides an even more complete portrait.
Expressing confidence that the two islands can form a closer relationship, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen yesterday paid a short, "unofficial" visit to members of the Legislature and executive branch of Guam gathered at the Latte of Freedom.

After standing in solidarity with the United States over the recent lone-wolf terrorist attack in New York, President Tsai referenced Guam and Taiwan's past economic partnerships and hinted at further friendly economic ties.

"We are cooperating on the promotion of trade and economic environment, which will benefit both our societies," Tsai said, later adding, "This partnership is strong but I know we can do more. We look forward to discussing with Gov. Calvo and your team to find further areas of potential."

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Gov. Eddie Calvo shared the Taiwan leader's wish for continued economic opportunities.

"As your friend and neighbor, we look forward to working together with you and the people of Taiwan in fostering our relationship, and building a future that is beneficial to all those in the region."

The Taiwan president was on Guam as part of her first visit to the Pacific nations that still recognize her country, officially known as the Republic of China. Only 22 nations in the world still maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan. China, which does not recognize Taiwan as a country separate from its own nation, had strongly objected to Tsai's recent trips in the region.

Tsai's first stop was in Hawaii, where she visited the USS Arizona Memorial. She was in the Marshall Islands on Monday, paid a visit to Tuvalu on Wednesday and on Thursday visited the Solomon Islands.

Gov. Calvo himself led a delegation to Taiwan on Oct. 27, where he paid a courtesy visit to Tsai at the Presidential Office in Taipei.

'Longstanding relationship'

According to Sen. Dennis Rodriguez Jr., the only legislator to respond to inquiries from The Guam Daily Post, President Tsai's visit was a transit stop that included her meeting with local Taiwanese-Guamanian community members, and civic and local leaders.

"Just like we extend to other visiting dignitaries, it is important we express the people of Guam's Hafa Adai Spirit and warmest welcome her in celebration," Rodriguez told the Post. "It is important for us to remember the longstanding relationship our island has with the people of Taiwan, including the sister-city agreement between Taipei and Guam signed nearly 45 years ago."

However, the visit also comes after reports that China has been conducting military exercises that test U.S. defense zones around Guam, and which are "practicing" an attack on the island, as part of an effort to normalize Chinese gains in the South China Sea, according to Defense News.

China has been described by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, as the long-term challenge in the region, Defense News stated.

The U.S. State Department said Tsai's visits were based on longstanding U.S. practice consistent with unofficial relations with Taiwan, according to Reuters.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 06:41:18

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Suprarenal glands, also called adrenal glands, are triangular glands located on top of both kidneys. These glands produce hormones which help to regulate bodys immune system, blood pressure, and other essential homeostasis functions. Adrenal cortical hormones, also termed as steroid hormones, are polycyclic molecules that are produced in the adrenal gland by adrenal cortex located in its outer region. Adrenal cortical hormones are structurally similar to cholesterol and play a crucial role in regulating bodys response to physical injury, physiological stress, infection, chemical imbalances, and other functions in the body. Based on function, these hormones are categorized into three classes: androgens, mineralocorticoids, and glucocorticoids. Androgens, also called sex hormones, are responsible for promotion and maturation of human reproductive organs. Glucocorticoids process carbohydrates and fats, while mineralocorticoids are responsible for maintaining electrolyte concentration in the body.Get PDF Brochure for more Professional & Technical industry insights: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=31292 Adrenal glands can cause serious health issues by either increasing production of certain hormones or producing too little. This leads to hormonal imbalances in human body. These anomalies of the adrenal glands functioning can be caused by numerous diseases/disorders of the pituitary gland or adrenal glands. Disorders due to adrenal deficiency is one of the most common disease that occurs worldwide. Adrenal deficiency might result in severe abdominal pain, depression, extremely low blood pressure, muscle weakness, weight loss, and others. Adrenal deficiency occurs primarily due to impairment of adrenal glands, pituitary glands, or the hypothalamus. It has been estimated that globally out of 100,000 people, one to four individuals is affected with Addisons disease in all the age groups and the sexes. Additionally, nearly one in 10,000 people is affected by Addisons disease in the U.K. Hence, increasing incidence of people suffering from adrenal deficiency due to changing lifestyle is a major driver of the adrenal cortical hormones and derivatives market. However, rise in cost of treatment, side effects in some of the treatments, are lack of reimbursement policies in developing countries are factors hampering the growth of the global adrenal cortical hormones and derivatives market.Various disorders such as Cushings syndrome, Addisons disease, and others are caused due to imbalance of these hormones. Several screening tests such as ACTH stimulation test and CRH stimulation test are performed to check adrenal deficiency. Similarly, ultrasound or X-ray test of abdomen is performed to detect the presence of calcium deposition which may indicate signs of bleeding in adrenal gland or tuberculosis. Several medications such as replacement corticoids are available for the treatment of adrenal deficiency.The global adrenal cortical hormones and derivatives market can be segmented based on type of disorder and end-user. In terms of type of disorder, the market can be classified into Cushings syndrome, Addisons disease, and others. Based on end-user, the global adrenal cortical hormones and derivatives market can be segmented into hospitals, diagnostic centers, academic & research institutes, and others.Geographically, the global adrenal cortical hormones and derivatives market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America holds a major share of the market due factors such as presence of key players, technological advancements in the region, well-established health care infrastructure with reimbursement policies. The adrenal cortical hormones and derivatives market in Asia Pacific is expected to grow rapidly in the next few years due to increase in geriatric population, investments by key industries, and government initiatives to invest in health care.Request for Report ToC: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=31292 Key players in the global adrenal cortical hormones and derivatives market are Pfizer, Inc. Novartis International AG, Sanofi, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline plc, Merck & Co., Inc., and AbbVie, Inc.
Asia Pacific Biosimilars Market by type, by Technology, Mass Spectroscopy, Chromatography and Others), by Application (Oncology and Blood Diseases, Growth hormone deficiencies and others), by Region - Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecasts (20162021)

Asia Pacific Biosimilars Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 08:17:19

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According to the report Asia Pacific Biosimilars Market, published by Market Data Forecast, the market is projected to reach USD 4.05 billion by 2021, at a CAGR of 39% from 2016 to 2021.Biosimilar is a biological product, identical to the original and is estimated to possess active properties, very similar to what was previously licensed. Biosimilars can be produced only when the patent for the original product expires.Biosimilars are made from living cells that have the capability to treat diseases using recombinant DNA technology and controlled gene expression. Most of the biosimilars are made from bacteria, viruses, plants and animals. Biosimilar drugs are used in prevention and cure of various diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, chronic kidney failure, oncology, diabetes, heart attacks, autoimmune diseases, growth hormone deficiency, and infectious disease.Get a comprehensive overview of the Biosimilars Market: http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/asia-pacific-biosimilars-market-1145/ Biosimilars Market: Drivers & RestraintsThe growth of Biosimilars Market is driven by competitive edge over branded drugs due to cost-effectiveness. Limited healthcare resources across many countries result in underutilization of important biosimilars for conditions such as cancer and rheumatoid arthritis, largely due to their cost and a lack of proper support from state-run programs. These factors contribute to below optimal adoption of clinical practice recommendations and poor care across the region. Factors restraining the growth of market are strict regulations set up by FDA, high manufacturing costs and the alternatives of lower priced generic drugs.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Biosimilars Market. Request a sample to stay up-to-date on the main trends affecting this market: http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/asia-pacific-biosimilars-market-1145/request-sample Biosimilars Market: SegmentationBy Product Type Protein Insulin Human Growth Hormones Granulocyte Colony-stimulating Factor (G-CSF) Interferons Recombinant Glycosylated Proteins Erythropoietin Monoclonal Antibodies Follitropin Recombinant Peptides Glucagon CalcitoninBy Applications Chronic Diseases Autoimmune Diseases Blood disorders Oncology disease Growth Hormone DeficiencyFrom simple data collation through secondary and primary research to ad-hoc research requests relating to specific information, we provide our services via customization. Get customization at http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/asia-pacific-biosimilars-market-1145/customize-report Biosimilars Market: OverviewBiosimilars have accounted for large percentage in the Pharmaceutical expenditure but relatively lower amount of prescriptions. Strategic collaborations resulting in enhanced productivity and clinical trial activities for biosimilars, and increasing government support and initiatives to develop and promote biosimilars. Oncology segment is expected to grow at a higher CAGR due to rising prevalence of cancer cases. Biosimilars for conditions such as breast cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and non-small cell lung cancer are presently being developed and may soon be out in the market.Biosimilars Market: Region-wise OutlookBased on Regional Analysis, this region is further categorized in to India, China, Korea, Japan and others. Asia-Pacific is the fastest growing market for biosimilars because of low manufacturing expenses, availability of skilled and cheap labour, lenient regulations laid by governments. In fact, governments are encouraging the use of biosimilars. For example, the government of India provides various necessary and regulatory procedures for the usage of biosimilars products. In addition, low costs of biosimilars attract consumers to use these products over synthetic and biological drugs in the Asian countries. Increased co-operation between manufacturing companies, and the outsourcing of biosimilar products are acting as an impetus for biosimilars market. However, high manufacturing cost and complexity, and the availability of low priced generic drugs in the market are some of the major restraints of biosimilars market are facing.Key Questions Answered What is the current and future Biosimilars Market outlook in Asia Pacific? What trends are affecting the market? What is the competitive landscape and market share of major players in the Biosimilars Market space in Asia Pacific? What are the key, high growth markets that Biosimilars Market manufacturers should expand into? Which market segments are growing the fastest? What are the unmet needs with the Biosimilars currently on the market? How will emerging technologies fulfil these unmet needs? What is patient perception and market outlook of Biosimilars? What are the challenges and barriers that have hindered widespread adoption of Biosimilars?Biosimilars Market: Key PlayersSome of the major companies dominating the market, by their products include Sandoz International GmbH, Wockhardt Ltd, Hospira, Inc., Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Dr. Reddys Laboratories, Biocon Limited, Mylan, Inc., Zydus Cadila, Celltrion Inc., Roche Diagnostics and Cipla Ltd.Checkout other related studies in the Pharmaceuticals Devices Segment:Asia-Pacific Anticoccidial Drugs Market: http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/asia-pacific-anticoccidial-drugs-market-24/ Asia-Pacific Therapeutic Vaccines Market: http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/asia-pacific-therapeutic-vaccines-market-77/ Asia-pacific Nuclear Medicine Radiopharmaceuticals Market: http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/asia-pacific-nuclear-medicine-radiopharmaceuticals-market-132/ About Market Data Forecast:Market Data Forecast is a firm working in the area of market research and business intelligence. With rich experience in research across various business domains, they cater to the needs of both individual and corporate clients. From all-encompassing umbrella markets to extremely specific niche markets covering all the major regions across the globe as part of the research scope, their research services offer one of a kind specialities with competitive pricing options.For more information, kindly visit, www.marketdataforecast.com Contact:Abhishek ShuklaSales Manager (International Business Development)Market Data ForecastDirect Line: +1-888-702-9626Mobile: +91 998 555 0206Mail: abhishek@ marketdataforecast.com Visit Market Data Forecast Blog @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/blog/ View latest Press Releases of MDF @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/press-releases
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 12:28:41

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Study of electromagnetic radiations that is emitted or absorbed by atoms is known as atomic spectroscopy.When electrons are excited, they move from higher valence bond to lower valence bond and emit radiations (emission). However, a relaxed electron moves from lower valence bond to higher valence bond resulting in absorption of energy.A sample of this report is available upon request @Atomic spectroscopy market can be segmented as below based on technologies:X-ray Fluorescence SpectroscopyX-ray Diffraction SpectroscopyInductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectroscopy (ICP-MS)Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) SpectroscopyAtomic Absorption SpectroscopyElemental AnalyzersAmong all aforementioned technologies, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy market accounts for the largest share to the atomic spectroscopy market. This is due to the fact that they are efficient in analyzing solid samples precisely. Also, procedures performed via X-ray fluorescence are user-friendly in nature along with being cost efficient.Inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS) market is expected to show the highest growth rate during the forecast period 2015 to 2025. This growth is attributed to revision in various regulations (chapter 231) of the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention. The revised regulation mandates the utilization of inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy by pharmaceutical companies, which will propel the overall growth of inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy market.Atomic spectroscopy is utilized in various institutes (applications):Food and Beverage TestingPharmaceuticalIndustrial ChemistryEnvironmental TestingBiotechnologyAmong all these, application of atomic spectroscopy in pharmaceutical market accounts for the largest share of total market. This large market size is due to increased utilization of atomic spectroscopy in the various pharmaceutical activities such as drugs manufacturing.Their efficiency helps develop and manufacture drugs precisely, that increases the uptake of atomic spectroscopy while manufacturing drugs by pharmaceutical companies. Hence, atomic spectroscopy market is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period 2015 to 2025.Stringent safety regulations regarding the drug safety, and food and beverage testing by regulatory authorities across the globe will drive the growth of atomic spectroscopy market at a high CAGR during the forecast period. Safety regulations will propel the demand for the utilization of atomic spectroscopy in industrial chemistry sector along with environmental testing since; it will help monitor the volume of metal in any sample. Likewise, increasing application of atomic spectroscopy in medical research and drug safety will also boost the growth of atomic spectroscopy market.However , lack of trained professionals for handling atomic spectroscopy devices and technology may restrain the growth of atomic spectroscopy market.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @Domicile of large pharmaceutical and industrial chemistry companies in North America have supported the region to contribute the largest share of total atomic spectroscopy market. Also, stringent government regulations regarding safety of drugs, food and beverages has also supported the large market size in the region. Asia-Pacific is expected to foresee the highest CAGR during the forecast period 2015 to 2025. This is due to the fact that major players such as Agilent Technologies are intending to expand their business in the emerging nations like India and China, which will drive the growth of atomic spectroscopy market. The major players operating in the atomic spectroscopy market include Agilent Technologies, Aurora Biomed, Bruker Corporation, Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation, Shimadzu Corporation, GBC Scientific Equipment Pty Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific, PerkinElmer, Inc., Analytik Jena AG and Rigaku Corporation among other significant players.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 06:55:20

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Borderline personality disorder (BPD), also known as cluster-B personality disorder, is a neurological health disorder. BPD affects the way a person feels and thinks about oneself and others. Common signs and symptoms of the disorder may include fear of abandonment, self-injuries such as suicidal tendency, intense anger, irritability, dangerous behavior, mood swings, identity disturbance, and chronic feelings of emptiness. Currently, there is no single cause of this disorder. BPD can be caused by a combination of factors such as genes and brain compounds or neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are brain chemical messengers that transmit essential information throughout the brain and body.Get PDF Brochure for more Professional & Technical industry insights: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=30647 Neurological factors such as estrogen can lead to BPD. Varying estrogen cycles in women make them susceptible to the disorder. Self-injury, depression, and bipolar disorder are major complications of BPD. Borderline personality disorder is diagnosed by a mental health professional through the subjects history, statistical manual, and procedures. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a test that uses for borderline personality disorder. Currently, there is no cure for borderline personality disorder; however, a few marketed drugs (antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and antipsychotics) are expected to help improve the symptoms of the disorder. Increasing prevalence of BPD across the globe is expected to drive the global borderline personality disorder market. Additionally, growing global awareness fuels the growth of the market. Multifactorial etiology and complex pathophysiology of the disorder are likely to be major restraints of the market.The global borderline personality disorder market can be segmented based on treatment, end-user, and region. In terms of treatment, the market can be categorized into psychotherapy and drugs. BPD is primarily treated with psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is also called talk therapy, which is the fundamental treatment approach for this disorder. The primary focus of psychotherapy is to restore the current ability to function, manage emotions, and improve relationships. Psychotherapy can be segmented into dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), mentalization-based therapy (MBT), schema-focused therapy, and transference-focused therapy (TFP) and others. There is no approved drug for BPD; however, certain drugs could help reduce symptoms or co-occurring problems such as anxiety and depression. Drugs could include antipsychotics or mood-stabilizing and antidepressants. In terms of end-user, the borderline personality disorder market can be segmented into psychiatric hospital and home health care. In terms of revenue, the psychiatric hospital segment held a significant share of the market in 2016.In terms of region, the global borderline personality disorder market can be segmented into North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. North America accounted for the largest share of the global borderline personality disorder market in 2016, followed by Europe and Asia Pacific. The U.S. held a major share of the market in North America in terms of revenue. The market in Asia Pacific is expanding rapidly due to increase in number of patients. However, Asia Pacific is projected to be the most attractive market in the near future, especially emerging economies such as India, China, and Japan due to its better health care infrastructure, economic growth, increasing number of insurance payer, expanding and developing private health care sector, and increasing awareness among people.Request for Report ToC: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=30647 Key players in the global borderline personality disorder market include Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca plc, Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline plc, Novartis AG, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer Inc.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 18:11:13

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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Canada Zinc Metals Corp.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCWire) - Canada Zinc Metals Corp. (TSX Venture:CZX). has issued a press release with the following headline:Canada Zinc Metals Closes Non-Brokered Flow-Through Private PlacementTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Canada Zinc Metals Corp., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Canada Zinc Metals Corp.Source: Canada Zinc Metals Corp. (TSX Venture: CZX, ISIN: A0RAQJ, WKN: CA1353061080)Date: November 03, 2017Time: 1:11 PM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Canada Zinc Metals Corp. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 08:59:03

Madrid - This November 14, 2017, CF&B Communication is organizing the 1st edition of the Madrid European 'MidCap Event', where selected Midcaps travelling to European financial capitals will make a stop in Madrid to meet the attending Spanish institutional investors.

For one day, the top managers of listed companies from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Turkey, will present fund managers with their activity and perspectives in pre-organized one-to-one meetings.

About thirty listed companies, as well as about forty institutional investors are expected to attend this event.

INTERMONTE (Milan) and DEGROOF PETERCAM (Brussels) are the main Partners in this edition, and they will share their analysis, know-how and knowledge on their markets.

London Stock Exchange / Elite Connect will be the Partner Stock Exchange for the event.

Registration is free for institutional investors.

The next events organized by CF&B Communication are the Geneva European 'Midcap Event' on November 28&29, 2017, and the 2018 events are already open to registration, among which the Frankfurt European 'Midcap Event' in February, the new "REITS by ALLINVEST for real estate companies in April in Paris", the Paris 'SmallCap Event' mid-April, the Copenhagen European 'Midcap Event' mid-May and the Paris European 'Midcap Event' Spring end June 2018.

For further information and queries, please contact Caroline BADER - c.bader@cfbcom.fr

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: CF&B Communication via Globenewswire


PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 12:28:38

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Chromatography is the most essential and well known separation technique which is extensively used across various industries. Chromatography is referred to as a technique that is used for the purification of biomolecules in which the components that are to be separated are distributed between two phases. Among these two phases, one is stationary phase and other is a mobile phase. All types of chromatography systems work on the same principle i.e., separation of sample mixture into stationary phase (solid or liquid supported on solid) and mobile phase (liquid or gas). Over the years chromatography technique and its instrument are being used in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies for the development of pure drug molecule. The instruments that are utilized in the chromatography have benefitted the researches due to their ability to separate, analyze and purify a molecule in an efficient and effective manner. These chromatography instrumentation techniques are used in various application areas such as pharmaceutical, biotechnology, food production, diagnostics, genetic engineering, drug discovery and water analysis.A sample of this report is available upon request @The global market for chromatography instrumentation can be segmented as follows:By systemGas chromatography systemLiquid chromatography systemHigh pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC)Ultra high pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC)Low pressure liquid chromatography (LPLC)OthersIon-exchange chromatographyAffinity chromatographySuper critical fluid chromatographyColumn chromatographyThin layer chromatographyBy consumables and instrumentsColumnsSyringe filtersVialsTubingsDetectorsAutosamplersPumpsFraction collectorsOthersBy end usersBiotechnology and pharmaceuticals industriesHospitals and research laboratoriesAgriculture and food industriesOthers (cosmetic industries, environmental agencies and nutraceutical companies)The market for chromatography instrumentation holds an immense potential due to increasing number of biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Rising government investments for research purpose, expansion of chromatography companies in the Asian region and increasing collaborations among the existing players in the market are some of the other propelling factors for this market. The chromatography instrumentation market is also witnessing huge advancements in the design of column which is consequently raising the demand for development of better analytical resins and reagents. Additionally, emergence of green chromatography, usage of nanomaterial in chromatography and increasing usage of chromatography instrument for monoclonal antibody purification are some of the other opportunities that are fuelling the growth of this market. However, high cost of the chromatography systems and economic slowdown across the globe has resulted in decreased sales of chromatography systems. In addition need of skilled personnel for operates chromatography instrument is a factor which might restrict its demand in the global chromatography instrumentation market.Geographically, North America accounts for the largest share of the chromatography instrumentation market followed by the European region. The dominance of these regions in this market is seen due to growing government investments and funding for research. Further, augmented research and development activities of drugs and biologics and increasing number of conferences on chromatography are some of the key drivers of this industry. However, in the near future the U.S market is expected to decline its market share owing to the market maturity. Asia-Pacific region is expected to show healthy growth in the near future due to expansion of chromatography companies in the regions of India, China, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam. Additionally, several major pharmaceutical companies are also increasingly outsourcing their drug and development services especially in the Asian region which is indentified as another major driver that is augmenting the demand of chromatography reagents in this region.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @Major players operating in this market includes Agilent Technologies, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Bio-Rad Laboratories, GE Healthcare, Life Technologies Corporation, Pall Corporation, Regis Technologies, Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, Waters Corporation, Helena Laboratories, Phenomenex, Inc. WWR International, Tosoh Corporation and others.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 12:28:35

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Clinical trials are research studies performed on humans to gain specific information about biomedical interventions such as novel vaccines, devices, treatments and drugs and thereby generating safety data. Clinical trials are regulated by health authorities and ethics committees.A sample of this report is available upon request @Documents required for performing clinical trials are investigators brochure (IB) which include current and relevant scientific information about the investigational product, United States Food and Drug (FDA) form 1572, protocol and amendments, inform consent, other written information for participants, recruitment advertisement, financial disclosure form (FDF), master clinical trial agreement (MCTA), institutional review board (IRB) approval, medical licensure, training records, laboratory accreditation, visit monitor reports, miscellaneous document, signature sheet and documentation of investigational drug destruction. The International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH) brings together regulatory authorities of Europe, the United States, Japan and experts from pharmaceutical industry to frame and regulate the technical and scientific aspects of pharmaceutical product registration. The Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH) states rules and standard guidelines for clinical trials. ICH guidelines are followed as law by several countries in the world.Clinical trials are conducted in four phases namely, Phase I, II, III and IV. Phase I is conducted for safety, phase II is conducted for efficacy, phase III is conducted for final confirmation of safety and efficacy and phase IV is conducted for post sales studies. Risk to participants involved in clinical trials decreases from phase I to phase VI. Number of participants increases from phase I to phase IV resulting in increasing cost of trials. Based on the phases of clinical trials, global clinical trials market is segmented as follows:Phase IPhase IIPhase IIIPhase IVBased on indication, global clinical trials market is classified as follows:Blood disordersOphthalmologyAutoimmune diseasesCirculatory diseasesCancerGenitourinary diseasesCongenital diseasesMusculoskeletal diseasesCentral nervous system (CNS)InfectionsDermatologyMetabolic disordersCardio vascular system (CVS) diseasesGastrointestinal diseasesMental disordersOthersBeing relatively costly process, in order to reduce economic burden on company and shift focus on core business activities, many companies outsource their clinical trial activities to contract research organizations (CROs). Contract research organizations provide services such as clinical trial management, clinical research and preclinical research. Factors such as advancement in technology and increasing demand of innovative solutions in healthcare industry are driving the market of global clinical trials towards growth. On the other hand, factors such as high cost and stringent regulations are restraining the growth of clinical trials market globally. Geographically, the global clinical trials market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @North America is the leading consumer of global clinical trials solutions, followed by Europe. Ample availability of funds to outsource clinical trials serves as the major growth driver for the North America clinical trials market. Asia-Pacific demonstrates impressive growth potential for clinical trials market and is expected to show the highest growth rate as compared to other regions in the world. Countries such as India are attractive markets due to advantages such as availability of skilled practitioners and availability government support in terms development of outsourcing hubs thus attracting pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to outsource clinical trial activities to CROs in this region. Some of the market leaders contributing to the global clinical trials market include Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk A/S, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Ltd., Sanofi Aventis A.S. and Roche Group.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 12:28:30

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Dental implant is an artificial tooth that is placed in jaw to act as replacement tooth. People who have lost their tooth or teeth due to injury, periodontal disease and other reasons may use dental implant as an alternative to the natural tooth. Prosthetics are used to reconstruct the intraoral defects such as soft or hard structure of the jaw, missing parts and others. Rising number of people suffering from periodontal disease is one of the important factors driving the growth of dental implants and prosthetics. For instance, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated that 47.2% of the total population above the age of 65 years suffers from some kind of periodontal disease. Thus, with the rise in periodontal diseases globally the dental implants and prosthetics market is also expected to grow in near future.A sample of this report is available upon request @The global dental implants and prosthetics market can be segmented as follows:Dental Implants MarketBy TypeTitanium Dental ImplantsProcedure StageSingle StageTwo StageConnector TypeExternal HexagonalInternal HexagonalInternal OctagonalZirconium Dental ImplantDental Prosthetics MarketCrowns and BridgesPorcelain fused to Metal Crowns and BridgesAll Ceramics Crowns and BridgesMetallic Crowns and BridgesDenturesAbutmentsRising edentulous population, increasing disposable income and growing awareness for dental care are some of key factors driving the growth of dental implants and prosthetics market. For instance, it has been estimated that in 2010 approximately 160 million people globally were edentulous which accounts for 2.3% of the global population. In addition, increasing geriatric population and changing lifestyle also propel the growth of this market. According, to the World Health Organization (WHO) it has been estimated that the global elderly population is expected to reach around 2 billion by 2050; thiswas around 524 million in 2010. Moreover, the global geriatric population is expected to grow at the fastest rate in developed countries such as Italy, Germany, the U.K., the U.S. and Japan. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, around 40 million people in the country belonged to the elderly category in 2011. Around 89 million people are estimated to be beyond the age of 65 years by 2050.Thus, increasing geriatric population globally augments the demand for dental implants and prosthetics.Technological advancements in the field of dentistry also drive the growth of this market. With the introduction of computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) technology has significantly reduced the dental treatment time. Thus, all the above mentioned factors collectively drive the growth of dental implants and prosthetics market. However, unfavorable reimbursement policies restrict the growth of this market during the study period.Geographically, Europe accounts for the largest share of the global dental implants and prosthetic market as the key players are domiciled in this region followed by North America. In addition, increasing geriatric population, presence of organized distribution channels and rising disposable income are of the major factors driving the global demand of this market during the forecast period 2015 to 2025. In addition, Asia-Pacific is estimated to be fastest growing market for dental implants and prosthetic owing to increasing healthcare awareness, population aging and rising medical tourism in countries such as India, Japan, Malaysia and others. However, economic slowdown in developed regions such as Europe and North America coupled with unfavorable reimbursement policies inhibits the global growth of dental implants and prosthetics market.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @3M Company, Biomet, Inc., Nobel Biocare, Straumann, Zimmer Holdings, Dentsply International, Zimmer Dental, BioHorizons, Inc., Ivoclar Vivadent AG are some of the leading companies having their presence in the global dental implants and prosthetics market.
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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Kapuskasing Gold Corp.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCWire) - Kapuskasing Gold Corp. (TSX Venture:KAP). has issued a press release with the following headline:Drill Program Underway at the Lady Pond CopperCobalt Property in NewfoundlandTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Kapuskasing Gold Corp., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Kapuskasing Gold Corp.Source: Kapuskasing Gold Corp. (TSX Venture: KAP)Date: November 03, 2017Time: 12:00 PM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Kapuskasing Gold Corp. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)
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Dry powder inhaler is a medical device that delivers formulation using the pulmonary route for systemic or local effect. The combined use of powdered formulations and device performance provides a safe, reliable, bioequivalent, and efficient method of drug delivery into the lungs. The device performance depends upon the air inlet size, impaction angle of the powder, mouthpiece length, grid structure, and mouth piece configuration. Some of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved dry powder inhalers include mono-drug products such as Zanamivir, Umeclidinium, Tobramycin, Tiotropium, Salmeterol, Mometasone, Loxapine, Insulin, Indacaterol, Glycopyrronium, Formoterol, Fluticasone, Budesonide, Albuterol, Aclidinium, and others. While dual drug products include Umeclidinium + Vilanterol, Glycopyrronium + Indacaterol, Fluticasone + Vilanterol, Fluticasone + Salmeterol, and others. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved dry powder inhaler dual drug as well as mono-drug products include Umeclidinium + Vilanterol , Glycopyrronium + Indacaterol, Fluticasone + Vilanterol, Fluticasone + Salmeterol, Budesonide + Formoterol, Aclidinium + Formoterol, Umeclidinium, Indacaterol, Glycopyrronium, and Aclidinium.Get PDF Brochure for more Professional & Technical industry insights: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=30638 Drivers of the global dry powder inhalers market are development of novel device architectures, advances in particle engineering, and research advancements in powder formulations. More efficient designs of inhalers, and improved particle properties are expanding the range of active compounds and growing new opportunities for dry powder inhaler device that can be effectively delivered to the lung. Furthermore, increasing geriatric population encourages managed care initiatives such as self-administration of drug therapies and home health care. This is likely to boost the growth of the global dry powder inhalers market. Increasing inclination toward cost-effective and patient friendly therapies increase the demand for dry powder inhalers. Inhaled drug administration and dry powder inhalers are expected to evolve during the forecast period owing to commercialization of therapeutic drugs and advancements in pharmaceutical development.The global dry powder inhalers market can be segmented based on product type, performance level, therapy type, usage type, and region. In terms of product type, the market can be classified into canister/cartridge based, blister based, capsule based, and others. Based on performance level, the market can be divided into interpatient variability, dose metering accuracy, mechanism of aerosolization, and de-agglomeration. In terms of usage type, the global dry powder inhalers market can be categorized into single-use disposable devices and multi-use devices. The multi-use devices segment accounted for a larger market share in 2016 owing to growing awareness. However, advancements in research & development and addition of rescue medications, analgesics, and vaccines agents are anticipated to drive the single-use disposable devices segment during the forecast period. In terms of therapy type, the global dry powder inhalers market can be classified into neurological disorder, metabolic conditions, infectious diseases, hereditary diseases, systemic indications, bronchospasm, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, upper respiratory diseases, and others. In 2016, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) accounted for a large market share owing to high prevalence.Geographically, the global dry powder inhalers market can be divided into Asia Pacific, North America, Latin America, Europe, and Middle East & Africa. North America accounted for a large market share in 2016 owing to high geriatric population and increasing research & development activities. Europe held the second largest market share due to growing government facilities and initiatives to combat and control various diseases and disorders. Asia Pacific is anticipated to grow during the forecast period owing to rising prevalence of infections and other diseases, especially in the emerging economies such as China and India.Request for Report ToC: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=30638 Key players in the global dry powder inhalers market are Orion, Novartis, MicroDose Therapeutx, Meda, Mannkind, Mantecorp, Hovione, GlaxoSmithKline, Civitas/Alkermes, Cipla, Chiesi, Boehringer Ingelheim, AstraZeneca, and Aerovance, among others.
Flowering Stimulants Market By Type (Solid Flowering Stimulants, Liquid Flowering Stimulants), By Application (Agriculture And Horticulture) And By Region - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, And Forecasts (20162021)

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The Global Flowering Stimulants Market was worth USD xx billion in 2016 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of xx%, to reach USD xx billion by 2021.View report: http://marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/flowering-stimulants-market-4159/ Flowering of plants is very essential in both agriculture and horticulture. In horticulture good flower yield is the priority to bear fruits and in agriculture also good flowering gives good yield. So, farmers always try to increase the flower yield by using excessive fertilizers, both organic and chemical. This increases the yield but it has a limit to the growth and use of excessive fertilizers support growth of other vegetation which is not desirable.Flower formation in plants is stimulated by certain hormones namely auxin, cytokinin, gibbrellic acid and Ethylene. Flowering stimulants increases the production of these substances in the plant and also in ratios favorable for flower yield. Currently, Nitrobenzene mixed with some other chemicals is the best and most used stimulant. It is estimated that flowering stimulants increase the flower yield by more than 40%.Download free sample report: http://marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/flowering-stimulants-market-4159/request-sample Increase in the crop yields has become stagnant due to the increase in the use of fertilizers and other chemicals. This increased the demand alternatives which can increase the crop yield resulting in the demand for flowering stimulants. Increasing necessity to improve crop yields due to the decreasing agricultural land, rapidly increasing population and increasing awareness among people regarding the stimulants are expected to drive the flowering stimulants market. However, availability of alternate chemicals and strict approval regulations are restricting the market growth.The Flowering Stimulants market is segmented by type, application and region. Based on the type, the market is segmented into Solid Flowering Stimulants and Liquid Flowering Stimulants. Liquid flowering stimulants hold the largest market share as they are easily absorbed by the plant within a short time. On the basis of application, the market is segmented into Agriculture and Horticulture. Usage of flowering stimulants is very high in horticulture. It is because of the restrictions on the use of many fertilizers in horticulture. Agriculture segment is expected to be the fastest growing segment due to the increasing popularity for flowering stimulants.Inquire before buying: http://marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/flowering-stimulants-market-4159/inquire On the basis of region, the global Flowering Stimulants market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. Asia Pacific holds the largest market share. It is because Asia Pacific is the leading cultivator of horticulture where flowering stimulants are widely used. Latin America is expected to be the fastest growing segment due to the increasing awareness among consumers.Some of the major players in Flowering Stimulants market are Greenland Bio-Science, Molecule Agri, Nitesh Agro Industries, Sikko Industries, Redox Industries, Rishabh Intermediates, Bhartiya Fertilizers and Chemicals and Agrichem Life Science.Market SegmentationType Introduction Liquid Flowering Stimulants Solid Flowering Stimulants Y-o-Y Growth Analysis, By Type Market Attractiveness Analysis, By Type Market Share Analysis, By TypeApplication Introduction Agriculture Horticulture Y-o-Y Growth Analysis, By Application Market Attractiveness Analysis, By Application Market Share Analysis, By ApplicationThe scope of the report: Global, regional and country-level analysis and forecasts of the study market; providing Insights on the major countries/regions in which this industry is blooming and to also identify the regions that are still untapped Segment-level analysis in terms of technology, component, and type along with market size forecasts and estimations to detect key areas of industry growth in detail Identification of key drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges (DROC) in the market and their impact on shifting market dynamics Study of the effect of exogenous and endogenous factors that affect the global market; which includes broadly demographic, economics, and political, among other macro-environmental factors presented in an extensive PESTLE Analysis Study the micro environment factors that determine the overall profitability of an Industry, using Porters five forces analysis for analysing the level of competition and business strategy development A comprehensive list of key market players along with their product portfolio, current strategic interests, key financial information, legal issues, SWOT analysis and analyst overview to study and sustain the market environment Competitive landscape analysis listing out the mergers, acquisitions, collaborations in the field along with new product launches, comparative financial studies and recent developments in the market by the major companies An executive summary, abridging the entire report in such a way that decision-making personnel can rapidly become acquainted with background information, concise analysis, and main conclusions Expertly devised analyst overview along with Investment opportunities to provide both individuals and organizations a strong financial foothold in the marketAbout Us:Market Data Forecast is a firm working in the area of market research and business intelligence. With rich experience in research across various business domains, we cater to the needs of both individual and corporate clients. Our analyst team comprises expert professionals in market research, who with their collective knowledge and skillset dedicatedly serve clients from various industries and regions.
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Automotive Door Stabilizer Market: Global Industry Analysis 2012  2016 and Opportunity Assessment; 2017  2027" report to their offering.

Automotive Door Stabilizer Market

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CONTACT:Future Market InsightsAbhishek Bhudoliya616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531

Automotive door stabilizer fills the gap in the door striker area using a spacer. This provides quicker steering response by cutting down the delay from when the steering wheel is turned. The built-in sliding mechanism automatically adjusts the gap to zero. Designed to be easy to install, yet maintains a strong visual presence. The factory door striker leaves a slight gap that can make your door rattle or cause unwanted movement under high-performance driving conditions. The door stabilizers reinforce the door when shut to remove any movement in the door striker or the hinge, which will stiffen the body. It is used in the gaps in between door and body, and it reduce the delay of vehicle response during operation. It makes a quick response of the vehicle operation.Automotive Door Stabilizer Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe prime factor boosting the production of automotive door stabilizer is the increase in demand for passenger vehicles. With mostly all OEMs wanting to provide comfortable drive to their customers, the demand for door stabilizers have increased. Stabilizers should be checked for stiffness. This causes side to side motion in the car which affects the handling of the vehicle. Installing on non-compatible vehicles can keep doors from closing completely. This can lead to vehicle damage or malfunction while driving caused by doors that are not sufficiently closed. In the worst case, the door may open while the vehicle is in motion, causing serious accidents.If the stabilizer is not maintained and components replaced at regular maintenance intervals, there is a high risk of component failure as well as catastrophic damage.Request For Report Sample: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-4628 Automotive Door Stabilizer Market: SegmentationOn the basis of the type of stabilizer, the Automotive Door Stabilizer market is segmented as:Male StabilizerFemale StabilizerOn the basis of the type of vehicle, the market is segmented as:Passenger VehicleCompactMid-SizedPremiumLuxuryLight Commercial VehicleHeavy Commercial VehicleAutomotive Door Stabilizer Market: Region-wise OutlookGeographically, Hydraulic belt tensioner market has been categorized into seven key regions including North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan, APEJ, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa. Asia holds the highest share in the door stabilizer market. Countries like China, Japan and India are leading the race. Its a hub of many OEMs and spare parts manufacturers. They are expected to have high Year-on-Year growth in Hydraulic belt tensioner market due to increased sales in passenger vehicles. Followed by Europe which houses few of the biggest automotive manufacturers in the countries like Germany, France, Italy, UK and Russia. In North America, US leads in the automotive door stabilizer market. Latin America is also a growing market with many OEMs setting up their manufacturing units in countries like Mexico and Brazil. The Middle East and Africa show a trend of slow growth in the automotive Door Stabilizer market.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-4628 Automotive Door Stabilizer Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players identified in the Automotive Door Stabilizer Market include:TRDAisinMabara
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Jet injector device is a medical device that uses a needle-free injection system. The injector delivers drugs, vaccines, compounds, anesthetics, steroids, or insulin in a very fine stream of fluid by high-pressure precision. The high pressure is produced either by using nitrogen-filled or carbon-dioxide-filled cartridge or a spring. The medication is forced through a tiny opening in the device, which allows the drug to penetrate the skin and is administered into the underlying tissue either intramuscularly, subcutaneously, or intradermal.Get PDF Brochure for more Professional & Technical industry insights: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=30641 The jet injector device provides (with minimal training) reproducible, reliable, and accurate delivery of medication, eliminates the need for "sharps" disposal, reduces risks such as cross-contamination and needle stick injuries, enhances compliance, and is less painful for the patient. These attributes are expected to drive the global jet injector device market. Increased inclination toward minimal invasive methods can further boost the demand for jet injectors. Improved patient convenience due to ease in professional and self-medication uses can drive the growth of the market during the forecast period. According to the International Diabetes Federation, the rate of diagnosis of diabetes has increased from 30 million people to 246 million people in India, China, and the U.S., over the last decades. Increasing incidence of diabetes drives the jet injector devices market. However, some formulations of vaccines and medications produce a stinging or burning sensation, whether it is administered using a jet injector or a needle.The global jet injector device market can be segmented based onproduct type, methods of injection, end-user, medication type, and region. In terms of product type, the market can be classified into powder jet injections, liquid jet injections, and depot or projectile jet injections. Based on the methods of injection, the market can be classified into gas powdered jet injector, spring load jet injector, and battery powdered jet injector. In terms of end-user, the market can be categorized into podiatric clinics, dental clinics, veterinary clinics, ambulatory surgical centers, and hospitals. In terms of the medication type, the global jet injector device market can be divided into vaccines, drugs, aesthetics, hormones, genes, and others.Geographically, the global jet injector device market can be classified into Asia Pacific, North America, Latin America, Europe, and Middle East & Africa. North America held a dominant market share in the year 2016, owing to technological advancements in research & development, high awareness, and early adoption of jet injector devices. Europe held the second largest market share in 2016 due to government initiatives to promote good health in the region. Asia Pacific market is expected to expand during the forecast period. The growth can be accredited to increasing life expectancy in the region. According to World Health Organization (WHO), life expectancy continues to rise in the South East Asia region. Since 2000, life expectancy has increased at nearly 3.5 years per decade. The life expectancy in the region was 69.0 in 2015. The global jet injector device market in Africa is anticipated to grow during the forecast period owing to the increasing prevalence of diabetes. According to WHO, by 2030, the estimated number of diabetes cases will reach nearly 23.9 million in Africa. In surveys carried out by WHO, approximately 15% of adults between the ages of 25 and64 suffer from diabetes.Request for Report ToC: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=30641 Key players of the global jet injector device market are PharmaJet, MK Global Co., Spirit Healthcare Ltd, Valeritas, Inc, Lundbeck Limited, Crossject needle-free injection systems, InjexUK, and Antares Pharma.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 04:31:01

Wins Innovation of the Year for second consecutive year at 21st Annual Asia Insurance Industry Awards

MetLife Recognized for Innovative Customer Solutions

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MetLife, Inc. (NYSE:MET) announced that its unique virtual reality solution, known as conVRse, has won the Asia Insurance Industry Award 2017 for Innovation of the Year.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201711020069

Zia Zaman, LumenLab CEO and Chief Innovation Officer of MetLife Asia with the teams from LumenLab and PNB MetLife at the Annual Asia Insurance Industry Awards (Photo: Business Wire)

conVRse is a first-of-its-kind experiential Virtual Reality (VR) customer service platform designed to revolutionize interaction between insurers and customers. This solution was developed by LumenLab, MetLifes innovation center in Asia, and PNB MetLife, its joint venture in India.

This is the second consecutive year that MetLife Asia is being recognized for innovation, consolidating its position as a leader in innovation. Last year, the company won this category with its insurance product Beautiful.

We are delighted to be recognized as a leader for innovation in our industry and want to thank the panel of judges and AIIA team for encouraging innovation in insurance which is critical if we are to evolve into a truly customer-centric industry, said Zia Zaman, LumenLab CEO and Chief Innovation Officer of MetLife Asia. What I like best about virtual reality is that it allows the customer to be the protagonist in their own financial journey. Our solution conVRse is a huge first step that our customers love.

This is the first time that virtual reality is being used in the insurance industry to benefit the customers directly. The platform provides a differentiated, immersive and a personalized experience to the customer through VR headsets available at select PNB MetLife branches. The VR headset brings customers face to face with an avatar Khushi. Khushi is a life insurance expert who can show customers all their policy related information while answering their queries. The initial response from PNB MetLife customers has been exceptional; 96% say it has had a positive impact on their brand experience.

conVRse has also won Best Technology Initiative of The Year Award at The National Awards For Excellence In Insurance 2017, the Virtual Reality  Category at the prestigious BFSI Digital Innovation Award, hosted by Indian Express Group, Best Technology Innovation 2017 at the prestigious Fintelekt Insurance Award , demonstrating its business and social impact.

conVRse originated from the 2015 MetLife Asia Mobile Challenge, an internal employee innovation challenge won by three colleagues from PNB MetLife.

The Asia Insurance Industry Awards 2017 are hosted by Asia Insurance Review magazine. The panel of judges included insurance industry CEOs, industry leaders, regulators and experts from across the Asia Pacific region.

About MetLife

MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET), through its subsidiaries and affiliates ("MetLife"), is one of the largest life insurance companies in the world. Founded in 1868, MetLife is a global provider of life insurance, annuities, employee benefits and asset management. Serving approximately 100 million customers, MetLife has operations in nearly 50 countries and holds leading market positions in the United States, Japan, Latin America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. For more information, visit www.metlife.com.

About LumenLab

Established in 2015, LumenLab is MetLifes global innovation center focused on digital disruption based on customer insights. LumenLab underscores MetLifes commitment to embedding an innovation culture and supporting ideas that culminate in a better customer experience. Over 400 MetLife employees have taken part in workshops, bootcamps and leadership programs to test and learn and fast track delivery of solutions that will better meet the needs of the customer. LumenLab has incubated 13 projects spanning technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and virtual reality.

As MetLife's pioneers for disruptive innovation, LumenLab is charging ahead to create new businesses in health, wealth and retirement. Lumen, a measure of light, symbolises our commitment to illuminating a new path for solving the problems that the people of Asia face today. Through our focus on building new products and services grounded in technology and data, we aim to help people achieve richer and more fulfilling lives. For more information, visit www.lumenlab.sg.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201711020069
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Molecular spectroscopy is the qualitative and quantitative study of molecules by observing their interaction with variousfrequencies and energy. In other way, it is the study of absorption of light by molecules. It is analyzed by ultraviolet (UV) light, visible light and infrared radiations using an instrument called a spectrometer. Thermo Fisher Scientific,Agilent Technologies, Danaher Corporation, PerkinElmer, Inc., Shimadzu Corporation, JASCO International Co., Ltd. and Jeol Ltd. are some major players engaged in the development, manufacturing and marketing of instruments used in molecular spectroscopy study. Antaris II FT-NIR Analyzer, picoSpin 80 spectrometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific) and Cary 630 FTIR Spectrometer, 4300 Handheld FTIR (Agilent Technologies) are some prominent brands available in the market.A sample of this report is available upon request @The global market for molecular spectroscopy has been segmented as follows by technology type:Color Measurement SpectroscopyInfrared SpectroscopyNear-Infrared (NIR) SpectroscopyNuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) SpectroscopyRaman SpectroscopyUltraviolet Visible (UV-Vis) SpectroscopyThese technologies may be further segmented as well. For example, infrared spectroscopy may be segmented by the type of devices available on the market such as bench top IR spectroscopy, portable spectroscopy or terahertz IR spectroscopy. Similarly, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy may be categorized as continuous wave nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, fourier transform NMR and Solid-State NMR. Ultraviolet visible spectroscopy may be segmented as single-beam UV spectrometer, double-beam UV spectrometer and array based UV spectrometer.On the other hand, on the basis of application, the market has been segmented into:PharmaceuticalsBiotechnologyFood and Beverages TestingEnvironmental TestingResearch InstitutesGovernmental legislation that are compelling pharmaceutical companies to maintain very high quality of drugs and excipients during manufacturing and increasing concerns for food and beverages safety are some major factors driving the growth of molecular spectroscopy market.Governmental support by funding research related with molecular spectroscopy is also oneof the major factors driving the market growth worldwide.Technological developments in the area of molecular spectroscopy are also encouraging manufacturers to opt for this technology as it will give them competitive in terms of quality. On the other hand, high cost associated with acquiring molecular spectroscopy technology may hamper the market growth to some extent.Geographically, the market for molecular spectroscopy has been segmented into four major regions, namely, North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World (RoW). North America holds the largest regional market, followed by Europe. Federal governments investments to support research in the area of medical sciences are one of the reasons driving the market growth in the region. Presence of a large number of pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in the region also plays a key role in propelling the market growth. Europe represents the second largest market after North America. The market in Western European region which includes countries like Germany, France, Spain and United Kingdom is relatively mature than the markets of Eastern European region. Emerging economies of countries of Eastern region will help in driving the market growth in the region due to the significantly large contract manufacturing market.India and China in particular are expected to increase the number of companies offering contract manufacturing services to the western region. It is likely to result in growing demand for various molecular spectroscopy devices, and thus will help in driving the market growth in the region. In RoW region, Brazil, Mexico, Israel and Middle East countries are the potential markets for molecular spectroscopy.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @This research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data and statistically-supported and industry-validated market data and projections with a suitable set of assumptions and methodology. It provides analysis and information by categories such as market segments, regions, product types and distribution channels.
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Multi-chip module packaging has received wide range of attention in the electronics industry. Multi-chip module packaging has been applied in the advanced and high end systems. The technology primarily focuses on leveraging surface mount and integrated circuits (IC) processing technology. The Multi-chip module was primarily designed for multiple ICs (integrated circuits) to increase their application as a single package. The market has been segmented into by end use industry automotive, aerospace and defense, consumer electronics, telecommunications and healthcare among others. The market for multi-chip module packaging by region has been segmented into, Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, MEA (Middle East and Africa) and South America.A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=22067 Multi-chip module packaging is playing a prime role in the microelectronic systems and modern electronic miniaturization. The elimination of individual chip packages significantly reduces the inter-chip propagation delay along with power consumption of the whole system. Moreover, increasing demand for further miniaturization of aerospace and defense systems, consumer products, medical devices and LED arrays are anticipated to contribute in the positive growth of the multi-chip module packaging market globally. The design of multi-chip modules varies depending on the end use application and complexity of the electronic devices. Low power consumption owing to shorter interconnects lengths, enables miniaturization and smaller package; increased reliability with decreased number of interconnects between components are some of the prime attributes of multi-chip modules which are propelling the application in different end use industries. It is cost effective solution and flexible to integrate in any semiconductor devices. RF wireless modules, high end communication devices, LED packages, power amplifiers, portable computers and other wearable gadgets among others are some of the prime application areas of multi-chip module packaging market. Additionally, military and aerospace avionics, servers and other high end microelectronics are some of the application field of multi-chip module packaging. Aerospace and defense and automotive industry are major end use industry for multi-chip module packaging market. Improved performance, lower power consumption and high integration density are some of the prime characterization of multi-chip module packaging, which in turn is fueling the application in different end use industries. Cyclical nature of semiconductor industry may be considered as one of the restraining factor which may inhibit the growth of the multi-chip module packaging market. However, application of multi-chip module in satellite communication is one of the prime opportunities for the market.In 2016, North America held the largest market share in terms of revenue for the multi-chip module packaging market, followed by Asia Pacific and Europe. The U.S. is leading the multi-chip module packaging market in North America. China, Japan, South Korea and India among others are some of the major market contributing in the positive development of the market for multi-chip module packaging. Germany, U.K., Italy and France among others are contributing positive share in the multi-chip module packaging market. Brazil, Argentina are anticipated to contribute positive growth over the forecast period from 2017 to 2025. In Middle East and Africa, there has been considerable advancement and development in the field of electronics and other industries for instance, telecommunication and automotive field is stimulating the demand for multi-chip module packaging market.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=22067 Texas Instruments Inc. (The U.S.), Palomar Technologies (The U.S.), Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (The U.S.), Tektronix, Inc. (The U.S.), Micron Technology, Inc. (The U.S.), Maxim Integrated (The U.S.), API Technologies Corporation (The U.S.) and Intel Corporation (The U.S.) are some of the key players operating in the multi-chip module packaging market globally. Acquisition and merger and long term and short business allowances with raw material suppliers and component distributors are some of the major strategies abide by the companies in the multi-chip module packaging market globally.
A budget Vietnam Tour that still includes all beautiful attractions across the country is truly a memorable one. There are plenty of ways to save money on a Vietnam Holidays. If you planning to travel in Vietnam on a budget, here are the 8 ways to do so.

Street food in Hanoi, Vietnam

PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 07:56:16

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Nadova Tours

117 Nguyen Son street, Hanoi, Vietnam



Victor Nguyen

Marketing Manager

+84 024 8721 873

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# 1027 Words

117 Nguyen Son street, Hanoi, VietnamMarketing Manager+84 024 8721 873

1. Look for fellow travelersIt can be a good thing to find other travelers to share the various costs with, which will make things much easier than traveling as a solo tourist. Based on the same service, many suppliers provide the per-person price which is quoted differently when traveling as a couple, or a group of friends. The more people sharing, the lower the per-person cost is. So, it is always a good idea to team up with fellow travelers heading to the same direction as it is easier to split up the cost for hotel rooms, transportation or mini tours.2. Travel in the low seasonWhen planning a trip in Vietnam, the first decision to make is when to go. This will depends on the working schedule, but if it is possible, traveling Vietnam during the off-season can help to cut back on the total travel cost. Perhaps, a full Vietnam Customized Holidays in off-season can be just as much as traveling the country by yourself in peak season. Moreover, the travelers who want to avoid the peak season in their Vietnam Tour can have a great and worry-free experience with less tourist food traffic.In Vietnam, the low season for tourism runs from May to September, as it is the summer time with high temperature and rainfalls. However, the start or end of the low season can be a pleasant time to travel to Vietnam. Read more: When is the best time to travel to Vietnam.3. Air faresThe cost of air fares (international and domestic) can be a significant part of a travel budget. With the rapid growth of tourism in Vietnam, there are many airline companies now open the flying routes to Vietnam from different destinations in the world. Making a careful search with different airlines to see who is offering the best deal is a smart tactic for travelers to get a good saving. It is usually having the competitive price for flights from Wednesday to Friday and the weekend flights can be quite expensive because of high traveling demand. Another suggestion to save on air fares is using the same airport when booking the flights. It can be more cost-effective to use the same airport for flying in and out the country.4. Choose the right transportationFor travelers who are not in a rush of getting from one destination to another, choosing the local public transport is the cheapest way compare to taxis or private car. The long distance bus service can be relatively cheap, though the experience is not the most comfortable. Overnight bus service can be a good idea, as you can save money for a night in hotel but still can have the whole day to explore the places.While in the major cities, it is always easy to hire a bicycle, a motorbike or even travel on foot. That can be an excellent way to really immerse in the local life.5. AccommodationBudget hotels are plentiful in Vietnam. Similar to flight booking, when booking a hotel as early as possible in the non-peak time, chances of getting good deals are obvious. Choosing wisely the right place to stay according to your budget can help to save money not only on lodging but also on transportation. There are many good hostels in city center with affordable prices like those in Ta Hien or Ma May street in Hanoi and in Pham Ngu Lao or De Tham street in Ho Chi Minh City. One night in those hostels costs around $5-10. It is recommended to read the reviews from the third party reference before make a booking. When travelling to the countryside or mountainous areas, staying at homestay will also be a good idea of saving money and experiencing the local culture.6. Eat local foodOne of the key factors of making a great Vietnam trip is getting to sample the local lifestyle as well as the local food. For the most authentic experience of your Vietnam Customized Holiday, the cheap and delicious street food should be the top place to try the various kind of Vietnamese food. Eating on the street like locals will save you much money as most of street food dishes in Vietnam just cost a few dollars each. Remember to look for hygiene instruction before getting to eat at a street stall. Even when eating in local restaurants, the cost is only marginally more expensive.7. Book small toursVietnam is a country with much of it can be explored free without any guidance, but there are still parts of the country you may need a guided tour for better experience. Sometimes, small tours organized by the local Vietnam Travel Agents can be the easiest and cheapest way to get out and enjoy the stunning sights and highlights of a particular area which is less known by tourists. Having an English speaking tour guide possibly makes the whole trip much more informative and interesting. Shop around to see who is giving the most competitive offers. It is also important to ask for what should be included in price then compare with other travel agencies to find the best deal. Of course, you do not have to do the customized tour for the whole Vietnam trip, just in places that you may feel it is pretty hard to do it yourself.8. BargainingVietnam is famous for its handmade souvenirs and travelers normally cant resist the temptation to spend money on shopping while walking along the streets, especially in Hanoi Old Quarter or Hoi An Ancient Town. Remember that tourists are likely to be charged more than actual price, but do not take it serious or feel it intimidated as the sellers always expect the haggle. Therefore, bargaining is an essential skill that is necessary when traveling in Vietnam. In many cases, knowing some Vietnamese words can work well or simply know when is the right time to play the walking away from a sale. Bargaining is not only applied for shopping for souvenirs but also on other service such as transportation, food, drink or even a full Vietnam Customized Tour given by a travel agent.
North America Nucleic Acid Isolation and Purification Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 08:14:37

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2nd Floor, Lakeview Plaza, Kavuri Hills, Hyderabad, Telangana 500033, India.Sales Manager (International Business Development)Direct Line: +1-888-702-9626; Mobile: +91 998 555

The North America Nucleic Acid Isolation and Purification Market was worth USD 1.05 billion in 2016 and estimated to be growing at a CAGR of 8.96%, to reach USD 1.99 billion by 2021. Nucleic acid isolation and purification is a primary step in molecular biology studies and recombinant DNA techniques. Nucleic acid isolation and purification is a set of molecular biology techniques used for the extraction and purification of DNA and RNA for use in downstream applications.Browse report details @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/north-america-nucleic-acid-isolation-and-purification-market-3109/ The nucleic acid isolation reduces the nucleic acid loss, helps in processing the samples in minimum time and increases the effectiveness and the efficiency of the laboratory. In addition, it helps in the purification of the nucleic acid. Other than magnetic bead-based, reagent-based and column-based, there are some vital technologies that are used in the nucleic acid isolation and purification like anion exchange-based and glass fibre-based technology.Market Conditions:Demand of the pharmaceutical and biotechnological industries for pure nucleic acids, usage of nucleic acids in the tests for the diagnosis, genetic engineering, forensics, life science research and molecular diagnostics, government funding in R&D, technological innovations, new developments in the molecular diagnostics and genotyping and the expression analysis are the key drivers of the market. However, high price of the instruments, there is low market penetration for the purification procedures and the isolation of the automated nucleic acid in the developing countries are hindering the market growth.North America Nucleic Acid Isolation and Purification Market Segmentation: By Product: Introduction, Kits, Reagents and Instruments By Technology: Introduction, Column Based, Reagent Based and Magnetic Bead Based By Application: Introduction, Plasmic DNA, Genomic DNA, Micro RNA, Blood RNA, Messenger RNA, Total RNA and PCR Clean-Up By End-User: Introduction, Academic and Government Research Institutes, Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Companies, Contract Research Organizations, Hospitals and Diagnostic Centres and Others By Geography: Introduction, United States and CanadaNorth America leads the global nucleic acid isolation and purification market, accounting for more than 34% of the entire market share. The increased government funding focused on enhancing the isolation facility is the prime growth driver for the market in this region.Current Key Players of this Market:Key players in the North America Nucleic acid isolation and purification market are Qiagen, Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc, Illumina Inc, Agilent Technologies Inc, Thermo Fischer Scientific Inc, F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC, General Electric Company, Danaher Corporation, Promega Corporation, Life Technologies, Roche Applied Sciences, Takara Bio, Inc. etc.Avail Free Sample Market Brochure of the report for more information, Get a Copy @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/north-america-nucleic-acid-isolation-and-purification-market-3109/request-sample About MarketDataForecast:Market Data Forecast is a firm working in the area of market research and business intelligence. With rich experience in research across various business domains, we cater to the needs of both individual and corporate clients. Our analyst team comprises expert professionals in market research, who with their collective knowledge and skillset dedicatedly serve clients from various industries and regions.Media Contact:Abhishek ShuklaInternational Business Development ManagerMarket Data ForecastDirect Line: +1-888-702-9626; Mobile: +91 998 555 0206Mail: abhishek@ marketdataforecast.com
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 06:40:53

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A handheld device employed to examine the interior structure of eyes is known as ophthalmoscope. Ophthalmoscopes are combined with a source of light and lenses, which enables a physician to examine the interior structure of eyes. These devices are primarily used to examine the rear area of the eye and structure of the retina. Ophthalmoscopes are used in ophthalmoscopy, which is a part of the regular examination of eyes. Ophthalmoscopy is employed in conditions in which patients suffer from headache or swollen optic disc.The global ophthalmoscopes market is expected to expand at a high CAGR during the forecast period. The rising prevalence of ophthalmological diseases such as glaucoma and retinal vascular diseases is one of the important factors projected to drive the global ophthalmoscopes market from 2017 to 2025. According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, around 2.7 million people aged 40 years or above in the U.S. are affected by glaucoma. Surge in the prevalence of chronic diseases such as diabetes mellitus and hypertension, which can lead to retinopathy, is another key factor likely to drive the global ophthalmoscopes market during the forecast period. Technological advancements such as laser ophthalmoscopy, increase in health care expenditure, rise in awareness among people about eye care, and growth of the geriatric population are some of the factors estimated to augment the market during the forecast period. Lack of awareness about ophthalmic disorders in developing countries is one of the major factors projected to restrain the global ophthalmoscopes market during the forecast period.Get PDF Brochure for more Professional & Technical industry insights: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=31295 The global ophthalmoscopes market can be segmented on the basis of type, indication, end-user, and region. Based on type, the market can be divided into direct ophthalmoscopes and indirect ophthalmoscopes. Based on indication, the market can be classified into diabetic retinopathy, lattice degeneration, retinal repair, segmental photocoagulation, glaucoma, and others. The diabetic retinopathy segment is expected to hold a significant share of the global ophthalmoscopes market during the forecast period, due to factors such as increase in the incidence of chronic diseases such as diabetes. Many a times, glaucoma leads to diabetic retinopathy. Based on end-user, the global ophthalmoscopes market has been segmented into private eye clinics, eye hospitals, and outpatient retinal clinics.Geographically, the global ophthalmoscopes market has been divided into North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. North America dominates the global ophthalmoscopes market. Increase in the prevalence of chronic disorders and glaucoma cases leading to diabetic retinopathy in the region is one of the major factor driving the market in the region. Furthermore, advancements in technology, rise in awareness among people about disease diagnosis, and high health care expenditure are some of the factors promoting growth of the ophthalmoscopes market in North America. Europe is also anticipated to hold a significant share of the global ophthalmoscopes market during the forecast period, due to increase in elderly population in the region. The market in Asia Pacific is anticipated to register a rapid growth rate during the forecast period. Asia Pacific is a highly lucrative market, due to growing geriatric population, adoption of health care solutions for better standards of life, rise in awareness about health care, and prevalence of lifestyle-related diseases in the region. Furthermore, high prevalence of childhood blindness as well as glaucoma is likely to propel the market in Asia Pacific during the forecast period.Request for Report ToC: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=31295 In order to maintain a significant position in the market, key players operating in the global ophthalmoscopes market are adopting strategies such as mergers, acquisitions, and cost-effective and collaborative partnerships. Some of the prominent players operating in the global ophthalmoscopes market are Welch Allyn, HEINE USA LTD, HONSUN, and IRIDEX Corporation.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 08:01:01

Quadex GeoKrete Geopolymer Passes Critical European Biogenic Acid Corrosion Test for Products Used in Repair or Renovation of Sewer Infrastructure

Quadex, LLC

Kit Jones, 713-269-2333

kit@wheel-wright.com

Quadex, LLC recently announced that its GeoKrete Geopolymer meets the most demanding European test standard for corrosion resistance, WXX4, as defined by DIN 19573: Mortar for Construction and Rehabilitation of Drains and Sewers Outside Buildings.

This test was created by the Hamburg Society for urban drainage to ensure mineral based repair and renovation products meet a minimum standard of resistance for biogenic acid corrosion. Historically the assumption has been that all mineral based materials get more or less destroyed by sulfuric acid and are only permanently resistant to corrosion in a pH range of 3.5 or greater, stated Neil Wisener, President of Quadex LLC, and one of the Vortex Companies. Having GeoKrete meet all requirements of the DIN 19573 standard for WXX4, which is the highest acid resistance category, is not only great news for us, but great for the sewer rehabilitation industry as well.

In order to comply with DIN 19573, in all testing phases, GeoKrete possessed a relative residual compressive strength greater than 55% for pH0, and greater than 75% for pH1. Were excited to have a geopolymer product that will serve the demanding sewer rehabilitation needs in Europe, added Mr. Wisener. Effective sulfuric acid resistant solutions are hard to come by, and now we are in position to make GeoKrete available abroad.

The results of this test allow us to continue our expansion into the European and International markets, stated Mike Vellano, CEO of the Vortex Companies. We are anxious to meet with qualified contractors interested in adding GeoKrete to their product and solution offering. GeoKrete will be on display at the Quadex booth at IFAT in May 2018. GeoKrete is used for the repair and rehabilitation of manholes, large diameter pipes and other sewer infrastructure requiring exceptional structural and corrosion protection. To learn more about GeoKrete geopolymer go to www.quadexonline.com or www.shoptrenchless.com.

ABOUT QUADEX LLC

Since 1991, Quadex has developed, manufactured and delivered more than 75 million pounds of lining and structural restoration materials for water and wastewater infrastructure. All Quadex materials and systems are designed to restore deteriorated structures and prolong infrastructure service life for up to 50 or more years. Quadex is one of the Vortex Companies.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201711030050
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 14:31:52

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Gastroesophageal pH meter is a direct in vivo measurement that record and measures the pH in esophagus for the evaluation of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Gastroesophageal pH test is performed by inserting a thin plastic catheter through a nostril into the esophagus using an endoscope. Catheter tip contains a sensor which measure the acidic level. The sensor is placed above the lower esophageal sphincter, area specialized of esophageal muscle. The sensor records each reflux of the acid in this position. The gatroesophageal pH test measures the amount of acid backing up or refluxing from stomach into the esophagus. Results of gatroesophageal pH test are affected by some medications like H2 blockers, proton pump inhibitors, antacids, nitrates, and others. The gastroesophageal pH test is commonly done to confirm the diagnosis of gastroesophageal reflux disease or to identify the cause of various symptoms like heartburn, uncommon symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease (like chest pain, asthma, chronic cough and other throat symptoms).View TOC for this Market Report @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/gastroesophageal-ph-meter-market.asp A recently developed device for the monitoring of gastroesophageal pH uses a capsule called the bravo capsule. The capsule contains a battery, an acid sensing probe, and a transmitter. In addition, the capsule also contains a small magnet. Probe monitors the acid in the food pipe (esophagus) and accordingly transmits the information to a recorder. The bravo pH capsule is attached to a delivery system. It is a catheter free test which measures the pH level in your esophagus. These measurements are used to evaluate the heartburn and acid reflux symptoms. However, the bravo pH test is not for those who are having an implantable cardiac pacemaker, obstructions, varices, and severe esophagitis. The gastroesophageal pH monitoring has helped in the advancement of knowledge regarding gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). The gastroesophageal pH meter has become an important tool in the management and diagnosis of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).According to the CDC, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a very common disorder which is affecting mostly the children worldwide.The global gatroesophageal pH meter market is driven by the rising adoption of in vivo measurements for the gastroesophageal reflux disease. Rising incidence of diseases related to the esophageal disorders is also the key factor which is driving the growth of global gatroesophageal pH meter market. However, lack of skilled physicians is expected to restrain the growth of gastroesophageal pH meter market.Based on product type, the global gastroesophageal pH meter market is segmented into bench top pH meters, portable pH meters and continuous pH meters. Amongst all, portable pH meters are expected to hold maximum share in the market due to its compatibility. Based on test type, the market is segmented into catheter and wireless based gastroesophageal pH test. Due to the poor tolerance of catheter based pH test, wireless based test holds the maximum share in the market of global gastroesophageal pH meter. Based on the end user, the global gastroesophageal pH meter market is segmented into hospitals, diagnostic centers and others.Make an Enquiry @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/18457 In terms of region, the global gastroesophageal pH meter market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America and Europe are the leading player of gastroesophageal pH meter market owing to increasing awareness and successful research in product innovations. Asia Pacific region is also expected to grow due to increasing investment in health care spending and rise in research and development.The key players in the global gastroesophageal pH meter market are Medica SpA, EB Neuro S.p.A., Diversatek, Inc., Medical Measurement Systems, LABORIE, Medtronic Plc. among others.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 15:09:33

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Industrial metal brushes are used to clean the conveyor, blankets, and glasses in industries such as pharmaceuticals, food processing, textile processing, and metal circuit board production. The end-use of an industrial metal brush is to clean a contaminated surface, and its efficiency depends on the design of the brush. The length and diameter of the brush along with its durability, hardness, flexibility, and strength are some of the features that decide its efficiency. A metal brush is used for burnishing fine detailing and fitting into tight areas. It generally contains several rows of bristles made of soft stainless steel of soft brass. This type of brush can also be made of copper of phosphor bronze. The fibers on a metal brush can be hand laced for better fiber retention and durability. Industrial metal brushes are used in electrostatic discharge sensitive conditions. The global industrial metal brush market is expected to witness steady growth during the forecast period owing to growing construction and manufacturing activities due to rapid urbanization. Growth of the automotive sector is also likely to play a crucial role in driving the growth of the global industrial metal brush market.Request For Report Sample: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=29930 The global industrial metal brush market has been segmented based on type of industrial metal brush, end-use, and region.Based on type, the market has been segmented into strip brush, plate brush, tool brush, tube brush, spiral brush, circular brush, belt brush, and roller brush among others. Strip brush is one of the most commonly used industrial metal brush. These brushes find various uses both in agricultural and electronic industries. Strip brushes are used in soundproofing and for protection against dust, dirt, heat, smoke, moisture and also to remove static electricity from conveyor and cleaning belts. Plate brushes find use in moving parceled goods in sheet metal centers. Tool brushes are used extensively in pneumatic and electric tools for removing and polishing paints, clean metal surface from dirt, rust and spatters. Tube brushes are used to clean small parts and remove dirt from chimneys, ventilation shafts, pipelines and tubes, boilers and flues among others. Special brushes have various applications such as washing, polishing, sorting and peeling among others. Circular brushes are durable and are mostly used for gentle applications. These brushes are used for grinding welding seams and attaching stickers among others. Belt brushes are used to remove stubborn dirt from the surface of metals, and roller brushes are used for washing and polishing conveyor belts.Based on end-use, the global industrial metal brush market has been segmented into automotive sector, construction and manufacturing, aerospace and defense and others. Owing to rise in construction and manufacturing activities over the past few years due to rapid urbanization, the construction and manufacturing sector is expected to hold a significant share of the global industrial metal brush market over the forecast period. The aerospace and defense segment is also expected to contribute a considerable market share. However, the automotive segment is anticipated to expand at the fastest growth rate during the forecast period.Based on region, the global industrial metal brush market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and Latin America. North America is projected to acquire a considerable share of the global industrial metal brush market owing to a strong automotive, and aerospace and defense sector.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=29930 Key players operating in the industrial metal brush market are Bosch Power Tools, Makita, Saint-Gobain, 3M, General Electric, Karl Storz, PCE Deutschland, SENTECH, NDT Gear, IT Concepts, Teslong, and Coantec among others.
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Shale Gas Processing Equipment Market: Global Industry Analysis 2012  2016 and Opportunity Assessment; 2017  2027" report to their offering.

Shale Gas Processing Equipment Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 10:44:38

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CONTACT:Future Market InsightsAbhishek Bhudoliya616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531

Shale gas processing equipment are used to process shale gas before transportation. Gas is transported through pipelines within the state as well as across states. To prepare shale gas for use, some of the components such as N2, H2S, heavy hydrocarbons, CO2 and water need to be removed by gas processing to meet safety, pipeline, environmental and quality specifications.The technique used to remove contaminates depends upon certain properties of gas stream such as pressure, temperature, composition and flow rate.Acid gas is mainly removed by absorption of CO2 and H2S into aqueous amine solution.Natural gas having high content of water in reservoir is removed by dehydration using glycol to increase the heating value of gas and prevent pipeline corrosion. Water content can also be removed by passing the gas through molecular sieves, which bring down the level of water in natural gas to very low percentage for cryogenic separation.Request For Report Sample: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-4652 Distillation is used for separation of nitrogen and other hydrocarbons from natural gas.Hydraulic fracturing along with horizontal drilling have magnified the capability of producers to economically recover methane rich gas and crude oil from low-permeability geologic shale plays.Shale Gas Processing Equipment Market: Market DynamicsThe continuous increase in shale gas demand is expected to accelerate the need for investments and exploration activities. This has propelled the need for shale gas processing equipment and shale gas processing infrastructure.Accelerated demand for energy has led many companies to increase their exploration activities of unconventional fuel reserves to meet the high energy demand.Properties such as higher calorific value and lower carbon emissions when compared to other conventional energy sources such as petroleum & coal are projected to further drive the market.Stringent environmental policies and regulations for hydraulic fracturing implemented by Governments to protect public interests coupled with fluctuating natural gas prices are expected to hamper the shale gas processing equipment market. Hydraulic fracturing process consumes large amount of water for the production of shale gas, due to shortage and contamination of groundwater across the globe. This in turn is expected to retard the shale gas processing equipment market growth.Shale Gas Processing Equipment Market: Market SegmentationThe shale gas processing equipment market can be segmented on the basis of component type as;Electrical machineryInternal combustion enginesCompressors & pumpsMeasuring & controlling devicesHeat exchangers.Shale Gas Processing Equipment Market: Regional OutlookNorth America is slated to be one of the biggest market holders in the shale gas processing equipment market. The U.S. dominates the market in North America, as it is the hub of shale gas processing equipment due to the abundant shale reserves exploration. Advancement in technology and cost effective drilling techniques coupled with favourable Government regulations are slated to drive the shale gas processing equipment market in North America.Due to the Governmental policies in China, it is expected that the country will emerge as a leader in shale gas exploration activities, which as a result will fuel the shale gas processing equipment market, surpassing North America during the forecast period.Increasing exploration activities and strict Government policies to reduce petroleum consumption and increase the consumption of natural gas are expected to drive the shale gas processing equipment market in Asia Pacific region. Developing regions such as India, China, Brazil and South Africa are expected to create opportunities for the shale gas processing equipment market during the forecast period, but the less water availability for hydraulic fracturing process in some regions might hamper the growth of shale gas processing equipment market.Europe is expected to exhibit growth in shale gas processing equipment market during the forecast period, especially in Western Europe, but due to strict Government rules and regulations regarding environment safety may slowdown the growth of shale gas processing equipment market in the region.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-4652 Shale Gas Processing Equipment Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants in the shale gas processing equipment market are Camaron, Honeywell UOP, GasTech Engineering LLC, Linde Engineering, Pall Corporation, Newpoint Gas LP, Exterran Corporation and Van Air Inc., among others.
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A wafer is a material made of silicon, germanium or other semiconductor material used in the creation of integrated circuits (ICs) which are the building blocks of present day electronics. Spin coating is a process which deposits thin films of material, generally a photoresist on to a single wafer. The photoresist is applied to the center of wafer. The wafer is then rotated at high speed, resulting in centrifugal force which uniformly spreads the photoresist over the entire wafer. The thickness of the film is inversely proportional to the speed of wafer rotation. The process is done by a machine know as spin coater or spin processor or spinner.A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=21971 Printed electronics use spin wafer processing technology. Rising demand for printed electronics is expected to increase demand for spin coaters. Rising demand for critical, high precision, repeatable, high device yield, stringent process control manufacturing requirements are increasing the demand for single wafer processing which will alternatively increase the demand for spin coaters. Rising demand for shorter cycle times are increasing the demand for single wafer processing in mini-fabs with capacity ranging from ~10,000-30,000 wafers will increase the demand for spin coaters. Rising demand for advanced packaging, increase in the number of fabless firms, miniaturization among others are increasing the demand for photolithographic equipment including spin coaters. In spin wafer processing only a single wafer can be coated which is a time consuming and costly process compared to batch processing of wafers. In spin wafer processing the actual amount of material coated on wafer surface is very small and most of the materials are flung from the side of wafer and wasted; this is likely to hinder the growth of spin wet wafer processing technology due to manufacturing loss. In spin wafer processing the material present on wafer surface is dried quickly which causes lower performance in nanotechnology devices. There is good opportunity to use spin processing technology in coating protecting films over wafers in complex MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System) devices. Nano-technology is another area where there is increasing opportunity for spin processing technology.The spin wet wafer processing technology market when segmented depending on wafer size into 150mm, 200mm, 300mm, 450mm and others. By technology spin wet wafer processing market is segmented into manual coating and automatic coating. By dispensing type spin wet wafer processing market is segmented into static dispense and dynamic dispense. By end use spin wet wafer processing market is segmented into pharmaceutical & healthcare, defense, aerospace, biomedical, food, energy, OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) and others. Rising demand for processing 450mm wafer is expected to increase demand for spin coaters. Rising penetration of OLED technology in consumer electronic devices such as TVs, tablets, mobile phones among others will alternatively increase the demand for spin coaters.The market when segmented by geography are North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East & Africa (MEA) and South America. APAC is one of the largest semiconductor foundry market in the world due to the presence of large number of pure-play foundry units in Taiwan, China, South Korea and Singapore among others which will alternatively increase the demand for spin coaters. North America is another large semiconductor foundry market due to the presence of both IDM (Integrated Device Manufacturers) and pure-play foundry units in the U.S. which will increase the demand for spin coaters. MEA region also has semiconductor foundries especially in Israel which will increase demand for spin coaters.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=21971 Laurell Technologies (the U.S.), Ossila Limited (the U.K.), Spin Coating System (the U.S.), Sigma-Aldrich (Germany), Chemat Technology, Inc. (the U.S.), Spin Coating (the Netherlands), Ramgraber (Germany), Mbraun (Germany), Brewer Science Inc. (the U.S.), SPS Europe (the Neatherlands), Spintrac Systems (the U.S.) among others.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 09:07:08

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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Sunvest Minerals Corp.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCWire) - Sunvest Minerals Corp. (TSX Venture:SSS). has issued a press release with the following headline:Sunvest Samples 245g/T (7.1 Oz/T) Gold Over 1.5 Meters at the Clone Gold Property, Golden Triangle, BCTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Sunvest Minerals Corp., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Sunvest Minerals Corp.Source: Sunvest Minerals Corp. (TSX Venture: SSS, WKN: A2AFZ5, ISIN: CA86804N1069)Date: November 03, 2017Time: 4:00 AM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Sunvest Minerals Corp. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-03 08:02:01

Hungarian migrants in over 50 countries will now be able to transfer money directly to any bank account in Hungary via WorldRemit

WorldRemit Customers Can Now Send Remittances Directly to Bank Accounts in Hungary

WorldRemit

Communications Team

media@worldremit.com

or

Bryce Currie, Business Development

bcurrie@worldremit.com

Leading digital money transfer service WorldRemit has launched instant money transfers to Hungary.

WorldRemits mobile-first, digital model allows hard working migrants to send money in a few taps directly from their phones - without the need to visit or stand in line at a bricks and mortar agent.

The new service lets migrants in over 50 countries send remittances directly to bank accounts in Hungary in a safe, quick and convenient way, using the WorldRemit app or website.

It is estimated that 600,000 Hungarians are working and living abroad, with top migration destinations including Germany, the United Kingdom, Austria, and Switzerland. Remittances play an important role in its economy and the World Bank estimates that in 2015 $4.5 billion were received, making Hungary one of the top remittance receiving countries in Europe.

Ismail Ahmed, founder and CEO at WorldRemit, comments: Hungarys diaspora has a growing need to access quick, secure and convenient money transfers. WorldRemits service answers that need. 

Now a Hungarian waiter, language interpreter or IT professional in London can transfer money back home as easily as sending an instant message.

In June, WorldRemit announced a global integration with Googles Android Pay. WorldRemit customers now complete 750,000 transfers every month from over 50 send countries to 148 receiving destinations.

Visit WorldRemits website for more information on how to send money to [..].

About WorldRemit

WorldRemit is changing the way people send money.

Its easy  just open the app or visit the website  no more agents.

Transfers to most countries are instant  send money like an instant message.

More ways to receive (mobile money, bank transfer, cash pickup, and mobile airtime top-up).

Available in over 50 countries and more than 148 destinations.

Backed by Accel Partners and TCV  investors in Facebook, Spotify, Netflix and Slack.

WorldRemits global headquarters are in London, UK with regional offices in the United States, Canada, South Africa, Singapore, the Philippines, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201711030050

Hungarian migrants now be able to transfer money directly to any bank account in Hungary via WorldRemit
Nigeria, along with other member nations of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS and affiliates and partners of the World Trade Organisation, WTO, on Friday reaffirmed their conviction that trade and investment were twin engines and pillars for economic growth, modernization and development of Africa.

The reaffirmation was contained in a public declaration titled, The Abuja Statement adopted at the close of a two-day high level policy and private sector trade and investment facilitation cum partnership forum in Abuja.

The Abuja Statement on the theme: Deepening Africas Integration in the Global Economy through Trade and Investment Facilitation for Development was unanimously adopted by over 30 African countries and Friends of Investment Facilitation for Development, FIFD, who participated in the event.

The statement noted the challenges of increasing population, mounting pressures for jobs and expanding prosperity across Africa, amid growing opportunities and potentials for accelerating industrialisation and technological development.

Stressing the need to leverage Africas demographic dividend for sustained and inclusive growth, the statement said the continent has emerged the next global growth frontier for Africa and the global economy.

Apart from the challenges and opportunities, participants discussed how more cooperative approaches to investment and trade facilitation could be harnessed for win-win outcomes.

The statement said a critical starting point for the exchanges and sharing of experiences was the reaffirmation importance of trade and investment as twin engines for economic growth, modernisation.

Only by scaling up investments in connectivity infrastructure  ports, transport corridors, telecommunications networks  could African countries participate in, and benefit from, todays integrated and digital global economy.

Only by increasing, intensively, investments in globally competitive industries, services, and start-ups  from both foreign and domestic sources  could African countries generate the resources required to advance education, improve health care, reinvest in innovation, and generate employment opportunities for millions of young people, the statement added.

Participants acknowledged United Nations projection that developing countries would need an additional $2.5 trillion in investment annually to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, SDS.

Besides, they endorsed the proposition for higher domestic security and stability to achieve higher levels of welfare, prosperity and job creation, facilitated by greater intensity in trade and investment facilitation.

The resolution said expanding trade and investment facilitation required investment and complementary polices, institutions, and best practices, domestically, regionally and internationally, including the global networks, know-how, and technologies.

To strengthen global trading system, participants expressed support for the ongoing negotiations to establish the Continental Free Trade Area, CFTA,  a single market for trade in goods and services across Africa, calling African Union, AU, members to advance the strategic objective.

Declaring the forum open on Thursday, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo restated Nigerias commitment to the CFTA agreement as the only way to deepen intra-regional trade and regional economic integration.

Nigerias commitment to fostering regional integration through ECOWAS remains strong, as we lead the ongoing negotiations to conclude by the end of the year the continental free trade area, CFTA. For Nigeria, there is no Plan B on the CFTA. We must absolutely succeed, the VP said.

Mr. Osinbajo said the benefits of the WTO agreement on trade facilitation included enhancing infrastructural facilities, boosting productive and trade capacities, reducing transaction costs, and removal of barriers through reforms as well as improvements in the customs regulatory systems to boost intra-African trade.

The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah, said the new image about about Nigeria in the global arena was that of a positive, pro-development, pro-business and pro-enabling environment for business.

On his part, the Director General/Chief Negotiator of the Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiations, Chiedu Osakwe, said the forum was an acknowledgment of Nigerias economic and trade policy leadership in West Africa, Africa and the global economy.

The High Level Forum was co-hosted by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, ECOWAS in partnership with FIFD and members of FIFD coalition.

The coalition includes Nigeria, Argentina, China, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong China, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, Singapore, Switzerland, Canada, the European Union and Qatar.

Other participants at the Forum include WTO Director General, Roberto Azevedo; Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD, Mukhisa Kituyi; African Union, AU; Commissioner for Trade and Industry, Albert Muchanga; President of ECOWAS Commission, Marcel Alain de Souza, and CEOs and business leaders from Hauwei, Procter and Gamble, Vodacom.
The murder of one of Nigerias iconic journalists and the founding editor-in-chief of Newswatch Magazine, Dele Giwa, through a parcel bomb on October 19, 1986 will go down as the countrys most prominent and controversial attack on press freedom.

Mr. Giwas death at the age of 39 will remain a huge loss for the practice of investigative journalism in Nigeria as circumstances surrounding his death remain a mystery, with security agencies and government yet to bring the culprits behind the murder to book.

That was the first case of letter bomb in Nigeria. Till date, no one else is the country is known to have been killed in that manner.

Though there have been efforts especially in this democratic dispensation to ensure a free and independent press, journalists in Nigeria still operate under varying degrees of threats and attacks.

Recently, a CPJ report listed Nigeria among the 12 countries in the world where journalists are killed and the killers evade justice.

The report  annual Global Impunity Index  stated that five journalists in Nigeria have been killed with complete impunity in the past decade.

At least two Nigerian journalists have been killed in 2017, according to data collected by the International Press Centre, IPC.

Twelve other journalists and media organisations in the country suffered various forms of assault including from state actors.

To check the deteriorating freedom of expression in Nigeria and the rising numbers of press attacks, journalists, government institutions, civil rights groups and NGOs gathered in Abuja on Thursday to seek solutions.

The event tagged press attack dialogue was organized by the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ) in collaboration with the Coalition for Whistleblower Protection and Press Freedom, supported by Free Press Unlimited.

Issues bordering on the nature of Nigerian laws on journalists and how it restricts their professional practices were extensively discussed.

In many low income earning countries especially in Africa, the civic space is termed to be threatened and narrowed most of the time, Chelsey Burrman, a representative of the Netherlands Embassy in Nigeria said earlier before the dialogue session.

Ms. Burrman said the Dutch embassy is partnering with Free Press Unlimited to specifically improve access to information for the media in Nigeria.

On freedom of the Netherlands press, she said I will like to think that the Netherlands press is free to write and speak freely within certain limits and respect to the law.

During the dialogue session, Charles Otu, a reporter with the Guardian newspaper, narrated how he was abducted and beaten up by thugs, who warned him to stop writing reports that were critical of the Ebonyi State government.

INADEQUATE LAWS

Ayode Longe, the programme manager, Media Rights Agenda, said unlike Nigeria, article 162 of the Ghanaian constitution specifically provides media freedom, there it says that the media shall be free and shall not be censored and that parliament cannot make laws that will censor the media.

Mr. Longe decried the fact that there is a lacuna in the laws guiding media freedom in Nigeria.

What we have is the criminal defamation laws. Our laws are more or less negative and work against the media.

In the world, the movement is towards civil defamation but in Nigeria, we still have criminal defamation which should not be. What we also found out is that the state goes ahead to prosecute cases that are meant to be handled by individuals, he said.

Mr. Longe also cited among others a case involving the wife of the Ogun State governor and journalists.

They felt they were defamed, so the police arrested the alleged defamers and detained them before they were arraigned. These are individuals, they are not even government officials, so this was supposed to be a civil matter.

IMPUNITY AND STEPS TOWARDS SELF-REGULATION

Abdulwaheed Odusile, the National President of Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ said technology is changing the world of journalism thereby affecting the way journalists practice the profession.

The old school thing is over and the new generation are not keen on what it used to be or how we use to do things, Mr. Odusile said.

He added that the problem Nigerian journalists have is that they are too much in a haste.

Most of our journalists are too much in a haste to file their stories that they dont do a thorough work, its good to be at the news stand to break the story first but at what cost?

Some of the things happening to the media are self-implicating.

He stressed that most of the journalists in Nigeria failed to register with NUJ.

It is only when you are in trouble thats when you now begin to look for the office of NUJ to come and bail you out.

About the burning issues of impunity, I think we know what has happened in the past but they continue to happen because past attacks on media have not been investigated and culprits were not brought to book  nobody has found the killers of Dele Giwa.

Today they can also kill another journalist and nothing will happen and this is why we need to talk to the President and the security agencies and even the court.

He added that the court also contributes to all the acts of impunity.

By the time you go for court case you will be so shocked that your case might take up to 20 years. These are the kinds of thing that get people frustrated.

Mr. Odusile further said that a national committee is being set up between NUJ and security agencies including prison authorities to tackle impunity and attacks on journalists in Nigeria.

REGULATION

Three days ago, 23 radio and television stations across Nigeria were fined for various breaches of broadcasting rules set by the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, a move which elicited critical reactions from Nigerians.

The spokesperson of the regulatory body, Maimuna Jimada, said the stations were punished for hateful speech, vulgar lyrics and unverifiable claims.

There has not been much awareness in the country on what constitutes a hate speech; although it has been described in other climes as speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it incites violence.

In some countries, a victim of hate speech may seek redress under civil law, criminal law, or both. A website which uses hate speech may be called a hate site.

On May 31 2016, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter, jointly agreed to a European Union code of conduct obligating them to review majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech posted on their services within 24 hours.

Tunde Akpeji, a representative of the National Communications Commission, NCC during the dialogue, said the Commission has come under pressure to regulate Over the Talk, OTT communications such as WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media platforms.

There are calls for its regulations, they are looking at it from the financial and economical angle but the NCC showed its leadership ability by stressing that the commission wont regulate OTT because its a grey area.

If we do that, there will be identity issues and at that point the whistle blower may lose his/her protection, Mr. Agbeji said.

He said even with sim card registration where identities of people are easily known, the commission conducts its regulatory work in such a way that users identity are hardly compromised.

In that regard, the commission expects the telecommunication companies to follow due process.

Only law enforcement agencies can be issued identities of phone users by telecom operators and the policy requires that it will be backed by a court warrant.

In the broader aspect of when stories are published by media organisations and how well the people have access to it, the commission prevents anti-competitive tendencies by making the internet cheap so people dont wake up one morning and find the internet too expensive for them to go online and read stories, the NCC official said.

UNVEILING PRESS ATTACK TRACKER

The Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism, PTCIJ, had launched a Press Attack tracker as part of its strategic vision of ensuring freedom of expression and its fight against press gagging.

The tracker seeks to document and track threats and attacks on journalists nationwide.

Unveiling the tracker at the Abuja event, Aisha Hashim, a PTCIJ programme officer, said the tracker is named pressattackng, www.pressattackng.crowdmap.com

She gave a detailed explanation of how the tracker works and how to post attacks.

At the end of the programme, participants all agreed that more needs to be done to ensure press freedom in Nigeria.
Kenyas opposition coalition has asked supporters to boycott three big companies it says benefit from ties to the government of President Uhuru Kenyatta, who won last weeks repeat election after an opposition boycott.

Wearing hats embroidered RESISTANCE, and speaking against a backdrop showing a clenched fist, members of parliament gave their supporters a weeks notice to stop using products from telecoms giant Safaricom, dairy products from Brookside and Bidco cooking oils.

We are calling for a boycott that will be painful, a boycott that will bring these companies to their knees until they stand for electoral justice, said Nakara Lodep, Turkana central lawmaker.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga has called for a National Resistance Movement to protest the outcome of the repeat election, which was ordered by the Supreme Court after it annulled the results of an August poll over procedural irregularities.

President Uhuru Kenyatta won a second, five-year term with 98 percent of the vote after Mr. Odinga boycotted the contest. Only 39 percent of registered voters took part.

Lawmakers said Safaricom was targeted because it had helped transmit election results. Brookside Dairy is partly owned by Mr. Kenyattas family and partly by French dairy giant Danone.

A spokesman for Safaricom said the company had no immediate comment.

Brookside and Bidco did not return messages seeking comment.

Mr. Odinga has until Monday to file a Supreme Court case seeking to overturn the election.

If there are no outstanding legal proceedings, Mr. Kenyatta will be inaugurated on November 14.

(Reuters/NAN)
A former Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido, recently wrote members of the Peoples Democratic Party on his intention to seek the presidential ticket of the party for the 2019 General Election.

In this interview with PREMIUM TIMES Hausa, Mr. Lamido explained why he wants Nigerians to consider him a better alternative to incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress.

PT: Just about two weeks ago, Nigerians were made aware of your letter to PDP faithful, where you formally disclosed your interest in the presidential ticket of the party. Why did you take that approach?

LAMIDO: African party draws its kind of authority, supremacy and its goodwill from the supporters. In whatever the party does, party faithful are very important. So by my political culture, tradition and political upbringing, the party is very critical. So I said that for us to be able to pull Nigeria out of this political despondency, political ambivalence and political fear, we must first of all intimate these to the party faithful. That means each card carrying member in Nigeria should be informed that I am running.

It is a kind of family affair that Im offering myself. So if they find that Im worthy, because I believe that we share the same concern for this country, we also share the same vision.

You see, the way things are in this country, APC cannot keep Nigeria united. I am not being critical, but if you analysed what is going on today, compared to three years ago, you can see the concern in Nigeria.

I also know that many others will also join the race. But what is important for us to know is that, in whatever we do, we restore that thing called trust in the party. We should also put Nigeria first.

At the end, whoever should emerge from the party as candidate after primaries should be a candidate who is owned by PDP, who knows PDP and who PDP people knows.

By so doing, the PDP can face Nigerians and say this is what we are giving you, and we are giving you the best. Because I have been saying that we have to do things right, otherwise by 2019, there will be serious problem in Nigeria. PDP is the only party with the capacity, with the cohesion, with political root, with that kind of passion for Nigeria.

Look at the way it was founded in 1998. PDP is not something that fell from the sky. It was as a result of a process of reflection, understanding, and research.

PT: You are one of the engineers and architects of the formation of PDP as a political party. Are there some untold stories about that development which are not yet known by Nigerians?

LAMIDO: I dont think there are more untold stories of how PDP as a party was formed.

PT: Some of the party members who left PDP are now planning to return, and most of them are people who have presidential ambition. We are specifically told that former vice present Atiku Abubakar will return, but he wants the assurance that he will get the ticket. What do you think?

LAMIDO: Look, at the time they left the party, there were indeed some worries within the party. That kind of worries and concern were raised by the seven governors who formed the nucleus of, not opposition really, but maybe raising the alarm that there is problem in PDP. In so doing, we went and toured the whole country if you can remember. We told all our political leaders like Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Alex Ekweme, TY Danjuma, Shehu Shagari, Babangida and many others.

We told them look, what we are facing in PDP may likely endanger Nigerias stability and security in future. It is beyond PDP.

The party must meet at least quarterly under the constitution of the party. But the party did not meet for the whole year under Bamanga Tukur. So if the party did not do things right, there will be a problem, the government will lose.

Somehow, others left in the process. We lost five governors, some parliamentarians, some key members of our party joined other parties.

Now, having gone where they went, have they got comfort? Have they been consoled? Have they been rescued from what they were running away from? Let them come back. They are most welcome. They are coming back to their own party which they left. PDP is their home. But APC is a house which is rented for anybody who wants to be there for a while.

Atiku, Saraki and all of them are most welcome back. Because they are all PDP invention, they are all PDP children, they are all our own material, no matter where they go, their political DNA is PDP. No matter how they tried to run away, you cannot run away from your soul.

About giving conditions, I dont think my brother Atiku was giving any condition. Who gave him such conditions? They are welcome back to where they are cherished, where they are admired, where they were made what they are.

But they are there now. Look at the kind of indignation and insults they are going through. Everyday Lai (Minister of Information and Culture, Mohammed) will abuse them, saying PDP is a party of thugs, a party of thieves, party of this, party of that, but they sit down with them. Lai will say they are shameless, but they are there watching.

Whatever they will say against PDP, the APC government is a PDP government. It is our own.

PT: As a Nigerian, what is your concern about what is currently happening under Buhari administration? Will you say it is sad and unfortunate, or are you happy, as failure of a government will be an added advantage to an opposition candidate?

LAMIDO: You see, as a Nigerian and a citizen, I dont celebrate a government mistake because we are going to pay the consequences of that mistake. So, I am not in any way celebrating APC failure as a government, because the government is not APC personal government, it is the Nigerian government. That government has a duty to perform. Unfortunately they went into the government unprepared.

Because they are unprepared, that is why they must continue churning out lies to mask their failure. During the campaign they kept saying PDP is Boko Haram, we are evil, and we were demonised. Now they are in government, they failed to move away from a political party seeking position to a party as an institution and a government.

But because they have no simple sense of what is known as government and governance, they kept on with the same propaganda. And if you speak about the government which you have the right to speak, the operators and propagandists of the party called APC will mock you. It is very dangerous for a government to be mocking its citizen.

Today in Nigeria, a citizen is mocked for saying his own right about his government. When you speak, they will call you a wailing wailer. Now, if people are wailing because of what they see is wrong, the government should ask, why are they wailing? But instead, they make you a laughing stock. It doesnt make sense. It means they dont know what leadership is.

When your children are crying because they are hungry, what will you do? Are you going to provide food for them or you just simply call them wailing wailers?

They are utterly irrational and dont know what is called leadership. They are simply sitting there on privilege, but they are thinking the government is their own right. Somebody who contributed nothing to the evolution of political Nigeria is today calling the shot in Nigerian government. And the culture of lies became their art of governance.

When President was sick, he was taken abroad. Lai and Adesina were saying he was taking some antibiotics, he is just resting, and he is healthy, bla, bla. But when Buhari came back, he said he was sick. When YarAdua was sick, the same Lai and others were demanding for their right to know their presidents health condition, even the way he eats. But now they are in the government, we are now overwhelmed with tonnes of lies.

Look at the issue that billions of dollars of NNPC contract. At the same time ASUU were on strike. Now, if you take just one billion dollars to our universities, it will make sense there. Our roads are now terrible. If you put some reasonable amount there, it will also make sense. Look at Kaduna-Kano road for goodness sake.

The medical doctors are also screaming. If you take something out of that money meant for NNPC contract, it will be OK to stop all these strikes. After budgeting over N3 billion to Aso Rock clinic, they now said there is no even a syringe there.

But they kept on saying we are wailing. Thank God Aisha Buhari is among the wailers, she now wails like me. Even APC is now equally wailing. Nigeria is now a wailing nation.

PT: PDP is preparing for its National Convention. With the crisis of litigation and confusion over chairmanship of the party, will you say that the party has learnt any lesson?

LAMIDO: We are going into an election year, the chairman you elect now more or less merely symbolic. He is a symbol of authority and makes things work. Whoever is elected as the chairman cannot go to, say Niger State, and tell the party delegates to vote Mr. So and So, on account of his instructions as the chairman of the party. He cannot go to Sokoto, Jigawa or any state and assert his authority. It is something to be done collectively.

By now, we have gone a long way; it is going to be less personal in our party affairs. Whoever emerges as the party chairman must rely on the party supporters to guide him and assist him to success.

PT: One of the biggest challenges the next president will face is how to put Nigerias economy on the right track. A dollar is about N365, while a litre of petrol is N145. How are you

LAMIDO: (Cuts in) Ashafa, you are going too academic. The human mind is trained to confront challenges. I have seen several countries that are now something, but they came out from nothing. It is all about ideas, not just mere theories. Many countries with no raw materials, no diamonds are now great nations. Why? Because ideas create wealth. Look at South Korea, they are among the builders of the biggest ships in the world, yet have no iron ore.

This government which calls you a wailer, which divides Nigeria, their chemistry and ideas are zero. In the last two year no significant portions of investment came to Nigeria, nothing. Go to Angola, in one year they got N16 billion investment. Egypt is now a strong economic nation. Look at Rwanda. So no matter how many theories you have, how do you put the Nigerian chemistry right?

So, it is not about how many economic theorists we have. This is a country where Professor Itse Sagay says APC is a party of thieves, the party of people who are very corrupt, and he is serving in this government. Tell me, who will come from Europe and invest?

PT: What is very attractive about village life to a personality like you? Because whenever you are not in Kano, you are always resting in in your village, Bamaina, Jigawa State.

LAMIDO: My father and mother gave birth to me there. No matter what I become in life, even if I become the world president, my root is from that village. My life started from a village; that is why I love my village with passion.
The Niger Delta Avengers, a group of militants that struck oil installations in Niger Delta region last year, has announced an immediate end to its ceasefire with the Nigerian government.

In a statement posted on its website Friday afternoon, the group said it would resume hostilities any day from now, saying the Buhari administration has not been sincere with its peace talks and promises for the Niger Delta.

The group also condemned a former top militant in the region, Government Ekpemupolo, a.k.a. Tompolo, saying he had failed to live up to his leadership roles for those who seek absolute emancipation for the region.

The statement was signed by the groups spokesperson, named Mudoch Agbinibo, who also announced a string of successful attacks on oil and gas facilities that sent major international oil firms like Shell and Chevron deferring activities last year.

The group also named the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, as one of Nigerian governments loyalists sabotaging its cause.

The militants have not carried out any major attack since the beginning of this year.

Details soon
After meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House on Friday, the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, indicated his willingness to appear before the Senate.

Mr. Idris, however, told journalists that his meeting was to update President Muhammadu Buhari on the security situation across the country.

Speaking to State House correspondents after the closed door meeting with the president, the police chief said he might appear before the Senate ad-hoc committee probing corruption allegations against him. The committee is headed by the Senate Deputy Whip, Francis Alimikhena.

The Senate had served Mr. Idris an invitation letter on October 16 to appear before the Alimikhena Committee on November 1. The police chief, however, failed to honour the invitation.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the Senate committee on Wednesday ordered Mr. Idris to appear before it next Tuesday.

Mr. Alimikhena told journalists in Abuja that the committee received a letter from the police chiefs lawyer, Alex Iziyon, informing the committee that it would amount to subjudice if the Inspector General of Police appears before the Senate committee on the same issue that is before the competent court of law.

The police chief had filed a suit in court seeking to halt the Senate probe, after a senator, Isah Misau, accused him of corruption and abuse of office.

On Wednesday, the Senate committee threatened to order the arrest of Mr. Idris should he fail to appear next Tuesday; although implementing such order would be virtually impossible as it is the police headed by Mr. Idris that would be required to implement it.

The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, on Thursday criticised Mr. Idriss refusal to appear before the committee.

As the chief law enforcing officer, we will expect that he should know what the law is and he should know that there has been many judgements on this. It is clearly stated that he cannot stop the Senate from appearing and doing its job, Mr. Saraki said.

However, after meeting with Mr. Buhari on Friday, the police chief stated that for the sake of having respect for the National Assembly, he might honour the Senates invitation. He said he was awaiting advice from the polices legal team on the matter.

These are legal issues. We are discussing with our legal team, obviously if there is need we are going to appear for the sake of having respect for the Senate, I will appear before them.

MEETING WITH BUHARI

On the outcome of his meeting with the president, Mr. Idris said he briefed him on the efforts of the police to check criminal activities such as kidnapping, armed robbery and other social vices.

According to him, he also updated the president on the measures being taken to ensure a successful and peaceful governorship election in Anambra.

Obviously, I am here as usual to discuss with the commander in chief on the security challenges we are having and how we will face these security challenges adequately.

The security challenges are, obviously, you know we are having elections in Anambra state and we are having challenges in various parts of the country especially some of these issues of kidnapping and these are things I discussed with the President, and the measures taken to address them squarely, said the I-GP.

He revealed that water boats, helicopters and about 21,000 police officers would be deployed for the smooth conduct of the election.

We are deploying a lot of police officers, almost about 21,000 police officers to be able to provide adequate security in the Anambra election.

We are deploying our water boats to take care of the water ways, we are deploying our helicopters to take care of the aerial surveillance of the areas and we are deploying our conventional police men and special police units to take care of situations on ground.

And by the grace of God we are going to have a successful and peaceful election in Anambra state, Mr. Idris said.

The police chief added that the Force Headquarters in Abuja had deployed special police unit to patrol the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano highway with a view to checking the menace of armed robbers and kidnappers along the route.
The Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chris Ngige, says the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has created up to seven million jobs so far.

The minister stated this on Thursday while briefing State House correspondent after meeting with Mr. Buhari in his office.

We promised jobs but what has happened is that people tried to quantify jobs in terms of white collar jobs for graduates from universities and polytechnics, but they dont want to look at the blue collar jobs.

 Agriculture and agric value chain alone have created more than 5-7 million jobs, he said.

Mr. Ngige said such jobs were created in rice farming.

From rice tilling, harvesting, sending to the paddies, mills, and even where people are making the jute bags, transportation, people are getting jobs.

So, that value chain alone from agric is enormous, he said.

The minister also said the government has created  millions of jobs from the N-power scheme.

He said agencies of government such as the National Directorate of Employment, NDE, have also created jobs through skills acquisition.

He said under the NDE, the government gives beneficiaries tools to earn a living through being plumbers, electricians ,cosmetologists, shoe makers, tilers and several other areas. We have created several jobs, he said.

The minister said he was at the State House to brief Mr. Buhari on the  harvest of strikes in September.

Several workers unions especially in the health and education sectors recently went on strike over various demands or inability of government to fulfill promises made to the workers in the past.

The Labour Minister also said he discussed the issue of the review of national minimum wage. He, however, said contrary to belief, the government did not undertake to quicken the pace of implementing a new minimum wage.

When we came to power in 2015, there was a minimum wage Act in situ, and by May 2016, we now had a deregulation in the petroleum industry and prices of petroleum products went up and we started discussions with the Organized Labour.

One of the agreements was that the issue will be addressed. The old law expired last year August and we are now in the process of empanelling a new national minimum wage committee.

I have cleared the appointments with the President today and as soon as the Labour people come back from the Labour Governing Board meeting in Geneva, we will take a consensus date with the governors because it is a tripartite committee involving federal and states, the private sector, NECA, MAN, NACCIMA and SMEs. These are the arms that will be involved.

 NLC, TUC their affiliates have done their nominations. What we are now trying to fine tune is the date for inauguration, he said.

On whether the N56,000 minimum wage being asked for by the NLC is possible, Mr. Ngige said he could not confirm that for now.

I cant say whether it is possible. The tripartite discussion will decide that. This is what we call the social dialogue group which will produce the CBA, Collective Bargaining Agreement on what should be the national minimum wage, he said.

He also said Section 34 of the Nigerian Constitution which deals with the issue put it under the Exclusive Legislation list. Meaning it is only the federal government that can legislate on it.

When they complete their work, their decision will go to the National Assembly to legislate on, he said.

Mr. Ngige assured that the government was willing to fast track the process by working very fast.

The committee will have terms of reference that will set the time frame for them to conclude the work. I am sure the President will ensure that the process is completed in time, he said.
South Africas National Prosecuting Authority said on Friday that it will seek a harsher prison sentence for jailed Paralympic Oscar Pistorius.

The authority argued that the six-year term for murder was too lenient.

In 2015, Pistorius was found guilty of murdering his model girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, at his home on Valentines Day two years before, in a case that gripped the world.

The South African double-amputee sprinter, known as the Blade Runner for his futuristic prosthetics, maintains he believed Steenkamp to be an intruder when he shot her through the bathroom door.

Steenkamps family have previously expressed disappointment at the six-year-sentence but the familys lawyer, Tania Koen, told dpa on the eve of the trial that they trusted in the justice system.

The sentence should send the proper message to society, Koen said.

Ultimately there must be justice for Reeva.

It is the second time the prosecution is appealing.

Pistorius, now 30, was originally found guilty of culpable homicide, but this was changed to murder on appeal.

The authority spokesperson told dpa in September that they had launched the appeal because the minimum sentence for murder is 15 years.

We believe that the trial judge was too lenient in imposing a six year sentence, the spokesperson Luvuyo Mfaku said.

Pistorius, whose lower legs were amputated because of a congenital defect, soared to international fame after becoming the first amputee to compete in the 2012 Olympic Games.

He is not expected to appear at Fridays hearing. (dpa/NAN)
The burial of the late wife of Danjuma Goje, Yelwa, has been postponed to Saturday.

The shift was due to a delay in flight arrangement by airspace authority in the United States.

Mrs. Goje died in a United States hospital Monday morning at the age of 55, after a brief illness.

The family, through the son of the deceased, Ahmed Goje, had issued a statement Thursday, announcing that the corpse will arrive Gombe from United States of America Friday at 8.30 am, while funeral prayers were expected to hold at the Emirs Palace by 2pm.

PREMIUM TIMES learnt Friday morning, however, that the change of date of the burial became necessary due to the delay in arrival of the corpse from America.

As a committed Muslim, the corpse should have been buried immediately according to Islamic injunction, if she had died in Nigeria. But hopefully, the airspace would clear the corpse to arrive Nigeria tomorrow, Saturday, a source close to said.

The funeral prayer would now hold by 2.30pm tomorrow at the palace of the Emir of Gombe as planned.
Health practitioners in Nigeria must tap the benefits of information technology in order to change the face of medical practice in the country and avoid being left out of global trends.

Medical experts gave this advice on Friday at a conference organised by a group, Nigeria Health, in Abuja.

The Future of Health Conference 2017, with theme: The Business of Health, attracted many health experts, medical practitioners, health partners and new business enterprises in the medical world.

Speaking on the sub-theme Breaking Down Barriers: Delivering Quality and Improving Access to Healthcare, Olaokun Soyinka, who is project director of Independent Verification Agents for Saving One Million Lives, said the health sector in Nigeria is suffering from lack of political will on the part of politicians to revive and improve it.

He called on stakeholders in the sector to move from health advocacy to health activism, saying this was the only path to remarkable development in the sector.

He said there is a need to embrace information technology and tools in discharging health services in Nigeria, so as to improve service delivery to the people.

It is time to abandon health advocacy, it is time for healthcare activism. There is a need for important care interventions in the country especially from the politicians, he said.

Harriet Blest, Country Manager of Human Network International, also emphasised the importance of incorporating information technology into healthcare services delivery, saying it is the major way for effective dissemination of trusted information to people especially in the rural areas.

Ms. Blest said for people to have access to information, there is a need to employ every available means, including information technology through telecommunication.

She said research has shown that only nine per cent of women read newspapers and 35 per cent watch television, so those channels are not effective for giving people good health information.

We have noted that more people subscribe to our health information bits offered through the telephone in different languages of choice and this has assisted to educate people on health and given them informed information on health topics in order to make necessary decision, she said.

Peter Bamkole, Director, Enterprise Development Centre, Pan-Atlantic University, urged medical practitioners in the country to develop themselves to use ICT in delivering health services, as it will make their work easier, faster and more efficient.

He noted that although there are fantastic medical doctors in Nigeria, most have refused to develop themselves especially on the new trend of telemedicine.

He said the usage of ICT in service delivery in Nigeria is slow and making the country lose out of advanced medical technologies.

Mr. Bamkole lamented that files are still manually kept, when the world has gone electronic and made it easy for doctors to have access to a patients case file and make necessary decisions with ease and without wasting much time.

He urged the government to get the primary health care system fully functional with information technology and enhanced health financing to reduce the high mortality rate among children under the age of five and pregnant women.

The government should get the PHCs in place and improve insurance to reduce out of pocket expenses for people as the poverty rate in the country is making it difficult for so many to access quality health care, he said.
The senator representing Kogi West, Dino Melaye of the All Progressives Congress, on Thursday called the attention of the Senate to alleged monumental fraud in the Ministry of Power, Work and Housing headed by Babatunde Fashola.

Mr. Melaye alleged that the Ministry squandered $385 million on projects not appropriated in the budget between 2013 and 2016.

He said that $300 million of the fund was given to IBEX while another $35 million was paid to General Electric and some others.

Mr. President, in line with the anti-corruption posture of this chamber and especially now that our cries, observations are yielding dividends as expressly manifested in the case of Babachir Lawal, today, I bring to the attention of this Senate a monumental fraud in the power sector.

In July 2013, the federal Government raised $1 billion from Eurobond issue. From the proceeds, $350 million was given to IBEX in 2014.

Mr. President, this money was stolen in installments. As I speak to you, sometimes last year again, the Ministry of Power came up with a term they call fast power. This indigested project is supposed to build new generating plants to add power to our grid.

He sought the leave of the Senate to present a substantive motion on the issue while asking questions on how the Ministry spent the funds it received.

Mr President, there are few questions we need to ask and that is why I need the nod of the Senate to bring a substantive motion to move in the next legislative day.

These are the few questions: Up to date, there is no detail to build this new generating plant or a feasibility study, there is no appropriation by the National Assembly for these projects.

The Ministry has spent so far $35 million on the Afam fast power project that has no appropriation or feasibility studies. How and when was this money appropriated, we need to find out. Out of this money, $29 million was purportedly paid to General Electric for turbines while $6 million was paid to others.

These, among many other monumental frauds, are taking place. We need the Senate to investigate this.

The Senate President, Bukola Saraki asked Mr. Melaye to present the issue as a motion on Tuesday after a voice vote in its favour.

Mr. Fashola could not be reached Thursday. His spokesperson, Hakeem Bello, did not respond to telephone calls.
The House of Representatives has shown its unwillingness to waive a condition it had set for the return of a suspended member, Adulmumini Jibrin.

The House had asked Mr. Jibrin to tender a written apology before he can return.

The Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Abdulrazak Namdas, disclosed the stance of the lawmakers to journalists in the National Assembly.

Mr. Jibrin, the former House of Representatives appropriations chairman, was suspended in September 2016 for 180 legislative days for accusing some of his colleagues of corruption.

He was expected to resume by September 30 when it must have been at least 180 legislative days.

One of the conditions for his return was a written apology to the House, but Mr. Jibrin had repeatedly said he wont apologise.

Mr. Jibrin accused the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, and three other principal officers of padding the 2016 federal budget.

The other three he accused are the Deputy Speaker, Yussuff Lasun; the Chief Whip, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa; and the Minority Leader, Leo Ogor.

Mr. Jibrin also petitioned the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, State Security Services, SSS, and the police headquarters on the matter.
The United Nations has commended the Ohanaeze, apex Igbo socio-cultural group on the role it played in stemming the tide of agitations threatening Nigerias unity.

The UN said it was worried about developments in Nigeria, particularly in the South-east but however noted that it stood for a united Nigeria where human rights are respected and not trampled upon.

A report on Vanguard noted that UN Delegates led by Mohamed Ibn Chambas a special representative of Secretary General of UN, Antonio Guterres, on Thursday in Enugu met with the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo led by its President-General, Nnia Nwodo.

The meeting delved into issues of agitation for a Biafra republic and how to strengthen the unity of Nigeria.

Other chieftains of Ohanaeze at the meeting includes Deputy President-General and former deputy governor of Ebonyi State, Chigozie Ogbu; Enugu State President of Ohanaeze, Alex Ogbonnia among others, the report says.

Few months ago, we were all getting a bit worried with events and developments in the South-east of Nigeria but thanks to their leadership (Ohanaeze) and their initiatives, they were able to bring together the chiefs and the political leaders and governors and respected persons of South-east and through this intervention, we now see that calm is restored and all are working to advance the one Nigeria agenda.

The Secretary General believes in this one Nigeria project because he had always said that a united peaceful Nigeria is not only for the people of Nigeria, but indeed for the people of West Africa and for all of Africa. We know the strength the people of South-east bring to Nigeria and to the sub region. There is hardly a single country in West Africa where you will not find enterprising persons from the South-East who are in their own rights economic ambassadors of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

So our simple message is to encourage the leaders, the elders of the South-east to continue to endeavour to seek ways in which they can work with all other parts of the federation and to strengthen the unity of this country and through a constructive approach to seek dialogue to redress whatever short coming there may be, Mr. Chambas was quoted as saying.

Mr. Nwodo in his remark described the outcome of the meeting as a fruitful.

On July 12, 2017, Ohanaeze wrote to the Secretary General of the United Nations about the security infrastructure in Nigeria, particularly as it affects to Ndigbo, which the UN on October 10 responded to the letter, indicating that it will send its representative for West Africa and the Sahel.

We had very fruitful and frank discussions with Ambassador Chambas. He has assured us that the United Nations represents prevention of conflicts, represents promotion of development in a manner that improves quality of life and prevents resort to conflicts and protects human rights.
An Abuja Division of the Federal High Court has refused to grant an adjournment in the ongoing trial of the former Peoples Democratic Party Spokesperson, Olisah Metuh, pending the release of a former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki.

Mr. Metuh is facing trial on a seven-count charge for alleged diversion of N400 million from the office of the former NSA.

Mr. Dasuki, who was billed to appear as the eighth defence witness in Mr. Metuhs trial, told the court on Wednesday that he could only give answers to questions from Mr. Metuhs lawyers if he (Dasuki) is released and allowed to access his documents.

Following the submissions of Mr. Dasuki, the defence counsel, Emeka Etiaba, asked for an adjournment to allow the witness resolve issues with those that detained him and access his documents.

The application was however opposed by the prosecution counsel, Sylvanus Tahir.

In a short ruling by the presiding judge, Okon Abang, on Friday, the court held that the application by Mr. Metuhs lawyer for the court to tarry until Mr. Dasuki is freed from the custody of the State Security Service lacked merit.

Mr. Abang ruled that Mr. Dasuki was not invited to come and tender documents but to give evidence based on documents already in court.

I have considered the arguments by the defence counsel. It should be settled that to refuse or grant the request for an adjournment is at the discretion of the court. The exercise or use of the Courts discretion should point at the justice of the case. The court will take its decision based on the facts of the case and the provisions of law.

It is my humble view that a party that calls a witness is entitled to lead evidence from the witness, either in person or through his counsel. He is in control of his brief, Mr. Abang said, adding that the request by the defence counsel to have Mr. Dasuki in court has already been complied with.

The judge added that a request for a further adjournment cannot be granted, as the counsel was at liberty to ask questions that will lead to the testimony Mr. Dasuki was brought to give.

The witness is in court. The counsel is at liberty to ask the witness questions and any answer given by the witness is his testimony and he can be cross-examined on the basis of it. The witness is at liberty to not answer questions that he is unable to answer. If the witness answers the questions based on what he is asked, he can be cross-examined on that basis, he said.

The Court cannot intervene to grant an adjournment to enable a witness, according to him: refresh his memory, to examine documents that are not in evidence. The first defendant counsel did not make reference to any documents, neither did the witness. It is not clear, if the imaginary document is the witness personal documents or an official document. I say so because the witness is no longer in the office of the NSA.

If there is any document that is not in court certainly the document will be at the office of the NSA. It is up to the defence counsel to obtain the documents from the court. The witness has not given evidence that he took official documents home. It is up to the defence counsel to obtain the documents. He should have done that earlier. The court cannot take an adjournment.

As regards the ability of the counsel to obtain relevant documents from the witness, his detention is irrelevant. The counsel should not hinge his ability or inability to obtain the imaginary documents (if at all the documents exists) on the detention of the witness.

Mr. Abang said Mr. Dasuki appears sound and willing to be examined, so no attempts should be made to postpone his examination.

Watching his demeanor in the witness box, I think the witness is willing to answer questions. The witness that I see in the witness box is not a difficult witness. The role of a witness is to answer questions, not to give conditions.

There are several ways to elicit relevant information from a counsel. The defence counsel cannot ask a question that will result in an application for an adjournment. To determine how the witness should answer a question is not known in law. It is the counsels duty to look for documents, not that of the witness.

I think this application lacks merit. If this application is granted, the prosecution shall be overreached, said Mr. Abang who added that granting the said application will amount to a negation of justice.

Following an order of the appeal court, in September Mr. Metuhs request to have Mr. Dasuki appear as a defence witness, was granted by the lower court.

Although Mr. Dasuki appeared in court on Wednesday, his lawyer, Ahmed Raji, is asking the court to set aside its order for a subpoena, which compelled Mr. Dasuki to appear as a witness.

Mr. Dasuki has been in the custody of the State Security Service for over two years.
The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has said the Senate will support the efforts of the Federal Government and the European Union in mitigating the rising cases of illegal migration into European countries.

Mr. Saraki stated this when the new EU Ambassador to Nigeria, Ketil Karlsen, visited him in Abuja.

Details of the meeting was contained in a statement signed by the Head, International Relations to the Senate President, Bamikole Omishore.

The Senate President called on the envoy to help facilitate capacity building for illegal migrants from Nigeria in Europe to encourage them to return home with skills to sustain a livelihood.

He also called on the EU to ensure that Nigerians legally staying in Europe are not only protected but have their stay properly regularised.

The statement quoted him as saying: I know there are a number of issues that are of great concern to you and to us, particularly in the area of migration.

I know there are pending agreements between Nigeria and the EU that we need to be prompt about and come to quick resolution so as to be able to put those agreements in place.

This, I believe will help us address the issue of illegal immigrants into the EU and also to see what kind of responses we can build, like capacity, to make it more attractive for these Nigerians to come back and be able to sustain a livelihood.

I think this is something we need to start pushing forward in our discussions and see how we can begin to implement something that will work. I also think that during your tenure in the country, this is a very important area where we need to see work done. We need to see how we can provide some vocational training for individuals that are willing to come back.

Earlier, Ambassador Karlsen described Nigeria and the EU as natural political partners and pledged to work to further cement the existing cordial relations between the EU and the country.

So, whatever I can do to promote that understanding you can count on me. As I enter my tenure and be responsible for a very significant development cooperation portfolio I would wish nevertheless to emphasize the political relationship, Mr. Karlsen said.
University of Dundee is among the world top 200 Universities. Its Scottish University of the year 2016 and 2017 and is recent recipient of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) Gold status. We have also been shortlisted in the Times Higher Education University of the year award for 2018.

Commencing a degree at Dundee in January is a popular choice for many students.

Starting at the beginning of the year fits in with New Year ambitions to change career direction and advance educational qualifications. Its an exciting time of year and we are seeing an increase in the number of international students starting with us in January.

Whether students choose to start with us in January or September, they will receive the same quality education and student experience. Our Global Excellence Scholarship of 5000 is also open to applications for a January 2018 start.

We have a range of postgraduate degrees starting in January across the following subjects:

Anatomy

Business

Computing

Engineering

Law

Oil and Gas / Energy / Minerals

Urban Planning

You can search our portfolio of January start degrees here.

At Dundee we know why you are considering doing a postgraduate degree and therefore we do everything we can to ensure that our degree will help you meet your objectives.

We know for many there is a drive to better their career or perhaps move it in a different direction. Where possible, we focus on linking our students with industry, through practical learning and industry run lectures and seminars.

We encourage and support our students to become entrepreneurs, to find solutions and to be innovative in their approach to education and work. This approach has placed us in the top ten in the UK for graduate employment and given our graduates the best start in their career possible.

Sughter Gege is a current MSc Accounting and Finance student and was a successful recipient of our 5000 Global Excellence Scholarship.

I am from Nigeria and I am currently enrolled to the MSc Accounting and Finance programme. Dundee is small city with a decent number of people which makes it a quiet place for studies but my main attraction was the University of Dundee which has incredible ratings with an outstanding growth rate. Also, the University of Dundee offers similar modules to what I did in my previous study.

I feel honoured to be awarded this scholarship. It has been a blessing to me and my family. Also a huge thanks to the University of Dundee for this wonderful opportunity. God is great. Getting to Dundee has been an exciting experience for me. The highlands, Dundee law, different magnificent restaurants from different cultures, the live bands at the pubs.. but most interesting thing I love here is the people, they are really friendly and helpful. I love it here.

Dundee is a quiet city with fun activities. That is a good mix for me which makes it a student welcoming destination.

Friendships and family links are closer in Nigeria than any other country. When we meet our new student intake we find that the vast majority from Nigeria have chosen to study with us because of a recommendation from a friend or family member who studied with us previously.

Here at Dundee we pride ourselves on being a close family with services in place to support our international student community. We have an award winning student Union and a student association with over 120 student societies, including the increasingly popular Africa and Caribbean society.

For more information visit here.

You can also contact:

Babs Ogundeji

Recruitment Officer  West Africa

External Relations, University of Dundee

+234 817 5133 447 | b.ogundeji@dundee.ac.uk
The National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, in Nasarawa State said 15 corps members in the Batch B Stream 1 had been sanctioned for various misconducts.

The state NYSC Coordinator, Zainab Isah, confirmed the action in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lafia on Friday.

Ms. Isah said that the affected corps members had their service year extended by various periods.

According to her, 2,224 Batch B Corp members successfully completed their service year.

She added that the successful NYSC corps members were issued certificates of national service at a low key passing out ceremony held in Lafia, on Thursday.

Ms. Isah explained that the decision to extend the service year of the erring corps members was the recommendation of the state NYSC Disciplinary Committee.

She said the sanction was to serve as a deterrent to others.

We have four corps members who absconded from service. Then 11 of them have various disciplinary cases.

I am really disappointed that even with the noble effort of government through this scheme, some people are not taking advantage of what NYSC is offering, she said.

The coordinator, however, disclosed that three corps members would be given awards for outstanding performances in their host communities.

Ms. Isah advised the just passed out corps members to be self-reliant rather than wait to seek for white collar jobs.

They should go ahead with what we taught them in camp. They should just continue with those trainings and I am sure those trainings will see them through and in no distance time, they too will be employers of labour, she said.

She thanked the state government for its support to the scheme and urged for its sustenance especially in the area of engagement of corps members who might have made significant positive impact in the area of their primary assignments.

(NAN)
The Fulanis of Dangoma District and natives of the other seven Kaninkon districts have embarked on a joint peace-building process during a capacity building workshop organised by the Global Peace Foundation Nigeria in Angwar Fari, headquarters of Kaninkon Chiefdom in Southern Kaduna.

The peace-building workshop comes after a series of mediation efforts by the Foundation which began in January, 2017, culminated in the Kaninkon Peace and Reconciliation meeting in June after the Chiefdom experienced several attacks resulting to killings and destruction of properties.

In attendance at the peace-building workshop were 160 Muslims and Christians comprising 40 Traditional Rulers/Elders, 40 Faith Leaders (Imams and Pastors), 40 Women Leaders and 40 Youth Leaders who were representing the 8 Kaninkon Districts of Goska, Ambam, Bakin Kogi, Tudun Wada, Amere, Angwar Fari, Angwar Baki and Dangoma which is the Fulani District.

During at the programme, the co-coordinators of Global Peace Foundation in Northern Nigeria, Haliru Maraya and John-Joseph Hayab welcomed the participants and reminded them of the journey so far.

We began this journey in January with several meetings with most of you in your various communities when the killings and destructions were still going on, said Mr. Hayab, a Reverend Father.

Today, we are building on the foundation of the understanding we all had during the Peace and Reconciliation Meeting after which we held training workshops for you in your various groups individually for Traditional Rulers/Elders, Faith Leaders, Women Leaders and Youth Leaders.

To build back the peace after a violent conflict such as has been witnessed in Kaninkon land, community members must be ready to forgive one another and see themselves all as winners over the devil who initiated the conflict in the first place having been able to sit down at the negotiation table.

Mr. Hayab reminded participants of the kind of inter-dependent and mutually beneficial relationships that existed between the natives and Fulanis in Southern Kaduna over the years, and added that once a community imbibes the culture of service where members irrespective of their differences unite to conceive, plan and execute community service projects for the good of all, it will strengthen the bond of unity and peaceful coexistence amongst them.

On his part, Mr. Maraya told participants that as everyone had the fundamental human right to life, ownership of properties, freedom of religion and freedom of expression so do others.

This, he said, confers on every human being the responsibility of protecting those fundamental human rights not just of himself or herself but of others, and also living for the greater good.

We are very hopeful judging from the way events have unfolded that this chiefdom is on the right path towards achieving sustainable peace because you have accepted to forgive one another, you have accepted to visit one another, you have accepted to help one another and you have also accepted to pay no attention to rumors, a Sheikh.

By the Grace of God, we are hopeful there wont be such crises again that will lead to loss of lives and properties.

The Country Director of Global Peace Foundation Nigeria, John Oko, thanked the people for their commitment to peace and expressed his happiness that since after the Peace and Reconciliation meeting in June, normalcy had gradually returned to their communities.

He reiterated the organisations commitment to continue to work with them through the One Family under God Campaign Peacebuilding program to ensure that sustainable and lasting peace returns to their communities as without sustainable peace, there can be no development.

Also speaking, Abokie Galadima, Former Chief of Staff to late Governor Patrick Yakowa of Kaduna said: I am quite happy with todays program. But for the continuous work of the Global Peace Foundation in this Chiefdom, the people had already given up.

The people are now aware that they are not alone, they now know that there are people out there who care about them, so they should also start caring about themselves. Let them come out and embrace one another.

The natives of Kaninkon, Dangoma, Fulanis, Christians and Muslims, let them come together and unite, the land is theirs. If they live in peace, then there will be progress. But government needs to come out and help bring to book those strangers that are giving us sleepless nights.

Husseini Dembo, a Former Commissioner in Kaduna State, urged members of the chiefdom to embrace dialogue and avoid anything that will trigger violence as there will be no progress in a chaotic environment.

Abdullahi Saadu, the Chief Imam of Dangoma, said nothing should be a justification to fight one another. He emphasized that Dangoma community is under Kaninkon Chiefdom, hence the need for mutual understanding between Fulanis and Kaninkon natives.

Wakili Kadima, the Pastor of a local church and a senior legal practitioner, suggested that the meeting with security agencies should be more inclusive where other government representatives ranging from the local, state and federal government levels are invited.

Zainab Dauda, Woman Leader for Dangoma District said:, During the crises, we in Dangoma could not come to this very area and likewise the people of Kaninkon dare not come to our area. But now, we are free and we can now come here and go out freely. We are very happy about this and we thank the Global Peace Foundation for helping us to achieve the peace we are experiencing now.

The District Head of Ungwar Fari, Dick Dembo, challenged everyone to take to heart the key message of the workshop which is that irrespective of religious and ethnic difference, they are all members of one family under God.

During a breakout session, participants in their various groups discussed and outlined several ongoing community engagement activities to be carried out to facilitate the peacebuilding process including setting up community peace and reconciliation committees, initiating community dialogue meetings, regular dialogue with security agencies, interfaith forum, community group outreach, OFUG women savings and loans scheme, community sport activities, as well as annual community peace festivals.
The Kano Electricity Distribution Plc, KEDCO, has accused the Jigawa State Chief Judge, Aminu Ringim, of assault and illegal detention of its official over the disconnection of electricity from his residence and office.

The spokesman of the company, Muhammad Kandi, said its Jigawa South Regional Office on Tuesday began disconnecting government agencies, including the state High Court, over accumulated debt of electricity bills.

He said similar operation was conducted across KEDCOs coverage area of Kano, Katsina and Jigawa states.

Mr. Kandi said rather than making arrangements to pay his bills, Mr. Ringim allegedly ordered the detention of the companys officials for disconnecting his house and office.

While the management team in the regional office secured the release of the victim four hours after his detention, he said the chief judge threatened that more KEDCO staff would be dealt with if power supply was not restored at both locations before Monday next week. 

One of our drivers, Alhaji Ibrahim Garba, was violently abducted by some armed security operatives who appeared in the vicinity of our Jigawa south regional office in muftis.

They were said to have done that on the orders of the Chief Registrar in the office of the state Chief Judge, Musa Ubale.

The unsuspecting KEDCO personnel who was on his way out of the office premises, was hunted down, slapped, assaulted and handcuffed like a common criminal in the full glare of bewildered onlookers and other staff.

He alleged that while the regional office was under siege for days after the disconnection operation, the staff had been trailed by security operatives to Ringim, Birnin-Kudu and Kano where they conduct their daily operations.

The Chief Registrar was said to have ordered his security details to arrest and detain any identified KEDCO official. So they had laid ambush on the driver who had closed from work, Mr. Kandi stated.

He said the company like other DISCOs had the right to disconnect customers who have arrears of outstanding payment after they have been duly notified.

According to him, the company will not be intimidated by any individual or organisation in carrying out its lawful duties.

Non-payment of electricity bill makes it impossible for our company to meet several obligations, including settling the MO bills, salary payment and other operational costs. When customers pay their bills promptly, the company will be able to serve them better.

He called on the relevant government authorities to intervene in the matter saying this intimidation is totally unacceptable and it must be stopped.

If those collecting revenue for the entire electricity value chain are being subjected to frequent harassment, intimidation and inhuman treatments by the law enforcement agents for doing their job, then the value chain may go bankrupt, he warned.

The Jigawa State judiciary spokesperson, Abbas Wangara, did not pick or return several calls put to his phone for a reaction.
Students of Akwa Ibom state origin studying in tertiary institutions on Thursday embarked on a peaceful protest against the state governor, Udom Emmanuel, for allegedly refusing to show interest in their welfare.

The protesters, a handful of them, gathered in the afternoon at the gate of the Idongesit Nkanga Secretariat, Uyo, chanting solidarity songs and displaying cardboards with the inscription Pay us our bursary.

The protesters complained that the students from the state were yet to get a bursary from the state government since the inception of Governor Emmanuels administration.

The protest, which coincided with the Peoples Democratic Party, PDPs flag-off of the campaign for the local council elections in the state, temporarily disrupted the free flow of traffic in and out of the state secretariat.

A senior police officer from the State Police Headquarters, Ikot Akpan Abia, who arrived the scene of the protest to talk to the angry students later led a few of the student leaders to the Government House for a meeting with the Secretary to the State Government, Etekamba Umoren, PREMIUM TIMES learned.

Since all other channels of communication have been blocked against the students of Akwa Ibom state, we didnt have any other option than to go public to let the people know that we are suffering, Ime Hanson, the President of the National Association of Akwa Ibom State Student, NAAKISS, University of Uyo Chapter, told PREMIUM TIMES.

Mr. Hanson, who coordinated the protest, said that students were the most neglected set of people in the state.

He said that the students were yet to receive their annual bursary from the state government since Mr. Emmanuel became governor in 2015.

The last time bursary was paid in this state was in 2013 and it was N5, 000 per students, Mr. Hanson said.

He accused the Commissioner for Education in the state, Paul Udofia, and the Special Assistant to the Governor on Students Matters, Aquilla Akpan, of being the responsible for the problem.

The governor is our grand patron. We dont have a problem with the governor; we have a problem with those working with him. These people dont work for the interest of the students or that of the governor, said Mr. Hanson. He also appealed to Governor Emmanuel to sack the education commissioner.

PREMIUM TIMES tried to reach the governors aide, Ms. Akpan, on the phone. A lady, who claimed to be her personal assistant picked the call and promised to get her to call the reporter back.

The governors aide didnt return the call as at the time of filing this report.

But another of the governors aide, Essien Ndueso, dismissed the protest as being political.

Because they hear that PDP is commencing the flag-off of local government elections campaigns today, they have allowed irresponsible opposition politicians to mislead them, Mr. Ndueso, who is a media aide to Governor Emmanuel, wrote on Facebook.

Mr. Ndueso added, I ask these students, is bursary an entitlement or a privilege?

Nobody sponsored us. We are a pressure group and not an organ of any political party, the NAAKISS leader, Mr. Hanson, responded to Mr. Nduesos allegation.

We have the right to kick against any government policy or action that is not in our favour, said Mr. Hanson, who vowed that the students would continue with the protest until they are able to attract the governors attention.

Yes, we understand that the state may not have the kind of money it used to have in the past. But at least, the governor should talk to us, even if it is N2, 000 that he wants to pay, let him tell us, the student leader said.
The police command in Enugu State, on Friday, issued a movement restriction order during the states council poll on Saturday.

The Enugu State Independent Electoral Commission (ENSIEC) fixed 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. as duration for the council poll.

The commands Spokesman, Ebere Amaraizu, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the police and other security agencies would enforce the movement restriction order during the exercise.

Mr. Amaraizu noted that security agencies would strategically position their vehicles on major roads and entry and exit points of the state to ensure the movement restriction was strictly adhered to.

We will not fail to apprehend and prosecute anyone found moving around without due authorisation by ENSIEC and law enforcement agencies except those on emergency duties, he warned.

The spokesman, however, urged the public to be law abiding and security conscious, adding that all hands must be on deck for a hitch-free election.

He said the command had before now had an interactive forum with ENSIEC, party leaders, candidates, stakeholders, as well as officers and men of various security agencies, where issues relating to non-violent elections were discussed.

The command, however, warn in strong term that any individual or group of persons that goes contrary to the provisions of the electoral act will be made to face the full weight of the law.

The command can be reached via these numbers in case of any distress  08032003702, 08075390883, 08086671202 and 08098880172.

The public can also use the commands social media platforms: nigeriapoliceenugustatecommand for Face-book; @PoliceNGenugu for Twitter handle; and enugustatepolice@gmail.com, he said.

The Commissioner of Police in the state, Mohammed Danmallam, had earlier told NAN that the joint security agencies in the state would be deploying over 5,000 personnel and hundreds of vehicles for the polls.

Recently, no fewer than 25 political parties signed Peace and Exemplary Conduct Bond, which was administered by the police commissioner.

(NAN)
The Indigenous People Of Biafra, IPOB, has reacted to a meeting between a United Nations delegation and the Ohanaeze, an Igbo socio-cultural organisation.

A UN team led by Mohamed Ibn Chambas, a special representative of Secretary General of UN, Antonio Guterres, on Thursday in Enugu met with the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo led by its President-General, John Nwodo.

While commending the Ohanaeze on the role it played in stemming the tide of agitations, the delegation said it was worried about developments in Nigeria, particularly in the South-east. It, however, noted that it stood for a united Nigeria where human rights are respected and not trampled upon.

In a swift reaction, IPOB in a statement issued by its Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, alleged that the visit was hatched.

We would like to use this opportunity to inform the worldwide family of IPOB and the rest of the civilised world that this purported visit from the UN never happened. In short, it is a fabricated lie designed to deceive the gullible and fool the discerning.

The Ohanaeze hastily packaged a Ghanaian of Hausa Fulani ethnicity resident in Abuja, Ibn Mohammed Chambas, to come and hoodwink the people into believing that Antonio Guiterres, the current UN Secretary General, was in support of the cold blooded murder of unarmed civilians in Abia State.

Mr. Powerful claimed that Mohammed Ibn Chambas was not not working for the current UN Secretary General, Antonio Guiterres, but was appointed by a former UN Scribe, Ban Ki-Moon as his Special Representative in West Africa. 

IPOB Attorneys in New York have been instructed to write to the office of the Secretary General of the United Nations to seek clarifications on some of the quotes attributed to Ibn Mohammed Chambas during his purported visit to Enugu, to understand if the United Nations is now openly endorsing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Biafraland, he added.

The Nnamdi Kanu-led separatist IPOB group is asking the Nigerian government to conduct a referendum for the realisation of a breakaway state of Biafra.

However, Mr. Kanus whereabouts remain unknown after clashes occurred between IPOB members and soldiers who were on a military operation in Abia State.

The federal government has proscribed IPOB and labelled it a terrorist organisation in the wake of the clash. However, the U.S. government said it does not see IPOB as a terrorist organisation, a position the Nigerian government described as unfortunate.

After over 50 years of the Nigerian Civil War, better known as the Biafra war, where thousands died, the federal government agreed to pay victims of the war N88 billion compensation for their losses.
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.




Rodizio-style dining at Texas de Brazil offers delicious variety

Contact

Kelly Wisecarver

***@wisecarverpr.com Kelly Wisecarver

End

-- Fall is whiskey season and Texas de Brazil Churrascaria gets into the spirit with delicious Kentucky Bourbon Dinners offered across the nation in 18 select locations. The special four-bourbon, three-course dining events in November pair Jim Beam and other whiskey brands with the restaurant's unique menu, begin at 6:30 p.m. and cost $95 per person, inclusive."Bourbon and churrasco are a delicious pairing, with the smoky flavors of bourbon marrying exceptionally well with our savory grilled meats," says Leonardo Pierret, corporate executive chef for the family-owned Brazilian-American steakhouse brand. "The rich tasting notes in these spirits also uniquely balance the fresh flavors of our salad area offerings and complement our desserts," he adds.Guests at the Kentucky Bourbon Dinners will be welcomed with a Maker's Mark Mango Mint Julep before being invited to experience the salad area which includes over 50 freshly-prepared salads, soups and side dishes to be paired with the Basil Hayden served neat. The main course includes rodizio-style service of freshly-grilled cuts of meats carved tableside from skewers by costumed gauchos and paired with Knob Creek served neat. And for a truly sweet conclusion to the evening, the Jim Beam Vanilla will be paired with a slice of pecan pie a la mode.Denver, COAlbany, Syracuse and Yonkers, NY; Addison and Ft. Worth, TX; Baton Rouge, LA; Huntsville, AL; and Lexington, KY; and Schaumburg, IL- Chicago, IL; Dallas and Houston, TX; Rochester, NY; Tampa, FL Ft. Lauderdale, FLAt Texas de Brazil Churrascaria, the premium meats are prepared the authentic Brazilian gaucho way, over an open flame using natural wood charcoal which gives the selections a deeper and more intense flavor with just the right amount of smokiness. The churrasco-style grilled meats include succulent lamb chops, leg of lamb, picanha, filet mignon, chicken breast wrapped in bacon, Brazilian sausages, and more, and guests pace their dining experience with the simple flip of a red or green disc which indicates when additional servings are welcome or when a break is required. The vast menu offers something to suit every guest's taste.The Kentucky Bourbon Dinners all begin at 6:30 p.m. and cost $95 per person inclusive of tax and gratuity. Reservations are required for the 21-and-over event.Texas de Brazil is an authentic churrascaria featuring a continuous dining experience that blends the unique culture of Brazil, with the generous hospitality of Texas. The menu features a vast selection of grilled meats carved tableside, an expansive salad area, an award-winning wine list and a la carte dessert selections. Founded as a family-owned business in 1998, Texas de Brazil now has 53 domestic and international locations. Stay connected. Follow @texasdebrazil on Twitter and Instagram and Texas de Brazil on Facebook. For more information, visit http://www.texasdebrazil.com
"When people hear someone has Alzheimer's, the label of the disease can unfortunately replace who the person is," said Juliet Holt Klinger, senior director of dementia care for Brookdale. "Their life becomes shaped by the diagnosis. The things they love to do may be taken away when they don't need to be. This can cause disengagement, potentially leading to depression, isolation, loss of appetite, weight loss, and even falls."

Brookdale's person-centered care is based on understanding a dementia diagnosis does not change an individual's identity. "It's knowing them, honoring all of their life history and their preferences, and recognizing them as a skilled, talented human being," Holt Klinger said. "It's providing consistent assignment of care partners who truly understand them. In short, we provide an entire culture of caring and programming that puts the person living with the disease at the center of everything we do."

Holt Klinger encourages people with dementia to have open, honest conversations with their loved ones early in the disease process. The downloadable Alzheimer's care journal has been designed to help with these discussions. "When a person with the dementia makes it clear how they would like to live, what brings them purpose and joy, and what will matter to them as the condition progresses, it is much easier for care partners to help create and sustain the life that is meaningful to them."

Plummer, who raised three sons on a farm, has played the harmonica much of her life and has long loved to dance. She bowled in leagues with an 11-pound ball until her local alley closed when she was 101. Learning about these passions in order to provide person-centered care was a crucial first step when she moved into Brookdale College Square in Overland Park, Kansas.

"When a new resident arrives, we work on understanding their life story, what they love to do, what engages them," said Brookdale's Pamela Luna, Clare Bridge program coordinator who works with Plummer. "Then we incorporate these interests into our activities calendar so they can continue to pursue them and also connect with others by sharing them."

Plummer happily accepted the suggestion that she play her harmonica for other residents and has joined in the frequent dancing at Brookdale College Square. Her passion for bowling has prompted the community to plan a resident league.

"She's involved and active," said Gary Herrick, Plummer's son. "Everything has made her life more enjoyable and that's the key for our family. We want her to be happy."

"All of us define ourselves by what we do well," Holt Klinger said. "It's crucial that people with dementia continue to have access to that things they want to do, for which they are talented and skilled  in short, that make them still feel like and be themselves."

In addition to focusing on person-centered dementia care in its Clare Bridge Program, Brookdale dedicates significant time and resources to the fight against the disease, with strong participation in the Alzheimer's Association's Walk to End Alzheimer's. In 2016, the company raised more than $2.4 million and remained the largest fundraiser nationally, with over 6,800 associates, residents and family members taking part in the 706 teams Brookdale fielded for the Walk nationwide. Since 2008, Brookdale has contributed nearly $10 million to the Walk to End Alzheimer's.

About Brookdale

Brookdale Senior Living Inc. is the leading operator of senior living communities throughout the United States. The Company is committed to providing senior living solutions primarily within properties that are designed, purpose-built and operated to provide the highest-quality service, care and living accommodations for residents. Brookdale operates independent living, assisted living, and dementia-care communities and continuing care retirement centers, with approximately 1,031 communities in 46 states and the ability to serve approximately 101,000 residents as of September 30, 2017. Through its ancillary services program, the Company also offers a range of outpatient therapy, home health and hospice services. Brookdale's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BKD.

Contact: Dana Schroering, 615-564-8543, [email protected]

SOURCE Brookdale Senior Living

Related Links

http://www.brookdaleliving.com


SOUTH RIDING, Va., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- 1Rivet, a northern Virginia consulting firm specializing in strategic information technology consulting, outsourced services and talent acquisition, has been named one of the Top 50 Fastest Growing Firms for 2017 by Consulting Magazine for the second year in a row.

1Rivet consults with top companies on IT mergers, acquisitions and integrations; cloud-based innovations including machine learning, AI and IOT; application design and implementation; data visualization and analytics; delivery management and customer experience.

L-R Andrew Bailey, J.P. Foley, Derek Swank,Eric Middleton and Charlie Clavelli

The company's talent acquisition division delivers strategic IT hires, contract-to-hires and scalable workforce solutions.

1Rivet's strategic outsourcing division provides development and testing, project management, customer service, IT help desk, mail room, shipping and receiving, executive administrative support, reception, concierge, hospitality supply services, facilities, managed ED print services, imaging and records management, audio, visual and conference room management.

"Our continued growth was driven by several factors," said CEO Eric Middleton. "We excel at rapid IT M&A, data migrations and complex systems integrations. We just completed a major divestiture of Antares Capital from GE Capital."

1Rivet's 1Lab innovation center also drove the company's expansion. "1Lab provides inventive pre-built frameworks and accelerators supporting client project delivery," Middleton said. "We're pioneering IoT, machine learning and AI solutions that resolve clients' enterprise challenges."

Demand for 1Rivet's data visualization expertise has also risen as clients seek deeper insights and more dynamic interactions with their organization's data.

1Rivet prides itself on fostering a team mentality and Middleton credits the firm's growing success to its talented staff.

Viewing clients as business partners also sets1Rivet apart from other consulting companies. "We continue to build our business on accountability and personal relationships first and foremost," Middleton concluded.

About 1Rivet

Working from offices in Washington, D.C., New York, Toronto and Valsad, India, 1Rivet offers:

Strategic Technology  IT mergers, acquisitions and integrations; cloud-based innovations including machine learning, AI and IOT; application design and implementation; data visualization and analytics; delivery management and customer experience.

Talent Acquisition  Strategic hires, contract-to-hires and scalable workforce solutions.

Strategic Outsourcing  Development and testing, project management, customer service, IT help desk, mail room, shipping and receiving, executive administrative support, reception, concierge, hospitality supply services, facilities, managed ED print services, imaging and records management, audio, visual and conference room management.

Visit them at www.1Rivet.com

Contact:

Dona DeZube

Director of Communications

[email protected]

(443) 538-1767

SOURCE 1Rivet

Related Links

http://www.1rivet.com


MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- "Brain Pathologies and Natural Products" by the 4th ISN Latin American School of Advanced Neurochemistry hosted the first symposium on medical Cannabis, which was held in Montevideo, Uruguay on October 28th, 2017 organized and directed by Dr. Cecilia Scorza from the IIBCE and Dr. Raquel Peyraube, President of SUEN (Uruguayan Endocannabinology Society).

Poster of the 4th ISN Latin American School of Advanced Neurochemistry - Symposium on Medical Cannabis Prof. Dr. Lumir Ondrej Hanus, keynote speaker of the event

"We are proud of the results that were achieved. We are motivated to move forward with our newly founded scientific association that will primarily focus on spreading the latest findings regarding the endocannabinoid system to doctors and healthcare professionals in Uruguay," said Dr. Raquel Peyraube, President of SUEN.

"A great success that can push cannabis treatment forward," said Prof. Dr. Lumir Ondrej Hanus, keynote speaker of the event.

Dr. Xavier Nadal, Director of the Extraction Department of Phytoplant Research S.L., focused his presentation on Opioid and Cannabinoid Interactions. Dr. Nadal presented an update on the clinical benefits and risks of using medical cannabis to fight the opioid epidemic. As an exclusive sponsor of the mini-symposium, Phytoplant Research S.L has a strong scientific focus in the field of cannabinoid research. They are generating preclinical and clinical data to better understand the potential medical benefit of cannabis and how it can be used to treat serious and life-threatening diseases.

About the 4th ISN Latin American School of Advanced Neurochemistry:

The purpose of the 4th ISN Latin American School of Advanced Neurochemistry is to provide an update on the theoretical background of brain pathologies and the neurochemical experimental approaches used for their study, with a special emphasis on the potential beneficial and deleterious effects of natural products. More information about it is available here.

About the Uruguayan Endocannabinology Society (SUEN):

The Uruguayan Endocannabinology Society was founded on May 15, 2017, in the city of Montevideo. Its main objectives are to disseminate knowledge and advances in endocannabinology in academic areas and in the general population, promote education and research in endocannabinology, and access to treatments based on cannabis and cannabinoids that benefit health, always from the deep respect of Human Rights and the principles of Medical Ethics and Public Health. The membership is about 30 professionals. SUEN has its physical headquarters in the facilities of the Medical Union of Uruguay. More information about it is available here.

About Phytoplant Research S.L:

Phytoplant Research S.L. is a privately owned Spanish company founded in 2008 and active in the field of phytotherapy research. It specializes in developing the industrial chain of medicinal plants, from selection and breeding to registration, cultivation of registered varieties and obtaining derived products. The company focuses on R&D products that contain plant material and extracts, as well as essential and seed oils. These products represent significant economic potential for the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and dermocosmetic industries. They also ensure the industrial supply of phyto-pharmaceutical quality raw materials through the cultivation of medicinal plants and extraction of plant material, with the objective of isolating, purifying and manufacturing naturally active ingredients (psychotropic and non-psychotropic), semi-synthetic, biotransformed, pharmaceutically acceptable salts and derivatives. More information about Phytoplant Research S.L. is available here.

Media Contact:

Name: Stefan Martin Meyer, CEO

Phone: (0034) 957 10 16 29

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Phytoplant Research S.L.
Its recent partner, Android Studio's Chinese Fan Community, is an open platform for all users of Android Studio in China, Android's official IDE. Developers can share and access tips, solutions, instructions, open sources, translated literature, and more, on the community's online forum. Founded in May 2013, it is one of the largest mobile developer communities today, attracting an average of 250,000 daily active users.

As a pioneer of in-depth research and development in its field, Achain announced its plan of providing the Android Studio community members with professional tips and tutorials on cutting-edge blockchain technology. At the same time, the Android Studio community proposed to devote an entire section of its platform to Achain, releasing first-hand reports and information about the development of the project.



The highlight of this collaboration was the mutual commitment to co-organizing a professional contest among developers and enthusiasts alike. Both sides believed the event to be beneficial in fostering interest and in developing technological skills among preeminent developers of current generation.

"We share a mutual philosophy of openness," asserted Tony Cui, founder of Achain, "which lies at the heart of P2P sharing economy. It calls on the entire society to actively participate in the truly boundless blockchain future."

Cui appreciated and highly regarded the opportunity for collaboration as a cornerstone to fulfill Achain's future plan: constructing a more intelligent, interconnected, and innovative blockchain system. He also hoped for future bonding with wider communities and teaming with other leading projects in the field.

Now, Achain is expanding internationally, with multiple branches and projects already established in Europe, North America, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and Kenya. It currently serves as a popular blockchain platform for applications of various industries, such as decentralized credit rating, financial consultation, and investment robo-advisor.

SOURCE Achain
DUBLIN, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Adapt Pharma, Inc. (www.adaptpharma.com) presented findings from two human factors studies conducted, as a part of its Food and Drug Administration (FDA) product approval, to evaluate the usability of NARCAN Nasal Spray by adolescents and individuals including those with low literacy. The poster titled, Usability of Naloxone Nasal Spray By Age and Literacy Level: A Pooled Analysis of Human Factors Studies, was presented at the 41st Association for Medical Education and Research in Substance Abuse (AMERSA) Annual National Conference in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, November 2, 2017.

"The study suggested that a bystander population can administer NARCAN Nasal Spray with no previous experience or training," said lead author Melissa Beck, B.A., Concentrics Research. "This ready-to-use nasal spray is designed for effective delivery of this potentially life-saving medication to those experiencing an opioid-related overdose while waiting for emergency medical care to arrive."

The data demonstrated that, without instruction or training, a diverse cross section of the population (adults and adolescents, normal and low literate) can complete the critical steps necessary to properly deploy NARCAN Nasal Spray in simulated emergency situations. The data also demonstrated that the understanding of key concepts in the patient information section of the package insert was high among study participants regardless of age or literacy level. Results suggested that NARCAN Nasal Spray can be administered by a bystander population with no training or advanced review of product instructions.

*It is important to note that while this study was conducted to evaluate the product's usability, Adapt Pharma always recommends that individuals review and have a complete understanding of the Patient Information and Instructions for Use for NARCAN Nasal Spray.

NARCAN Nasal Spray 4mg is the first and only FDA-approved, needle-free formulation of naloxone for the emergency treatment of a known or suspected opioid overdose. It does not require assembly or any specialized medical training and is also the highest concentrated dose of intranasal naloxone currently available. NARCAN Nasal Spray is not a substitute for emergency medical care, and additional doses of NARCAN Nasal Spray may be required until emergency medical assistance arrives. Seek emergency medical assistance immediately after initial use, keeping the patient under continued surveillance. Please see Indications and Important Safety Information below.

Indications

NARCAN (naloxone hydrochloride) Nasal Spray is an opioid antagonist indicated for the emergency treatment of known or suspected opioid overdose, as manifested by respiratory and/or central nervous system depression. NARCAN Nasal Spray is intended for immediate administration as emergency therapy in settings where opioids may be present. NARCAN Nasal Spray is not a substitute for emergency medical care.

Important Safety Information

NARCAN Nasal Spray is contraindicated in patients known to be hypersensitive to naloxone hydrochloride or to any of the other ingredients.

Seek emergency medical assistance immediately after initial use, keeping the patient under continued surveillance.

Risk of Recurrent Respiratory and CNS Depression: Due to the duration of action of naloxone relative to the opioid, keep the patient under continued surveillance and administer repeat doses of naloxone using a new nasal spray with each dose, as necessary, while awaiting emergency medical assistance.

Risk of Limited Efficacy with Partial Agonists or Mixed Agonists/Antagonists: Reversal of respiratory depression caused by partial agonists or mixed agonists/antagonists, such as buprenorphine and pentazocine, may be incomplete. Larger or repeat doses may be required.

Precipitation of Severe Opioid Withdrawal: Use in patients who are opioid dependent may precipitate opioid withdrawal characterized by body aches, fever, sweating, runny nose, sneezing, piloerection, yawning, weakness, shivering or trembling, nervousness, restlessness or irritability, diarrhea, nausea or vomiting, abdominal cramps, increased blood pressure, and tachycardia. In some patients, there may be aggressive behavior upon abrupt reversal of an opioid overdose. In neonates, opioid withdrawal may be life-threatening if not recognized and properly treated and may also include convulsions, excessive crying, and hyperactive reflexes. Monitor for the development of opioid withdrawal.

Risk of Cardiovascular (CV) Effects: Abrupt postoperative reversal of opioid depression may result in adverse CV effects. These events have primarily occurred in patients who had pre-existing CV disorders or received other drugs that may have similar adverse CV effects. Monitor these patients closely in an appropriate healthcare setting after use of naloxone hydrochloride.

Adverse Reactions: The following adverse reactions were observed in a NARCAN Nasal Spray clinical study: increased blood pressure, constipation, toothache, muscle spasms, musculoskeletal pain, headache, nasal dryness, nasal edema, nasal congestion, nasal inflammation, rhinalgia, and xeroderma.

To report SUSPECTED ADVERSE REACTIONS, contact ADAPT Pharma, Inc. at 1-844-4NARCAN (1-844-462-7226) or FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088 or www.fda.gov/medwatch.

Please see full Prescribing Information at: https://www.narcan.com/pdf/NARCAN-Prescribing-Information.pdf.

For additional information on NARCAN Nasal Spray, please visit www.NARCAN.com.



ABOUT ADAPT PHARMA

Adapt Pharma is a privately-held pharmaceutical company committed to positively impacting the lives of patients. Adapt Pharma's strategy is to identify, evaluate, selectively acquire and enhance the value of late stage development, and FDA approved, pharmaceutical products. Adapt Pharma's company headquarters is in Dublin, Ireland and its U.S. headquarters is in Radnor, Pennsylvania. For more information, please visit www.adaptpharma.com.

SOURCE Adapt Pharma

Related Links

http://www.adaptpharma.com


BURLINGTON, N.J., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Bandwave Systems LLC announced today that its Director of Operations, Adil Zaidi, is speaking at the first annual Kintone Connect Conference at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco. Adil will be joining Kintone's CEO, Dave Landa on stage to discuss Bandwave's experience with the company's product.

Kintone Connect is a one-day conference that will bring together business leaders from across the country to discuss the challenges of digital transformation and how organizations can navigate this new era of team empowerment. Kintone is a provider of a low-code application development platform and toolkit that quickly connects, organizes, and visualizes information and workflows.

"I am very honored to be speaking on behalf of Bandwave at the Kintone Connect Conference," said Adil Zaidi, Director of Operations at Bandwave Systems. "Kintone has been a very valuable tool for our day to day operations," he continued, "definitely a powerful addition to our business processes."

About Bandwave Systems LLC

Bandwave Systems LLC is a global provider of premier broadband aggregation and management solutions. With its proven set of processes and world class team of technicians, Bandwave brings single source 'Wide Area Network Management' to multi-site enterprises more efficiently than any other provider. Founded in 2000, Bandwave has perfected a "One contract. One invoice. One support team." approach to services including: Broadband Aggregation; Remote Teleworker Solutions; Guest Wi-Fi; 4G wireless; Field Services; and SD WAN. Based in Burlington City, NJ, Bandwave Systems LLC is a privately held company. For more information: www.bandwavesystems.com  888-396-7182  [email protected].

About Kintone Corporation

San Francisco-based Kintone is making teamwork better with its low-code application platform that provides organizations with a customizable workspace that integrates multiple data sources for deeper insight into business processes. Kintone eliminates the cost and maintenance requirements of traditional off-the-shelf applications while dramatically increasing team and workflow efficiency. Custom applications built with Kintone range from CRM, project management, asset management, SCM, and much more. More than 6,000 companies have built, deployed and use over 300,000 applications on Kintone. Kintone is provided by Cybozu Inc, a Tokyo-based public company founded in 1997. For more information, please visit https://www.kintone.com/

MEDIA CONTACT: Bobbie J Sauter/ [email protected]

SOURCE Bandwave Systems LLC

Related Links

http://www.bandwavesystems.com


NEW YORK, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AJC and its Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI) joined 56 other NGOs in a letter to Secretary of State Tillerson and Secretary of the Treasury Mnuchin urging U.S. action in response to the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims in Burma.

Since August Burmese security forces have pursued a violent campaign against the Rohingya in Rakhine State, committing numerous human rights abuses, and causing more than 600,000 to flee to Bangladesh.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al-Hussein, addressing the JBI Human Rights Lecture last month, spoke about these atrocities, which he previously has called a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing." UN investigators have determined from witness testimony that the Burmese military actions have resulted in "gross human rights violations affecting hundreds of thousands of people."

To assist the refugees, AJC has also supported IsraAID, the Israeli humanitarian relief organization, in its efforts to help provide aid to Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh.

The NGO letter commends the U.S. government for humanitarian aid it has provided and the State Department's statement supporting accountability for perpetrators. The letter encourages the U.S. to take additional actions against key Burmese military leaders in accordance with U.S. law.

Given the systemic nature of the crimes being perpetrated against the Rohingya, strong U.S. leadership is critical to protect the Rohingya, end the human rights abuses, and hold the Burmese government accountable.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee

Related Links

http://www.ajc.org


MIAMI, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AJC regrets that an event at the Jewish Museum of Florida to mark the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration was canceled last evening.

"We must take seriously the guidance of law enforcement authorities who advised that in the interests of public safety our educational event could not take place as scheduled. We hope to reschedule in the very near future," said Brian Siegal, Director of AJC Miami, and one of the scheduled speakers.

Law enforcement apprehended a Florida International University student after he allegedly issued a bomb threat. "We won't be intimidated by threats and will continue to stand for our principles and values," Siegal said.

Other speakers on the program were Israeli Consul General Lior Haiat, British Consul General David Prodger, Tel Aviv University Professor David Katz, Haifa University Professor Uri Ben Eliezer, and FIU Professor Eric Lob.

The historic Balfour Declaration recognizing the right of the Jewish people to establish a national home in Palestine was issued by the British Government on November 2, 1917.

The program was co-sponsored by Consulate General of Israel, British Consulate General, American Jewish Committee, Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, Global Jewish Studies Program, and Middle East Studies Program.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee

Related Links

http://www.ajc.org


SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Collective Medical, delivering the nation's largest network for care coordination, is pleased to announce Alaska's statewide implementation of Collective Medical's platform to support improved patient outcomes. This effort is a result of Collective Medical's collaborative partnership with The Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association (ASHNHA), the State of Alaska, and the Alaska Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP).

"We are thrilled to partner with ASHNHA, the Alaska Chapter of ACEP and the State of Alaska on this effort support of care teams everywhere," says Chris Klomp, CEO of Collective Medical. "No patient should ever slip through the cracks across healthcare settings. This is another step in achieving that vision by enabling providers to seamlessly and immediately collaborate across the full continuum of care, ensuring the best possible health outcome for each patient."

Collective Medical's network and platform is proven to increase the effectiveness of existing care management resources, reduce medically-unnecessary emergency department (ED) admissions and hospital admissions, and improve quality through the consistent delivery of patient care.

"We are enthusiastic about our partnership with CMT to reduce the unnecessary use of emergency rooms, not just for the Medicaid population, but for all ED users" says Becky Hultberg, president and CEO of ASHNHA. "Our partnership with Collective Medical is one step towards improving health for all Alaskans."

PreManage ED, part of Collective Medical's PreManage platform, integrates within existing clinical workflowsincluding the ED track boardto push actionable insights to ED providers the moment a high-risk patient presents. This gives the provider immediate perspective on the patient without having to search through voluminous clinical records. The platform does this by synthesizing key insights including ED visit history, community-sourced care plans, and other valuable clinical and social history information.

Anne Zink, MD, FACEP, medical director with Mat-Su Emergency Physicians, comments that "having a system allowing us to communicate in real time on ED visits and care plans for complex patients has been a dream in Alaska for years." She adds that, "we're excited Alaska has partnered with Collective Medical to provide real-time patient information across a multi-state network. Alaska ACEP is committed to serving all patients in the state of Alaska as we strengthen the safety net for the most vulnerable in our population."

ABOUT COLLECTIVE MEDICAL

Collective Medical Technologies empowers care teams to improve patient outcomes. With a nationwide network covering every national health plan in the country, 30 million patients, hundreds of hospitals and health systems and tens of thousands of providers, our system-agnostic platform is trusted by healthcare organizations and payers to identify at-risk and complex patients and share actionable information to make better care decisions and improve outcomes. Collective Medical is exclusively endorsed by the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP). Learn more at www.collectivemedicaltech.com.

ABOUT ALASKA STATE HOSPITAL AND NURSING HOME ASSOCIATION (ASHNHA)

The Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association represents more than 65 hospitals, nursing homes, and other health care organizations who employ over 10,000 Alaskans. Our membership spans geographically from PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center to Samuel Simmonds Memorial Hospital in Utqiagvik. Our diverse association unites every small rural hospital and large hospital system in the state around common goals. For over 60 years, ASHNHA members have worked to improve health care in Alaska. Learn more at www.ashnha.com and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Media Contacts:

For Collective Medical

Kat McDavitt

[email protected]

For the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association (ASHNHA)

Connie Beemer

[email protected]

SOURCE Collective Medical Technologies

Related Links

http://www.collectivemedicaltech.com


DUBLIN, Ohio, Nov. 2, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tri-anim Health Services, one of the nation's largest distributors of specialty respiratory, anesthesia and other critical care supplies and equipment, was recently awarded the 2017 Zenith Award, from the American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC). The award was given at the 2017 AARC Congress in Indianapolis.

Voted on by AARC members, the Zenith Award is given to the top companies in the respiratory care industry and is widely considered the "people's choice" award for the respiratory care profession. AARC members are asked to evaluate and identify outstanding companies using criteria including: quality of equipment and supplies; accessibility and helpfulness of sales personnel; overall company responsiveness; service records; truth in advertising; and support of the respiratory care profession.

"Earning this award is a high honor and a direct result of our commitment to deliver exceptional service, solutions and quality products to our valued customers," said Tom Metcalf, president, Acute. "Our mission is to serve our customers in such a way that we are contributing to their ability to deliver the best patient care and outcomes as we strive to be the best company in specialty medical sales and distribution. We are honored to receive this prestigious award."

About Tri-anim Health Services:

Tri-anim Health Services, part of the Sarnova family of companies, is a specialty healthcare distributor of respiratory, anesthesia and other critical care supplies and equipment. From leading-edge technologies to everyday consumables, the company offers products and services designed to reduce healthcare costs, provide effective and efficient patient care and ultimately promote positive patient outcomes. For more information, visit www.tri-anim.com.

About Sarnova:

Sarnova is the leading national specialty distributor of healthcare products in the emergency medical services (EMS) and acute care markets. The company is comprised of four major business units: Bound Tree Medical, Cardio Partners, Emergency Medical Products and Tri-anim Health Services. Sarnova is a company of Water Street Healthcare Partners, a strategic investor focused exclusively on the health care industry. For more information, visit www.sarnova.com.

SOURCE Tri-anim Health Services

Related Links

http://www.tri-anim.com


CHARLES CITY, Va., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- This weekend Virginia's 2019 Commemoration, American Evolution joins the re-enactment of America's first official English Thanksgiving at Berkeley Plantation. The festival's events include a re-enactment of the landing of Captain John Woodlief and 35 settlers aboard the Margaret at Berkeley Plantation December 4, 1619. The Virginia Thanksgiving festival also features music, stories, dancing, children's activities, food, living history programming and performances by the Chickahominy Tribal Dancers. American Evolution will also have an interactive exhibit at the festival.

In 1619, the settlers of Berkley Plantation had been given instructions by their investors upon their departure from Bristol, England to "annually and perpetually" hold a day of prayer and Thanksgiving on the date of their arrival in the New World. This event marked the first official observance of Thanksgiving in the English colonies. Today the Virginia Thanksgiving Festival continues to fulfill the orders of Berkeley's investors almost 400 years later by celebrating the arrival of Berkeley's first settlers with a day of history, food, and fun.

"As a descendant of Captain John Woodlief, it brings me great joy to share the story of the first Thanksgiving in English North America with people," said Graham Woodlief. "The story of the First Thanksgiving in Virginia has long been overlooked, but it is an important part of my family's history and the nation's history."

American Evolution is partnering with the Virginia Thanksgiving Festival as part of its mission to bring attention to the important historical events that took place in 1619 Virginia and share them with the country and the world. The Commemoration aims to examine how these pivotal events have had an enduring impact on American culture, governance and society in the interim 400 years.

"The 2019 Commemoration is happy to partner with the Virginia Thanksgiving Festival to highlight the importance of Virginia's history to that of our national history," said Kathy Spangler, Executive Director of the 2019 Commemoration. "Many people don't realize that the original English Thanksgiving in the North America took place in Virginia, and we are doing our part to correct that record."

The Virginia Thanksgiving Festival will be held Sunday, November 5 at the Berkeley Plantation in Charles City. Admission is $5.00 per motorcycle or bicycle, $10.00 per car, truck or SUV and $20.00 per bus. Tours of Berkeley's Manor House are available for $12.00 per person. For more information visit: http://virginiathanksgivingfestival.com/

About the 2019 Commemoration

The 2019 Commemoration, AMERICAN EVOLUTION, highlights events that occurred in Virginia in 1619 that continue to influence America today. Featured programs, events and legacy projects will position Virginia as a leader in education, tourism and economic development. AMERICAN EVOLUTION commemorates the ongoing journey toward the key ideals of democracy, diversity and opportunity. Dominion Resources is an AMERICAN EVOLUTIONTM Founding Partner and Altria Group is a Virginia Colony Partner.

SOURCE 2019 Commemoration

Related Links

http://www.americanevolution2019.com


BAYPORT, Minn., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Andersen Corporation will be exploring the unique relationship between architecture and sustainability at the 2017 Greenbuild International Conference & Expo, held in conjunction with Architecture Boston Expo (ABX) at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, November 8 - 10. This year's show marks Andersen's 15th consecutive year of exhibiting.

The Andersen Window & Doors booth, #1811 in Hall A-B, will highlight how the industry leader is working to redefine boundaries across multiple green building categories. Andersen experts and representatives will be on-hand to discuss green building, sustainability, ENERGY STAR, and net-zero.

"Greenbuild is the perfect platform for Andersen to showcase our own thought leadership around sustainability and to engage in meaningful dialogue with industry partners about challenges we have yet to overcome," said Eliza Clark, Andersen's Director of Sustainability and Environmental. "We're excited to share some of the dynamic trends we're advancing through our products and programs in the categories of smart home, indoor-outdoor living, historic preservation, net zero buildings and more."

As part of Greenbuild's Applied Learning Area Lunch & Learn program, Andersen Windows will present the session "Overcoming Obstacles for Net Zero Buildings in Unique Applications," scheduled for Nov. 8 and repeated Nov. 9. Two case studies will be presented during this session. Will Ives, associate principal of Hennebery Eddy Architects, Inc., will discuss Yellowstone National Park's Yellowstone Youth Campus, a Living Building Challenge concept/design slotted for 2018 construction and Marc Sloot, associate of Sala Architects, Inc., will discuss Bella Luce, a 107- year old Minneapolis, MN net zero Victorian residential remodel.

Visitors to the booth can select one of three non-profit organizations for Andersen to make a $10 donation to, either Yellowstone Forever Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, or Habitat for Humanity.

Follow news and developments from the convention on Andersen's social media platforms: @AndersenCorp on Twitter; @AndersenCo on Facebook; and @andersen_corporation on Instagram. Follow along with the hashtags #Greenbuild17 and #AndersenRedefinesBoundaries.

About Andersen Corporation

Headquartered in Bayport, Minnesota, Andersen Corporation and its subsidiaries manufacture and market window and door products under the Andersen, Renewal by Andersen, Silver Line, American Craftsman, EMCO, Weiland and MQ brands. Andersen was founded in 1903 and employs over 13,000 people with manufacturing sites in North America and Europe. Andersen is a privately held company. Visit us at andersencorporation.com.

ENERGY STAR" is a registered trademark of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"Andersen" and all other marks where denoted are trademarks of Andersen Corporation and its subsidiaries.

 2017 Andersen Corporation. All rights reserved.

SOURCE Andersen Corporation

Related Links

https://www.andersenwindows.com


LOS ANGELES, Nov. 2, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- First They Killed My Father director, producer and co-screenwriter Angelina Jolie and co-screenwriter and executive producer Loung Ung, whose memoir the film is based upon, accepted the 3rd ANNUAL ASIAN WORLD FILM FESTIVAL (AWFF) 'Rising Star' Award on behalf of actress Sreymoch Sareum, who plays "Loung,"during a special screening of the film on October 30 at the Arclight Culver City. The film screened to a sold-out enthusiastic audience, and was followed by a Q&A with Jolie and Ung, moderated by Georges N. Chamchoum, AWFF Executive & Program Director.

Angelina Jolie and Loung Ung Accept the AWFF Rising Star Award Asian World Film Festival

Sareum stars as the principle character, Loung Ung, in First They Killed My Father, which is Cambodia's Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film. The Netflix film is the adaptation of Cambodian author and human rights activist Ung's gripping memoir of surviving the deadly Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1978. The story is told through her eyes, from the age of five, when the Khmer Rouge came to power, to nine years old. The film is produced by Angelina Jolie and acclaimed Cambodian director and producer Rithy Panh, director of the Oscar-nominated The Missing Picture.

Also in attendance were filmmakers and actors whose movies are showing in the festival including Director Sam Kadi (Syria), Anjeewa Pushpakumara (Sri Lanka), Pierre Sarraf (Lebanon), Deepak Rauniyar (Nepal), Bayram Najafov (Azerbaidjan), Philippe Aractingi (Lebanon), Aktan Arym Kubat (Kyrgystan), Murat Aliyev (Kyrgystan), Najia Khaan (Afganistan), Ha Phuong (Vietnam), Jarantai Altantseteg (Mongolia), Ganjuur Tsogtgerel (Mongolia), Xiao Dong Xie (China), Rekesh Salim Ismail (Iraq), Farhan Alam (Pakistan), Kurmashev Ernar (Kazakshstan), Gaukhar Gia Noortas (Kazakhstan), Karinne Behr (France), among others.

Joining the filmmakers were AWFF officials including Sadyk Sher Nyaz, festival Founder & Chairman; Georges N. Chamchoum, Executive & Program Director; Lani Netter, Director of Development & Philanthropy; Asel Sherniyazova, Co-Founder & Managing Director; and Brett Syson, Director of Operations.

ABOUT THE ASIAN WORLD FILM FESTIVAL:

All films selected by their countries as Oscar or Golden Globe contenders are automatically invited to participate at the Film Festival. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizes selected showings as the required official screenings for their members who vote on the Golden Globes. At last year's event, some 30 films from 27 countries participated.

Sponsors include Presenting Partner Ha Phuong Foundation, as well as the city of Culver City, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Variety, East West Bank, RK Media (Radio & TV Korea), the Arclight Theatres and Emporium Thai Restaurant (Los Angeles) and AWFF host venue the historic Culver Hotel.

AWFF recently partnered with The Snow Leopard Trust to raise awareness for the endangered snow leopard and its ecosystem in the high mountains of Asia. The Film Festival's main cinematic award is named after the snow leopard. Snow Leopard Trust

The Asian World Film Festival (AWFF) brings the best of a broad selection of Asian World cinema to Los Angeles to draw greater recognition to the region's wealth of filmmakers, strengthening ties between the Asian and Hollywood film industries. Uniting through cross-cultural collaboration, our festival champions films from over 50 countries across Asia spanning from Turkey to Japan and Russia to India and the Middle East. All films that participate in the Festival will have a unique chance to be guided through the challenging awards season, and showcased for the Motion Picture Academy, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and all Guilds for enhanced exposure, media attention and awards consideration. AWFF is a non-profit organization under Aitysh USA. www.AsianWorldFilmFest.org

PHOTO LINK: http://bit.ly/2iooSAF

Contact:

Cheri Warner

818-760-8995

[email protected]

SOURCE Asian World Film Festival

Related Links

http://www.asianworldfilmfest.org


Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer at Facebook, and the best-selling author of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead also addressed harassment, calling on society to hold not only perpetrators, but their companies accountable as well. Sandberg also joined Wharton professor Adam Grant, co-author of Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy.

Attendees also heard keynote addresses from Viola Davis, Academy Award-winning actress of screen, stage and television, and Mallika Chopra, media entrepreneur and author of Living With Intent: My Somewhat Messy Journey to Purpose, Peace and Joy. The nonpartisan, nonprofit Conference featured dozens of sessions led by 100+ experts in the fields of leadership, career advancement, finance, social media, personal branding, community service, health and wellness.

"We see that coming together, 7500 strong, leads women and men alike to realize their power to change the workplace and create more opportunity for all," said Johnita Jones, Board President of the Texas Conference for Women. "In these fast-paced, eventful times, stepping away even for a day to focus, support and learn from each other is more valuable than ever."

With Texas still recovering from Hurricane Harvey, community service remains a central element of the Conference. Attendees assembled kits for those affected by the hurricane. The Conference also partnered with the Rebuild Texas Fund and the Writers' League of Texas to donate new children's books to schools and families.

The Texas Conference for Women is generously sponsored by Rackspace; Liberty Mutual; Cisco; Dell; Oracle; Prudential Financial; State Farm; United Airlines; UnitedHealthcare; USAA; HEB; Texas Beverage Association; Accenture; AT&T; HomeAway; Mastercard; Phillips 66; RetailMeNot; Statoil; Applied Materials; Arm; Bonterra Organic Vineyards; Deloitte; Dickinson-Wright PLLC; Erin Condren; Huston-Tillotson University; Merck; Occidental Petroleum Corporation; QVC, Inc. and Silicon Labs. Media partners include Austin American-Statesman; Clear Channel Outdoor; KVUE; and The Texas Tribune.

"We believe deeply in the value of advancing women leaders, whether in technology or any other industry and discipline," said Aimee Hoyt, Chief Human Resources Officer at Rackspace. "That is why Rackspace is proud to again partner with the Texas Conference for Women on our shared mission to provide the resources, understanding and connections that women can apply in their lives, workplaces and communities."

To learn more about the 18th annual Texas Conference for Women, visit our website, follow us on Twitter and Instagram or like us on Facebook. Photos of this year's event are available from Getty Images.

SOURCE Texas Conference for Women

Related Links

https://www.txconferenceforwomen.org


Each year, only a handful of companies qualify for the international trade association's most prestigious award. MSPA Americas recognized 9 of its 143 member companies with their highest accolade of "Elite" status for 2018, based on member achievements realized throughout 2017. ath Power has been named an MSPA Elite company every year since the award program began back in 2014, and is one of only two firms to accomplish this feat.

In October, companies earning Elite status were honored at the annual CXE3 Conference, a gathering of executives from mystery shopping firms, marketing research and merchandising companies, surveyors, field audit firms, loss prevention firms, and others. At the conference, ath Power's Chief Operating Officer, Rich Bradley, accepted the award on behalf of the company, and acknowledged ath Power's exceptional leadership team, their unwavering commitment to excellence, and their active involvement in MSPA. "We are extremely honored to be recognized as an MSPA Elite company for 2018," stated Mr. Bradley. "Both MSPA and ath Power have set very high standards and we know that consistently meeting those standards is crucial to achieving Elite status in addition to setting us apart from other research and customer experience firms for the benefit of our distinguished clients."

ath Power was one of the founding members of MSPA Americas (formerly known as the Mystery Shopping Providers Association of North America), and has been actively involved in the association since its inception in 1998. Lynn Saladini, ath Power's Chief Relationship Officer, has served as the President and Global Chair of MSPA in past years, and Rich Bradley is currently serving a two-year term as Chairman of MSPA Global as well as the inaugural Governor of MSPA Americas.

View the 2018 MSPA Americas Elite Award recipients here: http://www.mspa-americas.org/elite-winners.

About ath Power Consulting

ath Power Consulting is the premier provider of research and customer experience solutions for the financial services industry, offering competitive intelligence, survey and mystery shop research, compliance auditing, market analyses, employee training, and strategic consulting. For over two decades, we have helped our clients improve customer retention, build brand loyalty and advocacy, deepen employee engagement, measure compliance, maximize performance, and increase profitability  distinguishing them from their competition and giving them a commanding edge in the marketplace. To learn more, visit http://www.athpower.com.

About MSPA Americas

MSPA Americas (formerly known as the Mystery Shopping Providers Association of North America) is the trade association representing the customer experience industry throughout the Americas. MSPA Americas connects and supports the businesses that influence the customer experience through managing, quantifying, interpreting, enhancing and re-defining the customer experience. Widely recognized as the leader in customer service experience measurement, management, and training, MSPA Americas is made up of member companies that provide these services to a variety of industries. The association strengthens the customer experience industry by uniting the efforts and actions of its members and supporting the businesses they serve. To learn more, visit http://www.mspa-americas.org/.

Contact:

Jessica Hamel

ath Power Consulting

978-474-6464, x107

[email protected]

SOURCE ath Power Consulting

Related Links

http://athpower.com


SHANGHAI, Nov. 2, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- BEE  Bisagni Environmental Enterprise is pleased to announce that it was recognized by U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) as one of the Top 15 LEED Service Providers in China.

BEE - Bisagni Environmental Enterprise

On Oct. 17-18, Greenbuild, the world's largest conference and expo for green building, was held successfully in Shanghai, China. During the two-day Greenbuild China conference, industry leaders, experts and front-line professionals dedicated to sustainable building gathered together to discuss current research and best practices, innovative technologies and products for the future of the industry.

As one of the leaders in China's green building industry, BEE was recognized at Greenbuild by USGBC as one of the top 15 LEED service providers in China. In response to the recognition, Alessandro Bisagni, BEE's founder and managing director, commented: "It is a great honor to be included in this elite group of organizations that tirelessly spread the message of sustainable buildings across China and around the world."

BEE has worked on more than 200 green building projects with more than 30+ million square feet of GFA in 25 countries, including the first LEED V4 project in the world (Haworth Beijing Showroom). BEE has also been recognized by USGBC as a LEED Proven Provider  the only company based in China to achieve this for LEED ID+C - and participates in the LEED User Group for Retail and the LEED Steering Committee. BEE has significant experience working across all building sectors, and will continue to serve the sustainable building community in China.

About BEE

BEE - Bisagni Environmental Enterprise is an engineering consulting and material specialist firm, with offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tokyo and Milan, focused on sustainability for the built environment. BEE provides a range of services including multidisciplinary green building consulting, intelligent building management and green materials solutions and trading.

Media Contact:

Alessandro Bisagni

Phone: +86.21.3216.0891

Email: [email protected]

Related Images

image1.jpg

image2.jpg

BEE Recognized as Top 15 LEED Service Provider

image3.jpg

naked Stables Resort

image4.jpg

Haworth Beijing Showroom

Related Links

BEE Homepage

BEE Blog

SOURCE BEE - Bisagni Environmental Enterprise
Binance deals purely in cryptocurrency, with leading technical capability, covering over 180 countries around the world. Binance has catapulted into the ranks of top 10 global exchanges by 24-hour trading volume within just 3 months after its launch in July 2017. The Binance.com website is also hosted in multiple languages including English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Spanish, with more to be added in the future. Currently, there are more than 80 different crypto currency pairs on Binance. The eclectic and carefully picked selection consistently receive praise from the blockchain and cryptocurrency communities.

QUOINE is a leading global fintech firm providing trading services for Japanese yen, US dollar, Euro, HK dollar, Indonesian rupiah, Singapore dollar, Philippine peso, Indian rupee and Australian dollar. In September 2017, QUOINE Corporation became the first global cryptocurrency exchange to be officially licensed by the Japan FSA.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao commented, "We have been in constant communication with QUOINE and believe they have a professional team with abundant experience in banking and finance. It did not take us long to decide on having a strategic partnership with them, and we believe together we can provide global traders with a more comprehensive range of services. We hope that in the future, Binance will be able to enter into further collaborations with other exchanges for similar fiat-crypto co-operations."

Mike Kayamori, CEO and Co-founder of QUOINE said that, "Binance and QUOINE are market leaders for global cryptocurrency trading platforms and our volumes make both Binance and QUOINE among the largest cryptocurrency exchanges globally. We are proud to share an aligned strategic vision with Binance to build globalized, liquid markets for the crypto economy. We are excited to welcome Binance to our Global Liquidity Alliance to strengthen the QUOINE LIQUID platform."

ABOUT Binance:

Binance is one of the fastest growing crypto asset exchanges in the world. Founded by a team of fintech and crypto experts  it is capable of processing more than 1.4 million orders per second, making it one of the fastest exchanges in the market. The platform focuses on security, robustness, and execution speed  attracting enthusiasts and professional traders alike.

ABOUT QUOINE:

QUOINE is a leading global fintech company that provides trading, exchange, and next generation financial services powered by blockchain technology. With offices in Japan, Singapore and Vietnam, QUOINE combines a strong network of local partners with extensive team experience in banking and financial products to deliver best in class financial services for its customers. More information is available at www.quoine.com

In 2014, QUOINE launched Quoine Exchange, now known as QUOINEX, which became one of the largest bitcoin exchanges in the world by transaction volume. QUOINE offers powerful trading features, a sophisticated user dashboard, and secure regulatory compliance to individual and corporate customers. QUOINEX provides trading services for bitcoin and fiat currency pairs in Japanese yen, US dollar, Euro, HK dollar, Indonesian rupiah, Singapore dollar, Philippine peso, Indian rupee, Australian dollar, and Chinese Renminbi. QUOINEX has exceeded USD12 billion in transactions in the past two years. In September 2017, QUOINE Corporation became the first global cryptocurrency exchange to be officially licensed by the Japan FSA. More information can be found at www.quoinex.com

In June 2017, QUOINE launched a fully digital cryptocurrency exchange and trading platform called QRYPTOS, exclusively for cryptocurrency trading in desktop version at www.qryptos.com.

In October 2017, QUOINE became the first licensed global cryptocurrency exchange in Japan to launch a global Initial Coin Offering (ICO), also known as the QASH Token Sale. QUOINE Corporation was officially licensed by the Japan FSA on 29th September 2017. QUOINE launched its QASH Token Sale website at https://liquid.plus on 1 October 2017, to fund the growth of the QUOINE LIQUID platform. More information can be found at:

QASH Token Sale Website (and registration):https://liquid.plus

Whitepaper download:https://liquid.plus/quoine-liquid

QUOINE ICO Brand Reel:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5mvYnammC0&t=51s

QUOINE LIQUID Reel:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5gs2sX7W-g&t=2s

Telegram:https://t.me/joinchat/FPU5vRGhiBjfLcQogatv3g

CONTACT DETAILS

Contact Person: Katherine Ng

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.quoine.com

Telegram Community:https://t.me/joinchat/FPU5vRGhiBjfLcQogatv3g

Twitter: @QUOINE_SG

Facebook: www.fb.com/quoine.sg

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/quoine

Reddit:https://www.reddit.com/r/QASH/

Steemit:https://steemit.com/@quoineliquid

Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOR2GJnFoOgTazC5v6mBTSA/featured?disable_polymer=1

SOURCE QUOINE

Related Links

http://www.quoine.com


BOSTON, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Burns & Levinson recently won a summary motion for client Goodwill Enterprises, Inc. in an important case of first impression in Massachusetts Land Court that involves nominee trusts and rights of first refusal (ROFR) over real estate in Massachusetts. On October 20, 2017, the Land Court held that the transfer of a controlling beneficial interest in a nominee realty trust, which are often used to hold real estate in the Commonwealth, can trigger a tenant's ROFR over the real estate held in the trust.

The lawsuit was brought by Goodwill Enterprises, which operates an auto dealership called Automall Collection in Peabody, MA, after the company discovered that a beneficial interest in the real property it leases and uses for its dealership was sold without its knowledge despite the ROFR in Goodwill's lease. The landlord, 218 Andover Street Peabody Realty Trust (Realty Trust), was a nominee trust with two beneficiaries, William Garland and his business partner Daniel Corbett, who each owned a 50% beneficial interest.

In 2011, Corbett filed for bankruptcy, but tenant Goodwill received no notice of the filing. In the bankruptcy proceeding, Corbett's 50% beneficial interest in the Realty Trust was sold in 2012 by the bankruptcy trustee in a sealed bid auction to April Realty Trust  a trust controlled by Brian Kelly of Kelly Automotive (Goodwill's neighbor), who in 2010 had tried to negotiate the purchase of the land with Corbett, but failed because Garland didn't want to sell. Goodwill received no notice of the auction or sale. Three years later, in April 2015, Goodwill learned for the first time that April Realty had purchased Corbett's interest in the trust.

A Burns & Levinson team, led by Paul Marshall Harris and Sara Decatur Judge from the firm's Automotive Group, investigated on behalf of Goodwill, and discovered the sale of the beneficial interest in the Bankruptcy Court. In 2015, Burns filed suit in Land Court seeking to allow Goodwill to purchase Corbett's 50% interest pursuant to the ROFR for the same $250,250 price that Kelly paid. A separate motion was filed in the Bankruptcy Court seeking an order that the "final sale" order approving the sale to April Realty did not preclude Goodwill from exercising its ROFR.

The Land Court granted Goodwill's motion and held that its ROFR was triggered when the Bankruptcy Trustee accepted the bid for the sale of Corbett's beneficial interest. The court held that, even though Garland and April Realty each own 50%, each beneficiary has a controlling interest because they could "veto" each other (the trust documents did not provide for a "tiebreaker" when the beneficiaries disagreed). Thus, the Land Court held that April Realty's 50% was a controlling interest, which made it a real property right (as opposed to a personal property right). Since it was a transfer of real property, the ROFR triggered.

"This was not only a significant win for Goodwill but for any company looking for clarification in regards to their ROFR rights when land is held in a nominee trust," said Burns & Levinson partner Sara Decatur Judge. "Any party that is negotiating these types of ROFR issues in a lease contract should be aware of this case and make sure they come to an express agreement as to what will trigger the ROFR."

About the Automotive Group at Burns & Levinson LLP

For more than 20 years, Burns & Levinson's Automotive Group has been dedicated to advising and assisting hundreds of motor vehicle dealers in all aspects of their evolving business. Our experienced attorneys represent some of the largest automotive groups in the country, as well as smaller dealer groups consisting of one or two stores. The Automotive Group assists dealers with buy sells, factory disputes, consumer disputes and real estate issues.

Burns & Levinson is a full-service law firm with over 125 lawyers in Boston, Providence, and other regional offices. Our areas of expertise include: automotive, business/finance, business litigation, divorce/family law, venture capital/emerging companies, employment, estate planning, government investigations, intellectual property, M&A/private equity, probate/trust litigation, and real estate. We partner with our clients to solve their business and personal legal issues in a collaborative, creative, and cost-effective way. For more information, visit Burns & Levinson at www.burnslev.com.

Contact:



Amy Blumenthal

Blumenthal & Associates

617.879.1511

[email protected]



Kristen Weller

Chief Marketing & Business Development Officer

617.345.3555

[email protected]

SOURCE Burns & Levinson

Related Links

http://www.burnslev.com


LONDON, Nov. 2, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Cancer Tumor Profiling Market by Technology [Next-generation Sequencing (NGS), Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), Immunohistochemistry (IHC), In Situ Hybridization (ISH), (Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (FISH) and Chromogenic in Situ Hybridization (CISH)), Microarray, and Others], Technique (Genomics, Proteomics, Epigenetics, and Metabolomics), and Application (Personalized Medicine, Diagnostics, Biomarker Discovery, Prognostics, and Research Applications) - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2017-2023







Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5139402







Cancer/tumor profiling uses several molecular biology techniques, such as microarray, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and in situ hybridization (ISH), to provide specific information about genetic and molecular makeup of tumor. It can detect the presence or absence of distinct disease-associated targets that guide medical practitioners in deciding the appropriate course of treatment for patients. In addition, it enables estimating individual patient risk to cancer by performing high throughput genotyping analysis of tumor DNA and predicting the reaction outcome of the therapy.



The global market is driven by increase in adoption of the cancer profiling methods by oncologists, rise in use of cancer biomarkers, surge in prevalence of cancer, and growth in demand for next-generation sequencing technique to meet the demand for cancer profiling. The global cancer/tumor profiling market was valued at $25,318 million in 2016, and is expected to reach $82,447 million by 2023, registering a CAGR of 18.4% from 2017 to 2023.



The global cancer/tumor profiling market is segmented on the basis of technology, technique, application, and region. Based on technology, it is classified into next-generation sequencing (NGS), polymerase chain reaction (PCR), immunohistochemistry (IHC), in situ hybridization (ISH), microarray, and others. The in-situ hybridization segment is further categorized into fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and chromogenic in situ hybridization (CISH). Based on technique, it is divided into genomics, proteomics, epigenetics, and metabolomics. Based on application, it is classified into personalized medicine, diagnostics, biomarker discovery, prognostics, and research applications. The biomarker discovery segment generated the highest revenue in 2016, registering a CAGR of 17.4% from 2017 to 2023, and is anticipated to continue its dominance throughout the forecast period, owing to growth in demand for biomarkers. However, the personalized medicine segment is expected to witness the highest growth rate in the global market.



Geographically, the market is analyzed across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA. In the recent years, Asia-Pacific has witnessed rapid growth in the global, owing to rise in incidence of cancer, and increase in demand for better healthcare services in the developing economies such as India and China. In addition, surge in the number of contract research organizations (CROs) and increase in focus of international players on the emerging markets have supplemented the market growth in Asia-Pacific region.



KEY BENEFITS:

The study provides an in-depth analysis of the global cancer/tumor profiling market along with the current trends and future estimations to elucidate the imminent investment pockets.

Comprehensive analyses of the factors that drive and restrict the market growth are provided in the report.

Comprehensive quantitative analysis of the industry is provided from 2016 to 2023 to assist stakeholders to capitalize on the prevailing market opportunities.

Extensive analysis of the key segments of the industry helps in understanding the trends in technologies and techniques used across the globe.

Key market players and their strategies are provided to understand the competitive outlook of the industry.



KEY MARKET SEGMENTS



By Technology

Next-generation Sequencing (NGS)

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)

Immunohistochemistry (IHC)

In Situ Hybridization (ISH)

Fluorescence in Situ Hybridization (FISH)

Chromogenic in Situ Hybridization (CISH)

Microarray

Others



By Technique

Genomics

Proteomics

Epigenetics

Metabolomics



By Application

Personalized Medicine

Diagnostics

Biomarker Discovery

Prognostics

Research Applications



By Region

North America

U.S.

Canada

Mexico

Europe

UK

France

Germany

Italy

Spain

Rest of Europe

Asia-Pacific

Japan

China

India

Australia

Rest of Asia-Pacific

LAMEA

Brazil

Turkey

Argentina

South Africa

Rest of LAMEA



KEY MARKET PLAYERS

Qiagen N.V.

Roche Molecular Systems Inc. (Roche)

Abbott Molecular (Abbott Laboratories)

Illumina Inc.

NeoGenomics Laboratories

HTG Molecular Diagnostic

Genomic Health Inc.

Hologic Gen-Probe

BD Biosciences (Beckton Dickinson)

Siemens Healthineers



The other players in the value chain include (profiles not included in the report)

Claris Life Sciences

Personal Genome Diagnostics, Inc.

Perthera, Inc.

Foundation Medicine, Inc. V.

Strand

ApoCell

Contextual Genomics

Agendia

GenScript



Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5139402



About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers

https://www.reportbuyer.com



For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 208 816 85 48

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

Related Links

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LOUISVILLE, Ky., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ChromaLuxe, the global leader in dye-sublimation metal prints is pleased to announce it will be sponsoring an exhibit by acclaimed rock and roll photographer Jay Blakesberg. Dark + Light, The Rock and Roll Photography of Jay Blakesberg 1978 -2017, will run Nov. 9, 2017  Jan. 6, 2018 in San Francisco, California and will feature 142 images printed on ChromaLuxe aluminum.

Jay Blakesberg Jerry Garcia by Jay Blakesberg

Blakesberg is a San Francisco-based photographer and filmmaker who regularly contributes music photography to Rolling Stone, Guitar Player, Relix and many other magazines. He has photographed many musical artists, including the Grateful Dead, B.B. King, Phish, Radiohead, Tom Petty, Ben Harper, The Rolling Stones, Tom Waits, Neil Young and Carlos Santana to name just a few. His photography has been included in more than 200 CD packages, 100's of magazines worldwide, and he has published thirteen coffee table books of his music photography.

"When I shot my first rolls of 35mm film in 1978, I never could have imagined it would lead to this," said Blakesberg. "For 40 years I have been lucky enough to document pop culture history in the world of rock and roll. My camera has brought me in to places I could never have dreamed of. I am humbled that I have been able to make a living doing something I love so much."

The exhibition will consist of 130 images at the Harvey Milk Photo Center and another 12 at McLaren Lodge in Golden Gate Park. An opening reception will be held on Nov. 9 and is open to the public. All images for the show were printed on ChromaLuxe by Metairie, Louisiana based Lakeside Camera Photoworks.

Opening Reception

Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017

5:30 pm  9:00 pm

Open to the public

Harvey Milk Photo Center

50 Scott Street

San Francisco, CA 94117

Main Exhibit: Harvey Milk Photo Center (50 Scott Street, SF); click here for hours.

Secondary Location: McLaren Lodge (501 Stanyan Street, SF); click here for hours.

"ChromaLuxe is thrilled to partner with Jay Blakesberg on this exciting retrospective of his rock and roll photography from the past 40 years," said Steve Flores, ChromaLuxe Global Brand Manager. "While Jay is widely known for his iconic photos of the Grateful Dead, he has also worked with many more of the biggest names in music and we look forward to sharing this carefully curated selection of images with the public. We are honored that Jay chose for this exhibition to be printed entirely on ChromaLuxe and believe it is the perfect medium for these fantastic, vibrant images."

About ChromaLuxe

ChromaLuxe is the global manufacturer of premium print media, supplying high quality blank substrates for a variety of applications that require superb image quality and durability. All coatings and substrates are made in the USA with manufacturing and fabrication done in Louisville, KY. With additional locations in Belgium and Australia, ChromaLuxe serves its global customer base and provides products to more than 80 countries.

ChromaLuxe is an extension of Universal Woods, the world's leading manufacturer of hard surface sublimatable products and mezzanine decking. It is also a sister brand to Unisub, which provides the highest quality custom sublimatable products. To learn more about ChromaLuxe, please visit: ChromaLuxe.com. Connect with ChromaLuxe on Facebook (facebook.com/realchromaluxe), Instagram (instagram.com/realchromaluxe) and Twitter (twitter.com/realChromaLuxe).

Note: ChromaLuxe is a registered trademark of Universal Woods, Inc. All other product and brand names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies. ChromaLuxe disclaims any and all rights in these marks.

Contact:

Steve Flores, ChromaLuxe

502-759-1246

[email protected]

SOURCE ChromaLuxe

Related Links

http://chromaluxe.com


ARLINGTON, Va., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) today called on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to move forward urgently with the development of a radiation oncology alternative payment model (RO-APM) following a new report to Congress from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMS Innovation Center). The CMS Innovation Center report outlines important payment model design considerations for implementing an Advanced APM in radiation oncology. ASTRO believes the report recognizes the key model design elements and provides a viable path forward to ensure the field of radiation oncology can be at the forefront of efforts to improve treatment quality and lower costs for cancer patients and the health care system.

The CMS Innovation Center report, "Episodic Alternative Payment Model for Radiation Therapy Services," was requested by Congress as part of the ASTRO-supported Patient Access and Medicare Protection Act (PAMPA) of 2015. In addition to the report on an APM for radiation oncology, this bipartisan legislation, which was passed unanimously by Congress, brought much-needed stability to community-based radiation oncology clinic reimbursement by freezing payments for key radiation therapy services at 2016 levels through December 2018. Agreeing to an Advanced APM before the January 1, 2019 expiration of the PAMPA freeze will enable CMS, Congress and the radiation oncology community to avoid the looming payment cliff.

"The field of radiation oncology is a proven and needed component of comprehensive cancer treatment and is well-positioned to lead efforts to enhance the value of cancer care. We are pleased that the CMS Innovation Center's report provides us with a thoughtful and actionable roadmap, and we look forward to working expeditiously with CMS on model implementation prior to the PAMPA expiration," said Brian Kavanagh, MD, MPH, FASTRO, Chair of ASTRO's Board of Directors. "We believe the CMS model report aligns very well with our proposed RO-APM, which would incentivize the appropriate use of cancer treatments that result in the highest quality of care and best patient outcomes. We appreciate the CMMI's advice and guidance throughout the development of the model, and are confident that we can work together to move away from the limitations and instability of traditional fee-for-service Medicare payments."

The CMS Innovation Center report to Congress describes the provision of radiation therapy services, why Medicare beneficiaries may need radiation therapy services and how Medicare pays for these services. The report also describes several APM design considerations, including the type of alternative payment model; how the model is expected to result in clinical practice transformation; the rationale for such a model; the potential scale; its alignment with other initiatives; how the model may measure improved clinical quality and patient experience; and how readily providers may participate. The report also notes that the model could also address many of the challenges with the current payment systems, potentially generating more year-to-year stability in radiation therapy payments.

Each year, 1.6 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer, and about two-thirdsmore than one million patientswill be treated with radiation therapy to cure or palliate their disease. To better serve this complex patient population and have a meaningful and viable opportunity to participate in payment reform as envisioned under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), ASTRO worked with the radiation oncology community, including representatives from freestanding centers and hospital-based practices to develop an APM that meets the requirements for an Advanced APM under MACRA.

The RO-APM incentivizes physicians to assume accountability for controlling the total cost of spending related to the condition. The RO-APM applies to major disease sites treated with radiation therapy, creating an episode-based payment that begins with clinical treatment planning and concludes 90 days after the last radiation treatment. Throughout the process, health care participants must adhere to nationally accepted clinical treatment guidelines and other quality improvement requirements. A description of the model is available on ASTRO's website.

ASTRO remains grateful to radiation oncology's Congressional champions for their leadership on PAMPA and ongoing commitment to protecting access to radiation therapy for cancer patients.

ABOUT ASTRO

The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) is the world's largest radiation oncology society, with more than 10,000 members who are physicians, nurses, biologists, physicists, radiation therapists, dosimetrists and other health care professionals who specialize in treating patients with radiation therapies. The Society is dedicated to improving patient care through professional education and training, support for clinical practice and health policy standards, advancement of science and research, and advocacy. ASTRO publishes three peer-reviewed journals, the International Journal of Radiation Oncology  Biology  Physics (redjournal.org), Practical Radiation Oncology (practicalradonc.org) and Advances in Radiation Oncology (advancesradonc.org); developed and maintains an extensive patient website, RT Answers (rtanswers.org); and created the Radiation Oncology Institute (roinstitute.org), a nonprofit foundation to support research and education efforts around the world that enhance and confirm the critical role of radiation therapy in improving cancer treatment. To learn more about ASTRO, visit www.astro.org, sign up to receive our news and follow us on our blog, Facebook and Twitter.

Contact: Liz Gardner

703-286-1600

[email protected]



Jeff White

703-839-7392

[email protected]

SOURCE American Society for Radiation Oncology

Related Links

http://www.astro.org


We fully recognize, honor and comply with the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-Employment Rights Act (USERRA).

Our managers and supervisors will have the tools they need to effectively manage those employees who serve in the Guard and Reserve.

We appreciate the values, leadership and unique skills service members bring to the workforce and will encourage opportunities to hire Guardsmen, Reservists and Veterans.

We will continually recognize and support our country's service members and their families in peace, in crises and in war.

"Today supportive employers are critical to maintaining the strength and readiness of the nation's National Guard and Reserve units. The ESGR Statement of Support program is the cornerstone of ESGR's efforts to gain and maintain employer support. The intent of this program is to increase employer support by encouraging participating employers to act as advocates for employee participation in the military," said McKinley. "Comerica Bank is setting a high standard for all financial institutions to follow by providing above and beyond support of the nation's veterans, many of whom currently serve in the National Guard and Reserve."

"By meeting the Statement of Support criteria, Comerica Bank will stand proudly with their National Guard and Reserve employees who continue to answer our nation's call to defend our way of life. Their personal sacrifices are essential to the strength of our nation," added McKinley.

"Comerica's support of the National Guard and Reserve reaffirms our proud commitment to provide career opportunities to the brave men and women who serve our country," Sefzik said. "They bring leadership, discipline, initiative and unique problem-solving skills to the workplace, which make them ideally suited for a variety of professions. When companies hire our military members, we all benefit."

About Comerica Bank

Comerica Incorporated (NYSE: CMA) is a financial services company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and strategically aligned by three business segments: The Business Bank, The Retail Bank, and Wealth Management. Comerica focuses on relationships, and helping people and businesses be successful. In addition to Texas, Comerica Bank locations can be found in Arizona, California, Florida and Michigan, with select businesses operating in several other states, as well as in Canada and Mexico.

About ESGR

Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve is a Department of Defense agency established in 1972 to develop and maintain employer support for Guard and Reserve service. ESGR advocates relevant initiatives, recognizes outstanding support, increases awareness of applicable laws, and resolves conflict between service members and employers. Paramount to ESGR's mission is encouraging the employment of Guardsmen and Reservists who bring integrity, global perspective and proven leadership to the civilian workforce.

More information about ESGR Employer Outreach initiatives and volunteer opportunities is available at www.ESGR.mil .

SOURCE Comerica Bank

Related Links

http://www.comerica.com


SKANES FAGERHULT, Sweden, Nov. 03, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

David Bessant is appointed Senior Vice President for Europe and the Rest of the World with immediate effect. David joined the business in 2009 and has been the Chief Financial Officer for the Concentric Group since 2010. This planned organisational move gives David operational responsibility across this wide reaching region.

In conjunction with David's internal appointment, Marcus Whitehouse has accepted an offer to join Concentric AB as the new Chief Financial Officer with effect from 2nd January 2018. In the intervening period, David has agreed to oversee both roles.

Marcus Whitehouse will join Concentric from JCB where he has worked for the last 10 years and currently holds the position of Director of Group Finance. At JCB, he has held senior financial roles leading strategy and operational improvements for the international manufacturer. Prior to joining JCB, Marcus worked for the private equity owned business, Linpac; the New York listed Huntsman Group and Albright and Wilson PLC. He is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered and Certified Accountants.

David Woolley, CEO of Concentric AB commented, "David Bessant is already a respected and proven leader in Concentric and he has been a leading advocate of the Concentric Business Excellence programme. With his knowledge of the business, his relationships with our teams and his grasp of the commercial realities of our markets combined with his strategic outlook, I am confident that he will accelerate growth throughout his area of responsibility." Turning to the appointment of Marcus Whitehouse, David Woolley added, "The CFO role is a critical appointment for the Concentric Group and I am pleased we have been able to secure Marcus. With his experience, Marcus can quickly contribute to Concentric's strategy and champion operational improvements. He brings commercial acumen and energy together with a proactive, positive attitude and a passion for results. His background and skills will complement our existing executive team."

David Bessant replaces Paul Fleetwood as Senior Vice President for Europe and the Rest of the World following his resignation.

For additional information please contact:

David Woolley

Telephone +44-121-445-6545

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/concentric-ab/r/david-bessant-appointed-seniorvice-president-and-marcus-whitehouse-to-join-concentric-as-the-new-chi,c2382063

The following files are available for download:

http://mb.cision.com/Main/1643/2382063/745931.pdf PDF http://news.cision.com/concentric-ab/i/david-bessant,c2264653 David Bessant http://news.cision.com/concentric-ab/i/marcus-whitehouse,c2264654 Marcus Whitehouse

SOURCE Concentric AB
UNION CITY, Calif., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Dealmoon, the leading social shopping community for Chinese expats around the world, will significantly expand its annual Singles Day event this year with offers from more than 500 stores. And for the first time, Dealmoon's Singles Day will include offers from Australian brands and stores, along with those from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and China. Singles Day is Saturday, Nov. 11.

An estimated 6.3 million Chinese nationals currently live in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia; most have high incomes and prefer luxury brands and high-end retailers.

"Dealmoon has expanded in step with the diaspora of Chinese consumers around the world," said Jennifer Wang, Dealmoon co-founder and chief marketing officer. "We're meeting their needs wherever they are, propelled by a social shopping experience that keeps us closely in tune with the Dealmoon community, enabling us to curate great offers just for them. Our Singles Day 2017 selection includes our community's favorite items from the previous year  including fashion, beauty and skincare items -- along with surprises and giveaways."

Singles Day was created by students at China's Nanjing University in 1993 as a celebration of pride for the unattached. Soon China's Alibaba made Singles Day a national phenomenon for Chinese consumers. Dealmoon's Singles Day 2017 event will reach millions more Chinese consumers living around the globe, starting with the company's approximately 20 million followers on Weibo and WeChat.

One brand to be featured on Dealmoon for the first time will be Belle & Bloom, a Sydney-based designer of genuine leather handbags and accessories. "We've known for some time that our items appeal to higher-end Chinese consumers," said Orit Stern, Belle & Bloom's global sales and marketing director. "It's a market we'd like to expand, so we're really excited to be working with Dealmoon to extend our reach globally and deepen our understanding of this consumer."

This is Dealmoon's fifth annual Singles Day event and will be its largest to date. This year's Singles Day offers will be available starting November 5 and continue through November 15 at www.dealmoon.com (English) or cn.dealmoon.com (Chinese).

About Dealmoon

Dealmoon operates the leading social shopping community for Chinese expats around the world, as well as the top e-commerce advisory platform for global consumer brands seeking to reach Chinese-language shoppers. In 2016 alone, Chinese shoppers engaged with Dealmoon more than one billion times from the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan, Korea, France, Germany, Italy and Spain as well as China.

Dealmoon.com launched in the U.S. in 2009 in English and Mandarin, offering shopping recommendations tailored to Chinese consumer needs and wants.

In 2011 Dealmoon integrated with top Chinese social platform Weibo, expanding its reach to Chinese consumers worldwide. Providing not only product and shopping tips but also guidance on how to adapt to their new homes outside China, Dealmoon's Weibo and WeChat followers combined now exceed 20 million.

Dealmoon works with the world's best brands and partners to deliver a consistently high-end customer experience, combined with great deals and products consumers won't find elsewhere.

To learn more please visit www.dealmoon.com (English) or cn.dealmoon.com (Chinese).

SOURCE Dealmoon

Related Links

http://www.dealmoon.com


LOS ANGELES, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is a statement from Allen Schaeffer, executive director of the Diesel Technology Forum:

With yesterday's approval of the updated Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP), the leadership of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach (POLA and POLB) took a positive step toward improving the air quality for the surrounding communities and ensuring the long-term economic viability of the ports.

Ultimately, this Action Plan will deliver faster emissions reductions at a cheaper cost, offering a better outcome for the local communities and businesses that serve the ports. It balances continued environmental progress with proven technology that delivers consistent near-term emissions reductions while also wisely investing in the future with promising but still unproven or unavailable technologies. The plan also challenges industry to achieve greater emissions reductions from existing technologies.

The Plan's approval by the harbor commissions of both ports is in line with what California voters desire. According to a recent survey of 2,190 registered California voters, 64 percent of Californians believe investments in clean transportation should be balanced by continued use of existing, abundant and low-cost clean technologies and fuels such as clean diesel, at least until alternative energy sources are more available. Some 75 percent of registered voters agree California must balance its investments between proven technologies and those that might benefit the future.

The survey, conducted by JB Research last spring for the Diesel Technology Forum, has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.

Clean diesel technology has a proven track record of helping POLA and POLB lower emissions, achieving soot reduction goals five years ahead of schedule. The requirement for a switch to newer generation trucks in the 2012 plan saw the overwhelming majority of truckers choose clean diesel over other fuels. The net result was that the ports have already achieved their particle matter (PM) emissions reduction targets set for 2023, and are very close to achieving their NOx reduction goal ahead of schedule.

The newest generation of clean diesel technology achieves near-zero levels of emissions for nitrogen oxides (NOx) and PM. It also maintains an efficiency and performance advantage over other fuels. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's most recent National Port Strategy Assessment:

Replacing a model year 2007 Class 8 drayage truck with a model year 2010 or newer diesel can reduce NOx emissions by 221 lbs. per year. Replacing the roughly 8,800 model year 2007 to 2009 port trucks now in use with clean diesel technology made after model year 2010, POLA and POLB could reduce emissions by 1.9 million lbs. of NOx. This is equivalent to taking more than 600,000 passenger cars off the road.

Replacing a single old engine powering a switch locomotive with a Tier 4 model can reduce NOx emissions by 37,000 lbs. of NOx and 974 lbs. of PM. Replacing the older engine in the wide variety of marine workboats including tugs and ferries can have equally significant emissions reductions.

About The Diesel Technology Forum

The Diesel Technology Forum is a non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of diesel engines, fuel and technology. Forum members are leaders in clean diesel technology and represent the three key elements of the modern clean-diesel system: advanced engines, vehicles and equipment, cleaner diesel fuel and emissions-control systems. For more information visit www.dieselforum.org.

Connect with the Diesel Technology Forum

For the latest insights and information from the leaders in clean diesel technology, join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @DieselTechForum, or YouTube @DieselTechForum and connect with us on LinkedIn. Get it all by subscribing to our newsletter Diesel Direct for a weekly wrap-up of clean diesel news, policy analysis and more direct to your inbox.

Contact:

Sarah Dirndorfer

[email protected]

301.668.7230 (o) 301.706.8276 (c)

SOURCE Diesel Technology Forum

Related Links

http://www.dieselforum.org


LAS VEGAS, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Digipath, Inc. (OTCQB: DIGP), an independent cannabis testing laboratory and media firm, is pleased to announce that its Chief Science Officer, Dr. Cindy Orser, has been invited to present on the science of cannabis at two upcoming events occurring in Nevada and California.

The first event will be at the Annual meeting of the California Association of Toxicologists entitled A House Full of Tox, being hosted by the Henderson Police Department's and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's forensic laboratories, and will take place Monday, November 6 and Tuesday, November 7 at the Golden Nugget hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. From 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm on Tuesday, November 7, Dr. Orser will present on the current state of cannabis science in Nevada to enable California Toxicologists to get a snapshot of what's to come in California with the role of a regulated cannabis industry.

The second speaking invitation came from the Genetic and Environmental Toxicology Association (GETA) of Northern California. The event is entitled, The Science of Cannabis: Endocannabinoid Signaling and Pesticides in Cannabis Cultivation, and will take place Thursday, December 7 from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm at the Elihu M. Harris State Office Building in Oakland, California. Dr. Orser will present on the need for standardization in the cannabis industry as a prelude to the ensuing regulatory challenges ahead for the State of California under a newly regulated cannabis industry.

Dr. Cindy Orser, Chief Science Officer of Digipath, commented, "Digipath Labs is enthusiastic about participating in the scientific discussion regarding California's burgeoning cannabis industry."

About Digipath, Inc.

Digipath, Inc. is an independent cannabis testing and media firm that supports the cannabis industry's best practices for reliable testing and delivers cannabis news coverage and education about the cannabis industry. Digipath's two business units are Digipath Labs and TNM News Corp. Digipath Labs is working to set the industry standard for testing all forms of cannabis-based products using FDA-compliant laboratory equipment and proprietary standard operating procedures (SOPs) to ensure product safety and efficacy. TNM News Corp. has pioneered a cannabis-focused news network, The National Marijuana News, which delivers news, interviews, and education on all things cannabis.

Information about Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" that include information relating to future events. Forward-looking statements should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at, or by, which that performance or those results will be achieved. Forward-looking statements are based on information available at the time they are made and/or management's good faith belief as of that time with respect to future events, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to differ materially from those expressed in, or suggested by, the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause these differences include, but are not limited to: the Company's need for additional funding, the demand for the Company's products, governmental regulation of the cannabis industry, the Company's ability to maintain customer and strategic business relationships, the impact of competitive products and pricing, growth in targeted markets, the adequacy of the Company's liquidity and financial strength to support its growth, and other risks that may be detailed from time-to-time in the Company's filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. For a more detailed description of the risk factors and uncertainties affecting Digipath, please refer to the Company's recent Securities and Exchange Commission filings, which are available at www.sec.gov. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

For more information please visit http://www.Digipath.com/

Investor Relations Contact

Harrison Phillips

Viridian Capital Advisors, LLC

212-209-3086

[email protected]

SOURCE DigiPath, Inc.

Related Links

http://digipath.com


SHORT HILLS, N.J., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE: DNB) today announced the launch of D&B Optimizer for Salesforce, a solution that natively integrates Dun & Bradstreet data and data services into the Salesforce Platform. The solution provides real-time updates and cleansing capabilities for critical account data in a company's Salesforce instance to enable them to access actionable data to be leveraged in their customer initiatives. Fueled by the Dun & Bradstreet D-U-N-S Number and Dun & Bradstreet's comprehensive commercial database of over 280 million business records from 30,000 sources in 190 countries and updated 5 million times a day, the application is now available through the AppExchange as a Lightning Data solution.

Salesforce estimates that 91 percent of CRM data is incomplete and 70 percent of that data deteriorates and becomes inaccurate annually. This has a direct impact on an organization's ability to accurately segment markets, prioritize accounts, and align sales and marketing activities. Companies must solve for this data challenge in order to improve the productivity of their sales organization and keep their sales and marketing strategies on track.

"For organizations to grow, they need actionable and complete data across the entire business to ensure that timely and informed decisions are being made," said Derek Slayton, General Manager of the Sales and Marketing Line of Business for Dun & Bradstreet. "D&B Optimizer for Salesforce provides Salesforce customers the ability to get the data they want, when and where they need it, directly within their Salesforce instance. This leads to increased productivity and, ultimately, growth for their businesses."

D&B Optimizer for Salesforce provides real-time data enrichment, adding approximately 80 fields of advanced account intelligence, along with automated cleansing of account data to provide continuous data accuracy. These proven data management processes provide high quality levels for account data, optimizing the productivity of operations teams and increasing the success of sales and marketing programs. D&B Optimizer for Salesforce also:

Enables sales & marketing teams: By eliminating manual efforts and automating data management, sales and marketing teams can focus on market facing activities. Teams can now rapidly identify cross-sell and upsell opportunities with visibility into corporate relationships and family trees. Teams can drive account-based sales and marketing programs based on improved ideal customer profiles and propensity models.

By eliminating manual efforts and automating data management, sales and marketing teams can focus on market facing activities. Teams can now rapidly identify cross-sell and upsell opportunities with visibility into corporate relationships and family trees. Teams can drive account-based sales and marketing programs based on improved ideal customer profiles and propensity models. Enhances data for better decision-making: Through real-time data enrichment, D&B Optimizer for Salesforce includes 80 additional fields of advanced account information  including the D-U-N-S Number, financial information, industry classifications and corporate ownership linkages.

"Everyone and everything is getting smarter and more connected than ever before, and companies are looking to transform the way they connect with customers, partners and employees," said Kori O'Brien, SVP, ISV Sales, Salesforce. "By leveraging the power of the Salesforce Platform, Dun & Bradstreet provides customers with an exciting new way to drive data management and account segmentation best-practices for their account records."

D&B Optimizer for Salesforce is available now in the United States and United Kingdom. For more information, visit http://www.dnb.com/products/marketing-sales/salesforce-data-management.html or booth 1202 at Dreamforce, the most inspiring technology event of the year and the world's largest gathering of Trailblazers, from November 6-9, 2017.

Salesforce, AppExchange, Dreamforce and others are among the trademarks of salesforce.com, inc.

About Salesforce AppExchange

Salesforce AppExchange, the world's leading enterprise cloud marketplace, empowers companies to sell, service, market and engage in entirely new ways. With more than 4,000 solutions, 5 million customer installs and 70,000 peer reviews, it is the most comprehensive source of cloud, mobile, social, IoT, analytics and artificial intelligence technologies for businesses.

About Dun & Bradstreet

Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE: DNB) grows the most valuable relationships in business. By uncovering truth and meaning from data, we connect our customers with the prospects, suppliers, clients and partners that matter most, and have since 1841. Nearly ninety percent of the Fortune 500, and companies of every size around the world, rely on our data, insights and analytics. For more about Dun & Bradstreet, visit dnb.com. Twitter: @DnBUS

Media contact:

Cari Zoch

Dun & Bradstreet

[email protected]

+1 512-795-6462

Investors -

Kathy Guinnessey

Dun & Bradstreet

+1 973-921-5892

[email protected]

SOURCE Dun & Bradstreet

Related Links

http://www.dnb.com


BEIJING, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- DVDFab, the industry leader in the field of DVD, Blu-ray and video backup solutions, has updated its media player software to offer the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and HDR10 content playback support, and two days before that, the software company added the Full Disc backup support in its UHD Copy software via a minor update to its 64-bit version DVDFab 10 software package.

4K Ultra HD Blu-ray & HDR10 Playback Made Possible on DVDFab Media Player

It's been quite a while since the last update of DVDFab Media Player was rolled out in early July this year. Now with the increasing popularity of the 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays and the astounding video image quality the HDR10 offers, the demand on a software media player able to play back the 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays and the HDR10 content on computer is on the rise. Morever, there are already solutions to bypass the AACS2.0 protection on the internet, so playing back the already-decrypted 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays on a computer is technically made possible. Now DVDFab seizes this opportunity and releases the DVDFab Media Player 3.2.0.0 to usher in the playback support of 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays with navigation menus, and in the meantime, offer the HDR10 compatibility. However, there is one thing worth mentioning, to play back 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays with the HDR10 mode, a video card from NVIDIA's GeForce GTX10 series or above, and an HDR10 compatible display monitor are required.

Adding the Full Disc Backup Mode in the UHD Copy

Less than two weeks ago, DVDFab debuted its 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray copy software, the UHD Copy, to shrink the unprotected 4K Ultra Blu-rays down to the regular BD-50/25 size, so that users can back up the expensive 4K Blu-rays onto much more affordable regular Blu-ray discs, without compromising too much on the video quality, because during the compression process, the HDR10 and Dolby Vision quality is 100% preserved. With the newly released version 10.0.6.5 for the 64-bit DVDFab 10 two days ago, users can now compress the entire disc content, or the Full Disc mode as referred by DVDFab, and still retain the HDR10 and Dolby Vision quality, and most importantly, the navigation menus. Therefore, the resulting ISO files produced by the Full Disc backup mode can play perfectly with navigation menus on compatible playback devices, such as the DVDFab Movie Server.

Introducing the Mac Version of the Hi-Fi Audio Converter

Last week, the software company also introduced the Mac version of its Hi-Fi audio converter software, which is actually the 1st on the Mac platform for users to convert the music Blu-rays into lossless FLAC audio files to meet their growing appetite on better-than-CD-quality music. Users who are not satisfied with streaming services such as Apple Music, Amazon Music, Spotify, and the likes are now able to convert their own high resolution Blu-rays to hi-res audios, with a 24-bit/96kHz, even 192kHz sampling rate. The software works on macOS ranging from 10.7 to 10. 13.

For the detailed information on the above-mentioned products and download those products, please refer to https://www.dvdfab.cn

About Fengtao Software

Fengtao Software Inc., a professional multimedia software provider, has been dedicated to working on DVD cloner, DVD copy, Blu-ray copy, DVD ripper, DVD/Blu-ray conversion, video converter, DVD creator, Blu-ray creator, Blu-ray media player, Cinavia removal solution, etc. for more than 11 years with its well-known DVDFab software. It has more than 80 million global users. More information at: https://www.dvdfab.cn

SOURCE DVDFab

Related Links

https://www.dvdfab.cn


Participating in last night's call were Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and Deputy Secretary Dan Brouillette; PREPA CEO Ricardo Ramos; New York Power Authority (NYPA) President and CEO Gil Quiniones; senior officials from the Departments of Energy and Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; electric company CEOs; and leadership from the American Public Power Association (APPA) and the Edison Electric Institute (EEI).

"While yesterday was effectively day one for this new phase in the restoration effort, we know that our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico have been without power for more than a month," said EEI President Tom Kuhn. "We are committed to resolving problems quickly, and we already are having solutions-oriented conversations, improving supply chain logistics, and dispatching people and equipment to Puerto Rico. We thank Secretary Perry for his participation in these calls and for his ongoing support and leadership."

New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello announced this afternoon that New York will be sending an additional 350 utility personnel and 220 vehicles from public and private electric companies in New York State to help Puerto Rico restore power.

"Some public power utilities already are supporting power restoration, and we will now complement the resources on the island as we continue to coordinate with PREPA, our government partners, and their contractors," said APPA President and CEO Sue Kelly. "NYPA sent technical experts to Puerto Rico soon after Maria struck and has sent additional personnel and advisors. NYPA has been integral in getting the right resources for restoration on the ground and will now be sending 20 utility personnel as part of the New York State contingent." NYPA previously had committed to sending 28 engineers and 15 damage assessment experts.

"The request for assistance from PREPA now allows EEI member companies and our industry on the mainland to fully support the critical power restoration efforts underway in Puerto Rico," said Kuhn. "For example, as part of the first wave of this deployment, 70 vehicles, including 38 bucket trucks and diggers from Con Edison of New York and Orange and Rockland Utilities, will be loaded onto a cargo ship near Camden, NJ, that will depart for the island this weekend. Nearly 120 overhead power line workers, technical specialists, and personnel from both of these companies will be flown separately to Puerto Rico next week and will be there to meet the equipment and vehicles as they arrive in Puerto Rico."

"This still will be a very challenging and complicated restoration effort, but we are committed to supporting the ongoing power restoration process. Strong coordination remains critical," added Kelly.

APPA is the voice of not-for-profit, community-owned utilities that power 2,000 towns and cities nationwide. APPA represents public power before the federal government to protect the interests of the more than 49 million people that public power utilities serve and the 93,000 people they employ. Our association advocates and advises on electricity policy, technology, trends, training, and operations. Our members strengthen their communities by providing superior service, engaging citizens, and instilling pride in community-owned power.

EEI is the association that represents all U.S. investor-owned electric companies. Our members provide electricity for 220 million Americans, and operate in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. As a whole, the electric power industry supports more than 7 million jobs in communities across the United States. In addition to our U.S. members, EEI has more than 60 international electric companies, with operations in more than 90 countries, as International Members, and hundreds of industry suppliers and related organizations as Associate Members. Organized in 1933, EEI provides public policy leadership, strategic business intelligence, and essential conferences and forums.

SOURCE Edison Electric Institute

Related Links

http://www.eei.org


DES PLAINES, Ill., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Emergency Nurses Association applauds the House of Representatives for passing the Protecting Patient Access to Emergency Medications Act yesterday. H.R. 304 will ensure emergency medical services (EMS) agencies can continue to use standing orders to administer controlled substances when treating patients who require emergency care.

Absent Congressional action, the well-established practice of using standing orders by EMS agencies will be endangered and as a result, patients may lose access to life-saving medications in emergency situations. Standing orders are pre-set protocols which EMS practitioners follow in the delivery of emergency care.

This important bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) and Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC), and in the Senate by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO). The bill now will be sent to President Trump for his signature.

About the Emergency Nurses Association

The Emergency Nurses Association (ENA) is the premier professional nursing association dedicated to defining the future of emergency nursing through advocacy, education, research, innovation, and leadership. Founded in 1970, ENA has proven to be an indispensable resource to the global emergency nursing community. With more than 42,000 members worldwide, ENA advocates for patient safety, develops industry-leading practice standards and guidelines, and guides emergency healthcare public policy. ENA members have expertise in triage, patient care, disaster preparedness, and all aspects of emergency care. Additional information is available at www.ena.org.

ENA Media Contact:

Marie Grimaldi

Director, PR & Communications

847-460-4080

[email protected]

SOURCE Emergency Nurses Association

Related Links

http://www.ena.org


CAIRO, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Family Research Council President Tony Perkins joined a delegation of U.S. evangelical leaders in Cairo on Wednesday for a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss his administration's commitment to religious freedom for all Egyptians including Egypt's Christians and other religious minorities, some of whom have been the targets of waves of terrorist attacks.

After his visit with President el Sisi, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released the following statement:

"I appreciate the opportunity to meet with President el-Sisi to discuss the concerns we have, as American Evangelicals, for the plight of religious minorities in Egypt, especially those who are our brothers and sisters in Christ.

"Egypt, under the leadership of President el-Sisi is making progress in protecting Egyptians from being targeted because of their religious identity. President el-Sisi is committed to working to ensure that every human being can exercise their God-given right to religious freedom. As part of this work, we encourage Egypt to increase public awareness of the cultural, economic, political and national security benefits of true religious freedom.

"Hopefully, the el-Sisi administration will serve as an example in the Middle East. Not too far away, in Iraq and Syria, religious freedom has taken a horrible toll over the last few years. While we advocate for this human right worldwide, much of our focus has been absorbed in recent years by the Middle East, where both Democratic and Republican administrations in the United States have recognized a genocide is occurring against Christians, Yezidis, and others at the hands of ISIS.

"Now that ISIS is being pushed back we must ensure these communities are able to return and rebuild. In that vein, we are pleased that the Trump administration is funneling aid directly to groups helping these communities on the ground instead of the inefficient UN system.

"Here in Egypt, I am greatly inspired by the powerful faith and determination of the Christians who have suffered through devastating terrorist attacks; their faith has been tested, but they continue to stand. Their courage is a great witness. Indeed, our brothers and sisters in the Middle East can help show us how to stand strong under persecution even as we face our own, albeit much more mild, forms of opposition to our faith in the United States. And we must not forget that as Christians here in America we must not only pray for and act on behalf of our brothers and sister in Christ who are being persecuted for their faith, we must exercise and defend our religious freedom at home as well," concluded Perkins.

Click here for a photo of the meeting between evangelical leaders and Egyptian President el-Sisi.

SOURCE Family Research Council

Related Links

http://www.frc.org


CHICAGO, Nov. 2, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Are you tired of spending the holiday in the kitchen cooking? Or are you looking to create a new tradition for your family? The travel experts at the GO Group found these alternatives to celebrate without the stress.

Stay at New York's ideally-located LUMA Hotel Times Square which offers a Thanksgiving Package with luxurious overnight accommodations and insider perks. Guests can watch the nearby Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade live, take in the nearby holiday shop windows, visit the Bryant Park and Rockefeller Center ice rink, then enjoy the on-site restaurant Ortzi's take on a classic Thanksgiving feast!

Escape frosty temperatures and head to sunny Cancun, Mexico. The Seadust Cancun Family Resort is offering 40 percent off on all rooms with a minimum seven-night stay. Included is a complimentary Cancun Queen Lagoon Cruise complete with lunch. Discount applies for travel throughout 2017 and 2018 but must be booked online between Nov. 22  29, 2017.

The Loews Boston Hotel offers its Stress Less, Play More package. Stay in a luxurious guestroom with a bottle of wine upon check in, complimentary parking and an $50 American Express gift card. The package is available starting November 19, 2017 through January 13, 2018 and must be booked between now and January 13, 2018.

Take in the sweeping views of the Sonoran Desert and nightly jaw-dropping sunsets at the Sanctuary on Camelback Mountain Resort & Spa in Scottsdale, Ariz. Dine on a Thanksgiving feast prepared by executive chef and Food Network Star Beau MacMillan. Group travelers who reserve a mountainside estate over Thanksgiving and request the Festive Thanksgiving Offer will receive a harvest welcome basket and a $500 resort credit. The offer is subject to availability and is based on a two-night minimum stay, Nov. 19-27, 2017.

Who says you have to celebrate Thanksgiving in the U.S.? The five-star Milestone Hotel London is celebrating Thanksgiving Day with a three-course dining experience in the hotel's Cheneston's Restaurant. The menu will feature American classics with a gourmet, British spin, such as seafood chowder, smoked pork ribs with cornbread, winter kale salad and pecan pie. The Thanksgiving dinner is priced at $87 per person (for guests staying November 23rd).

The GO Group LLC provides both shared-ride shuttles and private cars at more than 90 airports in the United States, Canada, Central America, the Caribbean and Europe, including those in the cities mentioned above. For a complete list, visit www.GoAirportShuttle.com. The company serves some 13 million passengers per year.

SOURCE The GO Group, LLC

Related Links

https://goairportshuttle.com


HILLSDALE, Mich., Nov. 2, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- From Sunday, November 5, through Wednesday, November 8, Hillsdale College will host the second installment in its annual Center for Constructive Alternatives seminar series. The second CCA seminar of the 2017-18 school year, co-sponsored by the Ludwig von Mises Lecture Series, will examine the U.S. government's relationship to free market principles, and the merits of free trade. Attendees will hear lectures and debates from various policy experts, scholars, and Hillsdale College faculty.

The Center for Constructive Alternatives sponsors one of the nation's largest college lecture series, gathering students and visitors four times each year to hear from experts on diverse topics. Since the series began in 1972, more than 1,300 speakers have participated, including such prominent names as Ronald Reagan, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Steve Forbes, and Stephen Ambrose.

All CCA lectures are free and open to the public. Media must RSVP to Emily Stack Davis at [email protected].

WHEN: Sunday, November 5, 2017

4 p.m. EST  Grace-Marie Turner: "Health Care Policy: An Update and Prescription"

8 p.m. EST  Larry Schweikart: "The Current Tax Debate in Historical Perspective"





Monday, November 6, 2017

4 p.m. EST  Lindsey Burke: "Vouchers, Charters, and Other Market-Oriented

Education Reforms

8 p.m. EST  Rich Trzupek: "Balancing Energy and the Environment"





Tuesday, November 7, 2017

4 p.m. EST  Don Boudreaux and Ian Fletcher: "Free Trade, Fair Trade, or Both?"

8 p.m. EST  (continued) "Free Trade, Fair Trade, or Both?"





Wednesday, November 8, 2017

4 p.m. EST  Faculty Roundtable



WHERE: Hillsdale College

Phillips Auditorium

315 N. West St.

Hillsdale, MI 49242



WHO: Grace-Marie Turner is the president and founder of public policy research organization the Galen Institute.





Larry Schweikart is a professor of history at the University of Dayton and author of A Patriot's History of the United States.





Lindsey Burke is director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Education Policy and the Will Skillman Fellow in Education at the Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity.





Rich Trzupek is an environmental policy advisor to The Heartland Institute and author of Regulators Gone Wild: How the EPA is Ruining American Industry.





Don Boudreaux is a senior fellow at the George Mason University Mercatus Center's F.A. Hayek Program for advanced study in philosophy, politics, and economics.





Ian Fletcher was formerly a senior economist for the Coalition for a Prosperous America where he is now a member of the advisory board. He is also the author of Free Trade Doesn't Work: What Should Replace It and Why.





Faculty Roundtable Participants:

Daniel B. Coupland  Associate Professor, Chairman of Education

Patricia Bart  Associate Professor of English

Michael J. Clark  Associate Professor of Economics

Kevin Portteus  Associate Professor of Politics, Director of American Studies



PHOTOS of speakers are available here.



Hillsdale College is an independent liberal arts college located in southern Michigan. Founded in 1844, the College has built a national reputation through its classical liberal arts core curriculum and its principled refusal to accept federal or state taxpayer subsidies, even indirectly in the form of student grants or loans. It also conducts an outreach effort promoting civil and religious liberty, including a free monthly speech digest, Imprimis, with a circulation of more than 3.7 million. For more information visit hillsdale.edu.

SOURCE Hillsdale College

Related Links

http://www.hillsdale.edu


Billy Idol's series of successes in the early 1980s brought punk attitude into the pop mainstream. With a career that stretched back to the original British punk scene as the front-man of scene trailblazers Generation X, the swaggering, charismatic Idol relocated to New York City at the dawn of the '80s and reinvented himself as one of the era's most consistently popular performers.

Billy Idol, originally released on July 16, 1982, introduced Idol to mainstream American audiences and succeeded in launching his solo career. Teaming Idol with producer Keith Forsey and longtime guitarist/collaborator Steve Stevens, Billy Idol introduced a sleek, streamlined sound and includes hits such as "White Wedding," and "Hot in the City."

Originally released on November 10, 1983, the multi-platinum smash Rebel Yell built on the foundation created by its predecessor and features Idol advancing and evolving his dance infused rock/pop sound. Once again working with Stevens and Forsey, with recording done at New York's Electric Lady Studios, Rebel Yell was a commercial smash featuring songs including the legendary title track, "Eyes Without a Face," and "Flesh for Fantasy." Each of these hits are represented by iconic music videos that kept Idol in the public eye during the initial heyday of MTV.

While Billy Idol and Rebel Yell flash back to Idol's formative days as a solo performer, Idolize Yourself: The Very Best of Billy Idol offers a widescreen overview of his entire storied recording career. First issued on CD in 2008, the 18-song Idolize Yourself features all of Idol's vintage hits including his early club smashes "Dancing with Myself" and "Mony Mony," plus "Cradle of Love," "Rebel Yell," "White Wedding," "Eyes Without A Face," "Flesh For Fantasy," "Sweet Sixteen," "To Be A Lover," and more. The record concludes with two songs newly recorded just for this collection's initial release: "John Wayne" and "New Future Weapon."

Each of Billy Idol's recordings retain their original power, despite many of them having been released over thirty years ago. There is no better way to hear them than on these classic albums, newly released on high-quality vinyl.

SOURCE UMe
NEW YORK, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Information Builders, a leader in business intelligence (BI) and analytics, information integrity, and integration solutions, today announced that two of its customers, Michigan State Police and St. Luke's University Health Network, have been named among the top 50 analytics innovators in the U.S. by Drexel University's LeBow College of Business. The university recognized these organizations last night at an awards ceremony in Philadelphia.

Tweet This: [email protected] names @infobldrs customers @MichStatePolice & @mystlukes among its top #Analytics50 innovators in the US! http://ow.ly/zovm30gjG05

Drexel University launched the Analytics 50 initiative to showcase best practices and recognize organizations that are using analytics to solve pressing business challenges. A panel of researchers and practitioners selected this year's honorees based on the complexity of the business challenges they faced, the usefulness of the analytics solutions they implemented, and the business impact of analytics on their organizations.

For example, Michigan State Police (MSP) used Information Builders' WebFOCUS and Omni-Gen technologies to create a mobile, web-based search tool for troopers, detectives, supervisors, and crime analysts. By rolling out enhanced search capabilities, mobile dashboards, and an integrated data set based on golden records, MSP has increased operational efficiency by pushing real-time insights down to the trooper level, with the goal of helping deter crimes and minimize traffic accidents. This modern analytics environment enables MSP to better support its core mission of law enforcement while promoting safety across the state.

St. Luke's University Health Network used these same Information Builders technologies to integrate clinical, financial, administrative, and external data from almost 50 sources throughout a regional health network that includes seven hospitals and more than 270 outpatient sites. Its advanced analytics environment leverages a cleansed and consolidated set of master data to boost performance, capture revenue, reduce costs, and compete more effectively with other regional health networks. Key areas of focus include improving clinical quality, growing market share, reducing costs, and adding new and different capabilities to support success in a changing healthcare environment.

Paul Jensen, interim dean for Drexel University's LeBow College of Business said:

"We are proud to recognize distinction in analytics among this diverse group of impressive organizations. The Analytics 50 is a powerful way to honor business solutions and to strengthen the intersection of academia and industry. We congratulate the honorees and look forward to celebrating their achievements at tonight's awards ceremony."

Gerald Cohen, president and CEO, Information Builders, said:

"It is gratifying to see such innovative nonprofit organizations using Information Builders' technology to solve pressing societal business challenges. Their accomplishments with data integration, data integrity, and data intelligence serve as an impressive example for other organizations in law enforcement and healthcare to follow."

About the Analytics 50

The Drexel LeBow Analytics 50 is a national recognition of analytics innovation honoring 50 organizations using analytics to solve business challenges. Connecting academia and industry, the initiative's goal is to share best practices while identifying innovative analytics solutions across industries.

About Information Builders

Information Builders provides solutions for business intelligence (BI), analytics, data integration, and data quality that help drive performance improvements, innovation, and value. Through one set of powerful products, we enable organizations to serve everyone  analysts, non-technical users, even partners, customers, and citizens  with better data and analytics. Our dedication to customer success is unmatched with thousands of organizations relying on us as their trusted partner. Founded in 1975, Information Builders is headquartered in New York, NY, with global offices, and remains one of the largest independent, privately held companies in the industry. Visit us at informationbuilders.com, follow us on Twitter at @infobldrs, like us on Facebook, and visit our LinkedIn page.

Press Contacts

Kathleen Moran

Information Builders

(917) 339-6313

[email protected]

Kate Clinton

LEWIS

(781) 761-4487

[email protected]

SOURCE Information Builders

Related Links

http://www.informationbuilders.com


Kasita has been hailed by Forbes as "the micro-housing start-up that's about to revolutionize real estate," and by Inc. Magazine as one of its 25 disruptors for 2017 for its affordable and sophisticated take on a small space. It triggered NPR to ask: "Could a tiny mobile studio solve your housing crisis?"

"This is a very important milestone for Kasita," says Martyn Hoffmann, Kasita's CEO, "State level certifications and approvals are a critical step as we roll-out both our ADU and density products in markets across the country. Manufactured spaces are held to a much higher standard than traditional stick-built construction, therefore every time we meet these standards it takes a burden off of our customers as they go through their own permitting process locally. What's great to see is each time we go through the approval process the team gets more and more efficient. As cycle-times shorten, we are already seeing multiple additional state approvals move rapidly toward completion."

Every Kasita is move-in ready and comes fully equipped with appliances and furniture, and features a fully integrated home automation system. The home automation system enables seamless control through voice and a mobile app, to provide the homeowner control over the entire living environment including lights, climate and sound.

The process of buying and building is simplified, too. Once a buyer or developer completes local permitting requirements and construction of the foundation and utilities, installation of a Kasita home can take as little as one day.

In addition to its ADU, Kasita offers other options, including stackable units designed for multi-family, and a disaster relief model meant to quickly step in and provide a high quality, affordable housing solution.

"Not much has really changed in the housing category in almost a century," says Hoffmann, "And we haven't seen much improved in the output or delivery. There are very few product categories that can say that. What we are doing, every single day at Kasita, is seeking to disrupt the construction and housing industry by developing a home in the form of a designed, intelligent product. Kasita is compact, intended to utilize and re-utilize every cubic inch, and is delivered with speed in a cost effective manner. The end result is the superior user-experience that the next generation of buyers and renters are looking for."

For media inquiries, please email Nelson Rudolph at [email protected].

SOURCE Kasita LLC

Related Links

http://www.kasita.com


PORTLAND, Ore., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Janrain, the company that pioneered the Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) category, today announced the launch of a migration program to help customers concerned how the SAP acquisition will affect the functionality, integration, support and other services associated with their current identity management platform.

To help organizations unsettled by the uncertainty brought on by Gigya's sale to SAP, Janrain is offering the assurance of a fast and simple migration to a proven, industry-leading and independent CIAM platform. The company, which manages more than 1.5 billion digital identities for over 3,400 brand deployments across a wide range of industries, is the leading independent CIAM provider as noted recently in The Forrester Wave: Customer Identity and Access Management Q2 2017 report.

Janrain Identity Cloud delivers rich knowledge of and deeper engagement with consumers while simplifying and securing customer experiences across all web, mobile and social properties. Janrain, which supports the broadest range of security certifications in the industry, is also the first CIAM provider to be GDPR ready and the only CIAM provider deployed in over 65 countries with a global data center footprint of 44 availability zones in 16 regions around the globe, including China, with 200+ Amazon data centers.

The migration program provides access to professional services with over a decade of experience. The program, constructed for global 1000 enterprises, includes the deployment of a Janrain Identity package as follows:

An assigned identity consultant

Identity kickoff with project management support and migration planning

Standard data migration support

Mobile and web developer APIs and documentation

Knowledge transfer and training on configuration of registration and login flow best practices

The migration program includes a complimentary standard migration package and a cost savings in the first year annual recurring fees compared to your current Gigya identity services offering.

"Janrain, which created the CIAM market in 2002, maintains its commitment to independence and innovation with a never ending string of industry firsts that continue to set the pace for brands as they prepare to meet the digital marketing challenges and opportunities brought on by the Internet of Things, social, analytics and more," said Janrain CEO Jim Kaskade. "We look forward to welcoming SAP's Gigya customers to the Janrain Identity Cloud."

To sign up or inquire about the migration Program, please click HERE.

About Janrain

Founded in 2002, Janrain pioneered Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) and is widely recognized by industry analysts as a global CIAM leader. The Janrain Identity Cloud provides identity management, security and activation solutions that enable seamless and safe customer experiences across their digitally connected world, while providing enterprise organizations with deep customer insights. Janrain's identity capabilities include social and traditional login and registration, single sign-on, customer profile data storage and management, customer segments, customer insights and engagement solutions. The company manages 1.5 billion digital identities for 3,400 brands, including Pfizer, Samsung, Whole Foods, Fox News, Philips, McDonald's and Dr Pepper. Janrain is based in Portland, Oregon, with offices in London, Paris and Silicon Valley. For more information, please visit www.janrain.com and follow @janrain.

Media Contact:

Chris Blake

MSR Communications

Phone: 1-415-989-9000

E-mail: [email protected]

SOURCE Janrain

Related Links

http://www.janrain.com


CINCINNATI, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) announced today the introduction of a modern lifestyle apparel brand, built from the ground up to engage consumers in a new way.

"This new brand gives Kroger a chance to inspire and connect with our customers, offering effortless style every day  from elevated basics to fashionable highlights," said Robert Clark, Kroger's senior vice president of merchandising. "This new offering is on-trend, convenient, and right in line with our customers' needs."

Launching with children, young men, juniors, men and women, the line will offer active-inspired cuts and materials that move with consumers  clothes to truly live life in, and look good doing it. The brand will be playful, simple, and uplifting, speaking to all those who want to look and live their best.

"This launch of Our Brands fashion will re-invigorate Kroger's apparel line. We will be able to serve our customers across the country the inspiration they are looking for, which translates into an immense opportunity for growth in sales, share, and loyalty," Mr. Clark added.

The apparel brand will debut first at Fred Meyer and Kroger Marketplace stores, totaling 300 locations across the country, starting in fall 2018.

At The Kroger Co., we are dedicated to our purpose: to Feed the Human Spirit.We are 450,000 associates who serve nearly nine million customers daily in 2,793 retail food stores under a variety of local banner names in 35 states and the District of Columbia. Our Family of Companies operates an expanding ClickList offering  a personalized order online service  in addition to 2,258 pharmacies, 783 convenience stores, 307 fine jewelry stores, 222 retail health clinics, 1,472 supermarket fuel centers and 38 food production plants in the United States. Our Company has been recognized as one of America's most generous companies for our support of more than 100 Feeding America food bank partners, breast cancer research and awareness, the military and their families, and more than 145,000 community organizations including schools. As a leader in supplier diversity, we are a proud member of the Billion Dollar Roundtable.

SOURCE The Kroger Co.

Related Links

http://www.kroger.com


Founded in 1991 by breast cancer survivor Janelle Hail, NBCF maintains a steadfast mission to provide help and inspire hope to those affected by breast cancer through early detection, education and support services. The organization has received the highest rating of four stars by Charity Navigator, America's largest independent charity evaluator, for 12 years.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide, but thanks to better screening and early detection, along with increased awareness and continually improving treatment options, death rates from breast cancer have been declining since about 1990. Since its inception, NBCF has been dedicated to providing help and inspiring hope to those affected by breast cancer through early detection, education and support services.

"Since 2015, Le-Vel has helped NBCF provide thousands of mammograms and patient navigation services for women in need. The donations have also allowed us to provide breast health education and early detection services in communities across America. We could not do this without partners like Le-Vel," says Janelle Hail, Founder and CEO of NBCF.

According to NBCF statistics, one in eight women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime, making the disease the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women. Breast cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death among women. Each year, it is estimated that more than 252,710 women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and more than 40,500 will die. On average, every two minutes, a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer, and one woman will die of breast cancer every 13 minutes.

Despite these alarming numbers, there is hope. More than 3.3 million breast cancer survivors are alive in the United States today  and that's largely due to early detection and education. NBCF provides free mammograms to women in all 50 states through its network of hospitals, and offers other free services all aimed at empowering women to take control of their health.

"The National Breast Cancer Foundation works tirelessly on behalf of women's health. At Le-Vel, we share that passion. We're absolutely dedicated to doing whatever we can to champion the cause and encourage women everywhere to educate and empower themselves," says Le-Vel Co-CEO, Co-Founder and Co-Owner Paul Gravette.

Le-Vel's Derma Fusion Technology, or DFT, is part of a simple three-step regimen called THRIVE, designed to help people of all ages live healthier, more active, fuller lives. The first of its kind, the DFT time-released delivery system infuses the skin, or derma, with Le-Vel's unique THRIVE Lifestyle Formula. Used in tandem with THRIVE Premium Lifestyle Shake and THRIVE Premium Lifestyle Capsules, THRIVE helps people recapture their well-being and reach peak physical and mental levels through weight management, digestive support, healthy joint function and lean muscle support, among other benefits. DFT DUO is the company's first product focusing primarily on weight management and includes a dual application, enhanced formula concentration with significantly greater absorption. In conjunction with NBCF DFT DUO, Le-Vel's #thrive4pink campaign in October supports its efforts to promote breast cancer awareness.

"This is a disease that affects everyone  individuals and families  and it's touched many of our Brand Promoters and customers directly. The more we can support the National Breast Cancer Foundation in its efforts to spread the word, provide support and better educate people about breast cancer, the more lives we can impact or even help save," says Le-Vel Co-CEO, Co-Founder and Co-Owner Jason Camper. "Le-Vel is deeply honored to champion the NBCF's continued efforts to find a cure, and we look forward to the day when every breast cancer story has a happy ending."

About Le-Vel

Founded in 2012 by Jason Camper and Paul Gravette, Le-Vel formulates and sells nutritional/health and wellness products and is the only health and wellness company that uses cloud-based technology for its day-to-day operations. Le-Vel's cloud-based infrastructure enables the company to keep overhead to a minimum while increasing commissions to its independent Brand Promoters and putting more money into the THRIVE product line. Le-Vel products include DFT, Thrive Premium Lifestyle Capsules, THRIVE Premium Lifestyle Mix, THRIVE Kids, Activate, Boost, Balance, Black Label, Thrive Cafe, DFT DUO, FORM, Move, Rest and Pure. Le-Vel has more than 7 million Customer and Brand Promoter accounts, currently ships within the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Mexico and exceeded $450 million in revenue in 2016. Le-Vel received Direct Selling News' Bravo Growth Award in 2016 in recognition for its extraordinary year-over-year growth  the largest in the world in direct sales. For the past two years, the company has also been named to the DSN Global 100 (ranking #44 this year), an exclusive ranking of the top revenue-generating companies in the worldwide direct selling industry. For more information about Le-Vel, visit le-vel.com.

About National Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc.

Recognized as one of the leading breast cancer organizations in the world, National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) is Helping Women Now by providing early detection, education and support services to those affected by breast cancer. A recipient of Charity Navigator's highest 4-star rating for twelve years, NBCF provides support through their National Mammography Program, Patient Navigation, Beyond The Shock, breast health education, and research programs. For more information, please visit www.nbcf.org.

Contact: Liz Reuth, [email protected]

SOURCE Le-Vel Brands

Related Links

http://www.le-vel.com


LONDON, Nov. 2, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Expenditure CAPEX ($mn) and Capacity (MMTPA) on Large-Scale Onshore LNG Infrastructure, by Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Infrastructure type - Liquefaction and Regasification Plus Analysis of Leading Companies







Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5171207







Report Details

Visiongain has calculated that the LNG infrastructure market will see a total expenditure of $63,606 mn in 2017, including both Liquefaction and Regasification.



Read on to discover the potential business opportunities available.

LNG is used in various sectors such as automobile, industrial, and commercial. It is becoming a popular energy source due to its high replacement potential, considering its environmental benefits over other energy sources. The major advantage of LNG is the low emission of CO2, which makes it an efficient alternative to conventional fossil fuels. These advantages have been driving LNG demand from the industrial as well as automobile sector. Simultaneously, it is boosting the development of large-scale LNG terminals across the globe.



Increasing utilization of natural gas over oil is one of the major drivers for the large-scale terminals market. Various companies are focusing on establishing more liquefaction and regasification terminals in offshore areas to fulfil the increasing demand of LNG. In the current scenario, the overall global outlook is gradually shifting towards utilization of cleaner fuels. Natural gas is expected to occupy a major share of primary energy consumption by the end of the forecast period. With a boom in LNG trade activities expected in the future and steadily growing consumption pattern in emerging nations in Asia Pacific, an upward pressure on large-scale LNG sector development activities is inevitable in the future.



The construction of large-scale onshore liquefaction and regasification terminals is a function of the development of the global LNG industry. Investment in such infrastructure is dictated by unique supply and demand circumstances in different geographies, such as the US unconventional oil and gas boom and economic growth in Asia, particularly China.



There are a number of exciting LNG liquefaction prospects around the world in 2016, both under construction and perspective. The question is whether the demand of East Asia will be strong enough to support the economics of an abundant supply of liquefaction opportunities. The decline of the US as an import market for LNG has troubled financiers but has been balanced by demand in Asia, East Asia and emerging demand in South America.



Visiongain's LNG infrastructure market report can keep you informed and up to date with the developments in the Liquefication Market in Australia, Canada, US and East Africa and Rest of the World. Visiongain has also included in-depth market analysis about the Regasification markets in China, Japan, South Korea, India and Europe.



With reference to this report, it details the key investments trend in the global market, subdivided by regions, capital expenditure and capacity. Through extensive secondary research and interviews with industry experts, visiongain has identified a series of market trends that will impact the LNG infrastructure market over the forecast timeframe.



The report will answer questions such as:

- What are the key trends and factors affecting spending on new liquefaction infrastructure?

- What factors dictate this investment?

- How are the economics of terminals shaping up?

- What is the interplay between expenditure on regasification terminals and liquefaction capacity?

- How are demand markets for LNG most likely to evolve, and why?

- Who will be the main exporters and importers of LNG over the next decade?

- How will the future global LNG trade routes change?

- How much extra LNG capacity will enter the global market over the next decade



Five Reasons Why You Must Order and Read This Report Today:



1) The report provides CAPEX and capacity forecasts and analyses for the 5 Leading Regional Players in the LNG Liquefaction Market 2017-2027

- Australia

- Canada

- East Africa

- Russia

- US

- Rest of the World (Includes Iran, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, Trinidad & Tobago, Algeria, Angola & Nigeria)



2) The report provide CAPEX and capacity forecasts and analyses for the 5 Leading Regional Players in the LNG Regasification Market 2017-2027

- China

- Europe

- Japan

- South Korea

- India



3) The report includes tables of all currently operating, under construction and planned liquefaction and regasification facilities, listing their Location, Operational Year, Status, Capacity, Owner(s) and EPC Cost



4) The analysis is underpinned by our exclusive interviews with leading experts from:

- Linde AG



5) The report provides detailed profiles of the leading companies operating within the LNG Infrastructure market:

- BHP Billiton

- ExxonMobil

- BP

- ConocoPhillips.

- Total S.A

- Linde AG

- Royal Dutch Shell

- PETRONAS

- Chevron Corporation

- Rosneft



This independent 328-page report guarantees you will remain better informed than your competitors. With 156 tables and figures examining the LNG Infrastructure market space, the report gives you a direct, detailed breakdown of the market. PLUS, capital expenditure AND capacity AND tables of all currently operating, under construction and planned liquefaction and regasification facilities, as well as in-depth analysis, from 2017-2027 will keep your knowledge that one step ahead of your rivals.



This report is essential reading for you or anyone in the LNG sectors. Purchasing this report today will help you to recognise those important market opportunities and understand the possibilities there. I look forward to receiving your order.



Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5171207



About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers

https://www.reportbuyer.com



For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 208 816 85 48

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

Related Links

http://www.reportbuyer.com


MCLEAN, Va., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Jeff Rumburg, co-founder and Managing Partner of MetricNet, presented Session 501, 'The ROI of ITSM  Know Your Financial Impact!', at the Annual FUSION Conference in Orlando, Florida. This marks the 4th consecutive year Mr. Rumburg has been selected as a speaker for the Annual FUSION Conference & Expo.

In this presentation, Mr. Rumburg presented a simple yet compelling methodology for calculating the ROI of IT Service Management, provided case studies from two FORTUNE 100 companies that adopted an ROI methodology to justify their ITSM initiatives, and shared benchmarking data that objectively demonstrates the relationship between ROI and ITSM maturity.

"Return on Investment is the ultimate measure of success for any business," said Rumburg. "Unfortunately ROI remains an abstraction to most in the industry. Fewer than 10% of all IT organizations utilize this critical metric. Yet, it's no secret that the most mature ITSM organizations are the ones who adopt and adhere to a strict ROI approach to service management."

Those interested in this presentation can find a copy of the slide deck on MetricNet's website. Mr. Rumburg also presented Session 104, 'META Reps, and the Inevitable Convergence of Level 1 and Desktop Support', on Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017.

Mr. Rumburg is the winner of the Ron Muns Lifetime Achievement Award, was named to HDI's Top 25 Thought Leaders list for 2016, and has served on HDI's Strategic Advisory Board. He is co-founder and Managing Partner of MetricNet, LLC, where he is responsible for global strategy, product development, and client engagement delivery. As a leading expert in benchmarking and re-engineering, Mr. Rumburg authored a best selling book on benchmarking, and has been retained as a benchmarking expert by such well-known companies as American Express, Hewlett- Packard, General Motors, and IBM.

If you would like more information about benchmarking your service and support functions, please visit http://www.metricnet.com or e-mail MetricNet at info(at)metricnet(dot)com.

About MetricNet

MetricNet is the global leader in IT service and support benchmarking. More than half of the FORTUNE 500 rely on MetricNet benchmarks to improve and optimize their performance. MetricNet is the first, and still the only company to offer downloadable service desk and desktop support benchmarks from their website. With a global benchmarking database of nearly 4,000 IT service and support benchmarks, MetricNet has the most comprehensive database of process and performance metrics in the industry.

About itSMF USA

The itSMF USA, a chapter of itSMF International, is the independent professional organization and forum for IT Service Management professionals in the US. A not-for-profit organization, itSMF is a prominent player in the on-going development of IT Service management professionals and the promotion of IT Service Management (ITSM) best practices, standards and qualifications in the United States. This network of industry professionals, white papers, webinars, podcasts, conferences and other resources creates an opportunity for you and your organization to connect, learn and grow. Come be part of the IT service management profession.

Visit the itSMF USA website

About HDI

Founded in 1989, HDI is the first membership association and certification body created for the technical service and support industry. Since then, HDI has remained the source for professional development by offering the resources needed to promote organization-wide success through exceptional customer service. In other words, we help professionals in service management better connect with customers. We do this by facilitating collaboration and networking, hosting acclaimed conferences and events, producing renowned publications and research, certifying and training thousands of professionals each year, and connecting solution providers with practitioners. Learn more at www.ThinkHDI.com.

About FUSION

Jointly hosted by industry leaders HDI and itSMF USA, the annual FUSION Conference & Expo unites IT service management's best speakers, solution providers, and networking opportunities for an unparalleled educational experience. Each year, industry professionals, experts, and vendors attend to discover the best and newest technologies, ideas, systems, and methodologies. Looking for ways to improve their IT services, attendees gain valuable business contacts and tangible tools to immediately effect change within their organizations. Learn more at www.servicemanagementfusion.com.

SOURCE MetricNet, LLC

Related Links

http://www.metricnet.com


Adam Herrin with HFF Dallas represented Mohr Capital in the transaction. "Adam and his team did a fantastic job presenting this asset to the market and securing a buyer," Horn says.

"Coming on the heels of a sale of our 430,188 square foot spec development in Grand Prairie to a GM supplier, Mohr Capital is actively looking for 1031 prospects and new investments," Horn says.

ABOUT MOHR CAPITAL  Mohr Capital is privately held real estate investment company focused on office and industrial facilities. Mohr specializes in acquiring or developing single tenant net leased assets ranging from $5-$50 million throughout the US. Mohr's primary targets are value-add or opportunistic investments. Please visit our website at mohrcap.com.

SOURCE Mohr Capital

Related Links

http://www.mohrcap.com


COLUMBUS, Ohio, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Nationwide has entered the exchange-traded fund (ETF) market with the launch of three strategic beta ETFs that seek to provide investors with improved risk-adjusted returns by enhancing diversification and reducing volatility. The new ETFs include the Nationwide Maximum Diversification U.S. Core Equity ETF, the Nationwide Risk-Based U.S. Equity ETF, and the Nationwide Risk-Based International Equity ETF. Nationwide's launch of these new funds also marks the first time that proprietary indexes developed by TOBAM and Rothschild Risk Based Investments LLC ("Rothschild") will be available to U.S. retail investors in an ETF structure.

"As we continue to adapt and respond to major investment management trends in the midst of mounting uncertainty stemming from an aging bull market, Nationwide's strategic beta ETFs may provide investors with options to manage risk, enhance diversification and reduce volatility in their portfolios," Chris Graham, chief investment officer for Nationwide Funds, said.

The Nationwide Maximum Diversification U.S. Core Equity ETF (MXDU) seeks to deliver higher risk-adjusted returns relative to market cap-weighted strategies by creating a more diversified risk allocation aimed at capturing the full equity risk premium. The fund tracks an index developed by TOBAM that applies liquidity and socially responsible investment (SRI) screens in determining the investable universe. Based on a patented, proprietary mathematical formula, the TOBAM Diversification Ratio, TOBAM weights individual stocks to drastically minimize the correlations among holdings, resulting in the creation of the "most diversified portfolio," given a 50% active share constraint.

"By avoiding the unintended risks typically associated with market cap-weighted investments, Nationwide's strategic beta ETFs are designed for those investors seeking broad equity market exposure with the added benefits of competitive long-term performance and potentially less risk," Graham said.

The Nationwide Risk-Based U.S. Equity ETF (RBUS) and the Nationwide Risk-Based International Equity ETF (RBIN) track indexes developed by Rothschild Risk Based Investments LLC and seek to reduce portfolio volatility, mitigate severe drawdowns and enhance the Sharpe ratio, all without curtailing returns.

Rothschild's investment process begins with a line-by-line assessment of each stock in the investable universe to determine the level of risk corresponding to each security. The positions representing the riskiest 50% of the stocks in the universe are eliminated to remove unnecessary risk from the portfolio. Finally, the remaining stocks are weighted according to their volatilities and correlations, such that each constituent contributes the same amount of risk to the overall portfolio.

Financial professionals interested in learning more should call the Nationwide ETF sales desk at 1-877-893-1830 or visit http://etf.nationwide.com.

In addition to the new strategic beta ETFs, Nationwide is a strategic partner to advisors, providing a comprehensive suite of subadvised mutual funds designed to help meet the unique investment goals and risk tolerances of investors. Nationwide currently manages 115 funds with approximately $65 billion in assets, excluding fund of funds.

About Nationwide

Nationwide, a Fortune 100 company based in Columbus, Ohio, is one of the largest and strongest diversified insurance and financial services organizations in the U.S. and is rated A+ by both A.M. Best and Standard & Poor's. The company provides a full range of insurance and financial services, including auto, commercial, homeowners, farm and life insurance; public and private sector retirement plans, annuities and mutual funds; banking and mortgages; excess & surplus, specialty and surety; pet, motorcycle and boat insurance. For more information, visit www.nationwide.com.

Call 800-617-0004 to request a summary prospectus and/or a prospectus, or download prospectuses at etf.nationwide.com. These prospectuses outline investment objectives, risks, fees, charges and expenses, and other information that you should read and consider carefully before investing.

Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Shares of any ETF are bought and sold at market price (not NAV), may trade at a discount or premium to NAV and are not individually redeemed from the Fund. Brokerage commissions will reduce returns. The Fund's return may not match or achieve a high degree of correlation with the return of the underlying index.

Beta is a measure of price variability relative to the market. Sharpe ratio is a measure of excess reward per unit of volatility.

KEY RISKS: The Funds are subject to the risks of investing in equity securities. The Funds may also be subject to the risks of investing in foreign securities (which are volatile, harder to price, and less liquid than U.S. securities). Please refer to the summary prospectus for a more detailed explanation of the Funds' principal risks. There is no assurance that the investment objective of any fund will be achieved. Diversification does not assure a profit or protect against a loss in a declining market.

The R Risk-Based US IndexSM and R Risk-Based International IndexSM ("Index") are products of, the marketing name for, and a licensed trademark of Rothschild Risk Based Investments LLC (collectively with its affiliates, "Rothschild"). "Rothschild", the Index, and "Rothschild Indexes" are trade and service marks of Rothschild and have been licensed for use for certain purposes by Nationwide Fund Advisors  Nationwide Risk-Based U.S. Equity ETF and Nationwide Risk-Based International Equity ETF ("ETF") are not sponsored or sold by Rothschild, and Rothschild makes no representation or warranty, express or implied, regarding the ETF to the owners of the ETF or any member of the public.

TOBAM Diversification Ratio (DR(w)) is calculated by using the weighted average volatility and volatility as follows: DR(w)=(w|)/(w).

TOBAM Maximum Diversification USA Index data copyright 2017, TOBAM S.A.S. All rights reserved. Maximum Diversification is a registered trademark and service mark of TOBAM S.A.S. or its affiliates ("TOBAM") and is used under license for certain purposes by Nationwide Fund Advisors. Reproduction of the TOBAM data and information in any form is prohibited except with the prior written permission of TOBAM S.A.S. Nationwide Maximum Diversification U.S. Core Equity ETF is not sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by TOBAM and TOBAM makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such fund. TOBAM does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of any data and information and is not responsible for any error or omission or for the results obtained from the use of such data and information. TOBAM GIVES NO EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY, INCLUDING, ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Solactive AG is the third-party calculation agent of the TOBAM Maximum Diversification Index Series and received compensation in that capacity.

Solactive AG does not sponsor, endorse, sell, or promote any investment vehicle that is offered by any third party that seeks to provide an investment return based on the performance of any index. It is not possible to invest directly in an index.

Nationwide Fund Advisors (NFA) is the registered investment advisor to Nationwide ETFs and are distributed by Quasar Distributors, LLC. NFA is not affiliated with any distributor, subadviser, or index provider contracted by NFA for the Nationwide ETFs. Representatives of the Nationwide ETF Sales Desk are registered with Nationwide Investment Services Corporation (NISC), member FINRA, Columbus, Ohio.

Nationwide, the Nationwide N and Eagle, and Nationwide is on your side are service marks of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company.  2017

 Not a deposit  Not FDIC or NCUSIF insured  Not guaranteed by the institution  Not insured by any federal government agency  May lose value

MFN-0191AO (11/17) Q29489

Contact:

Jeff Whetzel

(614) 249-6354

[email protected]

SOURCE Nationwide

Related Links

http://www.nationwide.com


BERKELEY, Calif., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. national homeownership rate dropped from a peak of 69% in 2004 to 63.9% in the third quarter of 2017, remaining near 50-year lows. With millions of households unable to reach the American Dream of owning a home, the many advantages of homeownership are lost for millions of individuals, communities and the national economy.

Despite significant hurdles such as affordability, mortgage availability and housing supply constraints, there is still much that can be done at the federal, state and local level. Indeed, the crisis in homeownership warrants a vibrant national campaign to promote greater access to homeownership, according to a new report "Rebuilding the American Dream: Strategies to Sustainably Increase Homeownership" released today by Rosen Consulting Group and the Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.

"Homeownership in the United States today is in a crisis. It is our goal to create a roadmap that encourages the public and private sectors to come together to implement solutions," said Ken Rosen, Chairman of Rosen Consulting Group and UC Berkeley's Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics. "These are innovative and common-sense reforms that can be implemented locally or nationally, and will promote homeownership across the country. Many of these policies, such as overriding local land-use regulations with statewide reforms or helping households afford a home through shared equity or student debt mortgages, are bold ideas that could help millions of families secure the American Dream."

RCG proposes more than 25 new ideas to bolster homeownership, with the most significant highlighted below;

Overriding Local Regulatory Hurdles with Statewide Reforms

Across the United States , local zoning requirements greatly inflate the costs of building new homes and empower local opposition to new housing. A statewide approach could provide a pathway to offset these biases, by enacting legislation that effectively overrides overly restrictive local zoning, in order to encourage more housing supply.

Promoting Modular Construction to Increase New Home Supply

New construction methods can help control costs in the building process. Modular construction, building housing units in box-like modules in an off-site factory, could significantly reduce construction costs, by up to 20%, while substantially increasing supply.

Helping Homebuyers Save with a Down Payment Savings Program

A down payment savings program would help households save their income, through the creation of a tax-deferred account, much like a 401k or Individual Retirement Account, for use toward the purchase of a home without a tax penalty. Such a model could be implemented at the state or federal level, making it easier for first-time homebuyers to afford a home.

Expanding Mortgage Affordability with Shared Equity Products

Shared equity is a homeownership model that allows a household to purchase a home by dividing the equity stake among multiple parties. There are a variety of approaches; including nonprofit models, private companies that partner with homebuyers to provide funds for the down payment, and co-buying arrangements among family members or non-related housemates. Many of these models could be expanded and replicated, effectively lowering housing costs by dividing the ownership share in a safe and sustainable manner.

Tackling the Burden of Student Debt with a Student Debt Mortgage

Student debt burdens restrict millions of households from affording to buy a new home. A student debt mortgage would provide an avenue for homebuyers to lower their monthly payments, by consolidating outstanding student debt into their mortgage, when purchasing a home. The borrower would have one payment, lower than the two individual payments, promoting greater affordability and supporting first-time homebuyers.

Combatting Post-Foreclosure Stress Disorder with a Targeted Assistance Program

The economic, social and emotional effects of the foreclosure crisis fundamentally altered many individuals' perceptions of financial risks and generated long-lasting psychological changes in financial decision-making, which we call post-foreclosure stress disorder. A nationwide targeted counseling program for homeowners who previously experienced foreclosure could go a long way toward allowing millions of households to consider buying a home once again in a safe and sound way.

Other Policy Interventions

RCG believes that tackling the hurdles to new development, the availability and affordability of mortgages and the burdens of student debt, will require a willingness to rethink the status quo and embrace new ideas that are both innovative and pragmatic. Through the reform of existing regulations, expansion of current programs and creative thinking about new products and programs, policymakers, advocacy groups, Realtors, lenders, homebuilders and many other players in the housing industry could do much to further support homeownership in a safe, sustainable and affordable way.

To read the full report, please click here.

About the Study

Rebuilding the American Dream: Strategies to Sustainably Increase Homeownership was prepared by Rosen Consulting Group for the National Association of REALTORS and jointly released by Rosen Consulting Group and the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business. This report, the third and last in RCG's series on homeownership, highlights potential policy responses that could help combat the numerous hurdles limiting homeownership. In particular, we focus on opportunities to mitigate the challenges of supply constraints, affordability, student debt, post-foreclosure stress disorder and mortgage availability. While we include a wide range of proposals, the goal is to combine innovative approaches with pragmatic strategy, in order to focus on revitalizing homeownership in America in a safe and responsible manner.

About Rosen Consulting Group

Rosen Consulting Group (RCG) is a leading independent real estate economics consulting firm. Founded in 1990 and with offices in Berkeley and New York, RCG provides strategic consulting and unbiased investment guidance through all market cycles. RCG is a trusted advisor to leading banks, insurance companies, institutional investors, and public and private real estate operators. For more information go to www.rosenconsulting.com.

About the Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics

The Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics (FCREUE) mission is to educate students and real estate professionals, and to support and conduct research on real estate, urban economics, and the California State economy. FCREUE strives to be the leading center for research on the California economy and excels nationally as a center for urban economic and public policy research. It also regularly provides a practical forum for academics, government officials, and business leaders. For more information, go to http://groups.haas.berkeley.edu/realestate/.

SOURCE Rosen Consulting Group

Related Links

http://www.rosenconsulting.com


At the beginning of the opening ceremony, Dr. Frank Jiang, the CEO of CStone Pharmaceuticals, gave a speech to welcome the guests and introduced major milestones achieved by the company since its establishment in April 2016. As a patient-centric and innovation-driven company, CStone aspires to be the leading drug development engine in China.

Innovation comes from sound scientific research and rigorous clinical trials. According to Dr. Jiang, CStone Suzhou TMRC is a cutting edge clinical research institution built according to international standards. The primary goal of the center is to accelerate clinical development through the discovery and validation of predictive biomarkers, in order to bring the right therapies to the right patients in China. Looking forward, Dr. Jiang stressed that "with the establishment of the Suzhou TMRC, CStone has solidified its global strategic roadmap. CStone expects to have several Class I innovative anti-cancer drugs at different phases of clinical development by 2020."

Dr. Huidan Zhang, Executive Dean at Harvard Weitz Innovation Center; Professor Xuechu Zhen, Dean of Suzhou University Pharmacy School; Mr. Ruilin Song, Executive Director of China Pharmaceutical Innovation and Research Development Association (PhIRDA); Professor Jin Li and Professor Guang Ning gave speeches to congratulate the establishment of CStone Suzhou TMRC. The speakers also expressed their high expectations for CStone in research collaboration, talent development, and pharmaceutical innovation to address the urgent needs of Chinese patients.

"The launch of CStone Suzhou TMRC signifies the emergence of another leading biopharmaceutical company at Suzhou Industrial Park as well as a major step forward for CStone to become a globally influential biotech brand in pharmaceutical innovation," said Mr. Lixin Ding, Vice Chairman of Suzhou Industrial Park Administrative Committee.

After the opening ceremony, the Immuno-Oncology Forum was held, focused on exploring the future of cancer therapy in China. Dr. Yang Jianxin, CStone's Chief Medical Officer, presided over the forum. Professor Jin Li delivered a compelling speech about the Challenges and Opportunities in Treatment of Cancer. Chief Physician, Dr. Junning Cao from Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, shared her opinions about Current Status and Advancements in Treatment of Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Dr. Zhihao Lu, Associate Chief Physician from Peking University Affiliated Cancer Hospital, presented Problems and Solutions in Using Immunotherapy for Treatment of Digestive Tract Cancers. Moreover, in the panel discussion, the attending experts discussed challenges and opportunities for innovative drug development under the new CFDA policy, and ways to advance China's clinical research to global standards through collaboration of industry, academia, and investors.

About CStone

CStone Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company devoted to the development of a new generation of innovative drugs. With its broad immuno-oncology pipeline, CStone is pursuing a development strategy focusing on combination therapy. In July 2016, CStone Pharmaceuticals announced the completion of its $150 million Series A financing, led by three prestigious VC/PE funds: Oriza Seed Venture Capital, Boyu Capital and WuXi Healthcare Ventures. All members of the management team are seasoned executives from top multinational pharmaceutical companies. CStone has successfully built up an industry leading team with clinical development and translational medicine as its core competence. This enables CStone to accelerate drug approval timeline, while at the same time, to apply global standard practices to ensure clinical trial quality. The unique advantages in clinical development, funding and pipeline also position CStone as the partner of choice for multinational pharmaceutical/biotech companies to develop drugs in China and in the Asia Pacific region.

SOURCE CStone Pharmaceuticals
CHARLOTTE, N.C., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Peak 10 + ViaWest today announced the acquisition of a 203,000-square foot data center in Collegeville, Pa., which will significantly expand the company's data center footprint in the northeast region. The facility, previously owned by GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK), is the largest purpose-built, stand-alone data center with immediately leasable space in the greater Philadelphia market. This facility complements Peak 10 + ViaWest's existing cloud node and advanced engineering team in Allentown, Pa., and brings the company's total operational footprint of 41 data centers in 21 markets to more than three million square feet.

"For some time now we have sought to further expand in the northeast, and this facility met our stringent criteria in a way that no others had. We are very excited to bring our customer-first culture  and the capabilities of our national data center platform and connectivity solutions  to the region," said Chris Downie, CEO for Peak 10 + ViaWest.

The new data center is located on 25 acres, offering expansion capacity to potentially double the amount of raised floor based on customer demand. The facility is designed to withstand natural disasters and various man-made risks and includes redundant power, fiber feeds, and advanced amenities supporting enhanced security requirements. It boasts 2N+1 redundancy and the ability to provide a range of densities to meet the needs of Peak 10 + ViaWest customers. It will also be a hub on the company's recently announced 100 Gigabit nationwide backbone fiber network. The facility has substantial interconnection capabilities from several communications carriers. The company plans to increase access to more than 80 network carriers to provide customers with true national and global reach.

"We remain committed to growing our company by investing capital that supports our customers' expanding and increasingly complex IT, colocation and connectivity needs," added Downie. "With these ongoing investments, our customers will continue to benefit from increased scale, a coast-to-coast data center presence and a comprehensive and robust suite of IT solutions."

With the deal, Peak 10 + ViaWest gains a Fortune 500 customer in GSK, which will continue to maintain its IT environment in the facility and leverage the company's expertise in data center operations. GSK joins more than 400 current Peak 10 + ViaWest healthcare customers, demonstrating the company's position as a trusted IT partner to the healthcare industry. The facility will provide Peak 10 + ViaWest with significant additional capacity for customer growth beyond the GSK deployment.

"This partnership provides continuity for our employees, while also allowing Peak 10 + ViaWest to expand its footprint into a strategic market," said Bill Trifaro, Director of Data Center Operations and Facilities at GSK. "We're proud of our team's efforts to build and maintain this world class facility, and we know that Peak 10 + ViaWest customers will be delighted to join us at this location."

About Peak 10 + ViaWest

Peak 10 + ViaWest is a powerful combination that helps organizations optimize their journey of IT transformation while simultaneously balancing cost, scalability, compliance and security. Its 4,200 customers trust it to deliver hybrid IT infrastructure solutions spanning colocation, interconnection, cloud, managed solutions and professional services. Peak 10 + ViaWest's robust suite of assets spans 21 domestic and international markets and comprises 41 highly redundant data centers, three million square feet of data center space, 13 cloud nodes and more than 10,000 cross connects. These capabilities, coupled with more than 1,000 dedicated employees, underlie the steadfast reliability of its solutions. For more information on Peak 10, please visit www.peak10.com. For more information on ViaWest, please visit www.viawest.com.

Follow Peak 10 + ViaWest on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Media Contact:

Pete Johnson

For Peak 10 + ViaWest

[email protected]

O: 971.245.4002 x 514

C: 415.806.7060

SOURCE Peak 10 + ViaWest

Related Links

http://www.peak10.com


"Pinkberry is excited to celebrate the holiday season with a decadent new flavor and special combination," said Melissa Hubbell, director of marketing for Pinkberry. "Perfect Slice O' Pie is made with our new Pecan Pie Frozen Yogurt and delicious toppings to create a rich and tantalizing holiday flavor."

Promotional Flavor:

Pecan Pie Frozen Yogurt

Promotional Combination:

Perfect Slice O'Pie  Pecan Pie Frozen Yogurt topped with Cinnamon Crumble, Whipped Topping, Dulce de Leche and Candied Pecans

Pecan Pie Frozen Yogurt and Perfect Slice O'Pie are available at Pinkberry until January 4.

About Pinkberry

Pinkberry launched in Los Angeles, CA in 2005 as the original brand that reinvented frozen yogurt. Today, over a decade later, Pinkberry continues to create great tasting treats with fresh ingredients in an experience comprised of distinctive product, outstanding service and inspirational design. At Pinkberry you can taste the difference of an uncompromising commitment to quality and freshness. Most recently, Pinkberry was acquired by Scottsdale, Arizona-based Kahala Brands, one of the fastest growing franchising companies in the world with a portfolio of 22 quick-service restaurant brands and approximately 2900 locations in 28 countries.

For more information about Pinkberry, visit www.Pinkberry.com.

For more information about Kahala Brands, visit www.KahalaBrands.com.

SOURCE Pinkberry

Related Links

http://www.pinkberry.com


SEATTLE, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- PitchBook, the premier data provider for the private and public equity markets, today announced its participation in several industry conferences taking place throughout the month of November, including; Morningstar Investment Conference, EuroGrowth and ACG OC. PitchBook executives will deliver keynote presentations on various topics surrounding private financial market investment trends, including the state of global M&A activity, an update on private equity within the SaaS sector, and private market fund returns within the Italian market. Insights from PitchBook will help inform conference goers' 2018 investment strategy and business roadmaps.

See below details on where to find PitchBook throughout Q4 2017:

Morningstar Investment Conference: A Look at Private Equity Returns and Activity

Who: Adley Bowden; Vice President of Market Development & Analysis, PitchBook

When: Wednesday, November 8 at 11:45 a.m.

Where: UniCredit Pavilion, Piazza Gae Aulenti, 10, 20154 Milano, Italy

Description: Mr. Bowden will provide an in-depth review of private equity and venture capital activity and performance in Italy, Europe and global markets at the Morningstar Investment Conference in Milan. His session will review deal flow, fundraising activity, return metrics as well as emerging trends like SPACs and their impact on traditional institutional investing.

Link: http://corporate1.morningstar.com/IT/Conferences/Morningstar-Investment-Conference-Home/

Euro Growth: M&A Update and Trends

Who: Douglas Trafalet; Managing Director, PitchBook

When: Monday, November 6 at 4:45 p.m.

Where: Hilton London Bankside, London, England

Description: Mr. Trafalet will be lead a panel discussion on the state of M&A throughout Europe, with a special focus on cross-Atlantic M&A deal activity. Panelists include:

Bruce K. Fenton , Partner, Pepper Hamilton LLP

, Partner, Pepper Hamilton LLP Mike Hinchliffe , Head of Sales, Merrill Corporation

, Head of Sales, Merrill Corporation Richard Shaw , Investment Director, Growth Capital Partners

Link: http://www.eurogrowth.org/

ACG OC  SoCal Capital Summit: Keynote Presentation

Who: John Gabbert, founder and CEO, PitchBook

When: Wednesday, November 15 at 6:00 p.m. PST

Where: Irvine Marriott, 18000 Von Karman Ave, Irvine, CA

Description: Mr. Gabbert is opening the SoCal Capital Summit by sharing an update on key issues influencing overall capital markets. He'll also delve deeper into recent activity unfolding in Southern California's most dynamic economic sectors, including Aerospace & Defense, Craft Beer, eSports, cloud computing and SaaS and healthcare.

Link: https://www.acg.org/occ/events/acg-oc-socal-capital-summit

For more information about PitchBook and upcoming events, click here.

About PitchBook

PitchBook is a financial data and software company that provides transparency into the capital markets to help professionals discover and execute opportunities with confidence and efficiency. PitchBook collects and analyzes detailed data on the entire venture capital, private equity and M&A landscapeincluding public and private companies, investors, funds, investments, exits and people. The company's data and analysis are available through the PitchBook Platform, industry news and in-depth reports. Founded in 2007, PitchBook has offices in Seattle, New York and London and serves more than 12,000 professionals around the world. In 2016, Morningstar acquired PitchBook, which now operates as an independent subsidiary.

Media Contact:

Bailey Fox & Nick McDonald

[email protected]

206-823-3022

SOURCE PitchBook

Related Links

http://www.pitchbook.com


According to the new market research report "Power Tools Market by Mode (Electric (Corded & Cordless), Pneumatic, Others), Tool Type (Drilling & Fastening, Sawing, Demolition, Material Removal), Application (Industrial (Construction, Automotive, Aerospace, Energy), DIY) - Global Forecast to 2023" , published by MarketsandMarkets , the market is expected to grow from USD 27.19 Billion in 2017 to USD 35.58 Billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 4.6% between 2017 and 2023. The factors driving the market include the constantly growing construction industry in emerging economies, increasing sales of commercial vehicles across the world, and rising demand for cordless tools.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 )

Browse 68 Market Data Tables and 53 Figures spread through 204 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Power Tools Market - Global Forecast to 2023"



http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/power-tools-market-50744034.html

Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report



Electric tools held the largest size of the overall power tools market in 2016

Electric power tools held the largest market size, in terms of value, in 2016. Electric tools are primarily used by professionals as well as DIY users. Electric tools are operated either through the battery, based on application, or through the corded power supply. Corded electric tools are plug-n-play tools, whereas cordless tools are easy to operate, efficient, and handy in nature. The growth of the electric tools is fueled by innovations in the battery technology and the growing adoption of cordless tools among industrial as well as residential users. Due to their ergonomic advantages, end users prefer cordless tools over conventional tools. The European Union has already banned the use of nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) for power tool batteries due to the toxic properties of Cadmium. As a result, the demand for cordless electric tools with Li-ion batteries is likely to increase over the next few years.

Drilling and fastening tools expected to dominate the power tools market between 2017 and 2023

Currently, drilling and fastening tools hold the largest market share among all other tool types in the power tools market, and a similar trend is likely to continue during the forecast period. Drilling and fastening tools are used in several industries, namely automotive, aerospace, electronics, and consumer appliances, energy, and shipbuilding. The growth of the market for electric drilling tools is driven by the rising adoption of cordless drilling and driving tools by professionals as well as DIY consumers. Pneumatic drilling and fastening tools are mostly used in manufacturing industries, such as automotive and aerospace, wherein high torque tools are required. According to the OICA, the sale of all types of vehicles is expected to increase in the near future. Hence, the increase in the production of automobiles is likely to boost the electric fastening tools market growth in the coming years.

Download PDF Brochure : http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownload.asp?id=50744034

Construction industry held the largest size of the overall power tools market

The construction industry is at the leading position in the power tools market as these tools are used in a majority of construction projects. The rapidly increasing industrialization and urbanization propel the growth of the market for the construction industry. Power tools play an important role at every stage of the construction activity, including the design, survey, construction, and maintenance phases. They are used for various construction applications such as drilling, driving, demolition, concrete cutting, and polishing. Tools such as impact drills, drivers, and rotary hammers are widely used in construction projects. The growing construction activities in countries such as the US, China, and India and the rising demand for technologically advanced and innovative power tools, drive the market growth.

North America to dominate the market between 2017 and 2023

North America is expected to dominate the global power tools market during the forecast period due to the significant growth in construction, manufacturing, and automotive industries. In North America, power tools are extensively used for both industrial as well as residential applications. The DIY trend is already prevalent among consumers in this region and is likely to continue to drive the demand for cordless tools. The increasing wind energy installations have boosted the demand for fastening tools in this region. The region registered the sales of ~12.9 million commercial vehicles in 2016. Hence, power tools find major opportunities in the commercial vehicle market. Moreover, aerospace is one of the prominent industries contributing significantly to the growth of the power tools market.

Inquiry Before Buy @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=50744034

The power tools market was dominated by the key players such as Robert Bosch (Germany), Stanley Black & Decker (US), Techtronic Industries (TTI) (Hong Kong), Makita (Japan), Hilti (Liechtenstein), Atlas Copco (Sweden), Apex Tool Group (US), Ingersoll-Rand (Ireland), Hitachi Koki (Japan), Snap-on (US), and C. & E. Fein (Germany).

Browse Related Reports

DC Torque Tool Market by Type (Handheld and Fixtured Tools), Power Source (Corded and Cordless), Control System (Transducer and Current), Industry (Automotive, Aerospace, and Energy), and Geography - Global Forecast to 2023

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/dc-torque-tool-market-25084634.html

Servo Motors and Drives Market by Offering (Motor & Drive Component, Software & Service), Type (AC/DC, Linear Servo Motor, Adjustable Speed Drives), Voltage Range, MoC, Communication Protocol, Industry, and Geography - Global Forecast to 2022

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/servo-motors-and-drives-market-1127.html

Subscribe Reports from Semiconductor Domain @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Knowledgestore.asp

About MarketsandMarkets

MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 5000 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions.

Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve.

MarketsandMarkets's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets.

Contact:

Mr. Rohan

MarketsandMarkets INC.

630 Dundee Road

Suite 430

Northbrook, IL 60062

USA: +1-888-600-6441

Email: [email protected]





Visit Our [email protected] http://www.marketsandmarketsblog.com/market-reports/electronics-and-semiconductors

Connect us on LinkedIn @ http://www.linkedin.com/company/marketsandmarkets

SOURCE MarketsandMarkets
NEW YORK, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Below are experts from the ProfNet network who are available to discuss timely issues in your coverage area.

You can also submit a query to the hundreds of thousands of experts in our network  it's easy and free. Just fill out the query form to get started: http://prn.to/queryform

EXPERT ALERTS

The High Cost of Healthcare: Massachusetts as a Bellwether

as a Bellwether How to Enjoy the Holidays Without Blowing Your Fitness Goals

The Role of Family in Shaping Individuals and Communities

Sexual Assault and Workplace Harassment

MEDIA JOBS

Director, Editorial Services  FIA (DC)

Editor, Mexico Energy Report ICIS (TX)

Politics Editor  Newsweek (NY/DC)

OTHER NEWS & RESOURCES

Stay Ahead of the Curve: Five Visual Trends to Watch

The Opportunity for Communicators: Insights on Social Journalism

Blog Profiles: Cryptozoology Blogs

-------------------------------------------------------------------

EXPERT ALERTS:

The High Cost of Healthcare: Massachusetts as a Bellwether

Ron Peck

Senior VP & General Counsel

The Phia Group, LLC

"Massachusetts was one of the first states to pass sweeping legislation impacting health insurance, and its law acted as a precursor to what would later be known nationally as the Affordable Care Act, or 'Obamacare.' Years later, Gov. Deval Patrick signed into law new parameters meant to examine what drives the cost of healthcare, and to contain the seemingly out of control costs. Now, in 2017, the Massachusetts State Senate has released a report regarding this very issue, recognizing that simply securing insurance for every citizen is not enough -- that the rising cost of healthcare is being driven by how much providers of healthcare are billing payers. Will Massachusetts take steps to actually cap how much consumers of healthcare can be charged -- not for insurance, but for actual healthcare? Will Massachusetts once again serve as a bellwether for the rest of the nation?"

Based in Massachusetts, Peck has been a member of The Phia Group's team since 2006. As an ERISA attorney with The Phia Group, he has been an innovative force in the drafting of improved benefit plan provisions, and spearheaded efforts to combat the steadily increasing costs of healthcare. Peck has been quoted in numerous publications, including Money, Inc. and Self Insurer, and was a contributing author to the book "The CEO's Guide to Restoring the American Dream" (Health Rosetta Publications; September 2017).

ProfNet Profile: http://www.profnetconnect.com/ronpeck

Website: https://www.phiagroup.com

Contact: Matthew Painten, [email protected]



How to Enjoy the Holidays Without Blowing Your Fitness Goals

Jonathan Jordan

Personal Trainer and Nutrition Coach

Equinox

Jordan shares these three tips to enjoy the holidays without blowing your fitness goals: "1) Time your workouts around your parties. Our bodies are more efficient at burning off carbohydrates rather than storing them as body fat in the window after an intense workout. So if you know you are going to be eating naughty party treats or enjoying adult beverages at 8 p.m., try scheduling your workout to 6 p.m. to take advantage of that. 2) Build up 'calorie credits.' If you know you want to let loose at a party or a big meal on Friday, build up calorie credits in the week leading up to it. I recommend my clients know what their daily caloric needs are (it's easy to calculate) and to track their food in the free app MyFitnessPal. If they shave 200-300 kcal/day Monday through Thursday, they then have an extra 800-1,000 to enjoy on Friday without gaining weight for the week. 3) Fill the tank before you go. Don't go to a party hungry. Make sure you eat a balanced meal a few hours before (with adequate protein and healthy fats; these help you feel full) and that you are super hydrated. Often we confuse dehydration with hunger, and you'll likely be eating salty food and drinking booze, so hydrating will reduce your hangovers. These three simple and totally manageable tips have helped hundreds of my training and nutrition clients avoid the bloat and weight gain so many of us hit over the holiday season."

Jordan is an award-winning personal trainer, nutrition coach, group fitness Instructor and fitness blogger. He offers his clients personalized fitness programs and nutritional advice to coach them towards healthier, sustainable lifestyles. Formerly a partner at a large consulting firm, he understands the physical and mental challenges that busy professionals experience on a daily basis, and takes each client's unique lifestyle demands into consideration when creating his fitness programs. He also offers corporate wellness consulting to leading businesses around the Bay Area. His blog, JJ Fit 24/7, and his Instagram offer practical, effective and free videos, advice and tips each week.

ProfNet Profile: http://www.profnetconnect.com/jonathan_jordan/

Website: www.jj-fit.com/media

Expert Contact: [email protected]



The Role of Family in Shaping Individuals and Communities

Emily M. Douglas

Head, Department of Social Science and Policy Standards; Professor, Social Science and Policy Standards

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

"The role of the family in shaping individuals, groups, and communities cannot be under-stated. It is where we all begin and where our social norms and values are shaped and reinforced. Families that are better supported -- through communities, programs, or social policies -- are more likely to have children who are better well-adjusted and less likely to experience maltreatment and other types of hardships."

Douglas is available to discuss child maltreatment, fatal child maltreatment, the child welfare system, child welfare professionals, partner violence, male victims of partner violence, partner violence and help-seeking, family divorce and disruption, and the use of research in policy-making. She is the author of four books: "Child Maltreatment Fatalities in the United States: Four Decades of Policy, Program, and Professional Responses" (2016), "The Primordial Violence" (2013), "Innovations in Child and Family Police" (2010), and "Mending Broken Families" (2006). She is based in Worcester, Mass.

Website: www.wpi.edu

Contact: Jessica Messier, [email protected]



Sexual Assault and Workplace Harassment

Mike Domitrz

Founder

The Date Safe Project

Sexual assault and workplace harassment is nothing new, so why all the attention now? Why does it seem survivors are just now stepping forward? Will all this attention to the topic become yesterday's news, or can real change take place? Domitrz has been speaking on this topic and training hundreds of thousands for several years across the globe. He can explain exactly how we can create a culture of consent and respect. Says Domitrz: "Sexual assault and workplace harassment are about power being exercise over another person and not necessarily about the power of the person committing the assault."

Domitrz is known for the impact his programs, trainings, and publications have made across the world for parents, teenagers, families, educational institutions, the U.S. military, and the media. You may have seen him as the featured expert on Dateline NBC's "My Kid Would Never Do That." Today, Domitrz is one of the leading experts for transforming our sexual culture to one being built on consent and respect -- discussing sexual decision-making, asking first, healthy relationships, bystander intervention, and supporting survivors of sexual assault. As the brother of a rape survivor, Domitrz's mission is personal. He speaks globally on sexual assault to more than 100,000 people each year, including at universities and the U.S. military. He is also the author of "Can I Kiss You?"

ProfNet Profile: http://www.profnetconnect.com/michael_j._mike_domitrz

Website: https://www.datesafeproject.org

Contact: Lisa Baker-King, [email protected]

****************

MEDIA JOBS:

Following are links to job listings for staff and freelance writers, editors and producers. You can view these and more job listings on our Job Board: https://prnmedia.prnewswire.com/community/jobs/

Director, Editorial Services  FIA (DC)

Editor, Mexico Energy Report  ICIS (TX)

Politics Editor  Newsweek (NY/DC)

*****************

OTHER NEWS & RESOURCES:

Following are links to other news and resources we think you might find useful. If you have an item you think other reporters would be interested in and would like us to include in a future alert, please drop us a line.

DON'T FALL INTO THIS TRAP: THE 7 DEADLY SINS OF BLOG WRITING. Being a serial writer is a demanding and mysterious craft. To succeed, you must constantly ooze creativity and new ideas  all while learning new tricks to keep up with the competition. The effort it takes is sometimes more frightening than thrilling, unless you're willing to own your fears and challenges and face them. Here are seven blog killers to avoid: http://prn.to/2z70KMR

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR COMMUNICATORS: INSIGHTS ON SOCIAL JOURNALISM. How do insights on social journalism highlight a new opportunity for communicators and PR professionals? Cision CMO Chris Lynch tackles this question while discussing important key findings from the 2017 Global Social Journalism Study, which surveyed journalists on their social media habits, preferences and views: http://cisn.co/2gXL1sY

BLOG PROFILES: CRYPTOZOOLOGY BLOGS. Each week, PR Newswire's Audience Relations team selects an industry/subject and profiles a handful of sites that do a good job with promoting and contributing to the conversation. This week, they look at a few cryptozoology blogs: http://prn.to/2zUDWNP

****************

PROFNET is an exclusive service of PR Newswire.

SOURCE ProfNet

Related Links

http://www.profnet.com


The Razer Naga Trinity, the ninth iteration of the best-selling Razer Naga family, is a modular mouse featuring three interchangeable side plates. Users can opt for the iconic original 12-button thumb grid of the Razer Naga Chroma designed for MMO games like "World of Warcraft", or the seven-button thumb wheel of the Razer Naga Hex V2 for MOBA and hack-and-slash titles like "Heroes of the Storm" and "Diablo III." A new two-button configuration completes the trifecta, sporting a minimalistic feel that is perfect for general use.

When using the 12-button configuration, gamers will have up to 19 programmable keys for customization.

The Razer Naga Trinity also comes equipped with an improved sensor over its predecessors, featuring a 5G, true 16,000 dots-per-inch (DPI) optical sensor with 450 IPS for faster and more accurate mouse movements.

For even greater game control at your fingertips, gamers can also own the Razer Tartarus V2. The new ergonomic gaming keypad has 32 fully programmable keys (seven more keys than its predecessor) and features Razer's Mecha-Membrane key technology that offers both a soft, cushioned touch and a crisp, tactile click with each keystroke.

Users can further expand commands with the eight-way directional thumbpad and three-way scroll wheel, enabling full reign of movement and endless spell combinations. Existing commands may be doubled using Razer's Hypershift mode, which opens a secondary set of commands for macros, windows shortcuts, and everything else that can be layered on top of your current settings. Multiple personalized gaming profiles can be created and saved in the cloud via Razer Synapse 3 (Beta) Cloud Storage.

"Customization is what sets our peripherals apart from the competition," says Min-Liang Tan, Razer co-founder and CEO. "This mouse and keypad adapts to you: your game and your playstyle. From 'World of Warcraft' to 'Heroes of the Storm,' these peripherals put the controls in your hands the way you want it."

The Razer Naga Trinity and Razer Tartarus V2 are also Powered by Razer Chroma, with up to 16.8 million color options. Button remapping, surface calibration and Razer Chroma lighting effects are all configured and controlled via Razer Synapse 3 (Beta). Many popular games allow for Razer Chroma lighting integration, as well as tutorials, in-game actions and other interactive developer effects.

The mouse and keypad are available on RazerStore.com in Q4 2017.

For more information on the Razer Naga Trinity, visit https://www.razerzone.com/gaming-mice/razer-naga-trinity

For more information on the Tartarus V2, visit http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-kaypad/razer-tartarus-v2

Razer Naga Trinity

Modular MOBA/MMO gaming mouse

Price: U.S. $99.99 / EU 119.99

Availability:

Available exclusively on Razerzone.com: Q4 2017

Worldwide: From Q1 2018

Product features:

3 interchangeable side plates

2-button Razer Mechanical Mouse Switches plate



7-button Razer Mechanical Mouse Switches thumb wheel plate



12-button Razer Mechanical Mouse Switches thumb grid plate

Total of 19 MOBA / MMO optimized programmable buttons

Rubberized thumb grip

True 16,000 DPI 5G optical sensor

Tilt-click scroll wheel

Razer Chroma lighting with 16.8 million customizable color options

Inter-device color synchronization

Up to 410 inches per second / 50 G acceleration

1000 Hz Ultrapolling / 1 ms response time

Zero-acoustic Ultraslick mouse feet

Razer Synapse 3 enabled

2.1 m / 7 ft braided fiber USB cable

Approximate size: 119 mm / 4.69 in. (Length) x 74 mm / 2.93 in. (Width) x 43 mm / 1.69 in. (Height)

Approximate weight: 120 g / 0.26 lbs. with cable

Images:

Razer Naga Trinity Images

Video:

Razer Naga Trinity Launch Trailer

Razer Tartarus V2

Price: U.S. $79.99 / EU 89.99

Availability:

Razerzone.com: Available now

Worldwide: Q4 2017

Product features:

Razer Mecha-Membrane Technology

32 fully programmable keys

Programmable 8-way directional thumbpad & scrollwheel

Full anti-ghosting

Unlimited macro lengths

Unlimited game profiles

1000Hz Ultrapolling

Ergonomic palm rest

Hypershift mode for expanded commands

Razer Synapse 3 enabled

2.1 m / 7 ft braided fiber USB cable

Approximate size: 203 mm / 7.99 in. (Length) x 153 mm / 6.02 in. (Width) x 60 mm / 2.36 in. (Height)

Approximate weight: 348 g / 0.76 lbs. with cable

Images:

Razer Tartarus V2 Images

Video:

Razer Tartarus V2 Launch Trailer

ABOUT RAZER:

Razer is the world's leading lifestyle brand for gamers.

The triple-headed snake trademark of Razer is one of the most recognized logos in the global gaming and esports communities. With a fan base that spans every continent, the company has designed and built the world's largest gamer-focused ecosystem of hardware, software and services.

Razer's award-winning hardware ranges from high-performance gaming peripherals (for the PC and console platforms) to the Razer Blade gaming laptops. Razer's software platform, with over 35M users, includes Razer Synapse (an Internet of Things platform), Razer Chroma (a proprietary RGB lighting technology system), and Razer Cortex (a game optimizer and launcher). Razer services include Razer zGold, one of the world's largest virtual credit services for gamers, which allows gamers to purchase virtual goods and items from over 2,500 different games.

The company has a global footprint with 9 offices worldwide and is recognized as the leading brand for gamers in the US, Europe and China.

Founded in 2005 and dual-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, Razer is backed by institutional investors such as IDG-Accel, Intel Capital and Horizons Ventures.

Press Contacts:

United States

Kevin Scarpati

[email protected]

Stephen Huynh

[email protected]



Europe/Africa

Jan Horak

[email protected]

Asia Pacific

Nicholas Ferguson

[email protected]

China

Evita Zhang

[email protected]

Razer - For Gamers. By Gamers. 

SOURCE Razer

Related Links

http://www.razerzone.com


NEW YORK, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- RealConnex is pleased to announce a partnership with Buildout which will enable Buildout's clients to syndicate their listings to RealConnex's fast-growing community of 130,000 members. As part of this arrangement, Buildout's participating brokers will receive access to the entire suite of RealConnex networking, credibility, profile, influence and prospecting tools and its vast resource of over 500,000 investors, lenders, service providers and the entire ecosystem of real estate professionals.

This partnership with Buildout is just the latest initiative made by RealConnex to collaborate with best in class, real estate-focused organizations, leveraging its technology to be a business accelerator for the industry. Other recent partnerships include The Inland real estate group, the Miami Association of Realtors and merchant banking boutique Silver Portal Capital.

"It is with great pleasure that I announce the partnership between Buildout and RealConnex," said Roy Abrams, CEO of RealConnex. "As we continue to create the central resource for real estate professionals, this partnership with Buildout represents an important step toward achieving that goal. It also extends Buildout's distribution channels for their listings and provides their brokers access to an entire professional ecosystem in one place."

"This partnership between two big brands has the potential to fuel amazing growth and success opportunities for both partners," he added.

About Buildout

Buildout is the leading end-to-end solution for marketing commercial real estate listings, helping over 1,000 brokerages efficiently run their marketing. Since launching in 2010, Buildout has revolutionized the entire listing process for brokerages around the country. Buildout's marketing tool allows brokerages to produce beautiful, brand-consistent marketing instantly, saving time by eliminating tedious tasks enabling them to focus on what is most important: closing more deals and growing their business. Buildout excels in their ability to automate the document creation process by allowing users to create attractive, brand-compliant documents with a few simple clicks. Streamlining the property listing process by partnering with listing sites allows companies to instantly post listings across the nation. For more information on Buildout, please visit https://buildout.com.

About RealConnex

RealConnex is the world's first Accelerator connecting real estate professionals to capital, investments, services and each other. It provides all the tools a professional needs to network, build profile, credibility & influence; tools to buy, sell & lease, prospect and connect to opportunities. It's professional real estate in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost.

Sometimes referred to as LinkedIn meets Match.com for professional real estate, the company was founded in 2013 by Roy Abrams, a 25-year veteran of the real estate and technology industries. To sign up and participate in the real estate industry's most comprehensive networking and business development platform, click: http://bit.ly/2z6sVMw

Press Contact:

Sarah Berman

The Berman Group

212-450-7300

SOURCE RealConnex

Related Links

https://www.realconnex.com


CHICAGO, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The real estate industry is rapidly evolving, but the nation's 1.3 million Realtors are ready to own the significant challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

That's according to Elizabeth Mendenhall, incoming 2018 president of the National Association of Realtors, who shared at a news conference today that NAR is working hard to harness the power of its 1.3 million members to deal with the most pressing industry and market issues, and there are significant consequences for inaction.

2018 NAR President Elizabeth Mendenhall Press Conference

"In the year ahead, Realtors will continue tackling some of the same ongoing issues, like flood insurance and low housing inventory and affordability, but we'll also be future focused and determining what is coming next and how best to move Realtor boards and associations, members, and the industry forward," said Mendenhall, a sixth-generation Realtor from Columbia, Missouri and CEO of RE/MAX Boone Realty. "These are not easy challenges to tackle, but we can either be disrupted or be the innovators, and I believe we need to come from a place of opportunity and not fear."

Mendenhall, who officially takes office as NAR's president Monday, November 6, said a key strategic initiative for the year ahead is to increase Realtor influence in an uncertain legislative, regulatory and political environment. High on the agenda will be advocacy issues like prohibitive mortgage fees, national disaster and flood insurance, property investments, and ensuring that 95 percent of households don't lose their homeownership tax benefits under recently proposed tax reform plans. Mendenhall noted that Realtors are the main voice for property ownership, and it's the job of NAR's 1.3 million Realtor members to protect the American dream, so that consumers can own it.

"NAR's strength lies in the engagement of its million-plus members. In the coming year, we'll work harder than ever to engage those grassroots at the state, local and national levels to increase our efforts and make sure our voice is heard from city hall to the halls of Congress," she said.

Another key initiative for the year ahead is to define measurable increases in Realtor professionalism, both within the industry and in the eyes of the consumers. Mendenhall noted that being a real estate professional looks remarkably different today than it did a decade or two ago when technology didn't play as large of a role in the real estate transaction. She aims to hone in on the expertise and experience that matter most to consumers, and then ensure Realtor members have the knowledge and professional skillset to exceed their clients' expectations.

Mendenhall also wants to ensure that the role of the real estate professional is essential to the consumer, no matter how real estate broker business models change.

"Technology has transformed the real estate business, with growing numbers of buyers and sellers first looking online for properties and real estate information, so we have to ensure that buyers, sellers and investors know that a Realtor is essential to the consumer and that they are better prepared and protected when they have a trusted advisor at their side," she said. "The only way brokers and agents can do that is to ensure we continue to demonstrate our value."

Taking the management of real estate data to the next level is also a priority for Mendenhall in the year ahead. Real estate brokers face a lot of competition in terms of who manages their listing data, and the demand for greater access and more data and analysis is forcing the management of multiple listing services and information to evolve, she said. Mendenhall highlighted the need to improve how data is shared, explore new business models, and advance partnerships or consolidations to ensure Realtors stay competitive.

"Every day there's another headline about how the real estate industry is about to change in a big way," said Mendenhall. "It's NAR's and my job as incoming president to advocate for and keep Realtors and their clients one step ahead. I look forward to collaborating with new and current partners and our Realtor associations and members across the country to meet those challenges head on and make positive change happen."

Mendenhall made her remarks during the 2017 REALTORS Conference & Expo in Chicago, November 3-6.

The National Association of Realtors, "The Voice for Real Estate," is America's largest trade association, representing 1.3 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.

Information about NAR is available at www.realtor.org. This and other news releases are posted in the newsroom in the "About Us" tab.

SOURCE National Association of Realtors

Related Links

http://www.realtor.org


PHOENIX, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Under new ownership! Esmeralda Luxury Resort recently celebrated its official ribbon cutting ceremony in Puerto Penasco, Sonora, Mexico.

The ceremony was to commemorate the resumption of the construction, on the seven-tower complex that will contain 281 luxury condominiums, 15 penthouses, 4 pools, and a fine dining restaurant along with a gym, spa and pool bar once completed.

Esmeralda Luxury Resort President Daniel Butterfield (left), Vice President Nick Najera (right) and Puerto Penasco Mayor Kiko Munro (center) celebrate the resumption of construction on the resort with an official Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

An impressive guestlist included worldwide businessmen, investors, media, and of course the family of Esmeralda Luxury Resort joined Daniel Butterfield-President and Nick Najera-Vice-President for the event, alongside Puerto Penasco's Mayor Kiko Munro, signaling a strong level of support from local government for the project.

Mr. Butterfield and Mr. Najera both have a recognized record of accomplishment in the real estate development and hospitality industries. Along with their expertise and a comprehensive marketing strategy they intend on positioning Esmeralda Resort throughout Mexico, as well as on the international scene.

On the project itself, Mr. Butterfield stated; "Our main goal was to not just provide a uniquely different luxury vacation destination, but make a positive contribution to the surrounding communities and their economies. The revitalization of the project has created many new job opportunities, and has resulted in lasting business ties with local officials."

About Daniel Butterfield:

Daniel has been in the Real Estate Industry for the last two decades and primarily in the Phoenix area for the last decade. He began his career working for NASA at the Johnson Space Center as an Engineer (his chosen field of study), then consulting for the prestigious Anderson Consulting (now Accenture) firm working with Fortune 500 Companies where his focus was on software integration and design.

Daniel also has a unique real estate business in Phoenix, Arizona offering a full spectrum of services for everything you will need to make your real estate investment happen, including, renovation, deed of trust financing, and more.

To learn more about Esmeralda Luxury Resort visit http://www.esmeraldaluxuryresort.com.

Esmeralda Luxury Resort

[email protected]

+52.638.383.4813



Media contact:

Mark Green

[email protected]

702.418.3702

SOURCE Esmeralda Luxury Resort

Related Links

http://www.esmeraldaluxuryresort.com


SAN DIEGO, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- San Diego State University (SDSU), University of San Diego (USD) School of Law, and international law firm Duane Morris LLP announced today the launch of a joint program that pairs SDSU student entrepreneurs with USD law students and Duane Morris attorneys to offer legal assistance for start-up businesses. It is the first business school/law school/legal firm partnership of its type in the region to combine student learning experiences with those of practicing attorneys.

Students from SDSU's Lavin Entrepreneur Center at the Fowler College of Business will work with law students from the Entrepreneurship Clinic at USD School of Law to obtain legal counsel as they establish start-up businesses. Licensed attorneys from Duane Morris will oversee each transaction and provide transactional support for each start-up endeavor.

The program will commence today, Friday, November 3, 2017.

"With the strength of the entrepreneurship community in San Diego, it just made sense for us to combine the assets of our three respective organizations to offer students the most well-rounded entrepreneurial education available to jumpstart their businesses," said Lance Nail, dean of the Fowler College of Business. "The support and participation of Duane Morris is a critical element in making this program a success. Collaboration between the academic and business communities fosters a productive environment where startups can thrive."

The program will feature an annual Duane Morris seminar to teach students in the Lavin Entrepreneurship Program about the common legal pitfalls of startups. Additionally, Duane Morris will host legal clinics in its San Diego office several times a year to help students handle any legal issues that may arise, as well as offering general legal advice on their business matters.

"As a longtime board member of the Lavin Center, I felt this was a tremendous opportunity for us to support start-ups as a firm and individually," said Duane Morris partner Michelle Hon Donovan. "Not only is it a win for the students involved, but it allows our attorneys the chance to assist these emerging ventures, which will have an incredibly positive impact on the San Diego community."

Each SDSU student entrepreneur will be paired up with a USD law student at the USD School of Law Entrepreneurship Clinic who will provide legal services under the supervision on an experienced attorney. Duane Morris will also take on certain cases on a pro bono basis.

"This is an exciting partnership to foster entrepreneurship in San Diego," said Stephen Ferruolo, dean of USD School of Law. "It demonstrates the types of collaborations that have made San Diego so vibrant a center of innovation. As a former start-up attorney, I know the value of pairing lawyers with entrepreneurs. As dean, I am pleased to be able to work closely with my colleagues at SDSU's Lavin Entrepreneurship Center."

The region has earned a reputation as a good environment for start-up businesses, with Entrepreneur magazine recently naming San Diego one of the country's "10 Cities with the Hottest Startup Activity" and one of the "Eight Cities Whose Entrepreneurship Communities Are Booming."

About The Lavin Entrepreneurship Program at SDSU

The Lavin Entrepreneurship program is a highly-competitive program for undergraduate entrepreneurs from all majors and disciplines across campus. It provides students who dream of launching their own business or creating a start-up with the education, tools, relationships and knowledge to put their plan in action. Only the brightest, most passionate and driven students are accepted into the program each year. By combining curriculum with hands-on learning, the Lavin Entrepreneurship Program gives students the experience, skills and know-how to succeed in their future business ventures.

About the Entrepreneurship Clinic at USD School of Law

USD School of Law's Entrepreneurship Clinic provides transactional legal services targeting high technology business startups and other emerging growth companies. School of Law interns, under the direction of an experienced attorney, provide counsel to a select number of clients. Interns receive training in the key legal services needed by entrepreneurs, including structuring the business entity, financing regulations, drafting of investment and employment agreements, and protection of intellectual property. The Entrepreneurship Clinic is one of ten client-service clinics at USD School of Law.

About Duane Morris LLP.

Duane Morris LLP, a law firm with more than 750 attorneys in offices across the United States and internationally, is asked by a broad array of clients to provide innovative solutions to today's legal and business challenges. Duane Morris' San Diego office provides the firm with a strong base from which it serves its expanding roster of global clients in Southern California and across the western United States. The attorneys in the San Diego office offer a comprehensive range of legal services to a variety of businesses, including startup ventures, technology companies, manufacturers, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, real estate developers, educational institutions, financial institutions and financial fiduciaries.

Contact: Suzanne Finch

Public Affairs Officer

Fowler College of Business

(619) 594-0206

[email protected]

SOURCE San Diego State University
Lee Jeffries, a British photographer whose portraits of the homeless have been featured in TIME magazine, CNN, the Guardian and in exhibits in Rome, Paris and London, traveled to Seattle last winter. Partnering with the Mission, which provides emergency care and long-term recovery services to the homeless, Jeffries met with and photographed some of the nearly 12,000 people in King County experiencing homelessness. The result is a series of high-contrast, intimate portraits that reveal a sense of humanity in subjects who are often invisible to a majority of the population.

"It's easy to look away when you encounter someone who's homeless but when their image is ten stories tall, it's hard to avoid," said Jeff Lilley, president of Seattle's Union Gospel Mission. "We want Seattle to look up, see the problem and to help join us in not only helping to provide shelter and food, but through longer-term solutions that give people an opportunity to thrive in life."

The Lost Angels exhibit will be screened at six locations throughout the city on the evenings of November 3 and 4. For more information or an exhibit map with the viewing locations, visit www.ugm.org/lostangels.

About Seattle's Union Gospel Mission

Seattle's Union Gospel Mission serves Seattle's homeless through addressing short-term physical and medical needs and providing long-term solutions that break the cycle of addiction, mental illness and poverty. The Mission is a nonprofit Christian organization that shares God's love by caring for, providing for and serving those in greatest need. For more information, visit www.ugm.org or follow the Mission on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

SOURCE Seattle's Union Gospel Mission

Related Links

http://www.ugm.org


LONDON, Nov. 2, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Shoulder Arthroplasty Market by Procedure (Partial Shoulder Arthroplasty, Total Shoulder Arthroplasty, and Revision Shoulder Arthroplasty), Device (Shoulder Arthroplasty Resurfacing Implants, Shoulder Arthroplasty Trauma Devices, and Shoulder Arthroplasty Platform Systems), Indication (Arthritis, Fracture/Dislocation, Rotator Cuff Tear Arthropathy, Hill Sachs Defect, and Other), and End User (Hospitals & Clinics, and Outpatient Surgical Centers) - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2017-2023







Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5139386







Shoulder arthroplasty or shoulder replacement is a surgical procedure, which assists in the replacement of damaged ball and socket joint located in the shoulder. This is done using a prosthesis, usually consists of polythene and metal components. Shoulder arthroplasty has become a preferred modality of surgeons for the treatment of osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and osteonecrosis, as these procedures have yielded significant and reproducible results. Large-scale adoption of total shoulder arthroplasty procedures for the treatment of people suffering from arthritis has highly contributed to the market growth.



Increase in prevalence of shoulder arthritis and rise in geriatric population worldwide drive the growth of the global shoulder arthroplasty market. In addition, rise in awareness towards shoulder arthroplasties and advancements in the surgical techniques supplement the market growth. However, increase in risk of postoperative complications, such as neurologic injury and hematoma, hampers the market growth. Conversely, rise in investments by the key players to manufacture shoulder arthroplasty devices in the developing economies is expected to offer lucrative opportunities for the market growth. The global shoulder arthroplasty market was valued at $1,080 million in 2016, and is expected to reach $1,814 million by 2023, registering a CAGR of 7.6% from 2017 to 2023.



The shoulder arthroplasty market is segmented based on procedure, device, indication, end user, and region. On the basis of procedure, the market is divided into partial shoulder arthroplasty, total shoulder arthroplasty, and revision shoulder arthroplasty. By device, it is categorized into shoulder arthroplasty resurfacing implants, shoulder arthroplasty trauma devices, and shoulder arthroplasty platform systems. Depending on indication, it is classified into arthritis, fracture/dislocation, rotator cuff tear arthropathy, Hill Sachs defect, and other. As per end user, it is fragmented into hospitals & clinics and outpatient surgical centers. Regionally, the market is analyzed across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA.



The total shoulder arthroplasty (TSA) segment accounted for the highest share in the global shoulder arthroplasty market in 2016, and is anticipated to register a highest CAGR of 9.2% from 2017 to 2023. This is attributed to increase in adoption of total reverse shoulder arthroplasty.



In addition, shoulder arthroplasties are majorly performed in hospitals and clinics, and thus this segment generated the highest revenue. In the recent years, Asia-Pacific witnessed rapid growth in the shoulder arthroplasties market, owing to steady increase in the population suffering from various forms of arthritis. Moreover, increase in investments by the key players of Japan and India to develop shoulder arthroplasty devices is projected to offer lucrative opportunities for the expansion of the market.



KEY BENEFITS FOR STAKEHOLDERS

The study provides an in-depth analysis of the global shoulder arthroplasty market with the current trends and future estimations to elucidate the imminent investment pockets.

Comprehensive analysis of the factors that drive and restrict the market growth is provided.

Comprehensive quantitative analysis of the industry is provided from 2016 to 2023 to assist stakeholders to capitalize on the prevailing market opportunities.

Extensive analysis of the key segments of the industry helps to understand the trends in shoulder arthroplasty devices and procedures performed globally.

Key players and their strategies are provided to understand the competitive outlook of the industry.



KEY MARKET SEGMENTS



By Procedure

Partial Shoulder Arthroplasty

Partial Resurfacing

Hemi Resurfacing

Partial-mid Head

Stemmed Hemi

Total Shoulder Arthroplasty

Total Resurfacing

Total-mid Head

Total Conventional

Total Reverse

Revision Shoulder Arthroplasty



By Device

Shoulder Arthroplasty Resurfacing Implants

Shoulder Arthroplasty Trauma Devices

Shoulder Arthroplasty Platform Systems



By Indication

Arthritis

Osteoarthritis

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Other Inflammatory Arthritis

Fracture/Dislocation

Rotator Cuff Tear Arthropathy

Hill Sachs Defect

Other



By End User

Hospitals & Clinics

Outpatient Surgical Centers



By Region

North America

U.S.

Canada

Mexico

Europe

UK

France

Germany

Italy

Spain

Rest of Europe

Asia-Pacific

Japan

China

India

Australia

South Korea

Rest of Asia-Pacific

LAMEA

Brazil

South Africa

Turkey

Saudi Arabia

Rest of LAMEA



KEY MARKET PLAYERS

Wright Medical Group, Inc. /Tornier Inc.

Integra LifeSciences Corporation

Zimmer Biomet

Johnson & Johnson (DePuy Synthes)

Arthrex, Inc.

Smith and Nephew Plc.

Conmed Corporation

DJO Global

Evolutis

Exactech, Inc.



The other players in the value chain include (profiles not included in the report)

Implantcast GmbH

Lima Corporate

Medacta International

Kinamed Incorporated

Corin

Imascap SAS

Catalyst Orthoscience

Biotechni

Cayenne Medical

BioTek Instruments, Inc.



Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5139386



About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers

https://www.reportbuyer.com



For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 208 816 85 48

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

Related Links

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DEARBORN, Mich., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Culminating eight weeks of a nationwide competition where students, alumni and supporters of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) cast votes for their favorite school, Southwestern Christian College, located in Terrell, Texas has been named grand prize winner of the first Ford HBCU Drive2Greatness program.

In addition to yearlong bragging rights, the college will receive Ford's Ultimate Homecoming Takeover experience, valued at $150,000, on its campus in 2018. To help celebrate this historic victory, actors Jasmine Guy and Kadeem Hardison of "A Different World" will visit the campus on Saturday to take part in a community-wide celebration.

Three runner-up schools will receive funding to support programming geared toward science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics initiatives. First place and $50,000 will be awarded to Concordia College Alabama in Selma, Alabama. Second-place winner Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, will receive $25,000. Located in Houston, Texas Southern University will be awarded $15,000 as the third-place winner.

"Congratulations to Southwestern Christian College on its historic victory in the inaugural Ford HBCU Drive2Greatness contest!" said Jennifer Edwards, Ford multicultural communications manager. "With broad participation across our HBCU campuses, the Drive2Greatness campaign represents more than a contest, serving as an important forum to spotlight Ford's legacy commitment and support of this vital higher education community."

The 2017 Ford HBCU Drive2Greatness national program kicked off Labor Day weekend at the Tom Joyner Family Reunion in Orlando, Florida, where Florida A&M University was awarded $10,000 to support its STEAM initiatives. The program encouraged students, alumni and supporters to earn points for their favorite school through online voting, including via social media platforms using a Ford-dedicated hashtag for each school.

The program was also supported through a partnership with national morning show hosts Tom Joyner and Rickey Smiley  two longtime Historically Black Colleges and Universities advocates who are committed to helping African American students go further in their studies and careers.

"The Drive2Greatness program is just one more way Ford continues in its efforts to partner with local communities to go further as a company when it comes to our commitment to higher education, Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the growth of African American students," said Edwards.

To illustrate what awaits the grand prize winner, Ford showcased a preview of the Ultimate Homecoming Takeover with a weeklong series of activities that included a fashion show, DJ battle, empowerment expo, a lunch and learning mentoring session, student and alumni ride-and-drives, a tailgate party and other activities on the campuses of Morehouse College and Spelman College in Atlanta last month.

To join in on the social conversation, follow #FordHBCU.

About Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company is a global company based in Dearborn, Michigan. The company designs, manufactures, markets and services a full line of Ford cars, trucks, SUVs, electrified vehicles and Lincoln luxury vehicles, provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company and is pursuing leadership positions in electrification, autonomous vehicles and mobility solutions. Ford employs approximately 203,000 people worldwide. For more information regarding Ford, its products and Ford Motor Credit Company, please visit www.corporate.ford.com.

SOURCE Ford Motor Company

Related Links

http://www.corporate.ford.com


Kimberlin detailed his experience working with Millicom and Jan Stenbeck to make practical two tipping points that launched the smartphone revolution: the pocket-sized portable cellular phone--which set a standard for the shape, form and size of mobile phones for 30 years-- and the first cellular network to carry data via text message.

"When I discovered Millicom in 1982 and saw the mocked-up prototype of a consumer-friendly, portable cellular phone, I calculated the market need," said Kimberlin. "People may not realize that only approximately 8% of the people in the world had a landline telephone in 1982; that's why I saw the cell phone as the phone for the rest of the world."

The full video and transcript of Kimberlin's presentation are available online at www.smartphoneorigin.com.

Kimberlin also participated in a panel discussion at Mobile World Congress Americas where he discussed the evolution of mobile technology and the future of IOT.

About Spencer Trask & Co.

Spencer Trask & Co. is a privately held advanced technology development firm helping entrepreneurs, CEOs and corporate partners start and grow high impact ventures that change the world. The company has been instrumental in helping companies pioneer many technological and scientific advancements in the fields of genomics, healthcare technology, mobile technology, the Internet and Open Innovation. Please visit www.spencertraskco.com for more information.

SOURCE Spencer Trask & Co.

Related Links

http://www.spencertrask.com


MANCHESTER, N.H., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The United Steelworkers (USW) today said that the union has endorsed State Representative and former New Hampshire AFL-CIO President Mark MacKenzie for Congress to fight on behalf of working families in the First Congressional District.

USW District 4 Director John Shinn credited MacKenzie for serving working families for more than 40 years, as a firefighter and a leader within the labor movement each for 25 years and now in the state legislature.

"Mark has been a tireless, visible and vocal champion of working families for decades," Shinn said. "His leadership was instrumental in building a bipartisan coalition to defeat the so-called 'Right to Work' legislation brought before the New Hampshire House early this year."

Shinn said that MacKenzie's record of unashamed, outspoken and ultimately effective advocacy for American workers, their families and communities is too rare in Washington, D.C., and that the USW is proud to be the first major union to endorse the campaign to put him there.

"As a nation, if we want to create good jobs, a modern energy policy, address our crumbling infrastructure and expand the middle class," he said, "then we need to elect representatives who know how to make it happen."

"When we stand together in solidarity and fight together in unity for policies based on fairness and justice, we cannot be defeated," Shinn said. "Nobody running for Congress understands that better than Mark MacKenzie."

The USW represents 850,000 men and women employed in metals, mining, pulp and paper, rubber, chemicals, glass, the auto supply and energy-producing industries, along with a growing number of workers in public sector and service occupations.

More information, contact: Dave Wasiura  (716) 565-1720; [email protected]

SOURCE United Steelworkers (USW)

Related Links

http://www.usw.org


NORTH CANTON, Ohio, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A glimpse into the future of American innovation and emerging technological trends from the nation's brightest young inventors  from a bandage to treat chronic wounds, to a device that saves the lives of piglets  were recognized and honored today at the 2017 Collegiate Inventors Competition, an annual Competition for college and university students and their faculty advisors.

"For students interested in STEM disciplines, innovation and entrepreneurship, a strong understanding of the intellectual property system is critical for success," said Joseph Matal, performing the function and duties of the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). "We are proud to host this Competition, where the research and innovations of our greatest collegiate inventors are presented to the world."

Finalist teams (six Undergraduate and six Graduate), consisting of 29 students from 12 colleges and universities across the United States, received an all-expenses-paid trip to the final round of the Competition held at the USPTO's Madison Building in Alexandria, Va. The teams presented their inventions to an esteemed panel of final-round judges composed of the most influential inventors and innovation experts in the nation  National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductees and USPTO experts.

"No place on Earth features more world-changing creativity than the Collegiate Inventors Competition Expo and Awards Ceremony," said National Inventors Hall of Fame CEO Michael Oister. "In celebrating this new generation of trailblazers, we witness great inventors of the future collaborating with the world's greatest innovators  the Inductees of the National Inventors Hall of Fame."

Established in 1990, the Collegiate Inventors Competition is a program of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. The Competition is sponsored by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Arrow Electronics, Bridgestone Americas and Skild. The 2017 online application management platform was made possible through the generous support of Skild.

2017 GOLD WINNERS

Undergraduate: SwineTech, The University of Iowa (Arrow Innovation Prize Winner). Team members Matthew Rooda and Abraham Espinoza were awarded $10,000 for their invention SmartGuard, which prevents piglet crushing deaths by their mothers by monitoring the pitch, loudness and duration of squeals, and determining whether a piglet is in distress or just squealing as piglets normally do. When a piglet is in distress, the device sends a vibration to a wearable patch on the mother, prompting her to stand and free her piglet. The team's advisor is Thomas Hornbeck.

The SwineTech team was also the winner of the Arrow Innovation Prize, chosen by a panel of judges from Arrow Electronics. This exclusive prize advanced the team to the final round of judging  all expenses paid  at the competition, and it included a private networking opportunity with a group of innovators from Arrow Electronics  a Fortune 118 global technology-solutions provider.

Graduate: Engineered Probiotics, Boston University. Team member Ning Mao was awarded $10,000 for her invention Engineered Probiotics  an engineered safe bacterium that has the benefit of inhibiting the progression of a cholera infection. This engineered bacterium provides early detection of cholera and helps further contain the spread of the disease. In addition, the technology could be adapted to fight other types of bacterial infections. The team's advisor is James Collins.

2017 SILVER WINNERS

Undergraduate: AssistENT, Johns Hopkins University. Team members Clayton Andrews, Harrison Nguyen, Talia Kirschbaum and Pooja Nair received $5,000 for their device that aids people experiencing difficulty breathing through the nose. This flexible yet stable device is worn completely within the nose, and aids breathing by expanding nasal passages safely, comfortably and discreetly. This invention is intended as an alternative to current treatments such as external adhesive strips or invasive surgery. The team's advisor is Robert Allen.

Graduate: dAST, California Institute of Technology. Team members Nathan G. Schoepp and Travis S. Schlappi were awarded $5,000 for their invention that reduces the unchecked use of antibiotics. The team's test enables doctors to make more effective prescriptions where treatment happens: the doctor's office. This test only requires 30 minutes to determine if an infection can be successfully treated with an antibiotic, while traditional methods require multiple days. Having this knowledge improves patient outcomes, and it enables the preservation of these drugs by avoiding overprescribing. The team's advisor is Rustem Ismagilov.

2017 BRONZE WINNERS

Undergraduate: InMEDBio, University of Virginia. Team members Ashwinraj Karthikeyan and Paco Abiad were awarded $2,500 for their Phoenix-Aid, a five-layer bandage that meshes the ABCs of chronic wound care  Accelerate healing, Block pathogens and Comfort wound  into one cost-effective product that is ideal for patients in developing countries. The bandage is designed to treat diabetics, who can experience chronic wounds that can take months to heal, and they are prone to infections and other life-threatening complications. The team's advisor is Bala Mulloth.

Graduate: NextGen Structural Rehab System, West Virginia University. Team member Praveen Kumar Reddy Majjigapu received $2,500 for his invention  a four-part system designed to fortify existing structural joints, extend their service lives, and improve the safety of a structure under extreme loads efficiently and economically. Tests have shown that renewed joints can withstand 500 percent more force than unfortified joints. The team's advisor is Hota GangaRao.

In addition to the Gold, Silver and Bronze winners, the 2017 Collegiate Inventors Competition People's Choice Award winner was CerebroSense from the Stevens Institute of Technology. Team members Maria V. De Abreu Pineda, Andrew Falcone and David Ferrara were awarded $1,000 for creating a device using ultrasonic sensing technology to provide safe, non-contact, real-time measurements during open-brain surgeries that can help reduce complications to the patient. The team's advisor is Vikki Hazelwood. Expo attendees had the unique opportunity to vote for the People's Choice winner.

About the Collegiate Inventors Competition

The Collegiate Inventors Competition encourages and drives innovation and entrepreneurship at the collegiate level. A program of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, this Competition recognizes and rewards the research, innovations and discoveries by college students and their advisors for projects leading to inventions that have the potential of receiving patent protection. Introduced in 1990, the Competition has awarded more than $1 million to students for their innovative work and scientific achievement through the help of its sponsors. For more information, visit invent.org/challenge.

SOURCE National Inventors Hall of Fame
"We are proud to bring our authentic churrasco to a new location in our home state and we welcome the opportunity to become an integral part of this East Texas community," says Salim Asrawi, Chief Operating Officer, Texas de Brazil. "Churrasco is meant to be shared with family and friends, and our Latin roots embrace this idea. We look forward to offering guests an authentic, rodizio-style dining experience and friendly service in an entertaining and beautiful dining environment," he adds.

The new 6,760 square-foot restaurant accommodates over 200 guests in a lively, colorful environment that features a beautiful salad area, an open grill kitchen, a wine cellar, an intimate lounge and outdoor seating for up to 20 guests.

Texas de Brazil treats guests to an upscale dining experience and a service style that is engaging and unique. Inside the colorfully-decorated restaurant, guests begin their meal with a visit to the enticing salad area with over 50 item including Brazilian specialties, fresh salads, imported cheeses, charcuterie, roasted vegetables, smoked salmon, Moqueca (Brazilian fish stew), creamy lobster bisque and much more.

Every Texas de Brazil restaurant uses the time-honored method of grilling meat over charcoal, resulting in savory aroma and exceptional flavor. Renowned for its genuine rodizio-style dining, patrons are also treated to freshly-grilled meats carved tableside from skewers by costumed "gauchos" who deliver succulent picanha (sirloin), lamb chops, leg of lamb, filet mignon, chicken breasts wrapped in bacon, Brazilian sausages and more. Whether guests choose to experience a quick dinner or a leisurely meal with friends, family, or business associates each can dictate the pace of the dinner with a simple flip of the green or red disk which indicates when additional servings are welcome and when guests need a break. 

Tempting desserts are served a la carte for those seeking sweets and an impressive wine collection features private label wines bottled exclusively for Texas de Brazil by Santa Rita Vineyards in Chile, and an award-winning variety of labels from the world's top wineries. In the restaurant's lounge, guests find signature cocktails including a Brazilian favorite, the Caipirinha, plus an array of premium spirits and specialty libations.

Texas de Brazil is located at 2376 Dueling Oaks Drive, Suite 100 (intersection of Old Jacksonville Highway and Dueling Oaks Drive) in Tyler. Open for dinner Monday-Thursday 5-9:30 p.m.; Friday 5-10 p.m.; Saturday 4-10 p.m. and Sunday 4-9 p.m.

Adult dinner costs: $42.99/Salad area only: $24.99; Children 6-12: 50% discount from dinner pricing; children 3-5: $5; 2 and under dine free. Prices do not include alcohol, featured items, desserts, beverages or applicable taxes. Happy Hour featured Monday  Friday 4:30-7 p.m. features a special bar menu plus drink specials including $3 domestic beer, $5 house wine and house cocktails, and $7 martinis.

For reservations, call 903-231-9000 or visit www.texasdebrazil.com.

About Texas de Brazil

Texas de Brazil is an authentic churrascaria featuring a continuous dining experience that blends the unique culture of Brazil, with the generous hospitality of Texas. The menu features a vast selection of grilled meats, a 50-item salad area, an award-winning wine list and a la carte dessert selections. Founded as a family-owned business in 1998, Texas de Brazil now has 54 domestic and international locations. Stay connected. Follow @texasdebrazil on Instagram and Twitter and Texas de Brazil on Facebook. For information, visit http://www.texasdebrazil.com.

SOURCE Texas de Brazil

Related Links

http://www.texasdebrazil.com


COSTA MESA, Calif., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- For the last three years, StyleCon has dedicated one day of the year to celebrate style, connect with beauty gurus, and celebrate entrepreneurship. An event tailored just for you to discover Southern California's best beauty products, fashion brands, and influencer sensations of today's digital age. This Saturday, November 4, at The Hangar at the OC Fair & Event Center, the public can score incredible StyleCon-only deals, win amazing prizes, and hear from world-class designers and style influencers at this year's "Beauty of Empowerment" themed event. The lineup of speakers includes Swati Mandela, granddaughter of Nelson and Winnie Mandela; British royal, author, and lifestyle entrepreneur, India Hicks; fashion designer and celebrity Gretchen Christine Rossi; and three-time Emmy Nominated television personality from E! News, Melanie Bromley.

Don't miss pop up photo opps all day like the one at trendy LA denim designer booth, STS Blue. Stop by the STS Blue 20 foot exhibit to grab StyleCon-exclusive fall jeans and jean jackets for just $25, with free onsite custom embroidering. "SLAY The Fame Game" author and inspirational influencer, Rachel McCord will be hanging out at the STS Blue booth from 12-2. #DenimDolls that Instagram live and tag @STS_Blue win unique gifts like fishnets, sunglasses and blue cash cards while supplies last.

#StayPretty at the Vanity Planet booth that will offer hair and makeup touch-ups while you sample their out-of-this-world beauty, skin and hair products. Then, at the Bradford Watch Co. booth spin the wheel for a chance to win your own classic Bradford watch, a $125 value. Next to the Bradford Watch Co. booth attendees will have a chance to meet and greet celebrity designer Gretchen Christine Rossi and shop her new vegan leather 'A la Rentree' handbag collection.

Be sure to catch Melanie Bromley at 1:30pm on the StyleStage for "Passion to Profits," as she interviews Amanda Russell, Lauren Farleigh, and powerhouse designer and mogul, Gretchen Christine Rossi, on how to make a living fulfilling your passion, and doing what you love.

If you've ever considered building your own brand influencer empire, visit the Indi exhibit to discover more about the hot new video engagement platform that's revolutionizing the online buying world. Learn from the team how you can become an influencer and monetize video reviews through your own Indi channel. Meet and get social with Indi's Creative Beauty Advisor, professional make-up artist and photographer, Troy Jensen. Let Indi's photo wall inspire you to create your own online empire.

It all starts at 9am this Saturday November 4th at The Hangar at the OC Fair & Event Center, 88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Tickets start at $39 and include a StyleTote valued at over $100 with goodies from Physician's Formula, Sebamed, Batiste Hair, and more. VIP tickets are $79 and $149, with more deluxe giveaways including BIGR Audio and Vanity Planet. For more information visit stylecon.com or email [email protected].

Media Contact:

Leigh-Anne Anderson

310-990-5752

[email protected]

SOURCE StyleCon

Related Links

http://stylecon.com


SACRAMENTO, Calif., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- McClatchy announced today that three newsrooms will join an innovative initiative to strengthen news literacy, credibility and public trust.

The Telegraph, in Macon, Georgia, and The Modesto Bee, in central valley California, will join The Kansas City Star as part of News Co/Lab, a collaborative project developed by Arizona State University's Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and supported by the Facebook Journalism Project and the News Integrity Initiative.

The three local newsrooms will launch a variety of experiments to improve the public's ability to understand how news works, build public trust in reporting, increase transparency in how news is produced, improve community engagement with newsrooms and gather feedback. The Cronkite School will track the success of these steps and share best practices and models that work.

"There's vital work and fresh experiments to be done in delivering news the public can trust in a digital market," said Tim Grieve, vice president for news at McClatchy. "These three newsrooms will be excellent partners, representing every part of the country, various size staffs and very different communities.''

Facebook Journalism Project's launch funding is an outgrowth of the "News Literacy Working Group" that convened last March at the Cronkite School. The gathering included experts from around the world who sought innovative approaches to fighting misinformation.

The concept that emerged was the collaborative effort that will be based at Arizona State University, under the direction of two Cronkite School professors, journalist and author Dan Gillmor and Eric Newton, the school's innovation chief.

About McClatchy

McClatchy is a publisher of iconic brands such as the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, The Sacramento Bee, The Charlotte Observer, The (Raleigh) News & Observer, and the (Fort Worth) Star-Telegram. McClatchy operates 30 media companies in 14 states, providing each of its communities with high-quality news and advertising services in a wide array of digital and print formats. McClatchy is headquartered in Sacramento, Calif., and listed on the New York Stock Exchange American under the symbol MNI.

About the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication

The Cronkite School at Arizona State University is widely recognized as one of the nation's premier professional journalism programs. The School's 1,800 students regularly lead the country in national journalism competitions. They are guided by faculty comprised of award-winning professional journalists and world-class media scholars. Cronkite's full-immersion professional programs give students opportunities to practice what they've learned in a real-world setting under the guidance of professionals.

About Facebook and the Facebook Journalism Project

Founded in 2004, Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what's going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.

The Facebook Journalism Project was created in January 2017 to establish stronger ties between Facebook and the news industry. FJP focuses on three pillars: collaborative development of new products; tools and trainings for journalists; and tools and trainings for people.

SOURCE McClatchy
WILTON, Conn., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Last month, dermatologist-recommended Eucerin launches skill for Alexa to help consumers find their perfect skin solutions. Ahead of the brisk winter months, when very dry skin can become especially problematic, Eucerin's expertise and dermatologist-recommended products will be available on the cloud-based voice service that powers Alexa devices such as the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show and more. The skill allows consumers to access skin solutions  specifically designed to address their personal skin concerns  more efficiently than ever before.

"The skincare landscape can be overwhelming at times, with numerous solutions and formulas available," said Robert Ciaffaglione, Team Lead, Shopper & Customer Marketing. "Powered by 100 years of skin science, Eucerin offers formulas specifically designed to alleviate a multitude of skin concerns, from dry to very dry skin, to products formulated for eczema flare-ups to other skin conditions. By asking a few simple, key questions, the Eucerin skill for Alexa will direct consumers to the Eucerin product designed to help their individual needs."

Eucerin's full product offering, including face, body, hand, and cleansing lines will be available for purchase on Amazon, via Alexa to ensure that consumer skincare needs are met. Education, expertise and product-specific solutions are tenants of the Eucerin brand; now, with the Eucerin skill for Alexa, we have the ability to help consumers navigate the world of skincare right from their own home.

To find out more about Eucerin products, visit www.EucerinUS.com, follow @EucerinUS on Twitter and Instagram or visit us on Facebook at Facebook.com/EucerinUS.

About Eucerin

Since 1900, Eucerin has made healthy-looking skin its mission. High-quality, clinically-proven formulations developed for sensitive skin are what has made Eucerin an essential part of everyday skin health for over 100 years and the brand dermatologists recommend most. Eucerin is committed to helping consumers put the health of their skin first everyday by providing skincare education and a line of proven products for cleansing, moisturizing, healing and protecting dry skin. For more information, visit www.EucerinUS.com.

About Beiersdorf AG

Eucerin is owned by Hamburg, Germany-based Beiersdorf AG, a leading manufacturer of branded consumer products for skin and beauty care, with over 125 years of experience in research and development, and a strong global presence. The company produces leading international brands such as NIVEA, NIVEA Men, Aquaphor, la prairie, Juvena, Labello, 8x4, Futuro, Florena, Hansaplast/Elastoplast and Tesa. For more information, visit www.beiersdorfusa.com.

SOURCE Eucerin

Related Links

http://www.EucerinUS.com


The victory is a significant milestone for the Chinese AI industry and an endorsement of Yitu's battle-tested algorithms which excel in recognizing faces from images taken under unconstrained and sometimes extreme conditions. Yitu outperforms more than a dozen well-known international companies in this contest.

Yitu's algorithms overcome challenges posed by complicated environmental conditions, such as non-frontal head poses, poor and uneven illumination, motion blur, and non-neutral facial expression. The test proceeds by NIST executing participants' pre-packaged software libraries on images sequestered at NIST. This challenging test dataset contains "non-cooperative" images where subjects were unaware of the camera or, at least, did not engage with, or pose for, the camera under conditions of overexposure, backlight, profile-view face, and distant photography.

The Identification Accuracy Prize winner is determined by considering measurements of identification accuracy. It is stated as False Negative Identification Rate (FNIR) that gives a fixed False Positive Identification Rate (FPIR) no higher than 10^-3.

Algorithms run in a turnkey manner, without tuning, training or other in-the-field specialization, which greatly differs from many academic studies.

"This is a further demonstration of Yitu's capability and comes on top of our win in Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT) this July," said Dr. Shuang Wu, research scientist at Yitu Tech. "However, having a state-of-the-art algorithm alone is not enough to solve real-world problems, you will need supports from powerful computing infrastructure and sufficiently large dataset. Engineering capability also plays a significant role in performance optimization. Yitu is capable of searching through over a billion records in less than 3 seconds, that showcases our strength in engineering in addition to outstanding algorithms."

China is quietly leading the world in deploying AI in real-world applications. For instance, Yitu's facial recognition technologies are adopted by China Merchants Bank to enable face-authenticated cash withdrawals at ATMs in several cities already.

Yitu's technologies have also being used in wide varieties of application in many industries such as public safety, financial services, healthcare, customs and ports, and integrated marketing. Yitu has formed partnerships with leading companies in these fields, providing integrated solutions.

About Yitu Tech

Yitu Tech (Yitu) is a pioneer in practical artificial intelligence (AI) research and innovation that provides advanced AI-based business solutions to build a safer, better and healthier world. Yitu has a world-class R&D team that drives industrial development to find comprehensive solutions in the areas of machine vision, speech and language understanding.

SOURCE Yitu Tech
CBRE has negotiated the lease of a business space for MyWalit in Prague, in Na Prikope Street. The new shop of the Italian brand of purses, bags, handbags and fashion accessories had a grand opening on 18th October 2017. This is the first branded store in the Czech Republic

[]
Elmo and the Colonials wont make it as a new Saturday morning hit cartoon show. But the colorful characters might play a tangential part in some important lessons for consumers and some supposedly serious institutions on preserving the public trust in published, medical-scientific research.

Healthnewsreview.org, a nonprofit and independent watchdog of health information, rightly has taken George Washington University to task for issuing a Pollyannaish, inaccurate news release on a Colonials study on whether text messages could help curb expectant moms smoking. The hype from the school, about research from GWUs Milken Institute School of Public Health, first proclaimed:

Text messaging program may help pregnant women kick the smoking habit

But after healthnewsreview.org faulted that title for putting a positive spin on a study that had negative results, GWU pulled the press release, only to put it back up a day later with a new headline:

Text messaging program may help some pregnant women kick the smoking habit

Did the addition of the qualifier some in front of pregnant women spare the university flaks from professional scorn?

Nope. As the watchdog site points out, the piece has a basic problem that one word couldnt cure: Its wrong.

As some impressive experts have told healthnewsreview.org, the GWU study hypes an angle unsupported by the research it wants to draw attention to, or as the site has reported:

The reduction in smoking rates for the study overall was not statistically significant  full stop. That should have been the headline. Its not acceptable for the release to bury the lack of statistical significance in the body of the text while claiming benefits in the headline.

GWUs media relations chief says the school wont do anything more with its flawed original release beside tweak the headline. But GWU will reach out to key reporters who might report on it, she said, adding that she and her colleagues would review their news release processes.

They should, because as healthnewsreview.org has pointed out, in the internet age, scrubbing materials once they get out, can be problematic. Greater diligence before their issue may be the best protection against flawed or questionable materials getting published by supposedly serious research institutions.

It is interesting to ask if the GWU news release, though not absolutely medical in its nature, was examined by an Institutional Review Board or its internal analog? Panels like these, made up of specialists and community leaders, oversee medical research and experimentation as part of a rigorous process to protect patients and the public. IRBs also can save lay writers and editors from embarrassing uses of text and image or from wrong interpretations.

But as Aaron Carroll, a professor of pediatrics and a writer on public health policy, including for the New York Times Upshot column, points out, even prestigious, peer reviewed, medical-scientific publications like the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) struggle these days with problematic studies and reporting on them.

He has delved into the growing unease about the work of Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, and his colleagues. JAMA, in a rare move, has just retracted a 2012 study by them purporting to show that kids could be led to eat better, foregoing a cookie if also given the choice of an apple with a colorful sticker on it carrying a character like Sesame Streets Elmo.

But, oops, lots of problems have surfaced in this research and other works like it. Oops, the researchers have fessed up, for example, that the youngsters in the 2012 Elmo study werent 8- to 10-years-olds as described but 3- to 5-years-old. Big difference. And a real head-scratch as to how an error like that occurs.

Carroll walks through the details and challenges that researchers, especially those working in nutrition such as those at Cornell, can encounter. Good for you, Dr. Carroll. But this situation, and the one at GWU, are disconcerting and shouldnt be waved at, at all.

In my practice, I see not only the major harms that patients can suffer while seeking medical services but also the havoc that sketchy medical-scientific research can cause, particularly when hired guns spout off about it in complex medical malpractice lawsuits.

Yes, academic medical centers, big hospitals, and colleges and universities find themselves thrust into a new, 24/7 media world where they must vie in the marketplace for money and audiences, especially via pumped up public information services and catchy advertising. And researchers are under huge pressure these days to publish or perish, especially as the competition grows ever fiercer for funding for studies. That said, there cant be any room for bad data or hyped conclusions in serious, published research. Besides stepping up to take responsibility for the work that gets published under their names, researchers must work hand-in-glove with media relations and other institutional communicators, both to get valuable study results to audiences who need them but also to ensure this is done in accurate, fair, ethical, and responsible fashion.

This is no easy task. Communicators at the University of Maryland have stumbled badly in this area with a dumb controversy about chocolate milk. There are worries that big problems await no less an august institution than the National Institutes of Healththis because NIH researchers are on the brink of allowing Big Alcohol to fund a major study about, yup, you guessed it, liquor drinking and Americans health. And if you want to see how messy research credibility becomes by the instant, check out Retraction Watch, a site that tracks and reports on problematic scientific and medical studies and when and how the works get pulledor maybe not.
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Produced by investigative reporter Pratap Chatterjee and artist Khalil Bendib, Verax: The True History of Whistleblowers, Mass Surveillance and Drone Warfare (Metropolitan Books) delves deeply into the international intelligence businessa global marketplace for espionage technologyand the role of software and bad data in a complex work of graphic nonfiction about mass surveillance and civilian casualties in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Chatterjees findings are grim: due to misidentification and poor datausing thermal imaging, for instance, to target people with guns in a country where lots of noncombatants have gunsthe victims of U.S. drone attacks carried out in Pakistan and Afghanistan are just as likely to be innocent civilians. And the American pilots responsible for the drone strikestwenty-somethings who pilot drones remotely from the U.S.are left with deep psychological scars and PTSD from the killing of women and children carried out from bases located thousands of miles away.

In addition the book also illustrates the extent to which U.S. and foreign spy agencies use increasingly sophisticated technology to record people's everyday activities, mining that data for clues about possible illicit activities.

Just published, Verax is both a documentary graphic narrativeChatterjee and Bendib are characters, and we watch them research and craft this storyand a deft example of using innovative visual design to make a complex information-laden report easier to understand. PW interviewed Chatterjee, Bendib, and Riva Hocherman, their editor at Metropolitan Books, about the creation of Verax and their hopes for it.

You are writing about very recent events. How did the story evolve as you worked on the book?

Bendib: This book was conceived in agony, and it took three years and a half of constantly changing the story and starting over and over again, just to keep up with what was happening in the news. You might say it was produced in real time.

Chatterjee: We started planning the book in the fall of 2013, soon after Ed Snowden blew the whistle [on the NSA]. About half of the events (by page numbers) that are depicted occurred after we started writing and drawing. Indeed the last page of the book is drawn from an interview with Chelsea Manning on June 9, 2017, just two months before the printing presses will start rolling on Verax.

Many chapters were rewritten several times, one I think as many as six times, to create a coherent narrative. In fact, the book was initially just about Snowden and then it grew to cover my main area of work in the last two years, that is to say drones. As we emphasize in the book, you can't actually separate the two and we eventually embraced writing about the bigger picture.

Pratap, you spoke to multiple sources with differing points of view to research this book. How does that complicate your work?

Chatterjee: I often come out learning that I was wrong to begin with. I remember going to both Afghanistan and Iraq, assuming that the local population would be angry at the invasions and discovering on both occasions that was not true. I spend a lot of time talking to people in the military, as you can see in the book, not just to victims and activists. After you work in the field for a while, you start to build up a network of people to ask questions from. My sources include people who believe in torture and people who work at the highest levels of the corporate and the intelligence world.

How did you figure out how to turn this complex story into a readable narrative?

Chatterjee: That was a lot of hard work! Every time I wrote a new chapter, I spent a day going back and forth over old material to see what fit next and perhaps more importantly what to take out. There was a lot we had to discard, such as a chapter in Hawaii about Snowden's early days, a chapter about Trump's national security plans etc. etc. I have to say because the book focused on my own life, the task was a little easier because I had to stick to my own work mostly.

We chose to depict Snowden's escape to Moscow because it really gave a glimpse into the life of a whistleblower. And sometimes we could not use actual events to depict complex ideas, so we chose instead to use actual conversations between Khalil and me to fill in the gaps. That also involved a lot of creative thinking, as you can see from the drawings, to create big spreads that depict how surveillance works. I think Chapter Ten [which depicts how technology captures data around the world] took us three months at least. Not least, a lot of credit should go to Riva for asking us difficult questions and making us throw out extraneous information.

Bendib: We're both news wonks, reading several newspapers every day, and Pratap is a journalist who actually covers and reports on these matters, so this was no different than what he usually does, except in graphic form.

Riva, you have edited several graphic novels set in the Middle East, including Joe Sacco's Footnotes in Gaza and Riad Sattouf's Arab of the Future. What insights do these books offer?

Hocherman: What all of them do is give the stage to people who are rarely visible in mainstream media coverage. Theyre often ordinary people, whose lives are affected by the events we read about in ways that we never usually see. The focus in Verax is largely domestic, on the U.S. War on Terror and on mass surveillance, but we do see the effects of that war abroadparticularly of drone strikes. Take the noise of drones, for example, which is all-pervasive and penetrates peoples homes night and day. Or the crippling PTSD that affects former drone operators. These are details most of us never encounter.

What do you think the impact of Verax will be?

Hocherman: Verax tells a story of nationaleven internationalsignificance in a way thats lively, engrossing, and accessible. Apart from the issues surrounding mass surveillance and its use in war, the book touches on many other terribly important subjects: the vital role of a critical media, for example, or the need to act according to ones conscience, even at great personal cost, or the question of what information the government owes to the public.

The hope is to engage the broadest possible range of readers in this story and in the issues it raises. I believe that in its ambitious treatment of this complex history, Verax has expanded the boundaries for what graphic non-fiction can do and the kinds of topics it can tackle.
Simon & Schuster followed a familiar pattern in posting sales and earnings gains in the third quarter ended September 30, 2017, over the comparable period in 2016sales of print books posted gains while, according to S&S CEO Carolyn Reidy, sales of downloadable audio rose about 37%. E-book sales fell again.

Overall, S&S reported that sales rose 1%, to $228 million, in the quarter, and operating income increased 4.5%, to $46 million.

Also contributing to the improved results was a good performance by the publisher's international group, where Hillary Clinton's What Happened posted solid sales in the U.K., Canada, and Ireland, Reidy said. The international division also benefited from sales of Rupi Kaur's new book, The Sun and Her Flowers, which S&S is now publishing internationally. Despite the success abroad, Reidy said she has no plans to expand the company's overseas operations beyond its English-language program. "We are going to focus on our English-language companies and see if we can get them to work even better together," she said.

Back in the U.S., Reidy said movie tie-in books sold well in the quarter, and she pointed to the success of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, which had strong sale despite a mediocre reception for the film. The purchase of Adams Media last November contributed to the gains, and Adams continues to perform along expectations, Reidy said.

Reidy said that after a rather lackluster beginning to 2017, she believes consumers are responding favorably to a "robust" lineup of new books. In addition to What Happened and The Glass Castle, S&S has seen solid sales for Sleeping Beauties, Enemy of the State, The Cuban Affair, and Dork Diaries 12, among other books.

Through the first nine months of the year, sales at S&S were up 6.6%, to $595 million, over the comparable period a year ago, and operating income increased 6.0%, to $88 million. Reidy is optimistic S&S will finish 2017 on a strong note and predicted that sales for the publisher, even excluding Adams, will be up over 2016.
I had the pleasure of joining about 150 librarians in Baltimore this week for OCLCs inaugural Americas Regional Council meeting. Over two days, October 30-31, librarians heard an array of speakers and panels address the theme of Smarter Libraries, certainly a timely agenda in our increasingly data and tech-driven age. Among the highlights: keynotes by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden; OCLC CEO Skip Prichard, and an address by Wikimedia executive director Katherine Maher.

The Americas Regional Council meeting is not new, of course, but this was the first time librarians involved with the council have gathered for a separate two-day meetingusually the event is held as a forum at the ALA Annual Conference. Attendees I spoke to were delighted with the event, both the program, and being able to spend more time with their fellow librarians without having to squeeze it into a jammed ALA schedule.

Well have more from the meeting in the coming weeks, but Ill just offer a couple of quick, personal takeaways.

First, its still early in her tenure, but Carla Hayden has already made a significant difference as Librarian of Congress. Hayden has made it a point to engage the library community, and that has energized the library community, and has local librarians feeling like they once again have an engaged partner at the national level.

Our commitment to the library community is that the Library of Congress is going to share our experiences, Hayden told attendees in Baltimore. And that means the failures, false starts, and all of that, because as you innovate you can learn from what worked, and what didnt work. And we want to be partners with everyone and make sure that we are part of [the library] ecosystem.

In his keynote, Skip Prichard ran down the ways technology is rapidly changing the world, from the powerful computers we now carry in our pockets to smart homes, and self-driving cars. And he laid down a marker for librarians, via a 1990 quote from businessman Jack Welch.

When the rate of change inside an organization becomes slower than the rate of change outside the organization, the end is near, Prichard said. For all types of libraries, this is really very important.

Stephen Hawking Shares His Dissertation and His Thoughts on Open Access, Breaks the Internet

In conjunction with Open Access Week, Cambridge University made Stephen Hawking's 1966 doctoral thesis, Properties of Expanding Universes, freely available online on October 23and demand was so intense last week it crashed the universitys open-access repository, known as Apollo. As the Scientific American put it, a lot of people want to read something they'll barely understand.

But notably for librarians, Hawkings views on open access are more easily understood. Anyone, anywhere in the world should have free, unhindered access to not just my research, but to the research of every great and enquiring mind across the spectrum of human understanding," Hawking said in a statement announcing the public release of his thesis. Each generation, he added, stands on the shoulders of those who have gone before them.

Is Consuming Fake News a Disorder?

Commissioned by the Council of Europe, this report is fascinating reading, especially for librarians on the front lines of information literacy efforts. The debate about mis- and dis-information has intensified, write the authors, but, as our report argues, were still failing to appreciate the complexity of the phenomenon at handin terms of its global scale, the nuances between behavior on different communication platforms (both closed and open) and the fact that information consumption is not rational, but driven by powerful emotional forces.

Notably, the report doesnt use the term fake news and the authors urge journalists, academics and policy-makers to also retire the term, noting that it is woefully inadequate to describe the complexities of information disorder, and that the term has been appropriated by politicians worldwide to describe news organizations whose coverage they find disagreeable.

The New York Times Explores the World of Fake Academic Journals

Academic librarians know all too well how hard it is to navigate the legitimate world of scholarly publishing. But this week New York Times reporter Gina Kolata explored another underreported, complicating factorthe rise of fake, predatory journals. How bad is the problem? Check out this example, noted in the article:

Recently a group of researchers invented a fake academic: Anna O. Szust. The name in Polish means fraudster. Dr. Szust applied to legitimate and predatory journals asking to be an editor. She supplied a resume in which her publications and degrees were total fabrications, as were the names of the publishers of the books she said she had contributed toThe legitimate journals rejected her application immediately. But 48 out of 360 questionable journals made her an editor. Four made her editor in chief.

What may be most disturbing, however, is that many academics trying to navigate the publish-or-perish world of academia know exactly what theyre getting into, Kolata concludes. The relationship is less predator and prey, she writes, than a new and ugly symbiosis.

28 Libraries Receive ALA, Google Libraries Ready to Code Grants

The American Library Association (ALA) has announced more than $500,000 in grants for 28 libraries in 21 states plus the District of Columbia to design and implement coding programs for young people. The grants are part of ALAs ongoing Libraries Ready to Code initiative sponsored by Google to promote computer science (CS) and computational thinking among youth. The winners were selected from a pool of more than 400 public and school libraries.

Among the grant winners: The White Plains (NY) Public Library, where PW contributing editor Brian Kenney serves as director. How will White Plains use their grant? Next summer, we will hold an iOS App Development Camp, something I havent seen any other public library offer, explained the librarys Manager of Youth Services, Joshua Carlson. Teens will learn coding, and create apps to be submitted to the Apple App Store where they will then be available for download. In addition, Carlson adds, the library will bring in people who use coding skills in their professional lives so teens can meet them and learn about career possibilities and real-world applications.

Deadline for ReadersFirst E-Book Survey Extended

How would you like to see e-book lending in libraries improve? Answer the brief ReadersFirst survey and have your voice heard. Although response to the survey has been good, the more information the betterand you still have time to participate in the survey. ReadersFirst officials told PW this week that the deadline for replies has been extended to November 13. Take the survey.

Trump Tax Proposal Could Threaten Libraries

For library advocates, the everlasting battle for support on Capitol Hill has entered a new and dangerous phase with introduction of President Trumps tax cut proposal this week. After staving off Trumps budget proposal to eliminate all federal library funding, the GOP's bid to simplify the tax code could have a more serious, and systemic effect on libraries. In a release this week, the National Council of Nonprofits warned that charitable deductionswhich libraries benefit fromare likely to go down dramatically under this bill, as many middle and upper-middle-class families would no longer itemize their deductions, and thus would lose their tax deduction.

At the ALAs National Legislative Day in May, outgoing executive director Emily Sheketoff warned librarians to stay engaged with their local legislators. If a tax bill goes through, she said, that means less money [for libraries].

So Angryand so Hopeful

Library advocacy takes many formsincluding a good, profane Twitter rant. By now, youve probably heard about how a Portland (Oreg.) librarian named Alex Halpern, now Internet-famous as TheAngriestLibrarian, helped mobilize a chorus of library supporters on Twitter to shut down a columnist named Andre Walker who dared suggest libraries be abandoned. Fair warning: yeah, there's some profanity.

But if you havent read Halpern outside of his Twitter feed, you should. He recently posted an op-ed that shows his thoughtfulness and wit extends beyond 140-character bites.

The rant that led me to my brief bout of Twitter fame was likely popular because of my stereotype-defying profanity and insults, but the fact that it resonated so strongly with librarians was what convinced me that we are on the right track as a profession, Halpern writes. "Those mousy, quiet librarians are a thing of the past, if in fact they ever existed at all outside of HollywoodWe are a profession in dire need of a makeover, and a new generation of librarians is absolutely killing it in the effort to make that happen."

Resistance at the Reference Desk

Reference has evolved in many ways in recent years, but I'm not sure anyone saw reference librarians in 2017 as, well, freedom fighters. But as Etta Verma writes in Library Journal's annual reference feature, that's how things are playing out. "Politics has always been part of library work," Verma writes. "But librarians are also going the extra mile in their local systems and branches, aiding and becoming activists and combating the problem of fake news by creating and curating reference materials and programs. Publishers and vendors, too, are stepping up with works that help patrons oppose the forces that keep them misinformed and economically disadvantaged."
John Banville. Knopf, $27.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-451-49342-2

Banvilles sequel to Henry Jamess The Portrait of a Lady is a delightful tour de force that channels James with ease. The rich and measured prose style is quintessentially Jamesian: the long interior monologues perfectly capture the hum of human consciousness, and the characters are alive with psychological nuance. Readers join Jamess heroine where his classic left her; Banvilles Isabel Archer Osmond is now a sedate, proper matron, who bitterly rues her marriage to deceitful Gilbert Osmond. She retains her high-minded principles, however, and has determined to live with her guilt at having ignored the advice she had received against marrying him. Gilbert is a cruel, arrogant man who condescends to Isabel in cutting language, lives off her fortune, and demands her complete loyalty. Having defied Gilbert when he forbade her to leave their home in Rome to hurry to her dying cousins bedside in England, Isabel feels the first stirrings of freedom. Almost capriciously, she withdraws a large amount of money from the bank in the hopes of having it free to spend as she sees fit without the interference of her husband and his malign mistress, Madame Merle. After Isabels redoubtable ladys maid, Staines, discloses some astonishing news, the narrative takes a suspenseful turn. Some of the other characters from The Portrait of a Ladyincluding Isabels aunt, Mrs. Touchett; Pansy Osmond, Gilberts daughter; and American journalist Henrietta Stackpoleappear again. It is clear the freedom and social clout that money bestows in the 19th-century settings of London, Paris, Florence, and Rome, all described in lush detail. As in Jamess novel, Banville incorporates a wonderful sense of irony; the result is a novel that succeeds both as an unofficial sequel and as a bold, thoroughly satisfying standalone.
Hanif Abdurraqibs They Cant Kill Us Until They Kill Us is a mesmerizing and deeply perceptive essay collection. Most of the essays are about music--covering Johnny Cash, Migos, Carly Rae Jepsen, Chance the Rapper, and many more--particularly live music, touching on how it acts as a balm in a time of fear and pain. Abdurraqib picks 10 essential music books.

The music book can take many forms: biography, collection of musings, oral history, or even the often ill-fated autobiography, where a musician attempts to set ego aside and tell the facts as they were. What I find myself most looking for in a music book is not that which I wish I could have written, but that which makes me wish I was alive at the heart of the moment being archived. When I was younger, I got most of my in-depth music knowledge from books. Biographies, mostly, but also essays. I would scour the internet for old articles about bands that I couldnt find anywhere else. It was the way I found out secrets, facts, and histories of bands I loved, but didnt know the real stories of. Here are ten music books that shaped my knowledge of the songs I love, and I hope you enjoy them.

10. Gunshots in My Cook-Up: Bits and Bites from a Hip-Hop Caribbean Life by Selwyn Seyfu Hinds Growing up, the Source magazine was pretty much the only magazine that came to my home, courtesy of my older brothers subscription. The Source was an effective way for me to keep up on hip-hops ever-changing world from the comfort of the Midwest, where I lived. In this book, Hindswho served as editor-in-chief of the magazine during its '90s heydaywrites about how he fell in love with hip-hop and the places it took him. It is deeply candid and sometimes sharp and bitter in its honesty, not sparing the magazine or the genre itself. But underneath its thorough critical lens is a simple love story: a person falling in love with music over a lifetime, and learning to not let it go.

9. Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements by Bob Mehr There is a lot to get wrong when tackling the massiveness of a large biographical project. Though Im not opposed to it, the writer who allows themselves to be the center of the biography has to do it with a smart touch, and that sometimes goes awry. Here, Mehr lets the massive amount of research and all-new interviews (and brilliant new photos) do the work. The Replacements were an enigma, and this book doesnt crack their code. But it isnt meant to. If anything, Mehr does the work of making them both more puzzling and more enticing.

7. Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011 by Lizzy Goodman Im partial to this book, not only because Goodman charts a brilliant map through indie rock in New York City after the post-9/11 music scene shifted, but also because of the recent timing of it. A book that I can remember living through, and dont feel like Im reaching back towards. I lived this era from afar, and through her outstanding crafting of this book, Goodman makes me feel like I was there the whole time.

6. Cant Stop Wont Stop by Jeff Chang This portrait of early-era hip-hop does well to consider all angles. Beyond the musicians, the book is populated with graffiti artists, and dancers, and activists, and even gang members. Chang not only deeply researched this project but was unafraid to task hip-hop with what it is: a political forcean object in the musical universe wielding a lot of power. Its a thorough book and a long read, but one that is worthwhile as both an entry point to the genre and also a constant refresher.

5. Never Mind the Bollocks: Women Rewrite Rock by Amy Raphael I found this book in a bargain bin at a bookstore in maybe 2002, and I needed it then, when rock in my particular corner of the world felt like something that was only a boys' club. The book is a series of interviews and oral histories that read more as monologues with '90s icons like Courtney Love, Kim Gordon, Liz Phair, and The Raincoats. Because Raphael is so scarcely present in the interviews, the book reads as if all of the brilliance is in the room together at once, having some kind of rock and roll reunion.

4. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain This is here largely for the ride it takes you on. The great thing about Oral Histories is that you only have the words of the players, and nothing else. No author coloring the narrative. Please Kill Me is kind of a whirlwind of stories from Punks history from about 1975 until the early '90s, charting a path from London to the New York scene. It is at times comical, but largely heartbreakingparticularly in the moments (and there are a few) when it details the mourning of someone like Johnny Thunders, a brilliant light put out too soon.

4. Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'N' Roll Music by Greil Marcus I think any book by Greil Marcus could have been here, but I like Mystery Train for how wide it stretches, and how easy Marcus makes his connections between music and culture look. There are songs, and then theres Greil Marcuss America, and he never fails to pull the two together with his bare hands.

3. The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic by Jessica Hopper These are essays, interviews, and reviewscriticism spanning nearly 20 years of Hoppers brilliant career as a critic. But theres also prose and edges of poetry here, like in an open letter to Sufjan Stevens, which has my favorite opening of all time: Dear Sufjan, I enjoy your new album about my city and state, and I enjoy your marriage of the ecclesiastic and the vaguely erotic. I am wondering if you are available, one day in the future when you are less busy being a newly famous Christian troubadour, to drive around Chicago and listen to Sweet Thing by Van Morrison over and over, and see who cries first, you or me.

2. Rip It Up: The Black Experience in Rock N Roll by Kandia Crazy Horse I admired this book for years when looking for a language with which to explain the roots of black music. Kandia Crazy Horse traces rock and roll to black music, of course. But then takes a step further into blues, into soul, into gospel. The book leans on black rock musicians like Lenny Kravitz, Venetta Fields, and Slash, and it presents them matter-of-factly. Black people playing the music they were born into.
HITN, the largest non-commercial Hispanic network in the United States, has added Doctor Nandi to its Vida y Salud Television programme block, which is devoted to improving the health of the US Hispanic community.





Doctor Nandi will broadcast with Spanish subtitles. The hour-long talk show created and hosted by the eponymous charismatic physician with a mission to improve the health of America and the world with compassion, empathy and integrity. During the show, the physician will interview special guests, asking them insightful questions that promote a discussion about health topics as varied as prostate cancer, breast cancer treatment and senior care.Doctor Nandi is an International Emmy Award-winning program that helps audiences identify health problems, offering viewers and their families practical and realistic solutions to conditions common among the US Hispanic community, said Erika Vogt-Lowell, director of programming and acquisitions at HITN . Doctor Nandis approach to discussing wellness, fitness and nutrition by incorporating compassion with a sense of community makes his show a perfect fit for the Vida y Salud Television programme block.Having access to the right information at the right time is very important, and we at HITN are certain the addition of Doctor Nandi to our Vida y Salud programme block will continue to inspire our viewers to adopt healthy habits that improve their health and general wellbeing, added Michael D Nieves, president and CEO of HITN.A contributor to top medical publications, Doctor Nandi has been an invited speaker for the World Health Organisation and worked with the Ministries of Health of India and Jamaica. He graduated with honors in medicine from Wayne State University and has worked as a gastroenterologist for more than 20 years in Detroit, where he lives with his family.I am excited to collaborate on this project with HITN and to reach millions of Spanish-speakers in the United States, inspiring them to become their own #HealthHeroes, Nandi said. Prevention is the most effective way to combat many of the health problems common among Hispanics, including obesity and diabetes, and it starts with modifying nutrition and lifestyle habits.
This November, registered voters in Athens-Clarke County will return to the polls to vote in the special elections to fill House District 117 and 119 seats, the city of Winterville council seats and decide on a proposed transportation sales tax.
Full coverage of the Delphi murders: Look back at 5 years of stories
A hunger strike by nine people from Russia's southern Republic of Bashkortostan who paid for new apartments that were never delivered has entered its 12th day.

The protesters in the city of Sterlitamak are part of a larger group of 150 would-be homeowners who made full or partial payments to private builder Bashstroi for new homes between 2010 and 2013.

Some apartments were never finished; others were completed but were resold by Bashstroi to other clients.



They nine hunger strikers, who started their protest on October 23, vowed to continue until local authorities met their demands to provide them with homes and approve legislation to protect the rights of prospective homeowners.

On November 2, an ambulance was called for two of the hunger strikers, who continued the hunger strike after medical assistance.

In July, hundreds of people who went through similar predicaments rallied in cities across Russia.

Russian officials earlier this year acknowledged that some 40,000 families across 67 regions of Russia were still waiting to move into apartments they had paid for.

Based on reporting by Sterlitamakcity.ru and Proufu.ru
MINSK -- Incarcerated Belarusian opposition leader and former presidential candidate Mikalay Statkevich had his arrest prolonged to 10 more days, his wife says.

Maryna Adamovich told RFE/RL on November 3 that she received a court ruling, according to which her husband was found guilty of holding an unsanctioned public gathering last month when dozens of journalists and supporters met him at the prison gates on his release from custody.

Statkevich is currently serving his five-day arrest stemming from a ruling that he took part in an unsanctioned rally weeks ago. He was expected to be released on November 5, but his spouse says he will now most likely be sent back to detention to serve the additional 10 days.

Statkevich has been detained several times since January, and has spent 34 days in jail in the last 10 months.

Statkevich ran against authoritarian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka in the 2010 presidential election.

Lukashenka, in office since 1994, was reelected in the vote that his critics say was rigged.

Statkevich was arrested after attending a large demonstration protesting the election results, and spent five years in prison after being convicted of organizing riots at a trial criticized by human rights groups and Western governments.
British authorities have begun investigating whether Russia attempted to influence the British vote last year on leaving the European Union, media reported on November 2.

The British Electoral Commission in comments to The Times referred to emerging evidence in the United States that Russia may have used Facebook and other social media to sow division and influence the 2016 presidential election, allegedly buying advertisements and using troll farms to reach as many as 126 million Americans -- nearly half of U.S. voters.

Speculation has been mounting in Britain that Russia may have similarly sought to influence the Brexit vote. Both the British and U.S. votes were very close and featured divisive campaign rhetoric and intensive use of social media to raise public fears on such divisive issues as immigration and foreign labor.

Clearly, we have seen the allegations about interference in the American election and it is right that we are in a dialogue with companies like Facebook to ensure that nothing like that happened here," Bob Posner, the British commissions director of political finance and regulation, told the Times.

Should our inquiries provide us with evidence that the existing campaigning rules about political finance may have been broken then we will undertake our own investigations as set out in our enforcement policy. If we believe other, criminal, offenses may have been committed, then these will be referred to the police for investigation, he said.

British Prime Minister Theresa May recently told parliament: "We take very seriously issues of Russian intervention, or Russian attempts to intervene, in electoral processes or in the democratic processes of any country."

Reuters and the Times reported that the British Election Commission is investigating whether a leading anti-EU campaign financier, Arron Banks, breached referendum finance rules which required donors to be based in the United Kingdom.

The commission has not mentioned Russia in connection with its investigation, but Banks told the Times that the agency believes the money came from Russia -- a charge he strongly denied.

Theyre in a tizzy. They think it was funded by Russia, Banks told the Times. Of course it didnt. It came from my bank account.

Banks told Reuters the allegations are part of an attempt by the "Remain establishment" to discredit the Brexit result.

"Allegations of Brexit being funded by the Russians...are complete bollocks from beginning to end," Banks told Reuters in an e-mailed statement, signing off "nostrovia," a version of "na zdorovye," Russian for "cheers!"

With reporting by Reuters and The Times


An Iranian judiciary official said on November 12 that 11 people, including a woman, have been charged over the death of a member of the Basij paramilitary force during a ceremony last week in honor of a slain protester.

The incident happened on November 3 in Karaj, the capital of Alborz Province, when mourners were paying tribute to Hadis Najafi at a cemetery to mark 40 days after she was killed in the city amid nationwide protests triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.

The judiciary chief of Alborz Province, Hossein Fazeli Harikandi, identified the Basij member as Ruhollah Ajamian and said that he was killed by rioters.

"Rioters attacked this security officer, who was unarmed, stripped him naked, stabbed him with knives, beat him with brass knuckles, stones, and kicks, and then dragged his naked and half-dead body on the asphalt street and between cars in a horrific manner," Harikandi said.

The indictments followed an investigation launched after images posted on social media showed "a group of rioters assaulting and killing" Ajamian, the judiciary's Mizan news site quoted him as saying.

He said some face charges of "corruption on Earth," which is punishable by death.

They are also accused of serious disturbance of public order leading to murder, gathering with the intention to commit crimes against the country's security, and propaganda against the state, he said.

Amini died on September 16 following her arrest by Tehrans morality police for allegedly not complying with hijab regulations.

Since her death, Iranians have flooded streets across the country in protest, with women and even schoolgirls making unprecedented shows of support in the biggest threat to the Islamic government since the 1979 revolution.

The government has blamed Western governments for the unrest and has responded to the protests with a bloody crackdown that human rights groups say has left more than 300 dead and hundreds more injured. Several member of the security forces have been reportedly also killed. Thousands more have been arrested, including many protesters, as well as journalists, lawyers, activists, and others, amid concerns about the charges against them.

On November 12, UN rights experts urged Iranian authorities to stop indicting people with charges punishable by death for participation, or alleged participation, in peaceful demonstrations.

With the continuous repression of protests, many more indictments on charges carrying the death penalty and death sentences might soon be issued, and we fear that women and girls, who have been at the forefront of protests, and especially women human rights defenders, who have been arrested and jailed for demanding the end of systemic and systematic discriminatory laws, policies and practices might be particularly targeted, the experts said in a statement.

We urge Iranian authorities to stop using the death penalty as a tool to squash protests and reiterate our call to immediately release all protesters who have been arbitrarily deprived of their liberty for the sole reason of exercising their legitimate rights to freedom of opinion and expression, association and peaceful assembly and for their actions to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms through peaceful means.

With reporting by AFP
The Islamic State extremist group on November 3 called the attacker accused of killing eight people in a truck rampage in New Yorka "soldier of the caliphate," according to a U.S.-based extremist monitoring group.

"One of the soldiers of the Islamic State attacked a number of crusaders on a street in New York City," said an article in the group's al-Naba weekly newspaper, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.

Sayfullo Saipov, 29, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, has been charged with terrorism in connection with the October 31 attack in which he allegedly used a rented pickup truck to mow down bicyclists and pedestrians on a mile-long stretch of bike path near where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center once stood.

Prosecutors say Saipov confessed to being inspired by IS and "felt good about what he had done," even demanding to hang an IS black flag in his hospital room as he was recuperating from being shot by police in the abdomen.

Police said Saipov appeared to have followed very closely instructions IS has disseminated online on how to stage such truck attacks.

IS's embrace of Saipov came after U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly called for a death sentence for Saipov on November 2, At the same time, Trump appeared to rule out a sending him to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a series of tweets on Twitter.

Prosecutors in presenting their case against Saipov highlighted evidence that he sympathized with IS. Prosecutors have not said he acted alone, but New York's governor and other authorities have said they believe it was a "lone wolf" attack inspired by IS.

Court documents said the Uzbek immigrant had kept thousands of IS propaganda photos and videos on his cell phone, some showing gruesome executions of IS prisoners.

Questioned in his hospital bed, Saipov said he had been inspired by IS videos that he watched on his cellphone, and began plotting an attack about a year ago, FBI agent Amber Tyree said in court papers.

In the past few years, IS online posts have exhorted followers to use vehicles, knives, or other readily available means of killing people in their home countries.

England, France, Sweden, Spain, and Germany are among the countries which have all seen similar deadly vehicle attacks since mid-2016, often by suspects that police said were followers of IS.

Acquaintances of Saipov have told RFE/RL that he appeared to be radicalized only after leaving Uzbekistan and moving to the United States in 2010.

While embracing Saipov as an adherent of its extreme brand of Islam, IS provided no evidence that the group was directly responsible for the New York attack. Its claims of responsibility for previous mass killings have not always been borne out by evidence.

Intelligence officials have said that as IS has rapidly lost territory it once controlled in Iraq and Syria this year, it has put more effort into trying to inspire and sponsor attacks overseas.

"The grace of Allah, the operation instilled fear in crusader America, prompting them to increase security measures and intensify actions against immigrants to America," IS said in the al-Naba article, according to SITE.

With reporting by AFP, dpa, and Reuters


Russian media reports say that security forces stormed the office of a newspaper in the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad and detained the editor in chief, who colleagues said was severely beaten.

Authorities said the editor was detained in connection with suspicions of extortion, which his colleagues dismissed as baseless.

Reports in the independent Moscow-based newspaper Novaya Gazeta and local media said that journalists at Novyye Kolyosa (New Wheels) believe the special-police raid and alleged beating were motivated by the newspaper's investigations into possible corruption among officials and law enforcement officers in Kaliningrad.

According to Novaya Gazeta, officers stormed the building on November 2 and spent five hours searching the office and questioning employees. It said the editor, Igor Rudnikov, was brought to the building in handcuffs and later taken out on a stretcher and put in an ambulance.

Local news site Novy Kaliningrad reported that Federal Security Service (FSB) officers barged into the hospital, where he had been taken, at night and took Rudnikov away.

There was no immediate comment from police or the FSB on the allegations that Rudnikov was beaten.

Regional Governor Anton Alikhanov told journalists late on November 2 that Rudnikov's detainment was connected to an ongoing Investigative Committee probe based on suspicions of extortion.

A local state-run TV channel Vesti-Kaliningrad reported that Rudnikov is suspected of extorting money from people it did not identify "in exchange for not publishing false and compromising materials about them."

Colleagues at Novyye Kolyosa called that report a provocation. Some contended that the raid and the detainment of Rudnikov were retaliation for material published by the newspaper, including reports suggesting that a senior Kaliningrad investigative official, Viktor Lednyov, owns luxury real estate.

Rudnikov has received numerous threats over his newspaper's investigative reports targeting corruption, his colleagues say.

With reporting by Novaya Gazeta, Vesti-Kaliningrad, and Novy Kaliningrad
A Kyiv court has ordered a Kazakh blogger who fled to Ukraine after criticizing President Nursultan Nazarbaev's government held under arrest for two months as authorities consider handing her over to Kazakhstan.

The Shevchenko District Court ruled late on November 2 that Zhanar Akhmet must remain in detention for 60 days while a decision on her extradition is made.

Akhmet was detained in Kyiv on October 21, based on a Kazakh arrest warrant that accuses her of fraud, and was initially ordered held for 18 days.

Akhmet fled Kazakhstan in March with her 9-year-old son, saying she feared for her safety if she remained in the Central Asian country.

Akhmet told RFE/RL that she decided to flee when she learned from sources that she could face charges of "organizing an illegal group" that uses the Internet to advocate self-immolation.

Akhmet previously faced a series of court hearings in Almaty for alleged legal violations, including jaywalking, that she considered to be harassment by Kazakh authorities.

She says all of the accusations against her have been politically motivated retaliation for her writing.

At least four other Kazakh opposition and rights activists -- Ermek Narymbaev, Moldir Adilova, Aidos Sadyqov, and Natalya Sadyqova -- also have fled to Ukraine in recent years.

Nazarbaev, 77, has held power in Kazakhstan since before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

He has established tight control over politics and the media and tolerates little dissent in the oil-producing country of 18 million.

Based on reporting by gordonua.com and zn.ua
NATO envoys will hold an emergency meeting on November 16 at the request of Poland to discuss reports that two stray Russian missiles aimed at Ukraine landed in the NATO member, killing two people.

The meeting is to be held on the basis of the alliance's Article 4, Reuters reported, citing two unidentified European diplomats. According to Article 4 of the alliance's founding treaty, members can raise any issue of concern when any NATO member feels its "territorial integrity, political independence, or security" are at risk.



"We are verifying the rationale for the use of Article 4," said Jacek Siewiera, head of Poland's National Security Council. "We are in very intensive contacts with key allies."

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.

Reports on November 15 that two blasts in a village in eastern Poland near the border were caused by Russian missiles that crossed into Poland set off a flurry of calls between the leaders of countries in the alliance.



U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke with Siewiera, White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement.



Siewiera later tweeted that Polish President Andrzej Duda spoke by phone to U.S. President Joe Biden, who reaffirmed the "ironclad" U.S. commitment to NATO after the call, the White House said. Biden also offered full U.S. support for assistance with Poland's investigation into the explosions.



The United States and Western allies said earlier they were investigating reports of the explosions but could not confirm them or any details. "We will determine what happened and what the appropriate next steps would be," Watson said in the National Security Council statement.



Poland put its military on heightened alert after an emergency meeting of the country's National Security Council. "There has been a decision to raise the state of readiness of some combat units and other uniformed services," Polish government spokesman Piotr Muller told reporters after the meeting in Warsaw.



Hungary, also a NATO member bordering Ukraine, convened its National Defense Council in response to the reports, a spokesman for Prime Minister Viktor Orban said.



Members of NATO are committed to collective defense enshrined in Article 5 of the alliance's founding treaty, but even if a cross-border strike is confirmed, the response would likely be influenced by whether it was accidental or intentional.



Russia denied its missiles hit Polish territory, saying the reports were "a deliberate provocation" to escalate the situation.



"There were no strikes on targets near the Ukrainian-Polish state border by Russian weapons. The wreckage published by the Polish mass media from the scene of the incident in the settlement of Przewodow has nothing to do with Russian weapons," the Russian Defense Ministry said.



Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said later he had no information on the explosion in Poland, according to Reuters.

WATCH: Russia launched a barrage of missiles at Ukraine on November 15, hitting energy infrastructure facilities in regions across the country and plunging Kyiv and other cities into darkness.

The missile strikes on NATO territory represented a significant escalation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.



"Today Russian missiles hit Poland, the territory of an allied country. People died," Zelenskiy said in his nightly address to the nation, calling for unspecified action in response.

U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel said the reports coming out of Poland were "incredibly concerning," adding that Washington was working to determine what happened and appropriate next steps.

The State Department is talking to a range of partners about the reports and is working with the Polish government, Patel told reporters at a regular news briefing.

Firefighters quoted by Polish media said two people were killed in an explosion in Przewodow, a village in eastern Poland about 12 kilometers from the border with Ukraine.



Polish Radio ZET attributed the explosion to two stray missiles, without giving more details.

The situation arose as Russia launched a barrage of missiles at sites across Ukraine aimed at crippling the country's energy infrastructure.

Ukrainian officials said more than 90 missiles were fired in the attacks, some of the heaviest attacks since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in late February, hitting cities such as Kyiv and Lviv.

With the attacks hitting a NATO member, many countries in the region reacted swiftly, warning the incident could further raise already-high tensions between the West and Moscow.

Estonia's Foreign Ministry called the news from Poland "most concerning" and said that Tallinn would consult with Warsaw and other NATO allies.

Poland's neighbor Lithuania voiced similar sentiments, adding that "every inch of NATO territory must be defended."

"Today's massive missile attacks by the Russian Army on Ukraine clearly show that Russia wants to further terrorize its people and destroy the country," added Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala on Twitter.

"If Poland confirms that the missiles also hit its territory, this will be a further escalation by Russia," he added.

With reporting by AP and Reuters
Kosovo has called for an international investigation over the conviction of several of its citizens by a Macedonian court for taking part in a gunbattle with police.

"Justice must be done," Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj said in a statement on November 3. "An international investigation would help find the truth, which we are all demanding."

The call came a day after a criminal court in Skopje convicted 33 men of terror charges over a two-day shoot-out with police in 2015 that left 22 people dead, including eight security officers.

Seven of the men, ethnic Albanians mostly from Kosovo and Macedonia, were handed life sentences, while four defendants in the case were acquitted and the remaining given prison terms ranging from 12 to 40 years.

The defendants have denied the charges, saying they acted in self-defense.

Crowds flooded the streets of Kosovo's capital, Pristina, after the sentences were handed down, accusing the Macedonian authorities of staging the attack.

Kosovo's media and officials have said several times that the accused Albanians were innocent and the victims of a plot by Macedonia's former nationalist government. Skopje has vehemently denied the accusations.

Haradinaj did not say who should carry out the investigation or how it should be conducted.

Behgjet Pacolli, Kosovo's foreign minister, said he had called his ambassador in Skopje for consultations and asked for a "clarification" from the Macedonian ambassador in Pristina. He did not give further details.

The 2015 shoot-out occurred during a police raid that followed an attack by armed men on a border post. Some of them were former guerrillas from the National Liberation Army, an ethnic Albanian militia that fought an insurgency in 2001 in which scores of people were killed.

Macedonia, a small ex-Yugoslav republic of 2.1 million people, declared independence in 1991 and mostly avoided the violence that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, until the clashes with ethnic Albanian fighters in 2001.

Albanians are believed to make up around one-quarter of Macedonia's population, living mostly in the northwest near the borders with Kosovo and Albania.

With reporting by Reuters, KTV, and KoSSev
2 Laika strapped into the capsule in which she would soon orbit Earth. Due to the cramped conditions, female dogs were chosen over males because they didn't need to lift their legs to pee. Knowing that the dog would not survive her mission into space, one of the scientists took Laika home to play with his children in the days before launch, another recalls crying and asking for forgiveness as she kissed Laika's nose in farewell before the hatches were closed on the rocket.
A sister of New York City terror suspect Sayfullo Saipov has told RFE/RL from their native Uzbekistan that her family believes the 29-year-old was "brainwashed" and has pleaded with U.S. authorities to give him "time" and a "fair trial."

Umida Saipova, 27, offered condolences to the families of the victims of the October 31 rampage in which Saipov is accused of plowing a pickup truck through a bike path in Manhattan, killing eight people and leaving around a dozen others injured.

"My mother says she didn't notice any sign of [radicalization] when she visited him in the U.S. twice," Saipova said of 50-year-old Muqaddas Saipova, who was last in the United States to visit her son earlier this year. "My mother said she would have brought him back to Uzbekistan had she noticed anything."

Saipov was shot in the abdomen and apprehended by police, reportedly after fleeing the rented truck, which authorities say contained messages expressing support for radical Islamist group Islamic State (IS). The perpetrator was said to have shouted, "Allahu akbar," as he left the scene of the attack.

The incident was the deadliest terrorist attack on New York City since Al-Qaeda militants slammed hijacked passenger jets into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 2001, killing more than 2,600 people.

Prosecutors reported that Saipov said he was inspired by IS and "felt good about what he had done," even demanding to hang an IS banner in his hospital room.

'IS Soldier'

IS on November 3 declared in an article in the group's weekly newspaper that "one of the soldiers of the Islamic State attacked a number of crusaders on a street in New York City," according to the SITE Intelligence Group. The group called the attacker a "soldier of the caliphate."

Informed in Tashkent of her brother's reported request to hang the IS flag in the hospital, Saipova said "there was no sign" of a problem.

"We don't know who has brainwashed him," Saipova said, speaking in Uzbek by telephone. "We don't know his circumstances. We don't know. Perhaps he's become part of some organized group."

She added: "I don't know, honestly, how long it will take for his head to get rid of that poison, but I'm sure he will come to his senses, God willing.

But she acknowledged that the family had been alarmed at one point after Saipov's 2013 marriage to see an image of him with a full beard in the style of some extreme religious elements.

"When we first time saw him on Skype with a beard, we got scared, honestly. We were terrified," she said. "I cried and called him and asked him why."

Saipova said her brother told her about having been stopped in his car and mugged, and said he grew a beard to appear older and "to scare them."

'Normal' Conversation

The family had a "normal" conversation with her brother, a permanent legal U.S. resident since 2010, one day before the attack in New York, she said.

"I spoke with him by the phone a day before," Saipova told RFE/RL. "He was in a good mood. It was a usual, good conversation."

He had told them he was eating his mother's "favorite pastry" on his way to pick up a client at the airport, she said.

Saipov worked as an Uber driver in the New Jersey area for about six months before the attack.

Saipova said she was prepared to travel to the United States to speak with her brother in hopes of discovering what might have driven him to violence.

The criminal complaint filed with an injured Saipov present in federal court on November 1 said that the accused had waived his right to remain silent or have an attorney present in speaking to investigators from his Manhattan hospital bed.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo suggested Saipov was radicalized after he arrived in the United States from Uzbekistan in 2010 via the U.S. Diversity Visa Immigrant Program, known as the green-card lottery.

'Message To Trump'

In the hours after the attack, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted out calls for "the NYC terrorist" to be sent to Guantanamo, the military facility in Cuba where U.S. officials have kept designated "enemy combatants" since 9/11.

But Trump later cited "something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed" and suggested the process "should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!"

"We don't think he should be given the death penalty immediately," a crying Saipova told RFE/RL. "We are hoping for a fair trial. We are ready to go there, if it's possible, to talk to him."

She urged U.S. authorities to "give him a bit more time," adding, "Please pass my message to Trump, if possible.

Both of Saipov's parents and an uncle were said be undergoing questioning by authorities in Uzbekistan, and Saipov's sister said on November 3 that the family "still doesn't know where" her father and uncle "are now."

She said her mother had returned to their Tashkent-area home on November 3 from the hospital, where she was taken to be treated for what Saipova described as "shock."

Later efforts on November 3 to contact Umida Saipova by telephone or at the home on the outskirts of Tashkent were unsuccessful.


NOVOSIBIRSK, Russia -- A small group of protesters from Russia's Kemerovo region in Siberia rallied in the capital of the neighboring Novosibirsk region on November 3, demanding the resignation of longtime Kemerovo governor Aman Tuleyev.

Participants told RFE/RL that Kemerovo authorities repeatedly refused to grant them permission to stage the demonstration, prompting them to move the location of their protest to a park in the city of Novosibirsk instead.

The demonstrators say Tuleyev, who has governed Kemerovo since 1997, must step down because he was opening new open-pit mines across the coal-rich Siberian region "with numerous violations of regulations."

Protesters claimed that the new mines were being illegally opened on agricultural land.

The powerful explosives used in the surface-mining process damage nearby buildings, while the coal dust resulting from the blasts affects agricultural land, protesters said.

Protesters also told RFE/RL that their demonstration was filmed by unknown men.

The protesters later marched to the headquarters of the presidential envoy to the Siberian Federal District in Novosibirsk and handed him a petition calling for Tuleyev's resignation.

Earlier in October, The Kemerovo Regional Prosecutors office told RFE/RL that administrative probes were launched into alleged "abuse of authority" by authorities in Kemerovo's Novokuznetsk District who allowed coal companies to start surface mining on agricultural lands.


MOSCOW -- Russia has dismissed an attempt by the Pentagon to clear the air following a bout of speculation from senior Russian lawmakers that the West is harvesting the genes of Russians to develop a biological weapon more deadly than the atom bomb.

The allegations were dismissed by a Russia observer in the West as "propaganda" reminiscent of a "cut-and-paste job from an episode of X-Files." But they have sparked a call for a clampdown on foreign laboratories collecting DNA -- and prompted one such laboratory company to threaten a lawsuit.

The claims came after President Vladimir Putin on October 30 said that Russian citizens' "biomaterial" was being gathered "systematically and professionally" by foreigners. He asked, without offering a theory, "Why are they doing this?"

Since then, Duma lawmaker and former chief sanitary inspector Gennady Onishchenko has called for legislation to tighten control over laboratories with foreign capital that gather biomaterial, calling it a threat to national security. He and other senior lawmakers have raised the specter of biological warfare.

"I'm not asserting that we are talking about specific preparations for a biological war against Russia. But that scenario is undoubtedly being developed," lawmaker and retired Colonel Frants Klintsevich wrote on his Facebook page. "The warning of the Russian president is very timely. The relevant agencies in the West should understand that we know of their interest."

On November 2, Onishchenko was more unequivocal: "This is an aggressive biological program that was banned by the 1972 convention on biological and toxic weapons."

Amid his flurry of statements, Onishchenko named Invitro, a large medical company based in Russia and Eastern Europe, prompting it to issue a denial of nefarious activity and a threat to sue him in comments to the RBC business holding.

The Russian speculation around DNA collection appeared over the summer when Kremlin-financed international TV broadcaster RT, also known as Russia Today, drew attention to a procurement order for Caucasian Russian biomaterial posted by the U.S. Air Force in July.

On November 1, spokespeople for the U.S. Air Force told TASS and the independent Meduza outlet that the biomaterial was required for ongoing research on the human musculoskeletal system and for identifying "various biomarkers associated with injuries."

The following day, Onishchenko and Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov poured scorn on that explanation. Ryabkov called it "contrived" and said Moscow would raise the issue with Washington. He also spoke out about what he called a "chain of laboratories" established with U.S. assistance or partnership in neighboring countries.

"We are going to express our dissatisfaction with the activity of the United States," he was quoted by Interfax as saying, adding that he hoped the DNA collection only "hypothetically" could constitute a threat to national security.

'X_Files Episode'

The idea of looming biological attacks from abroad as well as nefarious Western laboratories on Russia's borders has been a talking point for Onishchenko in the past.

Last year he alleged that the U.S. Army might be infecting mosquitos with the Zika virus in Russia's south using a laboratory in neighboring Georgia. The laboratory in question appeared to be a reference to a biological research facility that was built in Georgia by the U.S. Defense Threat Agency in 2011 and handed over to the Georgian National Center for Disease Control for operation and ownership in 2013.

The allegations of DNA collection got short shrift with London-based Russia experts, who dismissed the idea that the United States would go about a top-secret biological-weapons program in such public fashion, posting procurement orders and using commercial companies.

Mathieu Boulegue, a research fellow at the Russia and Eurasian Program at the London-based Chatham House, cast the claims in Russia as propaganda designed for a domestic audience, adding in a reference to the American sci-fi drama that frequently involves paranormal activities, "It looks like a textbook case of cut and paste from an X-Files episode."

"I honestly don't think this is anything more than purebred propaganda trying to match destabilization for destabilization," Boulegue said. "And it is also a mirror into Russia's thinking of asymmetrical threats, and what they believe would be a response from the West to Russia's asymmetrical destabilization methods."
Canada has announced financial sanctions and other restrictions on 30 Russians, including the country's top investigative officer, in connection with a whistle-blowing Russian lawyer whose 2009 death and the crimes he uncovered have been a persistent thorn in the Kremlin's side.

The list, released on November 3 by Canada's Foreign Ministry, largely mirrors a similar list compiled by the United States after it passed the Magnitsky Act in 2012, which punished individuals alleged to be connected to Sergei Magnitsky's death and a massive tax-fraud scheme he helped uncover.

Canada earlier this year passed its own version of the law, which, as with the U.S. law, prompted vocal criticism from Russia.

Investigative Committee Chairman Aleksandr Bastrykin is one of the most prominent names on the Canadian list, but it also includes several Interior Ministry and tax-agency officials. A group of Venezuelan officials, including President Nicolas Maduro, were also named.

Russian officials have warned repeatedly Moscow would retaliate if Canada went ahead with the sanctions.

In a statement posted on the Foreign Ministry's website after the list was released, spokeswoman Maria Zakharova issued a vague threat to Ottawa.

"This begs the question: what did Ottawa hope to get from this? Did they really think they could 'pressure' Russia? Or were they just indulging their political ambitions?" she said.

"If our Canadian partners like playing sanctions games, then we will be forced to respond. Although we without question prefer the path of constructive cooperation on issues important to the peoples of both our countries," she said.

Magnitsky was employed by British-American financier William Browder when he was arrested and charged with the $230 million tax-fraud scheme that he helped uncover.

He died in Moscow jail in 2009, and the fallout from his death, as well as the original fraud, have rippled through U.S., and now Canadian, foreign policy, helping to send Moscow's relations with Washington plummeting.

In the wake of the 2012 U.S. law, Moscow banned American parents from adopting Russian children. Congress later passed an expanded version of the Magnitsky law, amid a secretive lobbying campaign in Washington aimed at undermining the facts of the Magnitsky case.

Some of the funds from the stolen $230 million were allegedly laundered by a Russian businessman to buy Manhattan real estate. The Russian lawyer who represented him was involved in the lobbying campaign and met with President Donald Trump's son in June 2016.

Russia has also gone after Browder, accusing him of financial crimes and asking the United States for help in prosecuting him, pleas that Washington has ignored.

Like the United States and other Western countries, Canada imposed sanctions on Russia after its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula in 2014.
Russian authorities say they have detained several backers of a self-exiled Kremlin critic in the Moscow area, claiming they were plotting to trigger riots by attacking government buildings and police during a politically charged holiday weekend.

In a November 3 statement, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said the suspects were members of a "conspiratorial cell" of Artpodgotovka (Artillery Bombardment), a movement established by outspoken opposition activist Vyacheslav Maltsev.

The FSB also said that in joint operations with police, it had broken up groups of Artpodgotovka members in Krasnoyarsk, Krasnodar, Kazan, Samara, and Saratov -- major provincial centers across Russia. It did not say how many people were detained.

Maltsev, who has described himself as a nationalist and anarchist, has said on YouTube that Russia is up for a "revolution" this weekend as the country prepares to mark People's Unity Day on November 4 and the centennial of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution on November 7.

Nationalists traditionally hold rallies on November 4 and Russians nostalgic for the Soviet Union, such as the Communists, celebrate on November 7.

The FSB statement alleged that the suspects detained in and around Moscow had planned to spark "mass disorder" by throwing Molotov cocktails at administrative buildings and attacking police.

It said that "all members of the cell" were detained and 15 bottles containing flammable liquid were confiscated. The detainees could be charged with terrorist crimes, it said.

Maltsev, a former lawmaker in the Saratov region, unsuccessfully ran for the national parliament in 2016. He fled Russia in July after the authorities launched an investigation into his statements.

Prosecutors in Moscow said last month that Maltsev was in France and planned to obtain political asylum there.

On October 26, the Krasnoyarsk regional court ruled that the Artpodgotovka movement was extremist and banned its activities in Russia. On October 10, a Moscow court issued an arrest warrant for Maltsev.

In its statement, the FSB accused Maltsev of establishing Artpodgotovka with the aim of "organizing a revolution in Russia" and claimed that after he left the country, its remaining members "formed groups to conduct high-profile extremist actions aimed at destabilizing the sociopolitical situation."

There was no immediate comment from Maltsev.

With reporting by AP, TASS, RIA Novosti, and Interfax
TWIN FALLS  Last winters erratic weather made life difficult for southern Idaho residents, but the Magic Valley is still reaping benefits from the abundance of moisture that fell from the skies.

The last water year was one of the best in the past decades, and carryover left in reservoirs at the end of the irrigation season remains high.

The Upper Snake Basin system is 75 percent full and reservoir levels are 180 percent of the 30-year average, said Corey Loveland, water operations manager for the Bureau of Reclamation in Heyburn.

The dams are quite a bit higher than what were used to seeing, Loveland said. Dams in the Upper Snake Basin include Jackson, Palisades, Island Park, Rirey, Minidoka, Milner, Little Wood and American Falls. Previous good years included 1986, 97 and 2011, he said.

Water managers track moisture levels from Oct. 1  the end of the irrigation season  through the spring and into the growing season.

Even the Salmon Tract, notorious for water shortages, is in excellent shape going into the 2017-18 water year.

It was a good year, Karl Joslin, Salmon River Canal Co. board president, said Tuesday. We had a full allotment.

A full allotment promises farmers can stay in their normal crop rotation, and not have to rely on short-water crops like barley. Joslin will be growing corn silage, alfalfa and dry beans next year.

Last winter brought an abundance of snow to southern Idaho.

We got a great start to the water year in October (2016), said Stephen Parker, a senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boise. Twin Falls received 2.78 inches of precipitation that month, nearly 2 inches more than normal, followed by a warm and dry November. The winter continued to be wet through March.

Snow and cold were followed by rain and flooding this winter, creating havoc for motorists and homeowners, and livestock and roadways suffered.

For the water year, Twin Falls received nearly 15 inches of rain.

Anytime we can start with this much water, Joslin said Wednesday, we are fortunate.

The reservoirs wont be able to store all the water that flows into them, said Brian Olmstead, Twin Falls Canal Co. general manager. Water manager need to save room behind the dams for flood control.

Aquifer recharge efforts in the off season have been successful, Olmstead said. Recharge will continue this winter at Murtaugh Lake, milepost 31 on the Milner-Gooding Canal, North Side Canal, and Southwest Irrigation District.

It looks like the springs are starting to respond, he said. Its a good start with the agreement with the groundwater users  that keeps everybody optimistic.

Joslin agrees.

We know now we can make plans. We know the water is there, Joslin said. Were happy to be on this side of the equation.
A former teacher of German in Russia's Oryol region who was fired from his job and convicted of inciting ethnic hatred for writing a pro-Ukraine poem says he now faces a new trial over a separate piece of writing.

Aleksandr Byvshev wrote on Facebook on November 3 that police informed a day earlier that their investigation had been completed and the case sent to a court in the region, which is in western Russia close to Ukraine.

In 2014, after his poem To Ukrainian Patriots was published in a local newspaper, Byvshev was deprived of the right to teach, his name was included in the official register of extremists, and all his bank accounts were frozen.

The poem criticized Russia's takeover of Ukraine's Crimea region and Moscow's support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

In 2015, Byvshev was sentenced to 300 hours of community service after a court found him guilty of inciting ethnic hatred through his poems.

Regional law enforcement officials said in January that they had opened a new investigation over another poem, On The Independence Of Ukraine, which plays on a poem of the same name by the late Nobel Literature laureate Joseph Brodsky.

Byvshev said that the Oryol Regional Court had deemed his poem to be extremist, a finding that enabled investigators to charge him.

Russia seized Crimea in March 2014, sending in troops and staging a referendum denounced as illegal by at least 11 countries.

More than 10,000 people have been killed in the war between Kyiv's forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.


Police in conflict-torn eastern Ukraine have launched a murder investigation after a city council member in the government-held Luhansk region city of Syevyerodonetsk was found dead, his skull broken.

Serhiy Samarskiy's body was found outside his apartment building shortly after midnight, regional police spokeswoman Tatyana Pohukay wrote on Facebook on November 3.

She said an investigation on suspicion of "premeditated murder" has been opened.

Syevyerdonetsk became the de-facto capital of the Luhansk region after Russia-backed separatists sezied control of the official capital, Luhansk, and several other districts in 2014.

Samarskiy, 55, was a member of President Petro Poroshenko's party. He initiated a 2015 decision by the Syevyerodonetsk city council to label Russia an aggressor country.

Syevyerodonetsk is about 50 kilometers from the front line in the conflict between government forces and the Russian-backed separatists, which has killed more than 10,000 people in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions since April 2014.


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The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) says there are some 300 Serbs fighting alongside Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. They appear to motivated by a nationalist agenda stressing traditional links between Russia and Serbia. (RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service/Reuters)
It was a huge explosion. Moments later a deep cloud of smoke engulfed the surrounding. Local officials said the cause of the accident at the plant in Unchahar was not yet known. Government rescue workers were called to the scene as families of workers gathered outside the plant. The accident occurred in the ash-handling section of the plant.There was an explosion inside the boiler. After the coal burns it gets deposited and has to be cleared. The people who died were engaged in that cleaning, said a senior National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) executive.



Explosion at plant in Unchahar

The cause of the accident wasnt immediately known. The plant has been shut down. all available ambulances were pressed into action. Several workers possibly still were under debris. As more people succumbed to their injuries the death toll reached 26. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who is on a three-day visit to Mauritius, announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh for the families of the deceased, Rs 50,000 for the seriously injured and Rs 25,000 for the injured. he incident has triggered a sense of panic in the region. The 30-year-old plant at Unchahar supplies electricity to almost 9 states.
Out of the major businesses affected by COVID-19, global automotive industries are at the top

Even though the automotive sector is just a form of largescale business, the process of buying a car is often a special experience. Depending on the dealership and customers preference, the occasion is made extra memorable. One need not be an automotive enthusiast to have this belief, but bringing a brand-new (or pre-owned) car home is often analogous to receiving an extra member in the family.

An automobile is not something you just buy off the shelf (hypothetically). Instead, there are different phases in making the right decision  starting with fixing a budget, online or offline research, showroom visit, test drive, rough comparison with another alternative or competitor, getting valuable (or oftentimes baseless) inputs from close friends or relatives; and finally, booking the car of choice. However, experts state that the current state of affairs might bring a major change to this.

COVID-19 or coronavirus has spread its effects beyond health and brought down many businesses to a near standstill. Out of this, the global automotive industry faced some of the worst with sales dropping by almost 80% from the days before the outbreak. In India, certain automakers have resumed operations with limited resources while some others have actively shifted their focus to making essential medical equipment for the fight against the pandemic. Here is how the process of buying a new car would change after COVID-19 in India:

Showroom Visits

Once the Indian government relaxes its nationwide lockdown measures, one might not be able to do casual showroom visits. Instead, we would have to make appointments and follow strict timing. Tata Motors has released a set of guidelines to its dealer partners directing staff to take all the necessary steps to maintain social distancing. Important paperwork (registration, insurance, etc.) should either be emailed or dropped off in a dedicated box at the showroom.

OEMs are also planning to issue thermal guns to their dealerships. Each day, visitors and staff alike would be temperature-screened before entering the showroom or conducting a test drive. Furthermore, masks would be mandatory for every individual on the premises. Cleaning staff would be trained to maintain proper sanitisation and hygiene throughout the dealership with minimal inconvenience to visitors.

At the lobby, newspapers, magazines, brochures or any other forms of physical information media would be removed. If possible, digital interactive platforms would be introduced (following periodic sanitisation processes such as touchscreen cleaning).

Test Drives

Had test drives not been an integral part of buying a vehicle, it could have been cancelled altogether. However, dealership staff may stop recommending test drives like before and offer it only if the potential customer insists. During a test drive, only two individuals would be allowed in the car (customer as the driver and staff member diagonally opposite at the back).

Test vehicles would be sanitised before and after every drive and protective covers would be used in almost every point of contact (door handles, steering wheel, gear lever, seats, etc.). Needless to say, one might not be able to enjoy a full-on test drive but an opportunity to understand the basics. Certain dealerships might also offer test drives from the customers residence as an extra step to maintain social distancing.

Taking Delivery

As mentioned in the beginning, buying a new vehicle is generally a joyous occasion. Showroom staff are mostly open to conducting basic ceremonies (including religious) before delivering a car. Customers are also given the freedom to fix the delivery date, provided its a working day. Some limit the celebration to just cutting a cake and taking a photograph while a growing trend involves hiring a video crew to document the entire process. Sadly, post-COVID days might not allow such events.

Not more than two individuals would be recommended to come for delivery. Prior to this, only the customer would be asked to visit the showroom (taking all the precautions mentioned before) to complete important paperwork. Deliveries would be more direct in order to complete in the shortest time possible, with no unveiling ceremony. Dealerships would also insist on making deliveries at the customers residence or any other convenient or safe location

Usually, dealerships conduct a major event to celebrate multiple deliveries if the vehicle is fresh on the market and its the first day of sale. Expect no such mass deliveries for quite some time.

Online Platforms

With showrooms remaining closed until further notice, automakers are concentrating on online platforms to make sales. Over the past few weeks, several brands have introduced online showrooms with limited-time offers to encourage potential buyers to make the shift. In the global scenario, automakers have started hosting important events of the calendar on digital media as well.

The world is going currently through a lot of uncertainty. To make the best out of the worst, industries have laid down new socially-distanced business strategies to maintain profits. Coming to the automotive industry, we are in the opinion that if there is no immediate requirement for a new vehicle, its best to wait until the current situation settles down.

Source
Skoda Rapid Monte Carlo edition launched in August 2017, priced from INR 10.75 lakhs, met with some flak from Punjab based Monte Carlo clothing company that moved court against the automaker citing copyright infringement. The court order directed Skoda to stop using the Monte Carlo badge due to which the company has now launched the Skoda Rapid Edition X in its place. Incidentally, Monte Carlo is a place in Monaco on the French Riviera.

Skoda officially pays the current monarch for rights to use the Monte Carlo brand for its exclusive series of cars, and the moniker enjoys global reputation. To what extent Monte Carlo clothing felt compromised is difficult to assess, as their is no logical scope of confusion. One doesnt generally go out to buy a sweater and return with a car, and vice versa.

Skoda Rapid Edition X is only a name change and sees no other changes in design from the Monte Carlo edition. It is offered with a black front grille, black tail gate spoiler, 16 dual tone alloy wheels and headlamp inserts along with body accents and ORVMs. Edition X is offered in two exterior paints of red and white, both of which come with contrasting black painted roof. Interiors sport matching black and red accents with black and red leatherette seats, stainless steel foot pedals, a flat bottom leather steering wheel with red accents and a 6.5 touchscreen infotainment system offering SmartLink, MirrorLink, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Skoda Rapid Edition X is powered by a 1.6 litre petrol engine offering 105 hp power and mated to a 5 speed manual or 6 speed automatic gearbox. It also gets a 1.5 litre diesel engine offering 110 hp and mated to a 5 speed manual or 7 speed DSG gearbox. Prices are the same as that seen on the Monte Carlo edition starting from INR 10.75 lakhs to INR 13.57 lakhs. Skoda Rapid Edition X competes with the Honda City, Volkswagen Vento, Hyundai Verna and Maruti Ciaz in India.
After the November 2016 election, Robert Sikoryak felt an urge he couldnt resist. Referring to the victory of Donald Trump, the award-winning cartoonist says I really just wanted to put something out in the world that just said, I object. That work is The Unquotable Trump, a collection that uses some of the presidents most infamous utterances on classic comic book covers.



[..]



When I began the project, I only wanted to focus on what he said that was objectionable while he was running for president. So after I made that mini and was expanding into the book, I was trying to touch on other topics that he covered, other opinions that he expressed that ran the gamut of what someone running for president might say. Im really kind of fascinated by 90's mainstream comics, the density of the drawing, the attitude, and all of the radicalness of them and I thought this quote was a good summation of his military policy. Saying he was the most militaristic person in the room, he always has to be the best one, or the most one.



And this Transformers character [Commander Jhiaxus], hes actually a character whos outside the Decepticons and the Autobots. Hes from a third group, a different faction thats completely untrustworthy. I was like Yeah, that sounds like [Trump]! I was really happy I chose that character because i didnt want to put him in the place of one of the Autobots. I really wanted him to be either the villain or the loose cannon. Most of the covers work that way. Theres probably a few Ive misconstrued, but I hope that if you had the original context, youd be like, Oh, I get it with regard to his relationship to the characters.
H.S. polls: Washington girls steady at No. 1 in 4A, Marian girls No. 2 in 3A
The GMT mirror 5 mold filled with 38,580 lbs. (17,500 kilograms) of glass, ready for the lid to be placed.

The construction of a highly anticipated mega-telescope is proceeding apace.

Technicians have begun casting the fifth primary mirror for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) at the University of Arizona's Richard F. Caris Mirror Laboratory, project representatives announced today (Nov. 3).

When the GMT is complete, it will integrate seven of these 20-ton, 27.6-foot-wide (8.4 meter) mirrors into a single light-collecting surface 80 feet (24.5 m) across. The resulting instrument will have 10 times the resolving power of NASA's iconic Hubble Space Telescope, GMT representatives have said. [Photos: Casting Mirror No. 5 for the Giant Magellan Telescope]

"Creating the largest telescope in history is a monumental endeavor, and the GMT will be among the largest privately funded scientific initiatives to date," Taft Armandroff, vice chairman of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization (GMTO) corporation board of directors, said in a statement.

"With this next milestone, and with the leadership, technical, financial and scientific prowess of the members of the GMTO partnership, we continue on the path to the completion of this great observatory," added Armandroff, an astronomy professor and director of the McDonald Observatory at the University of Texas at Austin.

Artists illustration of the Giant Magellan Telescope and its seven giant primary mirrors. (Image credit: Giant Magellan Telescope - GMTO Corporation)

A long process

The mirror-casting process involves placing 20 tons' worth of borosilicate glass chunks in a special rotating furnace outfitted with a honeycomb-like mold. This furnace is heated to 2,129 degrees Fahrenheit (1,165 degrees Celsius) for about four hours, until the glass melts and fills the mold.

But that's just the beginning. The glass stays in the mold for three months, cooling down while the furnace continues to spin (but at a slower rate). The mirror is then shaped and polished with incredible precision, until the surface of the finished product is perfected to within 20 nanometers  about the thickness of a single glass molecule.

The honeycomb pattern of GMT mirror 5s mold is clearly visible in this shot. (Image credit: Giant Magellan Telescope  GMTO Corporation)

As you might imagine, this is painstaking, time-consuming work.

"The entire process takes a few years," GMTO President Robert Shelton told Space.com.

Mirror number one is completely finished, and it was moved out of the Mirror Lab to a storage facility near Tucson International Airport in September. Mirrors two through four are in various stages of work.

The GMT mirror 5 furnace fully assembled and ready to start. (Image credit: Giant Magellan Telescope  GMTO Corporation)

A very large eye on the sky

The mirrors are ultimately bound for South America  specifically, Las Campanas Observatory in northern Chile, where the $1 billion GMT is being built.

The current plan calls for GMT to begin observing the heavens in 2023, with just four of the seven primary mirrors. These initial operations will involve lots of engineering checkouts, but the team anticipates doing some high-impact science at the same time as well.

"With four mirrors, we'll still be the largest telescope in the world by a factor of two," GMTO vice president for operations and external relations Pat McCarthy told Space.com. "In many respects, we'll have a good fraction of our full capability."

If everything goes according to plan, GMT will get up to full strength with seven primary mirrors in 2025  and then keep studying the cosmos for decades. The telescope's design lifetime is 50 years, Shelton said, and it will be continually upgraded over that span with new and better instruments.

GMT will perform a variety of observations once it's up and running. For example, astronomers will use the telescope to detect and characterize exoplanets, even searching the atmospheres of relatively nearby alien worlds for possible signs of life. GMT will also help researchers study the universe's first galaxies, and probe the nature of mysterious dark matter and dark energy, project representatives have said.

And then there's the excitement of the unknown.

"Things will come up that we can't even anticipate," Shelton said.

GMT won't be the only mega-scope doing such work. Two other big telescopes are scheduled to come online in the same general time frame: the European Extremely Large Telescope, which will also be built in the Chilean Andes, and the Thirty Meter Telescope, which will sit near the summit of Hawaii's Mauna Kea volcano, provided protests don't derail that plan.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
This view of Jupiters south pole was created using data from NASAs Juno spacecraft, which has been orbiting the giant planet since July 2016.

Jupiter may not always have been a big ball of hydrogen and helium.

A new study suggests that, in their youth, Jupiter and other gas-giant planets may have been "steam worlds"  warm ocean planets a bit bigger than Earth, with water-vapor atmospheres.

John Chambers, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., proposes that some protoplanets may grow into steam worlds from their modest beginnings as accretions of rock and ice pebbles. [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets]

As the accreting bodies come together and the protoplanet grows, increasing pressure liquefies the ices, and oceans form. Without any air present, water and any other liquids sublimate, creating an atmosphere dominated by water vapor, the idea goes. Even a relatively small protoplanet of between 0.08 and 0.16 Earth masses can be quite warm  from 32 to 704 degrees Fahrenheit (0 to 347 degrees Celsius), Chambers said.

"I calculated the structure of atmospheres in this case, and worked out when conditions are right for rapid inflow of gas to form a giant planet," Chambers told Space.com. "The answer is, this happens when a planet is a few Earth masses, which is somewhat lower than the conventional value of 10 Earth masses."

In his model, Chambers started with a planet that orbits a sun-like star about three times farther away than Earth circles the sun. The makeup of the initial protoplanet is half ice and half rock. The pebbles accrete into a small protoplanet, whose atmosphere is very thin and made up of sublimating ices. Once the protoplanet hits 0.084 Earth masses, there's enough atmospheric pressure for ice to melt, and the object becomes a small ocean world. As more ice and rock accrete, the protoplanet gets bigger and starts to accumulate hydrogen and helium.

Since there's a lot of water in the atmosphere, the planet gets warmer. (Water is a powerful greenhouse gas.) As the protoplanet gains mass, the atmospheric pressure also keeps rising, allowing the atmosphere to absorb more water vapor. Eventually the pressure gets so high that the water is no longer an ocean of liquid but a "supercritical fluid" mixed with hydrogen and helium, with no clear boundary between the atmosphere and the surface.

Once about two to five Earth masses of rock and ice come together, a runaway process starts, and the protoplanet picks up more gas from the disk around its host star quickly. That's what allows a gas giant to grow, according to the new study.

Most models of planet formation assume that planetesimals  the bits that accrete to form planets  are roughly kilometer-size bodies. Pebble accretion, on the other hand, assumes that the accreting objects are, as the name implies, the size of pebbles.

Michiel Lambrechts, a researcher at Lund University in Sweden who was not involved in Chambers' study, said the scheme is a logical one.

"It's all about some physics that is very plausible," Lambrechts said.

Whether this scenario applies to Jupiter is not known, though there is some data from NASA's Jupiter-orbiting Juno mission that seems to show a core that's more diffuse than scientists initially thought. One implication is that, if Chambers and others are correct about the pebble-accretion model, one would expect to find that Jupiter's core harbors only a few Earth masses, Lambrechts said.

Planetary scientists generally think that gas giants must pick up most of their mass in just a few million years, because the solar wind from a newborn star blows away most of the gas in its protoplanetary disk quickly.

That fast timeline can cause problems for some planet-formation models. But it suits the pebble-accretion idea just fine, Chambers said.

"At a certain point, it's about how you avoid accreting quickly," he said.

Chambers said the next step is to look at more exoplanet data.

"I'm still working through the implications of this, but the next step is to feed this result into more general models for planet formation," he said. "The idea is to compare the outcome of these models with the observed population of extrasolar planets to pin down other unknown factors in planet formation."

The study has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. You can read a copy of it for free at on the online preprint server arXiv.org.

Editor's note: This story was updated Nov. 5 to correct the name of the Carnegie Institution for Science.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
Laika, a mixed-breed dog, became the first living being in orbit when the Soviet Union launched her on the Sputnik 2 mission on Nov. 3, 1957.

Laika was the first living creature to orbit Earth. On Nov. 3, 1957, the Soviet Union lofted a dog named Laika aboard the satellite Sputnik 2.

However, Laika was not the first animal in space. That distinction goes to some fruit flies that the United States launched on a suborbital mission in February 1947. Despite her fame, she also was not the first dog in space; the Soviet Union launched two dogs named Dezik and Tsygan in 1951.

Photos: Pioneering animals in space

Who was Laika the space dog?

Laika was a black-and-white mutt originally named Kudrayavka, or Little Curly. Her later name, which means Barker, came about when she barked during a radio interview. (In the U.S. press, she was sometimes called Muttnik.) Laika weighed about 13 pounds (6 kilograms) at the time of her flight, according to NASA (opens in new tab).

Laika's launch pad to fame were the streets of Moscow. Soviet rocket scientists wanted to send dogs to space to better understand what launch, microgravity and other aspects of spaceflight might do to a human body. So they collected stray dogs, who they thought would be suitable scrappy. The contenders also had to be female (easier to rig up) and brightly colored (so video footage of them would be clearer).

From these, the rocket engineers selected the most obedient and those most tolerant of loud noises and air pressure changes. The researchers also subjected final candidates to test runs in small capsules  some lasting for weeks, according to Smithsonian Magazine (opens in new tab).

Laika's back-up was named Albina (White); rumors suggest that the Russian spaceflight engineers made Laika their first choice because they were more attached to Albina, who had recently had puppies.

Laika's mission: Sputnik 2

A model of Laika inside the Sputnik 2 capsule on display at the Central House of Aviation and Cosmonautics in Moscow in 2017. (Image credit: Mladen Antonov/AFP via Getty Images)

Sputnik 1, which launched on Oct. 4, 1957, was a 184-lb. (83 kilograms), beach-ball-size sphere that basically just emitted beeps as it circled Earth, although those beeps shocked the world.

Sputnik 2 launched just a month later; according to one account (opens in new tab) of an interview with cosmonaut Georgy Grechko, who flew in the 1970s, the project was rushed to coincide with the anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution that eventually led to the Soviet Union.

The spacecraft was much larger and more elaborate than its predecessor. The spacecraft was 13 feet (4 meters) tall and 6.5 feet (2 m) at its widest, and it weighed 1,120 lbs. (508 kg), according to NASA (opens in new tab). The spacecraft carried scientific instruments to measure solar radiation and cosmic rays, as well as a cabin for Laika that was equipped with a video camera.

Laika could sit or lie down in the cabin, which was equipped with an air regeneration system and padding. Laika, decked out in a harness, a crude sanitation device and a set of electrodes, had access to food and water "in a gelatinized form," according to NASA (opens in new tab). "The early telemetry indicated Laika was agitated but eating her food."

Laika's death

Sputnik 2 was a suicide mission for the poor dog; the satellite was not designed to come safely back to Earth and the Soviet space program didn't want to delay the launch.

Telemetry data showed that Laika survived the launch, according to Anatoly Zak of RussianSpaceWeb.com. Initially, Soviet publications claimed that the dog died, painlessly, after a week in Earth orbit. But that account has been called into question over the years.

A model of the Sputnik 2 capsule that carried Laika on display at the Soviet Pavilion of the Brussels World Fair held in 1958. The bottom chamber held the dog. (Image credit: ulstein bild via Getty Images)

"Decades later, several Russian sources revealed that Laika survived in orbit for four days and then died when the cabin overheated," Zak wrote (opens in new tab). "According to other sources, severe overheating and the death of the dog occurred only five or six hours into the mission."

According to NASA (opens in new tab), the spacecraft may have overheated because the thermal control system didn't work properly and some insulation tore off due to an anomaly during the launch.

Sputnik 2's batteries died on Nov. 10, 1957, and the spacecraft stopped beaming data home.

"With all systems dead, the spacecraft continued circling the Earth until April 14, 1958, when it re-entered the atmosphere after 2,570 orbits (2,370 orbits according to other sources) or 162 days in space," Zak wrote. "Many people reportedly saw a fiery trail of Sputnik 2 as it flew over New York and reached the Amazon region in just 10 minutes during its re-entry."

The Soviets and Americans in a Cold War space race

Sputnik 2's launch was one of three spaceflight events that shook the United States in 1957, causing widespread concern among Americans about the nation's technological capabilities compared to those of its Cold War rival.

"'When I saw the dog go up, I said, 'My God, we better get going because it's going to be a legitimate program to put man in space,'" Robert Gilruth, who later became the first director of what is now NASA's Johnson Space Center, said according to NASA (opens in new tab).

The other two were the liftoff of Sputnik 1 and the Dec. 6 failed launch of the 3.5-lb. (1.6 kg) Vanguard Test Vehicle 3, which would have been the United States' first satellite. (The satellite's rocket exploded, on national TV, just seconds after liftoff.)

The United States bounced back with the successful launch of the Explorer 1 satellite on Jan. 31, 1958.

It took a few more years for the first person to reach space. The Soviet Union notched that milestone on April 12, 1961, launching cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on an orbital mission  and bringing him safely back to Earth.

Additional resources and reading

Historian Alice George explored Laika's story in detail for Smithsonian Magazine (opens in new tab). A feature in The New Yorker (opens in new tab) explores the social and political aspects of Laika's flight. "Laika's Window: The Legacy of a Soviet Space Dog (opens in new tab)" (Trinity University Press, 2018) explains how Laika's flight paved the way for human spaceflight.

Laika also features in a 2020 film "Space Dogs," which follows stray dogs in Moscow but includes previously unseen footage of Laika and her comrades; Space.com interviewed the directors at the time.

Bibliography

George, A. The Sad, Sad Story of Laika, the Space Dog, and Her One-Way Trip into Orbit. Smithsonian Magazine (2018). https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/sad-story-laika-space-dog-and-her-one-way-trip-orbit-1-180968728/ (opens in new tab)

Harford, J. Korolev's Triple Play: Sputniks 1, 2, and 3 (1997). https://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/harford.html (opens in new tab)

NASA, "60 years ago: The First Animal in Orbit," Nov. 6, 2017. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/60-years-ago-the-first-animal-in-orbit (opens in new tab)

NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive, "NSSDCA/COSPAR ID: 1957-002A." https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1957-002A (opens in new tab)
Recovery team members work in and around China's Shenzhou-11 spacecraft on Nov. 18, 2016, just after it landed with taikonauts Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong. China is developing a space plane that can carry crew and aims to launch the vehicle for the first time in 2020, according to media reports.

China plans to launch a homegrown, reusable space plane for the first time in 2020, according to Chinese media reports.

"The spacecraft can transport people or payload into the orbit and return to Earth," China's state-run outlet Xinhua reported last week.

Xinhua cited a statement by the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), as well as Chen Hongbo, a researcher at the corporation: "Chen said that the spacecraft will be easier to maintain and can improve the frequency of launches at lower cost, bringing new opportunities for more people to travel into space." [Space Planes: Evolution of the Winged Spaceship (Infographic)]

China has already made significant progress in the space plane's development, the nation's space officials have said.

"Currently, China is developing its own reusable earth-to-orbit space vehicles that can take off and land horizontally," Liu Shiquan, vice director of the state-owned China Aerospace Science & Industry Corporation (a different entity than the CASC), said this past June, according to the People's Daily, a newspaper published by the Chinese Communist Party.

"We have already finished several crucial ground tests for engines and [other key components], yielding remarkable achievements," Liu added.

The space-plane goal lines up with China's ambitious spaceflight posture. For example, the nation aims to have a space station up and running in Earth orbit by the early 2020s, and it wants to land people on the moon by the mid-2030s.

China's space plane would not be the first winged vehicle to reach orbit, of course. For example, NASA's now-retired space shuttle fleet flew 135 missions between 1981 and 2011, and a similar vehicle built by the Soviet Union, called Buran, made it to orbit once, in 1988. (The Buran program was canceled in 1993.)

The United States Air Force owns two small uncrewed X-37B space planes, which have flown a total of five orbital missions. The first X-37B flight launched in 2010; the fifth mission began in September 2017 and is still underway.

And several other space planes are in development as well, most famously Virgin Galactic's suborbital SpaceShipTwo and Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Dream Chaser. SpaceShipTwo will ferry payloads and people to and from suborbital space, whereas Dream Chaser will be an orbital vehicle. Sierra Nevada plans to launch two versions of the vehicle  a robotic cargo craft and a crew-carrying variant.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
Chahid El Hafed, Oct 18, 2017 (SPS) - The representative of the Frente POLISARIO to the United Nations, Bujari Ahmed, stated that the Saharawi leadership will take advantage of the visit of the Special Envoy for the Western Sahara, Mr. Horst Kohler, to exchange views on the peace process that is blocked by Moroccan obstructions.

The Sahrawi diplomat told the Saharawi National Radio that "it is positive that the new envoy comes from Germany, a very active and influential country in international politics ".

In his response to the question concerning Morocco's attempt not to echo the visit, Bujari Ahmed explained that "Morocco does not want a person of this size to put the conflict back on the international agenda and, especially in these circumstances , where the Security Council advocates compliance with the mandates of the Peacekeeping Missions in the World. "

It should be noted that the POLISARIO had expressed at the meeting of its Permanent Bureau, chaired by Secretary-General Brahim Gali, its welcome to the visit of the special envoy to the Refugee Camps and the Saharawi national institutions, which will take place tomorrow, as well as its "willingness to ensure constructive cooperation with the envoy to complete the last process of decolonization in Africa by holding a referendum on self-determination for the Saharawi people.

Kohler's first visit to the region, which aims to resume negotiations between the parties, the Frente POLISARIO and Morocco, began Monday and lasts several days. SPS

125/090/TRA
TWIN FALLS  A boy has been arrested in what police described as a strong-arm robbery of an elderly womans purse in City Park.

Detectives got a number of tips after making a photo public and asking for help. They identified two boys involved in the robbery. One was taken into custody.

The department said in a statement Thursday an elderly woman was watching children at a trick-or-treat event Saturday in the Twin Falls City Park when suspects ran up and grabbed her purse.

Cases involving juveniles are sealed.

The Twin Falls Police Department would like to thank our community for the attentive response we received reference to the press release yesterday requesting information regarding the suspects of the Twin Falls City Park robbery, police said in a statement.
Sao Paolo (Brazil), Nov 02, 2017 (SPS) - the World Peace Council, condemned on Tuesday, via a communique, the expulsion of several MEPs from occupied Western Sahara by Morocco.

"We reject in the most severe terms the decision of the Moroccan authorities to expel United Left MEPs on Friday, October 27, preventing their visit to Western Sahara," says the statement of the World Peace Council, before clarifying that "the Kingdom of Morocco often seeks to prevent access to the occupied territory militarily to journalists, activists and parliamentarians, "who want to know the situation in the territory.

"The attempt of the Kingdom of Morocco to silence those who denounce the arbitrariness and brutality of the occupation it exercises over the Saharawi people will not succeed", said the note.

Finally, the World Peace Council reaffirms its commitment to supporting the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination and independence. SPS

125/090/TRA
Meet Peter Williams: The entrepreneur behind upmarket outfitter Jack Wills, who is determin ed never to dro p the ball agai n

A crisp, sunny afternoon in Carnaby Street. The streets are heaving with tourists, the shops sardine-tin full of Chinese fashion addicts pouring cash into the tills. No Brexit downturn here.

One such bustling store has a big name for selling preppy clothes to the well-heeled sons and daughters of the shires. It is Jack Wills, as much a posh school staple as the lacrosse stick.

Having family roots in Salcombe  the Devon sailing town that spawned founder Pete Williams first shop in the chain  I felt I knew what to expect from the West End flagship. Big print logo sweatshirts, polo shirts, Sloanes-on-Sea stuff. Shows how much I know: most of the clothes in the window sport a more subtle Ralph Lauren feel. Lace blouses, chic skirts and  this being autumn  flockloads of wool.

Williams saunters up, rucksack on back, sporting the look in his skinny olive jeans and navy wool jacket. Head to toe its Jack Wills, bar his trainers and, he admits, his underpants.

But there was something more surprising than the absence of garish hoodies. At the entrance  prime real estate to any shopkeeper  instead of showcasing the most exciting ranges, there are no clothes at all. In fact, its a New England-style coffee bar, complete with Italian cappuccino machines, tables and chairs.

Its about making our stores experiential, Williams explains.

Experiential: ugly word, attractive concept. Retailers use it to mean creating a bit of theatre in a shop.

The experience is key, he says. If you just want stuff delivered to you effectively, cheaply, with good availability, its pretty hard to beat Amazon, the web. So were trying to offer something more: an experience. Thats why we stick a lot of our stores in locations like holiday destinations: people are there having experiences which we can immerse ourselves in and be part of.

He gestures to framed posters on the walls of Jack Wills in Salcombe, Marthas Vineyard, Nantucket. Classic, moneyed vacation spots.

Tall, with dark ginger in his beard and hair, the 43-year old has the laconic voice of Louis Theroux. Except hes not quite as funny.

He expounds his theories of branding and economics in a tone that can tend to sound overly rehearsed. Chuck him a tricky question and hell pause for an age, or squint at you suspiciously as if youre trying to trip him up.

Half an hour or so in, I can sort of see why. He seems to be suffering an entrepreneurs form of mild post-traumatic stress. That, and acute lawyeritis.

Let me explain. Having founded Jack Wills in 1999 while living in a room above the shop in Salcombe, he built the business into a global chain with more than 2800 staff across the UK, Asia, the Middle East and the US, turning over 130 million.

The plan hed written on a spreadsheet when he was 23 was playing out beautifully. By 2011, Goldman Sachs was claiming the business could float for 300 million. Then, in 2013, after having a nightmare putting in a new IT system fitting for the companys newfound size, Williams handed over to new management.

Our sales went 56 grand, 59 grand, 259 grand, 691 grand, 1.2 million, 1.8 million, 4.4 million, 10.9 million, 22, 42, 60, he raps, slapping his hand on his armchair with each number. You know, it was full on, and Id had three little kids over that time. I was just a bit worn out, opening around the world  Asia, America, a franchise in the Middle East.

Problem was, while he was away, the business headed into the rocks. He wont talk about what happened, on account of mlearned friends. But from a combination of help from a retail analyst and the companys accounts, you can stitch together the following: soon after Jack Wills had come through the pain of installing that big, corporate IT system, in 2014, new chief executive Wendy Becker pushed the company through yet more turmoil by contracting out its warehouse operations to a third party.

As if that werent risky enough, the move was done in September, just as the retail world gears up for the peak Christmas season.

It didnt go well. There was, to quote the accounts, significant operational disturbance. As Christmas came, the company couldnt get its stock out into its stores and customer orders went unfulfilled. Catastrophe.

Becker, who did not respond to requests for comment for this article, left the next August. She now sits on the non-executive boards of Great Portland Estates, Logitech, NHS England and Oxford University Press.

So, what was Williams doing while the company was in crisis? Going insane, he says. Pacing the fields of west Oxfordshire [where he lives with his wife and children]. Going mad.

As the founder and major shareholder, why didnt he come back straight away? He wont say, leaving me to surmise there were legal wranglings that kept him out.

Williams takes a breath. Anyway, I came back in September 2015, brought the distribution centre back in house and now its running absolutely brilliantly.

He refinanced the business, putting in more of his own money and replacing his original private equity backer, Inflexion, with Blue Gem, owner of the Liberty department store.

Recently, hes made a flurry of big company appointments. They include Greg Roberts, who built up the 300 million Superdry division that sells its clothes through department stores and other fashion outlets. For Williams, Roberts wholesale talents will spur the next big phase of Jack Wills growth.

The calibre of the senior team is amazing now, he says. And weve got an infrastructure that could take us to 1 billion of revenue.

Looking around the store, I wonder where the huge branded lettering I associate with Jack Wills clothes is. Williams responds: If you have a lot of big logos, you can burn very bright very quickly, but then people move on to the next thing. What you really want is people buying their whole wardrobe from you, right?

In fact, in menswear, where were sitting, its all suits. Nice ones: 250 for a jacket, 100 for the strides. Thats three suits worth in my money. Who pays that much for a Jack Wills whistle?

Williams answers with his organic poultry analogy. You see, he believes fashion is like food. You get some people who pick up the cheap Tesco own-brand chicken breast, and others who go for organic.

They basically look and taste the same, but one is a pound more expensive than the other. If you give a s*** about organic, youll pay a premium and its worth every penny. If you dont its just a rip-off and youll only ever buy it if its marked down.

His job, he says, is to tell shoppers in the 130 countries he now serves, the Jack Wills message: no sweatshops, high-quality fabrics, authentic design. If we can communicate to people what our brand DNA stands for, and they respond to it, theyll buy our stuff.

The collapse of Bangladeshs Rana Plaza factory making garments for big western chains enrages him. I want to show people: were not like that. Thats not how I operate. Thats not how I was brought up.

Childhood for Williams was rural, perhaps explaining his present passion for doing up vintage tractors. He was raised in a village near Stratford-upon-Avon. His father, an engineer, put him through a Birmingham private school, from where he went on to study economics at UCL.

As a child, hed wanted to be a rugby player. He nearly did, too, playing for Harlequins into his early twenties. I was a potential rising star, he says. Friends were going pro but he wasnt so sure.

After the club played him in back-to-back seasons in England and New Zealand, winter-winter-winter, enough was enough. I realised I didnt want to be a professional sportsman.

A totally random mishap on the field finally made his mind up. He grabbed the ball awkwardly and his thumb bone snapped and jutted clean out through the skin. These days, he only plays for fun.

Business can be a bruising game, too. But, if Williams tale proves anything, its that one ghastly accident doesnt have to mean your career is over.
W hen Collins Dictionary announced its word of the year this week (fake news), I initially wondered why handsy had been overlooked. Its certainly the word of this week  it appeared on the circulating sin list of Tory MPs and keeps being uttered in this new era of groper glasnost, as women warn each other which men to avoid. Later, I realised handsy was ineligible as its already in the dictionary; some men have always behaved thus.

Which is why I expected women to unite against sexual harassment, to cheer that our sex finally feels able to speak out. Instead, the stories flooding out of Hollywood and Westminster have exposed a generational divide, especially among women in the media.

Its not entirely down to age lines  feminist stalwarts such as Suzanne Moore are on our team  but generally the under-40s say lechery has no place in the office, while many older female journalists give nonchalant shrugs to all but the worst trespasses against us. Then they scold us for not simply slapping the concupiscent male whose mind, and then hands, wander where they shouldnt.

It shows a lack of empathy to suggest that because you were indifferent to such behaviour, everyone else for ever more must be too. But I wonder if theres also guilt here. On Prospect magazines podcast, Stephanie Boland said she found this attitude dismissive not just of young women but of the older women who fought harassment, who possibly will no longer be prominent commentators because they did so.

Theres the crux: some women perhaps feel they owe part of their success to being the female in the room who wasnt difficult, who laughed at the boys jokes.

At the start of 2017 we were twice reminded that sexual harassment allegations neednt damage a man: when Donald Trump arrived in the White House and when Casey Affleck won an Oscar (both deny the claims). Weinstein could be a catalyst for real change. Shouldnt women of all ages welcome that?

The strangest thing is why the boys have taken over

Is Stranger Things proof that difficult second album syndrome affects TV too? Watching season two after loving season one is like when you get home from a perfect first date, tell your friends Im going to marry this man!, only for it to emerge on date two that he believes Adam Sandler movies are the height of humour and hes been David Icked into thinking the royal family are shape-shifting lizards.

The second season is a structural mess. The first had a strong story arc: finding out where Will was and what had happened to him. Mark II feels like its drifting, and the Upside Down becomes less frightening the more you see it. Theres also too much focus on the unloveable teens  Maxs bully brother Billy, the worlds worst friend Nancy, douchebag Steve and shifty-eyed Jonathan (Barb: how I mourn thee still).

Whats saddest for me is that while series one subverted cliches  Nancy became so much more than just the annoying older sister of stereotype  the second season sticks to a depressing and hackneyed idea: that theres only room for one girl in a group. Sadie Sinks character, Max, is only allowed to join the quartet of boys because Eleven is missing, but the latter is then so jealous that she uses her powers to make Max fall off her skateboard.

Its like the panels on TV comedy shows or the Justice League  implying that women are a fifth of the population, not half of it.

The slow death of the magazine

In 2015 I interviewed YouTuber Tanya Burr for the womens magazine Glamour. A few months later, I met a writer who had worked at the already defunct company, which had been marketed at slightly younger women. She had a blunt warning: When we started putting YouTubers on the cover, we were signing our own death warrant.

Glamour said in October that it was going digital first. Yesterday, it was Teen Vogues turn  despite a thousand think pieces applauding it for taking on Donald Trump, Conde Nast is killing it off in print. Why, when fashion tips, beauty tutorials and advice on coming out are all free on YouTube, would a 16-year-old cough up for a magazine?

My fear is that Teen Vogue is the idiomatic canary in the mine for magazines, because its target audience now  Generation Z  is everyone elses tomorrow.

A way to stop the traffickers

Wherever Ive travelled to see conservation work  Madagascar (tortoises), Namibia (rhinos), Mexico (turtles)  the same challenge comes up: trafficking to the Far East. This week the World Wildlife Fund warned that huge volumes of products from endangered animals are being traded in the Golden Triangle where Laos, Thailand and Myanmar meet. Its a grim reminder that it wont be enough to try to stop supply: we must educate consumers and destroy demand.
T he sexual assault allegations surrounding several MPs could well tear the Government apart. We have already seen Sir Michael Fallon resign from his position as Defence Secretary, but I wonder if he will be the last to go. And should Fallon be allowed to continue as the MP for Sevenoaks if his alleged actions led to his resignation?

Much needs to be said about the way some of our politicians act when they are in positions of power and the contempt some of them seem to have for the people they represent. First there was the expenses scandal, then Plebgate and now this.

Is there a culture that is associated with being an MP which encourages our elected representatives to act in such a manner? This behaviour has to stop now.

Brian Wilson



I have a simple solution for MPs if they are found to have assaulted, groped or raped women (or men), using their power as employers as cover: sack them and hold a by-election from which they would be barred.

If that means we have to hold 50 by-elections in one year, so be it.

George Curley



The allegations of misconduct by politicians reported in the media in the past week once again shed light on media organisations responsibility to ensure their staff are fully supported when they are treated inappropriately while carrying out their duties.

News organisations have a myriad personal, political and public interests, and these inevitably influence what they do or dont decide to report  either in articles or directly to political parties  about inappropriate behaviour towards their journalists.

But why are the press only now criticising political parties for turning a blind eye to MPs alleged misconduct, when it would have been in everyones interest to have done so years ago?

James Martin



As a country we think we are civilised and patronise less developed nations by highlighting their social ills. But as all of these scandals continue to come out, the truth is very different.

The only difference between us and the countries we look down on is that we tend to hide our depravities much better.

Mirza Ali



I hope that the current spotlight on power structures in the media and political spheres being used for taking sexual advantage of the less powerful is also shone on academia before the scandal dies down.

Linda Kaucher

Doctors are being unfairly criticised

THE NHS has received a lot more criticism than usual recently. While there are encouraging signs of progress, with a number of surgeries in London offering patients weekend services, one of the main problems it faces is GPs leaving. This is for a variety of reasons, but one of them is the new practice of getting patients to complete a satisfaction review form.

On the face of it, this seems to be a good idea but in reality it gives patients the opportunity to malign a doctor they do not like, and often the issue is nothing to do with competence or treatment. Doctors from ethnic minorities, especially males, are often victims of this unfair criticism.

As there are a considerable number of doctors from ethnic minorities in this country, it is time to give doctors the opportunity to record how they are treated and also to look at patients complaints in all aspects.

Doctors have a right to be heard and to expect fair treatment.

Marilynn Charles



No deal over Brexit is best option

The letter from our former ambassador to Sweden argues that the choice facing the UK in Brexit negotiations is either to replicate what it already has but to lose control or conclude with no deal. Clearly, the latter is by far the better choice.

This would save us billions of pounds immediately, allow us to dismantle regulations inimical to our interests, enable us to negotiate free-trade treaties around the world and deal with the EU on the same terms as the US, India, China, Japan and most of the world.

Like them, we would have to pay small tariffs but these have already been more than offset by the decline in the value of the pound. No deal therefore seems the better one.

Professor Alan Sked, London School of Economics



The Government tells us that by April 2018 it will have spent 750 million on administering Brexit  enough to pay for 5,000 extra NHS nurses for the next six years. Now we learn that the number of nurses coming to work in Britain from EU countries has fallen by 90 per cent since the Brexit vote.

The next time anyone who voted for Brexit is lying in a hospital bed waiting for a nurse to change their bedpan, these facts will no doubt console them.

Simon Smith



Communities must tackle knife crime

While I agree with Steve Reed MP that early intervention is important in tackling knife crime, surely the responsibility should not lie with the Government? The issue of gang culture is so entrenched in affected communities that I imagine external efforts will have very little effect.

Instead, perhaps the communities and parents themselves should take more responsibility for the paths and actions of their children. I would never have dreamed of acting the way these kids do  not least because my mother would have disciplined me but because I was taught right from wrong.

J Bowers

Join the conversation: #esnewsviews
Taking A Stand In Baton Rouge

Contemporary Issues - First Prize, Singles Ieshia Evans (27) stands her ground at a rally against police violence against black men, outside the Baton Rouge Police Department in Louisiana, USA, on 9 July. Evans had travelled to Baton Rouge to protest the death of Alton Sterling, who was shot at close range while being held to the ground by two white police officers on 5 July. The fatal shooting of Sterling came at a time of heightened tension in the US over the deaths of black men at the hands of the police. Data collected by The Counted, an initiative set up by The Guardian to record such fatalities, found that in 2016, black males aged 15-34 were nine times more likely than other Americans to be killed by law enforcement officers. Evans was arrested at the protest, but released later that evening

Jonathan Bachman/Reuters
F rom the warehouse raves of Peckham to the plush house clubs of Brixton and even the infamous Infernos of Clapham, south London has something to offer everyone.

In fact, there's arguably more variation in clubbing destinations in the south of the city than any other area of London.

There are so many places for the capital's clubbers to discover south of the river. So, if you're looking for a big night out, these are the best clubs in south London.

Phonox

Phonox is one of the newer clubs in South London, having replaced Plan B on Brixton Road in 2015. Its run by the people who own XOYO and The Nest and has quickly developed a great reputation for house music club nights. Phonox is serious about its house and dance playlist, and its become a gathering place for Londons dedicated dance tribes. Its a great space to enjoy a night out and this gem of a venue is a must-visit for south London clubbers passionate about their house music.

418 Brixton Rd, Brixton, London SW9 7AY

Great Suffolk Street Warehouse

The Great Suffolk Street Warehouse, set beneath a train track in SE1, is one of the most best rave venues south of the river. The venue is a refreshingly stripped-back space, comprised of a series of huge exposed brick arches, that represents one of the best rave destinations in south London. Clubbers have a number of different rooms to choose from, playing a selection of house, techno and electro, making this a top destination amongst Southwarks going out crowd.

29 Great Suffolk Street, London, SE1 0NR

CLF Art Cafe (the Bussey Building)

Happy birthday: the Bussey Building celebrates seven years

Peckham has played host to some of London's best club nights for years but it was only around 2013 when the place started being recognised in a big way by London's clubbers. Its been labelled the new Shoreditch and the new Hoxton ever since then but the fact is, Peckham has its own vibe going on and a growing reputation for being one of the best nights out in the city. The CLF Art Cafe (aka the Bussey Building) is one of the areas top venues. The unpretentious, multi-dimensional warehouse space, split over multiple floors also hosts theatre, art exhibitions and a wide variety of live events, as is well worth checking out.

Block A, Bussey Building, 133 Rye Lane, Peckham, SE15 4S

Infernos

Nights out at Infernos are nothing short of legendary amongst Clapham residents, and anyone whos been will know why. The venues late opening times make it a big hit with locals and the feel-good vibe is pretty irresistible. Margot Robbie is a fan, having lived in Clapham a few years back, but dont expect to see the rich and famous of Londons social scene hanging out here very often... Sure, the floors are sticky. Yes, the drinks are pretty expensive and, my goodness, the playlist is incredibly cheesy, but there's nothing quite like a night out at Infernos. If you find yourself in the queue at this Clapham haunt, be warned: things are about to get messy.

146 Clapham High St, London SW4 7UH

Montezuma

While some of the entries on the list have been pretty simple and stripped back, Montezuma is on the more glamorous end of the clubbing spectrum. The South Kensingtons over-21s club is a plush party space with a 3am late licence, which always proves popular with the SW7 clientele. Its also bagged a host of awards recently, winning the Best Boutique Club London prize at the London Club Awards, so it must be doing something right.

17A Harrington Road, London, South Kensington SW7 3ES

The Love Shack

The Love Shack is a brand spanking new themed-bar with a fun boozy-beach hut vibe, which is one of the best best venues for a night out youll find in the area. If you like your playlists cheesy and nostalgic, this is the place for you, with the DJs playing old-school pop hits from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Its a new venue, having opened in 2017 in the Sahara Building, and its fast gaining a reputation for being one of the best clubs in Lewisham.

100-104 Lewisham High Street, London, SE13 5JH

Corsica Studios

Corsica Studio, found a stones throw from Elephant & Castle station, is one of the liveliest destinations for a night out in south east London. The venues bare brick and exposed air ducts interiors give the venue a rough-and-ready industrial feel, and youll find an eclectic mix of genres on the playlist, too. The venue also plays host to a wide range of live gigs but its best-known for its club nights and has a reputation for being one of the best dubstep clubs in London, too.

4/5 Elephant Rd, London SE17 1LB

The Clapham Grand

Infernos isnt the only party venue in Clapham you know The Clapham Grand is a multi-purpose venue, putting on an eclectic range of music, comedy and live events, as well as some of the best club nights in the south west. This former dance hall makes for an interesting party space and the venues weekly club night play host to a great selection of house, R&B, disco and hip-hop.

21-25 St John's Hill, London SW11 1T
I n just three weeks a single message has morphed into a movement. Back in mid-October I contacted the freelance journalist Emily Reynolds over Twitter about a piece she had posted on Medium in the wake of women coming forward about Harvey Weinstein.

Titled An Incomplete List of All the Men in the Media Who Have Wronged Me, it was both brilliantly written and awful to read  a tale of unsolicited penis pics and wildly inappropriate comments.

What hit me then was that it wasnt dissimilar to my experiences when I became a journalist aged 22  only Reynoldss horror stories were mine squared. We both felt that if nothing changed, this would happen to the 22-year-olds of tomorrow, of 2020, of 2030, and like us they wouldnt necessarily know what to do. Thats why we and a group of female journalists are today launching The Second Source, aiming to tackle sexual harassment in our industry.

Four founding members  editor Stephanie Boland and freelance journalist Jasmine Andersson joined us on day one  has grown to a network of around 40 women. It started with us sharing stories but soon became a campaign. We have now met (planning over Pringles), have all the online trimmings (website, Twitter feed, Facebook page) and have already won significant political support.

Our aims at The Second Source (a journalistic riff on Simone de Beauvoirs The Second Sex) are to raise awareness, to ensure women know their rights and to work with organisations to bring about change. We are calling on companies to commit to tackling harassment by examining their policies, improving them through consultation and finally pledging that they will meet a high standard when it comes to handling complaints. We will also be a womens network to provide advocacy and support in what remains a boys club of an industry.

We are part of a much broader movement, an awakening among women globally. In the US, Rose McGowan  who was among Weinsteins accusers  spoke last week at The Womens Convention in Detroit, stressing that sexual assault happens everywhere. Fellow actress Alyssa Milano sparked the me too hashtag, a banner under which thousands of women from across the world revealed their stories.

Rose McGowan has called on women to "amplify each other's voices", telling how she was "silenced for 20 years" after allegedly being abused by Harvey Weinstein. / Getty Images for Turner

In the UK, the Labour activist Bex Bailey waived her right to anonymity to reveal that she was raped at a party event and was discouraged from reporting the attack. Bailey wants Labour to review how such cases are handled in the future. Last night the party also suspended Kelvin Hopkins MP after an allegation of sexual harassment.

The Second Source is about sisterhood, which is why we want to link up with other organisations across other industries in the future, and hopefully encourage women in other sectors to launch their own campaigns. Yesterday, Boudica Films  a finance and production company that supports female-centric films  launched a no predators campaign and said that it would encourage all crew on its films to sign a code of conduct.

We knew, launching The Second Source, that we had to act quickly. What has amazed me is how generous women in the group have been in devoting time to it. Theres so much talent, so many good ideas there. As member Barbara Speed said: This group could set up a country in a lunch hour. Even before its formal launch today, the response from outside has been incredible too. Londons favourite male feminist, mayor Sadiq Khan, has offered his support, as well as 20 female MPs from across the political spectrum.

Among them is Jo Swinson, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats. Im optimistic that the media revelations about Hollywood and politics can become a positive catalyst for change, she says. Thats why Im delighted to support the women journalists creating The Second Source to campaign for changes in the media industry.

Maria Miller, Conservative MP and Chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, is also on board. She says Sexual harassment and sexual abuse should have no place in our society. I welcome this new campaign to tackle sexual harassment in journalism and its ambition to bring about a culture change in the industry. Committee member Tulip Siddiq, MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, tells me: I fully support this important initiative  we must act to stamp out sexual harassment.

Maria Miller, Conservative MP and Chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee / Alan Davidson/Silverhub/REX

Khan says: The harassment some women journalists have faced in the workplace is appalling  and it is the responsibility of all of us to call it out. This needs to be a turning point. I strongly support the women journalists who have come together to create The Second Source. We must do everything we can to ensure women are able to speak out and have their concerns properly investigated.

One of the criticisms I have occasionally received is that in writing about misogyny  sexual harassment, FGM, domestic violence  I paint women too much as victims. These complaints usually pop up in my inbox from VERY ANGRY MEN WHO LOVE CAPITAL LETTERS. They say I make women seem weak. Ive always thought that ridiculous. The women I interview who have suffered these horrors are among the strongest people you could meet. They are survivors. And they are usually being interviewed because they want to be part of the solution, to prevent what happened to them happening to other women.

We at The Second Source want to do that too. A number of people have claimed this week that theres now a witch hunt to out predators. We are not naming names, we are building something positive. We want to challenge the culture that has let men get away with this behaviour for so long, that has led to their handsiness being shrugged off and women having to resort to telling each other who isnt safe in the back of taxis.

When we shared our harassment stories, persistent themes emerged. There were patterns of behaviour. The predatory men were usually much older than the young women they preyed on, and they often lured them in by offering career advice. The idea was to make a woman feel grateful so that shed overlook the grope that came afterwards.

Former Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon admitted touching the female journalist's knee in 2002 / PA

Another common thread was the self-deception or pretence among perpetrators that theyre one of the good guys. In recent weeks, some of the men who friends tell me have harassed them have been busily sharing articles about sexual predators on social media. One of our members even had her article retweeted by a man whose harassment was mentioned in it. Once, after I wrote a column about street harassment, a man who had harassed me emailed me: Ive always thought youre beautiful and would never shout insults to you.

In the past two weeks what has really struck me is the phrases used to downplay male transgressions. One of the first men in journalism to admit to harassment referred to it as sub-optimal behaviour. When Michael Fallon resigned as Defence Secretary he said his personal conduct had fallen short (a source in the armed forces told me this was especially problematic because Fallon had just berated the Navy over misbehaving mariners). But the worst of this linguistic understatement was about Bill OReilly: the New York Times referred to a settlement for a nonconsensual sexual relationship.

But Weinstein has shifted attitudes to harassment and assault. It is as though Pandoras Box has just been opened, except all these evils were already in the world  they were being carried as scars by women. We didnt know there were so many of us. When it happened to us we felt alone. We at The Second Source dont want women who have been harassed ever to feel alone again. We want to be part of the hope that comes into the world after the horrors.

For more information, go to thesecondsource.co.uk.
S pider man

Former Tory Chief Whip Gavin Williamson, the 41-year-old rising star of the Tory party, owns Cronus, a red-legged Mexican tarantula. Ive had Cronus since he was a spider-ling, so I have a very paternal sort of approach, says Williamson.

Its very much the same sort of love and care that I give to my spider as I give to all MPs. Parliament has a strict no-pets order, but Williamson, who has surprised many party insiders with his meteoric rise, managed to convince them to make an exception. Telling.

Purrfect socialist

The Labour leader owns El Gato, a cat whose name literally means the cat in Spanish. Depending on your political leanings, its either a case of what you see is what you get, or a characteristic lack of imagination.

Last year, Jeremy Corbyn purred that El Gato has socialist tendencies  hes allowing a stray cat to share his food  although hes previously expressed fears that the black-and-white cat is a bit of a Tory.

Puppy love

Like every self-respecting autocrat, Vladimir Putin collects pedigree dogs (Kim Jong-il reportedly bought dozens of German shepherds, Shih Tzus and other breeds from France and Switzerland every year). The Russian premier is often gifted puppies by world leaders. Angela Merkel, his German counterpart, is afraid of dogs after she was bitten in the mid-Nineties. In a meeting at his summer residence on the Black Sea, Putin let in his black labrador Kony. Merkel sat frozen.

Barking mad

The Canadian Prime Ministers family just got even cuter, gushed the Huffington Post when Justin Trudeau posted pictures of Kenzie, an 11-week-oldPortuguese water dog, on social media last year. Kenzie is the same breed as former US President Barack Obamas dogs, Bo and Sunny.

Finding Nemo

Nemo, a black labrador-griffon cross, is the first French presidential pet to come from a rescue centre. He urinated against a fireplace in Macrons office during a meeting.

Sad!

The 45th US President is a germophobe and doesnt have any pets.
W eve all worked in a job where weve dreamed of having a Bridget Jones moment: telling our horrible boss to stick their lousy job and marching proudly out of the office to the tune of Aretha Franklins Respect.

But in real life, quitting a job involves a lot of paperwork, painfully awkward meetings, and realising its been far too long since we last updated our CV.

Or does it? As one now former Twitter employee proved by deleting President Donald Trumps Twitter account on Thursday, departures arent always a sombre affair (though his account was reactivated after 11 minutes).

This isnt the first and certainly wont be the last time someone has quit their job in a flurry of drama. Heres a round-up of the most awe-inspiring resignations  we wouldnt recommend trying all of them out

When resigning was literally the icing on the cake

Cause for celebration: how about writing your resignation in icing?

After working almost four years for the Border Force Agency at Stansted Airport, Chris Holmes baked an extravagantly decorated cake to tell his bosses he was leaving to pursue a career in baking.

The 31-year-old from Cambridgeshire told bosses life was too short not to do something which makes him happy. After recently becoming a father, he had decided to take his cake business fulltime.

Four years on hes still baking, and, according to the BBC, has no regrets.

A newspaper column

One man's resignation made front page news / Pixabay

Very few people have the power or the influence to get a column published in a newspaper. But in 2012, when London banker Greg Smith decided hed had enough of working for global investment bank Goldman Sachs, he decided to let his boss find out over his morning coffee.

Smiths resignation letter was published as a leader article in the New York Times. Headlined Why Im Leaving Goldman Sachs, the letter included some astonishing revelations, branding staff at the company morally bankrupt.

Hes now present of Bloom, a financial services company, so it worked out for him.

An emergency exit

One man used his resignation to make an emergency exit / Pixabay

Air steward Steven Slater made the headlines in 2010 when he commandeered a planes intercom system on a flight from Pittsburgh to New York to announce his resignation.

During the flight, he was reportedly drawn into an altercation between passengers about overhead luggage space. This was followed by a woman ignoring his requests to stay seated as the plane landed.

He then allegedly used the intercom to launch a foul-mouthed tirade against the passenger, adding: "To those who have shown dignity and respect these last 20 years, thanks for the great ride. He then grabbed a beer from the in-flight trolley, activated the planes inflatable slide and departed.

The flamboyant exit may have been satisfying but it didnt come cheap. A judge eventually ordered him to pay the company $10,000 (7,700) for a replacement slide and sentenced him to a years probation.

Live on-air

Not many people get the chance to resign on live TV / Pixabay

Alaskan television news anchor Charlo Green certainly picked her moment to announce shed had enough in 2014.

Live on-air, she was presenting a story about a group lobbying for the legalisation of cannabis, After delivering a report on the club, she said: "Now everything you've heard is why I, the actual owner of the Alaska Cannabis Club, will be dedicating all of my energy toward fighting for freedom and fairness, which begins with legalising marijuana here in Alaska. And as for this job, well, not that I have a choice but, f**k it, I quit."

She then walked off the set.

Have you ever had a dramatic or satisfying resignation? Let us know in the comments.
A takeaway delivery driver is fighting for his life in hospital today after having acid thrown in his face during an attempted robbery of his scooter.

A witness saw the man in his 30s frantically try to get back inside the house he had been delivering to after he was targeted by two men on a moped in Walpole Road in Walthamstow, east London.

The victim had just finished a food delivery and was getting back on his scooter when residents heard the attackers shout give me the keys.

He was sprayed in the face and chest in the violent attempted robbery at 6pm last night.

FOR THE LATEST ON THIS STORY CLICK HERE

Police said the attack left him was struggling to breathe.

Rebecca Nash said it was her friend who had ordered the takeaway before the driver was set upon.

She said: The driver was frantically trying to get into a house to escape being sprayed. Its so shocking.

If they were after his bike and he didnt resist why would they spray him anyway? Maybe takeaway drivers should switch to cars?

Mohamed Akram, who runs a takeaway on the corner of the attack, said: Its horrendous but acid attacks are happening more. Walthamstow is a such a peaceful, friendly area normally and that is such a quiet road.Its the first time Ive heard of an acid attack here.

I dont do deliveries and I dont want to. The drivers can be left quite vulnerable on their own.

Another neighbour posted to Facebook: I saw the poor man being taken into the ambulance and cant stop thinking about him. Im praying that he is ok.

A Met spokesman said there had been no arrests but police were continuing to investigate.

He added: The victims condition is described as life-threatening at this stage.

It was reported that there were two suspects on a moped and this was an attempted robbery.

Minutes later police were called to another man in his 30s who had been sprayed with a noxious substance in Yarmouth Crescent, Tottenham.

Two suspects on a moped fled the scene with the mans injuries not being treated as life-changing.

Scotland Yard said it was a line of inquiry whether the attacks, a mile away from each other, are linked.

Police are calling for witnesses on 101 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
A boy aged 17 was stabbed to death in a park in London last night, the second teenager to be murdered in the capital this week.

The victim was named locally as Michael Jonas with devastated friends and relatives saying he was quiet and good natured.

Police said they were called to Betts Park in Bromley at 7.22pm to reports of a young man being attacked.

Officers and paramedics rushed to the park and found the teenager suffering multiple stab wounds. Doctors from the Air Ambulance service worked desperately to revive him but he was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after 8.15pm.

Park attack: Forensic officers at the scene where the boy was stabbed (NIGEL HOWARD) / NIGEL HOWARD 

The boy's father today posted an emotionally charged tribute online as detectives appealed for witnesses to the murder.

Writing on Facebook, the teenager's father Michael said: "RIP son daddy was was on his way but didn't get there in time. We will never get to do what we had planned. You died the same place you were born. The same park I took you to to ride your bike and watch you play."

The boys step-mother Kelly McPherson told the Standard: The first thing I knew was when the police knocked on my door. They said there had been a stabbing and had I seen anything. My first thought was oh no I hope its not Michael.

I rang his mobile three times and there was no answer. I knew it was him who had been stabbed, I just knew it. I called his father and ran to the scene. The police were everywhere, we are distraught, he was only 17.

He was such a nice boy I brought him up as my own, I was always with him, we are heartbroken.

Murder probe: Police and forensics at Betts Park (NIGEL HOWARD &copy;) / NIGEL HOWARD 

She said the teenagers father, a bus driver also called Michael, was devastated.

She said: He is in shock he is trying to come to terms with it. We have no idea why this happened.

The killing comes just days after 17-year-old footballer Aren Mali was fatally knifed outside a Croydon shopping centre three miles away.

A total of 22 teenagers have been murdered in London so far this year, 16 of whom have been stabbed.

Devastated relatives and friends gathered at the park near Anerley station in the early hours of this morning as forensics officers combed the area for evidence.

One said: Michael was a caring boy. Quiet and good natured. He always wanted to change - he just didnt know how.

The trouble is there is nothing for the youth to do around here. Theres no community centres.

A friend who was with Michael hours before he died today described him as a humble, lovely guy.

The friend said he had known him most of his life and had attended James Dixon primary school in Anerley with him.

He said: I was chilling with him a few hours before. He was fine and his usual self. He was a humble, quiet guy putting his life back on track and didnt have enemies I knew of.

I just dont know how this can have happened. He didnt deserve to be stabbed, not him, its a total shock.

Ive know idea why he was in the park at that time he didnt mention meeting anyone.

Another friend said: He was a cool guy. As a young black man myself I feel under threat. Its really frightening.

A woman who lives overlooking Betts Park said: The park is a hot spot for bad things. It was only a matter of time till something serious went on over there.

There have been no arrests.

Anyone with information about this incident should call Bromley Police on 101, or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
S cotland Yard is investigating Kevin Spacey over claims he sexually assaulted a young actor at his London home.

A 23-year-old man claims he woke up to Spacey performing a sex act on him after the House of Cards star invited him in for a drink.

He says Spacey, 58, told him not to tell anyone about the incident which allegedly happened in 2008, the Sun reported.

It is understood the complainant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had asked for help with his career.

Earlier this week, Spacey was sensationally accused of making a drunken sexual advance towards Star Trek: Discovery actor Anthony Rapp.

Rapp says he was just 14 at the time of the alleged assault.

Since then, three more men have spoke out against Spacey, including a West Sussex barman who alleged the actor offered him a 5,000 watch when he was 19-years-old to keep him quiet after exposing himself.

An unknown UK journalist, and the filmmaker Tony Montana, also made allegations.

Another man also came forward to the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme alleging that he woke up to find Spacey lying on top of him.

And on Thursday, actor Roberto Cavazos, who worked at Londons Old Vic theatre where Spacey was artistic director between 2004 and 2015, said he had had encounters with Spacey "that verged on what you could call harassment".

Eight House of Cards employees have also accused Spacey of sexual misconduct.

The Hollywood stars spokeswoman Staci Wolfe said he was taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment.

No other information is available at this time, her statement added.

A Met Police spokeswoman told the Standard: On Wednesday, November 1, City of London Police referred an allegation of sexual assault to the Metropolitan Police Service.

It is alleged a man assaulted another man in 2008 in Lambeth.

Officers from the Child Abuse and Sexual Offences Command are investigating.
A takeaway delivery driver was fighting for his life in hospital today after having acid thrown in his face during an attempted moped robbery.

Police said the 32-year-old victim is likely to be blinded in both eyes after having a corrosive substance repeatedly thrown on his face.

He was attacked by two men on a scooter who were trying to steal his moped following a delivery in Walpole Road, Walthamstow, yesterday evening.

Detective Chief Inspector Gordon Henderson, of Waltham Forest CID said it was one of two attacks that could be linked, the second taking place in Tottenham 30 minutes later.

He said: This attack has left a man fighting for his life and with terrible eye injuries.

This was an innocent man going about his work as a delivery driver, who may never see again.

This is not a time to hesitate, if you have any information about this crime I would appeal that you immediately call police. Your phone call could save some other innocent person; it is imperative that we arrest those responsible.

The victim had just finished a delivery and was getting back on his scooter when residents heard the attackers shout give me the keys.

He was sprayed in the face and chest, leaving him struggling to breathe, police said.

He tried to flee by getting into the house where he had been delivering food.

Rebecca Nash told how her friend had ordered the takeaway before the driver was set upon.

She said: The driver was frantically trying to get into a house to escape being sprayed. Its so shocking.

If they were after his bike and he didnt resist why would they spray him anyway?

Mohamed Akram, who runs a takeaway on the corner of the attack, said: Its horrendous but acid attacks are happening more.

I dont do deliveries and I dont want to. The drivers can be left quite vulnerable on their own.

Half an hour later a second delivery driver was also attacked with a corrosive substance, police said.

The 32-year-old delivery driver was approached by two men on a scooter who attempted to steal his moped in Yarmouth Crescent.

He was treated in hospital but his injuries are not believed to be life-threatening or life-changing.

A spokesman for the Met said It has not been established whether the two incidents are linked, but it is an active line of inquiry.

No-one has been arrested.

Incidents of acid attacks in London have risen by 74 per cent since 2015.

Any witnesses to the recent attacks are urged to call police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
T he London School of Economics students' union is calling for Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi to be stripped of her honourary presidency.

Ms Suu Kyi has been widely criticised for her "victim-blaming" over the ongoing Rohingya refugee crisis in her country.

The union has criticised her silence and inaction over the issue branding her "complicit in the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people".

More than 400,000 of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority have fled across the border into Bangladesh, following a "crackdown on insurgents" by the military.

A spokesman for LSE students' union said: "Suu Kyi's choice to prioritise her tenure in office over anything else has come at too significant a cost - her complicity in the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people.

"LSESU has a long history of embracing political progress and speaking out against corruption and violence; Ms Suu Kyi was once seen as a symbol of resistance, non-violence and freedom.

"We believe (...) silence in the face of violence is not acceptable. We condemn the Muslim genocide in Myanmar, we condemn all Islamophobia, and we will actively work against any system which is complicit in supporting the violence."

Ms Suu Kyi was once among the world's most respected political prisoners, as the Mynanmar army regularly detained her under house arrest for a total amounting to nearly 15 years between 1989 and 2010.

Ms Suu Kyi has previously taken part in panel debates at LSE / Getty Images

Myanmar's military junta ruled the country between 1962 and 2011. Despite Ms Suu Kyi's eventual release and election to the role of "state counsellor" (a role akin to prime minister), they maintain control over the army, police and key cabinet positions.

A number of British institutions have reassessed their relationship with Ms Suu Kyi. St Hugh's College, of Oxford University, removed a painting her earlier this year in response to her role in the humanitarian crisis.

The university said it "hopes the Myanmar administration, led by Oxford alumna Aung San Suu Kyi, can eliminate discrimination and oppression, and demonstrate to the world that Myanmar values the lives of its citizens."

The LSE student union is due to debate the motion on November 9.

The Evening Standard has contacted Ms Suu Kyi for comment.
A council worker has won a claim that he suffered racial harassment in a row over an office pot plant - landing taxpayers with a bill for thousands of pounds.

Benyam Kenbata, 34, took legal action after a colleague at Westminster council put the plant on her desk, blocking his view.

He complained to his boss that it was racial segregation and discrimination as it restricted the ease with which he could hold discussions with colleagues.

Now, after a two-year legal battle, he has successfully sued the council for racial harassment and victimisation.

Mr Kenbata said: I genuinely believed I was being unlawfully discriminated against. Working day in, day out with colleagues not effectively communicating with you about work for no apparent good reason is really difficult.

The row began in December 2013 when support officer Zinnie Denby-Mann put a plant on her desk, opposite capital programme manager Mr Kenbata.

A few months later he complained to his boss.

Legal battle: Benyam Kenbata

Westminsters human resources department denied any racial connotations, saying the problem was simply that the plant had grown too high.

In 2015 Mr Kenbata went to London Central Employment Tribunal and made 29 allegations of direct discrimination, racial harassment and victimisation.

It ruled against him, saying it was quite satisfied that the positioning of the plant and its growth was not an act of direct discrimination nor harassment.

It found Mr Kenbata acted in bad faith in making the race discrimination complaint arising from the existence of the overgrown pot plant and ordered him to pay 10,000 costs. It backed Mr Kenbata on just one count, ruling the discussion about the complaint with his boss, which took place in an open-plan office, amounted to victimisation as it should have happened confidentially.

Racism row: Zinnie Denby-Mann put the plant pot on her desk

Mr Kenbata appealed and a judge said the case should be re-examined - and this week the tribunal adjusted its findings, ruling his complaint was not an act of mischief after all and the discussion in the open-plan office was racial harassment.

This was because his bosss response to the allegation was capable of violating his dignity or creating a humiliating environment for him.

However, the tribunal ruled there was no racial discrimination as they found no evidence race was an issue in the office. It said he should still pay 10,000 towards the councils costs as he had acted unreasonably with respect to his other claims. Westminster has spent well over 60,000 defending the claims.

Ms Denby-Mann, who now works as a planning officer at Aberdeen council, declined to comment but a relative described the proceedings as a bit silly and rather bizarre.

Westminster council said it set the highest standards in treating employees fairly, adding: We are pleased the tribunal agreed there was no foundation for a claim of direct race discrimination made against the individual. We note the finding that there was a minor act of harassment, albeit categorised as a one-off incident which fell close to the bottom of the scale in terms of injury to feelings.

John OConnell, chief executive of the TaxPayers Alliance, said: Long, drawn-out tribunals like this are in nobodys interest. They hurt those involved as well as costing taxpayers. Reform of the system is needed.
A manager at a fast food restaurant today revealed how he helped bring back to life a stabbing victim who collapsed in front of shocked customers.

Kurt Pereira, 26, was assistant manager of the Camberwell Green branch of McDonalds when Jerlando Watson, 22, ran into the store bleeding heavily from a stab wound to his thigh.

As the injured man slumped to the floor Mr Pereira sprang into action  clearing the restaurant of customers, demanding two belts be wrapped around the wound as a tourniquet and then giving CPR.

He said: There were customers surrounding the boy. I was shocked by the blood. He had been stabbed just below his backside. People were taking pictures of him so I cleared the store.

Two staff members helped Mr Pereira apply the tourniquet.

Mr Pereira said: I was in shock seeing him. His eyes were rolled back and white. I thought he was dead. I started CPR while I told two guys to keep his legs elevated to stop the blood gushing out.

As I carried on with CPR, a moment later he came back to life.

When ambulance crews arrived they were shocked that Mr Watson was alive. He said: The medic said that if I had not performed CPR he would probably be dead. I used 23 bandages just to stop the blood flow. Police cordoned off the road and I was kept inside until the next morning.

Mr Watson had to have an emergency blood transfusion and surgery, including a skin graft, to repair the severed artery.

Mr Pereira added: A few weeks later a police officer came in and said the man had survived. He had been in a coma for a few days and thought hed lose his leg. But because I did CPR on him and stopped the bleeding, he will be perfectly fine.

Mr Pereira credited his quick thinking to the first aid training at the fast food chain, where he has worked for eight years.

Joses Springer, 18, of Beckenham, was convicted of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and possessing a knife.

He was this week sentenced to six years at a young offender institution for the attack on July 1 last year.

He also admitted possessing a firearm and ammunition, and aggravated burglary in separate and unrelated incidents. He will be detained for a total of nine years.
L ondons monster fatberg has finally been defeated after more than two months of gut-wrenching work.

The massive 250-metre long lump of wet wipes, nappies, fat and oil blocking an underground sewer in Whitechapel was thought to be one of the biggest fatbergs ever discovered in the capital.

Thames Water today announced that engineers had finally finished removing the berg, which weighed the same as 11 double-decker buses and measured longer than two Wembley football pitches.

The 130-tonne fatberg was so large it had damaged the one-metre high Victorian sewer, engineers said.

Clean: The newly unblocked sewer in Whitechapel. / Thames Water

Workers were forced to remove the last stretch manually, scooping the disgusting mass away with shovels and brute force.

Our work is finished, and the beast finally defeated after a mammoth effort from the team, Alex Saunders, the waste network manager said.

The monster fatberg found in east London blocked a sewer. / PA

It was some of the most gut-wrenching work many would have seen on national television, and one of the reasons why the man-made Whitechapel fatberg captured the worlds imagination.

The fatberg itself is not going to go to waste and will be converted into 10,000 litres of biodiesel. It will harvest enough fuel to power a Routemaster bus for an entire year.

But Mr Saunders said the pain-staking work to remove the fatberg comes with a warning message.

Fatberg fighters: Workers had to use shovels to clear the last bit of fatberg. / Thames Water

The good news is it has helped Thames Water and other water companies around the world get the message across that cooking fat, oils and grease should never go down the plughole, he said.

As you have seen, when combined with wet wipes, sanitary products, underwear, nappies, and anything else that shouldnt be flushed, were faced with having to clear out these giant, rock-hard fatbergs.

130-tonne 'fatberg' blocks sewer under London street

Thames Water said it spends around 1m a month clearing blockages from its 68,000 mile sewer network. Eight times every hour a customer suffers a blockage caused by items being flushed away or put down the drain which shouldnt be.

The companys Bin it  dont block it campaign urges Londoners to only put human waste and toilet paper down the toilet.

The scale of the fatberg: Two football pitches.

Last month, the Standard reported the Museum of London had launched a bid to exhibit part of the mammoth fatberg.

The museums director Sharon Ament said part of the berg could become one of the most extraordinary objects in any museum in the capital.

After discovering the sewer surprise, Matt Rimmer from Thames Water said it is up there with the biggest weve ever seen, adding: Its a total monster and taking a lot of manpower and machinery to remove as its set hard.

Its basically like trying to break up concrete.

Just a few weeks after the Whitechapel fatberg was discovered, a 50-metre long lump weighing 26 tonnes was found beneath Chinatown.
P olice have warned thousands of masked protesters preparing to descend on central London on Bonfire Night that they will be arrested for any acts of violence.

Clad in Guy Fawkes masks, supporters of Anonymous, the anarchic hacking collective, are expected at the annual Million Mask March from about 6pm on Sunday.

Police are ramping up their efforts on the night amid concerns peaceful protest is the last thing on the minds of some of those attending".

Last years event erupted into anarchic scenes as fireworks and flares were lit and thrown into crowds and launched at police officers.

Fireworks thrown at bus stop at Million Mask March

Scores of riot police were deployed and 53 people were arrested as furious protestors shouted of f*** the police.

Police say criminality at the event has increased year-on-year, with only 15 arrests in 2013.

In previous years, monuments have been criminally damaged and protestors have even tried to take over buildings, Scotland Yard said.

Million Mask March London 2016 1 /20 Million Mask March London 2016 Getty Images Getty Images Protesters confront the police on The Strand, PA Protesters confront the police on The Strand PA Police arrest a protester clutching a mask in Trafalgar Square Getty Images Protesters don V for Vendetta-inspired Guy Fawkes masks EPA Protestors follow police down Whitehall, London PA There is an increased police presence for the march Joel Goodman/LNP Masked protesters hold banners and flares as they stand on Nelson's Column Getty Images The march was organised by the group Anonymous to protest austerity, government policy and what they consider corperate AFP/Getty Images Campaigners set off flares as they began the march to Downing Street Getty Images The group met at Trafalgar Square Getty Images A masked protester holds a sign which reads 'We Are Legion' in Trafalgar Square Getty Images Many are wearing the Guy Fawkes mask associated with the Anonymous hacking collective Getty Images A protester holds a sign reading 'England under new management' AFP/Getty Images

On a Facebook group promoting the march, which tells Londoners to "expect us", almost 2,000 people have said they are attending or have expressed an interest in attending.

A post reads: "We have seen the abuses and malpractice of this government, and governments before it.

"We have seen the encroaching destruction of many civil liberties we hold dear.

"We have seen the pushes to make the internet yet another part of the surveillance state.

Masked protesters hold placards and flares as they stand on Nelson's Column / Getty Images

"We have seen the government's disregard for migrants, for the poor, the elderly and the Disabled.

"We have seen the capital, profit and greed of the few put before the well-being of the many and we say enough is enough...

"The government and the 1% have played their hand, now it is time to play ours.

A protester at last year's Million Mask March / PA

Chief Superintendent Elaine Van-Orden, said: Due to the previous history of this event, we have strong reasons to believe that peaceful protest is the last thing on the minds of some of those who will attend.

Those who choose to behave like this are not protestors, they are committing criminal acts and we will endeavour to deal with them.

Our message, as it was last year, is simple: if you wish to protest peacefully, that is your right and we want to work with you. If you commit criminal acts or breach the conditions of the event, you are liable to be arrested.

Dozens of police vans head to Million Mask March

Police have imposed conditions on the march, limiting it to a three-hour period between 6pm and 9pm on a prescribed route between Trafalgar Square and Whitehall.

Any static protest must only take place in Trafalgar Square, Richmond Terrace and Parliament Square and the Met warned anyone breaching the conditions could be arrested for public order offences.
T heresa May was embroiled in bitter new infighting today as the Government was accused by Tory MPs of leaking Andrea Leadsoms private complaint about alleged sexual harassment.

A former minister described as exceptionally serious that somebody at the top had disclosed the leader of the Commons made a complaint about lewd comments allegedly made by her Cabinet colleague Sir Michael Fallon.

The MP said the leak would deter future victims from going through the proper channels.

Gavin Williamson, the former chief whip, was dramatically promoted to Defence Secretary in the wake of Sir Michaels resignation.

The fresh bout of infighting came as Mrs May was drawing up proposals for a new complaints procedure as she desperately tried to draw a line under allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment in Westminster.

Mrs May was drawing up proposals for a new complaints procedure to tackle sexual harassment in Parliament / PA

However, No 10s failure to get a grip on the sense of scandal and crisis was leading some MPs to question whether Mrs May could stay as leader.

The latest twist to Sir Michaels resignation was the leaking of the role played by Ms Leadsom, 54, who is seen as a potential leadership contender.

She was said to have alleged that between five and seven years ago he made a crude remark when she said she had cold hands. I know where you can put them to warm them up, he allegedly said.

Sir Michael strongly denies that the incident took place.

Former business minister Anna Soubry said: The real question here is who leaked this. If it was a leak from the disciplinary machinery, then this is exceptionally serious.

How can people come forward except on the strict understanding it will not be leaked? I know somebody myself in that exact position. What confidence can she have in No 10?

A Tory MP said Ms Leadsom was damaged by the implication that she brought down Sir Michael.

I dont think Andrea would have leaked it  it wouldnt have been in her favour and the stakes are too high. Mr Williamson, in his role as chief whip, would have advised Mrs May.

A friend of Sir Michael said he felt he had been unfairly treated while others had taken advantage of the maelstrom. They have all played dirty, the friend said. There was no evidence, no dates.

No 10 sources would not comment on the incident.

Mrs May came under more heat, this time over her failure to withdraw the Tory whip from Stephen Crabb, the ex-minister who sent text messages to a 19-year-old job applicant. Labours Jess Phillips said: Stephen Crabb should definitely not still be walking around Parliament with the Tory whip.

She accused Mrs May of sheltering behind Cabinet Office investigations into ministers while ignoring backbenchers accused of bad behaviour.

The Prime Minister, unfortunately she has only been using the ministerial code because she doesnt think her party should be taking responsibility for these things. It seems like its open season for Tory backbenchers to do what they like.
H EAD bowed, Prince Charles will lead the nation on Remembrance Sunday in commemorating Britains war dead. In an RAF marshal ceremonial uniform, he will lay the first wreath of red poppies at the foot of the Cenotaph memorial in Whitehall.

This is a significant moment in a developing royal journey. Fewer than 100 metres away, the Queen, now 91, will be keenly observing proceedings from the Foreign Office balcony.

Her heir laying the nations wreath as she watches is an historic image  the clearest sign to date that our monarchy is undergoing a subtle transition of power from the ageing monarch to her eldest son. It is an emphatic nod to the future, with the Queen ensuring continuity at the end of her long reign.

The ceremony will happen just hours after the princes return from a hectic official tour of four Commonwealth countries  Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia and India. On this state visit in all but name, Charles, 68, accompanied by the Duchess of Cornwall, will have carried out more than 50 engagements in 10 days on behalf of his mother and her Government. Together the couple will have criss-crossed south-east Asia on a schedule that has taken them deep into the rainforest via helicopters and boats, and included banquets, speeches and small talk with a sultan, presidents and prime ministers.

This Commonwealth tour is all about deft diplomacy: cementing valued old ties, cultural and economic, with thriving nations ahead of the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in London and Windsor next April, themed Towards a Common Future.

Queen Elizabeth II lays a wreath at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday in London 2014 / EPA

Charles was asked to represent his mother as she no longer undertakes these gruelling long-haul visits. Slowly, but assuredly, he is emerging from her shadow. He will not automatically inherit her role as head of this organisation of 52 member states. That is a matter for the Commonwealth leaders  but his performance on this tour will certainly help his case.

The Evening Standard flew out with the prince and his entourage on RAF Voyager, used by the Queen, Charles and the Prime Minister on official business, and, from my ringside seat on the tour, it is obvious that he commands respect on the international stage.

In Singapore, he got straight to work as soon as the plane touched down. On arrival, he shared a rare public kiss with Camilla as they were reunited. She had travelled earlier, spending a few days at a retreat in Bangalore. He went on to tell guests at a dinner at Singapores presidential palace, the Istana, that the special importance of the Commonwealth had been a cornerstone in my life as, of course, it has been for Her Majesty. The Commonwealth is the Queens passion  and perhaps will be her greatest legacy  but is deeply important to Charles too. Like her, he believes that the organisation, which represents a third of the worlds population, is a major force for good and for change.

Over the past seven decades, it has helped countries make economic progress and today champions the interests of smaller nations to strengthen their democracies. Charles acknowledges that to remain relevant in this changing world, the organisation needs to change too.

With 60 per cent of its population under 30, it is particularly important that the Commonwealth addresses the challenges they face. Among these are weak global trade and investment flows; new cross-border security threats; and the effects of climate change. Part of the message of the prince on this tour has been that member states must work together to ensure the organisation has the institutional strength to face the future effectively.

In Malaysia, where he was making his maiden visit, he made clear his view that the young people of the Commonwealth must be empowered to help them tackle this manmade perfect storm of problems. I do not feel that it is realistic or fair for us simply just to pass our problems to the next generation in the hope that they will resolve them, he told a gala dinner in Kuala Lumpur.

The royal tour will also be a powerful catalyst for business. The prince is at the heart at the subtle shift of emphasis in government strategy in using the royal brand. Despite the economic benefits these foreign forays generate, they are not trade missions  that would be to demean the role of the heir to the throne. Charless presence in this region will, however, help to smooth the way for politicians and businessmen.

Hardened republicans have a somewhat distorted view of the role of the constitutional monarchy. Critics point to Charless so-called black spider memos, written to ministers on topics such as the environment, and believe he expects to routinely meddle in politics. They insist any king or queen must not be political.

It is true that the overwhelming majority of prerogative powers are devolved to the Queens ministers, but the monarch can wield power in the event of a grave constitutional crisis. Then, the sovereign can act contrary to or without ministerial advice.

The prince, the longest-serving heir to the throne in the history of the monarchy, already reads the red boxes like his mother and has regular meetings with ambassadors. For the past few years, the palace and politicians have been working to secure a smooth succession to the reign of Charles III. After a lifetime of service, few could be better placed than the prince to understand the necessary and proper limitations he will face as king.
J eremy Corbyn is facing criticism for attending an event organised by a so-called hardline Muslim group previously accused of anti-semitism.

A number of Labour MPs attended the event held by the Muslim Engagement and Development group (Mend) to mark the start of Islamophobia Awareness Week on Wednesday.

Mr Corbyn reportedly told the audience: "Our future lies in mutual respect between all communities...An attack on any of us is an attack on all of us. The only future is to come together."

In 2010, a Channel 4 Dispatches investigation secretly filmed the organisation's director of engagement, Azad Ali, professing his "love" for al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki.

Theresa May is set to host Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu / Getty

Mr Ali was also filmed saying "nobody agrees" with democracy if it comes "at the expense of not implementing the Sharia".

Politicians spoke out against Corbyn's appearance at the event after he rejected an invitation to a dinner marking the Balfour Declaration, to be attended by Theresa May and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Former communities secretary Sir Eric Pickles slammed the appearance.

He told the Daily Mail: To not make a dinner is perhaps excusable but to attend a meeting of extremists who are vowed to destroy Israel is contemptible.

Tory MP Philip Davies added: During the election Jeremy Corbyn said his links to violent extremism, such as to the IRA and to Hamas, was a thing of the past.

We can now see that this is not historical at all. His addiction to hardline extremists continues to this day.

MP Stephen Kinnock issued a statement ahead of the event / Getty Images

Henna Rai, director of the Women Against Radicalisation Network, said: "I don't think any MPs should be seen associating with Mend.

"They are a deeply problematic organisation which regularly labels any Muslims collaborating with the government on counter-extremism initiatives as 'bad Muslims'.

"Just as I was alarmed to see the Hindu nationalist Tapan Ghosh recently hosted in Parliament, this was another example of extremism being hosted in the heart of our democracy.

"I think our elected politicians have to exercise due diligence and be more critical in deciding who is worthy of being given such a platform."

Stephen Kinnock, MP for Aberavon, spoke at the event alongside Mr Corbyn.

In a statement issued ahead of the event, he wrote: "Recent media reports have brought to my attention statements and actions from Mend that are of grave concern.

"I strongly disagree with the tone and content of the comments that have been highlighted.

"I would like to make it absolutely clear that I unconditionally condemn any and all actions that could be constructed as divisive, aggressive or contrary to the values that we should all cherish: inclusion, peace, justice and the rule of the law of the land."

Maajid Nawaz criticised the politicians in attendance while broadcasting his LBC show / Getty Images

MPs Anna Soubry, Crispin Blunt, Sir Ed Davey and Joanna Cherry had been due to speak at the event but pulled out shortly before.

Speaking on his LBC radio show ahead of the event, Maajid Nawaz, founder of anti-extremist organisation Quilliam, said: "What are you thinking? You should be ashamed of yourselves.

"If your colleagues have pulled out, what are you still doing being involved with this event?"

The neo-conservative Henry Jackson Society think tank published a report earlier this week describing Mend as "regularly hosting illiberal, intolerant and extremist Islamist speakers at public events".

A Mend spokesman denied these claims in a statement, writing: "The Henry Jackson Society clearly has its own partisan agenda and is aimed at discrediting Mend with a view to trying to discourage politicians, journalists, unions, civil liberty organisations and others to work with us.

"Our increasing influence and acceptance is an irritant to the Henry Jackson Society and it appears they believe only certain organisations can be allowed to express political views on behalf of Muslims."

A spokesman for Mr Corbyn told The Telegraph: "Jeremy was pleased to attend an event to mark the start of Islamophobia Awareness Month alongside representatives from political parties, the Met Police and the office of the Independent Review of Terror Legislation."

When criticised in the past for meeting with Islamist groups Hezbollah and Hamas, Corbyn had said "to bring about a peace process, you have to talk to people with whom you profoundly disagree."

Hundreds are expected to turn out for a pro-Palestine march in London on Saturday, in opposition to the celebration of the Balfour Declaration and Netanyahu's visit.

The Standard has approached both Jeremy Corbyn and Mend for comment.
L ondoners are set to catch a glimpse of an impressive Frost Moon as it appears over the capital this weekend.

The annual phenomenon is set to spark excitement among astronomers across the globe but what is a Frost Moon and where is the best place to see it?

What is a Frost Moon?

The Frost Moon or Beaver Moon as it is also known appears every year around November and earned its name from Native American huntsmen, who used it to decide when to set beaver traps.

The impressive sight will appear 14 per cent bigger and three times as bright as a normal full moon.

It appears when the moon orbits the earth more than 10,000 miles closer than usual - at 226,182 miles compared with its average 238,900.

Will it be visible in London?

According to the Met Office, most of the UK is expected to be covered in cloud on Friday night, meaning stargazers trying to catch sight of the Beaver Moon might struggle.

However, clouds are expected to part in time for Saturday night, especially in the east of England, meaning Londoners and residents in and around the home counties will be in with a chance of catching a glimpse.

A Met Office spokesman said: "Depending on where you are in the UK, we could be seeing some light cloud on the Friday night, when the moon is due to reach its peak.

"It is expected to become most visible at approximately 5.23am on the morning of Saturday, November 4.

"It will still, however, hold out to some degree on the Saturday night, when we expect to see broadly clearer skies throughout the country, most especially in the east of England."
T he two families of a dead millionaire banker are locked in a transatlantic tug-of-war over where his body should be buried.

Morgan Stanley financier Paul Lewis Morigi, who died last year aged 97, had two great loves in his life, one in America and one in the UK.

The Second World War hero was married to fellow American Muriel Morigi, 96, who was the mother of his two children, for more than 60 years, the High Court heard.

But, five years before his death, he left her after rekindling a wartime romance with Olive Murphy, 92, from Eastbourne, who he had briefly married in 1944.

Mr Morigis two families are now at loggerheads over which of his wives should be able to lie next to him for all eternity.

Sarah Lang (grandaughter, left), Karolyn Morigi-Armstrong (daughter, centre) and William Armstrong (grandson, right) outside the High Court / Richard Gittins/Champion News

Just before Christmas last year his daughter, financier Karolyn Morigi-Armstrong, and his four grandchildren won an injunction preventing Mrs Murphy from burying him in Britain.

His body has since been in storage at a Sussex undertaker, and Judge Stuart Isaacs QC is now considering where his final resting place should be.

The court heard Mr Morigi met and married Mrs Murphy while he was a commanding officer in the wartime US navy, but they divorced in 1948 when she refused to move to America.

He married Ms Morigi the same year, but divorced her in 2011 to return to Mrs Murphy in Eastbourne. After his death, Mrs Murphys nephew Don made arrangements for a burial in a cemetery plot near Worthing picked out by Mrs Murphy.

Joshua Swirsky, for the Murphys, asked the judge to set aside the injunction and fulfil Mrs Murphys wishes. If he is buried in the US, given her age and state of health, she will never be able to visit, he said. If he is buried in the UK, not only can she visit the grave during the remainder of her life but she can lie next to him for all eternity.

But his daughter Mrs Morigi- Armstrong and the grandchildren want his body flown back to America to be buried with military honours in the family plot in Connecticut, where his son Paul, who died in 2009, is also buried.

Mrs Morigi-Armstrong told the court her father would never have wanted to be buried in England, thousands of miles away from all his family and against his express wishes.

But Mr Swirsky said Mr Morigi would want to lie next to Olive, his first and last love. The hearing continues.
T he Prince of Wales today championed the Commonwealth saying it has a "pivotal role to play" in safeguarding our planet and humanity for the next generation.

In a key-note speech Prince Charles said we must back and empower young people of the Commonwealth to help them tackle the man-made "perfect storm" of problems such as "climate change."

Speaking at a gala dinner in Kuala Lumpur the prince stressed that Commonwealth leaders must listen to the views of the next generation at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London next April.

"I do not feel that it is realistic or fair for us simply just to pass our problems to the next generation in the hope that they will resolve them," he said.

"We are beholden at the very least to ensure that their inheritance sustains rather than constrains them."

Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall pose with Prime Minister of Malaysia Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor / Getty Images

And the prince insisted we have the money, resources and know how to tackle global threats.

He said: "If we show determination we are fully able to harness our intelligence and our compassion to build societies that are restorative and regenerative.

"We certainly have the money, we increasingly have the technology and we now have the Sustainability Goals as a commonly agreed framework of joint action which,if implemented would generate $12 trillion dollars and 600 million additional jobs."

"Transformative change is possible," he said, stressing the importance of the circular economy and sustainability.

He went on: "Representing a third of the worlds population and a fifth of its land-mass, it can draw on a uniquely wide range of national contexts, experiences, traditions and, above all, professional associations  something, of course, which makes the Commonwealth unlike anything else in the world  for the solutions that we all so desperately need now.

"We must do all that we can to ensure that our young people of the Commonwealth are supported to enable them to be successful in working with us to deal, with the necessary energy and imagination, with these complex and enormous challenges," he said.

Charles will take a leading role alongside the Queen - who is the head of the organisation - at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London and Windsor. The Prince could one day follow his mother in heading up the 52 member global organisation.

Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, with shoe designer Jimmy Choo as they attend the Gala Dinner / Getty Images

He went on: "I have every confidence that the (Commonwealth) Youth Summit will offer us some valuable insights and compelling solutions to the challenges we all face such as the accelerating threat multiplier of catastrophic climate change.

"What gives me that hope is what I have seen happen when you put faith in young people," he said.

Charles - who established his Prince's Trust to support youth entrepreneurs more than 40 years ago - added, "What young people need, I have learned, is encouragement and enough support, advice and skills training to get started. Once started, the results can often be spectacular and profoundly heartening," he said.

He went on: "The world is also seeing an unprecedented shift from rural to urban dwelling which is creating many acute pressures: traffic congestion, dangerous levels of air pollution, the spread of unplanned settlements along highways and the destruction or disruption of vital eco-systems and the services that Nature struggles to provide us.

"How, then should we respond, to this perfect storm of human-created problems that we simply can no longer afford to ignore?"

Prince Charles Camilla look at limited edition stamps released to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of bilateral relations between the United Kingdom and Malaysia / Getty Images

Charles also stressed bi-lateral ties of trade and security.

He said, "Today our partnership is vibrant and dynamic and, if I may say so, it is vitally important for the prosperity and security of both our countries.

"The trade and investment that flows between us, in both directions, creates skilled, well-paid employment in the United Kingdom just as it does in Malaysia."

Earlier Charles presented a museum in with his framed signature written in Arabic.

He has been learning Arabic for six years and often sends letters to Islamic scholars and leaders signed in their language as a sign of mutual respect.

The prince later went to a tech hub in the city and walked into the offices through a quirky door modelled on BBC Doctor Who's Tardis.

As he walked through to the photographers flash bulbs he joked, "I could have come through the side (entrance).

The heir to the throne is on an four country tour of south-east Asia and India.
A teacher could be banned from the classroom after he used a mobile phone to film up schoolgirls skirts.

Andrew Corish, 60, used the phone to peer between childrens legs while an assistant headteacher at Coloma Convent Girls School in Croydon.

He also stored the images and admitted doing so for sexual gratification.

Corish was never convicted in court for his behaviour because it does not constitute a criminal offence. However, he faces a possible teaching ban after admitting the allegations to a professional misconduct panel on Monday.

When confronted by the Standard at his 600,000 five-bedroom home in Caterham, Surrey, he said: I dont really want to make any comments at all because my solicitors have advised me not to make any.

Asked whether he would like to apologise to his victims, he said: I can assure you that the information provided to the [misconduct] hearing included the apologies youre mentioning.

The Standard also asked why he committed the acts and if he still worked with children.

He said: Again, I dont want to make any further comments.

The National College for Teaching and Leadership misconduct panel heard that Corish admitted all the allegations in a witness statement.

He said he had used a mobile to film up the skirt of one or more pupils and stored one or more inappropriate images taken up the skirts of pupils, including videos.

Panel chair Professor Roger Woods ruled: The panel is satisfied that the conduct of Mr Corish in relation to the facts found proven involved breaches of the teachers standards.

It will consider whether to recommend sanctions or a ban to the Education Secretary.

Corish pleaded guilty to voyeurism at Croydon magistrates court in April last year.

The plea was rejected a month later at Croydon crown court, by judge Warwick McKinnon, because voyeurism should involve observing a private act for sexual gratification.

None of the victims were filmed during a private act, it was concluded.

The Crown Prosecution Service applied for indecent images of children charges to be added, but the judge ruled the images were not of an indecent nature.

As a result, the CPS offered no evidence, a spokesman said, meaning Corish was acquitted.

A spokesman for the school said: When it was reported to the school we acted immediately in 2015 to suspend the teacher concerned and he then resigned with immediate effect.

He said the school assisted the police and council investigation, reported the matter to the NCTL, and strengthened our safeguarding procedures.
B lack Lives Matter has been awarded the Sydney Peace Prize for its work in addressing issues of race in America.

Movement leaders Patrisse Cullors, Rodney Diverlus, and Dawn Modkins accepted the award on Thursday amid cheers from as citizens and community leaders in Sydney.

Onlookers clapped and chanted Black Lives, they matter here.

In a statement from the Sydney Peace Foundation, a body within the University of Sydney, it said that the group was awarded the prize for for building a powerful movement for racial equality, courageously reigniting a global conversation around state violence and racism.

It is the first time that the prize has been awarded to an organisation.

During a live stream broadcast of the awards, co-founder of the movement, Ms Cullors, said: "It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains".

The movement began in 2013 after the acquittal of George Zimmerman who shot African American teenager Trayvon Martin dead.

Using the hashtag Black Lives Matter, the movement gained traction on social media and has inspired protests and marches in recent years and became recognised as being at the forefront of US activism against racial injustice in the States.

Opal Tometi, co-founder of the group and executive director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration told NBC news that she had learned from friends living in Australia that there are issues of violence and incarceration in Aboriginal communities.

She said: Sadly these realities also reflect the lives of Black immigrants and refugees who live in Australia".

She also expressed her support for organisations such as Rise who help refugees who come to Australia for a new life.

Ms Tometi called for justice for black people worldwide.

She said: "No matter the context, no matter one's nationality or citizenship status we must continue to affirm that all black lives matter. And we must continue to work to ensure each one is protected and affirmed.
A coastal patrol vessel from the UK Border Force has been deployed on the Thames in central London for the first time to stop the river being used by human traffickers and criminal gangs.

The Eagle targets drugs, gun-running and customs offences, checks suspicious vessels and gathers intelligence from law-abiding river users. It also aims to ensure boat crews are not subjected to modern slavery.

There is concern that marinas and boatyards along the Thames estuary could be used by organised crime networks to bring illicit goods and migrants into Britain.

Doug McLellan, head of the UK Border Force maritime unit, said the vessel was one of four protecting domestic waters and its deployment in the Thames recognised the proximity of the South-East to Europes mainland. Our priority is class-A drugs, firearms, the exploitation of people.

On the lookout: Commander Nick Willis and Mark Pester on the Thames

Then its things like tobacco smuggling down to irregularities in ships stores, environmental damage and illegal fishing, he said.

It is easy for less legitimate vessels to mingle in with regular traffic.

There are boatyards and marinas all down the Thames.

The vessel has been working with the Met and Essex police maritime units to target what the Home Office described as small unscheduled vessels used to facilitate illegal migration or smuggle prohibited commodities. Craft checked have included yachts from Europe as well as larger boats.

Immigration minister Brandon Lewis said: The Thames provides a major route that can be exploited by criminals. Border Force is sending a clear message that they cannot operate.
A judge has ruled that US Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl should not be jailed for endangering fellow troops after he walked off his post in Afghanistan in 2009.

The military judge also gave him a dishonourable discharge, reduced his rank to private and said he must forfeit pay equal to 1,000 dollars (765) per month for 10 months.

Bergdahl was captured by the Taliban and spent five years under brutal captivity by the insurgent group after he wandered away from his post.

He had faced up to life in prison after pleading guilty to desertion and misbehaviour before the enemy.

Discharged: Bowe Bergdahl arriving at the Fort Bragg courtroom / AP

Prosecutors had asked Army Colonel Jeffery Nance to send Bergdahl to prison for 14 years for the hardships and injuries endured by service members who searched for the soldier after he left his combat outpost in Paktika province in June 2009 without permission.

Defence lawyers had said the 31-year-old Idaho native, who experts testified has several mental health conditions, should be spared confinement.

Bergdahl's case made him a polarizing figure. He drew withering criticism from political leaders in Washington and fellow soldiers, both for the dangerous efforts to find him and the 2014 Taliban prisoner swap brokered by the Democratic Obama administration that secured his release.

President Donald Trump previously called Bergdahl "a no-good traitor who should have been executed."

Defense attorneys argued at Bergdahl's sentencing hearing at Fort Bragg in North Carolina that he was a young, hardworking soldier who did not understand the full consequences of his actions when he deserted.

Bergdahl, who has said he wanted to report problems in his unit, apologized in court this week for the suffering he caused his comrades and admitted he had made "a horrible mistake."

Discharged: Bowe Bergdahl poses in front of an American flag

Prosecutors, however, said Bergdahl knew his disappearance would trigger alarm in the war zone.

Prosecutors acknowledged that Bergdahl suffered during his years as a prisoner of the Taliban, but argued that did not diminish the pain of fellow service members who were injured during the futile hunt for him. (Reporting by Greg Lacour; Writing by Colleen Jenkins)
C alls have been made for a rogue Twitter employee who deleted Donald Trumps account on his last day of work to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.

The US presidents account disappeared for 11 minutes after the worker at the social networking company removed his entire profile.

The sabotage took place shortly before 11pm last night.

Visitors to his @realdonaldtrump page were greeted with the message: Sorry, that page doesnt exist!

Twitter initially said the account, which is followed by almost 42 million people, had been deactivated by mistake.

What people found when searching for Trump's account last night / Twitter

It said: Earlier today, @realdonaldtrumps account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee. The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again.

However, in a second statement, the US tech firm, which has its headquarters in San Francisco, admitted the deactivation had been an act of defiance by an outgoing employee.

It said: Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employees last day. We are conducting a full internal review.

Mr Trump, who has sent more than 36,000 tweets from his account, responded today, writing: My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee. I guess the word must finally be getting out  and having an impact.

The as-yet unnamed employee was hailed a hero online.

One user, Fabricio Zazai, wrote: The Twitter employee who suspended Donald Trumps account should be nominated for Nobel Peace Prize.

Member of congress, republican David Jolly waded in and said: Just gonna say it, the employee at Twitter who shut off Trump's account for 11 mins could become a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Before Twitters statement, users speculated that the president himself had deactivated the account, or been hacked. He has been criticised by experts for his poor social media security and is said to use an unsecured Android phone rather than a White House-approved encrypted device.

Mr Trump, 71, has used Twitter to attack a range of people  from opponents and world leaders to celebrities and the media  prior to his run for office, throughout his campaign and during his time in the White House.

His predecessor Barack Obama, German leader Angela Merkel and the actress Meryl Streep have all fallen victim to his tweets  as have journalists working for what he calls the fake news media, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
E ight House of Cards employees have accused Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey of sexual misconduct.

According to a report by CNN, the group of current and ex-employees described the American Beauty stars behaviour as predatory, adding it included non-consensual touching and crude comments.

A former production assistant told the American news organisation that Spacey, who plays rising White House politician Francis Underwood in the programme, sexually assaulted him during filming for one of the shows early series.

Others said the star made the work environment toxic.

The series production company has reportedly opened a confidential hotline, counselling team and legal advisers for the House of Cards crew.

Earlier this week Netflix announced it was axing House of Cards after the upcoming sixth series - due to air next year - following the first allegation of sexual misconduct from actor Anthony Rapp.

Star Trek: Discovery actor Mr Rapp claimed he was 14-years-old when Spacey made a sexual advance towards him while in the stars bedroom in 1986.

Kevin Spacey at the 2013 Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. / Getty Images

Since then, three more men have spoken out against Spacey, including a West Sussex barman who alleged the actor offered him a 5,000 watch when he was 19-years-old to keep him quiet after exposing himself. An unknown UK journalist, and the filmmaker Tony Montana, also made allegations.

Another man also came forward to the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme alleging that he woke up to find Spacey lying on top of him.

And on Thursday, actor Roberto Cavazos, who worked at Londons Old Vic theatre where Spacey was artistic director between 2004 and 2015, said he had had encounters with Spacey "that verged on what you could call harassment".

Spacey, 58, who has won two Oscars for his roles in American Beauty and The Usual Suspects, publicly apologised to Mr Rapp when the first claim was made.

Kevin Spacey in 60 seconds

He said was beyond horrified at the allegation but could not remember it happening, adding he was sincerely sorry for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behaviour.

In the same statement Spacey, who has always kept his personal life private, said he was gay.

Representatives of the film star said he is now taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment. It is not known what type of treatment he is seeking.

Following the new allegations from House of Cards employees, the production company behind the show, Media Rights Capital, said it was deeply troubled to learn about these new allegations.

First allegation: Anthony Rapp: accused Spacey of a sexual advance in 1986 / AFP/Getty Images

In a statement the company confirmed it had handled one incident in 2012 from a crew member. The worker, who was not identified due to automatic anonymity given to all those who allege sexual abuse or misconduct, had shared a complaint about a specific remark and gesture made by Kevin Spacey, the company said.

It added that immediate action had been taken and the matter was resolved.

Netflix told Reuters it was aware of the 2012 incident but of none others.

The Old Vic has urged anyone with complaints to raise them confidentially.

"We are deeply dismayed to hear the allegations levied against Kevin Spacey, the theatre said in a statement.
T urkey has passed a law that could lead to an increase in child brides, critics have suggested.

The new legislation was signed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan this week and allows Islamic muftis to conduct civil marriage ceremonies.

This move to introduce a religious figure into a previously secular procedure could apparently lead to more child marriages.

Previously couples in Turkey had to be married by a civil authority, but they could also have a religious ceremony performed by an Imam.

With this new law, couples can choose not to be married by a secular authority and instead opt for a single marriage led by a mufti  religious legal representatives.

The new law has been criticised by the countrys liberal Republican Peoples Party (CHP) as an attack on secularism.

You are making all segments of the state - from education to marriage  religious, said Murat Bakan, a CHP parliamentarian, according to The Telegraph.

He added: This is exactly the opposite [of secularism]

Civil rights groups are concerned that more underage girls could be married as conservative muftis overlook brides under the age of 17.

Under Islamic law, a girl can get married as soon as she reaches puberty.

Aylin Nazliaka, an independent MP reportedly said: "This draft law is an effort to prepare a legal ground for child sexual abuse and underage marriage.

The head of the Federation of Women Associations of Turkey, Canan Gullu, said, according to Turkey's Hurriyet Daily News, the regulation would be a loss to the earned rights of women.

She said: This draft [bill] is disastrous for women, we will not allow it. We demand from the president that this perilous draft is withdrawn.

Child marriages are common in Turkey, with 15 per cent of girls married under the age of 18, according to charity Girls Not Brides.

Turkish government has insisted that the new law will encourage more religious families to be married by a state-approved individual, and said it is aimed at cutting the numbers of unregistered marriages.
A parliamentary committee is demanding internet giant Twitter hands over lists of Russian-related accounts that may have attempted to interfere in the UK's democratic process.

The call from the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee came after Twitter told a US Congress inquiry it had detected thousands of Russian troll accounts posting material linked to American politics.

In a letter to Twitter chief executive officer Jack Dorsey, committee chairman Damian Collins said he wanted information on any Russian accounts posting about UK politics.

The committee is currently conducting an inquiry into the phenomenon of "fake news", in the wake of claims that social media may have been manipulated by overseas actors in an attempt to influence last year's EU referendum or the snap general election on June 8.

Disclosure: The web giant is being urged to shared Russian-related accounts / AFP/Getty Images

Twitter's acting general counsel Sean Edgett this week gave evidence to a Senate hearing that the organisation had traced 2,752 accounts to the Russia-based troll factory, the Internet Research Agency, which between them sent out 1.4 million messages in a span of just over two months.

Mr Collins told Mr Dorsey: "It has subsequently emerged that some of these accounts were also posting content that relates to the politics of the United Kingdom.

"Any interference by foreign actors in the democratic process of the United Kingdom is clearly a serious matter.

Departing Twitter employee deactivates Donald Trump's account

"I would therefore ask that Twitter provides to the Committee a list of accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency and any other Russian linked accounts that it has removed and examples of any posts from these accounts that are linked to the United Kingdom."

Mr Collins gave a deadline of the end of November for Twitter to provide the information.

Additional reporting from Press Association.
T ripAdvisor came under fire on Wednesday after it was accused of removing reviews warning travellers about rapes and assaults reported at a Mexican resorts

An investigation carried out by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that many individuals who had reported first-hand accounts of rape and assault in various hotel and resort reviews were removed by the site.

TripAdvisors reasons for removing the posts ranged from claims that the reviews were hearsay and didnt meet its guidelines, to claiming the posts werent acceptable under its family friendly policy.

The Sentinel discovered that three people had written reviews on the site reporting that they had been attacked at one specific resort in Mexico called Iberostar Paraiso near Playa del Carmen.

Kristie Love wrote in a post, which has since been deleted and republished on the site, that she had asked the resort to fire the man who assaulted her and they did not.

She wrote: I feel it is now my responsibility to inform other travellers of the lack of protection that this property named Hotel Chain of the year 2009 provides its guests.

In each case the reviews were deleted and subsequently put future visitors in danger as they werent provided with the information.

TripAdvisor has strict rules and algorithms in place to prevent businesses from falsely promoting themselves and to prevent trolls from harassing people.

However, as The Sentinel notes, Tripadvisor receives advertising revenue and commissions from certain hotels and resorts.

Alongside this, the website employs people to monitor reviews to determine if any unsuitable messages are posted.

Some users are even allowed to monitor reviews due to special privileges, however the company refused to reveal who these people are and why they are chosen.

This means that it is impossible to know how many reviews have been deleted that are warning visitors of potentially harmful situations.

TripAdvisor responded to the allegations: "We apologise to the sexual assault victim, reported on in the article, who had her forum post removed 7 years ago on TripAdvisor. At the time, we had a policy whereby we judged content to be in breach of our guidelines if it did not adhere to family friendly language. More than 7 years ago that meant all language needed to be U-rated. A few years ago, we changed that policy to allow more descriptive reviews on the site about first-hand accounts of serious incidents like rape or assault. We recognised then that our previous guidelines went too far in preventing information like this from being shared."

The company explained how they have changed their policy: "Over the last several years, this policy change has yielded many first-hand accounts of serious incidents being published on the platform. A simple search of TripAdvisor will show numerous reviews from travellers over the last several years who wrote about their first-hand experiences that include matters of robbery or theft, assault and rape. We believe any first-hand experience should be posted to our site as a means to communicate to other consumers looking for information on where they should travel.

"When we were made aware that this post had been removed under our previous guidelines, we republished it in line with our revised policy."

TripAdvisor have also said that they are working to create a badge notification to apply to businesses to alert consumers of health & safety or discrimination issues at that business reported on within the media or other credible sources of information.
B .O.B has claimed that slavery in America never happened, weeks after he launched a crowdfunder to send satellites to space to prove the Earth is flat.

The US rapper is advocating the belief based on the fact he has never seen a slave ship.

B.O.B  real name Bobby Ray Simmons, Jr.  posted a video to Instagram that appears to question the mapping of the world, with the rapper telling fans that their directions are off because north aint south and south aint north.

Filming an ancient map from 1904, he questions whether Jerusalem is in fact right next to Illinois.

He captioned the clip: They say slavery lasted 400 yrs... America is only 250 yrs old... You ever seen a slave ship ?

They can find a billion year old dinosaur bone but can't find any slave ships.

Predictably, he was mocked by followers with many branding him an idiot, while others told him to stick to rapping.

One wrote: Youre dumber than Donald Trump.

A second posted: You think you're woke, but really you just dumb as f***.

A third person commented: This is the dumbest thought ....like ever. You cant be serious.

His latest conspiracy theory comes weeks after he called on fans to help fund a mission to prove his belief that the earth isnt round.

The 28-year-old, who referred to himself as Flat Earth Bob, sought $200,000 on his GoFundMe page to send one if not multiple satellites into space.

The Earths curve is a contentious issue for Flat Earth believers as they argue that it should be visible if our planet is round.
K ate Winslet says the tide is turning for women in the workplace and in Hollywood.

She told the audience at the Harpers Bazaar Women Of The Year Awards: Im sure I stand shoulder to shoulder with every woman and man here in supporting those who have had the recent courage to speak up.

We will create change in the workplace, whatever that workplace will be.

Winslet, 42, who won the British actress award, went on to present Jodie Foster with the inspiration award. Fellow star Ruth Negga, 35, was named woman of the year.

She spoke about growing up as the only black child at her school in Limerick, Ireland, adding: Youre outside of something, which gives you a unique perspective.

Other winners at the ceremony at Claridges in Mayfair included Carey Mulligan, who was given the philanthropy award, Victoria Beckham, who won the British brands prize, and Adwoa Aboah, who won the role model award.

Guests included Neggas boyfriend, the actor Dominic Cooper, Georgia May Jagger and Gemma Arterton.
Leith, 77, left fans furious after an embarrassing Twitter gaffe saw her reveal Sophie Faldo had won the competition over fellow bakers Steven Carter-Bailey and Kate Lyon.

Hollywood, who judges alongside Leith on the show, was quizzed on his reaction to the epic fail by Jo Brand on Bake Off Extra Slice, who joked that Leith couldn't be here, as she is too busy deleting her Twitter account.

Speaking about the premature reveal, Hollywood said: What can I say?

Not so big reveal: Kate Lyon, winner Sophie Faldo and Steven Carter-Bailey / Channel 4

I was horrified. But at the same time, she made a mistake.

Brand closed the show with another dig at Leith, telling viewers: Oh, I've got a text from Prue.

Apparently the winner is someone called Malcolm.

Difficult Decisions On the Great British Bake Off

Well, congratulations Malcolm.

Leith said she was left mortified after ruining Bake Off on Tuesday morning, telling fans it was caused by confusion over a time difference as she was in Bhutan.

She tweeted: No-one told me judging a GBBO final would be so emotional. I wanted them all to win. Bravo Sophie.

The post was quickly deleted before she later said: I'm in Bhutan. The time difference is massive.

I thought that they got it six hours ago. Im in too much of a state to talk about it. I f***** up.

Leith, Hollywood, and hosts Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig will return to the show in 2018.
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The U.S. has finally completed a 2011 effort to upgrade the JCREW (Joint Counter Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Device Electronic Warfare) jammers used to disable IEDs (improvised explosive devices) detonated wirelessly. Another update was underway but was delayed six years because, well, because of a lot of things.

In 2011 JCREW 3.1 had been a big success because you could easily add new frequencies to jam and was available in several versions. This included one that could be carried by foot patrols. But over the next two years there was no success completing and delivering JCREW 3.3. The situation was so bad that the project was assigned to another company. By 2017 that second development effort apparently succeeded and JCREW 3.3 went into production. Details of what caused the delays is kept secret as are details of how 3.3 works internally. This is standard for electronic weapons that the enemy is constantly trying to duplicate or work around. All that is known about 3.3 is that it is even easier and quicker to be upgrade to add or delete frequencies as well exactly when certain frequencies are employed.

JCREW 3.1 arrived in 2011 after the United States had spent eight years (since 2003) and $17 billion to reduce the effectiveness of IEDs, especially roadside bombs. By 2011 that effort could be considered a qualified success but the enemy kept adapting so IEDs still inflicted casualties.

IEDs had been around for over a century but had become much more frequently encountered decade by decade. For example, in Vietnam (1961-72) only 14 percent of combat deaths were from IEDs (especially roadside bombs), compared to 50-60 percent in Iraq and Afghanistan. That was mainly because U.S. combat troops were a lot more deadly and the Iraqis and Afghans found that fighting the Americans directly was suicidal. So the roadside bombs, and suicide bombs were seen as a more viable approach. But the Americans responded with several generations of jammers that have made IEDs more difficult and risky to use. There were also new training and road security techniques developed along with computer simulators so troops could practice under realistic conditions without getting killed.

Meanwhile the enemy adapted. By 2011 most roadside bombs in Afghanistan used pressure plates or wire controlled devices to detonate these weapons because American jamming technology has made wireless detonation of the bombs so difficult. The Taliban had another advantage in that there was not a lot of old artillery ammo to use for bombs, so they had to use fertilizer bombs and all sorts of improvisations, that negated techniques developed for Iraq. Still, the roadside bombs remained a last-ditch weapon of terrorists who had no other alternatives.

By 2011 the U.S. Department of Defense had developed a third generation of jammers, to make sure the terrorists had to rely on less effective means of detonating their bombs for the foreseeable future. There was also an effort to make the jammers capable of collecting and analyzing electronic information (to locate the terrorists) or even prematurely detonate some bombs. It is believed that some of these requested features are what derailed and delayed the completion of 3.3.

Nevertheless JCREW 3.1 was adequate for troop needs. That was because since 2003 the developers had all the money they needed as long as they came up with and shipped solutions as quickly as possible. There was war on and peacetime delays and mucking about were not an option. For example in 2006 a major jammer innovation entered service as the JCREW dismounted (wearable) jammer. These cost about $99,000 each and had been frequently requested as soon as vehicle mounted jammers became available. The wearable JCREW jammers are more useful in Afghanistan, where more of the patrolling is on foot. Since 2006 the wearable JCREW jammers had gotten lighter, more reliable and more capable. But after 2011 additional capabilities proved difficult to implement and getting from JCREW 3.1 to 3.3 took a lot longer and cost a lot more to develop and get into production.

JCREW was a further development of the first jammer, the Warlock, which appeared in 2003, mounted in vehicles. The jammers quickly went through many revisions, mainly to add more frequencies and better software. By 2011 rolling along in a convoy, with one or more jammers broadcasting, the troops had an electronic "bubble" that made them safe from any wireless IED they had not spotted. It was not uncommon for vehicles to have had an IED go off behind them, the result of the IED detonation crew continuing to send the signal, believing that there might be something wrong with their equipment. In those cases, the patrol often turns around and goes looking for the enemy team. Supply convoys just continue on their way.

In addition to jammers like JCREW and Warlock, several of the U.S. Air Force and Navy electronic warfare aircraft were tweaked so they could perform the same jamming functions, but over a wider area. This was often used when American troops were in action against the enemy, shutting down IED detonation over the entire combat area, as U.S. troops moved around seeking out and fighting the enemy.

One problem with the jamming was that it killed cell phone operation, as well as use of many other remote electronic devices local civilians might be trying to use. The locals complain to each other, but asking the U.S. troops to shut it off would be futile, so they don't. JCREW 3.3 was apparently working to do something to make this less of a problem.

JCREW 3 and 3.1 had lots of new features that frustrated terrorist efforts to work around. After 2011 most roadside bombs were set off via a wire connection between the detonator and a nearby guy pressing a button. This caused more terrorist casualties, and generally made it more difficult for the bombers. Pressure plate detonation was less popular because the terrorists had no control over when the bomb goes off, and when it's a civilian vehicle getting blown up by mistake, the Islamic terrorists involved drop further in the opinion polls.

The big (non-secret) improvement in JCREW 3 was it was easier to add new frequencies, and the jammer interfered less with other military communications and sensors. JCREW was also lighter and 3.1 (which initially just referred to the portable version) showed up because new versions of JCREW could be sent out for testing in a combat zone. For example, a hundred or so lightweight JCREW jammers were first sent to Iraq in 2008 for testing. These proved very popular with troops who did a lot of their patrolling on foot. It's become increasingly common for troops to make long movements on foot, to conduct raids or just patrol. The enemy has lookouts who are on the alert for U.S. vehicles, not dismounted American infantry sneaking up on them. For a while JCREW 3.2 referred to the heavier version mounted in vehicles. Early on 3.3 had various names, all of them more difficult to remember.
So much of central Africa has been a mess for so long (longer that written records) there are still some nations that manage to avoid the corruption, civil disorder and general chaos that is so common. Currently the most glaring exception is Rwanda, which is literally right in the middle of it all. International surveys find that Rwanda is one of the safest nations in Africa and the only two ranked safer are Algeria and Morocco on the Mediterranean coast. In Rwanda GDP is grow 5-7 percent a year. Only five percent of Rwanda's GDP and 17 percent of the government budget comes from aid and other donations. Many attribute all this success to president Paul Kagame, who is unquestionably the most popular leader in Rwanda. But that is misleading. Kagame is accused of intimidating his opponents with physical threats and jail terms. Despite this even his many critics admit he ihas taken the lead in modernizing Rwanda's economy and attacking corruption. Kagame plans to stick around and is not term limited. He pulled the "change the constitution" trick in 2015 when he held a referendum to change to constitution so he could run for a third term. Under the new post-referendum system he could remain in power until 2034.

Kagame became president in 2000, but he has basically been in charge of the country since his Rwandan Patriotic Front took power after the 1994 Hutu-Tutsi genocide. While leadership is important it is not the key factor. The key in Africa and throughout the world, is a population where enough people are willing to avoid corruption and violence and basically get on with your life. So simple yet so rare. Kagame may yet wreck the country by refusing to leave office when he can no longer win fair elections. That is common, especially in Africa. But the exceptions to the centuries old chaos and misery that led Central Africa to be dubbed the heart of darkness in the 18th century are signs that it does not always have to be that way.

Meanwhile west of Rwanda Congo is drifting towards another civil war because the current president, Joseph Kabila, has organized an effort (so far successful) to become president-for-life. This sort of thing is unpopular with most Congolese but it is a common situation in Congo and throughout Africa. There is no easy solution to this problem and Kabila is taking advantage of that to permanently avoid holding national elections while he and his equally corrupt associates loot the country. No wonder donor nations are losing enthusiasm for spending over a billion dollars a year trying to get Congo to calm down and handle its own affairs peaceably. That works better as a concept than an achievable reality in many parts of the world. The Kabila issue is at the center of an increase in unrest throughout Congo this year. So far in 2017 there are 1.5 million new internal refugees in Congo, compared to 922,000 for all of 2016.

Another side effect of Kabila concentrating on looting rather than administering Congo is that all sorts of troublesome groups can sneak in. In eastern Congo (North Kivu) there are at least 400 South Sudan rebels taking refuge from the civil war next door in South Sudan.

November 1, 2017: In northern CAR (Central African Republic) fighting between Moslem Seleka rebels and a Christian "anti-balaka" militias during the last week has left at least 16 dead. This has been going on for several years, often in and around the town of Batangafo. In the last five months about 80,000 civilians have fled the fighting in this area. The civil war in CAR has been going on since 2013 and so far in 2017 over a thousand people, most of them civilians, have died because of it. The CAR violence had subsided in 2016 but throughout 2017 it is getting worse. CAR has been suffering from political violence since 1993 and in the late 1990s UN peacekeepers got involved. That force has grown to about 10,000 personnel but has been unable to end the violence.

October 31, 2017: In Congo the opposition parties are willing to accept new elections in June 2018 only if president Kabila resigns by the end of 2017 and is replaced by a provisional government. Kabila is under heavy pressure from major aid donors (especially the U.S.) to obey the law or be abandoned and probably declared an international outlaw.

October 30, 2017: In eastern Congo (North Kivu) anti-Kabila protests were met by police violence that left at least five protesters dead. Over the next two days nearly fifty protesters were arrested.

October 27, 2017: Burundi completed the process of withdrawing from the ICC (International Criminal Court). It is the first state to do so since the ICC was established in 2002 (the Rome Statute agreement). Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza does not care for the ICC mainly because it criticizes him. Withdrawing from the ICC has become common in Africa, although most nations later change their minds. In 2014 Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni summed up the attitude pretty clearly when he declared that African nations need to withdraw from the ICC. Museveni claimed that the ICC is now used as a tool for oppressing Africans. The African Union had recently asked the ICC to refrain from prosecuting an African head of state or deputy head of state while the accused remained in power. Musevenis declaration was ironic as he sought help from the ICC in dealing with the Ugandan rebel Lords Resistance Army (LRA). The ICC (backed by ample evidence) charged LRA senior commander Kony with crimes against humanity. Thats why few nations want be permanently without the ICC.

October 22, 2017: In the south, Angola expelled 422 illegal migrants from Congo who had found work in oil-rich Cabinda Province. Refugees are one thing, taking jobs like these away from Angolans is another.

October 19, 2017: In southeast CAR (Central African Republic) several days of fighting between Christian and Moslem militias left at least 26 dead and many more wounded. This includes civilian bystanders. Two of the wounded were peacekeepers.

October 11, 2017: In east Congo (North Kivu province) Rwandan FDLR rebels attacked a village for supplies and killed six civilians and a policeman. Since 2001 the FDLR has operated largely as bandits in Congo, usually near the Rwandan border.

October 9, 2017: In east Congo (North Kivu province) two peacekeepers were killed and several wounded when their base was attacked by Ugandan ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) rebels. This follows an ADF raid two days ago that left at least 20 civilians dead. The ADF is a Moslem rebel group that is considered Islamic terrorists by Uganda and bandits in Congo. ADF has been active since the late 1990s and after a few years found it useful to operate on both sides of the border. Peak strength (over a decade ago) was nearly a thousand armed men but now is about a hundred. ADF is believed responsible for over 700 deaths in this area over the last three years.

October 6, 2017: In southeast Congo (South Kivu province) tribal militiamen attacked a peacekeeper position. Three of the attackers were killed and one captured. Two peacekeepers were wounded.
Using data like a fingerprint or face scan to unlock a phone has both benefits and drawbacks. It's a secure way to unlock your phone because the information can be uniquely tied to a single user. On the other hand, there are privacy concerns because the data can be used in reverse to identify the user by anyone who has access to the information.

Apple's privacy policies call for strong security when storing facial data on the iPhone but do not extend to the thousands of developers who will also have access. Most of this use is for legitimate purposes like designing apps that incorporate augmented reality or other aspects of users' faces. However, that facial contour map and a stream of facial expressions can then be copied from the phone to the developer's own private servers at will.

Developers who do this will need to agree to a privacy policy and promise not to sell the data. The ACLU and other privacy groups are specifically concerned over how well Apple can actually enforce this policy. The only real power Apple has is the threat of kicking a developer off of the App Store.

The concerns are not so much over government snooping of the data considering there are already huge databases available to law enforcement agencies for tracking and preventing crime. As a precaution, Apple only gives developers access to a rough set of the data which can not be used to unlock the phone.
If you are planning on picking up an Xbox One X for Christmas but don't have a pre-order, you might be out of luck - or maybe you won't be. It's hard to tell because Microsoft refuses to give up any specifics on supply and demand for the new console.

In an interview with CNBC, Panos Panay, Microsoft's head of devices, said that "excitement for the product" is accelerating but would not specify what that means.

"I won't talk about the exact numbers but the demand is super high, we are very, very excited about Xbox One X right now," said Panay. "I won't compare it to other consoles. What I'll say is the demand for Xbox One X right now is exactly where we anticipated."

In other words, Microsoft expected super high demand. If that is the case, then we should not see any problems with inventory. Surely if they foresaw such extraordinary interest, they will have planned to ensure equally ample supply.

However, according to another division boss, some regions might not have enough of the high-powered boxes to go around.

U.K.'s Xbox head Harvey Eagle, told Gamesindustry.biz, "[We] can't guarantee that stock will be available in launch week for people to just walk into a store and pick up."

These shortages seem to be isolated to the U.K. but it is really anybody's guess since the company refuses to relate specifics for U.S. supplies. It does sound like the company might have trouble supplying retail outlets in some areas though.

One of the console's touted features is VR capability, or as Microsoft insists on calling it, "Mixed Reality." A virtual, augmented, or mixed reality offering of any sort would set XB1X in a position to finally compete with Sony's PlayStation 4, which has had VR for over a year now. However, Microsoft has yet to even announce a mixed reality headset for its console.

When asked about it, Panay was just as vague as he was about the demand.

"You may start to see that [work on an MR headset] happen. Mixed reality can span in so many different forms, whether it's off the back of the device, whether it's in virtual reality headsets that you have, or its HoloLens, you are starting to see that span through Windows, and that platform for Windows does bring it to life."

That sounds like dodging the question to me. It might be that Microsoft is planning on using third-party VR offerings for its gaming system. That is kind of what it sounded like Panay was hinting at but that's really just my interpretation.

If you are concerned at all about whether Xbox One X units will be available for the holidays, head on over to Amazon. They still have pre-orders up for $499 with units shipping on November 7.
Over a month and a half after Apple officially unveiled it, the iPhone X finally launches today. But it seems some people just don't want to wait in line, or pay, for the handsets. Yesterday, three men made off with 313 of the devices after breaking into a UPS truck.

The iPhone Xs were being delivered to an Apple store in San Francisco. After the UPS driver had parked outside the Stonestown Galleria mall and locked the cargo area, a janitor spotted some "husky," hoodie-wearing males moving the boxes from the truck into a Dodge van. He even managed to take a photo of the incident, which happened sometime between 11:15 am and 11:30 am PT, reports CNET.

"It's suspicious they were able to get that large a haul on that day," he said.

The iPhone X's famously high price---starting a $999---means the total value of the stolen goods is estimated to be over $370,000. The thieves still haven't been apprehended.

The store has assured people who were planning to pick up pre-ordered iPhone Xs that they will still get their handsets on time.

Many who missed out on early iPhone X pre-orders have turned to eBay scalpers as a way of getting a device today. The handsets are averaging around $1500 on the auction site, with the highest listing coming in at $60,000.

The majority of early iPhone X reviews have been positive. Apple says it will be available in limited quantities for walk-in customers, so expect to see a better turnout than the muted iPhone 8 launch.
The biggest ever takeover of a chipmaker could be brewing. After swirling rumors before the weekend, Broadcom has now officially placed a $105 billion offer to buy Qualcomm. If the deal went through, the combined company would become the third-largest chipmaker in the world only behind Intel and Samsung Electronics.

The unsolicited $70 a share bid consists of $60 in cash and $10 per share in stock, but of course there's no guarantee that a deal will materialize. Share value in Qualcomm is up nearly 18 percent on the news early Monday. Broadcom stock is trading up as well though not as aggressively. Qualcomm has a market cap of around $95 billion as of writing while Broadcom is worth nearly $113 billion.

Qualcomm announced just over a year ago that it would be buying NXP Semiconductors for $47 billion. That deal, however, has been met by regulatory hurdles in Europe and pushback from shareholders that believe it undervalues NXP. It's been made known that Broadcom's takeover proposal stands regardless of outcome for Qualcomm's NXP offer.

Qualcomm is also in the middle of an expensive legal battle with Apple that is taking its toll on the company. In its most recent earnings report, profits were down 90 percent and revenue dipped 4.5 percent. The stock held steady, though, as demand for Qualcomm's Snapdragon mobile processors continues to impress.

Broadcom revealed earlier this week that it is moving its headquarters from Singapore to the United States.
On Tuesday, Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with envoys from the U.S. and China in the framework of the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference. | Read More
Photo: Matt Carr/Getty Images

What do you do when the big bank CEO calls your hotel room at 11 p.m.?

We were at the same resort for a conference. We were friendly but why did he need to know what I was doing at that hour? How did he even get my room number? I mumbled something about sleep and got back to work, interviewing executives for a story I was working on.

What about the powerful Washington lobbyist who wants to know if you are single (he was not), and whether youd like to join him for a more private drink? I gulped down my Sauvignon Blanc at the bar, tried to laugh it off, and got out of there.

Or the congressman (now senator) who stares down your shirt so noticeably during an interview that you have to cut the video around it so it doesnt show on air? The (now former) senator who asks another reporter about you, whether you are single, whether they have your cell number? The legendary TV anchor who looks you up and down like youre a meal, when you are there to talk about congressional budgets?

Related Stories The Price of Smiling for the Photos

Ive worked as a journalist for 17 years. Starting at ABC News, then local Northern California papers, NPR, Bloomberg TV, CNN and now Marketplace, where I host my own show. Ive covered everything from local zoning meetings to the White House. And every step of the way, Ive had to carve extra time and effort out of my work to sidestep this recurring gray area. None of the individual instances quite constituted harassment, but all of them were exhausting to navigate. And looking back, I cant believe what I put up with.

Some things, of course, were more black-and-white. When I was 25, an ABC News video editor groped my breasts. I told my supervisor. She said I must have misunderstood, and that he was a good guy. I avoided him until I left the company. When I was 29 and working at a local radio station in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, the station manager repeatedly commented on my body, told me sexual jokes, and tried to invite me to dinner. I told him off. Again, told my supervisor. She sympathized, but said there wasnt really anything she could do as I was just on loan from NPR to the station. He was later arrested for underage solicitation.

Those experiences are stark in my memory, but its the murkier interactions I still have questions about. The wink-wink drink invitations. The phone calls. The behavior that falls somewhere along the continuum from avuncular to creepy, but is nonetheless unwelcome. The editor to whom I owe so much and who knows my parents, but comments far too many times on what I look like. Ha ha, you know my dad! Hes a litigator! Isnt that funny?. I would reply bitterly, delicately attempting to set a boundary. I didnt know how else to behave. Just ignore it, as my supervisors had instructed me, was the only thing I knew to do so I could do my job.

Over the course of my career, I have shrugged off things that horrify me now. I learned to push through the routine humiliation. As an ambitious woman, I often ran an internal calculation about how much trouble I was willing to make. Should I fight about the story I want to do or the unwelcome remark about my legs? Time and time again, I went with the former. If I hadnt, I dont know if I would have been as successful. Im not ashamed about wanting a career, but I cant look back at some of my actions without wincing.

Now, in a senior position, I look at my brilliant younger colleagues, and I never want them to endure what for years I told myself was gray stuff. Ignoring it, as Id learned to do, only lets it fester and continue.

Earlier this year, I drove back from an interview with two younger female colleagues. A man we interviewed had touched one of their arms, repeatedly, even when asked to stop. We had to suck it up and finish the day. But I also felt a deep obligation to protect her. It was just like so many things that had happened to me, and I didnt do enough to stop it. So, driving back to our hotel on a snowy rural highway, we talked. I told them about harassment in my career, from sources and from colleagues. I told them what happened that day was unacceptable. And we gamed out different responses and ways to handle things. None of the options was to ignore it.

I dont know how to change centuries of conditioning. How to make men see women as peers. To let us just do our jobs. But maybe acknowledging that we live in a culture that doesnt do that, is a start. Im a radio host now. I believe strongly in the power of conversation. It is incumbent on everyone to talk about this.
14-Year-Old Girl Dies in Phoenix Car Crash; Red Light Violation to Blame

A 14-year-old girl died in a car crash in Phoenix on Thursday afternoon, police said, adding that a red light violation might be the reason why.

The crash took place a 3 p.m. and involved two vehicles, police told Azfamily.com.

An SUV hit a small car near Tatum Boulevard and Cave Creek Road, causing the smaller car to roll over. There were four people inside the small, silver car when it rolled. One of the passengers was ejected from the vehicle.

The ejected passenger, the 14-year-old girlwho hasnt been identifiedwas pronounced dead at the scene of the crash, officials told the media outlet.

14-year-old girl killed in crash; red light violation may be to blame https://t.co/uqNn374k6K pic.twitter.com/UkfhYVucVH  azfamily 3TV CBS 5 (@azfamily) November 2, 2017

The other three people in the silver car were hospitalized with serious injuries.

The SUV driver was taken to the hospital.

Phoenix police say that a red light violation might be the reason why the crash took place.

Running a stop sign or red light is one of the most common moving violations, according to one driving explainer.

The Highway Loss Data Institute says that red light running causes numerous deaths and injuries each year.

In 2015, 771 people were killed and an estimated 137,000 were injured in crashes that involved red light running. Over half of those killed were pedestrians, bicyclists and people in other vehicles who were hit by the red light runners, the organization says.

An Institute study of urban crashes found that those involving drivers who ran red lights, stop signs and other traffic controls were the most common type of crash (22 percent). Injuries occurred in 39 percent of the crashes in which motorists ran traffic controls, it adds.

Its a common practice, the Institute says.

A study conducted during several months at five busy intersections in Fairfax, Va., prior to the use of red light cameras, found that, on average, a motorist ran a red light every 20 minutes at each intersection. During peak travel times, red light running was more frequent. An analysis of red light violation data from 19 intersections without red light cameras in four states found a violation rate of 3.2 per hour per intersection, it notes.
Canada Patient Told to Wait Nearly Half a Decade to See Neurologist

A doctor from Ontario, Canada says one of her patients had to wait nearly half a decadejust to see a health care specialist.

Dr. Joy Hataley, a family practice anesthetist in Kingston, Ont., recently tried to send a patient to a neurologist at the Kingston General Hospital.

Instead, she received a letter from the specialists office informing her that the current wait time for new patient referrals is 4.5 years, CTV News reported.

The letter stated that if the delay is deemed unacceptable to Hateley, she could try to refer the patient to an Ottawa or Toronto hospital.

The doctor told CTV that the wait time shocked her. She has spoken before about wait times and other issues affecting Ontarios health care system.

Hateley tweeted a photo of the letter on Wednesday, Nov. 1 and tagged Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins and Kingston-area MPP Sophie Kiwala. In the tweets description, she wrote: SOS Please explain.

Both politicians did not reply to her tweet, as of writing on Friday, Nov. 3.

Hataley said wait times are not something new and said she is used to hearing back from specialists who are unable to see her patients for months. In one case there was even a 2.5 year waitbut the recent 4.5 year referral was just insane, she told CTV News.

This is an alarm bell, she told the Canadian network. What it is to me is a red flag to the system.

Hataley said her patients case is not considered urgent, stating that the woman will likely travel outside of Kingston to see a neurologist within a reasonable amount of time. But she noted that traveling for healthcare can cost a considerable amount.

She stressed that wait times for neurologists in Kingston are notoriously bad, adding that the problem is not restricted to an individual neurologist or even a particular field.

With 20 years of experience working in the healthcare industry and having participated in countless discussions on wait times, Hataley said they have all lead nowhere.

Weve hit the wall, Hataley told CTV News. My main message is: we need timely, consistent and reliable health care in our province and we do not have it.

Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick, chief of staff and vice-president of medical affairs at the Kingston Health Sciences Centre echoed Hataleys comments on wait times: A challenge that is well known at all levels of our system, CTV News reported.

He said wait times change across medical specialties and even within specific fields, such as the neurology sub-specialty of movement disorders, where Hataleys patient was referred to.

Fitzpatrick said there were only a small number of specialists in Ontario to treat patients with movement disorders.

We are the only clinic of our kind located between Toronto and Ottawa, and often receive referrals from a very large catchment area, he said. We have just recently recruited a new physician, which we believe will improve wait times and we hope to do more recruitment soon.

From NTD
The crashed vehicle used in what is being described as a terrorist attack sits in Lower Manhattan the morning after the event on Nov. 1, 2017 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

NYC Terrorist Suspects Wife Shocked and Sad After the Attack

The wife of the Uzbek man accused of killing eight people in a terrorist attack in New York said she was shocked and horrified and scared and sad.

Nozima Odilova, the 24-year-old wife of the accused attacker, Sayfullo Saipov, claimed she had no prior knowledge of the attack and had no idea what her husband was planning.

According to a criminal complaint filed on the night of Nov. 1, Saipov told police he had been planning the attack for over a year.

Saipov drove a rented truck onto a bike path in New York running down and killing eight people and injuring a dozen. It was the worst terrorist attack New York has seen since 9/11.

Saipov told police he rented the truck on Oct. 22 and practiced driving it so he would be able to maneuver through the confines of the park.

Saipov decided on a truck attack to inflict maximum damage against civilians and specifically chose to strike on Halloween because he believed there would be more civilians on the street for the holiday, the complaint states.

After the attack, Saipov asked if he could put an ISIS flag on the wall of his hospital room.

Saipov was apparently radicalized via the internet after coming to the United States.

Saipov told investigators he was inspired by ISIS videos, particularly a video of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, according to a federal criminal complaint.

According to sources inside Uzbekistan, Saipovs parents are shocked and shamed by the attack.

They cannot understand how he came to do this terrible deed and they had no warning that this was coming, said a source.

They feel disgrace on their family, said a neighbor, who described them as good people, Muslims yes of course, but not fanatics.

Neighbors Thought Attacker Was Normal

Saipov, a 29-year-old father of three, came to the United States in 2010. he lived in Ohio at first, then moved to Florida, and then to Paterson, New Jersey, in the spring of 2017.

His New Jersey neighbors saw very little that was unusual about the Uzbek national.

Altana Dimitrovska, who lives in the same apartment complex, said she was surprised by the news about the carnage.

Another neighbor, Carlos Batista thought it was odd that Saipov used to rent a Home Depot pickup truck and drive around the block, when he apparently had nothing in the bed haul.

Batista still had a positive impression of his new neighbor. Once when Batista got into an argument with two of Saipovs friends, Saipov came out his house to break up the dispute. He was the peacemaker, Batista said.

One of his Florida neighbors, Kyong Eagan, was also shocked to hear the news.

He was a small guy, only 100 pounds and 5 feet tall, she said. I could have punched and knocked him down. I cant believe this small guy did this monstrous thing.

Eagan described her neighbor as shy, soft-spoken, very quiet, and said he was very generous toward her.

He would give me a whole case of water from his truck, Eagan said. Sometimes he would give me a whole box of mango juice and never charged me.

Eagan said Saipov would bring her Uzbek food he had cooked himself, wanting to share his native culture. On weekends about 30 men would gather at the Saipov residence to pray.

I just have to pinch myself over and over, Eagan said. Thats my neighbor. Thats my neighbor. This doesnt make sense to me. He was a very polite man. He offered me food and drinks. He never said anything hateful about the country. Hes a monster now.

From NTD.tv
Mexico's top drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is escorted as he arrives at Long Island MacArthur airport in New York on Jan. 19, 2017, after his extradition from Mexico. (U.S. officials/Handout via REUTERS)

El Chapos Attorney Says His Mental State Is Deteriorating in Jail

Former Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin El Chapo Guzman has started to hallucinate, suffer memory loss, and depression while in jail, his lawyer claimed.

It is plain to the defense team that something is not right with Mr. Guzman, defense attorney Eduardo Balarezo told a federal judge, NBC News reported. He said that Guzman should see a neuropsychologist for an examination.

Guzman has escaped twice from Mexican facilities, but hes now being held in near-isolation in a Manhattan federal jail while awaiting trial for running Mexicos biggest drug cartel.

Currently, hes being held in a cell 23 hours per day with few visitors. Balarezo said the near-isolation has contributed to a marked deterioration in Guzmans mental state.

He added that the drug kingpins cell is cold and always has lights on.

During the last month Mr. Guzman has suffered a marked deterioration in his mental state, the lawyers letter said. This deterioration has manifested itself in his inability to remember people, places, and events. Specifically, he has complained about 1) auditory hallucinations; 2) the government recording his cell and legal visits; 3) feeling persecuted; and 4) depression.

Counsel has noticed that Mr. Guzman has begun repeating himself often and sometimes forgetting what the discussion is about.

If the mental deterioration persists, the lawyer said that he might be unfit to stand trial.

Meanwhile, it was reported last week that Guzmans chief financial officer, Felix El Vic Beltran, was captured by Mexican police. Police said that he was in charge of the cartels money laundering operations and looked over its heroin production and export to the United States.

The U.S. Department of Justice also announced that a former Sinaloa cartel drug lord, Sajid Emilio El Cadete Quintero Navidad, was arrested at the San Ysidro Port of Entry and was immediately taken before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jan Adlers, Breitbart News reported last week.
Girl, 5, Fined for Setting up Lemonade Stand Without License

A 5-year-old girl in California decided to set up a lemonade stand to raise money for a new bike, but was later told by officials that she needed a business license.

Autumn Thomasson set up a stand in the city of Porterville, California, in June and raised enough money for her bike in 24 hours.

Several months later, her mother, Gabby Dehaas, was appalled to receive a letter in the mail from Portervilles Finance Department. It included a citation ordering her to pay for a business license for her daughters lemonade stand, together with an image from her Facebook post, Fox 26 reports.

I was thrown back by that. I didnt appreciate a screenshot of my daughter sent back to me, DeHaas told the news outlet.

In a Facebook post, Dehaas vented her frustration about the pettiness of the reasoning of the letter.

She was asked to send back a $25 fee, the cost of applying for a business license.

What kind of world do we live in where kids cant do lemonade [a] stand or any kind of stands [sic] for that matter without getting in trouble?! wrote Dehaas in a Facebook post.

She added, I just got fined for my daughter have [sic] a 3 hour lemonade [stand] a couple months ago, so she could know how to earn enough money, to know a value of a dollar!

Commenters on Facebook expressed anger and surprise over the bureaucracy and red tape, with many calling it unbelievable, ridiculous, and just wrong.

 wrote one user.

The 5-year-old raised around $70 selling lemonade for $1 a cup, candy for $1, and snacks for $.50, the Daily Mail reported.

The city of Porterville has since apologized, according to the Washington Times.

Porterville City Manager John Lollis said the letter was sent by mistake after an anonymous resident complained, and said a license is not needed to sell lemonade.

5-year-old girl ordered to get a business licence for lemonade stand https://t.co/sFPKihodWe pic.twitter.com/pXImccQNsK  WPEC CBS12 News (@CBS12) November 1, 2017
In Latest Battle With Opposing Faction, Chinese Leader Xi Jinping Takes Command of Armed Police

Following recent new appointments and anticipated shakeups in Chinas security apparatus, the commanding officer of the Peoples Armed Police, Wang Ning, announced on Oct. 31 that the paramilitary force will now be directed mainly by the central authorities.

At a meeting held with the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) rubber-stamp legislature, the National Peoples Congress, Wang Ning announced a draft proposal for reforms to the armed police force, including assuring that the command responsibility goes to the chairman of the Central Military Commission, who is regime leader Xi Jinping.

Previously, the 1.5 million-strong force in charge of civilian policing, fire rescue, and border defense was mainly in the hands of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission (known as zhengfawei in Chinese) and its local offices in each provincethough on paper, it is under the jurisdiction of the State Council and the Central Military Commission.

Preventing A Political Coup

Under former CCP leaderand Xis rivalJiang Zemin, the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission became an all-powerful CCP organ that oversaw all aspects of law enforcement in the country, including police, courts, and prisons. Even after Jiang stepped down from power, he continued to successfully appoint his allies to head the Commission.

With Wangs announcement, it signals Xi wants control in his hands. The armed police is especially crucial for Xi because they were once commanded by his political enemies to cause trouble.

Former head of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission Zhou Yongkang was a powerful crony of Jiangs. In February 2012, when the Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun fled to the U.S. Consulate in nearby Chengdu, Zhou commanded a large fleet of armed police to surround the consulate in an attempt to pressure it into releasing Wang. At the time, there were rumors that Wang planned to defect with i information about how his boss, the Chongqing Party chief Bo Xilai, planned to stage a coup to prevent Xi Jinpings rise to power at the leadership transition happening later that year.

A month later, reports of gunshots and army vehicles on the streets of Beijing led many to believe Zhou was mobilizing armed police to stage a coup.

During the recent 19th National Congress, the regime also openly acknowledged that several Jiang faction officials had attempted a coup, naming Zhou, Bo, and others directly involved in a plot to usurp power from the leadership of the party.

Xi has also routinely cleaned out Jiang loyalists from the armed police. From 2016 to 2017, more than half of the provincial leaders of armed police were replaced, while more than a dozen high-level officers have been placed under investigation for corruption. Xi is now taking it a step further by taking control himself and making sure a coup attempt wont happen again.

An Economic Coup

The Jiang faction also attempted to instigate a crisis by manipulating the Chinese stock market. In summer 2015, the Shanghai Stock Exchange saw A-shares lose a third of their value within a month.

The Epoch Times and the Taiwan-based Liberty Times both reported that Jiang faction officials in the China Securities Regulatory Commission manipulated securities in the market, leading to a nosedive in stock prices.

Chinese economist He Qinglian also explained how problems that accumulate within the shadow banking system in China can destabilize the economy and cause public dissatisfaction with the current regime. Such dissatisfaction could provide an opportunity for the Jiang faction to stage an economic coup.

Xi has taken steps to try to remove the possibility of such economic disruption happening again.

The Jiang faction has nurtured many wealthy businessmen to become its allies. Chinese billionaire Xiao Jianhua was one of them, a so-called white glove, a euphemism in Chinese for money launderers who help officials hide their money. Xiao also held incredible influence over the financial market by buying up controlling stakes in many firms and registering shell companies, which could have been leveraged to Jiangs advantage, He Qinglian said.

Earlier this year, Xiao was taken by police from his apartment in Hong Kong and held under investigation.

The CCPs anti-corruption watchdog organization, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, has recently set its targets on Chinas financial institutions, having replaced directors responsible for monitoring corruption at Chinas central bank and two state regulatory bodies.

Fang Xiao and Zhang Dun contributed to this report.
ISIS Claims Responsibility for Manhattan Terrorist Attack, Calls Suspect a Soldier

The ISIS terrorist group has officially claimed responsibility for the attack in Lower Manhattan that killed eight people and injured several more earlier this week.

It called Uzbek national Sayfullo Saipov, 29, a soldier in a weekly newspaper, but the writers offered no evidence to support the claim, Reuters reported.

NBC News reported earlier in the week that officials found a note in the Home Depot truck he used to attack people that read, ISIS lives forever. Witnesses at the scene said he drove the vehicle on a bike path, hitting dozens of people, before hitting a school bus. He then emerged from the vehicle with two fake guns, according to media reports. An NYPD officer shot him and detained him.

Authorities charged Saipov with the attack on Tuesday, saying that he appeared to have been radicalized online after he came to the United States seven years ago. He could potentially face the death penalty if hes convicted.

President Donald Trump tweeted that ISIS just claimed the Degenerate Animal who killed, and so badly wounded, the wonderful people on the West Side was their soldier. The president wrote that based on that, the military has hit ISIS much harder over the last two days.

They will pay a big price for every attack on us, he added.

Saipov was taken to Bellevue after being shot in the abdomen by a police officer before his arrest.

One of the two criminal counts Saipov faces, violence and destruction of motor vehicles causing the deaths of eight people, carries the death penalty if the government chooses to seek it, prosecutors said.

Saipov waived his right to remain silent or have an attorney present when he agreed to speak to investigators from his hospital bed, the criminal complaint said.

The FBI has said it has located another Uzbek man, Mukhammadzoir Kadirov, 32, who it said was wanted for questioning as a person of interest in the attack.

Citing an unnamed law enforcement official, ABC News reported on Friday that Saipov placed a telephone call to Kadirov immediately before he carried out the attack. ABC News said the significance of the call was not known.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Las Vegas Gunmans Brother Bragged About Massacre Shortly After Attack

The brother of alleged Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock bragged about his relation to the man shortly after the deadly attack, law enforcement sources told TMZ.

Bruce Paddock was arrested on child pornography charges on Oct. 25. Law enforcement sources said that before the arrest, Bruce Paddock bragged to residents in an assisted living facility about being related to Stephen Paddock.

An employee at the facility reviewed Bruce Paddocks file and discovered that Stephen Paddock was listed as his emergency contact. The employee contacted the Los Angeles Police Department, thinking that the authorities will want to interview the man.

Once the police and FBI agents looked into Bruce Paddocks profile, they discovered an outstanding warrant for child pornography and proceeded to arrest him. Paddock was charged with possessing 600 child pornography images.

Stephen Paddock allegedly carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history on Oct. 1. Police said Paddock fired 1,000 rounds from his 32nd-floor hotel window into a crowd attending an open-air country music festival below, killing 58 people and injuring more than 500 before turning the gun on himself.

TMZ reports that Bruce Paddock evaded arrest for the pornography charges for two years, using techniques that authorities called evil smart.

Sources told TMZ that Paddock changed his appearance and moved around often to get the police off his tail. The man even set up cameras around his properties, reminiscent of what his now-dead brother did on the 32nd-floor suite in Mandalay Bay.

Police discovered evidence that Bruce Paddock possessed child pornography after he was evicted from a Sun Valley home. The criminal complaint states that the crimes he committed occurred in 2014.

Paddock had been squatting inside the business and after his eviction, the evidence was discovered, according to the LAPD, Daily News reported. At the time of the initial investigation, Paddock was a transient and could not be located.

Paddock was seen in a wheelchair when he was arrested. His arraignment was delayed last week due to an undisclosed medical issue. Paddock pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Bruce Paddock was interviewed by news outlets shortly after the mass shooting. It is unclear how reporters could locate him on short notice while investigators couldnt catch him for two years.

From NTD.tv
Las Vegas Shooter Lost Money for 2 Years Before Shooting Rampage

Before Stephen Paddock opened fire on concertgoers in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, he saw his fortunes decline over two years, a police investigation has revealed.

Seeing his image as a big-shot gambler deteriorate may have influenced his decision to shoot and kill 58 and injure hundreds more, authorities believe.

Paddock had done well for himself managing and selling real estate. He then went into gambling, which caused his finances to swing up and down, said Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Joe Lombardo.

Most recently, his wealth was going down.

Since  September of 2015, hes lost a significant amount of wealth and I think that might have [been] a determining factor  [in] what he determined to do, Lombardo said in an interview with KLAS-TVs George Knapp.

Lombardo said FBI investigators created a profile of Paddock that described him as having a narcissistic personality and that he was recently going through probably some bouts of depression.

This individual was status driven, based on how he liked to be recognized in the casino environment and how he liked to be recognized by his friends and family, Lombardo said. So, obviously, that was starting to decline in a short period of time and that may have [had] a determining effect on why he decided to do what he did.

Still, there must have been something that pushed Paddock over the edge, perhaps around October 2016 when he began collecting a large number of guns. Between Oct. 2016 and Oct. 1, 2017, he bought 33 firearms, officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have said.

There was something that popped his trigger or caused him to go that direction and we have yet to determine what that is, Lombardo said.

The sheriff hopes the full test results on Paddocks brain will reveal some kind of anomaly that could shed more light on Paddocks motivation, because the shooter was otherwise nondescript.

His criminal record was clean except for two traffic citations and even his online activities provided no clues.

When we went through all his computer systems and everything else it was really nondescript, the sheriff said.

He mentioned, though, that one of Paddocks laptops was missing a hard drive, meaning all the data on the computer was gone, since most laptops keep their data on a single hard drive.

We dont know when it was removed, he said.

Investigators havent found anybody who Paddock talked to about his plan, despite him possibly taking months to devise it.

It was a thought-out, long process, Lombardo said.

Among other preparations, Paddock avoided attention by taking several days to bring weapons and gear to the hotel room from which he shot, according to Lombardos assessment.

On the other hand, the shooting itself didnt require an expertise in guns, the sheriff said.

The fact that you have a psychotic individual, crazed individual, in possession of a high-capacity firearm shooting into a crowdits fairly simple, he said.

Lombardo said Paddocks girlfriend, Marilou Danley, is still a person of interest and was about to be interviewed again by investigators. So far, it seems she had no foreknowledge of the shooting, though Lombardo said he found that hard to believe, given how robust Paddocks plan was.

You would think that Ms. Danley would have some information associated with that, he said. But, currently, we havent been able to pull that out of her, if its in her.
Las Vegas Shooting Victim Gets Death Threats

Braden Matejka survived a bullet to the head during the Las Vegas shooting massacre. Now he is receiving death threats from people who believe in a conspiracy theory that casts doubt on whether anyone was hurt in the shooting.

Matejka, a Canadian, was among more than 500 people who were injured during the Oct. 1 massacre at the Route 91 Harvest festival. The alleged gunman, Stephen Paddock, killed 58 people before turning the gun on himself, police say.

You are a lying piece of [expletive] and I hope someone truly shoots you in the head, one Facebook user wrote to Matejka in the days following the shooting.

Your soul is disgusting and dark! You will Pay for the consequences, wrote another.

People have also started using Matejkas photos to make memes with crude captions, his family told the Guardian.

Matejka shut down his social media accounts, but his relatives are still being targeted by people who believe that the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history was a hoax.

There are all these families dealing with likely the most horrific thing theyll ever experience, and they are also met with hate and anger and are being attacked online about being part of some conspiracy, Taylor Matejka, the survivors brother, said. Its madness I cant imagine the thought process of these people. Do they know that we are actual people?

Matejka posted a photo of his bullet wound on a GoFundMe page that he started to collect funds for medical expenses.

Authorities working the case have drastically clamped down on the information they release about the shooting, prompting people to fill in the void online.

The theory that the entire shooting was a hoax is on the fringes of the discussion and has been dismissed by independent reporters investigating the shooting in Las Vegas.

People who subscribe to the hoax theory call the survivors crisis actors saying they were hired to pose as victims. Taylor Matejka tried to respond to a few of the theorists online but says none wanted to hear his reasoning.

A really sad part of this is that a lot of people think theyre fighting the good fight and exposing truth, he said.

Matejka traveled to Las Vegas with his girlfriend Amanda Homulos to celebrate his 30th birthday. When the shooting started, Matejka was hit by a bullet in the head and knocked to the ground. The couple got inside the car of another concert attendee who drove them to a hospital.

Matejkas wound was not serious.

Im just so grateful that were still here, and I cant express how sorry I am for the people that didnt make it, Homulos told The Associated Press.

On Wednesday, the spokesperson for the investigation, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, gave the first interview in more than two weeks to a local television station. Prior to that, on Oct. 13, he read prepared remarks at a press conference and did not take questions.

Lombardo did not reveal anything new about the investigation, except for a personal hunch that Paddocks girlfriend, Marilou Danley, may be withholding information from investigators.

Addressing the conspiracy theories, he said that the notion that the federal authorities and police are trying to hide stuff or are conspiring together to hide stuff is ridiculous.

He reserved a special criticism for people who accuse victims and families of faking injuries and deaths.

Im amazed at peoples mental state to post the stuff that they post, Lombardo told KLAS. I probably shouldnt tell you this, but I wish I could locate some of these individuals or have them present themselves to me personally and Ill show them what happened out there.

From NTD.tv
Man Shot Dead in Starbucks Was Part of a Drug Deal, Had a Gun

Chicago officials revealed more details about Thursdays shooting at a Starbucks in the Uptown neighborhood that left one man dead and two wounded.

The man who was killed had just completed a drug deal and was carrying narcotics and a gun when he was gunned down, police told the Chicago Sun-Times on Friday.

Sauvignon Watkins, a father of two, was identified as the victim, confirmed Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiners office.

The drug deal began near Broadway and Wilson, said Town Hall District Cmdr. Marc Buslik, adding that Watkins and a 24-year-old man who wounded by the gunfire were involved in the drug deal. His identity was not released.

A 12-year-old boy was also shot. The 12-year-old and the 24-year-old were waiting for Watkins in the Starbucks when the gunman, clad in a ski mask, opened fire, Buslisk said. However, police later told the Sun-Times that the boy was not connected to the incident, and they confirmed that he was shot in the groin and is in good condition.

As far as we can tell, this was not a random act, Buslisk added.

Alderman James Cappleman, who represents the area, wrote on Facebook: Appears victim completed narcotics transaction outside, ran into Starbucks and was shot, later died. Police continuing investigation.

UPDATE: Man killed in Uptown Starbucks shooting was carrying weapon, narcotics, police say  https://t.co/fs4b1tppt6 pic.twitter.com/hI5QzNOJjI  ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) November 3, 2017

Cappleman slammed the Starbucks, claiming that other drug deals have been done there.

I will not tolerate businesses that do not work with the police and my office to maintain safety, he said in a statement, as the Sun-Times reported later. We have had issues for years with illegal activity at this business, with very little response or help from Starbucks management to correct the problems.

Witnesses described the scene.

Police: Man killed, 2 others wounded in shooting at N. Side Starbucks https://t.co/Y5loAMq4Mu pic.twitter.com/zzm7IiZXuE  Fox5NY (@fox5ny) November 3, 2017

Heard two shots, then a pause. I grabbed my wife and kind of pushed her down and said, Shots! Then there were three more, almost within a few seconds, said Mike Swaiko, a witness, ABC7 reported. It was gunshots. By the time we got in there, they had already, like, told everyone to get cover, said Maureen Swaiko, another witness.

Starbucks issued a statement Thursday night on the shooting. We were saddened to learn of the passing of a young man and the injury of two others as a result of gun violence at our store, it said, adding that it will keep the store closed Friday.

The suspect hasnt been caught yet. The shooting is still under investigation.

UPDATE: Man killed in Uptown Starbucks shooting identified  https://t.co/0Dc9ssNNLy pic.twitter.com/TNHGqFKQI4  ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) November 3, 2017

The Chicago Tribune reported that two people were killed three were injured in shootings across Chicago, including the Starbucks incident. In another incident, a 29-year-old man was found shot dead in a car in the far South Sides Roseland neighborhood at around 10:05 p.m.
Mysterious, Loud Boom Felt Across San Diego

San Diego residents noted shaking and a loud, mysterious boom in various parts of the city and county.

A number of people on social media said they thought it was an earthquake. However, there were no quakes that registered in the U.S. Geological Survey on Thursday.

Residents in San Carlos, Granite Hills, Imperial Beach, Downtown, El Cajon, Carmel Valley, Bonita, Bankers Hill, Lakeside, National City, Tijuana, Barrio Logan, Otay Ranch, and Eastlake said they felt the rumbling or heard their windows rattle, NBC San Diego reported.

Alexa Robles said the boom shook the roof to our office building. Off market street near the 94 and 30th.

Thought it was guys working on building next door at first, Marvin Ramirez said from San Carlos.

I heard the boom ! I live in Spring Valley thought it was construction, but I didnt feel any shaking, another person said. About a week or two ago I heard the exact same boom and few seconds later my bed and walls started rocking it stopped for like 2 seconds and started shaking again. I didnt see any reports on an earthquake that day and I asked people if they had felt it and no one did so I just ignored it, a woman told Fox5.

A spokesperson for the Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet, said that a plane flying at supersonic speeds could produce a boombut they normally dont have flight operations when the noise was reported.

A spokesperson couldnt confirm to NBC whether or not the boom was caused by operations.

There is routine mortar training being conducted on the base, but it is highly unlikely that an impact would be heard and felt all the way in San Diego, said Cpl. Shellie Hall, Patch.com reported.

U.S. Navy officials told Fox5 that they did not cause the incident.

The San Diego Sheriffs Department also couldnt tell what it was, the report said.

We checked with our watch commander who monitors calls for service within our jurisdiction, said the departments spokeswoman, Melissa Aquino. Theres nothing to report on our end.
At least 13 people have been injured and 2 are missing and presumed dead after two boats collided on the Colorado River at the Moabi Regional Park on the border between California and Arizona on Sep. 1. (Michael Gil [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

South Carolina Girl Commits Suicide and Her Family Blames Bullying

An 11-year-old girl reportedly shot herself after she was bullied at school in South Carolina, her family told local media outlets this week.

Toni Rivers, the girl, shot herself with a small-caliber rifle. Deputies found the girl after Tonis 14-year-old sister called 911 Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 1, the Hampton County Sheriffs Office confirmed to WYFF.

She was taken to Medical University of South Carolina medical center in Charleston, where she was later pronounced dead, officials said.

Her family said that she was full of life and was so energetic, aunt Brandy Rivers-Dixon was quoted as saying. But everything changed last week.

She told five of her little friends that she just couldnt do this anymore and she was going home, and she was killing herself, Maria Petersen, Toris aunt, told the media outlet.

Toni Rivers was full of energy & life  that energy was taken from her when bullying became too much to handle. https://t.co/PYpnv9WaMq  FOX 24 Charleston (@FOX24Charleston) November 3, 2017

Tonis stepdad said the rifle belonged to her, but he told WTOC that shed never use it without the familys knowledge.

According to WTOC, her mom, Amy Thomas, tried to speak to school officials about the alleged bullying.

Thomas told WYFF, My babys gone, but everyones got confidence now, you know, they can stand up to her.

The school district superintendent wouldnt comment on the shooting or allegations of bullying, but he instead released a statement.

It is with heavy hearts that the Hampton One family mourns the loss of one of our students. Our sympathy and prayers go out to the family and friends affected by this tragedy. Counselors have been made available and will continue to be available to offer any needed support. Student matters are confidential and we believe it would be inappropriate to comment further on this tragic incident, he said.
US President Donald Trump (R) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) shake hands during dinner at the Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Fla., on April 6, 2017. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

Trump Is Coming to Visit, How Will China Respond?

U.S. President Donald Trump will make his first visit to China on Nov. 8, arriving soon after the conclusion of the 19th National Congress at which Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping consolidated his power. In their three days of meetings, trade and North Korea will surely be at the center of Trump and Xis talks.

There are signs already from the Chinese media that Trump will be unlikely to find a solution for a long-standing problemthe trade deficit with China. There appears to be hope that the President will get some form of assistance from his Chinese counterpart with regards to the North Korean regime.

At the daily regular press conference on Nov. 2, Hua Chunying, spokesperson for Chinas Foreign Ministry, spoke about how the two nations will swim and sink together as the two largest economies in the world. Hua said China has never intended to pursue a trade surplus and the current situation in China-U.S. trade is utterly determined by the market.

To emphasize her point, she said U.S. imports rose by 20.1 percent from January to August, while Chinas trade deficit with the United States in the service sector grew by 36.5 percent from the first half of 2016 to first half of 2017.

According to U.S. Department of Commerce statistics, the total trade deficit with China increased to $347 billion last year, a deficit that Trump has called so big and bad that its embarrassing saying what the number is.

In discussions with Xi about the trade imbalance, Trump is likely to be pressured to address an issue of great concern to Chinese companiesthe United States has been denying them the chance to invest in U.S. companies.

Equating the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment to an iceberg, an article published on Oct. 30 in The Paper, Chinese state-funded news website, stated how the commission had denied acquisitions by Chinese companies.

Scorching the big bid by Canyon Bridge, a China-backed private equity firm, for U.S. chipmaker Lattice was given as an example.

Currently under negotiation between the two countries is a $7-billion investment plan with U.S. firms and Sinopec, one of Chinas state-run oil companies, to build a pipeline in Texas and expand an existing oil storage facility in the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to Bloomberg. The two areas were devastated by recent hurricanes. The project would create thousands of new jobs in these hurricane-affected areas, which would provide political benefits to Trump, according to Bloomberg.

According to the latest report from CNBC, 29 U.S. company executives are going to join Trump on the China trip, including Kevin McAllister, president and chief executive officer of Boeing Co.; Jack Fusco, president and chief executive officer of Cheniere Energy Inc.; Jose Emeterio Gutierrez, president & CEO of Westinghouse Electric Co. LLC; and Steve Mollenkopf, CEO of Qualcomm Inc.

While it is unclear how much will get done between the two nations in terms of business deals, the personal relationship between the two world leaders is a cordial one, said Cui Tiankai, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, in a joint interview with Chinese and foreign media on Oct. 30.

The two heads of states have a very good working relationship, friendship, and a good level of trust between them. They can openly exchange their concerns with each other, said Cui.

As for the issue of containing North Koreas nuclear weapons and missile programs, there appear to be signs that the two leaders will have common ground. An article published on the state mouthpiece Xinhua on Nov. 2 said China and the United States both depend on each other to secure stability in northeast Asia and realize a nuclear-free peninsula.

In fact, the relationship between China and North Korea has recently soured, according to the Hong Kong Economic Times, which pointed to a change in the order of how the four socialist countriesNorth Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cubawere listed when Chinese state-run media reported on their congratulatory messages to Xi for becoming leader of the Chinese Communist Party for another five-year term.

Back in 2002, 2007, and 2012, Xinhua had listed North Korea first among the four countries. But this year, the North Korean regime came in last. Moving North Korea to the end of the list was a sign that the Chinese leadership was unhappy about how its neighbor had repeatedly ignored warnings not to test nuclear bombs.

Also signaling a tighter Sino-U.S. cooperation on North Korea, Zhang Zhaozhong, rear admiral in the PLA Navy and a frequent commentator on state-run television, predicted that Trumps visit would dismantle the fuse that put the Asia-Pacific regions safety in jeopardy, as the two leaders would talk about a grand plan to eliminate nuclear ballistic missiles from North Korea, according to posts on his Weibo account. Weibo is Chinas equivalent to Twitter.

Zhangs comments were a sharp turnaround from his usual hostile attitude towards the United States. In August this year, he openly celebrated the collision between the USS John S. McCain, an Arleigh-Burke class destroyer, and a Liberian-flagged oil tanker via posts on his Weibo account. And in 2011, he declared that China would launch a third world war to protect Iran, when international pressure was mounting to stop the country from developing nuclear weapons.
UN Report Confirms Trump Airstrikes on Assad Airfields Were Justified

The United Nations has confirmed that the Assad regime in Syria used chemical weapons on civilians in April, validating the Trump administrations decision to launch retaliatory airstrikes on an Assad airbase.

The Assad regime killed more than 100 people with sarin chemical weapons on April 4 in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun, and many of the victims were women and children. The Trump administration rapidly responded to the attack by launching close to 50 Tomahawk missiles from warships in the Mediterranean Sea, which struck an Assad airbase in Homs.

The Assad regime denied it was behind the attack, and Russia, which is Assads main backer, also defended Assads position at the United Nations. At the time, the strikes on the Assad airbase were the strongest direct U.S. action in the six years of the war in Syria.

On Oct. 26, however, the United Nations released a report that concluded with confidence that the Assad regime used the chemical weapon sarin on April 4, 2017, in Khan Shaykhun, killing more than 100 of its citizens, many of whom were children and women, says a Nov. 2 statement from White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders.

The investigation was conducted by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), which is an independent, technical body established by unanimous vote of the U.N. Security Council.

Sanders said, This unconscionable attack marks the fourth time that the JIM has confirmed that the Assad regime used chemical weapons, underscoring the brutal and horrifying barbarism of Bashar al-Assad and making the protection provided by Russia even more egregious.

Russia has blocked the U.N. Security Council eight times from holding nations accountable for using chemical weapons, including the Assad regime, and is attempting to block the JIM investigation as well.

Sanders said during an Oct. 24 press conference that, By blocking the extension of the Joint Investigative Mechanism, Russia has once again demonstrated it does not care about stopping the barbaric use of chemical weapons in the world and will do whatever it takes to protect its ally, the Assad regime.

Sanders said the move by Russia was equivalent to an endorsement of the Assad regimes use of chemical weapons against innocent women and children. We will continue to push back against this.

With the release of the U.N. report, the Trump administrations stance was given more weight. Sanders came out more strongly against Russias attempts to undermine or eliminate the JIM, and said it shows a callous disregard for the suffering and loss of life caused by the use of chemical weapons and an utter lack of respect for international norms.

All those who use chemical weapons must be held accountable, Sanders said. She added that the United States is pressing the U.N. Security Council to renew its mandate of the JIM so that it can continue to identify nations behind such attacks, and send a clear message that the use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated.

Countries that fail to support the work of the independent investigators stand in direct opposition of all standards of reasonable international conduct, she said.

It has been long known that Syrias use of chemical weapons isnt an isolated problem. The Assad regime was assisted in its chemical weapons programs by several other nations.

While explaining the U.S. stance on Iran, President Donald Trump said on Oct. 13 that  In Syria, the Iranian regime has supported the atrocities of Bashar al-Assads regime and condoned Assads use of chemical weapons against helpless civilians, including many, many children.

In 2013, after the Assad regime launched an earlier attack on rebel forces and civilians using sarin gas, a former NSA agent told The Epoch Times that Assads chemical weapons programs had been assisted by Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea.

Theyre getting a lot of shipments from both China and Russia, said Terry Minarcin, a retired NSA agent, in an earlier interview. He added that since the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the Soviet Union and later Russia, had sent shipments of chemical and biological weapons to Syria, Iraq, and parts of Lebanon.

China became involved because they were the go-between for North Korea and Iran for the development of missiles, and later on for some of the technology for making nuclear weapons, he said.

A 2013 report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service also said the Assad regime had stocks of sarin nerve gas and mustard gas, which were possibly weaponized into bombs, shells, and missiles, and associated production facilities.
Lifestyle: If You're Not Getting Closer to Achieving Your Goals, Try Using a Different Metric
US Cuts North Korea-Linked Chinese Bank off from US Financial System

Move comes as President Trump departs for Asia and visit to China

The U.S. Treasury Department has cut Chinas Bank of Dandong off from the U.S. financial system, on the eve of President Donald Trumps Asia tour.

The Treasurys Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a final rule Thursday that bars U.S. financial firms from doing business with the Bank of Dandong, which the Treasury department described as a primary money laundering concern.

In June, FinCEN, the Treasurys money laundering and terror finance investigation arm, described the bank as a conduit for illicit North Korean financial activity and signaled the bank would be severed from the U.S. financial system.

But the Treasury did not announce when that would come into effect. The timing, the day before Trump left for his tour, will inevitably be read as significant by the Chinese regime.

Trump has made resolving the North Korean crisis and leveling out the massive U.S. trade deficit with China two of his top foreign policy considerations.

FinCEN says the Chinese bank has facilitated millions of dollars of transactions for companies involved in North Koreas weapons and ballistic missile programs and entities responsible for their proliferation.

FinCEN has also alerted other financial institutions to the ways North Korea evades U.S. and U.N. sanctions, launders funds, and finances the regimes military ambitions.

Todays actions will better protect the U.S. financial system from illicit schemes used by North Korea to evade sanctions and finance its weapons programs, said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

Banks and businesses worldwide should take note that they must be vigilant against attempts by North Korea to conduct illicit financing and trade.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin walks into the Rose Garden for a news conference at the White House October 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. On Nov. 2, Mnuchin announced a Chinas Bank of Dandong was cut off from the U.S. financial system. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The move to cut the bank off from the worlds most critical financial system is the latest in a growing list of secondary sanctions the United States has leveled against Chinese firms and individuals that have violated U.S. and U.N. sanctions.

Those secondary sanctions are part of a prolonged push to get China to fully enforce U.N. sanctions it has supported, and crackdown on the smuggling and illicit activity that is rife along the Chinese border with North Korea.

China has been reluctant to push sanctions to the point where they could destabilize the North Korean regime, citing fears of sparking a refugee crisis. Analysts have thrown doubt on concerns that China would be affected by such a crisis given South Koreas willingness to take in North Korean refugees and Chinas wish to preserve the North Korean state as a buffer between its territory and U.S.-ally South Korea.

Dandong, the border town that is the banks namesake, is a hub of illicit China-North Korean trade.

In September, the Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development Company Ltd (DHID) for working with the Korea Kwangson Banking Corporation (KKBC), which was previously sanctioned by the United States and the U.N. for providing financial services that supported proliferators of weapons of mass destruction.

The month before, OFAC designated Dandong Rich Earth Trading Co., Ltd.meaning that U.S. companies are prohibited from doing business with itfor purchasing vanadium ore from the Korea Kumsan Trading Corporation, which was also already designated by the U.N. and United States.

That August, OFAC also designated the Dandong Tianfu Trade Co. Ltd. and Dandong Zhicheng Metallic Materials Co. Ltd. for operating in the North Koreas mining industry.

OFAC has also designated several individuals from the border city for violating sanctions in their business dealings with North Korea. They are now cut off from doing business with U.S. firms, falling under sanctions themselves.
We the People Demand Character in American Government

Twelve years ago, I authored a two-part series on the need for character in American politics for The New Jersey Police Chief Magazine.

The series titled American Leadership Principles in an Age of Corruption was well-received. Requests to publish the articles in numerous additional publications were received and approved.

Read More American Government Requires Ethical Leadership

The first of these articles began with details from the FBI website on public corruption. These words remain memorialized on their site exactly as they were twelve years ago:

Public corruption, the FBIs top criminal investigative priority, poses a fundamental threat to our national security and way of life. It can affect everything from how well our borders are secured and our neighborhoods protected to how verdicts are handed down in courts to how public infrastructure such as roads and schools are built. It also takes a significant toll on the publics pocketbooks by siphoning off tax dollarsit is estimated that public corruption costs the U.S. government and the public billions of dollars each year. The FBI is uniquely situated to combat corruption, with the skills and capabilities to run complex undercover operations and surveillance.

Drain the Swamp: Americas Ethical Renaissance

In my article for the March 16, 2016 edition of the Epoch Times titled Drain the Swamp: Championing Americas Ethical Renaissance, I argued that Americas corruption demands extermination.

The article stated the swamp must be drained, not by impotent words, but by actions built on pillars of moral courage, transformational leadership, and persuasive character. Only these principles can conquer our culture of corruption and lead us to an authentic ethical renaissance.

Read More Policing Requires Ethical Protectors

Furthermore, America was summoned to turn to Lincoln as a model of character, inspiration, and motivation.

Lincolns life was highlighted as one deserving imitation, as opposed to those who manipulate for self-gain. The article stated there are many in positions of power that violate the public trust. They are not honoring their sacred oaths to serve. Instead, reprehensible examples of greed, self-aggrandizement, arrogance, superficiality, and self-centeredness are wreaking havoc on our moral compass. America must remember that it is built on the foundation of We the People.

Public Corruption: FBIs Partial List

Press releases on the FBI website, a partial list from October 2017 alone, remind us that Americas swamp of corruption is alive and well:

Jury convicts former Cumming Police sergeant of accepting bribes and computer fraud

S. Penitentiary Lieutenant arraigned on excessive force and obstruction of justice charges

Baltimore City Department of Transportation Supervisor Charged With Taking Thousands In Bribes

Captain with Bristol County Sheriffs Office Indicted for Smuggling Profits to Portugal

Former Local Law Enforcement Officer Sentenced for Accepting a Bribe to Protect a Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Scheme

Suffolk County District Attorney and Chief Of Investigations Indicted For Obstructing Federal Civil Rights Investigation

Former Philadelphia District Attorney Rufus Seth Williams Sentenced To Five Years In Prison For Federal Bribery Charge

Fourth Baltimore City Police Detective Pleads Guilty To Racketeering And Heroin Distribution Conspiracy

Former NYS Deputy Secretary of State Sentenced to Serve Thirty Months in Prison for Perjury

Former State Judge Pleads Guilty to Dismissing Cases in Exchange for Personal Benefits and Tampering with a Witness

Unscrupulous individuals in positions of authority, with a toxic addiction to power, continue to be venomous to the health, welfare, and security of America.

Final Reflections

In my home are numerous artworks depicting the heart of American democracy.

One is of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C. with the words All authority belongs to the people emblazoned on it.

In another are the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg. His words must be forever seared into the heart of everyone who loves America. They are an eternal tribute to every patriot who gave the last measure of devotion.

Lincolns words also beckon us through a mystical cord of unity with all who have died by military sacrifice. He inspires America as a nation, under God that is destined to a new birth of freedom. He prophesizes a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

But perhaps the best way to conclude this article and to hopefully ignite an ethical renaissance is with words from Lincolns Lyceum Address in Springfield, Illinois on Jan. 27, 1838.

Read More Americas Critical Ethical Issues Demand Resolution

These words had broad implications for Lincolns vision for America. But these words are eternal and even now, Lincoln beckons our nation to a heartbeat of character. America, inspired by Lincoln, must rise from an age of corruption, superficial politics, and shameful scandals and ignite an ethical renaissance:

Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor;let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his childrens liberty. Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her laplet it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs;let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.

Vincent J. Bove, CPP, is a national speaker and author on issues critical to America. Bove is a recipient of the FBI Directors Community Leadership Award for combating crime and violence and is a former confidant of the New York Yankees. His newest book is Listen to Their Cries. For more information, see www.vincentbove.com

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
People scramble for shelter at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival after apparent gun fire was heard in Las Vegas, Nevada on Oct. 1, 2017. (Photo by David Becker/Getty Images)

Woman in Iconic Photo of Vegas Shooting Finally Finds the Man She Helped

A woman who helped save a mans life during the Las Vegas massacre by stuffing a bandana in his gunshot wound has finally been reunited with him.

Sheri Sletten is the woman from an iconic photo taken during the Las Vegas massacre. In it, she sits clutching a bloody bandana with a stretcher and fire truck seen in the background. Afterwards, she went on a quest to find the man whose blood was on that bandana, the man who she hoped had survived, Los Angeles Times reported.

Meet the young lady in this powerful image taken after the #LasVegasshooting.

Thank you Sheri Sletten. @sherisletten1 ?? @fox5sandiego pic.twitter.com/9zT6l42MFE  RaoulFOX5 (@RaoulFOX5) October 5, 2017

Sletten, 36-years-old, was noticeably distant after coming home from the music festival that turned into a massacre on Oct. 1. Stephen Paddock killed 58 people that night, and then killed himself. He injured 546 people, but Sletten was focused on one of those in particular. She wanted to know what happened to the man she helped after he was taken away. She didnt know where he was and if she could see him again.

She became obsessed with finding him.

In those life changing moments Sletten held the man in her arms as she applied pressure to his back, trying to stop the blood. She pressed her cheek to his face to make sure he was alive.

Can you feel this? she asked.

Yes, he whispered.

Then that means youre alive, she said.

The man was taken away on a maintenance cart. Sletten rushed to help a few others and left the tragic night unharmed physically, but her mental recovery was slow. Her husband and four children noticed how she stayed in bed and watched television all day.

She searched nonstop for a face that looked like the man she hoped she saved on the TV news. She tried to call Las Vegas hospitals. She searched Facebook. She searched lists of survivors.

She didnt find him.

Finding him was the biggest thing holding her back, said Daniel Sletten, Sheris husband.

Sheri Sletten returned to an animal hospital where she works as a receptionist, but she wasnt the same. Coworkers had to compensate for the work she now seemed unable to do.

It was like her whole world had been turned upside down, said Melissa Brand, a veterinary technician. She was quiet and seemed overwhelmed. She was emotional and had this heavy weight on her.

Relief finally came when Sletten read a story that mentioned a man with the same injury she cared for that night. His name was in the story. She searched for leads and found his girlfriend and sister online.

When she contacted them they remembered her from the concert. They let her know that the man she was looking for, Matt Lewan, had been taken to three hospitals where he had several surgeries. The bullet couldnt be removed.

Soon Sletten was in direct contact with Lewan. They tried to meet, but more surgeries came up. When Lewan was finally done with them, at least the ones that he needed right away, they decided to meet at his parents home.

After first embracing his sister, Sletten was soon together again with the man she spent so much time searching for.

The worried woman in the iconic photo was finally able to resolve the issue written into her face, as if frozen in time.

From NTD
Woman Wakes up to Find $19 Million in Bank Account

An Australian woman reportedly discovered that she was $19 million richer and her mortgage was paid off.

Clare Wainwright, a Sydney, Australia-based lawyer, found $24 million AUD ($19 million) in her bank account on Oct. 25, Australias Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Im a lawyer, which is why I havent spent the money, she told the paper. Mostly because I figured it wouldnt play out that well trying to play dumb on that.

She said that her attempts to alert the National Australia Bank (NAB) about the mistaken transfer into her account have failed.

I went straight to my mortgage broker and he got in contact with [NAB], and the person in the customer service team said someone would get back to him in three days, she told SBS.

About a month ago, she got a letter from the bank explaining that the mortgage payments for her home loan would be $25 millionrather than $2,500, which was agreed by the two parties.

I got in touch with my broker and he said Im sure it was a typo, Ill get in contact with them, but obviously the mistake was never fixed, she told Australian Associated Press.

That Friday, Wainwright said that the bank returned her bank balance back to normal.

They took it out this morning, she said.

A spokesperson for the NAB thanked the lawyer for alerting them to the mistake.

The error has been fixed and the payment has been reversed, a spokesperson told SMH. Although the funds appeared in the account, they were not available for withdrawal. We thank the customer for contacting us and were sorry for any trouble caused.

She posted a photo of the transaction on Facebook.

When NAB accidentally pays out your entire mortgage, and gives you an extra [$19 million] to redraw  do I skip the country??, she jokingly wrote.
Woman Who Wanted to Tick Murder Off Bucket List Is Convicted

A British woman was convicted of killing an autistic 18-year-old in Western Australiabecause murder was on her bucket list of something to do before she turned 25.

Jemma Lilley, of Stamford, Lincolnshire, was convicted of killing 18-year-old Aaron Pajich in Perth before burying him in a grave and covering it with tiles and concrete, The Independent reported. After she finished, Lilley said that she was so full of herself and euphoric that she boasted about her exploit to a colleague, prosecutor James McTaggart told a court.

She was convicted along with former housemate Trudi Lenon, 43. Previously, Lilley, 26, wrote a book about a serial killer called SOS and attempted to assume the identity of the killer, the prosecutor said.

The book was a big problem with me. At the beginning I was, Fair enough you want to write a horror story, but I didnt like the contents of it, Lilleys stepmother, Nina Lilley, was quoted as saying. She had always had an obsession with serial killers but she said it was a way of venting her frustration of what happened when she was a child.

Pajich was lured to his death on June 13, 2016. Both Lilley and Lenon blamed one another for the teens murder.

At the time of the murder, she was a person obsessed with violence and all kinds of unquestionably cruel manifestations of torture and was writing about it, Crown prosecutor James McTaggart said, according to News.co.au.

According to the News.co.au report:

When [investigators] scoured the home for clues, homicide detectives found DNA traces and blood splatters throughout the home. Outside the burial site was just as crude. The grave was covered with a tarpaulin, the concrete had just been poured, and tiles were laid sloppily. Mr McTaggart told the jury the scene was ridiculous. And so was what happened next.

Mactaggart told the court that the Lilley could hardly wait to blurt out that she had stabbed a person and finally killed somebody but assured her Lenon dont worry [the next killings] will all be vigilante.

The boys mother, Sharon Pajich, told reporters that shes heartbroken and called his killers disgusting animals.

He was my precious little boy, he was my first-born  he was full of life, she said. They (the killers) deserve everything they get for what theyve done, theyve taken an innocent boy from his loved ones.
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BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan-When Sayfullo Saipov used a truck to mow people down on a New York street, ultimately killing eight according to terror charges, he guaranteed his former homeland Uzbekistan would receive the worst kind of headlines.

People from ex-Soviet Central Asia have been at the heart of high-profile attacks this year in the United States, Russia, Sweden and Turkey.

Yet Saipov, according to official accounts, came into contact with radical Islamic ideologies not in the country of his birth, but in the one he adopted seven years ago: the US.

Saipov moved to America in 2010 under a visa programPresident Donald Trumps response to Tuesdays attack was to announce tougher vetting for immigrants.

Most of these attackers come from rather secular backgrounds and tend to radicalize in their country of destination rather than origin, said Yan Matusevich, research officer at the Vienna-headquartered International Center for Migration Policy Development.

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Thousands of former residents of the regions five countries known as the stansKazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistanhave joined the ranks of the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq since 2011.

However, the incidents involving violent extremism at home have been relatively rare.

But if one single theme does link the Central Asia-born assailants of very different backgrounds accused of attacks this year in New York, Istanbul, Saint Petersburg and Stockholm, it is migration.

Uzbek national Abdulgadir Masharipov, who killed 39 people in a January 1 attack on a nightclub in Istanbul, had lived and trained as a militant in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to Turkish authorities.

Another Uzbek, Rakhmat Akilov, who plowed a truck into a crowd of pedestrians in Stockholm in April, killing five, was a failed asylum seeker reportedly at risk of deportation. AFP

Akbarjon Djalilov, identified as the 22-year-old bomber behind the Saint Petersburg metro blast in April that killed 16 people including himself, was born in Kyrgyzstan but left for Russia with his family aged 17.

While the series of attacks appear to form a Central Asian pattern, Matusevich argues they are part of a broader, more global form of radicalization and the attackers actual life situations were quite diverse.

Saipov worked as an Uber driver in New Jersey. Uzbekistans government has said that there was nothing to indicate he was an extremist before leaving.

Saipov was described by his former neighbors in the capital Tashkent in very positive terms, said the governments statement on Wednesday.

His parents followed traditional Islam and were never seen in connection with any extremist branches, it added.

Looking for a common thread, analysts focus on exposure to online extremist content, particularly produced by the Islamic State group in whose name Saipov committed the attack, according to New York police.

The only thing we can say about commonalities between Saipov and [Istanbul attacker] Masharipov is that they were Uzbeks living outside the country with access to Islamic State propaganda material, said Deirdre Tynan, Central Asia Project Director for the International Crisis Group.

While stressing it is too early to say if Saipov had direct contact with IS, Tynan says the organization has been adept at delivering its message in Russian and Central Asian languages across a variety of platforms.

Sleek IS propaganda appearing to target Central Asians gained international attention in 2015 when a child identifying as a Kazakh IS recruit was shown in a video executing an alleged Russian spy.

Another video released months later featured a former special forces chief from Tajikistan who defected to IS.

ISs sophisticated media strategy has been critical in helping recruit Central Asians, setting it apart from other radical organizations operating in the region, Tynan says.

But rights monitors say the groups global prominence has also given former Soviet governments a pretext to intensify crackdowns on devout Muslims.

Likewise in Russia, since the April bombing in Saint Petersburg, security services have visibly increased raids targeting Central Asian migrants, sometimes claiming to have foiled extremist plots.

You get the impression that some of these arrests have a political thrust, to identify [to the public] an enemy of sorts, Svetlana Gannushkina, a renowned Russian rights defender whose work focuses on migration, told AFP.

And who are Russias enemies? Well, the external enemy is the United States, but the internal enemy is (Central Asian) migrants, Gannushkina said. AFP

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(Part 1)

The recent state visit of President Rodrigo Duterte to Japan was very fruitful, as attested to by the US$6-billion worth of business deals and investments the president was able to obtain from the Land of the Rising Sun.

President Duterte was warmly received by top Japanese officials led by Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Mrs. Akie Abe. Returning the hospitality he received, Duterte publicly acknowledged Japan as a good friend of the Philippines.

The Duterte state visit may be over, but expect Japan to be on the spotlight once more, since North Korea is certain to continue to threaten the stability in East Asia, and by unavoidable proximity, South East Asia and the North Pacific region. More specifically, the communist government in Pyongyang is threatening to unleash its nuclear arsenal against its sworn enemies, namely, South Korea, the United States, and Japan. North Korea sees South Korea and Japan as stooges of the United States.

Lately, that nuclear threat has caused serious anxiety even to Pyongyangs traditional allies  Russia and Communist China.

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South Korea is most vulnerable to North Korean nuclear aggression, but Seoul is confident in the military support the United States has committed to South Korea since the end of the Korean War in July 1953.

For those who are not in the know, the Korean peninsula had been a colony of Japan in the early decades of the twentieth century. After the end of World War II in the Pacific in 1945, the peninsula was divided into the communist north supported by Russia, and the capitalist-democratic south backed by the United States. When mainland China fell to communist forces in 1949, Peking (the name of Beijing then), became an staunch ally of the north.

In June 1950, troops from the north invaded the south and eventually captured Seoul, leaving only Pusan in the hands of the southerners. The United Nations entered the picture and sent a multi-national military contingent led by the famous American general Douglas MacArthur to fight off the northerners. That international contingent included troops from the Philippines.

The UN forces eventually pushed back the communists so far north, that even Pyongyang fell to the allies. Just when the war was almost won, soldiers from Communist China joined the fighting on the North Korean side. This resulted in a see-saw situation for everyone. When neither side seemed certain of victory, a ceasefire was negotiated in July 1953. Since no peace treaty was signed, North Korea and South Korea, technically speaking, are still in a state of war with each other.

Seoul is confident that if the United States went to war to defend South Korea in 1950, it will do so again in another war in the peninsula. From the way Washington, D.C. has been comporting itself in the military stage, it looks like America will not abandon its ally. Besides, there are already numerous American troops in South Korea who are always on alert. All that is enough reason why rock concerts, musical competitions, and tele-novelas seem endless in South Korea despite the ominous nuclear threat from its belligerent neighbor in the north.

While the Communist China of the 1950s was an unconditional ally of North Korea, and continued to be so even up to the dawn of the twenty-first century, the current leadership in Beijing has so far reluctantly acknowledged that North Koreas nuclear threat must be addressed at the negotiating table. While Beijing seems exasperated with the trouble Pyongyang has been causing in the international scene, Beijing is not prepared to abandon Pyongyangnot yet, at least.

About two months ago, Beijing annouced the unexpected: it will not fight on the North Korean side if the United States attacks North Korea without any provocation from the latter. In other words, Beijing will stay neutral if North Korea draws first blood. So far, that assurance seems good enough for the Americans.

The Russian position is hardly any different. In the more than four decades after World War II, Moscow had been a staunch ally of the Korean communists. The collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union) in 1989, however, changed the economic landscape of North Korea. Since the post-Soviet era Russia no longer had the money to bankroll North Koreas extravagant expenses, Communist China became the main source of economic and military support for Pyongyang.

Today, Beijing and Moscow are uncomfortable with Pyongyangs continuing destabilization overtures to the world despite an economic embargo imposed upon Pyongyang by the UN. At a time when Beijing and Moscow are deep into international trade, they consider those overtures bad for business.

So why arent Beijing and Moscow warming up to Americas inclination to eliminate North Korea and end, once and for all, Pyongyangs nuclear menace to the world?

For the Russians, it is easy for America to express its displeasure towards North Korea quite unconditionally and, in the process, provoke a shooting war in East Asia. Thats because America is an ocean away from the nuclear battle zone, assuming a nuclear war does break out in the Korean peninsula. Russia does not have that geographical advantage because it is North Koreas next-door neighbor, and as the saying goes, be nice to your next door neighbor because anything can happen between neighborsat a moments notice.

In other words, if North Korean decides to engage Russia in a shooting war, North Korean troops can easily cross its border and enter Russian territory. Unlike Russia, the United States has South Korea, Japan, and the whole North Pacific Ocean between it and North Korea.

Besides, more than four decades of the cold war between the old Soviet Union and the United States (1945-1989) have convinced Moscow to consider the communists in Pyongyang as less objectionable allies than the capitalists in America.

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What's next for SD Gov. Kristi Noem as she heads into her second term?
The Jordanian government Thursday insisted that the Israeli embassy will remain closed until the Israeli guard who killed two Jordanians in July is brought back to stand trial.

We are committed to international law, and we expect Israel to abide by international law and bring the murderer to trial. This is what we demanded  the ambassador will not be allowed to return and the embassy will not be opened until this is done, said Media Affairs Minister Mohammad Momani.

Diplomatic ties between Jordan and Israel deteriorated in July following the death of two Jordanian citizens killed by Ziv Moyal, a guard at a building in the Israeli embassy in the Jordanian capital.

Moyal shot dead Mohammed Jawawdeh a teenage carpenter who according to Israeli sources attacked him with a screwdriver.

The landlord who was present during the incident, also died of injuries after being shot by the Israeli guard.

Israel sought to evacuate the guard but Jordan refused to let him go and insisted that he stood trial.

Israel managed to retrieve Moyal under diplomatic immunity with Washingtons intervention and after a phone call between King Abdullah II and Benjamin Netanyahu.

The situation further compounded with Benjamin giving a heros welcome to Moyal in his office, slapping his back and adding that he acted calmly and was happy about the way things ended.

Amman protested at the move accusing the Israeli Prime Minister for trying to score political points at home.

Jordan is the second Arab country, after Egypt, to recognize Israel following 1994 accords.

Jordan since the incident has refused to allow the return of Israeli ambassador Einat Schlein who was also photographed during Netanyahus controversial welcome ceremony for Moyal.
Elko, Nev., is no Silicon Valley.

A recent front-page story in the local paper hailed inductees to the Buckaroo Hall of Fame, a nod to the towns cowboy past. Inside, a full-page spread detailed the aspirations of the kids vying for homecoming king and queen.

Yet its here, in an unremarkable warehouse in the foothills of the Ruby Mountains, that Barrick Gold Corp. has created an in-house coding hub to design software for its nearby Cortez operation  one step in its plan to use technology to revolutionize the mining business.

From underground Wi-Fi to sensors that track the output of every miner, its all part of what Cisco Systems Inc. executive chairman John Chambers calls an audacious goal by his Barrick counterpart, John Thornton, to drag gold mining into the 21st century.

The challenge is to move from thinking of it as a series of tasks to a sort of self-perpetuating machine which becomes the culture, Thornton said during a recent stop in Elko, about 420 miles (675 kilometres) from the bright lights of Las Vegas. You move  to make it slightly dramatic  from being a mining company, to being a digital company that happens to be in mining.

Its been 13 months since Thornton, 63, first unveiled his vision to team up with Cisco and transform Barricks Nevada operations into a high-tech blueprint for the rest of the company. While chief operating officer Richard Williams is exceptionally pleased with progress, its been slower than expected, he told analysts on a conference call last week.

Digital remains critical to Barricks goal of reducing all-in mining costs to $700 (U.S.) an ounce from between $740 and $770 now.

So far, the miner has created C0dem1ne, its Elko software hub; added autonomous mining equipment; and built a nerve centre called the Analytics and Unified Operations Center. The latter will become Barricks unblinking eye, crunching a data lake of information fed by tens of thousands of sensors and spitting out analysis to employees.

This years digital budget of $50 million is a drop in the bucket for a company with a market value of about $17 billion. But under the watch of Williams, a former SAS commanding officer, Barrick has approached every spend with military precision.

We have examined, and examined, and examined the value of our digital investment in ways that is out of all proportion to its number, Williams said during a 90-minute drive from Elko to Cortez. Why? Because we want to be absolutely sure, at every level of the organization, that this makes sense.

Investors have learned the hard way what happens when miners overspend on poorly conceived makeovers. Since 2010, Paulson & Co. estimates the gold industry has written off $85 billion, much of it for ill-advised mergers during the heady days when gold fetched $1,700 an ounce. Barrick has taken its own lumps, including over the debt-swelling 2011 purchase of Equinox Minerals Ltd. at the height of the commodity super cycle. The stock is still down more than 60 per cent from its 2010 peak.

Efficient Mining

When Thornton first announced he would digitize operations to help make Barrick the most efficient mining company in the world, the response was muted. With the entire industry focused on wringing more out of existing operations, including better technology, the biggest question from analysts was: What is Barrick doing differently?

Just this month, Rio Tinto Group sent a driverless iron-ore train 100 kilometres across Western Australia for the first time. Newmont Mining Corp., Barricks chief rival and neighbour in Nevada, has embraced sensors, autonomous equipment and virtual reality, and recently ran a digital assessment on one of its Nevada mines to pinpoint more opportunities.

We use technology in all different places, but its more a fit-for-purpose approach, Newmont CEO Gary Goldberg said at a mining conference last month in Colorado. Its still incremental; I dont think its a step change.

Sum of Parts

Williams thinks it can be. Barricks goal  which he says will be largely realized in the next two years  is to integrate hundreds of incremental improvements into a larger system in which the sum becomes greater than the parts.

Digital is a step change. Its a multiplier, he maintains, drawing on his experience with the U.K. military in Iraq where electronic penetration allowed commanders to view the entire battle space for the first time.

Already, unit costs have fallen from $190 per ton of rock to $140 at Cortezs underground operations, he says, and full integration will result in significant dollar-per-ton margin improvements.

Three of C0dem1nes bespoke apps have been put into use at Cortez, including an interval control system common on factory floors that allows miners to adjust mine plans mid-shift. Another monitors the health of Cortezs fleet of 350-ton trucks. Because it owns the data, Barrick can upgrade this software as often as needed. In-house technology also liberates the company from costly service contracts and allows it to track operations at a more granular level.

Barrick Suppliers

That raises the question of how tech suppliers will respond to Barrick moving into their territory. In the case of its so-called short interval control, the company heard pitches from 14 outside vendors before deciding to design its own software. Barrick opted to turn off Caterpillar Inc.s predictive maintenance software on its trucks once it was clear, employees say, their own app performed better.

Clearly there are implications, said Denise Johnson, Caterpillars group president of resource industries. Not every mining company is going to want a full CAT solution.

That said, she thinks miner interest in technology will ultimately be good for Caterpillars business as long as its prepared to offer different combinations of equipment and software that interact with outside systems. You have to be able to play in multiple ways and each customer is going to have to make a decision for themselves on how they want the pieces to come together, Johnson said. If we make ourselves completely closed we wont even sell the equipment, let alone the digital solution or technology that is out there.

Elko Jobs

As Barricks software efforts ramp up, attracting coding and developing talent to Elko may be another challenge. The company is hedging its bets, with a second coding facility at its Henderson office near Las Vegas. Further out, it hopes to create a more technologically skilled pool of local employees through an initiative with Cisco to create relevant courses at Elkos Great Basin College.

Barrick also has moved to reassure its 3,000-strong Nevada workforce, and local officials, that digitization wont mean significant job losses.

Ive been told its a net net on jobs, Elko County Commissioner Cliff Eklund says over coffee and dessert at the Gold Dust West Casino. Eklund is a veteran of the mining industry, as his familys drilling company held contracts with Barrick and Newmont for 50 years. During that time, technological improvements often proved neutral for employment, he says. Fewer drivers were required when haul trucks got bigger, but more jobs were created by processing increasingly complex ore.

Thorntons hope is that digitization will give Barrick an edge developing other complex deposits around the world. Within the next three years he expects most of the heavy lifting will be done in terms of digitizing Barricks other mines. He and Williams are vague on future costs, saying only that cash flow will be made available for any projects that pay for themselves within 12 months and generate returns above 15 per cent.

Meanwhile, the company is investing in other areas, including the use of artificial intelligence for exploration, and cyanide-free leaching, all of which have the potential to add revenue streams down the line. The latter could be key to speeding up development of Pascua-Lama and the El Indio belt along the Argentina-Chile border, a string of deposits that  like Nevada  the company hopes to mine for over a century.

Our view of mining in the high Andes is underground, fully automated, remotely operated, environmentally neutral, Williams says.

Ultimately, using technology to unlock those sorts of deposits will also make Barrick attractive beyond the gold space, according to Thornton. We want to be a leading 21st-century company in any industry, in any jurisdiction. Thats the goal. I dont intend to leave until that goals accomplished.

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A California judge is putting a halt to a Canadian court order for internet giant Google to delist some of its search results worldwide.

It says Canadas top court overstepped its bounds and the right to free speech online.

In June, the Supreme Court upheld a 2015 B.C. court ruling that ordered the popular search engine to wipe out references to a former distributor accused of stealing trade secrets from a small British Columbia company.

Read more: Free speech advocates shocked after Supreme Court orders Google to block websites of company accused of stealing trade secrets

Google unsuccessfully argued before Canadas high court that Canadian courts didnt have legal authority to impose such an injunction.

About one month after the Supreme Court decision, Google turned to the courts in California to squash the order, arguing it couldnt be enforced in the United States because it violated sweeping free speech rights under the First Amendment, and federal legislation that granted internet services like Google immunity from listing content created by third parties.

A U.S. district court judge in California agreed, saying that Datalink Technologies Gateways provided the information at issue for Burnaby-based Equustek Solutions Inc.; Google merely provides links to websites and short snippets of their contents.

Judge Edward J. Davila wrote in his ruling that the Canadian court order to force companies like Google to remove links to third-party materials threatens free speech on the global internet.

Equustek Solutions Inc. didnt file any papers to oppose Googles motion. The ruling says the Canadian company called the motion unnecessary and unfair.

Equustek Solutions Inc. had been locked in battle with Datalink Technologies Gateways  its former distributor  for allegedly stealing, copying and reselling industrial network interface hardware Equustek had created. The Burnaby-based Equustek wanted to stop Datalink from selling the hardware through various websites and turned to Google for help.

Initially, Google removed more than 300 web pages from search results on Google.ca, but more kept popping up, so Equustek sought  and won  the broader injunction that ordered Google to impose a worldwide ban.

The B.C. court noted that Google controlled as much as 75 per cent of the global searches on the internet and that Datalinks ability to sell its counterfeit product was, in large part, tied to customers being able to find its websites through Google.

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OTTAWACanada is taking aim at corruption and rights abuses in Russia, Venezuela and South Sudan by imposing targeted sanctions on 52 individuals, including Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

It is the first use of the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, the so-called Magnitsky law which won final approval in Parliament two weeks ago.

The law allows for sanctions against individuals who the federal government holds responsible for, or complicit in, gross violations of internationally recognized human rights or acts of significant corruption.

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The legislation, like that of other countries, including the United States, is linked to the Russian whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow prison in 2009 after accusing officials of a $230-million tax fraud.

The first sanctions under that act are aimed at 30 individuals tied to Russia, 19 Venezuelan officials, including Maduro, and three individuals from South Sudan.

The law will freeze any assets they may hold in Canada and render them inadmissible to Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

The Russians named Friday are linked to fraud uncovered by Magnitsky and to the violations of his legal and human rights during his investigation and pretrial detention, including psychological and physical abuse that led to his death.

The Magnitsky law was passed with cross-party support in Parliament.

It almost immediately drew the ire of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who complained that Canada was playing unconstructive political games.

The Russian embassy said the law would cause irreparable harm to Canada-Russia relations.

These warnings cut no ice with Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, who welcomed the use of a new tool against abusers.

Canada is determined to protect human rights and combat corruption worldwide, she said in a statement on Friday.

Todays announcement sends a clear message that Canada will take action against individuals who have profited from acts of significant corruption or who have been involved in gross violations of human rights.

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SASKATOONThe family of an Indigenous man who was shot to death on a Saskatchewan farm says its extremely upset and disgusted that Mounties have cleared their own officers of misconduct.

Colten Boushies family says in a statement that there is no reassurance of fairness when police investigate their own.

Boushie, 22, was shot and killed in August 2016 while riding in an SUV that went onto a farm near Biggar, Sask.

Boushies mother has said that when police came to notify her about her sons death, officers were insensitive, started searching her home without permission and asked her if shed been drinking.

An internal RCMP investigation, done by a senior officer who is Indigenous, said the allegations couldnt be supported.

The family said officers made mistakes based on their lack of education and judgment.

They are not trusted by Indigenous people on the prairie, Boushies mother, Debbie Baptiste, and Boushies sister, Jade Tootoosis, said in the statement released Friday through the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations.

How are we to trust the RCMP when they treat us like criminals when we are the victims?

Earlier Friday, the federation issued a statement that called into question the fairness of the internal RCMP investigation.

Chief Bobby Cameron said First Nations representation is needed when it comes to investigations of this nature.

You have officers investigating other officers, showing that the justice system doesnt serve First Nations with the same standard of care that it should, said Cameron.

The lack of sensitivity shown by officers after Colten Boushies death should warrant an apology at the very least.

The RCMP report obtained by The Canadian Press said officers believed someone who ran from the shooting scene at the farm could have been in Baptistes home and armed.

None of the officers at the home could recall anyone telling Baptiste to get it together  as she has recalled  or asking her if shed been drinking, said the report, which was based on an investigation by RCMP Insp. Teddy Munro.

Officers also said they received verbal permission to look around the home from one of Baptistes sons.

RCMP did apologize for a news release that the family said made Boushie look like a criminal and he deserved what he got.  The news release said that people in the SUV had been taken into custody as part of a theft investigation. They were released without charges.

The report said the news release followed protocol.

RCMP have said that in the future, Aboriginal police services will review all media releases regarding serious matters that involve Indigenous people or communities.

Chris Murphy, a lawyer for Boushies relatives, has said the family will appeal the findings of the internal investigation to the independent Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP. The commission is an independent agency created by Parliament.

The farmer charged in Boushies death, Gerald Stanley, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and is to stand trial next year.

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The Kuwaiti government will release $160 billion for the next 20 years for the development of resorts on its islands of Boubyan, Warba, Failaka, Maskan and Aouha, reports say.

The ambitious project will, according to local reports, turn the five islands into tourism and leisure destinations consisting of canals similar to those found in Venice, Italy.

The attractive destinations will also display shopping complexes and travel centers that could attract international investments.

The project also seeks to develop free zones, to display conducive environments where implementation of operating rules attracts great minds.

The strategic position of the islands; on the Silk Road project, will enable the country to become a hub of global investment and the development of national product, reports say.

Annual returns of the plan are projected to reach $40 billion upon completion and a total of 200,000 jobs are to be generated.
Environment and Climate Change

Accomplished

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna helped bring about the national agreement on climate change with emissions reduction targets and has created a low carbon infrastructure fund. Admission to national parks was free for the Canada 150 year, Rouge National Urban Park was created in Toronto, and Canada hit its goal of protecting five per cent of marine and coastal areas by the end of 2017. There have been investments put on the table for green infrastructure including transit, water and waste water systems and climate change mandates in municipalities. There have been some investments made to Parks Canada programs.

Working on it

A rejigging of the federal environmental assessment processes is underway and an announcement is expected soon. Eleven new species were added to the species-at-risk list in 2017, with a commitment to completing protection plans in a timely way, but the protection plans are still ongoing. An announcement to make admission to national parks free for children and new Canadians is coming soon. Canada signed a North American clean energy agreement in 2016, but its outcome is less certain with the change in U.S. presidents.

Not at all, or at least not yet

At the G20 in 2009, Canada committed to phase out fossil fuel subsidies. It was the second item in McKennas mandate letter, but Auditor General Michael Ferguson says Canada has no plan to do it. Ferguson and the government are locked in a battle over whether he can see finance documents that detail what the existing subsidies actually are. McKenna was also told to set stronger air quality standards with the provinces and while she has committed to strengthening the Canada Environmental Protection Act, she hasnt committed specifically to national, enforceable air quality standards.

Read more: Mandate letters: As Liberals mark two years in power, optimism turns to realism

Will it matter?

Protecting the environment better than their predecessors was one of the big pillars of the Liberal election campaign, one that helped swing the left-wing vote their way in 2015. If environmentalists believe the Liberals are not doing enough on that front, those votes could be on the move come 2019.

Indigenous Affairs

Accomplished

The 2016 budget committed $8.4 billion over five years aimed at education, housing and other commitments in the mandate letter given to Carolyn Bennett, originally named minister of Indigenous affairs. The Liberal government did lift the two-per-cent cap on annual funding increases for First Nations on-reserve programming, but it did not happen immediately as Trudeau had promised. Bennett also worked to set up the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

Working on it

Since that time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has acknowledged how far his government has to go to fulfil his promise of implementing all 94 recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This summer, Trudeau split the portfolio in two, naming Bennett the minister of Crown-Indigenous relations and Jane Philpott the minister for Indigenous services. Both ministers are responsible for dissolving the current Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada and creating two departments, which will involve consultations and legislation next spring. The monumental task of improving how the federal government handles child welfare and health services will fall to Philpott, including the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal finding that the federal government discriminates against Indigenous children.

Not at all, or at least not yet

One of Philpotts key commitments is making sure First Nations have access to clean drinking water by eliminating all long-term boil-water advisories by 2021. As of Nov. 1, there were still more than 150 advisories in place, including some telling people not to consume the water at all.

Will it matter?

Trudeau viewed the relationship with First Nations, Metis and Inuit to be so important that he mentioned it as a top priority in the preamble to all his mandate letters. The water protectors who erected a teepee on Parliament Hill during the Canada 150 celebrations this summer  as well as the anger expressed by families of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls at the way the national inquiry has been handled so far  exposed deep disappointment with the pace of progress.

Defence

Accomplished

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has knocked a number of items off his to-do list, most notably the release of a new defence policy that promises billions in new funds for the military and more benefits and support for military personnel. He has also rolled out a new suicide prevention strategy for military personnel and veterans, and withdrew Canadian fighter jets from the fight against Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, while tripling the number of special forces helping to train local forces. Sajjan has also overseen plans to have the military and ultra-secret Communications Security Establishment develop stronger defensive as well as offensive cyber-capabilities.

Working on it

The biggest incomplete is peacekeeping. Trudeau tasked the minister with making everything from mobile medical teams to engineering support and transport aircraft available to UN peace operations. Instead, the number of Canadian peacekeepers in the field has fallen to its lowest point in recent memory. After raising expectations among the UN and other countries, including some of Canadas closest allies, Sajjan still hasnt delivered.

Not at all, or at least not yet

While Sajjan was told to launch a competition to replace Canadas aging CF-18s, the Liberals have instead spent the past two years talking about the need for interim fighter jets. The original plan was to buy Super Hornets from Boeing. Now it appears the government is looking at used aircraft from Australia. Meanwhile, there has been little about when the competition will be held. Many retired military officers and defence experts say a competition can and should already be underway, but its believed the Liberals are worried the F-35  which they promised not to buy  would win.

Will it matter?

Only time will tell if the promised money and equipment arrive, but the new defence policy has been relatively well received. A decision on Canadas new peacekeeping contributions is also expected in the coming weeks. But the Harper Conservatives learned first-hand how fighter jets can bomb a partys chances at re-election, and the question will be how the Liberals escape what many say is a mess of their own making.

Families, Children and Social Development

Accomplished

Along with Finance Minister Bill Morneau, Families Minister Jean-Yves Duclos helped develop the Canada Child Benefit and return the age of eligibility for old age security payments to 65. Duclos also successfully negotiated a child care deal with the provinces and territories.

Working on it

The 2017 budget committed $11.2 billion towards affordable housing, but the majority of the money is not slated to appear until after 2022. Many of the details will be in the national housing strategy, which is coming sometime this fall. Duclos is also still consulting on the promised national poverty reduction strategy. The Liberals also committed to allowing people to begin maternity leave earlier or extend parental leave to 18 months  at a lower benefit rate  but have not yet introduced legislation to make the change. In 2016, Trudeau shifted responsibility for reforming the employment insurance regime to Duclos. That work continues.

Not at all, or at least not yet

The mandate letter says the Infrastructure Bank would support the construction of new, affordable rental housing. The Infrastructure Bank is not yet up and running, but its mandate to attract private investment for projects that would create a profit suggests social housing would not be in the mix. Duclos was also asked to work with Morneau on modernizing the RRSP Home Buyers Plan so that Canadians affected by sudden and significant changes in their lives could buy a house without paying a tax penalty, but nothing has come of it yet.

Will it matter?

The Liberals ran on the promise to help out the middle class and many of the accompanying pledges fall within the mandate given to Duclos. The minister has achieved progress on some key areas, but some of the major programs promised to those who are working hard to join the middle class, as the Liberals say, are still on the horizon. It remains to be seen whether those voters will feel as if theyve been given what they need.

Finance

Accomplished

Morneau cut federal income taxes on the middle bracket and raised the rate on income higher than $200,000 per year, cancelled an income-splitting measure for families with kids introduced by the Harper government and enhanced child-benefit payments. He expanded the Canada Pension Plan and created the Canada Infrastructure Bank. He announced a new rate-setting mechanism to ensure employment insurance premiums are no higher than needed to pay for the program over time, introduced a new tax benefit to help offset cost of school supplies for educators and repealed the Conservatives Federal Balanced Budget Act.

Working on it

Morneau is still working to eliminate what he believes are unfair advantages for wealthy business owners. He unveiled a controversial tax reform plan this summer, causing an uproar that forced him to tweak and even back away from elements of the proposals. When it comes to his so-called fiscal anchors, Morneau appears on pace to continue reducing the federal debt-to-GDP ratio  a measure of the public debt burden  throughout the Liberal mandate.

Not at all, or at least not yet

Morneau has yet to introduce a 12-month holiday on employment insurance premiums for companies that hired new, younger workers into permanent jobs in 2016, 2017 and 2018. He has also yet to remove the GST on new capital investments in rental housing. Perhaps the most prominent vow the Liberals are unlikely to fulfil is their pledge to balance the budget by 2019-20. Last month, Morneau released his fall fiscal statement, which projected a $14.3-billion deficit for 2019-20, even though Canadas economic outlook has significantly improved.

Will it matter?

Morneau appears to have made considerable progress in meeting the goals outlined in his mandate letter. However, the Liberal governments fiscal path, which apparently wont include a return to balance by the end of its mandate, frequently comes under attack from the Conservatives. The lack of a timetable to eliminate the deficit has also been criticized by some economists, although other experts say the annual shortfalls are small enough that theres no rush to balance.

Foreign Affairs

Accomplished

Trudeaus original foreign affairs minister was Stephane Dion, whose first task was to improve relations with the United States, including by reducing impediments to trade. Much of this went out the window when U.S. President Donald Trump got to the White House, and Trudeau shuffled Dion off to Europe and put Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland in charge of the file. Still, Dion did work with the immigration minister to lift the Mexican visa requirement and host the Three Amigos summit in Ottawa last year, which led to a North American clean energy and environment agreement. The 2016 budget also made good on a promise to restore funding intended to promote Canadian culture overseas, devoting $35 million over two years to a new version of the program.

Working on it

Minister Freelands top task is to make sure Canada gets a good deal out of the renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which remains a work in progress with no obvious end in sight. In a major speech this spring, Freeland outlined the Liberal governments foreign policy priorities, which include Canada taking on a bigger leadership role backed up with military power. The legislation that would have Canada accede to the arms trade treaty was introduced in April, but has only reached the committee stage.

Not at all, or at least not yet

Global Affairs Canada runs the Peace and Stabilization Operations Program that was given $450 million over three years in part to co-ordinate missions and develop the policy behind the promised UN peacekeeping mission. The Liberal government has yet to reveal where it plans to send up to 600 troops for UN peacekeeping operations.

Will it matter?

The Liberals did not put a major emphasis on foreign affairs during the 2015 election, but with the renegotiation of NAFTA and an unpredictable president in the White House, it has become a top priority for both the government and the economy. The ultimate success or failure of the NAFTA talks is largely out of Freelands hands, but if Canada emerges in a worse position, then voters will be looking for someone to blame.

Justice

Accomplished

Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould helped introduce legislation on doctor-assisted dying and develop the mandate for the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. She also restored the Court Challenges program, brought in legislation to legalize marijuana for recreational use, introduced new national security legislation, brought in an independent process for recommending nominees to the Supreme Court, including a way to ensure they are functionally bilingual, and added gender identity as a prohibited grounds for discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Working on it

Trudeau tasked her with reviewing the sentencing reforms the Conservatives brought in as part of their tough-on-crime agenda, a mandate that Wilson-Raybould seized upon as an opportunity to reform the criminal justice system writ large. After raising expectations among advocates, she has yet to introduce legislation on mandatory minimums or other major reforms.

Not at all, or at least not yet

The Liberals promised during the election campaign to toughen criminal laws and bail conditions in domestic assault cases, a commitment that was repeated in the mandate letter, but no laws have been brought in. The same goes for a promise to repeal key elements of Bill C-42, which the Conservatives brought in to relax some requirements around transporting firearms, and bring in laws to reduce the number of handguns and assault weapons on the streets.

Will it matter?

The justice minister was given an ambitious mandate and last years Supreme Court decision on unreasonable delays, known as R. v. Jordan, has both complicated the file and increased its urgency. Some of those advocating for justice reform have been willing to give her some time to make sure she gets things right. Still, advocates said earlier this year they were running out of patience. As the 2019 election draws nearer, it could become difficult to bring in changes that political opponents could spin as being soft on crime.

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MONTREALCome Monday morning Valerie Plante will either be Montreals first elected female mayor after having scored this years biggest municipal upset on Sunday, or a most coveted catch on Quebec and Canadas progressive political market.

Win or lose, she certainly gave Denis Coderre an unexpected run for his money. Over the course of the past three months what was expected to be a cakewalk for a high-profile media-savvy incumbent has turned into a nail-biter.

Last Monday a CROP poll commissioned by Radio-Canada put Plante  who has led the opposition forces at Montreal city hall for only a year  marginally ahead of Coderre.

Plante already has one giant-slaying victory under her belt. In her first bid for a seat on the city council in 2013, she rose from relative obscurity as a community activist to take down former Parti Quebecois minister Louise Harel.

A good poll does not guarantee a mayoral victory. CROP found 17 per cent of voters to be still undecided. They could swing the outcome either way. And Plante does best with younger voters whose track record when it comes to actually casting a ballot is spotty.

It is the second time this fall that pre-election polls suggest that the reelection of a star mayor in one of Canadas big cities is not a done deal.

Like Coderre, Calgarys Naheed Nenshi spent the last stretch of his mayoral campaign on tenterhooks. In the end, though, he prevailed with a comfortable lead on his main rival.

But the Calgary scenario offers Coderre only limited comfort, for some argue that it was the younger cohorts of the electorate that rescued Nenshi.

If the turnout of the millennials and Generation Y voters goes up sharply on Sunday, Montreal could end up with a new mayor.

As in the case of Nenshi, Coderre has to fend off allegations of arrogance. Like his Calgary colleague, he does not suffer from a surplus of humility.

As those who watched the Montreal mayor in action over his past tenure as a Liberal MP can testify, there are times when he sounds downright paternalistic. That tone was not an asset in the few debates that pitted him against Plante.

There were days on the campaign trail when it seemed as if he could not be bothered with being held to account for his record in office. It is only in the last week  with the polling wind in his face  that Coderre rediscovered sunny ways.

If he overcomes a tone-deaf campaign and goes on to keep his job on Sunday it will be because he has brought people from a variety of horizons under his tent. Over the past four years Coderre has presided over the revival of a city where previous municipal administrations were plagued with corruption scandals

One of the features of his first mandate has been a multiplication of initiatives designed to rebrand Montreal. His critics argue that in the process he has relegated Montrealers quality of life to second place.

Last summer an electric-car race made traffic impossible in a large section of the downtown core for the better part of three weeks. Given the scale of organizers projections, attendance was underwhelming. Had they not given away a massive number of tickets, the stands would have been sparsely populated.

It was only in the last week of the campaign, after months of relentless media pressure, that the attendance numbers were belatedly released. They contrasted with Coderres dogged assertion that the event that cost municipal taxpayers $24 million had been a roaring success. In many minds, the e-car imbroglio has become emblematic of a mayor too autocratic for the citys good.

And then Coderre is an old-style politician at a time when Canadas politics is undergoing the biggest generational change since the mayors baby boom generation came of age. If that does not catch up to him in this election, it well might if he runs again against Plante in four years.

But with provincial and federal elections set to take place between now and then, should she lose Sundays vote she will have to fend off overtures to run for a seat in the national assembly or in Parliament. Plante hails from the progressive side of the spectrum. Her municipal party has links to Quebec Solidaire provincially and to the NDP federally. She is on the board of the Broadbent Institute.

If NDP Jagmeet Singh does not try to woo her to run under his partys banner, Justin Trudeau just might.

Chantal Hebert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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The province has committed to new legislation that will require accreditation for forensic laboratories operating in Ontario in the wake of a Star investigation that revealed thousands of child protection cases across the country had relied on faulty evidence from the Hospital for Sick Childrens Motherisk lab.

The new Forensic Laboratories Act, announced Thursday as part of a broader government effort to modernize policing in Ontario, aims to create better oversight of forensic labs to ensure they meet mandated standards going forward and is the first legislation of its kind in Canada.

Its a move Toronto criminal defence lawyer Daniel Brown called a really great step forward, but one thats long overdue.

Read more: Judge rejects proposed class-action over Motherisk drug-testing scandal

There was certainly a need for forensic lab accreditation and better controls over the evidence thats being presented in criminal courts, he said. Hundreds of people have been impacted by faulty scientific evidence in the court rooms.

As revealed by a Star investigation thousands of child protection cases and at least eight criminal cases across Canada relied on the results of Motherisks discredited hair-strand drug and alcohol tests between the late 1990s and early 2015. At the same time, the lab was earning millions of dollars in revenue. The Hospital for Sick Children closed the Motherisk lab in 2015.

The revelations followed another Sick Kids scandal, which also highlighted the risks of faulty science, involving disgraced pathologist Charles Smith, whose mistakes tainted more than a dozen criminal cases.

Under the provinces new accreditation framework forensic labs will be subject to proficiency testing, annual audits, performance reports and surveillance visits.

Our government is committed to holding forensic laboratories in Ontario to a consistently high standard, said Yanni Dagonas, a spokesperson for Community Safety Minister Marie-France Lalonde, in a statement.

Its unclear how many labs will be affected by the new legislation given the current lack of oversight, but the government is proposing a transitional period of up to two years to give laboratories time to go through the accreditation process, which can take between 18 and 24 months, he said.

Once the new accreditation standards come into force accreditation bodies would be able to issue warnings, suspend lab activities and revoke accreditation if labs fail to comply with the rules.

The proposed legislation also says unaccredited labs that conduct testing covered by the act could be subject to fines of up to $30,000 for a first offence.

Though Brown said most of his concerns regarding standards for forensic labs were addressed during government consultations earlier this year, he is concerned the new legislation wont address the admissibility of evidence from labs that may not be accredited and instead leave it up to the courts discretion.

The problem in the past is that the courts have failed to properly scrutinize evidence from non-forensic lab sources, he said, pointing to the case of Tamara Broomfield, who was tried in 2009 and convicted for breaking her sons bones and feeding him cocaine, as an example.

In that case, which blew the lid off the Motherisk scandal, Motherisk tests on her sons hair, which claimed to show he had consumed high levels of cocaine over 15 months, were admitted by the court.

That was done by a lab that wasnt forensically accredited and nobody raised that issue at her trial and part of the problem is that they lacked the scientific literacy to do that, Brown said, adding, we cant simply rely on the word of experts because  sometimes the experts can lead the courts astray.

Brown, who is also a Toronto director with the Criminal Lawyers Association, tried to have Broomfields case reopened in 2010. Her cocaine-related conviction was eventually overturned in 2014, prompting the Stars investigation.

Many other cases that relied on Motherisk tests are now under review as well. Altogether, the disgraced lab performed tests on more than 25,000 people in Canada.

Brown said he hopes to see the new rules enforced as soon as possible.

Cases are taking place everyday in the criminal court system and the family court system that are relying on forensic evidence and we want to make sure that the way this evidence is being presented in court and the standards that underlie the science are sound, he said.

With files from Rachel Mendleson

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Venus Carter welcomes a provincial panels transformational vision for income security that proposes to raise welfare rates and introduce new housing and health benefits for all low-income households.

But the 54-year-old North York woman who has been on Ontario Works since she was laid off from her job in a chocolate factory nine years ago, says she will be a senior before the panels 10-year vision is complete.

If they say its the right thing to do, then they should just do it, she said. Raising rates a little bit this year, a little bit the next, and then more after that still leaves us in poverty now.

The 180-page Roadmap for Change report, released Thursday, calls for a 22-per-cent nominal welfare increase over three years, a new housing benefit to begin in 2019 and expanded health benefits for all low-income Ontarians, starting with prescription drug coverage in 2020.

The panel of advocates, experts and Indigenous leaders, appointed by Community and Social Services Minister Helena Jaczek in July 2016, recommends transforming social assistance from a meagre and rule-bound program of last resort into a broader income-security system that includes supports to all low-income Ontarians by 2027.

Jaczek said the government agrees with the need to fundamentally reform Ontarios income-security system and will use the roadmap to develop a plan for early 2018.

The roadmaps estimated $3.2 billion annual price tag by 2020 would be subject to the provinces fiscal realities, she added.

But NDP Leader Andrea Horwath slammed the government for waiting 14 years to act.

People have lost ground under this governments watch, Horwath told reporters. Im disgusted by the fact that, on the eve of an election, the government is suddenly talking about poverty reduction and talking about this report. Its far too little, far too late.

MPP Vic Fedeli, the Progressive Conservative finance critic, blamed the Liberals for making life more expensive for families.

In recognition of the deep poverty experienced by people on welfare, especially singles, whose incomes fall well below any measure of adequacy, the panel proposes an urgent increase over three years to bring monthly benefits for a single person on Ontario Works to $893 from $721, a cumulative increase of 24 per cent. A cumulative 16-per-cent increase to the Ontario Disability Support Program would boost rates to $1,334 a month by 2020.

Ultimately, the report urges the province to set a minimum income floor for all Ontarians based on the provincial poverty line of about $22,000 for a single person to be achieved through a combination of social assistance and benefits provided outside the welfare system such as the proposed new housing benefit. It also recommends an assured benefit for people with disabilities.

A very key part of the report is raising incomes for people who have been left behind for a very long time, said panel member Pedro Barata, vice president of United Way Toronto and York Region.

But an essential and complementary part of (the plan) is to also build a system of supports outside social assistance that will both help people leave social assistance and prevent people from falling onto (welfare) in the first place.

A central pillar of the transformation is a new portable housing benefit that aims to help all households in poverty bridge the gap between low income and rent. The benefit would initially cover 25 per cent of the gap and rise to 75 per cent coverage by 2027, the panel recommends.

The housing benefit, along with increased investment in affordable housing and social housing repair are crucial to easing the plight of Ontarians living in poverty, Barata said.

Housing continues to be the number one concern and expenditure among low-income households, he said. It takes away from their food, clothing and transportation budgets and its creating real instability among families.

The report also tackles the design of social assistance, calling for the basic needs and shelter components to be collapsed into a single payment by next year. It would mean a homeless person, who currently receives only the basic needs amount of $337 a month, would see a significant boost.

The change would also mean an infusion of cash for repairs to social housing providers because welfare shelter benefits for people in rent-geared-to-income units are currently lower than those renting in the private market. Under a flat-rate design, this discrepancy would disappear.

This is a really important step in terms of simplifying the system so people can start to understand what is going on, said panel member Dr. Gary Bloch, a downtown family doctor and long-time anti-poverty activist.

The panel, headed by former Ontario court judge George Thomson, also wants the province to work with Ottawa on an expanded Working Income Tax Benefit, expected in next springs federal budget.

Thomson, who in the late 1980s headed an ill-fated welfare reform initiative for David Petersons Liberal government, said he thinks the current plan will be more successful because it addresses the broader income-security system.

It needs to be seen as a package . . . as an attempt to look at all persons living in low income, he said.

In the same way people have rallied around very important income-security reforms like the child benefit, Im hopeful they will do the same with this package of proposals, he said. I am hopeful it will be seen as the kind of thing all (political) parties can support.

The roadmap report is available online at ontario.ca/incomesecurity for public comment over the next 60 days.

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A father and son were strolling down the beaches of Dunkirk, France when they spotted a strange object covered with mussels half-buried in the sand.

As the sun set on the English Channel on Monday, nineteen-year-old Elias Saddedine dug out a worn out glass bottle with a crumpled roll of paper inside. He smashed the bottle against a wall to read a message that had travelled almost 6,850 kilometres to reach him and his dad.

Half way across the world, in Oakville, just before dawn on Tuesday, Reese Owens was preparing to start her day when she received an unexpected email:

Hello, we found your bottle in the beach of Dunkirk in north of France yesterday, wrote Saddedine to eight Canadians he didnt know. Its very cool! Have a good day!

Attached to the email was a picture of a wrinkled piece of paper on a wooden table. For a moment, the Canadian mother of two and the French accounting student and his dad, living in two different continents, separated by a vast ocean, were connected by a message she had written two and a half years ago.

It wasnt an SOS to the world. It wasnt a last will and testament. It wasnt even a call to action.

It was simply an old-fashioned attempt at human connection.

She told the recipient this was a message from eight Canadians on vacation on a boat in the British Virgin Islands. She told them that she threw the bottle into the North Atlantic Ocean on April 18, 2015  the date was written in pencil on a blank line. She asked the recipients to email her, her husband Brian, and the rest of her friends  tell us where and when the bottle was found.

They had been planning their 11-day bucket list vacation since 2013. She had read about people finding messages in a bottle, and thought it was a fun way to commemorate her dream trip.

She printed out four of these messages before they left Canada. As they travelled across the Islands, they saved any clear bottles of drinks they enjoyed on their yacht. The day before they left, she threw them into the sea.

Owens hoped someone would get her message in a bottle, but she knew anything could happen.

I just wanted to touch someone else in the world, said Owens. See how far my message would go. This is crazy!

Owens was excited when she got the email. Of all the places, it lands at Dunkirk, she said, referencing the summer blockbuster about the events of the Second World War that took place on the beaches of Dunkirk, and the fact that its almost Remembrance Day.

In Dunkirk, Saddedine was thinking of the movie and the history of his home city as well, calling the timing of his receiving the bottle mysterious.

The bottle went across a path, said Saddedine, through a translator. And it was bizarre that it came on my path.

We were thrilled, because we dont see that all the time, he said. [The bottle] just came to me.

Owens is grateful that he reached out, and amazed at the bottles journey.

I was just thinking about these bottles a week or two ago, said Owens. Shes about to get her diving certification for a second trip to the British Virgin Islands next year. In the process, shes learned about the places around the world where debris collects.

I thought my bottles are probably in one of those big piles of junk now, she said, laughing. She remembered when she was throwing the bottle into the ocean, she was worried about getting charged with pollution.

And, to think, there are three more out there, she said.

With files from Vjosa Isai

Correction  November 6, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version the mistakenly referred to Dunkirk as a First World War event.

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The whereabouts of a Toronto man in his native Bangladesh are a mystery after he was abducted off the street in Dhaka two months ago.

The family of 53-year-old Aniruddha Kumar Roy said so far they have received little assistance from Canadian authorities because he is a permanent resident, not a citizen.

However, Roy would have likely become a Canadian citizen a long time ago if the Immigration Department had not lost his citizenship application file.

Canadian diplomatic missions offer emergency assistance to citizens if they run into such problems as being abducted or arrested and detained. The same level of help is not afforded to permanent residents who hold citizenship of a different country. In Roys case, he is a Bangladeshi citizen.

It is really heartbreaking that the Canadian government cant (intervene) or were not able to get any update from the Bangladesh government, said Roys younger brother Achintya in an interview.

It is more than one month when I asked for help from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland.

The family said Roys driver saw him being taken away by a group of men when he was leaving a bank in Dhaka on August 27. To date, local police have not made any arrests or located the missing man, said the younger Roy.

According to the family, Roy immigrated to Canada in 2005 under the Quebec Immigrant Investor Program before relocating to Toronto three years later. He owns several factories in Dhaka that manufacture garments and shoes, and employs 5,000 people. He has travelled regularly between Canada and Bangladesh to run his businesses.

Achintya Roy said so far Canadian officials have offered little support.

A Global Affairs Canada spokesperson didnt respond to questions about the familys complaint of a lack of assistance.

We are aware of reports that Mr. Aniruddha Kumar Roy, a Bangladeshi national with permanent residence status in Canada, went missing in Dhaka on August 27, 2017, the spokesperson wrote in an email.

The family has been in contact with Global Affairs Canada on the case. Global Affairs is seeking to clarify Mr. Roys status and whereabouts.

The younger Roy said his brother passed his citizenship test in 2009 and was waiting for his appointment to take his oath to become a citizen. It wasnt until last December that immigration officials admitted they had lost his citizenship application file.

This notice is to inform you that the file containing your application for Canadian citizenship has been misplaced within our services. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you, said the Immigration Department letter, dated December 14, 2016 and obtained by the Star.

We have filled out a new application based on the information found in our system and we need you to sign the form in order to continue the processing.

Achintya Roy said his brother was waiting for the new citizenship application to be processed when he returned to Bangladesh in June to visit their mother and tend to his business.

At the advice of Global Affairs, he said the family filed a missing-person report with Toronto police in October in hopes of getting Interpol involved.

We are all very worried for my brothers safety. My sister-in-law, niece and nephew are still in Dhaka. They are too afraid to leave their house, said Achintya Roy. They are like prisoners in their own home.

The Bangladesh High Commission in Ottawa did not respond to the Stars repeated requests for comment about the case.

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WASHINGTONTrump administration reports of severe health problems resulting from attacks on U.S. diplomats in Cuba are deliberate lies and a pretext to roll back progress made toward normalizing relations between the two countries, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said Thursday.

It is high time for the United States to tell the truth or otherwise present evidence, Rodriguez said at a news conference in Washington. The Cuban government has no responsibility whatsoever for these incidents, he said.

His comments marked a sharp change in Cubas approach to the charges. Immediately after a September meeting in Washington with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Rodriguez pledged Cubas ongoing co-operation in finding the cause of the mysterious diplomatic ailments and expressed hope that the issue would not undermine relations.

Read more:

U.S. says 2 more government workers hurt in Cuba attacks, raising the total to 24

Tourists to Cuba wonder if they were also targeted by mysterious sound attacks

Trump says Cuba is responsible for attacks on U.S. personnel in Havana

Within the week after that visit, however, the Trump administration announced it was dramatically reducing the size of the U.S. Embassy in Havana, suspending issuance of U.S. visas to Cubans there, advising Americans not to travel to the island and expelling 15 Cuban diplomats from Havanas embassy in Washington.

The Cuban government has repeatedly denied any responsibility for diplomatic health problems. It has facilitated four visits by FBI investigation teams to the island and said its own investigations have turned up no apparent cause.

The State Department has said that 24 diplomats assigned to the embassy have suffered attacks that began late last year and continued until late summer.

It has described symptoms, sometimes verified months after the attacks, include hearing loss, balance problems and traumatic brain injury. In some cases, personnel were said to have fallen ill after hearing unusual noises, either in their residences or in hotels, leading to speculation they had come under some sort of sonic assault.

While saying that victims were receiving comprehensive medical evaluations and care, the State Department has not released the names of the afflicted, any specific information about their health or results of investigations thus far.

Even before reports of the attacks were made public, U.S. President Donald Trump announced what he said was a new policy toward Cuba that would roll back many of the moves toward normalization undertaken during the Obama administration. After more than a half-century of estrangement, diplomatic relations between Havana and Washington were resumed in July 2015.

Although the congressionally mandated economic embargo against Cuba continued, former president Barack Obama issued regulatory changes that allowed increased commercial ties and expanded travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens.

During his campaign, Trump said he would terminate the Obama normalization if Cuba would not cut a better deal with the United States.

Rodriguezs remarks echoed a speech he made at the United Nations this week, where the General Assembly voted for the 26th time to condemn the ongoing U.S. embargo. The United States has been aloneexcept for Israel and an occasional Pacific island nationin voting against the measure each time.

The steps the Trump administration has taken against Cuba, Rodriguez said at the Thursday news conference, have been accompanied by repeated disrespectful and offensive statements toward Cuba by the U.S. president, thus relaunching the hostile rhetoric of the periods of sharpest confrontation between the two countries.

While Cuba has offered full co-operation and conducted its own investigation, he said, Cuban experts have been given no access to affected persons or the diplomatic localities where the alleged attacks took place. Cuba, he said, has not been given one single source or fact relating to the incidents, including timelines or even elementary medical information.

Cubas preliminary conclusion, he said, is that there is no evidence whatsoever of the occurrence of the alleged incidents or the cause . . . of these ailments ... Neither is there any evidence suggesting that these health problems have been caused by an attack of any sort during their stay in Cuba. Rodriguez said he met with congressional and business officials during his one-day stop in Washington but with no one in the administration.

If Havana were really an unsafe place, Rodriguez said, the U.S. authorities would not have requested 212 visas for relatives and friends of diplomats between January and October, nor would [diplomats assigned to Cuba] have made more than 250 pleasure trips outside Havana.

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FORT BRAGG, N.C.Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who walked away from his post in Afghanistan and triggered a search that left some of his comrades severely wounded, was spared a prison sentence by a military judge Friday in what U.S. President Donald Trump blasted as a complete and total disgrace.

The judge gave no explanation of how he arrived at his decision, but he reviewed evidence that included the five years Bergdahl was held captive by the Taliban and the wounds suffered by troops who searched for him, including one who now uses a wheelchair and cannot speak.

The case was politically divisive. Then-president Barack Obama traded Taliban prisoners to bring Bergdahl back, drawing sharp Republican criticism. As a presidential candidate, Trump called for the soldier to face stiff punishment. He could have received up to life in prison.

The judge also gave the 31-year-old a dishonourable discharge, reduced his rank from sergeant to private and ordered him to forfeit pay equal to $1,000 (U.S.) per month for 10 months.

The judge gave no explanation of how he arrived at his decision, but he reviewed evidence including Bergdahls time spent in captivity and the wounds suffered by troops who searched for him.

In court, Bergdahl appeared tense, grimaced and clenched his jaw. His lawyers put their arms around him and one patted him on the back. One defence lawyer cried after the sentence was announced.

Defence lawyer Eugene Fidell told reporters that his client had looked forward to today for a long time.

Bergdahl is grateful to everyone who searched for him in 2009, especially those who heroically sustained injuries, Fidell added.

Read more:

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In court, Bowe Bergdahl gives emotional apology to soldiers who were hurt looking for him

Trumps statement came in a tweet about 90 minutes after the sentence was announced. The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military, the president wrote.

Bergdahl pleaded guilty last month to desertion and misbehaviour before the enemy. He has said he left his post in 2009 with the intention of reaching other commanders and drawing attention to what he saw as problems with his unit.

The judge, Army Col. Jeffery Nance, had wide leeway in deciding the sentence because Bergdahl made no deal with prosecutors to limit his punishment.

Prosecutors sought a serious penalty because of wounds suffered by service members who searched for Bergdahl after he disappeared.

The judge deciding Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's punishment said Monday he is concerned that U.S. President Donald Trump's comments about the case could impact the public's perception of the military justice system. (The Associated Press)

The defence tried to counter that evidence with testimony about Bergdahls suffering as a captive, his contributions to military intelligence and survival training, and his mental health problems. The argument for leniency also cited Trumps harsh campaign-trail comments.

The dishonourable discharge threatens to deprive Bergdahl of most or all his veterans benefits, but it also triggers an automatic appeal to a higher military court. Before that, a general who can lower  but not increase  the sentence will also review it.

Fidell told reporters that he looks forward to the appeals court review of Trumps campaign statements, which the president appeared to reaffirm on the day Bergdahl pleaded guilty last month.

As a candidate, Trump made really extraordinary reprehensible comments targeted directly at our client, Fidell told reporters Friday, calling the situation one of the most preposterous states of affairs in American legal history. He said the defence team sees an extremely strong basis for dismissal of the case.

Earlier in the week, Bergdahl described the brutal conditions of his captivity, including beatings with copper wire, unending bouts of gastrointestinal problems brought on by squalid conditions and maddening periods of isolation. After several escape attempts, he was placed in a cage for four years, and his muscles atrophied to the point he could barely stand or walk.

A psychiatrist testified that his decision to leave his post was influenced by a schizophrenia-like condition called schizotypal personality disorder that made it hard to understand the consequences of his actions, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder brought on partly by a difficult childhood.

Scores of troops joined in an all-out search for Bergdahl in the weeks after he abandoned his remote post near the Afghan town of Mest.

Prosecutors cited two missions that resulted in wounds, including a soldier whose hand was shattered by a rocket-propelled grenade and another who suffered a head wound that put him in a wheelchair and rendered him unable to speak. A Navy SEAL suffered a career-ending leg wound, and a military dog was killed by an insurgent firing an AK-47.

The judge ruled that those firefights would not have happened if not for Bergdahl.

One of the wounded soldiers, Jonathan Morita of California, called the lack of prison time unacceptable. Morita, who testified during sentencing, still does not have full use of his dominant hand after he was hit by the RPG, which did not explode.

The dishonourable discharge means he cant receive any of these services like I can. Hell pay the fine like people get fined for illegal fishing. Ok, whoop-de-doo, Morita said in a phone interview.

Referring to the lack of prison time, he said: Thats the one thats completely unacceptable. It should have maybe not been the life sentence, but it should have been something.

Without confinement hanging over him, Bergdahl already has a job offer from an animal sanctuary, and a military official who helps design survival training said he would like to use Bergdahl as a part of lectures to service members on how to survive captivity.

The soldier from Hailey, Idaho, was brought home by Obama in 2014 in a swap for five Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. He has been working a desk job at a military installation in San Antonio and has not been under any pretrial confinement.

At the time of Bergdahls release, Obama said the U.S. does not leave service members on the battlefield.

___

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DAMASCUS, SYRIASyrian troops ousted Daesh extremists Friday from Deir el-Zour in eastern Syria, while Iraqi forces pushed into the groups last major town across the border in Iraq in simultaneous assaults that dealt further territorial losses to the retreating militants.

With their self-proclaimed caliphate crumbling, the extremists have lost almost all their urban strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

The defeats left the Syrian town of Boukamal as the only urban area still completely under the control of Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, along with scattered pockets of territory along the Syria-Iraq border.

Syrian troops backed by Russia and Kurdish-led forces supported by the United States are now racing toward Boukamal from opposite sides of the Euphrates River, triggering concerns that a proxy showdown could ensue between the two sides.

Both the U.S. and Russia have embedded special forces with their respective partners and are supporting their advances with airstrikes. Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a spokesperson for the Russian Defence Ministry, said six Tu-22M bombers struck Daesh targets near Boukamal, while two Russian submarines in the Mediterranean also launched six cruise missiles at Daesh targets.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that shelling from the Iraqi side of the border hit the small Syrian town of Abughaz, near Boukamal. Civilians were forced to flee, but no casualties from the shelling were reported, the Britain-based group said.

With the loss of Deir el-Zour, Daesh loses its ability to lead terrorist operations by its militants who are now isolated and encircled (in the) eastern countryside of the city, said Gen. Ali Mayhoub, declaring victory in a statement read on Syrian TV.

Video broadcast on state-run media showed the last moments of the ferocious fighting in Deir el-Zour, including shelling by Syrian tanks and plumes of smoke rising over the citys mostly destroyed neighbourhoods of Jamiayat and Jabiliyeh before they were liberated.

Read more:

Over 13 million people inside Syria still need aid, UN official says

Syrias largest oilfield captured from Daesh in push by allied forces

U.S.-backed forces take full control of Syrias Raqqa from Daesh, commander says

The recapture of Deir el-Zour on the West Bank of the Euphrates is another victory for President Bashar Assads forces and his Russian and Iranian allies. Deir el-Zour, which had been divided into a government-held and a Daesh-held part for nearly three years, is the largest city in eastern Syria and the capital of the oil-rich province of the same name. It is also the largest city to be recaptured by the Syrian government from Daesh.

Mayhoub described it as the last phase of the militarys campaign toward the annihilation of Daesh in Syria. He hailed the citys recapture as a strategic win, noting its location on a crossroads linking the countrys eastern, northern and central regions, as well as an oil and gas reservoir  a reference to the province.

In Iraq, troops pushed into the western neighbourhoods of the town of Qaim across the border from Boukamal. An Iraqi officer in the western Anbar region said Iraqi forces have reached the border with Syria.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abdi congratulated Iraqi forces on retaking Qaim just over a week after the operation began. In a statement from his office, al-Abadi described the victory as taking place in record time.

Earlier in the day, Iraqi forces retook the nearby Husaybah border crossing with Syria, according to the prime ministers office.

Qaim, about 320 kilometres west of Baghdad in the Euphrates River Valley, has been used by Daesh to move fighters and supplies between the two countries at the height of the caliphate, when Daesh held nearly a third of both Iraq and Syria.

The extremist group has lost more than 96 per cent of the territory it once held across both countries in 2014 and 2015, the height of the caliphate. Those losses include Iraqs second-largest city of Mosul, which it lost in July, and Raqqa, the groups one-time de facto capital in northern Syria, which it lost last month.

The militants, routed from one urban stronghold after another, have recently been moving deeper into Syrias remote desert, where they are believed to be regrouping and preparing to return to guerrilla-style tactics, including scattered hit-and-run attacks and suicide bombings.

Experts agree the groups territorial losses will not mark the end of Daesh, which will continue its insurgency and try to inspire attacks around the globe by disenchanted individuals.

In its weekly newsletter, the group claimed credit for the bike path attack that killed eight people in New York. Authorities identified the attacker as Sayfullo Saipov, 29, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, and Daesh described him as a soldier of the caliphate.

While the city of Deir el-Zour was divided into parts held by the Syrian government and the militants, the United Nations was only occasionally able to deliver helicopter-dropped food aid to besieged residents estimated to number about 200,000.

Syrian government forces and their allies first broke the militant siege of their part of the city in September in a Russian-backed offensive, and have been advancing on Daesh positions since then.

Moscows involvement in the Syrian civil war since 2015 has propped up Assads forces and turned the conflict in his favour, while Russian mediation earlier this year launched ceasefire talks in Astana, Kazakhstan. The talks, sponsored jointly with Iran and Turkey, have brokered local deals that have significantly reduced violence in the country.

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LAKELAND, FLA.A 53-year-old woman riding a horse down a busy Florida highway has been arrested and charged with driving drunk.

Polk County Sheriffs officials said in a news release that someone called 911 about a woman, who appeared confused and possibly in danger. When deputies arrived they found Donna Byrne riding her horse in the road.

Officers did a sobriety test and said she gave breath samples that registered blood alcohol level of .161  much higher than Floridas legal limit of .08.

Byrne is charged with DUI and animal neglect for endangering and failing to provide proper protection for the horse.

Deputies took the horse to the Polk County Sheriffs Animal Control livestock facility. She was booked into the Polk County Jail. Its unclear whether she retained an attorney.

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Deir al-Zour, the last major stronghold of the Islamic State (IS) fell to the Syrian army.

The stronghold was held by IS since 2014 as it played a strategic role for the terrorist groups expansion in Syria and Iraq.

Syrian television and other reports said that the Syrian army has completely liberated the city and that the Syrian regime allies cleared the last resistance pockets.

Fighting to take control of the city, which continued for weeks, forced some 350,000 civilians to flee their homes.

The city, which lies on the Euphrates river about halfway between the city of Raqqa, previously the headquarters of ISs self-styled caliphate, had a strategic importance for the terrorist group due its proximity to Iraqi borders.

Meanwhile in Iraq, as IS loses ground in Syria, the Iraqi government forces began an offensive to recapture the town of al-Qaim, a town in Iraq still held by IS. It lies across the border from the Syrian town of Abu Kamal.

Iraqi government forces have now driven IS out of about 95% of the land the group once held in Iraq and freed more than 4.4 million Iraqis from its rule, the US-led coalition fighting IS says.
VALLETTA, MALTAMaltas Roman Catholic archbishop warned those who killed an investigative reporter with a car bomb that they would never escape the justice of God and urged other journalists Friday to pursue the truth without fear.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna celebrated Daphne Caruana Galizias funeral Mass in the church nearest to where the 53-year-old Malta native lived before the bomb exploded as she drove away from home on Oct. 16. More than 1,500 mourners packed the venue and several hundred more spilled out into the square outside.

Mourners included her husband, three adult sons and European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, while top Maltese government and opposition figures stayed away in deference to the wishes of Caruana Galizias family.

Read more:

Investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia filed her final blog post criticizing Maltese government officials. Thirty minutes later she was dead

Maltas best-known journalist made powerful enemies. But her murder has exposed something darker in the EUs smallest nation

The family has been vocal in its criticism of the government for its failure to root out the kind of corruption that Caruana Galizia covered in her blog, which was a must-read in the small Mediterranean island nation.

While investigators have yet to make any arrests in the case, Scicluna told Caruana Galizias killers to repent before it is too late.

Whoever took part, in one way or another, in Daphnes murder, I have this to tell you: However hard you try to evade the justice of men, you will never escape the justice of God, he said.

Addressing her fellow journalists, the archbishop said do not be afraid.

I encourage you never to grow weary in your mission to be the eyes, the ears, and the mouth of the people. Do this without fear and with full respect of the truth, Scicluna said. Dear journalists, we need you. We need people in your profession who are unshackled, who are free, intelligent, inquisitive, honest, serene, safe and protected.

As Caruana Galizias coffin was driven away from the church, the crowd broke out singing the Maltese national anthem.

The Malta government declared Friday as a day of national mourning in a sign that no attack on freedom of expression is accepted in Maltas democracy.

In Brussels, the flag at European Commission headquarters flew at half-staff in Caruana Galizias memory. The commission issued a statement condemning this brutal attack that killed her.

The right of a journalist to investigate, ask uncomfortable questions and report effectively, is at the heart of our values and needs to be guaranteed at all times, the statement said.

Journalists representing newspapers that included Britains Guardian, Germanys Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Italys La Repubblica and the Financial Times wrote an open letter to the commission demanding an investigation into the state of editorial independence in Malta.

Caruana Galizias reported on corruption for her blog, which had thousands of followers, and wrote twice weekly for The Malta Independent. One of her targets was Malta Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, whose wifes name surfaced in the Panama Papers, leaked documents detailing offshore financial accounts maintained by prominent people.

Both Muscat and his wife have denied wrongdoing.

At the time of her death, the journalist was facing 42 libel lawsuits in the Maltese courts. Most of the cases are expected to proceed. Opposition leader Adrian Delia, one of her more recent subjects, has withdrawn the five suits he brought against her.

Maltas government has offered a $1.18 million reward for information leading to those responsible for the killing and full protection for anyone stepping forward.

The journalists family has refused to endorse the reward, calling instead for Muscats resignation for failing to uphold our fundamental freedoms by not rooting out corruption.

The FBI and Europol are helping the Malta police. Dutch experts were also brought in to assist with analyzing forensic evidence from the scene of the crime.

Tajani, who met later with the editors and journalists of The Malta Independent, said the participation of Europol is a sign that Europe is taking the matter seriously.

We want to know who Daphnes killer is, but we want to know also who is behind the killers, he said, saying her killing was a problem for every person in Europe. If we accept the murder today without a strong reaction, attacks on journalists will only continue.

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NEW YORKThe eight people killed in a truck driver's rampage were honoured by friends and strangers with a walk down the riverfront esplanade where the victims died as both investigators and terror-weary New Yorkers tried to make sense of the crime.

Some of the marchers carried candles as city lights twinkled on the water. Others pushed bicycles in solidary with the victims, who were cut down on the long bike path that runs the length of Manhattans Hudson River waterfront.

The mourners included Harry Kassen, a student at the Manhattan school where one of the victims, Nicholas Cleves, 23, worked part-time.

You never think it is going to be someone you know, said Kassen, 17. He said hed just recently worked with Cleves on lighting and sound for a school performance.

We were up in the tech booth, chatting. Then, two weeks later, here we are. And hes gone, Kassen said.

The march began near the spot where authorities say Sayfullo Saipov, 29, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, steered a rented truck onto a bike path and sped south toward the World Trade Center, striking cyclists and pedestrians in his path. He was shot by a police officer after crashing the truck into a school bus and arraigned Wednesday on terrorism charges.

Two women carried the flag of Argentina, in remembrance of the five people from that country who were killed when Saipovs truck plowed into a group of friends who had come to New York together to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their high school graduation.

The memorial walk and vigil took place hours after several of the Argentinian survivors of the attack visited a severely injured and hospitalized member of their group, Martin Marro, of Newton, Massachusetts, to tell him for the first time which of his friends had died.

I think Martin had to know the truth. Maybe he already imagined that but now he knows and is a step that his friends wanted to take before returning to Argentina, Argentinas consul in New York, Mateo Estreme, told reporters in Spanish. It was something very emotional for all of them.

Read more:

New York truck attack suspect said he felt good about rampage: authorities

New York terror attack ended by 5-year NYPD veteran

New York officials on Thursday began to put up temporary concrete barriers at 57 locations where it is possible for vehicles to turn onto the bike path where the attack took place.

Long stretches of the path are shielded from traffic by berms planted with trees and shrubs, but vehicles have gotten onto it before. A cyclist was killed at nearly the same spot where some of the victims were struck in 2006 when a drunk driver entered the path by mistake.

For years, the city and private property owners concerned about truck bombs and other attacks have been gradually installing thousands of metal posts to block vehicles from getting onto sidewalks and public plazas. In May, one of those bollards halted a car speeding down a crowded sidewalk in Times Square, but not until it had killed one person and injured more than 20.

The New York Police Departments top counterterrorism official, John Miller, said investigators still hadnt uncovered evidence that Saipov had any accomplices in the attack, but said information was still being gathered.

A propaganda arm of Daesh, also known as ISIS, called Saipov a soldier of the caliphate. A message in a Daesh weekly newspaper used the term in an item published late Thursday. That item then was translated by the SITE Intelligence Group. Daesh has an interest in taking credit for attacks carried out by individuals who are self-radicalized.

In their search for clues, FBI investigators have questioned Saipovs wife and some of his acquaintances, including a fellow immigrant from Uzbekistan, Mukhammadzoir Kadirov, who said he had gotten to know him when they were both Uber drivers.

On Thursday, Kadirov released a statement to The Associated Press through a person in touch with his family condemning the plot.

It is so sad and unbelievable. This not from our religion. It is not acceptable. We as Muslims completely reject this kind of actions. No human being who has a heart can do this, the statement said.

Two mosques in Paterson, New Jersey, where Saipov lived, said they have been receiving threats since the attack. The Islamic Center of Passaic County said it has gotten eight telephone threats to burn the centre down and kill its occupants, prompting extra police patrols.

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted out messages early Thursday calling for Saipovs execution.

In a highly unusual instance of a president weighing in on the fate of a defendant awaiting trial, Trump wrote that prosecutors Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!

The comments could give defence attorneys grounds to argue that Trump has poisoned the minds of potential jurors, but some legal experts said they doubted judges in Manhattans federal courts would let the presidents remarks derail the case in a courthouse with a quarter-century record of swift terrorism prosecutions with mostly airtight outcomes.

Lawyers differed over whether Trump was ethically out of bounds.

Even presidents are entitled to First Amendment rights, said Michael Wildes, a former federal prosecutor.

Joshua Dratel, a veteran defence attorney in terrorism cases, said the tweets should disqualify prosecutors from seeking the death penalty.

Its inconceivable that it would be fair to seek the death penalty when the president has expressed it twice in a tweet, he said. It poisons the jurors, all the prospective jurors.

Meanwhile, Saipovs court-appointed lawyer, David Patton, said he hopes everyone lets the judicial process play out.

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WASHINGTONThe Trump administration released a dire scientific report Friday detailing the growing threats of climate change. The report stands in stark contrast to the administrations efforts to downplay humans role in global warming, withdraw from an international climate accord and reverse Obama-era policies aimed at curbing Americas greenhouse-gas output.

The White House did not seek to prevent the release of the governments National Climate Assessment, which is mandated by law, despite the fact that its findings sharply contradict the administrations policies. The report affirms that climate change is driven almost entirely by human action, warns of potential sea level rise as high as 8 feet by the year 2100, and enumerates myriad climate-related damages across the United States that are already occurring due to 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of global warming since 1900.

It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century, the document reports. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.

The reports release underscores the extent to which the machinery of the federal scientific establishment, operating in multiple agencies across the government, continues to grind on even as top administration officials have minimized or disparaged its findings. Federal scientists have continued to author papers and issue reports on climate change, for example, even as political appointees have altered the wording of news releases or blocked civil servants from speaking about their conclusions in public forums. The climate assessment process is dictated by a 1990 law that Democratic and Republican administrations have followed.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and President Donald Trump have all questioned the extent of humans contribution to climate change. One of EPAs web pages posted scientific conclusions similar to those in the new report until earlier this year, when Pruitts deputies ordered it removed.

The report comes as President Trump and members of his Cabinet are working to promote U.S. fossil fuel production and repeal several federal rules aimed at curbing the nations carbon output, including ones limiting greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants, oil and gas operations on federal land and carbon emissions from cars and trucks. Trump has also announced he will exit the Paris climate agreement, under which the U.S. has pledged to cut its overall greenhouse-gas emissions between 26 per cent and 28 per cent compared to 2005 levels by 2025.

The report could have considerable legal and policy significance, as the scientific matter provides new and stronger support for EPAs greenhouse gas endangerment finding under the Clean Air Act, which lays the foundation for regulations on emissions.

This is a federal government report whose contents completely undercut their policies, completely undercut the statements made by senior members of the administration, said Phil Duffy, the director of the Woods Hole Research Center.

The government is required to produce the National Assessment every four years. This time, the report is split into two documents, one that lays out the fundamental science of climate change and the other that shows how the United States is being impacted on a regional basis. Combined, the two documents total over 2,000 pages.

The first document, called the Climate Science Special Report, is now a finalized report, having been peer reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences and vetted by experts across government agencies. It was formally unveiled Friday.

I think this report is basically the most comprehensive climate science report in the world right now, said Robert Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers who is an expert on sea-level rise and served as one of the reports lead authors.

It affirms that the U.S. is already experiencing more extreme heat and rainfall events and more large wildfires in the West, that more than 25 U.S. coastal cities are already experiencing more flooding, and that seas could rise by between 1 and 4 feet by the year 2100, and perhaps even more than that if Antarctica proves to be unstable, as is currently feared. The report says that a rise of over 8 feet is physically possible with high levels of greenhouse-gas emissions, but theres no way right now to predict how likely it is to happen.

When it comes to rapidly escalating levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the report states, there is no climate analog for this century at any time in at least the last 50 million years.

Most striking, perhaps, the report warns of the unpredictable  changes that scientists cannot foresee that could involve tipping points or fast changes in the climate system. These could switch the climate into new states that are very different from those experienced in the recent past.

Given these strong statements  and how they contradict Trump administration statements and policies  some members of the scientific community had speculated that the administration might refuse to publish the report or alter its conclusions. During the last Republican presidential administration, that of George W. Bush, the national assessment process was highly controversial, and a senior official at the White House Council on Environmental Quality edited aspects of some government science reports.

Yet multiple experts, as well as some administration officials and federal scientists, said that Trump political appointees did not change the special reports scientific conclusions. While some edits have been made to its final version  for instance, omitting or softening some references to the Paris climate agreement  those are focused on policy.

A senior administration official, who asked for anonymity because the process is still underway, said in an interview that top Trump officials decided to put out the assessment without changing the findings of its contributors even if some appointees may have different views.

A federal scientist involved in writing the report, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said that political appointees made no effort to change the scientific findings after being briefed on them.

Glynis Lough, who is deputy director of the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists and had served as chief of staff for the National Climate Assessment at the U.S. Global Change Research Program until mid-2016, said in an interview that the changes made by government officials to the latest report are consistent with the types of changes that were made in the previous administration for the 2014 National Climate Assessment, to avoid policy prescriptiveness.

Perhaps no agency under Trump has tried to downplay and undermine climate science more than the EPA. Most recently, political appointees at the EPA instructed two agency scientists and one contractor not to speak as planned at a scientific conference in Rhode Island. The conference marked the culmination of a three-year report on the status of Narragansett Bay, New Englands largest estuary, in which climate change featured prominently.

The EPA also has altered parts of its website containing detailed climate data and scientific information. As part of that overhaul, in April the agency took down pages that had existed for years and contained a wealth of information on the scientific causes of global warming, its consequences and ways for communities to mitigate or adapt. The agency said it was simply making changes to better reflect the new administrations priorities, and that any pages taken down would be archived.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has repeatedly advocated for the creation of a government-wide red team/blue team exercise, in which a group of outside critics would challenge the validity of mainstream scientific conclusions around climate change.

Other departments have also removed climate change documents online: Interiors Bureau of Land Management, for example, no longer provides access to documents assessing the danger that future warming poses to deserts in the Southwest.

And when U.S. Geological Survey scientists working with international researchers published an article in the journal Nature evaluating how climate change and human population growth would affect where rain-fed agriculture could thrive, USGS published a news release that omitted the words climate change altogether.

The Agriculture Departments climate hubs, however, remain freely available online. And researchers at the U.S. Forest Service have continued to publish papers this year on how climate change is affecting wildfires, wetlands and aquatic habitat across the country.

While the Trump administration has not altered the new climate science report substantially, it is already coming under fire from some of the administrations allies.

The day before it was published, Steven Koonin, a New York University physicist who has met with EPA administrator Scott Pruitt and advocated for the red team/blue team exercise, pre-emptively criticized the document in the Wall Street Journal, calling it deceptive.

Koonin argued that the report ominously notes that while global sea level rose an average 0.05 inch a year during most of the 20th century, it has risen at about twice that rate since 1993. But it fails to mention that the rate fluctuated by comparable amounts several times during the 20th century.

But one of the reports authors suggested Koonin is creating a straw man. The report does not state that the rate since 1993 is the fastest than during any comparable period since 1900 (though in my informal assessment it likely is), which is the nonstatement Steve seems to be objecting to, Kopp countered by email.

Still, the line of criticism could be amplified by conservatives in the coming days.

Meanwhile, the administration also released, in draft form, the longer volume 2 of the National Climate Assessment, which looks at regional impacts across the United States. This document is not final, but is now available for public comment and will itself now begin a peer review process, with final publication expected in late 2018.

Already, however, it is possible to discern some of what it will conclude. For instance, a peer reviewed Environmental Protection Agency technical document released to inform the assessment finds that the monetary costs of climate change in the U.S. could be dramatic.

That document, dubbed the Climate Change Impacts and Risk Analysis, finds that in a high end warming scenario, high temperatures could lead to the loss per year of almost 1.9 billion labour hours across the national workforce by 2090. That would mean $ 160 billion annually in lost income to workers.

With high levels of warming, coastal property damages in 2090 could total another $ 120 billion annually, and deaths from temperature extremes could reach 9,300 per year, or in monetized terms, $ 140 billion annually in damages. Additional tens of billions annually could occur in the form of damages to roads, rail lines, and electrical infrastructure, the report finds.

This could all be lessened considerably, the report notes, if warming is held to lower levels.

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WASHINGTONU.S. President Donald Trump departed Washington on Friday for his first visit to Asia, a 12-day swing through five countries that comes as the once unthinkable has become a palpable concern from Tokyo to Seoul to Beijing  a war with a nuclear-armed North Korea.

Trumps escalating rhetoric and Pyongyangs accelerating weapons programs have set the region on edge and prompted national security adviser H.R. McMaster to declare this week that the world is running out of time to stop the North.

North Korea is a threat to the entire world, McMaster told reporters at the White House.

Read more: U.S. military strike on North Korea would trigger automatic retaliation, defector says

U.S. considering returning North Korea to list of terror sponsors

Trumps trip  with bilateral visits to Japan, South Korea and China and stops at regional summits in Vietnam and the Philippines  could go a long way toward determining the success of his administrations policy. Aides said they are committed to applying maximum pressureon Pyongyang to head off its nuclear threat and resolve the situation peacefully.

Senior White House aides said Trumps top priority on the longest overseas trip of any president since George H.W. Bush in 1991 will be to build on the initial success his administration has had in rallying international support for isolating North Korea. Responding to pressure from the United States, the United Nations Security Council approved two rounds of stiffer economic sanctions and a growing number of countries have severed diplomatic ties with Pyongyang and banished North Korean guest workers.

But beyond the sanctions and the silent treatment looms the very real prospect that none of these tactics  employed to varying degrees by previous administrations  will convince North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to veer from his pursuit of a nuclear weapon that can reliably reach the U.S. mainland  a goal analysts said would sharply tilt the leverage in his favour in any future negotiations.

That raises the question being privately assessed and publicly debated across Northeast Asia: How real are Trumps threats of using military options to prevent Kim from succeeding?

I think the Chinese are divided on the seriousness of President Trump about the potential of a U.S. military strike, said Bonnie Glaser, a China analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who visited Beijing last week. Some say President Trump is unpredictable and that he could launch a preventative or a pre-emptive attack. They worry the situation is getting out of control. Other experts think Trump is bluffing to scare Beijing into greater pressure on Kim.

Glaser added: I sensed more of the former view. Theres more seriousness about the considerations being taken by the Trump administration.

In Tokyo, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe raised eyebrows during a gathering of international foreign policy experts last week when he acknowledged there is some worry about applying that much pressure on North Korea and whether this will lead to war.

The Japanese leader, whose governing Liberal Democratic Party emerged stronger last month after winning more parliament seats in a snap election, emphasized that his administration fully supports Trumps position that direct diplomatic talks with the Pyongyang are not worthwhile given Kims consistent provocations.

Of course, I do not wish for a conflict, Abe said at the Mount Fuji dialogue. However, dialogue with North Korea for the sake of dialogue is meaningless.

In Seoul, Trumps handling of the North Korea crisis has led to a number of angry public protests ahead of his arrival  and widespread confusion and apprehension over his intentions. President Moon Jae-ins administration, which came to power this year advocating for a more open policy toward the North that favoured talks, has sought to align more closely with the United States in the wake of Kims increased nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

But Moons aides objected to White House proposals that Trump visit the heavily guarded demilitarized zone that divides North and South Korea over fears that his rhetoric would further inflame tensions at a time when the South is preparing to play host to the Winter Olympics early next year. Trump has threatened that Pyongyang would feel the fire and fury of the U.S. military if it continued its threats and the president pledged to totally destroy the North if necessary during a speech at the United Nations in September.

The White House agreed to have Trump instead visit Camp Humphreys, a joint U.S.-South Korea military base south of Seoul. But at recent protests, South Koreans waved signs that superimposed the American leader over nuclear explosions.

President Trump is frequently making ludicrous comments implying war, said Han Sun-bum, a representative of one of the largest protest groups, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. His comments, coupled with large scale joint military exercise, have created a very precarious situation in the Korean Peninsula.

Trumps trip includes heavy messaging on the U.S. commitment to strong defence co-operation with allies in East Asia. The president will stop first at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, where he plans to tour the USS Arizona Memorial, the site of a battleship sunk during the Japanese surprise attack in 1941 that drew the United States into the Pacific theatre in World War II.

In Tokyo, Trump is scheduled to speak with U.S. troops at Yokota Air Base and meet with the families of Japanese citizens who were abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s. In Seoul, he will address the South Korean National Assembly emphasizing that all nations must act with increased urgency.

Asked if Trump plans to use same type of inflamed rhetoric he often has when discussing Pyongyang, McMaster said: I dont think the president really modulates his language. He added: Ive been aware of the discussions about, Hey, is this inflammatory? And whats inflammatory is the North Korean regime and what theyre doing to threaten the world.

Foreign policy experts called Trumps public threats and belittling of Kim  the president has dubbed him Little Rocket Man  a misguided attempt to apply psychological pressure. In fact, they said, such tactics allow Kim to further demonize the United States.

One former Obama administration official called Trumps rhetoric sophomoric and said it was a primitive misreading about how they operate.

This former official, who asked for anonymity to speak bluntly, said if Trump veers off the teleprompter into belittling insult-land that could significantly increase the distress felt throughout South Korea, where some hard-liners in parliament have suggested the nation should consider developing its own nuclear arsenal.

Meantime, China, where Trump will have a three-day state visit, has announced a crackdown on banks that do business with the North, although experts said it is hard to gauge how seriously Beijing will implement the new controls. Chinese President Xi Jinping emerged more powerful after the Communist Party Congress last month, and Cui Tiankai, Chinas ambassador to Washington, told reporters this week that the United States and its allies could do more to resolve the standoff peacefully.

If only China is making its best efforts and others are doing things that lead to an escalation of tensions, this issue will not be solved, Cui said.

The Trump administration, following the policies of past administrations, has refused to entertain the Chinese proposal of freezing U.S. and South Korean military co-operation in exchange for a freeze on North Koreas weapons testing. McMaster ruled out the idea again this week, saying Pyongyang cannot be trusted to abide by any such agreements.

Were out of time, McMaster said. In terms of scenarios, the presidents always very clear: You know he doesnt draw red lines, he doesnt forecast directly or say directly what hes going to do. But hell do whatever it takes to protect the American people and our allies.

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WASHINGTONPresident Donald Trumps rage at the media had boiled over. This time, he demanded action.

Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked, Trump wrote on Twitter on Oct. 11. Not fair to public!

He sounded like an autocrat, scarcely different than repressive leaders from Turkey to Venezuela. Advocates for press freedom sounded the alarm.

And then nothing happened. Again.

Trump does not have the power to revoke broadcast licenses to punish people for critical speech. Nobody at the Federal Communications Commission took any action to try. The story about Trumps extraordinary breach of democratic norms vanished in 48 hours, replaced by other Trump stories.

The pattern has been repeated itself throughout Trumps presidency.

Showing the instincts of an authoritarian, the president expresses a desire to do something profoundly contrary to the norms of democratic societies. Then he is constrained by democratic institutions.

He talks like a strongman. He is, in practice, a weak man.

The political science view is that Trump is a very weak president. He is saying these things in public because he cannot make anyone do what he wants in private, said Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth College professor of government and co-director of Bright Line Watch, a project monitoring the state of U.S. democracy under Trump.

Trump has not even been able to exercise absolute power over his own hand-picked officials. A series of stories in U.S. news outlets suggest his aides and appointees have often treated him more like their eccentric grandpa than their boss, responding to demands issued out of fury or spite by declining to take action until he simply forgets what he has told them to do.

His unusual combination of authoritarian words and invisible followup has posed an interpretation challenge to the U.S. media and public. As some observers have dismissed Trumps anti-democratic ravings as posturing or emoting signifying nothing other than impulse-control issues, others have warned of the potential for lasting harm.

Read more: Donald Trump has two Hail Mary plays left  fire Mueller, or start war with North Korea: Burman

Nyhans project asked experts to rate the strength of U.S. democracy in February, the first full month of Trumps tenure, and again in September. The result: Things are essentially stable, Nyhan said, with no significant democratic deterioration. But Nyhan warned, Threats to the rule of law often start with these softer kinds of actions, these norms that grow weaker.

So far, the institutions of American government are holding steady. But those norms help to protect them. The question is how long they can resist political pressure, and what future presidents do, he said. Even if this president is hemmed in by his political situation, has space opened for future presidents to abuse the kinds of powers that Trump is convincing millions of people the executive branch possesses?

The questions arose once more on Friday. In a major breach of the traditions of the U.S. and other mature democracies, Trump lobbied the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate his defeated election opponent, Hillary Clinton, and the opposition party, the Democrats.

His remarks came after he appeared to ruefully acknowledge the norm against such interference in a Thursday radio interview, saying: The saddest thing is that because Im the president of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department.

Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isnt looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems, Trump said on Twitter on Friday. He added: People are angry. At some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper. The American public deserves it!

No big deal, some suggested. In the absence of actual orders given to DOJ, New York Times national political correspondent Jonathan Martin wrote on Twitter, Trump seemed merely to be playing Fox News/righty media assignment editor  trying to drive media coverage more than drive Clinton into a cell.

Others described his words as much more concerning, a true threat to the rule of law.

Trumps DOJ tweets are like Watergate out in the open instead of hidden in secret. Fact we get used to it maybe makes it even more dangerous, wrote Matthew Miller, chief Justice spokesperson during the Obama administration.

In an interview, Miller said the department may eventually feel compelled to give in and do what the president wants. Attorney General Jeff Sessions knows that his own job remains at risk from Trumps ire, Miller said, and the department needs White House backing for its spending, staffing and policy decisions.

And Miller noted that Trump has already shown that at least some of his grandiose threats are not idle. He fired FBI director James Comey in a self-admitted attempt to try to thwart the probe into his campaigns links to Russia  and Sessions and the deputy attorney general signed off, Miller said, though they had to know it was over the Russia investigation.

They are susceptible to the political pressure he puts on them. Theyve shown it already. And they could very well show it again, he said.

Trumps remarks on Clinton came two days after he inserted himself into the judicial process for Sayfullo Saipov, accused of this weeks terror attack in New York City, whom he said SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!

On Friday, he learned that such declarations can do more harm than good: Bowe Bergdahl was sentenced to a dishonourable discharge for deserting the army in Afghanistan in 2009. Trump had called on the campaign trail for Bergdahl to be shot; the military judge said he considered Trumps words mitigation evidence in favour of a lighter sentence.

Trump shows no sign of acknowledging the institutional limits on his power.

Asked on Fox News on Thursday about unfilled job vacancies in the State Department, Trump said: Let me tell you, the one that matters is me. Im the only one that matters.

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The recent appointment of Robert Mugabe as the World Health Organization (WHO) Goodwill Ambassador sent shock waves across the globe.

The Zimbabwean dictator oppressed his people while dismantling his countrys health care system. The outrage was near universal. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wondered if this was a bad April Fools joke. The British called the appointment surprising and disappointing. Perhaps the only one surprised by the outcry was the embattled head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

There are too many examples in recent history of the United Nations turning a blind eye on individuals and countries with appalling human rights records.

The United Nations Peacekeeping Conference taking place in Vancouver on Nov. 14 is a case in point. Many countries being invited to this conference have problematic militaries with allegations of international human rights, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. One such country invited this year is the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, whose military has a long record of rights violations.

According to the Associated Press, the Sri Lankan peacekeepers deployed to Haiti between 2004 and 2007 by the UN ran a sex ring operation with nine children, some as young as 12. Some 134 members of the Sri Lankan military were implicated, with 114 of these men being returned to Sri Lanka by the UN without any consequences.

In 2013, a young Haitian woman accused a Sri Lankan soldier of rape. The UN mandated the Sri Lankan military to investigate. Maj.-Gen. Jagath Dias was charged with investigating this incident. General Dias, who himself is alleged to have committed war crimes in Sri Lanka, reported back that the rape allegation was fabricated. He apparently did not even speak to the actual victim in the case.

But Sri Lankas record of violations of international law, nor the impunity it affords its soldiers, does not end there. The Sri Lankan armed forces have been the subject of several United Nations investigations. In 2011, the Panel of Experts appointed by then-Secretary General Ban Ki-moon concluded that allegations leveled against the Sri Lankan armed forces during the last phase of the war on the island in 2008 and 2009, if proven, amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

These include indiscriminate bombings of hospitals and no-fly zones, rape and sexual violence, violating the Geneva Convention by conducting summary executions of those who surrendered, enforced disappearances and more. In 2015, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights found the Sri Lankan military had indeed committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the period of the war and beyond.

The Sri Lankan military continues to violate the rights of Tamils in the North and East of the island. The army occupies as much as 60,000 acres of civilian land just in the Mullaithivu district in Northern Sri Lanka, with massive camps that encroach on the daily lives of civilians.

According to a report recently released jointly by Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research and People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL), the Vanni region, where much of the civilian carnage took place, has one army personnel per two civilians. There are ongoing reports of torture, rape, and suppression of journalists and human rights defenders.

Notwithstanding any of these findings, the Sri Lankan government refuses to hold any military personnel accountable for these crimes. Sri Lankan President Maithiripala Sirisena has recently said that he would not prosecute a single soldier who fought for his country. The Sri Lankan legal system appears unwilling and unable to handle any of these international crimes.

On the other hand, the victims in Sri Lanka continue to live with the military intruding in their daily lives, while they search for justice. Similarly, the poor victims in Haiti are awaiting answers.

It is with this backdrop that Sri Lankas invitation to be part of this noble role as International Peacekeeper is very troubling. Peacekeeping is a very complicated undertaking. Many militaries have had checkered pasts relating to peacekeeping, including our Canadian forces in Somalia.

Canada undertook a process of truth-seeking that built the confidence of our military to peacekeeping operations. One of the goals of the Vancouver conference is to promote a gender perspective on peacekeeping. While these are laudable goals and highlight the progress of the United Nations in addressing some of its previous failings, the question of Sri Lanka being invited to this table remains problematic.

Had Sri Lanka embraced a process of accountability and sought truth, a valid argument for engagement could have been made. By inviting Sri Lanka to take part in discussions on peacekeeping without substantive progress on accountability, the UN is validating the island nation on the world stage, thereby sending the message to other despotic leaders and rogue countries that they too could violate the rights of their people without consequences.

Ironically, while the Sri Lankan delegation is in Vancouver, another delegation is in Geneva at the UN Human Rights Council, defending Sri Lankas human rights record as part of the Universal Periodic Review. Given Sri Lankas history in Haiti, its treatment of Tamils on the island, and its history of impunity, its soldiers should not be allowed to wear the blue helmet, which is often seen as the embodiment of peace and protection of the innocent.

Gary Anandasangaree is the Member of Parliament for Scarborough-Rouge Park.

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Both the governments of Canada and Ontario stress that one of their primary objectives as we move to a regime of legalized recreational cannabis is to protect youth. They point to their respective legislative approaches that establish minimum legal age for purchase, penalties for selling to youth below that age, diversionary as opposed to criminal approaches for youth found in possession, etc.

However, alongside these legislative measures will be policy and funding choices that will be equally important. These critical choices hearken back to the line in the movie Jerry Maguire, when Tom Cruise asks Cuba Gooding Jr., What can I do for you? and Gooding responds, Show me the money.

Pine River Institute recently hosted a symposium exploring the policy implications of the legalization of recreational cannabis as it pertains to Ontario youth. An array of speakers from both Canada and the United States, as well as an audience of policy-makers, service providers, and other key stakeholders exchanged thoughts on a variety of subjects.

Two of the key elements to emerge as absolute requirements were: firstly, an effective public education approach, to provide reliable information about the effects of cannabis on the developing brain; and secondly, a commitment to increase treatment resources for youth with substance use problems.

Canada has the largest percentage of adolescents using cannabis anywhere in the developed world, so what we are doing now isnt working. It is imperative that young people understand that cannabis is not a benign substance, especially to brain development during adolescence, and those risks are increased with early and frequent use. It is critically important for us to get this message across in an effective and consistent manner.

Like all such public health campaigns, it must be well resourced and carried out over years. Recently, the government of Canada announced a new investment of $36.4 million over the next five years for public education and awareness campaigns. This is in addition to the $9.6 million over five years that the federal government had previously announced. This is welcome news.

When the government of Ontario announced its cannabis legalization bill, their approach to public education for youth was lacking in both detail and substance. Their press release reads: The province will continue moving forward with its plans to support youth, young adults and other vulnerable populations through an integrated prevention and harm reduction approach. Ontario is also planning a public information campaign, co-ordinated with the federal government, to raise awareness of this transition and the new measures that will take effect.

Ontario has also remained silent on any investment it will make from its proceeds from the sale of cannabis in the woefully underfunded youth substance abuse area. With legalization scheduled for some time around July 1, the window for taking action is closing. The Ontario government needs to be specific about its investment approach to youth treatment and public education aimed at adolescents. Legalization will increase the provinces revenue. Jurisdictions like Colorado and Washington state have seen an increase in taxation revenue from recreational cannabis sales.

In Ontario we would anticipate revenue both from taxation and from the retail operation of the Ontario Cannabis Retail Corporation stores. The morality is clear; it is time to do the right thing.

This is Ontarios Jerry Maguire moment.

Vaughan Dowie is CEO of Pine River Institute a residential treatment centre and outdoor leadership experience for youths struggling with addiction and other mental health issues.

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If there was any doubt about whether theres a need for the pop-up supervised injection site in Torontos Moss Park, new figures this week have more than proven its worth in saving lives.

Since the illegal tent opened in August, before any city-run sites were up and running, volunteers with the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society have supervised 1,976 injections and stopped or reversed 85 drug overdoses.

This is a service the city cannot afford to lose at a time when more and more people are dying from opioid overdoses right across the country.

Still, volunteers feared they would have to close the site in the next few weeks as the weather turned cold. At the same time, Ottawa still hasnt given the go-ahead to open an indoor site across the street from the park.

Thats why its heartening to see the province act to ensure there is no break in medical supervision for drug users in that area.

On Thursday, Health Minister Eric Hoskins dispatched the provinces Emergency Medical Assistance Team to set up a military-calibre, heated tent. Theyre saving lives, he said. We need to support that every way we can.

Indeed, last year 865 Ontarians died as a result of opioid overdoses and Hoskins warns that number is creeping higher this year.

In fact, Toronto Public Health reports there were 8,385 substance-related visits (not necessarily opioids) to hospitals between May 1 and Oct. 29, alone, of this year, and 1,814 suspected overdoses.

This is no time to shut down services designed to meet this crisis. Instead, its vital that the federal government approve the permanent treatment centre across the street from Moss Park as quickly as possible. Ontario has already pledged $500,000 to operate the site, once Ottawa gives its okay.

The province is also supplying the volunteer operators of the pop-up site with the overdose antidote naloxone and testing kits to detect the presence of the dangerously powerful opioid, fentanyl, in street drugs.

Its a far cry from this time last year when the province was still pondering whether it would even cough up funds for the three safe injection sites the city had approved.

In fact, the federal, provincial and municipal governments were all slow off the mark to confront the overdose emergency in the city. It took intense lobbying on the part of harm reduction workers and the opening of the illegal Moss Park site to spur them into action.

Now, in the face of a worsening opioid crisis, they cant afford to stop. The city and province must get more safe injection sites up and running as quickly as possible. Its a matter of life and death.

Correction  November 3, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version that misstated the number of substance-related visits to hospitals and suspected overdose as 350 and 88 respectively. .

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Speaking, I suppose, generationally, I find it troubling that the free speech issue has fallen into the tender right wing grip of Rebel Media, the Koch brothers and their kin. For those on the other side (the left, whatever it is), issues around racism, gender and, especially in Canada, Indigenous peoples, have become central, where there actually seem to be possibilities of serious change.

To the young especially, these matters are so grievous and neglected, that they take precedence over traditional left concerns, including free speech. Ive talked with students so determined that these matters be finally addressed  and not lapse backward  that theyre willing to overlook suppression of speech and due process to finally grapple with them.

One said that hed readily be punished unjustly himself, if it moved those causes ahead. In this environment, the far right has cheerily become the custodian of free speech.

But none of it is simple or static. Take the case of Masuma Khan, Dalhousie student. With Dals student council, she rejected celebrating Canada 150, over Indigenous issues. Conservative students objected and she replied, Be proud of this country? For what, over 400 years of genocide?... #unlearn150, #whitefragilitycankissmyass, #yourwhitetearsarentsacredthislandis.

A grad student complained to the university language police, as Khan rightly (IMO) calls them, who upheld the complaint. She refused to apologize or take counselling, since its her right to express my views publicly in whatever manner I choose.

This is effectively reseizing control of the free speech issue, much as Jesse Wente and Robert Jago did during an earlier flare-up. Their position was, more or less: you non-Indigenous people are free to speak any idiocy you want but dont expect us to demur politely or let you get away with it; we will call you out.

Khan didnt deny being hostile and disrespectful but she disavowed racism, since, I would never have the power to oppress someone the way the system can oppress marginalized people. This is a nuanced step forward. Earlier free speech advocates didnt draw such distinctions, it held for everyone in the same way. So power imbalances were overlooked or deemed irrelevant in the debate. But the result is similar: free speech embraced, if less ardently.

Margaret Wente (no relation to Jesse) in the Globe, was illuminating about power and privilege in this case, as she usually is. She cited the remarkable ingratitude Ms. Khan expresses toward the country that took her parents in, and provided her with a first-class education. Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness, anyone?

She makes it sound as if Canada is a chef who cooked you a great meal. Who gets to define who must be grateful to whom? Her column makes you realize how refreshing ingratitude can sometimes be. The tone she takes pretty well requires a snippy reply. This is exactly why there should be lots of latitude vs. formal niceness a la the language police  when it comes to public debate. You can see why those like Khan mightnt want to echo old style free speech left-liberals.

Still, I continue to think (generationally) that free speech is crucial, less on moral or abstract grounds than pragmatically. Why? Because if speech gets shut down  not just confronted but suppressed  it will always be the privileged who, in the long run (or medium or short) benefit because they have the power, the guns, the legal institutions, the money, to bend the final decisions to their ends.

Efforts by the unprivileged to flatly shut down speech that they see as inhumane or demeaning are simply based on delusion, buttressed by minimal, short-term victories, such as keeping a speaker off campus. It might feel good to turn that white supremacist away but look who is in the White House now  as commander of the armed forces.

Dont be fooled, folks. Free speech is far more in your interest than his. Its not accidental that Trump keeps attacking the press and wondering why free speech matters. In his life hes never said a good word for the first amendment. Its also why right wing billionaires fund the appropriation of free speech causes.

Free speech matters because democracy isnt about just casting a vote, which can lead almost anywhere heinous. Its about far-ranging discussion among the majority, where views can sway and change, but wont, absent open discussion.

Rick Salutins column appears Fridays.

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Iraqi forces have taken Al-Qaim, one of the last remaining IS stronghold in the country.

Early Friday morning, units from the Iraqi army, Counter-Terrorism Services, Sunni tribal and Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization forces (PMF) took part in an offensive to recapture al-Qaim and Rawa, two towns which lie on the border area with Syria.

The Iraqi forces unleashed a barrage of artillery fire against militant positions inside the town, backed by Iraqi and US-led coalition air strikes.

Iraqs security forces retook a border crossing with Syria from the militants, hours after entering al-Qaim, according to the Joint Operations Command.

Welcoming the offensive, the U.S.-led international military coalition, which has run an air campaign against the Islamic State group in both Syria and Iraq since 2014, said in a statement that approximately 1,500 Islamic State fighters were estimated to remain in the immediate vicinity of al-Qaim.

Iraqs central government launched an offensive on Oct. 16 to seize disputed territories, claimed by both Baghdad and the Kurds, in retaliation for a referendum on Kurdish independence held on Sept. 25.
France's L'Oreal SA (LRLCY) , the world's biggest beauty products maker, narrowly beat expectations for third quarter sales on strong demand for its luxury skincare brands particularly among younger clients and Chinese consumers.

The Paris-based group posted third quarter sales of 6.1 billion, up 5.1% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis, but down 0.9% on a reported basis following the group's disposal of the Body Shop. The result was ahead of analyst average expectations of a 4.7% growth in sales on a like-for-like basis, which strips out currency movements and asset acquisitions and disposals.

L'Oreal shares were down Friday at 191.60, falling 0.49% on their Thursday close, taking their 12-month performance to just over 20%.

"Overall, the Group outperformed the market and strengthened its position," said Chairman and CEO Jean-Paul Agon in a statement "The highlight of the quarter is the acceleration of our sales in the New Markets, which posted double-digit growth, with strong performances in Asia Pacific, particularly in China."

L'Oreal's performance will be keenly watched by not only its own shareholders but those of Nestle SA (NSRGY) - Get Free Report , which owns 23% of the make-up giant, and by activist investor Third Point LLC, which has built a stake in Nestle and is pushing for a sale of the L'Oreal holding. Nestle's stake was worth almost 25 billion based on L'Oreal's valuation on Friday.

L'Oreal's luxury products division posted an 11.2% increase in like-for-like, third-quarter sales compared to a year earlier. The results confirmed a boom in high-end cosmetics that was suggested by the U.S. rival Estee Lauder Co. Inc's (EL) - Get Free Report third quarter growth of 10% and by a more than 17% gain in third quarter sales at the perfume and cosmetics division of French luxury conglomerate LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE.

Estee Lauder Companies Achieves Outstanding Fiscal 2018 First Quarter Results

L'Oreal's high-end make up sales were boosted by the success of its Lancome and Yves Saint Laurent brands, which particularly benefited from strong demand out of China and from Chinese tourists.

The French group's consumer products division posted a 2.3% increase in third quarter sales, missing analyst expectations of about 3% growth. Agon blamed the unit's sluggish growth on difficult markets in the U.S. and France.

L'Oreal's online sales, which are favored by younger buyers, grew almost 32% over the third quarter. Sales to younger markets are being boosted by a flurry of digital make-up promotions, notably on You Tube, where instructional make up channels are driving demand, and by social media where photo sharing is driving make-up demand.

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Rent-A-Center (RCII) - Get Free Report shares spiked in pre-market trading Friday after buyout shop Vintage Capital offered to acquire the rent-to-own company for $13 a share, in a move that comes after the activist-targeted business announced earlier this week it was considering strategic alternatives such as a sale.

"We have followed the RAC story, and your impact on the Rent-to-Own industry, for over 20 years and we are pleased to be a significant shareholder," Vintage Capital said in a letter to Rent-A-Center CEO Mark Speese.

The company's shares spiked by 6% to $9.92 a share after the bid was announced in an activist securities filing Friday. Vintage Capital, which is the majority owner of a smaller rent-to-own competitor, Buddy's Home Furnishings, had been interested in buying Rent-A-Center for some time. In July Vintage offered to buy Rent-A-Center for $15 a share or $800 million but the company rejected the offer.

However, the private equity firm, which accumulated a 6% Rent-A-Center stake, believes that the Plano-Texas-based company may be more amenable to a sale now after its announced Monday, Oct. 31 that it was launching a process to explore strategic alternatives, a move that came five months after activist Glenn Welling and his fund, Engaged Capital LLC, succeeded at installing a minority-slate of three dissident director candidates to the company's board.

In addition, in a key coup for Welling, the rent-to-own company's chairman, Steven Pepper, also on Oct. 31 resigned from his position. Pepper had been under pressure from Welling for months. Most recently, in June, Welling lashed out at Pepper over his use of the company's private jet even as the company continued to struggle.

On Monday, Rent-A-Center reported a loss of $0.15 a share for the third quarter, far short of a FactSet consensus estimate analysts of a loss of $0.03 a share.

The Plano, Texas-based company said it hired J.P. Morgan as a financial adviser and Winston & Strawn LLP as a legal adviser. The strategic review also comes after Rent-A-Center had previously received acquisition interest from buyout shops HIG Capital and Lone Star Funds, according to reports.

The Deal had reported in April, citing sources, that Vintage Capital had already been interested in buying Rent-A-Center. Also, The Deal also reported, citing sources, that another rent-to-own operator, Aarons Inc. (AAN) - Get Free Report was also interested.

Engaged Capital has a 20.5% economic stake in Rent-A-Center.

Shareholders in June voted to elect three Engaged Capital-backed dissident director candidates to Rent-A-Center's board, giving Welling a minority slate on a seven-person board. One shareholder advisory firm had previously suggested that dissident director Jeffrey Brown, nominated by Welling, has "finance and transnational experience that could likely be of value to the board as it considers opportunities to maximize shareholder value."

Also, Welling has had success at driving M&A at companies Engaged targets in the past. Boulder Brands, which makes Earth Balance and Evol Foods, was sold to Pinnacle Foods in 2015 shortly after Engaged became involved. Engaged has been successful at driving the recent sale of Redbox kiosk maker Outerwall Inc.'s sale to Apollo Global Management for $1.6 billion and medical device maker HeartWare International Inc. purchase by Medtronic plc for $1.1 billion.

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A megadeal between pharmacy chain CVS Health Corp. (CVS) - Get Free Report and health insurer Aetna Inc. (AET) could come before the year is over.

The companies are working on sealing a deal north of $70 billion as early as December, Reuters reported. While the exact price has not yet been determined, a transaction will probably value Aetna at more than $200 a share, the report added.

An Aetna spokesman and a CVS spokesman both said their respective companies do not comment on rumors or speculation.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 26 that CVS has been in talks over the past six months to buy Aetna for more than $200 a share.

Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna on Oct. 31 reported third-quarter adjusted earnings per share of $2.45, up 18% from the same period last year. Revenue was $14.99 billion, down 5% year-over-year.

Analysts had forecast, on average, adjusted EPS of $2.08 on revenue of $15.12 billion, according to Bloomberg.

CVS is slated to report third-quarter numbers on Nov. 6. Analysts expect, on average, adjusted EPS of $1.49 on revenue of $46.17 billion.

Shares of Aetna closed at $176.99on Friday, up 2.7%. CVS shares finished the trading session at $69.25, down 0.2%.

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Two policemen Wednesday suffered a knife attack near Parliament in Tunis, close to Bardo Museum scene of first major attacks of Tunisia in 2015.

The terrorist, 25, wounded one policeman in the neck with the other sustaining slight injuries.

The interior minister did not name the attacker reportedly from Ettadamen; an underprivileged suburb area of the Tunisian capital.

The interior ministry said the attacker confessed he adopted Takfiri thoughts three years ago.

He believed that killing security forces is a form of jihad.

Security forces following the attack raided his house in the suburb, confiscating his personal computer.

The attack took place in Bardo square, not far from the Bardo Museum; scene of Mars 2015 attacks in which 21 foreign tourists were mowed down by a commando of the Islamic State (IS).

The Mars attacks were first terror acts against the smallest North African country in the course of its nascent democracy following the overthrow of autocratic ruler Ben Ali ousted in 2011.

Two other attacks subsequently hit the country in June and November killing respectively 38 among whom 30 British tourists in Sousse and 12 members of the Presidents guards, in Tunis.
Assured Guaranty Ltd., through its subsidiaries, provides credit protection products to public finance, infrastructure, and structured finance markets in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Insurance and Asset Management. It offers financial guaranty insurance that protects holders of debt instruments and other monetary obligations from defaults in scheduled payments. The company insures and reinsures various debt obligations, including bonds issued by the United States state governmental authorities; and notes issued to finance infrastructure projects. It also insures and reinsures various the U.S. public finance obligations, such as general obligation, tax-backed, municipal utility, transportation, healthcare, higher education, infrastructure, housing revenue, investor-owned utility, renewable energy, and other public finance bonds. Further, it is involved in insuring and reinsuring of non-U.S. public finance obligations comprising regulated utilities, infrastructure finance, sovereign and sub-sovereign, renewable energy bonds, pooled infrastructure, and other public finance obligations; and the U.S. and non-U.S. Structured finance obligations, including residential mortgage-backed securities, life insurance transactions, consumer receivables securities, pooled corporate obligations, financial products, and other structured finance securities. Additionally, the company offers specialty insurance and reinsurance that include life and aircraft residual value insurance transactions; and asset management services comprising investment advisory services, including management of collateralized loan obligations, and opportunity and liquid strategy funds. It markets its financial guaranty insurance directly to issuers and underwriters of public finance and structured finance securities, as well as to investors in such obligations. Assured Guaranty Ltd. was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda.
Morocco will launch November 8th its first ever satellite, joining an elite group of nations having their own satellite systems. Dubbed Mohammed VI  A, the earth observation satellite named after Moroccos King, is a giant forward technological leap for the North African country, which proves to the whole world that perseverance pays off.

The Moroccan satellite, to be launched from Guiana Space Center, was developed by a consortium comprising Thales Alenia Space as system prime contractor and Airbus as co-prime.

Arianespace group says the Mohammed VI A satellite will be used in particular for mapping and land surveying activities, regional development, agricultural monitoring, the prevention and management of natural disasters, monitoring changes in the environment and desertification, as well as border and coastal surveillance.

Thales Alenia Space supplied the payload, including the optical instrument, the image transmission subsystem, and the ground segment for image processing and production.

Airbus was in charge of its integration, as well as supplying the platform and the ground segment for mission planning and satellite control.

When the news of the Moroccan satellite broke out, it generated a lot of media buzz and irked neighboring Algeria and Spain, concerned over Moroccos technological edge.

As a response to Moroccan satellite, expected to boost the Kingdoms reconnaissance capabilities, the Algerian rulers decided to deploy high-tech sensor radars along border with Morocco.

A high-level Algerian commission gathering military top brass, senior officials from the ministries of the Interior, Public Works and IT has been set up to oversee the deployment of this multilayer detection and surveillance system.

Algerian authorities say this high-tech system is destined to counter security threats.

Relations between the two neighboring countries are already strained over the Sahara issue. Despite its huge oil and gas resources, Algerias economic situation is deteriorating, exacerbating social woes and political crisis while Morocco is thriving and its satellite can serve the interests of all peoples of the region. Thus, it should be a source of pride not anxiety.
The following companies are subsidiares of BorgWarner: Akasol AG, B80 Italia S.r.l., BERU AG, BW El Salto S.A. De C.V., BWA Receivables Corporation, BWA Turbo Systems Holding LLC, Borg Warner Europe Holdings (PDS) B. V., BorgWarner (China) Investment Co. Ltd., BorgWarner (Reman) Holdings L.L.C., BorgWarner (Thailand) Limited, BorgWarner Aftermarket Europe GmbH, BorgWarner Alternators Inc., BorgWarner Arden LLC, BorgWarner Arnstadt RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Asia Inc., BorgWarner Automotive Asia Limited, BorgWarner Automotive Components (Beijing) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Jiangsu) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Wuhan) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Brasil Ltda., BorgWarner Chungju Co. LLC, BorgWarner Comercial e Distribuidora de Pecas para Veiculos Automotores Ltda., BorgWarner Comercializadora PDS S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner Componentes PDS S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner Cooling Systems (India) Private Limited, BorgWarner Cooling Systems GmbH, BorgWarner Diversified Transmission Products Services Inc., BorgWarner Drivetrain Engineering GmbH, BorgWarner Drivetrain Management Services de Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner Drivetrain de Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner Electric Motors L.L.C., BorgWarner Emissions Systems (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Emissions Systems (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Emissions Systems Holding LLC, BorgWarner Emissions Systems India Private Limited, BorgWarner Emissions Systems LLC, BorgWarner Emissions Systems Portugal Unipessoal LDA, BorgWarner Emissions Systems Spain S.L.U., BorgWarner Emissions Systems of Michigan Inc., BorgWarner Emissions Talegaon Private Limited, BorgWarner Engineering Ketsch RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Engineering Kibo RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Esslingen GmbH, BorgWarner Europe GmbH, BorgWarner Europe Holding S.a. r. l., BorgWarner Gateshead Limited, BorgWarner Germany Holding GmbH, BorgWarner Germany Holding Services GmbH, BorgWarner Germany REH GmbH, BorgWarner Germany REM GmbH, BorgWarner Germany Verwaltungs GmbH, BorgWarner Global Holding S.a. r. l., BorgWarner Heidelberg I RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Heidelberg II RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Heidelberg REH GmbH, BorgWarner Heidelberg REM GmbH, BorgWarner Holding Inc., BorgWarner Holdings Limited, BorgWarner Hungary Kft., BorgWarner IT Services Europe GmbH, BorgWarner India Holdings Inc., BorgWarner Investment Holding Inc., BorgWarner Ithaca LLC, BorgWarner Ketsch Plant RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Ketsch REH GmbH, BorgWarner Ketsch REM GmbH, BorgWarner Kft., BorgWarner Kibo RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Korea Holdings (PDS) B.V., BorgWarner Korea Holdings LLC, BorgWarner Korea LLC, BorgWarner Limited, BorgWarner Ludwigsburg GmbH, BorgWarner Ludwigsburg RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Markdorf Plant RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Markdorf REH GmbH, BorgWarner Markdorf REM GmbH, BorgWarner Massachusetts Inc., BorgWarner Mauritius Holdings Ltd., BorgWarner Mexico Holding BV, BorgWarner Mexico Holdings II LLC, BorgWarner Mexico Holdings LLC, BorgWarner Morse Systems India Private Limited, BorgWarner Morse Systems Italy S.r.l., BorgWarner Morse Systems Japan K.K., BorgWarner Morse Systems Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner Muggendorf RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner NW Inc., BorgWarner Netherlands Holdings (PDS) B.V., BorgWarner Oroszlany Kft., BorgWarner PDS (Anderson) L.L.C., BorgWarner PDS (Changnyeong) LLC, BorgWarner PDS (Indiana) Inc., BorgWarner PDS (Livonia) Inc., BorgWarner PDS (Ochang) LLC, BorgWarner PDS (Thailand) Limited, BorgWarner PDS (USA) Inc., BorgWarner PDS Brasil Produtos Automotivos Ltda., BorgWarner PDS Irapuato S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner PDS Mexico Holdings S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner PDS Technologies L.L.C., BorgWarner Poland Sp. z o.o., BorgWarner Pyongtaek LLC, BorgWarner Romeo Power LLC, BorgWarner Rzeszow Sp. z o.o., BorgWarner Shenglong (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner South Asia LLC, BorgWarner Southborough Inc., BorgWarner Spain Holding S.L.U, BorgWarner Sweden AB, BorgWarner Systems Lugo S.r.l., BorgWarner Thermal Systems Inc., BorgWarner Thermal Systems of Michigan Inc., BorgWarner TorqTransfer Systems Beijing Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Tralee Ltd., BorgWarner Transmission Products LLC, BorgWarner Transmission Systems Arnstadt GmbH, BorgWarner Transmission Systems GmbH, BorgWarner Transmission Systems Korea LLC, BorgWarner Transmission Systems Tulle S.A.S., BorgWarner Trustees Limited, BorgWarner Turbo & Emissions Systems France S.A.S., BorgWarner Turbo Systems Engineering GmbH, BorgWarner Turbo Systems GmbH, BorgWarner Turbo Systems LLC, BorgWarner Turbo Systems Worldwide Headquarters GmbH, BorgWarner Turbo Systems of Michigan Inc., BorgWarner Turbo and Emissions Systems de Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner UK Financing Ltd., BorgWarner UK Holding and Services Ltd., BorgWarner US Holding LLC, BorgWarner USA Industries L.L.C., BorgWarner United Transmission Systems Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Waterloo Inc., BorgWarner Wrexham Limited, Cascadia Motion LLC, Creon Insurance Agency Limited, Delphi Technologies, Dytech ENSA, Gustav Wahler GmbH u. Co. KG, Haldex, Kuhlman LLC, Kysor Europe Limited, M. & M. Knopf Auto Parts L.L.C., NSK-Warner (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., NSK-Warner K.K., NSK-Warner Mexico S.A. de C.V, NSK-Warner U.S.A. Inc., New PDS Corp., Old Remco Holdings L.L.C., Old Remco International Holdings L.L.C., Remy International, SeohanWarner Turbo Systems LLC, Sevcon, Sevcon New Energy Technology (Hubei) Company Limited, and Transmission Systems AutoForm LLC.

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The following companies are subsidiares of PPG Industries: AIPCF V Texstars Blocker Inc., AkzoNobel, Alpha Coating Technologies LLC, Alpha Coatings Inc., Broad Range Development Limited, CG Holdings Manufacturing Co., Centro de Investigacion en Polimeros S.A. de C.V., Chemfil Canada Limited, Chorlton Trade Paints Limited, Comercial Mexicana de Pinturas S.A. de C.V., Comex, Comex Industrial Coatings S.A. de C.V., Consorcio Comex S.A. de C.V., Cristacol S.A., Cuming Microwave Corporation, Deutek SA, Dexmet Corporation, Dexmet Holding Corporation, Distribuidora Kroma S.A. de C.V., EPIC Insurance Co. Ltd., Eberle Design Inc., Empresa Aga S.A. de C.V., Ennis Canadian Holding Company, Ennis Paint Canada ULC, Ennis Paint Netherlands Holdings LLC, Ennis Paint U.K. Holding Company Limited, Ennis Traffic Safety Solutions Pty Ltd, Ennis-Flint, Ennis-Flint Inc., Foshan Bairun Chemicals Co. Ltd., Fpu Industrial S.A. de C.V., Grupo Comex S.A. de C.V., Hemmelrath Automotive Coatings (Jilin) Co. Ltd., Hemmelrath International Trade (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Hodij Coatings B.V., Homax Products, Industria Chimica Reggiana I.C.R. SPA, Johnstones Paints Limited, Kalon Investment Company Limited, Kalon South Africa Proprietary Limited, Karl Woerwag Lack-und Farbenfabrik GmbH & Co. KG, Masterwork Paint, MetoKote Corporation, MetoKote Mexico Holdings Inc., MetoKote UK Limited, MetoKote de Mexico S. de RL de CV, Milamar Coatings LLC, OOO Tikkurila, PPG A P Resinas S.A. de C.V., PPG AC - France SA, PPG ALESCO Automotive Finishes Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., PPG Aerospace Materials (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., PPG Architectural Coatings (Puerto Rico) Inc., PPG Architectural Coatings Canada Inc./PPG Revetements Architecturaux Canada Inc., PPG Architectural Coatings Ireland Limited, PPG Architectural Coatings Italy S.r.l, PPG Architectural Coatings UK Limited, PPG Architectural Finishes Inc., PPG Asian Paints Private Ltd., PPG Business Services S.A. de C.V., PPG COATINGS SINGAPORE PTE. LTD., PPG Canada Inc., PPG Cetelon Lackfabrik GmbH, PPG Cieszyn S.A., PPG Coatings (Hong Kong) Co. Limited, PPG Coatings (Kunshan) Co. Ltd., PPG Coatings (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., PPG Coatings (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., PPG Coatings (Thailand) Co. Ltd., PPG Coatings (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., PPG Coatings (Wuhu) Company Ltd., PPG Coatings (Zhangjiagang) Co. Ltd., PPG Coatings B.V., PPG Coatings Belgium BV, PPG Coatings Danmark A/S, PPG Coatings Deutschland GmbH, PPG Coatings Europe B.V., PPG Coatings Nederland BV, PPG Coatings S.A., PPG Coatings South Africa (Pty) Ltd., PPG DYRUP S.A., PPG Deco Czech a.s., PPG Deco Polska sp. z.o.o., PPG Deco Slovakia s.r.o., PPG Deutschland Business Support GmbH, PPG Deutschland Sales & Services GmbH, PPG Distribution S.A.S., PPG Europe B.V., PPG Finance B.V., PPG Finland Oy, PPG France Business Support S.A.S., PPG France Manufacturing S.A.S., PPG Guadeloupe SAS, PPG Hemmelrath Lackfabrik GmbH, PPG Holdco SAS, PPG Holdings (U.K.) Limited, PPG Holdings Argentina USA LLC, PPG Holdings Latin America USA LLC, PPG Iberica S.A., PPG Iberica Sales & Services S.L., PPG Industrial Coatings B.V., PPG Industrial do Brasil - Tintas E. Vernizes - Ltda., PPG Industries (Korea) Ltd., PPG Industries (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., PPG Industries (UK) Ltd, PPG Industries Argentina S.R.L., PPG Industries Australia PTY Limited A.C.N. 055 500 939, PPG Industries Colombia Ltda., PPG Industries Delfzijl B.V., PPG Industries Europe Sarl, PPG Industries France S.A.S., PPG Industries International Inc., PPG Industries Italia S.r.l., PPG Industries Kimya a Sanayi VE Ticaret AS, PPG Industries LLC, PPG Industries Lackfabrik GmbH, PPG Industries Lipetsk LLC, PPG Industries Middle East FZE, PPG Industries Netherlands B.V., PPG Industries New Zealand Limited, PPG Industries Ohio Inc., PPG Industries Poland Sp. Z.o.o., PPG Industries Securities LLC, PPG Industries de Mexico S.A. de C.V., PPG Investment (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., PPG Italia Business Support S.r.l., PPG Italia Sales & Services S.r.l., PPG Japan Ltd., PPG Kansai Automotive Finishes Canada LP, PPG Kansai Automotive Finishes U.K. LLP, PPG Kansai Automotive Finishes U.S. LLC, PPG Luxembourg Finance S.aR.L., PPG Luxembourg Holdings S.aR.L., PPG Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., PPG Packaging Coatings (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., PPG Paints Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., PPG Performance Coatings (Hong Kong) Limited, PPG Powder Coatings (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., PPG Refinish Distribution Limited, PPG Romania S.A., PPG Reunion SAS, PPG SSC Co. Ltd., PPG Switzerland GmbH, PPG Trilak Korlatolt FelelosseguTarasasag (PPG Trilak Kft.), PPG Vietnam Co. Ltd., PRC-DeSoto Australia Pty Ltd., PRC-DeSoto International Inc., PT. PPG Coatings Indonesia, Painter's Supply, Paintzen, Peintures de Paris SAS, Plasticos Envolventes S.A. de C.V., Polymeric Systems Inc., ProCoatings B.V., ProCoatings BV, Protec Pty Ltd, Reno A&E LLC, Revocoat France SAS, Revocoat Holding SAS, Revocoat Iberica SLU, Revocoat S.A.S, Road Infrastructure Investment Holdings Inc., SEM Products Inc., Sealants Europe SAS, Sierracin Corporation, Sierracin/Sylmar Corporation, Sigma Marine & Protective Coatings Holding B.V., SigmaKalon (BC) UK Limited, SigmaKalon Group, Sikar (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., Spraylat International Ltd, Texstars LLC, The Crown Group Co., The Crown Group Inc, The Homax Group, Tikkurila Group, Tikkurila Oyj, Tikkurila Sverige AB, Traffic Safety Intermediate LLC, Traffic Safety Parent LLC, VF Specialty Products LLC, Vanex Inc., Vernisol S.p.A., VersaFlex Acquisition Corp., VersaFlex Inc., VersaFlex Intermediate Holdings LLC, Versaflex, Viasa S.A. de C.V., Whitford, Whitford B.V., Whitford Corporation, Whitford Jiangmen Ltd., Whitford Ltd. (HK), Whitford Ltd. (UK), Whitford Pte. Ltd., Whitford S.r.l., Whitford Worldwide Company LLC, and Worwag Coatings.

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Mega Millions numbers for Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022

Here are the winning Mega Millions numbers and results for the lottery jackpot drawing on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022.
AkzoNobel, a leading global paints company, has introduced a new brand in decorative paints in Oman, bringing together the home-grown Sadolin brand and the global colour and innovation leader Dulux.



Sadolin Dulux will offer customers in Oman with an amazing range of colours and technology currently offered by Dulux.



AkzoNobel announced the new brand that will feature a completely new product portfolio based on the latest global innovations and technology available. This brings a new colour delivery system with best-in-class accuracy and strength, as well as for the first time in Oman, the choice of customers to have any colour, any product  all colours available in full interior and exterior range.



AkzoNobel also introduced new colour and inspiration tools, such as the Sadolin Dulux Visualizer, an augmented reality mobile app; a portable and handheld paint testing service; new colour collaterals; and new in-store tinting apparatus at the gathering.



Jeremy Rowe, managing director of AkzoNobel Decorative Paints, South East and South Asia, Middle East, said: This is a significant step in further strengthening our operations in Oman. Sadolin is a successful homegrown brand that has enjoyed the trust and confidence of customers. With Sadolin Dulux, we are highlighting a significant evolution of the Made in Oman brand into a global brand that will offer a never-before range of colours and products for our customers here.



AkzoNobel is also introducing its ColourFutures in Oman. This is aimed at providing consumers with inspiration on what their homes can look like, and create colour palettes that will transform their living and working spaces accordingly.



Along with the launch of Sadolin Dulux, we are highlighting our proprietary ColourFutures. Refreshed annually, ColourFutures has been inspiring consumers for 15 years now and is the outcome of expert analysis of social, economic and design trends. Our customers can now easily keep up to speed with the latest trends in decorative paintings for homes and commercial spaces, he added.



The company has also announced Heart Wood as the 2018 Colour of the Year, following extensive research by a team of experts at the AkzoNobel Global Aesthetic Centre into trends, insights and consumer behaviours to predict paint colour palettes relevant to the future.



A subtle and warm tone of grown-up pink, Heart Wood (also known as Pictured Rocks) draws from the tactile qualities of natural wood and leather, conveying comfort and ease in response to consumers wanting to nestle down more and create a welcome home, just in time for Omani residents to give their homes a facelift for the New Year. It comes in four palettes - the Heart Wood Home, the Comforting Home, the Inviting Home and the Playful Home.



The new sub-brands under Sadolin Dulux meet the diverse requirements of customers with Colours of the World 88 Plus, an interior premium top coat paint; EasyClean, a stain resistant, anti-bacterial and washable premium interior paint; and the Ambiance range, one of the most premium aesthetic paints for interiors across the world.



Within the exterior paint range, Sadolin Dulux offers Weathershield 88XT, a premium top coat that offers excellent quality and protection; and Weathershield Powerflexx, with the latest crack proof technology that ensures 8-year protection against a host of exterior weathering elements.



AkzoNobel acquired a 50 per cent stake of Sadolin Paints Oman in 2013 after a joint venture agreement with Omar Zawawi Establishment. Since then, the company has been working on a full range of products in the Oman market. Headquartered in Amsterdam, AkzoNobels portfolio of brands include Dulux, Hammerite, Levis, Sikkens, International and Interpon.  TradeArabia News Service
Al Saraya Properties, a leading real estate brand in Bahrain, has signed an agreement with Al Baraka Bank to provide its customers a number of unique benefits including credit card facility with mortgage, a grace period of up to three months and and competitive insurance price with the option of accepting other insurance companies suggested by the customers.



Al Saraya Properties was established in 1999, under the leadership of industry pioneer Saud Abdul Aziz Kanoo. With its signature motto we build your dreams, it has become one of the most trusted real estate brands in the kingdom and a pathbreaker in building ultramodern living spaces, ensuring luxury, elegance and convenience, said a statement from the company.



Al Saraya boasts several prime properties at some of the most sought-after locations in Bahrain including Orca, Views Terrace, The Peak and Dragon villas on the prestigious Amwaj Islands, and Al Reem in scenic Saar, and many more are in the planning stage, it added.



The group's objective is to ensure and elevate customer satisfaction beyond building the finest living spaces and this memorandum of understanding (MoU) is one such initiative, said Redha Mukhtar, the general manager of Al Saraya Properties, after signing the deal with Mohamed Isa Al Mutaweh, the chief executive and board member of Al Baraka Bank.



On the partnership, Al Mutaweh said: Al Baraka Bank, being proactive, always tries to reach out to customers with custom-designed products and services."



"Signing the agreement with Al Saraya Properties is an important step towards making the bank the preferred choice of its customers. We have designed a special package, making banking with us more flexible for Al Sarayas valued customers," he added.



S Purushothaman, the director for finance at Al Saraya Properties, and Rashid Hasan Al Alaiwi, the deputy general manager, also attended the signing ceremony.-TradeArabia News Service
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The mountains of Crete stretch on for miles in every direction. Except for a few rocky bits and areas punctuated by brilliant fuchsia wildflowers, everything is green. Of course there are olive treesthis is Greece, after all. But there are also miles and miles of perfectly manicured grapevines swooping down the slopes. What we didnt know before we arrived on this beautiful island is that Crete wineries account for about 20 percent of all the wine made in Greece, which gave us no shortage of varietals to try during our time on the island.

Discovering Crete wines was a happy accident. Although weve enjoyed our share of vineyards and wineries from Texas to South Africa, visiting wineries wasnt originally part of our plan for our trip to Crete. And then we came across a small sign at the end of the road heading uphill to our apartment in the seaside village of Bali. Surely it was meant to be. Exploring Crete wineries quickly became part of the plan in this unexpected wine destination.

Winemaking in Crete

The history of wine-making in Crete is long. Four thousand years long, in fact. Archaeological evidence indicates that wine was produced as far back as the Minoan civilization that existed here beginning around 2600 BCproof that wine and daily life have been inseparable for much of recorded history in Crete. Up until about 30 years ago, much of the wine made in Crete was made in peoples home and mainly intended for private consumption. But things are quite different now, as roughly 30 wineries are spread across this 160-mile-long island.

Crete Wineries

Klados Winery

Although production has moved out of peoples living rooms and kitchens, some aspects of Greek wine are still very family-oriented as we saw in the first two Crete wineries we visited. Our first stop was Klados Winery whose sign we had seen near our apartment.

Perched on one of Cretes many slopes, Klados Winery is surrounded by olive trees and their organic vineyards in all directions. This family-run business knew what they were doing when then picked the pretty spot for their winery 10 years ago when the business was already 10 years old. The only winery in the Rethymno area, Klados Winery was founded by Manolis Klados, a master Oenologist, in 1997. Now his daughter and son, who ran our tasting, oversee operations. The passion for wine and pride in the family business were clear as we talked about their products.

Klados Winery uses some grapes that will be familiar to most wine drinkers such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Sauvignon Blanc. But they also showcase local varietals like Kotsifali, a mellow grape with plum notes thats a bit like Merlot, and Liatiko, a sweeter red. Their Muscat Spinas and Vidiano, Cretes flagship wine thats a bit like Viognier, were the grapes in our favorite of their wines, Great Hawk.

Stilianou Winery

On land that has been in the family for five generations, Yiannis Stilianou cultivates his organic mountain vineyard outside of Heraklion. Stilianou Winery focuses on Greek varietals, including Kotsifali and Vidiano. Mantilari, a light-bodied red grape, is included in their Theon Dora rose and Theon Gi red. Thrapsathiri, a fruity, aromatic white grape, adds to the Theon Dora white.

Stilianou Winery does a limited production of 20,000 bottles, all of which are numbered. Our visit included the whole family, with Yianniss son and daughter providing a tour of the production facilities and Yiannis himself guiding the tasting. The care for their products (including the olive oil they produce) and for our experience came through every moment of our visit.

Boutari Winery

Our last stop in Crete was quite different from our first two. Boutari Winery has six locations around Greece and is the maker of many of the best-selling Greek wines in the world. With a 130-year history and lots of production and marketing might, Boutari has worked to elevate the profile of Cretan wines around the world.

Boutaris Fantaxometocho (phantom) estate outside of Heraklion includes seven hectares of hillside, some rising to 700 feet. Sitting in their tasting room, which has a panoramic view of thousands of vines, we got just a glimpse of the capacity of Boutari.

Like other wineries in Crete, Boutari blends well-known grapes like Chardonnay and Syrah with Cretan grapes like Kotsifali, Thrapsathiri, and Vilana (a light, floral white). Our favorite of the four wines we tried was Iouliatiko, a sweet, barrel-aged wine made from sun-dried Liatiko grapes.
@alextdaugherty

Carlos Curbelo, Miami's lone representative on the House tax writing committee, is ready to debate a bill that would revamp the nation's tax code for the first time since the 1980s as special interest groups like the real estate industry voice opposition to the proposal.

"I'm not worried about them, I expected this," Curbelo, a Republican, said. "Every special interest group out there thinks the code is for them and the truth is the tax code, the tax system, is for the American people. What we're trying to do is simplify it, eliminate a lot of the special benefits to benefit more people across the board."

A markup of the bill, dubbed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, is scheduled for Monday.

"Most people are pretty pleased with the bill," Curbelo said, adding that there could be a Republican amendment during Monday's markup. "There are many opportunities to improve the bill, but most people are generally very satisfied with the bill."

Originally, Curbelo was in favor of a revenue-neutral tax plan that would not increase the federal deficit, though a revenue-neutral plan was not likely after House Speaker Paul Ryan and tax committee chairman Kevin Brady pulled a proposed border adjustment tax when idea faced opposition from trade groups and the White House.

"I always wanted to have revenue-neutral tax reform, in that sense I wish we could have done better, but politics is the art of the possible and this is where we are and we have to make the best of it," Curbelo said.

Marco Rubio have suggested a $1,600 credit Curbelo was also supportive of increasing the child tax credit to $1,600 from the current $1,000, though some Senate Republicans likehave suggested a $1,600 credit isn't enough to help working families.
About

When it comes to booking the more-than-perfect Hawaii trip for your client, look no further than Blue Sky Tours. Since

1981, we have been crafting custom-designed vacation packages so you can deliver the best quality, value, and service to Hawaii, and have now expanded that same superior service to the South Pacific.
There is a building revolution going on in New York City, as it becomes "the passive house epicentre of the country."

Anyone who thinks that Passive House design is just for houses should have a look at Sendero Verde, a huge new project by Handel Architects in New York City. With 317,885 square feet of residential space and 27,906 square feet of commercial space and 650 affordable units, when it is completed it will be the largest affordable Passive House building in the world. And anyone who thinks that Passive House is a niche concept for rich people that will never catch on in North America should visit New York, where it is just exploding.

As Andreas Benzing notes in the introduction to a new guide, From Small to Extra-Large: Passive House Rising to New Heights, "New York City is fast becoming the Passive House epicenter of the country." He explains the reasons that Passive House buildings are so important for meeting commitments to reducing carbon:

Passive House buildings, which achieve substantial energy reductions and resiliency through cost-effective and skillful design and construction, are key to achieving these commitments. These buildings use up to 90% less energy for heating and cooling, and up to 70% less energy overall, than conventional buildings do.

That's Handel principal Deborah Moelis sitting next to me and watching me dance at the New York Passive House conference in New York City, where I moderated a panel asking "What's Next?" The answer was -- a lot more big Passive House buildings.

In his introduction in the guide, Richard Yancey of the Building Energy Exchange explains that "the proliferation of Passive House building in New York today arose within the context of increasing recognition of the seriousness of climate change." Since 2007 there has been a "cascade of legislative changes" that encourage energy efficiency. Then Superstorm Sandy upped the ante. There are new "energy stretch codes for the city, including a performance-based energy code in 2025 that is expected to have targets similar to those of Passive House."

Scott Short (sitting next to Deborah in the tweet photo), CEO of the RiseBoro community partnership which is building nonprofit Passive House housing projects, noted that it really doesn't cost that much more to build to the Passive House standard, and that as legislated energy codes get tighter, the difference in cost continues to shrink.

 Sendero Verde/ Handel Architects

But even if it costs a little more, it is worth it. As we have noted before, there are significant benefits for the community, developer and the occupants; Dr. Wolfgang Feist, one of the founders of the Passive House movement, wrote in his intro to the guide:

The high-quality construction and attention to detail ensure that Passive house buildings have a long life-cycle, and the ventilation systems found in Passive House buildings provide plentiful fresh, pollen-free and almost dust-free air, providing the best possible indoor air quality. This maximizes comfort and health for all, especially in an urban context where air quality can be a concern. This combination's result is clear: Passive House is the solution for urban contexts.

And after spending two nights in a hotel listening to sirens, garbage trucks and street parties, I would also note that leakproof walls and triple-glazed windows deliver a level of quiet that is pretty good for urban contexts.

More to follow on TreeHugger from Small to Extra Large, Edited by Mary James of Low Carbon Productions.

 From Small to Extra Large
I have been to Jamaica around 50 times. I have been to Mexico more than that number.

Weather is weather. I don't believe you have only great weather in either country. In the past, it seemed to me that I had more bad weather in Mexico. In the last five years, Jamaica has been the place with the most bad weather. It's just the luck of the draw.

Same way with food. Years ago food was much better in Jamaica. That changed quite a few years back. I would give Mexico a higher rating for food overall than Jamaica.

Definitely, in my opinion, Mexico is a better bang for your buck.

I don't always go to higher end resorts but, I do that too. I have been to Secrets, Breathless and Sandals. But, I have been to a lot of other rated resorts, also.

I love both countries. I love vacationing at both countries. I love the overall vibe in Jamaica better than Mexico. I love a little area of Mexico called Akumal for snorkeling better than anywhere in the Caribbean, not just Mexico. There is much to love about each country.

For me, it's not all or nothing. I feel I have the best of both worlds.
Is this doable? My husband, myself and our two teenage daughters have a trip booked for February 2018...we have only booked accommodations with plans of booking excursions and transportation once there. this is what is booked so far:

Day 1: land in San Jose at 2:05pm staying at Hotel Santo Tomas. Planned to check out a local market and no other plans yet

Day 2: travel to La Fortuna to stay at the Tree Houses Hotel Costa Rica for 2 nights. We really want to do some hiking to waterfalls and and hanging bridges

Day 4: travel to Puerto Viejo to stay 2 nights at La Costa de Papito. Here we are hoping to relax on the beach and do some local site seeing

Day 6: travel back to San Jose for one night at the Hotel 1915 to catch our flight home on the morning of day 7.

Would it be better to not go to Puerto Viejo and go to somewhere closer? We are trying to avoid super touristy areas...we want a low key relaxed holiday with a modest budget in mind. We are definitely not a "resort" type family. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated for our first trip to CR.
it is an odd thing, you can look online for any day of the year and it always says the same thing about Costa Rica, rain. I think the weather here is so complicated that their answer is to just mark it down as rain.

Bottom line, nobody knows what the weather will be like until it is happening here. I do not live too far from Tambor, weather the last few days has been nice. IMO no worries, pack a poncho, you will get some rain, but not all the time. Average day this time of year is sunny mornings and rain coming in the late afternoon.
via @learyreports

Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz on Friday filed a resolution calling for the resignation of Robert Mueller, whose investigation into Russian meddling in the election escalated dramatically this week.

It accuses Mueller of having a conflict of interest because he headed the FBI when the Obama administration approved a deal that allows a Russian company to mine uranium in the U.S.

President Donald Trump and conservatives have sought to draw ties to Hillary Clinton and have demanded investigations. Fact checkers, however, have largely discounted the assertions.

"Evidence has emerged that the FBI withheld information from Congress and from the American people about Russian corruption of American uranium companies," said Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach. "A confidential U.S. witness, working in the Russian nuclear industry, revealed that Russia had deeply compromised an American uranium trucking firm through bribery and financial kickbacks.

Read more here.
Thanks so much for your reply! I totally agree about AOL...we were there while Arenal was still active, and we stayed up for hours watching glowing red boulders roaring down the mountainside. Frankly, Arenal is the stop I'm least interested in now because nothing could compare to that! AOL was our big splurge last time, then we spent two weeks in hostels and public buses, haha. We did the popular Arenal, Monteverde, MA itinerary, then continued down to Drake Bay/Corcovado. This time we're torn between favorite spots. Our original plan was to stick to the rain forest this trip, then do the Southern coast and Osa when we bring the family next year. Probably our best bet...I have a reputation for overscheduling!

So yeah, I'm with you on the driving thing...Here's what's up with that. Friends of ours came back raving about Rio Celeste Hideaway. That's actually what made my husband book flights for this trip to begin with, so it's gotta stay. Then I got greedy and thought, hey, spend one morning driving and we could fit in the coast. But it does make for a lot of driving. Hmm. We could go straight from SJO to Tenorio (3.5 hrs), spend 2 days/3 nights, then go from there to the coast (4.5-5 hours) and spend the other 4 days/3 nights. (We also have extra nights on either end of the week already set aside in SJO for arrival/departure) That wouldn't cut down the overall drive time by much, but with longer stays it might be easier to swallow. We don't plan on doing as many tours/activities this time, so either side of the drive times would be plenty of time for relaxing and taking in the area. (I'm clearly trying to talk myself into this, huh?!)
full iternatry for this trip any advice i would like to have a orchid cruise from hanoi the flights were 880 for the two of us return.

@indochinabesttravel.com

Website: http://wwww.indochinabesttravel.com

25 Days Vietnam Tour

Brief itineray

Day 1: 2nd March, 2018: Ho Chi Minh arrival

Day 2: 3rd March, 2018: Ho Chi Minh City Tour  Cu Chi tunnel (B,L)

Day 3: 4th March, 2018: Ho Chi Minh  Mekong Delta (B,L,D)

Day 4: 5th March, 2018: Mekong Delta  HCMC (B,L)

Day 5: 6th March, 2018: HCM  flight to Hanoi (B)

Day 6: 7th March, 2018: Hanoi - City tour (B,L)

Day 7: 8th March, 2018: Hanoi  Ninh Binh (B,L)

Day 8: 9th March, 2018: Hanoi  Halong Bay (B,L,D)

Day 9: 10th March, 2018: Halong Bay  Hanoi  night train to Sapa (B,L)

Day 10: 11 March, 2018: Sapa - Bac Ha Market (B,L,D)

Day 11: 12th March, 2018: Sapa Village  Night train back to Hanoi (B,L,D)

Day 12: 13th March, 2018: Hanoi arrival  flight to Hue (B)

Day 13: 14th March, 2018: Hue City Tour (B,L)

Day 14: 15th March, 2018: Hue  VIP bus to Hoian (B)

Day 15: 16th March, 2018: Hoian My Son Hollyland Tour  Hoian tour (B,L)

Day 16: 17th March, 2018: Hoian at leisure on beach (B)

Day 17: 18th March, 2018: Hoian at leisure on beach (B)

Day 18: 19th March, 2018: Hoian at leisure on beach (B)

Day 19: 20th March, 2018: Hoian at leisure on beach (B)

Day 20: 21st March, 2018: Hoian at leisure on beach (B)

Day 21: 22nd March, 2018: Hoian at leisure on beach (B)

Day 22: 23rd March, 2018: Hoian at leisure on beach (B)

Day 23: 24th March, 2018: Hoian at leisure on beach (B)

Day 24: 25th March, 2018: Hoian  flight back to HCMC (B)

Day 25: 26th March, 2018: Ho Chi Minh departure (B)

Itineray in detail

Day 1: 2nd March, 2018: Ho Chi Minh arrival

Arrival HCMC, driver pick up you at airport to hotel to check in. Overnigth at hotel in Ho Chi Minh.

Beautiful Saigon Boutique Hotel: Standard pool view room

Web: http://beautifulsaigonboutiquehotel.com/

Day 2: 3rd March, 2018: Ho Chi Minh City Tour  Cu Chi tunnel  group tour (B,L)

08 AM: HCM City

We start the trip by visiting Notre Dame Cathedral, the historic Central Post Office, followed by exploring the Reunification Palace, and the remarkable site of the War Remnants Museum, (optional Ben Thanh Market - only drop off).

INDOCHINA BEST TRAVEL

Office: No 9 Thien Quang, Hai Ba Trung Dist, Hanoi, Vietnam

Tel: +84 4 66725858

Hotline: +84 972 620 003

Email: sale@indochinabesttravel.com

Website: http://wwww.indochinabesttravel.com

PM: Cu Chi Tunnels

Located 60km from HCMC, Cu Chi is now a popular spot for both Vietnamese & foreign tourists - the network of over 200km of tunnels became legendary when they played a vital role in the War. In their heyday, the tunnels were functioning underground cities including numerous trap doors, specially constructed living areas, storage facilities, weapons factories, field hospitals, command centers & kitchens.

Today, ducks and water buffalos happily co-exist in the rivers along the side of the road. However, the peaceful rural rice paddy scenery belies the areas violent history. Visitors will find it hard to imagine the destruction, damage & defoliation over this whole area, caused by bombing and mines. There is plenty of evidence of the fierce battle that took place here during the 1960s when Cu Chi was a "Free Target Zone".

Start our tour in the morning, before entering the tunnels visitors can watch a short introductory video showing how the tunnels were constructed. You will spend the next hour exploring the tunnels. Afterwards, enjoy tea, cassava (guerrillas food during the war). Return to Sai Gon. Overnight at hotel in Saigon

Beautiful Saigon Boutique Hotel: Standard pool view room

Web: http://beautifulsaigonboutiquehotel.com/

Day 3: 4th March, 2018: Ho Chi Minh  Mekong Delta  group tour (B,L,D)

08:00 AM: Leave Ho Chi Minh city, enjoy the scenic journey along the National Highway bordered by green rice fields. On arrived at My Tho, visit Vinh Trang pagoda, take a leisurely boat ride along the river, view stilt houses, fruit plantations and fishing villages along the river bank. Proceed to Tortoise islet, have lunch in the orchard garden. Then a boat ride to An Khanh  a less touristy attraction in Ben Tre, enjoy cruising on a hand-rowed sampan under the shade of the water coconut trees along natural canals, then enjoy seasonal fruit & honey tea to the sound of "Southern Vietnamese folk music", performed by the locals. Visit a family business which epitomizes the idyllic rural lifestyle, taste delicious coconut candy & observe the pastoral life as you roam through fruit plantations and villages. Proceed to Can Tho. Overnight in the hotel (family home-stay with dinner can be arranged on request). Free time to visit bustling Can Tho market. Overnight at hotel in Can Tho  Hau Giang Hotel

Day 4: 5th March, 2018: Mekong Delta  HCMC - group tour (B,L)

Take a leisurely boat trip to explore the picturesque tributaries of the Lower Mekong river (Bassac River), then proceed to visit Cai Rang floating market, which are the liveliest in the whole religion.

Have you ever tasted Vietnamese vermicelli soup? Well, now go and see how it is made. Then wander around the village and meet the friendly local people and experience how to

INDOCHINA BEST TRAVEL

Office: No 9 Thien Quang, Hai Ba Trung Dist, Hanoi, Vietnam

Tel: +84 4 66725858

Hotline: +84 972 620 003

Email: sale@indochinabesttravel.com

Website: http://wwww.indochinabesttravel.com

cross a "Monkey bridge" which is built by only one stem of bamboo. Visit the orchard garden. Stop for lunch. Back to HCM city.

Beautiful Saigon Boutique Hotel: Standard pool view room

Web: http://beautifulsaigonboutiquehotel.com/

Day 5: 6th March, 2018: HCM  flight to Hanoi (B)

Breakfat at hotel, you are free until driver come to pick up then transfer to airpot for flight to Hanoi. Arrival Hanoi, pick up then tranfser to hotel to relax.

Angel Palace Hotel: Deluxe Room Add: 173 Hang Bong, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi, Vietnam W: http://www.angelpalacehotel.com.vn

Day 6: 7th March, 2018: Hanoi - City tour - group tour (B,L)

07:45 - 08:30: Tour guide picks you up at suggested places in the Old Quarter. Start the trip with Tran Quoc Pagoda, a buddhist relic and national heritage lying on the West Lake. Visit Ho Chi Minhs Mausoleum, the final resting place of Vietnam s greatest father; his house-on-stilt and One Pillar Pagoda  modeled after a lotus flower, a symbol of Hanoi. Arrive Ethnology Museum to learn about cultures of 54 ethnic groups living in Vietnam.

13:00: Have a rest and enjoy lunch in a local restaurant in Hanoi Old Quarter.

Visit Temple of Literature constructed in 1070  dedicated to Confusius, sages and talented scholars. It is the most famous temple in Hanoi, also functioning as Vietnams first university. Leave for a legendary Hoan Kiem lake and Ngoc Son Temple dedicated to a former general commander Tran Hung Dao for his struggle against Mongolians.

16:00: Arrive back in your hotel. Tour ends.

Angel Palace Hotel: Deluxe Room Add: 173 Hang Bong, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi, Vietnam W: http://www.angelpalacehotel.com.vn

Day 7: 8th March, 2018: Hanoi  Ninh Binh - group tour (B,L)

Ninh Binh, the best choice for tourists for short time travelling, with dozens of must-see sites and increasingly upgraded services, now draws more and more attention to its tourism activities. This day tour includes religious worship, boating, history and excavation learning and an optional choice for who loves biking.

07:45 - 08:30: Tour guide picks you up at suggested places around the Old Quarter. Depart for Ninh Binh Province (90km south of Hanoi). Have a break 20 minutes en-route to free your legs. Arrive at Hoa Lu, which is once depicted the ancient capital of Viet Nam, settled

INDOCHINA BEST TRAVEL

Office: No 9 Thien Quang, Hai Ba Trung Dist, Hanoi, Vietnam

Tel: +84 4 66725858

Hotline: +84 972 620 003

Email: sale@indochinabesttravel.com

Website: http://wwww.indochinabesttravel.com

up in the 10th century. Visit temples of two dynasties of Dinh and Le with a very unique architectures in the old time.

12:30 Have lunch in a restaurant

14:00 Visit Trang An ecological tourist site with a boat trip through cave chains: Sang cave, Toi cave.

19:30 Arrive in Hanoi. Tour ends.

Day 8: 9th March, 2018: Hanoi  Halong Bay - group tour (B,L,D)

08:00 - 08h30: Our shuttle bus will pick-up at hotel and start the scenic, 3.5 hour drive to Halong Bay. Enjoy the landscape of the Red River Delta country side and have a short break on the way.

12h00  12h30: Embark on VSpirit Classic Cruise followed by a short cruise briefing

13h00  15h30: Savor a delectable lunch as VSpirit Classic Cruises among the limestone islands

15h30  16h30: Visit around the Luon Cave area.

16h30: Back to the VSpirit Classic Cruise

16h30  17h30: Cruise to Soi Sim Island. Go swimming and relaxing at the beach of Soi Sim or climp up to the top of the island for a panorama view of Halong Bay

17h30: Return to the main boat for a shower. Relax or snap photos as the sun starts to set

19h00: Dinner is served. Socialize with other guests, fish for squid, or just laze around

Overnight on board.

Vspirit Cruise: Deluxe Cabin Web: http://www.vspiritcruises.com/

Day 9: 10th March, 2018: Halong Bay  Hanoi  night train to Sapa - group tour (B,L)

06h30  07h15: Start your day with Tai Chi exercises or a photo hunt.

07h30  08h30: Have breakfast on board and enjoy the peaceful morning of Halong Bay.

09h00  10h00: Kayak around the Luon Cave.

10h15: Return to the boat. Freshen up and check out of your cabin.

10h15  11h00: Continue your cruise exploring the Bay, passing Ba Hang fishing village, Dog Islet, and more.

11h00  12h15: While heading back to the harbor, watch the fruit carving demonstration and participate in the Cooking Class before enjoying a traditional Vietnamese lunch.

12h15  12h30: Disembark VSpirit Classic.

12h30  13h00: Transfer back to Hanoi.

Trip finishes at around 17h00. Drop off at your hotel in Hanoi

Until 08:30 PM. Our staff will come to pick up you to station to take night train to Sapa. Overnight on train

King Express train ( sharing 4-berth cabin)

INDOCHINA BEST TRAVEL

Office: No 9 Thien Quang, Hai Ba Trung Dist, Hanoi, Vietnam

Tel: +84 4 66725858

Hotline: +84 972 620 003

Email: sale@indochinabesttravel.com

Website: http://wwww.indochinabesttravel.com

Day 10: 11 March, 2018: Sapa - Bac Ha Market - group tour (B,L,D)

Located at 110km from Sapa, Bac Ha mountain town is well-known by travelers with the most colorful market of the hill tribes in the North of Vietnam. This every-Sunday-market attended by at least 8 ethnic groups and last from 9:00 AM until 2:00 PM. It is also chance for tourists to discover the Hmong Kings palace (old building built by the French & Chinese).

In the afternoon, we go for a light trek to visit Ban Pho, the village is home to flower Hmong minority. We are invited to enter several local houses to have some green tea, corn wine, listen to the host talking about their family, talk to them and then enjoy landscapes on a roundabout way to Bac Ha for get back to Lao Cai to continue up to Sapa

Sapa Paronama or Visat Hotel: Deluxe Room

Day 11: 12th March, 2018: Sapa Village  Night train back to Hanoi - group tour (B,L,D)

6km of walking down to the south east of Sapa along the side of Muong Hoa valley to Y Linh Ho village of the Black Hmong. A 2km-trekking down to Lao Chai village, through terraced rice fields to Ta Van village of the Dzay minority people. Lunch at a local family, it gives you a worth chance for you to learn about the local house architecture which is full of their daily life styles and exclusive custom. Enjoy the landscapeson the way. Get back to Sapa by Car

Then take bus to Lao cai station

Overnight on train ( King express train)

Day 12: 13th March, 2018: Hanoi arrival  flight to Hue (B)

Arrival Hanoi in the morning, you will move to A25 Hotel in Tran Quy Cap street near station to relax and have breakfast. After that driver come hotel pick up you to airport for flight to Hue. Overnight at hotel in Hue

Serene Shining Hotel: Double/Twin room

http://sereneshininghotel.com/index.htm

Day 13: 14th March, 2018: Hue City Tour - group tour (B,L)

8: 00- 8h15: You will be picked up at your hotel

8: 15: Sightseeing in Hue city

By car: The car will bring you to visit another famous places in Hue city Tours:

+ Imperial Citadel: The home of Vietnams last royal dynasty- the Nguyen Dynasty.

INDOCHINA BEST TRAVEL

Office: No 9 Thien Quang, Hai Ba Trung Dist, Hanoi, Vietnam

Tel: +84 4 66725858

Hotline: +84 972 620 003

Email: sale@indochinabesttravel.com

Website: http://wwww.indochinabesttravel.com

+ The royal Antiques Museum: A gallery of antiques displaying collection of bronze pottery, Chinaware, Phap Lam enamel, court robes, head- gear and personal belongings of former Vietnam Emperors of Nguyen Dynasty.

+ Dong Ba market: The biggest commercial center of Hue city. All of the most special cultural gifts and souvernirs can be found in Dong Ba market.

12: 00 pm: the interesting thing in Hue city tours that you can. Enjoy the lunch at local restaurant with Hue specialty cakes: banh Beo, banh khoai, nem lui, banh cuon thit heo, nem ran

Relax 20 minutes

After that were continue to visit the Emperors Tomb, conical hat village and incense stick making village.

Khai Dinh tomb: The tomb of emperor Khai Dinh ( 1885-1925 ) the 12th King of Nguyen dynasty.

Minh Mang tomb: The tomb of emperor Minh Mang (1791-1841) the 2nd King of Nguyen dynasty.

Conical hat village: To see and learn how the locals make the conical hat ( non la). ( Non la- traditional indispensable accessory expressing the hidden charm and simplicity of women).

Incense stick making village: Observe how locals make sandalwood and cinnamon incense

4:00pm  4:30 pm: Tour end

Serene Shining Hotel: Double/Twin room

http://sereneshininghotel.com/index.htm

Day 14: 15th March, 2018: Hue  VIP bus to Hoian (B)

Breakfast at hotel

VIP Bus: Hue to Hoian departure at 08:00 AM  arrival Hoian at 13:30 ( Pick up and drop off at hotel, on the way stop at Thanh Toan brigde, Lang Co Beach, Hai Van pass, Ngu Hanh Son  If you want to visit you can buy entrace fee)

Overnight at hotel in Hoian

THE BEACH  LITTLE BOUTIQUE HOTEL & SPA

A: 19 Lac Long Quan, Hoi An, Quang Nam

Web: http://littlehoianbeach.com/

Day 15: 16th March, 2018: Hoian My Son Hollyland Tour  Hoian tour - group tour (B,L)

AM: 7:30  8:00: The bus and tour guide pick you up at your hotel (in Hoi An ancient town area) leaving Hoi An for My Son HolyLand. Return to Hoian by bus/boat. Have lunch. PM: Walk to the old town, buy entrance tickets and begin the tour. Start visiting the Temple Kwan, Phuc Kien Temple, Tan Ky Ancient House, Phung Hung house, Japanese Bridge and

INDOCHINA BEST TRAVEL

Office: No 9 Thien Quang, Hai Ba Trung Dist, Hanoi, Vietnam

Tel: +84 4 66725858

Hotline: +84 972 620 003

Email: sale@indochinabesttravel.com

Website: http://wwww.indochinabesttravel.com

cultural show rooms in Hoi An. After your walking tour If you have free time, you can do shopping at the old town. Guide will take you back to the hotel. End of program

THE BEACH  LITTLE BOUTIQUE HOTEL & SPA

A: 19 Lac Long Quan, Hoi An, Quang Nam

Web: http://littlehoianbeach.com/

Day 16: 17th March, 2018: Hoian at leisure on beach (B)

Breakfast at hotel- You are free to relax on the beach

THE BEACH  LITTLE BOUTIQUE HOTEL & SPA

A: 19 Lac Long Quan, Hoi An, Quang Nam

Web: http://littlehoianbeach.com/

Day 17: 18th March, 2018: Hoian at leisure on beach (B)

Breakfast at hotel- You are free to relax on the beach

THE BEACH  LITTLE BOUTIQUE HOTEL & SPA

A: 19 Lac Long Quan, Hoi An, Quang Nam

Web: http://littlehoianbeach.com/

Day 18: 19th March, 2018: Hoian at leisure on beach (B)

Breakfast at hotel- You are free to relax on the beach

THE BEACH  LITTLE BOUTIQUE HOTEL & SPA

A: 19 Lac Long Quan, Hoi An, Quang Nam

Web: http://littlehoianbeach.com/

Day 19: 20th March, 2018: Hoian at leisure on beach (B)

Breakfast at hotel- You are free to relax on the beach

THE BEACH  LITTLE BOUTIQUE HOTEL & SPA

A: 19 Lac Long Quan, Hoi An, Quang Nam

Web: http://littlehoianbeach.com/

Day 20: 21st March, 2018: Hoian at leisure on beach (B)

Breakfast at hotel- You are free to relax on the beach

THE BEACH  LITTLE BOUTIQUE HOTEL & SPA

A: 19 Lac Long Quan, Hoi An, Quang Nam

Web: http://littlehoianbeach.com/

Day 21: 22nd March, 2018: Hoian at leisure on beach (B)

INDOCHINA BEST TRAVEL

Office: No 9 Thien Quang, Hai Ba Trung Dist, Hanoi, Vietnam

Tel: +84 4 66725858

Hotline: +84 972 620 003

Email: sale@indochinabesttravel.com

Website: http://wwww.indochinabesttravel.com

Breakfast at hotel- You are free to relax on the beach

THE BEACH  LITTLE BOUTIQUE HOTEL & SPA

A: 19 Lac Long Quan, Hoi An, Quang Nam

Web: http://littlehoianbeach.com/

Day 22: 23rd March, 2018: Hoian at leisure on beach (B)

Breakfast at hotel- You are free to relax on the beach

THE BEACH  LITTLE BOUTIQUE HOTEL & SPA

A: 19 Lac Long Quan, Hoi An, Quang Nam

Web: http://littlehoianbeach.com/

Day 23: 24th March, 2018: Hoian at leisure on beach (B)

Breakfast at hotel- You are free to relax on the beach

THE BEACH  LITTLE BOUTIQUE HOTEL & SPA

A: 19 Lac Long Quan, Hoi An, Quang Nam

Web: http://littlehoianbeach.com/

Day 24: 25th March, 2018: Hoian  flight back to HCMC (B)

Breakfast at hotel then transfer to airport for flight to Ho Chi Minh. Pick up then transfer to hotel to check in.

Beautiful Saigon Boutique Hotel: Standard pool view room

Web: http://beautifulsaigonboutiquehotel.com/

Day 25: 26th March, 2018: Ho Chi Minh departure (B)

Breakfast at hotel  check out time at 12:00 noon.You are free until 16:30PM, driver come hotel to pick up then tranfser you to airport for flight back home. End of services.

Price in US Dollar for per person: 1,395 USD/person ( based on group tour)

Trip Included:

 Transportation with air-conditioned

 Accommodation

 Meals as mentioned

 Boat trips in Mekong Delta, Hue, Halong

 English speaking guide on tour

 Entrance fees to indicated sights

 Flights: Ho Chi Minh Hanoi - Hue, Dananang - Ho Chi Minh
Wow, you will be busy. At Osaka take a meal by the canal at Dotonbori. We had a wonderful meal for my Wife's birthday in September with a table right next to the canal.

Try find an extra day for Kyoto---day trip to Nara, day at Arashiyama and Nishike Market and another day to explore a few temples.

In Miyajima there are some wonderful oyster restaurants , and many of them !!!

When hiking back down from Mount Misen do not take the path that passes by Daishjion Templke as there are 1000's of concrete steps and we could hardly walk the next day. There are two other trails.
Nara is within 1 hour from either Osaka or Kyoto by frequent commuter trains.

Check on hyperdia.com for train schedules.

Your timeline is early in general even for large ski resorts in the JP Alps, let alone the smaller ones in a lower elevation in Kinki area. Nevertheless, Mt Rokko and Biwako Valley are the nearest at about 1000m. Monitor their websites if they're open or not upon arrival, though they might use artificial snow.

search on snowjapan.com for more info.
Hi peeps,I'm travelling to Zanzibar in two weeks and was wondering if the Madagascar issue regarding illness has affected Zanzibar or not.. It's a trip of lifetime for me.. Born there never gone back.. Any info would be much appreciated. Thanks
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M. Scott Miller's night-scapes might be the perfect paintings for November, when the sun is setting earlier.

Miller, whose work has been featured on the covers of the New Yorker, works in gauche and acrylic, rendering scenes on Higgins Avenue, like people leaving the Wilma, with soft-edged lines that suites the kinetic palette.

Miller has an opening at Murphy-Jubb Fine Art on Friday from 5 to 8 p.m. The gallery also is showing watercolors by Kendahl Jan Jubb and James Hoffman, plus pastels by Arthur Herring. Stan Anglen of Tulsa, Oklahoma, will provide original music.

The gallery is located at 210 N. Higgins Ave. For more information, call 406-728-7050 or go to kendahljanjubb.com.

***

Elsewhere on First Friday, there's chances to see what University of Montana art students have been working on.

The Clay Studio of Missoula is featuring a wide range of work, whether pottery or sculpture, in its UM Graduate & Post Baccalaureate Student Exhibit. It's the third time they've hosted the exhibition, which is held every other year.

Studio director Shalene Valenzuela said the show reflects the wide range of work that's produced in the program. Some students enroll at UM specifically to learn from Julia Galloway, a master of functional pottery who's widely known in the ceramics world. Some enroll in the graduate program and are encouraged to explore new directions, she said.

"They're challenged to push things further," she said. "They're challenged to re-examine the work and ask why they're making the work they do, and they're getting feedback from different points of view."

The show also underscores the symbiotic relationship between UM and the nonprofit studio, which was founded by graduates.

The studio's second-year resident artists give demonstrations and lectures on campus, for instance. After students graduate, they often seek out residencies or studio space at the center  ceramics requires equipment and space that's cost-prohibitive for entry-level artists.

Ryan Embry studied at Montana State University with slip-casting phenom Jeremy Hatch and functional expressionist potter Josh DeWeese. Stephanie Dishno sculpts large-scale figurative work that examines society and sex. Dean Leeper pursues functional pottery and Cori Crumrine experiments with sculptural work.

The exhibiting artists are MFA candidates Ryan Caldwell, Crumrine, Dishno, Leeper, and Molly Streiff. There are three post-baccalaureates, Embry, Michael McCollough, and Maya Moen, who've completed their bachelor's degrees but want to continue developing their portfolios.

The opening reception is Friday, Nov. 3, from 5:30 to 9 p.m. The work will be on display through the end of November. For more information, go to theclaystudioofmissoula.org.

***

A new art collective of University of Montana students are hosting a group show on First Friday.

The Over Medium Collective envisions their garage-turned gallery as "a small alternative art space," said member Erin Langely, "akin to FrontierSpace but a little more DIY."

Both are senior BFA candidates at the University of Montana. Humble's lately been bridging out from painting into sculpture, with found objects and an emphasis on color and texture. Langely has moved from abstract painting into a more sculptural manner, with aggressive surface textures, expressive brush work and a loud palette.

Langely and co-founder Padyn Humble likely will show work, along with submissions from students and community members, including UM-Western art professor Tyler Nansen.

The other members are Jon Green, Jordan Chesnut, Logan Prichard and Josh Masais. (He'll have live electronic music under the name his DJ name, Milky Way.)

They said it's often difficult for younger artists to find spaces to show their work, so the collective could be a vehicle for themselves and others. They've had one show so far, plus a FreeCycles event, but likely won't have any more until spring, unless they find an alternative venue.

They hope artists "recognize this as a place where people can show work that won't necessarily be shown at other spaces," Humble said, whether it's because of the installation nature of the piece or its content. They'd like to get to a point where they can host a show by an individual artist.

"Pre/Occupied" will run from 5 to 9 p.m. First Friday only at "The Love Den," located at 708 S. Sixth St. W. in the alley between Walnut and Hickory streets. You can follow them at Overmedium_project on Instagram.

***

At Gallery 709 in Montana Art and Framing, two recent transplants to Missoula are sharing paintings.

Married couple Terra Chapman and Maurilio Malone met in Italy, where Malone grew up and where they both were studying art.

Chapman was an instructor at the Barcelona Academy of Art, Spain, and was directed its of anatomy curriculum. As you can see in her art, she's a skillful observer of the complex human form, and the two have taught a life-drawing course at Montana Art and Framing.

Their First Friday opening is from 5 to 9 p.m. at the gallery, located at 709 Ronan St. The work will be up through November.
- Kenyans have made their voices heard online after opposition resistance wing NRM, announced a list of companies supporters should boycott

- Aside from telecommunication company Safaricom, the coalition also said supporters should avoid all products manufactured by Bidco Industries and Brookside Dairies.

- The announcement comes after NASA leader Raila Odinga vowed to rally his supporters to boycott several companies affiliated with the Jubilee regime

- Kenyans have however identified some loopholes in the directive which makes the resistance of the mentioned companies virtually impossible

Kenyans online have erupted with hard-lined questions following the National Resistance Movements directive to boycott several companies in their quest for economic freedom.

As TUKO.co.ke had earlier reported, opposition MPs led by Mbita MP Millie Odhiambo called for the resistance of telecommunication giant Safaricom, Brookside dairies and Bidco Oil Refineries.

Brookside Dairies is owned by the Kenyatta family and manufactures Brookside milk as well as Molo Milk and Delamere milk which NASA said must be boycotted by their supporters.

Mbita MP Millie Odhiambo on Friday, November 3 listed three companies supporters should boycott in mass resistance movement. Photo: TUKO

READ ALSO: Joho doesn't love Raila, he only pretends to-Mohamed Ali

The announcement evoked numerous reactions from Kenyans online across the political divide with varying opinions on the entire issue.

Some online users perceived to be ardent Jubilee supporters laughed off the directive as an uphill task that could not be achieved.

Antony: PLEASE CLARIFY...Alafu if I support Raila and I work at Safaricom, Bidco or Brokside, should I quit my job? If so, which one of your Waheshimiwa homes should I bring my family to eat at?

READ ALSO: Raila unveils National Resistance Movement (NRM) official gear

Bernard Lubega You are just crippling your economy. What will you inherit when you get chance to win an election in future?? Do you want to find a disfunctioning economy just like what uganda was 30yrs ago?? What a pity for NASA to give such a piece of advice to hard working men and women of Kenya.

Sarah Njeri Ths sound funny hahahaa ....wat abt wale wanafanya safaricom and mpesa waah aki rao

Julius Mureithi so if they go to a hotel they have to ask if tea is made in brookeside milk n chapati fried in kimbo fat?ujinga wa mwisho

Minoo Clare NASA please 'create employment' by advising your supporters working in the said companies to resign

Jay Cool Maaly hehehehehe.....boycott my foot....wafutwe kazi pia ama waresign from this companies.......baba naye amezeeka

Steven Odhiambo Hii mambo ya siasa inachosha! Can't we find something productive to do with our lives?

Mutua Giovanna Nasa militia members waresign from those company's tuamini they mean it

Carol Njeri All these NASA MPs including raila are on jubilee government payroll, let them boycott taking their salaries first before they misuse the poor Kenyans, petty n selfish, mtu amekuwa akicheza loto na line ya Safaricom anangojea kupigiwa kasimu alafu uniambie nitupe hiyo line,lala uote tena.

For some die-hard opposition supporters, they vowed to uphold the directive

Joshua Paul We have already resisted, Baba's words automatically becomes law, if baba tells me to jump down timestower building, i'll do so without question

Douglas Monari It cannot work. They will fail completely.

Dennis Dennoh Junior i think safari com should freeze their contact with immediate effect also..

Oile Milton We shall boycott everything so long as Baba av spoken

Have anything to add to this article or suggestions? Share with us on news@tuko.co.ke

40% of Kenyans are unemployed and things are not getting better :

Source: TUKO.co.ke
- NASA Leaders from the Coast region have began plans to separate from the rest of Kenya

- They said they have already contacted lawyers to help do the legal work ahead of the secession plans

- The politicians said the move is driven by the fact that past and present governments have ignored the region

- The local leaders have always claimed that the Coastal strip was gifted to Kenya by the Sultan of Zanzibar during independence

Coast region NASA leaders have renewed the secession debate and declared they have already set in motion plans to break away from the rest of the country.

Led by Kilifi Governor Amason Kingi and his Mombasa counterpart Hassan Joho, the leaders said they have already consulted with both local and international lawyers in an attempt to legally separate from the rest of Kenya.

We have agreed that we will use all legal ways to ensure that our right to secede becomes real. This is not just a journey by politicians, we will begin talking with Coast residents so that they can be behind us, said Kingi.

Kingi says Coast region NASA leaders will launch plans to secede from Kenya.Photo:Youtube.

READ ALSO: List of companies that NASA says supporters should boycott

Speaking during a press conference on Friday, November 3, the governor said the leaders will hold several meetings with elders, the youth, churches, Muslims and all religious leaders in the Coast ahead of the separation plans.

Kingi said the plan is to have everyone in the Coast region participate in the discussion adding that the leaders are ready to face the challenges that will come with the plan.

Joho on his part said the beginning of a consultative process will enable the region realize that ambition of being able to secede as a region.

He added that already, a team has been set up to help fast track the legal process to aid in the secession.

READ ALSO: NASA outlines companies to boycott in resistance move but Kenyans are skeptical

Joho says the leaders have contracted local and international lawyers for the secession plan.Photo:Nation.

READ ALSO: NASA MPs throng Airtel shop to change services as boycott of Safaricom begins

Today, we have also picked a lean team to be led by three people to be able to draw a legal road map. From today, we will be going back to the people so that we are able to tell them that if people have chosen to ignore our voices, we must find another way to be heard, added Joho.

He said past governments and the present one have failed to listen to the Coast region.

The breakaway debate comes amidst plans by NASA to employ various ways to take on the Jubilee regime.

READ ALSO: Raila unveils National Resistance Movement (NRM) official gear

Already, the Opposition has released a list of companies which it says are affiliated with the government and whose products the NASA supporters should boycott.

The Coast session debate has erupted several times with local leaders saying the Sultan of Zanzibar gave the region to Kenya during Independence.

The leaders had earlier said they will push for separation should the IEBC go ahead to hold the October 26 poll in which President Uhuru Kenyatta was announced winner.

Kenyans speak after recent political crisis

Source: TUKO.co.ke
- Supreme Court of Kenya invalidated the reelection victory of Uhuru Kenyatta and called for fresh election

- The historic ruling has sent shivers down the spines of Africa heads of State who are known to cling on power and manipulate their victories

- Zambia president Edgar Lungu has warned the country's judiciary against using the Kenyan case to deny him chance to run for reelection

Zambian President Edgar Lungu on Thursday, November 2 issued a stern warning to the country's judiciary against blocking him from seeking reelection in the 2021 elections.

Lungu based his warning on the historic Supreme Court of Kenya ruling of September 1 in which President Uhuru Kenyatta's reelection was invalidated.

Information that TUKO.co.ke has gathered shows Lungu arguieng that blocking him from running in the election would plunge Zambia into chaos.

Zambia president Edgar Lungu. Photo: Nation

READ ALSO: Raila Odinga is extorting companies in the name of economic boycott - William Ruto

I want to make it very clear. People are saying Zambian courts should emulate Kenyan courts. People are saying Zambian courts should be brave and make decisions which are in the interest of the people  but look at whats happening in Kenya now," he said.

After Kenyatta's victory was invalidated, violent protests erupted across the country as the Opposition demanded for reforms at the electoral body before repeat poll.

Scores were killed and injured as opposition supporters clashed with police officers who had been deployed to calm the situation.

READ ALSO: Mike Sonko swiftly responds after public outcry over infiltration of hawkers in Nairobi CBD

According to Zambia's The Citizen, should Lungu go on to present himself for the election, there would arise a litany of legal questions would arise challenging that decision.

The Opposition has demanded that he leaves office as he would have constitutionally served his legal two terms.

President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy display their certificates after being declared winner of repeat election. Photo: PSCU

Whether I am eligible to stand or not in 2021 should not be dependent on the case in Kenya, he added.

READ ALSO: Is Raila Odinga's resistance movement facing opposition from within?

In Kenya, the judges of the Supreme Court who invalidated Kenyatta's win were viciously attacked by the President and his Jubilee Party terming them crooks.

Kenyatta later won the repeat election held on October 26 but his bitter rival Raila Odinga did not participate as he had already pulled out of the race.

Currently, a political stalemate is still raging with Odinga leading his supporters in engaging in economic sabotage.

NASA supporters asked to boycott Safaricom, Brookside and Bidco-on TUKO TV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
The Ministry of Health is reminding the public of the dos and donts when it comes to dealin
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U.S. Commerce Department officials have ruled that Canada unfairly subsidizes the cost of logs it provides to Canadian timber companies, setting the stage for new tariffs on wood imports to the United States.

If the decision announced Thursday is approved by the International Trade Commission in December, Canadian companies would have to pay an average 20 percent tariff on the value of softwood delivered to U.S. customers. The move also increases pressure on negotiators of a new softwood lumber agreement between the United States and Canada.

Weve been waiting for this, said Sherm Anderson of Sun Mountain Lumber in Deer Lodge. It shows the Commerce Department agrees with what we the lumber producers have been trying to tell them, that there was an export violation, and their government does subsidize their industry. Now either the ITC rules in December that we can impose the tax, or it drives the Canadians back to the table for an agreement thats permanent.

The Canadian government warned it might seek legal sanctions of its own through the North American Free Trade Agreement or the World Trade Organization.

The U.S. Department of Commerces decision on punitive countervailing and anti-dumping duties against Canadas softwood lumber producers is unfair, unwarranted and deeply troubling, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said in a joint statement published on the Vancouver Sun news website.

We urge the U.S. administration to rescind these duties, which harm workers and communities in Canada. These duties are a tax on American middle class families, too, whose homes, renovations and repairs will only be more expensive.

A previous softwood lumber agreement expired in 2015, although it was provisionally extended for a year to work out a new deal. The moratorium on trade litigation ran out in October 2016, and U.S. lumber interests started calling for trade sanctions on Canadian wood. President Donald Trump imposed a 20 percent import tax on Canadian softwood lumber in April.

We are pleased the U.S. government is enforcing our trade laws so that the U.S. lumber industry can compete on a level playing field, U.S. Lumber Coalition co-chairman Jason Brochu wrote in an email statement. The massive subsidies the Canadian government provides to their lumber industries have caused real harm to U.S. producers and their workers. With a fair-trade environment, the U.S. industry, and the 350,000 hardworking men and women who support it, have the ability to grow production to meet much more of our countrys softwood lumber demand.

The past 12 months have been a roller coaster for the North American lumber market. Anderson said after the softwood agreement talks collapsed last October, Canadian firms upped their exports by about 30 percent while the agreements price controls were deactivated. That drove down lumber prices for a while, until Trumps border tax went in place. Canadian wood prices grew by the amount of the tax, and U.S. lumber producers raised their prices as well.

U.S. construction also started growing, both with new housing starts and the surge of repair and remodel work triggered by a summer filled with hurricanes and tornado damage. Then came fire season.

They burned 3 million or 4 million acres up in British Columbia, Anderson said. They had to shut some mills down completely because they put all their workforce out fighting fires on the crown (government-owned) land. Some of those mills were located right amongst those fires. That drove the markets up to where were at today.

U.S. customers bought about $5.6 billion worth of Canadian lumber in 2016. Canadian-based companies also own about a third of the lumber production in the U.S. Southeast, where most American lumber is grown and milled.
An adviser to the Severodonetsk mayor and a town council deputy from the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko (BPP) faction, Serhiy Samarsky, has been killed, Head of Luhansk Regional State Administration Yuriy Harbuz has said.

"The head of the BPP's Solidarity faction in Severodonetsk Town Council, public figure Serhiy Samarsky, was killed yesterday evening. Urgent investigative actions are currently underway," he wrote on Facebook.

"The finding and prosecution of the perpetrators is the duty of law enforcement agencies and our duty to Serhiy's memory. I offer my condolences to his loved ones!" Harbuz said.

A source at the main office of the National Police in Luhansk region earlier told Ukrinform that Samarsky's body had been found near his house.

"[Samarsky] left an executive committee [meeting] at 19.00, called his wife, said that he would go home to eat, change his clothes, and go to [participate in a program on] Luhansk regional television. He did not come home and the call was ended. Given the confrontation and the fact that he was nominated for Butkov's place, his wife called the police, and the searches for the missing gave the result. At about 23.35 he was found in the courtyard at his own house with signs of violent death: traces of the struggle and the head hit with a brick," the source said.

Samarsky, an opponent of former President Viktor Yanukovych's regime, a deputy of the town council of the previous convocation, suffered from terrorists in 2014 (he spent several weeks in captivity).

In 2015, he was elected from the BPP. A few months ago, he was appointed an adviser to the mayor. After the town council secretary, the leader of the Opposition Bloc faction, entrepreneur Ihor Butkov, was dismissed, Samarsky was considered as a major candidate for the post of secretary.

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Polish law enforcement officers arrested a suspect in the murder of a Ukrainian citizen in Gdansk on Thursday, November 2.

The man was detained while trying to leave Poland for Ukraine at the Medyka-Shehyni checkpoint, Gdansk police spokesperson Karina Kaminska told an Ukrinform correspondent on Friday.

"A 38-year-old Ukrainian citizen, who is suspected of having a connection with this murder, was detained at the Medyka checkpoint yesterday. Now he is being taken to Gdansk," Kaminska said.

According to her, upon arrival in Gdansk, the suspect in the murder will be placed in a detention facility and tomorrow the court will consider a petition about his arrest.

Kaminska noted that the suspect in the murder faces life imprisonment or imprisonment for 25 years.

The spokesperson also said that one of the four Ukrainians detained earlier had already been released and that other people would be released in the near future. She noted that the men had been questioned as witnesses and that no charges were brought against them.

A conflict broke out between several men on the outskirts of Gdansk at about 18.30 Kyiv time on Wednesday, November 1. One of them took a knife and stabbed one of his companions, fleeing the scene. Doctors tried to rescue the victim, but later reported his death.

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Russian-backed militants launched 16 attacks on positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in ATO area in Donbas in last day.

This is reported by the ATO press center.

"Over the past day, illegal armed groups violated the ceasefire 16 times. The Ukrainian Armed Forces opened fire on the enemy 13 times. As a result of the fighting, one Ukrainian soldier was wounded," the statement reads.

In Donetsk direction, Russian-backed militants used different types of grenade launchers and small arms guns to fire at Ukrainian strongholds near Luhanske (59km north-east of Donetsk), Kamyanka (62km south of Donetsk) and Butovka coal mine (11.4km north-west of Donetsk). ATO troops also came under heavy machine gun fire outside Zaitseve (67km north-north-east of Donetsk) and Avdiivka (18km north of Donetsk).

In Mariupol direction, the enemy used grenade launchers and heavy machine guns to shell positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Lebedynske (16km north-east of Mariupol).

In Luhansk direction, illegal armed formations opened fire from grenade launchers and heavy machine guns on the defenders of Krymske (42.5km north-west of Luhansk).

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One Ukrainian soldier was wounded in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) zone in eastern Ukraine over the past day.

Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Spokesperson for ATO issues Andriy Lysenko said this at a press briefing on Friday, an Ukrinform correspondent reported.

"As a result of fighting, no soldiers were killed. One soldier was wounded as a result of enemy attacks near Kamyanka. The soldier has been hospitalized, nothing threatens his life," he said.

Over the past day, illegal armed groups violated the ceasefire 16 times. The Ukrainian Armed Forces opened fire on the enemy 14 times, Lysenko said.

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More than 3,000 people have been freed from the militant captivity in Donbas. Another 152 people are still held captive.

Advisor to the Chief of the Security Service of Ukraine Yuri Tandyt wrote this on Facebook.

"To date, more than 3,000 captives have been released, but 152 people more are still illegally held in the occupied area of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, while dozens of our compatriots are held in the territory of the Russian Federation," he wrote.

Tandyt added that the participants in the meeting of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations discussed this issue the other day. The meeting was held in the Ar-Rahma mosque in Kyiv.

"At yesterday's meeting, the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations approves the appeal to the Pope, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the World Council of Churches, the Conference of European Churches, the Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Conference of European Rabbis, the Patriarch of Jerusalem with the request to facilitate the early release of captives," Tandyt noted.

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One of the largest port operators in the world, the UAEs group of companies "DP World", which operates 78 terminals in 43 countries, has confirmed its interest in investing in the Ukrainian port industry.

This was discussed during the meeting of President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko with CEO of "DP World" Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, the press service of the Head of State reports.

Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem confirmed his company's intentions to invest in the Ukrainian port industry and expressed hope for the further successful implementation of the projects of DP World in Ukraine, the statement reads.

During the meeting, the President outlined the PROGRESS of reforms in Ukraine aimed to ensure favorable business climate. He also informed the interlocutor on the plans to privatize state-owned enterprises.

Petro Poroshenko thanked Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem for his consent to join the National Investment Council under the President of Ukraine.

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Saudi Arabia has shown its serious interest in establishing a free trade area (FTA) with Ukraine.

Deputy Head of Ukraine's Presidential Administration Kostiantyn Yeliseyev said this in exclusive comments to Ukrinform following President Petro Poroshenko's to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

"During the talks in Riyadh the Ukrainian side raised the issue of creating a free trade area, and our Saudi partners have shown a strong interest. In the near future we should reach a common assessment of the prospects for this agreement," he said.

According to Yeliseyev, the president's visit to Saudi Arabia established personal contacts at the level of state leaders, and it is very important for building relations with eastern countries.

"After the signing of a memorandum of political consultations between the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and the Gulf Cooperation Council (the Council includes the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Oman), we are able to develop a concrete plan, form working groups in different areas and discuss possible forms of cooperation," he added.

Yeliseyev said that in the conditions of a Russian hybrid war against Ukraine, the humanitarian component had become extremely important at the talks. In particular, an agreement between Ukrinform and the Saudi Press Agency signed in Riyadh makes it possible to inform the population of the two countries more fully about life in all spheres.

"In the long run, we see the creation in Ukraine of an Arab center that would promote Arabic culture and language, and ultimately, the opening at the center of the agency called 'Al Arabiya,'" he said.

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Polish President Andrzej Duda plans to visit Ukraine in December.

This was stated by Chief of the Cabinet at the President's Chancellery Krzysztof Szczerski, the press service of the Polish president told an Ukrinform correspondent.

"The president is scheduled to make a visit to Kharkiv in December this year," Szczerski said.

He noted that this would be a working visit to hold talks with the Ukrainian leadership and representatives of the OSCE in the context of Poland's participation as a non-permanent member in 2018-2019 at UN Security Council meetings.

According to Szczerski, this is a question in the geopolitical interests of Poland.

At the same time, he said that Polish-Ukrainian relations were not just about security issues.

Szczerski said that during his visit to Kharkiv, Duda would visit the graves of the Poles killed by NKVD in Starobilsk.

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President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman congratulate the Ukrainian missile forces and artillery on a professional holiday.

"I congratulate the Ukrainian missile forces and artillery on the professional holiday. Thanks to your courage and heroism, the defense capability of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is increasing every day," the Head of State wrote on Facebook.

The missile force is a strong wall, which allows Ukrainians be protected, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said in his congratulations on the Day of Missile Forces and Artillery on Facebook.

As a reminder, the Day of Missile Forces and Artillery and the Day of Engineers is marked in Ukraine today in accordance with the Presidential Decree of October 31, 1997.

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Facebook has been the focus of two recent campaign finance complaints about the Missoula mayoral race filed with the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices.

On Oct. 25, state legislator Bryce Bennett, D-Missoula, filed a complaint against the Vent Missoula Facebook page, the same day a complaint with similar accusations was filed by local attorney Quentin Rhoades against Mayor John Engens campaign.

Engen is being challenged in the race for mayor by Lisa Triepke.

Both complaints cite boosted Facebook posts as a form of campaign contribution; in Rhoades complaint, he said a boosted link from the Missoulians editorial endorsement of Engen counted as unreported campaign support.

Bennett, though, took on the entirety of the Vent Missoula page, which is a public Facebook group whose posts largely comprise anti-Engen sentiments and complaints about City Council decisions. Its description advertises it as a place for Missoulians to vent about anything Missoula.

In his complaint, Bennett argues Vent Missoula is an incidental committee, defined by Montana Code Annotated as a political committee thats not organized for a specific campaign purpose, but becomes part of the campaign incidentally, by taking a contribution or making expenditures.

The expenditure is a boosted Facebook post that lists articles about Engens weight-loss surgery, the Mountain Water purchase and pay raises, in response to irrelevant details published about Triepkes past by local news outlets.

Although the administrator of the Vent Missoula page commented on the post that we do not endorse Triepke or any other politician, an administrator comment on a different post told someone to consider voting for Lisa Triepke! We need to start turning the barge to get Missoula on a better path.

Commissioner of Political Practices Jeff Mangan dismissed Rhoades complaint against the Engen campaign on Oct. 29, the same week it was filed, but is still looking into the complaint against Vent Missoula.

On Oct. 25, COPP posted a request on Vent Missoula asking the administrator to contact its office. Two days later, the commissioner sent Tyler Theisen, a local attorney, a notice of the complaint and asked for information on the origins of Vent Missoula as well as any costs for any and all sponsored Facebook posts supporting or opposing candidates for election.

Theisen emailed the Missoulian this week with the letter from Mangan and a letter to the editor, which the Missoulian published Friday. He said he was upset at the attack on his personal political views, made public since he is the administrator of Vent Missoula.

I have the freedom to publicly express my political beliefs, and no public official has the right to subject my wife and I to the stress, trauma, and embarrassment of being hauled into an investigation by an agency whose purpose is to regulate politicians, lobbyists, and political committees, Theisen wrote.

In Mangans dismissal of the complaint against Engen, he found the Missoulians sponsored Facebook post was a legitimate press function, and boosting it on Facebook was a standard business procedure for the company.

An editorial endorsement was and is a type of communication the paper regularly engages in, Mangan wrote, and was an exemption from Montana Code Annotateds definition of a campaign expenditure.

According to Montana law, an expenditure is a purchase, payment, distribution, loan, advance, promise, pledge, or gift of money or anything of value.

On Oct. 20, Rhoades filed another complaint against the Engen campaign, this time saying the campaign didnt provide enough detail in its finance reports. It has not been resolved by the COPP.
Canada helps Ukraine a lot, but it should do more to support the country in the fight against Russia's aggression.

Canadian MP James Bezan said this in comments to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"I am very proud of the level of support for Ukraine achieved by the last two governments of Canada. Our country continues to stand side by side with Ukraine in the face of Putin's imperialism, but we can do more," Bezan said.

He called on Canada to significantly increase various military assistance to Ukraine and expand trade.

Bezan also supported Ukraine's idea for the deployment of UN peacekeepers along the uncontrolled section of the Ukrainian-Russian border.

ish
George F. Wentworth died long ago, in 1940, and far away, in New Hampshire.

But you could discern a few things about the man by picking up a $5 book in the specialty section of the Friends of the Historical Museum at Fort Missoulas annual book sale at Heritage Hall.

The tiny Pocket Guide To the Common Land Birds of New England was written in 1895 by a professor of zoology at Wellesley College. On the flyleaf inside is Wentworths signature in flourishing handwriting, along with Dover, N.H. and the year 1899.

So we know Wentworth was a birder. Somehow in the past century or so, his book made its way to Missoula, and when presale workers were going through it they discovered something else about him: He was either a romantic or superstitious.

Pressed inside the pages of the book are a number of four-leaf clovers.

These have to be like 100-year-old clovers, Jessie Rogers, development director at the historical museum, said Thursday. I think thats so cool.

The prospect of finding such gems is a major attractant at a used book sale like this one, which runs through Sunday.

Maybe it was the wintry weather, which can put you in the book mood, or maybe its the increasing exposure the fort museum has enjoyed as its history as an alien detention camp in World War II becomes more widely known and appreciated. But used books of all varieties were flying off the shelf at an unprecedented pace on opening day.

Its been crazy, longtime volunteer Victor Machart said in early afternoon as he watched at least two dozen browsers pick through the offerings. Ive never seen it like this, and right now it's slowed down.

Other volunteers staffed the cash registers with rulers, measuring the thickness of each book to determine its price. Specialty books like Wentworths are pre-priced, but the vast majority cost $1.50 per inch.

Bob Borino showed up on the blustery day for the ambience and a particular kind of book.

I have a small collection of books on the history of the western frontier, the Missoula man said. Ive picked them up primarily here and at the AAUW sale they have in the spring, so Ive been able to build a reasonably nice library of western frontier studies on the cheap.

While copies of, say, Stephen Ambroses popular Undaunted Courage abound, its the less available books that interest Borino. He was thrilled to find a biography of Mary Ronan, the girl from early-day Virginia City who became the wife of Flathead Indian agent Peter Ronan.

Ive never been able to find it, other than in the library, Borino said.

Rogers said workers were almost overwhelmed by the volume of books donated for this years sale. A book sale website provides a formula to count such things.

I found out how many square feet were in Heritage Hall, then I added up how many tables we have and how big the tables are, she said. There were two different options: With softcovers it was saying 60,000 books and with hardcover it was saying 30,000. We have both.

The formula didnt take into account the boxes and stacks of book on the floor under tables.

So I would say 50K, easy, Rogers said. Last year I was saying maybe 20,000 or 30,000, and I thought that was fairly approximate. But this year its just kind of blown out of the park.

So much so that an overflow room in the museums T-1 Building next door has been stocked with the likes of novels, vintage magazines, old newspapers, and used CDs, DVDs and audio books.

Among the biggest influxes of donations came in the children, youth and young adult genre. Helped by sizeable contributions from Stevensville schools, they occupy much of the back wall of the hall, whereas they took up just a couple of tables in 2016.

It was scary there for a minute because there were so many boxes in that back corner we werent really sure how we were going to do it. But we did, Rogers said. We had a wonderful volunteer, Gigi, who basically spent two days in the kids section.

Organizers this year have added a twist to the four-day sale  historical greeters that remind of the sales connection to history and the museum.

On Thursday morning, sale-goers were welcomed by Missoula founder C.P. Higgins, or the man whos identified with him, Bob Brown, the former executive director of the historical museum. In the afternoon it was local photographer Jennifer Driscoll, dressed as one of her literary heroines, Laura Ingalls Wilder of Little House on the Prairie fame.

I figured the homesteader aspect would be a good match for the Montana crowd, Driscoll said.

It was a logical match, she said, because in her travels in a former job, she visited historic Little House sites in Minnesota, Kansas and South Dakota.

She did it when she was working in those areas in a former job, Driscoll said.

When I was looking for things to do on the weekend, I was like, 'Of course. Im x miles away from a Little House site. Im going,' she said.

Historical greeters in subsequent days will be in character as Norman Maclean, Sarah Woody and, on Saturday and possibly Sunday, Calamity Jane.

We met on the Osage Reservation when we were in Oklahoma, Driscoll, in character as Laura Ingalls Wilder, quipped of Calamity Jane. Shes a friend of mine and shes going to be amazing. I saw bits of her costume. You should come back.
[Editors Note: VOA Khmer reporter Men Kimseng interviewed Marc Mealy, vice president for policy at the US-ASEAN Business Council, on the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the 40th anniversary of the establishment of US-ASEAN relations. The Council, based in Washington, D.C., is a trade association that promotes business links between the US and the 10 countries that make up the ASEAN bloc.]

VOA: This year is the 50th anniversary of the establishment of ASEAN. How is the region doing in terms of trade and regional security?

Mealy: Well, on the trade side, I think ASEAN is a very positive story: 10 countries at various levels of development which have collectively become the Asia-Pacific regions number one regional economic hub. If you look at the 10 countries combined, youre talking about a regional population of over 600 million people, a combined GDP of over $2.5 trillion and an average rate of growth in the region between four or five percent per year. So I think thats a very impressive set of economic indicators that ASEAN can be proud of as it celebrates its 50th anniversary.

With regards to security, that was actually the primary original rationale for coming together in ASEAN: to really foster a community that would enhance security, prevent conflicts between nations, and those kind of factors 50 years ago. Again, the record of success for the region is, I think, a very positive one. Since ASEANs founding there have not been any major wars between individual countries in the region. There are security challenges within individual ASEAN countries. There are those who argue that ASEAN as a region hasnt put in place a kind of regional mechanism that could help handle challenging security situations in individual countries. I think that does remain an area where more work that needs to be done over the next 50 years by the 10 nations.

VOA: Turning to the US, this year also marks the 40th anniversary of US engagement with ASEAN. How much benefit do you think the US has gotten from its relationship with the region?

Mealy: Well, thats a really excellent point because when you speak about Americas economic interest in a global economy, many people are often surprised when they learn that the 10 ASEAN countries combined represent one of Americas five largest trading partners in the world. In 2016-2017, Americas two-way trade with the 10 countries in Southeast Asia exceeded $200 billion per year, which is a significant amount of goods and services that are moving back and forth between the United States and the 10 countries.

You can also note that approximately 21 of the 50 United States actually have exported to ASEAN in excess of $1 billion per year. States like California, which exports between $13 and $14 billion a year to Southeast Asia. States like Florida, which exports about $1.3 or $1.5 billion to Southeast Asia. Those exports support a lot of jobs and a lot of economic activities in those individual states. The US-ASEAN relationship always included a large amount of American foreign direct investment into the various countries in Southeast Asia, but in recent years weve begun to see greater foreign direct investment into the United States from the ASEAN region as well. So as the 40 years is celebrated this year, we expect that trend to continue over the next 40 years, where were not only going to see Americans investing in Southeast Asia, but were going to see an increase in Southeast Asia investing in America.

VOA: With all the positive aspects that you have brought up, the US still has a trade deficit with the region. The latest figure that I have is around $100 billion in exports to the region and over $140 billion back to the US. How should the US address this challenge?

Mealy: Thats also a very interesting question. I think were in an interesting period right now. I think historically, the fact that there was a trade deficit was not really perceived as a real problem or challenge to America, because it primarily reflected that a lot of capital was flowing into the United States, which in a sense financed that deficit. But as you know, in the current environment the trade deficit has become more of a priority for the new US administration. We would propose that the best way to try to reduce Americas deficit with ASEAN countries would involve an effortwhether it be a policy or other initiative that would continue to expand trade, because we believe a trade expansion effort would be one way of reducing the actual deficit within the trade relationship. And then secondly, a continued effort to address the constraints that some American goods and services do face when theyre exported to the ASEAN market. So I think thats also going be an important part of the relationship, to find a way where we can try to get those constraints or trade irritants that impact US exports to be reduced or perhaps eliminated as another way of reducing that trade deficit within the overall relationship.

VOA: President Trump will soon make his first visit to attend the ASEAN-US Summit. Do you expect the president will address these issues? Or what do you expect the president to focus on when he is there?

Mealy: I think the president is likely to focus on Americas economic interest in a range of areas including security, trade and investment. There are other international challenges that might also be part of the agenda. I think it remains to be seen, not only which one of those issue areas will be raised, but what are some of the other ideas or proposals that the Trump administration will propose to the ASEAN leaders, perhaps as ways to move forward on some of those agendas. So were not expecting new announcements, for example, about free trade agreements in terms of the economic agenda. I think on the security front, the United States does have very robust security relationships with a number of ASEAN countries, so perhaps theres an opportunity to expand or broaden those security relationships in ways that can add to the effort around addressing the security concern around North Korea, or freedom of navigation in the South China Sea area. I think those will be interesting areas to watch as those meetings take place in November.

VOA: Anti-US rhetoric seems to have increased recently in the region. We have heard it from the Philippine president, and in the past year we have also heard it from the Cambodian prime minister. So is this a concern for the US businesspeople when they invest in the region?

Mealy: As you can imagine, when governments are navigating their bilateral relationship at the G-to-G level, there often can be upwards and downwards movement in the relationship, particularly when there are changes in governments and those changes in government lead to changes in policy. I think what weve seen with regards to the economic relationship with Southeast Asian countries is that those relationships have tended to remain pretty steady, even when the bilateral diplomatic relationships may be becoming hotter or colder due to changes in governments or policy. So far we dont expect and were not seeing changes in economic relationships of ASEAN countries with American businesses, even if perhaps there are changes in the diplomatic relationship at the G-to-G level.

VOA: What other things should the region do to become more business friendly, not just for the US, but for everyone?

Mealy: You know, as ASEAN celebrates its 50th anniversary they are continuing to try to move forward in the formation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), and I think that process does really remain the fundamental initiative or vision for the 10 countries. The reality is that ASEAN still has more work to do in order to create a truly regional marketplace where its easier for not only international companies, large and small, but also businesses within the region both large and small to more easily to send their goods or services across borders to wherever the consumers might be in those opportunities. So there are efforts on the way to continue working on making the customs procedure between the ASEAN countries easier and more efficient.

There are efforts on the way in the area of transportation to make standards and regulations for trucks that move goods between the countries, for the railway lines that are going to run between countries to be more standardized and harmonized among all 10 countries, which will therefore reduce the cost of doing international activities within the region. There are efforts on the way in the region to try to create more harmonized rules and regulations for agricultural commodities or food products or manufactured goods. All of these types of efforts are what ASEAN countries must continue to work on together in order for this region to reach its full economic potential.

And then, lastly, I would suggest that another very, very important area for ASEAN that it has to really make progress on is to really, in a proactive way, ensure that its less developed countries like Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar are able to fully participate and really benefit from the creation of the ASEAN Economic Community. In other words, the benefit of greater regional economic integration must be able to flow more directly to ASEANs less developed countries and not to ASEANs more developed countries. If this happens I think ASEAN will be really successful in the next 10 to 15 years and become Asias leading economic community. If not, I think ASEAN will run the risk of reproducing one of the mistakes that the European nations made when they formed their economic union. When the countries of Europe came together, the benefit of coming together tended to go to the more advanced countriesGermany, Britain, Franceand really were not sufficiently distributed by less developed countries like Greece. I think ultimately this became one of the weaknesses of the European Unions efforts. So ASEAN has the opportunity to learn lessons from others as it pursues its own unique vision of forming the ASEAN Economic Community over the next 50 years.

VOA: Thank you so much Mr. Marc Mealy, vice president for policy of the US-ASEAN Business Council, for talking to VOA.

Mealy: Its my pleasure. Thank you.

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
[Editors Note: Congressman Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) sat down with VOAs Sok Khemara for an exclusive interview at his office in Washington, D.C., on November 1, 2017. Congressman Chabot has represented Ohios First Congressional District for the past two decades, and is the co-chair of the Congressional Cambodian Caucus along with Alan Lowenthal (D-CA). He spoke to VOA about his thoughts on the Cambodian governments moves against opposition voices and politicians in recent months, and the possibility that the U.S. will impose sanctions against Cambodian officials involved in the crackdown.]

VOA: Congressman, thank you so much for allowing VOA Khmer to interview you today. What can the US Congress do to help the Cambodian situation right now, in which the opposition leader is in jail and the election is coming soon. What is your response to that?

Chabot: Well, I think that is very important that the United States Congress stay focused on the very unfortunate condition of Cambodia right now. I am one of the co-chairmen of the Congressional Cambodian Caucus and we pay particular attention. I think as far as what we can actually do, we need to make sure that the government in Cambodia knows that its completely unacceptable, many of the things which are going on right now. The people of Cambodia have a right to determine who their leadership is, whos going to run their country. It should not be a single person or one political partythe people have a right to determine that. Right now that is not happening in Cambodia.

VOA: People in Washington have talked about freezing the assets of Cambodian government officials or a visa ban sometime in the future. Will you in Congress initiate that idea?

Chabot: Those are things that are being considered, things weve talked about, things about sanctions, for example, not allowing high Cambodian officials to travel to the United States, not giving them visas to do so, freezing assets. There are a whole range of things that were considering. We hope that the government will change its policies so that those actions arent necessary, but only time will tell.

VOA: What will be the impact for Cambodia and Cambodian officials if those things happen?

Chabot: Well, we hope that the possibility of sanctions and suspensions of visas and travel rights and those kinds of things will get the government, particularly Mr. Hun Sens attention. Many of his actions and those of his associates in recent years have been just unacceptable: the banning, in essence, closing down of certain political parties, the jailing of ones opposition, the crackdown on the independent press, whether its Radio Free Asia or Voice of America, those are completely unacceptable, and I would hope the leadership in Cambodia will change its policy so they will allow the people to make the choice of how their country should be run, how their lives ought to be, their education policies, healthcare policies, and a whole range of other things. The people should determine those things, not just one person who has essentially, lets face it, becomea despot, almost a dictator in recent years, and thats just unacceptable.

VOA: When you say unacceptable, what exactly do you mean by that?

Chabot: Well, you know again we can consider such things as sanctions, the suspension of rights to travel to the United States. We are working with our other allies in the region. It is my understanding that the E.U., for example, is considering sanctions as well, and were, of course, our State Department, others are talking with them about those kinds of things. But we would hope that the government would change its actions and change its policies, because in the end I would hope that the prime minister would look at his legacy, what hes going to be remembered for. And he did some good things early on, but too far in recent years, you know, its been a matter of suppressing his opposition, and the way you treat your people is what you are going to be remembered for.

VOA: When is the last time that Prime Minister Hun Sen did good things, as you mentioned?

Chabot: Well, it's been a while and I would let the people of Cambodia remember and determine what those things may be. I don't want to as an outsider. But even the people that right now are on the wrong path, maybe earlier on were doing some things which were more favorable, particularly when you're considering the opposition that they were dealing with.

And Cambodia obviously has a history that is most unfortunate, when you remember the Killing Fields and the Khmer Rouge and the atrocities literally wiping out about a fourth of the population. So Cambodia is a country that has gone through some horrific times, far worse than most other countries throughout history have seen, and one would think, would hope that the leadership now remembers those things and would like to have much more constructive and productive times for its people. And this leadership is not heading in that direction, unfortunately.

VOA: Congressman Chabot, Prime Minister Hun Sen has controlled power for 30 years. What kind of election would be acceptable to you and to the Cambodian people?

Chabot: Well the type of election is one that, I think, when you look at Cambodia's history, there probably need to be observers there, international observers from various countries, who are fair and unbiased and can help to make sure that the elections are being carried out in a fair and free manner. Unfortunately, the steps leading up to that election are important too, and when youre banning parties, when you are jailing your opposition, when you are not allowing an independent press to fairly tell the true story and tell both sides in an election, you are not meeting that obligation right out of the box. So its pretty hard to conceive that the election would be fair if the lead-up to that election has not been fair.

VOA: President Donald Trump will soon travel to the meetings at the ASEAN Summit in the Philippines, so what is your message to the president about human rights in Asia, especially in Cambodia?

Chabot: I think President Trump, on his trip, will talk about a lot of things. He'll talk about economic development and he'll talk about working with our allies, and I also think at the appropriate times and to the appropriate people, he will talk about human rights. Sometimes that's done behind closed doors so that one can make a very strong message and not embarrass the other leader, for example. And I will leave that up to President Trump to determine the best way to do that, and he'll of course be advised by his State Department, particularly Secretary of State [Rex] Tillerson.

VOA: I just want go back to the Cambodian community here in the US. When you met them in the past, what did they say to you about Cambodian affairs?

Chabot: Well, most of the people that I talked to, Cambodian-Americans here in the United States, have urged me and other members of Congress to not forget Cambodia. You know, the United States has commitments all over the world. Cambodia is relatively small country, and so its important for us to focus some attention there, because the people in Cambodia do need assistance and help and do need us to speak out in places like the UN and with our EU allies and our other allies in Southeast Asia.

So the people that Ive talked to here have just urged us to pay attention to Cambodia and do everything within our power to help to turn things around there, because right now its not very good. Things are not happening from the government as they should; people are not allowed to express themselves without there being adverse reactions by the government. People can be jailed, people can disappear. I mean, bad things can happen, and so I welcome input from the Cambodian-American community to their elected representatives, like myself, you know, being a member of the Congress.

VOA: You talked about the sanctions against Cambodia. Are there any resolutions coming out soon, like H. Res. 728 [a 2016 congressional resolution urging Prime Minister Hun Sen to end harassment of Cambodias opposition and foster a more democratic environment] or other resolutions about Cambodia?

Chabot: Were looking at those things now, and the Cambodian Congressional Caucus, especially Alan Lowenthal, who is the other principal member of the Caucus, and I have met many times on this. Weve talked with the U.S. ambassador, weve talked with other political figures that have come here, so were working on those things. I dont want to get too far ahead on them though, because we want to make sure that we actually get it right and when we do pass things, that they actually work.

VOA: You said you talked to the ambassador and talked to State Department officials too. So did they support that idea or your initiative?

Chabot: Yes, in general that is the case. Now, the State Department is a separate branch of government, of course. You know the executive branch has their own responsibilities and duties, and we, being the legislative branch, we work together on these thingsso they dont tell us what to do and we dont tell them what to do, but hopefully we work together.

VOA: How about the Magnitsky Act [a 2012 law barring Russian human rights offenders from the United States]? Can it be or will it be applied in the case of Cambodia?

Chabot: Yes, very possibly, because you do have you know an abuse of human rights, at least allegations of that, which I tend to believe are true, so there always is a possibility of that act in particular being applied here. So I would say yes, thats a possibility.

VOA: Congressman Chabot, thank you so much. My last question is, what is your message to Cambodian people inside the United States and in Cambodia?

Chabot: Well I would say, dont give up. There can certainly be a very bright future ahead. You have a right to determine your own leadership and how you live your lives and it shouldnt be the government determining everything. People have a right to be free, and that will be there. Unfortunately, its not completely there today. It will be some day. Dont give up.

VOA: Thank you so much Congressman Steve Chabot, for allowing VOA Khmer to interview you.

Chabot: Thank you very much. Thank you.
Authorities in Afghanistan are temporarily blocking WhatsApp and Telegram social media services in the country, citing security concerns, officials confirmed Friday.

An official at the Afghan Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, ATRA, told VOA the social media tools will be suspended for 20 days. The decision follows a request from state security institutions.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a formal announcement is expected Saturday.

ATRA has ordered telecom companies to shut down the services November 1, according to a copy of official instructions appearing in Afghan media.

Social media users have complained of technical problems while using the two services in recent days.

The controversial move has sparked criticism of the Afghan government, and it is being slammed as an illegal act and an attack on freedom of expression.

The outage prompted the telecom regulator to issue a statement Friday, saying the ban is meant to test "a new kind of technology" in the wake of users' complaints.

It went on to defend the restriction, saying WhatsApp and Telegram are merely voice and messaging services and their temporary suspension does not violate the civil rights of Afghans. The government is committed to freedom of expression, the ministry added.

Afghan journalists and activists on Twitter dismissed the statement.

"This seems to be the beginning of government censorship. If it's not resisted soon the gov't will block FB & twitter," wrote Habib Khan Totakhil on Twitter.

"Gov't fails to deliver security, now it seeks to hide its incompetence by imposing ban on messaging platforms. Totalitarianism?," said the Afghan journalist.

"#Censorship is against what freedom we stood for in #Afghanistan post 2001. Gains shouldn't go to waste," tweeted activist Nasrat Khalid.

An estimated 6 million people in war-torn Afghanistan can access internet-based services. The growth of media and social media activism have been among the few success stories Afghanistan has seen in the post-Taliban era.

Classifying numbers

The restrictions on social media come as the Taliban intensifies attacks on Afghan security forces, inflicting heavy casualties.

The insurgent group also relies heavily on WhatsApp, Telegram, Twitter and Facebook to publicize its battlefield gains.

The Afghan government has lately barred the United States military from releasing casualty numbers, force strength, operation readiness, attrition figures and performance assessments of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.

The U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, John Sopko, while briefing members of Congress on Wednesday, severely criticized the classification move. He maintained American taxpayers have a right to know how their money is being spent.

"The Taliban know this [Afghan casualties], they know who was killed. They know all about that. The Afghans know about it, the U.S. military knows about it. The only people who wouldn't know are the [American] people who are paying for it," Sopko noted.

The United States has spent nearly $120 billion on reconstruction programs in Afghanistan since 2002. More than 60 percent of the money has been used to build Afghan security forces.
A Chinese official on Friday disputed President Donald Trumps claim that the deadly opioid fentanyl flooding the U.S. is mostly produced in China.

China doesnt deny that some fentanyl produced illicitly inside the country is contributing to the epidemic, Wei Xiaojun, deputy director-general of the Narcotics Control Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, said at a news conference.

However, according to the intelligence the two countries have exchanged, the evidence isnt sufficient to say that the majority of fentanyl or other new psychoactive substances come from China, Wei said.

Trump, Xi to talk

Trump last month said the U.S. was stepping up measures to hold back the flood of cheap and deadly fentanyl, a synthetic opioid manufactured in China and 50 times stronger than heroin.

He said he would mention it to Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing next week. And he will do something about it, Trump said.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administrations representative in Beijing, Lance Ho, declined to comment on Weis assessment.

Wei also said the Justice Departments public announcement last month of indictments against two Chinese men accused of making tons of fentanyl and other powerful narcotics sold in the U.S. could impede efforts to bring them to justice.

I have to admit regret regarding the U.S. move to unilaterally use the method of calling a news conference to announce the matter of these two wanted individuals whove fled to China, he said.

US, China cooperation

The release of information would impact on the ongoing joint investigation into the case, Wei said, adding that China noted the U.S. failure to mention their successful cooperation on this and other cases.

The Justice Department said Xiaobing Yan, 40, and Jian Zhang, 38, worked separately but similarly and controlled one of the most prolific international drug-trafficking organizations. The lack of an extradition treaty significantly reduces the chances they will be returned to the U.S. for trial.

The Trump administrations anti-drug efforts suffered another recent setback when its nominee as drug czar withdrew from consideration following reports that he played a key role in weakening the federal governments authority to stop companies from distributing opioids.

Trump last week declared opioid abuse a national public health emergency and announced new steps to combat the crisis.

Fentanyl can be lethal even in small amounts and is often laced with other dangerous drugs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated the drug and its analogues killed more than 20,000 Americans last year, and the number is rising.

Fridays rare news conference, held in the Ministry of Public Securitys tightly guarded compound near Tiananmen Square, appeared aimed at emphasizing Chinas progress on cooperation with the U.S. on fighting opioids ahead of Trumps visit.

China has noted Trumps announcement of an opioid crisis and China attaches great importance to this, Wei said.
1 A crowd releases lanterns into the air as they celebrate the Yee Peng festival, also known as the festival of lights, in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The event is held to show respect to Buddha.
One of the coldest Festival of the Dead processions in recent memory went on as planned Thursday, despite snow and wind that drove the temperature to around 30 degrees.

Many of the Missoula traditions were on display: a jazz band with six horns and two percussionists. Oversized steamroller prints from the University of Montana. The Dead Debutantes, some of whom helped found the festival, marched with a photograph in honor of one of their mothers who passed away.

Some in the crowd and some in the procession wore skull make-up, some with distinctly Mexican flourishes, one of the reasons the future of the event isn't clear.

Earlier in the afternoon, the nonprofit Zootown Arts Community Center announced that it was backing out as fiscal sponsor, citing concerns and protests over cultural appropriation.

The decision came after a lengthy debate over the issue at the festival, which was started a quarter-century ago by two Missoula artists who imagined it as a "multi-cultural, all-inclusive" way to acknowledge death in a culture that shuns grieving.

In the past two years, increasing numbers of community members have argued that it's an offensive appropriation of indigenous culture and religious practices in a predominantly white city.

In the statement, the ZACC said they'd listened to many perspectives on the festival in the past few months leading up to the decision.

"We feel, as an arts community center with year-round programming, it is best for us to step down from being the umbrella of the Festival Of The Dead procession as it is, so we can concentrate on our true work, which is to provide accessible art experiences for the community," according to the ZACC statement. "We are not equipped to be on the forefront of the cultural appropriation conversation and it is not our mission to do so, and we have great respect for the argument that we are not the correct people to spearhead the festival."

The ZACC will help with the search for a "new committee or organization to step forward who can give better guidance for the festival to grow and evolve and make valuable change while preserving what is meaningful. Many people from the Latinx community in Missoula have stepped forward in support of the event, and joined in the discussion of how best to evolve and we are happy to supportively put it into their hands. New energy is forming around the event that I think will be very positive in the end."

ZACC said it would like to continue working with the Hospice of Missoula, the Institute of Health and Humanities and others "to do what we do best  provide art workshops for the Missoula community to explore their feelings around death throughout, but we will not be the organizers of the procession."

***

In a joint email statement, the Montana Racial Equity Project and Montana Human Rights Network said they were pleased with the decision. The statement was endorsed by EmpowerMT of Missoula and the YWCA of Missoula.

"Our organizations have met with Indigenous members of the Missoula community and supporters who have expressed to us why they are hurt, offended, and dehumanized over the cultural and religious appropriation of the Festival of the Dead. We get it; it is another expression of colonialism. We urge Missoulians to come together and start healing. Learning in safe spaces where everyone of different views can attend and feel comfortable is a start.

"We applaud the Zootown Arts Community Center (ZACC) decision to no longer act as fiscal sponsor for this event and look forward to working with ZACC staff in future in their effort to work towards healing and learning in the Missoula community through their various arts and humanities programs. We recognize this will take time, patience, and encouragement which we are confident the Missoula community has in abundance."

Rosalyn LaPier, who is Blackfeet and Metis, teaches environmental studies at the University of Montana and is an expert on indigenous religions. This year, she and others raised objections to the use of indigenous religious practices for art and entertainment, comparing the procession to a Mardi Gras party scene in which participants don't know why they're dressing up or dancing.

She said the ZACC statement doesn't address issues she and others raised about cultural appropriation and racism. She added that helping find a new committee, which already exists separately of the ZACC, and handing off the parade while still offering workshops she says are problematic and means that it's "business as usual."

***

Six years ago, the ZACC stepped in to help organize the festival and took over the programming entirely three years ago. The ZACC and fellow organizers increased the number of free, educational workshops to underscore the meaning of the event: mourning the dead. This year, such offerings included obituary-writing sessions, urn-making workshops, and more.

They've reiterated that they don't "monitor" the procession itself, in which hundreds of people from numerous community groups, schools and individuals generate their own costumes and concepts.

The festival was originally started by artists Michael deMeng and Bev Beck Glueckert as an artistic way of acknowledging death. They were inspired by Dia de los Muertos but intended it as a Missoula event that welcomed people to partake in their own traditions.

Nevertheless, the prevalence of face-painting and specific traditions such as sugar skulls were cited by critics as proof that the festival is appropriative.

Last year, the ZACC stopped offering face-painting for the annual procession, held on Nov. 2, and encouraged community members to be mindful of cultural appropriation. After meeting with groups like the Racial Equity Project and the MHRN, the nonprofit decided to back out entirely.

***

The number of participants in the march on Thursday seemed smaller than prior years. Fewer schools participated. The number of observers, including families with small children, that lined both sides of the street seemed strong considering the wind, snow and cold that moved into the valley earlier in the day.

Assistant director Molly Murphy and staff members from Tamarack had buckets of hundreds of roses to pass out. Each one had a small card that said, "Remember. Honor. Live. Celebrate. Dance," and "We offer this flower to you in honor of those you have loved and lost." One year they saw someone who had returned with a dried flower from a previous year.

The Dead Debutantes, whose members include founders like Glueckert, were out. They usually have 14 to 15 women in black, with skull masks and sometimes beehive hairdos. They also march in bee suits in the WildWalk for the International Wildlife Film Festival to raise awareness about the insects' importance to the ecosystem.

This year, they were helping Kim West carrying a picture of her mother, who died in December at age 91.

Glueckert said the group is based on "positive energy and inclusion," and is diverse in its members, which made the controversy difficult to watch.

"We're a little bit more somber this year," Glueckert said. "This is hard to see a lot of division when that's the overall thing happening in our country. When it's happening here in our own town, that's kind of tough to take." If the festival is to survive, she said, it will have to be taken on by Latinx community members.

Regardless, she said, the Debutantes will gather in some fashion every Nov. 2.
Facebook received several tongue-lashings during U.S. congressional hearings this week, but the world's largest social network also got an assignment: Figure out how to notify tens of millions of Americans who might have been fed Russian propaganda.

U.S. lawmakers and some tech analysts are pressing the company to identify users who were served about 80,000 posts on Facebook, 120,000 on its Instagram picture-sharing app, and 3,000 ads that the company has traced to alleged Russian operatives, and to inform them.

The posts from Russia were designed to divide Americans, particularly around the 2016 U.S. elections, according to Facebook, U.S. intelligence agencies and lawmakers. The Russian government has denied it tried to meddle in the elections.

"When you discover a deceptive foreign government presentation on your platform, my presumption, from what you've said today  you'll stop it and take it down," Democratic Senator Jack Reed told Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch in the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Wednesday.

"Do you feel an obligation, in turn, to notify those people who have accessed that? And can you do that? And shouldn't you do that?" Reed asked.

Stretch responded that he was not sure Facebook could identify the people because its estimates have relied on modeling, rather than actual counts, but he did not rule it out.

"The technical challenges associated with that undertaking are substantial," Stretch said.

Critics of Facebook on social media and in media interviews have expressed skepticism, noting that the company closely tracks user activity such as likes and clicks for advertising purposes.

Facebook declined to comment on Thursday.

As many as 126 million people could have been served the posts on Facebook and 20 million on Instagram, according to company estimates.

Social media critics

Many of them will not believe they were manipulated unless Facebook tells them, said Tristan Harris of Time Well Spent, an organization critical of advertising-based social media.

"Facebook is a living, breathing crime scene, and they're the only ones with access to what happened," Harris, an ex-Google employee, said in an interview Thursday.

The 2.1 billion people with active Facebook accounts often get notifications from the service, on everything from birthdays and upcoming events to friend requests and natural disasters.

Shortly before 6 p.m. EDT on Thursday, more than 83,000 people had signed a Change.org online petition asking Facebook to tell users about the Russian posts.

Lawyers for Twitter and Alphabet's Google also said their companies would consider notifying customers.

The intelligence committee's vice chairman, Senator Mark Warner, drew an analogy to another industry.

"If you were in a medical facility, and you got exposed to a disease, the medical facility would have to tell the folks who were exposed," Warner said.

IN PHOTOS: A Look at Russian Social Media Election Meddling

'Duty to warn'

U.S. law includes a concept known as "post-sale duty to warn," which may require notifying previous buyers if a manufacturer discovers a problem with a product.

That legal duty likely does not apply to Facebook, said Christopher Robinette, a law professor at Widener University in Pennsylvania. He said courts would likely rule that social media posts are not a product but a service, which is exempt from the duty. Courts also do not want to interfere in free speech, he said.

Robinette added, though, that he thought notifications to users would be a good idea. "This strikes me as a fairly significant problem," he said.
A number of female members of Congress told the Associated Press on Friday they had been sexually harassed by male colleagues in incidents that occurred years or even decades ago. They declined to identify the men responsible.

When I was a very new member of Congress in my early 30s, there was a more senior member who outright propositioned me, who was married, and despite trying to laugh it off and brush it aside, it would repeat. And I would avoid that member, Rep. Linda Sanchez told the news organization.

Sanchez said a different male colleague stared at her once and, she said, touched her inappropriately, but tried to make it appear accidental. Sanchez refused to name either man because she said she doesnt think it would be helpful.

The problem is, as a member there's no HR (human resources) department you can go to, there's nobody you can turn to. Ultimately they're employed by their constituents, she said.

Another congresswoman, Mary Bono, told the AP a male colleague told her hed been thinking about her in the shower. Bono said she confronted the colleague and he didnt make any more suggestive comments.

It is a man's world, it's still a man's world, Bono said. Not being a flirt and not being a bitch. That was my rule, to try to walk that fine line.

She declined to name the colleague, but said he is still serving in Congress

Former Rep. Hilda Solis said she received from a male colleague what the AP referred to as repeated unwanted harassing overtures. She, too, declined to name the colleague or detail exactly what those overtures included.

It's humiliating, even though they may have thought they were being cute. No, it's not. It's not appropriate. I'm your colleague, but he doesn't see me that way, and that's a problem, Solis said.
Ousted Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont says he will run for re-election in December and, if need be, he will run his campaign from Belgium, where he is currently in hiding.

Speaking to Belgian state broadcaster RTBF on Friday, Puigdemont said he was "ready to be the candidate" in the election scheduled for late December.

"We can run a campaign anywhere, because we're in a globalized world," he said.

Puigdemont's comments came as a Spanish judge was expected to issue an international warrant for his arrest in relation to Puigdemont's role in the region's contested independence drive.

Puigdemont flew to Brussels with four members of his cabinet this week after Spanish authorities removed him and the 13-member cabinet from office for pushing ahead with secession.

If an arrest warrant is issued, Puigdemont will fight extradition without seeking political asylum, according to his Belgian lawyer.

Puigdemont told RTBF he would hand himself in to Belgian authorities, "but not to Spanish justice."

Puigdemont had been due to appear at Spain's National Court on Thursday to answer questions in a rebellion case brought by Spanish prosecutors, but he did not show up.

9 government members jailed

The judge jailed nine former members of Catalonia's separatist government on Wednesday, while they are investigated on possible charges of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement connected to their push for the region's independence from Spain.

She later granted one of them bail at $58,300.

In an earlier address from Brussels broadcast by Catalan regional television TV3, Puigdemont called for the release of "the legitimate government of Catalonia" as hundreds of people gathered outside the Catalan parliament, also calling for them to be freed.

"As the legitimate president of Catalonia, I demand the release of the members of my cabinet," he said. "I demand respect for all political options, and I demand the end of the political repression."

Puigdemont said the imprisonment of former Catalan Vice President Oriol Junqueras and eight cabinet members was an attack on democracy and not compatible with a "Europe in the 21st century."

Meanwhile, data released Friday showed that unemployment rose sharply in Catalonia in October, more than anywhere else in Spain, as companies fled in the midst of the country's worst political crisis in decades.
In a warehouse outside Paris, university drop-out Celine Galland stacks palettes and fills out an inventory sheet, part of a logistics apprenticeship she hopes will put a decade of short-term contracts and unemployment behind her.

France's jobless rate has sat stubbornly above 9 percent for nearly a decade. President Emmanuel Macron blames a notoriously rigid labor market and has two ideas to change it: more vocational training for school leavers and making it easier for workers to retrain and change jobs.

On Nov. 10, his government will open talks with unions, business leaders and the regions on how to reform the apprentice system, cutting through its bureaucracy and financing.

The former investment banker promises an extra 15 billion euros ($17 billion) for professional training over five years, but beyond the money he will need to counter public prejudice if he is to reverse a slide in apprentice numbers.

University did not sit well with Galland, who quit after several weeks. Since then the 31-year-old has worked at menial jobs in McDonald's and local supermarkets.

What I love about this is the variety of tasks, she enthused last week at an AFTRAL logistics and transport training centre in Savigny-le-Temple, east of Paris. Theres no boredom in this job.

France's unemployment rate is more than double Britains and several points higher than Germanys. Particularly troubling for Macrons centrist government is youth unemployment  nearly one in four 15-24 year olds are without a job, according to official data, a major drag on long-term growth.

Macron has already defied union-led street protests to loosen labor laws, necessary he says to make hiring and firing workers cheaper and easier for small companies.

Leftist opponents and hardline trade unions accuse him of abandoning Frances long-cherished ideals of an egalitarian society to side instead with corporate interests.

But the 39-year-old president is standing firm. He promises greater support for workers through an overhaul of training and a revamped welfare system, pointing to the Nordic model of flexibility in the labor market underpinned by security through the social welfare system.

He will, though, need to overturn a widely-held perception that apprenticeships are a poor alternative to school and university diplomas, which France obsesses over.

We have to put an end to French defeatism, to people saying that apprenticeships are for those who have failed, Macron said this month while visiting a college.

Decline in apprenticeships

Frances existing apprenticeship system involves the signing of a contract between the apprentice, the employer and the training institution. Students earn a percentage of the minimum wage and gain workplace experience, while companies can source talent and receive welfare payment waivers.

France lags behind numerous European peers. OECD data from 2016 shows 4.9 percent of French youths aged between 16 and 29 completed apprenticeships in 2012, compared with 8.6 percent in Denmark and 15.1 percent in Germany.

As a recovery in the euro zones second biggest economy gathers strength, employers complain they cannot fill vacancies despite the near double-digit jobless rate because of a skills gap  a mismatch Macron says apprenticeships can help fix.

Our figures have shown a clear trend for several years: 80-95 percent of our apprentices are in jobs within six months of finishing, said Pierre de Surone, director of the Savigny-Le-Temple training center. Apprenticeship works!

While the number of higher education apprentices is rising, the number of youngsters gaining college-level apprenticeship diplomas fell to 260,000 in 2016 from 335,000 a decade ago, Education Ministry data shows.

That presents a challenge for Macron. Data published by Cereq, a French government think-tank, shows apprenticeships boost the employability of individuals with low academic qualifications more than for those at higher education grade.

We don't value practical jobs, technical jobs. If we don't give recognition to these jobs then were in trouble, said Gabriel Schumacher, director at a local distribution company.
Key differences between Islamic State's claim of responsibility for the New York City truck attack and claims for previous terror attacks have caught the eye of counterterror officials, who are trying to determine what it might mean for the state of terror group.

Most notably, they said, the way in which IS issued the claim failed to follow the group's usual patterns, raising questions about whether the collapse of the group's self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria was starting to take a toll.

"One of the soldiers of the Islamic State attacked a number of crusaders on a street in New York City," the group's weekly al-Naba newsletter said late Thursday, claiming attacker Sayfullo Saipov, 29, as one of its own.

"This is one of the most prominent attacks to target crusaders in America," al-Naba continued, adding, "[By] the grace of Allah, the operation instilled fear in crusader America."

But officials and analysts said that it's rare for IS to make such a claim first in al-Naba.

"It's not unprecedented, but it is something we're not used to," said Raphael Gluck, an independent researcher.

While considered an official IS channel, al-Naba has traditionally been used to follow up on the group's initial claims, which often come from its Amaq or Nashir news agencies, in multiple languages, via social media.

Relying on those news agencies this time, however, may not have been possible.

"The Amaq news agency has sputtered in recent weeks, and struggled without a website," Gluck said.

Statement wording

There are also questions about how the statement in al-Naba was worded, which also differs from wordings in many previous claims.

"The al-Naba story on the New York attack relies exclusively on outside media reporting of the attacks," according to an analysis done by Ryan Pereira for the Counter Extremism Project.

"Traditionally, Amaq and al-Naba claims for responsibility include language suggesting that a source close to Amaq or a source close to the Islamic State relayed attack details to the group's media officials," Pereira wrote.

Nor did the account in al-Naba offer any evidence to substantiate the group's claim.

Additionally, it has been rare, though not unprecedented, for IS to claim an attacker as a "soldier of the caliphate" if he is still alive.

Another part of the al-Naba statement that caught the attention of counterterror officials was the way it referred to the deadly October 1 shooting in Las Vegas that killed 58 people and wounded hundreds more.

Al-Naba described the Las Vegas shooting as "the attack carried out by the mujahid brother Abu Abdul Barr al-Amriki  may Allah accept him  against a large gathering of crusaders."

It was not the first time IS had claimed the Las Vegas shooter, Stephen Paddock, 64, as one of its own, referring to him with an Arabic nom de guerre. But so far, investigators have yet to come forward with any evidence that connects him to IS.

Instead, U.S. counterterror officials have cautioned for months that IS is increasingly opportunistic, even desperate, with one official noting the group has been "stepping up its claims of inspired attacks even in cases that do not appear to be connected to the group."

And, although they admit IS has been been able to adapt to losses and hardships, some see the claim late Thursday for this week's attack as possibly falling along those lines.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday he hoped a U.S. peace initiative would work and praised President Donald Trump for taking a fresh approach to bringing the Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations.

For at least two decades, the goal of U.S.-led diplomacy has been a two-state solution, meaning an independent Palestinian state living side-by-side and at peace with Israel.

But neither Trump nor his aides have publicly recommitted to a two-state solution, instead saying it is up to the two parties to work out in peace talks.

Asked during a visit to London to commemorate the 1917 British declaration of support for a Jewish homeland if he felt now was the moment for peace in the region, noting Trumps involvement in peace efforts, he said: Hope so.

Whats being discussed now is an American initiative. Obviously we make our interests and our concerns known to Mr. Trump. Hes coming with a sort of refreshing can-do thing... theyre trying to think out of the box, Netanyahu said at Londons Chatham House think-tank.

Netanyahu has previously expressed doubts about the Trump initiative, telling Frances President Emmanuel Macron in July that it would be difficult to move forward quickly because he felt Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas may not be able to deliver on commitments he had made.

But he said that more countries in the region were now beginning to engage constructively with Israel.

The reason I draw hope from the moment is because of the larger shift in Arab-Israeli relations with the countries of the region. I cannot emphasize how dramatic that is, he said.

The Palestinians seek to establish an independent state in the Israeli occupied West Bank, territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Most Israelis want all of Jerusalem as their capital and reject a full return to 1967 borderlines as a threat to their security.
Japan is deepening its influence in the Philippines to vie with regional rival China, a welcome boost for an infrastructure overhaul program in the relatively poor Southeast Asian country and for Japanese geopolitical ambitions.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earlier this week to discuss concrete, time-bound and specific ways to further intensify bilateral cooperation, the presidential website in Manila said.

Duterte is playing Japan off China, which last year out-pledged other countries with an offer of $24 billion in aid and investment, analysts say. China and Japan, which have a legacy of two-way political disputes, are vying for economic inroads as well as military cooperation in much of Southeast Asia.

Hes playing one side off the other, and so hes come to why not? said Jeff Kingston, author and history instructor at Temple University Japan. Japan is trying to draw on its old ties and were a more reliable and trustworthy neighbor.

Dutertes second trip to Tokyo

Duterte, in office since June 2016, made his second official Tokyo visit Oct. 30-31. His meeting with Abe included discussions of economic issues. Abe pledged 1 trillion yen ($8.8 billion) in economic support, according to media reports from Tokyo this week, doubling the amount that Japan offered in January.

The aid is expected to help the Philippines build rapid transit, bridges and improvements to a container port in the countrys third largest city, Cebu, said Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist with Banco de Oro UniBank, Metro Manila.

On top of our agenda is vital support for the centerpiece projects, Duterte said via the presidential office website, referring to a $167 billion, five-year program to overhaul public facilities as a way of fostering stronger economic growth.

Testing Chinese aid

The Philippines began accepting Chinese aid for infrastructure last year after the two sides agreed to set aside a maritime sovereignty dispute that had landed them in a world arbitration court under Dutertes predecessor.

Beijing hopes its economic help around Southeast Asia will ease opposition to its dominance in that dispute, which covers most of the South China Sea and involves six governments. Some Filipinos worry that acceptance of Chinese aid will lead to compromising Philippine maritime sovereignty claims.

For the past four years, China has separately advanced a One Belt, One Road policy that extends infrastructure aid across Asia to advance Sino-foreign trade relations.

Whats in it for Japan

Japan is widely seen as competing with China for clout in the Philippines as well as other developing Asian countries.

Direct aid worldwide increased 12.7 percent last year over 2015 to $10.37 billion. The development aid also has a widening mandate, including human security and sustainable development based on individual country needs, the Japanese foreign ministry says on its website.

Japanese support for the Philippines tends to unfurl slowly compared to Chinese support, and often comes through private investment deals such as aquaculture in remote, undeveloped regions. Both countries offer concessionary loans.

Foreign direct investment in the Philippines coming from Japan has been growing in the past six years, so I think closer cooperation between these countries is beneficial, Ravelas said.

China and Japan still face unresolved issues from World War II as well as a dispute over islets in the East China Sea.

The East China Sea issue, plus wariness about Beijings grip on the South China Sea  a separate dispute not involving Japan  have prompted Tokyo to factor in freedom of navigation, rule of law and security when making aid calculations, University of Adelaide Asian studies professor Purnendra Jain wrote in a 2016 online commentary.

Japan, a staunch ally of Washington, also advocates a multicountry approach to development assistance.

Duterte was in town at [the] Japanese invitation and I think they wanted to convince him, Kingston said.

Japanese help for destroyed Philippine city

As part of Japans emphasis on human security, Abe offered $2 million to help the Philippines rebuild Marawi, Philippine media reported this week. Marawi is a southern city that was demolished during five months of fighting this year between Philippine troops and Muslim rebels.

In the past the focus has mostly been on infrastructure and grants, but now theres an effort to try to address human security issues like the roots of conflict, and terrorism, said Maria Ela Atienza, political science professor at University of the Philippines Diliman.
A U.S. federal judge has proposed a May trial date for President Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who was recently indicted on a string of charges that included conspiracy to launder money.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson set a Monday hearing to consider the proposed trial date of May 7 for both Manafort and his right-hand man and former Trump campaign adviser, Rick Gates.

Both men were indicted as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The judge also ordered Manafort and Gates to remain under house arrest, rejecting their arguments for less stringent bail conditions.

In addition, Jackson warned the pair's attorneys not to speak about the case outside court.

"This is a criminal trial and not a public relations campaign," Jackson said.

Manafort and Gates were indicted on 12 counts that included conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, being an unregistered agent of a foreign principal and making false statements. The allegations do not include collusion with Russia during the presidential campaign.

The two could face decades in prison if convicted, and both have pleaded not guilty to all charges. They've been placed under house arrest and released on multimillion-dollar bonds.

The indictment against both men, the first charges brought by Mueller, was approved by a federal grand jury and unsealed Monday after Manafort and Gates turned themselves in to the FBI.
Mexico City has updated its 911 emergency app to send earthquake alerts to residents' smartphones following last month's magnitude 7.1 temblor that killed 369 people, including 228 in the capital, authorities announced Thursday.

Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said users of the free 911 CDMX app can get sound and vibration alerts for any quake strong enough to threaten damage in the city.

It was developed by the governmental center known as C5, for Command, Control Computing, Communications and Contact, and is available for both iOS and Android.

With nerves still raw from the Sept. 19 earthquake that collapsed 38 buildings in Mexico City, Mancera said there would be no demonstration of the system to avoid causing unnecessary alarm.

"We are not interested in having anyone hear it who does not know the context in which it is being presented," the mayor said at a news conference.

More than 20 million people live in the capital and surrounding suburbs, much of which is built on a former lakebed. Its soil can amplify the effects of earthquakes that strike far away and whose shockwaves arrive in the sprawling metropolis some time later.

An even stronger earthquake Sept. 7, whose magnitude was recently adjusted upward from 8.1 to 8.2 by the U.S. Geological Survey, was centered hundreds of miles away, off the country's southern coast, but was still felt strongly by many in Mexico City.

The capital already has a system of loudspeakers that blare alarms when a significant temblor is detected.

C5 general coordinator Idris Rodriguez Zapata urged residents to download the app. He also said they should heed quake protocols "without hesitation at the moment [the alarm] is heard through the system of speakers or on cellphones."

Last month, Mancera said there had been reports of people setting their cellphone ringtones to the sound of the seismic alarm and urged them to remove it so as not to provoke panic.

Other 911 app functions let users view tweets about seismic activity, contact a 911 operator, or register their blood type and medical history.
In the halal bakeries and markets that line Main Street, and in mosques that have been part of the community for decades, a familiar dread has taken hold after the latest terror attack in the U.S.

Sayfullo Saipov, the Muslim man accused of using a truck to mow down people on a New York City bike path in the name of the Islamic State group, lived in Paterson.

Paterson saw a surge of anti-Muslim harassment after 9/11, particularly after it was learned that as many as a half-dozen of the hijackers who flew planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field lived or spent time in the city 20 miles (32 kilometers) outside New York.

After the rampage on Tuesday that left eight people dead, "it's the same feeling again," said Imam Mohammad Qatanani, spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, the region's most influential mosque.

"People here feel they will be blamed as a religion and as a people. Because this guy was a Muslim, Muslims will be blamed anywhere and everywhere."

Tensions have flared within the Muslim community as well, with two men getting into a fistfight at a mosque in a dispute over the cause of Saipov's alleged radicalization.

Until this week, Saipov, who came to the U.S. in 2010 from Uzbekistan, was just one more recent arrival in a city that is home to immigrants from more than four dozen countries.

Neighborhoods have been dubbed Little Ramallah or Little Istanbul for their respective Arab and Turkish residents. Peru has a consulate in the city to serve the large number of Peruvians.

More than 34 percent of the city's residents were born in another country, according to the Census Bureau.

Islamic leaders in the city of 147,000 people estimate Paterson's Muslim population at 25,000 to 30,000.

Paterson was an engine of the Industrial Revolution, its factories churning out textiles and embroidery that helped earn it the nickname Silk City. But many of the industrial jobs are gone, and nearly a third of Paterson's population lives in poverty, the city beset by crime and drugs.

It has been in this environment that the Muslim community established itself over decades, with a mix of Arab, Asian, African-American and European members of the faith. The Islamic Center of Passaic County, formed nearly three decades ago in Paterson, draws about 2,000 people for Friday communal prayers.

Saipov's presence

Now, some are afraid they will be made to answer for the actions of a man many leaders of the community say they didn't know.

Saipov did not attend the Passaic County mosque, Qatanani said. The suspect's apartment is next door to the Omar Mosque, where congregants disagreed over whether he prayed there.

Ramy Elhelw, 30, of Hoboken, said he never saw Saipov there. "This is not somebody we recognize in any way, shape or form," Elhelw said. "A person who does something of this nature is a deranged human being."

But Abu Mohammed, a 46-year-old Palestinian construction worker and olive oil importer who came to America at 18, said he saw Saipov worship there.

While he condemned Saipov's alleged crimes, he also said he understands what can send a law-abiding Muslim down the path of radicalization.

"It's simple: They see the U.S. terrorizing Muslims left and right for the last 27 years, hundreds of thousands of them," Mohammed said. "That's terrorism, and terrorism creates terrorists. The one who starts the fight is more guilty."

Upon hearing Mohammed's remarks to reporters at the Omar Mosque, an elderly man yelled at him and punched him in the face, and they scuffled.

9/11 fallout

The mosque had been targeted by the New York Police Department, which conducted broad surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey, New York and beyond after 9/11, a program uncovered by The Associated Press in 2011. An NYPD report from the surveillance found no evidence of criminal activity at the Omar Mosque.

Frank Cagatay, who lives in an apartment building where Saipov had lived, said the latest attack will further damage Paterson's reputation.

"The people that do this cite God in carrying out terrorist attacks, but God never told anyone to kill innocent people," Cagatay said.

After 9/11, Muslims in and around Paterson reported that people screamed anti-Muslim insults and threw objects at them, particularly after false rumors spread that people were dancing in the streets to celebrate the attacks. Several Muslims were assaulted, and mosques received bomb threats.

Reaching out

Muslim leaders have gone to great lengths to try to ease the hostility by reaching out to law enforcement officials and local residents.

Government agencies held job fairs at Qatanani's mosque to recruit Arabic-speaking Muslims, and high-ranking political and counterterrorism officials were guests at its annual Ramadan dinner.

The local FBI office, which began meeting with Paterson Muslims in 1999, said tips and other information from the Muslim community were extremely helpful after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and they praised local residents who served as translators when investigators conducted interviews.

Worries over discrimination against Muslims in New Jersey continue, however, in part because of efforts by some towns to thwart construction of mosques.

Community leaders in Paterson had no immediate reports of any anti-Muslim incidents since this week's attack. But many worried that President Donald Trump's statements  including calling Saipov an "animal"  would inflame tensions.

Aref Assaf, a Palestinian active in Paterson's Muslim community, said Muslims have been at the forefront of efforts to counter extremism.

"This guilt by association is hurtful for those of us who are working so hard to see this curse wiped from the face of the Earth," Assaf said.
A new species of orangutan has been identified in remote Indonesian forests and immediately becomes the most endangered type of great ape in the world with just 800 individuals, scientists said on Thursday.

The Tapanuli orangutan, found only in upland forests in North Sumatra, differs from the other two species of orangutan in the shape of its skull and teeth, its genes, and in the way the males make long booming calls across the jungle, they said.

"The differences are very subtle, not easily observable to the naked eye," Professor Michael Kruetzen of the University of Zurich, who is part of an international team, told Reuters.

"With no more than 800 individuals, this species is the most endangered great ape," the scientists wrote. Apart from humans, great apes comprise orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and

bonobos.

The Tapanuli orangutan had probably been isolated from other populations for 10,000-20,000 years, the researchers wrote in the journal Current Biology. The population had been known by scientists since at least 1997 but had not previously been considered a separate species.

The Tapanuli orangutan faces threats including from forest clearance to make way for mining or palm oil plantations. The region also had plans for a hydro-electric dam.

The scientists urged quick conservation measures. Otherwise, "we may see the discovery and extinction of a great ape species within our lifetime," they wrote.

Laurel Sutherlin of Rainforest Action Network, who was not involved in the study, said the finding "must also serve as a wake up call to all of us from consumers, to global food and paper brands, to investors and local and national governments" to protect forests.
U.S. federal prosecutors have filed terrorism charges against Sayfullo Saipov, 29, an Uzbek immigrant accused of carrying out Tuesdays deadly terror attack in New York.

The suspect is accused of using a rented truck to run down people on a busy bike path in Manhattan, killing eight and injuring 12 others.

The attack raised concerns about increasing extremism among some ethnic Uzbeks, originating from the Central Asia region.

The last 18 to 24 months show that Uzbeks or Uzbek-speaking Kyrgyz and Tajiks are disproportionally involved in these lone wolf terror strikes, Thomas Lynch, a research fellow at the Washington-based National Defense University (NDU) who has done research on extremism in Central Asia, told VOA.

Other attacks by ethnic Uzbeks

Since the beginning of 2017, there have been several terror attacks on the West that were allegedly carried out by ethnic Uzbeks with ties to terror organizations.

In January 2017, Abdulkadir Masharipov, 34, an ethnic Uzbek, is suspected in a deadly attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, where at least 39 people were killed. Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack.

In April, Russian officials said Akbarzhon Jalilov, 22, an ethnic Uzbek originally from Kyrgyzstan, died in a suicide attack at a metro center in St. Petersburg, Russia, that killed at least 14 people and injured more than 50 others.

A few days later, Rakhmat Akilov, an ethnic Uzbek from Uzbekistan, is accused of carrying out a truck attack on a street in Stockholm, Sweden, killing four people and injuring several others. He reportedly pledged allegiance to IS.

Last week, Abdurasul Juraboev, a 27-year-old Uzbek in New York, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State terror group.

At least seven Uzbeks are serving time behind bars in the U.S. on charges of attempting to provide material support to terrorist organizations.

Reasons

While U.S authorities are attempting to learn the motives of Saipov and whether he was indeed radicalized by IS or acted alone, the series of terror attacks carried out in recent months by ethnic Uzbeks in Europe and the U.S have had analysts working to find answers for what could possibly be the reasons behind the rise and whether there is an issue that has potentially managed to move into the blind spot of the Western intelligence community.

Khalid Majidyar, a Washington-based analyst, believes the rise has something to do with ISs ability to disseminate its propaganda online.

Over the past three years, IS has created a vast online propaganda network to radicalize young men and recruit them. The diaspora Central Asia communities, albeit a small number of them, appear to be particularly susceptible to IS propaganda, Majidyar said.

Lynch, of NDU, believes that influx of Uzbek-speaking Central Asians to IS battlefields in Iraq and Syria in recent years has allowed IS to make inroads in the region and increase its influence.

Of the more than 4,000 fighters from Central Asia who fought for IS in the Middle East, an estimated 500 to 1,500 were ethnic Uzbeks, a vast majority of them former migrant workers in Russia and parts of Eastern Europe, Lynch said.

These people joined IS in large numbers, not from Uzbekistan directly, but rather from positions of minority and lower work level conditions and very isolated conditions in Russia and in selected other eastern European countries, but primarily Russia, Lynch said.

Some blame the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) for linking IS to Central Asia. Initially established as a socio-religious group in the mid-1990s, IMU morphed into a militant organization and recruited fighters from several Central Asia states. The group maintained close ties with al-Qaida and pledged allegiance to IS in 2015.

Uzbek language

IS reliance on the Uzbek language to convey its message may have also caught the Western intelligence community off guard.

Europe did not realize that the language of radicalization of Central Asians was the Uzbek language, NDUs Lynch said, adding that Europes fight against ISs propaganda was solely focused on Arabic language with little to no focus on Uzbek.

Uzbek language is one of Central Asias widely spoken languages. Besides Uzbekistan, the language is also spoken in parts of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Some of the radicalization is being tied to the repressive state security apparatus in Central Asian countries, which allegedly contributed to the radicalization of youth in the region, experts say.

There is more risk of radicalization the way which Uzbeks oppress religious activity in their country and they brand any non-state sponsored religious activity as being a political opponent, Lynch said.

The government in Uzbekistan has been accused by rights groups of violating the human and political rights of its citizens.

Thousands of people are imprisoned on politically motivated charges. Torture is endemic in the criminal justice system. Authorities continue to crack down on civil society activists, opposition members and journalists, Human Right Watch said. Muslims and Christians who practice their religion outside strict state control are persecuted and freedom of expression is severely limited.

Sukhrobjon Ismoilov, a New York-based Uzbek lawyer, also blames the repressive regimes in the region for the spread of extremist ideology in the region.

Todays incident [New York attack] is one of the side effects of the past mistakes, including against political and religious freedom, by the previous regimes, Ismoilov told VOA.

Ismoilov added that some Uzbek immigrants in the U.S. have been unable to fully integrate into the American society because of language barriers and an unwillingness to adjust to the new culture. Over time, that led to their marginalization, he said.

Edward Lemon, a Central Asian scholar at Columbia University, warned that despite the fact that several of Europes terror attacks in recent years were carried out by Uzbeks, efforts should be made to avoid painting the entire population with the same brush.

They do not represent all Uzbeks and only a tiny number have joined radical groups, Lemon emphasized.

VOAs Navbahor Imamova and Mehdi Jedinia contributed to this report.
A Nigerien man who says he found three of the four U.S. soldiers killed in Niger last month says the bodies were bloodied and stripped of their uniforms.

Adamou Boubacar told VOA's French to Africa service that he was the first to discover the bodies after the Oct. 4 battle between U.S. Army Special Forces and the jihadist militants who ambushed them in the western Nigerien village of Tongo Tongo.

Boubacar, a resident of Tongo Tongo, said he was searching for his wife and children in nearby fields.

"When I came out of the village, I saw the bodies of the three white American soldiers. There was a lot of blood  you cannot imagine," he told the VOA Afrique program.

He said he found two soldiers in a vehicle and the other on the ground.

"Two of them are big, they are also heavy," he said. "The third is also heavy but not as big as the other two. There was one who had tattoos on his arm," Boubacar said.

Stripped of clothing, weapons



VOA asked the Pentagon on Friday to confirm the details. A Pentagon spokeswoman told VOA that an investigation was under way and that there would be no comment until all the facts had been gathered.

Asked whether the American soldiers were wearing their combat gear, Boubacar said one was naked and the others were in their underwear. He said all their weapons and equipment had been taken.

The U.S. military has identified the three soldiers found together Oct. 4 as Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright, 29, Staff Sgt. Bryan Black, 35, and Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Johnson, 39.

As for the fourth American soldier  Sgt. La David Johnson, 25, who was found two days later  Boubacar said it was children who discovered his body.

"There must be at least two kilometers between where his body was found and the place where the attack took place," he said.

"These young people informed the village chief, who then called the soldiers, who came and they went together to take him," Boubacar said.

A U.S. official told VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb there was "no indication" that Johnson was ever in the custody of hostile forces.

Complicity suspected

The village chief was subsequently arrested by Nigerien authorities on suspicion of helping to facilitate the attack.

Four Nigerien soldiers and a Nigerien interpreter also were killed in the Oct. 4 ambush, for which a pro-Islamic State group in Niger claimed responsibility.

U.S. troops are in Niger and other West African countries to help regional governments battle jihadist groups that include al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram.

Nicolas Pinault, VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb and VOA national security correspondent contributed to this report.
South African prosecutors on Friday argued that disgraced Paralympian Oscar Pistorius should serve nine additional years in prison after being convicted of murdering his girlfriend. The move is yet another twist in the now four-year-long saga that followed the 2013 shooting death of model Reeva Steenkamp.

Pistorius was re-sentenced last year after prosecutors successfully argued that his conviction should be upgraded from culpable homicide to murder. After the new conviction, a judge sentenced him to six years  a far cry from the 15-year minimum recommended under South African law.

On Friday, state prosecutor Andrea Johnson argued to the Supreme Court of Appeal that the sentence should be increased to 15 years. She argued, as the prosecution has previously, that Pistorius has shown little remorse.

"Yes, the respondent apologized," she told the five-judge panel. "What did he apologize for? 'I'm sorry.' Sorry for what?"

Pistorius maintained he mistook his girlfriend of three months for an intruder and did not mean to kill her when he shot four times at a locked bathroom door, killing her.

Pistorius' lawyer, Barry Roux, has long argued that the athlete  who made history in 2012 by being the first double-amputee to compete in the Olympics  is severely traumatized by the ordeal and needs hospitalization, not imprisonment.

He is, Roux argued Friday, plagued by post-traumatic stress disorder and is a "broken man."

Pistorius was not present at Friday's proceedings in the judicial capital of Bloemfontein.

The Paralympian's case has been a slow-motion education in the South African legal system. The original trial, which stretched over six months, was the first South African trial to be broadcast live. It even had its own channel.

Judge Thokozile Masipa handed down a verdict of culpable homicide in September 2014, and the following month sentenced Pistorius to five years. South Africa does not hold jury trials.

The prosecution successfully appealed to have his conviction upgraded, in late 2015. Masipa added one year to his sentence in mid-2016, arguing, at the time, that no sentence she could give would satisfy South Africa's highly polarized public.

The appeal judges will rule at a later date.
Two U.S. firms caught up in the special counsel's indictment against Paul Manafort claim to have been misled about the details of the former Trump campaign chairman's lobbying efforts for Ukraine, but clear warning signals were readily available.

Voice of America's Ukrainian Service has turned up several U.S. and European news articles from 2007 to 2014, and spoken with Ukrainian politicians, that lay out connections between the Brussels-based non-profit that hired the firms and the then-ruling party in Ukraine  a key fact that the lobbying firms claim not to have known at the time.

"Lobbyists should have examined available information carefully at the time of the engagement as a matter of know-your-client procedure," said Gene Burd, a Washington-based international business partner with Arnall Golden Gregory LLP.

He said the two firms  listed in the indictment as Company A and Company B, but recently identified as Mercury Public Affairs and The Podesta Group should also "have kept up with the changing management situation and sources of financing of the organization."

Manafort, who served as President Donald Trump's campaign chairman for three months in 2016, was indicted in a U.S. federal court Monday on multiple charges including having failed to register as a lobbyist for a foreign government at a time when his firm was acting on behalf of then-Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych's pro-Kremlin Party of Regions.

The indictment describes that work as part of a "scheme" by Manafort and co-defendant Rick Gates to generate U.S. support for the party, which favored aligning Kyiv with Moscow instead of seeking European Union membership, as many Ukrainians advocated.

The indictment says both lobbying groups were recruited by Manafort's firm to act on behalf of a Brussels-based non-profit known as the European Center for a Modern Ukraine (ECFMU) from 2012 to 2014. It says the ECFMU was, in fact, a vehicle for advancing the interests of Yanukovych's Party of Regions.

Both firms deny that they knowingly engaged in an image-rehabilitation campaign for Yanukovych's Party of Regions, as the indictment indicates. Their latest public statement reiterates their claim that they were led to believe they were working only for ECFMU, which they understood to be a pro-EU think tank that sought to inform U.S. government officials about Ukraine.

Podesta Group CEO Kimberley Fritts told VOA's Ukrainian Service in August 2016, when their undisclosed foreign lobbying efforts were first reported, that, relying on the opinion of in-house and external legal counsel, her organization lawfully represented ECFMU interests in the United States without registering under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

"Because [our] firm was partnering with Mercury, [Podesta] in-house counsel coordinated with Mercury's [in-house] counsel and Mercury's outside legal counsel," she was quoted as saying in an official statement emailed to VOA from the Podesta group. "Together, they concluded that LDA [Lobbying Disclosure Act] was the appropriate reporting route."

LDA registration is required of U.S. lobbyists representing business and non-governmental foreign interests such as cultural or educational organizations, whereas FARA's more rigorous and legally binding registration disclosures are required to lobby on behalf of foreign governments or political parties.

Fritts also told VOA that the two lobbying groups agreed to work for the ECFMU only after its director filed a written statement verifying that "none of the activities of the Center are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed or subsidized in whole or in part by a government of a foreign country or a foreign political party."

Former ECFMU director Ina Kirsch verified Fritts' account of events, telling VOA that she personally assured Podesta and Mercury legal counsel that ECFMU "has never received any money from the Party of Regions, Ukrainian government or president," and that it received funds from only private companies.

Kirsch also said that ECFMU did not pay any money to the U.S. firms for their lobbying work. That claim is supported by Monday's indictment, which states that "companies A and B," which collectively received more than $2 million for their work, were paid not by the ECFMU, but from offshore bank accounts run by Manafort's firm in Kyiv.

"We believed [Manafort's associate, Rick Gates, who introduced ECFMU to the Podesta Group] was working for [the ECFMU], as we were hired to do," the Fritts statement said.

However, an online search of news articles from 2007 to 2014 reveal Manafort's role as Yanukovych's principal strategist and identify the ECFMU as a vehicle of the Party of Regions.

A 2007 New York Times report on then-prime minister Yanukovych, for example, portrayed Manafort as a "behind-the-scenes" impresario who had taken the "once divisive [Yanukovych], reviled by some [Ukrainians] as a shady reactionary and Kremlin pawn," and turned him into "arguably the nation's most popular politician."

Similar reports by Ukrainian news outlets described the range of Manafort's political lobbying strategies and cited ECFMU documents that positioned the non-profit as a Party of Regions instrument of international influence.

In March 2012, Ukrainska Pravda, one of Ukraine's most influential mainstream news websites, published an ECFMU expose that listed long-time Party of Regions MP Leonid Kozhara  who went on to become Yanukovych's foreign minister in December of that year  as head of the ECFMU. The article also identifies two other prominent Party of Regions MPs, Evgen Geller and Vitaly Kalyzhny, as ECFMU founders.

In a June 2012 interview with Kyiv-based Glavcom, Kozhara mentions the center's financial dependence on government sources and describes its alignment with his government's international objectives.

Glavcom reporter: It is known that you have co-founded the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, which looks like it is busy with improving the image of Ukrainian authorities as related to the case of [then-imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia] Tymoshenko. Is this so?

ECFMU's Kozhara: ... When I received an invitation from Brussels to chair the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, I was honored. I saw it as an acknowledgment of my work.

When asked about the sources of ECFMU financing, Kozhara said: "As all NGOs, we have membership fees, but business structures and government structures all give money. If they want to receive the assistance, they should pay membership fees."

In an August 2016 interview with VOA, Kozhara denied having ever held a position with the ECFMU, describing himself as an unpaid board member of various NGOs, of which ECFMU was but one.

Manafort and Gates are accused of serving as unregistered foreign agents of Ukrainian interests in violation of Department of Justice registration requirements.

Between them, Manafort and Gates controlled 12 domestic entities, 12 Cyprus-based entities and three other foreign entities, according to the indictment. In all, $75 million passed through the offshore accounts. Manafort is alleged to have laundered more than $18 million. Gates is accused of laundering more than $3 million from offshore accounts.

Podesta Group founder Tony Podesta, a long-time Democratic Party fund-raiser and brother to former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, abruptly resigned from the group hours after the indictment was made public. John, who co-founded the group with his brother in 1988, has not been associated with the group since the 1990s and is not associated with the indictment.

The Podesta Group lobbies on behalf of various foreign interests, including the governments of Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia. It has also represented Sberbank, Russia's largest bank.

According to the New York Times, Mercury partner Michael McKeon issued a statement that the firm "takes its obligations to follow all laws, rules and regulations very seriously" and "has and will continue to fully cooperate with the Office of the Special Counsel in its investigation."

No charges have been brought against Tony Podesta, his former lobbying group or Mercury, but all have been subpoenaed for records and testimony regarding their work with Manafort, Gates and the ECFMU.
The governor of Puerto Rico traveled to New York Thursday to see how the state rebuilt following Superstorm Sandy and meet with Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo to discuss his island's recovery from Hurricane Maria.

Governor Ricardo Rossello joined Cuomo for an aerial tour of sites on Long Island affected by the 2012 storm that were rebuilt to be more resilient to flooding. The two men then discussed additional ways New York could help the U.S. territory, and Cuomo announced the deployment of additional utility workers to assist in restoring electricity.

Rossello said he hoped Puerto Rico emerged from Maria as well as New York did from Sandy.

"Five years down the road, we can have a bigger event where we remember what the catastrophe was,'' he said.

Cuomo, who has slammed the federal response to the storm, said an additional 350 utility workers and 220 utility trucks would be sent to Puerto Rico this weekend. The state already has sent hundreds of personnel and millions of pounds of supplies, and Cuomo has visited the island twice since the storm.

'Intolerable'

"It's been 35 days,'' he said at a joint news conference with Rossello. "The result is intolerable. You cannot have a situation where people don't have water for 40 days. Just imagine if that happened in the United States. ... Puerto Ricans have been treated as second-class Americans.''

Considered a possible candidate for president in 2020, Cuomo stopped short of calling out President Donald Trump by name. But he said the slow response was contributing to a "humanitarian crisis.''

Federal officials have defended the recovery effort and said they will remain in Puerto Rico until the work is done.

Rossello also expressed his solidarity with New York following Tuesday's deadly terror attack in Manhattan.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with you after the tragic events that occurred a couple of nights ago,'' he said. "We are with you. We will be with you, as you have been with us.''
U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry suggested Thursday that expanding the use of fossil fuels could help prevent sexual assault.

During an event sponsored by NBC News and Axios, Perry said using fossil fuels to power electricity can help villages in Africa and other developing regions.

Perry said he met a young girl on a trip to Africa who told him that electricity was important to her because she has to read by the light of a fire with noxious fumes.

He went on to say electricity also was important "from the standpoint of sexual assault. When the lights are on, when you have light that shines the righteousness, if you will, on those types of acts."

From the standpoint "of how you really affect people's lives, fossil fuels ... play a role in that," Perry said. "I happen to think it's going to play a positive role."

Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, the nation's largest environmental group, called on Perry to resign immediately.

"It was already clear that Rick Perry is unfit to lead the Department of Energy, but to suggest that fossil fuel development will decrease sexual assault is not only blatantly untrue, it is an inexcusable attempt to minimize a serious and pervasive issue," Brune said in a statement.

"Women, and particularly women of color, are among the most severely impacted by the climate crisis, and it is these same communities that are most at risk of sexual assault," Brune said.

The Department of Energy said Perry was only trying to highlight the ways electricity can improve the lives of people in Africa.

"The secretary was only making the important point that while many Americans take electricity for granted, there are people in other countries who are impacted by their lack of electricity," agency spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes said.
Senior U.S. Republican and Democratic lawmakers proposed targeted sanctions and travel restrictions on Myanmar military officials on Thursday over the treatment of the country's Rohingya Muslim minority, one of the strongest efforts yet for Washington to intervene in the humanitarian crisis.

Announced the day before Republican President Donald Trump leaves on his first trip to Asia since taking office, the legislation would reimpose some sanctions lifted last year as Myanmar returned to democracy. It would bar the United States from supplying most assistance to the country's military until it has been certified that perpetrators of atrocities against the Rohingya are being held accountable.

The measure does not target Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, head of Myanmar's civilian-led government and a Nobel peace laureate who still enjoys strong support among some U.S. officials.

But congressional aides said it is intended to underscore a strong desire among many members of Congress for her to do more to help the Rohingya.

The bill is sponsored by lawmakers including the Republican Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain, and Senator Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to an early summary of the bill seen by Reuters.

Among other things, it re-imposes a ban on jade and rubies from Myanmar, requires a report on which individuals should be subjected to visa bans and targeted sanctions, and instructs the U.S. Treasury Department to support only international financial assistance programs that do not partner with enterprises owned by the Myanmar military.

A companion bill is also being introduced in the House of Representatives. That measure also has bipartisan support, led by Representative Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Republican Representative Steve Chabot, another foreigns affairs panel member, increasing the measure's chances of eventually becoming law.

Members of Congress have been clamoring for a strong response to the plight of the Rohingya, and the Trump administration has been weighing labelling their treatment ethnic cleansing.

The State Department announced on Thursday that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would accompany Trump on his trip to Asia, but that Tillerson will also make a stop in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Rakhine state in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, mostly to neighboring Bangladesh, since security forces responded to Rohingya militants' attacks on Aug. 25 by launching a crackdown that has included reports of burnt villages and widespread killings.

The United Nations has already denounced it as a classic example of ethnic cleansing.
A Spanish judge is considering whether to issue an international arrest warrant for Catalonia's ousted leader Carles Puigdemont over the region's contested independence drive.

Puigdemont flew to Brussels with four members of his cabinet this week after Spanish authorities removed him and the 13-member Cabinet from office for pushing ahead with secession.



If an arrest warrant is issued, Puigdemont will fight extradition without seeking political asylum, according to his Belgian lawyer.



Puigdemont had been due to appear at Spain's National Court on Thursday to answer questions in a rebellion case brought by Spanish prosecutors, but he did not show up.

The judge jailed nine former members of Catalonias separatist government on Wednesday, while they are investigated on possible charges of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement connected to their push for the region's independence from Spain.

She later granted one of them bail at $58,300.

In a short address from Brussels broadcast by Catalan regional television TV3, Puigdemont called for the release of "the legitimate government of Catalonia" as hundreds of people gathered outside the Catalan parliament also calling for them to be freed.

"As the legitimate president of Catalonia, I demand the release of the members of my cabinet. I demand respect for all political options and I demand the end of the political repression," he said.

Puigdemont said the imprisonment of former Catalan Vice-President Oriol Junqueras and 8 members of his cabinet was an attack on democracy and not compatible with a "Europe in the 21st century."

Meanwhile, data released Friday showed that unemployment rose sharply in Catalonia in October, more than anywhere else in Spain as companies fled in the midst of the country's worst political crisis in decades.
Cities in tropical island states led by Fiji plan to team up with cities from New York to Malmo, Sweden, to tackle rising sea levels and other threats linked to climate change, according to a draft plan seen by Reuters.

The project, part of a plan to help towns and cities on islands, will be unveiled during a 200-nation meeting in Bonn, Germany, November 6-17 on ways to bolster the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Steve Gawler, regional director for the Oceana region of ICLEI, an international association of local governments, said there were likely to be six to eight twinning deals announced in Bonn between rich cities and island cities.

New York, Bonn (on the Rhine River) and Malmo (at the mouth of the Baltic Sea) are among rich cities that have signaled they want to work with cities in developing nations such as Fiji and the Solomon islands, he told Reuters.

"It's all about accelerated assistance to cities on small islands," he said. Rich cities would share expertise on issues such as coastal barriers, clean energy and ways to curb pollution.

Fiji will be the president of the Bonn talks, which aim to keep up action on climate change after U.S. President Donald Trump, who doubts that global warming has a mainly human cause, said in June he would pull the U.S. out of the Paris deal.

A draft of the island plan drawn up by ICLEI and the Global Island Partnership says islands must work together to make their economies more resilient. Some island cities face problems of pollution and over-crowding.

A Fijian official said the plan was part of a long-term effort by island states, at risk from more powerful cyclones and a rise in sea levels as ice melts from Greenland to Antarctica.

Sea levels have risen by 20 centimeters (8 inches) in the past century.

Linn Johansson, an official for the Malmo municipality, said "islands are on the front line of climate change" with a need to act now. "The same goes for cities such as Malmo."

Details of Malmo's participation in the project are still being worked out, she said. Malmo is working to protect its canals and low-lying regions from future sea level rise and can also share experiences in cutting fossil fuel use.

Gawler said that New York's plans to bolster coastal defenses after Superstorm Sandy in 2012 would make it a valuable partner for a developing-nation city. New York officials did not reply to emailed questions about the plan.

Fiji's Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said in a speech in May that "cities in the developed world like Miami, New York, Venice or Rotterdam" are as vulnerable to rising seas as tropical islands.
U.S. President Donald Trump condemned a military judge's order on Friday to spare Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl from prison after he pleaded guilty todeserting his post in Afghanistan in 2009.

"The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military," Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.



The judge also ordered Bergdahl, who was captured by the Taliban, to be dishonorably discharged and recommended that he be demoted.
President Donald Trump said Friday the American public "deserves" a federal investigation of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee over a joint fundraising agreement they signed in August 2015.

Trump launched a multi-part Twitter attack criticizing his former 2016 rival. Trump writes: "Crooked Hillary bought the DNC & then stole the Democratic Primary from Crazy Bernie!" He adds it's the "real story on Collusion."



Trump's accusation follows Politico's publication of an excerpt from former acting DNC Chair Donna Brazile's upcoming book. Brazile alleges she found "proof" that the 2016 Democratic primary was rigged in Clinton's favor. Brazile writes that she believes no laws were violated, but that a funding agreement "looked unethical."

Late Thursday, Trump tweeted without evidence that he believed they had acted "illegally."



In subsequent tweets Friday, Trump highlighted criticism of the DNC from Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whom he has mocked by calling her "Pocahontas." He also called on federal authorities to launch an investigation.

"Lets go FBI & Justice Dept.," he tweeted.



The fundraising agreement, signed in August 2015 during the primary process, was unusual for an open seat and, according to Brazile, gave the Clinton campaign oversight of some DNC decisions. Months later, Clinton's chief challenger, independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, signed his own agreement with the party.

Trump and his campaign are subjects of a wide-ranging investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. The White House has repeatedly sought to turn the attention of the probe, which is looking into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, to Clinton and her campaign.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who embarked on a 12-day trip to Asia Friday, said he would extend his visit in the Philippines by one day to attend the East Asia Summit.

"We're actually staying an extra day in the Philippines. We have a big conference, the second conference, and I think we'll be talking about trade. We'll be talking about, obviously, North Korea," he said.

Trump will also attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in the Philippine capital of Manila.

On a recent visit to Jakarta, Indonesia, Vice President Mike Pence said the U.S.-ASEAN relationship was a "strategic partnership" and that ASEAN had "promoted prosperity and security" not only among member nations but also throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

When it announced the trip in late September, the White House said one of the administration's primary goals was to garner global support against the North Korean threat while attending regional summits.

"The president's engagements will strengthen the international resolve to confront the North Korean threat and ensure the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," the statement said.

The trip will include the president's first visit to China, North Korea's closest ally and top trade partner. His travels also will take him to Vietnam for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and to South Korea, Japan and Vietnam.

The exchange of goods and services between the countries also will be a priority for Trump. The White House said the president would stress "the importance of fair and reciprocal economic ties with America's trade partners."
Turkey is reinforcing the armored columns it started deploying last month in the northern Syrian province of Idlib, the stronghold of an increasingly fractious al-Qaida-linked group, in what analysts describe as a phased incursion.

The campaign to pacify Idlib, which has been coordinated with Russia, has been accompanied by a string of assassinations of jihadist commanders who have been unwilling to collaborate with Ankara, according to analysts and Syrian rebel commanders. Other jihadist commanders, eager to avoid an all-out fight with the Turks, have been negotiating both with Turkey and Russia.

Seven Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) commanders have been slain in apparently targeted killings in recent days  the latest being Monday when a commander by the name of Abu Ali Dumar was killed near the town of Ma'arat al-Nu'man.

Turkish officials deny involvement in the killings and no group has claimed responsibility.

An additional column of Turkish soldiers, along with tanks and armored personnel carriers, crossed the Turkey-Syria border near Iskenderun on Thursday.

It is the third major Turkish reinforcement since October 22, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a network of political activists, which says Turkey apparently intends to link territory it is carving out in Idlib with the buffer zone it established in the countryside northeast of Aleppo last year.

The Turkish incursion in Idlib, west of Aleppo, appears to have a three-fold aim, analysts say: to contain Syrian Kurdish forces, considered a security threat by Ankara, from breaking out of their enclave of Afrin, adjacent to Turkey, thus preventing them from expanding deeper into the countryside near Idlib and Aleppo; to transform Idlib into a de-escalation zone, the fourth across Syria agreed to by Russia, Turkey and Iran at talks on September 15 in the Kazakh capital of Astana; and to reduce the strength of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, which controls more than half of the province.

Erdogan and the YPG

Speaking this past week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters Turkey is "in solidarity with Russia on Idlib" when it comes to de-conflicting the province.

Erdogan, however, emphasized his goal of blocking the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) from expanding across northern Syria, and linking the Afrin canton with the main body of Kurdish territory east of Aleppo.

"Afrin could present threats to us at any moment. Members of the separatist terror organization may try to reach the Mediterranean through the north by occupying Idlib," he said.

Turkey will "never allow the YPG to expand its influence in the region," Erdogan said.

Ankara considers the YPG, an ally of the U.S. in the campaign against the Islamic State terror group, an affiliate of Turkey's outlawed Kurdish separatist organization, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

The Turkish deployments so far have involved positioning troops in areas between Syrian rebel forces opposed to President Bashar al-Assad and the YPG. Turkish units have not so far been positioned between rebel militias and forces loyal to the Syrian president.

Insurgent commanders told VOA that Ankara, now the main backer of anti-Assad insurgent groups in the area since the U.S. discontinued arms supplies to them, are being discouraged by their Turkish patrons from launching offensives against the Syrian regime.

Further east around Aleppo, anti-Assad rebels are being encouraged to hand over their positions to Turkish forces that were deployed last year in an incursion that gained Ankara control over the Syrian towns of Jarablus, Azaz and al-Bab. On Thursday, Nour al-Din al-Zenki, an anti-Assad rebel militia, said it had agreed to withdraw from some of its positions in rural Aleppo allowing Turkish troops to occupy them.

HTS factor

Syrian Kurds say the Turkish incursions are intended only to harm them; but, some analysts argue the Turkish operation in northern Syria is more complex.

"Turkey's deployment of a measured force in a strategically important zone of northern Idlib may primarily be intended to project force on the YPG in Afrin, but it also introduces a new and public source of pressure on HTS," said Charles Lister, an analyst with the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based policy research group.

In an article for the website War on the Rocks, Lister argued that while Turkey's Idlib intervention looks "like an entirely self-interested affair to contain the YPG," it is also "designed in part to be the first step toward weakening HTS."

He notes that last year when Turkey launched operation Euphrates Shield around northern Aleppo, HTS commanders reacted angrily, withdrew from the area, and threatened to retaliate against Syrian rebel groups that collaborated with Ankara.

This time around, Turkey's entrance has forced a more pliant line from HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who has been anxious to avoid a confrontation with Turkish forces and their Syrian rebel partners, Lister says.

Internal disputes

That has aggravated divisions within the jihadist group.

Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham has gone through several name changes. It was called Jabhat al-Nusra initially and has been plagued by internal disputes, often pitching al-Qaida veterans from outside Syria against Syrian-born members. There has been mounting public criticism of HTS leader al-Jolani by al-Qaida ideologues.

In early October, a new jihadist group in Syria emerged from the disputes, calling itself Ansar al-Furqan Fi Bilad al-Sham, or the Supporters of the Quran in Syria. The breakaway, which has been strengthened by the arrival of al-Qaida veterans from South Asia and the Arabian Peninsula, has sworn allegiance to a son of Osama bin-Laden, Hamza, although it remains unclear how involved he is in its running.

According to the U.S.-based jihad and terrorism monitoring group the Middle East Media Research Institute, Ansar al-Furqan has sworn to target U.S. interests primarily but in a statement released October 10, two days after Turkey started its incursion in Idlib, the breakaway group said it was ready to fight the Turkish army.

The string of assassinations in Idlib of jihadist commanders opposed to Turkey appears to be a covert campaign aimed at aggravating divisions within HTS, say political activists. The contents of intercepted phone conversations among commanders of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham have also been leaked and posted on social media sites, adding to disarray in jihadist ranks.
Veteran diplomat Susan Page has been named the United Nations' special representative to Haiti and will lead the new U.N. mission to enhance the country's justice system.

Her appointment was announced Wednesday. On Friday, her first official day on the job, Page was expected to travel to Haiti with the deputy secretary-general, Amina Mohammed, and the special envoy for Haiti, Josette Sheer, according to the U.N. press office.

The U.N. diplomats were to meet with government officials and other stakeholders, the press office said. They also planned to tour the Haitian government's development initiatives and visit communities most affected by a deadly cholera epidemic.

Since January, Page has served as deputy special representative for rule of law with the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). That mission, aimed at stabilizing the country after a 2004 coup, ended in mid-October.

It was immediately succeeded by the U.N. mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH), intended to strengthen the justice and corrections system, policing and the protection of human rights.

The new mission has been embraced by the government of President Jovenel Moise but has some skeptics, as the Reuters news service has reported.

The country should expect nothing positive from this new mission, which is only a tactic to continue with the occupation that the Haitian people have rejected, former presidential candidate Eric Jean-Baptiste was quoted as saying.

The U.N. has been blamed for the cholera epidemic, allegedly introduced by Nepalese peacekeepers who arrived to help after a massive earthquake in 2010. The bacterial disease has killed 9,722 of Haiti's nearly 11 million people.

Last August, acknowledging the U.N.'s role in the epidemic, spokesman Farhan Haq said the organization would "do much more regarding its own involvement."

Page is experienced in dealing with conflict.

She served as the first U.S. ambassador to South Sudan, from late 2011 through Aug. 23, 2014, then became the acting U.S. ambassador to the African Union and the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa. She also was a U.S. deputy assistant secretary for African affairs and a senior adviser on Sudan and South Sudan.

Page led the rule of law advisory unit for the U.N.'s Sudan mission, and served as legal adviser for the U.N. Development Program in Sudan and Rwanda.

A native of Chicago, Illinois, Page was born in 1964. She earned a law degree from Harvard University and an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, where she majored in English.
The U.N. refugee agency is calling on governments to grant basic rights of citizenship to millions of stateless people who suffer discrimination, exclusion and persecution.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is making this plea on the third anniversary of a 10-year global campaign to prevent, reduce and eradicate statelessness.

The largest stateless minority group in the world right now is the Rohingya.

Although the Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations, the government does not recognize them as citizens. They are forced to live on the margins of society and are denied the most basic rights enjoyed by Myanmar nationals. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape violence and persecution.

The U.N. refugee agency reports there are more than 3 million stateless people around the world, with about 75 percent of them belonging to minority groups. The agencys IBelong campaign to end statelessness highlights the reality that these individuals do not belong anywhere.

Carol Batchelor is the UNHCRs international protection division director. She says stateless people are among the most bereft.

If you live in this world without a nationality, you are without an identity, she said. You are without documentation. You are without the rights and entitlements that come, that we take for granted, even just being able to gather here today, having a job, having education, knowing that your child belongs somewhere.

Progress has been made in reducing statelessness since the IBelong campaign began three years ago. Thousands of stateless people have been granted citizenship in places such as Thailand, central Asia, Russia, Kenya and West Africa; but the job is far from over.

The UNHCR urges all states to ease naturalization for stateless minority groups that fulfill certain residential requirements, grant citizenship to children in the country of their birth, and eliminate laws and practices that discriminate against people on ethnic and racial grounds.
The U.N. human rights office and U.N. refugee agency are condemning Australia's policy toward 600 refugees and asylum seekers at a former Australian immigration camp in Papua New Guinea, calling it cruel and a violation of international humanitarian and refugee laws.

The agencies warned this week that a humanitarian emergency was unfolding at the Manus Island camp following Australia's decision to close the facility and pull out its support staff.

Human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said his agency was very concerned about the safety and well-being of the 600 men who remained in the so-called accommodation center. He said they were too frightened to leave.

"We call on the Australian government, as the party who interned the men in the first place, to immediately provide protection, food, water and other basic services, which have been cut off since the authorities shuttered the facility on 31st October.  Moreover, the men have said they fear they will be subjected to violence at the hands of locals if they leave the compound."

Colville said the men had been victims of violence in the past, so these fears should be respected and addressed.

The U.N. refugee agency has staff on the ground and is monitoring the situation.

UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch told VOA that an alternate site being built to house the refugees and asylum seekers was not ready. He said tensions were growing as protests of local residents opposed to the move intensified.

"So, we are quite worried. ... Australia's policy of deterrence by rescuing people at sea, mistreating them and abandoning them has become a notion of cruelty," he said. "So, we are trying to urge Australia again and again to take up its obligation and its responsibility."

Baloch said the humanitarian emergency should be dealt with in a humane way, based on compassion and international laws.

Australia scheduled the Manus facility for closure after the Supreme Court in Papua New Guinea ruled last year that the detention center was unconstitutional because it violated the detainees' right of personal liberty.

Australia's strict immigration policy bars asylum seekers who come from the Middle East, Africa and Asia from reaching the country's shores by boat. Instead, they go to Manus Island or another facility on Papua New Guinea. Rights activists have criticized conditions at the camps.
An American woman who works for an online television station in Zimbabwe was arrested and accused of undermining the authority of President Robert Mugabe on social media, according to her lawyers.

The group Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, which is representing Martha O'Donovan, said police made a dawn raid Friday at her Harare home and confiscated some of her electronic devices.

O'Donovan's arrest did not come as a surprise, according to Kumbirai Mafunda, the spokesman for the lawyers' group.

"We have noted a worrying trend in terms of arresting people and charging them with insulting or undermining the authority of the president," Mafunda said. "So we see this as an intensification of the clampdown on dissent. It is just that this  the first Twitter-related arrest coming after the establishment of the ministry of the cybersecurity. We were not really surprised. We know this government to be worried or concerned with free expression, especially as we move toward the 2018 elections."

Last month, Mugabe's spokesman said his boss had established a ministry of cybersecurity, threat detection and mitigation "to trap all rats" accused of abuse on social media and the internet.

On Friday, U.S. embassy spokesman David McGuire confirmed the arrest.

"U.S. consular services have been in contact with the American citizen and we have confirmed that she is being represented by a counsel. Obviously, we are concerned and aware of the situation; we will continue to monitor it closely," McGuire said.

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said O'Donovan might appear in court Saturday.
The United States is considering designating North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism, the White House national security adviser said Thursday, a move meant to put additional financial and diplomatic pressure on the totalitarian government.

The State Department faced a congressionally mandated deadline Thursday to respond to several U.S. senators request that North Korea be returned to the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. Currently, the only countries on the list are Iran, Syria and Sudan.

That deadline passed with no decision from the State Department.

White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said the U.S. is still considering the move as President Donald Trump embarks on a five-nation tour of Asia, during which North Korea is expected to be a main focus.

Terror sponsor list

The U.S. put North Korea on the terror sponsor list in 1988, after North Korean agents blew up a South Korean civilian airliner, killing 115 people. But Pyongyang was removed in 2008 after they met specific benchmarks related to a nuclear disarmament deal.

The six-party disarmament talks collapsed a short time later, and North Korea declared the nuclear deal void. It has since conducted five more nuclear tests and steadily ramped up its ballistic missile program, in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

We took them off that list for some specific issues we were seeking, mainly the destruction of the cooling tower and some disabling steps, said former Ambassador Christopher Hill, who led the U.S. delegation to the six-party nuclear talks. In the meantime, by all accounts they seem to have the graphite-moderated reactor back in service. So they should be put back on the list.

Statutory requirements

Under U.S. law, a government must have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism in order to be included on the Sponsors of Terrorism list.

While North Korea is widely regarded as one of the most oppressive governments in the world with respect to its own people, its involvement with international terrorism is less prominent.

But the label is accurate, insists Bruce Klingner, a North Korea specialist at the Heritage Foundation.

Specifically, Klingner cites recent cyberattacks against U.S. and South Korean targets, including the 2014 attack against Sony Pictures for producing a film critical of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He also mentions multiple North Korean assassinations and assassination plots, including the killing of Kim Jong Nam, Kims half brother, who was poisoned earlier this year at a Malaysian airport.

While global attention has been on nuclear weapons and missiles, we must not lose sight of North Koreas terrorist acts and gross violations of human rights, Klingner said.

Efforts intensified

The effort to reinstate North Korea to the terror list intensified after American college student Otto Warmbier died in June, shortly after being released from North Korean custody. Warmbier had been sentenced to 15 years hard labor for the alleged theft of a propaganda poster from his North Korean hotel.

At the request of Warmbiers family, six Democratic and six Republican senators later urged the State Department to consider reinstating North Korea to the list.

Although tragic, the Warmbier case does not seem to meet the statutory criteria for international terrorism, says Daniel Pinkston, who specializes in Northeast Asian security issues at Troy University in Seoul.

There is also a question about whether such a designation, especially at a time of heightened tension, could further complicate efforts to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear and weapons program.

But those odds are basically at zero anyway, Pinkston said.

Impact of the move

Returning North Korea to the terror list would mean it is subject to greater restrictions on U.S. foreign assistance, defense exports and sales, and other financial transactions.

While Klingner argues the move would have a tangible impact on regime finances, Hill says the strategic value of the move is purely symbolic.

If youre on the list, the U.S. cannot vote for you on a World Bank loan, for example, and cannot sell you military equipment. Well, were not going to do that in either case, Hill said.

In the end, though, he says he wouldnt lose any sleep if Pyongyang were re-added to the list.

I dont know the legal justification for putting them back on, but if its just being an overall terrible pain in the neck, they more than qualify, Hill said.
U.S. lawmakers have proposed sanctions against Myanmars military over the treatment of the Rohingya ethnic group, as U.S. President Donald Trump leaves for a 12-day tour of east Asia in which he will meet with members of Myanmar's government at a regional summit.

The bipartisan legislation was introduced Thursday in the Senate, and Friday in the House of Representatives, both calling for renewal of trade and import restrictions on Myanmar, which is also known as Burma. The restrictions are meant as punishment for the militarys treatment of the Muslim Rohingya people in northern Myanmar's Rakhine state.

McCain, Engel speak out

Senator John McCain said the Senates legislation would hold accountable the senior military officials responsible for the slaughter and displacement of innocent men, women, and children in Burma, and make clear the United States will not stand for these atrocities.

Speaking for the House legislation, Representative Eliot Engel said lawmakers wanted to use sanctions to send a clear message to the Burmese leadership, both military and civilian. This violence must stop, perpetrators must be held accountable, and there must be meaningful civilian control over Burmas military and security forces, Engel said.

A group of nearly 60 human rights organizations joined the discussion this week as well, releasing a letter Thursday directed at Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. In their letter, the groups noted that satellite images commissioned by independent organizations show hundreds of burned villages  and tens of thousands of torched buildings. It said refugees have provided first-hand accounts of Burmese soldiers setting fires, gang-raping women, and burning babies alive.

Call for restrictions, sanctions

The letter calls for the U.S. to impose sanctions under the JADE Act, which empowers the president to issue travel restrictions and financial sanctions against Burmese officials and their families if they are found to be engaged in gross violations of human rights in Burma or in the commission of other human rights abuses.

It also calls on the U.S. to levy travel restrictions and financial sanctions against individuals responsible for corruption and violations of internationally recognized human rights under the Global Magnitsky Act. The act targets people who commit human rights abuses against people who seek to obtain, exercise, defend, or promote internationally recognized human rights and freedoms, such as the freedom of religion.

The House and Senate bills also seek to prevent U.S. military assistance to Myanmar, where the Burmese military has taken the lead in the alleged human rights abuses.

In the Rohingya crisis, some 600,000 people have fled Myanmar for neighboring Bangladesh, which is now undergoing its own crisis as it seeks to accommodate all the Rohingya who fled their country.
The U.S. Navy announced a series of systemic reforms on Thursday aimed at restoring basic naval skills and alertness at sea after a review of deadly ship collisions in the Asia-Pacific showed sailors were under-trained and over-worked.

Seventeen sailors were killed this year in two collisions with commercial vessels involving guided-missile destroyers, the Fitzgerald in June off Japan and then the John S. McCain in August as it approached Singapore.

Those were not the only mishaps involving U.S. Navy sailors this year, which also saw the guided-missile cruiser Lake Champlain collide with a fishing vessel in the Sea of Japan in May. The guided-missile cruiser Antietam grounded in January in Tokyo Bay.

What happened was a gradual erosion of the margins of safety, Admiral John Richardson, who as the chief of naval operations is the Navy's top uniformed officer, told a news briefing, as he unveiled the results of the broad Navy review.

Rising pressure to meet demands for more and more Navy operations, particularly in the Asia-Pacific, led those in command to rationalize declining standards that ranged from basic seamanship to operational safety, Richardson said.

The Navys review called for reforms that will cost between $400 and $500 million over the next five to six years, including periodic, standardized assessments of seamanship and bolstering training of navigation fundamentals.

It also involved ensuring back-to-basics measures like ensuring sailors get enough sleep. The Navy said fatigue was a contributing factor in the Fitzgerald and John S. McCain collisions.

Senator Roger Wicker, the chairman of the Senate Seapower Subcommittee, said the Navy needed more ships to meet the demands for operations at sea. Boosting the size of the Navy is a key objective of Republican President Donald Trump.

We are asking too few ships to do too many things, said Wicker, a Republican.

Representative Mac Thornberry, who heads the House Armed Services Committee, also said the sailors deaths were entirely avoidable and added the Navy was being asked to do too much with too few resources.

The Navy is committed to addressing these issues, but they cannot fix them on their own. Congress has a role to play as well, Thornberry said.

I am ready to support the Navys request for any additional training, manpower, or equipment they need to prevent these tragedies in the future.

During the summer, there was speculation that cyber warfare might have been to blame for the repeated mishaps, which stunned the Pentagon. The Navy, during its investigations, ruled out the possibility that hacking was to blame.

These ships in the 7th Fleet did not master the fundamentals, Richardson said.
U.S. airstrikes Friday targeted Islamic State fighters in northern Somalia, defense officials told VOA.

U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) issued a statement later in the day confirming that the military had killed "several terrorists" in two airstrikes against the terror group.

"We are currently assessing the results," AFRICOM said.

The chairman of the town of Qandala, Jama Mohamed Qurshe, told VOA Somali that several missiles had hit a base for IS militants at Buqa village, 60 kilometers south of his town in the semiautonomous region of Puntland.

According to the information we are getting from the ground, six missiles hit the militants base in the mountainous area. Local residents and pastoralists were shocked and fled from the area," Qurshe said.

He said that prior to the strike, residents reporting hearing airplane sounds.

Details of the strike were still not clear  locals said the remote area was accessible only to the militants  but local officials and residents suspected the airstrike targeted the groups senior leaders and perhaps even its top leader.

The pro-Islamic State faction in northeastern Somalia is led by Sheikh Abdulkadir Mumin, a former al-Shabab cleric who pledged his allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2015. In 2016, the U.S. State Department designated Mumin as a global terrorist.

Since the emergence of the IS faction in October 2015, the militants have claimed responsibility for at least four deadly attacks in Puntland.

In late October 2016, the militants briefly seized Qandala before they were driven out by Puntland's government.



No cutoff in funding



Meanwhile, the U.S. government denied reports that it was planning to cut funding for the Somali government.

Somali media reports said the U.S. might reduce funding because unnamed Somali officials helped facilitate the October 14 truck bombing in Mogadishu that killed more than 350 people.

There were also reports that linked the alleged cut to an internal State Department finding that the department's Africa Bureau was failing to ensure that U.S. funding was not diverted to al-Shabab militants.

In an email, a State Department official told VOA that "reports of funding being suspended to the Somali army due to alleged facilitation of the bombings by Somali officials are incorrect. The United States continues to provide extensive support to Somali security forces in their efforts to combat al-Shabab.

On Wednesday, the Daily Nation, a leading newspaper in Kenya, quoted a report from the State Department's Office of Inspector General. The report said the Africa Bureau had not established policies and procedures for identifying and mitigating terrorist financing risks for its programs in countries where militant organizations like al-Shabab and Boko Haram operate.

In his email, the State Department official said, The United States prioritizes transparency and accountability in its partnership with Somalia, echoing one of the top priorities articulated by President [Mohamed Abdullahi] Farmaajo [Mohamed] upon his taking office earlier this year.

"We have communicated conditions for U.S. security assistance to the federal government of Somalia, which includes enhanced measures to ensure proper oversight of our support."

Also Friday, Somali leaders and the governors of Somali states met for a fourth straight day in Mogadishu, in an effort to agree on implementation of a joint security plan.

The government is said to be preparing for a major offensive against al-Shabab.
Venezuela on Thursday announced plans to restructure its burgeoning foreign debt, a move that may lead to a default by the cash-strapped OPEC nation whose collapsing socialist economy has left its population struggling to find food and medicine.

President Nicolas Maduro vowed to make a $1.1 billion payment on a bond maturing Thursday, but also created a commission to study restructuring of all future payments in order to meet the needs of citizens.

Venezuela has few avenues to do that though because of sanctions by the United States that bar American banks from participating in or even negotiating such deals.

Thus, Maduros most readily available recourse to ease payments is unilaterally halting them.

I am naming a special presidential commission led by Vice President Tareck El Aissami to begin refinancing and restructuring all of Venezuelas external debt and (begin) the fight against the financial persecution of our country, Maduro said in a televised speech.

Billions in bonds

Venezuela and state-owned companies have $49 billion in bonds governed by New York Law and promissory notes, according to New York-based Torino Capital.

The government and state oil company PDVSA owe about $1.6 billion in debt service and delayed interest payments by the end of the year, plus another $9 billion in bond servicing in 2018.

The next hard payment deadline for PDVSA is an $81 million bond payment that was due Oct 12 but on which the company delayed payment under a 30-day grace period. Failing to pay that on time would trigger a default, investors say.

That would likely make countries less willing to do business with Venezuela, aggravating shortages of food and medicine and creating further problems for its oil industry, which is hobbled by under-investment.

Wall Street for years pumped billions of dollars into Venezuela by way of bond purchases, passing off the revolutionary rhetoric of the ruling Socialist Party as bluster that belied an iron-clad willingness to pay its debts.

Maduro surprised many by maintaining debt service after the 2014 crash in oil prices, diverting hard currency away from imports of food and medicine toward Wall Street investors.

PDVSA carried out a debt renegotiation in 2016.

But that option was taken off the table after U.S. President Donald Trump levied sanctions blocking the purchase of new debt issued by Venezuela and government-owned entities.

Investors puzzled

Investors seemed puzzled by Maduros statements Thursday, which neither clearly declared default nor laid out a path to easing payment burden.

At no moment did he say they wouldnt pay, so its not a default, said Alejandro Grisanti of Caracas-based consultancy Ecoanalitica. But in this environment, Maduro has no way to restructure or refinance as he said today.

And the mere presence of El Aissami on the new debt commission makes it a non-starter for U.S. financial institution. He was blacklisted this year by U.S. Treasury Department on accusations he is involved in drug trafficking.

The increased pressure of the sanctions has made banks more nervous about working with PDVSA, according to financial industry sources, leading to delays in simple operations.

PDVSA struggled for days to deliver funds for a bond payment due last week amid confusion over which banks were charged with transferring the money.

Toll on Venezuelans

Critics say Maduros decision to put debt above imports has taken a huge toll on the population.

Child malnutrition has reached the scale of a humanitarian crisis in four Venezuelan states, according to a May 2017 report by Caritas Internationalis, a Rome-based nongovernmental organization with links to the Catholic Church. Medicine shortages have also left children dying of preventable diseases.

Officials say ideological adversaries are exaggerating problems for political effect.

But the situation is a stark contrast to the oil boom years of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, who spent generously on social welfare programs while borrowing profusely to keep spending at full tilt.

Venezuelas debt is the highest yielding of emerging market bonds measured by JPMorgans EMBI Global Diversified Index , paying investors an average of 31 percentage points more than comparable U.S. Treasury notes.

That is nearly double the spread on bonds issued by Mozambique, which is already in default, and more than six times the spread on bonds from war-torn Ukraine.
Demonstrators gathered outside Venezuela's National Intelligence Service headquarters this week to demand the release, or at least better treatment, of several hundred dissidents detained there and elsewhere for months.

Adriana Pichardo was among several lawmakers in the opposition-controlled National Assembly joining a dozen activists at the site Wednesday. She said detainees' family members had complained to her of inhumane conditions, with detainees sometimes kept in isolation, subjected to other harsh treatment and exposed to contagious ailments.

One political prisoner "died a few days ago of tuberculosis. All our prisoners are exposed," Pichardo said, adding that she'd heard the mite-borne skin rash scabies also was rampant among detainees.

Venezuelan authorities have not provided information on the alleged death and VOA could not independently confirm it. The Venezuelan Penal Forum reported in September that 45 political prisoners, some in fragile health, needed but were not receiving medical care.

The Penal Forum, a nongovernmental organization, estimates President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government has 380 political prisoners in custody after detaining thousands in turbulent street protests occurring almost daily from April through July. Many are thought to be held by secret police at the intelligence building.

The detainees "are primarily students," though they include "political leaders, social activists, police, military," said Teodoro Campos, vice president of the parliament's human rights commission.

Demonstrator Adolfo Baduel said his imprisoned father, military General Raul Baduel, had been "tortured," enduring extreme sleep deprivation and isolation. The elder Baduel had been an ally of Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chavez.

Campos reiterated a call for justice, stressing that many civilians had been denied due process and tried by military tribunals.

Rights office's action

The U.N. human rights office reported in August that it had urged Venezuela's government to halt the "systematic detention" of protesters and to end the "growing use of military tribunals to try civilians."

The office's website said such tribunals had heard the cases of at least 400 protesters, with "the vast majority" convicted and confined for "crimes in the military justice code, such as rebellion, treason and assault."

Delcy Rodriguez, president of Venezuela's new pro-government Constituent Assembly, which is revising the constitution and asserting power over the National Assembly, discounted such complaints of injustice.

"When we have to listen to the testimonies of relatives who lost a loved one in the violence unleashed by the Venezuelan right, it seems incredible," Rodriguez responded from her federal office Wednesday.

Last week, the European Union awarded its Sakharov Prize for human rights to Venezuela's democratic opposition and political prisoners.

Wednesday's demonstration at the intelligence building came a day after hundreds of protesters marched to the Caracas offices of the Organization of American States, where they delivered a document endorsing OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro's efforts to uphold the country's flagging democracy. The document bore the signatures of 45,000 supporters.

Almagro has goaded the international community to pressure Venezuelan government authorities to restore democratic norms, including freeing political prisoners and allowing humanitarian aid to offset severe shortages of food and medicine.

Activist Lilian Tintori, whose husband, Leopoldo Lopez, is a political prisoner under house arrest, acknowledged efforts by the OAS, the United States and many other countries to try to peacefully resolve the crisis.

Tintori called for sustained international attention and action.

"Human rights have no border," Tintori said. "When there is a systematic violation of human rights in a country, the entire region has an obligation to do something."
Economic growth among countries in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to rebound this year from 20-year lows in 2016, according to the International Monetary Fund's biannual report. But despite the modest recovery, the Washington-based organization warns public debt is rising and soon could become unsustainable in some African countries.



After a slowdown in 2016 where the sub-Saharan regional economy grew by just 1.4 percent, the IMF said growth is expected to almost double this year to 2.6 percent, and to reach 3.4 percent in 2018.



One-third of sub-Saharan economies are growing at more than 5 percent. Speaking at a news conference in Harare this week, the IMF's Africa Department Director Abebe Aemro Selassie said he doesn't expect others to catch up.



"We're still going to have a situation where 12 out of the 45 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, people in those countries will not be enjoying any increase in per capita income," Aemro said. "This is about 40 percent of the population. So a lot of work to be done to put in place the policies, policy environments, to get growth back up to the 5 or 6 percent we need to make a significant dent on poverty reduction going forward."

Some bright spots



Not all economists agree with the IMF forecasts. Too pessimistic, said Judith Tyson of the Overseas Development Institute.



"They haven't really looked at the impact of the recent increases in commodity prices, and in particular, oil has moved up well over $60 a barrel in recent weeks," he noted. "And there's quite a lot of optimism that it will remain at that level. And the IMF have forecast only $50."



That's a big deal for countries like Nigeria and Angola economies largely dependent on the oil sector. Tyson said it's not only the price of oil that is underestimated.



"For some of the specialist metals, particularly around the electric car market this year, there's been a lot of speculation," he said. "And those are produced in large quantities in a large number of African countries, and they haven't really looked at examples of that. So for example, cobalt is a major metal that is mined in Zambia and the DRC."



The IMF also flagged growing concerns over public debt now above 50 percent of GDP in half of sub-Saharan economies, just as the costs of debt servicing are rising.
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe said Wednesday he is in favor of resuming executions after more than a decade in response to rising murder rates.



The last execution in the southern African nation was in 2005.



Although he said his cabinet is divided on the issue, Mugabe said he favors lifting the moratorium on executions. "Let's restore the death penalty," he said, speaking at the burial of a political ally.



He did not say when it could happen but said that "if you hear people are being executed, know Mugabe's thinking has prevailed."



Zimbabwe's law allows for the death penalty for people convicted of murder "in aggravating circumstances." Women and offenders younger than 17 and older than 70 are exempt from executions.



Over 90 prisoners are on death row, according to official figures.



The hangman's job has been vacant in Zimbabwe for over a decade, but justice ministry permanent secretary Virgina Mabhiza has said recent months have seen a "flood" of applications in the economically struggling nation. Mabhiza said more than 50 people had applied.



Zimbabwe imposed eight death sentences last year, according to Amnesty International. The human rights group said 97 people were known to be facing death sentences in the country as of the end of 2016.
A U.S. judge rejected a bid Thursday by two former campaign officials for President Donald Trump to end their house arrest pending trial on charges they laundered millions of dollars they were paid to represent one-time Ukrainian strongman Viktor Yanukovych so they could hide the income from U.S. authorities.

Paul Manafort, who for three months last year was Trump's campaign chairman, and his business protege, Rick Gates, who was the deputy campaign chairman, had asked a Washington judge to end their home confinement. When they were indicted Monday, a judge required Manafort to pay $10 million if he failed to show up for future court hearings in the case, and Gates $5 million.

Lawyers for Manafort and Gates contended that the penalties for failure to show up for new hearings were large enough that they were unlikely to flee and that they need not be confined to their homes. But Judge Amy Berman Jackson kept the bail terms the same, pending another hearing Monday.

Manafort and Gates were indicted by a grand jury in Washington as part of the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, although the charges against them did not stem from the campaign.

At the same time, special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the probe, announced that a Trump foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty last month to lying to federal agents about his contacts with Russian interests during the campaign and is cooperating with investigators in their probe of other Trump campaign aides.
Jacob Zuma told South Africa's parliament on Thursday he had received no payments from private companies or individuals during his time as president, as opposition lawmakers walked out in protest over the cost to the state of his legal fees.

Allegations by government and opposition politicians that the wealthy Gupta family of businessmen used a friendship with Zuma to control state businesses and influence appointments are among many scandals that have dogged his presidency.

The Guptas and Zuma have denied any wrongdoing and say they are victims of a politically motivated witch-hunt.

"My government is committed to fighting corruption," Zuma said in response to a question.

He also said he would establish a judicial commission to investigate allegations made in a 2016 report by South Africa's corruption-fighting Public Protector.

"I did not receive any payments from private individuals or companies during my tenure as president of the Republic of South Africa, other than those disclosed or reported to the necessary authorities," he said in answer to another question.

The main opposition party then walked out of the session, saying Zuma was refusing to answer questions on how much the state had spent on legal fees to fight corruption allegations against him.

Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane had asked how much had been spent since May 1, 2009, to defend 783 corruption charges against Zuma that were dropped by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) before he ran for the presidency.

"He is going to jail. The president is going to jail," Maimane shouted before leading the walkout.

South Africa's High Court reinstated the charges last year and the Supreme Court upheld that decision in October, rejecting an appeal by Zuma. The 75-year-old president is still trying to prevent the NPA from filing the charges.

The "State of Capture" report by the Public Protector, whose job is to uphold standards in public life, recommended a judicial probe into allegations of systemic corruption by Zuma, some of his ministers and heads of state-owned companies.

But the president filed an application asking the High Court to set aside the report, saying he would instead set up a judicial commission of inquiry into the allegations. The court is expected to rule on that case soon.

Zuma told parliament the judicial commission would investigate those corruption allegations and any others brought to its attention.

"After the [High Court] judgment, I will establish it immediately. We will prove the lies and the truths," Zuma said. "The truth will be found."

The report focused on allegations that Zuma's friends, the businessmen and brothers Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta, had influenced the appointment of ministers, which Zuma and the Guptas have denied.
Lawyers for internet giants Facebook, Google and Twitter met with three congressional committees this week to answer questions about Russian efforts to use the platforms to spread disinformation in the 2016 presidential election, and what they are doing to stop it from happening again.

Lawmakers were clear in their position that Russian use of the platforms was unacceptable, and several even called it an act of war.

"Cyber is an attack against our country. When you use cyber in an affirmative way to compromise our democratic, free election system, that's an attack against America," Senator Ben Cardin said Wednesday. "It's an act of war. It is an act of war."

That Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 presidential election  an allegation the country adamantly denies  has been the stated position of the U.S. intelligence community since last year.

The lawyers said the exact scope of the alleged Russian operation remains unknown, though, even as they released more details about what Russian operatives were posting online.

Twitter

Sean Edgett, Twitter's acting general counsel, told lawmakers the company studied all tweets posted from Sept. 1 to Nov. 15, 2016, and found that election-related content posted by accounts linked to Russia "was comparatively small."

Edgett described the criteria used to identify "Russian-linked account[s]" as "expansive," including any account that was created in Russia, any account linked to a Russian email address, or any account that "frequently tweets in Russian," among other qualifications.

Using these extremely broad qualifications, Edgett said Twitter was able to identify around 36,000 automated "bot" accounts that could be linked to Russia.

Those Russian-linked accounts, according to Edgett, represented 0.012 percent of total Twitter accounts during the time period, and the 1.4 million election-related tweets emanating from those accounts represented less than 0.74 percent of all election-related tweets.

"Those 1.4 million tweets received only one-third of a percent [0.33 percent] of impressions on election-related tweets," Edgett told lawmakers.

An "impression" is a metric used by social media companies to note how many times a specific post is served up to a user. An "impression" does not require any additional engagement by the user and doesn't even guarantee a user actually read the post, Edgett said.

In addition to the bot accounts, Twitter identified around 2,700 accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency (IRA), which has been described as a Russian troll farm.

"Of the roughly 131,000 tweets posted by those accounts during the relevant time period, approximately 9 percent were election-related, and many of their tweets  over 47 percent  were automated," he said.

Edgett called the number of Russian-linked accounts "small in comparison to the total number of accounts" on Twitter and said tweets from those accounts "generated significantly fewer impressions as compared to a typical election-related tweet."

Last week, the company said it would take the $1.9 million that Russian-backed media outlets spent on Twitter advertising since 2011, and spend it on external research into using Twitter in civic engagement, including efforts to root out malicious accounts and misinformation.

Facebook

The Russian meddling campaign on Facebook was comprised of approximately $100,000 spent by "fake accounts associated with the IRA" on 3,000 ads between June 2015 and August 2017, according to Facebook lawyer Colin Stretch.

The ads, Stretch said, promoted around 120 Facebook pages set up by Russian actors and meant to focus on divisive social messages about racial issues, immigration and gun rights, among others.

In total, the Russian-linked Facebook pages produced around 80,000 pieces of content during the two-year time period. Stretch said approximately 150 million people may have been served up the IRA-created content, but it is impossible to know how many people actually saw the posts.

He said the content equaled about 0.004 percent of content of Facebook during the time and represented approximately 1 out of every 23,000 pieces of content on the platform.

"Though the volume of these posts was a tiny fraction of the overall content on Facebook, any amount is too much," Stretch said, noting the social media company removed the accounts and pages linked to the IRA.

According to Stretch, more than half of all impressions of IRA-funded posts came after the election and 25 percent of the ads were never shown to anyone.

"For 50 percent of the ads, less than $3 was spent. For 99 percent of the ads, less than $1,000 was spent," he said.

Facebook has turned over all the Russian ads to Congress and says its review of the activity is ongoing.

Google

Google lawyer Richard Salgado said the company reviewed all political ads from June 2015 through last year's election, looking for "even the loosest connection to Russia, such as a Russian IP address or billing address, or use of Russian currency."

The company found that two accounts it believes are "associated with known or suspected government-backed entities" spent about $4,700 on ads related to the 2016 presidential election.

Salgado said the alleged Russian meddling also included use of YouTube, where the company found 18 channels with around 1,100 videos that were uploaded by individuals Google believes were associated with the Russian effort.

"These videos mostly had low view counts  just 3 percent had more than 5,000 views, and constituted only 43 hours of YouTube content," he told lawmakers. He added that people watch "over a billion hours of YouTube content a day, and 400 hours of content are uploaded every minute."

He called the Russian-linked videos "a relatively small amount of content," but said "any misuse of our platforms for this purpose is a serious challenge to the integrity of our democracy."

IN PHOTOS: A Look at Russian Social Media Election Meddling
Members of the Zanu PF Youth League dance in the streets of Zimbabwe's second largest city, Bulawayo, in preparation for the Presidential Youth Interface Rally on Saturday to be addressed by President Robert Mugabe. This is part of Mr. Mugabe's presidential election campaign for the 2018 polls.
ECONOMY

Orders to factories increase by 1.4 percent

Orders to U.S. factories rose 1.4 percent in September, the strongest gain in four months.

The September gain followed a 1.2 percent advance in August, the Commerce Department reported Friday. Last months increase was paced by a 30.8 percent jump in demand for commercial aircraft, which varies monthly.

The category that serves as a proxy for business investment plans rose 1.7 percent in August, the best showing since a 2.7 percent surge in July 2016.

Economists believe manufacturing is on a sustained rebound that will provide support for the overall economy after a prolonged stretch of weakness.

Demand for durable goods, long-lasting items ranging from bicycles to battleships, rose 2 percent in September.

That was a slightly smaller gain than the 2.2 percent estimate the government reported last week.

Orders for nondurable goods, items not expected to last three years, rose 0.8 percent last month, up from a 0.4 percent increase in August. The gain was led by a rise in petroleum products, a category where the gain in orders likely reflected in large part a rise in energy prices during the month.

For September, orders for mining and oil field machinery shot up by 17.8 percent. This sector has been posting strong gains after a prolonged period of weakness as energy companies cut back sharply on exploration after petroleum prices plunged.

 Associated Press

insurance

Berkshire income falls on hurricane losses

Bad weather weighed on results at Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway as losses from insurance claims tied to Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria and an earthquake in Mexico contributed to a 43 percent drop in third-quarter profit.

Berkshire on Friday said net income fell to $4.07 billion, or $2,473 per class A share, from $7.2 billion, or $4,379 per share, a year earlier.

Operating profit, which excludes investment and derivative gains and losses and which Buffett says better reflects company performance, fell 29 percent to $3.44 billion, or $2,094 per class A share, from $4.85 billion, or $2,951 per share.

Berkshire said it incurred $1.95 billion of after-tax underwriting losses attributable to the hurricanes and earthquake.

Berkshire has roughly 90 businesses in such sectors as chemicals, energy, food and retail and industrial products.

But its diversification helped cushion the overall profit decline, including profit gains of 2 percent at the BNSF Railway and 3 percent at Berkshire Hathaway Energy.

Berkshire lost $1.44 billion from insurance underwriting in the quarter, and $1.73 billion from January to September, putting it on pace for its first full-year underwriting loss since 2002.

It had even eked out a small underwriting profit in 2005, the year of Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma, Rita and Dennis.

But investment income from insurance operations cushioned the blow, rising 23 percent to $1.04 billion.

 Reuters

Also in Business

Wells Fargo is facing litigation over previously disclosed sales problems related to its auto lending and mortgage businesses, the bank disclosed in a regulatory filing on Friday. The lawsuits include two class action cases alleging violations of federal and state consumer fraud laws, as well as claims brought by former employees who said they were fired for raising concerns over problematic sales practices.

Sears Holdings Corp. will close 63 more Kmart and Sears locations after the holidays, adding to hundreds of stores that have shuttered as part of the retailer's bid to curb losses. The company informed employees at 45 Kmarts and 18 Sears stores that it would be shutting down the locations by late January, according to a statement on its website. Liquidation sales will begin as soon as Nov. 9. Cities with affected stores include Baltimore, Salt Lake City, and Nashville.

Equifax, the credit report company hacked over the summer exposing the personal information of 145 million Americans, said a special committee has determined that none of the four executives who sold shares at the time did anything wrong. The high-level executives sold shares worth a combined $1.8 million in the days immediately after the company discovered the breach. The company revealed that an ongoing cyberattack lasted from mid-May to July. Equifax said it detected the hack on July 29. On Aug. 1 and Aug. 2, Equifax Chief Financial Officer John Gamble and three other executives sold a combined $1.8 million in stock.

BMW is recalling more than 1 million cars and SUVs in two U.S. recalls due to the risk of fires under the hood, and it's recommending that they be parked outdoors until repairs are made. A spokesman for the German automaker says the risk of fire is very low, but the vehicles should say outside "in an abundance of caution." In both recalls, repairs are expected to start on Dec. 18.

 From news services
Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, listens as President Trump speaks during a meeting on tax policy with business leaders at the White House on Oct. 31, 2017. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

For corporate lobbyists pressing on other issues, the tax bill floated Thursday by the House Ways and Means Committee was not the end of the battle. It was the starting gun.

There will be four more versions of the tax bill before it goes to the Senate. And that creates myriad opportunities for real estate agents, small-business groups, home builders, universities, farmers and many more to shoehorn in changes potentially worth billions of dollars apiece.

As these lobbying battles loom on specific issues, companies are weighing the rich benefits of cutting the corporate income tax rate and granting immediate expensing of capital expenditures against curtailment of foreign tax havens and interest deductibility. The bill pits traditional groups supporting the plan  including the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable  against its detractors, including traditionally Republican groups such as the National Federation of Independent Business, real estate agents and construction firms.

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) is leading the charge against three measures: limits on deductions on mortgages larger than $500,000, the elimination of mortgage deductions on second homes and the doubling of standardized deductions that would render many more mortgage deductions worthless.

We would like to be for tax reform, but we cant be for it in its current form, said NAHB chief executive Jerry Howard. It simply amounts to an assault on the housing business. He has been urging lawmakers instead to substitute a 12 percent tax credit on mortgage and property taxes.

Its an unfamiliar step, and last week House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said members werent comfortable with it. So the NAHB is trying to fix that.

On Friday, Howard started his day with an early morning meeting with Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) in the congressmans office. Next he had breakfast with his groups chief lobbyist. Howard then dashed over to North Capitol Street for interviews with C-SPAN and Fox News, although the Fox News spot was too late in the morning for the viewer in chief  President Trump.

Then the NAHB head zipped back to the Capitol to see Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), seen as a swing vote. Later he had lunch at his desk. Sprinkled throughout the late morning and afternoon were interviews with half a dozen television stations and print journalists. All the while, the groups 20 lobbyists were scattered around the Capitol. By Monday, Howard said, they will have visited every Republican and most of the key Democrats in the House.

Other companies and industries have been blitzing lawmakers, as well. Small businesses, led by the National Federation of Independent Business, want changes in the pass-through provision that allows small businesses to treat profits as business income instead of personal income. A business rate of 25 percent would make that attractive.

But the initial bill allows small businesses to use the lower rate only on 30 percent of net income. And it prohibits small businesses in service sectors  such as attorneys, accountants and investment advisers  from taking advantage of it at all.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) already has altered some provisions in his new markup, giving him about $80 billion to spread among different interest groups. But it isnt clear whether that would go to boosting the pass-through benefits. Under the initial draft, the pass-through measure would cost the Treasury $201.9 billion over the next decade.

Some lobbyists also are jumping ahead to the Senate, where Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) awaits. In the Ways and Means Committee, lobbyists need to persuade half a dozen members to hold up a bill. In the Senate Finance Committee, one member can delay action.

NAHBs Howard said either he or his top lobbyists had met with Sens. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.) as well as members of Hatchs staff.

At the end of the day, Hatch will dictate whats in the bill, said a GOP lobbyist who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his relationships with House members.

To some lobbyists, one item left out of the House Republican tax bill came as no surprise: the so-called carried-interest clause that allows private-equity firms to save billions of dollars every year.

The items best lobbyists were not lobbyists at all, but rather key members of the Trump administration with experience in high-powered finance: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, National Economic Council head Gary Cohn and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

Under the new tax bill, profits from private-equity firms would be taxed at the low capital gains rate of 15 percent, still well below the 20 percent income tax rate for businesses in general or the 39 percent top rate for individuals. A November 2013 Congressional Budget Office report said that if carried interest were taxed as ordinary income, the Treasury would raise $17.4 billion over 10 years.

Meanwhile, many organizations and lobbyists were battling to fend off items of similar size.

Universities were scrambling to delete provisions that would tax richly endowed universities, slap an excise tax on highly salaried university officials and abolish a tax credit that students use to pay tuition. Pharmaceutical companies were pressing to maintain tax credits for orphan drugs and rare diseases.

And makers of electric vehicles are fighting to protect the federal tax credit for EVs. Rep. Mike Bishop (R-Mich) said he fought to keep the credit but lost.

Some issues pit one group against another.

The tax bill took away the ability of banks with more than $50 billion in assets to deduct insurance premiums paid to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. It would phase out the deduction for banks with $10 billion to $50 billion in assets. And it would block businesses with revenue above $25 million from deducting net interest expenses exceeding 30 percent of taxable income.

However, it left intact an 83-year-old tax exemption for credit unions that the big banks wanted revoked. The American Bankers Association denounced the credit unions outdated, unfair and unreasonable tax advantages.

But the ABA said it was still "looking closely" at the bill.
FILE PHOTO: Harvey Weinstein arrives at the 89th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, U.S. on February 26, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo (Mike Blake/Reuters)

Companies have dramatically increased their insurance coverage against sexual harassment complaints in recent years following high-profile scandals, as corporate America reckons with the growing risks of workplace misconduct.

Employment practices liability insurance (EPLI) plans, which cover sexual harassment, racial discrimination and wrongful-firing claims, have spread rapidly over the past decade from major corporations to midsize and smaller firms, industry experts say.

But lawyers and some womens groups say the policies, which shield businesses and executives from costly lawsuits and reputational damage, may also help perpetuate abuse by allowing companies to avoid confronting the problem head-on.

Payouts can provide some monetary help and peace of mind going forward, but they create a stronger culture of silence, said Kim Churches, chief executive of the American Association of University Women. It doesnt only prohibit victims from speaking up. It means were not encouraging colleagues to stand up to sexist language or harassment and call it out on the spot.

[How confidentiality agreements hurt - and help - sexual harassment victims]

Sexual harassment surged to public attention in 1991 when law professor Anita Hill accused her former boss and then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of repeatedly asking her out on dates and talking about porn while at work.

Hills testimony at Thomass confirmation hearing awakened workers to what could qualify as office misconduct, womens groups say. For Victoria Stone, a Los Angeles insurance broker, Hills willingness to go public marked a cultural shift.

At the time, only five insurance companies offered EPLI policies, according to the Betterley Report, which tracks EPLI trends.

Stone said she sensed a business opportunity and mailed out fliers to her clients urging them to adopt those early policies. Few took her up on the offer. Even a decade later, some remained skeptical.

Now, though, practically all of the roughly 200 business leaders she works with have bought a plan, Stone said. As accusations mounted last month against the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, two more opted in. One of the buyers was a small factory with just 39 employees, most of them men.

"So many people feel like, 'it'll never happen to me,' " said Stone, senior vice president at Poms and Associates Insurance Brokers in Los Angeles. Now, she added, "more people are pulling the trigger"  including one client who reluctantly purchased a plan, she said, and was later hit with a $300,000 sexual harassment and wrongful-termination claim.

He hasnt stopped thanking me, Stone said.

U.S. companies spent an estimated $2.2 billion last year on insurance policies covering the legal fallout from sexual harassment, racial discrimination and unfair-dismissal accusations. The market is projected to grow to $2.7 billion by 2019, according to MarketStance, a research firm that tracks insurance trends.

Thats a fraction of what enterprises spend on legal and medical malpractice insurance, but industry experts said EPLI coverage is surging into the mainstream, with the biggest growth coming from small and midsize companies.

About 41 percent of firms with more than 1,000 workers report having some kind of plan to cover sexual harassment and discrimination, said Frederick Yohn, managing director of MarketStance.

About one-third of companies with at least 500 employees carry such coverage, though it remains unusual for start-ups, Yohn said. Only 3 percent of companies with fewer than 50 carry such coverage.

But since 2011, firms with annual revenue less than $250 million have increased their spending on adding and renewing such plans by 28 percent, according to Advisen, another insurance data firm.

Meanwhile, Nationwide, one of the countrys largest insurance companies, recorded a 15 percent increase in EPLI sales between fall 2016 and September 2017  a stretch that coincided with the ousters of Fox Newss Roger Ailes and Bill OReilly.

[After Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood assistants urged to break culture of silence]

We can speculate that it is due to increased awareness in the need for this type of coverage, said Karen Johnston, casualty technical consultant for Nationwide Insurance Staff Commercial Underwriting.

The cost of such policies varies according to the size of the business and the level of protection. For firms with annual revenue below $25 million, the median coverage purchased is about $1 million, which costs about $4,900 a year, said Jim Blinn, executive vice president of client solutions at Advisen.

At the other end of the spectrum, firms with more than $5 billion in annual revenue typically pay about $285,000 a year for a $30 million limit.

Before carriers pick up any expenses associated with a claim, such as court fees and damages, companies must pay a retention, which is similar to a deductible. For start-ups, the cost ranges from $1,000 to $10,000 per complaint, Betterley said. For large firms, retentions could reach $1 million.

With the recent sexual harassment scandals, companies were looking to increase their coverage and expand workplace training programs meant to discourage misconduct and resolve complaints before they escalate.

We will be thinking more about limits, said Richard Betterley, a risk management consultant in Boston who publishes the annual Betterley EPLI report. Youre buying X million  should we be thinking about more?

Ken Daveler, president at Alliance Insurance Services in the District, said companies no longer see such coverage as optional; its essential. Each year, we sell more. You can point to these things in the news and say its irresponsible not to have it. Its getting to the point where its not if you get a claim, its when, he said.

His largest client, an education company that had purchased an EPLI plan, had also turned to him for advice on anti-harassment training. Nobody has ever asked me that before, he said.

But lawyers say the growth of sexual harassment insurance coverage has had uneven results when it comes to providing redress to victims.

Alexis Ronickher, an employment lawyer at Katz, Marshall & Banks in Washington who specializes in sexual harassment law suits, said insurance coverage made it easier for companies to provide some form of remedy to workers who suffer harassment.

Last month, two of her clients  women who held low-paying service jobs  settled sexual harassment claims with a local employer and, through the companys insurance, were promised checks for about twice their annual wages.

[Not just Harvey Weinstein, the depressing truth about sexual harassment in America]

In cases against smaller or midsize employers, it can help, Ronickher said. Because if you have a significant claim, they might not have the capital or liquidity to pay such a claim without the insurance.

But in Ronickhers experience, insurance claims adjusters may intervene to try to limit the size of the award. That can significantly prolong negotiations, even if an employer would prefer to offer more money and wrap things up.

Its a curse and a benefit, Ronickher said.

The knowledge that a harasser may rely on the coverage to lessen the potential financial consequences of a harassment claim can also be toxic, according to a 33-year-old woman who said her male boss shoved her into a wall and stalked her after she rejected his advances.

Shelley, who asked that her last name be withheld because she fears retaliation, said she was outraged to learn that her former employer had such coverage.

It was infuriating, she said. Its like: Youre treating me as if you hit my bumper when you kind of ruined my life.

Even so, the existence of EPLI provides an important alternative to the other main avenue for redress: filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Fewer than one in four sexual harassment complaints made to the agency last year  1,485 of 6,758 claims  ended with a settlement of some kind, government data show.

With EPLI, a worker who encounters harassment on the job does not have to lodge a formal complaint to the EEOC for a chance to receive compensation. Claims can be triggered when a victims lawyer writes a letter to a company.

Its often in the best interest of the carrier to simply settle or pay a claim, rather than go through the legal process, said Yohn, the insurance market researcher. The insurance company pays them to make them go away.

Its unclear how many complaints are settled with the insurance each year  or the scale of compensation to women who suffer sexual harassment. Nearly all settlements come with nondisclosure agreements, lawyers say.

Workplace fairness advocates said such confidentiality agreements are potentially damaging.

Kate Bahn, an economist on the women's initiative at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, said companies that prioritize their reputation over their workers' safety risk encouraging harmful behavior.

That might be a rational economic decision for businesses to make  to pay into insurance, to mitigate the risk, Bahn said. It helps your bottom line, but its really terrible for women. It upholds existing power structures that are toxic and misogynistic.
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), the chief author of the tax bill, listens as President Trump speaks at a meeting on tax policy with GOP lawmakers in the White House on Thursday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Many of the ideas in the Republican tax proposal unveiled Thursday have found bipartisan support in the past and endorsements from economists who see a way to improve the U.S. economy. That includes plans to make the corporate rate more competitive, simplify personal taxes, curb several tax breaks of dubious value and provide more assistance to working families.

The controversy is over who will gain the most: the rich and corporations. The GOP bill would cut the corporate rate well below previous attempts, eliminate a tax on inheritance that affects only people with many millions of dollars, and take other actions that do not provide direct benefits to most Americans.

And the proposal represents a significant break with previous tax-rewrite discussions.

Republicans have in the past focused on the importance of not adding to the nations debt through tax reform. Democrats have favored overhauling the tax code to raise revenue to pay for needed improvements in Americas infrastructure or to provide services for the middle class and poor.

But in this case, Congresss Joint Committee on Taxation estimated Thursday that the tax plan would be paid for by $1.5 trillion in additional borrowing over the next decade. Much of that reflects tax reductions benefiting the wealthy and companies.

Budget experts say the GOPs decision jeopardizes what could otherwise be one of the great legacies of Republican-controlled government: fixing the U.S. tax code and improving the economy.

I do think this is a sensible framework. It emphasizes the need for corporate reforms and how our tax system works, said Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. But this is still a deficit-exploding tax cut at a time when the deficit is at near-record levels.

At heart, the GOP plan cuts taxes on large businesses and pays for those reductions by raising taxes on individuals, the exact opposite of what was done in the 1986 Tax Reform Act under President Ronald Reagan. Republicans have long held up the 1986 effort  which did not add to the deficit  as a model.

[GOP tax plan would shrink mortgage interest benefit, slash corporate tax rate]

The cut in corporate taxes will deplete the Treasury by nearly $847 billion over the next decade, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. The elimination of the estate tax  which is paid only by the small portion of Americans with estates worth more than $5.49 million  and related measures will cost $172 billion. The creation of a 25 percent rate for people who pay corporate taxes through the individual code  a popular way for the wealthy to reduce their tax obligation  will cost $448 billion.

View Graphic All your major questions about the GOP tax plan, answered

The GOP offsets some of those costs by raising taxes on individual earners who use tax breaks such as the mortgage interest deduction and the state and local tax deduction. But critics say the GOP could have chosen to overhaul the tax code in a way that concentrated benefits on middle- and working-class Americans  and chose not to.

"You can very much achieve tax reform without giving higher-

income earners a tax cut," said Chye-Ching Huang, deputy director of federal tax policy at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

President Trump and top Republican leaders argue that the middle class and working poor will benefit from lower taxes of big businesses because corporations will use the money they save on taxes to hire more workers and pay existing employees higher wages.

We will be creating jobs like you have rarely seen, Trump said in the Oval Office, as he kissed a postcard of the House GOP tax plan, hailing it as a great Christmas present.

Invariably, overhauling the tax code creates winners and losers, and the writers of the legislation argued that they were making progress toward a top policy goal.

None of [the critics] thought we would even get this far with tax reform, and theyre wrong, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), the chief author of the tax bill, said Thursday.

The plan contains several policies that have attracted bipartisan support before. The current corporate tax rate of 35 percent is far higher than those of most other wealthy countries, leading many companies to say they are at a disadvantage and must spend a disproportionate amount of time and resources on complying with tax rules. In his last year in office, President Barack Obama proposed lowering it to 28 percent.

The GOP has pursued a much lower rate, proposing on Thursday a 20 percent rate. Earlier this year, the GOP planned to offset the deep cut in the corporate tax rate by imposing a substantial new tax on imports, a move that was killed by retailers and other industries. The bill unveiled Thursday didnt have many revenue streams from businesses.

Likewise, many experts agree the tax code contains numerous tax breaks that dont provide much benefit to the economy. For example, while many existing homeowners may appreciate the mortgage interest deduction, research suggests that it disproportionately benefits higher-income earners and does little to spur home-buying. Democrats have proposed limiting its value before  just as the GOP tax bill on Thursday proposed allowing new home buyers to deduct interest on only $500,000 of mortgage debt rather than the current $1 million threshold.

[Winners and losers in the GOP tax plan]

Only 5 percent of mortgages in the United States are worth more than $500,000, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The mortgage interest change, among other limits to tax breaks benefiting individual earners, would raise more than $1.25 trillion over the next decade, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Alan Auerbach, professor of economics and law at the University of California at Berkeley and one of the countrys top tax scholars, said some provisions in the plan make a lot of sense. For example, he praised how the GOP proposal would allow companies to deduct the cost of investing in new equipment, which is likely to spur immediate spending in the economy. But he lamented how much the plan adds to the deficit, among other provisions.

The bill has a pulse, he said, but hes not sure it can be resurrected into something that is good policy for the United States, especially after so many interests groups and lobbyists pressure Congress for changes in the coming weeks.

Republicans are pushing an aggressive timeline to get the bill to the presidents desk. The idea is to limit lobbying by moving quickly, but many are skeptical it can happen.

The problem is were creating policy in an era of free-lunch economics, MacGuineas said. No one seems to acknowledge budget constraints and real choices.
[This story has been optimized for offline reading on our apps. For a richer experience, you can find the full version of this story here. An Internet connection is required.]



An illustration of President Trump. (Robert Carter for The Washington Post)

A year ago, Donald Trump was elected president. We asked you to tell us what hes done right and wrong since. Here are some of your responses.

What Trump got right: He worked with Democrats on the debt ceiling and the budget.

What Trump got wrong: He canceled the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would have promoted U.S. trade at the expense of China. But President Trump thinks everything from the Obama administration is bad.

 Steve Kessler, 61, Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

What Trump got right: The nomination of then-Judge Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court. As a Democrat, I'll likely disagree with his decisions, but he seems very well-qualified for the position. President Trump has also motivated millions of Americans to make their voices heard, though, admittedly, not in the direction he would like.

What Trump got wrong: It's a tie between normalizing lying and demonizing the press. Both are unforgivable.

 Maureen Driscoll, 54, Burbank, Calif.



Then-national security adviser Michael Flynn speaks during the daily news briefing at the White House on Feb. 1. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

What Trump got right: Firing Michael Flynn as national security adviser.

What Trump got wrong: The worst thing he's done to date is the speech he gave at the United Nations. Does he realize that threatening to destroy North Korea would be a war crime?

 Cathy Carey, 64, Healdsburg, Calif.

What Trump got right: The speeches President Trump gives wherein he maintains an adequate level of decorum or empathy strike me as ... fine. I actually truly believe him in these moments, and I think he does an all-right job of performing that aspect of the presidency, sometimes.

What Trump got wrong: His decision on transgender troops strikes me as the most repugnant thing that he's done. He announced in a fit of caprice a decision with apparently no prior thought. Seemingly with the sole goal of mollifying his base, he doubled down on his bigotry and discriminatory practices when called out on them. This isn't an area that he explicitly staked out as his during the campaign, like his racism or misogyny, but nevertheless he forged ahead in his attempts to denigrate an already persecuted group.

 Kaleb Pifer, 21, Detroit

What Trump got right: The best thing that President Trump has done is withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP would allow Australia, Canada and other powerful countries to bypass their own workers and shop for cheap labor in countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia. It emboldens countries with horrific human rights records and threatens labor rights in the United States. Trump made the right decision.

What Trump got wrong: The worst thing that Trump has done is issue Executive Order 13769  the Muslim ban that he promised at the beginning of his campaign. By signing it, he threw the immigration system into chaos, encouraged the stereotype that immigrants and refugees are immoral and dangerous people, and stoked anti-American opinions around the world.

 Michael Leonetti, 20, Malvern, Pa.

What Trump got right: Allowing a team of Afghani teen girls to enter the United States for an international engineering competition.

What Trump got wrong: Banning Syrian refugees.

 Deborah Mantell, 43, Huntington Station, N.Y.

What Trump got right: Fired Stephen Bannon.

What Trump got wrong: Hired Stephen Bannon. Seriously: The further intentional coarsening of our public discourse is shocking, and shockingly discouraging. Any pretense of requisite competency for office, wisdom, knowledge of who we are and how we got here and compassion has been ripped from the fabric of our political culture. Sadly, I see no path to recovery that isn't naive and starry-eyed.

 Jack Rosberg, 69, Cundys Harbor, Maine



Defense Secretary Jim Mattis listens during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Oct. 30. (Zach Gibson/Bloomberg News)

What Trump got right: Hired Jim Mattis as secretary of defense. He is an inspired choice, with a firm grasp of America's role on the world stage. He feels like the one untouchable in the entire Cabinet. President Trump could never get away with tweeting mean things about him or otherwise disrespecting the man in any way. His gravitas is too strong.

What Trump got wrong: It's a challenge to separate the awful things he's said (Charlottesville, embracing dictators like Vladimir Putin and Rodrigo Duterte) with the awful things he's actually done or tried to do. But to me the worst thing he's done has been to show utter disdain for the truth. It started on his first full day in office in front of the CIA wall, and it continues to this day. A representative example would be the bogus "voter fraud" panel that is dangerous in all sorts of ways.

 Rick Kronberg, 45, Livingston, N.J.

What Trump got right: Highlighted just how pro-business-class, pro-1 percent the GOP really is. He has also highlighted how complicit Republicans are in enabling American racism. President Trump put these things out in the open and dared them all to condemn it. They didn't.

What Trump got wrong: Trump has caused America to resign as the country that leads the free world. We no longer are a good friend to our allies or even pretend to be a moral authority to the world. The GOP always accused President Barack Obama of leading from behind. It seems that the party would prefer a leader who, instead of leading, picks fights with other world leaders, daring them to start a war with us.

 Stephanie Fagnani, 42, Boston

What Trump got right: I applaud President Trump for attacking the Syrian military base after the regime reportedly used chemical weapons. I truly wish President Barack Obama would have done this the first time Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons.

What Trump got wrong: I blame Mitch McConnell for this one, but the worst thing Trump has done is nominate an ultra-conservative to the Supreme Court. Trump should never even have had that choice. McConnell took an oath to uphold the Constitution. Not only did he violate the Constitution by blocking Obama's rightful nominee, but he also kept 99 other senators from keeping their oath to uphold the Constitution.

 David Bingen, 51, Richmond, Va.

What Trump got right: Made people reevaluate their priorities. President Trump has enacted rollbacks of existing laws or policies, including the Affordable Care Act. A lot of Republicans had been adamant that this law should be repealed and replaced. However, when it came time to do so, the votes could not be counted on the Republican side. It seems a lot easier to say you want something rolled back than to actually do it.

What Trump got wrong: Continued the divisive campaign rhetoric. Up until this year, I have been a registered Republican. After the campaign debates and even more importantly, Trump's Twitter messages, I have re-registered as an independent. The rest of the party, not just Trump, has driven me to re-register as an independent as well. The constant defense of some very indefensible messaging from our president by the party is inexcusable.

 Ken Martin, 48, Pittsburgh



President Trump and first lady Melania Trump serve food to Hurricane Harvey victims at NRG Center in Houston on Sept. 2. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

What Trump got right: He went promptly to Houston and Florida after the storms.

What Trump got wrong: His characterization of neo-Nazis and white supremacists as fine people just about did me in. I am a 71-year-old white grandmother whose nephew has a black wife. My late Jewish husband also lost family in the Holocaust.

 Dorothy Lurie, 71, Oakland, Calif.

What Trump got right: His approval of the Keystone XL pipeline and the Dakota Access pipeline.

What Trump got wrong: His withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and casting aspersions on other free-trade agreements.

 Mark Kramer, 54, Cambridge, Mass.

What Trump got right: Firing cruise missiles into Syria to punish the Bashar al-Assad regime for reportedly using chemical weapons. It was a measured response that affirmed American global leadership and adherence to international law. It also came at a moment when Russia seemed to be testing Trump's resolve, and the president rose to the occasion.

What Trump got wrong: Firing James Comey under false pretenses, in an attempt to quash an investigation with serious national security implications because it risked embarrassment for President Trump, his family and his political allies. This was not only an impeachable act of criminal obstruction, but more important, it was an abuse of power and public trust.

 Benjamin Dryden, 34, Washington

What Trump got right: Eventually appointing a serious national security team after a couple of misfires is perhaps the single best thing President Trump has done. Trump's appreciation for generals and military leadership, if not taken too far, will pay dividends in keeping America's military presence respected and well-funded.

What Trump got wrong: The first Muslim ban is the single worst thing President Trump has done. Trampling on the due process rights of immigrants with residences and jobs here, and literally separating mothers and fathers from their children solely based on whether they happen to be traveling abroad, the order was needlessly cruel and poorly executed, and lacked any true legitimate justification. It was purely red meat for the Trump base.

 Paul Katz, 37, Fairfax, Va.

What Trump got right: Befriending and backing Israel.

What Trump got wrong: Demeaning American institutions such as the intelligence community, the free press and our past presidents.

 Kim Diaque, 63, Albuquerque

What Trump got right: Hired retired Gen. John F. Kelly as chief of staff. That decision seems to have reduced some of the soap opera in the White House.

What Trump got wrong: Refusing to condemn the white supremacists in Charlottesville. He legitimized violence, gave energy to hate groups and emboldened those who bring out the worst in America. Broadly, his criticism of the media and nonchalance about our Constitution have brought us one step closer to autocracy that our founders fought above all else to prevent.

 Jason Fernandes, 39, Atlanta



President Trump and Vice President Pence meet in the Office Office with Capitol Hill leadership, including House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy R-Calif.), far left, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell R-Ky.), Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi D-Calif.), on Sept. 6. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

What Trump got right: Breaking recent GOP precedent in his attempts to work with Democrats. Reaching across the aisle has come to be seen as an inherent evil by many conservatives. President Trump's role-modeling in defiance of some loud voices in his own party may set a healthier precedent.

What Trump got wrong: Pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, and other actions he's taken in the context of denying climate reality. It's a tight contest between this and his nuclear brinkmanship with North Korea. But climate change wins because the devastation of a conflict with North Korea is fairly likely (though by no means guaranteed) to be localized, and the devastation associated with climate change will not be so.

 Joshua Hicks, 40, Seattle

What Trump got right: I believe the best thing he has done is startle and remind the average American (voter and nonvoter alike) of the importance of voting.

What Trump got wrong: Making a stolen Supreme Court pick. Justice Neil Gorsuch's impact is going to be felt for a long, long time.

 Ryan Dinkgrave, 34, Royal Oak, Mich.

What Trump got right: Observed a moment of silence on Sept. 11.

What Trump got wrong: Claimed that the election was rigged and that fraudulent votes were cast for Hillary Clinton. There is nothing worse than undermining the electoral process with knowingly false claims. This is a clear violation of the oath of office to uphold the Constitution.

 Jonathan Leavitt, 60, Brookline, Mass.

What Trump got right: Hiring John F. Kelly as chief of staff. Since then, Tom Price, Sebastian Gorka, Stephen Bannon and a few other totally unqualified staff members have been fired.

What Trump got wrong: Not asking for a Congressional Budget Office score and blindly promoting repeal and replace of the Affordable Care Act, while at the same time moving to sabotage the ACA. President Trump seems to have no concept of the consequences of his commands or the intricate details of the ACA.

 Ken Camarro, 77, Fairfield, Conn.

What Trump got right: Re-energizing the news media to perform their critical roles as watchdogs and impelling reporters and commentators to contemplate the newer complexities of "truth."

What Trump got wrong: Threatening military action against North Korea and, in the process, making us look much crazier than our opponents. Even if only the North Koreans are on the receiving end of nuclear weapons, they've already paid a heavy enough price living under that oppressive regime. They don't deserve to be obliterated any more than we do.

 Evelyn Tu, 55, Princeton, N.J.

What Trump got right: Appointed retired Gen. John F. Kelly as his chief of staff.

What Trump got wrong: Appointed Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

 Joe Alper, 63, Denver



U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaks during a news briefing at the White House on Sept. 15. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

What Trump got right: The only thing he has done correctly in his presidency so far is deciding to pick Nikki Haley as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. She is the only person that he has picked to be part of his administration who seems to have the competency to do her job.

What Trump got wrong: President Trump's biggest downfall is his use of Twitter to bully critics of him and his administration, including Meryl Streep, John Lewis, Carmen Yulin Cruz, Bob Corker, Kim Jong Un, John McCain, CNN and every news outlet besides Fox News, and many others. Trump has shown that the presidency is too much for his thin skin.

 Bram Hurvitz, 43, Pittsfield, Mass.

What Trump got right: Asked member states of NATO to start paying closer to 2 percent of their gross domestic product toward defense.

What Trump got wrong: Undermined the strength of America's alliances abroad.

 Brody Knaak, 25, Pewaukee, Wis.

What Trump got right: Made highly publicized deportation threats to undocumented immigrants. I personally favor widespread amnesty for the undocumented, but Trump's "tough talk" in this area has decreased attempted illegal border crossings by a significant amount, despite the fact that actual deportation rates have NOT gone up. This is smart in a game-theory way, although I'm sure that is accidental in the case of this president.

What Trump got wrong: The Charlottesville response ranks among the most depressing moments in modern U.S. history. The president is racist and does not care if we know.

 Gregg Kavet, 47, La Canada, Calif.

What Trump got right: Suspended the Jones Act.

What Trump got wrong: Engaged in name-calling in an effort to escalate the confrontation with North Korea.

 Patricia Brooks, 52, New York

Compiled and edited by Becca Clemons and Molly Roberts. Illustration by Robert Carter. Design and development by Andrew Braford, Matt Callahan and Jake Crump.
Whenever asked what prompted my interest in either of my careers  fighting crime or writing crime  I have always credited my passion for both to my pre-adolescent devotion to the teenage sleuth who inspired me twice over: Nancy Drew.



The Secret of the Old Clock, by Carolyn Keene (Grosset & Dunlap)

I had been a voracious reader as a child, but my memories of discovering a charismatic teenager and her posse of friends who returned in book after book to take on the evil forces in River Heights marked my initial awareness of continuing characters in a series of novels. I admired everything about Nancy  how intrepid she was in her efforts to set things right, her loyalty to her father and her pals, and her bold manner of taking on mysterious situations to right wrongs, even when adults scoffed at her plans.

I loved the storytelling, too. As I grew older, I dreamed of writing tales about a protagonist  a strong woman in a nontraditional role  who might capture a readers imagination the way Nancy had captured mine. I wanted, also, to do justice.

[Women, stop apologizing for reading womens novels]

I was a member of the last all-womens class at Vassar College, where I had gone to study literature, clinging to that idea of becoming a writer. Upon my graduation in 1969, I started law school at the great University of Virginia  one of about 15 women in a class of 340 students. There were few women role models at the bar and on the bench anywhere in the country when I started practicing law in 1972, the seventh woman on the legal staff of Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had recently been created, but that didnt stop the legendary D.A. from telling me that the prosecutorial job he reluctantly hired me to do was too tawdry for a woman of my educational background. He said I could expect to spend a good deal of my time in the law library rather than the courtroom. Fortunately, that didnt prove to be the case.



The author Linda Fairstein (Katherine Marks)

Nancy Drew was my fictional role model throughout most of my youth. I was more fortunate than she in some ways. Nancy had lost her mother when she was 3 years old. She was devoted to her single dad, but they were living in a town rife with crime. I had both loving parents  it was my mother who read to me every night before I went to sleep  and Mount Vernon, N.Y., seemed a much safer place than River Heights. But I did envy Nancy the blue roadster and the steady partnership of Ned Nickerson. That was true until I found my real-life colleagues  mostly guys in the early days  in the D.A.s office, and we started to solve cases with the great men and women of the NYPD, riding in unmarked black cars on our way to crime scenes. I didnt leave home with Nancys trusty flashlight, but there was plenty of her moxie driving my desire to do the right thing.

I smile whenever I hear an accomplished woman mention Nancy Drew  who made her first appearance in 1930  as an inspirational figure. Former justice Sandra Day OConnor wrote about being pulled away from Nancys exploits to do more serious work on the family ranch; Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg responded to the young womans adventurous nature and her daring; and Justice Sonia Sotomayor  who has described reading as her rocket ship out of the second floor apartment in a South Bronx housing project  admired Nancys character and her courage. Hillary Clinton, too, is a fan, respecting how smart and brave Nancy was, also her ability to multitask: taking care of her dads house, keeping up with her schoolwork and solving capers on top of it all. Laura Bush also loved reading Nancy Drew mysteries.

Though the Nancy Drew books have been updated to eliminate racist stereotypes, they suffer from a striking lack of diversity. The folks in River Heights were all white, and the bad guys were always foreign and usually dark-skinned or swarthy. And yet the appeal of the girl detective  she was originally penned as an 18-year-old and later adjusted to 16  remained widespread. My friend Faye Wattleton spent her pre-adolescent years in Nebraska, an African American child whose mother pastored an all-white church. Wattleton told me that Nancys indomitable independence, fearless inquisitiveness and determination to get the job done  never forgetting to freshen up her appearance  was a bridge, from multiple layers of isolation to imagining the power of challenging the conventional in order for good to triumph over evil.



Digging for Trouble, by Linda Fairstein (Dial Books)

For me, both dreams that emerged from the pages of Nancys adventure have come true. I have spent 45 years as a lawyer, fighting for justice for women and children who have been victims of violence. And I have written 21 mysteries  two of them for young readers  in which my protagonists, one a prosecutor and the other a 12-year-old sleuth, channel the character and courage of a fictional heroine. I never wanted to imitate Nancy Drew in either career. But I ached to run along beside her, and that has been a run well worth taking.

Linda Fairstein is a former sex-crimes prosecutor and author of the Alexandra Cooper crime novels and the Devlin Quick middle-grade mystery series. Her new book is "The Devlin Quick Mysteries: Digging for Trouble."


The high-tech ceiling at the entrance to the Museum of the Bible will feature digital images and movies as well as running scripture verses. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

When the $500 million Museum of the Bible opens Nov. 17 just blocks from Capitol Hill, it wont promote a specific religion, its leaders say.

The museums finances tell a different story.

Financial documents and interviews reveal a tangled relationship between the nonprofit museum; Hobby Lobby and its owners, the conservative-Christian Green family; and the National Christian Foundation, a donor-advised fund that supports key soldiers in the national battle for conservative Christian values.

The Greens and their craft-store empire have donated to the museum and to the foundation. In addition, the foundation and Hobby Lobby are the primary donors to the museum, according to interviews and financial documents. The circular relationship appears to benefit the family and the company, who have enjoyed large tax breaks for supporting their pet project.

The murky ties between the three entities have attracted the attention of museum and nonprofit experts who have expressed concern about the projects political agenda, potential conflicts of interest and compliance with tax laws. These questions come on the heels of Hobby Lobbys agreement this summer to pay a $3 million fine and forfeit thousands of artifacts that federal authorities said were smuggled out of Iraq.

The museums leaders play down their connections to conservative Christian causes.

The museums role is not to espouse faith, said Steve Green, president of Hobby Lobby. We just want to present the facts of this book . . . to celebrate this book. We want the visitor to make their own decision.

[Sneak peek: D.C.s new museum includes lots of tech  but not a lot of Jesus]

Hobby Lobby is the family company that successfully challenged the federal government's mandate to provide contraception services to its employees as part of the Affordable Care Act. The National Christian Foundation, a Georgia-based organization with a mission "to advance God's Kingdom," distributes millions of dollars annually to churches and civic organizations, including many engaged in court fights against same-sex marriage, abortion rights and other social policies.



The Biblical Garden on the roof of the museum offers views of the city. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

Almost two-thirds of the museums $557 million in contributions comes from these two sources, according to interviews and recent tax filings. Because nonprofit groups are not required to disclose their donors, its unclear how much of the total donations are tied to the Greens.

What is clear is the craft store and the museum are deeply connected through gifts and various business deals that shuttle funds between the two for rent, administrative and curatorial services.

Theres a lot of room for conflicts of interest, said John E. Simmons, a museum consultant and president of the Collections Stewardship Professional Network of American Alliance of Museums. The code of ethics for the American Alliance of Museums says you should avoid conflicts of interest and also the appearance of conflicts of interest.

They clearly view this as an evangelical outpost to Congress, said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, who sees the museum as an attempt to redefine religious liberty and redo our history.

Green would not disclose how much he has contributed to the museum.

We dont say, Green said during a 15-minute interview at the museum. Those are decisions the family makes, and Im not at liberty to share. If I knew, I wouldnt (share), but I dont know specifically.

[Hobby Lobbys Steve Green has big plans for this Bible museum]

The museums tax records show Hobby Lobby donated $201 million in artifacts, about 2,800 of the Greens 40,000-piece collection. The family and company have given more through NCF.

A lot of funding we give, whether it be here or to others, we go through NCF, Green continued.

The National Christian Foundation directed more than $163 million between 2013 and 2015 to the museum for Christian discipleship, according to the foundations tax returns. An NCF spokesman said the foundations donor privacy policy prohibits it from disclosing the names  or the number  of donors who have directed gifts to the museum.

Museum of the Bible is one of the thousands of charities that we support through our grantmaking, spokesman Steve Chapman wrote in an email. Much of their support comes from grant recommendations from donors using their Giving Funds.

The museums most recent audits show 89 percent of all donations last year and 96 percent of all donations the previous year came from one entity, which museum president Cary Summers identified as NCF. Most large gifts come through NCF, Summers said, adding that the museum has 50,000 donors in all. Museum officials declined to provide a list of its donors.

We get checks in the mail, we get money in an envelope from Sunday school classes and churches. The larger gifts, they normally go through NCF, Summers said.

Fifty-thousand is a big number, added Green. Many ministries would never even have that many total supporters, and were just starting.

[Museum of the Bible to offer free admission]

The substantial support from the Greens and their company has legal experts questioning the museums status as a public charity and the increased tax benefits that accompany that status. To be a public charity, a nonprofit must show it receives at least one-third of its funding from many donors, including the general public, government agencies and private foundations. (A private foundation, on the other hand, typically has a single major source of funding.) Nonprofit corporations want to be classified as public charities rather than private foundations because their donors receive larger tax deductions for their gifts.

Theres some more tax advantages, yeah, Green said about the museums status as a public charity. If we make a donation, were going to use that as a write-off. We wouldnt be good stewards if we didnt.

Gifts made through a donor-advised fund like NCF are automatically characterized as public contributions.

This enables a crazy loophole in which every private foundation founder could, by use of a willing donor-advised fund sponsor, always ensure that their foundation qualifies as a public charity, said Brian Galle, a Georgetown Law professor.



The entrance to the museum features relief metal lettering of scriptures in Latin. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

Many donor-advised funds have policies that prevent this loophole. Fidelity Charitable, for example, will not approve a grant where "Fidelity Charitable provides a substantial portion of the organization's public support," according to its online guidelines. The NCF's guidelines do not include such language. Chapman did not respond to several messages seeking information about foundation guidelines.

The IRS can examine the arrangement, Galle said. NCF is essentially a straw in this transaction, and the way we know that they are a straw is that reputable donor-advised funds refuse to do this, Galle said. They recognize that if the loophole were widely exploited, it might lead to congressional action.

Hobby Lobby and the museum are also involved in several business deals. Despite creating the museum, the craft company retains ownership of most of its 40,000-item collection. The museum rents storage space from Hobby Lobby in Oklahoma City to keep and care for these items, and in a separate agreement, Hobby Lobby pays the museum for curatorial services, according to tax filings.

"They are leasing space from people who are paying them to care for their collection? I find that odd," Simmons said, adding that such dealings could block accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums. A museum must be open for two years before it can apply for AAM accreditation.

The ties between the museum and its funders only matter if the donor has control over content, said Sally Yerkovich, director of the Institute for Museum Ethics.

Museums are working more and more toward being transparent, she said. The issue is whether the donors actually influence what the museum is doing. That will be apparent once they open.

Green is confident that any expectations about proselytizing will disappear. Its kind of like a movie reviewer reviewing a movie before seeing it, he said. You might want to check us out before making those claims, and see if weve done our job well.


Sarah Gadon stars as Grace Marks in Netflix's "Alias Grace," which is based on a true story. (Sabrina Lantos/Netflix)

It's not obvious that both the Hulu hit "The Handmaid's Tale" and Netflix's new miniseries "Alias Grace" are based on books by the same author, Margaret Atwood.

Rather than a stylized dystopian horror set in some near future, the gothic plot of Alias is rooted in history  the true story of Grace Marks, an Irish immigrant living in Canada who was convicted in 1843 of murder and sentenced to hang. Both she and her alleged accomplice, James McDermott, were found guilty of killing their employer, Thomas Kinnear, and his housekeeper (and mistress), Nancy Montgomery, but only McDermott ended up at the gallows. Grace, perhaps because she was both young and beautiful, was ultimately given a lighter sentence; after 30 years behind bars, she was released.

In both Atwood's meticulously researched but fictionalized retelling and the new miniseries, Grace (Sarah Gadon), who's already incarcerated, ends up describing her life story to a young psychiatrist, Simon Jordan (Edward Holcroft). The good doctor becomes taken with this enigmatic yet exceedingly proper woman, who claims she remembers nothing of the murders and pleaded guilty only at her lawyers' insistence.

Despite their differences, "Alias Grace" has the same timeliness that helped win "The Handmaid's Tale" the Emmy for best drama. And it likely won't be the last Atwood adaptation we get. Darren Aronofsky has announced plans to make a series from the MaddAddam trilogy, which looked like it might land at HBO. That deal fell through, but Aronofsky said he wasn't giving up. And last year, MGM Television bought the rights to Atwood's novel "The Heart Goes Last," according to Deadline.

That book, about desperation during an economic depression, was published in 2015, but the others have been around for much longer. "The Handmaid's Tale" came out in 1985, and "Alias Grace" about a decade later. "Oryx and Crake," the first of the MaddAddam books, is 14 years old.



Edward Holcroft as psychiatrist Simon Jordan. (Sabrina Lantos/Netflix)

So why is it that, all of a sudden, theres a resurgence of interest in Atwoods work?

I think its a scary time, said Sarah Polley, the actor, director and Oscar-nominated writer who adapted Alias Grace for television. She has such insight and such a detailed curiosity about the past and where weve come from, and I think because this is such an unstable time in the world politically  and for women  its a moment where having context is helpful in terms of analyzing and figuring out our situation right now.

Even Atwoods futuristic stories are based on history. In The Handmaids Tale  a book about women forced to bear children for rich couples in a draconian religious society where the population is dwindling  the horrors are real.

"One of my rules was that I would not put any events into the book that had not already happened in what James Joyce called the 'nightmare' of history, nor any technology not already available," Atwood wrote in the New York Times, citing the Nazis' secret Lebensborn breeding program, among other nightmares. "No imaginary gizmos, no imaginary laws, no imaginary atrocities."

The echoes between the premise for "The Handmaid's Tale"  which seemed outrageous even to Atwood in 1984  and our current moment is obvious to many fans of the show, especially the way the fictional government of Gilead began slowly revoking hard-won civil liberties.

[The Handmaids Tale has been feared, banned and loved. Now its scaring the bejeezus out of us again.]

Alias Grace resonates especially with the resurgence of the #MeToo campaign on social media, in which women and some men have gone public with stories of sexual harassment and abuse.

Thats because the book is really about storytelling  about how a woman with very little power in society seizes some by telling her own tale. No one else who was there the day of the murders is still alive, so Grace is Dr. Jordans only chance of getting to the truth. A quick study, Grace is aware of her newfound influence, so she stretches out her yarn, like a Victorian-era Scheherazade.

The scripts immediately spoke to director Mary Harron, whom Polley handpicked to spearhead all six episodes of the miniseries.

Usually when people send me stuff, it feels a bit alien to me, Harron said. But it felt as if it could have been written for me.

Harron, who also directed American Psycho and The Moth Diaries, has plenty of experience with period films, not to mention female-centric stories, and her movies are remarkably comfortable with ambiguity, especially when it comes to characters who may or may not be insane.



Anna Paquin as Nancy Montgomery and Paul Gross as Thomas Kinnear. (Sabrina Lantos/Netflix)

One thing that shocked Harron about the story was how brutal the class system was in Canada in 1843.

The Irish were looked down on the way that people look down on immigrants here, she said.

Polley initially wanted to turn the book into a film but quickly realized the only way she could include threads such as the immigration story was to make it into a miniseries. That component was important to her, especially for today's audience. In the show, the process of Grace and her family traveling by boat from Ireland to Canada isn't a hopeful journey so much as a nightmarish fantasia of death and disease echoing recent stories about despondent refugees  including young children  fleeing Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia.

I think we forget why people immigrate and how hard it is and what it looks like, Polley said. I feel like, in the current climate, its important to remind ourselves that people dont usually immigrate for fun.

[Alias Grace and The Girlfriend Experience show how a feminist story need not always be a triumphant one]

The series is equally unflinching when it comes to portraying the monstrous way women were treated at the time. In one episode, Graces good friend  another domestic servant  realizes shes pregnant. Her options are few after her high-society paramour falsely insists the child isnt his: She can continue the pregnancy, which means her boss will certainly kick her out to live on the streets, or she can use all of her savings to pay for a dangerous, primitive procedure to abort the fetus.

Harron says Atwoods very incisive, clear-eyed, unsentimental look at how society works gives readers and viewers some sense of how stuck these women felt.

In Alias as in Handmaids Tale, Atwood also shows how a patriarchal society turns women against one another. In the latter, aunts physically and emotionally abuse the fertile women being groomed for ritual rape; in Alias, its most obvious in the relationship between Grace and Nancy, the murder victim.

Both of them, theyre so powerless, really, and their situation is so desperate, Harron said. They have so little  they could be kicked out to die in the street.

The squabbling at the bottom keeps the powerful in charge. Obviously, much has changed since those days. But, as weve seen with so many influential men finally being called out for their bad, sometimes criminal behavior, a lot has also remained the same.

The sexual exploitation of young women, as we know, is still a problem, Harron said. Im shocked by the stuff were hearing. You think you know how things work, but you dont.
NPRs employees unleashed their fury at the organizations top executive on Friday over his handling of a sexual harassment scandal that appears to have spread.

At a packed staff meeting at NPR's headquarters in Washington, they criticized chief executive Jarl Mohn, who kept top editor Michael Oreskes on the job for months despite knowing about three harassment complaints against Oreskes.

Mohn forced Oreskes to resign this week after The Washington Post reported on the accusations that date back to the editor's tenure at the New York Times in the late 1990s.

Since then, the scandal appears to have metastasized. Five women at NPR have filed formal harassment complaints against Oreskes, bringing the number who have accused him of misconduct to eight, according to Mohn and people familiar with the allegations. The new claims cover Oreskess tenure at NPR over the past three years.

Mohn has repeatedly admitted since the story broke on Tuesday that his response to earlier allegations about Oreskes was inadequate. During Fridays meeting, he was on the defensive as employees took turns blistering him for moving too slowly to address what appears to have been a widely discussed problem within the organizations newsroom. The speakers included some of NPRs most renowned and veteran journalists, including Susan Stamberg, Cokie Roberts and Nina Totenberg.

The number one purpose in being here is first to apologize to every single person in this room for what you had to go through, he said, according to an audio recording made available to The Post. I let you down. I should have acted sooner and more forcefully.

Mohn, who hired Oreskes in 2015, said he and top executives had heard rumors and gossip about Oreskes over the years, but Mohn didnt deem this sufficient to launch a full-scale investigation.

Had we gotten solid information, we would have acted a lot sooner, he said, seemingly placing the onus back on NPRs employees.

He acknowledged that he forced Oreskes out on Tuesday after The Posts report.

His comments seemed to elicit little sympathy from NPR's employees. "I must say I have no confidence in you," newscaster Korva Coleman told him. "My lack of confidence in you extends to your team."

The statement was greeted with applause from the hundreds who attended.

Oreskes said in an emailed statement on Friday that he had engaged in inappropriate behavior in the past. He wrote, I had worked hard to put those failings behind me. I had no intention to offend or harass anyone at NPR. I am deeply sorry for anything I said or did that failed to live up to that goal.

One of the new accusations was made Tuesday by a young NPR reporter; it involves an inappropriate conversation Oreskes allegedly had with her last year, according to a person familiar with the complaint. While attempting to persuade the woman to reject an outside job offer, Oreskes purportedly invited her to his beach house, saying they could share bottles of wine there. She rejected his alleged offer and remained at NPR after she was promoted.

The woman filed a complaint about the conversation immediately after learning from The Post that two other women had told NPR that Oreskes had kissed them against their will and put his tongue in their mouths during business meetings in the late 1990s. At the time, Oreskes was the Washington bureau chief at the Times.

Another complaint was filed last week by an NPR producer who said Oreskes had inappropriately touched her during an encounter in the newsroom earlier this year. The woman came forward to NPRs human resources department after Mohn issued a memo on Oct. 20 reiterating NPRs harassment-reporting procedures. But Mohn said Friday he was unaware of this accusation when he sought Oreskess resignation.

Mohn suggested in an interview with NPR's "All Things Considered" on Wednesday that Oreskes's alleged misconduct in the late 1990s belonged in a lesser category compared with his record while at NPR.

The important distinction here is first, [those] did not happen at NPR, it was not an NPR employee, he said in the interview. It was at the New York Times and it occurred 20 years ago. Had that happened at NPR we would have had a very different reaction to it.

He added, One of the things we wanted to do as a result of that is make sure that that did not happen here. And I will tell you up to this moment sitting here and talking with you. . . . Im not aware of anything that hes done or that happened that bears any resemblance to those issues that occurred 20 years ago while he was at the New York Times.

Mohn has announced that NPR will hire a law firm with no previous ties to the organization to review how NPR handled the Oreskes matter, a step sometimes taken by companies and organizations to ensure that an internal investigation is impartial. Another media organization, Fox News Channel, hired the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison last year to investigate employee accusations of sexual harassment against the network's co-founder, Roger Ailes, and others.

NPR's management knew of three allegations before Tuesday, including two reported by The Post. A third accuser, producer Rebecca Hersher, told NPR in October 2015 that Oreskes had said inappropriate things to her during a dinner meeting. Mohn told "All Things Considered" on Wednesday that NPR investigated her complaint "and put [Oreskes] on notice that this could not occur" again without serious consequences.

Yet NPR took no action against Oreskes until this week  a fact that seemed to outrage NPRs employees at the meeting on Friday.

Susan Stamberg, one of NPR's founding journalists, called Friday's meeting with Mohn "free, frank and heartbreaking. . . . My heart was broken at what I heard."

Stamberg said the harassment scandal has raised her concern about the stability of this institution and its reputation. Like most news organizations in this political climate, [NPR is vulnerable] to outside pressures and disparagement, she said. Its very important that steady, transparent steps are being taken in addressing this, so the outside world understands NPR is dealing honorably with its problems.
The consulting firm running D.C.'s only public hospital came under growing pressure Friday as the hospital's chief medical officer and a former executive who oversaw quality of care said the firm has disregarded patients' safety in an effort to preserve a lucrative contract with the District government.

Veritas of Washington faced intense criticism at a public hearing by the D.C. Council's health committee, as Maria Costino, who until several months ago was United Medical Center's director of quality management and patient safety, said the firm's employees repeatedly sought to handicap her work.

Following her testimony, Julian Craig, the hospital's chief medical officer, arrived unexpectedly at city hall with a letter asserting that Veritas had effectively dismantled the hospital's system of patient safeguards. He also alleged that the firm may have violated District and federal law by directing doctors to admit patients for overnight stays at UMC who did not actually require treatment.

"I think they've done tremendous damage to the hospital already. Patient safety and quality has suffered," Craig testified. He said any improvements to the hospital's tenuous financial situation under Veritas had come at the expense of patients. "Morally and ethically, I think that's something city council members have to weigh," he said.

A spokeswoman for Veritas and UMC did not respond to requests for comment.

Hospital Board of Directors Chair LaRuby May was testifying as Craig's letter arrived and said she had not read it. "I would ask that you not assume that document to be accurate," May said.

The council will vote Tuesday on whether to extend the contract for Veritas, which has been managing the Southeast Washington's only hospital for a fee of $300,000 per month since last year. The firm is owned by Chrystie Boucree, whose husband, longtime health-care executive Corbett Price  along with his relatives and companies  made more than $35,000 in political donations to Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) in 2014. Her administration issued a no-bid contract to Veritas.

[At D.C.s only public hospital, consultants fees mount  along with trouble]

Another Price consulting firm was running a New York City hospital when it filed for bankruptcy. In 2013, the New York State Department of Health barred that firm, Kurron Shares of America, from continuing to manage the hospital, citing concerns about pay provisions in the company's contract.

At UMC, scrutiny of Veritas of Washington has grown amid a string of high-profile lapses in patient care. In August, the D.C. Department of Health shut down the hospital's nursery and delivery rooms after discovering dangerous medical errors in the treatment of pregnant women and newborns.

Earlier this week The Washington Post reported on the case of Warren Webb, a 47-year-old resident of UMC's nursing home. He died of a heart attack in August after repeatedly crying out for help and was left on the floor by his nurse. The hospital did not report key details of that incident to regulators, who nevertheless are now investigating Webb's death based on The Post's reporting.

[I cant breathe! A UMC patient cried for help. His nurse left him on the floor]

In their testimony to the health committee, Craig and Costino asserted that lapses in patient care can be traced to decisions by the Veritas team.

In his letter, which he read aloud Friday, Craig wrote that Veritas eliminated the jobs of two key employees who oversaw quality of care, actions he said "served as an important catalyst for the downward spiral that the institution faces today."

He also said that Veritas's former chief executive, Luis Hernandez, directed doctors to unnecessarily admit patients for overnight treatment, a practice he said "would result in unnecessary treatment and expense for medically unnecessary services to a number of UMC patients" and "unjustifiable charges to the government" when such patients were covered by Medicare or Medicaid.

[Dangerous mistakes led to shut down of obstetrics ward]

Craig said he complained to the hospital's human resources department in February that Hernandez had put the hospital "at serious federal regulatory and financial risk" and "had put members of the medical staff's careers and medical licenses in jeopardy."

Craig alleged in his letter that the Veritas directive to admit extra patients led to possible overbilling of the federal government earlier this year by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Veritas employee David Boucree, who is the cousin of the firm's owner, told The Post at the time that the billing errors were a "legacy" problem that predated Veritas.

"Veritas has disregarded patient care and committed malfeasance in its efforts to increase patient volume," Craig wrote.

Debra S. Katz, a prominent Washington whistleblower attorney who is representing Craig, said he had documentation to prove his allegations but declined Friday to release it.

Costino, a registered nurse who was director of quality at Northern Westchester Hospital in New York and vice president of quality at Westchester Medical Center before coming to UMC last December, testified that she left the hospital after only 7 months because of "a lack of support by the Veritas leadership and continued pushback and interference" from Diane Kelly, one of the consultants the firm deployed to the hospital.

In a January complaint to the hospital's human resources department, reviewed by The Post, Costino said Veritas officials were involved in "an attempt to curtail my activities and filter my reports."

She said Kelly once told her, during a discussion of weaknesses in UMC's patient-safety program, "you know Veritas will be blamed for this" and instructed her "not to speak to anyone" about problems she identified until Kelly reviewed her findings.

[Hospital omits key details from report about patient death to regulators]

In a March letter responding to Costino's complaint, a human resources official said that after an investigation they had "concluded that Dr. Kelly may have engaged in certain conduct that is inconsistent with various hospital policies and expectations, including, but not limited to our policies governing workplace harassment."

Kelly could not be reached for comment.

In her June 2017 resignation letter, Costino said it "has become increasingly apparent to me (the) tools and the support I need will not be forthcoming."

May, a former D.C. Council member who has received $3,000 in political donations from Price and his family and companies since 2014, testified that if the council rejects the Veritas contract it would be "a dire situation for the hospital."

She said the problem was not the hospital's management but what she described as "negative" and "unfair" media attention UMC has received.

"We're trying to create a culture of trust. Others are trying to work against that. It has an impact on the number of patients that are coming to the hospital," May said.
Kevin Maxwell, chief executive of Prince George's County Public Schools, and Rushern L. Baker III, county executive, speak about allegations of fraud in graduation rates in late August. Photo by Donna St. George/The Washington Post (dsg/The Washington Post)

Grades for nearly 5,500 students in a Maryland school system were changed days before graduation during the past two years, according to results from an investigation sparked by concerns that educators were fraudulently boosting graduation rates.

Findings from the review of Prince Georges County public schools, which were released Friday, also found rampant lapses in documentation and nearly 60 instances of students being ineligible to graduate.

The 211-page report pointed to problems in grading and student absenteeism, but did not find that tampering was ordered by the districts leadership, which includes chief executive Kevin Maxwell. Nor was there evidence of systemwide intimidation, according to the independent investigators, who were hired after Gov. Larry Hogan (R) ordered a review.

The report said 107 people filed complaints during a seven-week investigation  which ended Tuesday  and that nearly half of those related to improper grade changes and ineligible graduates.

As investigators visited the 28 high schools in the Prince Georges school system, they conducted an examination of randomly selected records for 1,212 students with late grade changes.

The results were troubling: The investigators found about 30 percent of the students whose records were reviewed either lacked documentation that justified graduation or were clearly ineligible.

The reports authors said the percentage could not be assumed to hold true for the larger population of 15,215 graduates in 2016 and 2017 because the records were selected from the nearly 5,500 students with late grade changes.

State officials said Friday they are deeply concerned by the reports findings and have asked the school system for a plan to improve its processes and governance within two months. The plan is to be reviewed in January by the state board of education, which could take action.

Based on an initial review of the investigative report, Governor Hogan is extremely troubled by its findings, said Shareese Churchill, spokeswoman for Hogan. It clearly indicates that the Prince Georges County school system is failing to properly educate far too many students, and is actively betraying the communitys trust  willfully compromising students opportunity for future success.

Four-year graduation rates in Prince Georges have risen in recent years, jumping from 74.1 percent in 2013 to 81.4 percent in 2016  lower than the state average of 87.6 percent but the largest gain for that period of any school system in Maryland.

Prince Georges officials responded to the report Friday by underscoring that the findings do not support allegations of a systemic direction to change grades, as was alleged.

Maxwell and Segun Eubanks, the school boards chairman, appeared on the defensive as they met with reporters, saying the impetus behind the audit was political and that the problems would have come to light had the school system been allowed to conduct its own review internally.

It becomes political when it goes to the governor of the state of Maryland and not through normal processes, Maxwell said.

Maxwell vowed the school system would take appropriate disciplinary action as needed and problems would be corrected with a sense of urgency.

Still, he said, because a grade was changed, it doesnt mean it was wrong or illegal. Theres a lot of reasons why that may happen.

He and Eubanks said the district would work to improve teacher training, increase communication with teachers and implement technology to automatically calculate grades.

[Some employees in a large Maryland school system see signs of grade tampering]

The report suggested a wide failure of accountability, citing irregularities in grade changes and tracking the community service hours required for graduation.

Nearly 38 percent of graduates had more than 10 days of unlawful absences in 2015-16  a number that grew to 44 percent in 2016-17, according to the report.

In 2017, 159 students graduated despite more than 50 days of unexcused absences.

Under district procedures, high school students are supposed to get Es in full-year courses for which they have 10 days or more of unlawful absence, the report said.

Claims of improper conduct in Prince George's schools were first made by a four-member minority bloc of the county school board in a May letter to Hogan.

The four said whistleblowers had come forward with evidence that grades were changed and that students were credited for courses they had not taken, as part of widespread systemic corruption in the 132,000-student district. They alleged that hundreds of students had graduated without meeting state requirements.

Maxwell denounced the allegations at the time, calling them baseless, politically motivated and an effort to undermine recent gains. But state lawmakers in Prince George's urged an in-depth audit, and Hogan asked the Maryland State Board of Education for a "complete, thorough and exhaustive" investigation.

By the time the state board voted to bring in an outside investigator in June, Maxwell and other officials supported the idea, saying it would bring closure.

[Maryland officials vote to conduct investigation of graduation rates in Prince Georges County]

The state in late August hired a D.C. firm  Alvarez & Marsal Public Sector Services  to conduct the investigation, and on Sept. 18 announced a hotline number and email address for reporting potential tampering or misconduct. The report was due Tuesday.

Throughout the scandal, Maxwell has reiterated that there were no orders from the top to do anything improper, but he has shifted his message about potential problems.

On Friday, he voiced concern about the serious errors found at many high schools.

School board members Edward Burroughs III and David Murray, part of the minority bloc that asked the state to investigate, said they went outside the system because they didnt feel confident the board would take action.

The report found exactly what we said in our letter--that hundreds of students are graduating that do not meet the requirements, Murray said. We said it was happening across the system and the report found that to be absolutely true. It was even more than we imagined.

The allegations have increased political tensions in Prince Georges, where County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D) selected Maxwell as schools chief and stood by him. In recent months, Baker has announced his candidacy for his partys nomination to run against Hogan in the 2018 gubernatorial race.

Maxwell has pointed to the progress in graduation rates as a signature accomplishment.

[Maryland graduation rates hit new high, with big rise for Prince Georges]

Earlier this year, he and other top administrators did a bus tour of the eight county high schools with a graduation rate of 90 percent or better. Students and staff cheered their success, with banners celebrating them as part of the 90 Percent Club.

Ovetta Wiggins contributed to this report.

lynh.bui@washpost.com
Activists supporting Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and other efforts to avoid deportations protest outside Trump Tower in New York this summer. (Craig Ruttle/AP)

The Department of Justice said Friday it is aiming to slash the massive immigration court backlog in half by 2020 by adding judges, upgrading technology and refusing to tolerate repeated delays in deportation cases.

Officials, who briefed reporters on condition that they not be identified by name, said the effort is part of the Trump administrations broad plan to more efficiently handle cases of undocumented immigrants, who number 11 million nationwide.

The administration has reversed Obama-era policies that allowed prosecutors to indefinitely postpone low-priority cases, which the Justice Department officials said allowed some immigrants to delay inevitable deportations. In other cases, they said, immigrants who deserved to win their cases were delayed for years because of the backlog.

The immigration court backlog has tripled since 2009, the year former president Obama took office, to more than 630,000 cases in October.

"That is what this administration is committed to, getting this done right, ensuring that we're never in this place again," a Justice Department official said. "Really and truly, when you look at the numbers . . . it reflects the fact that the last administration likely wasn't as committed to ensuring that the system worked the way that Congress intended it to."

The agency, which oversees the administrative immigration courts, said it plans to hire new immigration judges, use technology such as videoconferencing, and increase judges productivity by setting case-completion guidelines, though officials would not give details.

The department also will have a no dark courtrooms policy, the officials said, explaining that there are at least 100 courtrooms nationwide that are empty every Friday because of judges alternate work schedules. The Justice Department is tapping retired judges to fill those courts.

The immigration court overhaul comes as the Trump administration is carrying out policies that could generate even more cases in coming months. Arrests and deportations from the interior of the United States are rising sharply, and the Trump administration has ended Obama-era protections for some undocumented immigrants, including 690,000 undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children.

By Monday, the Trump administration is also expected to say if it will renew temporary protected status for thousands of longtime immigrants from Honduras and Nicaragua whose permits expire next year.

The Justice Department officials said they are no longer widely using certain protections for undocumented immigrants, including a tool known as prosecutorial discretion that allowed the government to set aside low-priority deportation cases.

DOJ officials criticized immigration lawyers, saying they have purposely used tactics designed to delay immigration cases. As of 2012, the officials said, there were an average of four continuances for each case before the court.

Gregory Chen, director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the administrations plan to cut the backlog would undermine judicial independence in the immigration courts.

This administration has been extremely hostile toward the judiciary and the independence of immigration judges, as well as other judges, Chen said.

Speeding up cases depends partly on congressional funding. It also rests partly on the actions of immigration judges, who have expressed concerns about due process for immigrants, many of whom are facing deportation to some of the worlds most violent countries. Immigrants are not entitled to a government-appointed lawyer in these courts and often handle cases on their own.

The Justice officials would not comment on reports that they will impose case-completion quotas on judges, which raised an outcry from the judges' union. But the officials said they would give judges clear standards to complete cases and add more supervisors.

Officials say they are already seeing results from efforts this year to improve efficiency. From February to September, judges ordered 78,767 people to leave the country, a 33 percent jump over the same period in 2016. The total number of final decisions, which includes some immigrants who won their cases, is 100,921.
When Richard J. Douglas heard this summer that elected leaders of the Maryland suburb of College Park might allow noncitizens to vote in municipal elections, his outrage prompted him to launch his own campaign for City Council.

Im not one of those people who hovers over the council, squawking from the sideline, said Douglas, who ran as a Republican for Marylands open Senate seat in 2016. But when I saw that, I had to get involved. The privilege of voting is reserved for citizens.

Douglas is one of several candidates who say they were motivated to run after months of heated debate about a charter amendment to allow voting by undocumented immigrants, student visa holders and residents with green cards.

Twenty-one candidates  more than in any race in the past 30 years  are competing Tuesday for mayor and four open council seats in College Park, a D.C. suburb that is home to the University of Maryland's flagship campus. Municipal elections will also be held Tuesday in several other towns and cities in Maryland and Virginia.

I have nothing against the foreign-born, said Douglas, whose wife is a green-card holder from Mexico. But I believe there are certain bedrock principles we need to observe.

The council narrowly voted in September to allow noncitizens to vote  realizing only belatedly that such a change needed a supermajority.

Days after the 4-3 vote, with one abstention, Mayor Patrick Wojahn announced  "with considerable embarrassment and regret"  that the controversial measure would have needed at least six votes to pass.

It was a divisive debate, said Wojahn, who was elected in 2015, supported the amendment to allow noncitizens to vote and is running for a second two-year term. It is tabled for now.

Council member Mary C. Cook, who opposed allowing noncitizens to vote, said she had not planned to seek office again but now is challenging Wojahn in his bid for reelection because her constituents feel so strongly about the voting issue.

[Measure to let noncitizens vote actually failed, College Park announces]

It wasnt my intention to run for office this term, but I had a number of people ask me to do so, Cook said. It has turned into a grass-roots movement spurred by the issue of noncitizen voting.

Council member Fazlul Kabir, who is a naturalized citizen, said the issue is often the first one constituents ask him about when he campaigns.

Even though there are so many issues to talk about, this is an issue still on the minds of many people, said Kabir, who introduced two amendments that would have let voters decide in a referendum and limited voting rights to noncitizens who have green cards. The mayor cast the tiebreaking vote against both amendments.

Beth DeBosky, who has lived in College Park for 14 years, said she decided to run for council because debate surrounding noncitizen voting awakened the patriot inside of me. Candidate Daniel C. Blasberg Jr. said the councils handling of the proposed amendment was not the only reason he is running, but it contributed to his decision and was a perfect example of [the councils] lack of communication and transparency.

Todd Larsen, an activist in the community, said candidates running on the issue of noncitizen voting are playing to the fears of some residents in the current climate of anti-immigrant backlash and racial tensions.

If they are elected, I fear that they would roll back significant progress the city has made in being welcoming to all residents, Larsen said. He noted that College Park has recently adopted a nondiscrimination policy in its charter, passed a resolution welcoming refugees and hung a Pride Flag outside City Hall.

In Takoma Park  where liberal voting laws allow noncitizens, felons who have served their sentences and 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in local elections  Tuesday will mark the city's last stand-alone municipal election.

Mayor Kate Stewart, who is running for another term uncontested, said city leaders decided to align city elections with state and federal elections in future years to increase voter turnout, a decision strongly supported by residents. The terms of the council members and mayor elected Tuesday will be three years instead of two, and the two-year terms will resume following the election in November 2020.

Especially given the national context, its important for us to stand up in our values and encourage people to participate in our elections, Stewart said.

The other towns and cities in Montgomery and Prince Georges counties holding municipal elections Tuesday include Bowie, Gaithersburg, Greenbelt, Laurel, Poolesville and Rockville. In Northern Virginia, there are municipal elections in Falls Church City, Leesburg and Round Hill.
Judge Charles W. Halleck in the early 1990s in northern California, where he retired after a tumultuous 12 years as a D.C. Superior Court judge. (Heidi Halleck)

Charles W. Halleck, an outspoken crew-cut conservative who transformed into a bearded, bell-bottom-wearing progressive during a 12-year stint as a D.C. Superior Court judge, stoking the anger of prosecutors and police officers while championing marginalized groups such as gays, prostitutes and marijuana users, died Oct. 31 at a nursing home in Portola Valley, Calif. He was 88.

The cause was not yet known, said a daughter, Heidi Halleck.

A son and namesake of a former Republican majority leader in the U.S. House, Judge Halleck was appointed in 1965 to what became the D.C. Superior Court. He presided over trial cases that decided everything from simple traffic matters to the fate of protesters arrested for demonstrating at the White House.

He established himself as a fiery presence on the bench, known as much for keeping a revolver in his desk drawer as for his tough sentencing and conservative political views, seen by some journalists as echoes of his father, Rep. Charles A. Halleck of Indiana.

Describing himself as societys representative to do vengeance, Judge Halleck seemed to take a special interest in convicting antiwar protesters and long-haired hippies, once telling two men charged with marijuana possession, If you come in here looking like a bunch of kooks and dressed up in crazy clothes and beads, youre going to be found guilty before they call the case. He reportedly refused to release them on bond until they agreed to cut their hair.

According to his daughter, his views began to shift with the emergence of the civil rights movement and because of a relationship with reform-minded criminologist Jeanne Wahl, whom he married in 1970. With her encouragement, he began meeting with progressive legal activists in the District and  in place of the suburban polo grounds that he once frequented with his father  started visiting the offices of Pride Inc., an employment program for black teenagers led by future D.C. Mayor Marion Barry.

Crucially, he also began meeting with prisoners at Lorton Reformatory, the Virginia prison where the District sent many of its inmates. At one point, he spent a weekend living in the facility, assessing its conditions and speaking with some of the criminals he had convicted. Prisons, he decided, were simply finishing schools for crime.

Growing out his hair and swapping slacks for denim under his robe, Judge Halleck began advocating for expanded mental health facilities and better treatment for female convicts, while railing against former conservative allies who called for more police and more courts to address crime in the District.

He dismissed charges against gay men targeted under an indecency act, deeming the law unconstitutionally vague; testified against marijuana possession laws he said were disproportionately applied against black men; and wept and laughed in the courtroom during trials that acquitted protesters such as Dick Gregory, who had been arrested at the White House in 1973 for protesting the U.S. bombing of Cambodia.

Judge Halleck said prostitutes were being unfairly prosecuted, dragged into court while their male customers were left behind, and according to his daughter, he found excuses to avoid bringing their cases to trial.

He was an activist on the bench, said Heidi Halleck, who practices family law in Bowie, Md. The court system used to have just a few public defenders and didnt have the resources to defend people appropriately . . . He would ask the questions that the defense wouldnt ask.

Judge Hallecks style sometimes crossed the bounds of what colleagues and lawyers considered acceptable behavior.

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According to a 1975 Washington Post story, a judicial review panel aiming to determine whether Judge Hallecks term on the court should be extended found more than 40 cases in which his behavior was criticized, including cases of verbal abuse.

He reportedly told a U.S. marshal to shove it, excoriated a defense attorney by saying he had no more idea than a pig has about Sunday . . . about what he is doing on this motion and threatened to jail police officers for tardiness in the courtroom. One day later, The Post reported in 1970, he did jail someone  a court clerk who failed to find a lost file.

Judge Halleck said he was simply trying to restructure a system plagued by ineffective public defenders and a seemingly endless backlog of cases, but his two-year fight over a second term as judge ended in failure. In May 1977, President Jimmy Carter announced he would not nominate Mr. Halleck for the term.

You start leaning, you start pushing, you start crowding and you run the risk of getting called intemperate, an unbowed Judge Halleck said after the decision.

You ask anybody, I was a damn good judge.

Charles White Halleck was born in Rensselaer, Ind., on July 6, 1929. Born into a family of lawyers  including his grandfather, grandmother and father  he later said he didnt have much choice in his profession and would have preferred to work as an architect.

He grew up in Washington, graduated from St. Albans preparatory school and studied economics at Williams College, receiving a bachelors degree in 1951.

His first marriage, to Carolyn Wood, ended in divorce. In addition to his wife of 47 years, survivors include seven children from his first marriage, Holly Patton of Poolesville, Md., Charles Halleck Jr. of Washington, Todd Halleck of Woodbridge, Conn., Heather Halleck of Hartly, Del., Heidi Halleck of Annapolis, William Halleck of San Jose and Hope Halleck of Churchton, Md; six grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

Judge Halleck served in the Navy before attending George Washington University law school and, after graduating in 1957, worked as an assistant U.S. attorney and then an associate at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson.

His fathers role in shepherding civil rights legislation through the House probably contributed to President Lyndon B. Johnsons decision to nominate Judge Halleck for a judgeship in what was then the Court of General Sessions.

Judge Halleck entered private practice in 1977 before retiring to Los Altos Hills, Calif., sick of legal work. He took up photography instead, working as a freelance photojournalist for the San Jose Mercury News and appearing at exhibitions in local galleries, freed of the constraints he said he bristled against as a judge.

"I got a little impatient," he told The Post after leaving the bench, "but I wouldn't change a bit."
Muhal Richard Abrams at the 2010 NEA Jazz Masters Awards Ceremony in New York. ( Tom Pich/National Endowment for the Arts)

Muhal Richard Abrams, a pianist and composer who was a major force in avant-garde jazz for more than 50 years and who was a founder of the influential ensemble the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, died Oct. 29 at his home in Manhattan. He was 87.

His daughter, Richarda Abrams, confirmed the death but did not specify the cause.

Mr. Abrams was a largely self-taught musician who worked in traditional jazz and blues idioms before developing a distinctive, if hard-to-define style that pushed music in new directions.

Inspired by the forward-looking music of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, Mr. Abrams helped launch the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in 1965. The AACM blended elements of modern classical music with traditional African styles, while rejecting the notion of commercially palatable music.

The people who decide what will be recorded are the business people, not the artists, Mr. Abrams told the Chicago Daily News in 1974. It was, for us, a question of survival  black cultural survival.



Muhal Richard Abrams performing in 2010. ( Tom Pich/National Endowment for the Arts)

The collectives early performances took place in churches, exhibition spaces and even day-care facilities. More than a working musical ensemble, the AACM was an expression of spiritual ideals and gave rise to other groups, including the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Mr. Abrams was sometimes compared with such genre-defying figures as pianist Cecil Taylor and bandleader and composer Sun Ra. He did not accept the term jazz as a description of his music.

I want my music to sound like mine, nobody elses, he told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1998. What I do is just music. You cannot put labels on musicians. You use any elements you want and create many sorts of moods. It has nothing to do with classical or jazz. It is bigger than that.

Beginning in the 1960s, Mr. Abrams released more than 20 albums, including "Levels and Degrees of Light" (1967), "Young at Heart, Wise in Time" (1969) and "Things to Come From Those Now Gone" (1975), that cemented his reputation as an innovative pianist and composer. Many leading pianists in modern jazz, including Jason Moran and Craig Taborn, cite him as a key influence.

Mr. Abramss compositions had close connections to modern classical music. As a pianist, he placed his notes in almost a painterly fashion, with distinct flourishes and strokes of sound. He and his bandmates often produced the work spontaneously, with a spirit of improvisational freedom that led it to be called free jazz.

Yet there was often a recognizable underlying feeling for the jazz and blues tradition in Mr. Abramss music, with sinuous melodies built on blues-based harmonic structures and propulsive swing rhythms.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Mr. Abrams often worked with saxophonist Eddie Harris. His adaptable approach could fit comfortably with mainstream jazz musicians, including drummer Max Roach, trumpeter Art Farmer and saxophonist Sonny Stitt, as well as experimental musicians such as Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell and Henry Threadgill.

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In addition to piano, Mr. Abrams often used the trumpet, trombone, tuba and clarinet in various combinations in his works. His later albums, including "The Hearinga Suite" (1989) and "Blu Blu Blu" (1991), prompted jazz critic Gary Giddins to write that Mr. Abrams "must be accounted a preeminent figure in the development of big band music in the period since the '60s."

Richard Lewis Abrams was born Sept. 19, 1930, in Chicago. His father was a handyman, and his mother played piano for enjoyment. As a child he showed little interest in music, beyond being drawn to the sounds coming from the open doors of jazz and blues clubs on Chicagos South Side.

They kicked the door open in the summertime, wide open, he said in a 2009 interview with the National Endowment for the Humanities, so I would just stand there with my mouth wide open, listening. . . . I had no idea that I would be a musician later.

He took up the piano at 18 before he joined various blues and jazz groups. At the same time, was drawn to classical compositions and links between mathematics and music.

Building on these ideas, he formed the Experimental Band in the early 1960s, which later led to the AACM. In 1967, Mr. Abrams added Muhal to his name, based on his studies of numerology. (He said the word signified No. 1.)

He was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, the countrys highest honor for jazz musicians, in 2010. He continued to perform until shortly before his death.

Survivors include his wife of more than 55 years, the former Peggy Clark of New York; a daughter, Richarda Abrams of New York; two sisters; four brothers; three grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by a son, Richard Abrams Jr.

Mr. Abrams did relatively little experimentation with electronic music, preferring the traditional acoustic sound of the piano.

Youve got to have a good sound on the piano, and the piano has to be played from end to end, he told Keyboard magazine. As long as I have a good instrument, theres no telling what I might do.
About 65 firefighters responded to a house fire in Montgomery County Thursday that caused one person to be hospitalized for smoke inhalation.

At around 6 p.m., fire personnel responded to the 100 block of Brinkwood Drive in Brookville, an area of Montgomery County without fire hydrants, Montgomery County spokesman Pete Piringer said.

Firefighters found pretty heavy fire conditions in the garage of the large home, Piringer said, and called for additional units, including a water-supply task force.

At least two occupants of the home escaped, including one who was transported to a hospital with smoke inhalation, according to Piringer.

There were no firefighter injuries, Piringer said, and information about the cause of the fire was not immediately available.
A bill introduced in the U.S. Senate Thursday is the sixth Congressional effort in the past two decades to ban the importation and sale of asbestos.

Because of the legacy of asbestos-related disease in and around Libby, both Montana senators were lobbied intensely to sign on to the bill as co-sponsors.

Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat, became a cosponsor shortly before the bill was introduced Thursday. Sen. Steve Daines, a Republican, ultimately decided against co-sponsoring the bill at this time, saying he would consider supporting it at a later date.

"Asbestos has taken the lives of too many Montanans, and banning this harmful substance will prevent the future loss of life," Tester said Thursday. "Just ask the families in Libby and Troy, Montana. There's no place for asbestos in our communities."

Daines said Thursday, "I support the ongoing regulatory review regarding the importation of certain products containing asbestos. It is paramount that we prioritize public health and avoid another tragedy like we saw in Libby, and I will carefully assess the need for this legislation when that regulatory review is complete."

Anti-asbestos activists thought the Frank J. Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act, which was signed into law in 2016, provided a road map for the eventual banning of asbestos  particularly when the chemical was designated by the EPA as one of the first the agency would review under the new law.

But that process has been slowed considerably by the Trump Administration. Internal rule changes mean that the risk assessments under the law for asbestos and other chemicals will be slower and more limited than previously envisioned.

President Trump has called asbestos a "miracle" and has said its use should be legal.

The EPA would be able to make the manufacture, processing, use, commercial distribution, and disposal of asbestos illegal within 18 months of the bill's passage, as opposed to the process in current law that could take seven years or more.

Linda Reinstein, CEO of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, a group that has pushed Congress for more than two decades to ban the substance, said Thursday, "It's irresponsible to wait any longer to ban a chemical that's long been a known killer. Decades of evidence have led to the conclusion that all forms of asbestos are carcinogenic and there is no acceptable exposure level."

She added, "The Montana delegation has seen firsthand the human cost of inaction on asbestos."

Asbestos-related disease, including lung cancer, mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lung, and asbestosis, is blamed for the deaths of 15,000 Americans each year. Cases of mesothelioma, which is thought to be solely caused by exposure to asbestos, are increasing despite the decline in asbestos use. One reason is the latency period. Asbestos-related disease sufferers often do not show symptoms for 30 years or more after exposure.

Also, imports of asbestos into the United States have soared in recent years. The chlor-alkali industry, which makes chlorine, is the largest industrial user of asbestos, and the industry has a powerful lobby.

Other ban attempts over the years have come up short.

Globally, 55 countries have banned asbestos. Next year, Canada is poised to become the 56th, despite being an asbestos exporter for many years.

"Don't get me started," said Dr. Raja Flores, a thoracic surgeon at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, Thursday. Flores, who often treats patients with mesothelioma and other asbestos-related disease, said, "Asbestos is a killer. The evidence is clear. This bill is a life-saving bill. It can save more lives than I can with my knife. Any politician who doesn't get that is protecting some group that would lose money if asbestos were banned."

Flores, who has operated on patients from Libby, said the Montana town's experience is a perfect example. "Families have been wiped out by asbestos there," Flores said. He chairs a Libby-focused research group that has published multiple papers on the topic.

Gayla Benefield, 74, of Libby has for more than 20 years been an activist on the issue of the town's asbestos exposure. She lost both of her parents to asbestosis, and she and four of her five children have also been diagnosed with asbestos-related disease.

"A full ban is completely necessary. So many people have died here waiting for some legitimate effort on behalf of the federal government to stop what has happened to us," she said Thursday.

The bill's primary sponsor is Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat of Oregon. Co-sponsors are Tester and Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. "We are working on getting more co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle," Merkley said Thursday.

Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, said Thursday, "We have a president who has routinely dismissed the risk of asbestos, and he has appointed a former chemical industry lobbyist and a scientific consultant for chemical companies as the top officials in charge of regulating toxic chemicals. We're way beyond the fox guarding the henhouse. We're talking about the fox being hired to do henhouse design/build, including the security system.

"That's why it's so important that Senator Merkley, Senator Tester, and their colleagues are standing up, once again, to introduce a bill that would ban asbestos for once and for all."

The bill is endorsed by a wide range of health organizations, including the American Public Health Association and Libby's Center for Asbestos Related Disease.

The bill is named for Reinstein's husband, Alan, who died in 2006 of mesothelioma.


Brandy Johnson Billie, holds one of her daughter Ashanti's favorite teddy bears, in her apartment in Oxon Hill, Md. Ashanti, a 19-year-old college student, disappeared after entering a military base for work. She was later found dead and authorities have released few details of the case. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)

The office in Brandy Johnson Billies Maryland apartment has become a makeshift shrine to her daughter. Theres a pair of ripped jeans Johnson Billie hated, but her daughter loved. There are some of the teenagers hand-drawn anime.

And theres the chefs outfit that 19-year-old Ashanti Billie purchased for culinary class at the Art Institute of Virginia Beach, but never had a chance to wear.

It has been more than a month since Billie, who had moved to the Virginia Beach area to attend school, went missing as she headed to work on a military base. Her body was eventually found in North Carolina  some 300 miles away.

Investigators have released few details about the case, not saying where they believe Billie encountered her attacker or how she was killed. They also have not said whether they identified any suspects.

Im still not sleeping, Johnson Billie said. I need them to locate who did this . . . closure comes from knowing its justice for Ashanti and that monster or monsters, they cant harm anyone else like they harmed my baby.



Brandy Johnson Billie, left, with her daughter Ashanti Billie, in an undated family photograph. (Family photo)

In the absence of answers, Johnson Billie and her ex-husband Meltony Billie have been doing everything they can to help, first in the search for their daughter and now in the investigation into her death.

Theyve appeared on television, met with U.S. Rep. Scott W. Taylor, a Republican from Virginia Beach and pushed out information on social media about other missing person cases in the hopes they can save another family from going through the same pain.

FBI Norfolk spokeswoman Christina Pullen said the case remains a high priority. The FBI and Blimpie, a sandwich restaurant where Ashanti Billie worked, have combined to offer a $20,000 reward for information that helps solve the case.

Were pursuing all leads, looking at all information we have and getting as much information as we possibly can, Pullen said. Its a very methodical process, it takes time and we want to make sure we get it right.

A funeral program Johnson Billie keeps on her desk describes her daughters life journey.

Both of Ashanti Billies parents served in the army and moved around a lot, so she lived in Texas, Germany, Alabama, New York and Maryland, where she graduated from Dr. Henry A. Wise Jr. High School in Upper Marlboro. Though her parents are divorced, they remained friends to ensure that Billie felt comfortable staying at either of their houses. She was her mothers only child, but had six other half siblings and a longtime boyfriend.

Not long before her disappearance, Billie had moved to Virginia to study culinary arts. She dreamed of one day opening her own bakery.

Billie got a job at a Blimpie shop on the Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek in Norfolk, and entered the base just before 5 a.m. on Sept. 18 to report for work, authorities said. Soon after, her car was seen leaving the base but it wasnt clear who was in it.

Ashanti Billie never showed up to work that day and missed her scheduled college classes, police have said. Later that day, her cellphone was found in a dumpster, and that weekend, authorities located her car in Norfolk. Billies body was found on Sept. 29 near a church in Charlotte.

Johnson Billie and Meltony Billie stayed at a hotel in Virginia Beach during the search for their daughter. Once officials identified her body, Johnson Billie said she wanted to fly directly to Charlotte.

We wanted to get to our baby, Johnson Billie said. We werent able to get there. They didnt want us to have to see her in that condition she was found in due to deterioration in being outside in the elements and things like that.

Her parents still dont know what exactly happened to Billie. Although they have asked investigators questions, its what the officials dont say that pushes the parents minds to wander.

I need to know was she abused? Meltony Billie recalled asking investigators.  Well, Mr. Billie, we dont have all that,  he said they responded.

Both parents served in the army with multiple deployments. They said they believe their daughter was probably abducted on the base, and they hope the security measures will lead authorities to possible suspects.

To enter a base, people have to show a valid identification card, which is often scanned upon entry, to the armed security personnel, said Beth Baker, a Navy spokeswoman, who spoke in general about naval bases. Baker referred questions about Ashanti Billies case to the FBI, citing the open and ongoing investigation.

When Johnson Billie finally returned to Maryland, she couldnt stand to be in her apartment  the same one she lived in with her daughter. Within a week she moved into a new unit with a different layout.

To pack all of your childs stuff up . . . that shes not going to be there, I cant even explain it, it just doesnt feel right, Johnson Billie said.



Brandy Johnson Billie and ex-husband Meltony Billie lost their daughter, Ashanti, a 19-year-old college student, after she disappeared going to work. She was later found dead. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)

The family had a public and large funeral, which Johnson Billie called Ashanti Billies homegoing celebration. Her daughter had previously shared her dreams about wedding colors: rainbow roses and a mint green pop of color with her white wedding dress. So Johnson Billie made sure she had rainbow roses and a mint green program for the funeral. Ashanti Billie was buried in the pale green prom dress she designed herself.

I just kept thinking that it cant be her up there, it cant be her, Johnson Billie said of the funeral. Ill never have grandkids, Ill never be able to be the mother at the wedding. For me, thats gone.

For now, the parents days are filled with preparing to launch a foundation in their daughters name. It will help fund a scholarship fund for a student to attend the culinary program at the Art Institute of Virginia Beach and be a resource for those seeking assistance to find a missing person.

You wake up and you sometimes, you try to make sense of it, Meltony Billie said. Some days Ill wake up and Ill look at the news expecting to hear something.

Reminders of their loss are constant. On a recent day, Johnson Billie opened up her online shopping cart and found a pair of headphones, a charger and a jar of bubble tea ingredients  all things Ashanti Billie must have added.

In my mind I keep telling myself shes away at school, Johnson Billie said. The other part of my brain is like no shes not coming home. 
Every month, Isiah Pugh met with other local Boy Scout leaders in Maryland for their Key Three, a regular session to talk about how the 3,000 scouts in their district were doing and what volunteers could do to improve the boys experience.

It was one of dozens of meetings and events Pugh looked forward to as a Boy Scout member-turned-volunteer overseeing the program in Prince Georges and Charles counties.

The Oct. 24 lunch meeting was almost like any other, until chaos struck.

Just as Pugh finished talking about how proud he was of the commissioners in his district, a car launched through Babes Boys Tavern in Upper Marlboro with an explosive crash. Cinder blocks flew through the air, smoke filled the room and Pugh, along with several others, were knocked out of their seats.

I ordered the turkey sandwich special, and the next thing you know, the wall came down, the car came through, the ceiling dropped and Isiah fell in my lap, said C. Philip Nichols Jr., a judge on the Seventh Circuit Court for Prince Georges County and chairman of the Boy Scout district Pugh managed.



Isiah Pugh (Family Photo)

Pugh, 73, died Tuesday, one week after suffering critical injuries in the unfathomable wreck.

As police continue to investigate the cause of the crash and workers rebuild the beloved neighborhood watering hole, Pughs friends and family mourn the man they remember as a loving father and dedicated Scouter. They say he was helpful, friendly, courteous and kind, radiating all the good virtues prescribed in Boy Scout Law.

He gave us love as much as sharing love with other people, said Pughs son, Robert Pugh. He was always involved in the community and always preached that you have to give back.

[Driver plows into restaurant in Prince Georges]

Pugh was one of six people taken to a hospital after the wreck.

On the day of the crash, about 30 people were in the restaurant popular with firefighters, police, lawyers and others whose work brings them to the nearby Prince Georges County Courthouse.

The driver of a Toyota was heading south on Old Crain Highway when she lost control of her car while making a left turn onto Marlboro Pike and crashed into the restaurant around 1:10 p.m., according to Prince Georges County police.

The impact sounded like a bomb exploded and launched brick and mortar through the air. The force of the crash was so violent that one of the restaurants owners sitting at the end of the bar was blown off a stool and into the bathroom. Customers were knocked unconscious, were pinned by the car or trapped beneath rubble.

It looked like something out of Saving Private Ryan, said Nichols, who was sitting at a table inches from where the car hurtled through the restaurant. The retired judge escaped uninjured, leaving the scene with a torn shirt spattered in blood.

Police detectives and firefighters who were diners quickly sprung into action, treating the injured and getting people out of the restaurant as fast as they could, said Aileen Noel, who was working behind the bar that day. One retired firefighter who is a regular didnt notice glass that lodged in his body and sent blood down his neck because he was so busy rendering aid, Noel said.

[Lost in a split second: Eight pedestrians died on Washington-area roads in a single month.]

I thought a bomb went off, said Noel, whose ribs and back were deeply bruised. I got hit with a cinder block and everything just came at me.

The owner of the restaurant has created an online fundraising page to help employees who were injured or are not earning a paycheck as the building undergoes repairs.

The cars driver, Vernelle Robinson, declined to speak to The Washington Post when reached by phone Wednesday. Immediately after the crash, Robinson told local television news outlets she had panicked when her cars brakes failed.

No charges have been filed in the crash as police continue to investigate.

Gathered at home in Waldorf this week, Pughs loved ones shared fond memories of him. He was the grandfather who taught his grandkids to swim, the father who built elaborate doll houses for his daughters and the friendly face that almost got his entire family upgraded to first class on a plane because the flight attendants thought he was so sweet.

He was such a caring and loving man of God, said his daughter Tiffany Pugh. His family was his center, and he just had so much charisma.

Pughs children, who also include daughter Monique Hill and sons Isiah Pugh III and Christopher Pugh, said they were still trying to come to grips with how their father was taken from them.

But they said theyre not surprised that one of the last things he was talking about before he was injured was the Boy Scouts.

As a boy, Pugh was one of the first African American children to integrate the Fort Monroe troop in Virginia, his family said. He made his sons join the scouts and took his family on annual adventures through the Shenandoah. After Pugh retired as a manager for the U.S. Postal Service, he dedicated his time to boosting the Boy Scouts.

That was his second job, Tiffany Pugh said. He loved it and the nurturing part of it. That is who he was. The Boy Scouts were everything to my dad, and they believe my dad was everything to them.
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein on Wednesday cautioned current and former federal judges and prosecutors in Washington against allowing political passions to shape overzealous prosecutions.

The comments came in a speech extolling the rule of law as Rosenstein, who holds the No. 2 position in the Justice Department, spoke at the federal courthouse overseeing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's grand jury probe into whether President Trump's campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

The appearance by Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller in May and has authority over the investigation, was planned months ago. He gave a substantially similar speech six weeks ago at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

But his timing, two days after the investigation's first criminal charges were unsealed, and his audience  lawyers and the judges predominantly appointed by Democratic presidents, including those handling cases brought by Mueller's prosecutors  lent a political subtext, whether intended or not.

Rosenstein took questions, but the audience was told not to ask about the Russia investigation because he could not discuss it.

Rosenstein said one of his most important duties was to "safeguard the integrity of the Department of Justice and to uphold the rule of law," and noted the president's constitutional responsibility to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

He reminded the public of its responsibility to uphold democratic institutions, recalling Benjamin Franklins purported answer to a woman who asked what kind of government the Continental Congress had chosen: A republic  if you can keep it.

But he mostly emphasized prosecutors duty not to rush to judgment, citing former Franklin D. Roosevelt attorney general and Supreme Court justice Robert Jacksons admonition that although violations of the law abound, prosecutors ought to charge only those in which the offense is the most flagrant, the public harm the greatest, and the proof the most certain.

Repeating Abraham Lincolns warning in 1838 after a mob in Illinois lynched an African American man suspected of murder, Rosenstein said, When men take it in their heads today to hang gamblers or burn murderers, they should recollect that in the confusion usually attending such transactions they will be as likely to hang or burn someone who is neither a gambler nor a murderer as one who is.

He concluded, And that acting upon the example they set, the mob of tomorrow may, and probably will, hang or burn some of them by the very same mistake.

[Special counsel is investigating Trump for possible obstruction of justice, officials say]

Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Trump-Russia case because of his role in the Trump campaign, leaving Rosenstein with the authority to approve Mueller's budget, remove him from his post or veto any investigative step with congressional notification.

Mueller's team interviewed Rosenstein this year about Trump's removal of James B. Comey as FBI director, investigating whether the president might have attempted to obstruct justice leading up to Comey's firing.

[Trump said he was thinking of Russia controversy when he decided to fire Comey]

Rosenstein wrote a memo highly critical of the FBI director, which the White House used initially to explain the firing, before Trump later tweeted that he was going to fire Comey regardless.

It was not clear whether Rosenstein had the episode in mind when he reminded the Wednesday audience of a saying by author Richard Bach, Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published around the world  even if what is published is not true. After a pause, Rosenstein added, And I have some recent experience with that riddle.

Rosenstein spoke in the federal courthouses Ceremonial Courtroom at the annual Judge Thomas A. Flannery Lecture Series, named after the late judge and former U.S. attorney for the District who served 30 years at the federal courthouse.

Rosenstein has deep ties to the courthouse. Rosenstein, who was U.S. attorney for Maryland from 2005 to 2012, joined the Justice Department in 1990 after clerking for Judge Douglas H. Ginsberg at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
A District man who was under court supervision for a drug arrest and was wearing a GPS-ankle-monitoring bracelet, admitted Friday to fatally shooting another man a year ago while he was still wearing the bracelet.

Malik Hough, 22, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder while armed in D.C. Superior Court to the Dec. 27 fatal shooting of 22-year-old Herbert Dowtin in the 800 block of Xenia Street SE. According to prosecutors, Hough and Dowtin knew each other and had an argument. Later Hough walked up behind Dowtin and shot him eight times at 1:20 p.m.

Dowtin, authorities say, was unarmed. Hough was arrested about a week later.

Prosecutors say after the shooting, Hough ran from the scene and discarded a 9mm handgun under a fence. The gun was later recovered and Houghs DNA was found on the weapon.

Prosecutors also say around the time of the shooting, Hough cut off his pretrial GPS bracelet to avoid being electronically linked to the scene. Hough was wearing the bracelet as a result of an arrest a month earlier after police allegedly found 6.8 ounces of cocaine in his possession. At the time of that arrest, Hough was also carrying a loaded 9mm handgun, authorities said. As opposed to sending him to jail while his case was pending in court, a judge ordered Hough to wear the GPS bracelet.

Hough is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 3 by Judge Judith Bartnoff. As part of the agreement with prosecutors, Hough could be sentenced to between 17 years and 29 years in prison.
Matthew Rocco wanted to be a sheriffs deputy in Fairfax County.

But after taking a polygraph test, according to court records, he volunteered something shocking to the officer who administered it: He had looked at child porn.

The next year, Rocco was convicted of a misdemeanor offense of computer harassment in state court, in a plea in which he didnt admit guilt. He was given two years probation. Yet as his probation ended, the FBI said it learned that he was sharing child porn online. Now Rocco, a 31-year-old who lives in Woodbridge, Va., will go to prison for three years.

No words can excuse my past behavior and the pain I have caused, Rocco said in federal court in Alexandria on Friday. I am learning from my terrible mistakes.

He suffered from depression and other mental health issues, he said, and had stopped going to therapy years earlier.

In an interview with police at the time of his 2011 arrest, Rocco said he had pictures of nude children on his computer, not videos of children engaging in sex acts. Having graduated from college as a criminal justice major, he believed that the former was a grey area, according to court filings.

In fact both are illegal, and Rocco also had some of the most vile and abusive acts to be recorded on his computer, Assistant U.S. Attorney Maya Song said in court.

Prince William County police did not seize all the devices in Roccos house that contained child pornography, according to court papers, and he continued to look at it.

Rocco, who has law enforcement members in his family, is no cunning criminal, defense attorney Peter Greenspun argued. He noted the way his client was caught: confessing to a polygraph operator and sharing child pornography on an open network. Rocco should have gotten counseling after his first arrest, Greenspun said.

This is a very decent guy, very socially repressed . . . who has a problem, Greenspun told Judge Anthony Trenga of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Trenga agreed that while Rocco looked at tragic and horrible images, he had substantial potential and talents. His sentence was well below federal guidelines, which called for a sentence of at least seven years.
Three Howard University students and a friend were beaten Thursday night near the schools campus in an attack they described to police as random and brutal, according to interviews with two victims and law enforcement authorities.

One student remained hospitalized Friday, and another was treated at an emergency room and released. D.C. police made no arrests but said their investigation is continuing. Victims said one person suffered a broken collarbone.

We were chilling out, said one 22-year-old student, who like others requested his name not be used because the crime is unsolved. We had nothing to do with nobody, and someone came up behind me and punched me. I got back up and tried to fight. They jumped me again. It was crazy. We were just casually talking and they came up and started swinging.

The incident occurred about 10:30 p.m. outside the Banneker Community Center in the 2500 block of Georgia Avenue NW, across the street from the campus. A D.C. police report classified the attack as an assault and noted that some of the victims were kicked repeatedly and punched. The report offers no motive.

A Howard University spokeswoman said Friday afternoon that the school was still investigating the incident.

One student, who said he had a concussion, said he has hired an attorney.

He said he wasnt sure whether the attackers mistook him and his friends for someone they were angry with or had gone on a random attack. He said there were about 10 people in his group.
A 34-year-old man from London pleaded guilty Thursday to assaulting a Georgetown University student in January and forcing him to drive to banks and a jewelry store to rob him.

Paolo Aldorasi was on a visit to Washington when he abducted the student from a cobblestone street near campus on the afternoon of Jan. 26, Aldorasi admitted in a plea deal with prosecutors.

He pleaded guilty to assault with intent to rob, punishable by at least two but no more than 15 years in prison. In the deal, prosecutors dropped a federal count of kidnapping, which carries a statutory maximum of up to life in prison.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon set sentencing for Jan. 30.

[FBI arrests suspect in kidnapping of Georgetown University student]

Aldorasi, who has been jailed since his Feb. 24 arrest by the FBI in a suburb of Seattle, admitted in a filing submitted at the plea hearing that he pulled his SUV alongside the victim, who was walking eastbound in the 3400 block of O Street NW at about 3:20 p.m. that Thursday afternoon.

Aldorasi said he asked for directions to Washington Dulles International Airport, but the victim, who spoke little English, said he did not know the location, according to the court filing. As the conversation went on, Aldorasi grabbed the student, ordered him into the vehicle and took him to four ATMs and retail stores, previously identified as a Best Buy in the District and a Cartier store in Chevy Chase, court records show.

[Georgetown University student abducted, taken to bank machines, D.C. police say]

Attempts to withdraw money were unsuccessful, and the incidents were caught on security cameras.

Aldorasi eventually released the student unharmed.
President Trump speaks with reporters and members of the media before departing from the South Lawn in Marine One for a trip to Asia this morning. The north fence line of the White House was later closed for the report of a suspicious package. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

The Secret Service said a Washington man has been charged with making a felony threat after he told an agent he dropped explosives along the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue near Lafayette Square and the White House.

The incident unfolded at 9:24 a.m. when officials said a Secret Service officer patrolling in the area was told by a man, later identified as 33-year-old Ervin Pettaway, that he had put explosives there.

Pettaway was taken into custody, authorities said, and the area was checked. A cellphone was found that authorities said Pettaway had dropped.

The White House was placed on a brief lockdown and streets in the area were closed. The lockdown was lifted and streets reopened before 10:30 a.m.

Pettaway faces one count of felony threats, the Secret Service said.
A man fleeing the scene of a Montgomery County robbery on Friday led police on a chase on the Beltway, during which he was fatally struck by an unmarked police car, authorities said.

Montgomery County police said the inner loop of the Beltway was shut down about 1:30 p.m. after police pursued multiple armed suspects from the scene of a robbery in the 11200 block of Georgia Avenue in Wheaton.

Police spokesman Paul Starks said the suspects fled in a van and were followed by police. One man exited the van and was struck on the Beltway by what police believe was an unmarked Montgomery County police cruiser, Starks said.

The van had multiple firearms inside, Starks said, and four people were arrested. Police said the suspects might also have be involved in robberies of a food truck and a check-cashing business in Montgomery County in September.

We cant confirm theyre involved, but its something investigators are looking at, Starks said. The trend was that multiple suspects would enter the establishment, masked, and take control.

The incident caused the shutdown of the inner loop of the Beltway on Friday afternoon, bringing miles-long delays. Inner loop lanes began to reopen about two hours later.

Identities of the man who died at the scene and the four in custody werent released Friday afternoon. Police said they dont believe shots were fired during the incident on Friday.

Maryland State Police are investigating the circumstances of the crash.
A fourth-grade teacher at a District elementary school in Shaw was arrested Friday and charged with slapping a young student in the back of the head and pulling her hair, according to D.C. police.

The incident occurred about 10:50 a.m. on Tuesdayat Cleveland Elementary School in the 1800 block of 8th Street NW.

Dustin Sternbeck, the chief D.C. police spokesman, identified the teacher as Lacey Thornton, 32, of Capitol Heights, Md. He said she was charged with simple assault. It was not immediately clear if she would make an initial appearance in D.C. Superior Court on Friday. Thornton was in custody Friday and there was no answer at her house.

According to a police report, the young student complained to the school principal who notified authorities. The school system issued a brief statement: The safety and security of our students is our number one priority, and in this case, school administrators acted swiftly to follow protocols.

D.C. police reviewed surveillance video that showed the 4th grade girl being pushed out of her third-floor classroom with the door shutting behind her. The girl then kicked the door, which reopened.

Police said in the report the teacher is seen on the video exiting the classroom and striking the child on the back of her head with an open hand. The report then says the teacher is seen grabbing the girl by the back of her neck and pushing her down a hallway.
A District woman who was charged this summer with trying to hire someone to kill her estranged husband was sentenced to a year in prison Friday after she later pleaded guilty to attempted assault with a dangerous weapon.

Prosecutors say 39-year-old Brandi Myles of the District agreed to pay a man about $25,000 to kill her estranged husband because he kicked her and her children out of their home and moved his new girlfriend into the house, according to an arrest affidavit.

The unidentified man notified authorities of Myless plan. Detectives then orchestrated an undercover operation in which Myles allegedly agreed to pay the man to kill her husband last November. The killing never occurred.

[D.C. woman charged with trying to hire someone to kill ex-husband]

After her July arrest, prosecutors agreed to allow Myles to plead to a lesser charge of attempted assault with a dangerous weapon. In D.C. Superior Court on Friday, prosecutors told Judge Thomas Motley that Myles had no prior offenses and that her ex-husband did not want to press charges because of the impact the case was having on their children. The prosecutor said Myless behavior that led to her arrest was an aberration.

Prosecutors called for a two-year prison sentence but agreed to suspend a year of the jail time. Myles has been in D.C. jail since her arrest.
THE DISTRICT

Man charged in bomb threat at White House

The Secret Service said a District man has been charged with making a felony threat after he told a Secret Service officer he dropped explosives along the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue near Lafayette Square and the White House.

In the incident at 9:24 a.m. Friday, officials said an officer on patrol was told by a man, later identified as 33-year-old Ervin Pettaway, that he had put explosives there. A cellphone was found that authorities said Pettaway had dropped.

The White House was placed on a brief lockdown. Pettaway faces one count of felony threats, the Secret Service said.

 Dana Hedgpeth

and Peter Hermann

Teacher charged with slapping student

A fourth-grade teacher at Cleveland Elementary School in Shaw was arrested Friday for slapping a student in the back of the head and pulling her hair, according to D.C. police.

The incident occurred about 10:50 a.m. on Tuesday at the school in the 1800 block of 8th Street NW, police said.

Dustin Sternbeck, D.C. police spokesman, identified the teacher as Lacey Thornton, 32, of Capitol Heights, Md. He said she was charged with simple assault.

Thornton was in custody Friday. There was no answer at her house. According to police, the student complained to the principal who notified authorities, and police reviewed surveillance video.

 Peter Hermann

VIRGINIA

Police: Drunk teacher passed out at desk

A substitute teacher in Fairfax County, Va., was charged Friday with being drunk in public after students found him passed out on his desk, police said.

Konbeh Koroma, 24, of Springfield, Va., was filling in for an art teacher at Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax when students noticed him passed out and tried to wake him sometime between the start of school and noon, Fairfax County police said.

He smelled of alcohol, said Officer Reem Awad, a Fairfax County police spokeswoman.

A school resource officer was contacted, and an investigation revealed Koroma was under the influence of alcohol. He was arrested and taken to the Fairfax County jail.

 Justin Jouvenal
The rate of arrests in areas of Virginia with large immigrant populations is far lower than in communities with predominantly U.S.-born residents, a report released Friday by George Mason University shows.

The findings are meant to put into perspective the worries over increased violence from the international gang Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, said James Witte, director of George Masons Institute for Immigration Research. Such concerns have become a divisive issue in Tuesdays gubernatorial election in Virginia.

Witte said several of his students recently approached him, bothered by television ads aired by Republican candidate Ed Gillespie that called MS-13 an increasing menace in the state and portrayed opponent Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) as soft in dealing with the problem.

Gillespie has also accused Northam of supporting "sanctuary cities" that decline to cooperate with federal agencies in enforcing immigration laws, despite the fact that there are no such localities in the commonwealth and that Northam says he has "always been opposed to sanctuary cities."

That sort of advertisement and a lot of the rhetoric today is changing the discourse in what, we think, is a negative way, Witte said.

There is a lot of support for immigrants and the economic role that they play, that theyre not this evil threat, Witte said. But when you get other people with loud voices making statements that are just not based in fact, it has the possibility that it begins to change public opinion.

A Gillespie spokesman said the ads are part of the Republicans emphasis on improving public safety in Virginia by cracking down on gangs.

Ed is the only candidate in the race with a detailed plan to combat MS-13 and other gangs in Virginia to makes us safer, especially those in immigrant communities that are the most vulnerable to MS-13 violence, David Abrams, the spokesman, said in an email.

During the past year, several slayings tied to MS-13 have taken place in Northern Virginia, including the stabbing death of Damaris A. Reyes Rivas, 15, in a Springfield park in January. That case, now in a Fairfax County court, led to the arrest of 10 people connected to the gang, several of whom live in Fairfax, authorities said.

However, while some 300,000 immigrants live in Fairfax County, the rate of arrests for the countys entire population of 1.1 million residents is low, according to the George Mason report, which uses 2015 data from the Virginia State Police, the FBI and the Census Bureau.

That year, there were about 23,100 arrests in the county, equal to 2.1 percent of the overall population, the report shows. The report does not distinguish between gang-related arrests and other crimes, or between crimes committed by immigrants or native-born U.S. citizens.

According to the study, the overall arrest rate in Virginia was 3.2 percent in 2015.

View Graphic The latest stories and details on the 2017 Virginia general election and race for governor.

In Arlington County, home to roughly 53,000 immigrants, the arrest rate was 1.9 percent, while in Manassas City, with 11,400 immigrants  27.3 percent of the total population  the rate was 3.6 percent.

Colonial Heights, near Richmond, has 1,160 immigrants in a population of 17,820 and an arrest rate of 17.5 percent, the study said. Danville, with 1,300 immigrants, has an arrest rate of 10.8 percent.

Jay Lanham, director of the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force, said that regardless of the George Mason findings, the number of crimes in Northern Virginia perpetrated by immigrant gang members has risen recently.

As far as the immigrant community as a whole goes, I wouldnt really know, Lanham said. But our arrest numbers are up significantly compared to last year.
MARYLAND

Death of woman in

August was homicide

The death of a woman found dead in Oxon Hill in August was a homicide, according to a medical examiners report.

Itimia Gray, 37, of Southeast Washington, was found unresponsive outside in the 5100 block of Deal Drive at about 9:15 a.m. on Aug. 15, after officers were called to the area for a death investigation, Prince Georges County police said.

The medical examiner alerted detectives on Tuesday that Gray died of a gunshot wound to the upper body, police said.

 Lynh Bui

Two die in house fire

in Prince Georges

Two people died in a house fire early Thursday in Prince Georges County, officials said.

Their names were not immediately released, pending the notification of their families.

Few details were immediately available on the fire that started around 5:30 a.m. in the 6300 block of Foote Street in Seat Pleasant.

Mark Brady, a spokesman for the Prince Georges County Fire Department, said on Twitter that the blaze started at the two-story single family home. The two people were found dead just before 6 a.m. The fire was quickly put out, officials said.

Second man charged

in fire arrest

A second arrest has been made in the case of a pregnant woman who was set on fire in Prince Georges County.

Jonathan Edward Miller III, 27, of Temple Hills, was arrested and charged with attempted first-degree murder, arson, assault and other offenses, authorities said.

Authorities previously arrested and charged the victims boyfriend  Laquinn Phillips, 34, of Southeast Washington  in the case. Phillips has been charged with attempted first-degree murder and other offenses. He remains in jail.

Investigators said on Sept. 8, the victim was put in a bathtub in her Capitol Heights apartment and had gasoline poured on her before she was set on fire. When authorities arrived, they found the woman running out of her apartment looking for help. She had suffered severe burns.

Man, 79, is killed

by pickup truck

A 79-year-old Maryland man was struck and killed by a pickup truck, according to Montgomery County Police.

Authorities said James Sexton Byrne of Takoma Park was hit just before 8 p.m. Wednesday by a 2004 Cadillac Escalade EXT that was headed south on New Hampshire Avenue.

Police said Byrne was walking at the intersection of New Hampshire and Larch avenues in Takoma Park when he was struck. Byrne was taken to a hospital, where he died.

VIRGINIA

Suspect is charged

with sex trafficking

A man from Fredericksburg has been charged with commercial sex trafficking and other counts after detectives received a tip that several victims were being held against their will at a Fairfax County hotel, police said.

Detectives found the three victims at a hotel in Springfield over the weekend after receiving the tip via the National Human Trafficking Hotline. A Fairfax County police spokeswoman said the three are women. She said they had been trafficked for about a week.

The alleged trafficker, Jamon Kanee Murphy, 22, was found at the same location and placed under arrest, police said. Murphy was charged with two counts of commercial sex trafficking, two counts of abduction with a firearm and other charges.

Murphy is being held without bond at the Fairfax County jail. Additional charges are possible.

 Justin Jouvenal
NATIONAL SECURITY

Libyan militant charged with Benghazi ties flown to U.S.

Mustafa al-Imam, the second Libyan militant charged with involvement in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, was flown to the United States after his capture Sunday by U.S. Special Operations forces and made his first appearance at a federal courthouse in Washington on Friday.

Al-Imam was not required to enter a plea and was ordered to remain in custody pending his next appearance on charges unsealed Monday. He is charged with conspiracy and murder while attacking a federal facility, material support of terrorism and a firearms violation for the Sept. 11-12, 2012, attacks on a U.S. diplomatic mission and CIA station that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

Al-Imam, who appeared to be in his mid-40s and about 5 feet tall, faces up to life in prison if convicted. He was represented by a court-appointed lawyer Matthew Peed.

Al-Imam was captured before midnight Sunday in Misurata, Libya, by a Navy SEAL-led raid. Authorities this week announced the unsealing of charges filed in May 2015.

Ahmed Abu Khattala, accused ringleader of the attacks, is on trial in Washington, and several prosecutors with the U.S. attorneys office of the District and FBI agents involved in the Benghazi case were on hand for Fridays hearing.

At least a dozen others are known to have been charged in sealed U.S. criminal complaints in connection with the attacks.

 Spencer S. Hsu

MASSACHUSETTS

State legislature bans bump stocks

Massachusetts on Friday became the first state to impose a ban on bump stocks since the deadly shooting at a Las Vegas music festival.

An appropriations bill that included a prohibition on the devices, which are designed to make semiautomatic rifles mimic the firing action of fully automatic weapons, was signed into law Friday by Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito (R). The Democratic-controlled state legislature gave final approval to the measure on Thursday.

Polito is Massachusetts acting chief executive with Gov. Charlie Baker (R) on vacation outside of the state. Baker had previously expressed support for banning the devices.

Authorities investigating the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history said the gunman, Stephen Paddock, used a bump stock when he opened fire Oct. 1 from his Las Vegas hotel room on concertgoers below. Fifty-eight people were killed and hundreds more were wounded.

The Gun Owners Action League of Massachusetts, an affiliate of the National Rifle Association, had sent an alert to its members earlier Friday urging them to contact Bakers office and demand he use his line-item veto power to separate out the bump stock ban from the rest of the $85 million budget bill.

The legislation would also ban most trigger cranks.

California law already prohibited the sale of bump stocks.

 Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Judge upholds campaign-financing voucher system

A judge has upheld Seattles first-in-the-nation voucher system for publicly financing political campaigns as constitutional.

In a decision late Thursday, King County Superior Court Judge Beth Andrus rejected a challenge brought by two local property owners who said the democracy voucher program forces them  through their tax dollars  to support candidates they dont like.

Seattles voters approved the program in 2015, and its being used for the first time in this years City Council and city attorney races. Under it, the voters taxed themselves $3 million a year in exchange for four $25 vouchers that they can sign over to candidates.

The idea is to counter big money in elections, help lesser-known candidates raise money to communicate their views, and get more voters involved in politics.

The program doesnt promote any particular viewpoint over another, and it falls within the scope of public campaign financing allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court, the judge wrote.

The Pacific Legal Foundation, the libertarian-leaning law firm which represented local property owners Mark Elster and Sarah Pynchon, said it will appeal. The ruling was welcomed by the city and by groups pushing to reduce the influence of big money in campaigns.

 Associated Press
Scott Bixler, in his recent guest column (Oct. 25), criticizes mayoral candidate Lisa Triepke for suggesting an audit of city finances before knowing where to slash spending. Well, a true and full audit would be a good start  if it could be done.

During my term on the Missoula City Council, a person who had served as a financial manager in a city larger than Missoula offered to help identify any questionable items in the citys accounts. Several attempts were made by Councilor Lyn Hellegaard to acquire a backup copy of the citys accounting program from then-Chief Financial Officer Brentt Ramharter so we could do our own review and make our own audit report using the same format the city uses. What she received was not what she requested, nor was it useful. In fact, Mayor John Engen warned her that any more such requests were to go through him first. So much for transparency.

Needless to say, the mayor and his cabal campaigned hard to make sure Hellegaard and I were unseated, and they were successful. When Engen wants his pet projects funded, its obvious that he prefers the votes of pocket politicians and helps fund their campaigns while eschewing any discourse by concerned tax-paying citizens or their representatives.

The current mayor happily boasts that Missoulians are getting what they want, when in fact he and his councilors are chosen by barely more than half of the 25 percent of the electorate who bother to vote.

The late Frances Driscoll, who lived and taught school in Missoula, once told me, Ive known John Engen since he was a young boy, and I can tell you that whenever food or money was involved, he was always first in line. Some things never change.

Yes, folks, enough is enough  except in John Engens world.
SPAIN

Court asks Belgium to arrest Puigdemont

Spain on Friday issued an arrest warrant on sedition and other charges against Carles Puigdemont, tightening the judicial net around the former Catalan leader who went to Brussels after his government was removed over a declaration of independence.

A Madrid High Court judge asked Belgium to arrest Puigdemont and four associates after they ignored a court order to return to Spain on Thursday to face charges of rebellion, sedition, misuse of public funds, disobedience and breach of trust relating to their secession drive.

In Brussels, a federal prosecutor said authorities would study the warrant before handing it to a judge. We will give it to an investigative judge maybe tomorrow or the day after, said Eric Van der Sypt.

Puigdemont, who may run in regional elections on Dec. 21, has said he does not trust Spanish justice but would cooperate with the Belgian courts.

 Reuters

MEDITERRANEAN

Crews rescue 700 migrants; 23 dead

Rescuers pulled 700 migrants to safety in the Mediterranean and found 23 bodies Friday, the Italian coast guard said, in the second loss of multiple lives recorded in the area this week.

A Spanish ship deployed in the European Unions Operation Sophia naval mission recovered the dead, along with 64 survivors, from a sinking rubber boat, the mission said on Facebook.

Six rescue operations were carried out in total in the Central Mediterranean on Friday, the coast guard said, making it one of the busiest days in recent months. Seven people were found dead and 900 saved on Wednesday.

 Reuters

ZIMBABWE

U.S. citizen accused of insulting Mugabe

Zimbabwe police have charged a U.S. citizen with subversion for allegedly insulting President Robert Mugabe on Twitter, lawyers said Friday. The offense carries up to 20 years in prison.

It was the first arrest made since Mugabe appointed a minister for cybersecurity last month, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said.

Police picked up Martha ODonovan, 25, on Friday in Harare, the capital, U.S. Embassy spokesman David McGuire said.

Police accuse ODonovan, who works for Magamba TV, of tweeting, We are being led by a selfish and sick man, according to her lawyer, Obey Shava.

 Associated Press

8 Iranian border guards killed: Iran's state TV said eight border guards were killed in clashes with militants in the country's northwestern Azerbaijan province, which borders Iraq and Turkey. "At least eight Iranian guards were killed in heavy clashes [with] a group of terrorists in the Chaldoran border area on Friday," said Alireza Radfar, the province's deputy governor general. "The terrorists sustained heavy losses." The area is about 535 miles northwest of Tehran. Clashes with Iranian Kurdish militants as well Islamic rebels are common in the area.

 From news services
THE HAMAS movement handed control over border posts in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday to the Palestinian Authority, the first step in implementing a reconciliation agreement between the rival factions. The deal demands a healthy dose of skepticism: Half a dozen previous unification pacts between the two movements have broken down since their violent split a decade ago, and the most difficult questions about this one have yet to be tackled. Still, the border handover promises a measure of humanitarian relief to Gaza's long-suffering population, which is something that both Israel and the United States ought to welcome.

Conditions for the nearly 2 million people packed into Gaza, which is about twice the size of the District of Columbia, have deteriorated considerably this year. Egypt, concerned about links between militants in Gaza and an Islamic State affiliate in the Sinai Peninsula, has kept the border sealed, and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas compounded the hardship by drastically reducing funding and electricity supplies. Hamass response, brokered by Egypt, has been to offer to turn the civilian government of the territory over to the Palestinian Authority, beginning with the border crossings. That should allow the restoration of basic services and an increased flow of goods.

The problem is that Hamas's leadership appears more wedded than ever to its determination to "erase Israel from the map," as its political chief in Gaza recently put it, and it has rejected the disarmament or disbanding of its 20,000-plus-member militia, which wields an arsenal of rockets and has fought three wars with Israel since 2008. Mr. Abbas has declared that ministers in a new coalition government the two sides may negotiate would have to recognize Israel and that Hamas would not be allowed to maintain an armed force not answerable to that government. But he lacks the means to enforce either condition.

If Hamas is included in a new administration, the Palestinian Authority would risk losing the $400 million a year in funding it receives from the United States, and Israel has said any such coalition is unacceptable. That probably means that if the Palestinian rapprochement continues, it would do so with fudges meant to paper over Hamas's continued militancy. At best, that might allow humanitarian relief for Gazans and lower the risk of a new war with Israel. At worst, it could discredit and eventually destroy Mr. Abbas's administration, which for a decade has kept the West Bank mostly peaceful through close security cooperation with Israel.

The Trump administration, which purports to be working on a Mideast peace plan, has taken a cautious interest in the ongoing negotiations between the Palestinian factions, rightly insisting that Hamas disarm and recognize Israel before it joins a unity government. Were that to happen, there might be a genuine opening for a peace process. More likely, the United States and Israel would find themselves treading a fine line between encouraging better living conditions in Gaza and preventing Hamas from shedding the burdens of governing while continuing to seek Israel's destruction.
Columnist

Nothing is ever over. No historic trauma is ever resolved. No historic villain is ever buried, and no historic lessons are permanently learned. Everything and everyone can be revived, and anything can be unlearned  even in the most settled civilizations.

Evidence of this is all around us. After two generations of atonement, an elected German politician  Bjorn Hocke, speaker of the parliamentary group of the new far-right party Alternative for Germany  wants Germans to stop apologizing for Nazi crimes; he describes the Holocaust memorial in Berlin as a "monument of shame." In China, a government once embarrassed by Maoism is peddling a sanitized version. Last year, 17 million Chinese made pilgrimages to the chairman's home to pay homage to the man whose madness starved far more of his countrymen than that.

In Russia, Stalin has returned. Nearly half the country now views him with sympathy, respect or admiration. Stalin sent millions of Russians  and others  to die in labor camps, deprived millions of food so they starved to death, ordered hundreds of thousands executed, and left his country stunted and impoverished. In his own lifetime, Russians were terrified of him; soon after his death, he was denounced by his successors. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, it seemed, briefly, as if the victims of his terror might finally come to terms with his legacy.

Instead, a slow drip of imperialist propaganda, carefully supplied by the Kremlin, has successfully implanted a different memory. Over and over, Vladimir Putins government reminds Russians that under Stalin, Soviet citizens might have been poor and terrified, but the U.S.S.R. ruled half of Europe. Hagiographic biographies fill Moscow bookstores. An annual parade, complete with soldiers marching in Soviet uniforms and waving Soviet flags, now celebrates Stalins 1945 victory over Germany.

For a long time, Americans thought they were immune to this sort of thing. But are we really? In the United States of my childhood, there seemed no more settled question than the Civil War. In school I was taught that slavery had been defeated, that Lincoln was a hero and that the remaining wrongs were at least partly righted by the civil rights movement. Even the Old South/Gone With the Wind nostalgia had faded and shrunk to a small group of battlefield-visiting enthusiasts.

But it never faded away altogether  and now it's back. With a president who looks at white-supremacist marchers and sees "very fine people" and a White House chief of staff who describes Robert E. Lee as an "honorable man" who "gave up his country to fight for his state," we may not be as far as we once thought from a revival of Southern exceptionalism, and even treachery on a broader scale. Roy Moore, Republican candidate for the Senate in Alabama, has said repeatedly that the "law of God" is higher than the law of the Constitution itself.

In each one of these cases, the men who are carefully cultivating defeated ideas from the past think they can then control the impact. Putin wants Stalin to shore up his legitimacy; Xi Jinping hopes Mao can help him stave off opposition; Hocke thinks the shock value of his comments will win him votes. As for Trump and Moore, they think they can win power by appealing to the white-supremacist minority and offending the rest. But violent, racist, totalitarian emotions, once unleashed, can go in a lot of unpredictable directions.

In 2014, neo-Stalinist rhetoric helped justify a real Russian military invasion of Ukraine, explained away as a modern battle against "Nazis." Neo-Maoism may be used to justify a new set of political purges. And Moore thinks his ideology gives him the right to overrule the federal judiciary  which is precisely the kind of rationale that led to war in 1861. Imagine Confederate troops as the equivalent of the private, vigilante militias of our era, Confederate politicians as the Roy Moores of their era; it's not that hard to imagine how an argument over gay marriage or a Ten Commandments monument could become the Fort Sumter of our era, especially once Moore is in Washington. It's one thing for a state court judge to defy the federal court. But what happens when a senator does it? And what happens when his party supports him?

Totalitarian ideologies never die, and neither do their appeal, and so their consequences must be carefully re-explained for each generation. Supremacist and imperialist ideas make people feel better; mass movements offer confidence and safety. History is always available for rewriting, and wars can always be refought. Frances border wars with Germany lasted for centuries; Serbias modern struggle with Kosovo dates to a battle that took place in 1389. We will be refighting our Civil War 700 years from now, too, so we might as well prepare for it.

Read more from Anne Applebaum's archive, follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her updates on Facebook.
Brian Payne is vice provost for academic affairs at Old Dominion University. Daniel DeMarte is executive vice president for academic and student affairs at Tidewater Community College.

The mountain of college debt borne by graduates and their families  $1.4 trillion and counting  weighs on Americans in many ways, from the ability to buy a house to, in some cases, the ability to retire. Across the country, the number of individuals using student loans to pay for college increased more than 90 percent between 2004 and 2014.

More problematic for Virginians is a recent finding from a study by the Institute for College Access and Success: The average amount of debt for our bachelor's degree recipients is $27,717 .

Even more concerning is the fact that 6 out of 10 graduates from four-year institutions in the commonwealth graduate in debt. The total student loan debt in Virginia stands at $30 billion.

But discussions around affordability wrongly assume that higher education leaders are doing little or nothing about it. In fact, Old Dominion University and Tidewater Community College have been developing cost-efficient degree pathways for years.

A new pathway was announced this fall. TCC graduates in two transfer programs  general studies and social sciences  can now seamlessly transfer into ODUs interdisciplinary bachelors degree in leadership.

The program is great for working adults because most of the courses are online. One course each semester will be taught at TCCs Norfolk campus, so students also will have the opportunity for face-to-face interaction with their professors.

When designed effectively, these pathways, which we academics call articulation agreements, have value not only for students and families but also for the faculty, the institutions and the wider community.

Students pay less in tuition and course materials, and their path to completion and entry into the workforce is accelerated.

They also have an array of possible college choices. ODU has more than 190 transfer agreements, partnering with every community college in the commonwealth. TCC has more than 130 transfer agreements with 46 colleges and universities, including every four-year public institution in the commonwealth.

More than 3,600 students transfer each year from TCC to pursue bachelors degrees, and nearly half transfer to ODU. Three of the most popular transfer programs are in engineering, nursing and business. TCC engineering graduates, who have enjoyed small class sizes and more interaction with professors, can transfer into a number of ODU engineering programs.

While graduates of TCCs nursing curriculum go into the workforce, many also pursue a bachelor of science in nursing at ODU.

And one of TCCs largest programs, business, feeds one of ODUs largest programs, too.

Transfer agreements take many forms because we serve diverse student populations. There are guaranteed-admission agreements, as well as agreements targeted to specific groups, such as military and online students. We have a "Here2ODU" agreement, under which students who are not quite ready for ODU can successfully complete at least 15 credits at TCC and be guaranteed ODU admission.

Institutions benefit from these partnerships, too. In one of our most recent partnerships, TCCs experts in open educational resources trained ODU faculty how to develop courses that do not require students to buy textbooks.

The textbook-free pathway from an associate degree at TCC to a bachelors degree at ODU will save students and parents $16,715 in college costs. This new pathway is being developed by TCC and ODU in partnership with Kempsville High Schools new entrepreneurship academy, a dual-enrollment program that will let high school students jump-start their college educations, save money and accelerate their degrees.

Meanwhile, our faculty members benefit by learning from each other, forming new partnerships that require open communication and interaction on a deeper level. Through this communication, faculty learn new course material, work with colleagues and become a part of a broader network committed to student success.

This past decade, more than 5,500 ODU graduates were students who started at TCC.

A recent study from the College Board found that those with a bachelor's degree make $24,600 a year more than those with no college degree, and these same graduates pay an average of $6,900 more in taxes each year. This suggests these 5,500 graduates potentially net $135 million more in salaries and pay nearly $38 million more in taxes each year than they would have paid had they not earned their degrees.

Why is this important? Because it benefits the community at large  in Virginia and across the country.
REPUBLICANS PROMISED Americans a smart, careful tax reform that would simplify the code without adding a penny to the debt. The bill that House Republicans released Thursday betrays that promise. It also betrays the nation's children, and their children, who would eventually have to pay for this big, unpaid-for tax cut that the country does not need.

Republicans began their tax reform effort months ago with a plausible argument. They could lower tax rates, particularly on corporations, if they ended tax breaks at the same time, one balancing the other. The result would be a leaner, clearer, more efficient code that raised just as much revenue.

The bill that House Republicans released Thursday actually tracks this concept in part. Braving blowback from interest groups, GOP lawmakers proposed limits on tax breaks such as the mortgage-interest deduction and the state and local tax deduction. But the plan has a fatal flaw: It would cut far more by lowering tax rates than it would raise by closing loopholes. It is far out of balance.

How far? The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget's Maya MacGuineas warned Thursday that the House plan would cost $1.5 trillion over 10 years, and, because of the way it is written, the price could end up being even higher. "No credible model shows that tax cuts will create enough growth to fill the funding gap," she concluded, echoing the views of most independent experts.

If the nation were in the midst of a recession, Republicans would have an argument for a deficit-financed stimulus. But the economy is growing and does not need a short-term boost. In fact, with the economy expanding, this should be the time to reduce the nations already alarmingly large debt. That is a principle Republicans passionately embraced  when they were in the minority.

The plan's high price tag is even more egregious in light of the taxes Republicans intend to cut. The proposal would phase out the estate tax at the cost of $172 billion, which would almost exclusively help the wealthy. For $696 billion, it would eliminate the alternative minimum tax, which Congress created to ensure that loophole-savvy rich people pay at least some federal tax. The alternative minimum tax compelled President Trump, for example, to pay $31 million more in taxes in 2005 than he otherwise would have, which makes one wonder how he would personally benefit from this unnecessary shift in the tax code. Because he has refused to release his tax returns, unlike every other modern president, we can't know for sure. But the GOP plan also would slash rates on "pass-through" businesses, costing the treasury $448 billion over 10 years. The Trump Organization is one such business.

The plans core provision, a $1.5 trillion cut in corporate taxes, slashing the rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, could be defensible  if it were paid for. Alas, it is not. The nation needs tax reform, but it would be better off with no change than with this.
Columnist

Many blue states are in big, big trouble. Perhaps Republicans should be wary of causing them more, if they really think it through.

The new Republican tax plan is, on the whole, a bunch of tax cuts weighted toward the rich. To partly offset the cost of those cuts, the bill also closes some deductions and loopholes.

Among the biggest and most controversial of those disappearing deductions: all state and local income taxes. If Republican leadership has its way, the only state and local taxes you could continue to deduct on your federal personal income-tax return would be property taxes, and only up to $10,000.

This is not exactly a surprise. Red-state Republicans have complained about the state and local tax (SALT) deduction for ages.

They usually argue that the SALT deduction requires lower-tax, lower-income (i.e., mostly Republican) states to subsidize higher-tax, higher-income (mostly Democratic) states. They also complain that it incentivizes the latter to spend more on government services than necessary.

This critique is partly true. On the margin, SALT deductibility does make it easier for states and municipalities to raise taxes, since the feds implicitly bear some of the cost.

But the red-states-subsidizing-blue-states argument isn't quite right. At least, not when you consider the federal budget system as a whole  that is, how much states pay into the treasury in total and how much they get back through federal spending and transfers.

On net, tax dollars actually flow from higher-tax states to lower-tax ones, according to research from the Rockefeller Institute of Government. New Yorkers are effectively subsidizing Montanans.

But forget for a moment this red-vs.-blue scorekeeping. Theres a much more practical concern that should weigh on federal lawmakers.

Its this: Many high-tax blue states are in serious fiscal doo-doo.

And if Congress successfully repeals the deductibility of state income taxes, these states fiscal challenges could quickly become a series of major  and possibly contagious  fiscal crises.

States are under fiscal pressure for a few reasons. The Great Recession, though it began almost 10 years ago, left budgetary scars that have not yet healed.

The bigger problem is what lies ahead.

As Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Joshua D. Rauh has documented, many states and municipalities bear huge unfunded pension liabilities. They've tried to hide them using accounting gimmicks  by assuming preposterously high returns on pension fund investments, for example  but eventually these debts will catch up to them.

Already, several states have experienced painful credit downgrades. New Jersey bonds have been downgraded 11 times since January 2010. Illinois's debt is barely above "junk" status.

These problems may be largely of these states' own making. Especially in New Jersey, where Republican Gov. Chris Christie came into office, took one look at the state's budget problems and curiously decided to cut taxes.

But that doesnt make solving these states debt problems any easier  especially under the tax regime that federal lawmakers are crafting.

The elimination of SALT could have the effect of increasing pressure from taxpayers for states to reduce taxes, Rauh emailed me before the bill came out. If creditors deduce the long-term impact of this, that could drive up borrowing spreads for states where this deduction is very valuable.

After the bill was released, he added that we shouldnt expect an immediate spike in borrowing spreads (a measure of how expensive it is for these states to borrow). But the tax plan would likely add further resistance and reduce willingness-to-pay when state and local governments propose future tax increases.

Which means these state and municipal fiscal problems can only get worse.

States could try to shift more of their taxes away from income taxes and toward property taxes, which currently comprise just 1 percent of states' own general source revenues. (Municipalities are much more reliant on property taxes.) But states don't have the administrative capabilities in place to easily do that, says Tax Policy Center senior fellow Tracy Gordon.

Whats likely to happen instead?

Well, as the marginal cost of state and local income taxes rises, higher-income residents may decide to leave for greener (i.e., lower-tax) pastures. Or states may cut taxes to try to keep them around. Both possibilities would worsen states fiscal imbalances and expedite the crises that are rapidly approaching.

Its not clear whether any of these risks are on the GOP leaderships radar. But if Republicans are hoping for some blue-state fiscal chaos, they shouldnt be, and not just because there are dozens of Republican congressional districts in Democratic states.

Democratic states, after all, arent the only ones with enormous unfunded pension liabilities. If one high-tax blue state goes belly-up, investors could easily get spooked, driving up borrowing costs elsewhere, too. Fiscal fires can burn across state lines. So keep that schadenfreude in check.
Columnist

This weeks tragic terrorist attack in New York was the kind of isolated incident by one troubled man that should not lead to generalizations. In the 16 years since 9/11, the city has proved astonishingly safe from jihadist groups and individuals. And yet, speaking about it to officials in this major global hub 10,000 miles away, the conclusions they reach are worrying. The New York attack might be a way to remind us all that while ISIS is being defeated militarily, the ideological threat from radical Islam is spreading, says Singaporean Home Minister K. Shanmugam. The trend line is moving in the wrong direction.

The military battle against Islamist extremist groups in places such as Syria and Afghanistan is a tough struggle, but it has always been one that favored the United States and its allies. After all, the combined military forces of some of the worlds most powerful governments are up against a tiny band of guerrillas. On the other hand, the ideological challenge from the Islamic State has proved far more intractable. The terrorist group and ones like it have been able to spread their ideas, recruit disaffected young men and women, and infiltrate countries across the globe. Western countries remain susceptible to the occasional lone wolf, but the new breeding grounds of radicalism are once-moderate Muslim societies in Central, South and Southeast Asia.

Consider Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, long seen as a moderate bulwark. This year, the governor of Jakarta, the country's capital and largest city, lost his bid for reelection after he was painted by Muslim hard-liners as unfit for office because he is Christian. Worse, he was then jailed after being convicted on a dubious and unfair blasphemy charge. Amid a rising tide of Islamist politics, Indonesia's "moderate" president and its mainstream "moderate" Islamic organizations have failed to stand up for the country's traditions of tolerance and multiculturalism.

Or look at Bangladesh, another country with a staunchly secular past, where nearly 150 million Muslims live. Founded as a breakaway from Pakistan on explicitly nonreligious grounds, Bangladesh's culture and politics have become increasingly extreme over the past decade. Atheists, secularists and intellectuals have been targeted and even killed, blasphemy laws have been enforced, and a spate of terrorist attacks have left hundreds dead.

Why is this happening? There are many explanations. Poverty, economic hardship and change produce anxieties. People are disgusted by the corruption and incompetence of politicians. They are easily seduced by the idea that Islam is the answer, even though they dont know what that means, a Singaporean politician explained to me. And then, the local leaders make alliances with the clerics and give platforms to the extremists, all in search of easy votes. That political pandering has helped nurture a cancer of Islamist extremism.

In Southeast Asia, almost all observers whom I have spoken with believe that there is another crucial cause  exported money and ideology from the Middle East, chiefly Saudi Arabia. A Singaporean official told me, "Travel around Asia and you will see so many new mosques and madrassas built in the last 30 years that have had funding from the Gulf. They are modern, clean, air-conditioned, well-equipped  and Wahhabi [Saudi Arabia's puritanical version of Islam]." Recently, it was reported that Saudi Arabia plans to contribute almost $1 billion to build 560 mosques in Bangladesh. The Saudi government has denied this, but sources in Bangladesh tell me there's some truth to the report.

How to turn this trend around? Singapore's Shanmugam says that the city-state's population (15 percent of which is Muslim) has stayed relatively moderate because state and society work very hard at integration. "We have zero tolerance for any kind of militancy, but we also try to make sure Muslims don't feel marginalized," he explained. Singapore routinely gets high marks in global rankings for its transparency, low levels of corruption and the rule of law. Its economy provides opportunities for most.

Asia continues to rise, but so does Islamist radicalism there. This trend can be reversed only by better governance and better politics  by leaders who are less corrupt, more competent and, crucially, more willing to stand up to the clerics and extremists. Saudi Arabia's new crown prince spoke last week of turning his kingdom to "moderate Islam." Many have mocked this as a public-relations strategy, pointing to the continued dominance of the kingdom's ultra-orthodox religious establishment. A better approach would be to encourage the crown prince, hold him to his words and urge him to follow up with concrete actions. This is the prize. Were Saudi Arabia to begin religious reform at home, it would be a far larger victory against radical Islam than all the advances on the battlefield so far.

Read more from Fareed Zakaria's archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
The Republican leadership has outsourced its economic agenda to a handful of billionaires and corporate donors. From attempting to kick millions off of health insurance to rolling back rules protecting worker health and safety, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) have relentlessly pursued their donors' interests at the expense of working families. The Republican tax plan unveiled Thursday is the latest example.

American families are already on the ropes. Booming corporate profits have not translated to higher wages for workers. The result is a middle-class squeeze: Most workers barely make more than what they did 30 years ago, while the costs of necessities such as housing, transportation, health care and education have risen sharply. If Congress tackled the middle-class squeeze head-on, it could provide more financial security for America's families and produce faster economic growth.

But the Republican Party's rich donors want tax giveaways, and the party is happy to oblige. According to estimates based on the original outline of the Republican tax plan, it showers $2.5 trillion on big corporations. Fewer than 10 years after sparking a devastating financial crisis and receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts, big banks would reap billions from the Republican plan. Wells Fargo is projected to receive a bigger tax handout than any other U.S. company.

Wealthy foreign investors also win big. By slashing the corporate tax rate, the Republican plan could put as much as $700 billion in the pockets of the foreign investors who now hold nearly 35 percent of the stock in U.S. companies. Is that what President Trump means by America first?

Multinational corporations are big winners, too, with a giveaway that establishes a lower tax on money earned abroad than money earned here at home. That makes it even harder for small U.S. businesses without overseas operations to compete with the giants. It also creates a powerful incentive for U.S. multinationals to shift investments  and jobs  abroad. Fewer investments in America will mean even lower wages for American workers.

But the GOP plan isn't all giveaways. The Republicans have thrown a lot of working families under the bus. The Republican plan imposes a double tax on millions of families who pay state and local income and sales taxes. The plan also makes home ownership more expensive by nullifying the benefit of the mortgage interest deduction for many families.

Its hard to sell a plan that imposes new taxes on millions of working families while shoveling money to big banks, multinational corporations and wealthy foreign investors. Thats why Republicans are pushing two big lies about their plan instead.

The first big lie is that the plan will "supercharge" economic growth, creating a rising tide that would lift all boats. Despite Republicans' wild claims, independent analysts agree: The corporate tax cut at the center of the Republican plan will have a negligible or even a negative impact on economic growth.

The second big lie is that corporations will pass along their tax giveaways to workers in the form of higher wages. When multinational companies got a huge tax break under President George W. Bush, corporate profits shot up and shareholders grabbed nearly all the gains. When the United Kingdom cut its corporate tax rate by 11 percent, wages went down. Republicans know the facts aren't with them, which is why Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin tried to bury Treasury's own report showing that wealthy shareholders would be the overwhelming beneficiaries of a massive corporate tax giveaway.

In fact, corporate executives are already telling their investors that tax giveaways from the Republican plan will be passed not to workers but to shareholders, through bigger dividends and more stock buybacks. Stock ownership is highly concentrated among the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans  and half of all Americans don't own a single share of stock  so the Republican plan will be a bonanza for America's richest.

Meanwhile, the Republican plan will make the middle-class squeeze worse. As the government collects trillions less in corporate taxes in coming years, the national debt will explode. After voting over their careers to add more than $3 trillion to the debt through tax giveaways to the rich and the Wall Street bailout, Ryan and McConnell will suddenly rediscover their concern over the debt. They have already shown their hand, promising to pursue deficit reduction next year with trillions in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, housing and infrastructure programs on tap. If Republicans push through those cuts to address the very debt they created, that means higher health-care, transportation and housing costs for many working families.

The GOP tax plan lays bare the corporate priorities of the Republican Party. The trillions that Republicans hand over to corporations could go to rebuilding our roads and bridges and energy grid, creating millions of high-paying jobs and a stronger economy. Or that money could raise millions of American children out of poverty. But jobs and children aren't priorities for today's Republican Party. Instead, it grovels before wealthy corporate donors who want tax giveaways  and want them now.

We can build an economy that grows faster and provides every American family with basic economic security. That work starts by shutting down the McConnell-Ryan $2.5 trillion corporate giveaway.
An earlier version of this op-ed incorrectly stated that a cited study was from the National Academy of Sciences. The study, by four researchers from other institutions, was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This version has been updated.

Laurence H. Tribe is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor and professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard University.

After more than 40 years of experimenting with capital punishment, it is time to recognize that we have found no way to narrow the death penalty so that it applies only to the worst of the worst. It also remains prone to terrible errors and unacceptable arbitrariness.

Arizona's death-penalty scheme is a prime example of how capital punishment in the United States unavoidably violates the Eighth Amendment's requirement that the death penalty not be applied arbitrarily. The Supreme Court will soon consider accepting a case challenging Arizona's statute and the death penalty nationwide, in Hidalgo v. Arizona.

Forty-five years ago, in Furman v. Georgia, the court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional because it was administered arbitrarily. Justice Potter Stewart famously wrote that the death penalty was "cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual." As a result, Arizona and other states rewrote their death-penalty statutes in an attempt to narrow the punishment to the worst offenders. The Arizona legislature passed a law in 1973 that required prosecutors to prove at least one of six aggravating factors before the death penalty could be imposed.

The constitutionality of the death penalty returned to the Supreme Court in

Gregg v. Georgia

in 1976. There,

the court concluded

that state lawmakers could 

minimize the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious

 executions by specifying aggravating circumstances for which the death penalty could apply. In the four decades since

Gregg

, Arizona and other states have expanded their list of aggravating factors, such as committing murders for hire or committing multiple murders. Since 1973, the Arizona legislature has more than doubled its

to 14.

Scholars call this problem aggravator creep. As a result of Arizonas ever-expanding list of aggravating factors,

of those convicted of first-degree murder are eligible for execution. This wholly fails to meet the constitutional duty to narrow the punishment to those murderers who are most deserving of the punishment.

It has also opened the door to disturbing racial trends. Studies show that people in Arizona (and nationally) accused of murdering white victims are much more likely to receive the death penalty. There are also geographic disparities: Some counties do not pursue the death penalty, while Maricopa County, where the defendant in the Hidalgo case was tried, imposed the death penalty at a rate 2.3 times higher than the rest of the state over a five-year period.

The Hidalgo case exemplifies the problems with our current capital punishment regimes, problems that several Supreme Court justices have expressed interest in addressing. It also presents these constitutional problems cleanly, without the procedural obstacles that sometimes dissuade justices from hearing important constitutional cases.

Instead of continuing, in the words of Justice Harry A. Blackmun, to "tinker with the machinery of death," the court should hold the death penalty unconstitutional nationwide.

In doing so, the court would be recognizing our countrys movement away from capital punishment: Eleven states that have the death penalty on their books have not had an execution in the past 10 years  four states have suspended the death penalty, and

it entirely. Each year, the death penalty continues to shrink as its use becomes not less but more arbitrary: Death sentences

by more than half in just the past five years. Executions went from

a modern-era high of 98 in 1999

to 20 in 2016. A handful of counties 

 are driving the death penalty while the rest of the nation has moved on.

One reason jurors are increasingly uncomfortable in choosing death is the growing awareness that too many condemned people are, in fact, innocent. In the modern era of the death penalty,

have been exonerated and freed from death row because of evidence that they were wrongly convicted. A painstaking study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that

people sentenced to death in the United States are innocent. When even 1 in 1,000 would be unacceptable, the continued use of the death penalty undermines the publics confidence in the criminal-justice system.

The court should acknowledge that capital punishment  in Arizona and everywhere else  violates human dignity and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. At the very least, it should enforce the requirement that the death penalty be available only in the rarest of circumstances.
Anastasia Boden is a lawyer with Pacific Legal Foundation.

While most states are busy unleashing their entrepreneurs to create jobs and innovative services, Maryland is bucking the trend.

A new law, which went into effect last month, imposes a continuing-education requirement on cosmetologists. Barbers, hairstylists, makeup artists and others working in the trade must already undergo 1,500 hours of training or spend two years as an apprentice, pass an exam and pay a fee before they can receive a license to practice. Under HB 1600, they're now required to take remedial classes just to renew the licenses they already hold.

Despite mounting evidence that licensing laws provide little benefit to the public, the General Assembly decided to impose these new regulations on entrepreneurs. In so doing, it perfectly exemplified why reform is necessary.

HB 1600 is estimated to cost the state an extra $70,600 in administrative expenses in 2018 alone. But the real costs are to the workers who cannot afford another government-made barrier to work and to the consumers who will pay higher prices and have fewer options as a result.

Supporters of the bill argued that licensees should be required to undergo more training because its better for the public. The problem is that theres very little evidence to show that licensing actually results in better outcomes for consumers.

Most studies show exactly the opposite: Licensees perform about equally to their non-licensed counterparts yet charge higher prices. A study of dentists, for example, showed that licensure had no impact on patient outcomes. Another study showed that licensure of mortgage brokers did not lead to fewer foreclosures but did lead to higher prices.

To the extent that practitioners find it useful, they should be free to undergo more training  voluntarily. And to the extent that consumers find that training useful, they should be free to choose more experienced professionals. But it makes no sense to mandate more training and impose an additional expense on entrepreneurship when the benefits are speculative and the costs to entrepreneurs and consumers are demonstrable.

Thanks to absurd examples  such as governmental attempts to criminalize unlicensed dog-sitting  many people are rethinking their previously held belief that occupational licensing is simply a means of consumer protection. As it turns out, these laws often originate at the behest of businesses that want to squeeze out competition, not protect the public. New York's dog-watching law, for example, was a response to Rover, an app that allows pet owners to turn to pet lovers for dog-sitting rather than kennels.

That's why states such as Vermont, Delaware, Wisconsin, Illinois and Arizona have recently enacted or are working on reforms aimed at reducing the burden of occupational licensing.

Arizona is notorious for the vigor with which it enforces its cosmetology laws. The Arizona State Board of Cosmetology once went after a woman, a cancer survivor, who started a business aimed at providing services to people who were homebound. She acted as a dispatcher, sending cosmetologists to people who, because of illness or other reasons, needed hair and makeup done from the comfort of their home. The board demanded that she obtain a salon license and a physical space for her services.

That same board also went after a cosmetology student who was giving free haircuts to the homeless. Thankfully, this year, the state reversed that trend and enacted a law that makes it easier for civil rights plaintiffs to challenge anti-competitive licensing laws in courts.

States, politicians, think tanks and scholars across the political spectrum are increasingly recognizing that licensing is often just simple cronyism. Some states are therefore helping entrepreneurs dig their way out of over-regulation. Other states  including Maryland  are digging in.

Thats a shame. Arguments against licensing arent just academic. The reality is that licensing is keeping would-be makeup artists, barbers and manicurists out of jobs.

The ability to earn a living is one of the most precious rights we possess. It allows people to pursue vocations that satisfy their passions and to provide for themselves and their families. The ability to earn a living is central to achieving the American Dream. Marylands General Assembly should think twice before doubling down on regulations that stifle that beautiful pursuit.
Columnist

I don't get it, and I never have. Why has President Trump kowtowed to Russian President Vladimir Putin since the beginning of his presidential campaign? I've asked this question on the air, and off, to those close to the president and to the president himself. No one has a good answer. The man has insulted everyone from war heroes to the pope, and yet his admiration of the Russian dictator remains intact.

During my Dec. 18, 2015, "Morning Joe" interview with Trump, I tried throwing some cold water on the then-candidate's adoration of the Russian leader.

He kills journalists, political opponents and . . . 

Invades countries, co-anchor Willie Geist helpfully added.

 . . . and invades countries. Obviously that would be a concern, would it not? I asked.



Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Michael Klimentyev/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool/Pool/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Any other candidate would have hit this softball out of the park. But not Trump.

Hes running his country, and at least hes a leader, unlike what we have in this country.

I tried slowing down for emphasis.

But, again: He kills journalists that dont agree with him.

Well, Trump weakly argued, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too, Joe.

To this day, Trump has been steadfast in his defense of an autocrat who views the Soviet Unions collapse as a tragedy and the United States as an enemy. Why? Soon I may not have to speculate. This weeks news out of special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs office suggests that what has long been opaque will soon become clear.

Heres some of what we know so far. It seems to be enough to make any self-aware president panic.

 June 16, 2015: Trump announces he's running for president.

 October 2015 to January 2016: Trump lawyer Michael Cohen tries to make a deal with Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

 Dec. 10, 2015: Top Trump ally Michael Flynn is seated beside Putin to celebrate the Kremlin propaganda outlet Russia Today.

 March 21, 2016: Trump tells The Post that Carter Page and George Papadopoulos are key members of his foreign policy team.

 April 26, 2016: Kremlin-connected professor Joseph Mifsud tells Papadopoulos that Moscow has "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, including "thousands of emails."

 April 27, 2016: Despite insisting throughout the campaign that they had never met with Russian officials, Trump and Jeff Sessions greet Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at an event at the Mayflower Hotel.

 June 9, 2016: Donald Trump Jr., campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner meet with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and Kremlin insider Rinat Akhmetshin to gain information that would allegedly incriminate Clinton and her dealings with Russia. In an email setting up the meeting, Trump Jr. expresses excitement about receiving Russian intelligence about the Democratic nominee.

 July 7, 2016: Manafort offers to provide briefings to a Kremlin-linked Russian billionaire.

 July 18, 2016: Trump campaign members succeed in pressuring Republicans to remove a platform plank in support of providing arms to help Ukraine resist Russian aggression.

 July 27, 2016: Trump makes a direct appeal to the Kremlin during a news conference. "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."

 Sept. 16, 2016: After admitting that he had been in contact with WikiLeaks  and later revealing that he had contact with a hacker connected to Russia  Trump associate Roger Stone tells Boston Herald Radio that WikiLeaks will soon "drop a payload of new documents on Hillary on a weekly basis" that will damage the Clinton campaign.

 Oct. 7, 2016: The "Access Hollywood" tape is released. About a half-hour later, WikiLeaks begins to publish Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's emails.

 Dec. 1: Kushner meets with Kislyak in an attempt to create a "channel" for sensitive communications between the transition team and the Russian government, according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports.

 Dec. 29, 2016: Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn calls Kislyak to discuss sanctions placed on Russia by President Barack Obama.

 Jan. 11: At his first news conference as president-elect, Trump said, "If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what, folks? That's called an asset, not a liability. Now, I don't know that I'm gonna get along with Vladimir Putin. I hope I do." He also tweets, "I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA  NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!"

 Feb. 13: Flynn resigns after he reportedly lied to Vice President Pence about his contacts with Kislyak.

 May 9: Trump fires FBI Director James B. Comey.

 May 10: Trump meets in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Kislyak, bragging that the firing of "nut job" Comey will ease pressure from the investigation. Trump barred U.S. reporters from the meeting and revealed classified information to the Russian officials.

 May 11: In an interview with NBC's Lester Holt, Trump reveals that he had asked Comey whether he was under investigation for alleged ties to Russia.

 June 7: Comey releases a memo recalling his interactions with Trump, who he said asked for an oath of loyalty from him.

 July 7: Trump meets with Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Germany. A second dinner meeting was undisclosed.

 Oct. 5: Papadopoulos pleads guilty to lying to the FBI as part of a cooperation agreement with Mueller.

 Oct. 30: Mueller's office indicts Manafort and associate Rick Gates on charges of conspiracy against the United States, being an unregistered foreign agent, money laundering, and seven counts of failing to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.

Im starting to think that the answers to our burning questions about Trumps strange obsession with Russia are revealing themselves in a slow and painful way for the president and all of his men and women. Will the next big reveal in this reality show spectacle come when one of his closest confidants surprises him in the final episode, not with a rose, but with a wire? The ratings would be yuge. Believe me. Yuge.

Read more from Joe Scarborough's archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Nicolas Bourtin is a former federal prosecutor, a litigation partner at Sullivan & Cromwell and managing partner of the firms criminal defense and investigations group.

Bankers and government officials continue to feature prominently on our newspapers' front pages  and not in a good way. Since the financial crisis of 2008, a string of political and corporate scandals has played out in our political and financial centers, and recent investigations of people close to President Trump, including Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, have produced indictments for money laundering and tax fraud. Corporate malfeasance, corruption and tax fraud are shrouded in misconceptions. Here are five enduring myths about white-collar crime.

Myth No. 1

Prosecutors fear prosecuting powerful defendants.

Earlier this year, nonprofit news site Rewire sought to explain "why the justice department is afraid to prosecute white collar criminals." Likewise, Patrick Radden Keefe argued in the New Yorker this summer that "fears of collateral consequences" have prevented the government from going after corrupt bankers. Commenters assert that worry about toppling figures whose collapse could mean trouble for entire economies.

But if prosecutors are afraid of going after white-collar defendants, they have a funny way of showing it: Their tactics are the same ones they use in many investigations involving narcotics and violent crime, and being extremely rich and influential is no protection. Former assistant attorney general Lanny Breuer said in 2010 that the Justice Department has "begun increasingly to rely, in white collar cases, on undercover investigative techniques that have perhaps been more commonly associated with the investigation of organized and violent crime." As Preet Bharara, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said, "Today . . . privileged Wall Street insiders who are considering breaking the law will have to ask themselves one important question: Is law enforcement listening?"

Federal prosecutors used months of wiretap evidence to build a suffocating case in 2009 against Raj Rajaratnam, who ran one of the largest hedge funds in the world. When the dust settled, the DOJ had secured the convictions of more than 50 people. Similarly, recent charges brought by special counsel Robert S. Mueller II show the same tools at work on corruption cases: threatening Manafort with prosecution to secure his cooperation against others involved with the Trump campaign. Campaign adviser George Papadopoulos's plea agreement indicates that he has been cooperating with the Special Counsel's Office since July.

Myth No. 2

White-collar defendants never serve real time.

In the wake of the financial crisis, publications such as Fortune and the Nation have sought to answer why its architects don't do hard time for their crimes. "Why does the Justice Department appear to have given up on putting white-collar criminals in jail?" Fortune asked. When academics began studying the subject in the 1970s, they noted that federal judges were typically lenient toward white-collar offenders.

Those days are over. Judicial discretion in sentencing was greatly limited by the adoption of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines in 1987, whose penalties for fraud were further enhanced after the Enron scandal broke in 2001. And although the Supreme Court held in 2005 that the guidelines were advisory and no longer mandatory for judges, sentences for white-collar defendants have been getting harsher, not more lenient.

According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission's 2013 Report on Sentencing Trends, nearly 70 percent of all offenders sentenced under the guidelines for fraud received some prison time for their crimes in 2012. In 1985, that rate was about 40 percent. For crimes that caused a loss of at least $2.5 million, the same report revealed that offenders were sentenced under the guidelines to an average of nearly five to 17 years in prison in 2012. In 1985, by comparison, the average sentence for white-collar crimes was just 29 months.

Myth No. 3

Trumps administration wont enforce anti-corruption laws.

In January, legal blog Above the Law wondered, "Is Trump the end of FCPA enforcement?" He has criticized the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), and Mother Jones reported in April that "some experts fear the Trump administration's long-term goal may be to curb enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, if not neuter the law."

That hasn't been true. In September, the Trump administration oversaw one of the largest FCPA settlements in history when Telia, a Swedish telecommunications provider, and its Uzbek subsidiary paid $965 million in combined penalties to the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission to resolve bribery charges in connection with business in Uzbekistan. In August of 2017, the DOJ also brought FCPA charges against a former U.S. Army colonel for his alleged role in a bribery and money-laundering scheme in Haiti, and the owner of several Florida-based energy companies for his role in a scheme to corruptly secure contracts from Venezuela's state-owned and state-controlled energy company.

Myth No. 4

No one went to prison as a result of the financial crisis.

"Not one major executive has been sent to jail for their role in the crisis," David Dayen wrote in the Guardian in 2014. The myth that criminal prosecutors balked when the time came to hold Wall Street executives accountable for the financial crisis is so common that even senior DOJ officials have sought to excuse it.

But according to the Special Inspector General's Office for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the federal law enforcement agency charged with investigating misconduct related to the financial crisis and the subsequent bailout, 56 bankers and Wall Street traders employed by institutions that received TARP funding  including 13 chief executives  have been sentenced to prison for crimes committed in the lead-up to, during and in the aftermath of the financial crisis. This goes far beyond Kareem Serageldin, the Credit Suisse trader who many publications claim to be "only" top banker to go to prison for activities related to the financial crisis. Edward Woodard, former chief executive of the Bank of the Commonwealth in Norfolk, for instance, was sentenced to more than two decades in prison in 2013 for charges of massive fraud related to the mortgage crisis.

Myth No. 5

Financial crime is the same as robbery or theft.

Critics of Wall Street often accuse bankers of "robbing" people, as Hamilton Nolan claimed in a 2015 Gawker article, or of being outright "thieves," as characterized in a 2011 AlterNet piece. And although it's true that losing a chunk of one's life savings may be as traumatic for the victim as a home burglary, from the perspective of the perpetrator, the psychology is quite different.

Robbery or outright theft requires a criminal to confront the victim, but white-collar crime rarely puts the perpetrators in such close proximity to the victims. Indeed, insider trading, price-fixing and bribery may seem victimless to the perpetrators  the only harm is to the "integrity of the market," or, if any concrete harm can be identified, it is so diffuse as to be imperceptible to those who suffer it. Without the same psychological stop signs that signal that one is about to break the law, many white-collar criminals cannot identify in hindsight the moment they crossed the line. Instead, as researcher Eugene Soltes has pointed out, they find that they simply slid gradually and inexorably over it.

outlook@washpost.com

Five myths is a weekly feature challenging everything you think you know. You can check out previous myths, read more from Outlook or follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter.
Steven G. Calabresi is Clayton J. & Henry R. Barber Professor of Law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, visiting professor of law at Yale University and chairman of the board of directors of the Federalist Society.

With Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived, Christopher J. Scalia and Edward Whelan have given us a treasure that captures Justice Antonin Scalias brilliance, wit, faith, humility and wide range of knowledge. When I read this collection of his speeches, edited by the justices son and one of his law clerks, I feel like Scalia is in the room with me. Taken together, the speeches are a book-length argument for constitutional originalism and for Scalias understanding of the role of judges in the United States. Anyone who wants to understand Scalia as a person and as a judicial philosopher should start by reading this book.

[Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dies at 79]

Scalia, in my view, is the best justice who has ever served on the Supreme Court in its 227-year history. He and Justice Joseph Story are the only two justices to have published books on constitutional and statutory interpretation. Scalia articulated a clear philosophy of a judges role, to which he always adhered. He was one of the two best writers ever to serve on the court and was equal on this score to Justice Robert Jackson, known for his fine literary style. No other justice traveled so much and spoke to so many audiences in the United States and abroad. Finally, he was to originalism what Saint Paul was to Christianity  a tireless and widely traveled evangelist of the gospel. Understanding Scalia is thus imperative for all law students, lawyers and educated lay people. Because the book is a collection of speeches, many of which were given to lay people, it is very readable, understandable and fun for most age groups.

The speeches are organized into six primary sections: On the American People and Ethnicity, On Living and Learning, On Faith, On Law, On Virtue and the Public Good and On Heroes and Friends. Youll find discussions of games and sports, being different, church and state, freedom of speech, George Washington, and many other subjects.



Scalia Speaks, by Antonin Scalia, Edited by Christopher Scalia (Crown Forum)

Addressing the difference between American and European values, Scalia notes that the United States was settled primarily by people seeking, in one way or another, refuge from the ways of Europe. The men who founded our Republic did not aspire to emulating Europeans at all  to the contrary, the project of drafting the American Constitution was largely about ensuring that the American people would never languish under the yoke of a European-style government.

This is a critically important point that many fail to appreciate. The legal academics and public intellectuals who love European socialism overlook the fact that the United States, under its unique Constitution, is the third-most-populous country in the world, covering the fourth-largest territory, and has by far the highest gross domestic product per capita of any of the Group of 20 nations, a strength that allows us to do more to help the poor around the world while offering military defense to a range of countries. Few people choose to move from the United States to other countries, but millions of people want to live here. Scalia appreciated that the reason for this is that the U.S. Constitution is an engine of power and economic growth that sustains life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

As an excellent writer, Scalia offers advice on the craft. Time and sweat, he says, are the keys to good writing, and a well-written document emerges only after many drafts. I think there is writing genius,he says, just as there is musical genius, which consists primarily, I think, of the ability to place oneself in the shoes of ones audience; to assume only what they assume; to anticipate what they anticipate, to explain what they need explained, to think what they must be thinking; to feel what they must be feeling.

Scalia regrets that most American college and law students never read the Federalist Papers and therefore do not understand our Constitution or the American founding very well. He tirelessly urges us to learn from the wisdom of the framers of our Constitution, which so few Americans tend to do.

The justice was both a man of action and ideas and an experienced hunter. But he had his mishaps. In a chapter titled Turkey Hunting, he explains that one of my most humbling moments came while turkey hunting. I took a shot at a gobbler and he went right down  flapped a little and went right down. I was so excited, I jumped out of the box stand and hurried to him. I got about five feet away and he lifted his head, looked at me, and ran away. And I had left my gun back in the box stand.

[Justice Scalia spent his last hours with members of this secretive society of elite hunters]

In a chapter called Religious Retreats, Scalia recounts how he was humbled again during his oral comprehensive final exam in history at Georgetown. He was asked: Of all the historical events you have studied . . . which one in your opinion had the most impact on the world? Scalia pondered whether it was the American or French Revolution or a famous battle, and in the end, he gave the wrong answer. The right answer, he learned, was the birth of Jesus, and Scalia immediately realized how foolish he had been.

In a chapter on Original Meaning, Scalia reveals that at a conference, he challenged Attorney General Edwin Meese III on how to assess the Constitutions original intent. Meese argued in favor of a judicial philosophy that searched for the original intentions of the framers. Scalia said he favored searching for the original meaning of the words of the Constitution instead. In his speech at the conference, he strongly set out the case for original public meaning, persuading Meeses chief of staff, Ken Cribb, by the force of his argument. After Scalia finished speaking, Cribb scrawled the word Stipulated on a piece of paper and taped it to the podium. Two days later, President Ronald Reagan informed Scalia that he was going to be nominated to the Supreme Court.

Scalia speaks in his own words in this magnificent volume that should be on the bookshelf of every educated American.
Patrick Ruffini is a co-founder and partner at Echelon Insights

There was a sense in this past week's congressional hearings with executives from Facebook, Twitter and Google that Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign was a raging success. "If you look back the results," said Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), "it's a pretty good return on investment." Facebook lawyer Colin Stretch, testifying before the House Intelligence Committee , concurred : "It's clear that they were able to drive a relatively significant following for a relatively small amount of money. It's why this activity appears so pernicious."

Lawmakers made much noise about how such intervention undermines American democracy and threatens national security. And some went as far as to suggest that it tipped the presidential contest. In an election where a total of about 115,000 votes would have changed the outcome, can you say that the false and misleading propaganda people saw on . . . Facebook didnt have an impact on the election? asked Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii).

I've run digital advertising campaigns on behalf of candidates in contested battleground states. And if the ads revealed this past week were an attempt to influence the election, they were a laughably botched and failed attempt. The total amount spent was less than what I've seen spent online in competitive congressional races. The ads were not well targeted to the battleground states that were most decisive. And the subject matter was designed to engage extremist voices on the political fringe, not persuadable voters undecided between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Vladimir Putins propaganda victory is not the advertising itself, but the notion that just over $100,000 worth of poorly targeted Facebook advertising could swing a presidential election. It cant.

It is important for the United States to acknowledge that Russias efforts were a direct attack on our democracy. But in the same way that we do not describe a terrorist attack as a victory for the terrorists, those seeking other explanations for Novembers results shouldnt succumb to the temptation to declare Russias meddling decisive. Besides that being a greatly exaggerated view of Russias capabilities, deeming the effort a geopolitical success emboldens Russia in its efforts to undermine Western democracies.

News of Russia's meddling has produced some scary-sounding numbers: as many as 126 million Americans reached on Facebook alone, a further 20 million on Instagram, and 1.4 million tweets sent by Russian-affiliated accounts in the two months leading up to the election.

Yet, the Russian content was just a tiny share of the 33 trillion posts Americans saw in their Facebook news feeds between 2015 and 2017. Any success the ads had in terms of reach seems attributable largely to the sheer doggedness of the effort, with 80,000 Facebook posts in total. Facebook reported that a quarter of the ads were never seen by anyone. And  with the average Facebook user sifting through 220 news-feed posts a day  many of the rest were simply glanced at, scrolled past and forgotten.

With $81 million spent on Facebook by the Trump and Clinton campaigns, mostly to mobilize core supporters to donate and volunteer, a low-six-figure buy is unlikely to have tipped the election. The Russian effort looks even less influential when one considers the tiny amount of Russian Facebook spending directed at key battleground states  $1,979 in Wisconsin, $823 in Michigan and $300 in Pennsylvania. From an electoral perspective, the campaign was remarkably unsophisticated.

Of course, some people did click and like and share. Where Russia appears to have made more headway  before and after the election  is in further animating partisans, capitalizing on their need to have their existing beliefs confirmed. It didnt matter that those confirming their beliefs were foreign adversaries.

In at least some cases, that translated into action. The most successful case appears to be an anti-Trump rally in New York City on Nov. 12, just five days after the election. More than 33,000 people expressed interest in an announcement of the event posted by Russian agents, and thousands ended up attending. The ad spending that we know of to promote the rally was piddling  $1.93 to serve the post to 188 people. Yet, touching a raw nerve, news of this event spread organically. And no one bothered to dig into the sockpuppet Facebook page behind the announcement.

Despite all the focus in the past week on ads, compared to friend-to-friend sharing, a relatively small share of the Russian campaign was driven by advertising. Just 10 million of the people reached came in through the advertising campaign, out of 29 million who directly read Russian posts in their news feeds, and up to 126 million who were exposed indirectly through their Facebook friends. The Russian effort depended on the willingness of some Americans to go along with it and share. The credulity of these social media users is a fact more troubling than the advertising itself, and one not as easily addressed by policy.

Broken English aside, if the Russian content struck some Facebook users as perfectly normal and even share-worthy, that's because it mimicked the hallmarks of popular social media content. Social media often performs best when it speaks emotionally to deep-seated cultural identity. That's why debates about race, gender and religion can rage in social media in a way that discussions of economic policy don't. The Russian posts deliberately spoke to the identity of their potential audience  as Christians or Muslims, as gun owners or LGBT Americans, as military veterans or supporters of Black Lives Matter. "A 14-year-old Royce Mann brought hundreds of people to tears after he performed a slam poem on white privilege, police brutality, and the Black Lives Matter movement," read the most successful post, from the Russian-backed "Blacktivists" Facebook page  inspiring more than 300,000 interactions around a message indistinguishable from something homegrown. Other content was more vile and sinister, likening a Clinton victory to a Satanic triumph.

In the wake of these revelations, social media companies are likely to adopt policy fixes that will reduce the likelihood of foreign agents advertising directly to Americans. These include restrictions on the use of foreign currency to buy political ads and voluntary transparency measures. Proposals to warn users before sharing false content from dubious sources are positive, too. Legislative initiatives such as the Honest Ads Act also would bring greater transparency to political advertising, but would do very little to stop the vast majority of Russian ads that did not expressly support a candidate. Short of an upheaval significantly curtailing the use of social media as a vehicle for free expression, no legislation can prevent their use as vectors for misinformation or propaganda from foreign powers, particularly when social media is largely free and open for anyone to use. Only a more vigilant citizenry can provide a full-proof defense.

Changes by Congress or social media companies may solve this problem at a surface level. But the reason Russia was able to blend in to Americans news feeds is that those ugly divisions were there to be exploited, and, in fact, that exploiting them remains a potentially effective and lucrative social media strategy  one thats used right here in the United States every day. Thats an issue much bigger than stopping ads from being purchased in rubles.

Twitter: @patrickruffini

Read more from Outlook and follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter.
The Trump administration told the Supreme Court Friday it should consider disciplining lawyers for an undocumented teenage immigrant seeking an abortion, alleging they misrepresented her situation in a way that kept the government from asking the high court to intervene.

In a highly unusual filing reflecting the stakes of abortion politics, Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco called out ACLU lawyers representing the girl, identified in court papers as Jane Doe. The document said the girls lawyers knew the Justice Department planned to ask the Supreme Court on Oct. 25 to review a lower court decision saying the 17-year-old had a right to an abortion while in government custody.

The ACLU lawyers initially told government lawyers that under abortion laws in Texas, where the girl was detained, it was unlikely the abortion could be performed until Oct. 26. But, the girls lawyers say they discovered in the early hours of Oct. 25, that the girl was able to receive the procedure that morning, before the Justice Department could file a stay request with the Supreme Court. The lawyers did not inform the government until the procedure was over.

The government is asking the court to vacate the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that said she was entitled to an abortion. The filing said the precedent should not apply to a remaining broader legal challenge to the federal government's policy of dissuading, and even blocking, undocumented teens in its custody from having abortions.

That challenge is still pending in district court and has implications for the hundreds of young pregnant immigrants who have been in federal custody in recent years.

The government recognizes that respondents counsel have a duty to zealously advocate on behalf of their client, but they also have duties to this court and to the bar, the filing says. It appears under the circumstances that those duties may have been violated, and that disciplinary action may therefore be warranted. At the least, this court may wish to seek an explanation from counsel regarding this highly unusual chain of events.

ACLU Legal Director David Cole said in a statement the governments charges were baseless.

This administration has gone to astounding lengths to block this young woman from getting an abortion, Cole said. Now, because they were unable to stop her, they are raising baseless questions about our conduct. Our lawyers acted in the best interest of our client and in full compliance with the court orders and federal and Texas law. That government lawyers failed to seek judicial review quickly enough is their fault, not ours.

The Justice Department has been criticized by some for failing to take the issue to the Supreme Court quickly enough to prevent the abortion, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a media interview last week blamed the girls lawyers.

This was a total surprise and really a breach of the kind of confidence that lawyers should be able have with one another, and we were very upset about it, Sessions said in an interview with Foxs Bret Baier.

Lawyers who practice at the Supreme Court said they could not remember a similar request to the court, and some theorized that the solicitor generals office was feeling political heat for failing to approach the high court before it was too late.

A news release from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) after the girl obtained the procedure mentioned that the Department of Justice failed to appeal to the United States Supreme Court a ruling allowing the abortion.

Other lawyers, however, said it was important for lawyers in high-profile cases to be able to depend on each others representations in making decisions about the timing of appeals.

Kathleen Clark, who teaches legal ethics at Washington University Law School in St. Louis, said it was obvious the government was frustrated, but she found the filing curious.

Frankly, Im surprised the government was so vague in its allegations about what standards were violated, she said. She noted the strongest statement in the filing was that ACLU lawyers at least arguably had an obligation to notify the government of any change.

The Central American teenager, identified only as Jane Doe in court papers, is being held in a government-funded shelter and had been seeking an abortion since late September. She learned she was pregnant shortly after crossing the border where she was detained, her lawyers said.

She convinced a Texas judge she was mature enough to make the decision to end the pregnancy without the notification of her parents, whom she said she feared, according to her lawyers.

But the Trump administrations Department of Health and Human Services has changed its policies and says it will not facilitate abortions for undocumented minors in federal custody.

Scott Lloyd, director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the HHS agency that oversees the minors, said in a March email that government-funded shelters caring for the minors should not be supporting abortion services pre or post-release; only pregnancy services and life-affirming options counseling.

A federal district judge ordered the abortion to proceed, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit stopped the process, and said it was preferable that the government find a sponsor for the girl, which would take the government out of helping her receive an abortion.

The full circuit court reversed that decision in a 6-to-3 ruling, followed a few hours later by a new order from the district judge. That started the race that Tuesday night. For the solicitor generals office, it was to get the issue before the Supreme Court. For lawyers for the girl, it was to get her the abortion. She was 15 weeks pregnant at the time.

Texas law requires medical counseling at least 24 hours in advance of an abortion by the same physician who performs the procedure. The 17-year-old underwent counseling on Oct. 19, allowing her to have the abortion any time after lower courts issued the order in her favor, depending on the doctors availability.
I'm not an opponent of John Engen because of any of the frequent criticisms his opposition makes.

I'm an opponent of the mayor because last week, I received notice that a complaint had been filed against me with the commissioner of political practices only hours after a near-identical complaint was filed against the mayor.

My crime? Posting content critical of the mayor's policies on a Facebook page called Vent Missoula. You can view the complaint at the COPP website.

I am an individual Montanan, taxpayer and voter. I have the freedom to publicly express my political beliefs, and no public official has the right to subject my wife and I to the stress, trauma and embarrassment of being hauled into an investigation by an agency whose purpose is to regulate politicians, lobbyists and political committees.

Even more frustrating is that this investigation was launched amidst a state budget crisis. How our Democratic representatives could fathom this as a proper use of taxpayer money is beyond me.

I never thought I would be subject to a state-level breach into my privacy, security and peace of mind for expressing my right to free speech and participation in the political process.

Take caution, fellow Montanans.

Tyler Theisen,

Missoula
President Trump departed Washington on Friday for his first visit to Asia, a 12-day swing through five countries that comes as the once unthinkable has become a palpable concern from Tokyo to Seoul to Beijing  a war with a nuclear-armed North Korea.

Trump's escalating rhetoric and Pyongyang's accelerating weapons programs have set the region on edge and prompted national security adviser H.R. McMaster to declare this week that the world is "running out of time" to stop the North.

North Korea is a threat to the entire world, McMaster told reporters at the White House.

Trump's trip  with bilateral visits to Japan, South Korea and China and stops at regional summits in Vietnam and the Philippines  could go a long way toward determining the success of his administration's policy. Aides said they are committed to applying "maximum pressure"on Pyongyang to head off its nuclear threat and resolve the situation peacefully.

Senior White House aides said Trumps top priority on the longest overseas trip of any president since George H.W. Bush in 1991 will be to build on the initial success his administration has had in rallying international support for isolating North Korea. Responding to pressure from the United States, the United Nations Security Council approved two rounds of stiffer economic sanctions, and a growing number of countries have severed diplomatic ties with Pyongyang and banished North Korean guest workers.



First lady Melania Trump and President Trump greet visitors at the White House on Friday before departing on a trip to Asia. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

But beyond the sanctions and the silent treatment looms the very real prospect that none of these tactics  employed to varying degrees by previous administrations  will persuade North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to veer from his pursuit of a nuclear weapon that can reliably reach the U.S. mainland  a goal analysts said would sharply tilt the leverage in his favor in any future negotiations.

That raises the question being privately assessed and publicly debated across Northeast Asia: How real are Trumps threats of using military options to prevent Kim from succeeding?

I think the Chinese are divided on the seriousness of President Trump about the potential of a U.S. military strike, said Bonnie Glaser, a China analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who visited Beijing last week. Some say President Trump is unpredictable and that he could launch a preventative or a preemptive attack. They worry the situation is getting out of control. Other experts said they think Trump is bluffing to scare Beijing into greater pressure on Kim.

Glaser added: I sensed more of the former view. Theres more seriousness about the considerations being taken by the Trump administration.

[What to look for during Trumps landmark Asia trip]

In Tokyo, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe raised eyebrows during a gathering of international foreign policy experts last week when he acknowledged that there is some worry about applying that much pressure on North Korea and whether this will lead to war.

The Japanese leader, whose governing Liberal Democratic Party emerged stronger last month after winning more parliament seats in a snap election, emphasized that his administration fully supports Trumps position that direct diplomatic talks with Pyongyang are not worthwhile given Kims consistent provocations.

Of course, I do not wish for a conflict, Abe said at the Mount Fuji dialogue. However, dialogue with North Korea for the sake of dialogue is meaningless.

In Seoul, Trumps handling of the North Korea crisis has led to a number of angry public protests ahead of his arrival  and widespread confusion and apprehension over his intentions. President Moon Jae-ins administration, which came to power this year advocating a more open policy toward the North that favored talks, has sought to align more closely with the United States in the wake of Kims increased nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

But Moon's aides objected to White House proposals that Trump visit the heavily guarded demilitarized zone that divides North and South Korea over fears that his rhetoric would further inflame tensions at a time when the South is preparing to play host to the Winter Olympics early next year. Trump has threatened that Pyongyang would feel the "fire and fury" of the U.S. military if it continued its threats, and the president pledged during a speech at the United Nations in September to "totally destroy" the North if necessary.

The White House agreed to have Trump instead visit Camp Humphreys, a joint U.S.-South Korea military base south of Seoul. But at recent protests, South Koreans waved signs that superimposed the American leader over nuclear explosions.

President Trump is frequently making ludicrous comments implying war, said Han Sun-bum, a representative of one of the largest protest groups, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. His comments, coupled with large-scale joint military exercises, have created a very precarious situation in the Korean Peninsula.

Trumps trip includes heavy messaging on the U.S. commitment to strong defense cooperation with allies in East Asia. The president will stop first at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, where he plans to tour the USS Arizona, the battleship sunk during the Japanese surprise attack in 1941 that drew the United States into the Pacific theater in World War II.

In Tokyo, Trump is scheduled to speak with U.S. troops at Yokota Air Base and meet with the families of Japanese citizens who were abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s. In Seoul, he will address the South Korean National Assembly, emphasizing that all nations must act with increased urgency.

Asked whether Trump plans to use the same type of inflamed rhetoric he often has when discussing Pyongyang, McMaster said: I dont think the president really modulates his language. He added: Ive been aware of the discussions about, Hey, is this inflammatory? And whats inflammatory is the North Korean regime and what theyre doing to threaten the world.

Foreign policy experts called Trumps public threats and belittling of Kim  the president has dubbed him Little Rocket Man  a misguided attempt to apply psychological pressure. In fact, they said, such tactics allow Kim to further demonize the United States.

[In U.N. speech, Trump threatens to totally destroy North Korea and calls Kim Jong Un Rocket Man]

One former Obama administration official called Trumps rhetoric sophomoric and said it was a primitive misreading about how they operate.

This former official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak bluntly, said that if Trump veers off the teleprompter into belittling insult-land, that could significantly increase the distress felt throughout South Korea, where some hard-liners in parliament have suggested the nation should consider developing its own nuclear arsenal.

Meantime, China, where Trump will make a three-day state visit, has announced a crackdown on banks that do business with North Korea, although experts said it is hard to gauge how seriously Beijing will implement the new controls. Chinese President Xi Jinping emerged more powerful after the Communist Party Congress last month, and Cui Tiankai, Chinas ambassador to the United States, told reporters this week that the United States and its allies could do more to resolve the standoff peacefully.

If only China is making its best efforts and others are doing things that lead to an escalation of tensions, this issue will not be solved, Cui said.

The Trump administration, following the policies of past administrations, has refused to entertain the Chinese proposal of freezing U.S. and South Korean military cooperation in exchange for a freeze on North Koreas weapons testing. McMaster ruled out the idea again this week, saying Pyongyang cannot be trusted to abide by any such agreements.

Were out of time, McMaster said. In terms of scenarios, the presidents always very clear: You know he doesnt draw red lines; he doesnt forecast directly or say directly what hes going to do. But hell do whatever it takes to protect the American people and our allies.

Taylor reported from Seoul. Yoonjung Seo in Seoul contributed to this report.
Three conservative House Republicans are expected to file a resolution Friday calling on special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to recuse himself from his probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, accusing him of conflicts of interest.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who wrote the resolution, accuses Mueller of having a conflict of interest because he was serving as FBI chief when the Obama administration approved a deal allowing a Russian company to purchase a Canada-based mining group with uranium operations in the United States, according to a draft obtained by The Washington Post.

President Trump has often brought up the Uranium One deal in 2010 as a way to accuse Hillary Clinton of potential corruption and foreign collusion, despite scant evidence she was directly involved in the decision to allow it to proceed. Nine government agencies make up the government committee that reviews such deals, along with five other observer agencies; the FBI is not one of them.

The GOP also launched two congressional probes into the matter last month, questioning whether the FBI and Justice Department were looking into Russia's attempts to influence the U.S. uranium market.

Gaetz wants the deal to be investigated by a special counsel, and he does not think Mueller is the one to do it.

[What you need to know about the Uranium One deal]



Former FBI Director Robert Mueller at the agency headquarters in 2013. (Charles Dharapak/AP)

"Someone who was involved in a deal cannot reasonably be trusted to scrutinize that probe," Gaetz said in an interview.

Gaetz added that he does not trust Mueller because of his "close personal relationship" with former FBI director James B. Comey. Similar complaints have been raised by other Republicans, though there is considerable dispute over whether the Comey-Mueller relationship was primarily professional.

Republicans, including Gaetz, have also called on the Justice Department to better investigate Comey's conduct in the FBI investigation into Clinton's emails, a matter several congressional committees are also probing.

As of late Thursday, Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Louis Gohmert (R-Tex.), both members of the House's conservative Freedom Caucus, had signed onto Gaetz's effort. A spokeswoman for Gaetz said they expect to pick up more support from the Freedom Caucus, the bulk of whose members signed onto an earlier Gaetz bill calling on the attorney general to appoint a special counsel to look into Comey's actions.

But Gaetz may struggle to build wider support.

He admitted Thursday that he does not expect any Democrats to support his Mueller resolution. And many Republicans who have questions about Clinton's role in the 2010 uranium deal still support Mueller's right to do his job free from political interference.

There have been no reports that Mueller is including the uranium deal in his investigation. Earlier this week, Mueller announced the first charges of his probe against three members of the Trump campaign: former campaign manager Paul Manafort, his business partner Rick Gates, and campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.

Gaetz said he spoke to Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Sept. 28 and asked him to appoint another special counsel to look into the uranium deal, but that Sessions claimed his own recusal from all matters related to the 2016 campaign prevented him from weighing in on the matter. Staffers for deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein, Gaetz added, would not commit to making a decision on his request.

Read more at PowerPost
With the explosion of development in District neighborhoods such as the Wharf; the corridors along 14th, U and H streets; and the Tysons Corner and Pike & Rose communities in the suburbs, its no secret that walkability is a top priority for home buyers and renters as well as for office and retail tenants.

So it should come as no surprise that Washington is the No. 2 most walkable metropolitan area in the United States, second only to New York, according to studies by the Center for Real Estate and Urban Analysis (CREUA) of the George Washington University School of Business.

Following Washington in the CREUA rankings are metropolitan Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle. Among the least walkable and most auto-dependent are Houston, Dallas, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Diego and Orlando.

According to CREUA chair and research professor Christopher Leinberger, a leading proponent of walkable urbanism, metropolitan Washington is the nations premier model for creating innovative, pedestrian-oriented urban and suburban development.

Citizens of metropolitan Washington should feel especially honored to be considered the country's leader in urbanism innovation, as we are rarely perceived as a leading innovator in other spheres.

[More Lewis: Does Washington rank as a great waterfront city?]

Walkable urban places  termed WalkUPs  are gaining market share over auto-dependent suburban competition. WalkUPs (not to be confused with walk-up apartment buildings) exhibit substantially higher rental premiums and demographically higher levels of education, wealth and social equitability.

Attributes of walkable urban development include higher densities; mixed land uses encompassing office, retail and multifamily housing; innovative types of functionally blended real estate, such as apartment units atop retail stores; and multiple transportation options  walking, biking and public transit, in addition to driving cars.

Moreover, WalkUPs exist in suburbs as well as in central cities. In fact, urbanizing suburbia, an increasingly dominant real estate development trend, is especially robust throughout the capital region. Tysons Corner and North Bethesda typify places where conventional commercial real estate  such as strip malls  is being reimagined as contemporary living, working and shopping spaces.

WalkUPs in metropolitan Washington are taking shape, or already exist, in the District, Arlington, Alexandria and the surrounding suburban counties  Fairfax, Loudoun, Montgomery and Prince Georges.

Reston Town Center is a laudable example of walkable, urbanized suburbia. Urbanizing plans and rezoning, already approved by Howard County, will transform the suburban-style Town Center of Columbia, Md.

A few WalkUPs in this region are being created from scratch on green or brown fields. But most involve revitalization of underperforming sites and real estate. The Wharf in the District, White Flint and Wheaton in Montgomery County, and Potomac Yards in Alexandria exemplify walkable urban development.

[More Lewis: Houstons topography and ability to handle stormwater play a role in flooding]

WalkUPs are nothing new. Proponents and practitioners of New Urbanism have advocated walkable urban development, especially within suburbs, for decades. In fact, New Urbanism is really old, traditional urbanism. Until the 20th century and ubiquitous automobile dependency, American towns and cities were necessarily and inevitably walkable.

Creating WalkUPs entails three fundamental strategies: establishing a master framework plan based on a comprehensible street-block pattern; enabling an environmentally and economically feasible mix of office, retail and residential uses and densities; and forming properly proportioned, attractive sidewalks, streets and civic open spaces that make walking functionally convenient, pleasurable and aesthetically desirable.

But rather than focusing on design, CREUA research explores economic, demographic, social and functional attributes of WalkUPs. Real-world data establishes quantitative thresholds and key metrics pertaining to comparative metropolitan growth and economic performance, as well as social equity. The latter gauges affordability of housing, transportation costs and access to jobs.

Economic analysis of WalkUPs in America's 30 largest metro areas is especially noteworthy. Real estate prices in WalkUPs are significantly higher than in auto-dependent suburban real estate. For example, compared to such suburban development, rental premiums in walkable urban places have been as high as 90 percent for office development, 71 percent for retail and 66 percent for multifamily apartments.

[More Lewis: Demolished or repurposed for the future  what decides a buildings fate?]

Its widely acknowledged that rising real estate values and housing costs threaten to gentrify historically affordable, center-city residential neighborhoods. But researchers claim that social equity is attainable for moderate-income households within WalkUPs because higher housing costs can be offset by lower transportation costs  less ownership and use of cars  and better job opportunities.

Given higher values and that investment returns that WalkUPs support, it's also no surprise that, in America's 30 largest metro areas, the market share of walkable urban office and apartment development is rising while market share of offices and apartments in auto-dependent suburban development is decreasing. That is further evidence of increasing suburban urbanization and accelerating central-city revitalization.

In many of the 30 largest metro areas, WalkUPs occupy only about 1 percent of metropolitan land area yet account for the majority of new office and multifamily rental development. And even with small land occupancy percentages, WalkUPs contribute substantially to municipal and county tax revenue because of higher densities, levels of employment and personal incomes.

Building walkable communities in American cities and suburbs promises to enhance mobility choices and yield greater economic benefits. But additional benefits accrue. Such communities, and the cities they occupy, will be more socially diverse, culturally richer and more environmentally sustainable for future generations.

Roger K. Lewis is a practicing architect, a professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland and a regular guest commentator on "The Kojo Nnamdi Show" on WAMU (88.5 FM).
Members of a French military medical unit carry an injured soldier toward a helicopter during the regional anti-insurgent Operation Barkhane in Inaloglog, Mali, last month. (Benoit Tessier/Reuters)



French armored vehicles in northern Mali head toward the Niger border in 2013. (Jerome Delay/AP)

Less than a year ago, the Islamic State's ambitions in Africa seemed all but shattered. In Libya, militias assisted by U.S. Special Operations soldiers and airstrikes drove the militants from their stronghold in the city of Sirte. Hundreds of Islamic State fighters died. Others fled south toward desert hideouts.

There were no more black flags, recalled Claudia Gazzini, a senior Libya analyst for the International Crisis Group, describing the situation when she visited southern Libya after the militant groups defeat in December.

But many highly trained Islamic State fighters crossed into the vast ungoverned areas of impoverished Niger, according to regional security officials and analysts. Some then flowed to zones where militants were active in Mali, Nigeria and other countries.

The fighters have helped inject new energy into a spreading Islamist militancy, creating fresh challenges for U.S. forces in the region. Few Americans knew their troops were engaged in one of the worlds most complex battlegrounds until four U.S. soldiers were killed by militants last month in a remote corner of Niger.

Instead of celebrating the defeat of a key Islamic State affiliate in Africa, the Pentagon and its allies are confronting an increasingly potent constellation of militant groups and a deepening rivalry between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State for influence and recruits.

The big challenge is the instability in Libya, Kalla Moutari, Nigers minister of defense, said in an interview Wednesday. Fighters and weapons from Libya continue to come to this part of the world because there are no controls over there.

[Everything we know about the Niger attack that left 4 U.S. soldiers dead]

To gain support, Islamist militants have managed to exploit ethnic and communal tensions as well as resentment over poverty and unemployment. Complicating the efforts to defeat the militants are the weakness or repressive actions of the regions armies, poor governance and porous borders.

The killing of the four U.S. soldiers has set off questions in Washington about the U.S. militarys role in the Sahel, a barren belt stretching from western Africa to its north-central region.



Chadian troops and Nigerian special forces participate in the Flintlock exercises with the U.S. military and its Western partners in Mao, Chad, in 2015. (Jerome Delay/AP)

The Trump administration suspects a relatively new Islamic State ally was responsible for the American soldiers' deaths. The U.S. government has doubled down on its military commitment in the region, the latest sign being a $60 million pledge this week to build a new counterterrorism force there.

U.S. authorities are concerned that with the Islamic State losing territory in Iraq and Syria, it is shifting more of its focus to North Africa and West Africa. Thousands of Islamic State militants who fought in Iraq, Syria and Libya are originally from this region, particularly Tunisia and Morocco.

As they are pressed, it becomes all the more important that they seem to be visible and active elsewhere and thus still relevant to the overall cause, said Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. In their view, they want to show that they are still able to position themselves ahead of al-Qaeda in their competition and rivalry.

Looking for a comeback

In recent months, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has sought to make a comeback in Libya, orchestrating suicide bombings and other violence. An Islamic State affiliate based in Egypt's northern Sinai has killed several hundred policemen and soldiers this year. Islamic State-linked groups and cells have emerged in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.



Libyan government forces move against Islamic State militants in Sirte, Libya, in 2016. (Hazem Turkia/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Nigerias Boko Haram  which in 2015 pledged loyalty to the Islamic State  has expanded its reach, staging attacks in Cameroon, southern Niger and Chad. Libyan militia commanders and officials have said many West Africans fought with the Islamic State in Libya before its defeat there.

[Egypts long, bloody fight against the Islamic State in Sinai is going nowhere]

American military officials believe the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, or ISGS, had targeted the U.S. soldiers and several of their Nigerien counterparts, even though no group has claimed responsibility. The militia, led by former al-Qaeda-linked militants, was formed in 2015. It was recognized by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October 2016, around the time the group was on the verge of defeat in Sirte.

This year, the ISGS has claimed several attacks in Burkina Faso as well as an attempt to free Islamist militants from a prison in Niger.

Theres a greater environment . . . for jihadist groups to be active and operational and attempt to build up their capacities, said Aaron Zelin, an expert on such groups at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

In 2007, two years after U.S. soldiers began arriving in North and West Africa to train local armies, their main terrorist threat was al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, a fledgling affiliate with roots in the Algerian civil war.

Four years later, Libyas Arab Spring revolution brought down dictator Moammar Gaddafi. His regimes destruction  brought about with the aid of NATO airstrikes  had an unexpected consequence: invigorating Islamist militants in the region.



Mortar shells sit unguarded and boxes that once held antiaircraft missiles and other heavy weapons are strewn about an arms depots in Tripoli, Libya, in 2011. Many weapons from Libyan arsenals were stolen and smuggled abroad after the fall of Moammar Gaddafi that year. (Ben Hubbart/AP)

Gaddafi's arms depots were looted and many weapons smuggled to other countries. The arms helped fuel a 2012 rebellion by Tuareg nomads in northern Mali that was subsequently hijacked by AQIM and other militant groups. For nearly a year, the rebels controlled large portions of the area, until French forces drove them out.

[In northern Mali, al-Qaeda affiliate is directing the fight]

AQIM and its splinter groups continued to operate in the region, attacking security forces and claiming responsibility for deadly attacks on hotels and cafes in Mali, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso.

The al-Qaeda affiliate is now one of the best-armed and best-financed terrorist groups in the world, deriving tens of millions of dollars from kidnapping Westerners.

This year, it has expanded into new areas and bolstered its operational capacities, and several other militias in the region have united and pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda.

AQIM is also deepening its presence in Libya, seeking to take advantage of the Islamic States setbacks there and trying to attract departing Islamic State fighters, regional analysts said.





Ideological divide

Unlike in Syria, militants from al-Qaeda and the Islamic State seldom if ever fight each other here. Theres plenty of crossover between the two groups, and many rival fighters have known each other for years. They often operate in the same terrain.

Their differences are based less on religion or philosophy and more on the agendas of individual commanders or communities the groups represent.

It doesnt mean theres not tension, said Andrew Lebovich, a regional political and security researcher and visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. But its not just this kind of ideological divide that people often apply to ISIS versus al-Qaeda.

The trajectory of Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi illustrates the complex relationships among militant groups in the region. Believed to be in his mid-40s, the leader of ISGS was raised in Algerian refugee camps. He became a leader in the Polisario Front, a movement seeking to end Morocco's presence in the Western Sahara. Sometime in the 1990s, he settled in Mali.

He eventually joined al-Mourabitoun, an al-Qaeda offshoot led by an Algerian, Mokhtar Belmokhtar. In 2015, Sahrawi had a falling out with him and launched the ISGS.

Its main base of operations straddles the Niger-Mali border, where the U.S. soldiers were killed.

Moutari, the Niger defense minister, said Sahwari is believed to be using weapons from Libya and fighters who were part of the Islamic State when it ruled Sirte. There are many fighters from Libya, as well as those who fought in Syria and Iraq and later came to Libya, who have joined this group, Moutari said.

Continuing attacks

In Niger, one of the worlds poorest countries, there are about 800 U.S. service members  part of a contingent of 6,000 American troops on the continent. They include Special Forces soldiers who began arriving here in 2012 to provide counterterrorism training, as well as others who work on a drone base. There are also some 4,000 French troops based in the region.



Members of a French military medical unit carry an injured soldier toward a helicopter during the regional anti-insurgent Operation Barkhane in Inaloglog, Mali, last month. (Benoit Tessier/Reuters)

Yet the attacks keep happening.

Along the long and lawless border where the U.S. soldiers died, the United Nations has documented at least 46 attacks since February 2016, mostly targeting local security forces.

The extremists have established ties in communities long neglected by the regions weak central governments. The vacuum of authority has allowed militant groups to exploit grievances over government corruption, rampant crime and a lack of opportunities.

In many villages, the Islamist militants have caught thieves and adjudicated marital and family disputes, in effect replacing the government.



Friends, parents and relatives of victims of a terrorist attack at the Campement Kangaba resort, close to Bamako, Mali, go to pay homage to them in June. (Michele Cattani/AFP/Getty Images)

In Mali, AQIM and other Islamist militants have exploited ethnic and tribal tensions between the mostly Tuareg and Arab north and the ruling southern ethnic groups. They have also taken advantage of tensions between pastoralists and farmers over land and access to grazing.

For these communities, a political movement, especially one promising instant answers through violence, is enormously appealing, Georgetowns Hoffman said.

What weve learned is that these groups established a toehold in this region that theyve turned into a foothold, he added. They are able to recruit fighters faster than we can train up the local host-nation security forces.

Read more

The worlds most dangerous U.N. mission

Al-Qaeda affiliates are threatening West Africas most peaceful cities

The dispute between al-Qaeda and Islamic State has devolved to name-calling

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Liu Xia, wife of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, speaks during an interview in Beijing in 2010. She was last seen in public in July shortly after the death of her husband, Nobel Peace Prizer winner Liu Xiaobo. (Andy Wong/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

More than 50 celebrated American and international literary figures have written a joint letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping appealing to his "sense of conscience" to release Liu Xia, the widow of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo.

Liu Xia, a poet, painter and photographer, has been under house arrest in China since 2010 despite never having been charged with any crime.

She was last seen in public on July 15 when she participated in a memorial service for her husband, two days after he died of cancer. Friends, journalists and diplomats have all been prevented from meeting her. She is reported to be suffering from depression and a heart condition, the letter said.

The 53 writers who appealed for her release, in an open letter organized by PEN America, a group set up to advance literature and defend free expression, include Philip Roth, Paul Auster, Chimamanda Adichie, Louise Erdrich, John Coetzee, Margaret Atwood, Paul Auster, Anne Tyler and Tom Stoppard.

They called for her release in recognition of Chinas international obligations, including as a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and its own constitution that guarantees freedom of speech and other rights.

We also appeal to your conscience and your sense of compassion, they wrote to President Xi. Liu Xia has undergone great suffering for many years, simply for being the wife of a man that China has deemed to be a dissident. She has committed no crime, and she has not been charged with any crime.

Although Chinese officials claim she is free, she is in fact in de facto incommunicado detention  cut off from the outside word and barred from making free decisions on whom to speak with and where to travel, the letter said.

She is in poor health, she is isolated from those who care for her, and she is grieving deeply for the loss of her husband. She should be free to meet freely with family, friends, and members of the international community, free to travel where she wishes, and free to be reunited with the outside world.

PEN America said it planned to call on President Trump to bring the letter with him on his state visit to China next week. The group has also opened it up for signature by members of the public.

Liu Xiaobo died of cancer at the age of in July at the age of 61, seven years after winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his long and non-violent struggle for human rights in China. In 2009, the Chinese government sentenced him to 11 years in prison for inciting subversion of state power.

He took part in the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests and was co-author of Charter 08, a manifesto calling for democracy and freedom in China.

The authors said they were adding their voices to those of the U.N. High Commissioner of Human Rights, the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the German Embassy in China calling for Liu Xias release.

Read more

Liu Xiaobo, Nobel Peace Prize laureate imprisoned in China, dies at 61

Trump administration quietly pressing China to free Liu Xiaobos widow

The death of Liu Xiaobo marks dark times for dissent in China

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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More than 300,000 Central Americans and Haitians living in the United States under a form of temporary permission no longer need to be shielded from deportation, the State Department told Homeland Security officials this week, a few days ahead of a highly anticipated DHS announcement about whether to renew that protection.

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent a letter to acting DHS secretary Elaine Duke to inform her that conditions in Central America and Haiti that had been used to justify the protection no longer necessitate a reprieve for the migrants, some of whom have been allowed to live and work in the United States for 20 years under a program known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

Tillersons assessment, required by law, has not been made public, but its recommendations were confirmed by several administration officials familiar with its contents. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

DHS has until Monday to announce its plans for roughly 57,000 Hondurans and 2,500 Nicaraguans whose TPS protections will expire in early January. Although most arrived here illegally, they were exempted from deportation after Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America in 1998. Their TPS protections have been renewed routinely since then, in some cases following additional natural disasters and resulting insecurity.

Congress established TPS in 1990 to protect foreign nationals from being returned to their countries amid instability and precarious conditions caused by natural disasters or armed conflict.

[A Haitian woman asks, How would I survive going back there?]

Trump administration officials have repeatedly noted that the program was meant to be temporary  not a way for people to become long-term residents of the United States. Officials said that long-ago disasters should not be used to extend provisional immigration status when the initial justification for it no longer exists.

Tillersons assessment is consistent with broader administration efforts to reduce immigration to the United States and comply with legal restrictions that it maintains have been loosely enforced in the past.

It is fair to say that this administration is interpreting the law, exactly as it is, which the previous one did not, an administration official said.

The official acknowledged that the countries in question continue to suffer from problems of poverty, corruption and violence that, in many cases, have spurred illegal migration. But, the official said, those conditions should be addressed in other ways.

The solution is going to require working with Congress and these countries, the official said. We are equally committed to finding that. There is no lack of empathy here.

But with this particular law, the official said, it is very clear to this administration what needs to be done.

Administration officials have also said that the return of tens of thousands of migrants could benefit the Central American nations and Haiti, because their citizens will return with job skills, democratic values and personal savings acquired from living long term in the United States.

Many of the immigrants have homes, businesses and U.S.-born children, but if the protections expire, they could be subject to arrest and deportation. We understand this is a very difficult decision, the administration official said.

DHS officials declined to say Friday what the agency planned to do, or when an announcement would be made.

The acting secretary has made no decision on TPS, said Tyler Houlton, a spokesman for the agency.

Tillersons letter does not amount to a recommendation. But DHS is required to seek the agencys input, and officials said the State Departments position carries significant weight.

[Haitians, Central Americans could lose protected status ]

The largest group of TPS recipients  about 200,000  are from El Salvador, and DHS has until early January to announce its plans for them. At least 30,000 of them live in the Washington area, according to immigrant advocacy groups.

When the Obama administration last extended TPS for the Salvadorans, in July 2016, it said that they were eligible because conditions justifying it continued to be met.

There continues to be a substantial, but temporary, disruption of living conditions in El Salvador resulting from a series of earthquakes in 2001, Homeland Security officials said at the time, and El Salvador remains unable, temporarily, to handle adequately the return of its nationals.

DHS must also decide what to do with about 50,000 Haitian TPS recipients by Thanksgiving Day. The Haitians, who are concentrated in South Florida, received TPS after a 2010 earthquake that killed 200,000.

Advocates say removing TPS would be a cruel blow to long-standing, law-abiding immigrants, forcing them to decide between remaining in the country illegally or leaving their homes and families. According to a recent study by the left-leaning Center for American Progress, TPS recipients have nearly 275,000 U.S.-born children.

If recipients lose their protections but defy orders to leave, it would not be difficult for immigration enforcement agents to find them. The provisional nature of their status requires them to maintain current records with DHS; the agency has their addresses, phone numbers and other personal information.

"Terminating TPS at this time would be inhumane and untenable," a group of Catholic charity leaders wrote to Duke in a recent letter, arguing that it would "needlessly add large numbers of Hondurans and Salvadorans to the undocumented population in the U.S., lead to family separation, and unnecessarily cause the Department of Homeland Security to expend resources on individuals who are already registered with our government and whose safe return is forestalled by dire humanitarian circumstances."

If DHS ends the TPS protections, it is expected to grant recipients a grace period of at least six months or more to give them time to prepare for departure.

In May, then-DHS Secretary John F. Kelly extended TPS for Haitians for six months, far less than the 18-month waivers granted by the Obama administration.

Kelly, in a statement at the time, called the six-month window a limited extension whose purpose was to allow Haitian TPS recipients living in the United States time to attain travel documents and make other necessary arrangements for their ultimate departure from the United States.

Haiti is the Western Hemispheres poorest country and remains in the grips of a cholera epidemic triggered by U.N. troops who were sent after the earthquake.

Advocates of reduced immigration say the Haiti decision will be a key test of the administration's willingness to follow through on its by-the-books rhetoric.

Immigration experts believe many of the Haitians could attempt to seek refuge in Canada, particularly French-speaking Quebec, to avoid arrest and deportation.
Rohingya refugees cross into Bangladesh, White Lives Matter rally in Tennessee, truck attack in New York, Astros win their first World Series and more images from around the world.

Nov. 1, 2017 Photographers help a Rohingya refugee out of the Naf River while crossing the Burma-Bangladesh border in Palong Khali, near Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh. Hannah Mckay/Reuters
Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court in The Hague, is seen in court on Sept. 29, 2015. (Peter Dejong/AP)

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requested judicial authorization Friday to begin a formal investigation into possible war crimes committed in Afghanistan, a probe that could implicate American forces.

"For decades, the people of Afghanistan have endured the scourge of armed conflict," Fatou Bensouda, a Gambian lawyer who has served as the ICC's chief prosecutor since 2012, said in a statement. Her office is pushing to open an investigation because "there is a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed" in Afghanistan, she said.

Following jurisdictional parameters, Bensouda clarified that any resulting investigation would consider only alleged war crimes committed on Afghan soil after May 1, 2003. However, alleged crimes committed since July 1, 2002, in other states but that were closely linked to the situation in Afghanistan also would be considered, she said.

The courts jurisdiction currently is confined to investigating crimes in the territories of member states, although the U.N. Security Council can bring it into others. Afghanistan has been an ICC member state since 2002.

Rights activists applauded the announcement. We welcome the ICC Presidents action convening a pre-trial chamber of judges to consider the Prosecutors request to begin an investigation in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch, a prominent advocacy group, said Friday in a statement.

We look forward to reviewing the scope of the Prosecutors filing when it is public, the statement said. Having documented egregious crimes in Afghanistan that have gone unpunished over many years, we hope this step will open a path to justice for countless victims there.

In her brief, open-ended statement, Bensouda did not expressly name U.S. or NATO forces as direct parties to be investigated. She wrote that the ultimate focus will be upon those most responsible for the most serious crimes allegedly committed in connection with the situation in Afghanistan.

Afghan government efforts at accountability, especially concerning its own forces, have achieved little, Human Rights Watch said Friday. Both [former] President Hamid Karzai and President Ashraf Ghani, with the backing of the United States and other governments, suppressed the release of the sole major effort to follow the Action Plan, the human rights commissions 800-page report mapping serious abuses from 1978 to 2001.

But there have been repeated accusations of abuses of prisoners held at the U.S.-run Bagram air base and elsewhere in Afghanistan. One human rights investigator at Human Rights Watch said: We will wait and see what the scope is. But certainly both Afghan government forces and the Taliban have committed most of the major crimes in this period, and there has been no justice for the victims.

The best-documented case of severe prisoner abuse by U.S. service members in Afghanistan took place in 2002, when a 22-year-old Afghan taxi driver known as Dilawar was imprisoned and killed at Bagram, a U.S. military compound that was used as a detention and interrogation center. His story was first reported in the New York Times and then made into a documentary film.

According to those accounts, Dilawar was driving three passengers in a taxi in Khost province when he was stopped by Afghan militiamen. The travelers were accused of staging a rocket attack on a rural U.S. base and turned over to American forces. Dilawar was sent to Bagram, where he died in custody five days later. A week before that, another detainee named Habibullah also died in detention at Bagram, reportedly due to beatings that caused a fatal blood clot.

The U.S. military said at the time that both detainees died of natural causes, but New York Times reporter Carlotta Gall tracked down an American coroners report on Dilawar, with the cause of death marked homicide. That report said he had died of a pulmonary embolism after his legs had been crushed.

A criminal investigation later found that the U.S. soldiers guarding him had repeatedly pummeled his legs while he was hooded and shackled. Several U.S. soldiers were later prosecuted for assault and other charges in the case.

Established in 2002, the ICC is the worlds highest court for prosecuting human rights abuses, such as the war crimes Bensouda described.

The United States is among the few nations that never submitted to the courts authority, largely because previous presidential administrations feared that the supranational body, based in The Hague, could be used to target American military officials in investigations whose motivations may have been political.

Constable reported from Kabul.

Read more

Violence is so bad in parts of Afghanistan that Red Cross clinics are shutting their doors

Secretary of State Tillerson makes unannounced visits to Afghanistan, Iraq

After a bloody week in Afghanistan, elected officials seek answers from Ghani

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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The Syrian government declared Friday that it had recaptured one of the Islamic State's last remaining strongholds in the country, as the militant group mounted a final stand across the border in Iraq.

Syrian Brig. Gen. Ali Mayhoub, a military spokesman, described victory in the eastern city of Deir al-Zour as the last phase in the armys campaign to defeat the Islamic State in Syria, three years after the group declared a caliphate stretching from the countrys northeast to territory deep inside Iraq.

Deir al-Zour had been divided into zones controlled by the Syrian government and the Islamic State for nearly three years. It is the largest city in eastern Syria and the largest to be recaptured by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

With the loss of Deir al-Zour, Daesh loses its ability to lead terrorist operations by its militants who are now isolated and encircled east of the city, said Mayhoub, using the Arabic name for the Islamic State.

[Syrian war far from over, but endgame already playing out]



A soldier from the Syrian government forces flashes a victory sign during an operation to retake the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zour from the Islamic State on Nov. 2, 2017. (Stringer/AFP/Getty Images)

At its height, the Islamic States caliphate was the size of Belgium. The fighters now hold just a small stretch of towns running south along the Euphrates River and into Iraq. They are bombarded daily by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes as they battle a broad array of forces closing in on the ground.

In Syria, that means rival U.S.- and Syrian-backed offensives. Across the border, it is the Iraqi army and Iranian-backed militias that are beating back the Islamic State.

U.S. Army Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition against the Islamic State, said Friday that the Syrian regime's claims that it has taken Deir al-Zour city are "plausible." But he noted that the province by the same name extends well beyond the city to east of the Euphrates River, in an area where U.S.-backed Syrian fighters have clashed with the Islamic State and taken back territory.

Dillon said the Islamic State still holds territory further south along the river valley in Abu Kamal, and down to the Syria-Iraq border. There are challenges in operating in area with numerous forces, he said, but U.S.-backed fighters already have done so in other areas from the border of Turkey to Iraq.

"The coalition will deny ISIS safe haven in Iraq and Syria," he said. "We will not relent in our pursuit of ISIS and will continue degrade these terrorists' ability to plan, resource, and launch attacks."

Iraqs military said Friday that its forces have taken control of Qaim, a western border town and the last in the country to be nominally controlled by the militants.

Qaim has been a strategic location for the group, providing a link to Bukamal  one of its few remaining strongholds in Syria.

Yehya Rasool, a spokesman for Iraqs joint operations command, said small pockets of Islamic State resistance persist around Qaim and that he expected them to be cleared by Saturday. A neighboring town, Rawa, is also not yet fully controlled by government forces, he said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi issued two statements late Friday congratulating the combined military, police and militia forces for securing the strategic border and Qaim. He said the battle for Qaim, launched last Thursday, was won in record time.

In addition, the military said government forces have seized the border crossing between Syria and Iraq in Qaim. The capture deprives the militants of a critical juncture they had used to move fighters and equipment between their shrinking territory straddling both countries. The area had been under Islamic State control since 2014.

[In a besieged Damascus suburb, children are dying of hunger]

Earlier this week, Abadi said Iraq would soon be able to claim total victory over the Islamic State in Iraq.

Though small, Qaim has been an important town for the Islamic State. U.S. and Iraqi intelligence officials have said the militants used Qaim as a safe destination for their top commanders and leaders as battles raged in larger cities such as Mosul earlier this year.

Army Maj. Gen. James B. Jarrard, commander of the U.S.-led Special Operations joint task force fighting the Islamic State, said in a news briefing Tuesday that there are probably between 3,000 and 7,000 Islamic State fighters left throughout the Euphrates River valley, from Deir al-Zour to Qaim in Iraq.

In late August, Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, the outgoing overall commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, said he believed that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was hiding in the vast desert region that includes Qaim.

El-Ghobashy reported from Cairo. Dan Lamothe in Washington contributed to this report.

Read more:

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Acting U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim, of the Southern District of New York, announces federal terrorism charges against Sayfullo Saipov, in New York, Nov. 1. (Lane/Epa-Efe/Rex/Shutterstock)

With an off-the-cuff remark to reporters, President Trump seemed to throw into doubt the federal prosecution of the suspect accused of killing eight people this week with a rental truck  the most lethal terrorist attack in New York City since 2001. Then, nearly as quickly, he reversed course about sending Sayfullo Saipov to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and heartily endorsed putting him on trial in New York federal court, followed by his execution.

The whipsaw declarations in less than 24 hours suggested major policy swings on national security matters of life and death, but the Justice Department appears to increasingly be doing the once-unthinkable: tuning out the president of the United States.

And in some proceedings, including over Trumps travel ban orders, government lawyers have argued that informal statements, including by the president, may not accurately reflect the governments position.

Others, however, may be tuning in. Defense attorneys could well seize on the presidents comments to either try to avoid capital punishment for their client or have the case moved to a different jurisdiction because of pretrial publicity.

Authorities say Saipov drove a rental truck down a bike path on the west side of Manhattan on Tuesday, killing eight people and injuring 12. When questioned by investigators, Saipov confessed and said he was inspired by the Islamic State to carry out the attack, according to a criminal complaint filed against him.

[Saipovs behavior behind the wheel of an empty truck raised suspicion before attack]

The day after the attack, Trump called the criminal justice system a joke and a laughingstock. He said that the United States needs a system of punishment thats far quicker and far greater than the punishment these animals are getting right now. Theyll go through court for years. . . . We need quick justice, and we need strong justice.

When a reporter asked the president Wednesday at about noon whether Saipov should be sent to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Trump replied, "I would certainly consider that, yes. Send him to Gitmo. I would certainly consider that."

A few hours later, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders seemed to buttress that argument, referring to Saipov as an enemy combatant  a term freighted with potential legal consequences, including possible imprisonment at Guantanamo or some other military facility.

Trumps public statements intensified concerns among federal law enforcement officials, civil rights advocates and some lawmakers that the Trump administration might try to short-circuit the prosecution of Saipov and have him transferred into military custody.

As the president was talking, FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors were preparing criminal charges based in large part on what was said to be the suspects lengthy hospital room confession.

Hours after Trumps statements, U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim in New York announced the charges against the suspect. While Kim made no explicit reference to the presidents comment, he did mention a number of recent terrorism cases successfully prosecuted by his office.



President Trump speaks during a meeting on tax policy with Republican lawmakers in the White House, Nov. 2. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

On Thursday morning, Trump swung back hard in the opposite direction  supporting a federal trial in New York for Saipov  by tweeting that he would love to send the NYC terrorist to Guantanamo but statistically that process takes much longer than going through the Federal system . . . . . . There is also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed. Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!

[Horror unfolded in five nightmarish minutes]

Prosecutors have not indicated whether they will seek the death penalty against Saipov. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the presidents remarks.

In the federal system, deciding whether to seek capital punishment against a defendant is a complex process that takes months. It begins with a recommendation from the U.S. attorneys office, which is then reviewed by the attorney general before a final decision is made.

An attorney for Saipov declined to comment Thursday on Trumps statements.

Mary McCord, a former senior national security official at the Justice Department, said that tweets and off-the-cuff statements make the jobs of career Justice Department people challenging. . . . Obviously, prosecutors dont like to see people in positions of authority  including the president  commenting on possible penalties.

But, she said, prosecutors during this administration, or previous administrations, are used to blocking out statements and just doing their jobs.

In multiple cases, Trumps Justice Department has taken the position that Trumps own utterances are irrelevant to government policy.

In a number of instances, Justice Department lawyers have tried to distance themselves from Trumps pronouncements. In arguments over the administrations various travel bans, they gave argued that comments by the president and his advisers should not be considered because, in the departments view, the courts should not look beyond official statements and the order itself to determine its purpose.

And in one case, Justice Department lawyers contended that even official pronouncements from the White House were not, in fact, official.

In a lawsuit over the administrations attempt to yank funding from sanctuary cities, Justice Department lawyers argued that even the presidents executive order isnt a new policy but rather a type of bully pulpit exhortation meant to highlight a new approach to immigration enforcement.

As much as government lawyers try to ignore the presidents more problematic remarks, they could already be affecting the outcome of one high-profile case: that of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who has pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. He is awaiting sentencing for leaving his post in Afghanistan in 2009. Bergdahl was captured and held by the Taliban for years before being returned to the United States as part of a prisoner exchange.

Earlier this week, the military judge overseeing his case, Col. Jeffrey R. Nance, said he may lighten Bergdahl's sentence because of harsh comments made about the soldier by Trump. "I will consider the president's comments as mitigation evidence as I arrive at an appropriate sentence,'' Nance said.

Read more:

New York attack suspects Uzbekistan roots put focus on Central Asias battle with extremism

Old friends from Argentina reunited in New York. Five died together in a terrorist attack.
Trump administration reports of severe health problems resulting from attacks on U.S. diplomats in Cuba are deliberate lies and a pretext to roll back progress made toward normalizing relations between the two countries, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said Thursday.

It is high time for the United States to tell the truth or otherwise present evidence, Rodriguez said at a news conference in Washington. The Cuban government has no responsibility whatsoever for these incidents, he said.

His comments marked a sharp change in Cubas approach to the charges. Immediately after a September meeting in Washington with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Rodriguez pledged Cubas ongoing cooperation in finding the cause of the mysterious diplomatic ailments and expressed hope that the issue would not undermine relations.

Within the week after that visit, however, the Trump administration announced it was dramatically reducing the size of the U.S. Embassy in Havana, suspending issuance of U.S. visas to Cubans there, advising Americans not to travel to the island and expelling 15 Cuban diplomats from Havanas embassy in Washington.

The Cuban government has repeatedly denied any responsibility for diplomatic health problems. It has facilitated four visits by FBI investigation teams to the island and said its own investigations have turned up no apparent cause.

The State Department has said that 24 diplomats assigned to the embassy have suffered attacks that began late last year and continued until late summer.

It has described symptoms, sometimes verified months after the attacks, include hearing loss, balance problems and traumatic brain injury. In some cases, personnel were said to have fallen ill after hearing unusual noises, either in their residences or in hotels, leading to speculation they had come under some sort of sonic assault.

While saying that victims were receiving comprehensive medical evaluations and care, the State Department has not released the names of the afflicted, any specific information about their health or results of investigations thus far.

Even before reports of the attacks were made public, President Trump announced what he said was a new policy toward Cuba that would roll back many of the moves toward normalization undertaken during the Obama administration. After more than a half-century of estrangement, diplomatic relations between Havana and Washington were resumed in July 2015.

Although the congressionally mandated economic embargo against Cuba continued, President Barack Obama issued regulatory changes that allowed increased commercial ties and expanded travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens.

During his campaign, Trump said he would terminate the Obama normalization if Cuba would not cut a better deal with the United States.

Rodriguezs remarks echoed a speech he made at the United Nations this week, where the General Assembly voted for the 26th time to condemn the ongoing U.S. embargo. The United States has been alone  except for Israel and an occasional Pacific island nation  in voting against the measure each time.

The steps the Trump administration has taken against Cuba, Rodriguez said at the Thursday news conference, have been accompanied by repeated disrespectful and offensive statements toward Cuba by the U.S. president, thus relaunching the hostile rhetoric of the periods of sharpest confrontation between the two countries.

While Cuba has offered full cooperation and conducted its own investigation, he said, Cuban experts have been given no access to affected persons or the diplomatic localities where the alleged attacks took place. Cuba, he said, has not been given one single source or fact relating to the incidents, including timelines or even elementary medical information.

Cubas preliminary conclusion, he said, is that there is no evidence whatsoever of the occurrence of the alleged incidents or the cause . . . of these ailments. . . . Neither is there any evidence suggesting that these health problems have been caused by an attack of any sort during their stay in Cuba. Rodriguez said he met with congressional and business officials during his one-day stop in Washington but with no one in the administration.

If Havana were really an unsafe place, Rodriguez said, the U.S. authorities would not have requested 212 visas for relatives and friends of diplomats between January and October, nor would [diplomats assigned to Cuba] have made more than 250 pleasure trips outside Havana.
iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- The Islamic State claimed responsibility on Thursday for the deadly Halloween day terror attack in New York City in the group's weekly newsletter, al-Naba.



"On Tuesday, 11 Safar, one of the soldiers of the Islamic State attacked a number of crusaders on a street in New York City, close to the monument for the 9/11 raid, which resulted in killing and wounding more than 60 crusaders, and unto Allah is all praise," the newsletter said in a translation by SITE Intelligence Group, a company that tracks extremist groups.



It's unclear why the group claims 60 people were wounded or killed. The attack, allegedly carried out by Uzbek national Sayfullo Saipov, actually killed eight people and wounded 12 others, according to the NYPD.



The "11 Safar" is a reference to the attack occurring in the second month of the Islamic calendar.



The newsletter calls Saipov "one of the soldiers of the Caliphate" and claims the attack inspired "fear in crusader America."



"The grace of Allah, the operation instilled fear in crusader America, prompting them to increase security measures and intensify actions against immigrants to America," the newsletter stated.



Saipov, NYPD police have said, shouted "Allahu Akbar" -- or "God is Greatest" in Arabic -- after intentionally driving a rented truck onto a bike and pedestrian path in lower Manhattan just after 3 p.m. on Tuesday and running down 20 people. The suspect also left a handwritten note in Arabic at the scene saying ISIS "would endure forever," according to authorities.



"He did this in the name of ISIS, and along with the other items recovered at the scene was some notes that further indicate that," said John Miller, NYPD deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism. "He appears to have followed almost exactly to a 'T' the instructions that ISIS has put out in its social media channels before with instructions to their followers on how to carry out such an attack."



Authorities also reported Saipov had ISIS propaganda, including about 90 videos, on his cell phone, which inspired him to carry out the deadly attack.



The newsletter released Thursday also claims this was "one of the most prominent attacks to target crusaders in America" since Stephen Paddock is alleged to have killed 58 people in the Las Vegas shooting on Oct. 1. The FBI says it has not uncovered any connections between the suspect and any foreign terrorist groups.



"The FBI stated there is no apparent tie to international terrorism," one senior official told ABC News. "Perhaps ISIS is just trying to take credit."



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
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Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 03/11/2017 (1839 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeggers have a new way to get a doctors referral to Canadas legal medical marijuana regime.

Natural Health Services, a Calgary-based group of medical cannabis clinics, held a grand opening Friday at its first Manitoba location (17 St. Marys Rd.). Its the companys eighth clinic in Canada.

Cannabis is not sold at the location, which was a QuickCare medical clinic before the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority closed it in January.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Kait Shane, Director of Community Outreach at Natural Health Services, at its new clinic location at 17 St. Marys Road. The new facility is one of eight patient-centric clinics operating in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario.

Prospective patients are welcome and dont need a referral from a family doctor, said Kait Shane, director of community outreach with Natural Health Services. Anyone can drop in to speak with medical cannabis educators dubbed bud geniuses.

They can walk you through what youre looking at, and some of the myths around grey market versus legal market, and whether or not its right for you, said Shane.

Basically, all of our people are very well-trained, and they can tell you whether or not (cannabis) seems like a fit. But of course its the doctor who, in the end, would have to make that assessment based on other things.

Thats because legally accessing cannabis for medical purposes in Canada requires a prescription-like medical document from a physician. That authorization allows medical cannabis patients to register directly with a licensed cannabis producer approved by Health Canada and buy mail-order cannabis online or by phone.

The difficulty of finding a doctor willing to recommend cannabis, combined with the intricacies of navigating Health Canadas medical cannabis bureaucracy, has given rise to clinics such as Natural Health Services in cities across Canada. In Winnipeg, Natural Health Services faces competition from the National Access Cannabis clinic at 379 Broadway and Delta 9 Lifestyle Cannabis Clinic at 478 River Ave.

Three physicians are working at Winnipegs Natural Health Services clinic as independent contractors: Dr. Gerry Lefevre, Dr. Gordon Hitchcock and Dr. Jeffrey Freedman.

Theres no guarantee the clinics doctors will authorize cannabis for every patient, Shane said.

It is a compassionate-based, harm-reduction approach that all of our physicians take, and we do believe that if you are turning to other substances or other pharmaceuticals that might have side-effects, then (cannabis) could be completely legitimate, she said.

So what they do with each and every patient is, they assess the potential risks versus the benefits. It doesnt matter what patient walks in. They will determine whether theres pre-existing conditions, like maybe schizophrenia or bipolar (disorder) or allergies, or any of that kind of thing that would indicate that maybe its not a perfect fit, and then at that time they would say no.

If a physician does recommend cannabis, one of the clinics educators will help the patient choose a licensed cannabis producer whose products meet their needs. Almost 70 such companies are federally licensed to produce cannabis right now, although not all of them have received Health Canadas blessing to sell to medical patients. Authorized patients can also sign up with Health Canada to grow their own.

Specialized medical cannabis clinics play a purpose by helping patients navigate an often very confusing system, and the physicians at these clinics are familiar with the use of cannabis for medical purposes, so they are better-equipped to help guide patients on the safe and effective use of medical cannabis compared to some physicians who dont have the education or familiarity to do so, said Jonathan Zaid, executive director of Canadians For Fair Access to Medical Marijuana.

Zaid advised potential cannabis-clinic patients to find out whether a clinic will allow them to choose freely from among all of Canadas licensed producers, as well as whether the clinic charges fees for access. Patients should find out whether a clinic is in the business of selling medical data for research, he said.

Natural Health Services patients dont pay anything for their appointments, said Shane. Instead, the physicians bill Manitobas provincial health system.

Some cannabis clinics in Canada make money by receiving educational grants from certain licensed producers  essentially referral fees for signing up patients. Shane said Natural Health Services receives no such fees, and has no affiliation with any of the licensed producers.

Its just a matter of finding the best fit for the patient, she said.

Natural Health Services makes money by retailing cannabis accessories such as grinders and vaporizers. The company also sells proprietary software designed to streamline communications between doctors, clinics and licensed cannabis producers.

Natural Health Services is a subsidiary of Sunniva Inc., a Calgary-based company with interests in the North American cannabis industry. Two other Sunniva subsidiaries are working towards growing medical cannabis in California and Canada, and another subsidiary produces vaporizers.

solomon.israel@freepress.mb.ca

@sol_israel
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 03/11/2017 (1839 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ALTONA  While nurturing newcomers from faraway places, one Manitoba town is reaping the benefits as they stimulate the local economy  and their palate.

Venezuelans are opening a gelato factory and Syrians have started a catering company in Altona, a place that welcomed them and their dreams and where theyve set down roots and plan to stay.

Its the people and the opportunities for our business, said entrepreneur Suner Gascon. She and her engineer husband, Pedro Lopez, brought their four children and the recipe for a successful gelato business to Canada from Venezuela five years ago. Now, the couple are preparing to open a gelato factory in January.

CAROL SANDERS/WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Mustafa Alsaid Hammoud and his wife Mona Al Khatib (not pictured) started their catering company Damascus Foods after arriving in Altona two years ago with their three kids. Mustafa, who was a chef in Damascus, prepares shawarmas for a group of journalism students and staff from Princeton University Wednesday at Altonas Bergthaler Mennonite Church.

The town is helping, Gascon said of Altona, a community of more than 4,100 people, located roughly 100 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.

The couple is working on a deal to set up their gelato operation in a building on a rent-to-own basis, she said. Gascon and Lopez both work at Friesens Corporation printers in Altona.

They started making 600-litre batches of their Tropi-brand sweet frozen treat in test kitchens at the University of Manitoba, Gascon said.

Theyve been selling it for $2.50 a cup at Co-op Gas Bars in Altona and Morris, where its available in three flavours: raspberry, chocolate and a vanilla-chocolate swirl. The gelato is made without preservatives or artificial colours, emulsifiers or homogenizers or modified dairy products, the product literature says, and qualifies as a reduced-fat ice cream.

With the help of their new hometown, Gascon and Lopez plan to increase the operation to market their gelato across Canada and the United States.

This is our dream, Gascon said.

When they lived in El Tigre, Venezuela, their gelato business employed 10 people. When they get the plant up and running in 2018, Gascon expects they will start with five employees and create more jobs as approvals to distribute to the U.S. come in.

The couple first settled in Winnipeg but were drawn to Altona by Friesens Corp., Gascon said. The employer took the family under its wing and helped them and their four sons  two of whom are now studying engineering at university  get established, she said, adding they feel rooted in Altona.

A Syrian chef who arrived in Altona two years ago with his wife, three children and an entrepreneurial spirit says he feels the same way.

Mustafa Alsaid Hammoud found work cooking at a restaurant in Winnipeg, but he and his wife, Mona Al Khatib, say they couldnt bring themselves to move away from the town that sponsored them as refugees and treated them like family.

The people are very kind and I like to live here, in a small town, Al Khatib said. Our children (ages eight, six and five) are safe.

Her husband quit the hour-plus drive each way to work, and recently started a catering company: Damascus Foods, named after their former home town. His specialties  falafel, fattoush salad, shawarma and hearty lentil soup  have caught on in the southern Manitoba town, said family friend Bonita Bage.

Bage belongs to Bergthaler Mennonite Church, an organization thats taken the family under its wing through the Build a Village refugee sponsorship group, started by local businessman Ray Loewen. Since 2015, it has welcomed five Syrian families and has helped the prairie towns population to grow.

I think the community has accepted them very well, Loewen said. I think that all of the families are doing extremely well.

The children are progressing in school and the older students are working part-time, he said. However, the parents are still in English classes, he said. Its a little harder for them to learn the language.

(No one in the Syrian families spoke a word of English when they arrived in the town, but were soon immersed in the language, thanks to the efforts of volunteers and service providers, Al Khatib said.)

The church has provided kitchen space for the fledgling catering business, Bage said, whose husband is the pastor. Theyre encouraging him to hold pop-up restaurants and look beyond Altona for catering jobs.

Im very proud of how far theyve come.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
The reactionary and anti-working class character of the next German government is becoming ever clearer. Last week, the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU), Greens and Free Democratic Party (FDP) discussed preserving the debt ceiling, further tax cuts for the rich and new privatisations. Now they are talking about massively increasing military expenditure and the powers of the state at home.

There are many commonalities among the negotiators concerning stronger European security and defence policy, FDP leader Christian Lindner told the Rheinische Post. We should find a European solution for the armed forces. He called the election of Emmanuel Macron as French president an opportunity that must be used exactly for this purpose. Brexit also had a positive side effect, as it would eliminate those putting a brake on increased security cooperation within the European Union (EU).

A week before the talks on a possible Jamaica coalition (after the party colours of the CDU/CSU, Greens and FDP), the CDU Economic Council increased its pressure on the partys main negotiator and acting defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, to push through a massive increase in defence spending. The Bundeswehr (armed forces) not only needed more materiel but also modern equipment, the working group on European Defence and Security Policy demanded in a position paper quoted by business daily Handelsblatt on Thursday.

Defence industrial research programmes need to be developed and improved, it says. The incoming government must ensure that technological military know-how is maintained in Germany. Two years ago, the grand coalition (Christian Democrats-Social Democrats) had decided to commit the areas of cryptology and sensor technology, as well as battle tanks and submarines, as particularly important and valuable technologies for a modern Bundeswehr. The Economic Council is now promising closer European cooperation, acquisitions in larger numbers, which can lead to national means being used more efficiently.

The far-reaching acquisitions they have in mind are well known. At the last Franco-German Council of Ministers in July, Berlin and Paris decided to develop a future fighter aircraft to replace their current fighter fleets in the long term. In an official paper, it was also agreed to create a framework for cooperation on the next generation of Tiger helicopters and a joint tactical air-to-ground missile programme.

The European armaments initiatives being forced through by the ruling class in Germany are part of the return of German militarism. They go hand in hand with a comprehensive national armaments programme, whose scale recalls the massive rearmament of the Wehrmacht (German Army) in the 1930s, and which should again enable Germany to conduct large-scale wars.

The defence ministry is presently working on an upgrade plan, which is based on the so-called provisional conceptual guidelines for the future capability profile of the Bundeswehr, according to the responsible department head at the ministry, Lieutenant General Erhard Buhler.

Accordingly, Germanys military should grow strongly in the areas of the army, air force and navy...in order to meet the new requirements, as reported by the German Bundeswehr Association (DBwV) on its web site. This concerns ensuring a full defence capability on land, sea, air, outer space and cyberspace. In order to achieve this, hundreds of tanks, new warships and fighter aircraft would have to be purchased.

To finance the massive rearmament programme, under no circumstances should there be any cuts in the defence budget, political weekly Die Zeit warns in a recent commentary. On the contrary. The exploratory coalition talks offer a great opportunity to develop a broader and more flexible understanding of defence in Germany.

The Jamaica parties apparently take the warmongers in the media at their word. In their election programmes, the CDU/CSU and FDP had already openly declared their support for the NATO target of raising defence expenditure from its current 1.2 percent to 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2024. Now, sections of the CDU/CSU are pushing for even more defence spending. It is clear that Germany must make a higher contribution than before. The increase in the defence budget to the NATO target of 2 percent of GDP should only be a first step here, it says in a motion by the CDUs youth section Junge Union at the beginning of October.

German-European war policy is supported by all the parties in the Bundestag (parliament), but above all by the Greens. Shortly before the general election, at an event at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) titled Foreign and European Policy Challenges for Germany, its lead candidate Cem Ozdemir promised, The Greens also believe the Bundeswehr must be decently equipped. And we owe it to ensure the security of the soldiers that we send on international missions, and we have to make sure that they can do their jobs properly there. Thats not for free, it has to be financed.

The Socialist Equality Party (SGP) was the only party that put the fight against war and militarism at the centre of its election campaign, and warned what the ruling class is preparing for with its insane plans for increasing military spending. Germanys ruling elite is responding to this global crisis in the same way it did in the last century. It is returning to the militarist traditions that culminated in the most horrific crimes in history. It is responding to mounting tensions with the United States by seeking to rise to a predominant position within Europe so as to be able to act as a global power, the SGP statement of September 21 said.

While there was barely any talk about these aims in the election campaign, Handelsblatt is now openly demanding the emancipation of Europe from its big brother America. The reason: Trumps entire foreign, security and trade policy resembles a frontal attack on the German business model. The American president was conducting an economic war and above all was hitting Germany, which like no other country has an international network and therefore relies on open markets and borders.

The ruling class knows that the return to an independent German great power policy has revolutionary implications. It is conscious that it can only impose its programme of militarism, rearmament and social cuts against the growing resistance of the population with an authoritarian regime, and is setting its course in this direction.

New jobs for police officers and security officials are neededthe CDU dreams of implementing its campaign demands of 15,000 new jobs, wrote Die Zeit about the exploratory coalition talks. According to the state of play on Monday, the CDU/CSU, FDP and Greens could also imagine introducing video surveillance in future at crime hot-spots and strengthen and centralise the secret services.
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.

Africa

South African coal mining union threatens national action

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is threatening a national strike in the coal mining industry over pay.

Union negotiators have rejected offers of 5 and 7 percent pay increases from different employers within the industry, for 2018 and 2019, respectively, and gave the employers until Wednesday of this week to respond. The union is calling for 8 and 9 percent.

The NUM said it would settle this years wage deal with a one-off payment of R1,100 (US$78) per member.

Strike action threatened by the union was postponed after the employers broke up the employer-union negotiating body, the Chamber of Mines.

The NUM says it will only sign the three-year agreement if the Chamber of Mines is retained as the coal mining industry negotiating body.

The National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) also came out on indefinite strike October 25 demanding payment of between five and seven months unpaid wages and allowances.

After two days of strikes, the Local Government Service Commission intervened to end the strike. The NULGE then called off the action, deferring to the government body to give them the benefit of the doubt.

South African broadcaster confronted with wage claims

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is confronted with a strike over workers wage claims.

The SABC, which is effectively bankrupt, held negotiations with the Broadcasting, Electronic, Media & Allied Workers Union and Communications Workers Union on October 23 but failed to reach an agreement.

An SABC spokesman said it had applied to government for assistance, but recognised this would come with strings attached.

Nigerian health unions suspend strike after vague commitment on jobs

The Rivers State medical workers joint union, the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU), called off their month-long strike last week. Their return to work was backed by the National Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress.

The suspension of the strike is based on a commitment by the state governor to liaise with the unions and expand employment in the health sector.

Though there is little information on the back-to-work deal, there are reports suggesting medical staff are not rushing to return to work.

The Tide, an online publication, reported that although the strike was called off on October 26, few medical workers returned to work the following day at health centres it had monitored.

Union monitoring teams were in position to ensure compliance.

Workers protest and strike for the removal of the unregulated insurance commissioner

Workers represented by the Association of Civil Servants (ASCS) protested at Nigerias National Insurance Commission in Abuja, demanding the removal of the commissioner, Mohammed Kari. The protest on October 30 was followed by a three-day warning strike. They are also demanding the promotion for staff, equipment to do their job and payment of allowances.

Protesters accuse the commissioner of turning the Commission into his own private estate and not carrying through on agreements with the union and government.

Europe

UK postal workers to hold mass gate meetings

Royal Mail staff, members of the Communications Workers Union (CWU), will hold mass gate meetings November 7 as part of their campaign to defend pensions, a wage rise and a shorter working week.

The union called off a planned 48-hour strike last month after Royal Mail won a high court appeal.

Rallies by UK civil servants over pay

Civil servants, members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), demonstrated outside premises across the country on Tuesday. They were protesting against the governments ongoing 1 percent cap on pay rises. PCS members are currently being balloted over strike action against the cap. The ballot closes on Monday.

Bus drivers in northwest walk out

Bus drivers working for First Manchester and Arriva North West took 24-hour strike action last Monday. First Manchester serves Manchester, and Arriva North West covers part of Manchester and Merseyside, Cheshire and Lancaster. They belong to the Unite and GMB unions and are seeking a pay increase.

Further strikes are planned for this coming Monday and four other days in November.

Train conductors in UK to hold further strikes over driver-only operated trains

Train conductors at five train-operating companies will come out on strike on November 8 as part of an ongoing dispute. They are opposing plans to extend the use of driver-only operated (DOO) trains. The conductors belong to the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union. Conductors at Southern, South Western Railways and Greater Anglia will begin a 48-hour strike, while those at Merseyrail and Arriva Rail North will be on strike for 24 hours.

Capita staff fight attack on pensions

Staff working for the outsourcing firm Capita began a nine-day strike last Saturday. They are opposing plans to close the current defined-benefit pension scheme and transfer them to an inferior defined contribution pension scheme. They are represented by the Unite union.

The strike impacted Capita offices in Birmingham, Reading, Bristol, Manchester, Stirling and Belfast.

UK airline staff vote to end dispute

Cabin crew working for British Airways (BA) mixed fleet flying out of Heathrow have voted by around 80 percent to end their dispute and accept a deal offered by BA.

The deal includes an increase in basic pay of between 1,404 and 2,908, as well as the restoration of travel concessions and inclusion in the BA bonus scheme, withdrawn for cabin crew who took industrial action. In return, the Unite union will drop legal action against BA for its use of Qatar Airways planes and staff to bypass strikers action.

The dispute, which began in December against poverty pay, involved a total of 85 days of strike action. According to some reports, the increase in basic pay will be financed by cuts in pay to incentive payments. Unite said in a statement that it looked forward to working with BA to ensure the airline goes from strength to strength in these uncertain times.

London cinema staff continue action for living wage

Staff working for the Picturehouse group at five sites across London will strike Monday as part of their ongoing fight to be paid the London Living Wage, along with demands for sick pay and maternity pay. They are members of the media union Bectu.

Rally of Bulgarian workers pushes for higher wages

More than 4,000 workers rallied in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia on October 27 demanding higher pay. The rally included doctors, miners and civil servants. Bulgarian wages are the lowest in the European Union.

The Bulgarian economy is set to grow by nearly 4 percent next year, and the government has said it will set pay increases. These increases, however, only target certain sectors, and although the government has promised to increase the minimum wage, workers are pushing for a higher amount.

Irish rail staff hold one-day strike

Rail staff working for the Irish Rail Company, Iarnrod Eireann, held a 24-hour strike on Wednesday. It affected the Dublin Bay rail system, which carries around 70,000 passengers daily. In addition, commuter services with 45,000 passengers and 40,000 using intercity services are also affected.

The National Bus and Railworkers Union and Services Industrial Professional and Technical Union, which represent the striking workers, have put in a claim for a 3.75 percent pay rise. Their members have gone nearly 10 years without an increase in pay. The company has offered a 1.7 percent increase.

Four additional 24-hour strikes are planned for November 7, 14 and 23 and December 8, though union leaders said the strikes could continue into the New Year.

Maltese teachers set to strike

On Wednesday, the Maltese Union of Teachers (MUT) stated it would proceed with its planned one-day strike on November 8. Teachers are seeking a 20 percent pay rise; in response, the government has offered a nearly 5 percent rise over five years. They are also calling on the government to step up teacher recruitment to overcome an ongoing teacher shortage.

The planned one-day strike would hit all state and church schools. In addition, MUT members will hold a one-hour strike at the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology and the Institute of Tourism Studies.

Polish medics wind up hunger strike

On Tuesday, Polish junior doctors in eight Polish cities, who have been undertaking a hunger strike for the last four weeks, announced they would end their action. They had been on a hunger strike to call for higher wages and increased resources for the health service.

They will, however, still continue to protest and have said they will no longer abide by an opt-out clause in their contracts, which waives their right to adhere to the European Union directive on working time allowing them to work longer than the 48-hours-a-week limit.

They will also resign from additional posts, which they undertake on top of their regular resident doctor roles. These additional posts often involve working as emergency or night-cover medics.

Portuguese public sector action

Public sector workers in Portugal, including health care, education, social security, court staff and tax office staff, held a 24-hour strike on October 27. They are seeking a pay rise, a 35-hour working week and automatic career progression.

Middle East

Moroccan oil workers march to demand oil refinery reopen

Oil workers organised by the SNIPGN-CDT union held a march in Casablanca on Saturday demanding the reopening of the SAMIR oil refinery. The march set off from the head office of the CDT trade union confederation, finishing at the Commercial Court.

The refinery stopped production in August 2015, as it was unable to meet a US$1.3 billion tax bill. Around 1,000 workers at the refinery retained their jobs to maintain the refinery but have had their wages cut by around 50 percent, and their pensions and health coverage contributions are not being paid. Thousands of other workers have lost their jobs in related industries.

The union is appealing to the government to take over the refinery directly, or enter into a joint venture with a private company to restart production there.
Webster PR, the Nashville firm with the biggest client roster in country music, continues to experience mass defections in the face of sexual harassment charges being publicly lobbed against the companys president and CEO, Kirt Webster, including flagship client Dolly Parton, who disappeared from the firms website Thursday morning.

An artist roster that numbered 71 clients in September was down to 37 by Thursday morning, with most of those exits happening in the previous 24 hours. A list of corporate or non-music clients was down from a peak of 33 in September to 23, putting the total number of recent departures at close to 50. Early Thursday afternoon, the list of clients was finally taken off the Webster PR site altogether.

Among those disappearing from the Webster website since the Nashville Scene first reported allegations on Tuesday afternoon, besides Parton: Kid Rock (whose impending Friday album release had been heavily promoted by Webster), Kenny Rogers, Hank Williams Jr., Kenny G, Billy Ray Cyrus, Tanya Tucker, Big & Rich, Cyndi Lauper, Kiefer Sutherland, Don McLean, the Oak Ridge Boys, William Michael Morgan, Roy Clark, KC and the Sunshine Band, Bill Anderson, Jeannie Seely, LoCash, Lucas Hoge, Lacy J. Dalton, Olivia Lane, John Conlee, Gene Watson, Johnny Lee, Moe Bandy, Tim Rushlow, Leroy Van Dyke, Denny Strickland, Johnny Lee, and Deborah Allen.

Others who parted ways from Webster in recent days or weeks include Justin Moore, Lee Greenwood, Taylor Hicks, Jewel, and Aaron Lewis. It was widely reported Thursday that Randy Travis had fired Webster in the wake of the allegations, but Travis actually had not used Websters services since February.

Travis new publicist, Zach Farnum, left Webster PR in May to start his own company. He tells Variety it was purely a coincidence that he finally announced signing Travis last Friday, the same day that a little-known country hopeful named Austin Rick first took to Facebook to post sexual harassment charges against Webster.

Story continues

Over the past two days, former employees of Webster PR have alleged to Variety and several other publications that Kirt Webster did a mocking impression of Travis, who still suffers after-effects of a debilitating stroke, in the office. I hate the accusations that are being made about [Webster] making fun of Randy and all that, Farnum said, while declining to comment on whether hed ever witnessed the mockery himself, or anything else about his former employer.

Another former Webster employee, Scott Adkins, has also started his own firm, and he confirmed to Variety that he only resigned as a Webster VP on Wednesday morning. Adkins declined to comment on his tenure with Webster. One of the newly departed Webster clients, Billy Ray Cyrus, already lists Adkins as his new publicist on his web page, although Adkins declined to discuss the developing client roster of his day-old firm yet.

Not all the clients listed on Websters site Thursday may still be affiliated with the firm. A rep for Meat Loaf said the rocker hasnt worked with Webster since the completion of his album cycle late last year, despite still being pictured as a client. (Conway Twitty and Don Williams, two of the 32 artists who were still listed on the roster Thursday before it was deleted, are deceased.)

More than a dozen other former employees of Webster PR have been speaking with the press, albeit mostly not for attribution, telling their own stories of emotionally abusive or suggestive remarks, unwanted touching, and viewings of pornography in the office. There is apparently no shortage of ex-employees to talk with: One publicist who spent years at the company said her long tenure there was the exception, and that the turnover rate was so high, the firm would sometimes cycle through around 50 employees a year in an office of 8-10, many of them recent college graduates getting their first gig in the music industry.

Managers of Websters clients have been taken aback by the quick turn of events this week. Partons manager, Danny Nozell of CTK Management, had several clients with Webster earlier in the week. By Thursday morning, three of them  Parton, Kenny G, and KC and the Sunshine Band  were gone from the roster, but two others (Seether and Vivic) were still listed. Nozell did not immediately return a request for comment.

As of now, the firms website still lists the name of the company as Webster PR and its president and CEO as Kirt Webster. A different Nashville PR firm had issued a press release on Websters behalf Wednesday, saying that partner Jeremy Westby would take over leadership while the embattled head temporarily stepped aside to focus on combating the egregious and untrue allegations. The release also said the name of the company would be changed to Westby PR.

By Thursday morning, a new, separate website had appeared for Westby PR, but it was unclear whether this was to be a continuation of Webster PR or whether Westby was setting up his own shingle. The new Westby PR website consists of nothing but a list of 19 clients, all of whom had appeared, or still do, on the Webster website list  including Rogers, the Oak Ridge Boys, Kenny G, and the controversial NRA Country. Wanda Jackson appears on both the Webster and Westby rosters.

Joyce Moore, Sam Moores manager and wife, says she is sticking with Westby and Webster, in whatever new form the company their representation may take. I think its in transition and theyre trying to get everything up to speed, she says. Whether this [Austin] Rick guy is telling the truth or not, the idea of how hes going about handling his private personal business has had a dramatically devastating effect on artists like Sam, who are in the middle of trying to promote their careers and new product. (The former member of Sam & Dave just released a new album of patriotic music.) I am actually quite angry at what this guy has done to my 82-year-old client. It has cost him setbacks because of what had to be done at the company, and it has caused us personal sadness because of a 20-year-plus relationship with Kirt and his family.

Many ex-Webster employees are feeling less sadness about the hit the company is taking. Weve all been through hell, said one of the firms more prominent former publicists, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He had one of the best PR teams in the business, and we all just wanted to do our jobs and pursue our dreams. We all witnessed harassment, and some of us were the brunt of it and some werent, but it affected all of us. Karmas a bitch.

In other developments Thursday, the Tennessean published a report that three more former employees had come forward to the paper with complaints of unwanted sex, groping, or sexual advances involving Webster, The website Taste of Country published a follow-up interview with Rick, the former country artist whose allegations first caused the stir.

Westby and Webster have not returned requests from Variety or other publications for comment on the allegations or business restructuring.

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In March earlier this year, the governor was presented with the Montana Alzheimers and Dementia State Plan, which is a direct call to action to improve dementia care in communities throughout our state.

As a geriatric doctor at the Billings Clinic, I am a proud member of the Montana Alzheimers Disease and Related Dementias Workgroup, which is collaborating with a large coalition to address Alzheimers and dementia needs.

Our plan, though, is rendered useless if the funding for the exact services and programs that serve people with Alzheimers disease and dementia are cut to the bone.

By the year 2025, about one in four Montanans will have surpassed the age of 65, jumping from about 100,000 people now to 240,000. In fact, our senior population as a share of the state population is already the fourth-highest in the nation.

As our parents and grandparents age, families struggle with the stress of caring for loved ones who are experiencing the debilitating effects of degenerative brain diseases. Currently 20,000 people live with Alzheimers or a related dementia in Montana, and another 49,000 family members and friends provide their care.

Alzheimers disease is one of the most important health care crises of our generation. It is prevalent, under-diagnosed, and carries significant caregiver burden. It is one of the costliest chronic diseases to society and the sixth-leading cause of death in Montana.

The cuts made to human services during the Legislature were devastating. The proposed cuts, if enacted upon, set us up for total failure to properly serve the people and communities of Montana. These cuts to services and programs to support our spouses, parents and grandparents are cruel.

If the governor and Legislature cannot work together to develop long-term solutions to balance the budget, there will be unnecessary suffering to many Montana families and seniors. We urge legislators and the governor to come together for a special session in order to prevent further harm.

Without their action and leadership, the cuts could include:

 $20 million from Medicaid services, which provide care in homes or assisted living;

 eliminating hospice care for Medicaid recipients;

 eliminating health care coverage for certain Medicaid healthcare workers;

 closing 16 adult protective services offices;

 over $45 million in lost personal care services that help people stay in their homes;

 eliminating funding to reform the adult guardianship system;

 eliminating prescription drug assistance for over 10,000 seniors; and

 reduction of $1.4 million for Medicaid incontinence supplies.

The state will ultimately pay a greater price for cuts to senior and in-home care services because Montanans will be forced into nursing homes for their long-term and end-of-life care. Nursing homes are far more expensive and many people with dementia may not do well living in large, institutional facilities. Better and less costly options include small, specialized assisted living facilities and memory care units and enhanced services at home where people experiencing dementia can stay connected to their families and familiar environments.

No one should face Alzheimers disease or any other dementia alone. The Montana Alzheimers Disease and Related Dementias Workgroup urges the Legislature to work with Gov. Steve Bullock to hold a special session in which real, long-term solutions are on the table for a balanced approach.

-- Dr. Patricia Coon of Billings is chair of the Montana Alzheimers/Dementia Work Group.
Following his controversial coming-out statement, Kevin Spacey has been accused of sexual misconduct by other men.

Spaceys message to live as a gay man was originally in response to actor Anthony Rapp accusing him of unwanted sexual advances when he was 14 years old.

Now, in a new interview with Vulture, another man says he was involved in a sexual relationship with Spacey when he too was 14 years old. The relationship eventually soured, the man says, after Spacey allegedly tried to rape him.

The man chose to remain anonymous to protect his and his current partners privacy but revealed that he was a former acting student of Spaceys in the early 80s.

He said, I went to Saturday acting classes in Westchester County, outside of New York, around 1981.  I was 12, and [Spacey] taught at the school, maybe just for half a year. He wasnt a known person at that time.

Nothing inappropriate happened between the student and Spacey during those classes, but a few years later, the two bumped into each other. Spacey gave the man, then 14 years old, his number and invited him to his apartment in New York.

He said, I went and saw him at an apartment he was renting on the Upper West Side.  We started a sexual relationship that first visit

The man saw Spacey three or four more times before the alleged attack took place. He was visiting Spaceys apartment when, he claims, the actor suddenly tried to force himself on him. He told Vulture, He must have come up behind me and yanked down my baggy jeans  and Im like, No, I dont want to. And he pushes hard, and grabs me.  I throw him off of me, and I run crying down the stairs and out into the street.

Kevin Spaceys lawyer replied to Vulture about the relationship in an email: Mr. Spacey absolutely denies the allegations.

Spaceys former student spoke with Vulture because he was upset with the actors response to Rapps accusations. And he didnt pull any punches when describing what he claims Spacey did, saying, I would call him a pedophile and a sexual predator.  When you look at his statement, you realize also hes profoundly narcissistic. He thinks this is about being caught that hes gay.

In related news, Kevin Spaceys initial statement outraged many in the LGBTQ community including those in late night:
A letter sent to the cast and crew detailed the plan going forward in the wake of Kevin Spacey's sexual misconduct allegations.

Further allegations of sexual misconduct have been leveled against Kevin Spacey by accusers who claim to have been harassed by the actor.

Following allegations made by actor Anthony Rapp -- who claimed that Spacey made sexual advances on him in 1986 when he was a 14-year-old Broadway star -- earlier this week, a number of other men have come out to share their own accounts of alleged misconduct.

Filmmaker Tony Montana, best known for directing the acclaimed documentary Overnight, alleged that Spacey groped him at a bar in 2003.

"I went up to order a drink and Kevin came up to me and put his arm around me," Montana claimed in an interview with Radar Online. "He was telling me to come with him, to leave the bar. He put his hand on my crotch forcefully and grabbed my whole package."

WATCH: Anthony Rapp Claims Kevin Spacey Made a Sexual Advance Towards Him When He Was 14

Montana claims that Spacey appeared to be intoxicated and alleges that the actor then attempted to follow him into the bathroom after Montana strongly rebuffed his advances.

"I backed him out the door and I pushed him," he stated. "One of his friends was in line and I said, 'It's time to take your boy home.' They all ended up leaving.'"

On Thursday, Vulture published an interview with a man -- who spoke with the publication on the condition of retaining anonymity -- who claimed to have had a sexual relationship with Spacey when he was a teenager.

The unnamed accuser said that he met Spacey in New York in 1983, when he was 14 and Spacey was 24. He alleged that Spacey gave him his phone number and the two engaged in a physical relationship.

WATCH: Kevin Spacey Comes Out as Gay, Responds to Anthony Rapp's Allegations: 'I'm Beyond Horrified'

He further alleges that Spacey attempted to forcibly have sex with him after he had told the actor he didn't want to.

"I told him I didn't want that, he went again to do it, I told him no, he went again and pushed harder and grabbed me and pushed harder," the man alleged. "I dont know how I would see that as anything besides an attempted rape, which I was able to thwart."

Story continues

Vulture reached out to Spacey's reps for comments on the allegations, and reported that the actor's attorney responded in an email that Spacey "absolutely denies the allegations."

NEWS: 'House Of Cards' Production Suspended Indefinitely Following Kevin Spacey Sexual Misconduct Allegation

Another report, published by CNN on Thursday, claims that Spacey made the set of House of Cards a "toxic environment for young men who had to interact with him at all in the crew, cast, background actors," according to one of eight production assistants and crew members who spoke with CNN on the condition of anonymity.

One of the unnamed production assistants interviewed in the report claimed that Spacey sexually assaulted him when he was tasked with driving Spacey to the House of Cards set.

"I was in a state of shock," he told CNN. "He was a man in a very powerful position on the show and I was someone very low on the totem pole and on the food chain there."

The production assistant claimed that, months before the alleged sexual assault, he had complained to his supervisor that Spacey had been sexually harassing him. He told CNN that the supervisor's solution was "to never let the production assistant be alone with Spacey while they were on set."

NEWS: House of Cards Creator Beau Willimon Responds to 'Deeply Troubling' Kevin Spacey Allegation

Another unnamed House of Cards crewmember claimed that Spacey sexually harassed him as well, telling CNN, "He would put his hands on me in weird ways He would come in and massage my shoulders from behind or put his hands around me or touch my stomach sometimes in weird ways that in normal everyday conversation would not be appropriate."

Media Rights Capital, the production company behind the hit Netflix series, released a statement to ET on Thursday regarding the new reports.

"We are deeply troubled to learn about these new allegations that are being made to the press concerning Kevin Spaceys interaction with members of the crew of House of Cards," MRC stated. "As the producer of the show, creating and maintaining a safe working environment for our cast and crew has always been our top priority. We have consistently reinforced the importance of employees reporting any incident without fear of retaliation and we have investigated and taken appropriate actions following any complaints."

"For example, during our first year of production in 2012, someone on the crew shared a complaint about a specific remark and gesture made by Kevin Spacey. Immediate action was taken following our review of the situation and we are confident the issue was resolved promptly to the satisfaction of all involved," the statement continued. "Mr. Spacey willingly participated in a training process and since that time MRC has not been made aware of any other complaints involving Mr. Spacey."

"In response to the current situation, on Tuesday of this week, MRC installed an anonymous complaint hotline, crisis counselors, and sexual harassment legal advisors for the crew. MRC will continue to thoroughly investigate all current claims and any new claims that are formally brought to our attention, and will continue to monitor our own production and practices to ensure that our cast and crew feel safe and supported," the statement added.

NEWS: Olivia Munn, Natasha Henstridge Accuse Brett Ratner of Sexual Misconduct

Production on season six of House of Cardswas shut down this week amid the growing number of allegations against the show's star, who also serves as an executive producer on the series.

Netflix released a separate statement on Thursday, claiming that they were only aware of one incident of sexual misconduct allegedly involving Spacey.

"When the allegations broke about Kevin Spacey on Sunday night, in conjunction with MRC, we sent a representative to set on Monday morning. Netflix was just made aware of one incident, five years ago, that we were informed was resolved swiftly. On Tuesday, in collaboration with MRC, we suspended production, knowing that Kevin Spacey wasn't scheduled to work until Wednesday," the digital streaming media service stated. "Netflix is not aware of any other incidents involving Kevin Spacey on set. We continue to collaborate with MRC and other production partners to maintain a safe and respectful working environment. We will continue to work with MRC during this hiatus time to evaluate our path forward as it relates to the production."

ET has reached out to Spacey's reps for comment on the allegations.

NEWS: 'This Is Us' Removes Kevin Spacey Reference Amid Sexual Misconduct Allegation

These latest accusations against the embattled actor come in the wake of Rapp's interview with Buzzfeed, published on Sunday, in which the actor alleged that he met Spacey several times at multiple post-shows events in 1986, when both performers were starring in separate Broadway shows.

The now-46-year-old star claimed that Spacey invited him to a party at his apartment, and when he went he was the only non-adult. Rapp claims that he ended up wandering into one of the bedrooms to watch TV, and after the party ended, Spacey came into the room, picked him up, placed him on his bed and climbed on top of him, making a sexual advance.

Rapp alleged that Spacey appeared to be drunk and that "he was trying to seduce me."

"I don't know if I would have used that language. But I was aware that he was trying to get with me sexually," the actor said in the interview.

Rapp said that thinking of the alleged incident is still "deeply confusing" for him.

"My stomach churns," he said. "I still to this day can't wrap my head around so many aspects of it."

NEWS: Laura Dern Reveals Her Sexual Harassment Experience in Hollywood

Spacey released a statement responding to Rapp's allegations hours after the report was published, in which the 58-year-old actor said, "I have a lot of respect and admiration for Anthony Rapp as an actor. Im beyond horrified to hear his story."

"I honestly do not remember the encounter, it would have been over 30 years ago," he continued. "But if I did behave as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years."

Spacey then used the statement to address rumors regarding his sexuality, writing, "I have loved and had romantic relationships with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man."

NEWS: Kevin Spacey Is Seeking Evaluation and Treatment Following Sexual Misconduct Accusations

Spacey's decision to come out as gay in response to sexual misconduct allegations was roundly criticized by many, including the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

Following the additional accusations made in subsequent days, the actor's rep released a statement to ET on Wednesday, saying, "Kevin Spacey is taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment. No other information is available at this time."

Watch the video below for more on the allegations against Spacey.

Related Articles
Kevin Spaceys robust supporting actor Oscar campaign for Ridley Scotts All the Money in the World has been shelved, Variety has learned. The move comes amid allegations of sexual harassment directed at the two-time Oscar-winning actor that stretch back 30 years.

Buried under considerable makeup and prosthetics, Spacey stars as oil tycoon J. Paul Getty in the film. The campaign was going to feature him front and center and focus on his physical transformation, according to two individuals with knowledge of the discontinued plans. But the embattled actor will no longer be in the spotlight as Sony and TriStar Pictures look to salvage the awards marketing strategy by featuring Spaceys co-stars Michelle Williams and Mark Wahlberg.

Spacey, who previously won best supporting actor for The Usual Suspects in 1996 and best actor for American Beauty in 2000, was first accused last week by actor Anthony Rapp. Rapp alleged that Spacey made a sexual advance toward him when Rapp was just 14 years old. Others have come forward since with allegations of groping and preying on young actors who performed at Londons Old Vic Theatre, where Spacey served as artistic director from 2004 to 2015.

In a response posted to Twitter, Spacey apologized to Rapp for what would have been inappropriate drunken behavior. The response was widely derided, both for blaming alleged criminal behavior on hypothetical intoxication, and for lumping those accusations in with Spaceys coming out as a homosexual.

Also contending for supporting actor recognition this year is The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) star Dustin Hoffman. So far two women have come forward alleging sexual harassment by the 80-year-old screen legend. As of this time, there are no plans to change course in his campaign; he is in fact scheduled to appear with co-star Adam Sandler at a Screen Actors Guild screening of the film on Sunday night.

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In the wake of the allegations against Spacey, the International TV Academy scrapped plans to honor the actor with its founders award. The Motion Picture Academy, meanwhile, may make its own determination. The group ousted disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein last month and later announced plans to establish a code of conduct for members, which will include a policy for evaluating alleged violations and determining if action regarding membership is warranted.

Asked whether Spacey will be a topic of discussion at the next Academy board meeting in December, an AMPAS spokesperson referred Variety back to that announcement.

On Tuesday, Netflix and Media Rights Capital suspended production on the sixth and final season of House of Cards. Spacey has received a Golden Globe and two Screen Actors Guild Awards for the series, which put Netflixs original programming on the map. The next day, Spacey announced through a rep that he is taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment.

All the Money in the World is still set to premiere as the closing night selection of this years AFI Fest on Nov. 16. It will be released theatrically on Dec. 22.

Related stories

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Kevin Spacey to Seek 'Evaluation and Treatment'

More Allegations of Sexual Misconduct Surface Against Kevin Spacey

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The Butte Rescue Mission is seeking a new zoning variance that would allow it to shelter homeless people in portable housing units on property at Arizona and Platinum streets.

Its the latest potential site the mission has proposed since it was forced to close its longstanding shelter at 1204 E. Second St. in April because of fire safety concerns.

The mission has a tentative buy-sell agreement with John and Marie Cashell in Butte to purchase 1.6 acres at 610 E. Platinum Street, where it intersects with Arizona, said Rocky Lyons, the missions executive director.

The area is on the north side of Buttes so-called warehouse district and would be a great spot for portable housing units the mission purchased months ago in North Dakota, Lyons said.

The mission bought the units after efforts to locate a shelter in a vacant Uptown building and then an empty school on the Flat fell through in part because of opposition from residents and businesses in those areas. The mission later hoped to locate the units off of South Harrison Avenue, but the landowner pulled out.

There are three residences nearby to the north of the new site, but the area is zoned heavy industrial. The lot has an old, two-story warehouse and a gravel parking area and is sparsely covered with grasses and weeds.

East Platinum dead-ends at the east end of the lot, and there is open land to the south and southeast. Mission officials have applied for a needed variance, and the Zoning Board could consider the request Nov. 16.

The mission says it would plant trees and shrubs on the lot to make it more appealing and could use the warehouse for an administration office and dayroom where people could shower and do laundry.

Our first priority would be getting our units set and start feeding and sheltering people, Lyons said.

If a variance is granted and weather cooperates, mission officials say they could have groundwork done and move portable units onto the property by late December. Painting, cleanup, hiring, and stocking the new facility could be done by February.

Lyons said that timetable would be difficult to meet if the cold and snowy weather this week doesnt let up and winter truly sets in. If thats the case, it could be spring before the shelter is up and running.

The zoning application is complete and very detailed, Lyons said, and includes site maps and artist renderings of how the facility would look.

Dave Palmer, Butte-Silver Bows chief executive, said the site needs to be tested for possible mine contamination and there could be other issues involved. But in general, he said it would probably be a good location for a shelter since its in a largely industrial area away from neighborhoods.
According to a journalist who works closely with Melania Trump, there is a "real mystery with the first lady."

As someone whose job is to literally follow the first lady around every day, CNN White House reporter Kate Bennett says she's gathered a few takeaways about Trump.

"I sometimes call her the unicorn, because people are fixated by her," Bennett told fashion website Daily Front Row. "She doesnt emote a lotshes quiet, so theres a lot of differences (not saying good or bad) from what were used to."

Prior to her writing exclusively for CNN about all things first lady, Bennett covered the final year and a half of the Obama administration under the Independent Journal Review.

RELATED: Melania Trump in her White House role



As part of her work for CNN, where she produces content for its Cover/Line vertical, Bennett has accompanied the first lady on abroad visits to Europe and the Toronto Invictus Games.

She described the first lady as "very, quiet, reserved" in comparison to her predecessor, Michelle Obama -- which she adds could be why people sometimes mistake for her being unhappy or "miserable."

However, Bennett said the two women were not "that dissimilar in their enthusiasm for the job," adding that she thinks some would be shocked to learn that the first lady is not as forlorn about public duties as people and the media have speculated.

SEE ALSO:Melania Trump to be protected by Japan's first-ever, all-female police squad

From what Ive observed, she really connects well and seems to come alive in a joyful way when shes around kids. I think we saw that on her trip to Europe this spring when she visited sick children in hospitals and went to schools. It was the most weve seen from and heard from her, Bennett said.

Ive also learned that she has a side to her thats very mom focused, not unlike Michelle Obama. Her primary concern is her son and being a good mom."

RELATED: First lady Melania Trump with children


A former Boardwalk Empire actress is alleging that Harvey Weinstein raped her twice

Harvey Weinstein is facing more allegations of rape following claims by former Boardwalk Empire actress Paz de la Huerta in a Vanity Fair interview published Wednesday.

De la Huerta, 33, told the magazine that Weinstein, 65, had allegedly raped her twice in 2010.

The actress, who was 26 at the time the alleged incidents occurred, told Vanity Fair that the Hollywood producer had offered to give her a ride to her home in New York Citys Tribeca neighborhood after they ran into each other at the Top of the Standard bar at the Standard High Line hotel in Manhattan.

Once they arrived at her home, the actress alleged to the magazine that Weinstein began demanding to come inside for a drink.

Things got very uncomfortable very fast, de la Huerta told Vanity Fair.

Immediately when we got inside the house, he started to kiss me and I kind of brushed [him] away, she claims in the magazine article. Then he pushed me into the bed and his pants were down and he lifted up my skirt. I felt afraid It wasnt consensual It happened very quickly He stuck himself inside me When he was done he said hed be calling me. I kind of just laid on the bed in shock.

A second incident allegedly occurred in late December 2010, when de la Huerta claims Weinstein waited for her in her building lobby as she returned from a photo shoot.

Paz de la Huerta speaks to Vanity Fair about the two times she was allegedly raped by Harvey Weinstein https://t.co/Brr7tqtw7r pic.twitter.com/7xSklJOkjO  VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) November 3, 2017

Related article: Powerful men who have been accused of sexual misconduct after the Weinstein scandal

The actress said she had been drinking beforehand, and that she felt frightened by the mogul. He had been calling her incessantly, she told the magazine, despite her pleas to him to leave her alone.

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He hushed me and said, Lets talk about this in your apartment, de la Huerta said. I was in no state. I was so terrified of him.

She told Vanity Fair she did say no to Weinsteins advances, adding, When he was on top of me I said, I dont want to do this. He kept humping me and it was disgusting. Hes like a pig He raped me.

Afterward, the former A Walk to Remember actress alleged that Weinstein had offered to put her in a play, but that she never heard from him again.

I laid there feeling sick, she said in the article. He knew he had done a bad thing.

A rep for Weinstein tells PEOPLE in a statement that any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein.

Related article: Georgina Chapman will never take Harvey Weinstein back but is still in contact, says source

NYPD detective Nicholas DiGuadio, who is leading the Weinstein investigation, told Vanity Fair that he has interviewed de la Huerta as well as other women, as part of the investigation against the producer.

I believe based on my interviews with Paz that from the N.Y.P.D. standpoint we have enough to make an arrest, DiGuadio said.

The department said in a statement to PEOPLE it is aware of the sexual assault complaints. We are actively investigating them. The NYPD continues to work the Manhattan District Attorneys office.

The Oscar-winning producer has been accused of sexual misconduct by over 50 women since The New York Times and The New Yorker documented decades of alleged sexual misconduct and sexual assault involving a number of women in detailed articles earlier this month.

A spokesperson for Weinstein previously told PEOPLE in a statement that in addition to denying any non-consensual sex, Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances.
A gunman killed 3 people in a random attack at a Colorado Walmart

Police are hunting for the gunman who nonchalantly walked into a Walmart outside Denver on Wednesday and opened fire on customers, killing three people before fleeing the scene. Police say the killings appear to be a random act of violence.

Two men and a woman were killed in the attack that occurred at around 6 p.m. at the Walmart in Thornton, Colorado, police announced. The men died inside the store and the woman died later that night at a hospital, authorities said on Twitter.

A surveillance photo of the suspect, shared by police, showed a white man wearing a dark jacket. Although the suspect remains at large, and police have not determined a motive for the attack. Authorities have said the shooting was not an act of terrorism.

Thornton police spokesman Victor Avila said the shooter nonchalantly walked into the store and opened fire, the Associated Press reports. He is considered armed and dangerous.

This is a very heinous act, Avila said. We dont know exactly what the motive of the person was, but it was certainly a terrible act.

THORNTON, CO  NOVEMBER 1: Police investigate the scene of a shooting at a Wal Mart store in the Thorton Town Center shopping plaza on November 1, 2017 in Thornton, Colorado. According to reports, two people were killed and one was injured. (Photo by Marc Piscotty/Getty Images)

No Walmart employees were hurt in the attack, a Walmart official told KUSA. Nearly 50 witnesses were taken to a nearby police station in the wake of the shooting before being released, according to the station. There was a brief lockdown at a nearby medical center.

Walmart shooting

One shopper, Aaron Stephens, told KUSA that he was at the self-checkout when he heard the gunfire.

At first I thought it was a firecracker, he said. It sounded more  it was louder  I was like, what the hecks going on? Then I heard two more shots and I freaked out and hit the ground.

 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

He added: Employees were screaming. Customers were running like crazy. And I went out with everybody else.

Guadalupe Perez told the AP that she heard the gunshots as she was in the store with her young son. She recalled hearing someone yell, Lets go. Lets go. Leave the groceries.

You see all these things in the news and you go through it, its scary, she told the publication. But thank God were OK and nothing happened to us.
By Hilary Weaver. Photos by: Getty Images.

The ever-growing list of women accusing Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment and assault has sparked a wave of new accusations against other powerful men, and its a reckoning that is by no means limited to Hollywood.

A Page Six report says that Kirt Webster, the king of country P.R., has stepped away from his business as a prominent country publicist after former client Austin Rick has accused him of sexual assault and harassment. In a Facebook statement, Rick accused Webster of drugging, sexually violating, and paying him off to keep [his] mouth shut in 2008. In words that echo what Weinstein allegedly said to several victims, Rick claims that Webster did everything under threat that hed make sure nobody in the industry ever heard [his] name again.

Meanwhile, U.K. politics has been rocked by its own massive scandal. An uncensored list made its way across social media as a dirty dossier, in which 7 Cabinet ministers, 14 other government ministers, and 8 other former ministers were accused of various acts of sexual misconduct. Per the Independent, 25 members of the conservative-leaning Tory party are said to have exhibited inappropriate behavior with other staff members.

Included on the list was Michael Fallon, who resigned from his position as defense secretary on Wednesday, with a letter in which he wrote, I accept that in the past I have fallen below the high standard we require of the Armed Forces that I have the [honor] to represent."

The unverified spreadsheet that was passed among staffers and journalists has had a similar effort to the Shitty Media Men list that spread in the U.S., containing allegations that led to the resignations of The New Republics [Hamilton Fish and Leon Wieseltier] (https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/10/new-republic-publisher-on-leave-of-absence-after-sexual-harassment-allegations) as well as Voxs Lockhart Steele.

This story originally appeared on Vanity Fair.

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The 20 Most Satisfying TV Kisses of All Time

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Hollywoods Now-Forgotten Celebrity Couples
Kevin Spacey has entered a treatment facility, putting the future of House of Cards on hold

As the allegations of sexual misconduct continue to grow, actor Kevin Spacey has reported entered treatment.

Kevin Spacey is taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment, Spaceys representatives said in a statement to The New York Times. No other information will be available at this time.

Last week, Star Trek actor Anthony Rapp revealed to BuzzFeed that an intoxicated Spacey made unwanted sexual advances toward him when he was just 14 during a party in New York City in 1986  Spacey was 26 at the time. In a statement posted to Twitter, the House of Cards actor apologized for his behavior towards Rapp, while maintaining he has no recollection of the event, saying, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.

Since then, numerous other men have come forward with allegations of unwanted sexual advances and other misconduct against the actor, including filmmaker Tony Montana and actor Roberto Cavazos, who said in a Facebook post that Spacey was known to make advances on younger men.

In the wake of allegations, Netflix announced that Spacey-led series House of Cards would end after its sixth season. Since then, production on the sixth season has been put on hold indefinitely.

Cavazos wrote that many actors, who performed at the Old Vic theater in London during Spaceys tenure as artistic director, were also sexually harassed by the actor.

It seems that it only took a male under 30 to make Mr. Spacey feel free to touch us, Cavazos wrote, revealing that Spacey would often approach young male actors under the guise of discussing their budding careers. I do not remember how many people told me the same story: Spacey invited them to meet him to talk about their careers. When they arrived at the theater, the gentleman had prepared a picnic with champagne on the stage, beautifully lit. Each story varied in how far the picnic came, but the technique was the same. More common was that the man was in the bar of his theater, squeezing whoever caught his attention.

The Old Vic has since come under scrutiny allegedly turning a blind eye on Spaceys behavior during his 12 year tenure at the theater. Despite the theater maintaining that no complaints against the actor were made while he served as artistic director and in the years since his departure, numerous employees have come forward to say that Spaceys behavior not only well known but the theater and its employees were involved in covering it up. An anonymous employee told The Guardian. We were all involved in keeping it quiet. I witnessed him groping men many times in all sorts of different situations.

Its currently unknown what exactly Spacey is seeking treatment for.
By Yohana Desta. Photo by: Getty Images.

Just a few days after actor Anthony Rapp accused him of sexual misconduct, representatives for Kevin Spacey have announced that the actor is retreating from the public eye for a spell. Like Harvey Weinstein, who fled to a rehabilitation center shortly after the allegations against him were made public, Spacey is going to get help.

According to a representative, the actor is taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment. He certainly has the time now that his Netflix series House of Cards has been put on hold. The streaming platform suspended production of the series, which is on its sixth, and final, season, after Rapps claims about the actor went viral. In a lengthy interview with BuzzFeed, Rapp said that when he was 14, Spacey drunkenly climbed on top of him and tried to make a sexual advance. The actor was 26 at the time.

Shortly after the claims were made, Spacey issued an apology, saying he does not remember the incident but is beyond horrified to hear Rapp retell it now. He also concluded the apology by coming out as gay. Spaceys decision to come out in the same breath as his apology for trying to seduce an underaged kid has been met with derision by prominent figures in the LGBTQ community, including G.L.A.A.D. president and C.E.O. Sarah Kate Ellis and actor Zachary Quinto, who called it a calculated manipulation to deflect attention from the very serious accusation that Rapp made.

Since then, Spacey has been thrown into the same predatory pile as Brett Ratner and James Toback, industry men who have been accused of sexual misconduct in the post-Harvey Weinstein wave. Aside from House of Cards being thrown into limbo, Spacey is also facing other consequences. The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has announced that it will withdraw the actors 2017 International Emmy Founders Award, which is given out to a person who crosses cultural boundaries to touch humanity. Spacey was supposed to receive the award during the Nov. 20 ceremony.

Story continues

More men are also speaking out against Spacey, adding weight to Rapps original claims. One anonymous man told the BBC that when he was 17, Spacey asked him to sleep in his bed. Another man told Radar Online that the actor once grabbed his groin at a Los Angeles bar. In addition, the Old Victhe London theater where Spacey served as artistic director for 11 yearshas opened up a hotline encouraging folks to come forward with their own allegations about the star.

This story originally appeared on Vanity Fair.

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Michelle Obama doesnt coddle daughters Sasha and Malia for a powerful reason

On Wednesday, Michelle Obama attended the Obama Foundation summit in Chicago and spoke with poet and close friend Elizabeth Alexander about things that are most important to her. Among them: family and the arts.

Art is the first language we speak, truly, she told the audience during the on-stage discussion. Every child, before they talk, theyre given some paper, a pencil, some crayons  Its life that yanks that instinct from them. Were now living in public school systems where art, music, P.E.the things that bring life and joy are the first things that are cut. Its often the hook that gets kids to then understand that math is important, its the thing that gets them to school to do reading. We are trying to remind this country, this world, that arts are not a luxury. Its the thing that unites us.

When it comes to raising women to be strong and confident in their own voice, the former First Lady has pointers.

We ask [women] to speak up, we ask them to speak their mind, we ask them to just say no, to speak out against sexual harassment, to speak out against inequalitybut if we dont teach our young girls to speak at an early age, that doesnt just happen. It takes practice to have a voice, she said. You have to use it again and again and again before you can say No or Stop. Dont touch me.

That being said, Obama also stated the importance of being careful with the voice you have, and not abusing the power that comes with it. When you have a voice, you cant just use it any old way, she said. You dont just say whats on your mindyou dont tweet every thought. Most of your first initial thoughts are not worthy of the light of day. Im not talking about anybody in particularIm talking about us all, she clarified, inciting an eruption of laughter from the audience. Tweeting and social mediathat is a powerful weapon that we just hand over to little kids. You need to think, and spell it right, and have good grammar, too.

Story continues

Amen, Mrs. Obama.

Related article: Prince Harry and Michelle Obama made these Chicago high school students day

Between giving empowering speeches and serving as a role model to both her two daughters and women and men across the world, Michelle says its essential to find some time for herself. When you have children, you have to be fiercely organized to get anything done. I learned that if I dont put myself up on the priority list, somehow my kids will eventually get knocked down on that list,  she explained.

Our health is the thing that will keep us going. Its something that we cannot afford to ignore. Whatever that is for you; it has to happen. I can get a lot done, but I have to be organized about me. I have to plan my happiness. We think happiness just happensand it can, but you have to work in some happiness too. Youve got to think about, in this year, when am I going to laugh? When am I going to have fun? When am I going to stop and smell the roses? And then youve got to plan itbecause if you dont, the work, the need, the agenda, will overcome everything.

Part of that essential self-care involves logging some time with her gal pals said Michelle, who wore a multicolored plaid dress for the occasion.

I love my husband and he is my rock, but my girlfriends are my sanity. And when you live eight years in the White House, and you cant even open a window, you cant walk out on your balcony without notifying three people, your walk outside is you walk around the same circle in the south lawn over and over again, because the thought of you leaving those gates requires 50 peoples attention, and work and convenience.  When you live like that for eight years, you need your girlfriends. And nothing is spontaneous. All our spontaneity was basically taken away from us. I even do this now, like, Can I leave? I dont leave until some 30-year-old tells me Maam, you can leave now. I had to plan my time with my GFs that kept me grounded and brought me laughter.

Related article: The Obamas just made history with their presidential portrait picks

As for parenting, Michelle has a directive straight from her mother: raise your children to be independent, well-meaning, kind, compassionate people.

Sometimes we treat our children too preciously because of the issues theyve dealt with, she said. Barack and I, we thought about with Malia and Sasha, OK, we couldve spent eight years feeling sorry for them that they were living in a bubble that every misstep for them would be on YouTube, that their privacy, they didnt have access to their father in a way  We couldve felt bad for them, and there wouldve been a truth there. But our view was this is their life, and we cant apologize for the life they have because a whole lot of it is good. I cant cherish you to death. We have to raise our children to be the adults that we want them to be, and that starts young. You cant be so afraid that life will break them that you dont prepare them for life. Sometimes our fear keeps us from pushing our kids out into the cold cruel world. And then theyre not ready and we wonder why.

Those are some powerful words.
Photo credit: Hearst Communications, Inc. All rights reserved

From Cosmopolitan

On Tuesday, a man plowed a rental truck into a popular bicycle path in New York City, killing eight people and injuring 11. The attacker has reportedly been identified as 29 year-old Sayfullo Saipov, who came to the U.S. from Uzbekistan in 2010; New Yorks mayor has called the incident a cowardly act of terror."

Those who were killed included five friends from Argentina celebrating their 30th high school reunion, and a Belgian woman who was visiting New York with her sister and mother. Heres what we know so far about the victims of the attack.

Hernan Ferruci, , Alejandro Damian Pagnucco, Ariel Erlij, Hernan Diego Mendoza, and Diego Enrique Angelini:

These five men were all friends, and visiting New York from Argentina, where they all lived, according to The Guardian. They were celebrating their 30th anniversary of graduating high school together - their high school held a moment of silence in their memory.

Erlij, who was the chief executive of Ivanar, an Argentine steel products manufacturing company, paid for the trip to New York City, according to Argentina's La Nacion newspaper. He and his friends were riding their bicycles together before the attack.

According to the BBC, Ferruci was an architect working on condominiums in Rosario, Angelini had his own architecture studio in the city, and Mendoza also worked as an architect.

Another of their friends, Martin Ludivoco Marro, who now lives in the Boston area, was injured in the attack, and is now recovering at a New York hospital.

Anne-Laure Decadt:

One of the other victims of the attack was from Belgium, Belgiums deputy prime minister and foreign affairs minister said on Twitter, without mentioning her name. The New York Daily News, citing her family's confirmation, reported the woman's name was Anne-Laure Decadt, and she was a 31-year-old with two sons. This loss is unbearable and unthinkable, her husband Alexander Naessens told the newspaper in a statement. According to People, she was from Roulers, located in western Flanders, and was on a trip to New York with her sister and mother.

Story continues

Two Americans:

According to the New York Post, two Americans were killed in Tuesday's attack. One was a 23-year-old, and the other was a 33-year-old form New Milford, New Jersey.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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A white college student is charged with a hate crime after contaminating her black roommates property

The student who allegedly bullied her college roommate at the University of Hartford in Connecticut is being held responsible for her actions. Along with being expelled from the school, The New York Times reported that Brianna Brochu was arrested and charged with criminal mischief. The charges come after Brochu bragged on a now-deleted Instagram post that she had done disgusting things to her roommates personal items in order to get her to leave their room.

Based on Brochus Instagram post, her harassment of Chennel Jazzy Rowe appears to be racially motivated. The Hartford Courant reported that her post said:

Finally did it yo girl got rid of her roommate!! After 1  month of spitting in her coconut oil, putting moldy clam dip in her lotions putting her toothbrush places where the sun doesnt shine, and so much more I can finally say goodbye Jamaican Barbie.

The Hartford Courant also reported that the West Hartford police requested the charge of intimidation based on bigotry or bias be added to Brochus breach of peace and criminal mischief case.

Brochu confessed to police that she had licked Rowes utensils and smeared bodily fluids on her backpack, but denied the other things she had written about on Instagram.

Student charged with hate crime after she bragged about rubbing bloody tampons on her roommate's things. https://t.co/Tb5T6HW6MG  VICE (@VICE) November 2, 2017

As for Rowe, USA Today noted that she told her side of the story in a nearly two-hour Facebook Live video on October 30th. She said that she felt unwanted in her room, even before she discovered that Brochu was contaminating her belongings. (Brochus Instagram post went up after Rowe voluntarily changed rooms.)

Story continues

Rowe also said that she had become sick and was in extreme discomfort. She revealed that doctors didnt know exactly what was wrong, but concluded that the bacteria found in her throat were contributing her pain.

So this is what happened.... Posted by Jazzy Rowe on Monday, October 30, 2017

Brochus harassment has caused outrage and people are using the hashtag #JusticeForJazzy to show support for Rowe.

Beyond Brochu being charged for multiple crimes, The Hartford Courant reported that University of Hartford president Greg Woodward said in a statement:

It is clear there is work to be done at our University to ensure that all students feel safe, respected, and valued. The conversations that began with student groups, faculty, and staff yesterday are going to continue and involve our full community.

University of Hartford president promises to respond to racism on campus https://t.co/1hnZtWRdpe  Hartford Courant (@hartfordcourant) November 2, 2017

That community no longer contains Brochu though, since Woodward stated that she will not be returning to school and called her actions reprehensible. The Boston Globe reported that Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy also condemned Brochus alleged heinous actions. And now that the former student has been charged, there is hope that there will be #JusticeForJazzy.
FILE PHOTO: Film producer Harvey Weinstein attends the 2016 amfAR New York Gala at Cipriani Wall Street in Manhattan, New York, U.S. on February 10, 2016. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo (Reuters)

By Tom Hals

WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) - A Delaware judge set a January trial for Harvey Weinstein's effort to get the film production company he co-founded to turn over emails and other documents that he says will exonerate him from accusations of sexual harassment.

Delaware Vice Chancellor Joseph Slights said at a Thursday hearing via telephone that allowing the dispute to linger was "in no one's interest."

A number of women have claimed that Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted them over the past three decades.

Weinstein has denied having non-consensual sex with anyone. Reuters has been unable to independently confirm any of the allegations.

New York's attorney general has opened an investigation into sexual harassment and possible violations of civil rights laws at Weinstein Co, which fired Weinstein as chief executive last month, a source familiar with the investigation told Reuters.

Last week, Weinstein sued Weinstein Co to obtain information he says would help him defend himself against any sexual harassment allegations.

Weinstein also needs the information for a wrongful termination case against the company, which is in confidential arbitration, and for defending himself in investigations by the company and the New York attorney general, according to court documents.

On Wednesday, Weinstein's lawyer told Slights that the company wanted to interview Weinstein as part of its investigation, yet denied him access to his own emails that could help him prepare.

"That's not an investigation. That's punishment," said Peter Ladig, Weinstein's attorney with the Morris James law firm.

The judge asked the parties to try to agree on an exact date to start the trial, which will determine if Weinstein has a proper purpose to demand the information and what documents Weinstein Co must provide.

Weinstein had initially requested a trial next week, but at Thursday's hearing argued for a date by the end of December. Weinstein Co said it would prefer up to four months to prepare.

Weinstein Co has been one of the most influential forces in the film business since Harvey Weinstein launched it with his brother Bob in October 2005. It has produced and distributed films including "The King's Speech" and "Silver Linings Playbook."

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Bill Rigby)
Kate Middleton Middleton wears the Max Mara Belli coat in 2012. (Photo: Courtesy of Max Mara)

Max Mara has been the go-to Italian coat maker since the companys start in 1951. Since then, it has earned a long list of celebrity loyalists, from the Duchess of Cambridge to Oscar winners Reese Witherspoon and Emma Stone.

The Max Mara fashion house prides itself on using the finest materials for its coats  including luxurious cashmere angora and camel hair  and if youve ever worn or even tried one on, you know it feels absolutely divine. You can usually distinguish a Max Mara coat from others by its signature wide lapel collar, wraparound closure, and optional tie belt.

To celebrate these iconic coats as we slide into winter, the fashion house decided to produce a traveling photo exhibition, Wrapped in Luxury, featuring some of its best street-style celeb moments. The exhibit spans more than two decades of photos, from 1991 to present, and will travel throughout the U.S. to a few select cities, from Waikiki and San Francisco to Houston and Miami, in November and December.

Check the list below to see if it will come to a Max Mara store near you. But if you cant make the exhibition, we rounded up the best highlights  plus 10 fall coats you can shop now, inspired by Max Mara but easier on your wallet.

Nov. 9: San Francisco

Nov. 16: Beverly Hills

Nov. 28: Waikiki

Dec. 7: Miami

Dec. 14: Palm Beach

Dec. 19: Houston

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Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.
Nicosia (AFP) - A boat carrying 175 Syrian refugees arrived Friday off northwest Cyprus near the coastal resort of Paphos and the migrants were safely brought to shore, police said Friday.

They said the vessel with 81 men, 59 children and 35 women on board had travelled from Turkey. The migrants received medical checks and food, and they were to be moved to a reception centre near Nicosia.

In September, in one of the largest waves of migrants to reach Cyprus, 305 Syrian migrants were rescued from two boats.

Cyprus, an EU member state located 100 miles (160 kilometres) from Syrias Mediterranean coast, has not seen the massive inflow of migration experienced by Turkey and Greece.

But Nicosia has raised the alarm, calling on the European Union to act as it receives more and more asylum seekers.

EU data shows that Cyprus ranks fourth among the blocs 28 nations in the number of asylum applications per capita.

Since September 2014, over a dozen migrant boats have reached the island, bringing in around 1,700 migrants including the latest arrivals.
A strong majority of Americans approves of FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Donald Trump 's 2016 presidential campaign, according to a new poll from The Washington Post and ABC.The poll, which surveyed 714 adults across the country, found that 58 percent approve of the way Mueller is handling the investigation, compared with just 28 percent who disapprove, the Post reported Thursday. What bodes worse for Trump is that more than half of Americans surveyed say they think that the charges brought so far  against former campaign chair Paul Manafort , his associate Richard Gates and former advisor George Papadopoulos  will not be the last of it. In perhaps the most damning indicator of the public's view of the investigation, 49 percent of overall respondents say they think Trump himself committed a crime related to the subject of Mueller's investigation.Fifty-three percent say the charges made public Monday represent broader wrongdoing by people involved in the presidential campaign versus 28 percent who say the charges will stop there.Manafort, chairman of Trump's presidential campaign for several months in 2016, was charged along with Gates in a 12-count indictment, which includes allegations of laundering millions of dollars and acting as an unregistered foreign agent over the course of many years.Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his connections in Russia. Documents released by the special counsel Monday describe his efforts to connect the Trump campaign with high-level Russian officials, the Post reported.The Post-ABC poll results appear to be heavily skewed in accordance with respondents' prior political leanings: 78 percent of Democrats approve of the way Mueller is handling the investigation, for instance, whereas just 38 percent of Republicans approve.That said, people across the aisle tend to be more aligned in supporting the case against Manafort and Gates, the Post reported. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans and 78 percent of Democrats approve of that case.Read more about the results of the Washington Post-ABC poll here.WATCH: Poll says support for GOP tax plan is soft A strong majority of Americans approves of FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Donald Trump 's 2016 presidential campaign, according to a new poll from The Washington Post and ABC. The poll, which surveyed 714 adults across the country, found that 58 percent approve of the way Mueller is handling the investigation, compared with just 28 percent who disapprove, the Post reported Thursday. What bodes worse for Trump is that more than half of Americans surveyed say they think that the charges brought so far  against former campaign chair Paul Manafort , his associate Richard Gates and former advisor George Papadopoulos  will not be the last of it. In perhaps the most damning indicator of the public's view of the investigation, 49 percent of overall respondents say they think Trump himself committed a crime related to the subject of Mueller's investigation. Fifty-three percent say the charges made public Monday represent broader wrongdoing by people involved in the presidential campaign versus 28 percent who say the charges will stop there. Manafort, chairman of Trump's presidential campaign for several months in 2016, was charged along with Gates in a 12-count indictment, which includes allegations of laundering millions of dollars and acting as an unregistered foreign agent over the course of many years. Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his connections in Russia. Documents released by the special counsel Monday describe his efforts to connect the Trump campaign with high-level Russian officials, the Post reported. The Post-ABC poll results appear to be heavily skewed in accordance with respondents' prior political leanings: 78 percent of Democrats approve of the way Mueller is handling the investigation, for instance, whereas just 38 percent of Republicans approve. That said, people across the aisle tend to be more aligned in supporting the case against Manafort and Gates, the Post reported. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans and 78 percent of Democrats approve of that case. Read more about the results of the Washington Post-ABC poll here. WATCH: Poll says support for GOP tax plan is soft



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Its getting down to the wire and you still havent planned your menu for Thanksgiving. Thats OK  plenty of Americans are in the exact same boat.

We did all the heavy lifting and compiled the Thanksgiving recipes youre searching for right here. According to Google, these are the most searched dishes the day before Thanksgiving. Save yourself the trouble and bookmark this list for the ultimate Thanksgiving dinner.

(Photo: Sallys Baking Addiction)

Green bean casseroles are hardly a star at the Thanksgiving feast, but they are essential. For one, theyre often the only green thing on the table. And two, when made right  like from scratch  they rival any of the other sides fighting for space on your plate. We have 10 recipes that will prove this to you. All you have to do is pick one.

(Photo: Damn Delicious)

We found sweet potato recipes spiked with bourbon, recipes topped with a cornflake streusel and some that even play it straight with nothing more than a topping of pecans. Whichever casserole you choose this Thanksgiving, as a sweet potato fan you wont be disappointed.

(Photo: Con Poulos/Food Wine)

We found some of our favorite deviled egg recipes of all time, from classic, to spicy, to totally indulgent. Happy deviling, and let us know what other recipes you come up with!

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

(Photo: The Beeroness)

Cranberry sauce is definitely not the star at the Thanksgiving table, but it is an essential side. It provides a taste of sweetness on a plate overflowing with savory flavors. Its complementary taste is essential to making everything else at the feast shine. We know some folks think opening up a can on the big day is just as good as making homemade sauce, but we have to disagree. And we have recipes to support our stance.

(Photo: LIVE SIMPLY)

The great taste of a perfectly roasted sweet potato is hard to beat. Its sweet, its hearty and it doesnt even need any seasoning to taste great (though it is always welcome). The problem is, sweet potatoes take a long time to cook. Heres how to do it in half the time.

Story continues

(Photo: Sweet As A Cookie)

Side dishes are often overlooked, a mere afterthought to fill up the plate. But when sides are mashed potatoes, they are the main event. Theyre are buttery and fluffy, filling and savory, and all in all wholly satisfying (so long as they arent made with potatoes that have been stored in the fridge). Thats why they have a spot not only at our dinner table, but at the Thanksgiving feast, too.

(Photo: Cooking Classy)

There are a great many delicious plates served on Thanksgiving, but none of them hold a candle to the stuffing. (Not even the turkey.) Whether you call it stuffing or dressing, we can all agree that this dish is crucial to the feast. To make sure the holiday goes well, you absolutely need a great stuffing recipe. Lucky for you, we have a ton for you to choose from.

(Photo: My Whole Food Life)

Visit our friends at My Whole Food Life for this healthy candied yams recipe!

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Visit our friends at Brown Eyed Baker for this delicious corn casserole recipe!

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According to reports from the New York Times, Afghanistan is currently in the midst of a temporary WhatsApp ban. Yesterday, government letters to private telecommunications companies asking them to suspend the messaging service began making the rounds on social media. And while some customers of the government-owned communications company Salaam Telecom reported that WhatsApp and Telegram had both stopped working for them, private companies are reportedly still considering whether to comply with the government's request.

While it appears to be just a 20-day test, who called for it and why is up for debate as different and somewhat contradictory information has been circulating. The letters themselves were sent by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology but a source told the New York Times that the ban was actually being pushed by Afghanistan's intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security. However, an official with the agency said that wasn't the case.

As for why the temporary ban has been put in place, one of the leaders of the country's Telecom Regulatory Authority told the BBC it was due to "security concerns." But shortly after that statement was made, the Ministry of Communications said it was done in order "to introduce a new kind of technology" following complaints of WhatsApp's service quality.

Whatever the reason, the move has some worried about the state of freedom of expression in the country. Abdul Mujeeb Khalvatgar, executive director of the free speech activist group Nai, told the New York Times, "It is wrong and illegal. According to the Constitution, freedom of expression is inviolable in Afghanistan. WhatsApp and Telegram are tools of free speech  if the government bans them, it means that tomorrow they could stand against media in Afghanistan too."

Afghanistan isn't the first to go after WhatsApp and similar encrypted messaging services. Officials in both China and Brazil have sought to shut down the service in their countries while Russia has made similar threats regarding Telegram in the past.
Johannesburg (AFP) - South Africa's spy agency threatened on Friday to seek a banning order for a newly released book that makes a series of corruption allegations against President Jacob Zuma.

The State Security Agency issued a legal letter, seen by AFP, accusing author Jacques Pauw of disclosing "the identities of the many members and sources of the agency", "intelligence collection methods" and "intelligence gathered".

The book, titled "The President's Keepers", alleges that large amounts of public money was transferred into the bank accounts of bogus spies.

It paints a picture of Zuma's scandal-tainted presidency as corrupt, incompetent and nepotistical.

The book also chronicles how the head of state has purged his adversaries in the political and security establishment since coming to power in 2009.

The book will come as an unwelcome distraction for Zuma who is fighting for political survival after a string of allegations linking him to a controversial business family accused robbing of state-run enterprises.

In a letter to the publishers, the spy agency claims the book is "replete with inaccuracies" and contains details "that are in contravention of the Intelligence Service Act".

They also demanded the retraction of allegedly inaccurate sections, and those which could compromise agent safety, operational methods or classified information.

The cease and desist order said that intelligence officials would seek a banning order and press for criminal action if the book was not pulled from bookshops within five days.

Jean Pieters, a spokeswoman for Tafelberg publishing, said the book which was released on Sunday would remain on sale while the company consulted its lawyers.

"The book has not been pulled off the shelves, and our lawyers are dealing with the matter," she said.

The country's taxman separately said it was taking legal action against Pauw and the Sunday Times weekly after the paper published an article based on the book.

Story continues

It said that the article made allegations that the country's revenue chief, Tom Moyane, had helped Zuma to dodge tax.

Zuma was forced to deny in parliament on Thursday that he had also been bankrolled by a businessman during his time in office following a question by an opposition lawmaker.

The president has weathered several corruption storms during his time in government and is currently facing the prospect that prosecutors could reinstate 783 graft charges relating to a 1990s arms deal.
Sarah Gadon in Alias Grace. (Photo: Netflix)

Margaret Atwood is having a good year for TV adaptations of her work. First there was Hulus The Handmaids Tale, and now comes Netflixs limited-series version of her 1996 novel, Alias Grace, which begins streaming on Friday. It stars Sarah Gadon as a 19th-century woman  and Irish-immigrant servant  accused of killing a prosperous farmer and his housekeeper in rural Canada. Gadons Grace Marks becomes a kind of celebrity, conferred by the sensational crime of which shes been accused. A handsome young doctor, Simon Jordan (Edward Holcroft), begins a series of interviews with her while Grace is in prison  its like Mindhunter with bustles and high collars.

This story is based on a true event, but its been layered into drama by Atwood first, then by Sarah Polleys beautifully hard-edged adaptation, and finally enlivened by the superb direction of Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol). Polley and Harron  who write and direct all six episodes, respectively  take this material and bring out the feminist subtext in Graces thoughts and actions. As a servant, Grace has little power over her own life; as an intelligent, imaginative woman, she feels constrained by her status and yearns for greater freedom. Could this, ask the filmmakers, be enough of a motive  and perhaps justification  for a violent crime?

Once Dr. Jordan begins interviewing her, we become as curious and confused as the doctor is: How much of what this shrewd young woman is telling us is accurate? Harron has found an original cinematic language to convey Graces memories, a dreamlike narrative propulsion that carries us along. The supporting cast includes Anna Paquin as the murdered housekeeper, film director David Cronenberg as an elderly colleague of Jordans, and Zachary Levi as a hustling peddler with secrets of his own. Levi is Alias Graces only false note: He seems to have walked right off the set of Chuck without adjusting for the time-period here. Sarah Gadons performance is transfixing. Her warm voice, as she narrates the details of her life and the crime committed, is as lulling as someone telling you a bedtime story, even as her sharp gaze might make you fear for your own life if you got too close to her.

Alias Grace is streaming now on Netflix.

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Shanghai (AFP) - Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba said on Thursday that its net profit soared 132 percent in an "outstanding" latest quarter, prompting it to raise its projection for full-year revenue growth.

Net profit for the three months ending September 30 reached 17.67 billion yuan, ($2.67 billion), up from 7.62 billion yuan in the same period of 2016, the company said.

"We had an outstanding quarter," Chief Financial Officer Maggie Wu said in a statement.

"This quarter we delivered excellent results, with overall revenue growth of 61 percent demonstrating the robust momentum in our core commerce business and across the Alibaba economy."

Revenues in the second quarter of Alibaba's fiscal year came it at 55.1 billion yuan, topping an analyst estimate of 52 billion yuan compiled by Bloomberg News.

The company was now raising its growth forecast for revenues in the full fiscal year to 49-53 percent, compared to a previous expectation of 45-49 percent growth.

Alibaba, which has made billionaire founder Jack Ma one of China's richest men and a global e-commerce icon, has been on a tear, regularly beating revenue estimates and watching as investors have driven its New York-listed shares up 110 percent since the start of the year.

Investor optimism for the future has been a key ingredient in the rally, with Alibaba raising expectations as it continues to adapt to, and profit from, the Chinese e-commerce boom that it helped to ignite.

Future dividends are expected from heavy investments in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, financial systems, logistics, the use of data to home in on consumer habits, and Ma's vision of using e-commerce to revitalise traditional retail.
Meredith Kercher was murdered 10 years ago - PA

Amanda Knox has written an essay on the 10th anniversary of Meredith Kercher's death describing how much she misses her "closest friend" but adding that she was never able to mourn properly because of suspicions she was involved in her roommate's death.

Kercher was found stabbed to death on 1 November 2007 in the apartment she shared with Miss Knox in Perugia, Italy.

Knox and her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were found guilty of her murder before their convictions were overturned.

In an essay for the Westside Seattle newspaper, she recalls the time she spent with Kercher, sunbathing on the terrace or sipping espresso.

I remember that I loved her accent. I remember the time I wanted to get dressed up and she happily loaned me a pair of her tights, like a big sister.

Amanda Knox was finally cleared in 2015 Credit: Reuters

"And I remember the last time I saw her, ten years ago today, slinging her purse over her shoulder and waving goodbye to me on her way out to meet up with her British friends.

But she says the fond memories are buried beneath recollections of post-mortem photographs, media slurs, wrongful imprisonment and death threats.

And she feels she was never allowed to mourn her friend.

There are some people who believe I have no right to mourn Meredith, she writes. They believe that I had something to do with her murderI didntor that Meredith has been forgotten in the wake of my own struggle for justiceshe hasnt.

Miss Knox was finally cleared by the Supreme Court in Rome in 2015.She has lived in Seattle ever since, writing for her local paper.

Another man, Rudy Guede, was tried in a separate, fast-track trial and found guilty of Kercher's murder in 2008. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
President Donald Trump woke up Friday morning and continued tweeting about the alleged corruption of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.

These tweets come a day after Politico published a fiery book excerpt by Donna Brazile, former interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, in which she wrote that Hillary Clintons 2016 presidential campaign and the national party struck a deal that would in effect grant the campaign control of the partys finances and strategy.

Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isnt looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems, Trump wrote on Twitter. New Donna B book says she paid for and stole the Dem Primary. What about the deleted E-mails, Uranium, Podesta, the Server[?]

He continued: Plus, plus People are angry. At some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper. The American public deserves it!

Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn't looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

The real story on Collusion is in Donna B's new book. Crooked Hillary bought the DNC & then stole the Democratic Primary from Crazy Bernie!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

According to the Brazile story, in August of 2015, a deeply indebted Democratic National Committee took a loan from the Clinton campaign, and in exchange by and large granted the campaign the rights to dictate how the party would operate in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.

Brazile writes that the deal brings evidential heft to the argument that the Democratic primary was rigged against Sen. Bernie Sanders, a frequent rallying point for his supporters  and also for Trump, who has cited the primary as yet another example of Crooked Hs supposed malfeasance.

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This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the partys integrity, Brazile writes.

Trumps Friday morning comments on the election followed his tweet about his own Twitter account, which briefly disappeared from the site late Thursday night  something Twitter had first chalked up to human error by a Twitter employee.

My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee. I guess the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

Twitter later said that after an investigation, it determined the account was deactivated by a customer support employee who did this on the employees last day.
President Donald Trumps personal Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, briefly vanished from the internet on Thursday.

Social media users noticed that for a short period of time around 7 p.m. EDT Thursday, the page was inaccessible. Given the presidents frequent use of the platform, confusion began to circulate as to why the account might be deleted.

But it was all an employee error, Twitter said about an hour later. It seems that an employee who was leaving the company deleted the account.

Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employees last day, the company explained. We are conducting a full internal review.

Earlier today @realdonaldtrumps account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee. The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again.  Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017

Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employees last day. We are conducting a full internal review. https://t.co/mlarOgiaRF  Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017

Many of the presidents critics, and even some of his supporters, have decried Trumps bullying habits on Twitter.

And a number of users criticized Twitter for not suspending the presidents account after he purportedly violated the platforms user guidelines over what some called a clear threat of violence.

In one tweet, the president threatened that North Korea wont be around much longer if the countrys leadership allowed hostile rhetoric against the United States to continue. North Koreas government called it a declaration of war.

Story continues

But Twitter refused to suspend or ban Trumps account after the incident.

We hold all accounts to the same Rules, and consider a number of factors when assessing whether Tweets violate our Rules, the company said. Among the considerations is newsworthiness and whether a Tweet is of public interest.

The White House did not respond to HuffPosts request for comment.

This story has been updated with more information from Twitter.

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MUSCATINE  If elected to Muscatine City Council, Vance Crumly said his main goal would be to improve communication between the city and 4th Ward residents.

Crumly, a Muscatine native and employee of Hy-Vee, is one of four candidates seeking the 4th Ward seat in the election on Tuesday, along with Nadine Brockert, Brian Freitag and Larry Murray. Out of the four positions up for election in Muscatine's city government this election, the 4th Ward council seat is the most highly contested, following the announcement current Councilman Bob Bynum will not seek re-election due to poor health.

In August, Crumly announced he was running for Muscatine mayor, but then decided to run in the 4th Ward. Throughout the day Friday, he met with voters on Grandview Avenue.

"I left the mayor race because I knew council members had a vote and could bring up discussions, and I thought I could get more done as a council member rather than a mayor," he said.

In speaking with residents in his ward, Crumly said the main issue he hears is a lack of communication in city government.

"Some people may be scared to stand up in meetings, but I'm not one of those people," Crumly said. "If anyone in the ward wants to bring something up but doesn't feel like they can, I'd bring it to the table and make people's voices heard."

Working behind the meat counter at Hy-Vee, Crumly said he is able to talk with and empathize with people from all walks of life.

"I've never had a problem approaching anyone on the city council or the mayor," he said. "I get along with everybody and I hope that translates to my communication with the 4th Ward."

Crumly would like to hold meetings within his ward if he is elected to city council, and also suggests emailing or mailing out a ward-wide newsletter.

Because of an alleged communication problem in local government, Crumly believes many residents are not aware of all the development happening in Muscatine's Southend. While most people are concerned about the need for a grocery store in the area, he said the city's main role is making the 4th Ward attractive to developers.

"It's a matter of the developers wanting to come here and the city needs to get really good infrastructure and create an environment for businesses to thrive," he said.

Crumly said there are several positive projects recently completed or ongoing in the Southend.

"I know some people feel like the Southend is less of a priority," he said. "But we've got the new street signs, those are getting done. After Mississippi Drive construction, then they'll work on Grandview, so you know things are in the works."

The reconstruction of Grandview Avenue, he said, will be a huge boost for local businesses and said the area will become "ripe for more development."

He also cited the upcoming community dog park and the new bike path as positive improvements to the 4th Ward area.

Also if elected to Muscatine City Council, Crumly said he would like to see an end to the city's pit bull ban. This summer, resident Vanessa Lopez started passing around a petition to repeal the pit bull ban and replace it with a dangerous dog ordinance, that does not discriminate based on the dog's breed.

"I want to see the pit bull ban discussed, voted on, and then gone," Crumly said. "And I want there to be greater fines for owners of dangerous pit bulls."

He said he would support a similar plan to what Lopez is proposing, that focuses on punishing the owners of dangerous dogs, rather than entirely banning a breed.

Crumly said his main goal is hearing 4th Ward residents' concerns and also passing along information about the positive things happening in Muscatine.

The Muscatine city election will be held Tuesday. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m.
Ankara (AFP) - One year after the arrest of its charismatic chief, Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party defiantly insists it is the only true opposition against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but faces an uphill battle to remain a major force.

Selahattin Demirtas was detained in a police raid on his home overnight on November 4 last year. His then co-leader Figen Yuksekdag was detained in a simultaneous swoop.

While the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) splits all its main posts between men and women to ensure gender parity, Demirtas was and remains the main face of the party, an impassioned speaker with an instinct for political symbolism.

The HDP first entered the Turkish parliament after the June 2015 elections and is now the second-largest opposition party after the secular Republican People's Party (CHP), a breakthrough largely credited to Demirtas.

Demirtas and Yuksekdag were among 12 HDP lawmakers rounded up under the state of emergency imposed after the July 15, 2016 failed coup, which the party strongly opposed. Now, nine HDP MPs remain in prison including Demirtas and Yuksekdag.

Yuksekdag was stripped of her MP status in February and she stepped down as the party's co-chair in May. Demirtas remains co-leader but his incarceration severely limits his ability to communicate with the outside world.

"The (government) is trying to paralyse us with these attacks but I can in fact say that they have not succeeded," Serpil Kemalbay, who replaced Yuksekdag as co-leader, told AFP.

- 'Not easy to shut up' -

Before his arrest, Demirtas was the only politician in Turkey who matched Erdogan's rhetorical skills, even earning himself the moniker the "Kurdish Obama".

But now Demirtas, 44, who is being held at a prison in Edirne, northwest Turkey, risks up to 142 years in jail if convicted.

He and the other HDP suspects are accused of links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), blacklisted as a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies. Despite being held for a year, Demirtas has yet to go on trial on those charges.

Story continues

But HDP officials insist he retains his political weight.

"He is in prison but his words reach the people," HDP MP Filiz Kerestecioglu told AFP. "He is not a person easily shut up."

He has written poetry, produced artwork, tweeted while in prison through a third party and even written a selection of short stories entitled "Seher" ("Dawn" in Turkish).

His publisher Dipnot said Seher was sold out within three days after 20,000 copies were bought in September while 130,000 copies have been put on sale.

- 'Attracted non-Kurd votes' -

But some observers question whether the party can remain a major political force without its most recognisable figure who managed to expand its popularity beyond the traditional Kurdish electorate.

"Demirtas was attracting especially non-Kurdish leftist and liberal voters," said Burak Bilgehan Ozpek, author of the upcoming book "The Peace Process between Turkey and the Kurds: Anatomy of a Failure".

"Without Demirtas, it is not surprising to expect the HDP to adopt an ethnic and radical agenda," he said, adding it was not an "influential" party anymore.

Ankara accuses the HDP of merely being a political front for the PKK, which has battled the Turkish state for over three decades in search of greater rights and powers for the Kurdish minority.

But even Demirtas never succeeded in fully distancing the HDP from the outlawed group, a predicament not helped by the fact his own brother fought for the PKK in Iraq.

But Aykan Erdemir, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said Demirtas' imprisonment had "not made a dent in the HDP leader's charisma, but seems to have strengthened it".

"Demirtas could end up as an even more powerful campaigner for the Kurdish cause from his prison cell," he argued.

- 'Deliver a solution' -

But the party has been hit hard by arrests. Some 11,500 officials, members and HDP sympathisers have been detained since the end of the PKK ceasefire in July 2015 while 4,537 have been formally arrested.

A total of five MPs lost their lawmaker status while authorities have opened investigations into 55 out of 59 HDP MPs, the party says.

Opinion polls -- to be treated with caution in Turkey -- suggest it is currently well short of the 10 percent threshold needed to get into parliament.

But Kemalbay expressed determination that the HDP would pass the threshold to enter parliament again in general elections in November 2019.

"We may not be able to see this because of the media embargo but the people see the reality," she said.

"They see the HDP as the force to deliver a solution" to the Kurdish issue.
Aung San Suu Kyi arrives in Sittwe airport for an unannounced visit to restive Rakhine state - AFP

Myanmar's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on Thursday urged people "not to quarrel" as she visited Rakhine State for the first time since a military crackdown that drove more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee the country.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has faced heavy international criticism for not taking a higher profile in responding to what U.N. officials have called "ethnic cleansing" by the army.

Myanmar has rejected the accusations of ethnic cleansing, saying its security forces launched a counter-insurgency operation after Rohingya militants attacked 30 security posts in northern Rakhine on August 25.

Aung San Suu Kyi meets with Myo ethnic people in northern Maungdaw Credit: AFP

On Thursday, amid heightened security, Ms Suu Kyi boarded a military helicopter at Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State, to be taken to Maungdaw, one of districts worst hit by the violence.

The leader met a group of Muslim religious leaders, said Chris Lewa, of the Arakan Project monitoring group, citing Rohingya sources.

"She only said three things to the people - they should live peacefully, the government is there to help them, and they should not quarrel among each other," Lewa said, quoting information from a religious leader who was present.

Rohingya began fleeing predominantly Buddhist Myanmar for neighbouring Bangladesh in late August to escape violence in the wake of a military counter-insurgency operation launched after Rohingya militants attacked security posts in Rakhine State.

On Wednesday, Reuters photographers saw thousands of desperate Rohingya wade through shallows and narrow creeks between islands of the Naf river to reach neighbouring Bangladesh as the exodus begun two months ago was far from over.

Some had small boats or pulled makeshift rafts to get to Bangladesh on the river's western bank, but most walked, children cradled in their arms and the elderly carried on their backs, with sacks of belongings tied to staves on their shoulders.

Reaching the far side, some women and older people had to be pulled through the mud to reach dry land atop steep banks.
Sydney (AFP) - Refugees barricaded inside a shuttered Australian detention camp in Papua New Guinea were becoming "distraught and depressed", detainees said Friday, as New Zealand renewed an offer to resettle some of them.

The remote camp on PNG's Manus Island -- one of two centres holding asylum-seekers who tried to reach Australia by boat -- was proclaimed closed on Tuesday after the nation's Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional.

Australia shut off water and electricity to the camp, but some 600 men remain inside, fearful for their safety if they move to transition centres where locals are reportedly hostile.

"The current mood of the men is they are really distraught and depressed," Manus detainee and Sudanese refugee Abdul Aziz Adam told AFP.

"We are just helping and caring for each other and trying to help each other just to stay alive," the 24-year-old said.

As the stand-off entered its fourth day, New Zealand's new Labour government renewed an offer to take 150 of the refugees which was initially made in 2013 but never acted upon by Australia.

"We would like to work with Australia to help find a compassionate solution to this," Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway told Radio New Zealand.

"We've got an offer of 150 people and we really hope that Australia takes that up... we are here to help," he said.

The issue is set to arise when New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who came to power just last month, meets Australia's conservative Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in Sydney on Sunday.

Iranian Behrouz Boochani, another Manus detainee, told AFP Friday the detainees viewed New Zealand as a "big opportunity to take us from this hellhole prison".

"We are asking the New Zealand PM to make a serious negotiation with the Australian government and if Australia rejects it again, to try to do a deal with PNG."

Boochani added that the detainees were able to "collect water in rubbish bins" after a downpour the day before, and were also boiling water pooled inside a hole they had dug to drink.

Story continues

"Many people are unable to sleep because of hunger and fear," he said.

- Manus a 'dumping ground' -

The impasse has frustrated Manus Governor Charlie Benjamin, who accused the Australian and PNG governments of using his island as a "dumping ground" for the asylum-seekers.

"The ministers involved in signing the agreement to bring the asylum seekers to Manus in 2013 didn't give a thought about the Manus people," he told PNG daily The National.

"They never did one time involve me in the negotiation although I was the governor at that time."

The UNHCR representative on the island, Lam Nai Jit, told AFP Thursday tensions were likely to rise as the men battled the "extremely hot and humid" weather.

A key concern for the refugees has been the lack of medication, particularly for those being treated for mental health conditions.

"Around 20 percent of people in the detention centre are being prescribed anti-depression drugs for obviously being depressed or for post-traumatic stress," Australian Greens senator Nick McKim, who visited the centre Tuesday, told AFP late Thursday.

The newspaper The Australian, which gained access to the compound on Thursday, said some of the men had not been outside the site since they were taken there years ago, and were almost hysterical about leaving.

Three transition centres on Manus were available for the men to move to, but the UNHCR said one was not finished while two did not have security fences.

Locals were also not consulted when the facilities were being built, stoking tensions between Manus communities and the refugees, Lam said.

Canberra's offshore processing policy has been criticised by rights groups as essentially placing refugees in indefinite detention on remote Pacific islands.

But the government says it has stopped deaths at sea after a spate of drownings.
Chicago (AFP) - Former US Vice President Joe Biden strongly criticized President Trump Wednesday, and predicted an emboldened and determined Russia would once again meddle in an American election.

In public comments at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Biden -- the target of speculation of a possible presidential run in 2020 -- thoroughly rebuked Trump and his policies.

"We've got to stop this tweeting... it's childish," he said. "It's time to grow up and act like a world leader."

Biden, Barack Obama's former vice president, has made international politics a key area of focus since leaving office.

He accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of seeking to mask problems at home by "stoking discord" in European countries and the United States.

"Russia's attack on our election was not an isolated incident," Biden said.

"The efforts to spew disinformation, infiltrate our networks, corrupt our political institutions, they continue. And, we'll surely see this kick into full gear as we head into another critical Congressional election cycle in 2018."

Biden also criticized Trump for not taking a more forceful stand against Russian meddling, and said his international policies in general -- such as withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- threatened America's alliances.

A former senator from Delaware with working-class roots, Biden has long been seen as a champion of the same demographic that favored Trump in the 2016 election: white, working-class people who are struggling economically.

"These people aren't prejudiced. They are realistic. And they've become targets to charlatans," Biden said.
Damascus (AFP) - A suicide car bomb attack killed nine people in a government-held village in Syria's Golan Heights on Friday, state media said, reporting clashes between government forces and jihadists afterwards.

State news agency SANA said the car bomb hit the outskirts of the village of Hader, which lies near the disengagement line that divides the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan from that occupied by Israel.

"A suicide bomber from Al-Nusra Front detonated a car bomb in the midst of the homes of citizens on the outskirts of Hader, killing nine people and injuring at least 23," the agency said.

Al-Nusra Front is the old name for a jihadist group that was formerly Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria and is now known as the Fateh al-Sham Front.

"In the aftermath of the terrorist attack, terrorist groups carried out a heavy attack on Hader, and army units and the Popular Defence units (pro-government militants) clashed with the attackers," SANA added.

The agency said the toll was expected to rise because a number of those wounded in the bombing were in serious condition and the ongoing assault on the town made it difficult to remove the injured to safety.

Hader is a majority-Druze village and has been attacked in the past by rebel and jihadist groups.

It lies in southwestern Syria's Quneitra province, around 70 percent of which is held by either rebel or jihadist groups, with the government controlling the other 30 percent, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it, a move never recognised by the international community.

The Israeli army said Friday that a civilian in the town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan was lightly wounded as a result of "shots fired from Syria".

It said the shots were "stray fire resulting from the intense fighting on the Syrian Golan Heights".

Story continues

Israeli army spokesman, Brigadier General Ronen Manelis, said the military was ready to "prevent Hader from being harmed or occupied, as part of our commitment to the Druze population".

Nearly 140,000 members of the Druze minority, which follows a secretive offshoot of Shiite Islam, live in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan.

In Majdal Shams, residents approached the disengagement line but were prevented from crossing to support villagers in Hader by the Israeli army, which closed off the area.

Some Syrian Druze have expressed sympathy for the opposition since the start of the civil war but the community has largely been loyal to the regime.
A Fort Bragg military judge has sentenced Bowe Bergdahl to a dishonorable discharge, fined him $10,000 and reduced his rank to that of private from sergeant but did not sentence him to any time in prison.

The 31-year-old Army soldier pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy last month, calling his actions inexcusable.

Bergdahl left his post while on duty in Afghanistans Paktika province in 2009 and got lost, only to be captured by the Taliban two or three hours later. He spent the next five years enduring torture in captivity and attempted to escape 15 times.

Experts also testified during the trial that Bergdahl provided a gold mine of actionable intelligence for the U.S. military once he was recovered. His detailed descriptions of life in captivity led to greatly improved methods for other troops looking to evade and escape the enemy.

I was captured by the enemy against my will, Bergdahl told the hearing last month. At the time I had no intention of causing search and recovery operations. ... Its very inexcusable.

In a statement released after the trial, Bergdahl expressed his gratitude to everyone who searched for him in 2009, especially those who heroically sustained injuries.

He and his defense team also leveled strong criticism against President Donald Trump, who repeatedly attacked Bergdahl while campaigning last year, which they said harmed his chances of a fair trial.

President Trumps unprincipled effort to stoke a lynch-mob atmosphere while seeking our Nations highest office has cast a dark cloud over the case, the statement read. Every American should be offended by his assault on the fair administration of justice and disdain for basic constitutional rights.

Trump called Bergdahl a traitor at least 45 times while he was campaigning, often imagining gruesome death scenarios while he did so. During an Iowa campaign appearance in 2015, for instance, Trump said Bergdahl should be thrown out of an airplane without a parachute.

Story continues

Trump responded to the sentencing in a tweet, calling it a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military.

The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

Bergdahls lawyers noted in the trial that he had previously undiagnosed mental illnesses before he enrolled in the Army, including schizotypal personality disorder and severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

Hypothetically, he probably should not have been in the Army, Capt. Nina Banks, a member of his defense team, said during closing arguments.

Former Navy SEAL James Hatch helped search for Bergdahl after he went missing in 2009. Though he and his military dog, Remco, came under enemy fire during the search, leaving him wounded and his dog dead, he said last week that he never doubted the mission.

He is an American, Hatch said. He had a mom.

Bergdahl was released in 2014 thanks to a prisoner swap organized by the Obama administration.

Bergdahl faced a maximum sentence of life in prison.

This story has been updated with a statement from Bergdahl and a tweet from Trump.

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The Brick, a furniture, appliance, electronics and home theatre store in Langford, B.C. Langford is a municipality in the greater Victoria area. (The Canadian Press)

If youve got a Sears Canada warranty that you think is little more than scrap paper now, dont throw it away just yet. There may be another option.

On Thursday, furniture and appliance retailer The Brick announced it will be honouring all Sears Canada warranties, in some form or another.

Since the retailer has relationships with many of the same appliance partners as Sears Canada, the company wrote in a press release, it would be able to provide repair services to Sears customers if they hold a warranty.

Anyone who has an extended warranty from Sears can get a $100 gift card from The Brick when they come for repairs (the gift card is to be used towards future purchases at The Brick). If an appliance is still within the initial one-year manufacturers warranty, The Brick will perform repairs at no cost to customers.

We want to alleviate some of this customer frustration by providing an alternative for those who need to have their appliances serviced or repaired, said Dave Freeman, president of The Brick, in the release. We are here to help.

Sears Canada announced it would no longer be honouring extended warranties as of Oct. 18, as part of its liquidation process. Customers expressed frustration at the prospect of paying hundreds for extended warranties, only to find out that it wouldnt be honoured.

Im angry, one Thunder Bay, Ont. customer who spent almost $800 on warranties told CBC. its not just my [money]. Its how many other people, in Canada, are going to be out this amount of money?

Customers arent the only former Sears Canada asset that The Brick is after, either. The retailer is also holding job fairs across Canada in markets where a Sears is closing to recruit former employees. The Brick says it currently has 300 open positions that its looking to fill.

In total, about 12,000 employees are expected to lose their jobs as Sears Canada closes down its remaining 130 locations.

Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.




Paris (AFP) - The brother of a Tunisian man who stabbed two young women to death on the steps of Marseille's main train station was charged with terror offences Friday, judicial sources said.

Anis Hanachi, whom French investigators allege is a former jihadist fighter in Iraq and Syria, was extradited from Italy on Thursday.

According to Italian anti-terrorism chief Lamberto Giannini, French investigators are looking into whether Anis "indoctrinated... Ahmed and caused his radicalisation".

He was arrested in the northern Italian town of Ferrara six days after Ahmed Hanachi, a 29-year-old Tunisian, fatally stabbed the two women outside Marseille's main rail station on October 1 before being shot dead by police.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility, but French investigators have found no evidence linking the attack to the jihadists.

Anis was charged Friday with "association with criminal terrorists seeking to commit crimes" and detained, judicial sources said.

Ahmed was known to police for drug and alcohol problems with a history of petty crime. He was not on a jihadist watch list.

Two days before the attack, he was arrested for shoplifting in the eastern city of Lyon but was allowed to walk free the following day.

The French government's inspectorate general (IGA) said that decision revealed "serious faults" in the system for dealing with foreigners whose papers are not in order.
A cafe in Brooklyns BedfordStuyvesant neighborhood is being accused of racial discrimination in handing out candy on Halloween. The Strand Cafe allegedly refused to give sweets to black trick-or-treaters, only to give treats to white kids a few minutes later.

Oma Holloway, who serves on advisory Community Board 3, said she and fellow board member Michael Catlyn saw a cafe employee tell three groups of African-American children dressed up for Halloween that the shop wasnt participating in the holiday, according to local news outlet Kings County Politics.

But when a white mother came in with her two costumed children, Holloway said the barista started doling out sweets to them.

Holloway told the website that she and Catlyn immediately called out the barista.

You got to be kidding me, she said she told him. Little black kids walk in and you dont have candy for them, but you have candy for the white kids. This is unacceptable, here or anywhere.

Holloway added, Im on the community board and I understand he doesnt have to participate [in Halloween festivities], but to do something so blatantly discriminatory, this is not acceptable and as a patron Im not accepting it.

Kings County Politics described Bed-Stuy as a historically black neighborhood that is becoming increasingly gentrified.

HuffPost reached out to the Strand Cafe, which did not pick up the phone.

However, a man named Poran Chowdhury, who identified himself as the owner, attempted to explain what happened on Bed Stuy Friends, a private Facebook group.

He called the incident a misunderstanding:

We didnt give out no candies yesterday to anyone. We only had few snacks for sale. The guy was there working he is very new and dont speak English very well, that is the reason he couldnt explain it to them. I feel really bad and sorry for this misunderstanding. I grow up in this neighborhood, behavior like this with kids I will never tolerate from employee. We all are human and one family. Hope I did make it clear..

Story continues

When fellow group members asked for more details, he responded:

Explanation- yesterday when kids came to our cafe, asking for Candys. He told them we dont have any Candy to give but they saw some candy right next to the register, which is was for sale only. So they thought we giving out the candys but not to them. It was just a big misunderstanding. Im working on the video from yesterday so you guys can see anything like that happen. Soon I get the video I will post it, if its necessary.

The neighborhood outcry has led to a sudden slew of one-star reviews on Yelp, most of which call out the cafe for racism.

A man named Abdul C., who also identified himself as the businesss owner, attempted to address the situation on the Yelp site:

(Photo: Yelp.com)

Hi there. It seems there has been a misunderstanding with regards to an incident about trick or treating. Unfortunately, we did not participate in trick or treating this year. We have some pastries for sale, but it was impossible for us to hand out candy to some children and not others because we did not have any candy to hand out. If a child received an item, it was because it was purchased by a parent, not because we favor children over others. That would be completely inappropriate as well as against our core values of decency. We love our community, and look forward to serving ALL our friends and neighbors. Thank you.

But the owners explanations dont hold water with her, Holloway said, because the white kids were in costumes with treat bags and she saw no money being exchanged.

I had a pretty clear vantage point, Holloway told Patch Bed-Stuy. Thats not what was going on.

Holloway has reached out to fellow community board members and to New York Citys Commission on Human Rights to determine the next step.

Im not here to hurt businesses, she said. But its situations like this that perpetuate tension and we all need to be held accountable.

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When Caitlyn Jenner publicly transitioned in 2015, she helped push transgender rights into the national consciousness. Now a restaurant in Allen, Texas, is using her experience as a gag  and many people arent laughing.

Dodies Place Cajun Bar & Grill shared photos of its weekly specials and new bathroom doors in a Facebook post in mid-August, and now its going viral. Jenners famous July 2015 Vanity Fair cover, which marks the first time she publicly revealed herself as Caitlyn, is splashed across the door of the womens bathroom. The mens bathroom door, meanwhile, is covered in a photo of Bruce Jenner at the 1976 Olympics. Come meet our newest members of the Dodies crew, Caitlyn & Bruce! Stop in for our weekly specials, served all day! the Facebook caption reads.

This Facebook post, showing off the new Caitlyn Jenner bathroom doors, caused fired-up discussion. (Photo: Facebook/Dodies Place Cajun Bar & Grill)

Reaction was mixed. About half of commenters thought the new doors were hilarious. This is awesome! Funniest thing Ive seen in a while! one person wrote. Ha! Ha! Love it! another said. But the other half wasnt amused. Thats disgusting, Id have to leave so I could use the restroom somewhere else, one person wrote. I hope Caitlyn comes and rips this place apart, someone else said. Just because you can doesnt mean you should. It would be different if you were showing your support of the LGBTQ community, noted another.

More: These gooey chocolate brownies are somehow still good for you

Dodies Place responded to the controversy via a statement on Facebook on Thursday. First and foremost, our intention was not to make fun of or offend anyone when we installed the pictures of Bruce and Caitlyn on our bathroom doors, the statement read. It was merely a lighthearted gesture to push back against the political correctness that seems to have a stranglehold on this country right now. We believe that political correctness has done more to silence rather than encourage important discussions that our society probably needs to have. Based on the mind-boggling feedback, both positive and negative, people are having that discussion.

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However, the statement continues, name calling and words like transphobic, deviant, racist, homophobic, bigot, etc. serve nothing but to continue to divide us instead of uniting us. After all, we are all part of the same race  the human race. Surely, we can discuss this topic and many others without slapping hurtful labels on each other. Please know that we are here to discuss this and move forward as a community. Everyone is welcome here. The debate continued in the comments of this new post as well.

Dodies Place isnt the first establishment to do this  Nickel Bar in West L.A. also used Caitlyns Vanity Fair cover on the door of the womens room, and a Bruce Jenner Wheaties box image on the door of the mens room upon opening in 2016. (A Nickel Bar employee told Yahoo Lifestyle on Friday that the restaurant had no comment on the bathroom artwork.)

Though some people think the doors are funny, there is nothing lighthearted about this, MJ Okma, a spokesperson for GLAAD, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. These signs feed into dangerous myths and false stereotypes used to suggest that trans identity is somehow invalid.

The doors show disrespect for bathroom bills, which have attempted to restrict which restrooms transgender people can use, Okma says. Transgender people, especially trans women, confront everything from harassment to physical violence for merely using the correct restroom.

Using before and after shots of Caitlyn is also concerning, says Liz Owen, director of communications for PFLAG National, the nations largest organization uniting LGBTQ people, their families, and allies. Sharing pre-transition images of any transgender person is mean-spirited and potentially damaging, she tells Yahoo Lifestyle. Its especially cruel at a time when our trans loved ones rights and lives are under attack on all fronts  from small local businesses, to county school districts and state legislatures, all the way up to the highest offices of the land. Fighting for our families isnt about political correctness, its about survival.

When reached for comment, a Dodies Place employee tells Yahoo Lifestyle that the future of the restaurants bathroom doors are uncertain. The attorneys are working that out now, he says.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

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By David Ljunggren OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada imposed sanctions on Friday against 30 Russian officials whom it said were complicit in the 2009 prison death of Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-corruption lawyer who was jailed after alleging a massive tax fraud. The measures -- which freeze the assets of the officials and bar them from visiting Canada -- were enacted through a new law giving the government the right to penalize those it says are guilty of human rights violations, the foreign ministry said in a statement. Among those targeted are Alexander Bastrykin, Russia's top investigator and a close aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The United States blacklisted him in January 2017, citing Magnitsky's death. "Today's announcement sends a clear message that Canada will take action against individuals who have profited from acts of significant corruption or who have been involved in gross violations of human rights," said Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland. Moscow said last month it would retaliate if Canada banned individuals under the new law. The Russian embassy in Ottawa later issued a statement denouncing the sanctions as "absolutely pointless and reprehensible". Canada has repeatedly condemned Moscow over Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region and imposed sanctions along with other Western nations. The United States adopted a law in 2012 freezing any U.S. assets of Russian investigators and prosecutors said to have been involved in the detention of Magnitsky. In retaliation, Moscow barred Americans from adopting Russian children. In addition to penalizing the 30 Russians, Canada also imposed sanctions on 19 officials from Venezuela and three from South Sudan. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Sandra Maler)
Ottawa (AFP) - Canada imposed sanctions Friday against 52 people in three countries for human rights abuses and corruption under a new law enacted in memory of late Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

The sanctions targets three government and military officials in South Sudan accused of profiting from corruption or believed to be behind attacks on local human rights defenders.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and members of his regime also face fresh sanctions for rights violations and corruption, as did 30 Russians linked to a US $230-million tax fraud uncovered by Magnitsky in 2008.

The move, said Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, "sends a clear message that Canada will take action against individuals who have profited from acts of significant corruption or who have been involved in gross violations of human rights."

The Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, also referred to as the "Magnitsky Act," was passed on October 18.

It bans listed individuals from Canada and prohibits Canadians from dealing with them.

The consequences of being listed also includes the effective freezing of their assets in this country.

William Browder, a former Moscow financier turned anti-Kremlin campaigner, had pressed Canada to enact the legislation.

Browder was the founder of the hedge fund where Magnitsky worked when he went public with details of massive fraud by state officials.

Shortly afterward Magnitsky himself was charged with tax evasion, and spent 11 months in squalid Russian prisons before his death in 2009, which has been highlighted by activists as one of the most flagrant rights violations in Russia.

Magnitsky's widow Natalia and son Nikita joined Browder in Ottawa on Wednesday to celebrate the passage of the law.
Tweed Farms greenhouse in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. (Canopy Growth Corp.)

The Niagara region of southern Ontario is known around the world as Canadas premiere wine destination. Over 2.4 million tourists visited the province annually for wine-related attractions, according to the Wine Council of Ontarios 2016 annual report, with the majority of visitors coming to the Niagara region.

In amongst the rows of grapevines and fields of tender fruit, Niagara has also started to draw the interest of the cannabis industry as a hub for productions facilities.

Tweed Farms, a subsidiary of Canopy Growth Corporation (the largest-known licensed cannabis production facility in the world), is currently in the process of developing over one million square feet of greenhouse space in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., the heart of the Niagara wine industry. According to Tweed, Niagara-on-the-Lake will be a key hub for the company.

Our experience in Niagara-on-the-Lake has been incredibly positive, Jordan Sinclair, director of communications for Canopy Growth Corporation said. We started there with a 350,000 square foot greenhouse and were tripling the size of that footprint down there for that exact reason.

Tweed Farms property in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. (Canopy Growth Corp.)

As Tweeds production facility is surrounded by existing wineries, right next to Coyotes Run Estate Winery and Icellars Estate Winery, there is a growing concern in the Ontario wine community about the new industry acquiring prime agricultural land in the area in advance of the federal governments July 1, 2018 deadline for the legislation of marijuana for recreational use.

Aaron Dobbin, president and CEO of the Winery & Grower Alliance of Ontario, wants to see that Ontarios wine production isnt hurt by the introduction of a new player to the region.

At the end of the day, for our industry, when our industry grows we want to make sure that we have the grapes available to enable that, Dobbin said.

Good for the grapes

Despite some concern in the region, agriculture and horticulture specialists are excited about the introduction of new crops to the area from a research perspective and for the overall prosperity of the area.

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I think overall, diversifying the crop base is a good thing, Jim Brandle, CEO of Vineland Research and Innovation Centre in Vineland Station, Ont., said. Its all new. New employment, new jobs, new productionnew value, so generally its a good thing.

According to Canopy Growth Corporation, the expansion of their Tweed facility in Niagara-on-the-Lake alone will create over 100 new jobs in the cannabis sector, with a priority to contribute to the local economy in a sustainable way.

Theyre going to use that land to the fullest in a different sort of way but its still an agricultural use and a pretty potentially high value one, so I say on balance theres nothing wrong with that happening, Brandle said.

First-quarter 2017 revenue for Canopy Growth Corporation was $15.9 million, a 127 per cent increase over the previous year. Largely attributed to the Tweed Farms greenhouse, the company harvested over five thousand kilograms of marijuana that quarter, representing a 196 per cent increase over first quarter 2016.

Getting schooled on marijuana

Following Tweeds expansion plans in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Niagara College announced it would offer a Commercial Cannabis Production Graduate Certificate program, beginning in September 2018.

Were a pre-emptive college, and one of our key strengths is our ability to anticipate and respond to emerging industries, trends and labour-market needs, Niagara College president Dan Patterson said in statement when the program was announced in early September.





Also recognized for their agriculture and viticulture programs, Niagara Colleges decision to be the first school to offer a program in cannabis production will bring an influx of trained marijuana professionals to the area, making the region more desirable to cannabis production companies.

Were starting to see the second wave of the people who have seen what the earlier adopters have achieved and the success that theyve achieved, and now theyre going out and trying to replicate that success for themselves, Sinclair said.

Not welcome by everyone

Despite the excitement from researchers about the introduction of new crops, Tweed and its existing Niagara-on-the-Lake facility has not received a warm welcome from all of its neighbours.

We were just down there on Wednesday, the smell is quite overwhelming, Andrew Reynold, professor of viticulture & plant physiology at Brock University said. People dont want to walk out their door and smell a skunk every morning.

Aside from the smell, there is increased concern about the amount and location of land that cannabis production companies can purchase in the area. In September, Niagara-on-the-Lake town councillor Betty Disero requested that the town council ask the Niagara region and the province to develop a policy to protect agricultural lands in the area from marijuana greenhouses.

Her initial motion was defeated but the town agricultural committee is gathering research and feedback on whether there will be significant impact to specialty crops in the region. Councillor Disero told Yahoo Canada Finance that the committee has approved a series of motions and they will be going to town council for approval on November 13.

Provincial and local governments need to take into account the long-term potential for changes in land values and conversion of land uses that may impact other important sectors of the agri-food economy, like Ontarios wine industry,  Richard Linley, president of the Wine Council of Ontario said in an email to Yahoo Canada Finance.

The majority of land in the Niagara-on-the-Lake area is composed of class 1 and class 2 soils, which are top-quality farmlands. These prime agriculture areas are necessary for delicate wine grapes to grow.

If youre going to put modern greenhouses on land that could be growing grapesthen basically thats a loss of agricultural land in an area thats unique in the country, Reynolds said.

According to the Grape Growers of Ontario, the rich and fertile soil, paired with the moderate temperature in the spring and summer seasons, is what makes the Niagara region ideal for growing grapes for the purpose of wine production.

Decision-makers also need to consider the impact of local cannabis production on agri-tourism and whether it would benefit the Ontario wine industry or serve as a detriment in Ontarios designated viticulture areas, Linley said.

Although agricultural land usage is a key priority for existing businesses in the region, Canopy Growth Corporation does not see acquiring land made up of high quality soil a priority.

Regulations will need to be more concrete on both federal and provincial levels of government, but existing agricultural businesses and cannabis companies will need to find a way to share common territory.

We just want to make sure that were active member of the community and were recognizable so people can, if they have concerns, they can come and address them, Sinclair said.

Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.
Beijing (AFP) - Chinese authorities on Friday disputed US President Donald Trump's claim that most of the drug fentanyl, which is blamed for thousands of American deaths, was made in China, reports said days before his visit.

Last week, Trump declared the US opioid crisis a national public health emergency and vowed to step up the fight against an epidemic that kills more than 150 Americans every day.

He said the United States needed to stop "the flood of cheap and deadly fentanyl" that was "manufactured in China," declaring that discussions on the topic would be a priority during his first state visit to Beijing next week.

China did not "deny or reject" the claim that some Chinese-produced fentanyl found its way into the US market, the deputy director of the Ministry of Public Security's narcotics control bureau Wei Xiaojun told a press briefing, according to the state-run Global Times newspaper.

But "according to the intelligence and information exchanged... between China and the US, the evidence is insufficient to illustrate that the majority of fentanyl or other new psychoactive substances come from China," he said.

Legal and illegal synthetic opioids were behind most of the 64,000 drug overdose deaths across the US in 2016, a record level expected to rise further this year.

With the supply of prescription opioids on the market cut back in the past two years, addicts have turned to the cheapest alternative, fentanyl or heroin cut with fentanyl.

China, which is a significant producer and supplier of fentanyl and the chemicals used to make the compound, has outlawed an increasingly large portfolio of drugs this year at the behest of the US.

Last month, the US Department of Justice announced that it had indicted two Chinese nationals for selling fentanyl made in labs in China to US consumers over the Internet.

Wei criticized the decision, expressing "regret" that the US had chosen to act "unilaterally," as it would "impact the ongoing joint investigation into the case" by the two countries.

An estimated 2.6 million Americans are hooked on prescription opioid painkillers like oxycodone and hydrocodone, or on heroin and fentanyl.
By Michael Martina BEIJING (Reuters) - China hopes the United States can "help and not cause problems" in the disputed South China Sea, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Friday ahead of next week's visit to Beijing by President Donald Trump. The United States has criticized China's construction of islands and build-up of military facilities in the sea, and is concerned they could be used to restrict free nautical movement. U.S. Navy ships have also carried out freedom of navigation patrols in the area, angering China. Speaking to reporters about Trump's trip, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang said China has indisputable sovereignty over islands and surrounding waters in the South China Sea. The essence of the South China Sea problem is some regional countries' illegal occupation of some of China's islands and reefs, Zheng said, adding China was willing to resolve issues peacefully through talks with countries directly involved. "The South China Sea issue isn't an issue between China and the United States," he added. "We hope that as an external party, the United States can plant more flowers and fewer thorns, help and not cause problems". Zheng said he said he hoped the United States could objectively view the positive developments in the South China Sea and respect efforts by China and Southeast Asian countries to safeguard peace and stability there. There is no issue with freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and China opposed any parties using it as an "excuse" to harm China's sovereignty and security interests, he added. The Trump administration has vowed to conduct more robust South China Sea operations. China's claims in the area, through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes each year, are contested by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. Speaking earlier in the day, another senior Chinese diplomat said China and Vietnam have agreed to manage their dispute in the South China Sea through friendly talks, following an ugly spat over the summer between the two communist neighbors. The countries have long been at loggerheads over the issue, with Vietnam having emerged as the most vocal opponent of China's claims to the majority of the regional sea. A scheduled meeting between their foreign ministers in August was canceled on the sidelines of a regional gathering in Manila amid an argument about militarization in the South China Sea and island-building. Hanoi and Beijing, however, have sought to get relations back on track, with a top Chinese leader telling his Vietnamese hosts in September that their two communist parties have a "shared destiny". Speaking before Chinese President Xi Jinping goes to Vietnam next week for a state visit and to attend a summit of Asia Pacific leaders, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong said leaders of the two countries have had many "deep, frank" discussions on maritime issues. "They reached an important consensus," Chen told a news briefing. "Both sides will uphold the principle of friendly consultations and dialogue to jointly manage and control maritime disputes, and protect the bigger picture of developing Sino-Vietnam relations and stability in the South China Sea." (Reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING and Mai Nguyen in HANOI; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Tom Hogue and Kim Coghill)
Washington (AFP) - The CIA on Wednesday released a vast archive of intimate Al-Qaeda documents, including Osama Bin-Laden's handwritten diary, seized in the deadly 2011 raid on his Pakistani compound.

The huge trove includes images of diary pages left by the Saudi-born global extremist leader and a wedding video that includes the first public images of his son Hamza as an adult.

Controversially, scholars from a Washington think-tank who were given access to the now de-classified trove say the documents also shed new light on Al-Qaeda's murky relationship with Iran.

"Today's release ... provides the opportunity for the American people to gain further insights into the plans and workings of this terrorist organization," said CIA director Mike Pompeo.

The CIA put online 470,000 additional files seized in May 2011 when US Navy SEALs burst into the Abbottabad compound and shot dead the leader of Al-Qaeda's global extremist network.

According to Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio, scholars from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who were allowed to see the trove before it was made public, it provides new insights.

- Wedding video -

"These documents will go a long way to help fill in some of the blanks we still have about al Qaeda's leadership," Roggio said.

The inclusion of Hamza Bin Laden's wedding video, for example, gives the world public the first image of Bin Laden's favorite son as an adult -- an image apparently shot in Iran.

Previous document releases, including letters revealed by AFP in May 2015, show that Bin Laden was grooming Hamza to succeed him as leader of Al-Qaeda's global jihadist campaign.

But plans for him to come to Bin Laden's Abbottabad hideout seem to have been abandoned after the deadly US raid, and the young man -- now aged 27 or 28 -- is presumed to be in Iran.

According to Joscelyn and Roggio, writing in the FDD's Long War Journal, one of the newly released documents is a 19-page study of Al-Qaeda's links to Iran written by a Bin Laden lieutenant.

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Last month, at a seminar hosted by the same FDD that had an advance look at the files, Pompeo had promised to release Abbottabad documents that would show Iran-Al Qaeda ties.

"There have been relationships, there are connections. There have been times the Iranians have worked alongside Al-Qaeda," the US spy chief argued.

"There have been connections where, at the very least, they have cut deals so as not to come after each other."

This raised alarm bells among critics of President Donald Trump's new strategy to counter Iranian influence, wary that hawks like Pompeo may be making a case for war.

The full extent and true nature of this relationship is unclear and a matter of dispute among scholars and policy-makers.

On the one hand, Tehran and its largely Shiite proxy forces in the Middle East often fight against Sunni movements aligned with Al-Qaeda's deeply sectarian ideology.

The Iranian backed Hezbollah, for example, is locked in conflict against Al-Qaeda linked Syrian rebels.

But the very fact that Hamza and other senior figures appear to be able to live under Iranian protection or custody supports claims that Tehran and Bin Laden had a working relationship.

One document, Joscelyn and Roggio write, recounts how Iran offered training, money and arms to some of Al-Qaeda's "Saudi brothers" on condition they attack US interests in the Gulf.

But the files also show Tehran and Al-Qaeda sometimes had stark disagreements, and Bin Laden once wrote to Iranian leader the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to demand his relatives be released.

"Other files show that Al-Qaeda kidnapped an Iranian diplomat in order to force an exchange," Joscelyn writes.

"Osama bin Laden's correspondence shows that he and his lieutenants were also concerned that the Iranians would track Hamza or other family members after they were released."

- Open conflict -

In addition, Roggio and Joscelyn say, "Bin Laden himself considered plans to counter Iran's influence throughout the Middle East, which he viewed as pernicious."

Nevertheless, they argue, analysis of the intelligence points to Al-Qaeda having been able to maintain a "core facilitation pipeline" on Iranian soil.

Some in Washington are skeptical about the motives behind the release, coming after what the intelligence community had previously said was the last dump from the Bin Laden files.

Ned Price, a former CIA official who was seconded as a national security adviser to former president Barack Obama, said the new documents "don't tell us anything we didn't already know."

Instead, he argued on Twitter, Pompeo may have released the files to bolster the case against Iran as a sponsor of terror, pushing the United States closer to open conflict with Tehran.

"These moves suggest he's reverting to the Bush administration's playbook: Emphasize terrorist ties as a rationale for regime change," Price warned.
Washington (AFP) - Explosive revelations by a top Democratic operative that the 2016 primaries were tipped in Hillary Clinton's favor have convulsed the party as it struggles to rebuild, and whipped up accusations of cheating from President Donald Trump.

Donna Brazile, the Democratic National Committee's interim chairwoman during key months of the presidential campaign, said Clinton's team essentially took over day-to-day operations of the DNC, in essence rigging the system against Senator Bernie Sanders, who was challenging Clinton for the party's nomination.

In a book excerpt published Thursday by Politico, Brazile said her DNC chair predecessor, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had "let Clinton's headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired" when it came to controlling party strategy and staffing.

She also said that an agreement reached between the DNC and Clinton's campaign to bring the party out of debt allowed Clinton to "control" party finances, strategy, and the money raised.

"This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party's integrity," Brazile said.

Political Washington shuddered with the revelations, with members of the Sanders camp crying foul and demanding changes to the DNC framework.

As of Friday, Neither Sanders nor Clinton had responded publicly to Brazile's remarks.

- Rigged -

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Sanders ally who campaigned with Clinton after she won the nomination, expressed exasperation over what happened.

"This is a real problem," Warren, seen as a potential 2020 presidential candidate, told CNN. "We've got to hold this party accountable."

Asked whether she believes the system was rigged, Warren said "yes."

Trump seized on the crisis Friday, telling reporters that Brazile's book shows that Clinton "bought the DNC and stole the election from Bernie."

He also took the unusual step of suggesting that US justice officials investigate one of his political rivals.

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"Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn't looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems," Trump said at the start of a series of tweets about the scandal.

"Pocahontas just stated that the Democrats, lead by the legendary Crooked Hillary Clinton, rigged the Primaries! Lets go FBI & Justice Dept," he said.

Pocahontas is a nickname -- some call it a slur -- that Trump has repeatedly used to refer to Warren, in reference to her self-proclaimed Native American ancestry.

Minutes later, as he departed for an extended trip to Asia, Trump tweeted from Air Force One that Sanders supporters "have every right to be apoplectic."

"I always felt I would be running and winning against Bernie Sanders, not Crooked H, without cheating, I was right."

Brazile, 57, is a longtime Democratic strategist, having worked on several political campaigns.

She became a Democratic analyst for CNN. Although she was on leave since July 2016 to serve as interim DNC chair, she resigned from the network that October after hacked emails released by WikiLeaks showed that she had shared questions with Clinton's campaign ahead of a debate sponsored by the network.

The new DNC chairman Tom Perez, who served in president Barack Obama's cabinet, did not respond directly to the Brazile allegations.

"We're moving forward," Perez insisted to CNBC.

"One of my goals here as DNC chair is to make sure that the nominating process for 2020 is a process that's totally fair and transparent for everybody," he said, adding that the Democratic primary debate schedule will be set "well in advance" of knowing who the candidates will be.

Sanders had complained last year that the debate schedule was set to favor Clinton, because they were held during off-hours so that fewer people saw Clinton's challengers.
Bogota (AFP) - Hundreds of mothers gathered to breastfeed their babies in a park in Bogota Friday, in a "nurse-in" demonstration aimed at raising acceptance of the practice and promoting its health benefits.

Nearly 1,000 families met in the city's Parque de Los Novios for the fourth event of its type in the city, organized by the mayor's office.

Similar protests have taken place elsewhere in Latin America and around the world in recent years, often in response to cases of women being told to stop feeding their babies in public places.

"The message is not only the importance of mothers breastfeeding their children due to its nutritional quality, but also that society should accept it without discrimination, understanding that it is a right for children and mothers," said Maria Consuelo Araujo, Bogota's social integration secretary.

Mother-of-three Yuri Corredor, 32, told AFP another woman recently told her to cover up while she was feeding her seven-month-old baby.

"Times have changed so much that nowadays, it is less of a problem to show your breasts on social media than to use them to feed your baby in the street," she said.

Breastfeeding is encouraged by the World Health Organization (WHO) as providing all the necessary nutrition for healthy growth and development -- but a 2011 report by the US Department of Health suggested that in practice mothers can face many barriers to breastfeeding.

According to the report, these may include social and cultural norms, a lack of opportunity or time if a mother has to work, or lack of knowledge about how to breastfeed and overcome lactation problems.
By Keith Coffman

BRIGHTON, Colo. (Reuters) - The Colorado man arrested for fatally shooting three people in a Walmart in suburban Denver made his initial court appearance on Friday.

Scott Ostrem, 47, was captured on Thursday, the day after he "nonchalantly" entered the Thornton, Colorado, Walmart and opened fire on shoppers and employees shortly after 6 p.m. MDT (midnight GMT), police said. Thornton is about 10 miles (16 km) northeast of downtown Denver.

Wearing a light blue jail jumpsuit and faded red flip flops, Ostrem, in handcuffs and shackles, said yes four times when Judge Ted Tow asked if he understood his rights during the 10-minute hearing at the Adams County District Court in Brighton, Colorado.

The judge ordered that Ostrem continue to be held without bond in the Adams County jail.

Formal filing of charges will be made at the next hearing on Monday. Adams County District Attorney Dave Young said "multiple counts" would be filed. He declined to discuss specifics of the case, but said he had met with victims' families after the hearing.

"They are all shattered and in shock," he said.

Tow denied a request by Ostrem's attorney, public defender Emily Fleischmann, to have police again close off the Walmart store where the shooting occurred to prevent the destruction of evidence, saying he lacked the authority to order that.

The store has not reopened, said Fleischmann, who did not speak to reporters after the hearing.

Two men were killed in the shooting and a woman who was shot died at a local hospital, police said. No one else was wounded. The victims were identified as Pamela Marques, 52, Carlos Moreno, 66 and Victor Vasquez, 26.

Moreno's family attended the hearing. They were carrying a sign that read "#Justice4CarlosMoreno," but it was not allowed in the courtroom. They declined to talk to reporters.

Police said they have yet to establish a motive for the rampage and that Ostrem had only "a minimal criminal history."

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Early accounts of multiple casualties revived painful memories for the Denver area. In 2012, a gunman killed 12 people at a midnight screening of the Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises" at a theater in the suburb of Aurora. The shooter, James Holmes, is serving a dozen consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

In 1999, two 12th-graders fatally shot 12 fellow students and a teacher at Columbine High School in suburban Jefferson County. The pair, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, then committed suicide in the campus library.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Brighton, Colorado; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
Nicosia (AFP) - Cyprus has delayed the extradition of an Egyptian man accused of hijacking a plane and diverting it to the Mediterranean island, after Europe's top rights court took up his case.

The Justice Ministry said Thursday that extradition procedures against Seif al-Din Mohamed Mostafa, 60, had been suspended so the European Court of Human Rights could review his case.

The ECHR "has requested that the Republic suspend, as a temporary measure, the handing over to the Egyptian authorities of Seif al-Din Mohamed Mostafa, wanted for hijacking offences," it said in a statement.

The ministry had instructed officials to suspend moves to hand him over "until the matter is dealt with by the ECHR," it added.

Defence lawyers had appealed to the ECHR after the Cypriot Supreme Court dismissed Mostafa's appeal against extradition on Thursday.

He is accused of using a fake suicide belt to seize the EgyptAir plane from Alexandria to Cairo in March 2016 and redirect it to Cyprus.

The hijacking ended peacefully with his arrest and the release of the 55 passengers after a six-hour standoff.

Egypt requested Mostafa face trial under a bilateral agreement.

The defence argues that he should not be extradited because he would not receive a fair trial and there was a possibility he could be tortured.

But the Cypriot Supreme Court rejected Mustafa's appeal against his extradition.

In a unanimous decision, the five-judge bench upheld a lower court ruling rejecting Mostafa's defence that he may be tortured or face a "show" trial.

Last year the lower court said it had no reason to doubt assurances given by the Egyptian authorities that Mostafa's human rights would be respected.

During that hearing Mostafa painted himself as a liberal who wanted democracy for an Egyptian people subjected to "abductions, disappearance, illegal detention and extrajudicial killings".

Mostafa said his motive for hijacking the domestic Egyptian flight was to seek asylum in Italy and tell the world about the "repressive" Egyptian government.

He urged the court not to extradite him to Egypt as he would become a "dead man walking".
Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - A Palestinian militant group announced Friday another five fighters had been killed when Israel blew up a tunnel from the Gaza Strip, bringing the total number of dead to 12.

Islamic Jihad said five more men trapped in the tunnel were dead, naming them. Israel had on Monday carried out a "controlled" explosion on the tunnel crossing the border.

"We announce the death of five new heroes of the Jerusalem Brigades in Zionist bombing," Islamic Jihad said in a statement, referring to its military wing.

Two of the 12 dead belonged to the militant wing of Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, with the other 10 from Islamic Jihad.

Since Monday's explosion, Israel has refused to allow the Palestinian Civil Defence Authority access to the site to search for survivors.

The International Committee of the Red Cross had asked Israel to enable searches in the tunnel, according to a statement Thursday from COGAT, the defence ministry unit which liaises with the Palestinian territories.

COGAT commander Yoav Mordechai told the head of ICRC in Israel that the Israeli authorities would "not enable searches in the security perimeter in the Gaza Strip, without progress on the issue of the Israeli captives and missing soldiers."

Israel is seeking the return of two civilians as well as the bodies of two soldiers, believed to have been killed in the 2014 war in Gaza.

The Palestinian Civil Defence Authority accused Israel of "blackmail," saying such conditions were "in contravention of all international laws and agreements."

In 2011 Israel freed more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for an Israeli soldier who had been held captive for five years.

Tunnels dug by Hamas were a key issue in the last war with Israel in 2014, but discoveries of those stretching into the Jewish state have since been rare.

The two have fought three wars since 2008, while the Jewish state maintains a crippling blockade of Gaza which it says is necessary to constrain Hamas.

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The Israeli army said the tunnel blown up on Monday crossed the border from Gaza into Israel and was detected around two kilometres (less than two miles) from the Israeli village of Kissufim.

Hamas called Monday's incident "a dangerous escalation," but Israel said it was not seeking a further round of conflict.

Israel launched its 2014 operation in Gaza with the stated objectives of halting rocket fire and destroying attack tunnels into Israel.

During the war, 32 tunnels were discovered, including 14 that extended into Israel, according to a UN report on the conflict.
Islamic State is facing its endgame after Syrian troops retook its last-remaining city and Iraqi forces closed in on its final pocket of territory along the border.

The loss prompted Britain to announce it would soon begin withdrawing its jets from the coalition air effort against Isil, drawing down a three-year offensive against the terror group as its "caliphate" crumbles.

The simultaneous assaults on Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria and Al-Qaim in western Iraq leave Abu Kamal, on the Syrian side of the border, the last town of note under its full control.

The battle for Deir Ezzor, led by the Syrian government and allied militias with Russian air support, saw two months of heavy fighting, but the city fell relatively quickly compared to Isils capital Raqqa and Mosul in northern Iraq.

A Syrian pro-government member watches as smoke rises from buildings in Deir Ezzor Credit: STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images

Isil jihadists seized Deir Ezzor province in 2014, including vital oil and gas fields that served as a key source of revenue for the extremists. The jihadists were making millions of pounds a month from the sale of crude pumped from the two main oil fields.

It had also been strategically important as a corridor to transfer fighters, arms and goods between Iraq and Syria.

As Raqqa came under intense pressure, many of Isils senior and foreign fighters moved to Deir Ezzor, which became its new operational and financial hub.

While Isil has been driven from most of its strongholds in Deir Ezzor, it still controls over 35 percent of the province, much of it empty desert.

At the height of its power the group controlled a third of Syria and a third of neighbouring Iraq, making up a quasi-state the size of Britain. The coalition announced last week it has lost 90 per cent of its caliphate.

In Iraq, troops reached the border on Friday morning and continued to close in on the last remaining pocket of militant-held territory in Anbar province.

Desperate militants were seen crossing from the Iraqi side to Abu Kamal in Syria, according to opposition media.

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Haider al-Abadi, Iraqs prime minister, pledged the battle will be finished within days and would declare Iraq completely clear of Islamic State.

Smoke billows from the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor during an operation by Syrian government forces Credit: AFP/Getty Images

The jihadists are now confined to a small stretch of harsh desert land either side of the Syria-Iraq frontier.

Omar Abu Layla, executive director of news outlet DeirEzzor24, said he thought as many as 4,000 fighters could still be around Abu Kamal, who could still mount insurgent attacks.

Isil gave up Deir Ezzor without much of a fight. This was a strategy, he told the Telegraph. They have returned to fighting in the desert. They know [President Bashar] Assad doesn't have anywhere near enough forces to take and hold the 120km (75 miles) from Deir Ezzor to the border. What we will see in Abu Kamal is a battle like Raqqa."

A soldier from the Syrian government forces flashes victory sign Credit: STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images

Air Cdre Johnny Stringer, who leads Britains contribution to the air war against Isil, said the UK could begin withdrawing RAF jets from the US-led coalitions campaign as early next year.

I think we will still need an element of manned fast jet strike as well," Air Cdre Stringer told reporters on Friday. "But I am hoping that we may see the ability to draw down elements of that final bit because frankly the tempo of our operations is going to reduce as Daesh are beaten in Iraq and in Syria."

He said Isils caliphate had all but disappeared but warned it was now likely to morph into an insurgent organisation.

Colin P. Clarke, a terrorism expert at the RAND Corporation, said Isil "is being forced to change its strategy and tactics, but it has been proactively preparing for the next phase of the conflict".

The world is watching it shift from being "an insurgency with fixed headquarters to a clandestine terrorist network dispersed throughout the region and the globe", he said.

Experts say as Isil will continue to grow abroad and may even look to link with other extremist groups in the region for strength.

Look for more coordination between Isil and al-Qaeda outside and inside Syria and Iraq, despite their ongoing friction in other areas such as Yemen, said Maha Hosain Aziz, who specialises in political risk, prediction and strategy as a professor at New York University.

Isil will also continue to expand its recruitment pool worldwide to prepare for its long-term goal of forming a global Islamic caliphate.
In the wake of the New York terror attack, it has become the contrast that some claim speaks volumes about Donald Trump.

When a white American with a semi-automatic rifle killed 59 people in Las Vegas in the worst mass shooting in US history, it took Mr Trump five hours to offer his condolences, and even longer to suggest it wasnt the time to discuss policy matters like gun control.

When an apparently Muslim Uzbek national used a hire truck to kill at least eight people in New York, there was no such hesitation. And to some, it said everything about Mr Trump's willingness to exploit fear of Muslim immigrants while doing nothing to offend his gun-loving core supporters.

Within 90 minutes of the New York attack Mr Trump had tweeted NOT IN THE USA, following up half an hour later with an apparent immigration reference: We must not allow to Isis to return, or enter, our country  all before he got round to offering his condolences to the victims and their families.

Within hours of the New York attack, Mr Trump was explicitly linking the incident to immigration policy action, informing his twitter followers: I have just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program [for refugees seeking entry to the US].

In NYC, looks like another attack by a very sick and deranged person. Law enforcement is following this closely. NOT IN THE U.S.A.!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2017

We must not allow ISIS to return, or enter, our country after defeating them in the Middle East and elsewhere. Enough!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2017

My thoughts, condolences and prayers to the victims and families of the New York City terrorist attack. God and your country are with you!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2017

I have just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program. Being politically correct is fine, but not for this!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 1, 2017

And by Wednesday morning Mr Trump was trying to pin the blame on a political rival, the Democratic senator Chuck Schumer.

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Yet after Stephen Paddock used a semi-automatic rifle to kill 59 and wound more than 500 in Las Vegas, it took over 24 hours and the prompting of reporters before the president so much as mentioned gun control policy  and even then he only said firearms laws would be discussed as time goes by.

He didnt specify when, and amid the clamour to condemn lobby groups like the National Rifle Association, he seemed to stick closely to the line articulated by White House press secretary Sarah Huckerbee Sanders that This isn't the time to go after individuals or organisations.

This time, though, Mr Trump showed no qualms at all about going after individuals or organisations.

In a flurry of tweets early on Wednesday morning, he started pointing the finger of blame at his political opponent, the Senate Minority Leader and New York Democrat Chuck Schumer.

In an apparent reference to as-yet unconfirmed reports about New York terror attack suspect Sayfullo Saipov, Mr Trump wrote: The terrorist came into our country through what is called the "Diversity Visa Lottery Program," a Chuck Schumer beauty.

We are fighting hard for Merit Based immigration, no more Democrat Lottery Systems. We must get MUCH tougher (and smarter).

"'Senator Chuck Schumer helping to import Europes problems,' said Col.Tony Shaffer. We will stop this craziness!"

The terrorist came into our country through what is called the "Diversity Visa Lottery Program," a Chuck Schumer beauty. I want merit based.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 1, 2017

We are fighting hard for Merit Based immigration, no more Democrat Lottery Systems. We must get MUCH tougher (and smarter). @foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 1, 2017

"Senator Chuck Schumer helping to import Europes problems" said Col.Tony Shaffer. We will stop this craziness! @foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 1, 2017

Two tweets referred his followers to the conservative TV channel Fox News, where the diversity visa lottery programme, supposedly the brainchild of Mr Schumer, was being discussed.

The seemingly obvious contrast in reactions to Las Vegas and New York provoked a near-instant response.

What Trump tweeted 5 hours after white man shot 600 Americans vs 90 minutes after Manhattan attack. Thoughts and prayers vs NOT IN THE USA. pic.twitter.com/JgRGAhqAoi  Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) October 31, 2017

Many were furious that Mr Trump appeared happy to rush to make political gains by stirring up hatred against Muslims and immigrants, while deflecting questions about gun control to avoid upsetting his core supporters.

Why can we instantly talk about stopping Isis but not the same for gun violence? asked one twitter user.

You bigot, said another, Pe Resists, in response to the presidents announcement about extreme vetting of refugees. You didn't do s**t when someone shot up 600 people a month ago, but it took you three hours to react to this.

What's the difference? Oh yeah, this guy's a Muslim. That's literally it.

Fuck you, you bigot.



You didn't do shit when someone shot up 600 people a month ago but it took you three hours to react to this.  Pe Resists (@4everNeverTrump) November 1, 2017

What's the difference? Oh yeah, this guy's a Muslim. That's literally it.  Pe Resists (@4everNeverTrump) November 1, 2017

Why dont you react as strongly when a domestic terrorist mows down 60 people with an automatic weapon? demanded Artie Vandelay. You will try to play on fear and you do so literally hours after the event. Sick.
Donald Trump has responded to the rogue employee at Twitter who deleted his account, suggesting it was done because his account was "finally getting out... and having an impact".

The president's Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes overnight, in a move that initially appeared to be a mystery. Many speculated that the account might be shut down for good  but Twitter has repeatedly said that it won't ban Mr Trump even if he breaks its rules.

The company explained that it had been done by a rogue employee on their last day, and that it was now looking to avoid such things happening again.

Many of his supporters have suggested that the move was done by someone who was opposed to free speech. British right-wing commentator Paul Joseph Watson, for instance, said that liberals had given up on free speech and instead "have orgasms whenever free speech gets censored, either at the whim of a Twitter staffer or a violent Antifa thug".

Mr Trump, however, only suggested that his account had been removed because it was so important. "My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee. I guess the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact," he wrote.

The post was the first time the President had addressed the controversy, about half a day after it had happened. His response recalled his "covfefe" post  in which he misspelt a word and then appeared to delight in the fact that people were confused or attacking him over it.

He then continued to post about the investigation into Russia, and repeated his suggestion that a similar probe should be launched into the Democrats and the FBI. That was articulated in a flurry of tweets, which swiftly covered up his statement on the deleted account.
President Donald Trump kicked off his Friday by ranting about Democrats on Twitter and calling, once again, on the Justice Department to investigate his former presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton.

In a flurry of tweets insulting several prominent Democrats, Trump claimed, citing no evidence, that everybody is questioning why the FBI and Justice Department havent yet looked into dishonesty going on with Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.

Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn't looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

Trump attempted to bolster his argument by mentioning former interim DNC chair Donna Braziles recent accusations that Clinton had gained control of the committee during the 2016 election well before becoming the partys nominee.

...New Donna B book says she paid for and stole the Dem Primary. What about the deleted E-mails, Uranium, Podesta, the Server, plus, plus...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

....People are angry. At some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper. The American public deserves it!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

The real story on Collusion is in Donna B's new book. Crooked Hillary bought the DNC & then stole the Democratic Primary from Crazy Bernie!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

Brazile wasnt having it, tweeting that Trump was misquoting her.

Todays lesson: Being quoted by Donald Trump means being MIS-quoted by Donald Trump. Stop trolling me. #NeverSaidHillaryRiggedElection  Donna Brazile (@donnabrazile) November 3, 2017

Mr President, pleasego back to attacking me. Its better than having my own words scrambled and spewed out by you.  Donna Brazile (@donnabrazile) November 3, 2017

Thank you Mr President (a few others trollers), for translating my new book into Trumpspeak. #NotWhatISaid. Watch @ThisWeekABC for my views.  Donna Brazile (@donnabrazile) November 3, 2017

Trump also managed to simultaneously cite and insult Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who said on Thursday that she believed the Democratic nomination had been rigged, by once again referring to her as Pocahontas.

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

Pocahontas just stated that the Democrats, lead by the legendary Crooked Hillary Clinton, rigged the Primaries! Lets go FBI & Justice Dept.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

Warren quickly responded in a series of tweets.

You might think your tweets are cute, @realDonaldTrump, but they wont stop Mueller's investigation or keep your people out of jail.  Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) November 3, 2017

The DNC shouldn't play favorites. But that's a whole lot different from illegally conspiring with Russia. The FBI knows the difference.  Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) November 3, 2017

Slurs, lies & trash talk wont stop the FBI from doing its job. This isn't a dictatorship. It's our democracy. And it's stronger than you.  Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) November 3, 2017

Hours after dubbing Sanders Crazy Bernie, Trump also attempted to appeal to Sanders supporters by tweeting that they had every right to be apoplectic over what he called the complete theft of the Dem primary.

Bernie Sanders supporters have every right to be apoplectic of the complete theft of the Dem primary by Crooked Hillary!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

I always felt I would be running and winning against Bernie Sanders, not Crooked H, without cheating, I was right.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

The rigged Dem Primary, one of the biggest political stories in years, got ZERO coverage on Fake News Network TV last night. Disgraceful!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

Sanders responded by telling Trump to do his job.

We won't be distracted from your efforts to give billionaires tax cuts, take health care from millions and deny climate change. Do your job. https://t.co/35eWaiMuYt  Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) November 3, 2017

Throughout his presidency, Trump has repeatedly blurred the traditional lines between the Justice Department and the White House. Past presidents typically avoided speaking out about ongoing criminal cases, and it would have been a major scandal if one of them had suggested that the Justice Department investigate a political opponent. Trump just tweets it out.

Trump has also undermined his own attorney general and deputy attorney general, both of whom he has blamed for the special counsel investigation into his campaigns possible links to Russian interference with the 2016 election.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Live engagement marketing platform DoubleDutch has replaced CEO Bryan Parker, who was appointed from COO to CEO just two months ago, TechCrunch has learned. Lawrence Coburn, founder of DoubleDutch, has since been reinstated as CEO.

DoubleDutch's board made the decision to replace Parker with Coburn today, according to a source familiar with the situation. Parker first joined the company earlier this year in June. DoubleDutch has confirmed to TechCrunch that Parker is no longer in charge, but will remain employed at the company.

"Bryan Parker remains actively involved with the company in a senior capacity and will work with DoubleDutch, its board and its leadership team on its strategic growth plan going forward," a DoubleDutch spokesperson said in a statement. "Lawrence Coburn, the founder and original CEO of the company, is resuming his role as CEO. We look forward to Bryan continuing to make important contributions to the future success of the company."

What's not completely clear is the rationale behind the decision, but in a follow-up text message specifically asking why Parker would no longer be CEO, Colburn said, "were a startup... always looking to put people in the best spots to be successful."

This year has been full of ups and downs for DoubleDutch. In January, the company laid off 40 percent of its staff, including the CFO, CCO and VP of Customer Success. But then in September, the company acquired Eventgrid and, at the same time, announced Parker would be promoted to CEO. That, of course, was very short-lived.

DoubleDutch, which launched in 2011, has raised more than $78 million in venture capital from investors like Bessemer Ventures, Index Ventures and others.

Update 11/3/17 6:04 PM PT: DoubleDutch has sent over an unsolicited additional statement:

"We highly respect Mr. Parkers abilities and talents, as was evidenced by our hiring and promoting him as COO and CEO. During his time with the Company, Mr. Parker has been an effective leader and has made important and lasting contributions," a DoubleDutch spokesperson said. "Earlier this week, the Company determined that, given the strategic priorities of the Company at this time, Lawrence is best positioned to serve as our chief executive officer, so we transitioned the role to him. We expect that Mr. Parker will continue to provide valuable guidance and advice to the Board and the Company in a senior capacity going forward. DoubleDutch is excited to continue to grow our market leadership position in event marketing. We know our team and our products will fuel our success in the years to come."

I've been in touch with members of the board and will update this story as I get more information.

Megan Rose Dickey can be reached securely on Signal at 415-419-9355, and their PGP fingerprint for email is: 2FA7 6E54 4652 781A B365 BE2E FBD7 9C5F 3DAE 56B
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union vowed to ensure that Malta finds the barbarous assassins of a journalist being buried there on Friday and to resolve potential structural problems with the rule of law on the island.

Reflecting concern in Europe over possible systemic failings in Maltese democracy, European Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans called on the EU's smallest state to leave "no stone unturned" in hunting the killers of investigative blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia, who died in a car bombing last month.

"The eyes of Europe are on the Maltese authorities," wrote Timmermans, a former Dutch foreign minister who as Jean-Claude Juncker's deputy oversees the Brussels executive's efforts to ensure member states respect democratic and judicial standards.

"If journalists are silenced, so is democracy," he said in a reply, seen by Reuters, to a letter from European media editors urging the EU to ensure justice for Caruana Galizia.

"We want those directly and indirectly responsible for this horrible murder to be brought to justice. And we want the investigations to run their full course, so that any other related wrongdoings that may emerge can also be prosecuted and potential structural problems be resolved," he added.

Caruana Galizia was a controversial figure who accused many of the most senior figures in both government and opposition of corruption and involvement in international money-laundering.

"We insist that the Maltese authorities leave no stone unturned to make sure that this atrocious, barbarous assassination does not lead to the situation that the perpetrators apparently want to achieve: that no-one dares ask pertinent questions and no journalist dares investigate the powers that be," he added.

"This will not happen in Europe. Not on this Commission's watch."

The Commission said in a separate statement that Juncker condemned such attacks in the strongest possible terms. "The right of a journalist to investigate, ask uncomfortable questions and report effectively, is at the heart of our values and needs to be guaranteed at all times," the statement said. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who is himself suing Caruana Galizia's son for libel over allegations of corruption, says everything will be done to find her killers.

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His government has offered a one million-euro reward and protection for anyone providing information to identify them.

The Commission has limited powers to intervene directly in member states. It has applied largely moral pressure on Hungary and Poland to reverse proposed laws that it sees as breaching EU treaties by curbing judicial, media or other freedoms.

It has warned that it could seek to suspend Poland, but this would require support from all member states - something the Commission sees as difficult to obtain.

The Commission does have powers to fine states for breaches of EU legislation.

European Parliament President Antonio Tajani said in a statement he would attend the funeral in Malta at the invitation of Caruana Galizia's family.

(Reporting by Alastair Macdonald; writing by Robert-Jan Bartunek; editing by Andrew Roche)
Islamabad (AFP) - Pakistan's ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif appeared in court on Friday, a day after returning from overseas to face corruption allegations that saw him ejected from office and targeted with an arrest warrant.

In a brief hearing in Islamabad, Sharif paid two surety bonds of five million rupees ($48,000) each before leaving under tight security, his lawyer Khawaja Haris told AFP.

The court is set to reconvene on November 7.

The former premier, who was forced out by the Supreme Court in July over a scandal kindled by the Panama Papers leak, had been facing an arrest warrant for failing to appear at hearings since early October.

He has spent most of the time since in London, where his wife is receiving treatment for cancer. He arrived in Islamabad on Thursday.

Sharif became the 15th premier in Pakistan's 70-year history to be ousted before completing a full term, after the corruption investigation against him.

The claims against the prime minister stemmed from the Panama Papers leak last year, which sparked a media frenzy over the luxurious lifestyles and high-end London property portfolio owned by his family.

Sharif and his supporters have denied the allegations and hinted at a political conspiracy driven by the powerful military.

"I am going to Pakistan despite (my wife's) chemotherapy to appear in a bogus case," he told media in London before departing.

"Pakistan's system has contradictions... all this must be changed, now is the time to change it."

He said nothing to media outside the court in Islamabad, but his son-in-law Muhammad Safdar also hinted at a conspiracy.

"Till the time the courts are... free from the fear of some other people, I can't expect any fair trial from this court," Safdar said outside the court.

Earlier this week Sharif summoned top officials from his eponymous ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to London for a summit on the party's leadership as legal pressure grows.

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Sharif named loyalist Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as prime minister days after his ousting, and said his younger brother Shahbaz, currently the chief minister of Punjab province, would eventually succeed him.

Pakistani media reports have said the party plans to keep Sharif as a central figure during campaigning for a general election due to be held sometime next year, despite the Supreme Court barring him from holding office.

ga-jaf-sjd-st/klm/sls
A pre-teen South Carolina girl is believed to have committed suicide last week and family members are blaming bullying for her death.

Toni Rivers, at just 11 years old, took a gun and fatally shot herself on Oct. 25, according to state law enforcement.

12-Year-Old Boy Survives Apparent Suicide Jump but Kills Grad Student

The Hampton County Sheriff's Office said deputies were dispatched to a home at about 4 p.m. after Toni's 14-year-old sister called 911, according to local reports.

The incident report says the shooting happened closer to 2:30 p.m. and Toni was found on her back along with a rifle.

While the gun was her own, Toni's stepdad told WTOC she'd never used it without the family's knowledge at any time prior to Wednesday.

Toni was airlifted to a hospital, where she clung to life for 72 hours before doctors had to break the news: She was gone.

Leading up to the tragedy, Toni's family said they tried multiple times to get officials at Hampton County School District 1 elementary school to intervene in what they say was the bullying that they believe led her to pull the trigger.

On three occasions, Toni's mother, Amy Thomas, says she spoke to the principal about bullying at the school.

The family said six other parents with children in Toni's sixth grade class have agreed to be interviewed and agreed to have their children interviewed as part of the investigation.

"My baby's gone, but everyone's got confidence now  you know, they can stand up to her," Amy said.

Body of Missing Teacher Found After Husband Confesses to Murder in Suicide Note

School district superintendent Ronald Wilcox would not comment on the situation or the family's allegations. He instead released the following statement:

"It is with heavy hearts that the Hampton One family mourns the loss of one of our students. Our sympathy and prayers go out to the family and friends affected by this tragedy. Counselors have been made available and will continue to be available to offer any needed support. Student matters are confidential and we believe it would be inappropriate to comment further on this tragic incident."

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In a post on a GoFundMe page created to help raise money for medical bills and funeral costs, loved ones wrote that their hope is to also "raise enough funds to also help create Tonis Law to help protect our children."

"Toni was a beautiful, kind, and compassionate little girl. When the bullying began she didnt want to burden her parents and lived the nightmare alone. This speaks volumes as to the kind of child she was! Once her mother was made aware of the situation, she notified the people she trusted and thought would protect her child while she was in their care," the page reads.

Related Articles:
(WASHINGTON)  House Republicans on Thursday unveiled a tax cut plan that slashes the corporate tax rate, lowers taxes for most Americans but limits a cherished deduction for homeowners as President Donald Trump and the GOP seek to deliver on the first tax revamp in three decades.

The proposal would add $1.5 trillion to the nations debt over the next decade as Republicans largely abandoned fiscal discipline in a desire to secure a legislative achievement for Trump and score a political win ahead of next years midterm elections.

Middle-income families would pay less, thanks to doubling of the standard deduction and an increase in the child tax credit. Wealthy Americans, like Trump, would benefit from the repeal of the alternative minimum tax and phase out of the estate tax.

Some two-income, upper middle class families would pay more after being bumped into a higher tax bracket and losing a valuable deduction on state income taxes.

GOP leaders briefed rank-and-file lawmakers on the proposal Thursday morning ahead of a show-of-unity event at the White House with Trump.

Today is the day. We are introducing legislation that will cut your taxes & make the entire system more simple. This will be a game-changer, Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said on Twitter.

The proposal would leave intact the existing rules on 401(k) retirement accounts and the ability of Americans to contribute up to $18,000 into the accounts tax-free. But the plan limits the widely used deduction for mortgage interest for new home loans of $500,000 or less, a sharp reduction from the current $1 million cap.

The plan also limits the deductibility of local property taxes to $10,000 while eliminating the deduction for state income taxes, which has generated significant opposition from Republicans in high-tax states such as New York and New Jersey.

The tax-writing Ways and Means Committee will work on finalizing the proposal next week, and the GOPs ambitious timetable to get a bill to Trump by Christmas faces numerous roadblocks. The proposal caused anxiety for some House Republicans and drew criticism from a few in the Senate, which is intent on writing its own bill.

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Rep. Dan Donovan, R-N.Y., said he still had concerns about the state and local tax deduction, and planned to meet with leadership.

Were going to look at all of this to see how it all plays out, he told reporters as he emerged from the GOP caucus.

The plan shrinks the number of tax brackets from seven to three or four, with respective tax rates of 12 percent, 25 percent, 35 percent and a category still to be determined. The tax system would be simplified, and most people would be able to file their returns on a postcard-sized form.

The plan sets a 25 percent tax rate starting at $90,000 for married couples, with a 35 percent rate beginning to bite at $260,000  which means many upper-income families whose top rate is 33 percent would face higher taxes. Individuals making $500,000 and couples earning $1 million would face the current Clinton-era top rate of 39.6 percent.

The plan slashes the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, a demand of Trump. It also repeals the inheritance taxes on multimillion-dollar estates, a big break for the wealthy.

There are a lot of people still in our conference who are anxious to see exactly how this plays out with growth in the economy, what the long term deficit and debt situation turns out to be, said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark.

The child tax credit would be increased from $1,000 to $1,600, though the $4,050 per child exemption would be repealed.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., tweeted: House #TaxReform plan is only starting point. But $600 #ChildTaxCredit increase doesnt achieve our & @potus goal of helping working families.

The legislation is a longstanding goal for Capitol Hill Republicans who see a once-in-a-generation opportunity to clean up an inefficient, loophole-cluttered tax code.

The plan calls for nearly doubling the standard deduction used by most average Americans to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for families, and increasing the per-child tax credit. On net, it could mean tax increases for many upper middle-income families.

Republicans and Trump argue that sharply cutting tax rates for businesses improves U.S. economic competitiveness.

The emerging plan would retain the Clinton-era 39.6 percent income tax rate for the wealthiest earners. But for that highest bracket, the tax writers raised the minimum level of income to $1 million for couples or families from the current $470,000  a change that would reduce tax revenue.

Democrats have repeatedly complained the plan was too favorable to business and the wealthy, and contradicted Trumps rhetoric of bringing tax relief and economic benefit to the stressed middle class.
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Amado Boudou, who had been former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez's economy minister and vice president, was arrested on corruption charges on Friday, becoming the second major official in her government to face detention.

Police arrested Boudou and an alleged associate, Jose Maria Nunez Carmona, in an upscale neighbourhood of Buenos Aires for racketeering and money laundering.

Local television showed Boudou, grim-faced and wearing a plain black T-shirt, as he stood beside two bearded security officers. In other photographs broadcast on television, he was in handcuffs, standing in what appeared to be his home.

Boudou's lawyer denounced the arrest on Friday, calling it "arbitrary."

"We never had any problems, and overnight, just in the week that there is a complaint to the Magistrates Council, the arrest was ordered," attorney Eduardo Duranona said on local television.

The 55-year-old economist faces three counts of "illicit enrichment" dating back to 2009, the year he was promoted from heading Argentina's social security administration to become Fernandez's economy minister.

He became vice president in 2011, when Fernandez won reelection. But he was largely absent from public view during that four-year term as accusations of corruption mounted against him.

He and Carmona "developed their criminal schemes at least since the start of August 2009, when Amado Boudou took charge of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, until the month of December 2015, when he finished his term as vice president," according to the arrest warrant.

Fernandez's former planning minister, Julio De Vido, was arrested on Oct. 25, just three days after current President Mauricio Macri's "Cambiemos," or "Let's Change," coalition swept Argentina's Oct. 22 midterm elections.

Fernandez herself is facing corruption allegations stemming from her eight years as president. She will, however, be immune from arrest after being elected to the Senate under Argentina's list system despite coming in second to Macri's candidate.

Story continues

Fernandez was indicted last year on charges that she and her public works secretary, Jose Lopez, embezzled money meant for road projects. Lopez was arrested in June 2016 while trying to stash bags of cash in a Catholic convent.

In a statement on Friday afternoon, Fernandez's "Citizens' Unity" party accused Macri of using the judicial system to persecute political opponents, putting Argentine democracy "at risk."

"The deprivation of the former vice president's freedom has nothing to do with the case being investigated. It is a clear manoeuvre to intimidate, extort, and discipline union leaders and the political opposition," the party wrote.

(Reporting by Nicolas Misculin; Writing by Caroline Stauffer and Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Andrea Ricci)
Donald Trump: AP/Evan Vucci

A former British spy was paid more than 125,000 to outline Russian financial and personal links to Donald Trumps election campaign.

Fusion GP, a Washington DC based research firm, hired former MI6 officer Christopher Steele to collect information about the US President and his advisers.

A total of $168,000 (126,000) was paid to Orbis Business Intelligence, Mr Steeles company, to produce the Trump dossier, Fusion GPS said in a statement.

It had previously not been disclosed how Mr Steeles company was paid, but Mr Trump had tweeted that it had cost $12 million (9 million), without citing any sources for the claim.

Never seen such Republican ANGER & UNITY as I have concerning the lack of investigation on Clinton made Fake Dossier (now $12,000,000?),...., Mr Trump tweeted.

The collection of memos, which alleges the existence of a Russian programme "cultivating, supporting and assisting" Mr Trump to the presidency, was known to have circulated among intelligence officials and top politicians in Washington.

Court filings submitted by Mr Steele stated that he shared the memo with a British "national security official" in their official capacity.

Unconfirmed reports in the document, which Mr Steele previously told The Independent had been passed to British authorities, cover "at least" five years of communication, co-operation and conspiracy between Mr Trump's camp and Russian intelligence officials.

Sources have also claimed that Moscow is capable of blackmailing the new president, and detail "perverted sexual acts" committed by Mr Trump as evidence.

According to his court papers, Mr Steele decided to hand the dossier over "on a confidential basis in hard copy form" to the British intelligence services because it "had implications for the national security of the US and the UK", as well as being "of considerable importance in relation to alleged Russian interference in the US presidential election".

Story continues

The dossier came into the public eye when it was published by the Buzzfeed website, who stressed they were "unverified and potentially unverifiable".

Mr Trump dismissed the wide-ranging allegations as "fake news"

Mr Steele originally compiled the report for political opponents of Mr Trump in Washington, and was forced to go into hiding after being identified as its author.

Sources familiar with Mr Steeles work said his for Fusion GPS started in May 2016 and stopped with the election.

His reports are pivotal to investigations into allegations that Russia attempted to help the Trump campaign.

Both Moscow and Mr Trump deny any collusion and have branded the investigation a witch hunt.
Former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile called Hillary Clintons fundraising practices the cancer of the Democratic Party in a fiery book excerpt published Thursday on Politico.

Brazile, who served as interim DNC chair leading up to the 2016 election, had promised former presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) that she would investigate whether Clintons campaign rigged the nomination process ahead of the election. In the course of her research, she writes, she learned about a joint fundraising agreement among the DNC, Clintons campaign and the campaigns fundraising arm.

Under the agreement, Brazile explained, Clintons campaign provided a $2 million loan to the debt-ridden DNC, and took advantage of a loophole in campaign finance law to use the party as a fund-raising clearinghouse. In essence, the deal allowed the Clinton campaign to control the party, and its finances, well before securing the Democratic nomination, or even officially entering the presidential race.

Brazile, by her account, was in agony when she dialed Sanders to tell him what she had found. Hello, senator, she remembered saying. Ive completed my review of the DNC and I did find the cancer. But I will not kill the patient.

You can read the full excerpt from Braziles book Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House, here.
By Nick Brown

(Reuters) - A former Puerto Rico official who has been mentioned in connection with a controversial contract to restore electricity to the bankrupt U.S. territory after Hurricane Maria has denied having any role in securing it.

In papers filed on Friday in federal court in San Juan, Elias Sanchez, a friend and one-time adviser to Governor Ricardo Rossello, said under penalty of perjury that he never had any kind of relationship" with contractor Whitefish Energy or its principals.

Rossello has come under fire for his handling of cleanup efforts since the September hurricane, the most powerful storm to hit Puerto Rico in 90 years.

After Maria knocked out electricity, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, which is also in bankruptcy, awarded a no-bid, $300 million repair contract to Whitefish, a small Montana company with no experience in handling large-scale destruction.

Rossello canceled the contract after an uproar over its provisions.

But the saga was not over. Island creditors and federal lawmakers have questioned how the deal got done, with some speculating it was facilitated by lobbyists, namely Sanchez, a lawyer who ran Rossellos 2016 gubernatorial campaign.

In court papers earlier this week, holders of PREPAs $9 billion in debt cited local news reports mentioning Sanchez in connection with the Whitefish deal and asked the judge overseeing the utility's bankruptcy for permission to investigate it.

Sanchez asked the court to strike references to his name in that filing, saying he had no contact with PREPA about Whitefish. Ken Luce, a spokesman for the company, said on Friday that its chief executive officer, Andy Techmanski, never met Sanchez.

The U.S. House of Representatives' Energy Committee on Wednesday said it wanted the Federal Emergency Management Agency to explain how it is overseeing contracts for rebuilding Puerto Rico's power grid.

Another contract, one PREPA signed with Mammoth Energy's Cobra Acquisitions subsidiary, is also being scrutinized by Congress. Sanchez noted in his statement that he had no role in that deal, either.

Story continues

Six weeks after the hurricane, only about 37 percent of homes and businesses on the island have had power restored.

'A GOOD FRIEND'

Sanchez has said he no longer works in Rossellos administration and has largely moved off the island since Maria.

Rossello called Sanchez a friend in an interview with Reuters on Thursday.

"He makes no government-related decisions, period," the governor said. "But he was my campaign manager, and hes a good friend."

After Rossello won office in 2016, Sanchez became his liaison to the federal board overseeing Puerto Ricos troubled finances. Sanchez helped shape Rossellos financial policy as the island entered bankruptcy in May to restructure $72 billion in debt. He resigned from that position in July.

Investors had criticized Sanchez for making sparse financial disclosures and speculated that he was concealing income that would present a conflict of interest.

Sanchez said his decision to resign was personal and that he was "very comfortable with everything" he did on the board to represent the island's best interests.

(Reporting by Nicholas Brown; Additional reporting by Jessica Resnick Ault; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
(Photo: HuffPost)

(Photo: Gary Cameron / Reuters)

TOP STORIES

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TOP DEMOCRATS SAY 2016 NOMINATION WAS RIGGED FOR HILLARY CLINTON Donna Brazile, the former interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, detailed how the Clinton campaign took control of the DNC before she was the partys official nominee. Elizabeth Warren has chimed in to say she believes the 2016 nomination was rigged for Clinton. Read the excerpt from Braziles forthcoming book here. [HuffPost] [Tweet | Share on Facebook]

WHATS INSIDE THE REPUBLICAN TAX BILL Check out the winners and losers, and these six charts that explain it all. [HuffPost]

THE KEVIN SPACEY ALLEGATIONS KEEP GETTING WORSE Several House of Cards employees have leveled new charges of sexual harassment and assault against Spacey. The actor is reportedly seeking evaluation and treatment. And his publicist and talent agency have dumped him. [HuffPost]

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMPS TWITTER DISAPPEARED FOR 11 MINUTES LAST NIGHT After a rogue Twitter employee deactivated the account on his or her last day at the company. Twitter, understandably,went berserk. [HuffPost]

MEET THE NEW FED CHAIR Jerome Powell has been a Federal Reserve governor since 2012. [HuffPost]

FOUR WOMEN HAVE ACCUSED A THAT 70s SHOW STAR OF RAPE A monthslong investigation into multiple allegations of rape against actor Danny Masterson has inexplicably stalled, despite the Los Angeles County district attorney having compelling evidence in the case, multiple sources told HuffPost. [HuffPost]

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who was first elected to the House in 1986, is now the 20th Republican in the House to either resign this year or announce that they will not seek re-election in 2018. [HuffPost]

WHATS BREWING

BILLIONAIRE TRUMP DONOR ROBERT MERCER HAS SOLD HIS STAKE IN BREITBART NEWS And recanted his support for Milo Yiannopoulos. [HuffPost]

GOTHAMIST, DNAINFO, DCIST AND OTHER NEWS SITES WERE SHUT DOWN Days after staff members unionized. [HuffPost]

Story continues

BEHOLD, THE 2017 VICTORIAS SECRET FANTASY BRA It only costs $2 million. [HuffPost]

THIS TRUCKER HAT MONITORS WHETHER ITS WEARER IS FALLING ASLEEP Talk about life-saving technology. [Fast Company]

CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT But we cant stop listening to Taylor Swifts new love song. [HuffPost]

ARE YOU GUILTY OF PHUBBING? Its when youre so engrossed in your phone that youre ignoring your significant other. [HuffPost]

BEFORE YOU GO

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Gordon Murray is most famous for his role in creating the McLaren F1 during his stint at McLaren cars, but recently he's been shopping around a production process called iStream. iStream, Murray claims, is a relatively inexpensive way to mass produce a modular, lightweight platform. It combines a lightweight spaceframe with stressed panels to form the chassis. The new IGM car will leverage a new version of this chassis-process, called iStream Superlight, which incorporates weight-saving aluminum instead of steel in the spaceframe. Murray announced the new car with this teaser image, which we've processed slightly to bring out some additional detail.



It's clearly a mid-engined vehicle with a large dorsal air intake, a nod to the F1's roof intake. Murray claims it'll be driver-oriented, and feature advanced aerodynamics. Other than that, it's not clear how ambitious this IGM car will be  is the target the McLaren 570S, or the Lamborghini Aventador? Judging by the profile, it may be smaller than the McLaren Sport Series cars, but that's not necessarily indicative of its performance envelope.



What's IGM? Well, that was how Murray branded his very first car, the IGM-Ford, a rather rough-hewn Lotus 7 clone that Murray raced in South Africa in the late 1960s. To American ears, it sounds more like the name of a grocery store chain, but perhaps it'll resonate with buyers.



There's no word on when to expect the car, so don't hold your breath. But hopefully it proves clever enough to attract attention in a supercar-saturated market.



Related Video:

Gordon Murray's IGM is his next driver-focused sportscar originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 03 Nov 2017 13:10:00 EDT.
Gwyneth Paltrow attends the 2017 WSJ Magazine Innovator Awards at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC on Nov. 1, 2017. (Photo: Taylor Hill/WireImage)

Gwyneth Paltrows coming forward with her sexual harassment allegation against Harvey Weinstein helped open the floodgates  and, looking back, the actress and entrepreneur is proud to have played a small part in this powerful #MeToo movement.

I think its incredible whats happening, Paltrow, 45, told CNBC in a new interview. This is long overdue. Theres been this incredible confluence of events thats really led to women coming together and feeling safe in numbers to come forward and talk about their experiences across all different industries.

The Avengers: Infinity War actress, a mom of two, said her daughter, Apple Martin, played a part in her decision to speak out to the New York Times last month about the harassment she faced from the movie producer when she was a 22-year-old working on the Miramax film Emma.

Its my hope that this is the beginning of something important and different and that my daughter, when she goes into the workplace, wont experience what you, presumably you, and I and millions of other women have had to endure. And so it feels important, and Im happy that I have played a small part in it.

As for advice shed give young, aspiring actresses, Paltrow said that they should be in it for the right reasons.

Its difficult because I think a lot of people are drawn to this industry because they are looking to find wholeness through fame, she said. If thats why youre here, then dont. The only reason to do this is if you have an incredible burning desire to channel creativity and to really be an artist.  I think the culture we are living in now is rewarding cheap fame, and I think that a lot of people think the industry is a way to do that.

Gwyneth Paltrow with Harvey Weinstein at the 50th Anniversary Gala of the National Film Theatre in London in 2002. (Photo: Dave Benett/Getty Images)

But Paltrow has high hopes for the future  largely because of what shes seen from her daughter and her peers.

Im very heartened by what I see in my daughters generation, she said. These girls are kick-ass. They are strong. They know themselves. They are very protective of their physical space. Theyre not like I was at 13. Theyve very sure-footed. Theyre thinking big. I think something really interesting is coming in the next generation. I think these girls are amazing.

Story continues

Following the Times initial report on Weinsteins decades of harassment of women, Paltrow shared her experience in an article that also included claims made by Angelina Jolie. I was a kid, I was signed up, I was petrified, said the actress, who is the daughter of Blythe Danner and the late Bruce Paltrow.

Since then, more than 70 women have come forward to share stories of misconduct related to the moviemaker. That led to women  both in the industry and outside of it  sharing their stories in a campaign with the hashtag #MeToo. Some 300-plus women have come forward with allegations about director James Toback. This week, director Brett Ratner was accused of misconduct by several women. Allegations have also been made against actor Kevin Spacey, who reportedly acted inappropriately with men, some of whom were underage.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
Roughly half of Americans think President Donald Trump may have committed a crime related to Russian interference with the 2016 election, according to a new poll from the Washington Post and ABC News.

Forty-nine percent of respondents said the president likely committed a crime, though the majority of those individuals said they based their answer on suspicion only. Forty-four percent said its unlikely that Trump committed a crime, and 7% had no opinion.

The poll, which was released Thursday, also revealed that more than half of Americans  58% of survey respondents  approve of the way Robert Mueller, who is overseeing the investigation into possible collaboration between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, is handling the case. Thats higher than Trumps third-quarter job approval rate (almost 37%), the Supreme Courts approval rate (42%) and Congress approval rate (just under 14%).

Conversely, only 37% of the survey population felt that Trump is cooperating with Muellers investigation  roughly the same proportion that approves of his recent job performance.

Thirty-one percent of the polls respondents self-identified as Democrats, 23% identified as Republicans and 38% identified as independents.
Berlin (AFP) - German sweets maker Haribo said it had launched an internal investigation after a TV documentary alleged Brazilian workers supplying ingredients for their confectionary suffer inhumane conditions.

"We have tasked a group of independent, accredited and certified auditors with conducting a full investigation of our carnauba wax supply chain and are currently awaiting the findings of the investigation," the company said in a statement Thursday.

The company has faced criticism in the German and international press after public broadcaster ARD alleged in mid-October that workers on carnauba wax planations in Brazil, among them minors, suffered under high temperatures and were forced to sleep outside, often without access to clean drinking water.

Haribo uses carnauba wax as a coating agent in its candy.

"We have been in contact with our direct carnauba wax supplier in Brazil to demand that the entire supply chain, including its preliminary suppliers, all the way down to the carnauba wax producing farms, is laid bare and reviewed to ensure standards are upheld at all relevant facilities," beginning this week, the company said.

The company said it would hold discussions with Brazil's labour ministry and other government officials as part of the investigation.

Haribo also said it would launch an additional internal probe to respond to allegations in the same documentary about the mistreatment of pigs on German farms used for gelatine production.

The animals live in their own excrement and are covered in bruises, according to the documentary.

"As a company whose mission it is to bring joy to children and adults alike, reports of animal cruelty in our supply chain are unacceptable," the company said.
Surveillance footage capturing a "ghost" terrorizing the halls of a school in Ireland is going viral online ... again.

The same allegedly haunted high school, Deerpark C.B.S, whose video of a "ghost" that had the internet grasping for an explanation last month, just released new eerie footage.

The second video, which was captured by the school's security cameras around 5:30 a.m. last Thursday and uploaded to YouTube shortly after shows even more disturbing activity.

The footage shows a series of unexplained events from chairs mysteriously levitating, to bookbags careening from storage cubbies, and posters flying off the walls.

RELATED: Check out these creepy, ghastly images from 1865



At the time the first video went viral, school officials weren't sure if they were dealing with an actual poltergeist or a simply a "very well-designed prank" from students.

However, the school's principal, Aaron Wolfe, previously said there's been a history of similarly creepy events that have occurred at the school, which is apparently the oldest school in the city at nearly 200 years old, according to the school website.

"Our caretaker has worked in the school for over 30 years, he recalls many stories of paranormal activity,'" Wolfe said.

SEE ALSO: Video of alleged high school ghost leaves internet petrified

"For example, on one occasion the school was hosting an exotic bird show, and the birds arrived the day before, because the organizers were worried that someone might break in and steal the birds, someone had to stay overnight.," Wolfe recalled.

"That person left the school in the middle of the night  they refused to stay any longer as they said that they heard the last call being played on a trumpet  of course this could have just been the wind."

As if kids didn't already have reasons to skip school.
Its homecoming season, and alumni and students alike are gathering to celebrate their universities. This year, weve been detailing the rich legacy of homecoming at HBCUs  historically black colleges and universities initially founded on the premise of providing higher education for people of color before the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

At these institutions, students not only like to show up, but they also love to show out with elaborate, stylish outfits, dressed up in their very best to honor the legacy of their institution. Whether it is a comfy-chic look, as Melissa Butler from Florida A&M University describes to Yahoo Lifestyle, or straight-up extra, as Jarett Arrington from Morehouse College says, it is a special time when most people enjoy adding a little more flair to their weekend wardrobes.

This year, Yahoo Lifestyle caught up with 12 people from some of the most prestigious HBCUs to find out about their HBCU homecoming fashion choices, as well as hear how their personal style has evolved through the years. Check out the video above to see exactly what everyone had to say, and prepare to be totally inspired.

Happy homecoming!

Read more about HBCUs on Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.





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President Barack Obama in the Oval Office last year. (Photo: White House/Pete Souza/Handout via Reuters)

WASHINGTON  Almost one year after the election of President Trump, many liberals are still longing for his predecessor, Barack Obama. And Obama has crafted a letter that hes sending to people who express their worries to him about the current political climate, assuring them I hear your concerns, and I want you to know Im listening.

Our countrys progress has never followed a straight line  for every two steps forward, it often feels like we take one step back. But I hope youll remember that the long sweep of America is defined by forward motion, and the course we chart from here depends on no one person alone, Obama wrote in the letter.

Obama currently accepts correspondence on his website and, via regular mail, at his office. Yahoo News received the letter from Obama after sending him a series of interview questions. (The former president has not done any interviews since leaving office.) A spokesperson for Obama said that, like many former presidents, he receives a large volume of mail on a variety of topics, and Obamas office confirmed that the letter sent to Yahoo News is one he sends to people who share concerns about his legacy being dismantled, the general state of the country or those who seek his perspective on the new administration.

The letter echoes language Obama used in his farewell speech and in other public appearances hes made in the wake of the election. Since leaving office, Obama has largely abided by the tradition of former presidents refraining from criticizing their successors. However, he has indicated he might speak out on specific issues. In the letter, he encourages other people to get involved.

Our destiny will be decided the same way it always has been: by all of us; by we, the people: by selfless and engaged citizens who step forward and speak out to guard the values that make us who we are  not just when theres an election, but every day, Obama wrote.

Among Obamas inner circle, there is some debate about the relatively low profile hes taken following Trumps election. Some of Obamas former White House and campaign staffers are frustrated that he hasnt done more to oppose Trump. Other ex-Obama aides who spoke to Yahoo News said they appreciate his restraint and believe it will increase the impact when he does choose to take on specific issues. One former campaign staffer said it was encouraging that Obama has begun campaigning for other Democrats, including Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ralph Northam. Taking on Trump directly, in this former staffers view, runs the risk of becoming a foil for him. The guys desperate for an opponent. I mean, Trump would love nothing more than for the 2020 election to start today and no better opponent than the black, Muslim, Obamacare president.

Story continues

Obama concluded his letter with both a warning and an optimistic prediction.

Our democracy is threatened whenever we take it for granted, and change only happens when people get involved, Obama wrote. As long as folks like you keep looking out for others and working to defend Americas promise, Im confident our future will be bright. Please know Michelle and I will continue standing alongside you.

Read Obamas full letter below.
The final week of HuffPosts Listen To America road trip brought us to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

New Mexicos largest city is the setting for shows like Breaking Bad, In Plain Sight and Better Call Saul. Its also rich in history, with adobe buildings in historic Old Town that date back to the 18th century.

HuffPost arrived in the city mere weeks after the International Balloon Fiesta, which is the largest gathering of hot air balloons in the world, but the citys many museums  like the Albuquerque Museum and the Albuquerque Biological Park  are open year-round.

We visited the Albuquerque Sign Language Academy and interviewed locals. Here are some photos from our time in New Mexico:

HuffPost visited Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Oct. 23, 2017, as part of "Listen To America: A HuffPost Road Trip." HuffPost traveled to more than 20 cities on its tour across the country.

Paul Mansfield signs up to be interviewed.

HuffPost interviews Mark Lucero at the Albuquerque Sign Language Academy.

Kristin Reese and her student Pearl play around with temporary tattoos.

HuffPost's Will Tooke interviews Nathan Campbell.

Rafe Martinez of the Albuquerque Sign Language Academy prepares to be interviewed.

A dog sits on a miniature director chair while its owner is interviewed.

HuffPost interviews Jennifer Martinez.

Violetta Bennett, a Albuquerque Sign Language Academy employee, and Ethan Curado, who is about to be interviewed.

HuffPost interviews Leticia Archuleta, who works for Albuquerque Sign Language Academy.

Emma Gray chats with Kaylee and Malia outside the Albuquerque Sign Language Academy.

Hillary Frey chats with an interviewee during HuffPost's visit to the Albuquerque Sign Language Academy.

Jane and Fred Weis pose for a photo after being interviewed.

Students are interviewed during HuffPost's visit to Albuquerque.

Story continues

Hillary Frey speaks about HuffPost's bus tour.

Pupils of the Albuquerque Sign Language Academy put on a an event during HuffPost's visit.

Elementary school students in class during HuffPost's visit to the Albuquerque Sign Language Academy.

Audience members applaud as Albuquerque Sign Language Academy students put on a an event.

Rose Jojola cries while talking about her daughter Stephanie Rodriguez's pregnancy.

Students at the Albuquerque Sign Language Academy sign to audience members during an event.

Kristin Reese helps Pearl and Cody apply temporary tattoos.
Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders promote universal healthcare in Washington on September 13, 2017: REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

Senator Elizabeth Warren has said she agrees with a report that Hillary Clinton controlled key aspects of the Democratic Party's infrastructure to her own advantage during the presidential primaries in the run-up to last year's election.

Former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Donna Brazile wrote in a report for the Politico that Ms Clinton's campaign had assumed control of crucial fundraising mechanisms before going on to defeat Bernie Sanders.

The DNC seeks to elect Democrats nationwide, not just to the White House.

The report seemed to bolster critiques from Sanders supporters who have long argued the Democratic establishment undermined their insurgent candidate in favour of Ms Clinton, who had built deep ties within the party over her years in politics.

In an interview with Ms Warren, who like Mr Sanders represents the partys farther-left progressive wing, CNNs Jake Tapper asked point-blank if the Massachusetts Democrat agreed with the notion that it was rigged.

Yes, Ms Warren replied.

Calling the arrangement detailed in Ms Braziles report a real problem, Ms Warren said Democrats needed to hold this party accountable or risk alienating its constituents. She said that would be the paramount challenge for recently elevated DNC chair Tom Perez.

You have got to put together a Democratic Party in which everyone can have confidence that the party is working for Democrats rather than Democrats are working for the party, Ms Warren said, describing her message for Mr Perez.

Either hes going to succeed by bringing Bernie Sanders and Bernie Sanders representatives into this process and theyre gonna say its fair, it works, we all believe it, or hes going to fail, Ms Warren said. And I very much hope he succeeds. I hope for Democrats everywhere, I hope for Bernie and for all of Bernies supporters that hes going to succeed.
New Delhi (AFP) - An Indian court Thursday sentenced two men to life in prison for raping their 10-year-old niece, in a case that hit headlines when her appeal for a late-term abortion was rejected, a lawyer said.

The girl, who cannot be named, gave birth in August after the Supreme Court rejected her family's plea that she be allowed a late-term abortion on health grounds.

India only allows abortions up to 20 weeks except in cases where the life of the mother is threatened by the pregnancy.

But many child rape survivors do not realise they are pregnant until after the 20-week limit, a problem highlighted by a slew of high-profile cases in recent months.

"Both men have been sentenced to life imprisonment," public prosecutor Atul Sethi told AFP by telephone.

He added that the men will also have to pay a fine of 300,000 rupees ($4,646) each.

The two were convicted on Tuesday in the fast-track court in the northern city of Chandigarh that wrapped up their trials in a month.

India's justice system is notoriously slow, but the country set up fast-track courts to try sexual assault cases following a national outcry over the 2012 gang rape of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi.

India has a grim record of sex attacks on minors, with 20,000 cases of rape or sexual assaults reported in 2015, according to government data.

Almost 50 percent of the abusers are known to the victims.

The victim in the latest case gave birth in August, a month after her pregnancy was discovered when she went to hospital with a stomach ache.

By then she was 30 weeks pregnant -- beyond the legal limit for an abortion -- forcing her parents to approach the courts for permission.

The Supreme Court rejected the plea when a panel of doctors advised that undergoing an abortion at her stage of pregnancy could endanger her life.

Her baby was later delivered via caesarian section and given to child welfare authorities for adoption.
Apple's 1,000 iPhone X, the company's most expensive phone to date, goes on sale on Friday, finally launching the highly-anticipated flagship smartphone.

The iPhone X comes with an edge-to-edge OLED display, wireless charging and facial recognition security. It joins the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus in Apple's smartphone range.

There are already queues and campers outside of Apple's London stores ahead of the global release date. If you are planning to brave the queues, here is everything you need to know about the iPhone X.

iPhone X price, release date and best deals

The iPhone X will go on general sale on November 3, although some people will have already picked up the device by then, as pre-orders have been live since last week.

However, plenty of people will still be looking to get their hands on an iPhone X early, with many pre-order buyers expecting weeks of delays before they get the coveted smartphone.

The flagship phone won't come cheap. Apple will release two versions, a 64GB version, which will start at 999, and a more expensive 256GB version for 1,149 - ushering in the era of the 1,000 smartphone.

How can I buy the iPhone X?

The iPhone X will be available on most of the major networks on Friday. The best iPhone X pre-order offer is on Sky Mobile, where you can find the iPhone X with just 500MB of data, but it will only cost you 42 per month (although you will need to be a Sky TV customer).

Vodafone are offering the best rate on the iPhone X of the major networks, at 62 per month with 200 upfront. With EE, you can get a massive 100GB of data on the iPhone X, although it will cost a whopping 82.99 per month. Most of the offers for the iPhone X only include the 64GB model, with more limited availability of the 256GB version.

The iPhone X will be available to buy from the following retailers:

Story continues

iPhone X deals

It is also available to buy directly from Apple if you're happy to sort out a sim-only deal from a network. However, Apple Store pre-orders were showing a five to six week waiting time for deliveries on both its website and on the Apple Store app.

Apple says that a number of iPhone X models will be available in store on launch day, so if you want to queue up overnight you might be able to pick one up. In fact, queues have already started in the November cold outside of Apple's flagship store on Regent Street.

Demand for the iPhone X is expected to be far more heated than those after the iPhone 8, so expect shops to be packed it you do dare attempt to buy the phone in Apple's main shop.

What does the iPhone X look like?

The iPhone X has a 5.8-inch screen squeezed into a body smaller than the iPhone 8 Plus. Apple said it has been its goal to create "an iPhone that is all display".

Apple has dropped the iPhone's iconic home button, which has been present on every device since the first iPhone released in 2007. It has also removed the front-facing fingerprint scanner, which has been adopted by many other leading brands.

Instead, the iPhone X has a nearly bezel-free design with the screen covering almost the entire front of the phone. To make room for the front-facing selfie camera and facial recognition, the screen has a slight notch that indents at the top.

It has a dual-lens rear facing camera and will come in the colours silver and space grey.

No home button (or Touch ID)

More of a controversial than a best feature, Apple has dropped the home button, which has been present since the original iPhone and was used to control many aspects of the iPhone, including unlocking it with the embedded fingerprint scanner.

Instead, the iPhone X uses gesture controls to unlock. Several functions of the home button, such as activating Siri, will be relocated to the lock switch. Users can control the phone through swiping up from the bottom or just by tapping the screen.

The iPhone X alongside the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus Credit: Apple

Face ID

Apple's TrueDepth camera system lets users to unlock their phone by simply looking at it. Facial recognition technology replaces Touch ID as a way to identify users through an infrared camera.

Face ID will only unlock if a users eyes are open. Apple said there is a "one in a million" chance that someone else could unlock the iPhone using the technology. Face ID will also work with Apple Pay, and other apps that work with Touch ID.

The iPhone X will have facial identification Credit: Apple

There have been some worries about Face ID, both how effective it will be following an embarrassing on-stage demo and some questions about the security. Apple has moved to try and reassure some of these concerns, saying the main reason for Face ID failed as because the phone had been handled by multiple employees backstage.

Wireless charging

The iPhone X is the first iPhone to come with wireless charging, which is already available on the Apple Watch and rival Samsung Galaxy S8.

Apple will also release a wireless charging pad, called the AirPower, that will be able to charge multiple devices at once. It will be released next year

Apple's AirPower charge pad Credit: Apple

Edge-to-edge, super retina display

Apple's chief designer Sir Jony Ive long made it his goal to create an iPhone that looked like a single sheet of glass. The iPhone X has realised this design, with a 5.8-inch edge-to-edge display that covers the entire front of the phone, save for a tiny notch at the top.

It will have a 2438x1125 resolution display with 458 pixels per inch and an OLED display.

The iPhone X has an edge-to-edge screen

Augmented reality

The iPhone X has been used to showcase some of the augmented reality experiences that Apple debuted with its ARKit software, released at this year's WWDC. Augmented reality allows iPhone users to superimpose virtual images, games and videos onto real world objects and is a field where Apple has truly taken the initiative from rivals such as Google.

The X can also use 3D tracking capabilities from its selfie camera to impose masks using AR for apps such as Snapchat.

Animoji

Animoji are a new form of moving emoji that can be customised using facial recognition software. Users can scan their face and the animoji will match their expression in a short animation.

Animoji

The feature will only be available on the premium iPhone X, as it requires the 3D camera. Apple has created a limited selection of animoji from its hundreds of emoji, including the monkey, unicorn, robot, dog, pig, cat, dog and pile of poo.

Processor and battery

Inside the iPhone X will be an A11 bionic chip, a more powerful chip than the one found on the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. The iPhone X will also provide two more hours of battery life than the iPhone 7, according to Apple.

Bargains or bangers? Cars you can buy for less than an iPhone X

Dual camera

The iPhone X will follow the iPhone 7 Plus and have a 12MP dual lens camera, but it will also be kitted out for augmented reality. The selfie camera will be 7MP and also be able to function for 3D tracking.

What about the iPhone 8?

Alongside the premium iPhone X, Apple also unveiled the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. You can find all the details on the newly released iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus here.
Les emplois a Rennes sont abondants et varies. Il y a quelque chose pour tout le monde. Que vous soyez a la recherche dun emploi []
By Maher Chmaytelli BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Kurdish region said on Thursday it had offered a joint Kurdish-Iraqi deployment at a strategic crossing into Turkey with the participation of U.S.-led international forces as part of a compromise aimed at ending a stand-off with Baghdad. The offer was disclosed hours after the Iraqi armed forces threatened to resume military operations against the Kurds, accusing them of delaying the handover of control of borders and taking advantage of negotiations to bolster their defenses. The central government in Baghdad has cracked down hard on the Kurds since the government of the Kurdish autonomous region staged an independence referendum on Sept. 25 that Baghdad considers illegal. Central government forces swiftly seized swathes of Kurdish-held territory last month and have demanded control of all border checkpoints, including the Turkish frontier which has been controlled by the Kurds since the Saddam Hussein era. Over the past week, the Kurds have tried to defuse the crisis with negotiations. The Kurdish defense department said the offer for joint control of the frontier was part of a "deconfliction" proposal made to Baghdad on Oct. 31. Other proposals included a ceasefire on all fronts, continued cooperation in the fight against Islamic State and joint deployments in so-called disputed territories claimed by both the Kurds and the Iraqi central government. The KRG "continues to welcome a permanent ceasefire on all fronts, deconfliction and the start of a political dialogue" with Baghdad, the Kurdish statement said. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi suspended military operations against the Kurds on Friday. The sides have since held talks which Baghdad says cover only technical issues, with political questions off the table unless the Kurds discard the referendum. Iran and Turkey back Abadi's tough line, fearing a drive for independence could spread to their own Kurdish populations. The Kurdish statement said the offer of a joint deployment at the strategic Fish-Khabur crossing was meant "as a goodwill gesture and trust-building exercise that ensures a limited and temporary arrangement until an agreement is reached in accordance with the Iraqi Constitution". Fish-Khabur is strategically vital for the landlocked Kurds as the point where oil from northern Iraq crosses into Turkey. Iraq wants the Kurdistan region to stop exporting its own oil and hand over sales to the Iraqi state-oil marketer SOMO, the company's director said on Thursday. Iraq is talking to Turkey to let SOMO sell Kurdish crude that arrives by pipeline, acting SOMO director general Alaa al-Yasiri told reporters. The Iraqi Joint Operations Command accused the Kurds on Wednesday of using the talks "buy time" to strengthen positions. "We will not allow it; the federal forces are mandated to secure (the disputed) areas and borders," it said in a statement. 180,000 DISPLACED The command of the Kurdish security forces, known as Peshmerga, accused Iraqi troops of massing weapons and threatening force to resolve "domestic political differences". The office of the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq said more than 183,000 civilians had been displaced by the conflict, including 79,000 from Kirkuk city which Baghdad captured on the first day of its offensive last month. A humanitarian official involved in the relief efforts said more than three quarters of the displaced are Kurds. Iraqi troops set up positions on Tuesday at the Turkish border for the first time, between Turkish and Kurdish checkpoints at Habur, the Turkish name for the road border crossing located 10 km from Fish-Khabur in Iraq. The Turkish frontier with Iraqi Kurdistan is a critical security issue for Turkey, which says Kurdish insurgents fighting against the Turkish state shelter across it. Turkish security forces killed 17 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants near the border, the Turkish armed forces said on Thursday, after eight members of Turkey's security forces were killed in clashes. The Kurdish militants were intercepted crossing the border into Turkey, the Turkish military said. (Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Larry King and Peter Graff)
CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a truck attack in New York City that killed eight people on Tuesday, the group's online publication said on Thursday. Islamic State said in its weekly issue of Al-Naba newspaper that "the attacker is one of the caliphate soldiers". It did not provide evidence to support its claim. (Reporting by Mohamed El-Sherif; Editing by Michael Perry)
Ivanka Trump paid homage to the Japanese culture for a dinner with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The first daughter wore a custom-made $1,995 dress created by Italian designer Johanna Ortiz that featured pink accents, a floral pattern and black bow belt that tied around her waist. Ivanka ditched her usual slick-straight blonde tresses for a wavy style, perhaps due to the humid weather in Japan.

The mother of three polished off her below-the-knee number that resembled a kimono with a pair of black stilettos and minimal jewelry.

Ivanka posted a bunch of photos from the dinner, revealing on her Instagram account that the prime minister actually surprised her with a floral bouquet for her birthday on October 30.

"An unforgettable last night in Tokyo!" she captioned the post. "Thank you Prime Minister Abe for the warm hospitality and the belated birthday wishes."

Earlier in the day, the White House adviser gave a speech on female entrepreneurship and a women's role in the economy at the World Assembly for Women 2017. She emphasized that the world must increase women and minority participation in STEM -- science, technology, engineering and math -- fields.

"Female and minority participation in STEM fields is moving in the wrong direction," she said. "We must create equal participation in these traditionally male-dominated sectors of our economy."

RELATED: Melania's outfit as she departed Washington D.C. for Asia trip:



Of course, Ivanka was impeccably dressed for the speech, wearing a peach-colored suit with pearl embellished buttons and a pair of black pumps with a low heel.

The first daughter returned to the United States on Friday, the same day that President Trump and first lady Melania Trump departed Washington D.C. for a nearly two week-long tour of Asia.

For more on Ivanka's Japan trip, watch the video above.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions: AP

A former Trump campaign advisers admission that he had interactions with alleged government-connected Russians is leaving Attorney General Jeff Sessions facing renewed questions about how much he knew about Russian election interference.

Special counsel Robert Muellers investigation of ties between the Trump campaign and Russia was triggered in part by Mr Sessions prior contact with the Russian government.

The top law enforcement official recused himself from an examination of Russias role in the 2016 presidential election after it was revealed he had not disclosed meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak during the presidential campaign - a move that infuriated Donald Trump and set in motion a chain of events that would eventually lead the appointment of Mr Mueller.

Now Democrats are again asking questions about Mr Sessions testimony in January that he wasn't aware of any campaign contacts with Russia, after a court document revealed how campaign officials were presented with the option of talking to Russia.

According to a document laying out the case against Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, Mr Papadopoulos repeatedly floated the idea of a possible meeting between the campaign and officials in Moscow. He pitched helping to arrange a meeting between Mr Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin at a March 31 gathering with Trump and other foreign policy advisors, the document says.

A post from Mr Trumps Instagram account that day shows Mr Papadopoulos seated around a table with both Mr Trump and Mr Sessions. CNN reports that Mr Sessions rebuffed the prospective meeting.

But the fact that Mr Sessions was privy to the offer has fueled questions from legislators who say the Attorney General did not disclose the meeting when he spoke to the Senate Judiciary Committee. New Mexico Democrat told CNN that it called into question whether whether [Mr Sessions] is being honest and forthright with the committee and Texas Republican John Cornyn called the meeting a legitimate area of inquiry, CNN reported.

Story continues

Jeff Sessions concealed his meetings with the Russians and he had an obligation to be more forthcoming about meetings that involved Papadopoulos, Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, told CNN.

In public testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in June, Mr Sessions said he had not held other undisclosed conversations with Russian nationals or businessmen. During a Senate Judiciary Hearing last month, South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham asked Mr Sessions if he ever overheard a conversation between you and anybody on the campaign who talked about meeting with the Russians. Mr Sessions sidestepped the query.

I have not seen anything that would indicate a collusion with Russians to impact the campaign, Mr Sessions replied.

The President has denied any collusion between his campaign and Russia, a position he reiterated after Mr Papadopoulos plea was revealed and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was arrested on money laundering charges. He has said few people knew Mr Papadopoulos, whom he derided as a low level volunteer and a liar.

Similarly, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Mr Papadopoulos had an extremely limited role in the campaign.
Seoul (AFP) - South Korean police will restrict public rallies near the country's presidential palace during Donald Trump's first visit as head of state, a report said Thursday, reducing his chances of being exposed to opposition.

It is the first time that Seoul has imposed limits on public gatherings since President Moon Jae-In, a former human rights lawyer, took power in May, according to the Yonhap news agency.

Organisers of around 50 protests -- mostly anti-Trump rallies -- applied to hold the demonstrations across Seoul but police turned down most requests to gather near the presidential Blue House, citing security concerns, Yonhap said.

Police granted two requests in the security area -- one of them a pro-US meeting to welcome Trump -- "to ensure freedom of assembly", it added.

One of Moon's campaign promises was restoring freedom of expression and assembly seen to have eroded under his conservative predecessor, Park Geun-Hye, who was impeached over a corruption scandal.

Heavy security is expected in the capital for Trump's November 7-8 trip, during which he will hold a summit with Moon -- whom he has accused of "appeasement" towards the nuclear-armed North -- and visit a US army base.

The South is a key US ally and hosts 28,500 American troops, but many of Trump's critics in the country see him as a warmonger whose war of words with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has escalated tensions.

The North conducted a sixth nuclear test in September and has launched multiple missiles capable of reaching the US mainland.

And the two leaders have traded threats and personal insults in recent months, heightening global alarm about potential conflict.

Trump is also due to visit Japan, China, Vietnam and the Philippines during his first Asia tour since taking office in January, with all eyes on his message to the North and Kim.

Police in Seoul did not immediately respond to requests for comment by AFP.
By Fatos Bytyci PRISTINA (Reuters) - Kosovo's prime minister called on Friday for an international investigation after some of his countrymen were convicted of taking part in a gun battle with Macedonian police. The men were part of a group of ethnic Albanians jailed in neighboring Macedonia on Thursday, some of them for life, on charges of plotting attacks and clashing with the police in a 2015 shootout. Crowds took to the streets of Kosovo's capital after the sentencing, accusing the Macedonian authorities of staging the attack. Protesters in the eastern Kosovan town of Gjilan burned the Macedonian flag. Kosovan media and officials have regularly said the accused Albanians were innocent and the victims of a plot by Macedonia's former nationalist government - an allegation dismissed by Skopje. "Justice must be done," Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj said in a statement. "An international investigation would help find the truth which we are all demanding." He did not say who or what should carry out the inquiry. Kosovo's foreign minister, Behgjet Pacolli, said he had called his ambassador in Skopje for consultations and asked for a "clarification" from the Macedonian ambassador in Pristina, without going into further details. Most of the defendants in Thursday's hearing were from neighboring Kosovo, while others were from Macedonias own Albanian minority. They all denied the charges. The 2015 shootout occurred during a police raid that followed an attack by armed men on a border post. Some of them were former guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (NLA), an ethnic Albanian militia that had fought an insurgency in 2001 in which scores of people were killed. Macedonia, a small ex-Yugoslav republic of about two million people, declared independence in 1991 and mostly avoided the violence that accompanied the break up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, until the clashes with ethnic Albanian fighters in 2001. Albanians are believed to make up around 30 percent of Macedonias population, living mostly in the northwest near the borders with Kosovo and Albania. (Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; Editing by Ivana Sekularac and Andrew Heavens)
The Daily Beast

Fox NewsThe morning after his network called the Arizona governors race for Democrat Katie Hobbs, Fox News correspondent Kevin Corke seemed to cast doubt on the results while reassuring viewers that MAGA candidate Kari Lake still had an outside shot to win.At the same time, he repeatedly mocked the presumptive next governor of Arizona, throwing barbs at Hobbs while delivering a news report on Tuesday morning.Nearly a week after the polls closed, Hobbs was finally declared the winner on Monday e
Leah Remini reportedly interviewed three women who allege that "That '70s Show" actor Danny Masterson raped them between 2001 and 2003. The interviews were for her Emmy-winning A&E series "Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath," though Scientology-focused journalist Tony Ortega reports that Remini asked the network to hold on airing the episode.

According to Ortega's report, Remini and co-star Mike Rinder were asked by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office to hold airing the episode while they decided whether or not to file charges against Masterson, who himself is a Scientologist. Remini then reportedly asked A&E not to air the explosive episode.

SEE ALSO: Jada Pinkett Smith responds to Leah Remini: 'I am not a Scientologist'

With just three episodes left in the show's current second season, the DA's office has yet to make a decision about filing charges against Masterson. Masterson denies all four women's allegations against him.

Celebrities you didn't know were Scientologists:



HuffPost published a revealing update on the case on Thursday, alleging that the case has been "slow-rolled" despite "overwhelming" evidence against the actor, who has lawyered up. The reported evidence includes "audiotapes, emails sent to and from Scientology officers at the time the alleged rapes happened, forensic computer evidence and a threatening handwritten letter Masterson sent to one of the alleged victims."

The article also revealed that a fourth alleged victim had come forward with claims against Masterson.

SEE ALSO: Are Nicole Kidman's Scientologist children forbidden to speak to her? Emmys speech leads to speculation

According to reports, the Los Angeles Police Department first began investigating the allegations against Masterson late last year before handing the case over to the DA's office in April of this year.

See photos of Danny Masterson:



Story continues

Remini and Rinder have been working to expose the Church of Scientology's secrets on "Scientology and the Aftermath" for two seasons now and won an Emmy for Outstanding Informational Series in September.

The "Kevin Can Wait" actress, a former Scientologist who split with the church in 2013, hasn't been shy about exposing famous members of the organization. Earlier this year, she famously alleged that actress Jada Pinkett Smith was a Scientologist in an interview with The Daily Beast.

"I know Jada's in. I know Jada's in. She's been in Scientology a long time," Remini said. "I never saw Will there, but I saw Jada at the Celebrity Centre. They opened up a Scientology school, and have since closed it. But Jada, I had seen her at the Scientology Celebrity Centre all the time."

I have studied Dianetics, and appreciate the merits of Study Tech but I am not a Scientologist.  Jada Pinkett Smith (@jadapsmith) September 19, 2017

Pinkett denied the claims on Twitter saying, "I have studied Dianetics, and appreciate the merits of Study Tech... but I am not a Scientologist."

Here are more celebrities who have been allegedly connected to Scientology:

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly credited Tony Ortega's report as saying that Leah Remini interviewed four of Danny Masterson's alleged victims. She reportedly interviewed three women -- not four.

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The soldiers of The Long Road Home will have to show plenty of courage under fire.

The National Geographic Channels eight-episode miniseries, based on Martha Raddatzs bestselling book, follows a platoon ambushed in Sadr City, Baghdad, on April 4, 2004  an attack that came to be known as Black Sunday.

In this exclusive sneak peek from the Nov. 7 premiere, a squad led by Lt. Shane Aguero (E.J. Bonilla) is patrolling when they realize the streets are eerily quiet. Something is wrong  as they soon find out, when shots are fired. Suddenly, a routine drive turns dangerous and the soldiers are fighting for their lives.

Its up to battalion commander Lt. Col. Gary Volesky (Michael Kelly) and Capt. Troy Denomy (Jason Ritter) to lead a daring rescue operation and recover their people.

The miniseries flashes between the action in Iraq and the excruciating and emotional turmoil experienced by the soldiers families back home in Texas. The cast also includes Kate Bosworth, Sarah Wayne Callies, Jeremy Sisto, and Noel Fisher.

The Long Road Home premieres Nov. 7 on National Geographic Channel.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
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 []
Billionaire investor to sell stake in Breitbart for personal reasons

Mercer distances himself from Bannon and severs ties with Milo Yiannopoulos

Robert Mercer said of Milo Yiannopoulos: I was mistaken to have supported him, and for several weeks have been in the process of severing all ties with him. Photograph: Oliver Contreras/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Billionaire investor Robert Mercer, who was Donald Trumps biggest single donor during the presidential election, is to sell his stake in the controversial rightwing news site Breitbart.

The 71-year-old also plans to step down as co-chief executive of hedge fund Renaissance Technologies from 1 January, according to a letter he sent to investors.

Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah, are Republican mega-donors and patrons of Steve Bannon, the chairman of Breitbart News and former White House chief strategist known for his populist views.

In a letter to colleagues at the hedge fund, Mercer acknowledged that he has come under scrutiny and said for personal reasons he has decided to sell his stake in Breitbart News to his daughters, Bloomberg reported.

The press has also intimated that my politics marches in lockstep with Steve Bannons, Mercer wrote. I have great respect for Mr Bannon, and from time to time I do discuss politics with him. However, I make my own decisions with respect to whom I support politically. Those decisions do not always align with Mr Bannons.

Turning to notorious former Breitbart provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, Mercer reportedly added: I supported Milo Yiannopoulos in the hope and expectation that his expression of views contrary to the social mainstream and his spotlighting of the hypocrisy of those who would close down free speech in the name of political correctness would promote the type of open debate and freedom of thought that is being throttled on many American college campuses today.

But in my opinion, actions of and statements by Mr Yiannopoulos have caused pain and divisiveness undermining the open and productive discourse that I had hoped to facilitate. I was mistaken to have supported him, and for several weeks have been in the process of severing all ties with him.

Story continues

He added: For personal reasons, I have also decided to sell my stake in Breitbart News to my daughters.

Mercers politics have put him at odds with those of other top figures at Renaissance. Jim Simons, who remains chairman of the Renaissance board, was one of Hillary Clintons top financial backers during last years election.

Mercer was a leading financial backer of Cambridge Analytica, a data mining company that worked with the Trump campaign. The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said last month that Cambridge Analytica had approached it during the election but did not give further details.

Trump was a guest last December at Mercers annual holiday costume party at Owls Nest, his Long Island estate. The presidents adviser Kellyanne Conway tweeted: Honoring the ultimate hero at the Mercer Heroes and Villains party on Long Island. Crowd thrilled w/ surprise!

Honoring the ultimate hero at the Mercer "Heroes and Villians" party on Long Island. Crowd thrilled w/ surprise! pic.twitter.com/VQAyaKvs6i  Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) December 4, 2016

Mercer will leave the board of Renaissance but remain at the company, which manages more than $50bn in assets, as a member of the technical staff focusing on research work.

The news took many observers by surprise.

Its really extraordinary, Joseph Lowndes, associate professor of political science at the University of Oregon, told the Guardian.

It was Mercer who introduced Bannon to Trump and who brought him on board at Breitbart, Lowndes added. Bannon owes his political fortunes to Mercer. Mercer is also the connective tissue between Bannon and Breitbart and Trump. He is a less understood and more important figure in the American political landscape than people realise.

Lowndes suggested that the sale of Mercers stake in Breitbart to his three daughters, including key donor Rebekah, is little more than a cosmetic change.

My sense is that Rebekah is as politically passionate as her father and is oriented precisely as he is, he said. Unless she also has some political change of heart, I would imagine it would have very little impact.

Lowndes added: It may simply be that the reclusive Mercer was comfortable supporting politically controversial figures and projects on the far right as long as this work was largely unscrutinised.

Dan Cassino, a political science professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University and expert on conservative media, agreed: Im not sure we have any daylight between Robert and Rebekah Mercer but its interesting that Robert is trying to distance himself from Steve Bannons politics. Rebekah hasnt been as associated with Bannon.

He added: I dont think it makes much difference to Breitbart but it might make a difference to how much Bannon is able to direct to candidates personally.
(Photo: Netflix)

If The Handmaids Tale is where were going, Alias Grace is where we came from.

So says Sarah Polley, the writer and producer behind the new Netflix adaptation of Margaret Atwoods 1996 novel. The work of historical fiction revolves around the titular Grace Marks, a 19th-century servant accused of brutally murdering the master of her household and his mistress, a fellow housekeeper, with the help of a stablehand. The real-life crime rocked Upper Canada in 1843, hurling the Victorian community into a salacious trial that amounted to a life sentence for Marks and a hanging for her accomplice. After 30 years in prison, Grace was eventually pardoned, but her exoneration was a mere consolation prize after decades of living as a notorious woman.

Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you, Marks says in Atwoods book. It has a smell to it, that word  musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase. Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor.

Polley brought the beloved Atwoodian tale to life with the help of acclaimed American Psycho director Mary Harron. Together, they created a six-episode miniseries that places Marks, expertly played by Sarah Gadon, as its center of gravity. She at times appears powerless, the product of poverty and neglect forced into an unforgiving life of servitude, and at other times as a careless and deliberate enigma, driven by an internal force weve yet to understand. Is she a cold-blooded killer, or a unduly scorned castaway?

Both Atwood and the Polley-Harron adaptation team shy away from answering that question. Instead, the new Netflix series is at its best when it sinks into the historic details that complicate Marks narrative. In the shows meticulously crafted world, an echo of real 19th-century horrors, lower-class women are relegated to sexual prey, cast as the constant targets of unwanted advances and the unfortunate recipients of botched abortions. Indeed, if Handmaids Tale is the fundamentalist dystopia of our future, Alias Grace makes it its mission to paint a clear picture of the overlooked history that would make Gilead possible.

Story continues

We spoke to Harron ahead of the shows premiere on Nov. 3. and she echoed Polleys unnerving parallel between both hair-raising Atwood adaptations, and explained what it was like bringing the story of Grace Marks to life.

Margaret Atwood in a cameo appearance in "Alias Grace." (Photo: Netflix)

What initially drew you to the adaptation of Alias Grace?

Well, I hadnt read the novel. I knew nothing about the story going in, I had no preconceptions about it. But its such a fantastic plot. You get totally drawn into this world. Ive always loved ambiguity and mystery, and also a female character who suffers a lot but isnt conventionally, like, Oh, poor Grace. Shes very complicated. Is she good? Is she bad? Have the things shes suffered turned her into a murderer? All of these things. I was very drawn into the world right away.

Were you a Margaret Atwood fan before this?

Yeah, Im Canadian, so of course. I was also at university in the 70s when her first novels started coming out. Or, at least, thats when I started discovering them. She had a big impact on feminism at the point  of that generation. I was very affected by the stories that she was telling. But I hadnt read her most recent stuff. So it was a real revelation. [Alias Grace] is actually my favorite Margaret Atwood novel now.

The novel is based on a real crime that happened in Canada in the 1840s. Were you aware of the story of Grace Marks at all?

I read a couple reviews of [Atwoods] book when it came out, but I had never heard of [Marks]. It was very mysterious. Ive done a lot of period drama  my first film [I Shot Andy Warhol] was the 1960s, Bettie Page was the 1950s, American Psycho was the 1980s. I studied literature at university  Im pretty steeped in the Victorian novel  so I always wanted to do a period drama like this. This is a very interesting take on a 19th-century story.

The story revolves around perhaps one of the most enigmatic characters Margaret Atwood ever wrote. If you could give your own character description of Grace Marks, what would it be?

This is important: Shes a young girl, Protestant, from Northern Ireland. Shes very competent and capable and bright. Shes the sort of person who could have run a corporation, but shes born into a world of incredible poverty and oppression, and she suffers greatly. Shes quite puritanical, like a lot of Northern Irish Protestants. I can say that, because my familys from there. She has love in her heart, but the question is: With all her sufferings, did they make her a better person or a worse person? With all the terrible things that she has had to go through, which way did they turn her in the end? I had this conversation with Margaret Atwood. People think that suffering makes you noble, but not always. Sometimes, a lot of suffering can turn you. It can make you vindictive and murderess. You dont know.

Yes, thats certainly one of the intriguing aspects of the way Atwood wrote the character. You dont necessarily know if Grace is the protagonist or the antagonist of the story. And that doesnt really seem to be the point. Theres not a whole lot of morality to it; its simply an interesting character exploration.

Yes. Its a real-life story. Although theres not a lot known about Grace, there are certain historical records and interviews with people at the time about what happened during those murders. I love real-life stories, because the behaviors are always so contradictory. Its like ... why? Why didnt you tell anyone? Why, when the butcher answered the door, didnt you tell him that [James] McDermott was going to kill someone? You know? Its funny, when Sarah Gadon and I were going through the script and making notes on the character together, we were like, Grace, what were you thinking? You think you know her, Grace. You think you have a line on her, but then there is some piece of the story that puts that out of whack. As with Simon [Jordan] during the drama. Simon is constantly being turned around and bewildered by her, and banging his head against the wall, because you can never quite get a handle on who she is.

During a TIFF masterclass this year, you told audiences that the key to eliciting a standout performance from your actors is entirely casting. What was the process like casting Sarah Gadon in the role of Grace? How did you know she was the one?

I had worked with her before, six or seven years ago, on a movie called The Moth Diaries, in which she was playing 16 [years old], actually. Id seen hundreds of people for the role I cast her in, and she actually recorded an audition for me on her computer, because she was filming overseas. As soon as I saw her, I thought, this girl is remarkable. When you meet her, shes sort of an old soul, a very impressive person. And working with her, shes very subtle. She does what I really like in actors, she does a lot of layers. She makes adjustments very quickly. Even as a young actress who hadnt done that many movies, she could make these incredible subtle changes and imply a lot going on below the surface. And also, with Grace, you want someone who is very beautiful, but who has a mystery to them, which she has kind of effortlessly. You could really just watch her face for a long time. And with Edward [Holcroft], too. You know, there are these long scenes where they are just sitting in a room talking. You want to be able to linger on their faces.

Sarah Gadon as Grace Marks. (Photo: Netflix)

What kind of research did you do before filming  in terms of reading up on the era and real-life crime?



Margaret Atwood had recommended some books. She gave Sarah Polley a sort of book list, and I read one in particular  a 19th-century womans account of traveling through Canada. That was really interesting on the condition of servant girls as sexual prey. Its always interesting to read contemporary accounts that give the attitudes of the time. Margaret Atwood had done so much research into language. Usually Im very bothered by period inaccuracies and dialogue anachronisms, but Margaret Atwood has done all the work. She is very authentic, not just in how people talked, but how they thought and behaved. You know, women thought in very different ways [in the 1800s]. Grace saw her life very differently than a woman today sees her life, or sees sexuality, religion, everything.

But in terms of the kind of research I had to do, that was more with the production designer about getting the actual details of the world right. And for Sarah Gadon, she had to learn how to do all this housework! She had to learn how to sew and quilt. I didnt want her faking, and she didnt want to either. Shes quilting throughout so many of those conversations, so she had to be so good at it she could do it without looking. And it has to be completely natural. She spent weeks and months learning. Domestic labor is a whole story in that.

Watching [Gadon] as Grace, you can actually see calluses on her hands.

Right! I was with the makeup department and I was like, You have to roughen her hands. She has beautiful hands, you know. So she did some of it herself, and then we had the makeup team roughen them up, too.

You spent time at Ontarios Kingston Penitentiary, where the real Grace Marks actually spent time during her lifetime. What was it like filming there?

That was another interesting thing. When I read the script, the way that they were written, the cell was a much bigger cell. But when we went on our location scout to Kingston Penitentiary, and also to penitentiarys museum, we saw a reproduction of a prison cell from the 19th century. It was almost a 5-foot coffin, the size of a single bed. And thats where people would spend half their lives. I was very taken by this, by this idea that [Grace] was buried alive for all these years  all of the prisoners were. So I had to persuade everybody, because it made it much more difficult to shoot, to make the cell smaller. She could still stand up, because we made it a foot wider. I knew it would be hard to shoot, because we couldnt get the camera inside the room, but the production designer agreed with me  this is important and we need to make it real.

The other thing that came out from that museum, which wasnt actually in the original script or the book, was this thing called the box, where theyd put prisoners inside this upright coffin. Theres this scene with Grace where you see her face in a little hole in the wood and shes screaming. We just saw that box, and I asked Sarah [Polley] to write that in. Its horrifying. Its medieval. I mean, the rules ... you get whipped for looking or whispering or if you laugh or smile. It was barbaric, and we wanted to show that for real.

Was that difficult for Sarah Gadon to perform? Did the authentic setting bring a different kind of gravity to the script?

I thought it did. It was tough on her. I stepped inside that box to see what it was like and I was like, oh my God, let me out. I wouldnt force an actress to do it, but I think most actresses who are taking it seriously want to go there and experience some of this.

One of my favorite lines from the 1996 NYT review of Alias Grace reads: Theres nothing like the spectacle of female villainy brought to justice to revive the ancient, tired, apparently endless debate over whether women are by nature saintly or demonic. This is obviously a central theme in Atwoods book. How did you and Sarah Polley go about bringing this debate to light in your adaptation?

Sarah Polley has a really great quote about this, about women conforming so much and playing to other peoples expectations of them. Of women playing different roles and playing different people in different circumstances. Thats what shes referring to in those first few words of the script, when [Grace] says, People think Im a female demon. People think Im a poor innocent victim. People think Im this and that. What is the essential woman? Victorian women, especially, have all these images put on them.

I also loved the idea that one woman can be seen and get to portray a character in such different ways, without you knowing which is the real one. That allowed a much more complicated female character. One of the things I love about Margaret Atwood is that shes never like, Men are bad and women are good. Shes writing about harsh social pressures and injustices that dont always bring out the best in people. Like the relationship between Grace and Nancy [Montgomery], who are both really victims of society, both working-class girls, one of whom is pregnant and has managed to claw a little status for herself. I think Margaret Atwood has this view of women that they can become like rats in a cage  they can turn on each other, because theres so little safety for them. That was very truthful, about how tough social settings can bring out competitiveness and rivalries. You would like to think that women are always [supportive], but 

(Photo: Netflix)

What was it like having Margaret Atwood on set? And directing her in a cameo role?

Oh, it was fun. I didnt have to do too much directing. There was a lot of panic because the schedule had gone wrong. It was like the second day of shooting, and she was waiting around in a heavy costume in 90 degree heat for hours and hours. We were like, Ahhhh. But she was very good about it. And I think she was very amused, because on her trailer it said, Difficult Woman. That was her name in the [episode].

How much, if at all, did she shape the adaptation?

I dont know, Im not privy to that. Sarah showed her a lot of the drafts at every stage, I think. I think [Atwoods] pretty hands off, but Sarah Polley was anxious that it be very faithful, so she ran a lot of it by her.

Obviously the whole show is coming out in the wake of Handmaids Tale Season 1. If its possible for there to be more fandom around Margaret Atwood, now seems to be the time. Many fans saw Handmaids Tale as an overtly feminist show that inspired a lot of activism. Did you envision Alias Grace as an overtly feminist show?

Its feminist in the sense that its presenting a neglected and important piece of female history, which is the lives of female servants in a realistic way. The story of Mary Whitney happened to tens of thousands of girls. Hundreds of thousands of girls got pregnant, were raped or were seduced and abandoned, were sexual fodder for upper-class men. And thats a really neglected part of history, you know, of what these girls lives were like.

Sarah Polley said that Alias Grace is where we come from, and Handmaids Tale is where we might go. Its important politically to know where you come from in an accurate way. The same thing is happening with how we look at slavery or the Confederacy and the Civil War. Its important for us to dig back and say, We have certain versions of the past, but are there other versions we need to be aware of? In this case, theres a somewhat idealized view of the country house, and the happy servants who love their masters and the masters who care for their servants. Is this true? No! Those servants were unbelievably exploited. Especially the young women, who were sexual prey to all the young men. Theyd get pregnant, and that was the end of them. What was it like to get an abortion back then? Well, well show you. Its not even that long ago, and thats what our societys grown out of. We need to remind ourselves of that. I remember when I was living in London there was this idea of returning to Victorian values. Well, those are Victorian values: child labor and young women being thrown out into the streets. Thats our history.

That theme seems particularly relevant in a time when a president wants to Make America Great Again.

[Laughs] A lot of the time we want to idealize the past, and that can have a political agenda behind it. People idealize the 1950s in America for the same reason  that was a Reagan thing. Lets return the 50s. Well ... segregation. In terms of womens stories, there a lot of stories that havent been told and perspectives that havent been shown. Alias Grace is not necessarily as obvious a call to action [as Handmaids Tale], but that doesnt mean its not an important perspective.

You have a history of showcasing womens stories. Youve made films about Valerie Solanas, Bettie Page and Anna Nicole Smith. Are there any other outre women, who might similarly challenge notions of femininity, that youd be interested in spotlighting in a film?

Right now Im casting for this Manson girls project. The interest there is: How do these seemingly normal, hippy girls end up doing these terrible things? What was their relationship to the cult? Why did they give over their will to this crazy leader? Part of the film is set in the early 70s, when they are in prison, and part of the story is told from the Manson ranch. People dont really take an interest in the girls when they tell that story. They dont really show how it happened  how they came to do these things. How could they? How did they? Whats the story there? There was this young feminist in her early 30s who came and gave classes to the Manson girls and wrote a book about them. Im always interested in an untold story. And not just a straightforward story of a noble struggle, but looking at quite complicated issues of female behavior. Cant get more complicated than the Manson girls.

Taking it back a bit, you refused to cast Leonardo DiCaprio in American Psycho in part because his fan base at the time consisted of teenagers, and because youd already tapped Christian Bale. What was it like pushing back on studio executives at the time?

Well, I got fired, so thats what it was like. [Editors Note: Harron was eventually reinstated as director of American Psycho.] Or you could say I quit, but they fired me because I didnt want to meet with DiCaprio and I didnt want to cast him. Id already said I would cast Christian, who wasnt famous at the time. Leo was. I think everyone thought I was crazy. There were two things: I thought Leo was a great actor but he wasnt right for it. Christian was right for it. And I would never make a film if I didnt think the lead was right. But I also knew that if they brought on the biggest star in the world for American Psycho, theyd totally rewrite the script and I would lose control over the tone of it. I also thought it was totally inappropriate for this actor with a huge fan base of young girls to play this role. It just seemed wrong on so many levels. It was an advantage with Christian Bale to have someone who wasnt as famous, because people didnt have a lot of preconceptions. His fame didnt get in the way.

Im very, very specific about casting and Ive been through many casting battles. I dont think Ive been with a film without having a casting battle. Its the one thing thats make-or-break for me. I really will not do a film if I dont think the lead is right for it. No good film was ever made if the lead was miscast. Making a film is hard enough. But Netflix was very good. They said, You dont have to cast stars. And I think this will make a star out of Sarah Gadon.

Has it gotten any easier over the course of your career to assert yourself in that arena and have a position of power in these casting dilemmas?

No, it really hasnt. And youd think it would.

Last question: Why isnt I Shot Andy Warhol available to stream anywhere?

I just saw Christine Vachon, the producer, at the premiere of the Todd Haynes movie [Wonderstruck], and she said theyre looking into getting the rights back. Its one of those things, the company that distributed it went out of business. It breaks my heart that that film isnt available. There are all these great actors in it. Lili Taylor. Justin Therouxs first film! I would so love to see that film back. So, were working on it.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Alias Grace is now streaming on Netflix.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Purple is definitely Melania Trump's color!

The first lady departed for a nearly two week-long trip to Asia in style, turning heads in a striking purple Emilio Pucci coat dress that she paired with stilettos of the same hue and dark sunglasses. The belted number hit below the knees and showed off her toned stems.

Emilio Pucci continues to be one of the first lady's favorite designers. Back in June, Melania donned a cheer yellow floral frock from the Italian fashion house to meet India's prime minister. The floor-length look, which she accessorized with a chunky belt, was one of her most memorable looks of the summer.

Melania has been loving her coat dresses lately, wearing a camel-hued Bottega Veneta look for a trick-or-treating event at the White House the day before Halloween. Clean, tailored looks are a mainstay of Melania's style, which have garnered comparisons to Jackie Kennedy's.

The first lady recently stepped out in a $1,150 pale pink Acne Studios coat for the Homeland Security Secretary nomination ceremony. Similarly, she donned a striking coat dress from New York-based designer Alice Roi during a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in March 2016.

Of course, she can rock a suit like no one else, having stepped out in looks by Michael Kors and Ralph Lauren in recent weeks.

The first couple is headed to Asia for the longest presidential trip in years. The president and first lady will visit Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines until November 14.

For more on Melania's style, watch the video above.
Michelle Obama thanks 33-year-old, who is fifth in line to the throne, for coming to her hometown of Chicago as a surprise guest for the student: Gerardo Mora/Getty Images

Prince Harry and Michelle Obama have teamed up for a surprise visit to a school in Chicagos South Side which is a stone's throw from the soon to be Obama Presidential Centre.

The royal and the former first lady spent time with around 20 students at Hyde Park Academy  a public school which serves a large African-American population. There the duo engaged in a warm and wide-ranging conversation.

The warm and wide-ranging conversation, lasting over an hour, covered how the Center will showcase the South Side of Chicago to the world, said Kensington Palace in a statement.

They spoke about the importance of young people staying inspired and the power of students using their voices to change the world.

Michelle Obama thanked the 33-year-old, who is fifth in line to the throne, for coming to her hometown of Chicago.

Thanks to my friend Prince Harry for joining me in my hometown to surprise these outstanding students! she said on Twitter.

Prince Harrys blossoming friendship with the Obamas was forged several years ago when he joined forced with Ms Obama to raise support for his Invictus Games in Orlando, Florida. Former President Barack Obama also joined Prince Harry at last months Invictus Games in Toronto.

The pairs visit took place on the same day as the inaugural summit of the Obama Foundation in Chicago on Tuesday where Prince Harry was one of the headline speakers.

At the event, Mr Obama mocked the barrage of conspiracies theories, which were partially propounded by President Donald Trump, that claimed he was not a natural-born American US citizen and it was, therefore, unconstitutional for him to be President.

The reason Im so excited to see you all here today in part is because this is where I started, Mr Obama, who was a community organiser in Chicago in the 1980s, said.

"This isnt where I was born, I was born in Kenya, he said prompting laughter before quickly adding, Thats a joke.

During Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and throughout his presidency, multiple theories emerged falsely claiming he was not a US citizen and was in fact born in Kenya.

President Trump was among those who pushed the birther conspiracy theory and consistently questioned former President Obamas birthplace of Hawaii.
Michelle Obama has a bit of advice for millennials eager to have their voice heard: think before you tweet.

Speaking at an inaugural youth leadership summit held by the Obama Foundation in Chicago Wednesday, the former First Lady impressed upon her audience that words matter, reports CNN.

When you have a voice, you just cant use it any kind of way, you know? This whole tell it like it is business, thats nonsense, Obama said in a conversation with poet Elizabeth Alexander. You dont just say whats on your mind. You dont tweet every thought. Most of your first initial thoughts are not worthy of the light of day.

Twitter and social media, she continued, can be a powerful weapon. At a point drawing laughter and applause from her audience, Obama clarified that her suggestion wasnt aimed at anybody in particular, but rather she was talking about all of us.

Read more: President Trump Just Deleted Tweets About Luther Strange. Is He Allowed to Do That?

When youre the first lady or the president, [or] the commander in chief, and you have that voice and that power and that platform, Obama said, what comes with that is the responsibility to know that every word you utter has consequences.

Former president Barack Obama closed the two-day summit with a speech on Nov. 1. The event was attended by 500 youth participants from 60 countries. Other speakers included Prince Harry, rapper Common and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, with performances by Chance the Rapper, Gloria Estefan and The National.
By Kyaw Soe Oo and Shoon Naing SITTWE, Myanmar (Reuters) - Myanmar's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on Thursday urged people "not to quarrel" as she visited Rakhine State for the first time since a military crackdown that drove more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee the country. Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has faced heavy international criticism for not taking a higher profile in responding to what U.N. officials have called "ethnic cleansing" by the army. Myanmar has rejected the accusations of ethnic cleansing, saying its security forces launched a counter-insurgency operation after Rohingya militants attacked 30 security posts in northern Rakhine on Aug. 25. On Thursday, amid heightened security, Suu Kyi boarded a military helicopter at Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State, to be taken to Maungdaw, one of the districts worst hit by the violence. Suu Kyi met a group of Muslim religious leaders, said Chris Lewa, of the Arakan Project monitoring group, citing Rohingya sources. "She only said three things to the people - they should live peacefully, the government is there to help them, and they should not quarrel among each other," Lewa said, quoting information from a religious leader who was present. Rohingya began fleeing predominantly Buddhist Myanmar for neighboring Bangladesh in late August to escape violence in the wake of a military counter-insurgency operation launched after Rohingya militants attacked security posts in Rakhine State. A U.S. State Department delegation will be in Bangladesh on Friday and Saturday to discuss the humanitarian crisis and human rights concerns stemming from the crisis in Rakhine state. The delegation will be led by Simon Henshaw, acting assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, the department said in a statement. On Wednesday, Reuters photographers saw thousands of desperate Rohingya wade through shallows and narrow creeks between islands of the Naf river to reach neighboring Bangladesh as the exodus begun two months ago was far from over. Some had small boats or pulled makeshift rafts to get to Bangladesh on the river's western bank, but most walked, children cradled in their arms and the elderly carried on their backs, with sacks of belongings tied to staves on their shoulders. Reaching the far side, some women and older people had to be pulled through the mud to reach dry land atop steep banks. More than 4,000 crossed at different points on the river on Wednesday, Major Mohammed Iqbal, a Bangladesh security official in the southern district of Cox's Bazar, told Reuters. TALKS ON REPATRIATION Suu Kyi had not previously visited Rakhine since assuming power last year following a landslide 2015 election victory. The majority of residents in the northern part of the state, which includes Maungdaw, were Muslims until the recent crisis. Suu Kyi was accompanied by about 20 people traveling in two military helicopters, including military, police and state officials, a Reuters reporter said. Businessman Zaw Zaw, formerly sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury for his ties to Myanmar's junta, was also with the Nobel laureate. Suu Kyi, who does not control the military, has lately appeared to take a stronger lead in the crisis, focusing government efforts on rehabilitation and pledging to repatriate refugees. She launched a project last month to help rehabilitation and resettlement in Rakhine and has urged tycoons to contribute. Suu Kyi has pledged to allow the return of refugees who can prove they were residents of Myanmar, but thousands of people have continued to flee to Bangladesh. Refugees in the Bangladesh camps say the Myanmar army torched their villages, but Myanmar blames Rohingya militants. Talks with Bangladesh have yet to deliver a pact on a repatriation process made more complex because Myanmar has long denied citizenship to the Rohingya. Suu Kyi's spokesman voiced fears on Tuesday that Bangladesh could be stalling on the accord to first get millions of dollars of international aid money, an accusation a senior Bangladesh home ministry official described as outrageous. United Nations refugee official Volker Turk appealed for the safe, voluntary and sustainable repatriation of Rohingya. In a statement issued on Thursday after a two-day visit to Myanmar, Turk, the U.N.'s assistant high commissioner for refugee protection, said he hoped the UNHCR would be involved in the government's plans for voluntary repatriation. But the scenes at the Naf river showed Rohingya were still ready to risk being destitute in Bangladesh, rather than stay in Myanmar in fear for their lives. (For a graphic on 'A desperate escape' click http://tmsnrt.rs/2xIvxQF) (For a graphic on 'Mass exodus' click http://tmsnrt.rs/2xTId74) (For a graphic on 'Trail of destruction' click http://tmsnrt.rs/2y8FgQ8) (Additional reporting by Hannah McKay and Nural Islam in COX'S BAZAR, Ruma Paul in DHAKA, and Simon Lewis in Yangon; Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Nick Macfie and Phil Berlowitz)
Donald Trump and the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have exchanged threats and personal insults in recent months, as tensions have ratcheted up over the communist state's nuclear ambitions: Win McNamee/Getty Images

North Korea has called Donald Trump "incurably mentally deranged" ahead of his first visit to Asia as head of state.

Mr Trump and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have exchanged threats and personal insults in recent months, as tensions ratcheted up over the communist state's nuclear ambitions.

Mr Trump has warned the US could unleash "fire and fury" on the isolationist regime, telling the UN General Assembly Washington would "totally destroy" Pyongyang if it or its allies were threatened.

The US President in August gave the North Korean leader the moniker "Rocket Man", prompting Mr Kim to call Mr Trump a "dotard".

Mr Trump is due to embark on a 12-day tour of Asia, stopping in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines and China.

Ahead of the visit, North Korean state media KCNA criticised the "bellicose and irresponsible rhetoric" by the "master of the invective".

"He absolutely needs medicine for curing his psychological disorder," it said of Mr Trump.

It said the US President had "disclosed his true nature as a nuclear war maniac before the world and was diagnosed as 'incurably mentally deranged'".

After the North carried out its sixth nuclear test in September, Washington sent jet fighters and aircraft carriers near the Korean Peninsula.

The test also prompted the United Nations to impose a fresh round of punitive sanctions on the North.

KCNA described the measures as "desperate efforts" that would prove ineffective.
By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A rare high-level defector from North Korea told U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday that disseminating more information in the reclusive country would ultimately be more effective than the billions of dollars being spent to address the military threat.

"We can educate (the) North Korean population to stand up by disseminating outside information," Thae Yong-ho, chief of mission at Pyongyang's embassy in Britain until he defected in 2016, said during an appearance at Congress two days before President Donald Trump's first trip to Asia since taking office.

Asked what kind of information he was discussing, Thae said background about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, like his birth date, to convey the idea that he and his family 'are not gods." He said South Korean videos, for example were increasingly available within the North.

"The U.S. is spending billions of dollars to cope with the military threat and yet how much does the U.S. spend each year on information activities involving North Korea in a year?

Unfortunately, it may be a tiny fraction," he said.

Thae made his first visit to Washington during rising international tensions over North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missiles program. The crisis is expected to dominate Trump's trip to the region, which includes a stop in South Korea.

Thae also told the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee that U.S. officials should meet with Kim at least once to try to understand his thinking and convince him that he is risking mass destruction.

Thae said Kim thinks he can force the United States to accept North Korea as a nuclear power and drive U.S. forces off the Korean peninsula.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that Washington was quietly pursuing direct diplomacy with North Korea, despite Trump's public assertion that such talks are a waste of time.

Amid a war of words between Kim, who has called Trump a "mentally deranged dotard," and Trump, who referred to Kim as "little rocket man," many U.S. lawmakers have been pushing for non-military solutions to the crisis.

Story continues

Representative Ed Royce, the committee's Republican chairman, called at the hearing for a "dramatic increase" in the number of individuals and entities targeted for sanctions, without delay.

Thae is the highest-level defector from North Korea in two decades. In emotional testimony, he described a life before he left for South Korea that mixed relative privilege and oppression.

He said he defected because he could not let his sons lead "a life, like me, as a modern-day slave."

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Related Video:

Watch news, TV and more on Yahoo View.
The University of Notre Dame has fought against the contraceptive mandate for years. (Photo: Michael Hickey via Getty Images)

Less than a month after the Trump administration rolled back an Obama-era rule guaranteeing contraceptive coverage at no cost to women, the University of Notre Dame has announced its plans to stop covering birth control for all of its students and employees.

The Catholic university is one of the first high-profile employers to take advantage of the rule change, which allows any company claiming to have religious or moral objections to refuse to offer contraceptive coverage in its health insurance plans.

Previously, Notre Dame provided contraceptive coverage through a third-party service, an accommodation the Affordable Care Act made available to nonprofit religious groups. The university did not actually have to arrange  or pay for  contraceptive coverage for students and faculty, but nonetheless made it available to women enrolled in its health insurance plans at no cost to them. Notre Dame was one of several religious groups that sued to try to get out of the federal mandate.

In emails sent to students and faculty last week, the university explained that it would stop covering birth control for employees on Jan. 1 of next year, and for students after Aug. 15.

By way of explanation, an email to Aetna student health plan enrollees said the school honors the moral teachings of the Catholic Church. A second email to faculty and staff explained that the medical plan will continue to allow prescriptions for birth control for medical necessity, as demonstrated by a doctor.

A spokesperson for the university shared the emails with HuffPost, but declined to comment further.

Students say Notre Dame has made it challenging to get birth control in other ways. The Walgreens-managed pharmacy on campus does not provide birth control unless students demonstrated a medical need outside of pregnancy prevention, even for students who do not have insurance through the university.

I use the campus pharmacy to refill prescriptions and when I first got here, I didnt know [I could only get a refill] if I had a doctors note, Emily Garrett, 21, a senior from New York, told HuffPost. I was very surprised. I was raised in a Catholic household, but I never knew that the policies at Notre Dame were so restrictive of womens health care.

Story continues

The universitys decision to drop birth control coverage has been harshly criticized by reproductive health organizations like Planned Parenthood. On Tuesday, the National Womens Law Center filed a complaint against the Trump administrations interim final rules on behalf of five women in Indiana, including three University of Notre Dame students.

The idea here is that your employer can tell you how to use your insurance plan ... its not really that different from them telling you how to use your salary, Adam Sonfield, senior policy manager with the reproductive health policy and advocacy organization Guttmacher Institute, told HuffPost. For employers and employees, this is an earned benefit. And your employer should have no say.

Sonfield said health policy experts would be watching with great interest to see how many employers would take advantage of the new exemption, which should start to become clear this month. October is when many organizations offer open insurance enrollment for next years employer-based health care plans.

On the University of Notre Dame campus, the mood is mixed, students say. There has been some organized pushback. After the Trump administration changes were announced, graduate students organized a demonstration on campus they called the March for Reproductive Freedom.

But senior Molly Burton, 21, told HuffPost that she worries some students are being complacent about the changes because they are on private insurance plans through their parents. Others, she said, are not surprised by the decision given the university has fought against the Obamacare mandate for years.

Burton said that she loves Notre Dame and is proud to be a Notre Dame student, but she is upset with what she sees as unnecessary meddling in womens health.

I think people are frustrated, she said, with this continued attempt at denying us basic health care.

Also on HuffPost

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
If you're paying attention to the virtual reality market, 2017 would appear to be a pretty awful time to start growing a VR hardware startup.

OculusVR's Kickstarter campaign took place more than five years ago and since then there's been a burst of activity in the VR market that has driven a lot of hype though actual sales might not have reached stratospheric expectations.

This is not stopping Pimax VR, a Shanghai based startup founded in 2015, from planning to launch an ambitious headset that will likely retail for double the price of current high-end VR hardware. The company's Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign closes tomorrow and it has already raised more than $3.8 million.

The Pimax 8K headset (which will run on Valves SteamVR platform) gets its name from the dual 4K LCD displays that give the device its large hammerhead shark look. For many, what's more exciting is the headset's bizarrely wide field-of-view. While current generation headsets are often somewhere between 90 and 110 degrees, Pimax is aiming for 200 degrees.

I had a chance to take a look at the latest prototype of the headset and chat with Pimax CEO Nordic Ren about the company's ambitions and how it possibly plans to succeed in a market that has Facebook, Google and Microsoft staking claims.

While everyone else is going for the mass market right now, Ren tells me that he plans to succeed by capturing the attention on the high-end. "HTC and Oculus are good but not good enough," he says.

Gif via Pimax

It seems evident that Facebook's Oculus is only going to be moving more resources towards all-in-one headsets and away from boundary-pushing PC headsets like the Rift. This is going to leave an exploitable subset of early adopters that will want a headset that can integrate with omnidirectional treadmills, haptic gloves, smell sensors and more while running boundary and bank-breaking GPUs. It's definitely a weird niche of consumers, but considering the startup has already received pledges for nearly more than 5,000 headsets already, it's clear they definitely exist.

Story continues

What's also apparent is that this product getting into consumer's hands is also going to rely on more venture funding stacked on top of the several million dollars they'll draw in from the Kickstarter. I asked Ren what the company's biggest obstacle would be in shipping the headsets and he said getting "more money," noting that the startup was currently putting together more funding from outside investors.

Though the Kickstarter pricing for the full 8K setup is $800 (the headset alone is $499), Ren said final retail pricing has not been decided, though I truly cannot imagine that this headset (along with controllers and sensors) will retail for less than $1,000 as a package.

There is frankly no way that the startup is going to deliver a product anywhere near its Kickstarter's estimated delivery date of January 2018 given that the final design of central things like the lenses is still very much in progress. While Ren said the company would "do their best" to hit a launch somewhere in that window, he sounded a bit overwhelmed by the number of pre-orders the company had already received.

For comparison, Fove, a VR headset company that also launched their headset via Kickstarter closed its campaign in May of 2015 selling more than 1,000 headsets with a targeted ship date of one year later. They missed that date by 8 months and had to raise $11M in funding in the meantime.

I had the chance to be one of the first people to check out the third major prototype of the headset, which expands the device's signature wide field-of-view through a new 3-part frankensteined lens array that practically hugs onto your eyeballs. The lenses brought the virtual image to the outer reaches of my own vision in a way that was almost overwhelming but showcases an evolution for VR hardware that definitely lived up to Pimax's promises. Notably, there were some major distortions if you tried to glance all the way left or right largely because games do not natively run at a resolution this wide and there's some software stretching Pimax has had to do to display content at 200 degrees that was rendered at 180.

The high-resolution 4K displays offered a noticeable upgrade in sharpness and clarity though in terms of gameplay the field-of-view seemed to matter much more. There were still visible pixels as these are 4K screens but they are 4K screens an inch or two from your eyes. Nevertheless, the optics quality was very good on the prototype.

I demoed some familiar titles on the headset including Elite Dangerous and The Blu. The PC that was powering the experience was stocked with a 1080 graphics card, which -- just for that one component -- costs more than some of the full Oculus-ready PCs on the market currently. Pimax is aiming to make the final headset capable of running most titles while utilizing a mildly cheaper 1070 GPU, which Ren noted may still be a "little bit tough" to do.

For backers, the risks of funding a Kickstarter campaign for a hardware startup are lessened somewhat by the fact that the company has put VR headsets through production and the leadership is well-connected to manufacturing pipelines in Shenzhen, but the uncertainty is still there as to what exactly the finished project will ship with.

The prototype I demoed was running at 75hz rather than the 90 it hopes to ship with, Ren was discussing a redesign of the lenses on the way, and there are still many questions on whether the headset will be able to run on anything but the highest end GPUs. This will more than likely not ship on time, and the company is still making promises as to what extra things backers will be getting. Extra assurances made on the admission that the company may still need outside funding it has not yet secured in order to ship the device.

The Pimax 8K is a very exciting piece of hardware with some eye-catching features, but as the Kickstarter campaign draws to a close and the company looks to ship thousands of headsets, it's apparent that while the displays are sharp, the next few months leading up to the targeted ship dates are much, much blurrier.
Malacca (Malaysia) (AFP) - Decked out with flashing lights and cartoon characters, with loud music pumping, rickety bicycle rickshaws have become a hit with tourists visiting the historic Malaysian city of Malacca.

Once a common sight in many parts of Malaysia, the three-wheelers, known locally as trishaws, were largely phased out as cars became more affordable and took over the country's roads.

But in Malacca, a former colonial settlement that is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of Malaysia's top tourist draws, the pedal-powered vehicles live on.

They have adapted to the modern era in a bid to appeal to tourists, adding figures of cartoon characters such as Hello Kitty and Pokemon's Pikachu and blinking fairy lights that are turned on at night.

Their sound systems blare out an eclectic mix of music, from techno to Bollywood hits and Chinese ballads.

"Malacca's trishaws are unique for their decorations -- other trishaws, they don't come close," said driver Mohamad Isa Mursidi, whose three-wheeled steed was decorated with Hello Kitty dolls and a bouquet of plastic flowers in a heart-shaped frame.

When they are not ferrying visitors around Malacca, the rickshaws can usually be found hanging around the historic central square in the shadow of the Stadthuys, an imposing red building that was the governor's office during Dutch colonial rule.

A 30-minute ride on a selected route around some of the city's historic buildings costs around 25 ringgit (US$6).

The noisy, garish trishaws may not be to the taste of everyone visiting the ancient city.

But for many heading to Malacca, a trip in one of the colourful rickshaws is all part of the experience.

"It gives a romantic feeling to the heart at night," said local tourist Ganapathy Kuppusamy.

Malacca, on peninsular Malaysia's southwest cost, has a history dating back to around the 15th century. With a strategic location on the Straits of Malacca, it became a wealthy entrepot and attracted traders from around the world.

It was colonised first by the Portuguese, later by the Dutch and finally by the British in the 19th century, when it became part of the Straits Settlements with Penang, in modern-day Malaysia, and Singapore.
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A policeman and a militant from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were killed in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Friday, the local governor's office said. It said nine other policemen were wounded during a security operation against the Kurdish group in the city. "Clashes broke out as our security forces entered the address to apprehend a member of the PKK," the governor's office said. The PKK, which is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union, has led a three-decade armed insurgency against the Turkish state. The government has been increasing operations against the militant group since the collapse of a ceasefire in 2015. (Writing by Ali Kucukgocmen; Editing by Dominic Evans)
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 49 percent of Americans believe President Donald Trump likely committed a crime connected to Russias suspected interference in last years U.S. presidential election.

Of those, 19 percent believe theres solid evidence to back that up, with the other 30 percent saying its just a suspicion. Another 44 percent of those surveyed said its unlikely Trump committed a crime.

More than half of the respondents  51 percent  dont believe Trump is cooperating with the investigation, according to the poll.

Most people  58 percent  approve of the job special counsel Robert Mueller is doing in investigating the possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia, while 28 percent disapprove.

Predictably, the attitudes about Trump and the investigation broke down along party lines, with 78 percent of Democrats and just 38 percent of Republicans approving of how Mueller is handling the investigation. More than half of independent voters, 56 percent, approve of the job Mueller is doing.

The vast majority of Republicans  82 percent  believe its unlikely Trump committed a crime; half of independents and 74 percent of Democrats believe its likely he did, the poll found.

Over half of all surveyed  53 percent  believe the charges revealed Monday against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, associate Rick Gates and former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos are only part of broader wrongdoing by people involved in Trumps campaign. In contrast, 28 percent believe its limited to the three men, while 19 percent expressed no opinion.

Manafort and Gates pleaded not guilty to the charges brought by the special counsels office, which included tax evasion and money laundering. Papadopoulos on the other pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

Both before and after the indictments in the Mueller probe, Trump and some of his allies have instead attempted to link Hillary Clinton and the Democrats to Russia. Trump has said that as secretary of state in the Obama administration, Clinton approved a deal allowing the mining arm of the Russian nuclear energy agency to acquire the Canadian company Uranium One, which had uranium mining operations in the U.S.

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Trump also insisted in a tweet that it was generally agreed that Clinton, not him, colluded with the Russians, following news that the Democratic National Committee had funded a dossier about Trumps alleged ties to Russia created by former British spy Christopher Steele.

It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump. Was collusion with HC!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 27, 2017

The new Washington Post-ABC poll comes after a decline in Trumps recent approval ratings, with a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll for Oct. 23 to Oct. 26 finding that only 38 percent of Americans approved of the job the president was doing, a new low for his presidency.

A subsequent three-day rolling Gallup poll ending on Sunday found that only 33 percent of those surveyed approved of the job Trump was doing, with 62 percent disapproving. But a later Gallup survey for Oct. 30 to Nov. 1 replicated the Wall Street Journal poll finding of a 38 percent approval rating.

Trump has consistently fared worse this year in Gallups polling than in many other surveys, but several recent polls have shown the president dipping below a 40 percent approval rating after a modest September uptick.

HuffPost Pollsters aggregate of public polling gave Trump an average 39.2 percent approval rating as of Monday evening.

(Photo: Huffpost)

Related...

MSNBC Host Skewers Claims Clinton Helped Sell Uranium To Russians

The Not-So-Brief History Of Paul Manafort And His Relationship With Trump

Trump Clams Up When Asked If He'll Pardon Paul Manafort

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Pope Francis waves to the crowd while arriving for a holy mass at Simon Bolivar park in Bogota, Colombia: Reuters

Pope Francis has reportedly requested that married men in Brazil be allowed to become priests - a controversial move likely to prompt a backlash from conservatives in the Catholic Church

The issue will now be discussed and a vote by bishops in the South American country could now vote on the issue.

The President of the Episcopal Commission for the Amazon, Cardinal Cludio Hummes, reportedly asked the pontiff to consider the move because there is a shortage of ordained ministers in the Amazon's remote communities.

Catholicism has seen its influence wane in the region as evangelical churches have set up.

The viri probati proposal  which allows men of proven faith to carry out some duties  has been around for decades, but it has drawn fresh attention under Pope Francis, the first ever Latin American pontiff.

He raised the prospect of lifting the celibacy rule in March, when he told German weekly Die Zeit: "We must consider if viri probati is a possibility. Then we must determine what tasks they can perform, for example, in remote communities."

The Pope has also said that the principle of celibacy for priests is a discipline, rather than a dogma.

The church already allows some exceptions to priestly celibacy.

Those in the eastern rite Catholic Church are allowed to be married, as are married Anglican priests who convert to Catholicism.

It is thought that if successful the pilot project could be extended to other parts of the world, including Africa.

However, the move is likely to anger conservatives in the church, who are already furious about the pontiff's decision to allow divorced people who re-marry to receive communion if their priests or local bishop approve.
Pope Francis celebrates a Mass. (Reuters/Remo Casilli)

Pope Francis has requested that Roman Catholic priests be given the right to get married.

The request applies to priests in Brazil, and is on the agenda for an upcoming synod (church council) in the Amazon region.

The controversial move would address the critical shortage of men joining the priesthood  but is likely to drive divisions through the church by enraging conservative factions.

A small number of married Roman Catholic priests already exist, including previously married Anglican vicars who have joined the church.

A request to lift the ban on marriage was made by Brazilian bishop Cardinal Claudio Hummes, who reportedly asked the Pope to consider viri probati, meaning married of great faith, as priests.

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Derry priest Father Paddy OKane suggested that Pope Francis may move to end celibacy earlier this month, saying there was support amongst the church for the idea.

Fr OKane cited Brazilian liberation theologian Leonardo Boff, who said: The Brazilian bishops, especially the popes own personal friend Cardinal Claudio Hummes, have expressly requested Pope Francis to enable married priest in Brazil to return to pastoral ministry.

I have recently heard that the pope wants to fulfil this request  as an experimental, preliminary phase for the moment confined to Brazil.

St Peters Square in Rome (Niall Carson/PA Wire)

Earlier this year the Pope told Die Zeit newspaper: We must consider if viri probati is a possibility. Then we must determine what tasks they can perform, for example, in remote communities.

Francis and his predecessor Benedict XVI have both stated that celibacy is not a matter of inflexible church dogma unlike, and could be debated.
Stephen Paddocks drivers license photo. (Photo: U.S. government via NBC News)

Police say the man who shot and killed 58 people and injured more than 540 others in last months deadly massacre in Las Vegas was a status-obsessed narcissist who had lost a significant amount of wealth in the last two years, something authorities now believe may have been a determining factor in the Oct. 1 attack.

In a wide-ranging interview with KLAS-TV, the local CBS affiliate, Las Vegas Sheriff Joe Lombardo said gunman Stephen Paddock was a successful real estate investor and prolific gambler whose wealth had fluctuated over the years. But, according to the sheriff, Paddock had been losing money since September 2015, triggering bouts of depression.

This individual was status-driven, based on how he liked to be recognized in the casino environment and how he liked to be recognized by his friends and family. So obviously that was starting to decline in the short period of time, and that may have had a determining effect on why he did what he did, Lombardo said. He was going in the wrong direction.

But Lombardo cautioned that investigators still have not settled on the precise reason for why Paddock suddenly unleashed a deadly barrage of bullets onto the crowd at the Route 91 Harvest music festival from the windows of his 32nd floor suite at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino a month ago. Lombardo, as he has repeatedly warned in recent weeks, again said Paddocks motive may never truly be understood.

Las Vegas Sheriff Joe Lombardo and Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., at a news conference on Oct. 2 in Las Vegas. (Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

The sheriff characterized Paddock as nondescript and methodical in planning the attack and concealing his motives. He confirmed reports that a hard drive from one of the laptops found in the gunmans hotel suite was missing and said histories recovered from Paddocks other electronic devices had failed to yield clues about the gunmans trigger point.

Though ISIS claimed credit for the attack, Lombardo said investigators had found no links between Paddock and any terrorist groups and no evidence he had been radicalized. Paddock also did not appear to have any strong political beliefs  though, according to the sheriff, he had recently told an associate that he was happy with Donald Trumps presidency because the stock market was doing well. Thats the only thing weve seen referencing politics, Lombardo said.

Story continues

While he suggested Paddock worked to conceal his plot, the sheriff continued to express doubts about the gunmans friends and family who have insisted they had no inkling of his plans or dangerous state of mind. He specifically mentioned Marilou Danley, Paddocks longtime girlfriend, and the gunmans younger brother, Eric, suggesting the attack could have been prevented on so many levels had they or anyone reported some modicum of information that would have presented this individuals state of mind.

Authorities are still interviewing Danley, who was visiting family in the Philippines at the time of the Oct. 1 rampage and who insisted she knew nothing of Paddocks plans. She has been named a person of interest in the case, partly because Paddock reportedly wired her $100,000 in the days before the shooting. Through her attorney, Danley has said she thought the money was Paddocks way of breaking up with me.

Lombardo said that while investigators for the most part accept Danleys account, he continued to have doubts about her story, telling KLAS-TV, Personally I find it hard to believe.

An image of Marilou Danley released by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. (Photo: Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department/handout via Reuters)

Among other things, he pointed to Paddocks arsenal of nearly 50 guns, including the 23 weapons found in his Mandalay Bay hotel room, most of which were purchased in the last year. There is a lot of people that have hundreds and hundreds of guns, but for this individual to do it at a certain point in time and to do it all with such robust action, you would think that Ms. Danley would have some information associated with that, Lombardo said. But currently we havent been able to pull that out of her, if its in her.

He also suggested that something seemed off about Paddocks family, using the word manic to describe the gunmans younger brother, Eric, in his dealings with the media in the aftermath of the shooting. He continues to talk and continues to  dig a hole, Lombardo said, though he did not elaborate further.

While Lombardo was trying to clarify Paddocks behavior and motives, questions were still being asked about the police response to the shooting and the handling of the investigation. It remains unclear why it took officers 12 minutes after the shooting began to reach the 32nd floor, where the gunmans suite was located, and why police waited for more than an hour to enter the room after the shooting had stopped. Several questions remain unanswered about what communication took place, if any, between police and hotel security.

Paddock had shot a security guard who approached his room, on an unrelated call, just before he began through a window. Jesus Campos, the wounded security guard, later told talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, in his only public interview, that he immediately radioed hotel security that he had been shot. But its still unclear exactly when Campos relayed that information to the hotel and how or if casino officials communicated that information to the police.

On Thursday, more than a dozen news organizations, including the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, ABC News, CNN and the Las Vegas Review Journal, filed two lawsuits, one seeking access to audio of 911 calls, body camera video and other still undisclosed police records related to the shooting and the other seeking to unseal court papers related to search warrants connected to the investigation, including any served on Mandalay Bay.

Eric Paddock, brother of Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock, speaks to members of the media outside his home in Orlando. Paddock told the Orlando Sentinel, We are completely dumbfounded. We cant understand what happened. (Photo: John Raoux/AP)

The Las Vegas police have declined to comment on the lawsuits, but Lombardo used his interview, which was taped ahead of the court filings, to defend his departments response and the employees at the casino as well. I dont want anyone perceiving that MGM and Mandalay Bay didnt do their job, he said. While he was not asked specifically about the casinos actions on the night of the shooting, the sheriff defended Mandalay Bay against suggestions its employees failed to question Paddock about the arsenal of weapons he amassed in his suite.

Offering some new details, Lombardo said he believes Paddock may have carried the guns unnoticed, moving them upstairs in separate bags over several days starting on Sept. 25, the day he checked in.

I wouldnt say nobody saw him bringing bags into the hotel. People saw him, but ten to fifteen thousand people a day go through those doors  and was he doing it over a period of several days, which would not bring attention to him, he said. There was nothing that stuck out. They had experience with this individual. They knew him.

Lombardo confirmed that Mandalay Bay had handed over hours of video taken around the casino and that police had so far viewed about 90 to 95 percent of it. Despite reports that the shooter had been seen with a possible accomplice, and the fact that he ordered dinner for two from room service on the night of the attack, Paddock was alone at the time of the shooting, the sheriff said.

Though Campos and a hotel maintenance worker who had also arrived on the floor both radioed word of the shooting, police apparently didnt identify where the shots hitting the concert area were coming from until roughly seven minutes after Paddock began shooting out the window. According to the timeline, police reached the 31st floor at 10:12 p.m., where officers reported that shots were coming from the floor above them. They finally reached the 32nd floor at 10:17 p.m.  two minutes after Paddock stopped shooting. Police did not breach Paddocks room until 11:20 p.m.  over an hour later  when they found him dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

A view of Paddocks room at the Mandalay Hotel showing weapons he may have used during the shooting. (Photo: Anonymous)

Police originally said Campos interrupted the shooting, bringing the deadly rampage to a stop. But they later said Paddock stopped firing on his own. Police still have no clear answer for why Paddock stopped shooting. According to Lombardo, the gunman still had 4,000 rounds of ammunition left in his room when he killed himself. He also had tactical equipment in the room and a vehicle downstairs containing thousands of rounds of additional ammunition as well as explosives, all of which has led police to speculate he possibly intended to escape and unleash more violence elsewhere.

In the KLAS-TV interview, Lombardo theorized that Paddock may have believed that police were closing in. Investigators found the shooter had researched police response tactics while planning his massacre. Maybe he felt like he accomplished what he wanted to accomplish.  He had to have been aware we were probably going to come in the door any minute, Lombardo said.

But the sheriff acknowledged that it was one of the many questions that are likely to go unanswered in the investigation. With officials reaching dead ends in their search for a clear motive, Lombardo said he hoped something would turn up in the examination of the gunmans brain by a laboratory at Stanford University  although scientists say its a long shot.

Photos and notes adorn a wall at the Las Vegas Community Healing Garden in Las Vegas. The garden was built as a memorial for the victims of the mass shooting. (Photo: John Locher/AP)

I actually hope we find something in the pathology of his brain that will help us understand this, Lombardo said. I am as frustrated as anyone.  Why would this individual take it upon himself to cause the worst mass shooting in our lifetime? Without reason or cause? We havent gotten that answer yet.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Senate Democrats have called on Jeff Sessions to clarify just how much he knew about attempts by the Russian government to influence the 2016 presidential election, following revelations that the attorney general was previously in a meeting with former Trump campaign aide-turned special counsel cooperator George Papadopoulos.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) demanded that Sessions clarify his past statements and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has asked the attorney general to once again appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee following the indictments this week of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his longtime associate Rick Gates as part of special counsel Robert Muellers investigation.

As part of the inquiry into potential collusion between the Donald Trump campaign and the Kremlin, Muellers office also announced the surprising news on Monday that his team had gained the cooperation of Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, who has been working with federal investigators following his own guilty plea that he lied to the FBI.

Also on Thursday, former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page told Congress in a six-hour, closed-door testimony that he told Sessions he was traveling to Russia during the presidential campaign, according to an account he gave to CNN. Page said the trips were completely unrelated to my limited volunteer role with the campaign and as Ive done dozens of times throughout my life.

Understandably, it was as irrelevant then as it is now, Page told CNN.

Both Papadopoulos and Pages statements appear to cast doubt on comments made by Sessions to the Senate multiple times since his confirmation hearing in early January, as well as remarks made by the president. Both said they were unaware of any coordination between Russian officials and members of the Trump campaign.

Once again, developments in the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election have brought to light evidence that you failed to tell the truth about your interactions with Russian operatives during the campaign, Franken wrote in a letter to Sessions on Thursday in which he asked the attorney general to clarify his accounts to the Senate. I am deeply troubled that this newest revelation strongly suggests that the Senate  and the American public  cannot trust your word.

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Leahy echoed that concern, saying Papadopoulos account was impossible to reconcile with the attorney generals appearance before the [Senate] Judiciary Committee just two weeks ago.

He now needs to come back before the Committee, in person, under oath, to explain why he cannot seem to provide truthful, complete answers to these important and relevant questions, Leahy said in a statement.

According to court documents released Monday, Papadopoulos said he was in a meeting with Trump and other advisers, including then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, when he said he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President [Vladimir] Putin. A post on Trumps Instagram account shows the March 31, 2016, meeting taking place, with the candidate, Sessions and Papadopoulos all present.

The New York Times, citing an anonymous campaign aide who attended the meeting, said Trump listened with interest to Papadopoulos pitch and asked several questions. Other aides were wary of the idea before Sessions himself spoke vehemently against the idea and asked others not to discuss it, the Times reported earlier this week.

A source at the Department of Justice confirmed to HuffPost that Sessions spoke out against the idea.

The White House has moved to distance itself from Papadopoulos. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that he held an extremely limited role in the campaign and described him as a volunteer that did nothing in an official capacity.

During his Jan. 10 confirmation hearing, Sessions said he was not aware of anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign coordinating with the Russian government when asked about such ties by Franken. Leahy asked Sessions later that month if the attorney general had been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election.

Sessions replied: No.

Ryan J. Reilly contributed to this report.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Last night, Princess Dianas niece Lady Kitty Spencer demonstrated her catwalk skills in Harrods debut catwalk show hosted by Dolce & Gabbana.

Princess Dianas niece Lady Kitty Spencer walked for D&G in Harrods debut show last night. (Photo: Getty)

The Italian extravaganza welcomed customers to the design duos Sicilian Christmas market, which has set up shop on the department stores fourth floor.

To celebrate, D&G hosted an impromptu catwalk show with a capsule collection debut in the buildings prestigious food halls.

Lady Kitty Spencer donned a sheer floral D&G dress as she graced the runway. (Photo: Getty)

The Italian designers played ringmasters in the Christmas extravaganza, entitled The Sun in a London Night. Everyone from the aristocratic Lady Tatiana Mountbatten to the millennial Rafferty Law (son of Jude) and Lottie Moss (sister of Kate) played models in the department stores debut show.

The show could not have been more Instagrammable if it tried, with this years most talked about clothes horses donning everything from heavily embroidered sheer dresses to equally hefty floral headpieces.

But it was undoubtedly Lady Kitty Spencer who stole the show in a bejeweled fur bolero and coordinating gloves that certainly didnt look out of place inside the walls of Harrods.

Iris Laws rumored boyfriend, Kelvin Bueno, took to the runway last night. (Photo: Getty)

The men of the moment (note: Iris Laws rumored boyfriend, Burberry model Kelvin Bueno, walked the runway) donned head-to-toe leopard and could-be-slippers footwear.

Rafferty Law donned a powder blue suit for the runway event. (Photo: Getty)

And with a largely millennial lineup, its seems D&G is clued in on how to play the market this Christmas.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.




Manila (AFP) - Armed stragglers supporting the Islamic State and hiding out among the ruins of a Philippine city after the end of a five-month battle still pose a threat to returning civilians, the military said Friday.

The admission came after authorities arrested an armed Indonesian militant this week and killed three other gunmen in the bombed-out southern city of Marawi.

"The main battle area, where most of the very heavy fighting occurred in the last few weeks prior to the liberation and the cessation of combat operation still harbours a number of stragglers," military spokesman Major-General Restituto Padilla said.

"These so-called stragglers continue to pose a huge threat to our people in Marawi as has been proven by the events of the past few days," Padilla told reporters in Manila.

Hundreds of local and foreign gunmen who had pledged allegiance to IS rampaged through Marawi, the principal Islamic city in the mainly Catholic Philippines, on May 23.

An ensuing US-backed military campaign claimed the lives of more than 1,100 people including around 900 militants, displaced 400,000 residents and reduced large parts of the city to rubble.

Padilla said the authorities were trying to confirm information provided by the captured suspect that more than 30 militants continue to hide out in building basements and tunnels.

Their hiding places were likely surrounded by booby traps and improvised explosive devices to prevent troops from approaching, he added.

The authorities were working "to ensure that not one of these terrorists may be able to escape because one terrorist who is able to escape has the potential of inflicting harm on many nationals -- on many of our nationals", he said.

More than 6,000 Marawi residents have been allowed to return home to areas that were previously cleared by authorities and did not suffer major damage, the authorities said Friday.

However the main battle area remained closed indefinitely.

Officials have said the fight for Marawi marked the Philippines' longest urban battle, with Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana estimating that the government will need $1.1 billion to rebuild the city.
A major national progressive group on Thursday denounced Ralph Northam, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Virginia, as gutless and racist for his remarks on immigration  plunging Democrats into a bitter internecine squabble ahead of statewide elections on Tuesday.

In a Wednesday interview with Norfolk, Virginia, TV news channel WAVY, Northam said he would sign a bill banning so-called sanctuary cities, or municipalities that limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities, should any Virginia locality pursue that status in the future.

Northams opponent, Republican Ed Gillespie, has run a series of misleading ads attacking Northam for a vote as lieutenant governor blocking a bill that would have preemptively banned municipalities from adopting these limits  though Gillespie himself has acknowledged that no sanctuary cities exist in Virginia as of yet.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday night after an event with Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, Northam claimed that he simply opposed preemptively banning sanctuary cities, and that his comments to WAVY were what Ive been saying all along.

The explanation was not enough, however, to assuage Democracy For America, a left-leaning online activism organization based in Burlington, Vermont. In response to what DFA called Northams backtrack on his commitment to standing up for immigrant families, the group declared that it would end any work to directly aid his campaign.

After seeing Northam play directly into the hands of Republicans racist anti-immigrant rhetoric on sanctuary cities, we refuse to be silent any longer and even remotely complicit in the disastrous, racist, and voter-turnout-depressing campaign Ralph Northam appears intent on running, DFA executive director Charles Chamberlain said in a statement.

Ralph Northam, Democratic candidate for governor of Virginia, has struggled to allay progressive skepticism throughout his campaign. (Photo: The Washington Post/Getty Images)

DFAs criticism of Northam is largely symbolic. The organization never contributed money to Northam directly; it has not even endorsed him. And according to Chamberlain, DFA had already removed Northam from its members get-out-the-vote call lists in October, following the campaigns removal of Justin Fairfax, Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor in Virginia, from some campaign literature at the behest of a labor union that had a policy dispute with Fairfax. The decision drew criticism from African-American and progressive groups angry that the campaign had marginalized Fairfax, who, if elected, would be just the second black statewide elected official in Virginias history.

Story continues

But DFAs decision to blast Northam days ahead of the election nonetheless reflects the challenge the moderate lieutenant governor faces in shoring up his base  and previews the intraparty sniping that is likely to take place if Northam loses.

Some progressive activists were clearly pleased with DFA for taking a stand against Northams backtracking.

Wow, @DFAaction's statement on why they will no longer offer "direct aid" to Northam is . pic.twitter.com/l59oHNRZe1  Claire Sandberg (@clairesandberg) November 3, 2017

@DFAaction Took a stand today. One that certainly won't be popular with the any blue will do crowd.  B.I.E. Esq.  (@TheWayWithAnoa) November 3, 2017

A spokesman for Ellison declined to comment on the situation. A spokesman for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

For the most part, though, Democrats expressed their frustration with DFA for seemingly making the perfect the enemy of the good so soon before a high-stakes election.

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee who founded DFA, called the groups announcement incredibly stupid.

I Hope this is inaccurate because it is an incredibly stupid thing to say and deeply discredits the organization which I founded. https://t.co/pBNnR0AMnC  Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) November 3, 2017

Dean, who has cultivated a more moderate record as a Washington insider in the years since his insurgent 2004 presidential run, formally ended his affiliation with DFA when he began exploring the possibility of another bid to run the DNC in November 2016.

Dean had long since broken with the organization on key political questions. For example, he backed Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential primary, despite DFAs endorsement of Sanders.

In a tweet Friday morning, Dean claimed that he had cut his ties with DFA not over Bernie, who has been a positive influence, but because he saw stuff like the Northam statement.

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I Didn't cut my ties to DFA over Bernie, who has been a positive influence. I cut them because I saw stuff like the Northam statement. https://t.co/cEfb4eBOiN  Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) November 3, 2017

Dean did not immediately respond to an email request to elaborate on his comments.

HuffPost reached out to a number of national and state-based progressive groups to see if they were following DFAs lead. None of them said they were.

Nebraska Democratic Party Chairwoman Jane Kleeb, who dealt with similar criticism from national groups when pushing the campaign of an anti-abortion rights Omaha mayoral candidate in April, called DFAs announcement deplorable.

I dont come into your house, DFA, and tell you how to run your organization, so you should stay out of the partisan political lane as well, she said.

Addressing DFAs continued support of Fairfaxs bid for lieutenant governor, Kleeb argued that Fairfax and Northam are a team, and they need to be a team in the governors house in Virginia in order to lift up working-family policies again.

John ONeill, a spokesman for the Virginia Education Association, a teachers union backing Northam, called DFAs statement regrettable and said the unions strategy isnt changing at all.

Anna Scholl, executive director of Progress Virginia, said her organization was obviously disappointed in Dr. Northams comments. But, she said, its clear that there is only one person running a racist campaign for the governors mansion, and that person is Ed Gillespie.

Gillespies racist attacks on Latino communities and now former felons are beyond the pale, Scholl said, referring to Gillespies slamming Northam for restoring the voting rights of former felons.

Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Campaign Change Committee, which has devoted much of its resources to turning out voters for Justin Fairfax and liberal House of Delegates candidates, nonetheless encouraged progressive Virginians to vote for Northam in a Thursday statement  and stood by his remarks on Friday after DFAs announcement.

Ralph Northam is not known as a progressive hero, but he is the Democratic nominee who needs to win in order to stand for the broader proposition that racism and going low will not be rewarded by voters, Green said.

Virginia-based immigration rights activists defended Northams bona fides as a supporter of immigration reform and fair treatment of undocumented immigrants.

Lt. Governor Northam has always fought for the Commonwealth to have immigration policies that are fair and compassionate, Virginia Del. Alfonso Lopez (D) said in a statement released by the Northam campaign.

Lopez noted that Northam opposes allowing law enforcement to hold undocumented immigrants longer than dictated by a warrant or judges order, and wants to ensure they can report crimes to the police without fear of repercussions.

Most importantly, he knows the difference between real legislation and dog whistle policies crafted only to instill fear and create division, Lopez said. He hasnt changed his positions  he has always been consistent. And he has always been a consistent friend to the Latino and New American communities.

Gustavo Torres, president of the regional immigrant rights group CASA in Action, said in a statement that CASA remains proud to support Ralph Northam.

Our Revolution, the legacy organization for Sanders campaign, and the Working Families Party, a progressive Democratic faction, have each declined to make an endorsement in the Virginia race. Both groups declined to comment for this article.

DFAs Chamberlain acknowledged in an interview with HuffPost that there would be groups that disagree with DFAs strategy. He insisted their goal was to get the Northam campaign to shift gears, not to discourage people from voting for him. DFA tried to communicate that message to the campaign privately for weeks before taking the criticism public, he said.

The bottom line is that were not looking to have all the support for Northam go out the door, Chamberlain said. We are trying to save the campaign. They have five days to course correct and make sure the Democratic base turns out to vote.

The statement from Lopez put out by the Northam campaign is a good sign that they are correcting their actions, Chamberlain added.

Its not clear whether the public Democratic Party spat will sway voters on Election Day. But its certainly not the narrative of unity that the party wanted to broadcast ahead of such a crucial election.

The Republican National Committee gleefully highlighted the division as evidence of a Democratic circular firing squad.

Northams liberal base is calling him racist, RNC spokesman Michael Ahrens wrote in an email to reporters.

The incident came on the heels of a revelation earlier on Thursday that had already stoked simmering tensions between the progressive and establishment wings of the party. Donna Brazile, a former interim DNC chair and longtime party operative, published an explosive excerpt from a forthcoming book in which she revealed that the DNC had agreed to a joint fundraising agreement with Clinton in August 2015, months before she had locked up the nomination. The details were enough for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to confirm that she believed the primary process was rigged in Clintons favor.

Earlier this week, the Latino Victory Fund also received criticism for a video ad promoting Northam that showed young children of color fleeing a white man in a pickup truck with a Confederate flag and an Ed Gillespie bumper sticker. LVF yanked the ad, but not before Northam had to answer for it. A campaign spokesman said that Ralph Northam would not have run this ad.

Northam leads Gillespie by 3.5 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics average of major polls. But several polls have shown Gillespie ahead, prompting Democratic fears that the party could lose a key battle in a state that Clinton won by 5 points in November.

Amanda Terkel contributed reporting.

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Johannesburg (AFP) - South African prosecutors argued Friday that Oscar Pistorius' six-year jail sentence for murder must be increased, saying he failed to show genuine remorse after killing his girlfriend.

The Paralympic athlete shot dead Reeva Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine's Day in 2013 when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet.

He pleaded not guilty at his trial in 2014 and has always denied that he killed Steenkamp in a rage, saying he mistook her for a burglar.

At a one-day hearing at the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, state prosecutors fought for the right to appeal against what they described as a "shockingly lenient" sentence.

Pistorius, 30, was not present for the latest stage of his long legal case, but Steenkamp's mother June was in the public gallery.

"One of the essential ingredients of a balanced sentence is that it must reflect the seriousness of the offence," Andrea Johnson, of the National Prosecution Authority, told the court.

"Genuine remorse is missing -- namely a reason from the respondent for firing the four fatal shots.

"One cannot say his regret absolves him from the crime."

In 2015, Pistorius found was guilty of murder, irrespective of whoever was behind the door when he opened fire with a pistol he kept under his bed.

- Too lenient? -

He was given less than half of the minimum 15 years in jail for murder, in a ruling that the prosecution authority has fought to challenge.

Pistorius was originally convicted of culpable homicide -- the equivalent of manslaughter -- but the appeal court upgraded his conviction.

Pistorius' lawyer Barry Roux launched a strong defence of the judge who handed down the six-year sentence, saying she took into account his claim that he believed he was shooting an intruder.

"She balanced what he did with the circumstances," Roux said, adding that the judge understood Pistorius was "a broken man" after the killing and had repeatedly apologised to Steenkamp's family.

Story continues

"It was a comprehensive judgement. Leave to appeal should not be granted," Roux said.

Members of the ruling African National Congress women's league, who have attended many of the court sessions, criticised the sentence for failing to send a message against domestic violence.

"We are not satisfied and we are not going to keep quiet until justice is served," local ANCWL chairwoman Mapaseka Nkoane told reporters.

"The only thing that could bring justice and peace to all the women in South Africa... is when he receives the necessary sentence.

"We have men and women in prison who have killed their spouses who are serving... more than 20 years. Why is Oscar Pistorius an exception in this case? Is it because he has got money?"

- 'Law must run its course' -

Previously a role model for disabled people worldwide, Pistorius was released from jail in 2015 after serving one year of a five-year term for culpable homicide.

He returned behind bars after his conviction for murder, and is being held at a prison in Pretoria.

The year before he killed Steenkamp, Pistorius became the first double-amputee to race at the Olympics when he competed at the London 2012 games.

In a television interview, he said he believed an intruder was in the house and "instant fear" drove him to grab his gun and walk on his stumps towards the bathroom.

"All of a sudden I hear a noise, at the toilet. I presumed it was the toilet door opening and before I knew it, I'd fired four shots," he said.

Outside the court on Friday, June Steenkamp's lawyer Tania Koen said that family were focused on honouring her memory.

"The family believe in the justice system, and they support the state," Koen said. "The law must run its course."

The court reserved judgement until an unspecified later date.
STERLING, Va.  Democrat Ralph Northam visited a mosque in northern Virginia on Friday, urging worshippers there to vote in next weeks gubernatorial election to reject the hatred and bigotry coming from Washington, D.C.

I want to remind all of you that the U.S. is a country of immigrants, Northam, Virginias lieutenant governor, told the men, women and children attending Friday prayers at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society. We welcome people to this country. And the travel ban, the Muslim ban, is un-American, is unacceptable.

Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ralph Northam addresses worshippers at a mosque after Friday prayers. (Photo: HuffPost/Igor Bobic)

All Dulles Area Muslim Society is one of the largest mosques in the United States. It regularly hosts political candidates, but it does not endorse them. Ed Gillespie, Northams Republican opponent, also stopped by to speak there this year.

This week, two federal judges struck down the latest iteration of President Donald Trumps travel ban, which restricts people from a handful of mostly Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. They said the ban appeared to be a veiled, unconstitutional attempt to bar Muslims based on their religion  a proposal Trump explicitly called for during last years presidential campaign.

In his brief remarks on Friday, Northam, who is a pediatrician, stressed the need to give kids a quality education and affordable health care. He also noted that he had protested against Trumps first travel ban in February at nearby Dulles International Airport.

Northams introductory speaker was far more blunt about the ban.

Robert Maro, an activist who stood alongside the lieutenant governor and several Virginia House delegates, asked worshippers in the prayer room to raise their hands if they opposed the idea of banning Muslims coming into the U.S. A few arms went up, but most of the room stayed seated, listening or engaged in prayer.

I see people who dont have their hands raised. Do you not oppose that? Maro asked.

Who thinks its OK to lie? he tried again.

Northam was received warmly at the event, shaking hands and greeting mosque leaders who thanked him for coming. It was apparent, however, that some attendees on Friday were showing signs of election fatigue due to the steady stream of candidates who had addressed the Muslim community there in recent weeks.

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Theyre getting a little bit jaded, so this is an idea of waking them up, Maro said later of his attempt to warm up the crowd.

Even as he was busy denouncing Trump for his immigration-related executive actions, Northam faced questions about his own record on immigration on Friday. Democracy for America, a major national progressive group, denounced Northams campaign as gutless and racist this week after Northam said he would sign a bill banning so-called sanctuary cities, or municipalities that limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities, should any Virginia locality pursue that status in the future.

The broadside from Democracy for America, which had never supported Northams campaign, unleashed an intraparty squabble that threatened his campaigns momentum just days before Tuesdays election.

Speaking with HuffPost after the event, Northam insisted that nothing has changed with my stance on sanctuary cities.

Northam also continued to distance himself from a controversial ad run by a Latino Democratic group that has since been taken off the air. The ad showed young children of color fleeing a white man in a pickup truck with a Confederate flag and a Gillespie bumper sticker. The Washington Post editorial board, which endorsed Northam, said the ad had no place in the race.

It was their choice to promote that ad. That is not an ad that I would have run, Northam told HuffPost.

Northam dodged a question, however, over whether he explicitly denounced the ad, maintaining only that he would not have made the decision to put it on air.

Were running a positive campaign, Northam insisted. [Gillespie] is running a campaign thats trying to scare people, thats trying to promote fear mongering, the hatred and bigotry.

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Photos of Prince Harry meeting Melania Trump at the Invictus Games in October quickly spread like wildfire on the internet over an awkward hand signal he flashed next to the first lady.

Some speculated that Harry's hand gesture looked like a "devil's horn," while one body expert claimed that it was a sign of "self-comfort." CNN reporter Kate Bennett -- a White House correspondent who closely follows the Trump family's day-to-day lives -- has now finally cleared up the mystery behind the bizarre photo op.

In an interview with The Daily Front Row, Bennett revealed that Harry "was reaching in to unbutton his coat to sit down, but the cameras kept clicking so he still had his hand in there in that weird way."

"He was pausing," she continued. "He wasnt throwing a secret gang sign. They got held up in the pictures."

We would have never guessed -- mystery solved!

Bennett then went on to reveal more details about Melania's first solo international trip as first lady, calling the experience an "amazing day."

"It was very moving to watch her at the Invictus Games as the Wounded Warriors and the USA team came out ... Although the press was seated quite far from her, we could see her, and I could tell that she was doing the hand motions or when she was doing a standing ovation. It was very interesting to watch her."

RELATED: Melania Trump's fashion as FLOTUS:



Prior to covering the Trumps, she spent the final year and a half of the Obama administration writing about the former first family. Bennett pointed out there are actually a lot of similarities between former FLOTUS Michelle Obama and Melania.

"Theyre not that dissimilar in their enthusiasm for the job, but their skill sets are obviously different because they have different strengths and weaknesses," Bennett said. "I think people categorize Melania as a whole. They say she doesnt want to be here, she doesnt deign to touch the White House. I think those people would be surprised by just how opposite [of that] she is."

For more on Melania Trump, watch the video above.
"The tax code is no place to define what constitutes an unborn child. Whats next, giving a Social Security number to a zygote? says Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.). (Photo: Alex Wong via Getty Images)

Republicans slipped anti-abortion language into the draft of the tax reform bill they released on Thursday. The move is part of an effort by the Trump administration and House Republicans to define life as beginning at conception, with an eye to rolling back Roe v. Wade.

Buried on page 93 of the 429-page tax proposal is a provision that would allow fetuses to be named as beneficiaries of college savings accounts known as 529 plans  investment vehicles that come with a range of tax breaks.

Abortion rights advocates were quick to call out the language. This is a back-door attempt to establish personhood from the moment of conception, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, said in a statement. The tax code is no place to define what constitutes an unborn child. Whats next, giving a Social Security number to a zygote?

Ostensibly, the idea is that parents can get a leg up on saving for their kids education before he or she is even born. However, it takes care to define the terms unborn child and child in utero, in what appears to be a naked attempt to establish so-called personhood for fetuses, a popular anti-abortion tactic.

Abortion foes believe that if fetuses were legally considered people, then abortion would have to be outlawed. State and federal legislation attempting to classify fertilized eggs, human embryos and fetuses as people has failed repeatedly over the years. The tax reform provision appears to be a sideways attempt at something similar.

A child in the womb is just as human as you or I yet, until now, the U.S. tax code has failed to acknowledge the unborn child, Jeanne Mancini, president of the anti-abortion group March for Life, told Politico.

Theres nothing in current law stopping parents from opening a 529 savings account before a child is born, explained Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com, a personal finance site. A parent opens the account in his or her own name, and once the baby is born, changes the account beneficiary, he explained. McBride said he did this for one of his sons.

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I dont know how this makes it different, he said. McBride said at most, the tax reform provision would allow parents to skip the step of naming a new beneficiary. Taking a nonstop flight instead of changing planes, he said.

Its unclear how the anti-abortion language got into the tax bill. Another anti-abortion group, however, thanked Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) for his leadership on this important effort.

The GOP tax reform plan is still in its early stages, and its unclear if the anti-abortion provision will survive. Two tax policy groups  one conservative, one progressive  declined to speak on the topic with HuffPost.

Parents use the widely popular 529 accounts to sock away money for their kids education expenses. The accounts come with a few tax breaks: You pay no tax on interest earned. And, if you use the money for education expenses, you dont pay taxes when you withdraw the money, either. In some states, you also get a tax deduction for contributing money to a 529 account.

So-called personhood language also made an appearance in a draft strategic plan for the Department of Health and Human Services released last month. In a note about the departments organizational structure, HHS said its mission was to protect Americans at every stage of life, beginning at conception.

And earlier this week, the House held a hearing on a bill that would ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The ban doesnt have a chance of passing, HuffPosts Laura Bassett reported on Tuesday.

Its time to emancipate every little unborn baby, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said at the hearing.

The draft tax bill also offers a tax break to another of the GOPs favorite kind of people: corporations. The proposal would reduce the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent.

Actual human children and adults fare less well. The proposal gets rid of an adoption tax credit and ends popular tax deductions on medical spending and student loan interest. Although, perhaps if fetuses can save for college, kids of the future will rack up less in school debt.

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(Reuters) - Four Rohingya Muslims died this week when a small fishing boat carrying dozens of refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar capsized in stormy weather near the coast of neighboring Bangladesh. The four, including two boys, became the most recent casualties in a precarious sea and river crossing made by thousands of Rohingya since the violence began in late August. A Reuters graphic takes a closer look at the overloaded wooden boats making the journey of up to five hours from Myanmar's coast to ports in southern Bangladesh. See the graphic here: http://tmsnrt.rs/2z8VYPw Nearly 200 people have died, and more remain missing, after their boats capsized on the Naf River and in the Bay of Bengal, data from the Bangladesh police and the International Organization of Migration shows. More than 600,000 Rohingya have fled by land and water to Bangladesh since the military in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar launched a counter-insurgency operation after Rohingya militants attacked security posts on Aug. 25. (Reporting by Damir Sagolj in Cox's Bazar, Serajul Quadir and Ruma Paul in Dhaka, Weiyi Cai and Chris Inton in Singapore; Editing by Darren Schuettler)
Moscow (AFP) - Russia on Friday accused the United States of committing a "war crime" in Syria, saying its army had denied Syrian refugees access to humanitarian aid.

"The most severe humanitarian situation remains in the Al-Tanf region," the Russian defence ministry's Syria reconciliation centre said, referring to a garrison where US and other foreign troops train anti-Islamic State group fighters.

Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees from the Al-Rukban refugee camp on the Jordanian border are deprived of humanitarian aid because of the United States, which "illegally placed their military base there and forbids approach within 55 kilometres (35 miles) under the threat of death," the centre said.

"The actions of the US military and the so-called international coalition in Al-Tanf are a gross violation of international humanitarian law and could qualify as a war crime," it said in a statement quoted by Russian news agencies.

Earlier this month Moscow accused the US of supporting IS jihadists and enabling them to mount counter-offensive attacks in eastern Syria from near the Al-Tanf garrison.

Al-Tanf, on the key highway connecting Damascus with Baghdad, has been repeatedly menaced by a surge of Iran-backed troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Washington says the garrison is used by US and British special forces to train rebel Syrian groups fighting IS jihadists.

Russia has been flying a bombing campaign in Syria since 2015, when it stepped in to support the Assad regime and tipped the conflict in his favour.
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - Russia demanded Thursday that the UN Security Council shelve a report blaming the Syrian government for a sarin gas attack and that a new probe be conducted into the use of the deadly nerve agent, according to a draft resolution obtained by AFP.

The text circulated to the Security Council also called for a six-month extension of the UN-led panel tasked with identifying who is behind chemical attacks in Syria's six-year war.

The United States put forward on Thursday a rival draft resolution that would extend for two years the mandate of the panel known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), according to the text seen by AFP.

Russia has sharply criticized the findings of the JIM which said the Syrian air force dropped sarin on the opposition-held village of Khan Sheikhun nearly seven months ago.

More than 80 people, including young children, died in the April 4 attack that provoked global outrage and prompted the United States to fire cruise missiles at a Syrian air base.

Russia has questioned the work of the panel because the experts did not go to Khan Sheikhun and worked from samples Moscow maintains may have been tampered with by Western intelligence.

The Russian-drafted measure "requests the JIM to retain its findings... until such time when full-scale and high-quality investigation on the site of an incident becomes possible."

- US, Russia clash -

The mandate of the JIM expires November 16 and its fate has been at the center of a major row between Russia, Syria's ally, and the United States, backed by France and Britain.

The White House issued a strong statement denouncing Moscow's attempts to undermine the work of the panel, which Russia helped establish with the United States in 2015.

"Russia's attempts to undermine and eliminate the JIM show a callous disregard for the suffering and loss of life caused by the use of chemical weapons and an utter lack of respect for international norms," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.

Story continues

The US draft resolution expresses "grave concern" over the report concluding that sarin had been used in Khan Sheikhun and reaffirms support for the JIM "to undertake their respective investigations in a manner that they deem appropriate to fulfill their mandate."

In the Russian-drafted measure, the council would request that the JIM send a team to Khan Sheikhun to "conduct full-scale investigation using the whole spectrum of relevant methods."

Another team should return to the Shayrat air base to collect samples to establish whether sarin was stored at the military facility, it said.

Russia maintains the sarin was most likely released by an explosive device set off on the ground, and not a Syrian air strike.

- Moscow says UN report 'amateurish'-

Earlier in Moscow, a senior foreign ministry official rejected the findings, branding the report "superficial, unprofessional and amateurish."

"The mission did their research from a distance, that in itself is a scandal," said Mikhail Ulyanov, head of the foreign ministry's security and disarmament department.

The report by the joint UN-Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) panel has revived calls for UN sanctions to be imposed on Syria over the Khan Sheikhun attack.

Russia in late October vetoed a US-drafted resolution that would have extended the mandate of the JIM for a year, casting its ninth veto at the Security Council to block action against its Syrian ally.

Moscow opposed renewing the mandate of JIM before the release of the Khan Sheikhun report which occurred two days later.

Previous reports by the JIM have found that Syrian government forces were responsible for chlorine attacks on three villages in 2014 and 2015, and that the Islamic State group used mustard gas in 2015.
"Alias Grace" follows Grace Marks (Sarah Gadon), a poor, young Irish immigrant and domestic servant in Upper Canada who, along with stable hand James McDermott, was convicted of the brutal murders of their employer, Thomas Kinnear, and his housekeeper, Nancy Montgomery, in 1843. James was hanged while Grace was sentenced to life imprisonment. Grace became one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of 1840s Canada for her supposed role in the sensational double murder, and was eventually exonerated after 30 years in jail. Her conviction was controversial, and sparked much debate about whether Grace was actually involved in the murder, or merely an unwitting accessory.
Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint api production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fvideo uploaders%2fdistribution thumb%2fimage%2f82751%2fb439664e 79d1 40ce 9684 c9c0a9f885c9

A void secreted away in the largest pyramid in Giza has been revealed thanks to some space-age technology.

Scientists used cutting-edge imaging techniques to see how particles called muons behaved deep within the Great Pyramid, also known as Khufus Pyramid.

SEE ALSO: Magnificent images capture the ancient and modern wonders of 1800s Egypt

The behavior of those particles  which are created by cosmic rays zipping around Earth's atmosphere  revealed the 30-meter-long void in the structure, which is around 450 feet tall and more than 4,000 years old.

The pyramids.

Image: ScanPyramids mission

A new study in the journal Nature details the finding, which could help scientists learn more about how the pyramids were made in the first place.

The Great Pyramid "was built on the Giza Plateau (Egypt) during the IVth dynasty by the pharaoh Khufu (Cheops), who reigned from 2509 to 2483 BC1," the study says.

"Despite being one of the oldest and largest monuments on Earth, there is no consensus about how it was built. To better understand its internal structure, we imaged the pyramid using muons, which are by-products of cosmic rays that are only partially absorbed by stone."

Muons detectors work like X-ray machines, only these particle can travel deeper than X-rays, revealing more detail of whatever structure they're seen within.

The newfound void in the Great Pyramid appears to be right above the Grand Gallery, a large space that had been detected by scientists earlier, according to the new study.

Not all of the void's mysteries have been revealed.

"There are still many architectural hypotheses to consider; in particular, the big void could be made of one or several adjacent structures, and it could be inclined or horizontal," the study said. "The detailed structure of the void should be further studied."

The Grand Gallery.

Image: ScanPyramids mission

That said, others are less enthusiastic about the new finding.

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Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, for example, told the Associated Press that this discovery isn't a discovery at all, saying that people already knew of its existence.

In order to construct the Grand Gallery, you had to have a hollow, or a big void in order to access it  you cannot build it without such a space, Hawass told the AP. Large voids exist between the stones and may have been left as construction gaps.
Kevin Spacey is under investigation - AFP

Kevin Spacey has been accused of sexual assault by a British actor, who claims that he woke to the former House of Cards star performing a sex act on him.

According to The Sun, Scotland Yard is investigating the alleged incident, which reportedly occurred in 2008.

The complainant was 23 at the time, and claimed Kevin Spacey asked him not to tell anyone after reportedly being caught in the act and asked to stop.

The actor claimed the incident occurred after he passed out in Spacey's home after being invited back for a drink.

Reportedly, he fled the premises after he woke up and said he was asked not to speak of the incident.

Is is claimed the American Beauty star said: "Don't tell anyone about this".

It is understood that the complainant had asked Spacey to help with his career.

The alleged victim, now aged 32, contacted City of London Police on Tuesday after it emerged that Mr Spacey was accused of allegedy abusing a 14-year-old boy, a claim which Spacey has denied.

This was then passed on to the Metropolitan Police, as the crime is alleged to have happened in Lambeth, which is in their jurisdiction.

The tabloid reports that detectives from the Mets Child Abuse and Sexual Offences Command interviewed the alleged victim yesterday at a Central London police station.

The Met said in a statement : "On 1 November, City of London Police referred an allegation of sexual assault to the Metropolitan Police Service.

"It is alleged a man assaulted another man in 2008 in Lambeth.

"Officers from the Child Abuse and Sexual Offences Command are investigating."

Kevin Spacey apologised to actor Anthony Rapp who accused the Hollywood star of making a sexual advance towards him when he was 14 years old.

Admitting publicly for the first time that he is gay, Spacey said he could not remember the alleged 1986 incident with Anthony Rapp, but said he was "horrified" by the story.

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"I honestly do not remember the encounter, it would have been over 30 years ago," the 58-year-old said in a statement. "But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behaviour."

Since then, many allegations have been made about the actor, who has been accused of predatory behaviour towards young interns and actors during his time at the Old Vic.

Roberto Cavazos, who acted in several plays at the theatre, said Spaceys attentions bordered on harassment and that he felt compelled to fend him off on several occasions.

Writing on Facebook Mr Cavazos said: It seems the only requirement was to be a male under the age of 30 for Mr Spacey to feel free to touch us. There are a lot of us who have a 'Kevin Spacey story'. 'It was so common that it even became a local joke - in very bad taste.

Mexican-born Mr Cavazos, 35, went public with his accusations after the Old Vic said it would investigate any claims of inappropriate behaviour by Mr Spacey during his time at the theatre.

Statement | The Old Vic

He said: I do not remember how many people told me the same story - Spacey invited them to meet him to talk about their careers.

When they arrived at the theatre, the gentleman had prepared a picnic with champagne on the stage, beautifully lit. Each story varied in how far the picnic came, but the technique was the same.

It is also alleged Spacey sexually assaulted a male former employee of the House of Cards television series, according to US media.

Eight current or former House of Cards workers also claimed that the 56-year-old actor made the production a "toxic" workplace, CNN reported.

Their identities were withheld because they said they feared professional fallout. All of the employees the news channel interviewed described Spacey's behaviour as predatory.

He allegedly targeted employees who were typically young and male with nonconsensual touching and crude comments, the report stated.
When Republicans unveiled tax reform legislation on Thursday, discussion surrounding the bill centered on its potential impact on middle-class households and its apparent giveaway to the economic elite.

But another proposed change  featured way down on pages 427 and 428 of the 429-page draft bill  is raising a red flag for advocates of the separation of church and state.

The legislation proposes changes to the Johnson Amendment, a 63-year-old tax law that prohibits churches and other tax-exempt organizations from participating in political campaigns. Under the Republicans proposed bill, members of the clergy who endorse candidates from the pulpit would be legally protected.

Religious organizations would not risk losing their tax-exempt status solely because of the content of any homily, sermon, teaching, dialectic, or other presentation made during religious services or gatherings, the bill specifies, according to The Washington Post.

The stipulation doesnt get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment, as President Donald Trump vowed to do shortly after his inauguration. It applies only to religious institutions and not to other tax-exempt nonprofits. And clergy would be able to endorse candidates and policies in sermons but still would not be permitted to make financial contributions to campaigns on behalf of their churches.

Only Congress has the power to officially repeal the amendment. Doing so could allow individuals to make tax-exempt political donations by way of churches  something advocates say might undermine the integrity of the tax system and transparency in political campaigns.

Still, the proposed changes constitute a substantial departure from a tax policy that many secular advocates believe to be fundamental to the separation of church and state.

Larry T. Decker, executive director of the Secular Coalition for America, said in a statement: Religious nonprofits are already exempt from taxes and financial transparency. The repeal of the Johnson Amendment would bestow churches with unprecedented power and exempt them from all accountability to the taxpayers and the parishioners who fill their coffers.

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Maggie Garrett, legislative director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, also warned that the legislation could leave religious leaders and institutions vulnerable to pressure from politicians looking for endorsements.

This is bad policy, Garrett said in a statement. Its bad for churches, and its bad for American taxpayers who will potentially see their money going to support partisan political operations being run out of church basements.

Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, said: Pastors and people of faith know that theres nothing free about a pulpit that is bought and paid for by political campaign donations or beholden to partisan interests.

Tyler also noted that a majority of Americans are opposed to such political endorsements by religious leaders.

A Pew Research Center survey from 2016 found that though many Americans agreed that churches and other houses of worship should express their views on social and political matters (47 percent), a strong majority didnt think churches should endorse specific political candidates (66 percent).

This holds true across many religious groups. Only 33 percent of Protestants, 28 percent of Catholics, and 26 percent of the religiously unaffiliated think churches should endorse candidates during elections.

Even among white evangelical Protestants, who voted for Trump by an overwhelming majority (81 percent), just 37 percent think churches should endorse political candidates.

The National Association of Evangelicals, a network of 45,000 local churches from nearly 40 different evangelical denominations, conducted its own survey on the matter in February. The NAE found that a whopping 89 percent of evangelical leaders dont think pastors should endorse politicians from the pulpit.

Also on HuffPost

A Church-Turned-Bookstore in Maastricht, the Netherlands

This is the Boekhandel Selexyz Dominicanen, a 13th century Catholic Church that is now a spectacularly grand bookstore. But before it became a haven for readers, the old cathedral building was also reportedly used as a warehouse, an archive, and even a bicycle shed.



The church was transformed by the Amsterdam-based architects Merkx+Girod and now houses a three-storey bookshelf.



Scroll down for images of Boekhandel Selexyz Dominicanen.

A Church-Turned-Bar in Dublin, Ireland

The Church is a bar, cafe, restaurant and nightclub in Dublin. Known formerly as St. Mary's Church, it was built in the early years of the 18th century.



The gorgeous Renatus Harris organ inside The Church was once played by George Frederic Handel, and Arthur Guinness, the founder of Guinness Brewery, was married in this sacred space back in 1761.



Scroll down for images of The Church.

A Church-Turned-Marketplace (And Many Other Things) in New York, New York

This is the old Church of the Holy Communion, located in New York's Flatiron district. The 19th century Episcopal church has lived many lives since it stopped being used as a sacred space in 1976.



The building has been used as a commune, a nightclub (whose opening-night party was hosted by Andy Warhol), an upscale urban mall called Limelight Shops, and recently a Chinese restaurant.



Scroll down for images of this former Episcopal church.

A Church-Turned-Residential Home in Victoria, Australia

This is the Knox Church, a Gothic Revival style building that was constructed in Brighton, Victoria in the 1870s. The architects who turned the building into a family home, Williams Boag and Sonia Mangiapane, managed to keep much of its richly decorated interior, including its gorgeous stained glass windows.



Scroll down for images from inside the renovated Knox Church.

A Church-Turned-Apartment Complex in Brooklyn, New York

This is the former St. Mark's Protestant Episcopal Church, a 1888 Gothic Revival church located at 232 Adelphi Street in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. The building, which has been divided into 12 separate homes, still bears signs of its former use as a sacred space -- with stained glass windows, domed ceilings, and exposed brick.



Scroll down for images from inside the renovated St. Mark's Protestant Episcopal Church.

A Church-Turned-Home in Belfast, Maine

This Little Stone Church is located less than a mile away from Maine's Belfast Bay. It first opened in 1907 as a Dutch Reform church before being purchased by Christian Scientists in the 1960s. There are three bedrooms inside this gem, according to Zillow. The grounds around the church have been spruced up with a garden and shrubbery.



Scroll down for images of the Little Stone Church.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
I See a City: Todd Webbs New York Lady looking back at the camera, 125th Street. ( Todd Webb Archive)

I See a City: Todd Webbs New York presents the master documentary photographers intimate and wonderfully rich exploration of the everyday life and architecture of New York in the years following World War II. Armed with a large-format camera and tripod, Webb walked around New York day and night, in all seasons and weather, engaging with the people and the landscape surrounding him. He captured in his candid and inimitable way a city of contrasts  midtown skyscrapers, the elevated train tracks along Third Avenue, quirky signs and storefronts, food vendors and open air markets, and the bustling street life in the Bowery, Harlem near 125th Street and old ethnic enclaves in lower Manhattan.

Webb loved to work at street level, which gave him a more human vantage point. His work is clear, direct and layered with light and shadow, capturing the soul of New Yorks distinct neighborhoods shaped by the friction and frisson of humanity.

I See a City  includes essays by Sean Corcoran, the curator of prints and photographs at the Museum of the City of New York, and Daniel Okrent, an American writer and editor.

On Webbs special affection for the Third Avenue El, a popular location for midcentury movies, including the 1948 Jules Dassin film The Naked City, Okrent writes: In Webbs pictures, the El itself is an actor, playing both leading and supporting roles. Simultaneously shadow and substance, vertical and horizontal, populated and empty, it was an ideal foil for Webb. Originating at Gun Hill Road in the Bronx, it crossed into Manhattan near East 129th Street in Harlem and rumbled downtown to South Ferry, along the way affording the photographer a constantly changing set of moods: romance, mystery, muscular commerce, essences of noir  even, as unlikely as it seems for so ungainly a creature, a facsimile, at least, of streamlined speed as the train charged around the curve near the Fulton Street station.

Over a period of more than 50 years, Todd Webb produced a unique body of work that attained an important place in the annals of American photographic history. Webbs humanistic approach to documentary photography infuses his images with a sense of intimacy and a curiosity about the relationship between history, place and people. His life was like his photographs; at first they seem very simple, without obvious tricks or manipulation, but on closer examination, they are increasingly complex and marvelously subtle.

Story continues

Todd Webb (1905-2000) was born and raised in Detroit, Mich. After losing all his money in the stock market crash of 1929, he embarked on a seven-year adventure prospecting for gold and working as a fire ranger but had little success. After returning to Detroit in 1938, Webb bought his first camera and joined the Chrysler Camera Club, where he met photographer Harry Callahan. In 1940, he and Callahan completed a 10-day workshop with Ansel Adams, and Webbs fascination with the medium flourished. After honing his skills as a Navy photographer in the South Pacific during World War II, Webb moved to New York in 1946, where he shared an apartment in Morningside Heights with his friend Callahan and Callahans wife, Eleanor. He enjoyed significant support from the New York photo community, including luminaries Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia OKeeffe, Walker Evans, Berenice Abbott, and Gordon Parks, among others. It was Stieglitz who introduced Webb to Beaumont Newhall, who helped arrange his first solo exhibition of his New York City photographs at the Museum of the City of New York in September 1946. This body of work established Webb as an internationally renowned and respected photographer.

Todd Webb is best known for his photographs of New York, Paris and the American West. His Paris series earned him comparisons to the French photographer Eugene Atget. In the 1940s and 50s, Webb worked for Roy Stryker and Standard Oil and Fortune magazine while simultaneously pursuing personal projects. In 1955 and 1956, he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship to document the emigrant trails that the early settlers followed to Oregon and California. He walked across America engaging with the people he met along the way during the same time his contemporary, Robert Frank, made his cross-country road trips by car. From 1961-1971, Webb and his wife, Lucille, lived in New Mexico, where they became an integral part of the local arts community, and Webb made a series of portraits of Georgia OKeeffe at her home there. In 1970, the couple moved to the South of France, where Webb continued to photograph regularly, and in 1975 he retired in Maine, where he would live until his passing at age 94.

Heres a look at images from the book I See a City: Todd Webbs New York, published by Thames & Hudson, November 2017. To celebrate the release, upcoming book signings are Nov. 30, 5-7 p.m., 61 Pleasant St, Suite 104A, Portland, Maine; and Dec. 13, 6-8 p.m., the Curator Gallery in New York City.

See more news-related photo galleries and follow us on Yahoo News Photo Twitter and Tumblr.
By Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senior U.S. Republican and Democratic lawmakers proposed targeted sanctions and travel restrictions on Myanmar military officials on Thursday over the treatment of the country's Rohingya Muslim minority, one of the strongest efforts yet for Washington to intervene in the humanitarian crisis. Announced the day before Republican President Donald Trump leaves on his first trip to Asia since taking office, the legislation would reimpose some sanctions lifted last year as Myanmar returned to democracy. It would bar the United States from supplying most assistance to the country's military until it has been certified that perpetrators of atrocities against the Rohingya are being held accountable. The measure does not target Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, head of Myanmar's civilian-led government and a Nobel peace laureate who still enjoys strong support among some U.S. officials. But congressional aides said it is intended to underscore a strong desire among many members of Congress for her to do more to help the Rohingya. The bill is sponsored by lawmakers including the Republican Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain, and Senator Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to an early summary of the bill seen by Reuters. Among other things, it re-imposes a ban on jade and rubies from Myanmar, requires a report on which individuals should be subjected to visa bans and targeted sanctions, and instructs the U.S. Treasury Department to support only international financial assistance programs that do not partner with enterprises owned by the Myanmar military. A companion bill is also being introduced in the House of Representatives. That measure also has bipartisan support, led by Representative Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Republican Representative Steve Chabot, another foreign affairs panel member, increasing the measure's chances of eventually becoming law. Members of Congress have been clamoring for a strong response to the plight of the Rohingya, and the Trump administration has been weighing labeling their treatment "ethnic cleansing." The State Department announced on Thursday that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would accompany Trump on his trip to Asia, but that Tillerson will also make a stop in Myanmar, also known as Burma.[nL2N1N81BR] More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Rakhine state in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, mostly to neighboring Bangladesh, since security forces responded to Rohingya militants' attacks on Aug. 25 by launching a crackdown that has included reports of burnt villages and widespread killings. The United Nations has already denounced it as a classic example of ethnic cleansing. (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Tom Brown and Frances Kerry)
An anonymous former production assistant for Netflixs House of Cards said actor Kevin Spacey put his hands down the mans pants in a nonconsensual encounter, according to a report from CNN.

The story, published Thursday, alleges Spacey created a toxic work environment on the set of the political drama, citing interviews with eight people who work or worked on the show. One production assistant, whose account had not previously been reported, told the outlet he complained to supervisors about Spacey sexually harassing him during his stint working on the show in its early seasons. The supervisor allegedly told the man they would make sure he was never alone with the actor on set.

Several months later, when the harassment had stopped and the assistant felt comfortable around the actor, he said, he was asked to drive Spacey about 30 minutes to the House of Cards set.

CNN reports:

The production assistant says that when he and Spacey were just minutes away from the set and while the car was moving, Spacey, who was driving, put his hands down the production assistants pants. The production assistant told CNN that the touching was nonconsensual. I was in a state of shock, he said. He was a man in a very powerful position on the show and I was someone very low on the totem pole and on the food chain there.

The allegations come just days after BuzzFeed published an account by actor Anthony Rapp, who alleged Spacey made an unwanted sexual advance toward him in 1986. Rapp was 14 at the time and Spacey was 26.

In a response posted to his Twitter account just hours later, Spacey didnt deny the incident took place but said he could not remember it happening, citing the passage of time. He apologized to Rapp for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.

Spacey also used his response to make his first public declaration that he is gay, which prompted a wave of fury from those accusing him of using the news as a public relations sleight of hand.

Story continues

Spaceys representative has since said the actor is seeking evaluation and treatment for his behavior, as several other sexual misconduct allegations against him have emerged, including an account by filmmaker Tony Montana that Spacey groped him at a bar.

Netflix has suspended production on the final season of House of Cards until further notice. In a statement to CNN on Thursday regarding employee comments about Spacey, the company said it would work with MRC, the production company behind the show, to maintain a safe and respectful working environment.

We will continue to work with MRC during this hiatus time to evaluate our path forward as it relates to the production, and have nothing further to share at this time, Netflix said.

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One person died and two others were injured in a shooting at a Starbucks in Uptown Chicago Thursday evening.

The victim was identified as father-of-two Sauvignon Watkins, 28, and one of the people left injured was a 12-year-old boy who suffered a gunshot wound to the groin, the Chicago Tribune reports. Police believe the shooting occurred following a drug deal involving the shooter and Watkins. The shooter is still at large.

A spokesperson for Starbucks said it was saddened to learn of the passing of a young man and the injury of two others as a result of gun violence at our store, adding that the store would be closed Friday. We will continue to support law enforcement in their investigation, the coffee chains statement concluded.

A man was killed and two others, including a 12-year-old boy, were injured in a shooting in a Chicago Starbucks: https://t.co/iiuVP6ZmJo pic.twitter.com/QXAMdSBs9u  CBS News (@CBSNews) November 3, 2017

On Nov. 1, the Associated Press reported that the number of homicides in Chicago in October 2017 was significantly lower than during October 2016. The city, the third-largest in the U.S., had seen 2,445 shooting incidents by that point of the year compared to 3,000 by the same time last year.
By Paul McLeary with Adam Rawnsley

Trump, NK, and Japan. North Korea will take center stage next week when President Donald Trump visits Japan, Minister Takehiro Shimada, spokesperson for the Japanese Embassy, told reporters in Washington on Wednesday.

I think now is the time for the international community to exert the utmost pressure, on the regime, Shimada said, adding that the tough enforcement of existing sanctions is preferable to any military action. Asked whether he was concerned that China might sway Trump to view North Korea differently, Shimada answered, not at all. Given that the U.S.-Japan alliance is iron clad. Japan would welcome any pressure the United States could put on China, he said.

Presidential agenda, complete with aircraft carriers. Trumps high-stakes trip kicks off Friday with a briefing from Pacific Command in Hawaii followed by stops in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. The U.S. Navy will have three aircraft carriers in the region during Trumps visit, and the U.S. Air Force, in a previously-planned deployment, has just sent its first F-35A aircraft to Japan.

Regional allies will be looking for answers about the administrations policy for the region. Trump and his team have criticized Obamas pivot strategy, but havent offered a compelling vision of its own.

And this. From Reuters: North Korea may be planning a new missile test, South Koreas spy agency told lawmakers on Thursday, after brisk activity was spotted at its research facilities, just days before U.S. President Donald Trump visits Seoul.

Whos where when. At 9:30 a.m. the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing for several Trump Pentagon nominees who have been waiting around since July. Dr. Mark Esper for Secretary Of The Army; Robert Wilkie for Under Secretary Of Defense For Personnel And Readiness; Joseph Kernan for Under Secretary Of Defense For Intelligence; and Guy Roberts for Assistant Secretary Of Defense For Nuclear, Chemical And Biological Defense Programs will have their day on the Hill. Livestream here.

Story continues

1:00 p.m. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson will hold a press conference at the Pentagon on the results of the Fleet Comprehensive Review, as well as the findings of investigations into the collisions involving USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain. Livestream here.

About those collisions. The Navy has already provided harrowing details of the suffering and heroism displayed by sailors during those incidents, and recommended changes in training and operations as a result.

Here comes the Trump Pentagon. Ten months into the Trump administration, and dozens of long-vacant desks in the Pentagons E-Ring may finally start filling up, FPs Paul McLeary reports.

Now that Arizona Republican John McCain says hes satisfied with the militarys briefings on the new strategy in Afghanistan, he has released his hold on a slew of nominations held up in the Senate since the summer. But the vacancies have already had a number of pernicious effects, from foisting much of the Pentagons work onto uniformed officers to leaving critical desks like Asia undermanned at a time of rising tensions in the region.

U.S. drone base in Niger on hold. Given tough terrain, sand storms, and other logistical hurdles, the U.S. Africa Command is putting off completion of its $100 million drone base in Niger until next year, Stars and Stripes reports. The command planned to finish the facility in Agadez this year, but is now aiming for some time in 2018. The site will host U.S. forces, and a flight line.

Will those drones be armed? The Nigerien defense minister has said his government has asked Washington to start flying armed drones over his country, but hasnt received an answer yet. Likewise, the countrys Prime Minister, Brigi Rafini, said this week his country is open to American armed drones patrolling the skies to hunt for militants.

More on the Kurds. The post-independence referendum reality doesnt look bright for Iraqi Kurds, and an ongoing military showdown with Baghdad over control of a key border crossing underscores the problems, FPs Rhys Dubin reports.

No debate. House Republicans quietly torpedoed a bipartisan bill on Wednesday that called for ending all U.S. military support for the Saudi-led coalition bombing Houthi rebels in Yemen. The resolution cwould have required a vote on the floor regardless of whether it enjoyed support from a committee.

Supporters wanted to see a debate and a vote to shed light on the issue, as they argue the United States is aiding and abetting a campaign that has helped trigger the worlds worst humanitarian crisis. But the Republican leadership stripped the legislation of its privileged status. Heres the text of the bill, and the back story to the bill by FPs Dan De Luce.

Pence pal gets nod at State. The Trump administration has nominated an associate of Vice President Mike Pence for a top diplomatic role historically reserved for senior career diplomats, FPs Robbie Gramer writes, prompting fears President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plan to further politicize American diplomacy.

Welcome to SitRep. As always, please send any tips, thoughts or national security events to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or via Twitter: @paulmcleary.

Another one bites the dust. The sexual harassment scandal that began with revelations about Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has led to the resignation of British Defense Minister Michael Fallon. Fallon said that his behavior towards women had fallen short at times, including an incident in 2002 during which he inappropriately touched journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer during a dinner.

Wrench in the works. President Trumps recent tweet about accused New York City terrorist could complicate prosecutors efforts to try and convict Sayfullo Saipov for the murder of eight people in a vehicle attack earlier this week. Trump tweeted that the NYC terrorist was happy as he asked to hang ISIS flag in his hospital room. He killed 8 people, badly injured 12. SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY! potentially giving Saipovs defense team the ability to argue that Trump has poisoned jury pools and made it impossible for Saipov to receive a fair trial.

Shame, shame, we know your name. U.S. intelligence knows exactly who in Russian intelligence was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee and the Department of Justice could bring charges against a half dozen Russian intelligence officers involved in the breach, according to a breaking scoop from the Wall Street Journal. Federal prosecutors have been working on an investigation into the break-ins for roughly a year and charges against Russian intelligence officials could come as early as 2018.

Social media hearings. Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee blasted the general counsels of Google, Facebook, and Twitter on Wednesday for their inability to stop Russia from using their platforms to spread propaganda during the 2016 election. Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), chairman of the committee, used the hearing as an opportunity to cast doubt on the claim that Russian propaganda ads targeting the swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin helped to swing the election, claiming that almost five times more ads were targeted at the [reliably Democratic-voting] state of Maryland than of Wisconsin.

The Senate Intelligence Committees counterparts in the House separately released a batch of Facebook ads and social media posts developed by the Russian Internet Research Agency troll farm. Among the postings were petitions to remove Hillary Clinton from the 2016 ballot, calls for Texass secession, and an image showing Satan arm wrestling Jesus to determine whether Clinton will win the 2016 election.

Document dump. The CIA released another tranche of files captured during the raid that killed former al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. The Agency gave Long War Journal advance access to some of the files found in Bin Ladens home in Abbottabad, including a document in which an al-Qaeda lieutenant discusses the groups complicated relationship with Iran in detail. The author explains that Iran offered training, money, and safe haven to al-Qaeda operatives in Iran in exchange for their targeting of Tehrans Gulf adversaries  a relationship which soon strained as al Qaeda members bucked the terms of the agreement and Iran cracked down on them.

For those curious about the other files found in Bin Ladens home, the CIA has posted links to them on its website and someone has helpfully coded a Twitter account which tweets out images of photos found in the deceased al-Qaeda leaders lair.

Syria. Israel and Syria have once again traded fire after an apparent Israeli airstrike deep into Syrian territory. Syrian news outlets reported that Israeli aircraft struck a facility in a suburb of Homs, leading Assad regime forces to launch surface to air missiles at the attacking planes.

F-35. The F-35 stealth fighter jet has another problem, leading to a month long delay in deliveries of the aircraft and potentially further delays as contractor Lockheed Martin applies fixes across the 250 jets already delivered. The problem centers on fastener holes on the aircrafts fuselage where the company forgot to apply primer, leading to corrosion issues.

Sealift. A new Government Accountability Office reports says the support ships of the Navys Military Sealift Command are rapidly aging, endangering the services ability to supply its combat vessels in the event of war. Over 90 percent of the equipment, personnel, fuel and other cargo necessary to sustain a major conflict is moved by sealift ships, but the readiness of the aging surge sealift fleet is trending downward, the authors of the report concluded.

Tough Launch for NASA Nominee. It wasnt an easy launch for the Trump administrations nominee for NASA administrator, Rep. Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma, on Wednesday. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fl.) said Bridenstine was unfit for the space post, calling him partisan and questioning his views on climate change, in a hearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. FP reported on Bridenstines then-upcoming hearing and what experts called an incoherent space policy from the administration.

Elons Air Force. Last month, the U.S. Air Force awarded a contract to Elon Musks SpaceX to develop a propulsion system that could eventually send humans to Mars. That the contract went through the Air Force, and not NASA, caused some to suggest the Trump administration may be laundering money for space exploration through the military, whose budget generally receives less scrutiny from Congress. But the contract came as a response to a section of the 2015 defense bill, which requires the Department to develop a next-generation rocket propulsion system, an Air Force spokeswoman told FP.

Emily Tamkin, Dan De Luce, and John Kester contributed.
By Paul McLeary with Adam Rawnsley

Trump makes new threat against North Korea. We have one problem. Thats called North Korea, Trump told Fox News Laura Ingraham in an interview that aired Thursday evening, a day before he leaves on an 11-day swing through the Pacific region. If we dont solve it, its not going to be very pleasant for them. Its not going to be very pleasant for anybody.

Trump to Asia. The NYTs Mark Landler writes that the president boards Air Force One Friday weakened and scandal-scarred, ready to face off against newly empowered Chinese and Japanese leaders in a region increasingly determined to set its course without American direction.

But Mr. Trumps erratic statecraft, compounded by the shadow of the Russia investigation, leaves him in a questionable position to extract concessions from Mr. Xi or even allies like Japan and South Korea. The South Koreans may actually draw closer to the Chinese after settling a dispute this week over the rollout of an American antimissile system.

Bombers over South Korea. Two U.S. B-1B bombers flew over South Korea on Thursday, joining Japanese and South Korean jet fighters in what the the U.S. Pacific Command said was a planned maneuver and not in response to any current event. North Korea state media said the flyover is aggravating the situation of the Korean Peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war.

Trump says running out of time on North Korea. The president recognizes that were running out of time [to deal with North Korea] and will ask all nations to do more, White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters at a briefing on Thursday.

McCain says enough, but does he mean it? During a hearing Thursday to vet several Trump administration nominees for top Pentagon jobs, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he was tired of seeing defense industry executives go to work in the Pentagon.

But he indicated hell support the Mark Esper, chief lobbyist for for Raytheon  the fourth largest defense contractor in the United States  for secretary of the Army, telling Esper his concerns grew out of early consultations I had with the administration about potential nominations, including yours. McCain added that it was then that I decided I couldnt support further nominees with that background, beyond those we had already discussed.

Story continues

Lots of defense industry execs already at work. But at least one more will soon pass through McCains Senate Armed Services Committee, however. At some point in the coming weeks, John C. Rood, senior vice president for Lockheed Martin International will testify for the under secretary of defense for policy job, the third highest position in the Defense Department.

The Senate has already approved former Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan to be deputy defense secretary  the second highest position in the Pentagon  and Ellen Lord, the former chief executive officer of Textron Systems, to be undersecretary of defense for acquisition.

Navy might file charges. In the wake of two deadly accidents earlier this year that took the lives of 17 U.S. Navy sailors aboard the USS Fitzgerald and the USS John S. McCain, the service is considering filing charges against some of those involved. Speaking with reporters at the Pentagon Thursday, Adm. John M. Richardson, chief of naval operations, said we found that the commanding officers were at fault, the executive officers were at fault. There were watch-standers on the ships. And weve been pretty clear about identifying where there was fault and taking appropriate accountability actions.

Navy personnel dont know how to drive ships? Navy Times notes that theres a common thread between both the destroyer Fitzgeralds collision in June and the McCain collision: A lack of training on key equipment and a weak understanding of ship operating fundamentals, which ultimately led to failures that killed, in total, 17 sailors.

Pacific fleet a mess. Both accidents occurred in the Pacific fleet, which a Navy report detailing the mishaps describes as deeply flawed, with crews lacking basic seamanship skills, and unable to respond to crisis situations.

U.S. general confined at Gitmo. You read that right. A U.S. military judge ordered Marine Corps Brig. Gen. John G. Baker confined to his quarters for 21 days at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, over a legal dispute in which the general refused to comply with the judges orders.

The judge held Baker in contempt of court after he allowed the three attorneys representing Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi citizen accused of leading the deadly USS Cole bombing in October 2000, to quit the case after they said the U.S. government spied on them while discussing legal strategy. And the lawyers told the Miami Herald Thursday theyre prepared to refuse the judges order a second time.

Russia and biowar. Heres a strange story dug up by Defense News, detailing how a small story on RT about an obscure U.S. Air Force contract solicitation, and how it led to Russian President Vladimir Putin to tell an audience that the U.S. government is building bioweapons to use against the Russian people.

Welcome to SitRep. As always, please send any tips, thoughts or national security events to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or via Twitter: @paulmcleary.

Round two. President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin may get a second meeting on the margins of the APEC summit in Asia next week. Kremlin officials say theyre currently in talks with the White House about setting up a second meeting between the two following their first encounter at the G20 meeting in July.

Chemical weapons. The U.S. and Russia are sparring over the future of the U.N.s chemical weapons investigation in Syria following a report by investigators concluding that the Assad regime was responsible for using nerve agent against the village of Khan Sheikhoun. An American draft to extend the mandate of the chemical weapons investigative body, known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), would extend the organizations mandate for another year, but a Russian draft cuts that period to six months and severely criticizes the JIM for its conclusions about the Assad regimes culpability and urges it to reevaluate its earlier assessments and conclusions.

War crimes. A new U.N. report on war crimes in Mosul finds that the Islamic State murdered 741 men, women, and children for trying to flee the city during the U.S.-led coalitions attempt to recapture it from the terrorist group.

Goodbye, Gitmo. President Trump appears to have soured on the idea of sending domestic terrorists to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in the wake of the terrorist attack that killed eight people in New York this week. In a series of tweets, Trump expressed a preference for the civilian criminal court system, saying that trying suspects at Guantanamo takes much longer and that There is also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed.

Russian hacking targets revealed. Hackers working for Russian intelligence have tried to break into at least 4,700 Gmail accounts from users around the world, according to a database of targeted email addresses which cybersecurity firm SecureWorks shared with the AP. Among Moscows 573 American targets were defense and intelligence contractors, Russia experts, and around 130 Democratic party officials.

The day the music died. A Twitter employee shut down President Donald Trumps Twitter account for around 11 minutes on the employees last day of work. The company quickly brought Trumps account back up but the incident raises questions and a series of uncomfortable what-ifs about what kind of international incidents or crises a rogue employee or hacker could provoke with access to the presidential Twitter feed.

Former Trump bodyguard to testify. Keith Schiller, a close confidante of the president who worked until September as director of Oval Office operations, will appear next week before the House intelligence committee as part of the ongoing Russia probe. Democrats view Schiller as an important witness due to his proximity to Trump.

Drone appetit! Residents of the Japanese city of Minamisoma now have improved access to food and supplies, thanks to drones operated by e-commerce company Rakuten and Lawson. The city experienced a nuclear disaster in 2011 after a tsunami destabilized the nearby Fukushima nuclear reactor. Residents were finally allowed to return to the city last year, but supplies are scarce. Now, drones are bringing groceries and even fried chicken to hungry city dwellers.

Were number one! Were number one! America is the number one enemy of our nation  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei certifying Americas role as the undisputed heavyweight champion of Irans enemies list. Khamenei made the comments during a televised speech in which he said Iran will never accept [U.S.] bullying over the nuclear deal.

Google wants Iranian Intelligence. Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, took a broad swipe at President Donald Trumps immigration policies this week, arguing that restrictions may set the United States behind in the race for artificial intelligence. Schmidt, who also serves as chairman of the Pentagons Defense Innovation Board, told an audience in Washington, D.C. Tuesday that some of the very best artificial intelligence experts in the world are from countries that are currently affected by immigration restrictions. Would you rather have them building AI somewhere else, or here? he asked during a discussion at the Center for a New American Security. Iran produces some of the smartest and top computer scientists in the world, he said. I want them here; to be clear: I want them working at Alphabet. Schmidt, who has previously criticized H-1B caps, has been a vocal opponent of the administrations proposed restrictions. Its crazy not to let these people in, he said.

Cuba changes its tone. The Cuban government is changing its response to American claims of sonic attacks which injured U.S. diplomatic personnel in Havana, shifting from its previous expressions of concern to angry denunciations and accusations. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez called reports of injuries due to sonic attacks deliberate lies concocted by the Trump administration, denying any responsibility by the Cuban government and demanding that the U.S. tell the truth or otherwise present evidence.
Madrid (AFP) - A Spanish judge issued an EU arrest warrant for Catalonia's deposed separatist leader Carles Puigdemont, a day after he failed to appear for questioning over his role in the region's tumultuous independence drive.

The announcement added to anger and dismay in a second straight night of demonstrations in the wealthy north-eastern region, with protesters chanting and waving Catalan flags of red and yellow stripes with a white star.

Spanish prosecutors want to charge Puigdemont, holed up in Belgium, with rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds. On Thursday the 54-year-old ignored a summons to appear before the same judge in Madrid.

A EU arrest warrant was also issued for four other Catalan ministers who failed to show up and are also thought to be in Belgium, a court statement said. They, like Puigdemont, were dismissed by Spain's central government a week ago.

On Thursday the judge had Puigdemont's deputy and seven other deposed regional ministers jailed pending a possible trial because of a risk that they might similarly abscond.

Speaking in an interview on Belgian television channel RTBF on Friday, recorded before the widely expected warrant was issued, Puigdemont said he was not hiding from "real justice" but from a "clearly politicised" Spanish legal system.

He said he was not convinced by guarantees of a fair trial, decrying the "enormous pressure and political influence on judicial power in Spain."

"I have told my lawyers to inform the Belgian justice authorities that I am completely at their disposal," he said.

Belgian prosecutors said they would study the warrant and then give it to a judge.

- Rubber bullets -

Spain's worst political crisis in decades flared up over the staging of a Catalan independence referendum on October 1 despite a court ban. Spanish police tried and failed to stop it, in some cases firing rubber bullets.

An independence declaration by the Catalan parliament followed one week ago.

Story continues

Spain's government responded by dismissing Puigdemont's government, imposing direct rule and calling fresh elections in Catalonia on December 21.

Twenty people including Puigdemont and the Catalan parliament speaker had been summoned for questioning on Thursday.

Puigdemont's Belgian lawyer Paul Bekaert, who has helped Basque separatist militants challenge Spanish extradition, said his client did not see the climate as "conducive to testifying".

Late Thursday, as television footage showed police vans with flashing blue lights driving Puigdemont's former ministers to different prisons, furious Catalans took to the streets.

About 20,000 people, according to police, demonstrated in the regional capital Barcelona, while others gathered across in towns, and thousands turned out again on Friday evening.

- 'Not an internal matter' -

Puigdemont has said that the situation "is no longer an internal Spanish affair", calling on the international community to wake up to the "danger".

But apart from Scotland's separatist First Minister Nicola Sturgeon criticising the "jailing of political opponents", there are no signs that other countries' steadfast backing of Madrid is faltering.

Germany reiterated its support for the "unity and constitutional order of Spain" while a European Commission spokeswoman said it respects "fully" the independence of the Spanish judiciary.

"Spain has the rule of law and nobody can escape court decisions. There are international instruments to ensure that those who want to escape are placed at the disposal of the courts," Spanish government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo said.

The 7.5 million people of Catalonia, which until this past week had considerable autonomy, are fiercely proud of their language and culture but are also deeply divided about the wisdom of independence.

Spain's central bank warned Thursday of a possible recession in Catalonia. Unemployment there rose strongly in October. More than 2,000 firms have moved their legal headquarters elsewhere.

The separatist movement is also divided, although there are tentative signs that the latest events might galvanise its two main parties to fight the December election with a common list.

"It's absolutely indispensable that we have a joint strategy to battle the repression," Sergi Sabria, a spokesman for the ERC party, told Catalunya Radio.

Peter Ceretti at the Economist Intelligence Unit said pro-independence parties might win the December election, as the jailed ministers could deliver an "important propaganda" boost.

Puigdemont said Friday he was "ready to be a candidate" in the election, but he poured scorn on the exercise.

"I was elected. What is the purpose of (new) elections?" he asked, accusing Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of "illegally" dissolving the Catalan parliament.

"In order to resolve political problems you need to play politics. You don't imprison those who think differently to you," Puigdemont said.

burs-stu/adm/ceb/fa
Beirut (AFP) - Syria's army and allied fighters have captured the city of Deir Ezzor from the Islamic State group in a Russian-backed operation, a monitor said on Thursday.

There was no immediate confirmation from official sources, though state media earlier reported army advances in the city in the country's east.

"Regime forces and allied fighters... with Russian air support have full control of Deir Ezzor city," the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"Fighting has ended, now there are sweeping operations under way," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Earlier, the Observatory and Syrian state media reported Syrian government troops had captured three new neighbourhoods from the jihadists.

But a military source had said the government only held around 80 percent of the city.

Syria's army broke into Deir Ezzor in September, ending an IS siege of nearly three years on government-held parts of the city.

IS once held most of Deir Ezzor province, an oil-rich region that runs along the eastern border with Iraq.

But it is under attack from two separate campaigns, including the regime's Russian-backed assault, and another operation by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's Foreign Ministry on Thursday called on the United Nations Security Council to condemn Israel's attacks on Syria after an Israeli strike late on Wednesday. The Foreign Ministry asked the Security Council to take "strict and immediate" measures to stop such Israeli attacks, in a statement carried on the state-run SANA news agency. Wednesday's strike hit a copper factory in the industrial town of Hisya, 35 km (21 miles) south of Homs and 112 km north of Damascus, SANA reported. In Jerusalem, Israel's Foreign Ministry declined to comment. On Wednesday, Israel's Channel 10 said the aircraft were not hit and returned safely to base. The Israeli air force says it has struck arms convoys of the Syrian military and its Lebanese ally, the Iran-backed Hezbollah, nearly 100 times in recent years. Israeli officials have expressed alarm at Iranian influence in Syria, where Iran-backed groups have played a critical role fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad during the conflict that erupted in 2011. (Reporting by Sarah Dadouch; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Angus McDowall and William Maclean)
Earlier this week, reports surfaced that Sprint's parent company, Japan's SoftBank group, was going to call off the carrier's impending merger with T-Mobile. They'd worked out a broad agreement but couldn't agree on an ownership ratio. But a source told the Wall Street Journal today that T-Mobile produced a new offer that Sprint is considering, meaning they could reach a deal in a few weeks. Or they could, once again, disagree on the terms and leave the merger behind.

We don't know the new terms, but according to the Wall Street Journal, T-Mobile is working to keep the deal alive. T-Mobile CEO John Legere met with his Sprint counterpart Marcelo Claure on Wednesday night, and the latter company's board met on Thursday to discuss. Their top concern: Sprint's valuation and how much its chairman Masayoshi Son, who runs SoftBank, would be able to direct the course of the combined company.

Son had called off the previous deal, which would have given T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom full control of the firm arising from the merged carriers. The new deal's terms are still unclear.
Tamika Mallory speaks at The Women's Convention. (Photo: Pacific Press via Getty Images)

A week after thousands gathered for the inaugural Womens Convention in Detroit, Tamika Mallorys words shouldnt be forgotten.

Black women are a key component to helping folks for the fight that were in, the co-chair of the Womens March told HuffPost days before the event.

Mallory, who started her activist work as a teen, spoke about the importance of centering not just the convention  aptly themed Reclaiming Our Time in honor of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.)  around women of color, but activism, period.

I think that the importance of having black women centered in the conversation is because we know all too well what it looks like to be dealing with a plethora of issues and having to fight on many fronts, she said, noting that this is especially important for organizers to understand in a time when many different identities are being targeted.

In January, the Womens March and participants received backlash from folks who felt the demonstration wasnt inclusive of women of color, despite the organizations efforts to create an intersectional space. Others said that the majority of white women who attended were absent when it came to Black Lives Matter rallies.

To avoid similar roadblocks during the convention, organizers centered their focus on black and brown women. They intentionally set the convention in a city with a large black population and created a local host committee for local black women to organize. Along with some local voices, Waters, political commentator Symone Sanders and other women addressed attendees over the weekend.

Though the turnout was diverse, Mallory said it takes more than just showing up to make a difference. One challenge, for her, has been getting more black and brown people engaged in the fight.

Another challenge has been with white women who dont utilize the power they have to change attitudes in their own homes and communities. She said they must understand that the issues that negatively affect them have an even harsher effect on women of color.

Story continues

Even though there are white women who are at the table, did not vote for Trump, who are wanting to work ... they still dont necessarily understand all of the issues, Mallory told HuffPost. We have to constantly remind them that those who will be impacted the most are generally people with brown skin or people who live in very poor communities.

Ultimately, Mallory stressed the importance of everyone working together to uplift and fight for black and brown women.

We have to still build relationships and try to help people understand the need for all of us at the table working together cause thats difficult and at this point, I cant say that Ive figured it out 100 percent, she said. I still think we have a lot of work to do.

Also on HuffPost

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) is seen with House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Nov. 2, 2017. (Photo: Tom Williams via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  House Republicans released their long-awaited tax cut bill on Thursday, with some interest groups coming out immediately against the legislation and most Republicans enthusiastically supporting the bill anyway.

Home builders, realtors and small business groups were among those opposing the legislation, citing changes to mortgage interest deductions and concerns about restrictions on who gets a 25 percent pass-through tax rate. But GOP lawmakers on Thursday didnt seem to be taking arguments against the bill very seriously.

Im for it. Been for it. Didnt see any reason to be against it, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) told HuffPost.

Massie, one of the most conservative Republicans in the House, said the general mood on Thursday when GOP leaders rolled out the bill in a special closed-door meeting was positive, and he didnt think the bill would have any problems in the House.

Conservatives seem overwhelmingly supportive of the tax bill, which would increase debt by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years in the name of lowering individual and corporate tax rates. House leaders have learned from recent fights, like health care, that once they get the conservatives on board, they can pressure the other members to vote yes. And in this case, they may not have to pressure too much. Republicans, longing for some kind of policy accomplishment, are eager to get behind the measure, signaling that theyll make whatever changes are needed to get the bill over the finish line.

As Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) told HuffPost on Thursday: Whatever it takes to get it done at this point.

Still, there are dozens of ways the tax bill could fall apart. Lawmakers are just getting their hands on the text of the bill, and theyre sure to find provisions they want changed. Freedom Partners and Americans for Prosperity, two conservative groups partially funded by the Koch brothers, are taking issue with certain foreign territorial taxes. Theyre presenting it as the much-maligned border adjustment tax by another name.

Story continues

Republicans could also run into trouble with some provisions surrounding mortgage interest. The GOP tax bill would cut the deductibility of payments on mortgage interest from $1 million to $500,000  news that caused a home builders index fund to fall by more than 2 percent on Thursday. Realtors and home builders are concerned the GOP tax bill could cause a housing downturn, something that House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) dismissed Thursday morning.

Nothing sells more homes and raises property values better than a strong economy, Brady said.

Other, quirkier issues could also give some Republicans pause  a 1.4 percent tax on investment income from large universities, eliminating the 80 percent charitable deduction of college sporting tickets, getting rid of tax-exempt bonds for professional stadiums  but the biggest issue is still the state and local tax, or SALT, deduction.

Republican leaders say theyre still working to find a solution for states like New Jersey, New York and California that heavily benefit from the SALT deduction. Some members from those states, however, dont seem to be holding their breath.

A handful of Republicans who voted against the budget setting up the tax cut bill last week were quick to announce their opposition to the tax bill Thursday. Reps. Dan Donovan (N.Y.), Peter King (N.Y.), Leonard Lance (N.J.), Frank LoBiondo (N.J.), Tom MacArthur (N.J.) and Lee Zeldin (N.Y.), all Republicans, have indicated theyre leaning against the proposal in its current form.

The draft released Thursday would let filers deduct up to $10,000 of their property taxes. That wouldnt do much for the districts benefiting the most from the SALT deduction, but it could split the New York and New Jersey delegations and be enough to win over California Republicans. (Not a single California Republican has voted no on two budget resolutions setting up the tax bill for reconciliation, despite GOP leaders indicating they wanted to get rid of the SALT write-off entirely.)

For a handful of districts that benefit from the SALT deduction, the $10,000 capped write-off could be enough to make taxpayers whole, particularly when taken with the overall lowering of rates and the doubling of the standard deduction. But these states, which already pay more into the federal government than they receive back, would largely be financing a significant portion of the tax cuts for the rest of the country. The people of New York deserve the same tax break as the people of the rest of the country, Donovan told HuffPost.

The question for each member is how much their district is affected. MacArthur seems like he would vote yes if the deduction went up to $12,500, while LoBiondo said it would take more money for him to get to yes.

MacArthur is speaking not for me, LoBiondo said.

MacArthur knows that if Republicans ask for too much, they run the risk of perhaps just soaking the SALT districts and trying to get 217 votes in the House by appealing to other constituencies.

They know how to count, MacArthur said of leadership, and if they dont need our votes, they might take that approach.

Assuming no Democrat votes for the tax bill, GOP leaders can afford to lose 22 Republicans and still pass the bill in the House. In the Senate, Republicans could only lose two votes and still pass the bill, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking a tie.

The Senate looks like it will be the tougher chamber for tax reform, with fewer votes to spare and harsher rules about increasing the deficit in a reconciliation bill. While the House bill comes in right around $1.5 trillion in increased debt over the next decade, Republicans are already clamoring for changes that would make more people eligible for the pass-through rate of 25 percent, and theres been some chatter about reinstituting a tax break for research on rare diseases as well as the mortgage interest deduction on second homes (which the bill would end).

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has also made it clear he wont settle for the smaller child tax credit that the House offered. The House bill would increase the child tax credit to $1,600 per minor, up from $1,000. Rubio and some other Senators want it to be at least $2,000.

Opening up the bill for changes could be difficult for Republicans. They have some ways to raise money by increasing rates here or there. But the most significant revenue-raiser is still the elimination of the SALT deduction, so getting more generous with how much they allow taxpayers to write off could be a challenge.

In the House, if past budget votes are any indication, there are only about a dozen Republicans who are serious about voting against the tax bill over SALT objections. Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), whose average constituent benefits about $14,000 a year from the deduction, told HuffPost that his district is interested in tax relief, not particularly concerned by the equation by which they get it, and under this plan, they get it.

If Republicans from districts like Roskams dont have a problem with the SALT fix, its a good bet that this tax bill will pass the House. Its difficult to predict how much the bill would affect taxes in every individual district for every individual situation, but there are clear winners and losers. Someone with an expensive home, with high medical expenses (that deduction is also eliminated in the GOP bill), from a high-tax area  that person could see their tax bill go up. People who dont own homes and dont have many deductions already, on the other hand, could see a substantial cut.

Republicans are counting on moving this bill at such a quick pace that inertia takes over and gets them across the finish line. The Ways and Means Committee plans to begin marking up the measure next week, and leaders seem to have their sights set on passing the bill out of the House the week after that.

Unless theres a sudden mutiny, its a good bet that gambit will work.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
An Ohio man accused of killing his fiancee's mother was a pallbearer at her funeral just days before he was arrested, authorities said.

Jeffrey Scullin, 20, was charged Tuesday with the stabbing and shooting death of sixth-grade teacher Melinda Pleskovic, 49.

Read: Body of Missing Teacher Found After Husband Confesses to Murder in Suicide Note

Police have not released a possible motive for the killing and declined comment when contacted by InsideEdition.com on Thursday.

The woman's bloodied body was found on her kitchen floor by Scullin and Pleskovic's husband, Bruce. Scullin had been living in the house with his fiancee Anna and their 18-month-old daughter.

The young couple was to be married last Saturday. Instead, Pleskovic's funeral was held in the same church that the two had chosen to take their vows.

Scullin helped carry Pleskovic's casket from the altar.

He and the popular schoolteacher's husband each dialed 911 to report her death on Oct. 23. "I think someone killed my wife," Bruce Pleskovic is heard saying on an audiotape of his emergency call.

Read: Police Hunt Possible Serial Killer After 3rd Murder in Less Than 2 Weeks: 'Someone's Terrorizing The Neighborhood'

Scullin, between heavy breaths, tells another dispatcher, "Somebody's been attacked in my house," according to a recording of his report. "She has blood all around here ... There's a lot of blood."

On Tuesday, he was arrested and charged with aggravated murder. He is being held at the Cuyahoga County Jail in lieu of $1 million bail.

Scullin and the Pleskovics had previously phoned police about trespassers and the theft of Melinda's car keys, according to local reports.

The police investigation of her slaying is ongoing.

Related Articles:
By Salvador Rodriguez

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's <GOOGL.O> Google and Facebook Inc <FB.O> on Wednesday joined a legal challenge by more than 100 tech companies against a decision to end protection for so-called 'Dreamer' immigrants, the companies told Reuters.

A legal briefing was filed Wednesday afternoon on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protects immigrants brought into the United States illegally as children from deportation and which the Trump administration has decided to scrap.

Tech firms argue that such immigrants are vital to the U.S. economy and that ending the program will hit growth.

The filing is in support of a lawsuit filed by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra in the Northern District of California, according to the filing.

Tech companies signed on to the amicus brief - a supporting document in a case, submitted by interested parties - also included Airbnb, Microsoft Corp <MSFT.O>, Salesforce.com Inc <CRM.N>, Lyft, Uber and Twitter Inc <TWTR.N>.

Becerra filed an additional motion on Wednesday that seeks to put a block on the withdrawal of DACA. That was supported by iPhone maker Apple Inc <AAPL.O>.

"Apple will be harmed significantly if it can no longer benefit from the hard work, creativity, and intelligence of its employees with DACA status," said Deirdre O'Brien, Apple's vice president of people, in a filing supporting the motion. Apple employs more than 250 DACA recipients, the filing said.

The lawsuit challenges Trump's September decision to rescind DACA, which was established by former President Barack Obama in 2012. It is set to expire in March.

"DACA's rescission will inflict serious harm on U.S. companies, all workers, and the American economy as a whole," the filing reads, according to a draft of the amicus brief provided by one of the companies.

A week ago, dozens of tech companies, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook Inc, Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O> and others, formed The Coalition for the American Dream, a group calling for bipartisan legislation this year that would give illegal immigrants a path to permanent residency. Reuters was first to report that the coalition was being formed.

About 900,000 immigrants have been shielded from deportation since the DACA program began.

(Reporting by Salvador Rodriguez; Additional reporting by Jeffrey Dastin; Editing by Tom Brown and Rosalba O'Brien)
The saying "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades" was brought to mind in the third bullet point that heads the Tesla third-quarter 2017 update letter signed by Elon Musk, chairman and CEO, and Deepak Ahuja, CFO. The letter contains enough information about the Dante-esque undertaking known as "producing the Model 3" to add a 10th circle to hell.



The point in question: "About 100,000 Model S and X deliveries projected for 2017."



Certainly, there is time between now and the end of the year, so the company can't be specific. But it sets the tone for a certain amount of blurriness about what is actually going to be accomplished at Tesla in the next several months, which seems strange for something that is ostensibly a financial document.

This "about" thinking is manifested in the discussion of the Model 3 production ramp.



According to the document, "Several manufacturing lines, such as the drive unit, seat assembly, paint shop and stamping, have demonstrated a manufacturing ability in excess of 1,000 per week during burst builds of short duration."



Those "burst builds" bring to mind the grenade. Boom, and they're done. Unfortunately for them, to fulfill the 500,000 or so Model 3 orders (we can fudge numbers, too), they need sustained production.

But let's look at that 1,000 number for a moment. Assuming 52 weeks in a year, that's no more than 52,000 units per year. Which is certainly not a line rate that is going to meet demand.



There is another factor that really makes the 1,000 somewhat irrelevant: "Other lines, such as battery pack assembly, body shop welding and final vehicle assembly, have demonstrated burst builds of about 500 units per week and are ramping up quickly."



Look, stamping presses can bang out body panels at a pace similar to that of a supercharged metronome. Unless those panels can be welded into a car, and unless the car is fully assembled, then the Fremont plant is going to have piles of stampings and seats clogging up the aisles. And people will continue to wait for their cars. Or maybe they won't. Those deposits, after all, are refundable.



According to Musk, the real bottleneck has been at the Gigafactory 1, where they produce battery modules, so the earnings call was made from there. Musk said, "I always move my desk to whereverwell, I don't really have a desk, actually. I move myself to wherever the biggest problem is in Tesla, so I'm at  I really believe that one should lead from the front lines, and that's why I'm here."



In the world of the Toyota Production System, that would be described as being at the gemba, the place where the real action  or inaction  is occurring. Maybe the people in the factory would be better off if the boss wasn't constantly looking over their shoulders.



Musk said, "It's remarkable how much can be done by just beating up robots, shortening the path, intensifying the factory, adding additional robots at choke points and just making lines go really, really fast. Speed is the ultimate weapon."



Sure. Add more robots, make them work faster and voila!  more output. If it were that simple, every vehicle manufacturer in the world would never have any capacity constraints. Just turn it up to 11.



There has been some criticism of late that apparently Tesla didn't have its automation suppliers run their equipment off at their factories before having it shipped to Tesla. This is said to be breaking with how things are done in the auto industry. Which is sort of true. It is how things are done now, but traditionally, equipment suppliers would ship their lines in pieces as it was being built straight to the customer.



Of course, that was when assembly plants were down for months so the equipment could be installed and integrated piece by piece, and engineers from the suppliers were at the OEMs' plants for so long that they could join the local bowling league. Which is to say that Tesla isn't advancing the state of production in the auto industry, but actually going backward.



In the Q3 letter, it says, "Based on what we know now, we currently expect to achieve a production rate of 5,000 Model 3 vehicles per week by late Q1 2018." That is approximately six months from now, so lots can happen between now and then.



One of the most absurd sentences in the history of the auto industry has to be this: "With respect to the timing for producing 10,000 units per week, it has always been our intention to implement that capacity addition after we have achieved a 5,000-per-week rate." Does that make anyone feel any more confident knowing that they'll build more after they build some?



Here's a simple fact that ought to make Tesla investors and fanboys alike feel more than slightly nervous: In October, Chevrolet sold 2,781 Bolt EVs. That means that the GM Orion Assembly plant is making more than 500 per week  consistently, not in burst production.



How soon before the Tesla bubble is burst?



Gary S. Vasilash is editor-in-chief of Automotive Design & Production, co-host of Autoline After Hours and a juror for the North American Car and Truck of the Year awards.

Teslas bottlenecks and hand grenades originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 03 Nov 2017 09:45:00 EDT.
WASHINGTON  A crowded field of Texas Democrats vying to unseat one of Washingtons most steadfast deniers of climate science got a welcome shock Thursday when Rep. Lamar Smith announced he would not seek re-election.

Smith, chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, was first elected to serve Texas 21st Congressional District in 1986 and is the 14th-longest-serving member of the current U.S. House. The San Antonio native has a long and colorful history of dismissing the threat of climate change, recently going so far as to say that pumping the atmosphere full of carbon dioxide is beneficial.

Its great news for the climate, Derrick Crowe, a 37-year-old climate activist and progressive organizer who announced his candidacy in April, told HuffPost. You have the climate change denier-in-chief in Congress retiring. Thats going to mean that we can replace that with progressive values and make a huge difference.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, announced Thursday that he would not seek re-election in 2018. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images)

Smith, an early and loyal supporter of President Donald Trump, has received more than $750,000 from the oil and gas industry over his 30-year career. In his five years as chairman of the science committee, he has worked to defund climate research and harassed federal climate scientists, whom he has accused of playing fast and loose with data. He has also repeatedly sprinted to defend the fossil fuel industry, namely Exxon Mobil Corp., from investigations into their records on climate change. And he has used his power to push his anti-science agenda, stacking science committee hearings with coal and chemical lobbyists and climate skeptics.

Democratic candidates lined up to challenge the 16-term House incumbent in 2018.

Joseph Kopser, an aerospace engineer and Army veteran from Austin, told HuffPost that when it comes to the fight to mitigate climate change, Smiths departure will be good for all Texans. He pointed to the devastating effects of Hurricane Harvey in Houston, which climatologists say were made worse by climate change, and the scanty peach crop this year in the state.

Story continues

Although Kopser welcomed the congressmans announcement  We have accomplished our campaigns first goal to #RetireLamarSmith, he said in a written statement  he says its important that people stay engaged, as Smith remains a powerful force in Washington.

In a statement Thursday, Smith said that there is still much to do. There is legislation to enact, dozens of hearings to hold and hundreds of votes to cast.

Smiths departure  hes the 20th Republican in the House to either resign this year or reject a bid for re-election in 2018  sets the stage for what will likely prove to be a crowded and spirited primary.

Elliott McFadden, a progressive activist from Austin also running on the Democratic ticket, called on fellow Democrats to stay focused on winning Smiths seat, which he said will be a critical part of gaining back control of the U.S. House next year.

We cannot swap one out of touch, corporate backed politician for another, he said in a statement Thursday. We need real representation in Central Texas.

Crowe, Kopser and McFadden all said they think Smith felt the pressure and opted to get out instead of losing the race.

He did see us coming, said Kopser, who outraised Smith in the third quarter and has more than $200,000 cash on hand. I think at the end of the day he did the math.

Lamar Smith was an out of touch career politician who saw the writing on the wall, and threw in the towel in TX-21, McFadded said in a statement.

The district, which includes parts of Austin and San Antonio and stretches west into the Texas Hill Country, has been heavily gerrymandered to favor the GOP.

Smith is among a trio of Republicans that nonprofit political action committee 314 Action has targeted for their anti-science views. And in Texas, a group of Democratic organizers has been working to support progressive candidates capable of ousting Smith.

According to election data from the Daily Kos, Trump won the predominantly GOP district by just 10 points in 2016, compared with 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romneys nearly 22-point margin of victory.

Crowe expects both the March 6 primary and Nov. 6 general election to be hard-fought. But Smith stepping down, he said, shows that the pressure was real, that the shift was happening and that were about to take Congress.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
TripAdvisor is the go-to website to visit when you want to look up hotel and resort reviews. Based on what the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel unearthed, though, you might want to do more digging beyond the review portal next time you travel. According to the publication, TripAdvisor deleted several posts by users warning others of rape and assault over the past few years. In some cases it cited an old policy wherein language used in its forums should be G-rated. Other posts were declined citing "hearsay" as the reason, even though the victims were talking about their personal experiences.

The Journal Sentinel came across people whose posts were deleted while investigating the suspicious death of a Wisconsin college student in Mexico. One of those people was Kristie Love, who repeatedly posted on the website how she had been raped by a security guard at a highly rated Mexican Iberostar resort in 2010. She was told her posts had been removed, because they violated the website's "family friendly" guidelines.

The same thing happened to a 19-year-old on vacation with her family in the same resort a year later. In 2015, another woman was raped in the same resort yet again after she and her husband suddenly blacked out in the middle of the day barely into their third drink. She, too, tried to post on TripAdvisor, but the website declined to publish it, deeming it as "hearsay." She pointed out that if the website didn't delete Love's post, she might not have gone to that resort at all.

A TripAdvisor spokesperson said the site does host negative reviews, even those that contain allegations of rape. It's just that its old guidelines were far too strict, and it has numerous filters to weed out fake reviews in order to avoid malicious posts made to ruin the reputation of good businesses. As the Journal Sentinel said, though, the company's moderation system is a mess, so it's hard to figure out if a post warning people about sexual assault will be published or not. Non-employees called "trusted community members" have the power to remove posts, "destination experts" made up of tour guides, property owners and managers can answer questions about safety and its policy against "hearsay" is inconsistently enforced.

After the Journal Sentinel published its latest piece, the company finally admitted that it removed Love's original post, published it (albeit buried under years of other posts) and issued an apology:

"We apologize to the sexual assault victim reported on in the article, who had her forum post removed seven years ago on TripAdvisor. At the time, we had a policy whereby we judged content to be in breach of our guidelines if it did not adhere to family-friendly language. More than seven years ago that meant all language needed to be G-rated. A few years ago, we changed that policy to allow more descriptive reviews on the site about first-hand accounts of serious incidents like rape or assault. We recognized then that our previous guidelines went too far in preventing information like this from being shared. Over the last several years, this policy change has yielded many first-hand accounts of serious incidents being published on the platform. A simple search of TripAdvisor will show numerous reviews from travelers over the last several years who wrote about their first-hand experiences that include matters of robbery or theft, assault and rape... We will continue to work to improve and evolve our moderation and publishing guidelines as we work to provide the most accurate information in the travel industry available online."

A rep also told the publication that it's working on a "badge system" that will alert visitors to stories that expose health and safety concerns about particular businesses and establishments. It also insisted that posts like Love's are the kind it "absolutely want[s] published." However, TripAdvisor reportedly declined to publish one of those "first-hand experiences that include matters of assault and rape" as recently as October 16th. A user wanted to post about how he was drugged and sexually assaulted by his massage therapist at a world-renowned spa, but got a message from the website declining his review, because it's merely "hearsay."
President Trumps national security advisor defended his approach to human rights in countries with authoritarian leaders, arguing that it doesnt help to yell.

How much does it help to yell about these problems? National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster told journalists at the daily White House briefing. What the President is doing is being effective.

McMasters comments, which come ahead of President Trumps 11-day trip to the Asia Pacific region, came in response to a question about the reluctance of the White House to engage countries such as Turkey and the Philippines on human rights abuses.

While Trump has aggressively criticized authoritarian regimes in Venezuela, North Korea and elsewhere he has remained silent on other leaders with poor human rights records such as Russias Vladimir Putin and Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

McMaster suggested that the U.S. may be engaging in these discussions behind closed doors. I dont think you should assume anything, he said.

Trumps trip, which will include stops in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, had been billed as an opportunity to engage Asian countries on the ongoing conflict with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program.

McMaster suggested Thursday that the U.S. might consider adding North Korea to its list of state sponsors of terror, citing specifically the assassination of the brother of the countrys leader earlier this year in Malaysia.
WASHINGTON  The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to take up a case involving an undocumented teen who received an abortion, urging the high court to toss an appeals court ruling that allowed the procedure and to consider disciplining American Civil Liberties Union lawyers who represented the girl.

The Justice Departments lengthy filing indicates the administration planned to seek Supreme Court intervention before the teen, known the court case by the pseudonym Jane Doe, received her Oct. 25 abortion after month of delay by U.S. authorities. The filing alleges the girls ACLU lawyers misled the government about the timing of the abortion.

After informing Justice Department attorneys that the procedure would occur on October 26th, Jane Does attorneys scheduled the abortion for the early morning hours of October 25th, thereby thwarting Supreme Court review, DOJ spokesman Devin OMalley said in a statement. In light of that, the Justice Department believes the judgment under review should be vacated, and discipline may be warranted against Jane Does attorneys.

The ACLU said called the allegation baseless. The groups legal director, David Cole, said the lawyers were working in the best interests of their client.

That government lawyers failed to seek judicial review quickly enough is their fault, not ours, Cole said in a statement. We wont let this distract us from the real issue here, which is that there are many more young women like Jane Doe out there who are still unable to get the care they need because of the Trump administrations unconstitutional policies. We will not stop fighting until we have justice for every young woman like Jane.

The 17-year-old Jane Doe had an abortion last week after a ruling by a federal appeals court. But that didnt end the legal battle. The federal government argued that it was within its rights to block unaccompanied minors in its custody from leaving shelters for abortions, a problem that goes far beyond fighting in court to extend one teens unwanted pregnancy. The lawsuit could have major abortion-rights implications for for both undocumented immigrant minors and other pregnant women in government custody.

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Protesters rally in support of "Jane Doe," a 17-year-old who was blocked from leaving an Office of Refugee Resettlement shelter to obtain an abortion. (Photo: Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

In the Jane Doe case, a Department of Justice attorney argued that the government was not blocking the teen from getting an abortion because she was free to return to her home country or could be released to a sponsor in the U.S.  two infeasible options, according to her attorney. Abortion is illegal in Jane Does native country, and leaving the U.S. would prevent her from making a legal case to stay in the U.S. The government had not found her a sponsor to take her in.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, which has custody of Jane Doe, for a month blocked her from going to an abortion clinic after she received permission from a Texas judge to make her own decision about terminating her pregnancy, and sent her to a crisis pregnancy center to discourage her.

The governments attorney said the Office of Refugee Resettlement could not be required to facilitate Jane Does abortion, which she defined as granting permission for the procedure and care afterward. Jane Doe all along had planned to pay for her own abortion and arranged transportation to and from appointments.

The governments argument also could be applied to any other pregnant unaccompanied minor in Office of Refugee Resettlement custody, and theres every indication they would be treated the same was as Jane Doe. The agency is led by director Scott Lloyd, a former attorney for the Knights of Columbus and ardent opponent of abortion.

Under Lloyds leadership, the office instituted a policy that requires him or a designee to sign off on any abortions for immigrant minors in the agencys custody. This is a switch from previous policy, in which directors were involved in abortion decisions only to approve that government funds be used in cases of rape, incest and threats to the life of the mother.

Lloyd reportedly said he would allow pregnant immigrant minors to leave Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters only for pregnancy services and life-affirming options counseling. He and other officials have personally spoken to pregnant teens in custody to discourage them from abortions, according to the ACLU. Lloyd refused to give a yes or no answer to a congresswoman who asked last week whether he had done so.

The Trump administration argued in court filings that it has strong and constitutionally legitimate interests in promoting childbirth, in refusing to facilitate abortion, and in not providing incentives for pregnant minors to illegally cross the border to obtain elective abortions while in federal custody.

Although the lawsuit and administration policy has thus far only applied to immigrant minors in Office of Refugee Resettlement custody, the arguments about facilitation also could affect other women detained by the federal government, such as those in prison or in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. The Department of Justice attorney acknowledged that those women are now allowed to obtain abortions and are cared for after doing so  the same two things she said were facilitation for the Office of Refugee Resettlement  but she did not argue against those policies.

DOJs filing on Friday said the government had asked to be kept informed of the timing of Ms. Does abortion procedure, and one of respondents counsel agreed to do so. The government told the Supreme Court clerks office and the ACLU attorneys that it planned to file an application seeking a stay the next morning. Because of that notice, the government alleges, the ACLU moved to expedite Jane Does abortion.

Although Ms. Does representatives informed the government of the change in timing, they did not inform the government of the other two developmentswhich kept the government in the dark about when Ms. Doe was scheduled to have an abortion, the government filing says. The government recognizes that respondents counsel have a duty to zealously advocate on behalf of their client, but they also have duties to this Court and to the Bar. It appears under the circumstances that those duties may have been violated, and that disciplinary action may therefore be warranted. At the least, this Court may wish to seek an explanation from counsel regarding this highly unusual chain of events.

Also on HuffPost

Lisa

Lisa, a 27-year-old restaurant manager, posed for a portrait in her home in Massachusetts on October 11, 2012. Lisa said she was 24 when she became pregnant and had an abortion.



"No regrets. You never think about how you're going to feel when you do it. And when I did it, it was pretty straight-forward... The decision to do it wasn't hard and afterwards it hasn't been hard in that area. I mean, I've had struggles... And I thought I would maybe think about what it would be like if I went through with the pregnancy and having a child and I don't think about it. I don't try to think about it. I don't try not to, I just -- I don't."



Read the rest of Lisa's story here.

Jennifer

Jennifer, a 23-year-old nurse, posed for a portrait in her home in New York on January 5, 2013. Jennifer was 17 when she became pregnant and had an abortion.



"I was against abortion. I really was -- I was against it. My mom has gone through so many troubles with pregnancies that I wouldn't want to do that... But at the same time, at the time I only had one parent there. My father was incarcerated, so I knew he'd be super duper disappointed in me. And then my mom was just like, 'You know if you get pregnant you're out of here because you're grown.' After that, I made my decision in about two months. After the procedure, I was crying. As soon as I woke up from the bed, I was crying. Crying, crying. And a woman next to me asked me how old I was, and I said 17. She said 'You did the right thing girl. You did the right thing because you're too young. You have your whole life ahead of you.'"



Read the rest of Jennifer's story here.

Aiyana

Aiyana, a 22-year-old artist, posed for a portrait in her home in New York on September 21, 2012. Aiyana said she was 20 years old when she became pregnant and had an abortion.



"It definitely has been really rewarding in some ways at least I know I can give friends or acquaintances of mine somebody to talk to, who can give them advice or give them resources that they might not otherwise be aware of... Obviously it's something private. But if it's something that you feel ok talking about, I think that vocalization is important. I think it can help remove the stigma that's attached to having an abortion."



Read the rest of Aiyana's story here.

Lisa

Lisa, a 45-year-old writer, posed for a portrait in her home in Massachusetts on October 13, 2012. Lisa said she became pregnant and had two abortions when she was in her 30s.



"I regret the choices that I made with regard to the men I was with... that's time that I can't get back. But, I do not regret the decision to terminate those pregnancies. That was the right decision for each one of those pregnancies that was tied to each one of those men."



Read the rest of Lisa's story here.

Leigh

Leigh, a 26-year-old bartender, posed for a portrait in her home in Pennsylvania on September 24, 2012. Leigh said she was 21 years old when she became pregnant and had an abortion.



"I didn't take it lightly. It took every inch of strength inside of me to be able to do it, but I knew it was the right decision to make. I know it was the right decision to make. I've never doubted that. I don't regret it but I don't think I could ever stomach being able to do it again. I think I was just about to turn 22... I would have had a 4 and a half year-old right now."



Read more about Leigh's story here.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
The fateful morning began like so many others in the White House residence. The President turned on the television and started to stew. The news was about him, and it was brutal: indictments, Russia, that terrible special counsel.

From his lonely bubble at the center of it all, Donald Trump watched and raged. Sorry, but this is years ago, he announced to the world. Also, there is NO COLLUSION!

The ritual may have been familiar: the angry tweets, the isolated, obsessed President. But no cries of Fake news! could shake the sense, on the morning of Oct. 30, that this time the Trump presidency was entering a new and dangerous phase. No amount of distraction or deflection could alter the hard fact of the first criminal charges. Up until now, the Russia scandal has been an ambient hum of speculation and innuendo. Now its a legal case. With the indictments of two top former campaign aides to the President and the guilty plea of a third former adviser, the specter that shadowed the Administration from the start has become a reality. It was all there in the 12-count indictment, headlined by the charge of Conspiracy Against the United States.

The one-two punch thrown by special counsel Robert Mueller knocked out any remaining hope Trump might have had that the Russia investigation would fizzle. To the contrary, the indictment of Paul Manafort, Trumps onetime campaign chairman, alleges that the Presidents campaign was run, for a crucial period, by a foreign agent who had worked on behalf of a Putin-friendly regime. Manafort, the court filings charged, laundered tens of millions of dollars and evaded taxes while serving as an unregistered bagman for the political operation of the Russian-aligned Ukrainian strongman Viktor Yanukovych. And then he went to work for Trump. Even after Manafort was pushed out of the campaign, his business partner Rick Gates, who was also indicted, remained in Trumps orbit.

If that wasnt damaging enough, the surprise guilty plea of former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos shattered Trumps claim that his campaign never sought to collude with Russia. Papadopoulos admitted to lying to the FBI about his efforts to set up meetings with Kremlin-connected sources dangling dirt on Hillary Clinton as senior campaign officials egged him on, according to court documents. If it turns out that Papadopoulos didnt manage to collude with the Russians, it wasnt for lack of trying.

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Muellers opening gambit struck at two of Trumps most sensitive spots. The indictments of Manafort and Gates, for crimes like tax evasion and fraud suggest that Mueller is following the money, digging up old financial recordspotentially the tax returns that Trump has sought to shield. And Papadopoulos alleged work with Russia inflames at Trumps fear of having his election win delegitimized. Worst of all for the President, the filings paint a broad and damning picture of where the probe may be headinga process over which Trump has no control. Now weve seen the iceberg, says a Republican operative. The question is whats below the water line.

The charges sketched a troubling portrait of a Russian influence operation that had penetrated the American electoral system from multiple angles. The Russians sought out low-level players like Papadopoulos. They had an in with senior officials like Manafort and Gates. They hacked and strategically released emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. And they executed a far-reaching social-media campaign of bots and trolls and fake news: in recent congressional hearings, Facebook representatives testified that Russian disinformation reached a number of people equal to half of all eligible voters in 2016but that the company didnt realize the extent of the effort until long after the election was over. If the goal of Russias election-meddling effort in 2016, as U.S. intelligence experts testified, was to sow chaos and undermine American democracy, then its clear that the operation is still succeeding, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

At the White House, staffers reacted to the revelations with concern but not panic. Theyre used to being at the center of the storm. Theyve got pretty thick skin at this point, says a GOP consultant with ties to the White House. Nobody knows where this is going, but theyre not naive. Its hard to see this just stopping with one person. Anyone who couldnt tolerate this level of risk doesnt work there anymore, or wouldnt work there in the first place. With the firings and departures of heavyweights like Stephen Bannon, only a handful of yes-men in the building remain loyal to the President above all. Besides those few, the ex-aide says, hes surrounded by people who dont like him. And people whom he does not fully trust. The President, a former campaign aide says, is feeling boxed in. Trump always seems able to escape his political predicaments, no matter how seemingly dire. But the law is a different matter.

Muellers net may never fall squarely on the President, who has not himself been implicated in any wrongdoing. In responding to the news, the White House even claimed a measure of vindication, pointing out that Manaforts alleged crimes were unconnected to his work with Trump, and that Papadopoulos was a relative nobody who was caught red-handed. Its doubtful that any of this will damage Trumps rapport with the Republican right. Among his base, a long-debunked allegation about the Clinton Foundation and a uranium company was being treated as the real scandal, along with the recent revelation that the Clinton campaign helped bankroll the notorious secret dossier alleging Trumps ties to Russia. Bannon and other operatives are moving to cement Trumps ownership of the GOP by bullying lawmakers who stand up to the President and directing voters anger at common enemies.

On Capitol Hill, the Presidents fractured party continued its time-tested tactic of proceeding as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Lawmakers preferred to focus on the desperate quest for tax reform, which suffered another setback on Oct. 31 when it turned out that no one could agree on what to put in the mystery bill being worked out in secret. Downplay, distance and deny, is how one senior staffer to a Republican congressman described the strategy vis-a-vis the investigation. GOP lawmakers are already weary and discouraged by their unproductive year, and badly estranged from a White House that gives them little direction or political cover (but plenty of trouble). A few hours after the charges were unsealed, at a press conference ostensibly about judicial nominations, reporters pelted the assembled Republican Senators with Mueller-related questions. Rather than address them, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa turned on his heel and walked out the door, nearly knocking over a rack of American flags in the process.

Hes demanding loyalty, and Im afraid hes going to continue to get it from Republicans, because hes still popular among the Republican base, says Peter Wehner, a former aide to President George W. Bush and a Trump opponent. Certainly he has the loyalty of the conservative media; as Mueller turned up the heat on Trump, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal suddenly began to argue that the special prosecutor was out of control and should resign. Its all of a piece with Trump, Wehner says. Its confrontation, its unrelenting conflict, its one civic guardrail after another pulled out of the ground and tossed aside.

The chaos has disrupted the left too. Outraged and mostly powerless, Democrats feuded in the wake of the charges over how to press the Russia issue. A top party donor, Tom Steyer, has pumped $10 million into ads calling for Trumps impeachment, even as the partys tacticians try to steer the conversation to higher ground. The Mueller probe also claimed a Democratic power broker, as the superlobbyist Tony Podesta stepped down from his firm, which had worked with Manafort on his Ukrainian campaign.

In the exhausting cycle of scandal and outrage that defines the Trump presidency, every development can seem like just more noisea daylong freak-out that will be forgotten in a few weeks, superseded by the next series of fights. The Mueller matter, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, is an investigation that, frankly, most Americans dont care too much about.

But Mueller isnt at the mercy of public opinion or a frenetic news cycle. No clever spin or culture-ginning controversy will throw the dogged prosecutor off the scent. His mission is different, and his filings were aimed at an audience of potential targets and collaborators, sending threatening or beguiling messages to whomever he might be going for next. He signaled that he has, in Papadopoulos, a cooperating witness who was arrested months ago. The revelation raises a host of tantalizing questions. Does that mean the obscure former adviser has been gathering evidence for the feds ever since? What will be the next targetwill it be the former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who has already admitted acting as an unregistered foreign agent? Could Mueller come for Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law and confidant? And if the noose begins to tighten around the Presidents own family, how might he react?

For now, Trump watched from afar as Manafort appeared in federal court in Washington, trailed by cameras, and pleaded not guilty. If the Russians were also watching, they might have smiled: if it was chaos they sought, this was beyond their wildest dreams. But in Mueller and his investigators, the threat to American democracy faces a different, formidable opponent. The gears of the legal system are turning; the rule of law, which Trump has not yet managed to master, is still in force. The case has just begun. All the President can do is watch it unfolda helpless spectator, like the rest of us.

With reporting by NASH JENKINS/WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump condemned a military judge's order on Friday to spare Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl from prison after he pleaded guilty to deserting his post in Afghanistan in 2009.

"The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military," Trump wrote in a post on Twitter. The judge also ordered Bergdahl, who was captured by the Taliban, to be dishonorably discharged and recommended that he be demoted.

(Reporting by Makini Brice)
President Trump condemned a military judges decision that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl will receive no prison time for abandoning his post in eastern Afghanistan in 2009.

Early Friday afternoon, the commander in chief said it is a complete and total disgrace to the United States and its military that Bergdahl will avoid jail time.

The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

Bergdahl, 31, had pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy in October and faced the possibility of life in prison. Instead, the judge, Army Col. Jeffery R. Nance, gave Bergdahl a dishonorable discharge, demoted him from sergeant to private and ordered him to pay a $1,000 fine each month for the next 10 months.

The controversial decision concludes a fraught episode in U.S. military history. Bergdahl had been captured by the Taliban hours after leaving his post and held captive by the Haqqani network, allies of the Taliban, for five years. Several U.S. service members were injured searching for Bergdahl. Some critics claim that his actions led to the deaths of American troops but the prosecution did not provide evidence of this. Former President Barack Obama was heavily criticized after trading five Taliban terrorists for the soldier in May 2014.

Trump was particularly active on Twitter Friday, a day after his account was temporarily deactivated by a rogue customer-service employee. He lashed out at his former rival Hillary Clinton for allegedly rigging the Democratic primary against Bernie Sanders and the Justice Department for not investigating Clinton. He also promised to get revenge against ISIS after the group claimed credit for a terrorist attack in New York earlier this week.

But this is far from the first time Trump has attacked Bergdahl. He routinely calls Bergdahl a traitor and has lamented many times in speeches as a presidential candidate that he couldnt simply be executed by firing squad.

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In the old days when we were strong and wise, wed shoot a guy like that, Trump said at a rally on Nov. 9, 2015.

Trump even incorporated Bergdahl into his presidential candidacy announcement on June 16, 2015, at Trump Tower in New York. He pointed to the prisoner exchange as evidence that Obama doesnt have a clue and is a bad negotiator.

Hes the one that did Bergdahl. We get Bergdahl, they get five killer terrorists that everybody wanted over there, Trump said. We get Bergdahl. We get a traitor. We get a no-good traitor, and they get the five people that they wanted for years, and those people are now back on the battlefield trying to kill us. Thats the negotiator we have.

Trumps contempt for Bergdahl has made many appearances on Twitter:

President Obama created a VERY BAD precedent by handing over five Taliban prisoners in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Another U.S. loss!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 1, 2014

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl should face the death penalty for desertion  five brave soldiers died trying to bring him back. U.S. has to get tough!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 26, 2015

Bowe Bergdahl walked off the base after he was told not to. Solders died looking for him. U.S. should NEVER have made the deal! PUNISHMENT?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2014

Can you imagine trading five really bad enemies of the U.S. for the freedom of traitor Bergdahl. Just another bad deal!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 15, 2014

Read more from Yahoo News:
President Donald Trump on Friday harshly criticized the decision of a military judge not to give jail time to a U.S. soldier who abandoned his post in Afghanistan and was captured by the Taliban.

Fort Bragg military judge Jeffery Nance on Friday sentenced Bowe Bergdahl to a dishonorable discharge, fined him $10,000 and reduced his rank to that of private from sergeant. Bergdahl was not ordered to serve time in prison.

The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military, Trump tweeted shortly after the sentencing in the Bergdahl trial had concluded.

The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

Bergdahl, a U.S. Army soldier, left his post while on duty in Afghanistans Paktika province on the night of June 30, 2009. He was captured by the Taliban shortly after, and was held captive by the militants of the Haqqani network for the next five years. Throughout his trial, Bergdahl recounted the extremely challenging conditions of his years in captivity and said he was tortured, beaten and humiliated by the militants.

Bergdahl was freed in May 2014 as part of a prisoner swap negotiated between the administration of former President Barack Obama and the Taliban. After returning to the United States, he pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Prosecutors sought 14 years of imprisonment.

Trump has been fiercely critical of the agreement that secured Bergdahls release.

Trump also called the soldier a traitor at least 45 times while he was campaigning. Were tired of Sgt. Bergdahl, whos a traitor, a no-good traitor, who should have been executed, Trump said during an October 2015 campaign rally. During an Iowa campaign rally months later, Trump suggested Bergdahl should be thrown out of an airplane without a parachute.

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With his fierce rhetoric on Bergdahl, Trump once again dived into an issue that divides Americans. Bergdahls case has sparked fierce emotions among politicians, the general public and the military alike. Bergdahls defenders have argued he was young at the time and suffered from mental health conditions. They also pointed out the solder tried to escape several times while detained, and brought back important intelligence information on his captors.

Opponents have questioned Bergdahls account of his years in captivity and blame him for needlessly risking the lives of the soldiers who were sent out to look for him.

Earlier this month, Bergdahls defense team argued that Trumps comments in the case had harmed Bergdahls chances of getting a fair trial. Nance dismissed the motion, but ruled he would consider the presidents response a mitigating factor.

Eugene Fidell, an attorney for Berghdal, said on Friday that Trumps comments in the case should give Americans pause. President Trumps unprincipled effort to stoke a lynch-mob atmosphere while seeking our nations highest office has cast a dark cloud over the case, Fidell said, according to Reuters.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
President Trump gives a thumbs-up as he and first lady Melania Trump board Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. (Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP)

WASHINGTON  President Trump will come face to face during his trip to Asia with one of North Koreas most controversial activities: its kidnapping of citizens from other nations, notably Japan, the first stop on his 12-day, five-country voyage.

In Tokyo, Trump will reportedly meet with the parents of one of the best-known abductees, Megumi Yokota. She was 13 and on her way home from school when North Korean commandos snatched her from her coastal hometown of Niigata in 1977.

North Korea, which admitted in 2002 to seizing her, claimed that she had hanged herself in 1994. It sent Japan cremated remains that it said were hers, but Tokyo rejected the claim after carrying out DNA analysis, and her parents have always disputed the Norths account.

Slideshow: Trumps long trip to Asia >>>

Trump left Friday for a demanding trip that will test his ability to ratchet up pressure on North Korea and to redefine Americas relationship with China while reassuring U.S. allies in that rising powers shadow. Hell also mark one year since his history-shaping election victory and may potentially face a Twitter blackout in Beijing, which blocks his favorite social media platform. His other stops include Seoul, South Korea; Danang, Vietnam, for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit; Hanoi, Vietnam, for a state visit; and Manila, Philippines, for a summit with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Trump has referenced Yokotas case before  in his Sept. 19 speech to the United Nations General Assembly, which included a litany of accusations against the Stalinist regime in Pyongyang. We know it kidnapped a sweet 13-year-old Japanese girl from a beach in her own country to enslave her as a language tutor for North Koreas spies, he said in that address.

Shigeru Yokota, left, and his wife, Sakie, hold a portrait of their daughter Megumi. (Photo: Maiko Takahashi/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The abductee issue holds enormous emotional sway in Japan, which says 17 of its citizens were stolen away, most likely to train North Korean spies in Japanese and how to blend in. A February 2014 U.N. report contended that North Korea snatched hundreds of people from various countries over decades.

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But the issue also possesses special significance now because, White House aides say, Trump plans to consider it as he weighs whether to put North Korea back on a U.S. government list of state sponsors of terrorism  a step that would result in tighter economic and diplomatic sanctions on the regime.

This is something thats under consideration, national security adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster told reporters on Thursday. And youll hear more about that soon, I think.

In 2002, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il  father to its current leader, Kim Jong Un  blamed overzealous soldiers for the abduction.

The special forces were carried away by a reckless quest for glory. It was regretful, and I want to frankly apologize. I have taken steps to ensure that it will never happen again, said Kim. He also announced an agreement to return five of the prisoners to Japan.

Washington added North Korea to its list of terrorism sponsors in 1988, in the aftermath of the bombing of a South Korean jetliner in 1987. President George W. Bush removed the country from that blacklist in 2008 as part of negotiations on a nuclear disarmament deal.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Leonard Steven Grasz testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee nomination hearing on November 1, 2017: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Cal

A judicial nominee put forward by President Donald Trump, whom the American Bar Association deemed unqualified for the job, has come under sharp questioning in the Senate.

Tabbed by Donald Trump to fill a vacancy on the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Leonard Steven Grasz was dealt a rare rebuke from the ABA. The legal organization voted 14-0 to label Mr Grasz not qualified, with one member abstaining.

Democrats were not about to let him forget it.

I assume youre keenly aware that you are the first circuit court nominee since 2006 to receive a unanimous not qualified rating, Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse said.

That is my understanding, Senator, Mr Grasz replied, though he said I do respectfully disagree with the result.

The ABA gave Mr Grasz a failing grade after interviewing hundreds of lawyers and judges who had interacted with him, according to a lengthy statement from the chair of the organizations Standing Committee on the Judiciary. There was a recurring theme: they said his political beliefs would make him unable to be impartial.

They expressed the view that he would be unable to separate his role as an advocate from that of a judge, the statement said, noting his deep connection and allegiance to the most powerful politicians in his state and citing questions about whether Mr. Grasz would be able to detach himself from his deeply-held social agenda and political loyalty to be able to judge objectively, with compassion and without bias.

Those biases include a long record of opposing abortion rights, Democratic senators charged, and critics argue Mr. Grasz has fought to stifle LGBT rights. Minnesota Democrat brought up a Mr. Grasz authoring a legal opinion that warned about the grave danger of Nebraska recognizing same-sex marriages.

His detractors note that he served on the board of a socially conservative organization, the Nebraska Family Alliance, that questioned same-sex marriage and promoted discredited gay conversion therapy. Mr. Grasz deflected senators questions about whether he shared the organization's beliefs, though he acknowledged that I've never repudiated any of its views.

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Republican senators brushed off the ABAs skepticism, which Nebraska senator Deb Fischer called baseless political character association. Her colleague, Ben Sasse, argued that a judges are adept at discarding their political beliefs when they issue rulings.

If Steve wanted to advance a policy agenda, Im confident he would have run for office, Mr Sasse said.

Some argued that the ABA itself was biased. Mr Whitehouse sought to rebut that point, noting that the organization had deemed qualified 40 of Mr Trumps 42 judicial nominees so far.

It would be hard for the committee to ascribe the outcome in this case to a general partisanship of the ABA process, Mr Whitehouse said.
President Trump made up for lost time by launching into a massive tweetstorm Friday morning, the day after his account was temporarily deactivated by what Twitter says was an outgoing customer support worker.

The president boasted that his influence on social media was significant enough that a rogue Twitter employee wanted to silence him.

My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee. I guess the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

On Thursday night, Twitter announced through its Twitter Government account, which provides updates on governments and elections, that Trumps account had been inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee for 11 minutes, and had since been restored. The online news service said it would continue investigating the incident and would take steps to make sure it does not happen again.

Twitter then announced that the employee responsible for taking down the account was on his or her last day with the company  suggesting that the action was not inadvertent. Twitter said it is conducting a full internal review of the incident.

Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employees last day. We are conducting a full internal review. https://t.co/mlarOgiaRF  Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017

After chiming in on the Twitter account controversy, Trump fired off a series of tweets about former interim Democratic National Committee chair Donna Braziles claim that Hillary Clinton rigged the Democratic primary against Bernie Sanders. The president railed against the Justice Department for not investigating Clinton, his former political foe, days after special counsel Robert Mueller charged three former Trump campaign aides with various crimes.

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Trump also vowed revenge against the so-called Islamic State after the group claimed credit for the Manhattan vehicle attack earlier this week. In his tweets, Trump called the suspect a Degenerate Animal.

Though Trumps Twitter feed is back online, its temporarily deactivation might be a cause for concern about the security of the presidents account, which he uses to announce policies, attack opponents and influence supporters.

When reached for comment Friday morning, Emily Horne, the head of global policy communications at Twitter, told Yahoo News, We wont have anything beyond the tweets we issued last night.

Twitter Government released the following update that afternoon:

Update: We have implemented safeguards to prevent this from happening again. We wont be able to share all details about our internal investigation or updates to our security measures, but we take this seriously and our teams are on it. https://t.co/8EfEzHvB7p  Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017

As expected, the online reaction was split between liberals who joked about how much they appreciated the employees action and conservatives who argued that their joy demonstrates a disregard for freedom of speech among the left.

In the past, Twitter has removed accounts of high-profile conservatives with ties to Trump, such as right-wing provocateurs Milo Yiannopoulos and Roger Stone, for violating its terms of service. But it does not appear to be common for one employee to single-handedly disable a famous persons account without the companys input.

Twitter was criticized in September for deciding not to deactivate Trumps account after he published a tweet that many interpreted as a violent threat against the people of North Korea. The company responded that it holds all accounts to the same standards but that it also takes into consideration whether a particular tweet is newsworthy or of public interest.

Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2017

Read more from Yahoo News:
President Donald Trumps upcoming trip to Asia will provide him with an opportunity to outline his emerging strategic approach to the region. The most important task is to reestablish U.S. power and purpose after a series of setbacks  which occurred in spite of former President Barack Obamas pivot to Asia  including significant gains by China in its attempts to control the South China Sea and get Southeast Asia to align with Beijing. The fundamental geopolitical trend is that U.S. competition with China is intensifying.

No objective of the trip is more important than signaling that the United States takes this geopolitical rivalry seriously.

Japan

The Trump administration has come to understand that there is no more important ally in the world than Japan, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has played a major role in strengthening ties and developing a good rapport with Trump. It is no secret that Japan had been frustrated with U.S. weakness toward Chinas aggressiveness in the East China Sea and South China Sea, and with the policy of strategic patience toward North Korea as it accelerated its nuclear capabilities. Japan would welcome a more assertive policy and is key to success on all the issues mentioned below. But Trump and Abe have much to discuss to keep the two allies in concert as they work through longer-term strategic issues.

While no one wants to go war on the Korean Peninsula, the two sides need close coordination, should North Korean leader Kim Jong Un decide to use force. Critically, Abe and Trump must explore strategic end states on the peninsula, including the role China might play, and what strategic tradeoffs might be necessary to denuclearize the peninsula.

North Korea

Trump has a chance to articulate to Asian allies his course on North Korea. His administration conducted a policy review that ended in a declared policy of maximum pressure and engagement. The administration is certainly ratcheting up the pressure on North Korea and its Chinese patron. The United States has secured tough U.N. Security Council resolutions that have led to tougher sanctions, which were partly the result of the United States instilling fear in China over the risks Washington appeared to be ready to take to ensure denuclearization. The increase in military cooperation and exercises with South Korea and Japan have bolstered deterrence and warned Beijing about what these alliances are capable of, should North Korea continue on its current course. But the United States has left its partners somewhat perplexed about what engagement means in this context, and how it can rule out regime change if all options are indeed on the table.

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Trump will have an important platform to address these issues with a speech at the South Korean National Assembly. He should reassure allies of Americas intent to protect them and lay out a vision for the peninsulas future.

China

Trump is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who  in the manner of a contemporary Mao Zedong  has consolidated his power and empire, which now includes territory from inside India to the South and East China Seas.

Trump should be equipped with the knowledge that the Communist Party of China regards the United States as a geopolitical rival standing in the way of Xis program of national rejuvenation. Chinese officials will fete Trump and tell him that Chinese and American interests align. But every aspect of the trip, from the Chinese perspective, will be arranged to demonstrate that the U.S. leader is coming as a supplicant to China after Xis great political triumph within his party. Xis propaganda and political warfare organs will be working overtime to convey to the region that Trump is there to pay his respects to the Chinese imperium.

Besides atmospherics, the only real business that the two men have to discuss is North Korea. Trump should disregard the idea that China is there to help. Rather, the question is whether the two countries have scope for diplomacy over how best to achieve the reunification of the Korean Peninsula without Kim. This type of diplomacy can only occur once China genuinely feels that North Korea is a liability, with economic and military costs for Beijing. Trumps goal in China should be to demonstrate to Xi how serious the United States is about removing the North Korea threat.

Southeast Asia

Trumps visits to Vietnam and the Philippines may be the most critical stops on the trip. It may be too late to reverse Chinas gains through island building and militarization of the South China Sea, but it is not too late to build support for a coalition that checks Chinas ultimate hegemonic ambitions.

The administration has been rolling out a new Indo-Pacific grand strategy in line with what Abe has been articulating for several years. The concept is built around a strategic triangle between Japan, India, and the United states as a counter to Chinas military and economic strategies. It is likely that Australia will also want to be part of this arrangement, as the four countries will be meeting to resurrect a quad of the major democratic maritime powers at the East Asia Summit on Nov. 13 and 14.

All the relevant countries will also gather for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings in Vietnam. The Trump administration should probe its Southeast Asian partners on their willingness to participate in an arrangement that knits together the allies and partners. This will be no easy task given longstanding questions about U.S. staying power and enormous pressure from China to forego any type of coalition. Further, the Trump administration has not yet articulated an economic and trade agenda around which these countries can coalesce after Americas bipartisan failure to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The meeting in the Philippines with President Rodrigo Duterte will begin to reveal whether the allies can repair relations hurt by U.S. passivity toward Chinese encroachments on Scarborough Shoal and relative silence after Manila won handily its case against Chinas maritime claims in international arbitration. These failures, which left the Philippines feeling abandoned, as well as Dutertes heated anti-American rhetoric, have put the alliance in a tailspin. Washington has made its way back into Manilas good graces by supporting its fight against Islamic State-allied militants. It will be up to Trump to build back relations with Duterte and explore how much further security cooperation can be expanded.

Military funding

All of this is set to take place even as a U.S. strategy-resource gap is reaching crisis proportions. The mass cutting of the military budget over the past eight years and the even longer procurement and modernization holiday mean that the military is asked to do more and more with less and less. No amount of summitry can paper over that stark reality. Ultimately, it is up to the U.S. Congress and the president to fix a broken system at home  that is the only way to provide Asian allies with reassurance about U.S. staying power.

* * *

The planned presidential trip is long and substantial. Success will be conditioned on how well Trump reassures Japan and South Korea about the U.S. strategy for North Korea, and if Trump puts flesh on the bones of the free Indo-Pacific strategy  an approach that will require the building of a liberal, free-market order with open maritime commons from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea, undergirded by the reassertion of American power.

This would require a more consistent and robust presence, a trade and free-market agenda, and the networking of allies and partners within this critical maritime zone. All of this is too much to accomplish in one trip. But the administration should begin to articulate its preferred approach and explore among allies and partners the appetite to participate.
By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will tell leaders on a five-nation Asia tour that the world is "running out of time" on North Korea's nuclear crisis and that he will give his strategy to isolate Pyongyang a few months before making adjustments, a top Trump aide said on Thursday. Trump leaves on Friday for Hawaii, the first stop en route to Asia where he will visit Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. It will be the longest Asia tour by an American president in more than 25 years. His goal will be to increase international support for an effort to deprive North Korea of resources as leverage to coerce it to give up nuclear weapons. "The president recognizes that we're running out of time (to deal with North Korea) and will ask all nations to do more," White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters at a briefing. South Koreas spy agency told lawmakers on Thursday that North Korea may be planning a new missile test, after brisk activity was spotted at its research facilities. [L4N1N83MN] At the same time, the U.S. military is keeping a close eye on North Korea. Two Guam-based U.S. B-1B bombers, accompanied by fighter jets from South Korea and Japan, carried out an exercise in the vicinity of the Korean peninsula on Thursday, the U.S. Air Force said. "The bilateral continuous bomber presence mission was planned in advance ... and was not in response to any current event," the Air Force said in a statement. McMaster said Trump would urge countries with the most influence over Pyongyang to "convince its leaders that the pursuit of nuclear weapons is a dead end" and that it must denuclearize. "And he will remind friend and foe alike that the United States stands ready to defend itself and our allies using the full range of our capabilities," said McMaster. Perhaps Trump's most critical stop will be in China, where he will ask Chinese President Xi Jinping to do more to rein in North Korea. Senior U.S. officials say China considers North Korea a strategic asset and is reluctant to cut off resources to Pyongyang for fear of triggering a refugee wave. McMaster said Trump, who has approved a variety of sanctions against North Korea while pressing China to do more, is at the beginning of his drive for Pyongyang to give up nuclear weapons. Trump has warned he would "totally destroy" North Korea if it threatened the United States. "I think we have to be a little patient here for at least a few months to see what more we and others can do, including China," said McMaster. "I don't think we need to reassess our strategy now. I think we have to give it a couple of months, a few months, and then see what adjustments we might need to make." Trump is expected to press Xi to reduce oil exports to North Korea and coal imports from Pyongyang and limit financial transactions. The Chinese leader is newly ascendant after consolidating power at a Communist Party congress. (Reporting by Steve Holland and David Alexander; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Cynthia Osterman)
President Donald Trump will depart on his longest overseas trip yet on Friday, embarking on a 12-day visit to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines following a brief stop in Hawaii. Instead of appeasing the Asian allies he was slated to visit, or previewing the discussions he planned to have, he shot Japan a warning about the North Korean nuclear threat.

Of course theyre worried, he told Fox News Laura Ingraham on Thursday when she prodded him about Japan, which is located only about 650 miles from the rogue regime. They should be worried. You know, theyre very close to North Korea.

Japan is a U.S. ally and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is a very good friend of his, Trump continued. Its a warrior nation, he warned, and I tell everyone else that, listen, youre going to have yourself a big problem with Japan pretty soon if you allow this to continue with North Korea.

Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, and U.S. President Donald Trump talked during the United Nations General Assembly in New York City in September. They will see each other again during Trump's trip to Asia. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

He then struck a more positive tone, praising the close relationship hes developed with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has been, per Trump, pretty terrific.

The Trump administration has taken an unprecedented tack on dealing with the North Korean nuclear threat, demanding that China share the burden and leverage its influence over the rogue nation. Trumps hopeful, he said, that the issue can be solved.

I think a lot of good things are going to happen. I think its a very important trip. I think this is one of the more important trips that a president has made.

Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes trump's hand during a dinner at the start of a summit at the president's Mar-a-Lago estate in April. (Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters)

The administration plans to ask other Asian allies to do more during the trip, national security adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters Thursday.

Trump has repeatedly threatened a military response if North Koreas nuclear prowess continues to grow, going as far in a September speech as claiming he would totally destroy the country. The president also signed an executive order expanding sanctions that same month.

Trump will remind friend and foe alike that the United States stands ready to defend itself and our allies using the full range of our capabilities, McMaster said.

Story continues

But he did note the administration is willing to be a little patient here for at least a few months to see what more we and others can do.

How much the Chinese are prepared to do on Trumps behalf is up for debate. While China  one of North Koreas few allies and trade partners  has imposed United Nations Security Council sanctions, it has also asked Trump to cool it with the inflammatory rhetoric and urged a diplomatic approach instead.

No president has spent this much time in Asia on one trip since President George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s, Reuters said.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
A tweet is displayed at The Daily Show-produced 'Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library' (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images): Getty Images

The ex-Twitter employee who deactivated Donald Trumps account should not say anything and get a lawyer, a prominent cybersecurity lawyer has said.

For 11 minutes on Thursday, Mr Trump was prevented from re-tweeting Fox & Friends videos or attacking Democrats on the social media platform after a Twitter customer support employee, on their last day at the company, intentionally cut off service to the President's account.

But while many applauded the ex-employees action, there is a reasonable chance the person could have violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act  the primary law used to prosecute hackers, Tor Ekeland told the newspaper The Hill.

The legislation states that unauthorised use of a protected computer system is against the law. But the definition of protected is very broad and in practice could refer to any computer, The Hill reported.

If this happened in California, where Twitter is headquartered if they were no longer an employee at the time  particularly if their employment had been terminated  or if they had not been authorised to suspend or delete accounts, they could have broken the law, Mr Ekeland said.

However, the facts of the case are still murky and the law is widely considered to be a mess, he added.

The statute has been unevenly applied, Mr Ekeland noted, and various courts around the country have come up with seemingly contradictory rulings on what unauthorised access actually means.

An employee who was tasked with monitoring accounts and given the ability to suspend them would have a good case that no law was broken, Mr Ekeland said. But an employee whose time at the company had technically ended could have the hardest time defending their conduct in a court of law.

The employee could be in a lot of trouble. This was not just unauthorized access, but damage, said Mr Ekeland, telling The Hill that causing $5,000 worth of damage could result in a 10-year prison sentence.

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Since Mr Trumps tweets generate a large amount of traffic for Twitters business, it could be fairly easy to prove that shutting off the President's account caused damage to the company.

According to the New York Times, the person responsible was not a full-time employee but a third-party contractor.

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On the eve of his inaugural trip to Asia, Donald Trump is a president divided. Theres the populist, wild-tweeting Trump, who started his presidency by pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and worrying Pacific allies that Trumps America was going solo to protect her interests.

But there is also a far more traditional Trump, whose actual policies have embraced the approach presidents have taken since Nixon visited China, to build international structures to benefit the American strategic interest.

Weve got two very different efforts underway, says Elizabeth Economy, director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Those two visions need to be integrated in order for the region to understand what they can expect from the United States.

Theres a lot at stake. Trump will visit Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines over the course of ten days. The trip comes as North Korea continues to test its nuclear capabilities, as Chinas economic and military might in the region continues to grow, and as nations are developing economic partnerships, with or without the U.S. The White House hopes to shore up U.S. alliances and promote a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

Much hangs on how Trump reconciles the two competing visions while abroad. The question is, says former longtime diplomat Daniel Fried, who coordinated U.S. sanctions policy during Obamas second term, Can Trump in Asia find the right balance between pressure on North Korea and indirect pressure on the Chinese without blowing it all up by being so bellicose that he loses the political credibility he needs to carry this out?

Tweets aside, much of Trumps actual policy on North Korea doubles down on traditional U.S. strategy. Trumps response to North Koreas nuclear advances actually looks a lot like Obamas economic pressure campaign. In September, Trump signed a sweeping executive order increasing his Administrations authority to sanction companies that finance trade with North Korea. The spectrum of options didnt change when the occupant of the White House changed, says Daniel Russel, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs during Obamas second term.

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The Trump Administration has also been pushing other countries to end or shrink their diplomatic ties to North Korea. In late 2016, the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a resolution to crack down on North Koreas use of its diplomatic missions to finance its nuclear program. Since Trump took office, more than 20 countries have restricted North Korean diplomatic activities, Susan Thornton testified to the Senate in late September. To this administrations great credit, I think it has pursued what has appeared to be a very dogged and sequential strategy against North Korea, says Brian OToole, a sanctions expert who worked at the U.S. Treasury during both of Obamas terms.

Trump continues to prioritize partnerships with U.S. allies in the region. Trump will arrive in China only after first visiting Japan and South Korea, major partners on North Korea. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may have the strongest relationship with Trump of any foreign leader. He was the first world leader to meet with Trump after he won the election, and they speak regularly.

The U.S. has also pushed back against Chinas island-building in the South China Sea. U.S. Pacific Command continues to patrol the South China Sea to signal freedom of navigation in the waters. Weeks before Trumps trip, the U.S. sent a destroyer near the islands, angering Beijing, as it has done in recent months. But this move was far more routine than the Administrations statements shortly after inauguration, which prompted questions of possible military escalation and war in the sea.

This is part of more complex U.S. strategy to manage Chinas rise. North Korea and the South China Sea both present real strategic challenges for both the U.S. and China, in different ways. Trump needs China to see that a nuclear North Korea is a strategic liability in the region, while managing Chinas concerns that the U.S. is simply trying to contain it. The Chinese play is the critical one, says Fried. China is not the problem, it should be part of the solution.

General H.R. McMaster, Trumps national security advisor, told reporters on Thursday that Trumps trip builds on previous accomplishments. At the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) 50th birthday party in Manila, the president will discuss how to strengthen partnerships across the Indo-Pacific to further efforts against transnational terrorist organizations, McMaster said. This trip is an opportunity to build momentum toward shared prosperity and security.

And yet, Trump continues to interrupt this policy stream with his unpredictable and America first philosophy. The White House announced Trump would end his trip to the Philippines early and only attend opening festivities for the East Asia Summit, an annual gathering of Pacific nations, not the main sessions. Obama was the first U.S. president to attend the summit, and now critics fear the lack of top U.S. engagement in the meetings cedes the power to China. It is regrettable, says Russel. He could talk in one swoop to 17 other leaders.

Trumps transactional approach to policy disagreements also can pose limits. Strategic challenges like North Korea, the South China Sea, and free trade economic principles tend to require sustained engagement that reflects a long-term plan. China has its One Belt One Road Initiative, an ambitious, $5-trillion project to expand its influence across Asia with infrastructure projects and military access. Trading Chinas response to North Korea for trade deal provisions, for example, could be problematic. He would give the advantage to the Chinese, who have mapped out a much longer vision for their own role in the region, says Economy.

Though Trump has supported South Korea on the nuclear threat to its north, he has also attacked the country on trade. Trump has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from the five-year-old U.S. trade agreement with South Korea. Trade may be more aimed at his voters at home than at addressing U.S. security interests abroad. There is a lot of anxiety in South Korea about durability of U.S. commitments, Scott Snyder, director of the U.S.-Korea policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations. That has to be managed.

Trumps own personal diplomacy strategy is often a wildcard. Will he prioritize strongmen, like Chinas Xi Jinping and the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte, over allies like Abe and South Koreas Moon Jae-in? Will he continue to go after Little Rocket Man, as he calls Kim Jong Un, on Twitter? His own Secretary of State trip to China in late September was immediately undercut when Trump tweeted that his own Rex Tillerson was wasting his time negotiating with Kim.

Trump, McMaster says, will continue to go his own way. The president will use whatever language he wants to use obviously, he told reporters of how Trump will discuss North Korea on the trip. I dont think the President really modulates his language, have you noticed him do that?
By Soyoung Kim and Phil Stewart SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. strategic bombers conducted drills over South Korea, the U.S. Air Force said, raising tensions with North Korea just days before President Donald Trump visits the region seeking to shut down Pyongyang's nuclear program. News of the Thursday's drills was first reported by North Korean state news agency KCNA on Friday, which said the exercises involving South Korean and Japanese fighter jets were a "surprise nuclear strike drill". "The reality clearly shows that the gangster-like U.S. imperialists are the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war," KCNA said. Trump arrives in Asia on Sunday, beginning his first trip to the region as president in Japan before heading to South Korea and China, then Vietnam and the Philippines. A series of missile tests by North Korea and its sixth and largest nuclear test, defying U.N. Security Council resolutions, have fueled the most critical international challenge of Trump's presidency. China, under U.S. pressure to do more to rein in its ally, on Friday stressed that it had been enforcing U.N. resolutions and reiterated its opposition to the use of force. "Over the long term, China has made unremitting efforts to appropriately resolve the peninsula nuclear issue and promote dialogue and negotiation between all parties," Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang told reporters at a briefing in Beijing. "You can say we've made our greatest effort." The goal of Trump's visit will be to increase international support for efforts to deprive North Korea of resources as leverage to coerce it to give up nuclear weapons, U.S. officials said. "The president recognizes that we're running out of time (to deal with North Korea) and will ask all nations to do more," White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters at a briefing in Washington. McMaster said Trump, who has approved a variety of sanctions against North Korea while pressing China to do more, was at the beginning of his drive for Pyongyang to give up nuclear weapons. Trump has warned he would "totally destroy" North Korea if it threatened the United States. "I think we have to be a little patient here for at least a few months to see what more we and others can do, including China," said McMaster. "I don't think we need to reassess our strategy now. I think we have to give it a couple of months, a few months, and then see what adjustments we might need to make." SHOW OF FORCE While North Korea has not launched any missiles since Sept. 15, the longest such lull this year, a flurry of activity has been detected at its missile research facilities in Pyongyang, pointing to another possible launch, South Korea's spy agency told lawmakers on Thursday. Seoul held a National Security Council meeting on Friday to discuss possible unilateral sanctions against Pyongyang, and may announce the measures ahead of Trump's arrival in South Korea, a presidential official said. The United States has wanted the South Korean government to take further steps to sanction the North. Unilateral sanctions by South Korea wouldnt have much practical impact but have a symbolic importance, the official said. Ahead of Trump's visit to Asia, the drills involving the U.S. bombers marked the latest show of force by the United States and its allies. The planes flew over the Pilsung Range training area in central South Korea, Air Force spokeswoman Captain Victoria Hight said. Japanese and South Korean fighter jets carried out sequenced missions with the U.S. bombers but no ordnance was dropped, the Air Force said. The drill was staged at a time when three U.S. aircraft carrier groups are in the Asia-Pacific, the first time such a potent projection of force has been together in the region in a decade. U.S. officials said earlier this week a decision may be made for the three carriers to carry out a joint exercise to coincide with Trump's trip. KCNA said the combination of the bomber drills with the presence of the carrier groups underscored the gravity of the situation. "The U.S. imperialists are making last-ditch efforts to check the dynamic advance of the DPRK by deploying their nuclear strategic assets in succession, but its army and people are never frightened at such moves," KCNA reported, referring to North Korea by the initials for its official name. "The U.S. imperialist warmongers should not act rashly." (Reporting by Soyoung Kim in SEOUL and Phil Stewart in WASHINGTON; Additional reporting by Steve Holland in WASHINGTON and Michael Martina in BEIJING; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Vienna (AFP) - The United Nations and Bogota signed a major pact Friday to uproot Colombia's booming cocaine business, as part of peace efforts between the government and drug trade-controlling rebels.

The deal worth $315 million (270 million euros) aims to wean farmers off growing coca -- the raw material for cocaine -- by replacing it with safer crops like coffee and cacao.

The Vienna-based Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said it was one of the most ambitious initiatives to date to free rural communities from the clutches of drug dealers.

Colombia is ranked by the United Nations as the world's biggest producer of coca.

Its growing area rose by a staggering 52 percent to 146,000 hectares (361,000 acres) last year.

"This historical agreement is a unique opportunity to turn the tide against Colombia's coca cultivation and help farmers embrace alternative development," UNODC head Yury Fedotov said in a statement.

Colombia's special post-conflict envoy Rafael Pardo Rueda hailed the project as "fundamental" for the implementation of a historic peace deal sealed in June between Bogota and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

- 'Not an easy task' -

For decades the drug trade funded the FARC, the country's largest rebel group, which controlled key regions where coca leaf and cocaine production flourished.

The organisation was formed in 1964 to fight for land rights and to protect rural communities.

The conflict drew in leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary groups and state forces and has left 260,000 people dead, more than 60,000 missing and seven million displaced.

But after lengthy negotiations, the FARC this summer agreed to disarm and help weed out coca by persuading farmers to switch to other forms of agriculture.

In exchange, the UN established a new mission in Colombia in July to help thousands of former FARC combatants return to mainstream society.

However progress has been slow as ex-rebels struggle to reintegrate, leaving them tempted to join other dissident groups, keep their weapons, and traffic drugs.

Story continues

As a result, many villagers still face threats from armed dissidents to keep growing coca.

"Reduction of coca crop area is not an easy task in terms of administrative or logistical procedures, but it's also not an easy task in terms of it being a reduction of an illegal rent to an illegal group," Rueda, who is also Colombia's labour minister, told AFP.

In addition, eradication teams have to navigate around numerous landmines planted to protect the coca plantations.

But Bogota is hopeful that the UN-backed initiative will blow a hole in the drug trade by offering Colombia's 120,000 coca-growing families incentives to go legal.

Farmers earn around $300 a month per hectare of coca but need to give a big cut to the dealers, Rueda said.

Colombia is now offering them the same amount, which they get to keep in full.

The goal is to get rid of 100,000 hectares by next year -- half by forced eradication and half by the voluntary substitution programme.

burs-nla/txw
Two B-1B planes took part in simulated attacks, North Korea says

HR McMaster says North could be named as sponsor of terrorism

A US air force B-1B bomber flies near the Seoul airport earlier this month. Two Guam-based B-1Bs took part in a joint exercise in South Korea, the US air force said on Thursday. Photograph: Park Dong-ju/AP

Two American B-1B bombers flew through South Korean airspace and over the countrys Pilsung Range on the latest exercise there, the US air force said on Thursday.

North Koreas official KCNA news agency claimed that the planes carried out bombing drills simulating attacks on major targets in the country. Although the bombers are no longer part of the US nuclear force, they can be loaded with large numbers of conventional weapons.



But the US air force said: The bilateral continuous bomber presence (CBP) mission was planned in advance  and was not in response to any current event.

Japanese and South Korean fighter jets carried out a sequenced mission with the Guam-based US bombers on the eve of Donald Trumps 12-day trip to Asia, during which North Koreas nuclear and missile weapons threat will top the agenda.

On Thursday HR McMaster, the presidents national security adviser, said North Korea could be returned to the list of countries the US believes sponsor terrorism.



Youll hear more about that soon, I think, McMaster told reporters at a press briefing ahead of Trumps five-country tour that includes meetings with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

McMaster cited the killing in a Malaysian airport earlier this year of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of North Koreas leader Kim Jong-un as an act of terrorism that could lead to the North being returned to a list that currently includes only Iran, Sudan and Syria.

Kim Jong-nam died in February after two women rubbed his face with a liquid later identified as VX nerve agent as he passed through the airport in Kuala Lumpur.

A regime who murders someone in a public airport using nerve agent, and a despotic leader who murders his brother in that manner, I mean, thats clearly an act of terrorism that fits in with a range of other actions, the national security adviser said.

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Returning North Korea to the list of state sponsors of terrorism is something thats under consideration, he added.

The US kept North Korea on its terrorism blacklist for two decades after the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner that killed 115 people. But President George W Bush  who once included the country in his axis of evil along with Iran and Iraq  lifted the designation in 2008 to smooth the way for aid-for-disarmament negotiations.

Under legislation enacted on 2 August, the state department is required to determine within 90 days, or around Thursday, whether North Korea meets the criteria for being designated as a state sponsor of terrorism  a largely symbolic move.



Tensions between the countries continue to escalate. In a recent speech at the United Nations, Trump said he would totally destroy North Korea if necessary and derided Kim as little Rocket Man.

McMaster said the president would not alter his tone against North Korea while on tour and claimed his strong rhetoric has been reassuring to allies.

I dont think the president really modulates his language. Have you noticed him do that? I mean, hes been very clear about it. Ive been aware of the discussions about, Hey, is this inflammatory? And whats inflammatory is the North Korean regime and what theyre doing to threaten the world.

McMaster said a denuclearised Korean peninsula is the only plausible outcome and he called on others, including China  North Koreas biggest benefactor in the region  to step up their efforts. The president recognises that were running out of time and will ask all nations to do more.
Beijing (AFP) - Beijing on Friday hit back at a US decision to exclude a Chinese bank from the American financial system over its alleged ties to North Korea, slamming the move as "long-armed jurisdiction".

Washington had alerted other businesses in June that it planned to take the action, but it finally went into effect on Thursday, just as President Donald Trump was to set off on an Asian tour.

China "strongly opposes the long-armed jurisdiction imposed by any country," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular press briefing.

China has been "comprehensively, actively, meticulously and strictly" implementing UN sanctions, she added.

Trump has demanded that Beijing do more to push its neighbour North Korea to stop efforts to build a nuclear-armed missile capable of reaching American cities.

He will bring this message to President Xi Jinping in Beijing next week, but China is reluctant to push too hard and risk destabilising Kim Jong-Un's North Korean regime.

Officials in Washington warn that, while they would prefer Kim to come to the table, Trump has not ruled out a pre-emptive strike to prevent him from crossing the missile threshold.

But, alongside this sabre-rattling, Washington is also slowly stepping up secondary sanctions on foreign institutions like the Bank of Dandong which it accuses of funnelling illicit funds.

This risks angering China, but hawkish commentators argue that it remains the only way short of war to force Pyongyang, and perhaps more importantly Beijing, to reconsider its strategy.

"Banks and businesses worldwide should take note that they must be vigilant against attempts by North Korea to conduct illicit financing and trade," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said.

Along with the ban on Bank of Dandong, the Treasury also issued new guidance to international banks' risk and compliance officers to help them spot North Korean attempts to infiltrate world finance.

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Banks from China and around the world find it hard to operate if they are barred from the US financial system, which is a clearing house for most dollar-denominated transactions.

In addition to the financial measures, Washington may also decide to re-designate North Korea as a "state sponsor of terrorism" -- a formal blacklist that would add to sanctions pressure.

- Warmbier death -

Yet the Trump administration does not seem to be in a hurry, despite the president's anger over the death of US student Otto Warmbier after he was imprisoned during a visit to the North.

Warmbier died in June this year, just days after he was released from custody and sent home in a mysterious coma.

His parents said their son showed signs of torture, including teeth that appeared to have been "rearranged," and hands and feet that were disfigured. Trump then accused the North Korean regime of torturing the 22-year-old.

But the US coroner Lakshmi Sammarco, who examined Warmbier's body after his death, said there was no clear evidence of physical torture -- including no recently broken bones or damaged teeth.

On August 2, Trump reluctantly enacted a law that was forced on him by the US Congress pressing for new economic and political sanctions against Iran, Russia and North Korea.

One clause of that act required the US State Department to state within 90 days whether North Korea should be named a terror sponsor -- a deadline lawmakers say expired on Tuesday.

The State Department said it had calculated the deadline differently and was working toward a Thursday announcement, but as office hours came to an end there was no news.

Congressman Ted Poe, chairman of the House subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, was unimpressed and followed up with the State Department to ask about the delay.

"To me, the very law is clear. The designation should have occurred by October 31," he said.

Earlier, at the White House, National Security Adviser HR McMaster had said the designation was still an option that is "under consideration" and that news would come "soon."

He cited the murder of the North Korean leader's half-brother Kim Jong-Nam, who was attacked in February with VX nerve agent at a Malaysian airport, as one reason the regime might be deemed terrorist.
Republican candidate for governor of Virginia Ed Gillespie. (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

ARLINGTON, Va.  As a few hundred Democrats waited for New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker to arrive at their rally here for Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam on Wednesday night, organizers brought speaker after speaker to the front to fill time.

The unscripted comments from some provided a window into what Democrats are really thinking less than a week before voters choose the states next governor.

While I feel good about everything we have collectively done to this point, Im not comfortable, and neither can you be, said Christian Dorsey, a member of the Arlington County board.

Dorsey later told Yahoo News that he is concerned about a lack of enthusiasm for Northam, the Democratic nominee for governor, who has been put on the defensive in recent days and weeks by Republican Ed Gillespies aggressive and unabashed appeal to cultural hot-button issues that connect with conservative voters loyal to President Trump.

It appears that the Gillespie campaign is trying to make this more of a cultural battle, and Im seeing that thats not disqualifying him. Hes seeming to get a little bit of momentum there, Dorsey said. And the enthusiasm that Id love to see for Northam  is just not there at the level that I want to see.

He clarified that the enthusiasm gap was most pronounced among racial minorities, and expressed disappointment that Latinos didnt seem outraged by an anti-gang ad from Gillespie and that black voters didnt seem motivated by the presence of an African-American candidate, Justin Fairfax, as Northams running mate.

I actually thought that the MS-13 garbage that the Gillespie campaign is doing would have really activated the Latino community. It hasnt. I thought that Justin Fairfax would serve to really get the African-American community to take a good look at Ralph Northam. That hasnt really happened the way I would have expected, Dorsey said.

As Dorsey spoke, the Gillespie campaign was aggressively pushing a statement to reporters over email about comments by Northam earlier in the day on sanctuary cities. Virginia does not actually have any localities that refuse to enforce immigration law, but Gillespie has run TV ads which accuse Northam of voting to let dangerous illegal immigrants back on the street.

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The ad is misleading at best. Northam did cast a vote in the state senate against a Republican bill that would have prohibited sanctuary cities, which offer protection to undocumented aliens, and he boasted of it when he was chasing liberal votes in the Democratic primary. But Virginia doesnt actually have any sanctuary cities, so the issue is basically moot. As lieutenant governor, Northam only got to cast a vote in the event of a tie; Republicans, who had a narrow majority in the chamber, played political games with the vote on the floor, as the Virginian-Pilot put it, by engineering a tie to force him to take a stand. The bill subsequently passed on a second vote but was vetoed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe and never became law.

Now Northam has changed his position; on Wednesday he said that he would sign such a bill banning sanctuary cities if he were elected. If that bill comes to my desk  I sure will, Northam told a Norfolk TV station. Ive always been opposed to sanctuary cities. Northams campaign says he voted the way he did because he has opposed preemptive bans.

Its not the only issue on which Northam has moved to the center after initially taking a more liberal position. After the Charlottesville terrorist attack by a white supremacist in August that killed a 32-year-old woman, Northam said he believed most or all Confederate statues should be moved to museums and away from public spaces of honor.

But polling showed majorities of Virginians view moving the statues to museums as erasing history, which they oppose. McAuliffe softened his stance on the issue. The Republican Party of Virginia used its official Twitter account to say that Northam, whose ancestors owned slaves, had turned his back on his own familys heritage. And Northam has gone back to emphasizing local autonomy over the monuments, noting that its still his personal position that they should be moved.

Its a jarring turn of events in a state that has voted for the Democratic nominee for president the last three election cycles. Many thought the commonwealth would be a sure bet to elect a Democrat this fall to signal its disapproval of the Trump presidency.

But that expectation from national observers overlooked the fact that when Virginia elects governors, the pool of voters is much smaller than it is during a presidential year. (New Jersey is the only other state holding statewide elections for governor and other offices next week.) There is much less awareness of this race. And Democratic-leaning voters turn out in smaller numbers in nonpresidential cycles.

Virginias Democratic candidate for governor Ralph Northam. (Photo: Salwan Georges/Washington Post via Getty Images)

Northams campaign believes he will have the edge if turnout matches the 2013 results, when 2.2 million Virginians went to the polls and gave McAuliffe a narrow victory over right-wing firebrand Ken Cuccinelli. But that was a record-high turnout for the state, and many Democrats are nervous it wont be replicated.

In Northams favor, Democrats shattered turnout records for the primary in June. A total of 540,000 people voted in the Democratic primary, a huge increase from 319,000 in the last contested primary, in 2009.

Northam spokesman David Turner rejected the criticism that Northams soft-spoken, low-key style was failing to win voters over. People said that in the primary too and we won by 12, Turner said.

Still, whats noteworthy is that even if Gillespie has run racially charged TV ads to win over Trump voters in a way that is reminiscent of how Jimmy Carter appealed to George Wallace voters in Georgia half a century ago, he has a message, and he has seized the initiative in the closing weeks of the race.

Northam, meanwhile, has relied mostly on a biographical appeal and an expectation that simply opposing Trump will be sufficient.

The fundamental contrast on a personal level between the two of them is very important and plays very much to Ralphs advantage, said Northam pollster Geoff Garin back in mid-September. The fact that Ralph is both  an army doctor and a pediatric neurologist who was volunteer director of a childrens hospice is very compelling and compares exceedingly well to somebody whos background is as a Washington, D.C., corporate lobbyist.

But Democratic activist Brendan Lilly wrote a week after that debate that the Virginia race was an impending disaster.

The Hey, Im a doctor and a nice guy message is weak at best, and being completely drowned out by a wave of Gillespie media buys that effectively attack Northams credibility and experience, Lilly wrote. It appears Northam campaign is basically borrowing a page from Hillary in the blandness of narrative.  Unfortunately, Gillespie is three steps ahead [with] attack ads that effectively knock down the core of Northams outreach.

Gillespie began running negative ads against Northam before the Sept. 20 debate in northern Virginia, but they were only a preview of what was to come. And in that debate, Gillespie and Northam conducted a high-minded, civil exchange with few personal barbs or sparks. The debate created a widespread perception that the race was a ho-hum, sleepy affair that provided cover for Gillespies next move.

The next day, Gillespies campaign quietly began running a different ad blaming Northam for creating the non-existent sanctuary cities. This ad, and another released a week later, turned up the fright factor by a big margin. One showed a photo  taken inside a prison in El Salvador  of heavily tattooed gang members with the words, Kill, Rape, Control flashing on the screen in big letters.

In early October, Gillespie released two other TV ads that dispensed with any pretense of nuance on Confederate monuments  he had acknowledged in debates that Virginia was often on the wrong side of history  and simply stated that he wanted the monuments to stay up and Northam wanted them down.

In response to Gillespies MS-13 ads, and because Democrats are concerned that Northam was not resonating with Latino voters, an outside group called the Latino Victory Fund released an online ad Monday that portrayed a white man driving a pickup truck with a Gillespie sticker on it, flying the Confederate flag, and chasing a group of Latino children through the streets of a suburban neighborhood. The ad showed the children waking up from a bad dream at the end.

LVF President Cristobal Alex said in an email that the ad portrayed the real-life concerns of communities of color in an increasingly hostile political and social environment.

We wanted to send the message that, by refusing to disavow white supremacists and racist symbols, Gillespie made his campaign a haven for hate, Alex said.

Republicans cried foul, howling that the ad had branded at least half of [Virginia]s population bigots.

The Washington Post editorial board, which has slammed Gillespies TV ads as poisonous and imitating President Trumps brand of divisive, scaremongering politics, also denounced the LVF ad.

The LVF has said that Gillespie has embraced racism and xenophobia. But when I asked them if they intended their ad to communicate that all Gillespie supporters are racists and bigots, they responded with two words: Definitely not.

GOP gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie speaks at a campaign event in Tysons, Va, Oct. 26, 2017. (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

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The post-independence referendum reality doesnt look bright for Iraqi Kurds, and an ongoing military showdown with Baghdad over control of a key border crossing underscores how fragile Irbils hold on autonomy really is.

On Wednesday, negotiations reportedly broke down between Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi forces facing off over the Fishkhabour border crossing with Turkey and Syria. Both sides are now back to square one, according to reports.

This comes days after the United States had nudged Kurdish and Iraqi forces to reach an apparent agreement to share control over the critical border crossing  a vital gateway to Turkey and a chokepoint for Iraqi Kurdistans crude oil exports.

The Iraqi advance all the way north to Fishkhabour marks an escalation in Baghdads pushback against the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Fishkhabour is in clearly undisputed Kurdish territories  unlike the disputed city of Kirkuk, retaken from Kurds by Iraqi federal forces in mid-October. More importantly, Iraqi control of the border crossing and the oil pipeline there represents a serious threat to Kurdish autonomy. Without the billions of dollars generated by exporting oil through that pipeline, the region in northern Iraq could never stand on its own.

Going forward, Baghdad is trying to erode the military and economic pillars of Kurdish autonomy, said Ben Van Heuvelen, the editor in chief of Iraq Oil Report. Given the new realities on the ground, the [KRG] doesnt have the luxury of ignoring Baghdad anymore.

Oil was meant to set Irbil free. After years of clashing with Baghdad over revenue sharing from the countrys crude exports, officials in landlocked Kurdistan finally got substantial access to the sea with the completion in 2014 of a crude oil pipeline snaking through Kurdish territory to the Turkish border. That allowed the Kurdish government to export as much as 600,000 barrels of crude per day to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan  worth billions a year even with cheap oil prices.

Story continues

Baghdad, which under the Iraqi Constitution is meant to export all the nations oil and then divvy up the proceeds, couldnt physically stop the Kurdish exports  especially because Irbil had the support of Turkey.

The Kurdish pipeline connects to the ITP [Iraq-Turkey pipeline] downstream of the federal governments metering station, a former manager with an oil field services company active in the Kurdistan region told Foreign Policy  essentially bypassing central government oversight. The Iraqis couldnt go in and say how much the Kurds could and could not export.

But with the renewed prospect of central government control over Fishkhabour and all the oil infrastructure there, Baghdad has regained the ability to shut down exports from Kurdish fields in the north. That will give the government significant leverage in future budget negotiations and might allow it to force the KRG back into a new revenue-sharing agreement.

If the federal government controls Fishkhabour and has the ability to turn off the pipeline at its discretion, the KRG actually has to work with Baghdad on the budget, Heuvelen said.

Control over Fishkhabour also gives the Iraqi government insurance against a downturn in its relations with Turkey, which has facilitated the export and payment of Kurdish crude to global markets.

The Iraqi government knows that if at some point in the future [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan changes his mind and turns against Baghdad, [as long as the Kurds control Fishkhabour] Turkey can go back to an independent energy relationship with the Kurds, said Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Despite the potential leverage, there are big political and financial reasons why Baghdad would be hesitant to completely cut off Kurdish oil exports at Fishkhabour.

The KRG has racked up debts to international oil companies operating in its region; if exports and revenues dry up because of Baghdad, its unclear if that would create any legal liability for the Iraqi government.

More to the point, cutting off Kurdish exports entirely would destroy the Kurdish regions economy, already reeling from relatively low oil prices and a huge budget drain that came from accepting displaced people and refugees during the battle against the Islamic State. Since the Islamic State went on a rampage across northern Iraq beginning in 2014, Irbil has struggled to maintain services, pay civil servants, and care for refugees. Cutting off oil exports would make that worse.

One of the pillars of [Iraqi Prime Minister] Haider al-Abadis rhetoric has been that hes acting against an irresponsible and corrupt KRG leadership  but on behalf of the Kurdish citizens of Iraq, Heuvelen said.

If he does something that tanks the Kurdish economy, that talking point becomes hollow, he said.
Zhang Wei, centre, splashed out 7,600 on the world's most expensive whisky shot in the Waldhaus am See hotel in St Moritz, Switzerland - Sandro Bernasconi

When Chinese millionaire, Zhang Wei, splashed out 7,600 on the worlds most expensive whisky shot in a Swiss bar, he boasted to his fans that it was the same age as his great, great grandmother would have been  139 years old.

Unfortunately for the martial arts fantasy writer, the headlines generated not only admiration, but suspicion by experts who doubted the authenticity of the spirits true provenance when they spotted discrepancies in the bottles cork and label.

An analysis from Scottish experts has now confirmed that Mr Zhang was unwittingly duped into buying a fake dram, and the Waldhaus am See hotel in St Moritz has recently flown its manager, Sandro Bernasconi, to China to reimburse him, reported the BBC.

Analysis has shown the whisky was not as advertised Credit: David Cheskin/PA Wire

The whisky had been poured from an unopened bottle labelled as an 1878 Macallan single malt, and Mr Zhangs shot is believed to have been the largest sum ever paid for a poured dram of Scotch. Had the bottle been genuine, it would have been worth 227,000.

When doubts emerged about its provenance, the hotel sent the whisky to specialists in Dunfermline who carried out carbon dating tests that showed it was probably made between 1970 and 1972. Further lab tests revealed it was probably a blended a Scotch and not a single malt.

Mr Bernasconi flew to China to break the bad news to Mr Zhang and to pay him back but he said the author was not angry. He thanked me very much for the hotels honesty, he told the BBC.
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The UN refugee chief told world powers on Thursday they were failing to come up with solutions to a myriad of conflicts causing mass exoduses of people, from Syria to Myanmar.

In an address to the Security Council, Filippo Grandi said close to 66 million people have fled crises worldwide -- up from 42 million in 2009 -- with the wars in Syria and Iraq accounting for a quarter of all refugees.

"The sharp rise in forced displacement reflects weaknesses in international cooperation, and declining capacity to prevent, contain and resolve conflicts," Grandi told the council.

He pointedly asked: "Have we become unable to broker peace?".

The remarks came as Western powers were again locked in a row with Russia over a plan to hold a peace conference to end Syria's six-year war that they say could sideline UN-led talks.

The Security Council also appears deadlocked on how to respond to the refugee crisis in Myanmar after a military campaign forced more than 600,000 Muslim Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh.

Grandi, who became the UN high commissioner for refugees last year, also listed worsening crises in Libya, Mali, Ukraine, Yemen and Africa's Lake Chad Basin.

Fresh violence in Burundi, South Sudan and the Central African Republic have triggered new outflows of refugees, he said.

Grandi said proxy wars were being waged, leaving diplomacy at the wayside, and complained that "the focus is on short-term interests rather than long-term collective stability."

The Security Council has a mandate under the charter to safeguard international peace and security, but its efforts in Syria, Yemen, South Sudan, Libya and other trouble spots have fallen short.

As refugee chief, Grandi said he bore witness to "the direct impact of these failures, every day, on the lives of tens of millions of people" who are hoping for a political solution the conflicts they have fled.

"The uprooted people are counting on your leadership to help deliver those solutions," he told the council.
Chinese President Xi Jinping sends first message to Kim Jong-un in more than a year - Reuters/Getty

Chinese president Xi Jinping has sent North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a rare message "out of politeness," Beijing said on Thursday, in his first public communication with his wayward neighbour for more than a year.

The note signalled a possible improvement in their strained relationship, which has soured over Pyongyang's growing weapons ambitions even though Beijing is its longtime ally and economic benefactor.

Mr Xi's message, dated Wednesday, was sent in response to congratulations from the North Korean leader last week for securing a second term as the head of China's ruling party.

"I wish that under the new situation the Chinese side would make efforts with the DPRK side to promote the relations between the two parties and the two countries to sustainable soundness and stable development," Mr Xi said, according to the North's KCNA news agency, addressing Kim as "Comrade Chairman".

Profile | Xi Jinping

In his earlier note, Kim had offered the Chinese president his "sincere congratulations" and expressed his belief that their relations would develop "in the interests of the people of the two countries".

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular press briefing in Beijing on Thursday that North Korea's message was just one among many others received. Mr Xi had responded "out of politeness," she said.

The last time KCNA reported a message from Mr Xi was in July 2016.

Analysts say that such exchanges have become extremely rare under the current leaders, even though Beijing and Pyongyang traditionally sent greetings and congratulations on each other's key anniversaries in the past.

Their relationship was forged in the bloodshed of the Korean War, when Mao Zedong sent millions of "volunteers" to fight US-led United Nations forces to a standstill.

Mao described the allies as close as "lips and teeth", and China has long been accused of failing to enforce United Nations sanctions against the North for its banned nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes, even after voting for them in the Security Council.

Story continues

North Korea  pictures show life behind the headlines

But Beijing has grown increasingly frustrated by its belligerent neighbour, and rapidly backed a new set of UN measures after a flurry of missile launches by the North and its sixth nuclear test in September.

Professor Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul said the public exchange of messages signalled a willingness on both sides to improve relations.

"The fact that both sides are swiftly trading letters and announcing it carries a symbolic meaning," Yang told AFP.

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Donald Trump's tweet calling for the New York terror attack suspect to be executed could prejudice the trial, legal experts have warned.

The US President called for the death penalty for Sayfullo Saipov, the 29-year-old Uzbek immigrant accused of ploughing a truck down a New York City bike path, killing eight people, describing him as "a terrorist."

Saipov, who was hospitalised after he was shot by a police officer and arrested, told investigators he had been inspired by watching Isis videos and began plotting Tuesday's attack a year ago, according to a criminal complaint filed against him.

He confessed to authorities he made a trial run with a rental truck on 22 October to practice turning the vehicle and "stated that he felt good about what he had done" after the attack, the complaint said.

NYC terrorist was happy as he asked to hang ISIS flag in his hospital room. He killed 8 people, badly injured 12. SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 2, 2017

"NYC terrorist was happy as he asked to hang Isis flag in his hospital room. He killed 8 people, badly injured 12. SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!" Mr Trump tweeted.

Presidents are typically advised to avoid commenting on active legal proceedings, as such comments can be used by defence lawyers to argue their clients cannot get a fair trial, The New York Times reports.

"Mr President, we all know he should get the death penalty. But when *you* say it, it makes it harder for DOJ to make that happen," Andrew C McCarthy, a former assistant US attorney said.

Saipov was charged with one count of providing material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization, specifically Isis, and one count of violence and destruction of motor vehicles causing the deaths of eight people.

Manhattan acting US Attorney Joon Kim said the first count carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, while the second would make Saipov eligible for capital punishment if convicted, if the government chose to seek the death penalty. Additional or different charges could be brought later in an indictment, Mr Kim said.

Story continues

The complaint said Saipov was particularly motivated by seeing a video in which Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis, exhorted Muslims in the United States and elsewhere to support the group's cause.

Investigators found thousands of Isis-related propaganda images and videos on a phone belonging to Saipov, including video clips showing Isis prisoners being beheaded, run over by a tank and shot in the face, the complaint said.

Earlier in the day, Mr Trump said he would be open to transferring Saipov to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where other suspects including alleged 11 September plotters are held.

Mr Kim, the federal prosecutor, said there was nothing about charging Saipov in civilian court that would necessarily prevent him from later being declared an enemy combatant.

Additional reporting by Reuters
The alleged killer in the New York City truck attack says that he was inspired by Isis videos: St Charles County Department of Corrections/KMOV via AP

The alleged New York City attacker has told investigators that he planned on continuing his killing spree, and intended on racking up more victims on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Sayfullo Saipov told law enforcement of his plan after waiving his Miranda rights, according to the FBI, and indicated that he "felt good about what he had done."

The suspect spoke to investigators from his hospital bed, where he is recovering from gunshot wounds he received when a New York Police Department officer shot him near Chambers Street in lower Manhattan.

At least eight people are dead after the attack, in which a pickup truck crashed through people on a bike path that runs alongside the west side of Manhattan. Mr Saipov told investigators that he had chosen to attack on Halloween because he knew that there would be a lot of people on the streets, and that his plan was to kill people on the West Side Highway and then "proceed to the Brooklyn Bridge to strike pedestrians," according to a complaint filed against him.

Gruesome details of Mr Saipov's plans have emerged in the day after the attack, including news that Mr Saipov requested an Isis flag be hung in his hospital room, and that he had numerous videos of violent beheadings on his cell phone.

Just weeks before the Manhattan attack, Mr Saipov had searched "Halloween in NYC" online, and had practised making turns with the rented truck so that he would be familiar with the vehicle.

A neighbour of Mr Saipov, in Peterson, New Jersey, said Wednesday that he had noticed the truck - a white pickup rented from Home Depot - before, and noted that he never saw any construction equipment in the truck bed.

Mr Saipov has been charged with one count of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and one of using a motor vehicle as a weapon. He is currently under guard at a Manhattan hospital.
Harare (AFP) - Zimbabwean police arrested a US citizen on Friday for allegedly tweeting that President Robert Mugabe is a "goblin whose wife and step-son bought a Rolls-Royce," lawyers said.

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) said officers detained Martha O'Donovan in a dawn raid at her home just weeks after Mugabe appointed a cyber security minister charged with policing social media.

Police confiscated her laptop and transferred O'Donovan, who works for Harare-based Magamba TV, to the city's central police station, the group added in its statement.

"The reported offensive and insulting tweet does not make any mention of the president's name," ZLHR said.

However Mugabe's stepson with his wife and first-lady Grace, Russell Goreraza, is thought to have recently imported two Rolls-Royce vehicles into the country, local media reported.

The British-built cars -- both Rolls-Royce Ghosts that sell for around $220,000 (190,000 euros) and have a top speed of 155 miles per hour -- are marketed by the manufacturer as "more measured, more realistic" than the $300,000 Rolls-Royce Phantom.

Grace Mugabe's son is also reported to have purchased two Range Rover 4X4s, two Mercedes-Benz S-Class limousines and an Aston Martin, while Grace herself is also thought to have acquired a Rolls-Royce.

"The US embassy has been in contact with the American who has been arrested and her counsel," an embassy spokesman told AFP. "We will continue to monitor the situation."

Police did not respond to calls for comment.

There have been several arrests in recent years for actions deemed to undermine the president, although no one has been convicted.

Two men were arrested separately on Friday after they allegedly said they would not vote for the ruling ZANU-PF party and comparing Mugabe to a dog.

The new cyber-security ministry is "an attempt to clamp down on social media movements that pose a big threat to his regime ahead of the election," Bulawayo-based analyst Dumisani Mpofu previously told AFP.

Mugabe has already been named by ZANU-PF party as its presidential candidate for the 2018 poll.

Zimbabwe has an unemployment of more than 90 percent and rising levels of poverty.
Iran has no need to increase the range of its ballistic missiles as they could already reach US forces stationed in the region, the head of the Revolutionary Guards said on Tuesday.

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As President Donald Trump seeks to impose new sanctions against Iran's missile program, Major-General Mohammad Ali Jafari said "sanctions would only increase number of Iranian missiles, and their precision."

IRGC Commander Jafari said there was no reason to increase the range of Iran's missiles, as they can already reach US assets in the region (Photo: AP)

certify Tehran's compliance with a deal struck with world powers to curb its nuclear program in return for lifting most international sanctions.

The US House of Representatives voted last week for new sanctions on Iran's ballistic missile program and Trump has urged US allies to join Washington in taking strong action to curb "Iran's continued dangerous and destabilizing behavior", including sanctions targeting its missile development.

"Our missiles' range is 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles), and that can be increased, but we believe this range is enough for the Islamic Republic as most of the US forces and most of their interests in the region are within this range," Jafari was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.

The restriction on the missiles' range came straight from Iran's supreme leader, Jafari said Tuesday.

Islamic Revolutionary Guards Commander Maj.-Gen. Jafari (Photo: AP)

North Korea , which poses a threat to the United States.

Speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Tehran, Jafari told journalists that the capability of Iran's ballistic missiles is "enough for now."

The Guard runs Iran's missile program, answering only to Khamenei.

"Today, the range of our missiles, as the policies of Iran's supreme leader dictate, are limited to 2,000 kilometers, even though we are capable of increasing this range," he said. "Americans, their forces and their interests are situated within a 2,000-kilometer radius around us and we are able to respond to any possible desperate attack by them."

However, Jafari said he didn't believe there would be war between Iran and the US.

Iran showcased a new ballistic missile last month (: EPA)

"They know that if they begin a war between Iran and the United States, they will definitely be the main losers and their victory will by no means be guaranteed," he said. "Therefore, they won't start a war."

By limiting their range, Iran can contrast itself with North Korea, as Pyongyang has tested developmental intercontinental ballistic missiles that could potentially reach the US mainland and conducted its most powerful nuclear test to date. Pyongyang also flew two powerful new midrange missiles over Japan, between threats to fire the same weapons toward Guam, a US Pacific territory and military hub.

"Americans are trying to impose new sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards for its missile program, but that is an excuse to harm Iran's economy," Jafari said.

Iran has one of the Middle East's largest missile programs and some of its precision-guided missiles have the range to strike Israel.

Iranian President Rouhani and the new missile during a Tehran military parade (Photo: EPA)

The United States says Iran's missile program is a breach of international law because the missiles could carry nuclear warheads in the future.

Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons and says its nuclear program is for civilian uses only.
Two US strategic bombers conducted drills over South Korea on Thursday, the US Air Force said, while North Korea described the drills as practicing a "surprise nuclear strike." The incident comes days before President Donald Trump is to visit the region, in an effort to shut down Pyongyang's nuclear program. The US, for its part, stressed that the drill was planned ahead of time.

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News of the drills was first reported by North Korean state news agency KCNA on Friday, which said the exercises involving South Korean and Japanese fighter jets were a "surprise nuclear strike drill."

"The reality clearly shows that the gangster-like US imperialists are the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war," KCNA said.

US jets take off from Guam and fly near North Korea (Photo: AFP, US Air Force, Steven Schneider)

Trump arrives in Asia on Sunday, beginning his first trip to the region as president in Japan before heading to South Korea and China, then Vietnam and the Philippines.

A series of missile tests by North Korea and its sixth and largest nuclear test have fuelled the most critical international challenge of Trump's presidency.

The goal of Trump's visit will be to increase international support for efforts to deprive North Korea of resources as leverage to coerce it to give up nuclear weapons, US officials said.

"The president recognizes that we're running out of time (to deal with North Koreaed) and will ask all nations to do more," White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters at a briefing in Washington.

US stresses drill was planned ahead of time (Photo: AFP, US Air Force, Peter Reft)

McMaster said Trump, who has approved a variety of sanctions against North Korea while pressing China to do more, is at the beginning of his drive for Pyongyang to give up nuclear weapons. Trump has warned he would "totally destroy" North Korea if it threatened the United States.

"I think we have to be a little patient here for at least a few months to see what more we and others can do, including China," said McMaster. "I don't think we need to reassess our strategy now. I think we have to give it a couple of months, a few months, and then see what adjustments we might need to make."

China's influential state-run tabloid the Global Times said in an editorial on Friday that pressing China will not help solve the Korean peninsula nuclear crisis.

"The complexity of the nuclear crisis means that all sides may have to make some concessions to reach a peaceful solution. China is playing the most difficult role in the process, and is the real hope of peacefully addressing the crisis. Neither side should press China in an extreme way," it said.

Show of force

While North Korea has not launched any missiles since Sept. 15, the longest such lull this year, a flurry of activity has recently been detected at the North's missile research facilities in Pyongyang, pointing to another possible launch, South Korea's spy agency said in a briefing to lawmakers on Thursday.

Seoul held a National Security Council meeting on Friday to discuss possible unilateral sanctions against Pyongyang, and may announce the measures ahead of Trump's arrival in South Korea, a presidential official said.

The United States has wanted the South Korean government to take further steps to sanction the North. Unilateral sanctions by South Korea wouldn't have much practical impact but it has a symbolic importance, the official said.

Ahead of Trump's visit to Asia, the drills involving the nuclear-capable US bombers marked the latest show of force by the United States and its allies.

The bombers flew over the Pilsung Range training area in central South Korea, Air Force spokeswoman Captain Victoria Hight said.

Japanese and South Korean fighter jets carried out sequenced missions with the US bombers but no ordnance was dropped, the Air Force said.

The drill was staged at a time when three US aircraft carrier groups are in the Asia-Pacific, the first time such a potent projection of force has been together in the region in a decade.

US officials said earlier this week a decision may be made for the three carriers to carry out a joint exercise to coincide with Trump's trip.

KCNA said the combination of the bomber drills with the presence of the carrier groups underscored the gravity of the situation.

"The US imperialists are making last-ditch efforts to check the dynamic advance of the DPRK by deploying their nuclear strategic assets in succession, but its army and people are never frightened at such moves," KCNA reported, refering to North Korea by its official initials.

"The US imperialist warmongers should not act rashly."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participated in a Q&A session at the London-based Chatham House think-tank on Friday, where he professed his hope that a US peace initiative would work and praised President Donald Trump for taking a fresh approach to bringing the Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations.

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Asked during a visit to London to commemorate the 1917 British declaration of support for a Jewish homeland if he felt now was the moment for peace in the region, noting Trump's involvement in peace efforts, he said: "Hope so."

PM Netanyahu also opened trade at the London Stock Exchange

"What's being discussed now is an American initiative. Obviously we make our interests and our concerns known to Mr. Trump. He's coming with a sort of refreshing 'can-do' thing... they're trying to think out of the box," Netanyahu said at the Chatham House Q&A.

"The reason I draw hope from the moment is because of the larger shift in Arab-Israeli relations with the countries of the region. I cannot emphasize how dramatic that is," he said.

Netanyahu also maintained his stance against the current Iran nuclear deal, going on to detail the process of attaining a nuclear weapon: a launch system, a missile to contain the nuclear material, and the enriched uranium that fill it.

He further explained that producing the enriched uranium is the most difficult part in the process, and that so far, the only thing preventing Iran from doing so have been the international sanctions placed on it, "which I had something to do with."

Netanyahu (Photo: EPA)

Nevertheless, Netanyahu stressed, as he did on Thursday, when he met with British Prime Minister Theresa May, that he would not work to cancel the nuclear deal signed between Iran and world powers, but rather seek to improve and fix it.

"The goal that I have in mind is not keeping or eliminating the deal; its improving the deal and correcting its main flaws," Netanyahu said during the two leaders' meeting at 10 Downing Street. "And I think those who want to keep the deal should cooperate in correcting the deal.

Netanyahu also attended an economic event at the London Stock Exchange, following which he opened trade at the exchange. He later met with the heads of Britain's economic corporations.

Netanyahu will conclude his UK trip with a meeting with Britain's chief rabbi and heads of the British Jewish community on Sunday morning.

The prime minister with UK PM Theresa May (Photo: AFP)

According to the prime minister, his meeting with May saw "us becoming closer in attempting to change things in the agreement, especially as it relates to oversight on missiles and the sanctions article. We're in the midst of a war and I've recently spoken with (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and May and will soon be speaking with (French President Emmanuel) Macron."

Netanyahu stressed to May the Iranians are interested in limiting oversight, especially on military bases in which they can push nuclear activities forward and manufacture ballistic missiles, which may then be fitted with nuclear warheads.

"Ballistic missiles are also not included in the agreement's purview and we aim to convince the six power to change that. We say Iran should be prevented from achieving nuclear bomb capabilities while also hindering its ability to launch it using ballistic missiles," Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu has been a steadfast supporter of canceling the Iranian nuclear deal altogether, but the British prime minister is a staunch supporter of it, a position which she expressed after President Trump's "Iran speech."

Prime Ministers Netanyahu (R) and May (Photo: Getty Images)

According to Netanyahu, big changes are afoot in the Middle East. "Since many Arab countries now view Israel not as an enemy but as essential ally in fighting radical Islam. The threat we all perceive is Iran's rise, a country determined to not only accede to regional hegemony but to also develop nuclear weapons," he said.

According to sources close to the Israeli prime minister's party, his meeting with May saw a shift towards amending the agreement. The prime minister cautioned that should the international community stand idly by and do nothing, Iran would reach the ability to develop multiple nuclear bombs within a few years' time.

Netanyahu added now things were up to President Trump. "The greater danger lies in Iran following the agreement but still reaching a nuclear bomb," he cautioned.
Nicole Carter of Hess Family Wine Estates in Napa and MaryAnn Tsai of Moon-Tsai Wines in Angwin were featured at the BNY Mellon Wealth Management Game Changers series in New York City on Oct. 25.

The series focuses explores womens entrepreneurial and leadership successes through conversations with exceptional women, said a news release.

Carter and Tsai were recognized as 'game changers' in the wine industry. The panelists also talked about the Northern California fires and recovery and relief efforts.
San Ramon-based 24 Hour Fitness must pay $1.2 million in civil penalties and also make restitution to members misled by its sales tactics, the Contra Costa County District Attorneys Office said Thursday.

Along with the Orange County District Attorney, the office reached a consumer protection settlement with the fitness chain Wednesday, according to Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton.

The settlement prevents us from having to file a lawsuit, said Dodie Katague, Contra Costa Countys deputy district attorney.

24 Hour Fitness denies any wrongdoing, the fitness chain said in an emailed statement.

We have settled this matter so that we can continue to focus on our mission to help people improve their lives through fitness, the company said.

In addition to the $1.2 million in penalties and $100,000 in costs to the DAs offices, 24 Hour Fitness must also pay restitution to those members who were misled by shady practices, according to Bectons office.

The members were misled by the promises of a low lifetime annual renewal rate in exchange for large up-front membership fees, Becton said.

The restitution could be a breathtaking sum, given that the chain has four million members. The number of members affected by the alleged practices is unknown.

Its the restitution thats the big issue, said Katague.

Katague said between 2006 and 2009, 24 Hour Fitness sales representatives took large up-front fees for an initial two- or three-year membership period, with the promise that the member would be guaranteed low dues for life, as long as they paid on time.

The up-front fees ranged from $600 to over $1,400, the district attorneys office said, and guaranteed that the members annual dues would always be between $29 and $199 a yearrock-bottom-low rates for gym memberships.

In 2006, the fitness chain changed its contract language to allow for annual rate increasesbut continued to sell memberships with verbal promises of lifetime fixed annual renewal rates, Katague alleged.

When rates started going up in 2015, members deluged 24 Hour Fitness, the Better Business Bureau and the district attorneys with complaints, Katague said.

They also started a petition on Change.org, the deputy district attorney said. The petition, signed by nearly 3,000 members, is online at http://bit.ly/1S067Rn.

The district attorneys offices launched an investigation in response, Katague said.

We decided this was something we had to look into. We had our investigators talk to the members and employees and asked them, How were you selling these in 2006 and 2009? and it became clear to us that they were selling them with the promise of a lifetime guarantee, he said.

In response, 24 Hour Fitness has cooperated with the Orange County and Contra Costa County District Attorney offices. The membership product in question was offered over 8 years ago, and the rate increase is consistent with the contract terms, the company said in its e-mailed statement.

This resolution nonetheless addresses the concerns raised by some members who say that a sales representative made verbal representations inconsistent with the written contract terms, the company said.

The settlement requires that 24 Hour Fitness allow pre-paid members to renew their memberships at the promised low annual lifetime renewal rate, if the member submits a claim form and declaration that they were told by a 24 Hour sales representative that their annual rate was guaranteed to remain the same for life.

All past and present 24 Hour Fitness members who bought post-2006 pre-paid membership contracts, or were updated to those contracts, and either paid the increase or were terminated for failure to pay the increase, will get instructions via email or U.S. Mail with instructions on how, where and when to submit the forms and declarations.

The deputy district attorney said he could not estimate how many 24 Hour Fitness members may have been affected.

How many were misled, I dont know. We will know once we get the declarations, he said.

All past and present members will be sent a notice of the settlement, he said. Those who have been affected by the allegedly misleading practices should fill out the form they will receive, Katague said.

Even if your rates have not been raised yet, if you were made the promise, you need to go ahead and file a form, a declaration that preserves your right to have the low rates, he said. Otherwise, they will raise your rates, because its in the contract.
Preston James was born May 13, 1933 in Logan, UT, and died at home, surrounded by his family, in Davis, CA on October 13, 2017.

Preston was raised in Oakland, California. He met the love of his life, Beverley, in 8th grade; they attended Piedmont High School together, and married in 1954, after both graduated from UC Berkeley. He attended medical school at UC San Francisco, and also completed his orthopaedic surgery training there. He served in the US Army as a physician at the Navaho Ordnance Depot in Flagstaff, AZ and at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro, CA, then returned with Beverley to San Francisco, where lived for 33 years and raised their 3 children. Preston practiced orthopaedic surgery at Childrens Hospital of SF (later known as the California Campus of California Pacific Medical Center), and volunteered at Shriners Hospital for Children. He was appointed Clinical Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at UC San Francisco, and served as a member of the Board of Councilors of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and as President of the California Orthopaedic Association.

After retiring from private practice in 1991, Preston followed his passion for pediatric orthopaedics, and began his second career: full time practice at Shriners Hospital for Children, serving as Assistant Chief of Staff. When Shriners Hospital moved to Sacramento in 1997, Preston and Beverley moved to Davis. He retired once again in 2013.

Preston is survived by Beverley, his loving wife of 63 years; his daughter Michelle (David Artale), with whom he practiced orthopaedic surgery for over 20 years; his daughter Laurel (Mark Michael); his son Craig (Teresa Carlos); and his grandchildren: Tessa and Sara Artale, Thomas Michael, and Jared James, all of whom loved him very much and miss him tremendously. Preston was predeceased by his parents, Jane Merrill James and Albert Stewart James, and his sister, Janet Holbrook.

Preston will be remembered for his passion for his work, his integrity and honesty, his forthright manner, and his exuberant and sometimes inappropriate sense of humor. He loved his wife, his grandchildren, his Labrador Retrievers, and his children (more or less in that order). He also loved visiting his favorite cousins, Donna Hall and Beth King in Atlin, British Columbia, and Alan James in Albany, Australia; hunting pheasants with Craig and the dogs; biking through Marin, Napa and Sonoma; bicycle touring with Beve and their friends in Europe; training orthopaedic residents and mentoring clinician trainees; and working closely with Shriners staff (especially in the Outpatient Clinic) to care for his patients.

A celebration of Prestons life will be held in Sacramento on Saturday, December 9 2017; please email his family at PMJamesCelebration.@gmail.com for details. Knowing his love for Shriners Hospital, his family has created the Preston M. James Memorial Fund at Shriners Hospital for Children, Northern California. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to the fund in his memory (http://shrinerschildrens.org.reston-m-james-memorial-fund./).
The controversy over the ouster of Justin-Siena High Schools principal has apparently cost the president of the private Catholic academy his job.

Robert Jordan on Thursday afternoon announced his resignation as head of the school in north Napa, 10 days after the sudden and largely unexplained departure of principal John Bordelon. Jordans resignation is effective Friday, according to school spokeswoman Eileen Mize.

The end of Jordans career at Justin-Siena is the culmination of a week and a half of tumult over Bordelons exit, which triggered opposition on campus and online and even led to threats by donors to pull students or withhold funds from the academy on Maher Street, according to parents emails.

Leadership is now needed to create peace in our community, he wrote in a resignation letter released just after 3:45 p.m. It is clear that my presence will prevent some of you from allowing that peace to develop.

Jordan, who earlier said Bordelons exit was not tied to any misconduct or lawsuit, on Thursday described the decision as necessary but unpopular and expressed regret that the move had to be made in the wake of the recent fires. But he also castigated those he said turned a disagreement over school policy into a personal attack on himself and his family.

While I know the change in principal was heartbreaking to some, it is also heartbreaking to see many of our parents, students and even staff members turn into people we profess not to be because they dont have access to facts, said Jordan.

 I know that some of you will see this as a bow-down to bullying and entitlement, for you have told me so yourselves. Please know that if the climate were different, and if the only needs I had to consider were that of myself and the school, I would stay and press on.

Justin-Siena began announcing Bordelons immediate exit as principal Oct. 23, the first day of classes after the North Bay wildfires shut down the school for two weeks. That morning, the news began spreading widely among students, parents and faculty, and students began a series of campus marches and other demonstrations protesting what they called the ouster of a well-liked principal with little explanation.

Bordelon was hired by Justin-Siena in 2015 and was early in his third school year at the helm.

Meanwhile, school parents and other allies launched an online campaign demanding the academy bring back Bordelon as the principal and force out Jordan instead. One such petition on Change.org, aimed at Justin-Siena parents, received its first 100 signatures within 12 hours.

Instead, Justin-Siena announced the hiring of Brother Christopher Brady as principal, three days after Bordelons departure. Brady, a former principal at other Catholic high schools who taught at Justin-Siena in the early 1980s, will stay on at the Napa school, Mize announced.

The hiring did little to stop the campaign against Jordan, and the story gained wider exposure after a news report by a San Francisco television station. Earlier this week, the website bringbackbordelon.com announced that 41 faculty and staff members had signed a motion of no confidence in their president.

School officials said students will have the chance on Friday to come together in community during the day, and to discuss the recent unrest with their advisory groups. Further details about the days schedule were pending early Thursday evening.
Chris Malan has spent many years working for the County of Napa helping homeless people find help.

Today, she and her family are homeless themselves. Their longtime family house on Atlas Peak was destroyed in the Atlas Fire.

I have been in a state of shock since Oct. 8, Malan, 65, said.

The family  which includes her retired husband Jack, a quadriplegic adult son Micah who uses a wheelchair, an adult son Joshua who is recovering from a bus accident, a team of live-in medical caregivers and the familys animals  now faces the long process of rebuilding their lives.

Were all trying to do whatever we can to help each other and get back to our home, she said.

On that Sunday night, before the Atlas Fire roared over the hill behind her house, Chris Malan was at Queen of the Valley Medical Center.

In a strange twist, Joshua Malan had been hit that weekend by a bus during the Safeway Open Concert Series at Silverado Resort and Spa. Hed been hospitalized for his injuries and while he recovers is also in a wheelchair.

On her way back home, as she got closer to the family compound at 2945 Atlas Peak Rd., Malan described ferocious winds and debris flying everywhere.

Power lines were swinging, she said. She thought she heard transformers exploding. It was extremely dangerous conditions.

Fire!

Back at her house, Malan said she smelled smoke.

We were looking for the flames, but didnt see anything, she said. She and others at home that night were talking about whether or not theyd have to evacuate when one of Micah Malans caregivers, Stephen Boschetti, sounded the alarm.

Fire! he screamed.

We ran outside and the whole ridgeline behind our house was like a tsunami wave of flames, recalled Malan. They were leaping high in the air and blowing up trees. We had to run. I got my purse and keys and helped my son Micah into his chair.

Driving down Atlas Peak Road in multiple vehicles, the group got separated. Chris and Micah Malan made it down to the Silverado Resort where she saw firefighters staging.

I begged them to hurry, she recalled. I said, Go fast, there is a terrible fire storm up there.

Meanwhile her husband had stopped along Atlas Peak Road to help alert neighbors  some of whom were still sound asleep.

Boschetti and a second caregiver, Joe Padilla, also fled  one by car, one by motorcycle.

At one point, some of the group got stuck behind a fallen tree that blocked Atlas Peak Road. After an agonizing wait, it was cleared.

Everyone eventually reunited at the Westin Verasa hotel in downtown Napa where Malan had found a room.

We were the first fire refugees to hit the Westin, she said. I told them, get ready. Youre going to have a lot of people.

Malan said during that night she held out hope that the house would be safe. The home, where they lived for some 40 years, survived a big fire in the same area in 1981, she noted.

You never know what a fire is going to do, said Malan, but when I saw the tsunami waves of flame coming, I knew in my heart of hearts, that it wasnt going to make it.

The aftermath

Several days after the fires, the family was escorted up Atlas Peak Road to see what was left.

Nothing.

In all, three homes were lost: two houses on the Malan property and one nearby house where one of the caregivers lived.

Everything was gone, she said, even papers and items shed placed in a new safe.

I thought I was smart having things in the safe. But it didnt make it. It all melted.

The only bright spot was finding their chickens were alive.

As of mid-week, the family was still at the Westin, but making plans to relocate. Weve been scrambling trying to find another place to live, said Malan.

A house for Joshua Malan and his two children has been secured.

The rest of us are looking for a place to rent while we rebuild, she said.

When asked how she is holding up after such a crisis, Malan said she has no choice.

I have been very, very focused on tasks and trying to put my emotions aside, she said. I have two sons in wheelchairs. There is no time for crying or sobbing now.

I wake up in the morning and I start my list, she said. I try to accomplish three major tasks a day.

The daily needs go on. Were trying to survive. Were trying to keep the home front going in a hotel, with sons who need special medical care while trying to figure out how we go from one step to another.

The priority is finding an ADA-accessible home that has room for Micah Malans two caregivers and the familys dogs.

Malan said she knows thats a tall order these days. I just put the word out far and wide and trust the universe will bring it back to us.

The insurance company told Malan that the recovery and rebuilding process could take two years. Even though they had insurance, the Malans house will be impossible to reproduce, she said.

It was a piece of art, said Malan. Her father, a masonry contractor, did much of the work. Over many years, she said, We slowly built our dream home.

Malan paused for a moment. As Im saying this, its very emotional. Its a home built from blood, sweat and tears. We cannot replace it.

While Jack Malan is retired, Chris Malan has been a county employee for more than 30 years and was also a candidate in the District 4 supervisor race in 2016. She is known locally as an ardent environmentalist.

Her most recent county job is as a drug and alcohol counselor helping the homeless at the South Napa Shelter.

And now its my turn. Now Im homeless, Malan said.

One treasure lost, two treasures found

Malan continues to mourn the loss of the home, as well as the surroundings.

The family built their home next to an ancient oak tree, one that was at least several hundred years old.

It was gorgeous, she said. And we killed it.

The tree survived many years before the Malans bought the property, but it didnt survive us, she said. I feel terrible about that.

At the same time, a small amount of comfort came after finding two keepsakes amidst the ruins.

The first was an old Nevada sheriffs star that Jack Malans father had given him long ago.

That thing has been a conversation piece in our family for years, she said. The badge is scorched, but not melted. I was so happy he found it.

Then, another heirloom was reclaimed. It was a favorite china tea cup that belonged to Chris Malans mother, who passed away several years ago.

The tea cup is also scorched and blackened, but intact.

Holding the recovered cup, I just stared at it for a long time, she said.

I felt like my mother was saying, Out of the ashes we rise.
Robert Mueller complicit in allowing Islamic terrorism to proliferate in the United States

As the country learns more about the lone-wolf jihadist who mowed down bicyclists in New York City this week with a rented truck, Judicial Watchs Tom Fitton tweeted a reminder that current special counsel Robert Mueller may bear some responsibility for the attack.

As reported by The Gateway Pundit, Fitton said, Mueller Worked with Radical Islamists to Purge Anti-Terrorism Training Material Offensive to Muslims.

The purges came when Mueller was serving as FBI director in the immediate years following the 9/11 attacks, the deadliest terrorist attack ever in the history of the U.S.

According to a press release, Judicial Watch had to sue to get the records and published an in-depth report on the scandal in 2013 and a lengthier, updated follow-up in 2015.

Mueller Worked with Radical Islamists to Purge Anti-Terrorism Training Material Offensive to Muslims https://t.co/LJNpQlLeZJ @JudicialWatch  Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) November 1, 2017

In May of this year, Judicial Watch reported:

The agency eliminated the valuable anti-terrorism training material and curricula after Mueller met with various Islamist organizations, including those with documented ties to terrorism. Among them were two organizations Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)named by the U.S. government as unindicted co-conspirators in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation terrorist financing case. CAIR is a terrorist front group with extensive links to foreign and domestic Islamists. It was founded in 1994 by three Middle Eastern extremists (Omar Ahmad, Nihad Awad and Rafeeq Jaber) who ran the American propaganda wing of Hamas, known then as the Islamic Association for Palestine.

The legal watchdog reported further that records it obtained as part of the lawsuit showed that Mueller, who served 12 years as head of the FBI, met with those Islamist organizations on Feb. 8, 2012, in order to hear their demands. A short time later Mueller assured the groups that he ordered the removal of all presentations and other materials on Islam for every FBI office around the country. (Related: Brace yourself: Dirty cop Robert Mueller attempting desperate indictment to distract from Uranium One scandal and Hillary Clinton treason.)

The former directors bureau also said that all terrorism training documents contained information that was highly inflammatory to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a known supporter of terrorism, which deemed the materials inappropriate for the FBI to use.

According to Judicial Watch, the FBIs anti-terrorism training materials relied on an article stating Al Qaeda is responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing, The Gateway Pundit reported.

The Quran is not the teachings of the Prophet, but the revealed word of God; Sweeping generality of Those who fit the terrorist profile best (for the present at least) are young male immigrants of Middle Eastern appearance; conflating Islamic Militancy with terrorism, stated the FBI.

Throughout the Obama administration, various federal agencies have gone out of their way not to insult Muslims and the Islamic faith, despite the fact that radicalized Muslims are responsible for 100 percent of the terrorist attacks in the U.S. and Europe since the turn of the 21st century.

Whether it was President Obama refusing to use the term radical Islam to describe terrorists, or federal law enforcement agencies ridding their materials of the terms, experts note that failing to call radical Islam what it is is not just political correctness run amok, its dangerous because most often the policies Obama adopted enabled attacks.

As for Obama, he was asked once during a townhall-style meeting shortly before the November election why he didnt use the term.

Hi, Mr. President. As a gold star mother, my son gave his life for acts of terrorism. Do you still believe that the acts of terrorism are done for the self-proclaimed Islamic religious motive? And if you do, why do you still refuse to use the term racially  Im sorry, Islamic terrorist? asked a woman by the name of Tina Houchins.

[W]hat I have been careful about when I describe these issues is to make sure that we do not lump these murderers into the billion Muslims that exist around the world, including in this country, who are peaceful, who are responsible, who in this country, are our fellow troops and police officers and firefighters and teachers and neighbors and friends, Obama said during a tortured explanation.

J. D. Heyes is the editor-in-chief of The National Sentinel and a longtime contributor to NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com.

Sources include:

RealClearPolitics.com

TheGatewayPundit.com

TheNationalSentinel.com
23:38

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday interacted with global Chief Executive Officers of food processing sector in the ongoing World Food India event.





A statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office mentions that the CEOs appreciated Prime Minister Modi on the massive improvement in India's rank in the recent World Bank Doing Business Report.





"Various CEOs complimented the Prime Minister on the massive improvement in India's rank in the recent World Bank Doing Business Report," it said.





"A heartening discussion around potential in India. Left with good feeling of future and its potential," Steven Schiller, The Hershey Company.





Varun Berry, Britania Industries Ltd, "Excellent meeting. He (PM) heard all of us, understood points we made and responded to each one of those."





"Many CEOs said that they were inspired by the Prime Minister's vision of doubling farm incomes, and the pace and progress of economic reforms over the last three years under his leadership. They especially appreciated the structural reforms and bold initiatives such as GST and the liberalization of the FDI regime," reads the statement.





In the meeting, the CEOs presented an overview of growth in India's food processing, agriculture, logistics, and retail sectors.





They even reaffirmed their commitment to be part of India's growth.
Vigil, ceremony highlight annual Veterans Day event

CARBONDALE, Ill.  Southern Illinois University Carbondale, VFW Post 2605, and the city of Carbondale will host a joint Veterans Day ceremony on Friday, Nov. 10 at the Veterans Memorial Plaza in Carbondale.

The event begins at 11 a.m. and is open to the public. The Veterans Memorial Plaza is at the intersection of East Main and South Washington streets, just south of the town square. In the event of rain, the ceremony will move across the street to the City Pavilion. The SIU Carbondale Army and Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) will perform an honor salute and presentation of our nations colors.

The ceremony honors veterans of all American and foreign wars, conflicts and military operations.

Media Advisory

Reporters, photographers and camera crews are welcome to cover the event, including the 24-hour silent vigil that precedes the ceremony. SIU Carbondale Army and Air Force ROTC staff members and participating cadets will be available for interviews at the conclusion of the ceremony. Contact Tammy Sanders, Army ROTC office manager at SIU Carbondale, at 618/453-5786 or tsanders@siu.edu to arrange for interviews.

For the 24 hours preceding the ceremony, a combined operation of more than 100 members of the universitys Army and Air Force ROTC will conduct a timeless tradition honoring those who have served. Cadets will stand a silent vigil beginning at 11 a.m., Nov. 9, at the Old Main Flagpole in remembrance of the nations prisoners of war and those who remain missing in action. The guard change occurs every 15 minutes during the 24-hour period that runs until Fridays ceremony.

SIU President Randy Dunn will provide introductory remarks and Carbondale Mayor John Mike Henry will present a Veterans Day proclamation.

Chancellor Carlo Montemagno will provide brief remarks. Montemagno, who became chancellor in August, joined the U.S. Navy in 1980 and served several management positions as a civil engineering corps officer working with the U.S. Department of Energy.
File Photo

By Matthew Rusling

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump will head to Asia later this week, at a time when growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula show no sign of de-escalating.

Trump is slated to visit five Asian countries on Nov. 3-14, and Pyongyang's nuclear program is expected to top his list of topics to be discussed with leaders in China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines.

The trip comes amid an ongoing war of words between Trump and Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s leader Kim Jong Un, with Trump threatening "fire and fury" against the DPRK if it endangers the United States. Kim has threatened to turn the United States into a "sea of fire."

The businessman-turned-president wants to rid the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons, and is trying to ratchet up the pressure on the DPRK, in a game of brinkmanship that has many leaders on edge. This comes amid continued missile tests by the DPRK, and after Kim's claims that he can hit targets in the United States.

Despite the heightened rhetoric, experts say the DPRK will not be letting go of its nuclear weapons program anytime soon.

Experts say that the Kim family -- Kim Jong Un, father Kim Jong Il, and grandfather Kim Il Sung -- have always been astute geopolitical observers. The latter two Kims saw how leaders in Iraq and Libya were toppled by the United States after getting rid of their nuclear programs, and Kim Jong Un does not want to suffer the same fate. Pyongyang sees nuclear weapons as the only ticket to its survival, many U.S. experts say.

Troy Stangarone, senior director at the Korea Economic Institute, told Xinhua that the DPRK faces a security dilemma. "It is surrounded by hostile powers in (South Korea), the United States, and Japan ... From the (DPRK's) perspective, in the absence of nuclear weapons it would not be able to secure its survival," he said.

Other experts argue that the DPRK has always sought nuclear weapons.

The DPRK "has been seeking nuclear weapons since the beginning of its existence," Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Xinhua.

When asked whether Trump's rhetoric will help his goal of ridding the DPRK of nukes, Stangarone said that unlike political opponents and U.S. companies, "Kim Jong Un cannot be intimidated" by Trump's rhetoric.

"While President Trump's Tweets can coax businesses into toeing the line, there is no share price or public opinion for Kim Jong Un to be concerned about when Trump Tweets," Stangarone said, referring to the social media platform Trump often uses to get his messages out.

"Trump's traditional weapon is just not one that he can wield against North Korea. Instead, President Trump's Tweets and rhetoric most likely have the opposite effect and reinforce the perception that North Korea needs its weapons programs," Stangarone said, using the American name for the DPRK.

"President Trump's rhetoric may have some benefit in signaling the seriousness of U.S. concerns to China, but ... the United States could have solicited the same cooperation from China with less provocative rhetoric," he said.

Paal said Trump's rhetoric may "at most introduce caution into the (DPRK's) testing, for fear of a military response, but is inadequate to address the problem as a whole."

PROLONGED ISSUE AWAITS PROPER SOLUTION

The current tensions beg the question of why previous U.S. presidents failed in their attempts to negotiate with the DPRK over its nuclear program.

Stangarone said there used to be the perception that there was time to resolve the dispute, which lowered the level of urgency of those involved.

"Since the threat did not seem imminent, the international cooperation we have witnessed over the last year was not possible," Stangarone said.

These factors, along with a misunderstanding of the DPRK's objectives by the international community, allowed the DPRK to develop its programs with minimal costs, he said.

Paal said past policies failed because the DPRK will not take no for an answer, "so deception and a failure to develop credible verification doomed the efforts."

Trump has said all possibilities are on the table, including a military one, and recent weeks have seen U.S. forces in the region ramp up their readiness.

Stangarone said there is no certainty that the United States would be able to eliminate all of the DPRK's nuclear and missile weapons programs with a preventative attack.

That does not mean the United States would be unable to take out significant portions of the program, and it could put the program back many years, but a military strike is unlikely to completely resolve the issue, Stangarone said.

When asked the odds of the United States denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula via military means, Paal said: "I hope they are vanishingly low, because the costs of doing so would be prohibitively high."
A police officer stands guard near the site of an attack in lower Manhattan in NewYork, the United States, on Oct. 31, 2017. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

by Xinhua writers Wang Wen, Huang Hexun

NEW YORK, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) -- When New Yorkers dressed up for Halloween parade in lower Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon, nobody knew a real "horror story" was happening just blocks away.

In what authorities called a terrorist attack, a 29-year-old man driving a rented pickup truck plowed along a bike path near World Trade Center for more than one mile, leaving eight people dead, and a dozen more injured.

Reports said the man shouted "Allahu Akbar," which means "God is great" in Arabic, when he exited the truck after colliding with a school bus. He was shot by a uniformed police officer and was taken into custody later.

"It's scary to think that it (terror attack) happened so close to where you go to school every day. I'm down there all the time, walking around and hanging out," said Gregory Rico, a student at Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) which is close to the site.

Rico was having a class when the attack happened. He said everybody was getting phone calls and texts from families and friends before he and his classmates knew exactly what was going on.

"I can't even imagine what they (people who saw the attack and those hurt in the incident) were thinking at the time," said Rico.

On Wednesday, police blocked streets near the crime scene as investigation continued, including the one leading to BMCC's main entrance. Students were advised to enter the main campus through Harrison Street or through the Washington Market Park entrance.

Lucas Musse, another BMCC student, said he did not feel safe walking around any more since the supposedly unusual terror attacks are "becoming usual" occurrences.

The incident is the deadliest terror attack that has hit the city with a population of over 8.5 million since the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

The corner of Chambers and Greenwich streets was the closest place public and media could get to the scene. On Wednesday, the corner saw more passers-by on the day than usual, as people took pictures and videos of the scene, and asked police officers questions.

The deadly attack seemed not to have daunted New Yorkers. Life goes on as usual for them just one day after the attack.

"What happened was very sad and unfortunate, but I don't think this will restrict us from living our lives and going forward," said Beverly Robertson, who has lived in the Wall Street area for about 35 years.

"It's been 16 years since something really major has happened. It's a pretty good track record for New York," said Robertson, who said twice that she feels safe living in the city.

Like Robertson, residents in lower Manhattan were sticking to their daily routines. Terry Denson was among those who walked their dogs in the morning.

"This is where we live and I'm not going to move. I'm still going to go to grocery stores, walk my dog and pick up life as normal," said Denson.

However, for those who have lost their families or friends, life will never be the same again.

Of the eight killed, five were from Argentina, one from Germany and the remaining two U.S. nationals, said Daniel A. Nigro, commissioner of New York City Fire Department, at a press conference on Wednesday.

Of those injured, three have been released from the hospital, and four were critically injured, but in stable condition, Nigro said, adding that the others were seriously injured.

Bouquets were placed on the ground in front of Consulate General of Argentina in New York in memory of the deceased.

On Wednesday, federal prosecutors filed terrorism charges against the suspect, identified as Sayfullo Saipov.

Saipov faces two charges, namely, providing material support for a terrorist organization, specifically the Islamic State group, and a federal charge of violence and destruction of a motor vehicle with willful disregard for human life.

If convicted, he could face life imprisonment or death penalty.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-02 23:52:17|Editor: ying

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South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit addresses a press conference in Khartoum, capital of Sudan, on Nov. 2, 2017. South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit on Thursday denied accusation against his country of supporting armed groups in Sudan. (Xinhua/Mohamed Khidir)

KHARTOUM, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit on Thursday denied accusation against his country of supporting armed groups in Sudan.

"The rumor was baseless," said Kiir, adding there was no reason for his country to support Sudan's opposition groups, as South Sudan is not a source of arms or weapons.

"If there is accusation, I could also accuse Sudan of supporting South Sudanese opposition and that it provided arms for the opposition," said Kiir at a joint press conference with his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Bashir.

Al-Bashir, for his part, reiterated his country's commitment to not supporting any South Sudanese armed groups, saying "supporting the opposition will only result in exhaustion, instability and disturbance at the joint border."

"We have agreed not to support the armed groups," added Bashir.

He further stressed his country's willingness to establish normal ties with South Sudan.

"The two countries' relations have experienced difficult circumstances and both of us have paid a price due to differences. We are convinced that the best choice is to overcome differences and establish normal ties," he said.

Kiir arrived in Khartoum on Wednesday for a two-day visit to Sudan where the two sides held talks on security issues, particularly the implementation of the cooperation agreement.

In September 2012, Sudan and South Sudan signed a comprehensive cooperation agreement in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa under the patronage of the African Union.

The agreement included a package of understandings relating to security, citizens' status, border and economic issues and others concerning oil and trade.

However, the agreement did not tackle the issues of Abyei and border demarcation.

The border issue represents one of the biggest obstacles hindering the settlement of differences between Sudan and South Sudan.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-02 23:57:20|Editor: Zhou Xin

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MADRID, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- Spanish state prosecutor asked judge on Thursday afternoon to issue European arrest warrant for sacked Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont, who was in Brussels currently.

The request for the arrest warrant also included former Catalan ministers Antoni Comin, Meritxell Serret, Lluis Puig and Clara Ponsati, who all remained in Belgium with Puigdemont after travelling from Barcelona last Friday.

The writ explains that Puigdemont has "publicly stated his intention of not appearing in court and has requested, as have Antonio Comin and Meritxell Serret, to address the court via video-conference, without offering any information about their location".

"In light of these events, the court is called upon to order a national and international search and arrest warrant," the Spanish Prosecutors office said in a statement.

Bail of 50,000 euros (58,368 U.S. dollars) was requested for former Catalan minister Santi Vila, who resigned from his office a day before the independence declaration was made.

Also on Thursday, eight former members of Puigdemont's deposed government, including his former deputy Oriol Junqueras, appeared in Spain's High Court in Madrid, to answer questions from judge High Court Carmen Lamela.

Puigdemont and four more former ministers opted to remain in Brussels insisting they would not get a fair hearing in what was a "political trial".

Puigdemont's lawyer Paul Bekeart told reporters that the climate in Spain was "not good. It is better to have some distance", but insisted that if asked, his client would "cooperate with Spanish and Belgian justice".

However, Spanish prosecutors are against Puigdemont being allowed to testify by video-conference.

"When someone doesn't appear after being cited by a judge to testify, in Spain or any other EU country, normally an arrest warrant is issued," said Carlos Lesmes, Spain's Supreme Court President.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 00:17:31|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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By Xinhua writers Zhu Dongyang, Guo Yina

PHILADELPHIA, the United States, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- In the eyes of Li Zhixiang, delegation head of China's National Center for the Performing Arts Orchestra (NCPAO), the Philadelphia Orchestra, one of NCPAO's most famed strategic partners, carries special weight to him and his team.

"The Philadelphia Orchestra was the first Western musical body to come to China since 1949 - that was in 1973 when the U.S. and China had no diplomatic relations yet -- and performed Western classic pieces for the Chinese audience," Li said. "Neither of us would forget that page of our history, and friendship."

The frequent exchanges between the two leading orchestras ever since then have now led to a common sense of intimacy on both sides, as NCPAO artists went to local grassroots communities and streets to play music before their grand performance later on Wednesday night.

"It is not a special arrangement actually, to perform high art to the common people," Li said. "There is a shared sense of responsibility for the NCPAO and the Philadelphia Orchestra, to boost music in our cities, to make it more accessible to the grassroots communities."

But more importantly is the hope of both sides to give the U.S. citizens an access to young Chinese artists playing their music and the excellent pieces of the Western world, according to Allison Vulgamore, head of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

"These young men and women are generally in their 30s, and that is quite something, something awesome," she said. "Our Philadelphia people can listen to the works of Brahms, Mozart and Tchaikovsky as much as they like, but most of them have no access to Chinese composers and their work."

As part of the booming cultural and people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States, the NCPOA had performed in Chicago and New York before coming to this city, but they have some special stories for Philadelphia.

Earlier in the morning, eight young musicians played both Chinese and Western classical music at Liberty Place, a shopping mall. Their skilled performance of Jerry Bock's Fiddler On the Roof and Johann Strauss' Tritsch Tratsch Polka attracted dozens of shoppers, but what awaited them was beautiful Chinese folk songs, something elegant and delicate to them.

Maria Andriasova, an 82-year-old lady from Russia, said the music played by the Chinese young musicians were just amazing. "The music they played are reminiscent of my days in Russia. Our people there also like sad rhythms. But speaking of the Chinese, they have to have a heart to play up things so emotional."

Not far from the Liberty Place was High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, where 75 students of the school band were conducting rehearsal of the theme songs from E.T. and The Lord of the Rings -- The Fellowship of the Ring, under the instruction of NCPAO Assistant Conductor Yuan Ding.

To 16-year-old Agnes Willianms, the Chinese teacher from across the Pacific Ocean was admirable. "The Chinese teacher gives a very good impression to our band and myself as well. He was very instructional, he knows how to teach us. It is a very good experience to get to know some other teacher than your regular American teacher. But I definitely wish to be able to go to China one day, and play Chinese instruments there."

Brand Ewing, a school teacher plus band director, was not shy away from complimenting his Chinese counterpart. "He was fantastic and amazing. The student enjoyed it very much. And he was lovely with students, very kind, very gentle. They played very well under his instructions. Also, I was very impressed by his teaching and I was very inspired by his communication with students. He was very capable, talented and charismatic conductor."

For his part, Yuan had very good impressions about his American students. "They are more out-going compared with their Chinese peers, but young students of both countries are passionate about music and playing them. I think they have made it to convey their feelings, and their aspirations through each and every note they played."

The U.S. trip was not just rewarding for Yuan and the students, but young orchestra players of both sides as well. "We got closer and closer as our performance goes on in different stops. My counterpart of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Ms. Vulgamore, said China is like their second home. And so do us. The historical, business and emotional connections are beyond oblivion," said NCPAO's Li.

"Besides bringing music to the common people, the NCPAO wanted the U.S. citizens to have access to the best works of Chinese famous composers, and that was what we have been pursuit of. The Philadelphia people listen to Johannes Brahms very often and as much as they like, but not so if they want to have a try on Chinese music," he noted.

Such aspirations helped unveil the formal performance Wednesday night. At the presence of hundreds of people, the NCPAO performed Violin Concerto No. 1 and Reflect D'un Temps Disparu created respectively by Chinese composers Zhao Jiping and Chen Qigang, as well as Brahms' Symphony No. 4, receiving long-time applauses and hot cheers.

According to Walter Douglas, deputy assistant secretary of state for public affairs and public diplomacy and for regional and security policy at the U.S. Department of State, it was very good to see the Chinese and American people connect on personal level.

But to Nick Platt, a diplomatic veteran who went to China in 1973 with the Philadelphia Orchestra and witnessed China's dramatic development ever since, there were something deeper in his understanding of the Chinese-U.S. relations.

"Cultural exchange plays a very steadying role in our bilateral relations, it keeps our relationship on track. Everybody understand the language of music. We have a long tradition to go back to the very beginnings of U.S.-china relations. The daily exchanges between our musicians are what keeps it alive," he said.

"U.S. and China ... have been partners and competitors, I don' t think that will change. But I think the general positive part of our relations will last, because we have been so intertwined .we have no others alternatives," said Platt.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 02:08:03|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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GENEVA, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- The world's most expensive whisky shot, bought in August for 10,000 U.S. dollars at a hotel in the exclusive St Moritz resort in Switzerland, was shown on Thursday to be fake.

After being submitted to laboratory tests by Scottish whisky experts and at Oxford University, the liquor was found not have been what it claimed to be -- an 1878 bottle of Macallan Single Malt, Swissinfo, the website of the Swiss national broadcaster reported.

The Waldhaus Am See Hotel has reimbursed the Chinese drinker who bought the tipple, as it had promised to do if the drop was found to be a fake.

Carbon dating found that there is a "95 percent probability that the liquid was created between 1970 and 1972," according to a press statement sent by the hotel to Swissinfo.

Moreover, the whisky may not have even been a single malt. Scotch analysts said it was more likely a blended Scotch, of 60 percent malt and 40 percent grain.

The hotel said it has taken responsibility for the sale and reimbursed the buyer in full.

Hotel owner Sandro Bernasconi traveled to China to personally apologize and hand over the check to the young whisky aficionado.

"The result has been a big shock to the system," Bernasconi said in the statement. "We are delighted to have repaid our customer in full as a gesture of goodwill."

The bottle had been bought by Bernasconi's father Claudio 25 years ago for a "five-figure sum."

However, soon after the pricy sale, experts questioned the authenticity of the whisky, and the hotel itself sent the bottle for testing in the UK.

"When it comes to selling our customers some of the world's rarest and oldest whiskies, we felt it was our duty to ensure that our stock is 100 percent authentic and the real deal," Bernasconi said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 02:13:04|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi urged the UN Security Council on Thursday to address the causes of conflicts uprooting people across the world.

While briefing the Security Council, Grandi presented the stark reality the international community now faces, with major new crises causing massive displacement across virtually all regions.

He urged the Council to support measures to address the causes of conflict. He also spoke of the need to fight human trafficking, and sustain the protection of displaced people while solutions to conflict are pursued.

Grandi noted that the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide is now approaching 66 million, up from 42 million in 2009. This includes 17.2 million refugees under UNHCR's responsibility, a 70 percent increase in eight years.

He stressed that securing solutions for the millions of uprooted people, and avoiding a repeat of the massive outflows that have taken place over recent years, ultimately rests on political solutions.

Grandi cited several ongoing crises, including the conflict in Syria and the violence in Iraq, which together accounted for a quarter of all those forcibly displaced.

But new crises have developed, with many unfolding "in ungoverned spaces, driven by varying combinations of poverty and underdevelopment, environmental degradation, inequality and persecution," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 02:13:05|Editor: huaxia

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by Njoroge Kaburo

NAIROBI, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan nurses on Thursday called off their five-month-long strike after reaching an agreement with the country's Council of Governors (CoG).

Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN) Secretary-General Seth Panyako said the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) will be implemented fully within 30 days and urged the nurses to resume work on Friday.

"I hereby declare that the strike that began on June 5 is officially called off and our members are advised to go back to work with immediate effect, by Friday at 5 p.m.," Panyako told journalists in Nairobi.

He said the health workers will have their nursing, uniform and nursing service allowances increased. The two sides also agreed that all cases related to the dispute currently before court will be withdrawn.

The nurses have boycotted work in the East African country since June citing a breach of a CBA they signed with the government.

The strike paralyzed the health sector in the country with patients forced to seek expensive services in the private hospitals.

CoG Chairman Josphat Nanok said the agreement followed a lengthy consultative meeting within all stakeholders, noting the industrial action was prolonged after it became the subject of "so many months of back and forth".

"We have reached a consensus that the nurses will get a uniform allowance of 15,000 shillings (150 U.S. dollars) between 2018 and 2019 and that will be increased by 5,000 shillings over three years," Nanok said.

He added that the health workers will be entitled to Nursing Services Allowances of 230 dollars which will be increased by 35 dollars over the same period.

Under the 2010 constitution, the health functions have been devolved to the 47 county governments with the national government responsible for formulation of health policies.

The negotiations on the nurse CBA between the nurses union and the joint national and county governments have been ongoing since December 2016.

Health Cabinet Secretary Cleopa Mailu said the two changes on allowances and uniforms will be factored into the budget for the 2018/19 financial year.

Mailu said they all agreed that the government will not be able to incur extra expenses in the 2017/18 financial year.

"Though we end the strike today, I would say what has happened to the health sector in the last 12 months is regrettable," he added. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 02:33:11|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will accompany President Donald Trump on his upcoming trip to Asia and he will make an additional stop in Burma, the U.S. State Department said on Thursday.

According to a statement by the State Department, apart from accompanying Trump on his travels to Japan, the Republic of Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines, Tillerson will also visit Burma.

"The Secretary's six-country trip demonstrates the Administration's commitment to our alliances and partnerships in the Asia Pacific and highlights our ongoing engagement in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the East Asia Summit (EAS) on regional issues of mutual interest and concern," said the statement.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 03:33:33|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BEIRUT, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- Lebanon's Speaker Nabih Berri requested Thursday that acting United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Philippe Lazzarini refer a report to UN chief Antonio Guterres regarding Israel's intentions to build a wall along Lebanon's southern border.

Berri raised the issue Wednesday during his weekly meeting with lawmakers, sounding the alarm over the alleged construction plans.

Referring to a secret report, the speaker said that Israel intended to build a wall from Ras al-Naqoura to Alma Shaab, and from Adaisseh to Kfar Kila.

Berri discussed the issue with Lazzarini Thursday, and also spoke of Israeli violations of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

"Berri asked Lazzarini to include these new Israeli violations in the report that he will refer to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and to bring it up with higher-up relevant parties at the UN before the end of the month," a statement from Berri's office said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 04:38:52|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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SANAA, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. drone strike killed two al-Qaida members in Yemen's northeastern province of Marib on Thursday, a provincial security official told Xinhua.

The suspected terrorists were targeted while driving a car in al-Huson area in al-Wadi district southeast of Marib, the official said on condition of anonymity.

The official gave no further details.

Al-Qaida terrorists are very active in the oil-rich Marib, which is under control of the internationally-recognized Yemeni government forces backed by the United States and the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition.

The United States is focusing on fighting Sunni al-Qaida group in coordination with the Saudi government, while the Saudi-led coalition is backing Yemeni government forces in battling against Shiite Houthi rebels who control much of northern Yemen including the capital Sanaa.

On Oct. 8, the U.S. drones killed five al-Qaida members while driving a pickup vehicle in nearby Raghwan district, also in Marib, according to a local security official.

The U.S. military has stepped up drone airstrikes against the Yemeni branch al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) since U.S. President Donald Trump approved expanded military operations against the group.

The Yemen-based al-Qaida branch, regarded by the United States as the global terror network's most dangerous branch, has exploited more than two years of deadly civil war between Yemen's government and Houthi rebels to expand its presence, especially in the south and northeastern provinces.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 05:13:59|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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NICOSIA, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- The managing director of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), Klaus Regling, suggested on Thursday the idea of setting up a "rainy-day" fund that could be used by eurozone countries to meet unexpected economic contingencies.

"It can be set up in the form of a U.S.-style rainy-day fund, or a complementary unemployment insurance. Short-term ESM lending is another option," Regling told an annual financial forum in Nicosia.

Regling added that there was room for a facility to be set in place to buffer what he termed asymmetric shocks.

He further said that such fiscal capacity could be combined with a more transparent system for burden-sharing with private creditors in case of a sovereign debt restructuring.

Regling suggested that the fund could be within a market-based framework, but with stricter collective action clauses regarding bond documentation.

"Automatic maturity extensions are not desirable, because they can have pro-cyclical effects. The ESM could take on the role of organizing London Club-type restructurings, in a case where a country's debt is unsustainable," he said.

He observed that as a consensus was growing against the International Monetary Fund contributing to future rescues of eurozone countries in distress, proposals were being floated for setting up a European monetary fund.

He added that the ESM could take over some of that role along with the European Commission.

Cyprus was one of five European countries -- the others being Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal -- which have been assisted by the ESM and its predecessor, the Financial Stability Facility.

Regling hailed the eastern Mediterranean island's economic recovery after the 2013 near meltdown of the economy, saying that in less than five years it had achieved one of the higher growth rates in Europe.

He said Cyprus's fiscal performance had been remarkable, but warned of the risks from a still-high rate of non-performing loans, totaling just over 21 billion euros (24 billion U.S. dollars).
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 05:19:00|Editor: Lu Hui

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Police guard the entrance at the scene of a shooting at a Walmart in Thornton, Colorado, the United States, Nov. 1, 2017. (Xinhua/REUTERS)

by Huang Heng

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- A suspect of the fatal shooting that killed three people inside a Walmart supermarket in the U.S. state of Colorado was arrested Thursday morning, local police confirmed.

"Walmart homicide suspect Scott Ostrem has been taken into custody," Thornton Police Department said on its official tweet page, 14 hours after the heinous act occurred around 6:00 p.m. Wednesday evening (0030 GMT, Thursday) in Thornton, a Denver suburb, and left three dead.

The suspect was identified as 47-year-old Scott Ostrem, who was described by witnesses as a cold blood murder. Police said he walked into the south entrance of the store and began shooting with a handgun randomly, then fled the scene in a red Mitsubishi car.

At a press conference Thursday noon, Thornton police spokesman Victor Avila disclosed more details about the arrest, saying that a citizen tip helped police to locate the suspect's residence.

Policemen and other federal law enforcement personnel surveilled the area all night and found the Mitsubishi Mirage with Colorado license plate in the morning, Avila said, adding that morning traffic ahead the suspect stopped him from escaping, allowing officers to arrest him in car, about one block away from his apartment.

Avila told reporters earlier that Ostrem said nothing when he opened fire at the supermarket. So far, policemen had no idea about his motive but there are no indications it is terror-related.

"From what we have right now it appears to be random. It's a crazy world we live in." Avila said.

"He walked in very nonchalantly with his hands in the pockets, raised a weapon and began shooting. Then he turns around and walks out of the store."

Avila confirmed that Ostrem had minor criminal history.

The Denver Post reported that court records show Ostrem was arrested in 2013 for driving while impaired and filed for bankruptcy two years later.

Avila also explained why it cost policemen 5 hours after the shooting to find out that the suspect was still at large, saying officers must keep safety of other people at the scene first, and then check the monitors' footage and use database to identify who is the shooter.

The Denver Post cited Avila's words as saying that when the gunman opened fire, most of shoppers inside the supermarket screamed and ran for cover, but others pulled out their own handguns.

There was no exchanging fires between the gunman and shoppers, but those who drew weapons delayed the investigation since authority had to identify the real assailant and make sure there was no more shooter.

The shooting incident triggered a new wave of advocate for gun control on social media.

A user named NyxSea tweeted "this is how mass shootings have become normal in the US. When I read that there was 1 death #ThorntonWalmartShooting I said thank God."

"Thank God it was only 1 death, There should be no death #ThorntonWalmartShooting. What to do about guns?" he retweeted three minutes later.

"Thanks to @NRA lobbyists and lawmakers beholden to them, THIS is what America looks like. THIS is every city, every day," tweeted Shanon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a grassroots organization working to end gun violence.

"Why does this keep happening. And even in my home state. Why is Colorado known for shooting?" another user named Karlie tweeted.

The state of Colorado witnessed a mass shooting in July 2012. Twelve people were killed and 59 others injured in Aurora, a suburb 10 miles (16 km) east of Denver, where a heavily armed gunman burst into a packed theater and sprayed the audience with bullets.

According to the non-profit organization Gun Violence Archive, there have been 299 mass shooting incidents so far this year in the United States. Also on Wednesday, a man shot dead his ex-girlfriend before turning the gun at himself in a murder-suicide attempt in the Manhattan borough of New York City.

An estimated 30,000 Americans die each year from guns, and the country is split on whether to have controls on guns or follow the 1789 Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 05:19:02|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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STOCKHOLM, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Swedish government has set a new target for the number of annual army recruits, from at least 4,000 per year to at least 5,000.

The new target, announced Thursday, follows on from a proposal presented last year as part of a government inquiry into expanding Sweden's military defence capabilities. The aim is successively to increase the number of people enrolling in basic training and, in the long run, to build a bigger Army, Swedish Television reported Thursday.

"This is the first stage in a process where we are testing the possibility of increasing the size of the defence force," Minister for Defence, Peter Hultqvist, told Swedish Television.

Hultqvist said the government move means that the financial and organizational prerequisites for expanding the army will be reviewed.

Sweden cancelled the draft in 2010 but decided to reintroduce a partial draft in March this year when the government announced that 13,000 young men and women would be called in for army enrolment. Out of those, a total 4,000 would be selected for basic training in 2018 and another 4,000 in 2019. The new target is to have 5,000 recruits per year from 2020.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 07:34:35|Editor: ying

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MZIMBA, Malawi, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- At least 18 Malawi soldiers died in a road accident on Thursday in the country's northern district of Mzimba en route from a training session, authorities confirmed.

The soldiers included recruits and trainers and the death toll was likely to rise as 15 others were reported to have been in a very critical condition in the region's central hospital in Mzuzu City, according to Mzimba District Hospital officials.

The accident, according to local media reports, occurred when the driver of the Malawi Defense Force failed to control an open truck with the recruits and their trainers on board.

It overturned and rested on its back, upside down, killing and severely injuring dozens of soldiers on board.

"We have closed all the emergency units to attend to this emergency and as a hospital, we are very overwhelmed by the accident," Mzimba District Health Office Spokesperson, Ellings Nyirenda, was quoted by local media.

Malawian President Peter Mutharika and First Lady Gertrude Mutharika expressed "condolences to the bereaved families and also wishing those injured speedy recovery," according to a government statement.

Malawi has in the past 10 months experienced a number of fatal accidents where scores of people lost their lives, forcing the country's traffic police to be very strict on road safety measures.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 07:39:37|Editor: Yang Yi

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MEXICO CITY, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- Ten Mexican university students were set to travel to China on Thursday to receive two weeks of information technology (IT) training, the Ministry of Communications and Transport (SCT) said.

Students won the opportunity to develop their IT skills in China through "Seeds for the Future," a scholarship program organized by Chinese technology giant Huawei, in conjunction with the ministry, the SCT said in a statement.

At a ceremony at Huawei headquarters in Mexico City to present the winning students with their scholarships, Deputy communications Minister Edgar Olvera underscored the importance of IT in today's world.

The government has made it a priority to expand Mexicans' "access to quality telecommunications services," said Olvera.

Chinese ambassador to Mexico, Qiu Xiaoqi, congratulated the winners and noted the educational exchange marked a "great historic moment in Mexico-China ties."

The students will travel to Shenzhen and Shanghai, said Qiu, adding "the first is the city most representative of the growth in technological innovation, and the second is a great cosmopolitan city, as well as China's financial center."

The students, which come from a variety of states throughout Mexico, were selected on Oct. 5 out of a total of 220 competitors who submitted a two-minute video on the importance of technology to a better world and why they wanted to participate in "Seeds for the Future."

Students will first take a Mandarin course at Beijing's University of Language and Culture, before continuing on to Shenzhen, where they will train in cloud computing, intelligent networks and other aspects of IT at Huawei facilities.

Cesar Merino Ibanez, who graduated from the Technological University of the Valley of Oaxaca, in south Mexico, said the trip will be his first time abroad.

"I am very thankful to the SCT and Huawei, because this kind of opportunity does not occur very often, and I am very grateful to be able to share ... in this cultural exchange and exchange of knowledge," said Merino.

In addition to the scholarship program, Huawei provides free Internet access at some 45,000 locations across Mexico as part of its corporate social responsibility efforts.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 08:04:42|Editor: ying

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UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- More than 800,000 Myanmar Rohingya were probably in the "most acute" situation, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi told the UN Security Council on Thursday.

Grandi made the remarks about Rohingya refugees, as in comparison to 65 million to 66 million people forcibly displaced in the world. "We spoke about some of the most complex crisis in Africa especially South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo," he said to reporters outside the council's chambers.

"There was much focus on the situation in Bangladesh -- Rohingya refugees coming from Myanmar -- and the way forward in that crisis which is probably the most acute at the moment," he said.

Of those 800,000 refugees, UN officials said 607,000 fled violence in northern Rakhine State since Aug. 25 when Rohingya rebels allegedly staged deadly attacks against security posts, triggering retributions from government forces and civilian vigilantes. Villages were torched and villagers fled in face of deadly violence.

Access to northern Rakhine State -- one of the least developed in Myanmar -- has been tightly restricted, although a senior UN official flew over part of the terrorized area last month and reported seeing burnt-out villages.

"There was support for the role the UNHCR can play in facilitating discussion on voluntary safe and dignified return if and when conditions are created in Rakhine State for this to happen," the head of the UN Refugee Agency said. "We spoke about important overlaps of the agenda of my office ... and the agenda of the Security Council."

He explained that since refugees are a humanitarian issue they are discussed within UNHCR as "a non-political manner," but it is an issue which overlaps with the peace and security agenda of the Security Council. So, solutions for refugee problems "are essentially political."

The problem is for the Rohingya refugees to "safely and in a dignified manner go back home," Grandi said. Thursday's Security Council session "was an opportunity to exchange views on all these matters, both policy issues and operational issues."

The Rohingya face an additional problem since they are legally stateless. Myanmar has not recognized most of the ethnic Muslims as citizens, even after many had been living for decades in Myanmar, an overwhelmingly Buddhist nation.

"You need to address the very complex issue of citizenship," Grandi said. "Without that no return will be sustainable. I don't know if even any return could happen in any significant number if that issue is not unblocked."

"These -- as we often say -- are not just refugees, these are stateless refugees," he said. "So this is a complex issue."

The high commissioner said he met with Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the State Counselor, when he was in Myanmar in July.

"I offered also our expertise as a statelessness agency to examine how this can be addressed," Grandi said.

"We have seen statements by the government of Myanmar, by the state counselor, who was yesterday (Wednesday) in Rakhine herself," he said. "We have seen statements saying that refugees can go back; we have seen also a set of conditions that have been put for this return to happen but we are not privy to the details of the discussion between the two governments (of Myanmar and Bangladesh)."

"We know that a working group has been established to follow up on those modalities and what I have told the council today (Thursday) is that UNHCR remains available to provide support, advice, expertise to this process as we have done in the past," the high commissioner said. "On the positive side, two days ago we were invited by the government of Myanmar to attend a workshop to discuss this matter, a bilateral workshop between UNHCR and the government of Myanmar."

"I hope that it will evolve in a more structured cooperation," Grandi said. "I try not to be pessimistic."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 08:14:43|Editor: ying

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RABAT, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- One person was killed and three others injured in a shooting at a cafe in Morocco's tourist city of Marrakesh, local media reported on Thursday night.

Two attackers entered the cafe and shot at the crowd before fleeing the scene with a motorcycle, le360.ma news site reported.

Citing police sources, the news site said investigators think revenge is likely to be behind the attack.

No official statement from the police has been issued.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 09:45:00|Editor: ying

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YANGON, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi has urged for solving Rakhine issue in three ways, focusing on a diplomatic approach, reconstruction for development and security for the local people.

Aung San Suu Kyi, in her capacity of chairperson of the Committee of Union Enterprise for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development (UEHRD) in Rakhine, made the call when meeting with local authorities at Sittway Airport as she was about to return to Nay Pyi Taw after a single-day inspection trip to areas in the northern part of Rakhine state affected by terrorist attacks over the past several months.

During her first ever visit to villages in Rakhine -- Pantawpyin, Taungpyo Letwe and Kyikanpyin in Maungtaw since the terrorist attacks in August that undermined the stability of the area, Aung San Suu Kyi urged the local people to cooperate in the long-term reconstruction and resettlement work, offering to provide vocational training and healthcare services to them suggesting them to grow rice as well as other crops as the area contain fertile soil.

During the tour, she met with the Youth Humanitarian Coordination Group (YHCG), composed of youths from different races and religions who carry out voluntary services for the local people as well as a group of Muslim religious leaders, urging them to live peacefully with the care of the government.

She also inspected an entry exit station in Maungtaw, the Myanmar-Bangladesh Friendship Bridge in Taungpyo Letwe and the campus of border guard police control team's headquarters in Kyikanpyin.

Myanmar's government has been implementing some short-term projects in northern Rakhine after the region regained security and stability destroyed by terrorists over the past three months.

On Oct. 17, the government formed the Union Enterprises for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development (UEHRD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, for effective performance of long-term project of freedom from conflict.

The government also formed nine private sector task forces to join the Aung San Suu Kyi-led mechanism of UEHRD in northern Rakhine.

Aung San Suu Kyi prioritized three main tasks to be done in Rakhine, repatriation of refugees who have crossed over to Bangladesh and providing humanitarian assistance effectively, resettlement and rehabilitation, and bringing development to the region and establishing lasting peace.

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army extremist terrorists launched fresh attacks on police outposts in Rakhine on Aug. 25, displacing residents from a number of areas in Maungtaw district.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 10:20:10|Editor: ying

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VANCOUVER, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is more secure than many experts believe despite continued threats from U.S. President Donald Trump to tear up the 23-year-old pact, says a high-profile former speechwriter for President George W. Bush.

Speaking at a commercial real estate conference here on Wednesday, Toronto-born David Frum said he does not expect the trade pact to be torn up by the president because too much money and too many interests on all sides are at stake.

"Theoretically the president of the United States has the power to cancel NAFTA on six-months' notice," Frum told the audience. "And while there is some argument about this, the better view is he doesn't need to consult Congress on this. He can just give the word, sign a piece of paper, and that's it. Six months later NAFTA ceases to function, and with it a trillion-dollar economy that spans from Alaska to Guatemala."

But there are many stakeholders who are desperate to protect that trillion-dollar economy, "including crucial people in the President's own party," said Frum, now a senior editor at the American magazine The Atlantic.

Frum, who worked as a speechwriter during the George W. Bush administration, said 400,000 jobs in Texas alone rely directly on NAFTA.

He said other states that Trump won in last year's election such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan would stand to lose a large number of jobs.

Other key states like Arkansas, the home of Walmart, would also stand to lose without NAFTA, which maintains and protects the continental supply chain, Frum said.

"I think NAFTA is much safer than conventional view has it," Frum said.

Frum said Canadian and Mexican trade delegates should be measured in their reactions to the U.S. demands, and should remain patient amid American rhetoric.

"Canada may not have a lot of friends in Washington, but it has friends at the state level who are very powerful," Frum said. "The Canadian mission is to develop coalitions with partners in the governors' mansions across the states, especially Republican governor mansions for a go-slow approach."

The United States, Mexico and Canada are set to hold a fifth round of NAFTA renegotiation talks in Mexico City on Nov. 17-21.

The U.S. government initially wanted to complete the talks by the end of the year but the negotiations are now scheduled to run until the end of March 2018.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 10:25:12|Editor: Lu Hui

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U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster speaks at a press briefing at the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, Nov. 2, 2017. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Thursday here that President Donald Trump looks forward to his upcoming visit to China and is ready to work with Beijing to promote peace and prosperity in the region and beyond.

China is "an immensely important part of ... regional security as well as protecting and advancing the systems that have benefitted all of us," McMaster told reporters.

"These are really the rule-based security, economic, political and diplomatic organizations and systems that emerged after the bloodiest war in human history in the previous century," he added. "We have to really work hard to preserve and advance what has lifted so many people out of poverty, and what has prevented great-power conflict for 70 years. We cannot take it for granted."

"So I know the president is committed to working with China, with President Xi in particular, and with all leaders in the region, to make sure that for the next 70 years, we enjoy a degree of prosperity and security we've enjoyed over the past 70 years," he said.

Trump will start his 12-day Asia trip on Friday to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. He will participate in a string of multilateral engagements like the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in the last two legs of the trip.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 10:40:14|Editor: ying

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LOS ANGELES, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- American's largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization said Energy Secretary Rick Perry should resign over his Thursday's remarks that fossil fuels can help prevent sexual assault.

The California-based group Sierra Club released a statement Thursday afternoon as an official respond to Perry, who said at an event in Washington this morning that expansion of energy can help reduce sexual assaults in Africa and fossil fuels will play an important role.

"It was already clear that Rick Perry is unfit to lead the Department of Energy, but to suggest that fossil fuel development will decrease sexual assault is not only blatantly untrue, it is an inexcusable attempt to minimize a serious and pervasive issue," Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said in the statement.

"Women, and particularly women of color, are among some of the most severely impacted by the climate crisis, and it is these same communities that are most at risk of sexual assault. Rick Perry's attempt to exploit this struggle to justify further dangerous fossil fuel development is unacceptable," Brune said.

The Department of Energy then explained that Perry's statement was meant to highlight the way electricity would improve the lives of people in Africa.

Shaylyn Hynes, an spokeswoman of the department, said that in an energy conference meeting held in Africa last week, some persons told Perry how light can be a deterrent to sexual assault and security in remote areas and the Secretary was stuck, so he shared the idea with Americans, many of whom take electricity for granted.

It is not the first time that Sierra Club has called for senior officials of Trump administration to resign. The group suggested before that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke should resign over chartered air travel they have taken.

Sierra Club was founded in 1892 by the Scottish-American preservationist John Muir. With 3 million members and supporters, it was one of the first large-scale environmental preservation organizations in the world and currently engages in lobbying politicians to promote green policies.

In addition to political advocacy, the group organizes outdoor recreation activities, and has historically been a notable organization for mountaineering and rock climbing in the country. Enditem
Source: Xinhuanet| 2017-11-03 10:47:40|Editor: Yang Yi

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Soegeng Rahardjo, Indonesian Ambassador to China, gives an exclusive interview to Xinhuanet in Beijing, Sept. 29, 2017. (Xinhuanet/Zhang Bin)

By Wang Chengcheng, Li Xia

BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Xinhuanet) -- Relations between ASEAN and China will play an important role to benefit all the countries in the Asia-Pacific region, said Soegeng Rahardjo, Indonesian Ambassador to China.

The ambassador made the remarks in an exclusive interview with Xinhuanet recently.

China is the largest economy in Asia-Pacific, while ASEAN the third largest, which means that partnership between the two is important, he said.

According to him, the Belt and Road Initiative and the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity will complement each other in boosting inter- and intra-regional connectivity.

With good connectivity, efficient and effective cooperation, especially in economy, will be created between ASEAN and China to contribute positively to the regions economic growth as well as the global economic recovery, he added.

Talking about China-ASEAN Free Trade Area tariff-cutting schedule, Soegeng said, trade cooperation between ASEAN and China will increase significantly with zero-tariff next year, which is "very good not only for China and ASEAN, but for other countries as well".

As trade relations further improved, ASEAN countries could learn from China about how to achieve ambition and effectiveness in producing products, he commented.

The ambassador also attached great importance to people-to-people exchanges, believing it a strong foundation for establishing and strengthening relations between Indonesia and China.

The exchanges have been promoted in cultural and educational areas, including inviting Chinese painters to hold exhibitions in Indonesia, encouraging Indonesian young to study in Chinese universities, promoting Indonesian tourism in China and opening new flight services linking Indonesia with more Chinese cities, he told Xinhuanet.

"This year marks the 50th anniversary of ASEAN. Next year China and ASEAN are to celebrate the 15th anniversary of strategic partnership. It is very important to develop cooperation in so many sectors such as trade, investment, education and tourism between China and ASEAN," concluded the ambassador.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 10:56:39|Editor: Yang Yi

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Whooper swans fly at the wetland of Yellow River in Pinglu County, north China's Shanxi Province, Nov. 2, 2017. Many whooper swans came to spend the winter time in the wetland every year. (Xinhua/Xue Jun)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 10:55:18|Editor: ying

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by Matthew Rusling

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- Days after a Halloween terror attack that killed eight people, U.S. President Donald Trump aims to shut down the U.S. "diversity visa" program. But experts differ on whether the move will make the country safer.

Earlier this week, a terrorist in New York City drove a truck into a crowd of people, killing eight and injuring 11 others, in a move taken right from the playbook of the Islamic State (IS), a terror group that has conducted deadly attacks worldwide. Among the dead were nationals of Argentina and Belgium, in a city that is a tourist draw for people worldwide.

The suspect, Sayfullo Saipov, who immigrated from Uzbekistan, has allegedly said he is proud of what he did, and said that he has pledged allegiance to the IS group.

The killer came to the United States in 2010 under a special program known as the "diversity visa," which allots a certain amount of visas to people from countries where people typically don't immigrate to the United States.

Trump is now pushing to end the program, but experts have mixed views on the president's move.

Radio pundit Dana Loesch told Fox News on Thursday that the president is correct in his calls to end the "diversity visa" program.

The terrorist, she said, was allowed to bypass a lot of immigration law due to the visa program.

"We need to make sure U.S. citizens are safe. It's completely fair for a country to reduce those numbers or even end the program," she said.

Some experts don't think pulling the plug on the visa program will reduce the number of terrorist attacks in the United States.

"Ending the 'diversity visa' program won't stop terrorist attacks," Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West told Xinhua.

"Most of those who have engaged in terrorism did not come to America through that program. There is no evidence that particular program is responsible for people with bad intentions," West said.

Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of Congress and the Presidency, told Xinhua that while the attacker did enter the country under the "diversity visa" program, the investigation indicates that his radicalization took place while he was already in the United States.

Mahaffee said other factors besides the attacker's visa are more important to stopping future terror attacks.

"The way the IS propaganda moves through social media, and how the FBI and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies can better track lone wolf threats, will be more important" in stopping terror threats, Mahaffee said.

Speaking about the Halloween attack, Trump told reporters at the White House earlier this week that he would "ask Congress to immediately initiate work to get rid of this program."0 "We have to get much tougher," said Trump, speaking about his belief that tougher immigration laws would help prevent future terror attacks.

"We have to get much smarter. And we have to get much less politically correct. We're so politically correct that we're afraid to do anything," Trump said.

Indeed, that sentiment reflects the opinions of some on the conservative end of the political spectrum, who believe lawmakers are reluctant to take action against terrorism for fears of offending certain religious or immigrant groups. Some contend that few other nations in the world have to deal with such restrictions.

The "diversity visa" program is a lottery that picks up to 50,000 individuals to legally enter the United States, who can later get permanent residence status.

TRUMP'S SUPPORTERS AND IMMIGRATION

Trump's supporters heavily back his plans to get tough on illegal immigration, as well as to more heavily vet individuals who legally enter the United States. Rightly or wrongly, they blame illegal migrants for taking American jobs and driving down wages in blue collar jobs. They also worry about terrorists sneaking into the country by legal means, which has happened previously in the United States.

Still, Trump's supporters are seeking a complete overhaul of the country's broken immigration system, which has allowed 11 million illegal migrants into the country.

"(Trump's) supporters may see this as a tough move on terror and immigration, but they are likely looking for a broader approach to immigration that is more restrictive beyond this visa program, and that cracks down on the southern border and other more prominent visa programs," Mahaffee said.

While Trump's supporters back the president on the matter, others don't agree.

"Trump' s supporters love his tough talk on immigration, but the rest of the country is not persuaded," West said. "His poll numbers have dropped over the past year, and many question his ability to lead effectively."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 12:40:36|Editor: Lu Hui

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UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy to the United Nations on Thursday asked for patience of the world organization and the international community over the issue of Rakhine state in Myanmar.

The situation in Rakhine state is moving toward stabilization as a result of efforts by the Myanmar government, Wu Haitao, the charge d'affaires of the Chinese mission to the United Nations, told the Security Council.

The issue of Rakhine state has complex historical, ethnic and religious factors and many differences and conflicts have been brewing for a long time, said Wu.

The governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh are seeking solutions to the refugee problem through negotiations and consultations. The United Nations and the international community should have patience and provide constructive assistance to and cooperate with Myanmar for a proper settlement of the issue, he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 13:10:41|Editor: ying

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WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said here on Thursday that no evidence of the alleged "attacks" against U.S. diplomats at Havana embassy has been found, accusing the Trump administration of politicizing the incidents.

"No attack has occurred. No deliberate action has taken place," said the visiting Cuban top diplomat at a press conference in translation, countering an allegation from the United States about "acoustic attacks" which so far have affected at least 24 Americans who used to work at the embassy in Havana.

Their symptoms have reportedly included hearing loss, dizziness, fatigue and cognitive issues.

Cuba's preliminary investigation has concluded that there is "no evidence whatsoever of the occurrence of the alleged incidents" or that the symptoms were even caused by any attack in Cuba, said Rodriguez.

"I can categorically affirm that those that say there have been attacks, deliberate actions or incidents ... as a cause of these health problems are deliberately lying," claimed the Cuban foreign minister.

Rodriguez also complained about "very limited" cooperation provided by the U.S. side to guarantee a smooth investigation.

The U.S. government has decided to politicize these events and used them as a pretext to take bilateral relations back to the era of confrontation, said Rodriguez.

Tension has been mounting in the past month between Washington and Havana over the "acoustic attacks."

In early October, the U.S. government expelled 15 Cuban officials from the Cuban embassy in Washington as a response to the Cuban authorities' "failure" to "take appropriate steps to protect our diplomats."

The Trump administration also announced it was dramatically reducing the size of the U.S. embassy in Havana, suspending issuance of U.S. visas to Cubans there, at the same time advising Americans not to travel to the island country.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson confirmed in a statement that the United States would "continue to maintain diplomatic relations with Cuba," and to cooperate with Cuba as his country pursues the investigation into these attacks.

"There has been a significant setback in U.S-Cuba relations," Rodriguez told reporters.

Though grumbling about the U.S. tough stance, Cuba still pledged to continue its cooperation with the former Cold War foe.

Cuba is "committed to conclude the investigation to clarify these events," said the foreign minister.

Cuba and the United States resumed diplomatic ties in 2015 after 54 years of political enmity, but even before taking office, Trump had promised to reverse what he called a "terrible and misguided deal" with Havana.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 13:15:43|Editor: ying

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BANGKOK, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- People are celebrating an annual traditional Thai festival, called Loy Krathong (float a basket), along canals and rivers throughout the country from Friday's early evening until midnight.

The Thais bring Krathong, or baskets, made of greenish banana leaves and laden with fresh flowers and a candle, to the bank of a canal or river, light the candle, make a wish and gently drop it on the water and let it float down the canal or river.

Some flower-filled baskets might float on a long way down the canal or river. Others might capsize a few minutes after they have been put down on the water.

Many come in couples like boyfriend and girlfriend or husband and wife. Most buy Krathong for a wide range of prices from 30 baht (about 0.88 U.S. dollar) to 500 baht (about 14.7 U.S. dollars) each, from vendors in the neighborhood of the canal or river. Only few would make their own Krathong at home.

The fun-filled festival may get started as early as about 06:00 p.m. and would not end until midnight or late into the wee hours of the next day.

Nevertheless, the authorities are strictly prohibiting the playing with noisy firecrackers and other fireworks during the annual festival unless given prior permission from district chiefs nationwide.

Those allegedly found to have violated the ban will be faced with a maximum of three years in prison or a maximum of 60,000 baht (about 1,764 U.S. dollars) in fine or both, police said.

In Bangkok, Loy Krathong revelers flock along the banks of Chao Phraya River, the country's largest, where dozens of piers have been specifically prepared for the festival.

The Marine Department has a fleet of 10 boats and nearly 200 officials on stand-by in the river between Rama VII Bridge and Rama IX Bridge to see to it that no pontoons will be overloaded with people impatiently waiting to float their baskets.

No passenger boats or cargo vessels are allowed to ply the river from 06:00 p.m. until midnight for fear that they would otherwise make waves and sink the baskets, said an official of the department.

At ritzy hotels in the inner part of the Thai capital, swimming pools may become a makeshift venue for their guests, mostly foreign, to float their flower-filled baskets which are literally going nowhere.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 13:20:45|Editor: ying

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A woman places a floral offering on the cross of the tomb of a relative during the celebration of the Day of the Dead, in a cemetery in Tegucigalpa, capital of Honduras, Nov. 2, 2017. (Xinhua/Rafael Ochoa)

QUITO, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- Countries across Latin America celebrated the Day of the Dead on Thursday, paying tribute to friends and family members who have passed away.

At once both solemn and festive, the day is mainly celebrated in countries with large indigenous communities, such as Bolivia, Mexico, Ecuador and Peru, where pre-Hispanic traditions survive.

Customarily, these traditions hold that the spirits of the departed return this time of year, and families welcome them back by erecting altars at home with the personal items or favorite foods and beverages of the deceased.

Families also visit their local cemeteries, usually from the night of Nov. 1 throughout the following day to clean their tombs, place fresh flowers, light candles and even share a meal with the visiting souls.

Unlike most Western countries, where visiting the grave of a loved one is a solitary affair that takes place on the anniversary of the death of each individual, Latin American societies remember their deceased ones in a community. This communal aspect lends a festive, carnival-like atmosphere to what would otherwise be a sedate and even sad occasion.

Cemeteries are often bustling as locals gather, bringing with them flowers, food and maybe even music.

In Ecuador's capital Quito, America Lopez, 75, paid her respects to her late mother and father at the San Diego Cemetery in the historic district of San Roque.

"Visiting the cemetery to pray at my parents' grave is a tradition that I cannot forgo. It is a time to recollect and reunite with them, as they were an important part of my life," Lopez told Xinhua.

All around her, indigenous locals sat around the tombs, talking and serving food to the deceased, as custom dictates.

In Bolivia, President Evo Morales, the country's first indigenous head of state, greeted the age-old tradition, and acknowledged the visit and the subsequent return of the spirits to the afterlife.

"We say goodbye to the souls of our dearly departed, brothers and sisters who sacrificed their lives for the liberation of Bolivia and the nationalization of our natural resources," Morales twitted as translated.

Bolivia's Deputy Minister of Decolonization Felix Cardenas noted the celebration, also known as All Saints Day, continues despite encroaching westernization.

"This traditional festivity is well rooted in Bolivia. The most important thing is that while Halloween is now in Bolivia, thanks to trade, Todos Santos (All Saints Day) is being revalued, thanks to culture," Cardenas told Xinhua.

A heritage common to many Latin American communities, the Day of the Dead does have local colors, especially in the way foods are prepared exclusively for this occasion.

Ecuadorians prepare colada morada, a purple drink made of purple corn mixed with fruits and spices.

In Mexico, bakeries practically stop making any other kind of bread to offer pan de muerto, or bread of the dead, a type of sweet bun sprinkled with sugar and decorated with bone-shaped dough.

In Peru, Federico Quispe from the south Andean region of Ayacucho was accompanied by his wife and three children to the capital Lima to pay his respects to his mother, who is buried at the local El Angel Cemetery.

"The dead are not dead, they are alive like you and me, and their spirits are nourished by the gifts we bring them," he said, recalling anecdotes about his mother and cheerfully retelling them.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 14:41:00|Editor: ying

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SEOUL, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump will visit South Korea on Nov. 7 and 8 to hold a summit talk with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and deliver a speech at the National Assembly, the presidential Blue House said here on Friday.

Nam Gwan-pyo, second deputy chief of the National Security Office (NSO) of the Blue House, told a press briefing that Trump was scheduled to arrive at South Korea at around noon on Tuesday and will visit the newly renovated U.S. military base in Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, some 40 km south of the capital Seoul.

The U.S. president will host a lunch at the base for both U.S. and South Korean service members and will be briefed by the combined forces on current security situations on the Korean Peninsula, Nam said.

Later in the day, President Moon will hold a summit meeting with Trump at the Blue House, and then an expanded meeting attended by major government officials from both sides.

After the talks, the two leaders will hold a joint press conference.

On the second day, Trump will visit the South Korean National Assembly to deliver a speech, becoming the first U.S. leader to do so in more than two decades.

After that, he will lay a wreath at the National Cemetery before leaving for China.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 15:11:06|Editor: liuxin

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KUALA LUMPUR, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia's exports in September rose 14.8 percent, a slower annual growth for the second month in a row, a report from the International Trade and Industry Ministry said here on Friday.

Exports rose 14.8 percent year-on-year to 78.26 billion ringgit (18.49 billion U.S. dollars) in September, supported by robust demand from major markets including Southeast Asian countries, China, the European Union and the United States, according to the report.

Among the exports, manufactured goods surged by 17.1 percent year-on-year in September, supported mainly by higher exports of electrical and electronic products.

Mining goods exports also grew by 6.1 percent, driven by increased exports of liquefied natural gas.

Exports of agriculture goods, however, fell by 1.8 percent due to lower exports of palm oil and related products.

In terms of market, trade with China rose 15.9 percent year-on-year to 24.68 billion ringgit, accounting for 16.7 percent of Malaysia's total trade.

Exports to members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), was up 12.7 percent year-on-year; to the EU and the U.S., exports were up by 16.2 percent and 10.7 percent respectively.

However, the annual growth in September was down from 21.5 percent growth in August and 30.9 percent growth in July, data revealed.

For the first nine months, Malaysia's exports surged by 21.3 percent to 690.25 billion ringgit.

"The full year estimate of 16.6 percent export growth as stated in the Malaysia's Economic Report 2017/2018 is well within reach ... This would support the projected economic growth of between 5.2 percent and 5.7 percent for 2017," the report said.

Malaysia's RHB Research Institute economist Peck Boon Soon said the September exports, which was within his expectation, suggested that the strong momentum would remain, though the growth is expected to be slower than the first half.

He sees the global economic growth remaining favorable to sustain Malaysia's economy for the rest of the year.

But due to a higher base of this year, Peck projected Malaysia's exports to normalize next year, rising at a slower pace of 8 percent to 10 percent.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 15:26:10|Editor: Xiang Bo

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Chen Xi (C), president of the Party School of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, attends a graduation ceremony of the Party school in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 3, 2017. Chen presented certificates to 453 autumn-semester graduating students on Friday. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)

BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Communist Party of China (CPC) official Chen Xi attended the graduation ceremony of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee on Friday.

Chen, president of the CPC's top Party school and a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, presented certificates to 453 autumn-semester graduating students.

Three student representatives delivered speeches at the ceremony, stating their determination to fulfill their prime political task of studying, spreading and implementing the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the CPC.

He Yiting, executive vice president of the school, chaired the event.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 15:26:11|Editor: liuxin

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KABUL, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- A Russian company has won the contract for the construction of a dam called "Machalgho Dam" in the eastern Paktia province, a local television channel Tolo reported on Friday.

"Work for the construction of Machalgho Dam will kick off within the next one month," the media outlet quoted Deputy Minister for Energy and Water Abdul Basir Azimi as saying.

Without identifying the name of the company, Azimi, according to Tolo television channel, said that the government would pay the budget for the 23 million U.S. dollars project which will irrigate more than 2,300 hectares of land, will also produce 800 kilowatts of power and meanwhile it will provide drinking water to over 900 families in Paktia province.

Work for the construction of the dam project will start within the next one month after the winner company presents the warranty letters and other required documents, Tolo reported, based on Azimi's remarks, adding the project will be completed in three years.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 16:16:24|Editor: liuxin

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DAMASCUS, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian army fully captured the capital city of the eastern province of Deir al-Zour on Friday from the Islamic State (IS), a military source told Xinhua.

The Syrian army's control over the capital city of Deir al-Zour came after the troops and allied fighters captured the Huwaikah neighborhood, the last area under IS control, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, state news agency SANA reported the liberation of the Deir al-Zour city, saying the army is now mopping up the city to defuse explosive devices left by IS.

In September, the army broke IS' three-year siege on Deir al-Zour capital city, capturing key areas and continuing to attack the IS positions in the countryside of that key oil-rich province.

Liberating the city is the second major blow to the IS militants, after losing their de facto capital of Raqqa last month to the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Now, the Syrian army is fighting IS in the countryside of Deir al-Zour province, eyeing to recapture the key city of al-Bukamal, the last IS stronghold in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border, where the Iraqi military forces are closing in on the terror group in areas they are controlling on the Iraqi side of the border.

As for the SDF, this Kurdish-led group is advancing against IS in the northern and eastern countryside of Deir al-Zour.

In a recent interview with Xinhua, Talal Silo, the SDF spokesman, said the group aims to capture areas in Deir al-Zour on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River.
Smoke billows from the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zour during an operation by Syrian government forces against Islamic State (IS) group jihadists on November 2, 2017. (AFP PHOTO)

DAMASCUS, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian army fully captured the capital city of the eastern province of Deir al-Zour on Friday from the Islamic State (IS), a military source told Xinhua.

The Syrian army's control over the capital city of Deir al-Zour came after the troops and allied fighters captured the Huwaikah neighborhood, the last area under IS control, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, state news agency SANA reported the liberation of the Deir al-Zour city, saying the army is now mopping up the city to defuse explosive devices left by IS.

In September, the army broke IS' three-year siege on Deir al-Zour capital city, capturing key areas and continuing to attack the IS positions in the countryside of that key oil-rich province.

Liberating the city is the second major blow to the IS militants, after losing their de facto capital of Raqqa last month to the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Now, the Syrian army is fighting IS in the countryside of Deir al-Zour province, eyeing to recapture the key city of al-Bukamal, the last IS stronghold in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border, where the Iraqi military forces are closing in on the terror group in areas they are controlling on the Iraqi side of the border.

As for the SDF, this Kurdish-led group is advancing against IS in the northern and eastern countryside of Deir al-Zour.

In a recent interview with Xinhua, Talal Silo, the SDF spokesman, said the group aims to capture areas in Deir al-Zour on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 16:31:30|Editor: liuxin

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DAMASCUS, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- At least six people were killed and 21 others wounded on Friday when a suicide bombing hit the southern countryside of Quneitra, state news agency SANA reported.

The bombing targeted the town of Hadar in the countryside of Quneitra, said SANA, giving no further details.

Meanwhile, activists said a suicide car bomb targeted a position of Syrian soldiers and allied fighters in that area amid clashes between the government forces and the rebels.

The Syrian government has repeatedly accused Israel of supporting the rebels in Quneitra, which is adjacent to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Israel has repeatedly targeted Syrian military posts in Quneitra, saying it retaliates against the firing of mortar shells onto the occupied territory.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 17:06:41|Editor: Xiang Bo

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BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- A Beijing court Friday sentenced former Chinese TV host Lang Yongchun to three months detention for drunk driving.

Lang was involved a late-night accident while driving his SUV on Oct. 5 on West Dawang Street in Chaoyang District. His blood alcohol was recorded was 207.9mg/100ml, which was exceedingly high, Chaoyang District People's Court said.

The court sentenced him to three months in detention, and fined him 4,000 yuan (about 600 U.S. dollars).

Lang was previously a host of the evening news on China Central Television (CCTV), China's state broadcaster. He left CCTV in 2015, according to his public profile.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 17:11:44|Editor: Xiang Bo

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ATHENS, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The body of a woman was retrieved and 14 people including a minor were rescued after a wooden boat carrying refugees and migrants from Turkey to Greece sank off the Greek island of Kalolimnos, Greece' national news agency AMNA reported Friday.

According to the Greek Coast Guard, the rescue operation is underway, as passengers said there were 22-24 people on the boat when it sank.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 17:16:46|Editor: Xiang Bo

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BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- China will prohibit property developers, real estate agencies as well as Internet finance and micro-loan companies from offering illicit downpayment financing for buyers, as the government seeks to rein in overheated property prices in major cities.

Using funds obtained through channels, such as consumer loans for property purchases, will also be banned, according to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

The ministry said it would work with the central bank and banking regulator to act against money laundering in the property market.

Institutions that are found to break the rules will be punished, according to the regulator.

It also requires banks to scrutinize funding sources of downpayments and the authenticity of income certificates.

The measures came as soaring property prices have made housing affordability a growing problem for policy makers. Since last year, dozens of local governments have passed or expanded restrictions on house purchases and increased minimum downpayments.

Chinese authorities have constantly reiterated that "houses are built for living in, not speculation."

At a press conference on the sidelines of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Wang Menghui, minister of housing and urban-rural development, said authorities were studying a "long-term mechanism" for real estate regulation and advancing legislative work on developing the rental market.

He pledged to move faster to "implement a housing system that ensures supply through multiple sources, provides housing support through multiple channels, and encourages both housing purchase and renting."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 17:21:49|Editor: Xiang Bo

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RABAT, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- One person was killed and two others injured in a shooting at a cafe in Morocco's tourist city of Marrakesh, local media reported on Thursday night.

The authorities said two attackers entered the cafe and shot at the crowd before fleeing the scene with a motorcycle.

The man, who was hit in the head, died instantly. The injured were sent to local hospital, the same source noted.

Initial investigations show revenge is likely to be behind the attack.

According to local media, the dead man, Hamza Chaieb, 26-year-old, studies medicine in Marrakesh. His father is the president of the court of appeal in the central city of Beni Mellal.

The police tightened security measures in and around the city after the attack.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 17:26:51|Editor: ZD

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by Jin Jing

LONDON, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The "new era" underway in China will have an impact way beyond its borders and contribute not only to global growth but also drastically alter the perception of the country, said Stephen Perry, chairman of Britain's 48 Group Club.

"A new era in China is a new era for the world," said Perry in a recent interview with Xinhua.

In a report delivered at the opening of the 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress held on Oct. 18-24 in Beijing, Xi Jinping, who was re-elected General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, said socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered "a new era."

Perry said "a new era" indicates the fact that China has succeeded in lifting 700 million people out of poverty over the past 35 years, building a basic industrial capability, establishing a services industry that didn't exist before and boosting agricultural output from a much smaller population due to mass production.

"What is now going to happen is a modern economy and a modern society is going to be built," said the chairman of the 48 Group Club, an independent business network committed to promoting positive links with China.

Perry said many countries have been bewildered as to how best to develop. They're going to spend more time studying the Chinese way after witnessing the Asian giant's rise.

In his report, Xi draws up a two-stage development plan to build China into a "great modern socialist country" by mid century, around the centennial of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

The best opportunities for world economic growth are believed to largely lie in the continuation of growth in China, which accounts for over 30 percent of global growth, the implementation of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and an industrial revolution in Africa.

The West has been stuck at around 2 percent growth since 2007 and the growth picture doesn't look good due to a large amount of money stuck in quantitative easing and a lack of new consumer demand because of the scale of consumer debt, said Perry.

"It is China that is going to be the stimulus for growth, for the benefit of the West," he said.

The Belt and Road Initiative is one of the most significant global initiatives ever contemplated, said Perry.

The initiative, proposed by Xi in 2013, aims to create greater trade, infrastructure and people-to-people links between Asia, Europe and Africa by reviving and expanding the ancient Silk Trade routes. The modern version comprises an overland Silk Road Economic Belt and a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

The opportunities for the West and growth for the world lie not only in the building of infrastructure along the ancient trade routes but the urbanization that comes after that, said Perry.

"The West holds a lot of the key technologies for urbanization ....Sensible western companies are focused on BRI (the Belt and Road Initiative) as their growth opportunity for the next twenty, thirty years," said Perry, noting that China welcomes Western technologies in the process of urbanization such as high rise lifts.

Meanwhile, the "new era," is essentially about trying to get countries to work together to create sustainable development and solve problems through negotiation and diplomacy rather than through aggression and war.

"That's a very new challenge for the world to change its way of thinking from a world which for 3,000 years has been based on empires ...to resisting empires for a multipolar world working together to try and solve tensions and create sustainable development," said Perry.

Moreover, the notion of "new era" will also change people's perception of China as they become more familiar with the country, said Perry.

"I think the 'new era' speaks of China being more proud as it should be, of its history, its civilization and what has achieved... China will,in the 'new era', project itself more on the world stage," he said.

On Xi's re-election as General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, the 48 Group Club chairman said strong leadership is crucial in a China undergoing profound change.

Perry said China is now transitioning into a highly developed economy and "very clear leadership is required in order to make the changes suitable and keep it on the track of socialism."

Perry noted that some in the West have made up their minds about the CPC congress and its decision-making methods without understanding where China is headed.

"It's good for any country when they embark on a period of major changes to have very clear strong leadership," said Perry. "And that's what the congress has achieved, a very clear strong leadership." (Xinhua reporters Bai Ye and Duan Kai also contributed to the story)

Related:

Infographic: Highlights of Xi's report to 19th CPC National Congress
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 17:36:55|Editor: Xiang Bo

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BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Beijing Friday issued an orange alert for air pollution in the coming days, advising children and the elderly to stay indoors.

The alert, the second highest level, will come into effect from Saturday, said Beijing's air pollution emergency response office.

Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and their neighboring regions are forecast to see slight to severe air pollution from Saturday to next Wednesday, said the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

In Beijing, the air will gradually improve from Tuesday night when a cold front arrives, the ministry said.

The office advised children, the elderly and those suffering from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases to stay indoors, and kindergartens, primary and middle schools to cancel outdoor activities.

The office ordered some manufacturers to reduce production and some construction sites to halt work. Heavily polluting vehicles and trucks carrying construction waste and dirt were banned from roads.

According to the local air pollution emergency response plan, an orange alert should be issued when the average air quality index (AQI) is forecast to exceed 200 for three consecutive days and and one of those day is forecast to be over 300.

Under China's four-tier warning system, red is the most severe, followed by orange, yellow and blue.

The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region sits in the heart of the North China Plain where air pollution, particularly winter smog, often occurs as a result of the high concentration of industrial and vehicle emissions, limited air circulation and the burning of coal.

More residents are increasingly worried about the health impacts, particularly of PM 2.5. The smaller particles pose a greater health threat as they can get deeper into the lungs than larger particles.

China has set a target to reduce the average PM 2.5 level by at least 15 percent in the cities around the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region between October 2017 and March 2018, compared to last year's level.

Authorities in Tianjin and neighboring Hebei Province previously ordered heavily polluting industries, including steel, casting and coking, to restrict production and cut emissions in the winter heating period.

Authorities in the region have been also helping more households switch from coal-fired heating sources to gas and electric sources.

A total of 1.21 million households in Tianjin will switch to clean energy-fired heating sources in 2017 and 2018. In Hebei, 1.96 million households will finish the shift in 2017.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 17:46:58|Editor: Xiang Bo

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RABAT, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Moroccan police announced on Friday that they have arrested six people over shooting in a cafe in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh.

On Thursday, two hooded armed men opened fire in a coffee shop, leaving one person dead and two others wounded before fleeing the scene on a motorcycle.

According to a statement from the police, the suspects were arrested in the economic capital Casablanca.

Investigators have dismissed that the crime was a terrorist act, saying that it appeared to be a settlement of accounts.

The main suspect of the attack is still on the run, the statement said, adding that he is already wanted for money laundering and drug trafficking.

According to local media, the dead man, Hamza Chaieb, 26-year-old, studies medicine in Marrakesh. His father is the president of the court of appeal in the central city of Beni Mellal.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 17:47:00|Editor: ZD

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BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- China and the United States are working to ensure President Donald Trump's state visit is a "historic success", Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang said Friday.

Trump, who will pay a state visit to China from Nov. 8 to 10, will be the first head of state to visit China after the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will receive Trump with high standards in reciprocity to the hospitality he received from Trump at Mar-a-Lago in April, according to Zheng.

"Apart from the red-carpet ceremony, formal talks and banquet, the two presidents will have informal arrangements," Zheng told a briefing for Chinese and foreign reporters.

The two leaders will exchange views on major issues of mutual concern,attend a business community event and meet the press, Zheng said.

Related:

U.S. President Trump to visit China next week: FM
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 18:17:08|Editor: liuxin

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SEOUL, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's presidential Blue House held a standing committee meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) on Thursday to discuss the country's unilateral sanctions on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the Blue House said here on Friday.

The NSC standing committee meeting was chaired on Thursday afternoon by Chung Eui-yong, top national security advisor to President Moon Jae-in, according to a press release from Moon's office.

The participants discussed standalone sanctions, which the South Korean government can take, based on the result of past consultations with other countries to implement the UN Security Council resolution.

The UN Security Council unanimously adopted a new resolution on Sept. 11 to tough sanctions on Pyongyang over its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3.

Attending the meeting were ministers of foreign affairs and unification, vice defense minister, the presidential chief of staff, deputy chiefs of the National Security Office (NSO) of the Blue House and the coast guard head.

Meanwhile, the committee members discussed ways to prevent South Korean ships from entering the DPRK waters again.

A South Korean fishing boat, the 391 Hungjin, reportedly was returned to the country on Friday after entering the DPRK waters and being seized by the DPRK troops for six days.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 18:32:11|Editor: ZD

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Members of the Chinese scientific expedition team pose for photos onboard China's ice breaker Xuelong, July 31, 2017. The Xuelong icebreaker crossed the Arctic Circle and entered the Arctic Ocean on Monday. China's ice breaker, the Xuelong, which means "Snow Dragon," set sail on July 20 for the country's first circumnavigation of the Arctic rim. (Xinhua/Yu Qiongyuan)(File photo)

by Yang Dingdu

BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Arctic has become a new area for the development of the Belt and Road Initiative as the "Silk Road on Ice" (SRI)becomes more feasible.

Being made possible as melting ice gives way to open sea, the SRI refers to a shortcut between the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans through the Arctic. It is widely seen as the third arch of the Belt and Road Initiative, which is originally composed of one route spanning westward from China to Europe, and the other extending from the country's eastern coastline down to the Indian Ocean.

On Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping told visiting Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev that China and Russia should cooperate in the development and utilization of the Arctic routes to jointly build the SRI.

This is not the first time the two leaders discussed cooperation in building the SRI. In his visit to Moscow on July 4, Xi agreed with Medvedev to jointly build a sea route through the Arctic Ocean into the SRI.

The interaction between Chinese and Russian leaders sent a strong signal that the Arctic has gained a place in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Earlier this year, the Chinese government released a plan for maritime cooperation under the initiative, envisioning an economic passage between China and Europe via the Arctic Ocean.

In the plan, China pledged to support efforts to improve transportation conditions on the Arctic Ocean and encourage Chinese enterprises to take part in the commercial use of the Arctic route.

The SRI will greatly enhance connectivity between China and the Europe and potentially the Americas, reshaping global trade flows, and consequently the world economy, Hu Angang, economics professor at Tsinghua University, told Xinhua.

ADVANTAGES OF ARCTIC PASSAGE

Compared to traditional routes, passages via the Arctic can be 30 to 50 percent shorter, cutting time, costs and fuel. They have great economic potential for the world, particularly trading powers such as China.

As world's largest trader, China trades goods worth some 4 trillion U.S. dollars a year, 90 percent of which are transported by sea. Saving even a fraction of the transport costs can mean quite a significant amount.

The Arctic routes will further drive global transport costs down by offering an alternative route to shipping companies, breaking the monopoly of some of the world's key waterways, such as the Malacca Straits and the Suez Canal.

In addition to saving costs, the Arctic economic passage can help stimulate trade growth, Hu said.

The Arctic routes link China with some of the world's most developed markets, including America, Canada and oil-rich states in northern Europe. Once the cost-efficient and time-saving routes became mature, they would spur China's exports of high value-added goods to these developed countries, he added.

PIONEERING VOYAGES

In September, Chinese icebreaker Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, crossed the Arctic through the Northwest Passage, a short cut between Asia and North America, during its Arctic rim expedition. It is the first time any Chinese ship completed that route.

Meanwhile, China is building its second icebreaker the Snow Dragon 2. The domestically-built icebreaker is due to hit the ice in 2019.

China has long ventured into the Arctic Ocean. In 2013, China COSCO Shipping Corporation, one of world's largest maritime carriers, sent a ship coded Yongsheng from northeast China's Dalian port to Rotterdam through the Northeast Passage, also known as the Northern Sea Route, across the Arctic Ocean.

The voyage was completed in 30 days saving a third of the usual shipping time. Since then, COSCO has been sending multiple ships through the Arctic Ocean every year.

These voyages can help accumulate navigation experience, which is valuable in developing a specialized talent pool as well as ships and facilities for the Arctic Ocean.

At the moment, shipping through the Northeast Passage remains costly and challenging for lack of infrastructure. Maintenance is hard to find and extremely expensive for ships trying to edge through the icy waters.

China will work with countries bordering the Arctic Ocean to build infrastructure, such as harbors, roads, bridges and communication facilities in order to improve connectivity and commercial feasibility of the Arctic route, Hu said.

ARCTIC ROUTES

The Northeast Passage is the most commercially viable one of the three main routes that connect the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans via the Arctic. The other two are the Northwest Passage, and the Transpolar Sea Route.

The Northwest Passage goes along the northern Canadian and Alaskan coasts, the Northeast Passage follows the Russian and Norwegian coasts, and the Transpolar Sea Route crosses the Arctic through the North Pole.

At the moment, the Northeast Passage is the most feasible, allowing ships to pass for some 4 months. The passage, already in commercial use, is the one that China and Russia have vowed to jointly develop.

The Northwest Passage is much more challenging with thick ice and complex straits. It still takes time for the passage to be feasible for commercial use. China has published a guide with nautical charts and descriptions of ice conditions on the passage.

The Transpolar Sea Route, which crosses the North Pole, is theoretically the shortest route linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. However, passing through the coldest part of the Arctic, the route will not become feasible until the Arctic become ice free.

Scientists have made varied forecasts as to when the Arctic will be ice free. Most predictions point to a period between 2030 and 2050.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 18:37:12|Editor: liuxin

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CANBERRA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Anyone aboard an Air New Zealand flight will probably be impressed by its funky safety instruction video featuring Hobbits, Elves and other famous kiwis, while the company's in-flight services also woo passengers.

That explains why, for the fifth consecutive year, the carrier won the title of Airline of the Year awarded by Australia-based aviation safety and product rating agency AirlineRatings, CNN travel reported Thursday.

Qantas Airways and Singapore Airlines take the second and third place on the top 10 list, respectively.

AirlineRatings' evaluation is based on four major international industry and government safety audits as well as other elements like fleet age, passenger reviews, profitability and key product offerings.

"We also look to see if the airline is an innovator trying new things to improve the passenger experience," said Geoffrey Thomas, editor-in-chief of AirlineRatings.com.

The agency also offered individual awards. Air New Zealand won Best Premium Economy, while Best Economy went to Korean Air for its spacious seats.

Singapore Airlines and Virgin Australia took top spots for First Class and Business Class, respectively.

The judging panel comprises experts who have 20 years of experience assessing aviation quality, according to AirlineRatings.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 18:42:17|Editor: liuxin

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LAMU, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's military said Friday its troops killed two Al-Shabaab militants on Thursday evening in a foiled attack in the restive coastal Lamu County.

Kenya Defence Force (KDF) spokesperson David Obonyo said the soldiers have also intensified manhunt for wounded Al-Shabaab militants in the region which has experienced a series of attacks this year.

KDF troops on patrol in Witu area, Lamu County, engaged and killed two Al-Shabaab militants on Thursday evening. The operation is ongoing, Obonyo said.

"We are still pursuing the militants who escaped during the fierce gun battle to the Boni forest. We believe the numbers of those killed could rise," he said by telephone.

The incident came barely a week after four Al-Shabaab militants were killed in battle with KDF troops at Mararani area in Lamu East.

Four AK-47 rifles, bomb making materials, six magazines, three grenades, three car batteries, rolls of cables, three mobile phones and assorted food stuffs were found at the camp.

Obonyo said the military has scaled up operations in Boni forest to flush out the militants behind sporadic terror attacks targeting both civilians and security agents in the Coastal region.

KDF is leading the latest onslaught against the group blamed for a series of sporadic attacks in Coast and northern Kenya

Obonyo said more military personnel with armoured personnel carrier (APC) have launched both aerial and ground operation targeting the militants.

A military source indicates that Al-Shabaab militant group is planning more attacks in Lamu ahead of December holiday.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 18:42:17|Editor: Yurou

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NEW YORK, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Governor of the U.S. state of New York Andrew M. Cuomo was honored here Thursday night with the annual Blue Cloud Award by the China Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing understanding and deepening trust between the two countries.

"This is very very high honor for our governor, he'll treasure this, this is really a huge recognition," New York Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul told about 300 hundred global leaders in business, culture and fashion after she accepted the award on behalf of Cuomo at the China Institute Gala held in Lower Manhattan.

"Our governor has truly made this relationship one of his high priorities, we have had our three trade missions and the fourth is being planned," said Hochul. "We have trade offices and tourism offices in China, and we have people on the ground to make sure there is a wide opening door way between our two countries, and our cities as well."

Hochul also highly praised the Chinese American community's valuable contribution to the state and the NYC. "The Chinese immigrants really helped build the fabric of our city, and made it such a great community as it is," she said.

The other recipients of the Blue Cloud Award are: Ronald O. Perelman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MacAndrews & Forbes Incorporated; Vera Wang, the prominent bridal wear designer; Ning Yuan, Chairman and President of China Construction America; and Robert Hong Xiao, Chief Executive Officer of Perfect World Co., Ltd.

The event was emceed by China Institute trustees Yue-Sai Kan, the Emmy Award-winning television host and producer and Mei He, a recipient of the Eisenhower Foundation International Leadership Award.

The Snow Lotus Trio, a Tibetan music ensemble consisting of three sisters from Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province, entertained the honorees and guests with their compelling performances featuring traditional costumes, dancing, and singing.

Also at the gala, Hainan Airlines of China celebrated the launch of its Panda Express routes to Chengdu and Chongqing.

Founded nearly a century ago by forward thinking educators including Dr. Hu Shi, John Dewey, and leading educators at Columbia University, the China Institute was built on a belief in cross-cultural scholarship and dialogue as a foundation for strong and positive U.S.- China relations.

The Blue Cloud Award is presented to remarkable individuals who have strengthened the bonds between the United States and China and exemplify the spirit and values of the China Institute.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 18:47:19|Editor: liuxin

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BAGHDAD, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi forces on Friday entered the city of al-Qaim near the border with Syria to dislodge the Islamic State (IS) militants from their last stronghold in Iraq, the Iraqi military said.

The Iraqi army, Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) forces, paramilitary brigades of Hashd Shaabi and Sunni tribal fighters broke into the outskirts of the city of al-Qaim, some 330 km west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, Lt. Gen. Abdul Amir Yarallah, Commander of Liberation of West Anbar Operations, said in a brief statement.

The troops entered the areas of Se'da, Karabla and Husaibah, which are part of the city of al-Qaim, the statement said.

Brigadier General Mohammed al-Jubouri from the Joint Operations command told Xinhua that the explosive experts are defusing roadside bombs and booby-trapped buildings to clear the outskirts of al-Qaim as the troops continued their advance into the city.

On Oct. 26, the security forces initiated their advance towards the last urban IS stronghold in Iraq near the Iraqi-Syrian border.

Meanwhile, the troops also made a significant progress toward the IS-held city of Rawa, about 80 km east of al-Qaim, and took positions outside the southern edges of the city. Later, the troops will have to continue clearing the vast rural areas and desert in north of the Euphrates River.

The IS militants seized large swaths of territory in Iraq in 2014. After three years of battles, the Iraqi forces have retaken most of the occupied areas from the terrorist group, including the country's second largest city Mosul.
iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The United States military has conducted its first airstrikes against ISIS in Somalia, where the U.S. typically strikes against the al Qaeda-affiliated al Shabaab, according to a U.S. official.



American military drones conducted two airstrikes in northeastern Somalia targeting ISIS fighters, the official said.



These are the first American military strikes against ISIS, which has developed a small presence in the Horn of Africa.



The airstrikes were carried out under the authorities given to U.S. Africa Command in March by President Donald Trump.



Those authorities enabled offensive airstrikes in Somalia. Until then, U.S. airstrikes could only be used in self-defense situations on behalf of Somali and African Union troops.



The main target of U.S. airstrikes in Somalia is al Shabaab, which operates in southern and central Somalia.



The airstrikes were first reported by local press in Somalia.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 18:57:22|Editor: Yurou

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BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Chinese lawmakers Friday pushed for a clearer definition of rural land contracts to ensure rural women's right to contract land.

Although the current rural land contract law says all members of a rural community are entitled to contract a piece of land jointly owned by the community, it does not include a clear definition of who is qualified to be a member, which largely affects rural women, according to Dong Zhongyuan, member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), at a panel discussion.

In practice, it is left to local laws, regulations, policies and village customs to decide.

The vague definition leaves women at a disadvantage, according to Long Chaoyun, another committee member, at the same session.

In some cases, daughters are considered members of a household and have the right to contract the land but daughters-in-law are not, while in the other cases this is reversed.

"In many cases, when daughters get married, they are excluded from their parent's household and have the contracted land withdrawn with no land allotted to them in the household they marry into," Long said.

"The law should define it and customs and practices that are against the law should be corrected," she said.

Dong agreed with Long that the draft revision should not dodge the issue since the other existing laws related to rural land also failed to address it.

Noting that it might be difficult to impose a single standard on diverse rural communities, Yan Junqi, another committee member, suggested taking a longer time to research and work out a better solution.

The focus of the draft revision, submitted for the first reading, was to introduce new concepts of rural land rights.

Since the country adopted the household responsibility system in the early 1980s, the property rights of rural land have been divided into two layers: the ownership right that is collectively owned by a rural community, normally a village, and the use right, which is held by an individual household that contracts a piece of land from the village.

The draft revision further separates the use right into "the contract right" and "the management right."

Farmers will be able to retain the contract right over their allotted land and only transfer the management right if they choose to lease the land to others, mortgage it to banks or invest it in a cooperative in exchange for shares.

"The bill caters well to the urgent needs and interest of rural residents," said Xu Ai'hua, an NPC deputy and chief of a chicken farm cooperative in eastern China's Zhejiang Province.

"Clarifying management rights of land will help farmers put contracted land to better use and thus boost rural economy," Xu said.

Xu said it was important to properly register contract and management rights.

The bill removes an article that forces contractors to end the contract, and return land to the village when they migrate to cities and change their household registration.

"Migrant workers welcome this act and care most about the consistency of rural land contracts," said Fang Xin, a committee member. "Although they no longer farm at home, they feel more secure holding the land contracts. For many rural people, land is the root of their life."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 18:57:23|Editor: Xiang Bo

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Bounnhang Vorachit (L), General Secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party Central Committee and president of Laos, shakes hands with Song Tao, special envoy of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping, during their meeting in Vientiane, Laos, Nov. 2, 2017. Song, who is also head of the CPC Central Committee's International Department, has been here on a visit from Thursday to Friday to brief the Laotian side on the 19th CPC National Congress. (Xinhua/Liu Ailun)

VIENTIANE, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- China and Laos have vowed to further strengthen cooperation to jointly build a strong community of shared destiny.

The pledge came during a meeting between Bounnhang Vorachit, General Secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party Central Committee and president of Laos, and Song Tao, special envoy of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping.

Song, who is also head of the CPC Central Committee's International Department, has been here on a visit from Thursday to Friday to brief the Laotian side on the 19th CPC National Congress.

At their meeting, Song conveyed Xi's message that under the guidance of the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress, the Chinese party and people will make new and greater contributions to promote the building of a new type of international relations and a community of shared future for mankind.

Xi said in the message that both being socialist countries, China stands ready to work with Laos to jointly build an unbreakable community of shared destiny and push for a new realm in the development of the socialist cause, based on the principles of long-term stability, good neighborly friendship, mutual trust and all-round cooperation and in the spirit of good neighbors, friends, comrades and partners.

Bounnhang, for his part, spoke highly of the great achievements of the 19th CPC National Congress and the theoretical contributions of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to the socialist cause in the world.

He said Laos will learn from the outcomes of the 19th CPC National Congress in the innovation of theory and practice, and continue to strengthen exchanges and cooperation between the two parties to jointly build a strong Laos-China community of shared destiny.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 19:07:27|Editor: Yurou

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XI'AN, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Yan'an, a former revolutionary base in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, will receive water diverted from the nearby Yellow River to resolve the city's drinking water shortage.

The water diversion project, which began construction in December 2014, is now almost complete, and Yan'an residents are expected to begin drinking water from the Yellow River at the end of this year or early next year, according to the Yan'an Yellow River Water Diversion Engineering Company.

Yan'an faces a grave water shortage, with the city's per capita water resources standing at 612 cubic meters, only 8.1 percent of the world's average and 29 percent of national average.

However, there are many technical difficulties involved in diverting water from the Yellow River, China's second-longest river, to the city.

As implied by its name, the Yellow River contains a large amount of mud and sand: approximately 25 kilograms per one cubic meter of water. Meanwhile, Yan'an's location on China's Loess Plateau means the project has to pass through areas of higher altitude and complex topography.

Workers have completed 145.8 kilometers of pipe lines, nine tunnels, and set up many pumping stations and supply plants to remove the mud and sand and disinfect the water.

According to Zhang Huiming, chairman of the engineering company, Yan'an residents consume around 80,000 tonnes of water every day. Their water is mainly supplied by Wangyao Reservoir, but the gap between supply and demand is growing.

"The shortage of water resources has become a bottleneck for the sustainable development of Yan'an," said Zhang.

He added that the project will offer an additional more than 60,000 tonnes of water to Yan'an every day, increasing to 100,000 tonnes in the future.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 19:22:30|Editor: liuxin

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JAKARTA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- A man who masterminded the deadly attack on policemen in West Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia recently has surrendered to the provincial police, police sources said on Friday.

Imam Munandar, alias Nandar, was also accused as the plotter and executor of deadly shooting on two policemen in Bima, the provincial capital of West Nusa Tenggara, on Sept. 11 of this year.

"He surrendered last night (Thursday night)," deputy chief of police in the province Senior Commissioner Tajuddin was quoted by Antara news wire as saying in the province.

During the attack on the policemen, Nandar conducted the execution along with a militant with initial MA.

MA was shot dead in an exchange of fire with anti-terror squad of police in Ambalawi sub-district in the province on Monday.

The deputy chief of police said that Nanda will be sent to Jakarta on Friday for interrogation.

Indonesia has stepped up fight against militants and their radicalism teaching across the nation.

The country has witnessed a spate of suicide strikes in recent years with expansion of their target to police personal.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 19:32:33|Editor: liuxin

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JERUSALEM, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Stray gunfire from Syria spilled over to the Israeli-held Golan Heights on Friday, lightly injuring an Israeli civilian, Israeli authorities said.

The injured man, a Druze citizen of Israel, was treated at the site.

The incident came shortly after a suicide bomber with the al-Nusra Front -- a jihadi group formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda -- detonated a car bomb in an area of homes of civilians on the outskirts of Hader, a Druze-majority village.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 19:37:35|Editor: liuxin

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JERUSALEM, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Stray gunfire from Syria spilled over to the Israeli-held Golan Heights on Friday, lightly injuring an Israeli civilian, Israeli authorities said.

The injured man, a Druze citizen of Israel, was treated at the site.

The incident came shortly after a suicide bomber with the al-Nusra Front -- a jihadi group formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda -- detonated a car bomb in an area of homes of civilians on the outskirts of Hader, a Druze-majority village.

On the Israeli side of the border, hundreds of residents of the Druze town of Majdal Shams gathered near the border in solidarity with the Druze in Hader, where fierce clashes between President Bashar Assad's army and rebels have been reported.

A spokesperson with the Israeli military said in a statement that "shots were fired from Syria at the northern Golan Heights, as a result, an Israeli civilian was lightly injured and was treated at the scene."

The gunshots "appear to be a stray fire resulting from the intense fighting on the Syrian Golan Heights," the spokesperson said, adding that the army "is following any developments of the situation in the area of the village of Hader in Syria."

In the wake of the incident, Israeli police forces were deployed across major roads in the Golan, a police statement said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 19:42:37|Editor: liuxin

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JERUSALEM, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Israel's military said Friday that it would help the Syrian village of Hader and prevent it from being "harmed or occupied," in a rare statement released amidst battles between rebels and Syrian regime forces.

A statement released by the Spokesperson Unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that "IDF is ready and prepared to assist the residents of the village and would prevent Hader from being harmed or occupied."

The statement cited "commitment to the Druze population" of Israel as the reason for the unusual offer.

The statement also denied Israel has been helping al-Nusra Front and other jihadi groups in Syria. Druze in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights have been charging that Israel frequently assists injured rebel militants and targets President Bashar Assad's army positions in response to stray fire.

Israeli police spokeswoman Luba Samri said that due to the fighting in Hader, police forces were deployed at major intersections in the Golan Heights.

"The deployment of the forces is intended to protect the Israeli residents in the north," a police statement reads.

The military spokesperson did not say how would the army intervene in the situation in Hader.

The rare statement marks the first time Israel officially declares it would take action in regard to the fighting in the neighboring Syria after it has repetitively said it would not intervene in the six-year war.

The statement came after hundreds of Druze citizens of Israel, many of them serve in the Israeli army, gathered at the border with Syria in solidarity with the Druze of Hader, where al-Nusra Front denotated a deadly car bomb.

Hebrew-language Channel 2 TV news reported that hundreds of them tried to cross over to Syria to help in protecting Hader, a Druze-majority village.

Israel occupied part of the Golan Heights during the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it later, in a move never recognized by the international community.
Smokes billows from the southern Syrian Druze village of Hadar on November 3, 2017 as seen from the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. (AFP PHOTO)

JERUSALEM, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Israel's military said Friday that it would help the Syrian village of Hader and prevent it from being "harmed or occupied," in a rare statement released amidst battles between rebels and Syrian regime forces.

A statement released by the Spokesperson Unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that "IDF is ready and prepared to assist the residents of the village and would prevent Hader from being harmed or occupied."

The statement cited "commitment to the Druze population" of Israel as the reason for the unusual offer.

The statement also denied Israel has been helping al-Nusra Front and other jihadi groups in Syria. Druze in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights have been charging that Israel frequently assists injured rebel militants and targets President Bashar Assad's army positions in response to stray fire.

Israeli police spokeswoman Luba Samri said that due to the fighting in Hader, police forces were deployed at major intersections in the Golan Heights.

"The deployment of the forces is intended to protect the Israeli residents in the north," a police statement reads.

The military spokesperson did not say how would the army intervene in the situation in Hader.

The rare statement marks the first time Israel officially declares it would take action in regard to the fighting in the neighboring Syria after it has repetitively said it would not intervene in the six-year war.

The statement came after hundreds of Druze citizens of Israel, many of them serve in the Israeli army, gathered at the border with Syria in solidarity with the Druze of Hader, where al-Nusra Front denotated a deadly car bomb.

Hebrew-language Channel 2 TV news reported that hundreds of them tried to cross over to Syria to help in protecting Hader, a Druze-majority village.

Israel occupied part of the Golan Heights during the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it later, in a move never recognized by the international community.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 19:57:40|Editor: liuxin

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KAMPALA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Uganda's ministry of health on Friday said it has traced a traditional healer who traveled to neighbouring Kenya after getting into contact with the second confirmed case of Marburg.

Joyce Moriku, Uganda's minister of state for primary health care, told Xinhua by telephone that the healer was traced in west Pokot and handed over to the Kenyan authorities.

The second case succumbed to the deadly disease in the eastern Ugandan district of Kapchorwa.

Moriku said the healer complained of headache, general body weakness and nightmares.

"The surveillance team followed up and traced a traditional healer from West Pokot (Kenya) who managed the confirmed case. The traditional healer had developed symptoms and was handed over to the team in Kenya to assess," said Moriku.

The minister said the teams in the region have been activated to follow up contacts to the second confirmed case.

Moriku said the response team is tracing for a suspected case in Kapchorwa who ran away from the isolation wing after refusing a sample to be taken for testing.

There are currently six cumulative cases, including three deaths, two confirmed, one probable and three suspected cases since the outbreak was first reported in Kween and Kapchorwa districts last month.

The last Marburg outbreak in Uganda was reported in central and western parts of the east African country in 2014.

Marburg is a severe and highly fatal disease caused by a virus from the same family as the one that causes Ebola hemorrhagic fever, according to the World Health Organization.

According to the global health body, the illness caused by Marburg virus begins abruptly, with severe headache and malaise.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 19:57:42|Editor: liuxin

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SANAA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- A total of seven-member family were killed in a Saudi-led coalition airstrike on the family's home in Yemen's northern province of Saada on Friday morning, a local security official and residents said.

The fresh airstrike hit the house in Al-Aslan village in Baqim district, demolishing the house to the ground and killing the whole family, including the husband, his wife and their five children, the official told Xinhua by phone on condition of anonymity.

The residents said the bodies pulled out from under rubble were charred.

The strike is the latest among a series of airstrikes on civilians in the war-torn Arab country since the coalition launched a large-scale air campaign against the rebels in Yemen more than two and a half years ago.

On Wednesday, the coalition airstrikes hit a hotel and adjourned popular market in nearby Sahar district in Saada, killing at least 29 civilians and wounding two dozens, mostly Khat sellers, workers and shops' owners, according to local officials, medics and residents.

Saada, which borders the oil-rich Saudi Arabia, is the main stronghold of the Iranian-allied Yemeni Shiite Houthi rebels whom Saudi Arabia considers a major threat to the kingdom's national security and the international navigation in the Red Sea.

In March 2015, the Saudi-led coalition intervened in the Yemeni conflict to back the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi against the Houthi rebels, who seized most of the country's northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa.

More than 10,000 Yemenis, mostly civilians, have been killed since the beginning of the war with over 3 million others displaced, according to UN agencies.

The country has also been hit by a deadly cholera epidemic and is on the brink of mass famine.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 20:02:44|Editor: Xiang Bo

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BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Congratulations are pouring in from around the world since Chinese President Xi Jinping was re-elected general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) last week.

In their messages, leaders of foreign countries, political parties and organizations also expressed their confidence that the CPC, under Xi's leadership, will guide China toward greater prosperity and a larger international role.

The following is an edited version of some of the messages.

Michel Aoun, president of Lebanon:

I convey my warmest congratulations on your re-election as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, and sincerely wish every success in your work to lead the Chinese people to realize national development.

Ilir Meta, president of Albania:

Wish Your Excellency continue leading the CPC and China to make greater achievements as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee. We firmly believe Albania and China will further deepen friendly cooperation in various areas under your leadership.

Patrice Talon, president of Benin:

Your re-election as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee shows how Chinese people highly affirm the huge achievements that China has attained under your leadership. We firmly believe Your Excellency will lead China to an enhanced international status.

Andrzej Duda, president of Poland:

We have paid close attention to the 19th CPC National Congress and the magnificent blueprint for China's future development. Poland would like to deepen win-win cooperation with China, and enhance the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries.

Filip Vujanovic, president of the Republic of Montenegro:

The fact that the 19th CPC National Congress has drawn worldwide attention shows China's growing international influence. In the past five years, Your Excellency has put forward a series of trail-blazing concepts, thoughts and strategies on state governance, leading the Chinese people to achieve plenty. All of us in Montenegro hope and believe the approach recognized as Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era will bring prosperity for the Chinese people.

Dragan Covic, president of the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and rotating chairman of the Presidency of BiH:

Your re-election as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee demonstrates Chinese people's high-level trust and expectations for Your Excellency.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, chairman of the National Front:

Your re-election as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee shows not only over 8.9 million CPC members have a high degree of confidence in your wise leadership, but also the whole country hopes you will guide China toward greater prosperity and stability. China's development will not only benefit the Chinese people, but also contribute to regional and global peace, prosperity and harmony.

Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, leader of the Militant Socialist Movement:

I convey my heartiest congratulations upon your re-election as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee. In the past five years, China has made extraordinary achievements under your leadership. I firmly believe China will make huge contributions to a stable, peaceful and prosperous world.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, chairman of the Likud party:

I congratulate you as you begin your second term as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee. I wish you continued success in leading your nation and ushering in a new era of even greater prosperity and progress.

Papua New Guinean Prime Minister Peter O'Neill, leader of People's National Congress:

Your re-election to this most important post yet again demonstrates the confidence and trust of the delegates to the 19th National Congress of the CPC in your capabilities and leadership qualities. Through your continued leadership, I am confident that our two countries will deepen friendly cooperation in various areas and together promote the harmonious development of the world.

Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai, president of the Reunification Movement for Change (RMC):

During the 19th National Congress, the CPC Constitution was amended to include Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era enshrined into the CPC Constitution as the CPC's guide for action. I am pleased to see the world's second-largest economy will continue to deepen reform and open itself wider to the world in the next five years.
An exhibitor pourswhisky for tasting during the 2016 Zagreb Whisky Fair in Zagreb, capital of Croatia, Feb. 26, 2016. (Xinhua/Miso Lisanin)

GENEVA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The world's most expensive whisky shot, bought in August for 10,000 U.S. dollars at a hotel in the exclusive St Moritz resort in Switzerland, was shown on Thursday to be fake.

After being submitted to laboratory tests by Scottish whisky experts and at Oxford University, the liquor was found not have been what it claimed to be -- an 1878 bottle of Macallan Single Malt, Swissinfo, the website of the Swiss national broadcaster reported.

The Waldhaus Am See Hotel has reimbursed the Chinese drinker who bought the tipple, as it had promised to do if the drop was found to be a fake.

Carbon dating found that there is a "95 percent probability that the liquid was created between 1970 and 1972," according to a press statement sent by the hotel to Swissinfo.

Moreover, the whisky may not have even been a single malt. Scotch analysts said it was more likely a blended Scotch, of 60 percent malt and 40 percent grain.

The hotel said it has taken responsibility for the sale and reimbursed the buyer in full.

Hotel owner Sandro Bernasconi traveled to China to personally apologize and hand over the check to the young whisky aficionado.

"The result has been a big shock to the system," Bernasconi said in the statement. "We are delighted to have repaid our customer in full as a gesture of goodwill."

The bottle had been bought by Bernasconi's father Claudio 25 years ago for a "five-figure sum."

However, soon after the pricy sale, experts questioned the authenticity of the whisky, and the hotel itself sent the bottle for testing in the UK.

"When it comes to selling our customers some of the world's rarest and oldest whiskies, we felt it was our duty to ensure that our stock is 100 percent authentic and the real deal," Bernasconi said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 20:07:46|Editor: Xiang Bo

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BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Congratulations are pouring in from around the world since Chinese President Xi Jinping was re-elected general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) last week.

In their messages, leaders of foreign countries, political parties and organizations also expressed their confidence that the CPC, under Xi's leadership, will guide China toward greater prosperity and a larger international role.

The following is an edited version of some of the messages.

Keith Mitchell, leader of Grenada's New National Party and prime minister of Grenada:

Your stewardship since the 18th National Congress of the CPC has resulted in the formulation of a new vision accompanied by new strategies to realize the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation.

Nabih Berri, chairman of the Amal Movement and speaker of the parliament of Lebanon:

China has always attached great importance to peace and development in the Middle East region, and has been committed to realizing stability, prosperity and justice and all-round peace in the region.

Gonzalo Ramirez Zamora, president of the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica:

It is hoped that you lead China toward greater achievements, bring more benefits to the Chinese people and fulfill national prosperity and long standing stability.

Sodnomzundui Erdene, chairman of Mongolia's Democratic Party and also a member of the parliament:

Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era proposed at the 19th CPC National Congress will make great contribution to accelerating China's development and further strengthen China's international influence.

Amit Shah, president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People's Party):

It is believed that the direction oriented and policies established by the 19th CPC National Congress will bring about development and prosperity in China and make greater contribution to world peace and development.

Sonia Gandhi, president of the Indian Congress Party:

Your re-election as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee demonstrates the full confidence and support of the CPC and the Chinese people in and to you.

Martin Schulz, chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany:

As chairman of the Social Democratic Party, I hope the two parties will continue to deepen bilateral relations.

Vukota Govedarica, president of the Serbian Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina:

We are particularly impressed with your vision and clear concepts for the country's progress in the next five-year period, for which you have received strong support, from both Congress delegates and all people across China.

Davor Bernardic, president of the Social Democratic Party of Croatia:

I wish you lots of successes in making China and this world a better place for all its inhabitants. In hopes of strengthening relations between our parties and countries I send you lots of greetings.

Gleisi Hoffmann, leader of Brazil's Workers' Party, and Monica Valente, the party's secretary on international relations:

It is believed that under your leadership, China will adhere to the development concept taking people at the core, solve its principal contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people's ever-growing needs for a better life and proceed on the path of fulfilling common prosperity for all Chinese people.

Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairman of the Commission of the African Union:

I would also like to congratulate your great party and indeed all Chinese people who have reaffirmed their full confidence in your stewardship and recognized your outstanding contribution to the overall advancement of China's development efforts.

Luis Almagro, secretary-general of the Organization of American States:

Your re-election as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee is of great significance and will have profound impact on global economic and social development.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 20:12:50|Editor: liuxin

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LAGOS, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Nigeria's revenue and debt management strategy would mitigate the country's debt service risk and fast-track development, Minister of Finance Kemi Adeosun has said.

The minister, in a statement made available to Xinhua in Lagos, Nigeria's economic hub on Friday welcomed the advice of the International Monetary Fund in regards to the country's decision to take more foreign loans.

Nigeria's further borrowings from foreign partners would help mobilize revenue, whilst reducing the nation's debt burden by lengthening the maturity profile, she said.

The minister added that foreign borrowings would also increase foreign exchange reserves, reduce crowding-out of the private sector and create savings in debt service cost.

Adeosun said a key element of the government's economic reform strategy was the mobilization of revenue to improve the ratio of debt service to revenue.

According to her, this was being undertaken through a number of initiatives including the plugging of leakages and the deployment of technology in revenue management.

She cited the example of the Health Pay, a pilot cashless revenue project in the health sector which had recorded increase in revenue.

The minister said the ongoing Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS) was equally expected to impact positively on the level of tax collections.

Adeosun said the government was refinancing its inherited debt portfolio and this would lead to significant benefits, particularly a reduction in costs of funds.

The government, according to Adeosun, does not see a significant devaluation risk as the implementation of the Economic Recovery Growth Plans (ERGP) would strengthen the naira.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 20:27:54|Editor: liuxin

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PARIS, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- A flight from Dublin made an emergency landing on Friday at Bordeaux-Merignac airport as one passenger got sick on board, the press service of the French airport told Xinhua.

The landing was not caused by technical problems, and the passenger had been sent to the hospital, according to the same source.

The flight, EI592, belonging to air company Aer Lingus, was flying from Dublin to Madrid, according to some reports.
People wave Spanish national flags in a march with the slogan "Enough and let's recover the sensibility", to defend the Spanish constitution and the unity of Spain in Barcelona, Spain, Oct. 8, 2017. (Xinhua/Juan Carlos Rojas)

BARCELONA, Spain, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- A wild roller-coaster ride hijacking almost half of Catalans has ground to a halt, as Madrid cut the Gordian knot by invoking article 155 of the Spanish Constitution and imposed direct rule on the once-autonomous region.

All the signs are that Madrid's takeover, entering its first week, has been running smoothly and has won ovation among a broad swath of Barcelonans.

In the meantime, with deposed Catalan leader Carles Puigdement fleeing to Brussels, and some of his cohorts being summoned to Spanish court for charges including "rebellion, sedition, and misuse of public funds", Catalan separatists have landed in hot water.

"The central government's takeover, aimed at stabilizing the situation and bringing the normal life back, is certainly good," 38-year-old Eueni Gegeni Prat, an editor at a truck business website, told Xinhua.

"The separatists' thinking is nonsense," Plat quipped, stressing that "independence will not make Catalonia richer, instead it will result in economic calamities".

Since the independence referendum on Oct. 1, uncertainty over Catalonia has already begun to bite.

According to the College of Mercantile Registers of Spain, a total of 1,821 companies left Catalonia to other places in Spain between Oct. 2 and 27.

The region's two main banks, the fourth largest Banc Sabadell and third largest Caixabank, are among the companies, with the former moving its headquarters to Alicante and the latter to Balearic Islands.

"I am a native Catalan, but I have traveled all over Spain and all the world. I think Catalan's nationalists are very narrow-minded, they should open their eyes wider," said Plat.

Even some teenagers in Barcelona have a good grasp of the fallout of independence.

Eric, 16, speaking to Xinhua at Plaza Catalonia in downtown Barcelona, said: "I back staying in Spain; I don't support separatists, because independence will bring bad consequences."

"The central government has no choice but to take over the administration of Catalonia," said the young student, adding, "I think it's right."

Riding roughshod over Spanish Constitution and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's repeated dire warnings, Catalonia's separatist regional government went ahead with the independence referendum.

Some 2.2 million out of 5.4 million eligible Catalan voters cast votes in the referendum and 90 percent of them voted for splitting from Spain.

An opinion poll commissioned by Catalan regional authority in July showed that 49.4 percent of Catalans were against independence while 41.1 percent were in favor.

The low turnout of the Oct. 1 referendum indicated that most anti-independence Catalans have given short shrift to the referendum, which from the outset was ruled illegal by Spanish constitutional court.

Despite that, the Catalan parliament on Friday voted for "the formation of a Catalan Republic as an independent and sovereign state with social and democratic rights".

The unilateral declaration of independence was quashed at a gallop by Madrid, which later on the day dissolved the Catalan parliament, deposed Catalan cabinet and called a fresh regional election on Dec. 21.

Former members of the Catalan regional government, including former deputy prime minister Oriol Junqueras, arrived at the Spanish National Court in Madrid on Thursday to face questioning over a misuse of funds and other issues related to the declaration of independence.

Puigdemont was not among them as he opted to remain in Belgium after traveling there from Barcelona on Sunday.

Five former ministers who traveled to Belgium along with Puigdement have also chosen not to return to Spain to face trial.

Puigdemont alleged it was a "political trial," although his lawyer said he would be willing to make his declaration from Belgium, something the prosecution appeared unwilling to accept.

The sacked president is being prosecuted for rebellion as well as sedition and misuse of public funds. He could face up to 30 years in prison if found guilty.

Puigdement's fleeing has caused disappointment among pro-independence activists and has sparked howls of outrage among anti-independence Catalans.

Asked by Xinhua at Plaza Saint Jaume, where the Catalan government is situated, a crop of pro-independence activists admitted that there is little chance to continue the independence bid.

Most of them said they haven't made the decision whether they will cast votes in the snap election called by Spain's central government in Catalonia on Dec. 21.

However, Puigdement said at a press conference at Brussels' press club on Monday that he accepted the snap election.

Catalan independence must be "slowed down" to avoid unrest, said the deposed Catalan president, insisting that he does not want to drag his fellow citizens into a spiral of violence. "We have been forced to adapt our work plan to avoid violence."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 20:58:03|Editor: liuxin

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TIRANA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Albanian authorities are working on a new strategy to boost fight against illegal trafficking of human beings, National Coordinator of Anti-Trafficking Rovena Voda said Friday.

Voda said that the government had a clear strategy in place, which, as of 2014, prioritized the fight against this phenomenon and provided concrete results.

"The number of convicts for trafficking human beings has increased 20-fold compared to 2013," Voda told the Albanian Telegraphic Agency.

She noted that the anti-trafficking strategy would continue to remain a priority of the government, adding that the increased budget on a year-on-year basis and intensive awareness campaign were a testament to government's stand against this phenomenon.

According to the official, the new strategic plan in the design stage focuses on assistance and reintegration of trafficking victims through social policies of economic aid, employment and education.

Authorities also plan to expand institutions involved in anti-trafficking.

She further informed that Albanian ministry of interior had requested changes to the Albanian Criminal Procedure Code and the Criminal Code in order to toughen its stance against trafficking.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 21:08:08|Editor: liuxin

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MOGADISHU, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- International energy experts are due to meet in Somalia capital Mogadishu from Tuesday to discuss ways to rapidly increase sustainable energy access across the Horn of Africa nation, organizers said on Friday.

The two-day conference organized by the government and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) brings together government officials, donors, private sector investors and practitioners and international sustainable energy experts.

"Sustained improvements in energy access in Somalia will require private sector investment on a large scale, alongside parallel public-sector investments in improving security, technical and institutional capacity building," the UNDP said in a statement issued in Mogadishu.

The forum, whose theme is "Opportunities and Barriers to Investments in Sustainable Energy in Somalia," aims to outline a clear set of short- and medium-term actions for the government and its partners, and a set of private and public project proposals that can be ready for investment within 12 months.

"Despite improvements in energy access in Somalia, millions of people still do not have access to electricity, energy costs are very high and there remains a strong reliance on charcoal and firewood for cooking," UNDP said.

It said sustainable energy investments will support larger Somali development, peace building and resilient recovery goals, as laid out in the London Conference on Somalia, and the government's National Development Plan.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 21:43:17|Editor: Xiang Bo

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BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday encouraged troops at the People's Liberation Army (PLA) support base in Djibouti to help promote international and regional peace and stability.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), had a video chat with PLA troops stationed there while inspecting the CMC joint battle command center as its commander in chief.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 21:58:22|Editor: ZD

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SHANGHAI, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The revised Constitution of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the report of the 19th CPC National Congress have been published across the country.

Dozens of publishing houses are printing the latest revision of the CPC Constitution, which highlights the inclusion of "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era", and the report delivered by Xi at the congress.

The report and the CPC Constitution are available at nationwide bookstores.

Shanghai Printing Group had printed 600,000 reports, 800,000 CPC Constitutions, and other related documents, according to Shen Jianyi, general manager of the company.

Shen said he initially knew Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era was included in the amendment of the Constitution via the Internet. But more than 150 employees at the company would experience the "historical moment" of printing it.

Jiang Jianhua, who took part in the debut of the printed reports and CPC Constitutions in a bookstore, said he was eager to study the fulltexts. "We should integrate those new concepts and new ideas into our daily lives, particularly Xi's thought."

After reading the report and the CPC Constitution, Tang Di, a recent graduate of Lancaster University in Great Britain, who has just returned to China, said he understood the strong leadership of CPC as key to unifying the country.

"I have obviously felt that the position of my country has been improved during the time I've spent abroad," Tang said.

"China is now full of opportunities. Our young generation should be more confident about the future and the country," he said.

Related:

Full text of Xi Jinping's report at 19th CPC National Congress
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 22:38:35|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ADDIS ABABA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) and the African Union (AU) have organized a three-day conference in N'Djamena, Chad, to deliberate on ways of stabilizing the areas affected by Boko Haram.

The conference from Thursday to Saturday, is themed "Supporting the development of a framework for a Regional Stabilization Strategy for areas affected by Boko Haram," according to an AU statement on Friday.

The Framework for a Regional Stabilization Strategy is the first step towards the development of a comprehensive Regional Stabilization Strategy which will drive and rationalize various initiatives aimed at stabilizing the areas affected by Boko Haram.

The AU Commissioner for Peace and Security, Smail Chergui, and Chad Minister of Water and Sanitation, Sidick Abdelkeria Haggar, have jointly presided over the official opening ceremony of the Conference, together with Engineer Sanusi Imran Abdullahi, LCBC Executive Secretary.

Conference participants include representatives of victims and civil society organizations from areas affected by Boko Haram, governors and traditional leaders, officials from the LCBC Member States, Benin and the AU, representatives of the United Nations and their agencies on the ground, and other international development partners.

The LCBC is an intergovernmental organization established on May 22, 1964 by the four countries that border Lake Chad: Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria and Chad. The Republic of Central Africa joined the organization in 1996 and Libya was admitted in 2008.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 22:48:38|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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GENEVA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Some refugee children streaming into Bangladesh are showing symptoms of severe acute malnutrition, the UN children's agency UNICEF said Friday.

Preliminary data from a nutrition assessment conducted last week at Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox's Bazaar, Bangladesh, showed a 7.5 percent prevalence of life-threatening severe acute malnutrition, UNICEF said at a media briefing.

"That is a rate double that seen among Rohingya child refugees in May 2017," said UNICEF spokesperson Christophe Boulierac.

Malnutrition rates among children in Myanmar's northern Rakhine were already above emergency thresholds, said the UN agency. The condition of these children has further deteriorated due to the long journey across the border and the conditions in the camps.

Around 26,000 people now living in the Kutupalong camp faced with an acute shortage of food and water, unsanitary conditions and high rates of diarrhea and respiratory infections. Cases of measles have also been reported.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that over the last 48 hours some 4,000 Rohingya refugees crossed into Bangladesh from Myanmar at the Anjumanpara border crossing point.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 22:58:43|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ISTANBUL, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday vowed to destroy all the terror camps in Iraq and Syria.

"Currently, many places in Iraq and Syria are nests for terrorists," Erdogan said during his speeches in the western province of Manisa.

He stressed that his country is determined to protect its citizens and eradicate terrorism beyond Turkey's border.

"For us, everyone who takes side with terrorists is a terrorist," the Turkish leader said, accusing Turkey's Western allies including the United States of supporting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Kurdish militants in Syria.

Turkey regards both the PKK and the Syrian Kurdish militia known as People's Protection Units as terror groups.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 23:08:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs holds a press briefing on Chinese President Xi Jinping's trip to Vietnam and Laos, Nov. 3, 2017. Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, will attend the 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting in Da Nang, Vietnam, on Nov. 10-11 and pay state visits to Vietnam and Laos from Nov. 12 to 14. (Xinhua/Jin Liangkuai)

BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's trip to Vietnam and Laos from Nov. 10 to Nov. 14, his first overseas trip after the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), will help enhance Asia-Pacific cooperation and ties with neighboring countries, senior officials said here on Friday.

In Vietnam, Xi will attend the 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting in Da Nang.

Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong said at a press briefing that President Xi's attendance at the APEC meeting in Da Nang shows China's high regard for Asia-Pacific cooperation.

Xi will speak at the APEC CEO summit, attend a meeting between APEC economic leaders and ASEAN leaders, and meet leaders of other APEC economies.

Economic leaders will exchange views on topics including regional economic integration, inclusive development, innovative growth, connectivity, agriculture and food security.

China hopes the Da Nang APEC meeting will follow the general trend of opening up and development in the Asia-Pacific region, discover new driving forces in the region, strengthen connectivity and map out a new vision of future cooperation.

"China will work with all parties to boost the development and prosperity of the region and the world," Li said.

On the economic and trade front, Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen said a framework for APEC cross-border e-commerce is expected to be approved and a supervision framework for supply chains connectivity action plan be drawn.

This year's meetings are expected to further implement the outcomes of 2014 APEC summit in Beijing, continue development of the Free Trade Agreement in the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), and support a multilateral trading system.

On the state visits to Vietnam and Laos from Nov. 12 to 14, Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong said the trip marks the opening of a new chapter of neighborhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in the new era.

During his stay in Vietnam, Xi will meet with Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee, Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and the Chair of the National Assembly of Vietnam, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan.

The leaders will discuss governance, development strategies, economic cooperation and cultural exchange, Chen said.

During his visit to Laos, the first state visit by top Chinese leader since 2006, Xi will meet with Bounnhang Vorachit, general secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party Central Committee and president of Laos, Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith and President of the Lao National Assembly Pany Yathotu, Chen said.

The leaders will attend the foundation-laying ceremony of Lao's livelihood project built with Chinese assistance, he added.

"The visits will generate new opportunities and inject positive impetus into bilateral relations as well as the mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Southeast Asian countries," Chen said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 23:23:50|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak (2nd R, Front), Alibaba founder and Executive Chairman Jack Ma (2nd L, Front) view a model of Alibaba's logistics affiliate Cainiao in Sepang, Malaysia, on Nov. 3, 2017. Alibaba announced here on Friday to launch the Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) where people can "buy global and sell global." (Xinhua/Chong Voon Chung)

SEPANG, Malaysia, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Malaysian government and Alibaba on Friday jointly launched a regional e-commerce hub located near the Kuala Lumpur airport area, as a part of Alibaba founder Jack Ma's vision to create an Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) where people can "buy global and sell global."

The operation of the eWTP, first of its kind outside China, coincided with the establishment of a joint venture (JV) between Alibaba's logistics affiliate Cainiao and Malaysia Airports Holdings (MAH), in which Cainiao will hold a 70 percent stake while MAH retains the remaining 30 percent, according to a filing sent by MAH to the stock exchange Bursa Malaysia on Friday.

The JV, with a total paid up capital of 206.67 million ringgit (48.84 million U.S. dollars), will implement and carry out the development of the regional e-commerce and logistics hub, comprising the development of cargo terminals, sorting centers, warehouse and fulfillment centers, and other facilities for the e-commerce industry, according to the filing.

Currently, the logistics center is partially operational to serve Lazada, the largest Southeast Asian online shopping platform incorporated in Singapore.

Alibaba said cargo clearance time has been cut from six to three hours, with the help of robots and cloud computing technologies.

A senior executive with Cainiao told Xinhua that the logistics hub will help Alibaba achieve its goal to ship products to anywhere in the world within 72 hours.

The event was witnessed by Jack Ma, also Alibaba's executive chairman, and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is pushing for the Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ) to empower small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) via e-commerce and logistics.

In his second visit to the southeast Asian nation this year, Ma awed the audience with a pledge to help the young people and SMEs, whom he said didn't get the opportunities in the last 20 years of globalization.

"We want to build up a platform that every small business and any young people, they can global sell global buy global fund (get the money) global pay and global deliver the products through our logistics network, and global have fun and travel," said Ma in his speech.

Najib said a total of 1,972 SMEs have applied to join the DFTZ. In cooperating with Alibaba, the DFTZ initiative can bring high-paying jobs to Malaysia, as many as 60,000 by 2025 and Malaysia can become the regional leader in e-commerce.

The eWTP marked a further step by the Chinese Internet giant to bet big on Southeast Asia, after it took Alipay, the mobile payment platform under its affiliate Ant Financial to Thailand and Malaysia and gained controlling stake in Lazada. It also launched its 24-hour Singles' Day Global Shopping Festival in Malaysia this week.

When asked about Alibaba's next move, after it reported a 61-percent surge in its quarterly revenues and 83-percent rise in profits, Ma said the group is interested in building infrastructure and cloud computing for small businesses.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 23:23:51|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MOSCOW, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Russia and Iran have signed a series of deals to develop bilateral cooperation in the gas sector, Russia's gas giant Gazprom said Friday.

"Today, a big step has been taken in the development of the Russian-Iranian partnership in the gas sector," Vitali Markelov, Gazprom's deputy head, said in a statement.

The company said it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on strategic cooperation with Iran's Oil Ministry.

They will study the prospects of jointly developing gas fields in Iran, gas transportation and sales, gas liquefaction and gas-to-chemicals production.

Gazprom and Iran's hydrocarbons producer National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) signed an MoU to develop a unified system for the extraction and transportation of natural gas in Iran.

Gazprom and NIOC also signed an MoU on preparing a joint feasibility study for the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project.

A third MoU signed by Gazprom with the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran is aimed at cooperation in gas liquefaction projects in third countries, and in deep processing and gas-to-chemicals production in Iran.

Russian President Vladimir Putin made a one-day trip to Tehran Wednesday for trilateral talks between Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 23:33:54|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ANKARA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Turkey on Thursday warned Greece for allegedly conducting an "illegal" joint military drill with Egypt at the Greek island of Rhodes.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry said in a written statement that the joint military exercise is "an open breach of international law."

A joint amphibian attack exercise has been ongoing by Greece and Egypt from Oct. 30 - Nov. 4 at Rhodes island in Greece.

According to the 1947 Treaty of Paris, any military education activities on Rhodes island, which was transferred to Greece from Italy after World War II, is prohibited, read the statement.

The ministry said Turkey has convoyed warnings to the Greek Embassy in Ankara and urged Athens to avoid one-sided acts that will increase tensions in the Aegean Sea.

"In this framework, we stress our expectation from Greece to avoid hostile acts and acts against international law, and we invite third parties not to be partners to these kinds of violations of Greece," the statement added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 23:38:56|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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OSLO, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Norway's first three F-35 Lightning II fighter jets arrived here on Friday, public broadcaster NRK reported.

The new Norwegian combat aircraft landed at the Orland Air Station in central Norway on Friday afternoon, about ten hours after they took off from the United States.

Their arrival will be officially marked on Nov. 10 with a ceremony on the occasion of the Royal Norwegian Air Force's 73rd anniversary.

In June 2009, the Norwegian Parliament decided that the F-35 Lightning II would succeed today's F-16 fighter jets. Within 2025, Norway will buy 52 new stealth multi-role fighters.

Norway is expecting to receive 10 of its 52 F-35 fighter jets. The other seven are still stationed in the United States for training and education purposes.

According to plan, six fighters will be delivered to Norway annually from 2017 to 2024. The first Norwegian F-35s will start operating in 2019, and in 2025, the complete Norwegian F-35 fleet will be operating on a full scale.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media before departing the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on Nov. 3, 2017. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Thursday here that President Donald Trump looks forward to his upcoming visit to China and is ready to work with Beijing to promote peace and prosperity in the region and beyond.

China is "an immensely important part of ... regional security as well as protecting and advancing the systems that have benefitted all of us," McMaster told reporters.

"These are really the rule-based security, economic, political and diplomatic organizations and systems that emerged after the bloodiest war in human history in the previous century," he added. "We have to really work hard to preserve and advance what has lifted so many people out of poverty, and what has prevented great-power conflict for 70 years. We cannot take it for granted."

"So I know the president is committed to working with China, with President Xi in particular, and with all leaders in the region, to make sure that for the next 70 years, we enjoy a degree of prosperity and security we've enjoyed over the past 70 years," he said.

Trump will start his 12-day Asia trip on Friday to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. He will participate in a string of multilateral engagements like the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in the last two legs of the trip.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 23:49:02|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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STOCKHOLM, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- A train traveling from Norrkoping in South-eastern Sweden to Stockholm collided with a truck, disrupting train traffic, Swedish Television reported on Friday.

According to the police, no one was hurt but the train driver was in shock. And the truck driver managed to jump out of the vehicle before the collision.

Lina Hedmark, one of nearly 80 passengers, was quoted as saying the train driver had hit the breaks and honked. "The train eventually came to a halt." she said.

The train was traveling at a low speed before the collision and did not derail.

However, it was unclear how the truck had got stuck between the barriers and the police have launched an inquiry into the incident. The truck was towed and will be examined for technical faults.

"We are working on trying to get an idea of what happened and we are talking to witnesses," police press spokesman Bjorn Oberg said, adding that the driver had undergone an alcohol test and was sober.

Emergency rescue services were on site Friday afternoon, and train traffic on several routes was disrupted, with passengers being offered bus replacement services.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 23:54:04|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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by Christine Lagat

NAIROBI, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Lawmakers allied to Kenya's main opposition National Super Alliance (NASA) on Friday urged their supporters to boycott products manufactured by companies that have close ties to the ruling Jubilee Party.

The lawmakers said at a press briefing in Nairobi that boycott of products and services from those firms seeks to re-invigorate the electoral and administrative reforms in the East African nation.

"Today we are launching the program of economic liberation through targeted boycott of companies, corporations and businesses that are beneficiaries and supporters of the current regime," the lawmakers said in a joint statement.

"We have a long and comprehensive list of companies, both local and global on our radars and which we will be naming at intervals," they added.

Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga on Oct. 31 announced the formation of a national resistant movement to exert pressure on the government.

Odinga said that economic boycott, picketing and formation of a grassroots movement will underpin his quest for justice in the electoral system as well as political inclusivity.

The veteran opposition leader clarified that he will use constitutional and non-violent means to push for his cause.

The lawmakers said they intend to put pressure on private enterprises that are friendly to the ruling party to change their political stance and support broad reforms.

Kenya's political stalemate in the wake of the Supreme Court nullification of presidential election results did not seem to subside after the conclusion of the repeat polls on Oct. 26, where the incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta won with a landslide.

Odinga and his co-principals boycotted the repeat polls, citing lack of a level playing field.

Pundits expressed mixed reaction on the announcement of economic boycott by Odinga's allies but agreed the move could worsen political polarization in the country.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 23:59:06|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MADRID, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Spanish Maritime Rescue Services on Friday confirmed a big rise in the number of immigrants attempting to make the hazardous sea crossing between north-Africa and Spain that they have rescued.

On a day when they confirmed the rescue of over a further 150 immigrants from rubber dinghies off various points off the coast of Spain, the Services explained that in the first 10 months of the year, they had saved the lives of 13,544 people, compared with 5,384 in the same period in 2016.

Those 13,544 immigrants were saved from a total of 824 dinghies, while just 327 dinghies were intercepted during the same 10-month period in 2016.

Continued conflict in Syria and Iraq, as well as the ongoing chaos in Libya have all be factors in this rise, along with the hope of many Africans to have a better life in Europe, according to the Services.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 23:59:07|Editor: huaxia

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KAMPALA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Ugandan police said they had arrested eight of its officers including a senior commander during its investigation into drug trafficking.

Police spokesperson Asan Kasingye told Xinhua by telephone that a senior commissioner of police in charge of the Very Important Persons Protection Unit, a former commandant of aviation police, and seven others have been detained over disappearance of 85 kgs of cocaine recovered from drug traffickers in 2015 at the Entebbe International Airport.

"The accused officers tampered and removed the cocaine that was kept as exhibit. They replaced it with a fake substance," he said.

This came amid reports that 87 suspected drug dealers had disappeared from police custody.

According to local media, dozens of drug traffickers have been arrested over a period of 13 years but they never appeared in court.

The East African country is seen as a transit point for drugs traffickers from South America and Southeast Asia. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-03 23:59:08|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MOSCOW, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Russian long-range bombers carried out 18 air strikes, and Russian submarines fired cruise missiles against Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria in the last three days, the Russian military said Friday.

The targets included fortified areas, warehouses, clusters of militants and key command posts near the city of Abu Kamal close to the Syria-Iraq border, Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

He said the strikes enabled Syrian government troops to launch offensives against the last remaining IS stronghold in the war-torn country.

After successfully completing their combat mission, the long-range aircraft returned to their base in Russia.

The two submarines, Kolpino and Veliky Novgorod, continue to carry out combat missions in the Mediterranean.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 00:04:10|Editor: huaxia

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VIENTIANE -- China and Laos have vowed to further strengthen cooperation to jointly build a strong community of shared destiny.

The pledge came during a meeting between Bounnhang Vorachit, General Secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party Central Committee and president of Laos, and Song Tao, special envoy of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping. (China-Laos-Cooperation)

- - - -

SEOUL -- South Korea's main opposition Liberty Korea Party decided Friday to strip former President Park Geun-hye, who was impeached and stood trial over corruption charges, of her membership.

Hong Joon-pyo, the party head, held a press conference to officially announce the deprivation of her membership. (South Korea-Park Geun-hye)

- - - -

SEPANG, Malaysia -- The Malaysian government and Alibaba on Friday jointly launched a regional e-commerce hub located near the Kuala Lumpur airport area, part of Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma's vision to create an Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) where people can "buy global and sell global."

The operation of the eWTP, the first such hub outside China, coincided with the establishment of a joint venture between Alibaba's logistics affiliate Cainiao and Malaysia Airports Holdings (MAH), in which Cainiao will hold a 70 percent stake while MAH retains the remaining 30 percent, according to a filing sent by MAH to the stock exchange Bursa Malaysia on Friday. (Malaysia-Alibaba)

- - - -

TOKYO -- Tens of thousands of people gathered Friday to protest against Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's attempts to amend the pacifist Constitution on the occasion of the 71st anniversary of the promulgation of the Constitution.

Some 40,000 people gathered outside the parliament building in Tokyo for the rally, according to the organizer. The protesters held banners and shouted slogans such as "No War" and "Protect Article 9 of the Constitution." (Japan-Rally-Constitution) Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 00:19:16|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang (C), also member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, attends a teleconference on water conservancy infrastructure in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 3, 2017. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin)

BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- China should do more to improve water conservancy and water resource saving, Premier Li Keqiang said Friday in a written message to a meeting.

Water conservancy infrastructure is key to supply-side structural reform in agriculture and the good of farmers, read the message.

The country must optimize the water conservancy network and step up disaster prevention and mitigation, despite the progress of the past five years, Li said.

The problem of unbalanced and inadequate water conservancy must be addressed, vice premier Wang Yang said at the meeting.

The country has been hit by frequent floods and droughts, partially because of underdeveloped water conservancy facilities.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 00:29:19|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and commander in chief of the CMC joint battle command center, speaks during his inspection tour to the command center on Nov. 3, 2017. Xi Jinping on Friday instructed the armed forces to improve their combat capability and readiness for war. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

BEIJING, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday instructed the armed forces to improve their combat capability and readiness for war.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), made the remarks while inspecting the CMC joint battle command center as its commander in chief.

"The CMC should lead the armed forces to be ready to fight and win wars, and to undertake the missions and tasks of the new era entrusted to them by the Party and the people," said Xi, in military uniform.

The capability to win is strategically important in safeguarding national security, and strengthening that capability and combat readiness in the new era would provide strategic support to the realization of the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation, according to Xi.

Xi called on the military to closely follow the situation of national security and to ensure military preparedness in all directions and all fields.

Innovation should be made in studying and planning for combat to adapt to the trend of military evolution, said Xi.

Xi demanded progress in joint operation command systems, especially in efficiency at regional theater command level.

Troops were ordered to conduct training under combat conditions.

During the inspection, Xi had video chats with troops at frontier posts and a newly established support base in Djibouti.

Xi encouraged those stationed in Djibouti to help promote international and regional peace and stability.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 00:29:20|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MADRID, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Spanish government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo said Friday that the elections called for the Catalan region on Dec. 21 would bring "stability, security and certainty", insisting they would be "transparent and under democratic control."

The comments come a week after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy invoked Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution to dissolve the Catalan regional government, and a day after the Spanish High Court sent nine members of the former government to prison while they are being investigated for charges of rebellion, sedition, and misuse of public funds.

The spokesman added the elections would end the "social and economic instability and the deterioration of coexistence" in Catalonia, and would help regain confidence in the region's economy.

He added that during Friday's cabinet meeting, the Spanish government had agreed to appeal to the Constitutional Court against three laws approved by the former government of Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont, among them, the Catalan law to combat climate change.

Also on Friday, the Spanish national court rejected the appeal of the leaders of pro-Catalan independence groups, Omnium Cultural and the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), against the decision taken by Judge Lamela to remand them in custody without bail, pending investigation on charges of sedition.

Jordi Sanchez, the ANC leader, and Jordi Cuixart, the Omnium Cultural leader, have already spent 18 days in the Soto de Manzanares prison outside Madrid, having been sent there on Oct. 17.
Children are seen at the Ngakhuya village in Maungtaw township, Myanmar's northern Rakhine state, on Oct. 10, 2017. (Xinhua/Haymhan Aung)

UNITED NATIONS , Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy to the United Nations on Thursday asked for patience of the world organization and the international community over the issue of Rakhine state in Myanmar.

The situation in Rakhine state is moving toward stabilization as a result of efforts by the Myanmar government, Wu Haitao, the charge d'affaires of the Chinese mission to the United Nations, told the Security Council.

The issue of Rakhine state has complex historical, ethnic and religious factors and many differences and conflicts have been brewing for a long time, said Wu.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 00:54:27|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ROME, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Italian authorities seized a 50-million-euro (58 million U.S. dollar) shipment of a synthetic opioid on Friday destined for the so-called Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, the anti-terrorism division of a southern Italian prosecutor's office said in a statement Friday.

Police seized over 24 million tablets of the substance, a synthetic opioid called Tramadol, at Gioia Tauro container port in the Calabria region, according to the statement.

The shipment came from India and was headed to Libya, the statement signed by Prosecutor Federico Cafiero De Raho said.

Tramadol is also known as a "combat drug" because of its use as a stimulant in Middle Eastern war zones "has been repeatedly ascertained," the statement said.

"Twenty-four million tablets of combat drug were seized at Gioia Tauro, whose sale would have financed international terrorism," the Italian finance police tweeted, along with a video showing customs officers breaking open a container stacked with brown boxes, and pulling out packages clearly labeled Tramadol.

Each tablet is worth two euros on the North African and Middle Eastern black market.

"According to information shared with foreign investigative sources, Tramadol trafficking is managed directly by the IS in order to finance terrorist activities...in every part of the world," the prosecution statement said.

"Part of the illicit proceeds from the sale of this substance are allegedly destined to finance subversive and extremist groups operating in Libya, Syria, and Iraq," it added. (1 euro = 1.16 U.S. dollars)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 00:54:29|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BAGHDAD, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi security forces on Friday recaptured a border crossing point with Syria as the troops are fighting to dislodge the Islamic State (IS) militants from the nearby city of al-Qaim, the Iraqi military said.

"The Iraqi army reseized full control of the Husaibah border crossing point in al-Qaim area," said Lt. Gen. Abdul Amir Yarallah, commander of Liberation of West Anbar Operations.

The Iraqi forces from the army's seventh and eighth Divisions liberated the neighborhoods of al-Tanak, al-Masharie, Ghaza and al-Sikak in the city of the al-Qaim, some 330 km west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, Yarallah said.

Yarallah also said that the paramilitary Hashd Shaabi brigades freed the neighborhoods of Shiekh Ali, industrial area and Nahdha al-Gharbiyah in Karabla area in al-Qaim, which itself extends along the road leading to Husaibah crossing point.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a statement that he "blesses the heroic Iraqi forces as they entered the city of al-Qaim and liberated Husaibah border crossing."

Earlier in the day, Yarallah said the Iraqi army, Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) forces, paramilitary brigades of Hashd Shaabi and Sunni tribal fighters broke into the areas of Se'da, Karabla and Husaibah, which are part of the city of al-Qaim.

On Oct. 26, the security forces initiated their advance towards the last urban IS stronghold in Iraq near the Iraqi-Syrian border.

Meanwhile, the troops also made a significant progress toward the IS-held city of Rawa, about 80 km east of al-Qaim, and took positions outside the southern edges of the city.

Later, the troops will continue to clear the vast rural areas and desert in north of the Euphrates River.

The IS militants seized large swaths of territory in Iraq in 2014. After three years of battles, the Iraqi forces have retaken most of the occupied areas from the terrorist group, including the country's second largest city Mosul.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 00:54:29|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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Qian Bo, the Chinese Consul General in Istanbul, addresses an economic forum in Istanbul, Turkey, on Nov. 3, 2017. China's growing power is offering great opportunities for Turkey and other parts of the world, Turkish and Chinese speakers said on Friday at an economic forum in Istanbul. (Xinhua/He Canling)

ISTANBUL, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- China's growing power is offering great opportunities for Turkey and other parts of the world, Turkish and Chinese speakers said on Friday at an economic forum in Istanbul.

China is expected to produce 12 trillion U.S. dollars in GDP in 2017, thus keeping its status as the second largest economy in the world and contributing as much as 30 percent to the global growth, noted Qian Bo, the Chinese consul general.

In the next five years, China is set to import goods valued at 8 trillion dollars, draw 600 billion dollars in foreign investment, invest abroad as much as 750 billion dollars and have as many as 700 million nationals travel abroad, offering Turkey and other countries an expanding market, more capital, a richer variety of products and more precious opportunities for cooperation, Qian told an audience of about 300, mainly students and teachers from Okan University where the forum was held.

As the largest trading partner for more than 130 countries, China remained Turkey's second largest in 2016, the Chinese envoy said, noting bilateral trade volume hit 15.94 billion dollars in the first nine months of this year.

He voiced hope for an early substantial breakthrough in bilateral consultations over such megaprojects as a high-speed rail linking Kars in Turkey's east and Edirne in the west and the third nuclear power plant in the country.

On the part of the Turkish speakers, they described China as a successful country, in particular in the development of its economy and socialism. As Beijing is pushing for a transformation driven by technology and innovation, they see a country leading the future for the world.

One Turkish speaker spoke of the huge market in China and the growing purchasing power of the Chinese, seeing more opportunities for Turkey to export there more meat and dairy products.

ICBC Turkey, a subsidiary of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's largest lender by market value, has signed a cooperation agreement with Borsa Istanbul on Chinese RMB/Turkish Lira futures contracts with a view to facilitating the use of national currencies in trade and investment.

Since Sept. 5, ICBC Turkey has became the direct traders market maker of Chinese RMB/Turkish Lira, providing both buying and selling quotations for direct trade to the market as well as liquidity for the market.

China's Huawei Technologies Company has become one of the leading ICT solution providers in Turkey after 15 years' operation in the country.

Xu Xiaobo, Huawei's regional PR director, said his company's success lies in its efforts to develop a long-term sustainable local strategy, make full use of local talents, boost cooperation with local companies for win-win, keep efforts on innovation, and fulfil social responsibilities to local communities.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 01:04:35|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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VALLETTA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The funeral of assassinated Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was held in the northern town of Mosta on Friday afternoon, as the country observed a national day of mourning in her honor.

Flags one all government and public buildings, as well as European Union flags outside the European Commission were flown at half-mast in the day.

Hundreds descended upon Mosta, filling the church and the square outside, in order to pay their respects to the slain journalist.

Caruana Galizia, a blogger and investigative journalist aged 53, was killed in a strong car bomb explosion which completely destroyed the car she was driving.

Police at the scene said the body was thrown out of the vehicle into a nearby field.

It was the fourth car bomb attack in Malta since the start of 2017.

Caruana Galizia's death had sent shockwaves throughout the world. The European Commission called on Malta to get to the bottom of the crime and to bring her kills to justice.
An anti-submarine missile blasts off from the Russian warship "Marshal Shaposhnikov" during a Russian-Indian military drill in the Sea of Japan, off the coast of Russia's far eastern city of Vladivostok, April 26, 2007. (XINHUA/REUTERS)

MOSCOW, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Russian long-range bombers carried out 18 air strikes, and Russian submarines fired cruise missiles against Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria in the last three days, the Russian military said Friday.

The targets included fortified areas, warehouses, clusters of militants and key command posts near the city of Abu Kamal close to the Syria-Iraq border, Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

He said the strikes enabled Syrian government troops to launch offensives against the last remaining IS stronghold in the war-torn country.

After successfully completing their combat mission, the long-range aircraft returned to their base in Russia.

The two submarines, Kolpino and Veliky Novgorod, continue to carry out combat missions in the Mediterranean, Konashenkov said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 01:39:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BEIRUT, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Iranian senior adviser to international affairs Ali Akbar Velayati said on Friday that Iran will "protect Lebanon's stability and government."

Velayati made the remarks after talks with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, adding that Iran supports the independence of Lebanon.

"We commend the recent success of Lebanese government in fighting corruption," he said.

He went on saying that "Lebanon's victory over terrorism is a victory for us all," noting that Israel and the United States are behind the terrorists.

The Iranian official also hailed Lebanon's foreign policies as "active."

Citing the recent talks on the Syrian conflict in Azerbaijan as an example of increased efforts in the political realm, Velayati said the political efforts are "necessary" as the battles against terrorism must be "accompanied by diplomatic efforts."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 01:44:49|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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by Alex Osei-Boateng

ACCRA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo on Friday opened the 12th General Assembly of the West African Power Pool (WAPP) while calling for ensuring stable and affordable power for te sub-region.

The event brought together experts in the power sector in West Africa, international funding agencies and the donor community to address issues relating to the establishment of a regional electricity market by 2019.

Akufo-Addo said the production and delivery of stable, reliable and affordable power was critical to the integration and development of West Africa.

He said the availability of electricity would greatly influence how rapidly West African countries would be able to increase agricultural and industrial productivity and achieve rapid economic development.

According to him, the annual growth in demand for electricity is estimated at 10 percent, which means that for every seven years, investment in electricity infrastructure has to be doubled in most West African countries.

Akufo-Addo said Ghana had been able to attract many private-sector players into the generation end of the business, and in the near future should be able to export its excess generation to other countries.

Ghana's Minister for Energy Boakye Agyarko asked the delegates to think more about the challenges to realizing the regional electricity trade and how to make electricity available to the citizens of West Africa for the socio-economic development of the bloc.

"The average access rate of 40 percent is too modest to match and fulfill the grand and noble missions of universal access and industrialization which we have set for ourselves," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 02:04:58|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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TRIPOLI, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- A Libyan lawmaker and a number of his escorts were released on Friday after they were kidnapped in Tripoli by an armed group, a parliament member revealed.

Abdassalam Al-Morabit and his escorts were kidnapped by a militia allied with the UN-backed Government of National Accord in Tripoli, while they were working in a bank to provide liquidity to citizens in the south, said Mesbah Ouhida.

Ouhida urged the government and "the wise people to immediately interfere to release all southern detainees in the prisons of darkness," adding that the government held "full responsibility for their safety."

Ouhida also warned of retaliation to similar kidnappings, enforced disappearances, and illegal arrests.

Libya has been suffering a security vacuum and chaos since the fall of former leader Gaddafi's regime in 2011. The country is plagued with unrest and political division.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 02:15:01|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The UN Office on the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has expressed deep concern about the impact of ongoing fighting on civilians across the governorate of Deir-ez-Zor in eastern Syria.

Airstrikes on Al Mayadeen City and its surroundings on Tuesday reportedly killed more than 25 people and injured many others, most of them women and children, said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric on Friday, adding that fighting has reportedly driven more than 350,000 people out of their homes in Deir-ez-Zor since August.

Since the reopening of a key road, the United Nations has been able to regularly send aid to the area. The city was last reached with humanitarian assistance on Monday, said Dujarric.

The United Nations calls on parties to take all measures to protect civilians and to facilitate safe, unimpeded and sustained access to all people in need across the country, he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 02:30:03|Editor: huaxia

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by Chris Mgidu

NAIROBI, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan police on Friday interrogated 132 Ethiopian nationals after arresting them in a security operation at a residential estate in Nairobi.

Area police commander Joseph Gichangi said the illegal immigrants had sneaked into the country from Moyale by road and were in the process of being smuggled to South Africa.

"The 132 suspects were arrested on Friday afternoon in a residential house in Mihango. We don't know how they passed many police roadblocks without being detected," Gichangi told journalists in Nairobi.

He said during the sting operation, the security officers arrested two Kenyan nationals profiled as transporters in the illegal human trafficking trade.

A similar operation carried out on Oct. 6 in Mihango led to the arrest of another 67 Ethiopian immigrants.

Police and immigration officials have decried increased cases in which Ethiopian nationals are nabbed in the country while on transit to Tanzania or South Africa.

Police face difficulties in dealing with the illegal immigrants as they can not speak in Swahili and English.

On several occasion the immigrants were found locked up in congested rooms in Kenyan towns and cities but the trade continues to thrive even as many were repatriated.

The Kenyan authorities have blamed the vastness of the region for the runaway influx of foreigners into Kenya through Moyale on Kenya-Ethiopia borders. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 02:55:10|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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GENEVA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Switzerland said Friday it would host the third ministerial meeting of the Central Mediterranean Contact Group on Nov. 13 in Bern, adding that the meeting was expected to lead to the adoption of a joint declaration.

The goal for the meeting is to improve migrants' living conditions and ensure better protection for them along the migration route, the Swiss government said in a statement.

"Many migrants fall victim to extortion, threats, ill-treatment, violence and smuggling," the statement said.

According to the Swiss government source, Algeria, Austria, Chad, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Libya, Mali, Malta, Niger, Slovenia, and Tunisia, as well as the EU Commissioner for migration and home affairs, the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, and the EU External Action Service have been invited to the meeting.

Representatives of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will also attend.

Set up at the initiative of Italy, the Central Mediterranean Contact Group met for the first time in Rome in March 2017. It allowed for European and African countries affected by migration along the Central Mediterranean migration route to exchange information and coordinate their actions.

The second meeting was held in Tunis in July.

At the two meetings, ministers agreed to pursue three priorities: strengthen the capabilities of the Libyan coast guard, enhance the protection of migrants in Libya, and improve border controls in southern Libya.

Since then, over 14,000 people have been rescued at sea. However, thousands of migrants in Libya and neighboring countries are still facing a drastic situation which requires continued efforts by the international community.

"By hosting the third meeting of the contact group at ministerial level, Switzerland intends to support these efforts and to stress the urgent need for protection measures for refugees and migrants in Libya and along the migration route," the Swiss government statement said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 03:30:19|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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PARIS, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The situation in Syria including access to humanitarian aid and political transition, topped a phone conversation between French President Emmanuel Macron and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday, the French presidency the Elysee said in a statement.

Recalling "his commitment to a regular and frank dialogue with Russia", Macron told Putin, a key ally of the Syrian government, to do more "to ensure that the access to humanitarian aid is guaranteed and effective as soon as possible", notably in eastern Ghouta where many Syrian people were in a situation of great distress.

Macron called on "the permanent members of the Security Council (to) put an end to the use of chemical weapons and preserve the non-proliferation regime".

"France will not give in on the fight against impunity and the full and complete dismantling of the Syrian chemical program," he said.

As Moscow was preparing to hold a Syrian congress for national dialogue on Nov. 18 in Sochi, Macron said, "All efforts to achieve a political settlement of the Syrian crisis must be within the framework of the United Nations Security Council."

He said France was ready "to work immediately with Russia, all permanent members of the Security Council and the regional powers, to allow a credible political transition, preserve the unity of Syria and minority protection".

According to media reports, the French president will visit Russia in the fist half of 2018.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 04:30:36|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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TIRANA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Procedures for granting concessionary or private-public partnerships for small hydro power plants (HPPs) in Albania will be further eased, sources from the Albanian ministry of energy said Friday.

According to these sources, construction and exploitation of renewable energy sources with an installed capacity of two megawatts (MW) and an investment value of over 100 million U.S. dollars will be excluded from regular procedures.

The ministry has already submitted a new draft law to the parliament which paves the way for accelerating permit granting processes, sources said.

According to the draft law, the construction of HPPs and thermal power stations with an installed capacity over 2MW will be examined in a different way compared to the current law, which requires following the procedures for the granting of a concessionary contract.

Experts drafting the bill said the Albanian energy sector required the construction of new energy-generating objects, but the law defined long procedures for contract approval.

They added in the report accompanying the draft law that such changes would also help attract strategic foreign and domestic investments.

"So far, there have been cases of potential investors interested in the power sectors who hesitated because of the law, which defines a period of time longer than two years for completing a concessionary contract," Albanian energy ministry experts noted in the report.
Ousted Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont addresses a press conference at the Press Club Europe in Brussels, Belgium, in Oct. 31, 2017. (Xinhua/Ye Pingfan)

MADRID, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Spanish High Court judge Carmen Lamela on Friday evening issues a European arrest warrant for the sacked Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont and four former members of his cabinet who are currently in Brussels after failing to appear in court in Madrid on Thursday.

Lamela, who on Thursday sent nine former members of Puigdemont's government to prison on charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of funds, added "disobedience" and "prevarication", to those charges for Puigdemont and other four members remaining in Brussels.

The warrant means Puigdemont and the four former members of his government will have to be arrested and appear before a judge in Belgium. If they accept to return to Spain , they will do so within 10 days, but if they refuse judicial proceedings could last up to 60 days.

The Belgian prosecutor's office said it has received Spain's arrest warrant and the prosecutor will study it before it will be given to a judge, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported.

"I confirm that we have received it. We are waiting for translation and then we will study it," El Pais quoted spokesman of the Belgian prosecutor's office Eric Van der Sijpt as saying.

Earlier in the day, Puigdemont gave an interview on Belgian television in which he said he was not looking to evade justice, but that he wanted "the true justice (of Belgium) not of Spain".

He added that he was also willing to be a candidate in the Catalan regional elections scheduled for Dec. 21 -- something that would be possible under Spanish law unless he has been found guilty beforehand, which is virtually impossible as he has not yet been formally charged.

Santi Vila, the only former member of the deposed Catalan government to be offered the chance of bail by judge Lamela on Thursday, left prison on Friday after paying the bail which had been set at 50,000 euros (58,048 U.S. dollars).

The other eight members were held in custody without having bail set.

Meanwhile, the High Court rejected the appeal of the leaders of pro-Catalan independence groups, Omnium Cultural and the Catalan National Assembly, against Judge Lamela's decision taken on Oct. 17 to remand them in custody without bail pending investigation on charges of sedition.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 05:00:47|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MINSK, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Belarus plans to export 2 billion U.S. dollars worth of dairy products and over 800 million U.S. dollars worth of meat products in 2017, the Belarusian Agriculture and Food Ministry said Friday.

Belarus exports its dairy products to 23 countries, and meat products to 18 countries, said Aleksei Bogdanov, the head of the ministry's main department for foreign economic affairs.

The official said that 36 dairy enterprises are already certified to supply foods to the Chinese market. The exports to China have sharply increased by 20 times this year compared to the level of the previous year, he added.

The Belarusian side considers that it is the right way to encourage producers to explore new markets in Southeast Asia, the Gulf and in Africa, Bogdanov stressed.

In general, Belarus exports food to more than 60 countries. Most of exports go to the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union, mainly the Russian Federation.
People sunbathe and enjoy a warm day on the Capitello beach in Porticcio on October 15, 2017 as Ajaccio is seen in the background, on the French Mediterranean Island of Corsica. Several record-breaking heats in mid-October could be registered from October 15 to 17, as part of a series of exceptional climatic events "due to the global warming", according to Patrick Galois, weather forecaster at Meteo France . (Xinhua/ AFP PHOTO)

WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- A major U.S. government report on Friday affirmed that global warming is real and "extremely likely" caused by human activities, a stark contrast with President Donald Trump's position on climate change.

The 477-page report, part of a congressionally mandated review conducted every four years known as the National Climate Assessment, showed that global annually averaged surface air temperature has increased by about 1.0 degree Celsius over the last 115 years.

"This period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization," said the assessment, officially titled the Climate Science Special Report.

"The last few years have also seen record-breaking, climate-related weather extremes, and the last three years have been the warmest years on record for the globe," it said. "These trends are expected to continue over climate timescales."

Based on extensive evidence, the report concluded that it is "extremely likely" -- meaning a 95 to 100 percent probability -- that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.

"For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence," it noted.

The report also warned that the magnitude of climate change beyond the next few decades will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, emitted globally.

"Without major reductions in emissions, the increase in annual average global temperature relative to preindustrial times could reach 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 Celsius) or more by the end of this century," it said.

"With significant reductions in emissions, the increase in annual average global temperature could be limited to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 Celsius) or less."

The two-degree target is the cornerstone of the 196-nation Paris Agreement, inked in 2015. Trump has announced in June that the U.S. is withdrawing from the agreement.

Trump once called climate change a "hoax" and his administration considered efforts to fight global warming just to "be a waste of your money," a position met with widespread criticism both at home and abroad.

Just one month ago, the Trump administration took a formal step to repeal the Clean Power Plan, former President Barack Obama 's centerpiece regulation that would limit greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants.

Rachel Licker, senior climate scientist at the non-profit Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement that "the assessment is like a doctor's report that evaluates a patient's vital signs and uses that information to diagnose a medical condition."

"Unlike a physician, the climate assessment stops short of offering up a specific prescription or treatment plan," she said.

"Instead, the American public must hold legislators and policy-makers accountable for taking action commensurate with the problem."

Former Vice President Al Gore, a prominent environmental activist, also warned on Twitter that "America's leading scientists have confirmed what Mother Nature has been making plenty clear: the climate crisis is real and urgent."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 05:51:03|Editor: huaxia

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RABAT -- One person was killed and two others injured in a shooting at a cafe in Morocco's tourist city of Marrakesh, local media reported on Thursday night.

The authorities said two attackers entered the cafe and shot at the crowd before fleeing the scene with a motorcycle. (Morocco-Terror)

- - - -

BAGHDAD -- Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Friday announced the full liberation of the city of al-Qaim near the border with Syria from the Islamic State (IS) militants.

A statement by the premier's office said Abadi, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of Iraqi forces, "congratulated the people of Iraq for the liberation of al-Qaim by the heroes." (Iraq-IS)

- - - -

BAGHDAD -- Iraqi security forces on Friday recaptured a border crossing point with Syria as the troops are fighting to dislodge the Islamic State (IS) militants from the nearby city of al-Qaim, the Iraqi military said.

"The Iraqi army reseized full control of the Husaibah border crossing point in al-Qaim area," said Lt. Gen. Abdul Amir Yarallah, commander of Liberation of West Anbar Operations. (Iraq-IS)

- - - -

TRIPOLI -- Unknown gunmen on Friday kidnapped four foreign workers who worked in a power plant in the southern Libyan city of Obari, 1100 km south of the capital Tripoli.

The hostages include three Turks and one German. (Libya-Kidnap) Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 06:11:07|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MOSCOW, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Moscow decides to ban entry of dozens of Canadian citizens to Russia in retaliation to Canada's new sanctions, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday.

"We are forced to act in a mirror-like manner. Based on the principle of reciprocity, it was decided to ban entry to the Russian Federation of a number of Canadian individuals. The list is long, there are dozens of names in it," the ministry's spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a commentary posted on the ministry's website.

Russophobic individuals who intend to destroy bilateral relations between the two countries are the targets, Zakharova said.

The diplomat called on the Canadian side to quit playing "sanctions games" and take the path of constructive interaction.

"We expect that the political circles of Canada will have an epiphany and abandon the disastrous course leading to further aggravation of bilateral relations," she said.

Earlier on Friday, Canada imposed sanctions against 30 Russian officials suspected of being linked to the prison death of Russian anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009, who was jailed after alleging a massive tax fraud.
Russian President Vladimir Putin gives his annual state of the nation address in the Kremlin in Moscow, capital of Russia, on Dec. 4, 2014. (Xinhua/RIA Novosti)

MOSCOW, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Moscow decides to ban entry of dozens of Canadian citizens to Russia in retaliation to Canada's new sanctions, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday.

"We are forced to act in a mirror-like manner. Based on the principle of reciprocity, it was decided to ban entry to the Russian Federation of a number of Canadian individuals. The list is long, there are dozens of names in it," the ministry's spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a commentary posted on the ministry's website.

Russophobic individuals who intend to destroy bilateral relations between the two countries are the targets, Zakharova said.

The diplomat called on the Canadian side to quit playing "sanctions games" and take the path of constructive interaction.

"We expect that the political circles of Canada will have an epiphany and abandon the disastrous course leading to further aggravation of bilateral relations," she said.

Earlier on Friday, Canada imposed sanctions against 30 Russian officials suspected of being linked to the prison death of Russian anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009, who was jailed after alleging a massive tax fraud.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 06:41:12|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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HAVANA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The 9th China-Latin America Business Summit, which will take place in late November, was presented on Friday at the 35th Havana International Trade Fair, FIHAV 2017.

Presented by Rocio Merino, who attends the Cuban Fair and is in charge of exports promotion at Uruguay XXI, the country's investment agency, the Summit will take place from Nov. 30 to Dec. 2 at the Punta del Este Convention Center.

Merino said that for almost all the countries in Latin America, China is an ideal ally with an economy in expansion.

"China's economy maintains an upward trend, therefore it continues to have a large number of consumers who can use our products while Chinese companies are positioned abroad, so that Latin America and the Caribbean can be an investment destination for them," said the Uruguayan official.

The Business Summit is organized alternately one year in China and another in a Latin American country, aiming to promote the convergence of business in strategic areas.

In this sense, the director of ProCuba, the islands Center for the Promotion of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Roberto Verrier, highlighted the importance of the meeting for Havana.

"We have participated for several years, not only ProCuba, but also the Cuban Chamber of Commerce, and the most important thing is that several Cuban companies go to business exchanges."

According to the official, that participation offers "the chance to increase business with Cuba, expanding our exports and knowing the reality of the country."

The Summit is expected to involve more than 700 companies and national authorities, senior officials and experts from China and Latin America, as well as representatives from multilateral and international financing agencies.

This edition of the Summit is organized by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and, this year, by the Institute for the promotion of investments, exports and country image, Uruguay XXI.

In addition to China, the previous Summits have been held in Chile, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica and Mexico.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 06:41:13|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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TBILISI, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Four NATO ships made a port call in Batumi on Georgia's Black Sea coast on Friday, the Interior Ministry of Georgia said.

The maritime group, which includes the Romanian frigate Regele Ferdinand, Bulgarian BGC Shkval and Turkish TCG Edremit, is led by Vice Admiral Herve Blejean, Deputy Commander of the Allied Maritime Command, said the ministry in a statement.

The vessels will stay at Batumi port until Nov. 6, and their crews will take part in joint exercises organized by the Georgian side, said the ministry, adding that the port call is "a clear message of support for Georgia."

This is the third visit of NATO fleet to Georgia: three vessels made a port call in Batumi in 2013 and four in 2016.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-04 06:46:14|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BRASILIA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles said on Friday that he has not declared himself as a candidate in the 2018 presidential elections.

Speaking to local radio station Radio Gaucha, Meirelles denied claims printed Thursday by news magazine Veja, stating that he had admitted he could become a candidate.

The Finance Ministry also denied Veja's claims in an official press release.

According to Meirelles, his focus "at the moment is to do a good job as minister of Finance and ensure that Brazil consolidates its path of growth, not only in this (year) but also in the years to come."

However, he recognized that there "exists an important space in Brazilian politics for those who defend reforms, the modernization of the economy."

"I am aware that many people have certain expectations for a candidate who defends this line of action and also has experience," he added.

"Independently of what we will do in the future, continuing for a few months plus the year to come as minister of Finance or continuing to any other challenge, we will remain open to dialogue," noted Meirelles.

He added that the deadline to declare an intention to run for president is March 31, 2018.

A former central bank governor during the government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Meirelles has been a key member of President Michel Temer's team to bring Brazil out of recession.
Xi to attend events as China sends positive signals on open economies

China will send positive signals of supporting free trade and facilitating investment to inject positive energy into open economies during the APEC events to be attended by President Xi Jinping next week, senior officials said on Friday.

Xi will travel to Da Nang, Vietnam, for the 25th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting on Nov 10 and 11, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang announced on Friday. Xi will also make state visits to Vietnam and Laos from November 12 to 14.

It will be Xi's first overseas trip since being re-elected last week as general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

Xi's participation at the APEC events will show that China pays great attention to economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region, said Li Baodong, vice-foreign minister.

Xi will deliver a key speech while attending the APEC CEO Summit. He will also attend many other events, including the dialogue between the APEC Business Advisory Council and APEC Economic Leaders, and the APEC-ASEAN Informal Dialogue. Xi will also hold bilateral talks with some leaders of the APEC economies, Li told a news conference on Friday.

Noting that there remain many uncertainties in global economic growth, Li said the Asia-Pacific economy is the biggest and most dynamic in the world, and the region's trade volume accounts for nearly half of global trade.

China calls on the APEC economies to make joint efforts to maintain openness, support a multilateral trade system and facilitate trade and investment, Li said, adding that the building of an Asia-Pacific free trade zone should be pushed forward.

The theme for APEC 2017 is "creating new dynamism, fostering a shared future".

Wang Shouwen, vice-minister of commerce, said the APEC leaders will discuss such issues as inclusive economic growth, regional economic integration, innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises and food safety.

Chen Xiaodong, assistant foreign minister, said the state visits to Vietnam and Laos will be of great importance, since they mark the start of neighboring diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for a new era.

Noting that both Vietnam and Laos are socialist countries, Chen said China will work with them to build a community of shared future for neighbors.

In January, Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, visited China. In May, Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang visited China and attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing.

The frequent high-level exchanges between China and Vietnam show that leaders of both countries attach great importance to the development of bilateral ties, Chen said, adding that the two countries plan to sign documents in such areas as building Belt and Road projects, capacity production cooperation and cultural exchanges.

Xi's visit to Laos will be the first visit in 11 years by a Chinese head of state to the neighbor, and he will attend a ceremony to lay the cornerstone for a China-assisted project, Chen said.
Address by the Hon'ble President of India on the occasion of inauguration of the 21st World Congress of mental health

New Delhi, Fri, 03 Nov 2017 NI Wire

President of India Ram Nath Kovind on the occasion of inauguration of the 21st World Congress of mental health

 Union Minister of Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Dr Harsh Vardhan

 Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ms Preeti Sudan

 President, World Federation for Mental Health, Dr Gabriel Ivbijaro

 Chairpersons of the World Congress Dr Sunil Mittal and Dr N.K. Bohra

 Distinguished Guests

 Ladies and Gentlemen

1. I am happy to be here to inaugurate the World Congress of Mental Health, being organised by the World Federation for Mental Health in partnership with Caring Foundation and other institutions. Before me are one thousand delegates participating in this conference. I would particularly like to welcome the 300 odd international delegates who are representing about 50 countries.

2. I understand the World Congress is taking place in India and in fact in South Asia for the first time. This is a matter of pride for all of us. Frankly, it has come here at an appropriate moment. Mental health issues are acquiring a serious magnitude in our country.

3. The World Health Organisation reports that India has among the highest prevalence of mental illnesses globally. Our National Mental Health Survey 2016 found that close to 14 per cent of India's population required active mental health interventions. About two per cent suffered from severe mental disorders. Nearly two hundred thousand Indians take their own lives each year. If one includes attempted suicides, the number goes up substantially.

4. These are worrying statistics. It is also a fact that those living in metropolitan cities and those who are young  whether in the productive age group, or children and teenagers  are most vulnerable to mental illnesses. In India, both these factors are cause for concern. We have a young population, with 65 per cent of our people below the age of 35. And our society is rapidly urbanising. This leaves us staring at a possible mental health epidemic.

Friends

5. Given the figures I have just outlined, it is an irony that 90 per cent of Indians in need simply don't receive mental health care. There are several reasons for this, and I hope they will be addressed in this conference.

6. The biggest obstacle that mental health patients have to encounter is stigma and denial. This leads to the issue being ignored or simply not discussed. In some cases it leads to self-diagnosis that is unsuitable or could worsen the situation. It may even lead to other extreme steps. As a society we have to fight this culture of stigma. We need to talk about mental health issues and treat ailments such as depression and stress as diseases that can be cured  not as guilty secrets that must be pushed under the carpet.

7. In this context, I am glad that advocacy and awareness are important components of the Government of India's National Mental Health Programme. This Programme is building 22 centres of excellence in the field of mental health. In parallel, the District Mental Health Programme has already covered 517 of the approximately 650 districts in India. It is taking the conversation about mental health to the grassroots of our society.

8. To spread awareness, it is important to build partnerships between the public and private sectors and between the government and civil society organisations. It would also be valuable to stitch together community support networks. In some measure, these can fill the gap being created by the gradual breakdown of the traditional joint family system  especially in our big cities. Sometimes this results in young people being left with the impression that they have no one to speak to, no sounding board and no informal counsellor. This could then become the first step towards depression.

9. A second major gap in combating the mental health challenge is that of human resources. India is a country with 1.25 billion people but just seven hundred thousand doctors  less than one million. In the field of mental health, the scarcity is even more acute. There are only about five thousand psychiatrists and less than two thousand clinical psychologists in our country.

10. This number is extremely inadequate and we need to act. Especially for the purpose of diagnosis of mental illnesses, it would be advisable to use physicians, psychologists who teach in colleges and educational institutions as well as Auxiliary Nurses and Midwives  who are at the frontline of our public health system across the country.

11. I am told Information Technology and telemedicine are also coming of aid. Such technologies are linking doctors and counsellors in cities to mental health patients in rural areas. As Internet penetration expands in our country, this holds much potential.

Friends

12. I am glad to learn that in addition to advances in neuro-sciences  as well as our understanding of the clinical causes and treatment of mental disorders  the World Congress will also have sessions on yoga, meditation and traditional approaches to mental health. It is vital to tap into our wealth of traditional knowledge and link its learning to modern research on mental health. This will promote a holistic approach to mental health-care and can combine the best of different fields of practice.

13. The example of yoga is very instructive. When people talk about yoga, they generally refer to its physiological benefits. However, the mental, psychological, and cognitive benefits of yoga are equally worthy of our study. I look forward to receiving feedback on the deliberations of the special session planned on the role of yoga in battling anxiety and depression  and in preventing the onset of mental health problems.

14. In conclusion, I would like to re-emphasise that India's mental health challenge is capturing a society in multiple transitions. From traditional diseases, it is gradually non-communicable diseases that are emerging as a major threat to our people and their well-being. This is part of a worldwide trend. And many non-communicable diseases are either rooted in or associated with mental health issues.

15. All of that invests this World Congress with urgency. At the end of this conference, we should be closer to a time-bound programme that will ensure the quickest possible access to mental health diagnosis and treatment services for every person in need. All of you in this hall, and I include international delegates here, are stakeholders in this effort. You will be performing a genuine nation building and humanitarian task.

I wish you and wish the conference all success.



Thank you

Jai Hind!

Source: PIB
India is committed to partner Bhutan in its socio-economic development: Venkaiah Naidu

New Delhi, Fri, 03 Nov 2017 NI Wire

Calls on the King of Bhutan

The Vice President of India, M. Venkaiah Naidu has said that India is committed to partner Bhutan in its socio-economic development, and to support in its XII Five Year Plan. He was interacting with the King of Bhutan, His Majesty Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, here yesterday. Senior officials from both India and Bhutan were present on the occasion.

The Vice President said that India and Bhutan share exemplary bilateral relations and these are unique and special. He further said that our historical and cultural linkages make us natural friends and partners. He thanked the King for his warm letter of felicitation on his assumption of responsibilities as the Vice President of India earlier this year.

The Vice President said that India is delighted to see the rapid progress which has been made in Bhutan while simultaneously preserving its very special culture as well as protecting the environment. He further said that the Government and people of India appreciate the vision of the Druk Gyalpos (Kings), which has guided relations between our two countries. With the wisdom and foresight of the Monarchs of Bhutan and Indian leadership, India-Bhutan relations have grown from strength to strength, he added.

The Vice President said that India has been happy to share its knowledge, experience and resources with Bhutan and thus contribute to Bhutan's socio-economic development. He further said that our development cooperation has been guided by the priorities set by the Government and people of Bhutan. India is committed to partner Bhutan in its socio-economic development, and to support in its XII Five Year Plan, he added.

The Vice President said that India remains committed to consolidate existing hydro-power cooperation with Bhutan. Timely implementation of the ongoing hydro-power projects with minimum cost overrun, is important for both governments. This is the flagship area of our bilateral cooperation and has high visibility. We should do everything to make it a model of bilateral cooperation, which will be noted by others in the neighbourhood.

The Vice President said that the security concerns of India and Bhutan are indivisible, intertwined and mutual. We look forward to continuing close cooperation with Bhutan on issues of mutual security concern, he added.

Source: PIB
President of India inaugurates 21st World Congress of mental health, calls for fighting stigma

New Delhi, Fri, 03 Nov 2017 NI Wire

The President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, inaugurated the 21st World Congress of Mental Health being organised by the World Federation for Mental Health in partnership with Caring Foundation and other institutions in New Delhi (November 2, 2017). Speaking on the occasion, the President said that the World Congress of Mental Health is taking place in India for the first time. And it has come here at an appropriate moment. Mental health issues are acquiring a serious magnitude in our country. Our National Mental Health Survey 2016 found that close to 14 per cent of Indias population required active mental health interventions.

The President noted that those living in metropolitan cities and those who are young  whether in the productive age group, or children and teenagers  are most vulnerable to mental illnesses. In India, we have a young population, with 65 per cent of our people below the age of 35. And our society is rapidly urbanising. This leaves us staring at a possible mental health epidemic.

The President said that the biggest obstacle that mental health patients have to encounter is stigma and denial. This leads to the issue being ignored or simply not discussed. We need to talk about mental health issues and treat ailments such as depression and stress as diseases that can be cured  not as guilty secrets that must be pushed under the carpet. A major gap in combating the mental health challenge is that of human resources. India is a country with 1.25 billion people but just 700,000 doctors  less than one million. In the field of mental health, the scarcity is even more acute. There are only about 5,000 psychiatrists and less than 2,000 clinical psychologists in our country.

The President said that Indias National Mental Health Programme is building 22 centres of excellence in the field of mental health. In parallel, the District Mental Health Programme has already covered 517 of the approximately 650 districts in India. It is taking the conversation about mental health to the grassroots of our society.

The President expressed happiness that the World Congress will have sessions on yoga, meditation and traditional approaches to mental health. He stated that the example of yoga is very instructive. When people talk about yoga, they generally refer to its physiological benefits. However, the mental, psychological, and cognitive benefits of yoga are equally worthy of our study. He looked forward to feedback on the deliberations of the special session planned on the role of yoga in battling anxiety and depression  and in preventing the onset of mental health problems.

Source: PIB
PM Narendra Modi to inaugurate World Food India 2017

New Delhi, Fri, 03 Nov 2017 NI Wire

India gears up to welcome Global Food Titans

The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, will inaugurate World Food India 2017 on 3rd November 2017 from Vigyan Bhavan New Delhi. WFI is the most anticipated international mega food event, as India welcomes to host biggest ever congregation of global investors and business leaders of major food companies from 3-5 November in New Delhi. Organized by Ministry of Food Processing Industries under leadership of Union Minister Smt Harsimrat Kaur Badal, World Food India aims to transform Food Economy and realize the vision of doubling of famers income by establishing India as a preferred investment destination and sourcing hub for the global food processing industry. This is the first time that India is hosting such an event for the Food processing sector.World Food India platform will strengthen Indias position as a Global Food Factory and is a positive step towards making the Country Food Secure.

India is expected to attract an investment of US$ 10 billion in food processing sector and generate 1 million jobs in the next 3 years. World Food India 2017 gears up to host over 2,000 participants, over 200 companies from 30 countries, 18 ministerial and business delegations, nearly 50 global CEOs along with CEOs of all leading domestic food processing companies, and representatives of 28 States in India. Germany, Japan and Denmark are Partner Countries to World Food India. Italy & Netherlands are the Focus Countries. Specially curated experiential platform Food Street specially curated by Chef Sanjeev Kapoor, is a lively vibrant zone, that will showcase Indian and foreign cuisines using Indian ingredients, flavours and fragrances to celebrate India's rich cultural heritage, the diverse uniqueness of its produce to create contemporary renditions and fusion food. After the inauguration from Vigyan Bhavan, the Prime Minister will visit the Food Street at India Gate Lawns opposite National stadium.

At the inaugural, host Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Smt Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Minister of State for Food Processing Industries Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti will be joined by Chief Ministers of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Ministerial Delegations from a number of countries, leading global and Domestic CEOs, etc will also be present in the inaugural session.

Exclusive CEOs roundtables have also been scheduled with Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Arun Jaitley and Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Suresh Prabhu with CEOs of leading global & Indian food processing companies. Illustrative list of Industry Captains participating in World Food India from across the globe and India includes Mr Paul Bulcke , Chairman of the Board of Directors, Nestle, Mr Pieter Boone, Chief Operating Officer & CEO, Metro Cash and Carry, Mr Brian J McNamara, CEO, GSK Consumer Healthcare, Ms. Amanda Sourry, President, Food Unilever; Mr.Sharafuddin Sharaf, Al  Sharaf Group; Mr.Yusuff Ali, Managing Director, LuLu Group, Mr Kishore Biyani, CEO, Future Group; Mr Krish Iyer, CEO, Walmart India; Mr Amit Agrawal, CEO, Amazon, India to name a few. A total of 60 Global CEOs including Asia Pacific (APAC) leadership of leading companies will be interacting with leading CEOs from 100+ top Indian food processing leaders. Over 1000 B2B meetings are expected to take place over three days.

International Ministerial & business delegations with 200+ members from 15 countries will take part in B2B/B2G meetings. The mega event would also host 8 sectoral conferences, 2 plenary sessions on India the preferred destination with the Finance Minister of India as the Guest of Honour and one on One Nation, one food law- an enabling regulatory environment for investment in the food sector in association with the Food Standards and Safety Authority of India. In addition, there are 20 State sessions and 6 country sessions. 7 sectoral publications would be released at the event.

A massive exhibition spread over 40,000 sq mtrs in the verdant C- Hexagon lawns of India Gate is expected to attract significant footfalls. More than 800 global companies representing 22 Countries & domestic companies will be exhibiting. Special focus on Farmer Producer Organizations & Women Entrepreneurs will connect them to corporates  international & Indian- increasing opportunities for sourcing & business.

Ministry of Food Processing Industries Theme Pavilion provides an exciting view of Indias offering to the world in terms of products, a geo mapping of produce availability and mega food parks.The event is supported by Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Development of North East Region, Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Civil Aviation.

Source: PIB
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The shooting that took place on Thursday night at a cafe in Moroccos tourist city of Marrakesh leaving one dead and three injured was linked to international money laundering and international drug trafficking, said the Moroccan police in a statement.

The Moroccan police said that six suspects in this crime were arrested in Casablanca and that investigations led to the seizure of the motorcycle and the firearm used by the criminals involved in the shooting.

The police also said that the instigator who commissioned the attack was identified and investigations are ongoing to determine his whereabouts. He is already wanted by justice on charges of money laundering, international drug trafficking and blackmailing.

The attackers stormed into La Creme cafe in Marrakech and shot dead an individual, who was found out to be a medical student, son of the general prosecutor of an appeals court in Beni Mellal. Three other individuals, including a young woman and a waiter, were injured by the assailants who fled on their motorcycle.

According to reliable sources quoted by the news portal le360, the student was not the target. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The person targeted by the perpetrators was reportedly the owner of the cafe, who was sitting in a nearby table.

The murder was reportedly commissioned by a Moroccan living in the Netherlands, because of a dispute with the owner of the cafe, who also has connections with the Netherlands, the portal says.

The murder was therefore a settlement of accounts on the background of drug trafficking and money laundering.

Investigators have dismissed the terrorist track shortly after the shooting and Interior Minister Abdelouafi Laftit confirmed in a statement to le360 that the crime was a settlement of accounts.
Little idyll of Jewish-Muslim coexistence, thus the London-based magazine, The Economist, described Morocco in an article that highlights the longstanding tradition of religious tolerance in the country.

The article puts in the spotlight the Atlantic city of Essaouira, which once had a vibrant Jewish community living behind whitewashed synagogues.

The echoes of the past history of coexistence between Muslims and Jews in the city of Essaouira were revived by the Kings Advisor, Andre Azoulay, writes the Economist.

Each autumn he stages a colourful festival of Andalusian music aimed at bringing hundreds of Jews and Muslims together for a weekend of concerts and dialogue, the article says.

Quoting Azoulay, the Economist underscored that Essaouira is what the Middle East once was and might yet be again.

The article also sheds light on the history of the centuries-old Jewish existence, noting that Morocco saw an increase in its Jewish population after the reconquista.

By 1948, the Jewish population of Morocco was estimated at over 250,000. Today, around 2,500 Jews are still in Morocco, more than anywhere else in the Arab world.

The magazine lauds Morocco for reviving its Jewish heritage through, saying that No Arab country has gone to the lengths of Morocco to revive its Jewish heritage. Morocco, notably, restored 110 synagogues and set up a center for Judeo-Islamic studies, which is to open later this year in Essaouira.

The kingdom also boasts the Arab worlds only Jewish museum, it said, adding that over 50,000 Israelis visit the kingdom each year.
King Mohammed VI received Friday (Nov.3) at the Royal Palace in Rabat, the President of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, said the Royal office in a statement.

The President of the AU Commission commended Moroccos outstanding contribution to the promotion of peace, stability and development of the Continent, especially since its return to its African institutional family last January.

Moussa Faki Mahamat also praised the kings action geared towards the promotion of inter-African South-South cooperation and paid tribute to his commitment as the leader on the immigration issue within the African Union.

At the initiative of Guineas President and acting Chairman of the AU Alpha Conde, King Mohammed VI was put in charge of the question of migration during the AU January summit. The Monarch had agreed to coordinate the action of the AU on this very important issue and later on submitted to the AUs presidency, a paper laying out a common African Vision on migration and the related stakes and challenges.

At the Friday meeting, King Mohammed VI and the President of the AU Commission discussed the various challenges facing the African continent, as well as the opportunities to be seized in order to place Africa irreversibly on the track of economic emergence, social development and political stability.

The coming meetings at the continental level were also brought up.

It is to be recalled that during the African Action Summit, held in Marrakech in November 2016 on the sidelines of the COP22, three commissions were set up under the effective presidency of King Mohammed VI. The commissions concern the Sahel region, the Congo Basin region, and the island states.
Bicyclists make their way around a concrete barrier. Photo: Seth Wenig/AP

On Thursday morning, less than 48 hours after a terrorist drove his rented truck down the Hudson River Park bike path, killing eight and injuring many more, New York City officials began erecting concrete barriers at the access points to the four-mile path.

A spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio told the Times that barriers are going up at 57 intersections. Thirty-one of them are vehicle access points, typically used by service vehicles. Each of these intersections will soon be home to six jersey barriers, those long, heavy slabs of concrete often used to separate lanes of traffic. Another 26 pedestrian access points will be protected by two concrete cubes each.

NYC places concrete barriers at points along jogging/bike path on Manhattan's West Side Highway after truck attack. https://t.co/pkX6SurQYW pic.twitter.com/ZLZVpNerne  ABC News (@ABC) November 2, 2017

These barriers are hardly a permanent fix. They create obstructions and limit the space available on the path; thin steel bollards would be a more elegant long-term solution. For now though, de Blasio spokesman Ben Sarle told the Times, people will have to make a tradeoff. After these safety measures are installed, there may be areas at the intersections that will be more narrow than they used to be, he said. But, I would trade a little speed for substantially more safety any day.
Bergdahl. Photo: Sara D. Davis/Getty Images

Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who pleaded guilty to charges of desertion and misbehavior after walking off his Army post in Afghanistan eight years ago, will be dishonorably discharged but not sent to prison, a judge ruled Friday.

Army Colonel Jeffery R. Nance also ruled the Bergdahls rank be reduced to private and ordered him to give up $1,000 of his pay each month for the next ten months. The 31-year-old, who was quickly captured by the Taliban after leaving his post and spent five years in captivity, faced up to life in prison. Prosecutors were only asking that he be sentenced to 14 years for endangering his fellow troops, several of whom were seriously injured in the effort to rescue him.

Bergdahl has said he left his post so he could report on problems in his unit, not because he wanted to desert or join up with the Taliban, as President Trump said during last years campaign. Trump also said Bergdahl, a dirty, rotten traitor, would have been executed when we were strong.

The defense sought to have the case dismissed because of Trumps comments, which it said amounted to unlawful command influence. The judge called the comments disturbing but declined to drop the case. Trump, who is on a long flight to Hawaii, tweeted his disapproval of the ruling Friday.
CASA In Action protests an appearance by Senator Marco Rubio, Representative Barbara Comstock, and GOP gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie at the Inspiration Plumbing Company in Sterling, Virginia, on October 30, 2017. Photo: Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post/Getty Images

There was a giddiness in D.C. this week, as the fantasy of removing Trump by impeachment seemed marginally less fantastic. I do not begrudge this excitement for a millisecond. God knows we could do with some cheer. Hope also came from the latest polls, which show Trump sliding ever more deeply in public esteem. FiveThirtyEights poll of polls now shows Trump near record lows: 38.0 percent approval with 56.4 percent disapproval. Gallup now has his disapproval around 60 percent. The possibility that the various hoodlums, sleaze merchants, and swamp creatures involved in Trumps campaign might have witlessly talked to a wired Papadopoulos for the last few months is straight out of House of Cards. In D.C., we cannot get enough of this.

But on Fox, none of this was happening at all. And next Tuesday, we will get a dose of outside-the-bubble political reality. Ed Gillespie and Ralph Northam will be duking it out in the Virginia governors race in an evenly balanced, but Democratic-trending, state. It has morphed into a real-life test of how strong Trumpism will be in 2018, how effective the Democrats are as an alternative, and the future of the country. I dont know what the result will be. But it is not looking good  for the Democrats or the country as a whole.

Northam seems to me almost a classic Democratic politician of our time. I have no idea what his core message is (and neither, it seems, does he); on paper, hes close to perfect; his personality is anodyne; his skills as a campaigner are risible; and he has negative charisma. More to the point, he is running against an amphibian swamp creature, Ed Gillespie, and yet the Washington lobbyist is outflanking him on populism. Northams ads are super lame, and have lately been largely on the defensive, especially on crime, culture, and immigration. He hasnt galvanized minority voters, has alienated many white voters, and has failed to consolidate a broader anti-Trump coalition. In Virginia, Trumps approval rating is 38/59, but Northam is winning only 81 percent of the disapprovers, while Gillespie is winning 95 percent of the approvers. Northams early double-digit lead has now collapsed to within the margin of error.

If all this sounds like a rerun of 2016, well, thats what it is. But insofar as it also represents Trumps consolidation of the GOP, its all too 2017. Ed Gillespie is the last person youd predict to become a Trump-style populist, and bring out the enraged base. Hes deeply Establishment, formerly moderate, and easily identified as part of the Washington-as-usual crowd. And yet hes morphed  successfully  into a Bannonite, without losing mainstream Republican support. Somehow, the GOP still manages to rally together; and somehow, even now, the Democrats cannot. Gillespie also has a killer instinct. Putting whats left of his conscience and decency in cold storage, he has been pushing out ads that make the Willie Horton spot look like Mr. Rogers. One ad targets Northam for believing that the Confederate statues should come down or be placed in museums; another blasts him for his waffling on sanctuary cities (in a state where none exist!) and links him to weakness against the MS-13 gang; another all but calls him sympathetic to pedophiles. The ads are brutal, foul, racist, demagogic, and effective. They embrace Trumpism with fervor and shamelessness and, in Gillespies case, staggering cynicism.

Now go to Northams website and you see a near-copy of Clintons agenda last year. Drenched in wonky micro-policies, one of its exhausted themes is actually Working Together. If you plumb the message, behind various poll-tested good-government bromides, he even has policy proposals on concussions and STEM curricula, and a smoking ban. This is Establishment Democratic boilerplate. And Democratic turnout, in response, looks wobbly, especially among minority voters.

Enter the resurgent activist left. Yes, the party needs more direct aggression and energy and left-populism. But the Latino Victory Fund, worried about low Latino enthusiasm, put out an ad last week that shows how much of the energy in the party is now dominated by the fight against white supremacy. And so the LVF ad would give your average Vox or Coates reader an intersectional orgasm  while dooming the party on the ground. It depicts a white man in dark glasses in a pickup truck wth Gillespie and tea party bumper stickers, brandishing a Confederate flag, and driving aggressively through a suburban neighborhood, terrifying young Latino and Muslim kids, and forcing them into a back alley. Just as this Republican terrorist seems about to murder the children, the scene changes and we realize that this was all a nightmare for the kids. And they wake up. This, the ad hammers home, is what the American dream means for the GOP. Cue to scenes from Charlottesville.

The ad was aimed at Latino voters. But, of course, it went viral, instantly erasing Northams relatively clean image, and tripling contributions to Gillespies campaign overnight. It helped cement the Trump bases support for Gillespie. It seemed to imply that every Virginia Republican is a terrorizing white supremacist, and makes the fatal Clinton mistake of attacking a swath of actual voters. And, of course, it was about immigration. The GOP are on the smart side of this issue; the Democrats still dont have a clue. In one final flailing, Northam first distanced himself from the ad, and then was shown to have helped finance it. Then the GOP managed to ambush him on the bogus sanctuary city issue. In the closing stages of the campaign, he said he would now veto any attempt to establish such a law-free enclave, a position he had once voted against. Even now, it appears, the Democrats have no practiced response to a GOP attack on this question. They dont want to offend Latinos, and they dont want to alienate whites. So they twist in the populist wind. Are they capable of focusing on economic populism and a defense of the working classes against GOP plutocracy? At this point, the answer is no.

This is not a good omen. If Gillespie wins, or the result is close, it means the Trump-transformed GOP is electorally viable in every swing district in 2018. That it could win in the state where actual white supremacists marched this past summer and when the president is 20 points underwater is a sobering reminder of the actual state of play in our politics. I can only hope its a wake-up call to the Dems. In 2017, they are either useless or actively counterproductive in the struggle to resist right-authoritarianism. They have learned nothing from 2016. Their intelligentsia seems determined to ensure that no midwestern whites ever vote for the party again. Their public faces are still Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi. They still believe that something other than electoral politics  the courts, the press, the special counsel  will propel them back to power. They cant seem to grasp the nettle of left-populism. And they remain obsessed with a Russia scandal that most swing voters dont give a damn about.

They think they are woke. They are, in fact, in a political coma.

Seriously, Put Down Your Phone

If you havent read Jean Twenges book on how Steve Jobss legacy is destroying the happiness and well-being of an entire generation, I highly recommend it. Its deeply disturbing. Some stats from her Atlantic excerpt:

The number of teens who get together with their friends nearly every day dropped by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2015; the decline has been especially steep recently  Eighth-graders who are heavy users of social media increase their risk of depression by 27 percent, while those who play sports, go to religious services, or even do homework more than the average teen cut their risk significantly. Teens who spend three hours a day or more on electronic devices are 35 percent more likely to have a risk factor for suicide, such as making a suicide plan  As teens have started spending less time together, they have become less likely to kill one another, and more likely to kill themselves. In 2011, for the first time in 24 years, the teen suicide rate was higher than the teen homicide rate.

Smartphones have not just increased depression, isolation, and anxiety for an entire generation, they also impair cognitive function for all of us. This much is proven, but it may be true even when youre not looking at the bloody thing:

Results from two experiments indicate that even when people are successful at maintaining sustained attentionas when avoiding the temptation to check their phonesthe mere presence of these devices reduces available cognitive capacity. Moreover, these cognitive costs are highest for those highest in smartphone dependence.

The effects in that study are small, and need replicating, but make sense to me. If I have my phone in my pocket, a small part of my brain is thinking about checking it, or waiting to check it, or otherwise marginally distracted from the task at hand. One way Ive found to counter this proactively is meditation or silence with eyes closed for 30 minutes a day. Ive found this is most effective if you do it before the day really begins. It helps steady the addled mind, twitching and eager for an iPhone update. Its helped to turn off all notifications  as long as you dont then compulsively check every app for updates. And then theres simply leaving the phone at home as often as I can. Walking my beagles twice a day, phone-free, helps. Every few minutes, I get an addictive tug to consult the black mirror, but when its not there at all, my mind slowly calms and I start seeing the actual world again. The same thing happens at the gym if I leave the phone in my locker. Its just an hour of pushing weights around  but youd be surprised how your mind wanders in that little oasis, and how creative and productive that wandering can be.

If you need to do some concentrated reading, Ive found going to a local coffee shop without a phone is helpful. Going back to a watch to tell the time also helps you leave it behind. Ditto an old-school alarm clock for the bedroom. Or setting a time each day to look at Twitter, preferably on a laptop or iPad. Every little roadblock helps. Then theres simply what humans used to call the Sabbath. Pick a weekend day and make it phone-free  or at least as phone-free as anyone can in our overconnected age. You might be surprised at the relief you feel, the absence of stress, of compulsion, of distraction. You might reconsider the deep wisdom of the great religions in insisting on such a space apart from the deadliness of constant doing.

And last week, I tried an app to counter the apps. Its called Moment. It measures your phone time throughout the day, and tells you which apps and habits are driving your use. I was shocked at how much time I spend looking at the little shiny gizmo, and surprised by which apps took away most of my daily life. It also helps you cut down. You can set yourself a daily limit  say, three hours  and each half-hour the phone will ping you to show you how much time youve already spent. When your three hours are up, it sets off an alarm. When you blow through your limit  and you will  it just keeps reminding you how far over the limit youve gone. It cant stop you but it can help you. This epidemic is not going away. I keep relapsing. But we can try to develop habits and practices that help. Short of checking yourself into a monastery, it may be the best you can do.

Are Students Finally Rebelling Against PC?

My buddy and former Dish colleague Chris Bodenner reports from Reed College  that super-liberal but also old-school-rigorous school in Oregon (colloquially also known as Weed College). Its another center for intersectional cry-bullies. Heres a message from a leader of the Reed Against Racism group, or RAR, that has successfully traumatized, silenced, and intimidated professors teaching Reeds classic humanities curriculum, i.e., white supremacy. It is from a Facebook post directed at Reed students not showing sufficient dedication to disrupting lectures:

To all the white & able(mentally/physically) who dont come to sit-ins(ever, anymore, rarely): all i got is shade for you. [ If] you aint with me, then I will accept that you are against me. Theres 6 hums left, I best be seein all u phony ass white allies show-up. [] How you gonna be makin all ur white supremacy messes & not help clean-up your own community by coming and sitting for a frickin hour & still claim that you aint a laughin at a lynchin kinda white.

But the problem the chiding RAR leader was identifying  insufficient ideological zeal among students  was becoming real. The shutting down of lectures was beginning to wear thin on many students, especially those who thought they were going to school to learn something other than anti-racism. And this year, the freshman class began to rebel. The uprising started after the usual disruption of a humanities class on the first day of school. The RAR protesters interrupted the professor, grabbed the mic, and declared [our] work is just as important as the work of the faculty, so we were going to introduce ourselves as well. And then:

The pushback from freshmen first came over Facebook. To interrupt a lecture in a classroom setting is in serious violation of academic freedom and is just unthoughtful and wrong, wrote a student from China named Sicheng, who distributed a letter of dissent against RAR. Another student, Isabel, ridiculed the group for its unsolicited emotional theater.  [In a subsequent open mic session organized by RAR,] Rollo, a freshman from Houston, described how difficult it was to grow up poor, black, and gay in Texas. He then turned to RAR: No, I wont subject myself to your politically correct ideas. No, I wont allow myself to be a part of your cause. He criticized the demagoguery that prevents any comprehensive conversation about race outside of racism is bad.

Read the whole thing. The protests against the protests have since spread  led by students of color.

Ive been despairing about the future of education given the climate on campuses, and have been dismayed by how easily so many students have been brainwashed by their PC professors, and intimidated by their peers. But, just as in the 1990s, that wave of extremism may be cresting and even faltering, as more and more students realize that real transformation comes not from shutting down debate and learning, but from actually opening both up.

Know hope.

And see you next Friday.
A mug shot of Saipov from a traffic-related infraction in 2016. Photo: ST. CHARLES COUNTY DEPT. OF CORR/AFP/Getty Images

ISIS claimed responsibility on Thursday for the truck attack on Halloween in Lower Manhattan that left eight people dead and a dozen injured.

One of the soldiers of the Islamic State attacked a number of crusaders on a street in New York City, close to the monument for the 9/11 raid, which resulted in killing and wounding more than 60 crusaders, and unto Allah is all praise, the terror group said in its weekly newsletter, according to a translation by SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremist groups.

ISIS called suspect Sayfullo Saipov one of the soldiers of the Caliphate. Its not clear why they misstated the number of dead and wounded.

The grace of Allah, the operation instilled fear in crusader America, prompting them to increase security measures and intensify actions against immigrants to America, the newsletter said.

Just hours after the attack, it was clear that it was inspired by ISIS. Saipov was heard yelling Allahu Akbar at the scene, and a note that declared ISIS would endure forever was found at the scene. The criminal complaint against Saipov said he had a large amount of ISIS propaganda saved on his phone, and asked to display an ISIS flag in his hospital room. NYPD officials also noted that he followed almost exactly to a T instructions the group has posted online for how to conduct attacks on civilians.

The FBI said it has yet to uncover any connections between Saipov and foreign terror groups, so it appears he was acting on his own.

The manner in which ISIS claimed credit was unusual. Earlier in the week, the New York Times reported that the group sometimes ignores perpetrators who are captured, as it encourages recruits to martyr themselves by dying in the attack. ISIS usually releases statements within 24 hours of an attack, using its Amaq News Agency, not its newsletter.
Its gonna be a long 2018. Photo: Keith Lane/Getty Images

A district judge has proposed that the trial for former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates be set for May 7, 2018.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson said that shell hear arguments about the start date on November 6, and that once a date is set, it is final. The timing could be politically important if the trial becomes a long-lasting spectacle and bleeds into campaign season for the 2018 midterm elections. Cognizant of the intense media glare, Jackson said on Thursday that she was considering issuing a gag order against lawyers in the case, which would restrict their public statements about it.

Manafort and Gates, who worked together as political consultants for years in Ukraine and elsewhere, were indicted and charged on Monday with several criminal counts, including money laundering, making false statements, and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, an oft-unenforced law mandating that people who work with foreign governments keep the U.S. government apprised of their actions. They were the first people to be swept up by special counsel Robert Muellers probe into Russian electoral interference. Both pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.

Manaforts lawyers are challenging the basis of those allegations, arguging that the money laundering charge rested on a tenuous legal theory. They have also asked Jackson for more time to put together a bail package that could release Manafort from house arrest.
Ralph Northam has clarified his position after Ed Gillespie pounded him with race-baiting ads about immigrant criminal gangs. Photo: Alex Wong

If youve been following the red-hot Virginia governors race, which culminates on November 7, you probably know that Republican Ed Gillespie has been running some savage, borderline-racist ads. One salvo accuses Democrat Ralph Northam of supporting sanctuary cities who dont cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, thereby encouraging the violent Central Americanbased MS-13 gang, which has been active recently in Northern Virginia.

Thats more than a bit of a stretch, particularly since the whole basis of the attack on Northam was his vote against a bill banning sanctuary cities that State Senate Republicans contrived to make into a tie earlier this year so that the lieutenant governor would have to go on record about it. There are no sanctuary cities in the state, as Northam has repeatedly pointed out in justifying his no vote. That was also the basis for Governor Terry McAuliffes veto of the bill once Republicans all voted for it and passed it without Northams assent.

But dishonest or not, the attacks on sanctuary cities and MS-13 may have worked. A recent Monmouth University poll that gave Gillespie a one-point lead after trailing Northam all year showed likely voters favoring the Republican on the crime issue by a 40/24 margin  up from 35/27 in September. And theres also evidence that race-tinged cultural issues generally have energized the GOPs conservative base without unduly alarming Democrats or swing voters. The Washington Post credits Gillespie with having threaded the needle with his abrasive ads.

So its not surprising Northam has moved, albeit tardily, to try to neutralize the whole immigrant-crime line of attack by clarifying that hed support a ban on sanctuary cities if any actually existed in the state  which again, isnt the case today and wasnt when he voted against the earlier ban.

This repositioning, of course, is earning him fresh attacks from his opponent and from conservatives everywhere; Breitbart News says hes cracked under pressure and then flip-flopped. But if any undecided voters are paying attention at this late date, the facts are both candidates are now on record opposing sanctuary cities. Those who fear that Northams position will discourage minority voters should reassure themselves with the fact that the Gillespie campaign has engaged in race-baiting on issues beyond this one. Voters will most certainly be able to tell them apart.
Sessionss January testimony is getting more scrutiny. Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call,Inc.

Days after the first indictments were handed down by Special Counsel Robert Muellers team, on Thursday a new round of revelations raised questions about what Attorney General Jeff Sessions knew about the Trump campaigns Russia contacts. But despite Democrats calls for Sessions to clarify statements he made to Congress under oath, he probably shouldnt be too worried  for now, at least.

During his Senate confirmation hearing in January, Sessions was asked by Senator Al Franken what he would do if evidence showed anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign.

Im not aware of any of those activities, Sessions answered. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didnt have  did not have communications with the Russians, and Im unable to comment on it.

Sessions testified before the Senate in June that he didnt recall any meetings between campaign associates and Russian officials, and last month, responding to another question from Franken, Sessions denied knowledge of any Trump campaign surrogates communicating with the Russians. I did not and Im not aware of anyone else that did, and I dont believe it happened, he said.

However, court documents released this week in the Mueller investigation indicate that George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, introduced himself at a March 31, 2016 campaign meeting by saying he that he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President Putin. A photo shows that both Trump and Sessions were present at the meeting.

On Thursday another former Trump foreign policy adviser, Carter Page, testified behind closed doors to the House Intelligence Committee that he told Sessions he was traveling to Russia during the campaign.

Back in June 2016, I mentioned in passing that I happened to be planning to give a speech at a university in Moscow, Page told CNN. Completely unrelated to my limited volunteer role with the campaign and as Ive done dozens of times throughout my life. Understandably, it was as irrelevant then as it is now. If it werent for the dodgy dossier and all the chaos that those complete lies had created, my passing comments complete lack of relevance should go without saying.

These revelations sparked headlines suggesting that perjury charges for the attorney general may be on the table, and calling on lawmakers to start openly calling him a liar. Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal and Patrick Leahy didnt go that far, but they asked Sessions to immediately come before the Senate Judiciary Committee to update your testimony and correct any omissions and any statements that may have been incorrect or misleading.

Franken sent Sessions a letter on Thursday demanding that he explain his interactions with Papadopoulos in detail. This is another example in an alarming pattern in which you, the nations top law enforcement officer, apparently failed to tell the truth, under oath, about the Trump teams contacts with agents of Russia  a hostile foreign power that interfered in the 2016 election, Franken wrote.

Franken on Sessions: "He seems to have problems telling the truth" and I'd like him to come testify before us again https://t.co/dkCoZwcfXp  CNN (@CNN) November 2, 2017

Franken cited reports that when Papadopouloss suggested arranging a meeting between Trump and Putin, several advisers shot down the idea  suggesting its the kind of exchange one might remember. Per the New York Times:

But Mr. Trump listened with interest and asked questions of Mr. Papadopoulos. Mr. Trump didnt say yes, and he didnt say no, said the former aide, who agreed to describe the meeting on the condition of anonymity.

Finally, Mr. Sessions, as the campaigns top national security official, spoke vehemently against the idea, asking others not to discuss it again. Mr. Trump did not challenge him, the former aide said.

A source familiar with the matter offered a strange defense of Sessions to NBC News, suggesting that he may not remember the discussion, but did recall that the matter was settled once he shot down the idea. The March 31 comments by this Papadopoulos person did not leave a lasting impression, the source said. As far as Sessions seemed to be concerned, when he shut down this idea of Papadopoulos engaging with Russia, that was the end of it and he moved the meeting along to other issues.

The number of things Sessions does not recall about a foreign adversarys interest in Trumps campaign is bizarre. But despite what some on the left (and even the right) have suggested, brief discussions with two aides about contacts in Russia are not the smoking gun that lands Sessions in a jail cell.

Sessions made a far more implausible argument when he claimed that he forgot about as many as three meetings he had with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, during the campaign  and that their chats may have covered policy matters. Yet, former federal prosecutors did not think even this was enough to successfully prosecute Sessions for perjury.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee should definitely be looking into the possibility that the attorney general lied to them under oath, but it doesnt appear that they intend to go as far as perjury charges.

The clarity of the question and the answer could be easily challenged, Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University law school, told Bloomberg. It is rare to see cases for perjury to Congress generally because the exchanges are often imprecise or rather fluid in nature.

More questioning from Democratic lawmakers is just another item for the list of humiliations Sessions has suffered in the Trump administration. Hes probably more concerned about being interviewed by Mueller, and the president deciding to refocus his ire on the AG whose recusal led to his appointment.
Asia bound. Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Like President Trumps previous big foreign trips to Europe and the Middle East, his ten-day Asia trip promises plenty of fodder for GIFs, gaffes, and spectacle. Already, the Economist is reporting that Japanese department stores have put Trumps Virginia wines on sale at large markups. Chinas ambassador to the U.S. is referring to the level of pomp it plans for the visit as head-of-state-plus.

Given the troubled history of U.S.China summits, that plus could mean just about anything. George H.W. Bush famously threw up at a banquet, and Bill Clinton had a great humiliation when a staffer had a banner calling the relationship a strategic partnership hung, only to have to take it down (in front of reporters) after Cabinet officials vetoed the idea that the relationship with the repressive regime was a strategic partnership.

But behind the tweets, here are four of the key areas that beleaguered American diplomats will focus on  often with their fingers crossed that the president doesnt do something rash to undermine U.S. interests (or safety):

Keeping the North Korea situation under control. Trumps hosts in Japan, China, and South Korea  who seldom agree on much  broadly share the goal of convincing him to give diplomacy time to work. While many regional leaders seem to discount the presidents bellicose tweets, and take seriously the reassurances of career military leaders and diplomats, they are still anxious  and South Korea, in particular, is sitting on an anti-war public. Trumps hosts are caught in an unpleasant dilemma. They do not want to face the bellicose and unpredictable Pyongyang regime without Washingtons military might, and so they will seek to make the president happy and look for reassurance that the U.S. will defend them. But they dont want those reassurances to take the form of more coded threats of preventive war, or intimations that time is running out. And Trumps Cabinet seems as invested as he in ratcheting up pressure. These conversations will be intense. Trumps hosts hope they will remain private. Well see.

A meeting with Russia? Yes, you read that right. Even as rumors of more Russia-related indictments fly back home, President Trump told Foxs Laura Ingraham that he might have a meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin, because hes important on North Korea. The Russian government didnt confirm that, however, saying instead that a meeting was being discussed. (Thats diplomat-speak for I might have to wash my hair.) Moscow will use Trumps public ask for a meeting to try to get something from him in return. (What might it be?)

Well also get a chance to judge whether National Security Adviser McMaster and Chief of Staff John Kelly have gotten enough control of the process that American officials will accompany the president to all meetings this time, unlike his spring meeting with Putin with just a Russian government interpreter present. The media availability after that session should be a real treat, too  American prosecutors will no doubt be taking copious notes.

(Update: on Saturday, Trump confirmed that he plans to meet with Putin.)

Bringing home some bacon: Like most presidential trips, this one will feature big-sounding announcements of trade and investment deals at each stop. Japan will promise to buy American natural gas; China will announce energy investments in Texas and the Virgin Islands. Business commentators are dismissing these as small potatoes, and suggesting the shopping basket is empty on the really big questions: While our Asian allies want to see the U.S. commit to regional economic partnerships, even after the U.S. departure from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the voices inside the administration who see U.S. global economic engagement happening on a country-by-country basis seem to be winning. Even there, though, the president has threatened to tear up the U.S.South Korea trade agreement, and Seoul will be watching anxiously. The White House says the presidents speech in Danang, Vietnam, will showcase the administrations answer to Chinese efforts at regional economic integration. Of course, TPP was supposed to be the U.S. answer to Chinese efforts at regional economic integration. Market imbalances and other trade issues with China are real  if the administration has a plan beyond rhetoric, or a set of tools beyond an already-announced government-wide review of U.S. frustrations with China, it hasnt shown its hand. That will make for a smooth visit and good visuals next week; but it is unlikely to produce upticks in jobs or exports for Trump voters, or anyone else, in the years ahead.

Nationalists unite! The Asian diplomatic circuit, where subtlety is prized, and commerce is fondly believed to trump racism, might seem to offer a break from the us-and-them polarization of U.S. cultural discourse. Dont bet on it.

President Trump seems most comfortable with a set of regional authoritarians  Philippine president Duterte most notorious among them as well as governments in Tokyo and New Delhi which rely heavily on nationalism for their support. These regimes also have significant domestic constituencies in the U.S., so courting them pays off politically at home. The presidents last two big international speeches, at the U.N. in September and Poland in July, focused on the sovereignty of individual nations, and the value of strengthening countries from within their own borders to fight cultural and political enemies. That rhetoric will translate quite well to nationalist regimes in Asia. But its hard to overstate how far that is from 60 years of U.S. rhetoric and policy, where the central themes were shared goals that transcended nationalism as a central path to avoiding bloodshed and privation on the levels Asia saw in World War II. Its also hard to imagine how nationalistic policies help build common pressure against North Koreas Kim Jong-un or deal with shared economic menaces such as piracy and cybercrime.

Buckle your seatbelts. This trip wont be boring.
Halfway to the midterms, Trump and his supporters are talking about Hillary Clinton nearly as much as they did during the 2016 campaign. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

In a few days we will reach the halfway point between the presidential election of 2016 and the midterm elections of 2018. Normally, midterm elections at least partially operate as a referendum on the performance of the president and the presidents party. But there are growing signs Donald Trump will try something entirely new: making the midterms a referendum on his defeated 2016 opponent.

Just since October 27, the semi-official message center of the Republican Party  the presidents Twitter feed  has launched 15 separate attacks on Hillary Clinton. They mostly focus on claims that she, not he, colluded with Russia, though today hes leapt joyously into the controversy over Clintons pre-primary fundraising deal with the Democratic National Committee.

Pocahontas just stated that the Democrats, lead by the legendary Crooked Hillary Clinton, rigged the Primaries! Lets go FBI & Justice Dept.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

As always, Trump is careful to inflate every allegation against Clinton into a crime that needs to be investigated, and even within the constraints of Twitter, he manages to work in collateral insults such as calling the junior United States senator from Massachusetts Pocahontas, an allusion to right-wing attacks on her for once identifying herself as having Native American ancestry.

But the broader picture is that, day in and day out, Trump is bringing up and savaging Crooked Hillary again and again. It was his first impulse when the Mueller investigation produced its initial indictments of former Trump campaign officials. And it is the touchstone to which he returns almost no matter which controversy has arisen about his own behavior.

Perhaps this habit just reflects Trumps proclivity for counter-punching, for often accus[ing] others of the exact thing he stands accused of. It was certainly the hallmark of his 2016 campaign, most notably when he responded to the politically devastating revelations of the Access Hollywood video by bringing Bill Clintons sexual misconduct accusers into the audience at a presidential debate with the 42nd presidents wife.

But as we get farther and farther away from that campaign, you have to wonder if Trump is determined to keep in place the dynamics that produced his unlikely election as president. Yes, his base is excited by his immigrant-bashing and law-and-order rhetoric and his defense of our history and our heritage and his chronic defiance of political correctness. But as the chants of Lock Her Up at a Trump event in Alabama 319 days after the 2016 election showed, nothing is as exciting as are attacks on Crooked Hillary.

And they are likely to continue for the foreseeable future. So long as the Mueller investigation continues, the pro-Trump conservative media is sure to continue to ventilate alt-collusion theories revolving around the Clinton campaign and/or Clinton as Obamas secretary of State. Incredibly, two new congressional investigations of Hillary Clinton are now underway:

One probe will deal with why the Obama administration allowed a Russian company to acquire U.S. uranium mines, and a second will look into why the FBI decided not to pursue charges against Clinton for use of a personal email server.

Republicans who want to keep the focus on Trumps vanquished foe will receive considerable assistance from Democrats who cannot seem to disentangle themselves from the controversies arising from the Clinton-Sanders nomination contest.

So it is entirely possible that as the 2018 election approaches, Republicans from Trump on down will be incessantly talking about Hillary Hillary Hillary as though shes on the ballot somewhere. It may be a better political bet than dwelling on the presidents own record.
President Trump uttered one of his trademark quasi-dictatorial assertions during a Thursday-night interview with Laura Ingraham on her new show The Ingraham Angle (is that the permanent name, Fox News? Youre sticking with that?).

Ingraham asked Trump about the massive number of vital diplomatic jobs that have remained vacant at the State Department as Rex Tillerson continues to systematically gut the agency  though she approached the crisis as worse news for Trump than for the United States.

Trump says he's not worried about unfilled State Department roles b/c "the one that matters is me. I am the only one that matters." pic.twitter.com/JxcWiy7ozY  Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 3, 2017

Your State Department still has some unfilled positions. Are you worried that the State Department doesnt have enough Donald Trump nominees in there to push your vision through? Ingraham asked, adding that theres a concern that the State Department is currently undermining your agenda.

Trump responded with his customary eloquence and clarity of mind.

So we dont need all the people they want, Trump said. Im a businessman, and I tell my people, When you dont need to fill slots, dont fill them. But we have some people that Im not happy with there. Lemme tell you, the one that matters is me. Im the only one that matters, because when it comes to it, thats what the policy is going to be.

Trump then blamed Chuck Schumer and Democrats for obstructing nominees (which is definitely not whats happening) and defended cost saving as a diplomatic strategy.

The autocratic egoism on display echoed several previous Trump moments, from his campaign ad released earlier in the week (President Trump will fix it) to his frightening speech at the Republican National Convention speech in 2016.

And it wasnt the only authoritarian-infused section of the Ingraham interview. Trump also defended comments from Wednesday, in which he referred to the U.S. criminal justice system as a joke and laughingstock for not prosecuting terrorists faster.

He also called Donna Braziles account of Hillary Clintons Democratic National Committee takeover a major story, comments that served as a nice entree into his tweets Friday morning, in which he urged his Justice Department to go after Clinton.

Norms, schnorms.
Lock her up. Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

For Donald Trump, the rule of law is like a three-legged puppy, the scene where Bambis mother dies, and an Elliott Smith album all rolled into one.

You know, the saddest thing is that because Im the president of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department, the president told conservative radio host Larry OConnor on Thursday. Im not supposed to be involved with the FBI. Im not supposed to be doing the kind of things that I would love to be doing. And Im very frustrated by it.

Hours after lamenting the fact that the United States is a constitutional republic  where the president cant order the FBI around like its his personal detective agency  Trump ordered the FBI to go after his political opponents for noncriminal activities.

Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn't looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

...New Donna B book says she paid for and stole the Dem Primary. What about the deleted E-mails, Uranium, Podesta, the Server, plus, plus...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

....People are angry. At some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper. The American public deserves it!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

The real story on Collusion is in Donna B's new book. Crooked Hillary bought the DNC & then stole the Democratic Primary from Crazy Bernie!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

Pocahontas just stated that the Democrats, lead by the legendary Crooked Hillary Clinton, rigged the Primaries! Lets go FBI & Justice Dept.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

Here, the president makes a six-point case for why the Justice Department should stop its baseless investigation into the Trump campaign (which has already produced two indictments and a criminal confession), and concentrate its resources on Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. Lets take each of his arguments in turn:

(1) New Donna B book says she paid for and stole the Dem Primary.

In her new campaign memoir, longtime Democratic operative Donna Brazile alleges that Hillary Clinton struck a shady deal with the Democratic National Committee in August of 2015: Clinton would tap her vast donor network to get the debt-ridden DNC back into the black, in exchange for control over the committees finances, strategy, and all the money raised.

There is little reason to think that this arrangement had any determinative effect on the outcome of the 2016 primary. Still, if true, it raises troubling questions about the DNCs management and the Democratic Partys resource allocation, among other things.

But none of those questions are criminal. Its true that the Clinton campaign exploited a loophole in campaign-finance laws to launder donations through state parties into her campaign. But the whole point of legal loopholes is that you can exploit them without technically breaking the law. Beyond that, political parties are private organizations that are free to conduct their nomination processes virtually any way they chose.

(2) deleted E-mails.

Little-known fact: The FBI actually already conducted a thorough, months-long investigation into Clintons emails last year and found no wrongdoing that merited prosecution. Trump must have missed this development, since the mainstream media took pains to avoid any mention of it during the 2016 campaign, lest unproven allegations influence the outcome of a high-stakes presidential election.

(3) Uranium.

This is a reference to the Uranium One pseudo-scandal: Between 2009 and 2013, Russias nuclear-energy agency purchased a majority stake in a Canadian company (Uranium One) that owns uranium mines in the United States. Also, a donor to the Clinton Foundation once owned a stake in said Canadian company.

Thus, conservatives concluded that Crooked Hillary had sold 20 percent of Americas uranium to the Kremlin as a favor to one of her well-connected donors. This is maniacally dumb for several reasons:

*Russia did not actually buy American uranium, so much as a financial asset tied to that uranium. All of the uranium remains in the United States, and the Russian government simply enjoys a cut of the profits produced from the commodity.

*The State Department was one of nine federal agencies to sign off on the deal. Clinton could not have unilaterally vetoed it  only President Obama could have.

*The Clinton donor who owned a company that merged with Uranium One unloaded his personal stake in 2007, and did not stand to benefit from the deal with Russia.

(4) Podesta.

Democratic Partyaligned lobbying firm the Podesta Group is widely suspected of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act  one of the (many) laws that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was indicted for violating. The Justice Department is already investigating the Podesta Group, and its former leader Tony Podesta. Thus, Trumps request is unnecessary, and does nothing but provide Podestas lawyers with a potential line of defense.

(5) The Server.

See: No. 2, above.

(6) People are angry.

This is Trumps strongest, most honest argument: A lot of Republican voters would like to see Hillary Clinton put in prison and are upset that she remains a free woman. Unfortunately, in the United States, GOP primary voters do not have power to jail people they dislike for noncriminal activity (yet): For all the presidents attempts to subvert rule of law in the United States, federal law enforcement agents have retained their loyalty to the Constitution.

Sad!
Global sea levels could rise as much as eight feet by 2100. Photo: Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images

The global climate is getting warmer and humans are to blame, according to a massive new report from 13 different U.S. federal agencies released on Friday.

The National Climate Assessment is a nearly 500-page document produced by hundreds of scientists. They evaluated more than 1,500 studies to reach a series of conclusions that paint a dire picture of the increasingly unstable global climate.

After a 1.8 degree Fahrenheit increase in temperatures over the last 115 years, we are now living in the warmest period of modern civilization, the report says. And humans are the reason why. It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century, the report says. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.

Greenhouse gases, the primary cause of warming, arent just making the planet hotter, the report says. Theyre also warming the oceans, melting glaciers, and increasing water vapor in the atmosphere.

In addition to looking at how we got here, the report projects forward. Global sea levels will rise by one to four feet by 2100, it says, with an eight-foot increase not out of the question. Extreme weather events will also become more common. Heavy rains, uncontrollable wildfires, and record-setting droughts will become more frequent across the U.S. as temperatures continue to rise in the coming decades.

Though largely filled with doom and gloom, the report lays out one simple way to stave off the changes that will inevitably follow increased global temperatures: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Without major reductions in emissions, the increase in annual average global temperature relative to preindustrial times could reach 9F (5C) or more by the end of this century, it says. With significant reductions in emissions, the increase in annual average global temperature could be limited to 3.6F (2C) or less.

One way to limit the global temperature increases is for countries to meet the goals put forward as a part of the Paris climate accord, the report says. Thats the same climate deal President Trump backed out of, leaving the U.S. as one of only two countries not participating.

The Trump administration will find little to like in this report. Its conclusions run counter to the firmly held (and publicly stated) opinions of many in the Executive branch, including Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who just this week said the science is out on whether humans are the main drivers of climate change, and EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, whos written that the debate over climate change is far from settled.

Unfortunately, Pruitt is more powerful than the hundreds of scientists who wrote this report. Just last month, he announced his plan to repeal the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era attempt to reduce power-plant emissions, which account for about 30 percent of the greenhouse gases released in the U.S.

Before the plan is officially repealed, though, climate scientists will be able to weigh in on the harmful consequences of such a decision. All theyll have to do is travel to the only scheduled public hearing on the matter, which will be held in Charleston, West Virginia, or as Pruitt called it, the heart of coal country.
Warren says the process was biased toward her preferred candidate. Photo: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Senator Elizabeth Warren added fuel to the controversy over Donna Braziles claim on Thursday that the Democratic National Committee operated in an unethical manner by striking a deal with Hillary Clinton in August 2015, long before she was the partys official nominee. In a pair of interviews, the Massachusetts senator said the primary was rigged in favor of Clinton  the candidate she herself endorsed over Senator Bernie Sanders.

Brazile, the former interim DNC chairperson, revealed in an essay for Politico that in August 2015, the cash-strapped DNC struck a deal with the Clinton campaign:

The agreement  specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the partys finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.

Its normal for presidential candidates to begin exerting control over their party once its clear that they are going to be the nominee. While for years, it was widely assumed that Clinton would be the Democrats nominee, she did not officially clinch the spot until June 2016.

Brazile, who is promoting a book, also expressed shock and dismay at other ways the process favored Clinton, though they have been known for some time, and she herself was caught giving Clinton a preview of questions she would likely face at Democratic primary debates.

When asked about Braziles piece on CNN, Warren called the situation a real problem and said the moment is a test for DNC Chair Tom Perez, who must restore confidence in the Democratic Party.

Either hes going to succeed by bringing Bernie Sanders and Bernie Sanders representatives into this process and theyre going to say, Its fair, it works, we all believe it. Or, hes going to fail, and I very much hope he succeeds, Warren said. I hope for Democrats everywhere, I hope for Bernie and for all of Bernies supporters that hes going to succeed.

Very quickly, senator, do you agree with the notion that it was rigged? asked Jake Tapper.

Yes, Warren said, emphatically.

Elizabeth Warren says she agrees with the notion that the 2016 Democratic nomination was rigged in Clinton's favor https://t.co/Z6KpCGJj4Q  CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) November 2, 2017

Later on PBS NewsHour, Judy Woodruff asked Warren, Do you think that what were learning from Donna Braziles book suggests that the campaign, that what the Democratic National Committee did, meant this election was rigged?

I think it was, Warren said. Thats a pretty powerful charge, Woodruff noted. Warren said Democrats need to recognize that the process was rigged, and focus on reforming the system to restore confidence that the next nominee is the candidate chosen by the people.

Brazile shed more light on the DNCs fairly obvious bias toward Clinton, which left many on the left disillusioned with the party. However, as New Yorks Eric Levitz explained, Sanders didnt lose solely due to the DNCs scheming:

The notion that Sanders would have won the primary had the DNC not favored Clintons campaign remains unsupportable. Its almost a confusion of cause and effect. Clinton was able to secure control of the DNC because she had effectively been running for the partys nomination for eight years, and cementing relationships with the partys Establishment and major donor networks for decades. Sanders launched his presidential bid late, and started campaigning as a contender (rather than a protest candidate) even later.

But unsurprisingly, when President Trump weighed in on Thursday night, he declared that the nomination was not only rigged, but illegally stolen from Sanders:

Donna Brazile just stated the DNC RIGGED the system to illegally steal the Primary from Bernie Sanders. Bought and paid for by Crooked H....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

....This is real collusion and dishonesty. Major violation of Campaign Finance Laws and Money Laundering - where is our Justice Department?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

Its fair to accuse the Hillary Victory Fund  which was composed of Clintons campaign, the DNC, and 32 state party committees  of dishonesty. While ostensibly the money Clinton was collecting from top donors was being dispersed to benefit the party at all levels, Politico reported in May 2016 that money was being passed to the state committees, but then they would transfer identical sums to the DNC. Less than one percent of the $61 million raised at that point remained with the state committees.

Joint fundraising committees are a loophole in campaign finance laws, and critics alleged that Clinton and the DNC were pushing the boundaries of what they can do. But luckily for Trump, hes wrong about them being illegal:

Now, the JFCs arent loved by campaign finance or good-government experts, but theyre not entirely out of the ordinary. Before his grassroots fundraising juggernaut took off, for instance, Sanders also had an agreement for a joint fundraising committee with the DNC. Donald Trump has a joint fundraising agreement with the Republican National Committee. Theyre effective ways to tap donors who can give much more than $2,700.

Individuals are allowed to give nearly to $450,000 to Trumps two joint fundraising committees. In the third quarter of 2017, Trumps campaign and his the joint fundraising committees took in $11.6 million combined.
Photo: Barry Chin/Boston Globe via Getty Images

The political world is understandably paying enormous attention to Senator Elizabeth Warrens agreement with the proposition that the 2016 Democratic presidential nominating process was rigged against Bernie Sanders. It represents an assertion of malfeasance by a major party leader who endorsed Hillary Clinton in the primaries last year, an assertion that even Sanders himself has not made. And so Clinton enemies from bitter Sanders supporters to Donald J. Trump have joyfully cheered Warrens statement.

But in the same interview Warren also said something that is not drawing much attention, and its not about the retroactive argument over what happened in 2015 and 2016:

This is a test for Tom Perez, Warren continued. And either hes going to succeed by bringing Bernie Sanders and Bernie Sanderss representatives into the process, and theyre going to say its fair, it works, we all believe it, or hes going to fail. And I very much hope he succeeds. I hope for Democrats everywhere. I hope for Bernie and all of Bernies supporters that hes going to succeed.

Warren is pretty clearly saying that Bernie Sanders and his supporters will be the arbiters of the partys nominating process looking forward to 2020. Thats remarkable. It gives the Sanders movement a unique status in the party, more or less as compensation for the terrible wrong done to them in 2016. And Warren is also suggesting the unhappy afterlife of the Sanders/Clinton competition not only can but should continue until the People of the Bern are satisfied.

Its more than a little unclear how thats supposed to happen. The fundraising and staffing arrangement that Donna Brazile has injected into the simmering discussion of the 2016 primaries, which is the proximate cause of the current controversy, obviously isnt going to recur in 2020; whoever runs for president, no one is likely to be in the dominant position Hillary Clinton occupied in 2015. And a lot of the state party primary rules that were originally the basis for (frankly not very compelling) claims that Clinton stole the nomination from Sanders are set by state legislatures (a majority of which are controlled by Republicans), not Tom Perez or the DNC. So exactly what is it Perez is supposed to fix, and Sanders and all of Bernies supporters are supposed to bless?

I cant answer this question, or the related question: What is Elizabeth Warren thinking? Perhaps she misspoke or simple wanted to convey her anger at what Brazile had disclosed. But it sure looks like shes designating Bernie Sanders as the leader of the Democratic Party for the time being, with the DNC functioning at his sufferance. Its always possible she wants to run for president in 2020 and believes Sanders will not run; her new solidarity with the Sanders movement might be useful in that circumstance. But Warren really owes it to her party to be a peacemaker instead of an instigator when it comes to the chronic Democratic temptation to fight the last war.
Donald Trump. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Early Thursday evening, Donald Trumps personal Twitter account vanished from the platform. The account from which he foretold the future with a cartoon about a fucking moron years before hed square off with Rex Tillerson. The account he used to errantly fave a tweet about how hes unpresidential. And the account he used to loudly and dramatically warn President Obama against attacking Syria years before he, as president, would attack Syria. For approximately 11 minutes, @realDonaldTrump was AWOL. All his tweets were gone and if you checked the account page you found a page doesnt exist notification in its stead.

The quiet didnt last long, though. Minutes after it disappeared, @realDonaldTrump was back online. Twitter issued a statement saying the account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee and was promptly restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again, Twitter said.

@jack I need to very seriously tell you that the 70 seconds that Trump's twitter account went away were the happiest 70 seconds of my year.  Cabel Sasser (@cabel) November 2, 2017

Feel like I need to re-evaluate my life choices after reflecting on my reaction to Trump's Twitter.  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 2, 2017

That investigation didnt take long. Later on Thursday evening, Twitter posted a follow-up statement. Turns out, it wasnt so much a mistaken employee as a customer-service staff member dropping the mic on their final day at the company. Which is now the new gold standard for leaving a job.

Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employees last day. We are conducting a full internal review. https://t.co/mlarOgiaRF  Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017

Trump returned to tweeting on Thursday night after his account came back online, but he didnt address the incident until Friday morning. He tweeted his word must finally be getting out  and having an impact. Which might be the most logical and rational thing he has ever tweeted. Except the part that he doesnt realize his impact is employees willing to break major rules at their jobs to take him down. If only for 11 minutes.

My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee. I guess the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

Editors note: This post has been updated to include statements from Twitter as well as Trumps latest tweet.
At least 25 villages in Lamwo district will benefit from a new solar-powered mini grid project targeting to increase access to electricity.



GIZ Uganda, in partnership with the European Union and the German government, is implementing the project. On the government side, the ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) and Electricity Regulatory Authority will jointly support the project.

According to Benon Bena, the acting deputy executive director of REA, the government of Uganda will finance the distribution network for the 25 mini grids in Lamwo. GIZ will subsidise the power to ensure it is affordable.

There is a subsidy of up to Euros 1.25 million for this project that will be handed over to six selected developers after the tender process. Feasibility studies have been carried out in the last one year, Bena said.

According to Aurelien Agut from GIZ, more mini grid projects are expected in the future as private companies take interest in the sector.



The subsidy scheme and long-term concessions that will be offered by GIZ are meant to incentivize the investments so as to make the end user tariff to the community affordable, ac- cording to Ziria Tibalwa, the chief executive officer of ERA.

The consumer is looking out for low tariffs that are competitive and can enable them enjoy the service. Its important that we balance the interest of all stakeholders, Tibalwa said.

About 10 mini grids are currently registered in Uganda and are being operated mainly by communities and non-profit organizations.

Government intends to connect about 22 per cent of the population to electricity through the rural electrification programme by 2022. Today, just about 15 per cent of the population in Uganda has electricity.



Tibalwa explained that the tariff that investors for the off-grid projects applied for in the past were as high as US 30 cents per unit. As a result, she explained to mini grid developers that the regulator has only been able to license only those slightly below US 20 cents.

The challenge is that the communities we are targeting are those that are living below an average income earner... even when they extend the grid to these areas, the affordability to connect and to sustainably pay their bill is still in question, Tibalwa said.

For this tender project, developers are expected to submit a bid for a price per kilowatt-hour and the project will be awarded to the developer with the best offer, based on the required technical concept and performance forecast.

According to Robert Kasande, the acting permanent secretary in the ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, government, together with development partners, are planning to establish 15 mini grids in western Uganda which will be financed by the German government and another six by the EU.



alitwaha@observer.ug
Lighthouse Television (LTV), the pioneer gospel television in the country, marked its 20-year milestone on the Ugandan airwaves last week.

Rev Pr Bob Nichols, 82, the founder of Calvary Cathedral International that owns LTV, was at the breakfast held at Serena hotel to celebrate the TV station that first introduced many Christians to international channels such as TBN, and famous televangelists including Pr Benny Hinn, Pr Joyce Meyer, Bishop T.D Jakes, Rev John Hagee and many more.

In his sermon, Nichols hailed the Ugandan government for helping the gospel TV station stand the test of time.

He noted that although TV is an expensive way of spreading the gospel, it has been a worthwhile venture since many lives were touched through the stations broadcasts.

For me and for our church, this has been a not-for-profit venture; we did not come here to make money, but to spread the gospel of Christ, he said.

Among the many lives the stations work touched is Pastor Wilson Bugembe who was also present at the event. Bugembe said he is who he is today, because of the inspirational sermons he watched on the station, especially those by T.D Jakes.

LTV sowed a seed not only in me, but in also many other young people who are going to take over this country in the coming years, Bugembe said.

It is Eng Godfrey Mutabazi, now Uganda Communications Commission executive director, who engaged Nichols about establishing a branch of the station in Uganda, having watched it in Texas, USA.

I was intrigued by the idea of having a gospel-only TV station in Uganda, said Mutabazi who made the necessary arrangements for the station in Uganda, including saving part of his salary for two months to contribute to Nichols and his wifes familiarization visit to Uganda.

I later worked on the process of acquiring a license for the station. We got one and that was the beginning, Mutabazi said of the station that then minister of information Dr Ruhakana Rugunda opened on August 16, 1997.



pbaike@yahoo.com
When soldiers from the elite Special Forces Command (SFC) stormed parliament in September to forcefully eject MPs that had been suspended by speaker Rebecca Kadaga, Betty Nambooze Bakireke was one of the ill-fated legislators.

The Democratic Party stalwart and Mukono municipality MP has since spent a month at Bugolobi Medical Center where several tests show her spinal cord and back were damaged in the brutal eviction.

When I visited the MP at Bugolobi, I was welcomed by a visibly stressed, but humble gentleman, whose bed has been made next to Namboozes in a private room.

The gentleman is Henry Bakireke, Namboozes husband. Many would add the adjective long-suffering before husband, going by how many times he visits his politician wife in hospitals and prison cells, but his is a labour of love.

Betty Nambooze with husband Henry Bakireke

The couple started dating during their secondary school days at Bishop Secondary School, Mukono. What started as a school compound relationship has since blossomed into a love affair of more than 20 years.

Some say they now even look alike; these two never leave each others side  for better, for worse.

She is my better half. I have to support her at all times, the soft-spoken Bakireke says with a smile.

Ever since she was hospitalized a month ago, Bakireke has not gone back to do his construction work. He has left her only thrice to check on their Mukono home, which weeks ago was broken into.

He says his worst nightmare is seeing her in pain and he has no kind words for the NRM and its chairman Yoweri Museveni, who he says have persecuted his family.

For the last 13 years I have seen Musevenis government persecuting my family. Betty has gone through a lot; she has been arrested, taken to prison, beaten, and harassed to the extent of breaking her back, Bakireke says.

He says whenever there is an attack on Nambooze, the effects are felt throughout the family.

Imagine being tortured by your government! These guys are dictators who want to shy away from the truth. They want to intimidate and silence everybody, but God is alive. He will see us through all this.

In hospital, the civil engineer spends the day flipping through TV channels, responding to calls about Namboozes progress and listening to radio.

Im now watching even things I have not watched in years. It is very painful being in hospital, yet I have a family to look after. I cant leave Bettys side because she needs me more. I have to assist her bathe, dress, even eating. I have put everything on halt, Bakireke says, turning to look out the window next to his bed.



Turning to God

Namboozes run-ins with the government pushed Bakireke into accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour. He traces this milestone to 2002 when Nambooze was arrested and allegedly jailed for 11 months in Luzira prison for taking a bribe of Shs 90,000 when she was a law enforcement officer of Mukono town council.

Bakireke says those 11 months were his worst experience, as they came just two months after their wedding. Besides, nine months earlier, Nambooze had given birth to their baby girl, Valeria Tendo Bakireke, now in S3 at Mt St Marys College Namagunga.

I gave my life to Jesus, who saw me through. I prayed and fasted to be able to withstand all the temptations you can think of, Bakireke says.

Asked about the times his wife has been incarcerated or taken to hospital as a result of an arrest, Bakireke says he has lost count. He, however, points out those that have resulted into her flying out of the country for better management.

We have been to South Africa thrice, all on suspected poisoning, Bakireke says.

He talks of a time before Nambooze became an MP, when people evicted by a UPDF officer in Mukono EwAntony, ran to her for rescue.

When she tried to intervene, she was arrested and taken to different police stations in Mukono, Kampala CPS and finally Lugazi, from where she says she was injected with poisonous substances.

She had just had our last born, Jane Francis Mulungi, so I took the baby to CPS for her to breastfeed, but I was also tortured.

Bakireke says a few days after her release, she started coughing up substances that Ugandan doctors failed to understand. They went to South Africa for further treatment. She was back again in South Africa in 2009 after another brush with the government.

At the height of the tension between Buganda kingdom and the central government over the Land Amendment Bill, now an Act, Nambooze, who chaired the Central Civic Committee, and Medard Lubega Sseggona  then deputy minister of Information at Mengo, now Busiro South MP  were kidnapped for weeks and taken to different parts of the country from where they were tortured.

Last year, Nambooze was flown back to East Africa after she was allegedly poisoned. If it were not for the support of people such as Dr Kizza Besigye and Buganda loyalists, Bakireke says he would not have managed the huge hospital bills.



PASSION

Bakireke says despite the trouble and pain politics has rained on his family, he is not about to dissuade Nambooze from doing what she believes in.

She is a human rights defender who speaks for the helpless. Even when she was still a journalist, she would look for people being persecuted to [highlight] their plight.

So, if that is the politics she is doing, then it is good politics, Bakireke says.

Bakireke says it is this passion for speaking out on human rights violations that forced his wife to part ways with motor-mouthed former Museveni spokesman, Joseph Tamale Mirundi, who was her bosom friend.

When Nambooze was imprisoned in 2002, Tamale reportedly tried to broker an agreement between the Bakirekes and government in order for her to be freed.

He came with a document saying she should sign it for her to be released, Bakireke says. The document, among others things, wanted Nambooze to desist from critiquing the government.

Betty is not the type of person you can compromise. It was not good for her because silencing her was like sending her to the gallows.

She chose to serve out her sentence. While many Ugandans  especially men  probably feel sorry for Bakireke and his unusual wife, he says he knew what he was signing up for when he married Nambooze.

Im committed to her and it is part of our journey. Some men fear to have such women as Betty, but its a contribution to this struggle of having a peaceful country. Thats why we always sell off our property to go to those Western countries, because there are people who [made the sacrifice] for them, Bakireke says.

Asked whether he would encourage his children to follow in their mothers footsteps, Bakireke responds with a resounding yes.

The biggest problem we have in Africa is that those who are in leadership have made it very difficult for other people to join. They intimidate well-meaning people to stay away from politics; thats why we have ended up having scoundrels as leaders. So, if my children want to fall into the footsteps of their mother, why would I discourage them? Everyone has to discover themselves, Bakireke says.

We wanted to have a peaceful Uganda; we thought maybe Museveni was the one to take us to that path but we have been extremely disappointed.

Nambooze, who was struggling to speak because of the pain, said if there is anything that hurts her more, it is seeing her husband suffer.

He does everything for me, but what touches me the most is that he does all this without complaining. He has really suffered with me; I thank him for being there for me. Maybe [without him] I wouldnt be the Nambooze I am today, Nambooze said.



A DAUGHTERS PLEA

It is not only Bakireke that has suffered as a result of Namboozes politics; her 24-year-old daughter, Mary Leticia Nalubbo, has many harrowing memories from the last 15 years of her life.

We have grown up seeing this that it no longer surprises me at all. However, what they did to her this time round is severe, Nalubbo says.

She says although she sees politics as more than just the government, but a whole way of life of people, she would still want to see her mother scale down on her political engagements.

I already told her I dont mind her being in politics but I would like her to pull back a bit. There are many members of parliament on the opposition side who do their politics and dont get hurt.

Like her father, she has grievances with the president.

If these people ruling us really loved their country the way they claim they do, they wouldnt be doing the things they are doing, Nalubbo says.

But Nambooze says Nalubbo and her siblings should know there is a price to pay for a better country.

Certainly her issues are justified, but there must be people willing to pay the price. I would also very much want to get out for the sake of my children, but they will not be safe either. Kaweesi was loyal to the regime, but his children now have no father. It doesnt necessarily mean that when you are opposing, you are the one who is not safe; in a sinking boat there is no winner, Nambooze says.

Andrew Felix Kaweesi, a former police spokeman, was killed in March. Nalubbo, a Makerere University finalist of a bachelors degree in Ethics and Human Rights, says growing up in such a political family has been a rollercoaster, especially for her and her elder sister.

Politics has turned us into parents, because we know more about our younger siblings than she does. Even on a typical day when she is not in hospital or prison, she is at a rally, someones wedding, burial or lumbe [last funeral rites]. Like she always says, we must get used to her calling.

And getting used to that calling might occasionally involve watching her right in the middle of brutal beatings and ugly scenes, as the country witnessed on September 27, 2017.



bakerbatte@observer.ug
Emily Drateru

Emily Drateru is just 24 years but she looks so much older.

Her wounds and misery have clearly taken a toll on her life. When she walks, it is with difficulty because of her stiff legs. Crippled by severe burns, Draterus body, from the neck down to her thighs, is covered with big, scary scars.

Draterus estranged husband is responsible for her predicament. He lit the fire that burnt the mother of his child so severely almost two years ago. The resulting injuries, a doctor who treated her says, have caused her hips to wear out.

At the moment she will need one hip replaced, but in future she will need another one as well, said Dr Geoffrey Madewo of Mulago hospital, in a letter dated February 6, 2017.

The best thing is to use cementless hips. Cementless hips are not offered by Mulago hospital. If you go on the market, you will buy cementless hips for about 7.5 million shillings.

Drateru cant raise the required sum; so, she limps on, in pain. Born in the West Nile district of Maracha, Drateru today lives in Kijomoro division, Licci village, Arua municipality. Her troubles began around the age of 16, both her parents having died.

At this tender age, Drateru went to live with her uncle who she says ended up molesting her. She escaped from her predatory uncle and sought refuge in Arua town, in search of housework.

After things didnt go on well here either, Drateru decided to join her brother in Lugazi town, along Kampala-Jinja road, where the two worked in a sugarcane plantation.

In Lugazi, Drateru found not just work but love as well, with a man she had met through her brother. Before long, she was pregnant with his baby. The man then took her to his home in Hoima, where their love story would turn sour after she gave birth.

Her man had turned into a monster who refused or failed to take care not just of his woman but his child too. Drateru says this man mistreated her in unspeakable ways, battering and hurling insults at her, among other forms of abuse.

He used to say that I was uneducated and he couldnt have a wife who was not learned. One day he chased me and my child out of the house, we slept on the verandah; people pleaded with me to leave but I refused, Drateru narrates.

She endured the abuse because she had nowhere to go and no money to fend for her child.

He finally threw me out of his home and I went to Arua Park in Kampala where I spent cold nights with my child. We used to cover ourselves with boxes; whenever it rained, it poured on us, Drateru says, fighting back tears.

Tormented by the harsh street life, Drateru told herself that she could seek help for her child from the now estranged father. As if it was meant to be her fate, these thoughts came around the time the man phoned her, saying he wanted to see his child.

Drateru left Arua Park and headed for Hoima. But the anticipated reunion didnt go according to her script as upon arrival at his house, the man showered her with a combustible substance believed to be petrol, and set her on fire.

He was inside and as soon as I entered, he poured something on me. I only saw fire on my chest. He burnt me, Drateru recounts her ordeal.

She was taken to a hospital in Hoima to nurse her burns and later transferred to Mulago hospital where she spent a full year on treatment.

All this time, Drateru was all by herself in the absence of a family member to help her out. She spent most of her time in hospital lying on her back due to the intense pain she had.

Persistent backache and pain in her left leg were her biggest complaints. To date, the leg is so stiff that it can hardly be separated from the right one, leaving her walking slowly and awkwardly like a cripple.

Meanwhile, when it was time to discharge her, Drateru had no money to pay the bills that had accumulated for a year or so at Mulago. She was left with no alternative but to have the father of her child released from police custody in return for help.

According to Drateru, he was the only person who could help her out. Yet after walking scot free, the man didnt offer any financial assistance; he only took his child who is now living with his sister.

Instead, a well-wisher whose attention was drawn by a grown woman walking on her fours in the Mulago hospital compound approached Drateru for her story and took her to a TV station, which aired her story early this year.

She also took her to her home in Lubaga after she was discharged, supporting her with some money for physiotherapy that doctors had recommended.

Commenting on Draterus plight, Dr Madewo said: We found that the lady didnt have a problem with her back. It was her hips that were wearing out, plus the sockets of the hip joint. Thus the doctors recommended physiotherapy and an operation to replace her hip joint.

Its been two years now since Drateru last received medical attention, so we approached Madewo again, who expressed surprise that she was yet to be operated on. Dr Madewo told us he is worried her situation could take a turn for worse if she doesnt get the operation sooner.

According to Dr Madewo, all Drateru needs is Shs 7.5m to enable her live a normal and productive life. To assist Drateru, contact the writer on 0704195472 or use the email address below.



kamogajonathan50@gmail.com
Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) executive secretary Dan N Odongo has said the ordinary level examination leaks were deliberately done to undermine the body.

Odongo told a news conference on Wednesday that the motive was two-sided: money and to undermine Uneb. He did not say who would be interested in damaging the boards image.

This was an act meant to tarnish the image of Uneb and probably the education sector because even those who are not teachers or school owners were also receiving the papers circulating on social media, he said

Last week question papers for Biology, Chemistry and Christian Religious Education were posted on social media hours before candidates sat.

Polly Namaye (L) and Dan Odongo

Odongo said preliminary investigations have, however, cleared their staff of any wrongdoing. The board has also established that while Kampala was awash with the leaked papers, Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examinations were largely unaffected around the country.

I very strongly refute baseless allegations made by one Etukuri who writes for one of the dailies that in Uneb there are cartels that make millions of shillings every year on examinations, Odongo said at Uneb offices in Ntinda.

If you continue to say sources [to] cover up what you are imagining, it continues to hurt other people who do not have the ability to spread that kind of falsehood using the media.

Uneb statistics indicate that 325,695 candidates registered for this years UCE examinations in 3,620 centres. The examinations are running from October 16 to November 20.

Below is a slightly abridged transcript from the media briefing addressed by Unebs executive secretary Odongo and deputy police publicist Polly Namaye.



How did Uneb learn that examinations had leaked?

We did not receive the news through media reports. I got a call from one of our officers in Kawempe that somebody was talking to a head teacher that he has an examination he can get for them.

This person, who was also a teacher in another school, was the first to be arrested. I got his number, sent it to the police team working on the conduct of the examinations and they swung into action to have him arrested.

When they looked at his phone, it led them to another person after he confessed that he was not the source of the examinations.

That other person was also picked in the afternoon and led us to a chain of people. They included Entebbe (5), Mbarara and Ibanda (5), Bunyangabu (4), Serere (2), Amuria (1), Kampala (9) and Iganga (1).



Total number of arrests were 27 by Wednesday

Yes, but they are still looking for more. Of the 27, at least 24 are teachers, mostly from private schools; one student, an area supervisor, a director from a private school and a school bursar from a government school both in Iganga.

I am not at liberty to name the schools because police is still conducting its investigations. As investigations intensified, it emerged that the epicentre of the leakages was Iganga. The key suspect was arrested over the weekend.

This person revealed to the investigating team that the source was an examination storage station in Busesa located after Iganga. It involved the connivance of the area supervisor and a scout who had been posted [there].

The scout was arrested on Tuesday morning and I had an opportunity to interface with him. He confessed that he had been paid Shs 1 million to surrender the keys he was meant to protect from the fraudsters who later freely accessed the examinations.

Initially, the aim was for the director of the private school who was also an accomplice and his area supervisor to help their own schools but later the motive of making money also came in. They got other people who started sending the question papers through social media.



What does this tell us given that teachers are majority of the suspects?

We have a big problem. That tells you about the commercialization of education in this country and the negative effects it has on the system.

Some teachers are ready to drop all their ethics; this is an indictment on teachers although the overwhelming majority of them are doing a fantastic job under difficult circumstances.



How bad was the leakage?

I am still getting information from the field. Much as this thing was so loud in Kampala, a lot of people who got this information on their phones did not even use it. I am sure other candidates got more confused when they saw the information.

In most cases, malpractice will not help candidates very much except for those who are very intelligent and are reminded a little of what they could have forgotten.

I was talking to a head teacher who immediately called an assembly and told her teachers that whoever has received the information on social media should keep it to themselves.

The association of secondary school head teachers agreed on their platform that nobody should attempt because this is a shame and there is nothing that we are going to do about it. Yes, many people received those things but those that did [but] did not use them were so many.



Is Uneb and police ready to say those who have been arrested are guilty?

I am not saying anyone is culpable. But when the investigations eventually find out that they are not innocent, then we shall apply the regulations.

As a board, we have preached to everyone against examination malpractice including the students who are the biggest losers when this thing happens. For now, everyone is innocent until they have been proven guilty.



When this leak happened, we imagine students did not have phones to whistle blow.

But for instance, if I go to a student and wake him/her like it was happening at 2am; take him/her to class and begin to give him/her information, they can tell straight away that this is not normal.

Remember, you willingly participate in this late class knowing that there are consequences. Does this make a student innocent? These children are 16 and 17-year-olds who are not like nursery kids who can be lifted from the bed and taken into a room and given information regarding examinations.



What is the fate of the student who was netted?

This student from Iganga was found with a biology practical paper that was given to him by a teacher but is continuing with the examinations.

We do not stop a student from writing examinations even when one is found with notes inside the examination room. We only confiscate the notes and write statements but allow the student to complete all the papers.

Our people in the field are not the final decision-makers because there must be a hearing conducted by the boards security committee. A decision can be made thereafter. The only incident where you dont continue with examinations is when we find out that you are an impersonator. You are arrested there and then.



Are there plans of resetting other papers for the affected subjects?

We have almost 340,000 candidates who are writing UCE examinations. We are talking of about 500 candidates or less who actually benefited from the leak.

So, why would you want to punish those who did their examinations under the regulations by subjecting them to write another paper yet you can actually isolate those candidates who had the problem? It cannot be a blanket decision to set other papers because you need to have very good reasons for doing that.



Are you able to detect schools that used the leaked papers?

I am still receiving information of possible centres that could have used this information. We can only establish this when we get all students scripts.

Even those that we are hearing now, we are not holding onto them until we get the evidence. We are just taking note of suspected schools because they [woke] up students at around 2am and later sleep at 4am which is unfair to the candidates.



Should candidates worry about change in the pass marks for the affected subjects?

Not at all. Nothing like that will happen. Candidates should write their examinations with ease because it is only when the impact is established that appropriate decisions can be made.



Is this the biggest examination leak?

No. The other incidents were just not publicised on social media and in the media as well. There have been incidents where some of our security in some small stations has been breached. This time round, the print media came in to write stories.



When do we expect the investigations to end?

By the time we get to the release of results [early next year], the processes will be over.



A-level examinations are expected in a weeks time. Candidates at this level are adults and have access to social media

I want to encourage them that by the time they get to A-level, their level of maturity has increased. However, incidents of malpractice are lowest at Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education because of the complexity of the tasks.

If you get a question and you have only two hours to finish, if you were not well prepared, chances are slim that you will give this question good answers.

Now, similar with leaked UCE examinations, if you got a chemistry paper and you have never known how to balance an equation for the last four years, how can you learn how to do it in an hour? So, this whole leakage was just a very unfortunate incident.



What are your views about penalties for examination malpractice in the Uneb Act?

The current law is very bad. We are revising the law and have reached the level of presenting a cabinet paper. Once cabinet says yes, it will instruct the parliamentary counsel to write the draft which we already have in their language for presentation.

The current punishment for a convicted person is a maximum of two years of imprisonment or a fine of Shs 50,000 or both. Our proposal in the draft is a fine of Shs 5 million and at least five years of incarceration. We made these proposals about two years ago when the efforts to amend the law started but it has been a bit slow.

I am sure that when the parliamentary counsel drafts it, we can revise the figures. We will also borrow from other legislations like in Nigeria where they fine you over Shs 20 million and more than five years of imprisonment and Kenya which has a minimum of five years.

NAMAYE SPEAKS

What charges has police preferred against the arrested persons?

There are different forms of malpractices but in this case, those who leaked and spread the examinations are charged under the Computer Misuse Act and Uneb Act. So, police investigators are going to look into these laws and we shall be able to prosecute them in court.

Unfortunately, we are still having a [strike] in the DPPs office but we believe that as soon as we have them back in office, these people will be taken to court and charged. Currently, the suspects are detained at various police stations in the districts.



Examinations were leaked from a storage station and the assumption is that there was a police officer on duty. Did this officer connive?

Unfortunately, police officers do not keep keys to storage rooms of examinations. All that our officers do is to keep the storage area as secure as possible. However, from the arrests that we have made, we see connivance from the school director, area supervisor and storekeepers.

Police cannot actually know that the person coming in is not authorised. It is a bit technical but we are still investigating. We cannot rule out connivance of police officers but if any of our own was involved, they will also be netted. For now, there is neither a police officer nor a Uneb staff that has so far been arrested.



Why is police working with Uganda Communications Commission and Internal Security Organisation?

We are actually working with all intelligence organisations. It is very important to use UCC in cautioning the players in the examination process to desist from leaking the examinations through social media platforms.

We have our media desk under CID which is doing a commendable job to track down anyone misusing WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook, among others. This desk has worked together with UCC.

Even when it comes to prosecution, we shall need the support of UCC in ensuring that whoever had a hand in spreading the examinations via social media is brought to book.

Other security agencies like ISO are also helping us in the investigations and to ensure that we have no more leaks while UPDF will be very pivotal in accessing and transportation of examination material in hard-to-reach places. We are carrying out joint operations internally and at the borders. We shall bring in other security agencies as we deem necessary.



nangonzi@observer.ug
Lawyers representing social media commentator Frank Gashumba and his brother, Innocent Kasumba, yesterday filed an application in Nakawa chief magistrates court asking for their unconditional release.

Since Monday, the two, have at various times, been held at either the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) in Mbuya or the Special Investigations Division (SID) in Kireka on fraud allegations.

An army spokesman yesterday revealed that the civilians are no longer with them. It is, however, not clear exactly when they were transferred to police custody, having been arrested by the military.

Frank Gashumba

Military intelligence arrested Gashumba, a loud and regular critic of the president and his government, on suspicion that he impersonated the permanent secretary, ministry of defence. It is alleged that he was part of a scheme to obtain money by false pretense.

But in his affidavit sworn yesterday, Denis Nyombi, the duos lawyer, contends that their detention by the army and the police is unlawful and unconstitutional. The lawyer also contends that his clients have not been produced before court within the constitutionally prescribed time.

Nyombi cites Article 23 of the constitution which stipulates that any person arrested must be brought to court as soon as possible but in any case not later than forty-eight hours from the time of his or her arrest.

Gashumba is also the chief executive officer at Sisimuka Uganda, a non-profit organisation. He was arrested on October 30, while Kasumba was picked up a day later.

The army, through CMI, claimed that they had recovered two passports with Gashumbas image but the travel documents bore different names.

One had the name Frank Disans Sentongo, while the other had Franco Gashumba Malingumu. The army also claimed that at Gashumbas house in Bunga they found various stamps, including one of the defence ministry.

But in the application now before Nakawa Grade one magistrate Jackline Kagoya, Nyombi says the two must be released since they were denied their right to interact with their family members and lawyers. Nyombi said that on November 1, he unsuccessfully tried to interact with his clients.

I went to one police department but they referred me to another department, Nyombi says in the affidavit. The duo were also denied police bond without any reason and yet no charges had been preferred against them, Nyombi says in his affidavit.

Despite Nyombis efforts to have the application heard, Kagoya insisted she was busy and deferred the matter to today (Friday).

Army spokesman Brigadier Richard Karemire yesterday said the army, which has taken a lead role in the investigations, has handed over the two to police.

We dont have them, Karemire said, Please find out from the police.

Police Asan Kasingye spokesperson confirmed the suspects transfer to their custody.

We have them; there is no dispute about that, Kasingye said. We have made it very clear in our communications.

Kasingye added: We are still waiting for the DPP to prefer charges against them. Thats the only way we can bring them to court.

With state attorneys staying away from work in their ongoing pay dispute with the government, it is unclear when the Gashumbas matter will be processed for court.

With the army also claiming to have found narcotics at Gashumbas house, it remains unknown what charges could be leveled against him.



dkiyonga@observer.ug
Plain-clothes security officers yesterday stormed the Kibuli-based Criminal Intelliegence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) and asked to search the offices of the anti-narcotics department.

A knowledgeable source said Flying Squad operatives arrived at Kibuli at around 9am and demanded to search the offices of Superintendent of Police Tinka Zerugaba, the acting head of Narcotics at CIID headquarters, and an assistant inspector of police only identified as Benon.

The offices, according to insider sources, were closed. The operatives reportedly waited for CIID director Grace Akullo to give them clearance but she was not in office.

A police van approaching CIID headquarters

Akullos deputy Obwona later gave the operatives the all-clear to do the search but they failed to proceed because the offices remained firmly closed. At the end of the day, the targeted officers didnt show up and the flying squad operatives remained stationed at the premises.

The Observer has also learnt that the Chieftancy of Military Intelligence operatives yesterday picked a senior VIPPU officer from Nsambya barracks.

The surprise raid at CIID further rattled the police fraternity with some officers, according to our sources, fleeing their offices at the slightest opportunity. Others who hadnt reported for work didnt bother to set foot at Kibuli CIID headquarters for much of yesterday.

The Observer couldnt independently confirm whether really it was CMI that picked the VIPPU officer or if it was Flying Squad that stormed Kibuli.

Asked yesterday whether he led the search of CIID premises, Herbert Muhangi, the commandant of the Flying Squad, said: Hmm.., who gave you that information? Then tell your sources to give you more details. Anyway I have briefed the [Police] PRO Mr Asan Kasingye and he will give you details. I did the report of what we did there and gave it to him. He can tell you, Muhangi said.

Police spokesman Asan Kasingye refused to comment on the matter, referring The Observer to his colleague Vincent Sekatte, the CIID spokesman.

I gave that department to my senior officer Vincent Sekatte who is the spokesperson of CIID; let him find out, Kasingye said.

Interviewed yesterday, Sekatte said he had no information about the CIID raid.

I will verify that information tomorrow, he said.

For his part, army spokesman Brigadier Richard Kalemire said, CMI cannot search CIID headquarters.

This raid on CIID comes days after CMI shocked the nation when it arrested several senior police officers.

The officers arrested last month and arraigned before the armys General Court Martial on October 27 were: Commandant of Police Professional Standards Unit, SCP Joel Aguma; SSP Nixon Agasirwe, who is a former commander of Police Special Operations, and ASP James Magada (Crime Intelligence).

Aguma and Agasirwe were remanded to Makindye Military Police detention facility till November 20. Others arrested are Sgt Abel Tumukunde (Flying Squad), Faisal Katende (Flying Squad) and Amon Kwarisima.

Rene Rutagungira, a Rwandese national, and Bahati Mugenga Irunga, a Congolese national, were charged alongside the police officers.

They were remanded to Luzira prison. It is alleged that on September 25, 2013, the accused persons kidnapped Lieutenant Joel Mutabazi, a former bodyguard of Rwandan president Paul Kagame, in Kamengo, on Kampala  Masaka road, and forcefully conveyed him to Rwanda.

Mutabazi had fled for his life from Kigali to seek political asylum in Uganda, with the United Nations refugee agency looking after him.

CIID headquarters

The police group was also charged with the kidnap of Jackson Kalemera, Mutabazis brother, on the same day. Similarly, Kalemera was also dispatched to Rwandan authorities against his wishes.

The CMIs new-found involvement in investigating high-profile cases like the murder of 20-plus women in Wakiso district, which hirtherto were a preserve of the police force, has stoked speculation that the agency has the presidential nod of approval.

In most cases, criminal cases which are supposed to be investigated by police end up with CMI investigating them, you just know its a directive from above. Since CMI handles military cases, the president has more confidence in them, that they can also handle such sensitive criminal cases,a police source told us.

Interviewed yesterday, deputy police spokesperson Polly Namaye said security agencies are supposed to cooperate.

There are some issues where we are supposed to cooperate with other security agencies to investigate, depending on the circumstances. Article 212 of the constitution says police will work with other security agencies and the population. If other security organisations are on board, its constitutional, there is no problem, she said.

Interviewed about CMIs role in police investigations, the minister of state for Internal Affairs, Obiga Kania, said,I dont know, you can ask CMI why they are investigating murder cases. They will tell you.

Interviewed earlier in the day, UPDF spokesperson Brig Richard Karemire had said the army is simply helping police in its investigations.

Police still takes the lead in murder investigations. We just support them by sharing information on crime issues such as murder and other investigations, he said.

Karemire added that when a civilian is arrested, they [army] analyse the nature of the case and if a crime has been committed with a soldier or involves a military weapon, the suspect can be tried in the General Court Martial.
The editor of New Visions weekend papers was this week summoned by the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) of the police and interrogated in relation to a news story published in the Saturday edition.

The paper reported that the Inspector General of Police, Gen Kale Kayihura, had had his security beefed up in the aftermath of the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence arresting senior police officers.

Thus, the editors crime is publishing a news story with intent to disturb or attempt to disturb the peace, quiet or right or privacy of the inspector general of police.

A threat to press freedom as this development is, it is not isolated. A few weeks ago, it was Daily Monitor and Red Pepper editors who were summoned by the police over news stories related to the age limit amendment debate.

In addition, Stanley Ndawula, a journalist who runs an online newspaper, was this week arrested over news stories about criminality in the Uganda Police Force, and was still in detention as we went to press.

The rationale of these actions is clearly to intimidate and silence journalists who dare touch subjects that powerful people find uncomfortable.

However, while they claim to work within the confines of the law, they are oblivious of the Constitution, the supreme law, which guarantees freedom of press in Article 29(1).

It states that every person shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression, which shall include freedom of the press and other media.

In inserting that clause, the makers of the Constitution were well aware of the positive role that free media can play in promoting democratisation and good governance.

The media are messengers of the public with a cardinal duty to hold public office-bearers accountable for their actions and failures.

This noble principle must not be torpedoed by short-term personal or political interests that appear to be driving the current media clampdown.

Like the police, other institutions and individuals, journalists are not infallible, but its wrong to seek to criminalise anything those in power dont agree with in the media.

Why not use the same media to address whatever the aggrieved officials dispute rather than resort to strong-arm tactics?
Bangladeshi envoy summoned by FO

ISLAMABAD: The diplomatic row between Pakistan and Bangladesh over a controversial video clip on social media continued to simmer on Thursday as the Foreign Office summoned the Bangladeshi envoy to receive a demarche over the language of Dhakas protest note.



In order to register our protest on the use of undiplomatic language in a Note Verbale, on an incident of obscure origin, the High Commissioner of Bangladesh in Islamabad was summoned by Director General (South Asia & Saarc) to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs today, the FO said in a statement.



The video clip, which was posted on the Facebook account of the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka, contained Mujeebur Rehmans interview that suggested he wanted autonomy not separation from Pakistan. The clip annoyed the Bangladesh government, which rejected it as a distortion of history.



A diplomatic protest note that was handed over to Pakistans High Commissioner in Dhaka by the host foreign ministry contained undiplomatic assertions, according to the FO. While the entire letter was laced with inconsiderate comments, the harshest was probably a reference to the events of 1971.



Bangladeshs long freedom movement culminated in the declaration of independence by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on 26 March 1971 and Pakistans subsequent surrender at Dhaka on 16 December 1971, the note said.



Bangladeshs high commissioner was told that Pakistans mission in Dhaka could not be blamed for the posting of the video clip, which was done by an unidentified third party.



The Bangladeshi envoy was told that Pakistan wanted friendly bilateral ties in accordance with the Tripartite Agreement of 1974, which provided for a fresh start after forgetting the bitter past.



Speaking at the weekly media briefing, the new FO spokesman, Dr Muhammad Faisal, who also heads the South Asia directorate, said the Pakistani government expected Bangladesh to adhere to the tripartite agreement.



The current tense phase in relations has roots in a 2009 move by the government of Prime Minister Hasina Wajid to resume the trials of 1971 war crimes that had been suspended after the tripartite accord. Five Bengali leaders, who had opposed the creation of Bangladesh, have since been executed after trials for war crimes.



Human rights groups have raised serious questions about the fairness of these war crimes trials.



Dr Faisal also played down concerns about India making operational a trade route to Afghanistan through Irans Chabahar port.



It is our consistent position that Afghanistan as a landlocked country has a right of transit access through any neighbouring country according to its needs. Transport of wheat and other commodities to Afghanistan is nothing new, as Pakistan has been traditionally providing goods to Afghanistan, the spokesman said.



Earlier this week, India sent its first shipment of wheat to Afghanistan via Chabahar port. It was seen as a bid to bypass Pakistan which lies between India and Afghanistan, but does not allow transportation of Indian goods.



Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had last week, while visiting India, again warned that his government could block Pakistans access to Central Asia, if Islamabad did not allow Indo-Afghan trade through Wagah-Attari border.












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LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS NO TOMAN CACA-COLA No se trata solamente de un capricho, sino de una sana actitud en todos los sentidos. Desde la solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano donde la empresa Caca-Cola ha cometido los mas grandes abusos contra sus trabajadores incluyendo el presunto secuestro y asesinato de los dirigentes del sindicato, hasta la proteccion de la salud de nuestros hijos, enviciados por ese jarabe de cola y azucar, que les produce obesidad prematura. Pensemos tambien los revolucionarios, que ese dinero que gastamos en los refrescos es utilizado por esas empresas para financiar el terrorismo en nuestro pais. Es cierto, no se trata solo de la Caca-Cola, sino tambien de la cerveza, de los cigarrillos y todos esos articulos innecesarios y mas que eso, daninos para nuestra salud. Podriamos incluso pensar en un dia de parada para cada uno de ellos. Es cuestion de irnos organizando. Pero para empezar, que tal si dejamos de comprar Caca-Cola y sus similares?



























Cuando lo extraordinario se vuelve cotidiano...



Discurso del Acto de Grado en Barinas en 12 de Febrero del 2005 Queridos Graduandos:



Mas que un discurso, quiero dirigirles algunas palabras que escribi anoche, despues de visitar en las clinicas, a los estudiantes heridos, a consecuencia de los enfrentamientos con la policia de hace apenas dos dias.



Me ha tocado por razones del destino, ser la persona que les otorgue el titulo que bien merecieron con sus estudios. Y me siento sumamente orgulloso de serlo. Me consta que la Universidad de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, a pesar de lo dicho por los enemigos de esta universidad, es una universidad de primera.



No tendremos la mejor planta fisica, en los salones hace calor. En el comedor hace calor. Pero no es en lo material que las cosas deben valorarse. El mayor capital es el ser humano. Y en eso, nuestra UNELLEZ, lo digo con conocimiento de causa, esta sobrada. Los llaneros venezolanos son nobles, valientes, de coraje.



En la UNELLEZ hacen vida, en este momento, aproximadamente 67000 personas. El 97% de ellas son estudiantes. Jovenes que, como Ustedes hasta el dia de hoy, buscan ese titulo, que constata los anos de dedicacion y de estudio.



Los jovenes son el rio de la vida, ustedes graduados deben ser los capitanes de esos barcos que naveguen por el rio de la vida.



Nuestra Patria atraviesa momentos muy dificiles porque decidio dejar de ser esa matrona de edad vetusta y complaciente, para ser joven, rebelde y altanera. Nuestra imagen ya no es la de una acaudalada ricachona mayamera. En nuestro rostro brilla ahora la sonrisa del Che Guevara, con su diente delantero torcido, su pelo largo y su boina con la estrella.



Entender esto, a mi me ha tomado practicamente toda la vida. Tengo 53 anos, y ya perdi mi oportunidad de derramar sangre joven a causa de un ideal.



Ustedes son jovenes, estan en la flor de la vida. No cometan por favor el error de renunciar a su instinto de rebelion. El Che Guevara fue Ministro de a Economia en Cuba. Los billetes y las monedas se adornaban con su rostro. Nada de eso le importo. Primero fue a Angola donde paso un penoso ano de combate. Despues se fue a Bolivia, donde encontro la muerte. El Che era el ultimo que comia, el que cargaba la mochila mas pesada. Siempre se sacrificaba por los demas en un estoicismo que mas parecia fervor religioso que ideologia marxista.



Si quieren un modelo de vida. Ahi lo tienen.



Dije hace unos momentos que el 97% de la poblacion de la UNELLEZ es estudiante. Se imaginan Ustedes la Universidad que podriamos tener si todos los estudiantes tuvieran la abnegacion, la combatividad del Che?



Los momentos que se avecinan van a requerir de una gran unidad del pueblo venezolano. La alternativa de continuar siendo libres o regresar a la pobreza se nos planteara en los proximos dias de forma enmascarada, o quizas peor, desenmascarada, vestida con uniforme de soldado del Imperio.



Por nuestra parte podemos esperar lo mejor. La macroeconomia no podria ir mejor, la justicia social ha mejorado notablemente. Las misiones ocupan un papel muy importante en el pago de dicha justicia social. Aqui en Barinas ya hemos cumplido con dos de las misiones, la mision Robinson y la mision Sucre. No hay analfabetismo y no hay exclusion en la educacion superior, en estas tierras de Zamora.



Pero ay malhaya! Son precisamente estos exitos los que nos hacen mas antipaticos al Imperio. Para ellos, somos inclusive un mal ejemplo que se esta contagiando al resto del continente y cuidado sino al resto del mundo.



Nunca venceremos al Imperio. Estara siempre ahi, acechando. Por lo menos hasta que el mismo no se autodestruya. Porque, sepanlo senores, el neoliberalismo es canibal. Cuando le ataque el hambre, se devorara a si mismo.



Ustedes, queridos graduandos, a partir de hoy pasan a conformar la elite profesional que debe sostener este pais en los proximos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Anos decisivos para el logro de nuestra libertad y del rescate de nuestra Soberania.



No se dejen comprar. No se dejen corromper. No se dejen gritar. No se dejen pisar. Que nadie les diga que comer, o que vestirse, o que leer. Sean siempre autenticos, rebeldes, contestatarios. Pero eso si, profundamente patriotas, dignos de ser hijos de Bolivar.



Muchas gracias y que Dios los bendiga.





Alguna duda?



Medio siglo de Holocausto Palestino



Oscar Zanartu Nacio en Caracas en 1960. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en las galerias Minotauro, Clave y San Francisco, y en salas de Coro, estado Falcon, y Puerto Ordaz, estado Bolivar. En Paris su obra ha sido exhibida en el Centro Cultural Tanagra, en la Exposicion Cite Internationale des Arts, en las galerias De Mars y Arver Space, al igual que en la Galeria Municipal Levallois, en Levallois Perret (Francia). En muestras colectivas, su obra se ha expuesto en Belgica, Francia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela; en Caracas intervino en la exposicion "Del genesis a la memoria", 1995, organizada por la Fundacion La Previsora. En 1982 obtuvo el Premio Nacional Critven y en 1990 la Mencion de Honor Jose Antonio Paez, en la Embajada de Venezuela en Paris. En 1991 se le concedio el primer premio de Pintura Itinerante, en Levallois Perret, Francia.



OZ1



OZ2



OZ3



OZ4



Homenaje a Jason Galarraga



La Victoria de Samotracia



Odalisca



Mas fotos de la nevada del pasado agosto 2008



























La Sierra Nevada de Merida



Nuestro precioso Churum Meru



Homenaje a Picasso



Autoretrato



Sabes lo que bebes en una Coca-Cola?

La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.

Mi profesion?

Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.

Sal en la Coca Cola?

A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.

De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:

Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gusto

Acido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)

azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)

Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantas

Mucha Cafeina

Conservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o Potasio

Dioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebe

Sal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracion

El uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.

Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.

Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.

En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).

Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.

La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.

Bebidas Light?

Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el

Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.



Publicado por loretahur



En realidad, la formula secreta de la Coca-Cola se puede detallar en 18 segundos en cualquier espectrometro optico, y basicamente la conocen hasta los perros. Lo que ocurre es que no se puede fabricar igual, a no ser que uno disponga de unos cuantos millones de dolares para ganarle la demanda que te metera la Coca-Cola ante la justicia (ellos no perderian).La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gustoAcido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantasMucha CafeinaConservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o PotasioDioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebeSal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracionEl uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el aspartamo , despues de tres semanas mojado, pasa a tener gusto de trapo viejo sucio.Para evitar eso, se agregan una infinidad de otros productos quimicos, uno para alargar la vida del aspartamo, otro para neutralizar el color, otro para mantener el tercer quimico en suspension porque sino el fondo de la gaseosa quedaria oscuro, otro para evitar la cristalizacion del aspartamo, otro para realzar el sabor, dar mas intensidad al acido citrico o fosforito que perderia su sabor por el efecto de los cuatro productos quimicos iniciales... y asi sucesivamente.Un consejo final !!Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.Publicado por loretahur

MARGARINA o MANTEQUILLA La margarina fue producida originalmente para engordar a los pavos; cuandolo que hizo en realidad fue matarlos.Las personas que habian puesto el dinero para la investigacion quisieronrecobrarlo asi que empezaron a pensar en una forma de hacerlo.Tenian una sustancia blanca, que no tenia ningun atractivo como comestible,asi que le anadieron el color amarillo, para venderselo a lagente en lugar de la mantequilla.Que tal esa?... Ahora han sacado algunos nuevos sabores para vender mas alos incautos como usted y yo.CONOCE USTED la diferencia entre la margarina y la mantequilla?Siga leyendo hasta el final... porque se pone bastante interesante!Comparacion entre mantequilla y margarina:

1.- Ambas tienen la misma cantidad de calorias.

2.- La mantequilla es ligeramente mas alta en grasas saturadas: 8 gramos,comparada con los 5 gramos que tiene la margarina.

3.- Comer margarina en vez de mantequilla puede aumentar en 53% el riesgo deenfermedades coronarias en las mujeres, de acuerdo con un estudiomedico reciente de la Universidad de Harvard.

4.- Comer mantequilla aumenta la absorcion de gran cantidad de nutrientesque se encuentran en otros alimentos.

5.- La mantequilla provee beneficios nutricionales propios mientras lamargarina tiene solo los que le hayan sido anadidos al fabricarla.

6.- La mantequilla sabe mucho mejor que la margarina y mejora el sabor deotros alimentos.7.- La mantequilla ha existido durante siglos mientras que la margarinatiene menos de 100 anos.

Ahora... sobre la margarina:

1.- Es muy alta en acidos grasos trans. (Si, esos que recien ahora loscientificos descubrieron que son malisimos y los gobiernoscomenzaron a prohibirlos) .

2.- Triple riesgo de enfermedades coronarias.

3.- Aumenta el colesterol total y el LDL (el colesterol malo) y disminuye elHDL (el colesterol bueno).

4.- Aumenta en cinco veces el riesgo de cancer.

5.- Disminuye la calidad de la leche materna.

6.- Disminuye la reaccion inmunologica del organismo.

7.- Disminuye la reaccion a la insulina.

Y he aqui el factor mas inquietante (AQUI ESTA LA PARTE MAS INTERESANTE! ):A la margarina le falta UNA MOLECULA para ser PLASTICO...!!Solo este hecho es suficiente para evitar el uso de la margarina de porvida, y de cualquier otra cosa que sea hidrogenada (esto significaque se le anade hidrogeno, lo cual cambia la estructura molecular de lassubstancias).Usted puede ensayar lo siguiente:Compre un poco de margarina y dejela en el garaje o en un sitio sombreado.Dentro de unos dias notara dos cosas:

* No habra moscas; ni siquiera esos molestos bichos se le acercaran (esto yale debe decir a usted algo).

* No se pudre ni huele mal o diferente porque no tiene valor nutritivo; nadacrece en ella. Ni siquiera los diminutos microorganismos puedencrecer en ella.Por que? Porque es casi plastico!!



No a la guerra, Si a la Paz



Misterios de la ciencia...



Los costos de la guerra



medicos y capitalismo...



Capitalismo...



medicos (2)



Quien educa a nuestros hijos?



Los Medios...



Sin Palabras...



Chistes feministas

- Cual es el problema, Eva?

- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz...

- Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.

- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...

- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.

- Que es un hombre?

- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.

- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.

- Cual es el truco?.

- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.

- Cual?

- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.





Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Un dia, en el Paraiso, Eva llamo a Dios: Tengo un problema.- Cual es el problema, Eva?- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.- Que es un hombre?- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.- Cual es el truco?.- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.- Cual?- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Ellas...



Ellas (2)...



Tres venganzas femeninas VENGANZA NUMERO 1

Hoy mi hija cumple 21 anos y estoy muy contento porque es el ultimo pago de pension alimenticia que le doy, asi que llame a mi hijita para que viniera a mi casa y cuando llego le dije:

-Hijita, quiero que lleves este cheque a casa de tu mama y que le digas que: Este es el ultimo maldito cheque que va recibir de mi en todo lo que le queda de su puta vida!!! Quiero que me digas la expresion que pone en su rostro.

Asi que mi hija fue a entregar el cheque. Yo estaba ansioso por saber lo que la bruja tenia que decir y que cara pondria.

Cuando mi hijita entro, le pregunte inmediatamente: -Que fue lo que te dijo tu madre?

-Me dijo que justamente estaba esperando este dia para decirte que no eres mi papa!



VENGANZA NUMERO 2

Un hombre que siempre molestaba a su mujer, paso un dia por la casa de unos amigos para que lo acompanaran al aeropuerto a dejar a su esposa que viajaba a Paris.

A la salida de inmigracion, frente a todo el mundo, el le desea buen viaje y en tono burlon le grita:

- Amor, no te olvides de traerme una hermosa francesita Ja ja ja!!

Ella bajo la cabeza y se embarco muy molesta.

La mujer paso quince dias en Francia.

El marido otra vez pidio a sus amigos que lo acompanasen al aeropuerto a recibirla.

Al verla llegar, lo primero que le grita a toda voz es:

- Y amor me trajiste mi francesita??

- Hice todo lo posible, - contesta ella - ahora solo tenemos que rezar para que nazca nina.



VENGANZA NUMERO 3

El marido, en su lecho de muerte, llama a su mujer. Con voz ronca y ya debil, le dice: - Muy bien, llego mi hora, pero antes quiero hacerte una confesion.

- No, no, tranquilo, tu no debes hacer ningun esfuerzo.

- Pero, mujer, es preciso - insiste el marido - Es preciso morir en paz.

Te quiero confesar algo.

- Esta bien, esta bien. Habla!

- He tenido relaciones con tu hermana, tu mama y tu mejor amiga.

- Lo se, lo se Por eso te envenene, hijo de puta!!!



machismo y cibernetica



Chiste machista La NASA ha enviado al espacio una mision experimental tripulada por dos monos y una mujer.Apenas abandona la atmosfera, se establece comunicacion con Houston.

-Atencion, simio 1, verifique sistemas hidraulicos, controle adecuada presion de los propulsores de arranque. A 60.000 pies disminuya un 25% la velocidad.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, simio 2, nivele al cruzar la estratosfera y active sistemas anticongelantes. No olvide monitorear sistemas de comunicacion e indicadores de presion. Comprendido?.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, Houston llamando a mujer: no se olvide.

-Mujer: Si, si, ya se! -interrumpe enojada- que no me olvide darles de comer a estos monos de mierda y que no se me vaya a ocurrir tocar nada!.



.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti.

Un abogado mantiene un romance con su secretaria.Al poco tiempo, esta queda embarazada y el abogado, que no quiere que su esposa se entere, le da a la secretaria una buena suma de dinero y le pide que se vaya a parir a Italia.Esta pregunta: Y como voy a hacerte saber cuando nazca el bebe ? El abogado responde: Para que mi mujer no se entere, tan solo enviame una postal y escribe por detras: Spaghetti. Y no te preocupes mas, que yo me encargare de todos los gastos.

Pasan los meses y una manana la esposa del abogado lo llama al bufete, algo exaltada: Querido, acabo de recibir el correo y hay una postal muy extrana viene desde Italia. La verdad, no entiendo que significa.El abogado, tratando de ocultar sus nervios, contesta:Espera a que llegue a casa, a ver si yo entiendoCuando el hombre llega a casa y lee la postal, cae al suelo fulminado por un infarto.Llega una ambulancia y se lo lleva. Ya en el hospital, el jefe de cardiologia se queda consolando a la esposa y le pregunta cual ha sido el evento que precipito tan masivo ataque cardiaco.

Entonces la esposa saca la postal y se la muestra diciendole: No me explico, doctor; el solamente leyo esta postal. Vea usted mismo lo que trae escrito.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti."Tres con salchicha y albondigas y dos con almejas



Gol !!!!



Chistes de Borrachos Entra un borracho a su casa todo manchado con lapiz labial por todos lados hecho un desastre, y la mujer le pregunta:-Hombre que te paso?Y el borracho le responde:-No me vas a creer, me pelee con un payaso!



Este es un borracho que entra en un bar y le dice al camarero:-Me da cinco copas de whisky?Al rato:-Me da cuatro?Al rato:-Me da tres copas?Despues:-Me da dos copas?Luego le dice:-Me da una copa?Y le dice al camarero:-Ves? Cuanto menos bebo, mas borracho estoy!


Shanduke McPhatter grew up in the Brooklyn projects.

"Some nights, I had to eat a syrup sandwich. That was what dinner was. And that hunger will send you out to look for a different way, like going into the store to steal a cake or something to put food in my stomach," McPhatter said.

He was raised by his mother and never knew his father.

"I believe that was part of a catalyst for me becoming angry and doing whatever I felt was necessary to survive," he said.

Petty theft eventually turned into armed robbery. "No leadership in my life. No meaning. Nothing to live for."

McPhatter was first arrested at 16. He joined a gang, the Bloods, while incarcerated on Rikers Island.

"Prison doesn't change the mind, it changes the crime," he said. "Even though I wasn't going to rob anymore, I began to sell drugs."

Between 1994 and 2008, McPhatter spent almost a decade of his life behind bars.

"I went through the rite of passage of incarceration, and I survived it. People gravitated toward my energy, my negativity, my false leadership," he said. "I wasn't at the point of turnaround."

That changed when McPhatter witnessed a heartbreaking family reunion in prison. He was walking with another prisoner when they were greeted by the inmate's newly convicted son.

"I looked at his father, and there are tears coming down his eyes."

That moment terrified McPhatter. With twin boys at home, he didn't want his sons to grow up like him.

"I said 'that's my message right there. ... It's time to create what has not been there for me.' "

After his release, he spent the next four years working in personal fitness to save money to start a nonprofit.

In 2012, he founded Gangstas Making Astronomical Community Changes, or G-MACC, in Brooklyn. The organization helps at-risk youth, ages 14 to 25, stay off the streets through services like violence intervention, therapeutic mental health counseling and job opportunities.

"So many of our communities have been ravaged with that gangsta mentality. We believe that violence is a learned behavior. We want to be the catalyst of positivity," he said.

Now 39, McPhatter's primary focus is minimizing gun violence in the community where he once turned to crime.

According to statistics from the New York Police Department, shootings have decreased by about 20% this year in the precinct where G-MACC operates.

"When we have credible messengers like Shanduke reach a population that is living in a traumatic state, he's one of the best shepherds to guide them on a healthier course," said Eric Cumberbatch, executive director of the New York City Mayor's Office to Prevent Gun Violence.

"I think he's a role model in showing how you can come from any walk of life and really create your path moving forward," he added.

The organization has helped more than 300 boys and girls, McPhatter said. Among them is 18-year-old Oriana Vigilance.

"I was mad at the world for stuff that was going on in my life," she said. "I had been in like 20 fights in two years."

She received multiple school suspensions and had to transfer high schools.

"G-MACC was on my back. They led me to graduate. They led me to my first job," she said.

Vigilance now works as a violence interrupter for the organization to help other youth mitigate conflict. She plans to attend community college in January so she can become a social worker.

"Shanduke changed me. He keeps you straight," Vigilance said.

Even though McPhatter strives to end gun violence, he couldn't prevent tragedy from striking his family in 2016. His brother was shot and killed at a rap concert.

But losing his brother has only strengthened his resolve.

"How can we stop the next shooting from happening? By having a relationship with the individuals who are more likely to shoot or be shot. It's about giving them an opportunity or a way out."
CAMBRIDGE  A high school health teacher remains on paid leave after the completion of an investigation into a presenters handout that many parents found objectionable.

We have completed the investigation and are going to be consulting with our attorney, Superintendent Vince Canini said Thursday, adding he could not give many details of the case because it is a personnel issue.

The investigation started when students brought the packet home after a presentation on Monday to seventh- and 10th-grade health classes by a representative of the Pride Center of the Capital Region. The representative was scheduled to come back Tuesday, but Canini canceled that visit.

Initially, Canini said a four-page handout had been given to seventh-graders and a 42-page handout to 10th-graders.

But the investigation showed that all students got the 42-page handout, which included more than 200 definitions of terms referencing the LGBTQ community.

The definition list included many standard words, such as transgender, stereotype, sex, gender, homosexual, homophobia, gay, bisexual lesbian and coming out. It also included a large number of terms relating to gender surgery and hormones, some of them specific and scientific.

It also listed a small number of sexually related terms, including top, bottom, bear, pitcher, catcher and fag hag.

I would like to again stress that the topic of gender identity was never of concern, Canini said. The graphic common terms and definitions were. The two are totally separate but have been blurred into one, which is not the case.

Canini said he could not identify the teacher, because of personnel rules, but he confirmed the school has only one health teacher, who is listed as Jacqueline Hall. An attempt to reach her was not successful.

Canini said the school principal, Caroline Goss, was aware of the presentation, but had not seen the handout nor the specifics of the presentation in advance.

Tuesday, the school district sent a letter to parents from Canini and posted it on the district website. The letter states that the speaker was uninvited after the packet was reviewed and the teacher had been placed on administrative leave.

Canini said the main point of the investigation was to determine whether the handout had been reviewed before it was given to students.
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GLENS FALLS  A Glens Falls man who was arrested last month for allegedly using a stolen credit card was charged with three more felonies Thursday for use of another pilfered card, police said.

Bobby L. Wells, 28, of Broad Street, was charged with felony counts of forgery and criminal possession of stolen property and misdemeanor petit larceny, according to Glens Falls Police.

Wells was accused of taking the card from a parked car in early September and using it to buy a $150 cellphone and try to reserve a hotel room, police said.

The crimes occurred around the time of the cases for which he was arrested in early October, for use of a different stolen credit card at stores in Glens Falls and Queensbury.

Wells was arraigned and returned to Warren County Jail, where he has been held on the prior felony counts of criminal possession of stolen property and forgery and misdemeanor petit larceny.

Glens Falls Police Detective Sgt. Seth French made the arrest.
GLENS FALLS  Glens Falls Pediatric Consultants plans to relocate next year to an office building at the corner of Lawrence and Ridge streets, as it has outgrown its current space.

The practice bought the building for $950,000 and plans to move into the new space by May or June.

Dr. Lisa Adeson, a partner in the firm, said the practice is bursting at the seams at its current location in two buildings at 152-154 Warren St.

Weve moved into every nook and cranny possible. Literally, billing is in the attic and medical records is in the basement, she said.

The partners were looking for new space and wanted to stay in the city of Glens Falls. The deal closed last week, according to Adeson.

The new location will be more convenient, because it has plenty of off-street parking and is closer to bus lines for clients who walk, she said. The new space will make it easier for people in wheelchairs.

Were looking forward to the opportunity to expand services and have a modern space, he said.

The practice plans to locate on the second floor of the building, she said. The first floor is occupied by administrative officers for Glens Falls Hospital and the Center for Children and Families.

The second floor has never really been occupied.

Its furnished, but its a blank footprint, she said.

Adeson estimated its going to take four to six months to renovate the space, which will cost $500,000 to $750,000. She hopes to get started by the end of November to rip out the existing carpeting and drop ceilings.

There are 10 doctors in the practice with another soon to join. In addition, there are five other providers  four physician assistants and a nurse practitioner.

The practice was started in 1974 by Dr. Guy Lehine. He recently retired, but will continue to own the Warren Street building. Adeson believes Lehine will find a new tenant for the Warren Street space.
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A century-old community bank quietly entered the Quad-City market three years ago, but there is nothing low profile about the site where it will open its first full-service Quad-City bank branch  the intersection of Davenport's 53rd Street and Interstate 74.

Fortress Bank is transforming the former Mimzi Art & Frame store into a new branch due to open in early January. Fortress planted its Quad-City roots under its previous name, First State Bank, with a small loan production office located in Middle Road Plaza in Bettendorf.

"Banking is changing today, having a branch on every corner isn't as important now," said Lee Garlach, Fortress' chairman, CEO and principal shareholder. "Banks are closing branches... but you still need to be very visible."

High visibility was the thinking behind the bank's decision to locate among the big box retailers along the well-traveled thoroughfare. "I wanted to be in the I-74 corridor to be convenient to the whole area," Garlach said.

The 53rd Street location will be bank's first eastern Iowa branch as well as the first new branch to open under the Fortress name. Effective Dec. 1, the Fortress name will roll out across the bank's nine other branches. The bank's parent company is First State Bancorp. Inc., of which Garlach is the president.

Now headquartered in Peoria, the bank traces its roots to western Illinois, where it first opened 113 years ago in 1904 in LaHarpe to serve the surrounding agricultural community. Garlach was the key organizer behind the 2008 acquisition of then Illinois State Bank of Western Illinois. The bank dropped the Western name after moving to Peoria.

Garlach said leaders decided in 2014 to expand geographically into other states, including Iowa.

The Davenport branch will join sister banks in western and central Illinois, including Peoria, Pekin, Macomb, Monmouth, Carthage, LaHarpe, Hamilton, Blandinsville and Colusa. It will offer a full array of banking products and services including deposit accounts, commercial and consumer loans, a drive-up, ATM, safe deposit boxes and more.

The current Bettendorf office will be consolidated into the new operation.

In acquiring the bank, Garlach, a former CPA and bank examiner for the Federal Reserve, brought together his financial background and entrepreneurial spirit. A Quad-City resident for 21 years, he also has extensive experience in the merger, acquisition and operations of small to medium-sized businesses. He had been owner of the former United Distributors, an Illinois Quad-City beer distributor.

Garlach has been joined by veteran bankers John "Omar" Bradley, Keith Worner, Sue Lerschen-Cassatt and Kristal Koberg Schaefer in leading the bank's commercial and mortgage lending.

"The Middle Road location was great, but we'd outgrown it," Garlach said, adding the site, across the street from Duck Creek Plaza, could not have accommodated a drive-up or ATM to make it full-service. "It was ideal for lending."

Fortress acquired the former Mimzi's from George Elliott IV and his wife, Mimzi Haut. The 8,000-square-foot building began life as a Gateway computer store.

The building proved a natural structure to become a bank with its cinder block construction, Garlach said. "We took down a couple of walls and started with a rectangular shell."

The construction is being led by Kevin Koellner of Build-to-Suit Inc. with Greg Gowey of Architects 483 as the architect.

The branch will employ 11 existing employees, who will transfer from the Bettendorf office, as well as another five to be hired, Garlach said. Company-wide, Fortress employs about 100 people.

Bringing the brand to the Quad-Cities was based, in part, on the fact that some of the bank's investors are Quad-Citians. "I wanted to expand here to my home market," said Garlach.

Jillian McCleary, communications vice president for the Quad-Cities Chamber of Commerce, said the new banks arrival fits in well with the chambers goal of targeting new corporate offices to locate in the region.

"It shows that they recognize the growth and potential among our businesses and the broader community," she said.

Fortress has grown to $390 million in assets from $109 million when Garlach and other investors purchased it.

"I wanted a good conservative, well-run bank and to use that as a platform (to grow)," he recalled. He expects more branches in the Quad-Cities, but said that in some of its other locations, Fortress is the only bank in the community and primarily involved in ag lending.

"That's a niche for us," he said of the secondary market locations, some of which are as many as 175 miles from a major metropolitan area.

He described the Quad-Cities as a "very strong community bank" environment. Asked if the community is overbanked, he said "As I told my board, every community worth being in is overbanked."
CrimeStoppers of the Quad-Cities and the East Moline Police Department are asking for your help in identifying the pictured two people who presented a forged prescription at Walgreens.

Because of the vigilance of the pharmacy employee, the suspects were not successful in procuring the drugs, but left the store before police arrived.

If you know who they are call the tip line 309-762-9500 or submit your tip at this link: https://www.p3tips.com/tipform.aspx Or download the P3 Tips app.
The Moline Police Department is seeking the public's help in locating an East Moline man who they say assaulted an officer Friday morning.

Austin D. Clenney, 20, is wanted on a $75,000 warrant for aggravated battery to a peace officer and aggravated assault, both felonies.

Around 8:30 a.m., police were called to check on a suspicious vehicle in the 1800 block of 18th Avenue A, Moline.

The first responding officer made contact with two men at the vehicle and a struggle ensued with the driver, Clenney, Detective Michael Griffin said.

The officer and Clenney went to the ground and the officer was injured during the struggle, Griffin said.

The officer was transported to a local hospital for treatment of a serious injury and has since been release, Griffin said.

Clenney was able to break free and get to his vehicle, a silver 2010 Honda Sedan with Illinois registration Z660134. He then fled the area.

His passenger, Mario Pena, 20, of East Moline, fled on foot but was arrested after a foot pursuit.

He had a warrant for mob action out of Waukegan, Illinois, and is in custody at the Rock Island County Jail.

Neither Clenney nor his vehicle has been located as of 1:30 p.m. Friday.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Moline Police Criminal Investigation Division at 309-524-2140 or Crime Stoppers of the Quad Cities at 309-762-9500.

In July, Clenney was sentenced to 30 months of conditional discharge after pleading guilty to unlawful possession of a controlled substance, a Class 4 felony, in Rock Island County Circuit Court.

In April, he was sentenced to 24 months of conditional discharge after pleading guilty to unlawful use of weapons, a Class 4 felony.
Sentencing date set in McDuffie case

Yolanduis L. McDuffie, convicted in the December 2013 shooting death of Rock Island tattoo artist Derek Jackson, will be sentenced Jan. 5.

The 24-year-old was found guilty Oct. 27 of first-degree murder in the death of Jackson, 24.

A Rock Island County jury that deliberated his fate rejected prosecutors theory that he fired the gun that killed Jackson.

Jurors did, however, believe that Jackson was fatally shot while McDuffie and his co-defendant, Aaron D. Henderson II, were committing an armed robbery.

McDuffie faces 20 to 60 years in prison.

Just before noon Dec. 18, 2013, Rock Island police were dispatched to Jackson's home at 1001 16th Ave., and found him lying on his back in the dining room.

He had two gunshot wounds to the head and one gunshot wound to his left arm. Jackson was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Jackson's girlfriend, Alyson Schippers, testified at trial that she saw Henderson standing over Jacksons body and appeared to be rifling through his pockets after the shooting.

Jackson had talked to Henderson about buying a gun from a friend the day before the shooting, she testified.

Henderson's cousin, Kamren L. Bolden, testified at Henderson's 2015 trial that the two of them and McDuffie had gone to Jacksons house that day to buy marijuana.

Inside the house, McDuffie pulled out a black gun and ordered everyone to the floor, Bolden testified.

He testified in Hendersons 2015 trial that he saw a silver gun in Jackson's hand, but did not actually see who fired the shots.

Prosecutors argued McDuffie was likely the "muscle" during the robbery.

The gun used to kill Jackson, a 40-caliber Glock, was discovered more than a year later in a hotel room in Bettendorf. McDuffies prints were not located on the gun, his attorneys argued at trial.

They also argued that there was no forensic evidence or independent eyewitnesses that connected McDuffie to the murder or to Jackson.

Henderson, also 24, was convicted of first-degree murder and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. The jury that decided his case also rejected the theory that he shot Jackson.

Bolden, 19, was charged with obstructing justice and served time in a juvenile prison in connection with the case.

--Tara Becker

Police investigate pharmacy robbery

The Davenport Police Department is investigating an early morning robbery at a local pharmacy.

Police were dispatched at 12:12 a.m. Thursday to Walgreens, 1525 E. Kimberly Road.

Police say the suspect entered the pharmacy area, displayed a gun and demanded prescriptions drugs. The suspect then fled on foot with unspecified items.

No injuries were reported. No other information was released Thursday.

--Times staff

Moline police investigate shots fired Wednesday

Moline police are investigating a shots fired incident involving two vehicles chasing each other.

Police were called to the 2500 block of 5th Street at 5:06 p.m., Wednesday.

Numerous witnesses told officers that a silver Ford Taurus and a gold Honda were chasing each other at a high rate of speed.

It was reported that the occupants in one of the vehicles were shooting at the other.

The vehicles continued to chase each other until the Honda crashed in the 400 block of 27th Avenue. Witnesses say three black males in their early 20s then fled on foot.

Moline police were assisted by the Rock Island and Silvis police departments as an extensive search of the area was conducted. The occupants of the vehicle were not located.

The silver Ford Taurus was not located. Area hospitals were checked but police have not located any gunshot victims.

During the incident a residents vehicle was struck by a bullet and sustained damage.

No arrests have been made.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Moline Police Criminal Investigation Division at 309-524-2140 or Crime Stoppers of the Quad Cities at 309-762-9500.

Visit bit.ly/2AcGKqg to submit an online tip.

--Times staff
US president's trip to include signing of major business deals

US President Donald Trump's first state visit to China, which will start on Wednesday, is expected to yield positive results for bilateral ties, with a number of major business deals due to be signed, said officials and analysts.

It will also be the first visit by a foreign head of state to China since the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which ended in Beijing last week, at which the new CPC Central Committee was elected.

In a phone conversation on Thursday, State Councilor Yang Jiechi and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson exchanged their views on the preprations for Trump's visit. They agreed to enhance communication and coordinate closely to ensure the visit yields positive results.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Trump's state visit to China, from Wednesday to Friday, was at the invitation of President Xi Jinping.

US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross will lead a business delegation during Trump's visit, and the two sides will sign a number of deals, said Fu Ziying, China's international trade representative and vice-minister of commerce.

"We expect that through President Trump's visit, the two sides will achieve positive, pragmatic, mutually beneficial and balanced results," Fu said at a news conference on Thursday.

The trade imbalance between China and the US, the world's two largest economies, is largely caused by US curbs on exports of many high-tech products to China, he said, adding that Sino-US trade is completely determined by the markets and consumers of the two sides.

According to the Ministry of Commerce, US exports to China grew by an average of 11 percent over the past decade, much higher than the overall growth of 4 percent in US exports during the same period.

During Trump's visit, the leaders of the two countries will "have an in-depth exchange of views on bilateral relations and major international and regional issues of mutual concern", added Lu, the Foreign Ministry spokesman.

China stands ready to work with the US side to secure important outcomes in order to inject fresh and strong impetus into bilateral relations, he added.

Ruan Zongze, executive vice-president of the China Institute of International Studies, said that as China has entered a new era, Trump's visit will bring more opportunities for China-US relations.

"Through the form of a 'state visit plus', the two sides will have in-depth and candid exchanges to boost mutual understanding and control disputes," he said.

Jin Yong, deputy head of the School of International Studies at the Communication University of China, said that through the visit, the two sides are expected to reach greater consensus on issues related to trade and the Korean Peninsula.
A Rock Island man found unfit in August to stand trial in the deaths of his grandmother and uncle has yet to be transported to an Illinois Department of Human Services for restoration treatment, one of his attorneys said Thursday.

Assistant Public Defender Matthew Durbin asked that the case of John P. Conwell be continued until Nov. 16 to allow him time to prepare additional filings to hold DHS in contempt of court.

Durbin said after a brief hearing Thursday at the Rock Island County Justice Center that the filings are an attempt to force the state to take Conwell out of jail and provide him with treatment.

It puts them on notice that they have to comply with the statute and hopefully we get some kind of resolution to our current situation, he said. Not long term, but at least therapy, rather than being in a holding cell.

Conwell, 40, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Eleanor "Petty" and Steve Conwell, 90 and 69, respectively.

Police were called at 7:54 p.m. May 14 to the 1200 block of 29th Street for a welfare check and found their bodies.

Prosecutors claim in charging documents that John Conwell "knowingly and without justification" struck Eleanor and Steve Conwell in the head and cut their throats.

John Conwell was arrested a day later in Davenport.

He was found unfit for trial Aug. 8 and Judge Frank Fuhr ordered that he be remanded to the custody of DHS.

State statute requires DHS to submit a written report to the judge, prosecutors and the defense within 30 days of the judge's order.

The report must include an assessment of the treatment facility's ability to provide treatment to the defendant and whether there is a substantial probability that the defendant can attain fitness within a determined amount of time.

Rock Island County Sheriff Gerry Bustos said there are eight inmates currently awaiting transport to DHS. He estimated that nearly 15 inmates have been transported to DHS since Jan. 1.

I think the easy explanation is bed space, Bustos said when asked about the delay. They have to have a place to take them to and so they sit in the county jail until a bed opens up.

He said that this has been an ongoing problem that can be draining on jail staff.

The amount of time it takes to get them into treatment has gotten longer, he said. But, I think that is just for the lack of funds that are available for it through the state.

One of the inmates that also is awaiting transport is Cartier J. Leflore, 35, who was found unfit to stand trial on Oct. 5. He is charged with aggravated battery-great bodily harm to a peace officer, aggravated battery, and disarming a peace officer.

Rock Island police were called at 6:17 p.m. Sept. 21 to the 200 block of 21st Street for a report of a domestic disturbance.

An officer on scene tried to arrest LeFlore for domestic battery, but Leflore assaulted the officer, according to police.

The officer was knocked unconscious, and Leflore took the officer's stun gun before fleeing the apartment, according to police.

He was arrested a short time later after officers subdued him with a stun gun.

Durbin on Thursday also said he also will file a contempt motion in Leflores case. A status hearing in his case also is set for Nov. 16.

Neither Conwell nor Leflore appeared in court for Thurdays hearings.

Durbin said the goal is to get everyone to a point where they can assist in their own defense and have their case adjudicated with all their rights intact.

Holding mentally ill inmates without the proper treatment to help them attain fitness doesnt do anything for them, he said.

Its to the point where our relationship with the client isnt progressing at all because of the mental illness, he said. At least this gets us to the next step where we can talk to them and let them know what the process is."
Hamilton Elementary School in Moline was placed on lockdown Thursday after a home near the school was burglarized and a firearm stolen, police said.

Moline Police Detective Michael Griffin said that at about 2 p.m. Moline police responded to a burglary in progress in the 10 block of Vale Court.

The victim advised officers that a firearm had been stolen and that the suspects were running eastbound from the home.

Hamilton School was locked down and officers were dispatched to the school as a precaution.

Moline officers then established a perimeter around the area and two men were seen running through the woods a few minutes later.

The men were captured and three firearms were recovered, Griffin said.

Benjamin R. Wynn, 28, of Milan, and Travon Trice, 34, of Preemption, each were arrested for one count of residential burglary and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Formal state charges are expected to be filed Friday by the Rock Island County States Attorneys Office.

However, federal authorities could take over the charges of felon in possession of a firearm and prosecute Wynn and Trice under the Department of Justice initiative Project Safe Neighborhoods. Instituted in 2001, Project Safe Neighborhoods is a Justice Department initiative to reduce gun violence. Unlike state prison, there is no parole in the federal prison system.

Griffin said the investigation into the burglary is on-going. Anyone with information is asked to contact Moline Police at 309-542-2140 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers of the Quad-Cities at 309-762-9500.

-- Thomas Geyer
The departure of AmeriHealth Caritas Iowa  one of the three private insurers managing the states Medicaid program  means the company will lay off 400 people statewide by the end of 2017, according to an Iowa Workforce Development log of announced layoffs.

We are committed to supporting our colleagues during this transition. All of us are extremely proud of our Iowa colleagues and all they do to make Iowa a healthier state, the insurer said in a statement Thursday. There are a variety of services that will be available, including salary and benefits continuation and outplacement services.

Additionally, we are working closely with Iowa Workforce Development to explore additional services, the statement said.

AmeriHealth said the number of affected employees is not yet determined as other opportunities may exist within the national organization.

Iowa Department of Human Services announced on Tuesday that the insurer would be leaving at the end of November. DHS already has posted a request-for-proposal to search for a new insurer.

AmeriHealth said it chose to withdraw from the state Medicaid program after months of negotiations yielded no agreement on contract rates and terms, adding it will now focus on working collaboratively with Iowa to provide a seamless transition.

All three private insurers saw large financial losses  more than $500 million collectively  during their first year of operation in Iowa, but AmeriHealth by far saw the largest. The company lost nearly $300 million, while Amerigroup Iowa reported a loss of $133 million and UnitedHealthcare of the River Valley said it lost more than $100 million.

AmeriHealth lost another $65 million as of June 2017, according to Iowa Insurance Division financial disclosures.

Iowa was able to come to an agreement with both Amerigroup and UnitedHealthcare  raising the managed-care organizations capitation rates, the per-member per-month fees, by 3.3 percent.

To help deal with the losses, AmeriHealth announced a series of changes in early 2017 to better control costs, including moving case-management services in-house and cutting reimbursement rates to home- and community-based services providers.

AmeriHealth has the highest number of Medicaid enrollees, with more than 213,000 beneficiaries compared with Amerigroups 187,000 and UnitedHealthcares 167,000, according to the most recent DHS quarterly report.

The insurer also has the biggest share of the states special-needs population  with more than 23,300 beneficiaries receiving long-term services and supports  compared with Amerigroups 7,700 and UnitedHealthcares 6,500.

Long-term enrollees include elderly Medicaid beneficiaries as well as those with disabilities receiving waiver services.
Several years have passed since a comprehensive review of Iowa's liquor licensing rules and regulations has involved a wide variety of stakeholders, but early stages of potential reform brought itself to Davenport on Thursday.

The Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division held a public forum at the Rhythm City Casino Resort for business owners, law enforcement and government officials to openly discuss ways to improve current licensing while keeping communities safe.

With more than 13,000 licenses issued each year and Iowa facing a changing marketplace, Administrator Stephen Larson said there was a need to inspect Chapter 123 of the Iowa Code, the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act.

"Our goal is at this time next year we will issue recommendations to the Iowa Legislature and the government in partnership with local authorities, law enforcement along with ABD and the commission of public safety as to whether Iowa's licensing laws are still relevant and meet the policy purpose of Chapter 123," Larson said.

The public forum in Davenport is one of several opportunities for stakeholders to have input on potential areas in need of reform in addition to a series of working meetings that will be held in the coming months.

For the large contingent of bar and business owners, their concerns centered around the cost and availability of dramshop insurance as well as penalties assessed as a result of a "Place of Last Drink" program.

Dramshop insurance covers the liabilities associated to the sale of alchohol.

Within state statute, on-premise establishments are required to have dramshop insurance to have a liquor licenses. Off the premise businesses, such as a convenience store, are not.

Jessica Dunker, president and CEO of the Iowa Restaurant Association, said there were four states, including Iowa, that differentiate between an on-premise and off-premise sale.

Additionally, the dram insurance ISO rating, which ranks how easy it is to offer insurance on a scale of 10, was a seven in Iowa. Lower scores are more preferable.

"There aren't a bunch of dram providers because no one wants to come to this state," Dunker said.

Dunker recalled one operator who was paying $45,000 per year in insurance for $150,000 in coverage.

"Do you know why it's $150,000?" Dunker said. "It's because that's the minimum. We are now squeezing operators so that they are paying more and more and have less and less coverage."

Tied to the issues with dram insurance, several bar and restaurant owners spoke out about concerns with the state implementing a program to track the last place of alcohol purchase for OWI offenders.

Josh Happe, regulatory compliance program bureau chief, said the ABD is still in the infancy stages of putting together the program and receiving funding from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

For areas that are not a problem, Iowa Department of Public Safety Commissioner Roxann Ryan said it would allow the state to use resources more efficiently.

"It's a small percentage of people responsible for a pretty substantial part of the problem so a lot of the hotspots policing is trying to figure out where those are and where problems are occurring," Ryan said.

From the municipal level, Eric Goers, assistant city attorney for Iowa City, spoke to granting more local control for the ruling and granting of liquor license applications.

Goers said part of the issue has centered around the vague language when it comes to denying applications for a lack of "good moral character," which he said needed greater teeth.

Other local municipal officials echoed those comments and the sentiment that denying a license may not bear any fruits over a growing belief that the decision would be overturned.

"We've done that in Iowa City, lastly in 2009, and did go through the appeal process and were first overturned by the (administrative law judge) and then the administrator," Goers said. "That problem was the crimes were committed by the patrons and not by the bar licensee itself. I understand that, but it doesn't do anything for the local population that deals with the consequences, nuisances that it draws for those that live nearby, the businesses and police resources that are caused by having to be responsive."

Larson said the input collected Thursday and at other meetings and forums would be used to create the recommendations it will submit to the legislature.

"There's no takeaway that the laws don't work," Larson said. "Clearly, we need to determine if they need to be refreshed, redefined, re-clarified or repealed. What we're not going to do is anything that's going to minimize public safety or public health."
Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken responded to the latest developments in the special counsel investigation by saying that Attorney General Jeff Sessions "seems to have problems telling the truth."

Franken's comments on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront" came after unsealed court documents showed former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos had told the campaign about a potential meeting opportunity between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and news emerged that Sessions vetoed the idea.

"He seems to have problems telling the truth on this subject," Franken said of Sessions.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday evening.

During Sessions' confirmation hearing, Franken asked if he knew of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, and Sessions said he had not had meetings with Russians during the campaign. After reports to the contrary, the Justice Department clarified Sessions met with the Russian ambassador twice, and former FBI Director James Comey said Sessions may have met with the ambassador a third time.

Sessions later recused himself from all matters related to the campaign, citing his support for the President's successful bid.

Sessions appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee again in October.

Franken said he thought Sessions vetoing a meeting with Putin would be "something you'd remember" and wanted Sessions to testify again. However, he declined to say whether he thought Sessions lied and said he thought any decision on whether Sessions did something wrong should be left with special counsel Robert Mueller.

"Ultimately, whether or not he committed perjury, will be again, I believe, Bob Mueller's call," Franken said.

Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page privately testified on Thursday that he had mentioned to Sessions that he was traveling to Russia in July 2016.

Franken also said Mueller is "obviously" looking at potential obstruction of justice around the firing of Comey and that he believed Mueller would "get to the bottom" of that issue as well.

The Democratic senator said he did not know White House adviser Jared Kushner's role in the firing, and declined to weigh in on any potential wrongdoing on Kushner's part, including Kushner's multiple amendments to his security clearance form.

"It's odd that he forgot all those things," Franken said.
I am writing in support of candidate Susan Weir for 4th Ward alderman in Davenport. I met Susan as a teenager when I was a student in one of her French classes at Davenport Central High School. Little did I know then how much of an impact she would have on my life.

Susan inspired me to follow in her footsteps and become a French teacher myself. It wasnt just her passion for French that inspired me; it was her passion for her students and the school in which she was a member that inspired me to make sure I could inspire students to always do the right thing and to know that every individual can make a difference in their community.

Susan was an outside-of-the-box teacher who approached every day with a new perspective and zeal for the best outcome. This is a skill that will translate incredibly well to a position as an alderman. Susan is ready to serve a new community and the 4th Ward is lucky to have her on their side.

Marcy Fratzke

West Des Moines
Most college courses come with a M-W-F or T-Th schedule. Making either fit within the overstretched life of an unconventional student can cause some headaches.

Black Hills State University-Rapid City will soon introduce 18-day block courses for students who like to do one thing at a time, do it well and then move on. The school says its a first-of-its-kind offering in South Dakota.

These three-hour block courses will meet on mornings or afternoons for 18 consecutive business days, immersing students in general education courses like algebra, composition and psychology. Four-day breaks will separate the start of one block from the end of another. Four blocks in one semester qualify a student as full time.

Beyond the issues of convenience, evidence suggests that as much if not more learning occurs under this approach as under traditional Monday-Wednesday-Friday or Tuesday-Thursday schedules, said Gene Bilodeau, director of BHSU-RC.

The whole idea behind the block is to allow students to focus on one subject at a time, Bilodeau said. Its imperative that students leave knowing the material. Its not about shoving it down peoples throats; its about learning the material.

BHSU-RC has committed to offering seven 18-day blocks between Jan. 8 and May 2. If enough students favor the option, more blocks will be offered next fall.

The BHSU-RC commuter campus of 1,030 students mostly serves working families and single parents. Most courses are offered at night, although some students attend full time and during daylight. More might join them if daytime schedules were accommodating.

It can be difficult for someone with a job to adjust when a class meets M-W-F in fall semester and T-Th in spring, Bilodeau said. A traditional 16-week college course also deters military students, who are subject to being deployed on short notice. Predictions of 18 days hold less risk.

To encourage students to try 18-day blocks, there is a $100 course discount this year. The school receives no state funding, so each three-credit course normally costs $1,000.

The question remains: Now that BHSU-RC has built it, will students come?

BHSU-RC daytime students were surveyed last spring, and feedback ranged from curiosity to excitement. Few have signed up so far, but most students dont register until three weeks before classes start.

There are some potential downsides to sipping education from a fire hose. Miss a few days of class due to illness, and youve missed nine hours of instruction. Online materials will help those who miss a single day catch up.

Time constraints also will reshape the nature of instruction, especially for some topics. The initial offerings will be these: biology survey, fundamentals of speech, intro to sociology, college algebra, composition 1 and 2, and general psychology.

Faculty expressed some concern about squeezing 16 weeks of instruction plans into 18 days, Bilodeau said. Most concerns were voiced around teaching science, math and English composition. Instructors were offered a stipend to develop innovative approaches.

Theres no way you can have a block schedule and go in three hours a day and do nothing but lecture, Bilodeau said. A hands-on approach that helps students grasp the material will be required. When it comes to teaching composition, for example, there will be a lot of class discussion and working in groups.

Students are so darn immersed in it, he said, they actually are able to grasp that material.

The experiences of two colleges at the forefront of 18-day block instruction have modeled different approaches and fueled enthusiasm. Faculty using the approach at Cornell University in Mount Vernon, Iowa, have shared its advantages and their own observations. Meanwhile, the 18-day block is used exclusively at the University of Montana Western in Dillon, Mont.

Bilodeau recently spoke at length with a student-athlete in Montana.

He didnt have enough good things to say, Bilodeau said. The schools results also say something. Freshman students there complete 96 percent of their courses. That number typically is in the 80 percent range, he said.

In the past 10 years, he added, Theyve seen an 80 percent increase in students receiving degrees.

For BHSU-RC to have a chance of replicating those successes, enough students will have to take a leap. A minimum of 10 students is required for most classes, Bilodeau said, but block classes will go forward with as few as seven to promote the concept. Unfortunately, much of the concepts success comes from the rich interaction of 20 to 25 students, but blocks will go forward.

Weve committed to these classes, he said.
Once again, locals are being sought for the TV series Yellowstone, starring Kevin Costner, thats being shot outside of Darby.

The directors also seek extras in Helena for upcoming shooting there. The groups Facebook page, Yellowstone Montana Extras, said directors will be in Montana from Oct. 16 until Nov. 2, but doesnt note which days theyll be in Darby and Helena.

Casting directors Kelly Hunt and Tracy Dixon noted that people who already have submitted prior photographs should do so again. They need to send an email to yellowstoneextrasmontana@gmail.com, with their name in the subject line, and whether youve Worked It if youve worked before or are a Fresh Face to the show.

In the body of the email, people should include a name, phone number, age, weight, ethnicity and a photo. Both fresh faces and veterans will have equal chances of being considered.

On Friday, the groups Facebook page also said the show is "still looking for an African American Male but would consider a female height 5-feet, 9-inches to 6 feet to work early Monday in Darby. They also need a male Caucasian stand-in Monday. The person should be 5-feet, 11-inches to 6-feet, 1-inch, with dark blonde or light brown hair, age 20-50. The rate is $150 for both positions.

In addition, they need a few more cowboys ages 30 to 50, to work on Monday for $114 for the day, and are seeking extras described as attractive men and women ages 25 to 60 for a bar scene on Tuesday, Oct. 31.

Anyone fitting the bill should send an email to: yellowstoneextrasmontana@gmail.com

According to a press release from the casting directors, Yellowstone chronicles the Dutton family, led by John Dutton, who controls the largest contiguous cattle ranch in the United States. Amid shifting alliances, open wounds, and hard-earned respect, the ranch is in constant conflict with those it borders  an expanding town, an Indian reservation, and Americas first national park.

Far from media scrutiny, it is a violent world of poisoned drinking water and unsolved murders. Yellowstone is an intense study of the modern west rife with land developers, energy speculators, assorted politicians, estranged family, and tribal players. Within this pentagon of interests, land lust is insatiable and love is weaponized.

For more information, you can contact the casting directors at 310-630-3747.
The acclaimed group Les Delices will present music of the French Baroque with their performance of Myths & Allegories on Nov. 10, and a free workshop of baroque dance on Nov. 9 in Hamilton.

Bitterroot Baroque president Alex Shaffer called Les Delices a top-flight group known for their creative programming and exquisitely professional performances.

Friday is the concert, which includes tales from Homers Odyssey and instrumental chamber music inspired by Greek mythology. Debra Nagy, who formed the Les Delices group in 2009, said people dont have to know anything about early music to enjoy this program.

It is a program with a story, Nagy said. It is inspired by of Homer's Odyssey that is full of fantastical encounters that lend themselves to being set to music.

One example involved the Sirens during the short trip that turned into seven years.

When these magical women open their mouths, they sing a beautiful song that [in the Odyssey] will actually kill the listener, Nagy said. The music is beautiful and mesmerizing.

Another example involves Penelope, Ulysses faithful wife, who is waiting for him to return.

Its a thread throughout the performance and it is nice to get the feminine perspective in there as well, Nagy said. Our program begins and ends with scenes from an opera called Ulysses. This story telling makes it a wonderful program.

Nagy said it is unusual for people to hear the baroque oboe.

This is a great opportunity and it has a surprising sound compared to the modern oboe, she said.

The concert has four instrumentalist musicians and a vocalist soprano. According to the Les Delices program, Nagy is one of North Americas leading performers on the baroque oboe and soprano Clara Rottsolk has been lauded by The New York Times for her clear, appealing voice and expressive conviction.

The Les Delices concert at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 10, will be at St. Pauls Episcopal Church, 600 So. Third Street, in Hamilton. General admission is $25, students are $10.

Julie Andrijeski is the baroque violinist and a specialist in baroque dance. She will lead a free workshop the night before the concert at 7 p.m. at River Street Dance Theater. The workshop is for children older than 8, high school and college students, and adults.

It is a wonderful and unusual opportunity to gain an appreciation for the relationship between music and movement in the baroque era, Nagy said. It is also how the body can express the aesthetics of the baroque era.

Participants will learn about body language, grace, noble bearing, and basic steps for the bouree, gavotte, and minuet.

Nagy recommends wearing comfortable clothing and shoes. Les Delices will provide music.

Weve never been to Montana and are quite excited to come, Nagy said. It will be a pleasure to experience it.

For more information visit online bitterrootbaroque.org and lesdelices.org.
Dr. Chris Christensen delivered Robin Rices two children. He encouraged her as she earned her nursing license and her subsequent physician assistant license, writing a letter of recommendation for her. For more than 30 years, he was a mentor and a friend, and she sought him out when she wanted to move to Montana. After giving her a tour of the Bitterroot Valley, he offered her a job in his Florence clinic in 2012.

On Thursday, she testified as a witness for the prosecution in Christensens negligent homicide and drug distribution trial.

She said his charts were minimal at best, and described having to call a pharmacist at times to find out what a patient previously had been prescribed. Christensen wasnt much of a collaborator, Rice said, unlike other physicians with whom she practiced for 15 years prior to her work with Christensen. He didnt refer patients to other professionals. He didnt want any peer reviews.

Initially, he just said, This is my practice and this is how I want it done, Rice said he told her when she asked about having the typical information on the charts. He got in my face, with an angry tone and said, Thats not how we do it here.

While some patients traditional paper charts were in the main file room, others were left in the treatment rooms, on counter tops in the hallway, in the main surgery room, in the X-ray room, in the lunch room.

You hunted everywhere until you found it, Rice said.

She testified that he told her he wanted her to prescribe more Schedule 2 opiates instead of starting patients on weaker medications like hydrocodone with Tylenol, which at that time was a more permissive Schedule 3 drug.

He made it very clear that he wanted to treat peoples pain and that we were going to manage that with Schedule 2 opiates to the level that it took to alleviate their pain, she said.

Rice didnt agree with his decision to give one patient a new opiate prescription after the patient said it was lost or stolen but didnt elaborate. Rice didnt like it when Christensen prescribed amphetamine to the same patient who previously had the then-unprescribed drug show up in her urinalysis.

Rice became angry after a patient who walked in with slurred speech, appearing intoxicated and smelling of alcohol, was given an opioid refill by Christensen.

There were many confrontations about pain medications and quantities, Rice said, including one at her home in which Christensen yelled at her while pounding on the table. He said he was going to fire me and if I was smart I would quit. It was a very unpleasant conversation.

She had just bought the house, so she stayed; plus, Christensen had been her friend for 37 years.

Yet the work environment was hostile for the next few months, and came to a crescendo in March 2013, after she had worked with Christensen for 14 months. On that day, a patient came in and stated her opioids were stolen. Christensen gave her a new methadone prescription for 200 tablets, Rice testified.

Rice said she was angry, and expressed her concerns about the patients safety, as well as the communitys safety.

He screamed at me and told me it was up to him what he was willing to do for patients  He was very menacing and his face was red, she said. He used some expletives as far as name-calling.

In particular, she testified, he called her a (expletive) uncaring bitch.

She quit on the spot.

But she later returned as a patient after almost severing the tip of her thumb in a horse riding accident. She didnt want to go to the emergency room in Missoula to wait, and didnt have insurance. When she called the Big Creek clinic in Florence, she was told Christensen could see her immediately.

The tip of my thumb was hanging by a tip of skin, and he put it back on, she said, holding it up for the jury and judge to see. He did a good job.

Upon cross-examination, Rice acknowledged writing many Schedule 2 prescriptions for the clinics patients. But she said that although she wrote the prescriptions, all of the patients technically were Christensens since she legally practiced under his watch.

He made it clear that if he started a patient on a certain medication like methadone and he wasnt in the office, they just came in and I was to continue what he started, Rice said. It began to become more concerning, as it got  for the lack of a better word  messier.

Defense Attorney Josh Van de Wetering pressed harder, saying that Rice didnt have to write the prescriptions if she didnt think they were safe or that they violated her license through the federal Drug Enforcement Agency.

He thought they were safe, and I trusted his judgment, Rice responded. He was a mentor to a lot of people. He encouraged people to better themselves and further their education.

But I dont feel he was a good doctor and had been a good doctor for those patients that were getting opioids.  In some areas hes an excellent doctor and very talented. But the down side is he doesnt want to listen to anybody. He wants to be right and thats not a trait of a good doctor.
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Guwahati, November 3 :A team officers consisting Prabin Hazarika, Director of Horticulture and Food Processing, Assam; Mowsam Hazarika,Assistant Director of Agriculture; Khagendra Sarmah, Sub DivisionalAgricultural Officer ( Horticulture) and Bakul Saikia, Senior AgriculturalDevelopment Officer and Nodal Officer of FPC from Directorate ofHorticulture and Food Processing, Assam attended in the 3 day long WorldFood India, 2017 held in New Delhi from Friday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi graced the event at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhias Chief Guest, where representative from various countries like Germany ,Japan , Denmark, Italy, Netherlands etc participated in the mega event.

A global event to facilitate partnerships between Indian and internationalbusinesses and investors, World Food India (WFI) is a gateway to the Indianfood economy and an opportunity to showcase, connect, and collaborate.

Organized by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Government ofIndia, WFI will be the largest gathering of investors, manufacturers,producers, food processors, policy makers, and organizations from theglobal food ecosystem.

It aims to provides opportunities for both investment and trade in thefood processing sector for leading Indian and international companies.

Encompassing the entire food spectrum from production to consumption, WFIis looking at creating a better sourcing environment, thereby enablinghigher returns for farmers, creating employment, and fostering entrepreneurship.

WFI is held in partnership with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII),at New Delhi, India on November 3-5, 2017.

Being an important Partner State of WFI, Assam has showcased differentagri-horti produces in this mega event.

Altogether 6 nos. of Farmers Producers Company, namely , Ampri Orange AgroProducer Company, Brahmaputra Valley Honey Agro Producer Company, JanokiAgro Producer Company, Amlighat Banana Agro Producer Company, Merapani AgroProducer Company & Jirson Agro Producer Company, promoted by the Departmentof Horticulture and Food Processing, Assam participated in the World Food India, 2017 .

Kuhi Food Processing Unit of Assam also participated in the event.

Various Agri Horticultural produces like Ginger, Turmeric, Bhot Jolokia,Banana, Assam Lemon, Red Rice, Joha Rice, Black Rice, Organic Molasses and various processed foods draws attention to the visitors of foreign countries and various states of India.

Ranjit Dutta, Minister of Irrigation , Assam and K K Mittal, Additional Chief Secretary and Agricultural Production Commissioner, Assam visited the Horticultural Stall of WFI and appreciated the entrepreneurs attended in

the Stall.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Guwahati, November 3 : The troops of Assam Rifles had apprehended a hardcore militant of NSCN-K along with arms and ammunition in Nagaland's Zunheboto district on Thursday, officials said on Friday.

PRO of the IG of Assam Riles (North) Lt. Col Amitabh Sharma said that following intelligence input about presence of militants, the 5 Assam Rifles under the supervision of HQ IGAR (North) had launched operation at Hekiye village in Zunheboto district.

"During the operation, the troops nabbed a NSCN-K militant identified as one Self-styled finance secretary hailing from Aichisaghemi area in Zunheboto District," Lt. Col Sharma said.

During the preliminary interrogation, the nabbed militant revealed that he had joined NSCN-K in 2008 and involved in extortion in the areas of Zunheboto.

Security personnel had recovered one rifle, several rounds live ammunition in possession from him.

Later the nabbed militant along with recoveries items was handed over Zunheboto police station for further investigation.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Guwahati, November 3 : The Nagaland government has resumed the passenger helicopter service in Phek district from November 1 last, officials said on Friday.

According to the reports, the Nagaland State Transport department had resumed its passenger chopper service.

A top official of the Nagaland State Transport department said that, the service was suspended in the past due to security reasons concerning about usage of Assam Rifles's helipad.

"But, the service resumed after 22 Assam Rifles made its clearance about usage of its helipad for public chopper service," the official said.

The Nagaland State Transport department has now maintained a reserved slot for Phek district in weekly routine.

The department has resumed its passenger helicopter service by partnering with M/S Global Vectra Helicop Limited and looking to cover all districts of the north eastern Indian state.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
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New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI)

[Press Release]

The New Trade Union Initiative expresses its deep anguish at the huge loss of life at the National Thermal Power Corporation Limitedas power plant in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and strongly condemns the criminal negligence on the part of NTPC, BHEL and the Governments of India and Uttar Pradesh.

A boiler explosion in the Unchahar Plant of the NTPC in Rae Bareli has already claimed the lives of 29 workers, with over a 100 others suffering 70%+ burns. The incident occurred at 3:30 pm when the newly commissioned Unit 6 of the plant was undergoing a trial-run when a pipe leaked of the boiler releasing steam at high pressure. According to NTPC management, ash gathered in the furnace of the boiler, which caused pressure to build up and the boiler burst. The equipment was supplied by Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited. The Unit has a capacity of 500 MW and has around 870 employees. Anomalies had been found in the boiler and it was to be shut down for rectification on 28 October but was still kept running. At the time of the incident about 300 workers were working at the unit. Most of the victims were cleaning the ash collected at the site as a result of burning of the coal. It is still not clear how many bodies are still buried under the ash. The National Disaster Relief Force was called in.

The injured workers were taken to the NTPC hospital but are now being transferred to Lucknow and Rae Bareli hospitals while the two injured managers have been flown to Delhi for treatment.

Dismantling Regulation to allow Ease of Business a an Attack on Right to Life

The Indian Boiler Regulation, 1950 required all boiler manufacturers to be certified by the Central Boiler Board. PM Narendra Modi in a speech while introducing self-certification in 2014 had said aWhen we purchase a new car, do we require a government inspector to check if the brakes, the accelerator and the gears function as they should? No, we donat. We very well know that to maintain our car, its brakes and gear box is in our own interest a it is a question of our own life and death.a The PM then went on to suggest that the same applied to the maintenance of a boiler in a factory. A factory owner knows it is a matter of life and death and hence, government needs to have confidence in him and trust that he is capable and will act responsibly. Therefore, the factory owner should be allowed to self-certify that his boiler functions properly and that the factory is compliant with respect to all standards. With this logic, within a few days of coming to power, the Prime Minister had called for a new national approach to boiler safety and written to states, that companies should be allowed to aself-certifya industrial boilers, or hire credible third-party evaluators. Further, in violation of ILO Convention 81, the BJP government had removed statutory inspection for industrial workplaces for provisions of industrial safety and workers health. These moves were an early signal to the current phase of labour reforms.

The majority of the workers killed and injured in the disaster are contract workers. In both the public and the private sector the most unsafe jobs go to those with least employment security. These workers work clearly under hazardous conditions, are paid substantially lower than the regular workers and have no social security coverage. This disaster will only get worse if the new amendments to the Contract Labour Act are enacted that will allow for more flexibility in hiring irregular workers and short term contractors who do not even meet standard requirements for a project while absolving the principal virtually of al responsibility.

Both the BJPas Government of Uttar Pradesh and the Government of India have announced monetary compensation for dead and injured workers ranging from Rs. 50,000 upto Rs. 20 Lakhs. Having diluted the law and having made workplaces more unsafe, the BJP government is now displaying largess. The costs of compensation is far less than the costs of safe workplaces. The BJP government is paying out this compensation from the exchequer while allowing the employer to get away. This is a signal from the BJP to all employers that they can get away with anything while it will bear the cost.

Thirty three years have elapsed since the worldas worst industrial disaster due to corporate criminal negligence occurred at Bhopal that led to an amendment of the Factories Act to ensure higher accountability of employers for workersa safety and health hazards. The amendment to the Boiler Regulation along with the proposed amendments to the Factories Act, the Contract Labour Act and the 4 codes on Labour have magnified the vulnerability of the workers. The Unchahar disaster is a symbol of the BJP governmentas promise of aminimum government, maximum governancea. It is time for more regulation and not less.

The NTUI stands with the affected workers and their families and we demand:

Charge of criminal negligence be brought against the management of the NTPC and BHEL and all third party agencies and contractors involved in the manufacture, installation, operation and maintenance of the boiler.

NTPC bear all medical and rehabilitation expenses of all affected workers and provide employment to next of kin of deceased workers.

The Chief Inspector of Boiler, UP and the Director General of Factory Advice Service and Labour Institutes conduct a complete safety audit of the plant at the earliest.

Immediate withdrawal of the proposed amendments to the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act

Ensure equal pay for equal work and equality in all conditions and standards of work for all workers

An Injury to One Is an Injury to All

Gautam Mody

General Secretary
The Algerian regime, which has always claimed it defends the principle of peoples self-determination, ignored this principle in the case of Catalonia, out of fear to irritate Madrid in the Western Sahara issue, a priority of Algerian foreign policy.

While defending the pro-independence demands of the Polisario Front against the sovereignty of the Moroccan neighbor, the Algerian government expressed to Madrid its commitment to the integrity and unity of the Kingdom of Spain.

Reacting to the unilateral proclamation by the Catalan Parliament of the independence of the Autonomous Region of Catalonia, the spokesman of the Algerian Foreign Ministry, Abdelaziz Benali Cherif, told the local media that Algeria reiterates its attachment to the integrity and unity of the Kingdom of Spain.

The spokesperson pointed out that Algeria, which is bound to Spain by a Treaty of friendship, neighborliness and cooperation and by outstanding traditional relations, underpinned by a high-level political dialogue and substantial economic cooperation, has full confidence in the ability of the Spanish people and authorities to overcome the current situation and to resolve the crisis within the framework of the respect for the Constitution and democratic institutions of the Kingdom of Spain.

In the case of the Moroccan Sahara, Algiers adopts a diametrically opposed position, notwithstanding the similarity with Spanish Catalonia.

The Algerian regime has even spent billions of dollars, during the last four decades, to finance its diplomatic propaganda, media campaigns, and lobbying firms in an attempt to impose on the Moroccan neighbor the self-determination referendum option.

Algeria actually tried hard to impose the separatist Front Polisario, which it created only in the early 1970s, and its self-proclaimed SADR, which has never been recognized as a sovereign state by the United Nations.

The Polisario was a pure creation of the Algerian regime under the mandate of the late President Houari Boumediene in 1976, a year after the Green March that spelled the end of the Spanish occupation of the Sahara and allowed Morocco to recover peacefully its southern provinces. Will the message ever be well received?
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Nov-02-2017 16:43 TweetFollow @OregonNews Connecticut Group Staged Car Accidents for Insurance Money Insurance paid out $10,000 to $30,000 per crash in about 50 crashes.

The group often used rural roads to stage the car accidents.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - After an autumn evening of drinking and using drugs in 2013, a group of friends got into an Audi A6 and drove to the remote Wilderness Road in Norwich, Connecticut. The car slid off the road, hitting a tree. Everyone in the car survived, but this seemingly typical crash was no accident. Despite their impairment, the driver and passengers had purposely planned the crash to collect the insurance money. It was one of many crashes that a group of Connecticut residents were connected to over several yearscontributing to higher car insurance premiums for all drivers and wasting public resources like ambulance responses. In the October crash, driver Mackenzy Noze got out of the Audi and drove away in a getaway car, while his friend, Jacques Fleurijeune, climbed into the drivers seat of the damaged Audi and called 911. Fleurijeune told police he had hit the tree while swerving to avoid a deerthough no witnesses or police ever saw the alleged deer. The four passengers were all taken to the hospital and eventually received insurance settlements for their injuries, which were fake. Fleurijeune also received payment for the value of the car, and others in the car gave some or all of their injury payouts to Noze and Fleurijeune. This scenario played out numerous times with various combinations of co-conspirators from 2011 through 2014, with insurance companies paying out $10,000 to $30,000 per crash in about 50 crashes. Many of them happened under similar circumstanceslate-night, single-car crashes on remote roads without witnesses. In the fall, the drivers would claim to have swerved hitting a deer. In the winter, they said they lost control on a snowy street. To up their payout, they used older, European cars, which tend to hold their value over time. For the insurance companies, these repeat crashes raised red flags. So the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), a non-profit organization that serves as a liaison between law enforcement and insurance companies, shared crash data with the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Connecticut. The NICBs suspicious accident data helped investigators hone in on the worst offenders. It was just a good, old-fashioned case, conducting interviews and reviewing documentssuch as police reports and insurance company recordslooking for patterns, said Special Agent Daniel Curtin, who investigated the case out of the FBIs New Haven Division. With a lot of these staged crashes, the fraudsters made interstate telephone calls to file the insurance claims, and the calls were recorded, forming the foundation for many of the wire fraud counts. Noze, 33, the groups ringleader, was convicted of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and sentenced last month to four years in prison. Six others, including Fleurijeune, have been charged and convicted. While insurance fraud may seem to be a victimless crime, thats far from the case. Estimates show car insurance fraud costs the average policyholder about $300 per year in higher premiums, according to NICB Supervisory Special Agent John Gasiorek, who assisted the FBI with the investigation. Additionally, staged accidents are a safety hazard, both to those involved and other drivers. While in this ring, the conspirators generally did not involve other motorists, criminals sometimes do stage accidents involving unsuspecting drivers. You never know whos going to come around the corner. You could hit an innocent person. Its really a public safety issue, Gasiorek said, noting that even willing participants in the staged accidents are unexpectedly injured. When insurance companies pay fraudulent claims, everyones premiums go up, Curtin said. More importantly, the staged crashes pose risks to first responders. You had police officers and EMTs rushing to crash scenes. The wasted time of medical professionals was also a concern with ER doctors and nurses treating these fraudsters for non-existent injuries. It took time away from other patients who really needed medical attention. At least in the local region, Curtin said word has gotten out that law enforcement is working these cases and bringing perpetrators to justice. The insurance companies have said that suspicious claims, especially those involving single-car accidents on remote roads, are down in southeastern Connecticut, Curtin said. Theyre not seeing these types of suspicious accidents because this case has sent a message. Could Your Fender Bender Have Been Staged?

Tips from the NICB Staged accident fraudsters sometimes targeted innocent drivers in their dangerous schemes.

If you think your car accident has been staged, the NICB suggests: If you are not injured and can safely do so, take pictures of the accident scene.

Observe the details of what happened, such as how many people were in the other car. Fraudsters will often lie about how many people were in the vehicle.

If you suspect car insurance fraud, visit the NICBs Speak Up page to file a report. Tips can be shared anonymously. Watch: NICB Staged Accident Scheme PSA: _________________________________________

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 "Multiple Offenders and the Question of Desert" | Main | "Can Jared Kushner Save Criminal Justice Reform?" 

November 3, 2017

Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl gets no prison time, Prez Trump not too pleased

As reported in this Fox News story, headlined "Bergdahl dishonorably discharged, no jail time after emotional trial," a high-profile military sentencing today prompted a high-profile response from the Commander in Chief. Here are the details:

President Trump tweeted Friday that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's sentence -- a dishonorable discharge, but no prison time for leaving his post in June 2009 -- was a "complete and total disgrace." More than eight years after Bergdahl walked off his base in Afghanistan -- and unwittingly into the clutches of the Taliban -- Bergdahl walked out of a North Carolina courtroom a free man Friday. Bergdahl, who pleaded guilty to endangering his comrades, was fined, reduced in rank to E1 and dishonorably discharged -- but he received no prison time. Trump, aboard Air Force One en route to meetings in Asia, tweeted his disapproval of the sentence. "The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military," Trump wrote..... As part of the sentence, Bergdahl will forfeit his pay of $1000 per month for ten months. Bergdahl was shaking and appeared emotional as the verdict was quickly read. Bergdahl's defense lawyer has told reporters after sentencing that his client "has looked forward to today for a long time." Eugene Fidell added: "Sgt. Bergdahl is grateful to everyone who searched for him in 2009, especially those who heroically sustained injuries."... Fidell told reporters that he looks forward to the appeals court reviewing Trump's statements as a candidate, which he appeared to reaffirm on the day Bergdahl pleaded guilty Oct. 16. Addressing reporters before Trump tweeted about the sentence, Fidell said Trump had already caused one of the "most preposterous" legal situations in American history. He said he looks forward to the appeal, adding: "We think there's an extremely strong basis for dismissal of the case." Prosecutors had requested a 14-year prison term following a week of emotional testimony from the survivors who were wounded during missions to find Bergdahl after he left the base in June 2009. Bergdahl's defense team had asked for no prison time. Bergdahl faced up to life in prison for desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.

Prior related post:

November 3, 2017 at 04:51 PM | Permalink

Comments

Trump called the sentence "complete and total disgrace." So says the draft-dodger, coward, and liar and sexual predator.

Posted by: Ted | Nov 3, 2017 4:55:17 PM

I know nothing and I mean nothing about military law. What role can/does the POTUS play in the military justice system? Obviously as the head of the military he indirectly appoints officers who appoint officers etc. But does he play or can he play any direct role in a individual's trial? Does he even need to hold a trial before he kicks someone out?

Posted by: Daniel | Nov 3, 2017 5:57:33 PM

The sentence is a disgrace. Basically, the SOB judge urinated on the victims.

The Trump issue is completely ridiculous. First of all, the twit judge whining about candidate Trump's comments was unseemly. And a "you all heard my original comments" is ambiguous at best and thus cannot support a command interference.influence claim.

Bergdahl disgraced Obama.

Posted by: federalist | Nov 3, 2017 7:43:47 PM

Hey, federalist, here's your herosubverting our country and turning us into banana republic:

Trump's push for inquiries challenges Justice Dept. independence

By going after political opponents for prosecution, the president risks a major breach of protocol.

By DARREN SAMUELSOHN



11/03/2017 06:35 PM EDT

President Donald Trump's public statements have drawn widespread criticism across the ranks of current and former law enforcement officials. | Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

President Donald Trump is putting hs Justice Department in an impossible spot by demanding that it investigate his political opponents.

With his forceful pleas via Twitter and recent media interviews to launch inquiries into everything from Hillary Clintons e-mails to an Obama-era uranium deal, the president is essentially setting the department up for a major breach of protocol if it actually follows through on his requests, according to former government attorneys and prosecutors.

There is a reason why we have a norm against presidential interference in criminal investigations, said Paul Rosenzweig, a former George W. Bush-era Homeland Security official and senior counsel from the Kenneth Starr investigation into President Bill Clinton. President Trump is the living, breathing proof-case for that norm.

Trumps calls for both the Justice Department and the FBI to dig into a series of purported Democratic scandals have been widely dismissed as a way to deflect attention from special counsel Robert Mueller and the criminal charges he filed earlier this week against three of the presidents former campaign aides.

But Trump is still the president of the United States, and his public statements encouraging investigations into his current and former opponents have drawn widespread criticism across the ranks of current and former law enforcement officials. Trumps statements also leave his political appointees at the Justice Department in a bind: Do they follow the orders of the president who put them in their jobs, or do they follow the historical norms and rules of their department that mandate they stay clear of politics when they open, investigate and close any criminal cases?

Any probe would be suspect from the get-go because it was instigated by Trump, against his former political rival, and was promised during the campaign and then only revived when Trump got into his own political hot water, said Peter Zeidenberg, a former Justice prosecutor who worked on the Bush-era special-counsel inquiry into who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson.

I cannot imagine DOJ would entertain this  at least I would hope not, he added. It would set a horrendous precedent if the president of the United States could dictate to the DOJ who should be investigated and then start that practice by investigating his former political rival.

Posted by: anti-federalist | Nov 3, 2017 8:37:22 PM

Federalist, Easy for you arm chair warrioirs to blame Bergdahl who was held captive for five years by Taliban. Would you even have lasted a week?

Posted by: Emily | Nov 3, 2017 8:40:57 PM

Federalist, you are still supporting our buffoon president? Our birther in chief? do you also believe Obama was born in Kenya? Do you believe anything out of the Dotard in chief's mouth?

Posted by: Dave from Texas | Nov 3, 2017 8:42:52 PM

I'm a Republican and I'm frightened and nauseated by Trump's egomaniacal drive to direct the Justice Dept. to prosecute his politital adversaries. Thank goodness for fellow Repubicans like Bob Corker.

Washington (CNN)Republican Sen. Bob Corker continued his criticism of President Donald Trump on Friday, saying Trump is pressuring the Justice Department to "pursue cases against his adversaries and calling for punishment before trials take place." "Like me, most Americans hope that our justice system is independent and free of political interference," Corker said in a statement Friday afternoon. "President Trump's pressuring of the Justice Department and FBI to pursue cases against his adversaries and calling for punishment before trials take place are totally inappropriate and not only undermine our justice system but erode the American people's confidence in our institutions."

Will noone else speak up? "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."

Posted by: Henry from Virginia | Nov 3, 2017 8:49:56 PM

Hail to the Chief! Let me count the ways: Dotard in chief; birther in chief; xenophobe in chief; pussy-grabber in chief; narcissist in chief; snake-oil-salesman in chief; buffoon in chief; Russian mole in chief; draft- dodger in chief; keep-urinating -on- me-ladies in chief; youll never see my tax returns in chief; prosecute-my-enemies in chief; mocker-of- the -handicapped in chief; braggart in chief; bully in chief; phony in chief; climate-denier in chief.

Posted by: Sandra | Nov 3, 2017 8:58:25 PM

What is the name of the judge, and who appointed him?

Posted by: David Behar | Nov 3, 2017 10:04:13 PM

As it has been reported in the past, an article noted today that:

"Armys chief investigator on case testified at Sergeant Bergdahls preliminary hearing that he did not believe any jail time was warranted."

Army Colonel Jeffery Nance sentenced Bergdahl. There were mixed responses from veterans:

https://www.stripes.com/bergdahl-decision-unleashes-anger-understanding-1.496134

A discussion of things (like years of torture in captivity) that went into consideration of the sentence: http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/03/opinions/bergdahl-case-justice-is-served-opinion-bergen/index.html

Posted by: Joe | Nov 3, 2017 10:07:27 PM

Let's see how Behar holds up after five years in a cage. He being punked after 5 minutes.

Posted by: Sandra | Nov 3, 2017 10:58:00 PM

Emily, I am a veteran.

Posted by: federalist | Nov 4, 2017 12:08:52 AM

I lived in New York for far longer.



Posted by: David Behar | Nov 4, 2017 12:25:40 AM

This filthy left wing radicalized judge should be fired. Trump is the Commander in Chief. Get rid of this disloyal low life scum radicalized lawyer.

Posted by: David Behar | Nov 4, 2017 1:04:03 AM

Federalist, I honor you for your service. My husband, also a veteran, points out that according to a N.Y. Times article on Sat. Nov. 4, 2017, Bergdahl "wasa captured by the Taliban within hours and spent five years as a prisoner, his treatment worsening afer every attempt to escape. He was beaten with copper cables aand held in isolation in a metal cage less than seven fee square. He suffered dysentery for most of his captivity and cleaned feces off his hands with his own urine so that he could eat enough bread to survive." My husband thinks Bergdahl sufficiently punished by the dishonorable discharge, demotion in rank and foreiture of pay. I agree.

Posted by: Sandra | Nov 4, 2017 11:03:41 AM

Mr. Federalist, you write, "And you all heard my original comments" is ambiguous at best and thus cannot support a command interference.influence claim." Many disagree.

As reported today in the NY Times, "with the sentence still facing review by General Abrams and military appellate judges, Mr. Trump's post-verdict comments on Twitter seemed to bolster efforts by the defense to have the sentence thrown out on appeal some military law experts said, on the grounds that the president had unalwfully influenced the case."

"Trump just exponentially increased Bergdahl's chances of geting this whole case tossed on aoppeal," said Rachel VanLandingham, a professor at Southwetern Law School in Los Angeles and a retied Air Force Lawyer."The tweets could be "interpreted as an effort to pressure officers who stilll have some control over the sergeant's fate not to reconsider his sentence military law experts said"

Posted by: veteran21 | Nov 4, 2017 11:15:05 AM

Mr. Federalist, you write, "And you all heard my original comments" is ambiguous at best and thus cannot support a command interference.influence claim." Many disagree.

As reported today in the NY Times, "with the sentence still facing review by General Abrams and military appellate judges, Mr. Trump's post-verdict comments on Twitter seemed to bolster efforts by the defense to have the sentence thrown out on appeal some military law experts said, on the grounds that the president had unalwfully influenced the case."

"Trump just exponentially increased Bergdahl's chances of geting this whole case tossed on aoppeal," said Rachel VanLandingham, a professor at Southwetern Law School in Los Angeles and a retied Air Force Lawyer."The tweets could be "interpreted as an effort to pressure officers who stilll have some control over the sergeant's fate not to reconsider his sentence military law experts said"

Posted by: veteran21 | Nov 4, 2017 11:15:06 AM

Sandra, I don't claim that my status as a veteran gives me more of claim to knowledge about justice--I was just responding to Emily's questioning of my courage.

In any event, the judge sat there and listened to the suffering of those who were harmed by Bergdahl's disgusting act. He did suffer at the hands of the Taliban. Ok, so maybe he gets some "credit"--but no time. Sickening.

Posted by: federalist | Nov 4, 2017 11:17:23 AM

What I should have written is that in a sane system of justice, merely referring to comments previously made shouldn't be an issue---it's a historical fact. In any event, what should be troubling to all of you, but clearly is not is that the judge thought it appropriate to comment on candidate Trump's statement. Who does this nitwit judge think he is?

The military justice system is a disgrace--and not just for this--an Army judge tried to make the Army psychologist killer shave his beard (you know, the whole military bearing thing), and some court of appeals judges said he couldn't do that, and removed him from the case.

Bergdahl, Obama, Susan Rice, this Nance judge are all unpatriotic and un-American scum.

Posted by: federalist | Nov 4, 2017 12:20:34 PM

Federalist writes: "Bergdahl, Obama, Susan Rice, this Nance judge are all unpatriotic and un-American scum." And I say, back at you, man! Just sayin' At least you don't claim that any of them colluded with Russia to fix our elections. Trump and crew (and supporters) are the traitors. Two indictments already; one guilty plea--plenty more coming--this will be much bigger than Watergate--- (more than 35 folks convicted).

Posted by: Dave from Texas | Nov 4, 2017 12:46:59 PM

Multiple attempts were made to dismiss the prosecution because of Trump's comments but they were rejected. A recent motion referenced something Trump said in office where he alluded to his previous statements.

Trump's remarks, especially the latest one, got criticism from legal experts. Judges allude to loads of things. I question if Trump's remarks was too much of a factor here respecting the judgment (though some seem to think so) and among the loads of things judges remark upon, the judge criticizing them in some way is really not up there in things we should be concerned about.

As to the beard thing, the right of beards even in prison for religious reasons was protected all the way to the Supreme Court. "Military bearing" very well might not be enough to override that under RFRA rules. If this references the Ft. Hood shooter, I'm not actually sure what the end result was. The question in the court of appeals seemed to be a limited one.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep/17/mike-huckabee/did-ft-hood-shooter-get-keep-his-beard-religious-g/

Posted by: Joe | Nov 4, 2017 12:50:11 PM

Federalist calls Obama "scum." Funny, I don't remember any personal scandals surrounding Obama in the 8 years he was president.

Let's contrast Obama with our now presdident. As one commentator has succinctly put it: Hail to the Chief! Let me count the ways: Dotard in chief; birther in chief; xenophobe in chief; pussy-grabber in chief; narcissist in chief; snake-oil-salesman in chief; buffoon in chief; Russian mole in chief; draft dodger in chief; keep-urinating -on- me-ladies in chief; youll never see my tax returns in chief; prosecute-my-enemies in chief; insult every one in chief.

Federalist, who do you think is the real "scum."?

Posted by: Emily from Iowa | Nov 4, 2017 12:53:08 PM

Emily, Obama invited this guy's parents to the Rose Garden and obfuscated Bergdahl's crimes.

Obama released Must Ali-Daqduq, but then waxed poetic about the sacred bond between the Commander in Chief and military members. Obama invited Al "the Central Park Jogger is a whore" Sharpton to the WH.

He's scum. You obviously believe the Clinton dossier---that makes you a Kossian moonbat.

Posted by: federalist | Nov 4, 2017 1:04:44 PM

Federalist says, "You obviously believe the Clinton dossier-" I for one believe 90 percent of it, especially the part about the urination party. Powerful men on the outside frequently get off on being submissive, or masochistic in sex play. Ask any dominatrix--just sayin' I have no doubt that the Russians have photos and videos of Trump in compromising masochistic positions. They have him, as it were, by the balls.



Posted by: Ted | Nov 4, 2017 2:26:34 PM

Ted makes a good point. If the Russians don't have photos of Trump in compromising positions, they have them of Jared. Most likely explanation for Trump's groveling to and ass-kissing of Putin.

Posted by: Ellen | Nov 4, 2017 2:30:48 PM

Ted, you obviously know way too much about fetishes. Just sayin'

Posted by: federalist | Nov 4, 2017 3:11:20 PM

Federalist, I gladly admit to being very, very powerful on the outside, but weak as a kitten on the inside--just sayin'

Posted by: Ted | Nov 4, 2017 4:49:23 PM

That judge should be investigated for sexual harassment, the tool of mass destruction of the productive male. Then, he should be fired by Trump, no matter the finding. Get rid of that left wing extremist and Obama supporter.

Posted by: David Behar | Nov 5, 2017 3:40:25 AM

Ted, TMI.

Joe: do you even read your drivel? "Judges allude to loads of things." Yes they do, but the issue is whether the allusion of this particular judge to the comment of a presidential candidate is appropriate, and I take it, from your failure to forthrightly defend the judge, that you think it's inappropriate too--but you just don't want to criticize a fellow-traveler, so you serve up a typical non-defense defense.

And as for the F. Hood shooter and his beard, RFRA doesn't override military bearing requirements.

And, of course, none of you can defend Obama's release of Musa Ali Daqduq. No matter what Trump does, it won't be as bad as releasing Daqduq.

Posted by: federalist | Nov 5, 2017 7:29:12 AM

Federalist, as far as I can determine Musa Ali Dqdug was released by the Iraqui judiciary over the strong objection of Amerca. See Gordon, Michael (16 November 2012). "Against U.S. Wishes, Iraq Releases Man Accused of Killing American Soldiers". NY Times. Retrieved 29 December 2012. Do you have other information?

Posted by: Ted | Nov 5, 2017 8:28:00 AM

Comments made while as candidate has been explained by multiple legal analysts as relevant when weighing their actions in office in certain cases not only by legal commentators (such as a recent article by Kate Shaw] but judges. But, more importantly, the latest comments were said while he was in office. And, here the judge merely referenced them as somehow misguided. I have doubts it even mattered much as to the final judgment.

One can disagree with this approach, obviously, but it something that reasonable minds disagree with. Then, there are some who think even it is somehow insulting for judges to even bring it up. Anyway, judges even there say things they are better not say, but people don't get all excited about it. They shake their head a bit and move on. On the level of that, even if I disagreed with the relevancy of the whole thing, the remark simply wasn't that notable. Others have lower tolerance, apparently.

As the RFRA, that very well might be true, though I don't know -- personally, at times, I think RFRA is taken a bit far. It has been used to protect beards in prison. "Military bearing" alone is weighed with other factors in certain cases. So, I think one with actual expertise in religious exemption law might be useful there. Anyway, as I said, the court of appeals there only decided a limited matter. The link says his beard was eventually shaved off.

Posted by: Joe | Nov 5, 2017 11:48:43 AM

Anyway, this thread is about Bowe Bergdahl.

Some scattershot approach at the current person in office or the last one is a tad non-germane and we can be here all day talking about whatever there. The fact some do not should not be judged as supportive or not supportive against either person.

Posted by: Joe | Nov 5, 2017 11:52:52 AM

Here is a review of the mitigating factor analysis. None has the slightest validity. Trump needs to fire Judge Nance, a law school radicalized, pro-criminal extremist.

http://hosted2.ap.org/COGRA/d30f3f32e9d849979111e891380b64db/Article_2017-11-04-US--AP%20Explains-Bergdahl%20Sentencing/id-86baa06e3bb348d59db17b9c0a1379f4

Posted by: David Behar | Nov 5, 2017 12:05:02 PM

Ted, Obama released Daqduq to the Iraqis.

Joe, your latest post is a miasma.

All you Obama defenders---wonder how the guys who went looking for Bergdahl felt to see the Rose Garden nonsense.

Posted by: federalist | Nov 5, 2017 1:19:46 PM

I'm sure they realized that America is not, and never has been, a jingoistic, militaristic, martial society where piety to all things echoing of "flag waving" isn't required because we have enshrined what is required in the Constitution. They signed up for THIS ideal, not because they believed the second coming of Mussolini's Italy was desired. "Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels" don't you know. It's a free country, no matter how it looks currently in the unindicted coconspirator's tweets. I, for one, am very pleased that President Barack HUSSEIN Obama saw that it was indeed appropriate to host Bergdahl's parents at the White House. Because I'm aware that people who profess to believe the things you spew here think it's important, I'll state that I probably look very similar to you in skin tone and gender, so you can't use any of your other usual canned responses when referring to those Americans who don't look like us.

Posted by: Mark M. | Nov 6, 2017 1:08:14 AM

Post a comment
 With notable advocates, former Gov Blagojevich bringing notable sentencing issue to SCOTUS | Main | Prof Tribe makes standard policy arguments to advocate that Supreme Court "hold the death penalty unconstitutional nationwide" 

November 2, 2017

Sex offender registration laws meet Apprendi procedural rights in new Pennsylvania ruling

A helpful reader altered me to an interesting new ruling from appellate court in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Commonwealth v. Butler, NO. J-A21024-17 (Pa. Supp. Ct. App. Oct. 31, 2017) (available here). Folks concerned about the reach of sex offender registration laws and fans of the Supreme Court's Apprendi line of jurisprudence will both want to check out this opinion. Here is how it starts and a key part of the ruling:

Appellant, Joseph Dean Butler, appeals from the judgment of sentence entered on August 4, 2016, as made final by the denial of his post-sentence motion on August 10, 2016. In this case, we are constrained by our Supreme Courts recent decision in Commonwealth v. Muniz, 164 A.3d 1189 (Pa. 2017), to hold that 42 Pa.C.S.A.  9799.24(e)(3), a portion of the Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Acts (SORNAs) framework for designating a convicted defendant a Sexually Violent Predator (SVP), violates the federal and state constitutions. As such, we are compelled to reverse the trial courts July 25, 2016 order finding that Appellant is an SVP and we remand for the sole purpose of having the trial court issue the appropriate notice under 42 Pa.C.S.A.  9799.23 as to Appellants registration requirements.... Apprendi and Alleyne apply to all types of punishment, not just imprisonment. See S. Union Co. v. United States, 567 U.S. 343, 346-360 (2012). Thus, as our Supreme Court has stated, if registration requirements are punishment, then the facts leading to registration requirements need to be found by the fact-finder chosen by the defendant, be it a judge or a jury, beyond a reasonable doubt. See Commonwealth v. Lee, 935 A.2d 865, 880 (Pa. 2007).... We recognize that our Supreme Court did not consider the ramifications of its decision in Muniz with respect to individuals designated as SVPs for crimes committed after SORNAs effective date. Nonetheless, our Supreme Courts holding that registration requirements under SORNA constitute a form of criminal punishment is dispositive of the issue presented in this case. In other words, since our Supreme Court has held that SORNA registration requirements are punitive or a criminal penalty to which individuals are exposed, then under Apprendi and Alleyne, a factual finding, such as whether a defendant has a mental abnormality or personality disorder that makes [him or her] likely to engage in predatory sexually violent offenses[,] 42 Pa.C.S.A.  9799.12, that increases the length of registration must be found beyond a reasonable doubt by the chosen fact-finder. Section 9799.24(e)(3) identifies the trial court as the finder of fact in all instances and specifies clear and convincing evidence as the burden of proof required to designate a convicted defendant as an SVP. Such a statutory scheme in the criminal context cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny. Accordingly, we are constrained to hold that section 9799.24(e)(3) is unconstitutional and Appellants judgment of sentence, to the extent it required him to register as an SVP for life, was illegal.

As a fan of Apprendi rights who has long been concerned that courts sometimes work too hard to limit their logical reach, I am pleased to see this state court come to a seemingly sound conclusion in a controversial setting. In addition, I get a kick out of imagining, if now asked what case applied Apprendi rights to the SORNA setting, saying "the Butler did it."

November 2, 2017 at 11:52 PM | Permalink

Comments

Yeah, they came to a sound conclusion, but not before throwing a rhetorical temper tantrum on their way there.

Posted by: Guy | Nov 3, 2017 8:56:42 AM

Post a comment
Following a series of tweets in which she complained about Muslim drivers on Uber and Lyft, far-right commentator Laura Loomer has been banned from both of the ride-share services.

According to CNet, this began when Loomer tweeted about how someone should create a "non Islamic form of Uber or Lyft." She was responding to the terrorist attack in New York where Sayfullo Saipov, a former driver for the two companies, allegedly struck and killed eight people while driving down a bike lane, injuring many more. Loomer's tweet continued: "I never want to support another Islamic immigrant driver." After that, Loomer then complained about being late to a New York Police Department press conference because she couldn't get a "non Muslim" cab, Uber, or Lyft driver.

I'm late to the NYPD press conference because I couldn't find a non Muslim cab or @Uber @lyft driver for over 30 min! This is insanity.  Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) November 1, 2017

Then, in another tweet, she snapped a photo of two women wearing hijab walking near the site of the attack, accusing them of "rubbing it in everyone's face."

Muslims are out in full force at the scene of the NYC #ISIS attack today rubbing it in everyone's face. Aimlessly walking around in hijabs. pic.twitter.com/UV0DOikmJy  Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) November 1, 2017

Model Gigi Hadid noticed the photo, and tweeted her response to Loomer, which resulted in the tweet going viral.

Laura, I hate to give you the attention, but I need to tell you- You're a f**king moron. https://t.co/fCezijj2Ao  Gigi Hadid (@GiGiHadid) November 1, 2017

So not only was taking this photo a heinous, creepy thing to do, but she then followed up those baseless accusations, writing, "You'd think they'd have the decency to not walk around in hijabs @ cross street of the attack. But they don't. I bet they're loving this."

Uber told Business Insider that they banned Loomer because she violated their community guidelines, which everyone is required to follow when they use their service. Lyft followed suit later, confirming that they had banned Loomer as well.

The Verge goes on to point out that this isn't the first time that the two companies have banned far-right agitators. After August's violent protests in Charlottesville, Uber banned white supremacist James Allsup and Tim "Baked Alaska" Gionet after they made their Uber driver uncomfortable by making racist remarks while driving past the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Their driver, a black woman, kicked the two out of her car.

At the time, Uber's Regional General Manager Meghan Verena Joyce wrote an e-mail to the Uber driver community condemning the actions of neo-Nazis at the violent demonstrations, saying that the company will back them up if they have to end their ride for whatever reason. The full e-mail was shared on Twitter via the New York Times' Mike Isaacs.

uber letter sent to drivers and employees re: nazis pic.twitter.com/1GpG3O0yUj  _ (@MikeIsaac) August 17, 2017

Related: SXSW Creates Stir By Demanding Panelist Remove Hijab
Audio excerpts from about four and a half hours of the interrogation of Jose Ines Garcia Zarate during the early morning hours of July 2, 2015 were played for the jury in the murder trial of Kate Steinle Wednesday, and the lead investigator in the case took the stand and admitted to using some aggressive tactics in order to elicit a confession  including lying to the defendant about how much evidence they had in the case.

As KQED recounts from Wednesday's testimony, SFPD Lt. Anthony Ravano, then a homicide investigator, led the questioning of Garcia Zarate that night, hours after Steinle was mortally wounded by a single bullet wound on Pier 14. He was joined in the interrogation room by Sgt. Chris Canning and Spanish-speaking officer Martin Covarrubias, who acted as translator.

During questioning by the prosecution, Ravano described an increasingly agitated Garcia Zarate who gave several strange and dishonest answers to questions initially, including saying that he lived in Colombia (he is from Mexico and had been in the United States for many months at this point), and that he was born in 1863. He also tried to say that at the time of the shooting he was down by AT&T Park eating crackers or cookies, "because it was dinner time," and only later would he be arrested by police for reasons he didn't understand.

Garcia Zarate would also give a fake name which was, counter-intuitively, one that was already known in federal crime databases: Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez. Part of the interrogation video was shown to jurors during Ravano's testimony.

"The videotape reveals the complexity of conducting an interrogation in two languages," KQED notes, "with two officers questioning the defendant and a third officer translating."

Between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. that morning, Ravano would press Garcia Zarate, including for an hour just before his ultimate confession that was not recorded.

When asked whether he lied to Garcia Zarate during the interrogation, Ravano said yes, as ABC 7 reports. He and the other officers told the defendant that they had recovered gunshot residue linking him to the shooting  they had not  and Ravano told him that they had recovered the weapon from the Bay, when the gun had not yet been found.

"Why throw the gun in the bay?" they asked. Per ABC 7, Garcia Zarate answered, "I thought it was going to continue shooting."

This statement implicated Garcia Zarate after he had initially said he stepped on the gun and it went off. The defendant described finding the gun wrapped in a cloth or t-shirt, insisting he had found it right there, near the pier.

A couple of troubling things arose out of the airing of the confession that are likely to be part of the focus of cross-examination Thursday by defense attorney Matt Gonzalez.

For one, the investigators asked Garcia Zarate multiple times what he was shooting at. At one point he said he was shooting at "a sea animal," as the Chronicle reports, though KQED has him saying "sea lion" and then correcting himself to say, "a black fish." This contradicts other statements that the gun went off accidentally. Garcia Zarate would also say that he though Steinle, or the woman he hit, was five feet away from him when in fact she was about 90 feet away.

Secondly, there is the moment in the interrogation when Garcia Zarate says the word "lawyer" multiple times, and Covarrubias translated one of his statements as " speak to my lawyers and then I will tell you the truth."

Garcia Zarate was no stranger to the American legal system at this point, having been convicted of multiple minor offenses and having just been released from SF County Jail several months earlier on a drug charge. As KQED reported in September, the defense tried unsuccessfully to argue that Garcia Zarate's ensuing statements and ultimate confession should be inadmissible in court after he invoked his Fifth Amendment right to an attorney. The prosecution argued that despite Garcia Zarate's occasional attempts to stop the questioning, he continued talking and incriminating himself, and also repeatedly asked to sign a confession.

The interrogation ended when Garcia Zarate said, in Spanish, "I just want to sign the papers that say I did it."

Gonzalez is expected to argue that Garcia Zarate's confession was coerced, and inaccurate.



All previous coverage of the Kate Steinle murder trial on SFist.
Many of tech's biggest companies are banding together to resist President Trump's stated decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. Per CNet's report, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook are a few of the 100 companies which sponsored an amicus brief filed in San Francisco yesterday.

The brief, which is publicly available, touches on one of the primary talking points around DACA, which is that it grants a heavy economic boon to these companies in the form of access to an expanded, skilled workforce. They write:



DACA has produced -- and is continuing to produce -- important benefits for America's companies and for our economy as a whole. Employment is not a zero sum game. Dreamers are filling vacancies at companies that cannot find enough workers to fill their needs.

Since the it was first introduced in 2012 by then-President Obama, over 800,000 children and young adults have taken advantage of the program, which defers deportation action and proceedings. In essence, it allowed children and teenagers who were brought in by their undocumented parents to remain in the U.S. while lawmakers worked to institute meaningful immigration reform. No progress has been made on that front, and with Trump's election, many don't expect that fact to change. But in the time since, those 800,000 DACA recipients, or Dreamers, have received full educations, with some of them graduating and joining the American workforce as trained professionals. The tech companies are choosing to center their focus on their contributions and the impact they have as individuals on the tech industry at large.

As an industry, tech has long relied on the skills of workers from overseas, which means they also rely on the government to enable such practices. The foremost example of this is the H1-B visa, which The Independent calls a "key pipeline" for tech companies, as it allows tech companies to bring talent into the country on work visas. The practice has been criticized by many in the past, as American workers are supposedly being replaced by these folks, but if nothing else, the practice shows that tech companies are heavily invested in immigration reform and rights. CNet also points out that Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, created FWD.us back in 2013, a lobbyist group that works to advocate for immigration reform in Washington, D.C. He can also be seen speaking with a few Dreamers in this video he posted to Facebook.

Elsewhere, Axios reports that Apple has filed its own brief. In theirs, they write, in part:

These talented and entrepreneurial people fill important and varied roles across the company, including in operations, research and development, administration, sales and marketing, and retail. Apple and its customers have benefitted greatly from their intelligence, ambition, creativity, resilience, and hard work. These employees are important contributors to Apple's unique culture. That unique culture enables employees throughout Apple to do the best work of their lives and excel at creating the most innovative products and providing the very best customer service.

Additionally, IBM has voiced their support, as Christopher Padilla, their VP of government affairs wrote:



They contribute to our company and help to drive innovation and excellence at IBM. In fact, one of our Dreamers recently worked around-the-clock remote shifts to ensure continuity of IBM services when Hurricane Harvey devastated Houston," Padilla said. "BM is actively urging Congress to find a permanent legislative solution to enable Dreamers to stay in the United States. We have also urged the court in this case to find that DACA's revocation was unfounded. The program is due to begin phasing out in less than five months, and we are committed to providing as much stability and predictability as possible to DACA recipients who work at IBM

Politico reports that Trump is still meeting with GOP senators, who are set to report on how much progress they've made in ending the DACA program, which is scheduled to terminate in March. Ostensibly, their plans would "a pathway to legal status" for the 800,000 or so Dreamers, but there's no word yet on what that pathway might look like.

Related: Dreamers File Lawsuit Against Trump Administration's Move to End DACA
With their 2017 released debut album Soft Kill, the band represents the voice of a digitalized generation.



Der Ringer is powerful, breezy, loud and sensitive. The bands music can be located somewhere between indie, pop and punk.

Der Ringer is music from the present that suits the future well. Music that is worth to be shared  on social media and in concert halls. The band certainly is of the most exciting German newcomers. They are playing music for digitalized hearts.

The group had performances at the Youth Theater in Hanoi on October 26; at Nguyen Hien Dinh Theater in Da Nang City on October 31; and at Hue University of Pedagogy in Hue City on November 1.

Vietnam is one of the destinations of the group's Asian tour, including the Philippines, China, South Korea, Japan and Mongolia.







By Thuy Binh  Translated by Kim Khanh
SIOUX CITY | The end of the year is less than two months away, which means some top level films will be coming to theaters by the end of December.

The end of the year is typically chock full of films that could have Oscar award heft and also some blockbusters that can draw substantial crowds at holiday time.

There will be several dozen films released over the last eight weeks, and here are four that should not be missed. Coincidentally, they all hit theaters in December.

Dec. 1: WONDER WHEEL

Kate Winslet, Justin Timberlake and Jim Belushi are key actors as Woody Allen looks at life in Coney Island in the 1950s. Allen's recent work has been hit-and-miss, but perhaps this one will go in the plus category.

Dec. 15: STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

The second installment in the third trilogy -- in other words, the eighth "Star Wars" film overall -- references Luke Skywalker in the title.

"I only know one truth: it is time for the Jedi to end." That's a line by Luke that will draw a certain segment of people to the theater, for absolute certain.

Rey, Finn, Kylo Ren and other characters introduced in the 2015 film return, plus others will show up as new characters. Of course, the death of actress Carrie Fischer earlier this year means it is her last appearance as Princess Leia.

Dec. 22: DOWNSIZING

Alexander Payne usually delivers complex fare out of the norm for most films. The director of "About Schmidt" and "Nebraska" is back with a film in which Matt Damon is cut down to size (five inches), in a comedy-fantasy about people who shrink in order to solve the problems of overpopulation.

Dec. 25: PHANTOM THREAD

The title of this film was still untitled a few months ago. Director Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the most interesting filmmakers working, and his past complex movies include "Magnolia" and "There Will Be Blood."

Daniel Day-Lewis starred in the latter one, and is back with Anderson, for a film DDL is saying is his last. He stars as a renowned dressmaker in London during the 1950s. So yes, another top film on this short list is set in the 1950s.
On Iowa Politics discusses Sam Clovis' withdrawing from the nomination to be the USDA's chief scientist, Bill Northey's political limbo regarding his post with the USDA, and Gov. Kim Reynolds on the campaign trail.

On Iowa Politics is a weekly news and analysis podcast which re-creates the conversations that happen when Iowa's political reporters get together after deadlines have been met. This week's show features Erin Murphy, James Q. Lynch, Bret Hayworth, and Todd Dorman.

This week's show was produced by Max Freund and the music heard in the podcast is courtesy of I Cry Wolfe. Chat with us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @OnIowaPolitics, and subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher. Know an Iowa musician who should be on our show? Send their band sound files to oniowapolitics@gmail.com.
In the last episode of the first season of "Daredevil," there's this great montage of arrests as the Kingpin's empire falls. The FBI swoops down, and you see all the crooked cops, corrupt politicians, and henchmen belonging to the New York City crime lord collected like garbage. It is, in the context of that Netflix superhero drama, a very satisfying moment.

In the context of real life, it would be even more so. That's what accounts for the glee with which the likes of Keith Olbermann and Ava DuVernay began retweeting over the weekend a clip first posted to YouTube in August. In it, a talented someone calling themselves 1oneclone repurposes the "Daredevil" montage to devastating effect.

In the new clip, it's Michael Flynn, not some mobster, hauling you-know-what with an army of FBI men in hot pursuit. Steve Bannon is led out with his hands cuffed behind him as James Comey gazes on in quiet satisfaction. Kellyanne Conway is still chattering as she is arrested. And there goes the big man himself, jaw jutting pugnaciously, as he is hauled away.

The clip is -- no pun intended -- a marvel. And it neatly captured the mood on much of social media as people awaited Monday, when, according to CNN, the first fruits of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into the Trump administration would be unsealed. Folks dubbed it a spontaneous holiday: Indictment Day.

Well, Indictment Day did not disappoint, bringing a 12-count bill of charges against former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and adviser Rick Gates, albeit for money laundering and other alleged crimes with no known connection to the failed president. More ominous for Trump, though, was news that an obscure adviser, George Papadopoulos, had earlier secretly pleaded guilty to charges of lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts and was cooperating with the investigation.

So Indictment Day may soon come around again.

Not to kill the joy of that possibility, but a reminder seems prudent here. Even if Indictment Day comes a dozen times more, even if the man himself is felled, none of it changes what needs changing.

In March of 2016, I wrote about what America should do "after Trump." Got much of it wrong, including downplaying the possibility of his election. But one thing said then holds up: Trump is a product of fear, intolerance, incoherence and ignorance. And those things would survive him.

After all, they grew strong and bold in recent years as some of us made expedient decisions to which morality was a stranger. Exhibit A: the Republican Party's choice to embrace an ethos of chaos -- think tea party mobs and birth certificate lies -- because it was politically useful. And to ignore the damage this wrought.

Now we're paying the price for that short-sightedness. And after Trump, assuming America isn't a nuclear wasteland or two countries by then -- possibilities that seem less remote than they once did -- confronting the forces that brought us here must be Job One for faith leaders, news media, activists and educators. Indeed, all people of conscience will have a simple mission: Drive fear, intolerance, incoherence and ignorance off the main stage of American politics.

It is, yes, gratifying to see a video where all this president's men and women are carted away by the feds. It is even more gratifying to see them face the music in real life.

What ails us, though, will be fixed not by indictments, but by engagement and education. It will take time. And truth is, "after Trump" is too long to wait.

So, I hope you enjoyed Indictment Day. Now, let's get back to work.
The release of Warren Commission files pertaining to the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy includes fascinating documents but lacks any semblance of a smoking gun to placate conspiracy theorists.

Questions have abounded since presumed assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was murdered by nightclub owner Jack Ruby on Nov. 24 while being transported in Dallas police custody.

The JFK Records Act of 1992 had required the final release of the commissions 40,000 documents  3,600 records never disclosed  to the public in 25 years.

However, the president also was given the right to withhold some documents for national security reasons. President Donald Trump released 2,800 records, but allowed the CIA, FBI, the National Security Agency and the Defense Department to vet the others over the next six months.

Oswald, part of a pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba group, had visited the island two months before the assassination. He had lived in the Soviet Union in 1959. On Sept. 28, he had called the Soviet embassy from the Cuban consulate in Mexico supposedly about a visit.

Yet the records indicate the Soviet Union and Cuba did not want to risk war with the United States, despite their contacts with Oswald. The records also portray CIA efforts to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro, including overtures to the Mafia for assistance.

One memo from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover suggests the Soviets were involved, but another states the KGB  the Russian spy agency  believed Lyndon Johnson, the vice president from Texas, was behind it.

We also learned Hoover relayed an anonymous tip about a conspiracy to kill Oswald to Dallas police, but to no avail.

Some of the released materials contain information previously revealed by the 1975 Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities chaired by Frank Church, D-Idaho, and shed light on CIA assassination attempts against foreign leaders.

In addition, the 1976 House Select Committee on Assassinations, fueled conspiracy theories concluding there was probably a second gunman on the grassy knoll as the Kennedy motorcade moved through Dallas.

Various theories have been attributed to Presidents Johnson and Richard Nixon.

Trump confidante Roger Stone, a former Nixon aide, had co-authored a book, The Man Who Killed Kennedy, claiming Johnson did so to become president. It quotes Nixon as saying, Lyndon and I both wanted to be President, the difference was I wouldnt kill for it.

Yet the CIA's Richard Helms later testified Johnson and Nixon believed Kennedy was murdered in retaliation for the death of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem following a coup linked to the CIA.

There is absolutely no evidence of this in the agency records and the whole thing has been, I mean rather  heated by the fact that President Johnson used to go around saying that the reason President Kennedy was assassinated was that he had assassinated President Diem and this was just ... justice.  Where he got this from, I dont know.

The release did not include the supposed 332 pages concerning E. Howard Hunt, the former CIA operative involved in the ring that burglarized Democratic Party headquarters in Washingtons Watergate Office Complex in 1972.

Hunt previously led the CIAs failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba to overthrow Castro. Kennedy was blamed for not providing air support. Hunt maintained before he died in 2007 that several CIA affiliates plotted The Big Event to kill Kennedy.

In 1964 Chief Justice Earl Warren, who headed the commission, told a reporter the full record might eventually be released, But it might not be in your lifetime.

The long-awaited release was a huge tease, but nothing more, leaving many questions unanswered.
SOCIEDAD ASIATICA

THE ASIAN SOCIETY

COMISION DIRECTIVA



THE DIRECTIVE BOARD



PRESIDENTE:

Liliana Garcia Daris



Universidad del Salvador.

Argentina

VICEPRESIDENTE:

Won-ho Kim

Universidad de Hankuk de Estudios Extranjeros.

Corea

SECRETARIO:

Luis Diaz Brougton



Universidad de Santiago, Chile



PROSECRETARIO:



Martha Barriga Tello

Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Peru



VOCALES:



Mauricio Martinez



Universidad de los Andes, Colombia



Juan Uriburu Quintana



Universidad de Chenchi, Taiwan

CONSEJEROS ACADEMICOS

ACADEMIC ADVISERS



ASH NARAIN, Roy,

Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi.

India



GARCIA BAZAN, Francisco,



CONICET, Universidad Argentina John F. Kennedy



MATSUSHITA, Hiroshi,



Universidad de Kobe, Japon



MIEMBROS FUNDADORES



FOUNDING MEMBERS



ALBERT, Liliana



Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, Argentina



ANTON PACHECO, Jose Antonio



Universidad de Sevilla, Espana



ANTONIJEVIC, Ingrid



Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile



BARRIGA TELLO, Martha



Universidad Nacional de San Marcos, Peru



BERGMAN, Sergio

Melton Institute de Jerusalem, Israel



BERTOLINI, Luis



Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, Argentina



CABEZON, Jose



Universidad de Santa Barbara, Estados Unidos



CAGNI, Horacio



Universidad Catolica de La Plata, Argentina



CARRANZA, Francisco



Universidad de Dankook, Corea



CASTLETON, Barbara



Ohio State University of Athens



CASTRO, Jorge

Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, Argentina



CHAOUL-REICH, Alejandro



Universidad de Texas, Estados Unidos



CHELMICKI, Hanna I.



Universidad del Salvador, Argentina



DIAZ BROUGHTON, Luis



Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile



FRANCO, Raul



Universidad del Salvador, Argentina



GADRE, Vasant



Universidad Jawaharlal Nehru, India



GARCIA DARIS, Liliana

Universidad del Salvador, Argentina

GLUCK, Carol



Universidad de Columbia. Estados Unidos

HOPKINS RODRIGUEZ, Eduardo



Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru



KIM, Wonho



Universidad Hankuk de Estudios Extranjeros, Corea



KO, Heysun



Univesidad de Dankook, Corea



LOPEZ DEL CARRIL, Luis Maria



Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, Argentina



LUCO, Enrique



Universidad del Salvador



MARTINEZ, Mauricio



Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia



MASATERU, Ito



Universidad Nacional de Osaka, Japon



MATSUSHITA, Hiroshi



Universidad de Kobe, Japon



MINKOWICZ, Gabriel

Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires

MONETA, Carlos Juan



Universidad del Salvador, Argentina



MORROW, John Andrew



Minot State University, Dakota del Norte, USA



NGUYEN, Thiet Son



Academia de Ciencias Sociales de Vietnam, Vietnam

OVIEDO, Eduardo

CONICET. Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina

PEREIRA, Ronan Alves

Universidad de Brasilia. Brasil

PEREYRA, Violeta



Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina

REMETE, Andrea

Universidad del Salvador, Argentina



RIMOLDI DE LADMAN, Eve



Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, Argentina



ROMERO CASTILLA, Alfredo



Universidad Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico

TEDIN URIBURU, Virgilio



Universidad de Harvard, Estados Unidos

UEHARA, Alexander



Universidad de Sao Paulo. Brasil

URIBURU QUINTANA, Juan



Universidad de Chenchi, Taiwan



VITTOR, Luis Alberto



Universidad Argentina John F. Kennedy



XU, Shicheng



Academia China de Ciencias Sociales, Republica Popular China
The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless.



The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well.







By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

This is perhaps one of the best-known sentences in the English language, a revolutionary statement of the times, written by a band of traitors to the Crown. Those revolutionary leaders were willing to sacrifice their comfortable positions, risk imprisonment and death to fight for a cause in which they fervently believed.

Today we sit around complaining, posting our discontent on social media sites, about the era of Trump, gun violence, tax cuts for the wealthy, low wages for the working poor, the continued attacks on providing healthcare to all Americans, the growing opioid epidemic, and so many other societal problems. For many reasons, our elected officials are failing to do anything substantive about these growing problems. Perhaps its time to look to ones self and ask, What I am willing to fight for and sacrifice to bring about the just world we deserve and endowed by a creator to have as our right?

This past week we witnessed the growing split within the Republican Party, with speeches by former President Bush and Senators Flake, Corker and McCain attacking the President and calling for an end to the insanity coming out of the White House. Although I do not agree with their political beliefs, I respect their readiness to take a stand in defense of those beliefs.

So my fellow Manor-ites, what changes do you want to see here in our Island City that you are willing to fight and sacrifice for? Voting for and demanding leadership from our elected officials is a move in the right direction. Next year we will have elections here in our city for Mayor and two City Commission seats. We are already hearing rumors that our Mayor, Gary Resnick, is once again thinking about running for reelection. This comes after statements made, beginning at his last re-election victory party back in 2016, that this would be his last term. In the coming months, we will definitely hear more about this race and those for the two City Commissioner seats held by Scott Newton and Justin Flippen. The June 2018 filing deadline may seem a long time away, but the discussion should begin now on who we would like to see run in our city election.

Elections in our neighboring city of Fort Lauderdale will be taking place at a much quicker pace. Current Mayor Jack Seiler is term limited, so our neighbors will be voting for his replacement along with open seats on the city commission in just over two months. Due to Fort Lauderdales city charter, races with more than two candidates have a primary election. This primary election will be held right after the fast approaching New Year holiday, on January 16, 2018. If no candidate receives more than half the votes, the two-top vote-getters face off in the March 13 general election. City Commissioners Dean Trantalis and Bruce Roberts will be running for the office of Mayor along with Charlotte Rodstrom, and possibly more candidates may file by the Nov. 13 deadline.

One main item of interest to residents of Wilton Manors in the Fort Lauderdale mayors race is our water and sewage rates. For years, under Mayor Jack Seiler, the City of Fort Lauderdale neglected vital infrastructure, especially when it came to water and sewage, using the higher and higher rates charged neighboring cities to balance their own city budget shortfalls rather than to properly invest in maintenance and repairs. Fort Lauderdale needs new leadership that will finally address such vital issues. City Commissioner Dean Trantalis has made the issue of the citys infrastructure a top priority. This is a huge concern, not only for the residents of Fort Lauderdale, but for neighboring cities like Wilton Manors, that rely on this infrastructure to deliver drinking water and handle sewage in and out of our borders, at ever increasing cost.

Commissioner Trantalis has been proactive on many other fronts while serving his city. When Mayor Seiler made national news by shutting down areas that feed the homeless population, Commissioner Trantalis held a Town Hall meeting and moderated a very heated debate within the city to hopefully bring about a more positive response. When the city moved ahead with the Vacation Rental Ordinance, it was Commissioner Trantalis who led the way once again in bringing together different sides of the debate. This is what a good leader does. He or she looks to engage, to listen, and to make the tough decisions at the end of the day. Dean Trantalis is the type of leadership Fort Lauderdale needs and is the type of leadership that would benefit our entire region here in South Florida.

In our pursuit of happiness, let us never forget our individual responsibility to bring about the change we need. By participating in our government, by being active members of our community, and by standing up for what is right, and by standing with those who do the same, we will we make life just better here
Le Collectif Cheikh Yassine a organise un certain nombre dactivites et de festivites pour les enfants de Gaza sous le theme  La joie des enfants de Gaza pour lAid . Ces activites ont commence le premier jour de lAid et continue jusquau 4eme jour de lAid dans la bande de Gaza.



Plusieurs activites, ont ete organisees parmi lesquelles : des competitions recompensees par des prix, des jeux, des animations et des chants presentes par un groupe ainsi que des distributions de cadeaux et daides financieres.




Juno NASA

ata returned Tuesday, Oct. 31, indicate that NASAs Juno spacecraft successfully completed its eighth science flyby over Jupiters mysterious cloud tops on Tuesday, Oct. 24.

The confirmation was delayed by several days due to solar conjunction at Jupiter, which affected communications during the days prior to and after the flyby.

Solar conjunction is the period when the path of communication between Earth and Jupiter comes into close proximity with the Sun. During solar conjunction, no attempts are made to send new instructions or receive information from Juno, as it is impossible to predict what information might be corrupted due to interference from charged particles from the Sun. Instead, a transmission moratorium is put into place; engineers send instructions prior to the start of solar conjunction and store data on board for transmission back to Earth following the event.

All the science collected during the flyby was carried in Junos memory until yesterday, when Jupiter came out of solar conjunction, said the new Juno project manager, Ed Hirst, from NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. All science instruments and the spacecrafts JunoCam were operating, and the new data are now being transmitted to Earth and being delivered into the hands of our science team.

Hirst has worked on Juno since its preliminary design phase, through launch in 2011 and arrival at Jupiter in 2016. He previously worked on NASAs Galileo, Stardust and Genesis missions. Born in Guatemala City, Guatemala, he earned a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and joined JPL in 1993. Hirst succeeds Rick Nybakken, who was recently appointed deputy director for JPLs Office of Safety and Mission Success.

We couldnt be happier for Rick and know he will continue to do great things to further NASAs leadership in space exploration, said Scott Bolton, Junos principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Similarly, we are pleased with Eds promotion to project manager. He has been a critical part of Juno for many years and we know hell hit the ground running.

Junos next close flyby of Jupiter will occur on Dec. 16.

There is no more exciting place to be than in orbit around Jupiter and no team Id rather be with than the Juno team, said Hirst. Our spacecraft is in great shape, and the team is looking forward to many more flybys of the solar systems largest planet.

Juno launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and arrived in orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. During its mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planets cloud tops  as close as about 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers). During these flybys, Juno is probing beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and studying its auroras to learn more about the planets origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

JPL manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California.
For nearly two years, Keystone Velocity was out of sight in the world of harness racing. But the pacing son of Western Hanover was never out of trainer Rene Allards mind.

Although he had earned nearly $500,000 in his career, an ownership dispute kept Keystone Velocity off the track for nearly two years. But last October, Allard was able to purchase Keystone Velocity  then an 8-year-old  with VIP Stable, Earl Hill Jr., and Kapildeo Singh.

One year later, Keystone Velocity enters Sundays $100,000 Potomac Pace at Rosecroft as one of the favorites with victories earlier this year in the $529,000 finals of the Levy Memorial Pacing Series at Yonkers and the $500,000 Ben Franklin at Pocono.

Hes been great to us, Allard said. He was always a nice horse. He wasnt injured, he was sound, but there was an ownership dispute. By the time that got squared away he was nearly two years without racing. But he had only raced some 80 times. I look at him now and, yes, hes nine but with the two years off hes like a seven-year-old.

Keystone Velocity, from the final crop of stallion Western Hanover and a $3,000 yearling purchase for his original owners in 2009, has relished his second opportunity on track with Allard. The nine-year-old enters Sundays Potomac Pace with nearly $750,000 in earnings this year.

Hes been doing really well, Allard said. He finished second in the elimination of the Breeders Crown. Hes always playful, always happy. Were looking forward to [the Potomac Pace]. He finished fourth last year, but his foot was bothering him a little last year.

Theres going to be some nice horses in there. Last year the track was lightning fast and I expect it will be the same this year. Im looking forward to it.

Allard is also looking forward to his renewed interest in Thoroughbred racing. Having grown up on a farm in Quebec with every kind of animal, and living on a farm now with ponies, Belgian horses, retired Standardbreds and everything else, Allard is trying his hand in the Thoroughbred world. He recently purchased a yearling for $20,000 at the Keeneland September Sale.

I claimed a Thoroughbred at Woodbine years ago and had another run at Belmont a couple years back, Allard said. Its fascinating to learn about horses. So I went to Keeneland by myself and walked around on the last day of the sale and looked at the horses there. I didnt even buy a sales book. I just looked at the horses, saw one that I thought looked good, and bid on it.

After buying a son of Liaison, a stakes winner who earned more than $750,000, Allard turned to someone and asked what they thought of the pedigree.

The guy said [the yearling] came from a family of runners, Allard said. Then we talked some more and I found out the guy was [Hall of Fame and Kentucky Derby-winning trainer] Jack Van Berg. It was pretty cool. We started talking. Turns out he knew Billy Haughton and some other people.

Allards Thoroughbred is now under the care of Van Berg and hes looking forward to seeing the colt run. But this weekend, Allard is looking forward to Keystone Velocity adding to his earnings in the Potomac Pace at Rosecroft.

First race post on Potomac Pace Night at Rosecroft is 6:40 p.m.

(with files from Rosecroft)
After standing his first season at stud in Pennsylvania this past season, double millionaire Creatine will have a new residence in 2018.

In an exciting turn of events for Ohio breeders, Creatine will be standing at Sugar Valley Farm in partnership with Diamond Creek Farm.

One of the richest sons of Andover Hall, Creatine made over $2,000,000 throughout his career, with wins that included the Kentucky Futurity, Breeders Crown and Allerage Trot (over heavy favourite Sebastian K). This move to Ohio will make him one of the fastest and most successful stallions to stand in the state.

"We decided to stand Creatine in Ohio as a testimony to the Ohio breeding industry", says Diamond Creek's Adam Bowden, "The industry in Ohio is no longer limited regionally, but is becoming a national force."

Sugar Valley Farm has already had success with stallions such as Well Said and the ill-fated Dragon Again, adding Creatine to their lineup will give them even more star power. Sugar Valley's Joe McLead says, Creatine standing in Ohio is a value play for breeders. Creatine has everything a breeder could be looking for; the pedigree, speed and heart. We are excited for this partnership with Diamond Creek.

Diamond Creek will continue to manage and support Creatine in this lateral move to Ohio. "Our full support is behind Creatine," emphasizes Bowden, "not only will we be handling his bookings and interests, we will continue to breed many of our top mares to him. We are very proud of Creatine and we intend to remain fully involved to ensure his continued success."

Creatine will stand at Sugar Valley Farm in partnership with Diamond Creek Farm. His 2018 stud fee will be $4,000. For bookings or more information on breeding, please contact Diamond Creek at 717-638 -7100 or find out more at diamondcreekfarm.com.

(with files from Diamond Creek)
Effective Immediately Nominations for the WWME Longest Married Couple Project Now Accepted Online at wwme.org

Contact: Dick & Diane Baumbach, Worldwide Marriage Encounter, 321-544-3440, dickanddiane66@bellsouth.net



SAN BERNARDINO, Calif., Nov. 3, 2017 /Standard Newswire/ -- Nominations for the annual search for the Longest Married Couple (LMC) in the United States, sponsored by Worldwide Marriage Encounter (WWME), are now being accepted immediately at wwme.org, it was announced today by Bryan & Karen Berland, coordinators of the project.



"By going to the wwme.org website, individuals can now quickly and easily fill in the short information sheet needed to nominate loved ones or friends who have long and enduring marriages," the Berland's said.



The project runs until Jan. 10, 2018, with the national winners named in February 2018. There will also be 50 state winners that will be announced in the same time period.



Nominations, which are open to all husband and wife couples regardless of religious affiliation, may also be submitted by email, regular mail or by calling a special phone number.



In addition to nominating a couple at the wwme.org website they can also be entered into the project by sending in a nomination by e-mail. This simply requires the name of the couple, their wedding date and where they currently reside- plus a contact phone or email address of the individual nominating the couple, sent to bkberland@gmail.com. Nominations are also accepted via regular mail, to: Bryan & Karen Berland 530 S. Academy Guthrie, OK 73044, or a special phone number 405-850-4274. Nominations must be received by midnight January 10th, 2018.



This highly acclaimed activity of recognizing couples for their long marriages, which is in its eighth year, has drawn media attention from around the world.



The majority of the national winners the past seven years have been married for 80 or more years, while state winners usually are 60 to 70 years married. There have been instances where state winners were married 50 plus years.



There have been over 2400 couples nominated for the honors during the last seven years. Winners of the LMC project are selected solely from nominations submitted.



The national winners will be recognized during Valentine's Week 2018, which coincides with World Marriage Day, which is always the second Sunday of February.



The 2018 national winners will be formally recognized in person by WWME's United States Leadership/Ecclesial Team Joe & Sue Talarico of Concord, CA and Fr. Tom Ogg from Ten Sleep, WY. They will present the winning couple special gifts at a ceremony to be held at the winner's location during Valentine's week. The state winners will also receive personal recognition at their location along with a special certificate of achievement and congressional recognition from the Worldwide Marriage Encounter movement.



Worldwide Marriage Encounter has been offering weekend experiences for over 49 years and is considered the original faith-based marriage enrichment program. The programs are continually updated to keep abreast of changes in society, and WWME now offers evening and half-day programs that are presented at parishes and other church facilities. The weekend program, traditionally presented as an overnight experience at a hotel or retreat center, can also be presented at the parish where the couples return to their homes in the evenings. WWME has a presence in almost 100 countries, which makes it the largest pro-marriage movement in the world. In North America, the WWME programs are presented in English, Spanish, French, and Korean languages.



Worldwide Marriage Encounter offers married couples the opportunity to spend time together away from the busyness of the world to focus on each other. Priests are also encouraged to attend a WWME weekend, which offers insights into their relationship with the church and their parishioners, and how their Sacrament of Holy Orders interacts with the Sacrament of Matrimony. WWME offers tools for building and maintaining a strong, Christian marriage in today's world. To learn more about the Worldwide Marriage Encounter weekends online, go to wwme.org, or contact the WWME national office at (909) 332-7309.


Planned Parenthood Hired Fusion GPS to Create Fake Report

Contact: Liberty Counsel, 407-875-1776, Media@LC.org; Press Kit

WASHINGTON, Nov. 3, 2017 /Standard Newswire/ -- Fusion GPS, the group hired by the Clinton campaign (Hillary) and the Democratic National Committee to prepare the so-called Trump dossier, was also hired by Planned Parenthood to create a false report about the undercover videos produced by Sandra Merritt and David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress (CMP).

In the summer of 2015, CMP began releasing undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood executives regarding the procurement of aborted baby body parts. Planned Parenthood hired Fusion GPS to conduct a "forensic analysis" to discredit the videos. Not surprisingly, the Fusion GPS report falsely declared that the videos had been edited and were fake, even though the "research" organization has no known qualifications in the field of forensic video analysis.

In contrast, the same videos were analyzed by Coalfire Systems, Inc., a company that does have credentials in the field of forensic video analysis and are experts in the field of information technology auditing. Their findings were diametrically opposite from the Fusion GPS report.

The Coalfire Systems analysis of the recorded media files revealed that "the video recordings are authentic and show no evidence of manipulation or editing. This conclusion is supported by the consistency of the video file date and time stamps, the video timecode, as well as the folder and file naming scheme. The uniformity between the footage from the cameras from the two investigators also support the evidence that the video recordings are authentic. These raw audio recordings support the completeness and authenticity of the raw video recordings since they depict the same events within the same duration as captured from the two separate video recorders."

Planned Parenthood provided aborted baby body parts to three organ procurement organizations, including StemExpress, LLC, Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. and Novogenix Laboratories, LLC. In one of the videos, a former StemExpress technician describes an experience at a Planned Parenthood Clinic in San Jose, California, where she witnessed an aborted baby's heart beating and then was told to "harvest" the child's brain. The technician testified, "[She] gave me the scissors and told me that I had to cut down the middle of the face."

"The videos are shocking and reveal a callous disregard for human life," said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. "It is no surprise that Planned Parenthood hired Fusion GPS to create a fake report. Fusion GPS is the same company hired by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to produce fake news," said Staver.

Liberty Counsel is an international nonprofit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics.


Judicial Watch: New Documents Show FBI Deputy Director McCabe Did Not Recuse Himself From the Clinton Email Scandal Investigation Until Week Before Presidential Election

His Wife's Campaign Received $700,000 from Clinton Friends



Contact: Jill Farrell, Judicial Watch, 202-646-5172



WASHINGTON, Nov. 3, 2017 /Standard Newswire/ -- Judicial Watch today released Justice Department records showing that FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe did not recuse himself from the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's unsecure, non-government email server until Tuesday, November 1, 2016, one week prior to the presidential election. The Clinton email probe was codenamed "Midyear Exam."



While working as Assistant Director in Charge of the Washington Field Office, McCabe controlled resources supporting the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's email scandal. An October 2016 internal FBI memorandum labeled "Overview of Deputy Director McCabe's Recusal Related To Dr. McCabe's Campaign for Political Office," details talking points about McCabe's various potential conflicts of interest, including the FBI's investigation of Clinton's illicit server, which officially began in July 2015:

While at [Washington Field Office] did Mr. McCabe provide assistance to the Clinton investigation?



After the referral was made, FBI Headquarters asked the Washington Field Office for personnel to conduct a special investigation. McCabe was serving as [Assistant Director] and provided personnel resources. However, he was not told what the investigation was about. In February 2016 McCabe became Deputy Director and began overseeing the Clinton investigation.

The Overview also shows if asked whether McCabe played any role in his wife's campaign, the scripted response was: "No. Then-[Assistant Director] McCabe played no role, attended no events and did not participate in fundraising or support of any kind."



In June 2017, Circa reported that social media photos showed "McCabe wearing a T-shirt supporting his wife's campaign during a public event and then posting a photo on social media urging voters to join him in voting for his wife." The Justice Department IG is investigating whether McCabe properly disclosed payments to his wife's campaign on his ethics report, as well as possible Hatch Act violations.



The Overview attempts to deflect concerns regarding the timing of the announcement of Mrs. McCabe's candidacy in mid-March 2015, fast on the heels of Clinton's illicit server becoming public knowledge.



The news that Clinton used a private email server broke March 2, 2015. Five days later, former Clinton Foundation board member and Democrat party fundraiser, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe met with the McCabes to recruit her for a run for the state Senate. She announced her candidacy on March 12. Soon afterward, McAuliffe-aligned political groups donated nearly $700,000 (40% of the campaign's total funds) to McCabe's wife for her campaign. Around that time, Gov. McAuliffe would also come under criminal investigation by the FBI.



An April 29, 2015, document titled "Protocol regarding Potential Conflicts of Interest" sent from the Washington Field Office to various FBI officials  and self-approved by McCabe  indicates that he was "consulting with individuals within the Washington Field Office and [FBI headquarters]" prior to the announcement of his wife's political campaign:



MORE: www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-documents-show-fbi-deputy-director-mccabe-not-recuse-clinton-email-scandal-investigation-week-presidential-election/
3rd Annual New England-wide GO Conference on February 16-17, 2018

Contact: Drew Crandall, 860-871-6500SPRINGFIELD, Mass., Nov. 3, 2017 / Standard Newswire / -- On February 16-17, 2018, Vision New England will host the third annual GO Conference to inspire, encourage and unite Christians and strengthen churches across the six-state region. The conference will be held at the MassMutual Center, 1277 Main Street in downtown Springfield. The theme will be Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly and Make Disciples, based on the Bible passage in Micah 6:8. The event will feature a mix of praise and worship, prayer, plenary sessions, workshops, an exposition and networking.GO Conference 2018 keynote speakers will be: Dr. Lina Abujamra, physician, author, host of Today's Single on Moody Radio, and founder of Living with Power; Jill Briscoe, pastor, speaker, author of over 40 books and executive editor of the magazine, Just Between Us; Lecrae, New York Times best-selling author of Unashamed and Grammy Award winning artist; Father James Mallon, author of Divine Renovation: From a Maintenance to a Missional Parish; Miles McPherson, senior pastor of The Rock Church in San Diego and author of Do Something: Make Your Life Count; and Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, professor of church growth and evangelism at North Park University in Chicago and author of Prophetic Lament.GO Conference 2018 will have 18 interactive workshops that coincide with the event theme. Facilitated by New Englanders, these workshops will help attendees to discover how they can go and impact the region. An exhibition hall will showcase 60 of New England's finest ministries and resources.GO Conference 2018 will open at 8 a.m. on Friday, February 16 and end mid-afternoon on Saturday, February 17. Attendees may commute or reserve discounted overnight lodging at participating hotels. Opportunities exist for sponsors, exhibitors and volunteers. For more details and online registration, please call toll-free 888-853-9602 or visit www.GoConf.org Founded in 1887 as the Evangelistic Association of New England, Vision New England (VNE) has been a vibrant catalyst for inspiring, equipping and uniting the body of Christ and strengthening churches for 130 years. For details on VNE, visit www.VisionNewEngland.org
It's Election season and our editor's mailbox is overflowing. Who do your neighbors support? Read about it here.
Southwest Washington legislators Thursday urged the state to be careful about how much protection it gives to an endangered seabird, saying the issue poses an existential threat to logging-dependent coastal communities such as Pacific and Wahkiakum counties.

In a joint letter to the state Board of Natural Resources, regional lawmakers urged the state to adopt its least restrictive option to protect the marbled murrelet, which has been listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act since 1992. The small seabird lays its eggs on the branches of old-growth trees as far as 70 miles inland.

State Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, and 11 other legislators released the statement this week ahead of the boards next meeting on Nov. 7. State Sens. John Braun, R-Centralia, and Dean Takko, D-Longview, as well as state Reps. Brian Blake,D-Aberdeen, and Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, also signed on.

The state plan for dealing with the marbled murrelet could be an existential threat to the communities of Wahkiakum and Pacific counties, Walsh wrote. The Department of Natural Resources must act in the areas best interest, and its own best interest, to minimize the damage caused by this birds listing as an endangered species.

The species has been protected under an interim plan since 1997, and about 583,000 acres of state forests are currently protected for the seabirds. The protections do not apply to private lands.

In December, the state began efforts to form a long-term plan to protect the seabirds. The DNR proposed six options. They include a no-action option which would continue the interim strategy.

Conservationists have said that the proposals dont do enough to protect the seabirds and have supported the option that increases the total area conserved to 734,000 acres  the broadest option.

Walsh and others are recommending the alternative that adds the minimum amount of protected acreage to meet requirements for species preservation. This would bring the total preserved acres to 593,000.

The letter states that the other options would negatively impact communities like Wahkiakum County which rely on state lands for timber. The state manages thousands of acres of timberland in Wahkiakum County, and state timber sales make up a large share of the county governments revenue.
Syria declares victory over IS in Deir al-Zor

Smoke rises from buildings following an air strike by Syrian government forces in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor

Reuters, Beirut :

The Syrian government declared victory over Islamic State in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor on Friday, a big blow to the jihadists as their last stronghold in Syria crumbles.

Deir al-Zor, on the west bank of the Euphrates River, is the largest and most important city in eastern Syria, and is the center of the country's oil production.

"The armed forces, in cooperation with allied forces, liberated the city of Deir al-Zor completely from the clutches of the Daesh terrorist organization," the military source said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

The army, backed by Russian bombers, Iran and Shi'ite militias, is advancing toward the last significant town held by Islamic State in Syria, Albu Kamal, which is also located on the western bank of the Euphrates.

A rival offensive by Kurdish and Arab militias supported by a U.S.-led coalition with air strikes and special forces, is pressing Islamic State on the eastern bank. Iraqi forces on Friday said they had begun their own final offensive against Islamic State on the Iraqi side of the jihadist territory that straddles the border between the two countries, entering the city of al-Qaim.

Islamic State had for years besieged a government enclave in Deir al-Zor until an army advance relieved it in early September, starting a battle for jihadist-held parts of the city.

The army captured al-Hamidiya, Sheikh Yassin, al-Ardhi and al-Rashidia districts in recent attacks and the al-Hawiqa district was the last to be held by the jihadists, a military media unit run by the army's ally Hezbollah reported.

Engineering units were searching streets and buildings in those districts for mines and booby traps left by Islamic State, the military source said.

Meanwhile, Russia demanded Thursday that the UN Security Council shelve a report blaming the Syrian government for a sarin gas attack and that a new probe be conducted into the use of the deadly nerve agent, according to a draft resolution obtained by AFP.

The text circulated to the Security Council also called for a six-month extension of the UN-led panel tasked with identifying who is behind chemical attacks in Syria's six-year war.

The United States put forward on Thursday a rival draft resolution that would extend for two years the mandate of the panel known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), according to the text seen by AFP.

Russia has sharply criticized the findings of the JIM which said the Syrian air force dropped sarin on the opposition-held village of Khan Sheikhun nearly seven months ago.

More than 80 people, including young children, died in the April 4 attack that provoked global outrage and prompted the United States to fire cruise missiles at a Syrian air base.




Bangladesh Mess Organisation formed a human chain in front of the Jatiya Press Club on Friday with a call to normalize mess rent.
Trial process to continue when there is a prima-facie case

High Court Division :

(Criminal Revisional Jurisdiction)

Syed Md Ziaul Karim J

Ashish Ranjan Das J

Maulana Abdul Malek Miah...... Accused-Petitioner

vs

State.................. Opposite-Party

Judgment

June 18th, 2014

Code of Criminal Procedure (V of 1898)

Section 241A

The plea are nothing but the defence plea. Be that as it may the proposition of law is now well settled that on the basis of defence plea or materials the criminal proceedings should not be stifled before trial; when there is a prima- facie case for going for trial. (17)

Mohd. Aqil vs State 1988 Crl. LJ 1484 ref.

Hafizur Rahman, Advocate-For the Accused Petitioner.

Ashif Hasan, Advocate-For the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC)

Sakila Rowshan. DAG with Sharmina Haque. AAG and Md Shorwardhi, AAG-For the State-Opposite Party.

Judgment

Syed Md Ziaul Karim J : By this Rule, accused-petitioner has challenged the legality and propriety of the Order dated 9-8-2003 passed by learned senior Special Judge, Madaripur, in Special Case No. 19 of 2003 framing charge under Sections 406, 420, 467, 468, 471, 109 of the Penal Code and Section 5(2) of Act II of 1947.

2. Facts in brief are that on 24-6-1997 Md Syed Ali, District Anti-Corruption Officer, Madaripur lodged a first information report with the Shibchar Police Station against the accused petitioner and another namely Md Ohidujjaman Khan alleging that accused petitioner in capacity of a Superintendent of a Madrasa since January 1991 to December, 1991 misappropriated Taka 17,580 showing false disbursement of salaries of two teachers by creating their forged appointment. Thereby they conjointly committed the offences under Sections 406, 420, 467, 468, 471,109 of the Penal Code and Section 5(2) of Act-II of S 1947. The case was recorded as Shibchar PS Case No. 23 dated 24-6-1997 corresponding to GR No. 424 of 1997.

3. District Anti-Corruption Bureau investigated the case. After investigation submitted final report in favour of the accused.

4. On receipt of the Police report the learned Magistrate referred the case record to the senior Special Judge, Madaripur for trial.

5. On receipt of the case record the learned Senior Special Judge, ultimately by the order dated 7-1-2003 rejected the Police report and took cognizance of the offences under Sections 406, 420, 467, 468, 471, 109 of the Penal Code and Section 5(2) of the Act II of 1947 against the accused.

6. Eventually, the learned Judge by the impugned order dated 9-8-2003 framed charge under the aforesaid sections by rejecting the application for discharge filed under Section 241 A of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

7. Feeling aggrieved the petitioner preferred the instant Revision and obtained the present Rule.

8. The learned Advocate appearing for the accused-petitioner submits that the petitioner was a public servant at the relevant time. So to prosecute him sanction for prosecution is necessary but the learned Judge without considering such aspect framed charge and constituted the proceedings against him which is not only illegal but caused serious miscarriage of justice.

9. The learned Advocate appearing on behalf of the Anti Corruption Commission and the learned Deputy Attorney-General appearing for the State-opposite party oppose the Rule. Their common contentions are that although the sanction is required but the Court has ample authority to obtain the same within the period of trial. They lastly submit that other grounds taken in the petition of revision are the subject-matter of evidence that should be decided at the time of trial.

10. In order to appreciate their submissions we have gone through the record and given our anxious consideration to their submissions.

11. We should bear in mind, credibility of testimony oral and circumstantial, depends considerably on a judicial evaluation of the totality, not isolated scrutiny. When dealing with the serious question of guilt or innocence of persons charged with crime, the following principles should be taken into consideration.

a) The onus of proving everything essential to the establishment of the charge against the accused lies on the prosecutor.

b) The evidence must be such asto exclude to a moral certainty every reasonable doubt of the guilt of the accused.

c) In matters of doubt it is safer to acquit than to condemn, for it is better that several guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person suffer.

d) There must be clear and unequivocal proof of the corpus delicit.

e) The hypothesis of delinquency should be consistent with all the facts proved.

12. Inspite of the presumption of truth attached to oral evidence under oath if the Court is not satisfied, the evidence inspite of no avail.

13. A "Charge" corresponds to an "indictment" in English Law and is very much more than a mere form. It is a precise formulation of specific accusation made against a person. Charge has to be framed on the basis of the material placed before the Trial Court and while doing so the Court is not bound by the inquiry report submitted under section 202 of the Code of Criminal Procedure or in a Police challan case by the report submitted under Section 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

14. A charge is an important step in a criminal proceeding. It separates the inquiry stage from trial. The whole object of framing a charge is to enable the defence to concentrate its attention on the case that he has to meet, and if charge is framed in such a vague manner that the necessary ingredients of the offence with which the accused is convicted are not brought out in the charge, then the charge is defective. The framing of a proper charge is vital to a criminal trial and this is a matter on which the Magistrate or Judge should bestow the most careful attention.

A charge should be carefully drawn up in accordance with the offence disclosed. The charge should be precise in its scope and particular in its details. A charge is defined as a precise formulation of the specific accusation made against a person who is entitled to know its nature at the very earliest stage. The necessity of a system of written accusation specifying a definite criminal offence is the essence of criminal procedure.

15. The chargesheet to which the accused is called upon to plead is a very important document. It should be drawn up and considered with extreme care and caution, so that accused may have no doubt whatever as to the offences to which he is called upon to answer and the Judge of the Appellate Court also may have no doubt upon the matter. The word 'Ground' means basis, foundation or valid reason.

The whole object of framing a charge is to enable the defence to concentrate its attention on the case that he has to meet. Conditions for framing of a charge are (i) presumption of the commission of an offence on the materials before the Court and (ii) offences triable exclusively by a competent Court.

16. In the case of Mohd. Aqil vs State 1988 Crl. LJ 1484 held:

"Framing of charge- Matters to be considered by Court indicated.

For the purpose of framing a charge the Court is required to consider judicially asto whether on consideration of the materials on record, it can be said that the accused has reasonably connected himself with the offence alleged to have been committed and that on the basis of the said material there is reasonable probability or chance of the accused being found guilty of the offence alleged.

If the answer is in the affirmative, the Court will be at liberty to presume "that the accused has committed the offence" as mentioned in Section 228 for the purpose of framing the charge. In finding out a prima-facie case not only the FIR or complaint but even the statements of the witnesses recorded under Section 161 although the same may have been recorded after some delay during the investigation of the case are to be taken into consideration and if from all other material, a prima facie case is made out against the accused then the Magistrate has no option but to frame a charge against the accused.

The Court is not expected to make a roving enquiry in the pros and cons of the matter and weigh the evidence as if he was conducting a trial. However, in a case, if two views are possible and the Judge is satisfied that evidence produced before him while giving rise to some suspicion does not give rise to grave suspicion against the accused. He will be fully within his right to discharge the accused."

17. On going to the materials on record it transpires that the informant categorically narrated the manner of crime committed by the accused. The learned Judge after considering the entire materials on record rightly framed charge under sections 406, 420, 467, 468, 471, 109 of the Penal Code and Section 5(2) of the Act II of 1947 against the accused. All that is required at the stage of framing charge is to see whether the prima-facie case regarding commission of certain offence is made out.

The truth veracity and effect of evidence which prosecution proposes to adduce at the time is not to be meticulously judged at the stage of framing charge. In the instant case the accused stand indicted for offence punishable under Sections 406, 420, 467, 468, 471, 109 of the Penal Code and Section 5(2) of the Act II of 1947.

Cognizance has been taken under the said sections. We have meticulously examined the allegations made by the informant and in Police report we find that the offence punishable under Sections 406, 420,467,468,471, 109 of the Penal Code and Section 5(2) of Act II of 1947 have been clearly disclosed in the instant case against the petitioner. We have gone through the grounds taken in the petition of Revision and we find that such grounds are absolutely the disputed question of facts and the same should be decided at trial.

The plea of the petitioner are nothing but the defence plea. Be that as it may the proposition of law is now well settled that on the basis of defence plea or materials the criminal proceedings should not be stifled before trial; when there is a prima-facie case for going for trial.

In view of such facts the grounds taken in the petition of Revision are not the correct exposition of law. Moreso interruption of the course of Justice will set up a wrong precedent by which the course of justice instead of being advanced readily been stifled inasmuchas the grounds advanced before us are not correct or legal exposition of law.

Therefore we hold that there are sufficient grounds for proceeding against the petitioner for going for trial under Sections 406, 420, 467, 468, 471, 109 of the Penal Code and Section 5(2) of Act II of 1947. To that end in view we are at one with the learned Judge of the Court below regarding framing of charge against the petitioner. In view of the above we failed to discover any merit in this Rule. Thus the Rule having no merit fails.

18. In view of foregoing narrative the Rule is discharged. The order or stay granted earlier stands vacated.

Office is directed to communicate the order at once.


Politics of violence and impunity created a climate of easy crime

CENTERING marital dispute a father and his daughter were killed in the city's Badda locality after 12 hours into the murder of a mother and her son in another incident in Kakrail area of the metropolis. Media is flooded every day with news on murder, kidnapping and such other deaths from human brutalities mainly resulting from family quarrels, disputes on property with neighbours and factional contest among ruling party men for control of business in respective localities.

The killing of the father and daughter at Badda has taken place reportedly as a sequel of illicit relation of the wife of the victim with another man. This is horrendous that can't be allowed to happen. But anti-socials are taking advantage of their access to a family and carrying out such killing. Police said they have nabbed the woman who was having extra-marital relations with the man and her mate from Khulna by tracking their mobile phones. The woman and her lover strangulated the man and his 9-year old girl causing them instant death in their family quarter.

The dual murder in Kakrail also centered on family dispute where the prime accused killed his first wife and their 17-year old son. It appears quarrels within family with unhappy marital life and growing intolerance are causing havoc in family ties and the two murder cases are just few examples of how hundreds of such unhappy families are falling victims to such quarrels and a major part of it relates to extra-marital affairs.

In one case the victim's wife, also prime accused, told police that four unknown people stormed their house and killed her husband and daughter. But police believe she is giving inconsistent information and she might have a role in the double murder in Badda. Meanwhile, in the Kakrail case police recovered the bodies of the woman and her teenage son from their Kakrail residence on Wednesday evening. Following the murder, law enforcers took a man, his 3rd wife and two others for interrogation. The victim's brother says the man has induced his brother to marry a film actress who has killed his sister-in-law as she was insisting to transfer the property to her name.

Those who blame the breakdown of social fabric should go deep into the crisis to understand that it is the politics of violence and impunity that is responsible to commit easy crime. Police are busy in providing protections to the government politically and they have no time to act as a force of preventing crime. The more crimes, the more police cases are good for corruption among police and in the judiciary.
Myanmar jokes about its own cruelty but has sown seeds of dividing the country

At long last, Myanmar's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi has made her first visit to the conflict-battered northern state of Rakhine. Not to mention, she has appeared rather sarcastic in choosing the time. Not only the Rakhine State is nearly empty but with more than 200 villages burnt to ashes. The question that came to anybody's mind is: Did she go to see how completely the brutal task was done by the Myanmar army?

Accompanied by about 20 people travelling in two military helicopters - including army, police and state officials - Aung San Suu Kyi met the remaining Rohingyas. According to a globally renowned international media and a Rohingya spokesperson she only said three things to the members of the persecuted minority, which are - they should live peacefully, the government is there to help them, and they should not quarrel among each other.

After massacre and expulsion of the Rohingyas from their own Rakhine State, Suu Kyi's advice explained that she is not the leader, the world thought her to be. She spoke like a school teacher at a children's class.

Suu Kyi did not say anything about taking back the Rohingyas who are still alive but living in miseries in camps of Bangladesh as displaced persons. Taking back the Rohingyas only to be butchered would not be allowed. Safety of the Rohingyas from the militaries in Myanmar has to be guaranteed. There comes the question of freeing Rakhine from the occupation of Myanmar.

Myanmar government on Wednesday accused Bangladesh of delaying the repatriation of Rohingya Muslims who have fled Rakhine State since August. Myanmar has been practically carrying savagery on its own people, but making jokes about the peaceful intentions of Bangladesh government for settlement of the crisis Myanmar created for Bangladesh. Yet, Bangladesh is not ready to see how indignantly Myanmar is treating it. Bangladesh government has no determination of gathering coalition for a powerful response against Myanmar's military action.

We cannot dispel the belief that the Myanmar government is showing no sign of settling the Rohingya crisis peacefully in discussion with Bangladesh.

What the short-sighted leadership in Myanmar cannot see is that through the present hatred shown towards and butchery committed against Rohingyas, the seeds of dividing Myanmar have been sown.

Rakhine was an independent country of Rohingyas so the only reasonable and secured settlement will be to allow Rakhine to be free as before.
Mourinho says Spanish tax fraud case is closed

BBC Online :

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has said a Spanish tax fraud case relating to his time in charge of Real Madrid is closed.

He emerged after a brief hearing at a court in the Spanish capital Madrid to say he had paid a fee to settle accusations.

He had been accused of owing nearly 3.3m (2.9m, $3.8m) in undeclared image rights revenue.

The hearing came two days before a Manchester United game against Chelsea.

The Spanish authorities began the image rights case against Mr Mourinho in June.

"I left Spain in 2013 with the information and the conviction that my tax situation was perfectly legal," Mr Mourinho said after Friday's hearing.

"A couple of years later I was informed that an investigation had been opened and I was told that in order to regularise my situation I had to pay X amount of money.

"I did not answer, I did not argue. I paid and signed with the state that I am in compliance and the case is closed."

Mr Mourinho's representatives, Gestifute Media, said earlier that he had paid more than 26m in tax at an average rate of more than 41% while living in Spain from June 2010 until May 2013.

In 2015, Gestifute said, he accepted a settlement agreement regarding previous years.
Bodies of teenage girl, youth recovered from Buriganga

UNB, Dhaka :

The bodies of a teenage girl and a youth, who went missing after jumping off first Buriganga Bridge in South Keraniganj on Wednesday, were recovered from Buriganga river on Friday morning.

Locals spotted two floating bodies in Hasnabad Trawler ghat area, the east side of Postgola Bridge, in the morning and informed police, said Sub Inspector Rabiul Haq of Hasnabad River Police camp.

Later, police recovered the bodies of Emon, 20, son of Sultan of Sayedabad area and Anika, 18, daughter of Md Ohid Molla of

Jatrabari area around 9am. They might have committed suicide out of frustration or anger, he said. The bodies will be handed over to family members without autopsy as per their request, the police official said.
DU Senate poll schedule announced

Staff Reporter :

Dhaka University (DU) on Thursday announced election schedule for electing 25 registered graduate representatives.

The election will be held on January 6, 13, and 20 2018 respectively in three centers of Dhaka and 42 centers outside Dhaka.

The Registrar Office of DU issued a press release in this regard and asked the registered graduates of the University for collecting nomination papers from November 6 to 20 2017 at Administration Building Room No 207 by paying Tk 100.

A candidate can submit nomination papers to the Registrar on 20 November latest at 4pm and can withdraw application by submitting a written letter on 29 November 2017 latest at 1pm.

Every voter will be sent a voter ID Card from the University and voters can cast their votes by showing their cards to the polling officer of the voting center.

The voters can collect their ID Cards from 15 November to 7 December from Administration Building Room No 214 being physically present.

The total four part voter list can be collected by on payment of Tk 6,500 from the Administration Building Room No 207. On January 21 2018, results will be published.


Patients suffer from brokers at DNMIH

Reza Mahmud :

Patients, mostly the poor female and ignorant, suffer from brokers' unnecessary interference at the Dhaka National Medical Institute Hospital (DNMIH).

It is alleged that the brokers exploit the situation by extorting money from the patients and their attendants promising to get them admitted and other health services in the hospital in return.

Yet patients, particularly the poor patients from Sadarghat, Banglabazar, Johnson Road, Laxmibazar, Tantibazar, Shakharibazar and other side of the river Buriganga come up this hospital because of its comparatively lesser costs.

According to witnesses, as most of the female and ignorant patients of these areas move towards this hospital, the brokers take it as an opportunity to make money.

"I came here on Thursday from Chunkutiya, on the other side of the river Buriganga, with my sick baby daughter for treatment. When I asked a man at the main gate of the hospital where could I get doctor, he demanded Tk 500 for visiting a doctor. After bargaining, I gave him Tk 200, and he went away asking me to wait there.

But finally he did not return," said Shila Rani Das.

Shila Rani said that she finally found the ticket counter and the doctor.

An official from ticket counter preferring anonymity said, "Yes, there are some brokers here. But their activities are now very limited. Most of their activities are now under control, as the hospital authorities have installed some close circuit cameras here."

But the victims differed with the statement of the official, saying brokers are still active on the hospital premises. Virtually they control everything here.

One of them also alleged that officials at the reception desk are very indifferent with the patients.

"Some of them are not helpful. Whenever any patient or his attendant asks for any information about doctors, nurses or services, they ignore. If you then ask repeatedly, they show anger. Thus the brokers are getting chance to deceive the patients," said an attendant of a patients in the hospital.

In contrast, some patients have praised the hospital saying that the environment has improved nowadays.

"I have seen in the past a lot of cockroaches in the hospital beds, even beside the foods of the patients. But now the environment is getting better. Cockroaches are now very few. The cleaners wash the floors several times a day," said Abdullah, a patient and nearby resident.

Atique Hasan, another nearby resident of the hospital, said they love the hospital most, as an old health institute in the area.

According to officials, Dhaka National Medical Institute Hospital was established in 1925. A rule was issued by the government for the DNMIH that a Management Board would be formed henceforth for every three years of its proper administration.

The government also granted a yearly financial allotment for the hospital according to the need assessed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The annual initial financial grant for the hospital was Tk Two crore. But now it has been raised to Tk. 5.50 crore. When contacted, Dr. Captain (Retd.) M.A Salam, Director of the Hospital, said, "Miscreants and brokers cannot do their misdeeds easily as in the past. Nowadays they are captured by our close circuit cameras."

He said, "Some days ago a miscreant stole a mobile phone set from a woman in the hospital. Our staff caught him after watching the misdeeds through the CC TV footage."

The Director said, "The 650-bed hospital offers a full range of clinical services and is supported by a team of highly qualified consultants and skilful technical staff."


Jail Killing Day observed

In observance of the Jail Killing Day, Awami League leaders paid tribute to four slain national leaders placing floral wreaths in front of their sculptures inside the now defunct Dhaka Central Jail on Friday.

UNB, Dhaka :

The nation observed the Jail Killing Day on Friday with due solemnity commemorating the 1975 killing of four national leaders inside Dhaka Central Jail.

On November 3, 1975, the four national leaders and heroes of the country's Liberation War-Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmad, Captain Mansur Ali and AHM Quamruzzaman-were assassinated inside the Dhaka Central Jail.

The four leaders had played a key role in forming the Mujibnagar government in exile that led the

Liberation War of 1971 with Syed Nazrul Islam as the acting president, Tajuddin Ahmad as the prime minister, Mansur Ali as the finance minister and AHM Qamruzzaman as the home, relief and rehabilitation minister.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina paid tributes to Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the four national leaders on the occasion.

On behalf of the Prime Minister, Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu, Agriculture Minister Begum Matia Chowdhury and Health Minister Mohammad Nasim placed a wreath at the portrait of Bangabandhu at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Memorial Museum at Dhanmondi-32 in the morning.

Awami League General Secretary and Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader and senior leaders placed another wreath at the portrait on behalf of Awami League President Sheikh Hasina.

Ruling Awami League, its associate bodies and other political parties also observed the day with various programmes.

The programmes include hoisting of national flag half-mast, hoisting of party flags, wearing black badges, offering fateha at the graves of the four leaders at Banani graveyard.
Basic needs must for new arrivals:IOM

Special Correspondent :

The International Organization for Migration [IOM] in its latest report has said that the new Rohingya arrivals are living in spontaneous settlements with increasing need of humanitarian assistance, including shelter, food, clean water, and sanitation.

Poor road networks and insufficient drainage in the displacement sites make it difficult to reach new arrivals with urgent support while an estimated 607,000 Rohingya have crossed into Bangladesh fleeing violence

in Myanmar's Rakhine State since 25 August.

As displacement continues, the humanitarian and protection needs of the Rohingya also rise. IOM and the humanitarian community are scaling up operations to respond to the needs of new arrivals, existing Rohingya, and affected host communities.

The IOM report released on Friday said new development will improve access across Balukhali and through to Taknaf improving humanitarian response. Site Management in Balukhali is mapping available land, community leadership, and services available to the Rohingya.

It said that on an average 500 Rohingya are using the Emergency Information Services per day. IOM's Needs and Population Monitoring assessment has tracked the movement of new arrivals where water, hygiene, and sanitation support is critically needed during the response.

IOM responds to the emergency and primary healthcare needs of the Rohingya and the affected host communities. IOM health teams have provided emergency and primary healthcare services to 61,000 patients and continue to provide emergency health services to new Rohingya arrivals.

The team has set up child delivery facilities and a patient stabilization unit in Kutupalong. IOM continues to assess and integrate new healthcare services based on the needs of the Rohingya refugees.

Women and Children remain most at risk and require specialist care and attention. IOM is responding to Gender Based Violence (GBV) and Counter Trafficking (CT).

The IOM Safe Space in Balukhali is complete and the IOM team is working to construct and fully equip safe spaces in Leda, Kutupalong, and Shamlapur. They are also ensuring that vulnerable Rohingya refugees have access to the protection services they require.

Since 25 August IOM is supporting over 38,000 vulnerable individuals including having provided over 2,000 people with psychological first aid (PFA), referred 1,000 people to health services for specialist care services and providing 2,100 dignity kits and 3,000 solar lanterns distributed to vulnerable women.

The Inter Sector Coordination Group (ISCG), hosted by IOM, is coordinating the Rohingya Refugee Crisis. Since 25 August, ISCG disseminates regular situation updates and key messages, organizes coordination meetings, and develops and updates maps of the expansion areas and spontaneous settlements. The ISCG ensures timely, coordinated, needs-based, and evidence driven humanitarian assistance for efficient use of resources and to avoid duplication. ISCG produces regular Situation Reports and 4W maps and data of sectors' operations.

A total of 741,000 litres of water have been trucked into spontaneous settlements with limited access to water to support SPHERE standards. Over 35,000 individuals have received hygiene kit distributions. 800 emergency latrines have been constructed and 100 mobile toilets have been installed to date which has supported 40,000 individuals. Fourteen deep tube wells have been completed.

To date, IOM has distributed 102,000 tarpaulins which have benefitted 461,000 new arrivals. 32,000 individuals have also received NFI distributions. To facilitate the procurement, storage and distribution of shelter materials for the Rohingya Crisis Response, IOM has set up a new logistics base with available space and also four more planned.
UNHCR for political solutions to conflicts

UNB, Dhaka :

Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, has urged international leaders to find political solutions to the world's conflicts if the swelling numbers of forcibly displaced people are ever to return home.

In a speech to the UN Security Council in New York on Thursday, Grandi said a succession of major new crises had caused massive displacement across virtually all regions of the globe.

In particular, security and the establishment of human rights and the rule of law will be essential to the return of Rohingya refugees to Rakhine State in Myanmar. "Progress on citizenship for the stateless Rohingyas is absolutely crucial, as will be community reconciliation, and investment in inclusive development benefiting all communities," added Grandi.

"The number of people forcibly displaced worldwide is now approaching 66 million - up from 42 million in 2009," he said. "This includes 17.2 million refugees under UNHCR's responsibility - a 70 percent increase since then."

The UNHCR chief added: "Securing solutions for the millions of people uprooted around the world, and avoiding a repeat of the massive

outflows that have taken place over recent years, ultimately rests on political solutions."

Grandi cited several ongoing crises, including the "cataclysmic conflict" in Syria and the violence in Iraq, which together accounted for a quarter of all those forcibly displaced.

But new crises had developed, he said, with many unfolding "in ungoverned spaces, driven by varying combinations of poverty and underdevelopment, environmental degradation, inequality and persecution."

At the same time, situations that appeared to have stabilised, such as those in Burundi, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, had been affected by new crises triggering new refugee outflows; while protracted situations - as in Afghanistan and Somalia - remained entrenched, according to a message received from New York.

Grandi outlined several action points for members of the Security Council. First, they needed to support preventative measures "to address the causes of conflict and avoid deepening displacement crises".

He also praised the vital work of UN peacekeepers in enabling humanitarian work, saying that humanitarian actors and peacekeepers should draw on their diverse strengths to help protect civilians affected by conflict, while at the same time preserving the neutral, impartial character of humanitarian action. Thirdly, the international community needed to build on its work fighting people trafficking and the "horrific abuses perpetrated by traffickers", the UNHCR head declared.

Although the Refugee Agency was working on the ground to assist the victims of people trafficking and support those in need of international protection, Grandi said resolute action was required "to tackle the horrific abuses perpetrated by traffickers and identify and prosecute them."

Without the restoration of peace and security, Grandi said, it would be impossible for refugees and other displaced persons to return home. "Only 500,000 refugees worldwide returned home last year. And very few displacement situations in the last decade have been brought to a definitive conclusion," he said. Lastly, Grandi said it was vital to sustain the protection of displaced people while solutions to conflict were pursued, both within affected countries as they work towards greater stability, and in host communities trying to support large numbers of refugees.

Weaknesses in international solidarity were also eroding refugee protection, he added.


Reputation hit rock bottom

Farmers, NRBC Bank launch face-lift campaign

Kazi Zahidul Hasan :

Scam-hit Farmers Bank and NRBC Bank have launched an advertisement campaign in an effort to repair their damaged reputation.

Reputation of the banks hit rock bottom following discovery of their large loan scandals and corruption by the central bank.

The campaign begins on Thursday through print media, focusing their activities, financial state, rating and products and services.

"The new campaign has launched to re-build clients' trust," a NRBC Bank official told The New Nation yesterday, seeking anonymity.

He said the bank had no choice, but to invest in public outreach campaign when its reputation hit rock bottom as a result of financial scandals.

When asked, he said, "Definitely it will increase our spending

and put us into further financial stress".

"If they do spend, they may be accused of wasting money," "But if they don't spend, they will be accused of not doing everything to regain customers confidence."

Recently, a parliamentary body had asked Bangladesh Bank (BB) to investigate the loan scandals and corruption in the Farmers and the NRBC Banks further in order to ensure exemplary punishment to those who masterminded the crime.

The parliamentary standing committee on finance recommended also that the two banks should be rescued from bankruptcy and measures for restoring stakeholders' confidence.

The Farmers Bank Limited, owned by former minister Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, has created a systematic risk' for Bangladesh's entire financial sector due to large loan scandal and corruption, the Bank and Financial Institutions Division (BFID) says in a report.

The report on NRBC Bank it says the bank made minutes of meeting of its board by forging signature of absentee directors.

It lent money to an organisation related to Mercantile Bank Chairman AKM Shaheed Reza in breach of banking rules.

The other allegations against the bank include irregularities in drawing capital during formation, selling shares to people staying in Bangladesh instead of Non-Residential Bangladeshis (NRBs), and disbursing loans violating rules.

The bank's Managing Director Dewan Mujibur Rahman and other directors were involved in the irregularities, the report says.

"We go for the ad campaign to regain clients' trust, confidence and satisfaction afresh. We hope this campaign will attract greater attention from clients," an official of Farmers Bank told The New Nation yesterday.

He said that damaged reputations could be repaired. There're numerous examples of companies bouncing back from the doldrums after launching such campaigns.

"Though the campaign is expensive, we have to follow the strategy to rebuild clients' confidence and trust," he added.
US lawmakers target Myanmar military with new sanctions

Reuters :

US lawmakers proposed targeted sanctions and travel restrictions on Myanmar military officials on Thursday over the treatment of the country's Rohingya Muslim minority, one of the strongest efforts yet for Washington to intervene in the humanitarian crisis.

Introduced the day before Republican Donald Trump leaves on his first trip to Asia as president, the legislation would re-impose some sanctions lifted last year as Myanmar returned to democracy. The legislation would also bar the United States from supplying most assistance to the country's military until perpetrators of atrocities against the Rohingya are held accountable. The measure does not target Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, head of Myanmar's civilian-led government and a Nobel peace laureate who still enjoys strong support among some US officials. But congressional aides said it is intended to underscore a strong desire among many members of Congress for her to do more to help the Rohingya.

The legislation is sponsored by lawmakers including the Republican Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain,

and Senator Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"This bill will allow Congress to strengthen the president's hand by making it clear to Burmese officials that there will be consequences for their crimes against humanity," Cardin said in a statement.

Among other things, it re-imposes a ban on jade and rubies from Myanmar and requires a report on which individuals should be subjected to sanctions, and instructs the US Treasury Department not to support international financial assistance programs that partner with enterprises owned by the Myanmar military.

A companion bill is also being introduced in the House of Representatives. That measure is also bipartisan, led by Representative Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Republican Representative Steve Chabot, another foreign affairs panel member. Members of Congress have been clamouring for a strong response to the plight of the Rohingya, and the Trump administration has been weighing labelling their treatment "ethnic cleansing." The State Department announced on Thursday that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would accompany Trump on his trip to Asia, and also stop in Myanmar.

More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Rakhine state in Buddhist-majority Myanmar since security forces responded to Rohingya militants' attacks in August with a crackdown that has included reports of burnt villages and widespread killings. The United Nations has denounced it as a classic example of ethnic cleansing.


UNESCO recognition well-deserving for the power of oration

Editorial Desk :

The UNESCO's recognition of 7th March speech of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as a world documentary heritage is a welcome news for Bangladesh. Our foreign ministry, embassy men and others from our country have long been trying to persuade UNESCO members for the honour.

The speech has been included in the Memory of the World International Register -- a list of world's famous documentary heritage maintained by UNESCO that includes speeches by renowned world leaders and such other important documents of historic value for generations to come.

His 7th March speech as it was a rare political oration and thunderous in voice before a mammoth public meeting at Suhrawardy Uddyan will go down as sending forth a powerfully motivating message for popular uprising for freedom and emancipation.

This speech was delivered in a hopeless angry situation of not getting his plan for autonomy through the elected parliament. The West Pakistan leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was obstructing convening of the elected parliament.

Such recognition by UNESCO to be included in the Memory of the World Heritage Documentaries confirms the quality of delivery of the oration and nobody will disagree that Bangabandhu was not the most fiery orator for arousing the people for the cause of independence of Bangladeshis.

His call that "Ebarer sangram amader muktir sangram, ebarer sangram swadhinatar sangram" [The struggle this time is a struggle for emancipation] is a forceful call to make people ready for extreme sacrifice for the struggle to enjoy freedom and liberty.

The speech has been judged independently from any other considerations and purely for its own power to impact on the people for historic developments. In that sense the whole credit for the honour of recognition as a world heritage document must go to Bangabandhu for his astonishing force of oration and quality of deliberation.


Pressure on till Rohingya crisis solved

Special Correspondent :

US acting Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Simon Henshaw has assured that his country will keep continuing pressure on the Myanmar government to take back its displaced Rohingya nationals from Bangladesh.

"There will be more pressure until a fruitful solution over the Rohingya crisis. We're [US] staying beside Bangladesh and we'll stay beside Bangladesh in the future too," the US Secretary said on Friday after visiting Rohingya camp at Kutupalong of Ukhiya upazila in Cox's Bazar.

Led by Simon Henshaw, the 22-member US delegation also included Deputy Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour Scott Busby, acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Tom Vajda and Director of the Office of Mainland Asia Patricia Mahoney, along with US Ambassador to Bangladesh Marcia Bernicat.

During the visit, the US officials talked to the Rohingyas staying in the camp. Besides, they visited different schools established by International Organization for Migration and passed sometime with the displaced Rohingya children..

Our Cox's Bazar Correspondent said Secretary Henshaw highly appreciated Bangladesh's effort for giving temporarily shelter to around 700,000 forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals.

"Bangladesh has created an example in the world by showing its courage giving shelter to thousands of displaced Rohingyas. Besides, Bangladesh has also responded extremely well to this unprecedented humanitarian crisis," he said.

Officials said the US delegation is also set to visit Myanmar where they will hold meetings with high government officials, diplomats, UN and NGO officials to get a solution over the ongoing Rohingya crisis.

The US team will seek permission from Myanmar authorities for allowing entrance of journalists and relief workers in Rakhine state. Besides, safe and honorable repatriation of Rohingyas will be in the agenda of their meetings, officials asid.

Earlier on Wednesday, the US delegation called on Bangladesh State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam at his office in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Shahriar expressed sincere gratitude for the strong political as well as humanitarian support of the US government on the Rohingya crisis during meeting with the US delegates.

At that time, the State Minister also highlighted the five-point proposal given by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly in September and requested for the continuation of US support in this regard.

The US Secretary assured the State Minister of support from the US government, both financial and diplomatic, for the safe, sustainable and dignified repatriation of the Rohingya refugees. Both the sides agreed to continue pressure on the Myanmar government in this regard.


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.
Looking for the vulture assist with Neolithic burials

2 years ago
1.

Last week, Greeks and people of Greek descent around the world commemorated the events of October 28, 1940, a day not remembered as a revolution or victory, but a day of saying noliterally. Called Oxi Day, the holiday memorializes the fateful moment when Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas curtly said No to Mussolinis plans to invade Greece.

In saying no, Metaxas sent his country to war with Fascist Italy, whose army underestimated the tiny but furious Greek military. The Greeks, exhaustion and embittered by recent defeat, rallied and soon astounded the world and routed the Italians back to Albaniaa blow that dealt the Axis its first defeat of World War II. Astonished and inspired, the Allied leaders poured forth encomiums on the Greeks, with Winston Churchill famously saying that henceforth, We will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks!

Fiercely proud of this day (and of Churchills quote in particular), Greeks around the world hold parades and other formal events. For the first time, this year in Athens an Afghan immigrant was supposed to carry the flag at the front of the Athenian paradea symbol of the sea change to Greek demography after years of global instability and subsequent waves of migration. However, at the last minute, he was asked to carry the schools sign, rather than the flag, and most recently, there have been reports that his home was attacked. What should have been a cause to celebrate the Greekest of Greek thingsof voyaging out and coming back and going againhas now become an occasion to examine the way the borders of Greekness are violently policed.

Since antiquity, cultures upon cultures have passed through the sieve of Greece, which subsumed them all under a mantel of Hellene thats come to mean so many different things in its three millennia of history. That sieving has never really stopped, certainly not in the last 40 years when Greece became firmly European and, thus, a destination for migrants from Africa, the other Balkan states, and now the Middle East (and Turkey and China, mostly on golden visas). At the same time, ethnic Greeks have left the country in droves, often unwillingly, to find work.

From this perspective, it seems appropriate that this young Afghan boy should be at the helm of the Oxi Day parade. Yet it was bound to be a flashpoint from the beginning: for decades, Greek nationalists like the fascist Golden Dawn party have fumed at non-Greeks carrying the blue-and-white, such as when an Albanian student was given the honor, on account of being top of the class. For these fascists, but also for other Greeks who cling to a unitary, essential Greekness, it is unconscionable that a non-Greek would carry the flag on this Greekest of days. After all, Oxi Day was a triumph of Greekness, as Churchill said.

In saying so, Churchill inadvertently apprehends a paranoia, a simultaneous pride and shame, a yearning placelessness, a paradox that haunts global Greekness, and that perhaps come into focus in the modern mythmaking of Oxi Day. In the literature of the Greek diaspora, particularly the Greek-American diaspora, these forces come into being clearly, and corroborate much of my own experience.

2.

As a queer third-generation Greek-American, Ive lately felt particularly under the assault of oxi. For one, Australias gay marriage plebiscite has dredged up the deeply held but discreet homophobia of some people in the diaspora, a significant portion of which has ties to Australia. That silt thickens the already sludgy waters Ive waded through my whole life, and, most recently, when I turned to my ancestral Orthodox church for aid in the aftermath of abuse, despite its apathy (or in Russia, outright aggression) toward anyone who isnt cisgendered and straight. Last month, this apathy became antipathy in Greece when the progressive government simplified the process for trans people to change their legal genders.

This double marginalization puts me beyond an Albanian front of identity politics, where Im quartered with ever more people who are pushed out by the oxi of an essential Greekness. It adds to the experience of being extraneous that I had growing up. I didnt have the stereotypical Greek-American childhoodthe one that comes with supplemental Greek language school, Greek vacations each summer, and spit-roasted lamb spinning in my backyard on Easter Sundays. So when I went to college (one I picked deliberately because of its Modern Greek language program), I committed myself to making up for lost time, and I immediately joined the Greek American Students Association, intent on acquiring the Greekness I didnt really grow up with

To mark my debut, I signed up to celebrate Oxi Day with all of the other Greek-Americans, most of whom were, unlike me, the full-blooded, fluent-speaking financiers- and physicians-in-the-making that comprise much of the third and fourth generation Greek diaspora. Together, we painted a mural of the Greek flag on the off-campus wall designated for things like that, embellishing it with quotes and taking selfies while the older students and off-the-boat Greeks chatted in fluent Greek I couldnt understand. No matter to us that other eager student groups would paint over this mural by the next day, at the latest. What we were doing nevertheless had the weight of a sacrament, of summoning up and solemnly honoring Greekness itself.

3.

This essentialisma belief in something like a Platonic form of Greeknessinflects all the received wisdom about who and what is considered Greek. Oxi Day, in particular, operationalizes this idea by turning Metaxass rejection of Italy into an outstanding example of an essential Greek spiritone fatally devoted to the fatherland and to the cultural heritage it generated.

A deeper look at the metaphor finds that the first cause of Greekness itself is the land  and not just the territory of the modern Greek state, but also the ancestral possessions across western Anatolia, the Black Sea, Alexandria, and even as far north as the Danube. Nostalgia for the artificially, aggressively erased Greek presence in these placesfor example, the city of Smyrna (now Izmir in Turkey)and bitterness at the blunders that led to it ache through Greek Diaspora literature.

The best example of this tendency is Jeffrey Eugenidess Middlesex, in which the Asia Minor Catastrophe is the pretext of the whole story. Calliope/Cal Stephanidess grandparents (brother and sister) are refugees of the disastrous Greek-Turkish War of the early 1920s, which forced them from their ancestral Anatolian village and straight into the Aegean, where they board a ship as the city of Smyrna burns. Throughout the book, Calliope/Cal comes back to this tale and its implications, and at various points, mentions returning to Anatolia to come full circle, but never does.

More specifically, Cal refers to his intersex gene coming full circle, of wanting to get it down for good: this rollercoaster ride of a single gene through time. The synecdoche shows a fundamental split between being a Greek body and being a Greek subjecta symptom of a mythologized essentialism that makes the task of determining ones Greekness into one of making maps (identities) fit onto territories (bodies).

This synecdoche also shows up in some of David Sedariss early work, specifically in the essay, I Like Guys. One summer, he travels with his older sister and a gaggle of other young Greek-Americans to a summer camp on a Greek island for instruction in such topics as folk singing and something called religious prayer and flag.

There, he planned to re-invent himself and perhaps find a girlfriend, putting paid to his emerging gay desire. In reality, he ended up with constipating anxiety, perhaps on account of the performative masculinity of his male roommates, writing he never once had a bowel movement during the month-long trip. He also encounters another emerging queer, Jason, who spites David after a too-close-for-comfort bit of tumbling. Joining forces with the other guys, Jason torments David, and then gets a girlfriend himself, cured.

At the surface, its just a funny story of a backfired first foray into gay adolescent sex, but to a Greek-American reader, its coded in a way that almost perfectly inverts Greek-American tropes. The summer camp young David attends with his sister in Greece is almost undeniably the Ionian Village summer program, which the Greek Orthodox archdiocese administers for Greek-American kids up through age 18. Here, then, is an instance of the Orthodox Churcha de facto steward of ethnic Greeknessprocessing the pubescent bodies of diaspora Greeks into idealized Hellenic youths, fed and watered with Greeces own famous sea and summer light.

If thats its aim, then Ionian Village tends to achieve it, based on what I understand from friends (I never attended). People I know praise it, gushing about how it pulls Greek-American youth together around their shared identity, and I dont doubt it has influenced more than a handful of alumni to marry one another. In Sedariss subversive rewriting of the tale, a queer diaspora Greek body goes to this same place only to awaken an unambiguously homosexual eros that was, prior to the trip, still sealed in the proverbial wine cask like the Aeolian winds. Arriving home, he stares at himself: I like guys. The words had settled themselves into my features.

The question lingers: did the trip arouse what it was intended to suppress? So while the Greek Establishment effectively said oxi to young Davids queer-bodied Greeknessin the form of marginalization, unrequited love, and prolonged constipationat the Ionian Village, in writing his story, he too, says oxi to the Establishment contours of Greekness, writing a new possibility for Greek diaspora identity into discourse.

4.

The ongoing renegotiation of Greekness in these texts plays out in the lived politics of Greekness, too. For most of recorded history, Greek identity was conferred on Greek speakers who lived a Greek way of life, until it became a slur for pagans and pretenders to Roman glory during the 1,000-year era of the Byzantine Empire. After the Fall of Constantinople, it became a collective term for any Christian Ottoman subject. Even in 1923, when the League of Nations brokered the biggest mass population exchange in history between Greece and Turkey, ethnicity was by and large equated with ones religion.

In the almost 100 years since, this reification along linguistic and religious axes left a legacy that still, today, limits the field of Greekness. Ask any diaspora Greek, and youll find that Greekness almost automatically implies an inherited knowledge of the Greek language and initiation into the (Greek) Orthodox Church. In light of this history, Greekness was already a complex category of identity whose interstices were aggressively policed with negations and denialswith oxiwell before the modern Greek state came into being in 1830 (for the first of several times up through 1974).

As the diaspora grows, thanks to the hopefully slowing but still severe brain drain from the neoliberal impact-crater of the Greek economy, its members increasingly come under attack as not Greek enough, even though theyand the support they send back to Greecehave been deemed essential to the economic recovery of the country.

Even within the diaspora itself, its easy to encounter one arbitrator of authentic Greekness or another, someone whos eager to say oxi to your claim to a part of your identity you never asked for, but thats there all the sameone that you might even love. Often these oxis come down to ones mastery of the notoriously difficult and poorly standardized Greek language, to ones number and intensity of immediate family or business connections to Greece, and even to ones genealogical Greekness. Whatever the goalpost may be, it seems to be migrating more often than not.

5.

All the instability and policed permeability of modern Greekness manifest distinctly in Oxi Day. The event thats today celebrated as a shining moment in Greek history starts to break down with a sober look at the facts of what actually happened in 1940. Its true that historians mark the event as the first Allied victory for the war, and credit it with averting the German army from an early attack on Russia. In retrospect, then, its tempting to read Oxi Day as the day a strategic Iphigenia was sacrificed on a Greek altar. However, at the time, Metaxass choice to say no made for a particularly brutal period in Greek history thats still paying dividends.

While the German army was surprised by the Greek resistance (Adolf Hitler later commended the Greeks for putting up the best fight so far), the Germans eventually broke through the Greek front and ultimately established control over the rocky little country. Installing a puppet government in Athens, the Germans instituted a brutal regime of reprisal killings for extortion, and contributing to the loss of 10 percent of the population by the end of the warthe highest of any state in Europe.

In that sense, Metaxass defiant oxi was a Pyrrhic victory, a catastrophic election of principle over expediency whose consequences are still visible in Greek demands for German reparations, which still float to the surface from time to time. Furthermore, it was not the valiant attempt of a good-hearted philosopher-king to shield the embers of democracy from fascism. By most accounts, Metaxas himself was a fascist who admired Mussolinis strong-man politics and who was also an aspirational fuhrer who seized absolute power over Greece through maneuvers more commonly associated with Hitler himself.

Neither was the Greece he ruled at the time a haven of democracy. First of all it was a monarchy, and had been so (off and on) since its liberation a century earlier, when a Bavarian boy-king became the first head of the new Greek state. The monarchy had recently been restored, and in 1940 symbolically ruled through Metaxas over a crippled Greece still reeling from the loss of ancestral Hellenic territory in 1923.

By 1940, it had become a tiny synthetic nation swollen with Anatolian Greeks who spoke different dialects of Greek, and perhaps no Greek at allfar from the golden Hellenic homeland rhapsodized in the mythology of Oxi Day. Whats more is that he never even said oxi on that morning. Speaking in French, he tersely stated, Well, well have a war, and it was only later that outraged citizens began chanting oxi in the streets.

Today, in other streets and other countries, under the essential Greekness thats paraded on Oxi Day there is a complicated, contradictory identity constantly in a state of panic, an ongoing oxi volley between self and other. While these dynamics dont do much in the way of distilling an original, essential Greekness, I do think there is something essential to Oxi Day.

Its not so much an innate Hellenic spirit as it is the mutative mythmaking thats made it possible for people of all kinds to be able to call themselves Greek across the millennia. The details of Oxi Day congeal into a myth that points to something more than memory or fact. By virtue of this power, myth might be the greatest legacy of the Greeks and the most productive of Greek ruses: it motivates the search for truths, essences, Platonic forms of things like Greekness.

Those searches bear material fruit in the form of art and cultural artifacts, like the complex literature of the Greek diaspora, some of whose writers wrestle in their stories with the myth of Greekness, working out an answer on the queer bodies of characters who identify as Greek differently from how they are supposed to. When confronted with the rubric of mythic Greekness, they respond firmly with oxi, opening up space in the sprawling field of Greekness for another new identity.

In doing so, they show how Greeknesss longevity never came from its essence, rather, from its porousness. This seems poignant, and perhaps emblematic: at the site of ancient Delphi, the omphalos, the navel of the world, a wall of oddly shaped polygons, interlocked without any mortar, had endured earthquakes and the erosion of centuries. Almost everything else has been crumbled or carted away to museums, where, for Greeks and non-Greeks alike, they signify the things we used to have, but dont anymore.

Image Credit: Wikipeda
 Mystery man: Without doing any searching, can you guess who this fellow is? Hints: he was born in 1885, and his son was an epochal musician who was virtually synonymous with a particular well-known musical style, deeply venerated in the country of his birth and beloved worldwide. (We've obscured the last name in this JPEG.) For the answer, read on.

 Annoyed at Adobe? What Michael Reichmann called "the Photoshop tax" seems to some people to be getting more onerous. With the latest shift in Lightroom to a CC (Creative Cloud) monthly subscription model, it's not hard to foresee a future in which you're consigned to storing your own archive not on your own hard drive (or not only on your own hard drive), but on the amorphous "cloud." Where, of course, your pictures will be safe in perpetuity, we say sarcastically.

Should you happen to be thinking of jumping ship, Greg Scoblete at PDN Online has a survey of "14 Great Image Editing Programs for Still Photographers." (We've been thinking of switching to Capture One ourselves. Not easy, though: we've been using Photoshop for nearly a quarter of a century*.)

 Next up: Next Friday's "Baker's Dozen" post here at TOP will present 13 smartphone photos submitted by readers. I've already received several hundred entries, and there are many gems. To give you a leg up (but do not send these yet) our next "Call for Work" will be for "a picture taken with a Leica lens." Acceptable will be pictures taken with any Leica-branded lenses, from a classic 1920s collapsible uncoated Elmar, to an early 1.5-MP original Digilux pic, to a Mandler-designed, Solms-built Summicron, to a Panny/Leica, to one of the stupendous Leica S lenses, to an R lens adapted to a Canon DSLR, to a macro shot taken with a reversed Focotar. You may submit JPEGs, or digisnaps of physical prints. Points for creativity! And presentation. And you're welcome to include a portrait of your lens itself, although it's not necessary.

The only other requirement will be to tell us somethingat least one thingabout your lens: its history, or how you got it, or how much you like it, or what other people have said about it, or who designed it, or who used to own it, or anything else interesting and fascinatingnot all those things, just something or other. Again, please do NOT submit these until the call for work appears in the coming week! You'll need to know the subject line for your email or we will certainly lose it in our Brobdingnagian email stack.

 The cavalry to the rescue: Speaking of image processing software, some good news. DxO has purchased the orphaned Nik Collection and is promising to continue to develop it. As you probably remember, Nik was acquired by Google in 2012 because it coveted Snapseed for mobile devices and because it wanted to encourage photographers to use Google+. Later, Google made the rest of the Nik suite available for free, which we all liked, and then discontinued it, which we didn't. Pessimism about Nik's future was justified at that point, so DxO coming to the rescue at this late date, like the cavalry coming over the hill with bugles blaring at the absolute last minute in an old Western, is welcome news. DxO has already integrated U Point into DxO PhotoLab, and will most likely continue to integrate the useful old Nik plugins into its software. (Maybe we should switch to DxO OpticsPro instead of Capture One.)

Sheryl, Christian mom, hates rap, 5 kids

 Doggone: See if you recognize anyone you know in these ten common types. If you really like these, you can follow your nose (and the links) for more (lots more). Ten was enough for us, but they're pretty amusing.

 Die Welt ist seltsam: The picture at the top of this post is a rare surviving photograph of Captain Norval Sinclair Marley, a white British Jamaican of Syrian Jewish heritage. His son, Nesta Robert, had his first and middle names switched around by a passport official who thought "Nesta" was a feminine name, making him Robert Nesta Marley, known the world over as Bob.

Norval Marley, who might or might not have been an actual Captain, was 41 years older than his black Jamaican wife Cedella, Bobs mother, who he married when she was 18. Norval provided for Bob but seldom saw him. He died in 1955 at the age of 70 when Bob was ten years old.

 On the lens frontsortakindathere's a big controversy in the art world about that Leonardo (da Vinci, not DiCaprio) that's scheduled to be auctioned off this month. It's been causing a lot of excitement among people who thrill to the news of large sums of money being spent, because it's the last Leonardo in private hands and is expected to sell for approximately the GNP of a small, impoverished African nation. Paintings of saviors of the world shared something of a mannerism in Renaissance Italy in that the savior was often depicted holding an orb, representing the world He saved; Leonardo's orb, like those of numerous other painters, appears to be glass, but he didn't paint it with the image refracting through it the correct way. That's odd in that Leonardoprototype of "The Renaissance Man"was a famously fastidious observer and also one of the world's leading experts on optics at the time. Leonardo's most recent biographer, the admirable Walter Isaacson, has chimed in on the issue. (As an aside, a book dealer and voracious reader we knew once told us that Walter's biography of Ben Franklin was the best book he had ever read.) We can't know the truth, but the issue is creating a lot of chatter.

 Follow TOP on Twitter! @TheOnlinePhotog. We only bug you very occasionally.

 Lightning fast: Canon Camera has announced a one business day turnaround for equipment repairs for CPS Platinum and Cinema members. (Gold and Silver level members will have to wait a little longer, but not much longer.) In the event your equipment can't be repaired that fast, CPS will send you a loaner until the repair is finished.

CPS, for those who might not know, is Canon Professional Services, the professional support arm of Canon. Not just anyone can join; entry criteria are strict and you must apply and pass muster. But CPS (and NPS) are among the reasons why professionals prefer to go with the big dogs. When a problem arises, you just call Canon's 24/7 professional hotline (the hotlines are based in the same continent you are.) One business day turnaround is said to be the fastest ever guaranteed to professional customers.

 Unsettling: The always delightful cartoon xkcd, one of cartoon-maven Ctein's favorites, weighs in on the lifespan of digital assets. We dasn't pilfer it to reproduce here, lest lawyers be unleashed on us, but you should see it. Will today's equivalent of that tattered old carte up top of Ziggy's granddad survive?

UPDATE: Not only does xkcd not send lawyers to hunt you, they encourage bloggers to embed the cartoons. Here you go.

 Sony Q: Dan Watson at HuffPost says that the Sony A9 is really the A7III. We might agree, except that soon there will doubtless be an A7III. Some people don't like how these cameras handle, but we're not amongst 'em. They're very nice little cameras that handle fine.

Michael Marten, Porthcawl, Glamorgan, 17 May 2007.

Low water 12 noon, high water 8 pm.

 Prince of Tides: British photographer Michael Marten has produced a dazzling document of the miracle of tides, certain to be an eye-opener for those who have never lived near an ocean. We're told the book is sold out, sad to say. We loved ita simple idea that was doubtless very difficult to reify and is visually extremely rich. Wonderful project. Do not miss.

 Nine decades: Re Leica lenses, William Fagan of Macfilos compared pictures from a very old Leica and a very new Leica made 90 years apart. His findings might surprise you.

 Best (for now): DxOmark, the French software ninjas who evaluate sensors, have declared the Hasselblad X1D to have the best medium-format sensor, granting the camera its first published sensor rating above 100. (DxO doesn't evaluate the system, just the sensor. Its ratings, although suspect in some quarters, are scientifically sound.) The once iconic Swedish company Hasselblad is now owned by the Chinese drone manufacturer DJI. [UPDATE: Note that DxO doesn't evaluate Fuji cameras and, for no good reason, failed to test the Pentax 645Z.]

 Selfie fatigue: Many millennials (members of the generation that reached maturity early in the 21st century) remember Bill Nye the Science Guy. Apparently many of them bug him to take their picture with him; watching the trailer for his new movie, we were startled to hear him say, "I was asked to talk about selfie fatigue...I'm pretty sure it shortens your life." Does it? He should know, he's a science guy. Now we know why we seldom take selfies. (We use the editorial "we" in Around the Web posts, as you no doubt have noticed. However there is no one in here but us chickens.)

 Don't Kodak St. Peter: So if you get too many selfies taken and the inevitable happens, take your camera with you, but remember to take the photographic advice of the venerable Mark Twain:

"Upon arrival in heaven, do not speak to St. Peter until spoken to. It is not your place to begin. You can ask him for his autograph, there is no harm in that. But be careful, and don't remark that it is one of the penalties of greatness; he has heard that before. Don't try to Kodak himHell is full of people who have made that mistake. And leave your dog outside. Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out, and the dog would go in."

Mark Twain, quoted at the end of Ken Burns' American Lives profile of him. (We transcribed this, so the punctuation might not be correct. The emphasis is ours. In any event, we believe the quote itself is a pastiche, most likely all drawn from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven. In it, we hear Sam Clemens's own weariness about being "Kodaked," not that much different from Bill Nye's.)

That's it for TOP for this, the 44th week of the year. If there were too many links in this to chew in one sitting, take a bite and come back over the weekend for more; Yr. Hmbl. Ed. will be fighting burnout by staying away for two whole days, a formerly unfamiliar habit known as "taking the weekend off." I still moderate comments all weekend though. Blogging for a living, much like what Mark Twain said of old age, is not for the faint of heart.

Listen to some Bob Marley over the weekend (maybe this, on this! Ha! Snuck vinyl in again, at the last minute!), and join us again on Monday. All are welcome, always.

Mike

(Thanks to Rich Szmyd, Jim Bullard, a commenter named John, xkcd, Nick Hartmann, Gordon Brown, and other friends o' TOP.)

*But still hardly know anything about it.

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

B&H Photo  Amazon US  Amazon UK

Amazon Germany  Amazon Canada  Adorama

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)

Featured Comments from:

Robert: "Aperture met most of my needs and I expected it to keep making progress. What a disappointment when it was abandoned. When it was developed it seems as though it was key to re-establishing Apple but the landing of the iPhone led to a new future. As an ex IT person, iCloud and its equivalents all go against my nature i.e. letting it drift off forever or maybe never around the World, out of my control. LR therefore seemed like a good alternative but monthly payments also go against my nature. It would be good if the discussion of alternatives could continue."

Mike replies: I was very interested in Aperture when it came out, but I had been through the Apple-as-Lucy-holding-the-football thing before with their software, and I resisted switching to it because I was afraid it would end up discontinued. And sure enough. Apple is not good about protecting its users who adopt its software. Once burned, twice shy.



We should, indeed, discuss this subject in a different post, one dedicated to the topic. It's a hazard of blogging that important topics often come up piecemeal, and good, informative comments about a certain subject are made but then get lost in the shuffle. It has happened twice in the past few daysthe subject of slide/neg rephotography with pixel-shift cameras came up under the A7RIII post, and the subject of LR-replacement editing software came up under this one.

I will start specific threads about both these topics next week, so we can discuss each of them more thoroughly.

Phil: "About that xkcd #1909: go to the source and see the alt-text! Right now! Go here and hover your mouse over the cartoon. I'm not just saying this because I'm a librarian. Really, I'm not. ;-) "

GKFroehlich: "Did not know the person in the photo at the top of the post, but the hint 'born in 1885,' and the fact that he's sitting on horseback, made me sure it was Dave Brubeck's father. He was a cattle rancher in northern California, and was also born in 1885 (or 1884, according to some sources). Now I shall go listen to a few Marley tunes, and a few Brubeck tunes...."

Mike replies: Good guess.

Dave Brubeck got a somewhat suspect reputation back in the day because he was a) not black in a field in which many of the very top people were, b) too popular in a field in which many of the top people weren't, and c) suspiciously often the favorite jazz musician of preppies and white Ivy League types back in that quaint time when racism still existed in the USA (satire alert). But he's seriously great and I absolutely love him.



If you still have a way of playing CDs, or a way of ripping them to your hard drive, he perfect introduction to Brubeck and one of the outstanding music bargains on all of Amazon is this 5-CD set for only $17.90. It includes two of Brubeck's best records (the evergreen bestseller Time Out and the even better Time Further Out) and the other three are excellent. Did I mention it's only $17.90 for five outstanding CDs? The sound quality is superb to boot.



Steve Higgins: "Re 'Acceptable will be pictures taken with any Leica-branded lenses,' does that include the one on the front of my Lumix LF1, presumably the same as the one on the Leica C (type 112)?"

Mike replies: Yes, because it's branded Leica, that is, it says "Leica" on the front.
The best bang for your buck! This option enables you to purchase online 24/7 access and receive the Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday print edition at no additional cost * Print edition only available in our carrier delivery area. Allow up to 72 hours for delivery of your print edition to begin. Print edition not available for Day Pass option.
CHICAGO  Cook County's Democratic Party on Friday endorsed state Sen. Kwame Raoul for attorney general over former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and several other candidates who urged party leaders not to pick a favorite.

The Democratic nomination for the statewide office is available after Attorney General Lisa Madigan said in September that she wouldn't seek re-election. On Friday, candidates for the nomination spoke to Cook County Democrats in hopes of earning their support.

Quinn made his pitch citing poll numbers he said showed him in the lead among other Democratic candidates, and said he has experience running several statewide campaigns. Quinn won the 2010 governor's race but lost re-election to Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner in 2014.

Quinn and other candidates had asked party officials not to endorse and to instead support an open primary or wait until filing ends. Cook County Democratic Party chairman Joseph Berrios said Raoul was the committee's unanimous choice.

"I am confident that Kwame will be a true advocate for our families in Illinois," Berrios said.

Raoul said he was pleased to get the party's backing but says it will still be a competitive primary. Raoul is from Chicago's South Side. He is serving his 13th year in the Illinois General Assembly.

"I've developed a legislative record which uniquely qualifies me to take on the role of attorney general," he said in a statement released after the party announced its endorsement.

He and Quinn are among eight candidates vying for the party's nomination. The others include state Rep. Scott Drury of Highwood, former Chicago civilian police authority administrator Sharon Fairley, 33rd Ward Democratic committeeman Aaron Goldstein, former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti, Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering and Chicago Park District Board President Jesse Ruiz.

One Republican, attorney Erika Harold, is seeking the GOP nomination. The primary is March 20, 2018.

Cook County is home to the largest number of people who have historically voted in Democratic primaries.
CARBONDALE  Leonard Wilmore passes his days gathering firewood and trying to earn a dollar.

With his golden dog, Lucky, in tow, Wilmore scours the woods in search of dry, dead limbs to drag back to his camp. Without an ax, Wilmore is reduced to carrying the large pieces through the narrow gaps of saplings. He will have to break them down by hand later into manageable sizes for his fire.

Tucked under a bridge in rural Franklin County, Wilmores tent stands amidst his modest collection of personal effects  his food, an assortment of canned goods, kept safe by storing it on the struts supporting the bridge.

Wilmore has lived outside for several weeks, after became homeless in the summer. He had taken several days off work to deal with a heart condition. He said he has worked for years doing professional cleaning and said he knew there was a cleaning company hiring around Benton, but couldnt remember the name. Though not having a job made his situation worse, Wilmore said he had actually been out of a place to live a few weeks before losing his job.

At least two miles from the nearest town, Wilmore said he has to walk to try and scrounge up work or get any supplies. He said without a car, his brother helps him move place-to-place. He has family, but none that he said he wanted to stay with while he looked for a place of his own.

I just prefer not to stay with anybody. I like to be by myself, me and my dog, he said.

He said his current spot isnt ideal, but hes stayed in worse  this is not his first time being homeless, the last time being a few years ago. On another occasion, he said he lived in a campsite nearly 10 miles from the nearest town  he said access to food, ice and other people made this a hard place to call home, even for a short time. He said his current location wasnt too bad, but he was hoping to get out before the cold of late autumn arrived.

When it gets cold, its time to go, he said.

Wilmores situation is both typical and atypical of the common idea of homelessness, said Marleen Shepherd, founder of Carbondales Sparrow Coalition, a group working to address poverty and homelessness in Southern Illinois. She said everyone is familiar with the man living under a bridge going through hard time, but Wilmores visibility and rural location are what sets him apart. In fact, Shepherd said there are more people experiencing homelessness  or as she clarifies, housing insecurity  than the most visible populations in the shelters or out on the streets.

They are the tip of the iceberg, she said. Most of our homeless and housing insecure arent living that way."

Unique challenges

Shepherd said the popular definition of homelessness is too narrow. Speaking during the a public forum titled "State Budget: The Challenges Ahead" on Oct. 26, Shepherd provided a broader view.

These are not the people you see on the street. They are your servers at restaurants, your grocery baggers, your nursing home aides, your childs aide at school. Many of them will never earn an income large enough to afford housing that is adequate for their family size, she said.

The problem is also not relegated to Carbondale or Marion, but extends into the small burgs and incorporations that dot the rural expanse of Illinois' southern 16 counties. She said the paramount struggle the housing insecure face is transportation, followed closely by healthcare.

The transportation that weve had over the last 10 years has actually gotten better, Shepherd admits, but said even still the options are not enough. Some public transit does not extend beyond the borders of a particular county  Shepherd said transportation from Carbondale to Marion can be a challenge, which means for Jackson County residents, the job opportunities in Williamson County could be just out of reach.

Shepherd said for this part of the state, Carbondale and Marion are considered the urban hubs, despite being small in comparison with places like Springfield or St. Louis. She said so few population centers in such a large part of the state creates problems going both ways.

Theres more challenges certainly outside of these two towns. However part of that means theres more challenges for those two towns, she said, explaining that because they are the hubs for resources the cities deal not just with their own disenfranchised populations but those of the surrounding 10 to 15 counties as well.

Diana Brawley Sussman, chief librarian at the Carbondale Public Library and co-chair of Sparrow Coalition, said not only is it difficult for the housing insecure to reach services on their own, particularly when they can be so isolated in an area as big as Southern Illinois, but it is also difficult for service providers to reach them.

Katharine Juul, rural health project manager for the Center for Rural Health at SIUs School of Medicine, has worked with homeless populations around the country for a lot of her career. She said in places like eastern Tennessee or in the frontier lands of New Mexico, reaching the far-flung homeless populations took time and dedication.

Identifying them you mostly went by word of mouth, she said.

Brawley Sussman said the groups she works with do not seek out people living in the woods necessarily  in part she said because some live that far out because they wish to be left alone  but after locating someone in need, the challenge was convincing them to seek help, be that medical help or help with housing.

First you have to attract them to come into the process, and theyve probably already been through the process a few times, she said.

A matter of money

Shepherd and Brawley Sussman both said the services that are available once they convince people to come in have been reduced to a shell by years of budget cuts, most recently during Illinois' budget impasse.

Its been death by a thousand cuts for a decade, Shepherd said. In her speech Oct. 26, she said it could take a decade to rebuild the network that was deeply impacted by the budget stalemate.

Brawley Sussman said the recently passed state budget does a little in a literal way. While it does bring funding back to social services, it only keeps them alive in a slightly better state than they were in prior to the more than two-year-long budget impasse, during which Illinois was not making payments to many social service agencies. She said the current state budget does not bring them back to their full strength.

Thats keeping their doors open after they have already been brought to their knees, she said. To her, the fix to the problem cannot come until the problem of housing insecurity is acknowledged by state and federal lawmakers.

Those in power who are making the budgetary decisions dont seem to have a priority of human life whatsoever, Brawley Sussman said.

For this reason, Shepherd said churches and not-for-profits are on the front lines of helping those in need. She said creating partnerships among private, public and not-for-profit sectors seems to be the way forward, though she does wish there was greater support from government agencies.

It would be nice if we had a partner in the government rather than an enemy, she said.

A look with open eyes

One big step forward, Shepherd said, would be to take away the stereotypes and understand the reality of the problem. Shepherd provided an example, remembering one woman she helped who was on the verge of being out on the street.

She had an eviction notice in hand  $268 short  and a doctors slip in the other, she said. What had happened is, she contracted pink eye at her fast food job, (and) had to take essentially a week off work that she couldnt afford.

Shepherd said this story isnt uncommon. She said many who live on the streets or are on the verge are not lazy. She said some cobble together a string of part-time jobs just to make ends meet, but in the end, none offer paid time off and none offer health insurance. She said this means when an illness happens, it can be difficult to make it to the doctor or even to take time off to get healthy.

Brawley Sussman said optics are a big problem in generating the kind of groundswell of support needed to help the homelessness issue. She said as human beings, there is an innate sense of empathy programmed into the brain, but it can be easily ignored if someone has other traits that allow someone to write off that person living on the street.

It also makes it difficult that the visible homeless are the shelter population and they are the chronically homeless. That becomes the face of homelessness and that becomes a problem that causes people to not put a high priority on homeless services because they dont see themselves in the situation, she said.

This is why she, like Shepherd, said it is imperative for people to realize there are far more people living without reliable housing than those on the street corner asking for a meal.

Even still, she and Shepherd said it is on everyone to reach these people and to help provide assistance.

We need to understand that its not somebody else's responsibility, Shepherd said.
This year marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luthers famous 95 Theses, which helped spark the founding of the Reformation and the division of Christianity into Protestantism and Catholicism.

The 95 Theses critiqued the churchs sale of indulgences, which Luther regarded as a form of corruption. By Luthers time, indulgences had evolved into payments that were said to reduce punishment for sins. Luther believed that such practices only interfered with genuine repentance and discouraged people from giving to the poor. One of Luthers most important theological contributions was the priesthood of all believers, which implied that clerics possessed no more dignity than ordinary people.

Less known is the crucial role Luther played in making the case for ordinary people to read often and well. Unlike the papacy and its defenders, who were producing their writings in Latin, Luther reached out to Germans in their mother tongue, substantially enhancing the accessibility of his written ideas.

In my teaching of philanthropy, Luthers promotion of literacy is one of the historic events I often discuss with my students.

Early yearsBorn in Germany in 1483, Luther followed the wishes of his father to study law. Once, while caught in a terrible thunderstorm, he vowed that if he were saved, he would become a monk.

Indeed, Luther later joined the austere Augustinian order, and became both a priest and a doctor of theology. Later he developed objections to many church practices. He protested the promotion of indulgences, the buying and selling of clerical privileges, and the accumulation of substantial wealth by the church while peasants barely survived. Legend has it that on Oct. 31, 1517, Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, the town where he was based.

He was branded an outlaw for refusing to recant his teachings. In 1521, Pope Leo X excommunicated Luther from the Roman Church. His patron, Frederick of Saxony, saved Luther from further reprisal and had him taken in secret to a castle, where he remained for two years.

It was during that time that Luther produced an immensely influential translation of the New Testament into German.

Impact of Luthers writingGutenbergs earlier introduction of the printing press in 1439 made possible the rapid dissemination of Luthers works throughout much of Europe, and their impact was staggering.

Luthers collected works run to 55 volumes. It is estimated that between 1520 and 1526, some 1,700 editions of Luthers works were printed. Of the six to seven million pamphlets printed during this time, more than a quarter were Luthers works, many of which played a vital role in propelling the reformation forward.

Thanks to Luthers translation of the Bible, it became possible for German-speaking people to stop relying on church authorities and instead read the Bible for themselves.

Luther argued that ordinary people were not only capable of interpreting the scriptures for themselves, but that in doing so they stood the best chance of hearing Gods word. He wrote, Let the man who would hear God speak read Holy Scripture.

Luthers Bible helped form a common German dialect. Prior to Luther, people from different regions of present-day Germany often experienced great difficulty understanding one another. Luthers Bible translation promoted a single German vernacular, helping to bring people together around a common tongue.

Expanding literacyThis view, combined with the wide availability of scripture, shifted responsibility for scriptural interpretation from clerics to the laity. Luther wanted ordinary people to assume more responsibility for reading the Bible.

In promoting his point of view, Luther helped to provide one of the most effective arguments for universal literacy in the history of Western civilization.

At a time when most people worked in farming, reading was not necessary to maintain a livelihood. But Luther wanted to remove the language barrier so that everyone could read the Bible without hindrance. His rationale for wanting people both to learn to read and to read regularly was, from his point of view, among the most powerful imaginable  that reading it for themselves would bring them closer to God.

For much of Luthers life, his remarkable output in theological treatises was exceeded only by his Bible commentaries. He believed that nothing could substitute for direct and ongoing encounters with scripture, which he both advocated for and helped to shape through his detailed commentaries.

Reading to interpret truthLuther had many reasons to favor the dissemination of learning. He was a university professor. His 95 Theses were intended as an academic disputation. His teaching and scholarship played a crucial role in the development of his theology. Finally, he recognized the crucial role students would play in carrying his movement forward.

So powerfully did Luthers influence reverberate down through the ages that, during a visit to Germany in 1934, Rev. Michael King Sr. chose to change both his and his sons name to Martin Luther King. MLK Jr., namesake of the great German reformer, would make full use of the power of free speech in catalyzing the American civil rights movement.

In posting his 95 Theses, Luther was encouraging a vigorous exchange of ideas. The best community is not the one that suppresses dissent but one that challenges ideas it finds objectionable through rigorous argumentation. It is largely for this reason that the founders of the United States took so seriously freedom of religion, free association and the protection of a free press.

Luther trusted ordinary people to discern the truth. All they needed was the opportunity to interpret what they read for themselves.
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The US embassy in Havana has suspended all visa processing indefinitely. Inset: Bruno Rodriguez - Cubas Foreign Minister  addressing Cubans in USA, during which he deemed the allegations of sonic attacks against US embassy staff as totally false.

US says nearly two dozen staff were affected by the alleged attacks Cuba, once again, has vehemently denied that there have been sonic attacks against US embassy staff in its capital, Havana.





This latest denial came from Cubas Foreign Minister  Bruno Rodriguez, as he addressed the 4th conference with Cuban residents in the US, at Howard University Hospital, Washington, DC.





According to a BBC report of October 29, 2017, Minister Rodriguez told his countrymen and women that the allegations levelled against his government have caused a "serious deterioration in the relationship between both governments and both countries, and rubbished the claims as "political manipulation aimed at damaging bilateral relations.





He dismissed allegations of any kind of attack as "totally false.

US authorities first began raising concerns about a possible sonic attack in 2016, when US embassy staff in Havana and at least one Canadian, began to notice symptoms.

Later in 2016, US embassy staff in Havana reported that nearly two dozen personnel had developed health problems.





The reported health problems ranged from mild brain trauma and deafness to dizziness and nausea.

Suggestions continued to come from the Americans that sonic attacks were to blame, even though joint investigations by them and Cuban personnel could offer no proof to support the claim.





And even though Washington appears to level no direct blame on Havana for the alleged attacks, President Donald Trump said last week Havana was responsible, but the Cuban government remained steadfast in denying that it had targeted US embassy staff.





In a reprisal, seemingly related to the impasse, the US, in May 2017, expelled two Cuban diplomats, for what it said was the Cubans failure "to protect its diplomats, and suspended visa processing in Cuba indefinitely.

By August 2017, the US authorities were saying that 16 employees had been treated but attacks seem to have stopped.





But by September, the US had made an about turn, and declared that attacks were continuing and 19 staff members were hurt.





By September 29, even in the face of mounting evidence that did not support the US claim of sonic attacks, the US pulled out diplomatic staff from Havana and warned citizens not to visit.

This was followed by the expulsion of Cuban diplomats from Washington on October 3, 2017.

The USA and Cuba re-opened diplomatic relations in July, 2015 after relations were severed in 1961. This followed the USAs 1960 imposition of the first trade embargo on Cuba.
Mrs. Kozel Peters-Fraser, Coordinator of the Windward Islands Farmers Association (WINFA), will join Renwick Rose as SVG representatives at the third Global Conference of the World Banana Forum.

Two Vincentian representatives, Mrs. Kozel Peters-Fraser, Coordinator of the Windward Islands Farmers Association (WINFA), and Mr. Renwick Rose, are expected to be among approximately 300 participants in the third Global Conference of the World Banana Forum (WBF) to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, November 7-10, 2017.





Mr. Rose was recently elected as the first Chairman of the Executive Committee of the WBF, and is a founder-member of the organisation.





The Conference is being organized by the World Banana Forum, a global grouping of the major players in the global banana industry. These include major exporters, giant supermarket chains, trade union and farmers organisations from Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa, European development and consumer bodies, as well as governments and international institutions such as the ILO, the IUF and the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations.





The World Banana Forum was launched in 2009, on the initiative of several European, Latin American and Caribbean organisations, and with support from the FAO, which has hosted the Secretariat of the organisation since then. It provides a forum for seeking dialogue and practical solutions to the problems in the global banana industry.





Mr. Rose will deliver the opening address at the Conference, and will be followed by representatives of the host country, Switzerland, the ILO and the United Nations.

The Conference will focus on critical areas of the banana industry such as gender equity, living wages for workers and sustainable incomes for small farmers, environmental and social issues. Special attention will be paid to the grave threat posed by the dreaded TR4 disease which threatens to wipe out the global industry.
Anthony Astaphan SC, who has represented a number of Prime Ministers and Governments of the OECS, is of the opinion that the system to combat money laundering in SVG, is working.

The fact that suspicious activities were red-flagged, is an indication that the system set up to deal with issues relating to money laundering works.





Senior Counsel Anthony Astaphan, while a guest on Mondays edition of the OMG talk Show and BOOM FM, said further that St Vincent and the Grenadines, as well as other jurisdictions in the region, have put in place a set of stringent anti-money laundering laws that allow for the monitoring of the day to day operations of financial institutions.





In fact, he assured, there were some jurisdictions that amended their laws in order to give the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank authority to monitor off-shore banks.





"The Americans will always refer to us as major laundering countries, but for many years, except in 2016, the United States State Department list of countries considered significant money launderers were the US, Canada, the United Kingdom and certain parts of Europe, Astaphan said.





His comments came in reference to US medias branding of SVG as being notorious for money laundering and labeling the country " prime money- laundering destination.





All of this surfaced after the unveiling of financial transactions of US President Donald Trumps former aides - Paul Manafort and Rick Gates.





Astaphan referred to it as "editorial exaggeration, adding that the US had a habit of accusing other jurisdictions, when it was guilty of having some of the highest rates of money-laundering and drug trafficking.

But it could have been the local authorities who issued the warning in the first place, Astaphan opined.

"If it turns out that the local authority had acted on it and passed on the relevant information to the authorities, whoever they are, it means that the system worked, and the integrity of the St Vincent system has been protected, the Senior Counsel said.





Attorney Kay Bacchus-Baptiste, however, disagreed with the position taken by Astaphan, saying that she was alarmed by the news that had broken last weekend and which implicated SVG as a haven for money launderers.





"I am alarmed that there was a company masquerading as something else, and I think that more research ought to be done, and this is something that the government should probe, Bacchus-Baptiste said.

"If they have nothing to hide, then let us all treat it seriously, because it is not going to reflect well in the international community. We do not know the details of the deals, she said. (DD)
Twenty-nine students were given tangible rewards last week Wednesday, October 25, for their outstanding academic performances in the 2017 Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE).





The awards were handed out at Victoria Park where the Schools Independence Rally was held.

Kairel Edwards, Thandi Myers and Abigail Scott were deemed the most outstanding, each having gained passes in six subject areas, and received the Prime Ministers Awards.





While Edwards and Scott were on hand to receive their recognition, Myers had already taken up studies abroad, and was represented by her mother, Mrs. Deirdre Myers.





The other National Scholarships recipients were: Kayenna Bullock, Lashontae Shepherd, Jerimiah Augustus, Milieko Edwards, Che Grant, Shannique Alleyne, Christian Friday, Alexcia Burgin, Chrislon Fraser, Michailia Matthias, and Michaela Miguel.





Each recipient of a National Scholarship will receive funding for a five-year period of study,

Seven students received Exhibitions, i.e. three years full funding. They were: Kamla David, Arielle Roberts, Tahleze Marksman, Akeem Muhammed, Tomi Pompey, Donley Stapleton, and Rhaine Williams.

Six bursaries worth $20,000 each year for three years were awarded to Justene Farrell, Shania Leslie, Ariel Lewis, Dorien Antrobus, Darron Farrell, and Terron Pope.





A disappointed PM





Addressing the Awards Ceremony, Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves expressed disappointment at the number of students at the function. He considered it "entirely unacceptable, and called for something to be done to improve attendance.





"We cant continue to do the same thing for the sake of formality, Dr. Gonsalves said.

And while he considered the 2107 CAPE results to be quite good, he urged students to "strive for better, and promised that if students did well, he will "find the resources for you to go further.





Students doing Associate Degrees may be in for recognition. But the information has to come to the Prime Minister. "They must not be seen as second cousins. I need to have the information to act on.





Since this indication, the Prime Minister, in his address delivered at the Annual Independence Military Parade on Independence Day. October 27, announced six special awards, in order of merit, will be made to the 2017 associate degree graduates from the Community College. Three of these will be exhibition university scholarships and three will be bursaries.





The Prime Minister issued a challenge to males to occupy the spaces at the top.

A number of cultural performances marked the days proceedings. Those making presentations included: Bishops College Kingstown, Intermediate High School, C.W. Prescod Primary School, Thomas Saunders Secondary School, Girls High School, Spring Village Methodist Preschool, and Elizabeth Browne Childcare Development Centre.




Nine Vincentians can pay closer attention to their studies without having to worry about where to find money to complete their programmes.





They received help from the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Teachers Cooperative Credit Union, last Tuesday.

Seven, all members of the Credit Union, received assistance for advanced tertiary studies. These were: Susan Charles, Attica Allen, Nadia Black, Juliana Alexander, Santa Gilbert Cruickshank, Angella Deroche, and Pamla Warrick.

The other two bursaries went to Carlon Bute and Anna Lowman, who are pursuing at the SVG Community College.





Profiles





Charles, a Qualified Assistant Teacher, has two more years to complete a BSc (Social Work) at the Open Campus of the University of the West Indies here.





Allen, an Audit Officer, is looking at professional qualification in her sphere, and the bursary will go a long way in reducing her financial concerns.





Black is a Teacher 111 and is pursuing a B.Ed (English Literature major), at UWI, Cave Hill Barbados.

Alexander, a teacher of 23 years standing, is doing a B.Ed in Early Childhood Development and Family Studies, at the local UWI Open Campus.

Cruickshank has two years to complete her B.Ed. (English Literature), at Cave Hill.

Deroche, a QAT, is also attached to Cave Hill. She is engaged in a B.Ed Education- Mathematics (major) course of study.

Warrick is doing a B.Ed (English Literature) at the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Community College.





Addresses





Kay Martin Jack, SVGTCCUs president, looked at support for education as "important as oxygen is to life.

She noted that education is for development and a means to alleviate poverty.





Mrs Jack disclosed that all the applications were approved, and encouraged males to take up the offer. She committed her organisation to maintaining its social and civic responsibility.

Newly installed Chief Executive Officer of the SVGTCCU - Jasmine Huggins Daly, endorsed the importance of education and expressed happiness at being able to contribute to the youths.

The total value of the bursaries was put at $32,000.





The CEO advised the recipients to heed the words of Gerald Rasum Shallows classic Perseverance, and quoted the song almost to its entirety. She urged the students to do what they love best and avoid distraction.

That was a theme latched on to by SVGTCCUs 2015 Scholarship awardee Daree Myers. He admitted that it took him a year to "appreciate the seriousness of the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination, which he referred to as "a serious exam.

He thanked the SVGTCCU for the assistance given to him, which enabled him to complete his secondary education and beyond.

The SVG Co-operative Credit Union will mark its 4th Anniversary on May17, 2018. (WKA)




Stanley Richards spoke of being fed up with the operation being a target for burglars.

The headquarters of the Society of and for the Blind, located on the ground floor of the Lions Club building, Kingstown, suffered heavily at the hands of burglar(s) over the Independence weekend.





And Stanley Richards, responsible for the day to day running of the operations there, says he is getting fed up.

"I dont know where we go from here, personally. I am getting fed up, Richards, himself blind, told THE VINCENTIAN on Tuesday.





The burglary, which netted EC$300, and food items amounting to an estimated cost of EC$1,394.90, was discovered by one of the employees when he turned up for work around 7:15 a.m. on Monday, after the place was closed around 5 p.m. last week Thursday for the Independence weekend.

The office stamp was also stolen.

The burglar(s) broke open two doors to gain entry.

Richards noted that, although it was the first burglary for the year, the institution has suffered from numerous break-ins for several years.

"It is heart-rending. We usually give persons who are blind a food package every month. The foodstuff which was stolen over the weekend was to make these packages. We have to struggle around so much to get these things. We have to ask persons in the community to help us, by making donations, Richards explained, adding that the programme has been in existence for about 14 to 15 years.

Richards is one of four blind persons currently employed at a Mop Assembling and Furniture Caning Unit, housed at the headquarters.





The others are Tally Browne, Daniel Chambers and Ezron Pope, all totally blind.

The Office Secretary - Flavia Richardson, told THE VINCENTIAN, "It is rather disgusting that people will target an institution like ours. We are not a business that makes profit. We are here to assist persons who are visually impaired, and most of the items that were stolen were to go towards making food baskets for the visually impaired. Persons would donate these items.

She is making an appeal to members of the public to contribute in whatever way they could, so that the visually impaired could still receive their food baskets. The office number is 457-2805.

Up to press time, Wednesday, investigations into the burglary were ongoing.
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By Trend





The Southern Gas Corridor, which envisages transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, is a very important project, Kestutis Jankauskas, head of the EU delegation to Azerbaijan, told reporters on November 3.

The Southern Gas Corridor, which is now being built and hopefully will start functioning in some years, is another symbolic and very important development connecting our markets and delivering energy resources between this region and EU, he added.

The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority energy projects for the EU. It envisages the transportation of gas from the Caspian region to the European countries through Georgia and Turkey.

At the initial stage, the gas to be produced as part of the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz field is considered as the main source for the Southern Gas Corridor projects. Other sources can also connect to this project at a later stage.



As part of the Stage 2 of the Shah Deniz development, the gas will be exported to Turkey and European markets by expanding the South Caucasus Pipeline and the construction of Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline and Trans Adriatic Pipeline.

Further, talking about the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway, which has been recently opened, Jankauskas noted that this project is very welcome.

EU in general supports all kinds of interconnections. Roads connect people. This is important for enhancement of the relationship, for trade, for people traveling, for cargoes being transported between our market, Azerbaijan, South Caucasus countries, EU, Turkey and then reaching further to Central Asia and China, being transported faster and being transported safely. This railway exactly helps to achieve this goal, he said.

The opening of the BTK railway took place in Baku Oct.30.

The first train departed from the Azerbaijani port of Alat after its inauguration by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili. In order not to miss such an historic event, the leaders and high-ranking officials of a number of countries, including Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, that will somehow be involved in the transportation along this corridor, attended the solemn ceremony.

The BTK railway was constructed on the basis a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement. The railways peak capacity will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At an initial stage, this figure will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.
By Azernews





By Laman Ismayilova

The traditional 8th European Film Festival solemnly opened in Park Cinema Park Bulvar on November 2.

The event, organized jointly by The Delegation of the European Union to Azerbaijan, the Embassies of the EU Member States and Norway, in cooperation with Park Cinema will last until November 12.

Representatives of diplomatic missions, art and cultural figures, cinema lovers attended the festival's opening ceremony, Trend Life reported.

In his speech, Head of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan Kestutis Jankauskas stressed that film festival, which became a tradition in Azerbaijan, serves the development of cultural relations between EU countries and Azerbaijan.

The programme includes screening of 21 films from 19 European Union countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom) as well as Norway and Azerbaijan. The films represent various genres to suit interests of the possibly larger audience.

During the festival opening ceremony, films "Lumiere!" (France) and "Monkey" (Bulgaria) were presented to the viewers.

The film "Lumiere!" by French director Thierry Fremaux a unique journey to the origins of cinematography, a story the Lumiere brothers. The film is based on archival materials.

The drama "Monkey" directed by Dimitar Kotsev tells about the life of two teenagers. They will find answers to questions that adults do not even dare ask.

In the framework of the festival, Azerbaijani film "Pomegranate Orchard" will be screened in Park Cinema Metropark on November 8.

Notably, films screening is being held in Park Cinema Metropark, Park Cinema Flame Towers and Park Cinema Park Bulvar. Films are shown in the original language with English subtitles. All events are open to the public and organized free of charge on "first come first served" basis.












By Trend





The trilateral meeting of the Azerbaijani, Iranian and Russian presidents, held on November 1 in Tehran, is a platform important for ensuring stability and security, as well as promoting collaborative environment in the region, Ali Hasanov, Azerbaijani presidents aide for public and political affairs, said in an interview with Trend.

Hasanov said the important developments recently taking place in the South Caucasus and the Caspian and Black seas basin, as well as the giant trans-national projects carried out under Azerbaijans leadership had significant impact on the November 1 meeting of the presidents of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia in Tehran.

In the past week, the Azerbaijani president had meetings with almost all heads of states and governments of the region. At those meetings he had important discussions on all pressing issues of the regions political and economic life, as well as on the prospects of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, which is the most important segment of the East-West transportation and communication corridor, and on the support to be provided by this project to the regions countries, to the strengthening of trade-economic ties in the world in general, he said.

The trilateral meeting of the Azerbaijani, Iranian and Russian presidents is, first of all, a platform important for ensuring stability, security and promoting collaborative environment in the region, for further development of trade-economic ties, cooperation in energy and transport sectors between the countries, and solution of other pressing issues.

It can be said for sure that the heads of states were quite pleased with yesterday's meeting and its results. Delegations of Azerbaijan, Russia and Iran discussed current situation and tasks ahead in various spheres, as well as the partnership policy. I think the positive results of the meetings held will manifest in near future.

He said the Tehran meeting showed that there are sincere friendly relations between Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia.

The mutual respect and fruitful cooperation between the three countries is of great importance for solution of pressing issues of the whole region, and all participants are determined to continue the fruitful cooperation, Hasanov added.

I should also note that initiative and leadership of the majority of bilateral and multilateral meetings, held in the region lately, belong to Azerbaijan. The initiative to hold a tripartite meeting of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia, to create partnership between them, as well as the initiative of joint projects that are being implemented or intended to be implemented also came from Azerbaijan, and they have already begun to yield positive results.

Therefore, as in all other issues, Azerbaijans leadership at yesterdays meeting was prominent and will remain as such in the future, Hasanov said.

I would like to note that the creation of such new formats of cooperation is topical. Along with Azerbaijan-Iran-Russia, there are also the Azerbaijan-Iran-Turkey and Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey platforms. Perhaps, in the future, the cooperation will be continued in the Azerbaijan-Turkey-Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan-Turkey-Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan-Iran-Turkmenistan and other formats. These formats will have a positive impact on consolidation of peace, tranquility, prosperity, trade and economic relations in the region, Hasanov said.
By Trend





Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on November 2 approving a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the energy sector between the Azerbaijani Energy Ministry and the Polish Energy Ministry .

The Energy Ministry is instructed to ensure implementation of the provisions of the Memorandum mentioned in the decree after its entry into force, the Foreign Ministry is tasked to notify the Government of Poland on the implementation of the internal procedures required for the entry into force of the Memorandum of Understanding.

The MoU was signed on June 27, 2017 in Warsaw.
By Trend





Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree approving the "List of Imported Raw Materials Exempt From Value Added Tax" on November 2.

Among those raw materials are burnt pyrite, aluminum ores and concentrates, aluminium oxide, electrodes used in furnaces, electrodes for electrolysis units, and others.
By Azernews





By Rashid Shirinov

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs are working actively on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger in Moscow on November 3.

The Russian FM noted that the joint work is very important in the settlement of conflicts.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding regions. Until now, Armenia controls fifth part of Azerbaijan's territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

During the meeting, Greminger expressed confidence that such an international inclusive security organization as the OSCE can prevent the transformation of crises into conflicts and help solve transnational problems.

"This has never been more important and apparent than today. This is why I have made it my mission to reinvigorate the OSCE as the essential forum for security dialogue in the Euroatlantic and Eurasian space, Greminger added.

The OSCE secretary general also noted that he intends to continue this work in order to build a positive unifying agenda.

The Minsk Group spearheads the OSCE's efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. It is co-chaired by France, the Russian Federation, and the United States. Although there have been no breakthrough results in the conflict settlement so far, the co-chairs continue their efforts in this direction. In mid-October, the co-chairs organized a meeting between the Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents in Geneva, and the mediators will also meet with the FMs of both countries in mid-November.
By Azernews





By Rashid Shirinov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will discuss the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger on November 3, Russian Foreign Ministrys Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Thursday.

The Russian Foreign Minister is slated to meet with the OSCE Secretary General on November 3, who will be in Moscow on his first working visit since taking office in July this year, Zakharova said.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war that ended with signing of a fragile ceasefire in 1994. Since the war, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

While the OSCE Minsk Group acted as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, the occupation of the territory of the sovereign state with its internationally recognized boundaries has been left out of due attention of the international community for years.

Until now, Armenia ignores four UN Security Council resolutions on immediate withdrawal from the occupied territory of Azerbaijan, thus keeping tension high in the region.

The last meeting between the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents to discuss the peaceful settlement of the conflict was held by the OSCE Minsk Group past month in Geneva. After the meeting, the MG reported that the presidents agreed to take measures to intensify the negotiation process on the settlement of the conflict and to take additional steps to reduce tensions along the frontline.
By Trend





The goal is to make the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway economically attractive, said Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev in an interview with Euronews TV channel following the landmark ceremony to inaugurate the rail line in Baku on October 30.

Euronews presented a story in its Focus program about the opening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. The TV channels correspondent interviewed the presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkey and the prime minister of Georgia.

There is no shorter way between Asia and Europe, Ilham Aliyev told Euronews. Our goal for the future is to agree on tariffs to make it economically attractive. In the long-term, the volume of cargo will grow, and of course this means big profits, big revenues, new jobs and cooperation.

The projects implementation is an historic event, said the president.

This railway connects continents, Eurasia. This is a shooter way between Asia and Europe. Azerbaijan together with Turkey and Georgia actively participated in its construction, noted President Aliyev.

He added that the participation of Turkish, Georgian, Kazakh, Uzbek friends, prime ministers, ministers from Turkmenistan, Tajikistan in the opening ceremony once again proves how important the project is.

This railway will bring stability, prosperity, development to the whole region, said the Azerbaijani president.

We expect a gradual growth of cargo transportation up to 17 million tons through the territory of Azerbaijan via this route, noted President Aliyev responding to the question about expectations and strategic tasks.

I think that this route is of economic importance. This route will be used by all countries located along it, because, I repeat, this is the shortest way. Therefore, we will work together on it, added Ilham Aliyev.
The Omani and Qatari promoters of a bus assembly plant project, the first of its kind in Oman, will break ground for the venture at a ceremony set to be held at the Duqm Special Economic Zone (SEZ) on November 13, said a report.



Doha-based Karwa Automobiles, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Qatari national transportation company Mowasalat, is a 70 per cent shareholder in Karwa Duqm, the joint venture company which is developing the sultanates first automotive plant in Duqm, said a report in Oman Daily Observer.



Oman Investment Fund (OIF), a sovereign wealth fund of the sultanate, owns the balance 30 per cent stake.



The total investment in the venture is estimated at RO160 million ($415.5 million).



Actual construction work on the project, which is coming up on a 100-hectare site at the SEZ, is expected to commence only sometime early next year.



The project is currently in the design stage, added the report.
As winter approaches, take heart in the fact that it wont last 80 years.

Thats how long two volcanic winters may have lasted after two separate explosions of the Yellowstone volcano about 630,000 years ago, the same eruptions that formed the Yellowstone caldera, and the last big eruptions of the volcano. The explosions occurred about 170 years apart and helped drop the ocean surface temperature by about 5.4 degrees.

These conclusions are the result of a detailed examination of sediments collected in Santa Barbara Basin, off the Southern California coast. By drilling into the basins mud, scientists from the University of California Santa Barbara could see the individual layers on an almost decade by decade basis, an amazingly detailed view.

Their research was revealed in a press release from the Geological Society of America last week.

Grabbing headlines

Mention Yellowstone and volcano in the same sentence and news feeds hum, Facebook lights up with frightening posts and some websites hype a foreboding end to life on Earth. Especially in the past few months, Yellowstones supervolcano has garnered several such headlines.

First came a swarm of earthquakes, mostly small, that spawned theories of an impending eruption. Earthquake swarms are common in the area, hitting as many as 3,000 in 1985. The cause is either changing stresses in the vicinity of the 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake, or it could be water or magma moving around under the surface, according to Mike Poland, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey and the scientist in charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

This summers log of earthquakes was high at 2,500, but Poland pointed out that the seismic infrastructure monitoring the Greater Yellowstone Area is also much more sensitive and yet may still be missing some smaller, more localized temblors.

Another story that grabbed attention said that NASA scientists had studied how to inject cool water into Yellowstones magma chamber to depressurize the system and halt an eruption, according to the BBC. The system could use venting steam to power turbines, a double benefit.

Quicker refill

Other recent headline-capturing stories have been based on a scientific study that, taken out of context, was used by some websites to create doomsday scenarios.

Arizona State University graduate student Hannah Shamloo, who analyzed fossilized volcanic ash from Yellowstone, reported that an injection of fresh magma into a system like Yellowstones  enough to cause a supereruption  could happen in decades rather than thousands of years.

Its shocking how little time is required to take a volcanic system from being quiet and sitting there to the edge of an eruption, Shamloo told The New York Times.

That statement was qualified, though, with the footnote that theres more work to do before scientists can verify a precise time scale.

Poland happened to be in the Yellowstone backcountry when that story appeared, requiring his predecessor to field calls on the subject from the national and international media. Although Poland has worked in Hawaii where volcanic eruptions can generate a lot of local interest, he said he was surprised by the intense media focus related to Yellowstone.

Theres a psychology to this I didnt expect, he said, which has me wanting to get more information out to the public, because it seems like the public really eats it up.

Geyser gazers

An example of the continuing public interest Yellowstones plumbing can generate also came in October when University of Utah scientists published a report providing a better picture of the underground workings of Old Faithful geyser and the surrounding geyser basin. By using seismic sensors to capture faint vibrations, the researchers were able to map the hot water reservoir that supplies water to the geyser.

The neat thing about these geyser systems is they are repeat experiences, Poland said. Assuming the plumbing doesnt change, they can deploy in one area, move to another and see the same process to map out the plumbing system.

The scientists estimated that the underground hot water reservoir  which is really a system of cracks and fractures rather than one large pool  has a diameter of about 200 meters, a little larger than the University of Utahs Rice-Eccles Stadium, and can hold approximately 300,000 cubic meters of water, or more than 79 million gallons, according to a university press release.

By comparison, each eruption of Old Faithful releases around 8,000 gallons, leaving a lot in reserve.

Although its a rough estimation, we were surprised that it was so large, said doctoral student Sin-Mei Wu, the first author of the research.

Old Faithful got its name because it regularly erupts about every 44 to 125 minutes.

Back to mud

Old Faithfuls eruptions are like seconds on the geological time scale when compared to the data analyzed in the mud of the Santa Barbara Basin. Poland said although the findings are intriguing, hes going to hold off on endorsing the evidence until it can be reconciled with other information found around Yellowstone.

I dont know much about the offshore geology, he said. But even if it is only a couple of hundred years, I think you would see it in the stratigraphy that was mapped in Yellowstone. It could be completely consistent.

U.C. Santa Barbara geologist Jim Kennett, who led the study, said the evidence was so apparent because of the basins unique formation. About 1 millimeter a year of sediment is deposited into the basin, which is fed nutrients from the ocean that include tiny shellfish. The shells preserved in the sediment are a record of oxygen isotopes from which scientists can deduce the sea surface temperature when they were alive.

Oxygen levels on the bottom of the basin are so low that no mud-dwelling marine animals live there, animals that could burrow into the mud and mix up the sediment layers.

Thus, it is not surprising that Kennett and his group can look in detail at the climate changes following a volcanic eruption, Cathy Whitlock, a Montana State University professor whose Paleoecology Lab has used sediment cores from mountain lakes to track fire and climate history in the West, wrote in an email.

Their study gives us insight into a period that is generally poorly known, she added. It was a time of tremendous change in our region, with the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano, which was likely a series of closely spaced eruptions.

So cold

Each volcanic winter lasted longer than it should have, according to simple climate models, Kennett said in the news release.

We see planetary cooling of sufficient magnitude and duration that there had to be other feedbacks involved. The feedbacks might have included increased sunlight-reflecting sea ice and snow cover or a change in ocean circulation that would cool the planet for a longer time.

Such findings didnt surprise Whitlock.

We saw cooler temperatures around the world as a result of the Mount Pinatubo eruption in the early 90s, she wrote. This was due to the ejection of particulates and sulfides in the atmosphere. It sounds like this group is seeing a similar but greater cooling impact from the Yellowstone eruptions, which would have been many times larger.

If the research holds up, Poland said volcanologists will have to adjust their models.

The ability to examine an event so long ago based on layers of sediment in a basin in California is fascinating to Poland and just one more example of how continuing technological evolution is painting a broader picture of ancient events, and giving greater insight into the functioning of the Yellowstone caldera and its unique geology, tales of which are always good for a headline.
WASHINGTON  Responding to deadly wildfires in California and the West, House Republicans on Wednesday passed a bill to allow faster approval for logging and other actions to reduce the risk of fire in national forests.

The House voted 232-188 to loosen environmental regulations for forest-thinning projects on federal lands. The measure now goes to the Senate.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said the bill was needed to protect the nations forests from the kind of devastation that California experienced. The GOP bill will help us stop forest fires before they occur, said Ryan, R-Wis.

Republicans and the timber industry have long complained about environmental rules that block or delay plans to cut down trees to reduce fire risk. Democrats and environmentalists say GOP policies would bypass important environmental laws to clear-cut vast swaths of national forests, harming wildlife and the environment.

The GOP bill is one of at least three being considered in Congress to address wildfires and solve a longstanding fire borrowing problem that forces officials to take funds from fire prevention programs to put out increasingly dangerous wildfires.

The legislation comes as the Forest Service and other federal agencies spent a record $2.9 billion battling forest fires in one of the nations worst fire seasons. Wildfires have burned nearly 9 million acres across the country, with much of the devastation in California, Oregon and Montana.

At least 43 people were killed in a series of wildfires in California last month, and firefighters have been killed in Montana, Oregon and other states.

The House bills sponsor, Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., said the fires show how years of unmanaged federal forests have wreaked havoc on our environment, polluting our air and water and destroying thousands of acres of wildlife habitat.

He and other Republicans say proactive management of forests  including prescribed burns, salvage logging of dead trees and projects to cut small trees and underbrush  reduces the risk of wildfires and lessens the severity of fires that occur.

Democrats say they support responsible projects to prevent fires, but accuse Republicans of using the current fires as an excuse to undermine the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act and other laws.

Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, senior Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said the GOP bill would elevate logging over all other uses, increasing logging companies access to public lands but doing little to prevent forest fires.

House Republicans know the bill has no future in the Senate and are pushing it anyway as a purely ideological exercise, Grijalva said.

The Trump administration said it appreciates the intent of the bill, but questioned a provision aimed at solving the fire borrowing issue. As written, the bill would force firefighting agencies to compete for emergency funding with other natural disasters such as hurricanes, the White House said in a statement.

The White House said it supports a separate emergency fund for wildfires, an approach also taken in a bipartisan bill led by Western senators.

Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop of Utah said the bill provides important resources for firefighters, but also gives federal land managers needed tools to improve conditions on the ground and reduce the threat of wildfire.
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Millions of retirees are in the thick of Medicare open enrollment, which runs from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7, but many find the process challenging. Some dont understand the difference between Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage, many are overwhelmed by Medicare advertising, and only 4 in 10 people review their plan options each year, according to a recent report. This leads to Medicare open enrollment misses, including not confirming that your providers are in-network for the next plan year and not comparing your prescription drug coverage with other available options. Heres how to make the most of your Medicare choices this year.
We've collected a few front pages from newspapers.com to give you a look at some Nov. 3 papers in history. With a subscription to newspapers.com you can search the Arizona Daily Star and many other newspapers using keywords or dates, and download articles or pages.
PHOENIX  The judge who found former Sheriff Joe Arpaio guilty of disobeying a court order has refused to appoint a special prosecutor to appeal her decision that let the retired lawman's pardon stand.

Legal advocacy groups requested a special prosecutor because they say the U.S. Justice Department isn't pursuing an appeal and the power of the courts is at stake.

They cited a rule that lets judges make such appointments if the federal agency declines to prosecute contempt of court cases.

The agency won a contempt of court conviction against Arpaio, but now maintains that the pardon ended his case.
GLENDALE  Gov. Doug Ducey is proposing more spending to help students with vision and hearing disabilities get a jump-start on their reading skills.

We want to support early intervention for the hearing-impaired and the visually impaired children so these kids can be prepared to read, to learn, and to be successful in school, just like every other child, he said in a speech Thursday.

Ducey, noting that the ability to read is an invaluable skill, said thats partly why he put money into this years state budget to restore state funding for full-day kindergarten, albeit only for students at schools with the highest percentage of students in poverty.

This, the governor said, is a logical extension of that.

But Ducey, speaking to reporters after his speech, said restoration of state-funded full-day kindergarten for all is not in the cards. He said the money for that  estimated at $240 million  just isnt available. Universal full-day kindergarten funding was enacted in 2006 and killed five years later.

Gubernatorial press aide Daniel Scarpinato said he could not provide a dollar figure for the cost of what Ducey is proposing for the students with vision and hearing issues. But he said it will be a significant investment.

And while the goal is the same  to get children ready to read  the focus is sharply different than with full-day kindergarten. Instead, it is aimed at children from birth to age 3.

Children are tested at birth for hearing and vision acuity. If there are problems, the state seeks to get help for the parents, said Dawn Wallace, the governors education adviser.

Most of that aid goes through the Arizona Schools for the Deaf and the Blind.

But those schools in Tucson and Phoenix do not take children until age 3. In the interim, Wallace said the state has 17 specialists who go out and work with families around Arizona several times a week to help them get what they need.

She said the average caseload for each of these 17 specialists is 24 children, too much to accomplish whats needed. And failure to intercede early with children can doom them to lifetime failure, Wallace said.

How can you go to preschool if you cant communicate with your parents or with your teacher? Wallace said. If you dont help them learn how to speak or use sign language, or you dont help them with hearing aids, or you dont help them with Braille, by the time they go to school at 3 theyre not ready. And so they fall behind.

The governors plan is to hire 21 additional specialists.

These kids are visited maybe twice a month, she said, adding that the specialists not only are teachers but also ensure that the health issues and medical equipment needs of the children are met.

So what were trying to do is increase the number of visits per child. But were also trying to decrease the number of kids every teacher goes to so that they can spend more time with those kids.

Ducey said his proposal is an outgrowth of his belief that the ability to read by the third grade is crucial, and that learning to read by age 3 allows children to spend the rest of their life reading to learn.

He said this budget request fits in the same category as the $10 million he got lawmakers to put into full-day kindergarten programs this budget year with a focus on our low-income schools and neighborhoods.

And we need to do more, he said.

But Ducey said the state cant afford to fund full-day kindergarten for all schools throughout the state, so instead it pays only for half-day programs.
Yes, an anti-Trump march is scheduled in Tucson Saturday.

No, it is not the beginning of a civil war.

If you know what Im talking about, you probably are connected to the online world of political conspiracies and crazies. If you dont, congratulations on living in reality.

For months, a group called Refuse Fascism has been promoting Nov. 4 as the start date of protests against the Trump administration. The group says it wants to overthrow the Trump presidency. Their inimitable slogan goes, This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

Protests are planned in 20 cities, if you count Pittsfield, Mass., population 42,846, and Omak, Wash., population 4,833.

Naturally, right-wing conspiracists have linked the protests to black-clad Antifa protesters and said that Nov. 4 protests are intended as the start of civil war between Trump supporters and opponents.

The most prominent conspiracist website, Alex Jones Infowars, interpreted the protest plans this way: Antifa is planning a new round of nationwide riots on November 4 as part of a plot to start a civil war that will lead to the overthrow of the Trump administration.

Online, thousands of Americans on the Trump-supporting right have gotten angry and threatened violence. Searching the hashtag civilwar2017 brings up many hair-raising threats against the protesters.

But this is really a more peculiar conflict than it at first appears because the protests are a creation of a relatively small group of far-left activists. Among the national organizers are members of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, a strange, cult-like political group with a secretive leader, Bob Avakian, known as Chairman Bob.

And thats one of the reasons why its unlikely to become a broad-based protest movement. This is the sharp left edge of anti-Trump activity, not the heart of anti-Trump opinion, which is centered in the boring old Democratic Party.

Even Chuck Kaufman, whose Tucson-based group the Alliance for Global Justice acts as a fiscal agent for groups involved in the movement, told me he was unaware there is a Refuse Fascism march in Tucson.

Also, Refuse Fascism organizers swear they are advocating only non-violent protest. This is how the organizers of the Tucson protest put it on their Facebook page:

There are NO plans for any civil disobedient actions. We are encouraging peaceful march, and any violent actions will not be supported or endorsed by us. Please act with common sense and safety knowing that children will likely be present.

The Tucson march is scheduled to begin at the Tucson Convention Center, where the local Comic Con gathering will be occurring this weekend, at 2 p.m. Saturday. Its likely to be outnumbered both by Comic Con attendees and maybe even by the Procession of Little Angels, a Saturday afternoon prelude to Sundays All Souls Procession at Armory Park.

For now, even though the idea is that these protests will gather strength and end the Trump presidency, it is the only Refuse Fascism event planned in Arizona, with nothing more scheduled beyond Saturday.

McSally 2nd for Senate

Two polls out recently suggest that if Rep. Martha McSally runs for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate, she will be the main challenger to candidate Kelli Ward.

The Tucson congresswoman has still not said whether she will run for the seat Sen. Jeff Flake is leaving, but she is clearly considering it. And the two polls suggest she could be in a decent position to win.

Data Orbital polled 500 Republicans Oct. 26-28 and found undecided was the favored pick, representing 28 percent of respondents. Ward was the 2nd-ranked pick, with 26 percent. McSally was third, with 19 percent.

After that, came Matt Salmon with 10 percent, David Schweikert with 5 percent, John Shadegg with 4 percent and Jay Heiler with 1 percent.

Another poll, conducted for Ward using less credible methods, surveyed 380 likely GOP primary voters. They, too, favored undecided, the pick of 34 percent of respondents. Ward won the nod of 32 percent of those surveyed, and McSally got 21 percent.

Salmon polled at 9 percent, and minor candidates Craig Brittain and Nicholas Tutora got 4 and 2 percent.

The upshot: If McSally were to clear the field of other big-name Republicans, like Salmon and Schweikert, she could become the leading contender.

Garcias governor plan

If things had turned out as he planned, Democrat David Garcia would be running for governor this year as Arizonas incumbent superintendent of public instruction. But Garcia, an Arizona State University professor of education, unexpectedly lost to Republican Diane Douglas.

So, instead, Garcia is running for the Democratic nomination as an outsider, a non-politician in an era in which, after all, Donald Trump the non-politician occupies the White House. Garcia told me about his plans a couple of weeks ago when passing through town.

He is running, of course, against Sen. Steve Farley, the Tucson Democrat, for the chance to challenge Republican Gov. Doug Ducey.

The key, Garcia said, will be turnout. He said he ran a persuasion campaign in 2014, when he lost by 16,034 votes, or 1 percent of those cast in the race, to Douglas. This year, if he wins the nomination, hell run an engagement campaign, intended to spike turnout to make up for a 200,000 voter shortfall in the Democratic base.

If we dont expand those numbers in a meaningful way, we cant make up the difference, he said.

Motivated OV voters

I wrote for Wednesdays paper about the passionate politics of Oro Valley, where voters are considering the towns first property tax to pay for a $17 million development of Naranja Park.

How passionate are they? As of Thursday, County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez said, 61 percent of those Oro Valley voters who received mail-in ballots had returned them. Thats 13,661 out of 22,407 mail-in ballots sent out.

Those returned ballots amount to 44 percent of the 30,745 total registered voters in Oro Valley. And by the way, OV is a predominantly GOP town. Of all the registered voters, 13,092, or 43 percent, are Republicans; 9,236, or 30 percent, are independents; and 8,181, or 27 percent, are Democrats.
Steve Bannon, former adviser to President Trump, is scheduled to speak in Tucson on Nov. 18.

Bannon will be the keynote speaker at the Brian Terry Foundations Courage Awards and Benefit Dinner at the JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort and Spa, according to a news release from the foundation.

Terry was a Border Patrol agent who was shot and killed in 2010 by armed robbers trying to steal marijuana loads near Rio Rico.

Two of the firearms recovered at the scene of the shooting were linked to an Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives operation that allowed straw buyers to purchase firearms in Arizona and take them to Mexico. The operation, known as Fast and Furious, became a national scandal when the ATF lost track of about 1,400 guns.

At the dinner, Bannon will receive the Brian Terry Courage in Journalism and Reporting Award for Breitbart News Networks coverage of Fast and Furious.

Bannon was the executive chairman of Breitbart from 2012 until he joined the Trump campaign in 2016. He returned to his role with Breitbart when he left his position as a senior White House adviser in August.
Bowe Bergdahl received a dishonorable discharge from the US Army but will avoid prison time for desertion and misbehavior before the enemy after abandoning his outpost in Afghanistan in 2009, a military judge ruled Friday.

The judge also ruled that Bergdahl's rank be reduced from sergeant to private. Additionally, he will be required to pay a $1,000 fine from his salary for the next 10 months.

"Sgt. Bergdahl has looked forward to today for a long time," Eugene Fidell, Bergdahl's civilian attorney, said at a press conference after the sentence's announcement.

"As everyone knows he was a captive of the Taliban for nearly five years, and three more years have elapsed while the legal process unfolded. He has lost nearly a decade of his life."

The sentence is effective immediately, except for the dishonorable discharge, which Bergdahl is appealing, according to Fidell.

Bergdahl appeared visibly shaken as the sentence was announced, according to CNN affiliate WRAL. Two of his attorneys stood by his side with their hands on his back while the judge, Army Col. Jeffery R. Nance, read the sentence.

The Army soldier, whom the Taliban held for five years after he deserted his Afghanistan outpost, pleaded guilty last month to the charges.

Bergdahl was released in May 2014 in a controversial exchange for five Guantanamo Bay detainees.

He originally faced the possibility of life in prison, but the prosecution asked the judge for a 14-year sentence. Bergdahl's attorneys asked Nance for a punishment of dishonorable discharge.

Bergdahl had chosen to be tried by a military judge instead of a jury.

Defense: Bergdahl 'should not have been in the Army'

Bergdahl's attorneys asked the judge for leniency during sentencing hearings, arguing he had a previously undiagnosed mental illness when he left his post.

"Hypothetically, he probably should not have been in the Army," said Capt. Nina Banks, one of his military defense attorneys, in her closing argument.

Bergdahl suffered from numerous mental illnesses, including schizotypal personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to Dr. Charles Morgan, a forensic psychiatrist and professor at the University of New Haven and Yale University. He testified for the defense Wednesday.

Morgan said Bergdahl was raised in a tense and sometimes scary household that contributed to social anxiety and cognitive defects that he was suffering from before he enlisted in the Army.

The defense also argued the information Bergdahl was able to provide upon his return -- and his willingness to share that information and cooperate with investigators -- warranted a more lenient sentence.

Prosecution: Bergdahl put soldiers in danger

But government prosecutors said Bergdahl was aware of the risks when he deserted, and that doing so put his fellow soldiers in danger.

Soldiers who searched for Bergdahl after he deserted were called to testify and shared stories of the grueling conditions they endured while looking for him.

One witness, Capt. John Billings, was Bergdahl's platoon leader in Afghanistan. Billings said the platoon searched for the then-private first class for 19 days, going without food or water.

Retired Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer James Hatch testified that he and his dog came under fire while looking for Bergdahl. He was shot in the leg, and his K-9 partner, Remco, was shot in the face and killed.

"I thought I was dead," said Hatch, who now walks with a heavy limp after 18 surgeries. He said he was concerned because there was little time to plan the search for Bergdahl, and other soldiers knew he had willfully walked away.

When asked why he would go searching for Bergdahl, Hatch said, "He is an American."

"He had a mom," he added.

Bergdahl tearfully apologized this week to the service members who searched for him.

"My words can't take away what people have been through," he said. "I am admitting I made a horrible mistake."

Investigator said jail time would be 'inappropriate'

Since his return home to the United States, the 31-year-old from Idaho has been the subject of scrutiny while the US military investigated his decision to leave his post.

Bergdahl has said he abandoned his post because he wanted to travel to a larger base to report "a critical problem in my chain of command," though he did not specify what the problem was.

He was charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy in March 2015.

Kenneth Dahl, the Army general who led the investigation into Bergdahl's actions and interviewed the soldier for a day and a half, previously testified in a preliminary hearing that jail time would be "inappropriate."

During his time in captivity, Bergdahl said he was tortured, beaten and spent months chained to a bed or locked in a cage while his health deteriorated. For five years, he said, he was completely isolated, had no concept of time and was told he would be killed and never see his family again.
FLORENCE  Three Pinal County jail inmates have been sentenced to life in prison for attacking and plotting to kill a detention officer who was stabbed over 20 times with sharp instruments made inside the jail.

Law enforcement officers filled the courtroom Thursday as Robert Villalobos, 30, Santiago Sanchez, 27, and Mauricio Moraga 27, received their punishment. A jury in August convicted them of conspiracy to commit murder and other charges stemming from the 2016 attack on then-Lt. Sergio Antolin.

The three are accused of targeting Antolin because he was responsible for investigating the jail's gang population, the Casa Grande Dispatch newspaper reported.

Court documents indicate the defendants have ties to the Arizona Mexican Mafia prison gang, and prosecutor Patrick Johnson said the trio believed they were attacking Antolin on its behalf.

Johnson said the crowded courtroom showed that the law enforcement community is united and wasn't intimidated by the attack. Antolin has recovered from his injuries and retired from his jail job.

Sanchez and Moraga were already serving prison sentences for other convictions.

Moraga pleaded guilty to manslaughter after he crashed a truck and killed a 19-year-old Casa Grande woman in 2015. Sanchez was convicted of a drive-by shooting in 2011 and was sent back to prison a few years later after he violated his probation.

Villalobos is awaiting trial in Pinal County for a number of charges.
The sentence for Bowe Bergdahl was announced Friday. What a travesty of justice and a slap in the face to those who have served honorably in the military. The extremely lenient sentence sends a message to those injured trying to find him after he deserted, that their suffering means nothing. Furthermore it sends a message to those in the military that it is OK to desert, all you get is a slap on the wrist.
Re: the Nov. 1 article "Articles of impeachment to be filed against Trump."

Trump may be more brash and unpolished as president, but he has done nothing to get him impeached. Rep. Luis Gutierrez has hated Trump from the get go and is trying to do something to make himself relevant! It is very obvious the mainstream media does whatever it can to discredit Trump.

The Republicans-in-name-only in Congress and the Democrats want him out very badly, why? It has to be that they are fearful Trump will upset their applecart and find all the kickbacks and corruption and try to put an end to it. Big government is so dirty, and having them take control of things like health care is bound to make it worse.

Glenn Singer

East side
All Arizona K-12 students deserve equitable access to literacy learning. When my grandparents (born around the turn of the 20th century) joined the work force, people who could read and write were considered literate. Nearly a century later, those foundational skills are essential but sorely insufficient. In order to be successful in college, career, and community life, todays students must be fluent readers, writers, speakers, listeners, and viewers of texts in all formats. They must be able to access, comprehend, evaluate, ethically use and share print and digital information.

Literacy learning opportunities start with ready access to books and technology tools. Families living in poverty are least likely to be able to provide reading materials in their homes. With more than 25 percent of Arizonas children living in poverty, far too many of our students do not have access to the literacy resources they need.

Students also deserve instruction that prepares them for living and working in an information-rich society. School librarians in a fully funded school library bridge digital divides to ensure youth have access to information and technology. They work with classroom teachers to increase students reading proficiency and ability to think critically in order to navigate an unreliable online environment of facts, misinformation and outright lies.

Instruction that was once provided by school librarians is unavailable to most of Arizonas students. According to the latest data from the National Center for Education Statistics, Arizona has just 140 public school library staff holding librarian certification, only 57 book titles available per 100 students, and an average school library budget of $960. Clearly, Arizona students suffer from huge gaps in literacy learning opportunities.

In 2002- 2003, there were 105 schools with 96 state-certified school librarians serving in Tucson Unified School District school libraries. This school year, there are 86 schools with only 12 state-certified librarians serving in TUSD libraries. With almost a third of all TUSD students living in poverty, this extremely low level of access to school library literacy opportunities is unconscionable.

The Pima County Public Library and literacy-focused nonprofit organizations struggle to fill the gaps. Many children and families are not within walking distance of, or do not have transportation to, the literacy opportunities offered by PCPL. There simply are not enough nonprofit organizations to reach every Tucson-area child and teen in need of literacy learning.

K-12 students attend school 180 days each year. Before and after school and during the school day, they deserve access to a fully funded school library and the teaching expertise of a state-certified school librarian. Arizonas classroom teachers also deserve to work with a school librarian who will provide them with resources and instructional support to help prepare students for their future.

From Nov. 9 to 11, the American Association of School Librarians National Conference will bring about 4,000 school librarians, educators, publishers and guests to Phoenix. Conference participants will focus on key issues in education such as equitable access to information, technology tools, and literacy learning opportunities that include digital, financial, scientific, and technology literacies. Arizonas few remaining school librarians will be learning along with their national colleagues.

If Arizona students are to compete successfully in a global society, our Legislature must fulfill its responsibility to fully fund our states district public schools. As a first step, lets start by passing local district school budget overrides.

Lets work with school districts to rebuild school library programs and rehire state-certified school librarians to lead essential 21st-century learning. As we raise the literacy bar for students, lets give them and their teachers the support they need to succeed.
Help India!

By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter

Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir Human Rights Commission on Tuesday, October 24, 2017, directed the state government to conduct a comprehensive investigation including DNA Testing, Carbon dating and other forensic techniques on the unmarked graves in Poonch and Rajouri Districts of the state.

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The order was passed in response to a petition filed by the Association of Parent of Disappeared Persons (APDP) regarding the presence of 3,844 [Poonch with 2,717 Graves and Rajouri with 1,127] unmarked graves in twin districts of Pir Panjal region in J&K.

The Commission, after examining a 2012 report of J&K Governments Home Department has observed that the government in its report has accepted that there are 2080 unmarked graves in Poonch [1486 graves] and in Rajouri [594 graves] Districts. The Commission has directed the government for a comprehensive forensic examination, including DNA testing into all these graves and said that the direction shall comply within six months.

The recent order is in line with the SHRCs 2011 judgment in which the Commission had found that in the 38 graveyards, which they have investigated, have documented 2,730 graves, out of which 2,156 graves are still unidentified graves, and 574 persons were later after being buried as foreign militants, identified as local residents of Jammu and Kashmir.

The then enquiry was conducted after taking suo-moto cognizance of the research report of IPTK/APDP, documenting the discovery of 2700 unknown, unmarked, and mass graves, containing 2943 bodies, out of which 2373 were unmarked graves, in 62 graveyards spread across some areas of north Kashmirs Kupwara, Baramulla, and Bandipora Districts.

Since 2011, instead of complying with the directions and recommendation of the SHRC for investigation into all the unmarked graves, the government continued to avoid undertaking any such investigations on the pretext that the investigation would lead to a law and order problem in J&K and also argued governments inability in terms of expertise and infrastructure for such investigation.

The Home Departments action taken report stated that the DNA testing would be done only when the complainant [relative of the disappeared] could locate the graveyard and the grave in which their relatives might be buried with a fair amount of certainty.

APDP has termed governments response as the utter mockery to the principles of truth and justice.

Pertinently, the European Parliament adopted a resolution in July 2008 [RC B6-0349/2008] and called on the Government of India to urgently ensure independent and impartial investigations into all suspected sites of mass graves and as an immediate first step to secure the grave sites in order to preserve the evidence.

The EU Parliament resolution also offered financial and technical assistance to the Indian Government for such a thorough inquiry.

Under the UN Convention on Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances, the Government of India is obliged to fully investigate the discovery of unmarked and mass graves. Despite the widespread international call for an investigation into unmarked graves, the Indian state continues to decline any investigation into unmarked and mass graves of Jammu and Kashmir and managed to hoodwink the international community regarding the alarming issue of enforced disappearances and mass graves in Jammu and Kashmir, said Tahira Begum, APDP spokesperson.

The families of disappeared amid constant agony and distress have continuously been struggling for knowing the truth behind enforced disappearances in Jammu and Kashmir, she added.

APDP has reiterated that the Government of India, a claimant of the permanent seat in the UN Security Council, must initiate a comprehensive investigation into all the unknown, unmarked and mass graves discovered across Jammu and Kashmir, to ascertain the truth behind the enforced disappearance of more than 8,000 people of Jammu and Kashmir.

It has further asked the global civil society to urge India to respect international humanitarian and human rights principles by extending comprehensive investigation into all the alleged cases of enforced disappearance as well as existence of unmarked and mass graves in Jammu and Kashmir, so that there will be a way forward for providing truth, justice and reparation to the thousands of victimized families.
Help India!

By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net

Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has yet again lost in students union elections, and this time in Varanasis Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapeeth.

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The election which was held today resulted in a win of candidates who were either independent or came from National Students Union of India (NSUI).

The President post of the university went to Rahul Dubey, who contested as an independent candidate. Rahul was associated with Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha (SCS), the student wing of Samajwadi Party. But this year, he resigned from SCS and contested as an independent candidate and registered a win with 2,365 votes against ABVP candidate Valmiki Upadhyay and Varun Yadav of NSUI-SCS alliance. The winning margin was set by a thousand votes.

Roshan Kumar, a candidate from NSUI and SCS alliance, successfully bagged the vice-president post of the university, defeating Dayashankar Yadav of ABVP. Roshan Kumar also registered the maximum vote count of 3,185 and defeated his closest opponent by around 1,500 votes.

Moreover, Anil Yadav, again an independent candidate, defeated panellists from ABVP (Ankita Singh) and NSUI-SCS (Bipin Yadav), and won the general secretary post with a winning margin of 1,100 votes, bagging 2,842 voters to himself.

NSUI-SCS candidate Ravi Pratap Singh who won the library secretary post after he defeated ABVPs Sarvesh Pathak with more than 500 votes.

The union at this key university had no dominance of any particular political group. It has been fought between NSUI and ABVP for many years. But since BJP came to the centre in 2014, ABVP grew its base and Ayushi Shrimali became the president of Union.

State minister for railways Manoj Sinha had been visiting the campus very frequently, a visit which was rumoured to strengthen the ABVP on the campus. However, last years union election results were more favourable to SCS.

Out of the total 8,133 voters of the university, 4,725 (about 58%) voters registered their votes.

The election day resulted in a heavy violence between students groups after ABVP supporters allegedly assaulted few independent candidates supporters. Police had to intervene and apprehended several students in the same matter.
US President Donald Trump has tweeted about the terrorist attack in New York City, saying that the suspect should receive the death penalty. The other day, ISIS terrorist Sayfullo Saipov drove a truck through a crowd of people in lower Manhattan, killing eight people and injuring twelve others, including two children whose school bus he hit.

SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!

Trumps tweet said that the terrorist requested the staff of the hospital where he is recovering from his gunshot wound to hang ISIS flag in his hospital room, and that he seemed happy while he was doing it.

Trump angrily tweeted in all caps that after murdering eight people and terribly wounding twelve others, Saipov SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!

Usually after these ISIS terrorist attacks in major cities, the terrorists are killed by police. This New York attack is one of those rare cases where the terrorist is still alive. We dont really have much of a frame of reference for what will happen when this attack goes to trial, but Trumps demand that Saipov should receive capital punishment might threaten the terrorists chances of a fair trial. Now, while some people wouldnt mind that because he obviously did it and hes proud of it, others have found Trumps comments to be alarming.
The FBI and the Department of Justice have been investigating potential connections between the meddling Russian government and the shady Presidential campaign of Donald Trump. Ever thought to yourself, Hey, it is strange that a racist reality TV star won the 2016 Presidential election? Well, thats Russia for you. There have already been a few arrests made and a few Trump staffers have confessed to shady dealings with Russians, so its only a matter of time until the entire administration is brought to its knees.

For months now, President Trump has been vehemently denying that he is being included in Robert Muellers Russia probe, but a spokesperson for the House Intelligence Committee has finally set the record straight and confirmed that, actually, Trump is being investigated.

The House Intelligence Committee member who made the announcement was Representative Adam Schiff from California of the Trump-maligning Democratic Party.

Schiff told CNN that with the investigation into other possible links between the staff of Trumps election campaign and the government operatives of Russia, they are looking into a whole range of different people and carefully examining what kind of relationships they share with the people in Russia  the ranks, the paygrades, the meetings etc. Schiff promised that the probe is not excluding anybody, and that includes president Trump.

We are determined...to follow the facts where they lead, says Schiff

According to Schiff, those involved in the Committees investigation are determined...to follow the facts wherever they take them.

However, he did make sure to note that he could only speak for his side of the aisle, the Democratic Party, who are certainly going to follow those facts and investigate that President. Schiff said that he could only hope that the Republican Party will show the same anti-Trump tendencies in the investigation, although we cant exactly bank on that based on past events.

When Schiff was asked the question that was on everybodys minds  whether or not President Trump was being included in the Russia probe  he was actually there to talk about George Papadopoulos, an unpaid Trump staffer who has confessed to giving false statements to the FBI, the kind of crime that gets you sent to Guantanamo Bay, never to be seen or heard from ever again.

Papadopoulos job entails advising the President on matters of foreign policy and foreign relations.

On Wednesday night, Trump was on the phone with The New York Times and told them, Im not under investigation, as you know. But hah! He is! The Times asked the President about the recent indictments of his ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort and Manaforts business partner Rick Gates. Trump said that those indictments had nothing to do with him and his administration. Well just see about that.

Nothing to do with you, Trump?

Despite the fact that President Trump said the recent indictments of his staff members have nothing to do with him, they actually do. The false statements made to the FBI by George Papadopoulos were regarding the meetings that Donald Trump, Jr., the Presidents son, conducted with a Russian lawyer in order to gather dirt on Hillary Clinton that the Trump campaign could use to get ahead in the election race.

The lawyer was an academic with connections in the Kremlin, but she claims that she didnt have any of the dirt that Trump, Jr. was after. President Trump and his staff, including White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, have dismissed Papadopoulos as a mere volunteer, but is he going to dismiss his own son?
The conservative MP and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon stepped down on Wednesday amid claims of sexual harassment towards the Welsh journalist Elliw Gwawr.

The Journalist for BBC Wales claims that the older and married Defence secretary placed a hand seductively on her knee, in a way that suggested he wanted to "take things further."

The Journalist exclaimed that she was "Quite shocked" and immediately told the MP "No"

Michael Fallon admitted on Wednesday that in the past he has fallen below the high standards we have come to expect of our armed forces in his resignment speech in which he aptly summarised that he had reviewed his time as a politician and had, therefore, decided to step down.

Sir Fallon has been replaced by chief whip Gavin Williamson

The MP stated that he was both honoured and excited to be taking the role of Defence secretary and made the promise to ensure that the armed forces received the recognition they deserve and they evolve to meet the changing threats that are required to represent modern society.

The ex-Chief Whip seeks to institute change into the nation's military to better face modern threats such as the London terror attacks and the Manchester bombing

Some Conservative MPs have expressed disappointment at the Prime minister's decision to promote Gavin Williamson, arguing that a chief whip should not be leaving his post with no ministerial experience and at such a pressing time.

One senior conservative argued that the MP had abused his powers as chief whip

Possibly more frustrating for the Conservative party is that Penny Mordaunt and Tobias Ellwood were also potential candidates that were possibly deliberately overlooked by the PM because of Mr Williamson. One MP Sarah Wollaston emphasised that the role of the whip was to guide the prime minister in finding a suitable candidate and not to put himself forward.

To clarify this MPs believe that as chief whip Gavin Williamson abused his powers of influence with PM Theresa May and promoted himself to the role of Defence Secretary, an action considered very controversial within parliament.

Further concerns surface when it is considered that Mr Williamson has no military background and no experience as a minister - particularly worrying since he will be expected to stave off defence cuts and personally oversee RAF air strikes on terror cells in the Middle East.

However, the Prime Minister expresses faith in Mr Williamson and in the maintaining of the whips office in his absence.

She also went on to state that Mr Williamson had no effect on her decisions regarding the reshuffle and that he made "an excellent and hard-working chief whip and the prime minister thinks he will make an excellent defence secretary".
US President Donald Trumps Twitter account is his favourite thing in the world. Its his baby. If he didnt have his Twitter account, he wouldnt have his Presidency, and for eleven minutes yesterday, he didnt have it, because an employee of the social network shut it down on his last day. For eleven minutes yesterday, if you tried to access the @realDonaldTrump account, it said, Sorry, that page doesnt exist!

Twitter is going crazy about it

The whole thing has got Twitter going bananas. The so-called Twitter Government tweeted that the account was shut down by a customer support employee who did it on his last day. They promised that they are conducting a full internal review to investigate the matter.

Relax, for Gods sake! Deactivating Trumps Twitter account might prevent World War III. Some noble, brave guy did it. And Twitter brought it back, so we have them to thank for the impending nuclear war with North Korea.

Trump and his staff have often attributed his success in the 2016 Presidential election to his Twitter account. He once said that if someone annoys him, he can go bing, bing, bing on Twitter and take care of it. However, the FBI have found that Trumps success in the election can be attributed to shady deals with the Russian government instead.
Genderfluid fashion is making a mark on the mainstream and its latest insurgence into High Street childrens wear is turning the tide of tradition. British department chain John Lewis has courageously faced controversy by introducing unisex items and banishing girls and boys labels from their childrens collections.

Topshop, H&M and Zara are just a portion of pioneering fashion brands that have previously blurred the sexes and dabbled in the androgynous with female boyfriend jeans/boxer shorts and male jewellery/floral shirts. Cultural history has also brought forward gender activists over the years; the 70s and Mr.

Bowie are not easily overlooked! But it seems that clothing has not encountered such an extreme sense of feminine and masculine ambiguity since the toga back in the BC Roman times.

Frida Kahlo

A recently resurrected Mexican painter who defines the zeitgeist of this free-spirited time is Frida Kahlo. Much media attention has been currently cast upon Fridas legacy due to Prime Minister Theresa Mays unanticipated bracelet adornment at Octobers Conservative Conference, and which featured the artist's face.

Frida is a woman hailed as much for her candid artistry as her activism and refusal to conform to the rigid 1930-40s conventions of feminine beauty. Her paintings harmonised pain with passion and her brush strokes synchronised honest personal poetry and taboo topics such as abortion, infertility, marital struggle and divorce.

Her work was also underpinned in unity with visual symbolism of her connection to nature, animals and the universe. Frida Kahlo was very much her own person and lived free from societal stipulation. She refused to pluck her now heroic monobrow and facial hair and felt no shame in letting loose and dressing as a boy for family portraits.

Catwalk and High Street Style

Vivienne Westwood, Dolce and Gabbana, and Gucci are fashion giants who have all paid homage to Frida Kahlo through their clothing designs on the catwalk. Fridas inner fire has ignited their shows with flower crowns, colonial earrings, flowing skirts, baroque embellishments and parrot applique.

The Mexican look can also be imitated with your own unique twist, online and across the High Street by any gender with flower accessories from eBay, Mexican blouses from Etsy and maxi skirts from Monsoon and House of Fraser (a quick Google will no doubt add to the variety of suppliers). With these replicas, you can project your inner Frida Kahlo, as her clothing and courage (as yours also can) know no bounds.
A Japanese company is rewarding some of its employees with six extra Vacation Days a year with pay. What did these people do to deserve this? It is not what the employees did to get extra days off with pay. It is what they didn't do.

Smokers and non-smokers

An employee at Piala Inc., a Japan marketing firm based in Tokyo, used the company's suggestion box to point out that his co-workers who smoked worked much less than the non-smokers. That's because their cigarette breaks are longer and more frequent.

The complaining employee itemized the time to show that smokers spend at least 15 minutes on each cigarette break that they take.

They have to leave the 29th floor where they work to go all the way down to the basement. That takes a considerable amount of time to go and return. It is estimated that smokers take a total of 40 minutes each day away from their workstations to go on cigarette breaks.

The employee outlined how smokers took time away from their work while the non-smokers held down the fort. The top executives agreed. Instead of punishing the smokers by docking their pay of having them make up the extra time each day, the company decided a couple of months ago to reward the non-smokers by giving them six extra days a year off with pay. Chief Executive Officer Takao Asuka think this might encourage some of the smokers to quit because of the incentive.

The Huffingting Post reported that 30 of the 120 employees are eligible for the extra six days off, and four employees have quit smoking since the policy was put in place. The employees can take all six vacation days at one time or spread them over the year.

Getting extra vacation time with pay is a big incentive because Japan has the second lowest vacation policy in the world.

Workers are only entitled to at least ten days of paid annual leave each year. This is much lower than in other countries.

Smokers in Japan

The World Health Organization records that nearly one billion people around the world smoke, and about 1 in every 5 adults in Japan is a heavy smoker. Campaigns have been set up in Japan to encourage smokers to quit smoking, but most of them are completely ignored.

The governor of Tokyo would like to put a ban on smoking in public by the time of the 2020 Summer Olympics. However, people think that is a tall order that is unlikely to happen.

Japan has one of the world's largest tobacco markets. Last year, statistics showed that over 20 million people in the country smoked. That's partly because the country does not have mandatory bans on smoking in public places like Europe and the United States have.
On Tuesday, First Daughter Ivanka Trump spoke to members of the military in regards to the challenges many spouses face in the work place when they leave the service. After Ivanka tweeted about her meeting, many critics of the president were quick to speak out.

Ivanka on Twitter

When Donald Trump kicked off his campaign for president back in June 2015, he did so with a few talking points that were repeated for the life of his candidacy and into his presidency. One of those talking points was Trump's apparent love of the United States military and veterans, which he made sure to speak about on a routine basis during his rallies.

Since defeating Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during last November's election, the former host of "The Apprentice" has promised to be "great" for service men and women, as well as veterans when they leave the military. Despite this, Trump's approval rating has dropped to 35 percent as he struggles to keep the promises he made during the campaign. In addition to his own words, Trump has used members of his family and administration to keep his message going, which was seen when Ivanka Trump and Presidential Counsel Kellyanne Conway addressed a group of military members and their families on Tuesday. As seen on her Twitter account on October 3, Ivanka made sure to highlight the meeting.

1/4: Today @KellyannePolls & I were @camp_lejeune to discuss the unique employment challenges faced by military spouses. #CareerOnTheMove pic.twitter.com/xELrzCommI  Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) October 3, 2017

Taking to her Twitter account on Tuesday night, Ivanka Trump promoted her meeting with military families with Kellyanne Conway by her side.

"Today @KellyannePolls & I were @camp_lejeune to discuss the unique employment challenges faced by military spouses," Ivanka tweeted out.

4/4: We appreciate the feedback we received today on how we can better serve our military families & enable them to thrive #CareerOnTheMove pic.twitter.com/Es3eYTayVm  Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) October 3, 2017

"This Administration is deeply committed to those who serve & their families who make it possible through their love and support," Ivanka Trump went on to post.

"We appreciate the feedback we received today on how we can better serve our military families & enable them to thrive," she added in her final tweet on the matter.

Twitter reacts

In response to Ivanka Trump's meeting with members of the military and their families, those who oppose Donald Trump wasted no time lashing out. "Two people who have no business in politics," Daniel Danger Marin tweeted out.

What expertise do u or Kellyanne have on this matter? So far u have shown no ability to sway your father on issues, so what value do u add?  Karin Leuthy (@KLeuthy) October 3, 2017

Ivanka what are your qualifications for anything outside of running a clothing line?  Kyp Durron (@SkelingtonBlack) October 3, 2017

As a military spouse I couldnt imagine how either of your experiences would be beneficial or insightful for us  Brooke Creek (@CreekBrooke) October 3, 2017

"As a military spouse I couldnt imagine how either of your experiences would be beneficial or insightful for us," one tweet read. "Do you really need to post a video of their applause? Stop using military spouses to in an attempt to promote your brand," a Twitter user wrote.

Which email did you use to set this up with Ivanka? She has so many of them!  Little Boy Blue (@watchmaddow) October 3, 2017

Two people who have no business in politics.  Daniel Danger Marin (@dangermarin) October 3, 2017

HOW is this a priority today? Not Vegas, San Juan? Whether we like it or not youre adviser to the PRESIDENT. Plz inform him what's happening  evan (@evandy) October 3, 2017

"None of you give a crap about other women! Let alone the military!" an additional tweet noted. "What expertise do u or Kellyanne have on this matter? So far u have shown no ability to sway your father on issues, so what value do u add?" another user asked. The negative reaction continued to pour in as critics of Donald Trump have shown they have no trust in Ivanka Trump or Kellyanne Conway.
Funnyman David Letterman may have ended his iconic "the David Letterman Show," but he is still putting smiles on faces. Recently, the comedian traveled with Al Franken to St. Paul, Minnesota. The Star Tribune reported that Letterman was in town to shoot an episode of his new docu-series that will air on Netflix.

While in town the duo stopped at the Afro Deli owned by Somali-born Abdirahman Kahin. Franken is a regular at the establishment; he even praised Abdirahman's entrepreneurship along with his creative Mediterranean and African cuisine at ex-President Barack Obama's State of the Union Address.

The 'Mark Twain' for Letterman

David Letterman recently received the prestigious Mark Twain award. The talk show host received the honor in a star-studded ceremony at the Kennedy Center in Washington. Among the attendees were previous awardees Steve Martin, Bill Murray, Jimmy Kimmel, Eddie Vedder and Al Franken.

Letterman who is 70, hosted late-night shows on television for 33 memorable years and has the credit of the longest running shows on NBC and CBS. The final telecast for his storied career on May 20, 2015, was episode number 6028. The late-night host had even shattered the record previously held by his mentor Johnny Carson.

Legendary run on Late Night TV

The "David Letterman" show run on NBC was iconic, with his unique brand of comedy influencing a whole generation of television watchers.

What helped was the fact that his time slot followed immediately after Carsons "Tonight Show." Letterman used the opportunity to steal the younger audience from his mentor by using his humor to entertain them. Two of his iconic yet silly amusements were the Stupid Pet Tricks and Stupid Human Tricks that brings laughter to the audience.

Among his bizarre antics were tossing objects from the top of a five-story building; he was even instrumental in making cult figures out of people like Larry Bud Melman.

Humble beginnings of the icon

Letterman started off as a radio talk show host and an Indiana TV weatherman, then later he moved to Los Angles in the mid-70s and started performing stand-up comedy.

The comedian also wrote jokes for Jimmy Walker, who catapulted to fame on Good Times. Letterman was eventually invited to be a part of Carsons The Tonight Show. Subsequently, he performed from 1978 as a regular guest host, and a few years later he started the Late Night show.

"The David Letterman Show" debuted on February 1, 1982, on NBC. The very first guest was actor Bill Murray, the Mark Twain awardee in 2016. Murray recently presented the iconic comedian with the prestigious Mark Twain Award for 2017, capping his illustrious career as a talk show host.
On Wednesday, NBC News reported that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was preparing to resign following a heated exchange with Donald Trump. As expected, the president wasn't happy with the story.

Trump on NBC

It's no secret that Donald Trump and the mainstream media don't see eye to eye. It all started during Trump's campaign announcement back in June 2015 when he referred illegal immigrants from Mexico as "rapists" and "murderers." The reaction was overwhelmingly negative from the media, which planted the seed the eventually grew into the current bad blood between both sides.

Following his election win over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton last November, the former host of "The Apprentice" has only increased his criticism of the press, making sure to label any report he doesn't agree with as "fake news." Following an NBC News report on Wednesday that Rex Tillerson called Trump a "f*cking moron" which needed Vice President Mike Pence to calm the situation down, all parties denied the story. After hitting back against the network following the story's release, Trump doubled down during a pair of tweets on October 5.

Why Isn't the Senate Intel Committee looking into the Fake News Networks in OUR country to see why so much of our news is just made up-FAKE!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2017

Taking to his Twitter account on Thursday morning, Donald Trump wasted no time going on the offensive against NBC News over the aforementioned report that detailed a rift between the president and Rex Tillerson.

"Rex Tillerson never threatened to resign. This is Fake News put out by @NBCNews. Low news and reporting standards," Trump tweeted out, before adding, "No verification from me."

Rex Tillerson never threatened to resign. This is Fake News put out by @NBCNews. Low news and reporting standards. No verification from me.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2017

In a follow-up tweet, Donald Trump then called on Congress to act.

"Why Isn't the Senate Intel Committee looking into the Fake News Networks in OUR country to see why so much of our news is just made up-FAKE!" he tweeted.

Twitter reacts

In response to Donald Trump's outrage, his critics made sure to fire back on social media. "Your 7th tweet about FAKE NEWS in 24 hours. You have yet to tell us what FAKE NEWS is or give us an example of what is FAKE about any story.

You are full of 'you know what'!" one tweet read.

With so many challenges to our country at this time, we can not be distracted every time you get humiliated by reports of REAL news.  (((Howard Forman))) (@thehowie) October 5, 2017

Just because you dont like it doesnt mean its fake.  Anne Hamilton (@AnneHamilton01) October 5, 2017

"Americas Free Press is what separates us from dictatorships. The fact that you're attacking our press with lies of your own is scary," another tweet read. "Are you TWELVE YEARS OLD?!" an additional tweet wondered.

1000s of people are drying in PR, and he's calling THAT fake news. He's the only fake here.  Tuck Frump (@TuckFrumpNDAz) October 5, 2017

The only fake news here are the words streaming out of your mouth  Impeach Donald Trump (@Impeach_D_Trump) October 5, 2017

If the news is FAKE like you claim, why don't you simply sue them for Libel and Defamation? If it was really FAKE, you'd prevail! Problem is it is REAL NEWS and you know you stand no chance in court!  Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) October 5, 2017

"3 army green berets died and you are focused on 'fake news,'" one Twitter user wrote in reference to the three soldiers who died this week in Niger, Africa.

"Our government does not serve YOU and your ego. It serves the citizens of this great country!" Howard Forward added.

Moving forward

Despite Donald Trump and the White House denying the contents of the story, NBC News refused to retract their report and are standing by the source. After only nine months in office, the commander in chief's battle with the press is just one of the many obstacles he's had to face, which has led to an approval rating of just 35 percent in the most recent round of polling.
Following the Islamic terrorist attack in New York City on Tuesday, Donald Trump has not held back his thoughts. In his latest remarks on social media, the president called for the attacker to receive the death penalty.

Trump on NYC attack

In recent years, Islamic terrorist attacks have increased in the West as the rise of terror groups like the Islamic State (ISIS) have grown in numbers. While the attacks have been common place for some time in the Middle East, it's the influence and spread of the ideology into the United States and various countries in Europe that have caused concern.

The most recent example took place on Halloween afternoon in New York City earlier this week when Sayfullo Saipov, originally from Uzbekistan, drove his rented truck through a crowd of innocent people before exiting the vehicle with cries of "Allahu Akbar." Saipov was shot by police before being put under arrest and brought into custody. Currently in a nearby hospital, Saipov has reportedly been bragging about his act of jihad, with additional reports noting that he planned other attacks, with one targeting the Brooklyn Bridge. In addition, Saipov also requested that he be allowed to hang the ISIS flag in his room, which resulted in Donald Trump commenting on the news during a November 2 rant on Twitter.

NYC terrorist was happy as he asked to hang ISIS flag in his hospital room. He killed 8 people, badly injured 12. SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 2, 2017

Taking to Twitter as midnight approached on Wednesday night, Donald Trump lashed out at the latest reports in regards to the terrorist attack in New York City.

"NYC terrorist was happy as he asked to hang ISIS flag in his hospital room," Trump tweeted, before adding, "He killed 8 people, badly injured 12."

During interview with law enforcement, the NYC terror suspect "requested to display ISIS's flag in his hospital room," per complaint pic.twitter.com/vxK3GWa8pX  NBC News (@NBCNews) November 1, 2017

Not stopping there, Donald Trump turned on his caps lock button and called for the suspect to receive the death penalty.

"SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!" he tweeted. As expected, critics of the president gave their thoughts.

Twitter reacts

In response to Donald Trump's tweet about what should happen to the Sayfullo Saipov, those who oppose the commander in chief wasted no time giving their opinion. "Why no rampage from the dude that killed so many in Vegas? Oh, this guy was not white," one tweet pointed out.

He is not smart enough to understand that all words a president utters carry weight. His inability to gather than in 9 months should be #25  Dawn's (@Dawniewouldnt) November 2, 2017

Donnie?

Theres a justice system that reports to you.

Handle this like a President, not some drunk uncle yelling at his TV.  Gavin Ivester (@gavinivester) November 2, 2017

"Donnie?

Theres a justice system that reports to you. Handle this like a President, not some drunk uncle yelling at his TV," another tweet added. "You do realize you're potentially tainting jury pool & could impact alleged perpetrator's ability to secure fair trial? SMH," Mark Zaid wrote.

But wait! Didn't Trump just claim credit for destroying iSIS?! claiming ISIS wasn't on run before because "didn't have Trump as president."  John Mahoney (@MovingWater) November 2, 2017

TRY to be presidential. Maybe feign intelligence? You can't. You're a deluded, uniformed chauvinist. And a racist bigot. I'm out of space...  Maxine Linehan (@MaxineLinehan) November 2, 2017

Save yourself a lot of $$ and #resign!  Erik Stanger (@erikforCO) November 2, 2017

"TRY to be presidential.

Maybe feign intelligence? You can't. You're a deluded, uniformed chauvinist. And a racist bigot. I'm out of space..." an additional tweet stated. "Remember Trump refusing to condemn N*zi marchers for days, 'I like to have all the facts.' Guess not. Quick not only to name ISIS plot," a follow-up post noted. As critics of Donald Trump fired back, the future of the terrorist in police custody remains unknown.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who unlike fellow Governor Chris Christie, (R-N.J.), was able to attain an official role in the Trump Administration, stated on Thursday (Nov. 2) that fossil fuels prevent sexual assault in Africa. In trying to use crime prevention as a means of rationalizing the full-scale utilization of fossil fuels despite environmental objections, the former Texas Governor bannered fossil fuels as the answer to the sexual assault problem in South Africa. Perry's logical sequence, if one can call it that, was that fossil fuels provide light and that light prevents sexual assaults from occurring.

The not-so-subtle implication was that full-scale utilization of fossil fuels is justified despite the likely environmental consequences that emanate from both from the extraction and usage of said fuels.

No statistical data

Perry, who as recently as fourteen months ago was considered a likely candidate for the U.S. Senate, offered no statistical data to justify his claims that fossil fuels are the answer to the sexual assault crisis in Africa. He cited no studies by Harvard University or Yale University or the United States government or other credible sources. Instead, the one-time presidential candidate, who had to ask his opponents in the 2012 GOP Presidential Primary debate to remind him of his agenda for the country, quoted a little girl as the source of his claim.

Perry explained that the little girl was grateful to the Trump Administration for all the fossil fuels that are being provided to her homeland in Africa. According to the much-contested Energy Secretary, the young girl claimed that because of fossil fuels, she no longer has to read by fires that give off dangerous fumes. Perry then claimed that the girl added, as a closing comment, "But also from the standpoint of sexual assault," according to ABC News on Thursday.

Perry offered no explanation of the fact that the little girl was using adult vocabulary and was aware of Africa's sexual assault crisis at such a young age. Perry continued his diatribe, stating, "When the lights are on, when you have light that shines, the righteousness, if you will, on those types of acts," according to ABC News on Thursday.

Perry did not reveal whether or not he had shared his "findings" on fossil fuels with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and The Justice Department.

Reactions on Twitter

The reaction against Perry was furious and swift. Marie Connor likened Perry to a "Do not eat" label on a "box of nails:"

Rick Perry is actually the perfect Energy Secretary for a nation that requires a "DO NOT EAT" warning label on a box of nails. https://t.co/6Pus4Pvw7k  Marie Connor (@thistallawkgirl) November 2, 2017

Kyle Griffin quoted the Sierra Club and its call for Trump to resign over his comments about fossil fuels preventing sexual assault:

The Sierra Club says Rick Perry should resign after he said fossil fuels can help prevent sexual assault.https://t.co/mqWQUXD7XO  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 2, 2017

Red T Raccoon asked if he had "read this" (Perry's comment) or if he is "taking crazy pills:"

Rick Perry Righteous fossil fuels help prevent sexual assaults



Did I really read this or am I taking crazy pills? https://t.co/k44fJfCdmz pic.twitter.com/fKhDtgOI1L  Red T Raccoon (@RedTRaccoon) November 2, 2017

TrivWorks portrayed a man shaking his head, "No" along with the statement: "Whenever Rick Perry trends, without even trying:"

Whenever Rick Perry trends, without even looking pic.twitter.com/2vZGCT9o7u  TrivWorks (@TrivWorks) November 2, 2017

Finally, Rick Davila stated that Perry had replaced a "Nobel prize-winning physicist as Energy Secretary."
Scott Raymond Dozier is slated to die by Lethal Injection in Nevada on November 14. The 46-year-old condemned killer was sentenced to death after a jury convicted him of murdering Jeremiah Miller, 22, in 2002. Doziers defense attorneys, however, are arguing for the state to eliminate the drug that will paralyze the murderer during delivery of the lethal injection protocol. Another court hearing is scheduled today.

At 2:30 PM, Judge Jennifer Togliatti is prepared to hear testimony from a medical expert for Doziers defense team, according to NBC 3 (Las Vegas).

Doziers lawyers want the paralytic drug - one of the components of the states three-drug death cocktail - removed from the Capital Punishment protocol. The attorneys liken paralyzing Dozier to suffocating him to death. Their position is that the paralytic is inhumane.

Convicted killer dismembered victims, tossed one in dumpster

In 2002, Dozier murdered and dismembered Miller. The victims torso was discovered inside a suitcase that was thrown like trash into a dumpster in Las Vegas.

Another victim was also murdered by Dozier, dismembered, and discovered buried in the Arizona desert. Dozier was convicted of second-degree murder for that homicide.

Law requires lethal injection, but death cocktail drugs hard to obtain

Nevada law mandates that all capital punishments be exacted by lethal injection. The problem, however, is that states are unable to attain the traditional drugs needed to carry out the death sentences, KTVN reported. After the state Department of Corrections (DOC) consulted with Nevadas Chief Medical Officer, as the law also requires, the DOC determined to impose the death penalty with Diazepam, Fentanyl, and Cisatracurium.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), however, objects, calling the injection protocol experimental. The organizations policy director of Nevada, Holly Welborn, claims the state is treating Dozier as a guinea pig, since he voluntarily waived his appeals and asked Nevada to execute him. Welborn said that allowing Dozier to be executed by a previously untested drug cocktail implicates everyone on death row, KTVN relayed.

ACLU claims murderers execution may allow more executions

An effect of Dozier waiving appeals is that Nevada is required to impose his sentence  executing him. Welborn stated that carrying out the killers execution may set a precedent, which will allow the state to commence the executions of additional death row inmates. She stated that a lot of unanswered questions remain. The ACLU is concerned about Dozier having a humane death.

Additionally, the ACLU is questioning the states DOC about its execution teams preparedness, KTVN noted. Nevadas DOC is confident that prison personnel is well-trained for carrying through and imposing the sentence Dozier received: death by lethal injection.

District Attorney says death is the right answer for killers crimes

Christopher J. Hicks is District Attorney, Washoe County. He emphasized that the death penalty is reserved for the worst of the worst. KTVN reported that Hicks further stated that when people act viciously, violently, and horribly, the capital punishment is the right answer.

Hicks also stated that voters have also expressed that the death sentence is the answer when murderers act in the ways that he had described and thats why Nevada still supports the death penalty.

Condemned murderer reiterated desire to die by execution

Judge Togliatti has pointed out that Dozier did not simply volunteer to be executed. The condemned inmate reiterated his desire to be executed in letters he recently wrote, according to Las Vegas Now.

Dozier still has time to change his mind. He can appeal his sentence, which would postpone his date with death. If he holds to affirming to Judge Togliatti that his execution carried out, he will be Nevadas first death row inmate to have lethal injection administered since the late Daryl Mack, who was put to death in 2006.
For a brief period of time on Thursday night, Donald Trump's Twitter account was suspended, resulting in social media going viral. Once the account restored, the president decided to give his thoughts.

Trump on Twitter

Not long after Donald Trump kicked off his campaign for president, he found a way to bypass more traditional news outlets after clashing with the media on a routine basis. The former host of "The Apprentice" decided that reaching out to his supporters on social media was a more effective way to push his message without getting directly challenged by reporters and journalists.

Since announcing his candidacy, Trump has been able to gain nearly 42 million followers as his war of words continues with the press. Since his election win over Hillary Clinton, Trump has only increased his frustration with the media, labeling any story he doesn't agree with as "fake news." On Thursday night, Trump's tweeting came to a halt when a Twitter employee on his last day on the job decided to go rogue and deactivate the president's account. "Earlier today @realdonaldtrumps account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee," Twitter's offical government account tweeted. "We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again," the account went on to point out.

In response, Twitter went viral as many celebrated what they thought was Trump finally being booted from the platform. However, the president's account was soon restored, leading to Trump commenting on the incident during a November 3 tweet of his own.

The Twitter employee who deleted Donald Trump's account is being hailed as a hero https://t.co/LyQCW15duc pic.twitter.com/5iDc43xC5T  Newsweek (@Newsweek) November 3, 2017

During his Friday morning tweetstorm, Donald Trump broke his silence about his Twitter account being taken offline for a brief moment on Thursday night.

"My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee," Trump tweeted out. "I guess the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact," he concluded. As expected, the commander in chief was soon mocked over his response.

Earlier today @realdonaldtrumps account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee. The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again.  Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017

Twitter responds

After acknowledging that his Twitter account was suspended, Donald Trump was met with backlash from many of his critics.

"So you out of your mind and back in 11 minutes," one tweet read.

What "word" is getting out? The fact that you are a Tweeting Lunatic?  Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) November 3, 2017

This is absolutely outrageous and unacceptable and will not be tolerated! 11 minutes is far too short!  SLAW (@rslukusa) November 3, 2017

Huge kudos to the #Twitter employee who did this! Next time - make it longer than 11 minutes, please!  Sister Resister (@JaceLGalloway) November 3, 2017

"We just figured it was Mueller ...he'll be taking you down permanently soon. There are no gold toilets in prison bro," one Twitter user wrote. "This is absolutely outrageous and unacceptable and will not be tolerated! 11 minutes is far too short!" one tweet stated.

Wrong. People are fed up with a POTUS using Twitter as a Bully Pulpit.  its me, Sharon (@SharonBrashears) November 3, 2017

We just figured it was Mueller ...he'll be taking you down permanently soon. There are no gold toilets in prison bro.  Braylen's Daddy (@BraylenNapier) November 3, 2017

So you out of your mind and back in 11 minutes..   (@Mr_Sleeep) November 3, 2017

Donald Trump got furious when his Twitter was taken away for 11 minutes.



Think how mad he'll be when his presidency is taken away forever.  Tommy Campbell (@MrTommyCampbell) November 3, 2017

"What "word" is getting out? The fact that you are a Tweeting Lunatic?" one social media user wondered. "Wrong. People are fed up with a POTUS using Twitter as a Bully Pulpit," yet another tweet noted. The negative reaction continued as those who oppose Donald Trump are not holding back their thoughts about the current president.
After it was announced that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl would not spend anytime in jail after wandering off his military base in Afghanistan nearly a decade ago, reactions came quick. For Donald Trump, the president wasn't pleased with the military's decision.

Trump on Bergdahl

The incident surrounding Bowe Bergdahl has become one of the most debated internal military issues in recent memory. In June 2009, Bergdahl deserted his military post while serving in Afghanistan. It was at this time when he was captured by the Taliban, and held hostage until May 2014.

Bergdahl was eventually released after an exchange was made by the United States government that allowed five members of the Taliban to leave Guantanamo Bay and return back to Afghanistan. After a lengthy investigation, the New York Daily News reported on November 3 that the military had decided to fate of the wandered solider. Despite Bergdahl facing up to life in prison after pleading guilty to desertion, military Judge Col. Jeffrey Nance decided against the maximum sentence. In return. Bergdahl was dishonorably discharged from the military, with his rank reduced down to private. In addition, Bergdahl has lost all future benefits typically received by veterans and members of the military, including health insurance.

On top of that, Bergdahl was hit with a $10,000 fine that will be payable over the next 10 months. In response, the vocal Donald Trump decided to sound off and criticize the military's decision.

The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

Taking to his Twitter account on Friday afternoon, Donald Trump lashed out at the decision to spare Bowe Bergdahl the maximum penalty of time behind bars.

"The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military," Trump tweeted out. The former host of "The Apprentice" has been outspoken about the issue since he announced his campaign for president, mocking and ripping Bergdahl as a traitor and a disgrace in the process.

BREAKING: Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl dodges jail time for wandering off his military base https://t.co/wyKP6yhjr6 pic.twitter.com/bcbxjdIDR7  New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) November 3, 2017

Twitter reacts

After Donald Trump gave his thoughts on Bowe Bergdahl, social media critics of the president wasted no time lashing out. "The decision on (inert name here) Donald Trump is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military," one tweet noted.

Yeah. Too lenient. Glad Dishonorable Discharge is not an option for Bob Mueller. Hes going for jail time. Enjoy the time you have left.  ARCofVT (@ARCofVT) November 3, 2017

Your decisions on a lot of things are a complete and total disgrace to our Country so then there is that  Julianna (@MzJuJu58) November 3, 2017

"Your decisions on a lot of things are a complete and total disgrace to our Country so then there is that," an additional tweet stated.

"Yeah. Too lenient. Glad 'Dishonorable Discharge' is not an option for Bob Mueller. Hes going for jail time. Enjoy the time you have left," one Twitter user added.

He got due process, received a fair trial and was adjudged. Like our system demands. Just because YOU don't like the result is irrelevant.  Pe Resists (@4everNeverTrump) November 3, 2017

So, do you feel that the justice system should always be very hard on the defendant? #Mueller, keep this in mind.  Don't Leave Blank (@WTFisGoingOnDon) November 3, 2017

The decision on (inert name here) Donald Trump is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military.  Carrie B (@LashInTheCity) November 3, 2017

"So, do you feel that the justice system should always be very hard on the defendant?

#Mueller, keep this in mind," yet another tweet noted. "He got due process, received a fair trial and was adjudged. Like our system demands. Just because YOU don't like the result is irrelevant," another Twitter user pointed out. The negative reaction to Donald Trump continued to pour in as the divide between the political left and right moved forward.
The capture of the suspect who committed the murder of eight persons on the bike-path in lower Manhattan was a rare occasion. These terrorists are seldom caught alive. They are either killed by the police or commit suicide by blowing themselves up.

The New York City police did a commendable job by taking the suspect alive since it provided an opportunity to them to go into the mind of a terror attack suspect to find out what makes him tick. He was inspired by ISIS and drove a rented truck into unsuspecting people to mow them down.

Initial investigations have revealed that he planned to go on a killing spree across Brooklyn Bridge, and intended to kill many more people.

He chose Halloween when the streets would be crowded, and the death count would rise.

The suspect was inspired by ISIS

Sky News reports that the 29-year-old man from Uzbekistan admitted that the terror attack he carried out in Manhattan was inspired by Islamic State videos. He had no regrets about his actions and wanted permission to display an ISIS flag next to his hospital bed. He has been charged with the killing of eight people, and for extending support to the Terrorist group.

The sequence of events indicate that he had begun to plan for the attack one year ago, and took the decision to use a truck about two months back. He wanted to inflict maximum damage to civilians.

This was the worst terror attack in New York City since 9/11, and the dead included five people who were from a group of Argentineans.

They were in a celebratory mood because it was the 30th-anniversary of their high school graduation, but they fell victims to the attack. The remaining two were Americans and a Belgian woman.

Reaction of President Trump

US President Donald Trump wanted to introduce different types of checks to ensure that unwanted elements are prevented from entering America.

In this case, the suspect was already in the country and carried out the terror attack in Manhattan.

The president says the suspect was the main contact point for other terrorists and must be sent to Guantanamo Bay. He also indicated that he wants to dismantle and redesign the immigrant visa program. The suspect had taken advantage of such a visa to enter America in 2010.

Donald Trump wants to make America safe for Americans. The US has introduced travel bans for people of some specific countries because of their possible terror links with ISIS or its outfits. It has also introduced strict pre-flight security measures for all incoming passengers. However, if the terrorist happens to be already present in the country, it would mean evolving new strategies.
Alaskan Bush People star Billy Brown is receiving a backlash after he was spotted with a pack of cigarettes. This comes as his wife Ami Brown is battling an advanced stage lung cancer.

A recent fan photo captured Billy pushing Ami in a wheelchair. Fans on social media, however, were quick to notice a pack of Marlboro Red in the pocket of his shirt. "ABP" Exposed, who shared the photo on their Facebook page, confirmed that Billy smokes, as well as pretty much everyone else in the family, InTouch Weekly reported.

Stage 4 lung cancer and they cant stop.

No sympathy, one commented.

Do you understand the absurdity and hypocrisy of this photo? another Facebook user said.

Brown Family begins filming new season

The Brown family has traveled to Colorado, which suggests that they may have already started filming for the next season of Alaskan Bush People. Several photos of the Browns were shared on social media as they were seen on their way to Colorado.

One photo showed Billy with his children, Matt, Gabe, Snowbird, and Rainy. Another fan posted a photo of himself and Billy. Rainy has also posted on Instagram several photos, including one taken in Trinidad, Colorado.

In the previous season of "ABP," the family revealed their plans to build a new Browntown after leaving the Alaskan bush.

Colorado seems to be perfect for the family as it would be near the hospitals for Amis medical needs.

Is Ami joining 'Alaskan Bush People' Season 8?

At first, it was not clear if Ami has been traveling with her husband and children until her photo on a wheelchair emerged. There were even rumors that the Browns have started filming without their mother.

While Ami previously expressed her desire to continue filming the show, it would make sense if she would not be able to so. According to "ABP" Exposed, Ami has become too ill because of the side effects of chemotherapy, which is also the reason she has to stop the treatment for a while.

Rainy previously confirmed that her mother was undergoing her second chemotherapy.

It suggested that the first set of treatment worked, which enabled her to move to the second phase.

Ami Brown has been diagnosed with stage 3B lung cancer earlier this year. Her doctors gave her less than three percent chance of surviving, but Ami said she has the will to fight and faith in God. While it is yet to be confirmed, there are rumors that her lung cancer has already advanced to stage 4.

Alaskan Bush People is produced by Park Slope Productions for the Discovery Channel.
'Game of Thrones' season 7 finale practically arranged all the pieces for the final showdown that season 8 is expected to bring to the table. The narrative has Westeros, a land that has been overwhelmed by crime, death, and despair for years, facing the danger of total destruction. The Realm turned out to be the convergence point of all narrative threads that one way or another, are about to collide.

At a first glance, it should be easy to spot sides or in some cases natural allies, but the balance of power is more complex than that. Apparently, a life vs.

death clash doesn't meet the criteria for some factors within the narrative plot. The fragmentation point hasn't reached its bottom yet as Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow are about to face the biggest dilemma of their lives.

Game of Thrones came up with several weak links

Jon Snow's true origin is by far a hotspot of the story for season 8, but it's not the only one. Although it came at a great cost (one of Daenerys' dragon was killed in the process), the acquiring of an Army of the Dead's exponent hasn't produced the expected response from Cersei Lannister. Her decision to further pursue some reckless ambitions is a ticking bomb.

Furthermore, Jaime Lannister and his brother Tyrion may play an important part too.

Two intriguing characters whose actions had a huge impact on the overall story, these two are far from being vetted as a clean bet. They are seeking for a particular type of redemption but without having a certain strategy to work to.

Moving up North, Winterfell which stands as a first testing ground against the Army of the Dead coming down from the Wall has its own issues.

Bran may be holding the key now that he can see all the past actions. Arya Stark remains a-hard-to-see-through character while her older sister Sansa may not be ready to endure the dark days to follow.

The Night King might reap all the fruits

A highly-fragmented political system would do the Night King a favor. He and his Army of the Dead have already breached through the Wall and it seems like an ice age of civilization is coming.

Basically, he brings cold and death just like a typical ice age does to a planet.

The Worst Case Scenario of how 'Game of Thrones' might end would definitely have the Night King as the ruler of a glacial dead realm. There are solutions to prevent this from happening but the living ones must understand and pursue a common goal rather than personal agendas.
US President Donald Trump is scheduled to make his first ever visit to Hawaii which is Americas outpost in the Pacific. Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, has identified Hawaii as one of his probable targets, and the state has taken necessary actions to tackle any possible threat of a possible nuclear attack.

However, Hawaiians are worried about the verbal onslaught between Trump and Kim which has become a matter of concern. The people of Hawaii are determined to counter any possible nuclear attack. As a first step, a nuclear warning siren, which has been lying idle since the height of the Cold War, is proposed to be revived.

In addition, there will be awareness drives to apprise the residents on actions they must take in the event of an attack.

Hawaii confident of tackling the threat

Sky News reports that the authorities in Hawaii believe there is no reason for alarm because the possibilities of a nuclear attack on the island appear to be exaggerated. However, it is necessary to be prepared to fend off any challenges. As a part of this exercise, the public has to be educated for the worst case scenario. The reaction time would be less than half an hour because a missile from North Korea could reach Hawaii within 20 minutes.

In order to issue the warning of an impending attack, sirens will be sounded. As part of an awareness program, a public meeting was convened in Pearl City where the head of Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency explained to the resident's various aspects of a nuclear attack.

However, the preparation must focus on getting people acquainted with evacuation drills which are being done in Japan and Guam. These are also on the hit-list of Kim Jong-un.

Trumps Asia visit

The main purpose of the upcoming Asian visit by Donald Trump is to reassure the allies that the United States is committed to defending them against any possible nuclear attack by North Korea.

The president also wants to impress on China to pressurize Pyongyang on the trade front, ABC news reports. Trump will call into Hawaii on route to Asia.

America has already positioned its warships in the Korean peninsula and has provided South Korea with the THAAD missile defense setup. North Korea, on its part, has sent two of its missiles flying over Japan to send across a message to the US.

Pyongyang has also talked about detonating an Electro Magnetic Pulse EMP to inflict large-scale damages on America.

It is, therefore, important that efforts are made by the leaders to resolve the issues through dialogues instead of resorting to any confrontation.
It is common for companies to outsource part of their business process to other companies based elsewhere to cut costs. India has been the top destination for years due to its English language advantage, according to A.T. Kearney's 2017 Global Services Location Index released in September.

China, ranking second on the list, is also attractive to international companies, as testified by Apple, which set up research and development centers in both Beijing and Shenzhen in 2016.

Let's take a look at the ranking.

No 10 Colombia
KATHMANDU -- Over 50 women entrepreneurs from China and South Asia gathered in Nepal on Thursday to participate in the seminar entitled "Belt and Road: Opportunities for Women Entrepreneurs."

The one-day seminar was organized in Kathmandu by Nepal-China Executive Council to explore greater opportunities and prospects of the Belt and Road Initiative for the women entrepreneurs of the region.

Participants in the seminar were entrepreneurs, professors and professionals from China and South Asian countries including Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. They stressed on mutual efforts, assistance and cooperation to get the maximum benefits from the initiative.

"21st century is the century of women empowerment, which highly contributes to social and economic development of any country. I am sure that the Chinese initiative will open the market for women entrepreneurs in trade and tourism," Nepalese Health Secretary Kiran Regmi said after inaugurating the event.

She also appreciated the way women perform with more accountability and sincerity to accomplish the tasks.

On the occasion, the Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Yu Hong said that China and South Asia posses various similarities so can move ahead and develop together.

"Through the cooperation and mutual efforts, the whole region can be more prosperous," Yu said.

Attending the seminar, women entrepreneurs and scholars highlighted that women can play a greater role in strengthening diplomacy and connecting the nations. They were of view that women entrepreneurs can function with the essence of peace and inclusiveness to make any initiative successful.

The seminar was organized on the sideline of China-South Asia Expo that kicked off in Kathmandu on Thursday morning.
On 8 November 2017, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Energy of Romania will organize in Bucharest, in cooperation with the Center for Dialogue and Cooperation on Energy Projects 16+1, the Ministerial Conference on Energy Cooperation in the China  Central and Eastern European Countries ("16+1") format. The event will be followed by the 16+1 Energy Fair, which will take place between 8 and 10 November 2017.

These are the first events dedicated to energy cooperation in the 16+1 format, supported by the Center for Dialogue and Cooperation on Energy Projects 16+1 (CDCEP 16+1), established in October 2016 based on Romania's contribution to 16+1, endorsed by the 16+1 Summit in Riga, in November 2016.

The agenda of the Conference, to be attended by ministers and officials from the states participating in the cooperation format, will focus on identifying joint opportunities to advance cooperation in energy-related projects within the 16+1 format, while taking account of the regional dynamics,goals and challenges in the energy field. The Conference will be honored by the presence of a Chinese delegation led by Mr. Nur Bekri, Vice-President of the National Development and Reform Commission and Director of the National Energy Administration of the People's Republic of China.

The 16+1 Energy Fair aims at providing opportunities to energy companies and stakeholders from the 16+1 member countries to take part in an effective networking event,designed to exchange views and foster business initiatives in the energy field.Participation in the Fair includes top level executives from 30 of the biggest Chinese energy companies, representatives of the Romanian energy companies, as well as of energy firms from states in Central and Eastern Europe.

Additional information:

 China  Central and Eastern European Countries (China  CEEC/"16+1") is a cooperation format initiated in 2011, in the context of the visit of then Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to Hungary, when the first reunion in this format took place, with the participation of the Economy and Development Ministers from Central and Eastern European states.

The format pursues the development of the cooperation between the participating countries across a wide range of fields, such as trade, investment, infrastructure, energy, finances, culture and education.

The European participating states are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia and Hungary.

 The Center for Dialogue and Cooperation on Energy Projects 16+1 (CDCEP 16+1) was established in October 2016, as a Romanian initiative within the 16+1 format, to provide a dynamic networking platform for advancing cooperation in the field of energy between the partner countries.

Alongside existing bilateral agreements in the field, the CDCEP 16+1 aims to build on the current agendas and strategies for energy cooperation between Europe and the People's Republic of China, by extending the regulatory, commercial and technological good practices in a wide range of fields, like renewable energy, smart grids, energy efficiency, clean coal, nuclear energy etc.

The activity of the CDCEP 16+1 is coordinated by The Romanian Energy Center (CRE).
An employee fits a rear axle to a Tesla Model S automobile on the driving unit assembly line at the Tesla Inc factory in Tilburg, the Netherlands. BLOOMBERG

Electric carmaker Tesla Inc expects to start manufacturing cars in China in about three years, according to CEO Elon Musk.

The billionaire entrepreneur said Tesla is about three years away from starting production in China and will not make any significant capital expenditure until 2019, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

Musk added that the three-year wait period is a rough estimate. "Don't set your watch by this," he said.

Tesla confirmed in late October to China Daily that it was in talks with the Shanghai city government to build a plant in the region and said its localization efforts would become clearer by the end of 2017.

Musk said the China plant will make cars for China and other parts of Asia, essentially the smaller and cheaper Model 3 sedan and the upcoming Model Y crossover.

It will not make its more expensive Model S sedan or Model X sport utility vehicle in China.

Musk made the remarks on Wednesday during the company's third-quarter earnings conference.

By the end of September, Tesla's accumulated global sales had reached 250,000 cars, and China is fast becoming one of its most important markets.

The company delivered 13,500 cars to China in the first nine months of 2017, more than double from a year earlier, according to statistics from the China Passenger Car Association.

Cui Dongshu, the association's secretary-general, said Tesla's decision to make cars in China is a win-win move as it will not only boost sales but also set a good example in quality for new energy carmakers in the country.

Imported cars in China are subject to a 25 percent import tax and hence a local plant would make Tesla vehicles more affordable.

When localized Tesla cars arrive in China by 2020, the company could face more competition with a host of firms revving up efforts to get a slice of China's new energy car market.

For instance, Chinese startup Nio is to launch its electric SUV next month. Future Mobility Corp, co-founded in 2016 by former BMW and Infiniti executives, will start making a mid-sized electric SUV in 2019, with a sedan to follow in 2021. Both carmakers are targeting the premium car sector.

China is the world's largest new energy car market, with 1 million such cars running on its roads by the end of 2016.

It has set a goal to sell 2 million new energy cars a year by 2020, according to a government blueprint released in April.
SINGAPORE  The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) will further strengthen supervisory cooperation and facilitate the development of their capital markets, according to a media release published by the MAS on Friday.

During the 2nd MAS-CSRC Supervisory Roundtable held here on Oct 31, MAS and CSRC discussed regulatory developments in the derivatives markets, their respective frameworks for supervising fund managers, as well as enhancing information sharing arrangements for derivative products, said the release.

MAS and CSRC also discussed how they could work together to facilitate the development of their capital markets. They agreed on initiatives to support the listing of qualifying Chinese companies in Singapore and explore possible mutual recognition of collective investment schemes. They also agreed to develop a staff exchange programme between the two authorities.

The Roundtable was co-chaired by MAS' Deputy Managing Director Ong Chong Tee and CSRC's Vice-Chairman Fang Xinghai. Representatives from the financial industries in Singapore and China were invited to the meeting to share their experiences and insights into possible capital markets collaboration initiatives between both countries.

The two sides launched their first Supervisory Roundtable in Chongqing, China in April 2016.
Entrepreneur Ngawang Dondrum displays the notebooks he designed in Lhasa, the Tibet autonomous region. HOU LIQIANG / CHINA DAILY

Take a look in any stationery store and you will find all sorts of notebooks for sale, but few that reflect the distinctive characteristics of the Tibet autonomous region. Entrepreneur Ngawang Don-drum aims to fill that gap in the market.

Born to an impoverished family in Nagchu prefecture, one of the first things the 24-year-old looked to do after being admitted to the Tibet Agriculture and Animal Husbandry College in 2013 was to achieve economic independence.

After class, he would work several part-time jobs as a hotel waiter, construction worker, sanitation worker and tutor. During his four years of study in Nyingchi city, he only once asked his family for money  about 2,000 yuan ($304) in his first year.

Inspired by Thubten Sherab, who won an innovation and entrepreneurship com-petition held in Lhasa last year with a pen he invented that can be used to write different types of Tibetan script with ease, Ngawang Dondrum began thinking about how he could help pass on Tibetan culture as well.

At first, he planned to also work on a pen  made out of wood, as is the Tibetan tradition  but found that he lacked the requisite wood-working skills and did not have enough money to cover the cost of the project.

So using the 30,000 yuan he had saved and the photo-editing skills he acquired by attending weekend workshops run by the Tibetan Literature Association, Ngawang Don-drum began designing his notebook.

His first trial run of 1,500 books, featuring a picture of a Tibetan language keyboard and a motto in both Chinese and Tibetan, proved immensely popular. He completely sold out within 48 hours after visiting just two schools in the cities of Lhasa and Lhokha, making 12,000 yuan in the process.

"I went to a vocational school in Lhokha city to advertise my notebook. It was so popular that I only had to wait at the school entrance. Monitors from different classes helped collect money for me and then came to take the notebooks," he said.

After selling another 1,500 notebooks of a different design, Ngawang Dondrum decided to make one that would be specically used for practicing Tibetan calligraphy. He consulted two lamas, both experts in the art, and nished designing it in February.

The new book features pictures of the holy Mount Kangrinboqe, also known as Mount Kailash, and Lake Manasarovar on its cover, as well as a portrayal of Thonmi Sambhota  traditionally regarded as the inventor of Tibetan script  and a damburi, or traditional guitar thought to originate in Tibet's Ngari prefecture.

Ngawang Dondrum said he is looking to add a machine-readable code to the book as well, which customers will be able to scan for tips on writing Tibetan calligraphy.

His company, also called Damburi, was registered in June and has been offered free office space in an innovation and entrepreneurship base in Duishigagyi village of Lhasa's Chushul county thanks to the local government's preferential policies for innovation and entrepreneurship.

"Damburi are still used to this day. I wanted to remind people to protect such cultural heritage with the name," he said, adding that he is now also applying for a startup fund of up to 50,000 yuan from the government.

"I am collecting stories from senior Tibetans and plan to cooperate with the tourism and culture authorities to print notebooks featuring the local culture of Tibet."

Contact the writers at houliq-iang@chinadaily.com.cn
China is urging the new Japanese Cabinet led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was re-elected on Wednesday, to enact "positive" China policies and improve bilateral ties as it promised.

"We hope the new Japanese Cabinet adheres to the spirit of relevant documents and consensus, adopts positive China policies and takes concrete actions to fulfill its statement of improving China-Japan ties so as to work with China to push bilateral ties to advance in the right direction," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Thursday at a daily news briefing.

Abe, the leader of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, has been Japan's prime minister since December 2012.

At a news conference after the introduction of his new Cabinet, in which the prime minister retained all his ministers, Abe said he would like to work on building a consensus with opposition forces on his long-term goal of revising Japan's pacifist Constitution, adopted after World War II.

Hua said on Thursday that China has long insisted on developing its ties with Japan in the spirit of "learning from history and facing the future "on the basis of the four political documents and four-point principled consensus between the two neighbors.

"Stable and healthy development of China-Japan ties is in line with the fundamental interests of both countries and their people," Hua said.

"Abe has gained achievements in diplomacy during his last tenure. However, the lack of improvement in relations with Beijing has been a regret for him. So now he wants to make a breakthrough in relations," said Zhang Boyu, a researcher at the Institute of Japan Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

There have been positive signals in bilateral ties recently, including Abe's attendance at a reception hosted by the Chinese embassy in Japan on Sept 28 to celebrate the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Abe has also expressed hopes of holding a trilateral meeting among the leaders of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea within the year and receiving a visit from China's top leader.

However, a vice-minister of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China told reporters on Oct 21 that high-level visits between China and Japan should be based on the support of public opinion and understanding of the ordinary people.

Zhou Jin contributed to this story.

lixiaokun@chinadaily.com.cn
China's "comfort women" and others expressed disappointment at the delay in registering documents on the list of the Memory of the World International Register.

UNESCO announced 78 new nominations out of 130 proposals to join the register on Monday.

Recommended for postponement were the Voice of the "Comfort Women" and Documentation on "Comfort Women" and Japanese Army Discipline. The International Advisory Committee suggested concerned parties make "a joint nomination to encompass as far as possible all relevant documents."

"Comfort women" is a euphemism for women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied areas before and during World War II.

Su Zhiliang, director of Shanghai Normal University's research center on comfort women, expressed on Tuesday his regret over the decision.

In May 2016, groups from China, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Timor-Leste, Indonesia and Japan made an official request for the listing of more than 2,700 documents on the register.

Su blamed the delay on Japanese right-wingers. Japan withheld its UNESCO dues of about $35 million after the listing in 2015 of documents regarding the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, according to Japanese news agency Kyodo.

Xinhua
Graduates of Peking University attend their convocation ceremony in Beijing in July. Education is key as the Chinese economy shifts away from manufacturing to a system more focused on creative thought. IMAGINECHINA

Education will be the key as China transitions itself from a manufacturing economy to one based on science, technology and innovation, and research and development.

The old system of education is slowly changing, said Jeongmin Seong, a senior fellow at consultancy McKinsey & Company in Shanghai.

Speaking at the 2017 Sydney China Business Forum on Sept 25, he said the focus of education in China today is shifting from "memory knowledge", where students memorize facts, to one more focused on "creative thought".

He told the forum, titled Capitalizing on China's Digital Revolution, that the pace of transition is "happening so fast that the old system will take some time to change".

But, does this matter to the tech giants sprouting up all over China?

"No, not really," Seong said. "You find companies will take the best and then put them through their own in-house education programs."

The government has already set in motion major reforms to the education system with the release of the National Plan for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010-20) seven years ago.

"Education is the cornerstone of national rejuvenation and social progress, and a fundamental way to improve citizens' quality and pro-mote their all-round development, bearing the hope of millions of families for a better life," the policy document said.

Education funding is growing annually, with 3.9 trillion yuan ($586 billion) last year, an increase of 7.57 percent from 2015, according to preliminary statistics released by the Ministry of Education in May.

Spending on preschool education in 2016 reached 280.2 billion yuan, up 15.48 percent from the previous year.

Investment in compulsory education totaled 1.76 trillion yuan, an increase of 9.76 percent year-on-year. Children in China are entitled to nine years of compulsory education.

Expenditure for high schools was 615.5 billion yuan, an increase of 6.75 percent from 2015, while the gure for higher education exceeded 1 trillion yuan, up 6.22 percent from the previous year, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, free compulsory education has become the norm in urban and rural areas, while vocational education has made headway fast.

According to the 2010-20 national plan, "remarkable progress" has been made in achieving education equity.

"Education development has vastly enhanced the quality of the entire nation, and stimulated innovation in science, technology and cultural prosperity, thereby making irreplaceable and significant contributions to China's economic growth, social progress, and the betterment of people's livelihood," the document said.

It noted that today's world is undergoing great development, profound changes and major adjustments.

"Both world multi-polarization and economic globalization are witnessing in-depth development. Science and technology are making rapid strides, and competition for talent or professionals is intensifying with each passing day."

"China is currently at a key stage for reform and development, as all-round progress is being made in economic, political, cultural and social development as well as in promoting ecological civilization."

As industrialization, IT, urbanization, marketing and internationalization develop, China has transitioned from a populous nation to one with a larger scale of human resource depth, the document said.

"China is seeing increasing pres-sure from its vast population, limited natural resources, the environment, and the transformation of its economic growth pattern."

"The future development and great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation are predicated on talent or professionals, and on education."

For an economy to successfully transition from manufacturing, an educated population well-versed in science, maths, technology, innovation and engineering is required.

The Chinese government has, for a long time now, recognized that old growth models are no longer relevant in the digital age.

The emphasis today is on innovation as the key driver toward more balanced and sustainable growth.

China recognizes that emerging technologies and the digital economy not only improve efficiencies but also improve production and services across all facets of life.

While China prides itself on its many advances in technology, it still recognizes that many will be left behind. There is still a great deal of work to doesperson for the company said.
Staring at a large thangka of Potala Palace hanging on the wall of the north stairwell of the Boulder Municipal Building in the United States, Bill Warnock paused for a moment before talking, plainly overcome by his thoughts.

"This thangka was given to the people of Boulder in 1987 by the mayor of Lhasa," said the president of the Boulder-Lhasa Sister City Project. Thangka is the traditional Tibetan art of cloth painting.

Boulder, the Tibet autonomous region's only sister city in the US, sits at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, about 40 kilometers northwest of the state capital, Denver.

"During my first trip in 1988, I was impressed by the friendliness, compassion and appreciation of the Tibetan people," Warnock said. "This motivated me to develop and implement many exchanges, particularly to help Tibetans in rural Lhasa in healthcare and solar electricity."

Established in 1986, the sister city project has contributed to the development of Lhasa and other areas in Tibet through exchanges in healthcare, education, environmental protection, and culture and art.

Warnock has visited Tibet 22 times since 1988, including 17 journeys to Lhasa and five to Tibetan areas in Sichuan province, and said he has witnessed many changes.

"Lhasa and the surrounding rural areas have become much more developed over the past 30 years," he said.

Showing a picture of the obstetrics-gynecology ward at Lhasa People's Hospital in 1990, Warnock said he was surprised by how much the hospital had changed.

"It was an old building," he said. "Having led so many healthcare delegations to Lhasa, I have seen tremendous changes at the Lhasa hospital. During our exchanges in 1991 to 1993, the hospital workers performed well, but they were limited by their facilities. When we conducted a training exchange there in 2010, the hospital had been completely rebuilt with modern facilities through funding from Jiangsu province."

The sister city project has launched eight initiatives in Lhasa and one in Sichuan. Most of the funding came from residents in Boulder and elsewhere in the US, as well as people in other countries.

"We advertise our fundraising drives through our website, emails, texts, phone calls, and occasional dinners. A significant amount of support has come from in-kind contributions and through partnership with other organizations," Warnock said, emphasizing that the sister city project receives support from the local community and Boulder City Council.

Shaun McGrath, former mayor of Boulder, described his visit to Lhasa in 2008 on invitation from the Tibetan city's mayor as "a wonderful experience".

"It's a beautiful city with a wonderfully deep Buddhist culture. It's a nice mix of old and new," he said, noting that sister city partnerships are meant to build close relationships across nations.

He praised the Boulder-Lhasa Sister City Project as a group that is active and continues to further relationships between the cities.

Lisa Morzel, a member of Boulder City Council, said: "Warnock has done incredible service. We are proud to be the sister city of Lhasa, and we are happy to learn more about its people and culture. We hope this will lead to more cultural exchanges."

Warnock will set off on his 23rd trip this month for an student MRI project, for which the sister city project has raised $30,000 from 79 individuals, foundations and corporations. It will see 45 Tibetan primary school students with cysticercosis, a dangerous and highly prevalent parasitic disease, travel to Xichang in Sichuan for MRI brain scans.

"I keep working every year to help Tibetan people improve their medical condition. I have paid for most of my trips to China from my own funds because it's hard enough to raise funds for the healthcare," Warnock said.

"I'm excited about this latest project. I've not met any of the 45 kids, but I think it's going to be a big chance for them to have a successful future."

Xinhua
During US President Donald Trump's upcoming trip to Asia, one word he will say a lot is "Indo-Pacific," in contrast to "Asia-Pacific", frequently used by his predecessor Barack Obama.

Senior White House officials on Tuesday described the trip as one to "reaffirm US leadership in promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific region".

The goal, as seen by many pundits in Washington, is to draw India into a US alliance to counter China's growing influence in the region.

The motivation was evident when US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke on Oct 18 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), touting India and berating China. Tillerson seems to believe that given the border standoff between China and India this summer, India would be more than happy to be a US puppet in the region to counter China.

What Tillerson may not know is that the countries in the region have long made it clear they don't want to be forced to choose between China and the US.

Tillerson's words indeed came as a surprise because it was he who endorsed the new type of major country relationship during his visit to China in March. Although his words triggered a backlash at home, it reflected his positive view of future China-US relations.

Tillerson's words were both confusing and contradictory. So I consulted Stapleton Roy, who had served as US ambassador to China, Singapore and Indonesia.

Roy, a career diplomat, believes that one principal rule of foreign affairs is that when the US talks about India, it should never mention China. Otherwise, India will resent the US because it doesn't want to be used against China.

A Brookings India survey several months ago showed that while Indians are wary of a rising China, they also believe that ties with China must be improved.

The Indo-Pacific concept is not entirely new. Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former US vice-president Joe Biden all mentioned it several years ago.

Michael Green, senior vice-president of CSIS and Japan chair at CSIS, described it as an idea of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

It is entirely OK for the US to propose an Indo-Pacific strategy. However, such a strategy should not aim at a third country, such as China.

For years, countries in the region are moving toward closer integration rather than disintegration. For example, China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) have become a boon for the countries in the region looking to improve infrastructure and connectivity.

China and India also have strengthened ties despite their border disputes. The two countries are key members of the BRICS, which also includes Russia, Brazil and South Africa. Just in September, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the BRICS leaders meeting in Hangzhou.

The author is deputy editor of China Daily USA. chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com
Drought forces Sri Lankan farmers to move to cities in search of work

COLOMBO - When Siri Hettige, a sociology professor at Colombo University, conducts surveys of young people across Sri Lanka, he never fails to ask one key question: Does anybody want to become a farmer?

No, has been the overwhelmingly emphatic answer, he said.

That is one indicator of the growing poverty plaguing many farmers in Sri Lanka, something that is driving increasing migration each year out of rural areas.

"Farmers are moving (out of their villages) because there isn't enough money in agriculture," admitted M.W. Weerakoon, a Ministry of Agriculture additional secretary.

A rice farmer needs two successful harvests a year on about a hectare of land to earn the 17,760 rupees ($115) a month needed to keep a family of four above the country's poverty line, he said. A maize farmer needs even more land - about 1.5 hectares, he said.

But most of the island's rice farmers don't own enough land and large numbers are facing worsening debt, particularly as droughts, floods and other extreme weather linked to climate change hit harvests.

In some cases, farmers have used their land as a guarantee for loans, and face losing it if harvests fail, Weerakoon said.

All of those pressures are driving an increase in migration, largely to urban areas, Hettige, Weerakoon and others said.

"If weather patterns bring more rain or less, a family member is placed in a city where such risks are moderated," said Bilesha Weeraratne, a researcher with the Institute of Policy Studies, a Colombo-based policy agency.

"Vast numbers are moving due to climate risks."

Government data shows that about 4 million Sri Lankans - almost 20 percent of the island's people - are now internal migrants.

Most migrants head for urban areas, particularly Colombo, Gampaha and Kalurara districts in the Western province. For the most part they come from the country's agricultural Central, South, North Western and North Central provinces, according to Sri Lanka's Department of Census and Statistics.

In the two districts of Colombo and Gampaha, one in every four residents is now a migrant, department data shows.

Manual labor jobs

Most of the migrants end up in manual labor jobs in cities, including as office help or construction workers. Increasingly many are also driving threewheeled taxis.

Migrants say finding work is increasingly tough.

"It is very difficult to get jobs because most of them are already taken. The only available jobs for someone like me is in the construction sites, which are looking for manual help," said Sangeeth Hettiarchchi, a 22-year-old originally from Moneragala District, in Sri Lanka's southeast.

He said he left his village last year as income from the family's banana plot dwindled, and now works as a construction worker in Colombo.

For now the government is focused on helping farmers flattened by drought get back in the field. Weerakoon said the government was making rice seed available to farmers at half the usual price this season, hoping to see 320,000 hectares of rice planted, up from 220,000 during the last drought season.

"The key factor would be that we don't lose large tracks of the planted extent," he said.

During the last harvesting season over 81,000 hectares of the 220,000 planted were lost to drought and minor floods, according to Sri Lanka's Department of Agriculture.

Reuters
 The Firehouse





Situated in the heart of the old part of Sacramento, The Firehouse has been one of the favorite spots for fine dining for 55 years. Every Tuesday, celebrated Sommelier Mario Ortiz leads a traditional wine tasting, an activity that always attracts wine aficionados and casual wine drinkers alike. The Firehouse courtyard is open every Monday night until October, and its a great choice for a relaxed and romantic dinner. The Firehouse wine collection includes around 16,000 carefully selected bottles from around the globe. Executive Chef Deneb Williams works with local farmers, growers, and fishermen to ensure only the freshest ingredients are used for selections from the seasonal menu. The Firehouse Filet Mignon and the Day Boat Fresh Fish are among the most popular specialties at the restaurant.

1112 2nd Street, Sacramento, CA 95814, 916-442-4772

More places to visit: 18 Best Things To Do in Santa Rosa.





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Cleveland, Ohio is a vibrant, culturally diverse city with world-class museums, free attractions, unique wedding venues and beautiful parks. Explore the trendy University Circle area, visit the International Women's Air & Space Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum. Best things to do in Cleveland, Ohio with kids include the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and the Greater Cleveland Aquarium.

We recommend that you call the attractions and restaurants ahead of your visit to confirm current opening times.

1. University Circle  Courtesy of Kenneth Sponsler - Fotolia.com

University Circle, a famous urban district covering a square mile, is home to some of Clevelands top education, health care, arts, cultural, religious, and social service institutions. Situated near downtown Cleveland, the area is located on Euclid Avenue and is known for its vibrant, bustling energy. Youll enjoy spending time among the many retailers, restaurants, bars, and residences. Take in some history with a stroll along the quaint side streets of Magnolia, Ford, Bellflower, and Juniper where beautifully preserved 19th-century mansions have been transformed into hip hotels and trendy coffee shops. Alternatively, you can take a short ride along the Euclid Corridor to the modern arts and cultural district at Euclid and Mayfield. If you are wondering what to do in Cleveland this weekend, Wade Oval plays host to several outdoor events, live concerts, and movie nights during the summer while The Rink at Wade Oval is ideal for ice-skating during the winter months.

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2. Cleveland Museum of Art  Courtesy of Jennifer Elizabeth - Fotolia.com

Founded in 1913 for the benefit of all the people forever, the Cleveland Museum of Art is one of the countrys most distinguished cultural institutions and one of the top Cleveland attractions. Housed in a beautifully preserved neoclassic building of white Georgian marble, the museum lies at the center of the citys Fine Arts Garden, just north of the Wade Lagoon. The museum has a fantastic collection of more than 30,000 works of art that span over 5,000 years; some of the collections boast works from ancient Egypt, as well as world-renowned masterpieces from Europe, Asia, and Africa. In keeping with its mission of bringing art to the people of Cleveland, Ohio the museum also fills its calendar with special exhibitions, lectures, films, and musical programs for the public, as well as community-based programs and performing arts series. 11150 East Boulevard, Cleveland, OH Phone: 216-421-7340

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3. What to do in Cleveland: West Side Market  Courtesy of Henryk Sadura - Fotolia.com

The West Side Market is Clevelands oldest public market where over 100 producers, artisans, and vendors sell their wares. Market stalls brim with charcuterie and meats, succulent seafood, freshly picked fruits and vegetables, dairy products, fresh flowers, spices and nuts. Bakers sell homemade baked bread, pastries, and other baked goods while artisan chefs and cooks offer delicious ready-to-eat meals. Built in 1912 to replace the original Pearl Street Market, the West Side Market is the last remaining market of three that were constructed to serve Clevelands growing immigrant population in the early 20th century. Today, the market continues to offer an authentic and culturally diverse shopping experience to locals and visitors alike. The West Side Market is one of the best things to do in Cleveland, Ohio for foodies. 1979 West 25th Street, Cleveland, Ohio, Phone: 216-664-3387



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4. Cleveland Cultural Gardens  Courtesy of denys_kuvaiev - Fotolia.com



Created by students and scholars at Cleveland State University as a peace garden, the Cleveland Cultural Gardens are a living monument to the rich history of twentieth-century America. The gardens, of which there are 29, are designed to reveal the stories of the major conflicts that gave shape to the century, including important events such as World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. The gardens also provide insight into the social, economic, political, and cultural upheavals that influenced the nation during the last century. Some of the more popular featured gardens include the Albanian Cultural Garden, the Armenian Garden, The Polish Garden, the Slovenian Garden, and the Czech Garden. Enjoy guided tours through the gardens, which will give you behind-the-scenes information about the gardens and the intimate details surrounding them, as well as the cultural heroes that are linked to them. 750 East 88th Street, Cleveland, Ohio

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5. Things to Do in Cleveland: Greater Cleveland Aquarium  Courtesy of JoMo Photo - Fotolia.com



The Greater Cleveland Aquarium opened in 2012 and is spread over more than 70,000 square feet (6,500 square meters) of exhibition space. This impressive establishment features eight newly built exhibition areas, a vast 230,000-gallon tank with a unique walk-through acrylic shark tunnel, and a variety of intriguing exhibits showcasing local and exotic species of fish. Stroll through the many exhibitions, which include Lakes and Rivers of the World, the Indo-Pacific Zone, Discovery Zone, Coastal and Coral Reef. Meanwhile, the 175-foot (53 m) shark tunnel offers panoramic views of the myriad marine life, including numerous sharks of various species. Aiming to educate, inspire, and encourage visitors to take an interest in the marine environment, the Aquarium offers educational programs about the animals and the care they receive. 2000 Sycamore Street, Cleveland, Ohio, Phone: 216-862-8803

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6. International Women's Air and Space Museum  International Women's Air and Space Museum



The International Women's Air & Space Museum (IWASM) is devoted to the celebration of women in the fields of aviation and space exploration. It pays homage to the accomplishments, successes, and contributions they have made to the industry over the decades. Located in the terminal building of Burke Lakefront Airport, the museum features a wealth of memorabilia and historical artifacts collected by the Ninety-Nines, an international organization of women pilots formed in 1929. The museum also showcases famous aviation women throughout history. Guided, docent-led tours through the museum are available and last between 45 minutes and an hour, giving visitors the chance to explore both permanent and temporary exhibitions. Burke Lakefront Airport, Cleveland, Ohio, Phone: 216-623-1111

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7. Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)  Museum of Contemporary Art

Clevelands Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) is the regions only contemporary art museum dedicated to showcasing modern and contemporary art through a range of new-age, evolving exhibitions. Founded in 1968, this non-profit institution has been playing a vital role in Clevelands cultural landscape for over 45 years. The museum proudly presents the works of more than 2,000 artists through permanent and traveling exhibitions, as well as artists first solo shows. Aiming to challenge, inspire, and teach a broad range of audiences about modern art, the museum creates a unique and dynamic space in which to fuel imagination and cultivate creativity. The Museum of Contemporary Art is one of the best things to do in Cleveland for art lovers. It also offers a variety of programs and open-ended activities that encourage collaboration and interaction. 11400 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio



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8. Little Italy, Cleveland, Ohio  Courtesy of Tomasz Zajda - Fotolia.com

Little Italy is a culturally rich area located around Mayfield Road that brings a slice of Italy to the heart of Cleveland. Established by Italian sculptor Joseph Carrabelli in the 1880s when he began sculpting granite and marble works at the top of Mayfield Road hill, the area soon filled up with Italian families. Today, the heritage of Little Italy is still celebrated and upheld to this day. If you are looking for things to do in Cleveland today, this is a great place to visit. Brimming with art galleries, restaurants, cafes, and delis, the area has become one of the most beloved in the city, where many people seek out an exciting night of dining and entertainment. Little Italy really comes alive during various festivals and on special occasions such as The Feast of the Assumption. It also plays host to the Citys famous Art Walks, holds regular bocce tournaments, and promises fun-filled alfresco summer nights.



9. Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA), Cleveland, Ohio  Cleveland Institute of Art

The Cleveland Institute of Art is a private educational institution founded in 1882 as the renowned Western Reserve School of Design for Women. Later named the Cleveland School of Art, this is Ohios premier art and design college and is located in University Circle in Cleveland, on a one-acre campus. Today, the institute is an internationally recognized college of art and design that offers degrees of bachelor of fine arts in 15 majors that include design, crafts, digital arts, and fine arts. The institute also offers study abroad programs, internships, Association of Independent Colleges of Art & Design Mobility Programs, and AICAD New York Studio Residency Programs. 11610 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106, Phone: 800-223-4700

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10. Things to Do in Cleveland, OH: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum  Courtesy of pabrady63 - Fotolia.com

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is dedicated to showcasing some of rock and rolls greatest performers and contributors. Designed by world-renowned architect I.M. Pei and located on the shores of Lake Erie, this world-class museum hopes to engage and inspire visitors with the power of rock and roll with its impressive collections, exhibitions, and displays. The museum also houses a well stocked library and archives, and it offers range of educational programs. Featured exhibits include Rock Portraits by Herb Ritts, The Pink Floyd Wall, Legends of Rock, and The Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Dedicated to the celebration of rock and roll, the museum offers a range of classes and workshops for children and adults to foster a deeper understanding of rock and roll and the influence it has had thus far on society and the world. 1100 E 9th St, Cleveland, Ohio



11. What to do in Cleveland: James A. Garfield Monument  Courtesy of naughtynut - Fotolia.com

Resting in the Lake View Cemetery on Euclid Avenue, the James A. Garfield Monument honors James A. Garfield, the 20th President of the United States, and serves as his resting place. Designed by architect George Keller and constructed of Berea Sandstone, the monument stands 180 feet tall and contains elements of Romanesque, Gothic, and Byzantine styles of architecture, with five terracotta panels by Casper Bubel. Marble, granite, and gold mosaics with stained glass windows representing the original 13 colonies and War and Peace beautifully decorate the ornate Memorial Hall. A statue of the President sculpted by Alexander Doyle stands on the main floor of the memorial. Enjoy breathtaking views of Lake Erie from the upper outdoor balcony, a view that inspired the cemeterys name. 12316 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, Phone: 216-421-2665

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12. Playhouse Square, Cleveland, Ohio  Courtesy of Shannon Workman - Fotolia.com

Playhouse Square is the countrys second-largest performing arts center where a range of entertainment, performances, shows, and events dazzle audiences from around the world. This establishment is a non-profit organization that produces a variety of plays, operas, dance performances, music concerts, and readings for the betterment of the community. Playhouse Square also offers educational classes, workshops, and programs aimed at inspiring the public to take an interest in the performing arts and to develop local skills related to the fine arts. The master performers who run the programs leave the stage to interact and engage with learners and share their expertise and knowledge. Dont miss the worlds largest outdoor chandelier, the GE Chandelier, which is a magnificent 20-foot tall stainless steel light piece that shimmers with 4,200 crystal pendants and LED fixtures. 1501 Euclid Avenue, Suite 200, Cleveland, Ohio, Phone: 216-771-4444



13. North Chagrin Reservation, Cleveland, Ohio  Courtesy of shrirampatki - Fotolia.com

Located in Mayfield Village, Willoughby Hills, and Gates Mills, North Chagrin Reservation is a 1,700-acre wildlife sanctuary that features several outdoor recreation areas, walking trails, picnic spots, and wildlife reserves. Established in the 1920s, the Reservation has long attracted visitors, inviting them to enjoy the beautiful scenery, outdoor activities, and wildlife. Sanctuary Marsh and Sunset Pond are excellent for bird watching, while the turn-of-the-century Squire's Castle makes for an interesting architectural feature. The Reservation is also home to a nature center and nature education building where community-based programs, classes, and workshops are held, as well as the Manakiki Golf Course in Willoughby Hills. 4101 Fulton Parkway, Cleveland, Ohio, Phone: 216-635-3200



14. Things to Do: The Ohio and Erie Canalway  Courtesy of Kenneth Sponsler - Fotolia.com

Constructed in the early 19th century, the Ohio and Erie Canal carried freight traffic across the state of Ohio for over 40 years until the advent of the railroad. It later served as a water source for various industries and towns. Today, the canal is managed by the National Park Service and used by the public for various recreational purposes such as birding, hiking, bicycling, or horseback riding. Some parts of the canal, such as the Ohio and Erie Canal Historic District, are designated as special National Heritage Areas, helping to preserve the heritage of the canal and improving the quality of life of residents in the counties of Northeastern Ohio.



15. Progressive Field Tours , Cleveland, Ohio  Courtesy of Pix by Marti - Fotolia.com



Home to Major League Baseball team the Cleveland Indians, Progressive Field is a state-of-the-art urban ballpark that offers fans a modern and comfortable environment in which to watch their home team play ball. Visitors can enjoy guided tours of this world-class facility and get a unique, behind-the-scenes look at the home of the Indians. Tours take visitors to the dugouts, batting cages, the visitors bullpen, the fan caves, party suites, and Club Lounge. Visitors can also see the Heritage Park Indians Hall of Fame where they can learn more about the history and successes of the Indians. Tours last approximately 60 minutes and are based on your event schedule and group size. 2401 Ontario St, Cleveland, Ohio, Phone: 866-800-1275

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16. Things to Do in Cleveland: A Christmas Story House and Museum  A Christmas Story House and Museum



The Christmas Story House is a 19th-century Victorian house best known for being the residence of Ralphie Parkers in the 1983 film A Christmas Story. The house was purchased by a private developer and restored to its former movie star glory. Today, it is open to the public. The Christmas Story Museum is situated just across the road from the house and features a range of memorabilia, costumes, and original props from the film, including Randys snowsuit, the toys from the Higbees window, and the famous family car. Browse through rare behind-the-scenes photos as you take a step back in time, and finish off your visit by shopping for your own memorabilia at the museum gift shop. The museum is open seven days a week, year-round. 3159 W 11th Street, Cleveland, Ohio, Phone: 216-298-4919



17. Town Hall, Cleveland, Ohio  Town Hall



Town Hall Ohio City is an organic, whole and sustainable food cafe that serves seasonal, locally sourced, and GMO-free cuisine along with world-renowned craft beer and tasty cocktails. They also have a unique bean bar where they grinds up fresh beans to brew up a tasty cup of coffee. Boasting a contemporary and casual dining space with a lovely outdoor patio, the cafe serves a variety of healthy small plates and bar bites for brunch, lunch, and dinner. Their special late-night menu features delectable treats such as seared shishito mushrooms, oven-roasted kale and goats cheese platter. You can even enjoy freshly squeezed juices, smoothies, and special milkshakes with your meal. 1909 West 25th Street, Cleveland, Ohio, Phone: 216-344-9400

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18. Things to do: Cleveland Playhouse  Courtesy of Gianfranco Bella - Fotolia.com



Founded in 1915, the Cleveland Play House was America's first professional regional theater, and it has been presenting a wide range of world and American premiere shows to patrons for 100 years. Giving performances in three state-of-the-art venues  the Allen Theater, the Helen Theater, and the Outcalt Theater  at Playhouse Square in downtown Cleveland, the theater aims to inspire, stimulate, and entertain audiences and communities in Northeast Ohio. It is known for producing plays, shows, and programs of the highest quality. The theater also provides a variety of educational programs for children, youth, and adults, as well as a several community-based events that encourage an interest in theater and the arts. 1407 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, Phone: 216-241-6000



19. Things to Do in Cleveland: Velvet Tango Room  Velvet Tango Room



The Velvet Tango Room is an elegant jazz lounge and cocktail bar tucked away between two trendy neighborhoods in the heart of Cleveland. The establishment features an ornate mahogany bar, a baby grand piano, a beautiful tin ceiling, and sensually low lighting. The lounge exudes style and class, and has an impressive program of handcrafted cocktails, craft beers, and international wines, along with small plates of delicious contemporary cuisine. True to its elegant form, the restaurant has a few rules, which include no hats for men and no T-shirts. 2095 Columbus Road, Cleveland, Ohio, Phone: 216-241-8869

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20. Cleveland Museum of Natural History  Courtesy of okanakdeniz - Fotolia.com



Established to inspire a passion for nature and help ensure the protection of the natural world for future generations to come, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History is home to a collection of over four million specimens across a variety of fields that include archeology, botany, geology, and paleontology, among others. Located in University Circle in downtown Cleveland, the museum is made up of a number of educational, cultural, and medical institutions that perform research and facilitate the development of the current collections. If you are looking for great family attractions in Cleveland, this museum is a fun place to visit. Important exhibits include the only specimen of a small tyrannosaur dinosaur, multiple mastodon and mammoth skeletons, and the remains of the famous sled dog, Balto. 1 Wade Oval Drive, Cleveland, Ohio, Phone: 216-231-4600



21. Barrio Tacos, Cleveland, OH  Barrio Tacos



Barrio Tacos, a local chain and the go-to spot for delicious, build-your-own taco creations, features handcrafted cocktails, and plenty of tequila served in a hip, casual, and laid-back dining space. Made from the freshest, locally sourced ingredients, Barrios tacos are packed with succulent meats and fresh vegetables. Alternatively, you can build your own taco with all your favorite toppings for brunch, lunch, or dinner. Pair your taco with an icy margarita or tequila-based cocktail, a glass of sangria, or local wine. Be sure to stop by for happy hour, which takes place every evening at the bar. You can also find the Barrio food truck at several festivals and special events throughout the city and take advantage of monthly food specials. 503 Prospect Ave, Cleveland, Ohio, Phone: 216-862-4652



22. Steamship William G. Mather, Cleveland, Ohio  Courtesy of Jennifer Elizabeth - Fotolia.com



Built in 1925 as an iron ore, coal, stone, and grain carrier, the steamship William G. Mather was nicknamed the The Ship That Built Cleveland due to her frequent voyages through the Great Lakes to the steel mills of Cleveland. Today, the retired and restored bulk freighter can be explored from stem to stern on private or guide tours. Experience what life was like on this 618-foot historic flagship as you walk the decks and marvel at some of the engineering feats that made the ship famous. Visit the huge cargo holds, four-story engine room, age-old pilot house, and beautifully preserved guest quarters. Wander through the Great Lakes Story exhibits, where over a dozen interactive experiences detail the formation of the Great Lakes, the environmental threats they face, and the ways in which science and technology is helping to restore them back to health. 601 Erieside Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, Phone: 216-694-2000

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23. The Harp, Cleveland, Ohio  The Harp The Harp is a storybook Irish pub: Warm, rustic, with cozy booths, a long wooden bar with a stained-glass backdrop, Irish music piping from the speakers, and the smell of corned beef wafting from the kitchen. Voted the best Irish pub in Cleveland a number of times, The Harp is incredibly handsome, but it is more than that. The menu is full of Irish delights such as boxty  an Irish potato pancake filled with corned beef  and fabulous lineup of beers on draft, from Guinness to local micro brews. Live Irish music alternates with classic rock once a week and the magnificent terrace overlooking Lake Erie just about tops it all off. 4408 Detroit Ave, Cleveland, OH 44113, Phone: 216-939-0200



24. Things to Do in Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Orchestra  Courtesy of furtseff - Fotolia.com One of the most acclaimed ensembles in the world, the Cleveland Orchestra has a long and proud history of sharing the joy and value of music with audiences both locally and abroad. Based at Severance Hall during the winter months and at the Blossom Music Festival in the summer, the orchestra also takes up temporary residences in Miami and Vienna while touring the globe. Committed to artistic excellence, creative programming, and active community engagement, the orchestra has been under the expert directorship of Franz Welser-Most for the past thirteen years. Today, the orchestra continues to play a vital role in Ohios arts and culture scene through the provision of educational programs, community-based learnerships, skills development, and ongoing initiatives and collaborations. Severance Hall, 11001 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, Phone: 216-231-7300



25. Fun Places to Go Near Me: Cleveland Metroparks Zoo  Courtesy of Timothy - Fotolia.com Founded in 1892, the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is home to several bio-thematic areas that house animals from different regions of the world and is one of Ohios most popular attractions. Spanning 183 acres (74 ha), the zoo is divided into sections that are themed according to the area they represent. Some of the sections are the African Savannah, Northern Trek, Australian Adventure, and the Rainforest. The Cat & Aquatics Building houses one of the largest collections of primate species in North America, and gorillas, lemurs, monkeys and aye-ayes call this building home. Meanwhile, the Wolf Wilderness introduces visitors to life in a northern temperate forest. Visitors can explore the zoo on foot or by riding one of two zoo trams, which follow selected routes around the park. 3900 Wildlife Way, Cleveland, Ohio, Phone: 216-661-6500



25 Best Things to Do in Cleveland, Ohio

Attraction Spotlight: Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Cleveland is Northeast Ohios only non-collecting contemporary art museum dedicated to showcasing innovative modern art through a range of ever-changing exhibitions. Founded in 1968 and playing an exciting role in the city's cultural landscape, MOCA has been exhibiting works of modern and avante garde art to the community for over 45 years and has acted as a both conduit and catalyst for those seeking artistic inspiration.

The Museum was the first museum in the region to display the works of world-renowned artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Laurie Anderson, Jasper Johns, and Christo, and continues to exhibit the work of emerging and established artists from around the world.

The mission of the Museum of Contemporary Art is to be a dynamic and unique venue for showcasing an array of modern visual art and to push the boundaries of creativity, exploration, and innovation through awe-inspiring exhibitions and educational programs.

Designed by internationally acclaimed architect and Harvard Professor Farshid Moussavi, the Museum of Contemporary Art is an icon for Clevelands revitalization and growth and a symbol of the citys renaissance. The gem-like structure boasts a unique designed that is both environmentally and fiscally sustainable, as well as being visually stunning and highly practical. The Museum is a green building and received LEED Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council in 2015.

The 34,000-square-foot geometric-shaped structure rises from a six-sided base to a four-sided top, producing eight triangles and trapezoids that are stands four stories high. The buildings exterior is covered in panels of reflective black stainless steel, while the interiors are cooled and heated by geothermal wells that are located beneath the plaza next to the building.

In addition to being an extraordinary form of art in itself, the building presents intimate interior spaces to showcase the works of contemporary artists from around the world and for visitors to connect with them. The iconic building masterfully accommodates an array of wide-ranging experiences with contemporary art for all to enjoy.

Past exhibits at the Museum of Contemporary Art have featured works by renowned artists, including Hildur Asgeirsdottir Jonsson, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Christo, and Jim Hodges, as well as local and regional artists from Greater Cleveland and Northeastern Ohio.

Recent critically acclaimed exhibitions have included Diana Cooper (2008), Hugging and Wrestling: Contemporary Israeli Photography and Video (2009), and Marilyn Minter: Orange Crush (2010).

MOCA Cleveland offers a variety of educational programs that cultivate creativity, fuel imagination and encourage exploration. Based on curiosity, interaction, problem solving, and play, programs include in-gallery activities, hands-on art projects, workshops and classes for all ages.

The Museum offers a wealth of fun for families with changing exhibitions and educational programs that families and children can explore together. The ArtSquad is a cartoon trio that acts as the face of the Museum and presents three different age-appropriate ways to learn about the Museum's changing exhibitions ever season. Programs include Tinker Space where kids can experiment art-making practices and different materials and Family Fun Days.

MOCA Cleveland also coordinates special programs and events for students and teenagers such as the immersive ACE (Art & Culture Enterprise) program, as well as internships for art and art history students at the Cleveland Institute of Art and Case Western Reserve University and other colleges.

The Museum of Contemporary Art also presents a variety of programs for teachers and educators that are easily adaptable to all ages and complement classroom curriculums.

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11400 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106, Phone: 216-421-8671

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Attraction Spotlight: Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in Cleveland, Ohio, is an 183-acre zoo and animal park and one of the most popular year-round attractions in Northeast Ohio. Founded in 1882 at Wade Park, the Zoo is part of an extensive system of nature preserves in the Greater Cleveland area known as the Cleveland Metroparks and sees more than one million visitors every year.

Originally named the Cleveland Zoological Park, the zoo began with a collection of only animals of local origin and on moving to its current location in Old Brooklyn in 1907, the zoo then acquired its first elephant. In 1975 the Cleveland Metroparks took ownership of the Zoo and still manages it today.

The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is divided into several areas namely African Savanna, Australian Adventure, The Primate, Cat & Aquatics Building, The RainForest, Northern Trek, and Waterfowl Lake and is home to more than 3,000 animals from over 600 species. The Zoo also houses one of the largest collections of primates in the United States in an outstanding natural exhibition called Monkey Island, on which a large population of colobus monkeys lives in free-range conditions.

The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is sectioned into several bio-thematic areas that each represent different habitats and ecosystems and the animals that live in them.

Housed in a large, glass and granite two-story building spanning two acres of floor space, the RainForest boasts waterfalls, replicas of ancient Mayan ruins, over 10,000 plants, and more than 600 animals from the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Fauna and flora in this exotic display include giant anteaters, two-toed sloths, Bornean orangutans, and Egyptian fruit bats, as well as tropical almonds, lipstick trees, and balsam apples. Divided into an outer ring that houses an array of tropical plants and small mammal exhibits, as well as a cafe and a gift shop, and an inner ring that features the main animal exhibits, the RainForest is the largest indoor tropical environments in the world.

The African Savanna area consists of several spacious areas, which are home to Africas great beasts, including elephants, Masai giraffes, black rhinos, African lions, Grants zebras, bontebok, ostriches, and flamingoes. The popular African Elephant Crossing features two large ranges, namely the Mopani and the Savanna spread out over several acres and a gated crossing where visitors can watch as the elephants pass from area to area. The exhibit also has a nose-to-trunk window, an elevated feeding station, and excellent open-air viewing of the herd. In addition to African elephants, the African Elephant Crossing exhibit is also home to naked mole rats, meerkats, and a giant African python.

Monkey Island is a large, concrete island structure surrounded by water and littered with several tree trunks, ropes, and shelters for the monkeys that live there to enjoy. Inhabitants on Monkey Island range include colobus monkeys and a Klipspringer.

Designed to resemble the Australian Outback, the Australian Adventure area is an eight-acre exhibit that houses a variety of endemic Australian animals such as wallabies, kangaroos, and wallaroos. Visitors can enjoy up close encounters with wallabies in the Wallaby Walkabout and learn how to shear a sheep at the Kookaburra Station. Koala Junction features the Gum Leaf Hideout which is home to koala bears, Goodfellows tree kangaroos, numbats, and short-beaked echidnas, as well as interactive displays that showcase the devastating effects of deforestation on Australian ecosystems. The Reinberger Homestead, which is constructed to reflect a traditional 19th-century sheep station, the Reinberger Homestead offers visitors an insight into Australian home life.

The Northern Trek area features cold climate habitats and the animals that live in them, such as grizzly and black bears, Siberian tigers, reindeer, endangered Persian onagers, and Bactrian camels. The area has a range of exhibits, including polar bear and sea lion exhibits, and the Wolf Wilderness, an education and viewing center with a 65,000-gallon pond for beavers, bald eagles, and six Mexican gray wolves. Visitors can also explore the Wolf Lodge, a 3,000-square-foot building that is modeled after a 19th-century fur trading post and offers information on the indigenous animals of North America's deciduous forests and wetlands.

Originally opened in 1975 as the Primate & Cat Building, the Primate, Cat & Aquatics Building houses one of the biggest collections of primate species in North America, including aye-ayes, New World monkeys, western lowland gorillas, and several species of lemur. The Cat section of the exhibit is home to snow leopards, cheetah, fossas, and red pandas, while the Aquatics section has a variety of sharks, electric eels, piranhas, a giant Pacific octopus, and hundreds of living coral.

The shallow marshlands of Waterfowl Lake are home Andean condors, Chilean flamingoes, Stellers sea eagles, and trumpeter swans, as well as lemurs and gibbons on the lakes islands. Wade Hall, one of the oldest zoo buildings in the United States can also be found here and serves as a Victorian ice cream parlor.

The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is located at 3900 Wildlife Way in Cleveland. A Welcome Plaza greets visitors at the entrance and features an amphitheater, a food court, a large souvenir shop and several administrative buildings. There are many smaller concession/souvenir stands located throughout the park. Visitors to the Zoo can explore on foot or use the Zoo Trams, which shuttle visitors between the Welcome Plaza and the Primate, Cat & Aquatics Building or the Northern Trek.

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3900 Wildlife Way, Cleveland, OH 44109, Phone: 216-661-6500

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Attraction Spotlight: West Side Market

At over a century old, the West Side Market in Cleveland, Ohio, has been serving up a number of food and local wares to the public since 1912. Today, the West Side Market is the longest continuously operating municipal market in Cleveland, OH. Originally created to serve the immigrant population, the West Side Market has become a mainstay in the city. With a wide assortment of foodstuffs and specialty items as well as a number of independent eateries, many patrons thoroughly enjoy visiting the West Side Market to do their local shopping and for dining. Named one of 10 Great Public Places in America by the American Planning Association, the West Side Market is a must-visit while in Cleveland, OH.

Vendors

The West Side Market is home to numerous vendors offering a wide assortment of food and other goods for the general public to purchase. A complete listing of the vendors currently at the West Side Market can be found on the West Side Market website. This listing also provides contact information for each of the vendors as well as the accepted forms of payment for food, goods, and services. Customers can also view, download, and print a detailed map of the West Side Market, which includes stable/vendor locations. The various vendors at the West Side Market based on products/services offered are,

Fruits and Vegetables

 Angelos Produce

 Rooted In Cleveland

 Shadi Produce

 Green City Growers

 Iskander Produce

Meat and Poultry

 Nonno Joes Deli

 Czuchraj Meats

 M&M Foods/Toneys Baloney

 D.A. Russ

 Old Country Sausage

Seafood

 Kates Fish

 Danis Seafood

 Classic Seafood Market

Dairy

 Annemaries Dairy

 Meister Foods

 Irene Dever

 The Cheese Shop

Bakery

 Cake Royale

 Grandma Campbells Cupcakes

 Mediterra Bakehouse

 Theresas Bakery

Spices, Nuts and Oils

 Urban Herbs

 Narrin Asian Spice & Sauce

 Serafino Olive Oils & Balsamics

 P-Nut Gallery

Prepared Foods

 Crepes de Luxe

 Frickaccios

 Kim Se Cambodian Cuisine

 Mahas Falafel

 Orale! Contemporary Mexican Cuisine

Specialty

 Ooo FUDGE

 Juice Garden

 Maple Valley Sugarbush

 Ohio City Flowers

 Pierogi Palace

Market Tours

Westside Market encourages the public to enjoy a tour of the facilities. At this time, guided tours are not offered. However, large groups that wish to tour the West Side Market are encouraged to contact the market directly prior to visiting. The Westside Market does limit the number of tours that can occur each day. Likewise, the best day to tour the Westside Market is on a Wednesday. Tours for school groups that have children or young adults will require adult supervision at all times. More information on tours can be obtained by contacting the Westside Market directly at (2160) 664-3387.

Parking/Transportation

Convenient customer parking is available in the lot behind the Westside Market. The market is also easily accessible by public transportation as several buses stop by or at the market, and the red line train West 25th Street/Ohio City stop is located across the street.

Address

West Side Market, 1979 West 25th Street, Cleveland, OH 44113, Phone: 216-664-3387

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HCM CITY  Vietjet and HCM City Development Joint Stock Commercial Bank (HDBank) have launched a promotional programme for new customers and existing Vietjet  HDBank international co-branded credit card holders.

Under the programme, which runs from now to December 31, the first customers to sign on for an international co-branded credit card and the earliest cardholders buying tickets will be reimbursed for the total Vietjet air ticket purchase by 20 per cent (up to a maximum VN500,000 or US$22) and 10 per cent (maximum VN200,000 or $9) respectively when they finalise payment on the website www.vietjetair.com.

The promotion will be applied for all Vietjets domestic and international routes flying to Seoul and Busan, South Korea; Hong Kong; Kaohsiung, Taipei, Taichung and Tainan, Taiwan; Singapore; Bangkok, Phuket and Chiang Mai, Thailand; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Yangon, Myanmar; Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, Campuchia.

New cardholders will be reimbursed only one time in the first month after opening cards and no more than two times on the following month, while existing cardholders will be reimbursed a maximum of three times during the promotional time, Vietjet said, adding that the promotional money will be transferred to cardholders payment accounts within 20 days after the end day of each months programm.  VNS
HA NOI  More than 20 Japanese businesses are introducing their products at a consumer meeting, hosted by Sakura Vietnam on Friday, in the capital city.

On display are high-quality Japanese products spanning eight sectors, such as home appliances, foodstuffs, cosmetics, healthcare and fashion.

The two-day meeting is an opportunity for Japanese enterprises to meet directly with Vietnamese wholesalers while advertising their goods to local consumers, the events organiser said, adding that more than 600 domestic wholesalers and 1,000 customers are expected to come to the event.

Sakura Vietnam, an affiliate of Japanese Sakura Group, entered the Vietnamese market in 2011 with the goal of becoming a leading provider of Japanese goods in Viet Nam. It operates a convenience store chain of the same name. To date, it has opened nine stores in Ha Noi and six franchised agencies nation-wide.  VNS
HA NOI  Total assets of Viet Nams banking system reached more than VN9.25 quadrillion (US$407.5 billion) by the end of August, an increase of 8.79 per cent over the beginning of this year, statistics from the State Bank of Viet Nam (SBV) show.

Assets of seven State-owned banks rose 8.69 per cent to nearly VN4.2 quadrillion, accounting for 45.4 per cent of the total number. State-owned banks where the State holds the majority stake include Agribank, Vietcombank, Vietinbank, Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BIDV), Viet Nam Construction Bank, GPBank and Ocean Bank.

Meanwhile, assets of joint-stock commercial banks stood at more than VN3.72 quadrillion, up 8.75 per cent.

Total assets of finance and financial leasing companies were a little more than VN134 trillion ending August, but this group witnessed the strongest asset growth of more than 17.2 per cent.

Only Co-operative Bank of Viet Nam saw its assets fall by 1.36 per cent.

Ending August, total charter capital of the whole banking sector hit VN505.3 trillion, up 3.45 per cent compared to the start of the year.

Finance and financial leasing firms, and joint-venture and foreign banks had the strongest capital expansion of 8.3 per cent and 7.7 per cent, respectively.

Joint-stock commercial banks raised charter capital by 2.9 per cent during the period, reaching more than VN206.6 trillion, while the State-owned banks capital increased by just 0.8 per cent, valued at VN147.7 trillion.

Equity capital of joint stock commercial banks (VN267.7 trillion) was also higher than that of State-owned banks (VN246.2 trillion).

Ending August, the average capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of the whole system was 12.37 per cent, much higher than the 9 per cent rate allowed by the central bank.

However, CAR of the State-owned bank group remained below 10 per cent, standing at 9.69 per cent, while the similar number of the joint-stock commercial banks was 11.12 per cent.

Joint-venture and foreign banks have the highest CAR of more than 32 per cent, followed by finance and financial leasing companies of 18.3 per cent.

CAR is expressed as a percentage of the banks capital to its risk-weighted assets and is one of the main metrics used to promote the stability and efficiency of financial systems.

However, bank experts warn that when BASEL II norms are applied, bank CAR may decline by 2-3 percentage points due to an increase in the amount of their risky assets. BASEL II also requires banks to maintain CAR of at least 8 per cent.

Following the SBVs roadmap, about 12-15 Vietnamese banks must apply BASEL II by 2020, but 10 banks, including three State-owned banks (Vietcombank, Vietinbank and BIDV), participated in an earlier pilot programme that started in September.

Moodys Investors Service on Tuesday upgraded its outlook for Viet Nams banking system to positive for the next 12-18 months from stable, reflecting the countrys strong economic prospects and the positive outlook for most rated banks.  VNS
Export companies should have a division specialising in trade defence to meet the requirements of the investigation agency in time. Photo bizlive.vn

HA NOI  As importing countries impose trade barriers to protect their goods and products, they often utilise trade remedies against exporting countries. There are short-term solutions for exporters, like Viet Nam. But in the long run, enterprises still need strategic planning and specific steps to overcome trade barriers in order to increase exports and develop sustainably.

Passive in self-defence

When markets open to fulfill integration commitments, importing countries tend to increase scrutiny on goods from Viet Nam, often applying trade remedies like anti-dumping and anti-subsidy policies. Despite continuously facing these trade remedies, Vietnamese businesses remain very passive in guarding against them. They lacked understanding of trade defence tools.

As importing countries have suffered strong competition, especially from the near markets such as China, Malaysia and Indonesia, the significance of the trade defence of businesses has also increased.

Nguyen Phuong Nam, deputy head of the Department of Trade Defence under the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), said that there have been more than 120 trade remedy lawsuits related to Vietnamese exports initiated by importers such as the US, EU, Brazil, Turkey and Australia.

Statistics from the department show that in the 2016-17 period, Vietnamese firms have been sued 23 times by importing countries. Australia brought six anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases against firms exporting aluminium and galvanised steel, coils and wind towers.

Tran Thanh Hai, deputy director of the MoITs Import-Export Department, said that the ways in which countries can enact Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) are very diversified and complicated, especially in big markets such as the US, EU and Japan. For example, for textiles and garments, the US and EU are two major markets for Viet Nams garment exports. However, these are also the most difficult markets with many regulations that constitute Technical Barriers to Trade.

The US has over 60 technical regulations for textiles and garments on labeling, symbol, clothing instruction, and fire resistance standards for yarns, wool carpets fire and sleepwear; and regulations on childrens wear. In addition, the EU also has over 80 technical regulations such as: EC label, regulations on labeling and registration, evaluation, licensing and restriction of chemicals (REACH), regulations on ecolabel and OKO-Tex 100 label or origin regulations, Hai added.

Effective tool

In order to successfully appeal in the export markets, experts advise Vietnamese businesses to scrutinise the plaintiffs allegations about the countrys subsidy programme. At the same time, ministries, sectors and associations should closely coordinate in providing information and explanations on the alleged programme to the investigating authority.

In addition, businesses should carefully analyse the plaintiffs question, allegations and facts to develop an appropriate strategy before and during the preparation of the response and reporting of the data.

As predicted by the Department of Trade Defence, in the upcoming time, firms in importing countries will use more trade remedies.

Trade remedies are considered the final barrier against the current trend of deepening and broadening international integration.

As Viet Nam faces other countries implementation of trade remedies, it should acknowledge that they are also a useful tool domestically. They are easier to use than other instruments that WTO commitments allow. In the near future, trade remedies will be a very effective tool to protect domestic businesses from import competition.

Export companies should have a division specialising in trade defence to meet the requirements of the investigation agency in time.

Currently, the MoIT is urgently working with related units to solve difficulties for businesses in a timely manner. Particularly, the ministry will abolish the specialised inspection regulations and procedures which have caused difficulties for enterprises in the past.  VNS
HA NOI  Shares declined on the HCM Stock Exchange on Thursday as the market was hit by poor investor confidence due to a lack of supportive information and by intraday profit-taking.

The benchmark VN Index dropped 1.14 per cent to close at 833.09 points. It rose as much as 0.8 per cent during the session.

The benchmark stock index retreated after gaining 0.65 per cent on Wednesday.

More than 192.7 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VN4.35 trillion (US$193.4 million).

The market trading condition remained negative with 177 declining stocks, 101 gaining ones and 43 others unchanged.

The VN30 Index that tracks the movement of the 30 biggest stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity fell 0.92 per cent to 827.66 points.

Among blue chips that suffered most were FLC Faros Construction (ROS), digital retailer Mobile World (MWG), DHG Pharmaceutical Co (DHG) and logistics firm Gemadept (GMD).

Small- and medium-cap stocks also traded in the negative territory such as agriculture conglomerate Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAG), HAI Agrochemicals Co (HAI) and property developer An Duong Thao ien JSC (HAR).

According to analysts at Sai Gon-Ha Noi Securities Co (SHS) and Bao Viet Securities Co (BVSC), shares on the HCM Stock Exchange were hit by strong investors selling after the VN Index got near the 850-point level during the day.

The market trading seems to be affected by negative investor sentiment as they worried about November, SHS wrote in its daily report.

November is always the most difficult time for the stock market as investors are lack supportive information, thus making them unwilling to make new purchases, it said in a note.

Stocks in the three groups finished the day in the negative territory, proving that investor sentiment remained quite poor and the trading on the market had become more risky for investors, thus reducing their opportunities to make profits, the two companies said.

The two companies forecast that the VN Index might fall further on Friday. This would ease selling pressure and help the market settle before any attempts are made to boost the benchmark index up.

The nearest supportive level for the VN Index would be 830 points, SHS said. A potential deeper level that the benchmark index could fall to is the range of 815-820 points, according to BVSC.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX Index slumped 1.48 per cent to end at 103.42 points. The northern market index has decreased by a total of 2.8 per cent after the last four sessions.

More than 51 million shares were traded on the northern market, worth VN727 billion.  VNS
HA NOI  Viet Nams cashew nut exports are forecast to surpass the US$3 billion benchmark for the first time in 2017 thanks to increasing shipments in the first ten months of the year.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, cashew nuts raked in $2.87 billion from 289,000 tonnes, down 0.4 per cent in volume but up 23.1 per cent in value.

With this growth, the countrys export revenue of cashew nuts is likely to hit some $3.4-3.5 billion in 2017.

The result is spurred by a surge in both prices and demands. Viet Nam experienced a poor cashew crop during 2016-17 with productivity of 250,000 tonnes, thus cashew nuts has been sold at higher prices, average $9,909 per tonnes in nine-month period ending in September, an increase of 25.1 per cent year on year.

Vietnam Cashew Association (Vinacash) Chairman Nguyen uc Thanh said that export prices of cashew nuts in the nine months reached a record high, resulting in significant growth in export revenue from key markets like the US (34.7 per cent), the Netherlands (45.2 per cent), China (9.1 per cent) and the UK (4.6 per cent).

Notably, Vietnamese cashew nuts have captured a lions share of the US market with 73.7 per cent and the Netherlands with 65.2 per cent, he noted.

Despite a considerable increase in cashew nut prices, demands for the product are growing. The International Nut and Dried Fruit Council (INC) said that global cashew nut demands rose 6.1 per cent per year while cashew productivity only picked up 3.5 per cent per year.

Thanh said that it is crucial to develop a national brand for Vietnamese cashew nuts, given that although Vietnamese cashew exports occupied half of the worlds volume and value, foreign consumers believed that all cashew products are originated from India.  VNS
HA NOI  Military Bank (MBB) has completed procedures to sell 49 per cent stake in its consumer finance arm MCredit Finance Company to Japans Shinsei Bank and changed it into a two-member company.

The inauguration of MB Shinsei Finance Limited Liability Company took place on Thursday. Military Bank holds 50 per cent stake, Shinsei Bank owns 49 per cent and Xuan Thanh Investment Development & Construction Co has 1 per cent.

The two sides in November 2016 signed an agreement on equity transfer, facilitating the Japanese banks entry into Viet Nams consumer finance market.

The value of the deal has not been disclosed.

Military Bank is the second bank after HDBank that has sold half its capital to Japanese partners.

According to Luu Trung Thai, vice chairman-cum-general director of MB Shinsei Finance, the two most successful companies in Viet Nam needed more than five years, or even 6-8 years, to attain the current position, but MB Shinsei Finance hopes to achieve success in less time.

We have a goal of advancing into the top three in five years, which means we want to go faster than our rivals and we chose to join hands with a partner rather than going alone, Thai was quoted as saying on cafef.vn.

Established in December 2016, MCredit turned profitable following just six months of operation, with total outstanding loans reaching over VN1 trillion (US$44 million) ending October. The company has a big pool of customers from the military and defence sectors.

It aims to serve five million customers by 2021, with total assets of over VN14.8 trillion and networks extending nationwide.

In Viet Nam, the four largest financial companies -- FE Credit of VPBank, HD Saison, Home Credit from Czech Republic and Prudential Finance -- hold a majority of the consumer finance market share.  VNS
HA NOI  The Asian Development Banks (ADB) Board of Directors has approved US$170 million in loans to help the Government of Viet Nam upgrade urban infrastructure and address climate change, benefiting about 116,000 households in Hue, Vinh Yen, and Ha Giang cities.

Urbanisation has had a positive impact on Viet Nams growth. But many cities, even as they continue to be the centre of economic activities, lack key urban infrastructure services and remain vulnerable to climate change, particularly flooding, said Satoshi Ishii, a Principal Urban Development Specialist at ADB.

We look forward to working with the provincial Peoples Committees of Thua Thien-Hue, Vinh Phuc, and Ha Giang - administrative authorities of the capital cities of Hue, Vinh Yen and Ha Giang - to make sure that their provincial capitals are green and climate-resilient, while enhancing their economic competitiveness.

More than 30 million people live in urban centres in Viet Nam, but the impact of urbanisation is uneven across the country. Unlike the capital Ha Noi and other highly developed urban centres, secondary cities - with populations of between 50,000 to 300,000 - such as Hue in central Viet Nam and Vinh Yen and Ha Giang in the northern part of the country are lagging behind. For instance, less than 60 per cent of households in secondary cities have access to clean water and only 10 per cent of wastewater is treated properly.

The Secondary Green Cities Development Project will help make these urban centres become more livable, environmentally friendly, and climate-resilient. Under the project, Vinh Yen City will see the construction of a new wastewater treatment system, 66.1km of drainage control being upgraded, the am Vac lake being dredged, and 44.5ha of new public green space developed.

In Hue, there will be 21.9km of drainage pipelines upgraded, 15.9km of road surface and drainage rehabilitated, and 17.2ha of green spaces developed, among others.

Ha Giang City will have 7km of urban drainage upgraded, 5.6 km of river embankments protected, and the urban road network enhanced to divert increasing traffic.

Apart from the loans, ADB will also administer a total of $14.1 million in technical assistance - with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment - and $6 million in grant investment from the Global Environment Facility and the Urban Climate Change Resilience Trust Fund. The technical assistance will mainstream a green and resilient city development approach across Government agencies through policy advice and capacity building, and replicate the approach in other cities in Viet Nam.

ADB, based in Manila, is dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth, and regional integration. In 2016, ADB assistance totaled $31.7 billion, including $14 billion in cofinancing.  VNS
IEN BIEN  Management of the Muong Phang forest in the northern mountain province of ien Bien had faced a number of difficulties, said Nguyen Viet Cuong, director of the Muong Phang Forest and Environment Management Board.

The forest has a total area of more than 4,400ha, covering Pa Khoang and Muong Phang communes in ien Bien District, according to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dungs Decision 1976/Q-TTg issued on October 30, 2014.

The Muong Phang Forest and Environment Management Board manages more than 1,000ha based on Decision 611/Q-UBND issued by the ien Bien Province Peoples Committee on July 24, 2015.

The management board, Cuong said, had only eight workers so inspections were not performed regularly.

Additionally, the forest is close to the homes of residents in 47 villages, most of whom are Thai ethnic minorities. The management board set up a community system to protect the forest, however the system did not prevent further destruction as the families did not want to stop their neighbours.

The management board has highlighted various hot spots where local residents were taking wood for fires or to build houses. Most of them are in Dong Met, Vang and Co Cuom villages.

Residents from the villages use rafts to transport the wood across Pa Khoang Lake.

Since the beginning of this year, the management board discovered three cases of illegal deforestation and two cases of destroying the forest, across total areas of more than 8,300sq.m.

Pham Van Khien, deputy director of the ien Bien Forest Management Department, said that the forest area was more than 4,400ha but the department had only three workers to look after it. It is regulated that it should have one worker to management every 500ha, thus the department was seriously lacking forest rangers.

In the future, the department will collaborate with local authorities to provide more education on forestry protection and legal requirements to local residents.

They would also put in place supportive policies for local residents to prevent them from destroying the forest to earn a living.

The Muong Phang forest functions as a water source for the Pa Khoang irrigational lake and the Muong Thanh field.  VNS
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has green lighted the target programme to cope with climate change and promote green growth during 2016-20.  Photo VGP

HA NOI  Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has green lighted the target programme to cope with climate change and promote green growth during 2016-20.

The programme is designed to improve local residents abilities to adapt to climate change, boost green growth and transition towards a low-carbon economy.

The programme includes four components: implementing some targets of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change that Viet Nam ratified in November 2016, implementing projects to help local residents to adapt to climate change, issuing policies to assess and supervise green growth, and promoting green growth.

Under the programme, several prioritised projects will assist local residents in coping with natural disasters, especially focusing on Mekong Delta, coastal provinces and northern mountainous provinces.

About 42 projects to grow mangrove forests in coastal areas and protective forests in other areas will be implemented during the period.

Phuc assigned the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment as the lead entity responsible for coordinating with relevant agencies to implement the programme.

The programme, worth VN15.8 trillion (US$698 million), is financed by the State budget, local budget and other sources.

WWF report: Vietnamese, Chinese tourists blamed for wildlife trafficking

HA NOI  A major driver of the illegal wildlife trade in the Golden Triangle  the border area where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar  is tourists from Viet Nam and China.

This was one of the conclusions of a report released on Thursday by the World Wildlife Fund to highlight ten of the Most Widely Traded Endangered Species in the markets of the Golden Triangle.

The tourists are believed to travel to areas such as MongLa and Tachilek in Myanmar, and border areas such as Boten and the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone in Laos.

The report said tigers, elephants, bears and pangolin are four of the most widely traded species in the Golden Triangle. Rhinos, serow, helmeted hornbill, gaur, leopards and turtles round out the list of endangered species that are openly sold in a region that is Ground Zero in the illegal wildlife trade.

The list is based on surveys by WWF of illegal wildlife markets, shops and restaurants, and reports from TRAFFIC and the Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network. The listed species are those most often seen for sale in a criminal trade that threatens wildlife across Asia and into Africa.

The report also pointed out African rhinos are being poached at the rate of three per day to feed the demand for their horns in places such as Viet Nam, where the horns are mostly consumed as a symbol of wealth, as well as for traditional medicine.

Another species covered in keratin is the pangolin, which is in high demand in China and Viet Nam for its scales and is considered the most trafficked animal in the world.  VNS
Desra Percaya, Director General for Asia-Pacific and Africa Affairs under the Indonesian Foreign Ministry.  Photo kemlu.go.id

Over nearly three decades, the cooperation between APEC member economies has brought benefits to the Asia-Pacific region, and each member economy has contributed to APECs common goals of building a dynamic and harmonious Asia-Pacific community. Vietnam News Agency correspondents discussed the issue with Desra Percaya, Director General for Asia-Pacific and Africa Affairs under the Indonesian Foreign Ministry.

APEC member economies are attempting to liberalise and open trade, investment, accelerate regional economic integration, encourage economic and technical cooperation, and promote a strong business environment. How successful has this process been?

APEC has gone a long way since its inception, and APEC member economies have been able to make substantial progress in many areas. For nearly three decades, APEC has contributed to sustaining growth and advancing economic integration in the Asia-Pacific region, created millions of jobs and lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty.

One of the main drivers of such progress is the Bogor Goals of free and open trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific, adopted by APEC Leaders when Indonesia hosted and chaired APEC 1994.

Since then, the Bogor Goals have inspired Member Economies in their pursuit for sustainable development and equitable growth. This is done through policies which are aimed at enhancing trade and investment flows through economic openness.

Some of the examples of progress towards the Bogor Goals are:

Tariff rates are much lower relative to the 1990s.The number of Regional Trade Agreements/Free Trade Agreements (RTAs/FTAs) in-force has soared since early 2000s. Many sectors are more accessible to foreign investment and services trade than before. Indicators on trade and investment facilitation have improved over time. Living standards have improved. Enrollment in tertiary education has increased significantly. Access to electricity has expanded. Poverty has fallen significantly.

Certainly, there is still more work that APEC economies can do to improve existing trade and investment conditions, as progress has been uneven across the region, while inequality and unemployment persist.

In general, APEC has been advancing towards the right direction, as trade and investment openness has been accompanied by socioeconomic improvements within the region.

What challenges will APEC members have to face to achieve their goals of promoting sustainable and prosperous economic growth in the Asia - Pacific region?

We live at a time when the regional and global landscapes have experienced complex and fundamental shifts, as well as far-reaching challenges. For example, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and advancements in technology have been altering our nature of work. They are transforming our societies and the way we connect and interact.

We also note that although the regional and global economic recovery is on firmer footing, medium and long-term risks remain high. APEC economies, as well as the global economies, are encountering intertwined and multi-dimensional issues.

Another challenge is the impact of globalisation. While deepening globalisation and expanding trade and investment have brought unprecedented prosperity in the Asia Pacific region, not all groups and individuals have benefited equally from this process.

These are the unfinished business we need to address. With the Bogor Goals expiring in merely three years, we need to accelerate our efforts towards the achievement of the targets, and prepare ourselves beyond the Bogor Goals.

In this regard, I expect that the upcoming APEC Summit in Viet Nam will adopt the post-2020 Vision, which will guide APECs future directions and assert its leadership in addressing common challenges.

How does Indonesia assess Viet Nams initiatives and role in the forum as well as Viet Nams hosting of the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting 2017?

Indonesia supports the APEC Viet Nam 2017 priorities under the theme Creating New Dynamism, Fostering a Shared Future. The priorities are very much related to the ongoing and emerging challenges today, as well as to APECs works to promote growth and regional economic integration.

For example, the priority of promoting sustainable, innovative, and inclusive growth is crucial for APEC, as we need to address challenges such as persistent inequality and unemployment, enduring multi-dimensional poverty, and the impacts of technological progress. Viet Nams initiative to launch the Action Agenda on Advancing Economic, Financial, and Social Inclusion in the APEC Region is very much in line with this important priority.

Viet Nam has thus far successfully played its leadership role in promoting other important initiatives, such as those on human resources development in the digital age; the strategy for green, sustainable and innovative micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs); and on promoting innovative start-ups. Indonesia commends and supports these timely initiatives. We see them as crucial parts of APECs work in addressing todays challenges.

Viet Nams APEC 2017 priorities are also closely related to Indonesias. This year, Indonesia is focusing on the issues of promoting the agenda of rural development and poverty alleviation, fostering maritime co-operation, improving connectivity, and strengthening the MSMEs. Viet Nam as Chair and host economy has done its best to accommodate our interests and priorities during the deliberations this year.

As we are getting closer to the summit, we stand ready to work collaboratively with Viet Nam and other economies in realising a successful APEC year.  VNS
Since joining APEC in 1998, the forum has become an important driving force in helping the country carry out reforms, perform economic restructuring and integration, propel the nations growth - and become a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Bui Thanh Son, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, told Viet Nam News Agency this before the upcoming APEC Summit to be held in the central City of a Nang in early November.

Since 1998, when Viet Nam became an APEC member, the forum has helped the nation diversify and multilateralise its international relations while deepening its bilateral relations with many nations and international organisations. Being an APEC member, Viet Nam has done its best to further consolidate an environment of peace, co-operation and development among member nations.

The annual APEC summit is an occasion for member economies to hold bilateral talks at different levels, especially at the highest level, to consolidate co-operation, including to key partners. By now, among Viet Nams 25 strategic and comprehensive partners, 13 are the APEC members.

Since becoming a full member, Viet Nam has been considerably helped by APEC to improve its internal capacity, promote foreign trade, investment and tourism with other APEC partners.

At present APEC accounts for 75 per cent of the countrys trade; 78 per cent of foreign direct investment (FDI) and 79 per cent of foreign tourists. Being an APEC member, we have many opportunities to approach the most advanced science and technology and management skills.

APEC also presents our nation with many international resources to improve our own human resources and to participate in global value chains.

Since joining APEC, Vietnamese ministries, sectors, localities, enterprises and the staff involving in international co-operation and integration have all grown in skills and expertise. Viet Nam has further consolidated its stand and posture in the region and the world.

In 2017, we have witnessed many rapid and complicated events in the region and the world. International economic growth and trade have scored many positive points compared to previous years. However, in the long run, there remain many risks and a tendency towards trade protection.

In such a context, Viet Nam has achieved a certain success. Firstly, we have advocated most APEC members agree on the topic and the four priorities for the 2017 APEC Year, respecting their commitments and resolve to promote trade and open investment as well as to provide favourable conditions for business activities.

Were confident that our message will get across and have positive impacts on enterprise activities and regional and international growth rate.

Being the host of the 2017 APEC Summit, Viet Nam has done its best to take the lead and to further promote co-operation among APEC members in the course of development.

In addition, Viet Nams initiatives on inclusive development promotion towards economy, finance, society and preparations for the future of APEC after the year 2020 have all enjoyed active support from other APEC members.

Were confident that the 2017 APEC will create a new motivation for regional development and make APEC co-operation closer to the people and the enterprises.

Viet Nam hopes the summit will acknowledge the practical significance of Viet Nams contributions towards the course of APEC co-operation which is reflected in the following four aspects:

First, as a host country, together with other APEC members, Viet Nam has come up with new motivations for growth and linkage among regional countries through support for super small, small and medium enterprises in the context of the industrial revolution; food security in the context of the climate change and others.

Second, many topics which will be presented at various events during the year 2017 are the reflection of the continuity of topics touched upon at the previous APEC summits.

Third, the year 2017 is considered one of the most challenging years for the mechanism of multi-lateral co-operation in the world, including APEC to operate. As a host for this years event, Viet Nam has done its best to promote co-operation, unity and consensus among the APEC members.

And finally, the 2017APEC Year is an occasion to raise the role and position of APEC member states. Events organised throughout the year have drawn the participation of many senior representatives and experts from various international organisations, including the IMF, the WB, the OECD, the ADB and others.

All activities held in Viet Nam in 2017 have reiterated that APEC has played an important role as a convergence of the regional and the world community. VNS
HA NOI  Viet Nams agricultural production not only met domestic demand, but was exported to 180 countries, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuongng told the National Assembly in Ha Noi yesterday.

Cuong said that in 2016, agricultural exports amounted to US$30 billion, and were expected to reach $35 billion this year.

He said while climate change brought many challenges for agricultural production, they could be tackled by reforms in the sector, citing the fact that the Mekong Delta region had shifted from growing rice, fish and fruit to producing more fish and fruit.

The demand for fishery products grows from five to seven per cent each year. Viet Nam has chosen its strength in providing shrimps and tra (cat) fish, and we still have huge potential, he said.

Regarding fruit exports, the minister said each province should invest in its own signature type of fruit, for instance flowers in a Lat City, longan in Hung Yen Province and oranges in Cao Phong District of Hoa Binh Province.

The weather in Ninh Thuan Province is rather hot and dry, but apple and grapes grown in this province are very tasty. So its obvious that if we choose the right crops, we can make huge profits, he said.

Sharing Cuongs opinion, Deputy Nguyen Thien Nhan from HCM City, said recent statistics showed that the total export value of fruit, flowers and vegetables had exceeded that of oil exports.

In 2016, Viet Nam raised $2.4 billon in oil exports. Rice exports were valued at $2.15 billion, coffee exports at $3.5 billion, fishery exports at $7 billion, and fruit, flowers and vegetable at $2.45 billion.

In 2005, oil exports were $7.3 billion, 31 times higher than fruit and vegetable exports at that time, which was only $235 million.

Thus, Nhan suggested using fruits, flowers and vegetables to spearhead exports.

It is forecast that fruits, vegetable and flowers exports will reach $9 to 10 billion in 2022, he said.

Losing projects

Explaining 12 projects under the management of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, minister Tran Tuan Anh said dealing with these project was following the right progress.

The ministrys statistics showed that 12 projects incurred total losses of over VN16 trillion as of the end of 2016 on investments of VN63.6 trillion, with loans accounting for roughly 75 per cent.

The 12 inefficient projetcs include Ninh Binh Fertilizer Plant, DAP 2 Haiphong Fertilizer Plant, Lao Cai DAP 1 Fertiliser Plant, Ha Bac Fertilizer Plant, Phuong Nam Pulp Mill, and Dung Quat Shipbuilding Plant, three ethanol projects in Quang Ngai, Phu Tho and Binh Phuoc provinces, inh Vu Polyester Plant, Thai Nguyen Steel plant and Iron Plant and Quy Xa iron ore mining.

In 2016 and 2017 the Government set up steering committees to work on the projects, which were operating ineffectively. The preparation for measures will be completed in 2017 and in 2018 these meaures will be enforced aggressively, Tuan Anh said.

Such complicated work will take a long time. We would have to make an overall assessment to find solutions. The important thing is the lessons learned from the failure of these projects, he added.

The latest report by the trade ministry said that six factories out of the 12 projetcs were still operating, but suffering loss, including four factories producing fertiliser, the Dung Quat Shipbuilding plant and Viet Trung Steel plant.

Three other projects, including the Phu Tho ethanol project, Thai Nguyen Steel Plant and Phuong Nam Pulp Mill, had been suspended due to shortage of capital.

Four fertiliser factories have been recovered and starting to re-operate, three other projects making bio-ethanol gas are being re-organised and will operate again in 2018, he added.

Regarding the issue of ineffective management to stop cigarettes smuggling, Tuan Anh admitted that the matter was troublesome.

Its true that some smuggling rings are not afraid of the law. Many rings are well-organised and operating systematically not only in one locality, but on a much larger scale," he said.

Tuan Anh admitted inspection teams in public security and market management were not working effectively.

In future, individuals caught smuggling more than 1,500 cigarettes will be subject to criminal law, he said.

Logistic services

Regarding logistics services, deputy Nguyen Quoc Binh from Ha Noi cited data from the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Viet Nam Business Logistics Association that the value of Viet Nams logistics market is equal to 21-25 per cent of the countrys GDP.

Logistics services are an important economic sector with potential in the country. This industry can boost GDP growth and the economys competitiveness, he noted.

He pointed that the logistics industrys contribution to the economy remains modest, only about 2-3 per cent of total GDP. Logistics are considered a lucrative but untapped sector in Viet Nam because some 80 per cent of the logistics market is run by foreign firms.

While logistics costs are estimated at 7-15 per cent of GDP in developed countries, they account for 21-25 per cent of Viet Nams GDP, hampering growth. Therefore, it is important to reduce logistics costs while improving services, he stressed.

Highlighting advantages for logistics services development, Binh said Viet Nam is located in the centre of the Asian-Pacific region in terms of maritime and air transportation. It is a gateway to the East Sea, one of the worlds busiest shipping lanes, for three of the four economic corridors in the Greater Mekong Sub-region. It also has locations favourable for building deep-water seaports and international transit airports.

The deputy said logistics can become a spearhead sector in Viet Nams economy, and the country should work harder to optimise its advantages.

Health problems

In the afternoon session, health minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien discussed matters of public concern to voters.

Regarding this years long-lasting dengue fever outbreak, she said the number of cases was 40 per cent higher than last year.

"Climate change, prolonged hot weather and lots of rain were the main reasons for the outbreak," she said.

The health minister said that the rate of people with health insurance is currently 82 per cent, higher than the target assigned by the National Assembly and the Government.

The health insurance surplus by the end of 2016 was VN47 trillion (US$2 billion).

"Is that good? It might not be good because it means the health insurance funding has not been used up for people who need better services," Tien said.

However, she said the funding can be used if spending on health insurance fund this year exceeds VN10 trilion ($440 million).

During the day, NA deputies also talked about defence and security issues; natural disaster prevention and response, climate change response; environmental protection issues in export processing zones and industrial zones. Other matters of concern regarding social issues were searching for the remains of martyrs; caring for the elderly; care and protection of children; wage reform and State administrative reform.VNS
HA NOI  All 21 leaders of the APEC economies have confirmed their attendance at the upcoming APEC 2017 Economic Leaders Week in the central city of a Nang.

Permanent Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Vice Chairman of the APEC 2017 National Committee Bui Thanh Son confirmed the information at a press briefing on Thursday in Ha Noi.

The APEC 2017 Economic Leaders Week, themed Creating New Dynamism, Fostering A Shared Future, will take place from November 6-11.

Among eight main events during the APEC high-level week, Viet Nams President Tran ai Quang will chair the 25th APEC Economic Leaders Retreat, the APEC  ASEAN Informal Dialogue, an official welcome ceremony for the APEC Economic Leaders and their spouses, and the Gala Dinner and Cultural Performance. He will deliver the opening speech at the APEC CEO Summit.

According to Son, a record number of more than 2,000 leading foreign and domestic businesses have registered to attend the CEO summit, making it the best-attended event by businesses within the APEC Economic Leaders Week.

Viet Nam will also organise the Vietnam Business Summit, the countrys first-ever regional event for businesses in order to promote economic and development policies, as well as introduce Viet Nams potential in investment, tourism and business opportunities.

On this occasion, the APEC Park which displays artistic statues contributed by 19 APEC member economies will officially open on November 9.

On the sidelines of the event, there will be many bilateral meetings between Vietnamese and APEC leaders which aim to enhance bilateral relations as well as co-operation within APEC.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, US President Donald Trump, Chile President Michelle Bachelet, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have all affirmed their State visit to Viet Nam on this occasion, Son said.

Established in 1989, the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) comprises 21 economies, and represents about 39 per cent of the worlds population, 57 per cent of the global GDP and 49 per cent of international trade.  VNS
National Assembly deputies raised a host of concerns on Thursday, including the failure to nip wrongful appointments in the bud, the quality of growth and healthcare services, and relevance of training given to workers. VNA/VNS Photo Phuong Hoa

HA NOI  National Assembly deputies raised a host of concerns on Thursday, including the failure to nip wrongful appointments in the bud, the quality of growth and healthcare services, and relevance of training given to workers.

The concerns were mentioned on the last day of the parliaments latest five and a half day session that reviewed socio-economic development this year and provided feedback on goals set for next year.

The lawmakers highlighted a casual observance of rules and regulations and a more-talk-than-action exercise of the States management responsibilities at all levels in several areas  staffing, finance, land use management, mining and so on.

Deputy Ngo Trung Thanh from the Central Highlands province of ak Lak said the inertia was the enemy of the facilitating government, citing seven cases of wrongful appointment that should have been legally resolved right at the agencies where it happened, instead of waiting for directions from the Prime Minister and various higher authorities.

Leaders and heads of agencies should show more self-accountability, Thanh said.

Scores of NA deputies also spoke about healthcare checks. While they acknowledged the health sectors efforts in recent times, they called for prompt action on potential healthcare fund deficits and better delivery of services.

Nguyen Lan Hieu, a deputy from the southern province of An Giang, said the process of check-ups and dispensing drugs for health insurance cardholders must be reviewed in order to avoid wasteful use of an already constrained healthcare fund.

Pham Tat Thang, a deputy from the southern province of Vinh Long, said the Government should pay more attention to workforce quality even though the two human resources development targets for this year have been achieved.

According to the Governments report, unemployment in urban areas has been brought down to below 4 per cent, and more than 60 per cent of the workforce have received vocational training.

However, deputies noted that more than half of the unemployed segment are between 15 and 24 years old, with a third having higher than college level qualifications. This was worrying, they said.

Thang also said that the economy was still relying on and moving in the direction of manufacturing and employing untrained and unskilled workers.

Furthermore, the quality and relevance of training provided was questioned, with deputies pointing out the training failed to meet actual market demand, in many cases.

General upswing

Thursday morning, Deputy Prime Minister Trinh inh Dung responded to questions posed by NA deputies and presented latest data on the economy.

He noted that the World Economic Forum (WEF) has ranked Viet Nam 55th among 137 economies in its 2017-18 global competitiveness report and that the World Bank has elevated the country 15 positions for ease of doing business. These are a positive note of change in the countrys development, he said.

Dung said the agriculture sector grew by 2.78 per cent in the first nine months, while the industry-construction and service sectors posted even more impressive growth of 7.17 and 7.25 per cent, respectively.

These growth figures surpass those of last year and display a healthy upswing across all sectors, Dung said, adding that this year has been the first time the mining sectors growth had overcome negative figure.

The Deputy PM also agreed with many concerns expressed by deputies about long-standing issues facing the economy including low application of technology in production, meagre growth of supporting industries, slow restructuring, and low quality of economic growth.

He said that in the coming months, the Government would work harder on restructuring in tandem with selecting appropriate growth models for each sector.

Laws regulating business environment, agriculture renovation and building of new rural areas will also be improved, he said.

The Deputy PM also answered questions on natural disaster prevention and response, including concerns expressed about limited forecasting capacity, serious violations of the Forest Law, and sustainable development in the Mekong Delta.

In closing the discussion on economy and budget, NA Deputy Chairman Phung Quoc Hien said the parliament appreciated the Governments efforts to achieve tasks and goals set by the NA in the face of daunting challenges.

With continued commitment and diligence, the Government can keep the countrys development on track for even better achievements next year, he said.  VNS
Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh (R) recevies Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Ha Noi on Thursday.  VNA/VNS Photo Nguyen Khang

HA NOI  Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh said the Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV) and Government always wish to develop the comprehensive strategic partnership with China during his talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Ha Noi on Thursday.

Minh, who is Deputy Prime Minister, welcomed the visit by Wang, who is in Viet Nam from November 2-4, following the success of the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

He noted that the CPV and Government support Chinas growth and positive contributions to maintaining peace, stability and co-operation in the region and the world.

Both sides agreed to work closely together to prepare for the CPC General Secretary and President Xi Jinpings Viet Nam visit and his attendance at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders Meeting 2017, and effectively implement agreements and common perceptions reached by the two countries leaders.

They vowed to maintain visits and exchanges by high-ranking leaders, Parties, legislatures and Fronts, further uphold the role of the Steering Committee for Bilateral Cooperation and the two foreign ministries in directing bilateral ties, and enhance co-operation mechanisms between diplomatic, national defence, security and law enforcement sectors.

The two nations will elevate two-way trade in a stable, balanced and sustainable direction, effectively tap Chinas credit packages to Viet Nam and continue partnering in transport, agriculture, environment and natural resources, science-technology, climate change response, sustainable protection and use of Mekong  Lancang water resources, exchange of data on border river hydrology, and people-to-people exchange.

Further attention will also be paid to enforcing legal regulations on mainland borders, promoting the opening and upgrade of border gates as agreed, facilitating customs clearance, developing the border economy, maintaining security and order, and coordinating on issues of shared concern at regional and global forums.

The FM Minh asked for the two sides to seriously abide by agreements and common perceptions agreed by State and Party leaders, including the Viet Nam-China Agreement on Basic Principles Guiding the Settlement of the Issues at Sea while promoting the efficiency of current negotiating and co-operation mechanisms to build trust.

He also asked that the two sides strive to firmly settle disputes in the East Sea by peaceful means in line with international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, fully and effectively implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea, towards reaching a Code of Conduct in the East Sea, soundly managing disputes at sea, and avoiding any actions to complicate and expand the disputes to maintain peace and stability in the East Sea.

Briefing the host about important results of the 19th Congress of the CPC, Wang said Party chief Xis selection of Viet Nam as the first country to visit following the congress reflected that the CPC, State and he himself attach great importance to nurturing the friendly neighbourliness and comprehensive co-operation with Viet Nam.

China supports Viet Nams successful hosting of the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting, he said, adding that the Chinese Foreign Ministry will work closely with the Vietnamese counterpart and agencies concerned to promote a sustainable and stable Viet Nam-China comprehensive strategic co-operative partnership.  VNS
President Tran ai Quang (R) on Thursday receives Kiyoshi Ueda, Governor of Saitama prefecture. VNA/VNS Photo Nhan Sang

HA NOI  President Tran ai Quang on Thursday stressed Viet Nams consistent policy to promote extensive strategic partnership with Japan, considering it a trustworthy and long-term partner in diverse areas.

Stronger VN-Japan ties will promote peace and prosperity in Asia, he said at a reception held in Ha Noi for Kiyoshi Ueda, Governor of Saitama prefecture.

For more than two decades, Japan has always been the largest donor to Viet Nam, with a total official development assistance amounting to nearly US$25-27 billion, mostly for infrastructure development, the President said.

Japan is also the second largest investor in Viet Nam with more than 3,500 projects worth over $46 billion, and the nations sixth largest trading partner with roughly $30 billion in two-way trade, he added.

Quang suggested that both countries provide optimal support for either countrys businesses in investment, trade, tourism and labour export.

Viet Nam is improving its business climate to create a level playing field for all firms, he said, adding that the country welcomes Japanese investors, including those from Saitama prefecture, to expand their investment in the country.

He also expressed his wish that apart from infrastructure, Viet Nam looks to extend bilateral partnership in fields of Japans strength, including advanced technology, agriculture, industry, and food hygiene to meet requirements of Industry 4.0.

Kiyoshi Ueda briefed the Vietnamese President on the potentials and strengths of Saitama prefecture, as well as the regions business operations in Viet Nam.

He said it was his fifth visit to Viet Nam since he took office in 2012. The prefecture and the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) have signed a memorandum of understanding to create favourable conditions for Saitama firms to do business in Viet Nam, he noted.

Among 47 Japanese cities and provinces, Saitama ranks fifth in economic size and gross domestic product, and is home to large-scale plants in the fields of industry, technology, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, he said.

Saitamas businesses also highly value the business environment in Viet Nam and its hard-working workforce, he said. The prefecture hopes for more support from the MPI, he added.

At the reception, Japanese Ambassador to Viet Nam Kunio Umeda conveyed a message from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe saying that he is looking forward to meeting President Quang during the upcoming APEC Economic Leaders Week in a Nang City.  VNS
Deputy Prime Minister Vuong inh Hue (R) receives Mayor of the Belgian city of Ostend Johan Vande Lanotte in Ha Noi on Thursday. VNA/VNS Photo Nguyen Dan

HA NOI  Deputy Prime Minister Vuong inh Hue received Mayor of the Belgian city of Ostend Johan Vande Lanotte in Ha Noi on Thursday.

At the meeting, the Deputy PM said the Vietnamese Government is committed to building a transparent and open business climate to facilitate investment.

He stressed Viet Nam supports Belgian investors to operate in Viet Nam, carry out market research, and invest in local green energy projects.

Viet Nam expects European and Belgian enterprises to help accelerate the signing and ratification of the Viet NamEU free trade agreement for mutual benefits, he added.

For his part, Johan Vande Lanotte, former Belgian Deputy Prime Minister, said Belgian businesses want to expand their operations in Viet Nam and highlighted his support towards the ratification and implementation of the Viet NamEU FTA.

Earlier, during his visit to Belgium last September, Deputy PM Hue met the Ostend Mayor and local companies working in clean energy and port industry to call for co-operation between Vietnamese and Belgian firms in the future.

Ostend is strong in port activities, green power, fishing, and agriculture. The city is working with Viet Nams Quang Ninh Province and Hai Phong City in port services and the construction of environmentally friendly industrial parks.  VNS
HA NOI  Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has approved a project which supports students to start up businesses by 2025.

The project aims to promote the start-up spirit among students, equip them with start-up knowledge and skills and create an environment for them to realise start-up initiatives, creating employment after graduation.

Hundred per cent of universities, academies, colleges and intermediate schools are required to implement the project by 2020.

The project requires at least 90 per cent of students of universities, academies, colleges, intermediate schools, high schools and vocational schools to equip students with start-up knowledge and skills before graduation.

Hundred per cent of universities and academies and 50 per cent of colleges and intermediate schools must have at least two start-up ideas and projects implemented by students and supported with investment sourced from relevant funds or connected with enterprises and venture capital funds.

Educational institutions must mobilise budget from legal sources and set up a fund to support students to begin start-ups from a socialisation source by attracting investment from individuals and organisations.

Schools must also have teachers and lecturers that can consult with students, conduct training for these staff members and encourage experienced people to volunteer for consultation and to share start-up lessons.

Universities, academies, colleges and intermediate schools are encouraged to compile optional or compulsory thematic lessons about start-up and practice, along with providing internship at enterprises, so that students have an opportunity to experience practical business activities.  VNS
HA NOI  Take more than a year if needed, but get good advice and avoid previous education reform mistakes, NA deputies told the Government on Thursday.

Responding to a proposal by the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) to delay planned educational reforms by a year, a majority of the 14th National Assembly deputies advised caution.

They said education was a top national priority and the reforms must be carefully designed and executed even if it takes longer than a year.

The deputies also urged the ministry to consult with education experts, both national and international, to avoid making the same mistakes as in previous reforms.

The ministry had proposed the reform of the system, including textbook content, be pushed back from the 2018-19 academic year dictated in the 13th NAs Decision No 88 issued in 2014.

Deputies asked the ministry to present a more detailed implementation process with solutions to ongoing issues and contingency plans.

They suggested that the ministry provides local authorities with guidelines and information to prepare for the reform. The public should also be given more information about the planned reforms, they said.

Deputy Duong Minh Tuan from the southern province of Ba RiaVung Tau said a major concern among voters in his locality was the equipping of children with life skills to protect themselves from sex predators and other dangers like drowning. They were also anxious about the affordability of new textbooks, he said.

Nguyen Thi Kim Tien, a deputy from the central city of a Nang, said that while important, textbooks were just one of many factors in the countrys education reform effort. Another equally important factor, if not more so, was the capability of teachers to work with the new textbook content and students every day.

Tien said the teachers should be able to obtain necessary training to prepare for the reform. She also urged the ministry to address the shortage of teachers in mountainous and remote areas as well as the upgrading of facilities there. It has been reported often that the facilities in such areas are very poor compared to the rest of the country.

Also stressing the importance of education quality in mountainous and remote regions, deputy Trieu The Hung from the Central Highlands province of Lam ong called for more Government support to ethnic minority groups for preserving their cultural heritages and for young students to catch up with their peers in other parts of the country. The province is home to numerous Vietnamese ethnic groups.

Hung said that in order to protect the groups languages, which are crucial for preserving their cultural heritage and identities, classes in their own languages must be available from early grades onwards.

He also said that the current policy to award students from mountainous and remote regions with extra marks in the university entrance exams would not help them catch up, and it was also unfair to others.

The only way to address this issue to invest more in education, to improve teachers living standards and teaching facilities, Hung said.

Budgetary concerns

Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha said that the ministry will make all financial details about the reform widely available in light of rumours in recent years that it would cost the public a massive amount.

So far, the expense is estimated at just under US$2 million, Nha said.

Nha was responding to a demand made by deputy Nguyen Huu Cau that the ministry publicises the reforms financial reports, detailing expenses, including expenditures incurred thus far.

The minister said that there were many challenges in transforming the countrys education system, which has heavily and rigidly been in favour of the amount of knowledge it imparts rather than develop students skills and independent thinking.

Nha said that the ministry did not see education reform as a total replacement of old material. It should develop the existing value of the old material with new and improved methods, he added.

The ministry views reform as a process which does not have a deadline we will continue to address issues and constantly adapt our approach, Nha said.

The minister said the delay in implementing reforms had been proposed because the ministry needs to more time to consult with education experts and teachers, review their feedback and make necessary changes.

On the redesigning of school textbooks, Nha said the ministry encourages qualified and capable stakeholders to get involved in the process.

He said: My observation is that most teachers are more than happy to welcome changes to our education system and the ministry will provide them with training and guidelines so they can best prepare for the reform.  VNS
HA NOI  The power of storm No 12, internationally called storm Damrey, which is forecasted to hit the central and southern regions, has been strengthened and it is moving toward the west, according to National Centre for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting.

At 7am on Friday morning, the storm was some 450km off the coast of Khanh Hoa and Ninh Thuan provinces to the east. The strongest wind power near the storms eye has reached level 11 and 12 of 18 (100-135km per hour), with a gust of up to level 15 (167-183km per hour).

Tran Quang Hoai, director of the General Department for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control, said that the storms movement is very complicated and it will cause heavy rain from the central province of Quang Tri to Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan provinces.

At a speed of 20km per hour, the storm is predicted to touch the mainland of the central and southern regions by early Saturday morning. The strongest wind speed at its eye will reach 130km per hour (level 12) when it comes to the mainland.

The storm will reach the strongest level of 12 (of 18) when it is 100km from the shore. Along with impacts of a cold wave, Binh inh, Phu Yen, Khanh Hoa and Ninh Thuan provinces will have a wind power at the strongest level of 10 and 11 (90-100km per hour), the National Centre for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting said.

Since Friday afternoon, the sea from Quang Ngai Province to Binh Thuan Province, including Ly Son, Phu Quy islands, will have a wind power of level between 7 and 9 (50-88km per hour).

From Friday night until Sunday morning, heavy, continuous rain is forecasted from Ninh Thuan Province to a Nang City. When storm Damrey moves to the area bordering with Cambodia, the rain will touch Quang Tri, Quang Binh and Ha Tinh provinces.

The provinces from Ha Tinh to Binh Thuan, ong Nai and the Central Highlands region have been warned of rising water levels and floods in rivers.

About 40 boats with more than 300 labourers of Khanh Hoa and Binh inh provinces are in the risk-prone areas. The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Nguyen Xuan Cuong, asked ministries, sectors and localities to call for boats to move out of dangerous areas.

He ordered localities to ban fishing boats from going offshore while reviewing reservoirs.

Hydropower reservoirs must be operated following procedures and at the right time. The key reservoirs must be supervised closely to avoid any untoward incident, he said.

According to Khanh Hoa Provinces authorities, the province has 183 out of 885 fishing boats catching fish offshore. The crew of these boats have been updated about the storm. The province has issued a ban against fishing offshore since 6pm on Thursday and all tourism activities on islands..

The province has also ordered the evacuation of over 1,300 residents living in lowland and risk-prone areas before 4pm on Friday.

Worker missing in Binh inh

A female employee of a local irrigation company went missing after a flood hit the central Binh inh Province.

While she was working at the Thanh Hoa embankment dam on Thursday afternoon, the victim, Nguyen Thi Thu Tam, slipped and was washed away by the flood, confirmed a leader of Binh inh Irrigation Works Ltd Co on Friday morning.

A witness said at 3pm on Thursday, the high flood along with a large amount of garbage overflowed into the Thanh Hoa dam (An Nhon Town), causing damage to the dam. So Tam went to the dam area to clear the garbage.

Receiving the information, the irrigation factory No 4 of the Binh inh Irrigation Works Ltd Co mobilised workers in the area to open the flow and aid the search operations.

Due to the swirling flood, until Friday morning, rescue forces had not yet found the victim.  VNS
HA NOI  Police in Ha Nois Thanh Tri District have charged two men for counterfeiting seals and documents of organisations and agencies.

Nguyen Van Thang, 27, from Nam Tu Liem District, and Le Tran Tien, 26, from Thanh Xuan District, were alleged to be members of a ring of counterfeiters preparing health examination papers in Ha Noi.

Initial information showed that in late September, police in the Department of High-Tech Crime Prevention (known as C50), and police in Thanh Tri District caught Hoang Manh Hung red-handed in Tan Trieu Commune transporting about 50 fake health examination papers with seals from the Transport Hospital JSC.

Police made a raid on Hungs house and found more than 700 fake health examination papers with Transport Hospital seals.

The papers had results of medical examinations, but had no name of patients.

After quick investigation, police caught Thang and Tien.

At the police office, Tien admitted that he and Thang counterfeited health examination papers and sold them for between VN50,000-200,000 (US$2.2-8.8) since mid August.

The two suspects allegedly hired Hung to find customers and paid him commission.

They are said to have admitted using five seals from five doctors and one seal from the Transport Hospital.  VNS
HCM CITY Viet Nam-Russia Tropical Centre, set up 30 years ago under a long-standing and close friendship between Viet Nam and Russia, has made significant medical achievements, especially in hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

The centres branch in the southern region has offered hyperbaric oxygen therapy since 1994.

Dr Nguyen Phuong Nam, head of the Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment and Research Centre, which is managed by Viet Nam-Russia Tropical Centre, told Vietnam News Agency that the therapy had been used on nearly 200,000 patients with a variety of diseases, including ulcers caused by diabetes.

With the therapy, patients breathe pure oxygen at high pressure, Nam said, adding that it was especially suited to children and the elderly.

The therapy is also used in conjunction with other treatments for strokes, endarteritis obliterans, sudden deafness, dengue fever, and autism.

Because of the effectiveness of treatment, the Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment and Research Centre has trained doctors at other hospitals in the southern region, including traditional medicine and rehabilitation hospitals in the provinces of Phu Yen, Khanh Hoa, and Binh Thuan, and ong Nai General Hospital.

The Viet Nam-Russia Tropical Centre is also involved in vegetable cultivation on the Truong Sa Islands.

Nguyen Van Thanh Nam, deputy head of the centres environmental analysis division, who is leading the research work, said that when he was on a business trip to the islands in 2005, he saw a shortage of vegetables.

He and his colleagues began to conduct research on cultivation techniques in greenhouses, and later installed an automatic drip irrigation system and multi-layer trays in greenhouses. The effort was a success, Nam said.

The Viet Nam-Russia Tropical Centre has also conducted many international research projects in defence security.

Colonel and Dr Nguyen Van Khue, director of the Viet Nam-Russia Tropical Centres branch in the southern region, said the centre has had many achievements thanks to supports and help of Russian experts.

Around 100 to 130 Russian experts every year come to the centre to co-operate in research and projects.

The Russian government has helped train Vietnamese scientists and staff for many years, according to Khue.  VNS
HA NOI  More than 300 local and international health experts shared scientific research and experience on cancer diagnosis and treatment at an international conference on cancer control that began in Ha Noi today.

Cancer is a burden all over the world, especially in low and middle income countries. In Viet Nam, there is an increasing burden of cancer across the country, drawing attention from the whole society, Deputy Minister of Health Le Quang Cuong said at the event.

However, with the strong leadership of national leaders and international support, Viet Nam has made several achievements in cancer control. Cuong added.

For example, we have seen an increase of 5-10 per cent in cancer patients diagnosed in early stages, along with decreased cancer mortality rate of several cancers such as breast cancer, cervical cancer, oral cancer and colorectal cancer. Community awareness on cancer prevention and early detection and quality of cancer treatmet have also improved.

At the conference, participants focused their discussions on proposing the direction and strategy of cancer control, as well as conducting comprehensive training and sharing opportunities in cancer control.

They said the forum was an opportunity for local and international experts to discuss the current situation and consolidate the objectives of cancer control, targeting the direction and strategy in Viet Nam.

A cooperation agreement on cancer research and treatment was signed between the Viet Nam National Cancer Institute, the Korean National Cancer Center Graduate School of Cancer Science and Policy, the Institute of Preventive Medicine and Public Health and the Ha Noi Medical University at the event.  VNS Thanh Hai

A cooperation agreement on cancer research and treatment was signed between the Viet Nam National Cancer Institute, the Korean National Cancer Center Graduate School of Cancer Science and Policy, the Institute of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, and the Ha Noi Medical University at the conference.

According to GLOBOCAN - a project of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) provides estimates of cancer, at national level, for 184 countries of the world every year, Viet Nam reports more than 126,000 new cancer cases and some 94,000 cancer deaths. Most patients visit hospital for cancer examination and treatment when they are already in an advanced stage, which is very late and costly in terms of treatment.

At the national level, the Prime Minister has approved the national strategy on cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and COPD, as well as asthma and other non communicable diseases, during the 2015-25 period, with strong investment in local community and primary healthcare.

Viet Nam has set targets of improving adult awareness on cancer consequences and prevention to 70 per cent, reducing adult smoking by 30 per cent and heavy drinking by 10 per cent, improving early cancer detection to 40 per cent and decreasing cancer deaths below the age of 70 by 20 per cent, compared with 2015.  VNS
ak Lak  Lak Lake in the Central Highlands province of ak Lak is where travellers can take a glimpse into the unique cultural life of local ethnic communities, find appetising specialties and experience the fantastic gong culture, which has been recognised as a world cultural heritage by UNESCO.

Situated some 50km from Buon Ma Thuot City, Lak Lake also boasts its own charms.

In the local MNong peoples language, Lak means water. Legend has it that Lak Lake was born by Lak Lieng, a hero of the MNong ethnic people.

The 650ha lake is close to the Krong Ana River, which flows from the 2,500m high Chu Yang Sin Mountains, and is surrounded by the river on one side and by mountain ranges on the other three.

To the Lak Lake, visitors can experience the tranquil atmosphere of the mountains of the Central Highlands.

In the morning the lake looks like a picturesque painting with lotuses in full bloom, wooden boats and elephants carrying tourists around it.

Jun, MLieng and Le villages around the lake are home to the MNong ethnic group, which has preserves its exotic cultural traits and introduced them to tourists from far and wide.

Visitors to these villages can admire the traditional long houses, enjoy unique art performances like fire dances and gong performances, ride on the back of elephants and kayak on the lake.  VNS
SITTWEMyanmars leader Aung San Suu Kyi visited conflict-wracked northern Rakhine for the first time Thursday, under mounting pressure to halt an army crackdown that has forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee their homes.

Suu Kyi, a nobel laureate who leads Myanmars pro-democracy party, has been hammered by the international community for failing to use her moral power to speak up in defence of the Rohingya Muslim minority.

As she arrived in Rakhine State, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced a plan to visit Myanmar for talks next week, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees demanded that the Rohingya be allowed home as citizens.

Some 600,000 of the stateless minority have fled to Bangladesh since late August carrying accounts of murder, rape and arson at the hands of Myanmars powerful army, after militant raids sparked a ferocious military retaliation.

The UN says the army operation is likely tantamount to ethnic cleansing, while pressure has mounted on Myanmar to provide security for the Rohingya and allow people to return home.

Suu Kyi left via state capital Sittwe as evening fell on Thursday after a visit that also took in Maungdaw and Buthidaung in northern Rakhine.

It was her first trip in office to the region, which has seen some of the worst communal violence to cut through the western state since 2012, severely damaging Myanmars global reputation.

"The Lady" -- as she is known -- met with the Rohingya community in Maungdaw town, according to local media, a first for a leader keen to convince observers inside the country and abroad that the crisis has abated and reconstruction can begin.

But it was not clear if Suu Kyi visited some of the hundreds of Rohingya villages torched by the army -- allegedly aided by ethnic Rakhine Buddhist locals.

The Rohingya who remain in northern Rakhine are living in fear, surrounded by hostile neighbours, who refuse to let them farm or move freely.

The UN on Thursday again called for unfettered humanitarian access to a zone still under army lockdown.

And Filippo Frandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, declared that not only must the refugees be allowed to return but that they should be accorded full Myanmar citizenship.

"These people cannot remain stateless because this statelessness exposes them to discrimination and abuse, as has been the case in the past," he told reporters at UN headquarters.

On Thursday around 3,000 Rohingya arrived by land at the Bangladesh border, a sign hunger and fear is still driving people from their homes.

"The army didnt attack us but made our life very difficult," Mohammad Zafar, 35, from a village in Buthidaung said at the Bangladesh border.

"We were not paid for any work and couldnt go to markets. How long is it possible to live like that?"

Here for generations

Suu Kyi heads a committee charged with rebuilding Rakhine.

She was joined on Thursday by businessman Zaw Zaw, one of a host of military "cronies" who thrived under junta rule and are now taking prominent roles in rebuilding the battered region.

There are fears a carve-up of contracts in Rakhine by big business will further divorce the Rohingya from their land.

Suu Kyi says the Rohingya who have fled are now welcome back, if they meet contested "verification" criteria for re-entry to Myanmar.

The Rohingya are loathed in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship and denigrated as illegal "Bengali" immigrants.

Their legal status is at the crux of communal tensions, with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists adamant that Rohingya are foreign interlopers.

A Rohingya resident who has remained in Maungdaw town appealed to Suu Kyi to reconsider foisting a controversial national verification card (NVC) on the minority.

The card grants them limited rights of residence in Myanmar, but does not recognise them as an ethnic group with citizenship.

The Rohingya say it is a bureaucratic attempt to erase their identity and force a shaky legal status onto them in a region where many claim generations of ancestry.

"We cannot do anything with this NVC card, so we do not want to receive it," the resident said, requesting anonymity fearing reprisals.

"We are not Bengalis from Bangladesh, we are Rohingya living here for generations." AFP
WATERLOO  Carrie Watts grudgingly lives with her resentful daughter-in-law and her over-protective, wishy-washy son in a cramped Houston apartment. She longs to go visit the small Texas town where she grew up on the cusp of the Great Depression, but her family wont take her, and they dont trust her to travel alone. So, she makes a break for it and climbs aboard a bus for The Trip to Bountiful.

The Waterloo Community Playhouse production of the award-winning Horton Foote play opens Friday and runs through Nov. 19.

Its very poignant and sweet, and (has) a well-written script I think will appeal to our audiences, said Director Greg Holt. There is a depth to the writing  its not just surface, or words to fill a page. All of the dialogue is being said for a reason. Although the play is set in Texas, I think Iowa audiences will have a connection to the element that juxtaposes an urban area to the rural experience.

Some audience members may be familiar with the 1985 film starring Geraldine Page and John Heard. Page won an Oscar for best actress for her role as Mama Watts. Horton Foote was nominated for a best adapted screenplay Oscar.

Footes play actually premiered on NBC-TV in 1953, in a performance starring Lillian Gish. It was then produced on Broadway, premiering later that same year and running for 39 performances, as well as receiving Tony nominations. There was an off-Broadway version in 2005, and Cicely Tyson starred in the Broadway revival in 2013, earning a Tony award as best actress. In 2014, she reprised her role in a Lifetime network production.

In the story, Watts wants badly to see Bountiful before she dies, unaware that the town has essentially disappeared in the wake of the Depression, World War II draft calls and demand for workers at war production plants. She boards a bus to a town near Bountiful and befriends a young woman traveling alone. She arrives there, but her family locates her with help from a local sheriff. The sheriff is moved by Mama Watts longing and offers to drive her out to what remains of the town.

Holt said casting was tricky, but hes happy with the ensemble cast he has built. Its a good, strong group of actors. The cast has responded to the universality of the play. Bev McCusker as Mama Watts is very moving, and the audiences can relate to the various characters points of view, even the daughter-in-law Jessie Mae (Kim Groninga) who is seen as the villain.

McCusker said the show has been a challenge because its not as lighthearted as plays Ive done in the past, and her character is complex.

I thought she was a very bitter woman, but thats not how shes turning out. She goes through many emotions through the show, and its been very emotional for me, too.

Other cast members are David Stamp as son Ludie; Will Frost as the ticket agent; Natalie Keene as Thelma; Carl Corwin as Roy; and Rick Johnson as the sheriff. The ensemble will feature Rita Waggoner, Dannica Dams, Marty Colwell and Ursala Holmes, who also will be singing gospel songs.

The play takes place in five locations, and Holt describes it as reconfiguring a puzzle from scene to scene. Its a challenge, and were trying to make the transitions from place to place as interesting as possible.

Thomas White of Lanesboro, Minn., who formerly worked at the Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center in Cedar Falls, has returned to the Cedar Valley to design lighting for the show.

WCP will be accepting canned food donations for the Northeast Iowa Food Bank and monetary donations that will be sent to the Houstons hurricane recovery effort.
CEDAR RAPIDS  Bill Northey thought he would have completed his annual 99-county tour of Iowa by this time.

Then his schedule took a detour through a U.S. Senate hearing on his nomination to be USDA Undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation. However, with his nomination now tied up in Washington politics, Northey expects hell complete his rounds of Iowa before heading off to the nations capital.

So far, the director of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship has visited more than 80 counties, stopping at farms, grain and livestock facilities, seed companies and agriculture-related manufacturers.

Hes not bothered by his foot-in-two-worlds situation, Northey said, adding that until that political skirmish is settled, my days are, for the most part, consumed with being Iowa secretary of agriculture.

Well do as much as we can as long as we can. Im not at all sure how long it will take, he said, referring to confirmation of his presidential nomination. Well keep at it as long as we have time to keep at it.

Northeys nomination is being held up by Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is using it as leverage to make changes in the Renewable Fuel Standard to make it more favorable to oil-producers and refiners. Its seen as retaliation for the efforts of Iowa Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst and Gov. Kim Reynolds to get EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to uphold President Donald Trumps commitment to them to support ethanol use.

In the meantime, Northey said hes happy doing a job that he couldnt imagine he would enjoy as much as being Iowa agriculture secretary.

It just has been great to be able to get out to talk to farmers and others involved in agriculture, he said. I have really, really enjoyed it. Ive visited all the corners of Iowa and seen some things I wouldnt have seen.

A high point for Northey has been the departments effort to address water quality issues.

Its been very rewarding to see how folks are engaging, he said.

The job has not been without challenges. The bird flu epidemic in 2015 stands out.

That was a crazy situation that we never want to see again, Northey said about the epidemic, which the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation estimated caused $1.2 billion in economic damages and the death of more than 30 hens and 1.5 million turkeys.

Not all the challenges have been in the field. The department has absorbed budget cuts and is operating with about 15 percent fewer people than when he became secretary.

Our folks have done a great job of doing even more than what they were doing 11 years ago when we got there, he said.

Northey expects the dispute holding up his confirmation will be resolved and when the time comes, if I need to switch, Ill be able to do that.

For the time being, well just let it play out, he added.
DES MOINES (AP)  Pension payments stolen from the accounts of more than 100 Iowa public employee retirees have been returned to them, state officials said Thursday.

The Iowa Public Employees Retirement System said 103 accounts were compromised in mid-October. The system serves workers for state and local governments and school districts. It sends payments totaling about $1.8 billion a year to 115,000 retirees.

Hackers obtained stolen Social Security numbers and birthdates, used the information to register for online account access and diverted the payments to different financial institutions, retirement system spokeswoman Judy Akre said. The system learned of the crime Tuesday, she said.

She would not give a specific amount for how much was stolen from the accounts. She said it was several hundred thousand dollars.

Only accounts that had not previously established a username and password for their online access were affected, Akre said. Officials have not determined where the hackers obtained the stolen information, but do not think it was taken directly from the retirement system.

No arrests had been reported as of Thursday afternoon.

The crime was reported to the FBI and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.

Were meeting with people from both agencies right now, Akre said Thursday morning.

The system has reissued the payments to the correct financial institutions so the retirees will not lose money, she said. The retirees are being asked to check with their financial institutions to ensure the October payments were properly credited.

That process takes a few days, so those members will have their funds either on or before Nov. 7, Akre said.

A message left Thursday for the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation in Des Moines was not immediately returned.

A spokesman for the FBI in Omaha, which covers Iowa as well as Nebraska, said the agency is aware of the pension payment thefts and is working with Iowa law enforcement authorities. He declined to comment further.
Congress is grilling Facebook, Twitter and Google this week for allowing Russian agents to hijack their social networks. The grilling is long overdue.

When Mark Zuckerberg took his company public in 2012, he said his mission was to bring people closer together and create a more open culture, not merely to make money. Facebook made plenty of money and reunited lots of old high school friends. But it also created a vast electronic swamp that mixes real information, misinformation, foreign propaganda and scammery, without helping users distinguish one from the other.

Along the way, it became the countrys most powerful news organization, but a news organization that seems to operate without an editorial brain  unless you count the algorithms that fail to notice all the fake stuff.

Case in point: the 2016 election campaign.

As Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch told a Senate subcommittee Tuesday, content produced by Russian operatives may have reached as many as 126 million Americans over the last two years. Their aim, he said, was to sow division and discord and to try to undermine the election.

Twitter said more than 36,000 Russian bots sent 1.4 million tweets during the campaign. The company allowed one Russian account to label itself the unofficial voice of the Tennessee Republican Party for 11 months, even though the real GOP told them it was fake.

Google said it had discovered 1,108 campaign-related videos from Russian sources on YouTube, the video service it owns.

No one knows if the election outcome would have been different without Russian interference. But its impossible to argue all that disinformation had no effect at all.

Besides, this isnt only about who won the election. Russia wanted  perhaps above all  to stir up divisions among Americans.

One Russian-authored Facebook group, Blacktivist, urged African Americans to retaliate against police violence, an eye for an eye, according to researcher Jonathan Albright of Columbia Universitys Tow Center for Digital Journalism. Another, aimed at white conservatives, said Black Lives Matter activists should be immediately shot.

Some of that evil stuff has continued after Election Day. In March, a Russian account on Facebook attacked immigrants in the United States illegally, saying: The only way to deal with them is to kill them all. And Twitter accounts linked to Russia have been attacking the credibility of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, whos investigating Russias role in the campaign.

Its not hard to see how weve come to this pass. Facebook and the other social media companies sell access to their networks to all comers; thats how they make their money. Much of their selling is automated and anonymous; they dont always know whos buying. And theyve long insisted it isnt their job to police the content that travels across their systems, at least when it comes to political speech.

The digital executives who testified this week all acknowledged, profusely, they needed to do a better job. Theyve already shut many of the offending accounts down, they said. Facebook is hiring 3,000 human editors to help its algorithms figure out when noxious content is flowing across its network.

What else do they need to do?

More transparency is the easiest answer  more information about advertisers, more clarity about the true sources of content, more outside researchers to analyze whats going on. Better enforcement of existing standards should be easy, too, even though it will require expensive human labor to do. Facebook, for example, already bans sexual content and appeals to violence. Those Russian groups that called on black and white Americans to shoot each other were breaking the rules.

But the next step is more complicated: Should social media companies do something to distinguish between good information and bad  between truths and falsehoods?

Facebook understands that it has a responsibility to democracy, said Peter Eckersley, chief computer scientist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group. It would be very shortsighted of them to put short-term profit ahead of that.

Whether the social networks like it or not, they are already the de facto arbiters of whats true and false in American public discourse. Whats posted on Facebook determines what society thinks is true or false, Eckersley said. When we see something on Facebook that tends to confirm our viewpoint, we tend to share it.

So yes, please, lets take action. But at this point, lawmakers should stick to transparency, otherwise they risk heading down the road to censorship. The bill introduced by Sens. Mark Warner, Amy Klobuchar and John McCain to require the networks to disclose political ads sources is a sensible first step. It wont be the last.

The companies need to get serious too, and live up to Googles long-ago motto: Dont be evil.
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Nov 2, 2017 | By David

The world of 3D printing technology doesn't slow down for anyone or anything, and it's not difficult to find yourself lagging behind all the recent developments. So here's another helpful round-up of stories you might have missed recently, including the University of Suffolk getting its first 3D printer, a 3D printed rocket motor being successfully tested, and more besides.

1. University of Suffolk gets 245k to purchase its first 3D printer

The University of Suffolk in the UK has recently received funding to buy its first 3D printer. The funding was approved by Ipswich Borough Council's executive committee, for the University of Suffolk's Ipswich Waterfront Innovation Centre. The centre will be given 245, 000 towards the cost of a printer, as well as an additional 55,000 for associated equipment, to create a 3D productivity suite.

Stef Thorne, from the university, said: "The printer will be a huge asset and will be of benefit to research and innovation projects for our staff and students, for local schools and colleges and for local businesses, both small and large."

The 3D printing system will contribute to the production of prototypes in various departments and fields at the centre, including computer game design and jewellery manufacturing.

2. Techniplas partners with DWS to expand 3D printing capabilities

Automotive manufacturing service provider Techniplas has announced that it will be partnering with 3D printing company Digital Wax Systems (DWS). DWS will be bringing its portfolio of professional 3D printing products to the open innovation program at Techniplas' Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center in Ventura, California.

DWS is a pioneer of the stereolithography 3D printing technique, which involves the digitally programmed focusing of high-energy lasers or light rays on a resin substance in order to selectively harden particular areas, building up a three-dimensional object layer-by-layer. The Italian companys technology is able to provide a high level of precision in manufacturing, which makes it suitable for some of the most demanding industrial applications. The automotive industry continues to adopt 3D printing for this improved accuracy in engineering along with the flexibility and reduced costs.

"With this DWS partnership, we are accelerating the momentum and strengthening our commitment to design and develop the best digital manufacturing tools together with like-minded, industry leaders," said Avi Reichental, Vice-Chairman, Techniplas and CEO, Techniplas Digital. "DWS brings to this collaboration a comprehensive suite of precision printers capable of delivering high-volume metal castings and performance rubber materials that are ideal for automotive applications."

3. Solukon to launch automated post-processing systems for metal 3D printing

Solukon Maschinenbau has chosen this years formnext trade show as the occasion to launch its new range of 3D printing products. The German company has developed automated post-processing systems that can be used to speed up the metal additive manufacturing process. Intended for use with laser melting techniques, they are capable of automating the process of removing excess powder through systematic rotation and controlled vibration to release unused powder trapped in complex metal 3D printed parts.

Metal AM systems have grown in their capabilities and the breadth of application in recent years, but peripheral processes to speed up the industrialisation of these technologies has been lagging, says Solukon Co-founder Andreas Hartmann. Studies by leading users of AM indicate that more than 70% of the costs of producing metal parts is attributed to pre- and post processes. Solukons mission is to automate and simplify the additive process, and by so doing to expand the industrial viability of these technologies.

The systems will be available in two sizes, each with two versions, according to the particular project or application. The large SFM-AT800 de-powdering system is designed for the processing of parts with maximum dimensions of 500 x 500 x 500 mm, and up to a weight of 300 kg. Coming next year, this system will be able to handle larger parts up to 800 x 400 x 500 mm. The smaller SFM-AT300 system is designed for parts of up to 300 x 300 x 350 mm weighing up to 60 kg. A 90 percent reduction in post-processing time is promised by Solukon with these new powder removal systems.

4. 3Diligent expands its range with addition of 3D printed silicone

3D printing service provider 3Diligent has announced that it will be adding 3D printed silicone to its range of additive manufacturing capabilities. The company, which makes use of data science to analyze customer requests for quote (RFQs) and identify optimal rapid manufacturing solutions across its network of qualified partners, has already started to process orders with the new material.

The medical industry is one from which 3Diligent is likely to find a large number of clients for its silicone service. All kinds of innovative 3D printed silicone applications are being seen across the medical field, including realistic silicone models for surgical training, 3D printed bandages that can be applied directly to human skin, and realistic artificial hearts for research and training.

Being able to 3D print silicone is an exciting innovation. At 3Diligent we strive to meet the 3D Printing needs of all designers and are pleased to expand our range of elastomeric materials with silicone, said 3Diligent CEO Cullen Hilkene.

5. Department of Energy develops one-step method for 3D printing catalysts

The U.S. Department of Energy's 3D printing research has recently achieved a significant milestone. The DoEs Ames Laboratory has developed a 3-D printing process that will enable the creation of a chemically active catalytic object in a single step. This opens the door to more efficient ways of producing catalysts, which will be useful for controlling complex chemical reactions in a wide range of industries.

3D printing in catalysis is a relatively new approach, and previous methods have tended to involve a multi-stage process, whereby the chemically active agents onto pre-printed structures. This new technique is able to use digital modelling and stereolithography 3D printing to produce product with intrinsic catalytic properties.

"We can control the shape of the structure itself, what we call the macroscale features; and the design of the catalyst, the nanoscale features, at the same time", said Igor Slowing, a scientist in heterogeneous catalysis at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory. "This opens up many possibilities to rapidly produce structures custom designed to perform a variety of chemical conversions."

This research is further discussed in the paper "Direct 3-D Printing of Catalytically Active Structures," authored by J. Sebastian Manzano, Zachary B. Weinstein, Aaron D. Sadow, and Igor I. Slowing.



6. Orbital ATK successfully tests first 3D printed rocket motor components

Global aerospace and defense leader Orbital ATK has announced the successful testing of a rocket motor that was built using 3D printed components. The prototype tactical solid rocket motor incorporates critical metal parts that were made through additive manufacturing, and its successful completion of a series of static test firings marks an industry first.

The motor was developed in partnership with the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center (AMRDEC) at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. It incorporates advanced materials technologies and it is designed to improve the performance and safety of a next generation anti-tank missile system. Assembly and testing of the prototype motors was conducted at Orbital ATKs Tactical Propulsion and Ordnance facility in Rocket Center, West Virginia.

The rocket motor has an operational temperature range from -26 degrees to +145 degrees Fahrenheit, and it performed capably across this range, meeting all test objectives. The main 3D printed part was the rocket nozzle and closure structure, a single piece made from high strength steel. It is expected to improve affordability of the system by significantly reducing the parts count and manufacturing complexity. The perforated rocket motor igniter housing and nozzle weatherseal used in the prototype tests were also made using 3D printing technology.

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Nov 3, 2017 | By Benedict

German 3D printing company Rapid Shape and the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT have developed TwoCure, a new resin 3D printing process that is similar to DLP 3D printing but which requires no support structures.

Support structures are an important part of 3D printing: without them, many of your most intricate 3D printed pieces would collapse. But that doesnt mean they arent incredibly frustrating.

Because while effective support structures allow complex 3D printed parts to work, they are sometimes hard to get right during the design stage, and can be even fiddlier to get rid of once printing has finished.

That automatically puts great value on any 3D printing process that purports to not require supports. Companies like Massachusetts-based Rize has built its whole ethos around the Rize One, a 3D printer that requires no supports, and others are beginning to follow suit.

Rapid Shape, a German 3D printing company, and Fraunhofer ILT, a leading German research institute, have joined forces on TwoCure, a new resin 3D printing process that works like DLP, but without the need for supports.

In addition to its support-free nature, TwoCure is also reportedly significantly more efficient and productive than other 3D printing techniques.

The collaboration is part of the Central Innovation Program for SMEs (ZIM) project, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, and represents a meeting of research and industry.

According to those behind TwoCure, the new resin 3D printing method works a lot like DLP, in which a projector is used to selectively harden layers of a photosensitive resin in a vat.

Much like with a projector, an image is projected into the resin bath and the polymer hardens in the areas that are illuminated, explain Holger Leonards and Andreas Hoffmann, project managers at Fraunhofer ILT. The resin in other areas initially remains liquid.

But the big difference between DLP and TwoCure is the two methods respective approaches to support structures.

Users dislikeprocess-related supports because additional CAD preparation and time-consuming follow-up work delay the production process, says Andreas Geitner, technical director at Rapid Shape.

To help out these frustrated 3D printer users, TwoCure uses a kind of hybrid technology, solidifying the liquid monomer photochemically by means of light, as well as thermally by means of cold. Its a kind of double-curing, hence TwoCure, and it enables free-floating components to be made in the build area.

The material is applied warm and then irreversibly cured by light, explains Leonards. At the same time the cooled installation space ensures that the thermoset component being created layer by layer freezes to form a block with the resin that has solidified like wax.

In other words, the vat of resin acts as a kind of support structure in itself, because the temperature keeps it more or less solid. This waxy resin can then be liquified at room temperature, leaving only the 3D printed object(s) behind. These can then be cleaned and given the required post-curing treatmentprocesses that will hopefully be fully incorporated into the TwoCure process in future.

Not only does this process eliminate the need for supports, it also enables components to be positioned in the entire build volume without being connected to the platform.

The components no longer have to be built on [a] platform, Leonards adds. Because the total build volume is being used more efficiently, each 3D printing job can create significantly more parts.

According to Rapid Shape and Fraunhofer ILT, the development of TwoCure was shared equally. The former took care of procedure and systems technology, while the latter handled the material and photochemical process.

Excitingly, the first TwoCure 3D printer prototype is already up and running, and will soon be ready for series production, meaning resin 3D printing without supports could soon be commonplace.

The 3D printing tech has already been trialled for jewelry applications, with the jewelry industry standing to benefit greatly from the new process.

Jewerly manufacturers have so far used supports to create their models and then removed them in a very laborious process before smoothing the surface, says Andreas Schultheiss, founder and CEO of Rapid Shape. These last two production steps are expensive and superfluous. The new process means they will not be needed in future.

TwoCure will be demonstrated at the upcoming formnext exhibition in Frankfurt.

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Nov 3, 2017 | By Tess

At a recent symposium in Charleville-Mezieres, France, 3D printing companies came together to discuss, demonstrate, and experiment with metal 3D printing technologies. The event was organized by French metal additive manufacturing firm Platinium 3D.

Among the topics discussed at the conference were the impact of metal 3D printing on the French manufacturing industry and overall economy, as well as new applications for the technology.

France, which is home to a number of innovative 3D printing companies including Platinium 3D, as well as metal 3D printing startup BeAM, Prodways, and Addup Solutions, a joint venture launched by the Michelin Group and Fives Group S.A, is quickly becoming a big player in the AM industry.

That is, while the European metal 3D printing market is currently dominated by German companiessuch as EOS and SLM SolutionsFrances involvement in the technology and interest in advancing metal AM is gradually bringing the European country into a leading position for the technology.

"There is an entry for French industry in the field of additive manufacturing," said Jean-Camille Uring, the vice president of the Federation of Mechanical Industries (FIM). It is an important moment to position ourselves on the market.

Within France, an initiative has been established which is aimed at promoting the adoption and use of new industrial processes, including 3D printing, as well as robotics and digitization. Led by the Alliance of Future Industry, the initiative is aimed specifically at small businesses and SMEs.

3D printing is being positioned as a technology which can offer significant cost reductions for manufacturing companies, opening the doors for small-batch, bespoke production, as well as quicker turnaround times for prototypes, and more optimized structural design for parts.

BeAM's new Modulo metal 3D printer

"We are at a tipping point, companies are in high demand, they are discovering what this technology can do for them," commented Hubert Mongon, UIMM Director General.

And the initiative seems to be working, as Strasbourg-based BeAM has reported an increase in sales for its metal 3D printing systems. The metal 3D printing company, which very recently announced an increase in capital of 1.6 million euros, has deployed fifteen of its metal 3D printing systems and says it plans to deliver five more 3D printers by the end of this year.

The company will also be presenting its latest machine, the Modulo five-axis LMD/DED 3D printer, at the upcoming formnext 2017 expo in Frankfurt.

Still, there are some hurdles to overcome with metal 3D printing technologies. Namely, that the technology is not quite prepared for mass production applications. This is largely due to the technologys high price as well as manufacturing speed.

"We are still far from the big leagues, said Charles de Forges, CEO of Spartacus 3D, an aerospace and automotive 3D printing specialist. There is a know-how to develop and a problem of competitiveness.

"The machines you have on the market are machines whose main objective is the production of prototypes and pre-series parts. The real transition to industrialization will be in the next 2 to 3 years," predicted Uring.

FormUp metal 3D printer by AddUp Solutions

Still, with many of Frances additive manufacturing companies coming together in Charleville-Mezieres to discuss the future of the industry within the nation, we would not be surprised to see more exciting AM-related news coming from France.

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Susanna Forrest at Literary Hub:

Mazeppa is one of Lord Byrons later works, written just a few years before his death and shortly after he had fled England with scandal on his heels and debt dragging at his ankles. His wife had left him, taking their daughter with her. His lovers were numerous and garrulous. Rumor accused him both of homosexual affairs and of an incestuous passion for his half sister. Mazeppafunnily enoughis about a delirious dash into exile, undertaken reluctantly but transforming its subject into a hero. Within three years of publication, Byrons publisher John Murray had sold an impressive 7,400 copies.

Byron found his protagonist in Voltaires History of Charles XII, King of Sweden. The real historical Ivan Mazepa (Byron added the extra p) was a Cossack leader famous for defecting from Russia to Sweden before the 1709 Battle of Poltava. In Ukraine he is still a hero, in Russia, a villain. According to Voltaire, as a young man in the 1660s he served as a page at the court of King John II Casimir in Poland but was caught cuckolding a noble who had him stripped naked, tied to a wild horse and thus dispatched all the way back to his Ukrainian homeland. The tall tale of his amorous escapades can be traced back to the memoirs of a courtier called Pasek who held a long-standing grudge against Mazepa. In Paseks account, when Mazepa is caught by the irate husband hes strapped not to the back of a wild horse but his own tame saddle horse, which promptly scarpers back to its home stable via bramble patches. Voltaire upgraded the story. Byron took it further.

more here.
John Gray at Literary Review:

Corresponding with Bertrand Russell in 1922, Joseph Conrad confessed: I have never been able to find in any mans book or any mans talk anything  to stand up for a moment against my deep-seated sense of fatality governing this man-inhabited world. Conrad was responding to Russells book The Problem of China, published in the same year, in which Russell had pinned his hopes for China and the world on international socialism  the sort of thing to which I cannot attach any sort of definite meaning, Conrad observed. International socialism, he continued, was but a system, not very recondite and not very plausible  and I know you wouldnt expect me to put faith in any system.

Conrad was a sceptic who believed that the human world was fuelled by illusions. He felt strongly about a number of the political issues of his day, such as the threat posed to Europe by Russian autocracy, and was horrified by the rapacity he witnessed being inflicted on the local population when he travelled through the Belgian Congo in 1890. But nothing could have been further from his way of thinking than high-minded dreams of a world without tyranny or empire. In his view, no change in political systems could eradicate the universal human propensity for savagery. He was suspicious of all large schemes of improvement.

more here.
Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post:

This weeks tragic terrorist attack in New York was the kind of isolated incident by one troubled man that should not lead to generalizations. In the 16 years since 9/11, the city has proved astonishingly safe from jihadist groups and individuals. And yet, speaking about it to officials in this major global hub 10,000 miles away, the conclusions they reach are worrying. The New York attack might be a way to remind us all that while ISIS is being defeated militarily, the ideological threat from radical Islam is spreading, says Singaporean Home Minister K. Shanmugam. The trend line is moving in the wrong direction.

The military battle against Islamist extremist groups in places such as Syria and Afghanistan is a tough struggle, but it has always been one that favored the United States and its allies. After all, the combined military forces of some of the worlds most powerful governments are up against a tiny band of guerrillas. On the other hand, the ideological challenge from the Islamic State has proved far more intractable. The terrorist group and ones like it have been able to spread their ideas, recruit disaffected young men and women, and infiltrate countries across the globe. Western countries remain susceptible to the occasional lone wolf, but the new breeding grounds of radicalism are once-moderate Muslim societies in Central, South and Southeast Asia.

Consider Indonesia, the worlds most populous Muslim country, long seen as a moderate bulwark.

More here.
A handful of Bay Area stories you may have missed this week.

On her 50th birthday, actress Julia Roberts scored herself a Jumpsuit at the Valencia Street shop Voyager. (via Yelp)

The Most Revealing Moment in the New Joan Didion Documentary, The New Yorker



About a third of the way through "The Center Will Not Hold," Griffin Dunne's intimate, affectionate, and partial portrait of his aunt Joan Didion, which premieres on Netflix this week, a riveting moment occurs. Dunne, an actor, producer, and directorand the son of Didion's brother-in-law, the late Dominick Dunneis questioning Didion about "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," her essay describing the hippie scene of Haight-Ashbury in 1967. Read more.





Julia Roberts goes on Mission District shopping spree for 50th birthday, SFGate



Braced for the brisk weekend weather in a headscarf and boots, the actress visited a stretch of stores on Valencia Street between 14th and 15th streets. Read more.





San Francisco Tops Our List of America's Coolest Cities, Forbes

San Francisco may be an almost perfect embodiment of coolness today, but how cool can a city be if it becomes inaccessible to all but people in an upper income bracket? Read more.





Billionaire Owner Shuts Down DNAinfo, Gothamist Sites A Week After Workers Unionize, NPR

Just a week ago, the employees at local news websites DNAinfo and Gothamist in New York voted to unionize. Thursday evening, the publications' billionaire owner, Joe Ricketts, announced that he was shutting them down. So long, SFist. You'll be missed. Read more.





Daughter seeks millions from Esprit co-founder Douglas Tompkins' will, SF Chronicle

Billionaire Douglas Tompkins, the North Face and Esprit co-founder who died in a kayaking accident in Chile in December 2015, didn't leave a dime to either of his two daughters or his five grandchildren in the Bay Area  and now his will is being hotly contested in courts in the U.S. and South America... "It's sad, but there is nothing we can do," his daughter Summer Tompkins Walker, who runs a home furnishings business and is active on the city's social scene, told us shortly after her father's death... Nonetheless, in June 2016, she sued in Los Angeles County Superior Court, seeking a share of her father's assets. Read more.


Insider Buying!

Sydney, Nov 3, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - As many of you are aware, I have been accumulating Explor Resources ( CVE:EXS ) ( EXSFF:OTCMKTS ) ( E1H1:FRA ) since June of 2014. A number of Convertible Debentures, and Private Placements have been done to support ongoing operations since that time. President & CEO Chris Dupont has never participated personally in any of those placements. So, important to investors, why is he putting up $200,000 of his own money now to buy stock from the Treasury at .07, with a Warrant to buy a bunch more stock at .12? Its been rumoured that a $1 million Drilling Program is planned at the Timmins Porcupine West gold deposit. Likewise, I'm hearing a $1 million Drilling Program is planned at the Chester copper deposit in New Brunswick. Both programs are designed to increase the size, & scope of the known resources, currently Measured & Indicated at 1 million oz of gold at the TPW. The Chester copper deposit has a Measured & Indicated resource of 27,626,000lbs of copper, and 123,064ozs of silver, and an Inferred Resource of 32,384,000lbs of copper. A number of CA's (Confidentially Agreements) have been signed, or are in process, with mid tier, and major gold, & base metal producers. The East Bay Drilling Program has been put on hold. Dupont can't buy, or sell, stock on Insider Information, so, again, why now? What is it he believes moving forward?



There is no doubt that the action we have experienced in the metals complex in 2017 has been exceptionally frustrating, especially as the market presented us with several break-out set ups that did not follow through. 2017 has been one of the most challenging years ever within the metals complex. In the past, geopolitical, or, macroeconomic events generated major swings in precious metals. Despite a number of such events, gold & silver have remained static. The notable exception is copper, which has held in the US$3 plus/lb range. The demand for physical gold & silver continues to grow, and supply, especially gold, continues to diminish. So, for whatever variety of reasons germane to long term plans, the powers to be continue to bash precious metals downward.



"Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism, and die on euphoria." - Sir John Templeton



In my humble opinion, Dupont believes the bubble is about to burst, and is preparing for that eventuality. He believes gold, (and silver, and copper) are going much, much higher in price as we move towards, and into 2018. I totally agree with that belief. EXS/EXSFF/E1H1 has seen $1+ when gold approached its $1,900 highs just a few years ago. With profoundly more asset base in the Company, exponentially greater returns are probable. Further, with an anticipated climb in precious metals, I suspect negotiations with producers will intensify favourably for all shareholders.



NOTE: This forum commentary was published from a third party source. It has not been verified by the company.





About Explor Resources Inc.





Explor Resources Inc. (CVE:EXS) (OTCMKTS:EXSFF) (FRA:E1H1) is a Canadian-based natural resources company with mineral holdings in Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick. Explor is currently focused on exploration in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt. The belt is found in both provinces of Ontario and Quebec with approximately 33% in Ontario and 67% in Quebec. The Belt has produced in excess of 180,000,000 ounces of gold and 450,000,000 tonnes of cu-zn ore over the last 100 years. The Corporation was continued under the laws of Alberta in 1986 and has had its main office in Quebec since 2006.
Mumbai University will once again adopt the online assessment system for the winter semester exams despite facing severe technical hardships earlier. Officials have claimed that they are better prepared this time to identify technical glitches and rectified past mistakes. Additional manpower has been deployed and training has been imparted to personnel for evaluation of 452 winter examinations. Even though the university is going ahead with the online assessment system, students are worried whether results will be declared on time. Earlier students had to undergo severe hardships due to delay in declaration of results. Many of them had paid fees for seeking admission in colleges but were unable to produce their marksheet and passing certificates.

The erstwhile vice-chancellor of Mumbai University, Sanjay Deshmukh had received flak for implementing the digital assessment system without doing any groundwork. The state government too had asked Deshmukh to implement online assessment system in a phased manner but he nonetheless went ahead with the implementation process which resulted into chaos. Later Deshmukh was asked to quit. As per the Maharashtra Universities Act, 1994, results must be declared within 30-45 days from the concluding date of the examinations.

The winter examination would have 452 exams, with 481 full-time programmes and 604 part-time programmes. BA and BSc exams will commence from November 8 and law students will appear for papers from November 13. Exams for BCom and Engineering students will start from November 20. Over 4,10,449 students will appear for papers.
National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC) Chairman Gurdeep Singh on Friday said the committee formed to probe the Unchahar power plant explosion in Uttar Pradeshs Raebareli will submit its report in the next 30 days.

The chairmans statement came two days after the tragic incident in which the unit boiler exploded at the NTPC site, killing 32 people and injuring more than hundred others.

While addressing the media, Singh said, The committee formed to investigate the incident will submit its report in 30 days. The recommendations of the report will be implemented as a safety measure to the present as well as future units, and will be shared with other plants as well.

On the condition of the injured undergoing treatment in Uttar Pradesh hospital, he said seven critically injured had been shifted from Lucknow to Delhi on Thursday night.

We shifted seven people to Delhi on Thursday night, with the help of the Indian Government that provided an IAF plane, which helped in the shifting of the injured, said Singh.

He added that about 48 people had been admitted in different hospitals in Uttar Pradesh and 12 had already been shifted to the national capital.

We will ensure that they are provided with the best possible treatment, he said.

Terming the allegations that no proper inspection was done in the plant as preconceived notions, Singh said that it would be wrong to blame anyone and anything until the probe reports are presented.

The commission on the plant was supposed to be on December 2016 but was done on March 2017, Singh asserted.

He further said that they had conducted a thorough investigation of the plant.

Our engineers, having experience of 28 to 30 years in the field, were also present during the accident, the chairman said.

Stating that there were three competent engineers present on the spot during the incident, the chairman asserted, Saying that everything was done in haste, would be a wrong thing to say.

He said that the sequence of events and data log will be analysed, after which the reason behind the blast could be ascertained.
After so much of chaos and loss to the students, now Mumbai University is claiming that they have upgraded their online assessment for the upcoming winter semester examinations. The University has improvised the entire On-Screen Marking (OSM) process to prevent any kind of error. University officials declared that they have tackled the technical, physical and logistical drawbacks in the assessment managed by MeritTrac company which recently delayed the results of 477 examinations. The MU has identified the technical glitches, rectified the errors, tested the improvisations, trained the concerned personnel and increased manpower for the winter examinations. A master database has been created which includes detailed information of every student appearing for a particular examination of a particular subject of the respective course. A similar database of teachers including both examiners and moderators has also been created.

The Mumbai University faced a crisis thats first of its kind when the future of 4.2 lakh students went on stake as they stare at losing one academic year of their life. The MU results used to be declared by mid-June every year; however, that was not the case this time with the transformation to online assessment than the traditional pen and paper way of manual checking. The University failed to declare the exam results on its promised deadline July 31, 2017 and promised a new date, however, more disturbing was not the delay but the chaos in uploading the answer sheets that has put a question mark whether the results would be declared altogether or not, or would the results be accurate or not.

During huge uproar calling for resignation of Vice Chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh, theres one question that prompts everyone, why was this decision of Online Screen Marking taken hurriedly and applied without much planning? The decision of moving to Online Screen Marking was taken by Sanjay Deshmukh in the wake of May 2016 Cheating Scam that was solved by Bhandup Police by arresting a racket of cheats who used to source answer sheets from Mumbai University, tamper them and then replace. Due to this cheating scam, Sanjay Deshmukh took the decision to overhaul the manual system and shift answer sheets checking to digital mode. As we all know, Mr. Deshmukh is a RSS cadre and his aim was to follow Modijis digital India, but that flopped miserably, due to which he had to resign. Although the VC may have good intentions while introducing this transformation, but the way things have turned out, everybody went against Deshmukh, holding him accountable for the results 2017 fiasco which happened due to lack of planning.

The University was not getting an agency onboard on time; it should have stick to the traditional way of paper checking. Secondly, teachers should have been trained in detail to quicken up the process, and lastly, even after two months of chaos, Mumbai University failed to do a reality check and carried on with a bad decision, putting lakhs of students in jeopardy. Chief Minister of Maharashtra also has admitted that Mumbai University failed in properly implementing the online assessment system. This system should have been introduced in phases. Had it been done so results could have been announced in time? The system is new, the valuers are yet to get used to it, and sometimes valuers are not available. Moreover, the University took it casually and they never imagined in their remote dreams what could be the consequences if online assessment fails. It is a completely new system and the University has been unable to implement it properly. Whether it should have been introduced across or in phases will be studied. The education department has issued directives on how much of the online system should be implemented till it is properly understood. Anyways they have once again resorted to online assessment claiming that they can do better this time.

Mumbai university needs to restore its sheen, not only its online assessment system was chaotic for students, a visit to the campus shows how its existing infrastructure too seems to be neglected and is falling apart. At Kalina campus of Mumbai University, you can find several instances of falling slabs and a lack of maintenance making buildings unsafe for students to use. The toilets in open places are very unhygienic and full of filth and stink. The three-storey Jawaharlal Nehru Library, built in the seventies, at Kalina campus seems normal from outside but the buildings second floor tells another story. Dwindling slabs makes the entire floor unsafe, leaving only the ground floor for use. An auditorium in the same building has also suffered the same fate and not been used for two years.

A teachers training academy was inaugurated in 2015, but the building hasnt received clearances to start functioning yet. Surprisingly, there are repairs taking place inside a building that hasnt even been used. Another structure, meant to house the department of linguistics, resembles an abandoned building. Completed in 2011, this too lies unused. Elections to the senate of the university, a body that could have raised these issues, havent been held for many years.

The government blames the University administration and says steps to rectify the problems will be taken soon. And the University blames government for their lack of will to make any infrastructural changes. The University is also slow when it comes to hiring faculty, as data shows. Figures published in an internal document show that the University has 86 sanctioned posts for professors but only 35 are available at the moment, while 51 posts are vacant. It has sanctioned 279 assistant professors posts but only 170 have been hired. At least 109 posts are still vacant.

There are hundreds of problems with Mumbai University, but students are coping up with all inconveniences as their only motive is to receive fair education and prompt results.

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com)
The father says one thing, the medical records another, as Deer put it on Saturday. In fact, the father says one thing, and the medical records back him. (That does not mean the vaccine caused the autism, of course, but it does mean the father believed it did, and that Wakefield got the sequence right.) Only Deers idiosyncratic and journalistically unjustified misuse of a couple of stray medical records, unchecked by the reality described by everyone else, says another.

Whatever. On Saturday Deer also tried to elevate a secondary issue  how long after the shot the autism symptoms occurred in Child 11  into a replacement for his now-discredited claim that the entire sequence was reversed, an incomparably more serious and black-and-white issue.

Instead, on Saturday Deer sneered at the messenger  me  as he staged a full-scale retreat from the facts, using Father 11's acknowledged but irrelevant antipathy toward Wakefield as cover. He called me an undistinguished former journalist who now runs a website largely funded by anti-vaccine profiteers, claiming that I had been dumped some years ago from his post as a copy editor for a news agency owned by the Rev Sun Myung Moon - himself convicted of fraud  Olmsted has since sought a livelihood from his website, misleading vulnerable parents of children with autism.  He sought to profit with his website by lying to parents whom he disgustingly purports to champion and followed British research cheat Wakefield into the toilet.

Deer, a veteran newspaper correspondent who, as he frequently points out, has won numerous prestigious journalism awards including the British equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize for his Wakefield investigation, on Saturday offered no convincing reason for how he could have gotten something so central to his fraud claim against Wakefield so wrong. Instead he portrayed the fathers account as a competing explanation to the one Deer had independently settled on, based on a couple of unrelated court documents that led him to falsely infer that the autism symptoms preceded the shot in Child 11. Standard journalistic practice would be to check that assumption against the other, far more dispositive evidence that refuted it, and with the childs father, who subsequently told me: "Mr. Deers article makes me appear irrational for continuing to believe that the MMR caused difficulties which predated its administration."

Equally striking is how little its accuracy seems to matter to Deer, convinced as he is that Wakefield's status as a charlatan is beyond dispute, even if such a central "fact" no longer supports it.

The fact that a core element of his claim of research fraud is now a matter of uncertainty to Deer, the only man who made it, is a remarkable development under any circumstance, but considering the impact the claim has had on the autism debate in subsequent years, it is extraordinary. The claim has been used by officials around the world to say concerns about autism and vaccines have been "debunked" because they originated from a fraudulent research report. A typical example: Senator Dianne Feinstein of California wrote a constituent last week: I understand that many parents are also concerned that vaccines may cause autism. This claim was published in 1998, in an article in the Lancet, a British medical journal. The researcher who authored the article was later found to have deliberately falsified data to produce a fraudulent link ..."

But on Saturday, after I showed that Deer is the one who got the sequence wrong  that the shot indisputably did come first, followed by the development of regressive autism -- Deer wrote: Who can say, years later? In fact, I can say: The father, whom I also identified and interviewed, wrote Wakefield as early as 1997, and contemporaneous medical records establish, that the child got the MMR at 15 months, became sick for several months, developed autism symptoms by 18 months, and was given a formal autism diagnosis at age 3. The father has always said he believes the shot caused all those consequences -- none of which Deer managed to reflect in his own investigation despite interviewing and e-mailing with Father 11 over an extended period of time.

Child 11s autism symptoms developed "two months earlier than reported in the Lancet, and a month before the boy had MMR," Deer reported, too soon to be the cause. That must have been a disappointment to Wakefield, who proceeded to switch the sequence to suit his bias, Deer wrote. The father angrily spotted the anomaly after Deer identified and interviewed him, but neednt have worried that Wakefield would get away with it: My investigation of the MMR issue exposed the frauds behind Wakefields research.

The allegation that Wakefield reversed the timing of the shot -- clear evidence of fraud, if true -- was featured in detail as the shocking opening to Deers 2012 series in the British Medical Journal titled How the Case Against the MMR Was Fixed.

Not one of the children were reported on truthfully. Wakefield lied again and again, journalist Brian Deer said in his post on Saturday , referring to Wakefield 12-child case series published in the Lancet in 1998. But in the same post, Deer acknowledged that, contrary to his previous reporting, he is now unsure whether Wakefield falsely changed the timing of the MMR shot to put it before the autism symptoms began in a key case.

Brian Deer, the British journalist who claimed researcher Andrew Wakefield committed fraud by linking the MMR vaccine to autism, now admits one of his key allegations against Wakefield may be flat-out wrong. Yet he insists it's no big deal -- that it does nothing to undercut his claim that Wakefield is "an elaborate fraud."

As Ive shown in a 10-part series , this tendentious approach applies to the entirety of Deers reporting on Wakefield, including Deers accusation that in five of the 12 children  Child 11 included  autism symptoms occurred before the shots were given. In fact, those cases are no more illustrative of Deers allegation of the shot-symptoms sequence than Child 11. Nonetheless, when one fact starts to wobble, Deer refers to all the other facts that have not been as closely scrutinized as if they offer some sort of collective support  Of course, my reports did not hinge on child 11, or on any individual case, he said Saturday. As explained in the most detailed account of Wakefield's grotesque misconduct, it rested on the findings (as the BMJ noted) that not one of the children were reported upon truthfully. Wakefield lied and lied again.

And if thats not enough, well, Wakefields license to practice medicine was revoked and the Lancet paper was retracted (largely based on the facts Deer alleged).

At some point, though, Deers claims  or anyone else's  must hinge on the facts of individual cases if they are to add up to widely accepted evidence of Wakefields grotesque misconduct. Just saying so doesnt make it so; referring to lie after lie doesn't constitute "an elaborate fraud" unless each "lie" can be shown to be exactly that. (Deers piece on my own reporting was titled, Dan Olmsted lies for research doctor. One is tempted to rewrite the headline as "Lying Undistinguished Former Journalist Lies for Lying Research Fraud Wakefield.")

The timing of shots and symptoms in just 12 children more than a decade ago may seem trivial, but the issue is anything but arcane. Millions of cases of autism have occurred since 1998, when Wakefield sounded what he believed was an early warning of a possible link between vaccination and autism that required further research and led to his suggestion that until that was complete, the M, M, and R in the MMR should be given separately. Thousands of parents have subsequently described such an outcome, but because Wakefield has supposedly been discredited and his work debunked -- by Brian Deer -- that and other evidence have been dismissed.

I first wrote about Deers investigation in 2012. Let me again spell out what I learned from Father 11 and how it differed from Deers account.

--

I met Father 11, who like Deer I identified from my own independent reporting, at a Peets Coffee shop in an affluent, picture-perfect Southern California enclave, and we sat outside in the mid-60s sunshine he jokingly called a little frosty. A wealthy businessman who lives in a gated community nearby, he wore a light jacket emblazoned with Cal, for the University of California at Berkeley where he got an engineering degree. He carried a thin file folder and a spiral notebook.

In this laid-back setting, it was hard to grasp the role he and his family have played in one of the major medical controversies of our time, one that unfolded in a foggy city 6,000 miles to the east.

This father is Deers best witness among the parents of the 12 children described in the Lancet paper  in fact, his only one, the lone parent who is hostile to Wakefield, not just a little frosty, but coldly angry. His anonymous comments to Deer in the BMJ seemed to fully support the January 5, 2011, cover story: Secrets of the MMR Scare: How the Case Against the MMR Was Fixed.

My investigation of the MMR issue exposed the frauds behind Wakefields research, wrote the ludicrously self-aggrandizing correspondent.

Child 11, in fact, was Deers opening into fraud. He was among those whose parents apparently blamed MMR, but Deer commented acidly that Child 11s case must have been a disappointment. Records show his behavioural symptoms began too soon. [Italics in original] Deer quoted from a Royal Free Hospital discharge summary: His developmental milestones were normal until 13 months of age. In the period 13-18 months he developed slow speech patterns and repetitive hand movements. Over this period his parents remarked on his slow gradual deterioration.

Deer summarized: That put the symptom two months earlier than reported in the Lancet, and a month before the boy had MMR. And this was not the only anomaly to catch the fathers eye.  (Note that it is Deer, not the discharge paper, saying the symptoms came a month before the boy had MMR.)

Well yes, if youve got a parent saying that a child developed autism before he got the MMR shot, and youve got a research paper saying the opposite and suggesting a link between the shot and the disorder, and pulling the same stunt with several other children, youve got your fraud right there.

The BMJ report was the coup de grace for serious consideration of a link between vaccines and autism. Wakefield was convicted of fraud, wrote Time magazine in an article titled The Dangers of the Antivaccine Movement. An editorial in The New York Times, titled Autism Fraud,noted Britains General Medical Council had already stripped Wakefield of his medical license, and the Lancet retracted the paper: Now the British Medical Journal has taken the extraordinary step of publishing a lengthy report by Brian Deer, the British investigative journalist who first brought the papers flaws to light  and has put its own reputation on the line by endorsing his findings.

Indeed it did.

Clear evidence of falsification of data should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare, Editor in Chief Fiona Godlee wrote. She said there is no doubt it was Wakefield who was responsible for the elaborate fraud, despite having 12 co-authors.

Hold the door, please. I was about to learn that Deers explosive claim about Child 11  Exhibit A in this alleged hoax -- was false. And that was just the first step of my journey into a world where things were not at all as they seemed.

--

The father opened the file folder  guarding the papers against a fickle coastal breeze -- and showed me a letter he had written on January 1, 1997, to Dr. Andrew Wakefield, Royal Free Hospital, London, England.

"My son [name deleted] at age 15 months, was immunized with the Merck MMR vaccine and became ill for the next several months, the letter began.

As his pediatric records indicate he came down with a viral infection, and shortly thereafter viral pneumonia. His condition slowly deteriorated over time, and was diagnosed as being autistic on his birthday at age 3. The onset of his autistic behavior began around 18 months.  He was diagnosed as moderate to severe, with no speech, no eye contact, and cognitive function at 6 months overall.

Multiple specialists in the United States confirmed the autism diagnosis, the letter added, as well as their suspicions of the MMR vaccine as the cause. Further workups in California also revealed indeterminant inflammatory bowel disease -- the dual syndrome Wakefield was then investigating at the Royal Free. That was why the father wanted the hospitals pediatric gastroenterologists to evaluate his child.

So  first came the shot, then the symptoms. The fathers account, and medical records created before he got anywhere near Wakefield, could not be clearer. But didnt he tell Brian Deer exactly the opposite, as recounted in the opening of the BMJ cover story? And didnt a hospital record confirm that?

No. And no.

Though youd never know it, the father was actually disputing how long after the shot specific symptoms occurred. In fact, the father did directly blame the MMR for causing his sons illnesses and autistic regression  a fact that appears to have escaped Deers notice, or at least acknowledgement.

Yes, the father was angry at Wakefield. Yes, he disagreed with other points, some of them unrelated to the content of the Lancet article. But no  he did not say that the symptoms came before the shot. That was not an anomaly in the Lancet paper that caught his eye, as Deer wrote.

And the discharge document itself? It was simply wrong, one of thousands of pieces of paper generated by many medical personnel in a complicated medical case stretching over many years; perhaps the 13-18 months was a typo for 15-18, since that is what the father had reported all along. Regardless, the father says he never told Deer that the symptoms came first, and there is no evidence to the contrary. Deer apparently did not bother to check that one piece of paper against the large volume of other evidence, or to confirm it with the father, or to make sure that his own claim that symptoms began a month before the boy had MMR coincided with any actual chronology.

As far as I can tell, no one on the planet -- no doctor, no parent, no document  has ever said Child 11 was anything but healthy and developing normally before the MMR. No one, that is, but Brian Deer in the BMJ. And here we see Deer at work: Because Wakefield was by definition a fraud  because Deer said so  any discrepancies between data in the Lancet paper and any other source was proof against Wakefield. One document says 13-18 months for the period of regression? That was evidence enough that Wakefield used bogus data  to manufacture a link between the MMR and autism.

---

To my surprise as we sat outside in Southern California, the father told me he hadnt read the BMJ article, and he declined my offer to quote from it or have him read it during our visit. He would rather lay out the sequence in his own words, he told me.

That turned out to be a useful approach.

His son had been completely healthy and developing normally, he said, until the MMR shot at 15 months triggered a downhill progression.

I very much believe it, he said about the relationship of the shot to the symptoms: The measles component of the vaccine triggered an immune deficiency that produced the cascade of devastating physical and mental problems. This, in fact, was Wakefields provisional hypothesis.

How did Brian Deer miss all this? How did he misrepresent the core of the alleged fraud and claim the symptoms came before the shot? How did he rely on the father to rage against Wakefield but completely omit the fact he believed his childs autism did not just come after the vaccine but was caused by it?

Who can say?

--

Dan Olmsted is Editor of Age of Autism.
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Chicago Immigrant: Assyrians Suffered 'So Much' But 'Still Have Hope'

Atoor Merkail. ( Tim Boyle/Sun-Times) Atoor Merkail, an Assyrian Christian whose immediate family -- seeking stability and a better life -- left their native Iraq last year to settle in the Chicago area, part of a Middle East minority with a rich history but targeted by ISIS in recent years. Merkail, 39, is married with two kids, 5 and 3. Her husband became a U.S. citizen when he lived here previously. Their village is in northern Iraq in an area with numerous Kurds, who just voted for independence and are among those battling the Islamic extremist group ISIS.

Merkail was a teacher in Iraq, but, with pay sometimes sporadic and the future of the region unclear,where she had family who once lived in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq. "We're trying to find a better situation, at least for our kids." Assyrians have deep historical "roots" in Anatolia, today part of Turkey, and Mesopotamiabefore Christ, according to material from Rutgers University . Assyrians were among the first converted to Christianity -- tradition has it by at least one of Jesus' apostles. "Most Assyrians, who belong to different Christian denominations and have a population of about 300,000 in Iraq, want to remain part of the country but aspire for political autonomy," according to a recent article by Al Arabiya, a Middle East news outlet. In the modern era, "Most Assyrians are in Iraq, Syria and Iran," Merkail says. But because of war and turmoil, ISIS has slaughtered Assyrians and other Christians in that region and destroyed their religious sites in attacks in recent years. Aside from what's going on now, theaccording to one historical account. Some Assyrians are part of military coalitions fighting ISIS. Merkail's village helped families who left Mosul when that Iraqi city was under siege by ISIS.who espouse a radical, unyielding interpretation of Islam and violently target Muslims who don't agree with them. "I have a lot of Kurdish Muslim friends" and former co-workers in Iraq. There have been Assyrians in the Chicago area since the late 1800s,according to the book Assyrians in Chicago, which also noted local Assyrians "mostly represented six different churches: Presbyterian Church, Holy Catholic Apostolic Church of the East (Assyrian), Congregational Church, Baptist Church, Pentecostal Church and the Catholic Church." The Assyrian American Association of Chicago just celebrated its 100th anniversary.which is believed to be the language Christ spoke.with most arriving since the 1980s, according to Iraqi Christian Relief Council, based in Evanston. There are a number of Assyrian churches and other organizations in the city and suburbs. Will Merkail ever move back to Iraq? "I hope so, but after a year in the U.S.,"We belong to Iraq,would like "our own region to know that we will be safe, not all the time planning to run away or to go outside of Iraq. "We hope that there will be peace in Iraq."
Air France-KLM reported a strong operating result in its third-quarter 2017 financial figures but kept quiet on the current aircraft slots row at its Schiphol hub which has seen reports that Russia will restrict overfly rights for Netherlands-registered aircraft.

The group operating result for the Franco-Dutch joint venture in the July to September period was a little over 1bn, up by 38.7% compared to the same quarter in 2016.

There was a noticeable improvement in cargo-related performance which the airline group said confirmed the continuation of the turnaround in its ongoing freight-related fortunes.

Air France-KLM carried 279,000 tons of cargo over the three months, up by 0.1% year on year.

Cargo traffic rose by 0.6% year on year to reach 2.1bn revenue tonne-km, while capacity fell by 0.3% year on year to 3.7bn available tonne-km. As a result, the load factor improved by 0.5 percentage points to reach 57.1%.

Total cargo revenue over the July to September period rose by 1.2% (3.2% at constant current rates) to reach 493m, while unit revenue per RTK was up 1.1% year on year (2.8% at constant currency) to reach 21.42.

A comparison of AF-KLMs third-quarter cargo results with the first nine months of this calendar year offers evidence that the airline is continuing on the right track, if perhaps only slowly.

Over the January to September period, Air France-KLM carried a total of 837,000 tons of airfreight, pretty much identical with the figure for the same nine months of 2016.

Cargo traffic rose by 1.3% year on year, capacity by 0.1%, so the load factor rose by 0.7 percentage points to 58.8%.

However, total cargo revenues were down by 1.3% a year (1.1% a year at constant currency).

Russias civil aviation department has reportedly threatened to ban Dutch aircraft from its airspace after Russian all-cargo carrier AirBridgeCargo (ABC) lost a number of freighter flight slots at capacity constrained Schiphol, Europes third largest cargo airport.

ABC is not the only freighter operator affected by the aircraft slot restrictions at Amsterdam but the Moscow appears to be leveraging its airspace flying rights, which would mean a significant diversion and thus extra cost for AF-KLM flights if the ban goes ahead.

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John Minchillo / AP

Sears Holding Co. announced Thursday it will close 18 Sears stores and 45 Kmart locations. The announcement comes after a brutal year for Sears, which closed hundreds of Sears and Kmart locations in the past 12 months. Employees were informed of the closures today. Two Alabama stores are on the closure list: Sears in Tuscaloosa and Kmart in Albertville. The Sears Auto Center in Tuscaloosa will close in early December. The store itself will close in January 2018.

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Consumer Product Safety Commission

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a recall for as many as 40 million fire extinguishers, some manufactured more than 40 years ago. According to the CPSC, the recall involves 134 models of Kidde fire extinguishers.

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Wesley Sinor | wsinor@al.com

Auburn's 10-year apparel deal with Under Armour that included $10 million in UA shares has lost more than 75 percent of its value in only two years. At the time of the deal announced in Oct. 2015, Under Armour shares were trading for more than $100 a share. After another disastrous earnings report released on Oct. 31, Under Armour shares took another big tumble. Even factoring in Under Armour's stock split in April 2016, that's a significant loss of value for Auburn. The value of Auburn's UA stock is down to a little less than $2.3 million.

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Bob Carlton | bcarlton@al.com

Birmingham's Alabama Theatre has won a $120,000 preservation grant that will enable the nearly 90-year-old theater to install a replica of a vintage sign that has been missing since 1950s. The theater, which celebrates its 90th anniversary on Dec. 26, was one of 11 winning sites in an online contest sponsored by American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

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Lawrence Specker | lspecker@al.com

Mobile's business community got a loud and clear message Thursday from deep space - or at least from Huntsville, which is the next best thing when it comes to getting a shot at NASA contracts. Dozens of interested business representatives gathered at a NASA Business Forum that offered a chance to hear from some people deeply involved in the business of space.

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Lee Roop | lroop@al.com

Amazon is ready to get Black Friday 2017 under way. The massive online retailer has launched its Black Friday 2017 store with lightning deals every day leading up to Black Friday. Members of Amazon Prime - who already receive free two-day shipping - will get a 30-minute head start on some deals.

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Auburn University will host next year's SEC Academic Conference, focusing on cyber security. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey announced the conference, "Cyber Security: A Shared Responsibility," scheduled for April 8 to 10, 2018.

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Capstone Bank is now part of SmartFinancial. The parent company of SmartBank announced its acquisition of Capstone Bancshares, Inc., parent company of Capstone Bank, is complete. This extends the company's markets into Tuscaloosa, Washington and Clarke counties and as far south as Fairhope.

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Mary Colurso | mcolurso@al.com

John P. Strohm, a former Birmingham resident and graduate of the law school at Samford University, is the new president of Rounder Records, Billboard reports. Strohm, 50, is an entertainment lawyer in Nashville who's been a key player in developing the careers of the Alabama Shakes, Sturgill Simpson, The Civil Wars, Bon Iver and more.

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William Thornton | wthornton@al.com

In the latest edition of "Ask Alabama," Matthew Lewis of Sweet Water, Alabama, asks: "Why does Alabama have more people on welfare than people who are employed?" Recent attempts by President Donald Trump and Republicans to scrap the Affordable Care Act, the crown jewel of President Obama's eight years in the Oval Office, underline that very conflict of how involved the government should be in helping people.

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Paul Beaudry | pbeaudry@al.com

With a public meeting coming up on the future of the Mobile Civic Center, Mayor Sandy Stimpson has sent a clear signal that that he wants that future to involve some major construction - preferably to get started during his current term. The mayor's office announced in late October that an open house would be held Nov. 13 at the Civic Center "to unveil potential paths forward for repurposing the 50-year-old facility" and to give people the chance to "review different concepts for the 24-acre site."

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William Thornton | wthornton@al.com

The next decade could see the biggest advances in transportation since the invention of the automobile, and Tuscaloosa is getting there a little faster. By the middle of next year, 85 dedicated short-range communication radios, or DSRCs, will be installed in traffic signals in Tuscaloosa and Northport. The first 50 are going in this fall. They have been paid for by the University of Alabama.

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Bob Carlton | bcarlton@al.com

Warby Parker at The Pizitz in Birmingham will begin accepting UnitedHealthcare employer-sponsored and individual vision plans in 2018. This is the first time the designer prescription eyewear retailer has accepted vision insurance. UnitedHealthcare vision insurance can be used at anyone of Warby Parker's 50 store and online, according to the company.

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Lee Roop lroop@al.com

The launch date for NASA's big new rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS) has slipped more than once. It's now officially expected in 2019, but some people think it could slide to 2020. But SLS is far enough along there's a clear timeline of what needs to happen when before the first launch. That timeline was the topic of a discussion at October's Wernher von Braun Memorial Symposium in Huntsville, Ala.
Three young men charged with capital murder in the 2015 shooting death of a Bessemer man on his way home from the store have pleaded guilty to a reduced charge.

Harold Mason, Rufus Clyde Jr. and Rashad Taylor all entered guilty pleas to the Oct. 5 slaying of 58-year-old Leon Slay. Clyde, now 20, and Taylor, now 19, entered their pleas Thursday before Jefferson County Circuit Judge David Carpenter in the Bessemer Cutoff. Mason, also 20, pleaded guilty on Oct. 20.

They are three of five then-teens arrested in Slay's death. Two others - Anthony Murray and Javar Humphrey - are still awaiting trial.

Slay's body was discovered near the intersection of Fairfax Avenue and 16th Street, and he was pronounced dead on the scene at 8:16 p.m. that Monday. Police said he was killed just after he had walked away from the BP convenience store on Alabama 150, apparently counting his money. He lived one block away, in the Jess Lanier Manor public housing community.

Slay's murder was part of a crime spree for the then-teens to get money to attend the Magic City Classic, authorities said. They previously said the teens were riding around in two cars - a stolen white Camry and a black Dodge Avenger belonging to the mother of one of the teens. They were believed to be part of a gang known as TTG, which stand for Trained To Go, and responsible for a dozen or more carjackings or attempted carjackings in Jefferson County.

Included in the crime spree was the attempted carjacking of a woman who reported she was driving on Pocahontas Road when a white car in front of her stopped abruptly. A man got out of the passenger side of the car pointed a gun at her and told her to get out. She refused and drove off.

Next, Slay was killed. And then, a short time later and only blocks away, authorities said a man was carjacked at gunpoint in the 2000 block of Clarendon Avenue. All five of the suspects in Slay's death were also charged with first-degree robbery in the man's carjacking. Some of the suspects were charged in various other crimes.

Murray and Mason also were charged in a Homewood carjacking.

A multi-jurisdictional task force was created using detectives from the sheriff's office as well as Bessemer, Birmingham and Homewood departments, narcotics personnel, uniformed patrol deputies, and the U.S. Marshals Service. Information was shared with other agencies who were involved, and through weeks of investigation, detectives developed suspects.

Mason, described by authorities as the shooter in Slay's death, has been sentenced to life in prison. Clyde and Taylor were sentenced to 20 years in prison with five to serve in Slay's death. They also pleaded guilty to one of the robbery charges, and the other robbery charge was dismissed in exchange for their guilty pleas. In the robbery case, both Clyde and Taylor were sentenced to 20 years in prison with three years to serve. Their sentences are to be served consecutively which means they will both spend a total of eight years in prison.

The judge also ordered the young men to obtain their GED in prison.
Authorities have released the names of two people killed there Wednesday, including a suspect shot to death by police when he walked into the homicide crime scene.

Officers responded about 3 p.m. to a report of an unconscious female lying by a vehicle on High Street. That woman has been identified as 36-year-old Candice Weeks, of Anniston, said Sgt. Shaun Firestone. Police said she suffered a gunshot wound and was pronounced dead on the scene.

Investigators and crime scene technicians began to process the scene. About 4:15 p.m., Firestone said, 27-year-old Jamee Almarez, also of Anniston, walked into the crime scene and began firing at officers. One of the officers was struck in the abdomen.

Five officers then returned fire, killing Almarez.

The officer was taken to Anniston Regional Medical Center by ambulance and later released. He is recovering at home. "He is fine,'' Anniston Police Chief Shane Denham said Wednesday night. "Thank God it didn't hit any major organs or anything."

The Alabama State Bureau of Investigation will be assisting the Anniston Police Department both cases, Firestone said. Officers involved are being provided with counseling and any other assistance they may need.

The investigation is ongoing, and police said they will not be releasing any additional information.
A Selma man was convicted Thursday in the 2012 shooting death of a 72-year-old man killed as he was leaving a club.

Caleb "K.K." Shaw, 35, was found guilty of murder and first-degree assault after only an hour of jury deliberation, said Dallas County District Attorney Michael Jackson. The trial started on Wednesday, Oct. 25.

The deadly shooting happened about 11 p.m. on April 1, 2012 at Sqwavee's Place on Shelly Avenue in Selma. Jackson said Willie Thomas and his friend, Moses Harris Jr., had gone to the club together. After visiting for a while inside, Thomas left because he had to go to work the following day.

When he got outside, Jackson said, he saw his friend, who had been jumped and hit in the mouth. The two headed toward Thomas's vehicle. When Thomas looked back, he saw Shaw brandishing a gun. Shots were fired and he was hit. Jackson said Thomas was able to tell police that Shaw shot him. He later died.

Jackson said Dallas County Circuit Judge Marvin Wiggins revoked Shaw's bond following his conviction and ordered him to jail. The judge also ordered a pre-sentencing investigation and report.

Shaw faces 20 years to life in prison. "We have gotten another gunslinger off the street,'' Jackson said. "Caleb K.K. Shaw shot an elderly man...because he was trying to shoot someone else."

He praised assistant district attorneys Shannon Holloway and Jimmy Thomas for their work in prosecuting Shaw.

"Hopefully this will bring some closure to the victim's family,'' Jackson said.
A judge has reduced the sentence of a man convicted of killing a fast-food restaurant assistant manager.

Thursday, Jefferson County Bessemer Division Circuit Judge David Carpenter re-sentenced Anthony Miles to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Miles, 40, was originally sentenced to life in prison without parole in 1996 for the death of Jill Louise Johnson.

Johnson was found shot to death on Nov. 30, 1994, in her office at the Hueytown KFC restaurant where she worked as the assistant manager. She was shot once in the head, and collapsed on her desk. A partially burned cigarette was still between her fingers when police arrived on the scene.

She was a wife and mother of three young children.

Information presented at trial and through court records showed Johnson was finishing up paperwork in the office to end her shift that night, while Miles-- a kitchen employee-- was cleaning the store.

When police arrived, they the kitchen burners were still on while grease and flour had been poured throughout the kitchen and office. Miles had wanted a fire to erupt and destroy the scene, prosecutors said.

Records show police discovered that $1,030 was stolen from the restaurant. Miles' timecard showed he clocked out at 10:24 p.m., and was the last person known to be inside the restaurant. Another KFC employee told investigators that Miles owned a small caliber handgun, and had carried it to work one day before the shooting.

In 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that juveniles - those who were under the age of 18 when the crime occurred - cannot face the death penalty. In many states that left only one possible sentence - life without parole - in capital cases. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional those laws in Alabama and other states that leave life without parole as the only sentence judges can consider. Judges can still sentence juveniles to life without parole, but must have more sentencing options.

In January 2016, the court held that the earlier decision should be applied retroactively to those who were convicted prior to 2012. The rulings opened up the possibility of parole for more than 2,000 juvenile killers nationwide, and about 80 in Alabama.

Miles was 17, just six months shy of his 18th birthday, when the shooting occurred.

Although Carpenter ordered Miles be given the possibility of parole, his order also stated, "Nothing in this order should be construed by the Board of Pardons and Paroles as a recommendation regarding whether this Defendant should be paroled."
Plight of 600 men at a prison camp in Papua New Guinea has raised questions about a lack of Australian press coverage.

Port Macquarie, Australia  Refugees say supplies of food and water are running desperately low inside the former Australian-run refugee detention centre on Papua New Guineas Manus Island.

Almost 600 men refusing to leave because of a perceived lack of security are now drinking water extracted from a well they dug in the sand. The toilets are blocked, and they fear dysentery may soon spread.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has called on Australia to take immediate action to stop what it has called an unfolding humanitarian emergency. But immediate action from Australia does not appear forthcoming.

The story is not, by any measure, leading every news bulletin. Despite restrictions on reporting from the centre, there has, however, been more interest in the plight of these men this week than there has been in months.

Still, large sections of the public are hostile to the cases of these men; many others are just apathetic.

Its that pervading apathy  and sense of desperation among pro-refugee advocates  that led 55-year-old Australian Phoebe Crane to go on a hunger strike more than a month ago.

I fly to the small coastal town of Port Macquarie, an hours flight north of Sydney, where the former mental health worker is in her fourth week of subsisting only on teas, coffee, and electrolyte-rich coconut water.

Im starting to feel really weak, Crane says, adding she was medically and psychologically assessed before beginning her fast.





Many people would say you could march, go to vigils, write emails, go on Twitter, Facebook. Ive done all that. In the end, this matter became so urgent for me that I thought I had to go on hunger strike. Something that Aussies dont usually do.

With her husband, she launched a small media campaign. Press releases were written, emails sent to a large number of newsrooms.

But not one major media organisation has picked up on Phoebes story.

Journalists and editors are divided as to why.

At a typically small rally for refugees in Sydney this week, a journalist from an international news agency tells me it is because Phoebe is an hours flight from Sydney. Times are tough; its too expensive to travel.

Im not sure. Skype has become standard, even in TV reporting.

I get a steer from a reporter at a respected news organisation who has had the asylum round of late. When refugees themselves have gone on hunger strike in the past, it has made the news. Why not this middle-aged woman living an otherwise comfortable life?

The reporter was aware of Phoebes case but gave it a wide berth. After covering hunger strikers in the past, other copycat hunger strikers emerged. It wasnt something the reporter wanted to risk.

I try and find out why the ABC, which has a bureau in Port Macquarie, has not covered the story.

Im told that while Phoebe was on the radar, talk of self-harm and issues surrounding women, food, and body image were raised before shying away from the story.

Australian outlets are careful when it comes to issues of reporting self-harm. But the countrys press council guidelines stress that publications have wide discretion in publishing.

But, it goes on they should balance the public interest with the sensibilities of their readers.

An experienced foreign correspondent who has worked for ABC rubbishes concerns around body image and self-harm.

Theres total self-censorship in the Australian media on refugee issues, she says. They dont want to offend the government and have a Senate inquiry talking about how left-leaning the ABC is.

The term advocate has become a pejorative in Australia, she goes on to say. The government has run a brilliant campaign keeping journalists away from refugees and asylum seekers  and the public thus emotionally removed from their plight.

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Australians like to think of offshore detention as an exception, but it is not. It has become standard operating procedure, says Peter Mares, an adjunct professor at Swinburne University in Melbourne, a long-time journalist who has written two books on Australia and migration.

Even he was surprised Phoebes story had not received more coverage.

If its a political protest which she is doing out of conviction, I dont see why it shouldnt be reported. We become used to things; things become normalised We become inured to the impact of the policy, he says.

But with the growing crisis, there has, finally, been a resurgence of interest, albeit measured.

For her part, Phoebe says she is now being contacted by some refugees asking her to stop fasting, for her own sake. She is awaiting the results of a blood test that will report back on the state of her kidneys.

When I started it was to get attention for them [the men on Manus], she says. But now everyone is talking about what we have known about for four years.

I depart for the airport admiring her courage, wondering if it will make a difference.
Violent thunderstorms have struck the Colombian capital, Bogota.

The storms brought large amounts of hail, which blanketed the city and transformed it into a winter wonderland.

The hail was so deep that it looked like snow. Children buried themselves in it, formed snowballs and built snowmen.

However, the storms also triggered flooding and tore down trees and power lines.

A dangerous mixture of water and ice flowed down some roads to the north of the city, making them impassable and causing a major disruption to transport.

Numerous people lost power during the severe weather.

Christian Euscategui, head of the forecast and alert service Ideam, told El Colombiano that the storms were caused by the humid air of the Magdalena region to the north of Bogota, colliding with the humidity of the Orinoquia to the east.

Ice in Bogota is relatively rare. The citys weather is described as perpetual spring, where nights are cool, but not cold, and days are warm, but not hot. Frost is unknown.

This amount of hail is unlikely to be seen for a long time to come, but with November being a particularly wet month for Bogota, more thunderstorms are inevitable.
The new direction newly-elected Horacio Cartes has promised for Paraguay is hardly new at all.

Ten months after the 2012 parliamentary coup that overthrew Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo, the South American nation has elected a new leader: Horacio Cartes of the Colorado Party.

Prior to the election of Lugo in 2008, the party ruled the country for 61 consecutive years. At its helm for 35 of these was dictator Alfredo Stroessner.

Cartes claims to fame includes an appearance in a 2010 WikiLeaks cable from the United States embassy in Buenos Aires concerning Operation Heart of Stone, a project targeting drug trafficking and money laundering outfits in locations such as the Tri Border Area (TBA) between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.

According to the cable, Cartes was the director of an organization believed to launder large quantities of United States currency generated through illegal means, including through the sale of narcotics, from the TBA to the United States.

The Curuguaty massacre

The presidency of Cartes predecessor Lugo consisted of one opposition attempt after another to dislodge the man.

The desired pretext for a coup finally arrived on June 15, 2012, when a confrontation between Paraguayan police and landless campesinos resulted in the deaths of six members of the former group and 11 members of the latter.

The confrontation occurred as police attempted to remove the campesinos from a sliver of territory in Curuguaty, where businessman and one-time Colorado Party politician Blas Riquelme deemed them to be in violation of his personal lebensraum.

To be sure, land rights are a touchy subject in a country in which eighty percent of arable land belongs to two percent of the population.

According to human rights reports, the police operation in Curuguaty involved extrajudicial assassinations, torture, and arbitrary detentions. The post-massacre judicial process has, however, been decidedly selective.

Mariana Ladaga, a journalist at Paraguays La Nacion newspaper, recounted to me a phone conversation with Paraguayan prosecutor Jalil Rachid concerning detained campesinos. The word campesino was a misnomer, Rachid told her; the proper term was invader.

An intriguing glimpse into Rachids modus operandi appeared earlier this year on the Yahoo! News website:

The prosecutor says he has no physical evidence showing who killed [the] six police officers He says he didnt even try to determine who killed 11 farm workers who also died when the bullets started flying. Even so, Rachid has said hell ask a judge to formally charge 10 peasants who survived the fusillade with attempted homicide, and punish them with up to 25 years in prison.

Neoliberal ecstasy

The first beneficiary of the Curuguaty massacre was Federico Franco, who ascended to the presidency as Lugos replacement.

In tragicomically blatant confirmation of some of the real motives behind the coup, the Franco regime promptly presided over the domestic institutionalisation of Monsantos Bt cotton and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with transnational mining corporation Rio Tinto Alcan.





During my recent interview with Franco at the presidential residence in Asuncion, he declared the country ideal for investors and spoke gleefully of genetically modified organisms and the opportunities for financial betterment these afford to farmers.

Of course, given Bt cottons track record and the fact that it has contributed to a situation in India in which nearly 300,000 farmers have committed suicide  many as a result of being driven into debt by the crop  its not difficult to see that the corporate elite have superior chances of undergoing GMO-induced financial betterment.

Francos neoliberal ecstasy turned to momentary ire when I asked if he detected any similarities between the 2009 coup detat against Manuel Zelaya in Honduras and last years events in Paraguay.

In both cases, right-wing putschists claimed that their respective coups were not in fact coups but rather manifestations of democracy.

Regressing into the future

As for yesterdays ostensible manifestation of democracy in the Paraguayan elections, the triumph of the ultra-right in what was merely a contest between two ultra-right candidates alludes to another common denominator between Paraguay and Honduras.

Both heads of state were disposed of for allegedly being overly leftist when, in reality, the policies of Zelaya and Lugo constituted relatively minor challenges to entrenched power.

It appears that, in the lexicon of the Latin American elite, leftism has come to signify anything less than rabidly right-wing.

As Jose Tomas Sanchez, a former minister under Lugo, put it to me: The real threat that Lugo posed to the Paraguayan oligarchy was not socialism but simply better democracy.

Anti-democratic regression has now been validated via the ever-handy staging of elections  staging being the operative word in light of rampant reports of vote-buying.

The ultimate effect of the 2012 coup  the very occurrence of which has been effectively purged from history  is a constriction of the political spectrum that impedes an amelioration of the circumstances of the non-elite majority.

In other words, the new direction Cartes has promised for Paraguay is hardly new at all.

Belen Fernandez is the author of The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, released by Verso in 2011. She is a member of the Jacobin Magazine editorial board, and her articles have appeared in the London Review of Books blog, The Baffler, Al Akhbar English and many other publications.
I am definitely here to push my feminist agenda, Canadian Minister for International Development Marie-Claude Bibeau declared to a journalist at the World Bank meetings held in Washington, DC at the end of October. Bibeau was talking about Canadas much-touted and widely feted feminist international assistance policy. Announced earlier this year, the policy has been described by Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland as a matter of basic justice and basic economics. Under its stipulations, Canada will direct over 95 percent of its development budget towards the task of empowering women, in turn making families and countries more prosperous.

It is a hopeful agenda but sadly not one that includes empowering all women. This summer, before Bibeau went off selling Canadas shiny new feminist agenda, the Canadian Foreign Ministry in Ottawa had been busy with dirtier business. In a reluctant statement issued in late July, the Ministry announced that it was deeply concerned that Saudi Arabias rulers appear to be deploying Canadian-made armoured vehicles in an escalating conflict with Saudi citizens. Even this acknowledgement of sorts came only after a Canadian newspaper published a story showing that the combat vehicles manufactured by Canadian company Teradyne were used against Saudi civilians in the countrys eastern Al-Qatif province.

So far, Canadas Trudeau-led feminist government has been unwilling to look into the $15bn deal that it inherited from its predecessor, taking the line that without evidence of misuse and reasonable risk to civilians there was no need to stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia. Foreign Minister Freeland has even gone so far as to discard a leaked report of a United Nations-mandated panel that has denounced widespread and systematic attacks on civilian targets by the Saudi-led coalition in neighbouring Yemen. Yemeni women, like the Saudi women of Al-Qatif province, are not included in the empowering agenda that Canada wants to take to the worlds women.

This here is the glossy and catchy feminism of convenience, called on at conferences but discarded and shoved to the side when it comes to lucrative arms deals. by

Then, there is the case of Nigerian women. In September of this year, a few months after Canada had announced its new global feminist agenda, the US government signed a $593m arms deal with the Nigerian military. A crucial and key component of this deal are A-29 Super Tucano warplanes whose engines are manufactured by Pratt and Whitney Canada. These Pratt Whitney outfitted Super Tucano aircraft will be part of the Nigerian Air Force, which has in the past used light aircraft to bomb refugee camps, killing dozens of civilians. An older deal made last year with Canadian-led Streit Group also sold 177 armoured vehicles to the Nigerian military.

The hedging that has typified the Trudeau governments response to its part in arming some of the worlds most repressive and anti-feminist governments suggests that the feminist label it has pinned to its dealings with the world is merely crafty sloganeering. Per its assumptions, the use of Canadian armoured vehicles to mow down hapless Saudi civilians or bomb Yemeni women and children or even Nigerian refugees has little to do with feminism or empowering women. In this circumscribed and compartmentalised version of feminism a la Canada, the sale of weapons that maintain the dominance of repressive, brutal and male-dominated regimes cannot be held against a countrys commitments to empowering its women. The one stands separate and distinct from the other, the self-enriching agendas of saving Canadian jobs and safeguarding Canadian affluence trumping any true concern for the worlds women. This here is the glossy and catchy feminism of convenience, called on at conferences but discarded and shoved to the side when it comes to lucrative arms deals. The basic justice that Freeland mentioned in her speech on Canadas foreign policy priorities has no place in these latter discussions.

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The groundwork of this sort of feminism, which uses all the right rhetoric, talks about empowering local women, then sneaks bombs and ammunition to fuel the very conflicts that imperil them, was laid over a decade and a half ago by Canadas neighbour (and partner in arms sales) the United States. As still-suffering Afghans remember well, one of the avowed pretexts for invading Afghanistan in September 2001 was, as announced by First Lady Laura Bush herself, the liberation of Afghan women and the facilitation of their return to schools, to security and to freedom. As the years and then a decade wore on, a two-faced approach reigned. The killing of Afghan civilians including women and children, the night raids by US forces that terrified families, and the accidental bombings of hospitals were all swept under the rug because the United States was allegedly empowering Afghan women.

If the United States can use the feminism-as-branding strategy to sell a war, then it follows that Canada can follow suit with its international-assistance agenda. That the United States has not delivered on any of the promises it made to Afghan women, and that two-thirds of Afghan girls still dont attend school as result of poverty, insecurity and displacement, doesnt seem to bother anyone. This last fact likely recommends the strategy to the Canadians, since it proves the premise that the feminist label is valid not because it has to deliver to the women it claims to empower but because it can better sell government programs, wars or aid, to the voters at home. The omnipotent logic of Western largesse against global want dictates that it is the givers who matter; the better Canadian voters can feel about themselves, the more successful Canadas groundbreaking feminist international assistance policy will be deemed to be. So clever is this political branding trick that even local Canadian politicians are taking a go at it; Valerie Plante, a mayoral candidate in Montreal, announced last week that if elected she would inaugurate the citys first feminist Metro line. What would make this line feminist (beyond being pink) remained unspecified.

It follows, then, that even while Canadian armored vehicles ply the desert border between Saudi Arabia and Yemen or the lanes of Maiduguri, and while jets with Pratt and Whitney engines drop bombs on civilians in different portions of the globe, Canadian voters energised by the historic nature of their feminist government and a feminist international aid assistance policy can continue to smugly look away. That the possibility of the basic justice identified by Chrystia Freeland as central to empowerment has been eviscerated for these women, that Canada is complicit in the crimes of these regimes, does not give anyone pause. American feminists remained largely silent when feminism became a pretext for war. Canadian feminists, eager to put Canada first, are doing the same, applauding a hollow feminism that diverts and deflects, dresses up and glosses over the dirty business of war and weapons.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Al Assad has won the war, declared Charles Glass in a recent piece for Stratfor, comparing the Syrian dictator to a Chicago mayor winning a re-election after cracking down on anti-war protests in the 1960s. In this rather bizarre attempt to draw a historical parallel, Glass misses an important point: Mayor Richard Daley did not have a foreign occupying power help him maintain a murderous regime against the wishes of Chicago residents.

And Bashar al-Assad has not just one occupying power on his side, but two: Russia and Iran. And while the two fight his battles for him in the east and south, Assad is able to put up a show of alleged stability in Damascus, where nightclubs opening their doors are impressing Glass.

And when this all ends, unlike Daley, Assad will not have a popular mandate to rule; he is and will be a foreign-occupation-backed tyrant.

How Assad won the war

In 2012 and early 2013, Assads regime was quickly losing control over rural territories across the country; desertion rates from his army for both regular soldiers and officers were skyrocketing as many refused to follow orders and shoot innocent protesters. At that time, the balance of power on the ground looked like it was leaning in favour of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and various Islamist groups, backed by Western and Gulf states.

Thats when the Iranians started coming. When Syrians from Damascus started reporting seeing them arrive by the busload in 2013, they were accused of exaggerating. By 2015 it was clear Iranians were fighting for Assad and not doing that well. So in July of that year Qassem Soleimani, breaking a travel ban, was dispatched to Moscow.

Two months later, Russia started its air force only anti-terrorism military intervention by bombing positions of the FSA. When opposition forces said they captured and killed a Russian soldier in late 2015, political analysts I know personally were quick to dismiss the oppositions claims that Russian intervention had gone beyond air attacks and supplying weapons to the Assad regime, asserting that Russia would never actually take the risk of putting its soldiers on the ground in Syria.

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Then, when the Russian and Iranian governments finally began to admit their soldiers were being killed in Syria on the battlefield, observers and media outlets could no longer deny that the occupation was far more entrenched than they had cared to acknowledge. Estimates from 2015 indicate that the regimes manpower has dropped to somewhere around 80,000 troops. In 2016 Iranian fighters were estimated to number 70,000 (with Iran actually paying 250,000 fighters) and Russian fighters anywhere between 4,000 and 10,000, although Moscow is said to be supporting several regime-allied militias and military units as well.

These numbers are disturbing, but there are two other, more alarming trends emerging with regards to Russian and Iranian manpower in Syria. The first is the employment of marginalised groups in their home countries to fight for them in Syria, such as Irans Fatimeyon Force, which reportedly numbers around 20,000 Afghans (some forced into service facing threats of imprisonment), and Russias military police force, which has sent 1,200 Chechens and Ingush volunteers.

The second trend will have a more direct and long-lasting impact on Syrias social fabric, increasing mistrust between citizens and threatening what is left of fragile Syrian bonds. Documents recently obtained by a Syrian opposition paper show that a defence ministry memo circulated in April 2017 refers to 90,000 Syrians fighting for local militias run directly by Iran and comprising of mainly Syrian Shia Muslims from both the civilian population and defectors or deserters from the Syrian Arab Army.

So long as Assad continues be an obedient tyrant, throwing contracts their way and allowing them to control not only their fighters, but also large factions of Syrian fighters, Iran and Russia can continue to implement their agenda in Syria. by

The memo, which was reportedly presented to Assad, makes recommendations on how members of these militias should be treated and how the leadership could be brought closer to the regimes own army. This seems to be a futile exercise because the loyalties of such militias now lie with Iran, who is paying their salaries while encouraging their participation in fighting based solely on sectarianism.

In other words, Assad is hardly in charge of what happens on the ground militarily.

Iranian and Russian investment in Syria

Iran says it is intervening in Syria to support resistance against Israel and protect Syrian sovereignty, as well as preserve its own existence. Russia says it is intervening in Syria to stand against western imperialism and fight terrorism. But the reality is that their interventions-turned-occupations are not purely idealistic, noble policy positions: both are also profiting politically and economically from their interventions.

After Aleppo was devastated by these three actors (Iran, Russia and the regime) in late 2016, Iranian firm Mabna was awarded multi-million dollar contracts by the Assad regime to restore the electricity infrastructure in the city. In 2014 and 2015, reports began to emerge of Iranian traders buying not only shops and businesses in Damascus and Homs, but also farmlands and areas around religious sites.

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The political and military gains are also significant for Russia. A deal signed with the Assad regime gives Russia control and access to its only naval port (the Tartus naval base) in the Mediterranean, as well as to the Hmaimim airbase in Latakia, for the next half-century.

After signing nearly one billion dollars in infrastructure deals with Russia by April 2016, the Assad regime, mere months later, then promised Russia priority in awarding contracts to rebuild infrastructure in Syria. According to Russian publication Fontanka, at least one Russian company has already acquired contracts giving it a 25-percent stake in profits from oil wells if it helps liberate and secure them.

But thats not all. Russia is now seen as the point of contact for all things relating to Syria: even nations who have spoken out against Assad are now following Russias signals for next steps in Syria.

Put simply, its not just the military Assad has lost control of, its also the economy.

Assad must go, but so must Russia and Iran

It is impossible to reason with Syrians (and Arabs, for that matter) who continue to defend and support Assad and claim that it is because he stands against Israel and its occupation of Palestine. For some reason, they are blind to the fact that Assad is doing to Syria what Israel has done to Palestine, making it a land in which Iran and Russia are calling the shots and determining Syrias future.

Currently, Assad is still being used by both Iran and Russia because so far, he has not disappointed them, a real-life example of the popular Arabic saying: they tell him to go left, he goes left; they tell him to go right, he goes right.

So long as Assad continues to be an obedient tyrant, throwing contracts their way and allowing them to control not only their fighters, but also large factions of Syrian fighters, Iran and Russia can continue to implement their agenda in Syria.

And if, at some point, Assad can no longer offer them these incentives, Russia and Iran have created an environment in which they do not need his presence to usurp what is left of Syria.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Police have arrested hundreds in protests over the acquittal of a white officer who killed an unarmed black man.

When heavily armed police donning riot gear moved in on protesters on September 17, St Louis police officers broke up the march and taunted its participants.

Whose streets? Our streets, St Louis Police Department (SLMPD) officers sang out, co-opting a common rallying cry among demonstrators.

Clinton Stancil, a St Louis-based reverend who has been involved in mobilising protests in the wake of an acquittal of a white police officer who killed an African American man in 2011, remembers the violence clearly.

When police blocked peaceful marchers from crossing the street by allowing traffic to proceed, a local clergywoman went back to inform the officers that more demonstrators were en route to cross the intersection.

The officers grabbed the woman, prompting Reverend Darryl Gray to come to her rescue.

They threw him to the ground, stepped and broke his glasses, and that was the spark that set off the whole thing, Stancil, 65, who has lived in the city for four years, tells Al Jazeera.

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As demonstrators moved to intervene, Stancil recalls the officers then indiscriminately attacking them with chemical agents, such as pepper spray, and wantonly beating people with batons. They subsequently kettled march participants and bystanders before detaining them.

They arrested everyone who was on the street, and thats what caused many of the problems, he says, explaining that bystanders, journalists and others were among those rounded up.

That was the third night of ongoing protests, which were sparked by the September 15 not-guilty verdict for Jason Stockley, a former policeman who shot dead 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith in December 2011.

We will kill your pockets

The protesters have focused on causing economic disruption through boycotts and mass demonstrations, says Stancil, who posits the strategy as an alternative to destruction and rioting, with the hopes of prompting action within the corridors of power.

Community members are demanding more civilian oversight over police, a demilitarisation of policing in their communities and accountability for officers who carry out violent acts.

On Saturday, protesters marked seven weeks of unrest when they showed up to demonstrate at a St Louis Halloween party in the citys Central West End area.

On Tuesday, dozens of community members rallied outside the Mayor Lyda Krewsons home for at least the third protest outside the city leaders house.

And on Thursday, faith leaders issued a call for an economic boycott of local stores in the city.

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We are going to continue even through the holidays making sure were at malls and asking our people not to spend money, Stancil explains. If you kill our kids, we will kill your pockets.

He adds: Its a large economic hardship for the city, but that seems to be the only language they understand. If thats the only language they understand, then thats the language well speak.

As the protest movement grows and police respond with mass arrests, St Louis, which is in the state of Missouri, has become the epicentre of the African American struggle for civil rights and equity.

St Louis is the new Selma, argues Stancil, referring to the Alabama town that became a crucial hub for the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

Crackdown

The forceful police response has elicited widespread criticism from human rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Missouri.

The civil rights group has filed a class-action lawsuit against the SLMPD on behalf of several protesters, and many others have employed private attorneys to file civil suits against the department, according to the local River Front Times daily paper.

I think everyone deserves the same rights as I do. I just want peace and justice, said Maleeha Ahmad, a plaintiff in the ACLU of Missouri suit. Ahmad alleges police officers pepper sprayed her without warning during a rally on September 15.

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If it hadnt been for my fellow peaceful protesters  strangers who came to my aid  I dont know how my eyesight would be today. I would have been left out in the sun, on the ground, with my face burning.

During the first 18 days of demonstrations after Stockley walked free, police arrested at least 307 people during protests, spokeswoman Schron Jackson told Al Jazeera.

Jackson declined to address allegations of indiscriminate force and arrests, explaining that the police department cannot comment on pending claims and litigation.

Following reports that police had arrested undercover officers in its sweep during the September 17 protest, Mayor Krewson called for an investigation, calling the allegations disturbing, according to the St Louis Dispatch.

She later said in a statement that all complaints of misconduct [by police] that have been made are being reviewed by the police departments internal affairs division.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says at least 10 reporters have been among those arrested throughout the unrest.

St Louis has a long history of significance in the Black Lives Matter civil rights movement.

In 2014, protests erupted after an officer killed Michael Brown, an unarmed African American teenager, in the northern St Louis suburb of Ferguson. Despite widespread anger, the officer was never charged with a crime.

Green light for police brutality

Earlier this year, right-wing US President Donald Trump ostensibly urged police officers to engage in brutality against suspects and arrestees.

Speaking to an audience of police officers, Trump encouraged hitting suspects heads on the door of police cars while putting them in the backseat.

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, and I said, Please dont be too nice,' Trump declared.

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?'

The officers responded with applause and cheers.

For years and years, [laws have] been made to protect the criminal, Trump continued. 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.

Jose Woss, a legislative manager at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, described Trumps comments as a green light for police brutality against the backdrop of increasing militarisation of police forces.

It is tough to sound hyperbolic these days, but this is part and parcel to the conversations we have around white supremacy, Woss tells Al Jazeera.

We seem to still see  at least in large swaths of society  anyone who has committed a mistake as deserving violence, and Trumps comments are indicative of that.

In August, Trump rolled back restrictions on the transfer of military-grade weapons to US police departments. First implemented by the previous administration of President Barack Obama, those restrictions came in response to unrest over the killing of Michael Brown in 2014 in Ferguson.

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Less than three years after the country was gripped by images of heavily-armed police storming neighbourhoods in the St Louis suburb, Trump lifted the Obama-era restrictions on sending certain types of surplus military equipment to police departments.

While the transfer of military equipment to US police has historically enjoyed the support of Democrats and Republicans alike, Woss explains that the Trump administration has boosted it into overdrive.

This is really a bipartisan issue, he says. We accept violence as typical of American society, whether its militarisation abroad or militarisation of our police at home  because its not in white peoples backyards.

Killing our kids

Back in St Louis, however, civil society groups and demonstrators plan to continue fighting police brutality.

With policing practices changing little on the ground, communities of colour in the city feel ample cause for anger persists.

On September 23, Karla Frye, a 56-year-old ordained minister and head of the Community Women Against Hardship charity, was one of 22 people arrested at the St Louis Galleria shopping mall, according to local media reports.

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Frye was charged with felony assault on a law enforcement officer for attempting to intervene when officers arrested her 13-year-old grandson.

Photos of officers treating the pair roughly and choking Frye subsequently went viral on social media and sparked widespread anger.

For his part, Reverend Stancil hopes that protests continue until systematic racism is dismantled in communities of colour in St Louis and beyond.

Too many of us, as African Americans, are afraid that our children are not going to come home at night if they have any encounters with the police, Stancil says.

In America, we should not live that fear that our children are not going to come home just because they have an encounter with the police, he adds.

We are hoping that St Louis will bring attention to the rest of the nation, so we can sit down and have some dialogue about policing in America and the effects that policing has on a community.
US says attacks were conducted in coordination with Somali government forces and targeted ISIL in countrys northeast.

The US army says it has conducted two separate air strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in northeastern Somalia, killing several members of the group.

Fridays attacks were in coordination with Somali government forces, the statement said.

The US Africa Command (AFRICOM) said the first strike occurred at approximately midnight local Somalia time (21:00 GMT), with the second strike occurring at approximately 11am local Somalia time (08:00 GMT).

We are currently assessing the results of the strike, the statement said.

Reports from Somalia suggest ISIL has been recruiting members there since it became active in the country, although the scale of its activities is far smaller than that of al-Shabab.

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At least 350 people were killed in a truck bombing in the capital, Mogadishu, last month, in the largest attack the country has seen.

ISIL captured a port town in the mountainous areas of Puntland region last month.

The AFRICOM statement said that US forces will continue to cooperate with the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somali National Security Forces (SNSF) to target terrorists, their training camps and safe havens throughout Somalia.

From the Horn of Africa in the east to the Sahel, encompassing Central and West Africa, security forces backed by Western troops have been stepping up efforts to counter armed groups such as ISIL, Boko Haram, al-Shabab and al-Qaeda.

The presidents of the Sahel countries, including Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Chad, are working on final modalities to set up a G5 Sahel force to help fight the numerous groups that are active in the region.

Niger ambush

Earlier this month, five Nigerien and four American soldiers were killed and others wounded in an ambush on a joint patrol in southwest Niger.

The attack marked the first US combat casualties in Niger and snowballed into a major controversy in Washington over the circumstances of the deaths.

The US has roughly 6,000 military personnel spread across the continent, according to AFRICOM.

The stated mission of many of those troops is to support African armies, alongside allies like France, with the goal of increasing the African nations own security capabilities and stabilisation of the region.

AFRICOM began initial operations 10 years ago, in October 2007.
Artists from more than 60 African countries flock to Nigerian city and explore subjects from Boko Haram to beauty.

Lagos, Nigeria  As an artist politically, artistically, the whole idea about your environment must be represented in the music, in the arts. So really art is what is happening at a particular time of a peoples development or underdevelopment, Fela Kuti once said. So I think, as far as Africa is concerned, music cannot be for enjoyment, music has to be for revolution.

The iconic Afrobeat musician considered himself a change agent, and believed that African artists cannot afford to disengage from social issues.

As Nigeria hosts the second edition of Art X Lagos, West Africas leading contemporary art fair, at least a few of the artists participating appear to have followed in Fela Kutis footsteps.

The three-day affair begins on Friday, featuring more than 60 artists from 15 African countries across 14 galleries at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.

The title of Rahima Gambos multimedia work, Education is Forbidden, is co-opted from the English translation of Boko Haram and offers another perspective of the armed groups battles in northeastern Nigeria.

She focuses on secondary school and university students, memories of attacks on their facilities, and Nigerias educational system.

The irony of Boko Haram attacking schools does not erase the fact that this crumbling system has been there for a while by Rahima Gambo, artist

It goes beyond the sensational, beyond the deaths and the abduction, says Gambo. Its a quiet story of what is happening internally, whats happening in the mind of somebody whos living in what is now termed a conflict zone [and] going through an [educational] system that has almost, in a way, lost its purpose.

A 31-year-old journalist who hails from the northeast, Gambo is more than qualified to explore the realities of the region with nuance.

The irony of Boko Haram attacking schools does not erase the fact that this crumbling system has been there for a while, she says.

Combining text, photos, videos and textbook illustrations, she weaves a cohesive story of defiant school administrators and students still attending school despite threats, absent teachers, suicide bombings, and dilapidated infrastructure damaged by Boko Haram fighters.

In one account, photos show students enjoying an annual campus variety show months after an ambush. In another piece, a woman recalls escaping a deadly attack on campus, but says all she worried about at the time were her transcript and school certificate she had left behind.

The in-betweens of [Gambos] language  bring focus to the conditions of the particular moment, says Art X Lagos curator Missla Libsekal of the artists part documentary, part art project.

It is one of nine curated works interrogating how artists view themselves and respond to contemporary issues.

Documentary included [in] artistic practice is recognised historically as being useful to respond to [a] crisis, says Libsekal.

The consequences of colonialism on education in the countrys north is also documented in the narrative.

Following the colonialists introduction of English as the official language, Nigerians schooled in Arabic and Islamic education were suddenly rendered illiterate, which in turn limited and continues to limit access to economic opportunities  one of several factors attributed to the rise of Boko Haram.

In many places where [schools existed], it created a hierarchy of culture and knowledge where local languages, local knowledge systems were made secondary to this import, Gambo says, as she describes the destruction of Islamic education. In colonising a society, you created an unequal society. People that went to school suddenly became powerful and [those] that didnt were disempowered.

She also questions the Nigerian governments paltry investments in education, adding that schools can be viewed as a metaphor for the northeasts problems. The school is an arm of the government. Its a power structure. The irony is not lost that Boko Haram is looking at the educational system as the root of its problems  as a symbol of all these Western promises that have not benefited them.

Mental health and womens beauty

Another artist whose work reflects the times is 25-year-old Olatunde Alara. His spray-painted installation Smile, borne of his struggles with mental illness and being asked to smile when depressed, depicts the interior mind and exterior persona at odds with each other and the concept of misperception.

Recalling earlier encounters with mental illness, Alara says he couldnt put a definition to it because I didnt have any references, which is why representation is very important and its important that Im doing this.

As Nigerian newspapers continue to refer to suicide as despicable acts and ugly incidents, Alara hopes his installation will broaden conversations about mental health and encourage people to speak out about their experiences.

Wura-Natasha Ogunji, meanwhile, questions the concept of womens beauty, its destruction and the dynamics of seeing and being seen in an art performance titled, If I Loved You. Like Alara, Ogunjis performances, which mostly centre on the presence of women in public spaces, are inspired by her experiences.

I was very aware of division of labour  my own movement as a woman and how they were affected, recalls the 47-year-old, of her first visit to Nigeria in 2011. I was very aware of people listening to me or not in public spaces. And so that became something I really wanted to engage with because of personal questions that I had with my own power, and my about own ability to engage with people and be present.

Standing on a pedestal, the performers are presented as objects of desire and focus and art objects [and] elevated beings to the audience, with both parties having alternative viewpoints.

Ogunji says her intention is not to effect a drastic change in the system but to slightly shift things for women, in this case, the performers, to experience freedom.

Art allows for that space in such a direct and eloquent manner, she says.

Giving voice to the voiceless

Critic Wilfred Okiche says the Lagos event has expanded the space for uncomfortable topics to be discussed.

Art remains one of those mediums not totally shackled to the uneasy silence that conservative cultures usually seek to enforce, he says. Art X has risen to the challenge of giving voice to the voiceless and starting edgy, important conversations in creative ways.

As to whether artists addressing societal concerns in their work identify, as Fela Kuti did, as change agents  it depends on the artist.

[I] dont know whats going to happen [to the audience]. [I] dont know how someone is going to feel [about the art], or how theyre going to be changed by what they observe, Ogunji says.




Warrant names the four ex-minister who accompany the dismissed leader in Brussels, as well as adds two charges.

Barcelona, Spain  A Spanish judge has issued an international arrest warrant for dismissed Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont.

Puigdemont has been in Belgium since Spanish authorities fired him and his cabinet on Saturday after the regional parliament declared independence.

Judge Carmen Lamela issued the order on the grounds that it was public knowledge that Puigdemont is in Belgium.

The warrant added two charges: prevarication (lying) and disobedience.

It also names the four other ex ministers who accompany Puigdemont in Brussels.

Puigdemont told Belgian state TV, RTBF, earlier on Friday that he did not flee Spain, but he travelled to Brussels to avoid violence.

Violence has never been an option for us, he said.

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He added that it is impossible to prepare [a defence] while in Spain.

Puigdemont will now face possible extradition from Belgium.

The Belgian attorney general told Spanish news agency, Efe, earlier this week that if his office receives a warrant for Puigdemont, the law will be applied.

If we receive [the warrant], we wont be able to make more comments or conjectures, he said.

Speaking to Dutch media outlet, Puigdemonts lawyer Paul Bekaret said that warrant will take a while, because [it] has to be translated, and then processed by the federal police.

Nine ministers jailed

The warrant comes after nine Catalan government officials, including dismissed Vice President Oriol Junqueras, were jailed without bail in Madrid on Thursday on charges of sedition, rebellion, and misuse of funds.

Barcelonas city council issued a declaration calling for the immediate release of these politicians along with Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sanchez, two pro-independence organisers jailed since October 16.

The declaration was signed by parties from across the political spectrum. Ada Colau, the left-wing mayor of Barcelona, said the declaration was a great consensus in the defence of freedoms and fundamental rights.

The only parties that declined to sign the declaration were the centre-left Spanish Socialist Party, the centre-right Peoples Party, and the populist right Citizens party.





The accused former officials are required to deposit 6.7 million euros ($7.2m) to cover expected court costs. In the event they are unable to pay the amount, their property will be seized.

Santi Vila, the former Catalan Business Minister, was the only person granted bail. Vila paid the 50,000 euro ($58,300) fee and is expected to be released pending trial later Friday.

The Catalan government was sacked last Saturday after it declared independence the previous day.

The Spanish government took direct control of the breakaway region after applying Article 155 of the constitution the same day.

The political crisis over Catalonias independence began on October 1 when a disputed referendum met a harsh police crackdown by Spanish police.

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The Catalan government claims 90 percent of voters chose independence, but turnout was less than 50 percent.

Spain claims the vote was illegal, contravening the Spanish constitution.

Hundreds of people are protesting Spains actions against the Catalan separatists throughout Barcelona.

A group of demonstrators on Passeig de Gracia, one of the largest streets in Barcelona, held signs and posters on Friday calling for the release of political prisoners.

The Committee for the Defence of the Republic  a grassroots network of pro-independence protesters that has risen to prominence since October 1  has called for widespread demonstrations to continue throughout the weekend to rebuke the imprisonment of their government.
Martha ODonovan, who works for Magamba TV, could face more than 20 years of prison.

Zimbabwean police have arrested a US citizen for allegedly insulting President Robert Mugabe in a tweet she shared, her lawyers say, in the first apparent arrest since the countrys creation of the Ministry of Cyber Security.

Martha ODonovan, who works for Magamba TV, was arrested on Friday during a dawn raid on her home in Harare, the television station said in a statement.

She had re-tweeted a post which apparently referred to Mugabe as a selfish man and sick man, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), which is representing ODonovan, said in a tweet on Friday.

Zimbabwe Republic Police says Martha ODonovan insulted Mugabe when she allegedly tweeted that We are being led by a selfish man and sick man', ZLHR tweeted. The post shared by ODonovan did not refer to Mugabe by name.

ZLHR also said on Twitter that ODonovan is being charged with undermining [the] authority of or insulting [the] president.

#FreeMartha #ZRP says @Martha_ODonovan insulted #Mugabe when she allegedly tweeted that We are being led by a selfish man and sick man."  ZLHR (@ZLHRLawyers) November 3, 2017

Fishing expedition

Doug Coltart, a human rights lawyer in Harare, capital of Zimbabwe, said that if convicted, ODonovan could face more than 20 years in prison.

ODonovan is charged with insulting the president, which is punishable with a sentence of a year, he told Al Jazeera.

More significantly, she is charged with subverting a constitutional government, which carries a hefty sentence of 20 years in prison. It is almost equal to treason, Coltart said.

This is directly related to her role with Magamba TV, and a subsidiary of Magamba called Open Parly, which talks all about the work of parliament.

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This is what we expected all along, that it was not really about the retweet. It was really a fishing expedition to get information about her work at Magamba TV, and try and go after the organisation itself.

New battleground is social media

This is the first arrest since the creation of the Ministry of Cyber Security in Zimbabwe last month.

The new ministry focuses on crimes on social media and the worldwide web in general, in advance of the 2018 presidential election.

Amnesty International condemned the arrest, saying it marks the start of a sinister new chapter in the Zimbabwean governments clampdown on freedom of speech  and the new battleground is social media.

The human rights organisation added that the charges confirm fears that this new portfolio [ministry] will simply be used to punish anyone speaking out against the authorities on social media platforms.

Zimbabwean officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mugabe has been ruling Zimbabwe since its independence from Britain in 1980.

He says he seeks to run for another five-year term in next years elections.
One man was killed and two others have been injured in a popular tourist area in Marrakech, in what Moroccan authorities said was a local matter of settling scores.

Two assailants wearing balaclavas shot the victim in the head at La Creme cafe in the Hivernage area on Thursday night, before fleeing the scene on a motorcycle, authorities said. The motorcycle was later found burned elsewhere in the city.

The head of Moroccos counterterrorism unit, Abdelhak al-Khayam, told local media that the shooting, which took place near an area close to several hotels popular with tourists, was not a terrorist act.

In a statement on Facebook, Prime Minister Saadeddine Othmani wrote that the hunt for the attackers was ongoing.

Othmani had previously announced on Twitter the arrest of two people connected to the shooting, but later deleted that tweet.

Oh my god it's horrible what happend  I never heard about shooting in marrakech but now it's happend !!! My https://t.co/N0lZphFjMe  Youssef (@aiadous) November 2, 2017

The Maghreb Arab Press said that the two injured people were transferred to the Marrakech University Hospital Centre for treatment.

The man who died was a 26-year-old medical student and son of a high-ranking official at the Beni Mellal Court of Appeal, according to local media.

Shooting incidents are very uncommon in Morocco, where few guns are in circulation.
Chief prosecutor says she believes criteria has been met to begin an investigation into alleged war crimes.

The International Criminal Courts (ICC) chief prosecutor has announced she will seek to start an official investigation into possible war crimes during the war in Afghanistan.

Following a meticulous preliminary examination of the situation, I have come to the conclusion that all legal criteria required under the Rome Statute to commence an investigation have been met, Fatou Bensouda said in a statement on Friday.

The prosecutor did not name the specific parties she seeks to investigate. But in a report last year (pdf), ICC prosecutors said the Taliban and its affiliates, Afghan authorities and members of the US armed forces and CIA may have committed war crimes.

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In due course, I will file my request for judicial authorisation to open an investigation, submitting that there is a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in connection with the armed conflict in Afghanistan, Bensouda said on Friday.

She added it is up to the judges of the court in The Hague to decide whether the criteria to authorise an investigation are fulfilled.

Bensouda said that if authorisation is given, her office will investigate in an independent, impartial and objective way, crimes within the courts jurisdiction allegedly committed by any party to the armed conflict.

2016 report

The report by Bensouda last year said that there was a reasonable basis to believe US armed forces and the CIA may have subjected more than 60 detainees to torture.

Members of US armed forces appear to have subjected at least 61 detained persons to torture, the prosecutors office said in that report, adding that CIA members also seemed to have tortured 27 detainees in secret detention facilities elsewhere, but not in Afghanistan.

The report said that incidents appeared to have taken place in 2003 and 2004.

The US state department at the time said the probe was not warranted or appropriate.

The 2016 report also said there is reasonable basis to believe that crimes against humanity were committed by the Taliban and its affiliates.

It said there was a basis to believe war crimes of torture and related ill-treatment were carried out by Afghan government forces.

The US forces occupied parts of Afghanistan after the attacks on September 1, 2011, to track Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders who Washington blamed for the attack. The US forces ended their combat mission in 2014.

Founded in 2003, the ICC seeks to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Unmarked mass grave investigation should be completed within six months, state-run human rights commission says.

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir  The state-run human rights commission has told the government in Kashmir to investigate at least 2,080 unmarked mass graves discovered in border areas of the restive region.

The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), a human rights group in Kashmir, told the commission there were 3,844 unmarked graves  2,717 in Poonch and 1,127 in Rajouri, twin districts in the region that lie along Line of Control (LoC) that divides the disputed territory between India and Pakistan.

In response, the commission acknowledged the presence of 2,080 unmarked graves and asked the government for a comprehensive investigation to be completed in six months, including DNA tests of the bodies to compare it with family members of the disappeared.

In 2011, the commission directed the government to investigate the mass graves. At the time, a special team from the commission said 2,730 unidentified bodies were buried in 38 sites across northern Kashmir.

The commission has no hesitation to issue the same directions, which were already issued in the case, the recent order said.

Thousands disappeared

APDP maintains 8,000 people have disappeared in the decades-old conflict, and accuses government forces of staging gun battles to cover up killings.

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The association welcomed the commissions latest demand to investigate mass graves in Indias Jammu and Kashmir state.

It is an acknowledgement from the institution that is run by the government. It provides further legal remedies for the family members of missing, Khurram Parvez from APDP told Al Jazeera.

We have been demanding that there be an independent commission to do a credible probe on the mass graves.

Parvez said the probe might give an answer to families of disappeared who do not know whether their relatives are dead or alive.

We have done a study of 53 cases for a report where the bodies were exhumed from unknown graves. It was found that 49 bodies in the graves were of civilians and one was a local militant, three bodies were unknown. These people were dubbed as foreign militants by the government, Parvez said.

Since 2011, instead of complying with directions from the human rights commission, the government continues to avoid such an investigation on the pretext it would lead to a law and order problem in Kashmir, APDP said in a statement.

The European Parliament adopted a resolution in July 2008 and called on Indias government ensure independent and impartial investigations into all mass graves, APDP said.

Officials contacted by Al Jazeera declined to comment on Friday.

The state government has said most of the missing were likely Kashmiri youths who crossed into Pakistan for weapons training. Those comments have been dismissed by family members of the disappeared.

Emotional closure

Tahira Begum, 39, from Baramulla whose husband disappeared in 2002, said if the government investigates the graves it would provide emotional closure to family members.

We want to know whether our family members are buried in these graves. At least, we will get an address to mourn, she told Al Jazeera.

Tahira said she had to leave her three sons in an orphanage after her husband disappeared.

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My kids would run from school and ask me where their father is. For years, I told them he has gone for work outside. But as time passed, I couldnt lie to them any more.

Her husband disappeared after leaving home for work and never returned. I went everywhere to look for him but failed. I just want an answer  what happened to him, she said.

Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the Himalayan territory in its entirety.

Rebel groups have been fighting since 1989 for the Indian-administered portion to become independent or merge with Pakistan.

Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown. India maintains about 500,000 soldiers in the territory.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep among Kashmirs mostly Muslim population and most support rebels against Indian rule despite a decades-long military crackdown to fight the armed rebellion.

India has accused Pakistan of arming and training the rebels, allegations that Pakistan denies.

Rebel groups have largely been suppressed by Indian security forces in recent years, and public opposition to Indian rule is now principally expressed through street protests.
Tehran, Iran  Just hours after a data dump by the CIA alleging among other things collusion between Iran and al-Qaeda, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Irans foreign minister, responded via Twitter.

A record low for the reach of petrodollars: CIA & FDD fake news w/ selective AlQaeda docs re: Iran cant whitewash role of US allies in 9/11, Zarif said.

The target of his criticism was the CIA and the US-based Foundation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD).

Both organisations have been at the centre of the latest revelations from a trove of computer files found on al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Ladens hard drives.

He was killed by a US Navy SEAL team during a raid on his compound in Pakistan in 2011.

The allusion in Zarifs tweet is a commonly held belief in Iran: that al-Qaedas September 11, 2001, attacks on the US were an inside job.

The accusation may seem outlandish for a sitting foreign minister of any country to level.





But to an Iranian, the message is clear: The US is the main protagonist of terror in the world and has no business hurling accusations against Iran.

This is not the first time that Iran has been accused of secret dealings with al-Qaeda.

In years past, Irans government has dismissed this kind of things as Western propaganda.

Now the accusation is coming at a time when Iran sees itself as a regional counterterror powerhouse.

I think this is part of a psychological war launched by America and by the CIA against Iran to disgrace Irans face in the international arena, Hossain Ansarifard, a Tehran-based political analyst, told Al Jazeera.

Iran is encircled by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and [it] is trying to manage these activities on [its] borders.

Everybody knows that al-Qaedas ideological principles are quite against Iran and against Irans regime. So, its ridiculous to say that they are working with and they are collaborating with Iran.

Strategic sense

For an outside observer, the allegation carries some logic. Irans foreign policy is nothing if not driven by self-interest, so this would seem to make strategic sense.

And both al-Qaeda and Iran see the US as the enemy.

But when it comes to making foreign policy, the enemy of Irans enemy is not Irans friend.

We say America is the enemy and al-Qaeda is the enemy, too, Ansarifard said.

In a speech to students in Tehran on Thursday, Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, the country will never accept being bullied over the 2015 nuclear deal

Since US President Donald Trump decertified the deal to US Congress in October, paving the way for new US sanctions, the decision has received nearly daily public rebukes from Iranian leaders.

Any retreat by Iran will make America more blatant and impudent, Khamenei said, adding: Resistance is the only option.

That kind of defiance is a product of Irans own experience with American intervention, as well as the more recent history of the second Iraq war that toppled Saddam Hussein.

That conflict was preceded by similar allegations of ties to al-Qaeda as well as the existence of weapons of mass destruction.

Neither accusation was proved true in the end but caused generations of chaos and conflict across the region.

Cannot happen again

Irans leaders say that kind of thing cannot happen again.

On Tuesday, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps was the keynote speaker at an event entitled, A World Without Terror.

If you are waiting for a world without terror and terrorism, we should be after a world without the United States, Mohammad Ali Jafari said.

Like Zarif, he also asserted that 9/11 was an inside job. The attack, he said, was orchestrated as a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. He also suggested that ISIL and the US are partners in crime in the Middle East.

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If Iran wasnt involved in Syria and Iraq, today [ISIL] would control these countries, and hand in hand with the U.S., would kill Muslims, he said.

The optics were carefully managed.

Young high school boys were brought in buses to fill an auditorium next to a museum for martyrs.

Outside the venue, students carried signs that showed the US president with his mouth zipped shut.

Posters taped to nearby walls read: Keep Calm and Shut Up Trump.

Others showed a clenched fist holding a rubbish bag filled with the tools of terrorism; American money, American made guns and bullets, sticks of dynamite marked with the Star of David, and a keyboard signifying the threat of cyberattacks.

Even before walking inside, attendees were given a snapshot of how Irans government sees its place in the world; America  along with ally Israel  is the biggest threat to peace in the region, and Iran has the job of taking out the rubbish.
Five Palestinians have been trapped for days after Israel destroyed a tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip.

Rescue teams in Gaza have been unable to reach five Palestinians trapped in a tunnel destroyed earlier this week by Israeli forces in the Khan Younis area.

Seven Palestinians belonging to Gazas military brigades of Islamic Jihad and Hamas were killed and a dozen others wounded after Israel blew up a tunnel near the border in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday.

Human rights groups have filed a petition to Israels Supreme Court demanding that the Israeli military allow rescue teams to recover the missing individuals.

The rescue teams managed to come within 300 meters of the border fence but are unable to reach the trapped and missing persons  because of the prohibition imposed by the Israeli army on Palestinians approaching any location that is less than 300 meters from the fence, Muna Haddad, a lawyer with the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, wrote in the petition.

Preventing the location and rescue of missing persons in the area currently under Israeli military control is a blatantly illegal policy.

No-go zone

The Israeli-declared buffer zone runs along the Gaza side of the Israeli border. Rescue teams cannot cross the imaginary line and enter the no-go zone for fear of coming under fire from the Israeli army.

Yoav Mordechai, Israels Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, has said that Israel would not allow search efforts in the Gaza Strip security zone without progress on the issue of Israeli POWs [prisoners of war] and MIAs [missing in action].

Israel contends that Hamas has been withholding the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, who were killed in the last Israeli military offensive on the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014.

Adalah and the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights filed the petition on Thursday on behalf of Hassan Abdel Jalil Sbahi, the father of one of the missing men.

The groups accused Mordechai and the Israeli militarys southern command chief, Eyal Zamir, of using the trapped Gazans as bargaining chips.

Allowing injured people to receive medical treatment, evacuation of bodies, and immunity for ambulances and medical teams is a basic principle of international humanitarian law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, the petition noted.

Hence, the movement of rescue and medical teams should also be unrestricted, allowing them to search and locate the missing persons without delay, thus increasing their chances of being rescued alive.
Tell MAMA, UK hate crime monitor, says ethnic minority Muslim women are most often victims of hate crimes by white men.

London, England  Anti-Muslim attacks in the UK rose 47 percent in 2016 compared with the previous year, according to a new report released by Tell MAMA, a hate crime monitor.

The attacks were largely levelled at Muslim women  56 percent of victims of 642 incidents were female. Sixty-six percent of perpetrators were male, and 69 percent were white men. Victims came from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.

Although not all Muslim women wear clothing that identifies them as followers of the Islamic faith, those who don the headscarf, face veil, robe and other garments are disproportionately targeted of gendered Islamophobia, said the report, which was released on Thursday.

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Coming from an ethnic minority background, being female and Muslim has created a brand of Islamophobia with an intersectional nature, crossing boundaries of gender, race and religion, Tell MAMA said.

In the week following the EU referendum vote, the charity reported a 475 percent spike in anti-Muslim attacks, a jump also witnessed after the Tower Bridge attacks.

One major driver of Islamophobia is the way certain sections of the media have reported on Muslims, Miqdaad Versi, assistant general of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), told Al Jazeera.

When commentators use terms like The Muslim Problem, it reinforces this narrative and all the differences that have been identified which perpetuate stereotypes and reify the good/bad Muslim dichotomy. That way its much easier to believe it is acceptable to treat them differently.

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Events that lead to Muslims being portrayed as the problem, include attacks and an ongoing discussion on halal meat being branded as animal cruelty.

[This] has created this idea that Muslims are the other. The government needs to take serious action to tackle hate crime against all communities in an equal and proportionate manner, which as it stands right now, is not the case, Versi said.

Al Jazeera spoke to victims about their experiences:

Adamah Jumah, 27, London

Growing up, I never felt Islamophobia was the norm. You heard about something happening to someone after an attack, and that was it. But my experiences of late have forced me to change my opinion, because the truth is, anti-Muslim attacks have now become normal.

I remember going to an event in broad daylight during the summer. I was approaching the venue and this guy, who I remember looked quite mature and was very drunk, came towards me. There was a bus stop in front of me with people gearing to go home. He approached me and said: I hate the fact that you Muslims are in this country.

At first, I was really shocked, because he approached me in a really aggressive way, so I crossed the road for my own safety. I said to him: Get out of my way. I wasnt having any of it.

I shouted back: 'I was born in this country, so how about that?' Then he started to make monkey noises by Adamah Jumah

All the while, the people at the bus stop were just standing there watching to see what was going on. Then the man started shouting obscene language and abuse, telling me to go back to my own country.

I shouted back: I was born in this country, so how about that? Then he started to make monkey noises. I eventually went inside the venue, I tried to act like I was OK, I was cool. He was just a drunk guy, he didnt do me any harm. But a few minutes later, I was really shaking inside.

I think I underestimated how frightening it was to be approached like that, to the point that someone approached me and asked if I was OK. I said I was fine, but inside, I wasnt.

Samayya Afzal, 26, Bradford

A couple of days after Trump was elected, I was walking in the city centre of Bradford with a group of friends. We were behind two men, one of whom was clearly drunk.

He turned around and started shouting things like: Go home Pakis! He kept turning around spouting racist abuse, but we ignored him.

When he realised we were ignoring him, he said: Do you want me to pull out my Stanley knife?

He said: 'Do you want me to pull out my Stanley knife?' He put his hand in his pocket as though he was going to get something, and started to approach us by Samayya Afzal

He put his hand in his pocket as though he was going to get something, and started to approach us but his friend grabbed him and dragged him away from us.

At that moment, we had no idea if he had a knife or not, so we turned a corner and went into a local cafe to regroup.

When youre in Bradford as a minority and a Muslim, you expect it to be safe because youre surrounded by people that look like you. We were a big group, too, so we thought that would protect us even though most of us were visibly Muslim, but it didnt.



Arry Neesa, 36, Prestwich

A few weeks after the EU referendum, I was walking my son to school along a route I always take. A gentleman I walked past said something to me. I thought he was asking for a lighter for his cigarette, so I told him I dont smoke.

He looked at me really funny and said: What are you doing here? Shouldnt you go back home? So I replied: Im British. I was born here, this is my home! I gave him a history lesson and told him my grandfather fought for this country. Then he said: Well if this is your home, we voted you out. So why are you still here?

He said: 'Well if this is your home, we voted you out. So why are you still here?' In the space of two seconds, it went from that to him trying to punch my son by Arry Neesa

In the space of two seconds, it went from that to him trying to punch my son who he thought was an easy target. I was a normal person who had walked down this road a hundred times, but in the space of a few weeks, this man now felt like he had the right to point out that I no longer belonged in this country.

I dont wear a hijab [headscarf], but the fact is he associated my being brown, being Asian, with being Muslim.

In the same week, someone plastered a sticker exclusively on my front door, not on any other doors in the neighbourhood, saying: Join us. Follow the Pegida movement. Instead of Refugee Muslims, it said Rapefugee Muslims. For the first time in my life, I was made to feel that I wasnt British; I was Muslim.

Muraad Chaudhry, 22, London

Soon after the Paris attacks and the Bataclan shooting, I was sat on the District Line tube on the way to work.

There was this old lady who must have been in her 70s or 80s who was standing, so I decided to offer her my seat.

As I got up and gestured to her, asking her if she wanted to sit down, she screamed and said she didn't want to take a seat from a 'terrorist like me' by Muraad Chaudhury

As I got up and gestured to her, asking her if she wanted to sit down, she screamed and said she didnt want to take a seat from a terrorist like me. The people around her were taken aback.

One woman stood up and said: No, thats out of order. You shouldnt say things like that about this nice young man who is offering you a seat.

I felt shocked and embarrassed because Id never experienced anything like that before, so I decided to get off at the next station.
Stealth bomber mission over South Korea shows the US is seeking to ignite a nuclear war, official news agency says.

North Korea has accused the United States of conducting a surprise nuclear bomb dropping drill on major targets in the communist country a day after two American B-1B warplanes flew over South Korean airspace.

The reality clearly shows that the gangster-like US imperialists are the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean Peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war, the official Korean Central News Agency said on Friday.

The report also highlighted that three US aircraft carrier strike groups are converging off the peninsula in advance of US President Donald Trumps visit to the region starting on Sunday.

Trumps talks in Japan, South Korea, and China will focus heavily on the alleged threat posed by North Korea, which continues to progressively expand its nuclear and missile programmes.

The US imperialists are making last-ditch efforts to check the dynamic advance of the DPRK by deploying their nuclear strategic assets in succession, but its army and people are never frightened at such moves. The US imperialist warmongers should not act rashly, KCNA warned, using the acronym for North Koreas official name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.





On Thursday, the supersonic stealth bombers flew from an American base in Guam to conduct the exercise, the US Air Force said in a statement.

The bilateral continuous bomber presence mission was planned in advance  and was not in response to any current event, it said.

The United States has said it will never accept a nuclear-armed North Korea and Trump has threatened to totally destroy the country if it threatens the US or its allies.

In response, Kim Jong-uns government said it might conduct an atmospheric nuclear weapons test, which would be a first after six underground detonations.

Some analysts suggest Pyongyang could test more intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) during Trumps trip in a show of defiance, or even a nuclear device.

North Korea tested its most powerful nuclear weapon yet in September in an underground detonation. It has launched a spate of ICBMs in recent months, drawing the ire and sanctions of the international community.

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HR McMaster, Trumps national security adviser, told a press briefing on Thursday in Washington, DC, that time is of the essence in dealing with North Koreas rapidly progressing nuclear weapons programme.

The president recognises that were running out of time, he told reporters. Trump will attempt to convince its leaders that the pursuit of nuclear weapons is a dead end.

And he will remind friend and foe alike that the United States stands ready to defend itself and our allies using the full range of our capabilities, said McMaster.
State media say the armed group has been completely removed from the eastern city after three-year siege.

Syrias military and allied forces have completely recaptured Deir Az Zor city from ISIL, the armed groups last urban stronghold in the war-torn country.

Fridays announcement by state media came after the army and allied militias eliminated the last Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant fighters from the eastern city that had been under a three-year siege.

The armed forces, in cooperation with allied forces, liberated the city of Deir Az Zor completely from the clutches of the Daesh terrorist organisation, an unnamed military source was quoted as saying, using an Arab acronym for ISIL.

Deir Az Zor had been almost entirely controlled by ISIL, also known as ISIS, since 2014. It is the main city of the oil-rich province of the same name.

The campaign to retake the city began in September when Syrian forces managed to break the three-year siege of the city by ISIL.

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Al Jazeeras Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting for Gaziantep on the Turkey-Syria border, said Syrian forces will likely find a city destroyed by months of air raids and intense fighting.

This is a significant development in that it paves the way for the Syrian army to start expanding further in the eastern part of the country, he said.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war-monitor group, ISIL still controls about 40 percent of Deir Az Zor province.

Army units  in cooperation with supporting forces  regained control over Deir Az Zors al-Hamidya neighbourhood, the official SANA news agency said late on Thursday.

The Syrian army and Kurdish-led forces supported by the United States are in a race to retake the rest of the eastern province.

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The forces of Syrias President Bashar al-Assad have been backed by Russian air raids since September 2015, helping to turn the tide in the war against ISIL and other armed groups.

A US-led international coalition, meanwhile, has provided air support to a Kurdish-Arab alliance, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), also fighting ISIL in Deir Az Zor.
As part of a bid for greater autonomy, Syrian Kurds are voting in local elections, the second in a three-phase process.

Kurdish local elections in northern Syria are likely to succeed despite potential opposition from the central government, analysts say.

Organised by Kurdish authorities, the vote on Friday to elect local council representatives is the second part of a three-phase process that began in September, when voters elected leaders for about 3,700 communes.

The attempt to gain greater autonomy is aimed at establishing new governing institutions to shore up regional sovereignty. The final phase will conclude in January with an election for an assembly that would act as a parliament for a federal system of government, as part of a decentralised Syria.

Although the central government in Damascus opposes the ambitions of Kurdish groups, Aron Lund, a Syria expert and Century Foundation fellow, said there is no imminent threat facing the countrys Kurds.

They have already created institutions, and theres nothing to stop them from developing these further, Lund told Al Jazeera.

Creating a viable and lasting economy is the actual challenge, he said.

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Kurdish-controlled northeastern Syria has a lot of profitable resources in the form of oil and agriculture, but it will remain dependent on Damascus for many financial and infrastructural needs and for access to the outside world, Lund said.

Kurdish groups had established autonomous rule since 2011, when Syrias civil war began, and have reiterated their wishes to steer away from the example of northern Iraq.

Walid Muallem, the countrys foreign minister, said in September that Syria is open to discussing the idea of granting the Kurds more power once the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) ends.

But whether Damascus and the Kurds would be able to come to an agreement depends on various factors, including American, Turkish and Russian policies, and how each side decides to use its leverage over the other, Lund said.

Officials in Damascus are totally intransigent on the issue of state sovereignty over all of Syria, but obviously thats more of an ambition than a realistic prospect at this point in time  Whatever flexibility they advertise now might disappear quickly if the post-Islamic State period sees a shift in the balance of power, he said.

Reservations persist

The political structures expected to emerge from this process are inspired by the ideas of Abdullah Ocalan, head of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who is in jail in Turkey for leading a three-decade rebellion.

Turkey labels the PKK as terrorists and views the political rise of Syrias Kurds as a threat to its national security. It has been engaged in an armed conflict with the PKK for decades, mainly in the countrys south.

Whether the Kurds in Syria will succeed in forming a viable parliament also depends on other Kurdish parties that have reservations about the new system established by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its allies. This includes the PYDs main rival party, the Kurdish National Council  a coalition of smaller parties that advocates for a more integrated approach.

Kurds in Syria accounted for 15 percent of the countrys population before the civil war, which has killed around 465,000 people and displaced more than 12 million. The dominant Syrian Kurdish political groups say their system is a multi-ethnic one that is inclusive of all ethnic and religious groups in the region.

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During the early years of the civil war, ISIL fighters gained a foothold in Raqqa. The YPG, the armed wing of the PYD, worked with other forces on the ground to regain large swaths of land from ISIL.

Tensions have mounted between the YPG and the Syrian regime and allied forces as the battle has pushed towards Deir Az Zor province.

But if the Kurds succeed in gaining greater autonomy, analysts say, it is unlikely that they will face military resistance from the Syrian regime.

[The YPG is] organisationally and operationally more effective than the Peshmerga of Iraqi Kurdistan, who were defeated last month by Iraqi forces in the disputed city of Kirkuk, said Ranj Alaaldin, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institute in Qatars capital, Doha. Its battle-hardened fighters have been engaged in intense conflict for more than six years  and will be better positioned to stave off external challenges to its authority.

The YPG currently has a relationship of interdependency with the Syrian regime and international powers, including the United States and Russia, making them an indispensable ally to the regime, Alaaldin said.

The Iraq model

In neighbouring Iraq, a bid for Kurdish independence in the north has spurred an escalating dispute after a controversial September referendum on Kurdish secession, which Baghdad declared illegal. The non-binding vote led to a military confrontation between Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Iraqi government forces in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which was ultimately retaken by Iraqi forces.

Although Syrias Kurds do not want a model similar to that of their Iraqi counterparts, the Syrian government might feel emboldened more to take harsh positions after they saw the US not doing much when Iraqi forces took over the disputed territories in Iraq, said Wladimir van Wilgenburg, an expert on Kurdish politics in Syria.

Since Damascus is not an ally to Washington, the US would more likely side with the Kurds in Syria, Wilgenburg told Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, in an effort to diminish its involvement in Syrias civil war, Russia has been facilitating talks between the Kurds and the regime.

An Assad-Kurd alignment would be a quick way to resolve one aspect of the Syrian conflict and help to revive the countrys shattered economy, Lund said.

While it is unclear how the next phase of the elections will pan out, analysts say the only way that a Syrian Kurdish autonomy could last would be if the US supports their bid for some form of federal governance  a move that would require a shift in American policy.

So far, the United States has shown little interest in spending the time and resources necessary to build up a Kurdish region that could stand on its own apart from Damascus, Lund said.
Israeli military prepared to intervene as a Druze village is caught up in fighting between Assads forces and rebels.

Israeli security forces say they are prepared and ready to prevent the capture of a village in Syrias Quneitra province caught up in clashes between President Bashar al-Assads troops and rebels.

Violence erupted in Hader, in the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan Heights, after a suicide attack at dawn on Friday killed at least nine people and injured more than 20 others

Hader is home to the Druze community, a minority religious sect found in Syria, Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories and Lebanon.

Fighting broke out between Syrian government troops and rebel fighters in Hader following the blast, leaving a Druze individual injured in the village of Majdal Shams on the Israel-occupied side.

SANA, the official Syrian news agency, said the incident involved a Jabhat al-Nusra (now known as Hayet Tahrir al-Sham) suicide bomber who detonated a car bomb near houses on the outskirts of Hader, leaving nine people dead and 23 injured.

It said the death toll was likely to rise as most of the wounded sustained serious injuries and had to be pulled out of the debris with difficulty in the face of gunfire and shelling by rebel fighters.

Warning to Druze

Al Jazeeras Harry Fawcett, reporting from West Jerusalem, said: This attack has been claimed by Hayet Tahrir al-Sham, better known by its former name Jabhat al-Nusra.

It said it was to trying to end the blockade of villages in its continuing fight against Assad regime forces, and that it didnt intend to harm the property or people of the village. But it warned those Druze villagers against fighting on the side of President Assad.

In a statement, the Israeli military said it is prepared and ready to assist the residents of the village and prevent damage to or the capture of the village Hader out of commitment to the Druze population.

Our correspondent said there had been a call from the spiritual leader of the Druze in Israel for all Druze men, including soldiers serving in the Israeli army, to leave their posts to go and defend their brethren across the border.

There was also a demonstration of about 150 people from this Druze village in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights along the border fence, Al Jazeeras Fawcett said.

Because of this, we had this rather unusual statement from the Israeli military, raising the possibility of some kind of direct Israeli on-the-ground military involvement in Syria.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitor, said the clashes were occurring between the rebel and Islamic factions against the regime forces and gunmen loyal to them in areas adjoining Hader.

It said that in addition to the exchange of fire and shelling, there was a big explosion caused by the detonation of a booby-trapped vehicle by one of the rebel groups at the entrance to Hader.

The SOHR said government troops and allied fighters were among the casualties of Fridays clashes.

Terrorist attack

SANA said people in the Golan Heights took to the streets in protest against what it called Israeli support for the terrorist attack launched by Jabhat al-Nusra on Hader.

Hundreds of Syrians demonstrated inside the occupied territories off the town of Hadar, which has been subjected, since the dawn, to a violent terrorist attack launched by Jabhat al-Nusra and backed by the Israeli occupation entity from al-Tuloul al-Homr area that is adjacent to the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, SANA reported quoting local sources in the Occupied Golan.

According to the local sources, the demonstrators tried to cross the ceasefire line to support the families of Hader in confronting the terrorist attacks amid reinforcements of the enemys soldiers to prevent them from advancing.

The SANA report said that Israeli forces closed all the roads from occupied Palestinian territories to prevent the arrival of hundreds of Arab citizens in the Golan Heights to support the people in Hader.

Responding to some allegations by Druze that Israel was assisting Hayet Tahrir al-Sham, the Israeli military said: the allegations of Israeli involvement and assistance to global jihadi elements in the fighting are groundless.

Separately, the Israeli military said on Friday it had destroyed a drone operated by the Lebanese group Hezbollah over the Golan Heights.

According to [Israeli army] intelligence, the Iranian-made UAV was operated by Hezbollah, and took off from Damascus Military Airport  The UAV was shot down by a single Patriot missile 

Hezbollah fighters have been fighting alongside Assad government forces against rebel groups operating in the Golan area of Syria.

Hezbollah has not commented on the Israeli militarys claim.
One year since US President Donald Trumps election victory, the controversies surrounding his administration are growing. His former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was charged with conspiring against the US while another former campaign aide pleaded guilty to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about the timing of his contacts with Russia.

Despite Trumps tumultuous year and Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections, many continue to support him.

There is no evidence that the president has ever worked with the nations enemies, says David Keene, former president of the National Rifle Association, the most powerful gun lobby in the US. Ill tell you this, the Russians, the Americans, weve all interfered in elections all the time, doesnt usually work.

When asked about the lack of gun control and the fact the US has nearly six times the gun homicide rate as Canada, more than seven times as Sweden, and nearly sixteen times as Germany, Keene believes there is no connection between gun ownership and homicide rates.

The argument that homicides are the result of the existence of guns is clearly not true, says Keene, who is also the coauthor of the recent book, Shall Not Be Infringed: The New Assaults on Your Second Amendment. Theres not a direct relationship.

In this UpFront special, we challenge Trump supporter and former President of the US National Rifle Association David Keene about whether the NRA is helping or hurting the United States.

Follow UpFront on Twitter @AJUpFront and Facebook.
South Florida rapper Denzel Curry will perform at UF on Friday during GatorNights.

Curry will be paid $15,800 by the Reitz Programming Board to perform, said Alex Backman, the co-director for the boards bands committee.

Curry will perform at 10 p.m. in the Reitz Union Grand Ballroom. The event is free to all UF students with a valid Gator 1 Card. Students must check in with GatorNights at the Information Desk and may bring one guest, Backman said.

I want this to be a show that all different kinds of students can enjoy, Backman said. Im personally a big fan of his, I think itll be a great show.

Jonathan Vargas, a UF microbiology and cell science senior, said he has been a fan of Currys since he first heard the artists song Threatz.

I have seen Denzel in concert before, and I am hoping that he brings that same level of energy, the 21-year-old said. He is an incredible performer, and I have always found a way of being more in love with his music.

Karina Perez, a 19-year-old UF health science sophomore, said she is excited about dancing in the crowd with her close friends and immersing herself in Currys performance.

I think with a performer like Denzel Curry, theres no way there wouldnt be a big turnout, Perez said. That would just be disappointing on our Student Bodys part.

Curry

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For the third year in a row, UFs branch of Cru, the Campus Crusade for Christ, will go on a mission trip to Cuba and Guatemala to install water filters.

About 30 students will leave for Cuba on Dec. 16 and return Dec. 22, and about 50 students will travel to Guatemala from March 3 to March 9, said Wade Bayless, one of the organizers of the mission trip.

Despite safety concerns, Bayless said he thought there was a greater need to provide clean water to Cubans after the effects Hurricane Irma had on the island.

Safety will be a very big concern, the 26-year-old said. We really thought it through and seeing the greater need for clean water there over the potential risk, we just felt this trip is worth taking.

Students will receive five water filters each to install in the homes of 250 families in Guatemala and 165 families in Cuba, Bayless said. Each filter costs $40 and is expected to last about 10 years, he said.

Bayless said the filter is like many tiny straws 0.1 microns in diameter, which enables the filter to pick up any larger bacteria.

Ive used it multiple times demonstrating to people, and Ive never gotten sick, Bayless said. I mean, we take some pretty nasty water and put it in there and demo it for people and its just a really incredible filter.

Bayless said he expects students to gain a change in perspective on these mission trips.

We seem to have all of these things that seem like a big deal, but then you meet these people who live in these really tough conditions and dont have really anything as far as social status or financial income, he said. It just really changes your whole perspective on life.

Ricky Aldridge, a student leader at Cru, wrote in an email that the church has partners in each country they visit. He said they pick which families get a filter based on who needs it the most. Aldridge said theres a waiting list in Guatemala and Cuba.

Aldridge, a UF psychology junior, said these mission trips are different from ordinary mission trips because of the families they impact. Each family has a story, the 20-year-old said. Our purpose is going into their homes and giving them not only clean water, but clean spiritual water through the Holy Spirit for life.

Aldridge said helping out will give students a broader look at their beliefs.

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The students will take away a new look on their faith, Aldridge said. They will see Christianity unboxed.

@Christina_M18

cmorales@alligator.org
In August 2005, Desmond Meade hit his rock bottom.

He was homeless, addicted to drugs, recently released from prison and without a job.

Meade stood in front of a railroad track waiting to jump, but the train didnt come.

In a speech at Pugh Hall on Thursday at 6 p.m., Meade talked about how he turned his life around by getting an education and through his current work advocating for the restoration of voting rights to former felons. Meade is the head of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and has given presentations about the issue to the U.S. Congress and the U.N.

Seventeen years after he was released from prison, Meade still hasnt been able to get his voting rights restored, he said.

As an advocate for felon re-enfranchisement, I can never get over that pain that I felt recently when my wife ran for office, and someone asked if I was excited to vote for her, and it reminded me I couldnt vote for my own wife, Meade said.

About 50 people showed up to hear Meade speak at the event hosted by the Bob Graham Center for Public Service.

Im not here for me, Meade said. Im here because there are over 1 million American citizens in the state of Florida who are being told their voice doesnt matter anymore because they were convicted of a felony.

Gail Sasnett, the assistant director for public programs at the Graham Center, said they planned to bring Meade to share information on a hot political topic.

I hope we have educated some citizens and students, Sasnett said. It helps them learn about their government and civic engagement. Thats the goal.

Jamie Lee, a UF statistics and political science junior, said Meades cause has been important to her since she first heard him speak at the Florida College Democrats conference in April.

The issue of felon voting rights is really important to me because its really a human rights issue, the 20-year-old said. Everyone deserves the right to vote and currently in Florida, people that deserve that right are not getting it, and that needs to change.

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During his speech, Meade announced the petition to get the Voting Restoration Amendment on the 2018 ballot had reached more than 750,000 signatures. Lee said hearing that encouraged her.

I know the campaign is made up of a lot of hardworking people, and I know that we can get this issue on the ballot, Lee said.

@Christina_M18

cmorales@alligator.org

Desmond Meade speaks at Pugh Hall on Thursday evening. Meade came to speak about restoring voting rights for felons.
Jennifer Elder still remembers when a 4-year-old autistic boy looked into his fathers eyes for the first time and said, Daddy.

That was about 15 years ago, said Jennifer Elder, a registered nurse and UF researcher. Since 1981, Elder has worked with children with autism spectrum disorder and their families, teaching children on the spectrum how to communicate and socialize in better ways, she said. In August, Elder received funding for a new approach to autism research focused on the community.

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute gave Elder $90,000 to connect community members, like service providers or people who have family members with autism, with researchers, she said. The idea developed from concerns that researchers with the National Institutes of Health, like Elder, werent looking into the topics important to people with autism, she said. The new model aims to hear what issues people care about most.

This whole initiative is to engage them from the very beginning, when we are first developing the research question, all the way through conducting the trials, Elder said.

Elder and her team are currently meeting with families from the rural communities of Palatka, Live Oak, and Crystal River, Florida, where children with autism are not receiving the services they need, she said.

Elder said she hopes her research will lead to a better understanding of autism, find new ways to make earlier diagnoses and improve the quality of life for children and their families.

Weve found that theres a clear evidence that the earlier we can get a definitive diagnosis, the earlier we can get treatment, the better the individual does over a lifetime, Elder said.

Jaime Kulik, the disabilities co-chair of the UF College Democrats, has a cousin on the autism spectrum. This inspired her to volunteer to help people with autism and other disabilities, she said.

The 19-year-old UF health science sophomore said people with autism dont typically feel the same pressures as others to follow social cues, because they dont always perceive them.

Its important to realize people with autism and other disabilities have a lot more in common with others than they have differences, Kulik said. Its important to focus on what they can do rather than on what they cant do.

Elder said the families of children with autism are heroes.

They have incredible challenges, and theyve been some of the most resourceful people I have ever met, she said. Theyre just amazing. Theyve kept me involved all these years, because I just have great respect for them.

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To fight hunger and poverty in Africa, the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences will work to stave off the threat of an invasive African pest.

UF and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture signed an agreement in October to commit to fighting poverty and hunger issues in Africa while maintaining environmentally clean practices. The two organizations signed the agreement at the World Food Prize 2017.

Pedro Sanchez, a professor of tropical soils at UF and the program coordinator, said a main initiative of the program is to work together to combat an invasive species in Africa, the fall armyworm, that devastates corn crops. In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, current yields are about 16 bushels per acre, or about 56 pounds. However, a family of four needs about 2,000 pounds, Sanchez said.

I think that this shows that UF now is kind of officially involved in this quest to get Africa out of poverty and hunger, he said.

Sanchez said UF scientists know how to control the worm in Florida. By cooperating with the other groups, UF will work to control the threat of these worms in Africa.

Another main goal of the program is to triple current corn crop yields in the next 10 years, he said.

UF will send faculty members to Nairobi, Kenya, to coordinate efforts in the region.

The program builds upon UFs role as a top-10 public university, Sanchez said. UF will work jointly with the tropical agriculture institute to share knowledge and skills.

This gives us the green light to get going, he said.

The newly signed pact allows UF professors and students to work abroad as a group rather than as individuals, Sanchez said. It also cuts through bureaucratic red tape, because the international groups actions are considered a form of diplomacy, which streamlines the paperwork process of securing the work permits for UF researchers.

He said although the work will not be easy, he is excited about the ability of science-based results to help the local population.

Jack Payne, the senior vice president for agricultural and natural resources at UF, wrote in an email he is proud of the efforts to call attention to the potential famine in Africa.

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I strongly believe that a land-grant university is not a great university unless it is first bringing its knowledge to the people of its state but also bringing it to the world, he said.
Hundreds gathered in the Circle of Hope driveway Thursday morning for the UF Health Heart & Vascular and UF Health Neuromedicine Hospitals ribbon-cutting.

The roughly 500,000 square foot complex has 216 private patient rooms, 120 of which belong to the Heart & Vascular Hospital and the other 96 to the Neuromedicine Hospital. UF Health began construction of the building, located at 1505 SW Archer Road, in January 2015, said Rossana Passaniti, the UF Health media relations coordinator. It cost $425 million to build.

Patients from UF Health Shands Hospital in neurological and cardiological intensive-care units will be moved to the new hospitals Dec. 10, Passaniti said. New patients will begin to be seen Dec. 11.

At the ceremony, UF President Kent Fuchs said the hospitals will meet an increasing need for specialized care.

We have this huge growing demand thats going up roughly 10 percent every year, he said. More people want to come here to be treated and diagnosed, so this meets that capacity.

The hospitals have five general and three hybrid heart and vascular operating rooms. Of the seven neuromedicine operating rooms, two have MRI scanners attached to the room, which allow doctors to safely perform an MRI scan mid-surgery without having to transport patients to a new suite.

We needed the facility to match your talent, your expertise, Ed Jimenez, the CEO of UF Health, told medical professionals at the ceremony.

Jimenez stressed that the hospitals provide the opportunity for patients to have more procedures done at the same time.

Passaniti said the facility was built with patients in mind. Artwork by Gainesville artists adorn the walls, and the calming color scheme and warm lighting is meant to reflect nature, she said. On the third floor, there is a dining terrace where patients can step outside and look out onto the pond at the center of the Circle of Hope. The monitoring capabilities extend to the terrace so all cardiological patients can enjoy the fresh air.

Contractors throughout the area are wrapping up the construction. Furniture needs to be moved in, linens need to be placed on beds, and factory labels need to be removed from equipment before patients arrive.

In the meantime, the hospital rooms will undergo a terminal cleaning to make them fit for operation and patient care.

Fuchs said he attended the groundbreaking for the hospitals as his first public event as UFs president in January 2015.

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Were opening in a little less than 3 years, he said. For this many square feet and for a very specialized kind of facility, thats record speed.

A view of the Circle of Hope and UF Health Cancer Center from the UF Health Heart & Vascular and UF Health Neuromedicine Hospitals third-floor terrace.
Florida opened its 175th state park Monday in High Springs.

Blue Springs Park, a 407-acre property that had been privately owned since 1958, was purchased by the state for $5.2 million in June, wrote Sarah Shellabarger, a Florida Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson, in an email. The purchase was finalized in October, but the park closed for a month after Hurricane Irma.

The park, located at 7450 NE 60th St., offers six natural springs and areas for swimming, paddling and hiking. The entry rate is $6 for every vehicle holding two to eight people, $4 for a single-passenger vehicle and $2 per visitor entering by foot or bike.

Tom Kay, the executive director of the nonprofit Alachua Conservation Trust, said he thinks the property is better off under state ownership.

Its going to be positive for the whole community now that itll be available for the whole public to use, Kay said.

Although the park doesnt offer diving yet, Richie Denmark, a 33-year-old Gainesville resident, hopes park staff will follow the lead of neighboring Ichetucknee Springs State Park in Fort White and Manatee Springs State Park in Chiefland, Florida. State parks have regulations on visitors bringing plastic and alcohol, and this park will be less littered than alternative diving spots, he said.

Denmark said he looks forward to visiting the cleaner state park.

Its something that takes a lot of stress out of my life, being involved in nature, conserving nature, just being outside, he said.

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After Osama Bin Laden was discovered and killed in Pakistan, only 1.3 kilometers from Pakistan Military Academy, it should have become clear to those who still denied it, that Pakistan was not the ally in the war on terror that it claimed to be. Congressional voices like those of Ted Poe (TX) and Dana Rohrabacher (CA), calling for an end to US support for Pakistan, have been raised; and Americans elected a President who made no bones about his dislike for Pakistani duplicity. Little has changed. With the exception of recent cuts in US aid (which is cyclical anyway), Pakistan continues to operate as it has, supporting terrorists while pretending to be an ally of the United States. What should be done about this?

Pakistan is an artificial state, cobbled together by outsiders on the basis of a majority religion. It threw together distinct national groups in an oppressive state with little concern for their own aspirations; little more than a convenience for the colonial powers at the expense of the indigenous peoples: Baloch, Pashtun, Sindhi, and others.

Like other artificial agglomerations, Pakistan is inherently unstable. We saw the results of that kind of instability in the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, created by the victorious powers of World War I, into its six constituent states. We saw it when Czechs and Slovaks threw off their artificial bonds, forced on them by the same outside powers, splitting up Czechoslovakia.

Are Kurds gaining independence from a state created by the League of Nations and British colonizers, Iraq? In his January 29, 2002 State of the Union address, US President George W. Bush called Iraq part of the axis of evil, and fourteen months later, that countrys fate was sealed with the start of the Iraq War. On August 22, President Donald Trump called out Pakistan. Will that countrys demise begin by October 2018?

Pakistans elites do not find a true alliance with the US in their interests and never have. And neither would the United States had not Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru thrown his lot in with the USSR during the Cold War. For years before the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States, Pakistan nurtured the very regime in neighboring Afghanistan responsible for them, as part of its Strategic Depth agenda. Even after those attacks, according to former Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan continued to support the Taliban and other Afghan radicals while pretending to ally with NATO in its Afghanistan war. Its Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) even facilitated safe passage of militants to the Himalayan Mountains in Nepal, which almost led to an Islamist takeover in Bangladesh.

Between September 11 and October 7, 2001 it tried to avoid US intervention by sending then ISI chief Lieutenant Mahmud Ahmad to convince Taliban head Mullah Omar to hand over 9/11s perpetrators. In a last gasp effort to avoid the inevitable conflict, the Musharraf regime suggested trying the 9/11 culprits elsewhere. When that did not work, Pakistan joined the war on terror -- not because it wanted to defeat radical Islamist terror, but out of fear. In his memoir, Musharraf admitted that the Pakistanis were terribly frightened of ending up on the wrong side of the equation in Washingtons retaliation after Secretary of State Colin Powell told him, You are either with us or against us; and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage warned the ISI Chief that if Pakistan remained allied with the terrorists, it should be prepared to be bombed back to the stone age.

Musharraf turned the threat into an opportunity, securing status as a non-NATO ally in the war, which helped it secure $34 billion over the course of last decade and a half as part of Coalition Support Fund. Add this to the commercial use of Pakistani geography for NATO supplies and it becomes a hefty financial gain for the economically struggling country.

Besides the financial bonanza, the Pakistanis used the opportunity to void pre-2001 arrangements that prevented the military from entering certain area in order to curb nationalist movements in the North West Frontier Province (currently Khayber Pakhtunkhwa) and Baluchistan. With nationalist sentiment strong in both provinces, the Pakistani military and the ISI used their operations to expose nationalist leaders who threatened the extremist groups. Once they were identified, the Islamists relentlessly targeted them on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, which is also known as the Durand Line after the British diplomat who drew it. Between 2005 and 2010, there were over 100 attacks against triable elders in FATA, killing 149 influential local leaders. The situation in Balochistan, Sindh, and elsewhere in Pakistan were similar. Right now, it looks to many youths in these regions that the terrorist groups are the only ones capable of strong action; that is, the window for mobilizing young people to fight for freedom and secularism is closing.

Although we are encouraged that the West recognizes Pakistans duplicity, we have yet to see real action that will change its duplicitous behavior. There is a treasure trove of potential allies on the ground in the areas where the US and NATO have little effective presence -- and keep in mind, the Durand line separating Pakistan from Afghanistan is artificial. It was drawn by colonizers with no regard to the fact that various tribes occupy both sides of it. That means it is not only the Islamists who do not recognize the current boundary as organic. The challenge for the West is to identify democratic elements who, if properly armed and financed, will provide a formidable force opposing both the Pakistani military and the radical groups the latter continues to support. That is also the best way to lessen the attractiveness of radicalism for youth in the area and provide them with an effective alternative.

Westerners consider Waziristan, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), and other regions in Pakistan and Afghanistan as strongholds for al Qaeda and other radicals. They are, however, at the same time, home to more people who are their victims.

Mushtaq M. Rahim (Twitter: @mushtaq_rahim) is an independent analyst and commentator on international affairs and regional security. He has been working in Afghanistan for the last 14 years on post conflict reconstruction, peacebuilding, promotion of good governance with significant focus on security sector reforms. He has a Masters of Conflict, Peace and Security.
For decades, organizations and individuals have undermined our American education system by attacking our beliefs in a constitutional republic and our fundamental Judeo-Christian principles. These have been supplanted with a "multicultural" viewpoint, which has taken the place of traditional American perspectives and values with accommodation and appeasement of protected minorities depicted as victims of the dominant culture. Oil-rich Arab-Muslim nations, including Saudi Arabia and its Muslim Brotherhood cohorts, have used multiculturalism to target impressionable youths in our public schools, promote Islam, and advance Islamic political agendas. Under the subterfuge of promoting a multicultural educational environment, these agents have replaced time-honored educational materials of American ideals and historical perspectives with anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Judeo-Christian, and pro-Islamic rhetoric.

This re-engineering of the education system to disproportionately highlight the virtues and contributions of Islamic ideology is part of "civilizational jihad," the enemy's term for the subversion of our society. It was defined in the 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America," presented as evidence in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terrorism trial. The document calls for the stealth takeover of North America through infiltration of all of society, with the ultimate goal of destroying the U.S. and turning it into a Muslim nation.

Over the past 40-plus years, this infiltration has occurred in education, with the Saudi royal family contributing billions in gifts and endowments to U.S. universities to spread anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda. Through creation of Middle East studies centers at top institutions of higher learning, the Saudis have influenced curricula and textbook content. Those involved include several Muslim Brotherhood affiliates and Islamist organizations, such as the Institute on Religion and Civil Values (formerly the Council on Islamic Education), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Institute of Islamic Information and Education (IIIE), the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT), Saudi-endowed Islamic and Middle East studies centers, and others. Their activities within our public schools include seminars and training programs for teachers, textbook creation and editing, curriculum development, lesson plans, student worksheets, and instructional videos.

Saudi success comes mainly from exploitation of Title VI of the Higher Education Act, which authorizes federal grants to university programs, including Middle East studies centers. Title VI grantees must produce outreach programs for our nation's educators, and pro-Islamic organizations have attained legitimacy by partnering with top universities. Using U.S. taxpayer-subsidized lesson plans and seminars for America's K-12 teachers with the imprimatur of schools like Harvard, infiltrators easily integrated Islamic perspectives into the K-12 curriculum, avoiding public vetting and government oversight. Materials promoting Islam, denigrating Judaism and Christianity, and criticizing alleged American prejudice against the Muslim world insidiously made their way into American education. Some of the materials in use go so far as to blame America for terrorism and decry prejudice against Muslims in the U.S.

One of the key teaching resources promoted by Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies outreach program was the controversial, propaganda-laden "Arab World Studies Notebook," a factually incorrect textbook purported to promote "the Arab point of view." The text is almost devoid of citations and promotes a pro-Islam, Muslim-centric view of history. According to a recent report by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), "Indoctrinating Our Youth: How a U.S. Public School Curriculum Skews the Arab-Israeli Conflict and Islam," the widely used text erroneously cites Jerusalem as "an Arab city" and fails to acknowledge ancient Judaic and Christian ties to the Israeli capital. It fallaciously claims that Islam's ties are "equally long and much deeper," even though Islam emerged only in the 7th century A.D. The Jewish Telegraph Agency (JTA) noted that the "notebook" implies that Jews have undue impact on U.S. foreign policy and that Israel was created after American Jewish lobbying. It also proposes the supremacy of Islam and denigrates beliefs held by Jews and Christians, suggesting that the Quran "synthesizes and perfects earlier revelations."

Meanwhile, a key Islamic educational textbook author has been Muslim convert Susan Douglass. A principal researcher and writer for the Institute on Religion and Civil Values (IRCV), Douglass was also an educational consultant for the Saudi-funded Georgetown University Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and a member of the editorial board of the Muslim Brotherhood's ISNA. The IIIT, created expressly to influence higher education, teachers, and textbooks, published books written by Douglass used in American schools. Douglass reviewed world history textbooks of three major publishers  McGraw Hill, Houghton Mifflin, and Prentice Hall  and was allowed to present a view promoting Islam and in accordance with IRCV recommendations. Douglass and the IRCV have had a major impact on the textbook presentation of Islam, minimizing its violent aspects and making the ideology attractive to non-Muslim children. Douglass was also instrumental in developing standards for teaching religion in public schools and providing teacher and curriculum guidelines.

Douglas and her husband previously taught at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria, Virginia, dubbed "Terror High" by some media outlets. In 2007, the school was found in violation of federal law by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) for using discriminatory materials that teach students to "hate" Jews, Christians, and other "unbelievers" and that espouse violent jihad as a religious duty for Muslims.

The organization for which Douglass has been an author, the Institute on Religion and Civic Values, is a national non-profit with a mission "to support and strengthen American public education" by drawing on "civic, ethical and educational principles in Islam." The group's leadership and collaborators are connected to Muslim Brotherhood organizations such as IIIT, CAIR, and the Muslim American Society (MAS), among others. IRCV focuses on portraying a positive view of Islam in K-12 education and vetting textbooks. It developed a curriculum manual for students to "simulate becoming Muslims"; was instrumental in minimizing the teaching of Judaism, Christianity, and other faiths; and changed the educational approach in many schools from informational teaching on Islam to indoctrination and proselytizing.

Meanwhile, yet another organization, The Institute of Islamic Information and Education, an ISNA branch, began in Chicago as far back as1985 to convey the Islamic message throughout North America, open non-Muslims to Islam, and "remove fabricated materials from circulation." It evaluates educational materials for their portrayal of Islam and monitors books, publishers, authors, and school districts for anything deemed "misinformation" and "misperceptions" of Islam and Muslims. The institute also produces and distributes dawa booklets and videos.

In 2011 in the Newton, Massachusetts school district, the Muslim push came to a head. Parents expressed concern about divergence from factual, objective accounts of history and current events, as well as one-sided materials designed to indoctrinate students in specific political agendas. Research by Newton parents revealed that the concept of jihad was presented solely as an inner personal struggle of spiritual discipline and not the predominant, traditional obligation to wage war in Allah's name and bring the world under Islam. Texts presented Islam as peaceful and tolerant. Parents found that Islam received significantly more study time than was devoted to the avowed "false beliefs" of Christianity and Judaism. Parental complaints about the controversial curriculum were characterized by school officials as "McCarthyesque." School officials accused parents of jeopardizing academic freedom and defended the materials.

CAMERA examined the materials and concurred that textbooks and lesson plans focused on teaching students about Islam and presenting foundational Islamic beliefs, historical Islamic expansion, and the so-called Islamic "Golden Age." Missing were negative aspects of Islamic history and societal practices, including the extensive and longstanding Arab-Muslim slave trade, honor killings, stoning of accused adulteresses, and treatment of women as property. Muslim women were falsely claimed to have more autonomy than Western women, and extensive Muslim bigotry in the U.S. was presented. Terrorism was falsely described as a deviation and misinterpretation of the tenets of the faith. CAMERA published a monograph on its findings, further alarming parents with the many anti-American, anti-Judeo-Christian, pro-Islamic materials existent within the Newton school district.

Another Islamic indoctrination program, "Access Islam," has been instituted in various school systems nationwide. Produced with assistance from Shabbir Mansuri, founding director of IRCV, and CAIR-affiliated Debbie Almontaser, and funded by the U.S. Department of Education, "Access Islam" teaches students how to follow the five pillars of Islam and instills the belief that Allah is G-d. According to the Christian Action Network (CAN), students must learn and interpret verses from the Quran. A video features a Christian convert to Islam who jubilantly explains how he now worships the one true G-d, in a direct slam against Christianity and Judaism. Wherever "Access Islam" is presented, similar programs are not provided on Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, or any other religion.

All of the school programs cited above represent a multi-pronged approach to destroy Western civilization and impose an Islamist worldview through university endowments, educator indoctrination, and development of history textbooks and curricula for K-12 students. Under the guise of teaching history and promoting multiculturalism, American students are indoctrinated in the supremacy of Islam above all other faiths. In several cases, federal courts have upheld the right of public schools to indoctrinate students in the Muslim religion and its spiritual practices, categorically denying the same privilege to Christian doctrine. In light of this doctrinal push, parents must be vigilant and steadfast as stewards of their children's educational and moral development. Schools and administrators must be held accountable.

When President Trump recently presented the 2018 budget, he recognized Title VI as a vehicle to promote anti-American, anti-Israel, and pro-Islamic propaganda and eliminated its funding. It remains to be seen if Congress implements his request and eliminates this insidious program.
This is getting ridiculous.

The other day, I read how a math education professor claims that the traditional math curriculum is "white." I visited her university page to examine her C.V., along with the titles of papers she has published in obscure academic journals no serious person would bother to disassemble. I discovered that her blossoming career seems hell-bent on challenging classic mathematics as bigoted because  gasp  it heralds such marvelous discoveries of the past two millennia such as the Pythagorean Theorem and the irrational (sic) , codified by Greeks. I know that Chinese discoveries of these same truths predate the Greeks, but most Westerners have shallow knowledge of that history. No matter: Teaching these wonderful human discoveries, according to our lady professor, is "white." I never knew math cared about your skin pigmentation.

I'm not shocked by this woman's irritating polemic. I saw this coming. I have been in secondary education for over thirty years, and when I started my journey, I was required as part of my master's degree from City College of N.Y. to endure a basket of "education" classes. A few were dedicated to math instruction in the hardened high schools, and these happily addressed real problems I routinely encountered in my Morris H.S. (near Yankee Stadium) in a devastated quarter of the South Bronx.

But most of the other required education classes I took were silly. My colleagues in the program agreed. It was difficult accepting grandiose theories promoted by tenured and crusty professors who themselves had spent marginal time in classrooms with real kids before they escaped to a university education department post to evade the unruly mess. For two years, every Tuesday and Thursday evening, for two hours, these professors feigned to instruct those of us who daily were front-line in this mangled field.

Math is not always easy for me, and I daresay it will never always be easy for anyone who ventures there. Yet, of the many studies we rightfully include in a liberal arts curriculum, math generously rewards perseverance (we call it grit) and even humility  it rewards the courage to make mistakes and learn and grow from those errors while not blaming anything or anyone else when we fall short.

Mathematics is full of phenomenal problems, and the joy one feels after struggling and reaching a correct answer is dizzying. It motivates us to strive again. One of the modest beauties of this subject is how often a correct solution to a problem is discovered by a different route. How many different proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem do you imagine have been found? (More than you guess.) This is the kind of diversity we should celebrate!

Adding to the educational mess our lady professor's views try to excuse, now we have the ludicrous decision by credentialed "experts" to amend requisites to becoming certified. Recently, the NYC Board of Regents decided to loosen the certification process for new teachers, since not enough of their P.C. diversity quota were passing these qualifying tests. Are we to believe that adults choosing the noble profession of teaching who cannot read, write, speak, or calculate to an established rigorous level (a level any parent expects) should be granted exemptions owing to some diversity goal? Can't jump over the bar? Let's lower it, then! Problem solved.

We have seen the consequences of such P.C. madness in other professions. Just consider one example outside education: firefighters are expected to climb four flights of stairs carrying a heavy load of nasty, necessary rescue gear in a specific and short time limit. What to do if an applicant for this heroic job cannot? Most of us would say, "Sorry. You don't pass." Would our lady professor argue that the firefighter test is "white"? Or would she concede that fire doesn't care about your race or gender or religion? It just burns, maims, and kills indiscriminately.

Here in my new teaching adventure in China, I don't encounter this P.C. nonsense. Concerned parents approach me at conferences and other social occasions and first inquire what their child might do to improve. They don't point an accusing finger at me, or at my math test questions, and they certainly don't claim that the subject is racist. Indeed, in my long experience teaching international students, Chinese students are often the most determined and aggressive to succeed. Where other students might devote 20 minutes to homework and give up when the going gets tough, these Chinese kids will not give up until it is all done. Too clever by half, when stumped, they seek out older students for help.

If we want to repair the many damages inflicted on the USA during the past generation, one place to start is math education. Mathematics is a human devotion and cares not about any of the popular identity grievances.

I will grant that our lady math education professor is passionate, but I insist that she is grossly misguided. Instead of blaming the difficulty of math on race, or culture, or gender, she ought to encourage her teachers in training to resolutely challenge every student to knuckle down and strive to learn as much math as he can  and watch them marvel afterward as many doors open widely to their dreams.

Rick Swenson is teaching I.B. math in China these days. Some of his adventures are posted in his blog Dancing with the Dragon.
To be honest, most British people probably don't follow the Brexit debate day in and day out, as many uber-pundits do. If they did, they'd probably end up seeing pretty minor details as major and fairly insignificant happenings as momentous. Yes, they'd cease to see the wood for the trees.

In one article on the "vote of the final deal," for example, it was difficult to understand what exactly it was all about. Yet the journalist who wrote it and the politicians involved were all trying their very best to make every single letter of the issue seem monumental. (Their careers depend on doing so.) Now, it could be that most Brits are political philistines who don't like the trees simply because they ain't titillated by the political "small detail," as serious politicians are. (Or at least the politicians directly involved in this stuff.)

It can also be said that it takes just as much intelligence  sometimes more intelligence  to see the wood rather than the trees. (This accusation is also often aimed at analytic philosophers.) That's primarily because many of those involved with the small political details are often simply pedantic opportunists intent on furthering their own political causes and careers.

Despite all that, the bottom line is simple:

On the 23rd of June, 2016, the United Kingdom held a referendum on whether or not to remain in the European Union. The "leave" vote turned out to be higher than the "remain" vote.

As the north Norfolk D.J., Alan Partridge, once put it, "it really is that simple."

True, it wasn't a 99%-to-1% vote on behalf of Brexit. And many Remainers do believe it's the worst thing that's happened since the Bubonic Plague or the Second World War. However, the vote was taken, and the British people decided to leave the E,U.

Yet many Remainers are essentially attempting to veto the vote by questioning it in all sorts of arcane and convoluted ways. They talk about voters (i.e., Brexiteers) being "lied to." What they mean by that is that they really think all (or perhaps just most) Brexiteers are...well, dumb (or, as they put it, "low-information voters"). Either that or they claim that Brexiteers are "racists"...or "provincials" (i.e., peasants)...or "Nazis"...or "haters"...

Indeed, there have been all sorts of confabulations and ultra-complex arguments as to why the vote must or should be retaken. Though what if the same kind of thing was also said after a revote that went in the Remain direction? Ad infinitum... In this instance, Remainers wouldn't talk about "low-information voters" and "the tiny voting margin." Instead, they'd talk about high-information voters and state that the largeness or smallness of the voting margin is irrelevant. Yes, many would even mouth the cliche, "The people have spoken." Such is the self-deceit of many Remainers.

Just like all those outraged, angry, and pious left-wingers and Democrats following the election of Donald Trump, Remainers simply didn't like the result of the vote. Thus, they suddenly became deeply unhappy with democracy. That's the true source of their ornate and convoluted case against the Brexit referendum.

Not that anyone should believe that our democracy is perfect. And not that the referendum itself was perfect. We all know that neither is or was perfect. However, we simply shouldn't trust those who suddenly discovered the flaws of democracy on the 24th of June, 2016.

Paul Austin Murphy is a writer on politics and philosophy. He's had articles published in The Conservative Online, New English Review, Human Events, Think-Israel, Intellectual Conservative, Faith Freedom, Brenner Brief (Broadside News), etc. His blogs are: Paul Austin Murphy's Philosophy and Paul Austin Murphy on Politics.
Wednesday, November 8, 2017 marks the first anniversary of the election of Donald J. Trump, the people's president. With the election of President Trump, the ordinary people of our great country reaffirmed their commitment to the legacy of liberty bequeathed to them by the Founders.

The arguments, assertions, aspersions from the anti-Trump crowd that President Trump is an authoritarian figure who would undermine freedom in America is a perversion of reality, a damnable lie reflecting sheer malevolence.

As the New York Post declared in a November 2 editorial, "[a] cabal of journalists is concerned that not every reporter and opinion writer is consumed by the Russian inquiry." For invidious purpose against President Trump, one might add. And the Post editorial was also on target in pointing out that "modern liberals simply can't conceive of any other reason to disagree with the liberal consensus."

Consider, too, these all too accurate words in the editorial: "[t]he [left's] idea seems to be that it's dangerous to democracy for there to be difference of opinion  when the reverse is true. That's why Tocqueville warned of the 'tyranny of the majority.'"

The Founders drafted our Constitution not so that the American people would have the right to agree with their overlords. Indeed, the concept of "overlord" is contrary to the idea that the people of America are a free people and that they are the source of governing authority. And the notion of "freedom of the press" enshrined in the First Amendment is not consistent with the notions of a neo-totalitarian media to whose dictates the American people must adhere.

The free people of the United States should mark November 8 as a kind of Independence Day, for with the election of Donald J. Trump as president, we declared our independence from those who would bind us in the chains of "political correctness" and decry political diversity as indicative of mental defect, if not downright criminal behavior.

Celebration, therefore, is most appropriate on this first anniversary of the people's noble reaffirmation of the spirit of American liberty. May President Trump lead us and speak to us, November 8, 2017, in a most suitable way, and may God continue to protect freedom in America  and her people.
A Twitter employee who was working his last day at the company deactivated President Trump's account, shuttering it for eleven minutes before they were able to restore it.

The company claimed that the deactivation was "inadvertent."

Reuters:

U.S. President Donald Trump's @realdonaldtrump Twitter account was "inadvertently deactivated" due to human error by a Twitter Inc employee on Thursday and was down for 11 minutes before it was restored, the social media company said. "We have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer-support employee who did this on the employee's last day. We are conducting a full internal review," Twitter said in a tweet. "We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again," the company said in an earlier tweet. A Twitter representative declined to comment further.

"Inadvertent"? "Human error"? If you believe that, I've got a bridge over the Chicago River I can sell you.

Since you  and most others  are not that stupid, we must assume that the employee deactivated the president's Twitter account deliberately. That some low-level customer service flunkie can shut down any account, much less that of the president, is extremely troubling. It's not that Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites have been successful in hiding their antipathy to conservatives and Republicans  far from it. But it's one thing to delete a few tweets. It's quite another to deactivate an account.

If it wasn't the president's account, but rather that of an ordinary conservative or Republican, would they have noticed in eleven minutes? Would they have bothered to do anything about it at all?

Given the enormous power of Twitter and social media to affect politics, users should demand at least the appearance of non-partisanship. But that's not likely, given past behavior.
Reporter, commentator, and deep thinker Jay Willis of GQ huffed and puffed as he asked, "Why Does Donald Trump Want the Death Penalty for the New York Attack, But Not for Others?" One of the "others" Willis singled out was Stephen Paddock, who slaughtered 58 concert-goers and injured hundreds more in Las Vegas last month.

To Willis, the answer was obvious: the Allahu akbar (my god is greater than yours, nah, nah, nah) New York attacker was an immigrant, a darker-skinned bearded Muslim who killed only eight people while the Las Vegas shooter, who gunned down so many more, was a native white male. White skin male privilege at its most evil.

Uh, no. As GQ was forced to admit in an update:

Edit: An earlier version of this article used a headline noting that Trump had publicly called for the death penalty in the New York attack, but not the Las Vegas shooting in particular. That discrepancy is probably related to the fact that the Las Vegas shooter is dead. We regret the error.

Uh yeah, "probably." The shooter is dead. How inconvenient.

And no, I don't think Willis regrets the error. Why let facts ruin his "resist Trump" ranting masquerading as reporting?

Update from the author:

OK, I was wrong. We should give him/GQ credit for admitting the LV shooter was dead. Police brutality at its finest. Oh wait! He committed suicide! Probably--that word again--because the LV shooter feared suffering even worse from the notorious well publicized police brutality! But oh wait again. He was white skin privileged but his victims were also skin privileged whites.

Oh dear, I'm probably so confused.
Former first lady Michelle Obama was a headline speaker at the very first Obama Foundation international summit and immediately raised eyebrows with her analysis of what's wrong with men  and women.

Fox News:

Former first lady Michelle Obama explained Wednesday at a summit in Chicago that she believes men are "entitled," and that women protect them too much. Speaking at the first Obama Foundation international summit, Obama  one of the event's headliners  said that men are essentially babied and protected by women, while women are raised to be "strong." "It's like the problem in the world today is we love our boys, and we raise our girls," Obama said. "We raise them to be strong, and sometimes we take care not to hurt men  and I think we pay for that a little bit." "Y'all should get you some friends," Obama joked. "And talk to each other, because that's the other thing [women] do  we straighten each other out on some things, our girlfriends." She continued: "It's powerful to have strong men, but what does that strength mean? You know, does it mean respect? Does it mean responsibility? Does it mean compassion?" Obama went on to question if women protect men to the point they feel "entitled" and "self-righteous." "Are we protecting our men too much so they feel a little entitled and  self-righteous sometimes? But, that's kind of on us too as women and mothers, as we nurture men and push girls to be perfect," Obama said.

Generally speaking  and one must speak in general terms on such a broad and complex subject  Mrs. Obama is full of it.

She tries to make women both victim and enabler, which only serves to muddy the waters. Worse, referring to men as "entitled" and "self-righteous" fails to capture the reality of modern relationships and short-changes women at the expense of men.

There are no doubt men who are, indeed, entitled and self-righteous. But did they get that way because women "baby" them? That's a load of hooey, largely because there are few women of whom I am aware who "baby" their male partners. Relationships vary, but generally speaking, most men feel far less "entitled" when sharing the burdens of family life  and are better men for it. Cooking, cleaning, and parenting have, by the necessity of many women working full time, become a joint enterprise, where neither partner can afford to feel entitled or self-righteous.

No, most men don't share the joy of family life equally. By the same token, most men make the effort. If they truly love their wives, they recognize that doing for each other leads to fulfillment and happiness.

There may be some cultures that still treat women as domestic slaves and where men expect to be "babied." But as our society continues to evolve, we move farther away from that model. It's surprising that Michelle Obama would fail to recognize the evolution in society and portray women as both victim and enabler.
A week ago, employees at the Gothamist and DNAinfo were celebrating after a successful vote to join the Writers Guild. The Gothamist is a noted New York City website devoted to covering local news. It operates affiliated sites in Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Los Angeles; and San Francisco.

The reporters' celebration was short-lived. Yesterday, the publisher of the Gothamist and its parent website, DNAinfo, informed all employees that he was shutting them down.

Joe Ricketts, who founded Ameritrade, made the announcement in an email.

CNNMoney:

"Today, I've made the difficult decision to discontinue publishing DNAinfo and Gothamist. Reaching this decision wasn't easy, and it wasn't one I made lightly," said Ricketts, who founded TD Ameritrade and is worth a little more than $2 billion according to Forbes. He added that DNAinfo, which was founded in 2009, "is, at the end of the day, a business, and businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure." "And while we made important progress toward building DNAinfo into a successful business, in the end, that progress hasn't been sufficient to support the tremendous effort and expense needed to produce the type of journalism on which the company was founded. I want to thank our readers for their support and loyalty through the years. And I want to thank our employees for their tireless effort and dedication."

Ricketts made the reason for his action brutally clear:

"I believe unions promote a corrosive us-against-them dynamic that destroys the esprit de corps businesses need to succeed," he wrote. "And that corrosive dynamic makes no sense in my mind where an entrepreneur is staking his capital on a business that is providing jobs and promoting innovation."

And the reaction of employees?

"It was literally like the daily flow of the newsroom came to a screeching halt," said Scott Heins, a photojournalist at Gothamist. "It was just an absolutely normal day at the office and then someone said 'oh my god the email' and then everyone checked their work email. Some of my colleagues burst into tears really quickly, others shouted. It was immediate shock when we got the email." Rachel Holliday Smith, a reporter for DNAinfo who covered the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights, told CNNMoney that Ricketts' decision will hurt "all New Yorkers who care about news in their cities and neighborhoods." "I've been getting a lot of messages of support from readers thanking me for my coverage, which is heartbreaking because I truly don't know now who will provide thorough, on-the-ground reporting in large swaths of the city, as we did," Smith said. "There are so many people whose stories were told by DNAinfo and Gothamist. Those voices have been snuffed out. I say this often but it's worth repeating: support local journalism in any way you can."

The question isn't whether Ricketts was justified in pulling the plug. The question is why employees thought the outcome would be at all different.

Many unions in 21st-century America offer a fantasy. Simple arithmetic would show even the dumbest worker that the dream doesn't add up and that reality wins in the end. The best example of that is the drive for a $15-an-hour minimum wage. When you disconnect the cost of labor from the value of labor, the numbers don't add up, and companies end up losing money or, at best, dramatically reducing profits. In the real world, radically increasing the cost of labor means increasing the price of the products sold. In the case of fast food restaurants, that means a reduction in traffic, leading to fewer customers and less profit.

But organized labor has sold the idea that there are no consequences to raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. We are already seeing franchises moving rapidly to automate their operations as much as possible and reduce the number of employees  leading to job losses and, just as importantly, fewer jobs created.

The Gothamist employees are shocked, shocked, I say, to find out that a news website doesn't make money, and even a billionaire can tolerate losing only so much money before throwing in the towel. Unionizing also brings other headaches that are intolerable to management unless they are gluttons for punishment.

The writing was on the wall for these employees, but they were blinded by their own delusions and naivete.
Donna Brazile has admitted what everyone suspected and most of us knew. Hillary rigged the primaries with her control of the DNC to beat Bernie Sanders.

The DNC was in debt, needed money, so Hillary took control by raising funds under an agreement with the DNC as follows:

[T]he Joint Fund-Raising Agreement [was] between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America. The agreement  signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook with a copy to Marc Elias  specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party's finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.

Note that the attorney is Marc Elias, whose firm handled the payments to Fusion GPS for the Steele dossier used to smear Trump. Note the pattern: Hillary used money to control the DNC to beat Sanders and used over $10 million to collude with Russians to smear Trump.

Brazile sanctimoniously bloviates:

I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton's team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested. I'd had my suspicions from the moment I walked in the door of the DNC a month or so earlier, based on the leaked emails. But who knew if some of them might have been forged? I needed to have solid proof, and so did Bernie.

By this statement, Brazile confirms the veracity of the WikiLeaks emails showing that Hillary rigged the primaries to win. The Russians did not make up the emails. Brazile said she followed the trail of the money, which is always the best course when investigating Hillary, and concluded:

I told Bernie I had found Hillary's Joint Fundraising Agreement. I explained that the cancer was that she had exerted this control of the party long before she became its nominee[.]

Brazile followed the money and easily concluded that Hillary controlled the DNC, which allowed her to control the primaries. Brazile did a better job of investigating Hillary than Comey and the FBI. Maybe Sessions should hire Brazile to follow the money from the Russians and Canadians to Hillary's foundation and Bill Clinton's speech gigs in Moscow for approving the sale of 20% of our uranium to the Russians.

Brazile, as a CNN contributor, fed debate questions to Hillary. Thus, it is noteworthy that Brazile, a longtime Democrat operative, has come out to criticize Hillary. She has criticized Hillary in stronger terms than McConnell, Ryan, and most Republicans.
In northern Romania, in a region historically known as Bukovina, are a collection of eight Byzantine-era churches renowned for their beautiful, colored frescos that adorn their walls, both on the inside and outside. Built during the waning days and immediately aftermath of the Byzantine Empire, each of these painted monastery is distinctive in color and in its frescoed Bible stories. Through these frescoes of saints and prophets, scenes from the lives of Jesus Christ, and stories of mans beginnings and of his life after death, the monasteries sought to teach the illiterate peasants the stories of God.

The most famous of painted monasteries is the Voronet Monastery, founded in 1488. It is said that the monastery was completed in just 3 months and 3 weeks to commemorate the victory at Battle of Vaslui. Widely known throughout Europe as "the Sistine Chapel of the East" due to its interior and exterior wall paintings, this monastery offers an abundance of frescoes featuring an intense shade of blue commonly known as Voronet blue.

Voronet Monastery. Photo credit: Gaspar Serrano/Flickr

Voronet Monastery. Photo credit: burlan marius/Flickr

Voronet Monastery. Photo credit: Gaspar Serrano/Flickr

Voronet Monastery. Photo credit: globetrotter_rodrigo/Flickr

Voronet Monastery. Photo credit: Ava Babili/Flickr

The Sucevita Monastery was built in 1585. This predominantly blue-green monastery was one of the last monasteries to be decorated with frescos in Romania. All the external walls of the monastery, except the western wall, are covered with frescoes. Legend has it that one of the painters fell from the scaffolding and died, after which work stopped and the last wall was left unpainted.

Sucevita Monastery. Photo credit: globetrotter_rodrigo/Flickr

Sucevita Monastery. Photo credit: globetrotter_rodrigo/Flickr

Sucevita Monastery. Photo credit: Ava Babili/Flickr

The Monastery of Moldovita was built in 1532 by Petru Rares, who was Stephen III of Moldavia's illegitimate son. It was founded as a protective barrier against the Muslim Ottoman conquerors from the East. The predominantly gold and deep blue paintings on the exterior walls were completed in 1537. Aside from many recurring themes in Christian Orthodox art, one of the walls feature frescoes depicting the Siege of Constantinople.

Moldovita Monastery. Photo credit: Ava Babili/Flickr

Moldovita Monastery. Photo credit: Sergiu Luchian/Flickr

The Humor monastery is physically small, but along with Voronet, it is probably the best preserved. Constructed in 1530, the subjects of the frescoes at Humor include the Siege of Constantinople and the Last Judgment, common on Romanias painted monasteries. But one fresco that stand out is that of the devil depicted as a woman.

Humor Monastery. Photo credit: Remus Pereni/Flickr

The Arbore monastery was built in 1502 by Luca Arbore, and dedicated to the Beheading of St. John the Baptist. It was painted four decades later by Dragos Coman, one of the greatest 16th century mural painters of Romania.

Arbore monastery. Photo credit: KLMircea/Flickr

The monastery at Patrauti, built in 1487, is the oldest surviving religious site founded by Stephen the Great. Mural paintings, dating from around 1550, can still be admired on the west facade. In 1775, soon after Bucovina was annexed to the Habsburg Empire, the monastery was turned into a parish church.

Patrauti monastery. Photo credit: Cezar Suceveanu/Wikimedia

The Probota monastery was built in 1530, and was the first monastery to have external frescoes painted in Moldavia. The exterior paintings have now faded, but the interior ones are well preserved. The church has been partly restored and repaired several times in the past.

Probota monastery. Photo credit: Bogdan Muraru/Wikimedia

The monastery in Suceava, built between 1514 and 1522, originally served as the Metropolitan Church of Moldavia. It is now the seat of the Archbishop of Suceava and Radauti. The monastery is dedicated to Saint John the New of Suceava, a Moldavian monk who preached during Turkish occupation and was subsequently martyred.

Photo credit: Jan Pesula/Flickr
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!)
(ANSA) - Rome, November 3 - Italy's month-long presidency of the United Nations Security Council began on Wednesday, November 1.

There is a very full agenda planned for the Italian presidency, the foreign ministry said. The main events include a briefing on Libya (16 November) and a briefing on the security challenges in the Mediterranean (17 November), which will be presided over by Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano, and also attended by the Secretary-General, Guterres, and the Special Representative of the UN for Libya, Salame.

On Wednesday the Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Vincenzo Amendola presided over the Security Council for a briefing by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi. This was a very important event, since the last time a High Commissioner addressed the Security Council was in 2009.

Undersecretary Amendola will travel to New York again on 21 November for an open debate on the trafficking of persons in conflict situations.

On 30 November, there will be a briefing on the "Destruction and trafficking of cultural heritage by terrorist groups and in situations of armed conflict", one of the main themes of the Italian mandate. One of the first results achieved in this area was adoption by the Security Council of resolution 2347 last March. There will also be numerous other events dealt with in November in accordance with the frequency established by the Council. They mainly involve updates on a number of situations in the following countries: The Central African Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Sudan/Darfur, Libya, Burundi, Syria (regarding three different fronts: chemical weapons, humanitarian and political matters), the Middle East, as well as discussions on sanctions against North Korea.


(ANSA) - Vatican City, November 2 - Pope Francis visited the US cemetery in Nettuno south of Rome and then the Ardeatine Caves on Rome's southern outskirts on Thursday, All Souls Day.

Almost 8,000 US soldiers killed in the Sicily, Salerno and Anzio landings are buried at Nettuno, as well as American Red Cross nurses killed during the Italian campaign.

The Ardeatine Caves are the site of Rome's worst WWII German atrocity, the 1944 reprisal killings of 335 Italian men and boys after a partisan attack that killed 33 South Tyrolean SS military police in central Rome.

At Nettuno the pope visited the tombs including an unknown soldier, an Italo-American and a Jew before saying Mass. He was greeted by the cemetery's director Melanie Resto and the mayors of Nettuno and Anzio, respectively Angelo Casto and Luciano Bruschini. At the cemetery Mass, the pontiff railed against the futility of war and cited Pope Benedict XV who vainly tried to stop World War One.

Francis appealed for the end of all war. "Please Lord, not more war, not more of these pointless slaughters, as Benedict XV would have said. "Better to hope without destruction, thousands and thousands of young people, broken hopes, no more Lord, and we must say this today in this place in a special way for these young people, today when the world is again at war and is preparing to go to war again. "No more Lord, no more, everyone loses with war". At the Ardatine Caves later the pope stood in silent prayer for four minutes and then laid wreath of white roses at some tombs before walking silently alone along the corridors that separate them.

He was greeted by, among others, Rome Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni.

There were 75 Jews among the 335 killed in the quarry on March 24, 1944.

In the Book of Honour of the Ardeatine Caves Shrine the pope wrote: "these are the fruits of war: hatred, death, vendetta...Forgive us, Lord".


CAIRO - A new nearly 40-minute documentary video tells the story of the Italian Hospital Umberto I in Cairo, using evocative and rare historical images as well as interviews and anecdotes that aren't widely known in Italy.



The film was screened in the Egyptian capital on Thursday evening during the inauguration ceremony for the celebration of the 150th anniverary of the birth of the hospital's founder, Empedocle Gaglio.



The documentary describes how in 1903 the young Sicilian surgeon, who had won a competition for a position as head physician in a Cairo hospital, launched a campaign for the Italian Charity Society (SIB) within Egypt's Italian community, which had 50,000 members at the time.



The fundraising effort allowed for the construction of a hospital in the record time of just one year.



Gaglio directed the hospital until his death in 1949, and now his great-grandson Eugenio Benedetti continues his mission at the head of the four non-profit SIB foundations.



The hospital is divided into 11 divisions with 11 pavilions in which 750 employees work.



There are 400 beds, allowing for more than 3,000 operations per year, making the structure one-of-a-kind in Africa, with 18 intensive care stations, according to a statement summarising the video. Egyptian King Farouk awarded Gaglio Egypt's highest civilian honour, the "Kiladate el Nile" (Grand Cordon of the Order of the Nile), with which he requested to be buried, along with the Great Cross of the Order of Malta from the King of Italy.



That honour was given to him in person by King Victor Emmanuel III upon his arrival in Alexandria on May 12, 1946, when King Farouk and Gaglio met him at the port.



The statement said that by telling these and other "episodes that are nearly unknown in Italy", the film also highlights another king of Egypt, Fuad, "a great protector of Empedocle, who had saved him from certain death" by treating him for "a gunshot wound inflicted on him in the throat by his ex-brother-in-law".



It was due to Fuad's second wife, Queen Nazli Sabris, that Gaglio had "the royal consideration he was privileged with for the rest of his life".(ANSAmed).


3 migrants die after boat sinks off Greek islet Kalolimnos 15 rescued ans several people missing. 127 arrive on Chios

(ANSAmed) - ATHENS, NOVEMBER 3 - At least three migrants died and several other people are missing after a wooden boat carrying 24 migrants sank near the Greek islet of Kalolimnos early on Friday morning.



The Greek Coast Guard said ten men, four women and one 10-year-old child were rescued from the stricken vessel.



According to local port authority reports on the nearby island of Kalymnos, there were 24 people traveling on the boat from Turkey.



A search-and-rescue operation for the missing migrants has been launched including a coast guard vessel, a helicopter, a Frontex vessel and two tourist vessels, as well as a cargo ship.



Those who were rescued have been transferred to the port of Kalymnos, where the island's "Immigrant and Refugee Support Group" is providing warm clothes, beverages, food and emergency medical treatment. Meanwhile, another 127 immigrants arrived on Chios in two separate boats in the early hours of Friday. A Frontex patrol vessel spotted 65 people in an inflatable craft near the coastal area of Agia Eleni, while a second Frontex ship found another crowded boat carrying 62 refugees. In both cases the refugees were transferred to the port of Chios. (ANSAmed).




Libya: male rape systematically used as weapon, report Witnesses, for decades used to humiliate men by militias

(ANSAmed) - ROME, NOVEMBER 3 - Rival militias in Libya systematically use male rape as a war weapon, according to a report published by The Guardian newspaper, citing investigative work carried out by a Tunis-based group and a journalist from Le Monde.



Reports provided by victims and video footage showed men being sodomized with objects including broom sticks and rockets to humiliate them in the lawless, militia-dominated country.



Male rape is a taboo in Arab societies and victims usually do not rejoin military or public life after the abuse.



According to witnesses whose testimony was shared by Le Monde with the Guardian and a pool of newspapers including Italy's La Stampa, in many instances a victim was forced into a room with other prisoners who were ordered to rape him or be killed.



A witness identified as Ahmed, who said he was detained for four years in a prison in Tomina, near Misrata, said he was forced to sodomize himself with a broomstick in order to get food.



''They separate you to subjugate you'', he said. ''Subjugate the men, that's the expression that they use. So that you never hold your head up again. And they were filming everything with their phones''.



. (ANSAmed).




BEIRUT - The Syrian government army has taken control of Deir ez-Zor, the last ISIS stronghold in eastern Syria, according to Syrian state television.



The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) previously said that most of the city's neighbourhoods had been taken by government forces, but that there were a few pockets of resistance being held by the last ISIS militants.



Lebanese daily Al Akhbar, which is close with Iran and is usually well-informed about activity within the Syrian government, said a US intelligence official was on a "secret" visit to Damascus.



It said the official met with his Syrian counterparts in the context of ongoing contacts between the CIA and the Syrian government's National Security Office.



The newspaper said the main goal of the visit was to explore ways to free American citizens captured during the ongoing war.



It said, however, that this contact could "indicate a change in American policy on Syria".


ROME - Spain has issued a European arrest warrant for deposed Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, according to his attorney.



"I was informed by my client that the warrant was issued against the president and the four other ministers who are in Belgium," Paul Bekaert told Belgian TV channel VRT.



"It means that the Spanish justice system will now send an extradition request to the federal prosecutors in Brussels," he said.



Yesterday a Spanish judge ordered the arrest of eight of the 13 members of the democratically elected government of Carles Puigdemont, accused of "sedition" and "rebellion" for having non-violently advanced the political project of Catalan independence. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets on Thursday evening in Catalan cities to protest the jailing of the deposed government figures, chanting "Llibertat" and "This isn't justice, it's dictatorship!" Puigdemont and four of his ministers - who went to Belgium following the decision by the Spanish government last Saturday to disband the Catalan regional government - are still free and in "exile" there.


ROME - Saudi Arabia has strongly condemned United Nations financing of 14 million dollars to the Yemeni Education Ministry, currently managed by Houthi militias, according to Saudi broadcaster Al Arabiya.



Saudi Arabia has called on the UN to reconsider its decision, and said UN support for Houthi militias is unjustifiable and unacceptable.



Al Arabiya reported that the Saudi delegation to the UN said Houthi rebels have placed at least 50,000 land mines at the Saudi-Yemeni border.



It said other tens of thousands of mines were placed in populated cities and villages in Yemen and in the Red Sea region near the coast of Midi and the island of Tawak.



The Saudi delegation said in addition to being a security threat to Saudi Arabia, the mines are a violation of UN Security Council resolutions and threaten the passage of international maritime traffic.



The war in Yemen began in March 2015, when a Saudi-led military coalition attacked Houthi militias that had occupied the capital city of Sanaa.



The coalition forced President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi to flee to Aden.



Saudi Arabia said the Houthi rebels, who belong to the Zaidi branch of Islam, are backed by Iran.



The UN said 8,530 people - 60% of whom were civilians - have been killed since the start of the coalition's operation.



It said airstrikes and ground clashes have thus far wounded about 48,800 people.



According to the UN, the Saudi-led coalition in 2016 alone killed 683 Yemeni minors, many of whom were children.


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The airline will employ CPaTs Learning Management System (LMS) to provide classroom and mobile training for its Airbus A320 family, A330, Embraer 170, Boeing 737NG and Boeing 777 pilots.

Captain Moataz M. Refaat, EgyptAirs Manager of Ground and Simulator Training, said: EgyptAir employs over 1000 pilots flying five different aircraft types. As we approach a new era, the company is growing and expanding, management is embracing new technology and methods to enhance training through CPaT Distance Learning and LMS, which provide a good solution for our pilots and dispatchers. The Computer Based Training addresses both our operational training needs as well as IT demands.

CPaT is pleased to have been chosen to support EgyptAir, the flag carrier airline of Egypt, said Captain Greg Darrow, CPaT Globals VP Sales and Marketing. EgyptAir has implemented CPaTs advanced Distance Learning Solutions including the Airbus A320 family, A330, Boeing 737NG and Boeing 777 systems courses, LMS tools, dynamic exam generator system and the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737NG and Boeing 777 interactive classroom. EgyptAirs commitment to advanced training solutions provides pilots with the best quality A320, A330, B737NG and Boeing 777 training while allowing pilots to study anywhere on any device.
Gold is considered an essential part of weddings in India, second-biggest consumer of the metal in the world after China.

Wedding season in the coming weeks is expected to up the demand for gold. (Photo: PTI)

Mumbai/Bengaluru: Demand for physical gold was lacklustre in top consumers India and China this week, while the lure of the metal remained stable in Singapore, but Indias peak wedding season is expected to usher in renewed interest for bullion in coming weeks.

Gold is considered an essential part of weddings in India, second-biggest consumer of the metal in the world after China, and it is a popular gift on such occasions. The wedding season has started. In the next few weeks, there are many wedding dates, which will boost demand, said Kumar Jain, a Mumbai-based jeweller.

Dealers in India were charging a premium of up to $3 an ounce this week over official domestic prices, unchanged from last week. The domestic price includes a 10 percent import tax.

Gold imports by (jewellery) export houses have fallen sharply in the last few weeks. Thats why the market is in premium, despite moderate demand, said a dealer with a private bank in Mumbai.

In October, India tightened gold import norms for jewellery exporters by restricting them from importing the yellow metal only for export purposes and not for selling in the domestic market.

Meanwhile, in China, the market for the precious metal remained quiet, with premiums of $5 to $9 an ounce being charged over benchmark rates, as against the $6.50 to $10 range in the previous week.

Benchmark spot gold was on track to register a small weekly gain, hovering around the $1,275.00 level as of 0919 GMT on Friday, but still below Thursdays mark of $1,284.10, highest in nearly two weeks. [GOL/]

Dips below the $1,270 level (toward the beginning of the week) spurred some buying, but the upside, (around the $1,280 level) limited purchases, said Ronald Leung, chief dealer at Lee Cheong Gold Dealers in Hong Kong.

Premiums in Hong Kong remained more or less unchanged from last week, in the 60 cents to $1.20 range.

Premiums are quite low, and except for periodic large sales, the market is quiet, said Joshua Rotbart, managing partner of J. Rotbart & Co in Hong Kong.

In Singapore, premiums rose to 70-90 cents from the 50 cents last week.

There has been interest from two segments, the wholesalers and high net worth individuals, so it is still strong, said Loh Mun Chun, Director, Private Wealth at GoldSilver Central in Singapore.

The wholesalers need to buy ... to produce jewellery, especially with some spillover demand coming from the Diwali and Dhanterras festivals, while the high net worth individuals ... buy to diversify their portfolio and they have the money.
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy went a step ahead calling Kamal morally bankrupt and said his comments were without any substance.

Chennai: Stoking a major political controversy, Tamil film icon Kamal Haasan on Thursday said Hindu terror does exist. He went on to stir the pot some more in the lead-up to his much vaunted political plunge by saying that right-wing groups are resorting to using their muscle power to silence their opponents, dumping their old method of engaging them in dialogue.

The comments made by Kamal in his weekly column in a Tamil magazine titled You can no longer say there is no Hindu terror, sent ripples across the political spectrum Thursday with the RSS and BJP demanding that he immediately withdraw his statement and make an unconditional apology.

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy went a step ahead calling Kamal morally bankrupt and said his comments were without any substance. If he has any evidence, he should give it to the NIA, but he has not done that. This kind of remark will badly hurt him in Tamil Nadu, Swamy said.

Kamals controversial statement on Hindu terror, which he said was not a new phenomenon, comes two months after he declared his colour, was certainly not saffron after his meeting with Kerala chief minister Pinnarayi Vijayan. Incidentally, todays comments also came in reply to a question posed to him by the Communist veteran in the same magazine on what he thinks about the efforts by Hindutva forces to denigrate the Dravidian culture.

In the past, Hindu right-wing groups would engage their opponents through dialogue instead of resorting to violence. Once these old tactics began to fail, they ditched the tactics and resorted to strength. They (Hindu right-wing groups) have now started wielding muscle power, he wrote in the magazine.

Right-wing groups can no more challenge anyone who talks about Hindu terrorists because it is true that terror has spread into their camps as well. Such terror activities are not going to help them in any way. People no more believe in Truth alone Triumphs but strength alone triumphs, he said.

Political observer Gnani Sankaran says the statement by Kamal was his open declaration that he was not averse to criticising the BJP and the Sangh Parivar. He was being blamed for long for not criticising the BJP. Now he has declared that he was in no way connected to the BJP. He has made it clear that he was not averse to criticising the BJP or making negative comments against the party, Sankaran told Deccan Chronicle.



Kamal went on to conclude that Tamil Nadu will become an example for social justice once again. For today, Kerala shows the way. Congratulations, Kamal told Vijayan, in an obvious reference to the Kerala Governments move to appoint non-Brahmins as priests in temples.

The sharpest reaction from the Sangh Parivar came from RSS ideologue Professor Rakesh Sinha who asked Kamal to apologise for hurting Hindu civilisation and defaming it.

Is Kamal Haasan trying to revive denounced narrative of Hindu terror under influence of a terrorist outfit in TN and ally of PFI, Al Umma. Kamal Haasan must apologise for hurting Hindu civilisation, defaming it, trying to create provocation for his petty political ends, Sinha wrote on Twitter.
Ittefaq entrusts its cracking scenes and lines to an efficient ensemble of actors. All are very good, Sonakshi Sinha & Akshaye Khanna especially so.

Rating:

Cast: Akshaye Khanna, Sidharth Malhotra, Sonakshi Sinha

Director: Abhay Chopra

Whodunnits are cool, especially those that fry our brains, first by presenting a dead-end mystery that needs solving, and then showing us stuff we take as clues and go on our own sleuthing jaunts to solve the murder in our heads before the film can.

Memorable whodunnits are the ones that are smarter than us and in the last reel show us how silly, wrong or clueless weve been all along.

Bollywood doesnt attempt these dimag-lagane-waali films too often. Thats mostly because theres little money going for these plot-driven films as they are not great showcases for stars and, by extension, dont keep the whole stardom vanity machine gainfully employed, relevant and in the news.

So when one comes along, requiring the backing of three producers and is worked on by three writers  Abhay Chopra, Shreyas Jain, Nikhil Mehrotra  its a moment.

Director Abhay Chopras Ittefaq is based on a family heirloom  the 1969 Ittefaq starring Rajesh Khanna, Nanda and Iftekhar. Based on Hollywoods Signpost to Murder (1964), it was directed by Abhays granduncle Yash Chopra and produced by dadaji B.R. Chopra.

The story of Abhays Ittefaq is similar, to the extent that there are two dead bodies and the needle of suspicion is initially on the man found on both crime scenes, then on a woman at one of the crime scenes, till it finally settles on one.

But his film is also different from its biological parents because here the drama of the murder mystery and suspects is brought alive not just by clever sleuthing and sharp interrogation, but also by what goes on beyond it  amongst the cops of Colaba police station.

Ittefaqs cool screenplay stars Mumbai cops as robust, real characters who are inept, funny, greedy and often cribbing about their job.

It sees a benign, human side to them beyond their macho posturing and threats and has fun with it.

The setup is simple. In Mumbai, a man is driving a Mercedes rather rashly through late evening traffic. Two police vans  with hawaldar Tambe, and his Saab, Kadam  are chasing him rather slowly.

The Mercedes hits something, flies in the air, turns turtle and lands. A bloody hand appears in the window, opens the door and a man, Vikram Sethi (Sidharth Sethi), UK-based celebrity author, in Mumbai for the launch of his latest book along with his publisher wife, Catherine (Kimberley Louisa McBeath), gets out and, dodging cops, takes refuge in a house  to phone a friend, perhaps, or call a lawyer.

The house belongs to Maya (Sonakshi Sinha) whose husband Sidharth, a lawyer, is away.

It soon transpires that Vikram has been running away from one murder scene, and is soon caught at another this time at Mayas.

Ittefaq, coincidence or a well-thought out murder plan?

Dev (Akshaye Khanna), whose dimag is computer se bhi zyada tez, is woken up and put in charge of solving whats now a double-murder case with a high-profile suspect. With the assistance of inspector Gautam and Tambe, he has just three days to crack it.

A murder weapon is found, burnt photos recovered from the dustbin outside Mayas house, but as Dev begins talking to Vikram and Maya, we see what transpired in the posh house from two perspectives  Vikrams story points the finger at Maya, while Mayas story pins the murder on him.

As we, along with Dev, ponder facts and motive  Vikram seems to have no motive to kill Sidharth, but Maya, being the wife, could have reason to. But then, Vikram fled one crime scene, and was found at another on the same night  we are distracted by the flickering tubelight in the interrogation room, junior cops who keep falling asleep, investigators and their need for tea, even at a crime scene. These small asides add zing to this rather taut and bloody suspense thriller.

And then we get more clues, glimpses of character traits that feed into our own prejudices  at times about a rich, seemingly cold woman, and at times about a desperate writer who has another case pending against him.

Ittefaqs screenplay is littered with hints about the two murder suspects. Embedded in the story that Vikram tells of what transpired in Mayas flat, and the story that Maya tells are lovely, tiny details  like where the first-aid box was kept  that lead us one way and then another.

He was trying to kill me, says Maya. She was trying to seduce me, says Vikram.

First, Mayas house, her clothes, her diamonds nail her, and then Vikrams indifference to a rape victim bothers us.

Dev cracks it and the film flat-lines, till it starts beeping again, urgently

At the end it needed one more ittefaq to clinch it for us.

Ittefaq has some purportedly scientific explanations  like the one about a head injury and the height of the assailant  which is just bogus blah-blah, words spoken by a man wearing an officious look or a lab coat while pointing at a human bust.

Barring this gibberish masquerading as intelligent investigation, the films screenplay is smart, clever.

I both cringed and smiled at the choice of the authors name. But I laughed out loud at this fabulous comment by a cop to a hassled man who is being dragged to the thana  If you are right, there is nothing wrong, and at Devs irritated reaction to a broken lift door and the annoying, repetitive instructions of a dismembered, female voice.

Its this ordinary, everyday chatter that adds a fun, almost sublime layer to Ittefaq  a layer made up of silly, slightly inept cops investigating cunning evil. We identify with the warm, bumbling but morally simple men in charge of pursuing the truth.

Ittefaq entrusts its cracking scenes and lines to an efficient ensemble of actors. All are very good, Sonakshi Sinha and Akshaye Khanna especially so.

Sonakshi is able to add complexity to her character and keeps leading us astray by playing with our silly, fatuous belief that we can judge peoples intent by their clothes, expressions and circumstances.

She creates depth, nuance with slight movements, expressions, postures, and the camera stays on her face watching, wondering whats going on, whats she thinking, like it does on Akshayes.

It doesnt stare at Sidharth so much because he doesnt yet have it in him to create an interior world that at times flashes across his face like it does on Sonakshis.

Sidharth Malhotra is just an efficient, good-looking dude.

Akshaye Khanna, who often makes do with his own peculiar brand of hamming which involves wriggly eyebrows and a mouth pursed in Im-taking-my-own-sweet-time-to-brood, is in great form here.

He seems, well, free of his own annoying, smug haughtiness, and plays Dev lightly, with a casual dash of humour.

His Dev, a cop and a family man (wife Mandira Bedi and a framed photo of two kids), is the one who gently holds Ittefaq together by being its warm, smart, moral core.
Pak also announced visa grants to over 2,600 Indian Sikh pilgrims to attend the birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism.

New Delhi: After the release of 68 Indian fishermen by Pakistan earlier this week as a humanitarian measure, India on Thursday announced the release of 13 Pakistanis comprising nine fishermen and four civilian prisoners apart from a minor child.

Meanwhile, Pakistan also announced visa grants to over 2,600 Indian Sikh pilgrims to attend the birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak, the first Guru of the Sikhs and founder of Sikhism.

It may be recalled that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has also been ordering grant of medical visas to Pakistanis urgently needing medical treatment in India.

The humanitarian gestures by both countries have sparked speculation about the possibility of some positive engagement in the near future between the governments of the two neighbours notwithstanding the tension on the LoC and the uncertainty over the fate of former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav who had been sentenced to death earlier by a Pakistani military court.

In a statement on Thursday, India said, Nine fishermen and four civilian prisoners from Pakistan and a minor child were repatriated today via Attari/Wagah border. Two Pakistani civilian prisoners were also released last month on 28 September, 2017. India attaches high priority to addressing all humanitarian issues, including early release and repatriation of Indian fishermen and prisoners in Pakistans custody. Release of 370 Indian prisoners, including 363 fishermen, has been secured in 2017, so far.
The police said that his corpse was found in Khilira village of Shopian on Thursday evening. He was a resident of Shopians Bonagam area.

Srinagar: A BJP youth leader was found murdered in Jammu and Kashmirs southern Shopian district on Thursday evening. The police said that his throat was slit and blamed the incident on separatist militants.

The victim has been identified as Gowhar Ahmed Bhat, the BJPs youth district president for Shopian. The police said that his corpse was found in Khilira village of Shopian on Thursday evening. He was a resident of Shopians Bonagam area.

The police said that it has registered a case and launched investigation into the incident which appears to be murder by suspected militants. The body with slit throat was found in Khilira village. We have taken by investigations, said Shopians SSP Shri Ram.

The J&K police later tweeted, Terrorists killed civilian Gowhar Ahmed in #Shopian. Investigations on.

Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti, condemned Bhat's killing and while sympathizing with the bereaved family said, "I appeal all sections of society to come forward to end this cycle of violence in the State".

In a similar incident, a school teacher Aijaz Ahmed Lone was found dead with slit throat in Shopians Wathoo village on October 18. He was a resident of neighbouring Gatipora and the officials had suspect the militants belonging to Hizb-ul-Mujahedin were behind his killing.
The accused said he was forced to live in inhuman conditions; jail lacks basic facilities such as food, drinking water, hygiene, healthcare.

A Delhi court has sought the response of Tihar Jail authorities on a sexual harassment complaint of a British national inside the prison where he is lodged for allegedly recruiting youths for al-Qaeda to carry out terror activities. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: A Delhi court has sought the response of Tihar Jail authorities on a sexual harassment complaint of a British national inside the prison where he is lodged for allegedly recruiting youths for al-Qaeda to carry out terror activities.

27-year-old Shamiun Rahman, a British national of Bangladeshi origin, was arrested in September for his alleged involvement in recruiting Rohingya Muslims for the terror outfit and train them to fight against the Myanmarese army.

In his application moved before Additional Sessions Judge Siddharth Sharma, he alleged that he was sexually harassed by Tihar Jail security personnel and inhuman behaviour was meted out to him by the prison authorities.

The court directed the jail authorities to file response on the application moved by advocate M S Khan by November 8.

The accused alleged that he was forced to live in inhuman conditions inside the jail and it lacks basic facilities such as proper food, drinking water, sanitation and medical aid.

The Special Cell of Delhi Police had alleged that the process of radicalisation of Rahman alias Raju Bhai began in a jail in London where he was lodged on charges of rash driving.

During this period, he stayed at various madrassas in Kishanganj (Bihar), Hazaribagh (Jharkhand), NCR and other places. He had plans to set up base in Mizoram or Manipur to train radicalised youths.

An FIR was filed by the special cell after his arrest under various provisions relating to the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Arms Act and Passport Act.
The law minsiter said that his ministry was giving a final shape to a proposal in this regard.

New Delhi: Union law and justice minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday stated that in an effort to reduce the number of pending cases, the Centre was working on a mechanism to introduce a pre-litigation mediation process, so that avoidable cases were prevented from reaching the courts.

The law minsiter said that his ministry was giving a final shape to a proposal in this regard. Retired judges and bureaucrats would be considered a part of a group which would provide the mechanism for mediating disputes, Prasad said.

Currently, the process of mediation in the country is carried out through the Mediation and Conciliation Project Committee established by the Supreme Court.

Also, all mediation activities are managed and headed by the high courts of the respective states, where the only mediation process available is the court-annexed one.

Speaking at a seminar here, Mr Prasad said a number of new initiatives had been taken to reduce the number of pending court cases and time lost in the delivery of justice.

These included directing Union ministries and state governments to settle inter-ministerial disputes through an in-house mechanism and not approach the courts, technology upgradation of the courts and pro bono (professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment) services to help those unable to afford legal assistance.

Over three crore cases are pending in the courts across the country and according to the law ministry, the government is a party in around 46 per cent of these cases. Most of the cases, in which the government is a party, are related to service disputes and indirect taxes.
Gujarat elections are scheduled to be held in two phases, and results are to be announced on December 18.

Normally the Winter Session begins in the third week of November and ends just days before Christmas, and has a total of 20 sittings. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: The forthcoming Winter Session of Parliament could be a curtailed one, with the government apparently looking at ways to avoid its clash with Gujarat Assembly elections, scheduled for December 9 and 14. Sources aware of developments said that several permutations are apparently being worked out to squeeze in a shorter, most probably a week-long, session between December 15 and December 22.

A shorter Winter Session held right after Gujarat polls could help insulate it from being overshadowed by various state related issues which the Opposition may try and raise in Parliament to corner the BJP-led government if it is held in its normal time frame, i.e. from November-end to the third week of December.

The BJP, which has been ruling Gujarat for the past 22 years, is for the first time facing spirited competition from the main Opposition party, Congress, as well as the amalgamation of Patel and OBC community leaders on a host of issues like dalit atrocities, lack of jobs, malnutrition as well as the recent deaths of 18 infants in Ahmedabad.

Another consideration is that Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself will be busy touring Gujarat for election campaigns all of November, and with finance minister Arun Jaitley in charge of the Assembly polls, it would be difficult for the government to focus on parliamentary proceedings.

Though nothing is concrete at the moment, the government is looking at several schedules to convene the session.

Normally the Winter Session begins in the third week of November and ends just days before Christmas, and has a total of 20 sittings.

Gujarat elections are scheduled to be held in two phases, and results are to be announced on December 18.
The messages only warn customers that their banks accounts will become dormant and mobile phones will be blocked if not linked to Aadhaar.

New Delhi: Refraining from passing any interim order on pleas challenging the validity of the Aadhaar Act, the Supreme Court on Friday directed banks and mobile service providers to indicate in SMS messages being sent to customers the deadline of December 31 and February 6, 2018, for linking bank accounts and mobile phones to Aadhaar respectively.

A bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and Ashok Bhushan gave this direction when it was brought to the courts notice that the messages being sent by banks and telecom service providers lacked information on the last date for linking accounts and phones to Aadhaar.

The messages only warn customers that their banks accounts will become dormant and mobile phones will be blocked if not linked to Aadhaar.

Justice Sikri told attorney general K.K. Venugopal, Initially, I did not want to say this because of the press is here. But I am also receiving messages to link bank account and mobile number with Aadhaar.

Taking note of Mr Venugopals submission that all petitions relating to validity of Aadhaar have been posted before a five-judge Constitution Bench for final hearing in the last week of November, the court refused to stay the notifications on linking of Aadhaar with bank accounts/mobile numbers and for availing various social security benefits.

The court, however, gave the petitioners liberty to approach the Constitution Bench for interim orders. The bench was hearing petitions filed by Dr. Kalyani Menon and others challenging the notifications to link mobile numbers and bank accounts to Aadhaar.

Senior counsel Shyam Divan, Arvind P. Datar and K.V. Viswanathan submitted that messages being sent to customers gave an impression that the bank account or mobile number will be frozen immediately.

They suggested that if the SMS messages contained information on the deadline, people would know that the accounts or the mobiles would not be frozen immediately.

On fears related to misuse of date, the AG submitted that the issues will be dealt with by the Centre through a data protection regime as mandated by the right to privacy judgment.

A committee is looking into the issues and will give its report by March 31, 2018. The Aadhaar law will be amended based on the recommendations of the Committee, the AG said.

He said the government was willing to extend the deadline for linking bank accounts with Aadhaar from December 31 to March 31, 2018, if the final hearing on the matter does not take place in November.

A three-judge bench will examine later this month whether the provisions in the Aadhaar Act and the notifications issued by the government for its use in welfare schemes violate the right to privacy - upheld as a fundamental right by the Supreme Court recently.

The writ petitions challenge Rule 2(b) of the Prevention of Money-laundering (Maintenance of Records) Second Amendment Rules, 2017, by which submission of an Aadhaar Number has been made mandatory for individual clients, companies, partnership firms and trusts for opening bank accounts; maintaining existing bank accounts; making any financial transactions of and above Rs 50,000 and crediting foreign remittance.

Existing bank account holders have been directed to furnish Aadhaar numbers before December 31.

The petitions sought to challenge a circular issued in March by the department of telecommunication, making it mandatory for all mobile phone holders to link their numbers with Aadhaar by February 6, 2018.

The petitioners contended that these directions to bank account holders and mobile phone users are unconstitutional as reliance on Aadhaar and its use for meeting Know Your Customer (KYC) obligations constitutes a serious compromise of Indias commitments under international law.

The petitioners also objected to provisions forcing compulsory parting of private biometric information, disproportionate punitive consequences in light of non-compliance and a compromise of international legal obligations, financial security and integrity of the country.
Meghalaya and Bhutan have a lot to offer for those who seek adventure.

We decided to travel to one of the most beautiful places in North India  Meghalaya. During the last leg of the trip, we also visited Bhutan. Considered as a travellers paradise, Meghalaya is full of adventure, while Bhutan is a mix of architecture and adventure. Both the places were surreal  while one place has rains 24x7 and the other with puffy clouds and scenic drives. Such picturesque landscapes followed us through our entire journey.

Krang Suri waterfall

Just when we thought one location was amazing, the next proved to be better and it only impressed us over time. We went for two major treks  double-decker root bridge at Cherrapunji and tigers nest trek at Paro. Both were quite a test of endurance, a feast to the eyes and a memory so good that it felt like a dream.

The most interesting fact that we came to know about Meghalaya was that their languages had no regional script and followed the Roman one. Also, it was interesting to know that the locations that took hours for us to trek were the only way for locals to commute to work and head to school every day  uphill/downhill over slopes and mountains, for two to three hours every day in the rain. It was no wonder their calf muscles were so lean and supple.

Johanna

Bhutan surprised us with their respect for culture, tolerance for law and order, belief in striving for happiness, the humility of the King (Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck) and knowledge every localite had over their culture and history. All the people were kind and helpful beyond comparison. The language barrier was hardly an issue with most of them speaking English.

In Bhutan, it is an interesting anecdote to note that even if you miss your ATM card at the machine, you would find it even a week later, neatly stacked with every other ATM card forgotten, waiting to be picked by the rightful owner. Every stranger is so genuinely nice and helpful  initially, we were constantly suspicious of their ulterior motive (not that they had any) because it was just difficult to digest that people can be that nice!

City view of Thimphu

Meghalaya had the best of fresh veggies and fruits at throwaway prices. Their beef and pork dishes are the best I have tried in India. The local favourite alcohol at Bhutan was peach wine  its so light and pleasant in taste. The sweet liquor just elevated the state of happiness that the city already promised. The national dish of Bhutan  Ema Datshi  was my favourite. It is a gravy made of cheese and chillies.

(As told to Merin James)
The petitioners have claimed that since the BMC has evicted them, they cant be left homeless and the civic body should rehabilitate them.

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Thursday directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to maintain status quo for a week in regard to the demolition of the shanties at Garibnagar in Bandra (east). The order came after few residents of Garibnagar approached the HC against the demolition drive, saying the action was taken without following due procedure. Though the BMC had told the court that the demolition drive was over, the petitioners have claimed that some shanties are still there. Following this, the court directed the civic body to maintain status quo till the next date of hearing.

The division bench of Justice Vasanti Naik and Justice Riyaz Chagla had asked the BMC to file reply on the allegations made in the petition and has also directed it not to take any further coercive action till the next date of hearing.

The land on which Garibnagar slum is situated is partially owned by the Railways and the BMC. According to the Municipal Corporation, the demolition drive is part of the its action to comply with an earlier HC order directing the demolition of residential and commercial structures lying within 10 m of the Tansa pipeline.

Nilofer Qureshi and five other residents of Garibnagar slum have moved the petition through advocate Mathews Nedumpara and R.R. Nair, claiming that the BMC did not give them enough time to save their belongings and move to a safer place. They alleged that the civic body issued a mandatory 48 hours notice asking residents to vacate the area, however it came down to demolish the slum the next day, merely after 15 hours.

The petitioners have claimed that since the BMC has evicted them, they cant be left homeless and the civic body should rehabilitate them.
Nearly 800 home guards to be deployed at CR and WR soon.

The railways have managed to evict hawkers from the FOB at Dadar station. (Photo: Debashish Dey)

Mumbai: The Railways has said it made suburban stations hawker-free after the September 29 stampede at the Parel-Elphinstone Road station foot overbridge (FOB), but it is still trying to figure out how to keep FOBs free of hawkers in the long run. Twenty-three people lost their lives in the stampede.

Officials said that around 550 home guards would be deployed on Western Railway (WR) by the end of December while the Central Railway (CR) would be getting 250 from the Maharashtra Security Force (MSF). But there is still no long-term solution to the hawking problem.

According to a 2009 Supreme Court order, hawking is not allowed in a periphery of 150 metres from a railway station.

After the Elphinstone Road station tragedy, the railway went on a anti-hawking drive.

An official said, It has been a little over a month after the tragedy occurred and right now it is fresh in the minds of people but we feel once this outrage dies down we will begin to feel a lot of political pressure to allow them back onto railway land.

He added, Also, as far as the long term is concerned, there is actually no plan for the hawkers as of now. The situation will be dealt with on a day-to-day basis.

A big plus for the railway authorities will be the beefed-up presence of security personnel beginning from late January to early February next year. Officials said that they hope that the increased manpower will help them in keeping the pressure against hawkers on.

He added, The challenge will be how we use this new manpower as it will be responsible primarily for crowd management and will have to keep a tab on the hawkers simultaneously.

CR senior divisional security commissioner Sachin Bhalode said, We are going to make optimum use of the additional personnel for the security of theMumbaikar. According to Railways, hawkers have a presence on almost all the 72 CR stations and 36 WR stations.
The Congress vice-president struck a chord as he attacked demonetisation and unemployment in Prime Minister Narendra Modis home state.

Nearly 50 days ago Rahul Gandhi got the BJPs goat when he smartly handled awkward questions put by members of a select audience at the University of California at Berkeley. Over the next few days, his visit, initially ridiculed by the BJP following reports that he was visiting the United States to attend the Artificial Intelligence Conference, consumed more airtime than he was normally granted on television till then. When the social media was flush with sarcasm that Rahul had required artificial intelligence for not possessing any of his own, Sam Pitroda clarified that his itinerary didnt include this conference in San Francisco. Rahul Gandhi returned and didnt let the momentum slip in Gujarat, where he had campaigned before heading to the US. The Congress vice-president struck a chord as he attacked demonetisation and unemployment in Prime Minister Narendra Modis home state. Since his return, Rahul has shown remarkable consistency that has confounded even his most ardent of admirers. In the process, he has also forced BJP leaders, including Mr Modi, to bend their backs more than ever over the past 22 years. Yet they have so far failed in reversing public sentiment. Increasing crowds at meetings held by Rahul Gandhi, Hardik Patel and even Jignesh Mevani are pointers to this. If the soon-to-be Congress president can hold his own for the next 40-odd days and continue making the right moves, he stands a good chance of overseeing one of the countrys biggest electoral upsets. But for that Rahul Gandhi must ensure that he commits no hara-kiri and hope Mr Modi and his team commit a blunder or two in panic.

If history has to be written of how the impending Gujarat elections triggered a twist in the nations narrative with a surprising verdict, chroniclers will contend that the turning point was the Rajya Sabha election in August. Much water has flowed down the Narmada since then and the top brass of the BJP has already traversed a few thousand kilometres in the state. Initially, when the first indications of the BJPs plans going awry began to surface, most concluded that it a momentary worry and just a visit or two by Mr Modi would be sufficient to even the turf. Mr Modi may still work things around, but there is no denying the drift in a different direction, and not just because the Congress has shown unexpected spunk. Correspondingly, the dividing lines are getting sharper and with caste dynamics yet to reveal their final orientation, the field is increasingly turning unsure for the BJP. Anecdotal reports from the field suggests more and more people are confiding in one another that it imperative to teach the BJP a lesson. Unless Mr Modi is successful in erasing the anyone but BJP sentiment, there is nothing but a reverse in store for the party.

Besides the six-pronged challenge that Mr Modi faces, which this writer listed in an earlier column (October 21), the BJP also faces worry from the growing coagulation of social forces as symbolised by the assertions of the three debutants  Hardik Patel, Jignesh Mevani and Alpesh Thakor  that their primary objective is to defeat the BJP. This adds to the anti-BJPism spreading across the state. There is the additional factor that the thrust of the BJPs campaign  that life under BJP rule was qualitatively better than when the Congress governed the state  is likely to be lost on a big chunk of voters. Almost 2.25 crore voters out of a total of 4.33 crores are below 40  and because those below 35 were just 13 or younger in 1995, when the last non-BJP government was in office, they have no memory of the benchmark that the BJP is talking about to claim that it has done a good job with vikas. Instead, people have their own benchmarks  life when Mr Modi was chief minister and after that. Voters with no memory of the distant past are going to judge the BJP for what it has done in recent years. Worryingly for the BJP, the sentiment on this score is not upbeat given the twin economic dampeners of demonetisation and the GST rollout. More frightening for the BJP is that urban youth voters appear to be turning against the party given the high cost of education and paucity of jobs after securing these expensive degrees. For these young voters, many of whom are first-timers and this category was so far attracted to Mr Modi, the choice will be shaped by hardships they face to become professionals. It must be kept in mind that the failure of Hardik Patels sister to get a government scholarship despite high marks got him on the path of agitation. Personal disenchantment with government policies is common among young people in Gujarat though very few have taken to politics because it is viewed as a path only for those with the right connections. The divide between the old and young among Patidars is not restricted to the community, but is likely to surface more visibly once the elections come closer.

It is commonly believed that whenever the BJP and its leaders are unsure about electoral support, they take recourse to whipping up communal passions. Mr Modis infamous kabristan-shamshaan ghat statement during the polls in Uttar Pradesh is cited as evidence of the BJP playing this option whenever it thinks the dice is not rolling in its favour. But using this card in Gujarat this time will not be easy as the BJP has always harped on its riot-free record in states where it was in power, and Mr Modi will risk a blemish at his own cost. Moreover, despite deep-seated prejudice against Muslims, Hindus in the state dont have any immediate issues to be settled. The Congress has served its cause by not publicly wooing Muslims because options for the community are limited. The Congress has been tactful so far and set up this game. The BJP is consequently now much less certain about the public mood.
India is also aware that Japan and the US are Chinas biggest trading partners and extra-regional investors.

US secretary of state Rex Tillerson dropped by in New Delhi while on a five-nation tour October 20-27, which included Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan and Switzerland. A month earlier, Mr Tillerson had visited China to lay the groundwork for US President Donald Trumps coming visit. US-China ties have been strained by Mr Trumps criticism of Chinas trade practices and by the demands that Beijing do more about North Korea. A visit by US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross preceded Mr Tillersons visit, where we can presume the only topic discussed would have been the ever-increasing trade gap between the two countries, and the gripes aired by candidate Donald Trump. These clearly highlight the differing perceptions of the US vis-a-vis China and India.

In the run-up to Mr Tillersons India visit, the US media made no secret about its purpose. Their view was that as Chinas clout in the Asia-Pacific region rises, the United States was wooing India into a closer embrace. Indians chaff at the suggestion that Chinas growing power is the reason why the US sees value in ties with India. And not because of shared values. India has a certain sense of self-esteem that Americans misunderstand entirely. India doesnt want its relationship to be dependent on the intensity of Americas competition with China.

Most Indians recall the long-held US animosity and the convergence of its Cold War interests with Chinas, and directed towards India. Particularly in 1971, when the US had reportedly urged China to attack India across the Himalayas to ease pressure on the beleaguered Pakistani Army in Bangladesh. At that time the US was building China as a power to outflank the former Soviet Union. Most Indians hence dont miss the irony when, standing beside external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj during his maiden visit to South Asia as secretary of state, Mr Tillerson said the US supports Indias emergence as a leading power.

Indias external diplomacy is heavily invested in realism, which means it will always be focused on its own immediate and long-term interests. Its non-alignment policy served it well when it was a low-income country with myriad economic problems. Now that its a middle-income country with the worlds third largest GDP, about $9.7 trillion (PPP), theres no reason why it should be the US or for that matter anybody elses junior partner against a third power. Specially one which is also a physical neighbour, and not one separated by a large body of water  like the US, Japan and Australia. India doesnt see its place in the world like Britain, latched on to Uncle Sams coattails.

The US made no bones about what it seeks from India. Said state department spokesperson Heather Nauert: US and Indian officials discussed strengthening US-India partnerships, Indias leadership on peace and security in the India-Pacific region and Indias vital role in the administrations South Asia strategy. For the foreseeable future, India has few interests beyond the immediate neighbourhood. The region the US state department has suddenly taken to calling India-Pacific spans about half the world. Even if its interested, India cant afford to be a part of the policing arrangement in this huge region.

India has a mostly undemarcated 3,488-km border with China. Rather than a border problem, India has a territorial dispute with China that is not going away any time soon. The fact that both countries havent even agreed on military border, otherwise called the Line of Actual Control (LAC), compounds the dispute. China has its own perception of the LAC, and India has its own. So by tacit agreement, later ratified by the Border Defence Cooperation Agreement 2013, India and China undertake patrolling up to their LACs without confronting each other, not tailing each others patrols or by building any structures that may be considered to be of a permanent nature. The Doklam standoff took place as India perceived that a Chinese road even up to its own LAC would alter the local military balance. Both nations have kept this border peaceful, and not a single shot has been fired at each other since 1967.

However peaceful the border may have actually been, it is not without tension. About half a million troops and powerful air forces face each other and are at triggers edge. India has no illusions about who will bear the burden and pay the price if it joins in any containment agreement, as espoused by the Americans and Japanese.

India is also aware that Japan and the US are Chinas biggest trading partners and extra-regional investors. The economic inter-linkages between the three are well understood and, by and large, India knows that these relationships are much too deep to sustain another cold war. India didnt take sides even in that Cold War. There is no reason why it should take sides in a future one. The pivot of Indias foreign and security policy is the notion of strategic autonomy. This simply means it will act upon its own perceived interests and fight its own battles.

Before Mr Tillerson, there was Shinzo Abe. They met all the people who matter in New Delhi, but little changed. On that, there is a broad-based consensus in India.
Melinda Pleskovic was found shot and stabbed on October 24.

Jeffrey Scullin is scheduled to be in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court in Cleveland on Friday to face charges including aggravated murder. (Representational Image | Photo: File)

Cleveland: Ohio man accused of killing his fiancee's mother just days before he was supposed to be married is due to make his first court appearance.

Jeffrey Scullin is scheduled to be in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court in Cleveland on Friday to face charges including aggravated murder.

Police arrested the 20-year-old Scullin on Tuesday.

He had been living with his girlfriend's parents at their Strongsville home where 49-year-old school teacher Melinda Pleskovic was found shot and stabbed on Oct. 24.

Pleskovic's husband and Scullin both called 911, saying they had just arrived home and found the woman's body surrounded by blood.

It's unclear whether Scullin has an attorney. He's being held on $1 million bond.
Suu Kyi arrived in the state capital, Sittwe, in the morning and headed to restive northern Rakhine where many Rohingya villages were located.

Yangon, Myanmar: Aung San Suu Kyi made her first visit as Myanmars leader Thursday to the conflict-torn region where more than half a million Rohingya Muslims have fled state-led violence that has spiraled into Asias worst refugee crisis in decades.

Her visit to Rakhine state comes as Suu Kyi is under intense international scrutiny for her response to the exodus, which the UN has called ethnic cleansing, and as her government said it is working on a plan to repatriate those who fled to Bangladesh.

Suu Kyi arrived in the state capital, Sittwe, in the morning and headed to restive northern Rakhine where many Rohingya villages were located. During a 2015 election campaign, she visited southern Rakhine, where there hasnt been much conflict.

The state counselor just arrived but she is heading to Maungdaw, northern Rakhine, with the state officials, said Tin Maung Swe, a deputy director of the Rakhine government, using Suu Kyis official title.

Government spokesman Zaw Htay would not release Suu Kyis plans for the trip until later because of security concerns.

More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh since Aug. 25, when security forces in Buddhist-majority Myanmar began what they called clearance operations in response to deadly attacks on police outposts by insurgents. The campaign has included the burning of Rohingya villages and alleged widespread rights violations.

Fleeing Rohingya have described arson, rape and shootings by Myanmar soldiers and Buddhist mobs that left them no option but to make the dangerous and sometimes deadly journey through jungles and by sea to Bangladesh. The exodus has slowed at some points but has not stopped. On Thursday, at least 2,000 terrified Rohingya huddled in rice paddy fields on the Naf river.

They had waited for more than 24 hours for permission to enter Bangladesh and spent the night in the muddy fields.

The global image of Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate, has been damaged by the crisis and she has come under intense criticism to do more to end the violence and condemn those responsible. Several fellow peace prize winners have publicly condemned Suu Kyi for what they see as her apparent indifference to the plight of the Rohingya.

Though Suu Kyi has been the de facto head of Myanmars civilian government since her party swept elections in 2015, the former political prisoner is limited in her control of the country by a constitution written by the military junta that ruled Myanmar for decades. The military has effective veto power over all legislation and controls key ministries including those overseeing security and defense.

The military is in charge of operations in northern Rakhine, and ending them is not up to Suu Kyi.

Even when Suu Kyi has spoken on the issue, she has drawn criticism. In a September speech, her first public comments after the current crisis began, she asked for patience from the international community and suggested the refugees were partly responsible, saying more than half of the Rohingya villages had not been destroyed by the violence.

Suu Kyi faces a potential domestic backlash if she speaks on behalf of the Rohingya, who have been the target of anti-Muslim rhetoric. Many people agree with the official government stance that there is no such ethnicity as Rohingya and that those in the country have illegally migrated from Bangladesh.

Though Rohingya first arrived generations ago, they were stripped of their citizenship in 1982, denying them almost all rights and rendering them stateless. They cannot travel freely, practice their religion, or work as teachers or doctors, and they have little access to medical care, food or education.

Myanmars backers globally have also had to tread carefully, not wanting to undermine Suu Kyis weak civilian government at a time when the country is just emerging from decades of authoritarian rule. Still, counties such as the U.S. have warned Myanmar about potential repercussions if it doesnt address the crisis, including the risk of attracting international terrorists, scaring off investment, and ultimately stunting its transition to democracy.

The government said Tuesday that it is ready to repatriate Rohingya who had fled, but blamed Bangladesh for slowing the process.

We are ready to accept the refugees and to start a verification and scrutiny process, but we have not reached an agreement with the Bangladeshi authorities for repatriation, said Zaw Htay, the government spokesman.

He said those who could prove they were residents of Myanmar would be allowed to return. Many Rohingya have no identity documents.
Nawaz Sharif said that he was not afraid of fake cases against him.

Islamabad: Ousted Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday reached Islamabad from London to face corruption cases against him.

Mr Sharif immediately left for the Punjab House where he chaired a meeting of party workers and leaders. During the meeting, Nawaz Sharif said that he was not afraid of fake cases against him, adding that the party will not clash with anyone. He also expressed hope for bagging mammoth votes in 2018 general elections.

Nawaz Sharif will appear before the accountability court on Friday (today) to face references filed against him by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in connection with Panama Papers case.

Earlier, Nawaz Sharif complained that there were contradictions in the system of Pakistan. He said that he was not afraid of prisons as this was not the first time he was encountered with tough scenario, politically. The former premier questioned the toppling of his government in 1999 claiming that the action that was taken against him had no legal backing.

Meanwhile on Thursday, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) reserved verdict on Nawaz Sharifs plea to merge all three NAB references against him. The decision was reserved after lawyers from both sides completed their arguments.

On Wednesday, Nawaz Sharif had submitted additional documents including copy of indictment in Avenfield properties, Al-Azizia Steel Mills and Flagship Investments references in IHC.

Asif Kirmani had submitted a petition in IHC on Mr Sharifs behalf, stating separate indictments in three corruption cases is against the law therefore, the references should be merged into one.

Mr Sharifs political future has been in doubt since July when the Supreme Court sacked him following an investigation into corruption allegations against his family, making him the 15th premier in Pakistans 70-year history to be ousted before completing a full term.

The allegations against the Prime Minister stemmed from the Panama Papers leak last year, which sparked media frenzy over the luxurious lifestyles and high-end London property portfolio owned by his family.
The National Council of Hindu Temples had invited Tapan Ghosh, for a keynote address where he allegedly voiced extremist views.

During his visit to the UK, Tapan Ghosh also attended a Diwali event organised by the Hindu Forum of Britain last month alongside Cabinet ministers including home secretary Amber Rudd, who has been forced to distance herself from his views. (Photo: Twitter/@hstapanghosh)

London: The UKs charity watchdog has opened a compliance case against the National Council of Hindu Temples (UK) after the group was accused of inviting a controversial speaker to a seminar in the Parliament complex.

The umbrella group for Hindu temples and organisations in Britain had invited Tapan Ghosh, the founder of Hindu Samhati based in West Bengal, to give a keynote address at an event titled Tolerating the intolerant: The abuse of Hindu human rights in Europe and India last month, during which he is accused of voicing extremist views.

The UKs Charity Commission, in charge of regulating all charitable institutions registered in the country, confirmed on Friday that it had opened a case which will involve questioning the trustees to decide if any further action was required.

The Commission has opened a case into the National Council of Hindu Temples (UK) to assess concerns raised regarding a speaker at an event linked to the charity, the Charity Commission said in a statement.

Meanwhile, members of the Association of British Muslims, the Asian Mums Network, and the Women Against Radicalisation Network have co-signed an open letter to the Charity Commission demanding the National Council of Hindu Temples (UK) be stripped of its charity status.

We believe the NCHTUK should be stripped of its charity status for inciting religious hatred...(Ghosh) runs a hardline Hindu militant group whose sole purpose is to demonise and protect Hindus from Muslim aggression, the letter reads.

The event in the House of Commons complex in October was hosted by Conservative party MP Bob Blackman as chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for British Hindus.

Ghosh made no abhorrent remarks at the meeting, and I am quite clear that I and the National Council of Hindu Temples do not agree with the views he previously stated, he said.

The NHCTUK has stressed that the core subject of the event was the sustained targeting and abuse of Hindu and Sikh girls- their selection on the basis of their religion and their subsequent physical and emotional abuse for the purposes of forced conversion to Islam.

During his visit to the UK, Ghosh also attended a Diwali event organised by the Hindu Forum of Britain last month alongside Cabinet ministers including home secretary Amber Rudd, who has been forced to distance herself from his views.

The home secretary fundamentally disagrees with Ghoshs views on Islam. The home secretary accepted an invitation from the Hindu Forum of Britain to attend an event in Parliament... to celebrate Diwali. She did not speak to Ghosh and was not present when he spoke, her spokesperson said.
In a brief hearing in Islamabad, Sharif paid two surety bonds of five million rupees.

He has spent most of the time since in London, where his wife is receiving treatment for cancer. He arrived in Islamabad on Thursday. (Photo: AP)

Islamabad: Pakistan's ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif appeared in court on Friday, a day after returning from overseas to face corruption allegations that saw him ejected from office and targeted with an arrest warrant.

In a brief hearing in Islamabad, Sharif paid two surety bonds of five million rupees ($48,000) each before leaving under tight security, his lawyer Khawaja Haris said.

The court is set to reconvene on November 7.

The former premier, who was forced out by the Supreme Court in July over a scandal kindled by the Panama Papers leak, had been facing an arrest warrant for failing to appear at hearings since early October.

He has spent most of the time since in London, where his wife is receiving treatment for cancer. He arrived in Islamabad on Thursday.

Sharif became the 15th premier in Pakistan's 70-year history to be ousted before completing a full term, after the corruption investigation against him.

The claims against the prime minister stemmed from the Panama Papers leak last year, which sparked a media frenzy over the luxurious lifestyles and high-end London property portfolio owned by his family.

Sharif and his supporters have denied the allegations and hinted at a political conspiracy driven by the powerful military.

"I am going to Pakistan despite (my wife's) chemotherapy to appear in a bogus case," he told media in London before departing.

"Pakistan's system has contradictions, all this must be changed, now is the time to change it."

He said nothing to media outside the court in Islamabad, but his son-in-law Muhammad Safdar also hinted at a conspiracy.

"Till the time the courts are free from the fear of some other people, I can't expect any fair trial from this court," Safdar said outside the court.

Earlier this week Sharif summoned top officials from his eponymous ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to London for a summit on the party's leadership as legal pressure grows.

Sharif named loyalist Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as prime minister days after his ousting, and said his younger brother Shahbaz, currently the chief minister of Punjab province, would eventually succeed him.

Pakistani media reports have said the party plans to keep Sharif as a central figure during campaigning for a general election due to be held sometime next year, despite the Supreme Court barring him from holding office.
Aye Ne Win, grandson of former dictator General Ne Win, disguised himself as a pope for Halloween. Nationalists accuse Pope Francis of collaborating with the Rohingya. The Church in Myanmar downplays the controversy. Preparations are underway for the apostolic journey. Buddhist monks will also welcome the faithful.

Yangon (AsiaNews)  Burmese Buddhists have expressed their closeness and solidarity to Myanmars small Catholic community, which has recently been the object of provocations ahead of Pope Franciss upcoming apostolic visit to the country (27-30 November).

Recently, pictures showing Aye Ne Win, grandson of former Myanmar dictator General Ne Win, dressed up as the pope imparting "blessings" at a Halloween party (picture 2), have sparked a controversy.

Catholics have expressed their outrage on social media, and received support from Buddhists who also feel offended.

For some, such mockery is an attempt by some military and extremist groups to antagonise the Christian minority on the eve of the pope's historic journey to the Asian nation.

Some in the military and among Buddhist nationalist groups, like the Ma Ba Tha movement, have taken to the Internet to express their loathing of the papal visit. They accuse the Holy Father of collaborating with the Rohingya Muslim minority.

To back their views, these groups have circulated online pictures of Pope Francis washing the feet of inmates in Paliano prison last April, one of whom was a Muslim.

The extremists also cannot forget the appeal the pope made in favour of the Rohingya in his Angelus on 27 August, which triggered harsh criticism in Myanmar.

Most are critical of the pope's call for prayer for the recognition of the rights of the Muslim minority, much hated by many ethnic Burmese. The popes use of the word "Rohingya" has met with great disfavour in public opinion.

Since the group is not recognised as one of Myanmars 135 official ethnic groups, they are usually referred to as Rakhine Muslims based on their state of residence.

The Catholic Church in Myanmar, which has played a major role in supporting the difficult process of national reconciliation undertaken by democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi, has not responded to the latest provocations by extremists and has tried instead to calm the situation.

"The incident involving Ne Win's grandson is regrettable, said Fr Marian Soe Naing, spokesman for the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Myanmar (CBCM) and director of its Office for Social Communication (CBCM-OSC), speaking to AsiaNews. However bad it was, we are talking about a party with masks, and thats that.

By contrast, Relations with our fellow Buddhist compatriots is very good; there is no hostility. There is nothing to fear from the pope's visit. Problems could arise if the Holy Father mentions 'Rohingya'. This would give extremists a pretext to cause tensions. "

Meanwhile, as the Catholic community gets ready to welcome Pope Francis with devotion and prayer", work on the visit is well underway.

"Right now, we are focused on planning the arrival of those who will take part in the solemn Mass, which the pope will celebrate at the Yangya Kyaikkasan Ground in Yangon on 29 November, Fr Soe Naing said.

All of our parishes will be available for accommodations. The night before the service, almost all Buddhist monasteries will open their doors to our faithful. We expect more than 100,000 Catholics during the Holy Father's visit."

As a sign of the Catholic Church's commitment to national dialogue and reconciliation, a few hours after the Mass, Pope Francis will hold a meeting with the Supreme Sangha Council, the highest Buddhist authority in the country, at the Kaba Aye Centre.

"We checked the sites and have made arrangements with Buddhist leaders for the meeting and the make-up of the delegations. Unfortunately, due to the pope's official commitments with Myanmar authorities in Nay Pyi Taw, the meeting with all of the country's religious leaders on 30 November was cancelled," said the CBCM spokesman.

Aye Ne Wins disguise has provoked a harsh reaction among Catholics on the Internet, especially young people, said Lawrence Jangma Gam, an AsiaNews contributor. "However, tensions are only on social media. The extremists rely on Buddhist ignorance about Christians, but there is no serious threat to the security of the Holy Father.

The civilian government, which has recently had important meetings with the Holy See, will act as guarantor of the apostolic journey. The military is in charge of all security issues and I do not think it will allow something to happen since the country is already under strong international pressure over the Rakhine crisis.

Perhaps some nationalist groups will organise demonstrations against the pope, but ordinary people are not against the apostolic journey. The pope will be protected by his personal security detail, and Bishops Conference is also taking its own steps.
In 2015, the ban was imposed on imams to prevent terrorism. In early 2016, the visits of all religious leaders were blocked. Christians discriminated behind bars and forced to carry out degrading jobs.

Islamabad (AsiaNews / Agencies) - In Pakistan, Christian prisoners are denied the consolation of faith offered by chaplains denounces The World Watch Monitor, granted permission to visit detainees in prisons across the country. The Rev. Maurice Shahbaz, director of the Prison Mission Society of Pakistan, says he has been trying to get consent for visits to prisoners by missionaries, evangelicals, and pastors for more than a year. This would allow Christians, already discriminated against by cell companions because of their faith, to have at least the consolation of faith.

Tariq Mehmood Khan Babar, deputy general inspector, says the ban on imam visits to detainees dates back to early 2015, in conjunction with the approval of the National Action Plan. This is the terrorism prevention plan launched by Islamabad following the Taliban massacre at the Peshawar military school in December 2014, which resulted in the deaths of 132 children. If at first the goal was to eradicate Islamic extremism that could be filtered from the outside into prisons, the end result was a general restriction on the freedom of worship of all prisoners.

Pastor Shahbaz reports that the discontinuation of visits was decreed in early 2016, when "former chief inspector Mian Farooq Nazir imposed a ban on religious leaders and teachers to access prisons and visit prisons" . This decision also has an effect on the duration of detention, since a 1978 law provides for a reduction in the penalty for passing school examinations, which are no longer allowed.

The situation of Christian prisoners in Pakistan, an Islamic majority country, is tenuous. Most of them reveal maltreatment because of their religion. They complain that the behavior of other prisoners and guards changes as soon as they discover they are Christian. From that moment on, they are treated like "untouchables" and forced to consider degrading tasks such as cleaning the bathrooms.

Not only, given the bureaucratic length of the judicial system, Christians are likely to remain behind bars for long periods of time, especially if they are accused of blasphemy, which is punished with the death penalty in Pakistan. Activists argue that these complaints are often made for personal revenge or to protect the interests of the accusers. Human rights defenders add that the most pivotal question is that courts take years to verify the veracity of the facts and, if verified, to drop charges. Meanwhile, prisoners are languishing in cells.

One of them, Yousuf Sodagar, a social worker, remembers: "I was wrongfully imprisoned in 1993. I asked the prison inspector to allow prisoners to pray together. At first we were given two moments of worship, then one. When I later met the superintendent of the prisons in the district of Kasur, he told me that Christians would have to pray in a decent way and with the music turned down."
by Kamel Abderrahmani*

In a debate in France, the preacher Maamar Metmati said that Christians can interact with Muslims only if they convert to Islam or pay a tax. The Quranic verse he cites is taken out of its historical context and manipulated to feed the culture of hatred. Anti-racism associations have been silent so far.

Paris (AsiaNews)  As I start a petition of support for our Christian brothers and sisters in France to keep the Cross on top of the statue of John Paul II (in Ploermel, Brittany), I came across a debate between Islamist militants and a very dangerous Islamist preacher in France, who manipulates the sacred texts.

In this debate, Maamar Metmati cites chapter (Surah) 9, verse (Ayad) 29 (of the Quran) to justify his thesis according to which relations between Christians and Muslims must be based on the alternative of conversion or the imposition of a humbling tax.

The verse says: Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth, from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

This verse should not be taken out of context. The verse in question as used by this formidable preacher refers to the fighting between the Eastern Romans (Byzantines) and Muslims in Tabuk.

The Tabuk Campaign was the result of a conflict that began even before the conquest of Makkah. One of the missions sent to various parts of Arabia after the Pact of al-Hudaybiyah visited the clans who lived in the northern regions next to Syria. The majority of these people were Christians, influenced by the Eastern Roman Empire.

Contrary to the generally accepted principles of international law, the Romans killed fifteen members of the Muslim delegation near a place known as Zat-u-Talah (or Zat-i-Itlah). Only Ka'ab ibn Umair Ghifari, the head of the delegation, managed to escape and report the sad incident. What is more, Shurahbil ibn Amr, the Christian governor of Busra had also put to death Haritli ibn Umair, the ambassador of the Prophet Mohamed (peace), and who had been sent to him as a subordinate. These events convinced the Prophet that strong action should be taken to make the territory near the Eastern Roman Empire safe and secure for Muslims.

If we apply a linguistic analysis to this verse, we will notice that it is not about all Christians. It says clearly "from among the People of the Book (Bible). In other words, it is necessary to fight a specific group, not all those who received the Scripture.

Thus, far from history, far from the contexts of the past, the relationship between Muslims and Christians must be based on respect, peace and fairness. This Qur'anic recommendation concerning such a precise incident (the Tabuk conflict) should not be extended to relations between Muslims, Christians and Jews in our time.

Unfortunately, it is tragic to see some people, like this Islamist preacher, tar everything with the same brush, fuelling the sense of fear and hatred of non-Muslims, thus projecting this fear onto the scriptures of all religions.

To go back to this serious incident, I wonder whether the MRAP (Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l'amitie entre les peoples, Movement Against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples), the LDH (Ligue des droits de lhomme, Human Rights League), and SOS Racisme will have the courage to condemn it as a form of incitement to hatred and discrimination, which the penal code punishes with a  45,000 fine and one year in prison?

*Muslim student in Paris
Pope Francis will be in Dhaka from 30 November to 2 December 2017. Parishes are registering pilgrims. The organisation is handled by a central committee, plus twenty local and eight diocesan committees. Catholics in the north are sorry that the visit does not include a stop in the northern dioceses.

Dhaka (AsiaNews)  Hectic preparations are underway in Bangladesh for Pope Franciss upcoming visit to Dhaka from 30 November to 2 December 2017.

Catholics en masse are working on this great moment, Dhakas Archbishop, Card Patrick D'Rozario, said, from registering for individual events to organising meetings, from buses carrying the pilgrims to prayers in churches.

A Catholic source stressed the pilgrimage aspect of the visit. "From the beginning, Card D'Rozario has emphasised the spiritual preparation of the faithful. He has stressed that the pope will come to Bangladesh as a pilgrim. Thus, we too are experiencing the waiting period as a form of pilgrimage."

The cardinal has issued some instructions about spiritual preparation. He recommended each parish hold a community Rosary, a Mass, a moment of joint worship and a day of fasting. Each community will decide on the timing of the preparation, according to local needs."

The organisation of events is handled by a central committee, a Dhaka businessman said. The cardinal has personally chosen those in charge, people who can unify and pay attention to the spiritual aspect of the visit."

At the local level, "twenty committees are full of activities, Mgr DRozario said, each with twenty, twenty-five people. There are are eight diocesan committees, who are receiving registration requests from the parishes."

Some Catholics in northern Bangladesh, in the Diocese of Rajshahi and Dinajpur, note that "preparing such a trip to Dhaka is not easy, especially given the distance."

Considering that it takes some eight hours to travel the 300 kilometres from the two dioceses to the capital, "It is understandable that it will be difficult for us to move. That is why we are sorry that the pastoral visit does not also include a stop in the north."

The visit includes five major events, Card DRozario explained: "Mass at Suhrawardy Udyan Park, where up to 100,000 Catholics and 10,000 other Christians can be expected; visit to Dhaka cathedral with about 800 lay people, high officials, foreign donors; the interreligious and ecumenical peace gathering of major religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism) with nearly 5,000 people; the meeting with young people from all religions with 10,000 people expected; and finally, the meeting with some 1,500 men and women religious, priests, and seminarians. "

There is great anticipation in the country, even among the secular media, the prelate said. They are interested in the event and intend to broadcast it live on TV. And Many expect the pope to talk about the issue of the Rohingya refugees, which has recently generated so much interest in Bangladesh and Myanmar."

A Catholic professor reports that "each parish is registering people who want to participate. Names are then sent to the Central Committee, which ensures that applicants are known."

Determining the identity of participants is important for two reasons. "First, since the number of places is limited, it is best to favour people who have been involved in serving at the local level and who regularly attend their parish church compared to those who have never been seen. The second reason is security."

Security arrangements for the visit are designed to prevent violent acts by Islamic groups present in the country. "In case of visits by foreign leaders like the pope, security is in the hands of local forces, who beef up protection. But I dont think more agents will be employed than those already planned," Cardinal said.

Finally, there is concern, another Catholic said, because such an event can be very tempting for terrorists. It will not be will not be excessively guarded, but it will certainly be well secured."
Nine human heads and 240 bones and body parts were found in his flat. The mass murderer approached his prey on Twitter, pretending to share their suicidal thoughts. The series of murders began in late August. About 500,000 yen (US$ 4,390) were taken from the victims. An unmarried couple were the first to be killed. The victims were in their early twenties or younger.

Tokyo (AsiaNews/Agencies)  Takahiro Shiraishi, the serial killer in Zama (Kanagawa Prefecture), contacted his victims, mostly 17 to 20 in age, via the Internet and killed them to fulfil their desire for suicide, Tokyo police said.

The mass murderer (pictured) approached his victims on Twitter through various accounts including one called hangingpro.

Through the social networking service, Shiraishi replied to women who expressed suicidal feelings online with messages such as "Let's die together", pretending to share the same suicidal thoughts.

Police believe the 27-year-old man invited people who wished to die to his home in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture near Tokyo, where killed most of them.

Shiraishi moved to the flat at the end of August after which the series of murders began. He got rid of the personal effects of the victims but not their money, keeping about 500,000 yen (US$ 4,390).

Last Tuesday, the police found nine human heads and 240 pieces of bones and other body parts in his flat inside seven refrigerators, along with knives and other material used in the crimes.

Regarding the bodies, police quoted Shiraishi as telling them that he threw away parts (of them) after dismembering them in the bathroom.

The nine victims were believed to be a man around 20 years of age and eight women.

Shiraishi told police that out of the nine he killed, four were around 17 years old, four were aged around 20, and one was in the late 20s. He said he does not know the exact names and ages of the victims.

In trying to identify the victims, police are believed to be working on matching their DNA with a database of the DNA of missing people that has been collected since April 2015.

According to police, the first victims were an unmarried couple. In August, Shiraishi had a meal with the couple with whom he had become acquainted through Twitter. On a later day, he invited the woman to his apartment, where he killed her.

The womans boyfriend, unable to contact her, asked Shiraishi if he knew where she was. Shiraishi also invited him to the flat and killed him, fearing he might report her disappearance to police

Although declining, Japans suicide rate is the highest of the G7 countries, and remains a major social problem.

A total of 21,897 people took their own lives in 2016, down seven per cent from the peak of 34,427 in 2003.

Still, almost a quarter of all Japanese adults have seriously thought about suicide, this according to a survey whose findings were released last March by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

The ratio of those who have thought about committing suicide was 23.6 per cent in 2016, up from 19.1 per cent in 2008 and 23.4 per cent in 2012.

Since 2014, suicide remains the leading cause of death for Japanese aged from their late teens to early thirties. After that, the suicide rate remains stable.
By Jose Ramos, Lecturer, Globalisation Studies, Victoria University

Anton Jankovoy / Shutterstock.com

The 2017 Boyer Lectures explore what it is to be human in a digital world. In her four addresses, Professor Genevieve Bell discusses how we as Australians can build a digital future that is right for us.

For many Australians and indeed people around the world, views of the future are caught up in a binary narrative: technology good or technology bad.

In this dichotomy, technology is considered to be a thing that humans have and humans do. I would like to put forward a different notion: that technology is what humans are.

Read more: Digital technology may start a new revolution in social research

Views of technology

Were experiencing a great anxiety when it comes to the impact of technology. This public conversation is a polarised reaction to fast-paced technological transformation.

On one side are the technological fetishists, who welcome a new age of technological transcendence. People like computer scientist and futurist Ray Kurzweil see the coming of hyper-intelligent machines, a singularity, as the next stage in evolution.

The Singularity is the idea that artificial intelligence (AI) will reach a stage where it will be able to engineer ever more powerful AI, leading to an exponential rise in the power of AI, far surpassing human intelligence.

In this version of the story, technology will liberate us from death, ignorance and even the bounds of our life on Earth.

Read more: A survival guide for the coming AI revolution

Others are far more pessimistic about technology. Although US entrepreneur Elon Musk wants to use his technological prowess to colonise Mars, he is equally afraid of the consequences of AI.

Some researchers look at the potential onslaught of automation on jobs. Others examine the way in which mobile phones and big data have created a surveillance society that relentlessly competes for our ever more fragmented attention spans.

In this version of the story, technology is slowly dehumanising us, and has the potential to enslave or even destroy us.

In both attitudes, I believe our relationship to technology is mostly unconscious. This is where problems arise: technology is seen as a thing to be either praised or condemned, and something we have or do. But the question of who we are as technological beings is overlooked.

Read more: The future of artificial intelligence: two experts disagree

Who we are

Thinking about our relationship with technology has both philosophical and evolutionary elements.

There is strong evidence that the physiological development of human beings went hand in hand with our technological predilection. For example, the growth in the size of the human brain over hundreds of thousands of years has been linked to the invention of cooking. When humans were able to eat and digest nutrients faster, their time was freed up for other things.

Before we were human, we were crafting stone tools and cooking with fire. Even under the premise that fire was mastered in stages by our pre-modern hominin ancestors, the signs of our development as technological beings were there early on.

Our success as technological beings essentially created what might be called a species-based success formula. We shaped tools and instruments, created new methods and processes, and crafted elements of the natural world into usable items. As an animal species among many other species competing for survival, this was our unique route to success.

Read more: The daily life of a Neanderthal revealed from the gunk in their teeth

Chilean cognitive biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela describe how the cognition of a particular species is an expression of that species ontogeny (meaning the history or the stages in how that species developed).

They argue that cognition is the domain of interactions (behaviours and actions) by which a living being furthers its success. In the case of human cognition, our domain of interaction is fundamentally technological.

But theres a catch: the same success formula that allowed humans to conquer the planet  technological instrument power  has turned out to be the thing that now threatens our very existence. From nuclear apocalypse to climate change, bee colony collapse syndrome and now artificial intelligence, we are facing challenges that our ancestors could not have imagined.

Dealing with our fears

US philosopher Susanne Langer argued that cinema was akin to a dream mode. In this way, we might see cinema as a way in which contemporary society engages with its unconscious - unspoken issues and anxieties that are difficult to articulate, or even taboo.

Films such as 2001 A Space Odyssey, The Terminator, Blade Runner, Alien, and most recently Ex Machina, all engage audiences with their unconscious, deep-seated anxieties about our relationship with technology  our technological being-ness.

Read more: Science fiction helps us deal with science fact: a lesson from Terminators killer robots

Many of these films depict our relationship with technology as pathological, indeed humanicidal. They are simply reflecting, however, what is obvious from our own experience of the 20th century. Science, technology and industrialisation through the 19th and 20th centuries formed a kind of virtuous trinity of development and greatly expanded human instrumental power.

At the same time we saw a phase shift in our capacity to kill each other. In World War I this took the form of poison gas, machine guns, and artillery. At the close of World War II, the deadly efficiency of the Holocaust and the atomic bomb became clear.

From this point on, even bigger problems have emerged: the impact of economic growth on ecosystems and climate change (both issues that fundamentally threaten the existence of all humans). The German sociologist Ulrich Beck, who only recently passed away, talked about this as a world risk society. He argued that we had institutionalised the production of social risk through our contemporary industrial innovation systems.

We are technological beings

Given this, there is a better way for us to see and understand the challenges that we face in relation to technology. The answer is not to disown or push away all technology. As we are technological beings, this is a basic negation of who we are.

Read more: An AI professor explains: three concerns about granting citizenship to robot Sophia

Nor is the answer to uncritically fetishise technology as a good, as this ignores our unconscious anxieties with our technological existence. Instead, we need to come to grips with what our unconscious is trying to tell us, encoded for example through our cinematic art and our history.

As such we need to ask the question: what does it mean to be a responsible, mature and wise technological being?

If we can ask and get good answers to this type of question, I believe there is hope for us to steer paths to viable futures.

As 2017 Boyer lecturer Bell says, we can plan to shape a world in which we might all want to live.

Jose Ramos is founder and director of Action Foresight, a Melbourne based business. He has received funding from the P2P Foundation and the Victorian Eco Innovation Lab for research projects, as well as from businesses and government departments for various strategic foresight projects.

Originally published in The Conversation.
I think as long as it does not hit the 12 months mark, then no. Because that's what is written on the document requirements by the government. (That is my opinion, I'm not 100% sure)



However, there is a possibility the case officer may genuinely make a mistake by misreading the dates since they're so close with each other. If I was in your position, I would obtain the police check for the sake your assessment process since we don't want anymore delays as processing time for 820 and 801 has already increased
VIDEO: Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid Crash Test

The Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid, a new small car, is one of the three latest vehicles from Hyundai to earn the 2017 Top Safety Pick+ award from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

The other two are the redesigned Elantra GT, another small car, and the Santa Fe Sport, a mid-size SUV, according to IIHS.

To qualify for the award, a vehicle must garner the highest available rating of good in all five IIHS crashworthiness test categories  small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restraints. The vehicle also must draw a rating of advanced or superior for front crash prevention and a rating of acceptable or good for headlights.

The three vehicles qualify when equipped with optional front crash prevention and specific headlights, IIHS said. The optional front crash prevention system earned a rating of superior. All three vehicles avoided collisions in the 12 mph IIHS track test. In the 25 mph track test, the Ioniq Hybrid and the Santa Fe Sport both avoided a collision. The Elantra GT's impact speed was reduced by 22 mph.

The 2017 Ioniq Hybrid's high-intensity discharge (HID) headlights, which come with the Limited trim on vehicles built after May 2017, scored a rating of acceptable. Most of the other headlight variants drew a rating of poor, though IIHS said it hasnt yet had the opportunity to test the cars optional curve-adaptive HID lights built after May.

The 2018 Elantra GTs best available headlights also drew a rating of acceptable. They are optional LED headlights with high-beam assist, a feature that automatically switches between high beams and low beams  depending on the presence of other vehicles. Without the feature, the LED headlights attracted a rating of marginal. The base halogen headlights were rated poor.

The 2018 Santa Fe Sports optional curve-adaptive headlights with high-beam assist on vehicles built after June 2017 were rated as good. IIHS rated other headlight variants as acceptable or poor.

With these three vehicles, a total of seven models from the Hyundai brand qualify for the 2017 Top Safety Pick+ award.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
US Treasury(WASHINGTON) -- The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) severed ties between the American financial system and Chinese Bank of Dandong.



According to a news release, the Chinese bank "acts as a conduit for illicit North Korean financial activity," prompting the action. President Trump vowed to sever those ties this summer.



Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that the action "will better protect the U.S. financial system from illicit schemes used by North Korea to evade sanctions and finance its weapons programs."



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Film Capsules



Directed By Sean Baker Starring Willem Dafoe Brooklynn Prince Bria Vinaite Valeria Cotto Christopher Rivera Caleb Landry Jones (Thanks to Wikipedia.)

The Florida Project Over the course of a single summer, an imaginative, rambunctious 6-year-old girl named Moonee (tiny star Brooklynn Prince) gets in and out of trouble while living in a cheap motel in the shadow of Disneyland. While her tattoo-sporting single mom (Bria Vinaite) struggles to escape from grinding poverty, little Moonee spends time with the motel's kind-hearted manager (Willem Dafoe) and a ragtag collection of latchkey kids. There's not a lot, storywise, to this minimalist indie. But it's got heart and moxie and comes to us from writer-director Sean Baker, whose last film (Tangerine) was shot entirely on an iPhone. 111 minutes R.

See our Calendar page for special film events and screenings

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Mombasa Governor Hassan Ali Joho with his Kilifi counterpart Amason Kingi with Coast region officials discussing on launch Coast region secession official in Mombasa. PHOTO |FILE

The Mombasa Governor Hassan Ali Joho with his Kilifi counterpart Amason Kingi has today officially launched the bid for Coast region sucession. The duo said they also welcomed the Tana River Governor Dhadho Godhana and Taita Taveta Governor Granton Samboja in the official launch but sent representatives.The first meeting was held by the four governor last week where they agreed to join hands in the fight of the sucession as the region has to allot of resources but its natives are rendered poor by the presidential regimes.Hassan Joho clarified that secession is not happening now nor tomorrow but the press conference is the green light to start putting in place the right structures and the right processes to lead secession.Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho and his Kilifi counterpart Amason Kingi have this afternoon issued a statement that the Coast region will start the process of secession from the Republic of Kenya."Today the coast political leadership has held a consultative meeting in which it has been resolved to initiate the process of self-determination of the coastal peoples using all legal means, both local and international." Hassan Joho said."We wish to state that since independence, successive governments have marginalized and to date continue to marginalize and oppress our people. Therefore, such governments have no moral authority to govern us. It is no longer feasible for us as a people to continue in a country that does not recognize our aspirations as legitimate." Amason Kingi added."We, therefore, wish to announce the beginning of the consultative process towards secession of the Coast region," Joho added.In the short statement, the Governors said they have consulted and will continue to consult with lead constitutional experts on the matter in both local and international laws to guide the process.The process was started by the Kilifi North MP Owen Baya with the help of representatives from other Coastal regions representatives. The move has been seen by foreigners as Kenya will go in the Yugoslavia way soon if the Politics in the country will not change.They have also said that other leaders will lead a grassroots campaign to reach out to Kenyans and seek their opinion on the matter. The dialogue will involve all interest groups including youths, women, religious groups, NGOs and stakeholders in the Coast region.For those who doubt this movement!! Take a journey through the world history. Start with Europe, then the USA and Africa. Succession is a movement whose time has come and must be addressed by those in-power (oppressor) while there is time is now, otherwise, once succession train hits the tracks Kenya will be no more.
St. Petersburg City Council members are demanding answers concerning a waste water spill in September they say city water officials downplayed.

15 million gallons of partially treated water went into injection well

Disparity between information given to state DEP, given to the public

St. Pete, other cities will meet with DEP over aging infrastructure



There are questions regarding what state environmental officials were told about some 15 million gallons of partially treated water that was poured into an injection well in the citys North Plant after Hurricane Irma, compared to what the public was told.

Although city water officials accurately reported the spill to the Department of Environmental Protection, some council members insist those same officials downplayed the spill to the public in a Sept. 11 press release stating, The spill was contained on the plant property and none of the water went into any water body."

St. Pete is not alone with struggling with old, brittle infrastructure," said City Council Chair Darden Rice.

The D.E P. seems to agree. Officials there said St. Petersburg was among nearly a dozen cities and counties in the Bay area that received warning letters concerning spills during Hurricane Irma.

Several of those cities, including St. Petersburg, have meetings scheduled with D.E.P. officials to go over those spills.

Rice says there is something to be learned from all this.

Are we looking back at what we could've done better?" Rice said. "Are we looking at our operations to figure out how we could've gotten information more quickly or coordinated better? Of course we are, because that's how we get better for next time, because we know strong storms are going to be things of the future.
Here's your Tampa area weather forecast for late Friday into Saturday morning, with a preview of conditions through next week.



Status quo weather pattern



No significant rain



No fronts for a while



Patchy fog will develop early Saturday morning.

Low temperatures will be in the upper 50s to low 60s in northern counties and the mid to upper 60s in Tampa Bay.



Saturday will be mostly sunny with highs in the mid 80s again. The rain chance is less than 10 percent.

Sunday brings a slight increase in moisture. The morning will have fog. Skies will be partly sunny.

There will be a 10 percent chance of showers in the afternoon. It will remain warm with high temperatures in the low to mid 80s Sunday afternoon.

We will have a chance of a few isolated showers on Monday afternoon, but most of next week looks to be dry.

Temperatures will be slightly above average, with highs in the mid 80s and lows in the upper 60s Monday through Wednesday.

A cold front will approach our area toward the end of next workweek. It will not bring any big changes though.





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Opening statements started Friday in the case of a Pasco County man accused of killing four people.

PREVIOUS STORY: Jury members chosen on day four of 2014 Pasco quadruple murder trial

Adam Matos is accused of killing his ex-girlfriend, her new boyfriend, and her parents back in 2014. Prosecutors believe jealousy may have been the motive for the murders.

His team defense team Friday declined to deliver an opening statement. The prosecution painted a gruesome picture that unfolded when Matos' former girlfriend started a new job and new relationship in a new town.

The 32-year-old is accused of killing Megan Brown, Nicholas Leonard, and both of Brown's parents in Hudson.

"This defendant, Adam Matos, threatened to kill the mother of his child, Megan Brown, and then later that day, he made good on his threat, came back and killed her, her parents Greg and Margaret and her new boyfriend Nicholas Leonard," prosecutor Bryan Sarabia said in court.

The prosecution said Megan Brown was shot through the eye and that her mother was found beaten to death with a hammer. Leonard was beaten so badly that his skull was caved in, according to the prosecution, who said Matos spent hours if not days trying to clean everything up.

Matos also used Brown's credit card to buy a video game system, pizza and a shovel, prosecutors said, adding that he sold the family's puppies and allowed the buyers inside the home while the bodies were still inside.



After four full days of questioning dozens of potential jurors, the final 12 were sworn in Thursday for a trial that is expected to last several weeks. What made the jury process particularly difficult was this being a death penalty case.

Under Florida law, any death penalty sentence must be approved unanimously by the jury.

Each potential juror was asked if they could, under any potential circumstance, consider capital punishment.

In court throughout the week, Matos sat next to his attorneys, clean-shaven and wearing a suit, looking very different than he did back in 2014 when he was arrested and charged with the brutal murders.

Matos' attorneys say he's maintained his innocence all along.
To fans, Miley Cyrus will always be Hannah Montana, Adam Brody will always be Seth Cohen from "The O.C.," and Robert Pattinson will always be a vampire.

However, for an actor taking on various characters, looks and motivations for different parts, sometimes it be hard to break away from the roles that defined the.
The City of Port Arthur has sued four people, including two city employees, for the misuse of city-issued credit cards in a gas theft scheme that led to their 2016 arrests.

The city alleges in the civil suit, filed in Jefferson County, that Steven Robert Guidry Jr. and Randle Davis Jr. committed fraud and breached fiduciary duty. Guidry, Davis, Rabindra Nauth, David Fitzgerald Frank and his company, Frank's Trucking, are accused of conversion and conspiracy.

Port Arthur is suing through the Texas Municipal League Intergovernmental Risk Pool, an insurance provider that the suit says paid out $279,921.i20 in Public Employee Dishonesty coverage for losses due to the defendants' actions, which they are seeking to recover.

Guidry and Davis were supervisors in the city's

Streets Department, and Nauth and Frank, employees of Frank's Trucking, "were engaged in ongoing thefts" using the city's Fuelman credit cards from October 2014 to September 2015, attorney Brittani Miller wrote in the petition.

The suit alleges that Guidry and Davis, who should have used the cards only for diesel fuel for Streets Department equipment, received money from Frank and Nauth in exchange for their use of the cards to purchase diesel fuel for Frank's Trucking.

The conversion claim alleges that the defendants "wrongfully exercised dominion or control" over the city's personal property, causing the damages.

Davis and Guidry are accused of breaching their duties to be loyal to the city, refrain from self-dealing and to act with integrity, and made false representation to the city that they would and did carry out their jobs faithfully.

Nauth has denied all allegations in an answer filed in October; the other defendants have not filed responses to the suit.

Guidry and Davis were fired from the city in October 2015. All four were charged with engaging in organized criminal activity in January 2016.

Guidry and Davis were also charged with theft by a public servant and Frank and Nauth were charged with felony aggravated theft.

Court documents show the indictments against all four were dismissed in August and September, and that the cases will be re-indicted.

The city of Port Arthur has moved to tighten its cost controls to prevent similar thefts from happening, Port Arthur City Manager Brian McDougal said after their arrests.

A forensic investigation requested by the City after residents called for an audit was released in May, which found risky procedures and a "lack of control," but no wrongdoing.

The investigation was focused on the finance, public works, parks and recreation and human resources departments, according to the report, covering dates from Oct. 1, 2009 to March 31, 2015. Firm BKD LLP wrote in a report that there were procedural gaps that could allow for fraud, including in the vendor accounts system, wage garnishment policies and procurement card use.

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Director of IMD Chennai, S Balachandran, has reportedly forecasted rain to continue for the next two-three days as the low-pressure area over the Bay of Bengal is currently moving around Sri Lanka, adjoining south-west Bay of Bengal and Tamil Nadu coast. Reportedly, rainfall will continue over North coastal parts of Tamil Nadu with heavy to very heavy rains over some coastal districts in the next 24 hours.
Bombardier's C Series narrow-bodied jet programme may finally soar over former obstacles in its way after winning a $4.8bn deal from a new European customer, an analyst has claimed.

The Canadian aerospace giant, which employs around 4,000 people here, has announced a deal potentially worth close to $5bn for up to 61 of its C Series planes, the wings of which are made in Belfast.

It's been interpreted as a vindication of a new arrangement with arch-rival Airbus announced last month for co-operation in C Series production.

President and chief executive Alain Bellemare said: "This significant new order confirms the increasing confidence customers have in the C Series.

"Looking forward, as Airbus joins the programme and with C Series continuing to prove itself in service, we expect sales momentum to accelerate quickly."

The jet was launched two years ago, after going around $2bn over budget and suffering a two-year delay.

Since then it's faced the further setback of a US action by rival Boeing, resulting in tariffs of 300% on its imports into the US.

Yesterday, Bombardier refused to give any further details of the new deal, and whether it would mean a recruitment drive for more workers in its wing-building programme.

And it's not expected to change the course of 280 job losses in its support functions in Northern Ireland, which were announced last week.Around 1,000 people are currently employed in the making of the wings, which are made from sophisticated composite materials.

Yesterday, Bombardier's third quarter results revealed that a European customer had signed a letter of intent for up to 61 C Series including 31 firm aircraft and options for an additional 30 aircraft.

The firm order is worth $2.4bn or $4.8bn if all options are exercised.

Martin Craigs, a former Bombardier worker and ex-chief executive of Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), said the deal was "terrific news" for Belfast.

"It shows the power of Airbus marketing. To be announcing this within two weeks of the deal is astonishing. It speaks to the power and influence of Airbus marketing and the confidence which customers are now having in the programme as a result," he said.

Last week Bombardier announced that complications with United Technologies, which produces its Pratt and Whitney jet engines, meant it was having to review its delivery plans.

Addison Schonland, an analyst at airinsight.com, said the order - along with its tie-up with Airbus and its performance with existing customers - had transformed the C Series' prospects.

"Airlines and lessors can review and consider the C Series without anywhere near the risk and concern they had even three months ago," he said. "In conclusion, the C Series programme may, at last, be breaking through the numerous barriers that have been thrown in its path."

The firm yesterday revealed full-year earnings would be around $630m in its third-quarter results. Mr Bellemare said the results highlighted "continued progress transforming the company".
Sir Kenneth Branagh has praised Agatha Christies ability to keep an audience guessing as the reason for the storytellers continued relevance.

The award-winning actor directs and stars in a new adaptation of Christies 1934 novel Murder On The Orient Express, which features a stellar cast including Dame Judi Dench, Olivia Colman, Penelope Cruz, Michelle Pfeiffer and Johnny Depp.

Speaking on the red carpet of the films premiere at the Royal Albert Hall in central London, he told the Press Association that audiences love the fact she (Christie) can orchestrate with 15 characters with still enough diversion and dazzle to keep you guessing.

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Sir Kenneth, who portrays moustached detective Hercule Poirot in the film, added: In this case you get fantastic actors and they surprise you from the inside with the power and emotion it generates.

When I read this script I found it very moving, I still find the film very moving. Its surprising because theres a bit of loss in the middle of that story which is very affecting and this version captures that.

The detective novel about the Belgian sleuth sees him investigate a death in his carriage on the Orient Express train from Istanbul to London.

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Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley, who plays passenger Mary Debenham in the film, said Christies timeless writing meant the latest adaptation remained relevant.

She told the Press Association: Agatha Christie was an amazing writer  her stuff lives on.

I think to get a new set of people together and a new sort of energy telling a story, and Ken tweaked it slightly, theres a couple of different characters  I think its just wonderful.

She added: On a nice cold evening, go to the cinema, watch a cast of people who may or may not have killed someone.

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Colman said the famed authors writing offers escapism and compared trying to detect who the killer is to a pub quiz.

Its so sumptuous and so beautiful and exciting. It takes you out of whatever else is going on in the world, which I think is always quite welcome, she added.

Sir Derek Jacobi, Tom Bateman, Josh Gad, Leslie Odom Jr and Lucy Boynton also star in the film, which is released in UK cinemas on November 3.
Peering through the window at the MAC

Controversial artists Gilbert and George, who earned the wrath of Ian Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church nearly 20 years ago, have paid a flying visit back to Belfast to prepare for a new exhibition in the city - and this time there wasn't a protester in sight.

In 1999 the quirky English duo were picketed by dozens of demonstrators at their last exhibition at the Ormeau Baths gallery.

The church members were incensed at the artists' work, which included naked portraits of themselves. The displays also included examples of human excrement and semen.

Free Presbyterians who sang hymns and waved placards outside the exhibition said it was an offence against human decency and was using sewage as an arts presentation.

At one point a bewildered Gilbert and George peered outside to see the protesters on Ormeau Avenue but decided against inviting them in.

The artists have now been back in Belfast to promote a new exhibition which opens at the MAC Belfast in January.

The pair posed for photographs at a number of landmarks in Belfast including the Harland & Wolff cranes

It's not clear if Free Presbyterians will protest at the new exhibition.

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Scapegoating Pictures has excited officials at the MAC, which has shown work by world famous artists like David Hockney and Andy Warhol

Hugh Mulholland, senior curator at the MAC, said: "We are delighted to be bringing Gilbert and George to Belfast again after an absence of nearly 20 years.

"In many ways Northern Ireland is a very different place to what it was in 1999 when they last exhibited here, but in many ways we remain the same and still have unresolved issues around equality and the recognition of individual rights."

Noirin McKinney, director of arts development at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, said: "Gilbert and George are the most influential duo of contemporary British art.

"Scapegoating Pictures, like all their epic works, will no doubt offend, provoke and intrigue us, presenting the viewer with an unrelenting portrayal of the fractures evident in Britain today.

"The Arts Council is delighted to endorse this latest exhibition at the MAC; we hope it will inspire many thousands of people to come along and be challenged and engaged by the unique vision of the remarkable artistic collaboration which is Gilbert and George."

The exhibition will run from January 25 until March 31, 2018
Dark days: an RUC patrol on the dangerous streets of Northern Ireland during the Troubles

The surgeons called him Mr Lucky. And that's because they were astounded - happily so - that the young policeman in their care after an IRA ambush in Belfast managed to live to tell the tale of his horrific ordeal.

Another officer died in the terror attack in the city centre and the critically injured policeman had to be resuscitated in the operating theatre several times after he was shot in the head, neck and cheek in front of shocked shoppers who tried their best to help the patrol.

The wounded man's eyes, ears and nose were all badly damaged and he was on life support for several weeks but he was able to prove the medics wrong by surviving and rebuilding his life.

Now 'Mr Lucky's' remarkable story has been told in a challenging new play by former drama teacher and military historian Philip Orr.

The Carrickfergus writer developed his play, In Search of Hope, after coming into contact with the victim and his wife through an organisation in North Down called Decorum, whose members are mainly former police officers who were injured during the Troubles.

What the couple told Philip horrified him but inspired him to suggest turning their nightmare into a play.

After lengthy conversations Philip set about composing intertwined monologues about the devastating legacy that the shooting had left - physically and emotionally - on their lives. The couple were also keen to talk about their faith which they now say helped pull them through their crises.

Philip says: "Part of what they were dealing with was how to navigate their experiences within the context of their faith."

Philip won't identify the RUC family or the exact location of the actual shooting because the victims want to remain anonymous as they still live in fear, despite Northern Ireland's more peaceful climate.

The play, which will initially be seen in four venues in Co Down, does not dwell on the by-now common threads of truth and justice.

"It's more an attempt to bring to life what happened to this family, in particular in the face of the unexpected awfulness and horror," says Philip.

The story of the policeman's wife and how she coped after the ambush is hugely significant in the drama, according to Philip.

"She has the dominant role in many ways and that's very important because it shows how partners and families were impacted by violence which also ripples out into a wider circle and community," says Philip, who believes the policeman's narrative is deeply touching too.

"He paints a very vivid picture of what it is like to be shot and to come through what was a near-death experience.

"He also recounts the psychological as well as the physical struggles to recover. Then there's his survivor guilt as he mourned for his dead colleague."

One of the most powerful episodes in the play is the revelation that several years after the ambush a number of civilians who witnessed it and helped the casualties made contact with the injured policeman

Philip says: "They were deeply affected by what happened and they wanted to see him again. It was very moving."

The policeman is still receiving medical care, including grafts, many years after he was shot, and because no one has ever been charged with the attack he and his wife apparently always have a dread of encountering his assailants in the street.

Philip explains: "The question of forgiveness is also addressed in the play along with the tests that the couple's faith had to endure after the shooting.

"It's a very close-up and intimate insight into how one couple endeavoured to wrestle with and make sense of everything that had gone on."

The policeman's recovery has been long and arduous and a series of reconstructive surgeries have been carried out to rebuild his face.

But for every physical issue he's had to overcome, the policeman has also experienced a series of mental difficulties, some of them totally unexpected.

Philip says: "One problem for the police officer and his wife was that they found it hard to return to the centre of Belfast because of what their visits might re-awaken.

"They did go back eventually but their reluctance was yet another legacy of the Troubles which faced countless thousands of people in Northern Ireland.

Philip says: "I've been amazed to discover so many ripples coming out of the conflict. And I'm not talking in a partisan way. These issues span the whole of society coming out of the Troubles."

Philip believes it's important that the stories of the Troubles are recorded for posterity: "I think plays like this one will serve as a shocking reminder to future generations of what it was like to live through an awful time like this.

"It's crucial that we don't forget the Troubles. You just have to look at the book Lost Lives which records all of the deaths to realise how many people were caught up in the violence over so many years.

"And each and every one of the people who died had a story with an individual depth to it and which is relevant to a family today.

"What we have done with the play is to take one particular story of one victim, but because security force involvement was so massive in the Troubles I think the play will echo with many families."

Philip has long been a chronicler of conflicts and history. His book, The Road to the Somme, is generally acknowledged as the definitive work on the First World War battle which claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Ulster soldiers.

In the past 12 years, Philip has been involved in a range of work on behalf of museums, community groups and good relations units of councils. He has given talks and taken classes on history and identity as well as writing plays for local drama groups including the Kabosh Theatre Company.

His recent dramatic subjects have included the Ulster Covenant: 1916 and Martin Luther.

Philip got involved with the Decorum group in Bangor at the request of Ards and North Down Council, who wanted him to listen to members talking about their experiences.

After meeting the injured policeman and his wife, Philip realised they had a powerful story to share. "I knew it would make a strong piece of theatre," says Philip, who consulted with the couple at every stage of the writing process and told them they had full authority over the script to make any changes they wanted.

Before each 40 minute performance by actors Louise Parker and Xander Duffy, Philip will give a talk to set the play in context and afterwards it's hoped there will be a question and answer session with the audience.

Philip doesn't know if the play will have a life beyond the four shows, but he hopes more similar projects will follow to spread other stories of people who suffered in the violence.

He says: "I think plays like this one are precisely what we need in order to heal as we reflect back on the era of the Troubles. I am a great believer in the power of the theatre to explore the past. It enables some unsayable things to be said and very difficult subjects to be broached."

As for the couple at the centre of Philip's play, he says they have come out of their traumatic ordeal 'remarkably well' and they have tried to resume a normal life.

Philip adds: "There is no bitterness and there is a calm ability after all these years to handle the world they find themselves living in. They are a most impressive family."

In Search of Hope is at the British Legion, Comber, Nov 7; Thriving Life Church, Newtownards, Nov 8; British Legion, Bangor, Nov 10 and Village Hall, Ballywalter, Nov 11. The play runs from 7-9pm each night. Light refreshments will be served and there will be an optional discussion afterwards
Shimna Integrated College in Newcastle, Co Down

Four schools in Northern Ireland have received financial assistance from Qatar to provide Arabic as a foreign language option.

The funding has been provided by the US-based Qatar Foundation International.

The tiny oil-rich Gulf state is currently in a diplomatic standoff with Saudi Arabia over its alleged support for Islamic extremism.

A total of nine schools in the United Kingdom have been selected to benefit from this new funding stream.

Three are in Essex, one in Bradford and one in Cardiff.

The Qatar Foundation International has donated a total of 400,000 to the British Council programme.

Of this sum, 70,000 will be spent in classrooms across the United Kingdom for the teaching of Arabic in the belief that it will be the business language of the future.

Among the recipients is Shimna Integrated College, Newcastle.

Principal Kevin Lambe said: "We've seen huge benefits from teaching Arabic, not just for long-term employment and business opportunities, but mainly around cultural integration and understanding."

Shimna Integrated College is a three-time winner of the International Schools Award.

According to the British Council, there are 230 million native Arabic speakers - with Arabic as a second language for up to 200 million more people.

The council has ranked Arabic as the second most important language to the UK over the next 20 years.

Fewer than one per cent of schools in the UK teach Arabic at any level.

The British Council has a strong track record of encouraging the teaching of Arabic in Northern Ireland .

In 2016, nine schools in Northern Ireland participated in an initiative started by the British Council's Arabic Culture and Language Programme.

Belfast Royal Academy, Shimna Integrated College, Methodist College, St Columb's College, St Malachy's Primary, St Catherine's College, St Patrick's Grammar, Saints & Scholars and St Patrick's Primary all took part.
Youths have targeted the home of a foreign national family in north Belfast in what police are treating as a hate crime.

A brick was thrown at the front window of the property in York Road on Thursday night.

A woman and child who were inside at the time escaped injury.

It is understood the family is originally from Bangladesh.

The incident happened at around 10.20pm on Thursday and police said a number of youths were reportedly involved.

A PSNI spokesman appealed for witnesses to come forward.

"Hate crime, in all its forms, is totally unacceptable," he said.

"It is the responsibility of each and every one of us to ensure that we live in a society where diversity is respected. If you or someone you know is the victim of a hate crime please contact police or your local support agency."

Earlier in the week, a Belgian man suffered head and arm injuries when a brick was thrown through the front window of his house in Wayland Street in east Belfast.
East Belfast on the day the potential deal came to light

A potential multi-billion pound deal for Bombardier was cheered on the streets of east Belfast yesterday, a community where the livelihood of many families depends on the aerospace giant.

The Canadian firm's future in Northern Ireland and the jobs of around 4,000 workers have been in serious jeopardy since a trade dispute with the American firm Boeing.

Yesterday, the company was thrown a lifeline after a European customer signed a letter of intent to produce 31 new C-Series aircraft, with an option to create 30 more.

With a new production partnership with the US firm Airbus, many in east Belfast were hopeful the deal would protect workers.

The Rev Mervyn Gibson of Westbourne Presbyterian church on the Newtownards Road said he was relieved.

"Given the current political climate it's fantastic news that peoples' jobs should now be secured in east Belfast and the broader community," he said.

"Shorts (the original owner of the Belfast factory) has always been a huge part of the community, one of the main employers in the east.

"People saw the shipyards going downhill until it employed very few people and they feared Shorts would go the same way."

He added: "We've one or two families in the church associated with Bombardier and certainly it was a time of uncertainty for them. Hopefully this will change things."

Traders in east Belfast also welcomed the multi-billion dollar deal.

David Gough, owner of the Newton cafe, said it was "awesome news" for east Belfast.

"It keeps jobs safe and helps all businesses around here stay alive," he said. "We get a lot of trade from people from Shorts, so long may it continue."

Cafe workers Lauren Wilson (22) and Shannon McCord (20), said it would mean a great deal to customers.

"It's always a worrying thing to not know if your job's safe, especially coming up to Christmas," said Lauren.

"I've a friend who works in Shorts and they were worried sick about their job, but this is great news for them."

Shannon added: "It's great news for businesses like the cafe, lots of them would come here and hopefully this keeps their jobs secure."

Colin McKay (70), from east Belfast, said: "That's good for the Bombardier people. I know a few people who work there who were sure they would lose their jobs. This is a lot of help for them."

Ray McReynolds who runs a carpet and upholstery business, was having breakfast with his young son Stephen.

The 48-year-old, who also carried out contract work for Bombardier in the past, said: "It's good for workers in the east who have probably been under stress for years. I know a few boys who work there, it was difficult for them but hopefully their families will be safeguarded for a while."

Ken Thompson (65), from Donegall Pass said: "It's good news for a change, not just for the workers there but for all the outside contractors like electricians who depend on them. The last thing people need at this time of the year is to be paid off."

Bakery worker Stuart Hanratty (32) added: "I know people from school who feared for their jobs. That includes a lot of agency staff as well, about 250, so they can breathe a sigh of relief too. Hopefully a year down the line there's no more problems, but you never know."

John Duffy, owner of the Fresh Meat Centre, said he hoped the news would help local business.

"It's great news about the deal, jobs will hopefully be kept and families can enjoy Christmas time and can start the new year with a smile on their faces," he said.

"It's good for trade as well, as businesses on the Newtownards Road really need a helping hand too."

Andrew Irvine from the East Belfast Mission has been helping 400 long-term unemployed people get back into work.

He said: "When we hear that jobs are (hopefully) secured like this, it's tremendously good news for us.

"Every day we get to see the impact that unemployment has on peoples' self-worth and their families.

"Most people may not appreciate how traumatic that actually is.

"So from our point of view, this is extremely good news."
A Chinese man was remanded into custody on Friday on charges linked to herbal cannabis being sent through the post to Belfast.

A Chinese man was remanded into custody on Friday on charges linked to herbal cannabis being sent through the post to Belfast.

Several kilos of the drugs were recovered earlier this week following a joint operation between the PSNI and Home Office immigration officials.

Long Fei Xu appeared before Belfast Magistrates' Court accused of seven offences in connection with the investigation.

The 27-year-old, with an address at Thorndale Avenue in the city, is charged with conspiracy to supply and possessing Class B drugs with intent to supply on November 1.

Further counts include having and converting criminal property, namely cash, and breaching immigration restrictions by overstaying leave to remain in the UK.

Xu did not seek bail during the brief hearing.

He was remanded in custody to appear again by video-link in two-weeks time.
Sixteen elderly residents were facing disruption last night after a privately-owned home announced it was closing.

The owners of Rathowen Care Home, situated halfway between Portadown and Tandragee, informed patients and staff yesterday of their decision to close the facility, which also has 30 staff.

"It is with deep regret that we announce the closure of Rathowen Care Home within the next 28 days after 42 years," the owners, Mr and Mrs Watt said.

"Management have informed staff, patients and relatives of the decision throughout the day, explaining that the closure is due to ongoing difficulties in recruiting and retaining the skilled and experienced nursing staff required to run the home."

The owners said they intended to retire once the last patient had been placed in alternative accommodation.

"Management will work to ensure that patients, relatives and staff are kept informed throughout the closure transition, and in consultation with the Southern Health and Social Care Trust, ensure the transition is carried out with the highest concern for patient care."

A spokeswoman for the owners told the Belfast Telegraph last night that recruitment difficulties, coupled with high costs for agency nurses, had influenced the decision to close.

"The owners are feeling quite distressed about the decision they've had to make," she said.

"There is a national ongoing shortage of nurses, and the home has had a reliance on agency staff, and that has had an impact on everything else.

"We have met with staff, we have met with relatives, and the Southern Trust, who are currently seeking beds for the 16 people who currently live here.

"They are confident that there are beds available, and that everybody will be successfully placed within the next 28 days.

"The home will continue to operate until the last person leaves."

Mayor of Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Council Gareth Wilson said the Rathowen Care Home would be missed.

He paid tribute to its contribution to the local community.

"It's been in operation for quite a few years now," he said.

"It's been popular and well thought of.

"My own grandmother had been a resident in it and I knew the home well.

"The staff were always very pleasant and helpful.

"It's unfortunate its closing. It was a valuable local facility and a valuable local employer."

The news of the home's closure comes just days after the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority, which oversees standards in nursing homes, issued a written decision ordering that admissions to Rathowen should cease until standards improved.

The Southern Trust said: "Rathowen Care Home in Tandragee recently informed the trust that the home is closing.

"The trust is working closely with RQIA and the home to ensure a safe transfer of the residents to alternative accommodation.

"The trust has assigned individual key workers to work closely with each of the residents and their families to find alternative accommodation so they can receive safe, high-quality care in a suitable environment which meets their individual needs."
A bizarre spate of apparent cat abductions which began in Newry earlier this year before spreading across the island of Ireland is getting worse, with almost 250 felines now reported missing.

Emma O'Hare from Pet Connections in Newry started plotting each reported incident on a map in September when the number of missing moggies stood at 70, but she has been left horrified by the alarming pattern it revealed - including a spike last month.

"There has definitely been a huge spike in the month of October, this is not a case of cats going for a walk," Emma told the Belfast Telegraph.

"We are now covering a much larger area and the scale of the problem is absolutely shocking.

"I am convinced it's malicious and could be the work of just one person."

The number of missing pets currently stands at 242, but it is rising daily and has sparked concerns that someone may be imitating the 'M25 Cat Killer' in England.

The twisted cat prowler is believed to be behind the death and mutilation of more than 250 cats - as well as dozens of foxes and rabbits - since 2015. The mystery culprit started the killing spree in south London and was initially dubbed the 'Croydon Cat Killer', but had to be given the new nickname after dead animals were discovered as far north as Manchester.

Emma said: "Most of the cats are going missing along main roads, particularly the motorway between Belfast and Dublin. But there has also been a large number of missing cats reported in the south Belfast area.

"The glaring difference of course is that no bodies are turning up over here, but I have genuine concerns that we are dealing with a copycat here."

Emma is convinced that the number of abductions could be significantly higher due to people's reluctance or inability to report their beloved pet missing.

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"There's a lot of elderly people who rely on cats for company and they can't access social media," she said.

"They won't be aware that this is happening and therefore won't think to report it - and to me that's heartbreaking.

"Then there will be those who assume their cat has strayed and they'll be reluctant to report it, especially after a period of time."

Two distraught cat owners who have fallen victim to the cruel culprit have reported seeing a white van in the area at the time of the disappearances.

"It could just be a coincidence, but people should be aware of it in case it is related," Emma added.

All the missing cats are described as friendly felines who had not been prone to wandering.

"Out of all the cats to vanish, 80% were neutered and 39% had micro-chips - that means a significant number would have been returned if they were found," Emma said.

"Behind every single case is a heartbroken family and a child crying themselves to sleep at night."

The pet care provider, who helped re-home many of the cats who have vanished from the Newry area, has been left comforting devastated families in the wake of the mysterious episode.

"We are offering as much support as possible can, but we can't bring the cats back," she said.

Ms O'Hare said that she handed over her database to the PSNI in September, but claimed that she has had no more communication with the PSNI since then.

"I understand that the police are busy, but I am encouraging individual owners to report their missing cat," she said.

"It's the only way they will take it seriously and, at the end of the day, causing harm or suffering to a cat is a criminal offence.

"It's also a proven fact that people who abuse animals are much more likely to end up killing people."

Responding, a spokesperson for the PSNI told the Belfast Telegraph they have not received any additional material or evidence from the pet charity or from any members of the public.

However, the spokesperson added: "Should new information come to light, police will make appropriate enquiries."
Gordon Crawford, Jolene O'Hara and Gavin Peden launch Sleeping Beauty, which opens at the Belfast Waterfront from Wednesday, December 6

Details of Belfast's bid to become a European Capital of Culture 2023 have been leaked.

A BBC report reveals that the uncosted City Council draft bid document called #WeAre2023 - prepared in association with Derry and Strabane Council - contains a host of fascinating proposals, including:

 A forest of trees on Royal Avenue from Belfast City Hall to Ulster University's Belfast campus.

 An Anthony Gormley sculpture on the Glenshane Pass.

 A new arts festival in Londonderry called New Norths.

 A carnival marking the 1932 outdoor relief strike in Belfast.

 Portraits of people dancing projected on landmark buildings in Belfast and Derry for all of 2023.

 A national #loveto day in 2023 when businesses would give staff a day off to go to a cultural event.

 A series of "bothiesetails on the border" where artists would work.

 A project called homebots that would train teachers to help pupils build domestic robots.

Cities in both the UK and Hungary are due to be awarded the title in 2023, and Belfast, Dundee, Milton Keynes, Leeds and Nottingham have formally submitted their bids. While the UK will no longer be a member of the European Union by 2023, Belfast City Council still hopes the bid has a chance of success. The UK Government has been eager to point out that three non-EU cities have held the title in the past - Reykjavik in 2000, Stavanger in 2008, and Istanbul in 2010 - with the host cities only required to show a "strong European dimension" to their cultural programmes.

If the bid is successful Belfast and Derry would follow Glasgow and Liverpool in receiving the prestigious title.

In a statement, Belfast City Council said: "ECOC 2023 is a highly competitive process and we will not give a detailed comment at this stage, especially as the timing is so crucial and ahead of the decision by the judging panel and the pitch that is taking place on November 28.

"We are disappointed that the BBC would choose to publish details of a confidential competitive document and potentially put at risk the chances of securing this important accolade that could bring significant and once in a lifetime opportunities."

It is understood that a shortlist is likely to be announced by the end of this year.
Air disaster in Russia in April 2010 claimed lives of all 96 people on board including Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria

Forensic experts in Northern Ireland have been drafted in to help the Polish authorities solve a mysterious plane crash seven years ago that killed the country's President Lech Kaczynski.

All 96 people on board the aircraft, including Mr Kaczynski, his wife Maria and other members of a delegation from Warsaw travelling to Russia to commemorate the Katyn massacre, were killed on April 10, 2010.

The Tupolev Tu-154M plane crashed while approaching Smolensk Air Base. At the time pilot error and bad weather had been blamed for the disaster.

But a new inquiry has been launched after a member of the Polish Government said there may have been an explosion.

The BBC has reported that samples arrived at the forensic labs near Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, last month.

The National Prosecution Office in Warsaw said it had signed a contract with Forensic Science Northern Ireland (FSNI) to "perform explosive trace analysis on samples preserved during the ongoing investigation into the crash of TU-154M No.101 aircraft".

"FSNI's work under this contract is purely scientific and routine" said the National Prosecution Office on its website.

"FSNI will not make any comment on the potential causes of the crash, nor offer an opinion or interpretation of the analysis results in such context."

The leading forensic adviser to the National Prosecution Office in Warsaw, Pavel Rybicki, travelled to Northern Ireland.

"What we would like to establish is if there are explosive residues on the samples taken from Poland by the prosecutors," Mr Rybicki told the BBC.

He added that forensic scientists in Northern Ireland had been chosen to help because of their recognised expertise in explosives analysis.

"We would like to confirm the presence of residues of explosive, or not, and all the results of the analysis will be taken into account in the further stage of the investigation," Mr Rybicki said.

The Department of Justice confirmed that the forensic service has been engaged by the Polish National Prosecution Office to conduct scientific work on their behalf.
A Northern Ireland woman has bravely told of how she rebuilt her life after being the victim of voyeurism.

Karen Taggart (46) has courageously waived her right to anonymity to go public. She suffered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and at one point was too terrified to even venture to the bottom of the road to take the bin out.

She hopes that by telling her story it will help others to come forward and get the help they need.

Karen was targeted when she worked in a Co Antrim business. The perpetrator was Eric Lauro (54), who at the time of his conviction had an address at Artana Street in Belfast.

He was her team leader and violated her by secretly filming her in the staff bathroom.

He pleaded guilty to the offence and was sentenced on October 19, 2012.

Karen was first made aware of the images on September 8, 2008.

It's understood police had received intelligence that Lauro had indecent images of children on his computer and when they examined it they found another file containing the footage.

Karen was shown the images by police and asked if she could identify herself in them.

She was not told the nature of what the images were in connection with. It would be another four years before Lauro admitted his crimes and was sentenced for them.

She recalled the moment her life upside down. "I was told there was footage and the police came out the following morning. I was shown, two photographs, one at a time," she said.

"I was asked could I identify myself, and when I looked at the first photographs I said yes I think so, it looks like me.

"But she (the officer) handed me another photograph and I knew straight away. I knew it was me."

Karen was told "very little" about what had happened or how the photos had come about.

It was then on September 5, 2011 that Lauro was arrested and Karen was told there would be a trial, as he was denying the charges.

She said: "It was through court we found out the police had received intelligence he had indecent images of children on his computer.

"It was 13 months of knowing that I was now going to be in court and go into a witness box and be ripped to shreds for something that I had no part in and had no knowledge of what it was he was doing."

However, 10 days before the trial was due to begin the police officer rang to say Lauro had changed his plea to guilty for both crimes.

"They asked if I would like to go to court," she said.

"It was like it was an afterthought, and I said: 'You're right, I'll be going'."

Karen's hurt was compounded when she said she had to ask to submit a victim impact statement.

She recalled the day of his sentencing as she saw him waiting to go into the courtroom.

"I saw him sitting over to my side, I straightened myself up and I looked at him and didn't glare or anything," she said.

"He lifted his eyes when he heard the heels and he looked at me and I looked at him and I thought, I haven't done anything wrong and you'll move your eyes and look somewhere else before I move my gaze - and he did."

Karen was accompanied by members of her family and her counsellor from Nexus NI, a charity that help survivors of rape and sexual violence.

She told of the harrowing moment that she said the police officer in charge of the case came in and went straight over to Lauro.

"He was standing talking to him for four or five minutes and then came over to me and said: 'I was just talking to Eric there and asking what his plans were'," she explained.

"And I thought: 'how inappropriate and insensitive is that? I'm not interested in what his plans are and I'm certainly not interested in you referring to him like that'. I just thought it was deeply insensitive.

"It's all the wee things, body language and how you conduct yourself. But we've said that, all along, everything is weighted in the side of perpetrators rather than victims of any crime at all."

Lauro was handed a sentence of a year, six months of which was on licence.

The voyeurism sentence and the sentence for the child images were run concurrently.

A Sexual Offences Prevention Order for 10 years was made in which he was prohibited from gaining access to a computer that did not have an internet 'lock' approved by the PSNI and an operational 'history' facility.

"That was his (the judge's) last words: 'Take him down'," added Karen.

"I had no faith and still have no faith in the judicial system, but I had just hoped and prayed, I didn't care what sentence he got, as long as he served even one night behind bars. What I didn't want to happen was him walking out behind me.

"He had to be told to get into the dock. That's the arrogance of the man, he came in to sit in one of the seats and he was told - 'get in where you belong'.

"But I had said from the start I didn't want to be sitting anywhere in his eye-line. I didn't want his eyes in the back of my head or looking at me."

However, even with the sentencing Karen said her journey of recovery had only just begun.

"It's awful even when someone is sentenced, it doesn't leave you, because it's not the end of it," she said.

"I'd been petrified, I ended up being diagnosed with PTSD and couldn't go out my front door to bring my bin down.

"I had said to the police officer about the Prisoner Release Information Scheme.

"And I'm still waiting on them sending me the leaflet or information. So I Googled it and got it myself and they were really good. I got a phone call the morning he was released."

Karen was later told she wasn't entitled to any compensation because she wasn't physically touched.

She said: "I wasn't entitled to anything, which again is horrendous, and I did give off to them. I said that's wrong, it should be updated and should say that you have stalking and all the modern things coming to the forefront. And it should be relevant to it."

It's only in the last year that Karen has seen her fears subside a little.

She said: "I still couldn't take the dog for a walk out round the estate on my own and couldn't go into town or to the bank on my own.

"My husband still does our grocery shop, but I'm a hell of a lot better than what I was.

"I would have been up all night every night going over everything in my mind. I wouldn't use public toilets, changing rooms. If I went into a changing room and there was anything on the ceiling, even an air vent, the same in toilets, an air freshener on the wall, if there was anything, I'm straight out. I had all female members of the family and friends warned to be very careful.

"So I would be very hyper-vigilent with anything like that."

She recalled the moment her worst fears were realised as she bumped in to Lauro after he had been released. She said: "I was in town with a friend and we were out the back of CastleCourt and I said to her he is about here somewhere.

"I nearly dropped to the ground, I was horrified. But even now I'm a lot better than what I was a few years back. And it took a lot of work and determination to get myself well again."

Karen says she owes Nexus NI her life thanks to the support and renewed confidence it gave her. The charity recently received a Big Lottery Fund grant for a new programme that helps survivors of sexual crime after they finish their initial counselling.

"It's helping other fellow survivors, males and females, that you can have a life and a level of good health - mental and physical. That you can be happy, you can be a good wife, a good husband, a good mother, sister, friend.

"You can participate in society and that is why the (Nexus) client forum means so much to a lot of us. I couldn't tell you what anyone in the forum has gone through, because we don't have to.

"We all know that we share something and that's how I like to think of it - a precious gold thread.

"I refer to it as being a gold thread, and gold is the most precious metal that you can have. It's a precious gold thread that runs through every single one of us and joins us."

She added: "I have nothing to hide or be ashamed about."
Stephen Henry, 41yrs of no fixed abode, pictured leaving the Criminal Courts of Justice after he appeared before the Dublin District Court. Pic: Collins Courts

Fugitive murderer Stephen Henry, who brutally killed a man with a Samurai sword, was on the loose in Dublin tonight, after he was released with a fine following his drunk arrest.

Killer Stephen Henry, 41, from Belfast who went on the run after failing to return to Magilligan Prison in the North earlier this week, was arrested drunk in Dublin Friday morning after being thrown out of a city-centre hostel and getting mugged.

Barely able to keep his eyes open, he was brought before to Dublin District Court this evening and let go after being fined 75 for a public order offence that does not carry a jail sentence.

A European Arrest Warrant had not been issued yet and could take a week, the court was told.

Henry, who used a Samurai-style sword in the murder of an acquaintance in 2004, did not return to prison on Monday after he was granted a day-release pass to visit his family. The PSNI launched a manhunt and appealed for information into the whereabouts of the 5ft 10 in murderer.

Henry was jailed for murdering father-of-two John Cooke in Lisburn. After failing to return to prison on Monday the PSNI issued a statement stating he may be in either the Craigavon or Belfast area.

However, he crossed the border on Tuesday and was picked up by gardai in Dublin today.

He was arrested at Merrion Road, Dublin 4, in citys south side at 8.50am on a charge under the Public Order Act for being intoxicated to an extent he might endanger himself or any other person in his vicinity. The offence can result in a fine of about 130 but no jail sentence.

Henry, who has tattoos on both upper arms and scars on his forehead and left ear, was brought before Judge Conal Gibbons at a late sitting of Dublin District Court.

Dressed in a black tracksuit, green and white shirt, and brown shoes, Henry, with two cuts on his forehead, remained silent during his hearing.

Garda David Carty told the court that Henry, who is currently of no fixed abode, had been brought to Irishtown Garda station and made no reply when charged.

He objected to bail, however, the judge pointed out that the charge did not carry a penal sanction just a fine and the High Court would not be pleased if he refused.

There was no charge before the court for being unlawfully at large and he also said that being homeless was not a reason for refusal of bail.

Defence solicitor Tracy Horan said she had voiced the same concerns and she agreed with the judge. She also said she thought it would take at least a week for a European Arrest Warrant to be issued.

Garda Carty said contact would be made with Interpol.

Judge Gibbons held that he had to grant bail but because Henry had no ties to the jurisdiction he was going to require him to lodge 50 cash.

However, Ms Horan said that her client had been robbed overnight; his bag and phone were taken. He had a brother in Dublin but did not have his number. She argued that asking for a cash lodgement was tantamount to refusing bail.

Judge Gibbons said the lodgement would be required because Henry had no ties to the State.

This would have resulted in him being remanded in custody for until the bail money was lodged.

The defence solicitor took instructions from Henry at the side of the court and then told the judge her client was pleading guilty.

Garda Carty said he observed Henry walking on Merrion Road, he had no shoes on and was completely unaware where he was. He was arrested for his own safety.

The court was told he was serving a sentence for murder in the North but did not return after being given day-release. He has no previous convictions in the Republic.

Pleading for leniency, Ms Horan said Henry had been robbed and his phone was taken on Thursday night. He was intoxicated at the time and it was a little bit a blur, she said.

Judge Gibbons gave him a 75 fine which must be paid within one month.

Henry, from Mountpottinger Road, Belfast, was jailed for life at Craigavon Crown Court in 2006 after pleading guilty to murdering an acquaintance with a Samurai-style sword.

The attack on father-of-two John Cooke (33) took place in a house in Lisburn in May 2004.

Mr Cooke had been drinking and taking drugs with Henry before a row broke out.

Henry had behaved like a savage who had attacked Mr Cooke as he begged for his life, the trial judge had said.

A PSNI spokesman said: "Stephen Henry remains unlawfully at large from HMP Magilligan. PSNI is aware he is now outside of our jurisdiction and officers are actively working to have him returned."
Police in east Belfast have said they are becoming increasingly concerned for the whereabouts of Karen Lane.

The 51-year-old was last seen in the Templemore Avenue area at around 10pm on Monday, October 23.

She is described as being 5'1'' tall, with a slim build, and long dark curly hair tied up in a bun.

Karen speaks with a South African accent.

When last seen she was wearing a pink jersey, black leggings, a large grey coat and pink glitter slippers.

Police are appealing for Karen, or anyone who knows of her whereabouts, to contact officers on 101 quoting reference 447 24/10/17.
The two leaders spoke on the phone about the latest twist in the political deadlock at Stormont

James Brokenshire has said there is still time to save powersharing in Stormont.

The Northern Ireland Secretary of State said there are only a small number of differences between Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists, mainly around Irish language rights, culture, identity and respect.

But the DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson insisted that the Armed Forces Covenant, which aims to give ex-servicemen and women some priority medical treatment, housing assistance and school places for children, was integral to a deal.

"There will be no outcome that will not see that Armed Forces Covenant providing for the servicemen and women and the veterans and their families from Northern Ireland who have served this country," he said.

Mr Brokenshire said the Government wanted to see the ex-soldiers' benefits "touch" all parts of the UK.

The DUP and Sinn Fein failed to meet Mr Brokenshire's original Monday deadline for a deal, after Stormont had been effectively in limbo since January.

The crisis sparked a phone call between Prime Minister Theresa May and Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on Wednesday while he was on a trade mission to the US west coast.

"They talked about the responsibility on parties to overcome their differences and the need for them to compromise on the outstanding issues for the benefit of all communities in Northern Ireland," Mrs May's official spokesman said.

In his statement to the House of Commons, the Secretary of State said he was making plans to impose a budget to protect public services over the next year but added that he would not be making the spending decisions.

He also said the Conservatives remained committed to the 1 billion investment, agreed in return for DUP votes in Westminster for Theresa May's minority Government.

"This Government, we stand by our commitments, and as a party we stand by the agreement that has been reached with the DUP. Nothing I have said today changes that," he said.

Mr Brokenshire warned that Northern Ireland will begin to run out of money in the coming weeks and said it is highly unlikely a new executive could be formed in time to pass a budget by the end of November.

But he added: "Even now - however unlikely this may be - should the parties demonstrate that an executive could be formed in the immediate future I would clearly wish to proceed instead with legislation to allow that to happen."

Mr Brokenshire said a last-minute powersharing deal would be conditional on a budget being agreed and passed by the end of November.

He also said he will reflect carefully on MLAs' salaries - 49,500 a year - which cannot be stalled or docked without primary legislation in Westminster.

Amid calls from the Alliance deputy leader Stephen Farry and others for a mediator to support the talks, Mr Brokenshire said the Government was considering other interventions and other ways to broker a deal.

But he added: "I think it still remains possible but it is certainly difficult.

"We will continue to keep a range of options available to us to see how we can move this process forward."

Mr Brokenshire told MPs he believed the best way forward for dealing with legacy allegations against former servicemen and women for incidents during the Troubles had been agreed at previous talks.

He said: "I want to move forward with a consultation around the Stormont House Agreement which sets out new institutions, new bodies that are very firmly intended to be balanced, proportionate, transparent, fair and equitable and thereby ensuring that soldiers are not unfairly treated."
Forensics officers at the scene after the car bomb attack on Peadar Heffron near Randalstown in January

New ball game: Peadar Heffron in action for the PSNI Gaelic side in 2006

Former PSNI officer Peadar Heffron with former GAA player and broadcaster Joe Brolly at the Dub in Belfast

Former PSNI officer Peadar Heffron with former GAA player and broadcaster Joe Brolly at the Dub in Belfast

Former All-Ireland winner and GAA pundit Joe Brolly has called on Peadar Heffron's former club to make amends and apologise to the ex-police officer who was ostracised by some of the club after joining the police.

Mr Heffron spoke of being ostracised by some of this teammates at Creggan Kickhams GAC in Randalstown after joining the PSNI at the time of its formation in 2002. He was later the victim of a car bomb attack and was invalided out of the service.

After joining the new police service, Mr Heffron was boycotted by the club and fliers were passed around the dressing room targeting him.

While he was in a coma following the bomb attack, club officials visited his mother and father stressing they were only there in a personal capacity and in no way representing the club.

Creggan has refused to comment since the article was first published on Sunday.

All of us are guilty. All of us in the GAA in the six counties have been part of a culture of silence, of cowardice, of not doing the right thing. Joe Brolly

Writing for the first time since his Sunday Independent article, Joe Brolly criticised the club for hiding behind a "no comment" response. He said it could make amends by meeting with their former club member Peadar and apologise to him and establish a scholarship in his honour.

"They could absorb his terrible hurt, accept their treachery and cowardice and take it from there. Or they can take the coward's way out and stick with 'no comment'," he wrote in his Gaelic Life column.

"Ever since Sinn Fein and the SDLP did the peace deal and told us all that it was time for Catholics and nationalists and republicans to join the new force there has been a pretence that things are different.

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Mr Brolly writes that the Ulster Council says "all the right things" but notes the small number of challenge matches between clubs and the PSNI.

After the attack on Mr Heffron and the murder of constable Ronan Kerr public figures "made all the right noises" before things went back to normal.

"Rather they went back to abnormal," he said.

"It is a long time since any of us stood on the streets chanting SSRUC. It is a long while since the IRA poured concrete over their weapons. Or since Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley buried the biggest hatchet this country had ever seen."

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close New ball game: Peadar Heffron in action for the PSNI Gaelic side in 2006 Former PSNI officer Peadar Heffron with former GAA player and broadcaster Joe Brolly at the Dub in Belfast Stephen Hamilton Injuries: Ex-officer Peadar Heffron Stephen Hamilton Former PSNI officer Peadar Heffron with former GAA player and broadcaster Joe Brolly at the Dub in Belfast Stephen Hamilton Forensics officers at the scene after the car bomb attack on Peadar Heffron near Randalstown in January / Facebook

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Mr Brolly said that while Creggan - the club Peadar Heffron once belonged to - was heavily criticised in response to his article, he asked if any other club was better or would have acted differently.

"All of us are guilty. All of us in the GAA in the six counties have been part of a culture of silence, of cowardice, of not doing the right thing."

Creggan Kickhams GAC has continually refused to comment and given the chance by the Belfast Telegraph on Friday, a club spokesman said that remained the case.

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Mr Brolly adds: "It is a fine club and has done great work over the past 20 years, but there is something rotten at the core they need to address now."

Quoting Edmund Burke's "all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing," Mr Brolly said it was not good enough for those involved to think that they didn't want to speak out to avoid rocking the boat.

"How good were these men? When the team manager didn't pick him... when local republicans handed out fliers targeting Peadar... when he had his arse blow off.... Did you apologise to him and explain you were too afraid to step out of line at the time but bitterly regret it now?

"Or did you stand in the pub like a sheep, saying nothing glad nobody mentioned it?

"You know who you are. where is your courage? Where is your honour?"
Presseye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 3rd November 2017 Mr Rahman who is originally from Bangladesh following an incident of criminal damage on York Road in north Belfast last night, Thursday 02 November. At around 10.20pm police received a report that a number of youths had thrown a brick at the front window of a house in the area. Damage was caused to the outer pane of glass as a result. A woman and her young child who were in the house at the time were not injured. Photo by Matt Mackey

Presseye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 3rd November 2017 Mr Rahman who is originally from Bangladesh following an incident of criminal damage on York Road in north Belfast last night, Thursday 02 November. At around 10.20pm police received a report that a number of youths had thrown a brick at the front window of a house in the area. Damage was caused to the outer pane of glass as a result. A woman and her young child who were in the house at the time were not injured. Photo by Matt Mackey

Presseye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 3rd November 2017 Mr Rahman who is originally from Bangladesh following an incident of criminal damage on York Road in north Belfast last night, Thursday 02 November. At around 10.20pm police received a report that a number of youths had thrown a brick at the front window of a house in the area. Damage was caused to the outer pane of glass as a result. A woman and her young child who were in the house at the time were not injured. Photo by Matt Mackey

Presseye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 3rd November 2017 Mr Rahman who is originally from Bangladesh following an incident of criminal damage on York Road in north Belfast last night, Thursday 02 November. At around 10.20pm police received a report that a number of youths had thrown a brick at the front window of a house in the area. Damage was caused to the outer pane of glass as a result. A woman and her young child who were in the house at the time were not injured. Photo by Matt Mackey

The Rahman family were targeted in an attack on the York Road in north Belfast. Pic: Matt Mackey

A DUP councillor has hit out after a hate crime attack against a family in north Belfast.

Guy Spence said the incident was "totally unacceptable".

The attack happened at the home of a Bangladeshi family on Thursday evening.

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At around 10.20pm a number of youths threw bricks at the front window of the property in the York Road area. A pane of glass was damaged as a result.

A woman and her child were in the home at the time of the attack but were not injured.

Inspector Fairfield added: "Police are treating this incident as a hate crime and are appealing to anyone who was in the York Road area last night and who witnessed the incident or anyone with any information that can assist with the investigation to contact officers in Tennent Street on 101 quoting reference number 1493 02/11/17. Information can also be passed anonymously via the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

"Hate crime, in all its forms, is totally unacceptable. It is the responsibility of each and every one of us to ensure that we live in a society where diversity is respected. If you or someone you know is the victim of a hate crime please contact police or your local support agency."

Responding to the attack, Green Party Councillor Georgina Milne said: "This despicable attack is being treated as a racist hate crime and it is time for the people of Belfast to rally round and show that this is not who we are.

"Barely a week goes by without a new instance of race hate crime hitting the headlines. Earlier this week a Belgian man who was treated for a head injury when a breeze block was thrown through the window of his home in east Belfast said he thought he had been targeted because of his accent.

"We are calling for a new offence of racially aggravated crime in Northern Ireland in order to tackle this rising tide of racist hate crime."
Alliance deputy leader Stephen Farry is calling for an independent mediator to be brought in to breathe new life into the Stormont talks.

As Secretary of State James Brokenshire outlined his plans to pass a budget for Northern Ireland in the House of Commons, Dr Farry urged him to appoint a mediator and to include other parties in the negotiations.

The British Government must also consider reforming the petition of concern to eradicate "unreasonable vetoes", he said.

"Even at this eleventh hour, there are still alternatives to full direct rule being imposed. Alliance are not giving up on devolution," he added.

"We are reiterating our calls for an independent mediator to be brought in, allowing for a more inclusive and multilateral format to these negotiations."

DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds said if a deal couldn't be reached then Westminster must take decisions for Northern Ireland in consultation with MLAs.

He said: "The public should recall that less than 12 months ago there was an agreed Programme for Government between the DUP and Sinn Fein.

"None of the issues being raised as critical preconditions now were raised by Sinn Fein in December when they were pulling down devolution."

Urging Sinn Fein to lift its pre-conditions, he added: "If that will not happen, decisions must be taken at Westminster in consultation with local politicians at Stormont."

The Prime Minister and the Taoiseach yesterday insisted power-sharing at Stormont could be revived. Theresa May and Leo Varadkar discussed the ongoing deadlock on the phone.

Both agreed it was still possible to form an Executive. Mr Varadkar told the Prime Minister there could be no return to direct rule as it was before the Good Friday Agreement.

The Taoiseach's office said Mrs May pledged that she didn't want to see Westminster running all Northern Ireland's affairs and that budget preparations weren't the first step on that road.

"Both leaders agreed that there is still time to reach an agreement," Mr Varadkar's office added. Labour shadow secretary of state Owen Smith urged Mrs May to "get stuck in" to negotiations to restore power-sharing.

It was "completely inexplicable" that she had visited Northern Ireland just once since the Executive collapsed in January, he said. "She has not attended a single substantive session of the talks in Belfast and she has not made a single substantive intervention to try and move things along," he told the House of Commons.

"I know things have been difficult recently, but frankly the odd phone call to the Taoiseach just isn't good enough.

"It may be true that the days of a Prime Minister or President flying into Belfast to fix things are past and overstated, but they could at least give it a go."

Rejecting Mr Smith's claims, Mr Brokenshire said Mrs May had met the Northern Ireland parties in Downing Street and remained "actively involved".

He insisted his budget didn't represent a return to direct rule. It wouldn't "set out any spending decisions by me or the Government" but would incorporate figures from Northern Ireland's Civil Service, he added.

Mr Brokenshire maintained power-sharing could be saved. There were only a small number of differences around Irish language rights and culture, he said.

He agreed to "reflect carefully" on MLAs' salaries amid calls for them to be cut or stopped.

UUP peer Lord Empey said he had listened "in despair" to Mr Brokenshire's statement.

"Nowhere was mention made of the real victims of the shambles at Stormont - those hundreds of thousands on waiting lists," he said. "There was no mention of schools under financial strain and the voluntary sector which is living from hand to mouth. The Secretary of State suggests that the talks can continue, but why adopt a policy that has failed and failed again?"

Lord Empey described the last DUP-Sinn Fein administration as "the most incompetent Northern Ireland has endured since 1921".

He added: "Neither the DUP nor Sinn Fein are temperamentally equipped to deal with shared government - it is all about domination, not partnership.

"James Brokenshire would do well to review how the institutions have been corrupted since 1998 and may discover that going back to the original Agreement and starting again is one possible way forward."
Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly has said he has supported people from the nationalist and republican community in joining the police.

He was responding to claims from the SDLP that his party had not done enough to encourage people to join the PSNI following the comments made by ex-policeman Peadar Heffron.

Mr Heffron spoke of being ostracised by his GAA club and community when he joined the police at the time of its formation in 2000. He was later the victim of a car bomb attack and was invalided out of the service.

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Speaking on the BBC, the SDLP's Justin McNulty said Sinn Fein's response that "no one should be marginalised" by joining the PSNI was "too ambiguous".

"There is an unwritten rule in the GAA, which is part of my experience, that you leave your politics at the door," he said.

"Young Irishmen and woman who join the Garda are Irish police. Young Irishmen and women who join the PSNI are Irish police," he added.

"They should be admired by the community for the service they provide."

Responding Sinn Fein policing spokesman Gerry Kelly said he had supported young people considering joining the PSNI.

"I don't know where the ambiguity is," he said. "They are Irish people in an Irish police service.

"I was challenge you to point to any time where I've been on the media that I haven't condemned, not only attacks on police but on dissident activity entirely.

"There's no ambiguity at all."
The Prime Minister has said Britain is proud of the relationship it has built with Israel at a gala dinner to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration.

Theresa May joined Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lord Rothschild at Lancaster House in London to celebrate the declaration of 1917, which signalled British support for the creation of a Jewish homeland.

In her speech to more than 100 guests including politicians and diplomats, Mrs May commemorated a pledge written by then British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour which she said gave birth to a most extraordinary country.

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She said: Balfour wrote explicitly that: nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

So when some people suggest we should apologise for this letter, I say absolutely not. We are proud of our pioneering role in the creation of the State of Israel And we are proud of the relationship we have built with Israel.

Mrs May also discussed efforts to reach a peace deal and earlier told her Israeli counterpart that Britain remained committed to a two-state solution with a viable Palestinian state.

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She added: Let us be honest with each other: there will need to be compromises from each side if we are to have a realistic chance of achieving this goal  including an end to the building of new settlements and an end to Palestinian incitement too.

But as we work together towards Balfours vision of a peaceful co-existence we must be equally clear that there can never be any excuses for boycotts, divestment or sanctions: they are unacceptable and this government will have no truck with those who subscribe to them.

Highlighting the UKs role in pressing for a new international definition of anti-Semitism, she added: Criticising the actions of Israel is never  and can never be  an excuse for questioning Israels right to exist, any more than criticising the actions of Britain could be an excuse for questioning our right to exist.

And criticising the government of Israel is never  and can never be  an excuse for hatred against the Jewish people, any more than criticising the British government would be an excuse for hatred against the British people.

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Put simply, there can be no excuses for any kind of hatred towards the Jewish people. There never have been  and there never will be.

Earlier at Number 10, Mr Netanyahu said Israel was committed to the peace process, but the Palestinians had to accept his countrys right to exist.

He said: Israel is committed to peace, Im committed to peace. A hundred years after Balfour, the Palestinians should finally accept a Jewish national home and finally accept a Jewish state.

And when they do, the road to peace will be infinitely closer. In my opinion peace will be achievable.

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During the dinner, Mr Netanyahu thanked the Prime Minister on behalf of Israel and its people.

He said added: The State of Israel would not have come into being, but it was the Balfour Declaration that galvanised international support for Zionism as never before and paved the path for Zionisms entry on the world stage.

Now, a once stateless and powerless people has found its place among the nations.

Addressing Mrs May, he added: The Balfour Declaration puts Britain on the right side of history in marking that declaration today you are keeping Britain on the right side of history.
Downing Street said there had been around 800 responses to the consultation in setting up the contaminated blood inquiry (Anthony Devlin/PA)

The probe into the contaminated blood scandal will be a full statutory inquiry and will come under the responsibility of the Cabinet Office after victims and families expressed strong views over the potential involvement of the Department of Health, Downing Street said.

Prime Minister Theresa May announced earlier this year that an inquiry would be held into the events of the 1970s and 1980s, which left around 2,400 people dead.

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But campaigners had rejected the Governments proposed process, saying the health department should not be involved in setting up an inquiry when it is under investigation itself.

Downing Street said there had been around 800 responses to the consultation in setting up the inquiry.

Thousands of haemophiliacs and other patients were given blood products infected with hepatitis C and HIV.

Campaigners and families of those affected by the scandal boycotted a meeting with Department of Health officials over the remit of the UK-wide inquiry earlier this year in protest at its involvement.

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The Prime Ministers official spokesman said: The inquiry will be conducted under the responsibility of the Cabinet Office rather than by the Department of Health with immediate effect.

We have been absolutely clear of our determination to establish what happened in relation to the contaminated blood scandal of the 1970s and 1980s and to work with the families of those affected, and we are now moving forward with that process.

There was a strong view that it should be done away from the Department of Health. We have listened to those views and thats why it will be conducted under the auspices of the Cabinet Office.

Families and victims had been asked whether they wanted a judge-led inquiry or a Hillsborough-style panel.

No 10 said there would be a further announcement by the end of the year on the setting up of the inquiry.

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A spokesman for the Haemophilia Society said: We welcome the Governments recognition of our concerns about the impartiality challenges the Department of Health faced regarding the contaminated blood inquiry.

We hope the decision to make the Cabinet Office the sponsor of the now statutory inquiry will be a turning point in helping the victims of this scandal finally get the justice they have long deserved.

We now hope a new and fresh discussion will be launched to establish the chair and terms of reference, which can now include the many groups who, like us, had felt unable to work with the Department of Health when it was so clearly conflicted.
People queue outside the Apple Store on Regent Street, London, as the iPhone X goes on sale (Martyn Landi/PA)

Huge crowds queued outside Apples Regent Street store overnight to buy the new iPhone X as it went on sale in the UK.

Reality TV star Marco Pierre White Jr, the son of the famous chef, was one the first to buy the new device at the store, where the phone launched as the most expensive iPhone ever, starting at 999.

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The former Celebrity Big Brother contestant paid for two new handsets in cash while live streaming his experience on a Samsung smartphone.

The iPhone X is the first Apple smartphone to feature facial recognition technology, known as Face ID, which is used to unlock the device.

It is also the first iPhone to feature an edge-to-edge OLED screen, which Apple says will provide a brighter, more detailed display.

Industry experts had predicted large queues for the launch, after the iPhone 8  released in September  was met with a muted response.

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Smartphone expert Ernest Doku, from uSwitch.com, said many consumers had chosen to wait for the X as they saw it as the main event phone.

White told reporters he was buying devices for himself and a friend.

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Last year, the model admitted in court to racking up thousands of pounds on a ex-girlfriends bank card, which the court was told included a visit to an Apple Store and paying for an Uber.

Labelled the future of the iPhone by Apple boss Tim Cook, the iPhone X uses Face ID facial recognition to unlock the device, doing away with the Home button and Touch ID fingerprint sensor of previous iPhone handsets.

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Hundreds queued overnight to ensure they were among the first to buy the device, including White, amid reports of limited early stock being available in the first days of sale.

Many other customers who pre-ordered the iPhone X had been given delivery dates up to six weeks away, after the initial stock sold out in minutes when pre-orders began on October 27.

Large queues were reported outside Apple retail stores globally, including in Australia and China.

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Tweeting early on Friday morning, Apple chief executive Mr Cook thanked customers who were turning out around the world to buy the new phone.

The launch comes in the wake of strong quarterly financial results on Thursday night, with Apple predicting revenue in the next quarter of more than 80 billion dollars (61.3 billion), a suggestion that the company is confident of strong sales of the X.
Priti Patel was in Israel on a private holiday "paid for by herself", Theresa May's spokesman said (Victoria Jones/PA)

International Development Secretary Priti Patel is not being investigated over meetings she held with an Israeli politician and a charity, reportedly without telling the Foreign Office, Downing Street said.

Theresa Mays official spokesman said Ms Patel was in Israel on a private holiday paid for by herself and no investigation is being carried out into whether she broke ministerial rules.

She was backed by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who said the pair work closely together and that she was quite right to have the meetings.

But Labour said they raised a series of questions about the ethics of public service and the integrity of the Government.

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Shadow Cabinet Office minister Jon Trickett said if Ms Patel made foreign policy commitments at the meetings she could have breached the ministerial code, which states that ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and private interests, financial or otherwise.

The Prime Ministers spokesman told reporters: I think while she was there she took the opportunity to meet some people and organisations, but it was a private holiday and entirely paid for by the Secretary of State.

Ive not been made aware of any concerns, he added. No investigation is taking place.

Mr Johnson tweeted: @Patel4witham is a good friend & we work closely together for GLOBAL BRITAIN. Quite right that she meets w/ people & organisations overseas.

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It comes after Ms Patel was pictured meeting Yair Lapid, the leader of Israels centrist Yesh Atid party, while on the holiday.

Mr Lapid tweeted a photo of the meeting on August 24 and described Ms Patel as a true friend of Israel.

According to the BBC, Ms Patel was accompanied by Tory peer Lord Polak, who is honorary president of the Conservative Friends of Israel lobbying group.

The pair also visited Beit Issie Shapiro, an Israeli disability charity and campaign group, it was reported.

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Demanding an investigation into whether the code was breached in a letter to Mrs May, Mr Trickett said: I am reminded of the case involving Liam Fox and Adam Werrity, where it was found that the latter was accompanying the former defence secretary to official defence meetings.

You may recall that Mr Fox had to resign as a result of this ministerial code breach.

The British public have many legitimate concerns about whether politicians live up to the high standards rightly demanded of them, as well as about influence of lobbyists over formation of policy.

This will inevitably raise questions about the impunity with which Secretaries of State feel they can act in your Government. And the public may also question the strength of this Government if no action is taken.

Liberal Democrat international development spokeswoman Baroness Sheehan said: It is objectionable that Priti Patel chooses to use her position of influence to inappropriately foster her own political ambition, disregarding both common courtesy due to the Foreign Secretary and Government procedures.

Priti Patel now must answer questions over whether she has broken the ministerial code of conduct. If she has, her position as Secretary of State is untenable.
A military judge has ruled that a US Army sergeant who spent five years in captivity in Afghanistan after deserting his post should serve no prison time for endangering his comrades.

The judge gave Bowe Bergdahl a dishonourable discharge, reduced his rank to private and said he must forfeit pay equal to 1,000 dollars (765) per month for 10 months.

President Donald Trump tweeted that the sentence was "a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military".

Barack Obama was criticised for trading Taliban prisoners to bring Bergdahl back to the US, and as a presidential candidate, Mr Trump had called for Bergdahl to face stiff punishment.

Bergdahl appeared tense, grimaced and clenched his jaw. His lawyers put their arms around him and one patted him on the back.

He pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehaviour before the enemy and had faced up to life in prison. The judge had wide leeway because Bergdahl made no deal with prosecutors to limit his sentence.

Prosecutors had sought stiff punishment because of wounds to service members who searched for Bergdahl after he disappeared in 2009. He was held captive by Taliban allies for five years.

The defence sought to counter that evidence with testimony about Bergdahl's suffering during his captivity, his contributions to military intelligence and survival instruction, and his mental health problems.

A punitive discharge deprives Bergdahl of most or all of his veterans' benefits.

In closing arguments, defence lawyers argued that he had already suffered enough confinement during five years of brutal captivity.

They asked the judge to give their client a dishonourable discharge and no prison time, and also cited harsh campaign trail criticism by Mr Trump and Bergdahl's mental disorders.

Captain Nina Banks, a defence lawyer, said it would not be justice to rescue Bergdahl from the Taliban "only to place him in a cell" now.

Bergdahl told the sentencing hearing he was sorry for the wounds suffered by searchers. He also described brutal beatings by his captors, illness brought on by squalid conditions and maddening periods of isolation.

A psychiatrist said his decision to leave his post was influenced by a schizophrenia-like condition called schizotypal personality disorder that made it hard to understand consequences of his actions, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder brought on partly by a difficult childhood.

Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 14 years in prison, citing serious wounds to service members who looked for Bergdahl.

"Sgt Bergdahl does not have a monopoly on suffering as a result of his choices," said Major Justin Oshana.

Bergdahl pleaded guilty on October 16.

The 31-year-old, from Hailey, Idaho, was brought home by Mr Obama in 2014 in a swap for five Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Mr Obama said at the time the US does not leave its service members on the battlefield.

Republicans roundly criticised Mr Obama, and Mr Trump went further while campaigning for the presidency, repeatedly calling Bergdahl a traitor who deserved serious punishment.

AP
A visitor takes a picture of a paining by Max Liebermann at the exhibition Gurlitt: Status Report in Bonn, Germany (AP/Martin Meissner)

Some 250 art works that a reclusive collector hid from the world for decades, including pieces likely looted from Jewish owners under Nazi rule, are going on show at a German museum.

The paintings being shown from Thursday at Bonn's Bundeskunsthalle are from the huge art collection hoarded by late collector Cornelius Gurlitt.

It includes works by Albrecht Duerer, Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro.

Authorities first stumbled on the art, stored in Mr Gurlitt's Munich home, while investigating a tax case in 2012.

The exhibition focuses on works of art believed to have been taken from their mostly Jewish owners as part of Nazi persecution and on works whose provenance has not yet been established.

The Bonn show is part of a double exhibition titled Gurlitt: Status Report.

A parallel show in the Swiss capital Bern features some 200 works from the collector's trove, mostly from artists who were defamed by the Nazis as "degenerate".

The art on display in Bern includes expressionist works by artists such as Otto Dix and Franz Marc.

It is the first chance for the public to view any of the paintings and other works from the 1,500-piece collection that belonged to the estate of Mr Gurlitt's father, the Nazi-era art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt.

The Bonn show, subtitled Nazi Art Theft And Its Consequences, aims to put the works into their historical context.

It tries to shed light on Hildebrand Gurlitt's life and also focuses on the fate of Jewish artists, collectors and art dealers who fell victim to the Nazi regime.

The works cover a broad time span, from Lucas Cranach via Carl Spitzweg and Edgar Degas to Max Beckmann.

Among the highlights are Monet's Waterloo Bridge and the marble sculpture Crouching Woman by Auguste Rodin.

Mr Gurlitt, who died in 2014, had hidden away more than 1,200 works in his Munich apartment and a further 250 or so at a property in Salzburg, Austria.

His will bequeathed the works to the museum in Bern. A German government-backed foundation is working with it to ensure that any pieces looted from Jewish owners are returned to their heirs.

That has been a slow and painstaking task. So far, experts have identified six works as definitely having been looted by the Nazis - the latest of them last month.

Researchers determined that the Portrait Of A Seated Young Woman by Thomas Couture belonged to Georges Mandel.

Mr Mandel, a Jewish French politician, was murdered in 1944. That piece is among those on show in Bonn.

The curator of the Bonn exhibit said that a lot of work still remains to be done regarding the provenance of much of the collection.

"The origin of more than 50% of the art pieces has not yet been solved,"Agnieszka Lulinska told the German news agency dpa.

The Bonn exhibition runs until March 11. The Bern exhibition runs until March 4.

AP
Oscar Pistorius was jailed for six years after he was found guilty of murder for shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, File)

A judge "overemphasised" Oscar Pistorius's disability and was far too lenient on him, prosecutors said as they tried to convince a South African court to more than double his prison sentence for the murder of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

"Murder is murder," chief prosecutor Andrea Johnson told a five-judge panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal.

She asked the judges to overturn the double-amputee athlete 's initial six-year sentence and give him the prescribed minimum of 15 years. There is no death penalty in South Africa.

If the court agrees, Pistorius, 30, could remain in prison until after he is 40.

The judges did not deliver a decision on Friday. Typically, Supreme Court judges take a couple of weeks before the senior judge returns to read out the decision, which is made through a simple majority.

Nearly five years after the once-admired Olympic runner first appeared in court for shooting Ms Steenkamp multiple times through a closed toilet door at his home, his fate is still not certain.

He was not at Friday's hearing as he serves his sentence at a prison near the capital, Pretoria. He has served more than a year of his six-year term.

Ms Steenkamp's mother, June Steenkamp, did attend. Speaking outside the courthouse, her lawyer said the family supported prosecutors' attempt to get a longer sentence.

Prosecutors had two arguments to make to the court. First, they needed to apply for permission to appeal against Pistorius's sentence. They were asked by the judges to also present their arguments for why, if their appeal is allowed, his sentence should be increased.

This is the second time prosecutors have gone to the Supreme Court in the central city of Bloemfontein to challenge a decision by Judge Thokozile Masipa, who presided over Pistorius's trial.

In 2015, prosecutors successfully appealed against Judge Masipa's ruling that Pistorius was not guilty of murder. The court overturned the verdict of culpable homicide - or manslaughter - and convicted him of murder.

Judge Masipa then sentenced Pistorius to six years in prison for murder, a term just one year longer than her original sentence for manslaughter. Prosecutors called that sentence "shockingly" light.

Judges can deviate from prescribed minimum sentences if there are compelling circumstances. The prosecution says there were no compelling reasons.

"What we are saying is the court exercised its discretion inappropriately," prosecutor Johnson said, calling the six-year sentence "unjust".

She said Pistorius had still not shown "genuine remorse" for killing Ms Steenkamp and that Judge Masipa put the athlete's personal circumstances and his disability ahead of the need for "retribution" when she sentenced him.

Pistorius claimed he mistook Ms Steenkamp for a dangerous intruder hiding in his bathroom in the pre-dawn hours of Valentine's Day 2013 when, without his prosthetic legs on and standing on his stumps, he shot four times through the cubicle door.

Judge Masipa's initial sentence was appropriate in the circumstances, Pistorius's defence lawyers said, and his disability was not exaggerated. He had both his legs amputated below the knee when he was a baby because of a congenital condition.

"Of course his disability is mentioned, but it can't not be mentioned," defence lawyer Kelly Phelps said. "It is one of the factors of this case. We can't magic away his disability."

AP
Special counsel Robert Mueller believes it will take three weeks to present a case against former Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, according to court documents.

A filing made public in federal court in Washington by Mueller prosecutor Kyle Freeny estimates 15 trial days to present the case to a jury.

On Monday, Mr Mueller filed a 12-count indictment against Manafort, who served as Donald Trump's campaign chairman, and his deputy Gates.

The charges include violations of federal money laundering rules, foreign lobbying and banking laws.

Manafort and Gates have pleaded not guilty. They have been placed under house arrest and released on multimillion-dollar bonds.

In court papers, lawyers for Manafort called Mr Mueller's case "embellished", and asked a judge to ease the terms of his pre-trial confinement.

The accusations against Manafort and Gates were the first criminal charges stemming from Mr Mueller's six-month probe of potential ties between Russian operatives and the Trump campaign.

Another campaign-era aide, George Papadopoulos, has pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russian agents during the 2016 presidential election and is co-operating with Mr Mueller's investigators, court records unsealed this week revealed.

Mr Mueller's charges against Manafort, 68, and Gates, 45, relate to their financial dealings while lobbying for pro-Russia political interests in Ukraine as far back as 2012.

Mr Trump wrote on Twitter this week that there was "NO COLLUSION" between his campaign and Russia and said the case filed against Manafort centred on acts that occurred "years ago", well before Manafort got involved with his campaign.

AP
'In this case the perpetrator pleaded guilty, saving her from giving evidence, but her determination to see the case through and to tell her story may encourage other women who have undergone similar ordeals to come forward and tell police what happened' (stock photo)

It is difficult to realise the horror that Karen Taggart must have felt when she realised that a male colleague had been photographing her in the work bathroom. It was a particularly vile form of voyeurism, demeaning and invasive.

Little wonder that she was later to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, afraid even to leave her home alone and ever suspicious when she enters public toilets or changing rooms.

She very courageously has waived her right to anonymity to spell out the full scale of the trauma inflicted on her.

It was so severe that she dreaded going to court to give evidence because of the ordeal she felt she would endure in the witness box, even though she was the victim, had done nothing wrong, and wasn't even aware that a crime had been committed until informed by police.

That is a feeling many women who have been subjected to harassment, sexual abuse or even rape can empathise with.

They feel that if a case goes to court they - the wronged - are the ones in the dock, not the actual perpetrator.

In this case the perpetrator pleaded guilty, saving her from giving evidence, but her determination to see the case through and to tell her story may encourage other women who have undergone similar ordeals to come forward and tell police what happened.

As we have seen with the allegations levelled against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, once someone is brave enough to point the finger of blame, the dam of silence is breached and other women are empowered to take on men who thought they were untouchable.

We have seen other accusations levelled at stars of the magnitude of Dustin Hoffman and Kevin Spacey, although it must be stressed in all cases these are claims, without anything yet being proved in court.

But what these cases prove is that women no longer feel the need to cower out of the limelight, afraid that they will not be believed when they identify their abusers.

Karen also makes a pertinent point about how victims often feel the justice system is weighted against them. And it does seem somewhat unjust that she is not entitled to any compensation because she was not physically touched, even if the crime had a profound mental impact on her.

Abuse does not have to be physical to be invasive or traumatic, and she is right - this area of law should be re-examined.
Rohingya Mohammad Hashim carries his mother to shore after getting off a boat at Dakhin Para in Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh, Nov. 2, 2017.

Bangladeshi boatmen are ferrying Rohingya refugees from neighboring Myanmar in rickety vessels, despite a police crackdown following accidents in which almost 200 people drowned during the past two months.

Within a span of about three hours on Thursday, BenarNews reporters witnessed at least 100 members of the uprooted minority  mostly women and children  arrive in separate boats at Dakhin Para, mainland Bangladesh's southernmost tip that lies along the porous border with Myanmar.

The refugees said they were picked up from the Myanmar side by boats in the dead of the night and dropped off at Shah Porir Dwip, a remote Bangladeshi fishing village some 5 km (3 miles) from the mainland. The islands west coast opens to the Bay of Bengal.

Nuruddin, who did not want his full name disclosed, admitted to taking his boat to the Myanmar side after dark to pick up Rohingya.

[It takes] a little under two hours each way, the 56-year-old former fisherman told BenarNews, as he stared blankly at a group of men struggling to bring their fishing boat ashore. I dont like fishing anymore. I make more money now than I did fishing.

Asked how much he charged each Rohingya for the boat ride to the Bangladeshi side, he said: Sometimes 3,000 taka (U.S. $36), sometimes 4,000 ($48), sometimes even more. It depends on how much they have. Whatever they have, I take.

I have to take out the cost of fuel. Besides, its a risky journey. So many people have died in these waters, he added.

On Sept. 28, a boat carrying about 80 Rohingya capsized just 1,000 feet from the shore there, killing at least 50 people  most of them children  in the deadliest accident of its kind since the latest mass exodus of the Muslim minority group from Myanmar began in the last week of August.

More than 600,000 Rohingya have arrived in southeastern Bangladesh from predominantly Buddhist Myanmar since its military launched a counteroffensive in response to attacks by militants in Rakhine state on Aug. 25, according to the latest estimates from the United Nations.

Nuruddin said he undertook two trips a day during the initial days of the refugee crisis, picking up anywhere between 25 and 40 Rohingya during each visit.

But now the police have become very strict. Theyve ordered us not to bring the refugees by boat. So I go at night, about two or three times a week, he said.

At least 190 people have died since Aug. 25 while trying to cross over to Bangladesh via the Naf River, which lies to the east of Shah Porir Dwip, or the Bay of Bengal.

About 450 arrested, 155 boats destroyed

Deaths from the accidents have prompted local authorities to crack down on boatmen ferrying Rohingya, who in Myanmar are considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Myanmars military crackdown took place after Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) insurgents launched an offensive in Rakhine state. The military operations, labeled as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing by the United Nations, spurred the Rohingya influx into Bangladesh.

Since it began in late August, Bangladesh border authorities have arrested and detained about 450 people suspected of transporting refugees through waters that divide Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Last month, local police seized and destroyed 155 boats, Teknaf upazila (sub-district) police chief Mainuddin Khan told BenarNews.

Some people are still bringing Rohingya to Bangladesh on boats. We will find them and arrest them soon, he said.

Bangladeshi border officials describe the ferrying of Rohingya as human trafficking. In September, authorities announced that they would crack down on fishermen who were asking refugees for money to transport them to safety.

Fisherman Mohahmmad Harun, 38, also a resident of Shah Porir Dwip, said he used to take one trip daily to Myanmar to pick up Rohingya during the initial days of the crisis, but had completely stopped after the police crackdown.

The last time I went was about a month ago. I would pick up about 30 to 40 refugees, charging each person between 3,000 taka (U.S. $36) and 4,000 taka ($48). I did that for about one month, but I dont do it anymore, he told BenarNews.

Haruns colleague and next-door neighbor, Nurul Amin, 40, said it was a quick and easy way to make money as long as we returned safe and sound.

I dont have my own boat, so I used to rent one for 40,000 taka ($481) a day. That meant I would have to make two to three trips to the Myanmar side every day. I used to carry a lot more people on the boat at one time than Harun did so I could make a decent profit, he told BenarNews.

Both Harun and Amin said that if police allowed them to do so, they would make the trips to Myanmar again to bring the Rohingya to Bangladesh.

They are suffering there. The army is killing them, burning their villages. We feel happy if we can help them. And if in the process we can make a little extra money, I dont see anything wrong with it, Amin said.

A boat ferries Rohingya refugees to Dakhin Para in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Nov. 2, 2017. Rohit Wadhwaney/BenarNews

We are desperate, they know it

But Rohingya refugees who arrived Thursday on mainland Bangladesh refuted the fishermens claims.

There are a two to three Bangladeshi boats waiting on the Myanmar side every night to pick up Rohingya, Mohammad Hashim, 42, told BenarNews after arriving in Bangladesh with his wife, five sons and his mother. This was his second trip to the country in the last 10 days.

Two weeks ago, the Myanmar army soldiers came to our village and began firing indiscriminately. Many people, including my cousin, died. Two bullets pierced my fathers arm and shoulder, Hashim said.

After hiding his family in a forest a short distance from his village, Hashim carried his father on his back for five days until he reached the river, where a Bangladeshi boatman agreed to take him and his severely injured 80-year-old father across the border for 2,000 taka ($24), he said.

But by the time he reached the Chittagong Medical College, his father died.

I buried him here and went back to Myanmar to bring my family, he said.

He paid 7,000 taka ($84) for each member of his family to get to the other side.

We are desperate, they know it. So they charge whatever they want, the farmer said before making his way to Teknaf in search of a new home for his family.

Abdur Rahman in Coxs Bazar contributed to this report.
Indian police keep vigil outside the office of the Zakir Naiks Islamic Research Foundation in Mumbai, July 8, 2016.

India will seek the Malaysian governments help in extraditing televangelist Zakir Naik who faces charges of money laundering and inciting hatred through his sermons broadcast on Peace TV, the foreign ministry said Friday.

Officials will approach their Malaysian counterparts with the extradition request sometime within the next two weeks, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar told a weekly news briefing in New Delhi.

Any formal request seeking assistance of a foreign government in cases of extradition, requires a completion of internal legal process involving consultation with other ministries involved in the case, Kumar said.

At this stage we are nearing the completion of this process and as soon as this process is complete we will be making an official request to the Malaysian government in this matter, Kumar said. It could be a couple of days or a couple of weeks. But it would be soon and the nature of our request would also be clear.

Naik fled India a month before terrorist carried out a massacre at a cafe in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in July 2016. This week, Malaysias deputy prime minister said the Islamic preacher legally obtained permanent residency in the country, and that Malaysian authorities would arrest him only if he broke local laws or was found to be involved in terrorist activities.

Naiks speeches allegedly inspired some of the militants who carried out the siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe in Dhaka, where 29 people, including 20 hostages and five gunmen, were killed.

In November 2016, the Indian government banned Naiks Mumbai-based NGO Islamic Research Foundation, which partly funded the Peace TV channel that is banned in India, Bangladesh and several other countries.

Kumar said because the Indian government had knowledge of Naiks whereabouts, the legal procedures would be tailored to requirements between the two countries in their extradition treaty.

Advocate challenges charges

Naik is being hounded because he hails from a minority community. The charges that the investigating agencies are trying to frame are all stale and are hardly incriminating, advocate S. Hariharan told BenarNews in a phone interview from Delhi.

The charges lack veracity and would not stand scrutiny in the court of law. We will be challenging the extradition and deportation.

Last week, the Indian government filed a 61-page charge sheet against Naik alleging he was involved in a criminal conspiracy by lauding terrorist organizations. In April, a non-bailable warrant was issued against him in an alleged case of money laundering through his NGO and a shell company.

In Malaysia meanwhile, the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) has urged the government to ignore any request from India to extradite Naik, Reuters reported.

For Muslim individuals, even when they won by using arguments and not weapons, like Dr. Zakir Naik, they are considered terrorists because their arguments cannot be countered, PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang wrote last week in an opinion piece published in Harakah Daily.
Nurul Islam, his wife, Amina Khatun, and their five children sit in their hut at a camp for Rohingya refugees in Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh, Nov. 3, 2017.

As Bangladeshs government struggled this week to persuade residents of overcrowded refugee camps to use contraceptives as part of a new push to promote family planning among Rohingya Muslims, Nurul Islams wife gave birth to their fifth child.

Three-day-old Ayesha was born Tuesday in a tiny, one-room hut in Teknaf upazila (sub-district) in Coxs Bazar district that her parents and four brothers have called home for the past two months since they fled a fresh cycle of violence and atrocities allegedly committed against the Rohingya minority by the military in neighboring Myanmar.

Islam was elated at what he described as his latest achievement.

Having a child shows that you are a strong man. I now have five of them, the 32-year-old told BenarNews proudly. And I will try for more, he added with an air of confidence.

Unlike most other members of his community, Islam said, he was aware of birth control procedures but wasnt interested because the practice was considered a sin.

I know what a condom is but have never used one, he said  a telling statement uttered by a majority of Rohingya that prompted the family planning office of Coxs Bazar to introduce birth control steps in about 15 refugee camps sheltering nearly 1 million members of the displaced group.

More than 600,000 of them, including about 20,000 pregnant women, have arrived in southeastern Bangladesh from Buddhist-majority Myanmar since its military launched a counter-offensive in response to insurgent attacks in Rakhine state on Aug. 25, according to the latest estimates from the United Nations.

Deep-rooted problem

Officials with the Directorate of Family Planning, which is connected to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, launched the birth control program in Rohingya camps in September.

But soon after, they realized they were only scratching the surface of a deep-rooted problem, Pintu Kanti Bhattacharjee, the departments deputy director, told BenarNews.

A majority of Rohingya, who are largely uneducated, are not aware of birth control measures. The ones who are aware are convinced that family planning methods conflict with their faith, he said, adding, We then realized we were faced with a huge challenge.

Before the refugee crisis exploded in late August, Bhattacharjees department had about 50 workers.

We have hired about 200 people over the past few weeks and still feel the need for more staff, he said. The near 250 health workers operate out of 13 offices in Ukhia and Teknaf sub-districts and go door-to-door to educate Rohingya about the benefits of family planning.

So far, we have managed to talk about birth control with 150,000 Rohingya. We convinced 7,500 of them to take contraceptive measures like condoms, pills and injections, Bhattacharjee said.

I would like to opt for birth control

Islam, the refugee who became a father for the fifth time this week, was among the unconvinced multitude.

Our children are Allahs gift to us. We will accept as many as he gives us, he said, as he prepared to walk 1 km (0.6 mile) to the nearest food distribution center to bring his family something to eat.

Allah will take care of them, he added, before disappearing into the crowd of refugees rushing to get ration supplies.

Islams wife, Amina Khatun, 24, said she did not agree with her husband.

If they [family planning workers] come here, I would like to opt for birth control, she told BenarNews.

She had their first child when she was 16 years old, two years after getting married. Over the next eight years she delivered four more children. All of them, including the latest addition to their family, were born at home with help from women in the neighborhood.

Its not easy to take care of so many children. And my husband wants to have more, Khatun said exhaustedly as she breastfed her newborn.

Abdul Muktalif, 57, a camp leader in Teknaf, said that all Rohingya couples had at least five children in hopes that the more kids they have, the more money they will bring in when they grow up.

Muktalif, who has been living at the Leda camp for the last 14 years, has 15 children  the youngest 1 year old  from three wives.

Officials weigh voluntary sterilization

Bhattacharjee said his office was mulling the idea of providing voluntary sterilization to Rohingya but cannot implement it unless the Ministry (of Health and Family Welfare) approves it.

In a statement issued Thursday, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said: Simply offering sterilization would be a narrow and unethical approach.

Family planning is a matter of individual choice, should be completely voluntary, and women, girls and couples should have access to the widest method mix for them to choose from complemented by adequate information and counseling on available methods and services, it said.
Lawyer Harry Roque answers questions during a news conference in Tokyo, Nov. 2, 2016. He is now the spokesman for the Philippine president.

Updated at 1:16 p.m. ET on 2017-11-07

The new Philippines presidential spokesman on Thursday welcomed criticism of the governments maligned drug crackdown that has left thousands dead, insisting President Rodrigo Duterte would not tolerate murder by policemen.

Harry Roque, a human rights lawyer who previously defended journalists, emphasized that there remained a presumption of regularity in police discharging their official duties.

Unless we can come up with actual evidence that extra-legal killings do exist, then we cannot overcome the presumption, Roque told a news conference in Manila.

He said before he took the job, Duterte assured him that he would not tolerate murder by cops, promising in particular to prosecute those accused of killing teenager Kian Loyd delos Santos in August.

The 17-year-old student was among close to 100 killed by police in a weeklong anti-drug operation in Manila and nearby suburbs.

Officers claimed delos Santos drew a gun on them, forcing them to fire back and kill him. But a closed circuit television camera in the neighborhood showed the boy being taken away by two plain clothes officers. Minutes later he was found dead.

Two other teens were killed days later in what appeared to be suspicious circumstances, with one found with his head covered in a packing tape.

The three killings galvanized political opposition to Dutertes drug war, eventually forcing him to order police to stand down.

Church, rights groups protest

Rights groups have joined the politically influential Roman Catholic Church in denouncing the killings. An influential Christian evangelical group, the Jesus is Lord (JIL) movement, last week also openly broke with the president and urged accountability in the face of the killings.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said it would martial hundreds of thousands of faithful to join a prayer vigil over the weekend to heal the nation and protest the killings.

A peaceful gathering, the program is largely expected to reflect the general mood across the country because of the churchs stature in the Philippines, Asias bastion of Catholicism.

Previously, the church marshaled its supporters to push for the removal of two former presidents  the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Joseph Estrada in 2001. Marcos died in exile in Hawaii in 1989, and Estrada was later pardoned.

While Roque said Duterte had assured him he would not sanction murders by police, it was clear that there will be collateral damage.

The goal of the government is to minimize the collateral damage. The goal of the government is to uphold the right to life, which is to protect and promote the right to life, Roque said.

As far as this obligation is concerned, there is a continuing obligation of the state to investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators of these killings, he said.

He said that Dutertes frequent tirades against the European Union, the United Nations and other countries questioning his crackdown were in line with the principle of non-interference.

Because the drug war is a sovereign undertaking, Roque said.

So its only understandable that the president expressed displeasure where he feels that this tenet of non-interference is being violated by other countries, he said.

Prior to becoming a congressman last year, Roque founded the Manila-based Center for International Law that advocated for human rights.

The group had represented families of 32 journalists who were among 58 killed by a Muslim political clan in the south in 2009, the single biggest group of media workers slain at one time.

The group also represented clients whose family members were killed in the drug war.

An earlier version incorrectly gave the date for the photo of Harry Roque as Nov. 2, 2017.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures as he addresses troops during a change of command and tribute to retiring Philippine Armed Forces Chief Gen. Eduardo Ano, at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon city, Oct. 26, 2017.

The Philippines expressed dismay Friday over low national scores in a U.S. yardstick for rule of law and combating corruption that could disqualify the country from hundreds of millions of dollars in development aid from Washington.

In its country scorecard released on Thursday, the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC) gave the Philippines a failing grade in two categories, but gave it good marks for other areas such as fiscal and trade policies, government effectiveness and freedom of information.

Philippine presidential spokesman Harry Roque noted that one of the highlights of the new report is our failure to hurdle the control of corruption, even as he stressed that methodologies used in coming up with the scores were old.

The findings, therefore, may not completely reflect the reform initiatives of the Duterte administration in the area of fighting corruption and good governance, Roque said.

The scorecards release came almost a year after Washington deferred voting on renewing an aid package to the Philippines under MCC, which was valued at $434 million (22.2 billion pesos) the last time.

Neither government indicated the size of the fresh grant that could be halted over concerns about rule of law amid President Rodrigo Dutertes crackdown on crime that has left thousands of suspected drug addicts and users dead since he assumed office last year.

The MCC, set up by the United States government to reduce poverty around the world, has been monitoring Philippine eligibility for the program.

According to the agency, countries seeking assistance should show a commitment to just and democratic governance. It uses the scorecard as a tool to measure compliance.

The MCC scorecard not only helps countries identify where improvement is needed but also leverage resources to drive change in support of long-term growth and poverty reduction, the agency said on its website.

Committed to further reforms: Presidential spokesman

Roque said reform initiatives implemented by the Duterte administration include firing government officials, including those close to him due to reports of corruption and making all government deals transparent by passing freedom of information legislation.

The president also streamlined the delivery of basic services, as well as went after big-time tax delinquents, including the countrys flag carrier, Philippine Airlines, Roque said.

We are hopeful that the MCC board will take into account these initiatives and see our commitment to further reforms in the area covered by the compact assistance, he said.

In December 2016, the United States announced that it would defer assistance to Manila, but did not preclude it from receiving future grants.

That decision occurred after concerns were raised about civil liberties in the Philippines, following almost nightly police raids on alleged drug havens that have left many civilians dead.

The U.S. has criticized Dutertes bloody war on illegal narcotics, which has left more than 12,000 alleged drug dealers and users dead, according to the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates.

Police claim the actual figure is 3,800  a number higher than the estimated 3,200 political activists and students who vanished and were presumed slain during the two-decade regime of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, which ended in 1986.

In the past, Duterte blasted Washington for what he said was apparent interference in his countrys domestic affairs, and threatened to expel U.S. forces from the Philippines. He also cursed ex-President Barrack Obama and vowed to promote alliances with traditional U.S. adversaries China and Russia.

His tone has improved after President Donald Trump entered office in January. The two leaders are expected to meet later this month, when Manila hosts Southeast Asian leaders for a summit.

The U.S. also provided crucial intelligence help and military support as the Philippine military defeated Islamic State-linked militants in southern Marawi city.
Translations on this website are prepared by a third-party provider. Some portions may be incorrect. Some itemsincluding downloadable files or imagescannot be translated at all. No liability is assumed by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for any errors or omissions. Any user who relies on translated content does so at his/her own risk.
For Immediate Release, November 3, 2017 Contacts: Jeff Miller, Center for Biological Diversity, (707) 604-7739, jmiller@biologicaldiversity.org

Tom Wheeler, EPIC, (206) 356-8689, tom@wildcalifornia.org Fifth Lawsuit Challenges Destructive Highway-widening Through Ancient California Redwoods Unnecessary Caltrans Project Would Destroy Iconic Trees in Richardson Grove SAN FRANCISCO Environmental groups and local residents again sued the California Department of Transportation for approving a highway-widening project that would needlessly damage or destroy thousand-year-old redwood trees in Californias iconic Richardson Grove State Park along Highway 101 in Humboldt County. This is the fifth legal challenge to Caltrans approval of the controversial Richardson Grove Operational Improvement Project. The project would damage the roots of more than 100 of Richardson Groves ancient redwoods, including trees up to 3,000 years old, 18 feet in diameter and 300 feet tall. Caltrans has pursued this project solely to incrementally improve passage for oversized commercial trucks, and continues to rely on inadequate environmental review. Quotes from plaintiffs

This ancient grove is special and I cannot let those trees die, said plaintiff Bess Bair, whose grandparents owned the adjacent Hartsook Inn and worked to preserve Richardson Grove. Caltrans cant show any science that cutting into their roots wont kill these redwoods. The local community does not want this project. My great grandfather Henry Devoy entrusted 120 acres of old-growth redwoods here in 1922 at the inception of Richardson Grove, said plaintiff Trisha Lotus, who is intent on maintaining her familys legacy to protect Richardson Grove State Park. Thats why were fighting Caltrans plan to cut into their roots, which could compromise their health and could kill these trees. People made tremendous sacrifices to protect our state parks and we cant let Caltrans ill-conceived project and hasty decision threaten the wonders of Richardson Grove, said plaintiff Jeff Hedin of Piercy, Calif. Caltrans owes the public a robust and thorough discussion of our environmental and safety concerns. They havent done that. We need transportation policies and projects that prioritize both environmental and economic sustainability, and truly represent the most cost-effective safety measures, said plaintiff and Humboldt County business owner David Spreen. Caltranss Highway 101 Richardson Grove project fails on all counts. Caltrans hasnt changed or improved anything about this project. Its the same terrible proposal to damage ancient redwoods in our state park with no benefits to the community, said Jeff Miller of the Center for Biological Diversity. Theres no compelling traffic or safety reason to destroy these beautiful trees. The project is a non-starter. Caltrans priorities are all mixed up, said Tom Wheeler, executive director of the Environmental Protection Information Center. Instead of keeping our storm-damaged roads open or fixing the disaster-in-waiting at Last Chance Grade, Caltrans continues to waste taxpayer money to push the disastrous Richardson Grove Project. If Caltrans digs up the roadbed through Richardson Grove, toxic lead left by previous generations will be released into the park and surrounding environment, something Caltrans hasn't yet owned up to, said Patty Clary of Californians for Alternatives to Toxics. We can't sit by when so much is at stake with this gem of a park. Background

The latest lawsuit challenges Caltrans violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, due to inadequate evaluation of the environmental impacts of cutting into tree roots, and the Transportation Act, which requires highway projects with federal funding to minimize harm to natural resources in state parks. The lawsuit was filed yesterday filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by the Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Protection Information Center, Friends of Del Norte, Californians for Alternatives to Toxics, and longtime local residents Bess Bair, Trisha Lee Lotus, Jeffrey Hedin and David Spreen. Previous legal challenges had blocked construction and forced Caltrans to rescind all project approvals in 2014. The agency quietly reapproved the project in May 2017. Caltrans claims it has made significant changes but still intends to cut into tree roots, a procedure that would threaten the stability and viability of old-growth redwoods. The conservation groups also filed suit challenging the new approval in state court in June. Richardson Grove State Park, where tourists often first encounter large redwoods when heading north on Highway 101, is home to one of the last protected stands of accessible old-growth redwood trees in the world. The park has essential habitat for threatened and endangered species such as the northern spotted owl, and its creeks support runs of imperiled salmon and steelhead trout. Caltrans first proposed the project in 2007, claiming the widening is needed to accommodate large-truck travel. However, Highway 101 through Richardson Grove is already designated for larger trucks and does not have significant safety problems. The agency cannot demonstrate that the project is necessary for safety or would benefit the local economy. The attorneys for the plaintiffs in this suit are Philip Gregory of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP; Stuart Gross of Gross & Klein LLP; and Sharon Duggan, a staff attorney with EPIC and a long-time expert on environmental law.
There is a long overdue sea of change happening in South African marketing. A few brave brands have started to shift the way that modern African consumers are being communicated with.

 Matthias Ziegler via 123RF

The advertising industry, belatedly, is starting to reflect and respect the complexity and density of a market that, to date, generally has been treated as a lumpen mass with a singular identity. Metro FM is about engaging with the African consumer and strive to be present in the lives of the consumer, wherever they are.

Vodacom is about depicting South Africans at their best and make an extra effort to meet the needs of the modern African consumer with its innovative products and service offerings.

Winning the Grand Prix award at last years Sunday Times Top Brands Awards is a testament to that Woolworths is another brand changing the way they communicate with the modern African consumer. The South African Customer Satisfaction Index (SAcsi) for supermarkets, shows that South African consumers are most satisfied with Woolworths in 2017, after winning last year as well. Woolworths has successfully shown that they are able to consistently meet the modern Africans ever-changing needs. I would also respectfully add, Metropolitan.

They believe that the best version of Africa is not only the best version of Europe or the USA in Africa, but a melting pot of different cultures and ideologies.

Metropolitan is a truly African-based business, providing aspirational individuals customised financial service packages that protect and enhance their assets. Metropolitan is all about people. These are among the brands re-shaping the conversation.

Up till now we have been operating off simplistic assumptions about identity and how our emerging middle class see themselves. However, continuous research, interactive engagements with our clients and plenty of other evidence suggests that identity is in fact complex and unique. South African millennials (Afrillennials), in particular, have multifaceted identities and will decide which facets of those identities matter to them without being dictated to.

Afrillennials

They are citizens of the world and the continent and still proudly South African. They believe that the best version of Africa is not only the best version of Europe or the USA in Africa, but a melting pot of different cultures and ideologies. They live in their current environment and in their inherited communities.

They will, on their own terms, define themselves by race or language. They are born frees who are also tied by their past. They want respect for all their identities and do not want to be pigeon-holed or put in a box. According to The Deloitte Millennial Survey 2017 (Apprehensive millennials: seeking stability and opportunities in an uncertain world) the South African millennial is more optimistic than the global norm.

The financial knowledge and resourcefulness of the African consumer is far greater than previously acknowledged. They are effectively financial experts in their own right. For financial services brands, this has powerful implications. In the old world, aspirational African consumers in this category were assumed to want to migrate upwards from a mass black brand to an elite white brand.

Its now very clear they want neither. What they want is a financial services brand that delivers solutions relevant to their world and backs that with responsive service. To connect, financial services communication needs to become ingenious, proud and real, because thats what our consumers are. We need to offer ourselves as mentors and partners, and not preachers or dictators. We must show respect and understanding.

Omni-channel

The use of vernacular languages is a key part of relating to this market. English has been the default language of brand building for financial services in the middle market but that has to change, along with our service provision which must deliver in, what we call, an omni-channel way - whatever language, on whatever platform, and at whatever time the client wants.

Metropolitans new #ISeeYou campaign is an attempt to really step change marketing into this world. The brief to amplify African success has resulted in a spectacular mash up of rap, vernacular, social seeding and assertive African positivity. The advert is the creative collaboration led by Ogilvy Cape Town executive creative director, Tseliso Rangaja, and directed by Sunu Gonera of Egg Films. Shot in a uniquely local back drop, Soweto born rapper Spoek Mathambo delivers a message of celebration of the hard work and financial Success of South Africans in poetic virtuosity:

Youre the guy that gets up in the morning and says

siyabangena! siphusha ipassion

You put your shoulder to the grind.

You make each second of every hour count.

My brother. Wena owaziyo ukuthi ama gents ayaphanda.

That elke mens moet n plaan maak...not only n boer.

I see you!

Giving it your all,

No half measures.

Its going to be a good month.

Because to you failure is niks.

To the people who make every day a success.

I see you.

Thus far, the feedback is overwhelmingly positive because it is so different from where the brand has gone before. With the focus on relevance and consumer awareness, Metropolitan puts appreciation into being one of the most modern African companies that elevates the lives of the consumer to establish a truly South African connection.
In 1994, there were more telephone lines in New York City than there were in the entire continent of Africa. Over the next two decades, digital transformation in Africa dramatically picked up speed.

The future is already here, its just unevenly distributed. - William Gibson

Today, the continent is teeming with pioneers building digital bridges within and between villages, countries and continents, as well as connecting Africa to the global economy and research communities.

Inasmuch as this may be true, many parts of Africa continue to play catch-up with the rest of the world in terms of the control and directness of subsea fibre optic connectivity.

Africa first shift

This challenge appears to be a colonial artefact of the global growth of the internet as the continent has arguably faced more geographic, political and economic barriers to its development than other regions.

Fortunately, this is about to change; representing a symbolic Africa first shift for the continent in terms of its self-determination and autonomy in the telecommunications arena. For countries in sub-Saharan Africa, it presents a massive opportunity to leapfrog other countries. For regions outside of the continent, it will also offer a more efficient, alternative route for burgeoning internet traffic across the worlds largest continent.

Currently, the West Africa Cable System (WACS) is the most important conduit for data for the West Coast of the continent. Managed by a 12-member consortium, it provides carrier-level services to operators in sub-Saharan Africa across a dozen countries, including 12 landing points in Africa and three in Europe (The Canary Islands, Portugal and England). Running more than 14,000 km  starting in Yzerfontein (South Africa) to London (UK)  WACS is an essential artery for the digital connectivity and economic development of countries connecting to the cable.

But in order for internet traffic to travel between Africa and the Americas (the largest centre for the production and aggregation of digital content and services), it must first go through Europe, a rather inefficient route, and one might even say unnecessary if needing to cross the Atlantic ocean.

Three continents interconnected

With the South Atlantic Cable System (SACS)  expected to be completed in 2018  the first direct link between Africa and South America will be created. A subsea cable extending more than 6,500 km between Brazil and Angola, SACS will be 100% owned and managed by an African company, Angola Cables. Combined with Monet*, a cable system to be completed this year and operated by Angola Cables, Algar Telecom, ANTEL and Google, SACS represents a paradigm shift for Africa and the Americas in terms of connectivity and collaboration.

Currently, the latency, or the time lag between a data packet being sent and received, on subsea fibre optic cables systems between Angola and Brazil is 350 milliseconds, due to the trafficking of internet via Europe. With SACS, this will be reduced fivefold to approximately 63 milliseconds. In effect, this will create a continental shift in terms of internet access to and from Africa, bypassing Europe. Once operational, an African company will be fully responsible for the digital exchange between Africa and the Americas.

Together with growing terrestrial fibre optic systems, mobile technologies and satellite services, such a direct connection between will also improve other countries (in the Middle East and Asia, for example), access more parts of the world, either as sources of content or investment destinations for Africa-based data and communications services. Hubs for telecommunications innovation have blossomed on the continent, and with the completion of SACS and Monet, further expansion of data centres and internet Exchanges Points (IXPs) in Africa is expected.

Beyond connectivity

Telecommunications and digitalisation are some of the most powerful tools for empowering countries and economies. If one looks at mobile telephony, it has spread further and faster in Africa than any other part of the world. According to GSMA, a global organisation representing nearly 800 mobile operators and hundreds of mobile technology companies, the doubling of mobile data usage increases annual growth in GDP per person by half a percentage point.

Consider some of the following facts about the mobile market in sub-Saharan Africa:

420 million unique mobile subscribers exist in the region, with an average penetration rate of 43% as of the end of 2016.



By 2020, the number of mobile broadband connections will more than double to reach half a billion, nearly two-thirds of the regions total connections.



Smartphone connections have doubled over the past two years to nearly 200 million, accounting for a quarter of mobile connections.



Mobile data traffic is forecast to grow twelvefold across Africa as a whole over the next five years.

Sub-Saharan Africa now accounts for nearly a tenth of the global mobile subscriber base and is expected to grow faster than any other region over the next five years. With an improved connection between the Americas and Africa, complemented by a strong mobile industry on the continent, the social and economic development of the regions is expected to improve in line with such growth.

Today, mobile connectivity has become the main platform for innovation and the driving force for greater inclusion, with about 270 million people in the region accessing the internet through mobile devices. Last year, mobile technologies and services generated $110bn of economic value in sub-Saharan Africa, equivalent to 7.7% of GDP. As local and global connectivity continues to improve, mobiles contribution to GDP is expected to increase to $142bn, equivalent to 8.6% of GDP, by 2020.

Research and education

The telecoms/mobile ecosystem in the region is attracting talent and investment to African tech companies, as well as linking up academic institutions and research and education (R&E) organisations in other parts of the world.

As trans-Atlantic connectivity improves with the completion of SACS and Monet, universities and other learning communities in African, North American, and Latin American countries are increasingly collaborating to improve knowledge sharing and research. Examples include the Florida International Universitys Center for internet Augmented Research and Assessment (CIARA) that recently expanded its development of a next-generation internet network to include Africa.

With a project called the AmLight Consortium  a multi-institutional project composed of NPOs, universities and regional R&E networks  CIARA promotes the development of advanced network applications, content, and services between the Americas and Africa. Over the next 10 years, the Amlight Consortium will dramatically increase the use of Americas-Africa cable systems for research and education applications, including the establishment of a high-performance network link between the AMPATH IXP in Miami, and Angonix, an IXP in Luanda, Angola (owned by Angola Cables).

This infrastructure will connect with the Atlantic Wave-Software Defined Exchange in Sao Paulo, Miami, Boca Raton, and Atlanta. The collaboration aims to provide efficient peering between national R&E Networks and communities of interest through a distributed open software define exchange model.

What the ongoing development of Africa depends on

The ongoing development of Africa depends on the degree to which it can globally integrate with the digital economy.

With a growing appetite for data and mobile devices requiring broadband connectivity (supported by next-generation international networks), the continent requires investment in its telecommunications capacity in order to support socio-economic advancement.

With the imminent launch of a trans-Atlantic cable system between Angola and Brazil, sub-Saharan Africa is poised for a paradigm shift in connectivity. It will also be a profound and symbolic step toward the continent taking the drivers seat in expanding the regions economic opportunities and determining its digital destiny.

*Monet is a 10,556km cable system between Santos and Fortaleza in Brazil, and Boca Raton in the USA.

Resources:
Bayer has announced the opening of a new local office in Maputo, Mozambique, cementing its presence and demonstrating commitment to its growing business interests in Africa.

While Bayer will initially have a large focus on the local agricultural sector through its crop science division, it is already present in the country through the distribution of some of its pharmaceuticals, animal health products and anti-malaria programmes. The new Bayer regional office will be based in the capital city, Maputo, and will include sales support from the crop science division, and has an operational team on the ground in different parts of the country.

Dr Klaus Eckstein, CEO and Country Divisional Head of the Crop Science Division for Bayer Southern Africa at the opening of the Mozambique office

Mozambiques Honourable Jose Condugua Pacheco, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security welcomed Bayers investment into the country. Pachecho has previously gone on record indicating that his biggest expectation is to attract more investment into the country. Bayer intends on engaging with the minister as the companys presence is cemented in Mozambique.

Synergies with Mozambique

We believe that we have synergies with the aspirations of the Mozambican government. This is especially true of our crop science division that is introducing solutions that meets the unique requirements of the region, which is endowed with a range of climatic, soil and water conditions opportune for a diverse range of agricultural production. Bayer has a lot to offer Mozambique with our strong focus on initiatives that can help shape the future of the local agricultural sector that can enable a sustainable, nutritious food supply, says Dr Klaus Eckstein, Bayers CEO and head of crop science in Southern Africa.

In addition, Bayer has already committed to Mozambique through its partnership with Goodbye Malaria and has been on the frontline of the fight against malaria for some years. Malaria remains the most common cause of death in Mozambique.

Promising economic trends

Current reports indicate that the Mozambican economy is showing signs of recovery after a difficult 2016 with the first quarter GDP growth in 2017 more than double the growth rate of the preceding quarter. In addition, the output of the agricultural sector in Mozambique is expected to register growth of 6.5 percent this year.

With the promising economic trends pointing upwards, we believe that we are coming into Mozambique at the right time to make our contribution in the region, drawing from over 100 years of experience in operating on the African continent, concludes Eckstein.
Online retail is a huge business today, with an increasing number of consumers across the world turning to the internet to buy products and services. There are several reasons for this, but the obvious ones are convenience, affordability and range of choice that physical retailers cannot hope to match.

However, as with any popular online activity, e-commerce has captured the attention of cyber crooks. Cyber-criminals can be likened to pickpockets. They go where they can find the crowds, and this is why online transactions are becoming a popular target, says Robert Brown, CEO of DRS, a Cognosec company.

With that in mind and conscious that the Christmas season is just around the corner, we have assembled a list of tips on how to stay safe and secure when shopping online, he adds.

Firstly, stick to brands and businesses that you know well, and have a good reputation. In this way, not only can you can be sure you will receive a quality product, but reputable brands and organisations who sell online are sure to have good security solutions and tools in place to protect their customers when shopping online.

Be careful though. Todays cyber-criminals are very cunning and clever, often creating fake websites that look so close to the genuine article, they would fool all but the closest examination. After all, this is how phishing attacks have become so successful  these people know what they are doing, and produce extremely high-quality replica sites.

Brown also advises to shop only on secure websites. Look for https: rather than http: at the front of the URL. Websites that use https are secure because they employ SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) to encrypt any information that is distributed online, such as your credit card or other login details. In this way, your personal data is kept safe and private.

Over and above secure sites, Brown advises shoppers to be vigilant in terms of the connection they are shopping over. Public Wi-Fi is a notorious means for cyber-criminals to carry out man-in-the-middle attacks. During these attacks, the hacker secretly relays and possibly alters the communication between two parties who think they are communicating directly with each other. Public Wi-Fi might be cheap and easy to use, but it isnt safe. The risks far outweigh the benefits, and public hotspots can be hacked far too easily.

Payment security

He says it is also a good idea to use secure payment services such as PayPal, and if this isnt an option credit cards rather than debit cards to purchase goods online. Payment services are the most secure option. The major advantage is that they act as the middleman. Your payments go to them, and they pay it on to the retail partner. Retailers will never actually see your bank details. Credit cards  more often than not  make use of two-factor authentication, and are more secure than debit cards, and dont link to money that you really own. Moreover, many credit card companies limit your responsibility to pay back money in the event you are defrauded online.

In addition, he says to be aware of the old maxim if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Often there are fantastic deals and offers that are totally legitimate, but this isnt always the case. When you see an offer to buy something fantastic for what is a small fraction of the usual price or value, beware. Many scams promise unbelievably good offers as a means for sucking their victims in, when in reality, they are hoping to infect their targets with malware. Be careful. If the site isnt well known, if theres no SSL showing, then rather err on the side of caution.
While South Africa has almost escaped the grips of the drought that crippled the agriculture sector last year, concerns are growing over the state of the Western Cape where the drought is reaching a critical state.

Paul Makube

The Western Cape is the second biggest in terms of agriculture GDP with a share of 23% of the industry. The lack of water is a real concern as it has far-reaching consequences for not only the industry but the consumers too, as food prices may eventually be impacted, says Paul Makube, senior agricultural economist for FNB Business.

A serious water crisis looming

Water levels in South Africas dams improved marginally on the back of recent rains in some areas with gains in both the winter rainfall and non-winter rainfall areas of the Western Cape (WC). The weekly update from the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) showed a 0.7 percentage point (ppt) increase week on week (w/w) to 36.6% full relative to 61.3% during the same week last year.

The main concern with these water levels is that, at the current levels, the dams are expected to hold out up to about April 2018. If the situation does not improve significantly in the medium term we will have a serious water crisis in a region that makes up a substantial portion of the agricultural sector, adds Makube.

Businesses, consumers will feel the impact

The impact of this on the businesses in this sector may also be quite dire. The agriculture sector is highly depended on the reliable and sustainable supply of water for irrigation of crops and sustenance of livestock.

Upstream, it is required for processing of raw agricultural produce into different consumer products. The vegetable and fruit sectors are hard hit with planting for potatoes and onions in Ceres already reduced by some 80% and 50% respectively according to industry estimates. In the case of fruits, the quality and volume will be reduced. Longer term, some trees might have to be replaced with huge cost implications for the producers. The wine industry already projects a further decline in output due to drought and recent frost damage in the Breedekloof, Robertson and Worcester.

While the rest of the country is likely to yield more agricultural produce, the reduced output from the Western Cape is likely to slow down the rate of the decline in food prices, more so for horticultural crops and livestock.

The current short-to-medium term forecasts indicate good rainfalls for most of the country. While the short-term rainfall outlook still does not look good for the WC. We hope that the summer rains will help alleviate the pressure in the months ahead. The growing concern remains that the limited availability of irrigation water coupled with the lower soil moisture levels will reduce agricultural output for the WC, says Makube.
Eastern Cape farmers who are facing extreme circumstances and whose finances are at breaking point say they are receiving no support from the government.

stevepb via pixabay

As a result of the extraneous circumstances, meat prices in the province are at an all-time high and could escalate even further in the immediate future with fruit and vegetables set to follow suit.

Farmers debt, cash flows exhausted

This is the stark warning issued by Agri Eastern Cape president Doug Stern. Faced with the worst drought in 100 years, farmers cash flows have been exhausted, Stern said. And while the government granted R400. to the Land Bank for farmers in need, farmers debt in South Africa has risen from R100bn a couple of years ago to around R150bn.

In the Eastern Cape, he said, the debt was due to the intensity of the drought which was compounded by low rainfall, higher than average temperatures, heavy frosts well into spring in the higher lying regions and stronger than normal winds.

Livestock losses, rising meat prices

The north-eastern part of the province  the Barkly East, Lady Grey, Aliwal North and Jamestown area  has had to deal with ravaging fires, which destroyed about 60,000 hectares of veld. Huge infrastructural losses, as well as livestock losses, were suffered by these farmers, said Stern.

Fortunately, they have received some good rain. However, because the animals are in poor condition, around 5,000 head of small stock were lost in the region due to the recent sudden cold spell. He said the provinces farmers had been forced to reduce their animal numbers drastically  even slaughtering their breeding flocks and herds.

Once the drought has broken, farmers will be holding back animals to rebuild their flocks and herds resulting in fewer animals to market, which could raise meat prices even further.

Farmers dams are empty

According to Stern, the irrigation region around Hankey and Patensie is also facing huge problems because of the extremely low level of water in Kouga Dam, at 13% of capacity.

In the Langkloof, farmers dams are empty and their apple trees urgently need water during the blossoming process or they face huge losses.

He said the last straw for many Eastern Cape farmers would be the increased labour costs as a result of the states determination to force the national minimum wage through on 1 May 2018, even though the negotiating process would not have been completed by then.

Technoloy a saving grace

However, I believe that our farmers are resilient and will bounce back. Over the last 20 years, agricultural production has increased by 40%, in spite of the drought and the lower number of farmers on the land.

One of the reasons for this is the global technological revolution  agriculture being one of the industries in which it is most active  through the use of drones and electronic animal tagging. The scope for even higher production capacity in this country is huge.

Many positives and many bold initiatives emerged from Agri SAs conference which both Agri SA and Agri EC will be looking at and implementing in the coming year. It will take time to work on these developments, but change will come.
Last week, representatives from 24 countries plus the European Union met in Hobart to discuss plans for a vast marine protected area (MPA) off the coast of East Antarctica.

An Antarctic icebreaker sails past a penguin. But conservationists are still waiting for their own breakthrough. John B. Weller, author provided

The proposed area, spanning almost one million square kms, is crucial for a vast array of marine life. Scientists, conservationists and governments have been pushing for the protection of this area for upwards of seven years.

Why, then, has the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) failed to deliver, despite having agreed similar protections for other areas of the Southern Ocean?

Competing national incentives among member states, and complex international relations extending far beyond the negotiations themselves, have stymied consensus as states negotiate power and fishing access in this icy commons at the bottom of the world.

CCAMLR committed to establishing a network of marine parks in the Southern Ocean in 2002 and has enjoyed success. In 2009 it established the worlds first international MPA, covering 94,000 square kms south of the South Orkney Islands. Then, in 2016, the commission made headlines when it successfully negotiated the worlds largest marine park, covering 1.55 million square kms in the Ross Sea.

This raised hopes for a similar breakthrough for East Antarctica at this years meeting. But those hopes were put on hold for another year.

Vast protections

According to plans first proposed to CCAMLR in 2012 by Australia, France and the EU, the East Antarctic marine park was designed as a representative system of seven marine protected areas, covering 1.8 million square kms that would capture key ecosystem processes.

By 2017 the seven zones had been scaled back to three, covering just under 1 million square kms  largely to accommodate some member states economic interests and political concerns.

Coming into 2017, proponents had worked to strengthen the East Antarctic MPA proposal, achieving the support of all states except Russia and China.

This obstruction is not novel. These two states have been the most vocal opponents of MPAs throughout the history of the negotiations, citing a variety of concerns including fishing interests, sufficiency of science, conservation need, and political accusations.

Fishing interests

Fishing interests have been a crucial factor in the negotiations, not just for China and Russia but also for the bulk of fishing states, which make up the majority of the commission.

One of the reasons the South Orkney Islands reserve was adopted swiftly in 2009 was because it did not interfere with current or future fishing interests. Following this precedent, the Ross Sea marine reserve was designed largely around the lucrative fishing grounds for toothfish, and China only agreed to the plans after a krill-fishing zone was added in 2015  despite the fact that neither China nor any other member state currently fishes for krill in the Ross Sea.

Small toothfish fisheries are scattered throughout the East Antarctic, including within the proposed MPA. However, this proposal has a multiple-use design, and none of the areas are explicitly closed to fishing. Yet some of Russias and Chinas opposition concerned potential limitations to fishing. Why?

As a commons where sovereignty is suspended under the Antarctic Treaty, the Southern Ocean continues to be a contested space. Fishing can be used as a means to occupy space in this global commons, meeting geopolitical as well economic goals by asserting power and securing future access.

In recent years China has used the debate over MPAs to challenge the intentions of the very CCAMLR Convention as one inherently offering members a right to fish rather than a responsibility to conserve. A new Chinese krill fishing effort in the East Antarctic that initiated last year may be worth more in terms of geopolitics than it is in terms of money.

Finding opportunities to break the deadlock

How can the deadlock be broken? Perhaps negotiators can learn from the success of the Ross Sea marine park plan where high-level diplomacy created a political window of opportunity. Chinas support was secured in 2015, after presidential-level bilateral meetings with the United States.

That left Russia as the only nation not to support the plan  a bad look, given that it was preparing to chair the 2016 meeting, and President Vladimir Putin had declared 2017 a special Year of Ecology. Russia had the opportunity and incentives to demonstrate leadership.

But also importantly, the US Secretary of State John Kerry was personally invested in the outcome, and throughout 2016 he had been liaising with his counterparts in Russia. Pressure was building both inside and outside the meeting room. After securing concessions to increase the amount of toothfish fishing in certain zones, Russia eventually approved the plans.

In managing one of the great oceanic commons, despite political plays, CCAMLR has demonstrated leadership in adopting marine protected areas. The Southern Ocean now harbours the worlds largest marine park in the Ross Sea. Despite the latest setback a proposal for the East Antarctic remains on the table as well as plans for other marine parks in the Weddell Sea and off the Antarctic Peninsula.

Securing international agreements takes patience and it is often unclear in the moment how a political window of opportunity opens. It may still take some time to align national incentives and generate international diplomacy for the East Antarctic MPA and the others to come. The commissions 25 members ultimately need to find the political will to see it through.
The establishment of the African Cities Development Fund (FODEVA) recently took place during a two-day workshop hosted by United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG Africa) at the Hotel Rabat in Morocco.

The workshop emanated from a conference, Funding African cities: agenda, alliances and solutions', held in Marrakech in November 2014 at which members of UCLG Africa agreed to establish a financial vehicle dedicated to the funding of African cities. The fund aims to enable cities to issue bonds on national and international capital markets.

High-level experts

The workshop brought together twenty high-level experts including specialists in fundraising on the financial markets, officials from development banks and funds, asset managers from international private banks, officials of rating agencies, and representatives of national and local administrations.

The exchange of views and experiences and the contributions of participants helped to establish that:

There is a pressing need to set up a specialised vehicle for fundraising and access to funding in favour of African local governments.

The African Cities Development Fund will have a dual role - to sell the destination of African local governments to investors and to prepare the capacity for absorption and debt management of these local governments.

The African Cities Development Fund should enable local governments, or national institutions specialising in granting loans to the local governments, to borrow over a term of seven to 15 years to finance development projects.

During the preparation phase for the launch of the African Cities Development Fund, UCLG Africa should mobilise 2m - 1.5m to be provided by local governments and 0.5 million by central governments - the objective being to mobilise 10 central governments and 30 local governments, each contributing 50,000. This takeoff fund should be mobilised before the end of 2019.

As a starting point, the vehicle should aim to achieve approximately $2-3bn as its first fundraising goal. This should take place quickly (deadline 2020) and should target local governments that have a proven repayment capacity.

In this respect, a roadmap was worked out that would:

1. Define the structure of the capital.

2. Define the risk portfolio.

3. Cooperate with existing national tools.

4. Present the benefits of the vehicle.

5. Involve central governments to obtain their non-objection opinion.

6. Produce an information note on the vehicle.

7. Prepare and organise a communication campaign and a road show for the vehicle.

The intention is to finalise this roadmap in order to present the African Cities Development Fund as a vehicle of credible funding at the 2018 Africities Summit.
Union federation Cosatu has demanded that all those behind mismanagement of the billions of taxpayers' funds, as revealed by the Auditor-General's latest report, be held accountable.

"It is outrageous and unacceptable that at a time when the economy is on its knees and the tax revenue is shrinking, so much money cannot be accounted for," said spokesman Sizwe Pamla.

He was referring to the R45.6bn the Auditor-General announced was lost to irregular expenditure in the last financial year. "What makes things worse is that the Auditor-General has warned that this figure is still likely to go up because other departments and state-owned enterprises are still being audited," he said.

If the report was anything to go by, it was highly unlikely that wrongdoers would be punished as government departments and entities were, at times, turning a blind eye to allegations of financial and supply chain mismanagement and fraud, Pamla noted.

While the required mechanism to report the illegalities exists, these tend to be ineffective, the Auditor-General said. "Our audits showed that only 43 auditees (13%) did not have all the required mechanisms for reporting and investigating transgressions or possible fraud, which included a lack of policies for investigation (20 auditees) and poor record keeping (26 auditees). Although 87% had the required mechanisms, these had not necessarily been successfully implemented."

Some 33% of all the reported incidents of fraud and mismanagement took longer than three months to investigate; 32% of all reported incidents were never investigated, according to the Auditor-General.
The latest FNB BER Civil Confidence Index, released towards the end of September, has shown that confidence in South Africa's construction sector in the last quarter fell to its lowest level since 2000. The index registered a level of 15, shedding 13 points from the second quarter. In addition to this lower confidence, caused primarily by weaker growth, Stats SA revealed that job losses in the construction industry over Q2 in 2017 totalled approximately 11,000.

Against the background of these bleak figures, two things are clear  firstly, that reliable yet efficient construction solutions are even more critical in this industry, and secondly, that construction workers need to ensure that they keep up to date with the latest building methods so that they have the most needed skills in a tight job market.

Welding has been one of the surest processes for securing pipes for many years, but it does have several drawbacks. Aside from requiring skilled and often highly paid technicians who are difficult to find locally and retain, welding is also time consuming and costly, mainly due to the numerous quality control procedures that need to be followed. In addition, the heat generated by welding can significantly reduce the strength of the metals being joined and damage critical surface coatings. Welding can also be an extreme safety hazard on construction sites.

Mechanical pipe joining technology

The South African construction industry is beginning to explore other pipe joining alternatives to welding. One of these advanced building solutions is mechanical pipe joining technology. Globally, this technology is one of the most popular and trusted methods of securing pipes, but South Africa has been slow to catch on. Mechanical pipe joining offers a permanent, safe, and cost-effective alternative to using flanges or welding with no hot works required. The systems are accessible simply by removing two bolts from a coupling, making it easier to maintain efficient system performance. This cuts a companys labour costs, pollution, energy usage, potential health and safety risks, as well as drastically reducing the time necessary to install and maintain these connections.

The growing popularity of mechanical pipe joining in the South African construction industry means that more local workers can be given jobs, as opposed to companies having to bring in highly skilled welders from other countries. It also becomes more essential for workers to be trained in the use of this technology. Victaulic trains hundreds of workers on various pipe grooving disciplines annually, such as roll grooving and cut grooving, as well as instruction on installation procedures of its couplings and fittings.

With mechanical pipe joining being accepted more and more in the construction and mining industries in South Africa, it provides a good opportunity for workers in these industries to be upskilled, as well as delivering a more effective and efficient building solution in a difficult climate.
Should I stay or should I go? This is an age old question employees ask themselves when evaluating their career prospects. Will it look bad on my CV to keep moving - call it career suicide if you will - and are the benefits of staying put sufficient to warrant passing over new job prospects?

Should I stay or should I go? This is an age old question employees ask themselves when evaluating their career prospects. Will it look bad on my CV to keep moving  call it career suicide if you will  and are the benefits of staying put sufficient to warrant passing over new job prospects? In a world where job hopping is considered the new normal  theres value in considering the merits of staying loyal. Its true there are some benefits to moving frequently: enhanced industry experience, exposure, and the development of resilience which is a natural consequence of change. But there are equally as many benefits to remaining with a company  dont knock it till youve tried it!

As a lifer who has spent nearly a quarter century in one industry, at one company  in fact its the only company I've ever worked for - theres a perception that its an easy passage; an easy way out. On the contrary: I have had to work hard to reinvent myself, remain relevant and noticed, and to maintain my growth trajectory. While I have nothing to compare to, I can confirm that I am not bored (never have been), I am still challenged and growing (more than ever), my career keeps advancing and I enjoy enormous job fulfilment. Take it from me  job satisfaction comes from within  your employer is not responsible for your happiness and career outcomes.

These are the principles that I believe are the difference between career self-actualisation and the illusive chase for external gratification; consider them lessons from a lifer:

Happiness is a choice

Choose to be happy and satisfied with the life you have and take this attitude into your workplace. Happiness is not solely about your DNA or your life circumstances  its a choice that you have to make every day. Attitude is everything. Successful people make the choice to be happy and work at it  reining in negative sentiment. This leads to a successful personal and professional life.

Drive from within

Employees who progress quickly are generally people who participate in their own journey  carving out the career they aspire to have. They dont sit back and ask what the world can do for them but rather what they can do for the world. This thinking is equally true of how they regard their employer and career. So decide early if you are a passenger or a driver and then strap in and enjoy the ride!

Grass isnt always greener

Sometimes the compulsion to make change is not driven by the right motivation, and change for the sake of change isnt always a good thing. The grass isnt always greener. Just like personal progress is something you control from within  so too is the ladder to success.

Understanding why you want to make a change demands honesty and a real appreciation of who you are. Be very clear before making a change.

Surround yourself with the right people

As much as you work for a company  its about the love of team and who you work with that makes all the difference. I am a firm believer that the culture of an organisation and working in a collaborative environment is often the difference between staying and leaving, and its important to assess that the organisational values are aligned with your own. When you feel like you belong and youre contributing to something bigger than yourself, your job becomes less about the pay check and more about purpose.

Take a break

I am a firm believer in holistic living. When you play hard you need to figure out when to reboot and recharge so as to give your mind, body and spirit space to breathe and refuel. More regular breaks will improve your focus, efficiency, productivity, energy and ability to initiate and drive your agenda. There are also definite health markers that include lowered blood pressure, better quality sleep, trimmer waistlines, and stress resilience  the ability to bounce back from stress.

Evolution and reinvention

To be clear, reinvention and evolution will only follow if you choose happiness; foster a positive attitude; and drive success from within  all of which must be balanced with regular down time to recharge. Being a lifer doesnt mean opting out or choosing sheltered employment. My career has been fluid and theres been so much growth - so staying was easy. But only stay if you feel theres evolution and continual growth  and remember you are as much in control of this as your employer is.

In closing  take responsibility and be accountable for your development. Equally so  dont stay if it doesnt serve you. But dont move because you believe its the only way to advance because thats not always true!
Cabinet has approved the National Minimum Wage Bill, Basic Conditions of Employment Amendment Bill and Labour Relations Amendment Bill.

These bills will now be submitted to the National Assembly and National Council of Provinces for concurrence and enactment.

In February 2017, representatives from government, business, labour and the community sector signed agreements at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) on measures to strengthen labour stability and collective bargaining and on how to introduce a National Minimum Wage.

The bills will appear in the Government Gazette on 10 November 2017 and can be found at www.labour.gov.za.

The National Minimum Wage Bill (NMW Bill) makes provision for the introduction of a minimum wage of R20 per hour, which is due to come into effect on 1 May 2018.

There are a few exceptions to the national minimum wage which include:

The minimum wage for farm workers will be 90% of R20 per hour (R18 per hour);



The minimum wage for domestic workers will be 75% of R20 per hour (R15 per hour);



The minimum wage for workers on an Expanded Public Works Programme is R11 per hour).

Nedlac social partners have agreed that the farm, forestry and domestic sectors will be brought up to 100% of the NMW within two years, pending research by the National Minimum Wage Commission.

Improving conditions of employment

The Basic Conditions of Employment Bill, 2017 seeks to introduce amendments to the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, 1997 in line with the enactment of the National Minimum Wage Act, 2017.

The primary amendments to be introduced relate to the repeal of sections of the BCEA that relate to the making of sectoral determinations and the powers and functions of the Employment Conditions Commission.

Amendments are also made that affect monitoring and enforcement by the labour inspectorate to apply to compliance with the national minimum wage and unemployment insurance and the jurisdiction of the CCMA is extended to include enforcement procedures and claims for underpayment in terms of the BCEA, the national minimum wage, unemployment insurance legislation, and claims arising from contracts or collective agreements.

Strengthening labour relations

Amendments to the Labour Relations Act aim to strengthen collective bargaining and to introduce an advisory arbitration measure to resolve strikes that are intractable, violent or may cause a local or national crisis.

The LRA amendments will be accompanied by a Code of Good Practice on Collective Bargaining, Industrial Action and Picketing. The Code is intended to provide practical guidance on collective bargaining, the resolution of disputes of mutual interest and the resort to industrial action.

The Nedlac social partners have reached agreement on an Accord on Collective Bargaining and Industrial Action in which all social partners commit to take steps necessary to prevent violence, intimidation and damage to property and to improve the capacity of social partners and other agencies to resolve disputes peacefully and expeditiously.

All trade unions and employers will be encouraged to sign the Accord on Collective Bargaining and Industrial Action.

The Department of Labour will embark on National Information Sessions to inform stakeholders of the amendments and the other elements of the national agreement.

The information sessions will begin in Johannesburg on Thursday, 9 November 2017 and will continue to early 2018.

The first sessions are aimed at trade unions, with later sessions from January 2018 being targeted at employers and other interested parties.

A key objective of the information sessions will be to ensure that the national minimum wage and the labour market stability measures are communicated as widely as possible and that trade unions and employers understand the specific implications for their operations.

Further information on dates and venues for the information sessions will be available at: www.labour.gov.za.
To ensure sustained tourism and overall economic growth, African cities need to find efficient ways to develop into smart cities capable of attracting visitors, offering unique experiences and overcoming growing infrastructure demands.

The Mastercard Global Destinations Cities Index (GDCI), which provides insight into the motivations and travel spend of visitors, ranked 132 global fastest growing destination cities, providing a deeper understanding of why people travel and how they spend around the world.

Getty (Image Supplied)

There were thirteen African cities ranked in the index, indicating a great opportunity for tourism authorities to work together to better position the continents full and diverse offering. Cities ranked included: Johannesburg, Cape Town, Lagos, Casablanca, Cairo, Durban, Accra, Dakar, Entebbe, Tunis, Nairobi, Maputo and Beira.

Learning from the worlds top destination cities

Bangkok, a city that remained the top-ranked destination city by international overnight visitor arrivals with 19.4 million visitors in 2016 alone, provides a good case study on what cities in African can adopt. Additionally, London, with 19.06 million visitors, can be used as blueprints for future planning given their strong focus on mobility.

Across the top 20 destination cities, the majority of travel is conducted for leisure purposes  the index indicates expenditure categories that illustrate how people are spending when they visit these top performers. Key contributors to spend include: dining, shopping, lodging and transport. These top 20 cities provide a full experience, with many boasting strong infrastructure helping to enhance visitors opinion of the city and thus their willingness to spend.

The GDCI indicates that more people than ever are visiting cities for business or leisure travel and that at the same time, the research indicates that people expect their experience when travelling to be both seamless and personal.

Identifying the unique African experience

African cities should, therefore, do more to connect people with all that the continent has to offer, but it is critical that cities identify their uniqueness and overall appeal to visitors  cities that know what they are about and what they want to represent, attract more visitors and, thus, more spend. The continent has the widest range of sights and sounds, with natural beauty, warm people and a uniqueness not often found around the world  this is very appealing to international visitors.

Market in Kenya (Image Supplied)

As the top destination city, Dubai sees over 14 million international overnight visitors, which is significantly higher than other cities in Africa. Its no coincidence that Dubai ranks number one as having the highest percentage of visitor expenditure of GDP (30.3%), given its global positioning as a hot shopping destination.

The benefits are obvious, more than half of the top 20 destinations reported an increase in spend consistent with or greater than GDP growth. This reinforces the important role that travel plays in a countrys economy and indicates that the sector is growing much more rapidly than the combined average of all economic areas.

What can African cities do today to build for tomorrow?

 Infrastructure and public transport is key. For highly attractive destination cities, like Bangkok, London and Paris that top the list, ease of travel is a big factor in drawing visitors. This is why Mastercard is working with governments and cities across Africa to simplify access to urban services like public transport, helping to enable users to pay for their train or bus simply by tapping their card or swiping their phone.

 Look deeper at the purpose of travel and spend. Its safe to say that Africa is no longer just a safari destination, and the reason for travel to Africa varies largely by what a city has to offer. Using data to understand what appeals to travellers will give cities an upper hand to mine the popularity of that destination, and then further enhance the offering. Data is a smart way for tourism authorities to effectively and efficiently gather important insights. Mastercards Tourism Insight Platform provides data on spend as well as insights from search engines  proving that data is the tourism industries greatest asset and must be taken seriously.

 Build stronger cross-sector partnerships. Expertise within the public sector must be harnessed, it is here where innovation is shaping African cities and helping to digitise economies. Tourism is a diverse offering, and governments are more willing than ever before to collaborate to realise the full potential of the sector. As indicated in the GDCI, cities must differentiate, provide unique experiences and ensure that they are capable of hosting people from around the world. This is achievable only via cross-sector collaboration, and a willingness to adapt.
The government remained confident that South African Airways (SAA) could return to profitability, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa said in parliament recently.

 Dmitriy Shironosov via 123RF

Responding to questions in the National Council of Provinces, he said there were players in the industry who saw investment value in the carrier.

The national airline is among state-owned entities in turmoil - including the SABC and Eskom - with some of them requiring urgent government bail-outs. The Treasury has agreed to grant SAA, which faces a cash crunch, a special appropriation of R10bn.

Credit rating agencies have flagged failure of state-owned entities as a serious risk to the country's fiscal outlook.

In his medium-term budget policy statement last week, Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba said that the recapitalisation of SAA and the South African Post Office put the ceiling at risk of a R3.9bn breach.

New board and CEO would return it to profitability

Ramaphosa said that the government had little choice but to bail out the national airline, but was confident that the new board and CEO would return it to profitability.

"The minister of finance has said we need to be looking at bringing strategic partners in some of the state-owned entities. We have said SAA is a candidate for that.

"We need to reposition SAA " [and] having appointed a new board and CEO we are confident we can make SAA profitable again," he said.

"If it is revitalised, it will be attractive to investors"

"There are players in the industry who would see the need to invest in SAA " it's a big airline with a domestic market and a long-haul market and has good planes and pilots. If it is revitalised, it will be attractive to investors," the deputy president said.

If the government folded its arms and allowed SAA to fail, this would have a serious effect on the economy.

"It [SAA] has debt guaranteed by government " if they default, that default will run across the other guarantees that government has given " government is the guarantor of last resort."

He said that SA Inc would be at great risk.

"Those who argue that this is throwing good money after bad don't realise what they are talking about... it will be bad money after bad money."

Last week, Gigaba said the government was considering the disposal of assets, including its shares in Telkom, to offset appropriations during the course of this fiscal year. Continued financial deterioration of state-owned companies was a clear and substantial danger to public finances, Gigaba said.

R19.1bn guarantee facility

The government has issued a R19.1bn guarantee facility to SAA to ensure the company continues to operate as a going concern. Total recapitalisation of R10bn will be provided in 201718. An amount of R5.2bn has already been provided, with the remaining R4.8bn to be transferred by 31 March 2018.

These funds will be used for working capital and to settle debt, enabling the airline to reduce its interest expenses.

Source: Business Day
#LoeriesRankings2017 with... BBDO

Just when you thought the Loeries buzz was over, the Loeries' rankings are in! I chatted to some of this year's top-ranked creatives post-celebrations. We continue the global and local insights with BBDO.

Secondly, were winning in a raft of categories, and this is a testament to our people as well as to BBDOs culture. This kind of work is more complicated and demands a mindset that is inclusive and collaborative, with an ability to bring a longer cast list of contributors along for the ride, whether they work at BBDO or not. Our job is to orchestrate this coalition to serve the clients brand and business.

What plans are already underway to better your ranking next year? What plans are already underway to better your ranking next year?

We will continue to ensure the sweet-spot of technology and human understanding augments our work. Thats where the data-driven magic happens. Analytics that power in-house content capabilities, that helps us tell stories that move people and product. The link between strategic planning and creativity is getting stronger and it shows in the creative and effectiveness of our work. And were starting to develop more than just advertising and content  were designing apps, helping our clients with product innovation through design.

To enable this, were starting to work with a divergent set of partners from around the world, outside advertising and production  for example, VR houses, MIT, Google and Facebook. Were excited by the possibilities and hope to enter work that weve never entered before next year!

Definitely exciting! How does this years Loeries flock differ from your haul last year? Definitely exciting! How does this years Loeries flock differ from your haul last year?

Its always great to win Loeries, theyre an important part of our year. They give us the ability to judge ourselves against our peers, as the awards act as a magnet for talent and they give our clients the credit they richly deserve.

BBDO at Loeries 2017.

For me, the kind of work were entering, the number of categories were winning in, and the number of brands were winning awards for is important. Were seeing a broader and deeper mix here and more consistency.

Thats for sure. Tell us two people you personally admire in the industry in 2017  both an established mentor figure as well as a newcomer making waves. Thats for sure. Tell us two people you personally admire in the industry in 2017  both an established mentor figure as well as a newcomer making waves.

Rather than two figures, Id rather pick two companies. Firstly, Im huge fan of Colenso BBDO. An agency that was 70 strong about a decade ago and was doing good work has been transformed. The leaders of that transformation have been Nick Worthington, the ECD, who I very briefly worked with at AMVBBDO; and Nick Garrett, the CEO. But its not about these two men.

Its about the culture, mindset and creativity they have inspired in an agency now 150-strong. Whats interesting for South Africa is that a small country, with a small advertising community has managed to punch disproportionately above its weight. The work coming out of this office has been phenomenal  from a creative and effectiveness standpoint, they are consistently up there as one of the best agencies in the world. And the kind of work they are doing for such a diverse set of clients is truly inspiring.

Secondly, I recently judged the AdFocus Awards and I was very impressed with Clockwork Media  a new shop that has been taking the local PR scene by storm.

The type of work they have been doing, the innovative nature of how they work and the capabilities they offer clients is really interesting. They've had a stellar start, the catch is whether they can sustain it and deliver that difficult second album. Theyre definitely one to watch.

Lots to look forward to from 2018! Click through to our Loeries special section for more, here and here for more on Absolut One Source, and be sure to follow BBDO Africa on Twitter and Instagram.
Who says sex does not sell? Havas Boondoggle believes it does, but only if you do your research, understand your market and create an award-winning campaign around that. Which is exactly what they did with their The Big O campaign for client Durex, winning the 'Best in Show' at the Mobile Marketing Association South Africa (MMA SA) Smarties last night.

The Liquorice team with Enver Groenewald from Unilever.

The campaign also won the agency three golds and one silver, making them the top agency at the awards. Liquorice took Agency of the Year home, winning two golds and a silver and bronze, while Yonder Media was named 'Publisher/Media Company of the Year', winning four golds, two silvers and a bronze.

Fiona Potgieter, COO of Yonder Media says the Smarties motivates them. They inspire us to be innovative on a continuous basis. She believes their success comes from strategic thinking that comes from understanding your target market and their needs. Understand if and how your market has access to technology. Think who your market is before you do anything. It is not as sexy, but it is practical, and it works.

She adds that mobile is everything going forward. However mobile needs to be seen as part of an integrated approach.

Liquorice CEO, Miles Murphy is as thrilled with the agencys performance. The Smarties recognise the talent from a creative and technical point of view as well as great client briefs which together produce good work. The agency is evolving constantly and that is what is producing interesting work.

He also says that the industry is generally under represented and that is why what the MMA is doing is great.

Reaching as many African markets as possible

The Best in Show is deemed by the judges to be the best work viewed. Angie Hattingh, Havas Boondoggle creative director, says the thinking behind The Big O campaign was inspired by desire to reach many African markets as possible. Mobile and social media proved to be the best way to execute the campaign, given its limited budget.

It was a small project with a limited budget, she says so they leveraged a big event, the Olympics. The campaign was tactical and centred around engaging the conversation about sex, but using sport, specifically the Olympics, to do so.

This, she says, allowed people to talk about it freely. Our research found that Africans are shy about sex and do not talk about it. The campaign introduced a pride element to it that allowed people to talk about it more openly.

The campaign measured how many condemns were sold in a country. The campaign had a purchase incentive around it and there was a big prize up for grabs. Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa competed strongly.

A celebration of talent

The work was very strongly based in Africa and understanding the African market. Part of this was understanding the high mobile usage on the continent and that Africa has leapfrogged the world when it comes to mobile.

Unilever won a number of Smarties (two silver and three bronze) for various campaigns for its AXE, Lux, Surf and Shield brands. The brand is also a sponsor of the Smarties. The Smarties demonstrate creative intensity in mobile, which is the most disruptive and significant evolution in marketing and media. The Smarties help to drive proper thinking, engagement with the consumer and an authenticity that serves as an incentive for us at Unilever to continuously raise the bar, says Enver Groenewald, Africa consumer channel and media director, Unilever.

He adds that Africa is the second fastest growing mobile region in the world. Mobile has to be integral to the way you shape your business model and engage with your market.

Chris Babayode, MD, EMEA, Mobile Marketing Association welcomed the guests to the third Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) Smarties. The theme was a celebration of talent, both of which there were plenty. The work we are seeing tonight is outstanding and the Smarties are about rewarding people, saying well done and accentuating the positive.

In the three years of the local Smarties, Babayode says South Africans ability to tell a story in the time of video has improved. The Smarties push the envelope in mobile and we hope they will continue to do so.

The Awards took place at the Capital Moloko Hotel in Sandton, Gauteng. Click here to view the gallery.
Mitsubishi launched a new brand strategy, global tagline and initiative at the Tokyo Motor Show in Japan.

The 'Drive for Growth' initiative is a three-year strategic plan for sustained and profitable growth, targeting an increase of more than 30% in annual unit sales to 1.3 million vehicles worldwide.

The new brand strategy is under the new "Drive your Ambition" global tagline.

The tagline is a strategy that reflects an adventurous and progressive mind-set for inspirational design and product.
Can be used for meetings, hearings, workshops, discussions, training, workspace, events, presentations, demonstrations, brainstorming, strategic planning, Cape Town based space, etc.

Seats 18 comfortably around three round tables of six each.

Room configuration is flexible

Can hire in additional chairs if required

 Air-conditioning

 Flat screen monitor

 Data projector available to rent (extra)

 Wi-Fi

 Flipchart stands and rails

 Variable lighting

 Comfortable, modern, stylish seating

 Standard set-up: round tables; other options available, i.e. school room or board room

Standard package - R20 per person

 Arrival, morning and afternoon refreshments - includes: water/tea/coffee/biscuits

Treat package - R40 to R50 per person

 Arrival, morning and afternoon refreshments - includes: water/tea/coffee/juice/biscuits/pastries/muffins/table sweets

Lunch package - R25 per person

 Standard package plus in-room lunch, including ordering take aways, cutlery, crockery and cleaning (actual take away food order cost not included)

Note

Conveniently Located on MyCiTi bus route - close to bus stops for a number of routes

No parking available on premises

Street parking available in area and Kloof Lifestyle Centre is two blocks away with undercover pay parking

Availibility: Monday to Friday from 7am to 6pm (not open on weekends or evenings)

Address: 11-on-Buiten, Buitensingel Street, Cape Town (in i-fix building). Located near trendy Kloof & Long Street in the middle of Cape Town CBD

Cost:

Full day: R1,095.00 - eight hours

Half-day: R765 - four hours


A representational photo.

JAMMU (PTI): Indian and Kazakh armies today began a 14-day joint exercise in Himachal Pradesh to strengthen bilateral relations and exchange skills and experience.



This is second joint military exercise between the two countries. The first edition of "Prabal Dostyk" was held in Kazakhstan in 2016.



"A 14-day joint training exercise 'Prabal Dostyk-2017' between the Indian Army and the Kazakhstan Army commenced today with an opening ceremony at Bakloh in Himachal Pradesh," a defence spokesman said.



The joint exercise is aimed at enhancing the military ties between the two countries and achieving interoperability between the two armies, he said.



"The training contingents comprise a platoon strength from 3rd Battalion of the 11th Gorkha Rifles of the Indian Army and a similar strength of the Kazakhstan Army," the spokesman said.



Senior military observers of both the countries would also witness the validation phase of the joint exercise.



He said the exercise sought to acquaint the forces with each other's operating procedures in the backdrop of counter- insurgency and counter-terrorism operations under the UN's mandate.



"The overall aim is to enhance the existing military relationship between the Indian Army and the Kazakhstan Army and achieve synergy for joint conduct of operations as and when the requirement arises," he added.



Personnel of both contingents were hopeful of a fruitful learning experience and that the training would go a long way in enhancing ties between the people of the two countries.



The Indian troops participating in the joint exercise underwent extensive training in counter-terrorism and low intensity conflict operations at the Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School, Vairengte, he added.


Around eight out of 10 foreign businesses with British interests are pessimistic about the outcome for the UK in the divorce talks with the European Union, polling has found.

Most firms, 55%, believe Brexit will have a "negative" impact on their future investments in the UK, according to Ipsos MORI.

Just 8% said the vote to leave the bloc has had a positive effect on their company interests in Britain so far compared to 54% who found it had been detrimental, while 36% said it had made no difference.

The survey of members of 13 foreign Chambers of Commerce, including the US, China, France and Germany, found 82% were either "not very" or "not at all confident" of a positive result for Britain in the exit talks compared to 13% who expressed optimism.

One in five, 22%, firms believe the fall in their investment in the UK will be more than 10%, while only one in ten think it will have a positive impact.

Nearly three-quarters, 72%, put smooth access to the EU market for goods and services as a top priority for the talks.

Brian Gosschalk, head of the president's office for Ipsos, said: "There have been a number of recent surveys of British business which reveal their concerns about the impact of Brexit.

"This new survey is noteworthy insofar as it covers businesses from 13 different countries, both from within and beyond the EU. Their views deserve careful consideration by key decision-makers."

1,046 members of 13 Chambers of Commerce with British interests took part in an online survey conducted by Ipsos MORI between October 7-21. The countries involved were Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, US.
Apple's latest set of financial results are better than expected.

The company has announced revenue of 44bn euro in the three months to September.

Sales of the iPhone 8 have been steady, with the company's new handset, the iPhone X, out in shops today.

There were concerns that the iPhone 8 would not sell well due to the announcement of the iPhone X.

However, sales were impressive in China in particular, while the company experienced a 3% increase in handset sales overall.
By Juno McEnroe

The Government should consider funding an SSIA-type mortgage savings scheme to help young and low-income buyers get on the property ladder, says the Housing Finance Agency.

Housing Finance Agency chairwoman Michelle Norris said other European countries have successfully used such special top-up saving schemes to fund private and public housing needs.

The agency, borrowing from EU banks, has a loan book of 3.6bn which it primarily lends to housing agencies at low rates for building social housing.

In the Austrian model, people save up the money, they get a government subsidy, Ms Norris told the Irish Examiner in an interview. They then take it out in the end after 10 years or whatever, and spend it on a house deposit but during the 10-year period when it is in the bank, it is lent out for social housing. So it funds both.

Low-income buyers are now struggling as prices for homes spiral out of reach. Recent figures show the average house price in Dublin is just over 354,000, rising to 559,000 in the south of the county. Home prices in Cork City are averaging 260,000 and 272,000 in Galway city.

The Government funds the help-to-buy scheme for first-time buyers, but this only helps new property purchases or self-builds and comes as a tax rebate.

However, a State-financed mortgage saving top-up scheme here could not only fund private buyers but also see money building up in institutions go into a special pot for social housing.

Ms Norris, who is also UCDs head of the school of social policy, social work and social justice, said: In Austria, people save in a credit union or a building society.

They get a little supplement from the government for the savings. They can spend it on a house deposit or education. It is limited by legislation what you can spend it on.

The Austrian scheme is run by Bausparkassen, a building society. The scheme is popular among younger households and in rural areas and small towns and 17% of all home mortgages are under Bausparen [building societies] there.

Theyre saving money and get a little subsidy from the government for the money, for their interest rate, said Ms Norris. After a period, they take it out and spend it on a house deposit. Its like a special savings scheme, for certain purposes.

That money in there, though, is then lent on to fund social housing. That money, before it is drawn out, it is used as a form of revenue for the banks. They just lend it out to housing associations. The savings has an additional social benefit, as it is also used to fund social housing.

The model is also used in France as well as Austria.

These types of schemes are generally limited to users, said Ms Norris. You can only spend for it for a deposit on a house as a first-time buyer. So it is not there to subside very wealthy people.

Ms Norris said credit unions here have been in discussions about setting up a large housing fund and lending this out for social housing. Expanding on this could facilitate the SSIA-type mortgage scheme, she suggested. The SSIA scheme saw the state provide a 25% top-up on sums deposited in banks.

And if there were proper credit assessments put in place at a central level, that model could work well I feel, she said.

Ms Norris said there needs to be ownership restrictions placed on homes that will be released under the Governments new affordable housing scheme, set to be unveiled in the coming weeks.

Where we have a system that people can make very big profits from buying council housing or affordable housing and then the state has to go back in and spend money on providing more, that is not really a sustainable system, she said.

This story originally appeared in the Irish Examiner.
A former Fine Gael Councillor convicted of receiving corrupt payments from a property developer has been granted legal aid for a Supreme Court appeal.

Fred Forsey Jnr (46), of Coolagh Road, Abbeyside, Dungarvan Co Waterford, had pleaded not guilty to receiving 60,000, 10,000 and 10,000 in three corrupt payments from a property developer in 2006, who had an interest in a planning permission for the development of land at Ballygagin Co Waterford.

It was alleged he had behaved corruptly in trying to persuade officials and councillors in Waterford County Council to grant permission for the development, and when that was refused, attempting to alter the zoning of the land in the Waterford Co Development Plan.

It was also claimed he had sought to get the council he was a member of, Dungarvan UDC, to bring the lands into its control.

He was found guilty by a jury at Waterford Circuit Criminal Court and sentenced to six years imprisonment with the final two suspended by Judge Gerard Griffin on June 27 2012.

In July, 2016, the three-judge Court of Appeal dismissed Forseys appeal against conviction on all grounds.

His lawyers returned to the Court of Appeal today seeking a legal aid certificate for a Supreme Court of Appeal. Mr Justice George Birmingham granted legal aid.

Forseys appeal was brought on grounds including that the judge presiding over his trial before the Circuit Court gave a very serious misdirection to the jury on how to deal with the presumption of corruption.

Forseys lawyers argued the trial judge incorrectly instructed the jury that Forsey had to discharge the reverse burden on the balance of probabilities, among other grounds.

President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice Sean Ryan, who sat with Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan and Mr Justice George Birmingham, said the court had considered all arguments advanced on the former councillors behalf and it was satisfied to dismiss the appeal.
By Conor Kane

Publican and former hurler of the year Lar Corbett has been fined 250 after admitting allowing people to be on his licensed premises almost an hour after closing time.

Mr Corbett, who won All-Ireland senior hurling titles with Tipperary in 2001 and 2010, pleaded guilty to one count of a breach of the licensing laws when he appeared before Nenagh district court on Friday.

Sergeant Michael Keating told the court that, at 1.25am on July 17 of 2016, gardai inspected Coppingers bar on Parnell Street in Thurles and found about 20 people on the premises. Mr Corbett is the licensee at Coppingers.

They were all drinking from glasses, Sgt Keating said. Closing time on that night was 12.30am, out for one, he said.

There was one previous conviction for a similar offence, dating back to 2015, when Lar Corbett was fined 200.

Solicitor Brian Hughes, for the publican, said it happened on a Saturday night, the busiest night of the week when it is always difficult to get customers out. It was literally minutes after clearing-out time, he said, and there were a number of people on the premises. Not too many, as it happens. His previous record is good, despite a minor blemish.

Judge Elizabeth MacGrath fined Lar Corbett 250, giving him six months to pay.

Lar Corbett played for Tipperary from 2000 until his retirement from inter-county hurling in 2015. As well as winning two All-Irelands, three All-Star awards and the hurler of the year title in 2010, he is the countys all-time leading goalscorer in the championship.

He still plays for his club, Thurles Sarsfields, recently winning his eighth senior county title before losing out to Ballygunner last Sunday in the Munster club championship.
Ibrahim Halawa has denied any involvement with the Muslim Brotherhood, writes Sally Gorman.

He said: "Of course I'm not with the Muslim Brotherhood, at 17 you don't know what that is."

Appearing on tonight's Late Late show with Ryan Tubridy the 21-year-old said it was not a Brotherhood rally he attended and that he did not go to Egypt to be politically active, it just happened by accident.

Halawa revealed that he was supposed to go to Ibiza on a Leaving Cert holiday with his friends that summer but his father insisted he visit family in Egypt.

He said: "You haven't been to Egypt, at least go and say hello before Ibiza."

According to Halawa, "normal 17-year-olds don't care about politics" but when he ended up at a protest "it all happened quite fast" and he got involved.

Ibrahim revealed that the killing of two of his friends was the motivation behind his involvement.

He said: "I was going back to a concert and my friends were going to graves."

Ibrahim admitted that he went on several hunger strikes during his four year imprisonment in Egypt.

On one particular occasion he made decision after guards beat him in front of his mother.

He told Ryan: "You forget the pain of your beatings but remember the pain of your mother."

Since his return, Halawa has been asked how he looks so healthy despite his hunger striking, to which he responded: "I've been off hunger strike for five months."

The Dubliner also spoke of the harsh conditions in the nine different prisons he was in during his time as a prisoner.

He revealed that prison food contained worms and cockroaches and was served in a crisp bag.

But laughed that after hunger striking "you would dream of BBQ cockroaches."

He went on to explain that prisoners were forced to swap places to sleep.

He said: "Half would sit for half an hour then we would swap."

Beatings were also part of his daily routine.

He said: "every soldier has a different weapon to hit you with.

"You're getting beaten with metal chains, bars, electric wires, sticks."

Since returning home, Ibrahim has had to deal with "haters" online.

He cannot comprehend why haters still proceed to follow him on social media.

On top of this, his mother is very ill and "starting chemo."

Halawa told Ryan his plans for the future, how he intends to write a book and continue his education.

He also said he will fight to bring falsely imprisoned people home because "it was so hard for my family to pay for tickets."

The Firhouse native concluded by saying he will "never ever, ever, ever, again go back to Egypt."
An investigation is underway after smoke was discovered on an Aer Lingus flight earlier.

The plane was directed back to Cork Airport after smoke was discovered on-board.
A Government Minister wants to lead a peace mission to North Korea.

John Halligan has written to the North Korean Embassy in London seeking to visit the state.

Independent Alliance ministers want to meet with Kim Jong-un in January or February, in a bid to calm nuclear tensions.

Mr Halligan has said it is not good enough that the only dialogue towards Korea from the west has been Donald Trump threatening to blow them up.

Minister Halligan told RTE Radio One's Today with Sean O'Rourke about his plans to go to North Korea with Minister Shane Ross and Finian McGrath.

"This isn't new, we've had relations with North Korea in the past through Ceoltas. The greatest threat to peace at present in the world is on the Korean peninsula," he said.

He said that their trip, if successful, will be of no cost to the State and that they will pay their own way.

"Both have agreed to go if we can arrange it. We've already contacted the North Korean embassy in London through friends of mine and we're waiting for a reply," he added.

"What is there to lose by attempting to talk peace with North Korea?"
Andrea Leadsom did not ask the Prime Minister to sack Michael Fallon, Downing Street sources said following reports the Commons Leader passed a dossier of claims about her former Cabinet colleague to Number 10.

Mr Fallon quit as defence secretary after admitting his behaviour had "fallen below the high standards required" in the role, becoming the first ministerial casualty of the Westminster sleaze row.
A Spanish judge has issued an international arrest warrant for Catalonias ousted leader a day after the jailing of nine former members of the regions separatist government.

National Court investigating judge Carmen Lamela filed the request with the Belgian prosecutor to detain the five, and issued separate international search and arrest warrants to alert Europol in case they flee Belgium.

According to the judge, the five are being sought for five different crimes, including rebellion, sedition and embezzlement in a Spanish investigation into their roles in pushing for secession for Catalonia.

Mr Puigdemont and his aides flew to Brussels after Spanish authorities removed him and his Cabinet from office on Saturday for demanding independence.

The Spanish government has also called an early regional election for December 21.

Catalan ex-president Carles Puigdemont flew to Brussels this week after Spanish authorities removed him and his 13-member cabinet from office for pushing ahead with secession despite repeated warnings that it was illegal.

Mr Puigdemont is certain to fight extradition without seeking political asylum, according to his Belgian lawyer.

Meanwhile, a panel of judges rejected an appeal to release two Catalan separatist activists who are part of the sedition probe.

A National Court spokesman said Assemblea Nacional Catalana president Jordi Sanchez and Omnium Cultural leader Jordi Cuixart will remain in a Madrid jail while the investigation continues

Lawyers had argued that the pair should be released because the political situation in Catalonia had changed since the probe began.

Madrid has been directly ruling the region since the regional parliament passed a declaration of independence on October 27. The regional government was removed from power and an early election was called for December 21.

Assemblea Nacional Catalana and Omnium Cultural have spearheaded civil society efforts to achieve secession for the north-eastern region of 7.5 million. Mr Sanchez and Mr Cuixart are being investigated for allegedly orchestrating protests that hindered a judicial investigation to halt preparations for a banned independence referendum.

Mr Puigdemont was due to appear at Spains National Court on Thursday to answer questions in a rebellion case brought by Spanish prosecutors, but he did not show up.

Investigative magistrate Carmen Lamela jailed eight of nine Catalan ex-officials who appeared for questioning, including former regional vice president Oriol Junqueras, without bail.

The ninth, ex-regional minister for business Santi Vila, left Estremera prison after posting bail of 50,000 euros (44,000) on Friday. His passport was confiscated and he needs to show up in court regularly as the rebellion, sedition and embezzlement probe continues.

Mr Vila resigned in protest a day before Catalonias parliament voted in favour of a declaration of independence.

He spoke to reporters briefly outside the prisons gate, where he urged prime minister Mariano Rajoy to find a political solution to the crisis.

Prosecutors also requested an international warrant seeking Mr Puigdemonts arrest. Under Spains legal system, investigating judges can have suspects detained while a comprehensive probe, sometimes taking months, determines if they should be charged.

The jailing of the former Catalan government officials set off a new round of protests in Catalonia. Several thousand people gathered on Thursday night in Barcelona and other towns to call for their release.

Mr Puigdemont and his cabinet were removed by Mr Rajoy last week a day after the Catalan parliament voted in favour of a declaration of independence.

Mr Rajoy used extraordinary powers given to him by the Senate to depose the separatists, dissolve the regional legislature and call an early regional election.

Mr Puigdemont surfaced in Belgium on Tuesday with some of his ex-ministers, saying they were seeking "freedom and safety" there. He and four of the officials remained in Brussels on Thursday.

Spains Supreme Court is investigating six members of Catalonias parliament. The court postponed a hearing on Thursday until next week to allow more time for them to prepare their defence.

In all, Spanish prosecutors are investigating 20 regional politicians for rebellion and other crimes that would be punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
Ian Brady, the British killer responsible for the Moors Murders in the UK, was cremated and buried at sea in the middle of the night last Wednesday, it has been confirmed.

The child killer, who used the name Ian Stewart-Brady, died aged 79 on May 15 this year and was incinerated without ceremony.

The body was collected from the mortuary at Royal Liverpool hospital by a Tameside Council official at around 9pm on October 25, court documents show.

Under police escort the corpse was then taken to Southport Crematorium, where the cremation began at 10pm exactly. No music or flowers were allowed.

Following this, Brady's ashes were placed in a weighted biodegradable urn, driven to Liverpool Marina and later dispatched at sea on Thursday, October 26, at 2.30am.

The serial killer's crimes shocked the nation as he tortured and murdered five children in the 1960s along with Myra Hindley, who died in prison in 2002.

There were fears the remains of Scottish-born Brady would be scattered on Saddleworth Moor - where they buried four of their victims.

Brady's executor Robin Makin gave assurances there was "no likelihood" of this happening, but the Chancellor of the High Court, Sir Geoffrey Vos, ruled in October the issue of disposal should be taken out of Mr Makin's hands.

The Moors Murderer died at Ashworth High Security Hospital in Maghull, Merseyside, having been there since 1985.

Brady and partner Hindley were convicted of luring children and teenagers to their deaths, with their victims sexually tortured before being buried on Saddleworth Moor in the south Pennines.

Pauline Reade, 16, disappeared on her way to a disco on July 12 1963 and John Kilbride, 12, was snatched in November the same year. Keith Bennett was taken on June 16 1964 after he left home to visit his grandmother; Lesley Ann Downey, 10, was lured away from a funfair on Boxing Day 1964; and Edward Evans, 17, was killed in October 1965.

Brady was given whole life sentences for the murders of John, Lesley Ann and Edward.

Hindley was convicted of killing Lesley Ann and Edward and shielding Brady after John's murder, and jailed for life.

Both later confessed to the murders of Pauline - whose body was found in 1987 - and Keith, whose body has not been discovered.

The mother of Keith Bennett, Winnie Johnson, made repeated requests to Brady to identify where the 12-year-old's makeshift grave was located, so she could give her boy a proper burial.

She received no reply and died in August 2012 without being able to fulfil her last wish.

An inquest into Brady's death heard he died of natural causes.

Home Office pathologist Dr Brian Rodgers said the cause of death was cor pulmonale, a form of heart failure, secondary to bronchopneumonia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or lung disease.

The court heard Brady, who was a heavy smoker up until the smoking ban, had "very severely diseased" lungs.

In a statement, Tameside and Oldham councils said: "We are pleased that this matter is now concluded and we are grateful for the support and professionalism shown... to ensure Ian Stewart-Brady's body and remains were disposed of expediently at sea in a manner compatible with the public interest and those of the victim's relatives."
North Korea could be re-added to the list of state sponsors of terrorism as part of US President Donald Trump's strategy to counter the North's growing nuclear threat.

"You'll hear more about that soon, I think," said White House adviser H.R. McMaster as he briefed reporters on the president's five-nation tour of Asia, which starts today.

North Korea's nuclear threat will be a key focus of Mr Trump's meetings with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines during the 12-day trip, Trump's first official visit to the region.

Mr McMaster cited the killing this year in a Malaysian airport of the estranged half brother of North Korea's leader as an act of terrorism that could lead to the North's placement on a list that currently includes only Iran, Sudan and Syria.

Malaysia has never directly accused North Korea, but South Korea's spy agency has claimed the attack was part of a plot by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to kill his brother, Kim Jong Nam.

Mr McMaster said: "A regime who murders someone in a public airport using nerve agent, a despotic leader who murders his brother in that manner, that's clearly an act of terrorism that fits in with a range of other actions."

He also said adding North Korea to the list of state sponsors of terrorism "is something that's under consideration".

Kim Jong Nam died in February after two women rubbed his face with a liquid later identified as VX nerve agent as he passed through the airport in Kuala Lumpur.

Under legislation enacted Aug. 2, the State Department is required to determine within 90 days, or around Thursday, whether North Korea meets the criteria of being a state sponsor of terrorism.

An anonymous State Department official said officials are aware of the requirement and will provide the information to Congress when a determination has been made.

The US kept North Korea on its terrorism blacklist for two decades after the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner killed 115 people.

But President George W. Bush lifted the designation in 2008 to smooth the way for aid-for-disarmament negotiations.

Re-designating North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism would be largely of symbolic significance.

North Korea is heavily and increasingly sanctioned for its nuclear and missile activity in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Sanctions from a terror designation are unlikely to inflict significant, additional economic punishment.

AP
The US military has for the first time conducted air strikes against Islamic State fighters in Somalia, where the group is a growing presence in a country long threatened by the al Qaida-linked extremist group al-Shabab.

The US Africa Command said two drone strikes killed "several terrorists" in north-eastern Somalia, with the first around midnight local time and the second later on Friday morning.

The US said the strikes were carried out in co-ordination with Somalia's government.

Local officials confirmed the strikes. At least six missiles struck in Buqa, a remote mountainous village about 35 miles north of Qandala town in the northern state of Puntland, a Somali security official said.

The air strike may have targeted senior leaders of the group, the official said.

The mayor of Qandala, Jama Mohamed, said the strikes sent terrified nomadic villagers and their animals fleeing.

The US military has carried out more than a dozen drone strikes against al-Shabab extremists this year after the Trump administration approved expanded efforts against the group.

Al-Shabab has been blamed for carrying out Somalia's deadliest attack last month, a massive truck bombing in the capital, Mogadishu, that killed more than 350 people.

Somalia's president has vowed a "state of war", with neighbours sending in thousands of troops to help the local military and an African Union force.

But IS-linked fighters who have split from the Somalia-based al-Shabab pose a growing threat in Puntland.

In May, IS claimed a deadly bombing in Puntland - said to be the first time the extremist group had claimed an attack in the Horn of Africa nation.

Police said a suicide bomber detonated at a military checkpoint in the commercial hub of Bossaso, killing at least four people.

AP
A Spanish judge is deliberating on whether to issue an international arrest warrant for Catalonia's ousted leader a day after she jailed nine former members of the region's separatist government.

Catalan ex-president Carles Puigdemont flew to Brussels this week after Spanish authorities removed him and his 13-member Cabinet from office for pushing ahead with secession despite repeated warnings that it was illegal.

If an arrest warrant is issued, Mr Puigdemont will fight extradition without seeking political asylum, according to his Belgian lawyer.

A panel of National Court judges will also consider on Friday an appeal to release two separatist activists who were jailed last month in a sedition investigation.

Carles Puigdemont

Mr Puigdemont was due to appear at Spain's National Court on Thursday to answer questions in a rebellion case brought by Spanish prosecutors, but he failed to turn up.

On Thursday, investigative magistrate Carmen Lamela sent Catalan ex-vice president Oriol Junqueras and seven other former regional ministers to jail without bail. Another former regional minister was held in lieu of 50,000 bail.

Prosecutors also requested an international arrest warrant seeking Mr Puigdemont's arrest. Under Spain's legal system, investigating judges can have suspects detained while a comprehensive probe, sometimes taking months, determines if they should be charged.

The jailing of the former Catalan government officials set off a new round of protests back in north-eastern Catalonia. Several thousand people gathered in the main city of Barcelona and other towns on Thursday night to call for their release.

Mr Puigdemont and his Cabinet were removed by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy last week, a day after the Catalan parliament voted in favour of a declaration of independence. Mr Rajoy used extraordinary powers given to him by the Senate to depose the separatists, dissolve the regional legislature and call a regional election for December 21.

Mr Puigdemont surfaced in Belgium on Tuesday with some of his ex-ministers, saying they were seeking "freedom and safety" there. He and four of the officials remained in Brussels on Thursday.

Spain's Supreme Court is also investigating six members of Catalonia's parliament. In all, Spanish prosecutors are investigating 20 regional politicians for rebellion and other crimes that would be punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

The Catalan secession push is the worst institutional crisis to hit Spain in nearly four decades.

Spain's central bank said on Thursday that a protracted political conflict could damage Spain's, and especially Catalonia's, economy. More than 1,000 companies have already relocated their headquarters from Catalonia to other parts of Spain because of the uncertainty.

Spain's Ministry of Employment and Social Security said on Friday that Catalonia led Spain's 17 autonomous communities in job losses in October with nearly 15,000 more people out of work.

AP
The Syrian army said it has liberated the long-contested eastern city of Deir el-Zour from the Islamic State group - a largely symbolic victory in the military's bigger fight to capture the last remaining IS strongholds in the oil-rich province along the border with Iraq.

In a statement, the military said it was now in full control of the city, after a weeks-long campaign carried out with allied forces. It said army units were now removing booby traps and mines left behind by the extremist group in the city.

Deir el-Zour, on the west bank of the Euphrates River, had been divided into a government-held and an IS-held part for nearly three years.

Syrian government forces and their pro-government allies first broke the militant group's siege of their part of the city in September in a Russian-backed offensive, and have been advancing against IS positions since then. The city is the largest in eastern Syria and the capital of the province with the same name.

The development is the latest significant defeat for IS as the militant group sees its self-proclaimed "caliphate" crumble and lose almost all urban strongholds, including Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in northern Syria. It also comes as Iraqi forces and allied Shiite militiamen are chasing IS remnants inside the town of Qaim, on the Iraqi side of the border.

The Syrian army, backed by Russia and Iran, and Kurdish-led Syrian forces, backed by the United States, are now racing to take the rest of the oil-rich eastern province of Deir el-Zour, including the key town of Boukamal near the Iraqi border.

Moscow's military involvement in the Syrian war since 2015 has propped up President Bashar Assad's forces and turned the conflict in his favour, while Russian mediation earlier this year launched ceasefire talks in Astana, Kazakhstan. The talks, sponsored jointly with Iran and Turkey, have brokered local deals that have significantly reduced violence in the war-torn country.

"Army units, in co-operation with allied forces, liberated the city of Deir al-Zour completely from the Daesh terrorist organisation," the military statement said, using the Arabic name for IS.

Footage posted on the website of the Syrian state news agency Sana shows the last moments of the fighting between the Syrian army and IS in Deir el-Zour, including shelling by Syrian tanks and plumes of smoke rising over the city's IS-held and mostly destroyed neighborhoods of Jamiayat and Jabiliyeh before they were liberated.

AP
A 24-year-old man is facing a slew of felony charges for illegal straw purchase of 21 guns at gun stores, almost exclusively in Bucks County. Leonard Truesdale was arraigned on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022, on 21 counts each of making false statements on firearm purchase forms, criminal conspiracy to make false statements on firearm purchase forms and selling or transferring...
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In November, there are hundreds of new and returning TV showsit can be overwhelming to try and choose what to watch. That's why we've selected some of the best options...
Things dont exactly go according to plan for Olivia in Adventures of Babysitting. In fact, season 7 of Scandal is seeing a lot of Olivia bullying and bribing people to get what she wants. After she orders Rowan to send Fitz home, Fitz runs to Mellie and tells her what Olivia has been up to with B613. Meanwhile, Mellie pushes to go to war with the rebels in Bashran to save its President Rashad. And both Mellie and Cyrus get some action with their new love interests.

Scandal Recap: Does Rowan Have a Secret Agenda in Getting Olivia Back?>>>

No Privileges

Olivia rips into Rowan after she takes away his dinosaur. She tells him that everything he does is a privilege. In fact, speaking to her is a privilege, and he doesnt have any privileges right now. Not until he delivers a message to Fitz to go back to Vermont. Rowan does deliver the message, but Fitz doesnt listen. In fact, he thinks hell get the upper hand by tattling to Mellie about how Olivia killed Luna Vargas and reinstated B613.

Mellie is livid at the news. She fears that anything Olivia does with B613, including Lunas death, will eventually get linked back to her. She orders Olivia to shut it down, and get her the war with the Bashran rebels the old-fashioned way  by Congressional approval.

Protection

Mellie insists that President Rashad stay in the United States until its safe to return to his country. She fears that hell be killed if he goes back too soon. He agrees to stay, but asks that his niece get protection too. QPA pulls his niece, Yasmine, out of Dartmouth and keeps her in the office until they figure out a plan. Yasmine is upset by the situation, and eventually runs away. Huck finds her at a bus stop with her girlfriend and brings them both back.

Support and Cleanup

Cyrus meets with senators to gain support for the war, and his new buddy, Glackland, shadows him to see what politics is like. Glackland plays on his phone during all of the meetings, and Cyrus eventually calls him out on it. Glackland explains he uses an algorithm when hes thinking of investing in a new product to find out if its worth his time and money. He explains that the war is a crappy product, and he fears that if Cyrus supports it and it fails, that the American public will have a harder time in the future supporting other endeavors.

While Cyrus wrestles with this new information, Olivia does some cleanup and damage control. First, she goes to see Rowan again. He screams that he wants his bones back, but shes pissed that Fitz is still hanging around as a result of what Rowan did, so she wont return his bones. Then she goes to see Curtis for some hanky panky, and to ask him to put Rashad on his show. He tells her she cant tell him how to do his job, but eventually, he agrees to do it. And Jake goes to see Fitz. He warns him to leave Olivia alone, as she is just doing what she has always been destined to do  be Command.

When Cyrus tells Olivia that Congress is split 50/50 on the war, Olivia doesnt seem concerned because the deciding vote goes to the vice president. But Cyrus tells her that he is voting no. She, of course, gets all new Olivia and threatens him. He basically tells her that scaring him wont do any good. He also warns her that the war is a bad idea to support, and she should see that.

Finally, Olivia goes to see Fitz. She tells Fitz that shes not getting the war that Mellie wants. She asks if it felt good tattling on her. He says he feels great about telling Mellie the truth, and that he feels she misplaced her white hat. She, once again, tells Fitz to go home. He says hell leave when he finally sees someone he recognizes  the real Olivia Pope.

Quiz: Who Is Your TV Boss?>>>

Shared Kisses and a Solution?

Back at the White House, with no war or solution in sight, Rashad tells Mellie he needs to go back to his country. They share a kiss that gets heavy, but Mellie stops it before it can go any further.

In the vice presidents office, Cyrus thanks Glackland for the good advice on the war. He compliments Glackland and says hell be good in politics. They too share a kiss.

Later on, Olivia goes to see Mellie and asks what she wants. She says she wants Rashad and the treaty, and for America to feel safe again. Olivia offers a campaign to get everyone on board for a war, but Mellie feels they wont have time. So, she alludes that Olivia needs to get B613 involved, but she doesnt want to know the details. Olivia tells her it will be handled.

Soon, its safe enough for Rashad to return home, or so everyone thinks. A plane to Turkey is arranged for him and his niece Yasmine. Mellie says it will be safer for him to enter his country through Turkey than the U.S. The two share another moment, but she stops him before they can kiss again.

Mellie is happy that she and Olivia are in charge again. She thanks Olivia for her help, andin return, Olivia asks Mellie for a favor. Fitz is called into Mellies office, and she gives him the same privilege speech again from Olivia, and tells him to go back to Vermont.

Olivia goes to see Curtis, happy with the way things worked out, but he breaks up with her, saying he was originally attracted to her power and beauty, but she doesnt have any other human qualities. And just as she thinks things couldnt get any worse for her, Rashad and Yasmines plane blows up even before it can even take off. Quinn and Charlie watch on in horror, unable to do anything.

Its about time something of real substance happened in the final season of Scandal. For the first few episodes, its been a lot of Olivia putting out minor fires and bullying people around. Now, theres a real problem. Someone blew up the president of another country on American soil. Im curious to see how Olivia handles this and what advice shell give Mellie.

But the question remains, who blew up the plane? Was it the Bashran rebels? The same people who wanted to assassinate Rashad? Or was it B613? Perhaps Olivia didnt want Mellie involved with Rashad so she arranged for the plane to blow up?

I love the Cyrus storyline with Glackland. Glackland is such a different type of person for Cyrus, perhaps this will be a good relationship for him.

Do you think Olivia has anything to do with Rashads plane blowing up? How do you think shell handle the fallout of the attack? What will Mellies reaction be? Do you think Fitz will really go back to Vermont? Let us know in the comments below.

Scandal airs Thursdays at 9/8c on ABC. Want more news? Like BuddyTVs Scandal Facebook page.

(Image courtesy of ABC)
The Builders Merchants Federation (BMF) launched its third Regional Centre of Excellence in the South West region this week at Garadors ultra modern production facility in Yeovil, Somerset. The BMF now have 16 of these Regional Centres, which provide members with appropriate training and meeting venues in various locations around the UK.

Garador is a leading British manufacturer of garage doors, front doors and operators, with over 50 years experience in the garage door industry. Utilising German engineering expertise, it has developed an extensive range of garage doors unsurpassed in the industry.

Richard Jones (BMF Regional Manager - South West & South Wales) attended the launch with Simon Hipgrave, Managing Director of Garador. Richard said: Localisation is an important strategy for the BMF going forward, and Garador offers an excellent facility for our members in the South West of England to meet and train together. I look forward to us holding the next South West Regional at the new BMF Centre on 7 March 2018.

Garadors Managing Director, Simon Hipgrave said: I am delighted with the recognition of Garadors excellent facilities and Im pleased to be able to offer this support to the BMF.

Along with the state of the art manufacturing facilities at our head offices here in Somerset, we offer a range of conference rooms and full phone and video conferencing services, he said We also have a unique demonstration area showing some of the latest advances and designs in our garage doors.
With a variety of products catering to a host of different landscaping solutions, Natural Paving Products has created the Talasey Group corporate entity under which Natural Paving and all of its sub brands now sit.

Since its launch in 2004, Natural Paving has become the UKs leading independent supplier of ethically sourced, natural stone landscaping products. As the business grew Natural Paving has continually diversified its range of products so that it now offers one of the broadest and highest quality landscaping solutions range available with full UK coverage as well as activities in the USA and Europe.

Many of these landscaping solutions that have been added to the companys portfolio over the years are not made from natural stone and therefore it no longer made sense to retain Natural Paving as the company name. An overarching corporate name, Talasey Group, has been created as a better fit to house all of the brands that previously fell under the Natural Paving umbrella.

The Talasey Group now fully encapsulates the companys complete range of products and solutions incorporating Natural Paving, Vitripiazza Italian porcelain vitrified flagstones, Baksteen Dutch clay pavers, Luxigraze artificial grass and accessories and Pavetuf, stone installation cleaning and maintenance products and new Resiscape resin-bound aggregates.

Malcolm Gough, Group Sales and Marketing Director at Talasey Group said: The creation of the Talasey Group corporate entity is an exciting milestone for us. We see it as a natural progression thanks to the success we have had in introducing new landscaping products to our portfolio. We now cover more than natural stone in our range of landscaping solutions and so it made sense to create a corporate identity to fully encompass our complete broad offering. Natural Paving now sits under the Talasey Group name alongside the other landscaping products within our portfolio.

Natural Pavings commitment to excellent service will run across the entire Talasey Group. The company will continue to offer comprehensive technical support through a team of dedicated specialists in each product area as well as its team of Regional Sales Managers, internal sales support and newly expanded customer service team.

We are very excited about this natural evolution as it is testament to our continued growth and development and our success story of delivering high quality products and excellent service. Everything else is business as usual for us. We continue our commitment to responsible trading with our fully CE marked products and active membership of the Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI), as we support and invest heavily in our supply chain and the people that work in it, Malcolm continued.

Natural Paving, under the Talasey Group, will continue to deliver as the number one independent supplier of natural stone to the UK landscaping industry and also has activities in the USA and Europe. The companys strict Merchant Only Policy remains firmly in place ensuring stable market dynamics are upheld.

In line with the addition of the Talasey Group name, the Natural Paving head office in Doncaster has been renamed Talasey House.
The National Federation of Builders (NFB) north east team has joined the Construction and Housing Employment and Skills Pledge (CHESP), launched in September 2017, with the aim of working to overcome the major skills shortages and gaps in skills provision within the construction industry.

Partners of the pledge will work towards supporting Scarborough Borough Councils corporate plan for 2032, ensuring a skilled local workforce is available to build 9000 new homes.

Working in partnership with construction developers, employers, housing associations and SMEs operating across the borough; CHESP is committed to help address some of the issues identified in the recent Government Housing White Paper: Fixing our broken housing market.

A Construction Skills Village is already underway, collaborating with industry and education partners, which gives people the opportunity to learn and develop specific skills, working on a real life construction site under the guidance of expert mentors.

Industry colleagues operating within the construction and housing sectors have identified the need for a construction employment and skills system. This will ensure that young people leaving education are ready to succeed in the industry. Adults will also have access to the skills and support they need in order to enter the Labour market. These initiatives will help to develop a highly skilled workforce which is flexible and meets construction employers needs for improved productivity and growth.

Richard Beresford, chief executive of the NFB, said: We are pleased to be a part of this pledge to work with the Construction Skills Village. Tackling the skills crisis is a fundamental step in driving economic growth.

We need to focus on training and developing local talent, and by believing in these young people, we will get the best out of them. In return they receive a long-lasting career. This partnership is a great example of the collaboration the industry must cultivate in order to succeed.

Partners already committed to the pledge are Northern Regeneration CIC, National Federation of Builders (NFB), York, North Yorkshire and East Riding Local Enterprise Partnership, Scarborough Borough Council, Kebbell Homes, Keepmoat Homes, Willmott Dixon, Sanctuary Group, Yorkshire Coast Homes, Sirius Minerals, Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and YH Training Services.
Conex Banninger industrial and specification valves are helping keep water flowing and the landscape green at some of Dubais most prestigious infrastructure projects.

The resilient seated Gate Valves, Butterfly and Air Release Valves, were custom designed by Conex Banninger of the IBP Group to cope with the arid desert conditions in the UAE.

The valves, manufactured in IBPs purpose-built factories, are a key element in the irrigation networks for major attractions including the Dubai Parks and Resorts integrated theme parks and the world class Dubai Opera in the Downtown Dubai opera district.

The valves were supplied by Delta Power Electrical, which specialises in providing support services across the Middle East and is a distributor for Conex Banningers range of valves. The valves help to maintain and manage the flow of treated water to pump stations and on into local pipelines.

Delta Power Electrical is also using Conex Banninger industrial valves for the irrigation network that will supply water for landscaping around entrances, pathways and accommodation for Expo 2020, the world fair site being developed in four phases.

It will be the first time the World Expo, with the theme Connecting Minds, Creating the Future, will have been held in the MENA & SA (Middle East and North Africa & South Asia) region.

Nitin Sinha, Business Head for Delta Power Electrical, said: These are hugely significant projects and it is really important that the right surroundings are created and maintained around them, particularly when we are talking about parks and resorts.

These areas are in what would otherwise be desert but they need to be kept green, which is achieved by using treated water from the sewage and drainage network.

The harsh environment required a bespoke solution, said Nitin.

Conex Banninger worked with us for six to eight months, offering lots of technical advice and have developed a custom range of products for the Dubai market because conditions are a lot harder here than in Europe, he said.

Higher grades of metal were used to manufacture the valves; they are not something normally run off the production line. And they come with a five-year warranty.

Delta Powers expertise, coupled with Conex Banningers technical capabilities, helped meet the exacting requirements of the Dubai Municipality, which set the specifications.

Obtaining approval from the utility and overcoming this first barrier to entry is a big step. Being able to work with a great company such as Conex Banninger, which is recognised for excellent quality, is hugely important to the process, said Nitin.

Conex Banningers industrial products are manufactured using high performance ductile iron, which is resistant to corrosion, and are specifically designed to withstand heavy use whilst meeting all appropriate industry standards and requirements.

The resilient seated Gate Valve is a full-bore valve, which ensures low friction losses and full flow throughout the system, while Air Release Valves operate continuously to maintain system efficiency and prevent pipeline surges.

Richard Franks, Business Unit Director for the Gulf region for Conex Banninger, said: Dubai is home to some of the most awe inspiring and prestigious development projects in the world. It also has one of the most challenging environments.

Working closely with Delta Power and its team of highly skilled project engineers and managers, its a challenge were delighted to meet as we play our part in delivering infrastructure that operates effectively and efficiently in such tough conditions.
Earlier this week, during a surprise visit to the Elphinstone Road railway station in Mumbai where over 20 people were killed in a stampede a month ago, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman sprang another surprise. The  no less  would build the foot overbridge here and at two other suburban train stations in Mumbai, she declared. The three bridges would be ready by January 2018, joined in Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. We are thankful to the army for help, gushed railway minister Piyush Goyal.
President Trumps delay in reaching out to the families of four American soldiers killed in Niger last month, and the ensuing discussion among Gold Star families about his actions, recalls an earlier controversy involving Khizr Khan, the father of a fallen soldier, who spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
Two in three cell towers in the country are up for sale as their owners, mostly telecom companies, try to repay their debts and upgrade networks.
India will receive its first cargo of shale oil, to be processed at an Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) refinery. This will be the second cargo of crude oil from the US, the first one was conventional crude oil bought through PetroChina.
With a gross non-performing assets (NPA) ratio at upwards of 13 per cent, investors are unlikely to believe that the firefighting by Punjab National Bank (PNB) is yielding the desired results. However, the lenders September quarter (Q2) performance reveals that the war room created about a year back to fight against bad loan accretion is perhaps showing some results.
For the fifth straight quarter, fast-food major Yum! Brands, which operates Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell in India, saw strong sales growth, pointing to a recovery in food services, analysts said.
At 52, Samir Mehta, the vice-chairman of the $2.9-billion Torrent Group and chairman of Torrent Pharma, is focused on his goal. After taking full charge of Torrent three years ago, Mehta has not only made it to the fifth spot on the most valued CEOs list of 2017 but has also pulled off three acquisitions. Torrent is all set to make its second acquisition this year and the biggest since its Elder Pharma deal in December 2013  Unichem's domestic formulations business.
Apple's revenue from India doubled, year-on-year, in the September quarter, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said on Friday. Analysts attributed the rise to higher sales of the iPhone on e-commerce platforms such as Flipkart, Amazon and Paytm.
Ahmedabad-headquartered pharmaceutical giant is likely to announce the acquisition of Unichem Laboratories' domestic business for a consideration of about Rs 3,500 crore after market hours on Friday.
China on Friday said it was ready to work with India to promote "constant progress" of bilateral relations, amid fresh strains in ties after Beijing again blocked Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhar's designation as a global terrorist by the UN.

On Thursday, China for the fourth time blocked India, the US and other nations' bid to list Pathankot terror attack mastermind Azhar as a global terrorist, saying "there is no consensus" within the members of the sanctions committee.

India reacted sharply to China's move, saying "accommodating with terrorism" for narrow objectives was both short-sighted and counterproductive.

China's Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong on Friday told the media that China attached great importance to its relations with India.

"India is an important neighbour of China," Chen said, adding China plans to step up ties with neighbours under the "neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in the new era" enunciated by President Xi Jinping during the recently concluded key Congress of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

"We are ready to work with India to promote constant progress of bilateral relations guided by this diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for the new era," Chen said without elaborating.

He said China has been following this concept and vision over the past few years in its cooperation with neighbours and deepening mutual political trust promoting practical cooperation with them.

In the last two years, China has stonewalled efforts by India to declare Azhar as a global terrorist.

Last year in March, China was the only member in the 15-nation UN organ to put a hold on India's application with all other 14 members of the Council supporting New Delhi's bid to place Azhar on the 1267 sanctions list that would subject him to an assets freeze and travel ban.

The relations between the two neighbours are also strained by a 73-day standoff at Dokalam over the Chinese army's plans to build a strategic road in the area also claimed by Bhutan.

Officials here said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to India next month to New Delhi to attend the Russia, India, China (RIC) Foreign Ministers meeting during which he would also hold talks with the Indian leadership on the bilateral relations during the second term of Xi.
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Defence experts on Friday slammed China for blocking India's request at the United Nations Security Council to declare Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief as a global terrorist.

Speaking to ANI, defence expert PK Sehgal said China's move will weaken its relationship with India.

"This shows that the attitude of China is same as it was earlier and there is no change in it. This will weaken India and China relationship. China will never let down its client state Pakistan. China is misusing its veto power and overlooking the views of all the other countries which are supporting India," he said.

Defence expert Rahul Jalali said that China is adopting double standard on terrorism.

"China had already said this that they will block this proposal. Earlier also they did this. On one hand China talks about curbing terrorism, on the other hand, they block the proposal to declare a global terrorist," he told ANI.

China on Thursday exercised veto against the United States-backed proposal at the UN Security Council to declare as a global terrorist, citing a lack of consensus.

China had earlier indicated it would block India's request at the Security Council.

Hua Chunying, the spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a recent press conference, "As for the listing application by the relevant country [India], there are disagreements. China put the technical hold so as to allow for more time to deliberate on this matter. To our regret, the committee so far has yet to reach consensus."

"China always maintains that on the listing matter, the 1267 Committee [Security Council Committee] shall uphold the principle of objectivity, impartiality and professionalism, and make its decisions by consensus among its members on the basis of solid evidence," Hua added.

The "technical hold" could not be extended as it expired on Thursday, and hence, China was being expected to block the request permanently.

The Jaish-e-Muhammad is designated as a terrorist organisation by the US State Department, while India accuses its leader of launching several terrorist attacks on its soil, including the 2016 Pathankot airbase attack.

Following the attack, India had initiated the move to include Azhar on the UN terrorist list. All 15 members of the Security Council, except China, supported India's bid.

China is one of the five veto-holding members in the United Nations other than United States, United Kingdom, Russia and France.

(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.)
Possibly for the first time in India since independence, where education has been the subject of discussion and a sector requiring quality improvement, government elementary schools in India are on a decline.
A selfie wall put up by the Madhya Pradesh government at its stall

For Delhiites, who ventured to see the World Food India event on Friday, the first day of the mega fest, had to face major traffic jams and security checks. Many went back disappointed as the food street looked out of reach.

Following advertisements for a historic fair endorsed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, people had lined up since morning at ticket counters. The entrance fee was a hefty Rs 500 per person.

With the principal venue for such events Pragati Maidan  undergoing major restorations, the government was forced to hold the mega event at the lawns surrounding India Gate.

In fact, heads of several companies were seen trudging the long way from the parking to stalls.
NHAI may cancel 20 projects over delays

India will receive its first cargo of shale oil, to be processed at an Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) refinery. This will be the second cargo of crude oil from the US, the first one was conventional crude oil bought through PetroChina.As many as 20 highway contracts, including those of L&T Infrastructure, HCC, Essel Infra, MBL Infra, and Soma Enterprises are staring at termination from the Highways Authority of India (NHAI) over delays in implementation by the contractors.
Winter is late this year in Delhi, but spring seems to have come early, at least for book lovers, with a special edition of the annual Penguin Spring Fever to mark the 30th anniversary of the publishing company in the country. The six-day event which began last Thursday had eight well-attended sessions, where the audience was treated to conversations with and interviews of some of Penguins finest  Ruskin Bond, Arundhati Roy, Perumal Murugan and Shashi Tharoor, as well as Shobhaa De and Vidya Balan.
The Centre has given its in-principle approval to upgrade 6,233 km of State Highways as NationalHighways in Karnataka, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said here on Friday.

Siddaramaiah said that in the last four-and-a-half years, the government had improved 10,926 km of state highways by spending Rs 10,969 crore and 21,100 km major district roads at a cost of Rs 8,434 crore.

"1,854 of National Highway has been upgraded and the union government has given its approval in principle for the upgradation of 6,233 km of State highway as national highways," he said at the inaugural session of the 78th annual session of Indian Road Congress being held here.

He said the government has spent Rs 3,008 crore to lay concrete roads in localities belonging to SC/ST under special component and sub-plan.

Siddaramaiah said a Special Purpose Vehicle has been established to implement public-private projects to take care of the state's infrastructural needs.

Also, the government has established a dedicated planning and rural asset management centre for scientifically preparing projects, keeping in mind the condition of existing roads.

The Chief Minister hailed the Indian Road Congress for providing its technical assistance in improving the road network in the country.
The government, in consultation with service providers, is framing new ways through which you will get three new hassle-free ways to get your number linked with your mobile number by February 6, 2018.
Facing criticism over glitches in the software it developed for the GST Network, Infosys Ltd has deployed more IT experts and engineers in states to steady the Goods and Services Tax return filing portal, a government official said on Thursday.

Infosys, which had won the Rs 1,380 crore deal in 2015 for developing and running GST's back-end, has stepped up efforts to remove outages the system faced during peak tax and return filing period, he said.

"Infosys has started deploying more engineers and IT experts for the GSTN project. They are being sent to major states to address issues and help states better understand the system," the official said.

Businesses and traders have complained of problems faced in the filing of return on the GST-Network portal on the last days, forcing the government to extend deadlines.

While it had extended the date for maiden GSTR-3B return filing in August, the due date for final returns GSTR-1, 2 and 3 has also been extended.

Glitches in invoice matching while filing GSTR-2 was flagged at the meeting of Group Of Ministers (GoM) on October 28 following which it directed Infosys to deploy more software engineers in every state to assist state tax officers with the new IT system.

The official said Infosys has already deployed more than 100 IT people in their team for GSTN functioning.

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and head of GoM on GSTN Sushil Modi had last week said that Infosys was earlier asked to deploy engineers in major states by October 30.

"They have done so in 9 states and sought time till November end to deploy in other states," Modi had said.

Infosys won a 5-year government contract worth Rs 1,380 crore in 2015 to develop the IT system for the biggest indirect tax reform GST.

While some believe that the onus was on Infosys to ensure a glitch free system, others say that the last moment finalisation of rules relating to returns took toll on the system's performance.

The GST Council, comprising Centre and states, had in June finalised rules for return filing and transition credit claims.

GST was rolled outfrom July 1. GST Network has since then been working very closely with Infosys to ensure timely availability of software and utilities on the portal.

Replying to questions emailed by PTI, Infosys said: "Given the complex nature of the project and rapid change management, there have been several stakeholder concerns that have also been raised.

"Some of our finest engineers are supporting the GSTN team as they work towards resolving these and serving all stakeholders".

The GoM on GSTN chaired by Modi was set up in September to streamline the issues faced by businesses while transacting on the portal and also to make it more user friendly.

After the third meeting of the GoM on October 28, he had said: "27 functionalities had to be launched or issues had to be resolved by Infosys, out of which 18 of them have been operationalised. This is about 66.7 per cent success. Infosys is doing their best...
The bonus on paddy announced by the Chhattisgarh government had cast a shadow over the export prospects of rice in the state.
World Food India, spread across India Gate and Vigyan Bhawan, turning Lutyens Delhi into a traffic nightmare, started Friday morning with Prime Minister Narendra Modi inviting investors to tap the unlimited opportunities in Indias food sector. Soon after, top executives of global food and retail majors from PepsiCo to Coca-Cola and Amazon to Metro, along with domestic biggies such as ITC and Patanjali, lined up to ink investment MoUs, totalling Rs 68,000 crore over multiple years.
$13.5 billion Project Portfolio Reviewed by Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), States, and ADB; Best Performance Awards given to Kolkata Urban, Uttarakhand Emergency Assistance and MP Power Projects. .

The Government of India, 25 State Governments and Asian Development Bank (ADB) jointly reviewed a total of 55 investment projects financed by ADB recently in Bengaluru. .

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Mr. Sameer Kumar Khare, Joint Secretary (Multilateral Institutions), Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Ministry of Finance, and Mr. Diwesh Sharan, Deputy Director General (DDG) for ADBs South Asia Department, co-chaired the Tripartite Portfolio Review Meeting to discuss the status of ongoing projects and prioritized actions to achieve their implementation targets. Over 150 officials of the Central and State Governments including Project Directors, and ADB staff participated in the said meeting. .

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Speaking on the occasion, Mr Sameer Kumar Khare said that the projects assisted by multilateral development banks such as ADB should demonstrate faster and better results while facilitating international best practices, new technologies and reforms. He said that the Review Meeting is an important forum to discuss issues and find resolution for timely and quality implementation of development projects. .

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Referring to the recently approved 5-year Country Partnership Strategy for India, ADBs South Asia, DDG, Mr. Diwesh Saran said that ADB is willing to enhance its annual sovereign lending from the present $2 billion to $3 billion, building on the increasingly robust implementation performance in the recent years, and by extending support to low income states and economic corridors. .

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As of October 2017, ADBs projects under implementation for India comprise 55 projects amounting to $13.5billion, of which works worth $9.6 billion is ongoing and $5.4 billion has been disbursed. ADB primarily focuses its assistance in India on three Infrastructure SectorsEnergy; Transport; and Urban Infrastructure and Services. .

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The TPRM acknowledged the further acceleration of ADB-financed project implementation in 2017, with the likely annual disbursement reaching almost $2 billion. The Meeting also accorded the best project implementation performance awards to the following projects: .

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? Madhya Pradesh Power Transmission and Distribution System Improvement Project .

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? Kolkata Environmental Improvement Investment Program (Tranche-1) .

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? Uttarakhand Emergency Assistance Project. .

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His Excellency Mr Maris Kucinskis, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Latvia, called on the President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind, at Rashtrapati Bhavan today (November 3, 2017). .

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Welcoming the Latvian Prime Minister to India, the President said that this visit is of historic significance as it is the first ever visit of a Latvian Prime Minister to India. It takes place as we are celebrating 25 years of establishment of our diplomatic relations. .

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The President said that bilateral relations between India and Latvia are warm and friendly. We should work together to enhance our economic relations. We deeply appreciate Latvias participation in the World Food India 2017 event. Latvia has acquired strengths in the agro-food processing sector and the participation of Latvian companies at World Food India will benefit both sides. The President stated that the Government of India has introduced programmes like Make in India, Smart Cities, Digital India and Clean India which present opportunities for Latvian companies. Latvia can also gain from the strengths of Indian industry, particularly in the IT and pharma sectors. .

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The President said that we deeply value our strong cultural ties and people-to-people connect with Latvia. He expressed happiness that the Centre for India Studies and Culture established in the University of Latvia is promoting yoga and Hindi. He was glad that a new Centre for Baltic Culture and Studies has been opened at the Dev Sanskriti Vishwavidyalaya in Haridwar. He stated that this will further deepen cultural and academic contacts between India and the Baltic region. .

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The President noted that the Latvian Prime Minister will be inaugurating the Honorary Consulate of Latvia and attending business meetings in Mumbai tomorrow. He expressed confidence that these will help in further strengthening our bilateral ties. .

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The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), in collaboration with UNICEF, organised a two-day Regional Workshop onon 2-3 November, 2017 in Guwahati. This Workshop is the fourth in the series of five Regional Workshops being organised for sensitisation of States on SDG Monitoring Framework. .

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Speaking at the inaugural session, Chief Statistician of India and Secretary, MoSPI, Dr. T.C.A Anant, sharing the salient features of the SDGs and enhanced need for continuous and holistic monitoring, stressed that the SDGs have brought in a new set of responsibilities and challenges for the countrys Statisticians. SDGs require monitoring at National and State level in additional to the Global Monitoring by United Nations. The Workshop helped in identifying good practices from States implementation and monitoring of SDGs, so that other States can adopt/replicate these practices. He mentioned that MoSPI would be working in close collaboration with the State Governments to strengthen systems in measuring and monitoring SDG progress. .

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While informing the States on the work in progress, Dr. Anant said, The National SDG Indicators are being finalised following an elaborate consultation process with Ministries in Central Government, State Governments and other stake holders. It is a dynamic framework and a system to refine the framework also will be in place". He also stressed the need for more investment in Data infrastructure in view of the new demand for data to monitor SDGs. .

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Addressing the Workshop, Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Assam, Shri V B Pyarelal stated that the State of Assam is one of the first states to adopt SDGs as a policy for States development plans. He said detailed plans are in place to implement SDGs upto the grassroots level. They have established a Centre for SDGs to coordinate the SDG activities in the State Government and also foster research in collaboration with reputed institutions. .

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Additional Director General, MoSPI, Shri Pravin Srivastava highlighted the salient features of the National Monitoring framework. He said the national SDG indicators will help the States to align their developmental schemes with the SDG goals and to build capacity to improve monitoring on progress of the national indicators. He also emphasised the need for strengthening the statistical system in the states using open standards so that there is regular data flow from States to monitor the SDGs using technological solutions to harness the data revolution in view of the SDGs. .

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Policy, Planning and Evaluation (PPE) Specialist, UNICEF Delhi, Shri K D Maiti, informed that the Regional Workshop at Guwahati is the fourth such Regional Workshops. These workshops would be helpful in developing a shared system of monitoring SDG progress at the national and state level" he added. .

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The two days Workshop was attended by senior officers from the States of Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. The outcome of the Workshop is to come up with documentation on the various initiatives being taken by the States towards SDG implementation and to share best practices. .

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Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Shri Radha Mohan Singh welcomed the Shri. Peter Bleser, German Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture and said that Indias relations with Germany have always been warm and friendly and that it is based on common values of democracy, respect for fundamental rights, and mutual trust. He said he is particularly happy with the pace at which cooperation in the agriculture and allied sectors are progressing between the two countries. .

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Talking about the cooperation, the Minister said that six JWG meetings have taken place since 2008; Agriculture Skill Council of India (ASCI) and German AgriBusiness Alliance (GAA) have agreed to cooperate the establishment of Centers of Competence/Excellence in Agriculture, while the cooperation in seeds sector is active as project implementation agreement for the next phase (January 2017 to December 2018) had been signed in May 2017. .

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The Minister briefly mentioned the various initiatives taken by the Government in the agriculture sector and said that the present level of bilateral trade in agricultural products can be further enhanced. Shri Singh requested the German Minister to use his good office for early resolution of the issue relating to Tricyclazole (TCA) in Indian Rice exported to Germany and other members of EU and issue of acceptance of digital phytosanitary certificates by the EU countries. .

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After that, the Agriculture Minister met Danish Minister for Environment and Food, Mr. Esben Lunde Larsen. Welcoming the visiting Minister, Shri Singh recalled the historically friendly relations between the two countries. Shri Singh expressed satisfaction at the significantly expanded cooperation in trade, investment, and technology and said that he hopes that full potential would be realized in all areas following normalization of our relations. .

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Shri Radha Mohan Singh conveyed his appreciation to the Minister for Denmarks participation at the World Food India 2017" as a partner country and said that there are many opportunities in the food processing sector which can be successfully tapped by the Danish companies. .

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It was followed by a meeting with Branislav Nedimovic, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management of the Republic of Serbia. Shri. Singh welcomed the visiting Minister and expressed his satisfaction at the warmth of relationship as is indicated by Serbian Governments decision to abolish visas for Indians. Shri Singh also briefly recalled Indias remarkable journey in the sector since gaining independence in 1947 to become the worlds largest producer of milk and one of the leading producers of fruits, vegetables, and fisheries. .

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The Minister said that agriculture & food processing and agricultural machinery are crucial industry segments in India-Serbia trade relations. He said that the present level of trade in agricultural products has much potential for further enhancement and suggested that Serbia may consider importing tropical fruits such as mango, pineapple, banana, papaya etc. from India. .

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The Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh chaired a High Level Meeting to review the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) situation in Chhattisgarh here today. The meeting was attended by the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh Dr Raman Singh, the Minister of State for Home Affairs Shri Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, Union Home Secretary Shri Rajiv Gauba, Chief Secretary of Chhattisgarh, DG CRPF and senior officers of the Union Home Ministry and the Chhattisgarh administration. .

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During the meeting, it was brought out that the declining trend of LWE violence continues across the country which has seen an overall reduction of 21% in violence incidents over corresponding period of last year. The Left Wing Extremists continue to remain under pressure with ever shrinking influence, both in terms of geographical spread and public support. Security and development related measures required to achieve the same were discussed. The Home Minister assured the Chief Minister of all possible support to the State to achieve this objective. .

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Currently the Centre is providing security related assistance to the State which includes provision of CAPF Bns, helicopters, UAVs and CIAT Schools. In addition, 11 India Reserve Bns and 02 Special India Reserve Bns have been sanctioned to the State. Funds have also been provided for fortification of 75 Police Stations and for capacity building of Special Forces under the Special Infrastructure Scheme. .

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As part of the multi-pronged strategy to deal with LWE, the Central Government gives equal focus to development measures to bring LWE affected districts at par with other areas. Towards this end, the Central Government has approved a Special Central Assistance Scheme for 35 worst affected LWE districts with an annual outlay of Rs 1000 cr. Important development schemes include the Road Requirement Plan PhaseI under which Chhattisgarh was sanctioned 1988 km of road out of which 1351 km have been completed. Under the newly launched RRP-II, Chhattisgarh has been sanctioned a further 891 km of road. To improve mobile connectivity, 519 mobile towers have been installed in Phase-I. Another 1028 towers are being planned in Phase-II of the project. .

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As part of efforts to enhance skill development, Chhattisgarh has been sanctioned 09 ITIs and 14 Skill Development Centres. The initiatives taken to improve education infrastructure include approval of 02 Kendriya Vidyalayas at Bijapur and Sukma and 03 JNVs at Bijapur, Narayanpur and Kondagaon. Jagdalpur Medical College has been approved for up-gradation as Centre of Excellence at a cost of 200 Cr under PMSSY. .

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The Jagdalpur Airport has been included under the Regional Connectivity Scheme and work for making it operational is nearing completion. Financial inclusion initiatives include sanction of 707 post offices and opening of 108 ATMs and 81 bank branches in LWE affected districts in last two years. .

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When we pay attention towards environment, there won't be any tension about future of mankind: Vice President .

The Vice President of India, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu has said that when we pay attention towards environment, there won't be any tension about the future of mankind. He was addressing the gathering after inaugurating the International Conference on Environment - 2017, organized by the National Green Tribunal, here today. The Chief Justice of India, Justice Dipak Misra, the Minister of Science & Technology, Environment, Forest and Climate Change and Earth Sciences, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, the Chairperson of the National Green Tribunal, Shri Swatanter Kumar, Justice of the National High Court of Brazil & Secretary General of the UN Environment International Advisory Council of Environmental Justice, Justice Antonio Herman Benjamin, the Attorney General for India, Shri K.K. Venugopal and other dignitaries were present on the occasion. .

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The Vice President said that the GDP is important but it is even more important to improve human lives. He further said that quality of life is the ultimate test of all our development efforts. Development has very little meaning if it doesnt lead to health, happiness and harmony, he added. .

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The Vice President said that he has often confronted this question of what takes priority - environment protection or development. He further said that he can say confidently that there is no intrinsic contradiction between the two; all that is needed is to check over exploitation. .

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The Vice President said that each wing of our polity has a distinct role to play. He further said that the legislatures frame laws that address the concerns of the people, the executive effectively implements and delivers. The judiciary ensures that the laws are interpreted and implemented both in letter and spirit, he added. .

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The Vice President said that rapid economic growth and intensified industrialization has also led to increasingly unhealthy, polluting and carbon-intensive lifestyles. He further said that we have to adopt a better way of measuring growth, which is more holistic and reveals a truer picture of progress and quality of life and not merely economic growth. We have to invent and innovate methods to maintain economic growth and bring holistic prosperity without adverse impacts on the environment, he added. .

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Following is the text of Vice President's address: .

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"It gives me great pleasure to be a part of this august gathering. I must take this opportunity to appreciate the efforts of the National Green Tribunal (Indias foremost Environmental Justice Court), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Asian Development Bank, the Ministry of Environment Forests & Climate Change and the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation in successfully organising such events in the past at International and National levels and for the present event- World Conference on Environment, November 2017. .

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These events serve as forums for discussion on wide ranging environmental issues of universal concern. This is the second International Conference on the subject this year and fourth International Conference on Environment being organised under the aegis of NGT. .

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Brothers & sisters, we have had decades of deliberations on international environmental consciousness, jurisprudence and laws. We have progressed from denial to acceptance of global warming. We have moved from non-voluntary non mandatory contributions to voluntary commitments to mitigate the threat of climate change. Many countries have started taking proactive measures for protecting the environment. .

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We all are realizing a little slowly, a little painfully that we have been recklessly damaging our environment. Wisdom is slowly dawning upon all countries that our existence is at stake and we have to act fast to avoid a catastrophe. .

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At this point, I am reminded of the words of Mahatma Gandhi. He stated: .

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The earth, the air, the land and the water are not an inheritance from our fore fathers but on loan from our children. So we have to handover to them at least as it was handed over to us". These times call for collective intervention by the international community for pushing the environmental agenda and working on a meticulously charted sustainable development path of keeping global warming well below 2?C, while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5?C. .

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Economic Growth should not be seen as independent of environment. What nations needs to work together for, is sustainable economic growth. .

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Many countries around the world call our planet the Mother Earth. Many religions have given us a rich heritage of thoughts and ideas on living harmoniously with nature. In India too, we have a rich repertory of hymns and practices that celebrate, worship and preserve nature. For instance, Bhu-Suktam in Atharva Veda written almost 20 centuries ago, celebrates nature and seeks to see it protected and preserved. .

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O Mother Earth, may your hills and snow clad mountains spread their coolness, may your forests spread delight. On your firm foundation which is unconquered, unslayed and unbroken, I stand firm." Destruction of trees is frowned upon. As Prophet Mohammed said He who cuts a lote-tree, Allah will send him to Hellfire". In the Hindu tradition, all trees are sacred, all living and non-living creatures are valued and treasured. The seers have said Ishavasyam Idam Sarvam" (The whole universe is divine and sacred). .

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These well-springs of our collective heritage need to be revived. We must not only recollect some of the best thoughts from our past but also shape our present in line with those noble ideals. Or else, our future might turn to be dark and bleak. .

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The signs of a catastrophic future are already actually here for us to experience. We do not have clean air and clean water in many cities. Our quality of life is constantly declining. .

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GDP is important but it is even more important to improve human lives. Quality of life is the ultimate test of all our development efforts. Development has very little meaning if it doesnt lead to health, happiness and harmony. When we pay attention towards environment, there won't be any tension about the future of mankind.

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Having served in the Government of India for nearly four decades, I have often confronted this question of what takes priority- environment protection or development. I can say confidently that there is no intrinsic contradiction between the two; all that is needed is to check over exploitation. As Gandhiji had said, Nature provides enough to meet our needs but cannot provide for our greed. The challenge is huge. However, if we have the political will, the legal frame work and an able Judiciary, we can achieve results. .

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Each wing of our polity has a distinct role to play. The legislatures frame laws that address the concerns of the people, the executive effectively implements and delivers. The judiciary ensures that the laws are interpreted and implemented both in letter and spirit. .

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I do hope each of us in each of these spheres of responsibility, act in unison with a common objective but within the clearly defined parameters delineated by the Constitution. .

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The environmental change is occurring at a much faster rate than previously thought. These threats are population growth, rapid urbanization, rising levels of consumption, desertification, land degradation and climate change have combined to leave countries suffering from severe water scarcity. These highly disturbing trends are also making it increasingly hard for the world to feed itself. .

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To speak of Asia Pacific region, the rapid and much desired economic growth has left very huge impact on the natural resources and ecosystems. Worsening air quality, extreme water scarcity and humungous waste generation are threatening human and environmental health. .

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The region continues to be the worlds most disaster prone region having a 41% share of all natural disasters reported over the last two decades, which also accounted for 91% of the worlds deaths attributable to natural disasters in the last century. .

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In Southeast Asia, the average area deforested annually is more than 1 million hectares, resulting in the release of hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide every year between 2005 and 2015. .

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The contamination of water sources by human and industrial waste, including pharmaceutical and personal care products, is a major problem in the region. .

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It is estimated that about 30% of the population uses contaminated drinking water. Water-related diseases and unsafe water contribute to 1.8 million deaths annually in the region. Unsafe sanitation, disposal of untreated wastewater and runoff of agrochemicals are responsible for a rise in water-borne diseases, especially in Asias population-dense urban areas. .

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Uncontrolled dumping, which is still the main waste disposal method in the region, is also a major source of disease. In Mumbai, for example, about 12% of total municipal solid waste is burned either openly on the streets or in landfills. .

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Rapid economic growth and intensified industrialization has also led to increasingly unhealthy, polluting and carbon-intensive lifestyles. .

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Global Warming is not merely a concern due to increased temperatures. It is displacing people out of their homes, where their ancestors and forefathers have dwelled for centuries, in search of livelihood, food and shelter due to altered geographic and climatic conditions. .

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According to WHO, approximately 12.6 million deaths are attributable to unhealthy environments, i.e. nearly 1 in every 4 death recorded globally. Out of this 8.2 million deaths have resulted from non communicable diseases like cancers, strokes, heart problems, chronic respiratory diseases, etc. Regionally, the low and middle income countries in South-East Asia and Western Pacific Region are the worst hit. .

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Distinguished speakers and audience, I would like all of us to reflect on certain key issues and seek solutions to our current predicament. .

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1. Is it time for the World to formally adopt a better way of measuring growth, which is more holistic and reveals a truer picture of progress and quality of life and not merely economic growth? .

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2. Can we move beyond the boundaries of countries and adopt a regime of Global Civics and World Governance, in matters which are of great concern to the entire humanity? .

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3. Is it time to move towards an eco centric approach, where the role of human race is not merely that of stewardship, but that of Earth Trusteeship? .

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4. Can we discover, invent and innovate methods to maintain economic growth and bring holistic prosperity without adverse impacts on the environment? .

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We must find answers to these questions; and initiate swift action. .

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Let us not wait for the disaster to strike. .

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We have to combine knowledge and wisdom with concrete action. .

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We must define our roles and be watchful trustees of our natural wealth. .

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We must enhance awareness and proactively involve all sections of the population. .

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The agenda of the Conference is quite timely. I look forward to your fruitful deliberations and eagerly await your implementable recommendations. .

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I wish you all a successful conference! .

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Jai Hind!" .

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has embarked on a fresh search for a sales chief to take over from soon-to-retire John Leahy as the aerospace group seeks a clean break from turmoil over investigations into the use of middlemen, said three people familiar with the plans.

Leahy's deputy, Executive Vice-President Kiran Rao, had been identified as Leahy's successor earlier this year, but his appointment to one of the industry's most visible jobs was never confirmed as Leahy's retirement slipped towards end-year.

Chief Executive Tom Enders has now decided to look outside the core part of the company in a bid to denote a fresh start, but Rao is not being targeted in the compliance investigation which centres mainly on a defunct headquarters team, the people said.

Rao confirmed he would not be in the running for the post.

"I can confirm I am no longer pursuing the position of commercial director and intend to concentrate on product strategy," Rao told Reuters.

An spokesman declined comment on personnel matters.

The search comes as the Airbus marketing machine is seen as demoralised as a result of British and French probes, which have also sparked a blanket internal investigation.

Enders told a recent sales meeting Leahy would stay till the year-end but failed to confirm Rao's appointment, leaving what insiders described as a sense of vacuum amid dwindling sales.

Rao, 53, has until recently combined the No. 2 sales role with product development, for which he received a French distinction in July. He has stood in for Leahy since July as the New Yorker prepared to retire, initially in September.

The search for a new successor extends outside the core part of Airbus but will include affiliates such as 50-percent owned turboprop maker ATR, where CEO and former Airbus commercial strategy chief Christian Scherer is seen as a leading contender.

ATR said Scherer was not available for comment.

Broken morale

Several outside candidates are being considered and Airbus could go head-hunting at suppliers, such as the recently overhauled management team at Britain's Rolls-Royce.

Planeview Partners founder Henri Courpron has been widely mentioned but the former Airbus executive is said to have no plans to leave his U.S.-based consulting firm after helping negotiate a recent deal for Airbus to buy Bombardier's troubled CSeries jet programme. Courpron couldn't be reached for comment.

The handover is happening as Enders comes under mounting French pressure over the conduct of a compliance campaign, which widened this week to flawed paperwork in the United States.

While German-born Enders has bet his future on overhauling the company, insiders worry the crackdown will stymie risk-taking and swing the pendulum too far towards bureaucracy just as a resurgent Boeing is aggressively winning orders.

Enders' own future is increasingly questioned, a source of uncertainty that sources say may put off some contenders.

He has called for modernisation and fresh blood, but the change of policy on the key sales post underscores how the company's ability to set its own direction has come under mounting pressure as investigations ripple through the group.

Whoever replaces Leahy will face the job of repairing poor morale and absorbing the CSeries without upsetting demand for bread-and-butter larger jets offered by Airbus and Boeing.

But his replacement is unlikely to enjoy the same latitude as Leahy in negotiations or influence over industrial moves.

Airbus's market share against Boeing has fallen to 35 percent so far this year - a gap likely to widen as US President Donald Trump visits China with Boeing sales in view - but it aims to bounce back with at least one major deal in coming months. It may announce orders for the struggling A380 at this month's Dubai Airshow.
US President Donald Trump has warned China that "warrior nation" Japan could take matters into its own hands if the threat posed by North Korea is not addressed.

Trump's remarks come ahead of his first visit to Asia since taking office, with soaring tensions over North Korea's nuclear and missile programs expected to take centre stage.

"Japan is a warrior nation, and I tell China and I tell everyone else that listens, I mean, you're gonna have yourself a big problem with Japan pretty soon if you allow this to continue with North Korea," Trump said on Fox News.

However, Trump also said that President Xi Jinping has been "pretty terrific" on North Korea, and that "China is helping us."



After a chiding from Trump for failing to rein in Kim, China has implemented tougher UN sanctions against North Korea, and Xi's relationship with the US leader appears to be warming.

North Korea in July launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles apparently capable of reaching the US mainland -- described by its leader Kim Jong-Un as a gift to "American bastards".

The North followed that up with two missiles that passed over Japan, and its sixth nuclear test, by far its most powerful yet.

The US president raised the spectre of Japan taking action over North Korea as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe continues efforts to change its US-imposed pacifist constitution, seen by conservatives as an outdated legacy of wartime defeat, so Japan can formally transform its well-equipped and well- trained Self Defense Forces into a full-fledged military.

Trump has warned of "fire and fury" in response to Pyongyang's threats, and derisively dubbed Kim "Rocket Man", who responded by calling him a "dotard".
US multinationals including Apple and General Electric are suddenly looking at as many as three new taxes  estimated to raise $454.1 billion over a decade  under the House tax bill released Thursday.
Dina Wadia, daughter of Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah died in New York on Thursday at the age of 98. Her petition to regain control of her childhood home is still pending for a final hearing before a division bench of the Bombay High Court.

The seafront bungalow on Malabar Hill built by Jinnah was at the centre of a prolonged battle between Wadia and the Indian government.

The palatial 'Jinnah House', originally known as South Court, was witness to meetings of the Muslim League and a crucial meeting between Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Jinnah before partition.

Wadia, born to Jinnah's Parsi wife, Rattanbai Petit, in London in August 1919, had insisted that the stately house, designed in European-style architecture, be called South Court.

In 2007, Pakistan's then president Pervez Musharraf had expressed his desire to acquire the house as Pakistan's property to convert it into a consulate.

The same year (in August 2007), Wadia (then 88), knocked the doors of the Bombay High Court with a petition claiming that the title of the mansion be handed over to her as she was the only heir to Jinnah.

Wadia spent many years in Mumbai but had been living in the US for the past few decades. In her petition, she said she wished to spend her remaining years in the house in Mumbai where she had spent her childhood years.

Wadia, in the petition, had claimed that the bungalow could not be classified as "evacuee property" as her father had died without leaving behind a will.

The petition last came up for hearing before a division bench of Justices S V Gangapurwala and A M Badar on July 28 this year which adjourned it simply to September 7. It has not come up for hearing since then.

Soon after her petition was filed, the high court had directed the Union government to file their affidavit in response.

In October 2007, the government filed its affidavit stating that the Jinnah House belongs to the government and that only Jinnah's sister Fatima or her legal heir can claim right over the property.

Wadia had, however, claimed that she was the only heir of Jinnah and hence the title of the house should be handed over to her.

According to Wadia, the (then) state of Bombay took over the property, because Fatima was the trustee of Jinnah's will, and had been declared an evacuee (those who migrated to Pakistan post-partition) in 1949.

Wadia, in her petition, claimed that her father's will was not probated by the Bombay High Court and therefore had no effect on any operation of law.

Fatima, therefore, could not be the legal owner and so the house should be handed over to his (Jinnah) legal heir.

Also, she (Wadia) is the sole legal heir of Jinnah's property, both under Hindu Law (applicable to Khoja community--to which Jinnah belonged--before Independence) or the Shia Muslim law, her petition claims.

In its reply, the Union government had claimed that her petition is not maintainable and is barred by prolonged and unexplained delay.

The reply filed by G Balasubramanian, deputy secretary to the Ministry of External Affairs, had stated that Government of India had issued a notification on June 27, 1949 under the Bombay Evacuee Property Act, by which the possession of Jinnah House was vested with the Custodian.

On June 10, 1955, another notification was issued under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, by which the right, title and interest was vested in Government of India.

Jinnah had bequeathed the Jinnah House to his unmarried sister Fatima by his will dated May 30, 1939. Fatima migrated to Pakistan at the time of partition and was declared an evacuee and hence the property was taken over by the Indian government under the Bombay Evacuee Property Act, the affidavit filed by the government had said.

In August 2010, the high court had ordered for status quo to be maintained in the matter, but had permitted the Centre to complete the renovation work of the bungalow without making any structural changes.

Wadia wanted the mansion, built by her father in 1936 at a cost of Rs 2 lakh, be called South Court.

In a newspaper interview during a visit to Mumbai in 2008, she had said, when asked about the Jinnah House bungalow in south Mumbai, "Why do you keep calling it Jinnah House? That's the name the British gave it. Its real name is South Court. Why don't you refer to it by its original name?"

In 2004, she visited Jinnah's tomb in Karachi, along with Nusli and his two sons. In the visitors' book, she then wrote, "May his dream for Pakistan come true.
North Korea on Friday condemned two US bombers flying near the Korean peninsula claiming that the exercise was a trial run for a surprise nuclear attack, media reports said.

US Air Force B-1 bombers, accompanied by fighter jets from South Korea and Japan, conducted a flyover near the Korean peninsula on Thursday, CNN reported.

The Two B-1B Lancers from Anderson Air Force Base in Guam rendezvoused with the Japanese and South Korean jets as part of the planned "bilateral integration" exercise  at one point flying over Seoul.

In response, Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said: "The gangster-like US imperialists are ceaselessly resorting to their frantic nuclear threat and blackmail to stifle North Korea with nukes at any cost.

"On Thursday they let a formation of B-1B nuclear strategic bombers stationed at the Anderson Air Force Base on Guam stealthily fly into South Korea again to stage a surprise nuclear strike drill targeting North Korea.

"The reality clearly shows that the United States is the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean Peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war," KCNA added.

The "continuous bomber presence mission" was planned in advance and was "not in response to any current event", Air Force spokesperson Capt. Candice Dillitte said on Thursday.

The flyover comes after two more US aircraft carriers joined the Japan-based USS Ronald Reagan in the Asia-Pacific region last week, CNN reported.

The Pentagon said the movement of the carriers and their accompanying strike groups was long planned, as the USS Nimitz heads back to the US West Coast after a deployment in the Middle East and the USS Theodore Roosevelt heads to that area to replace it.

On Monday, US, South Korean and Japanese officials issued a statement urging North Korea to "refrain from irresponsible provocations" and walk away from its "destructive and reckless path" of weapons development.

Thursday's development comes ahead of President Donald Trump's Asia tour, which runs from November 5-14, to visit Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, and whose agenda will be partly focused on dealing with the North Korean crisis, reports Efe news.

The US has repeatedly deployed the B-1Bs in recent weeks with the apparent aim of deterring Kim Jong-un's regime from continuing its weapons tests.

Washington and Seoul agreed last week at their annual security meetings to "enhance rotational deployments of US strategic assets in and around the peninsula," including bomber jets, submarines and nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

(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.)
US President Donald Trumps personal account went down abruptly for about 11 minutes on Thursday evening, a brief deactivation the social media company blamed on an employee who was heading out the door.
Two US strategic B-1B bombers conducted drills over South Korea on Thursday, the US Air Force said, days before President arrives in the country amid high tensions with North Korea over its nuclear weapon programme.
today termed as "baseless" the US' claims that it provides safe havens for terrorists and said that America should refrain from making "unfounded assertions".

Foreign Office spokesman Muhammad Faisal during a briefing said that "contributed with both blood and treasure in the fight against terrorism.""We reject baseless allegations of safe havens. We have repeatedly conveyed to the US leadership that it should refrain from making unfounded assertions," he said.

When asked about Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's remarks that the US has given another chance to fight terrorist safe havens on its territory, Faisal said Pakistan made significant gains through its effective counter-terrorism operations.

The US has shared with Pakistan a list 20 terrorist groups like the LeT, JeM and HUM that Washington believes are operating from its soil to target India and Afghanistan,



Top on the list is the Haqqani network which, the US says has safe havens in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in northwestern Pakistan and uses them to launch attacks into Afghanistan.

Faisal said Afghanistan's soil was being used against Pakistan and his country raised concerns about presence of Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah in Afghanistan, who perpetrated terrorism within Pakistan.

When asked about new Pakistani High Commissioner to India meeting External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj two weeks ago and reports that Swaraj requested visa for Indian national Kulbhushan Jhadevs mother, the spokesperson said it was just a courtesy call, and no specific issue was raised during the meeting.

"Matters related to Kulbhushan Jhadev, who was caught while perpetrating terrorism, terror financing and subversive activities within Pakistan, are under consideration, he said.

However, he did not specify which "matters" were under consideration.

Jadhav was arrested by Pakistan in the restive Balochistan province last year. He has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism.

When asked about the US' remarks that it wants to see de-escalation between Pakistan and India, Faisal said, We have welcomed these statements by the US officials since Pakistan has also been making consistent efforts to reach out to India with a view to lowering the temperatures.

"India, however, has repeatedly refused to engage bilaterally. It has resisted third country mediation, which indicates India's defiance to the peaceful means for dispute resolution, as envisaged in the UN Charter," he said.

"The Jammu and Kashmir issue has three parties, namely Pakistan, India and Kashmir. All three parties must hold a dialogue under the ambit of UNSC resolutions to resolve the issue in an amicable manner, he said.

Faisal alleged that the "growing extremism and intolerance in Indian society was visible to everyone".
The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) workers vandalised property at the Narayana College in Hyderabad's Narayanaguda.

The incident took place on November2, after the DGM of the college was accused of having been harassing women teachers. Recently, a woman principal of the college reportedly ended her life due to sexual harassment.

The workers raised slogans against the institution and broke into the college premises on Thursday and vandalised the college property.

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An Andhra Pradesh police officer, who was injured in a road mishap, succumbed to his injuries at a hospital here on Friday.

Lakshman, who was a sub-inspector posted at Miyapur Traffic Police Station, died in a city hospital. He was 56.

"Lakshman was returning home on his bike when after duty when the car hit him from the rear. The driver fled the scene, while Lakshman was rushed to a hospital. Today, he succumbed to his injuries in the hours" said Alwal Assistant Commissioner of Police.

Section 304-A (Causing death by negligence) of the Indian Penal Code would now be added into the case.

The police have also retrieved the CCTV footage which shows a speeding car hitting Lakshman's bike.

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Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has requested the Centre to use satellite imaging to verify reports about China's plan to construct a 1,000-km tunnel for diverting water from the Brahmaputra river.

The BJP minister suspects that China may use 'water bomb' against riparian India by opening the gates of water reservoirs.

"There were reports in the Chinese newspaper which the government denied. I am not in a position to say what is happening in China and now it is for the government of India to verify which is true," Sarma told reporters on Thursday, and added, "India has lot of advance knowledge in satellite imaging and if they are constructing, India satellites will detect that. So let us wait for what government of India says on this."

Although the Chinese Government has dismissed such reports, the Assam minister raised concerns in light of the rapid and sudden floods occurring in the state despite lack of rainfall.

"China has not shared the hydrological data of Brahmaputra for last one year. Now what is happening in Assam is there are rapid and sudden floods. Initially we thought that it must be water released from any hydroelectric project but during the last floods, we noticed that there has been no rain in Assam or Arunachal Pradesh," Sarma said.

Sarma further demanded that India should press China to share the hydrological data and if required, go to the international forum for the same.

"The Central Government has assured us that they would take it up with the Chinese Government. We also feel that if they are not willing to give us the data, we should go to some international forum," Sarma said.

Reports published in the Chinese newspapers said that the engineers there were testing techniques that could be used to build a 1,000-km tunnel - the world's longest - to carry water from Tibet to Xinjiang by diverting the Yarlung Tsangpo river in southern Tibet to the Taklimakan Desert in Xinjiang.

Downstream, in India, the river becomes the Brahmaputra, which joins the Ganges in Bangladesh.

Speaking on the state's issues, the Assam Miinster said the biggest hurdle in the development of Tripura was the Left, and that 50 per cent of the problems would be removed once the Manik Sarkar Government was out of power.

He also demanded that all mysterious murder-related cases - right from TV journalist Santanu Bhowmik to the BJP workers, which are under SIT investigation - should be handed over to the CBI.

Sarma informed that the BJP would be visiting Tripura for ground inspection about the reality of the murder of TV journalist Santanu Bhowmik on November 10, and that it was planning to make the journalist's murder a prime issue in the coming Parliament session.

The BJP leader who was on a two-day visit to Tripura to see party's activities, alleged that the SIT of the Tripura Police was working as the B-team of the CPM and hence, he added, all murder and crime cases committed by its leaders are handed over to the SIT just for an eyewash and with very poorly investigated charge sheets.

"The court has no other option but to acquit them," Sarma added.

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Gold-level member of Oracle Partner Network (OPN), Clover Infotech recently showcased the Oracle Mobile Cloud at an event, thus offering demos that showcased the vast applications and engagement capabilities of intelligent bots.

These new cloud offerings by Oracle will provide numerous possibilities for enterprises to create multi-channel digital solutions to augment customer and employee engagement.

However, the solution will also offer artificial intelligence (AI)-powered bots, which will offer a convenient, reliable and omnipresent channel for customers and employees to connect with businesses for gathering information, addressing grievances, performing micro-tasks and raising requests.

Clover Infotech, which was named by Oracle as one of its partners to implement the GST-compliant Oracle ERP Cloud in India, has been working closely on AI-powered intelligent bots, and its engineers have been trained by Oracle University to create intelligent bots and meet the requirements of businesses from across industries.

"The era of intelligent bots is here with the latest updates to Oracle Mobile Cloud. It enables automation for basic tasks, allowing human intervention in more complex or high priority conversations and frees employees to focus on more strategic and analytical tasks. Many of our partners, such as Clover Infotech, recognise the potential of these AI-powered chatbots and are focused on helping clients improve user engagement," said director of product management for Oracle, Ravi Pinto.

"The latest updates to Oracle Mobile Cloud are heralding the new era of digital engagement, where businesses would be connected to stakeholders 24X7 and offer timely, data-driven insights. With digital being at the center of our communication and messaging apps becoming extremely popular, the stage is set for AI-powered intelligent bots. Intelligent bots are expected to become a necessity for businesses in the near future," added Javed Tapia, Managing Director, Clover Infotech.

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Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday said the party was going to win the upcoming Gujarat assembly elections because it has the truth on its side.

"This is a fight between truth and falsehood. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has the police, the Army as well as the government in Gujarat, Centre, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa and many other states. However, despite of all this, the Congress is going to win the Gujarat elections because we have truth on our side," Rahul, while delivering a speech in the Pardi district, reiterated his yesterday's statement.

Gandhi asserted that Gujarat's truth comprised of various problems, while the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) truth was only about some rich industrialists.

"Gujarat's truth is youth unemployment, farmers' helplessness, expensive private education, expensive medical care, corruption in every field, land stealing, bullets on Patidar, sticks on Dalits in Una, and hunger of Adivasis. However, the BJP's truth is their relation with five to ten high-profile industrialists who use money, electricity, water, and land of the Gujarat public," he said.

Advancing on his taunt about the Nano project of the Modi Government, Rahul said he had been searching for the car, but could not find one on Gujarat roads.

"The BJP's truth is the amount of Rs. 33,000 crore, given to Tata for Nano cars. I haven't seen a single Nano in the past 10-15 days. I've been looking for one, but couldn't find it. The Congress had provided employement to crores of people in the same amount of money through MNREGA," Gandhi stressed.

The assembly elections in Gujarat are scheduled in two phases - December 9 and December 14. Results will be declared on December 18.

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Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Friday said the party will make changes in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) if comes to power at the Centre.

"If you ask us to make changes in the GST or its structure, I assure you that the day we come to power in country we will change it. We will bring in a GST that will benefit you. We will work hearing what you have to say, will listen to you," Gandhi said while addressing the gathering at Varacha in Surat.

Criticising the GST implemented by Modi-led NDA government, Gandhi said, "This is not the GST, this is Gabbar Singh Tax. Its aim is to take away your hard earned money. They talk about ease of doing business and bring back American certificate to make tall claims. We don't need certificates to see the reality."

The Congress vice president also accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of using all resources and power and channelling it to a few industrialists.

"The BJP used all resources, power and channeled it to a few industrialists. That's how they ran the state for 22 years," he added.

While concluding his rally, Gandhi promised the gathering to revisit Surat on November 8 to meet businessmen and traders and to understand their sentiments.

"Only Surat's businessmen have the capacity to match up to China's challenge. If ever India were to compete with China, only Surat's traders can do it and they will add impetus to the rest of the nation's growth," Gandhi said.

However, November 8 is also the anniversary of demonetisation, which the Congress has decided to observe as 'black day'.

The two-phase Gujarat Assembly election is scheduled on December 9 and 14.

Results of which will be declared on December 18.

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Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday met convener of Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch, Jignesh Mevani in Guajrat's Navsari and discussed demands of Dalit community.

"I met Rahul Ji. He told us 90 per cent of our demands aren't demands but our constitutional rights which will be included in the manifesto for the upcoming state Assembly elections," Mevani told media here.

"Rahul Gandhi has promised to include most of our demands in the Congress manifesto. We will do everything to defeat the anti-people i.e. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)," Mevani said.

While accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of lending a deaf ear towards the woes of Dalits, Mevani said he is grateful to the Congress party for paying heed to their plight.

Mevani had met Rahul Gandhi wanting the Congress' stand on 17 demands related to his community.

The demands include an allotment of five acres of farmland to the Dalits, alternative employment for those involved in cattle-skinning and manual scavenging and the release of a probe report into an incident of firing on the community members at Thangadh in Surendranagar district in 2012.

Earlier on Thursday, Mevani said if Rahul Gandhi or any other party leader decides to hold talks with him to discuss the demands made by the Dalit group, he would meet.

He accused the BJP Government in Gujarat of being arrogant and ignoring the matters of the Dalit in the state in its 22-year-long rule.

Meanwhile, the 14th legislative assembly elections in Gujarat are to be held by the end of 2017 as the term of 13th assembly ends on January 22, 2018.

The last Congress Government in Gujarat was led by Chhabildas Mehta from February 17, 1994 to March 13, 1995.

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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday issued a show cause notice to Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik and others for violating Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA).

On March 15, the ED had summoned Malik and separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani in different money laundering and FEMA cases.

In 2001, the Jammu and Kashmir police seized one lakh dollar (about Rs 48.23 lakh according to conversion rates at the time) from Srinagar -based Mushtaq Ahmad Dar and his wife Shazia Rasool.

During examination, Dar had said that the money was handed over to him by a Nepal-based citizen and was to be handed over to Yasin Malik.

Dar claimed that he got the money from a Nepalese citizen, adding the same was meant for Yasin Malik.

Malik was arrested but was later let off on bail.

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Tracing his journey as the chief minister of Uttarakhand, Trivendra Singh Rawat on Friday said the state government had taken a number of initiatives in past ten months for the welfare of the people.

The chief minister said his government took the initiative to promote farming of peas over potatoes so that the farmers could get more benefit.

"We are taking an initiative to improve the condition of the farmers. We are focussing to double the income of the farmers," he said, while addressing the media here.

In order to bring transparency in various sectors, the Uttarakhand Government, he said, was taking various measures to end the practices of corruption.

"Due to lack of opacity in various sectors, major irregularities have been witnessed. Lots of complaints have been received during the tenure of the previous government. We gave a slogan of zero tolerance against corruption in the state and are taking measures to stop such practices," Rawat said.

"We are moving forward to fulfill the promises made to the people during the election campaign against corruption," he added.

The Uttarakhand Government is also taking initiatives to establish direct contact with the people of different sections of the society in order to understand their problems in a better way.

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India will soon make a request to the Malaysian government for the extradition of Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) president and preacher Zakir Naik, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Friday.

"We seek the assistance of a foreign government in cases of extradition which requires a legal process internally first. We are nearing the completion of this exercise, once this exercise is completed. Soon we will make an official request to the Malaysian government on this matter," Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in a press briefing.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday said it will explore all the legal options to bring Naik back to India.

"We will explore all legal options which are available to us to bring him (Naik) back so that he faces trial before the court," NIA Inspector General (IG) Alok Mittal told ANI.

The NIA has filed chargesheet against Naik in a special court in Mumbai.

The Islamic preacher is facing charges of incitement of terror activities, hate speeches among youth and money laundering.

Last year in November, the NIA's Mumbai branch had registered a case against Naik under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

The case was registered a day after the Union Home Ministry declared Naik's Mumbai-based IRF as an unlawful association.

Naik fled from India after some terrorists allegedly involved in the Dhaka cafe attack claimed that they were inspired by his speeches.

He had so far delivered over 1,500 public lectures/talks in India and abroad.

His last public lecture in India was held in Kishanganj, Bihar in March, 2012.
'Independence Day' actor Randy Quaid, in a series of tweets, claimed that he was "brutally raped" by a teenage neighbor when he was just 5 years old.

The actor claimed that he and his 14-year-old neighbor were hanging out when he asked Quaid to go into the bathroom.

Taking it to Twitter, the 'Midnight Express' claimed the boy raped him in the bathroom at his own home whilst his parents were at work, threatening to smash a bottle of rubbing alcohol over his head if he didn't do exactly what he told him to do.

He tweeted, "When I was 5 years old I was brutally raped by my next door neighbor, Rodney Lombardi(y?). He was 14. Both of Rodney's parents had jobs. So we would spend the afternoon hours together watching tv or playing croquet out in his front yard. One summer day in 1956 I went over to Rodney's house to see if he wanted to play croquet. He said we could if I would go into the bathroom. I remember thinking this was an odd request, but I complied. He followed me into the bathroom and shut the door behind us. He told me to pull down my pants and underwear. Even at five years old I knew something wasn't right what he was asking and I told him I wanted to leave. I started to cry, begging him to let me go. He reached in the medicine cabinet and pulled out a bottle of rubbing alcohol (they were made of glass in those days), and held it like a weapon above his head in a threatening gesture."

He also explained how he thought the trauma led to him pursuing an acting career.

"Immersing myself in a character is a means of channeling the rage, removing me from myself essentially allowing me to utilise the emotional baggage that's piled up inside through the years. Many actors have experienced severe emotional trauma in their lives to one degree or another. For us, acting is more than just a career, it's a way of coping, a welcomed survival mechanism," noted Quaid.

He said a policeman who lived across the street rushed over and went to the teen's house with Quaid's mother and waited for his parents to get home.

The actor went on to claim that he continued to be taken advantage of by "Hollywood predators."

The actor ended his tweets by declaring it's "time to drain the Hollywood swamp" and "get rid of these creeps".

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The representatives of the Karnataka State Temperance Board (KSTB), inspired by the alcohol prohibition in Bihar, met Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to discuss the different aspects of the ban.

The 31-member delegation of the KSTB, headed by Chairman H.C. Rudrappa, visited to take tips from Nitish on the prohibition policy as well as its implementation.

During the event, Nitish termed prohibition as a 'mass movement' and said a major change was witnessed in the standard of living of the people after this initiative.

The Bihar chief minister said that his government's next agenda was to root out the ill-practice of child marriage and dowry from the society.

He further said there were people who broke the laws, but the state government was very vigilant and was taking an apt action against them.

Nitish Kumar added a strong will was needed to take decisions like the implementation of prohibition of alcohol.

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Hollywood actress Mila Kunis, who can currently be seen in 'A Bad Moms Christmas', revealed that she and Ashton Kutcher are delighted to be parents to Wyatt, three, and 11-month-old Dimitri.

The couple is incredibly ''grateful'' to have such beautiful children because they really wanted a family of their own, according to People Magazine.

In an interview with a U.S. publication, she said, "I have an 11-month-old and a three-year-old - I have tiny little humans. Ashton and I wanted kids so bad; we were so ready to be parents. We were able to have this little family the way we wanted, and I'm so grateful for it and it's the one thing that I can't control."

Adding, "That's where my vulnerability is. My job, it comes and goes. You don't get a job, you get a job, you don't get a job. Your kids, you just want one thing."

The actress also loves the fact she can often take her kids to work with her and she and Ashton, 39, constantly remind one another about how fortunate they are.

"Our kids have a crazy fun life where they visit at work. I take it for granted; I take so much of my life or granted. Both my husband and I try daily to remind ourselves how truly lucky we are," noted Kunis.

Since the 'Black Swan' actress and Ashton Kutcher got together romantically, she feels she has got more ''involved'' in her own career because her spouse encouraged her to learn more about the ''business side'' of her profession.

She explained, "Honestly, full disclosure, when I started dating Ashton, I was like, 'I don't want to know [about the] business side, it makes me so uncomfortable.' And he said, 'Right, stop, get on the call. And then I started educating myself, getting the language right. I would ask him questions, Googled lots of things, and now I know what everybody's doing, I know what I can do, I know what I can ask for. I am way more involved than I was five years ago."

Adding, "I've been in the industry 25 years and only five years ago I started. Think about that, perspective-wise.

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Former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif will be appearing before an accountability court on Friday in connection with the corruption references filed against him by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

Sharif arrived in Islamabad on Thursday to attend the hearing from London, where he had gone to see

his ailing wife, according to the Dawn.

A four-member NAB team was scheduled to serve court summons to Sharif upon his arrival, but the former prime minister immediately left for Punjab House.

The team waited outside Rawal Lounge to complete the required paperwork regarding surety bonds to be presented before the court.

However, Sharif went away in his car right after exiting the state guest house at the airport.

Then, the team reached Punjab House to finish the formalities, where Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Dr Tariq Chaudhry submitted surety bonds worth Pakistani Rupees 1 million to secure bail for Sharif and assured of his attendance tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the Islamabad High Court on Thursday accepted a petition moved by Sharif asking to frame joint charges and conduct a single trial against the Sharif family, instead of holding three separate trials.

Last week, the accountability court had issued the bailable arrest warrants against Sharif in connection with the cases related to two of his properties.

After the hearing on Avenfield flats in London, the court had indicted Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and her husband Captain Mohammad Safdar with a reference pertaining to flats.

Sharif was also indicted separately in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills and Hill Metal Establishment cases.

However, all the three accused had pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Sharif's sons, Hassan and Hussain Nawaz, were named co-accused in the charge sheet in the references.

Cases of disproportionate assets have been filed against Sharif, both of his sons, daughter Maryam and son-in-law retired Captain Mohammad Safdar.

The Sharif family owns Avenfield flats - 16, 16-A, 17, 17-A in Park Lane in London.

The Pakistan Supreme Court had asked the NAB to file four references against the Sharif family in connection with their Avenfield and other properties on July 28.

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Tens of hundreds of people took to the streets and blocked roads across Rajasthan's Chittorgarh city on Friday, to protest against the release of highly anticipated epic period drama, 'Padmavati'.

In Chittorgarh, all schools, markets and medical shops were shut down as a part of the strike, backed by the Rajput Karni Sena.

The protest march started from Maharana Pratap Chowk and ended at the Circuit House.

The protest was peaceful, but the people alleged that Sanjay Leela Bhansali's directorial venture shows much-celebrated Rajput queen, Padmini, in a poor light.

The historical drama, is based on the story of Queen Padmini, who famously refused to submit to emperor Alauddin Khilji when he arrived at the Chittorgarh fort with his army and killed herself, along with scores of other women before he could storm the fort.

The protesters allege that the film has love scenes between Queen Padmini and Alauddin Khilji, played by actors Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh.

Earlier on Thursday, Pramod Rana, the national convenor of Rajput Karni Sena, said that they wouldn't let the movie release with wrong facts.

Talking exclusively to ANI, Rana said, "We cannot give permission to tamper with the rich history of India. The only thing that we want is that Sanjay Leela Bhansali should show the movie to some of the foremost people of our organisation and tell them that we are not tempering any fact of the history."

He also said that if the movie still gets released with historically incorrect facts, then Bhansali would have to feel the heat again.

The movie, which stars Deepika Padukone as Rani Padmavati, Shahid Kapoor as Rawal Ratan Singh and Ranveer Singh as Alauddin Khilji, is all set to hit the theatres on December 1.

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Maharashtra Tourism Minister Jaykumar Rawal on Friday said that it is 'undeserving and derogatory' to show a film by mixing it with fantasy.

Irked with the depiction of the queen in the film 'Padmavati', Rawal told ANI, "It is very unfortunate to see that eminent director like Sanjay Leela Bhansali has resorted to maligning the character of a queen who laid her life to save the country. It is undeserving and derogatory to show that by mixing it with fantasy. It is an insult to history, Indian culture and women."

He added that there are other ways of depicting art than maligning a historical character to this level.

"This should be immediately stopped. I don't know what the government's stand is but a group of people have urged me to stop it as it does not show the truth. It also has hurt the sentiments of people," Rawal asserted.

Condemning the film outrightly, Rawal said, "Bhansali cannot show that a villain is fantasising about a queen in the film as the Queen is a part of history, which India is proud of."

"It cannot be tolerated that some filmmaker would play with history for the sake of money. I have written to the censor board and requested the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in this regard," he added.

He said he might even ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene into the matter because history should not be tampered with.

Meanwhile, Rajasthan's Chittorgarh remained closed today in protest against the film, which is scheduled to release next month.

The period drama starring Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor has been facing flak from various communal groups, including Shree Rajput Karni Sena, for tampering historical facts.

These groups are vehemently supporting the 'bandh'.

In October, an agitated group even destroyed a huge Padmavati-inspired rangoli made by one artist from Surat on the occasion of Diwali.

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India on Friday said that Pakistan has not made enough efforts in combating terrorism or dismantling the terror infrastructure which continues to exist on its soil.

"We feel that Pakistan has not put any enough effort at all in crushing terror or dismantling the terror infrastructure which exists in its territory," Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in a press briefing in response to a question.

Asserting that Jamaat-ud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed is an international designated terrorist by the United Nations, Kumar said that it is the responsibility of the Pakistan government not to allow him space to indulge in terror activities or cross borders.

Dismissing the Pakistani media's claim that the US had offered to mediate between India and Pakistan during Rex Tillerson's recent visit to the country, he said: "There is no truth in such news."

Earlier, Pakistan said that Islamabad welcomes the United States' mediation on the longstanding Kashmir issue and asked Washington to convince New Delhi on the offer, the Nation reported.

To a question about US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's offer during his recent visit to de-escalate tension between Pakistan and India, he said: "The US has repeatedly stated in both private and public interactions that it wants to see de-escalation between Pakistan and India. We have welcomed these statements by the US officials since Pakistan has also been making consistent efforts to reach out to India with a view to lowering the temperatures."

"The US has repeatedly stated in both private and public interactions that it wants to see de-escalation between Pakistan and India. We have welcomed these statements by the US officials since Pakistan has also been making consistent efforts to reach out to India with a view to lowering the temperatures," Pakistan's Foreign Office Spokesperson Dr Mohammed Faisal said during a press briefing.

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Senators in Pakistan have criticised the alleged involvement of the military establishment and the judiciary in the country's political affairs, the Dawn has reported.

Emphasising that institutional dialogues between the military establishment and the judiciary were held across the to avert a collision between institutions, Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Senator Farhatullah Babar said as far as Pakistan is concerned, the matter was "much more complicated than just an issue of imbalance in powers of the state institutions".

"The powers of the parliament, the judiciary and the civilian establishment were being shifted from Islamabad to Rawalpindi," the Dawn quoted Babar, as saying.

He added that in some instances "the powers had already been handed over to Rawalpindi".

Babar claimed that powers have been transferred to the people who consider themselves above the law, which is a matter of grave concern.

He even expressed disappointment over his own party stepping back from its demand of bringing everyone under the ambit of accountability.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Senator Saood Majeed claimed that the executive did not exercise its powers and also alleged that the judiciary had encroached upon the powers of the parliament.

He stated that space is open for some other institution to step forward if the government fails to discharge its responsibilities.

Echoing similar sentiments, PML-N Senator Jawed Abbasi alleged that the judiciary had enjoyed the powers of the executive following the campaign for the restoration of judges.

He was of the view that attempts have been made in all tenures to curtail the powers of the parliament.

PPP Senator Taj Haider stressed the need to identify those who were enfeebling the democracy.

Asserting that the civil-military bureaucracy was attacking the parliament, the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP ) Senator Usman Kakar alleged that the judiciary holds a bad record as "it had legalised the dictatorial governments".

Balochistan National Party Senator Jehanzeb Jamaldini suggested appointing the head of judiciary and the army after taking approval from the upper house.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement Senator Tahir Mashidi also alleged that the army plays an important in the politics of the country.

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Pakistan on Friday summoned the British High Commissioner, Thomas Drew, over the emergence of 'Free Balochistan' posters, which it said directly attack its territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua called in Drew today to convey Pakistan's serious concern at the display of slogans on London cabs that directly attack Pakistan's territorial integrity and sovereignty, Pakistan's Foreign office said in a statement.

"Pakistan is aware of the intentions of such sinister and malicious campaigns, which should not be allowed on the soil of a friendly country," the statement added.

The posters reading "Free Balochistan" slogans reportedly appeared on vehicles in London earlier on Friday, Pakistan Today reported.

The British envoy was informed that Pakistan, in line with the UN Charter, rejects actions and advertisements with malicious content that impinge on "our sovereignty and territorial integrity."

Pakistan was also raising this issue with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office through its High Commissioner in London.

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The Lucknow Police had set up a green corridor to shift three persons to AIIMS, Delhi who got critically injured in the boiler explosion in Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC) Raebareli.

Via green corridor the victims were taken to the Lucknow's Chaudhary Charan Singh international airport to fly them to Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) via special aircraft.

At least 32 people were killed and several were injured after a boiler exploded on Wednesday, November 2 at a state-run NTPC plant in Raebareli, Uttar Pardesh.

Two days after the horrific incident took place in Raebareli, NTPC chairman Gurdeep Singh on Friday said a committee has been formed to probe the Unchahar power plant explosion and the report will be submitted in the next 30 days.

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Prince of Wales Charles Philip Arthur George accompanied by Duchess of Cornwall Camilla Parker Bowles will be on a two-day visit to India on November 8 as part of their 10-day four-nation tour to Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and India.

This visit, the ninth of the Prince of Wales to India, is aimed at strengthening the bilateral relations between the two nations.

The Prince is scheduled to meet the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and discuss a wide range of issues, including that of the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, which will take place in April 2018 in the UK, Climate Change, Sustainable Development Goals, Economic Cooperation and others.

India-UK trade is at $12.19 billion.

India is the third largest investor in the UK and the second largest international job creator in the UK.

The UK is the third largest inward investor in India, with a cumulative equity investment of $24.37 billion for the period April 2000-June 2017.

The Indian diaspora in the UK is one of the largest ethnic minority communities in the country, with the 2011 census recording approximately 1.5 million people of Indian origin in the UK equating to almost 1.8 per cent of the population and contributing to 6 per cent of the country's GDP.

The Prince of Wales had earlier visited India in 1975, 1980, 1991, 1992, 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2013.
The External Affairs Ministry (EAM) on Friday confirmed that Paramjit Kaur, who was illegally confined in Saudi Arabia after being duped by travel agent, will return to India on Saturday.

On July 13, Paramjit Kaur had gone to Saudi Arabia for a job as house help, but later contacted the family about her imprisonment by an employer on August 21.

According to reports, in an FIR lodged by her husband Malkeet Ram alleged that the accused travel agent had promised a job for his wife in Saudi Arabia and had assured that once she gets settled there the family would get a sum of Rs 40,000.

After reaching Saudi Arabia, the employer confiscated Kaur's passport and did not allow her to leave the house.

The accused who is absconding, has been booked under Section 370 (buying or disposing of any person as a slave), Section 420 (cheating) and Section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

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In a attempt to promote 'Khichdi' as 'Brand India Food', Yoga guru Swami Ramdev on Saturday will give chhonk (tadka) for preparing 1 tonne of the dish at World Food India, Delhi.

As reported, this attempt is to create Guinness World Record.

The making of 'Khidchi' will take place in the presence of Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and Minister of Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal at India Gate at 12.30 pm.

The three-day long event is set to host a congregation of global investors and business leaders of major food companies from November 3 to 5 in New Delhi.

Earlier in the day, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) of Rs 10,000 crore was signed between the Government of India (GoI) and Patanjali at the event.

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A memorandum of understanding (MoU) of Rs 10, 000 Crore was signed between the Government of India (GoI) and Patanjali on Friday at the World Food India 2017.

The MoU was signed by Managing Director of Patanjali, Acharya Balkrishna and Harsimrat Kaur Badal, the Union Cabinet Minister of Food Processing in the Government of India.

Speaking to ANI, Acharya Balkrishna said, "World Food India 2017 is a great initiative. This will generate new opportunities. This event will help people."

"In our country there are lots of issues and adulteration in food is one of them. Duplicity is more dangerous than adulteration. Even foods not been processed in one of the issue. Hope steps will be taken up to deal with these issues", he added.

Meanwhile, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, the Union Cabinet Minister of Food Processing also asserted, " This event that has brought together stakeholders from all food value chains to collaborate the increase in food processing in India."

"Since food processing sector is the largest employment generator so youngsters of our country will get access to employment. Besides generating revenue this will help in the development of the country," she added.

The World Food India 2017 organised at Delhi's Vigyan Bhawan was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier in the day.

The three day-long event, organised by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, is set to host a congregation of global investors and business leaders of major food companies from November 3 to 5 in New Delhi.

Earlier in October, Patanjali climbed from 45th place last year to 19th this year, in the Forbes magazine's Annual India Rich List 2017.

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The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea challenging the enquiry commission constituted to probe former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's death.

The plea was filed by a person named P.A. Joseph, who had sought for a fresh enquiry by means of passage of a resolution in the State Assembly.

On that note, he had alleged that the current enquiry commission was "unconstitutional", and claimed that it was set up without a resolution from the State Assembly.

Earlier on October 30, a probe relating to the death of former the Tamil Nadu chief minister begun.

In September, Retired Madras High Court judge, Justice Arumugasamy, was appointed to head the probe into the death of Jayalalithaa, following Chief Minister E Palaniswamy's announcement in this regard.

The Tamil Nadu government had set up the inquiry commission in September to investigate Jayalalithaa's death. Report is to be submitted in three months.

This decision of the state government comes after Tamil Nadu's Minister for Forests Dindigul Sreenivasan revealed that all ministers of the state had lied to the people about hospitalisation and death of the former AIADMK general secretary and said that only former confidant V K Sasikala and her family had access to see ailing Jayalalithaa.

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The Shiv Sena has launched another attack at ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by distributing to its members a booklet titled "Ghotalebaaz Bhajap" (Scamster BJP) that chronicles the scams involving BJP leaders.

The 56-page booklet was distributed during an organisational meeting at the Sena Bhavan on Wednesday.

The cover of the booklet features four BJP leaders, along with a mention of the scam alleged against them.

A picture of Eknath Khadse features with the mention of the MIDC land scam, Education Minister Vinod Tawde is featured for the irregularities in supply of fire extinguishers to zilla parishad schools without inviting tenders, Food and Civil Supplies Minister of Maharashtra Girish Bapat is featured for the tur dal scam, and lastly, Dilip Gandhi for the loan waiver scam.

In addition, several senior BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and president Amit Shah also get a mention in the booklet.

Since forming the government in Maharashtra, in alliance with the BJP, the Sena has been fairly vocal about its grievances with the party.

Through its mouthpiece, 'Saamna', the party has been continually castigating the Centre as well as the Devendra Fadnavis-led state government.

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In the wake of the recent 'Ease of Doing Business' report, which was released by the World Bank, Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, C.R. Chaudhary said steps like streamlining taxation and implementation of incentive system among states will help attract domestic and global investors.

"We need to think about providing incentives to the industry and we have been simplifying the procedures. It is due to the efforts of all the stakeholders that India leaped 30 spots to rank 100th in World Bank's latest global rankings. Our target is to come at 50th place and that will happen when we facilitate industrialists and investors," said Chaudhary while inaugurating an ASSOCHAM Ease of Doing Summit here.

"Our Prime Minister wants reforms to be undertaken as without any reformation we cannot seek investments as such we need to facilitate the investors. Without encouraging the manufacturing sector and without foreign direct investment (FDI), we cannot develop and come in the category of developed countries," he added.

Chaudhary further urged the industry to take steps to improve quality of products, thereby adhering to 'zero defect and zero effect' policy, in order to sustain in the international markets. Drawing upon the European Union ban on India's basmati rice exports citing 'technical points', Chaudhary re-iterated utmost emphasis on quality.

"We had sought time in our last meeting with representatives of France, President of Czech Republic as we need to spread awareness among farmers about not to sprinkle such pesticides although December 31 is the last date," he said.

While India used to get 80-90 per cent investments in government and public sector industries, Chaudhary stated that 90 per cent investments are presently coming through automatic route.

"It is a very positive thing for our private players and entrepreneurs who are now directly collaborating with foreign companies and getting investments in the country which has been facilitated through ease of doing business," said the Union Minister.

Lauding the government's efforts in attracting record USD 60 billion worth of FDI in a single year, Chaudhary invited the domestic and global investors to reap dividends by investing in infrastructure and logistics sector that provide huge scope.

He also said the government's main focus is on enhancing production of quality material, attracting domestic and foreign investments in large numbers, enhancing exports and creating more number of employment opportunities for young generation.

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United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will be visiting Myanmar on November 15 to meet and consult with senior Burmese leaders and officials on actions to address the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State and the U.S. support for Burma's democratic transition.

This will be Tillerson's first ever trip to the Myanmar.

"The Secretary will travel to Naypyidaw, Burma, where on November 15 he will meet and consult with senior leaders and officials on actions to address the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State and U.S. support for Burma's democratic transition," the U.S. State Department said in a statement.

More than 500,000 Rohingya people have fled to Bangladesh since the Myanmar security forces launched an operation against the minority community, in response to alleged attacks by the militants on August 25 against 30 police posts and a regimental headquarters.

The State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert said that the Secretary will "accompany the U.S. President Donald Trump on his travels to Japan, the Republic of Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The Secretary will also make an additional stop in Burma."

"The Secretary's six-country trip demonstrates the Administration's commitment to our alliances and partnerships in the Asia Pacific and highlights our ongoing engagement in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the East Asia Summit (EAS) on regional issues of mutual interest and concern," the State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert said.

The State Department has given the detailed itenerary to the Secretary's six country's visit from November 4 to November 16.

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Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday said that this is the time to focus on food processing, so that there will be food security and stability for the farmers.

"I am confident more and more industries will come to Andhra Pradesh. I am happy that we have aimed at attracting 10 billion dollars in food processing sector in three years. This convention will create excellent eco-system. It is a time when we have to focus on food processing, then there will be food security and stability for the farmer. We are very strong in agriculture and we are even changing our process in agriculture," Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu told ANI, while attending the inaugural session of international conference 'World Food India (WFI) 2017' in Vigyan Bhavan.

The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister also met with Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu in the capital.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the three-day international event 'World Food India-2017', being organised by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Government of India in association with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) from November 3-5.

The event will be the largest gathering of investors, manufacturers, producers, food processors, policy makers, and organisations from the global food ecosystem.

Andhra Pradesh, being one of the partner states for the event, held a special session today to showcase the potential and advantages of Food Processing sector in the state to the global community.

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United States President Donald Trump has described the person who deactivated his personal Twitter account as a 'Rogue Employee'.

"My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee. I guess the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact," Trump said in a tweet.

Twitter blamed "human error" on behalf of an unnamed employee after United States President Donald Trump's personal Twitter account disappeared for 11 minutes on Thursday evening.

A tweet issued by Twitter's Government and Elections team said that the account was down for 11 minutes due to human error by a Twitter employee.

"Earlier today @realdonaldtrump's account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee. The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again," the post read.

Trump's personal Twitter account had disappeared for a few minutes on Thursday evening.

Those trying to access @realDonaldTrump on Twitter just before 7 p.m. local time came across a "Sorry, that page doesn't exist!" message.

However, after around the account page reappeared after few minutes and seemed to be functioning as normal.

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Criticising a judge's decision to not give Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl any jail time for deserting his post in Afghanistan, United States President Donald Trump said that it was "a complete and total disgrace."

In a Twitter post, Trump wrote, "The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military."

Trump's tweet comes after the military judge, Army Col. Jeffrey Nance, ruled Bergdahl should be dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army but will avoid prison time, reported The Hill.

The judge also ruled that Bergdahl's rank be reduced from sergeant to private.

In addition to this, he will be required to pay a $1,000 fine from his salary for the next 10 months.

Bergdahl pleaded guilty to the charges of desertion and misbehaviour last month.

He left his post in Afghanistan in 2009, and endured five years of imprisonment with the Taliban.

According to the reports, the massive military search for Bergdahl resulted in the death of six American soldiers.

Bergdahl was released in May 2014 after former president Barack Obama's administration traded five detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

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Twitter blamed "human error" on behalf of an unnamed employee after United States President Donald Trump's personal Twitter account disappeared for 11 minutes on Thursday evening.

A tweet issued by Twitter's Government and Elections team said that the account was down for 11 minutes due to human error by a Twitter employee.

"Earlier today @realdonaldtrump's account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee. The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again," the post read.

Earlier in the day, those who tried to access @realDonaldTrump on Twitter just before 7 p.m. Eastern came across a "Sorry, that page doesn't exist!" message.

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On 10 November 2017

Allahabad Bank will hold a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Company on 10 November 2017,to consider and approve the Un-audited financial results of the Bank for the second quarter and half year period of FY 2017-18 ended on September 30th, 2017

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For Pune Metro Rail Project

Hindustan Construction Company, as a lead partner in the joint venture with AL FARA'A, has been awarded Rs 497.09 crore contract by the Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation for Pune Metro Rail Project. HCC's share in the JV is 51% (Rs 253.5 crore). The project is to be completed in 110 weeks.

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Sales rise 14.38% to Rs 10308.21 crore

Net profit of Hindalco Industries declined 10.66% to Rs 392.85 crore in the quarter ended September 2017 as against Rs 439.74 crore during the previous quarter ended September 2016. Sales rose 14.38% to Rs 10308.21 crore in the quarter ended September 2017 as against Rs 9012.28 crore during the previous quarter ended September 2016.10308.219012.2813.4812.831093.34899.30712.98547.70392.85439.74

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Sales rise 6.54% to Rs 970.75 crore

Net profit of Hindustan Construction Company declined 49.74% to Rs 11.60 crore in the quarter ended September 2017 as against Rs 23.08 crore during the previous quarter ended September 2016. Sales rose 6.54% to Rs 970.75 crore in the quarter ended September 2017 as against Rs 911.13 crore during the previous quarter ended September 2016.970.75911.1315.3421.4247.0566.0217.5032.6611.6023.08

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Mr. Anant Kumar Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, Govt. of India has underlined the need to streamline the process of standardization for faster development of the standards in the area of technical textiles and to develop the sector indigenously and fulfil the domestic requirements. It was imperative for the stakeholders, including industry, policy makers and research institutes to work in close collaboration and also suggest ways to make the process of developing standards for technical textiles faster.

He also said that the Government will soon launch the new mission for technical textiles. The earlier mission has completed its period.

Mr. Singh said that eight committees had been formed at the Centre of Excellences in India to expedite the process of developing standards. These committees including industry representatives help in identifying the areas in which needed standards needed to be formulated. India had the capability, resource and market in the area of technical textiles and the need was to capitalize on these strengths.

National Conclave on Standards on Technical Textiles since its inception has been instrumental in bringing together institutional buyers in various segments along with industry to discuss the standards that needed to be formulated by BIS on priority.

Mr. Singh said that the market of technical textiles was expanding rapidly with new products being added by the users in various industries. Thus it was imperative to formulate standards to accelerate the growth of the textiles sector. He added that the share of technical textiles in the domestic textile sector as well as at the global level was very low as compared to developed countries and this needed to be addressed.

Ms.

Surina Rajan, Director General, BIS said that in exports, India has to move to more value added products and textiles were no exception. There was a need to at least double India's volume of production and exports. BIS has a supportive role in terms of standard setting which facilitates industry. Since 2014, BIS has added 104 Indian standards to the pre-existing number of 190 standards for this sector. Currently, the focus is on 45 new technical textile subjects. For moving fast and doing useful work, she called upon the stakeholders to participate actively in the standardization work.

Mr. Shishir Jaipuria, Chairman, FICCI Textiles Committee, said that standardization was a prerequisite for mandatory use of technical textiles, wherever necessary. Mandatory use of fire retardant textiles in public places like multiplexes, malls, public buildings, etc., will go a long way in increasing safety of the public at large. Similarly, promoting the use of new medical textile and hygiene related technical textiles will contribute immensely to the health and hygiene in hospitals and would reduce cross infections considerably.

The following 10 BIS standards related to Agrotextiles, Packaging Textiles and Medical Textiles were released by Mr. Singh and Ms. Rajan:

1) IS 16703:2017 'Textiles High density polyethylene (HDPE)/polypropylene (PP) woven sacks for packaging of 25 kg polymer materials Specification'

2) IS 16709:2017 'Textiles Polypropylene (PP) woven, laminated, block bottom valve sacks for packaging of 50kg cement Specification'

3) IS 16627:2017 'Agro textiles High density polyethylene (HDPE) laminated woven lay flat tube for use in mains and submains of drip irrigation system Specification'

4) IS 16718:2017 'Textiles Polypropylene spun bonded non-woven crop cover fabric for agricultural and horticultural applications Specification'

5) IS 7903:2017 'Textiles Tarpaulins made from high density polyethylene (HDPE) woven fabrics Specification (Fifth revision)'

6) IS 11652:2017 'Textiles High density polyethylene (HDPE)/polypropylene (PP) woven sacks for packaging of 50 kg cement Specification (Third revision)'

7) IS 16668 : 2017 'Medical Textiles Salicylic Acid Adhesive Plaster Specification'

8) IS 16669 : 2017 'Medical Textiles Elastic Adhesive Dressing Specification'

9) IS 16670 : 2017 'Medical Textiles Absorbent Cotton Ribbon Gauze Specification'

10) IS 16671 : 2017 'Medical Textiles Belladonna Adhesive Plaster Specification'

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Power Grid Corporation of India lost 1.63% to Rs 211.50 at 9:44 IST on BSE, with the stock turning volatile after reporting Q2 September 2017 results after market hours yesterday, 2 November 2017.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 20.16 points or 0.06% at 33,553.06.

On the BSE, 2.16 lakh shares were traded on the counter so far as against average daily volumes of 3.19 lakh shares in the past two weeks. The stock was volatile. The stock lost as much as 1.97% at the day's low of Rs 210.75 so far during the day. The stock rose as much as 2.9% at the day's high of Rs 221.25 so far during the day.

Power Grid Corporation of India's (PGCIL) net profit rose 14.37% to Rs 2141.04 crore on 15.62% growth in total income to Rs 7492.52 crore in Q2 September 2017 over Q2 September 2016.

Power Grid Corporation of India is a state run electric power transmission utility company.

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Twelve people lost their lives and 60 were injured in protests against the October 26 election results in Kenya, the country's national human rights institution reported on Friday.

In the report, the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights investigators confirmed these 12 deaths occurred between October 25 and 27, mainly during confrontations with the police in western Kenya, including in Kisumu and Homa Bay, traditional strongholds of the opposition, Efe reported.

"Between 25th and 27th October, the Commission has documented 12 cases of death; one minor and 11 males aged between 18 and 45 years. 60 injuries, the youngest victim being a 10 year old," the KNCHR said.

Between the election on August 8 and that on October 26, the KNCHR was able to confirm up to 54 deaths and more than 150 injured.

Supporters of the opposition Super National Alliance coalition protested against the re-run of the presidential elections and, in some western areas, prevented the vote from taking place, claiming that the elections lacked democratic guarantees.

NASA boycotted the elections after the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission did not carry out the reforms demanded by the opposition to ensure that the irregularities found in the Aug. 8 elections would not be repeated.

In the October 26 elections, President Uhuru Kenyatta ran only against minority candidates, so he won over 98 percent of the votes in an election that saw a turnout of 39 per cent.

To prevent further episodes of violence, the KNCHR called on all political leaders to "embark on interventions that will restore the integrity, peace, love and unity of our beloved nation".

The commission criticized that both political sides have only made statements that, "continued to deeply polarize and divide the nation especially along ethnic and regional lines."

"Such a hostile political environment provides room for escalation of gross human rights violations, especially on the vulnerable members of society," the report said.

--IANS

ahm/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Forty four per cent of Indian users want better battery capacity in their mobile phones indicating that phones in the market, including several flagship phones, are still unable to tackle this key issue, a survey said on Friday.

In the survey report, released by mobile ad tech company MoMagic Technologies, it was also revealed that only eight per cent of the survey respondents bother about screen quality when buying a phone.

With data prices dropping rapidly, many Indian buyers have moved to 4G phones with 56 per cent of the respondents using them, followed by 3G at 34 per cent and just seven per cent using 2G devices.

"The rapid pace of 4G mobile Internet penetration in India has led to faster adoption of customers to shift to shopping on e-commerce apps through mobile phones and this trend will continue to go up," said Arun Gupta, Founder and CEO of MoMagic Technologies, in a statement.

The report also indicated that despite low mobile data cost, 41 per cent of the respondents limit data themselves and 28 per cent of them do not either limit or monitor data usage.

According to the company, founded with strategic investments by Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek, and electronics manufacturing company Foxconn, 46 per cent buyers pay attention to a processor brand name.

The report said that 21 per cent of respondents reckon phone design and camera quality, and only 12 per cent pay attention to screen quality of a smartphone.

--IANS

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Director Ali Abbas Zafar has praised Hollywood's stunt director Tom Struthers, who has choreographed the action sequences for his new directorial "Tiger Zinda Hai".

Struthers is known for his work in Hollywood films like "The Dark Knight" and "Inception".

"Tom (Struthers) is a master of high-octane action sequences and here (for 'Tiger Zinda Hai'), his brief was to create action that is both larger than life and yet, realistic. He has delivered sequences that will stay with audiences for a long time," Zafar said in a statement.

The "Tiger Zinda Hai" team shot a schedule in Abu Dhabi, which featured choppers, jets, army vehicles and heavy artillery from the army.

Struthers said: "We had to create a lot of explosions for the film. We've blown up fifteen vehicles, of which four are moving vehicles. One of them was a 40 tonne truck which made a lot of noise when it blew up. What was difficult to make, actually feels beautiful to watch now."

Struthers also said the action in the Bollywood film is at par with that in any other film he has done.

"Tiger Zinda Hai", a film by Yash Raj Films, is a sequel to "Ek Tha Tiger". The film stars Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif. It will release on December 22.

--IANS

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The unemployment rate in Austria declined 4.6 per cent year-on-year for October, the Social Affairs Ministry said.

This equates to 393,029 people in the country presently registered as jobless, Xinhua news agency reported.

The number of non-self-employed persons increased by 65,000 compared to October of last year, the ministry report on Thursday stated, while the number of available job positions at the Public Employment Service (AMS) is currently over 59,000, a 44.5 per cent year-on-year increase.

The unemployment drop was seen across all states in the country other than Vorarlberg, where a slight 0.3 per cent increase was recorded.

Also notable in the new figures was a 0.7 per cent decline in unemployment for persons aged 50 and over.

--IANS

amit

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Protest by the Karni Sena against Sanjay Leela Bhansali's multi-starrer "Padmavati" picked up pace in Rajasthan ahead of its December 1 release with a complete bandh observed in Chittorgarh on Friday.

"We are not against the movie as such. What we want is that Bhansali's team should screen the movie for historians and intellectuals before releasing it as we are afraid and concerned that historical facts have been distorted in the movie," Vishavbandhu Rathore, Pradesh Mahasachiv Sri Rajput Karni Sena, a Rajput community organisation, told IANS.

"We had called for Chittorgarh bandh today, and we got support from everyone. It was a complete bandh in Chittorgarh today," said Mahipal Singh Makrana, state president of Sri Rajput Karni said.

Rani Padmini or Padmavati was queen of Chittorgarh.

He said before releasing posters and trailer of the film it should have been shown to the historians and intellectuals, but inspite of the promise made by Bhansali's team a few months back nothing was done.

"We are now going to Gujarat to hold a press conference there and also hold a rally in Gandhinagar on November 12 against the movie," he said.

In January, activists of a Rajput organisation, Shi Rajput Karni Sena had protested, manhandled and misbehaved with the crew of "Padmavati" claiming that Bhansali was distorting historical facts in the movie.

They had also damaged some cameras and other equipments. Bhansali had to stop shooting.

"We will not allow distorted facts to be shown in the film at any cost," Makrana said.

Karni Sena claims that they have got a big library and that in no book is it written that Alauddin Khilji fell in love with Padmavati or that he was her lover.

"They are trying to defame Padmavati by distorting historical facts. It is not acceptable," an activist of Karni Sena said.

In March some miscreants broke the mirrors in Padmini Mahal (palace) in Chittorgarh Fort where Alauddin Khilji is believed to have seen Rani Padmavati or Padmini.

Shri Rajput Karni Sena claims that mirror was invented years after this incident is claimed to have happened so it is a completely untrue and false story.

--IANS

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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced that he will visit Vietnam and the Philippines from November 6 to 14.

"Canada and Vietnam's relationship is anchored in strong people-to-people connections, and has expanded greatly in the last forty years. I look forward to meeting with Vietnam's leaders to advance important issues like good governance and human rights, strengthen our trade and investment cooperation, and create more opportunities for our middle class," Xinhua news agency quoted Trudeau as saying on Thursday.

Trudeau will pay an official visit to Vietnam. In Hanoi, he will meet with Vietnam President Tran Dai Quang, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, National Assembly Chairperson Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan as well as Communist Party of Vietnam Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong.

He will then head to Ho Chi Minh City, where he will meet with Vietnamese business leaders and participate in an armchair discussion at Ton Duc Thang University.

Finally, he will travel to the city of Da Nang to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting.

At the Economic Leaders' meeting, the Prime Minister will promote Canada as a partner of choice for trade and investment in the region, and deepen economic cooperation with APEC economies.

After the APEC Leaders' Meeting, he will travel to the Philippines to attend the 31st Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Manila.

He will take part in the Canada-ASEAN Commemorative Summit to review relations between Canada and the 10 ASEAN countries and identify areas where the two sides can increase collaboration.

"Everyone - including women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples - should have the opportunity to benefit from the opportunities that flow from the global economy. That is the message I will bring to the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting and the ASEAN Summit," Trudeau said.

"Canada will continue to promote a progressive trade agenda that benefits the middle class, and look for more opportunities to engage the Asia-Pacific region."

--IANS

amit

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The CBI has began a probe into the conspiracy hatched to kill certain Congress workers in the run-up to the 2012 Manipur assembly elections, during which one person was shot dead by police, an official said on Friday.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday filed the First Information Report in the case, saying that on a tip-off on January 14, 2012, Manipur Police laid a trap and killed Thangjam Thoithoi, who along with his aide had planned to kill some active Congress workers in a bomb blast.

Following the shootout, a case was registered at the Wangoi police station in Manipur's Imphal district.

The CBI took over the case after the Supreme Court on July 14 directed the agency to go through the case records, lodge necessary FIRs and complete the investigation.

The FIR said the alleged attacker's accomplice escaped after the about seven-minute shootout, adding that a two-wheeler, a Chinese hand grenade, and a 9mm pistol were found near the body.

--IANS

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The Congress on Friday attacked the Modi government saying its "ineffective foreign policy" has compromised national security, after China once again blocked the move to declare Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar an international terrorist.

"Modi government has once again compromised national security by an ineffective foreign policy. In the past year, China had thwarted several attempts by New Delhi to get Jaish-e-Mohammad's chief Maulana Masood Azhar named a terrorist by the United Nations," said Congress spokesperson R.P.N Singh.

"In September this year, the BRICS nations grouping, of which China is a key member, had declared Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) among groups responsible for committing, organizing or supporting terrorist acts in a joint statement," he added.

"This was hailed as a big diplomatic victory by the Modi government. Now China has used a 'technical hold' to veto a proposal to declare Masood Azhar as a global terrorist.

"China does not have moral right or the legal right now to prevent the United Nations from declaring him as an international terrorist. False bravado, chest thumping, and hyperbole have become the hallmark of BJP's national security and foreign policy," he added.

Singh said it was intriguing how the names of various BJP leaders have cropped up whenever there are questions about links to Dawood Ibrahim.

"The entire country witnessed when several BJP ministers and leaders of the Devendra Fadnavis (Maharashtra Chief Minister) government recently attended a wedding of Dawood Ibrahim's relatives.

"Self-contradictory posturing of the BJP - on engaging with the Hurriyat or freeing separatists like Masarat Alam or Asiya Andrabi - has blatantly exposed their hypocrisy for holding onto power at any cost. Will the BJP answer why did it release Masarat Alam," Singh asked.

He pointed out that in April 2015, Alam had raised anti-India slogans and hoisted the Pakistan flag in the valley and in August 2015 Asiya Andrabi addressed a rally organised by Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa in Pakistan. Now, she features on Beti Bachao posters, he said.

"Terrorism can be fought only by a united people, not by a people divided by religion. Religious polarization that is intrinsic to the value system of parties like the BJP severely erodes our capacity to combat terrorism," said Singh.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez has said the US claims that its diplomatic personnel in Havana have developed illnesses as a result of sonic attacks are a falsehood intended to hurt ties between both sides.

"I can confirm categorically that whoever affirms that there have been attacks, deliberate acts or specific incidents as a cause of these health problems, is lying deliberately," Efe news quoted Rodriguez as telling reporters at the Cuban Embassy in Washington on Thursday.

"These health effects are being used as a political pretext, with political objectives, to eliminate the progress achieved and damage the bilateral relationship."

As per the US State Department, 24 American diplomats have suffered effects from the ostensible sonic attacks, experiencing symptoms that include hearing loss, problems with balance and trouble sleeping.

Asked if he was accusing the Donald Trump administration of fabricating the claims about the attacks in Havana, Rodriguez said that his government was certain that "no attack has occurred."

"If the US government asserts the opposite, I invite them to present evidence."

Rodriguez said it was striking that the US government "continues talking about 'attacks' and 'acoustic attacks' and to take punitive measures against Cuba, when it has been demonstrated scientifically that this is not possible".

The State Department has refrained from pointing the finger at the Cuban Government, saying it did not know who was responsible for the attacks.

Washington has, however, accused Havana of failing to protect US diplomatic personnel, while Trump has not hesitated to blame the Cuban government.

--IANS

amit

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi government on Friday ordered inspections of wholesale and retail markets across the city to check hoarding of tomatoes and onions.

"Steady and continuous rise in prices of tomato and onion without any plausible reason indicates possibility of hoarding of these commodities," Food and Supply Minister Imran Hussain said in a statement.

Teams were also directed to visit the godowns of wholesalers.

Hussain directed the Food and Civil Supplies Department to carry out "intense inspections" of Azadpur Mandi, Okhla Mandi, Ghazipur Mandi and Keshopur Mandi.

Teams were also ordered to conduct surprise visits at different city markets early in the morning, as food items reach wholesale markets at night and are sold to retail markets around 3 a.m.

He also directed the Food and Civil Supplies Department to send inspection reports to him every day.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Delhi will generate 1,000 megawatt (MW) of solar power by 2019 which will also help bring down electricity rates, state Health Minister Satyendra Jain said on Friday.

"During the peak hours, there is a demand of about 6,500 MW and during the non-peak hours, it comes down to 3,500 MW. By 2019, Delhi will start producing 1,000 MW of clean energy," Jain told media here.

"All the three discoms of Delhi have been finally been convinced about this after the government spoke to them for about five to six months," he said.

About five lakh people will benefit from this, he said.

Jain said that fossil fuel power plants that burn carbon fuels such coal, oil or gas to generate electricity produce huge amounts of pollution and thus there is a need to use clean energy.

He also said the solar power project would help in lowering electricity rates in the city, where Rs 5.95 per unit is charged for consumption between 210 and 400 units.

"We are expecting these rates to go down to Rs 3 per unit," Jain said, adding that solar pumps will be available at subsidised for the farmers here.

"Domestic electricity meter installation for small businesses open in homes in residential areas, with connections from 0 to 5 KW, will be considered," he added.

Delhi was the second-most polluted major city in the world, as per a WHO study last year.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Donna Brazile, a former Democratic National Committee (DNC) interim chair, has claimed that the party organisation helped Hillary Clintons campaign "rig" the 2016 Democratic primary against Bernie Sanders.

In a Politico op-ed on Thursday, Brazile alleged that Clinton was controlling the finances of the party before officially winning the 2016 Democratic nomination for President.

The piece, titled "Inside Hillary Clinton's Secret Takeover of the DNC", is an excerpt from Brazile's forthcoming book.

Brazile said an agreement was reached between the Clinton campaign, the DNC and Clinton's joint fundraising committee.

"This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party's integrity," Brazile said about the arrangement.

Senator Elizabeth Warren similarly said she believed the 2016 Democratic presidential primary was rigged for Clinton.

Last year, Brazile took over as DNC chair after Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced out of the role over leaked emails suggesting she may have favoured Clinton during the primary.

"I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton's team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested," Brazile wrote.

"By September 7, the day I called Bernie, I had found my proof and it broke my heart," Brazile said.

The proof, according to Brazile, was a joint fundraising agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund and Hillary for America, the Hill magazine reported.

It had been signed in August 2015, four months after the former Secretary of State announced she was running for President and a year before she officially became the Democratic nominee.

Brazile said joint fundraising committees were created between the DNC and both the Clinton and Sanders campaigns during the 2016 election cycle. However, Clinton was the only candidate who raised money for the party.

Representive Tulsi Gabbard, a former vice chair of the DNC, called the 2016 Democratic primary "unethical" in response to the expose.

"Today we heard from Donna Brazile that what many suspected for a long time, is actually true: the DNC secretly chose their nominee over a year before the primary elections even occurred, turning over DNC control to the Clinton campaign," Gabbard said in a statement.

"The deep financial debt, closed door decision-making, complete lack of transparency and unethical practices are now front and centre," she said.

--IANS

soni/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Broadly positive global cues, coupled with healthy buying in banking, capital goods and auto stocks, lifted the key Indian equity indices on Friday to close at fresh highs.

According to market observers, index heavyweights like State Bank of India (SBI), Larsen and Toubro (LT), Tata Motors and ONGC, among others, aided in the upward trajectory of the benchmark indices.

The broader Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange scaled a fresh intra-day high of 10,461.70 points and the barometer 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE of 33,733.71 points.

On closing basis, the Nifty50 rose by 28.70 points, or 0.28 per cent, to a new high of 10,452.50 points. Its earlier record was 10,440.50 points (November 1).

Surpassing its previous record closing at 33,600.27 points, the BSE Sensex closed at a fresh high of 33,685.56 points -- up 112.34 points, or 0.33 per cent.

The BSE market breadth was bullish -- 1,420 advances and 1,329 declines.

In terms of the broader market, the S&P BSE mid-cap index closed a tad lower by 0.07 per cent, whereas the small-cap index was up 0.49 per cent.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services, said: "Market extended gain supported by strengthening rupee on account of flow of foreign funds due to improving economic data.

"Better service PMI (Purchasing Manager's Index) data and core industry numbers is providing signs of ease in GST led bottlenecks and lifted the sentiment."

On the currency front, the rupee strengthened by six paise to close at 64.55 against the US dollar from its previous close at 64.61.

However, in terms of investments, provisional data with the exchanges showed that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold scrip worth Rs 9,690.84 crore, whereas domestic institutional investors (DIIs) purchased stocks worth Rs 33.40 crore.

"The recent surge in public sector banks (PSBs) has created a momentum play where they look more attractive to traders. The differences in valuations between private banks and PSBs have reduced," Dhruv Desai, Director and Chief Operating Officer of Tradebulls, told IANS.

Sector-wise, the S&P BSE banking index rose by 289.04 points, followed by capital goods index by 201.47 points and automobile index by 59.04 points.

On the other hand, the S&P BSE healthcare index fell by 81.57 points, oil and gas index by 26.06 points and metal index by 19.69 points.

"Counters like pharma and metals witnessed profit booking after recent outperformance, where investors who missed the opportunity can consider the consolidation as an opportunity," said Nair.

Major Sensex gainers on Friday were: SBI, up 3.19 per cent at Rs 325; Tata Motors, up 2.78 per cent at Rs 446.90; Tata Motors (DVR), up 2.02 per cent at Rs 246.90; LT, up 1.98 per cent at Rs 1,235; and Axis Bank, up 1.87 per cent at Rs 540.

Major Sensex losers were: Power Grid, down 2.05 per cent at Rs 210.60; Sun Pharma, down 1.95 per cent at Rs 552.20; Coal India, down 1.73 per cent at Rs 286.60; Hero MotoCorp, down 1.23 per cent at Rs 3,687; and Lupin, down 1.10 per cent at Rs 1,049.25.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
French President Emmanuel Macron will fly to India at the beginning of next year to attend the International Solar Energy Summit, his office said.

Macron told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a telephonic conversation that he would make his first visit to India since he took office on May 7 to take part in the meeting.

"They noted the positive dynamic ... of the International Solar Alliance, which aims to optimize the exploitation of solar energy potential, modernize energy systems, universalize access to energy and accelerate economic development," Xinhua news agency quoted the Elysee as saying on Friday.

The French President's office added the alliance that wins the support of more than 100 solar-rich countries "is fully in line with the efforts of France and India to achieve the objectives set by the Paris Agreement on Climate Change".

The International Solar Energy Summit is an initiative taken by both sides to tackle climate change and develop solar energy use.

Former French President Francois Hollande and Modi launched the International Solar in 2015 to encourage the development of clean energy.

--IANS

amit

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday opposed GI tagging of Madhya Pradesh's 13 Basmati-producing districts, saying it was illegal and will "adversely affect" other states, and urged the Prime Minister to stop the move.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, Amarinder Singh urged him to direct the Commerce Ministry to drop the idea of issuing the Geographically Indication (GI) tag to the 13 districts.

Madhya Pradesh had sought inclusion in the list of regions eligible for GI tagging of Basmati rice.

The Chief Minister said two lakh Punjab farmers were engaged in Basmati cultivation and the issue was economically and socially significant.

The move could have a negative effect on agriculture in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, western Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kathua districts in Jammu and Kashmir, which are already GI-tagged.

Amarinder Singh said he had written to the then Union Minister of State for Commerce on April 18, highlighting Punjab's concerns on the issue, but it was not resolved.

"As per the Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, a GI tag can be issued for agricultural, natural, or manufactured goods that have given quality reputation or other characteristics attributable to its geographical origin, thus constituting a very important form of intellectual property. A GI registration gives the registered proprietor and authorised users the legal right to exclusive use of the GI, and no unauthorised person can use the tag," Amarinder Singh pointed out in his letter.

He said Basmati trials by the Indian Council for Agricultural Research are conducted only in traditional area for Basmati cultivation in the Indo-Gangetic plain in northern India.

The Basmati varieties released and notified under the Seed Act of 1966 are meant for cultivation in the specified GI areas as mentioned above, he added.

"Madhya Pradesh does not fall in the Indo-Gangetic plain, and the climate and soil of the proposed area varies from that of the area in Indo-Gangetic plain. Therefore, the move to include these 13 districts of Madhya Pradesh appeared to be an infringement of the Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999," he added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With global smartphone shipments reaching a record 400 million units in the third quarter this year, the top 10 players have captured 75 per cent of the market, leaving just a quarter for the remaining over 600 brands to compete in, new research said on Friday.

According to Counterpoint Research's "Market Monitor" service, global smartphone shipments grew 5 per cent (Year-on-Year) in the third quarter.

Chinese brands Xiaomi, Vivo, OPPO and Huawei remained the fastest growing smartphone brands. Samsung, Apple and LG also showed growth during the quarter.

"The global smartphone market continues to grow in single digits driven by growth in emerging markets. In such a scenario, we have seen key hardware differentiators proliferate to lower price points at much faster rates," said Jeff Fieldhack, Research Director at Counterpoint Research, in a statement.

"In addition, the increasing share of leading brands is putting additional pressure on smaller brands which can lead to consolidation in some of the OEM-crowded regions going forward," he said.

Apart from China, India and South-East Asia is fast becoming the next battleground for these Chinese brands. A Chinese brand holds a top five ranking in each of these markets.

"During the quarter, the leading smartphone players grew faster in international markets than domestic markets. This indicates that leading smartphone players are now gearing up to target higher price points in a bid to position their devices as quality products in the minds of the consumers," noted Research Analyst Shobhit Srivastava.

Samsung led the smartphone market by volume with a market share of 20.6 per cent in Q3 2017. Its smartphone shipments recorded a growth of 9 per cent annually during the quarter.

Apple shipments grew 3 per cent annually in Q3 2017, reaching 46.7 million units globally.

Xiaomi emerged as the fastest growing brand YoY (over 81 per cent) driven by strong sales in both China and India. Xiaomi was also the fastest growing brand in both China and India during the quarter.

Xiaomi shipped 28 million smartphones, capturing 7 per cent market share in Q3 2017.

--IANS

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Infrastructure major Hindustan Construction Co. Ltd along with the UAE's Al Fara'a has been awarded a Rs 497.09 crore contract by the Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation Ltd to build nine elevated stations for the Pune Metro Rail project, an official said here on Friday.

The nine stations are Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, Tukaram Nagar, Bhosari, Kasarwadi, Phugewadi, Dapoli, Bopodi, Khadki and Range Hill and are expected to be completed within a little more than two years.

HCC as the lead partner holds 51 per cent in the JV with Al Fara'a, for the 32-km-long Pune Metro, which will be divided between Line 1 (16.59 kms) and Line II (14.66 km).

The Line I is partly elevated and partly underground running between Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation to Swargate and all the elevated stations on it will be constructed by the HCC-Al Fara'a, HCC President Arun Karambelkar said.

The 32-km-long Pune Metro project, estimated to cost around Rs 11,500 crore is likely to be operational by 2021.

The HCC was earlier associated with six packages of the Delhi Metro including 18.14 km of tunnels and 13 underground stations. For the Kolkata Metro, it has built 6.47 km in six packages including underground stations.

For Mumbai Metro I, the company has built eight elevated stations and for the upcoming Line III it is executing a section that involves 3,115-metre-long twin-bored tunnels and four underground stations.

In Bengaluru Metro, it is constructing a section involving 6.3-km-long elevated corridor including a road-cum-rail flyover and five stations.

"We are honoured to be a part of this prestigious (Pune) project with MMRCL. It is testimony to our proven execution excellence and capabilities across Mumbai Metro, Delhi Metro and Kolkata Metro. The project will bring relief to millions of commuters and will assist in easing the severe traffic congestion in the city" said Karambelkar.

--IANS

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Irish actor-filmmaker Kenneth Branagh has described the Hollywood abuse scandal as a "horrible wake-up call" for the society.

The 56-year-old actor believes the wave of sexual abuse allegations made against a number of renowned figures in the movie business has shone a light on the issue and he hopes that, in time, it will instigate "change for the better", reports mirror.co.uk.

"I think it feels like a sea change. It is about the abuse of power and it's not just (Hollywood) but it's clearly across other areas and other workplaces," Branagh said on the show "Lorraine".

"I think it's a horrible, horrible wake-up call to what has never been acceptable and never can be acceptable and may now, in some profound way, I hope, change for the better," he added.

--IANS

sas/rb

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The role of a British scientist residing in India is one of the last essayed by the Tom Alter for a movie titled "Out Of Time". The sci-fi horror movie's director Arijit Lahiri, who is seeking crowdfunding for the finishing touches, hopes it pays a tribute to the legacy of the actor.

Tom Alter lost a battle against skin cancer in September.

"Tom sir plays the character of Dr. Maxwell, a British scientist from 1912, residing in India. Dr. Maxwell is trying to invent a time machine for his experiments and theories related to time travel. Nobody could have played this character better than him, he is truly one of the best people I have met in my life.

"He co-operated with us on every front. His acting prowess and craft was par excellence; and he was very spontaneous, almost every take he gave us was good. In fact, since all his scenes were so good that we were spoiled for choice on the edit table. We are forever indebted to him and hope the film is able to pay tribute to his legacy," Lahiri told IANS over email.

The independent filmmaker says he had a tough time getting producers to understand the concept of the film, with which he wanted to try something really different than the usual "easy/almost funny" horror fare the Indian audience is used to.

"Many producers told us that this film is too intelligent for the Indian audience who have been exposed to very different kinds of films in the horror genre. We beg to differ," he said.

Lahiri describes "Out Of Time" as a first-of-its-kind science fiction horror film based on the concept of time loop wherein a certain length of time, such as a few hours, repeats itself over and over again and the protagonist has to solve the mystery around this and overcome it somehow.

"This film is about a troubled young man - Sameer, who is puzzled by his father's mysterious disappearance. He, along with his girlfriend and friends goes to a colonial era mansion to find some answers, but instead he gets stuck in a never ending time loop, only to discover astonishing facts from the past," he said.

To ensure the movie reaches the audience in the way it's meant to, Lahiri has started a crowdfunding campaign on Wishberry to raise Rs 30 lakh.

"The production cost of the movie is around Rs 1 crore. We have already invested all the money we could -- Rs 70 lakh towards the project. The Rs 30 lakh raised from crowdfunding will be used towards shooting some important additional scenes and post-production work like Digital Intermediate, Visual Effects and Sound Mixing without which, the film will not be as good as the international works we see, in terms of technical prowess," Lahiri said.

He is confident that the success of this campaign will go towards proving his belief in the content, true.

What does he think of the crowdfunding system in India, and how has it turned out to be a boon for indie filmmakers?

"Crowdfunding, although, still a very new concept in India is beginning to take off at a rapid pace especially in the metros. Though it was initially considered as a funding tool for social causes, people are now beginning to understand and fund creative projects.

"For indie filmmakers, this is a real boon as it gives them a triple advantage - they get funds to make their film as per their creative vision without any manipulations or pressures from financiers; they get to test their project's appeal in terms of the number of people who would want to watch their film; and they get directly connected with the people who would be interested in watching the film and so it becomes a tool for marketing, too."

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Superstar Shah Rukh Khan says his sensitivity towards people makes it tough for him to say "no" to people, especially to friends who offer him films.

Asked if saying no to a script is awkward for him, especially to a friend filmmaker, Shah Rukh said here: "I take a lot of time to say 'no' because I am very sensitive towards people. I take time, and sometimes as long as three months.

"What happens is that at times, when I say 'no' to a film, people start thinking that I am questioning their creativity, or that the story is not good enough for me to say 'yes'. Honestly, that is not the case. It's like, in a relationship, you say 'It's not you, but me', to call off the journey."

On Thursday, Shah Rukh turned a year older. His fans crowded outside his residence Mannat here. Shah Rukh took some shots of the "sea of love", and tweeted: "A ray of sunshine... A sea of love...Thank you all for the happiness you bring every year."

-*-

Neil trains for 'Saaho'

Actor Neil Nitin Mukesh, who marks his debut in Telugu films with Prabhas-starrer "Saaho", is training hard for it.

Neil on Friday shared a topless photograph of himself and captioned it: "Training mode back on full power. Action. 'Saaho', gym, fitness."

"Saaho" is being shot simultaneously in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. It will showcase high-octane action sequences.

The film, being produced by Vamsi, Pramod and Vikram of UV Creations, also features Jackie Shroff, Mandira Bedi and Arun Vijay.

-*-

Anupam remembers Laxmikant Berde

Veteran actor Anupam Kher on Thursday remembered his "Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!" co-actor Laxmikant Berde and said he misses his humour.

"Dear Laxmikant Berde. You left us all a little too early. It was always a joy to work with you. Miss you and your humour. Happy Birthday," he tweeted.

Laxmikant, who died in 2004 due to a kidney ailment, is fondly known for his roles in films like "Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!", "Hum Saath Saath Hai", "Meri Biwi Ka Jawaab Nahin", "Jaanam Samjha Karo" and "Maine Pyar Kiya".

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India and Latvia on Friday discussed ways to boost bilateral ties during a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Latvian counterpart Maris Kucinskis.

"The two leaders held discussions on various aspects of bilateral ties as well as important regional and global issues of mutual interest," the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

"The two leaders focused on building closer cooperation in the areas of trade and investment, food processing, and culture among others," it said.

"India's economic ties with Latvia have strengthened in recent years with growing awareness about the prospects in food processing sector as well as other opportunities in the infrastructure sector."

A protocol amending and supplementing the Agreement between India and Latvia relating to air services was also signed during the meeting.

Bilateral trade between India and Latvia stood at about $141 million in 2015-16. Major Indian exports are tea, coffee, tools, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, garments, iron & steel etc and imports include chemicals, fertilizers, iron and steel and machinery.

There is scope for growth of textiles, agro-products, gems and jewellery, chemical dyes and pharmaceuticals.

Earlier on Friday, Kucinskis attended the World Food India event that was inaugurated by Modi.

A 16-member business delegation from seven Latvian companies is participating in Wood Food India 2017.

"Latvian companies exhibiting at this prestigious event represent sectors such as dairy, fish processing, confectioneries and mineral and drinking water," the External Affairs Ministry statement said.

Kucinskis, who arrived here on Thursday on a four-day visit to India, will leave for Mumbai on Saturday where he will inaugurate the an honorary consulate of Latvia and will participate in the Latvia-India Transport and Logistics Conference titled "Latvia: India's Gateway to Europe and CIS countries".

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A meeting of India-US Joint Working Group on Aircraft Carrier Technology, where the two sides discussed plans for future co-operation, concluded here on Friday, an official statement said.

The two sides will now meet in the US early next year.

The meeting of the joint working group, set up under the auspices of the Indo-US Defence Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI), was held from October 29 to November 3.

A 13 member US delegation, headed by Rear Admiral Brian Antonio, Program Executive Officer Aircraft Carriers, visited the Shore Based Test Facility at Goa, Naval Base at Karwar, INS Vikramaditya at sea, Mazagaon Dock Ltd and the Western Naval Command.

In the concluding session of the meeting on Friday, which was co-chaired by Indian Navy's Controller Warship Production and Acquisition Vice Admiral D.M. Deshpande and Rear Admiral Antonio, both sides acknowledged the significant achievements of the Joint Working Group so far.

A statement said the two sides "discussed plans for future co-operation under various aspects of aircraft carrier technology such as design optimisation, construction philosophy, trials procedure and project management".

A joint statement was also signed on Friday.

"The meeting marked yet another significant landmark in the ongoing cooperation between the two countries in the field of aircraft carrier technology," it said.

--IANS

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Iran on Friday accused the CIA of spreading "fake news" about Tehrans support to the Al Qaeda, describing the claims as an attempt to "whitewash" the truth about the role US allies had in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"A record low for the reach of petrodollars: CIA & FDD fake news w/ selective Al Qaeda docs re: Iran can't whitewash role of US allies in 9/11," Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif wrote on his Twitter account on Friday.

Zarif posted the tweet after the release of a 19-page Al Qaeda report in Arabic, which claimed Iran supported the extremist group before the 9/11 attacks.

The document, part of nearly 47,000 documents released by the CIA, quoted the group's slain leader Osama bin Laden as saying: "Anyone who wants to strike America, Iran is ready to support him and help him with their frank and clear rhetoric."

It claimed that Iran and Al Qaeda could overlook their differences and join forces when it came to confronting the US.

The US government's 9/11 Commission has made similar allegations, saying Iranian officials met Al Qaeda leaders in Sudan in either 1991 or early 1992.

Last year, a New York court ordered Iran to pay $7.5 billion in damages to the families of the 9/11 victims.

The release of the files comes as US President Donald Trump's administration seeks to ramp up pressure on Iran, refusing to certify a landmark nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

The Fars news agency, which is close to Iranian conservatives, said on Thursday that the selective publication of documents by the CIA related to Al Qaeda was part of efforts "to put pressure on Iran".
Pakistan has conveyed its "serious concerns" over the display of anti-Pakistan slogans on taxis plying in London.

Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua summoned British High Commissioner Thomas Drew on Friday to convey the concerns over the slogans seen on some cabs in London, attacking Pakistan's territorial integrity and sovereignty.

According to the Foreign Office, the High Commissioner was told that Pakistan objected to the propaganda.

The issue is also being raised with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by the Pakistan High Commissioner in London.

"Pakistan is aware of the intentions of such sinister and malicious campaigns, which should not be allowed on the soil of a friendly country," Janjua said in a statement.

Pakistani social media users in London had come across the cabs and shared their pictures.

In September, Pakistan had summoned the Swiss ambassador over the public display of anti-Pakistan posters in Switzerland.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The teachers of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on Friday took out a march on the campus to observe the Vigilance Awareness Week as mandated by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) last month.

The agency had earlier announced that an awareness week against corruption would be observed during October 30-November 4. "My Vision-Corruption Free India" was decided as the theme of the week.

"Many teachers and employees carried out a march today (Friday). Earlier, we had conducted a debate and a talk among the employees and students of the university around the topic 'how we can make India corruption free'," JNU Registrar Pramod Kumar told IANS.

The employees also took an "integrity pledge" the content of which was provided by the government, he added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday handed over a cheque of Rs 417.16 crore to BHEL for Damaracharla Yadadri ultra mega thermal power plant.

The 4,000 MW ultra mega power plant is coming up at Damaracharla in Suryapet district at a cost of Rs 20,379 crore.

Handing over the cheque to Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) Chairman and Managing Director Atul Sobti, the Chief Minister said the project should be completed within three years.

He said for transparency and timely completion of the power plants, the works were entrusted to the public sector company.

Noting that the land required for the plant was acquired and all the permissions including the environmental clearance were given, the Chief Minister said the work should be speeded up keeping in view the substantial increase in demand from the coming year.

"We have decided to give 24 hour power supply to farmers from next March. Construction of the lift irrigation schemes is going on. Several new industries are coming up. Need for power in other sectors is also growing up," he said.

KCR, as the Chief Minister is popularly known, said there will be an additional need for 3,500 MW. Keeping this in view, the state embarked on construction of major power plants.

Of all the plants, Yadadri plant is very important. "Work on the 5 x 800 MW plants should be taken up simultaneously and parallelly and should be completed in three years," he said.

Telangana State Power Generation Corporation CMD Prabhakar Rao told KCR that the works on the 800 MW Kothagudem plant will be completed in two or three months while Manuguru plant will be completed by the coming year.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
President Ram Nath Kovind will visit the Madhya Pradesh capital on a one-day visit on November 10, said an official on Friday.

Kovind, who is scheduled to take part in Kabir Pragatotsav ceremony here, will be making his first visit to the state after taking over the country's top post.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that special arrangements are being made to welcome the President.

--IANS

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US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has turned over documents to Special Counsel Robert Mueller as investigators have begun interrogations about the senior advisor's role in the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, the media reported.

Mueller's investigators have expressed interest in Kushner as part of its probe into Russian meddling, including potential obstruction of justice in Comey's firing, informed sources told CNN on Thursday.

Their questions about Kushner signal that Mueller's investigators are reaching the President's inner circle and have extended beyond the 2016 campaign to actions taken at the White House by high-level officials.

However, it was not clear how Kushner's advice to the President might relate to the overall Russia investigation or potential obstruction of justice, the sources said.

Kushner voluntarily turned over documents he had from the campaign and the transition, and these related to any contacts with Russia. The documents are similar to the ones Kushner gave to congressional investigators, they added.

According to the sources, investigators have asked witnesses also about how a statement was issued in the name of Donald Trump Jr. regarding a Trump Tower meeting and about the circumstances surrounding the departures of other White House aides.

A White House official told CNN that the Mueller team's questions about Kushner are not a surprise, and that the senior advisor would be among a list of people who investigators would be asking about.

The disclosures follow this week's indictments Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his longtime business partner and campaign deputy, Rick Gates.

Both pleaded not guilty.

Former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty for making a false statement to the FBI about contacts with people connected with the Russian government.

--IANS

ksk

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Normal life was crippled in Chennai and its suburbs on Friday as rains pounded the city for several hours from Thursday evening, resulting in 30cm of showers in some eight hours and flooding several localities.

But Chennai residents heaved a sigh of relief on Friday morning as the rain clouds gave way to a bright sun. But the weather department predicted more rains in the next 24 hours, triggering fears of a repeat of the devastating December 2015 Chennai floods.

The number of rain related to 14 deaths has risen in Tamil Nadu, official sources said.

The torrential rains on Thursday flooded localities like Mudichur, Velachery, Alandur, Pallikaranai, Korattur and several parts of North Chennai.

Residents in these localities and also elsewhere complained that the rain water flowing over the streets was mixed with sewage -- and seeping into their homes.

The government ordered schools and colleges shut in Chennai, Kanchipuram, Tiruvallur, Pudukottai and Nagapattiman districts on Friday. Private sector organisations have been urged to declare a holiday or allow people to work from home.

Residents in localities like West Mambalam, Santhome, Mylapore, Vysarpadi and more complained of clogged sewers.

"The main sewer lines have remained clogged for past several months. Despite several complaints to clear them before the rains start, the authorities did not act," R. Raghavan, a resident of Mylapore, told IANS.

However, the water levels receded on Friday morning in parts of Chennai.

Residents of suburban residential localities like Mudichur and Tambaram, however, said water had entered their homes.

Many in Mudichur protested on the flooded streets against poor preparedness of the government to meet the monsoon threat.

Mudichur was one of the worst hit during the 2015 floods too.

S. Balachandran, Director of the Cyclone Warning Centre, Regional Meteorological Centre, said on Friday that heavy to very heavy rains were expected in the next couple of days.

He said a low pressure area lay over southwest Bay of Bengal off Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu. As a result, heavy rains were expected over coastal Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

According to the weather department, Chennai recorded a rainfall of 351.6 mm and neighbouring Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts got 327 and 340 mm rains respectively on Thursday.

Apart from Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Cuddalore, Nagapattinam, Tirunelveli and Thanjavur districts were also lashed by rains.

According to officials, the dry reservoirs that cater to Chennai's drinking water needs were now filling up due to the rains.

(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.)
At least 10 Mexican university students will be visiting China to receive two weeks of information technology (IT) training, the Ministry of Communications and Transport said.

Students won the opportunity to develop their IT skills in China through "Seeds for the Future", a scholarship programme organised by Chinese technology giant Huawei in conjunction with the ministry, the Ministry of Communications and Transport said in a statement, Xinhua news agency reported.

At a ceremony at Huawei headquarters in Mexico City to present the winning students with their scholarships, Deputy Communications Minister Edgar Olvera underscored the importance of IT in today's world.

"The government has made it a priority to expand Mexicans' access to quality telecommunications services," said Olvera.

Chinese Ambassador to Mexico, Qiu Xiaoqi, congratulated the winners and noted the educational exchange marked a "great historic moment in Mexico-China ties".

The students were selected on October 5 out of a total of 220 competitors who submitted a two-minute video on the importance of technology to a better world and why they wanted to participate in "Seeds for the Future".

In addition to the scholarship programme, Huawei provides free Internet access at some 45,000 locations across Mexico as part of its corporate social responsibility efforts.

--IANS

amit

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday met Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and discussed ways to boost bilateral ties.

"Reinvigorating age-old ties. PM @narendramodi meets President Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia, discusses ways to intensify cooperation," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted.

Earlier on Friday, Sargsyan attended the World Food India event that Modi inaugurated.

The Armenian President arrived here on Thursday on a three-day visit to India.

India established with Armenia in 1992 following the breakup of the Soviet Union.

--IANS

ab/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former Trinamool Congress leader Mukul Roy on Friday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) here, and said he believed that it is a "secular" force.

"I believe BJP is not a communal force, it is a secular force and it rules the country..." Roy said soon after formally joining the party.

"I believe in the leadership of Narendra Modi ji, Kailash Vijayvargiya ji and Amit (Shah) bhai, in the near future, BJP will come to power in West Bengal for the benefit of people of West Bengal," he said.

Roy recalled that the Trinamool fought Lok Sabha elections in 1998 for the first time as a partner of the BJP and again in 1999, was a member of the BJP-led Democratic Alliance after which Mamata Banerjee also became a minister in then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's cabinet.

"I feel without BJP, TMC could not have established (itself) then," he said.

BJP leader and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad meanwhile said that Roy, one of Trinamool's founding members will help BJP expand its footprint in West Bengal.

"Today a veteran public figure and political leader, Mukul Roy has joined BJP. He helped TMC come to power in West Bengal, and has been an MP for 12 years," he said, adding that the "most notable feature" of his political life is that for 30 years of the Left government led by the CPI-M "where voice of dissent had no place", he fought against "atrocities".

Stressing Roy offered to join the BJP without any conditions, he said: "He is coming to BJP at a time when it is expanding its footprint in Bengal."

Roy quit the Banerjee-led party on September 25 and resigned as a Rajya Sabha member on October 11.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has terminated the work contracts of several companies, including Larsen and Toubro and Essel Infra, due to faulty bidding for Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects and Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) projects.

The termination of contracts have been done since 2014, and NHAI has asked for representations, if any, on the works to be made to the General Manager (Technical) of the division concerned at the NHAI head office by November 6.

Among the projects of infra giant L&T that have been cancelled include a six-lane project in Maharashtra's Pimpalgaon-Nasik-Gobde section.

"The L&T has also been barred to bid for PPPs till March 28, 2019 and for EPC projects till March 28, 2018," said official documents from the NHAI, which are with IANS.

Essel Infra has been barred from bidding for PPPs till July 21, 2019 while it also cannot participate in EPC projects till July 21, 2018.

According to NHAI, the notice cum list was uploaded to the website for three days and has been removed now as the message has been conveyed to the companies.

Other companies whose projects have been cancelled and barred from participating in EPC and PPP projects include Hindustan Construction Company, AMBA infrastructure, and Soma Enterprises.

Hindustan Construction Company has been barred to bid for PPPs till March 30, 2020 and from EPC projects till March 30, 2019, while the NHAI has terminated its 4-lane project in West Bengal, said the official document.

Several projects in Bihar being done by companies such as Gammon Infrastructure, and Progressive Constructions in a joint venture with MVR have been cancelled.

Gammon was barred from participating in PPP projects till August 28, 2017.

KSS Petron Private Ltd, Valecha Engineerings, and Karystroy Service Investments Pvt Ltd have been barred from participating in PPP projects till March 19, 2020, while they cannot participate in EPC mode projects till March 19, 2019.

Corson Corviam has been barred from participating in PPP contracts till March 3,2020 while it can't bid for EPC mode projects till March 14, 2019.

Transstroy (India) Ltd has been barred from PPP projects till May 5,2020 while it won't be eligible to participate in EPC projects till May 5, 2019.

In the northeast, JKM Infra and NKC projects won't be eligible to participate in PPP projects till January 2020 and EPC projects till January 1, 2019.

In West Bengal, Madhucon Infra's four lanning of Barasat-Krishnagar section on NH-34 has been cancelled and it can't bid for PPP projects till May 2, 2019 and EPC projects till May 2, 2018.

--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.)
Nine of the seriously injured in the massive blast at an NTPC plant in Uttar Pradesh have been shifted to the Safdarjung Hospital here, five of them with critical burn injuries, doctors said on Friday.

While two were moved to the hospital on Thursday evening, seven others were brought early on Friday.

"Nine of the injured have been brought to Safdarjung. While five of them have 50-60 per cent burn injuries, the others have 25-40 per cent burn injuries," said Rajendra Sharma, the Medical Superintendent of Safdarjung Hospital.

According to Sharma, all the patients were currently at the Burns ICU.

"We have all the arrangements in place and in case more patients are to be brought, we can accommodate them. However, other hospitals are also ready," Sharma told IANS.

A green corridor was created to bring the patients to the national capital from Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh in view of the seriousness of their condition.

Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel on Thursday night visited Safdarjung Hospital "to oversee and ensure that patients from the blast got the best medical care and treatment".

She suggested that doctors from Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital could also be brought in if necessary.

The death toll in the Wednesday blast at the National Thermal Power Corp 500MW unit at Rae Bareli rose to 30 on Thursday. The government has ordered a magisterial probe into the tragedy.

The massive explosion took place in Unchahar town unit on the Lucknow-Allahabad Highway.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two of the injured in the NTPC boiler blast in Uttar Pradesh has been shifted to the Safdarjung hospital here. Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel has visited them.

A green corridor was created to bring the patients to the national capital, considering the seriousness of their condition.

Seven more injured in the Tuesday's blast were also to be shifted to the city's AIIMS hospital, besides the Safdarjung's 's trauma centre, said an official.

Patel visited Safdarjung hospital late on Thursday "to oversee and ensure that patients from the blast got the best medical care and treatment", said the official from the Union Health Ministry.

She has suggested that facilities and doctors from the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital could also be used, if necessary.

The death toll in the blast in National Thermal Power Corporation's 500MW unit in Rae Bareli rose to 30 on Thursday. The government has ordered a magisterial probe into the tragedy.

The massive explosion took place in state-owned power plant's Unchahar town unit on the Lucknow-Allahabad Highway on Tuesday. Many were trapped when the boiler burst and a huge ball of dust rose, making the rescue operations difficult.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
One person was killed and over 20 others, including school children, sustained serious injuries when a bus carrying students of a Himachal Pradesh school met with an accident on the Yamuna Express near Agra on Friday, police said.

Four of the students were reportedly in critical condition and attended to by doctors in Agra. The dead man was identified as a tour organiser.

The students belonged to Classes 6 to 8 of Alok Bharti School of Mandi. They were on a trip to the Taj city of Agra when the accident took place.

A police officer told IANS that the driver lost control of the bus after a tyre burst. "Since the bus was at a high speed, it overturned," he said.

The seriously injured have been admitted to the SN Medical College in Agra. The others were given first aid.

Uttar Pradesh Principal Secretary (Home) Arvind Kumar said the bus was carrying 45 students, six teachers and six tour organisers.

"The district magistrate and the SSP of Agra rushed to the accident site to oversee rescue and relief operation," he said.

The injured were shifted to various hospitals in Agra.

--IANS

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UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi has told the UN Security Council that over 800,000 Myanmar Rohingya were probably in the "most acute" situation.

Grandi made the remarks about Rohingya refugees, as in comparison to 65 million to 66 million people forcibly displaced in the world, Xinhua news agency reported.

"We spoke about some of the most complex crisis in Africa especially South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo," he told reporters outside the council's chambers.

"There was much focus on the situation in Bangladesh -- Rohingya refugees coming from Myanmar -- and the way forward in that crisis which is probably the most acute at the moment."

Of those 800,000 refugees, the UN officials said 607,000 fled violence in northern Rakhine State since August 25 when Rohingya rebels allegedly staged deadly attacks against security posts, triggering retributions from government forces and civilian vigilantes. Villages were torched and villagers fled in face of deadly violence.

Access to northern Rakhine State -- one of the least developed in Myanmar -- has been tightly restricted, although a senior UN official flew over part of the terrorized area last month and reported seeing burnt-out villages.

"There was support for the role the UNHCR can play in facilitating discussion on voluntary safe and dignified return if and when conditions are created in Rakhine State for this to happen," the head of the UN Refugee Agency said.

"We spoke about important overlaps of the agenda of my office ... and the agenda of the Security Council."

He explained that since refugees are a humanitarian issue they are discussed within the UNHCR as "a non-political manner", but it is an issue which overlaps with the peace and security agenda of the Security Council.

So, the solutions for refugee problems "are essentially political", he added.

Grandi said the problem for the Rohingya refugees is to "safely and in a dignified manner go back home" .

Thursday's Security Council session "was an opportunity to exchange views on all these matters, both policy issues and operational issues".

--IANS

amit

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan's anti-corruption body on Friday petitioned the High Court against the accountability court's order to release former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's son-in-law Captain Muhammad Safdar (retd) on bail after he was taken into custody on October 9.

Safdar was held upon his arrival from London at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport in the capital, where he was set to appear before the accountability court in connection with a NAB corruption reference, following the issuance of a non-bailable arrest warrant for his absence in earlier hearings, Dawn online reported.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) asked the Islamabad High Court to suspend the accountability court's order to release Safdar on bail after he furnished surety bonds worth Rs 5 million.

The NAB prosecutor general, making Safdar and the accountability court judge party in the petition, challenged the decision to release Maryam Nawaz's husband requesting he be sent to Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail on judicial remand.

The NAB petition maintained that an order to release the suspect can only be passed by the Supreme Court and that the accountability court should have sent Captain Safdar to jail.

The petition came days after Sindh lawmakers lambasted the NAB's "double standards" in its dealing with members of the Sharif family and others.

The Sharifs are facing trial in connection with references filed by the NAB pertaining to their Avenfield properties in London, the Azizia Steel Mills as well as another 16 offshore companies.

The three accused -- the former Prime Minister, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law pleaded not guilty to the charges. Sharif's sons Hassan and Hussain Nawaz were named co-accused in the chargesheet in the corruption references.

Sharif and his sons were named in all three NAB references while Maryam Nawaz and Safdar were named only in the London reference.

--IANS

soni/bg

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Despite India making 52 requests for consular access to Hamid Nehal Ansari, an Indian national arrested in Pakistan, Islamabad has till now not responded on the matter, a senior official said here on Friday.

"We have sought consular access to Hamid Nehal Ansari 52 times," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said while addressing his weekly media briefing

"So far, we have not been granted access. These requests have been made formally and through demarches," he said

Ansari, languishing in a Peshawar jail on espionage charges, filed a petition in the Peshawar High Court on Wednesday urging that he should not be treated as a spy.

Ansari was arrested and charged with spying when he sneaked into Pakistan from Afghanistan without travel documents in 2012, reportedly to meet a woman he had befriended on social media.

In the petition, filed in the high court on his behalf by lawyer Qazi Muhammad Anwar, Ansari sought remission of his sentence.

A military court had tried him and sentenced him to three years' rigorous imprisonment that started December 15, 2015, and will end on December 14, 2018.

Demanding that Pakistan should be release Ansari, Kumar in Friday's briefing said: "We have also demanded that the government of Pakistan should ensure his safety and security. We still await the response of the Pakistan government on our demarches."

--IANS

ab/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The southern Polish town of Tarnow received nearly 33 million Polish zloty ($9 million) from the European Union (EU) for purchase of 35 high-tech urban buses, authorities said.

"This is a radical change for the better," Xinhua news agency quoted Tarnow Mayor Roman Ciepiela as saying.

MPK, the city's public transport company, will purchase the vehicles, whose engines can be powered by natural gas and canola-based biodiesel among other fuels.

The vehicles are low-floor, air-conditioned, fully disability-friendly and equipped with electronic amenities.

Pointing out that the company's current fleet comprised 98 buses with an average age of 10 years, MPK's CEO Jerzy Wiatr said "as of next year, the oldest, least-comfortable and most run-down buses are going to be retired from use" thanks to the influx of new vehicles.

In addition to the EU's funding for the buses, MPK contributed 6 million zloty, which has already been spent on five Scania buses.

--IANS

amit

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The death toll in the NTPC boiler blast here in Uttar Pradesh rose to 30 on Thursday, with more injured workers succumbing to their burn injuries. Power producer NTPC shut down the 500 MW unit following the accident.

The Human Rights Commission has issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government over the deaths.

Nine of the injured in the boiler blast are to be shifted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi, an official said on Thursday.

Three senior officials of the NTPC who suffered critical injuries are being flown in an air ambulance to Medanta Hospital in Gurugram.

Doctors warned the toll was likely to rise as more than a dozen contractual labourers were battling for life with more than 90 per cent burn wounds.

On Thursday, contractual labourers at the Feroze Gandhi Unchahar Thermal Power Station here raised slogans against the NTPC management. They claimed they had warned about an impending disaster at unit six as the temperature near the furnace had been steadily rising.

The NTPC has launched a probe into the incident, which it said took place due to "excess ash deposition" in the furnace. The state government has ordered a magisterial probe.

District Magistrate Sanjay Kumar Khatri told IANS that the number of injured in the Wednesday tragedy at the state-run Thermal Power Corp (NTPC) plant stood at 64.

The massive explosion took place in a 500 MW unit in Unchahar town on the Lucknow-Allahabad highway. Many were trapped when a fire erupted in the boiler and a huge ball of dust rose after the blast, making the rescue operations difficult.

The Uttar Pradesh government has announced Rs 2 lakh each to the families of the dead, Rs 50,000 each to the critically injured and Rs 25,000 to those who suffered minor injuries. They will all get free treatment at government hospitals.

Angry locals and family members of the injured alleged that there was a complete absence of medical facilities at the NTPC campus, which pushed up the number of casualties.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday visited Rae Bareli after cutting short his Gujarat tour and met family members of the victims.

Rae Bareli is the Lok Sabha constituency of his mother and Congress President Sonia Gandhi. She may not visit the constituency as she is reportedly unwell.

Sonia Gandhi's daughter Priyanka Vadra is also scheduled to visit Rae Bareli.

Rahul Gandhi demanded a "fair probe" into the boiler explosion and sought government jobs for the kin of the dead.

Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma also called on the injured at the district hospital.

Meanwhile, Union Power Minister R.K. Singh visited the site and denied claims by some political leaders and families of the dead that human negligence was to blame for the boiler blast.

"I have seen everything during my physical inspection of the accident scene and I can say that there is no human negligence in the unfortunate incident," Singh told reporters, after visiting the accident site along with state Power Minister Shrikant Sharma.

He also announced that the Central government has decided to give financial assistance of Rs 20 lakh to the families of the deceased and Rs 10 lakh each to the critically injured, while those who sustained minor injuries would get Rs 2 lakh each, the Union Minister announced.

This compensation would be in addition to the ex-gratia and financial assistance announced by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

The state-run NTPC has also announced a financial assistance of Rs 5 lakh each to the families of the dead. The Prime Minister's Relief Fund will also give Rs 2 lakh each to the next of kin of the deceased.

Minister R.K. Singh said the priority of the government, both at the Centre and the state, was to save as many lives as possible, provide them best, prompt and adequate treatment.

Singh also said that NTPC's Unchahar unit was among the best in the country and that rumours that there was extra load on it or that it was under pressure to increase production were unfounded and baseless.

How and why the accident happened would be conclusively found and detailed in the probe ordered by the Ministry which would be completed in 30 days, he added.

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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, have agreed to launch a visa-free travel between their countries, the Ukrainian presidential press service said.

The agreement was reached during Poroshenko's visit to Dubai on November 1-2, said the statement on the presidential website, Xinhua news agency reported.

Poroshenko's spokesman Svyatoslav Tsegolko said both sides will abolish visa requirements for each other's citizens starting from next month.

Ukraine and the UAE established the diplomatic relationship on October 15, 1992.

--IANS

amit

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The Zimbabwe Police has arrested a US citizen residing in the country over allegations that she insulted President Robert Mugabe, her Attorneys said.

Security forces searched the house of Martha O'Donovan, Director of the satirical media outlet Magamba TV, and seized electronic devices, including her laptop, according to Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), Efe news reported.

O'Donovan is accused of referring to Mugabe when she tweeted about a "Goblin" whose wife and step-sons imported an expensive car.

ZLHR noted that the tweet did not mention Mugabe by name.

Insulting Mugabe, who has been in power since Zimbabwe officially became independent from Britain in 1980, is a crime in the country punishable by fine or jail time.

--IANS

amit

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India can save lives of more than 90,000 children aged below five years annually, if it scales up its vaccination programme against pneumonia and diarrhoea, said a report on Friday.

Released ahead of the World Pneumonia Day on November 12, the report published by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health however noted that India has made a considerable improvement since last year.

"India could save over $1 billion each year in economic benefits and avert more than 90,000 needless child deaths each year by introducing and scaling up coverage of vaccination programs targeting pneumonia and diarrhea," observed the yearly study conducted by the International Vaccine Access Centre (IVAC) of the Hopkins Bloomberg School.

The study was conducted for 15 countries which are "disproportionately responsible" for deaths globally of children below five years from pneumonia and diarrhoea.

Although these countries form 55 per cent of the global population together, they contribute as much as 77 per cent to the total global deaths of young children from the two diseases.

The report said that since last year, India has increased its performance by seven points, mainly owing to its vaccination coverage of "measles vaccine, Haemophilus influenzae type B vaccine, three doses of diphtheria tetanus and pertussis vaccine, and rotavirus vaccine" during the period.

Among other positive indicators for India, the study said that the country had highest percentage (77 per cent) of children who were taken to a healthcare provider for suspected pneumonia and the highest percentage (65 per cent) of children below the age of six months, who were breastfed exclusively.

"Exclusive breastfeeding protects infants from pneumonia and diarrhea," it read.

Tanzania, Angola, Chad, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan from Africa, and India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and China from Asia, comprised the 15 nations selected for the study.

--IANS

vn/him/vd

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The year was 2001. Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pervez Musharraf were meeting in Agra over two hot, muggy days in July at a summit that might have changed the world if it had worked. The atmosphere was fraught. There was an almost complete news blackout and then spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, Nirupama Rao, came close to being assaulted by Pakistani journalists for her refusal to brief on what was happening in the Jaypee Palace Hotel where the two leaders were meeting.
The answer to the question above would be: More or less. The kerfuffle this week over the sudden withdrawal of the talented, versatile actor Nawazuddin Siddiquis memoir An Ordinary Life (Penguin; Rs 599) before its official release is damaging all round  to him, his co-writer Rituparna Chatterjee, and the publisher.
Though I had asked him for a meeting in June, just days after he retired as secretary, Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) in the finance ministry, took his time. With good reason. The past two years have seen a rash of policies, many of which are still playing out. I want some time to pass before commenting, he kept telling me. It turned out to be better that way, as we meet shortly before the first anniversary of .
Is the Narendra Modi government planning to scrap or shorten the Winter session of Parliament? Or is it that such misgivings are unfounded and it might just be a case of a late start?
Over 1,350 families, who were living at Kathputli Colony here, have been shifted by the DDA to a transit camp, from February 2014 to June this year, the urban body said today.

The shifting of families have been carried out as part of a redevelopment project for the artisans' colony in West Delhi's Shadipur area.

Approximately 5.2 hectare land of the DDA near Shadipur Depot in west Delhi has been "under encroachment by jhuggi- dwellers for about 35-40 years". The settlement is known as Kathputli Colony, the DDA said in a statement.

"After notification of Master Plan of Delhi-2021 wherein in situ development of slum areas has been envisaged, tenders were floated for redevelopment of the area on a public private partnership (PPP) mode," it said.

An agreement was signed with a major private builder in September 2009 for the project, the housing authority said.

Shifting of families from the colony to the transit camp in Anand Parbat has been faced with resistance over the years.

"Shifting of these persons to the transit camp was started in February 2014 and by July, 2014, 527 families had been shifted," the DDA said.

Afterwards, the DDA said, it approved recommencing the shifting process on November 18, 2016 and spot verification of eligible beneficiaries.

Till June 30 this year, 828 additional families have been shifted to the transit camp, taking the total number of them shifted to the camp to 1355, the DDA said.

"About one-third of the demolition work had been completed and about four acres of land reclaimed, it added.

Besides the transit camp, DDA's plan is to rehabilitate or resettle some of the illegally settled squatters in the area, in properly built EWS houses measuring about 30 sqm each, with full legal rights of ownership, the statement said.

"These EWS houses would be provided with amenities of one bed room, kitchen, toilet and a lobby," DDA said.

These additional eligible beneficiaries are being offered built-up EWS houses at Narela. The draw for allotment at Narela has been conducted on October 25, 2017 and the result of the draw has been uploaded on the DDA's website, it added.

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A total of 224 nursing homes and illegal clinics are being run under the district's community health centre (CHC) in the millennium city, an RTI query has revealed.

The civil surgeon office of the Haryana health department in the Right to Information (RTI) query said the illegal clinics and nursing homes actively running in are 23 in Patudi, one in Bhangrola, 18 in Bhodakala, 15 in Sohna, 54 in Farukhnagar, 48 in Harsaru, 26 in Gangola and 39 in Badshahpur.

"A complaint was also made against them before the chief minister window but no action has been taken so far. We cannot take action against them as there is no Haryana Nursing Homes Registration Act," B K Rajoura, civil surgeon Health Department, said.

One Mahender Kumar, a resident of Bahalpa village in Sohna, had filed the RTI on October 10 in the civil surgeon office seeking information in connection with the fake doctors, illegal nursing homes and clinics running in .

In its reply on October 23, the civil surgeon office said there are 224 illegal clinics and nursing homes under the district's CHC in the city.

There are over 141 bogus doctors in these nursing homes and illegal clinics. They are not qualified and have medical degree or certificates. They are not MBBS but only compounders, the RTI said.

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K Balasubramanian, Chief Post Master General, AP Circle has announced that 24 Post Bank branches would be set up in Andhra Pradesh by the end of March 2018.

Three of them would be established in Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Chittoor very soon, he told reporters today.

The Postal Bank would provide all banking services to the public like acceptance of savings and fixed deposits except lending, said the official.

He said that the postal department extended its 'Postal Life Insurance' service to professionals from October 2017 which was previously limited for government employees.

He claimed that the policies of postal life insurance are more attractive than other life insurances policies.

He said that government has allowed the postal department to provide Aadhar related services like enrolling, change of address among others.

He said 585 post offices have been identified to provide Aadhar related services in Andhra Pradesh.

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A special court here trying the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks case today issued non-bailable warrant against an assistance commissioner of Delhi Police's special cell for non appearance in the court.

The court had last month summoned Manishi Chandra, who had arrested key plotter and Lashkar-e-Taiba operative Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal.

It had also asked the registrar of Patiala Court to come before it.

Chandra informed the court that he was busy in some investigation.

Special judge G A Sanap observed that the matter was fixed for evidence and the accused (Jundal) was an undertrial.

The court also said that the matter is required to be disposed of as early as possible and summons was issued for attendance of witness as well as for production of documents well in advance.

"I am satisfied on perusal of record that the witness has avoided to attend this court without any sound reason," judge Sanap observed.

The court said that Chandra has not only avoided attending the court but informed the officer of (Patiala) court that he will not be attending, hence the officer of the court has not attended the court and provided documents.

"It seems that the witness who is served with the summons and the officer of court - Pankaj Bharti - decided unilaterally that hearing of this matter should not go on," observed the court.

"In my view this is very serious and wrong on their part. Both of them have directly or indirectly attempted to interfere with the proceedings by not attending the same," the judge said.

Noting that Chandra has disobeyed the summons and the grounds stated for non attendance are totally unacceptable, the court said, "Police officer must give first preference to the evidence matter before any other matter. In view of this state of affairs, I am of the view that it would be proper to issue NBW against the witness (Chandra)."



The court also rejected the prayer of special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam that last chance be granted and warrant may not be issued.

Last month Chandra was summoned by the court to record his evidence in the 26/11 case.

Chandra had arrested Jundal and seized a Pakistani passport bearing name Riyasat Ali Khusi Mohammed which bears Jundal's photograph.

He had also seized a national identity card of the government of Pakistan and a green coloured card both bearing Jundal's photograph.

A native of Beed district of Maharashtra, Jundal was interrogated after he was brought here from Delhi where he had been arrested following his deportation from Saudi Arabia in June 2012.

The Mumbai terror attacks of November 2008 left 166 dead and many more injured. In the case Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab was caught alive and later he was tried in court and was executed.

The charge sheet has details about Jundal's training in Pakistan, preparations ahead of 26/11, LeT hierarchy, the precise role played those involved, among others.

According to Jundal's confession, LeT training camps enjoyed full support from local, federal police and paramilitary organisations in Pakistan.

According to the charge sheet, after fleeing from Maharashtra, Jundal entered Bangladesh in May 2006 where he was received by an ISI agent.

He then used a boarding pass issued in a fictitious name to fly PIA flight to Pakistan.

Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley was in 2016 examined as witness in the case. He deposed via video link from US.

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Three Canadian ministers, accompanied by a 200-member business delegation, will arrive here to attend a joint tech summit on November 14-15, Canada's envoy Nadir Patel said today.

At an event held here on the theme of 'Diversity and Inclusion', the High Commissioner to India said they would arrive in over a week's time.

Patel, in his opening address at the media workshop, attended by over 50 participants from India, Nepal and Afghanistan and Canada, emphasised that ties between India and Canada were "vibrant, long-standing, and deep-rooted".

"Diversity and inclusiveness is among Canada's priorities. And, also it is an important time around the world to showcase the Canadian experience and this event is part of that," he said.

"The 1.3 million Canadians of Indian-origin in our country represent the fabric of Canada," Patel said.

On the ministerial visit for the Canada-India Tech Summit, he said, "One of them is a Francophone, the other an Anglophone and one of Indian-origin."



"This is reflective of the culture that Canada is," he added.

The event was held under the umbrella of 'Canada150' that marks the sesquicentennial anniversary of Canadian Confederation, a senior official of the Embassy said.

"Embracing the reality of diversity, choosing to celebrate the differences and not exploiting them...and looking at them as assets, is what practising inclusiveness from Canadian perspective," the high commissioner said.

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A five-ship Indian naval training flotilla, based here, is on a visit to Sri Lanka to foster "bridges of friendship" between the two countries and expose their trainees to foreign waters.

The vessels, belonging to the First Training Squadron of the Indian Navy and functioning under the Southern Naval Command (SNC) headquartered here, began a five-day visit to Colombo yesterday, a defence release said today.

The visit is "to expose the trainees to the conduct of warship in foreign waters, port familiarisation and foster bridges of friendship between the two countries", it said.

The ships -- INS Tir, INS Sujata, INS Sudarshini, INS Shardul and Coast Guard vessel ICGS Sarathi -- would be there in the Sri Lankan coast till November 6.

The flotilla is headed by Captain D J Revar, Senior Officer, the First Training Squadron, who is also the commanding officer of INS Tir.

The officers of the visiting ships called on Commander of Sri Lankan Navy Vice Admiral S S Ranasinghe yesterday, the release said.

Later, the Indian trainee officers visited the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) Memorial and laid wreaths there while the ships were visited by Sri Lankan NCC cadets.

At the First Training Squadron, the Indian Navy also trains officers from friendly foreign countries. In the past more than four decades, it has imparted training to 13,500 international trainees from over 40 countries.

At present, 136 officers and 122 sailors from Sri Lanka are undergoing various "ab-initio to advanced courses" at the Southern Naval Command, the release said.

The SNC, headed by Vice Admiral A R Karve, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, has gained the reputation of being the finest training destination by maintaining a focused approach to provide high quality training and by constant adaptation to evolving tactics and technologies, it added.

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At least eight people, including seven children, were killed and four others injured in a landslide in the tribal region in northwest Pakistan today.

An official said the landslide occurred in mountainous Sikandaro Kandao village in Bajaur Agency when people were gathering mud to build a house.

The bodies of the victims were retrieved by local people. The dead include six girls, a boy, and a woman. The Khasadar Force rushed to the spot and carried out rescue and rehabilitation activities.

In other incident, two civilians sustained injuries when an improvised explosive device went off at Landi Kotal in Khyber Agency.

Authorities said the IED kept in a plastic bag, exploded at Zakhakhel Adda Rangra market, partially damaging three vehicles besides injuring two civilians.

Security forces cordoned off the area and a search operation has been initiated.

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The resident doctors' association of AIIMS today urged the hospital administration to strengthen the security at the gates of its trauma centre following a major scuffle between miscreants and security guards.

In a letter to the chief of AIIMS trauma centre, the AIIMS RDA has expressed concern about the security of the resident doctors who reside in the trauma centre doctors' hostels and also those who take the tunnel route to trauma centre for their duties.

"As you are aware there was a stone pelting and misbehaviour by some outsiders at gate number three Thursday, similar issues have existed for long," the letter said.

Stating that the security for doctors cannot be compromised, the RDA urged the hospital authorities to ensure no such incident takes place again.

"Please kindly direct the security department near the gate no. 3 so that no untoward incident happens. Delhi police help may also be sought in this regard if needed," said the letter.

According to the security department of AIIMS, late last night, a group of drunken men attacked the security guards deployed at gate number 3.

"They had to call the Delhi police for help. It was with the help of the police that they were able to help lock the gates later, but could not disperse the mob. They were throwing stones and bricks on the gate and few of the guards got injured," said the security supervisor of the trauma centre, also known as Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre.

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No-frills airline AirAsia India's passenger traffic nearly doubled to 11.7 lakh passengers in three months to September over the year-ago period on the back of capacity addition and network expansion.

The Bengaluru-based joint venture airline between Tata Sons and Malaysia's AirAsia group had flown 5.89 lakh passengers in the July-September quarter of 2016.

AirAsia India (AAI) carried 11.7 lakh passengers in the third quarter of the current calender year, registering 99 per cent growth over the same quarter of 2016, it said.

Also, the number of seats offered by the airline across its planes rose 104 per cent to over 13.74 lakh, up from 6.72 lakh, AAI said, adding it ended the quarter with a fleet of 13 aircraft after adding three more planes during the reporting period.

However, the passenger load factor, which is a measure of how much of an airline's passenger carrying capacity is used, declined three per cent to 85 per cent during the quarter over the same period of 2016.

AAI commenced operations from six new routes, four originating from Kolkata and one each from Bhubaneswar and Hyderabad, besides increasing frequencies on three routes originating from Bengaluru, it said.

The airline currently flies to Bengaluru, Kochi, Goa, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Pune, New Delhi, Guwahati, Imphal, Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad, Srinagar, Bagdogra, Ranchi, Kolkata and Bhubaneswar with a fleet of 13 A320 aircraft.

The airline, which launched services in June 2013, plans to fly overseas from next year but has not yet announced firm dates.

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Aiming to boost the food processing sector, Andhra Pradesh government today inked 17 initial pacts worth Rs 4,000 crore with reputed global and domestic players at the ongoing World Food India here.

The MoUs were signed in the presence of Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu who was here to attend the inaugural session of the three-day World Food India-2017 organised by the central government.

A major MoU has been signed with the UAE's Sharaf Group has promised to invest Rs 2,000 crore for setting up of a logistics and food park, the state government said in a statement.

The CM held one-on-one meetings with the corporate leaders in the food processing industry and invited them to invest in the state.

He assured of full cooperation in terms of providing land, water and necessary logistics for setting up the business.

"We have a separate policy to promote food processing in the state with a focus to protect the interest of farmers," Naidu said.

Among others, Haldiram has signed a MoU with the state government for establishing a food processing and manufacturing unit with an investment of Rs 400 crore.

Janani Foods Pvt has promised to invest Rs 500 crore for setting up of an integrated horticulture project in the state.

Keventer Agro signed a MoU with an investment promise of Rs 250 crore for setting up of a banana procurement and processing unit.

Other major MoUs were signed with ITC, Sesh Sai Foods, MNR Agri Food Products, Foods and Inns, Freshfrugies, RF Exports, Tifosi Foods and Waycool, the state said.

The state government also signed a MoU with Supermarket Grocery Supplier Pvt Ltd (BigBasket.com) to promote organic farming and provide market linkages to farmers, it added.

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The eight people killed in a truck driver's rampage were honored by friends and strangers with a nighttime walk down the riverfront esplanade where the victims died as both investigators and terror-weary New Yorkers tried to make sense of the crime.

Some of the marchers carried candles as city lights twinkled on the water. Others pushed bicycles in solidary with the victims, who were cut down on the long bike path that runs the length of Manhattan's Hudson River waterfront.

The mourners included Harry Kassen, a student at the Manhattan school where one of the victims, Nicholas Cleves, 23, worked part-time.

"You never think it is going to be someone you know," said Kassen, 17. He said he'd just recently worked with Cleves on lighting and sound for a school performance.

"We were up in the tech booth, chatting. Then, two weeks later, here we are. And he's gone," Kassen said.

The march began near the spot where authorities say Sayfullo Saipov, 29, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, steered a rented truck onto a bike bath and sped south toward the World Trade Center, striking cyclists and pedestrians in his bath.

He was shot by a police officer after crashing the truck into a school bus and arraigned Wednesday on terrorism charges.

Two women carried the flag of Argentina, in remembrance of the five people from that country who were killed when Saipov's truck plowed into a group of friends who had come to New York together to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their high school graduation.

The memorial walk and vigil took place hours after several of the Argentinian survivors of the attack visited a severely injured and hospitalized member of their group, Martin Marro, of Newton, Massachusetts, to tell him for the first time which of his friends had died.

"I think Martin had to know the truth. Maybe he already imagined that but now he knows and is a step that his friends wanted to take before returning to Argentina," Argentina's consul in New York, Mateo Estreme, told reporters in Spanish. "It was something very emotional for all of them."



New York officials on Thursday began to put up temporary concrete barriers at 57 locations where it is possible for vehicles to turn onto the bike bath where the attack took place.

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President Xi Jinping has instructed the Chinese armed forces to improve their combat capabilities and readiness for war, an official media report said today.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), made the remarks while inspecting the CMC joint battle command centre as its commander-in-chief.

"The CMC should lead the armed forces to be ready to fight and win wars, and to undertake the missions and tasks of the new era entrusted to them by the party and the people," Xi was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua agency.

CMC is the overall high command of the 2.3 million-strong Chinese PLA, the world's largest army.

This is the second time Xi has highlighted the role of the armed forces since he began his second term after securing the endorsement of the key Congress of the ruling CPC which concluded here on October 24.

He was re-elected as president, general secretary of the party, and head of the military.

Xi began his second tenure on October 26 with a meeting of top military officials, regarded as a main source of his power base, after the once-in-a-five-years CPC Congress endorsed his leadership for another term and also conferred on him a powerful status, equating him with party founder Mao Zedong by including his ideological thoughts in the Constitution.

Xi, 64, who heads the powerful Central Military Commission, is the only civilian leader in the body which is otherwise packed with top officials of the armed forces.

In his meeting with the military top brass, he ordered them to be absolutely loyal to the party, to focus on how to win wars, to pioneer reforms and innovation, to scientifically manage commanding a unit, to lead troops in accordance with the strictest standards and to be in the forefront in complying with laws and regulations.

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Union minister Subhash Bhamre today called for a proposal regarding mutual exchange of army land in Nagpur in lieu of Maharashtra government's land in Ahmednagar, to be used as a firing range.

The Union Minister of State for Defence was speaking at a meeting regarding the mutual transfer of lands at the state secretariat.

Chief Secretary Sumit Mullick and army officials were present for the meeting.

A release issued by the state government said that Bhamre directed that the land records of the army land in Nagpur be checked and that the district collector of Ahmednagar and the army conduct a joint exercise to ascertain details of the government land in Ahmednagar.

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In the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, local politics is a deadly game, with at least 40 people killed in politically motivated shootings since last year.

A battle for control is raging ahead of a conference of the African National Congress to choose a new leader when President Jacob Zuma steps down as ANC chief in December.

Violence has spread across the province on the country's east coast, but much of the killing can be traced back to hitmen hired from the notorious Glebelands complex of hostels in the provincial capital Durban.

The 71 lawless hostel blocks -- originally built to house migrant workers -- are home to about 20,000 people, often crowded into decrepit accommodation, sleeping more than 30 to an apartment and sharing a single toilet.

"Hitmen here are being used by the politicians," one Glebelands resident, a father of five dressed in a grey tracksuit and sitting under a bullet-scarred shelter, told AFP.

"It looks like we have no government. We have been forgotten," said the 48-year-old man, adding that giving his name would put his life in danger.

Vanessa Burger, a community rights activist who works with Glebelands victims' families, has kept a detailed log of each killing by hitmen living in or hired from the hostels.

Burger's log now stands at 93 dead since 2014, with many of the victims linked to politics through factional fighting, tit-for-tat revenge killings and criminal associates.

But there have been few arrests. The low number fuels allegations that murders are sanctioned by some parts of local ANC branches and ignored by the police.

"If you are using hitmen from a specific area to take out rivals... that must have political support, otherwise they would have been removed a long time ago," said Burger.

After sitting for a year, a judicial inquiry into the killings was due to complete its hearings last month, but has asked for more time to gather evidence.

"We have to extend until March next year because it's only now that the commission is gaining momentum," said Solo Mdledle, secretary of the Moerane Commission.

KwaZulu-Natal is the ANC's heartland. Whoever controls the province could determine the party's next leader.

In the run-up to the party conference, few weeks go by without an ANC provincial official or elected councillor being murdered in the struggle for power, jobs, money and lucrative government contracts.

The victims are gunned down in their cars, shot dead outside their homes or killed at public events, but the police and authorities seem helpless.

When former ANC Youth League secretary-general Sindiso Magaqa died in September after being shot 15 times in an ambush in July, his family laid the blame with the party.

"We love [the ANC] but when they do this' we are scared... Everything points to December," Magaqa's uncle said.

The culture of violence in KwaZulu-Natal was graphically demonstrated recently by an internet video of two bodyguards of an ANC regional secretary bragging they were about to kill someone.

"That dog is going to die today," one said as they sat in a car and cocked their pistols and an assault rifle.

KwaZulu-Natal is not new to political unrest. It endured the worst of the violence in the final days of apartheid as the ANC fought against another black party, the Inkatha Freedom Party.

Zuma, who was born in KwaZulu-Natal, will remain in office after giving up the party chief post in December, but the new ANC leader will have a strong chance of succeeding him as president in 2019 elections.

The province is seen as divided among supporters of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, Zuma's ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Zweli Mkhize, the party's treasurer.

Speaking in the small town of Harding, where four government officials have recently been murdered, Dlamini-Zuma told AFP that the killings must stop.

"We cannot continue with this kind of culture. Killing is a crime... so we cannot tolerate it," she said.

Graca Machel, widow of former ANC leader Nelson Mandela, has also voiced disgust at the bloodshed, saying political assassinations were "shockingly commonplace".

The country's Police Minister Fikile Mbalula recently said he was "very much confident that we will make major breakthroughs in relation to the killings".

But many analysts and activists worry that the violence points to a volatile general election in 2019.

The ANC provincial leadership, which admits that corruption and the battle for local positions are fuelling the assassinations, have vowed to stamp out the killings.

"We must address these things swiftly before the violence escalates," said ANC's provincial chairman Sihle Zikalala.

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Bodhtree Consulting Ltd, an IT consulting and software service provider, today announced it has completed Rs 56 crore worth of DMMP 1 project for the Medical Council of India (MCI).

The project, expected to reach more than 550 medical colleges, aims to create a digital network facilitating data exchange across all medical institutions in the country. It also envisages converting the Indian Medical Register in the digital mode.

By delivering the first project, Bodhtree received its second contract from the MCI for DMMP 2 worth Rs 105 crore, the company said.

"Through this (first) project, there will be a digital dimension for MCI which will help to make their work easier. It is because of our sheer dedication we have again bagged the second project from MCI and I am confident the second project will also be a huge success," Bodhtree managing director LN Ramakrishna said.

****************** SMT bags 2-year contract from Italian public hospitals



Sahajanand Medical Technologies (SMT), through its Italian partner EUKON Srl, has signed an agreement with the Emilia Romagna region in Italy to deliver approximately 10,000 Supraflex stents in the next two years.

The agreement was signed after Supraflex won against nine other DES following eight months of technical and economical evaluations.

"The partnership with SMT gave us all the ammunition to step in to a difficult market segment where an extremely fine balance in required between the needs of the interventional cardiologists, who only ask for top quality devices, and the national healthcare system, whose focus is to decrease the health care costs," said EUKON Sole Director Gennaro Broya de Lucia.

*************** ANI Integrated Services SME IPO to open on Nov 8



Mumbai-based ANI integrated Services Ltd, engaged in the business of engineering services, will be launching its SME initial public offering (IPO) with a price band of Rs 100 per equity share of face value of Rs 10 each.

The IPO consists of a fresh issue of 16,87,200 equity shares of face value of Rs 10 each for cash at a price of Rs 100 per equity share aggregating to Rs 16.87 crore and 8,78,400 equity shares aggregating to Rs 8.78 crore through an offer for sale by shareholders and promoters.

It will open on November 8, the company said.

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The corpse of a woman with her throat slit was found from her residence in the city's Chitpur area and a person believed to have been in a relationship with her was arrested, police said today.

A senior Kolkata Police officer said the man admitted to murdering the woman, who was sex worker.

The police also recovered a chopper alleged used in the crime after interrogating him, the officer said.

The body of the 35-year-old woman lying in a pool of blood was found last night following calls from locals and the man was arrested today.

The man alleged that the woman was squeezing money from him and he had given here a part of the money he had got by selling his house in the Andamans. He had become fed up and had decided to kill her, the officer said.

The police had earlier detained the woman's husband in connection with the case.

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A suicide car bomb attack killed nine people in a government-held village in Syria's Golan Heights today, state media said, reporting clashes between government forces and rebels afterwards.

State agency SANA said the car bomb hit the outskirts of the village of Hader, and had injured at least 23 people.

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Britain today rejected a Russian bid to attach conditions to the extension of a UN-led panel tasked with identifying who is behind chemical attacks in Syria's six-year war.

Russia has circulated a draft Security Council resolution that calls for a six-month extension of the panel, known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM). Its mandate expires on November 16.

The United States has put forward a rival text seeking two more years for the JIM following the release of its latest report blaming the Syrian government for a sarin gas attack.

Moscow's text proposed that the council shelve that report on the use of the nerve agent on the opposition-held village of Khan Sheikhun to allow for a new investigation.

British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said: "The Russian draft resolution is a cynical ploy to discredit a professional, independent and impartial body."



"Russia is trying to shoot the messenger to cover up for the crimes of its abhorrent ally."



Britain called on the council to renew the JIM's "existing mandate, which has already delivered rigorous and conclusive findings."



Russia has questioned the work of the panel because the experts did not go to Khan Sheikhun and worked from samples Moscow maintains may have been tampered with by Western intelligence.

The Russian-drafted measure "requests the JIM to retain its findings... until such time when full-scale and high- quality investigation on the site of an incident becomes possible."



The US draft resolution expresses "grave concern" over the findings on the sarin attack and said the experts should "undertake their respective investigations in a manner that they deem appropriate to fulfill their mandate."



More than 80 people, including young children, died in the April 4 attack that provoked global outrage and prompted the United States to fire cruise missiles at a Syrian air base.

The Security Council will discuss the report on Tuesday.

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Britain's Prince Charles will arrive in India on November 8 to invite Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), that will be held next year in the UK.

The announcement of Prince Charles' two-day visit was made by external affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar here today.

The prince would be accompanied by his wife Duchess of Cornwall, Camilla Parker Bowles, during the visit, which is a part of their 10-day tour of four nations -- Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and India, he said.

The visit is aimed at strengthening bilateral relations.

The Prince is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Modi and discuss a wide range of issues, including climate change, sustainable development goals, economic cooperation and the upcoming CHOGM meet, which will take place in April 2018, in the UK, Kumar said.

India and the UK have robust economic ties and their current trade stands at USD 12.19 billion.

India is the 3rd largest investor in the UK and the second largest international job creator in the UK.

The UK is the 3rd largest inward investor in India, with a cumulative equity investment of USD 24.37 billion for the period April 2000June 2017



This visit will be the 9th visit of the Prince of Wales to India since 1975, last being in 2013.

The Indian diaspora in the UK is one of the largest ethnic minority communities there, with the 2011 census recording approximately 1.5 million people of Indian-origin in the UK, contributing 6 per cent to the country's GDP.

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The BSF and the police today bade farewell to Constable Tapa Mondal who was killed when Pakistani Rangers fired at a patrol party along the International Border in Jammu and Kashmir's Samba district.

A wreath-laying ceremony was organised in martyr memorial at the Border Security Force headquarter in his honour which was attended by top security officials, including Director General of Police (DGP) Jammu and Kashmir S P Vaid and Inspector General BSF Ram Awatar.

The mortal remains of 25-year-old Mondal will be flown to his native Satui village in Murshidabad district of West Bangal via Delhi.

He is survived by his mother Sumitra Mondal.

Pakistani Rangers fired at a patrol party along the IB in Samba district yesterday, drawing heavy retaliation from the Indian force in which three posts were damaged and two rangers injured.

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Kevin Spacey's talent agency of past eight years, CAA, has parted ways with the actor following numerous sexual harassment allegations.

Spacey's publicist, Staci Wolfe of Polaris, also no longer works with the actor, reported Deadline.

The action come in the wake of mounting allegations of assault and harassment against the actor, which began after Anthony Rapp claimed that Spacey behaved inappropriately toward him when he was 14-years-old.

Filmmaker and actor Tony Montana, best known for 2003 documentary "Overnight", and Mexican actor Roberto Cavazos, who worked with Spacey at the Old Vic Theatre, London, also came forward with stories of sexual misconduct or assault by Spacey.

Since the allegations broke, production in the sixth season of "House of Cards" has been suspended.

Eight people who currently work on "House of Cards" or worked in the past have accused Spacey of creating a "toxic" environment on the sets through his "predatory" behaviour.
The Centre today assured all assistance to the Chhattisgarh government to deal with Naxalism, which continue to pose a threat to several states.

Home Minister Rajnah Singh gave the assurance to Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh at a meeting, which was attended by senior officers of the central and state governments, a statement said.

The two leaders noted that the declining trend of left- wing extremism continues across the country.

Naxalism-related incidents have dropped by 21 per cent as compared to the corresponding period last year. Naxalites are under pressure with ever shrinking influence, both in terms of geographical spread and public support, they noted.

Security and development-related measures required to achieve the same were discussed, the statement said.

The central government provides security-related assistance to the state which includes provision for central armed police forces personnel, helicopters, UAVs among others.

In addition, 11 India Reserve battalions and two Special India Reserve battalions have been sanctioned to the state.

Funds have also been provided for fortification of 75 police stations and capacity building of special forces under the Special Infrastructure Scheme.

As part of the multi-pronged strategy to deal with Naxalites, the central government gives equal focus to development measures to bring Maoists-affected districts on par with other areas.

The central government has approved a special central assistance scheme for 35 worst-affected LWE districts with an annual outlay of Rs 1000 crore.

Important development schemes include the Road Requirement Plan PhaseI under which Chhattisgarh was sanctioned 1,988 km of road out of which 1,351 km have been completed.

Under the newly launched RRP-II, Chhattisgarh has been sanctioned 891 km of road. To improve mobile connectivity, 519 mobile towers have been installed in Phase-I. Another 1028 towers are being planned in Phase-II of the project.

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The 80-year-old 'Cheena Bhavana', the department of Chinese language & Culture in Visva-Bharati university, will initiate more scholar and student exchange programmes in coming years with support from China, its head Abhijit Banerjee said.

Visva-Bharati has signed four MoUs in recent times under which scholars were sent to China and students from Chinese universities came to the Cheena Bhavana on short term exchange programmes, he said.

"However, we are planning to bring more Chinese scholars from Yunan and Sanghai universities and other institutes in China. The people of China and their government are exchanging all kind of help in this regard," he said.

He was talking to PTI on the sidelines of a programme to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the department which was set up in 1937.

Tracing the journey of the institute, Banerjee said, "Gurudeb (Tagore) had thought about people to people interaction and we have not moved away from that path."



"We are also bringing in other areas such as business, politics and education in research work," he said.

Tagore had visited China in 1924 when he met Prof Tan Yun Shan and invited him to come to Visva-Bharati and set up the department where Chinese and Indian scholars may undertake studies on philosophy and culture of the two nations.

This year also marks the 90th anniversary of Tan Yun Shan who had devoted his life to promote the language and culture of China at the Cheena Bhavana, Banerjee said.

Stating that wall paintings of the Cheena Bhavan had been jointly done by Indian and Chinese students reflecting the synergy of art of the two countries, he said.

Tagore family descendant and a Cheena Bhavana alumnus, 95-year-old Amitendranath Tagore said, Prof Tan Yun Shan had personally supervised the work when the department was coming up in 1937 and brought distinguished Chinese scholars here.

To make Indian soldiers conversant with the Chinese language, the Cheena Bhavana started a certificate-level course earlier this year and the classes were being taken at the military base at Panagarh military base in neighbouring Burdwan West district.

To a question, acting Vice Chancellor Swapan Dutta said, "Indian students can get a lot of exposure by learning Chinese from the academic and professional point of view."



Banerjee said presently 160 students are enrolled at the Cheena Bhavana and among the faculty members, one is from China.

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India today asserted that China's continuous blocking of Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhar's designation as a global terrorist by the UN will not deter it from fighting terrorism.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said India's concern over the issue has been raised with the Chinese side at various levels, including at the highest.

However, he did not categorically say whether India raised the issue after China's recent block of a proposal, moved by the US, the UK and France, to ban Azhar by the UN.

"I think the decision by a country to block a consensus should not be seen as an end to our counter-terrorism efforts. What is important is that it does not, in any way, take away our resolve to fight terrorism," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.

During a media briefing, he said India will continue to work with like-minded countries to fight terrorism.

"It will not impact our resolve to fight terror...to keep Indian territory safe," he said, referring to China's decision.

China yesterday had for the fourth time blocked the bid to list Pathankot terror attack mastermind Azhar as a global terrorist by the UN, saying "there is no consensus" within the members of the sanctions committee.

A veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, China has repeatedly blocked India, the US and other nations' bid to put a ban on the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief under the Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the Council.

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China today denied reports that its ambitious USD 50 billion economic corridor in Pakistan as well as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in a host of other countries were bogged down with problems.

Questioning the veracity of the media reports from many countries including Pakistan, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said the projects are going on smoothly.

"I wonder how you arrive at this conclusion and what basis and evidence do you have," Hua replied when asked about media reports that BRI projects were bogged down with problems in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos and Singapore.

President Xi Jinping's ambitious project 'BRI', which includes China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), has been included in the Constitution of the ruling Communist Party of China in the just concluded once-in-a-five-year Congress.

According to officials, the Chinese firms so far have invested USD 560 billion overseas under the BRI since 2013 and paid over USD 100 billion in taxes and created millions of jobs.

In Pakistan alone, China is reported to have committed to invest over USD 50 billion and some estimates even put the amount at more than USD 60 billion in the CPEC, connecting China's Xinjiang province with Balochistan's Gwadar port.

India has objected to the CPEC as it is being laid through the disputed territory and boycotted a high-profile Belt and Road Forum organised by China in May.

"China's high-stakes Belt and Road project in Pakistan has sucked it into the vortex of a power struggle between Pakistans elected government and its military on the one hand and an increasingly bitter geopolitical row on the other as the US and India join forces," according to a recent report in the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.

While pushing the CPEC "in a massive vote of confidence in its all-weather ally, Chinese officials have quietly encouraged their Pakistani partners to facilitate the success of the project by abandoning its decades-old pursuit of strategic objectives in Afghanistan and Kashmir through the support of non-state jihadis," the article said.

This created problems because these terror outfits have for years been a major bone of contention between Pakistan's powerful military and its civilian government, it said and attributed deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif's subsequent loss of power and a host of court cases against him as a result of this.

Brushing aside reports of any problems, Hua quoted the Chinese Commerce Ministry as saying that the BRI projects have been going on smoothly.

"I dont know how your Reporters arrive at such conclusion," Hua said, asserting that projects in Pakistan and Laos are going an smoothly.

The BRI was high on agenda of China after Xi took over power in 2012 as Beijing made expansive plans to better utilise its over USD three trillion foreign exchange reserves as well as to enhance its global influence.

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A Chinese official is disputing President Donald Trump's claim that the deadly opioid fentanyl flooding the US is mostly produced in China.

Wei Xiaojun, deputy director-general of the Narcotics Control Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, says China doesn't dispute that some fentanyl produced illicitly inside the country is contributing to America's opioid epidemic.

But Wei says there isn't sufficient evidence to show that the majority of fentanyl in the US originates in China, based on information exchanged between the countries' anti-drug agencies.

Trump last month said the US was stepping up measures to "hold back the flood of cheap and deadly fentanyl, a synthetic opioid manufactured in China and 50 times stronger than heroin."



Trump arrives in Beijing Tuesday and says he plans to make fentanyl a priority.

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India said today that China's continuous blocking of Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhar's designation as a global terrorist by the UN will not deter it from fighting terrorism.

"I think the decision by a country to block a consensus should not be seen as an end to our counter-terrorism efforts. What is important is that it does not, in any way, take away our resolve to fight terrorism," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.

During a media briefing, he said India will continue to work with like-minded countries to fight terrorism.

"It will not impact our resolve to fight terror," he said, referring to China's decision.

China yesterday had for the fourth time blocked the bid to list Pathankot terror attack mastermind Azhar as a global terrorist by the UN, saying "there is no consensus" within the members of the sanctions committee.

A veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, China has repeatedly blocked India, the US and other nations' bid to put a ban on the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief under the Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the Council.

Kumar said India had taken up the issue with the highest level of the Chinese government.

On Zakir Naik, Kumar said India will soon make a formal request to Malaysia for his extradition.

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China and the US are working to ensure President Donald Trump's visit to Beijing next week is a "historic success", Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang said today.

Trump, who will pay a State Visit to China from November 8 to 10, will be the first head of state to visit the country after the 19th National Congress of the ruling Communist Party of China.

The Congress endorsed a second term for President Xi Jinping, regarded as the most powerful leader of China in recent years.

President Xi will receive Trump with high standards in reciprocity to the hospitality he had received from the US president at Mar-a-Lago in April, Zheng was quoted saying by state-run Xinhua agency.

"Apart from the red-carpet ceremony, formal talks and banquet, the two presidents will have informal arrangements," Zheng told reporters.

The two leaders will exchange views on major issues of mutual concern, attend a business community event and meet the press, he added.

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Bihar Vidhan Sabha Speaker Vijay Kumar Choudhary will reach Dhaka tomorrow to take part in a five-day Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference.

Choudhary, who left for New Delhi today, will be part of the Indian delegation which will take part in the five-day conference beginning tomorrow.

At the conference, he is likely to express his views on topics like "what factors fuel the different kinds of nationalism", a release issued by the Vidhan Sabha said.

After the conclusion of the conference, the Speaker will leave for a "post conference study tour" of Hong Kong, Tokyo, San Francisco and Los Angeles, the release added.

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Cox and Kings Global Services (CKGS) today said it has expanded Thai Visa Application Centres in tier II and III cities.

CKGS, empanelled by the Royal Thai Embassy in Delhi and the consulates in Chennai and Kolkata, currently operates centres in these three metro cities, a release issued here said.

In the next phase of operations, offices will be open in tier II and III cities, which have huge traffic from India to Thailand, it added.

"We will provide services such as disseminating visa related information provided and approved by the Thai Embassy and its consulates as well as pre-scrutiny of documents and acceptance of visa application and passports from the general public and travel agents," CKGS Chief Operating Officer Venku Murthi said.

Thailand registered a 15 per cent growth in Indian tourist arrivals in the first half of 2017. India is ranked sixth as a source market for the South Asian country.

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Professional competence of those being considered for appointment as judges can best be determined by the members of the higher judiciary and not by the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the Supreme Court collegium has said.

The apex court collegium, headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, has said this while recommending the names of three of the four advocates for appointment as judges of the Jharkhand High Court.

"As regards comments of Intelligence Bureau about professional competence...we are of the view that professional competence can best be determined by the members of the higher judiciary who have the opportunity to observe his performance on a daily basis," the collegium, which also comprised Justices J Chelameswar and Ranjan Gogoi, said.

"As regards comments touching upon his integrity, the same are qualified by Intelligence Bureau's own statement that 'there is nothing on record'. In our view, it would not be appropriate to take cognisance of any unsubstantiated information based on discreet inquiries made by the Intelligence Bureau," the collegium said.

The apex court collegium has recommended the names of advocates Rajesh Kumar, Anubha Rawat Choudhary and Kailash Prasad Deo for appointment as judges of the Jharkhand High Court after finding them suitable for elevation to the bench.

"Their inter se seniority be fixed as per the existing practice," it said.

Similarly, the collegium has also recommended the name of advocate Arindam Lodh for elevation as a judge of the Tripura High Court.

The collegium also dealt with proposal for appointment of three additional judges as permanent judges of the Gauhati High Court.

It noted in its resolution that terms of two out of these three additional judges was going to expire shortly on November 21.

The collegium has said that at present, the two out of these three judges be appointed as additional judges for a fresh term of one year with effect from November 22, while one of them be appointed as additional judge for a fresh term of one year from January 7, 2018.

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The US may designate North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, the White House has said, ahead of President Donald Trump's five-nation trip to Asia during which the issue of Pyongyang's nuclear programme is expected to be discussed.

Tensions have dramatically risen on the Korean peninsula after North Korea, early in September, conducted its biggest nuclear test, which its state-run KCNA agency described as a hydrogen bomb.

Nuclear-armed North Korea in August fired a ballistic missile over Japan in a major escalation by Pyongyang amid tensions over its nuclear ambitions.

The US may designate North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, said National Security Adviser H R McMaster.

"That is an option that's under consideration," McMaster told reporters at a White House conference when asked if designating North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism is an option for the US.

"The president's cabinet is looking at this as part of the overall strategy on North Korea," he said.

McMaster lashed out at the North Korean regime for the "murder" of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged brother of its dictator Kim Jong-Un.

Kim Jong-nam was allegedly killed by Kim Jong-Un in Malaysia.

"A regime who murders someone in a public airport using nerve agent, and a despotic leader who murders his brother in that manner, that's clearly an act of terrorism that fits with a range of other actions. So this is something that's under consideration. And you'll hear more about that soon, I think," McMaster said ahead of Trump's visit.

Trump will embark on a 12-day trip to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Hawaii from today till November 14.

McMaster said there is a concerted effort to isolate North Korea economically. And that has been combined with a major diplomatic effort that asks all countries to do more, he said, adding that there's tremendous momentum behind that now.

"We have seen countries across the Indo-Pacific region, but globally, doing more to expel these really, in effect, North Korea slave labourers who are a big source of income for the regime, to shut down a lot of illicit trafficking that was aimed to circumvent the UN sanctions; to shut down a lot of the money-making enterprises of this regime, often times run out of their embassies," he said.

There have been a lot of expulsion of ambassadors, elements of the diplomatic corps, a restriction on this kind of activity, he said, noting that the president welcomes that and appreciates it.

China, he said, is definitely doing more, but obviously it's not enough.

"What's really essential to remember about China's approach to this is, China recognises this isn't the United States or anyone else asking China to do us a favour. China recognises it is clearly in the interest of China and all nations to denuclearise the peninsula," he said.

McMaster rued that approaches in the past have not delivered on halting and then reversing North Korea's "very dangerous" nuclear and missile programmes.

"We are out of time to do that because of how these programs have advanced over time. It's time for a really concerted effort to do everything of us to resolve this sort of military action," he said.

Responding to another question, he highlighted three elements of foundation for the multinational approach to North Korea.

"The first of these is a recognition that North Korea is not just a threat to the United States. Everyone acknowledges, China especially, that this is a problem between North Korea and the world," he said.

The second thing, he said, is the universal acknowledgement that denuclearisation of the peninsula is the only acceptable outcome.

"No more freeze for freeze, suspension for suspension," he said.

In addition, McMaster said, "China's acknowledgement that it's acting in its interest obviously, but that China has a great deal of coercive economic power.

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Governments, scientists, industry groups and environmental campaigners are meeting in Germany next week to discuss implementing a global agreement to curb climate change, despite uncertainty over how the United States will figure into the effort.

President Donald Trump announced earlier this year that the US will pull out of the 2015 Paris climate accord unless his administration can secure a better deal.

Other countries have pledged to press on regardless at the November 6-17 meeting in the western German city of Bonn. The 23rd Conference of the Parties (COP) will be presided over by Fiji, one of the small island nations particularly vulnerable to the effects of global warming.

Researchers say extreme weather like the events of recent months, including hurricanes in the Caribbean, heatwaves in Europe and flooding in south Asia are going to become more frequent as a result of climate change. To prevent catastrophic consequences, they say countries must make concerted efforts to shift the global economy away from fossil fuels and to adjust to some inevitable impacts, such as rising sea levels.

"This COP is more important than most people realize," Andrew Steer, head of the World Resources Institute, a Washington-based environmental think tank, said.

Steer said a growing number of commitments from governments, as well as from major companies and cities around the world was "broadly encouraging." He noted the falling cost of renewable energy a key technology required to help power-hungry economies kick the carbon habit.

Most of the 195 countries coming to Bonn, where the UN climate agency is located, appear willing to continue hammering out the details needed to make the Paris 2015 accord work, German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said ahead of the two-week talks.

Negotiators will try to agree on ways to measure each country's greenhouse gas emissions and to make sure everyone is playing by the same rules. Since the Paris agreement doesn't foresee sanctions for countries that fail to meet their targets, peer pressure is the main mechanism for ensuring that governments abide by their commitments and continue to increase their efforts in future.

A key issue will be the transparency of emissions reports, said Nigel Purvis, a former US State Department negotiator under the Bill Clinton and George W Bush presidencies.

The United States used to be the major force pushing for more open reporting and that will suffer because of the Trump administration's planned withdrawal from Paris, he said.

"Without US leadership the deal is likely to take a little bit longer and may not be as strong," said Purvis, president of the group Climate Advisers.

Negotiators have until the end of 2018 to come up with the final rule book; it would be subject to approval at the next climate summit in Katowice, Poland.

Observers say that without the United States driving the talks, as it did in Paris when Barack Obama was in the White House, other leaders will have to fill the gap.

"The United States are not anymore the most important actor in this game of climate change," Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said.

"The most important actor is China, and India will soon become extremely important, as well as the European Union," Schellnhuber said.

Some are also placing their hopes in Emmanuel Macron. The French president is expected to fly in on November 15 to show his support during the final phase of the talks. Macron has called for a follow-up meeting in Paris next month.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a veteran of past climate summits, will also put in an appearance in Bonn despite being tied up in negotiations to form a new government. The Green Party, with which she hopes to forge a coalition, has urged Merkel to set a firm date for Germany to end the use of coal-fired power plants.

Environmental campaigners are planning to highlight Germany's continued reliance on the heavily polluting source of energy with a protest at a coal mine near Bonn ahead of the talks.

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The Anti Extortion Cell (AEC) of Thane police have caught red-handed a private detective and his wife while accepting Rs 1 crore extortion money from an IAS officer, who was sent on leave earlier this year pending an inquiry for alleged corruption, police said today.

According to the police, the couple, arrested yesterday from Dombivali in neighbouring Thane district, had threatened to defame the IAS officer, Radheshyam Mopalwar, using recordings of his purported phone conversations.

Satish Mangle, who works as a private detective, and his wife Shraddha had allegedly demanded Rs 7 crore from him for not releasing those tapes and also to retract their allegations of corruption against him, made earlier.

In August this year, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis removed Mopalwar as the vice-chairman and managing director of the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), after some audio recordings, where the officer is purportedly heard 'fixing' a land deal, surfaced.

Thane police commissioner Param Bir Singh today said, "Private detective Satish Mangle and his wife Shraddha were arrested by the officials of AEC from Mangle's rented flat in Dombivali yesterday.

"Police recovered two laptops, five mobile phones, four pen drives, 15 CDs and some incriminating documents from the flat," Singh added.

The couple and their friend, Anil Vedmehta, contacted Mopalwar through one Kling Mishra and asked him to meet them at Kharegaon toll plaza on Nashik Highway last month, Singh told reporters.

"Initially they demanded Rs 10 crore, but later they settled for Rs 7 crore. Mangle threatened that Mopalwar and his daughter will have to face consequences if he did not pay the money," Singh said.

Earlier, Mangle had twice threatened Mopalwar, seeking money claiming that he had contacts in the Arun Gawli gang and some other organised crime syndicates, and was blackmailing him, he said.

Mopalwar video-recorded his half-an-hour long conversation with Mangle at a five-star hotel in Mumbai on October 31 using spy-cams, during which the accused threatened and demanded money, the police commissioner said.

Mopalwar then approached the AEC of Thane police and lodged a complaint.

AEC sleuths laid a trap to arrest Mangle red-handed. "A policeman in plain clothes was sent to Mangle's house to hand over Rs 1 crore as an instalment of extortion money. The sleuths arrested Mangle and his wife when they were accepting the cash," the commissioner said.

"We are looking for their two accomplices," he added.

In the past, Mopalwar had sought Mangle's help, as a private detective, in his divorce-related issues.

While working on the case, Mangle allegedly made recordings of some private conversations, and later he demanded money from Mopalwar, blackmailing him.

Mangle also provided some of these incriminating audio clips to channels, which were aired.

Mangle and his wife also met politicians and media persons and made some serious allegations of corruption against Mopalwar. Subsequently he demanded Rs 10 crore to withdraw all allegations and to give back the audio clips, commissioner Singh said.

Mangle, who has studied upto Std 10th, networked with senior government officials and recorded their private conversations whenever he got opportunity, a police official said.

He was in trouble in 2012 when a case under the Information Technology Act was registered against him at Bandra police station in Mumbai, the official said. Mangle is also facing a case of extortion and another case of rape at Mira Road police station, he added.

Anti Extortion Cell's senior police inspector Pradeep Sharma is investigating the case.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Gujarat Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani today met Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and claimed that the opposition party had assured to incorporate "more than 90 per cent" of his demands in its manifesto for the upcoming state Assembly election.

Stopping short of declaring an open support to the Congress, Mevani, after his meeting with the Gandhi scion, said he would ask his community members to defeat the ruling BJP in the Gujarat polls.

The 182-member Gujarat Assembly is scheduled to go to the polls in two phases -- on December 9 and December 14.

"We listen to everyone and work after hearing their problems -- be it Jignesh, Hardik (Patidar quota stir leader Hardik Patel) or Alpesh (OBC leader Alpesh Thakor)," Rahul Gandhi said after the meeting.

On the other hand, the BJP was only interested in making the people listen to its "Mann Ki Baat", the Congress MP said, taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's radio programme.

Gandhi and Mevani had a half-an-hour long closed-door meeting at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Navsari.

Mevani, a Dalit rights campaigner who shot to fame after the Una Dalit flogging incident last year, dubbed the BJP government in Gujarat as "anti-Dalit".

"Since Una (the flogging incident), we have launched numerous agitations and submitted memorandums. Despite this, the thick-skinned BJP government, which is not only anti-Dalit but also anti-people, has not considered even one demand of our community. They have not even bothered to talk to us (about the demands)," Mevani told reporters after the meeting.

"The people of the state will put an end to this arrogance of the BJP," he said.

On the other hand, the Congress was receptive to the demands of the Dalit community, Mevani added.

"We (him and other Dalit leaders) had a detailed discussion with Rahulji on our 17 demands. Rahulji not only listened to us, but said over 90 per cent of our demands were our constitutional rights. He assured us that most of the legitimate demands would be included in the Congress' manifesto (for the Gujarat polls)," he said.

Asked if he would advise his community members to vote for the Congress in the upcoming Assembly polls, Mevani said, "I will ask my community not to vote for the BJP."



Mevani, who has been critical of the BJP government in the state, discussed the 17 demands of his community with the Congress vice-president, who is currently on an election campaign tour of south Gujarat.

The demands include an allotment of five acres of farmland to the Dalits, alternative employment for those involved in cattle-skinning and manual scavenging and the release of a probe report into an incident of firing on the community members at Thangadh in Surendranagar district in 2012.

Mevani had earlier said he had no plans to join any political party.

Of the three young and prominent caste or community leaders in Gujarat, Thakor has already joined the Congress, while Patel is in negotiations with the party regarding his community's demand for reservations in jobs and education.

The third one, Mevani, too appears to be supportive of the opposition party, which has been out of power in Gujarat, Modi's home state, for over two decades.

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A 40-year-old Dalit woman has charged her estranged husband's friend of raping her for five years in the Kotwali police station area here.

SP (city) Dinesh Tripathi today said the woman had accused her husband's friend Rajnish Gupta of raping her.

The woman had been living separately from her husband in the Kanshi Ram Colony here for the last five years, following differences with him, he added.

She had alleged that Gupta initially assured her that he would work out a settlement between the couple but subsequently, took advantage of the situation and started frequenting her place with a promise of marrying her, the SP said, adding that the accused allegedly went back on his words after the woman got pregnant.

The woman had met Superintendent of Police (SP) K B Singh yesterday, on whose directive an FIR was lodged last night.

Circle Officer Sumit Shukla had been asked to conduct a probe into the allegation and the woman had been sent for a medical examination, the police said.

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West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi has expressed concern over cases of dengue, chikungunya, malaria in the state and written to the Mamata Banerjee government, urging it to ensure treatment for those affected.

A statement issued by the Raj Bhavan today said the governor learnt about cases of dengue, chikungunya and malaria in the state from newspaper reports and other sources and that he was concerned about the health of the people.

"Governor Tripathi has written a letter to the state government ... that in view of the serious nature of all these diseases and concern expressed by a large number of the population in this regard, all efforts should be made for treatment as well as prevention of these diseases," the statement said.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had on October 30 said 13 dengue deaths were reported in the state, but there was no need to "panic".

The governor had written the letter to Banerjee yesterday.

A delegation of state Congress leaders led by WBPCC president Adhir Chowdhury had met him at Raj Bhawan on the dengue menace.

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The Calcutta High Court directed the West Bengal government today to file an action taken report on the dengue menace that has affected a large number of people in the state.

A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya and Justice Arijit Banerjee directed the state government to submit the report by coming Friday when a set of PILs seeking steps to control the vector-borne disease and compensation to the kin of those who died of dengue in the state would be heard again.

The bench directed the government to state the preventive and remedial measures taken by it to deal with the dengue menace that has mainly affected some southern districts and the metropolis.

At least three PILs were moved before the high court seeking immediate steps to deal with the situation.

One of the PILs prayed for the appointment of a medical commission to suggest preventive measures for dengue in West Bengal and monetary compensation to the heirs of those who died of the disease.

Claiming that the vector-borne disease had nearly reached "epidemic proportions" in some parts of the state, including Kolkata, petitioner Anindya Sundar Das prayed for a direction to the authorities concerned to formulate strategies for proper implementation of the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP).

He alleged that the state authorities were "trying to hide" the number of deaths due to the disease.

The petitioner also prayed that penal measures be taken against those violating preventive measures, particularly those littering streets and pavements.

He prayed for a direction to the state government to provide adequate compensation to legal heirs of those who had died of the disease.

"The authorities are negligent in implementing vital recommendations of the NVBDCP, including year-round surveillance, vector-control measures and a mid-term action plan," the petition said, claiming that the negligence was leading to a "gross escalation of morbidity and mortality".

Another petitioner prayed for direction to the state government to create more awareness among the people with regard to the disease so that the citizens could also be made stakeholders in its prevention.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had on October 30 said that 13 dengue deaths were reported from the state-run hospitals, while private hospitals reported 27 which were yet to be confirmed.

State chief secretary Moloy Dey had on October 24 said that 18,238 dengue cases had been reported in the state since January this year.

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Catalonia's deposed separatist leader Carles Puigdemont has said he was ready to run as a candidate in snap regional elections next month after his government was fired by Madrid for declaring independence.

"I'm ready to be a candidate," Puigdemont yesterday told RTBF television in Belgium, where he is currently holed up after leaving Catalonia at the weekend. "I want to send a message to our people."



A Spanish judge yesterday issued an EU arrest warrant against the deposed president of Catalonia -- a region of 7.5 million that remains deeply divided over the issue of independence.

"I will face justice, but (only) true justice... I told my lawyers to tell the Belgian judiciary I am completely ready to cooperate," Puigdemont said.

Madrid last month dissolved Catalonia's parliament after regional lawmakers voted to declare independence from Spain off the back of a banned referendum on the issue.

Puigdemont's deputy and seven other deposed regional ministers were detained on Thursday in Madrid.

New regional elections are set for December 21.

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Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh today announced development projects for Patiala worth Rs 1,000 crore, including canal-based drinking water supply scheme of Rs 782 crore, and 84,000 new job cards under the MNREGA.

Addressing a public rally here, Singh said the new job cards will take the total number of cards under the MNREGA in Patiala district to 1,82,000.

He said his government had made a beginning and the next four-and-a-half years would witness massive industrial and economic development, notwithstanding the fiscal and revenue deficit inherited by his government from the previous regime.

Singh said his government was focusing on industrial development to revive the state's economy and some of leading captains of industry from India and abroad had also shown interest.

The chief minister said Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Limited had set up a 13-member committee to identify areas of investment and industrial development in the state and added that the business tycoon had discussed the same at their meeting in Mumbai on Wednesday.

The chief minister also unveiled plans for the development of Bathinda refinery downstream clusters and said Japan had evinced interest in setting up a township in Rajpura.

Singh referred to his meetings with top industrialists in Mumbai over the past two days and referred to the measures taken by his government to promote industry in the state in order to generate employment and boost overall development.

Patiala, an education hub, would benefit immensely from this industrial development, he added.

Singh alleged that the previous government had adopted a "vindictive" approach and completely "ignored" Patiala's concerns as it was his constituency, but, he said, the Congress government was working on the development of all regions, keeping their needs in view.

The chief minister announced allocation of Rs 38 crore for conversion of Banur canal from non-perennial to perennial and Rs 12.5 crore for the construction of 250 houses for the homeless, at Rs 5 lakh per house under the Shehri Awaas Yojna.

An allocation of Rs 10 crore was made for the completion of the Aeronautical Engineering College here, he said, adding that Rs 9.41 crore had been set aside for the completion of various ongoing and outstanding projects under the PIDB.

Former Union minister Preneet Kaur said the initiatives taken for Patiala by the state government were just the beginning and that the chief minister would fulfill all promises made to the people of the region.

Local Bodies and Tourism Minister Navjot Sidhu claimed that with the removal of the Majithias, the region would witness unprecedented development.

What had not happened in 50 years will happen now in just five years, Sidhu said.

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Doctors at nearly 45,000 private hospitals and nursing homes in Karnataka staged protests today against the proposed "draconian" amendments to an act governing the medical profession, badly affecting services in out-patient departments (OPD).

The doctors are opposing the proposed amendments to the Karnataka Private Medical Establishments Act, 2007, to make the private hospitals and nursing homes accountable, saying they were detrimental to the medical profession.

Protesting against the proposed amendments based on the recommendations madeby retired Supreme Court judge Justice Vikramajit Sen, the doctors suspended outpatient and consultancy services.

Nearly 45,000 private hospitals, including those attached to medical colleges, nursing homes,and clinics across the state were affected by the one-day agitation, claimed Indian Medical Association's state unit president H N Ravindra.

Only emergency cases were taken up, he added.

There were huge crowds outside government hospitals, that were open for out-patients.

Flaying the proposed amendments, Ravindra said, "The government hastabled a draconian amendment to the KPME Act, which existedsince 2007. It is detrimental to the profession."



The governmentintended to set up another cell, although doctors already facemany penalties through consumer court.

"It wants us doctors torun around the courts," he said, adding that there was another provision for imprisoning doctors for three years for mistakes.

"No doctor treats his patient to kill. Instead of upgrading government hospitals, the government wants to regulate us. We demand that the government should include government hospitals also in the bill," Ravindra said.

Medical Director of Manipal Hospitals NagendraSwamy came down heavily on the government for theamendments.

He claimed that the Justice Sen panel had recommended inclusion ofgovernment hospitals in the bill, but the recommendation had been dropped.

"Why should the onus be only on private hospitals while there is no accountability for the government hospitals?" Dr Swamy asked.

He alleged that the move was as an "election gimmick" to woo voters in the state, which is going to Assembly polls early next year.

The Karnataka Janaarogya Chaluvali, a network of civil society and local organisations working on health issues, condemnedthe agitation by private medical establishments, saying they were opposing the government's attempt to hold themaccountable, adhere to the safety guidelines and patients'rights.

It also alleged that the private hospitals werespreading "misinformation" by "twisting and misrepresenting"various provisions of the amendments.

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The ED has issued fresh summons asking Tejashwi Yadav, son of RJD leader Lalu Prasad, to appear before it on November 13 in connection with its money laundering probe in the railway hotels allotment corruption case, officials sources today said.

The fresh date has been issued after theformer Bihar deputy chief minister skipped similar summons of appearance for October 31, they said.

The fresh date for his appearance is November 13 now, they added.

The agency had registered a case against Lalu Prasad, his family members and others under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) sometime back.

Tejashwi's mother and former Bihar chief minister Rabri has already been asked by the ED to appear before it on November 7, for questioning in the case.

Tejashwi has been once grilled by the ED for over nine hours in connection with the case but he later skipped four summonses to appear again.

Rabri Devi too has skipped the ED summonses at least five times.

In July, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had registered an FIR and conducted multiple searches on the properties of Lalu Prasad, who is also a former Bihar chief minister, and others.

The CBI FIR has alleged that Lalu Prasad during his tenure as the railway minister handed over the maintenance of two Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) hotels to a company in 2004 after receiving a bribe in the form of a prime land in Patna through a 'benami' company owned by Sarla Gupta, wife of Prem Chand Gupta, a former Union minister.

The ED had registered a criminal case against his family members and others under the PMLA, based on the CBI FIR.

The CBI also recently recorded the statements of Tejashwi and Lalu Prasad in this case.

The ED is investigating the alleged "proceeds of crime" generated by the accused, purportedly through shell companies, according to officials.

Others named in the CBI FIR include Vijay Kochhar, Vinay Kochhar (both directors of Sujata Hotels), Delight Marketing company, now known as Lara Projects, and the then IRCTC managing director P K Goel.

The CBI FIR was registered on July 5 in connection with favours allegedly extended to Sujata Hotels in awarding a contract for the upkeep of the hotels in Ranchi and Puri and receiving premium land as 'quid pro quo'.

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The Enforcement Directorate has issued a FEMA notice to Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik and two others for alleged forex violation of Rs 48.23 lakh, official sources said today.

The show cause notice to the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief and a Srinagar-based couple was issued recently by the central probe agency under provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, they said.

The case relates to a 2001 FIR from the Jammu and Kashmir police, which seized USD 1,00,000 (about Rs 48.23 lakh according to conversion rates at the time) from Srinagar -based Mushtaq Ahmad Dar and his wife Shamima alias Shazia aias Bitti.

Dar reportedly told the police that the money was given to him by a person in Nepal to be handed to the JKLF chief.

Malik was arrested in the case but was later let off on bail.

The FEMA notice has been issued after investigators completed their over decade-long probe, officials said.

The agency has asked Malik and the two others to reply to the notice in the next 30 days after which civil adjudication proceedings will begin against them.

Malik was also summoned by the ED in the case but never went.

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The Madras High Court today took a serious view of the electrocution of two minor girls after they stepped on a live wire submerged in rain water and directed the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) to pay Rs 10 lakh compensation each to next of kin.

"Keeping live wires open smacks of criminal negligence. The respondents shall ensure that all naked wires in the city are sealed and that adequate steps are taken to ensure that such incidents do not take place in future," the court said.

The bench headed by Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar, took suo motu notice of the incident after a mention was made by Advocate George Williams yesterday.

Additional Advocate General Manishankar submitted that already Rs two lakh each were paid to the bereaved families while Advocate Williams sought a compensation of Rs 25 lakh.

The negligence on the part of TANGEDCO to maintain the electricity supply boxes and wires in a good condition had scattered the dreams of their parents to make them engineers or doctors, Williams told the bench.

After hearing their submissions, the bench said Rs 10 lakh shall be paid to the respective families within seven days after deducting the amount of Rs 2 lakh which was already paid.

The two girls were electrocuted when they stepped on a live wire submerged in water while playing at Kondungaiyur area in the city on November 1.

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Essel Finance today forayed into mutual fund business and expects to have an asset base of Rs 1 lakh crore in the next 7-8 years.

Essel Finance is the umbrella brand for the financial businesses of the USD 10-billion conglomerate Essel Group, founded by Subhash Chandra.

"We feel that the mutual fund industry will double its assets under management (AUM) in the next five to six years. At Essel Finance, our aim is to get a large pie of this growth with Rs 1 lakh crore AUM for Essel Mutual Fund in the next seven to eight years," Essel Finance Managing Director Amitabh Chaturvedi said in a statement.

In November last year, Peerless Group, a Kolkata-based financial services major, sold its mutual fund business to Essel Finance Management.

The assets under management of Peerless General Finance stood at Rs 9,554 crore as on March 31.

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The EU today refused to intervene over the European arrest warrant Spain is set to issue for Catalonia's deposed leader Carles Puigdemont, currently holed up in Belgium, saying it was a matter for the courts.

A Spanish judge is expected to issue the warrant demanding Belgium return Puigdemont, who is wanted for questioning over alleged sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds in relation to his region's independence drive.

Catalan efforts to make the crisis an international issue have so far failed, and the European Union has been steadfast in its support for Madrid throughout, insisting it is an internal matter for Spain.

European Commission spokeswoman Annika Breidthardt reiterated that support at a conference today, deflecting a barrage of questions about Catalonia with the same response.

"This is a matter entirely for the judicial authorities whose independence we respect fully," Breidthardt said.

Puigdemont's Belgian lawyer Paul Bekaert, who in the past has helped Basque separatists militants challenge Spanish extradition requests, told Flemish television channel VRT yesterday his client would fight efforts to send him to Spain.

Puigdemont, sacked as regional president a week ago by Madrid after the Catalan parliament issued a declaration of independence, has been in Belgium since Monday and calls the allegations against him politically motivated.

A Spanish judge yesterday threw eight members of Puigdemont's axed regional government behind bars pending potential trial, prompting a protest by some 20,000 people in Barcelona.

The Catalan independence declaration was roundly spurned across Europe, with Germany, France and Britain rejecting it and EU institutions sticking to their support for the government of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

The European Commission's powerful chief Jean-Claude Juncker warned after the independence declaration that the 28 -member bloc "doesn't need any more cracks, more splits", saying he didn't want the EU "to consist of 95 member states".

Juncker will be in the Spanish city of Salamanca yesterday to receive an honorary degree.

EU officials fear Catalonia could spark a domino effect in a continent with numerous separatist movements from Britain to Belgium to Romania, and with the bloc still reeling from the impact of Brexit, a fresh blow to unity is seen as a major threat.

But the bloc's stance is causing disquiet among some MEPs, who see Madrid's hardline handling of the crisis as running counter to European democratic ideals.

"The silence of the European Institutions remains astounding," Ska Keller and Philippe Lamberts, the heads of the Greens bloc in the European Parliament, said today.

"While the European Commission is right to assert the rule of law as a foundation of the Union, so are fairness, building bridges and democratic principles, which have to be respected in all member states.

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A Balurghat court today granted anticipatory bail to expelled CPI(M) leader Ritabrata Banerjee in a case filed by a woman alleging that he had established physical relationship with her after promising marriage.

District sessions judge Sudeb Mitra also directed Banerjee, a Rajya Sabha member, to surrender before the court within three weeks and submit a bond of Rs 5000 for anticipatory bail.

The court also ordered him to cooperate with the CID investigating the case and not to exert any influence during the pendency of the case.

The woman, a resident of Balurghat in South Dinajpur district, lodged a complaint with the police last month that Banerjee had established physical relationship with her at his New Delhi residence after promising marriage, but later backtracked.

The case was taken up the CID.

Banerjee has claimed that the woman's allegations were false and he too lodged a police complaint in Kolkata, demanding action against her for "maligning" his image.

The CPI(M) had on September 15 expelled Banerjee for "gross anti-party activity".

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The police recovered fake currency notes with a face value of Rs 4 lakh hidden in the soles of the shoes being carried by a man who was arrested here, a Kolkata Police officer said today.

Acting on a tip-off, the Special Task Force of Kolkata Police yesterday intercepted Wasim Akram near Beniapukur in central Kolkata and searched the bag he was carrying.

"Nothing much was found other than three pairs of brand new sneakers which was quite unusual. Then we found that he was walking quite awkwardly wearing a similar pair of sneakers. On search, we found the fake currency notes," the officer said.

The counterfeit notes, all in Rs 2000 denomination and having a face value of Rs 4 lakh, were hidden in the soles of the shoes in his bag and the one he was wearing, he said.

It was revealed during interrogation that Akram was planning to visit Mumbai to deliver the fake notes there, he added.

STF officers were trying to find out whether Akram, a resident of Baishnabnagar in Malda district, was working for a racket.

Malda, a district bordering Bangladesh in north Bengal, has emerged as a preferred route for fake note smugglers.

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The Finance Ministry and Asian Development Bank (ADB) jointly reviewed 55 projects worth USD 13.5 billion financed by the multilateral lender.

Over 150 officials of the central and state governments, including project directors and ADB staff, participated in the meeting recently held in Bengaluru, the finance ministry said in a release today.

"As of October 2017, ADB's projects under implementation for India comprise 55 projects amounting to USD 13.5 billion of which works worth USD 9.6 billion is ongoing...," it said.

ADB primarily focuses its assistance in India on three infrastructure sectors - energy, transport and urban infrastructure and services, it said.

The meeting also accorded the best project implementation performance awards to Madhya Pradesh Power Transmission and Distribution System Improvement Project, Kolkata Environmental Improvement Investment Program (Tranche-1) and Uttarakhand Emergency Assistance Project.

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The finance ministry is likely to hold a meeting with top management of public sector banks on November 11 and 12 to discuss various issues, including bad loans and recapitalisation, sources said.

The meeting assumes significance in the light of the recent government announcement of fund infusion in the public sector banks over a period of two years.

Last month, the government had announced a Rs 2.11 lakh crore bank recapitalisation plan, of which Rs 76,000 crore will come through budgetary support and bank stake sales, and Rs 1.35 lakh crore as bonds.

The meeting, according to sources, would discuss on increased lending to Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME), recovery on non-performing assets (NPAs), credit growth, capacity building among others.

While announcing the unprecedented Rs 2.11 lakh crore capital infusion roadmap for the public sector banks last week, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said, this will be accompanied by series of banking reforms over next few months.

Banks are facing mounting NPAs to the tune of Rs 8 lakh crore. The bank NPAs are skirting the double digit mark at present and expected to grow further.

NPAs of public sector banks have increased from Rs 2.75 lakh crore in March 2015 to Rs 7.33 lakh crore as on June 2017.

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Around Rs 13.50 crore of government money meant for construction of toilets in Bihar was allegedly transferred to four NGOs by an engineer of the PHed department against whom an FIR has been filed.

Government money was allegedly transferred by Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED) then Executive Engineer Vinay Kumar Sinha to four NGOs and some individuals for the construction of toilets in May 2016 when the work of toilet construction was taken from PHED and given to Rural Development Department, officials said.

The money was to be transferred directly to the beneficiaries as there was no role for NGOs in the construction of toilets, Patna District Magistrate Sanjay Kumar Agarwal told PTI.

There are no records to ascertain as whether or not money actually went to the beneficiaries' accounts, he added.

The funds were meant to construct toilets under a state government scheme during 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15.

"About a month ago, I had a doubt while reviewing the matter that there is something fishy. I got the matter probed in which it was found that money has been transferred to the accounts of three NGOs," Agarwal said.

Following the detection of misappropriation of funds of Rs 13.5 crore, he said that "an FIR has been lodged against PHED Executive Engineer Vinay Kumar Sinha, his department's accountant, NGOs and some individuals."



Sinha, who is currently posted as the Superintending Engineer at Bihar Rajya Jal Parishad, Patna, did not have power to release funds above Rs 5 lakh but he transferred around Rs 11.50 crore to NGOs within a span of 10-15 days in May 2016 through cheques each valuing less than Rs 5 lakh, the DM said.

The district magistrate said Sinha had also allegedly transferred around Rs 2 crore to the NGOs for creating mass awareness.

Certificate cases will be filed against Sinha and other employees involved in the misappropriation of funds for recovery of the government money, Agarwal said adding that steps are being taken to seize properties of NGOs indulged in the financial irregularities.

Official sources said that a sum of Rs 10 crore was allegedly transferred to Adishakti Seva Sansthan, Rs 2.14 crore to Maa Sarveshwari Seva Sansthan, Rs 1.52 crore to Satyam Shivam Kala Kendra and Rs 6.71 lakh to Shiv Seva Sanstha besides smaller amounts were also paid to two individuals.

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In another blow to the crisis- ridden government of Venezuela, the Fitch ratings agency said today it has cut the country's foreign debt grade.

The unsurprising move came after Caracas called for a creditors' meeting on November 13 to renegotiate a debt load estimated at USD 150 billion.

Fitch cut the long-term debt rating to "C" from "CC" based on the announcement and on "previously missed payments" which "makes a default event highly probable," the company said in a statement.

The company noted that even before the announcement Venezuela's "external liquidity was weak," and the government faces debt payments of nearly USD 620 million in the final two months of the year, followed by USD 3.34 billion in 2018.

Credit-rating agencies have been increasingly warning of the risk of a Venezuelan debt default. Analysts were pessimistic about Venezuela's chances of successfully restructuring its debt.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced early this week he would begin debt negotiations once the government had made a USD 1.2 billion payment on Friday to service the debt of state oil company PDVSA.

Maduro has repeatedly blamed the United States for the country's woes, saying Washington is trying to strangle Venezuela with sanctions.

Sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump's administration in August ban US trade in any new bonds issued by the Venezuelan government or PDVSA -- a needed step in any restructuring.

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Congress-ruled Karnataka government today came in for lavish praise from global food gaints like ITC, Future Group and Cargill who said the state offers investor-friendly policies and they never had to pay any bribe.

They also committed to continue their investment in the state as it provides ease access to raw materials, talent pool and necessary infrastructure.

"We are setting up units in other states, but the amount of support we are getting in Karnataka cannot be compared. They are easy to reach and things get done faster," ITC Ltd Divisional Chief Executive (foods) Hemant Malik said at the investors meet with the Karnataka government at the ongoing three-day World Food India event.

The company got into food business 15 years back and Karnataka was the first choice to set up its unit because of easy sourcing of raw materials, investor friendly climate and huge market base, he said, adding that maximum of its company's employees are based out of the state.

Cargill Foods India Head Siraj Chaudhry said the state government has put in place a mechanism for easy of doing business in an effective way that being an MNC it did not face any problem to set up a unit in Davanagere district at Rs 700 crore investment.

"For an MNC like us, setting up a corn mill unit outside Bangalore talks about easy of doing business. To set up a Rs 700 crore unit, it is a big thing that we have not paid a penny bribe," Chaudhry said.

Future Consumer CEO (food parks) Sanjay Malpani also spoke about easy of doing business and the opportunities that the state offers for investors in agro-processing sector.

MTR Foods Ltd CEO Sanjay Sharma said, "The state government is forthcoming and forward looking. Labour laws are conducive and we never had disruption."



"Overall, infrastructure is great. It is a great place to set up industry. It is a forward looking state. We have invested in the past, we have invested now and will continue to do so in future," Sharma said.

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A food safety court here today imposed a fine of Rs four lakh on the company manufacturing pan masala brand Rajnigandha as it found some of its samples unsafe for human consumption.

The samples of Rajnigandha were found to contain a chemical--magnesium carbonate--and carmoisine colour which are injurious to health, the court said in an order released today.

The verdict imposed a fine of Rs four lakh on Dharampal- Satyapal group (DS group), the manufacturers of the product and a fine of Rs 15,000 on a Chamoli-based retailer who sold it in the area.

The food safety court's order came on a complaint filed by the Chamoli district food safety officer who had sent samples of the pan masala brand collected from the shop of local retailer, Meharwal Agency, to the government food and drug laboratory,Rudrapur in September 2014.

After the samples were found unsafe for human consumption both at the Rudrapur laboratory and the referral laboratory of food analysis in Pune, a complaint was lodged in the food safety court here against the manufacturing company and the retailer under the Food Safety Act 2016.

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The Glasgow City Council today became the latest UK institution to withdraw an honour bestowed upon Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi in the wake of the Rohingya crisis.

The council had offered Suu Kyi the Freedom of Glasgow in 2009, when she was still under house arrest as Myanmars pro- democracy leader.

"I and the Leader, Councillor Susan Aitken, recently wrote to Aung San Suu Kyi voicing the city's concerns about the human rights atrocities occurring under her watch and urging her to intervene. The response we received was disappointing and saddening, saidGlasgow's Lord Provost Eva Bolander.

The Scottish council said that withdrawing such an honour was "unprecedented" and its decision had not been taken lightly.

Glasgow's decision follows a similar decision by the city of Sheffield, which stripped Suu Kyi of the Freedom of Sheffield earlier this week, saying she had shown "wilful ignorance" of the crisis.

"In response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Myanmar of the Rohingya people, various UK cities have revoked the Freedom of the City from Aung San Suu Kyi. I'm delighted there was cross-party support for my motion," said Councillor Soryia Siddique from Sheffield Council.

Meanwhile, the London School of Economics (LSE) has taken the first step towards withdrawing an honorary presidency bestowed upon Myanmars de-facto leader.

The Students Union has moved a motion to withdraw the honour, which will come up for debate next week.

A spokesperson for the LSE Students Union said: "Suu Kyi's choice to prioritise her tenure in office over anything else has come at too significant a cost her complicity in the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people.

"We condemn the Muslim genocide in Myanmar, we condemn all Islamophobia, and we will actively work against any system which is complicit in supporting the violence."



A series of UK institutions have been distancing themselves from the Nobel Peace laureate in the wake of Myanmar Armys repression of the Rohingya minority, nearly 1 million of whom have fled their homes to refugee camps in Bangladesh.

A portrait of the leader hanging prominently at the entrance of St Hughs College, Oxford University, was moved into storage back in September.

While the move was not overtly linked to the Rohingya crisis, it is widely believed that the allegations of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar were behind the decision to remove the portrait from the college where Suu Kyi had studied.

Last month, Oxford City Council voted unanimously in favour of revoking the Freedom of Oxford granted to the Myanmar chief in 1997 for her "long struggle for democracy".

The City of London Corporation has also been debatingrevokingSuuKyis Honorary Freedom, bestowed upon her earlier this year.

However, the University of Glasgow, which awarded an honorary degree to Suu Kyi in 1997, has said it had no plans to revoke the award.

The Myanmar leader has come under severe criticism for her failure to openly condemn Myanmars armed forces, and instead claimed there had been no conflicts since September 5 and no clearance operations against the countrys Muslim minority.

She visited the Rakhine province of Myanmar this week for the first time since violence erupted in the state in late August and was criticised for failing to address the issue of refugees who have fled across the border.

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Goa Governor Mridula Sinha today called on her Bihar counterpart Satyapal Mallik here and extended her best wishes for his new assignment.

Sinha, who hails from Bihar and is a noted writer, also presented one of the books authored by her to Mallik, during the "courtesy call", a Raj Bhavan release said.

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The Congress today accused the BJP of "compromising" with internal security whenever in power and said its "ineffective" diplomacy has led to China once again blocking the move to list Masood Azhar as a global terrorist by the UN.

Party spokesperson R P N Singh cited the example of Azhar saying he is the same person who was released by the previous NDA government in 1999 in Kandahar.

"They have always compromised with terrorists. The BJP has neither the policy nor the intent to act against terrorists and terrorism. We urge the government to act strongly against wanted terrorists like Dawood Ibrahim, Masood Azhar and those 60 terrorists in the list provided to Pakistan by the previous UPA regime," he told reporters.

He said China never used that kind of veto power in the UN when the UPA was in power as the Congress-led government's used international diplomatic pressure on it and managed to "isolate" Pakistan on the issue of terrorism.

He asked where that kind of diplomacy was now, adding Prime Minister Narendra Modi was touting before elections that his government will arrest Ibrahim after bringing him back but never took any action.

Singh said that the BRICS summit joint statement declaring the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) among groups responsible for committing, organising or supporting terrorist acts was "hailed as a big diplomatic victory by the Modi government".

"BJP's ineffective diplomacy compromised India's internal security," he said.

Singh said the BJP's hallmark has been 'false bravado, chest thumping and hyperbole' and that is there on national security too.

He said "this is the same Azhar Masood, who was released by this government".

"If you see their history, the have always done a compromise with terrorists and terrorism.

"In 3.5 years, no action has been taken and one has seen how BJP leaders attended a marriage in Mumbai and Dawood Ibrahim's wife came to Mumbai and left, but government did not take any action and never gave any report on her visit," Singh said.

The Congress leader said ever since the BJP government came to power, there have been attacks on military establishments in Jammu and Kashmir and several jawans and civilians have been killed.

He said on the international fora, this government has also provided an opportunity to the ISI, which has masterminded attacks on India, this government invited them to carry out a probe on the Pathakot attack.

To another question whether the Congress has any action plan since it criticises the government over internal security, Singh said that is something for the external affairs ministry to look into.

"When we were in government, we put international pressure on various countries regarding Hafiz Sayeed, and the American government released a 10 million bounty on him and that was something because of the international and foreign policy.

"We managed to isolate Pakistan completely. It found itself completely alone and China was not using that kind of veto regularly saving a terrorist which are having a safe heaven in Pakistan," he said.

China yesterday had for the fourth time blocked the bid to list Pathankot terror attack mastermind Azhar as a global terrorist by the UN, saying "there is no consensus" within the members of the sanctions committee.

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Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today praised the GST as a better tax system and said there is a need to give more and detailed information about the new indirect tax regime (GST) to the people.

Kumar said this at a review meeting convened to discuss about the work of Commercial Taxes department and GST at his official residence here.

Officials should be involved in spreading and disseminating information among the people about GST, Kumar said adding that people should not pay heed to disinformation and misinformation regarding the GST, a government release said.

During the meeting, Commercial Taxes Department's principal secretary Sujata Chaturvedi gave a detailed presentation on various issues relating to GST.

It was discussed at length as what is being done in GST and what will have its impact on the revenue of the state government, the release said.

It was informed during the meeting that efforts have been made to resolve the issues plaguing the traders at GST Council meetings and some of the complex problems have been resolved too, the release said.

Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who also holds charge of Finance and Commercial Taxes departments, said people have now begun to understand GST which is evident from the fact that the quantum of complaints vis--vis GST has reduced to only 10 per cent.

It was also discussed to take measures as how to improve the number of filings of returns that have reduced, he said.

The possibility of getting Khadi Udyog included in the tax-slab was also discussed at the meeting, it said adding that the CM gave necessary directions to the officials concerned in this regard.

Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, development commissioner Shishir Sinha, CM's Principal Secretary Chanchal Kumar, CM's secretaries Atish Chandra and Manish Kumar Verma and other senior officials were also present at the review meeting.

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In a major relief to BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijaywargiya, the Madhya Pradesh High Court's Indore bench has dismissed a petition demanding that his election from Mhow assembly seat in 2013 be declared null and void.

The petition against Vijaywargiya, filed by defeated Congress leader Antar Singh Darbar was dismissed by the bench of Justice Alok Varma.

The court had reserved its judgement in September after completing hearing in the case.

Darbar had alleged in his petition that Vijaywargiya had violated the Model Code of Conduct and therefore, his election should be declared null and void.

The Congress leader had alleged in his petition that Vijayawargiya had distributed cash to lure women voters and also gave medals and trophy during the Moharram procession.

He also charged that his agents have given liquor to the electorates during campaigning.

The opponents failed to prove charges against Vijaywargiya despite the hearing taking place in the matter on nearly 100 dates, his lawyer Shekhar Bhargava said.

Vijaywargiya had defeated Darbar with a margin of 12,216 votes in 2013 Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh.

The BJP leader won the election for the sixth consecutive term from the different seats of Vidhan Sabha in Indore district.

In 2008 assembly polls also, Vijaywargiya had defeated Darbar by a margin of 9,791 votes.

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Hitler, Castro and Saddam Hussein meet in a bar. It may sound like the beginning of a joke, but in the Palestinian territories it is actually possible.

Palestinians often name their children after famous celebrities, national heroes or backers of their cause.

But from time to time, they pick far more controversial names and the children have to live with the consequences.

Hitler Abu Hamad is not proud to carry the name of a man responsible for the slaughter of millions.

"There is no relationship between my name and the actions of Adolf Hitler," he told AFP at his home in the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank. "I hate what he did."



How the quiet, polite 41-year-old school teacher came to be named after the most hated man of the 20th century says a lot about Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967 in a move never recognised by the international community.

Jewish settlers moved into the territory and the occupation continues.

When Abu Hamad was born in 1976, his father wanted to send a message, though in perhaps the most offensive way possible: picking the name of the man who systematically murdered six million Jews in the Holocaust.

"My father gave me the name to provoke the occupation," he said.

"He was not political. He wanted to make the occupation think with my name."



The father-of-two studied English literature and is a deputy head at a school near his home, while also teaching adults.

His name is "weird for the kids at school", he said.

He says it also causes him endless problems at Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank.

When he was 15 and living in Hebron's Old City, an army officer approached him and asked him his name.

When he told him, the soldier flew off the handle, he alleges.

"He said 'you are a criminal'," Abu Hamad said, alleging he was then beaten by soldiers.

Israel's military did not respond to a request for comment.

He believes the name also stopped Israelis from giving him permits to study or work outside the Palestinian territories.

"We are not against the Jews," he said.

"We are against the occupation and don't respect it. It destroys our homes, confiscates our possessions and restricts our freedom."



Many Palestinians have named children after their longtime leader Yasser Arafat, while other names heard include Castro, Guevara and Chavez -- after the Latin American figures who supported their cause.

In Hebron, there is a Carter Abu Isneyna, named after former US president Jimmy Carter, who tried to get Israel to end the occupation and led the Camp David peace talks between Israel and Egypt.

Qais Hussein Omar was born in 1976 under a different name -- Saddam Hussein.

He alleges he was regularly harassed at checkpoints by Israeli soldiers angered by his name, and was once hospitalised by a particularly brutal beating.

"My name was the source of psychological and physical suffering," he said.

In other countries, too, he faced issues and it all affected his health, so seven years ago he changed it.

He urges parents not to name their children after famous people as it "won't fit the personality"



"His name could be Yasser Arafat and he wants to become a ballet dancer."



In the city of Haifa in northern Israel, an Arab Israeli man is named after Jules Jammal, a Syrian military hero believed to have driven his boat into a French warship during the 1956 Suez crisis.

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"30 Rock" star Alec Baldwin has admitted that he treated women in a sexist way in the past.

Baldwin, who was honoured at a luncheon at the Paley Center for Media, said he would like to change his attitude towards women.

The actor was recently criticised for working with James Toback as the director has been accused of sexual miscoduct by over 300 women.

"I certainly have treated women in a very sexist way. I've bullied women. I've overlooked women. I've underestimated women. Not as a rule.

"From time to time I've done what a lot of men do, which is... when you don't treat women the same way you treat men. You don't. I'm from a generation where you really don't and I'd like that to change. I really would like that to change," he said at the event.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the actor also addressed the swirl of sexual misconduct allegations currently dominating Hollywood and called for a change.

"I think it's important for us to try to make the workplace and beyond not only comfortable and right and fair and appropriate but as productive, as well.

"I think a lot of what we're dealing with within this issue is hurting our business. It's making it less productive."



Baldwin said while he was aware of some rumours, he did not know the problem was so widespread.

"I didn't necessarily know the scope when you hear the hundreds and hundreds of women who are complaining about this," Baldwin said.

"It's been a very eye-opening experience for me personally. We've got to be vigilant in a new way to make sure that everybody is comfortable and that we get the job done together that we're there to do."



Hollywood is reeling under a major scandal with some of the prominent faces such as Toback, Kevin Spacey, Dustin Hoffman and Brett Ratner facing allegations of sexual misconduct in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein expose.

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UN watchdog ICAO will start its safety oversight audit of India's aviation sector from November 6 and the team is likely to review the functioning of various operators, including GoAir, according to officials.

The audit by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) is crucial for the fast-growing Indian aviation sector as the findings carry a lot of weight globally.

This also comes at a time when India has emerged as one of the fastest growing domestic aviation markets in the world, clocking double-digit growth for 37 straight months till end of September this year.

Officials said the ICAO audit would be from November 6 to 16. As part of the audit work, the team is scheduled to visit select facilities in the national capital, Mumbai, Chennai and some other cities, they added.

A senior DGCA official told PTI that the audit would mainly focus on the areas of licensing, airworthiness and operations besides aspects related to organisation and legal framework.

The official also said that a five-member team of ICAO would be conducting the audit.

When asked about the upcoming ICAO audit, civil aviation secretary R N Choubey said, "we are ready".

In December 2015, the UN body had carried out a similar review under its Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP), in which India reportedly scored better than the global average in airworthiness, air navigation services, operations and licensing.

Sources said the ICAO team would be visiting a few training organisations, facilities of air operators as well as approved maintenance, design and manufacturing organisations.

Tentatively, the team is likely to take stock of the facilities of budget airline GoAir and Air Charter Services in the national capital. They might also visit the facilities of Kestrel Aviation and Air India Charters in Mumbai, sources added.

Among the training organisations, the team is likely to visit the Bombay Flying Club, Hyderabad-based Wings Aviation or Allahabad-based Civil Aviation Training College.

Sources said the facilities of Blue Dart Aviation in Chennai and Indamer Mjets Airports Services in the national capital could be visited by the ICAO team.

The team could visit any or all of these facilities and also have a look at aircraft, they added.

Queries sent to ICAO seeking comments on the upcoming audit remained unanswered.

To ensure global aviation safety measures are complied with, the ICAO regularly carries out the universal safety oversight audit of its member states.

After an audit in 2012, ICAO had placed India in its list of 13 worst-performing nations. Subsequently, a similar exercise carried out by US regulator Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2014. The FAA had downgraded India's aviation safety ranking, bringing it below Pakistan and at par with countries like Ghana, Barbados and Bangladesh.

Indian airlines were not allowed to add new routes to the US or sign commercial agreements with US airlines during this period. The rating was restored to the top category in 2015.

Registering a growth of nearly 17 per cent, domestic airlines carried 95.83 lakh passengers in September this year, the DGCA data showed.

In the year-ago period, the number stood at 82.30 lakh passengers.

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The Crime Branch of Mumbai Police claimed to have busted an illegal call centre wherein its executives allegedly conned US nationals of lakhs of rupees by posing as Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officials.

Thirteen persons have been arrested in connection with the case, said police.

They added that the call centre was operational in Malad and Bangur Nagar area in western suburbs.

Unit-3 of Crime Branch raided Agarwal B2B and Grape INC call centres in Malad and Bangurnagar area on November 1 on the specific tip off about the activities in both the call centres, an official said.

"During the raid police arrested atleast 13 persons who were running the call centre and seized 8 CPU, 9 laptops,2 wi-fi routers, 14 mobile phones," said Jagdish Sail, Senior Police Inspector of Crime Branch Unit-3.

"After investigation we are suspecting an international syndicate in this scam and we are probing it accordingly," he said.

The names of the arrested persons are Moshir Mobin Shaikh, Talib Ansari, Azim Shaikh, Aadil Sayyad, Ronald Rodriges, Farhan Shaikh, Prashant Kamble, Abhishek Dubey, Shadab Sayyad, Sohail Shaikh, Jarar Haider, Shabaz Siraz Shaikh and Hemant Gaikwad, said police.

Executives of the call centres used to make Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) calls through laptop and computer to the US citizens and used to threaten them posing as IRS officials and were asking them to pay taxes, he said.

They used to force US citizens to purchase gift vouchers to pay illegal taxes, through which they were cheated of thousands and lakhs, he said.

All the accused persons were produced before the court and have been sent to police custody till November 9, he added.

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Addressing a huge rally in Varaccha area of Surat, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi today reminded the Patidar community of police atrocities during their agitation seeking quota, and promised traders that his party would make changes to the GST to meet their demands if elected.

Varaccha is considered a stronghold of the Patel (or Patidar) community and was one of the epicentres of the Patidar quota agitation in 2015.

A huge crowd turned up to listen to Gandhi in the city, where the BJP had swept 15 out of 16 Assembly seats in the 2012 Gujarat elections.

"This is a fight between the truth of Gujarat and the truth of BJP. The truth of Gujarat is different from that of BJP. The truth of BJP is the order to fire on the Patel community (during quota agitation)," Gandhi said.

At least 14 Patidar youths died -- some of them in police firing -- during the community's agitation for OBC quota in August 2015 which had taken a violent turn.

"Truth of Gujarat, and truth of Surat, is that our people can take on China from here. But instead of helping you, the BJP is helping a few industrialists," Gandhi said.

The Congress vice-president started his speech with the slogans used by Patel quota agitators, such as 'Jay Sardar, Jay Patidar' and 'Jai Bhavani'.

He criticised the Narendra Modi-led BJP government at the Centre on the issue of demonetisation, GST, unemployment and ease of doing business in this diamond and textile hub.

Surat recently witnessed an agitation by textile traders against the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

"Modi-ji has ruined small and medium businessmen by introducing demonetisation and GST. If we come to power, we will listen to what you have to say. If you say that GST needs to be changed, we will change it," Gandhi said.

After the quota agitation of 2015, it has become almost difficult for the BJP to organise public meetings in Varaccha area which has a sizable population of Patidars hailing from Saurashtra region.

BJP president Amit Shah's rally in the area was disrupted by Patidar protesters in September, 2016.

The Congress vice-president was welcomed by a large number of people who lined up along the roads as his convoy passed through the city today.

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India today asked Germany to address at the earliest the issue related to the tolerance level of fungicide tricyclazole in Basmati rice exports.

The issue was raised by Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh in a meeting with German Food and Agriculture Minister Peter Bleser here.

The European Union has decided to bring down the tolerance level of fungicide tricyclazole to zero level from next year which is likely to impact India's basmati rice shipments.

In an official statement, Agriculture Ministry said that Singh "requested the German Minister to use his good office for early resolution of the issue relating to Tricyclazole in Indian rice exported to the EU."



Singh also raised the issue of acceptance of digital phytosanitary certificates by the EU countries.

India and Germany also discussed about ongoing bilateral projects being implemented in various areas of farm sector.

Separately, Singh also met Danish Minister Environment and Food Minister Esben Lunde Larsen, Serbia Agriculture Minister Branislav Nedimovic and stressed on further cooperation in the field of agricutlure with India.

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India has taken up with Italy the incidents of attacks on two Indian students in Milan, the external affairs ministry said today.

Responding to a question on attacks on Indian students in Milan, ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said the incidents were being investigated by local authorities.

He said the Indian Embassy in Rome has already taken up the issue with the Italian foreign office.

Kumar said there were two students, who were attacked on two different days and identified them as Vikram and Bala.

He said the Indian Consulate General in Milan has already met the two students and promised all possible help.

The Indian Consulate has already taken up the matter with the local authorities, Kumar said.

Following the incidents, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday had said that she was personally monitoring the situation.

The Indian Consulate in Milan had also issued an advisory to Indian students urging them not to panic.

Asked whether Italy has communicated anything to India on the matter, Kumar said, "We have not officially heard anything from them.

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Army Chief General Bipin Rawat said today that both Indian and Chinese troops were present in Dokalam, but were not in an "eyeball-to- eyeball" contact.

General Rawat said there had been a disengagement of troops of both countries in Dokalam, where the two sides were locked in a stand-off that ended in August.

"There has been a disengagement on the condition that we will both disengage so that there is no face-to-face contact. So, that disengagement has taken place," he said.

"The PLA (People's Liberation Army) is still at Dokalam, but they are at a reasonable distance from us and we are not in eyeball-to-eyeball contact," the Army chief said.

He was speaking to reporters after honouring 23rd and 24th battalions of the Maratha Light Infantry at a glittering ceremony here today.

There was a military stand-off between India and China at Dokalam on the tri-junction of the Indian, Chinese and Bhutanese borders but it had ended after 71 days in August.

On Jammu and Kashmir, he said there has been no violation of human rights in that state by the Army but it has taken stringent action whenever such incidents occurred.

The Army chief said no one would be spared in case of violation of human rights.

Asked about reports about rise in recruitments of Kashmiri youths by militant groups since 2013 and resentment against the Army, he said some youths are carried away by wrong conceptions due to social media.

He lauded the excellent patience shown by the Army in the area.

To a query, the Army chief said Jammu and Kashmir had a different terrain causing frequent intrusion of militants but the Indian force had been giving befitting reply to such elements.

Kashmir was, is and will be an integral part of India, he said.

He also said Indian Army is undertaking modernisation of equipment for surveillance along both Pakistan and China borders. The government has been funding defence equipment without any issue, he said.

Speaking at the ceremony, the Army chief commended the outstanding performance of Maratha Light Infantry right since the First World War in all operational and peacetime commitments.

He lauded the history of Maratha Light Infantry which received five Maha Vir Chakras and Ashok Chakras, 44 Vir Chakras and 15 Kirti Chakras apart from Victoria Cross during the British rule.

The saga of Maratha Light Infantry and its martyrdom will remembered for a long time to come, he said and exhorted all ranks to continue striving hard for excellence to keep the national flag flying high.

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A number of Indian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are among from across 70 countries of the world that have been brought together by a Silicon Valley entrepreneur in an initiative aimed at making globalisation work for every economy.

Globality, a start-up founded in California as the world's first B2B marketplace that matches large multinational corporations (MNCs) with small and mid-sized service providers, believes India and other emerging markets hold great promise in ensuring that SME service firms are not left out of the benefits of globalisation.

"The aim of Globality is to drive the benefits of globalisation deeper into the world's economies, thereby helping companies meet the goal of creating more inclusive economies," said Joel Hyatt, the CEO of Globality, who was in London this week to launch the company's European headquarters in the British capital.

"We are operating in India. The country has tremendous potential to open up opportunities around the world for companies to source in India and for Indian companies to sell abroad. And, what Globality is doing has relevance in every country's economy," he said.

His company's model is based on an internet-based platform to create a global marketplace for business to business consulting, from legal to management and advertising, accessible to as part of the Globality Service Provider Network.

Many of these smaller players would remain undiscovered by big MNCs if they only rely on the current model of nearly 90 per cent of businesses going to just 1 per cent of firms.

Hyatt, who has been backed by a range of investors including former US vice-president Al Gore, also completed a new funding round of 35 million dollars this week, which brings the amount raised by Globality to USD 72 million since it was founded in 2015.

While he agreed that Brexit was a cause for concern due to the uncertainty it creates for businesses, the serial entrepreneur said he was confident it would not affect his company's ability to operate.

"Brexit is a problem but at the same time we do not see it getting in the way of serving our clients. London will remain a great place to operate in the world," he said.

Britain is set to leave the economic bloc in March 2019, but is still in the midst of tough exit negotiations with the European Union (EU).

The businesses are concerned that Britain's exit from the EU could involve an abrupt change in the trade relationship with the continent or even lead to a potential no-deal scenario involving heavy tariffs on exports and imports.

"Despite the ongoingBrexitnegotiations, global business still sees London as the most important city for transatlantic trade, for trade within Europeand an unrivalled hub for elite talent," said Yuval Atsmon, the company's new global head for its consulting vertical.

"Forty per cent of the world's most valuable businesses have their European headquarters in Londonand it ishome for many exceptionalSMEs inprofessional services.

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An Indian national was today arrested here for allegedly smuggling narcotic drugs in Nepal.

The Nepal Police nabbed 25-year-old Indian national Pappu Shah, 25, a resident of Arariya district in Bihar, following information provided by another drug peddler arrested yesterday.

Pappu used to illegally bring narcotic drugs from India and supply in different parts of the country including Kathmandu.

In another incident, a Norwegian national was nabbed from Tribhuvan International Airpot during a security check while he was about to board a flight to Doha.

Police confiscated over 2 kg hashish hidden in his leather bag.

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The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court said today she is seeking an investigation of alleged war crimes committed in the war in Afghanistan, an unprecedented probe that could involve US troops.

Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a statement that a preliminary examination found "a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity" were committed in Afghanistan after US-led troops moved in following the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Once the prosecutor submits her investigation request to the court, which is based in the Dutch city of The Hague, it's then up to the tribunal's judges to decide whether to open one. Bensouda's office said her request will be filed publicly "in the days to come".

An Afghanistan probe would be exceptional because up until now all ICC trials have dealt with alleged crimes in Africa. The only case currently under investigation outside Africa is in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

Human Rights Watch welcomed the announcement as a step toward ending impunity for crimes in Afghanistan.

"Thousands and thousands of Afghans have suffered horrendous human rights abuses and war crimes over the years and there has been no accountability," Richard Dicker of the group's international justice program told The Associated Press. "The announcement today by the prosecutor opens the door to the possibility that for the first time there may be some justice possible for the victims."



Bensouda said in a report last year that US forces and CIA agents may have committed war crimes by torturing detainees in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2014. That opens the possibility that Americans could be among those investigated for possible prosecution, even though the US is not among the court's more than 120 members.

Taliban and Afghan government forces also may have used torture and committed other atrocities in Afghanistan's long and bitter conflict, the report said.

Bensouda said in a statement Friday that if judges approve an investigation, her office "will investigate, within its mandate and means, in an independent, impartial and objective way, crimes within the Court's jurisdiction allegedly committed by any party to the armed conflict."



Americans could face prosecution if their alleged crimes took place in a country that is an International Criminal Court member, such as Afghanistan, and if they were not prosecuted at home.

However, legal experts say the chances of American service members being charged and sent to face justice at the ICC are remote.

Katherine Gallagher, senior staff attorney at the U.S. rights organisation the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the possibility that Americans could be charged sends a "long overdue message that no one is above the law."



Established in 2002, the International Criminal Court is the world's first permanent court set up to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Former US President Bill Clinton signed the Rome treaty that established the court, but President George W Bush renounced the signature, citing fears that Americans would be unfairly prosecuted for political reasons.

Bensouda's 2016 report said the alleged US war crimes "were not the abuses of a few isolated individuals. Rather, they appear to have been committed as part of approved interrogation techniques in an attempt to extract 'actionable intelligence' from detainees."



The prosecutor's report noted that US authorities have conducted dozens of investigations and court-martial cases.

After the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration allowed the use of waterboarding, which simulates drowning, and other interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists. President Barack Obama banned such practices after taking office in 2009.

A full-scale investigation, if approved by judges, could take months or more before the prosecutor decides whether to file charges. Then it remains to be seen if suspects can be detained and handed to the court for trial.

"We have seen that arrest and surrender is the Achilles heel of international justice," Dicker said.

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Around Rs 150 crore investment has been committed by four companies for setting up of units at an integrated food park in Tumkur district, Karnataka.

The investment was committed at the ongoing World Food India event, said Future Consumer CEO (food parks) Sanjay Malpani.

"Rs 150 crore investment has been committed by four companies which include Saroj Agro, DG Agro and Nilgiris," Malpani told PTI.

He further said: "We have currently 20 units in the food park."



Tumkur, Karnataka based Integrated Food Park Private Limited (IFPPL), is a partnership of Kishore Biyani-led Future Group and the Ministry of Food Processing of India.

It is equipped to support the industry in processing, value addition, post harvest facilities and technical assistance to farmers and entrepreneurs.

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Iran has accused the CIA of spreading "fake news" about the Islamic republic with newly declassified files seized in the 2011 raid in Pakistan in which Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed.

The CIA on Wednesday released 470,000 additional files found in May 2011 when US Navy SEALs burst into Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad and shot him dead.

According to scholars from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), who were allowed to see the trove before it was made public, the files shed new light on the murky relationship between the Sunni extremist group and Shiite Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif dismissed the allegations.

"A record low for the reach of petrodollars: CIA & FDD fake w/selective AlQaeda docs re: Iran can't whitewash role of US allies in 9/11," he wrote on Twitter late yesterday.

The release of the files comes as US President Donald Trump's administration seeks to ramp up pressure on Iran, refusing to certify a landmark nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

Iran denies any link to Al-Qaeda and has provided financial and military backing to help the Syrian regime fight Sunni extremists and other opponents.

The Fars agency, which is close to Iranian conservatives, said yesterday that the selective publication of documents by the CIA related to Al-Qaeda was part of efforts "to put pressure on Iran".

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Iraqi forces said they recaptured an important crossing on the border with Syria from the Islamic State group today as they advanced into the jihadists' last bastion in Iraq.

Iraq's Joint Operations Command said troops had "regained full control" of the Husaybah border post on the edge of the town of Al-Qaim after launching a push to oust the jihadists.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi released a statement congratulating the armed forces for "entering into Al-Qaim and liberating" the border crossing.

An Iraqi army officer told AFP that the jihadists "deserted the border post after several of them were killed" and headed off into Syria.

Al-Qaim and the surrounding areas are the last remnants of the self-styled caliphate IS declared after rampaging across Iraq and Syria in 2014.

Iraqi forces backed up by air strikes from a US-led coalition launched the operation last week to seize back the strategically located pocket of barren desert along the Euphrates river.

IS is simultaneously battling for survival in its holdouts across the border in Syria, where government troops said they ousted the group from the key city of Deir Ezzor today.

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ISIS will pay a "big price" for every attack on the US, President Donald Trump said today, days after eight people were killed in the deadliest terror attack in New York since 9/11.

Trump's strong statement came after the Islamic State terror group claimed that the attack on October 31 was carried out on its behalf by a domestically radicalised Uzbek immigrant to the US.

"ISIS just claimed the Degenerate Animal (sic) who killed, and so badly wounded, the wonderful people on the West Side, was 'their soldier'," Trump said in a tweet.

"Based on that, the military has hit ISIS 'much harder' over the last two days. They will pay a big price for every attack on us!" Trump said before he boarded Air Force One for his maiden trip to Asia.

Trump reiterated his tough message against ISIS just before he boarded Air Force One, on his way to Hawaii the first stop of his Asia trip.

"What we're doing is every time we are attacked from this point forward and it took place yesterday, we are hitting them 10 times harder," Trump said.

"So when we have an animal do an attack like he did the other day on the West Side of Manhattan, we are hitting them 10 times harder," he said.

"They claim him as a 'soldier', good luck. Every time they hit us, we know it is ISIS, we hit them like you won't believe," he said.

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Terming India as an important market, Italian confectioner major Bauli today announced an 80 million euros investment here over the next five years.

The company has set up a manufacturing facility at Baramati in the state at an investment of 34 million euros.

"This is our first fully-owned plant outside of Italy," Bauli Group executive vice-president Michele Bauli said here.

The new plant will have a capacity of 12,000 tonne of croissants, which can be scaled up to 17,000 tonne in a short-time.

The company plans to make India an export hub to serve the Asia-Pacific region.

Bauli entered India in 2009 through a joint venture with Dream Bake but later changed the arrangement to co- manufacturing and distribution in the Northeast and the Eastern regions.

It sells croissants under the brand Moonfils in four flavours -- chocolate, vanilla, strawberry and orange -- and plans to expand it to eight more flavours.

Bauli chief executive Stefano Zancan said they expect India to be the second largest market after Italy over the next three years. He, however, declined to give revenue expectation from here.

Bauli is present in 70 countries with 200 products and 1,200 SKUs.

"The biscuit market is very saturated and we don't want to be in that. We are planning to launch soft cakes next year. We will look at other products possibly in the savoury segment," Zancan said.

The company, which is targeting the tier I & II cities, will also be launching vegetarian products by January.

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Italy has extradited to France the brother of a Tunisian man who stabbed two young women to death in the southern French port of Marseille last month, a legal source said today.

French investigators suspect Anis Hanachi, described as a former jihadist fighter in the Iraq-Syria region, of complicity in the attack by his brother Ahmed.

The source said Anis would be charged on Friday.

According to Italian anti-terrorism chief Lamberto Giannini, French investigators are looking into whether Anis "indoctrinated... Ahmed and caused his radicalisation".

He was arrested in the northern Italian town of Ferrara six days after Ahmed Hanachi, a 29-year-old Tunisian, fatally stabbed the two women outside Marseille's main rail station on October 1 before being shot dead by police.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility, but French investigators have found no evidence linking the attack to the jihadists.

Ahmed was known to police for drug and alcohol problems with a history of petty crime. He was not on a jihadist watch list.

Two days before the attack, he was arrested for shoplifting in the eastern city of Lyon but was allowed to walk free the following day.

The French government's inspectorate general (IGA) said that decision revealed "serious faults" in the system for dealing with foreigners whose papers are not in order.

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Domestic and global firms, including ITC, Pepsico and Hershey, today announced plans to invest billions of dollars in India's food and agri sector as they look to tap one of the world's fastest growing economies.

While diversified conglomerate ITC said it would invest over Rs 10,000 crore to set up 20 integrated food processing and logistics facilities, PepsiCo reiterated that it along with its partners would invest USD 2 billion in the next five years.

US-based confectionery major Hershey Co said it is likely to invest USD 50 million in the next five years to grow and expand its presence in India.

The announcements came during the ongoing 3-day World Food India event here.

ITC, which inked an MoU with the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, said the planned 20 new integrated facilities will produce branded food products, including Aashirvaad atta, Sunfeast biscuits, YiPPee! noodles, Bingo! snacks, B Natural juices, and processed fruits and vegetables.

Bullish on the Indian market, ITC CEO Sanjiv Puri said: "With a population of 1.3 billion, India's consumption market is projected to triple to USD 4 trillion by 2025 with the bulk of expenditure going into food products."



Improvement in agricultural yields and increase in the level of processing from the current 10 per cent to 30 per cent can increase the GDP by as much as 5-fold, he added.

"I am happy to say we are going to invest over Rs 10,000 crore in setting up food processing facilities on a pan-India basis," he said.

Similarly, PepsiCO said it along with its partners will be investing USD 2 billion in India in the next five years, which is part of its previously announced investment plans.

"These investments in total are designed to accelerate our transformation journey towards a healthier portfolio," the company said.

It inked an MoU with the Ministry of Food Processing Industries in this regard.

Hershey, which has been selling its products such as milk shakes, syrups and spreads and brands such as Jumpin, Nutrine and Smart Cook, in India since 2008 said the country is one of its key international focus markets.

"We anticipate an investment of about USD 50 million during the next five years as we focus on growing and expanding our presence in India," Hershey India Chairman and Managing Director Praveen Jakate said.

Speaking at the inauguration of event, Nestle Chairman of Board of Director Paul Bulcke said top priority should be given to investment in building agriculture capacity amid challenges of scarce natural resources, rising population and growing food demand.

Unilever Global President Amanda Sourry said, "The world is looking towards India. The opportunities for foods in India are huge. We at Unilever are excited at opportunities in India."



She said rich agri-resources in India create an optimal opportunity to scale up the processing industry here.

Hindustan Unilever Ltd CEO and Managing Director Sanjiv Mehta said: "India is an attractive destination by any yardstik which you look at...We are talking about one of the most attractive markets and as the economy grows, there would be more people coming and moving up."



Metro AG COO and Metro Cash and Carry CEO Pieter Boone said the recent policy decisions to improve ease of doing business coupled with demonetisation and GST are now driving positive overhaul in the economic environment.

Tata International Managing Director and Trent Chairman Noel Tata said there is a need for significant new investment to increase our scale in food processing, which is dominated by MSMEs.

The three-day World Food India event was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Latvia Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis and Armenia President Serzh Sargsyan as also food and agriculture ministers from Italy, Germany and Denmark were present at the event.

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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today exhorted global as well as domestic companies to invest in the food sector, saying that it has the potential to become a principal industry.

Addressing business leaders at the World Food India event here, he said that as the economy grows it will impact the lifestyles of people and the food industry would be a major beneficiary this change.

"Therefore, what happens to the traditional concept of agriculture and the farm-to-the-kitchen relationship will undergo a change. It's already visible in large part of urban India," he said.

He also stressed upon the need to increase farm productivity, improve storage facilities and spur food processing activity.

The current infrastructure is not sufficient to meet the future demand and there is need to add capacity as population would not only grow but also become richer with increase in GDP, Jaitley said.

He said the most sensible investor is the one who doesn't look at what India is in 2017, but what it will be in 2040 and 2050.

"I think, in 2017, we should start thinking of this group in 2040 and 2050. If we keep that in mind, this is going to be one industry which is going to be one of principal industries as far as India is concerned," he added.

He also assured investors that the country will not shy away from taking tough decisions in the long term interest of the economy.

India has displayed a great capacity to take difficult decisions, he said, citing examples like demonetisation and implementation of Goods and Services Tax.

"India is willing for a change. India is changing... Not only are our doors open, those who come in they get red carpet. The experience of our investors has been, they have always gone back as happy investors. I am sure those who enter the sector they will also have the same experience," he said.

On infrastructure development, Jaitley said the government has undertaken many initiatives like construction of 250 highways, addition of 35-40 new airports and modernisation of 400 railway stations.

Food Processing Industries Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said the government has initiated various reforms in the sector.

Some other reforms are also underway, she said, adding that there is a proposal for setting up of a Food Processing Bank.

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The Supreme Court today refused to entertain a plea challenging Tamil Nadu government's decision to set up a one-man Commission to probe the death of AIADMK chief and former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud dismissed the plea filed by a Chennai-based P A Joseph alleging that there was a possibility of undue influence and bias as the panel was set up by the state government itself without any resolution passed by the state assembly.

The state government has set up the panel headed by Justice A Arumughaswamy, a former Madras High Court judge, to probe the death of Jayalalithaa on December 6, 2016 at a private hospital in Chennai.

"Your (Joseph) challenge has been accepted by the High Court. Do you want the inquiry to go on or you do not want the inquiry," the bench asked.

When the lawyer for Joseph replied in affirmative, the bench made it clear that it would not entertain the appeal against the High Court order.

Joseph, in his appeal, had said, "party MLAs are involved in the whole episode of hospitalisation, treatment, death of the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu J Jayalalithaa. There is every possibility of influence, pressure, bias when it comes to a commission constituted by the state government themselves, the present commission cannot be expected to do an independent inquiry...".

The petition had alleged that Madras High Court had erred in holding that a resolution from the legislature was not mandatory and a mere opinion of the government itself was enough to constitute a commission under the Commission of Inquiry Act, 1952.

The plea said that the prior resolution by Parliament or the State Legislative Assembly is mandated under Section 3 of the Commission of Inquiry Act, 1952.

It alleged that the Commission of Inquiry was set up by the Tamil Nadu government unilaterally without prior legislative debate or resolution.

Joseph moved the apex court after the High Court dismissed the allegations on October 4.

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Amado Boudou, Argentina's vice president under Cristina Kirchner, was arrested today on charges including money laundering and hiding undeclared assets, court sources said.

Judge Ariel Lijo ordered his arrest in a case initially brought in 2012. Boudou was economy minister from 2009-2011, then served as vice president from 2011 until Kirchner left office in December 2015.

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Inviting companies to invest in Karnataka's food processing sector, state industry ministry R V Deshpande today assured of full support to set up new businesses and start-ups that could help boost farmers income.

The state has investor-friendly policies, talent pool and easy access to raw materials and the government is ready to even amend laws, if needed, to provide better facilities to establish businesses having potential to create jobs, he said.

"I assure you, we will go out of our way to support you. Now, the ball is in your court. If you have proposals right now, we are ready to clear them immediately. We have a transparent and single window clearance system," Deshpande told investors present at the ongoing three-day global food event organised by Union Food Processing Ministry.

More investment is needed in agriculture sector as it is the backbone of India's economy. More value-addition in agriculture is the need of the hour, he added.

Highlighting the opportunities Karnataka offers unlike other states, state agriculture minister Krishan Byre Gowda said the state offers competitive and diversified input supply with the advantage of ten agro-climatic zones.

Not only agri-commodities, but also dairy, fishery and poultry sector offers huge opportunities for investment. Besides the state has huge consumer base, he said, adding that one can look at investing in millets and organic foods.

Also, the state not only has policies to support big players but also start-up firms. The state is first to integrate 150 mandis on a single online platform, which helps companies to source raw material without any hazzle, he added.

ITC Ltd Divisional Chief Executive (foods) Hemant Malik, MTR Foods Ltd CEO Sanjay Sharma, Cargill Foods India Head Siraj Chaudhry, Future Consumer CEO (food parks) Sanjay Malpani spoke about investor friendly environment that the state offers and committed to continue their investment out there.

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Two Sri Lankan policemen have been arrested for the killing of a fisherman in northern Jaffna following an investigation.

A 27-year-old fisherman was killed and another was injured when two unidentified gunmen shot at them at Ariyalai in Jaffna on October 22. The area has a presence of the Army and the police's elite Special Task Force (STF).

The arrested were later identified as a sub inspector and a constable of the STF.

The fisherman from the Uthayapuram village of Ariyalai East died while his friend who was travelling with him on a motorcycle at the time of the shooting said he was shot from behind by two bike-borne persons.

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Apple's iPhone X hit stores around the world today, drawing crowds in many locations and protests in others as the new flagship device hit stores in some 50 markets worldwide.

Apple enthusiasts around the globe were lining up to get their hands on the new device which features facial recognition, cordless charging and an edge-to-edge screen with technology used in high-end televisions -- and an eye-popping price tag.

The new gadget marks the 10th anniversary of the first iPhone release and was released in about 50 markets today, starting in Asia and then followed by Europe and the Americas.

The launch came a day after Apple announced a 19-per cent jump in net profit to $10.7 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter to September 30. Revenues were up 12 per cent at $52.6 billion.

Guilherme Rossi, 23, came from Brazil with a friend to be at the Apple shop in San Francisco when the doors opened at 8:00 am today.

The self-described iPhone collector said there were Apple stores in Brazil, but they were in malls where spending nights in queues wasn't an option.

"Yes it's expensive, but I love the brand because it's cool and beautiful and because of all the technologies," Rossi said of the device with a starting price of $999.

Also at the opening of the Apple store in San Francisco was 40-year-old local Francisco Rivera, who said he was there to "get it first" and "show it off". He took up position in the queue yesterday afternoon.

It appears thieves opted not to wait, stealing more than 300 iPhones valued at some $370,000 from a delivery truck outside an Apple store in San Francisco, according to local reports.

Even though California is home to Apple, it was among the last locations for the iPhone X to become available given a global roll-out that started with the dawn of Friday in New Zealand.

"If I don't get it on the first day, I may as well wait until next year's model -- I don't like waiting," said Mathew Kam, a 21-year-old film student who queued outside the Apple store on London's Regent Street over night.

In Paris, where a queue had also formed in front of the Apple Store near the French capital's Garnier Opera house, 21 -year-old engineering student Jeremy said he had worked throughout the summer to save for a new phone.

He bought the most expensive version of the model costing 1,300 euros ($1,500) -- more than the minimum monthly wage in France.

But protesters in France used the launch to highlight Apple's tax dispute with Europan authorities.

French activists dumped a load of freshly picked apples -- the fruit -- as demonstrators carried signs saying "Apple, pay your taxes" in the southern city of Aix-en-Provence.

"We want Apple to feel the impact on its brand," protester Annick Coupe said.

In Frankfurt, Germany's financial capital, Apple fans had been lining up since the early hours.

Tim, a teacher, had traveled around 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Heidelberg to collect the phone he had ordered online.

"All the reserved models were sold out within 10 minutes," he recalled.

The wait for delivery stretched to an unprecedented six weeks shortly after Apple began taking pre-orders.

The new device was not creating such a buzz in the Greek capital of Athens, however, where no queues formed in front of the licensed Apple dealer in the city's chic Kolonaki quarter. But the company's marketing officer in Athens, Natalia Revela, insisted she was expecting "strong demand" and a "successful launch" for the phone.

Vyron Hatzidromou, a 38-year-old lawyer, said he "never missed" a new Apple launch. "I always buy the latest models when they come out for the hype and the fun," he said.

Earlier in Asia, buyers who had pre-ordered the phone online queued to pick up their purchases, saying they were willing to pay for what they saw as a landmark model.

"It's the 10th anniversary phone -- anyway, other phones like the Samsung are not much less," said banker Tony Yeung, 35, as he queued outside the Apple store in Hong Kong's Festival Walk mall.

Around 300 customers waited overnight outside Singapore's Apple store, the first shop in Southeast Asia to sell the new model.

Supakorn Rieksiri and Kittiwat Wang, both 22, said they had flown in from Bangkok yesterday to pick up pre-orders of two phones each.

"With all the different features like facial recognition and the bigger screen, it's all quite worth it," said Rieksiri, adding that the second handset was a gift for his mother.

Apple is setting an ambitious goal for itself to reinvent the smartphone as it strives to fend off fierce competition from rivals, especially in China.

The iPhone is its main profit driver, accounting for more than half its revenues.

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The Supreme Court today refused to entertain a plea challenging the Karnataka High Court's decision to reject a PIL seeking probe into alleged revelations in a sting operation, including that the term 'love jihad' was coined to target Muslim youths.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud dismissed the plea filed by a Karnataka resident, saying in such cases of cognisable offence, an FIR should be lodged.

"Why don't you file an FIR? You are bringing the PIL from which courts should stay away," the bench said.

The plea in the apex court was filed by Mohammed Riyaz. He had earlier moved the High Court seeking a probe into the revelations in the sting operation by a website in which a former BJP legislator had allegedly claimed that the term 'love jihad' was coined to target the Muslims.

The High Court had then dismissed the plea saying it was based on a media report and what was printed was not always correct.

Riyaz had also alleged in his plea before the top court that the high court had failed to appreciate the statement of the BJP Member of the Karnataka Legislative Council claiming that a large chunk of the police staff were RSS sympathisers who could manipulate such cases.

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Congress leader Kamal Nath today alleged that the agriculture sector in Madhya Pradesh is in bad shape and the farmers, who are battling the drought situation across 35 districts of the state, are not getting the right price for their produce.

Congress leader alleged that the 'Bhavantar Bhugtaan Yojna' introduced by the state government has failed in its aim to provide fair prices to the agriculture produce of farmers.

"Under the BJP rule, so many farmers have committed suicide in the state that it has become a sort of world record. It can also be included in the Guinness Book," Kamal Nath told reporters here.

"The farmers and traders are facing problems due to this scheme (Bhavantar Bhugtaan Yojna). But, Shivraj and his government have nothing to do with the problems. Talking aloud and running the government are two different things," the former union minister said.

Kamal Nath also targeted the Narendra Modi government on the issue of complexities and discrepancies in the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

He said, "We wanted to bring in one nation-one tax arrangement in the state. But, Modi government introduced a GST regime, which announces separate rates for a kurta and a pyjama.

"After the implementation of GST, the businessmen are hanging around the tax consultants instead of concentrating on their businesses."



Kamal Nath also questioned the Centre's ambitious "smart city scheme".

He said, "When I was the Minister for Urban Development in the previous government. The file of this scheme was forwarded to me as well. I had asked the officers to define the Smart City.

"I have not yet received the answer. Under the Modi government, the work of thousands of crores has been announced under this scheme.

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Rich tributes were paid to Major Pramod Purushottam, the officer who was instrumental in changing the image of army among the people of Kashmir at the height of militancy till the Kargil conflict, on his 18th death anniversary today.

Major Purushottam and his entire team at the army's public relations office were killed on this day in 1999 by Lashker-e-Taiba militants, who had carried out a suicide attack on the strategic Srinagar-based XV corps.

Till date, this has been the only terror attack on the Badami Bagh cantonment here.

Maj Purushottam had arrived in the Kashmir Valley at a time when militancy was at its peak and misinformation against the army, engaged in counter-insurgency operations, was spreading like a jungle fire, courtesy militant sympathisers.

Wreaths were laid today at the Major Purshottam memorial inside the Badami Bagh cantonment headquarters of the Army here.

"In a solemn and poignant ceremony held at the Badami Bagh cantonment, all ranks of the Public Relations Office paid rich tributes to Major P Purushottam and five soldiers who were killed in a fidayeen (suicide) attack on this day in 1999," a defence spokesman said.

Major Purushottam, who was posted as a Public Relations Officer (Defence) along with five of his comrades, fought the militants who had launched the attack on his office on November 3 and saved three mediapersons, the spokesman said.

"Having been engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with the terrorists, he and his colleagues were killed while trying to save media persons who were present in the PRO office at the time of the attack," he said.

Major Purushottam was with three photojournalists



Sheikh Tariq, Fayaz Ahmed and Habib Naqash when the militants had stormed his office after a blast outside the main gate of the cantonment.

As gunshots rang one after the other, Purushottam, without caring for his own safety, pushed the journalists and a personnel from his unit into the washroom attached to his office.

Firing indiscriminately, the marauders entered the Major's room and, when they had left, Pramod Purushottam and five members of his staff lay dead. All three journalists cheated death, thanks to the quick-thinking by Purushottam.

Retired Corps Commander Lt Gen Subrata Saha, who had instituted a trophy in Purtushottam's name, recalled that during his posting in the Valley, he had found the officer being fondly remembered by the people across the board.

"Every Defence PRO who joined thereafter used to be compared to Maj Purushottam as he was remembered for his compassionate and gentle behaviour," Gen Saha, who rose to become Deputy Chief of the Indian Army before hanging in his boots in March this year, said.

He said that during his stint, he had found that the brave officer, who was the face of the Army during the Kargil conflict, was instrumental in improving the image of the force during those difficult days when the army was facing false charges of human rights abuses in the Valley.

"He definitely was the true army officer who sacrificed his life for civilians," he said.

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A man was today sentenced to death for raping and murdering his nine-year-old daughter with the court describing his act as "abominable and outrageous".

Mahila court judge A Kayal Vizhi also awarded him double life imprisonment for rape under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POSCO) Act and IPC section 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder) besides imposing a fine of Rs 15,000.

According to the prosecution, accused M Mari (51), father of eight children and an alcoholic, raped his youngest daughter on a beach at Karaiyur in Rameswaram Island, murdered her and then flung her body into the sea.

As her body was washed ashore, police seized it and sent it for post-mortem, which found that she had been raped and murdered.

Following a quarrel, Mari's wife had left him and had gone to her first daughter's house with the other children. She had left her youngest daughter at a relative's house.

The prosecution said the accused had gone to the relative's house and forced them to hand over the girl to him, assuring them that he would take care of her.

But he took her to the beach, raped and murdered her on April 23, 2013, the prosecution said.

The judge condemned Mari's act describing it as "abominable and outrageous" and sentenced him to death.

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Metro Cash and Carry and global ride-sharing company Uber today announced an alliance to offer driver partners a membership with the wholesale chain.

Starting from Bengaluru, this alliance will soon be extended pan-India to all Metro and Uber driver partners, a joint statement said.

This membership will include special offers and discounts that will be made exclusively available to all Uber driver partners, it added.

Also, existing customers of Metro will benefit by this alliance with special offers and promos from Uber exclusively for Metro.

To mark the commencement of the initiative, 15 Uber driver partners were handed over Metro cards by the company's COO Pieter Boone, along with Christoph Winterer, Operating Partner, Asia Region, Metro Cash and Carry, and Arvind Mediratta, CEO & MD, Metro Cash and Carry India.

"India is a very important market for Metro and we are glad to kick-off this initiative from here.

"Through this partnership we aim at providing them access to the wide range of car accessories, oils, lubricants, confectionery and beverages at our wholesale outlets which will be instrumental towards making their business more profitable," Boone said in the statement.

"This alliance benefits our customers too. They can enjoy the ease of carrying the usual bulk purchase made at our store in an Uber, at a discounted price," he added.

Metro Cash and Carry is represented in 25 countries with over 750 self-service wholesale stores. With a headcount of more than 100,000 employees worldwide, the wholesale company reported sales of around 29 billion in financial year 2015/16.

It entered the Indian market in 2003 and currently operates 24 wholesale distribution centres in the country.

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Seeking to court dynamic young leaders representing different caste interests ahead of the Gujarat polls, Rahul Gandhi today met Dalit leader Jignesh Mewani, who stopped short of pledging support to the Congress but declared he would ask his followers not to vote for BJP.

The 36-year-old 'Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch' leader, who shot to prominence after the Dalit flogging incident in Gujarat's Una some time back, met Gandhi here and claimed the Congress vice president assured him that more than 90 per cent of his demands will be incorporated in the party's poll manifesto.

Gandhi and Mevani had half-an-hour closed-door meeting at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Navsari.

"Since Una (incident), we launched numerous agitations and submitted memorandums. Despite this, the thick-skinned BJP government, which is not only anti-Dalit but also anti-people, has not considered even one demand of our community. They have not even bothered to even to talk to us," Mevani told reporters after the meeting.

On the other hand, the Congress was receptive to the demands of the Dalit community, Mevani added.

Several Dalit youths were flogged in Una on suspicion of cow slaughter when they were skinning a dead animal.

"We had a detailed discussion with Rahulji on our 17 demands. Rahulji not only listened to us, but said over 90 per cent of them were our constitutional rights. He assured us that most of the legitimate demands would be included in the Congress manifesto," he said.

Asked if he would advise Dalits to vote for the Congress in the upcoming polls, Mevani said, "I will ask my community not to vote for the BJP."



The demands include five acres of farmland to each Dalit family, alternative employment for those involved in cattle- skinning and manual scavenging, and the release of a probe report on the incident of firing on the community members at Thangadh in Surendranagar district in 2012.

"We listen to everyone and work after hearing their problems -- be it Jignesh, Hardik (Patidar quota stir leader Hardik Patel) or Alpesh (OBC leader Alpesh Thakor)," Gandhi said after the meeting.

On the other hand, the BJP is only interested in making the people listen to its "Mann Ki Baat", the Congress vice president said, taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's monthly radio programme.

The Congress, out of power in the key western state for over 22 years now, has been trying to woo three young leaders who have emerged on Gujarat's political firmament in recent times through various agitations.

Alpesh Thakor, an OBC leader, has already joined the party.

Hardik Patel, the patidar quota stir leader, the most prominent among the three, has so far not declared support to the Congress, but has been critical of the BJP.

The 24-year-old recently met the Congress's incharge for Gujarat Ashok Gehlot and put forth a set of demands, including reservation for the influential Patel community in government jobs and educational institutions in the Other Backward Classes category.

The Congress, however, has promised it would provide quotas to the community under the Economically Backward Classes (EBC) category.

The first round of talks between Gujarat Congress leaders took place on October 30 but the quota issue remained unresolved. However, it accepted the four other demands put forward by Patel, who did not attend the talks.

Congress agreed to the demand for formation of a special investigation team (SIT), if voted to power, to investigate alleged atrocities against the members of the community during the PAAS rally in Ahmedabad on August 25-26, 2015, senior Congress leader Siddharth Patel said after. He said legal action will be taken against those held guilty.

It also promised withdrawal of all police cases against Hardik's Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) members, including on the serious charge of sedition. If voted to power, the Congress government will make an ex-gratia payment of Rs 35 lakh to the kin of those killed during the quota agitation and a government job to one member of their families, Patel said.

The Congress will form a commission for general category communities and provide it with a corpus of Rs 2,000 crore for education, skill development and self-employment, he said.

The reservation issue, however, can prove a major hurdle in Hardik Patel extending support to the Congress as Alpesh Thakor, who heads the Kshatriya Thakor Sena, has been opposed to reservation to the Patels within the quota meant for the backward classes.

In fact, Thakor had launched an agitation to counter the one led by Hardik Patel for reservation for his community.

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Odisha Agriculture Minister Damodar Rout today appealed with folded hands to farmers not to set their standing paddy crop afire because of a pest attack in certain districts of the state.

The minister's appeal came after the state government received reports of farmers setting ablaze their paddy fields hit by the brown planthopper pest attack.

Unable to control the problem, many farmers have burnt down their standing crops in about 10 districts of the state.

"The paddy crop is regarded as goddess Laxmi in our society since time immemorial. I am requesting the farmers, hit by the pest attack, with folded hands not to set fire to their standing paddy crops," Rout told mediapersons.

He asserted that the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government in the state was with the farmers.

"Stringent action will be taken against those selling fake pesticides in the market," Rout said, adding that compensation would also be provided to the distressed farmers.

The farmers have alleged that fake pesticides are being sold in the market.

The state government had yesterday asked the collectors of Bargarh, Bolangir, Ganjam, Kalahandi, Koraput, Nuapada, Sambalpur and Sonepur districts to submit a report on the quantum of crop loss due to the pest attack within two days.

The government has also launched a toll-free phone number, 1800-180-1551, to respond to the farmers seeking help in tackling the pest problem.

Over the last three days, the farmers of Bargarh, Jharsuguda, Nuapada, Ganjam, Sambalpur, Rayagada districts set their standing paddy crops on fire as they could not control the pest attack.

A high population of planthoppers causes the leaves to initially turn orange or yellow, before becoming brown and dry. This is a condition called hopperburn which eventually kills the plant.

On Wednesday, a farmer in Bargarh district had allegedly committed suicide after setting his pest-affected paddy crops afire. The Odisha Human Rights Commission has sought a report from the district collector and secretaries of the agriculture and revenue departments on the incident.

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The Cyrus Mistry group today moved the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), seeking to amend its petition demanding action against Tata Sons for "oppression" of minority shareholders and "mismanagement" of Tata Group companies.

Cyrus Investments and Sterling Investments filed the amendment pleas today, after the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on September 21 asked it to approach the Mumbai NCLT.

The NCLT is likely to hear the main petition of the Mistry firms as well as the amendment plea November 20 onwards.

The NCLAT had in September allowed Mistry firms' plea seeking a waiver of the 10 per cent minimum shareholding eligibility criterion, to be able to move the tribunal against Tata Sons.

A release from Mistry's office said today the two firms have now sought to bring on record facts about the business conducted at the 99th AGM of Tata Sons on September 21.

The 99th AGM of Tata Sons converted Tata Sons Ltd from a public company to a private company.

"It is the case of the companies that the facts which are now sought to be brought on record are oppressive in nature and are relevant to the ongoing proceedings," the statement said.

The Mistry family owns 18.4 per cent stake in Tata Sons. But the holding is under 3 per cent if the preferential shares are excluded (a point the Tatas stressed), thus not meeting the criterion of having at least 10 per cent ownership in a company for filing a case of oppression of minority shareholders under the Companies Act.

Mistry is locked in a legal battle with the Tatas since his sacking as chairman of Tata Sons on October 24, 2016, and removal as a director on February 6, 2017.

The appellate tribunal had said although the Mistry companies did not meet the minimum shareholding norm, under exceptional circumstances this statutory requirement can be waived.

It thus directed the NCLT, which had dismissed Mistry's petition against Tata Sons on the ground of not meeting the minimum shareholding criterion, to decide the case in three months.

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Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla today said the state government has given its consent for a CBI probe into the Central subsidy scam.

Addressing Congress workers here, Lal Thanhawla, who is also the president of Mizoram Pradesh Congress Committee said the state government has the power to request the CBI to investigate the scam.

In the Central subsidy scam, a company, Mizo Carbon Products had been accused of receiving crores of rupees under the Central Transport Subsidy (CTS) and the Central Investment Subsidy (CIS) by allegedly forging government documents.

Meanwhile, the opposition Mizo National Front (MNF), in a press statement said that Lal Thanhawla government had initially refused a CBI probe into Central subsidy scam and it was the Gauhati High Court that had decided to order the CBI investigations.

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Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee president Sachin Pilot today accused the BJP of using enormous resources and money in the Assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh as it was scared of defeat.

He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personal charisma has waned.

"Modi magic has cease to work in Himachal and the BJP which had been claiming that Modi would be the party's face in the state has been forced to declare former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal as the party's CM face," he told reporters.

"The modest campaign launched by the Congress, spearheaded by chief minister Virbhadra Singh has baffled the BJP and it has been compelled to change the strategy and declare Dhumal as leader just nine days before the poll, but it would not help the party which lost the polls under the leadership of Dhumal in 2012," Pilot said.

The main poll plank of the Congress party is development as under the leadership of Virbhadra Singh, the Congress government has done unprecedented development of the state, he said, adding that "money power" of the BJP would have no effect on poll prospects of the Congress.

"Besides the prime minister and the BJP chief, they have engaged a battery of about 20 senior leaders including 13 central ministers in the campaign, but they will not be able to influence the voters in Himachal as they are all literate and politically aware.

"The fact that the Modi government has only harassed the common man has gone deep into the mind of people and they are aware that Modi's reckless decisions of demonetisation and GST led to price rise and caused great hardship to the business community and also hurt the consumers," he said.

Taking strong exception to the language used by Prime Minister Modi in the rallies in the state against the chief minister, Pilot said, "This does not behove a leader of the stature of Prime Minister of India."



He criticised the central investigation agencies for dancing to the tunes of the central government.

"The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) are being used as tools by the Centre to harass political opponents," he said.

Pilot said that the CBI and the ED were "not interested" in investigation into scams involving BJP leaders, whether it was Madhya Pradesh or Rajasthan.

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More time spent on Facebook and Twitter may not lead to poor mental health, according to a study which suggests that how people use social media is more important than the time they spend doing so.

There has so far been no evidence supporting the view that the amount of time spent on social media affects mental health in young people, said Chloe Berryman of the University of Central Florida in the US.

Researchers found very few links between different aspects of social media use among young adults and possible mental health problems such as loneliness, decreased empathy and social anxiety.

"We do not deny the potential for some online behaviours to be associated with mental health problems, rather we propose that research focus on the behaviour of individuals rather than assume media is the root cause of all socio- personal problems," said Berryman, lead author of the study published in the journal Psychiatric Quarterly.

Berryman compared the response that some people have to social media to a form of "moral panic" such as that surrounding video games, comic books and rock music.

Berryman and her colleagues analysed the responses of 467 young adults to a variety of questionnaires.

They were questioned about the amount of time per day they spent using social media, the importance it has in their lives, and the way they used social media.

Their current mental health state, levels of social anxiety, the quality of their relationship with their parents and the amount of social support that they could count on were also assessed.

Aspects such as general mental health symptoms, suicidal ideation, loneliness, social anxiety and decreased empathy were also considered.

The only worrying trend found had to do with vaguebooking, which refers to a person's tendency to write social media posts that contain little actual and clear information, but are worded in such a way as to solicit attention and concern from potential readers.

Young people who tended to often write such posts were found to be lonelier, and to have more suicidal thoughts than others, researchers said.

"Vaguebooking was slightly predictive of suicidal ideation, suggesting this particular behaviour could be a warning sign for serious issues," said Berryman.

"It is therefore possible that some forms of social media use may function as a 'cry for help' among individuals with pre-existing mental health problems," she said.

"Overall, results from this study suggest that, with the exception of vaguebooking, concerns regarding social media use may be misplaced.

"Our results are generally consistent with other studies which suggest that how people use social media is more critical than the actual time they spend online with regards to their mental health," Berryman added.

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Highways builders body NHBF took a strong exception to NHAI's move to put in public domain the names of companies which had been barred from bidding for road projects, saying it has no authority to do so.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has reportedly uploaded on its website names of companies including Larsen & Toubro, HCC and Essel Infra Projects and the period for which they were barred from bidding for projects.

The list, however, was withdrawn. Repeated calls made to NHAI Chairman Deepak Kumar and other senior officials in this regard remained unanswered.

"Even assuming that NHAI falls under the definition of a state instrumentality and thereby it has, powers to blacklist an entity flows from the executive power to Carry out the trade/business, it has no authority to upload such document in public domain," said the National Highways Builders Federation (NHBF) in a letter that has been sent to Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari and Principal Secretary to PM Nripendra Mishra, among others.

The letter mentions, "This unilateral action of NHAI has totally shaken the confidence of the developers/contractors community, especially when the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is coming out with ambitious development of national and state highways including the Bharatmala scheme."



None of the companies, who have been debarred for the next 2-3 years, were issued any kind of show-cause notice or given an opportunity to represent, before they were put to shame in public, the NHBF said.

When contacted, infrastructure major L&T said termination cannot be treated as its default.

"L&T IDPL, a subsidiary of L&T, terminated a concession for the Pimpalgaon Nashik Gonde Project due to force majeure events arising from law and order issues as per provisions of the concession agreement, after completing the project," a L&T spokesperson said.

He said, "In our opinion the termination cannot be treated as a concessionaire event of default."



The infrastructure major said the matter is subjudice as it is under arbitration/conciliation. As per NHAI directions, the matter has been represented and a decision is awaited from them shortly."



The reported list, withdrawn by NHAI, had details of 20 projects terminated by the regulator after April 2014 due to contractor's event of default in which developers were asked to make any representation to NHAI headquarters by November 6.

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The Delhi government is not providing financial assistance to people rescued from bondage, a victim of bonded labour today said in a PIL in the Delhi High Court.

Taking note of the seriousness of the issue, a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar issued notice to the Centre and Delhi government and sought their stand on the plea by a Jharkhand man, who was working as a bonded labour in a shop here from where he was rescued.

The court also made the Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DSLSA) a party in the matter and sought its response too before the next date of hearing on December 11.

The petitioner has claimed that he was rescued in February this year in a raid carried out under the supervision of the Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) of the south east district of Delhi.

However, till date he has not been given any financial assistance as provided under the Central Sector Scheme for Rehabilitation of Bonded Labour 2016, despite several letters to the SDM and District Magistrate (DM) of the south east district of Delhi, the petition has claimed.

Under the scheme, an immediate financial assistance of Rs 5,000 was to be provided by the DM. This amount was later enhanced to Rs 20,000, the plea said.

The petitioner, Walter Kerketta, has also alleged that besides him, there were several minors who were rescued from bonded labour, but were yet to received any financial aid from the Delhi government.

He has also claimed that the Delhi government has not ensured that the district authorities have a permanent corpus fund of Rs 10 lakh, as mandated under the scheme, for immediate rehabilitation and assistance of victims of bonded labour.

The petitioner has sought directions to the SDM and DM of south-east district of Delhi to forthwith grant financial assistance under the scheme to him and other victims of bonded labour.

The PIL also seeks directions to the Delhi government to create a permanent bonded labour rehabilitation corpus fund of Rs 10 lakh as per the scheme.

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There are no workmen or non- workmen directors in any of the nationalised banks in the country, a plea today claimed in the Delhi High Court which asked the government to respond.

Justice Vibhu Bakhru issued notice to the Centre and sought its stand on the grievance raised in the petition by the All India Bank Officers Confederation.

The petition, filed through advocate Prashant Bhushan, has claimed that the Banking Companies (Acquisition and transfer of Undertakings) Act empowers the central government to make a scheme to include representation from workmen or non-workmen employees on the Board of Directors of nationalised banks.

Advocate Shakti Vardhan Sharma, appearing for the petitioner organisation, told the court that under the Nationalised Banks(Management and Miscellaneous Provisions) Scheme, 1970, a workman or non-workman employee director has to be nominated by the government from a panel of three such persons furnished to it by their representative union.

The organisation has contended that the intention behind workmen or non-workmen employee directors is to provide representation to every class of employees on the nationalised banks' boards of directors.

"But it is being noticed that currently all the banks do not have any workmen/non-workmen employee director on their Board. Punjab and Sind Bank has had no non-workmen employee director since 2008. Most of the workmen and non-workmen employee director posts are vacant since 2016.

"The whole purpose of giving representation to these class of employees is defeated if the central government fails to appoint directors on time," the petition has said.

It has alleged that despite the unions forwarding the names of potential candidates to the government, no appointments have been made.

The petitioner organisation has sought directions to the Centre to appoint workmen and non-workmen employee directors on the boards of all nationalised banks.

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Congress leader Digvijay Singh has said he is ready to face another defamation suit from the BJP which has threatened legal against him after the CBI gave a clean chit to Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the Vyapam scam case.

Singh had dragged Chouhan's name in the recruitment and appointment scam and alleged that data on the hard disk related to the case had reference to "CM", which was erased.

The central investigation agency, which filed a charge sheet in a Bhopal court two days ago, said, "There is no grain of truth in the allegation that the HDD (hard disk drive) seized on July 18, 2013 from the office of the then principal system analyst, Vyapam was tampered."



After the clean chit to Chouhan, the state BJP said it is planning to file a defamation case against the former chief minister for levelling baseless allegations about tampering with evidence.

Asked about the BJP statement, Singh said earlier also a number of such cases had been filed against him and he is ready for one more.

"A number of such cases had been filed against me and I am ready for one more," the Congress veteran told reporters at Lepa village in Khargone district last evening.

Singh is on a pilgrimage tour of the river Narmada.

The 70-year-old politician has embarked on 'Narmada Parikrama', a walk along the banks of the river.

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Days after Japan indicated that it would propose a top-level quadrilateral dialogue with the US, India and Australia, the Japanese envoy here has said that the matter is still "under discussion" and "nothing concrete" has emerged as of now.

Ambassador Kenji Hiramatsu, however, also said Japan is keen to have partnership with countries on shared values.

"The matter on the quadrilateral dialogue is still under discussion. And, at this time frame, nothing concrete has emerged," he told PTI on the sidelines of an event at the Japanese Embassy here last evening.

Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Kono last month had said that Tokyo favours a dialogue between Japan, the US, India and Australia to further boost strategic partnership among the four countries.

In its reaction, India had said that it was open to working with like-minded countries on issues that advance its interests and promote Indian viewpoint.

"We are not rigid in this regard," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had said when asked about the Japanese foreign minister's remarks.

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Nine men, who have suffered serious burn injuries in the NTPC plant explosion in Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli, have been shifted to the Safdarjung Hospital here.

While two of the injured persons were brought to the Centre-run facility at around 8 PM last night, seven others were admitted in the burns ICU of the hospital early this morning.

"Five of the patients are very critical. While three of them have suffered around 80 per cent burns, two have got 60 -70 per cent burn injuries," Dr Rajendra Sharma, the medical superintendent of the Safdarjung Hospital, told PTI.

The other four patients have suffered burns ranging between 25-45 per cent, Sharma said.

"We have the arrangements in place, in case more patients are to be brought, we can accommodate them," Sharma said.

Minister of State for Health Anupriya Patel visited the hospital last night to oversee and ensure that the blast burn patients get the best treatment and care.

The death toll in the massive explosion at the state-run power giant NTPC's Unchahar plant climbed to over 30.

More 85 injured people are being treated at hospitals in Rae Bareli and Lucknow.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who is abroad, had announced Rs 2 lakh compensation for the family of those killed and Rs 50,000 for the grievously injured, besides Rs 25,000 for other injured workers.

Union power minister R K Singh has also announced a compensation amount of Rs 20 lakh to the next of kin of those killed, observing that the earlier ex-gratia was not enough.

The NTPC has initiated a probe to ascertain the reasons behind the blast.

In a statement issued yesterday, the NTPC had said that at unit number 6 of its Unchahar plant, there was a sudden abnormal sound at 20-metre elevation on Wednesday afternoon.

The 1,550-MW plant supplies electricity to nine states, according to officials, and employs around 870 people.
Refugees barricaded inside a shuttered Australian detention camp in Papua New Guinea were becoming "distraught and depressed", detainees said today, as New Zealand renewed an offer to resettle some of them.

The remote camp on PNG's Manus Island -- one of two centres holding asylum-seekers who tried to reach Australia by boat -- was proclaimed closed on Tuesday after the nation's Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional.

Australia shut off water and electricity to the camp, but some 600 men remain inside, fearful for their safety if they move to transition centres where locals are reportedly hostile.

"The current mood of the men is they are really distraught and depressed," Manus detainee and Sudanese refugee Abdul Aziz Adam told AFP.

"We are just helping and caring for each other and trying to help each other just to stay alive," the 24-year-old said.

As the stand-off entered its fourth day, New Zealand's new Labour government renewed an offer to take 150 of the refugees which was initially made in 2013 but never acted upon by Australia.

"We would like to work with Australia to help find a compassionate solution to this," Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway told Radio New Zealand.

"We've got an offer of 150 people and we really hope that Australia takes that up... we are here to help," he said.

The issue is set to arise when New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who came to power just last month, meets Australia's conservative Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in Sydney on Sunday.

Iranian Behrouz Boochani, another Manus detainee, told AFP Friday the detainees viewed New Zealand as a "big opportunity to take us from this hellhole prison".

"We are asking the New Zealand PM to make a serious negotiation with the Australian government and if Australia rejects it again, to try to do a deal with PNG."



Boochani added that the detainees were able to "collect water in rubbish bins" after a downpour the day before, and were also boiling water pooled inside a hole they had dug to drink.

"Many people are unable to sleep because of hunger and fear," he said.

The impasse has frustrated Manus Governor Charlie Benjamin, who accused the Australian and PNG governments of using his island as a "dumping ground" for the asylum-seekers.

"The ministers involved in signing the agreement to bring the asylum seekers to Manus in 2013 didn't give a thought about the Manus people," he told PNG daily The National.

"They never did one time involve me in the negotiation although I was the governor at that time."



The UNHCR representative on the island, Lam Nai Jit, told AFP Thursday tensions were likely to rise as the men battled the "extremely hot and humid" weather.

A key concern for the refugees has been the lack of medication, particularly for those being treated for mental health conditions.

"Around 20 percent of people in the detention centre are being prescribed anti-depression drugs for obviously being depressed or for post-traumatic stress," Australian Greens senator Nick McKim, who visited the centre Tuesday, told AFP late Thursday.

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The Congress said today that its organisational polls were on and there was no bottleneck holding up the process, even as it took a swipe at the BJP and asked the party when did it have such an election.

"The Congress President and party vice president has already talked about the organisational polls. The election process is on and there is no problem or bottleneck in holding them," Congress spokesperson R P N Singh told reporters.

Asked about the BJP alleging that the result of the Congress president's poll was already known, Singh said as far as the polls are concerned, "I would like to ask the BJP when was the last time that they had election for the President;s post."



Singh alleged that there has never been an election of the BJP President, while there have been many elections in the Congress party.

"The BJP never actually had an election. So they should also talk about polls. When did they have polls for the President?" he asked.

The Congress organisational poll process is on and the party has to complete that, including the election of the Congress President, by December-end.

It is widely speculated that Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi will be elevated to the party's top soon, with a number of state units having already passed resolutions urging him to take over the party's reins.

The Election Commission has given December 31 as the deadline for the party to hold internal elections.

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More than 1100 bottles of Nepali liquor have been seized from two districts of Bihar along the Indo-Nepal border, smuggled into the state that is witnessing total prohibition, officials said today.

A team of Sashashtra Seema Bal (SSB) seized 860 bottles of Nepali liquor, valued at Rs 4.30 lakh, in Araria district late last night, SSB's 56th battalion Commandant Mukesh Gautam said.

He said a SSB team, which was on patrol duty, stopped the smugglers when they sneaked inside the Indian territory on three bikes near Manikpur village under Fulkaha outpost of the district.

The trio fled taking advantage of the darkness, but left behind their motorcycles and 860 bottles of 300 ML each, the Commandant said.

In an another incident, two persons were arrested with 300 bottles of Nepali liquor in Madhubani district, in-charge of the SSB's Gangaur camp Mani Bhushan Prakash said.

He said the arrested persons have been identified as Ravi Shankar Sah and Mohd Saddam, both of them residents of different villages falling under Harlakhi police station area.

One of their accomplice, who was helping them smuggle the liquor into the Indian territory from Nepal near the border pillar no. 52, managed to flee.

The seized liquor and the arrested persons have been handed over to the local police, the SSB official said.

Seizure of huge consignment of alcohol is significant as Bihar is witnessing complete ban on alcohol since April last year.

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Pakistan's ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif today appeared before an anti-graft court which adjourned till November 7 the hearing of corruption cases against him, his daughter and son-in-law spiralling from the Panama Papers scandal.

Sharif, 67, and some of his family members are facing charges relating to their ownership of properties in London.

He resigned as prime minister in July after the country's Supreme Court disqualified him over undeclared income.

Three cases were registered by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on September 8 against Sharif, his children and son-in-law in the Accountability Court Islamabad, following a verdict by the Supreme Court.

Sharif, who returned home from London yesterday, appeared in the court along with legal team.

He had went to London last month to be with his ailing wife Kulsoom Nawaz who is battling throat cancer.

His daughter Maryam and her souse Muhammad Safdar also were present during today's hearing.

At the start of the hearing, the defence asked the accountability judge to consider the verdict of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), which yesterday ordered the accountability court to hear again the plea that Sharifs three cases should clubbed together.

The anti-graft court last month rejected an application by Sharif that since all three cases deals with assets beyond means, so they should be taken up as a single case.

The decision was challenged in the IHC which referred the case to the Accountability Court with an order to re-hear it. However, the IHC did not issue detailed verdict and Sharifs lawyer asked the court to adjourn the hearing till a comprehensive judgement.

The court then adjourned the hearing till November 7.

Sharif told the media that he was victimised.

He also said that Pakistan Peoples Party leader Asif Ali Zardari was speaking against him "to please someone".

"I dont have to say anything as the present situation and actions are in front of everyone," he said.

Heavy security arrangements were made around the judicial complex today to deal with any untoward situation.

Sharif was indicted in absence in three cases. Maryam and Safdar have been indicted in one case with him, while the court is proceeding separately against his two sons Husain and Hasan who are co-accused in three cases.

The court during the hearing on October 9 decided to separate the trial of his sons from Sharif and his daughter and son-in-law.

The cases are based on July 28 disqualification verdict of the Supreme Court and to launch three corruption cases against him, his family, and one case against Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.

The political future of Sharif, who leads the country's most powerful political family and the ruling PML-N party, has been hanging in balance since then. If convicted, Sharif can be jailed.

Sharif's family alleges that the cases are politically motivated.

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Pakistan's top leadership today expressed their condolences over the death of Dina Wadia, saying the only daughter of the country's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah was a greatly respected and admired figure.

Wadia passed away at her home in New York yesterday. She was 98.

The Foreign Office in a message said that President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi "expressed deepest condolences, on behalf of the people and government of Pakistan, on the passing away of Ms Dina Wadia".

"Mr Nusli Wadia, Mrs Dina Wadia's son has been conveyed the sadness of the Pakistani nation, on the demise of their beloved mother who was greatly respected and admired in Pakistan. May she rest in peace," it said.

Born on the night between August 14 and 15 in 1919 in London, Dina's relation with Jinnah suffered when she decided to marry a Parsi man against her father's wishes.

She visited Pakistan after partition, first when Jinnah died in 1948 and the second time in 2004.

"This has been very sad as well as wonderful for me. May his (Jinnah's) dream for Pakistan come true," she wrote in the visitors' book.

Dina is survived by her son and Wadia group chairman Nusli N Wadia, daughter Diana N Wadia and great grandsons Ness and Jeh Wadia.

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Pakistan today summoned the British High Commissioner here and conveyed its "serious concern" over anti-Pakistan slogans recently displayed on cabs in London.

The Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) said Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua called in British envoy Thomas Drew.

She conveyed "serious concern at the display of slogans on London cabs that directly attack Pakistan's territorial integrity and sovereignty".

The FO said the British High Commissioner was informed that Pakistan, in line with the UN Charter, rejects actions and advertisements with malicious content that impinge on "our sovereignty and territorial integrity".

It said the issue was also being raised with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by Pakistan's High Commissioner in London.

"Pakistan is aware of the intentions of such sinister and malicious campaigns, which should not be allowed on the soil of a friendly country," the FO said.

Details about the offending content were not provided but they seem to be linked with anti-Pakistan banners which appeared in Switzerland in September.

Pakistan had summoned the Swiss ambassador here to protest over the banners which were attributed to a militant group active in restive Balochistan province which is witnessing an armed separatist insurgency.

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Two Parsi high priests have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to realign the upcoming Metro III rail project saying it threatens the sanctity of two fire temples in south Mumbai, which would be a "great religious loss" to the community.

The two senior-most high priests of the Zoroastrian community, Dastur Firoze Kotwal and Dastur K M Jamaspasa, have written the letter to the prime minister on October 21, to register their protest against the metro tunnel planned underneath or near two Atash Behrams (fire temples) in south Mumbai.

The Metro III tunnel will pass underneath the Wadia Atash Behram, which was consecrated in 1830 at the Princess Road junction and in close proximity to the Anjuman Atash Behram (1897) across the road. These two are among the eight Atash Behrams in India.

"An Atash Behram (fire temple) is a composite whole comprising not just the consecrated fire enthroned in the sanctum sanctorum, but also includes, within this definition, the whole edifice in which the divine fire is housed. During the process of consecration and enthronement, the holy fire is linked spiritually, to the earth below it, from which it draws sustenance," they said in the letter.

"Hence, you will find that our ancestors took great ritual precautions to protect and maintain this connection and sanctity," the letter read.

"The tunnelling process could affect the water tables adversely, and there is a distinct possibility of the Atash Behram will go dry, in which case, none of the high rituals of the Zoroastrian faith can be performed in these Atash Behrams. This would be a great religious loss to our community. This loss is clearly unacceptable to us as high priests of the community," they said in the letter.

Commenting on the development, Marzban Hathiram, a Parsi priest, said, "Ever since the Metro-III proposal was mooted, we have been raising our concerns, but unfortunately the Metro makers ignored us and went ahead with their plan. First, they kept us in dark and procrastinated in furnishing the details of the project under RTI and by the time they gave the copy of the plan, the construction work for the Metro project had begun."



Before the digging work for the Metro III project started earlier this year, Vada Dasturji Khurshed Dastoor of Udawada, a member of the National Commission for Minorities, had expressed his satisfaction after meeting officials from the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC).

However, the two high priests have raised objections over the Metro route.

Hathiram said, "We believe that the fire temple is a unique entity. This complex is a sacred entity, which is to be separated from the normal world. If you are digging under the ground, be it five feet deep of 50 ft, you are disturbing the facial construction and sanctity of the holy premises."



Hanoz Mistry, editor of The Parsee Voice and a community activist, said that out of all the five high priests of the community in the country, four of them have opined that the tunnel is affecting the very sanctity of the fire temple.

A fire temple is not just the fire in the sanctum sanctorum, but a composite whole along with the building in which fire is housed, he said.

"There are only eight fire temples in the whole world and Mumbai houses four of them within a periphery of one kilometer. We cannot sit quite and see two of them getting affected," Mistry said.

He said they have launched an online petition on change.org over this issue and received over 10,000 signatures including from non-Parsi people.

When contacted, a spokesperson from the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL) said the alignment of Mumbai Metro III is neither below the sanctum sanctorum of Parsi fire temples nor it would affect them during the construction.

"Same is true for all the Parsi wells along the Metro route. Recently, we had an opportunity to meet respected Vada Dasturji Khurshed Dastoorji of Udawada, during which we gave him a detailed presentation on these issues. Dasturji was convinced that the sanctum sanctorums of the fire temples as well as the wells will not be affected by the construction activity. He expressed his satisfaction over the project," the official said.

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Actress Paz de la Huerta has alleged that disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein raped her twice in 2010.

The "Boardwalk Empire" made the revelations in an interview with Vanity Fair.

The first instance, de la Huerta said, was in November of that year. Weinstein allegedly offered her a ride home to her apartment, where he demanded to come inside and have a drink.

She said Weinstein then started to kiss her, and after she tried to brush him away, he pushed her onto the bed.

"I felt afraid... It wasn't consensual... It happened very quickly..." De la Huerta said.

The actor said the second assault happened a month later, in December.

When asked about de la Huerta's allegations, Brendan Ryan of the New York Police Department told Variety in a statement, "We are aware of the sexual assault complaints. We are actively investigating them. The NYPD continues to work with the Manhattan District Attorney's office on the case. The investigation is on-going."



De la Huerta joins dozens of women who have come out against Weinstein alleging sexual harassment or assault.

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Union minister S S Ahluwalia today said the people of the country would get safe piped drinking water by the year 2030.

The union minister of state for drinking water and sanitation was here to review the progress of drinking water schemes and various sanitation programmes being implemented in the state.

"People across the country would get safe piped drinking water by 2030," Ahluwalia told reporters at the airport here.

"I have been visiting the states which are faced with drinking water and sanitation problems. My visit to Odisha aims at expediting implementation of schemes and programmes," Ahluwalia told reporters at the airport here.

After visiting a village under Angargadia gram panchayat near the state capital, he reviewed the programmes at a meeting with state government officials.

"We have achieved the target of 45 per cent in providing toilets to households with no such facility. While only 12 per cent of the households had toilets till 2014, now the rate is 45 per cent," said a state government official.

Odisha government informed the union minister that the state has a target to provide piped water to each gram panchayat by 2019.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi today held talks with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Latvian Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis separately to cement India's bilateral ties with the two countries.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said prime minister Modi and president Sargsyan discussed ways to intensify cooperation.

"They (Armenia) are a big importer of our pharma products. There were some discussions to assess on how to take it forward," Kumar said in response to a question on the nature of talks.

He said that there is also cooperation between India and Armenia in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector.

"We have set up an ICT center in Yerevan (the capital of Armenia) and some discussion took place on how this can be upgraded," he said.

"Reinvigorating age-old ties. PM @narendramodi meets President Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia, discusses ways to intensify cooperation," Kumar tweeted earlier.

With Latvia, talks were held to strengthen cooperation especially in the field of Information Technology.

"Strengthening the bonds of friendship. PM @narendramodi met PM Maris Kucinskis of Latvia, discussed wide range of bilateral issues," Kumar tweeted.

He quoted prime minister Modi as saying that India and Latvia have strong potential for cooperation in higher education, IT, food processing, fisheries and allied sectors.

Kumar said there are around 1,000 Indian students studying in the European country.

The visiting dignitaries also took part in the World Food India conference.

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Poland's government is protesting a comment by the German defence minister, calling it an "unacceptable" attempt to meddle in Poland's internal affairs.

German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said during a talk show on Thursday on German's ZDF broadcaster that it is important to support the "healthy, democratic resistance of the young generation" in Poland. The comment came as part of a discussion of the many troubles the European Union faces, including the erosion of liberal democracy in parts of Central Europe.

Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said yesterday that he wants von der Leyen to retract the words, which he called "unacceptable." He said the comment is evidence of "German politicians trying to interfere in the internal affairs of Poland.

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Taking a swipe at the BJP-led Maharashtra government releasing advertisements to portray its achievements in the last three years, the Congress today claimed photographs of Bangkok city have been used in the posters put up at the state secretariat.

"It is very clear that the BJP is suffering from a pathological lying disease. They have used a photograph of Bangkok in one of the posters put up in Mantralaya describing its achievements in urban development department," Sawant told newspersons here.

"Considering the pathetic condition of roads here, such good quality roads cannot be found in Maharashtra. It is possible that state government may now say that Bangkok is a part of Maharashtra," he added sarcastically.

He termed as "ridiculous" the recent statement of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan that roads in Madhya Pradesh are better than Washington.

"Development in Maharashtra has also gone crazy like Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh," Sawant added.

He further said the government is cutting down budgetary expenditure on development and spending exorbitant amounts on advertising.

"Crores of rupees worth contracts are being awarded to private companies to market unexecuted works. This extravagant expenditure is condemnable as the government is burdened with huge loans. People do not trust this telebrand government," Sawant said.

Meanwhile, government spokesperson Brijesh Singh said it was an error on part of the agency that created it and the government is inquiring into the matter.

"It is one small image in 50 panels that have been put up to showcase the works done by the government. It seems to be an error by the agency that created it. We are conducting an inquiry over it.

"It is a minor part of the whole panel and it was nowhere said it was a particular road. It was only a representational image," the senior IPS officer told PTI.

"There are 50 panels that showcase work done by different departments. It would be worthwhile for anybody to see what work has been done rather than looking at errors which may be inadvertant or silly," he added.

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State-run Power Grid Corporation (PGCIL), which reported 14.37 per cent increase in its net profit for the quarter ended September 30 at Rs 2,141.04 crore, plans to raise around Rs 3,000 crore through masala bonds.

The Navratna firm company, which had reported a net profit of Rs 1,872 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal, has already approached the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for raising funds through masala bonds.

Masala bonds are bonds issued outside India but denominated in Indian Rupees, rather than the local currency.

"We have been raising through domestic and overseas bonds. Masala bonds are also an option that we are looking at. We have already approached the RBI for its approval for raising around Rs 3,000 crore through masala bonds," PGCIL Director (Finance) K Sreekant told PTI here.

He said the company is hopeful to come out with this bond by the end of this financial year.

For this financial year, the company has set a capex target of Rs 25,000 crore.

"We have already raised around Rs 6,100 crore through bonds and we will need to raise another Rs 18,000 crore through debt," Sreekant said.

The company reported a total income of Rs 7,492 crore for second quarter against Rs 6,480 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal, registering a growth of 16 per cent.

During the quarter, PGCIL added about 2,260 ckm of transmission lines, four substations and aggregate transformation capacity of 17,500 MVA.

The company's physical assets as on September 30 include more than 142,990 ckm of transmission lines, 226 substations with transformation capacity of more than 3,11,100 MVA.

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Southern star Prakash Raj today lashed out at those who "terrorise" in the name of religion, culture and morality, raising the issues of moral policing, lynching "on the slightest doubt of cow slaughter" and trolling.

The National Award winner did not take any names in his Twitter post that comes a day after his colleague Kamal Haasan hit out at "Hindu right-wingers".

"If instilling fear in the name of religion, culture, morality is not terrorising, then what is it #just asking," Raj said on Twitter and posted a lengthy message addressed to "whomsoever it may concern".

"If abusing and manhandling young couples on the streets of my country in the name of morality is not terrorising.... If taking law into hands and lynching people on the slightest doubt of cow slaughter is not terrorising. If trolling with abuse, threat... to silence even a slightest voice of dissent is not terrorising... Then what is terrorising...," Raj asked.

Raj, 52, had earlier criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his silence on those "celebrating" the killing of journalist Gauri Lankesh in Bangalore in September.

"I am not talking against any party. I am talking to my prime minister. I am saying your silence is chilling. I am hurt by the silence....I have a right to say this," he had said in a video posted on Twitter.

A prominent name in Tamil, Kannada and Telugu cinema, Raj won the National Award for his role in the Tamil film "Kanchivaram". He is also a familiar face in Hindi cinema with character roles in films like "Bhaag Milkha Bhaag", "Wanted" and "Singham".

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While claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is personally monitoring the work on upcoming airport at Mopa in Goa, the state government has said that the Director of Civil Aviation will brief Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar about the progress on the project on daily basis.

The Goa government has asked all its departments to provide all the necessary support to the company which has been contracted the work of constructing the facility which is monitored by Prime Minister Modi.

The state government has signed concession agreement with GMR Goa International Airport Limited (GGIAL) for construction of greenfield international airport at Mopa in North Goa on public private partnership basis.

"Honourable Prime Minister of India is monitoring the progress of construction of Mopa airport work," chief secretary Dharmendra Sharma has said in the letter addressed to various department on November 2.

Sharma has also said that Chief Minister is monitoring the project progress on a day-to-day basis.

"Needless to say that cooperation and support from all the departments is essential for timely implementation of this prestigious project," the letter says referring to the airport project.

The chief secretary has said that the construction work of the airport has already begun and GGIAL has already started approaching various departments seeking various approvals and support required for it.

The state government has said that all the Head of Departments should ensure that any application from GGIAL seeking permission and support for Mopa airport should be dealt on priority and disposed off in a time bound manner.

"If for any reason disposal is not possible within two weeks of receipt of such applications, the matter may be intimated to Director of Civil Aviation," Sharma has said.

In the event of any undue delay by any department, the Directorate of Civil Aviation shall mention on the matter directly to the secretary of respective department for speedy disposal, it says.

"If the matter still remains unresolved the same needs to be brought to the notice of chief secretary and Chief Minister of Goa.

"Director Civil Aviation shall update chief minister personally on daily basis in the morning," Sharma has said.

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Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to stop the GI tagging of 13 basmati producing districts of Madhya Pradesh as it will adversely affect other Basmati producing states in the country, including Punjab.

In a letter to the prime minister, Amarinder urged him to immediately direct the Ministry of Commerce to drop the idea of issuing Geographically Indication (GI) tag for the 13 districts for which Madhya Pradesh has sought inclusion in the list of regions eligible for GI tagging of Basmati.

Terming it an economically and socially important issue, the chief minister said with 2 lakh Punjab farmers engaged in Basmati cultivation, the move to include Madhya Pradesh in GI tagging could have a negative effect on the agriculture of the state.

He further wrote that it might also have an impact on other regions such as Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Western UP and two districts of Jammu and Kathua in J&K, which are already GI tagged.

The percentage of the total exports of the state includes a substantial amount of Basmati, he further observed in support of his argument.

The chief minister pointed out that he had written a demi-official letter to the then Union Minister of State for Commerce on April 18, 2017 highlighting Punjab's concerns, but the issue did not appear to have been resolved.

Seeking the prime minister's intervention, he stressed the need for early resolution and status quo to be maintained on the issue.

Amarinder, in his letter, further said that as per the Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, a GI tag can be issued for agricultural, natural or manufactured goods that have given quality reputation or other characteristics attributable to its geographical origin, thus constituting a very important form of intellectual property.

A GI registration gives the registered proprietor and authorised users the legal right to the exclusive use of the GI, and no unauthorised person can use the tag, he said.

The chief minister further contended that Basmati trials by ICAR are conducted only in the traditional area of Basmati in the Indo-Gangetic Plains in northern India.

The Basmati varieties released and notified under the Seed Act 1966 are meant for cultivation in the specified GI areas as mentioned above, he added.

Further, said Amarinder, the state of Madhya Pradesh does not fall in the Indo-Gangetic plain, and the climate and soil of the proposed area varies from that of area of Indo-Gangetic Plains.

Prima facie, therefore, the move to include MP districts appeared to be an infringement of the Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, he added.

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Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh today categorically rejected the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) allegation of vendetta behind the court proceedings against its MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira.

"The state government has no role to play in the matter and the summons issued to the Leader of Opposition (Khaira) in a drugs case is a court decision," he said here.

The Congress government did not believe in interfering in judicial matters and the judiciary had taken an independent decision to summon Khaira in the case, Singh said, adding that the judge's decision must have been based on certain facts.

The AAP MLAs today alleged that issuing summons to Khaira in the drugs case was a "classic case of a planned political vendetta".

Khaira had alleged that the court order was a "deep- rooted conspiracy" hatched by the Congress regime in the state to "intimidate and gag" the voices of its political opponents.

On October 31, a court in Fazilka had sent nine persons to jail in connection with a trans-border heroin smuggling racket case, which had surfaced in 2015.

On November 30, the court had summoned Khaira in connection with the case.

To a question on MP Partap Singh Bajwa's reported "unhappiness" with the Punjab Congress leadership and state government, Singh said he had no idea what grudges the former was harbouring.

There had been no problems between his government and any of the party leaders or MLAs, claimed the chief minister, expressing surprise at Bajwa's "inexplicable" behaviour.

The Congress, he said, was an open house where all the members were welcome to share any grievances or give any feedback.

However, it was difficult to guess what was on Bajwa's mind and what had prompted him to rush to the party high- command, as had been reported in a section of the media, Singh said.

Responding to questions on attempts by pro-Khalistani elements to disturb Punjab's peace and communal harmony, the chief minister alleged that Pakistan's ISI was continuously trying to revive terrorism in the state and asserted that his government would not allow it to succeed at any cost.

Singh said the draft Punjab Control of Organised Crime Act (PCOCA) legislation to give the security forces more teeth to tackle criminals, gangsters and radical forces was in the process of being finalised and added that the new law would soon be enacted to curb the incidents of crime and hatred.

On the issue of stubble-burning, he said his government was duty-bound to implement the law in this regard. However, he reiterated his stand on the urgent need to implement the Swaminathan Commission report and compensate the farmers for stubble management.

The central and state governments together needed to find ways of removing and disposing of the two crore tonnes of stubble, estimated to be generated during the paddy season, Singh added.

Earlier, the chief minister inaugurated a passport seva kendra here at the General Post Office to facilitate the passport services for the residents of Patiala and Sangrur.

The second such passport seva kendra in Punjab and the 59th in the country, the centre would initially accept 50 applications for issuance of fresh passports and re-issuance of passports on a daily basis, which would gradually be enhanced to 200, Singh announced.

The chief minister, who interacted with some of the applicants at the centre, said those who had already registered themselves for appointments at the regional passport offices (RPOs) in Chandigarh and Ambala could request for rescheduling their appointments at the Patiala Passport Seva Kendra.

The Tatkal, PCC and other miscellaneous services would, however, continue to be provided by the Chandigarh and Ludhiana RPOs, he added.

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Flyers with xenophobic messages targeting two Asian-American school board candidates have reached the mailboxes of several New Jersey residents, sparking outrage among the community members in the city.

The residents of Edison City in New Jersey have received anonymous letters in their mail this week that seeks to deport Indian-American Falguni Patel and Chinese-American Jerry Shi - who are candidates of the school board - alleging that the Chinese and Indians are taking over the town.

Under the banner "Make Edison Great Again", the flyer has mugshot pictures of Jerry and Falguni with "deport" stamped over them.

"Stop Jerry Shi and Falguni Patel from taking over our school board," says the letter that has reached mailboxes of a large number of Edison residents.

The New Jersey City of Edison, is considered as part of the New York City metropolitan area and has a sizable population of Indian-Americans.

The appearance of such racial fliers has sent shock waves among the residents of Edison, which earns its name from Thomas Edison, inventor of electric bulb.

The letter claims that "Chinese and Indians are taking over our town," and goes on to say, "Enough is enough!"

Indian-American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi said he was appalled to hear of the racist flyers.

"Ours is a nation of immigrants and our national fabric is woven from the rich and varied cultures of everyone who took the leap of faith to pursue the American Dream," he said.

"The community of Edison is better than this and so is our country, but unfortunately, the politics of hate is part of our past and our present. Only through all our communities joining together to expand the circle of inclusion can we ensure that this hatred won't be part of our future," Krishnamoorthi said.

The South Asian Bar Association of North America (SABA) and the South Asian Bar Association of New Jersey (SABA-NJ) said that they are deeply troubled and disheartened by the letters being mailed out in Edison. We emphasise that there is no place for racism, particularly when it calls for the deportation of citizens of the United States, in our democracy, they said in a joint statement.

"Attempts to intimidate candidate or voters through calls to punish or deport someone simply because of their ethnic background are unacceptable and should not be tolerated," said Rishi Bagga, SABA president.

"Let us assure our Indian and Chinese community, and all of our fellow New Jersey residents, that we will not tolerate racism and hate, and we want to change the conversation," said Bhaveen Jani and Sharmila Jaipersaud of SABA-NJ.

Congresswoman Grace Meng, vice chair of the Democratic National Committee condemned the racist "Make Edison Great Again" mailer.

"More than one in five New Jersey residents is an immigrant, and nearly half of Edison, New Jersey residents are Asian. These include hard working business owners, taxpayers, teachers, mothers, children and neighbours who love their communities. This racist mailer is shameful and disgusting and was produced for no other intention than to empower divisive forces of bigotry and hate," Meng said.

Both Patel and Jerry have condemned the fliers.

"I'm obviously disgusted by it, to say the least.

I didn't expect anything like that. We live in a such diverse town, it's very shocking somebody would put that in writing," Patel told local radio station WKXW.

HAH i dont think so. Good luck trying to make Edison great again with no brown people- not while oak tree rd exists honey, Im repulsed https://t.co/swfYL151H4  anisha

This is so wrong. Asians are not taking over Edison, NJ! We already took it over! https://t.co/v3dBWdw9TV  Hari Kondabolu (@harikondabolu) November 2, 2017

Ha ha ha! It is too late, dear last white person in Edison, NJ. pic.twitter.com/db1MtLxGZn  Parag S (@parags) November 3, 2017

I live town away from Edison & when I first moved I loved seeing the cricket fields. These Make Edison Great Again flyers are beyond gross. pic.twitter.com/RQo5wevgnS  Sam (@sm0kemonstr) November 2, 2017
Air carrier Jet Airways has waived off penalty charges to passengers who prefer to change flights or cancel trips due to torrential rains that has been witnessing in the city and neighbourhood.

"In view of the prevailing inclement weather in Chennai, Jet Airways has extended a waiver of penalty for date/flight change, refund and fare difference to all guests holding confirmed tickets", a Jet Airways release said.

The waiver is applicable for passengers travelling to or from Chennai with immediate effect.

"At Jet Airways, safety of guests and crew is our top priority and the airline continues to closely monitor the situation..", it said.

The airliner has advised passengers to visit the company website or check with the call centres on information of the flights.

Normal life in Chennai and neighbourhood was largely impcated following the heavy rains. Schools and colleges have declared holiday while some IT companies advised employees to work from home due to severe waterlogging in several low lying areas.

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Loss-making telecom operator will shut down voice call service from December 1 and its customers can move to other networks by the end of the year, as per direction issued by telecom regulator Trai on Friday.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) in direction to all telecom operators said that RCom on October 31, 2017 intimated it that "RCL (Reliancprovidingations Limited) shall provide only 4G data services to its customers and as a result will discontinue to provide voice services to the subscribers... with effect from 1st December 2017."



RCom informed Trai that it is providing 2G and 4G services in eight telecom circles of Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, UP East and West, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.

The Anil Ambani-led firm has informed Trai that the company will be upgrading CDMA network of Sistema Shyam Teleservices, which has been merged with it, to provide 4G services in Delhi, Rajasthan, UP West, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, West Bengal, Gujarat and Kolkata service areas.

Trai said that RCom has informed it has sent all the necessary information regarding closure of voice calls along with option to port out any operators in case subscriber do not wish to continue with 4G data services of the company.

The regulator has directed RCom to not reject any porting out request of its subscribers and asked all telecom operators to accept request of RCom subscribers till December 31, 2017.

RCom, reeling under debt of around Rs 46,000 crore, decided to shut down its voice call services after it failed to close its wireless business merger deal with Aircel in the beginning of this month.

RCom and Aircel in September last year had signed a binding agreement to merge their mobile businesses. But, RCom said the agreement lapsed owing to legal and regulatory uncertainties, objections by interested parties and delays in receiving relevant approvals.
The external affairs ministry today rejected suggestions that the recent repatriation of prisoners between India and Pakistan could be linked with the resumption of stalled talks and asserted that Islamabad had not made any efforts to curb terrorism.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar also said India has made 52 requests for consular access to Hamid Nihal Ansari, who is in a Pakistani jail, but it has not been granted.

Ansari had crossed over to Pakistan from Afghanistan in 2012 and then went missing. He was later arrested and tried by a Pakistani military court, which pronounced him guilty of espionage.

Replying to a question on whether the repatriation of prisoners between India and Pakistan was indicative of any thaw in ties and may lead to resumption of stalled talks, Kumar said, "It is not right to extend it to that level. There is regular exchange of prisoners from both sides. So, we should not take it to that conclusion."



Kumar's remarks came a day after India repatriated to Pakistan nine fishermen and four civilian prisoners along with a child.

India-Pakistan dialogue hit a roadblock after the Pathankot terror strike by a Pakistan-based terror outfit in 2016.

Asked about Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed's activities, the spokesperson said the 2008 Mumbai terror attack mastermind is an international terrorist and it is the responsibility of the Pakistan government not to give him space to carry out strikes against other countries.

He also asserted that India believes that Pakistan has not put any efforts to curb terrorism or dismantle terror infrastructure in its territory.

On reports from Pakistan that US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had offered mediation on Kashmir during his recent visit to the subcontinent, the spokesperson said there was no truth in it and the issue never figured during the meetings Tillerson had in India.

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A Punjab Assembly panel on farmers' suicides will table its report in the House in the next session, its chairman Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria said here today.

Sarkaria, accompanied by committee members Nathu Ram, Kuljit Singh Nagra and Harinderpal Singh Chandumajra, visited Khan Khaana village near here to meet the family members of Balkar Singh, a farmer who had committed suicide recently, to get a first-hand information about the reasons which made the farmer take the extreme step.

Punjab Assembly Speaker Rana KP Singh had constituted the committee for meeting families of farmers who had committed suicide.

During the visit, the committee members interacted with Balkar Singh's wife Hardip Kaur, mother Kulveer Kaur and father Sukhdev Singh, among other family members. They enquired about the family's landholding, financial condition and loans, if any, besides the compensation given to them by the state government.

Sarkaria said the committee members had already visited all the districts of the state except Patiala and that its report would be tabled in the House in its next session.

He said the committee, which had members from all the main political parties so as to ensure a consensual approach on this grave issue facing the state, had been constituted to look into the factors which made the farmers and farm labourers take the extreme step of committing suicide.

"Apart from mentioning the reasons behind farmers and farm labourers' suicides, the report will also suggest steps to prevent such suicides including steps to improve their economic condition," said Sarkaria.

He urged the district administration to always have a sympathetic attitude towards such families by arranging for social security pensions and job cards to the dependents of the deceased.

Deputy Commissioner Sonali Giri told the panel that eight such families including that of Balkar Singh in the district had already been given such benefits.

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The Russia-India-China (RIC) Foreign Ministers' trilateral meeting is likely to be held here "very soon".

An indication of this was given by the external affairs ministry today.

"I cannot announce at this stage but, may be, very soon we will make an announcement," external affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said, while replying to a question on the issue.

The RIC meeting was planned for April this year here but it had to be postponed as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi could not confirm his participation in the meeting due to scheduling problems.

There were media reports then that Wang had put off his visit to India to protest New Delhi's decision to allow the Dalai Lama to travel to Arunachal Pradesh. However, China had dismissed those reports.

Replying to a separate question, Kumar said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina are likely to launch a new train service between Kolkata and Khulna in Bangladesh on November 9.

There is an existing train service between Kolkata and the neighboring country.

To a separate question, Kumar said a meeting of India- Ukraine inter-governmental commission had to be postponed by Ukrainian side due to scheduling issues of that country's foreign minister.

Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar was to attend the meeting which was slated to be held on November 1 and 2 in that country, Kumar said.

He said there was some urgent preoccupation of the Ukrainian foreign minister because of which the meeting had to be postponed.

Kumar said both sides are working on finalising new dates and that the meeting may take place in the first half of next year.

He was replying to a question on whether India has cancelled the meeting due to pressure from Russia.

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Scotland Yard has reportedly launched an investigation into Kevin Spacey following an allegation that the star sexually assaulted an aspiring actor in London nearly a decade ago.

According to the Sun Newspaper, the man, whose identity has not been revealed, told authorities that he had approached Spacey in 2008 asking for help with his career.

The two-time Oscar winner invited the young man, who was 23 at the time, to his home in South London. Spacey was artistic director of The Old Vic theater at that time. He held the post from 2004 to 2015.

The actor further told police that he and Spacey smoked marijuana, after which he passed out and upon regaining consciousness, he found Spacey performing oral sex on him.

He asked Spacey to stop and then left the house.

The "House of Cards" star allegedly warned him not to tell anyone about the incident.

The man, now 32, first gave his account to the City of London Police, after which the police referred the complaint to Scotland Yard.

The Yard issued a statement saying that it was investigating an alleged incident in Lambeth the South London neighbourhood where Spacey maintains a home. The statement did not name Spacey as the alleged assailant.

"On 1 November, City of London Police referred an allegation of sexual assault to the Metropolitan Police Service [Scotland Yard].

"It is alleged a man assaulted another man in 2008 in Lambeth. Officers from the Child Abuse and Sexual Offences Command are investigating," the statement said.

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In a bizarre incident, a man drove his car onto the pitch during the Ranji Trophy match between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh at the Airforce ground in Palam, a major security breach which left both the players and officials dumbfounded.

At around 4:40 pm, 20 minutes from close of play, a silver grey Wagon R suddenly drove onto the field of play with Uttar Pradesh batting in their second innings.

The man, who identified himself as Girish Sharma, tried to swerve his car twice on the 22-yard strip before stopping, an eyewitness told PTI.

It was learnt that the main gate of the Airforce ground, which only allows entry of cars after proper checking remained open with the security not in his position.

This allowed the man free access inside the complex and instead of moving towards the designated parking lot, which is behind the main pavilion, he drove straight towards the field of play, leaving everybody in a state of shock.

International players like Gautam Gambhir, Ishant Sharma and Rishabh Pant were present on the ground when the incident took place.

The security personnel at the ground swung into action after this and closed the gate in order to stop the man from fleeing.

The allegedly inebriated man was first detained by the Airforce Police before being handed over to the Delhi Police for interrogation.

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The US has made "significant" progress in its fight against terror, National Security Advisor H R McMaster has said, underlining that President Donald Trump would reiterate key elements of his counter- terrorism policy during his visit to the Indo-Pacific region.

Trump's National Security Advisor H R McMaster has said it's time to recognise that there's been progress on three fronts -- "first, denying terrorists safe havens and support bases; second, cutting off their funding; and third, discrediting their wicked ideology".

"I think it's time for us to recognise that there's been significant progress on all three fronts," McMaster said, noting that Trump articulated his counter-terrorism policy for the first time in a major policy speech in Riyadh early this year.

Raqqa (in Syria) and Mosul (in Iraq) have been liberated as the US has worked very hard with allies and partners to deny that safe haven and support bases, in this case to the Islamic State militant group, he said during a White House conference here.

"Second, we should recognise that there's been considerable progress on terrorist financing; as you saw (Treasury) Secretary (Steven) Mnuchin's visit to the region last week, during which he opened the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center," he said.

Trump will embark on a 12-day trip to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Hawaii beginning today.

"And then...a lot of leaders across the world, and the president foremost among them, discrediting this ideology jihadist ideology," he said and praised the Saudi crown prince's speech during which he called for a return to moderate Islam.

"At the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) 50th birthday party in Manila, the president will discuss how to strengthen partnerships across the Indo-Pacific to further efforts against transnational terrorist organisations," McMaster said.

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In an inter-state operation, the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Rajasthan Police today arrested five persons, including the CMD of West Bengal-based company, for allegedly duping 25,000 people in the state, officials said.

The five arrested belong to Pincon Spirits Limited and they had duped people, who invested money in company's debenture, of Rs 56 crore, SOG ADG Umesh Mishra told PTI.

The accused had siphoned off Rs 39 crore through shell companies, he said.

CMD Manoranjan Roy and director Vinay Singh were arrested from Bengaluru. Accounts head of the company Raghu Shetty, his assistant, and director Hari Singh were arrested from Varanasi and Agra respectively, Mishra said.

He said that the company has its regional office in Ajmer.

Mishra said the accused were brought to Jaipur and subjected to medical examination. They will be produced before the court and thoroughly interrogated, he added.

A case was registered against the accused under various sections of the IPC and the IT Act.

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A Spanish judge has issued an EU arrest warrant for Catalonia's deposed separatist leader a day after he failed to appear for questioning over his role in the region's tumultuous independence drive.

Spanish prosecutors want to charge Carles Puigdemont, who is holed up in Belgium, with rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds. Yesterday, the 54-year-old ignored a summons to appear before the same judge in Madrid.

An EU arrest warrant was also issued for four Catalan ministers who also failed to show up and are also thought to be in Belgium. They, like Puigdemont, were dismissed by Spain's central government a week ago, a court statement said.

Yesterday the same Spanish judge had Puigdemont's deputy and seven other deposed regional ministers jailed pending a possible trial because of a risk that they might similarly abscond.

Speaking in an interview on Belgian television channel RTBF yesterday recorded before the widely expected warrant was issued, Puigdemont said he was not hiding from "real justice" but from a "clearly politicised" Spanish legal system.

"I have told my lawyers to inform the Belgian justice authorities that I am completely at their disposal," he said.

Spain's worst political crisis in decades flared up over the staging of a Catalan independence referendum on October 1 despite a court ban. Spanish police tried and failed to stop it, in some cases firing rubber bullets.

An independence declaration by the Catalan parliament followed one week ago.

Spain's government responded by dismissing Puigdemont's government, imposing direct rule and calling fresh elections in Catalonia on December 21.

Some 20 people including Puigdemont and the Catalan parliament speaker had been summoned for questioning on Thursday.

Puigdemont's Belgian lawyer Paul Bekaert, who has helped Basque separatists militants challenge Spanish extradition, said his client did not see the climate as "conducive to testifying".

Late Thursday, as television footage showed police vans with flashing blue lights driving Puigdemont's former ministers to different prisons, furious Catalans took to the streets.

About 20,000 people, according to police, demonstrated in the regional capital Barcelona, while others gathered across the region, and thousands turned out again last evening.

In Barcelona, people thronged outside the Catalan parliament chanting "Freedom for political prisoners", "Occupying forces leave" and also "This Europe is a disgrace".

"It's brilliant that people are protesting, although it's a bit late," demonstrator Melanie Ortiz, 27, told AFP.

Puigdemont said on Catalan TV from an undisclosed location late Thursday that the situation "is no longer an internal Spanish affair", calling on the international community to wake up to the "danger".

But apart from Scotland's separatist First Minister Nicola Sturgeon criticising the "jailing of political opponents", there are no signs that other countries' steadfast backing of Madrid is faltering.

Germany reiterated its support for the "unity and constitutional order of Spain" while a European Commission spokeswoman said it respects "fully" the independence of the Spanish judiciary.

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A Spanish judge jailed nine former members of Catalonia's separatist government and was deliberating a possible international arrest warrant for the region's ousted president, who remained in Belgium while the others appeared in a Madrid court for questioning about their efforts to break away from Spain.

Former President Carles Puigdemont and his 13-member Cabinet are being investigated for rebellion, sedition and embezzlement stemming from their pursuit of Catalan independence.

The Spanish government removed them from office on October 27 and they were summoned to appear in Spain's National Court yesterday.

After the nine Catalan Cabinet members who showed up were questioned, a judge sent eight of them to jail without bail. One was ordered held in lieu of 50,000 euros (USD 58,300) in bail.

The seven men and two women were taken from the court in police vans hours later and assigned to prisons in the Madrid area.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Catalan towns to condemn the pre-charge detentions, which fellow separatist politicians and elected officials criticized as an attack on ideas.

"We won't give up, we won't fail, we will fight till the end," Marta Rovira, an increasingly prominent politician in Catalonia's republican-left ERC party, said.

"We have all the right in the world to live in a country with more justice, dignity and freedom," she told reporters as tear welled in her eyes.

The Spanish government said it does not comment on judges' decisions in deference to the separation of powers. Investigative magistrate Carmen Lamela ordered the officials into custody at the request of prosecutors, who also asked yesterday for an international warrant seeking Puigdemont's arrest.

Under Spain's legal system, investigating judges can have suspects detained while a comprehensive probe, sometimes taking months, determines if they should be charged.

Puigdemont surfaced in Belgium on Tuesday with some of his ex-ministers, saying they were seeking "freedom and safety" there. He and four of the officials remained in Brussels yesterday.

Asked whether Puigdemont would turn himself in if the arrest warrant is granted, his lawyer in Belgium, Paul Bekaert, told The Associated Press: "Certainly. Or the police will come get him." Bekaert said Puigdemont intends to cooperate with Belgian police.

Also yesterday, six Catalan lawmakers appeared for a parallel session in the Spanish Supreme Court. They were given a week to prepare their defenses and instructed to return for questioning on November 9.

In all, Spanish prosecutors are investigating 20 regional politicians for rebellion and other crimes that would be punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

In a written ruling, the National Court judge said the eight jailed without bail had planned and executed a roadmap since 2015 to create an independent Catalan republic.

The ruling said the activities of those under investigation were "meditated and perfectly prepared and organized, repeatedly disobeying systematically over two years Constitutional Court resolutions in favor of the independence."



The judge said the eight were being jailed without the possibility of bail because of the risk of them fleeing prosecution or hiding or destroying evidence.

Lawyers for the jailed officials said they planned to appeal Lamela's order. Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, who represents Puigdemont and four more of the ousted Cabinet members, said the judge's decision to send them to jail "lacked justification" and was "disproportionate."



The Catalan officials' supporters and party aides in Madrid were seen crying outside the courthouse when the judge's decision was announced.

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The station manager of Bhind railway station in Madhya Pradesh was shot by an unidentified man on platform today morning, the Government Railway Police (GRP) said.

The incident took place when station manager M P Sharma (56) was returning to his room after visiting the toilet on platform number one.

He noticed a man, who had covered himself by a shawl, following him. When Sharma asked him why he was following him, the man, who was around 25 years old, simply whipped out a pistol and shot Sharma, police said.

After firing, the man fled.

The bullet hit the station manager on the left side of his chest, said Suresh Singh, GRP police station in-charge.

Sharma was first taken to Bhind district hospital and later sent to Gwalior where he is receiving treatment, the GRP official said.

Search is on for the assailant, he added.

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Days after AAP legislator Sukhpal Singh Khaira was summoned by a Fazilka court in a drug case, party's Punjab MLAs came out in his support and termed the action as a classic case of "political vendetta" against him.

The AAP MLAs said in a release that they have complete faith in the abilities of Khaira, who had been fighting corruption, injustice and mafia in Punjab for over a decade.

"Unable to digest his onslaught, the previous Badal regime had registered six FIR's against him, which fell flat when subjected to scrutiny of law," the legislators said.

AAP Punjab president Bhagwant Mann said, "As the matter is in the court of law, the party has decided to consult it with legal experts."



He said it will not be appropriate to comment on the issue till the final verdict is out but "political vendetta" could not be ruled out in the case.

The MLAs said the case in which Khaira has been summoned was allegedly initiated by the Badal government in March 2015, which set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the IGP Bathinda Zone and tried their best to "involve" Khaira in it.

"The SIT could find no incriminating evidence against Khaira, nor did his name figure in the FIR of the drug cae, similarly he was not named in the chargesheet or by any independent witness during the course of trial," they claimed.

The AAP MLAs said both the traditional parties of Congress and Akali Dal were "hand in glove to defame and tarnish" the image of Khaira because he has been "exposing their misdeeds and corrupt leaders".

Meanwhile, Khaira said that the manner and tenor in which the Congress and SAD-BJP alliance launched an attack on him over the summon clearly exposes the deep nexus and the "friendly tie-up" between them.

It was surprising that these parties have never attacked each other on "blatant corruption and neck deep" involvement of their leaders in drugs smuggling, he said.

On October 31, a court in Fazilka sentenced nine persons to imprisonment in a trans-border heroin smuggling racket which surfaced in 2015.

The court also issued summons to Khaira under Section 319 of the CrPC following an application from the prosecution. He has been told to appear on November 30.

The nine persons were arrested on March 9, 2015, along with 2-kg heroin, 24 gold biscuits, one country-made pistol, two Pakistani SIM cards and a SUV.

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The Syrian army announced today it liberated the long-contested eastern city of Deir el-Zour from the Islamic State group, a largely symbolic victory in the military's bigger fight to capture the last remaining IS strongholds in the oil-rich province along the border with Iraq.

In a statement, the military said it was now in full control of the city, after a weeks-long campaign carried out with allied forces. It said army units were now removing booby traps and mines left behind by the extremist group in the city.

Deir el-Zour, on the west bank of the Euphrates River, had been divided into a government-held and an IS-held part for nearly three years.

Syrian government forces and their pro-government allies first broke the militant group's siege of their part of the city in September in a Russian-backed offensive, and have been advancing against IS positions since then. The city is the largest in eastern Syria and the capital of the province with the same name.

The development is the latest significant defeat for IS as the militant group sees its self-proclaimed "caliphate" crumble and lose almost all urban strongholds, including Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in northern Syria.

It also comes as Iraqi forces and allied Shiite militiamen are chasing IS remnants inside the town of Qaim, on the Iraqi side of the border.

The Syrian army, backed by Russia and Iran, and Kurdish- led Syrian forces, backed by the United States, are now racing to take the rest of the oil-rich eastern province of Deir el- Zour, including the key town of Boukamal near the Iraqi border.

Moscow's military involvement in the Syrian war since 2015 has propped up President Bashar Assad's forces and turned the conflict in his favor, while Russian mediation earlier this year launched cease-fire talks in Astana, Kazakhstan.

The talks, sponsored jointly with Iran and Turkey, have brokered local deals that have significantly reduced violence in the war-torn country.

"Army units, in cooperation with allied forces, liberated the city of Deir al-Zour completely from the Daesh terrorist organization," the military statement said, using the Arabic name for IS.

Footage posted on the website of the Syrian state agency SANA shows the last moments of the fighting between the Syrian army and IS in Deir el-Zour, including shelling by Syrian tanks and plumes of smoke rising over the city's IS- held and mostly destroyed neighborhoods of Jamiayat and Jabiliyeh before they were liberated.

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Ex-Soviet Tajikistan has announced that all imams who received their religious training abroad will be sacked, a cull the Central Asian country's government hopes will help prevent radicalisation.

"The Committee for Religious Affairs has initiated the dismissal of all imams at mosques who received religious education abroad," a member of the committee told AFP today.

Around 20 mosque heads "have been brought to justice and convicted for involvement in extremist religious activities, the committee member said.

"These imams used the pulpit in their mosque to commit crimes," he charged.

The foreign-trained imams will be relieved from their posts in the next two weeks and immediately replaced by locally-trained clerics, he said.

Tajikistan currently has only one institution where citizens can receive training to become imams.

The Muslim-majority country's secular authoritarian government has carried out a series of crackdowns on religion, including widespread reports of forced beard-shaving.

Earlier this year the government held a month celebrating the country's colourful national clothing in what was seen as a top-down effort to discourage women from wearing Mideast- style niqabs and hijabs.

Tajikistan is the poorest of the former Soviet republics and shares a 1,300-kilometre (800-mile) border with Afghanistan to the south.

Emomali Rakhmon, a former collective farm boss, has been the country's president since 1994.

He led the country out of a five-year civil war that began in 1992, almost immediately after the country gained independence from Moscow.

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Amid criticism of the AIADMK regime's handling of the rain situation in Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister K Palaniswami today visited various parts of the city and its suburbs, hit by water-logging, insisting that his government was working on a "war-footing".

Accompanied by his deputy O Panneerslevam and senior officials, the chief minister visited RK Nagar and Perungalathur on the city outskirts.

"Low-lying areas with water-logging were identified in the Chennai Corporation (limits) and Kancheepuram district. Workers (here) worked on a war-footing and stagnant water has been removed," he told reporters.

People asked me to devise a permanent solution to the issue of inundation, Palaniswami said.

As part of the government's resolve to address the issue, a storm water drain system is being constructed for the city's needs and the work is over on 300 km of the proposed 386 km long system, he said.

The entire work will be completed soon, he said without divulging further details.

Chennai received 36 cm of rains in the last three days, the AIADMK leader said, adding, the government acted "quickly" to ensure there was no water stagnation in the city.

To a question, he said encroachments on water bodies were being removed in line with court orders, and denied that there was any delay in this work.

The chief minister said following the plans devised post-December 2015 deluge in the city, the government has ensured there was no stagnation of water this year despite the heavy downpour, he said.

"You saw how much of water stagnation was there in Bengaluru and Mumbai," Palaniswami said while asserting that his government was doing a better job.

Tamil Nadu ministers accompanied by designated officials have fanned out to various affected areas and are overseeing the relief activity, he said.

The state government has been facing criticism from the opposition, including DMK, over handling of the monsoon fury.

They have also questioned the claim of the state government that it had undertaken desilting works ahead of the monsoon.

Meanwhile, Principal Revenue Secretary K Satyagopal said a 43 personnel-strong team of State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) was camping in suburban Tambaram to attend to any kind of exigencies.

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Torrential overnight downpour threw normal life out of gear in several parts of the metropolis and neighbouring districts, even as the Marina Beach locality recorded a whopping 30 cm of rain.

Schools and colleges, closed since October 31, remained shut in Chennai, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts, as the Tamil Nadu government appealed to private firms to allow their employees work from home.

There was no rain in the city since morning, though the sky remained largely overcast.

In a fresh rain-related incident, a middle-aged farmer was electrocuted at Manal agaram near Tiruvarur when he stepped on a snapped live wire lying under water in his field, police said. Thus, toll of rain-related incidents in the southern state since the arrival of north east monsoon on October 27, has risen to eight.

Fear of 2015 deluge?



--------------------



As the heavy spell led to fears of a repeat of the December 2015 deluge, the AIADMK government sought to allay any such fears.

It asked people not to pay heed to rumours on social media that many lakes and reservoirs around the city were about to surplus and that the water would be let out.

"Do not spread and believe in rumours #work from home and 3rd Nov leave is 2 avoid traffic jams nd to avoid any untoward incident" said a tweet by the Tamil Nadu State Disaster Management agency.

As the monsoon remains vigorous, most parts of the city and suburbs received heavy rains last night, with the DGP office near Marina beach recording a maximum of 30 cm in 24 hours ending 8.30 am today.

The famous Marina beachfront and service lanes were under a vast sheet of water, presenting the picture of an extended sea.

The coastal district of Nagapattinam continued to suffer monsoon fury, with incessant rains submerging houses and affecting standing crops over thousands of hectares.

The regional weather office has forecast heavy to very heavy rains in the coastal districts, and thunderstorms in Chennai and its suburbs for the next 24 hours.

"For the next 24 hours, there will be heavy rains in some places and very heavy rains in one or two places in coastal districts," S Balachandran, Director, Area Cyclone Warning Centre, told reporters.

There will be spells of thunderstorms in Chennai and its suburbs, he said.

Anna University and University of Madras announced cancellation of their semester exams.

Chief Minister K Palaniswami, accompanied by some senior ministerial colleagues, visited a few affected areas here, including R K Nagar.

The incessant downpour also crippled life in suburban Mudichur, one of the worst affected areas in the 2015 December deluge, as heavy water-logging of roads and inundation of low-lying areas was reported.

Residents of the area under Kancheepuram district expressed fears of a repeat of the 2015 deluge, when many of them had left homes for safer pastures.

Some of the residents also staged a protest by squatting on the water-logged Mudichur Road, demanding immediate action.

Areas like Vyasarpadi and Otteri in north Chennai, parts of West Anna Nagar in central Chennai and Madipakkam and Velachery in south Chennai are facing heavy water-logging.

Civic officials said efforts were on to clear waterlogging.

The mild and intermittent showers post-noon yesterday became moderate and then heavy in some pockets last night, inundating several more neighbourhoods including West Mambalam and the Guindy Industrial Estate, the MeT said. As a result, buses, taxis, autos and suburban train services were affected, leading to traffic snarls in many places.

Transportation takes a hit



--------------------------



While heavy waterlogging hindered free vehicular movement, a "signalling snag" partially hit train services between St Thomas Mount and Kodambakkam suburban section since 9.30 pm yesterday.

Normal services, however, were restored at 3.20 am today, railway officials said, adding there were no major disruption in services on all sectors.

Flight operations at the city airport were normal, airport officials said.

The Nungambakkam weather station in the city registered 18 cm rain and Meenambakkam in the southern suburb recorded 14 cm rain till 8.30 AM today. Parangipettai in Cuddalore recorded 14 cm rain.

A Nagapattinam report said heavy rains lashed parts of the district for the fifth day today, inundating hundreds of houses and submerging thousands of hectares of paddy crops.

People were evacuated to safety in Tarangambadi and Sirkazhi taluks, which bore the brunt of the monsoon fury.

At Tarangambadi, Dansborg, the 400-year old fort built by the Danish on the seafront, is surrounded by water.

Accompanied by Nagapattinam District Collector C Sureshkumar, Tamil Nadu Handlooms Minister O S Manian visited many rain-hit areas in the district and inspected the relief work.

The sea remained very rough, with waves rising to several feet. More than 10,000 fishermen did not put out to sea for the fifth day today, official reports noted.

Salt production in Vedaranyam area came to a standstill as saltpans in 10,000 acres of land remain submerged.

Samba and Thalady paddy raised in over 75,000 hectares of the total 1.28 lakh hectares, remain submerged in the district, the reports added.

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Torrential downpour threw normal life out of gear in several parts of the metropolis and neighbouring districts today even as the death toll in rain- related incidents mounted to eight in the state.

Rains lashed the city overnight. Though there was some respite during the day, but it started raining heavily towards the evening.

Sharp showers battered parts of Chennai such as Mylapore, Foreshore Estate, southern suburbs of Tambaram, Chrompet and Pallavaram.

A government release said 105 relief camps have been set up in chennai.

Facing criticism over the handling of rains in Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister K Palaniswami visited several water- logged parts of the city and its suburbs, insisting that his government was working on a "war-footing".

He was accompanied by his deputy O Panneerslevam and senior officials.

Schools and colleges, closed since October 31, remained shut in Chennai, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts, as the Tamil Nadu government appealed to private firms to allow their employees to work from home.

The Marina Beach area recorded a whopping 30 cm of precipitation.

A middle-aged farmer was electrocuted at Manal Agaram near Tiruvarur when he stepped on a snapped live wire lying under water in his field, police said, raising the death toll in rain-related incidents to eight since October 27, when the northeast monsoon arrived.

Fear of 2015 deluge?



--------------------



As the heavy spell led to fears of a repeat of the December 2015 deluge, the AIADMK government sought to dispel such rumours.

It asked people not to pay heed to rumours on social media that many lakes and reservoirs around the city were about to surplus and that water would be released.

"Do not spread and believe in rumours #work from home and 3rd Nov leave is 2 avoid traffic jams nd to avoid any untoward incident(sic)," the Tamil Nadu State Disaster Management Agency tweeted.

Most parts of the city and suburbs received heavy rains last night, with the DGP office near the Marina Beach gauging a maximum of 30 cm of precipitation in 24 hours ending 8.30 am today.

The famous Marina beach front and service lanes were under water.

The coastal district of Nagapattinam continued to suffer monsoon fury, with incessant rains submerging houses and affecting standing crops over thousands of hectares.

The regional weather office has forecast heavy to very heavy rains in the coastal districts and thunderstorms in Chennai and its suburbs for the next 24 hours.

"For the next 24 hours, there will be heavy rains in some places and very heavy rains in one or two places in coastal districts," S Balachandran, Director, Area Cyclone Warning Centre, told reporters.

Anna University and University of Madras announced cancellation of their semester exams.

Palaniswami, who visited flood relief camps in the city and suburban Perungalathur, distributed food packets, dhoti and sarees, mats and bedsheets to persons accommodated there, a release said.

He also visited a few affected areas here, including R K Nagar.

Chennai received 36 cm of rains in the last three days, the AIADMK leader said, adding the government acted "quickly" to ensure there was no water stagnation in the city.

Principal Revenue Secretary K Satyagopal said a 43 personnel-strong team of the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) was camping in suburban Tambaram to attend to any kind of exigencies.

The incessant downpour also crippled life in suburban Mudichur, one of the worst-affected areas in the 2015 December deluge, with heavy water-logging of roads and inundation of low-lying areas.

The residents of Kancheepuram district feared a repeat of the 2015 deluge.

Some of the residents staged a protest by squatting on the water-logged Mudichur Road, demanding immediate action.

Transportation takes a hit



--------------------------



While heavy waterlogging hindered free vehicular movement, a "signalling snag" partially hit train services between St Thomas Mount and Kodambakkam suburban section since 9.30 pm yesterday. Train services became normal this morning.

Flight operations at the city airport were normal, airport officials said.

The Nungambakkam weather station in the city registered 18 cm rain and Meenambakkam in the southern suburb recorded 14 cm rain till 8.30 am today. Parangipettai in Cuddalore gauged 14 cm rain.

A Nagapattinam report said heavy rains lashed parts of the district for the fifth day today, inundating hundreds of houses and submerging thousands of hectares of paddy crops.

People were evacuated to safety in Tarangambadi and Sirkazhi taluks, which bore the brunt of the monsoon fury.

At Tarangambadi, Dansborg, the 400-year-old fort built by the Danish on the seafront, is surrounded by water.

Accompanied by Nagapattinam District Collector C Sureshkumar, Tamil Nadu Handlooms Minister O S Manian visited many rain-hit areas in the district and inspected the relief work.

The sea remained very rough, with waves rising to several feet. More than 10,000 fishermen did not venture into sea for the fifth day today, official reports noted.

Salt production in the Vedaranyam area came to a standstill as salt pans in 10,000 acres of land remain submerged.

Samba and Thalady paddy raised in over 75,000 hectares of the total 1.28 lakh hectares, remain submerged in the district, the reports added.

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Donald Trump will be the first US president in 25 years to make a State Visit to South Korea.

While Trump is unlikely to visit the Korean Demilitarized Zone, he would deliver a major policy speech of the trip before the Korean National Assembly on November 8.

This is the only policy speech scheduled so far during Trumps nearly two-week five-nation Asia trip with stops in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and Philippines.

"It will be the first State Visit in 25 years by a US president," a South Korean embassy official told a group of foreign journalists.

Since a Korean President can host only one State Visit per country during his term, this visit is particularly meaningful, the official noted.

"Trump's visit is expected to be an opportunity for the two leaders to reaffirm their personal friendship and trust, as well as the two countries ironclad alliance," the official said.

Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in are expected to discuss strengthening the alliance, developing close coordination to resolve the North Korea nuclear issue, establishing peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia, and increasing cooperation on bilateral and global issues.

Trump and the First Lady are scheduled to arrive in Seoul on November 7.

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Donald Trump's maiden trip as the US President to Asia will strengthen longstanding alliances and expand new partnerships, his National Security Adviser Lt Gen H R McMaster has said.

Trump leaves the White House today on a 12-day trip during which he will visit Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and Philippines.

The trip is not only Trump's longest foreign trip as the US president but also the longest trip undertaken by a US president to Asia in more than a quarter century.

National security adviser Lt Gen H R McMaster sees Trump's Asia sojourn as part of efforts to strengthen longstanding American alliances while expanding the new partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region.

"This trip is a great opportunity to demonstrate America's and the Trump administration's commitment to the Indo-Pacific and our efforts to strengthen longstanding American alliances and expand new partnerships," McMaster told reporters at a White House conference on the eve of Trump's departure to the region.

McMaster said in the last 10 months, Trump has actively engaged leaders in the Indo-Pacific to address a range of strategic issues, prominently the North Korean nuclear threat.

Since taking office, Trump has placed 43 calls to Indo- Pacific leaders and conducted bilateral meetings with Japan, South Korea, China, India, Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand, he said.

In line with his presidential diplomacy, Trump's trip will focus on three goals: strengthening international resolve to denuclearise North Korea, promote a free and open Indo- Pacific region and advance American prosperity through fair and reciprocal trade and economic practices, McMaster said.

The US remains committed to the complete, verifiable and permanent denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, he said.

The top presidential adviser asserted that Trump will reiterate the fact that North Korea threatens not just its allies, but also the entire world.

"That is happening. But the president recognises that we're running out of time and will ask all nations to do more," McMaster said.

"During his meetings with world leaders, Trump will remind friend and foe alike that the US stands ready to defend itself and its allies using the full range of its capabilities," he said.

In particular, he will continue to call on all responsible nations, especially those with the most influence over North Korea, to isolate its regime economically and politically; to convince its leaders that the pursuit of nuclear weapons is a dead end and that it is past time to denuclearise, he added.

McMaster said Trump will also use the trip to promote his vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

"He will make the case that respect for freedom of navigation and overflight, the rule of law, sovereignty, freedom from coercion, and private enterprise and open markets is the best model to increase prosperity throughout the region, and to secure the freedom and independence of all nations," he said, adding the president will focus on his commitment to free, fair and reciprocal trade during his trip.

"He looks forward to working with partners across the Indo-Pacific region to ensure that governments do not unfairly subsidise their industries, discriminate against foreign business or restrict foreign investment. This will help increase trade, reduce unsustainable deficits, and promote prosperity for the American people and the people of the Indo-Pacific region," McMaster said.

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US President Donald Trump today said he would extend his trip in the Philippines by another day to attend the East Asia Summit, a key meeting between ASEAN and eight of its partners.

The US was originally scheduled to be represented by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the all-important East Asia Summit to be held in the Philippines on November 14.

Trump announced the to reporters before boarding Marine One on the White House lawns for the nearly two-week long maiden trip to Asia with stops in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

This is the longest trip ever by a US President to Asia in a quarter century.

"We're going to have a very successful trip. There is a lot of goodwill," Trump told reporters.

Looking forward to his trip, Trump said he is "actually staying an extra day" in the Philippines.

"We have a big conference, a second conference. I think were going to have great success," he said, referring to the East Asia Summit.

"We'll be talking about trade. We'll be talking about obviously North Korea. We'll be enlisting the help of a lot of people and countries and well see what happens," Trump said.

Later, the White House said that President Trump plans to spend an additional day in the Philippines to attend the East Asia Summit.

Officials said the trip is to "strengthen longstanding" alliances and expand new partnerships.

On the eve of Trump's departure, National Security Advisor H R McMaster said the "historic trip" will build on his ongoing presidential diplomacy.

Trump's trip will focus on three goals: strengthening international resolve to denuclearise North Korea; promote a free and open Indo-Pacific region; and advance American prosperity through fair and reciprocal trade and economic practices.

In the last 10 months, Trump has actively engaged leaders in the Indo-Pacific to address a range of strategic issues, including, most notably, the North Korean nuclear threat.

Since taking office, Trump has placed 43 calls to Indo- Pacific leaders and conducted bilateral meetings with Japan, South Korea, China, India, Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand.

"This trip is a great opportunity to demonstrate America's and the Trump administration's commitment to the Indo-Pacific and our efforts to strengthen longstanding American alliances and expand new partnerships," McMaster said.

The US remains committed to the complete, verifiable and permanent denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, he said, asserting that during his trip Trump will reiterate the plain fact that North Korea threatens not just its allies, but also a threat to the entire world.

So all nations of the world must do more to counter that threat, he said. "That is happening. But the president recognizes that we're running out of time and will ask all nations to do more," McMaster said.

In particular, he will continue to call on all responsible nations, especially those with the most influence over North Korea, to isolate its regime economically and politically, to convince its leaders that the pursuit of nuclear weapons is a dead end and that it is past time to denuclearize.

During his meetings with world leaders, Trump will remind friend and foe alike that the US stands ready to defend itself and its allies using the full range of its capabilities.

McMaster said Trump will also use his trip to promote his vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

He will make the case that respect for freedom of navigation and overflight, the rule of law, sovereignty, freedom from coercion, and private enterprise and open markets is the best model to increase prosperity throughout the region, and to secure the freedom and independence of all nations, the top presidential advisor said.

Observing that increasing prosperity of the American people is always one of Trump's top priorities, McMaster said that throughout the trip, the president will stress his commitment to free, fair and reciprocal trade.

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One Turkish police officer was killed and nine others were wounded today in a raid to capture a suspected Kurdish militant in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, the governor's office said.

The officers launched the operation to arrest a member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the district of Kayapinar west of Diyarbakir city centre, it said in a statement.

When they entered the building, clashes broke out during which a hand grenade was detonated and 10 officers were wounded. One later died after being taken to hospital.

Local resident Zahide Kilinc said she woke up to the sounds of gunfire around 6:00 AM and saw officers open fire on a flat nearby.

"Of course we were scared, the children were scared. It was like there was an attack on our home and not the opposite flat," she told AFP.

The governor's office said a member of the PKK was also killed during the clashes.

The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

Over 40,000 people have been killed since it launched its insurgency in Turkey in 1984.

Fighting intensified in the southeast between Turkish security forces and the PKK after the collapse of a two-year ceasefire in 2015.

Six soldiers and two military security guards were killed yesterday in clashes with the PKK in the province of Hakkari which borders Iraq.

The interior ministry said yesterday its security forces killed 46 members of the "separatist terror organisation" -- Turkey's official term for the PKK -- in Sirnak and Hakkari in the southeast and Tunceli in the east, state-run agency Anadolu said.

It was not possible to independently verify the toll.

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The UK's charity watchdog has opened a compliance case against the National Council of Hindu Temples (UK) after the group was accused of inviting a controversial speaker to a seminar in the Parliament complex.

The umbrella group for Hindu temples and organisations in Britain had invited Tapan Ghosh, the founder of Hindu Samhati based in West Bengal, to give a keynote address at an event titled 'Tolerating the intolerant: The abuse of Hindu human rights in Europe and India' last month, during which he is accused of voicing extremist views.

The UKs Charity Commission, in charge of regulating all charitable institutions registered in the country, confirmed today that it had opened a case which will involve questioning the trustees to decide if any further action was required.

"The Commission has opened a case into the National Council of Hindu Temples (UK) to assess concerns raised regarding a speaker at an event linked to the charity," the Charity Commission said in a statement.

Meanwhile, members of the Association of British Muslims, the Asian Mums Network, and the Women Against Radicalisation Network have co-signed an open letter to the Charity Commission demanding the National Council of Hindu Temples (UK) be stripped of its charity status.

"We believe the NCHTUK should be stripped of its charity status for inciting religious hatred...(Ghosh) runs a hardline Hindu militant group whose sole purpose is to demonise and 'protect Hindus from Muslim aggression'," the letter reads.

The event in the House of Commons complex in October was hosted by Conservative party MP Bob Blackman as chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for British Hindus.

Ghosh "made no abhorrent remarks at the meeting, and I am quite clear that I and the National Council of Hindu Temples do not agree with the views he previously stated," he said.

The NHCTUKhas stressed that the core subject of the event was the "sustained targeting and abuse of Hindu and Sikh girls their selection on the basis of their religion and their subsequent physical and emotional abuse for the purposes of forced conversion to Islam".

During his visit to the UK, Ghosh also attended a Diwali event organised by the Hindu Forum of Britain last month alongside Cabinet ministers including home secretary Amber Rudd, who has been forced to distance herself from his views.

"The home secretary fundamentally disagrees with Ghoshs views on Islam. The home secretary accepted an invitation from the Hindu Forum of Britain to attend an event in Parliament... to celebrate Diwali. She did not speak to Ghosh and was not present when he spoke," her spokesperson said.

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The United Nations has reported 31 new allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation in three months, with nearly half of those involving staff or partner organizations of the UN refugee agency.

From July to September, there were 12 new cases reported in six peacekeeping missions in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Liberia, Mali and South Sudan.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR reported 15 allegations, while three new cases involved staff at the International Organisation on Migration and one allegation was directed against the UN children's agency UNICEF.

One allegation at UNHCR has been substantiated, while two others are still under investigation. The other cases are being reviewed, according to UN information.

In all, 14 investigations have been launched during the three months.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has made fighting sexual abuse by peacekeepers and UN staff a priority of his tenure.

The UN chief is "obviously disappointed and saddened that these actions continue," said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

The United Nations has been damaged by a wave of rape cases involving peacekeepers in the Central African Republic, prompting former UN chief Ban Ki-moon to fire the mission commander.

Of the 31 cases, 12 took place this year, two were from last year and six in 2015. The dates have not been established for the remaining 11 allegations.

The United Nations is monitoring staff who have been involved in cases to ensure that when the allegations are substantiated they are not re-hired by the world body, said the spokesman.

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Around 1,000 policy makers from India and 25 other countries will discuss issues related to transport during a three-day conference beginning tomorrow in Hyderabad, an official release said today.

Experiences in respect of various aspects of urban transport of 86 cities, including 36 foreign cities, will be presented as case studies for detailed discussion during the conference, it added.

Case studies of cities to be discussed include Boudeau and Lyan (France), Lausanne (Switzerland), Lisbon (Portugal), Gaudalajara (Mexico), Curitiba (Barzil), Bangkok (Thailand) and Santiago (Chile).

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu will inaugurate the 'Urban Mobility India (UMI) Conference and Expo'. Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao and Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri will address the conference.

The conference aims at promoting dissemination of information and exchange of ideas on urban transport and mobility issues and the best practices being followed in the cities across the world.

The conference is being organised jointly by the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry, Telangana government, and CODATU - a French Transport Institute.

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The United States and Russia have circulated rival UN resolutions on extending the work of experts seeking to determine who is responsible for chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

Russia vetoed a US-sponsored Security Council resolution on October 24 that would have renewed the mandate of the experts from the UN and the international chemical weapons watchdog for a year.

The rival resolutions, obtained yesterday by The Associated Press, would renew the mandate of the experts' Joint Investigative Mechanism but under very different conditions.

Two days after Russia's veto, the experts released a report blaming Syria's government for a sarin nerve gas attack last April on Khan Sheikhoun that killed over 90 people, and Islamic State extremists for an attack in September 2016 in Um Hosh in Aleppo using mustard gas.

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A bipartisan group of five powerful lawmakers have introduced a legislation to impose sanctions on senior military officials of Myanmar who allegedly are involved in human rights violations against Rohingyas.

Nearly 600,000 minority Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh since August 25 to escape violence in Myanmar's Rakhine State where the army has launched a crackdown against militants.

Myanmar does not recognise Rohingya as an ethnic group and insists that they are Bangladeshi migrants living illegally in the country.

The proposal introduced by Senators John McCain, Ben Cardin, Dick Durbin, Marco Rubio and Todd Young, calls for targeted sanctions and travel restrictions on senior military officials of Myanmar responsible for the atrocities and systematic human rights abuses against the Rohingya people in the country.

If passed by the Congress, the legislation would prohibit certain military cooperation with the military of Myanmar until the Departments of State and Defence can certify that officials have halted the violence.

The bill would also support economic and security sector reform, and encourage Myanmar's successful transition of power to a civilian government.

"The systematic human rights abuses being committed against the Rohingya people in Myanmar demand a strong response from the US and the international community," said McCain.

More than 600,000 Rohingya have been forced to flee their homes, hundreds of villages have been burned, and scores of civilians have been killed in a campaign of violence that the United Nations has called a textbook example of ethnic cleansing, he said.

McCain said the legislation would hold accountable the senior military officials responsible for the slaughter and displacement of innocent men, women and children in Myanmar, and make clear that the US will not stand for these atrocities.

According to Cardin, this full-blown humanitarian crisis is happening under the watch of the international community, and this bill will allow Congress to strengthen the President's hand by making it clear to officials in Myanmar that there will be consequences for their crimes against humanity.

The Myanmar military has engaged in a brutal campaign against the country's Rohingya population, razing villages, raping women and killing innocent civilians, alleged Rubio.

Other Senators who have signed on this legislation are Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley, Dianne Feinstein, Brian Schatz, Tim Kaine, Chris Van Hollen, Tammy Baldwin, Cory Booker, and Jeanne Shaheen.

Congressmen Eliot Engel, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Steve Chabot, a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, have introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives.

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With her second feature, "Village Rockstars", Rima Das channelled her inner one-woman- army and she says working on the movie liberated her as a filmmaker.

The self-taught director says she worked on the critically-acclaimed movie all on her own in her village Chhaygaon and had her cousin play assistant to her in different departments.

In an interview with PTI, Das says, "'Village Rockstars' changed my life. When I was doing my first film last year ('Antardrishti' or 'Man will the Binoculars'), I was dependent on so many people for everything.

"But this film gave me the confidence and freedom to be a filmmaker in my own right. But I know I still have a lot left to learn."



Now a critically-acclaimed director, she had initially come to Mumbai to pursue acting as a career but things did not go according to plan.

"I was not doing well as an actor in Mumbai. But that was not the reason that I picked up direction. I thought as a filmmaker I'll get a chance to tell the stories the way I want to than act in films. You can't do that with acting. With direction, you have a control over the narrative."



Das says although it is scary to see independent filmmakers struggle to get funds for their films, she is "relaxed" about not being burdened with the expectations of a producer.

"Ever since I made the film, it brought me a kind of relief that even after 'Village Rockstars', I don't get people to finance my films, I'll be able to make something good out of a shoestring budget. I won't stop making movies because I don't have a producer."



Besides being the director and producer, Das has also written and edited the film.

The filmmaker says the contrasting name for the film came up spontaneously.

"Children in villages are not exactly aware about what being a rockstar means. In the film, the word rockstar represents the spirit of these kids.

"It also has subplots where we see people grappling with floods, which is an annual event in Assam. How they know that floods will destroy their crops yet they continue to face the challenges like poverty in their village," she says.

Das says people tend to glorify poverty in films and in real life, it is the government that has the power to improve the infrastructure to benefit the people.

"As a director, I'm just narrating a story, which is my responsibility. I don't consider myself an activist. I try to address the issue in a different way and that doesn't mean I'm trying to avoid the issue."



Das says she is in talks with producers to help in the theatrical release of "Village Rockstars", which is expected to be in March-April.

Her next project will be a teenage love story, the production for which is underway in Chhaygaon.

"Village Rockstars" will close the sixth edition of Dharamshala International Film Festival on November 5.

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Director Yaniv Berman, who screened his film "Land of the Little People" at the sixth Dharamshala International Film Festival, today said he wanted to show the impact of militarisation on children in Israel through the movie.

"Most of the children growing up in our country know that they have to join the Army eventually. The education system in the country prepares them to survive in future as potential soldiers. They are expected to toughen up and if the parents see their kids turn violent, they don't really object to it," he said.

Berman, 40, was speaking at the Q&A session post the movie's screening.

The director said he was inspired to make a film on the issue as it is a part of his personal experience like many of his country people.

"Israeli people are good in nature but there is a lot of anger in their hearts due to the situation. The children tend to be more aggressive. The war has become a part of who we are."



The movie shows four children from an Israeli Army village and analyses how they assert their dominance over two war deserters in an abandoned military base, who give a tough fight to the kids.

The film, which released last year, handles the concepts of violence, masculinity, sexuality and morality without kid gloves.

Berman added, "The film also shows the state of war deserters... There are people like them in Israel and I feel it should not be necessary for people to take part in the Army. It's okay to give up war.

"The sad part today in the country is that instead of finding alternative ways to deal with crisis, people are choosing war...

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West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi today conveyed his good wishes to the people of the state and prayed for their well-being on the eve of Guru Nanak Jayanti.

Tripathi wished that Guru Nanak's teachings on fraternity and universality be upheld among all sections of the society.

"May the bond of amity and integrity be strengthened as a mark of respect to Guru Nanak," Tripathi said in a message released from his official residence, the Raj Bhawan today.

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A woman was allegedly strangulated to death by her friend over a business dispute at a hotel room in Kalachowkey area of Central Mumbai this morning.

The deceased has been identified as Farhana Suhail Shaikh (23), a resident of Grant Road in south Mumbai, police said.

She had come to meet Irshad Qureshi (23) in the hotel and discuss about the profits from cloth business. During the course of their talks there was a heated argument between them, an official said.

Qureshi had invested money in cloth business, which was run by Farhana but she was reluctant to share profit from the business with him, he said.

During the argument Farhana, who had put a scarf around her neck told Qureshi that she will commit suicide in the room, after which Qureshi himself went ahead and strangulated her to death with the scarf, an official said.

As the woman lay motionless on the floor, the accused called Mumbai Police Control Room and informed them about the incident after which police rushed to the spot, Dilip Ugale, Senior Police Inspector of Kalachowkey said.

"We have registered an offence of murder against the accused," Ugale said.

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Poor workers should not suffer in the tussle between the Centre, Delhi government and MCD, the Delhi High Court said today.

While hearing the issue of pending salaries of sanitation workers of the city's municipal bodies, the court said due to non-release of funds by the Delhi government, the ultimate sufferers were the workers of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the entire national capital.

"MCD is not like a private company that if they do not perform, you will not pay them. Ultimately, workers suffer and, when they go on strike, whole Delhi suffers," a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said.

"Let the problems between the Delhi government, Union of India and MCD not come in the way of salaries of workers. We want these poor people to get their dues," it said.

The bench was a hearing a plea seeking a direction to the authorities to ensure that the workers of East and North Delhi Municipal Corporations call off their strike, which started on October 11 and October 16 respectively, and resume work.

The workers had later called off the strike.

The court heard the submissions of Delhi government standing counsel Ramesh Singh and asked if the government was moving in the spirit of releasing the money to MCD.

The counsel sought time to seek instruction after which the bench listed the matter for November 14.

Singh said it was the obligation of MCD and not the Delhi government to pay salaries to sanitation workers and claimed that the civic body was not doing anything on its part.

The court had earlier directed the then striking sanitation employees not to obstruct cleaning of garbage as they caused serious diseases like dengue.

The court was hearing a plea by one Rahul Birla, who had sought a direction to the government and the EDMC to make immediate payment of the arrears.

Advocate Niraj Gupta, appearing for the petitioner, had urged the court to direct the EDMC to issue medical cashless cards to its sanitation workers.

The plea has also sought direction to the authorities to immediately implement the recommendations of the 4th Finance Commission.

The workers of all the three MCDs had also gone on strike in January 2015, October 2015 and January 2016, which had worsened the sanitary conditions and accumulated garbage in the capital posing an imminent risk of outbreak of diseases.

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By Mohi Narayan and Devidutta Tripathy

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) - Two of India's big state banks saw the pace of bad loan growth slow in the second-quarter, but steep provisions for defaulters in bankruptcy proceedings mean profits will stay under pressure until at least March.

Punjab National Bank (PNB), the second-biggest state lender, reported a better-than-expected second quarter profit on Friday of 5.61 billion rupees, with additions to bad loans 42 percent less than the first quarter.

Union Bank of India, the sixth-biggest state lender, reported a surprise 15.31 billion-rupee loss in the three months to Sept. 30, mainly due to front-loading of provisions for bankruptcy cases but additional bad loans dropped 40 percent on the previous quarter.

Uco Bank, a smaller state-run lender that also reported second-quarter results, saw its net loss widening to 6.23 billion rupees.

State-run lenders account for the bulk of India's 9.5 trillion rupees in soured bank loans as of June. The surge in bad loans has choked new lending in an economy which needs more investment to help spur growth.

The central bank has ordered commercial lenders to take 12 of the biggest loan defaulters, accounting for about a quarter of the sector's non-performing loans, to bankruptcy proceedings.

It has ordered nearly 30 more firms to be pushed to bankruptcy if other forms of debt resolution do not work out by mid-December.

A $32 billion recapitalisation plan announced by the Indian government last month has given a lifeline to the 21 state-run banks, whose profitability is lower than the private lenders but they have higher capital requirements due to bigger loan books.

Sunil Mehta, chief executive of New Delhi-based PNB, said the recapitalisation announcement "boosted the morale" of bankers and said the bank would boost credit growth.

Ram Sangapure, a PNB executive director, said the bank aimed to increase loans at 11 percent in the full year to end-March, up from the 8.3 percent rise in domestic loans in the second quarter.

Union Bank Chief Executive Rajkiran Rai G said his bank would aim for loan growth of 10 percent in the 2017/2018 fiscal year. He said higher provisions would be a drag in this and the next quarter but saw a return to profitability from March.

The Reserve Bank of India has asked lenders to make minimum 50 percent provisioning by March on loans to firms in bankruptcy.

PNB said it was ahead of requirements.

For 65 billion rupees in bad debts held by 20 of the firms that could face bankruptcy proceedings from December, much of the provisioning has yet to be done, officials said.

Union Bank has 74 billion rupees in loans to companies in bankruptcy and 47 billion rupees to those in the second list, CEO Rai said, adding they have 55 percent provision cover for the first list of loans and 30 percent for the second.

($1 = 64.5950 Indian rupees)

(Additional reporting by Samantha Kareen Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Edmund Blair)

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By Jessica Kuruthukulangara

(Reuters) - Torrent Pharmaceuticals said on Friday it would buy more than 120 brands from Unichem Laboratories in India and Nepal, and its manufacturing plant at Sikkim.

The 36 billion rupee ($558 million) deal will be funded by internal accruals and bank borrowing, the Ahmedabad, Gujarat-based drugmaker said in a stock exchange filing.

The acquisition is on a going concern basis and is expected to deliver cost and revenue synergies in Torrent's branded drugs business in India, the company added.

Unichem has not been able to leverage its slow-growing, mature brands portfolio, analyst said. But Torrent will be able to turn them around, as it has done with Elder Pharmaceuticals Ltd, they added.

Torrent acquired Elder Pharma's branded formulations business for about 20 billion rupees in 2014.

Analysts expect Unichem to use the proceeds from the deal to ramp up its unprofitable international business.

The transaction will strengthen Torrent's position in cardiology, diabetology, gastro-intestinals and central nervous systems therapies, Torrent chairman Samir Mehta said.

The deal includes the purchase of the brand Unienzyme, allowing Torrent to enter the over-the-counter drugs market, as well as brands including Losar, Ampoxin and Telsar.

Under the acquisition, which is expected to close by the end of 2017, more than 3,000 Unichem employees will join Torrent.

Both companies reported September-quarter results on Friday, with Torrent posting a 1.4 percent drop in profit, while Unichem's profit more than doubled.

($1 = 64.5450 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Jessica Kuruthukulangara and Aby Jose Koilparambil in Bengaluru; Editing by David Goodman and Alexander Smith)

(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.)
Demand for physical gold was lacklustre in top consumers India and China this week, while the lure of the metal remained stable in Singapore, but India's peak wedding season is expected to usher in renewed interest for bullion in coming weeks.

Gold is considered an essential part of weddings in India, second-biggest consumer of the metal in the world after China, and it is a popular gift on such occasions.

"The wedding season has started. In the next few weeks, there are many wedding dates, which will boost demand," said Kumar Jain, a Mumbai-based jeweller.

Dealers in India were charging a premium of up to $3 an ounce this week over official domestic prices, unchanged from last week. The domestic price includes a 10 percent import tax.

"Gold imports by (jewellery) export houses have fallen sharply in the last few weeks. That's why the market is in premium, despite moderate demand," said a dealer with a private bank in Mumbai.

In October, India tightened gold import norms for jewellery exporters by restricting them from importing the yellow metal only for export purposes and not for selling in the domestic market.

Meanwhile, in China, the market for the precious metal remained quiet, with premiums of $5 to $9 an ounce being charged over benchmark rates, as against the $6.50 to $10 range in the previous week.

Benchmark spot gold was on track to register a small weekly gain, hovering around the $1,275.00 level as of 0919 GMT on Friday, but still below Thursday's mark of $1,284.10, highest in nearly two weeks. [GOL/]

"Dips below the $1,270 level (toward the beginning of the week) spurred some buying, but the upside, (around the $1,280 level) limited purchases," said Ronald Leung, chief dealer at Lee Cheong Gold Dealers in Hong Kong.

Premiums in Hong Kong remained more or less unchanged from last week, in the 60 cents to $1.20 range.

"Premiums are quite low, and except for periodic large sales, the market is quiet," said Joshua Rotbart, managing partner of J. Rotbart & Co in Hong Kong.

In Singapore, premiums rose to 70-90 cents from the 50 cents last week.

"There has been interest from two segments, the wholesalers and high net worth individuals, so it is still strong," said Loh Mun Chun, Director, Private Wealth at GoldSilver Central in Singapore.

"The wholesalers need to buy ... to produce jewellery, especially with some spillover demand coming from the Diwali and Dhanterras festivals, while the high net worth individuals ... buy to diversify their portfolio and they have the money."

Japanese markets were closed for a public holiday on Friday.
Business Today recently spoke to Priyanka Krishnan and Aayush Maheshwari, founders of IShareSpace, a co-working space start-up. The company, which runs four centres - in Mumbai, Bangalore, Gurgaon, and Chennai - will add a fifth one in Mumbai again by January 2018. That will take its capacity to 580 seats. Here are some interesting findings from the conversation:

1. The start-up, which rolled out its first centre in April 2016, generated revenues of Rs 2.6 crore in 2016/17. It expects to grow 30 per cent this year on the back of increased capacity. The company averages around Rs 15,000 a seat per month.

2. The business model is a lease and sub-lease one. Going ahead, the firm is adding a management contract model where the builder provides the space and the start-up markets it. IShareSpace will charge a fee for managing the premises.

3. Co-working spaces are always associated with start-ups. However, the trend is moving towards more established players and MNCs who are looking at alternatives to vanilla leases because of the lack of hassle and the flexibility of lease term. IShareSpace's price points are a natural barrier to start-ups. The strategy to attract more mature companies does away with the volatility associated with start-ups. The average duration a company utilises its space can be a year.

4. IShareSpace doesn't like to describe themselves as a co-working space. They prefer to be known as "a new age business centre" or a hybrid between a co-working space and a business centre. Unlike in a co-working space meant for mostly start-ups, IShareSpace is formal in its approach. It also has tie-ups with various companies for services such as web design, app design, accounting and law. Also, restaurants and cafes.
FMCG major ITC has launched a new brand Farmland for fresh fruits and vegetables. The new brand has debuted the market with the staple vegetable - potatoes. But, why potatoes? Total consumer spend of fruits & vegetables in India is Rs 500,000 crores from which the largest share is occupied by table potatoes at Rs 70,000 crores, said S Sivakumar, Group Head - ITC's Agri Business and Information Technology at the launch. Everybody likes potatoes but there are a lot of myths around it as a vegetable with high fat content or being unsuitable for diabetes, says Sachid Madan, Chief Executive and Director - ?Technico Agri Sciences, part of the ITC Group. To dispel these myths, ITC has partnered the research institute Indian Council for Agricultural Research - Central Potato Research Institute (ICAR-CPRI) to inform consumers of the nutritional benefits of potatoes, he added.

Farmland potatoes are available in four variants: Natural Low Sugar Potatoes, Potatoes with Natural Antioxidant, Baby Potatoes and French Fry Potatoes. They will be sold at a small premium of 10-15 per cent over local prices which will vary according to market fluctuations. It will be currently available in Delhi and will gradually make a foray in all the metros in the next few months. Farmland potatoes will be sold through organized retail, e-commerce platforms and the neighborhood grocery stores.

The company plans to launch a new product category every quarter. Some of the categories it is exploring is green leafy vegetables or apples.
Punjab National Bank (PNB) posted net profits to the tune of Rs 561 crore in the second quarter of current fiscal beating expert estimates. The second biggest public sector bank in India saw its net profit rise by 2 per cent in the September quarter as compared to the corresponding period last year and more than 63 per cent against the June quarter of the current fiscal. Operating profits posted by PNB in Q2'18 rose by 20 per cent Y-o-Y to end at Rs 3279 crore.

The rise in PNB profits beating analyst estimates could be attributed to decrease in the bank's bad assets. PNB saw its gross NPA ratio reduced to at 13.31 per cent during Q2 in 2017-18 in comparison to 13.63 per cent seen at the end of September 2016. The bank's net NPA ratio slid to 8.44 per cent in this quarter from 9.10 per cent recorded at the end of September quarter last year. PNB claimed in a statement to have contained slippages during the September quarter.

The net interest income for Q2 FY18 stood at Rs 4015 crore, showing a 3.5 per cent Y-o-Y growth, whereas the non-interest income for the same period amounted to Rs 1906 crore, with a 5.4 per cent growth.

PNB also managed to cut its operating expenses by 10.6 per cent, spending Rs 2642 crore between July and September this year, as compared to Rs 2956 crore seen for the corresponding period last fiscal. Its total income during the September quarter of 2017-18 was up at Rs 14,205.31 crore as against Rs 13,638.64 crore in the year-ago period.

The global business for PNB brought in Rs 10.46 lakh crore in Q2 FY18 with an increase of 8 per cent as against Rs 9.68 lakh crore seen last year. Global deposits alone for the bank stood at Rs 6.36 lakh crore, growing at 10.7 per cent from Rs 5.74 lakh crore for Q2 FY17. Bank's global credit rose year-on-year by 4.5 per cent, whereas domestic credit increased by 8.3 per cent, according to a statement by PNB.

Additionally, the board of directors of PNB has given the green signal to the bank management to partially sell its stake in PNB Housing Finance Ltd. But for now, PNB Finance Housing Ltd will continue to be one of the core associates of PNB.

Meanwhile, PNB shares rose to the day's high of Rs 211.95, growing 8 per cent, after its Q2 results came out. The bank's shares were trading at Rs 207, up by 5 per cent by the time this report was written.

Also Read: Sensex, Nifty looking for more triggers to scale new highs; banking stocks lead gains

Also Watch:




You no longer have to visit the store of your telecom provider to link your 12-digit Aadhaar with mobile SIM. From December 1, you can do it with one time password (OTP) received on your phone. This was announced by UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) on microblogging site Twitter.

"No need to give finger prints to local SIM card retailer for your mobile phone verification. From December 1, 2017, you can do it from comfort of your home through OTP received on mobile number registered with Aadhaar," said the UIDAI, the issuer of the 12-digit personal identification number or Aadhaar number.

The Department of Telecom has introduced three new methods to link the registered mobile number with Aadhaar - OTP based, app-based and IVRS facility. Subscribers can verify or re-verify their mobile numbers from anywhere in the country irrespective of which service area their mobile connection belongs to.

For senior citizens telecom operators have been directed to offer verification facility to subscribers at their doorsteps for the convenience of those with disability, illness or old age. They are further directed to build an online mechanism - which can be through the website or any other means - to request such service.

Here's how you can link Aadhaar and mobile number using a one-time password

You need to message Aadhaar number from their registered mobile numbers at a number provided by their service providers.

The service providers will then do a demographic verification of the number.

After the verification process, the service provider will send OTP request to UIDAI.

UIDAI will send the OTP on the mobile number.

The user will send this OTP to the registered mobile number

The e-KYC verification process gets complete with this.

Aadhaar-based e-KYC is essential for subscribers going for new SIMs. Further, the government has asked mobile operators to re-verify existing prepaid and postpaid customers, with the help of the 12-digit unique identity number. The re-verification exercise is scheduled to be completed by early 2018. The Indian telecom market with subscriber base of over a billion is second-largest in the world after China.






Xiaomi started rolling out MIUI 9 for Redmi Note 4 and Mi Max 2 last week. The users of these devices can download the update via OTA or flash the stable update by downloading it from the company's forum.

The company has claimed that the rest of the devices that qualified for the MIUI 9 update will start receiving it by the end of this month. Earlier this month, the company confirmed the devices that will receive MIUI 9 update. It is suggested that users keep a back up for all their data before beginning the boot-process.

The new software was launched alongside the Xiaomi Redmi Y1 and Redmi Y1 Lite, which will also recieve the update by mid-november. Considering that these new low-specked devices will get the update early, most other Xiaomi devices might also recieve the update within this month.

During the launch event the company compared the MIUI 9 with Samsung's TouchWiz on J7 Max. The MIUI 9 was able to open and close 34 apps in comparison to Touch Wiz's 16. Samsung J7 Max was also compared to measure lag-times in between switching apps. Xioami claims the Samsung device takes 45 per cent higher time than the Redmi Note 4 that was operating on MIUI 9. The company even claimed to be as fast as Android stock version.

The MIUI 9 makes changes in the notifications shade. The user will have multiple styles of notifications. The notifications will also be bundled in accordance with the application. The user will be able to interact with updates within the notification shade. The split screen can be initiated by using the open applications page. Icon animations have been integrated to the new MIUI 9.

Features like Smart Photo editing will let the user edit background distractions within images without much hassle.

MIUI 9 also has a shortcut page on the left of the home page. Similar to the Google Now launcher, the user will just have to swipe right to open the shortcuts. Mi Video App now supports popular video formats and also facilitates automatic grouping of videos.

Xiaomi has also introduced various India-centric features in the new MIUI 9. IRCTC text messages with ticket details will be received in a card format. Indian festivals have also been included on the Mi Calendar application. The company has also launched stickers specially made for India along with a new Limitless theme.

These are the devices that will receive the new MIUI 9:

2017

MI Mix 2, Mi Note 3, Mi 6, Mi Max 2, Redmi Note 4, Redmi Note 4X, Redmi Note 5A, Redmi 4, Redmi Y1, Redmi Y1s

2016

Mi Mix. Mi Note 2, Mi 5, Mi 5s, MI 5s Plus, Mi Max, Mi Max Prime, Redmi Note 3, Redmi 3, Redmi 3s, Redmi 4, Redmi 4A

2015

Mi Note, Mi 4i, Redmi 2, Redmi 2 Prime, Redmi Note 4G, Redmi Note 2

2014

Mi 4, Redmi Note 4G

2013

Mi 3

2012

Mi 2
OnePlus has been evading the question of OnePlus 5T from quite some time now. However, the company has finally given up and revealed the existence of its next flagship. The Chinese company's chief Pete Lau revealed in a post that the upcoming OnePlus 5T will come with 3.5 mm headphone jack, unlike other big flagships in the market.

In the post, Lau explains the reasons behind their decision to keep the jack. However, he also acknowledged that the future is wire-less and in time the headphone jack has to move out of smartphones. He stated in his post, "Whether it's in the area of hardware or software, our focus is on producing superior product experiences. Every feature, removed or added, is based on our understanding of user needs. For the time being, we think it's best to stick with the headphone jack."

Lau claimed that the wire-less industry is the way to go but most users still rely on wired headsets due to the lack of reasonable options in the wire-less. "Wireless audio technology has a lot of potential...But our goal from the beginning has been to bring better technology to the world. That's why we prioritize the user and make good technology accessible. Sometimes, industry trends go against our core beliefs."

Impressive photo. Must be a great camera pic.twitter.com/rixfXiqaFS - Pete Lau (@petelau2007) October 25, 2017

OLED helps us build thinner devices and better display experiences. Samsung's display technology is currently the best for Optic AMOLED. - Pete Lau (@petelau2007) October 27, 2017

The company chief has consistently been leaking images that seem to be clicked from the OnePlus 5T. Over that he also mentioned that Samsung's AMOLED display is one of the best in the industry which hints at the device carrying an AMOLED display.The biggest change, however, is expected in the size and shape of the display. OnePlus 5T is expected to feature a bezel-less display with an 18:9 aspect ratio. The device will be following the biggest smartphone flagship trend of 2017 with the new OnePlus 5T.

The device has been leaked in various renders and benchmark listings earlier this month. Oppomart, a smartphone retailer from China even listed the device on their website asking buyers to prebook to get the device by end of November. The listing also revealed the device's specifications from the new FullHD+ resolution of the new screen to the aperture of the camera.

The OnePlus 5T is expected to sport a fullHD+ optic AMOLED 6-inch screen on the front without any fingerprint sensor under the screen. However, OnePlus will most likely place the sensor on the rear panel of the device. The screen will be protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5.

The dual-camera lens might also see a slight upgrade in the OnePlus 5T with one RGB and one monochrome camera. These two units, one 20-megapixel with f/2.6 aperture and another 16-megapixel with f/1.7 aperture, will be the device's primary shooter. The front camera on OnePlus 5T will be a 16-megapixel shooter.

OnePlus 5T is expected to feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC under the hood, clocked at 2.45GHz, paired with Adreno 540 GPU.

It will run along with either 6GB or 8GB of RAM. The OnePlus 5T will come with two internal memory options - 64GB and 128GB. As for the operating system, the smartphone will have Oxygen OS based on Android Nougat which should get an update to Android Oreo. All of this will be powered by a 3450mAh battery with dash charge.
If you spent countless sleepless nights wondering "Kattappa ne Baahubali ko kyun mara?", if you waited anxiously for Devasana to be rescued from the evil clutches of Bhallaladeva, if you jumped in joy as Mahendra Baahubali decided to take revenge on his back-stabbing and usurper uncle, then we have some really good news for you. Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad has turned the sets of the Baahubali movies into a tourist attraction inside their sprawling campus and you can now visit the kingdoms of Mahishmati and Kunthala.

The extravagant sets of the movies were made on a whopping budget of Rs 60 crore and sprawls across 100 acres. Tickets are priced at Rs 1,250 and Rs 2,349. Visitors will also be given a tour of other attractions within Ramoji Film City's sprawling 1,000-acre campus.



Students and corporate offices can also make bookings for special packages.

The tour has suddenly become the greatest attraction of the film city. The sets of Baahubali were made by National Award winner Sabu Cyril. Along with the sets, some props that were used in the movies are also showcased there.

A report in mid-day mentions that producer Shobu Yarlagada said that officials from Ramoji Film City approached the Baahubali makers. "The officials at Ramoji approached us with the idea and we were happy to oblige. It took us months to create the set and we were anyway planning to retain the set for later use. What better than to feel that we've created something for posterity," he said.



The production team of Baahubali is not taking any share from the sets. Yarlagada said that they work with Ramoji on a regular basis and that their relationship goes beyond any monetary agreement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has informed his French counterpart Emanuel Macron about the results of his visit to Iran.

November 3, 2017, 10:20 Russia, France presidents express support for Iran nuclear deal

STEPANAKERT, NOVEMBER 3, ARTSAKHPRESS: During the telephonic conversation, the two leaders discussed the joint comprehensive plan of the activities of Irans nuclear program, and stressed the impossibility of a one-sided review of this key agreement, informed the Kremlin press service.

Putin and Macron exchanged views also on the Syrian issue, and highlighted the need for making joint efforts to resolve this crisis.
| BY Ricki Green |

Ogilvy Melbourne has announced two new hires bolstering its strategic offering and accommodating the agencys strong business growth. Virginia Pracht has been appointed as the new head of strategy and Dominic Counahan takes on the role of strategy planner.

Most recently planning director at Cummins&Partners, Pracht will be responsible in her new role for leading Ogilvy Melbournes strategy and planning team, through the agencys period of strong new business growth.

Says Gavin MacMillan, managing partner, Ogilvy Melbourne: We are thrilled to welcome Virginia back to Ogilvy as our head of strategy. She is a wonderful planner who defines problems with precision and sees solutions with fresh perspective. Her experience and leadership adds considerable weight to our agencys IQ.

German-born Pracht started her career at Ogilvy Frankfurt. When she was given the opportunity to pick any overseas Ogilvy office for an exchange, she chose to be transferred to Ogilvy Melbourne in 2009. After her first stint at Ogilvy, she moved to a content strategist role at Powered By Nine, developing content ideas across Channel 9, ninemsn and Bauer Magazines.

Before returning to Ogilvy, Pracht gained behavioural economics expertise and expanded category knowledge at Cummins&Partners, through strategic leadership on Western Australia Tourism, Specsavers, Reflex and Open Universities Australia. During this time, she won a number of creative and effectiveness awards for her efforts including several Effies.

Says Pracht: Walking back into Ogilvy felt a lot like coming home. Ogilvy was the first agency that ever employed me and then the first agency I worked for in Australia. Its a great place, with great people, exciting clients and exciting growth  with more to come.

Counahan has also joined Ogilvy Melbourne from Cummins&Partners, where he served as a strategy planner. He got started at Clemenger BBDOs Graduate Program and after a short stint in account service, switched to strategic planning. Most recently, hes been completing a Masters in Creative Writing at The University of Melbourne, and is a graduate of both ADMA and AWARD School.
| BY Ricki Green |

Strategic brand and design consultancy Re has announced two senior promotions and two new hires in the form of creative director, Shannon Bell former head of verbal branding, creative director Colin Cornwell former associate director and the appointment of Tom Donald as head of strategy and Mark Liney as managing partner.

Former executive director of client services at Landor, Liney was instrumental in leading Landor through record growth across their work with Siemens, News Corp and IAG across London and Sydney. Liney is now responsible for driving the next phase of Res growth through existing clients and new business.

Says Patrick Guerrera, CEO, Re: Mark brings a wealth of high-end strategic consulting experience with globally renowned organisations. Hell play a pivotal role in in asserting our own credentials as the leading strategic brand consultancy in Australia and beyond.

Newly appointed head of strategy, Donald comes armed with over 20 years experience and leaves his role as global innovations director at Beam Suntory. His most recent work includes Canadian Clubs Over Beer campaign, earning him a Silver Effiie. Donald previously worked with M&C Saatchi chief strategy officer Justin Graham during his tenure Droga5 and again as a freelancer of M&C Saatchi.

Internally, Cornwells promotion to creative director comes after two years with the business and an additional 14 years of international experience. Already recognised as one of the industrys most influential creatives, Cornwell has a Cannes Lion under his belt for his work with Nike x Selfridges and multiple D&ADs.

Bells promotion to creative director comes after building Res verbal identity department from the ground up and crafting the agencys identity capabilities as a critical part of brand development. Working across major clients including Optus, CBA and Uniting, Bell has also been recognised by D&AD for her work with Uniting and M&C Saatchi Group PR agency, Hidden Characters.

Says Guerrera: Re is continuously evolving to meet the demands of our rapidly changing industry. Re is home to the most innovative and diverse minds creating the best client experience possible and producing the best work across the globe. Colin and Shannons brilliance are a testament to the growth and success of our business.

Mark and Tom bring un-paralleled experience and expertise to the team. Were excited for the next twelve months of growth for Re across both our Sydney and London operations.
| BY Lynchy |

XL Tissues for Parking Issues  the mantra of Chope King  the fictitious giant tissue packet that has been creating a social media storm in Singapore.

Last week, Uber, along with BBH Singapore, carried out a cunning seeding campaign that entrusted the help of Singapores top bloggers and local social media sites. Enter the tissue packet  a very common chope agent  used widely by Singaporeans when securing a table or seat, especially at crowded food courts.

Social posts carried photographs of a giant tissue packet labelled Chope King choping parking spaces in congested spots across Singapores CBD. Chope is a local colloquialism that describes the act of securing a space in any public domain, before someone else gets to it.

Uber decided that a giant tissue packet would do the trick and send a funny but clear message highlighting one of the biggest woes faced by Singapores drivers: limited parking spaces. Its all part of Ubers wider message  a regional campaign of Unlocking Cities that focuses on reducing private car ownership to improve lives in cities around the region.

From a commissioned study, Uber singled out limited parking space as one of the biggest problems that drivers in Singapore face, with the average person spending 288 hours a year in traffic and searching for parking.

Rebecca Levy, Account Director, BBH Singapore said, Theres nothing like entrusting the help of a local phenomenon  like the humble tissue packet  to make a point. We hope this little prank with a big message generates both conversations and gives rise to solutions around a real problem with parking in Singapore,

Stacy Sy, Marketing Manager, Uber Singapore commented, Uber is committed to creating better cities through fewer and fuller cars, especially in a small city like Singapore. Chope-King was our way of providing food for thought in a humorous but locally relatable manner, engaging Singapore residents to start conversations around whether car ownership is still a necessity.

Credits 

ECD: Joakim Borgstrom

Creative Directors: Omar Sotomayor & Gaston Soto

Art Director: Ronald Bunaidi

Copywriter: Kevin Tosi

Strategist (& Prop Maker): Zoe Chen

Business Director: David Webster

Account Director: Rebecca Levy

Account Manager: Victoria Fernandez
The United States supports the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Robert Cekuta said, APA reports.

November 3, 2017, 14:10 United States supports peaceful settlement of NK conflict  Ambassador

STEPANAKERT, NOVEMBER 3, ARTSAKHPRESS: Commenting on the recent meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents, the Ambassador said: We support the work on organizing a meeting between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, and this work continues. We hope the conflict will be settled peacefully. Such settlement is strictly important.'
Friday, November 3, 2017 at 1:27PM

Amazon has announced it will open a new office in downtown Vancouver in 2020. This growth will double Amazons current Vancouver workforce from 1,000 to 2,000 employees. Amazon also announced its current Canadian staff has grown to over 5,000 full-time employees across Canada.

Amazon also announced that its current Canadian workforce has grown to over 5,000 full-time, full-benefit employees across Canada, spanning sites in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.

Amazon is excited to continue growing our workforce throughout Canada, said Alexandre Gagnon, Vice President of Amazon Canada and Mexico. We are among the largest employers of software engineers in Canada and look forward to continuing to create new job opportunities for Canadians.




"We believe we've got an agreement which reflects their dedication with pay rises - in many areas of the economy and other industries pay rises are not occurring, and we're proposing to provide pay rises to staff in the ACT and New South Wales, so we're hoping that the agreement and our intent in the agreement will be recognised by staff and we can pay the pay rises and move forward."
"When groups like the Greens are in controlling situations it's important those things are kept in check and balanced with the rights of individuals to run legal businesses and the rights of the community to enjoy greyhound racing as well," Mr Simonette said.
A Democrat is nearing a decision on whether he will challenge Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the 2018 gubernatorial primary.

Former state Sen. Terry Gipson has registered a campaign committee with the state Board of Elections. The committee, Gipson for New York, indicates that he's a candidate for governor.

The documents were filed Thursday, according to the state Board of Elections website.

Terry Gipson, former NY senator, exploring primary against Cuomo in 2018 As Republicans are lining up for the opportunity to challenge Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2018, a h

Gipson, who served in the state Senate from 2013 to 2015, has been exploring a run for governor over the last few months. While the creation of a campaign committee is a necessary step for any gubernatorial candidate, he has yet to make a formal declaration.

"The reception we have received across the state to a potential run has been very positive. So much so that we have decided to take the next step forward," Gipson wrote in an email to The Citizen Friday. "We have created a campaign committee so that we can have the funds to travel the state, develop relationships, listen to New Yorkers and continue to explore a run for governor."

Gipson explained why he may run for governor in an interview last month with The Citizen. He is frustrated with the lack of action on electoral reforms, tougher environmental protections and he wants the state to address the public school funding gap.

He also believes Cuomo hasn't done enough to address the ongoing split between mainline state Senate Democrats and the Independent Democratic Conference.

Thirty-two of the 63 seats in the Senate are held by Democrats, but one (state Sen. Simcha Felder) causes with the Republicans and the IDC consists of eight members who have a power-sharing agreement with the GOP.

There are other Democrats who have expressed interest in the gubernatorial primary. Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner is exploring a run for governor. She recently opted not to challenge U.S. Rep. John Katko in the 24th Congressional District race.

Miner, who is finishing her final term as mayor, will teach at New York University in the spring.

Challenging Cuomo in a primary will be an uphill battle for any Democrat. The incumbent governor has more than $25.6 million in the bank. When he faced a primary challenge in 2014, he defeated Zephyr Teachout by 28 percentage points.

Gipson is encouraged by what he has heard in meetings with Democrats, especially progressive activists who have long criticized Cuomo's approach to governing and many of his policies.

"Folks from Brooklyn to Buffalo want our state government returned to its rightful owners, the people of New York, and I am dedicated to investigating how I can best serve that process," Gipson said.
As women share accounts of sexual assault and harassment in their workplaces, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand wants to crack down on abuse in congressional offices.

Gillibrand, D-N.Y., introduced legislation that would update the process for victims to report sexual harassment within the U.S. Congress Office of Compliance, an agency which is tasked with handling discrimination and harassment complaints from congressional employees.

The bill would also designate an employee within the Office of Compliance who would be a confidential adviser for harassment victims.

Annual sexual harassment training would be required for members of Congress and staff, interns could utilize the same resources as full-time employees and victims would no longer be required to participate in mediation before filing a complaint against a harasser.

A climate survey would be required to analyze sexual harassment in Congress and offices would be mandated to post notices informing employees of their protections and rights.

"Congress should never be above the law or play by their own set of rules," Gillibrand said. "The current process has little accountability and even less sensitivity to the victims of sexual harassment."

Gillibrand unveiled her bill after an Associated Press report detailing sexual harassment against current and former women members of Congress. Former U.S. Rep. Mary Bono, a Republican from California, recalled how a congressman, who remains in office, made sexually charged comments to her on the House floor.

One of Gillibrand's former colleagues, ex-U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, told the Associated Press that a male senator made a suggestive comment to her at a hearing.

The revelations come as other stories are being told about sexual assault and harassment in other fields. Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein has been accused by several women of inappropriate conduct. Kevin Spacey, an actor best known for his role as President Frank Underwood on "House of Cards," is accused of sexually assaulting or harassing eight of the show's current and former employees.

A social media campaign, #MeToo, has featured stories of men and women recounting how they were sexually assaulted or harassed.

"They are showing we can build a more just society for ourselves, our families and future generations by shining a light on injustice and saying we will not accept it anymore," Gillibrand said.

Gillibrand, who has advocated for combating sexual assault on college campuses in the military, touted her bill's provisions. The climate survey, she noted, can "show the true scope of this problem" in Congress.

The goal of the bill is to reform the sexual harassment policies and reporting guidelines in Congress, which she believes are "inadequate."

"We must ensure that this institution handles complaints to create an environment where staffers can come forward if something happens to them without having to fear that it will ruin their careers," she said.
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.
A question on the election ballot in New York will determine whether public officials can keep their pensions after being convicted of corruption.

Proposal 2 would amend the state constitution and allow a court to strip pensions from public officials who are convicted of felony offenses that have "a direct and actual relationship to the performance of the public officer's existing duties," according to a summary of the proposition published by the state Board of Elections.

What you should know about the NY constitutional convention vote It's a question New Yorkers are asked every 20 years, and it could reshape state government.

The pension forfeiture amendment was introduced in response to a slew of corruption cases involving state lawmakers. Two of the state Legislature's longtime leaders, ex-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, were convicted of federal corruption charges. Those verdicts were overturned. Both will be retried next year.

What is Proposal 2?

The question, which will appear on the back of the ballot, is: "The proposed amendment to section 7 of Article 5 of the State Constitution would allow a court to reduce or revoke the public pension of a public officer who is convicted of a felony that has a direct and actual relationship to the performance of the public officer's existing duties. Shall the proposed amendment be approved?"

Two successive sessions of the state Legislature, by overwhelming margins, approved the proposed amendment. But it must receive final approval from New York voters.

The amendment is necessary because the constitution protects pensions from being reduced or stripped.

How would it work?

The pension forfeiture amendment could apply to officials convicted of felony corruption charges. A court would determine if they should lose all or part of their pension as punishment for their crime.

Several factors would be considered by the court when determining whether an official should lose their pension. The factors include the seriousness of the crime and whether revoking the pension would cause undue hardship to the official's spouse, children or other family members.

If the voters approve the amendment, it would apply to crimes committed on or after Jan. 1, 2018.

What is a "public official" for the purposes of this amendment?

This was an initial concern of some public employee unions because earlier drafts of the amendment could apply to non-elected officials, such as low-level employees at government agencies.

The amendment's definition of a public official would include:

 Any elected official in New York

 Any person who is appointed to a position by the governor

 Administrators or managers of counties, cities, towns or villages

 Heads of state and local government departments, boards, bureaus, commissions, divisions, public authorities or public benefit corporations

 The chief fiscal officer or treasurer of a municipal corporation or political subdivision in New York

 A judge or justice of the state Unified Court System

 Any legislative, executive or judicial employee who "directly assists in the formulation of legislation, rules, regulations, policy or judicial decision-making and who is designated by law as a policy-maker"

Who supports it?

The proposed amendment is backed by good government groups and many legislators from both major political parties.

Assemblyman Bob Oaks, whose district includes northern Cayuga County, supported the proposal when it was approved by the state Legislature.

He recently reminded voters to support the ballot proposal on Election Day.

"On Nov. 7, the public has the opportunity to ensure their tax dollars are no longer spent to subsidize the lifestyle of public officials who have been convicted of a felony directly related to their office," Oaks, R-Macedon, said.

There is strong support among voters, according to a Siena College poll released this week.

The survey found 82 percent of likely voters support the amendment. A vast majority of every demographic group will vote for the proposal.

Who opposes it?

There isn't a lot of opposition to the amendment.

The Siena poll found 14 percent of likely voters oppose the proposal. There were very few lawmakers who opposed the measure when it was considered by the state Legislature.

One of the opponents was state Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr., a Bronx Democrat. He called the pension forfeiture amendment "wrong."

"If I do something, then, yes, I go to jail," he said. "But then my wife is out on the street? Just to please the media?"

How to vote

Proposal 2 is one of three questions on the back of the ballot. There is a question about the constitutional convention and another on the creation of a forest preserve land bank.

To vote, flip over your ballot and fill in the "yes" or "no" bubble. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 7.
It has become a common practice for automakers to release limited edition versions of various cars as swan songs, and one of them is the BMW M3 CS.



Developed by the Bavarian brand as a four-door version of the already-unveiled BMW M4 CS, the saloon will reportedly debut sometime this month, according to BMWBlog, which are quoting an undisclosed source.

The four-door model will be the most powerful stock BMW M3 ever, and it shouldnt hold any surprises, as its likely getting all the special extras of its Coupe sibling. These include the carbon fiber reinforced plastic-made front splitter, hood, roof, diffuser, and decklid spoiler, along with the same wheel pattern.

These visual tweaks wont only help set the new BMW M3 CS apart from the regular version, but they will also shave some weight.

Enthusiasts should also expect optional ceramic brakes, stiffer springs and dampers, and larger roll bars, in addition to the same 3.0-liter twin-turbo inline-six lump that powers the BMW M4 CS, whose output will remain unchanged, at 460PS (454hp) and 600Nm (443lb-ft) of torque.

Production will be limited, with the exact numbers to be announced, and pricing will exceed the 77,500 ($90,312) starting price of the base M3 in Germany.

PHOTO GALLERY
Automotive supplier Delphi has announced it will acquire self-driving car startup NuTonomy in a deal worth $450 million.



The deal consists of a $400 million purchase price of NuTonomy and an additional $50 million in earn-outs. It is just the latest deal in the autonomous vehicle sector this year and is yet another example of companies looking to partner with or purchase, competitors to accelerate the development of self-driving cars.

As part of the deal, over 100 employees from NuTonomy, including 70 engineers and scientists, will join forces with the 100-member automated driving team of Delphi. NuTonomy will remain based in Boston.

Since being formed in 2013, NuTonomy has been developing autonomous technologies and made headlines last year after it launched a self-driving taxi service in Singapore.

In a statement, NuTonomy chief executive Karl Iagnemma said the deal will help the two companies sell autonomous systems to other brands.

We have, between us, really outstanding technical expertise  on the scientific side, on the algorithmic side.

We have now deep and long-standing expertise on the automotive engineering side. And we have conduits, pathways, to selling it to all the various businesses that autonomous driving can impact, through traditional OEM channels, and through mobility services, he said.

PHOTO GALLERY
Ferrari could quit Formula One after the 2020 season if the organizers go ahead with their recently proposed plan of significant regulation changes, according to Sergio Marchionne.



The CEO of the Italian car maker said that Ferrari will not play unless F1 owners Liberty Media provide them with a set of circumstances, the result of which are beneficial for the maintenance of the brand in the marketplace and for strengthening the unique position of Ferrari. He also said that leaving F1 could eventually boost Ferrari and we will celebrate until the cows come home, during an analysts call, Bloomberg reports.

Ferrari has never missed a season in F1 since the inception of the motorsport series and a potential withdrawal could land a significant blow to the sport.

The proposed new regulations for the 2021 season include a new governance structure as well as new engine rules with lower development costs and budget limits in order to lure more manufacturers into the sport. According to Ross Brawn, managing director of F1, the performance gap between the teams should be controlled because you cant pour millions of dollars in and start to widen it.

While Ferrari is backing the plan to reduce the costs for the teams, it disagrees with the idea of not having some sort of powertrain uniqueness playing the role of distinctiveness in the participants lineup.

PHOTO GALLERY
New details of Gordon Murrays supercar are starting to emerge, as it will be built under the revived IGM brand, which was first used in the late 60s on the designers T.1 IGM Ford Special.



Teased in an official image that partially reveals its mid-engined shape with soft and muscular lines, the as-of-yet-unnamed vehicle is a 50-year celebration of Gordon Murrays career.

Said to be inspired by the engineering principles of the McLaren F1, the new supercar will be built for contemporary driving conditions featuring the very latest materials and technology.

The supercar will be made using the companys iStream Superlight production process, which uses high-strength aluminum sections instead of the steel or carbon fiber employed in iStream and iStream Carbon.

Its additional weight reduction over the current process delivers a body-in-white structure approaching 50% of the weight of stamped metal, while achieving new levels of rigidity, durability and platform flexibility, the company explains, adding that the technology promises to be the lightest and most efficient process for body-in-white manufacturing for decades to come.

The announcement was made at a special exhibition called One Formula, at Dunsfold Park, UK, where theres a display of 40 different vehicles and design made by Murray over the years, in addition to some cars from his private collection, such as the De Tomaso Vallelunga, Honda S800, Abarth 750 Zagato, and two Lotus Elans.

PHOTO
After years of development, Nissan appears to be ready to present their new Navara-based SUV to the world.



Drive spoke to the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishis light commercial vehicle division chief, Ashwani Gupta, at the 2017 Tokyo Motor Show, where he hinted that the vehicles unveiling is scheduled for the 2018 Beijing Motor Show, next April.

Nissan is extremely competent on frame-based vehicles, frame-based trucks, and frame-based SUVs, and we are going to cover each and every segment of frame. Now when? I think youll have to wait a little bit longer, please wait a little bit longer to Beijing Motor Show, Gupta said.

Coming to challenge the likes of the Ford Everest, Mitsubishi Pajero Sport, and Chevrolet Trailblazer, the as-of-yet-unnamed Nissan SUV (though weve heard it could be X-Terra) will serve as a replacement to the old Pathfinder.

As the leaked pictures show, it looks nearly identical to the latest NP300 Navara, but the biggest change will lie in the rear passenger compartment.

We will have to wait for Nissan to drop more details about their new body-on-frame SUV, but nevertheless, we expect it to be offered with 2WD and 4WD configurations. Powering it should be the same range of engines found in its pickup truck sibling, which will be mated to manual and automatic transmissions.

PHOTO GALLERY
The PSA Groups acquisition of Opel and Vauxhall is finally complete with the transfer of the German/British automakers financial operations.



In parallel to the French carmakers taking over over GMs European auto brands, the financial division is being shared by its own banking division Banque PSA Finance and French financial giant BNP Paribas  one of the largest banks in the world.

Following the acquisition, the Opel Bank, Open Financial Services, and Vauxhall Finance are being merged into one institution. PSAs Alexandre Sorel will serve as CEO, supported by both Opels Erhard Paulat and BNPs Pascal Brasseur as deputies.

We are now thoroughly committed, alongside all of the teams, to building the strategic plan with the clear purpose of improving the performance of the companys businesses and the competitiveness of our financial solutions for Opel and Vauxhall customers, said Sorel. Everyones involvement across the company is critical at this stage.

Last year, the three operations (now merged) represented some 9.6 billion in financing, forming an integral part of the business for 1,800 Opel and Vauxhall dealers in 11 European countries  including vehicle loan financing, leasing, service contracts, and insurance.

Photo Gallery
A mother in Wisconsin is facing serious charges after she admitted to driving around Saukville with her 9 year old son on the roof of her minivan.



According to WISN, 28 year old Amber Schmunk was transporting a plastic pool and didnt have anything to tie it down with so she had her son get up on the roof and hold it down. A concerned citizen called 911 and told the operator what was happening as she continued to follow the vehicle.

Schmunk eventually pulled over and removed her son and the pool from the roof of the minivan and put both of them inside the vehicle.

Police eventually caught up to Schmunk who reportedly told officers her son was only on the roof for maybe 20 to 30 seconds and she didnt think it would be an issue because her farther used to have her to things like that when she was her sons age.

That explanation didnt go over well with police or prosecutors and Schmunk is now facing a felony charge of recklessly endangering safety. She is scheduled to appear in Ozaukee County Circuit Court on November 11th and she could be facing up to ten years in jail if convicted.

Video
Chantelle Deacon

A group of local students have raised hundreds of dollars for the Penticton food bank with a bannock sale.

Jolanda Poetsch, Aboriginal support worker at Skaha Lake Middle School, organized the fundraiser to help her students give back to the community.

"Bannock is something that we've done a couple times at the fundraisers here at this school," Poetsch said. "We will continue to do that again for December and were going to do another fundraiser to give back to the PIB [Penticton Indian Band] community by donating some toys."

The group of about 10 students are passionate about fundraising and supporting their community.

"We did bannock sales to fundraise for the Salvation Army," said middle-school student Keirsten Eising.

"It was also a great way to raise awareness for the Indigenous part of our community," she said, adding that she is part Indigenous herself and enjoys baking.

A representative from the local Salvation Army was at the school on Thursday to accept the $320 cheque.

"This is really heartfelt from the kids and we appreciate that," said John Rankin, The Penticton Salvation Army. "Theyre thinking about others and are learning how to help in our community at such a young age, that is just amazing."
Photo: File photo

City snow removal crews are ready to go in the Central Okanagan.

Plows and sand trucks were prepared for snow that began falling in the valley bottom Thursday.

While the snow will likely disappear before it sticks around for good, it serves as a reminder that residents can help by moving vehicles off the street so plows can clear roads properly.

Our crews start their shifts early and have a lot of ground to cover, said Stephen Bryans, roadway operations supervisor with the City of Kelowna. Thats why its important for vehicles to be moved off of the streets to allow for our crews to clear roads safely, efficiently and quickly.

Roads will be cleared on a priority basis.

Priority 1 includes high-traffic roads such as Gordon Drive.

Priority 2 includes collector roads such as Richter Street, bus routes, school zones, town centers and emergency vehicle stations.

Priority 3 includes local roads in neighbourhoods.

Based on our priority system, its important for residents to understand that Priority 3 roads will not be cleared until service levels of Priority 1 and 2 have been achieved, said Bryans. If another snowfall happens before the completion of Priority 2 or 3 roads, we will return to Priority 1.

Areas with challenging terrain, including Wilden, Dilworth Mountain, Ponds and Magic Estates may be subject to advisories banning parking on so-called "snow routes."

A similar system exists in West Kelowna.

Homeowners are reminded to clear snow and ice from sidewalks; and snow should never be pushed onto the road. Place curbside waste bins so they won't obstruct plows.

Environment Canada is calling for a possible 10 centimetres more snow overnight.
Photo: Contributed

A recommendation five years in the making was approved during the RDOS committee of the whole meeting on Thursday, in relation to a wetland project north of Vaseux Lake.

The board approved staff's recommendation to commit $700,000 for constructing a wetland, adjacent to the OK Falls wastewater treatment plant.

Those funds will come from the Electoral Area D community works fund. The wetland project will cost just over $1M.

The RDOS was granted $360,911 in 2012, as a Regionally Specific Projects gas tax fund, intended to move the wetland project forward.

That gas tax grant is set to expire on Sept. 30, 2018 if the funds are not used before then, with a catch that all funding for a project has to be secured before the money is granted.

With the timeline less than a year away, the RDOS ramped up talks for spending the grant in the past two board meetings.

Two weeks ago, RDOS staff recommended those funds be reallocated for a sewage system extension project, before Thursday's recommendation indicated a renewed commitment to funding a wetland project.

"Once we have what we believe to be the amount of money required for the estimate, then we can sign the contract for the gas tax funds and then we can get started," RDOS chief administrative officer Bill Newell said.

Board members still need to give their final stamp of approval on the project, which they are expected to do when the decision is tabled again on Nov. 16.
Tree Brewing's four brewers faced off Thursday night to find out who had created the best one-off beer.

The annual Cask Throwdown pits the Kelowna brewery's brewers' brews against each other, and those in attendance vote on a winner.

Andrew Durrant created a Smoked Strawberry Lager, Blake Lawrie whipped up a Peaches and Cream Milkshake IPA, Byron Jacome brought a Jalapeno Belgian Double and two-time reigning Throwdown champion Justin White tapped his Russian Imperial Stout.

"I just like to experiment, that's why we have these in-house competitions, to showcase new developments in the brewing industry," White said.

While White was looking for a "three-peat" Thursday night, it was not to be. Lawrie's Peaches and Cream Milkshake IPA was voted the best of the evening.
Here are some ways to talk to your partner about money, eight clever ways to use aloe vera, and more videos to improve your life.
Photo: The Canadian Press

The persistence of a detective and the sister of a young woman who was stabbed and beaten has solved a murder in Oregon  38 years after it happened.

On March 9, 1979, Janie Landers disappeared outside the Fairview Training Center for the developmentally disabled where she lived in Salem, Oregon. Five days later, the 18-year-old's body was discovered in a remote field, with deep stab wounds in her neck and her head bashed.

Witnesses had seen Janie, who functioned at about the level of an 8-year-old child and stood just 5 feet, 1 inch tall and weighed 105 pounds, get into a stranger's car. The police questioned several people, but all their leads turned into dead ends.

As the years passed, Janie's younger sister, Joyce Hooper, kept pushing the authorities to solve the crime. In 2001, a retired Oregon State Police detective was assigned the case, but had no better luck than previous investigators.

In March 2015, the 36th anniversary of the murder, Hooper pushed again, and the state police reopened the case. They gave it to Detective Steve Hinkle, a member of the Major Crimes Section.

"I knew when I got assigned it that it was a very low statistical likelihood that we'd solve it, especially after that amount of time had gone by," Hinkle said at a news conference Thursday.

But he and other investigators, examining photos of deep stab wounds near Janie's neck, noticed that there were no abrasions from a weapon handle known as a hilt, and they concluded the killer's hand probably slipped while he stabbed Janie, cutting himself and leaving his own DNA behind.

Then the investigators hit a trifecta of good luck.

They went to the evidence locker to examine Landers' blood-stained shirt. They found that it was packaged properly, so the DNA  which can easily degrade if packaged improperly  was still intact. It was analyzed, and DNA that wasn't Landers' was found. That DNA result was run through the FBI's CODIS DNA database.

There was a match, to a man named Gerald Dunlap.

The investigators learned that Dunlap had been convicted in 1996 of first-degree sex abuse of a family member and was sentenced to prison. The officers credited the victim of that crime with coming forward, because if she hadn't, Dunlap wouldn't have gone to prison and his DNA wouldn't have been in the database, meaning Janie's murder would never have been solved. Dunlap had also been convicted of rape in Tennessee in 1961 and sentenced to 99 years in prison. But he was paroled in 1973.

Dunlap died behind bars in 2002.
Photo: NOAA

The ozone hole over Antarctica shrank to its smallest peak since 1988, NASA said Thursday.

The huge hole in Earth's protective ozone layer reached its maximum this year in September, and this year NASA said it was 7.6 million square miles in size (19.6 million square kilometres). The hole size shrinks after mid-September.

This year's maximum hole is more than twice as big as the United States, but it's 1.3 million square miles less than last year and 3.3 million square miles smaller than 2015.

Paul Newman, chief Earth scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said stormy conditions in the upper atmosphere warmed the air and kept chemicals chlorine and bromine from eating ozone. He said scientists haven't quite figured out why some years are stormier  and have smaller ozone holes  than others.

Newman said this year's drop is mostly natural but is on top of a trend of smaller steady improvements likely from the banning of ozone-eating chemicals in a 1987 international treaty. The ozone hole hit its highest in 2000 at 11.5 million square miles (29.86 million square kilometres).

Ozone is a colorless combination of three oxygen atoms. High in the atmosphere, about 7 to 25 miles (11 to 40 kilometres) above the Earth, ozone shields Earth from ultraviolet rays that cause skin cancer, crop damage and other problems.
Photo: The Canadian Press

UPDATE 11:10 a.m.

Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier who walked off his post in Afghanistan and triggered a search that left several comrades severely wounded, will serve no prison time, a military judge ruled Friday at the end of the politically divisive case that stirred debate during the president campaign.

President Donald Trump, whose campaign-trail criticism loomed over the case, quickly called the sentence a "disgrace."

The charges centred on a decision by one soldier that affected many other lives. Bergdahl was captured by the Taliban and held for five years, until President Barack Obama traded Taliban prisoners to bring him back. As a presidential candidate, Trump called for Bergdahl to face stiff punishment. He could have received up to life in prison.

The judge also gave Bergdahl a dishonourable discharge, reduced his Army rank from sergeant to private and ordered him to forfeit pay equal to $1,000 per month for 10 months.

The judge gave no explanation of how he arrived at his decision, but he reviewed evidence including Bergdahl's time spent in captivity and the wounds suffered by Army searchers.

In court, Bergdahl appeared tense, grimaced and clenched his jaw. His attorneys put their arms around him and one patted him on the back.

His defence lawyer Eugene Fidell told reporters after sentencing that his client "has looked forward to today for a long time."

Bergdahl "is grateful to everyone who searched for him in 2009, especially those who heroically sustained injuries," Fidell added.

ORIGINAL 6:40 a.m.

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was held for five years by Taliban allies after walking off his post in Afghanistan, will soon learn his punishment after pleading guilty to endangering his comrades.

A military judge began deliberating Thursday after hearing closing arguments by defence attorneys, who asked for no prison time, and prosecutors who are seeking 14 years behind bars.

Army Col. Jeffery Nance said he would open court again Friday morning to continue deliberating. It wasn't clear when he would deliver the sentence.

Bergdahl faces up to life in prison for desertion and misbehaviour before the enemy.

In closing arguments, defence attorneys argued that Bergdahl already suffered enough confinement during five years of brutal captivity by Taliban allies. They asked the judge for a dishonourable discharge and no prison time. Their argument for leniency also cited harsh campaign-trail criticism by Donald Trump and Bergdahl's mental disorders.

Capt. Nina Banks, a defence attorney, said it wouldn't be justice to rescue Bergdahl from the Taliban "only to place him in a cell" now.

"Sgt. Bergdahl has been punished enough," Banks added. "Sgt. Bergdahl paid a bitter price for the choices that he made."

Prosecutors asked for a sentence of 14 years in prison, citing serious wounds to service members who looked for Bergdahl.
Photo: FortisBC Power is out for 2,098 homes in Kettle Valley.

UPDATE: 11:20 a.m.

Power has been restored to the thousands who were without in Kettle Valley Friday morning.

Several small outages remain in Southeast Kelowna, including one caused by a tree on a power line on Carter Road that's knocked out power for 29 homes.

Additionally, 52 homes are without power on Dunsmuir Road, north of K.L.O. Road.

UPDATE: 8:40 a.m.

FortisBC is expecting to restore power to the 2,098 homes in Kettle Valley by 10 a.m.

Meanwhile, 43 homes are without power in Southeast Kelowna on Balldock and Harvard Roads, while another 36 are in the dark off of Jean Road.

FortisBC does not have an estimate of when power will be restored to these homes.

ORIGINAL: 7:45 a.m.

The storm that rolled through the Okanagan Thursday and into Friday morning, has knocked out power for thousands of homes in Kelowna and the North Okanagan.

The lights went off for 2,098 homes in Kettle Valley at 5:18 a.m. The exact cause of the outage is unknown at this time, and FortisBC does not have an estimate of when the power will be restored.

In Southeast Kelowna, 1,474 homes were without power for four hours through the night, after wet snow caused an outage at 12:18 a.m. That outage has since been restored.

Meanwhile, the North Okanagan is plagued with dozens of small outages near Lavington, Lumby, North Westside and Enderby.

The majority of these outages have impacted less than five homes each, but the North Westside outage currently has left 311 homes without power since Thursday night.

Several of these outages have been caused by downed trees across power lines.
After years of anticipation, workers are set to begin removing the asbestos inside the Auburn Schine Theater Monday.

The building's owner, the Cayuga County Arts Council, made the announcement Thursday after City Manager Jeff Dygert spoke about the work at that evening's Auburn City Council meeting. Dygert said it will require closure of the sidewalk in front of the South Street theater, as well as some nearby parking spots. The work is expected to continue through the end of January.

The arts council is partnering with Bowers Development, of Syracuse, in the theater renovation project. Bowers awarded the asbestos contract to Sessler Environmental Services, of Rochester.

Friday, Bowers Vice President Eric Smithers said Sessler's work will entail some shoring up of the 1938 art deco structure to ensure the safety of its crew, then removing all asbestos, mold and lead paint inside. According to Sessler's building occupancy notification, the Schine's floor tile and mastic, spackle and plaster, piping and roofing contain the hazardous materials.

"It's pretty straightforward," Smithers said. "There's a lot involved in terms of work, it's not that complicated, but we just gotta do it."

The work will be supported by $800,000 in federal funds allocated through June amendments to the city of Auburn's 2016-2017 Community Development Block Grant Action Plan.

In its announcement, the Cayuga County Arts Council said the Schine will begin its transformation into a civic center after its hazardous materials are removed. The council and Bowers plan to install a glass display case in the theater's lobby, restrooms accessible to people with disabilities, tiered seating and new concession and bar areas.

The council and Bowers are also working to line up funding for the rest of the theater's restoration. They submitted a Consolidated Funding Application for $1.2 million from the state this summer, and the Schine has been designated a priority project in this year's Central New York Regional Economic Development Council plan. Funding announcements will be made in December.

Inside the deal to sell the Auburn Schine Theater and fund its restoration Since the owner of the Auburn Schine Theater announced its partnership with a Syracuse devel

The state funds could push the Schine's restoration further toward the finish line than expected: Bowers and the council listed the project's budget as $6 million in the CNY Regional Economic Development Council's 2017-2018 Progress Report. The two had previously stated the budget could reach as high as $12 million, most recently at a Wednesday Morning Roundtable in September.

"We're hoping to get it done for much less than $12 million, but we won't know until we can get in (the building)," Smithers said, referring to the building becoming safe for entry upon removal of its hazardous materials. He continued, "The way we're structuring it, we might be able to get it done for $6 million. That's the goal."

Another question remains the nature of the Cayuga County Arts Council's partnership with Bowers Development.

The council at first indicated that it would sell the Schine to Bowers, then said it would transfer ownership of the building to a limited liability company jointly owned by the two organizations. At the Wednesday Morning Roundtable, though, Smithers said that Bowers owns Schine Theater LLC, and that "we're going to own the real estate."

Still, any change in the Schine's ownership would require the approval of the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. In a letter from the office to council Chair Ed Onori Aug. 23, obtained by The Citizen through a Freedom of Information Law request, Regional Grants Administrator Jean M. Egenhofer said the council is bound by a preservation covenant until July 25, 2036.

Until then, the letter said, the council "shall not sell, lease or otherwise convey in any manner or permit a change in use of the project, in whole or in part," without state approval. The rule is a condition of the council's receipt of state funds for the Schine project between the years of 1996 and 2013, Egenhofer wrote.

Friday, a representative of the office said it has not yet received an application to approve the transfer.
Longtime Jordan resident Melvin E. Brown spent decades helping the community while he was alive. Now he'll be helping after death through a new fund.

Brown contributed almost $170,000 through his estate to a Central New York Community Foundation fund, according to a press release. The fund, named after Brown, will benefit the Finger Lakes Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Central New York, the Jordan Bramley Library and the village of Jordan's Memorial Day parade. The fund will support each group annually.

Brown, who passed away earlier this year, started as the director of human resources at Cayuga Community College in 1981. He was with the college until his retirement in 2010.

Brown's community work included being a trustee on the village's board, a Jordan Masonic Lodge member and a volunteer with the Jordan Fall Festival. He was an avid animal lover, as he had a large side porch with water and food dishes for both his cats and strays that would come by.

Brown's friend and attorney, Ken Bush, helped him designate that a piece of his estate would go to the foundation to set up the fund after his passing.

The power of endowment takes the generosity of amazing people like Melvin and ensures that their charitable wishes persevere through generations, said Jennifer Owens, senior vice president and chief development officer at the foundation, said. Mel had an interest in giving back to the community he loved and he put a plan in place to make it happen. Were honored to be the stewards of his community legacy.
In particular, you argue that the best argument in favor of a "no" vote is the pension stripping amendment on the ballot. That amendment, while appealing to the public, addresses a symptom of the problem, not the cause. If the possibility of a lengthy federal prison term has not been sufficient to prevent legislators and other officials from committing crimes in office, it is naive to think that the possibility of a pension loss will be the tonic that keeps them on the straight and narrow. Moreover, since the convictions of public officials are often overturned (Joseph Bruno, Dean Skelos, Sheldon Silver), the amendment will likely not snare nearly as many pensions as anticipated. So while the legislature will be able to congratulate itself if the amendment passes, the amendment will do NOTHING to: stop the accumulation of unchecked power through devices such as term limits; limit the influence of money in politics by adopting meaningful campaign finance reform; create competitive elections by forming a truly independent redistricting commission (not the purely advisory commission established by the 2014 election); or isolate from political pressure a truly independent ethics commission. To use your word, it would be "delusional" to think any of these things would come from a legislature that hasn't provided them for decades. Contrary to your assertions, constitutional conventions are not the same as legislatures. They are unicameral bodies composed of a mix of statewide and local delegates that bring widely varying perspectives to their task. Delegates are there for a singular purpose, there is no re-election to the position and everybody has equal seniority. There is a reason why conventions have historically achieved reforms that have eluded the legislature. Even the 1967 convention, whose work was ultimately rejected by voters, proposed a forward looking constitution that included a truly independent redistricting commission and made social welfare programs the responsibility of the state (i.e., eliminated unfunded mandates)  reforms we haven't seen from the Legislature in the intervening five decades.
I am writing to show my support of Republican John Camardo for city council and his past proven record of leadership. As the citizens and taxpayers of Auburn have felt the wrath of the current administration trying to deceitfully agree with Verizon and put cell phone towers up in our backyards. Unfortunately, our east end neighbors lost their battle due to the poor city leadership. I want the community to know that John Carmardo, never having a blind eye or deaf ears when the citizens raised concern for the project, came to the repeated and long battles with the city and spoke at one, of which I can say helped the west end community win their lawsuit with the city and AIDA.

He was the only city official running in this election who fought for the west end community and taxpayers. The other opponents running never came to one meeting, and as a matter of fact, one even told us that if we wanted to know something we had to find the information for ourselves streaming them online. I have no allegiance to any party. I vote for the person who best represents my beliefs, no matter their political affiliation. The signs in my front lawn are proof. I am also a strong supporter of Elane Daly for county legislator, who has so strongly fought for neighbors with special needs. She is a Democrat. That's what is great about our country, you can vote for who YOU want to represent you in your government. The days of ole' are gone! Vote for who you want to represent you, not just for those who are in your party affiliation!
The Liquid Purification Technologies (LPT) business unit of specialty chemicals company LANXESS is looking to expand its business with reverse osmosis membrane elements in Saudi Arabia. On November 1, 2017, it signed a distribution agreement for Lewabrane membrane elements with Riyadh-based Saudi company Industrial and Chemicals Supplies Co. Ltd. (ICSCO). The contract was signed by head of LPT Jean-Marc Vesselle and ICSCO CEO Ahmed Mohamed Gashlan.

We selected ICSCO because of its experience in the field of reverse osmosis technology and are aiming to work together to ensure further growth in this region, says Vesselle.

Our customers are owners of water and wastewater treatment facilities who are looking for quality, integrity and sustainability. LANXESS membrane elements meet the highest German and international production and quality standards, which makes them the perfect addition to our portfolio, remarks Gashlan.

Industrial and Chemicals Supplies Co. Ltd. is a subsidiary of AlKawther Industries Co. Ltd., which is headquartered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. This global company has over 40 years of experience as a distribution partner for the water industry and is a leading supplier of reverse osmosis membranes, ion exchange resins, water treatment chemicals, metering pumps, filtration media, softening plants and monitoring equipment.
The quest to develop ever-faster and more powerful computers has led to one of the most rudimentary methods of counting being given a 21st century make-over.

An international team of researchers, including Professor C. David Wright from the University of Exeter, have developed a nanoscale optical 'abacus' - which uses light signals to perform arithmetic computations.

The innovative device works by counting pulses of light - much in the same way beads are used to count when using a conventional abacus - before storing the data.

This pioneering new technique could pave the way to new, more powerful computers that combine computing and storage functions in one element - a move away from conventional computers that treat these two functions as separate.

Prof. C David Wright, an expert in electronic engineering and co-author of the study said: "This device is able carry out all the basic functions you'd associate with the traditional abacus - addition, subtraction, multiplication and division - what's more it can do this using picosecond light pulses".

Lead author of the study, Professor Wolfram Pernice from the Institute of Physics at Munster University in Germany added: "In the article we describe for the first time the realization of an abacus which operates in a purely optical way. Rather than wooden beads as found on traditional abacuses, our innovative device calculates with pulses of light - and simultaneously stores the result."

The team's optical abacus, which is so small it's essentially invisible to the naked eye, is installed on a photonic microchip that can be easily manufactured.

So far, the researchers have succeeded in calculating with two-digit numbers using two photonic phase-change cells, but the extension to large multi-digit numbers simply involves the use of more cells.

"Computing with light - and not with electrons, as is the case with traditional computers - means that we can develop much faster systems which can be connected using integrated optical waveguides." adds co-author Prof. Harish Bhaskaran from the University of Oxford.
Scientists from Tomsk Polytechnic University and their colleagues from Germany have conducted an experiment which demonstrated the behavior of areas of two-dimensional materials which are applied in advanced electronics. It comes to devices that are in the research stage and will be used for the creation of flexible displays for smartphones and other gadgets, flexible optical and computing schemes, flexible solar cells and so on. According to the authors of the study, these are the experiments that have not been conducted before. The scientists are working on a technology which allows us to see how materials interact at the nanoscale, to determine local strain occurring at their interaction and even to see defects of the materials at the nanoscale that will make it possible to improve the components of nanoelectronics.

'Now in the field of electronics and digital technology there is a trend to miniaturize the devices. This trend is most relevant for transistors,' - says Prof. Raul Rodrigez from the Department of Lasers and Lighting Technology. - 'Nowadays there are modern technologies which enable the creation of transistors with a channel width of 12 to 14 nanometers, thus placing more transistors in the processor, increasing the productivity of smartphones and other miniature electronic devices. To further improve these technologies and create transistors of even smaller sizes, we should understand how the semiconductor material behaves when interacting with metals and how its properties change at the nanoscale.'

Earlier, according to the scientists, component materials of modern electronics were studied only at the macro- and micro-scale, but data obtained was not always sufficient to understand the interaction of materials with each other. In the published paper the scientists from TPU and Chemnitz Technological University and the University of Regensburg (Germany) demonstrated for the first time how component materials of advanced nanoelectronics behave at the nanoscale.

'For the creation of the complete line of different devices used in nanoelectronics, in particular flexible ones, various classes of two-dimensional materials are required, including semiconductors. Molybdenum disulfide is one of the most famous semi-conductors. Our goal was to study strain occurring in this material at the nanoscale, as well as the processes of its stretching or compressing in different structures and fields,' - say the authors of the research paper.

The scientists used gold nanoparticles, i.e. nanotriangles. Two monolayers of molybdenum disulphide were placed on top of them, which was transformed due the convex shape of the nanotriangles, what caused local strain 1.4%.

'The strain is more than we initially expected to see. In general, we had no goal to create the highest possible strain, but it's interesting that simply putting thin layers of molybdenum disulfide on metal we may obtain such significant deformations. This is very important to understand what happens when a semiconductor (molybdenum disulfide) contacts a conductor (gold) if we want to create a nanodevice,' notes Prof. Rodrigez. - 'In our work we shown that we can't neglect the interaction between a thin film and a substrate in electron nanodevices. When these materials are studied, all their properties are investigated on a flat substrate. However, a metal used in electrodes may change the properties of the material. This is inevitable, but perhaps it can be used in a way.'

Raul Rodrigez specifies that the published article was the first one describing such local measurements of strain.

The experiment was a success due to a unique technology Tip-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (TERS) combining methods of optical spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy. The main element of the technology is a gold nano-antenna embedded in the atomic-force microscope. It size varies from microns at the base to nanometers at the tip. A nanoparticle is placed on the tip of the antenna and scientists study only signals received from this nanoparticle.

The scientists emphasize that the TERS method is applicable both for studying local strain and interaction processes of particles and detecting defects in certain materials at the nanoscale.
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NAACP President Derrick Johnson attended a meeting with American Airlines chief Doug Parker to discuss allegations of bias by the carrier. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Leaders of the NAACP and American Airlines have met to discuss the civil rights groups travel warning alleging discriminatory practices by the airline, but no resolution appears imminent.

The NAACP issued a travel advisory late last month, warning African Americans that flying on American Airlines could subject them to disrespectful, discriminatory or unsafe conditions.

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The NAACP cited four incidents in which African American passengers were either removed from a flight or forced to give up a first-class seat on the carriers planes.

According to the annual air travel consumer report compiled by the U.S. Department of Transportation, American Airlines had 18 complaints last year that alleged discrimination based on race, more than any other carrier.

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On Tuesday, NAACP President Derrick Johnson, NAACP General Counsel Brad Berry and several activists met in Washington with American Airlines Chief Executive Doug Parker and the carriers vice president for customer experience, Kerry Philipovitch.

We welcomed the opportunity to meet, and had a positive and productive dialogue, airline spokeswoman Shannon Gilson said of the meeting. We look forward to continuing the conversation and working together.

The NAACP issued a statement, saying the two sides had a full and frank dialogue, but words are no substitute for action.

Both sides said they will continue to meet to discuss the allegations.
The head of Wisconsin's economic development agency says the full board will be allowed to review a proposed $3 billion contract with Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group before voting on it.

The head of Wisconsin's economic development agency says the full board will be allowed to review a proposed $3 billion contract with Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group before voting on it. (Kin Cheung / AP)

MADISON, Wis.  MADISON, Wis.  The head of Wisconsin's economic development agency said Friday that the full board will be allowed to review a proposed $3 billion contract with Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group before voting on it.

The move comes after mounting pressure on the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. Until Friday, the agency said that the board would be given only a staff report summarizing the deal, as is routine when dealing with agency contracts. In a letter to board members Friday, agency chief executive Mark Hogan said the board members will now have access to the contract Monday afternoon. The vote is scheduled for Wednesday.

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I have said many times this is a complex transaction and it is important to get it done right, both for the company and its investors, as well as WEDC, the state and our taxpayers, Hogan wrote. Given we are very close on the contract language, and given the size of the award, now is the appropriate time to make it available to you as board members.

He said the review will happen in closed session and will be confidential. The contract will be made available to the public after it's signed.

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Democrats have been calling for the full contract language to be made available. Earlier this week, Republican legislative leaders publicly agreed and also said board members should see the contract before a vote. A vote was delayed in October because of an unexplained problem with the contract language.

The incentive package provides nearly $3 billion in cash to Foxconn if it invests $10 billion in a new flat-screen factory in southeastern Wisconsin and employs 13,000 people. The package already signed by Walker provides $150 million in sales tax exemptions on construction equipment and allows the company to build in wetlands and waterways.

Walker and supporters have heralded the deal as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make the state a hub for the high-tech electronics industry. Foxconn is the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronics and is best known for making iPhones.

Opponents have decried it as a giveaway to Foxconn, saying it hasn't provided enough guarantees to protect taxpayers.
Hundreds lined up  some camping out overnight  to be among the first to own the new iPhone X that was released on Nov. 3, 2017. The launch of the iPhone X was much anticipated, with a number of innovations such as a facial recognition system, edge-to-edge display and an intuitive navigation that does away with the home button. The list price is $999. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune) (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)

Apple opened its gleaming new $27 million glass-enclosed store along the Chicago River two weeks ago, but Friday was the stores coming out party, as hundreds lined up  some camping out overnight  to be among the first to own the new iPhone X.

It was a familiar scene but a new locale along North Michigan Avenue, as eager customers hunkered down, enduring sleep deprivation, hunger pangs and chilly fall breezes to snare the latest incarnation of the iPhone.

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The launch of the iPhone X was much anticipated, with a number of innovations such as a facial recognition system, edge-to-edge display and an intuitive navigation that does away with the home button. The list price is $999.

Its Apples third iPhone release in just over a year. The iPhone 7 rolled out in September 2016, and less than two months ago, the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus models went on sale.

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The first customer arrived at Apples new Chicago flagship at about 11 a.m. Thursday, with 25 people on hand as evening fell. By the time the store opened up at 8 a.m. Friday, about 240 people were in the line, which was moved up from the riverfront to the plaza to accommodate the crowd.

Kapish Sharma, 18, was one of four students from Valparaiso University who brought chairs and camped out all night, emerging triumphantly at about 9:30 a.m., each carrying a bag with a new iPhone X  but without their chairs, which mysteriously disappeared overnight.

It feels like our wait was worth it, said Sharma, who said he arrived at 5 p.m. Thursday as the sixth person in line. I wanted to experience it. We all came all the way from Indiana.

Brian Sherwells journey and wait were not nearly as long. The Wicker Park resident arrived at 5 a.m., ready to upgrade from his iPhone 6. He decided to get in the day-one line after learning it would take weeks to get the iPhone X online.

[ iPhone X review: Apple is asking you to break up with the home button ]

[ Apple's iPhone 8 and iPhone X: See the specs, new features and prices ]

Sherwell, 39, who works for advertising agency Digitas, started down by the river until the growing line was moved up to the plaza, skipping any food runs or bathroom breaks throughout for fear of losing his place.

I havent been yet, Sherwell said, still waiting to enter the store after more than four hours.

David Cullen, 52, a freelance physicist from Oak Park, arrived at 5:30 a.m. He tried to preorder as well but decided the two- to three-week delivery wait would be too long. The reason? His 4-year-old iPhone 5S was on life support, hooked up to a portable charger as he stood in line for a new phone.

My phone is dying, he said. The battery is dying.

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Cullen said it was a little uncomfortable standing outside in the cold, but he likewise never left the line, in order to keep his spot.

Im not taking any chances, he said.

Rohan Trivedi, 19, of Chicago, finished his overnight shift at a Dunkin Donuts and brought his parents to the Apple store at about 8:30 a.m. to try to land the new iPhone.

Two months ago, Trivedi did the same thing to get the iPhone 8 Plus on the first day it was available, although he said the line was much smaller. The iPhone 7 line last year was comparable, Trivedi said.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 9 Chase Thilleman, who was first in line to purchase the new iPhone X, comes out holding his new phone as people waiting in line cheer outside the new Apple Store on Michigan Avenue on Nov. 3, 2017. Tilleman arrived before noon on Nov. 2 to wait for the new phone. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

Its exciting to get your iPhone on the first day, he said.

The weary Valparaiso group included arguably the first arrival, Amaan Rahman, 18, who said he made it to Pioneer Court at 11 a.m. Thursday, but took off to get some food and returned to find himself third in line.

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After staying awake all night, sleep was high on everyones to-do list at they set off for the return trip to Indiana. At the top of the list, however, was setting up their new phones.

Go home, set it up and then figure out what to do with it, Sharma said.

rchannick@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @RobertChannick
Struggling Sears Holdings Corp. has cut thousands of jobs and closed hundreds of stores this year as it strives to stay afloat heading into the retail industry's make-or-break holiday season. (Scott Olson / Getty Images)

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Struggling Sears Holdings Corp. has cut thousands of jobs and closed hundreds of stores this year as it strives to stay afloat heading into the retail industrys make-or-break holiday season.

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But while its waiting for shoppers, Sears is also waiting on the state of Illinois, which has yet to decide whether the department store chain has lived up to the terms of an agreement inked six years ago to give it millions of dollars in tax credits. Not getting the credits, worth $15.3 million in the fiscal year that ended Jan. 31, 2016, would be another blow for a company that just last month had to tap a $200 million credit line from affiliates of its billionaire chairman and CEO, Edward Lampert.

At issue is that Sears submitted its request for 2016 tax credits in March of this year, shortly after it notified the state of plans to lay off 120 corporate workers, mostly at its Hoffman Estates headquarters. After layoffs of another 400 employees announced in June, Sears told the Tribune it had fallen below the minimum of 4,250 employees in Hoffman Estates and its Loop satellite office needed to secure the tax break for 2017.

The state is taking a closer look at the companys records to verify when Sears fell short of the employment benchmarks its agreement requires and the legal significance of such noncompliance, Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity spokeswoman Jacquelyn Reineke said. The state told the Tribune in June it was reviewing the companys records.

The department continues to work with the company to obtain sufficient records in order to complete its books and records review, Reineke said this week, adding that the review will be completed as quickly as possible.

Sears tops list of highest tax certificate amounts Dark blue bars indicate the company had a "special" EDGE agreement, which means the company got the benefits of the deal regardless of their tax liabilities. Companies with normal EDGE agreements, which are not as lenient, may not have cashed in the full amount on the table. Company Year Tax Certificate Amount Sears 2015 $21,241,011.00 Sears 2016 $15,269,808.00 Motorola 2011 $11,627,521.00 Motorola 2012 $11,012,938.72 Navistar 2012 $10,865,850.61 Navistar 2013 $9,014,648.27 Groupon 2013 $8,363,737.65 Chrysler 2013 $7,993,781.00 Navistar 2014 $7,961,210.72 Hospira 2015 $7,531,728.48

Sears won the tax deal in 2011, during the administration of Gov. Pat Quinn, after threatening to move its headquarters out of Illinois. In exchange for sticking around, making in-state capital investments and not cutting its workforce by more than 13.4 percent, Sears got tax credits valued at an estimated $15 million a year for up to 10 years through the states Economic Development for a Growing Economy program.

Every year, companies receiving incentives through the EDGE program must submit updated reports on the number of new or retained employees, capital improvement costs, and payroll to show they are still hitting required benchmarks.

Sears, which also owns the Kmart discount chain, first collected tax breaks for the fiscal year that ended Jan. 31, 2015. It reported 5,444 employees, up from 4,908 when the deal was inked, and qualified for $21.2 million, according to state records.

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By January 2016, Sears roster shrank to 5,097 and its tax credit to $15.3 million  still the second-largest single-year credit a company has received through the EDGE program, according to the state.

By Jan. 31 of this year, the headcount at Sears headquarters dropped to 4,411, according to records the company sent the state in March.

Sears wont publicly say how many people it currently employs in Hoffman Estates.

Shortly after receiving Sears March request, the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity asked the company to provide more evidence that it was in compliance with its agreement, Reineke said.

The state said it regularly requests information from companies seeking tax credits through the EDGE program to confirm they are complying with the terms of their deals. But it did not provide examples of any other cases where it had conducted such a review.

The states own records of Sears tax breaks, obtained by the Tribune through the Freedom of Information Act, are inconsistent at times.

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On Dec. 4, 2015, the state issued a certificate saying Sears was eligible for a $21 million tax credit for 2014. A second certificate, signed less than four weeks later, upped the credit to $29 million. Nearly 10 months later, the state changed the size of the credit again, ultimately approving $21.2 million.

Sears said the change was made after the company and the state decided to issue tax credits to individual business units rather than granting a single companywide credit, said Howard Riefs, a spokesman for the retailer.

Despite the change, the company never received money it wasnt entitled to, Riefs said.

The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity couldnt explain the change in the amount of credits approved for Sears. The program director and other staff who worked with Sears at the time are no longer at the department, Reineke said.

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The department is making changes to simplify the review process for both the companies and EDGE program staff, Reineke said, including requiring companies to submit information in a standardized format and improving a database of information related to the program.

Sears, meanwhile, has continued to cut costs and seek cash infusions. In August, the embattled retailer said a restructuring program announced earlier this year led to more than $1 billion in cost savings.

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But the company repeatedly has turned to its CEO for loans in the run-up to the all-important holiday season and on Thursday announced plans to close 63 more stores, including an Illinois Kmart, in late January. The company has lost more than $10.4 billion since 2011 as sales have continued to fall.

The EDGE agreement, which runs through 2024, includes a provision allowing the state to claw back credits if Sears fails to maintain operations at its headquarters for at least five years. The state said it is premature to speculate on how a court might deal with such a claim should Sears declare bankruptcy.

When it comes to economic development, experts say states would generally be better off investing in the fundamentals that help grow the economy over the long run, not cutting checks to convince firms to relocate or remain in the state.

You dont grow through deals; you grow through strengthening infrastructure, human capital and institutions, said Bob Weissbourd, president of Chicago-based economic development firm RW Ventures.

But as long as states are promising tax incentives, they need to set measurable benchmarks for what the state expects in return and rigorously enforce them, said David Merriman, a professor at the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois.

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The fact that Sears fell short doesnt necessarily mean the tax credits it already received were a waste, Merriman said. As of June, Sears said it had made $260 million in capital investments in Illinois over the past five years, more than 85 percent of what its 10-year incentive agreement requires. And without the incentives, Sears may have cut jobs faster.

Its certainly a bad signal to investors if you cant keep employment high enough to keep the incentives, Merriman said. The hard thing with all these programs is saying what would have happened in their absence.



lzumbach@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @laurenzumbach



RELATED:



[ Sears plans to shutter 63 more locations in latest retrenchment ]

[ In smaller towns, empty storefronts and economic challenges loom large ]

[ Sears cuts 400 jobs, no longer qualifies for state tax breaks ]
The cost of taking a shower in Naperville will be escalating more than had been projected in 2018 and 2019 because of errors in the model used to set rate increases, a city official said. ( McClatchy-Tribune )

Naperville water rates could be increasing more than projected due to errors in the water utility's rate model that went into effect in May, city officials said.

The errors, which include some revenue streams showing up twice, starting balances being incorrectly listed and factors such as meter accuracy, system leakage and nonmetered water losses not being included, will create a $3 million shortfall if an adjustment is not made, said Jim Holzapfel, the city's director of water and wastewater utilities.

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The water rate schedule that went into effect in May calls for the average residential monthly water bill to increase from $67.59 in 2017 to $70.18 in 2018 and to $73.14 in 2019. By 2021, the average bill would be $77.63  about a $12 hike overall.

Under the proposed adjustment, the average monthly residential bill would actually be $71.26 in 2018 and $75.45 in 2019. The model will be revisited before 2020, Holzapfel said.

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In all, the average residential water bill would go up a total of $3.67 in 2018 and another $4.19 in 2019 under Holzapfel's proposal.

"It's not a huge jump, but it's an increase," he said. "Those are never welcome."

Errors in the rate model are not typical, Holzapfel said. While the company hired to work on the rate model missed several factors, it's ultimately the water department's responsibility to make sure the numbers are correct, he said.

"We're confident in the cash balance with the new numbers and model," Holzapfel said. "The numbers are right moving forward."

In addition to the rate increase, a $1 surcharge is to go into effect in 2018, and a $1.80 surcharge will be assessed in 2019, 2020 and 2021 to help pay for $25 million in improvements that must be made at the Springbrook water treatment plant, which services both Naperville and Warrenville. The surcharge will be dropped once the work is funded.

Illinois Environmental Protection Agency standards require that all phosphorus be removed from wastewater before it is released into the DuPage River. While phosphorus is not very harmful to humans, it can cause excessive algae growth that suffocates fish and other aquatic life.

Phosphorus is often found in sewage and fertilizer.

About $14.5 million for the project will come from the city's electric utility, which borrowed money from the water utility that is being repaid through 2020.

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ehegarty@tribpub.com
A Chicago firefighter was injured and a woman rescued during a fire at a two-flat style apartment building in the Austin neighborhood Friday afternoon, according to fire officials.

Crews were called to the building in the 100 block of North Lamon Avenue just after 3:25 p.m. and about 10 minutes later firefighters working to douse the blaze called a Mayday alert for a firefighter who couldn't be found, according to the department's media office and fire officials.

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Neighbors who spoke to WGN-TV described a loud explosion, and fire officials said that it appeared the fire included a "backdraft," in which internal pressure is released rapidly out of a building, causing an explosive outrushing of air and fire.

The firefighter was found and determined to be injured, and taken to Stroger Hospital in serious-to-critical condition with what were believed to be non-life-threatening injuries, according to the office.

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The "Firefighter (was) doing well at Stroger. All indications point to classic 'backdraft' blast" in the fire, according to a tweet from the department.

One woman was rescued from the building by firefighters.

The building suffered significant brick damage from the fire and backdraft, according to the department.
You probably didn't expect to see sardines on the list of 2017 food trends. The small, oily fish have an assertive flavor that can be a turnoff for some. Most people associate them with cans, which runs contrary to our notion that the best food is fresh. They feel like a throwback to an era when people didn't understand exactly how good food could be.

Americans "weren't going to embrace grandpa's can of sardines on the supermarket shelf," says Elizabeth Moskow, culinary director for the Sterling-Rice Group, a branding agency that put sardines on its trend forecast for the year. But high-quality canned sardines, as well as fresh ones, are making more appearances on restaurant menus. "I think the American palate may be ready for something as strong as sardines," Moskow says.

Sardines are high in omega-3 fatty acids, which may reduce the risk of heart disease. They're also environmentally friendly, because they're lower on the food chain.

"They were considered kind of a trash fish, and not something as prized as they currently are or could be in the future," says Jon Sybert, chef and co-owner of Washington's Tail Up Goat restaurant, which has rotated through several sardine dishes throughout the year. He particularly likes preparing them in a salt crust, which keeps them super moist, and serving them with a chocolate rye bread.

The sardine's popularity is benefiting from a recent wave of travel to Portugal, one of this year's "it" destinations. There, tourists encounter tinned sardines with beautiful packaging, canned in high-quality oils, often with spices, pickles or peppers.

"The reality is you can't get fresher," says Kathy Sidell, owner of the Saltie Girl restaurant in Boston, pointing out that the fish are often canned directly off the docks. Saltie Girl has sold sardines fried, grilled, marinated and canned, served with bread and a house-made butter, similar to how the fish are presented in Portugal. "We often say it's like a charcuterie board, but with seafood," she notes.

At Mola, a Spanish restaurant in Washington, you'll find a house-cured sardine plate with an aioli and piquillo pepper, a riff on a dish co-owner Erin Lingle had in Madrid, or pan-roasted sardines with paprika vinaigrette and a side of Swiss chard.

The dishes have proved popular, thanks in part to the enthusiasm of her staff.

"People are learning to embrace those aspects of sardines rather then find them off-putting," Lingle says. "I love sardines because they are an oily, strong-flavored fish that stand up well to bold flavors."

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If you've been to Italy, you've no doubt seen folks sitting on the piazza having a cocktail before dinner. I can almost guarantee you that cocktail isn't a scotch on the rocks or a martini. Italy is the land of the aperitivo, or aperitif -- a pre-dinner cocktail that's usually light on alcohol and refreshing. The aperitivo is meant to stimulate the appetite but not weigh down the palate, or get you too smashed. How civilized!

My favorite aperitivo is an Aperol Spritz, a combination of sparkling wine with a splash of Aperol (a bitter liqueur) and club soda, usually garnished with an orange.

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What's actually in Aperol? No one outside the Aperol inner circle really knows, but what we do know is there's some kind of essence of orange (bitter and sweet), herbs and rhubarb. Aperol is a liqueur like Campari (in fact, it is produced by the same company) but with about half the alcohol and less bitterness. Until I was well into my 30s I was mixing the two up and steering clear of anything made with Aperol because of my distaste for Campari. I'm glad I gave it a second chance.

The official Aperol Spritz recipe calls for 3 parts prosecco, 2 parts Aperol and a splash of club soda. I change a few things about the recipe: I lower the ratio of Aperol to prosecco, otherwise it's too bitter. I also don't really measure; it's more of an eyeball thing. And third, I use whatever sparkling wine is around: cava, prosecco, something French but not expensive, or Gruet, the domestic sparkling wine we often have on hand.

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Cheers to summer and feeling like we're all sitting on an Italian Piazza.

Aperol Spritz

Serves 1.

Sparkling wine such as prosecco or cava

1 shot Aperol

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

1 glug club soda

1 slice orange

Fill a tumbler or large wine glass with ice. Fill the glass 2/3 full with sparkling wine. Add the shot of Aperol. Top with club soda, stir well, then add the orange slice.

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(Sara Kate Gillingham is founding editor of

, a nationally known blog for people who love food and home cooking. Submit any comments or questions to

.)

(c) 2014, APARTMENT THERAPY. DISTRIIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY LLC.
We know the insightful Hungarian pianist Andras Schiff to be a man of firm political convictions. The son of Holocaust survivors, in 2011 he declared his opposition to political developments in his native country and later suffered personal attacks from Hungarian nationalists because of it. To this day he refuses to perform in Hungary, a fact that leaps out of his artist bio.

Thursday night at Symphony Center, where Schiff  Sir Andras, if you will  took command of a split-orchestra version of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as both pianist and conductor, we were reminded that he holds firm musical convictions as well.

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With some hyphenated performers, a pronounced talent at the keyboard doesnt easily transfer to the podium, where powers of leadership and individual artistry combine. That is not a problem with Schiff. He has been presiding over chamber orchestras, on and off the piano bench, for decades, and his skills have deepened considerably since his rather tentative CSO debut in that dual capacity in 1991.

On Thursday you could see as well as hear the easy rapport he enjoyed with the CSO musicians in chamber orchestra guise, in an attractive program of classical and baroque works. Two concertos were led from the Boesendorfer 280VC concert grand piano he employs for his U.S. engagements, two purely orchestral pieces from the podium. There were smiles all around, and the music smiled as well.

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For Haydns Symphony No. 88, Schiff employed a complement of 31 strings, to which were added flute, timpani and pairs of oboes, bassoons, horns and trumpets. It was the right size band for the wit and joviality of one of Haydns greatest symphonies to emerge with springy rhythms, crisp accents and a judicious balance of strings and winds.

Conducting without baton and without score, Schiff gave the music shape and flow but, above all, clarity. The outer movements took on a vivacity that never felt forced, the oboe-cello line of the slow movement rested comfortably atop the strings, and you could hear dancing peasants in the rustic third movement.

Turning to a major work by his fellow Hungarian, Bela Bartok, Schiff used the same-sized string body to dig into the folkish melodies and rhythms of the 1939 Divertimento for String Orchestra. His knack for keeping textures spotless, rhythms sharply etched, yielded an idiomatic rendition of Bartoks mid-20th-century take on the baroque concerto grosso. I liked the way he brought out the spiky dialogues between solo and tutti groups, also the atmospheric intensity of the central molto adagio.

The second half of the concert found Schiff in his more familiar guise as pianist-conductor.

The mellow sound of the Boesendorfer, less beefy than that of a Steinway, suited his approach to both J.S. Bachs keyboard concerto No. 5 in F minor (BWV 1056) and Beethovens Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major.

His immaculate Bach playing has long served as a hallmark of the pianists artistry, and his F minor concerto stood as a model of how to make music written for clavier work convincingly on a modern instrument. A few bobs of his head were sufficient to keep the ensemble playing tidy and flowing.

Schiffs Beethoven was very much in the post-Mozartean mode: classical in sound and style, rather than looking ahead to Beethoven as ringleader of the Romantic revolution. His performance mixed strength, lucidity and elegance in equal proportion, a civilized musical conversation in which the pianist functioned more as primus inter pares than soloist, as Beethoven surely intended.

Rather than merely conducting from a seated position throughout, Schiff seized on every opportunity when the piano part falls silent to jump up to shape and invigorate the music with both hands. This was a happy reminder of what Daniel Barenboim and the chamber CSO achieved on behalf of the Mozart concertos during his tenure as music director.

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The program will be repeated at 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave.; $34-$221; 312-294-3000, www.cso.org.

John von Rhein is a Tribune critic.

jvonrhein@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @jvonrhein

[ RELATED: Andras Schiff a tuneful match with Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn ]

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I first interviewed Milwaukee Ballet artistic director Michael Pink in 2014, and he said, If we can get you through the doors, we can a have lasting impact. Pink has kept that promise so far, continuing to bring original ballets of the highest caliber to his city. Through Sunday at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, Milwaukee Ballets season opener La Boheme is no exception, and well worth the trip 90 miles north of Chicago.

La Boheme premiered in 2012, when Pink reimagined Giacomo Puccinis best-known (and perhaps most loved) opera as a three-act ballet accompanied by Milwaukee Ballet music director Andrews Sills arrangement of the original music stripped of its voices. Puccinis score lends itself so beautifully to dancing, particularly when you add Pinks natural musicality and ability to seamlessly fold elegant choreography into a story. Opera purists may still object, but if they can get over the no singing, La Boheme is a potentially brilliant way to cross-pollinate opera and dance audiences.

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Puccini situated the opera at the turn of the 20th century, as the free-falling patron model of arts funding led to the birth of the starving artists  the Bohemians. Pink and his rock-star design team (lighting by David Grill, costumes by Paul Daigle and scenic by Richard Graham) move the setting ahead 50 years to 1950s Paris, perfectly capturing the timeless and fervent joy, passion and naivete of aspiring artists who seek to make art for arts sake.

The ballet opens on a bustling Parisian street scene nestled in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, then zooms in on the modest apartment of painter Marcello (Timothy ODonnell) and the poet Rodolfo (Davit Hovhannisyan). The two friends are struggling artists trying to keep warm by burning Rodolfos manuscript, soon joined by the musician Schaunard (Parker Brasser-Vos) and philosopher Colline (Garrett Glassman) for wine and baguettes  a Christmastime celebration among friends.

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Mimi arrives at their door, a neighbor looking for a lighter for her candle. Lead dancer Luz San Miguel is as convincing in acting as in dancing, convulsing as she grasps her chest, a harbinger (spoiler) of her impending death. The first act is a quick half hour of merriment that includes Mimi and Rodolfo falling in love almost immediately, though their pas de deux is welcome by that point, and simply beautiful.

The second act moves to a cafe scene, where the group meets the rambunctious Musetta (Annia Hidalgo), who swiftly seduces ODonnells Marcello while a frenetic and boisterous group dance goes on around them. The party continues at a late-night house party, where Mimi and Rodolfo quarrel as Mimi, a seamstress, tries to secure business from a wealthy patron through the power of seduction.

The ballets high point comes in the third act, with simultaneous pas de deux outside Musettas cafe. The lovers dance slight variations of the same duet, though different stories are unfolding between the two couples. Rodolfo discovers that Mimi is dying; meanwhile Marcello and Musetta are busy breaking up. As with the rest of the ballet, the dancing arrives out of the music without showy bravura. Its a different approach from the 19th century full-length ballets, whose music lends itself to moments of showmanship that do little to advance the story. La Boheme features Milwaukee Ballets dancers, no question, but its frankly not about them. Pinks priority is telling the tale, which he does with the greatest of care and intention through silent acting and dance. Case in point: La Bohemes ending depicts Mimis final breaths, and Pink opts not for a 45-second mens variation of mournful saut de basques as more ballet tragedies do. Instead, he offers a quiet, dance-free scene with Mimi surrounded by her friends, Puccini swelling in the background, as shes cradled in Rodolfos arms.

Lauren Warnecke is a freelance critic.

ctc-arts@chicagotribune.com

Review: La Boheme (4 stars)

When: Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 1:30 p.m.

Where: Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, 929 N. Water St., Milwaukee

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Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes

Tickets: $40-$115 at 414-273-7206 or milwaukeeballet.org

Enjoy someone else's drama A great theater city deserves a great theater critic. Enter Chris Jones. Subscribe now and get 4 weeks of full access for only 99.

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NEW YORK  Perhaps something terrible befell America in the middle of the 1980s. A self-inflicted wound from which the nation has yet to recover: Healthy enterprise, the marriage of capital and labor, and the push and pull of the greatest open markets on the planet, was replaced by something far more sinister.

Junk. Peddled not by scrap-metal merchants but by rollicking, raging, rule-breaking, MBA-sporting dudes in suits with ravenous zeal in their eyes and the shared sudden realization that if you untether the white-shoe world of acquisition, merger and investment from the inconvenient and prosaic manufacture of actual items, then it could be morning all over again in tired America. What better use for a company's future cash flow than collateral for a loan? Why did the nation have to build boring stuff when it could just manufacture sexy debt?

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By now, of course, we know how all that ended, assuming you believe it actually came to a halt. You could just as well argue that the election of a president who once specialized in the creative application of debt to the art of the deal actually represents the apotheosis of the era when the likes of Michael Milken ruled the streets. But although playwright Ayad Akhtar's moralistic and cynical new drama, which opened Thursday night at the Lincoln Center Theater under the whip-fast and simpatico direction of Doug Hughes, does not tell us much we do not already know about this era from movies like "Wall Street," there is still something illuminating and undeniably stimulating about watching the multifarious fiscal sins of the 80s all laid out before you, explored and dissected like the Wars of the Roses in some self-aware, Shakespearean history play of spiraling national consequence.

Paradoxically, "Junk" actually represents something of a power grab by Akhtar, the ambitious young author of "Disgraced" and other taut, oft-domestic, one-act dramas, for a more robust and defining place in the discourse of the American theater. Especially as produced here, "Junk" is an epic, strutting, restless, sexually charged, slam-bang-wham piece of work, something akin to the huge socio-political dramas by the likes of David Hare, produced for years at the National Theatre in London but far less common on this, less reflective side of the Atlantic. There's a gaping hole, and Akhtar jumps in feet first with his fish-eye lens. Wall Street peddlers will sense theres a kindred spirit building this house of cards, even as Akhtar takes them down.

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It is fascinating to see how Akhtar's approach differs from that of the socialist Anglo progressives like Caryl Churchill, the author of "Serious Money." Akhtar does not claim the junk crisis emanated merely from white male privilege or capitalist inevitability: greed in his telling is an equal-opportunity scourge, able to cut across gender and race though the province of the fast thrill. His narrator is Judy Chen (Teresa Avia Lim) a financial reporter with no more ethics than her marks. In fact, the settling of scores over past racial or class-based slights, the quest for establishment acceptance, is a prime motivator of the characters here, and there is much in the play about the corrosive effects of systemic anti-Semitism. A Pakistani-American, Akhtar never worries about giving offense: There are some gutsy, maybe even reckless, things said here about race and ethnicity, concerning which there will be a variety of reactions.

Akhtar, whose talents long have been formidable, also figured out that likable characters are essential. He has his mostly perfidious protagonist in the Milken stand-in, Robert Merkin (Steven Pasquale, coiled up like a fiscal snake but not without a sense of his own destiny), and his oily fiscal confidant named Boris Pronsky (Joey Slotnick). But the dismally lethargic target of the takeover, the WASP-y mill owner Thomas Everson Jr. (Rick Holmes) is no sentimental George Bailey. The most likable character actually is a private-equity guy himself, Leo Tresler (Michael Siberry in fine fettle). He's only a bit better than junk himself, but you take what you can get with this crowd.

As designed by John Lee Beatty, Hughes' production embraces the contradictions of the play: It's full of high-stimulus verbosity, beds and boardrooms, easy-to-recognize character types, aggression and retrenchments, the pulse of a politically charged federal investigation, attacks and countervolleys of all kinds. The culmination offers the kind of tension you associate with a night in a casino. It's exciting, even though you already know how it ends.

"Junk" is far from it. It's a show ideal for those who become bored easily with traditional theatrical manufacturing. But for the grace of God go we all.

"Junk" plays in the Lincoln Centers Vivian Beaumont Theater, 150 W. 65th St., New York; www.lct.org

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

cjones5@chicagotribune.com

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[ Smart, uneven 'Invisible Hand' is about the greed that controls us all ]

[ From 2015: 'Disgraced': Still no polite excuses for race and politics ]

[ 'Les Miz' is a test case for actor paychecks on tour ]
Beverly Daniel Tatum, psychologist and author, revisits race and identity in an updated version of her best-selling book "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race." (Basic Books)

Where were you in 1997, when the book Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race was released?

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Beverly Daniel Tatum, a psychologist who recently concluded her 13-year presidency at Spelman College in Atlanta, was just releasing the first edition of her now-best-selling book on race and identity. Having taught a class on the psychology of racism for years, she knew that parents and teachers were looking for ways to talk to their children about race and how to interrupt the cycle of racism in their own lives, so she penned a book that answered that need. It resonated with a wide audience  from teens and undergrads to psychologists and education students.

Fast forward 20 years later, and Tatum revisits that same question after the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner, the formation of the Black Lives Matter movement and the exit of President Barack Obama from the White House. Times have changed.

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In 1997, when my book came out, it coincided with then-President Clintons decision to launch his initiative on race, Tatum said in a phone interview. President Clinton had talked about why it was a good time to engage the nation in this difficult conversation. He said: We are a nation at peace. We are a nation with an expanding economy, growing opportunity for everyone, and because this is a peaceful and prosperous time, we have the energy and hopefully the will to take on this difficult past and look at how its impacting our present.

Fast forward 20 years, and this time weve got President Trump, and we are a nation at war, and we are a nation where theres a great deal of economic anxiety and not a sense of an expanding economy, but concerns about a contracting one, and we are not being led by someone who is saying: Lets have a conversation about this. But instead, we are hearing rhetoric that is labeled divisive in its tone, and we also are living at a time where so much of our communication with one another is being done in 140 characters or less, and all of that makes meaningful dialogue much more difficult to achieve, but in some ways, all the more urgent.

The Tribune spoke with Tatum about this urgency and keeping hope alive in a climate where it may be hard to find. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Hope wasnt so much of a reach when the first edition came out, but in 2017, how do you keep hope alive?

A: How hopeful people feel, or not, really has to deal with their generational status. If you were born in the 50s  I think about my parents experience, leaving the South in 1958, moving to Massachusetts, where I grew up, the ways in which their lives changed. There was a time when they couldnt vote, then they could. You can see over time, an arc of progress.

But if you were born in 1997, the milestones that you might see as milestones in your life to date are not very encouraging. If youre 20 years old, and someone asks you: Are things getting better? Your perspective on that question is going to be very different. I think everybody is feeling like we need to have some progress, and where will we find it?

What we know from history is that progress is rarely linear. Were in a backwards moment now, but I do believe it is possible to move forward again. But that forward motion is not going to happen by us sitting at home feeling bad. We all have to roll up our sleeves and really make a commitment to trying to create a more equitable society.

Q: Explicitly or implicitly, whites are getting the benefit of racism. Whats the reason for whites to change?

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A: Nothing comes for free. There is a price that youre paying for that system of advantage  sometimes its a price that comes in the form of fear, or anxiety, or worry about your personal safety (because what would happen if Ferguson erupts in my neighborhood?).

Q: Where does one find the courage to break the silence about racism?

A: We all have to risk some discomfort. This message is as important, if not more important, for white people: Risk some discomfort, and enter those spaces that are unfamiliar to you. I do believe if theres one thing that will really help us move forward, it is more conversation about race  people dont like to talk about it. It makes them uncomfortable. But we cant solve a problem without talking about it. If we cant have a conversation about it, we cant mobilize in ways to change it.

Beverly Daniel Tatum will talk about her book at the Feinberg Theater during the Chicago Humanities Festival at 5 p.m. Nov. 11.

drockett@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @DarcelTribune

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The Abbey Theatre was the first state-funded theater in the English-speaking world, having opened in 1904. (Ros Kavanagh/Tourism Ireland/TNS)

It was the perfect way to start off my trip to what has become a favorite destination. My hotel, the Westbury, had arranged through Fab Food Trails, a walking tour of the inner city's top food and fashion venues.

Meeting my guide, Eveleen Coyle, in the hotel lobby, she explained that we would be "gently walking" for the next 2 1/2 hours, stopping at various places along the way to taste the flavors of Ireland and talk with local artists and designers in what has become known as Dublin's Creative Quarter.

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Ireland's roaring Celtic Tiger economy of the late 1990s may have morphed today into a purring pussy cat, but Dublin's creative energy is alive and well. This is a city that continues to lustily celebrate the talents of its artists, musicians, writers, designers and culinary stars.

Our first stop was Sheridan's Cheesemongers, a closet-sized space where Dubliners flock to buy their cheeses. I love Irish farmhouse cheeses and finally settled on two to sample  Shepherd's Store, a hard sheep's cheese, and Durrus, a wash rind cow's milk cheese from Cork in the south of Ireland.

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Next up was a visit to Anthony Peto, a hat shop specializing in classic headwear for men and women. I was introduced to the charming Petra, whom I'm convinced could sell a hat to the Headless Horseman. I walked out with a jaunty moss green number that within five minutes of having bought it had garnered me four compliments from complete strangers.

Over the course of our stroll, Eveleen and I sniffed custom-blended perfume at Parfumarija; tried on butter soft leather hand wear at Paula Rowan Gloves and stroked delicate cashmeres at MoMuse, before she declared it was time to "pop in" to the Pepper Pot for another tasting.

The Pepper Pot is on the second level of the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, a clever repurposing of a former aristocrat's townhouse. What comes out of the tiny kitchen at the Pepper Pot is extraordinary  not the least of which are their mouth-watering scones.

By the time we arrived at the final stop, Stable, specializing in fine Irish linen, Eveleen and I were fast friends and it was hard to believe 2 1/2 hours had gone by so quickly.

What wasn't hard to believe was the sheer number of top quality shops, galleries and specialty food establishments. Dublin has always served as an incubator for artsy types  from Brendan Behan to Bono. Indeed, it was the latter who  with the opening of a boutique hotel there  gave the Temple Bar area its reputation for coolness. Today, it is the site of such artsy venues as the Dublin Institute of Photography, Irish Film Institute and DESIGNyard.

But if you are looking for a good hotel base for some creative retail therapy and dining, you can do no better than the Westbury. A flagship hotel of the Irish-based Doyle Collection, it combines fashionable flair with the fine art of hospitality.

I checked in with a nasty sinus infection, and found my room ready  almost never the case after a trans-Atlantic flight. In addition, Shauna, a hostess in the lobby Gallery, noting my obvious affliction, offered me her own special remedy  tea infused with lemon, honey and ginger. Maybe it was my imagination, but it did seem to work  at least enough to keep me going.

Dining at the Westbury is a treat as well  once my sinuses opened up enough to taste what I was eating. In a naughty nod to one of Ireland's most creative types, the Westbury named its fine dining restaurant Wilde.

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I could imagine the flamboyant playwright lurking behind the potted palms of the glamorous brasserie-style restaurant, observing the smart crowd assembled there for dinner, and uttering one of his cheeky lines, such as "My own business always bores me to death. I prefer that of other people."

If Wilde were alive today, he would be licking his lips over the Irish specialties on the menu.

I certainly was. Starting with a tempura of soft shell crab, black bean sauce and fermented slaw, I continued with the catch of the day and several side dishes that had me scraping the bottom of the dish: charred sweet corn chili with feta, and cauliflower and pomegranate.

A TALE OF TWO TEAS

The Westbury also does an extravagant themed afternoon tea in the Gallery. While I was there the theme was "The Art of Millinery," in conjunction with the Council of Irish Fashion Designers.

Tiny chapeau-shaped pastries had me momentarily reluctant to spoil the effect, but thankfully, I was able to overcome my qualms. While the hat-themed tea ends in November, Westbury staff assured me that they offer similar themed teas throughout the year.

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One tea that doesn't change is the Merrion Hotel's famous (and oh, so creative) Art Tea. Book a table by the roaring fire in the drawing room and indulge in miniature sweets based on paintings from the hotel's vast collection of 19th and 20th century works by Irish, French, Italian and Dutch artists.

The hotel's pastry chef selects random paintings and re-creates them in miniature. On this visit, I "ate" the works of three Irish artists: John Boyd's Futile Defense (represented in a raspberry and passionfruit tart); Mainie Jellet's Madonna and Child (passion fruit and orange cheesecake), and Pauline Bewick's Path Moorea (in the form of a chocolate Trinity).

Like with the Westbury's tiny hats, it's impossible to imagine a chef  no matter how creative  reproducing these works of art in miniature. You will just have to see (and taste) to believe.

AN IRISH INSTITUTION GETS AN INFUSION OF NON-IRISH BLOOD

Ireland is a land birthed and bred in drama, so naturally its tradition of theater is a long-standing one. From William Butler Yeats, Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw to Sean O'Casey, Enda Walsh and Seamus Heaney, where would the country be without its roster of dramatists?

As testimony to the Irish love of drama, Dublin's venerable Abbey Theater became the world's first state-funded theater when it opened its doors in 1904, and over the years acclaimed actors such as Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne, Sinead Cusack and Stephen Rea have appeared onstage.

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Still, even an institution such as the Abbey may need to reinvent itself, and that is exactly what it is doing. For the first time in its 113-year history, this most Irish of theaters has a non-Irish director. Make that two directors  Graham McLaren, a Scotsman, and Neil Murray, a Welshman.

Despite some initial misgivings on the part of the Irish, they have come to accept the co-directors and welcome their fresh approach. Even though I was anxious to see the fruits of their labor, when I found out it was "Ulysses" I would be seeing, my enthusiasm waned.

Over the years, I've had my share of battles with James Joyce, most often resulting in me  bloody and bowed by a buffeting from his stream-of-consciousness prose  forced to retire to my corner until I was fit enough to take him on again.

However, I must confess that McLaren's and Murray's nearly three-hour production was fresh and funny, and left me thinking anew just how strongly the creative juices flow in this city.

IF YOU GO

Where to Stay: The Westbury. A member of the Doyle Collection, which also has properties in London and Washington, D.C. as well as Cork in Ireland and Bristol in England. Luxurious and comfortable at the same time, it makes a perfect base for exploring Dublin's Creative Quarter. doylecollection.com

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Patti Nickell is a Lexington-based travel and food writer. Reach her at pnickell13@hotmail.com.
Northern California wine country wants you to know: It is open for business.

Last month's wildfires across Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, Lake and Solano counties sparked countless headlines about wine country burning. Dramatic photos of the winery at Signorello Vineyards engulfed in flames fed fears that venerable wineries along Napa's Silverado Trail or nearby Atlas Peak, where the conflagration started, were also destroyed. Alarmist headlines spelled the ruin of the 2017 vintage and predicted price increases and shortages in future years. Thankfully, these turned out not to be true.

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To be sure, the fires were the deadliest in California history. At least 42 people perished and thousands of buildings burned to the ground. Most of those were homes, displacing thousands of families into a crowded housing market that was already experiencing a shortage before the fires broke out. A handful of wineries burned down; dozens more were damaged. Vineyards were singed, though we probably won't know the full extent of the fires' effect on vines until next year or even later. Vineyards actually served as firebreaks, protecting many wineries from the flames' fury.

The fires threatened the cities of Napa, Sonoma and Calistoga, yet these were all spared major damage by the heroic efforts of firefighters from Cal Fire and volunteers from across the country and even around the world.

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"Downtown Sonoma is perfectly fine," says Sarah Stierch, a freelance writer based in the historic town at the heart of California wine country. "We suffered no damage, and it's as bucolic and lovely as ever." The fires threatened Buena Vista and Bartholomew Park wineries on Sonoma's outskirts, causing Stierch and her neighbors to evacuate, but the historical landmarks were saved, she said in an email.

Stierch became a hero to many during the fires with her levelheaded reporting over Twitter and Facebook, using social media at its best to keep locals informed of the latest evacuation notices and the progress of the fires. Those of us in safety hung on her every post and tweet as we worried about family, friends and favorite landmarks.

As I write this, estimates of the fires' economic toll have topped $3 billion. Much of that will be lost tourism revenue, as fall is high season for hotels, restaurants and wineries welcoming visitors to wine country. As soon as the fires spread to the national headlines, many tourism-based businesses began receiving cancellations.

"I've spoken with countless winery staff, winemakers, vineyard owners, hotel concierges, and chefs, all who have acknowledged that visitors have been canceling left and right, fearing that they'll witness terrible devastation surrounding the area, and/or bad air quality," Stierch wrote me. "One colleague who works at a tour company stated that 75 percent of their business canceled for the next month due to those fears."

And yet, she says, most of the damage is on hillsides and more mountainous areas off the beaten tourist path. "Napa Valley has little damage. It's as beautiful as ever," she says. "If you drive up Highway 12 from Sonoma to Santa Rosa" - another major wine country route - "you'll pass wineries like B.R. Cohn, Ledson, Chateau St. Jean and Kenwood" - which received some damage - "and you'll see where the fires burned in some parklands and some damaged houses along the road."

If you explore the higher elevations, around Mount Veeder or Atlas Peak in Napa, or along the routes connecting Napa and Sonoma counties across the Mayacamas, you will see more of the fires' effects.

Carole Meredith, one of California's most preeminent viticulturists, watched the fires from her home on Mount Veeder, where she and her husband, Steve Lagier, have a small vineyard and winery. They finally evacuated as the flames approached, and then they returned days later to find their home intact and their property relatively unscathed. Mountain vineyards, considered prime property, were more at risk than valley plantings because they have more vegetation around and between the vine rows, Meredith said in an email. Even so, the damage to vines was limited to the outer rows of vineyards and infrastructure, such as fence posts and drainage systems.

The more lasting damage may come not from fires, but from popular misconceptions that smoke has ruined the vintage. "Almost all of the 2017 fruit was in the wineries, so it will be unaffected," Meredith said. "For a few who picked during or after the fire, of course smoke taint is the big concern. Even if they don't actually have it, they will have to fight the perception that they have it. And all the wine producers in Napa and Sonoma are going to have to overcome the false perception that the 2017 vintage has been ruined. That will take a lot of effort."

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There were wineries that frantically picked the remaining grapes as the fires swept down the hillsides, and I've seen news reports and social media posts suggesting that vineyard workers were not provided protective gear. Smoke can taint human lungs, too, and we may hear of wineries being questioned for valuing the grapes over employees.

But fear has turned to resilience. We will hear a lot more stories of heroism and selfless generosity, of people who helped save others' homes as they watched their own burn, or offered a spare bedroom or couch to strangers in need. The effects of these fires will be felt for years. And in the years to come, as we raise our glasses of California vintage 2017, we can toast, #NapaStrong, #SonomaStrong.

McIntyre blogs at dmwineline.com. On Twitter: @dmwine.
During November, especially when it's a presidential election year, I often get requests to share White House recipes.

A few years ago, I printed a recipe for former first lady Hillary Clinton's chocolate chip cookies. I thought about White House cookie recipes during the World Series, when former presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush attended Game 5 on Oct. 29 to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

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My farm pantry file also includes first lady Barbara Bush's chocolate chip cookie recipe

Barbara Bush, 92, has a first lady distinction greater than her cookie recipe. The Bushes, married 72 years, easily exceed the record set by President John Adams and Abigail Adams, who were married for 54 years.

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George Bush was 16 years old when he first met Barbara Pierce. The couple were engaged just before Bush was shipped overseas as a Navy pilot during World War II. They married in 1945 in Rye, N.Y. The couple moved to Texas and raised their six children, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former President George W. Bush.

I interviewed Barbara in 1994 in Chicago, celebrating the release of her autobiography. I was surprised to learn she comes from a publishing family. Her father, Marvin Pierce, was president of McCall Corporation, the publisher of popular women's magazines such as Redbook and McCall's.

Unlike their presidential predecessors, the Reagans, the Bushes always seemed less formal. During that interview, I asked whether it was true the first family's beloved dog Millie had her own room in the White House, a space that previously served as Nancy Reagan's former beauty salon. Barbara Bush confirmed she didn't have a need for this room, but it did make a comfortable retreat for the family's cocker spaniel and her puppies.

Besides chocolate chip, Barbara Bush's other specialties include homemade scotch shortbread and gingerbread. During the holidays, she makes gingerbread men, some of which are eaten and some used to decorate the family Christmas trees. During the couple's White House years, she would bake gingerbread men for the large primary tree of the White House.

On the subject of holiday baking, it's close to time for Hammond's Holiday Kick-Off Festival Celebration: A Tribute to "A Christmas Story," scheduled Nov. 18 in downtown Hammond.

The holiday cookie contest judging is from 3 to 4 p.m. at EAT Restaurant, 5201 Hohman Ave., Hammond. The judging categories include Best Use of Favorite Ingredient, Best No-Bake Cookie, Best Old-Fashioned Cookie and an overall award. Winners will be announced at 4 p.m. For more information go to www.downtownhammond.org or call 219-512-4298.

Columnist Philip Potempa has published three cookbooks and is the director of marketing at Theatre at the Center. Mail questions to: From the Farm, P.O. Box 68, San Pierre, IN, 46374.

pmpotempa@comhs.org

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Barbara Bush's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 3 dozen cookies

1 cup butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup light brown sugar

2 eggs

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2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

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2 cups quick-cooking rolled oats

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 package (12 ounces) chocolate chips

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1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a large bowl, mix butter and both types of sugar. Add eggs and beat mixture well. In another bowl, sift flour, soda and salt and add to butter and egg mixture. Add oats, vanilla and chocolate chips to batter and mix well.

3. Drop by tablespoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

4. Bake for 10 minutes.
Sedan sales in China slightly recovered again in September. However the total volume for the first nine months of the year was still down from the previous year. According to statistics from Gasgoo.com (Chinese), a total 1.16 million sedans were sold in the country in September, up 4.7% year-on-year. Sedan sales accounted for 50.7% of all passenger automobiles sold in the country over the course of the month, up 0.6 percentage points.

Own brand automobiles ranked third in overall sedan sales, surpassing American brand sedan sales. As before, German sedan sales topped the charts, totaling 399,185 units, up 14.5% year-on-year. German brands accounted for just over a third of all sedans sold in the country. Japanese brand sales totaled 243,449 units, increasing 8.9% year-on-year. Meanwhile own brand and American sedan sales totaled 207,847 units and 195,771 units, representing year-on-year growth rates of 0.7% and 4.9%, respectively. Meanwhile Korean and French sedan sales continued to fall, respectively decreasing 37.7% and 16.4% year-on-year.

The A-class segment accounted for the majority of sedan sales in September at 64.3%; however, there was almost no growth from last year, with sales this month totaling 749,924 units. A0-class sedan sales totaled 133,791 units, increasing 7.8% year-on-year, while B- and C-class sedan sales grew around 10% each, totaling 197,508 units and 54,240 units respectively. A00-class sedan sales over doubled, but still remain very low at just under 31,000 units.

FAW Volkswagen sold the most sedans in September, with its monthly sales totaling 185,073 units, up 15.9% year-on-year. It was followed by Shanghai VW, Shanghai GM, Dongfeng Nissan, Changan Ford, Beijing Hyundai, Geely, FAW Toyota, Guangqi Honda and Guangqi Toyota. Shanghai VWs sales increased 12%, surpassing Shanghai GM with a total of 166,503 units. Shanghai GMs sales increased 8.6% year-on-year, totaling 132,105 units.

Dongfeng Nissan followed behind the big three, with its sales totaling 70,203 units, up 6.9% year-on-year. Following behind the JV was Changan Ford, whose sales totaled 63,666 units, down 2.1% year-on-year.

Geely once again ranked as the months best-performing own brand seller of sedans, selling a total of 52,519 units, representing year-on-year growth of 18.9%. Geely was surpassed by Beijing Hyundai, whose sales totaled 57,138 units, 14.9% less than the amount sold a year ago.

The VW Lavida was the months best-selling sedan model; it was followed by the Nissan Bluebird Sylphy, VW Sagitar, Buick New Excelle, Ford Escort, VW Jetta, Toyota Corolla, VW New Santana, VW Bora and SAIC-GM-Wuling Baojun 310.

The VW Lavidas sales totaled 53,520 units, up 34.7% year-on-year. In second place with 39,789 units was the Nissan Bluebird Sylphy, up 5.7% year-on-year. In third place was the VW Sagitar, sales of which totaled 39,358 units, up 15.3% year-on-year. In fourth was the Buick New Excelle, whose sales totaled 36,045 units.

The best-selling own brand sedan of the month was the SAIC-GM-Wuling Baojun 310, whose sales totaled 21,705 units, over tripling from last year. The Baojun 310 surpassed the previous best-selling Geely Emgrand EC7, whose sales totaled 21,138 units.
Two of the men suspected in the watch store thefts on an escalator. (Chicago Police Department / Chicago Police Department)

Three people smashed display cases with mallets before fleeing with several wristwatches Friday morning on Michigan Avenue, Chicago police said.

About 11:45 a.m., three young men or boys, smashed a window at a watch store in the 800 block of North Michigan Avenue, said police.

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The trio made off with "numerous" wristwatches and fled the scene.

Police released images and descriptions of the suspects late Friday afternoon.

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They are black and between the ages of 17 and 25. The three range from 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet tall, and weigh between 160 to 165 pounds.

Each suspect was wearing a hooded sweatshirt with "Nike" on it, one black, one gray and one red.

Police said the trio is suspected in a second robbery that happened on Oct. 13 around 11 a.m. in the 800 block of North Michigan Avenue.

Anyone with information on the thefts is asked to call 911 or contact detectives at 312-747-8384.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a Chicago man to 11 years in prison for his role in stealing more than 100 guns from a cargo train on the South Side and trafficking the firearms, according to court records and the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Patrick Edwards, 38, also known as "Big Pat," was indicted on three counts related to a 2015 theft of 104 Ruger guns from a cargo train at an Avalon Park rail yard, records show. The train was parked overnight while traveling from a Ruger factory in New Hampshire to Washington, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office

Northern District of Illinois.

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Edwards on May 19 pleaded guilty to two of the charges -- one count of illegal possession of a firearm by a felon and one count of possession of a stolen firearm. Prosecutors said Edwards sold 13 of the guns on the black market.

U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp. handed down the 132-month sentence in federal court in Chicago. Prosecutors asked the judge for a sentence of more than 12.5 years, records show.

Edwards is a convicted felon with six prior criminal convictions related to cargo vehicle burglaries, prosecutors said.

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"It is important for the community to know that getting involved in the theft and trafficking of firearms comes with significant criminal consequences," Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christopher V. Parente and Eric Pruitt argued in the government's sentencing memorandum.

Edwards was one of 11 people charged in connection with the theft and trafficking case, according to federal prosecutors. Nine of the defendants have been convicted and are either sentenced or awaiting sentencing.

In a sentencing memorandum, prosecutors said Edwards and a group of friends burglarized a cargo train filled with Rugers for six hours, making multiple trips to a stash house, until the sun rose and ended the spree.

The men divided the 104 weapons, and Edwards got 13 guns, which he sold.

Of the 104 guns, law enforcement has recovered just 34. Nineteen of the weapons were found at crime scenes, records show.
KANKAKEE, Ill.  Bond has been set at $1 million for a Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting a resident of a developmental center south of Chicago.

The Rev. Richard Jacklin was arrested by the Illinois State Police on Tuesday on allegations he assaulted the resident at Shapiro Developmental Center in Kankakee.

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Kankakee County State's Attorney Jim Rowe on Thursday told a judge that a nurse walked in on Jacklin performing a sex act on a 39-year-old man. The alleged victim has been a patient at Shapiro since 2010 and is paralyzed and has an intellectual disability.

The 65-year-old Jacklin has been charged with criminal sexual assault by force and sexual misconduct on a person with a disability.

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The Diocese of Joliet says Jacklin was ordained June 2, 1984, and has been assigned to Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Goodrich since 2005.
Even the slightest noise makes Kim Fasula look nervously over her shoulder, months after she was carjacked at gunpoint in her garage on a summer morning in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood.

She struggled for a time getting behind the wheel of her SUV again and to this day hasn't set foot in her garage or alley, parking instead on the street. Co-workers at the University of Illinois at Chicago sometimes walk her to her vehicle after work. If she's alone, she hurries to her vehicle, calling her husband on her cellphone to let him know, "I'm walking out now."

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"My daughter used my car the night before and that's all I kept thinking was 'What if it was her?'" said Fasula, a 48-year-old mother of three.

With gun violence garnering unflattering national attention for Chicago, carjackings have quietly gone off the charts as well. While shootings and homicides are largely concentrated in impoverished pockets of the South and West sides, carjackings are occurring throughout the city, including the downtown area, Chicago police statistics show.

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Last year Chicago recorded 663 carjackings, nearly double the 339 in 2015 and the most since 2009, according to the department. And the numbers have shot up even further so far this year. Through Oct. 18, the latest data available, carjackings have totaled 661, nearly equal to all of 2016 and a 44 percent spike from the same period a year ago.

Carjackings started to spike last year, when homicides and shootings skyrocketed while crimes in virtually every other category rose. The causes are unclear, but some officers felt the furor over the video showing police shoot teen Laquan McDonald 16 times led to many officers reducing their aggressiveness on the street, emboldening criminals.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 3

The Harrison police district on the West Side, historically among the city's most violent areas, leads the city in carjackings with 82 so far this year, up from 69 a year earlier, according to a Tribune analysis of department data.

But carjackings have risen as well downtown and in trendy neighborhoods. In the Shakespeare police district, which includes the Wicker Park, Bucktown and Logan Square neighborhoods, carjackings nearly tripled to 36 so far this year from 13 a year earlier. And two patrol districts whose boundaries include the downtown area, Near North and Central, had a combined 42 carjackings through Oct. 18, almost a fourfold increase from 11 a year earlier, the statistics show.

The carjackings can quickly turn deadly. Jesus Angel De La O Jimenez was fatally shot by a gunman who police said tried to carjack him as he dropped off a friend in his Infiniti car in the Noble Square neighborhood early in the morning Aug. 10.

His family recently spoke of how the 28-year-old was trying to live the American dream after moving here from Mexico with his parents as a young boy. He owned a scooter rental company and a laundromat, they said.

"He was our rock," said his sister, Aletse Rivera, choking up. "I wasn't really concerned about carjackings. Like carjackings, you see that on TV, in the movies."

At a strategy session Thursday attended by a Tribune reporter at police headquarters, command-level brass from the patrol and detective units talked about how much street gangs are to blame for the carjackings, much like violent crime. Juveniles are often involved as well, they said.

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"This is a gang trade that we're seeing," Deputy Chief Al Nagode, who oversees patrol operations for the North, Northwest and West sides, told about a dozen others gathered in a conference room.

Over the summer, a task force of Chicago police officers, FBI agents and Cook County prosecutors arrested members of the Traveling Vice Lords street gang for a number of carjackings near a milelong stretch of the Eisenhower Expressway on the West Side.

At the meeting, police officials said gang members who carry out the carjackings and steal cars sometimes then use the vehicles in shootings or other crimes. In many cases, the cars are not dumped on the street but stored in abandoned garages or other secluded areas, they said.

Nagode said "bump-and-runs" are on the rise in particular. In these crimes, suspects, often driving a stolen vehicle and armed with a gun or knife, bump into a car intentionally. When the motorist gets out to check the damage, they jump in and steal the car.

More than a fleeting loss of property, the violent nature of such a confrontation can leave victims at risk for emotional damage, said Dr. Royce Lee, a psychiatrist who has treated victims of violent crimes who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Probably what is most important for the risk of PTSD is a fear or belief that your life was in danger," said Lee, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Chicago. "I think that's definitely true with carjackings."

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Jesus Angel De La O was shot and killed in an attempted carjacking in Chicago in August 2017. His death confirmed his family's worst fears about the dangers of living in Chicago. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune) (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

The Tribune talked to three victims of recent carjackings:

Its just ridiculous

For more than three decades, the marketing employee has worked downtown in the River North neighborhood, a bustling dining and nightspot area.

She usually works late into the evening and was never fearful when it came time to walk to her car, parked in an outdoor, street-level lot on West Huron Street.

But last March 20, she decided to leave early to drive to her north suburban house to hang out with her daughter who was home from college. It was still daylight out.

The cars are parked close to one another, so she turned sideways to squeeze her way to her 2014 Mercedes-Benz ML350's rear side door. She placed her briefcase and laptop on the seat.

She had just closed the door when someone suddenly came up from behind her and demanded: "Give me your keys."

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She froze  and then began screaming. She tossed aside her purse and cellphone as the man grabbed the keys from her hand and jumped into the driver's seat.

Hearing her screams, a parking lot attendant came running over and jumped into the front passenger seat in an attempt to stop the robber. But he bailed out when the robber displayed a knife.

"The guy just took off in my car like from a movie  screeching tires and everything," said the woman, who talked on condition of anonymity because of fear for her safety.

The area was crowded with people. Many came running over asking, "Are you OK?" she recalled.

"It was so surreal."

She was more worried about her briefcase and laptop than her Mercedes with its vanity plates.

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"All my life was in my briefcase. I have a little address book  and in there I have written  which is stupid  Social Security numbers and passwords and things."

It wasn't until another daughter who works with her heard what had happened and came down to check on her that she started physically shaking.

"I finally realized like, oh my God, this just happened," said the 53-year-old.

Her other daughter who was home from college drove downtown to bring her home, but they decided to have dinner "because I was too shaky to get in the car and go home," she said.

By the time they finished dinner, police called with word that her car had been recovered and an arrest was made.

"The guy went on a joyride with a friend, and they caught him, you know, just literally smoking on the side of the road in my car with vanity plates," she said. "I mean, it's just ridiculous."

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The woman recalled one person who had run to her aid kept referring to her as a victim.

"I kept saying to him, 'I am not a victim. Don't call me that,'" she said. "That's just not who I am. I see myself as a strong person, but even talking to you now, I'm shaking."

"The whole experience was just so, I guess it makes you realize that you just cannot be safe anywhere.  Maybe that's naive, to think that you are safe, you know?"

Tivarius Barfield, 21, was arrested in the Mercedes about 8 p.m. in the 3800 block of West Maypole Avenue in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on the West Side, according to police. He pleaded guilty in August to felony vehicular hijacking and was sentenced to four years in prison, Cook County court and state prison records show.

Kim Fasula, 48, talks about her carjacking in Chicago on Nov. 1, 2017. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune )

A completely different view

Kim Fasula, a clinical assistant professor at UIC's College of Dentistry, was leaving for work about 8:20 a.m. last June 9.

Her daughter had driven the 2017 Jeep Grand Cherokee the night before, pulling into the garage nose first, not backing in like her mom usually would because the Bridgeport alley can be busy.

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Fasula was going away for the weekend after work, so she put a big overnight bag on the seat as she got in the SUV. As soon as she sat down, she noticed a car pull up, blocking her exit, as she looked through the rearview mirror.

She then noticed two guys in the car; the driver was sticking his head out an open window and peering inside her garage.

"Before I could even process what was happening, I felt the car door open, and he had a gun to my head."

They wanted the key, but Fusula's vehicle has a push start, and for the life of her, she couldn't remember where the key was  in her pockets, the cup holder, wherever.

They wouldn't let her out of the SUV.

"Shut up or I'm going to shoot you," she recalled the guy with the gun telling her. The other guy stood next to him, acting as a lookout.

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"What was going through my mind is, 'They are not going to take me with them,'" Fasula said.

She dug through her overnight bag and finally found the key.

She immediately stood up even though there was little room for her to do so and handed the gunman the key. He told her to run.

"As I was running away, I was certain they were going to shoot me because I had seen them," she said.

They screeched out of the garage in her Jeep and drove off in both vehicles.

She ran back into her garage screaming. She doesn't remember screaming, but all her neighbors came running out.

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"The neighbors said they heard me saying, 'Call the police,'" she said. "I don't remember any of that, but the police were there immediately."

A lifelong Chicagoan, Fasula had never before been a crime victim. For years, she had taught dental hygiene once a week in the impoverished Englewood neighborhood and never felt at risk.

Little more than an hour later, police had recovered her purse and Jeep  its bumper damaged.

Fasula and her family went away for the weekend. "I was a basket case," she recalled, but she planned to return to work on Monday.

But that never happened. She was still jumpy, unable to concentrate, experiencing flashbacks of the guy with the gun suddenly appearing over her left shoulder.

Fasula decided to stay away from her UIC clinic and patients for a couple of weeks out of fear she'd do something negligent. She couldn't even answer emails because she would cry and couldn't focus.

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She went to a therapist who specializes with victims of violent crimes.

"It's like drastically changed my life, and I question whether I'll ever be the way I was," she said. "And the therapist said, 'You know, you have to focus on what your new normal will be.'"

Fasula used to ride her bike to the lakefront all the time. She's done it only once since the carjacking with a friend but didn't enjoy herself.

"I was looking around the whole time. I feel like someone's going to come up behind me," she said. "I'm that way when I drive all the time now. I'm at a light and I'm constantly just looking."

Even her children, especially the two at home, have been shaken by the experience, she said.The family has added surveillance cameras at home, and even neighbors have taken security measures because of the incident.

"I have a lot of friends out of state (who) always say, 'Oh, Chicago's so violent, aren't you afraid to live in Chicago?'" Fasula said. "I'm like, ' It's a beautiful city.  I'm 10 minutes from downtown. I walk freely.'

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"I have a completely different view now, completely different view."

Terrion Townsel, 25, was arrested three days after the carjacking, according to court records. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated vehicular hijacking, armed robbery, burglary, aggravated unlawful restraint and possession of a stolen motor vehicle, all felonies, the records show. He also faces a charge of felony possession of a motor vehicle for a separate arrest this year, police said.

Deputy Chief of Detectives James Jones, of the Chicago Police Department, leads a monthly meeting with other police officials regarding various vehicle-related crimes, including carjackings, at Chicago police headquarters on Nov. 2, 2017. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune) (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

A big blur

The driver for Lyft, the ride-sharing service, had pulled over near West 62nd Street and South Washtenaw Avenue in the South Side's Chicago Lawn neighborhood to wait for his passenger. It was close to midnight last July 20.

He saw the guy walking northbound toward him.

"I was paying attention to him the whole time when I saw him walking," he said. "And then as he kept on walking, he made a turn and started walking  away from me."

His attention then turned to the customer walking toward his 2016 Hyundai Elantra. As the woman got into the car, he started to pull away from the curb when suddenly the guy re-emerged in front of the car. The driver hit the brakes.

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The man then picked up his pace, charging toward the car. The driver saw something in his hand. The next moment, he was at the driver's window pointing a gray gun at him.

"It seems like a big blur to me. I couldn't really picture his face for the life of me," said the driver, 32, who asked that his name not be revealed since he hadn't told close relatives of the carjacking. " The whole time I'm just seeing the barrel."

Both the driver and passenger got out of the car, and the guy drove off.

Luckily, the passenger had left her cellphone in the car, enabling police to use an app to follow the route of the stolen blue Hyundai.

Thomas Porter, 23, was arrested about half an hour after the carjacking some three miles away as he tried to run away from the Hyundai in the 7600 block of South Paulina Street, police said. He has pleaded not guilty to aggravated vehicular hijacking, armed robbery, possession of a stolen motor vehicle and aggravated unlawful restraint, all felonies, according to Cook County court records.

Porter was on parole for convictions of armed robbery and aggravated battery to a peace officer, leading authorities to return him to state prison, records show.

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The driver, a Chicago native, continues to drive for Lyft, but he cut back working nights for about a month. He still goes into tough neighborhoods, though he's hesitant to do so late at night.

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"For me, I never really deny anybody a ride  unless they want me to take them to Michigan," he said.

jgorner@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @JeremyGorner

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U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski says he is happy the administration is still talking about an infrastructure bill but disappointed that it has not moved more quickly. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune 2015)

A meeting this week between lawmakers and President Donald Trumps special assistant for infrastructure policy raised questions about how to pay for road and bridge projects, according to U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski, an Illinois Democrat.

Im not sure how this is going to work, Lipinski, who is the senior Illinois member on the House transportation committee, told the Tribune in an interview. Lipinski is considered a conservative Democrat, though he did skip Trumps inauguration.

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The congressman said he attended a lunch meeting Thursday between special assistant for infrastructure policy D.J. Gribbin and seven members of the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus.

Trump campaigned on a promise that there would be $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over the next 10 years, creating jobs and fixing the countrys roads, bridges and other structures. The pillar of the plan was public-private partnerships.

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The White Houses budget proposal included a rebuilding plan that would put $200 billion into transportation projects over 10 years, with the goal of generating $800 billion in spending by state and local governments and the private sector. However, a detailed plan has been slow in coming and appears unlikely to happen this year.

Adding to the confusion, the president in September said he no longer favored public-private partnerships as a way to repair the nations crumbling roads and bridges, according to multiple reports.

Lipinski said Gribbin reiterated the administrations plans to spend $200 billion over 10 years to leverage money from local governments and the private sector. But the administration did not explain how it would pay for the federal portion of the funding, which would be separate from existing programs and the struggling Highway Trust Fund, which is paid for through motor fuel taxes, Lipinski said.

While the administration has indicated that an increase of the fuel tax was on the table, Lipinski said it is not a priority of the White House or Republican leadership in Congress.

A representative for the U.S. Department of Transportation was not available for comment on Lipinskis remarks.

Gribbin, the presidents infrastructure policy specialist, told lawmakers during the meeting that in order to qualify for grants from the new spending package, state and local governments would have to provide a source of new money that would be raised for a specific project, Lipinski said. It is not clear how new money would be defined.

Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. >

The congressman said that idea is very problematic since it could mean that local governments cannot use existing sources of revenue. That would mean they would have to raise new funding  through a tax increase, for example  for the express purpose of trying to get federal infrastructure money to do a project.

Transportation expert Stephen Schlickman, the former head the Regional Transportation Authority, said that process could work to the disadvantage of states like Indiana that have raised gas taxes to pay for infrastructure projects, if that money is not considered new money under the administrations proposal.

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I think youd get some pretty big blowback from those states, said Schlickman.

Lipinski said he is happy the administration is still talking about an infrastructure bill but disappointed that it has not moved more quickly.

Im still optimistic we will be doing an infrastructure bill early next year, he said. It may or may not look like what the administration is talking about. He said he appreciated the administration doing outreach to lawmakers.

mwisniewski@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @marywizchicago
Aldermen said Friday they hope the new boss at the city water department will be able to turn the page at the long-troubled agency following revelations of racist, sexist, anti-gay and anti-Muslim emails that circulated among department leaders.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel appointed Commissioner Randy Conner in May amid an investigation by city Inspector General Joe Ferguson into the messages. Given Conners relatively short time as department commissioner, aldermen largely gave him the benefit of the doubt Friday as he pledged zero tolerance for such behavior.

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I do appreciate your attention to the serious allegations of racism and sexism in your department, that have apparently been going on for years and years and years, really unabated, Ald. Joe Moore, 49th, said. And now were, under your leadership, youre taking a very, very serious, proactive approach to that, and making sure that that sort of thing has no place in your department or anywhere else in city government.

More revelations came out after Conner took over, including July news that a supervisor in the scandal-plagued department had used his city email account to negotiate firearms deals and make light of deadly Fourth of July violence in black neighborhoods by offering Chicago Safari tours. Conner emphasized those things happened before he was named commissioner.

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Ive hit the reset button at the Department of Water Management, Conner said. What that means is that anything prior to June 2, I cant be responsible for. But anything from June 2 moving forward, I am responsible for. So its my job to ensure the culture of the department is one thats welcoming, one thats inviting, one that people understand that homophobia will not be accepted, sexism will not be accepted, racism will not be accepted.

The water department is one of the biggest agencies in city government, and one of the most visible, especially in light of Emanuels ongoing project to replace hundreds of miles of aging water pipes. The mayor has pushed through a series of water and sewer rate hikes and fee increases to cover city pension costs and to pay for the pipe upgrades.

In a recurring theme of this years budget hearings, aldermen on Friday said the higher rates have Chicagoans expecting more from the water department. Ald. Tom Tunney, 44th, said water crews need to do more complete repairs to residential streets.

With residentials, it is something thats indefensible for us as aldermen when our constituents say, Our water bills doubled and youre doing half the street, Tunney said. It just doesnt make any darn sense.

The citys top attorney, Corporation Counsel Ed Siskel, also appeared before aldermen late Friday afternoon and fielded questions on the citys ongoing efforts to negotiate a consent decree on police reform with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. The states top law enforcement officer sued the city earlier this year in an effort to force federal court oversight of police reform citys after a Justice Department investigation found a pattern of misconduct excessive force from the citys officers.

Siskel told aldermen that his staff continues to meet regularly at City Hall with Madigans attorneys and has made several presentations to them on the citys reform efforts. In an interview afterward, Siskel declined to offer a timeline for when the city and Madigan might reach a deal on a consent decree. Siskel also said Madigans decision not to seek re-election in 2018 would have no effect on the negotiations or the timeline of those discussions.

Chicago Tribunes Bill Ruthhart contributed.

jebyrne@chicagotribune.com

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Twitter @_johnbyrne

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[ Newly released racist, sexist emails show scope of scandal at Chicago's water department ]

[ Gun deal emails spurred city probe into racist, sexist Water Department messages ]
Cook County Democratic leaders on Friday endorsed state Sen. Kwame Raoul of Chicago for the partys nomination for attorney general in a rebuke to former Gov. Pat Quinn, who also is seeking the post and asked slatemakers to remain neutral.

The backing of Raoul among eight announced candidates came in a slating session highlighted by the recurring themes of attacking President Donald Trump and Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, as well as addressing the simmering sexual harassment scandal at the Capitol.

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The Democrats on the panel asked each of the candidates if they had ever committed sexual harassment. Each said they hadnt. The two women in the field, Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering and former independent city police board administrator Sharon Fairley, both said they had experienced harassment. And the county Democrats approved a resolution condemning sexual harassment, saying any allegations must be taken seriously.

Raoul, a South Sider in his 13th year in the General Assembly, was one of the first people to get into the Democratic contest after Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced in mid-September that she would not seek a fifth term.

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Im not naive that this is the end of the game for me, Raoul said. Sources said he won the endorsement by a wide majority on the first ballot via weighted votes of the citys 50 ward and suburban Cooks 30 township committeemen.

Ive got to take it to every taxpayer, and the endorsement that I seek most of all is the endorsement of every voter on primary day and thereafter, Raoul said.

Regardless of the endorsement, the seven others told committeemen they would remain in the contest if they did not get the backing of county Democrats.

Still, the decision represented a snub to Quinn, who twice sought and won backing of the countys top Democrats for his 2010 and 2014 campaigns for governor.

Quinn entered the contest a week ago. On Friday, he urged party leaders to forgo an endorsement  or at least remain neutral until the Dec. 4 filing deadline for the office. He tried to use the controversy over allegations of sexual harassment in Springfield as a reason the county Democratic committeemen should delay an endorsement since there are members of this committee who are in the legislature who should take action on the issue.

Lawmakers plan to act on a bill to require sexual harassment training for legislative employees and lobbyists when they return to the Capitol for the final week of the veto session next week.

One lawmaker, state Sen. Ira Silverstein of Chicago, has been accused of sexual harassment by a victims rights advocate. Silverstein, also the 50th Ward Democratic committeeman, has disputed the allegations and said he apologized "if I made her uncomfortable." But he has been stripped of a Senate Democratic leadership post and did not attend the slating.

Regardless of Quinns plea for an open primary without an endorsement, some committee members indicated there was little appetite to see the former governor on the statewide Democratic ticket. Regardless of who Democrats nominate for governor, a ticket with Quinn could force the party to have to defend his tenure against the same criticisms Rauner used to defeat him in 2014.

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I do think the committeemen felt that Kwame Raoul was the best way forward for this office, said state Rep. Lou Lang of Skokie, the Niles Township Democratic committeeman.

I think its important that we have forward movement in the Democratic Party. Pat Quinn has served the state well but lost his last election for governor. I think people are looking for new faces on a statewide basis, Lang said.

Of the others seeking the Democratic nomination, Chicago Park District Board President Jesse Ruiz and 33rd Ward Democratic committeeman Aaron Goldstein also sought an open primary.

Also appearing before the slatemakers were state Sen. Scott Drury of Highland and former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti, who responded to a question on gun violence by telling the committee there was little he could do about firearms.

The reality of the matter is the Supreme Court has made it hard for us, Mariotti said. He added, Honestly, I could spend my entire time focused on gun trafficking in the city of Chicago and theres so many guns here already that I couldnt possibly get rid of all of them in the next four years.

On the Republican side of the attorney general race, attorney Erika Harold of Urbana has backing from the Rauner-led Republican establishment.

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The Cook County Democratic endorsement of Raoul follows an earlier one by Democrats in southeastern Illinois Madison County. But U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, who made a brief visit to the slatemaking session, said Quinn has the benefit of being familiar to voters who maybe dont know other candidates in the crowded primary race.

Pat Quinns appetite for public service is insatiable. Ive seen it throughout his life and his political life. He loves public life, and he loves service, said Durbin, whose winning effort for the U.S. Senate in 1996 included a primary challenge from Quinn.

Hes run against everybody, Durbin said, laughing.

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[ As Lisa Madigan leaves office, few women ready to take her place ]
Democratic Illinois gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker speaks about his policies on criminal justice reform before a panel discussion at the DuSable Museum of African American History on Nov. 2, 2017, in Chicago. (Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune) (Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune)

Democratic governor candidate J.B. Pritzker unveiled a criminal justice plan Thursday, calling for legalizing marijuana, prioritizing more community services and declaring gun violence a "public health epidemic."

Pritzker, a billionaire investor and entrepreneur, also proposed a ban on assault weapons, high-capacity ammunition magazines and "bump stocks," which can make a semi-automatic firearm mimic the firing of an automatic weapon.

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Speaking to a group of community advocates at the DuSable Museum of African American History in Washington Park, Pritzker assailed Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner for "working against you" as part of the state's historic budget impasse.

"His disinvestment has undermined your ability to move forward," Pritzker said of Rauner. "He has stripped families and communities of the tools to build better lives and he has assaulted the hope of a brighter future."

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Pritzker said if elected, he would create an office of Criminal Justice Reform and Economic Opportunity that would be headed by his running mate, state Rep. Juliana Stratton, D-Chicago. He said "black and brown communities are significantly and disproportionately impacted by deficiencies in our criminal justice system."

On legalizing marijuana, Pritzker said, "We don't need more studies on this. We need to act. Let's legalize marijuana. Let's regulate it to make it safe. Let's tax it and let's reinvest in the hardest-hit communities."

He also pledged to make community-based alternatives to incarceration "a priority," including expanding programs addressing mental health, substance abuse and trauma." He also called for better integration between those in prison and their home communities.

"We also need to bridge the divide between people in prison and their families and friends outside. Let's help those in prison maintain positive connections with their community. If we truly want re-entry to be successful, and we do, people need to come back to a place that still feels like home."

The Democratic contender and gun control supporter said Chicago's gun violence should be called what it is: "a public health epidemic." He touted his support for universal background checks, state gun-dealer licensing, a ban on assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and bump stocks.

Pritzker also said he would give the Illinois Department of Public Health unspecified power to "better address this epidemic" and would work to prioritize community programs that "interrupt violence" at the local level.

Pritzker's emphasis on community-based programs follows a controversial program launched by the state's last Democratic governor, Pat Quinn. In 2010, Quinn started the Neighborhood Recovery Initiative, an anti-violence program that state audits found to be hastily thrown together, mismanaged and replete with financial irregularities and poor bookkeeping.

Pritzker did not indicate if he would make changes in contrast to Quinn's much-criticized program.

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Two national advocacy groups filed a federal lawsuit in Indiana on Tuesday challenging a rule change by President Donald Trump's administration allowing more employers to opt out of no-cost birth control for workers.



The suit was filed on behalf of five women at risk of being denied birth control coverage, including three University of Notre Dame students.



The Catholic university in northern Indiana recently told staff and students that it planned to halt no-cost contraceptive coverage starting next year. The National Women's Law Center and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed the lawsuit in the local U.S. District Court.



Under new rules issued Oct. 7 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, employers and universities are allowed to cite religious or moral objections in order to end birth control coverage that was available under President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act.



The lawsuit argues that the new rules  which have been assailed by many women's rights and reproductive rights activists  violate the equal protection and due process guarantees of the U.S. Constitution and the non-discrimination provision of the Affordable Care Act.



"Blocking access to basic health care that 99 percent of women use at some point in their lives is unlawful, discriminatory and harmful," Fatima Goss Graves, CEO of the women's law center, said in a statement. "Everyone deserves birth control coverage, no matter where they work, how they are insured, or where they go to school. Our lawsuit aims to shut down this latest assault by President Trump on women's health, equality, and economic security."



The lawsuit's other plaintiffs are an employee at a university in Illinois and an employee at an Indiana church whose insurance provider objects to some forms of birth control. The church employee, Alicia Baker, said she was a seminary graduate as well as a member and employee of her church.



"I believe taking birth control in no way violates my religious beliefs," she said. "It's a personal decision I make to plan my family."



The defendants named in the lawsuit include acting HHS Secretary Eric Hargan, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta. There was no immediate comment about the lawsuit from the Trump administration.



The South Bend Tribune reported earlier that an email sent by Notre Dame to faculty and staff on Friday showed that insurance coverage for birth control would end for employees on Jan. 1. Students under the school's insurance plan, which provides contraceptives at no-cost through Aetna Student Health, would be covered until Aug. 14.



The university's medical plan will cover contraceptives if they're used to treat a specific medical condition, not as a method to prevent pregnancy. Those medications will come with standard prescription copayments.



Three organizations that have been closely monitoring the birth-control debate  Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Women's Law Center  told The Associated Press that they knew of no other major institution that had taken the same step following Trump's decision.



Notre Dame, which is in South Bend, previously offered coverage through third-party administrator Meritain Health and prescription benefit manager OptumRX, which allowed the university to meet the federal health care law's requirement while maintaining its religious opposition to contraceptives. A Planned Parenthood clinic a few miles from campus could also be an alternative option for students looking for birth control.



The university fought the law's original mandate on religious grounds, but that lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed on Oct. 17, after the Trump administration removed the requirement.



Planned Parenthood has launched a campaign that urges employers to publically commit to continuing birth control coverage. The organization says birth control opens up education and career opportunities for women.
Youth Orchestra Northern Arizona season premiere concert will be Saturday, Nov. 4, 7 p.m., in Flagstaff High Schools Hurley Theater. Now in its second season, YONA, made up of young musicians from northern Arizona, will perform Mozart, Sousa, and Del Borgo under Jeff Good, Orchestra Northern Arizonas new assistant conductor, and Orchestra Northern Arizona artistic director, David Cripps.

The pieces were selected specifically for this group of musicians, Good said. They capture the youthful energy and enthusiasm of the group.

The Mozart allowed for some interesting discussions on the history of music that at points had the whole of the orchestra laughing during rehearsal, while the Sousa brought forth the history of American music. Finally, an original work by recently deceased composer Elliot Del Borgo helped the students to interpret characters and stories presented musically. It truly has been a joy helping these wonderful musicians prepare and present this music at an artistic level.

Youth Orchestra Northern Arizona operates under the umbrella of Orchestra Northern Arizona, Flagstaffs community orchestra. With over 70 amateur and professional musicians, Orchestra Northern Arizonas mission is to entertain our community with free, informal concerts for the whole family, inspiring musicians and audiences alike via the classical music experience.

For more information about this concert, YONA, or ONA, visit www.orchestrana.org or email helloorchestrana@gmail.com. Flagstaff High School is located at 400 W. Elm Ave.

Navajo storyteller to share the wisdom of the wolf

The Plan B Foundation to Save Wolves will sponsor a special two-city tour of the traditional Navajo winter story about leadership and the wisdom of the wolf (Mai Tso) told by storyteller and folklorist Sunny Dooley, at The Collective in Sedona on Thursday, Nov. 9, and at the Museum of Northern Arizona on Friday, Nov. 10. Appropriate for all-ages, this Navajo tale shares culturally grounded lessons of leadership and demonstrates that nature is a powerful teacher for humankind. Proceeds from both events will benefit the work of the Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project.

Sunny Dooley, a well-known Navajo storyteller, will tell the story in English, unfolding in rich and entertaining detail how two mammals, two birds, and an instigator insect changed the world by bringing integrity to leadership and a voice to all the people.

The Plan B Foundations goal is to cast a different light on wolves, an endangered species that has long suffered in the West. Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project Director Emily Renn, said the organization works to build an educated and supportive community to welcome the return of wolves to their historic home range.

Tickets are a minimum donation of $10 per person and are available online in advance at planb.foundation. The Sedona event will be Nov. 9, at 6 p.m., at Vista Hall at The Collective, 7000 AZ-179, Sedona. The Flagstaff event will be Nov. 10, at 7 p.m., at the Museum of Northern Arizona, Branigar Hall, 3101 N. Fort Valley Road. For more information, visit gcwolfrecovery.org
Abdul Hameed Dogar, executive director of the Islamic Foundation, peers through glass broken by vandals at his Villa Park mosque in 1999. (Stephanie Sinclair / Chicago Tribune)

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Abdul Hameed Dogar helped establish Islamic education in the western suburbs as the executive director for more than 40 years of the Islamic Foundation, a private school in Villa Park.

My lasting memory of Uncle Dogar  and we all referred to him as Uncle  was that he was literally like a father figure for our community, said Ali Ahmed, a member of the Islamic Foundation. He was always striving to provide to all of us who grew up in this area a place where we could pray, a place where we could get educated. And he was very impassioned about making sure that our community held together with our morals and our values that define us as Muslims, and he worked tirelessly to achieve that goal.

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Dogar, 93, died Oct. 29 in his Lombard home, said his son, Haroon.

Born in India and raised in an area that is now part of Pakistan, Dogar studied civil engineering at Aligarh Muslim University in India. He moved to the U.S. in March 1962 and took a job with the Illinois Department of Transportation, working as a professional civil and structural engineer. Among the projects he helped design were Interstate Highway 55 and some of the bridges on Interstate Highway 355.

Dogar initially became involved with Muslim education through his work with the Muslim Community Center, a group in Chicago that now meets on the Northwest Side. With a growing interest in providing Muslim education in DuPage County, Dogar was part of a group that started the Islamic Foundation in the mid-1970s. The organization came to include both a mosque and a school.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 86 Dick Orkin, an award-winning radio advertising creator for close to a half-century who was perhaps best known for his syndicated Chickenman spoof, which aired on Chicago stations, died on Dec. 24 in California. He was 84. Read more. (Handout)

In the early 1980s, the group bought the High Ridge School building in Villa Park. The school had been closed in 1982 because of low enrollment. The Islamic Foundation then opened a K-12 school, which grew to now provide education for about 750 students.

Other than his family, the Islamic Foundation was his family, said Moon Khan, a longtime member of DuPage Countys Islamic community and a former trustee for York Township. He was a spiritual engineer, who combined his actual job of engineering with a religious passion.

Ahmed recalled Dogar always being there for everyone, despite his many responsibilities.

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I can remember he would be the person to conduct marriages, he would be the person to console families who had lost loved ones. He and his wife were the ones to offer support when there was nobody else, Ahmed said.

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After retiring from IDOT in 1991, Dogar made the Islamic Foundation his full-time job, focusing on members marriages, family counseling, funerals, study and prayer, his son said.

Dogar stepped down as executive director of the foundation four or five years ago, his son said.

Dogar authored the Islamic book Islam: Gods Final Message to Mankind.

In addition to his son, Dogar is survived by his wife of 64 years, Masooda; another son, Jahangeer; two daughters, Kishwar Khalid and Qaisra Haider; 12 grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; two brothers, Abdul Jabbar and Abdul Haleem; and a sister, Khalida.

Services were held.

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Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

RELATED

[ Notable deaths in 2017 ]
Donald Trump has many serious flaws, including incorrigible dishonesty, rampant narcissism, contempt for women and a fashion sense that makes him think that hairstyle of his is flattering. But nothing compares to his most prominent, crippling and incurable defect: Hes dimmer than a 5-watt bulb.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was reported to have called the president a moron  emphasizing that term with an adjective I cant repeat here. Forced to hold a news conference to praise the presidents intelligence, Tillerson was too honest to deny what he had said.

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The late William T. Kelley, who taught Trump at the University of Pennsylvania, said, Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had. Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter of The Art of the Deal, says Trump had a stunning level of superficial knowledge and plain ignorance.

Trumps feeble-mindedness is on daily view. When an Uzbek immigrant was arrested for allegedly driving a truck down a Manhattan bike path, killing eight people, the president responded in thunderously stupid ways. First, he tweeted that he had just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program. If you can step it up, why didnt you do that before?

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He fumed that the alleged killer wanted an Islamic State flag for his hospital room. Really? The guy reportedly killed eight people, and the flag is what steams you? Trump demanded the death penalty  opening the way for the suspects lawyers to argue that the president has made it impossible for him to get a fair trial.

Trump has learned nothing from his past blunders. As a candidate, he said Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was a traitor who should be executed. Asked about the case as president, he doubled down: I think people have heard my comments in the past.

The military judge announced he would count Trumps statement as mitigating evidence  which may be why he ended up giving Bergdahl no prison time. Not only was Trumps remark unnecessary and inappropriate; it was self-defeating.

Hes just not bright enough to make connections between his conduct and its consequences. Trumps travel ban has lost repeatedly in court because he has made clear he has an unconstitutional goal: shutting out Muslims because of their religion. If he had kept quiet, he might have gotten his way.

The evidence of his dimwittedness flows as continuously and voluminously as the Mississippi River. His tweets are studded with misspellings, random capitalizations and mystifying quotation marks.

He taps out tweets that flagrantly contradict what he tweeted when Barack Obama was president, making himself look ridiculous. When he holds forth on policy issues, its excruciatingly apparent he has no idea what hes talking about.

Trump relies on a vocabulary the size of a second-graders. To combat opioid abuse among teens, he favors telling them, No good, really bad for you in every way.  Those paper towels he tossed to a crowd in Puerto Rico were very good towels. He wanted to call the tax reform bill the Cut Cut Cut Act.

He pretends to be a master negotiator, but he has failed to get the Republican Congress to repeal Obamacare, enact protections for immigrants brought here illegally as children, and fund his border wall.

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Trump tries to conceal his intellectual deficiency by insisting how smart he is. I went to an Ivy League college, he said last month. Im a very intelligent person. He has to make such affirmations because all the evidence indicates his cranium contains an airless void.

I dont mean to suggest his supporters are dumb. There are plenty of intelligent people who voted for him and plenty of stupid ones who didnt. But the smart Trump supporters dont hold his intellect in awe.

After Tillersons moron comment was reported, Trump said, I guess well have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win.

Im sure plenty of readers are now saying Im the stupid one, with a brain far inferior to Trumps. They may be right. So I put a challenge to him: We both take an IQ test, administered by an independent body, with the results to be made public.

This is a great chance to dazzle the world with his peerless mind. Its a chance for him to humiliate someone in the fake news media with his towering intellect.

But Im betting Trump will never submit to any process that would document his actual intelligence for the public to see. Hes dumb. But not that dumb.

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Steve Chapman, a member of the Tribune Editorial Board, blogs at www.chicagotribune.com/chapman.

Download "Recalculating: Steve Chapman on a New Century" in the free Printers Row app at www.printersrowapp.com.

schapman@chicagotribune.com
Authors note: This mysterious letter was delivered to my office yesterday, along with a request that it be read to the soulful violin music often found in Ken Burns acclaimed PBS documentary, The Civil War. Perhaps it was a case of mistaken address; perhaps it was destiny.

Nov. 2, 2017, Camp Cluttered News Cycle, Somewhere near Washington, D.C.

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My dearest Sarah,

The indications are very strong that, despite the existence of approximately 1 billion other things to discuss, a faction of the American political class wishes to relitigate the Civil War. In the process, many combatants will step on as many proverbial rakes as they can.

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Sarah, my love for you is deathless, as is the ability of certain political figures to take a simple question and escalate it into a cringe-inducing conflagration. This, in turn, makes many reasonable Americans  Americans who, sure as night shall dawn into the day, merely want regulatory cuts or maybe an end to the death tax or perhaps simply for politicians to kindly zip it once in a while  exasperated enough to feel like throwing their laptops into the nearest washing machine, filling said machine with rocket fuel, and hitting "high temp" followed by "vigorous spin."

Sarah, it is a mystery that haunts my soul: If the dead can come back to this Earth and flit unseen around those they loved, surely they can also wonder as to why the living are assaulted by increasingly baffling comments about the Civil War? Sarah, in truth, I would rather listen to hours of huffy television debates about the propriety of various innocuous public Christmas displays. Alas, as the air of winter descends, I suspect those will come soon, too.

Fine, you caught me. This letter did not float into my office. In the grand tradition of fake Civil War letter writers everywhere, I made it up. But lo, the agony it represents is genuine.

This week, while normal people like me were getting all fired up about the possibility of tax reform, John Kelly, President Donald Trump's chief of staff, decided to gin up a good old-fashioned national Civil War debate on Laura Ingraham's new show on Fox News.

Asked about Trump's defenses of Confederate monuments, Kelly started out in a fairly reasonable vein, describing the growing anti-monument movement across the country. "I think it's just very, very dangerous, he said, and it shows you what, how much of a lack of appreciation and (sic) what history is." If he had simply stopped there, perhaps everything would have been fine. No matter how you feel about Confederate statues and memorials  personally, I can see why people want revisionist "Lost Cause" memorials removed  there is a respectable argument to be made that tearing down historical symbols could lead to a slippery slope with no logical endpoint. (We saw hints of this recently, when Christ Church in Alexandria, Va., removed a plaque dedicated to former congregant George Washington, grouping him with Robert E. Lee as "an obstacle to our identity as a welcoming church.")

Alas, Kelly did not stop there. "The lack of an ability to compromise," he said, "led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand." As anyone with more than a sixth-grade education can tell you, one side made that stand on behalf of enslaving human beings. In such a situation, "compromise" does not work. Seeming slightly flabbergasted, Ken Burns himself weighed in on Twitter: "Many factors contributed to the Civil War. One caused it: slavery."

Not to be outdone by Kelly, on Tuesday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders kept making the hole hed dug deeper. "Gen. Kelly was simply making the point that just because history isn't perfect, it doesn't mean that it's not our history." That sounds fine, I guess. Perhaps someone could point out that Confederate monuments are generally a local issue and move on!

But, unfortunately, Sanders wasnt done. "Im not going to get up here and relitigate the Civil War," she responded to follow-up questions, right before attempting to do just that. "Many people," she said, "believe that if some of the individuals engaged had been willing to come to some compromises on different things, then it may not have occurred." Here, I like to imagine Ken Burns hurling various large Civil War-themed books at his TV.

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Why is this happening? What have we done to deserve such torture? (Don't answer that!) Last week, we saw similar cluelessness from the other side of the aisle, when a Democratic Virginia group ran a political ad showing a racist Republican truck driver murderously chasing down immigrant children. (It has since been pulled following the terrorist attack in New York City Tuesday.) Americans, it appears, are not very good at moderation  but when it comes to botched digressions about the Civil War, our political class has us covered.

Please, everyone, try to do better the next time. In the interim, perhaps we can talk about tax reform.The prospect of a boring political discussion never sounded so good.

National Review

Heather Wilhelm is a National Review Online columnist.
Weve long suspected that many Illinois Democrats would tax sunshine and bakery scents if they could. Look at how Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle went after soda by the ounce. Our advice: Enjoy what you can while you can, because you never know whats next.

The beverage tax (soon to be history, thankfully) seems a nuisance compared to a nasty corollary we saw recently employed by Democrats in Springfield: What we cant tax, well threaten with jail time.

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Its a disturbing worldview, but this is the political pattern in Illinois: Do everything to benefit those who can deliver money and campaign muscle. Everyone else, including most taxpayers and employers, can get lost.

Our example today is a pro-union bill in the Democrat-controlled General Assembly that would prevent Illinois municipalities from setting up right-to-work zones, in which employees in union-protected positions could choose whether to join and pay dues. For legislators who are tightly aligned with organized labor, the proposed ban hits the spot. But it apparently wasnt enough of a hint to local officials and employers about who really runs Illinois. So the bills backers included a stunning clause that said any elected official who defies the state ban on right-to-work zones would be guilty of a Class A misdemeanor.

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A Class A misdemeanor, if youre wondering, is one step below a felony; its punishable by up to a year in jail. The outrageous message this bill sends to the world: Dont even think of challenging organized labor in Illinois because we lock up troublemakers.

The threat of jail time is gratuitous. If a local official defies Illinois law, the state can act to enforce compliance. Theres no need to threaten mayors or others with criminal prosecution. We asked around among legislative observers and couldnt find a similar example. This was a brushback pitch by labors pet lawmakers.

Note that this isnt just a goofy proposal going nowhere. House and Senate members actually passed it. More in a moment.

The specific target of the bill, we assume, is suburban Lincolnshire, which passed a right-to-work ordinance in 2015 that is now being challenged by labor unions in federal court.

Our concern is the damage this proposal does to Illinois reputation among employers as an attractive place to do business. States are in constant competition to attract and retain investment and jobs. Chicago hopes to lure Amazons second headquarters, which will employ up to 50,000 people. Illinois was bypassed by Foxconn, a tech giant, and Toyota and Mazda. Something scared them off. We wonder what.

Employers looking to invest and hire want to enter partnerships with local governments. Amazon couldn't be clearer in its request for site proposals: "A stable and business-friendly environment and tax structure will be high-priority considerations.

What do employers see in Illinois? High taxes, vast public debts and pension obligations nobody bothered to fund, onerous business regulations and a powerful adversary in the form of unions backed by elected officials.

Heres where right-to-work laws enter the picture: They dont ban unions, they give individuals the freedom-of-association choice of whether to join and pay dues. That puts pressure on labor organizers to justify membership. Employers see right-to-work status as shorthand for a flexible, pro-growth environment that is welcoming to commerce. There are 28 right-to-work states. Illinois isnt one of them. Wisconsin and Indiana are, and wouldnt you know it, they are adding manufacturing jobs at a far faster clip than Illinois is.

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Given the politics here, Illinois wont adopt right-to-work status anytime soon. Thats why Gov. Bruce Rauner initially proposed allowing communities to establish their own zones. The General Assembly saw Lincolnshires effort as a threat to kith and kin. So both chambers passed the local-right-to-work ban, which Rauner then vetoed. Two weeks ago, sponsors attempted to override the veto but came up one vote short in the House. The bill could come up for another override attempt within days. Opponents raised enough noise over the jail threat that sponsoring Rep. Marty Moylan, D-Des Plaines, said he would remove the criminal penalty. If so, thats only because he needs that additional one vote.

But what will be the next 10 bills in which legislators try to put uncooperative local officials behind bars?

Illinois future wont be determined by a workplace experiment in Lincolnshire. The economy wont wither if the state remains a right-to-work holdout. Something has to give, though. Elected officials need to make Illinois more attractive to employers. Reforming tax policy, balancing the budget and addressing the pension crisis are good ways to advertise that Illinois is open for business. Criminalizing an economic development tool is not.
Illinois State Rep. Steve Reick said he would not subject himself to sexual harassment training. (repstevenreick.com photo)

When it comes to the issue of sexual harassment, Im going to encourage my fellow men to do something unheard of: Think before you say something.

Thats not generally how we work, I know. Our mouths  or our typing fingers  often move without first consulting our brains. Thats not true of all men, of course, but its a generalization Im willing to stand by based on years of evidence and extensive personal experience.

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The avalanche of stories about sexual harassment that began after Harvey Weinsteins loathsomeness was made public have rightly put the issue front and center. In Illinois, reports of sexual harassment in the halls of the statehouse have legislators and lobbyists talking and considering steps that might help change the culture.

Thats good. This is a problem, horrific in its scope, that must be addressed.

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But men have a proclivity of thinking they know much about things of which they know little.

Illinois Rep. Steve Reick caused a stir this week by writing a response to suggestions that state legislators complete annual sexual harassment training.

He wrote, in part: Im not saying Im blameless, but Im damned sure not going to allow myself to be painted with their broad brush, nor will I subject myself to whatever training is imposed.

The piece, which he posted on his website earlier this week, came off as defensive and dismissive of the issue.

So I called Reick on Thursday and found he may have done the very thing Im saying men have a tendency to do.

I got out over my skis with that statement because it was an inarticulate statement that didnt say what I meant to say, Reick acknowledged. My intent was to say, Look, we all go through these trainings, we all go through this and that, but that is not going to change the culture in and of itself. We cant use that as the benchmark by which we measure success.

So his point  a point that definitely didnt come through in what he wrote  is he opposes sexual harassment training because he fears it might be just for show, something used to make it look like the problem is being addressed.

Thats a reasonable concern, far more reasonable than the reactionary blah-blah he decided to put on his website. Reick didnt hesitate to take responsibility for what he wrote, and I believe he sincerely regretted not approaching the subject more carefully.

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If he had, he might have considered running his thoughts by one of his female colleagues in the legislature.

Unless you have been a victim of sexual harassment, you shouldnt assume you know what youre talking about. Im a man who has never been sexually harassed  what business is it of mine to act like I understand sexual harassment and know how to make it go away?

I asked Reick what steps he would take to deal with the culture in Springfield. He said men need to police other men and demonstrate that what he called boorish behavior is unacceptable.

Thats a start, but he wasnt able to suggest anything more concrete. It seems vague hopes that men will step up and treat women respectfully arent enough, particularly given the expanse of the problem.

So I spoke with some female lawmakers.

State Sen. Heather Steans was quick to detail steps she believes would move things in the right direction, including the sexual harassment training Reick complained about.

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Clearly requiring sexual harassment policies and training is necessary, Steans said. In my opinion its necessary, but not good enough.

She said people need a system for reporting sexual harassment, one that protects both the accuser and the accused by relying on an independent investigator to get to the truth. If a person is found to have sexually harassed someone, that information should be made public so theres accountability.

Rep. Robyn Gabel echoed Steans points.

Women have to know that theres a place to report, there is a process and that there will be consequences if what they say is true, she said. "Once you take it seriously and begin putting in some of these processes, culture does change.

I asked Steans and Gabel about ways men can help. Both agreed with Reicks point about men monitoring other men and making clear that harassment of any sort is unacceptable.

Everyone is responsible, Steans said. If you see it, call it out.

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She also understands that men can struggle with the full range of the issue: I think this stuff does get gray and murky, so I understand that.

Gabel and Steans said men who want to help, who want to make things better, shouldnt hesitate to talk to women. Ask questions. Have conversations. Dont be afraid to admit you dont know what youre talking about.

This is going to be a process, Gabel said. People dont change overnight. You dont change culture overnight.

An immediate way men can help, in Springfield or anywhere, is to think before opining. Think before writing a response to those trying to make a difference.

Dont let your reflexive male defensiveness  and I know that exists, believe me  override common sense and humility.

Reick knows he could have done better. I appreciate him admitting that.

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And now Id like to see more men do the same.

rhuppke@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @RexHuppke
If the Army Corps of Engineers doesnt fully address the Asian carp infestation in the Great Lakes, a $7 billion water recreation industry will be lost. Thousands of small businesses will be shuttered. Small businesses are the foundation of the economy, supplying the bulk of jobs.

This should be a nonpartisan problem. The party that champions the battle against Asian carp will be saving the incomes of millions of registered voters. Whatever political entity is the current impetus behind the Army Corps of Engineers, please get on the stick.

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 Jim Arneberg, Hoffman Estates
In a state wracked by partisan stand-offs, a new, life-changing policy occurred with nearly unanimous, bipartisan legislative support and the governors signature.

This new law will improve prosperity by allowing Illinois residents over 21 to obtain a high school diploma. This was the work of state Rep. Joe Sosnowski and state Sen. Steve Stadelman. Currently, dropouts cannot earn high school diplomas once they reach 21. They are limited to GED certificates.

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The diploma offers a better path to job training and colleges and universities. Data released by the governor suggests a diploma can boost lifetime earnings by more than $670,000.

The next steps to get the program up and running will be implemented by the Illinois State Board of Education, the Illinois Community College Board and the Regional Offices of Education. I think all are committed to moving quickly; it will be part of ICCBs broader statewide task force on the future of adult education.

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Time and time again, the media reports employers are scrambling to fill job vacancies that require high school diplomas. We know dropouts returning to the classroom are more focused students. They have learned important life lessons the hard way. The new law is an unexpected second chance for these adults.

The program will partner with the community colleges and various nonprofits, and these adults will be around students their own age. At home, these adults will become role models for children, who will see their caregivers completing homework assignments.

The Alternative Schools Network has a 43-year track record of getting younger re-enrolled students back on track. With the diploma in hand, students stand a better chance to earn salaries that will provide for their families; the data from the U.S. Census Bureau confirms the salary gap. Plus, the distribution of adult dropouts means this new tool can be a benefit to every region of the state.

At a time when unprecedented acrimony has seized our state, this new law is an exception; its a simple, but an incredibly worthwhile, way to better our state.

I hope we all follow the next steps carefully.

 Jack Wuest, executive director, Alternative Schools Network
Elvis died early, but he made the most of his short life. He wore glittery jumpsuits, hung out with Nixon, had a private jet and his own super-estate, Graceland. Culinarily speaking, he totally didnt care. I mean, the guys favorite sandwich was reportedly peanut butter, bacon and banana on white bread, maybe sometimes deep fried.

Unlike Elvis, and because Im a food writer, I totally do care when it comes to food. Cooking and eating is my delicious obsession. As such, intellectually Ive thought many times about Elviss predilection for mixing crazy stuff. And while Im a believer in strange flavor combinationslike, say, soy sauce and chocolate (yep)I still felt Elviss choice was probably just a bad drunken decision that was as pointless as his notorious habit of shooting TVs with guns, so I never really tried the combo.

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But recently I found myself at Fizz Eatery, a neo-soda fountain meets kitschy diner on Chicagos northwest side, faced with a menu touting the Fat Elvis ($11). It was in a section titled burgers, but the menu didnt explicitly say it was a burger, so initially I thought it was just a sandwich. Incredulous, I asked the server if it was a burger. Her eyes widened and she breathlessly exclaimed, Yes! I could see she was saying that if I didnt try the burger, she would lose all faith in me as a human being, as if we were teenagers in an intense session of truth or dare.

Still, I paused, because not only were the Fizz cooks mixing pork, peanut butter and banana, but they were now introducing smoky grilled beef and a pillowy, custard-rich brioche bun. But, YOLO, right? Ive eaten goat eyeball tacos at the Maxwell Street Market before. Eating a Fat Elvis would be a comparative cake walk.

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The Fat Elvis turned out to be a glorious case of getting my cake and eating it too. Executive chef and general manager Joshua Bushnick has been working in restaurants for over 30 years. Hes picked up a few tricks, like using a proprietary beef grind of chuck, short rib and brisket in a 78 to 22 ratio of muscle to fat (typical is 80/20). Bushnick says that extra 2 percent makes a big difference in retaining juices while the patties are caramelized on a flat top griddle. Bananas too are caramelized crispy on one side and then drizzled with peanut butter that runs down the patty in hot, creamy ribbons. Add in the bacon, and its a gooey mess of salt on salt and fat on fat that warms your inner child, while laying down a satisfied opiate-like trance on your stomach and your soul.

Fat Elvis burger from Fizz Eatery ($11)

7958 W. Belmont Ave. 773-839-3499

[ Check out more of Michael Nagrant's restaurant reviews here. ]
WASHINGTON  A day before House Republicans were expected to unveil their plan to overhaul the tax code, tribal leaders and senators complained last Wednesday that Indian Country once again does not have a seat at the table.

Tribal leaders told members of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs that tribes struggle with economic growth because of things like basic federal tax law, dual taxation from state governments and budget cuts from the federal programs that serve them. They urged lawmakers to push for legislation that will help Indian Country, including increasing investment incentives and allowable tax credits.

Witnesses and senators agreed the tax code currently favors state and local governments, and that the current imbalance is not only unfair, but it hinders economic growth on tribal lands.

Tribes arent treated the same as state and local governments across the board on a whole series of issues, John Dossett, general counsel for the National Congress of American Indians, said after the hearing. Tribes are  either ignored or theyre an afterthought.

Dossett said there are many cases where state governments have more power than tribal governments, like the federal Adoption Tax Credit, which gives a tax credit to parents who adopt a child with special needs. But the credit only applies when a state court, not a tribal court, rules that a child has special needs.

Another problem is dual taxation, in which state governments collect tax from non-tribal businesses on tribal lands, in addition to any taxes the tribes may levy, said Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye, who was in the audience at the hearing. He said that dual taxation makes companies less likely to build on tribal land.

When one does build on Indian land, Dossett said, the state gets most, if not all, of the taxes while the tribe may get a small percentage or nothing. He called the states tax leverage the most fundamental inequity in the system for tribal governments.

Begaye said each tribe is its own nation, and the federal government should tell states that it will work directly with them (the tribes), so hands off. We dont want the state imposing any kind of taxation on Indian land.

That should be very clearly spelled out with no question, he said.

But Begaye said he does not expect change soon on this issue of dual taxation. The states will kick back. They will fight back, he said.

Everyone at the hearing said that tribes should have had a larger role in development of any tax reform plan. Dossett noted, there have been some efforts. There was at least one meeting where some tribes were invited to the White House, he said.

But Begaye said that the invitation should have been extended to a wider variety of groups.

Sen. Tom Udall, D-New Mexico, noted reports that the GOP plan could include $5 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years, but that, The majority is not sharing where those cuts will come from.

What we know about the Republican tax plan shows little promise for Native communities, said Udall, the ranking member of the committee.

Udall noted that the administration could not bother to send a witness for this hearing to discuss its signature issue of tax reform.

Dossett and the lawmakers agreed with Begaye that they need to do more. Not enough has been done.
Sonya Evanosky, of Aspen Lane Wine Company in Aurora, stands by the Aspen Lane display at Prisco's Fine Foods on Prairie Street. (Steve Lord / The Beacon-News )

Aurora's only winery, Aspen Lane Wine Company, helped get the Aurora Holiday Food Drive off to a good start.

The company owned by Bob and Sonya Evanosky Friday donated $5,000 to the Aurora Interfaith Food Pantry.

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They made the donation during a live radio remote broadcast to promote the food drive on 95.5 The River from Prisco's Fine Foods on Prairie Street in Aurora, one of the three participating grocery stores for the drive. It not only cemented Aspen Lane as the newest food drive sponsor, it fulfilled part of the company's mission.

Aspen Lane is a for-profit company, but it gives away all its profits to 12 different not-for-profit organizations that in some way help people with disabilities. Bob Evanosky refers to his winery as "a break-even company."

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The connection with the Aurora Interfaith Food Pantry comes because about one-third of the pantry's clients are disabled in some way. The Evanoskys discovered that almost two years ago, when they were helping the city of Aurora craft its first law allowing wineries in the city.

They were working with the office of then-Mayor Tom Weisner, and met his wife, Marilyn, the Aurora Interfaith Food Pantry director. She pointed out that disabled people who live on Social Security get about $896 a month, making them eligible to get help with food from the pantry.

"That kind of struck a chord with us," Sonya Evanosky said.

The winery also already has a relationship with Prisco's, one of only two retail outlets where the wine is sold. All the money from the sales goes to charity. The only other place Aspen Lane sells its wine is at the retail store attached to its offices and manufacturing plant in the Meadow Lakes Corporate Park near 75th Street and Ogden Avenue on Aurora's far East Side.

The Evanoskys started their wine-making in the garage of their home, at first giving it away to friends and to non-profits to use at fund-raisers. As they made more and more wine, and the demand for it grew, they had to become a company.

They now produce and bottle their own premium selection of white and red wines, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling and other varietals.

Because the Evanoskys have had three sons with disabilities, they knew the struggle many non-profits have to raise money to stay alive. That's how their mission became one of giving away all their profits to agencies that help the disabled.

In many ways, Friday was just another day for Aspen Lane.

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Bob said just a few weeks ago, he wrote a check for $3,900 to Marklund, which serves developmentally disabled people through its facilities in Geneva, Bloomingdale and Elgin.

He also wrote a check for $1,000 to Young Hearts for Life, and about two weeks ago, he wrote one for $5,800 to the Indian Prairie Education Foundation.

It has been a heartening experience for Bob Evanosky, who admitted he had some sleepless nights throughout 2016 wondering if he and Sonya had made the right decision to form their company.

"It sounds funny, but I kind of like giving the money away," he said. "It's a great feeling. And it's starting to prove that it wasn't a stupid idea."

The money also is a boost to the Food Drive, which began Nov. 1 and runs through Nov. 22, the day before Thanksgiving.

This is the 10th year for the drive, which takes place at Prisco's, Cermak Fine Foods at Lake Street and Indian Trail, and Mariano's at New York Street and Eola Road.

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At Cermak and Mariano's, people buy bags of food worth $5, $10 and $15 as they go through the checkout line with their regular grocery purchases. There is a new wrinkle this year at Prisco's where people pick up a paper voucher at a display inside the front door, and pay the $5, $10 and $15 voucher at the checkout line. Store employees and volunteers then put the bags together later.

The drive helps stock the shelves at the food pantry for the rest of the year.

In addition to The River Radio and Aspen Lane, other food drive sponsors include Dolan & Murphy Commercial Real Estate, Gerald Subaru of Naperville/North Aurora, Aurora Fastprint, The Beacon-News and Douglas Carpet One.

slord@tribpub.com
Less than half of students in some Kane and Kendall county school districts met state proficiency standards in math and English on a new college entrance exam, Illinois data show.

In the first year the SAT exam was given to 11th-graders across Illinois, results showed area districts outperformed the state in some instances. But they also showed that often less than half of students were considered proficient in Kaneland School District 302, Yorkville School District 115 and Plano School District 88, according to Illinois State Board of Education data made public this week.

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The SAT results from those three districts show one instance where the trend did not hold true  in Kaneland, slightly more than half of students met or exceeded state proficiency standards in English language arts, according to the state.

In both English and math, Kaneland and Yorkville had more students deemed proficient than the state averages, the data show. Plano fell short of the state proficiency rates in both subjects.

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Scores on the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, given to third- through eighth-graders, followed similar trends for Kaneland, Yorkville and Plano.

Statewide SAT results showed 39.8 percent of students who took the exam met or exceeded Illinois proficiency standards in English and 36.4 percent met that mark in math, according to state numbers. On PARCC, 34.1 percent of Illinois students who took the exam met or exceeded expectations.

Illinois SAT proficiency standards are higher than scores the College Board, the exam's parent company, uses to measure students' readiness for college and careers.

In Kaneland, 50.8 percent of students met state proficiency standards in English based on SAT scores and 46.6 percent were deemed proficient in math, according to the state. PARCC results showed 41.3 percent of students who took that exam met or exceeded expectations.

Kaneland Superintendent Todd Leden said the assessments are one in a series of measures the district looks at.

Students don't have as much experience with SAT as they had with the ACT, a college entrance exam previously given by the state, and the district is working to provide SAT practice and remediation opportunities, he said.

"Anytime we see scores that are in that range, or in any range, we would always look to try to improve upon that," he said.

Yorkville SAT results showed 45.1 percent of students who took the exam were proficient in English and 38.2 percent met or exceeded expectations in math, state numbers show. On the PARCC exam, 42.2 percent of students met or exceeded expectations.

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Yorkville Chief Academic Officer Nick Baughman described the district's SAT scores as a baseline, since they mark the first year of results. Both the SAT and PARCC give an opportunity to review instructional practices and modify them, he said.

"We look at it as, we're happy with the results, we're proud of our students," he said. "But we look at it as we still have more work to do."

Baughman attributed the district's PARCC scores in part to a focus set by the school board on responding to students and making sure officials understand the way they learn. That involves their ability to use data, he said.

Still, he said, the assessments are a snapshot of a moment in time, and he said that moment does not define everything going on in the district.

In Plano, 34 percent of students met or exceeded proficiency standards in English on the SAT and 27.5 percent earned those marks in math, according to state numbers. PARCC results show 28.4 percent of students who took the exam met or exceeded expectations.

Abby Alvarez, director of assessment and English language learning in Plano, said the district is working to bring SAT practice opportunities to eighth-graders and high-schoolers. Administrators will review SAT results to better plan their curriculum and instruction, she said.

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"Of course, when these scores become public and it's not exactly to the level that we really expect them or want them to be, of course it's concerning," she said. "But we have some really great things in action."

She also spotlighted the 14 percent of students in the district who are English-learners, saying it would be more difficult for them to take an exam in English.

The state has changed the tests it uses to measure student performance several times in recent years, so Plano administrators take into account multiple measures, including other assessments used within the district. They often provide more meaningful feedback on students, she said.

"I think it's important to keep a realistic viewpoint so that when we do focus our time and prioritize our efforts, we're not constantly backpedaling because there are different requirements from the state," she said.

sfreishtat@tribpub.com

Twitter @srfreish
An apartment complex is planned at a site near the Ogden Hill subdivision in Montgomery. (Judy Pochel / The Beacon-News )

Montgomery officials are looking at a $56 million plan to build an apartment complex with 468 units in the village.

Preliminary plans were unveiled recently to members of the Montgomery Planning Commission for the project to be built near the Ogden Hill subdivision. The complex would be called Montgomery Place Apartment Homes and is being developed by S.R. Jacobson and Edward Rose & Sons.

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The units would come with one to three bedrooms, and include garages. The price has not been finalized but developers say monthly rents would range from $900 to $1,400.

The 13-building development is proposed along Reading Drive between the Oswego Library District's Montgomery campus and Goodwin Drive.

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Russell G. Whitaker III, an attorney for the developers, said the project is in keeping with Montgomery's master plan. He also said the developer has a long history of successful projects.

"Edward Rose & Sons is a Michigan family that has been in business since 1921. Over the past nine decades they have built 85,000 residential units. Today they are the 12th largest developer of multifamily units in the country," he said.

Whitaker said the proposed buildings would feature pitched roofs with varying roof lines. The exterior building materials would be composed of a mixture of brick and siding and feature balconies, patios and a variety of window treatment designs.

Montgomery Planning Commission members unanimously approved the project. It will now move on to the Village Board for discussion.

Judy Pochel is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
The owners of Jimmys Grill and Potters Place in Naperville want to build a restaurant in Oswego. (Jimmy's Grill )

A Naperville restaurateur with plans to put an eatery in downtown Oswego will have to seek an alternative business loan.

The village of Oswego was recently informed through the Kendall County State's Attorney's Office that the county could not provide municipalities with funds through its Revolving Loan Fund for economic development purposes.

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Oswego had requested a $649,000 loan that it would in turn lend to a business owner interested in building a restaurant at 63 Washington St.

However, the state's attorney office found out the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity had missed an administrative code for use of federal dollars when it originally sent out its notification about the program.

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The Kendall County Revolving Loan Fund has about $1.8 million available to loan to businesses. The county was notified in September of 2016 that counties could expand the use of the program so it decided to open it up to municipalities.

Andrew Trasatt and John Leahy, the owners of Potter's Place and Jimmy's Grill in downtown Naperville, have proposed building a 3,500-square-foot restaurant with a street-level patio and second-floor balcony for outdoor dining in downtown Oswego.

"We were very surprised by (the loan information) since we had been working with the county for 13 months on making a deal happen and there was never an indication that we may not be eligible for the loan," Oswego Village Administrator Dan Di Santo said in an email.

Andrez Beltran, Kendall County economic development and special projects coordinator, said the administrative code essentially states the money still has to be administered under the state's old rules and not loaned out to municipalities.

Beltran said the state's attorney's office reached out repeatedly to the state for its opinion on their findings in June but it was months before the agency responded back.

He said the state confirmed it had overlooked its own regulation that the money has to be used according to federal standards.

Beltran said the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity informed the county it would not take any legal action if it granted the loan to Oswego, but the county was not going to take any risk.

"We did not in any way want to imperil the loan for the business," Beltran said.

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Beltran said the county reversed its decision to grant Oswego's request for the loan on the advice of legal counsel. Beltran said the investors could approach the county about applying for a loan or apply for a Small Business Administration loan through a local bank.

"There are stringent regulations that make it hard to loan out money. We were really hoping to cut that red tape," Beltran said. "We were very excited about this. We would have been able to get loans to our businesses a lot easier. We could have also granted loans to municipalities with big projects. We're still stuck trying to work through the red tape and bureaucratic paperwork to get loans out.

"It was frustrating on our part for us to do all this work, be excited about this project and then have the state basically pull the rug out from under us," Beltran said.

He said investors tend to walk away knowing they can secure the same loan through a local bank and avoid the cumbersome paperwork involved in getting federal dollars.

"We were excited about getting rid of all of these regulations on the program that make it exceedingly difficult to get the money out," he said.

Di Santo said while the funding issue is a "setback," the village is working on alternate means of financing with the investors looking to bring a restaurant to Oswego.

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"We appreciate the county's willingness to get creative and help us finance this great project, but in the end we lost a year, which is disappointing. We are back at the table with (the developers) now and we hope they will secure private financing so they can break ground in 2018 and open for the summer of 2019," Di Santo said.

The village's Planning and Zoning Commission is set to review the site plans for the restaurant at its Nov. 9 meeting.

Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
In the first year the SAT college entrance exam was given across Illinois, students in Batavia, Geneva and St. Charles public schools outperformed the state, new Illinois State Board of Education data show.

More than half of students in Batavia School District 101, Geneva School District 304 and St. Charles School District 303 met or exceeded state proficiency standards in English language arts and math based on their SAT scores, according to state numbers recently made public.

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Scores on a different exam given to third- through eighth-graders, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, reflected similar trends. Students in Batavia, Geneva and St. Charles outperformed the state average on PARCC, though in some cases fewer than half met proficiency standards on that test.

Statewide, 37 percent of students met or exceeded English proficiency standards on PARCC and 31.2 percent met proficiency standards in math.

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State SAT results show 39.8 percent of students who took that exam met or exceeded Illinois proficiency standards in English and 36.4 percent met that mark in math, according to state data.

The state's SAT proficiency standards are different than scores set by the College Board, the SAT parent company, designed to measure students' college and career readiness. The state uses a higher score to determine proficiency than the College Board uses to determine college and career readiness.

The results were made public as part of the Illinois State Board of Education school, district and state report cards, which detail a variety of data and performance measures.

In Batavia, SAT results show 62.2 percent of students who took the exam met or exceeded state proficiency standards in English and 59.9 percent earned those marks in math, according to state numbers. The district's PARCC results show 46.7 percent of students who took that test were proficient in English and 44.5 percent were proficient in math.

Brad Newkirk, Batavia's chief academic officer, said though the SAT exam required a shift, Batavia's focus on college and career readiness kept the transition to a minimum.

As far as PARCC is concerned, Newkirk said the district looks at results but relies more on a separate, internal assessment given to students that he said occurs more frequently and offers results more quickly.

"We'll always continue to get better," he said.

Geneva SAT results showed 70.1 percent of students met or exceeded state standards in English and 64.9 percent in math, according to state data. On PARCC, 56 percent of students who took that exam were proficient in English and 47.3 percent met that mark in math.

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In a statement, Superintendent Kent Mutchler highlighted that the exams are new, and said the district sees the results as "baseline data from which to move forward."

"This report card serves as one indicator of our students' progress, and we as a district feel good that both our students' (English language arts) and math scores continue to outpace state averages," he said.

In St. Charles schools, 59.7 percent of students who took the SAT met state proficiency standards in English and 59.9 percent met state standards in math. On the PARCC exam, 52.4 percent met or exceeded standards in English and 50.4 percent met those proficiency measures in math, according to state data.

The district in a statement cautioned against comparing schools across years because of the way the data is presented.

"The state is evolving the way it reports and presents school information, and we are looking forward to using the three year baseline to assist in our efforts as we move into a new era of accountability under the (federal) Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)," officials said in the statement.

Courier-News reporter Rafael Guerrero contributed.

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sfreishtat@tribpub.com

Twitter @srfreish
Waubonsee Community College will host events Nov. 9 and 10 to honor veterans.

The first event is called "Through the Eyes of Veterans: Images and Stories of Vietnam." Jim Davidson of North Aurora was an infantryman and helicopter door gunner in 1968 and 1969 in Vietnam, according to a press release from the college. He captured his experience there in photographs that he will show in the presentation.

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Other military veterans will be present to share their experiences, as well, according to the release.

"Through the Eyes of Veterans: Images and Stories of Vietnam" will occur at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Multi-Purpose Room on the Aurora Downtown Campus, 18 S. River St.

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On Friday, at 11:15 a.m., Waubonsee will host a Veterans Day commemoration in the Student Center Cafe on the Sugar Grove Campus, Route 47 at Waubonsee Drive.

Amy Powers, associate professor of history, will give the keynote address. There will be student projects about World War I from Waubonsee's History 112 class, as well as choral and instrumental music performances by students in the college's music program, according to the release.

Both of the events are free and open to the public.
As the daughter of a mother who was a voracious reader and elementary school teacher, Simone Elkeles still remembers the frequent trips to the neighborhood library, where she checked out stacks of books  none of which captured her attention.

Pioneer Press recently chatted with Elkeles, 47, a Buffalo Grove resident, who shared her literary life journey that took her from being a reluctant young reader to a New York Times best-selling author of teen romance novels.

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Q: I have to say I'm surprised you were not one of those kids who loved to read.

A: (She laughs) When I go out and talk to students, I tell them, "I was you as a teenager  I hated to read, and I didn't like or get the classics." I hope to inspire them and let them know that some of those books you have to read in school made me feel stupid, too. I think one of the best things that has happened in schools that was not around when I was growing up is independent reading, where you get to pick a book you will actually enjoy.

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Q: I've heard that you frequently speak to kids at juvenile detention facilities across the U.S. What's that experience like?

A: One of my books, "Perfect Chemistry," is about a Hispanic gang member and a white girl. I talk to these boys who read the book and they tell me, "I never finished a book before, and now, I'm a reader."

Q: Do your teen romances touch on serious topics, like sexuality?

A: Growing up, I was obsessed with Judy Blume's "Forever," which was similar to my books ... kind of edgy for a teen romance. I know as a teenager, I didn't want to do "it," but I did want to know what it was about.

Q: Do you vet your books with your own kids before you publish them?

A: (She laughs) Absolutely not. For a long time, my daughter thought it was a really cool thing that she had not read any of my books. But then all of her friends started reading them, and she felt left out, so she ended up reading them all.

Q: Knowing you have the opportunity to influence teenagers, do you feel responsible to include some sort of moral compass or message in your books?

A: I don't write lessons, but I like to show characters like bad boys who fall in love and end up finding their own moral compass. I had one reader write to me and say after reading one of my books, he got out of his gang. When he married his high school sweetheart, they had me fly out to New Jersey and stand up in their wedding because they said my book changed his life. Here I was, a woman in her 40s getting fitted for a bridesmaid dress (she laughs). And they're still doing really good. They have three kids, and he works like a dog. He has turned out to be an amazing man.

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Shout Out is a weekly feature in which we introduce our readers to their fellow community members and local visitors throughout suburban Chicago.

kcullotta@tribpub.com

Twitter @kcullotta
Coconino County Sheriffs deputies and two bomb squads were called out to Fort Tuthill Tuesday after an unexploded piece of military ordnance was found.

According to CCSO, deputies received a call around 5:20 p.m. Tuesday that a man found what looked to be an unexploded military ordnance. CCSO Lt. Jim Coffey said the device was a shoulder-fired rocket that was found in the southwest corner of Fort Tuthill west of the campground.

Deputies think the device was unearthed during a recent excavation. Fort Tuthill was used as a training site and home for the 158th Infantry Regiment Arizona National Guard from 1929 to December 1948.

Deputies called in officers from the Flagstaff Bomb Squad who, after examining the device, called the Explosive Bomb Disposal Unit assigned to Luke Air Force Base. Deputies guarded the device overnight until the Air Force unit could arrive. The Air Force Bomb Disposal Unit detonated the device in place at around 1 p.m. Wednesday.
The Illinois Attorney General's Office and the DuPage County State's Attorney have filed a lawsuit against Speedway LLC over the gasoline leak at a Speedway gas station that led to an explosion at a Willowbrook condominium complex.

The lawsuit asks that the Speedway station at 6241 S. Cass Ave., Westmont, remain closed, that the company perform air monitoring at any affected homes around the sanitary sewer system and investigate and address any contamination from the gasoline release.

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The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency referred the case to the Attorney General's Office for prosecution after an Oct. 20 explosion at the Knolls Condominiums just over a mile from the station resulted in injury to a resident.

All 150 units in the Knolls had to be evacuated. A total of 10 explosions or "flashes" occurred in nearby residential buildings and along the sewer line that injured at least three people, the state's attorney's office reported.

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About six homes in addition to the Knolls were evacuated, the attorney general's office stated. Pressure from gasoline vapors in the sanitary sewer system also caused 14 manhole covers along the sewer line to be blown off, state officials said.

Workers continue the cleanup of a closed Speedway gas station on Cass Avenue in Westmont where leaking gasoline got into sanitary sewers. Nov. 3, 2017. (Kimberly Fornek / Pioneer Press )

"The explosions due to gasoline leaks at the Speedway station caused significant damage and disruption to people in the community," Attorney General Lisa Madigan said.

Gasoline is highly flammable and can migrate through soil and sewer systems into basements, crawl space cracks and pipes to create inhalation and explosion hazards, officials said. They believe the Knoll Condominiums explosion was the result of gasoline vapors being ignited by a laundry dryer. Residents of 12 units in that building are still under evacuation orders that could last for months.

According to the lawsuit, officials believe Speedway became aware of a problem in one its underground storage tanks sometime between Oct. 5 and 15. The tank was compromised and being infiltrated by water that was displacing stored gasoline, potentially causing it to be released from the tank, the complaint states.

The gasoline entered the sanitary sewers under the gas station at one or more of four spots where the sanitary sewer line had been cracked and /or compromised, according to the lawsuit.

Following the explosions, Speedway emptied the leaking storage tank and removed the affected tank and remaining underground storage tanks, the attorney general's office said.

In the complaint, Madigan and DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin ask the court to require Speedway to take steps to control any gasoline released at the site and to continue to evaluate and remediate any soil or groundwater contamination. The lawsuit also asks for civil penalties.

The Speedway station includes six underground storage tanks, four of which are 10,000-gallon gasoline tanks that are located adjacent to the Flagg Creek sanitary sewer system.

kfornek@pioneerlocal.com

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Flagstaff police responded to a fatal stabbing incident between two adult men outside Killip Elementary School Thursday afternoon and are searching for one suspect.

All students and after-school program participants are safe and were being released only to their parents, who were told to pick their children up at the north entrance of the school.

According to Flagstaff Police Department, officers received a call around 3 p.m. about a fight involving a knife near Killip Elementary School, which is on Sixth Avenue in Sunnyside. One adult man was stabbed. He was transported to Flagstaff Medical Center, where he died from his injuries.

Police are looking for the other suspect in the fight. Witnesses have described the other man as Native American, with a white or gray hat, black hoodie and black pants. Police are investigating the matter.

Flagstaff Unified School District Relations Coordinator Karin Eberhard said the incident had nothing to do with the school itself. Parents should expect a call from the school about the incident.
Flagstaff-area housing prices in the third quarter of 2017 set a record high median sale price of $382,000, which is 8 percent higher than the same period a year ago.

The summer was the best summer ever for sellers of detached, single-family homes, said Century 21 Realtor Stephen Brighton. Many neighborhoods in Flagstaff exceeded home prices from 2006 and 2007, when prices hit their previous highest point. 388 homes in the Flagstaff area sold in the third quarter of the year, up 5 percent from the same period last year.

However, Brighton said, summer is traditionally the busiest time for home sales, and now that winter is approaching, sellers may be dropping their asking prices to try to sell before the winter. On Wednesday alone seven properties dropped in price, according to the Northern Arizona Multiple Listing Service.

Things definitely slow down when you get into winter, Brighton said, adding that the first quarter of the year is traditionally the lowest in home sales.

The Flagstaff market experienced two record-setting months in a row. August set a median high record of $380,000, up 8 percent from the year before, and the median price in September was $383,000, up 6 percent from September 2016.

For the month of September, the average price paid per square foot was $207, a 10 percent increase from September of 2016, Brighton said. However, that price falls short of the record for the month, which was $230 in 2006.

While record prices can be music to the ears of sellers, for buyers there are few options, especially for people with lower budgets. For the year to date, a person or family with a budget under $300,000 could afford a home that was 11 percent smaller than the same time period last year, said Jeff Ross, a realtor from Realty Executives.

On Nov. 1, there were 517 single-family homes in the Flagstaff area listed for sale, according to the multiple listing service. Of those, 364 were considered active, meaning they are not under contract to be sold.

Of those not under contract to be sold, 89 properties are listed under the September median sale price of $383,000, 44 of which are within the Flagstaff city limits, Brighton said.

Brighton said most homebuyers search for a home with three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a two-car garage. There are 13 homes that are built and ready to sell in Flagstaff that fit that description and cost less than Septembers median price, Brighton said. Fourteen more homes that fit the bill are under construction in Presidio in the Pines and are already listed for sale.

If you only have 13 houses to choose from all the way up to $383,000, thats pretty slim picking, Brighton said.

Brighton recommends buyers save up to put a bigger down payment on a home if they are looking to buy in or around the city, adding he does not foresee a drop in prices soon.

Buyers can take advantage of low mortgage rates, which Brighton said remain at about 3.75 percent with a 5 percent down payment for buyers with good credit for a 30-year fixed mortgage.

Prices will continue to go up, not at double-digit rates, but we are looking at continued single-digit increases, Brighton said. We will have new houses come on the line, but the demand will still be there.

Ross said a healthy absorption rate, which means the amount of time it would take every home on the market to sell, is about six months. For homes under $300,000, there is a supply of only two and a half months, which makes the market more favorable to sellers, he said.

For homes between $300,000 and $500,000, there is a 3.9-month supply, he said. For the higher-priced homes between $500,000 and $700,000, there is a 10-month supply, which turns into a market that favors the buyer, Ross said.

So far this year, homes that have sold in all price ranges have spent an average of 92 days on the market, Ross said.
Flagstaff Unified School District officials say they will be OK despite an expected 15 percent cut in federal Title I funds designated for schools with a high number of low-income students.

FUSD received $214,454 more in Title I funds than it was supposed to over the last four years due to a state processing error. Next year, it will receive a total of $353,000 less out of its $2 million Title I allotment.

However, the district and the seven FUSD elementary schools that use the majority of the Title 1 funding should be OK because officials always budget for a 10 percent cut in the funds. The district also has some funding that was rolled over from the previous school year, although the district might have to reduce its summer school program this year.

The cut comes after the Arizona Department of Education announced earlier this month that money from the federal program had been doled to state schools incorrectly over the last four years.

According to the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting, the state improperly distributed around $62 million, with some schools and districts getting more than they should have and others getting less.

Schools use Title 1 funds to buy supplemental teaching supplies, hire education specialists, equipment, teachers aides, along with summer school and intercession programs, said Sylvia Johnson, FUSDs director of Educational Enrichment. The funding is based off of the number of low-income students in the districts boundaries, including students in charter schools, and is designed to help these students succeed in their education.

According ACIR, the Arizona Department of Education found out that the funds were being dispersed improperly after a regular audit of the program in 2015. The department hired an outside firm to do a more complete audit on the program and found in April that more than 400 schools in the state received either more or less than their fair share of the funds. There are more than 200 traditional school districts in the state and more than 400 charter schools.

Other local school districts and charter schools in the Flagstaff area are included in that list -- Flagstaff Junior Academy received around $33,228 less than it was supposed.

Gina Lanzetta, the assistant director at FJA, coordinates the Title I funds for the school. She stated in an email that decreases in the funding over the last few years and the late release of the funding by the state have made it difficult to budget and plan for services. FJA uses the money for free tutoring to all students who need it. Lanzetta said shell be attending a conference in two weeks to learn more about the audit findings and how the state plans to address the problem.

Johnson, who is on a state board that received information about the audit findings, said in order to remedy the situation, the state has created a formula to reduce Title I payments from schools that were overpaid over the next several years. The formula has yet to be approved by the U.S. Department of Education. In order to diminish the financial hit to districts and schools that received more money than they should have, ADE is capping the amount cut from their Title I programs at 15 percent.

Johnson said the amount the districts Title I fund is cut is more than 15 percent because of two other reasons that are not related to the snafu at the state.

First, FUSD is expecting to get less Title I funding overall this year because of an increase in the amount of Title I funding going to a state school improvement fund, which holds money to support the lowest performing schools in the state. The amount of Title I money held back by the state for the fund was increased from 4 percent to 7 percent because of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.

Second, the districts Title I allotment was reduced overall because the number of low-income students within the districts boundaries has dropped by about 12 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Education, Johnson said.

Johnson said she always plans for a 10 percent cut because the number of low-income students in the districts boundaries can fluctuate from year to year. The Title I program also has a hold harmless clause that limits the maximum amount the federal government can cut from a district or schools allotment in one year to 10 percent. This allows schools to continue to fund necessary programs during years when the population of low-income students has a rapid change.

The federal government is making an exception in the cap on cuts this year for Arizona because of the snafu with the funding, she said. However, Johnson has already warned principals that there may be effects on next years programs, depending on the number of low-income students and any state cuts to reimburse the program.
All votes in the CO-3 election won't be counted until the end of this week
Should tribal sovereignty end where animal cruelty and neglect begin?

That was the case last year when the U.S. Attorneys Office in Flagstaff arrested a Havasupai tribal member on charges of abusing one of his pack animals. Leland Joe pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges of animal cruelty and is serving three years of supervised probation during which he must give up four of his horses. He also must pay $1,200 in restitution.

The horse is part of a herd of nearly 400 in Havasu Canyon kept by tribal members to ferry supplies and tourists from the rim to the campground and waterfalls below, then back out again. Because thousands of tourists visit the canyon each year, the horses get closer scrutiny than most, and many are not shy about complaining to authorities when they see protruding ribs, open sores and untreated wounds because of underfeeding or carrying too much weight.

Fast forward to last month, and it was the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs that again blew the whistle on horse mistreatment by a tribal member. The horses owner, Cecil Watahomigie, was arrested and faced a federal charge in Flagstaff of animal cruelty.

But thats where the similarities end. In the months since the Leland Joe case, the Havasupai have hired a tribal prosecutor and a tribal court judge. And so before Watahomigies case could come before a federal judge, he pled guilty to animal cruelty in tribal court and received a 30-day jail sentence that is suspended if he completes his 6-month probation. The abused horse will be returned to him if he demonstrates during random inspections that he can properly care for his other horses.

Because tourism is the main industry of the tribe, it has a vested interest in putting its best face forward to visitors, and that starts at the trailhead on the rim. The adverse publicity from the Leland Joe case prompted them to start an animal control office and a licensing and permitting program under which horses that dont meet minimum body condition requirements arent allowed to pack. They also charge outfitters a license fee of $7,500 a year, with the revenues designated in part for animal welfare oversight.

Further, the tribe welcomed for the first time a relief trip by the Humane Society of the United States to Supai, including a veterinarian, food and medicines. The visitors conducted classes on proper equine care along with animal cruelty and mistreatment.

On paper, then, the tribe had the resources and training in place to monitor and enforce better horse treatment. But in the case of Watahomigie, it still took an outside agent of the BIA to make the initial legal move after continued complaints by tourists. And when the tribal prosecutor and court did act, the sentence, say animal rights activists, didnt reflect the defendants history of animal mistreatment dating back to at least 2014, according to evidence submitted by the U.S. Attorneys Office.

There may be some justice that was left undone in this case. A serial abuser like Watohomigie isnt likely to be scared straight by a suspended jail sentence and the confiscation of just one horse.

But as tribal officials have pointed out, its not cheap to feed and care for a working pack horse in such a remote location, especially in the summer heat. Estimates start at $4,800 a year, and thats just in Phoenix. Horse owners compete to place their animals with outfitters, and that can drive down prices that are felt by horses at feeding time and in fewer vet visits or by owners agreeing to more weight to curry favor with outfitters.

At this point, it might be time for tribal intervention in the private horse market. Officials could declare the outfitting industry a public conveyance, essentially making it a utility under a tribal tourism corporation subject to more regulation and price setting. Outfitters would deal with a single tribal pack horse registry, not directly with horse owners. The corporation would place only those horses that were fit for duty, and owners would either be guaranteed compensation sufficient to care properly for their animals or they could turn them over to the corporation and sign on as employees. Outfitters would be barred from bringing in their own animals, thus incentivizing them to work with tribal animals in a way that kept a healthy herd available to them.

Such an arrangement is common in localities that deal with other monopoly industries, such as electric power and mass transit. In the case of Havasupai horses, its purpose would be to assure the sustainability of what literally powers the tribes only industry. The current free market arrangement promotes a race to the bottom by horse owners who have no other income options and hungry horses to feed. Setting a sustainable price floor and weight limits for pack horse rentals is essential, and that means the tribe must take more ownership of the tourism industry, if not the horses themselves.
The victim of a fatal stabbing at Killip Elementary School on Thursday has been identified.

Ethan Watson, 25, of Flagstaff, was stabbed to death by another man in his car in the parking lot of the school while waiting to pick up his girlfriends niece.

Witnesses described the other man as Native American, with a white or gray hat, black hoodie and black pants.

Flagstaff Police canvassed the area and located a person resembling that description on Dortha Avenue. He was later interviewed as a person of interest in the homicide. Investigators located multiple items believed to be evidence on the scene and on the route the suspect is believed to have used when he fled the scene. The name of the person of interest is being withheld, at this time, to protect the investigation and potential prosecution of this case.

The suspect is currently in custody on an unrelated arrest warrant

Flagstaff Police Spokesperson Sgt. Cory Runge said the stabbing occurred after the two men got into an argument in the elementary school parking lot.

Runge would not disclose the nature of the argument but said that the two men did know each other.

Runge said the crime appears to be an isolated incident unrelated to the operation of the school and there does not appear to be any safety concern for the public at large or the students at the school.




Withholding tax on China-sourced income of non-resident enterprises clarified

The State Administration of Taxation (SAT) released an announcement on the administration of withholding tax on China-sourced income derived by non-resident enterprises on October 27, 2017 (the Announcement). The Announcement further clarifies matters concerning the withholding of corporate income tax (CIT).

According to the Announcement, the administrative burden of the withholding agents will be reduced. The withholding agent will no longer be required to submit contracts to the tax bureaus for record-filing within 30 days after a contract is signed or amended. Further, the current tax settlement requirement of 15 days prior notice to the last payment is now abolished. The required materials to submit tax returns to the tax bureaus were also simplified.

RELATED: Did Xi set a New Direction for Tax Reform in China?

The Announcement also provides for greater cooperation among different tax bureaus to improve the business environment. For example, when the non-resident enterprise generates income from different tax regions, the withholding agent can choose to pay tax to just one of the relevant tax bureaus.

Moreover, the Announcement clarifies other issues relating to the calculation of taxable income, such as the foreign exchange rule in calculation, the calculation method when the non-resident enterprise accept installments for the payments, as well as how to calculate taxable income in equity transfer and asset transfer.

The Announcement came out with an official interpretation, which contains detailed explanation of the new rules and specific examples. The Announcement will come into force on December 1, 2017, and is expected to be welcomed by both the withholding agents and the non-resident enterprises.

Revised drug administration law, registration measures for comment

The China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) released revised drafts of the Drug Administration Law and the Administrative Measures for Drug Registration (the Drafts) on October 23, 2017 to gather public opinion.

According to the Drafts, China will fully adopt a drug market authorization holder (MAH) system, under which MAHs are responsible for supervising the safety, effectiveness, and quality of their drugs throughout the whole life cycle of the products.

Under the Drafts, the approval regime of clinical trials will be simplified, and overseas trial data will be accepted in drug registration, though an on-site check by CFDA might still be applied.

RELATED: Legal & Financial Due Diligence Services from Dezan Shira & Associates

The Drafts put emphasis on patent and data protection. When applying for market approval, applicants would be required to outline the applications of the patents involved to prevent potential patent infringement. Qualified applicants, such as applicants of innovative drug or drug used for rare diseases, can apply for data protection together with their application for market approval.

Moreover, the examination process for drug registration would be faster, shortening from 150 days to 120 days from the date of acceptance.

As supportive documents of the Guideline on Deepening the Reform of Examination and Approval System and Encouraging Innovation of Drugs and Medical Devices (the Guideline) issued on October 8, 2017, the Drafts are generally consistent with the content of the Guideline. However, some rules mentioned in the Drafts, such as patent and data protection, are not specific enough for implementation. More detailed rules are expected to come out soon following the public comment stage.



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Chinese oil giants are eyeing an expanded presence in Brazil, winning holdings in three blocks awarded in Brazil's deepwater oil auction in a historic opening of the pre-salt play to foreign operators.

Consortiums comprising China's three major oil giants, China National Petroleum Corp, China Petroleum & Chemical Corp and China National Offshore Oil Corp, have respectively won three blocks recently, deepening the energy cooperation between the two countries.

Analysts said Chinese oil and gas companies' participation show the growing interest of China, the world's top crude oil importer, in Brazil, and it is believed the presence of Chinese energy behemoths will further enhance in the future, as both countries are complimentary in resources, technology and capital.

China has the technology, the capital and most important, the demand for crude oil, and Brazil is definitely an ideal partner while also playing a significant role in the Belt and Road Initiative, said Li Li, research director for the energy sector at ICIS China, a consultancy focused on the energy industry.

Brazil put six of the eight blocks on offer in the auction for the rights to pump oil from its coveted pre-salt region, where billions of barrels of oil are trapped below thousands of feet of salt in the country's Atlantic waters.

The three blocks include Peroba, located in the Santos basin and boasting an estimated 5.3 billion barrels of oil, Alto de Cabo Frio West in the Santos basin and Sapinhoa, located in the same region with an estimated 350 million barrels of oil.

President Michel Temer said recently that the development of the blocks would lead to 100 billion reais ($30.84 billion) in investment from the winning companies for Brazil.

Energy cooperation between China and Brazil, a basis for economic and social development, has great potential and China has witnessed a large amount of imported oil from Brazil in recent years, said Zhou Dadi, a senior researcher at the China Energy Research Society.

Many oil majors including Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp and BP also won blocks during the auction, the first in four years to offer up stakes of Brazil's pre-salt, where has over 5 billion in proven oil reserves and nearly 3 billion cubic meters of gas, according to Reuters.

However, Chinese companies should conduct thorough research in another country's economic situation, policy on foreign investment and energy similarities, so as to ensure win-win cooperation, Zhou said.

China imported 281.1 million metric tons of crude in the first eight months of this year, equivalent to 8.44 million barrels per day, according to Customs data, up 12.3 percent from the same period in 2016.
Speakers: Mr. Fu Ziying, Chinas international trade representative and vice minister of the Ministry of Commerce Mr. Wang Bingnan, vice minister of the Ministry of Commerce Mr. Zhou Bo, executive vice mayor of Shanghai Chairperson: Hu Kaihong, spokesperson of the State Council Information Office Date: Nov. 2, 2017

Hu Kaihong:

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Welcome to this press conference. At the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in May, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the nation would be hosting the China International Import Expo starting from 2018. Almost half a year has passed since then. Many people have expressed eagerness to know how preparations for the event are proceeding.

To address your needs, we have invited Mr. Fu Ziying, China's international trade representative and the vice minister of the Ministry of Commerce, Mr. Wang Bingnan, also a vice minister of the same ministry, and Mr. Zhou Bo, the executive vice mayor of Shanghai, to introduce the preparations made so far for the First China International Import Expo. They will also answer some of your questions.

I now give the floor to Mr. Fu Ziying.

Fu Ziying:

The Ministry of Commerce takes ensuring the success of the First China International Import Expo as a major political task to implement the guiding principles of the 19th CPC National Congress. Now, let me give you an introduction to the expo.

First, the significance to host the expo

To host the China International Import Expo is a major strategic deployment and decision of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, focusing on promoting a new round of opening up. It is an important action of the Chinese government in opening up the domestic market to the world, as well as an important embodiment of practicing General Secretary Xi Jinping's proposal for promoting construction of a human community of shared future.

The world economy is currently entering a period of deep adjustment, and the trend of economic globalization is encountering many twists and turns; therefore, the international community has shares a strong desire to see expansion of the Chinese market, get on the express train of China's development and participate in the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative. China's economy has shifted from the stage of high-speed growth to one of high-quality development. Accelerated adjustment of the economic structure creates stronger demand for commodities and services of high quality and specific features. Against such a background, to hold the China International Import Expo is in line with China's self-development needs and the common development needs of the world.

To host the expo, by opening and sharing the Chinese market, reflects China's willingness to shoulder its responsibility as a major country and is conducive to formation of a demonstration effect so as to promote international trade and achieve greater market opening, give impetus to the further development of economic globalization and the construction of an open world economy, and create conditions for promoting the construction of a human community with a shared future. Moreover, to host the expo will provide strong support for pushing forward a new round of high-level opening up and promoting further construction of the "Belt and Road", which will be conducive to higher-level open economic development and the sustained and healthy development of China's overall economy.

Second, a general introduction about the expo:

The first China International Import Expo is scheduled to be held at the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai from Nov. 5th to 10th, 2018.

The expo will be hosted by the Ministry of Commerce and the Shanghai municipal government in partnership with several international institutes, such as the World Trade Organization and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, and organized by China International Import Expo Bureau and the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai).

The venue of the expo covers an area of more than 240,000 square meters, showcasing two exhibitions -- one on national trade and investment and the other on enterprises and commerce.

The former one is dedicated to establishing an open platform for countries at different developmental stages to expand their influence and deepen global economic and trade cooperation.

We plan to invite participating countries to present the general landscape of their trade and investment, including trade in commodities and services, industrial performance, investment, tourism and country-specific specialties. There will be no business transactions conducted at the exhibition.

The business exhibition is divided into two sections: goods trade and services trade. Enterprises from various countries and regions will be invited to exhibit, talk business and clinch deals.

Trade in goods covers six fields, namely smart and high-end equipment, consumer electronics and home appliances, vehicles, garments and consumer goods, food and agricultural products as well as medical devices and health care products. Trade in services covers emerging technology, services outsourcing, innovative design, culture & education, tourism services and other fields.

During the Expo, we will hold the first "Hongqiao international trade forum". The forum consists of the opening ceremony and three parallel forums, where we will invite leaders and ministers of exhibiting countries, heads of international organizations, representatives of domestic and foreign businesses and leading experts and scholars to participate in the forum.

Focused on promoting open, inclusive, beneficial-to-all, balanced and win-win economic globalization and building an open world economy, the forum offers a good platform for the participants to share ideas and make suggestions for boosting global trade and economic growth.

In addition, during the Expo, a series of professional supporting activities will be carried out, including supply and demand matching, industry seminars, product launches, etc., to better promote the matching of exhibitors and professional buyers.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council of China have paid close attention to the preparation of the First China International Import Expo, and have subsequently given approval to establish a preparatory committee for the expo.

Wang Yang, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and vice premier of the State Council, is the director of the committee. The committee consists of 19 ministries, departments and governments including the Ministry of Commerce, Shanghai Municipal People's Government, the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

On August 24, Wang presided over the first meeting of the preparatory committee and made a comprehensive preparation plan. The Implementation Plan for the China International Import Expo was approved by the Central leadership at the beginning of October.

The Ministry of Commerce and the Shanghai municipal government are taking several measures to prepare for the First China International Import Expo. Firstly, to make a detailed and clarified plan. We clearly defined responsibilities and administrative rules to coordinate all the supporting tasks. And plans were made in terms of inviting businesses and exhibitors, supporting the forum as well as urban management. A roadmap and timetable have been determined. Secondly, approval has been granted for the establishment of the China International Import Expo Bureau in Shanghai. Thirdly, to invite exhibitors from across the globe. We have already sent out invitations to over 200 trade partners around the world. And it is expected that there will be enterprises from more than 100 countries and regions taking part in this expo. Fourthly, to promote this event through various channels. The official website of the China International Import Expo has gone online today. And we will open a section for this expo on the website for the Ministry of Commerce. In order to promote public participation in this undertaking, we will collect submissions for logo designs through the official website and WeChat platform. Overseas promotional efforts will be carried out widely, in a bid to improve international understanding of this event.

Fourth, work plan for the future.

In accordance with the unified arrangements of the Import Expo Preparatory Committee, we will strengthen cooperation and achieve interconnected development in every dimension, striving to build an open cooperative platform where all countries can display their national development achievements and carry out international trade. We also aim to build the expo into an international public good helping promote building of the Belt and Road Initiative as part of the process of economic globalization, put into practice the new development philosophy, and advance a new round of the high-standard opening-up drive.

In the next step, we will go all out to complete the preparatory work and speed up the organization and publicity for inviting businesses, exhibitors and forums. At the same time, we will work out supporting approaches in greater detail to ensure the First China International Import Expo can be held as scheduled and be a great success.

Here, on behalf of the Preparatory Committee Office of China International Import Expo, I would like to extend our heartfelt appreciation for the representatives and guests from various governments, business circles, international organizations and institutions that plan to be present at the expo. We also welcome domestic enterprises to attend the expo for negotiating and purchasing activities. Thank you!

Hu Kaihong:

Thank you, Mr. Fu. Now, Mr. Zhou will brief you about the expo.

Zhou Bo:

I'm very happy to have this opportunity to brief you about Shanghai's preparations and efforts to host the first China International Import Expo. The choice of Shanghai as host city shows the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have full confidence in and give great support to our city. We feel deeply the significance of this task and we are extremely honored.

Shanghai has the necessary foundations, conditions and experience in hosting major international events, conferences and expos, such as the 2010 World Expo, the 2014 CICA Summit, the 2007 Special Olympics and the 2003 APEC Summit. Shanghai is also an efficient and convenient transportation hub. In terms of passenger volume, Shanghai Airport handles more than 100 million trips a year, and ranks fifth in the world. Pudong International Airport is within the top three of the world's airports in handling the import of goods. The container throughput of Port of Shanghai has topped the world for seven consecutive years. Shanghai's rail traffic network also ranks in the world front row along with Beijing.

Of course, Shanghai's urban management of infrastructure facilities, including precision-based urban management, are constantly being improved in accordance with the instructions of Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, who said a city should be managed as precisely as "doing embroidery." No matter if it is about eliminating traffic jams or about improving the city landscape, we have achieved effective results.

The Shanghai Municipal Committee of the CPC and the Shanghai municipal government attach great importance to this event and are doing preparatory work in the following fields.

Firstly, we have enhanced the organizational and leadership support. We established a special work team involving 36 government departments responsible for issues like commerce, finance, public security, customs and quarantine and inspection. The team is comprised of more than a dozen entities responsible for 16 special issues.

Second, we have stepped up our efforts to ensure a sound environment for city's operation. Take transportation as an example. The event is expected to attract a large number of participants and visitors, and thus will pose challenges for the operation of the city's transportation system. Luckily, Shanghai has good transportation facilities. With the help of information technology, intelligent management, big data, cloud computing and other approaches, our transportation system will run in an even better manner ready for the expo. Besides, we are working hard to build roads near the venue. There will be 13 new roads and several new parking lots. I'm sure transportation will be even more convenient than it is at present. Security is another public concern. We have taken a series of measures and adopted high technology to ensure things are under tight control and so as to eliminate hidden dangers. Our ultimate goal is to ensure the expo can operate in a safe and orderly manner.

Besides, we will ensure all expo participants can have easy access to healthcare services. We will do our best to receive and cater to their needs in an all-round way. We will ensure everything is ready for them, such as the urban environment, and the facilities for power, gas, water supply and sewage, telecommunication, and weather forecasting.

Thirdly, we'll step up with our efforts to provide professional services and all-round support. Although the expo will last for only six days, in accordance with what the Ministry of Commerce has required, we plan to offer all-round, 24 hour service throughout that period, and 365 days after the event ends, via online or offline channels. This is known as "six days plus 365 days" service. We'll continue to make exploration and innovation of the "3.0 version" of the Pilot Free Trade Zone, enhance reform, improve the functions of existing trade exhibition transaction and promotion platforms, and press ahead with alliances in four distinct aspects, namely, the alliance of businesses, the cross-border e-commerce alliance, the alliance of professional services and the alliance of commercial channels. We will provide a year-round online exhibition and open perennial State exhibition halls with services and conveniences that we should try our best to offer.

Hu Kaihong:

Thanks, Mr. Zhou. Now let's open the floor to questions. Please identify your media outlet before asking your question.

CCTV:

Why, in particular, is China going to hold the Import Expo at a time of sluggish global growth, rising trade protectionism and setbacks in economic globalization? Thank you.

Fu Ziying:

President Xi Jinping has systematically expounded China's firm stance on economic globalization on many major international occasions. Hosting the Import Expo is part of our efforts to implement China's stand on economic globalization and trade liberalization as presented by President Xi.

The import expo initiated by a developing country, China, is perhaps the only one of its kind in the world. It offers an opportunity for countries at varying development levels to present their achievements in trade and investment. It is also a platform for different parties to discuss international trade and other major global economic issues. This clearly demonstrates China's sincere readiness to open its market to the world and its assumption of the responsibility, as a major country, to advance economic globalization.

Major strategies to participate in and promote economic globalization, and develop an open economy, were set out in the report to the 19th CPC National Congress. We will implement the principles established by the congress, namely, strengthening cooperation with other countries and international organizations as well as mobilizing local governments, departments and enterprises to ensure the success of the first Import Expo. With this event as a bridge, China is ready to enhance communications with its trading partners around the world, boost global trade and economic growth to achieve win-win outcomes and common development. Thank you.

Jiefang Daily:

My question is for Mr. Zhou Bo. What initiatives will Shanghai undertake to seize the opportunities created by the expo to enhance the city's role as an international trade center?

Zhou Bo:

Building Shanghai into an international trade center is a national strategy. By 2020, the city is expected to be an international trade center which matches China's importance in the global economy and trade value. So far, we have greatly improved its ability to pool and allocate trade resources and attract innovative institutions.

For instance, the total volume of imports and exports handled in various ports in Shanghai accounted for more than one fifth of the nation's total. The imports handled in Shanghai accounted for 26.7 percent of the nation's total. Of the commodities imported into China via Shanghai, many represent a share of at least 30 percent in their individual market in the country. The service trade handled in Shanghai also accounted for more than 30 percent of the national total.

Besides, several commodity trading centers have been built in Shanghai. They all closely linked with the financial sector. The trade volume of Shanghai's financial markets reached nearly 1,400 trillion yuan, and the figure is expected to rise higher this year. Globally, Shanghai is one of the cities with the most complete financial facilities and infrastructure. We have 13 special financial institutions, including a stock exchange center, financial futures exchange center, gold exchange center, forex trade center, and insurance exchange center. With the help of the free trade zone established in Shanghai, we have made many positive attempts in improving trade facilitation, opening our economy wider, and improving investment environment. Many of our experiences are positive and can be used in other places in China.

The China International Import Expo will provide precious opportunities for Shanghai. First, we will improve our role in exports so as to better serve the country and the world. Shanghai has been a major export platform in China, and the expo will give us an opportunity to turn the city into an import platform too. Besides, we will open our economy wider to the outside world with the help of the upgraded free trade zone. We will work harder to use the zone to test the country's ability to cope with stress, to implement various pilot programs, and to promote the development of the Belt and Road Initiative.

More activities will be launched to enhance Shanghai's attractiveness as a trade center. We hope more new business will be formed and new models will emerge. We will do our best to support them. We hope we can help the expo exert a wider and deeper influence in the world. We also hope that we can make greater contributions to building Shanghai into an international trade center. Thank you.

China Daily:

What measures will the China International Import Expo take for the exports from developing countries and the least developed countries, especially for the entry of related products into the Chinese market? Thanks.

Wang Bingnan:

The most important goal of hosting the China International Import Expo is to provide a public platform for countries at different levels of development to improve their national influence and deepen their trade cooperation with others. We will take the following measures to assist the entry of related products from developing countries and the least developed countries into the Chinese market:

Firstly, sharing market opportunities and achieving common development. As we all know, China is a huge market with a population of over 1.3 billion. The demand for good quality and special products and services is increasing day by day. To set up such an international cooperation platform, we sincerely invite the developing countries and least developed countries to organize their companies to participate in the China International Import Expo. The China International Import Expo will provide them an opportunity to exhibit their special and competitive products and services, share the huge business opportunities in the Chinese market, strengthen their cooperation with China and other countries, and strive for mutually beneficial cooperation and common development.

Secondly, holding activities for promotion and facilitating cooperation channels. Trade and investment are inseparable and complementary. With the aim of facilitating the connectivity between trade and industry, and creating new channels for cooperation in trade and investment, we will organize a series of economic and commercial activities including a supply-demand meeting point, a negotiation meeting point and an investment seminar in accordance with the requirements from participating countries, especially from the developing countries and least developed countries.

Thirdly, providing assistance and improving support services. We will provide necessary assistance and help some developing countries and least developed countries at the China International Import Expo. For instance, we will reduce or waive exhibition fees for some countries. We will improve support services for the convenience of exhibitors and their products in entry and exit during the expo. According to different specifications and types of the products, we will establish an online and offline one-stop trading platform to provide display and trade services in a long term after the expo. Thanks.

The Wall Street Journal:

President Donald Trump will visit China. So, will there be any achievements made in terms of economy and trade after this visit? And before Trump's visit to China, what kind of exchanges have the both sides made in preparation? Compared to the President Obama's visit to China, what's the difference in terms of preparing the economic and trade activities? Also, will there be any new measures with regard to China's opening up?

Fu Ziying

Thanks for your questions, which feature a quite hot topic. China has already published the date of President Trump's visit and relevant information. What I can tell you is that Wilbur Ross, the US commerce secretary, will lead a business and trade delegation to China at the same time. Related economic and trade activities will be undertaken between China and the U.S., and cooperation agreements will be signed. As you asked about the preparations that both sides have made for this visit, I may say that we have already reached consensus on some aspects and we are striving to make achievements in terms of economy and trade, as well as the next stage of China-U.S. cooperation. We also expect the two sides will produce pragmatic achievements on the basis of a consensus shared between them, in a bid to promote the China-U.S. relationship to usher in a better future.

China National Radio (CNR):

This time, the countries invited to the China International Import Expo are not limited to those along the Belt and Road. Would you please tell us which countries the expo is mainly targeting and what has been taken into consideration for that? Thank you.

Wang Bingnan:

At the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) for International Cooperation, President Xi Jinping announced that China will host the China International Import Expo starting in 2018. Since then, the international community has attached great importance to the event, and many countries and companies have expressed their wishes to participate in the expo through different channels. In response to their concerns and to give all the participants easier and quicker access to the expo, the Import Expo Preparatory Committee Office has started the work for inviting exhibitors worldwide. In mid-October, we sent invitations to more than 200 trading partners. We hope corporations all over the world will participate in the expo as well. From the information we've got so far, the work for inviting exhibitors overseas is proceeding smoothly.

We estimate that more than 100 countries and regions will send their corporations to attend the first Import Expo. We will release a specific invitation list later, and we will keep you informed of the progress in a timely manner. Here it is necessary to point out that the first China International Import Expo is not an expo in the common sense. It is an open cooperative platform provided by China for all countries to display their national development achievements and carry out international trade. We will invite the participating countries on an extensive basis. And we sincerely welcome corporations and guests from all countries, including those along the Belt and Road, to be present at the first Import Expo. Thank you.

CRI:

You have just mentioned that the China International Import Expo will be made into a landmark project implementing the new development philosophy and promoting a new round of opening up. How should we understand that? And what benefits and effects will there be in holding such an expo to carry out the new development philosophy and deepen the opening up? Thank you.

Fu Ziying:

China has entered a new era, wherein the Chinese economy has entered a new normal. Foreign trade is an important force to stimulate China's economic growth. We must seriously study and understand the new development philosophy put forward by General Secretary Xi Jinping to promote the development of foreign trade in the new era.

The expo is one of the most important contents of that, and a most important step in the innovative development of foreign trade in the new era. We have to follow the new development philosophy, and made the expo into an innovative, coordinated, green, open and sharing event. Just now, Mayor Zhou said Shanghai is also working hard on various security and logistics aspects for the expo in accordance with the demands of green development. This expo is a high-level, low-carbon and green event, reflecting the demands of cyclic development. The threshold for participating in this expo is relatively high, and some of the products to be exhibited, including some services, must certainly meet the demands of the green economy, the demand for innovation, and the need for openness and sharing. They must fully show the new development philosophy.

Nikkei:

U.S. President Donald Trump will visit China next week. He is concerned with the imbalanced trade between U.S. and China. China's Ministry of Commerce has expressed its willingness to expand the import of American products. What products do you think can be included in these expanded imports by China?

Fu Ziying:

Thank you for your question. You might know that the governments, business circles and scholars of both countries pay close attention to the trade imbalance, which is an old question, as well as a new issue. The reasons for imbalanced trade are various and complicated. Every year, China's Ministry of Commerce will publish a whitepaper on foreign trade, explaining the current situation and the reasons for the imbalanced trade between China and the U.S., and expressing hopes and suggestions for solving the situation.

I mentioned that the reasons for the imbalanced trade are complicated. Fundamentally, the situation is caused by the different economic structures of the U.S. and China, the different industrial distribution of the two countries, and the international division of labor. Besides, the imbalanced trade also derives from the two countries' statistical systems, which inevitable contain statistical errors and have different methods of calculating entrepot trade factors. And there is a very important reason -- the U.S. controls on high technology equipment sales. China has a market demand, but the U.S. is not willing to satisfy its needs.

China keeps a favorable balance in the trade of labor-intensive products, but in the trades of capital and technology-intensive products, agriculture products, and especially services, China has seen a trade deficit for a long time. This fully proves that both in U.S. and China, no matter whether in commodities or services sector, trade always follows the market rules, and the result is decided by the market, the importers and the customers.

We could do some analysis. According to the data my colleague gave, China was the biggest foreign export market for the U.S., and it's also one of the markets with the fastest growth. In the past 10 years, the growth of U.S. exports to China reached 11 percent every year, which exceeded the four percent average level of the total exports of the U.S. in the same period. In 2016, the U.S. exports to China have quintupled from the figure in 2001; however, in the same period, U.S. exports to other countries only increased 90 percent overall. China has become an important overseas market for many American products. For example, China is the biggest market for U.S. airplanes and soybeans. As to automobiles, integrated circuits and cotton, China is America's second biggest export market. The 62 percent of soybeans, 17 percent of automobiles, 14 percent of cotton and 25 percent of Boeing aircraft sold overseas by the U.S. came to China. I would like to ask you, if China is not an open market, how could these goods have been exported to China? And three decades ago, could American goods be exported to China?

So, Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed that China did not pursue a trade surplus painstakingly. That's why we plan to hold the China International Import Expo. We will follow the new development philosophy and make adjustment to cope with China's new contradictions in the new era.

I had mentioned that Wilbur Ross, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, will lead a delegation to China. I know you are keen to know what goods will be imported and how many of them will be imported, but I must observe professional ethics and tell you now. However, I can assure you that the result will be positive and balanced. Thank you.

Dragon TV:

Mr. Zhou, would you please give us more details about the "six days plus 365 days" one-stop import transaction service platform, built both online and offline to facilitate business deals with professional support? Thank you.

Zhou Bo:

As I have briefed you, we'll provide professional, all-round and multi-pronged services to further strive for the expo's success. Following the guidance of the Ministry of Commerce, we'll establish a "six days plus 365 days" one-stop import transaction service platform within and beyond the period of the expo, making it part of our routine services.

First, we'll establish a one-stop import platform to provide regular transaction services. With the full-fledged development of the internet, we are able to forge ahead with a connection between exhibitors and purchasers with accurate information available both online and offline. We'll collect both supply and demand information, including the year-round, seasonal and one-off information, to narrow the information gap. At the same time, we'll constantly update purchase and trade dynamics, and also offer consultation and business match-making services.

Second, we'll expand multi-pronged connections and set up alliances among purchasers in different categories. We'll make full use of the influence of leading companies in different sectors to offer business match-making services for exhibitors and physical retailers, cross-border e-commerce, trade agents and exhibition and transaction centers. Take physical exhibition for example. We'll organize and explore exhibition platforms opening to various transactions and providing perennial showcases of the specialties of participant countries, especially, those involved in the "Belt and Road" Initiative.

Third, we'll pool market resources to provide a broad range of professional services. Shanghai enjoys certain advantages in the service sector inclusive to both domestic and overseas markets, and we'd be delighted if the service suppliers from home and abroad could join us to offer their professional support to purchasers and exhibitors all over the world. Thank you.

Macau Asia Satellite Television (MASTV):

You mentioned that enterprises from over 100 countries and regions will attend this expo. My question is: How will the Chinese government organize buyers to purchase at the scene so that the expo could achieve tangible results? Thanks.

Wang Bingnan:

As you said, merchants will play a vital role in this expo, and this aspect is going to take much effort from the Ministry of Commerce and the Shanghai Municipal Government. We will organize exhibitors and buyers to engage in purchasing activities under the government-guided, market-oriented and company-participation principle.

As for how to organize such work, we will take several measures. First, we will invite large-scale and competitive enterprises to attend the expo specifically for purchasing. We also welcome buyer delegations organized by specific provinces and cities, centrally administered state-owned enterprises, chambers of commerce as well as other countries. Second, in order to better promote the expo, we will hold press conferences and road shows in major target cities and countries. At the same time, we welcome the mainstream press, as well as new media such as Weibo and WeChat, to promote public awareness of the expo. Third, we will offer the list of exhibitors, information on products and their contact details to purchasers ahead of the expo, facilitating their negotiations and good communications at the scene. Fourth, we will provide better professional support services for trade promotion. We will build a one-stop import transaction service platform to help buyers and exhibitors apply for licenses and make appointments for business talks. Besides, the platform also provides services such as multilingual translation and business consulting. Through these efforts, we hope to have a successful and world-class import expo. Thanks.

Fu Ziying:

I would add that the China International Import Expo also provides an important trade platform for Hong Kong and Macao. We welcome enterprises from Hong Kong and Macao to attend the expo. We will have preferential policies for them to exhibit and carry out purchasing activities. Meanwhile, for companies in the Chinese mainland, they can only purchase at the expo, but will not be allowed to exhibit. All these arrangements are a reflection of the principle of "one country, two systems."

Shanghai Securities News:

The China International Import Expo being held next year is a major step for the country to expand imports. Specifically, what will the Ministry of Commerce do in the future to increase import? Thank you.

Wang Bingnan:

I'd like to stress the expo is an important measure for the country to increase its openness to the outside world in a new era. The Chinese government highly values imports. In recent years, we have taken active and effective policies to increase imports through multiple channels. Since 2013, the State Council has launched a series of policies and measures covering taxation, financing, optimized management and facilitation, all aimed at expanding imports and achieving balanced trade. In the future, we will focus on the following three aspects:

First, we will improve our fiscal, taxation and financial policies to encourage import expansion. We will reduce tariffs on some consumer goods to increase the inward flow and improve the overall import structure. By adjusting the "Catalogue of Encouraged Technology and Product Imports", and encouraging banking and financing agencies to strengthen their support of import credits, we will expand purchases of advanced technological equipment and key parts.

Second, we will improve the supply-demand relationship, as well as trade conditions, step up integrated customs clearance procedures and strengthen the quarantine inspection system to further facilitate inward trade.

Third, we will continue with import management reform to streamline administration, delegate more powers, enhance regulations where necessary and provide better services. We will explore innovations in the government supervision model, and improve import management and related services. At the same time, we will improve the import promotion system, strengthen the platforms that can promote imports and make further innovations in import trade modes. Take auto imports for example: We have explored innovative ways for parallel importation. More active exploration in such sectors will be carried out in the future.

While carefully preparing for the first expo, the Ministry of Commerce and related departments will continue to implement the aforementioned documents and policies issued by the State Council, improve and refine various policies and measures, try to create a fair, law-based, internationalized and effective business environment, and promote continued, healthy and stable growth of foreign trade. Thank you.

Hu Kaihong:

This is the end of today's conference. Thank you.

By Li Xiaohua, GuoXiaohong, Huang Shan, Yuan Fang, Chen Xia, Zhang Rui, Li Jingrong, Wu Jin, Zhang Liying, Zhou Jing, Cui Can, Gong Jie, GuoYiming, He Shan, Xu Lin, Wang Wei, Layne Flower, Christopher Georgiou, Geoffrey Murray
During his career, Howard Savage drove 1.7 million miles as a commercial trucker with only one accident -- and according to Savage, that was the other drivers fault.

On Wednesday afternoon Savage wasnt thinking of all those miles but the last few still to come as he arranged to fulfill a dying wish of going for one final drive through downtown Flagstaff in the 1955 Studebaker pickup truck he spent the last 22 years restoring.

Savage has terminal esophageal cancer and his lungs and heart are shutting down. On Wednesday afternoon his longtime friend Bob Pauley drove Savages truck to the front door of Flagstaff Medical Center just as Savage was being discharged to be transferred to the Forest House hospice.

Michael Hren, the nurse who had been looking after Savage, helped load an oxygen tank into the truck and then Savage into the passenger seat as family and friends gathered around the truck.

Despite being a 100 percent disabled veteran of the U.S. Army, Savage was able to pursue two passions, fishing and working on his 62-year-old Studebaker.

Oh, hes replaced the engine several times, the transmission, the rear end. It seems like we were always working on the truck to make it just right, Pauley said.

Savage didnt just work on the truck for looks. He was a frequent competitor on the quarter-mile track at the Speedworld Motorplex in Phoenix, clocking the distance in 12.9 seconds at speeds topping 105 mph.

When Savage was first diagnosed with cancer he had a two-week wait to see his oncologist, so on the spur of the moment he and his wife of 44 years, Elaine, jumped in the Studebaker for a 3,300-mile road trip to Chicago and back.

Despite being bedridden, Savage still bears the busted knuckles of a true grease monkey mechanic. Getting ready for his final ride in the truck, Savage used a laptop to type out a list of names of people who he wanted to thank. First on the list was his medical staff at the hospital.

These people here at the hospital have been absolutely wonderful and especially the nurses on the floor. Alex Beadles and Michael Hren have taken such good care of me, Savage said, referring to a pair of nurses on different shifts. My oncology doctor Dr. Mathern has been amazing.

Savage then went on to talk about all of the friends who have helped him with his truck over the years.

Ive had so many great people work with me, from Michael Faul at Flagstaff Mobile Mechanic to John Rodgers at Transmission Man and Rick and the boys at NAPA Auto Parts, Savage said.

As the Studebaker pulled away from the hospital and headed down the hill toward downtown Flagstaff, Savages face lit up with the rumble of the engine. With an arm cocked on the windowsill and the wind in his hair, Savage took in all the familiar sights as Pauley drove him along Aspen Avenue and around Heritage Square.

At one point a young driver in a canary yellow Camaro roared past impatient with the slow progress of the Studebaker and Savage savoring the sights. As the Camaro roared away a hand came out of the passenger window of the Studebaker with just one finger extended. Howard Savage wasnt going to tolerate any disrespect during his last drive and still had the gumption to return the gesture.

Savages other love is fishing. His passion for fishing was so deep that when his wife Elaine declared that she wasnt interested, he got himself another fishing partner. Fiona Wilkie was the neighbor to Howard and Elaine and shared Howards passion for fishing and accompanied him on so many fishing outings that Howard and Elaine jokingly referred to her as his second wife. Savage has given his fishing boat to Wilkie and has left instructions with his family to scatter his ashes at his favorite fishing holes at Kaibab and Ashurst Lakes.

Ive heard that being cremated is your last chance to get a really hot body, Savage joked.

Its nice its my heart thats killing me, he said. I will get to die a peaceful death, no stabbing or wreck or driveby. Im not going to have a violent death. Im not scared.

While Savage is pragmatic about the little time he has left and the journey ahead of him, hes not quite done living yet. On Thursday night he arranged to make one more last wish happen by having a small group of friends come to his room for a final game of poker.
 Flash

China: Time of Xi gets to discover what's changing in the country, what China's unique experience could offer the world, and what drives the man himself.

Over three fast-moving episodes, beautifully-shot, character-led case studies from four continents are pulled into sharp focus by the arresting contributions of a panel of the world's leading "China watchers," revealing what makes China and its president tick at this key moment in the country's story.

Episode 3: All Aboard

As best-selling author Prof. Martin Jacques comments: "China is exercising global power, political power, cultural power, economic power, intellectual power, moral power. China is coming of age." Touching down on four continents, we discover how the influence of this new China is changing communities and lives  from Africa to Asia to Europe. As a young Kenyan woman takes the controls of a Chinese-funded express train in Nairobi, and a former mayor of Venice dreams that a China-backed deep-water portwill bring a renaissance to his home city , we explore the mega construction projects of the Belt and Road Initiative. With stories from Cambodia, Indonesia and the U.S., we interrogate Xi Jinping's vision for a global "community of common destiny" as China takes its place as a leading player on the world stage. Is it an inspiring vision for a new world order, or a cloak for China's global ambitions? As Xi Jinping starts his next five years in power, the world is waiting to see where China goes next.
You are here: Home

Chinese police have rounded up 58 suspected arms traders across 16 provinces after a monthslong investigation into an organized crime network.

A police officer checks gun parts that were seized during an operation in Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Locations in 50 cities were raided, resulting in the discovery of two weapons assembly workshops, 40 foreign-made firearms and 7,779 rounds of ammunition, police in Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, said in a statement on Tuesday.

The probe was launched in January when police in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, asked colleagues in Liuzhou to track 14 packages sent to the city that were believed to contain gun parts.

A month later, a joint investigation into a bank account led to the identification of a suspect, surnamed Wu. Police said he confessed to working with two gun dealers based overseas whom he had known since 2015.

The dealers would dismantle the firearms and then smuggle them part by part into Shenzhen, where they would be shipped to Liuzhou by express delivery, police said Wu told them.

Wu had used Liuzhou as a base to traffic and reassemble firearms, and had made a fortune selling the guns to customers in China, the police said.

Under Chinese law, owning, manufacturing, selling, transporting or renting guns is forbidden.

During further investigation, the police uncovered an organized network involved in making and selling guns across 16 provincial regions.

The Ministry of Public Security sent 32 teams to break up the operation. In addition to the suspected arms traders, 25 buyers were also taken into custody, police said.

In a separate case, police in Taizhou, Jiangsu province, said on Thursday that they had caught a gang making and selling guns, and seized 180 firearms.

More than 3,000 gun parts and 20,000 rounds of ammunition were seized after an investigation that lasted two and half months, said Cao Xiang, police chief of Jiangyan district.

Fourteen suspects, including the alleged leader, surnamed Shen, were detained. Shen confessed to the illegal manufacturing, processing and selling of gun parts, the police said.
A recent letter from a Zhejiang primary school has prompted heated debate on social media.

The row centers on the extent to which parents should get involved in their children's education.

The letter from the school was titled, 'Allowing parents to bid farewell to homework checking,' a phenomenon particularly popular in Chinese. "Checking homework is the basic responsibility of each teacher, while parents have their own business to worry about," the letter goes on.

Naturally all parents want the best for their child. China's one-child policy, which has only recently been relaxed in the last few years, made educating your only child even more of an obsession.

Teachers too want children to succeed. That's their job after all.

Recent years have seen the growth in what's sometimes called 'Parental Homework,' where teachers have encouraged mothers and fathers to correct homework on their behalf, and guide their children's study, piling yet more concern on already busy parents.

A recent survey of 2001 parents (71.5% of which had young children or were parents of primary school students) showed that 81.8% were lumbered with 'parental homework.' A call for an end to checking and signing off on children's homework was supported by 79.3% of those questioned.

The practice of signing their names in exercise books as a way to prove that they had joined in their children's study process, surfaced in the last 10 years. The original intention was to create more opportunities for parents to interact with their children. However, simply signing their names soon expanded into the expectation that they had to correct the homework instead of the teachers.

However, if the onus of teaching children is shifted back onto schools, what then should be the role of parents? According to the survey, the majority believe the main responsibility of parents is to shape their child's personality and character. Teachers, they believe, should stick to teaching, and rely less on parents.

Some are concerned however that a move away from the 'parental homework' phenomenon, might mean parents being 'absent' from their child's education.

Professor Tang from Suzhou University said, schools can't shirk their duties regardless of how closely they co-operate with parents. Parents should act as watch-dogs. People should avoid extremes and find a balance.
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China's largest cutter-suction dredger is due to be launched on Friday in the city of Qidong, Jiangsu Province, reports China Youth Daily.

China's largest cutter-suction dredger, the Tiankun, was due to be launched on November 3, 2017. [File Photo: VCG]

The Tiankun, which is 140-meter-long and 27.8-meter-wide, can dredge to a depth of 35 meters, and carry its load for 15-thousand meters.

The dredger was designed by the China State Shipbuilding Corporation, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Guangzhou Wenchong Shipyard as well as the China Merchants Industry, and was built by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries.

Tiankun is larger and has greater capability than the Tianjing, formerly the largest cutter-suction dredger in Asia, which was built with imported parts.

Wang Jian, President Assistant at the China Communications Construction Tianjin Dredging Group, says Tiankun represents a landmark as China's first independently developed heavy-duty self-propelled cutter-suction dredger, over which China has completely independent intellectual property rights.

Tiankun leads the field of similar boats in the world in terms of distance of delivery and in many other respects.

Its advanced systems allow automated dredging and monitoring. It can also carry out dredging and reclamation work at ports, in coastal waters, in addition to deep-sea operations.

It will be put into service in the first half of 2018.
U.S. President Donald Trump [Xinhua]

It will not be long before President Trump is in a position to experience the newly confident China in the wake of President Xi's course-setting speech to the 19th National Party Congress.

This trip was planned well before the Congress, and was intended to focus largely on the de-escalation of the impending nuclear crisis involving the DPRK. It is clear that the aversion of conflict is a key common interest of the two great powers, and that some degree of consensus on the way forward will be essential to this end.

Given the recent rancorous exchanges between Trump and DPRK leader Kim Jong-un, it would seem likely that the former will try to instil a greater sense of urgency into negotiations. But China is aware that precipitate actions carry with them the increased risk of a misstep, and so will probably wish to exercise a calming influence.

But, for a number of reasons, the scope of the visit has extended far further than peace on the Korean peninsula. There is still some doubt and anxiety over where Trump's decision to withdraw from a general Pacific trade agreement  the TPP  leaves the U.S.'s trading partners in the Asia-Pacific region, and Trump has some reassuring to do.

He was approached by a number of Asian leaders at the UN General Assembly in September to urge him to use the opportunity of his Asia visit to provide some reassurance. Trump will, accordingly, be present at the APEC forum in Vietnam, and also  after some hesitation  at the ASEAN meeting in Manila.

Trump had earlier been reluctant to attend, following some clashes with President Duterte  like Trump himself, a somewhat undiplomatic character  but ASEAN leaders convinced him that his absence would be most unhelpful to the region's interests. (Duterte, sensibly, has welcomed Trump's attendance in Manila, saying that the U.S./Philippine relationship is resilient enough to withstand a few differences of opinion.)

The other proposed destinations  Japan and the ROK  are already well-established U.S. allies, and so it is hardly surprising that the U.S. President should want to discuss the Korean nuclear issue with them, though neither is likely to be in a position to exert much influence; they will simply want to know what the Americans plan to do, and give their input before Trump goes to China.

Nonetheless, the fact that Trump is combining his visit to China with a tour of regional allies has caused alarm bells to ring in China. The Chinese ambassador in Washington, Cui Tiankai, has already issued an open warning to the U.S. not to try to operate a containment policy against China.

The Trump team has been working on an "Indo-Pacific" strategy since last spring, which China fears may be an attempt to forge an anti-Chinese "encirclement" based around India and Japan. But Cui said: "I don't think it will be in the interest of any countries if their aim is to contain China." No-one seriously believes that this would be possible; all the same, China has found it necessary to fire a shot across the bows of the U.S. hawks.

However, Ambassador Cui's message was not entirely negative. He recognized that American policy in East Asia does not necessarily need to be directed against China; as he said, this is not a zero-sum game. China recognized that the USA has legitimate interest in the Pacific region. And, on the perennial problem of the trade deficit, the Ambassador recognized that it was in the interest of both countries to reduce it gradually. And he also expected that the U.S. and China would be able to make "significant progress" on the Korean nuclear issue during Trump's visit to China.

Trump faces two major problems, and China could be of help to him in resolving both of them; the first, of course, is halting the drift towards open conflict with the DPRK, and the second is his need to talk tough to his electorate at home without disruption to relations with essential partners like China. So he feels the need to bring home tangible results, both on the security front and on trade. He cannot expect to extract concessions which would leave China at a disadvantage; so both sides must aim for a win-win outcome.

Trump has damaged his position in Asia by a lack of clarity on trade issues and by some provocative posturing on security issues. It can only be hoped that this Asian tour gives him an opportunity to provide clarity on U.S. intentions to the countries of the region, whether U.S. allies or not. And, most important of all, it will give him the opportunity for deeper engagement with a China which is positioning itself as a focus of stability and good sense within the Asia-Pacific region.

Tim Collard is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/timcollard.htm
Should tribal sovereignty end where animal cruelty and neglect begin?

That was the case last year when the U.S. Attorneys Office in Flagstaff arrested a Havasupai tribal member on charges of abusing one of his pack animals. Leland Joe pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges of animal cruelty and is serving three years of supervised probation during which he must give up four of his horses. He also must pay $1,200 in restitution.

The horse is part of a herd of nearly 400 in Havasu Canyon kept by tribal members to ferry supplies and tourists from the rim to the campground and waterfalls below, then back out again. Because thousands of tourists visit the canyon each year, the horses get closer scrutiny than most, and many visitors are not shy about complaining to authorities when they see protruding ribs, open sores and untreated wounds because of underfeeding or carrying too much weight.

Fast forward to last month, and it was the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs that again blew the whistle on horse mistreatment by a tribal member. The horses owner, Cecil Watahomigie, was arrested and faced a federal charge in Flagstaff of animal cruelty.

But thats where the similarities end. In the months since the Leland Joe case, the Havasupai have hired a tribal prosecutor and a tribal court judge. And so before Watahomigies case could come before a federal judge, he pled guilty to animal cruelty in tribal court and received a 30-day jail sentence that is suspended if he completes his 6-month probation. The abused horse will be returned to him if he demonstrates during random inspections that he can properly care for his other horses.

Because tourism is the main industry of the tribe, it has a vested interest in putting its best face forward to visitors, and that starts at the trailhead on the rim. The adverse publicity from the Leland Joe case prompted them to start an animal control office and a licensing and permitting program under which horses that dont meet minimum body condition requirements arent allowed to pack. They also charge outfitters a license fee of $7,500 a year, with the revenues designated in part for animal welfare oversight.

Further, the tribe welcomed for the first time a relief trip by the Humane Society of the United States to Supai, including a veterinarian, food and medicines. The visitors conducted classes on proper equine care along with animal cruelty and mistreatment.

On paper, then, the tribe had the resources and training in place to monitor and enforce better horse treatment. But in the case of Watahomigie, it still took an outside agent of the BIA to make the initial legal move after continued complaints by tourists. And when the tribal prosecutor and court did act, the sentence, say animal rights activists, didnt reflect the defendants history of animal mistreatment dating back to at least 2014, according to evidence submitted by the U.S. Attorneys Office.

There may be some justice that was left undone in this case. A repeat offender like Watohomigie isnt likely to be scared straight by a suspended jail sentence and the confiscation of just one horse.

But as tribal officials have pointed out, its not cheap to feed and care for a working pack horse in such a remote location, especially in the summer heat. Estimates start at $4,800 a year, and thats just in Phoenix. Horse owners compete to place their animals with outfitters, and that can drive down prices that are felt by horses at feeding time and in fewer vet visits, or by owners agreeing to more weight to curry favor with outfitters.

At this point, it might be time for tribal intervention in the private horse market. Officials could declare the outfitting industry a public conveyance, essentially making it a utility under a tribal tourism corporation subject to more regulation and price setting. Outfitters would deal with a single tribal pack horse registry, not directly with horse owners. The corporation would place only those horses that were fit for duty, and owners would either be guaranteed compensation sufficient to care properly for their animals or they could turn them over to the corporation and sign on as employees. Outfitters would be barred from bringing in their own animals, thus incentivizing them to work with tribal animals in a way that kept a healthy herd available to them.

Such an arrangement is common in localities that deal with other monopoly industries, such as electric power and mass transit. In the case of Havasupai horses, its purpose would be to assure the sustainability of what literally powers the tribes only industry.

The current free market arrangement promotes a race to the bottom by horse owners who have no other income options and hungry horses to feed. Setting a sustainable price floor and weight limits for pack horse rentals is essential, and that means the tribe must take more ownership of the tourism industry, if not the horses themselves.
Inspur Group Co Ltd, China's biggest server maker, formed an alliance with global tech giants and Chinese financial institutions on Thursday to provide IT solutions to economies participating in the Belt and Road, or B&R, Initiative.

This is the first alliance initiated by enterprises to serve countries and regions involved in the B&R Initiative, according to Inspur.

Tech players IBM and Cisco Systems Inc, financial and retail services provider Diebold Nixdorf, and telecoms major Ericsson AB are part of the alliance.

Together with Inspur, they will offer solutions for cloud data centers, financial services, taxation, smart cities and other projects.

"The Belt and Road Initiative is not only about connecting ports, railways and highways, but also about freeing up the flow of information and data and enhancing digital links among those countries and regions," said Sun Pishu, chairman and CEO of Inspur.

National banks and insurance companies including the China Development Bank, the Export-Import Bank of China and China Export & Credit Insurance Corp will provide financial support for relevant projects.

"Our alliance is meant to solve both technical bottlenecks and capital shortages that are limiting the development of economies related to the Belt and Road Initiative, especially in their efforts to accelerate informatization," Sun said, without disclosing specific investment plans.

The move is in line with China's broad plan to promote innovation.

The country is making significant progress in the IT sector, with breakthroughs already made in both hardware and software.

Wang Endong, chief scientist of Inspur, said: "After years of development, China has leapt from a follower to a leader in innovation in server-related technologies. China outpaced other countries in server patent applications, which will offer a strong momentum to growth."

Inspur said earlier it aims to double its overseas revenue from 20 percent of total revenue in 2016 to 40 percent by 2020.

As of now, the Shandong-based company's IT products are available in 113 countries and regions.

Its sales footprint covers half of the economies related to the B&R Initiative, including Thailand, Malaysia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

In Saudi Arabia, Inspur has provided its high-tech products and solutions to sectors and industries such as agriculture, healthcare, aerospace and new vehicle materials.

"Different from other cooperations, the alliance will bring China's high-tech prowess to countries like Nigeria, one of most populous countries of Africa, which will meet our urgent need for solving mounting security problems and promoting intelligent education," said Amb Kabiru Rabiu, a representative of the government of Kano, which is an important province in Nigeria.
China Life Insurance Co Ltd, the country's largest life insurer by market share, will invest actively in international markets, seeking greater exposure to assets including overseas stock markets, real estate and infrastructure projects, a senior executive said on Thursday.

Zhao Lijun, the insurer's vice-president, said that China Life remains "positive" on overseas investment and will seek opportunities under the Belt and Road Initiative.

China Life has invested in a string of overseas deals last year including a stake worth 346 million pounds ($452 million) in Aldgate Tower in London as well as the $2 billion stake in Starwood Capital Group's US hotels portfolio.

Meanwhile, the insurer will boost investment in domestic strategic and emerging sectors including healthcare, information technology and logistics, Zhao told reporters at a news conference in Beijing.

China Life will also actively invest in projects related with the reform of country's State-owned enterprises including debt-for-equity swaps to help reduce the debt burden of the SOEs, according to Zhao.

The insurer posted a 98.3 percent increase in net profit in the first three quarters this year, which soared to 26.8 billion yuan ($4.1 billion) due to higher investment income on the back of a rising stock market, it said in a statement.

The insurer has total investable capital of about 2.6 trillion yuan and it will stick to a steady and long-term investment strategy by investing mainly in bonds and stocks while exploring opportunities in alternative assets such as private equities and trust products, Zhao said.

China Life has also set up an investment fund of 12 billion yuan to invest in healthcare and medical industries.

The insurer also teamed up with internet giant Baidu Inc to launch an internet investment fund of 14 billion yuan.

It also tapped into the logistic sector by forming an 8.5 billion yuan fund with e-commerce giant Alibaba Group's delivery arm Cainiao Network Technology Co Ltd. Lin Dairen, president of China Life, said that the insurer will continue to optimize its business and premium structures, expanding sales of protection products and increasing the proportion of its long-term premium income. He added that the insurer will continue to see double-digit premium growth in the coming years.
Canada is expecting China to come out with more detailed policies to further reform and opening-up and promote international cooperation, a top business organization said.

In his speech to the recently concluded 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping said increased international engagements would help in the country's prosperity, according to Graham Shantz, president of the Canada China Business Council (CCBC). The CCBC is a nonprofit business association that helps its members to grow their businesses in China and Canada.

Shantz served for over 25 years in Canada's public service providing advice to Canadian governments, mainly on management of Canada's relations with Asia.

"We are optimistic that the concrete policies pursued by the government will boost bilateral ties between Canada and China and benefit our members from the two countries", he said.

China has been making efforts to reform and develop the global governance system and Xi emphasized a shared future for mankind in his keynote address.

As an expert who has studied China for almost 40 years, Shantz said that Xi's vision of the positive role, that China can play internationally, can be an important contribution to international relations.

He said that China's increased prosperity has led to greater trade and, importantly, to greater engagement by China internationally, from which all countries are benefiting.

Xi's speech outlines a positive and constructive role for China to play in the decades ahead and this could be very important to not just global prosperity, but major issues of global peace and security, he said.

As for Xi's pledge to develop a modernized economic system, Shantz said that the CCBC is looking forward to more steps in the next five years that will translate the Chinese leader's vision into initiatives.

"We expect the Chinese government to put in place mechanisms so that the country can deepen its engagements abroad," he said.

The key to China's remarkable economic development, he said, has been the reform and opening-up policy.

"It is my view that further success of the policy hinges on ever-deepening engagements with other countries. This includes deepening trade and investment links and people-to-people connections for China, globally, including with Canada," he said.
Visitors take photographs of an oil platform in Guanabara Bay in Niteroi, near Rio de Janeiro, the capital of Brazil. Chinese oil majors are looking to expand investment in the South American nation.[Photo/Agencies]

Deal expected to boost cooperation between China and oil rich South American country

Chinese oil giants are eyeing an expanded presence in Brazil, winning holdings in three blocks awarded in Brazil's deepwater oil auction in a historic opening of the pre-salt play to foreign operators.

Consortiums comprising China's three major oil giants, China National Petroleum Corp, China Petroleum & Chemical Corp and China National Offshore Oil Corp, have respectively won three blocks recently, deepening the energy cooperation between the two countries.

Analysts said Chinese oil and gas companies' participation show the growing interest of China, the world's top crude oil importer, in Brazil, and it is believed the presence of Chinese energy behemoths will further enhance in the future, as both countries are complimentary in resources, technology and capital.

China has the technology, the capital and most important, the demand for crude oil, and Brazil is definitely an ideal partner while also playing a significant role in the Belt and Road Initiative, said Li Li, research director for the energy sector at ICIS China, a consultancy focused on the energy industry.

Brazil put six of the eight blocks on offer in the auction for the rights to pump oil from its coveted pre-salt region, where billions of barrels of oil are trapped below thousands of feet of salt in the country's Atlantic waters.

The three blocks include Peroba, located in the Santos basin and boasting an estimated 5.3 billion barrels of oil, Alto de Cabo Frio West in the Santos basin and Sapinhoa, located in the same region with an estimated 350 million barrels of oil.

President Michel Temer said recently that the development of the blocks would lead to 100 billion reais ($30.84 billion) in investment from the winning companies for Brazil.

Energy cooperation between China and Brazil, a basis for economic and social development, has great potential and China has witnessed a large amount of imported oil from Brazil in recent years, said Zhou Dadi, a senior researcher at the China Energy Research Society.

Many oil majors including Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp and BP also won blocks during the auction, the first in four years to offer up stakes of Brazil's pre-salt, where has over 5 billion in proven oil reserves and nearly 3 billion cubic meters of gas, according to Reuters.

However, Chinese companies should conduct thorough research in another country's economic situation, policy on foreign investment and energy similarities, so as to ensure win-win cooperation, Zhou said.

China imported 281.1 million metric tons of crude in the first eight months of this year, equivalent to 8.44 million barrels per day, according to Customs data, up 12.3 percent from the same period in 2016.
Chinese home appliances giant Haier Group is building a washing machine plant in Hefei, the capital of East China's Anhui province, that can produce three million units every year.

The company's move comes close on the heels of its main competitor Meiling's decision to set up a washing machine plant in Hefei with an annual capacity of 2 million units. Both the units will be in the Hefei Economic and Technological Development Area (HETDA), which also has home appliance plants of Midea and Gree.

Haier's new plant, with an investment of 1.01 billion yuan ($153 million), is based on the original plant previously owned by a joint venture of Jinan Iron & Steel and Hitachi Construction Machinery.

"Haier will put the plant into operation before the end of the year", said Ma Long, director of the industrial development department of HETDA's administration committee.

"Haier has been running a home appliances plant in Hefei since 2000, and the new plant, to produce high-end drum-type washers, is expected to double Haier's annual output value in the area from the currently over 10 billion yuan", said Ma, adding that the area now produces about 3.5 million washing machines every year.

The Haier plant will mainly serve the domestic market, while the Meiling plant will deliver 30 percent to 40 percent of its washing machines to overseas markets.

"The first phase, which is based on a former photovoltaic plant, will be finished by June to make one million washing machines annually, while the second phase will also be ready in the year following the complete of the first phase", said Huang Danian, deputy chief executive officer of Hefei Meiling Co Ltd.

"Meiling sold more than 600,000 washing machines in 2016, far from meeting the global demand," said Huang.

Earlier this year, Meiling and the Italian company Candy Group established a 150 million yuan joint venture in Hefei. The joint venture will focus on research & development and sales of refrigerators and washing machines, while the manufacturing plant will be owned exclusively by Meiling.

"Meiling washing machines will generally be bigger and offer more options to wash different types of clothing and apply internet of things technologies."

"More and more locally-based home appliances makers are upgrading their product catalogue to more high-end products", said Ma of HETDA.
HAVANA -- A new space to deepen trade relations between Cuba and China was celebrated on Thursday of the XIII Bilateral Business Committee where companies from both nations explored new trade and business opportunities.

Within the framework of the 35th Havana International Trade Fair (FIHAV 2017), the event was attended by more than 70 businessmen from both countries and led by the Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce of Cuba, Odalys Seijo and Hong Xiao, economic and commercial counselor of the Embassy of China in the Island country.

Seijo recalled that Cuba was the first country in the region to establish relations with the People's Republic of China, which led to close historical ties.

"Strong cooperation relationships were established in various sectors that have been strengthened and diversified over time, reaching higher levels which have made China our main trading partner in the exchange of goods," she said.

The Cuban official said the committee, beyond an exhibition of products or a business forum, is also a reflection of the friendship between both countries and the growing possibilities of establishing new trade and investment agreements.

"We hold this meeting of the bilateral business committee at a time when Cuba continues to update its economic and social model and with new foreign investment policies and strategic development projections until 2030," she said.

In this regard, Seijo expressed her country's wishes to see more Chinese entrepreneurs participate in the new business opportunities presented by Cuba at this fair.

Meanwhile, Hong Xiao, economic and commercial counselor at the Chinese embassy, called the event "an efficient dialogue and communication platform" between Chinese and Cuban companies through which better mutual understanding and trust are achieved.

"The economic-commercial cooperation between Cuba and China continues to grow and expand in a dynamic and diversified way and despite some latent obstacles we hope to have a bright future and great expectations," she said.

She also noted that in 2016, China stood out as Cuba's main partner in the import and export of goods while the island country is Beijing's largest trading partner in the Caribbean region, due to the joint efforts of entrepreneurs from both nations.

"This year, Cuba's exports to China must grow at an impressive rate. However, China's exports to Cuba are experiencing difficult times and to this day the pressure continues for many businessmen due to the economic difficulties that this Caribbean nation is going through," she said.

Hong indicated that Cuba proposed a new business portfolio with attractive investments at FIHAV 2017 and invited more Chinese companies to strengthen exchanges.

A commercial delegation from the Chinese province of Henan, led by Wan Xu, deputy secretary general of the Henan provincial government, also participated in the event.

Several Chinese and Cuban companies presented their perspectives for development and cooperation to promote new commercial ties.
ATHENS -- Greek and Chinese state officials and representatives of major enterprises signed here Thursday a series of memoranda of understanding to promote bilateral economic cooperation in key sectors under the 2017-2019 Greece-China Action Plan.

The plan was sealed in May this year in Beijing during the visit of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

Following the inaugural meeting in Beijing of the working groups established for the materialization of this framework, a Chinese delegation led by National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) Vice-Head Ning Jizhe visited the Greek capital for the second meeting in order to advance collaboration.

"The basis of this cooperation we believe is that Greece's growth strategy meets China's Belt and Road Initiative and the benefits are mutual," Greek Deputy Economy and Development Minister Stergios Pitsiorlas said welcoming the Chinese delegation.

"Today we have the first tangible results. The signing of a series of agreements and MOUs are the first steps in the implementation of this action plan; therefore we are on the right path," he said.

On his part, Ning said he is happy to see that the action plan has provided a good collaboration platform and some initial tangible results have been achieved.

Ning hoped that under the principle of planning together, building together and benefiting together, the two sides can enhance their cooperation on investment, trade, and industrial capacity under the Belt and Road Initiative.

On Thursday, the two sides specified details of cooperation projects included in the three-year action plan, and witnessed the signing of several MOUs which are expected to further boost bilateral ties.

Among them was the signing of an agreement between Shenhua, China's largest coal producer, through its subsidiary for renewable energy sources Shenhua Renewable Co Ltd and Copelouzos Group, one of the largest investment groups in Greece, for the acquisition of 75 percent of the shares of four wind parks developed by the Greek company.

In addition, a three-party agreement (MOU) was signed between Shenhua, Copelouzos Group and Power Public Corporation (PPC), Greece's largest power utility, for the entrance of Shenhua as a partner in the joint company of PPC and Copelouzos Group, PPC Solar Solutions.

ADMIE, Greece's power transmission operator, also signed an MOU with China Development Bank, following the acquisition earlier this year of a minority stake in the company by China's State Grid.

ADMIE Chairman and CEO Manos Manoussakis told Xinhua that cooperation with the Chinese side so far has been excellent -- the efficiency of ADMIE has already improved and subsequently the company seeks deeper collaboration with Chinese partners.

"Today we signed a very important memorandum of understanding with China Development Bank in order to explore the possibilities for financing our new projects and our company's working capital," Manoussakis said.

"Ahead of us, there are great interconnection projects between the mainland of Greece and the Greek islands, and also international interconnection projects in the Mediterranean sea," he added.
Xiong Xiaoge, IDG Capital Global Chairman. [Photo/VCG]

Leading venture capital firm IDG Capital and Credit Wealth Management, an independent wealth management arm of CreditEase Group, has formed a comprehensive strategic partnership at the latter's 2017 private equity investment forum held in Beijing on Friday.

IDG Capital invested in CreditEase as early as 2011 when CreditEase needed help, said Tang Ning, founder of CreditEase, whose peer-to-peer lending arm Yirendai listed on the New York Exchange on Dec 18, 2015, China's first fintech company that went public.

"IDG Capital was lucky to have been early investors in two of China's BAT companies, Baidu and Tencent, and we are always looking forward to capturing companies which can go beyond the BAT," said IDG Capital Global Chairman Xiong Xiaoge, also known as Hugo Shong.

Tang said CreditEase has accumulated numerous highnet-worth-individuals, many of whom run businesses in the traditional economy but want to benefit from the new economy too.

CreditEase's Fund of Funds will be "the best way", not even "one of the best ways" for them to embrace the economy as these funds, unlike VC/PE funds which are open mainly to institutional investors and invest in companies in a certain sector, are open to individual investors and invest in VC/PE funds themselves, said Tang.

Tang added that CreditEase's Fund of Funds has already invested in IDG Capital's PE funds and these two companies also launched an angle investor Fund of Funds early this year.

At the forum, CreditEase launched an AI+FOFs system, which leverages on artificial intelligence to augment the companies' capability to select investable targets.

The system enables analysis of 20,000 institutions via 60 dimensions such as styles of their management teams, when they exit from companies they have invested in and who buy into these companies.
Visitors look at a model of a housing project at a real property exhibition in Beijing. [Photo provided to China Daily]

BEIJING  China will prohibit property developers, real estate agencies as well as internet finance and micro-loan companies from offering illicit downpayment financing for buyers, as the government seeks to rein in overheated property prices in major cities.

Using funds obtained through channels, such as consumer loans for property purchases, will also be banned, according to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

The ministry said it would work with the central bank and banking regulator to act against money laundering in the property market.

Institutions that are found to break the rules will be punished, according to the regulator.

It also requires banks to scrutinize funding sources of downpayments and the authenticity of income certificates.

The measures came as soaring property prices have made housing affordability a growing problem for policy makers. Since last year, dozens of local governments have passed or expanded restrictions on house purchases and increased minimum downpayments.

Chinese authorities have constantly reiterated that "houses are built for living in, not speculation."

At a press conference on the sidelines of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Wang Menghui, minister of housing and urban-rural development, said authorities were studying a "long-term mechanism" for real estate regulation and advancing legislative work on developing the rental market.

He pledged to move faster to "implement a housing system that ensures supply through multiple sources, provides housing support through multiple channels, and encourages both housing purchase and renting."
Its been 50 years since Dr. David Gleason started fixing teeth in Beatrice.

Gleason opened his dental practice in 1967 when he was two years out of dental school. Over the past half-century, Gleason has been filling cavities, fixing dentures and making smiles brighter for residents of Gage County.

Gleasonwho works alongside his sons, Dan and Timonly practices about one day a week, but hes in the office most days working in one capacity or another.

Born in Red Oak, Iowa, Gleason moved to Beatrice with his family when he was 10. He graduated from Beatrice High School in 1959, finished dental school in 1965 and joined the Air Force right at the height of the Vietnam War.

His dad was a pipeline supervisor when he was growing up and he thought about becoming an engineer until he met Dr. Jim Winchell, a Beatrice dentist.

Gleason started watching Winchells work and talking with him about the industry, eventually deciding to become a dentist himself.

After leaving the military, Gleason bought a three-bedroom house on Lincoln Street and set up shop.

At first, it was just him, performing basic dentistry: fillings, extractions, dentures and the like. He added a hygienist, followed by other staff and eventually, his son, Tim, joined about 25 years ago. His other son, Dan, also joined around 10 years ago.

The office started doing implants, laser surgeries and orthodontics, things Gleason said he would never have considered 50 years ago.

He still takes continuing education courses to maintain his dental license, he said. It requires putting in 30 hours of education every two years, but its a way to keep up on the latest in dentistry.

The surgical part was always one of my favorite things, he said. Although, we're trying to save teeth, we hate to be taking them out. There are certain things that you do that are kind of more interesting.

Doing fillings all day can get to be monotonous, he said, so being able to do some light surgery and getting to restore peoples teeth is a little more exciting.

He still gets patients who first came to him 50 years ago, he said. Hes treated them, as well as their children and grandchildren.

Gleason likes working with people, he said, which is one of the best parts of the job. However, hes thinking about retiring soon, he said, as he and his sons recently opened up a new dental office in town.

I'm 76 years old, so I don't know how much longer I'm going to keep going, Gleason said. I'm not going to go too much longer. They're doing so many techniques that I don't have any experience in now that I've kind of let them take over most of the tough stuff.
Employees work at a production line of Dongfeng factory in Chengdu, Sichuan province in September last year.[Provided to China Daily]

Dongfeng Motor has unveiled its first research and development studio named after an individual, reflecting the Chinese auto giant's commitment to its innovation-driven strategy.

Auto Fan studio, situated in Dongfeng's Shiyan, Hubei province production base, is led by Fan Yue. The auto research veteran has worked for the company for over 30 years and secured almost 100 commercial vehicle-related patents.

"The cars I make are meant to break the rules. How to lead the market with innovation and advanced technology is my way of work," said Fan, who goes by the screen name 'my truck is nonmainstream' online.

Zhu Yanfeng, board chairman of Dongfeng Motor, announced that Fan will choose his own research areas and receive an independent budget.

"We want to enable talented professionals to work according to their own interests, instead of uniformly examining key performance indicators. No innovation means no great enterprise," said Zhu.

He added the company would accelerate the implementation of its innovation-driven strategy, constantly improving its technological innovation capacity and competitiveness. Zhu explained his aim is to build a world-leading automobile workshop.

Zhu further disclosed that in the next five years, Dongfeng will focus on the five concepts of lightweight, electric, intelligent, connected and sharing.

Dongfeng is a leading manufacturer of automobiles and spare parts in China. In 2016, it produced 4.2 million vehicles, with sales revenue reaching 571.8 billion yuan ($85.97 billion).

Data from the company show that it invested 76.7 billion yuan in science and technology activities over the past five years. Just last year, its investment totaled 19.7 billion yuan, accounting for more than 7.2 percent of sales revenue. As a result, Dongfeng obtained 7,043 valid patents in 2016.

Yang Bo, a technician at Dongfeng's engine research center, said that the company has invested significantly in researching applications for the vacuum pressure casting process, as well as in developing new materials such as carbon fiber and basalt fiber. This has helped to reduce the vehicles' weight, but also "greatly improves overall performance", Yang said.

Zhao Fuquan, professor and director of Tsinghua University's Automotive Research Institute, praised Dongfeng's innovation strategy. He said he had not expected the company to catch up with the latest tech trends in such a short time.

"I want to especially give Zhu a thumb-up for his emphasis on manufacturing process know-how. It looks easy, but is vital for innovation," Zhao said.
Dan Schulman, chief executive officer of PayPal Holdings Inc.[Provided to China Daily]

When you meet softly-spoken Dan Schulman for the first time, it is hard to imagine that he is a hardcore martial arts fan.

The chief executive officer of PayPal Holdings Inc regularly practices krav maga, which is a military self-defense program developed for the Israel Defense Forces.

"In martial arts, the overriding philosophy is the best way to win a fight is to avoid a fight," he stressed.

Many would say this has been a cornerstone of his philosophy and has helped him deal with PayPal's split from parent company eBay Inc back in 2015.

More than 24 months later, the online global payment firm based in the United States reported a 22 percent surge in revenue to $3.24 billion in the third quarter compared to the same period in 2016.

Last year, PayPal processed more than six billion transactions with payment services worth up to $354 billion.

"The benefits (of) being an independent company have been obvious," Schulman said.

In the two years from 2013, the company bought mobile payment platform Braintree and its mobile application Venmo in the US, as well as digital money transfer business Xoom and mobile payment startup Paydiant.

"PayPal has 218 million active account holders (and is) available in more than 200 markets around the world," the company stated on its corporate website.

"The PayPal platform, including Braintree, Venmo and Xoom, enables consumers and merchants to receive money in more than 100 currencies, withdraw funds in 56 currencies and hold balances in their PayPal accounts in 25 currencies," it added.

Naturally, China is a vital strategic market for PayPal.

The company has defined its goal here as helping Chinese businesses participate in the global e-commerce market and expand their international presence.

"We take (the) friction out of cross-border transactions," Schulman said.

In a far-reaching interview with China Daily, he talked about the company's vision and its strategy in China, as well as his love for martial arts.

People mill around the PayPal booth at the Money 20/20 conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, the United States. BLOOMBERG

Has the split from eBay produced benefits or difficulties for PayPal during the past two years?

Breaking away from eBay has to be considered a major success. It was also necessary.

At first, it was difficult when it came to logistics. We had to take apart data centers and recreate internal systems.

But once we got beyond the opening nine months, the benefits of being an independent company became obvious. We are now a truly neutral third-party platform.

This means there is not a single merchant or partner out there that thinks we are competing directly against them (through eBay).

We are able to think clearly about what value PayPal provides. And we must evolve as a company to take advantage of the rapid move toward mobile e-commerce payments.

Why did PayPal decide to go into partnership with Baidu Inc during the summer?

The strategic partnership links a large and global merchant network outside of China with the consumer strength of Baidu here.

With them, PayPal will be able to offer millions of international merchants increased access to (more than) one billion consumers in China. They will be able to search, shop and discover the world through Baidu.

Of course, Baidu Wallet (the search engine's mobile payment app) benefits PayPal when combined with access to 17 million merchant accounts.

This also serves as an extension of PayPal's previously announced partnerships with Alibaba (Group Holding Ltd) and (China) UnionPay.

What plans have you made for the Belt and Road Initiative?

At this year's Cross-Border E-Commerce Conference, we unveiled two major value-added servicesthe In-Context Checkout and the PayPal Merchant WeChat Account.

They will help Chinese merchants strengthen their business capacity in the face of constant changes in market trends, and the tremendous opportunities thrown up by the Belt and Road Initiative.

What are the prospects of PayPal obtaining a third-party payment license in China?

We did apply for a full license several years ago. At the same time, we fully realized it was a complicated process, which we needed to go through.

But as we have evolved since the license filing, we realize that the place where we can add real value is in cross-border (transactions).

Would you elaborate more about your cross-border business in China?

Today, predominantly, what we brand in China is cross-border services. It is one of the fastest growing parts of PayPal's overall (operations).

More than 23 percent of our business is cross-border and one third of all PayPal customersthat is about 200 millionhave purchased from a Chinese merchant in the past year. That means about 65 million people have done that.

Our No 1 corridor is the US to China with American consumers buying from Chinese merchants.

What are the advantages of using PayPal for cross-border transactions?

We take that friction out of cross-border transactions because we have so much data and information. We look at every one of those transactions, and we learn to create very sophisticated modeling and algorithms.

But it is very difficult for consumers to know who they are buying from and how small businesses can establish brand trust.

We are rapidly improving our risk modeling tool to be able to help on those fronts. That is why almost 80 percent of consumers prefer to use PayPal on cross-border transactions.

The company has been globally active in acquiring mobile payment firms, but are there any plans to do that in China?

We have a very strong balance sheet. We have $6 billion in cash and no debt. We (also) project we'll generate $3 billion in free cash flow this year.

Using that balance sheet to further grow our ambitions would seem to make sense. We will look at companies that fit into our (profile).

Do you plan to roll out artificial intelligence?

Whether you call it artificial intelligence, AI, machine learning, neuro-networks or sophisticated algorithms, you are taking advantage of massive sets of data. We have all been using some form of that in our business for quite a while.

It is just getting more and more sophisticated.

AI is an evolution more than a revolution. There has been a lot of modeling and algorithms, utilizing very sophisticated and large sets of data. This has helped drive value propositions for consumers.

Baidu has tremendous capabilities in search and AI. The ability to utilize those (assets) in connection with our platform can provide tremendous value to our mutual customers.

What do you admire about martial arts and is there a philosophy behind it?

I practise five to six times a week for up to 90 minutes. It allows me to operate in a calm and focused manner under times of intense stress.

The overriding philosophy of martial arts is that the best way to win a fight is to avoid a fight. I do not believe that without martial arts I would be such an effective leader as I am today.

CV

Age: 59

Nationality: United States

Career:

Sept 2014 onward: President and CEO of PayPal

2010-2014: President of Enterprise Growth, American Express

2009-2010: President of the Prepaid Group, Sprint Nextel Corporation

2001-2009: CEO of Virgin Mobile USA Inc2000-2001: CEO of Priceline.com

1981-1999: President of Consumer Division, AT&T

Education:

Undergraduate degree in economics from Middlebury College.

MBA from New York University
Journalists check the new Motorola Moto Z2 Force phone at a launch event in New York.[Provided to China Daily]

Old-school smartphone brands including Motorola, Nokia and Blackberry are attempting a comeback in the Chinese market this year, but experts said they may encounter steep challenges as China's smartphone industry is witnessing a slowdown and the competition from local vendors is very intense.

These brands may find it difficult to lure members of the younger generation, as their design and function are not perceived as competitive enough, experts said.

"Niche brands are facing fierce competition in the domestic market as many of their fans have turned to the country's homegrown brands, such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, Xiaomi Corp, Oppo Electronics Corp and Vivo Mobile Communication Technology," said Jason Low, a tech industry analyst at Canalys. "The young generation might not even know these old brands."

"What they should do is to pay more attention to the design and function of a handset, and launch a unique model to differentiate it from so many competitors," Low said.

HMD Global, the Finnish company that's now making Nokia-branded smartphones, officially unveiled the Nokia 7 in Shanghai this month. It has a 5.2-inch full HD liquid crystal display with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 processor under the hood.

The company's lineup already includes the low-end Nokia 3 and Nokia 5, the mid-range Nokia 6, and the high-end Nokia 8. Priced at $377 for 4GB storage, Nokia 7 went on sale in China last week. HMD Global has yet to confirm when the handset will be launched in other markets across the globe.

Also in China last week,

Lenovo Group Ltd announced the Moto Z 2018 modular handset. The modular smartphone has high-powered magnets on its rear with which users can fasten additional equipment, including a Hasselblad camera, an extra battery, speaker, projector and phone shell, aiming at the premium-end market.

"The nostalgic sensation couldn't let these old brands shore up their sales, and they are taking up a very small share in the Chinese market, although Chinese consumers have some expectations for these old brands," said Jin Di, research manager of IDC China.

Jin added local manufacturers have stepped up their efforts in upgrading the functions of smartphones and enhancing their popularity. For instance, Oppo and Vivo are attracting younger customers with their stylish appearance and design as well as lower prices, but it is very difficult for old brands to attract such consumers.

In August, BlackBerry Ltd and Sharp Corp returned to the Chinese market with the help of local electronics makers.

Statistics from global consultancy Canalys showed Chinese smartphone shipments registered another quarter of decline as the market contracted 5 percent in the third quarter of this year to 119 million units.

The race to the top remains tight as Huawei, Oppo and Vivo took 19 percent, 18 percent and 17 percent of market share, respectively.
People visit the stand of Qihoo 360 at an expo in Beijing, April 30, 2016. [Photo/VCG]

China's internet security giant Qihoo 360 Technology Co Ltd is close to listing on the Shanghai stock exchange after it was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange last year.

The company will carry out a back-door listing via SJEC Corporation, an elevators and escalators maker that has been suspended from trading since June this year.

According to SJEC's announcement, the A-share listed company will launch a reverse takeover to acquire 100 percent share of Qihoo 360 valued at 50.42 billion yuan ($7.62 billion) by a series of deals including large asset swap and share issues.

After completing the back-door listing, Zhou Hongyi, Qihoo 360's chairman and CEO, will hold 12.14 percent share of the company. And by controlling other two companies that will hold 51.56 percent share of SJEC, he will be the listed company's actual controller.

Qihoo 360 said its net profit will not be lower than 2.2 billion yuan, 2.9 billion yuan and 3.8 billion yuan, respectively, from 2017 to 2019, after it will list on A-share market, according to the announcement.
A still shot of Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace. [Photo/IC]

Reputed as the sequel of Empress in the Palace, another costume drama titled Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace has received public attention since shooting began.

Starring Chinese renowned actress Zhou Xun and Taiwan actor Wallace Huo, the drama tells the romantic love story of emperor Qianlong of Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and his empress Ruyi.

The TV series is expected to hit the small screen soon
Extreme air pollution levels measured in Harbin; haze to linger elsewhere

As coal-burning heat systems came alive in mid-October in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, the smog that usually waits for late autumn and winter came early.

Meteorological authorities in the province issued an orange alert for heavy air pollution on Wednesday, the second-highest alert in the nation's four-tier emergency response system.

Smog has widely blanketed the province, including Harbin, Suihua, Hegang, Jiamusi, Shuangyashan, Qitaihe, Jixi and Mudanjiang.

The air quality index in Harbin, the capital, for example, hit 500 from late Wednesday to early Thursday, according to the National Environmental Monitoring Center.

Anything above 300 is considered hazardous. The World Health Organization recommends no more than 20.

Smog will also hit other northern regions over the weekend. Pollution is forecast to linger in Beijing and Tianjin, and the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Henan and Shandong from Saturday to Tuesday, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The six provincial regions are required to make adequate preparations for smog and initiate emergency plans for severe bouts.

"Heilongjiang is a major food producing area and the burning of crop stalks left over from the year's harvest contributes to dense air pollution," said Liu Youbin, a senior official in the ministry's publicity department said after a news conference on Tuesday. "The coal burning is another significant source of air pollution in the province."

On Thursday, Li Mu, a teacher at Heilongjiang University who is on business in Acheng district, about 52 kilometers from central Harbin, said: "This morning, I found lots of farmers burning stalks in the fields along the highway. There was a smell of smog pervading the air inside the bus.

"The prohibition of open burning is not the best way, I think, to solve the problem," she said. "The government should continue to figure out new methods to make good use of the stalks and straw."

Unfortunately, there has been little wind to help dissipate the airborne particles, said Fang Lijuan, chief forecaster at the Harbin meteorological station.

"A cold front will bring wind on Thursday, and conditions may change a little for the better. However, the city may see pollution worsen, with the weather growing warmer starting on Saturday," Fang said.

Xiao Chang, 35, an employee at a State-owned enterprise in Harbin, was in a hurry to select and purchase an air purifier on the internet.

"My 3-year-old daughter shows great discomfort in the bad weather and has a serious cough," he said. "Her condition didn't change even though we kept her at home to prevent harm.

"The air purifiers have become a daily necessity for many people around me, and some families have more than one. I hope it can help make her feel better."

According to Zhao Qingdong, a respiratory physician at Harbin First Hospital, "Air pollutants, including PM2.5, PM10 and sulfides, are hazardous, especially for children and the elderly. They can cause illnesses such as bronchitis and asthma."

He added: "In the smoggy weather days, we should reduce outdoor activities and choose light and healthy meals."

Liu, the publicity official, said the ministry has promoted a series of measures to control air pollution in the northeast.

"Three inspection teams have been dispatched to Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces to supervise related government organs," he said.

Environmental experts from the national monitoring center have also arrived to provide technical assistance, he added.

Zheng Jinran contributed to this story.
Britain's University of Sheffield and China's Tsinghua University announced on Wednesday that they have created a master's degree program in nuclear engineering and management to help ensure the supply of qualified graduates for bilateral projects.

The joint program is the first of its kind for China, and leverages both universities' expertise in the nuclear technology sector.

The first class of students, whose studies begin in Beijing in September, will include 80 people from China and 30 from overseas. The two-year program will be taught in English.

Sheffield is heading efforts to market this degree outside China and is offering 10 scholarships to attract international students to the program.

China General Nuclear Power Group, China National Nuclear Corp and State Nuclear Power Technology Co will all partner with the program by providing internship opportunities.

One aim is to help young engineers from Britain become familiar with the Chinese nuclear industry and its technology so they can contribute to international projects.

CGN and France's EDF are jointly investing in three nuclear power stations in Britain - at Hinkley Point, Sizewell and Bradwell. The projects represent China's first nuclear industry investments in a mature economy.

The Chinese company has submitted its HPR1000, a domestically designed reactor, to Britain's nuclear regulator for approval. If the plans are cleared for use, the reactor will be used at the Bradwell site in Essex.

Meanwhile, CGN has made a bid to buy an equity stake in another British plant, Toshiba's NuGeneration, also known as NuGen.

All the projects will require considerable research and development to ensure effective China-UK collaboration and the successful localization of Chinese technology and expertise in Britain. Cultivating the requisite knowledge and skills is seen as an important part of this work.

"Part of the aim of the joint program with Tsinghua is to get young British engineers familiar with Chinese methods and ways of working, and vice versa," said Andrew Storer, CEO of the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, a government-backed center at Sheffield University. "It's all part of the preparation for Hinkley Point, and especially for Bradwell. It'll be even more beneficial if CGN does acquire NuGen and HPR1000 reactors are built."

The center has been working with CGN on its potential acquisition of NuGen.
By Huo Yan in Xi'an and Xin Wen in Beijing | China Daily | Updated: 2017-11-03 07:55

The "burger hotel" stands in a narrow gully between two steep cliffs in Yanchuan, Shaanxi province. [Photo provided to China Daily]

A photo of a hotel built in a narrow gully between two steep cliffs in northeastern China became a hit online, as netizens joked that it looks like a roujiamo, a kind of Chinese burger.

The eight-story building in Yanchuan county, Shaanxi province, was built in 2016. Part of it is only as far as 4 meters from the steep cliffs.

Asked whether the hotel had been built legally, an person identified as an employee was quoted by Beijing Youth Daily as saying the construction had been approved in advance by several government departments.

Building in a mountainous area mainly depends on geological conditions, Xie Xiongyao, vice-dean of Tongji University's College of Civil Engineering, told China Daily. "If rocks are bare, there's no problem with building nearby," Xie said.

The hotel was built in the southern part of the county, which features many loess hills and gullies. Mudslides and landslides are occasionally reported.

According to Beijing Youth Daily, workers stabilized the surrounding hills before the hotel was constructed, although warning signs have been placed around the property warning guests of the possibility of falling rocks.

In Shanghai, a five-star hotel is being built in a former quarry and is expected to be completed this year.
A police officer checks gun parts that were seized during an operation in Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Chinese police have rounded up 58 suspected arms traders across 16 provinces after a monthslong investigation into an organized crime network.

Locations in 50 cities were raided, resulting in the discovery of two weapons assembly workshops, 40 foreign-made firearms and 7,779 rounds of ammunition, police in Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, said in a statement on Tuesday.

The probe was launched in January when police in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, asked colleagues in Liuzhou to track 14 packages sent to the city that were believed to contain gun parts.

A month later, a joint investigation into a bank account led to the identification of a suspect, surnamed Wu. Police said he confessed to working with two gun dealers based overseas whom he had known since 2015.

The dealers would dismantle the firearms and then smuggle them part by part into Shenzhen, where they would be shipped to Liuzhou by express delivery, police said Wu told them.

Wu had used Liuzhou as a base to traffic and reassemble firearms, and had made a fortune selling the guns to customers in China, the police said.

Under Chinese law, owning, manufacturing, selling, transporting or renting guns is forbidden.

During further investigation, the police uncovered an organized network involved in making and selling guns across 16 provincial regions.

The Ministry of Public Security sent 32 teams to break up the operation. In addition to the suspected arms traders, 25 buyers were also taken into custody, police said.

In a separate case, police in Taizhou, Jiangsu province, said on Thursday that they had caught a gang making and selling guns, and seized 180 firearms.

More than 3,000 gun parts and 20,000 rounds of ammunition were seized after an investigation that lasted two and half months, said Cao Xiang, police chief of Jiangyan district.

Fourteen suspects, including the alleged leader, surnamed Shen, were detained. Shen confessed to the illegal manufacturing, processing and selling of gun parts, the police said.

Xinhua contributed to this story.
Chen Kai (right), director of the China Will Registration Center, explains how to draft and store the document to Gong Jinhua, 68, in Shanghai on Wednesday. [Photo by GAO ERQIANG/CHINA DAILY]

More elderly Chinese are coming around to the idea of writing a will, to avoid disputes among family members, especially over the division of property, after they've departed.

Although still uncommon, anecdotal evidence shows a growing awareness nationwide that a written will can help prevent problems that can arise when someone dies.

"The phone has been ringing off the hook all day with people wanting to make an appointment," said Zhao Zhongxing, who runs the China Will Registration Center's Shanghai branch, which opened on Wednesday.

The center, which has six branches across China, offers legal advice on drafting and storing wills. Its services are free to the elderly, although charges are levied for later amendments.

Shanghai was chosen as the latest location because the average age there is rising rapidly. According to the city's bureau of statistics, about one-third of residents - 4.57 million people - are age 60 or older.

"The proportion of elderly in Shanghai is about double the national figure," Zhao said. "Meanwhile, there's an increasing number of people who want to specify how the wealth they leave behind is distributed, so more elderly are considering a will."

The trend is not restricted to the eastern metropolis.

"Due to demand, we started opening regional branches in 2015," said Chen Kai, president of the Beijing Sunny Senior Health Fund, which founded the center with the China Aging Development Foundation in 2013 as a charity project.

"We have another one opening in Chongqing on Nov 16," said Chen, also director of the center. "In the past four years, we have provided consulting services to more than 100,000 people, and registered about 70,000 wills."

The center requires people to write their own wills - under guidance - and read them aloud for an video recording to be stored until their death. So services are not available for people who are unable to read and write.

More than 70 percent of its clients are in their 60s and 70s, and with real estate prices soaring in recent years, more than 95 percent of the wills registered and stored by the center deal with the division of property, Chen said.

"As Chinese society ages, people's attitudes toward wills are changing," said Yan Qingchun, executive vice-president of the China Aging Development Foundation. "More people are no longer against the idea of leaving a will, which should be seen as a 'note of happiness' for the family."

Gong Jinhua, 68, visited the center's Shanghai branch on Wednesday to learn more about the registration process. She has a son and an adopted daughter, and wants to leave them her two apartments - one in Shanghai and one in Jiangxi province.

"I learned from my elder sister that notarizing a will is complicated, so I came to find out," Gong said. "Everyone gets old and finally dies. Instead of waiting until the last minute, why not prepare in advance?"

Other law firms provide will services, but the charges can be high, Gong added.

Zhao Yuqin, 65, registered her will this year with the center's branch in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. She has one son, her only child. What worries Zhao is the various documents he will need to inherit her property.

There's a common belief among the Chinese that a son should inherit his parent's wealth. But the reality is more complex. Under the law, if someone dies without a will, their spouse, parents and children all have a claim as primary inheritors. Zhao's son will need to provide death certificates for his grandparents, and a written document from Zhao's husband relinquishing his right to any property.

"I was concerned in the beginning, since it's taboo for someone to write a will," Zhao said. "But I thought it through. I told my son that what I was doing was making it less troublesome for him."


The new Gleason Dental office is located on Crest Drive in Beatrice, but they insist its not named after the toothpaste.

Gleason Dental opened the doors to its new home in late September after moving from its old location on Lincoln Street. The office was previously housed in a three-bedroom house purchased by Dr. David Gleason in 1967, but now, after fifty years, theyre moving into a space built just for them.

David Gleason opened the practice and was joined 25 years ago by his son, Tim Gleason. His other son, Dan Gleason, then joined about 10 years ago.

With all-new equipment in their new building, including some of the latest in dental technology, the Gleasons are fairly certain their practice will be a much more comfortable place for everyone.

Theyve got a 3D X-ray machine, whichkind of like a CAT scantakes a three-dimensional picture of the teeth, allowing the dentists to make better diagnoses, Tim said.

Then theres the computer-aided crown machine. It looks kind of like a droid from Star Warsa lot of their new equipment has a very futuristic, sci-fi lookand it can save weeks' worth of time, Dan said.

Previously, when installing a crown, impressions had to be made, followed by installing a temporary crown. The impressions would then be sent to a lab where the crown would be built, before returning to the office for installation.

We can do a crown right now, same day, David said.

It used to be a three-week deal, Tim said. Now, it's an hour and a half. In fact, I just got done doing one. Start to finish, all in one appointment.

With the crown machine, a ceramic ingot goes into a milling machine where its cut and milled. Then it's fired in a furnace, cured and cemented into the mouth.

Dentistry evolves like everything else, Dan said. Techniques evolve and materials evolve, so Tim and I tend to be on the forefront of that stuff. Were probably early adopters to a certain degree.

The office features eight fully finished rooms, three for routine hygiene work like cleanings and exams and five of which are reserved for more in-depth dental procedures with room for more, should the need arise.

The old office only had four treatment rooms, which, Tim said, hindered their ability to grow.

At the new office, he said, they can see upwards of 50 patients in a day, and theres room to expand and hire more employees if they need to.

Currently, there are seven employees working for the Gleasons, two of whom have been working with David for over 40 years.

Deb Ferguson, who started working for Gleason 40 years ago, said shes stayed there because its a great family environment. Everyone gets along great, she said.

Trudy Roche has been a dental assistant for Gleason for 47 years and said shes really enjoying the new office.

I'm loving it, Roche said. It's very nice. A lot more walking, my legs are a lot more tired.

With all the technological improvements and the increased space inside the office, its the parking that patients have been most excited about, David said.

The parking lot at the previous office saw about four fender benders just one month. When he moved in in 1967, parking on Lincoln Street was abundant, but, as that dried up, they had to make due with the small lot out back.

Tim knew from an early age that he wanted to be a dentistor maybe a doctorbut it took Dan a few years to come around. He got his degree in business and from 1997 to 2001, he worked in the business world.

I worked for a financial planning firm, he said. I had a change of heart and realized that's not what I wanted to do, so I quit my job and went back to school. I took a little bit of a roundabout path.

The Gleasons have regular patients coming in from Fairbury, Hebron, Chester, Tecumseh, Lincoln, Firth, Hickman and Marysville, Kan., and theyve even got regulars from Colorado and one family from Pennsylvania who come for a checkup when theyre back visiting family in Beatrice.

Tim attributes that to the dentists and staff being outgoing and friendly. Dentistry can be kind of a daunting thing, he said, but they do good work in a gentle fashion.

I think it's more of a blessing than anything that we're able to spend this much time together and be together and hang out and work toward a common goal, Dan said. In the 10 years I've been around, I don't remember any conflict or fight.
Government of Horqin Right Wing Middle Banner of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region opens embroidery classes for poverty-stricken women to learn how to decorate clothes, slippers and pillowcases with traditional designs. [Photo provided to China Daily]

More farmers and herdsmen in Horqin Right Wing Middle Banner, the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, have been lifted out of poverty thanks to government institutions' efforts to promote traditional Mongolian embroidery.

The banner is a county-level settlement. Local government established Xiangrui Embroidery Poverty Alleviation Service Co Ltd and Wangfu Embroidery Workshop, and opened training classes, aiming to protect and promote TusheetWangfu embroidery, an intangible cultural heritage of Inner Mongolia.

"We also have developed more tourism products with folk characteristics and provide tailor-made solutions for poverty alleviation," said Bai Jingying, chairperson of the banner's committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

In her spare time, Bai teaches embroidery skills, pattern design, and color collocation at the class.

Since the end of 2016, she has trained nearly 5,800 women, half of whom were poor.

Bai said 50 college graduates were involved in supporting employment and poverty-alleviation programs.

The association is in charge of the sales both online and offline, selling the Mongolian robes, pillowcases, slippers and other household products with exquisite traditional Mongolian embroidery to the outside world.

The sales volume from April to August reached 4.72 million yuan ($71,510). Each of the 2,600 impoverished people earned more about 2,000 yuan from it, said Bai.





BaiJingying, chairperson of Horqin Right Wing Middle Banner's CPPCC committee, teaches impoverished women embroidery skills, pattern design, and color collocation in her spare time. [Photo provided to China Daily]

"We are expanding the market. Currently, we are negotiating about cooperating with embroidery factories in Hunan and Jiangsu province (traditional embroideries of the two provinces are famous in China)," said Bai.

"On the other hand, we are actively exploring new methods such as e-commerce and utilizing mobile terminals to expand the market," she added.

According to Fu Lin from the service association supporting employment and poverty alleviation, they have set up online shops and brick-and-mortar stores in Ulanhot, Hohhot and other cities.

Every day, they sell 150 to 200 pairs of slippers.

"The price of each pair is 70 yuan, from which the maker can earn 65 yuan. All the workers are given daily wages," he said.

Traditional Mongolian embroidery is not only a name card of Horqin Right Wing Middle Banner, but also a key to poverty reduction.

Statistics show that were1,82 households and 18,029 people categorized as poverty-stricken  with an annual income lower than 2,600 yuan for farmers and 3,100 yuan for herdsmen of the autonomous region.

Currently, the numbers has dropped to 5,692 and 14,153 respectively.

Focused on the task of tackling poverty, the banner government is striving to carry on tailored reduction measures to lift the impoverished out of poverty and promote prosperity.




BEIJING - Communist Party of China (CPC) official Chen Xi attended the graduation ceremony of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee on Friday.

Chen, president of the CPC's top Party school and a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, presented certificates to 453 autumn-semester graduating students.

Three student representatives delivered speeches at the ceremony, stating their determination to fulfill their prime political task of studying, spreading and implementing the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the CPC.

He Yiting, executive vice president of the school, chaired the event.
A special wedding is held in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province, on Nov 1, 2017. [Photo provided to China Daily]

On Wednesday, a special wedding was held in Xinfa town, Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province.

The bridegroom was a 4-year-old boy nicknamed Baobao and the bride was his mother.

"My mother is the most beautiful woman in the world and I want to be with her together forever," said Baobao.

However, the little boy was diagnosed with acute lymphatic leukaemia 2 years ago and the condition has worsened since April.

His parents prepared the special wedding the second day after his fourth birthday.

"We really hope to attend his wedding 20 years later," his father said.
Equipment that can process household garbage and convert 100 tons of it every day into 80,000 cubic meters of flammable gas is expected to enter the market in Dalian in Northeast China's Liaoning province.

The heating value can exceed 1,200 kilocalories and can meet the requirements of a heating area of 240,000 square meters, said Xu Qinghui, director of the laboratory at Dalian Huichuan Environmental Protection Technology.

Research and development on the gasification and power generation of municipal solid waste is listed as a key project among Dalian's 13th Five-Year Plan.

"The advanced technology is a result of 10 years' research," he said, "We have obtained 14 national patents from the invention of garbage treatment system technology."

Taking household garbage as its material, the equipment utilizes high-temperature pyrolysis technology.

In the state of anaerobic heating, the molecular chain structure can be changed. Thus, the material will be converted into combustible gas with a high calorific value, as well as tar or other useful substances.

According to Xu, the system integrates garbage collection, transportation, extrusion, dehydration, screening, drying treatment, pyrolysis and gasification, energy conversion and utilization, and automatic control.

"It realizes the reduction, decontamination and resource utilization of household garbage," he said.
The car equipped with an aeroengine. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Fancy a car equipped with an aeroengine?

The first of such a combination, initiated and designed by a Chinese enterprise and handmade in Italy, has arrived in Wuhan, Hubei province, on Thursday after being transported by a China-Europe freight train.

The electric automobile can run for nearly 2,000 km, the company, Techrules, said in a news release.

It is expected to go under production at the end of this year, and 25 such cars will be produced each year, it said.

According to Chinese media reports, the car has been displayed at the Geneva Motor Show in March.

It would be transported to Shanghai next week.

The company said the application of aeroengine would effectively improve the situation where traditional engines consume much fuel and do much harm to the environment.

Western automotive industry observers were quoted by Chinese media saying it could be a game changer, while domestic industry insiders hoped that it would convey the nation's ability in independent innovation.

Zheng Yumeng contributed to this story.
Xi Jinping, chairman of the Central Military Commission as well as general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and president, inspects the CMC Joint Command Headquarters in Beijing on Friday. LI GANG / XINHUA

Xi Jinping, chairman of the Central Military Commission, urged the People's Liberation Army on Friday to concentrate all of its attention on honing combat capabilities to make sure it can win wars.

Xi, also the Chinese president, gave the instruction on an inspection visit to the CMC Joint Command Headquarters in Beijing. He is also the commander-in-chief of the headquarters, which is the Chinese military's highest operational brain.

Xi said China is at a crucial stage in its path toward being a world power and is facing a bright future as well as many challenges. Military capabilities are of strategic importance in safeguarding national security, he added.

"My visit this time is to show the Central Military Commission's distinct orientation of combat readiness," he said.

"The troops must strengthen the senses of crisis and war, and spare no efforts to improve combat readiness," he said, ordering the military to prepare itself for emergencies from any direction.

The chairman told members of the PLA to carry out more research on fighting operations, possible adversaries as well as battlefield conditions, to boost joint command skills and to make exercises more realistic and closer to real war scenarios. He also said they should be innovative and creative when making plans for operations.

He stressed that high-ranking officers must maintain an awareness of war and keep improving their personal abilities. They should take the lead in training and drills and should strive to resolve obstacles and problems in their unit that hinder combat readiness.

He also had teleconferences with troops of border defense units and the Djibouti Logistics Support Base, the PLA's first overseas establishment. He told members of the Djibouti logistics base to gain a good reputation for Chinese soldiers and to contribute to regional peace and stability.

A news release published by the military on Friday said the visit shows the "staunch stance" of the new CMC in following missions set by the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and in enhancing the PLA's combat capability.

In his report to the congress, Xi, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, pledged to make sure that by 2020, the PLA will basically achieve its mechanization, take big strides in informatization and make substantial improvements in strategic capabilities. He vowed to turn the PLA into a modernized force by 2035, and a top-tier military by 2050.

Xi Jinping, chairman of the Central Military Commission as well as general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and president, inspects the CMC Joint Command Headquarters in Beijing on Friday.
BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping will travel to Vietnam and Laos from Nov 10 to 14, China's Foreign Ministry announced on Friday.

Xi will attend the 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting in Da Nang, Vietnam, on Nov 10-11, at the invitation of Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said.

Xi will pay state visits to Vietnam and Laos from Nov 12 to 14, at the invitation of Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee, Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang, and Bounnhang Vorachit, general secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party Central Committee and president of Laos.
BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday instructed the armed forces to improve their combat capabilities and readiness for war.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), made the remarks while inspecting the CMC joint battle command center as its commander in chief.

"The CMC should lead the armed forces to be ready to fight and win wars, and to undertake the missions and tasks of the new era entrusted to them by the Party and the people," Xi said.
[Photo provided to China Daily]

Chinese-American photographer Zhao Xianzao's photographs are currently on display at the Overseas Chinese History Museum of China in Beijing.

The 81-year-old had won the first prize in The Boston Globe Photo Contest for three consecutive years from 1955.

The exhibition, featuring more than 120 photos taken by Zhao mainly during the 1950s and 1960s, runs through Dec 3.

Zhao, who emigrated to the United States in 1951, recorded how Chinese-American people lived with his camera and lens.

Speaking of his favorite image in the exhibition, Zhao points to a photo of a laundry worker in Massachusetts: "When I took this shot, I didn't think it was a good picture. However, as time goes by, the photo continues to remind me of the hard times many Chinese immigrants faced when they came to the United States. Many opened laundries just to make a living."

Huang Heqing, 49, visited the exhibition on its opening day in Dongcheng on Oct 31. She was touched by the hustle and bustle of the street life captured by Zhao.

"The strong sense of everyday life in these photos made me start to miss my childhood. I recognize the old streets where vendors sold fried dough sticks, fruit and fish. I used to play cards with my friends on street corners like these," says Huang.
No country for a young woman Updated: 2017-11-03 07:29 (HK Edition)

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is bringing a refugee simulation experience to Hong Kong. "Nadima: A Tale of Shattered Innocence" is a unique eight-minute audio journey through the mind of a 13-year-old South Sudanese girl trying to flee from her war-torn homeland to seek asylum in Uganda.

Since December 2013 - when South Sudan's crisis erupted in Juba - more than 2 million South Sudanese have fled to neighboring countries, while another 2 million people are estimated to be internally displaced. Over the past 12 months, 1,800 South Sudanese refugees have been arriving in Uganda every day. Recent arrivals continue to speak of incidents of barbaric violence. Armed groups have reportedly burnt down houses with civilians inside, and people gunned down in front of family members.

Participants in the audio journey will be exposed to the sound of wars, crying of victims and even a piece of complete silence as they are led through Nadima's harrowing journey until she finds shelter, and hope. Hers is an archetypal story of asylum seekers trekking across forests, rough seas and taking great pains to evade surveillance at the borders to be able to survive. In between there is always the risk of dying from sickness, exhaustion or hunger.

There will also be an exhibition on refugee lives.

(HK Edition 11/03/2017 page11)
Almost a year to the day after opening their new reporting center to the public, the probation office in Beatrice held a ceremony to commemorate two local members of law enforcement who made a big impact in their community.

To honor the memories of Gage Countys first probation officer, Cliff Wolf, Jr., and Jeremy Wach, a volunteer firefighter and member of the Gage County Sheriffs Office, the District One Probation Office named two rooms after the local heroes.

Jeremy Behrends, chief probation officer for District One of Nebraska, said that the two were great men who dedicated their lives to serving the community. They had a belief that when you dedicate yourself to something, it makes a difference, he said.

Wolf worked as a probation officer in Gage County for 37 years and died in 2011. Wach was a jail administrator who died when a roof collapsed over him while he was fighting a fire with the Wymore Fire Department in 2007.

The rooms named for Wolf and Wach are places where people will start to change their lives, Behrends said. Whether its anger management, therapy or other programs, the group rooms at the probation office will offer classes that Behrends said will be aimed at lowering risk of crime to the community.

The reporting center itself aims to serve as a community resource by offering a variety of services for those on probation, including relapse prevention, therapy, a womens trauma after-care group, crime victim empathy class and more.

Pieces of red cloth were hung over the new plaques in honor of the two men during the ceremony that attracted nearly fifty people.

The first to be unveiled was Wolf, who was remembered for being one-of-a-kind.

Former Gage County District Judge Paul Korslund remembered Wolf as someone who was loyal and dedicated to the community he served.

He cared deeply about people, Korslund said. He was a tough probation officer. He would not tolerate anybody not telling him the truth. But he had a heart of gold. He was just a living, breathing part of the community.

Korslund said that Wolf raised hunting dogs and got a dog for him once. A German shorthair, he said, which was a great dog, but had some odd habits.

This dog would poop in its food dish, Korslund said. I never figured that out, but he was a great dog. Maybe that's just life. The people we serve, ourselves, sometimes we just poop in our food dish, and we need people like Cliff Wolf to help us along the way.

Behrends presented Wolfs wife, Dianna, with a replica of the plaque that remembered him as Gage Countys first probation officer.

Behrends then led the group to a room in the back corner named in memory of Wach, whose wife, Melissa, and sons, Joseph and Matthew, were at the ceremony. Sunday, Nov. 5 will mark the 10-year anniversary of Wachs death.

Chief Deputy Douglas Klaus talked about his memories of Wach, saying Sheriff Millard Gustafson wanted to be there, but was out of state.

Wach was a hugger, Klaus said, and he made the best cheesecake. He was dedicated to his job, he said, and it was an honor knowing him. Both he and Gustafson keep a memento of Wach in their offices, he said.

He was just a big, loving guy, Klaus said.

While his children, who were three and one when he died, dont really have any memories, Melissa Wach said that its surprising to her when people share memories of her husband, especially when so much time has passed.

It's a little bit shocking, but it's heartwarming knowing we aren't the only ones remembering him, she said. We think of him every day, and we will think of him every day for the rest of our lives. It's nice to know that others still remember him from time to time, too.
Political and economic collaboration in Eurasia Updated: 2017-11-03 07:29 (HK Edition)

Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Secretary-General Rashid Alimov looks at the prospects and challenges

The contemporary world is currently undergoing a fundamental change. Against this backdrop, the complexity of processes in global politics is becoming increasingly clear. The existing concepts and perspectives regarding international cooperation are becoming history, and are being replaced by new ones aimed at ensuring overarching cooperation as a way to achieve development and prosperity.

As for the Eurasian space is concerned, today there is no doubt that it has already become a space for large-scale processes of designing new systems of interstate cooperation. What speaks in favor of this?

First, practically almost all countries in the vast region are actively involved in various projects, the nature of which varies from the classic forms of integration to the formatting of joint multilateral mechanisms to address specific tasks.

Secondly, the trend of centripetal motion in Eurasia is becoming increasingly obvious and, as a result, it creates a need for structuring, combining capacities and efforts to ensure synergy and long-term sustainable inclusive development. This, in fact, is the common interest of all states in the region.

There is an ongoing intensive search for the optimal mechanisms for the formation of a Greater Eurasian partnership. Negotiations between the Eurasian Economic Union and China, Eurasian Economic Union and ASEAN countries, progress in implementing the Belt and Road concept, as well as the development of multifaceted cooperation within the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Eight are emerging as the core elements of this process. The solution to the enormous scale of the task requires great work, serious efforts and time.

The Eurasian space could constitute a partnership of regional states united by the common ideas of joint development. However, its fundamental underpinnings can only be built by multilateral efforts in the sphere of politics and security, as well as trade, economic and cultural interaction between countries and people in the region. Such spheres are exactly the pillars of cooperation within the SCO.

In the contemporary world, sustainable development is impossible to secure without providing security. Traditional challenges and new threats that are posed by international terrorism, extremism, international organized crime and illicit drug trafficking constantly require active measures and common steps to combat with.

In this regard, during the SCO summit in Astana, the capital of the Republic of Kazakhstan, on June 9, leaders of the SCO member states formulated consolidated assessments of international security in the context of developments in the region and the world, and defined important areas to further strengthen the versatile cooperation within the SCO.

Joint efforts against all kinds of terrorism and extremism, an uncompromising struggle against illicit drugs and weapons trafficking and other types of transnational crime, as well as illegal migration, have always been and stayed the SCO's key priorities.

An important item on the summit's agenda was accepting India and Pakistan as full SCO members. After the accession of these two respected and authoritative states, the SCO has unified nearly 44 percent of the world population and its responsibility zone has expanded from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean north to south and from Lianyungang in China to Kaliningrad in Russia east to west.

All the member states of the SCO are as one in their striving to promote cooperation based on clear and open principles of partner relations.

Multilateral partnership within the SCO means interaction based on the joint definition of areas of common interests and the equal importance of opinions held by all together and each separately regardless of the actors' political or economic weight, given complete preservation of and respect for the partnership entities' independence in their domestic affairs and foreign policy.

Mutual understanding rather than ordering to form a rank, and equality and coordination, rather than domination, are what we can call the key elements of the SCO partnership. Sixteen years of SCO cooperation have demonstrated that the better is mutual understanding, the closer the coordination, and the stricter the equality is observed the stronger and more efficient the multi-vector partnership is.

More than that, efforts within the SCO are underpinned by the principles of good neighborly relations, mutual trust and respect, equality and mutually beneficial cooperation across all operations. These are the tenets of the organization, also known as the Shanghai Spirit, which is viewed as a prerequisite for success in all SCO undertakings and a reference point in relations between states, countering global challenges and threats, and overcoming differences on the international stage.

Since its early days, the SCO has followed a policy that rules out bloc-based, ideological and confrontational approaches to solving current international and regional problems. The SCO strictly abides by the principles enshrined in its Charter, including the principle of not being directed against other states and international associations. The SCO prioritizes active development of contacts and cooperation with international and regional organizations, primarily with the United Nations and its specialized agencies.

Trade and economic cooperation is becoming an increasingly important part of the collaborative effort within the SCO. One reason for this is the ongoing new large-scale economic processes in the region, in which the SCO countries are actively involved. These include regional economic integration within the Eurasian Economic Union, the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, and prospects for creating a Greater Eurasian Partnership together with the ASEAN economies.

What is the most important thing in this regard? The vision of Eurasia as a single and integrated system of mutual ties stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic underpins new powerful economic initiatives that are currently being implemented in the region. More countries are joining these projects, discovering new growth opportunities by coordinating and aligning national economic development strategies.

Finding new models for coordinating and aligning these initiatives with national economic development programs is an objective of unprecedented scale and complexity, while also being attractive and offering opportunities to all of Eurasia and the Asia Pacific. Delivering on this objective would also create unparalleled opportunities for businesses, in terms of trade and investment promotion, as well as for carrying out major transcontinental projects.

In terms of geography, the SCO is at the very center of these large-scale economic initiatives, and the system of regular meetings of the heads of the SCO member states' governments and economic ministries and agencies allows the organization to work on a wide range of issues on regional economic agenda.

In fact, economic interconnectedness of the SCO member states is determined by their geographical proximity along with the agreements and arrangements within the SCO framework, as well as joint development programs of the regional economy.

Today, the SCO countries are focused on infrastructure, transportation and communications projects and are searching for new forms and methods of regional economic cooperation. This is promoting the gradual increase in the SCO member states' mutual accumulation of investments, which exceeded $40 billion in 2016.

One of the most important transcontinental projects of the SCO is the creation of a common system of roads through Eurasia based on the SCO Member States Agreement on Facilitation of International Road Transport. This document became effective on Jan 20, 2017 and gives an additional impetus to economic cooperation within the SCO. The Agreement has provided the legal framework of parity conditions for road carriers and a uniform basis for international road transportation between Eastern Europe and the eastern shores of Russia and China.

A major feature of this agreement is its openness to non-members, which has immediately attracted the attention of SCO neighbors in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the Asia Pacific.

The document goes far beyond the transport sector as its implementation will stimulate the entire complex of trade and economic cooperation on the entire Eurasian space, including the attraction of investments in related infrastructure projects.

Further work will also require the simplification of formalities and procedures in such issues as the issuance of visas, border and customs arrangements, transport, phytosanitary and veterinary control.

The implementation of the agreement on road transport will be made easier by the SCO Agreement on Customs Cooperation. The SCO is working on streamlining customs clearance procedures and the movement of transport vehicles across SCO member states, including recognition of customs identification facilities, forms and other documents by parties to the agreement.

The system of such highways will be able to provide a mutually beneficial flow of goods on the territory of Eurasia, as well as to contiguous regions of the world, including Europe and Southeast Asia.

As the agreement is open to the participation of non-member states, some of which have shown great practical interest, there are good prospects for the development of practical cooperation with ASEAN countries in this field.

Humanitarian cooperation is the foundation for strengthening mutual trust, friendship and neighborly relations between nations. Sustainable dialogue of cultures and civilizations, which has developed within the SCO framework, is facilitating mutual cognition, enrichment and, ultimately, better understanding between nations. This is the foremost civilizational mission of the SCO.

To achieve these ends on the Eurasian space, the SCO gradually develops cultural and humanitarian ties, launches educational projects and seminars, and develops tourist programs. At the SCO headquarters in Beijing, cultural events and scientific symposiums are held on a regular basis.

Over the past 16 years, the SCO has become one of the world's largest systems of regional interaction that is focused on guaranteeing political stability, strengthening security and promoting trade and economic cooperation in the interests of mutual development and prosperity of the SCO nations and the whole vast Eurasian region.

The upcoming meeting of the heads of governments of SCO member states will take place in Sochi, Russia, at the very beginning of December. Prime ministers will discuss key issues of trade, economic and humanitarian cooperation within the Association. Taking into consideration the participation of the eight member states' prime ministers, the meeting will be an important step for the development of economic cooperation on the entire Eurasian space, will define the new contours of regional economic architecture.

Definitely, of particular importance for the further development of international cooperation in the region is the outcome of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which defined the main directions of development of the PRC over the next five years. I believe that continued commitment to China's further movement along the path of reforms and opening-up, the maintenance of global peace and stability, development of international cooperation in politics, trade and investment, and expansion of economic and humanitarian ties will also contribute to regional cooperation within the SCO, strengthening the organization and its role in the region and the world.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (third left) and other leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation member states - (from left) Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev and then Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif - gather for a group photo at the SCO Summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, on June 9. Xinhua

(HK Edition 11/03/2017 page24)
Holly Snape saw less of two things while growing up in Yorkshire in the 1980sginger and diversity.

But her travels to India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and other parts of Asia at the time made up for what she says she couldn't find enough of in her home county in Britain.

Snape, who works for the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, an affiliate of the Communist Party of China's Central Committee, first visited China nearly two decades ago, when she along with her late mother took a cruise on the Yangtze River from Shanghai to Chongqing.

Since the weeklong 19th National Congress of the CPC in October, Snape, in her mid-30s, has found herself in media spotlight as a member of the CCTB team that worked on translating from Chinese into English and some other foreign languages, President Xi Jinping's report delivered there.

Its Chinese staff aside, the bureau has 13 foreign translators who study Party documents and translate them in English, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese and Arabic.

Snape joined the bureau in 2014. And, this has been her highest-profile project so far.

"It conveys a real sense of confidence in the Chinese way, the idea that China needs to be and should be, can be confident in its own path, in its own direction," Snape told China Daily during an interview on Monday when asked for her assessment of Xi's speech at the opening of the Party conference, held once every five years.

"I (have) developed a better sense of the direction that China is going to be moving in," she added.

The report to the world's largest political party, Snape said, also emphasized the idea that the CPC needs to further tackle problems like corruption and govern itself with rigor. Further, it highlighted that China should play a more active role in global governance.

Describing it as "an enormous sense of responsibility", Snape says she read many of Xi's earlier policy addresses and took the time to prepare for the translation of his Oct 18 speech at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing so as to both "stay faithful to the original text" and be able to convey its full meaning to an English-speaking audience.
A Boston Subway train nears completion at the workshop of CRRC Changchun Railway Vehicles on Oct 31. [Photo/Xinhua]

Boston's subway system will welcome its first trains manufactured by China in December, according to themanufacturer -- CRRC Changchun Railway Vehicles.

This is the first time that a Chinese company has exported subway trains to the US with complete Chinese intellectual property protection. The trains are the first to be produced in China to US standards.

A staff member at CRRC Changchun Railway Vehicles adjusts the folding wheelchair equipped on the train on Oct 31. [Photo/Xinhua]

To improve passengers' travelling experience, the trains are equipped with folding wheelchairs and seats and portable emergency stretchers, features sure to be noted and to impress riders with Chinese manufacturing.

Boston Subway was the first underground in the US and has been in operation for more than 100 years.
(chinadaily.com.cn) Updated: 2017-11-02

Magnificent petroglyphs found in Nanyang are becoming an increasingly important window to probe Chinese rock art and prehistoric civilization of the Central Plains, according to more than 30 experts from China, Japan and South Korea.

Experts examine a petroglyph during an investigation in Nanyang from Oct 28 to 30. [Photo by Wang Hailin/Nanyang Evening Post]

The citation was made during an investigation conducted in Nanyang from Oct 28 to 30.

Petroglyphs are the oldest form of rock carving art, which were used as a record of ancient people's understanding of nature and society, according to Tang Huisheng, an executive member of International Federation of Rock Art Organizations.

Sun Baorui, an associate professor of Nanyang Institute of Technology, attended the investigation. "The petroglyphs in Fangcheng county and Yahe Industrial Area are mainly carved in caves, with different sizes ranging from a few centimeters to a dozen centimeters. The patterns on them include animals, ritual sites, totems and astronomical observation," Sun said.

According to Yang Wensheng, vice president of Henan Cultural Industrial Development Institute, the patterns of Nanyang's petroglyphs are akin to those found in Xinzheng, Henan. Both are important relics left over from the Central Plains Rock Belt. With a concentrated distribution, large size and rich content, Nanyang's petroglyphs are rare by world standards.

A petroglyph that is found in Yahe Industrial District. [Photo by Wang Hailin/Nanyang Evening Post]

"The discovery of the Nanyang petroglyphs is a landmark in rock art research which not only reveals the cultural connotation of the city, but also shows clearly the process of agricultural civilization spreading from the Yellow River to Nanyang basins," said Zhang Yasha, director of Chinese Rock Art Research Center of Minzu University of China.

During the investigation, Yahe Industrial Area was confirmed to be a habitat for many ancient tribes from Central Plain's agricultural civilization 5,000 years ago. Yahe Industrial Area is at the upper reaches of the Baihe River, bordering along the beautiful Yahekou Reservoir. The terrain is higher in the northwest and lower in the southeast. Yahe Area boasts fertile soil, abundant rainfall and well-connected river networks.

More subjects including cup-shaped rock paintings in Japan, direct dating of rock painting and regional distribution of Chinese rock painting in caves were discussed at a symposium held on Oct 30.

With Fangcheng and Yahe petroglyphs becoming typical representatives of rock art in the Central Plains, more and more scholars are coming forward to explore them, aiming to provide reliable information for rock art research and decode the origins of the Central Plain civilization.
Xi Jinping delivers a report to the 19th CPC National Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Oct 18, 2017. [Photo by Xu Jingxing/chinadaily.com.cn]

The just concluded 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China will be remembered as an epoch-making event. The inclusion of "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era" into the Party Constitution has put General Secretary Xi Jinping into the privileged league of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.

Two of Xi's initiatives, strict Party governance and the Belt and Road Initiative, too, have found their way into the Party Constitution.

Xi has identified that threats to sustained economic development stem from the gap between the rich and the poor, and environmental hazards. Hence, his development policy has shifted to making economic growth balanced and participatory. By demanding the reform of the global economic governance system, Xi has made a strong case to develop a model for fair and equitable governance that reflects the realities of modern times.

His Belt and Road Initiative captures the spirit of our times and is a gigantic step aimed at promoting openness, inclusivity, peace and mutual learning. Enjoying the support of about 100 countries and multilateral organizations, including the United Nations, the Belt and Road Initiative is an epic and futuristic proposition that seeks to build a community of shared future. It is a pathway to promoting win-win partnerships for about 3 billion people across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe.

As global political and economic architectures undergo transformation with implications for world peace, harmony and the overall well-being of humanity, the peaceful rise of China has brought about much-needed relief for those who feel the emergence of far-right politics in Europe is a potential threat to globalization. The imminence and lethality of this threat can be gauged from the increasingly receding position the UN has been subjected to over the last couple of decades.

As "political nationalism" becomes a new normal in the United States and parts of Europe, calling into question the very foundations of our shared fabric of globalization, Xi has emerged as a potent voice espousing the aspirations of the developing world. He has advocated a strong case for multilateral and shared approach to solving global problems with the UN at the core of dispute resolution.

In his address at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, Xi put up a resolute defense of globalization. His appeal for South-South and North-South dialogue and cooperation has resonated well with the international community.

What has impressed me deeply is his enunciation of the Chinese Dream, which seeks to help improve the living conditions of not only the Chinese people but also the people of other countries. His Belt and Road vision, and by extension China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, is an extension of the Chinese Dream that is premised on fostering shared prosperity and creating a community of shared future.

We, in Pakistan, look at China as an "iron brother" and an "allweather friend" whose phenomenal progress continues to inspire and motivate us. China continues to be a model for Pakistan in many respects. Beijing's impressive rise has great lessons for Islamabad. The following are instructive in this regard:

First, China has performed a miracle by lifting 800 million people out of poverty since reform and opening-up60 million people were lifted out of poverty during the past five years.

Second, China is the only country with an average GDP growth of more than 9 percent over the past three decades, which explains why it could reduce poverty significantly.

Third, the Chinese model of foreign policy is highly inspirational and worthy of emulation in our context as well. The strategic change of direction, the policy of internal consolidation and economic reform have led the march toward this mind-blowing success.

Fourth, in a world facing multiple challenges and torn by strife, the peaceful rise of China is a source of stability and rationality. Pakistan welcomes the peaceful rise of China and considers it as a source of stability.

With Xi at the helm, China has a central role to play in shaping the 21st century, which is being increasingly termed as the Asian century. As brothers and partners, we remain keen to learn from the experiences of our great Chinese friends in our quest to achieve progress and prosperity.

The writer is the chief minister of Punjab province of Pakistan.
China will firmly stick to the basic national policy of opening-up and pursue win-win cooperation with other countries, President Xi Jinping said on Monday while meeting with foreign and Chinese entrepreneurs and academics. That Xi made the remarks at the first meeting with visiting dignitaries after his re-election as the general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee last week will make the world more confident about doing business with China.

The fact that China will continue to open up to the outside world was highlighted at the 19th National Congress of the CPC that concluded on Oct 24, while Xi and other central leaders have also reiterated it on earlier occasions. This shows opening-up will play a vital role in China's efforts to meet its goal of modernization and national rejuvenation.

After introducing members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau elected at the First Plenum of the 19th CPC Central Committee on Oct 25, Xi said he was convinced that reform and opening-up will "complement and reinforce each other" and be carried through to realize the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.

In his report to the 19th Party Congress, Xi also highlighted the change in Chinese society's "principal contradiction", which has evolved to be that between unbalanced and inadequate development and people's ever-growing needs for a better life. To gradually resolve this contradiction, opening-up will play an irreplaceable role, just as it has done in China's miraculous economic growth over the past almost four decades.

An agriculture-based country before the launch of reform and opening-up in 1978, China today is the world's second-largest economy with mature, modern infrastructure, industries and commercial enterprises, and has lifted more than 800 million people out of poverty. Of course, in the early years of reform and opening-up, foreign enterprises contributed their share to China's growth through funds, technologies and management experience.

China has also shown great sincerity in pushing forward opening-up and seeking outwardlooking development. The Fifth Plenum of the 18th CPC Central Committee two years ago specifically endorsed development ideas such as innovation, coordination, green growth and openness. That the foreign entrepreneurs Xi met on Monday included Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is proof that China will "participate in and promote economic globalization, (and) develop an open economy of higher standards".

Accordingly, changes are called for in the old strategy of relying heavily on the exports of low-value-added products and inbound investment. When it comes to market entry, national treatment and the negative list, China is right to look to international standards. In fact, in this way China can open up wider, so can its service sector, and better protect foreign enterprises' legal interest.

The Chinese economy, as Xi said, is undergoing a crucial transition from high-speed growth to high-quality development. So are foreign businesses in China. And it is natural that China will try to level the playing field for domestic and foreign enterprises. But some Western observers wrongly see it as a move to give "Chinese companies an unfair advantage".

The truth is that China, a major beneficiary of and contributor to globalization, has no intention of retreating from opening-up. The country has taken a series of measures to further open up its market, and it will continue to do so.

From China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001 to the yuan's inclusion in the International Monetary Fund's special drawing rights basket last year, Beijing has made efforts to help make the world order fairer, and since the past five years it has been helping build a community of shared future for humankind, which speaks volumes of its commitment to inclusive development.

The author is a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Shanghai International Studies University, and an academic member of the Pangoal Institution.
Police examine a rented truck used by a driver who fatally ran over eight people on a bicycle path on the West Side of Manhattan on Oct 31. [Photo/Agencies]

IN THE WAKE OF Tuesday's terrorist attack in New York, which killed eight people and injured at least 11 others, US President Donald Trump has called for an end to the visa program that the terror suspect used to enter the country. Beijing News commented on Thursday:

Reports said the man, who drove a pickup truck in a Lower Manhattan bike lane mowing down cyclists while yelling "God is great" in Arabic, had been planning the deadly attack for weeks.

The attack does not mean the United States' crossborder terrorism efforts overseas have not been effective. The US-led anti-terrorism wars have basically crippled the ability of international terror groups to launch massive attacks on US soil.

But, as the attack in New York shows, that doesn't mean the US is immune to terrorism. Washington will have to deal with more loosely organized "lone wolf" attacks such as those in Brussels, London and Paris.

Preempting such attacks is not easy, especially when the suspects have weak or no ties to known terror groups.

Sayfullo Saipov, the suspect in the Manhattan attack who entered the US from Uzbekistan in 2010, had never been investigated by either the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the New York police intelligence unit.

Keeping new immigrants at bay, as Trump has argued more than once, is not likely to work either because there is no pattern when it comes to these lone wolf attacks. Tightening gun control, however tricky it might be in the US, could make a difference. That the Manhattan suspect did not cause more casualties may have something to do with the fact that he only had an imitation gun.

The recent mass shooting in Las Vegas, for example, left 58 dead and more than 500 injured.
President Xi Jinping, right, and his US counterpart Donald Trump take a walk to further discuss bilateral cooperation issues in the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, the United States, April 7, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

Donald Trump's first visit to Asia as US president, which will take him to Japan, the Republic of Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, comes at a critical moment, as the missile and nuclear programs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have cast a shadow over the region. The issue is expected to feature prominently in Trump's talks.

Trump needs to reassure his hosts that the United States will play a constructive role in pursuing a peaceful resolution to the Korean Peninsula issue, and it recognizes dialogue and consultation are the only feasible means to address this and other issues in the region.

Much of the speculation ahead of Trump's visit to Asia, which began on Friday, stems from the conflicting messages that have previously been given by his administration. A clear, consistent and positive message showing a willingness to cooperate and contribute constructively to resolving regional issues would go a long way toward making his trip a success.

On the regional level, Trump needs to recognize that much has changed in the region since his predecessor instigated a rebalancing to Asia strategy to reinforce the US' leadership role in the Asia-Pacific. China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are poised to formally adopt the framework for a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea during a summit meeting in the Philippines later this month. Any attempt to derail this process would be unwelcome and likely trigger a backlash.

As a country that is not directly involved in the maritime disputes, and one claiming to have a stake in the peace and stability of the region and seeking to benefit from its vitality, the US should heed the wise advice that has been offered that it would be best served by seeking to facilitate this constructive process.

On a nation-to-nation level, Trump's upcoming visit to China, which will make him the first foreign head of state to visit the country after the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, offers the opportunity for China and the US to iron out their differences and inject fresh vigor into their bilateral cooperation, the momentum of which should not be stalled due to their frictions over trade and other issues.

There is no reason why, meeting face-to-face, Trump and President Xi Jinping cannot recapture the rapport of their earlier "very good dialogue". Doing so would enable the two sides to send a positive signal that they are capable of properly handling their differences and are willing and able to work together for the good of themselves, the region and the world.
Photo providede to chinadaily.com.cn

Since I was first in China in 2012, my life, and China itself, have developed and changed a lot. My first China interaction was in 2012, when I came here with a friend to backpack. We traveled from Beijing to Shanghai to Xian to Anhui to Sichuan to Guilin and to Hong Kong, all in 5 weeks. We had a fantastic time meeting local people, exploring beautiful places and eating delicious food. After this experience traveling across China and eating local food, I really wondered How did I live without eating dumplings and eggplant on a weekly basis? Well I guess I did somehow, for 22 years!

Then, with the taste of China in my mouth I returned in 2014 for the year as a Chinese language exchange student in Beijing. This is when I fell in love with Beijing. Despite the pollution, people everywhere and noise, what I saw in Beijing was a city constantly on the move and developing at a pace so unknown to me, who comes from a small, sleepy Australian city.

Upon my arrival in Beijing in that year of 2014, a Chinese lady also on my plane said Do you have WeChat? Whats WeChat, I replied? Her facial expression said it all ... when I think back to it now I also have the same expression as her, of shock. During that year I really noticed how WeChat wallet took off, and by the time I returned back to China in mid-2015 after six months away, everyone who could have it had WeChat wallet. It's not more common to see people bringing their actual wallets anywhere, just bring your phone with you  aka WeChat. I love WeChat wallet, and being so used to its convenience, now I often wonder how I lived before without the glorious convenience and fun of WeChat. Well I guess I did somehow, for 23 years!

As my Chinese improved during my studies I became more independent and more aware of the possibilities of wai mai, or food home delivery. I suddenly noticed the thousands of wai mai drivers zooming across the roads on their scooters. On deep, dark Beijing winter days and rainy days, wai mai is like the holy grail and as I chowed down on my take away dumplings I would think and laugh to myself, How did I live before without being able to wai mai? Well I guess I did somehow, for 23 years!

Jumping to mid-2015 and I was back in China again for my third stint, this time for my master's degree. That's when I came across my first Mobike: Oh, thats a unique bike, I wonder why it has been left on the street all by itself, surely it will get stolen soon,  I thought as I passed it by on my own black bike. But one week passed and I saw it still there  Wow it hasnt been stolen yet,  I remarked. Then the one Mobike sighting turned into two and three, and soon thousands and then seemingly overnight the streets of Beijing were flooded with orange and yellow wheels and again I pondered on how I ever lived without my shared bike account. Well I guess I did somehow, for 25 years!

What living in Beijing for the past three years has given me more than anything else is the appreciation for what humans can do and how fast cities and nations are made. From the cranes swinging back and forth in Guomao and in the suburbs, delivery vans rushing to and fro to send their goods, to people flooding the subways to make it to work on time, this is all so Beijing  it is movement, it is noise, it is stress, but it is progress and it's incredible to witness.

China today is a country still steeped in ancient knowledge and custom, yet one that is also bursting with new ideas and innovation. Although some things, like the delicious dumplings and eggplants across China, seem they will always stay the same, something else is constantly changing at a pace beyond comprehension. Im sure as I continue my life here in Beijing I will be swept up in the next new convenience of life that Chinas rapid and innovative development is bringing out, and I will soon again say to myself, How did I live without (insert future convenience) for 26 years?!.

Maddy comes from Australia and first came to live in Beijing as an exchange student in 2014. After enjoying it so much she stayed on to pursue her master's and now has graduated and is working in Beijing.
Wang Huiyao, director of Center for China and Globalization (CCG).[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

China and US should push the bilateral treaty and seek new trade negotiation, said a report released by the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), a major Chinese think tank.

The report, compiled after a research tour to the US with both politics watchers and businessmen, offers recommendations on China-US cooperation in 12 aspects of infrastructure, trade, energy, space, investment, etc.

During the just concluded 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Xi jinping has put forward it that China will promote a new form of international relations featuring mutual respect, fairness, justice and win-win cooperation with overall stability and balanced development. This applies to stable, balanced and win-win relationship between China and the United States, said Wang Huiyao, director of CCG.

China and US should seek innovation in trade and seek new market, said Teng Jianqun, special invited senior research fellow at CCG.

Speaking about the upcoming visit of US President Donald Trump to China, Teng said that Mar-a-Lago meet of Xi and Trump has laid a stable foundation for China-US relations in areas of economy, trade, and cultural exchanges.

Looking at the future, Teng said that China-US relations have entered a new stage of normalcy: innovation should be achieved in trade, political competition will deepen, and both countries should strengthen cooperation in areas such as financial and security. The overall result of Trump's trip is to continue to stabilize China-US relations, Teng said.

Professor Lu Jinyong, CCGs special invited senior research fellow, said he is optimistic for the future of China-US ties. He said small frictions and disputes are normal, but they wont alter the bigger picture.

Looking ahead, Lu said that the two countries should respect each others core interests and global impact, to promote a shared honesty and harmonious communication.
Students at Beatrice High School got a first-hand view of a courtroom Friday, without ever having to leave the building.

For one day only, the Hevelone Center at BHS was transformed into a functioning courtroom, giving students a rare glimpse into the workings of the court system as two cases were heard before the Nebraska Supreme Court.

The event wasnt merely an exercise, but real hearings with real officials surrounded by real security.

Gage County District Court Judge Rick Schreiner discussed the differences between the trial and appellate court systems with the students, and stressed how special it was to have court hearing at the high school.

All seven justices of the Nebraska Supreme Court are present today, he said. Theyre going to be hearing oral arguments in two cases Its an honor and privilege to have them here today.

The event was available to American government, business law and law enforcement career academy students, in addition to the general public.

Students from Lewiston, Falls City, Fairbury, Johnson-Brock and Beatrice Middle School were also among those in attendance, according to BHS Principal Jason Sutter.

Sutter said the idea of bringing the hearings to Beatrice came from former student Corey Steel, who works for the Supreme Court.

When he called and asked if we would be interested in hosting this event, it was an easy decision, Sutter said. Its very gratifying to be able to see Beatrice High School graduates seek further education and become, in this example, a Nebraska state court administrator.

Sutter added the event is part of an ongoing effort to bring unique learning opportunities to Beatrice High School.

The strategic plan for Beatrice Public Schools charges educators to continue to create learning opportunities for our scholars, He said. Most in attendance today would agree that having the Supreme Court from the great state of Nebraska, holding appeals hearings in our school, is truly unique.

The visit was also an effort by the Nebraska Supreme Court and the legal community to raise awareness of court processes and the importance of civics education in American society, according to a press release from the Nebraska Supreme Court.

For more than 30 years, the Supreme Court has traveled annually to each of Nebraskas law schools for the purpose of making the Courts business accessible to students on their campuses.

More recently, the Supreme Court has expanded argument sessions to high school campuses. Justices will also spend time after the argument session talking to students about the appellate process and career opportunities as lawyers. Cases are selected to demonstrate the variety of legal arguments that face the court system on a regular basis.
Great grandfather [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

"Great-grandfather?" my daughter asked. "When can I try a Jingning apple?"

Our daughterIsla Rose [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

It was the first time in four years our 6 year old had been able to have a face-to-face chat with her Chinese great-grandfather. However, they were in different countries this time and it was WeChat that finally brought the mountains of Gansu province closer to our flat in the UK. Great-grandfather proudly showed us the last of his apple harvest. As usual he had saved us a box just in case we visited. It wasn't just a box of ordinary apples. He had picked the finest samples from his harvest. Year after year they sat in the cold store waiting. Over the months, their sweet juice began to lighten in weight and their bright color began to fade. I vividly remember my first bite of a Jingning apple picked straight from the orchard. I had wondered what all the fuss was about, but after just one bite I understood. Within just an hour I had devoured five. Jingning enjoys a perfect setting for growing Fuji apples with a high altitude and striking temperature differences.

Great grandfather arriving at the airport in Scotland[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A few weeks later after our first video chat on WeChat, the new blossoms began to appear on the trees. The snow had all but melted other than the snow great-grandfather had packed around the bottom of each tree. He walked through the bouquet of branches, a sweet fragrance floating across the mountain hamlet. He had an idea. If we couldn't take our daughter to his terraced mountain and finally try a Jingning apple, he would take the finest Jingning apples to her. Nearly 80 years old but still agile on his feet, he climbed the ladder to the higher branches of his favorite tree. He meticulously examined the blossoms before deciding which flowers would grow into the sweetest apples. Those that failed his examination were picked off the tree.

Our family [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The blossoms had now grown into small apples, still many weeks away from harvest. Once more great-grandfather climbed the ladder and carefully covered each apple with a special bag. The bag consists of three layers. The outside is a light brown, the middle is a black lining, and the layer closest to the apple is red. This would protect the young apples, preventing brown spots or blemishes from appearing; and also helping the apple achieve an even coloring. At night he sat on the traditional bed called a kang and watched out the window as a large hail storm swept across the mountain. Awake at dawn he dashed to his orchard and found many apples, although still in their bags, had been ruthlessly beaten to the ground. He climbed the ladder once more. One of his great granddaughter's apples hadn't survived the onslaught.

Great-grandfather on the farm [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Several weeks passed. The apples were almost ready. It took him a few days to remove the outer layers of the bags from every apple in the orchard. A few years ago he had fallen out of the tree and damaged his hearing but up and down the ladder he continued to look after all his crop. The inner red layer was kept on the apple. If this were to be removed too early, the fruit would be damaged by the unexpected glare from the sunlight. Once accustomed to the sun, great-grandfather climbed the ladder again to remove the final layer. The apple was now a delicious color and almost ready to pick. At this time, great-grandfather moved from his courtyard kang into the orchard hut. He slept there protecting his orchard and his great granddaughter's apples. During the day he ascended the tree to individually check on the redness of his treasured collection. He turned the paler sides to face the direction of the sun and removed some surrounding leaves that blocked the light.

The mountains where great grandfather lives [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

From his harvest, he still kept that one box of his finest apples but this time he was determined to deliver them himself. Once the middleman had taken the remainder of his harvest, it was several weeks before he received his eagerly awaited payment. Great-grandfather climbed down the mountain and took the intervillage bus to the main Jingning town where he applied for his very first passport. Once he had his passport, he climbed down the mountain and took a different bus to the nearest train station in Tianshui. He traveled alone to Hangzhou and applied for his visa. Passport and visa ready, he delicately packed his 2 kilogram bag of Jingning apples -- as fresh fruit is restricted by customs to just a minimal amount -- and journeyed to the airport in Xian. Two complex airport transfers later, he arrived in Scotland.

A group photo near the queen's Balmoral castle [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

"Great granddaughter!" he exclaimed, "I have brought you your Jingning apples!"

Felicity Miller first came to teach English in China and then met her husband. Now she is living in the UK with her family.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping (3rd R) and his US counterpart Donald Trump (3rd L) hold the second round of talks in the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, the United States, April 7, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

MAR-A-LAGO, United States - Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, pledged on Friday to expand mutually beneficial cooperation and manage differences on the basis of mutual respect.

The two leaders also agreed that their first meeting, held at the seaside Mar-a-Lago resort in the US state of Florida, was "positive and fruitful."

During their talks over the past two days, Xi and Trump exchanged views on key areas of bilateral cooperation as well as global and regional issues of common concern.

Xi said his first meeting with Trump bears unique significance to the development of China-US ties.

He added that he and Trump, during the meeting, have also gained better understanding of each other, cemented their mutual trust, scored many major consensuses, and built up a good working relationship.

The two sides need to further enhance their relations so as to better serve the interests of the two countries and their peoples, and to promote world peace and prosperity, Xi said.

China and the United States are now each other's biggest trading partner, from which the two peoples benefit a lot, said Xi. Xi said China is pushing forward the supply-side structural reform, boosting domestic demand and increasing the share of the services industry in its national economy.

China's economy is to maintain sound momentum of development, and China and the United States enjoy broad prospects in economic and trade cooperation, said Xi, urging the two sides to grasp the opportunity.

"China welcomes the US side to participate in cooperation within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative," said Xi.

On military relations, which he said make up an important part of bilateral ties, Xi pointed out that mutual trust in military and security areas forms the basis of the strategic mutual trust between the two countries.

Xi proposed that the two sides maintain military exchanges at various levels, give full play to such mechanisms as China-US defense ministry consultations and Asia-Pacific security dialogue, and make good use of the dialogue mechanism to be established between the two countries' joint staffs of the armed forces.

Meanwhile, he suggested that the two sides carry out the annual exchange programs they have agreed upon, and implement and improve the mutual reporting mechanism on major military operations and the code of safe conduct on naval and air military encounters.

Xi also underlined the importance of further enhancing law enforcement cooperation and people-to-people exchanges.

"I think we have made tremendous progress in our relationship with China," the White House cited Trump as saying after meeting with Xi, adding that the relationship developed by Xi and himself is "outstanding."

US representatives have been meeting one-on-one with their Chinese counterparts, and progress has been made, said the US president.

Trump said the United States is willing to further strengthen cooperation with China in economy, military affairs and people-to-people exchanges, and support China's efforts in hunting for fugitives who have fled abroad and recovering illicit money.

Ahead of the two presidents' second round of talks, senior Chinese and US officials on Friday initiated the comprehensive economic dialogue and the diplomatic and security dialogue, two of the four pillars of the newly established bilateral dialogue mechanisms.

Xi made the two-day trip to the southeastern US coastal town of Palm Beach for the first meeting with Trump, in a bid to chart the course of bilateral ties in a new era.
Cui Tiankai (left), China's ambassador to the US, chats with US Senator Steve Daines, from Montana, in an agricultural forum at the Morgan Ranch in Belgrade, Montana, on Sept 8, 2017. [Photo by Chen Weihua/chinadaily.com.cn]

The Chinese Ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, and US Senator Steve Daines, from Montana, co-chaired an agricultural forum at the Morgan Ranch in Belgrade, Montana, on Friday.

About 20 people from the Montana agricultural sector, the Chinese embassy in Washington and US-based Chinese companies discussed how to expand agricultural cooperation between Montana and China.

China is the largest market for US agricultural exports.


Judging from the value, the $1bn acquisition of the CWT Ltd, a leading Singapore-listed provider of integrated logistics and supply chain solutions, by Hong Kong-listed HNA Holding Group isn't a big one compared with other recent deals done by Chinese firms in the overseas markets.

But the deal is a typical example of "small but beautiful", according to analysts and observers, as it highlights that China is redirecting its capital toward countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative.

HNA Innovation Finance Group (HNAIFG), to which HNA Holding Group belongs, has vowed to keep watching potential projects in countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative.

CWT will be suspended from trading after Nov 2 due to an insufficient free float, after HNA Holding Group gained control more than 90 percent of the company.

Singapore Exchange regulations require a free float of at least 10 percent.

Founded in 1970, CWT is a leading provider of integrated logistics and supply chain solutions. Its portfolio covers commodity marketing, financial services, engineering services and logistics.

It operates in more than 90 countries, most of which are involved in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Acquiring CWT is a deal of "precise choice", Qi Guanghui, spokesman for HNAIFG, told China Daily, noting the group will continue to watch potential projects within its portfolio in Belt and Road regions.

Qi said the deal is "proceeding smoothly", but did not disclose the exact date when it will be completed.

"For HNA Holding Group, this overseas acquisition deal will improve its strategic location in bulk commodity trading," he said.

Qi added that, to support the Belt and Road Initiative, HNAIFG is "committed to becoming an international trade and finance investment group, contributing to connected infrastructures, smooth trade and free capital flow."

This year, the value of Chinese merger and acquisition deals in Belt and Road countries has to date picked up by more than 70 percent, despite an overall contraction in China outbound M&A following regulatory restrictions, according to Asset magazine, which engages with Asia's financial industry.

In 2016, Chinese investors were "big spenders", as Asset said, with the country's total outbound deal value soared to $209.2 billion. It has contracted by nearly a half to $110.9 billion so far in 2017.

However, the country's outbound M&A in Belt and Road countries is up 73 percent to date in 2017, compared to the same period in 2016, now standing at $37.8 billion in 2017 for completed deals, according to Mergermarket data.

This is a positive sign for China as it tries to steer domestic capital towards the original goal of the initiative: to improve infrastructure and enhance connectivity along the ancient Silk Road, Asset said.
The world's most expensive whisky shot. [Screenshot from BBC.com]

GENEVA - The world's most expensive whisky shot, bought in August for $10,000 at a hotel in the exclusive St Moritz resort in Switzerland, was shown on Thursday to be fake.

After being submitted to laboratory tests by Scottish whisky experts and at Oxford University, the liquor was found not have been what it claimed to be -- an 1878 bottle of Macallan Single Malt, Swissinfo, the website of the Swiss national broadcaster reported.

The Waldhaus Am See Hotel has reimbursed the Chinese drinker who bought the tipple, as it had promised to do if the drop was found to be a fake.

Carbon dating found that there is a "95 percent probability that the liquid was created between 1970 and 1972," according to a press statement sent by the hotel to Swissinfo.

Moreover, the whisky may not have even been a single malt. Scotch analysts said it was more likely a blended Scotch, of 60 percent malt and 40 percent grain.

The hotel said it has taken responsibility for the sale and reimbursed the buyer in full.

Hotel owner Sandro Bernasconi traveled to China to personally apologize and hand over the check to the young whisky aficionado.

"The result has been a big shock to the system," Bernasconi said in the statement. "We are delighted to have repaid our customer in full as a gesture of goodwill."

The bottle had been bought by Bernasconi's father Claudio 25 years ago for a "five-figure sum".

However, soon after the pricy sale, experts questioned the authenticity of the whisky, and the hotel itself sent the bottle for testing in the UK.

"When it comes to selling our customers some of the world's rarest and oldest whiskies, we felt it was our duty to ensure that our stock is 100 percent authentic and the real deal," Bernasconi said.
A lone shopping cart sits in the parking lot as police investigate the scene of a shooting at a Walmart store in the Thorton Town Center shopping plaza on Nov 1, 2017 in Thornton, Colorado. [Photo/VCG]

LOS ANGELES - A suspect of the fatal shooting that killed three people inside a Walmart supermarket in the US state of Colorado was arrested Thursday morning, local police confirmed.

"Walmart homicide suspect Scott Ostrem has been taken into custody," Thornton Police Department said on its official tweet page, 14 hours after the heinous act occurred around 6:00 pm Wednesday evening (0030 GMT, Thursday) in Thornton, a Denver suburb, and left three dead.

The suspect was identified as 47-year-old Ostrem, who was described by witnesses as a cold blood murder. Police said he walked into the south entrance of the store and began shooting a handgun randomly, then fled the scene in a red car.

Local Denver Post reported that Ostrem was stopped on street Thursday while driving that Mitsubishi Mirage with Colorado license plate.

Ostrem said nothing when he opened fire at the supermarket, police disclosed, adding they had no idea about his motive but there are no indications it is terror-related.

"From what we have right now it appears to be random. It's a crazy world we live in." Thornton police spokesman Victor Avila said in a briefing conference.

"He walked in very nonchalantly with his hands in the pockets, raised a weapon and began shooting. Then he turns around and walks out of the store."

Denver Post also reported that court records show Ostrem was arrested in 2013 for driving while impaired and filed for bankruptcy two years later.
President Xi Jinping will travel to the coastal city of Da Nang, Vietnam Nov 10 to 11 to attend the informal leaders meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lu Kang announced Friday.

Xi will pay state visits to Vietnam and Laos after the APEC meeting Nov 12 to 14, Lu said.

It will be Xi's first overseas trip since he was re-elected as the general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee Oct 25.
The Chinese-built Soubre hydroelectric power station is inaugurated in Soubre, Cote d'Ivoire on Nov 2, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

SOUBRE, Cote d'Ivoire - Cote d'Ivoire on Thursday inaugurated the Chinese-built Soubre hydroelectric power station, the largest of its kind in the West African country.

The 4.5-km-long hydropower dam at Naoua Falls on the Sassandra River, with an installed capacity of 275 megawatts (MW), is expected to increase hydro power in Cote d'Ivoire's energy mix and cement the country's status as a key power producer and supplier in West Africa.

The Soubre project, dormant for several decades due to lack of funding, was launched in February 2013 with funding from China.

One of Soubre's four total generator units started generating electricity in May, about eight months ahead of schedule, according to the builder Sinohydro Corporation Limited, which is under PowerChina.

"The Government of Cote d'Ivoire is very satisfied with the quality and speed of the construction of the Soubre hydroelectric dam," Alassane Ouattara, President of Cote d'Ivoire, said at the inauguration ceremony held in front of the dam.

The president said Cote d'Ivoire is willing to have more cooperation with China.

Hailing it as "one of the landmark achievements of cooperation between China and Cote d'Ivoire," Wang Jun, Charge d'affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Cote d'Ivoire, noted in his speech that the hydro station has helped deepen the bilateral economic and trade cooperation, especially in the areas of energy and hydroelectricity.

"Soubre dam is of high quality and built within a shorter period than schedule. I've been impressed by both the determination and flexibility shown in the Chinese builder's work," said Teyssiaux Jean, an engineer with Tractebel Engineering, a French company in charge of quality supervision over Soubre's construction.

The cost of the Soubre project is about 572 million US dollars, of which 85 percent is financed by the Export-Import Bank of China and 15 percent by Cote d'Ivoire.

Cote d'Ivoire has the ambition to push its power production capacity to 4,000 MW by 2020. Thursday's inauguration of Soubre adds to the country's existing capacity of around 2,000 MW.

"With Soubre dam, we're on course to meet the target of 4,000 MW by 2020," said Thierry Tanoh, energy minister of Cote d'Ivoire, noting that the dam contributes greatly to the improvement of people's livelihoods.

Following the Soubre inauguration, a foundation laying ceremony was held at the same site for the 112-MW Gribo-Popoli project, a dam 15 km downstream of Soubre, to be built also by Sinohydro.
The South China Sea issue is not on the agenda of the upcoming 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting, and is not within the topics of the meeting's discussions, Vice-Foreign Minister Li Baodong has said Friday.

"Various parties have consensus in this regard," Li said in response to a question on the issue at a media briefing in Beijing about President Xi Jinping attending the meeting in Da Nang, Vietnam, and paying a state visit to Vietnam and Laos.

China hopes that the meeting will focus on economic cooperation of the Asia-Pacific region and could achieve some progress in areas such as development and inclusive growth to further consolidate consensus and outline the great prospects for Asia-Pacific cooperation, Li said.

Speaking on the overall situation in the South China Sea, Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong said the situation has seen tension cooling and is showing positive momentum.

China and the ASEAN countries are committed to comprehensively and effectively implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of the Parties in the South China Sea, Chen noted.

Also, they are pressing ahead consultations on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea as they have made some major progress, Chen added.

This shows that the regional countries have willingness, capability and wisdom to effectively tackle the South China Sea issue, Chen said.

"We also hope that some countries outside the region could objectively view the positive changes taking place in the South China Sea situation and do more to facilitate the region's peace and stability," Chen added.

When asked about interactions between China and Vietnam over the South China Sea situation, Chen said the two sides will stay committed to friendly consultations, manage and control their maritime disputes, and champion the big picture of a developing China-Vietnam relationship.

Contact the writer at zhangyunbi@chinadaily.com.cn
Hillary Clinton criticized President Donald Trump on Thursday for failing to implement Russian sanctions that Congress passed earlier this year, arguing at a Democratic women's event that the President is shirking America's responsibility.

Clinton, in an on-camera conversation with California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, also faulted the Trump administration's policy on contraception, arguing that restricting women's rights to abortion and contraception is saying "women have no right to control their own reproductive capacity."

Congress reached a deal earlier this year to slap fresh sanctions on Russia and restrict the President's veto power to block any easing of those sanctions. The agreement headed to Trump's desk, where the sanctions have yet to be implemented.

The State Department -- 25 days after guidance on the sanctions were due -- issued direction on which Russian individuals and entities will be subject to sanctions under the newly passed legislation. The lack of guidance had drawn bipartisan scorn.

"He hasn't implemented it. So what is the lesson from that?" Clinton said at an event in Washington. "The lesson is you can get away with attacking America, sowing discord and divisiveness, effecting our election and this President and administration are not going to hold you accountable."

The sanctions are now set to be fully implemented in January.

Clinton's animosity toward Russia dates back years and was further heightened in 2016, when the country meddled in the US election to help Donald Trump and hurt her candidacy. Clinton, in books and speeches, has traced Russian President Vladimir Putin's animus toward her to her decision to speak out against Russia's elections in 2011.

Clinton defended that decision Thursday and subtly knocked Rex Tillerson, Trump's secretary of state, in the process.

"I was the secretary of state and part of my job was to stand up for democracy, something we used to expect from our secretary of state," she said.

One topic not addressed during the wide-ranging conversation: Allegations leveled by former interim DNC chair Donna Brazile. In newly released book excerpts, Brazile allege that the Democratic National Committee was controlled by her 2016 campaign long before she was the party's nominee, an accusation long lobbed by supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton's 2016 opponent.

Instead of focusing intra-party fighting -- Feinstein never asked about the excerpts -- Clinton lobbed most of her attacks at Trump.

Clinton slammed Trump's decision to allow employers more leeway for covering birth control through employee insurance plans. Clinton said restricting women's access to contraception -- not just abortion -- is saying "women have no right to control their own reproductive capacity."

"That is what is so troubling to me, Dianne, because that is in line with regimes and ideologies around the world that really do want to limit women's autonomy and being able to make decisions for ourselves," Clinton added.
APEC has sent a delegation to learn from China's advanced e-commerce companies to facilitate the group's policymaking in that regard, a senior official from the Ministry of Commerce has said.

Wang Shouwen, the ministry's vice-minister, spoke at a news conference before President Xi Jinping's visit to Vietnam to attend the 25th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting from Nov 10 to 11. Xi will then pay state visits to Vietnam and the Laos from Nov 12 to 14.

"China has played a very important role in setting up the framework for APEC's cross-border e-commerce facilitation," Wang said.

To help implement APEC plans to improve Asia-Pacific supply chain connectivity, China has also proposed establishing the Asia-Pacific Model E-port Network to improve the efficiency of information exchange among the ports, he said.

Beijing also proposed establishing a green supply chain network, he added.

Contact the writer at lixiaokun@chinadaily.com.cn
President Xi Jinping's visit to Vietnam will undoubtedly bring the two countries' already good trade and economic cooperation to a new high, Vice-Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen said Friday.

The visit is expected to witness achievements made in areas of trade, investment, service trade and cross-border economic cooperation, he added.

Speaking at a press briefing in Beijing, Wang said the trade and investment cooperation between China and Vietnam has reached a high level after joint efforts in recent years.

China has been Vietnam's largest trading partner over the past 14 years and the two-way trade volume accounted for 20 percent of Vietnam's global trade volume, he said, and China's investment to Vietnam also increased rapidly in recent years, with last year's investment reaching $15 billion.

"President Xi's visit to Vietnam will play a significant role in terms of bilateral trade and the economic relationship, and specific goals will be achieved in a number of fields," he said.

In terms of trade, the two sides will further promote the sustainable and stable development of bilateral trade, including increasing imports from Vietnam.

In terms of investment, the two countries will list the key projects within their five-year plan on developing bilateral trade and economy, and the list will "reflect bilateral cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative as well as in production capability, Wang said.

China has been Vietnam's largest source of foreign tourists in many years, he said, and the two countries will work to boost people-to-people exchanges and communications through the Chinese president's visit.

The vice-commerce minister also said that China expected to achieve some progress in the construction of the cross-border economic cooperation zone between China and Vietnam.

President Xi will pay state visits to Vietnam and the Laos from Nov 12 to 14.

Contact the writer at mojingxi@chinadaily.com.cn
BEIJING - China and the United States are working to ensure President Donald Trump's state visit is a "historic success", Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang said Friday.

Trump, who will pay a state visit to China from Nov 8 to 10, will be the first head of state to visit China after the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will receive Trump with high standards in reciprocity to the hospitality he received from Trump at Mar-a-Lago in April, according to Zheng.

"Apart from the red-carpet ceremony, formal talks and banquet, the two presidents will have informal arrangements," Zheng told a briefing for Chinese and foreign reporters.

The two leaders will exchange views on major issues of mutual concern,attend a business community event and meet the press, Zheng said.
For most evangelicals in America, conversion is a central part of ones religious experience. They are accustomed to hearing testimonies at church, on television, or in print. They would not be surprised, then, by historian Lincoln A. Mullens identification of conversion as a major American religious theme. What might come as a surprise, however, is Mullens claim that conversion is not unique to evangelicalism. Instead, he argues, it is perhaps the defining feature of what American religions had in common.

Mullens new book, The Chance of Salvation, is a history of conversion in 19th-century America. Relying on numerous conversion stories, literature promoting conversion, and polemics against conversion, Mullen has crafted a religious synthesis akin to Sidney Meads The Lively Experiment (1963) or Sydney Ahlstroms Religious History of the American People (1972). As a work of synthesis, the book is less concerned with the specific nuances of each religious tradition and more concerned with what all the traditions held in common. And one essential commonality, according to Mullen, was conversion. The fact that there was such variety of conversions in the United States actually helped create a shared understanding of religionthat religion is something you choose, as opposed to something you inherit. This freedom to choose, however, implied an obligation. The book speaks of obligatory religious choice or the burden to choose. As Mullen states it: in the United States, people not only may pick their religion, they must.

Forced Choice

Mullen works within two overarching frameworks to build this argument. First, he borrows the concept of forced choice from William Jamess Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). In this influential work, James speaks of a forced choice as an unavoidable one. Surveying the religious landscape of his own day, James noted the vast array of religious options in America. Along with these options, however, James felt the burden to choose among them. Drawing on Jamess idea of forced choice, The Chance of Salvation argues that 19th-century Americans gained every possible religious option except the option of not choosing at all.

But heres the irony: While forced choice may have helped create a more religious United States, it simultaneously made the country more secular. To support this argument, Mullen borrows from Charles Taylors A Secular Age (2007), which distinguishes between different kinds of secularity. One kind of secularity is when a society moves from having an unchallenged belief in God to regarding this belief as one option among many. The widespread attention given to conversion in the United States made it impossible for people to ignore religious options (thereby making them more religious). But it also made people more aware of the fact that options existed (thereby making them more secular).

Mullen examines several different religious groups in 19th-century America to make his case. The book is structured both chronologically and thematically, beginning with evangelicals in the early part of the 19th century and ending with Roman Catholics at the turn of the 20th century. In between, he discusses missionary efforts to southeastern Indians before the Trail of Tears, the conversion of both enslaved and free African Americans around the time of Emancipation, the growth of Mormonism in the preCivil War period, and attempts to convert Jews in the middle-portion of the century.

The book begins by highlighting a shift in evangelicalism, from religion as inheritance to religion as choice. This shift was seen in the declining practice of infant baptism, which treated the new childs faith as an inheritance passed down; and in the turn toward forms of revivalism championed by Charles Finney, who emphasized conversion as an instantaneous experience. We see it also in the development and promotion of the formulaic sinners prayer, popular in the American Tract Society publications, or in the Sunday school movement, which emphasized converting children to Christ (consistent with religion as choice) above nurturing an already existing faith (consistent with religion as inheritance).

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Evangelicals were not only interested in converting revival and Sunday school attendees. They also sent missionaries to the indigenous nations of the southeast United States. Focusing primarily on the experience of the Cherokee Nation, Mullen shows how the evangelical norm of religious choice influenced these encounters. Cherokee cosmology shaped all of life, from food to politics; therefore, missionaries were not only asking a Cherokee to exchange one religion for another, but also to switch the way identity was categorized. While Christianity never fully displaced traditional religions among the Cherokee, traditional religion could no longer be inherited; it had to be consciously chosen. Ultimately, Christianity thrived among the Cherokee, but this was largely because they took a part in shaping it for themselves. Cherokees, who lived in a gift culture, tended to view Christianity as a gift and conversion as an invitation to mutual obligations in Christianity. The Cherokee, therefore, received Christianity in an idiom that they shaped themselves.

Another group of converts who spoke of Christianity in their own idiom were African Americans around the time of Emancipation. African Americans, both slave and free, were oriented toward hope. Slaves were confronted with religious choice in the form of their masters religion. Mullen highlights the fact that slaves rejected their masters form of Christianity but not Christianity as a whole. Rather, their faith deliberately took on an eschatological pattern. Conversion for African Americans was accompanied by eschatological visions, drawing on apocalyptic Scriptures, and ecstatic experiences, accompanied by physical effects such as fainting. Although slaves, and even free African Americans, often had to hide or mute their distinctive form of Christianity prior to Emancipation, after the Civil War they could exercise religious freedom by choosing this form of Christianity over others.

Mullen then shifts his focus to Christians who changed their allegiances, concentrating primarily on Mormonism. While individuals in the Protestant mainstream saw Mormonism as a new, anti-Christian religion, converts to this movement saw themselves as restoring the ancient Christian faith. Not only did Mormonism provide Americans with yet another religious option, it allowed converts to express that choice through a number of rituals. The key ritual was baptism, which was the mark of Mormon conversion. This practice was highlighted in the Book of Mormon, which spoke explicitly of religious faith as choice. By the late 19th century, Mormons had been pushed to the geographic margins of America, but according to Mullen, in terms of their emphasis on conversion and religion as choice, they were well within the mainstream.

While missionary efforts had been successful among the Cherokee, they made less headway among Jews in the United States. Within Judaism, conversion (whether into the faith or out of it) was most common when religious intermarriage occurred. In both cases, the sincerity of the convert was key. Jewish converts to Christianity had to conform to the requirements of heart religion, while Christian converts to Judaism had to meet the test of their motives required by the halakah, the Jewish Law. The sincerity and motivations of converts were constantly called into question when they left one religion for another. This was especially true of American Jews who were constantly encouraged to convert and therefore had to continually justify their refusal. In this way, although relatively few Jews converted to Christianity, their Jewish religious identity increasingly rested less on habit or tradition and more on conscious choice.

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The dizzying array of religious options in the 19th century led some Protestants down the path to Roman Catholicism. Dissatisfied with the endless variety of Protestant denominations, they chose a faith tradition that seemed to reject this pluralism. These yearnings for catholicity, as Mullen puts it, were satisfied in the Catholic Church. Catholicity appealed primarily to two groups: those closest to Roman Catholicism, such as members of the Episcopal Church, and those farthest away, such as members of liberal Protestant denominations. By embracing Catholicism, these converts were attempting to reject the whole system of religious choice in America, instead finding comfort in the unity, universality, and tradition of the Catholic faith.

Ripple Effects

The Chance of Salvation deftly captures the chaotic nature of American religion in the 19th century. It handles conversion narratives with respect, but without abandoning a critical, scholarly eye. And yet, while the book demonstrates the centrality of religious choice in the United States, it is largely silent on why this transformation occurred. While Mullen points to religious disestablishment (freedom of religion) as one piece of that puzzle, he neglects any discussion of what historian Nathan Hatch calls the democratization of American Christianity, a force that gave common people unprecedented power in defining their religious traditions and choosing their religious loyalties.

Like all works of synthesis, the book cannot give as much attention to nuance and distinction between different traditions. However, to use an old cliche, we often miss the forest for the trees. While focusing on one religion or movement opens our eyes to the rich details of a specific tradition, it can also blind us to commonalities and larger trends across religions. Mullen helps us see how a distinctly evangelical approach to salvation had ripple effects beyond evangelicals, and he should be commended for it.

Josh McMullen is the general education department chair at Regent University. He is the author of Under the Big Top: Big Tent Revivalism and American Culture, 1885-1925 (Oxford University Press).
Russian operatives created a popular Facebook page to target conservative Christians with patriotic, Jesus-filled memes as a part of a broad social media campaign to stir dissension among Americans during the 2016 election.

Congressional hearings this week revealed new details about the Russian posts and the scope of their reach, now believed to be up to 126 million users (which is over half of American adults on Facebook). The illicit campaign specifically targeted conservative Christians, as well as other social groups like Muslims, LGBT individuals, and veterans.

Army of Jesus was among 470 Facebook pages created by the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg. Its profile picture showed a light-skinned, brown-haired Jesus wearing a garment printed with the American flag.

According to one post presented by Senator Mark Warnerdepicting a standoff between a glowing figure of Jesus Christ and Hillary Clinton dressed as the devilthe fake Christian account had over 217,000 likes. (For comparison, thats more Facebook likes than some established, politically conservative evangelical media outlets, such as World or Charisma magazines.)

Posts on the Army of Jesus page appealed to conservative Christians who opposed Clinton, inviting them to like if you want Jesus to win!

I suspect some of this microtargeting only hardened voting preferences that pre-existed; these ads would only resonate with people who already had their minds made up, said Kevin den Dulk, political science professor at Calvin College. This doesnt make the ads any less concerning. They are blasphemous, manipulative, and perhaps marginally deepened American polarization.

The interactivity and shareability of these posts, before they were removed from Facebook for using fake identities, led to their widespread reach. Though the Russian agency also used Army of Jesus and other accounts to launch sponsored posts, a form of paid advertising, only about 11.4 million saw the ads, compared to ten times as many who saw them organically, reported The Washington Post.

The Daily Beast, through uncovering Google archives and a related Instagram feed for the Army of Jesus page, described other images shared through the fake account:

Many, and perhaps the majority, of the images are fairly standard pieces of Christian messaging, such as a picture of people holding hands with the text, my prayer is for all Christians to stand as one army of Jesus, or a bible thats falling apart usually belongs to someone who isnt. But, as Warner noted, Army of Jesus started to post much more explicitly political content. This is another example of how people are lured in, Warner said during the hearing. Several posts tugged at political or theological divides. Defend Christian faith, stop atheist propaganda, reads one image of a young girl grasping a framed picture of Jesus on the cross. I did this because all lives matter, reads another post, next to a picture of Jesus carrying the cross, clearly poking at political tensions over police brutality.

Despite the large following on Army of Jesus, its sponsored posts fared far worse than sponsored posts for fake Russian pages directed at African Americans, gun owners, and other demographics, which drew in hundreds of thousands of users.

My first thought on the Army of Jesus was that theres no way anyone could take this seriously, said Nate Smoyer, a Christian social media marketer. But Ive seen stuff like this before.

When pages ask you like to... or share if you believe..., they are largely just trying to increase that pages Edgerank [its placement in Facebooks algorithm], he said.

An Army of Jesus ad showing Jesus arm-wresting Satan and pledging to defeat Clinton was shown to just 71 people, 14 of whom clicked on it, according to a Tech Crunch chart based on the congressional testimony.

Image: House Intelligence Committee

The October 2016 post urged voters to elect a president with godly moral principles, declaring that Hillary is a Satan and Trump isnt a saint by any means, hes at least an honest man and he cares deeply for his country.

It was specifically served to users whose Facebook profiles indicated they were interested in faith, the Bible, God, Jesus, or Christianity. It also targeted those who were fans of conservatives like Laura Ingraham, Ron Paul, Bill OReilly, Rush Limbaugh, Andrew Breitbart, Michael Savage, or Mike Huckabee.

Nick Runyon, a Christian social media strategist who serves as the executive director of CVChristian Vision, attributed the low ad performance of the Russian posts to poor practice. The ads were poorly designed and used more text than Facebook recommends for its ad images, he said. Plus, the targeted groupscombining both Christian interests and political figureswere not narrow enough to be effective.

The audience targeting for the Army of Jesus ad is a broad net with no real direction, he told CT. Facebook will let you run the ad, but youll pay more for it due to its lack of focus.

While Facebook ad policies prohibit ads from asserting or implying a targeted groups religion, race, or other personal attributes, sponsors can easily purchase ads targeted to appear to members of particular religious group by tracking their interests and likes.

Christian Facebook users are particularly active and eager to comment and share content. For years, Christian pages ranked among the most engaged on Facebook, with Jesus Daily, a feed filled with inspirational stories and Christian memes, topping the list.

Given the wide range of fake accounts, stirring up Clinton opponents and Trump opponents alike, some analysts speculate that the campaigns overall goal was to spark dissension among Americans. In total, the Russian agency was found to be responsible for 80,000 posts and $100,000 advertising on Facebook, plus additional messaging through Instagram and Google ad words.

The unfolding details about the bogus social media posts have served as a wakeup call to the power of social media propaganda. In recent years, Christianslike many others onlinehave shared bogus stories and posts, as the fake news industry has grown more widespread and sophisticated.

All fake stories harm the credibility to our witness, said Smoyer. I would advise all Christians to exercise patient and controlled discernment. I would advise you think before you click Like and Share.

Runyon offered two specific tips for Christians on Facebook:
It is very definite and it is indestructible: Spider II by Louise Bourgeois

Like many of her sculptural forms, the symbolism of the arachnid has roots in Bourgeoiss childhood. Here, we look at one of the key motifs in the artist's oeuvre  illustrated with a superb piece offered in our 15 November sale in New York

Born in Paris in 1911, Louise Bourgeois lived and worked across nearly the entirety of the tumultuous 20th century. As a young artist in Paris in the early 1930s, she came into contact with Surrealists such as Andre Breton, and studied with Fernand Leger. Following her marriage to art historian Robert Goldwater in 1938, the couple moved to New York, where she would study painting at the Art Students League, exhibit with artists including Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Motherwell and Jackson Pollock, and live until her death in 2010. Though working well before the Feminist Art movement of the 1970s (and never formally affiliated with it), Bourgeois's concern with themes of sexuality, the body, family and the home influenced many feminist artists. Much of her practice stems from her own memories, and by mining this history she attempted to come to terms with her past. My childhood has never lost its magic, she once said, it has never lost its mystery, and it has never lost its drama.

Open a larger version of this image Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), Spider II, 1995. Bronze. 73 x 73 x 22 1/2 in. (185.4 x 185.4 x 57.2 cm). Estimate: $10,000,000-15,000,000. This work is number five from an edition of six plus one artist's proof. This work is offered in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale on 15 November at Christie's in New York



In the 1940s, Bourgeois set aside painting to focus on sculpture. The two-dimensions do not satisfy me, she would later explain. But unlike her male contemporaries, Bourgeois made use of soft, malleable materials that mimicked the organic forms of bodies and flesh. Situated between representation and abstraction, her works tread carefully between established movements and styles. It is not an image I am seeking, Bourgeois later wrote. Its not an idea. It is an emotion you want to recreate, an emotion of wanting, of giving, and of destroying. The image of the spider was a key motif in Bourgeoiss work throughout her career. Like many of her sculptural forms, its symbolism has roots in her childhood. Her parents ran a tapestry restoration studio, and from an early age she was exposed to the comings and goings at the workshop. In many ways, Bourgeois equated her mother, Josephine, to the thread-producing spider: My best friend was my mother and she was deliberate, clever, patient, soothing, reasonable, dainty, subtle, indispensable, neat, and useful as a spider, she wrote in Ode a ma mere (1995).

I connect her to my mother because the spider is a cornered animal, she finds security in the corner. But she, in fact, is not cornered, but she tries to corner the others  Louise Bourgeois
Perhaps the finest Vuillard ever to appear at auction

Edouard Vuillards superlative Misia et Vallotton is a highlight of Property from the Estate of William Kelly Simpson, the eminent Egyptologist, which also includes works by Matisse and Bonnard alongside an outstanding collection of antiquities

Professor William Kelly Simpson was an eminent Egyptologist and visionary collector in whose home hung several of the most iconic paintings by members of the Nabi movement, a group of rebellious Post-Impressionist artists in France during the 1890s. Alongside these works, Simpson displayed American folk art, European decorative art, Egyptian antiquities and Mughal miniatures. Many of these pieces were acquired by descent from the estates of Abby Aldrich and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. A prolific scholar and distinguished curator, Professor Simpsons extraordinary range is reflected in his collection  from the 2nd-century BC portrait head of Amenhotep III to Nabi masterworks by Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard, says Max Carter, Head of Department, Impressionist and Modern Art at Christies in New York.

The collection is led by Edouard Vuillards superlative Misia et Vallotton from 1899, purchased by Professor Simpson and his wife, a granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller, Jr, and offered in the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale on 13 November in New York. The subject of this work is Misia Natanson, the artists perennial muse and the object of his unrequited infatuation during the last years of the 19th century. Behind her, turned in the opposite direction, is the painter Felix Vallotton, who also had a flirtatious relationship with Natanson. The third character in this intricately contrived drama is Misias husband Thadee, co-founder of the literary journal La Revue Blanche. Misia turns her back on Thadee as he converses with Vallotton, implying his diminished place in her emotional world; Vuillard, likewise, has reduced him almost to a non-presence, radically cropping the image so that only a sliver of his form remains visible. The work, says Carter, represents the culmination of the artists most innovative and celebrated decade. We expect this painting, perhaps the finest Vuillard ever to appear at auction, will be met with enthusiasm by collectors and institutions around the world.

Another highlight of the collection is Antique et oeillets, 1928, by Henri Matisse. This work was acquired by descent from the collection of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, co-founder of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In late 1926 or early 1927, Matisse moved from a third-floor apartment in Nice, which he had occupied for five years, to a space nearly twice the size on the top storey of the same address. Whereas the artists studio in the previous flat had been snug and heavily decorated, the current one was dramatically lit with triple floor-length windows facing south over the Baie des Anges. It was here that Matisse painted Antique et oeillets, unexpectedly transforming a corner of his new atelier into a meditation on the history of art and the nature of art-making. The focal point of this elegant canvas is a plaster cast of a nude female torso from classical antiquity. Strictly aligned with the edges of the canvas, these verticals assert the materiality of the painted surface as opposed to that of the represented object. This play of volume and flatness  of artistic tradition and modernist innovation  embodies the pictorial synthesis that Matisse sought in Nice during the 1920s.





Pierre Bonnards Lorgue de Barbarie or Le joueur dorgue, 1895, demonstrates the artists attempts to find ways of combining the immediacy of direct experience with the highly decorative art form favoured by Les Nabis. The close cropping of the scene, inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e prints and the new technology of the Kodak No. 1 snapshot, conveys all the freshness and informality of the first glance, while simultaneously reinforcing the underlying structure of the image.

To students and enthusiasts, Professor Simpsons co-authored works on the history of the ancient Near East and ancient Egyptian literature have become indispensable texts

Professor Simpson positioned Yale as one of the foremost centres for Egyptology. In 1970 he was approached by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, to lead its Department of Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art. During his 17-year tenure there, Professor Simpson vastly increased the scale of the departments collection and refurbished its exhibition galleries. To students and enthusiasts, his co-authored works on the history of the ancient Near East and ancient Egyptian literature have become indispensable texts.
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(Bloomberg) -- The Trump Administration released a sweeping federal climate report concluding that the Earth is warming at an alarming rate due to human activity.

The Earth is undergoing its warmest period in the history of modern civilization, fueled primarily by rising levels of carbon dioxide, according to the study Friday. The Congressionally mandated report, released by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, was initiated under President Barack Obama in 2015.

The conclusions about melting glaciers, diminishing snow cover, ocean acidification and other results of a warming planet are hardly new. The central premise, that humans are to blame contradicts previous statements of President Donald Trump and many high-ranking members of his administration, who have questioned the scientific findings regarding climate change.

The White House declined to say whether Trump agreed with the reports conclusions. A spokesman issued a statement saying the administration supports rigorous scientific analysis and debate.

In the United States, energy related carbon dioxide emissions have been declining, are expected to remain flat through 2040, and will also continue to decline as a share of world emissions, Principal Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah said in the statement.

Senators Letter

Scientists had expressed concern that the White House would either alter the reports findings or block its release. On Wednesday, nine Democratic senators sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, calling on the administration to refrain from political interference. In the end, the report was issued as the scientists wrote it.

I am quite confident to say that there has been no political interference in the scientific messages in this report, David Fahey, a research physicist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and coordinating lead author of the study, said on a conference call Friday.

It would not have been easy for the Trump administration to suppress or doctor the report, said Rachel Licker, a senior climate scientist for the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Union of Concerned Scientists. The study is mandated by Congress under a 1990 law signed by President George H.W. Bush. It also underwent a rigorous review process including public comments and multiple federal agencies.

The report comes as the Trump administration has aggressively promoted fossil fuels and moved to dismantle federal programs to fight climate change. Fridays report does not necessarily signify that will change, Licker said in an interview.

This is a report that does not prescribe any policy action, she said. It does not tell America what to do. Thats up to policy makers in the administration.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Ryan in New York at jryan173@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net, Will Wade, Stephen Cunningham

2017 Bloomberg L.P.
The Trump Administration released a sweeping federal climate report concluding that the Earth is warming at an alarming rate due to human activity.

The Earth is undergoing its warmest period in the history of modern civilization, fueled primarily by rising levels of carbon dioxide, according to the study Friday. It was released by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which began under President Barack Obama and is mandated by Congress to report every four years on the state of climate change.

RELATED: For big oil, climate change looms large even in Trump era

The conclusions about melting glaciers, diminishing snow cover, ocean acidification and other results of a warming planet are hardly new. The central premise, that humans are to blame contradicts previous statements of President Donald Trump and many high-ranking members of his administration, who have questioned the scientific findings regarding climate change.

The White House declined to say whether Trump agreed with the reports conclusions. A spokesman issued a statement saying the administration supports rigorous scientific analysis and debate.

In the United States, energy related carbon dioxide emissions have been declining, are expected to remain flat through 2040, and will also continue to decline as a share of world emissions, Principal Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah said in the statement.

Senators letter

Scientists had expressed concern that the White House would either alter the reports findings or block its release. On Wednesday, nine Democratic senators sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, calling on the administration to refrain from political interference. In the end, the report was issued as the scientists wrote it.

I am quite confident to say that there has been no political interference in the scientific messages in this report, David Fahey, a research physicist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and coordinating lead author of the study, said on a conference call Friday.

It would not have been easy for the Trump administration to suppress or doctor the report, said Rachel Licker, a senior climate scientist for the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Union of Concerned Scientists. The study is mandated by Congress under a 1990 law signed by President George H.W. Bush. It also underwent a rigorous review process including public comments and multiple federal agencies.

The report comes as the Trump administration has aggressively promoted fossil fuels and moved to dismantle federal programs to fight climate change. Fridays report does not necessarily signify that will change, Licker said in an interview.

This is a report that does not prescribe any policy action, she said. It does not tell America what to do. Thats up to policy makers in the administration.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Ryan in New York at jryan173@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net, Will Wade, Stephen Cunningham
Darrin Klimek/Getty Images

An investment adviser in The Woodlands was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty in June to federal mail fraud charges.

Lawrence Allen DeShetler convinced five clients to cash out their mainstream investments and transfer the money to him to boost their returns, according to the Texas State Securities Board, which is one of the agencies that investigated the case. But instead, DeShetler deposited the funds a total of about $1.9 million into bank accounts he controlled, according to court records. Two of the clients were in their 80s, according to authorities.
A district court judge has ruled that the West Montrose Management District illegally collected nearly $6.6 million in assessments based on a petition now deemed void by the court.

The assessments paid by property owners in West Montrose were done so under duress, according to a judgement filed by state District Judge Daryl L. Moore in Harris County's 333rd Civil Court. Moore said the district must pay back the money.

The judgement also orders that the district refrain from spending any of the assessments that have been collected and not yet spent, or any it may receive as of Oct. 31, the date of the judgement.

The case dates back to 2012 when a property owner challenged the legality of the management district.

LISTEN: Montrose, can you manage this?

Moore inherited the case from Judge Joseph "Tad" Halbach Jr., who left his post at the end of last year.

Halbach found that the district made unlawful assessments and should reimburse property owners, but did not issue a final ruling in the case.

He said the assessments were void because the district board didn't have enough valid property owners who signed a petition required to begin charging the assessments.

The Montrose Management District is one of dozens in the Houston area created by the legislature to promote economic development and make improvements to public areas in individual neighborhoods.

RELATED: Finger Cos. files petition in suit against Montrose Management District

Commercial property owners help pay for the improvements through assessments. In Montrose, they are assessed at a rate of 12.5 cents per each $100 of property value.

The district published a statement on its website Thursday:
The Houston Police Department is still searching for the hit-and-run driver in a wreck last month that left a male motorcyclist dead.

The crash occurred around 11 p.m. Oct. 26 at 8000 Homestead after a motorcycle struck the rear of a maroon Ford Expedition SUV that failed to yield while making a northbound exit from a private parking lot. According to an HPD news release, the driver of the motorcycle thrown from the vehicle and was pronounced dead at Memorial Hermann Hospital on Oct. 27.
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Business is returning to the Lake Houston area as Whataburger and Best Buy recently reopened their doors in Kingwood this week.

The Lake Houston Area Chamber of Commerce knows of 300 businesses in the area affected by flooding after Hurricane Harvey, and that figure doesn't count home-based businesses.

PLAN ACCORDINGLY: These 47 stores will be closed on Thanksgiving

Jerry Martin, chamber board chair, said at a recent luncheon they are being proactive in getting businesses to open up again. The chamber is pushing its #LHAback2biz effort aimed at non-chamber members as well as members. Martin pointed to a FEMA statistic showing 40 percent of small businesses never reopen after a disaster. He said the chamber is working to ensure well over 60 percent of the area's small businesses affected by Harvey reopen their doors.

Over the last two months, 62 businesses temporarily closed by flooding are back in business. Other businesses back in operation include Ag Hair Design, Shannon McIntire Skin Care (operation out of Blue Lion Studions), Texas Tom's Pool Supplies and Mattress Firm.

Costco announced it will reopen in Humble on Nov. 30, and H-E-B set its reopen date at Jan. 15.

The chamber last month hired Andrew Cardenas as its business recovery coordinator to oversee their efforts.

"He has everything he needs to help you get going and get you back in business," Martin said.

The chamber also is continuing its office supply drive for local businesses, and the Cedar Park Chamber of Commerce recently brought a truckload of supplies to the community.
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- Correction: An earlier version of this article provided inaccurate information regarding Annie's List. The organization does not provide birth control.

The race between Carol Stromatt and incumbent Laura Fillault for the Position 7 seat on The Woodlands Township Board of Directors is heating up with thousands of robocalls from the political action committee Texas Right to Life being made into The Woodlands.

The calls, which back Fillault, list several reasons why voters should not choose Stromatt in Tuesday's election.

Luke Bowen, the interim political director for Texas Right to Life, said somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 calls were made Tuesday night, Oct. 31, by the PAC in support of Fillault.

The recorded calls attack Stromatt, describing her as a "pro-abortion liberal Democrat," who, according to the robocall, "gives money to the radical pro-abortion group Annie's List." The text of the message also claims Stromatt supports The Woodlands Parkway extension.

Annie's List is an Austin-based group that describes itself as working to "achieve equity for women" while also supporting numerous philosophies and issues related to women's equality, including access to general health care as well as reproductive health care, seeking economic equality for women and also providing opportunities for disadvantaged groups of women to achieve inclusion and protection in all aspects of life.

Stromatt has said she is running on a nonpartisan platform and questioned why such matters were being brought up in a local election.

"I am deeply disturbed and saddened by the partisan, divisive politics my opponent has chosen to pursue," Stromatt said. "My opponent is inviting national issues that a Township Board Director has absolutely no power to influence, nor have they any bearing on the business of the Township. She is doing this because she's losing the debates about her commitment, stances on local issues and poor choices in Twitter rants unbecoming as a leader in our hometown."

Stromatt also relayed a personal experience and explained the claims against her are "hurtful."

"Such mean spirited misrepresentations of me are particularly hurtful-as I have lived through a very private experience, coming home from the hospital with empty arms," Stromatt said. "It was a heart-wrenching tragedy that, in time, by God's good grace ended with the blessing of adopting our precious baby."

She also said her views on the "full spectrum of national issues have no relevance to this Township campaign."

"My character, integrity and dedication to represent the interests of my community do [have relevance]," Stromatt added. "I challenge my opponent to compete on these issues. I'm running to restore unity in our community-and it starts with neighbors respecting neighbors and focusing on local issues that we can come together around and influence right now."

Fillault did not respond to a request for comment on the robocalls.

Texas Right To Life officials said they put their backing behind candidates who are pro-life, focusing exclusively on local and state races. Bowen also criticized Stromatt for her affiliation with the Democratic Party.

"She's a precinct chair of the Democratic Party," Bowen said. "She's definitely a Democrat. She knows she can't get elected as a Democrat."

The Montgomery County Democratic Party's website lists Stromatt as a chairperson in The Woodlands West area, Precinct 61, while a listing in the business directory bizstanding.com identifies her as the director of the Lone Star Democratic Club of Montgomery County. The registration date of the club was 2006, but the organization has since disbanded and it's not clear when its registration was last updated.

Fillault, who is serving her first term on the township board, has been under scrutiny in recent months after she posted a series of Tweets on her personal Twitter account, using foul and abusive language aimed at other Twitter users.

Fillault has since apologized for what she has termed "salty language" and has pledged not to make such posts again. She has also declined to provide additional comment on the social media posts and whether she felt they would have any impact on the election.

The robocalls are the second attack on Stromatt in the past week. A fake campaign flier with alleged campaign positions recently was posted to the "Alden Bridge (uncensored)" Facebook group. The fake flier, which Stromatt said was a bad "joke," was later removed from the Facebook group.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Churches would gain the right to endorse political candidates and still retain their tax-free status under a provision in the House GOP's tax overhaul plan.

The bill would repeal a 63-year-old law credited to former President Lyndon Johnson when he served in the Senate.

Critics warn it could open a loophole that could funnel tax-free money into campaigns. The provision would cost $2 billion over the coming decade, according to congressional scorekeepers.

The Johnson amendment law prohibits tax-exempt charitable organizations such as churches from participating directly or indirectly in any political campaign to support or oppose a candidate. If the IRS determines that a group has violated the law, it can revoke its tax-exempt status.

The law doesn't stop religious groups from weighing in on public policy or organizing in ways that may benefit one side in a campaign.

Democrats have argued that undercutting the law comes too close to mixing church and state. They say religious leaders already have First Amendment rights, just like anyone else. But if they want to get political, they don't have a constitutional right not to pay taxes.

The GOP plan permits political activity by churches so long as there is a minimal cost.

Campaign finance groups warned the change could have far-reaching implications, turning "churches into tools for secret campaign spending," said Tiffany Muller, president of End Citizens United.

Johnson introduced the measure in 1954 when he was a Democratic senator from Texas, driven by his anger over a few nonprofit groups that had attacked him as a communist in a Senate campaign.

The law was signed by a Republican president  Dwight Eisenhower  but Republicans have been criticizing it in recent years and pledged to repeal it as part of the tax overhaul.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in May discouraging the IRS from enforcing the law.
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EDINBURG  A jury has found a former South Texas hospice administrator guilty of capital murder for killing an elderly McAllen man to gain access to his money and estate.

Monica Melissa Patterson, 50, the daughter of Hector Tito Palacios, a former Hidalgo County Precinct 2 Commissioner and former Mayor of San Juan, was convicted Wednesday in the asphyxiation death of Martin Knell, 96.

The state decided not to seek the death penalty in the case, so the conviction carries an automatic life sentence without parole.

RELATED: South Texas hospice administrator, immigrant charged in death of elderly man

Prior to her death, Knells wife had been a patient at the nonprofit Comfort House Services Inc. in McAllen, where Patterson was an administrator.

In addition, Patterson was convicted of theft of property of $200,000 or more connected to Knells estate. The jury also found Patterson guilty on a separate count of theft of more than $100,000 but less than $200,000, related to money she took from Comfort House and one count of misapplication of property as a fiduciary while she was an administrator at the facility from January 2014 until her arrest in August 2015.

For the theft of Knells property, the jury gave her 15 years and a $10,000 fine. For the theft from Comfort House she was given 75 years and a $10,000 fine. For the fiduciary violation, she was handed four years and another $10,000 fine. The sentences will run concurrently.

Shes a thief. She committed theft, she did it through deception, said Assistant Criminal District Attorney Joseph Orendain in his closing argument Wednesday. And through Angel Mario Garza, her flunky, her co-defendant, she committed capital murderfor promise of money.

Prosecutors said Patterson directed Garza, 39, to smother Knell in his home. Garza also faces a capital murder charge.

At the time of Knells death, Patterson had been named payee upon death on his bank accounts and stocks, and was executrix and beneficiary of his will.

Over the course of the five-week trail, in the same courthouse where Pattersons brother is a county court-at-law judge, dozens of witnesses were brought to the stand, though none as pivotal to the prosecutions case as Knells caretaker, Celestina Mascorro, 60, at his home.

RELATED: Mexican Mafia member testifies how the killing of a San Antonio-area cop went down

Mascorro testified that on January 28, 2015, Patterson ordered her to wait outside while Garza entered the Knell residence wearing plastic gloves. Patterson told Mascorro that Knell had to be put to sleep because he had accused Mascorro of stealing. Patterson then instructed her to wait 30 to 45 minutes before calling 911, Mascorro said.

At first, Mascorro told authorities that Knell had been found slumped over and was not breathing, and a preliminary investigation did not indicate foul play. A justice of the peace pronounced Knell dead of natural causes, and no autopsy was ordered.

But Mascorro later confessed to Texas Rangers investigators that Knell had been killed, explaining that she had lied to authorities out of fear for her safety.

Patterson met Knell in late 2014 when his ailing wife was admitted as a patient to Comfort House. Pattersons defense argued that she had looked out for him. And, in closing arguments, defense attorney Ricardo Rick Salinas attempted to cast suspicion on Mascorro, the prosecutions star witness.

You have to ask yourself this question, who do you trust, Salinas asked jurors in closing.

But the prosecution painted a darker version of events and her motives.

anelsen@express-news.net | Twitter: @amnelsen
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A gang member involved in the killing of Balcones Heights police officer Julian Pesina testified Thursday that he and other members of the Texas Mexican Mafia planned to shoot Pesina and bury him in the countryside, but chose to ambush him outside his tattoo shop instead for posing as a member of the gang while he was a cop.

Jerry Spooks Idrogo, 37, said the gang planned the hit and he picked the two defendants on trial, Jesse Jay Santibanez and Alfredo Freddy Low Cardona, to help carry it out. They were to take Pesina, 29, for a ride, shoot him and bury him in the countryside. They even dug a hole. But that option was out the window because Pesina was paranoid and wouldnt get in someones car to talk, Idrogo said.

Pesina was on the Balcones police force from 2009 until he was ambushed on May 4, 2014, outside Notorious Ink, the tattoo shop he co-owned.

READ ALSO: Killing of Balcones Heights cop was caught on video

Now Playing: San Antonio - The stunning killing in May 2014 of a Balcones Heights police officer by armed masked men has the hallmarks of a gang hit, which is partly why investigators are now looking at his suspected affiliations with the Texas Mexican Mafia, sources have told the San Antonio Express-News. (May 14, 2014) Video: John Henry Perera

When this happened, we all knew this was going to be something on a large scale because the man was a police officer, Idrogo testified.

Along with Idrogos first-hand account of the killing, prosecutors also showed jurors a video of the slaying that was recorded by a surveillance camera at the tattoo shop. The video shows a man, whom Idrogo said is Pesina, talking to Idrogo as he sat in a white car shortly after 10 p.m. Moments later, one person dressed in dark clothing approaches (Idrogo said that was Santibanez), followed by another (whom Idrogo said is Cardona), flashes from gunshots are seen on the video, and Pesina appears to collapse.

Idrogo is awaiting sentencing for his guilty plea to racketeering conspiracy that includes the murders of Pesina and another man. In his lengthy testimony, Idrogo described the killings and helped fill in some details of how Pesina came to associate with its members.

Idrogo said he was a prospect trying to join the Mexican Mafia when he was released from a Texas prison in 2013. He reported to Johnny Smiley Solis, who was then the sergeant over San Antonios North Side. Idrogo was given a job in order to join the gang and become a carnal, a made member: He was told to kill Billy Padilla, another member who had been selling drugs but refused to pay a 10-percent street tax known as the dime.

On Aug. 26, 2013, Idrogo shot Padilla eight times in front of his elementary-age son at their home, then fled. Padillas killing was unsolved until Idrogo told authorities hed killed Padilla a year later, after his arrest for Pesinas killing.

Thats the one that bothers me the most because his kid was there, Idrogo said, as his steady voice turned shaky.

Idrogo became a made member, and when Solis disappeared in January 2014, Idrogo took his place as sergeant for the North Side. He inherited Solis roster sheets, which listed members or associates that included Pesina, who had been hanging out with the organizations members for at least six years. By then, unknown to Idrogo and others in the gang, Pesina had been a Balcones cop for more than four years.

READ ALSO: In wake of cop slaying, employees told to cover tattoos

The rosters said Julian Guero Pesina was a carnal but also that it wasnt clear who vouched for Pesina to be in the gang, Idrogo said. Also, a superior named Ruben Menace Reyes told Idrogo that Pesina had not reported to Solis in six years and, as a result, owed $6,000 for being gone so long.

Reyes was sentenced in December to five consecutive life terms without parole for his role in the killings of five people, including Pesina.

We cut the debt in half, but (Pesina) was still in the dark.... You cant function in the organization unless you get cleared, Idrogo testified. They cleared him and they told me to start bringing him around, so I did.

Shortly before his death, Pesina accompanied Idrogo to a drug dealers house to collect the street tax. But Pesina nervously left the home and went back to the car as Idrogo conducted business. The dealer told Idrogo that Pesina was a cop, and later, showed Idrogo a Balcones Heights web page that showed Pesina in uniform with other officers. The dealer also called the precinct and confirmed Pesina still worked there.

Idrogo informed Reyes, who told him to pick two people, and Idrogo chose Santibanez and Cardona because they needed to do a job for the organization.

Idrogo said he had Santibanez pick him up and the pair met Cardona at his aunts house on the Southeast Side. There, they replaced the license plate on Cardonas white Pontiac Starfire with paper plates from Santibanezs car. They went to Notorious Ink, where Idrogo dropped off Santibanez and Cardona on the side of the building, Idrogo testified.

They pair ambushed Pesina after he handed Idrogo the dime.

Jay shot him with the shotgun first and Freddy Low shot him with the 9mm afterwards, Idrogo testified.

The men fled to an apartment Cardona shared with his then-girlfriend.

There, the trio changed clothes, Idrogo broke his phone and threw it out, then they drove to Reyes home to inform him the job was done. They gave Reyes the guns so he could have them destroyed, and placed the bag of clothes they used in Reyes Suburban, Idrogo testified. Reyes ordered them to not be seen together for a while.

Later on, I got (an anonymous) call that they were going to kill me, Idrogo said. He moved to Ohio to live with his sister, and when San Antonio police showed up at a relatives house here looking for him, Idrogo decided to turn himself in, confess and try to leave the Mexican Mafia behind.

When I started in this, it was business, not personal, but now its personal, Idrogo said. After I did everything for them, these people wanted me dead.

gcontreras@express-news.net \ Twitter: @gmaninfedland
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Surrounded by old Halloween flyers and school club advertisements, a large whiteboard at Trinity Universitys student center has been newly filled with colorful hearts. Among them, in large letters, are the words R.I.P. Cayley, and below that, Draw a heart for Cayley.

The death Tuesday of 19-year-old Cayley Mandadi at a hospital in Kyle has rocked the small, private university campus, all the more so because days later, so little is known about it.

Texas Rangers are investigating it as a possible homicide, authorities said Friday. No cause or manner of death has been released.

Everyone was shocked. The idea of death is scary  especially for someone that young, and especially someone going to your school, said Yara Samman, a senior at Trinity .

Samman didnt even know Mandadi, a Trinity cheerleader from League City in the Houston area. But it didnt matter: in a school of about 2,500 students, the degree of separation between Mandadi and any given student only goes so far.

The Trinity community has suffered an unbearable loss, and our primary focus today is on supporting the student's family, friends and classmates as we cope with this tragic news, University spokeswoman Sharon Schweitzer said in an email Wednesday.

Unfortunately, we have few details to share other than to confirm this tragic loss.

RELATED: Body with gunshot wounds found near West Side park

Mandadis mother, Allison Mandadi Steele, declined an interview request Friday.

The family is going to reserve statements for the time being, Steele said. We understand that the public, and of course Trinity, is very concerned with the case.

Mandadi was in a vehicle traveling from San Antonio to Houston on Sunday when someone in the vehicle noticed she was not breathing, so she was taken to Seton Edgar B. Davis Hospital in Luling, said Guadalupe County Sheriff Arnold Zwicke, who said his office is not involved in the case but was briefed on it by Luling police.

Luling P.D. responded to a call from the hospital. Now the Texas Rangers are involved because of the jurisdictional issue about where the death occurred, Zwicke said.

Now Playing: S.A. ranked first out of 15 largest U.S. cities in 2016. Video: San Antonio Express-News

Hays County Justice of the Peace Beth Smith said she was notified  by Seton Medical Center Hays in Kyle, where Mandadi had been transferred,  of her death there at 3:43 p.m. Tuesday.

"I ordered an autopsy. ... (Results) will probably take about three months to get back," said Smith, who would not disclose any further information about the case. "I will be handling the inquest investigation to determine the manner and cause of death."

A spokeswoman for the Luling police said early Friday that it was being investigated as a homicide, but that afternoon the department would not confirm that or release any details.

"All we are authorized to say is it is an active investigation and that the Texas Rangers are handling it," said an employee there.

Lt. Jason Reyes, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said authorities in Luling and Caldwell County asked the Texas Rangers to investigate the death. He said no determination has yet been made whether it was a homicide.

Seton hospital officials said they could not provide any information about Mandadi, citing patient confidentiality laws.

RELATED: Father of Texas State student dragged to death accuses 14 people, groups in $10 million suit

Students who worked for the Trinitonian, the weekly campus newspaper that hit stands Friday, said Mandadi was a cheerleader and member of the Chi Beta Epsilon social sorority. They and other students and faculty found out about Mandadi's death Wednesday, via an email from Danny Anderson, university president.

Some professors have held moments of silence, while others have offered support or resources outside of class. University counselors have held special sessions for those closest to her.

Students at the Trinitonian found themselves processing the news first as community members, but then as journalists.

Daniel Conrad, 22, a senior and the Trinitonian's editor-in-chief, said he knew Mandadi as an acquaintance but had good friends who were close to her, adding, "I was really devastated when I heard what had happened."

Reading the email felt "unreal," said Kathleen Creedon, 19, a sophomore and news editor for the Trinitonian.

When senior Grace Frye, an executive editor at the paper, got Anderson's email, she thought about how to provide support to people who knew Mandadi best.

"We're not going to be able to read an email like that and immediately be OK," Frye, 21, said. "I think at the heart of it, people were mostly just thinking about other people."

But then the personal had to quickly turn professional as Frye became involved with the paper's reporting on Mandadi.

"The amount of rumors and talk on campus, that is what really helps me to drive towards getting to what actually happened," Frye said. "At the end of the day, those rumors and those incorrect facts are what's going to be more damaging, both to the family and to close friends who have to walk around and be bombarded with that."

It was sunny on Friday afternoon, but many students described the day  every day since Tuesday, really  as gloomy.

"Generally people have been upset, but we're all supporting one another," said Zabdi Salazar, 21, a junior.

Many Trinity seniors still recall the death of Corey Burris Byrnes, an 18-year-old student who died two years ago in a car crash with four other first-year students who were injured.

"The pain of losing someone  it never goes away," Samman said.

RELATED: Details emerge in the death of Silsbee cheerleader

Friday evening, Schweitzer confirmed the Trinity University Police Department issued an alert on Nov. 1 for a criminal trespassing warning regarding a non-student who was associated with Mandadi.

Schweitzer said the man had been on campus before Mandadi died and he was not welcomed back, but declined to provide more details.

She continued, saying authorities do not believe there is an immediate threat to campus, but the school is acting out of "an abundance of caution."

"We're taking the steps to reassure students that we're making the campus as safe as we can," Schweitzer said. "Above all, we're here to support our students and family affected by this tragic loss  our priority is taking care of this community."

Several people who identified themselves as Mandadi's friends declined comment to mySA.com.

Madalyn Mendoza is a digital reporter for MySA.com. Read more of her stories here.| mmendoza@mysa.com | Twitter: @MaddySkye

Editor's Note: The original version of this story misidentified Frye as Creedon when she spoke about the rumors on campus. It also did not mention that Frye, in addition to being a Trinity senior, is an executive editor for the student newspaper, the Trinitonian.
If you've ever eaten so much that you felt like you were going to bust at the seams, you'll get how this raccoon feels.

Police in Zion, Illinois responded to call regarding a raccoon who got stuck in a sewer grate and needed a little bit of help getting free. Police think overeating may have been the reason for the furry creature's entrapment.
David Paul Morris

AUSTIN -- Scott Milder, a former Rockwall city councilman and an outspoken candidate for public schools, formally announced Thursday that he will challenge Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in the spring GOP primary.

Milder, who had stated his intentions several weeks ago to run, was the first Republican to formally announce he will challenge Patrick, an ultra-conservative who he has criticized for his support of school vouchers among other issues.
AUSTIN -- The Texas gold rush is headed to Leander.

The Texas Comptroller's Office announced on Friday that Lone Star Tangible Assets, which will operate the facility, had agreed with the city of Leander for the permanent location of the Texas Bullion Depository to be constructed at an undisclosed location in the city. Construction begins in January and could take until early 2019.

"We wanted something that was close to the staff from the Comptroller's Office and also within commuting distance for our existing staff, many of whom live in the Austin area," said Josh Hinsdale, spokesman for Lone Star Tangible Assets.

"We also wanted a fairly large tract of land, not within a heavily urbanized area, and we wanted to be in a friendly community, where our workers would want to live, or report to every day," Hinsdale added.

While the site is being constructed, a temporary and also undisclosed location in North Austin will be used for all of Texas' bullion storage needs. Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar said he expects construction to be completed by January 2019.

The depository was first envisioned as a new home for millions of dollars' worth of gold bullion owned by the University of Texas Investment Management Company that manages investments for the UT and Texas A&M systems. UTIMCO has stated it does not currently intend to move its gold to the depository.

UTIMCO currently stores its gold in New York, and the non-profit pays $605,000 annually in storage fees. In 2015, upon signing the bill tasking the comptroller's office with the creation of the depository, Gov. Greg Abbott declared Texas would "repatriate" the gold.

The facility will also be open to private investors from across the state and country seeking to store their bullion.

The depository has been making steady progress towards opening since Tom Smelker, a longtime Comptroller's office employee, was announced the head of the depository and Lone Star Tangible Assets was named the contractor for the depository.

"Something as new and creative as a state oversight bullion depository has never been tried before," Hegar said.

"Essentially, you're trying to create everything, design everything (and) make sure everything is in place ... all of those things take a very long time to be meticulous to make sure you're making the right decision in moving forward so those who live in Texas and in the nation and around the world that want to store their precious medals in the new Texas depository will feel safe and secure."

The soon-to-be-built facility will incorporate the "latest technology in security systems." The location in Leander will remain undisclosed for security reasons, according to a press release from the comptroller's office.

"Once construction gets going and facility gets put up in size, I imagine people will start figuring it out because you can't hide anything these days," Hegar said. "The point of it is to get far enough along in the process so that we have everything in place to make those announcements at the appropriate time."

In addition to the secrecy, Leander has given Lone Star approval to construct an on-site gun range and tactical training area, but City Manager Kent Cagle said he doesn't think it will be incorporated in the facility initially.

"There was a little concern, but as it stands now they're probably not going to build the shooting range," Leander City Manager Kent Cagle said. "They're going to cooperate with our police department and use our shooting range."

The depository may sound like it's going to look like a small fortress, but Hinsdale said the location will be a lot more inconspicuous than some might expect.

"We intend to incorporate the latest developments in perimeter detection and protection technologies, as well as time-tested physical and mechanical security methods," Hinsdale said in an email.

"We are sourcing the latest technologies that allow for 24/7 wide-perimeter electronic security and personnel detection. For the casual observer, the facility may look more like a nice office building than a fort, but for those permitted inside it will be obvious that the facility is anything but an average office building," Hinsdale added.

'Putting us on the map'

For the small, but fast growing city of Leander, the depository is seen as a positive acquisition, Cagle said.

"We're proud to be associated with Austin, but we are different and this is unique for our city," Cagle said.

"The PR value of this location is immense and it's helpful to putting us on the map. We have many other great attributes and assets to our city, but this really is unique and a highlight. It's really low impact, it doesn't bring traffic, it brings jobs, it adds some property value, great PR value so it really is difficult to find a negative."
U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke is hoping a whole lot of barbecue will help give his campaign for the U.S. Senate a major boost.

On Saturday the El Paso Democrat is hosting what his campaign said will be more than 100 barbecues statewide. The events come nearly a year from election day in 2018 in which he is hoping to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Houston.

"From El Paso, Del Rio, Longview to Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Waco, Lufkin, Taylor and other communities across the state, more than 100 BBQs have been registered with nearly 1,000 Texans RSVP'd. Beto will be using YouTube LIVE to speak directly to voters at their BBQs," O'Rourke's campaign said in a press release promoting the events.

O'Rourke, first elected to Congress in 2012, is running an unconventional campaign trying to defeat Cruz while raising no money from political action committees. He has raised $4 million since getting into the race and has $2.9 million in his campaign account. Cruz has raised $4.7 million and has $5.7 million in his account, which includes funds transferred from his 2016 presidential bid.

On the campaign trail, O'Rourke takes aim at Cruz for spending time running for president instead of being focused on Texas. During a campaign speech in Austin two weeks ago, O'Rourke told the crowd that while Cruz was in Iowa and New Hampshire trying to advance his political career, he was not looking out for the Lone Star State.

"He should be serving your interest," O'Rourke said.

At least seven of the BBQs are planned for Houston, according to O'Rourke's campaign website. For locations visit O'Rourke's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/betoorourke

To be sure, O'Rourke faces a tough challenge. A Democrat has not won a statewide seat in Texas since the 1990s and national political watchers like the Cook Political Report and Nathan Gonzales of Inside Elections list the seat as solidly in Republican hands.

Jeremy Wallace writes about state politics and government for the Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter at @JeremySWallace
The summers final Live on the Waterfront concert was held Wednesday evening at Prince Arthurs Landing. The popular series in Thunder Bay has completed nine weekly shows that began on July 13. Wednesdays concert was unique as it was held one hour later in the evening to mesh with the 10 p.
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Women's Hackathon: Cum femeile din regiuni pot contribui la schimbarile din comunitate, utilizand tehnologiile informationale
AKRON, Ohio - Detectives on Thursday arrested a second suspect in an Akron home invasion that resulted in a shooting that hurt a 17-year-old boy, police said.

Christopher C. Price, 20, is charged with aggravated burglary in the Tuesday incident on Larkin Avenue near Newton Street, police said. Price turned himself in Thursday at the Akron Police Department, police said.

Detectives say two other men were involved in the home invasion. Only one of those men had been charged with a crime by Friday afternoon.

Nathan S. Hendrix, 18, of Tallmadge is charged with aggravated burglary, felonious assault and carrying a concealed weapon in the incident. Hendrix was arrested Wednesday at his grandmother's house on Olalla Avenue near Eastland Avenue, police said.

Hendrix, Price and the third man kicked in a door at the boy's house Tuesday night and took $100 from him at gunpoint, according to a police report. Hendrix then shot the boy in the shoulder, police said.

Investigators found a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun in an upstairs bedroom when they arrested Hendrix at his grandmother's house, the report says.

Hendrix remains in custody at the Summit County Jail on $100,000 bond, records show. He is scheduled to appear Nov. 17 at a status hearing in Akron Municipal Court.

Price's bond was set at $25,000 during his arraignment Friday in Akron Municipal Court. He remained in custody Friday afternoon, court records show.

If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Friday's crime and courts comments section.
CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio - Detectives are searching for a woman who is accused of seriously harming another woman in an assault and robbery that happened outside a Cleveland Heights apartment building.

Tianna J. Fisher, 23, of Cleveland, is charged with felonious assault and aggravated robbery in the Sunday incident outside an apartment building on Rosemond Road by Noble Road, according to court records.

Fisher is not in custody but a warrant was issued for her arrest, records show.

The attack left a 24-year-old woman with a broken nose, broken jaw and broken blood vessel in her eye, which may cause permanent damage, according to a police report.

The woman told investigators that she was involved in a crash Saturday while driving her girlfriend's car. The girlfriend asked the woman to drive the car to her workplace so she could assess the damage, but the woman refused, the report says.

The woman arrived home early Sunday and parked the car in the parking garage outside her apartment building. She went back outside minutes later because she forgot her purse.

The woman reached the car moments before someone punched her in the face. The attacker knocked the woman to the ground and continued to punch her, the report says.

The attacker demanded the keys to the car as she lifted her shirt and flashed a black gun in her waistband, the report says. The attacker threw the keys to a second person, who used them to back the car out of the parking garage.

The attacker punched the woman in the face once more before she got into the car and drove away, the report says.

The woman initially believed the assault was a random carjacking but later suspected it was related to the fight with her girlfriend, the report says. The attacker asked the woman if she thought the attack was a joke, and told the woman that "she wanted her [stuff]," the report says.

Officers went to the girlfriend's workplace and found the car parked outside. The girlfriend said a friend -- later identified as Fisher -- dropped the car off earlier that night, but the girlfriend denied any knowledge of the assault, the report says.

Officers towed the car as evidence.

Investigators created a photo array for the woman. She identified Fisher as the attacker "with 100 percent confidence," the report says.

No other charges have been filed in connection with the incident, records show.

If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Friday's crime and courts comments section.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Young people are in for a surprise when the Children's Museum of Cleveland opens the doors to its new home on Nov. 6. There's 18,000 square feet of innovative exhibit space that makes the former University Circle location look like, well, child's play.

Get a first look at the new museum in the video above, which features a lucky group of local children who got to explore the space on Friday.

A pretend city invites kids to escape to another world. Future doctors can bandage up fake patients in the hospital. Little shoppers hunt for a bargain at the farmer's market, and would-be mechanics fix up cars in the garage.

Then there's the Wonder Lab, which houses contraptions that would raise Willy Wonka's eyebrows. Kids play with water, vapor, vacuum tubes and other machines that dazzle the mind.
Cloud News

New Offering Helps Microsoft Partners Bundle Services Directly Into Azure Marketplace

Joseph Tsidulko

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Microsoft introduced to the Azure Marketplace on Thursday a new means for consulting and technology partners to bundle ongoing services into enterprise applications delivered on the Azure public cloud.

The capability, called Managed Applications, enables ISVs who develop third-party apps, in tandem with their MSP and systems integration partners, to offer customers "a fully operated solution" with the upside of Software-as-a-Service, said Corey Sanders, director of compute for Azure, in a Microsoft blog.

Managed Applications is a first-of-its-kind for any cloud provider, Sanders said, unique in how it enables customers to "deploy entire applications and empower your partner to fully manage and maintain the application in your environment."

[Related: Cloud Proud: Azure Powers Double-Digit Growth For Microsoft's 'Intelligent Cloud']

The capability was first introduced at Microsoft's Ignite conference for IT professionals and developers this past September. At the time, Managed Applications was only made available through the service catalogs of enterprise customers.

Adding the online software hub as a distribution channel allows partners to expand their reach to all commercial customers subscribing to Azure. Partners can publish the apps to Azure Marketplace through the Cloud Partner Portal, then add value with operational support and lifecycle services that generate recurring revenue, according to Sanders.

ISVs, MSPs and systems integrators can also leverage Azure Resource Manager templates to build turnkey solutions, then use Managed Applications to transition to an "Ap/Ops" model that includes ongoing management and support, Sanders said.

Managed Applications are packaged with pre-configured infrastructure into a single "sealed service" entirely under the control of the partner throughout the product's lifecycle. The applications are "immutable," Sanders said, meaning configuration changes at the application or infrastructure layers can only be performed by the partners as explicit lifecycle operations.

"The result is a higher quality of service for our customers, fully managed by our partners," Sanders said.

Solutions made available through the new delivery model can range from complex, custom-built applications maintained by Microsoft-aligned MSPs, or simpler apps packaged and then serviced by their developers.

"Managed Applications accelerate innovation, even in the most advanced application scenarios, bringing the best of Software-as-a-Service and Infrastructure-as-a-Service together," Sanders said.

Chris Presley, director of consulting at Pythian, a Microsoft partner based in Ottawa, told CRN Managed Applications will create new opportunities for Microsoft's channel to deliver solutions with the benefits of a Software-as-a-Service model.

"I like the fact that it can be on the vendor or customer's Azure subscription," said Presley, host of the Datascape podcast. "This shows Microsoft's maturity in leveraging the channel to enable partners. I'm excited to see what vendors will do with it."

Managed Applications will differentiate Microsoft from competitors in an ultra-competitive market, Presley said.

Gaurav Bhatnagar, program manager for Azure compute, said the offering gives partners an opportunity to expand their practices beyond simply deploying Azure infrastructure and the software hosted on the cloud platform. And partners publishing those packaged solutions to Azure Marketplace can invoice customers directly using Azures billing system.

"All of this enables an even richer cloud ecosystem for our customers and new business opportunities for our partners," Bhatnagar blogged.
Networking News

Google's Diane Greene To Cisco Partners: 'We Are Counting On All Of You'

Mark Haranas

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Google Cloud leader Diane Greene took center stage alongside Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins at Cisco Partner Summit 2017 to tell the thousands of partners in attendance that the search giant will be depending on Cisco's channel to drive the new joint solution between the two companies unveiled last week.

"This is a huge opportunity [for partners]. We are counting on all of you. The customers, they need help with modernizing their applications," said Greene onstage at Cisco's Partner Summit in Dallas Texas this week. "Our success is completely tied to your success."

Cisco is teaming up with Google in a wide-ranging deal that provides the networking giant with a seamless bridge to next-generation public cloud technologies, including the Kubernetes container orchestration platform. The Cisco and Google Cloud hybrid cloud offering, which will become available in the second half of 2018, opens the door for developers to combine emerging Google Cloud services with Cisco on-premises networking, hyper-converged and security offerings.

[Related: Cisco Meraki Leader On HPE-Aruba 'Chasing The Meraki Model,' Product Expansion And Being Nonproprietary]

"When you see somebody like Cisco and Google Cloud come together, it's a validation for us," said Vinu Thomas, chief technology officer at Presidio, a New York-based top Cisco partner, ranked No. 21 on CRN's 2017 Solution Provider 500 list.

"Customers are going to use a combination of SaaS, Infrastructure as-a-Service, private on-premise[s] data center, and then legacy mainframe  they're not going to go away from some legacy applications as quickly as we can," Thomas said.

Thomas said Presidio is already working with Cisco with its Microsoft Azure stacks. "We're going to be part of the Cisco  Google Cloud as well. For us, it gives us an opportunity to play in all these things, depending on what the customer wants," he said.

"We've been actually talking to you for over a year, which was such a natural thing for us to do, and Cisco's got the complete breadth," Greene said to Robbins during their onstage meeting.

"This is a complex world that we're entering and we can't do it alone," she said. "So partnering with Cisco to get the full breadth of management and security as people build on-premise and then at their own pace they can move to the cloud, they can modernize their apps  you can help them do all of this. We really couldn't do it without partnering with Cisco."

The hybrid solution will extend network policy and configurations to multiple on-premises and cloud environments, including orchestration and lifecycle management of resources, applications, and services.

The solution's hyper-converged platform, Cisco HyperFlex, supports existing application and cloud-native Kubernetes environments. It also leverages Google's Apigee enterprise-class API management, which enables legacy workloads running on premises to connect to the cloud through APIs. Enterprise app developers can securely access cloud APIs, and cloud developers can securely access enterprise APIs and on-premises resources.
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STAMFORD  GE Capital is relocating its remaining Stamford employees to its Norwalk headquarters and offices in New York City, a move that will end the firms Stamfords presence, Hearst Connecticut Media has learned.

The approximately 300 workers based at 800 Long Ridge Road  which has housed the headquarters of the firms Energy Financial Services division and offices of its Industrial Finance unit  are scheduled to move between now and the end of the year, according to company officials. Most of them will transfer to GE Capitals main offices at 801-901 Main Ave., in Norwalk, while the others will go to New York.

More Business Stamford plane-leasing firm sees more growth on horizon

Reflecting a strategy of consolidating employees into multi-business campuses, the move takes place during a time of major changes throughout parent company General Electric. After the restructuring, the Norwalk offices will serve as the base of more than 1,000 employees  a sign of the hubs growing significance since the relocation last year of GEs headquarters from Fairfield to Boston.

This will allow GE to reduce costs while creating work environments that promote cross-team collaboration and shared resources and amenities, GE Capital said in a statement.

Norwalk economic development director Elizabeth Stocker on Friday described the move as good news for the city.

A message left Friday for Stamford economic development director Thomas Madden was not immediately returned.

At the same time, GE Capital will keep its current offices in Danbury. Fewer than 50 work there.

Consolidation

About 150 employees relocated when the headquarters moved from Fairfield to Boston, but the majority of GEs Connecticut employees stayed put. The company now employs about 3,260 in the state, according to its website.

Since the headquarters move was finalized, GE Capital  which operates as GEs financial-services arm  has increasingly concentrated its Fairfield County operations in Norwalk. At the turn of the year, GE Capital moved its treasury division out of 201 High Ridge Road, where it once employed more than 400. The treasury employees transferred to the Norwalk hub.

In October 2015, GE sold the High Ridge campus to affiliates of Steven Wise Associates for $17 million.

A year earlier, consumer financial-services firm Synchrony Financial was spun off from GE Capital. Synchronys headquarters are located at 777 Long Ridge Road, yards from the Energy Financial Services and Industrial Capital offices.

In July 2016, GE sold for a reported total of about $485 million its investment-management arm, GE Asset Management, which maintained offices at 1600 Summer St., to Boston-based State Street Corp. The parent company operated GE Asset Management separately from GE Capital.

As GE Capital concentrates its operations in Norwalk, its parent company is facing some of its strongest fiscal headwinds in recent years. GEs third-quarter earnings fell well short of Wall Street expectations, as it saw its latest quarterly bottom line shrink 10 percent from the same period in 2016.

In the past quarter, GE Capitals revenues dropped 8 percent from the total a year ago, and it sustained an $81 million loss.

The results I'm about to share with you are completely unacceptable, GEs new CEO, John Flannery, said in an Oct. 20 earnings call.

The company is set to issue Nov. 13 an update on its strategy and 2018 framework.

Changing Connecticut corporate landscape

As Americas largest industrial enterprise  it ranks No. 13 in this years Fortune 500  GEs footprint in Connecticut represents a top concern for state officials.

Shortly before the company announced the headquarters move, the states Department of Economic and Community Development floated several scenarios to keep the main offices in Connecticut.

A draft of a state proposal showed various office complexes, mostly in Stamford, as potential new homes, according to a report published this week by The Associated Press.

Other possibilities included moving part of the Fairfield contingent to another Connecticut city and improving the Fairfield campus, according to the AP. State officials did not disclose financial incentives that they offered to GE for keeping the headquarters in Connecticut.

Now that GE has moved its lead offices to Boston, the state needs to focus on creating a hospitable corporate climate, economic experts said. They pointed to the passage this week of a new state budget  some four months after it was supposed to go into effect  as an auspicious first step.

Theyve obviously done a good job in the short term at showing that theyre going to work on the fiscal stuff and try to turn things around, said Pete Gioia, economist for the Connecticut Business & Industry Association. But one of the other critical things that all companies look at is workforce. How do you fill the vacancies we have right now, and how do you create a better and bigger talent pool? That should be economic-development job No. 1.

Top-ranking members of the state General Assemblys Commerce Committee agreed the legislature would need to do more to reassure companies like GE.

We need to immediately adopt a much more pro-growth approach to the economy to convince companies to stay and companies to come to the state, said state Sen. L. Scott Frantz, R-Greenwich, a co-chairman of the committee. This includes a more favorable regulatory climate, tax structure and attitude at the (state) Capitol towards private business.

pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; twitter: @paulschott
ED JONES / AFP /Getty Images

RBC Bearings expects to record as much as $7.5 million in charges against earnings after taxes, as it shuts down a Montreal facility of a subsidiary that machines complex metal components for the aerospace and defense industries.

The move contributed to a 19 percent decline in profits for Oxford-based RBC Bearings in its second fiscal quarter ending Oct. 1., to $14.8 million. Sales were up 7 percent to $164.3 million, with the company expecting revenue between $162 million and $163 million for its current third fiscal quarter.
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Weston publicist Justin Loeber will be talking about his new advice book at Barnes & Noble in Westport.

Loeber is jazzing up the event by having SiriusXM psychic Deborah Graham on hand to foresee the future in free mini onsite psychic readings.
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WASHINGTON  While large corporations and national business organizations gave the newly released Republican tax plan boffo reviews, a prominent Connecticut business trade association was not so sure.

GOP tax plan sweeteners not enough for CT lawmakers

On the corporate side, yes, its positive, said Joseph McGee, vice president for policy at the Business Council of Fairfield County. But overall when you look at it from a business-and-labor perspective, it is very, very troubling.

The bill eliminates the deduction for state income taxes and caps the property-tax deduction at $10,000, a potential hardship for residents of a high-cost state like Connecticut.

It maintains the mortgage-interest deduction on existing home loans, but places a $500,000 cap on new ones.

Connecticut has a history of being a donor state, one that sends more in tax money to Washington than it gets back in federal spending. Studies peg the return rate at 83 cents of every tax dollar sent to the federal treasury.

For McGee, the key question is what the Republican tax plan  if enacted  would do to that balance.

With all these changes, are we still a donor state? he said. How has this changed the relationship? Thats what I cant figure out.

And although he said he shies away from back-of-the envelope calculations, he added: My gut sense is when you put in loss of the (state and local tax) deductions, youre looking at massive increase of what Connecticut sends to the federal government.

But large corporations praised the Republican plan overall.

This is a watershed moment, said a statement from United Technologies, based in Farmington. We applaud the release of this bill and look forward to reviewing the details.

According to 2015 Internal Revenue Service extrapolated by the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, 661,940 Connecticut taxpayers  37.6 percent of the total number  deducted state income taxes. The average was $13,222 per return.

For property taxes, 658,520 Connecticut residents sought deductions that year, 37.4 percent of the total. The average per return was $7,635.

The proportions of Connecticut filers claiming state-and-local tax deductions is 9 percentage points higher than the overall U.S. average of 28 percent.

As the name implies, the GOP Tax Cuts & Jobs Act adheres to the deeply held Republican-conservative position that tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy create jobs.

But Connecticut lawmakers on Capitol Hill said they doubted the premise.

Noting the proposed reduction of the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said large businesses would use the extra cash for shipping jobs overseas and stock buybacks.

Its not about creating jobs, she said.

dan@hearstdc.com
Nearly 1,600 Connecticut residents signed up for 2018 plans with Access Health CT, according to a press release.

AHCT CEO Jim Wadleigh said that the organizations numbers increased 15 percent for the website and the call center compared to last year. There were 6,168 calls answered and 13,268 unique website visitors, the press release said. The release indicated that 1,596 people enrolled in plans with AHCT as of Nov. 1.
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NORWALK  Three city men have been charged after an investigation into the drug dealing activities of one of those men, police said.

Wilbur Serrano, 28, of Hyatt Avenue, was charged with two counts of sale of narcotics, possession of narcotics with intent to sell, operating a drug factory, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, police said. He was held on a $100,000 bond.

Police charged Julian Serrano, 33, of Frances Avenue with possession of narcotics with intent to sell, possession of narcotics within 1,500 feet of a school, interfering with a police officer and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was held on a $50,000 bond.

Anthony Santiago, 27, of Frances Avenue, was charged with operating under the influence for an existing warrant. He was held on a $2,500 bond.

Norwalk police conducted a joint investigation with the Stamford Police Departments Narcotics and Organized Crime Unit during the month of September. Police said the sole purpose of the investigation was to look into the drug dealing activities of Wilbur Serrano.

Police were able to get multiple search and seizure warrants, as well as an arrest warrant, for Wilbur Serrano during the investigation. Stamford police also obtained an arrest warrant for Wilbur Serrano, charging him with two counts of sale of narcotics.

On Nov. 3, members of the Norwalk and Stamford police department executed their search and seizure warrants a Wilbur Serranos vehicle, Wilbur Serranos residence on Hyatt Avenue and Julian Serranos resident on Frances Avenue.

More Information Norwalk Police Department Tip Line: 203-854-3111 Anonymous Internet tips can be sent to Norwalk Police website at: www.norwalkpd.com. Anonymous tips can be sent via text message by typing "NPD" into the text field, followed by the tip and sending it to CRIMES (274637). See More Collapse

Wilbur Serrano was on scene when police arrived at his residence on Hyatt Avenue. Police said they seized 2.5 pounds of marijuana, 7.29 grams of cocaine, prescription pills, digital scales, drug paraphernalia and $856.

Police said Julian Serrano was on scene at his residence on Frances Avenue when investigators arrived. They seized 8.9 grams of cocaine, digital scales, drug paraphernalia and a small, undisclosed amount of marijuana. Anthony Santiago was also at the Frances Avenue residence and police took him into custody for an active arrest warrant.
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SOUTHBURY  Hundreds of people filled the Pomperaug High School auditorium Thursday night to let town officials know their opinions on banning guns on municipal property or at town events.

The crowd, filled with gun-violence-prevention and gun-rights activists, was many times larger than at the originally scheduled meeting on the issue, which was cancelled and moved to Pomperaug after the Southbury Town Hall room was filled to capacity.

Most of the crowd wore shirts, buttons, hats or held signs in support of their position  some wearing orange in solidarity with gun-control-advocacy groups and others donning National Rifle Assocation or carry on! apparel.

After a presentation by Southburys resident state trooper, Sgt. Brian Van Ness, on the towns pistol permit laws and history of gun use, about 100 of the attendees, Southbury residents and those from other towns, got three minutes each to voice their opinions on the suggested law. After two hours of public input, the last speaker stepped to the mic at 10 p.m.

Most who spoke were against the ordinance, with many saying the law would infringe on their Second Amendment rights or leave gun owners unable to defend themselves.

Those of us who carry our weapon walk among the crowd on a daily basis without incident ... trained and prepared to protect ourselves, those around us and most importantly our families, one resident said. Gun-free zones do not stop a madman with the intention of killing. They only show them that there are innocent people unarmed who cannot fight back on an equal level.

But those in support of the potential ordinance contended stricter gun-control laws have been shown to prevent gun violence.

Many carried signs saying the law would protect their right to peacefully rally without intimidation.

I disagree that more guns make us safer, said Po Murray, chairman of the Newtown Action Alliance, a gun-violence-prevention group formed after the Sandy Hook shootings. That is simply not true. It is fake news. If guns make us safer, then America should be the safest nation in the world.

Both groups like the Newtown Action Alliance and gun-rights organizations, like the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, had urged their supporters to attend the meeting.

The CCDLs president, Scott Wilson, told the selectmen he has studied mass shootings and argued creating the gun-free zones would not increase safety.

Nearly all these crimes occured where guns are prohibited by law, Wilson said. Was anyone safer because guns were banned?

So far, the Southbury Board of Selectmen has agreed only to discuss whether members want the town attorney to draft an ordinance to ban firearms at town events and on town-owned property.

Under Connecticut law, gun owners with a permit may carry firearms concealed or in the open, except on school grounds.

The gun-ban suggestion arose last month from members of the Southbury Democratic Town Committee, which argued the presence of firearms at town events could have a chilling effect on free speech.

A police officer is not allowed to do anything regarding an attendee at an event, like a peace vigil on town property, if they see someone openly carrying a handgun or long gun, the committees vice chairwoman Jennifer Tokarczyk told the selectmen at an Oct. 5 meeting. If there was a town ordinance that prohibited carrying weapons on town property and it was posted, the police could take appropriate action.

Similar bans are on the books in Ansonia, Meriden and Naugatuck.

Murray said Thursday the Newtown Action Alliance has asked Newtown officials to adopt a similar law to ban guns on municipal properties.

aquinn@newstimes.com
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BRIDGEPORT  On Monday afternoon, Mayor Joe Ganim and longtime political ally and friend Acting Police Chief Armando A.J. Perez will walk Stratford Avenue and the East End together as part of a community outreach effort.

But questions hang over their professional relationship. Ganim promoted Perez from captain of detectives to top cop in March 2016, and has yet to move to offer the chief a contract and remove the acting from his title.

And that raises questions about what Ganim intends for his friends future.

Meanwhile, Fire Chief Richard Thode was named acting chief in June 2016 and just eight months later, permanent chief. And his five-year contract is finally ready and up for a vote at Mondays City Council meeting.

Police Union President Chuck Paris said it is time to give his boss the similar treatment.

I have met with the mayor and Ive told him that the department is better off with the chief being a permanent chief. I think hes proven himself for the past almost two years, Paris said. He deserves it and its in the best interests of the citizens.

I dont know what the hold up is, Paris added.

Im wondering and I dont know when its going to happen, said Councilwoman Jeanette Herron, who frequently interacts with Perez. I think hes doing a great job and I totally support him becoming permanent chief.

The subject has also been on Herrons mind because the contracts committee she co-chairs recently approved Thodes deal.

On Friday, following a press conference about the impact of the state budget on the city, Hearst Media asked Ganim about Perezs future, noting Thodes situation. Would Ganim be offering a contract to Perez?

There are charter provisions that have to be followed, the mayor said.

He was referring to a requirement that the police and fire chiefs be appointed following a national search. The Ganim administrations position has been that Perez can remain acting until the mayor requests the Civil Service Department launch a search and provide him with a list of finalists within 150 days.

A search was conducted ahead of Thode being offered a contract.

Asked if his administration was preparing to launch a search for a police chief, Ganim again said the charter was being looked at.

Were doing that now, he said.

Perez, a 35-year-veteran of the force, and Ganim have been close for decades. Perez was the mayors driver when Ganim first ran Bridgeport in the 1990s.

Perez testified in the federal corruption trial that temporarily ended Ganims political career in 2003 with a prison sentence.

When Ganim successfully asked voters for a second chance in 2015, Perez was often by his side on the campaign trail.

Joe Ganim is my friend, Perez said in a 2014 interview about his career. And I am very loyal to my friends. I never saw him do anything wrong, only good for the city of Bridgeport and thats it.

Perez was also at Ganims state budget press conference Friday, but left before Hearst could interview him. He could not immediately be reached by phone afterward.

This has been a tough year for the chief. Though he was able last year to help Ganim keep a 2015 campaign promise to reduce homicides, they are up 22 versus 10 in 2016.

But, according to records from the police department, the number of shooting victims was down as of mid-October, 85 compared to 97 last year.

One of the homicides  the May 9 police shooting of 15-year-old Jayson Negron  remains under state investigation.

On the administrative side, Perez has been under constant pressure to reduce police overtime. Although Ganim funded three new police classes, the chiefs office recently said 123 officers will be eligible for retirement in 2018.
Tara Artinyan(PORTLAND, Maine) -- A boy and his family are wishing for cards from people around the world in honor of his favorite holiday of Christmas.



Jacob Thompson, 9, is fighting cancer at the Barbara Bush Children's Hospital at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine.



When doctors told his mother he had a month to live, Jacob's family began asking people on Facebook to send him cards so he can celebrate his last Christmas early.



Soon, Jacob had received 100 cards.



It really showed him that the world is good and that there are a lot of people thinking of him, mom Michelle Simard told ABC News. "He's been getting some handmade cards from other children on the floor and slowly getting stuff from the public. He's been very smiley. It's really lit up his face to see everybody's support."



Jacob's dad, Roger Guay, said, "He smiles and does his nose scrunch it brightens his day -- just by opening a card, it's wonderful."



Jacob was diagnosed with stage 4 high-risk neuroblastoma in February 2014 when he was 5 years old.



In early October, Jacob entered hospice care.



"We were speaking with the medical doctors about if we had time [with him] for the holidays and what the plan was," Simard said. "The idea came about -- 'Why dont we bring the holidays to us?' This way, we know it's going to happen and give our family time with him for Chrismas."



To fast forward to the holidays, Jacob's mom and stepmom requested Christmas cards from people through Facebook.



Jacob began receiving handmade cards, electronic cards and gifts from strangers in Maine. Simard anticipates more cards will be sent from people living in Europe, Australia and Anartica, she said.



"The outpouring has made my heart very full and very happy," said Tara Artinyan, Jacob's stepmother. "Given his short time, it's amazing that people are trying to get him through this."



Jacobs family will be celebrating a two-day, early Christmas with him at the hospital this month. They are also asking for people to upload videos of their families or friends singing holiday carols to the Barbara Bush Children's Hospital's Facebook page.



If you'd like to send a card to Jacob, please mail to:



Jacob Thompson

C/O Maine Medical Center

22 Bramhall Street

Portland, ME 04102

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
It's detention day. Anthony Weiner is due in prison this weekend to start a 21-month sentence for sending lewd text messages to a teenager. He's been spotted recently with his wife, Huma Abedin, and their son, but still faces divorce proceedings while in prison. Get the latest on where he's headed.

Army veteran Bill Fulton found himself playing a key role in one of the FBI's biggest takedowns in history just by chance. 'Pretty much the who's who of right wing domestic terrorism walked into my shop,' he says. Bill shares his story exclusively with DailyMailTV from his new book, The Blood of Patriots.

It may sound outrageous, but there's a disturbing new trend involving women who claim to be pregnant. Dr. Phil sheds some light on this issue on his daytime talk show Monday and is giving DailyMailTV a preview.

The Kardashian clan skipped their annual Christmas card last year, but are bringing back the holiday cheer this time around. Kim is in charge and it should be epic.

Ben Affleck's girlfriend Lindsay Shookus has been helping him scout out a new pad. Contributor Ryan Serhant offers a peek at one of his top contenders, plus shows you where Rihanna's been renting in New York City, and the $50 million palatial palace at The Plaza that Tommy Hilfiger put on the market. It has all the design touches you'd expect from a fashion star.
Advertisement

At this very moment, whether they're an American celebrity or an Australian citizen, thousands of women are no doubt wondering the same thing: 'Is my outfit okay for the races?'

There will be questions of hats or crowns, dresses or playsuits, bold prints or bright block colours, to follow the newest trend or be the lone bold wolf.

And when the great questions of our life - or, in this case, our closet - are asked, sometimes the answers can be discovered in the depths of our past.

FEMAIL has gone through the decades, rounding up the most iconic looks - from showstopping supermodels to risque reality stars - that helped put the Melbourne Cup in the fashion history books.

It was English supermodel Jean Shrimpton that put fashion on the front page at the Melbourne Cup in 1965, after wearing this iconic white shift dress that scandalised the nation. At the time women showed up to the tracks in hats, gloves, and stockings

While the first horses set off at the Flemington Racecourse in 1861, it was not until the 1960s that fashion truly became a part of the Melbourne Cup.

It was in 1962 that the Victoria Racing Club introduced the now-famous Fashion on the Field competition, hoping to attract women to the event as the stands began to look more and more empty.

And it was just three years later that there would be a true fashion moment, when Jean Shrimpton dared to show up in a sea of modest hems, stockings, and gloves with bare legs and arms.

The English supermodel rocked up to the track in a white shift dress in keeping with the mod trends of the time, with a hem five inches above the knee and her already endless pins elongated in four-inch heels.

After causing such a scandal, and feeling the pressure from her sponsors, Shrimpton had to cover up the next day in stockings and a double-breasted suit

Shrimpton's second look was incredibly reminiscent of Jackie Kennedy, the First Lady who became a fashion icon in the 1960s

Shrimpton wore no hat, gloves, or stockings, and became known as the 'legs that stopped a nation'.

It was the 22-year-old Brit, rather than that year's race winner, who made the front page the next day after completely scandalising the proper Melbourne set.

'The day of the races was a hot one, so I didn't bother to wear any stockings. My legs were still brown from the summer, and as the dress was short it was hardly formal,' Shrimpton later explained in her 1990 memoir.

'I had no hat or gloves with me, for the very good reason that I owned neither. I went downstairs cheerfully from my hotel room, all regardless of what was to come'.

Adding to its now mythic lore, the white shift dress was actually an accident. Shrimpton's dressmaker, Colin Rolfe, intended to make it longer but had run out of fabric for the design.

Shrimpton later revealed that she told Rofle to leave it as it, thinking 'no one's going to take any notice'.

After causing such a scandal, and feeling the pressure from her sponsors, Shrimpton covered up the next day in a double-breasted suit reminiscent of Jackie Kennedy's most famous looks.

But the affect had already taken hold. Nary a knee was left covered when the next year came around, as girls everywhere tried to replicate 'The Shrimp' (pictured are a group of English models at Derby Day 1967)

Fashion was varied through the 1970s. Some women covered up in flowing maxi dresses in an ode to the hippie movement, while others worked powersuits (pictured is Kay McKay of Carnegie at the 1970 Melbourne Cup)

But the affect had already taken hold. Nary a knee was left covered when the next year came around, as girls everywhere tried to replicate 'The Shrimp'.

Legs would find themselves covered up again at times in the seventies, as the world rocked and rolled through the turmoil of Vietnam, the Cold War, and the Free Love Movement.

Second-wave feminism was in full force at the turn of the decade, ushered into Australia with the help of Germaine Greer's iconic book The Female Eunuch.

As Greer called on to women to know and accept their own bodies, the fashion at the races became more expansive and varied than ever before.

Some women covered up in flowing maxi dresses in an ode to the hippie movement, while others chose the kind of powersuits launched into international fame with the help of Yves Saint Lauren's tuxedo pantsuit.

When skirts were worn they were mini, in keeping with the thigh-grazing lengths of the times, and often paired with cowboy hats.

The Melbourne Cup was not immune to the biggest trends of the eighties, and all the taffeta, puffy sleeves, and shoulder pads that came with it - but Princess Diana brought her signature chicness when she arrived in 1985

Diana made her debut on the track in a chic black and white Bruce Oldfield suit with a matching broadbrimmed Frederick Fox hat, and cheeky tights with a seam down the leg and a bow-motif at the shoe

In a display of how much the princess' outfit stood out from the wild eighties trends, she was far more covered up compared to Leanne Edelstein, who appeared the same year in a tiny white dress that grazed the top of her thighs

The Melbourne Cup was not immune to the biggest trends of the eighties, and all the taffeta, puffy sleeves, and shoulder pads that came with it.

Flemington Racecourse became a jungle of animal prints, thigh-high splits, faux sailors, and plenty of permed curls as Fashions on the Field became bigger and better with judges that became more and more famous.

Of course the most famous guest of all was Princess Diana, who was given a royal welcome by the city when she arrived with Prince Charles for Victoria's 150th anniversary celebration in 1985.

The Princess of Wales made her debut on the track in a chic black and white Bruce Oldfield suit with a matching broad-brimmed Frederick Fox hat.

But it wouldn't be a Diana outfit without a touch of personality, and the charismatic princess paired her ensemble with stockings in which the seam ran right down the back of the leg and ended in a bow-motif at the shoe.

At the very same Derby Day, Leanne Edelstein - the first wife of millionaire Geoffrey - appeared in a tiny white dress compared to both Tinkerbell and Jane from Tarzan and with a hem that just barely grazed her thighs.

The big hair and bigger shoulders of the 1980s gave way to sleek ensembles in bold colours for the 1990s. Pictured are Lillian Frank and a group of Melbourne socialites preparing for the day in 1990

Many women sported suits in bold yellows, greens, and pinks, pairing coordinated skirt and jacket combos made popular in part by the iconic American teen comedy Clueless (pictured is a racegoer in 1996)

Big hats were the du jour of the decade, with women opting for loud and proud outfits that sometimes took on an almost cartoonish quality (pictured are a group of racegoers in 1998)

The big hair and bigger shoulders of the 1980s gave way to sleek ensembles in bold colours for the 1990s.

Supermodels became the celebrities of the decade, and women sought to replicate the stylish looks of Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, and Linda Evangelista.

Hats and suits reigned supreme in the last decade of the 20th century, with wider brims and tighter fits than the track had ever seen.

And a more feminine suit, often paired with a skirt instead of pants, became the norm.

'The '80s was Nancy Reagan and 'Dynasty,' huge shoulders, nasty little suits, dress for success, hard-edge, hard-core, mean, aggressive clothes. Let's be a little softer, a little gentler now,' Marc Jacobs said as the 90's began.

Many women sported suits in bold yellows, greens, and pinks, pairing coordinated skirt and jacket combos that even young girls embraced after the popularity of American teen comedy Clueless.

Much like Jean Shrimpton did 40 years prior, Paris and Nicky Hilton shocked the Flemington Racecourse when they rocked up to Derby Day flaunting plenty of skin in 2003

But in fact many racegoers felt free to bare their stomachs and show off their skin. Pictured two women in 2003

Silk also seemed to be a dominant trend in the early aughts, with Home and Away star Isabel Lukas (right) and actress Mary Coustas (left) both rocking the shiny thread

The bold fashion of the nineties carried over into the early aughts as women still opted for loud prints and louder hats (pictured two racegoers in 2002)

Sarah Jessica Parker was one of the first celebrity clients to usher the bejewelled looks that are now everywhere on the tracks. The Sex and the City star made her hair the star, pulling her strands back with a glittering diamond brooch

Much like Jean Shrimpton did 40 years prior, Paris and Nicky Hilton shocked the Flemington Racecourse when they rocked up to Derby Day flaunting plenty of skin.

The famous heiress sisters first appeared at the cup in the 2003, at the start of Paris' reality show fame.

Nicky arrived in a silk pink dress that could've passed for her nightie, while Paris sported a backless nude halter top covered in light blue flowers that bared her midriff.

The sisters, who were sponsored by Channel 7 and rumoured to be paid a cool million for the appearance, stirred up an intense media frenzy that many credit with ushering in a new reality star culture at the carnival.

Bosworth was an early predecessor to the crown movement currently sweeping heads at the races, opting for a bejewelled chain headband rather than the kind of large hat that had become synonymous with the days events.

Although Bosworth received heat from fashion critics for the then-unusual choice, Sarah Jessica Parker followed suit a couple years later.

But recent years have seen a return to the sleeker trends of the track, with less and less hats. Red reigned supreme as the colour of 2016. Pictured left is Jennifer Hawkins and right Bec Hewitt, both in 2016

The pumps that dominated fashion for many decades have since been swapped for strappy sandals and the bold suits with more feminine and delicate dresses. Pictured right is Nadia Bartel and left Jessie Habermann at the 2016 Melbourne Cup

The Sex and the City star made her hair the star of her look rather than a hat, instead pulling her strands back with a glittering diamond brooch.

Although large hats dominated the Melbourne Day fashion scene for much of the 2000s, recent years has seen headwear take a more subdued turn.

The subtle headwear trend truly began its comeback last year, as Aussie celebrities like Anna Heinrich, Rachael Finch, Nadia Bartel, and Lindy Kim all opted for crowns and headbands instead of hats.

It remains to be seen which trends will reign supreme next week. But if history is any indication, it definitely won't be boring.
A former sex worker who spent two years working as a $260-an-hour escort has revealed how the biggest downside to her work was the pain of being judged for working as a prostitute.

Andrea Werhun, 27, from Toronto has written a book, Modern Whore, in collaboration with filmmaker Nicole Bazuin to reveal what it's really like to be a sex worker in the hope of sweeping away judgments.

The book tells how she experienced a 'conversion' when she went to a strip club and desperately wanted to be as strong and sexy as the performers before becoming an escort for an agency called Toronto Sirens, having sex with clients as old as 80.

'I felt no shame about having sex with people for money,' Andrea told FEMAIL.'I like money and I like sex  so whats the problem? The shame I felt was the shame of others.

'Thankfully, I recognise the societal shame of sex workers as a reflection of our individual reluctance to acknowledge the importance of sexuality in our own lives, informed by a few thousand years of indoctrination that sex is bad, and whores are worse.

'Times are changing though, and as more sex workers feel safe enough to come out and tell their own stories, the more accepting as a society we will become.'

Andrea Werhun from Toronto has written a book, Modern Whore to bust myths about what it's really like to be a sex worker

Andrea was an English literature and religion student when she became fascinated by strippers and started considering a career in the sex industry

At first Andrea wanted to be a stripper but then a friend's mother suggested becoming an escort

Andrea's first inkling that she wanted to become a sex worker was when she went to a strip club with a friend after overhearing one of their classmates denouncing dancers as 'dead-eyed' and 'bottom of the barrel'.

'What I saw when I entered the club were dancing, naked women on stage who demonstrated beauty, strength and elegance.

'I thought, What the hell is wrong with this? Why is this taboo? To me it seemed like an inverted church: the stripper-cum-preacher on stage delivering her sexy, wordless sermon; the rapt congregation nursing their overpriced bottles of beer; the devout throwing their tithings on stage; the most pious of worshippers looking to confess their sins in private for $20 a song. I felt like Id experienced a conversion.'

Andrea longed to join their numbers, but after celebrating her 22nd birthday at a strip club with friends, she got a call from one of their mothers.

Andrea's first night as an escort My first night as an escort was a series of thrills and revelations. Had it really been me, a tousle-haired, makeup-smeared vision in the mirror? A post-coital beauty grinning and winking at her own reflection, giddy with the excitement of a girl doing something she loves but shouldnt be doing? It was me indeed, but someone and something greater. A new friend, companion, and partner in-crime smiled back at me and her name was Mary Ann. She wore short skirts, thigh-highs and high heels, loving each and every moment she f***** and got paid. Each man his own world, I embarked on a voyage of new bodies, new lives, and new ways of touching the other. By the time Id reached Max, my fourth and final client of the night, I was a triumphant sexual queen. He opened the door and we were quickly thrown into a flurry of mutual interests, including poetry, religion, and politics. When he asked the dreaded whats your story, I stuck with a tale Id pre-spun: I was a travelling painter only passing throughand no, Id never gone to university, but Id read lots of books in my spare time. It seemed to work, though he maintained I was unlike any other escort hed seen. On her first night as an escort, Andrea had sex with four clients and felt completely liberated and empowered 'And believe me,' he said, 'Ive seen a lot of escorts.' Max was an addictions counsellor at a rehab clinic and a former addict himself. We talked about this and that and devoured each others words. He asked me to dance for him, to give him a blow job, to mount his obese body to orgasm. I did all these things and read some tarot cards too, which I carried around at the beginning for two reasons: one, asking the cards what I might expect from the next stranger-cum-lover provided an invaluable frame of reference for me to work within; and two, everybody likes having their fortune told. I figured it was a good business decision to add divination to my sexual repertoire. Even after the hour concluded, I wondered about him. Hed been marked in my mind as an ideal client: fun, good at conversation, and owing to our shared knowledge and interests, relatively low maintenance. I yearned to see Max again, but the call never came. Advertisement

She recalled: 'I was surprised when she told me, Why dont you become an escort instead? Its private, youre protected by a driver, and you make a lot more money.'

Andrea was studying English literature and religion at the University of Toronto and in her creative writing class she found herself constantly writing stories about a female protagonist exchanging some form of sexuality for money.

'Becoming a whore myself was the furthest thing from my mind until another friend endorsed escorting and then it hit me like a tonne of gold bricks,' she explained.

'I knew what I had to become, I cried, I tingled, I could barely breathe or eat or speak for days. Whoredom was my destiny.'

After two years, Andrea gave up escorting because she'd promised her mother she would quit

The vast majority of her clients were good people seeking sexual fulfillment, according to Andrea

Her only concern about becoming an escort was her safety and health, but Andrea had no qualms about having sex with strangers

Andrea admits that her idea of becoming an escort was informed by romantic views from her literary studies, but she wasn't daunted by having sex with strangers.

'Sex with strangers did not daunt me, it excited me. What daunted me were the more obvious health and safety concerns. How prevalent are STIs? Are condoms provided by the agency? How likely am I to get assaulted on the job? What is the protocol in case of danger?

'But what daunted me most of all was the reality that I could not be open about my sex work experience due to social stigma.

'Knowing that I wasnt free to share what I found funny or sad or fascinating about my job was heartbreaking for me, and is the reason I eventually wrote Modern Whore.'

SEX WITH AN 80-YEAR-OLD Albert was a Bay Street banker and bachelor. Hed been married, had kids, and even had grandchildren. Wed continue laughing to his dimly lit bedroom, undressing on either side of the bed, climbing under the covers giddy like teenagers. I caressed the sagging skin of Alberts 80-year-old flesh with curiosity and joy, because the man himself was alive. He had energyundeniably youthful energy. I closed my eyes to the old man under the soft lights and the smokescreen of marijuana and felt myself making love to a man my age. A man in his early twenties, as if I were on a secret rendezvous with a lover. With him, I learned getting old was a choice. Albert made me happy to be alive. I thought about him often in my spare time. I spoke about him to friends, family, and even to my boyfriend, who once asked, as though reprimanding me, Are you sure you dont want to date him? My opinion of Albert, however, was not shared by my fellow whores. I listened to girls in the car discuss him with disgust. 'Eww, Alberts a dinosaur,' they said. I attempted to defend him, but the girls grossed out by his age were louder. Id f***** far grosser people half his age, people far less attractive or intellectually stimulating or funny. He was so much more than his body. An 80-year-old man called Albert was one of Andrea's favourite clients, leading friends to question if she wanted to be in a relationship with him Advertisement

A student at the time, money was a huge motivating factor for Andrea who got to keep $160 of the $260 she earned an hour.

'Escorting offered much more than the minimum wage I was accustomed to in my early twenties. $10.25/hour to $160 an hour is a big leap for anyone.

'It gave me the opportunity to focus on my studies. I had worked for minimum wage my entire university career, which had a negative impact on my ability to learn. With escorting, I had the opportunity to work a lot less and study a lot more. That was important to me.'

'But money wasnt the only thing that drew me to the sex industry,' she said. 'As an aspiring writer, escorting meant I could meet new characters and get to know them on a deeply intimate level with no commitment to monogamy whatsoever. The ability to dip in and out of peoples lives with no strings attached was highly appealing to me.

The escort turned author said that money was a huge motivating factor, but the opportunity to meet characters to inspire her writing was also appealing

Being an escort helped Andrea to feel like the most elegant version of herself

'Another aspect that drew me to sex work was the sense I was playing a role  the role of a highly classy, beautiful and feminine young woman  a role I didnt quite play in my day-to-day life.

'In a way, I felt like I was being paid to be the most elegant version of myself. When I wasnt working, I could often be found in the library, make-up-less in Doc Marten boots and jeans.'

A month after she started escorting, Andrea met her boyfriend who was also in the final year of his degree.

'I told him what I did for money and while he was taken aback, he never wavered on the understanding that sex work was my job  nothing more, nothing less.

Sex with a disabled client During a particularly nasty cold in his thirties, Paula perfectly healthy, able-bodied, athletic man in his primewoke up with a tingling sensation in his legs. Tingling, the next day, became numbness, and numbness, over the weeks and months and years to follow, became full paralysis below the belt. For someone whose life had been turned upside down by a mysterious and debilitating condition, Paul was an incredibly positive, kind, and resourceful individual. Paul became a regular of mine with the agency and eventually offered to see me independently at the same rate. Every week, I travelled an hour by subway to a distant station where he would pick me up in his minivan, fully tricked-out with all the knobs and gears that allowed him to drive without using his legs. We took the highway to his suburban home, swivelling the drivers seat and unfolding his wheelchair, unfurling the ramp from his vehicle to the garage floor, rolling to an elevator that took us into his house. From there, we took another elevator to his bedroom. Paul lived alone and was evidently quite self-sufficient. Adjacent to his master bedroom was a spacious bathroom suite fitted with a jet stream bathtub. He ran the water and began the ritual as I disrobed in the bedroom. A disabled client called Paul was one of the nicest people Andrea has ever met He too would disrobe, and when the water filled to a comfortable level, Paul would muscle his way with impressive upper-body strength into the tub, and I would follow, spooning against him. Here we would soak in the warm water, lightly touching each other, relaxing, talking. Feeling sufficiently prune-like, I would step out first, putting on the plush bathrobe he always provided, and help Paul exit the tub. For the next half hour, we laid naked and clean on his bed wrapped in each others arms, kissing. Even though it took me an hour to get to Paul, an hour to be with him, and an hour to get home, the one-hour, all-in rate of $250 still seemed worth it to be in his company. I once self-consciously breached the conversation of asking for a little more, considering the travel time. He explained, with light despair, that he didnt have any more money to offer me. I immediately retracted and told him it was okay. I saw Paul until the very end of my escorting career. There are essentially only two types of people: the kind and the unkind. The reason a client hires a sex worker is inconsequential if that person is unkind. And I can say, without a doubt, that Paul was one of the kindest people Ive ever had the pleasure of knowing. Advertisement

'There have been challenges, of course, but the cornerstone of our relationship has always been mutual love, respect, and compromise, which is why we are still happily together.'

A year into her escorting career, Andrea graduated and went for a celebratory lunch with her parents, brother and boyfriend.

'As we sat down at the table, my mother asked a very pertinent question: So, when are you going to quit that job of yours?,' she recalled.

'I had to make a quick decision. By my next birthday, I said, giving myself another year. She replied, Great, Ill get that in writing. So, that night I signed a contract with her vowing to quit escorting, and I stayed true to my promise.'

On her graduation day, Andrea promised her mother she would give up being an escort after two years

The author wants to see society become more accepting of sex work as a profession

But her decision to leave was all about honouring her mother and had nothing to do with the clients she met throug work.

'In my experience, most johns are good people who recognize the value of no-strings-attached, non-judgmental sexual company, who also treat their service providers with kindness and respect,' she said.

'While they may be perceived by society as predatory abusers, the truth is very different. In fact, many people would be surprised to learn that johns come from all walks of life: they are our co-workers and bosses, our husbands and fathers, our teachers and community leaders.

'And they have plenty of legitimate reasons to see sex workers, from alleviating loneliness to safely expressing long-repressed sexual fantasies. It is unfair to demonize our clientele simply because we are too ashamed as a society to frankly discuss sexual desire and the real human need for physical intimacy.'

Andrea's book is available to order from modernwhore.com
Officials are still determining some of the facts of the terror attack in New York City on Tuesday, but there is at least one thing that the TV news is repeatedly getting wrong: how to pronounce Allahu Akbar.

And Twitter users were very quick to notice, including Rabia Chaudry  a lawyer who is best known as a friend and advocate for Adnan Syed, subject of the inaugural season of the Serial podcast  prompting her to helpfully pipe up and offer her services to teach media personalities how it should really be said.

'I'm available to all pundits, anchors, & terror experts to help you figure out how to pronounce Allahu Akbar so you stop praising potatoes,' she tweeted.

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An informed source: US Lawyer Rabia Chaudry, best known for her advocacy for Adnan Syed, jokingly offered her services to the media to help them properly pronounce Allahu Akbar

Light in the dark: Rabia made the joke while watching the news coverage of the terrorist attack in Manhattan on Halloween, where Uzbekistan native Sayfullo Saipov, 29, killed eight people

Speaking out: The lawyer, pictured left at an appeal hearing for Serial podcast subject Adnan and right with her family, joked that she wants to help people 'stop praising potatoes'

For thousands of other Twitter users, Rabia's tweet offered a brief moment of levity in an otherwise horrific news cycle.

The tweet came just hours after Sayfullo Saipov, a 29-year-old from Uzbekistan, mowed down pedestrians in a rented vehicle in Manhattan, killing eight.

Upon getting out of the car, Saipov held up a paintball gun and pellet gun and yelled 'Allahu Akbar'.

The phrase has been widely discussed and dissected in the media since the attack. Translating to 'God is the greatest,' it is a common Arabic phrase that many Muslims say for a number of reasons.

As Chaudry explained, 'For the record, "Allahu Akbar" has no inherent political/violent connotation meriting instant terror diagnosis. I say it like 20 times a day.

Joining in: The joke was a big hit with Twitter users, who enjoyed the touch of levity in a sad situation

More jokes: The phrase has been widely discussed in the wake of the Manhattan attack

Taking it a further: This user stepped up the fun a notch with some word play

Other way: Pronounced as 'aloo akbar', the phrase literally translates to 'potatoes are the greatest' by mixing Arabic and Hindi languages

'If you understand how it is used in common parlance amongst Muslims for nearly every single situation maybe it would make sense,' she went on. 'Favorite team wins? You say it. Fav team loses? You say it. Something wonderful happens? You say it. Something terrible happens? You say it.'

Yet despite attempting to enlighten her followers about the meaning and most common uses of the phrase, Chaudry's most viral tweet following the attack was a slightly more humorous one.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Aisha Sultan also noticed the common mispronunciation.

'I just saw a TV reporter pronouncing it as "aloo akbar" which literally translates to "potatoes are the greatest,"' she wrote.

It seems that the phrase is a mix of both the Arabic and Hindi languages. 'Aloo' is Hindi for potato, while 'akbar' means 'the greatest'.

Some other Twitter uses chimed in to joke that they did not see the problem with the way it was being mispronounced because potatoes are actually quite good.

'As an Irishman I see nothing wrong with praising potatoes!!' wrote one.

'Never stop them from praising potatoes. Theyre delicious and versatile and they deserve more praise,' said another.

'Praising potatoes sounds like a religion I can get behind,' wrote a third.

Others turned to satire, with one writing: 'Are you concerned this lone potato might radicalize other tubers and ground based vegetables?'

'But see,' said another, 'this has been the problem all along. It is the dread deadly potato cult that has been behind all these terrorist attacks, not Islam'
Taking time to relax and breathe throughout a busy day can feel like the most counter-intuitive decision, yet one yoga guru insists it might the key to a happier, healthier life.

Tara Stiles, a former model, created Strala yoga in 2008. The yoga method, which focuses on well-being and simplifies the practice by, among other measures, not using sanskrit names, at first received critics from the more traditional-minded yogis.

But it has since gained thousands of adepts, and Tara, 36, has authored several books, exported her method to Europe, and gained more than 300,000 followers on YouTube, where she shares yoga flows.

Something to try: Tara Stiles, a former model and the creator of the Strala yoga method, says just a few minutes of meditation a day can yield physical and mental benefits

Movement: Tara, 36, has authored several books, exported her method to Europe, and gained more than 300,000 followers on YouTube, where she shares yoga flows

Tara gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Daisy, in February this year. The yoga instructor, new mother and entrepreneur, who has just launched a new range of wellness teas with Lipton, acknowledges it's not always easy to manage stress while maintaining a busy lifestyle.

But she says meditation can help tremendously, and it doesn't have to be a complicated process.

While some people might find the process of sitting still to quiet their mind daunting, Tara insists it is possible to simplify the practice.

'I think it's something you can do daily, and whether it's 20 minutes or 10 minutes or five minutes, even a few deep breaths, you feel better right away,' Tara told the DailyMail.com.

Even a short meditation practice can improve physical and psychological health, she added.

She knows: The new mother and entrepreneur, who gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Daisy, in February this year, acknowledges it's not always easy to manage stress

Sticking to the essentials: While some people might find the process of sitting still to quiet their mind daunting, Tara insists it is possible to simplify the practice

'It's kind of a whole package in just a few breaths,' she said. 'I think it's one of those things where it doesn't matter how long you practice, but if you practice a little bit every day, then you really do feel long-term sustained benefits.

'But even on the first go-around, you automatically feel better and less stressed and more calm.'

TARA'S WALKING MEDITATION As you walk, focus on your breath. Watch your inhales and exhales as they come and go. Pay attention to the sensations in your body as you walk. Start to lengthen and deepen your inhales and exhales as you go, leaving a little pause at the top and bottom of each inhale and exhale. Make this a daily exercise to cement the habit, and enjoy the benefits! Advertisement

Starting meditation, however, can seem daunting. Those new to the practice can find it hard to silence their minds or slow their train of thoughts, or might feel like they don't know enough to get started.

But in those cases, Tara believes beginners, and even people with more experience, should feel comfortable meditation from the comfort of their own bed.

'You don't need to have a special corner of your house set up or special clothes to wear;. You can just lie in your pajamas, sitting up in bed as comfortably as you can,' she said. 'That way the breath can literally move you physically, so when you inhale, your body's lifting up a bit, and when you exhale your body's softening and moving a little easier.'

A simple practice might consist in trying out breathing techniques, such as inhaling for four counts and exhaling for the same duration, while keeping an even pace of breath.

For those who need additional guidance, Tara recommends asking oneself three questions to structure the practice.

'It can be as simple as, "Who am I? What do I want and how can I serve?"' she said, before pointing out that one shouldn't feel pressured to find answers to these questions immediately, but rather use them as a 'check-in'.

Why not? Tara believes beginners, and even people with more experience, should feel comfortable meditation from the comfort of their own bed

Connected: Meditation, Tara said, has helped her feel like she's working on a 'deeper level', rather than just going through her to-do list each day

On the go: Tara (pictured on a plane with her baby daughter) also explained that it's possible to get a bit of relaxing time at the office, without even leaving your desk

Keeping it simple: While some find it hard to meditate, Tara, who has just launched a range of wellness teas, says it doesn't have to be tedious

'The answers can either come or they don't come, and they change from day to day or from week to week,' Tara added. 'A lot of people get into it this way and they keep coming back, because you keep coming to realizations within yourself that way, and it can be quite personal in a short period of time.'

TARA'S MEDITATION AT THE OFFICE Sit at your desk or another quiet spot. Stretch a little side to side and sit however you wantas long as you feel comfy. Close your eyes and turn your attention to your breath. Observe your inhales and exhales as they come and go. If you notice yourself thinking, thats OKjust draw your attention back to your breath. Do this for a few moments, relaxing into your breath. Now start to take a mental account of everything youre grateful for in your life. Your list can be long or short; its up to you (though it may be longer than you think!). After youve finished, come back to your breath for a few moments. When youre ready, gently open your eyes and proceed with your work day. Advertisement

Tara herself tries to meditate in the morning and at night before bed to unwind. She also works meditation into her yoga practice, either at the beginning or the end of a flow.

'I feel more connected to myself overall when I'm meditating regularly,' she said. 'Those questions help me get to that deeper part of myself, where I can feel my passions coming through.'

Meditation, she said, has helped her feel like she's working on a 'deeper level', rather than just going through her to-do list each day.

For those who might find it too tedious to meditate in this way, Tara also explained that it's possible to get a bit of relaxing time at the office, without even leaving your desk.

She recommends closing your eyes and letting your hands relax on your lap before taking a few deep breaths.

Those around her who have started meditating have noticed positive impacts on their careers, work performance, relationships and energy levels, Tara said.

Research agrees that meditation has physical as well as mental benefits. A previous study by Harvard University researchers suggested that meditation can induce changes in brain regions associated with empathy, stress, memory and sense of self in just eight weeks.
Skincare is a sacred ritual for most women and many spend hundreds on serums and creams which claim to turn back the clock.

But Aldi Australia has made waves in the cosmetic industry by offering a $30 moisturising product which rivals its luxury $575 counterpart.

Thousands of women are praising the effects of the Lacura Caviar Illumination cream which is supposedly just as good as the popular La Prairie Skin Caviar Luxe Cream, without the hefty price tag.

But Aldi Australia has made waves in the cosmetic industry by offering a $30 moisturising product (pictured) which rivals its $575 counterpart

Thousands of women are praising the effects of the Lacura Caviar Illumination cream (pictured) which is supposedly just as good as the popular La Prairie Skin Caviar Luxe Cream, without the hefty price tag

Beauty bloggers, skincare experts and Aldi customers have raved online about the coveted moisturiser which actually contains caviar extract - an expensive ingredient that has anti-aging properties.

'Lacura caviar day cream is a miracle. Using this one year and tonight was asked for ID when buying wine. I'm 42 year old mum of four,' one woman said on Twitter.

'The gel is definitely insanely firming,' another wrote on Instagram.

It was also described by reviewers as both 'very moisturising without that greasy feeling' and 'gliding on like a dream'.

According to the German-headquartered supermarket, the $30 cream is 'revolutionary' and also contains snow algae extract.

Aldi's caviar cream has been likened to the $575 moisturiser made by Swiss brand La Prairie

La Prairie also sells skin caviar (pictured) for $295 and its gift set retails for over $1000

According to the German-headquartered supermarket, the $30 cream is 'revolutionary' and also contains snow algae extract

'Elasticity improves and radiance restored skin becomes smoother and silkier deeply moisturises, minimizing wrinkles for a youthful and radiant appearance,' the product description reads.

'In conjunction with caviar extract it contains the revolutionary snow algae extract which stimulates collagen synthesis, effectively counteracting the skin aging process and therefore visible signs of aging.'

The cult buy absolutely flew off Aldi shelves around the world and is back in Australia as a Special Buy gift-pack set with Caviar Illuminating Night Cream and Caviar Illuminating Eye Mousse too.

The cult buy absolutely flew off Aldi shelves around the world and is back in Australia as a gift-pack set with Caviar Illuminating Night Cream and Caviar Illuminating Eye Mousse too

'Elasticity improves and radiance restored skin becomes smoother and silkier deeply moisturises, minimizing wrinkles for a youthful and radiant appearance,' the product description reads

Other products offered by La Prairie include its Caviar Volume Enhancing Cream for an exorbitant $755 or a lifting serum for $700

The budget cream has been favourably compared against luxury Swiss brand La Prairie which sells its 30ml 'firming serum' for a whopping $575 a pot.

Other products offered by La Prairie include its Caviar Volume Enhancing Cream for an exorbitant $755 or a lifting serum for $700.

Both Lacura and La Prairie market their products for women over the age of 40 and each cream claims to have the same age-defying and smoothing effects.
Single parenting can be super tough and for most mothers and fathers that are raising children alone it's a constant struggle to juggle family life and work.

Sydney mother-of-three and director of Girl PR, Juliet Potter, recently detailed her daily battle of bringing up children and running a business as a single parent on social media - and the response from other parents in similar situations was overwhelming.

'I always feel guilty that I'm not involved with my kids' schooling,' said Ms Potter in a post on Facebook.

'I don't attend events, help with reading, do cupcake drives or fundraisers and I'm normally working during the afternoon homework time,' she added.

Mother-of-three Juliet Potter (pictured with her daughter) has hit back at parents who shame her for not attending her children's school functions and activities

'By 6pm Im feeling like a super-hero to even achieve cooking and serving a rounded meal, let alone cleaning up after it.

'I struggle to forge friendships with the school parents (let alone with my own inner circle) as Im most times exhausted in fighting to have the luxury to execute the necessary work required to earn a living, let alone organise or manage a play date.'

Ms Potter, 45, who has three children aged six, 12 and 17, said like many single parents she didn't have another option or any family assistance available to her.

Ms Potter (centre) says she has received many messages from friends who have offered her support

'I have no parents to help, no family support and the village of society is nowadays smaller - and fiercely judgemental.'

'Everyone has their own busy lives jam-packed with responsibilities and most women are working nowadays and having to maintain the duties at home and are juggling and, quite frankly, are exhausted,' she told FEMAIL.

'It's hard enough to judge yourself, let alone to be judged by others,' she added.

Ms Potter, who has three children, says finding the right balance between work and family life is a challenge for all single parents

'Think before you judge others and offer a lending hand before condemnation',' said Ms Potter (left) on Facebook

'My priority is, first and foremost, to pay our bills for the basics, and anyone who judges me for being the apparent 'absent parent'; for not being active in the aforementioned school activities can get nicked.

'From my end, this is not a choice, and I can't try harder.'

Ms Potter runs her own businesses, Girl PR and Mother Driven

Ms Potter also shared some advice for the 'haters': 'Think before you judge others and offer a lending hand before condemnation.'

'Believe me when I say single parents are doing their best.'

Following her post on social media, Ms Potter received an outpouring of support from other single parents.

'I truly feel your pain Juliet. Sole parent of 4 and trying to keep my own business together, I too am totally exhausted at the end of each day. I just cannot seem to get on top of things! Hang in there and know that you are doing a super job and adored by your beautiful children,' wrote Teonie Jenkins.

Ms Potter said the response to her post was 'surprising' and made her realise that everyone has their moments.

'What is wonderful about this kind of feedback is it goes to show you how powerful it is to be honest and open and have the conversation,' she said.

'Surround yourself with people who inspire you, lift you up and don't judge you.'
Seven terminally ill women have been captured in a heartbreaking but beautiful photo series posing with to their 'rocks' - the family members supporting them through their illness.

The breast cancer sufferers from New Zealand were photographed earlier this year with the supportive loved ones who have remained by their side and walked the thorny path of incurable disease with them.

Tragically, three of the women pictured during the project died before the images were released and never had the chance to see their stunning portraits.

Grandmother, mother and wife Marjorie Garisch (pictured) died before ever seeing her photograph

The photographs were commissioned by charity Sweet Louise and shot by Nigel Swinn. The project has given a rare look inside the relationships that are shaped by the shadow of cancer.

Mother, grandmother and wife Marjorie Garisch, 60, died in September of metastatic breast cancer.

Marjorie was captured in a poignant moment reading to her granddaughter, Isabella, not long before she succumbed to her illness.

'That special time when little ones sit on your lap transxed with the story and occasionally looking up at you with wonder - as if to say did that really happen is to Marjorie the most blissful moment she can imagine,' photographer Nigel said.

Harriet McRae (pictured) succumbed to her breast cancer in September after posing with her 'rock' and husband, Grant (right)

Auckland woman Harriet McRae was pictured nestled behind her 'rock', her husband Grant, while sitting together on a bike.

Harriet, a 53-year-old mother to two teenagers, tragically died in September from metastatic breast cancer and did not live to see her raw and emotional photograph.

'She wasnt well when these shots were taken, and like their road trips together, she was spending a lot of time sheltering behind Grant because the road ahead looked tough,' Nigel said.

'A lot of our conversation was about the pleasures of those trips, travelling with friends, seeing the country and traveling rough. But she also hoped that with his help theyd be able to do one more Brass Monkeys Rally together.'

Grant says his beloved wife's death is an impossible loss.

'Nothing prepared me for her passing, and the incredible sense of loss I felt at the end She was my soul mate and best friend for 28 years and now she is gone,' he said.

Kelly Rosie (left) chose to be pictured with her oncologist, Dr Vernon Harvey (pictured right)

For Auckland resident Kelly Rosie, her supportive 'rock' was a little out of the ordinary.

The 46-year-old mother was photographed laughing beside her oncologist Dr Vernon Harvey in a heartwarming nod to their close doctor-patient relationship.

'Kelly is relatively early in a life living with advanced breast cancer. Talking about it can be hard and - to her embarrassment - tears come easily,' Nigel recalled.

'But then she described her doctor-patient relationship with Vernon and how his blend of expertise and fun lifts her in mind as well as body. These photos were taken in the course of a regular catch up. '

Kelly was diagnosed with breast cancer in May of 2012, and in November 2015 she was told it had metastasised to her bones.

She credits Dr Vernon as her rock because he 'empowers' Kelly to make the difficult decisions regarding her cancer treatment.

Mary-Margaret Schuck (middle) wanted to be photographed with her Catholic church choir

Mary-Margaret Schuck is a 53-year-old mother of three children who used the Sweet Louise photo series to pay tribute to her rocks; friends she connected with at her local church choir.

Like most other patients captured in the touching photo project, Mary-Margaret has a powerful family support network - but she has a special place in her heart for her choir friends.

She finds solace in the stain-glass windowed Catholic Church in New Zealand's Lower Hutt and the friendships she has cultivated through worship.

'Theyre like "central casting" for a caring supportive New Zealand community. Varied in age, means and cultures - the sort of diversity we hope for in this country. And there, in the center, Mary-Margaret, from America - nding the harmony she needs for her journey,' Nigel added.

Susan Clark (pictured) was photographed leaning against her rock, yoga teacher Nadine

Auckland woman Susan Clark has been using the gentle power of yoga as a way to cope with her diagnosis and subsequent treatment.

The 49-year-old, who has been living with breast cancer for ten years, says her yoga instructor Nadine is now an 'essential' part of her life and is both an inspiration and a friend.

Susan was photographed by Nigel with her back leaning against Nadine, symbolic of the rigid support her yoga teacher has given her during her decade of cancer.

'From the ongoing treatment and the stress of every set of results, to being honest and upfront with her kids and just carrying on with life at home, Susan knew her internal and external tness had to be a priority,' Nigel said.

'So now Nadine her yoga instructor is an essential and almost daily ingredient in how she lives for the future.'

Mother-of-two Tina Wright was captured with her two beautiful daughters, Paige and Abbey

Mother Tina Wright asked Nigel to photograph her with her two young daughters, Paige and Abbey - a vibrant breath of life amongst the darkness she often experiences.

The Palmerston North woman was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer in 2015 and has struggled enormously with the weight of her illness during motherhood.

'In the course of an afternoon I felt like I was in a category ve storm that she was riding out as best she could,' Nigel said of his time with Tina.

'But storms have an eye. And when the two girls were moved on to allow me to photograph Tina on her own, an eerie calm descended that Tina seemed ill at ease with.'

Auckland mother Pauline Hausman (pictured) wanted to be photographed with her son, who tragically died of a heart attack before he could make it home

Auckland mother and advanced cancer patient Pauline Hausman was photographed alone in her small council flat.

She told Nigel she wanted to be pictured with her adult son, Shannon, who had moved away from New Zealand to follow his dreams in Australia.

But before he could visit his mother again, Shannon tragically died of a massive heart attack.

'Shed told me in advance the person who lled her life with most joy and strength (and thus the obvious subject to be photographed with) was her son Shannon,' Nigel said.

Pauline's photograph is of her tattoo, an ink memorial of the son she so desperately wanted by her side.

For sensitivity the identity of one woman who passed away has been withheld.
They are the bikini-clad Meter Maids who are famously known for protecting tourists from getting parking fines.

And after 52 years of walking the tourist's Glitter Strip along Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast, the company behind the iconic service are now recruiting Meter Men.

Personal trainer Mike Rapinett has become the latest addition to team up with the city's gold bikini-clad women to top up expired parking meters.

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The company behind the iconic Meter Maids are now recruiting men to join (pictured right personal trainer Mike Rapinett who has joined the bikini-clad team)

The Meter Maids have been a tourist attraction since 1965 (pictured in the 60s) - famously known for protecting drivers from getting parking fines

'It would be really good to be paid for it  why not?' he told 9NEWS.

'I'd do it anyway, and I can tan at the same time and just chill, so it's a win-win in every single way.'

Mr Rapinett appears to be the perfect fit for the company, already attracting attention from tourists as he hits the streets along the sandy beaches.

The Meter Maids, who are renowned for their beauty, have been a tourist attraction since 1965. The early generation wore tiaras, suits and capes.

Started in 1965, Meter Maids were the brainchild of Gold Coast developer Bernie Elsey who introduced the initiative to stave off the bad publicity associated with newly installed parking meters.

The controversial move involved young women dressed in gold bikinis walking the main tourist strip and placing money into expired meters.

Mr Rapinett appears to be the perfect fit for the company, already attracting attention from tourists as he hits the streets along the sandy beaches

Men have tried to join the ranks before, including former AFL star Warwick Capper (pictured right), who dazzled in a pair of gold spandex and a sash in 2009

Men have tried to join the ranks before, including former AFL star Warwick Capper, who dazzled in a pair of gold spandex and a sash in 2009.

'We had Warwick Capper... Let's not go there,' Meter Maids boss Roberta Aitchison said.

And for the first time, applications are open for Meter Men.

Mike is yet to receive his golden spandex but he has already impressed the tourists in a pair of budgie smuggler.
Jessa Duggar is more in love than ever, and the mother-of-two penned a heartfelt tribute to her husband Ben Seewald in honor of their third wedding anniversary.

The 24-year-old Counting On star, who is mom to sons Spurgeon and Henry, took to their family's blog on Wednesday to share the sweet letter she wrote praising her 22-year-old husband for his unwavering commitment to their family and his faith.

'I thought we'd reached the pinnacle of our love on this day, three years ago... but since then, you've taken me from the mountain top up into the clouds! Darling, I love you more today than ever before,' she wrote.

Look of love: Jessa Duggar wrote a gushing tribute to her husband Ben Seewald on Wednesday in honor of their three-year anniversary

Romantic: The couple wed in Bentonville, Arkansas, on November 1, 2014

'Sure, we worked through our squabbles and disagreements, like anyone else. But because of your meekness and gentleness in the midst of trials, I always come out loving you even more.'

Jessa went on to say that she is grateful for all the blessings she has received through Ben, while noting the 'greatest blessing' is his commitment to his faith.

The mother-of-two explained that when she wakes up early in the morning to care for their eight-month-old son Henry and Ben isn't beside her, she knows he is already up studying the bible.

'Many a time I have walked into the spare bedroom and discovered you there, kneeling beside the bed, in prayer... and it's brought tears to my eyes,' she said.

Jessa went on to praise Ben for coming up with new and creative ways to lead their family in prayer.

Doting dad: The couple have two sons, Spurgeon, who turns two on November 5, and Henry, who is eight months old

Perfect pair: Jessa, 24, praised 22-year-old Ben for his unwavering commitment to their family and his faith

'Though I laughed a bit and felt a teeny bit awkward at first, I'm now especially loving the aspect of singing together, with the boys, in family worship,' she explained.

The doting wife made it clear that she values her book-loving husband's passion for learning and having theological discussions with her, but she also appreciates his ability to calm her down when she is feeling stressed.

'You are my calm when things are going haywire. Over and over, I've heard you say, "It'll be ok, Babe, just take a deep breath." And it's just what I've needed at that very moment,' she gushed. 'You know when I'm stressed you do whatever to help lighten my load.'

And Jessa couldn't resist gushing about her husband's cooking skills, while admitting that she once added sour cream to pancakes thinking it would be taste the same as milk.

He's her rock! The mother-of-two said Ben is her 'calm' when things go haywire. They are pictured after the birth of their son Henry in February

Brothers: Jessa celebrated Henry (left) turning eight months old by sharing a side-by-side image of Spurgeon at that age (right)

'You love the challenge of making a complicated recipe. I don't,' she wrote. 'I dump dressing on greens, and that's my salad. You gather 14 ingredients and spend 20 min throwing together an amazing Greek salad that tops any Mediterranean restaurant around.'

Jessa also called Ben her 'motivator' for eating healthy and working out, noting that she eats far less McDonald's cheeseburgers and french fries.

However, he still treated her to a Burger King Whopper on their anniversary last year instead of steak dinner, just because she was having pregnancy cravings.

She recalled how he let her eat off his plate on one of their dinner dates early on in their marriage, and she explained that it makes her feel loved that he still offers her bites from his meal to this day.

'You're one of the most down-to-earth and humble people I know. I love that we have fun and laugh together. I love your made-up jokes and your cheesy play on words. You have me laughing out loud all the time. I genuinely love your sense of humor,' she added.

'The list of the things I love about you is endless. I am forever being reminded of just how incredibly blessed I am to call you mine.'

Jessa and Ben said 'I do' in November 2014 in front of nearly 2,000 guests at First Baptist Church in Bentonville, Arkansas.

The couple, who saved their first kiss for their wedding day, didn't share their first kiss at the ceremony, but rather waited until the reception because they wanted it to be private.

Almost exactly a year after they wed, Jessa gave birth to their eldest son Spurgeon, who is turning two years old on November 5.

The couple welcomed their second son, Henry, in February.
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Most dog owners can agree they are always trying to capture their pet's best side for the camera.

And Brisbane photographer Serena Hodson has taken a series of charming pictures showing pooches of all shapes, sizes and colours on their most loveable side - upside down!

The 40-year-old - who works as a graphic designer by trade - said the idea to take images of upside-down canines sprung into mind when she noticed her French bulldog Garfunkel lying with all four legs up in the air a lot.

Brisbane photographer Serena Hodson (pictured with her dogs Simon and Garfunkel) has taken a series of charming pictures showing pooches of all shapes, sizes and colours on their most loveable side - upside down

The heartwarming photographs are now featured in her book called Upside Down Dogs - showcasing a variety of pooches

'He would go into position, be cute and try to get my attention, flop on his back for belly scratches. I noticed he was smiling upside-down, he was so adorable with all his skin flaps - he's just gorgeous,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'And so, I put a call out for different breeds - and they all had a different look when they were lying upside-down.'

The heartwarming photographs are now featured in her book called Upside Down Dogs - showcasing a variety of pooches looking overjoyed, candid or even snoozing away on the living room floor.

Capturing the sweet personalities of each dog she works with, Ms Hodson said the intimate shoots was enough to melt her heart.

Each dog has a different personality, with one pooch sticking its tongue out for the camera as part of a photo series

Bonding: The photographer noticed each dog she worked with in her project had a different look when they lied upside down

Sleeping beauty: Ms Hodson said she put a call out for other fellow dog lovers to lend their pooches for her photo shoot

Sunbathing at the beach! A bulldog seemed relaxed as it snoozed along a sand, beneath a giant umbrella for the shoot

Ms Hodson said the secret to keeping the dogs still for the photo was giving them treats

So what attracted her to photographing dogs?

'The best thing I love about dogs? They never complain about an unflattering photo,' Ms Hodson said, laughing.

'They love attention and I just love what dogs bring to a photo. You look into their eyes, and they bring so much love into your hearts. I guess I wanted to share that with the world because that feeling gets me every time.'

She first became interested in taking pictures of dogs when she picked up a camera eight years ago.

'I purely wanted to photograph my dogs on holiday,' she explained.

'I just wanted to show their bond, love, and connection. And I guess it just kept building - and everything took off from there.'

Ms Hodson said she was inspired to take photos of dogs lying on their backs after her French bulldog was upside down a lot

So what's her behind-the-scene secrets to keeping the dogs still before she clicks the button? she said 'lots of food'

So what's her behind-the-scene secrets to keeping the dogs still before she clicks the button?

'Lots of food,' she said, laughing.

'Most dogs I work with are reasonably well trained. I give them lots of treats, use toys and give them lots of encouragement with my voice so they're comfortable.

'The biggest thing is always make it fun for them - don't force them into a position.

'Let them be the one who wants to be there and do it. As long as they're happy, having fun and getting attention from you, most of them would just sit there and pose for you.'

The Brisbane photographer, originally from New Zealand, is known for her breathtaking portraits of adorable dogs

The 40-year-old said she became fascinated with dog photography after she started taking images of her own dogs

Sharing her photography tips, Ms Hodson said it was important to 'find a passion for what you want to capture'

Serena Hodson's books Upside-Down Dogs and Dogservations, published by Hachette Australia, are available for sale now

Sharing her photography tips, Ms Hodson said it was important to 'find a passion for what you want to capture.

'My passion isn't really photography, it's dogs,' she said.

'The thing I loved was dogs. I'm a big believer so make sure you have that passion for what you want to photograph - and it will all shine from there.'

Serena Hodson's books Upside-Down Dogs and Dogservations, published by Hachette Australia, are on sale now.

Man's best friend: The Australian based photographer has been turning her stunning images into picture books

The charming series captures the personalities of the furry creatures - and every photograph tells a different story
Charles and Camilla got their very own golden thrones when they met His Majesty The Agong of Malaysia on Friday.

The couple met with the country's ruler at the Istana Negara, the national palace, in Kuala Lumpur on the second day of their official visit to the country.

Charles and Camilla were ushered by the king's Grand Chamberlain, Datuk Padua Maharajelela Going, into the Seri Maharaja room to await heir host's arrival.

They were seated in two elaborately gilded chairs that looked like royal thrones as they awaited the arrival of the Agong, His Majesty The Yang di-Pertuan Agong XV Sultan Muhammad V.

After a short wait he joined them, taking his seat in an even larger 'throne' for official photographs.

Suits you Charles! The Prince of Wales looks right at home as he settles down into a throne at the official royal residence of Istana Negara, Yang di-Pertuan Agong XV Sultan Muhammad V

Royal treatment: Charles and Camilla were ushered by the king's Grand Chamberlain, Datuk Padua Maharajelela Going, into the Seri Maharaja room to await heir host's arrival

Old friends: The Prince of Wales and The King of Malaysia most recently met in May 2017 at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies where Charles, who is the centre's Patron, opened its new buildings (Charles is pictured here with a dignitary, awaiting his host's arrival)

The Prince of Wales and The King of Malaysia most recently met in May 2017 at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies where Charles, who is the centre's Patron, opened its new buildings.

During the event the prince gave a speech calling for a strengthening of ties between the Muslim and Western worlds.

The Duchess of Cornwall was mobbed by crowds of excited school children after touching down in Kuala Lumpur on Friday - just hours after joking of her wish to 'slow down'.

Camilla, 70, was visiting the International School at ParkCity in the Malaysian capital with Raja Zarith Sofiah, the Queen of Johor, and the school's principal Andrew Dalton, as part of her south-east Asian tour with husband the Prince of Wales.

The Duchess of Cornwall later changed into a floor-length powder pink gown for a gala dinner to mark 60 years of diplomatic ties between the UK and Malaysia

Prince Charles was dapper in a tux as he escorted his wife into the gala dinner in Kuala Lumpur

The Duchess of Cornwall visits Kuala Lumpur's International School in ParkCity with Principal Andrew Dalton (centre) and Her Majesty Raja Zarith Sofiah, Queen of Johor

Close encounter: Charles was almost mistaken for a Time Lord when he stepped out of a TARDIS at the Worq Co-working space for Young Entrepreneurs - but luckily there wasn't a Dalek in sight

It came after the Duchess told the wife of the Sultan of Brunei: 'It's more tiring as you get older.

'I keep trying to tell everybody that I'm not as young as I used to be, and have to slow down.'

Meanwhile, Charles was almost mistaken for a Time Lord when he stepped out of a Tardis - but luckily there wasn't a Dalek in sight.

The Prince walked into Doctor Who's famous time machine when he visited a co-working space for start-up companies in the city, but was only transported a few feet into a members-only area.

Mobbed: The beaming Duchess is barely visible among the throngs of brightly-dressed pupils as she meets staff and teachers at the International School at ParkCity

Camilla, 70, was visiting the International School at ParkCity in the Malaysian capital as part of her south-east Asian tour with husband the Prince of Wales

Gruelling schedule: The pit stop came after the Duchess told the wife of the Sultan of Brunei: 'I keep trying to tell everybody that I'm not as young as I used to be, and have to slow down'

The heir to the throne, who is on an 11-day tour of south-east Asia and India, met young entrepreneurs, tech savvy school children showcasing projects, and established businesses during his tour of WORQ.

A Tardis has been created as the doorway from the public space into the private members area and, as staff walked through a nearby side entrance, Charles emerged from the replica of the BBC character's sci-fi machine.

He joked with the waiting press saying 'I should have gone through the side (door)' before sitting down to a meeting with executives from some of Malaysia's established technology firms.

Andrew Yeow, 28, co-founder of WORQ which opened in March, said they had tried to create a relaxed, fun and practical working environment for fledgling businesses offering facilities like a gym, sleeping pods and a cafe, and much needed space for firms to grow.

The Prince walked into Doctor Who's famous time machine when he visited a co-working space for start-up companies in the city, but was only transported a few feet into a members-only area

The heir to the throne, who is on an 11-day tour of south-east Asia and India, met young entrepreneurs, tech savvy school children showcasing projects, and established businesses during his tour of WORQ

The Tardis has been created as the doorway from the public space into the private members area and, as staff walked through a nearby side entrance, Charles emerged from the replica of the BBC character's sci-fi machine

Charles joked with the waiting press saying 'I should have gone through the side (door)' before sitting down to a meeting with executives from some of Malaysia's established technology firms

The royal points to his framed signature written in Arabic - a gift to the museum - at its unveiling by Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah, The Sultan of Perak, during his visit to the Islamic Arts Museum on Friday

Missing Camilla? Charles looks pensive as he views exhibits during his visit to the Islamic Arts Museum on Friday

Solo engagement: The Prince of Wales meets 12-year-old Ariff Almir Ali with his 'child abuse detector' device, at a tour of MyDigitalMaker Student Showcase during his visit to Worq Co-working space for Young Entrepreneurs on Friday

He said: 'The response to the Tardis has been good so far, a lot of people find it really cool.

'They don't realise it's a door it's quite quirky and helps with the ambience.'

The 28-year-old added: 'This is the first of its kind in Malaysia - a co-working productivity community, what I mean by that is we try and solve two big problems for new businesses.

'Real estate, issues of having to get an office, and issues entrepreneurs have like increasing sales or trying to connect with regulators or partners - we're trying to help them by providing a supportive community.'

Welcome present: The Duchess receives a gift from a child at Pusat Anak Permata Negara (PAPN) Putrajaya during the first day of their visit to Malaysia on Friday

Camilla (seated with Datin Paduka Seri Hajjah Rosmah Mansor, First Lady of Malaysia) is entranced by a group of children who performed a traditional Malay wedding dance for her in the Malaysian capital

Dinner time! The Duchess chats to adorable youngsters during her trip to Pusat Anak Permata Negara (PAPN) Putrajaya

Earlier, Camilla was entranced by a group of children who performed a traditional Malay wedding dance for her in the Malaysian capital.

The Duchess was visiting the Permata Negara, an educational facility for children up to four, when the youngsters, dressed in traditional Malaysian outfits, entertained her with a 'Silat' for the Bride.

'How sweet, they are just adorable,' the royal said.

Camilla was greeted by Datin Paduka Seri Hjh. Rosmah Mansor, First Lady of Malaysia and founder of the PERMATA, who led her on a guided tour of the facility just outside Kuala Lumpur.

Non-stop: Camilla also watched youngsters decorating 'flower eggs,' or Meghias Bunga Telur, and 'creating flowers' ( bunga manggar ), as well as meeting teachers leading the activities

Colour coordination: Her Majesty Raja Zarith Sofiah, the Queen of Johor and the Duchess of Cornwall visit The International School at ParkCity in Kuala Lumpur on Friday

She saw youngsters decorating 'flower eggs,' or Meghias Bunga Telur, and 'creating flowers' (bunga manggar), as well as meeting teachers leading the activities.

Camilla was also charmed after two of the children greeted her with a double handshake while another took her hand and held it to their heart, a sign of honour.

The PERMATA Programmes were founded by the First Lady of Malaysia with the objective of providing a platform that enables children to achieve their potential through cultural learning.

PERMATA Negara cares for new-borns up to pre-school aged children.
She has just flown back from a charity trip to Rwanda where she helped villagers to build a school.

But Sarah Ferguson wasted no time in catching up with her loved ones after returning to the London social circuit, enjoying two nights out on the trot.

The Duchess, 58, stepped out with rumoured former flame Manuel Fernandez for the second evening in a row, this time joined by her eldest daughter Princess Beatrice.

Fergie and Fernandez, who reportedly split in March last year, looked delighted to be in each other's company as they left celebrity haunt Claridge's.

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Fresh from her trip to Rwanda, Sarah Ferguson wasted no time in catching up with her loved ones after returning to the London social circuit (pictured with Manuel Fernandez)

The Duchess wore a 975 black silk shirt from Gucci featuring an elaborate lion print on the back

The pair left the Mayfair self-described 'It-hotel', a favourite of Kate Moss, Jade Jagger and Lulu Guinness, arm-in-arm.

It comes amid speculation that the couple are rekindling their romance following two joint appearances in September.

Last night, Fergie looked smart in head-to-toe black, pairing a pussybow blouse with a pencil skirt and ballet pumps.

Beatrice, 29, wore a colourful floral print skirt with a plunging v-neck blouse, finish off her evening look with a pair of pointed stilettos.

The Duchess is said to have been left 'devastated' following her reported breakup from businessman Manuel in 2016, but it's clear the pair are still on good terms.

Return to London: Beatrice is currently Vice President of Partnerships and Strategy at Afiniti.com, a Washington DC-based computer software company

Family time: Fergie was most likely relishing the opportunity to catch up with Beatrice, who is currently based in New York and earlier this week enjoyed a rare visit from sister Eugenie, 27

New start? The Duchess is said to have been left 'devastated' following her reported breakup from businessman Manuel in 2016, but it's clear the pair are still on good terms

Together again: Fergie and Fernandez, who reportedly split in March last year, looked delighted to be in each other's company as they left celebrity haunt Claridge's

Shared passion: According to Fernandez's LinkedIn profile, the 'high energy entrepreneur' is CEO and co-founder of the vVoosh Charity Foundation

Celebrity haunt: The pair left the Mayfair self-described 'It-hotel', a favourite of Kate Moss, Jade Jagger and Lulu Guinness, arm-in-arm

Stylish Sarah: Fergie looked smart in head-to-toe black, pairing a pussybow blouse with a pencil skirt and ballet pumps

In September they both attended the 2017 Celebrity Fight Night in Rome and were also seen out together the following night.

According to Fernandez's LinkedIn profile, he is CEO and co-founder of the vVoosh Charity Foundation.

The Londoner describes himself as 'an experienced high energy entrepreneur with exceptional vision, communication and leadership skills'.

Fergie was most likely relishing the opportunity to catch up with Beatrice, who is currently based in New York and earlier this week enjoyed a rare visit from sister Eugenie, 27.

Beatrice is currently Vice President of Partnerships and Strategy at Afiniti.com, a Washington DC-based computer software company.
The setting is as splendid as youd expect for the BBCs latest costume drama.

Just outside the stunning stately home in the grounds of the picturesque, 5,000-acre West Wycombe Estate in the Chiltern Hills, theres a marquee overlooking the lake.

Inside, its beautifully decorated with intricate winding flowers flowing from ornate Edwardian vases, and the table is laden with vintage crystal champagne glasses, along with decorative platters of fruit and cakes baked to the recipes of Victorian cook Mrs Beeton.

Matthew Macfadyen and Hayley Atwell as Henry and Margaret in the remake of Howards End

The table, and indeed the stage, is set for one of the most pivotal and dramatic scenes in the new adaptation of EM Forsters novel Howards End  the wedding of rich businessmans daughter Evie Wilcox to Percy Cahill at her familys country estate, Oniton.

By the end of the reception, however, the three very different families the story centres on will have collided to disastrous effect.

And as the millions whove read Forsters book or wallowed in the glorious 1992 Merchant Ivory film will know, what follows is destitution, tragedy, manslaughter and incarceration.

The story revolves around three families in England at the beginning of the 20th century Pictured: Henry and Margaret leaving his son Charless house

Despite Forsters book being 107 years old, the themes still feel uncannily modern. The story revolves around three families in England at the beginning of the 20th century  the Wilcoxes, rich capitalists with a fortune made in the colonies, the half-German Schlegel siblings Margaret, Helen and younger brother Tibby, bohemian intellectuals who have much in common with the real-life Bloomsbury Group, and the Basts, an impoverished young couple from a lower-class background.

Howards End, Mrs Wilcoxs beloved ancestral home  albeit a pile far less grand than Oniton  is almost a character in its own right too, becoming integral to the complex relationships between these three very different strata of society.

WHO'S WHO Meet the three very different families whose worlds clash in Howards End THE INTELLECTUALS Margaret Schlegel (Hayley Atwell) Clever, witty and interested in those around her, she realises that if we love people we have to see their faults too, leading her to make choices that appal her sister Helen. Tibby Schlegel (Alex Lawther) The quiet younger brother, he looks upon the antics of his sisters with amused detachment. Hes the opposite of the Wilcox men, being studious and rather introspective. Helen Schlegel (Philippa Coulthard) Impetuous, rebellious and terribly dramatic, she often acts before she thinks, but its all very heartfelt. Shes much less grounded than her sister. Aunt Juley (Tracey Ullman) She tries desperately to keep the sisters on the straight and narrow, and theres a real affection between this battleaxe aunt and her nieces and nephew. THE RICH CAPITALISTS Henry Wilcox (Matthew Macfadyen) Egotistical and supremely confident, he does not always understand the world of feelings  which is why he needs a loving wife. Paul Wilcox (Jonah Hauer-King) The middle Wilcox child, he has a brief affair with Helen Schlegel but quickly realises the romance is impossible as his father wants him to look after his affairs abroad. Ruth Wilcox (Julia Ormond) Henrys wife, she has an instant connection with the Schlegels who recognise in her a kindred spirit even if she doesnt comprehend their intellectual chatter. Evie Wilcox (Bessie Carter) A rather selfish, self-centred young lady who has very little tolerance for the Schlegels world. Her focus is on maintaining her comfortable lifestyle.

Charles Wilcox (Joe Bannister) Arrogant and blustering, the bullying eldest Wilcox son has neither his fathers intelligence nor his mothers emotional maturity. He doesnt think highly of the Schlegel sisters either. THE DOWN AT HEEL Leonard Bast (Joseph Quinn) A romantic insurance clerk who would love to live the life of an intellectual thinker, but unlike the Schlegels he needs to work for a living. Jacky Bast (Rosalind Eleazar) A fallen woman, shes been saved by Leonard from destitution but her constant demands for reassurance leave him resenting her. Advertisement

And this new four-part adaptation shows just how timeless, and at times brutal, the tale is.

Our series has been written to be deliberately not too earnest. In some ways it doesnt feel like a period drama at all, says Hayley Atwell, who plays the central character of Margaret Schlegel in the drama, which has been adapted by American Kenneth Lonergan who won a BAFTA earlier this year for his film Manchester By The Sea.

We were all told not to watch the Merchant Ivory film because this was going to be very different. Despite the constrictions of the costumes and the period, we did feel we wanted to make it accessible to modern audiences by not making it feel mannered.

Even Emma Thompson, who played Margaret in the 1992 film, told Hayley (who played Emmas characters daughter in the 2008 film version of Brideshead Revisited) not to refer to the Merchant Ivory version. She said, Dont watch the film. She is you and you are she and she is you.

Thats not to say this lavish drama skimps on the things period fans love. There are plenty of corsets and bonnets, beautiful houses, high teas and even a former Mr Darcy in Matthew Macfadyen playing the businessman Henry Wilcox.

For a drama with lots of dialogue its remarkably fast-paced and theres plenty of humour too, as the intellectual Schlegels and their friends talk at each other without really listening.

And, of course, theres romance  but its complicated, grown-up romance. It melds different worlds and suggests that people can connect even if they arent wholly compatible.

I can see why people sometimes say, Oh, not another period drama, says Matthew Macfadyen, who was cast as Mr Darcy in the 2005 film version of Pride And Prejudice opposite Keira Knightleys Lizzy Bennet and starred in the BBCs adaptation of Little Dorrit with Claire Foy. But thats only because some period dramas arent done very well, or theyre done in a boring way.

'This one is eternally relevant. The social mores might have changed, but peoples behaviour hasnt. It has money and class, the battle of the sexes, society and sex and family. Human behaviour is the same whether youre wearing a frock coat or a hoodie. These issues endure.

The issues radiate from the wonderfully vivacious Schlegel sisters Margaret and Helen. Orphaned but with enough money to keep them comfortable, they live in the heart of intellectual London with their younger brother Tibby where they spend their time discussing art and literature and how the poor should be helped. Occasionally their aunt Juley (Tracey Ullman) comes and tuts at their very modern behaviour and reminds them theyre only indulged because their mother left them money.

Ive reached that point in my career when I play aunts, laughs Tracey, best known now for her hilarious sketch show and impersonations.

Aunt Juley is brilliant. She tries to get involved in the Schlegels lives and sometimes its not that welcome, but they do love her. Margaret and Helen are curious liberal girls. It was tough for those types then and its still tough for them now. Thats what fascinates me.

Margaret is the elder and more sensible of the two. Shes clever, ahead of her time and eager to broaden her cloistered experience and learn from others. Shes quite extraordinary, says Hayley.

Theres a line from her in the novel, Only connect, which is one of the books key messages. The thing that drives her is a desire to connect people. Given the context of the time, it was quite unusual for a woman in her position to be seeking something outside of her immediate world.

'At the beginning of the story shes frustrated. Shes smart enough and self-aware enough to know that shes very privileged to be at these charity lunches with lots of other rich and wealthy people talking about social reform, but whats the point if they dont actually do anything?

Helen is different; shes much more passionate and firmly set in her opinions even if it means hurting those she loves. Shes played by Australian actress Philippa Coulthard, and rarely have two actors actually looked as much like sisters as she and Hayley.

THE BLOOMSBURY LINK At university in Cambridge, EM Forster was part of a group of writers and thinkers who were to become known as the Bloomsbury Group. Among them was Thoby Stephen, the beloved brother of two intellectual sisters Virginia and Vanessa, who later became better known as the writer Virginia Woolf and artist Vanessa Bell. There are certainly elements of the Stephen family in the Schlegels  academics have pointed out how Tibby is a lot like Thoby, while Virginia married a man called Leonard from outside their social set, the penniless Leonard Woolf. Forster maintained the characters of Margaret and Helen (played by Hayley Atwell and Philippa Coulthard, above) were mainly based on the sisters of his friend Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson. More real-life models, for the characters of Margaret and Henry, were his friends the Postons  he was a stockbroker and she was extremely cultured  who lived near his childhood home. Advertisement

LOW-PAID EMMA WON AN OSCAR The 1992 Merchant Ivory film version of Howards End became an instant classic. Boasting an all-star cast including Emma Thompson, Anthony Hopkins, Vanessa Redgrave and Helena Bonham Carter, it won three Oscars, including best actress for Emma Thompson. But it almost didnt get made. Although Merchant Ivory has become a byword for lavish and successful British period dramas, when producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory proposed making Howards End, their third Forster novel adaptation, they struggled to get the funding. Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins in the 1992 production of Howards End In the end, the 6 million movie was part-financed by backers in Japan, where the teams first Forster project, A Room With A View, had been very popular. However, according to the stars, the money was not lavished on them. Merchant Ivory paid me a pittance  and everyone else, Emma Thompson, who played Margaret Schlegel, later revealed. They struggled from week to week to get everyone paid. It was tough for them and pretty tough on the crew as well. Emma had been strongly compelled to try to win the role in the first place. That was the only time Id written to someone and said, I know how to do this, I know this woman so well, she recalled. I felt unusually convinced I would be able to do it. That I was the right person. Helena Bonham Carter, whod appeared in both A Room With A View The decision to cast Vanessa Redgrave as Ruth Wilcox was made early by Ivory. Vanessa was playing the great English soul, he said. Which she is herself. Shes perfect for it. Anthony Hopkins, whod just become one of the hottest actors around after The Silence Of The Lambs, was cast as Henry Wilcox, while Helena Bonham Carter, whod appeared in both A Room With A View and Maurice, the second Merchant Ivory film of a Forster novel, played Helen Schlegel. The film, recently restored and re-released to mark its 25th anniversary, was a huge hit and was praised by reviewers for making the story seem as relevant to the 90s as it had been to the era in which the novel was written. Advertisement

Philippa, who was cast after flying in from LA for a quick meeting with producers before flying back, is fulfilling a lifelong dream by appearing in a BBC period drama.

My grandmother is English so we used to watch them on repeat, she says. Ive always wanted to be in something like this. Its a fascinating world where you have to skirt around social niceties. And its been interesting wearing a corset  and very nice to take it off.

The Schlegels meet the Wilcox family while on holiday in Germany and strike up a friendship, even though they come from totally different worlds. Henry Wilcox is a hard-nosed businessman who collects houses the way the Schlegels collect people.

Hes opinionated and somewhat egotistical, but the sisters like his wife Ruth (played by Mad Mens Julia Ormond), who is unintellectual but has an innate understanding of the kind of loving, connecting philosophy the sisters like to preach.

Back in England, Helen goes to Howards End, Ruth Wilcoxs ancestral home, to stay with the family, and despite being firmly opposed to almost everything they stand for shes beguiled by both the house and the family.

Howards End is Ruths most prized possession as she feels a strong connection to its history, yet her husband and children do not feel the same way.

FOSTER'S HAVEN A major character in Howards End is the house itself. The real Howards End was Edward Morgan Forsters childhood home Rooksnest, a country house near Stevenage that had once belonged to a farming family called Howard. Edward moved there with his mother when he was four after his father died from tuberculosis. There was no gas, no electric light, no hot water but the future novelist loved the place. I took it to my heart and hoped I would live and die there, wrote Edward (pictured far right, riding at Rooksnest in the 1880s). Edward Morgan Forsters childhood home Rooksnest, a country house near Stevenage Edward in his home in the 1880s But when he was 14 their lease ran out and they were forced to move; something that happened to the Schlegels too. His mother rented a house in Tonbridge in Kent so that Edward would be able to attend the towns renowned independent school as a day pupil. However Edward was unhappy, both at the school and also because hed moved from a quiet life in the country to a bustling, rapidly expanding town. For him, Rooksnest came to represent solid English country values threatened by a modern world that never stops moving, and it served as a model for the fictional Howards End. To find a house that could stand in for the magical, mythical Howards End was one of the biggest challenges for the series producers. In the end they found a house near Godalming in Surrey (far left) which, like Rooksnest, had been built around a Tudor building. A garden designed by famous horticulturist Gertrude Jekyll just before the First World War adds to the charms of the location. Its this beautiful rambling house that blurs into the garden, says Howards End production designer Luke Hull. The gardens are amazing, they feel really rustic compared to the neat borders and lawns you usually see. You have to feel like Margaret would fall in love with it, so it has to be grounded and earthy. Advertisement

When the younger Wilcox son Paul arrives, he and Helen fall for each other, but by the time Aunt Juley shows up to break up the affair after being alerted to it by a letter, the romance is already over and the two families part amid embarrassment and acrimony.

Shortly afterwards, the Schlegels have a brush with another world when they meet Leonard Bast (played by Dickensians Joseph Quinn), a poor insurance clerk, at a Beethoven concert.

He desperately craves to be part of the romantic intellectualism of their world but he simply cant afford it. When Helen mistakenly walks off with his umbrella, hes invited to the Schlegels home to retrieve it and reveals his desire to bring intellectualism and books into his life.

Aunt Juley meets Henry Wilcox, with (l-r) Tibby, Margaret and Helen

Left: A contemplative Margaret Schlegel. Right: Paul Wilcox and Helen Schlegel embrace during their short-lived affair

For all their interest in charity and social reform, hes the closest theyve come to meeting someone on the poverty line. He supports his girlfriend and later wife Jacky, who he saved from destitution after she was cast out by another man. He doesnt love her but he sticks by her because he knows that without him she will have nothing.

Hes the tragic hero of the piece. The Basts are the representation of the lower middle classes staring at the abyss, wondering if theyre ever going to be able to find their footing and survive, says Hayley. I think Margaret feels a social responsibility to connect with them. Shes very empathetic and emotionally intelligent, and quite a free thinker.

Leonard is ballast to the Schlegels romanticism, adds Joseph Quinn. Hes not a typical romantic lead. At one point he gets so bored of the routine of his life that he decides to walk through the countryside all night.

Evie Wilcox (Bessie Carter) with Percy Cahill (Miles Jupp) on their wedding day at Oniton

'When he tells Helen about this, she expects him to say it was a wonderful experience, but he says it wasnt; it was cold and he was tired. Theres a pragmatism to him.

In time the Schlegels and Wilcoxes are reacquainted when the family takes a London home across the road from where the sisters live. Its here that Ruth and Margaret bond  though Ruth is gravely ill. This will lead to a development that provokes resentment and disgust in Helen and the Wilcox children.

Playing Henry, Matthew Macfadyen has perhaps the hardest job of all in the lavish drama; making the unlikely Henry a romantic hero. He is a far more flawed character than Mr Darcy ever was  something which becomes particularly clear in the wedding scene being filmed today.

Hes really interesting to play, says Matthew, who in real life is married to The Durrells star Keeley Hawes.

Hes supremely confident. Hes not given to introspection or deep thought, or exploring his feelings. But hes not unsympathetic. He is a mans man and thats very attractive, especially to those whose world is that of thoughts, ideas and feelings.

You can see his bluster and pig-headedness and stupidity, but its also possible to forgive him. He goes on an extraordinary journey and its brilliant to play that. Hes not a baddie. Youre sympathetic to his point of view. Thats really the beauty of the central plot; its nuanced.

And so to Evies wedding at Oniton. Henry is there of course, and so is Margaret, while Helen brings the Basts to Oniton because Leonard has lost his job and feels Henry could help him find work.

But by the end of the day the lives of all the main protagonists have been changed. The destiny of Howards End, and the romances of those it has a hold on, hinge on the repercussions.

And if you havent read the book or seen the film, youll certainly be surprised to find out what they are.

Howards End begins on Sunday 12 November at 9pm on BBC1.
Rock Hudson, who was Hollywood's most in-demand leading man of the '50s and '60s, slept his way to the top of on the advice of Marilyn Monroe, a sensational new biography has claimed.

The pair had a fling - which has never been revealed before now - when Monroe was a struggling starlet, and she told him they really needed to seduce more useful people to find fame in Hollywood, saying: 'Both of us will have to lie on a few casting couches'.

Following her advice, he pursued the biggest stars, did sexual favours for the married head of a Hollywood studio and confided to a childhood friend: 'I want to be a movie star! And I don't give a damn how many casting couches I have to lie on.'

These are among extraordinary revelations within a major new biography on Hudson by Darwin Porter, an award-winning film historian from North Carolina.

He knew the legendary star through mutual friends, including actor George Nader, to whom Hudson left his estate and is telling Hudson's larger-than-life story thanks to their anecdotes.

The book will reveal Hudson's relationships with some of cinema's most desirable or powerful players, showing that a man who hid his homosexuality from the world until shortly before his death in 1985 had in fact been 'bisexual for career advancement'.

A new biography of Rock Hudson has revealed his affair with Marilyn Monroe for the first time - and how the actress advised him to sleep his way to the top

The star was Hollywood's most in-demand leading man in the '50s and 60s and had affairs with men and women from Judy Garland to George Nader

Mr Porter is publishing details for the first time of affairs with Monroe, Judy Garland and Elizabeth Taylor, as well as Robert Taylor, Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power, among screen gods and goddesses.

'He seduced everyone,' Mr Porter said, describing the 6'4' hunk as 'a walking mass of testosterone'.

He added that, while Hollywood is today coming to terms with producer Harvey Weinstein's alleged abuse of power, and the apparent silence of those around him, it was ever thus in some ways.

He is revealing that Hudson did 'sexual favours' for Edward Muhl, the then head of Universal, 'often in the afternoon, at 3pm, and secretaries knew that'.

Hudson presented Marilyn Monroe with a Golden Globe in 1962, after a short-lived affair which ended because she told him they would have to 'lie on a lot of casting couches'

Mr Porter says of Muhl: 'He had, shall we say, the knee pads to worship Rock. Muhl worshipped him. Of course, he had a wife and three kids, but so many of them did. It was the 1950s.'

In his book, he writes that Muhl launched Hudson into worldwide stardom: 'One afternoon, [Hudson] was summoned to the executive offices, where Muhl awaited him As was his custom, the studio chief got down on his knees, unzipped Rock's fly After Rock zipped up, Muhl told him the good news  his contract was going to be renewed.'

Hudson found fame after he was cast in Universal's Magnificent Obsession, the 1954 tear-jerking melodrama co-starring Jane Wyman.

Mr Porter dismisses the suggestion that Hudson would have been bitter about the casting-couch.

Elizabeth Taylor starred with Hudson in Giant and was also one of his conquests, according to the book

He said that Nader told him: 'Muhl said Rock was right up there with Marilyn Monroe. Both stars used sex to broker business deals, and saw sexual intercourse as little more than a handshake.'

'Rock told Nader. If the head of Universal said that, wouldn't you tell your best friend?'

Nader was also among those who disclosed the Monroe affair, which has 'never been revealed', Mr Porter said.

After Columbia studio refused to renew Monroe's contract, she happened to meet Hudson in 1949, while drifting around the Universal lot.

Porter said: 'Rock was very attracted to her. She said she hadn't had breakfast since some gentleman the day before had bought her some. He said, I've got a ten-dollar bill burning a hole in my wallet? How about lunch with me'. He didn't have much money.'

Hudson (pictured) allegedly performed 'sexual favours' for Edward Muhl, the then head of Universal

Their few dates included eating in a 'hamburger den'. Porter said: 'Finally, she said "we don't want this to get more serious. Both of us will have to lie on a few casting couches".'

Hudson took Marilyn's advice and later they became friends.

'This was 1949 and they were both desperately trying to make it. Neither one of them was a great actor like Sarah Bernhardt or Laurence Olivier,' Porter explained. 'They had to work their way up the ladder the best way they knew.'

The biography tells the story of a former truck driver called Roy Fitzgerald  he later changed his name to Rock Hudson  who rose to become the world's number one box-office attraction. Much of Porter's material has never been published before.

Monroe advised Hudson that they would both have to seduce more 'useful' figures in Hollywood if they wanted to get ahead

He shows that, even in an industry known for its promiscuity, Hudson had an incredible number of conquests. They included actress Jane Wyman, who fell in love with him.

Porter said: 'She was divorced from Ronald Reagan by that time and married to Hollywood composer Fred Karger. Wyman and Rock had a fling.

'She had this fondness for young men. She was a big star. In New York, for the premiere of Magnificent Obsession, she returned to her hotel suite and found Rock in bed with her husband.'

But his affair with Wyman paid off. He went on to be cast with her in All that Heaven Allows, the 1955 drama about a widow who falls for a younger man.

Hudson and Monroe went on to become friends after a short-lived fling

Mr Porter also has details of 'a long involvement' with Grace Kelly, once she was an established star, and with Judy Garland, after she got drunk at his first A-list Hollywood party and Hudson  then still unknown - drove her home.

Porter said: 'That affair has never been written about.'

As with many of these actresses, friendships blossomed from initial flings.

Asked whether Monroe and Hudson might not have found stardom if they had not gone along with the casting couch and sexual favours, Mr Porter said: 'I think almost certainly.'

He recalled once standing in the main station in Los Angeles and being struck by how many extraordinarily beautiful men and women were getting off the trains.

Rock Hudson, Erotic Fire and co-written with Danforth Prince, is released this weekend by US publishers Blood Moon Productions.
Ivanka Trump met up with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for a dinner in Tokyo on Friday, on the second and last day of her trip to Japan.

The first daughter, 36, posed for photos with Abe, 63, after giving a speech about female entrepreneurs and women's role in the economy at the World Assembly for Women 2017 earlier in the day.

Ivanka stepped out in a $1,995 kimono-inspired dress made in Italy by designer Johanna Ortiz for the dinner, which took place after the mother-of-three spoke out against harassment of women in the workplace, specifically highlighting sexual harassment which she insisted 'can never be tolerated'.

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Visit: Ivanka Trump met up with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for a dinner in Tokyo on Friday, on the second and last day of her trip to Japan

Official: The first daughter, 36, posed for photos with Abe, 63, after giving a speech about female entrepreneurs and women's role in the economy

Culture: Ivanka donned a $1,995 kimono-inspired dress, in what appeared to be a nod to the traditional clothing dating back to the Heian period, between the eighth and twelfth centuries

Change: She departed from her usual straight blowout and instead wore her long hair in relaxed waves, perhaps owing to the current humid weather in the Japanese capital

Ivanka made the comments during a speech on female entrepreneurship and women's role in the economy at the World Assembly for Women 2017.

During her second official trip abroad as a senior White House adviser, the president's eldest daughter spoke out against harassment of women in the workplace.

'All too often, our workplace culture fails to treat women with appropriate respect,' she said. 'This takes many forms including harassment which can never be tolerated.'

Her remarks came amid growing attention to sexual harassment of women in Hollywood and other industries in the US.

Ivanka's father has been accused of inappropriate sexual conduct by more than a dozen women. He has denied their allegations.

Ivanka picked the below-the-knee, flowing dress by the Colombian designer, with pink accents and a flowery pattern, tied around the waist with a black bow belt for what appeared to be a nod to the traditional Japanese clothing dating back to the Heian period, between the eighth and twelfth centuries.

Designer Johanna has had previous ties to the White House, having been invited in the past to show her collections there and at the United Nations as a fashion ambassador to her native Colombia.

Meanwhile, Ivanka departed from her usual straight blowout and instead wore her long hair in relaxed waves, perhaps owing to the current humid weather in the Japanese capital.

The White House adviser finished her outfit with black stilettos.

Posting several images from the dinner on her Instagram account, Ivanka revealed that the Prime Minister had actually presented her with a birthday bouquet as a special surprise.

'An unforgettable last night in Tokyo!' she captioned the post. 'Thank you Prime Minister Abe for the warm hospitality and the belated birthday wishes.'

The images show the first daughter, who turned 36 on October 30, sitting down to enjoy a traditional Japanese meal with the Prime Minister and several other guests, and also capture the group enjoying what appears to be a fan dance.

Ivanka is also pictured receiving a beautiful floral bouquet from the Prime Minister, beaming with delight at the special gift.

Style: Ivanka picked a below-the-knee, flowy dress with pink accents and a flowery pattern, tied around the waist with a black bow belt

Happy as can be: The mother-of-three beamed with joy as she waved for the cameras

Tasty treats: Ivanka shared images from the dinner on her Instagram account, while thanking the Prime Minister for ensuring she had a 'unforgettable last night in Tokyo'

Birthday girl! The Prime Minister also presented Ivanka with a bouquet of flowers in honor of her 36th birthday, which was on October 30

What a fun finale: Ivanka will now return home to the US, where she will continue to push tax reform while her father completes a 12-day trip in Asia

It was a busy day for Ivanka, who appears to have made a quick fashion change into her kimono-style dress after appearing at the World Assembly for Women 2017 in a pink suit, where - in addition to commenting on sexual harassment in the workplace - she also called for an increase of women and minority participation in the fields of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).

'Female and minority participation in STEM fields is moving in the wrong direction,' she said. 'We must create equal participation in these traditionally male-dominated sectors of our economy.'

She said her father's tax reforms - unveiled by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday - would benefit American families.

'We are seeking to simplify the tax code, lower rates, expand the child tax credit, eliminate the marriage penalty, and put more money back in the pockets of hard-working Americans,' she told a meeting room in a Tokyo hotel that had a number of empty seats.

Abe, who joined her onstage, said his government was aiming to mobilize women in Japan's workforce and strengthen economic growth, launching policies such as improved childcare in his 'Womenomics' program.

'We've put our full strength into creating an environment where it's easy for women to work,' Abe said in an opening address to the conference.

'I really feel that Japan has come a long way,' he said.

Japan's gender gap remains wide despite such efforts, with little progress made since Abe vowed at the United Nations in 2013 to create 'a society where women can shine'.

Japan ranked 114 out of 144 in the World Economic Forum's 2017 Global Gender Gap report - sandwiched between Guinea and Ethiopia and down 13 places since Abe took power.

Message: Earlier on Friday, Ivanka gave a speech on female entrepreneurship and women's role in the economy at the World Assembly for Women 2017

Duo: Abe, who joined her onstage, said his government was aiming to mobilize women in Japan's workforce and strengthen economic growth

Choices: The prime minister appointed only two women to ministerial posts in a Cabinet reshuffle in August, down from three and five respectively in his previous two cabinets

Future: The president's eldest daughter said that the world must increase women and minority participation in the fields of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM)

Observations: 'Female and minority participation in STEM fields is moving in the wrong direction,' Ivanka said during her speech

Last word: After she finished, she tweeted: 'The fact is, ALL women are 'working women.' Let's continue to empower women and ensure they succeed in our modern economy. #WAW2017'

Abe appointed only two women to ministerial posts in a Cabinet reshuffle in August, down from three and five respectively in his previous two cabinets. Only 14 per cent of Japan's lawmakers are women.

Men also dominate decision-making in business in Japan. Only 3.7 per cent of Japanese-listed company executives were women at the end of July, according to the Cabinet Office, barely changed from 3.4 per cent a year earlier.

After her speech, the impeccably dressed 36-year-old posed for pictures with Abe on stage.

Sporting a bright pink skirt suit with pearl embellished buttons, Ivanka was all smiles for the special event.

After she finished, she tweeted: 'The fact is, ALL women are 'working women.' Let's continue to empower women and ensure they succeed in our modern economy. #WAW2017'.

Ivanka touched down in Narita, east of Tokyo, on Thursday ahead of her speech, and was greeted by a group of photographers waiting to capture her arrival.

She made sure a member of her entourage filmed her glamorous arrival as she made her way down the escalator, and later shared the footage with her 3.9 million followers on her Instagram Story.

Travels: Ivanka landed in Japan on Thursday ahead of her speech on female entrepreneurship

Arrival: The first daughter touched down in Narita, east of Tokyo, after a 14-hour flight

Long journey: Ivanka kept her sunglasses on inside the airport, shielding her eyes after her 14-hour flight from Washington, DC

Greetings: She smiled at the cameras as she passed the photographers and continued her exit

The clip shows Ivanka arriving to Narita International Airport, then focuses on the many photographers taking her picture, before focusing on the first daughter again.

Ivanka kept her sunglasses on inside the airport, shielding her eyes after her 14-hour flight from Washington, DC.

She smiled at the cameras as she passed the photographers and continued her exit.

The senior White House adviser, who is traveling at the invitation of Abe, donned a thigh-length, light blue coat white a white, black-rimmed collar.

Ivanka paired the statement jacket with black tailored pants and black flats with a prominent black bow on top.

She finished off her outfit with pearl earrings and a large black purse.

Right after her landing, Ivanka went to enjoy a traditional kaiseki meal, a refined, meticulously prepared multi-course dinner.

Kaiseki meals, which are among the finest cuisine in the world, are served on individual trays to each guest. They can vary in composition, but typically include an appetizer served with sake, sashimi, a simmered dish, grilled food, rice, and dessert.

Documenting: She made sure a member of her entourage filmed her glamorous arrival and later shared the footage with her 3.9 million followers on her Instagram Story

Sharing: The first daughter also posted this photo on her Instagram account to document her visit to Japan

Snaps: Another photo shared by Ivanka on Instagram shows her waving at photographers gathered behind a barrier to capture her arrival

Fine dining: Right after her landing, Ivanka went to enjoy a traditional kaiseki meal, a refined, meticulously prepared multi-course dinner

Mementos: Ivanka shared photos of herself enjoying her meal on Instagram. She can be seen bringing a bowl to her lips and interacting with their hosts

Hospitality: Kaiseki meals, such as the one Ivanka enjoyed, are among the finest cuisine in the world, and are served on individual trays to each guest

Ivanka shared photos of herself enjoying her meal on Instagram. She can be seen bringing a bowl to her lips and interacting with their hosts, whom she thanked for their hospitality in the caption.

The first daughter was initially supposed to travel with her father after her speech, during President Donald Trump's 12-day trip around Asia, which is his first official visit to the continent as commander in chief.

But she is now due to return to the US right after her speech on Friday, in order to continue pushing for her father's proposed tax reform.

Axios wrote on Tuesday that Ivanka, along with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and economic adviser Gary Cohn, will hold tax reform events in the US instead, laying the public opinion groundwork with voters while President Trump is away visiting Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

A trip to China for Ivanka could also be bad for optics, as her Chinese clothing factories have attracted negative headlines in recent months.

Axios reported that Ivanka had canceled meetings in both China and South Korea that she had previously booked.

Both Ivanka and Jared Kusher, her husband and fellow White House adviser, accompanied the president on his two previous foreign trips, though they broke off to spend a date night in Rome in May, before peeling off and heading back to the United States.

Before she left, Ivanka shared her excitement over her trip to Japan, even as she admitted that she will miss her three children while she is away.

The 36-year-old was pictured leaving her Washington, DC home on Wednesday morning to head out for her flight.

Off she goes! She was spotted leaving her home for her trip to Japan on Wednesday morning

A little help: A team loaded Ivanka's luggage into the car before she left

Last hugs: Before leaving, Ivanka shared a photo of herself with her three kids, which appears to have been taken the night before while reading a bedtime story

On that same morning, Ivanka shared a cuddly photo of herself with her three children Arabella, six, Joseph, four, and Theodore, one, just before she set off.

'Im looking forward to visiting Japan, but sure will miss these three!' Ivanka wrote on Instagram at around 9 am Wednesday morning.

The photo, which appears to have been taken at bedtime the night before, shows Ivanka sitting in a large white bed surrounded by her children.

The first daughter is dressed comfortably in leggings, a black sweater, and socks, and appears to have washed her make-up off for the night.

She is holding a picture book, with Arabella sitting to her right in red and white pajamas, her hair freshly washed.

Shortly after sharing the snap of her kids, Ivanka was pictured leaving her DC home to catch her flight.

Dressed for the cooler November weather, she wore a heavy-looking black skirt with a small slit up one leg, layered with a $60 chunky gray sweater from Zara, which was covered in pearl-like embellishments.

She accessorized with a pair of gray suede heels but didn't carry a purse as she walked out to a waiting SUV. Her luggage was carried to the car for her and loaded into the trunk by various staff members.
Larry Lamb sounds perfectly convincing when he says, I was never a philanderer. How could you doubt those twinkling eyes and that convincing shake of the head?

Its only when his son George practically falls off his seat laughing that the doubt sets in. Lets not forget Larry is an actor. Its his job to convince.

What follows is hilarious. Larry gets quite irate, insisting he was absolutely not a philanderer.

Not if you mean someone who goes from one woman to another when hes still in a relationship. I was more the sort of person who went from one relationship to the next, a serial monogamist.

In their new show Turkey A To B George and Larry Lamb travel 2,000 miles round the country

George snorts. His father rolls his eyes. Who to believe? So that means you never cheated when you were in a relationship? Yeah well, er, um. Maybe we should talk about the show...

This little insight shows just why this pair have become a winning TV double act. Although both have had solo careers  Larry, 70, as an actor, most famously on Gavin & Stacey and EastEnders; George, 37, as a presenter  they first got together for a radio show, then an ITV reality show called The Parent Trip.

It was just an extension of what we do in real life  holiday together, says George. Wed been on some great trips so doing that for work was a dream.

For a history nut like Larry, working on their new show Turkey A To B  which involved travelling 2,000 miles round the country  was even more of a blast. While he gives an impromptu history lesson about the city of Ephesus, George nods and says, This is what he does. Hes a walking search engine. Its why hes great to travel with, he knows everything.

Their trip starts in Istanbul, where East meets West. This city represents the start of the Silk Road  the ancient trade route linking Europe to Asia  and their journey begins, appropriately enough, with some haggling in the Grand Bazaar. Will Larrys legendary gift of the gab be up to the task? Why yes. The thing about Dad is he has a knack for languages, laughs George. He only has to be in a place for five minutes and hes picked up the lingo. I wish Id inherited a bit more of that.

The father and son have a go at making traditional kebabs during a visit to Ankara

From Istanbul they head to Alacati, home of Turkish olive oil production, and get to see how its made. Then its on to rural Pamukkale to swim among Roman ruins where Cleopatra once bathed. What on earth do the locals make of their visitors? Theyre fascinated when they hear were father and son. Thats the lovely part, says Larry. It just adds another dynamic and they want to know all about us.

George and Larry tease and spark off each other, but when it comes to it theyre two halves of the same coin, much as George hates to admit it. We all think were nothing like our parents, but the older I get the more I think Im exactly like them both, God help me. Because my parents split up when I was young, Dad was the fun guy who lived round the corner, my buddy. Mum was the disciplinarian. Hed put me on the handlebars of his bike, everything was an adventure. As I grew up we kept that bond. Its sad that its unusual these days for sons to hang out with their dads. My dads my mate.

The difference here is that sometimes the son seems more grown-up than the father. George confirms hes been in a relationship for a while, while Larrys love life is famously chequered. Hes been married three or four times says George, which tells its own story. Three, confirms Larry.

He married his first wife Anita Wisbey when he was 21 after she became pregnant. They split up soon after, and he only met his daughter Vanessa, who was born in 1969, once. Marriage number two was to American nurse Jacquie Parris, but the one most pivotal to George  Larrys marriage to his mum Linda Martin  happened in 1979. The pair split in 1996.

We just couldnt live together, admits Larry. I was very immature. In fact, I think I was in my 60s before I grew up as far as women were concerned. When Larry took part in Im A Celebrity last year, viewers thought he was still in the relationship hed been in for 20 years with actress Clare Burt, mother of his daughters Eloise, born in 1999 and Eva, born in 2003.

Yet he emerged into the arms of French artist Marie Victorine. He confirms today that they are together. Forever, pipes up George. This is it. Hes finished. Larry laughs. Its true. Ive finally worked out what I want from life.

By the time George was old enough to understand what his father did, Larry was famous. Was it glamorous having a famous dad round the corner? No! I mean, he was glamorous. Every kid thinks their dads a god, but mine was handsome and debonair and he looked like a god. But in terms of money, no way. Hes always been rubbish with it. Thered be no money, then hed get a job and thered be lots of it, then no money again.

Having split from Linda, it would have been very easy for Larry to lose contact with his boy, He credits Linda with the fact this didnt happen. It was all her. She was determined Id have a relationship with George, and the way we are today is all thanks to her.

Many children from broken relationships find it hard to understand why their parents split up, but George says he cant understand how his stayed together so long. They married after 11 days. That says it all. Many women, I suggest, would be cross to see their child worship the estranged husband. Im sure she has been, concedes George.

But she knows deep down... he breaks off. Put it this way, if there was a fire and I had to pull one of them out first, Im pulling Mum out. Larry splutters. Sorry Dad, there you go. Thats the payoff.

Turkey A To B starts tonight at 8pm on Travel Channel.
Prince William has warned that the future of wildlife is under threat from rapid population growth, as he prepares to welcome his third child.

The Duke of Cambridge, 35, made the comments at the Tusk gala dinner in London on Thursday night, saying: 'In my lifetime, we have seen global wildlife populations decline by over half.

'We are going to have to work much harder and think much deeper, if we are to ensure that human beings and the other species of animal with which we share this planet can continue to co-exist.

'Africa's rapidly growing human population is predicted to more than double by 2050, a staggering increase of three and a half million people per month.

'There is no question that this increase puts wildlife and habitat under enormous pressure. Urbanisation, infrastructure development, cultivationall good things in themselves, but they will have a terrible impact unless we begin to plan and to take measures now.'

William's father Prince Charles previously spoke out about his concerns over population growth in a 2010 speech at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, warning that the world faces 'monumental' problems as populations rocket.

The Duke of Cambridge, 35, made a passionate speech about his concerns about population growth at the Tusk gala dinner in London last night

Earlier this year an environmental organisation based in San Francisco wrote an open letter to the Cambridges urging them to 'lead by example' by not having any more children

He cautioned that earth doesn't have the capacity to 'sustain us all', while a 'vast proportion' is consuming natural resources at 'Western levels'.

'It would certainly help if the acceleration slowed down, but it would also help if the world reduced its desire to consume,' he said.

In 2008, in an interview for a documentary with Sir Trevor McDonald, the Duke of Edinburgh also issued a warning about overpopulation.

The food prices are going up  everyone thinks it's to do with not enough food, but it's really that demand is too great, too many people."

The Duke adds: "It's a little embarrassing for everybody, no one quite knows how to handle it. Nobody wants their family life to be interfered with by the government."

William is set to become a father-of-three when Kate gives birth in April 2018, but before the news was announced a San Francisco based organisation called on the couple to 'lead by example' and stop at two children for environmental reasons.

In a 2010 speech, Charles warned that rapid population growth means the earth can't sustain all of us. His father The Duke of Edinburgh has also said overpopulation is at the root of many of the world's problems

Having Kids, which promotes smaller families, wrote an open letter to the royal couple in July urging them to 'consider forgoing having a third child (...) in favour of modelling a smaller, sustainable family.'

The organisation spoke out after Kate joked about having more children when presented with a baby gift during the royal tour of Poland.

Having Kids executive director Anne Green said: 'William and Kate have a tremendous opportunity to model their choice of having a smaller family.

'By doing so, they set an example as to what has the most potential for mitigating climate change and its impacts, including severe flooding, deadlier heatwaves, increase in diseases, and wildlife extinctions.'

She added: 'Moreover, given the vast economic inequalities in the world today, the couple also has the opportunity to model a simple principle: That every child deserves as fair start in life'.

William arriving with Tusk CEO Charlie Mayhew at a gala dinner for the Tusk conservation charity at the Roundhouse in London
A little girl born with a genetic heart defect who is set to undergo her fourth open-heart surgery this month got the chance to 'marry' the love of her life.

Five-year-old Sophia Chiappalone from Meriden, Connecticut was born with a genetic heart defect that's had her in and out of the hospital since she was born. Doctors didn't think she live past the age of to, according to WFLA, but she's continued to defy the offs.

But before going back under the knife again this November, Sophia told her mom that what she really wanted was to marry her preschool sweetheart  so her mom went to work making that dream come true, staging an adorable photoshoot.

I do! Five-year-old Sophia Chiappalone got the chance to marry her sweetheart, Hunter Laferriere

Fairytale: The little girl from Meridan, Connecticut said it was her dream to marry the love of her life

Puppy love: She was born with a heart defect that has required multiple surgeries during her short life

Scary future: She is due for her fourth open-heart surgery this month

Making a wish... Before going under the knife, she asked her mom if she could marry Hunter, who is six

Romance: The little boy was happy to do it and the two said 'I do' in a local park

Sophia was born with no connection between her heart and pulmonary arteries. Doctors think she has DiGeorge syndrome, a chromosomal disorder, and have said she will need multiple surgeries throughout her life.

'She was born with half of a heart  the whole right side of her heart was missing,' her mom, Kristy Somerset-Chiappalone, told NBC Connecticut. 'She's a walking miracle. There is no life expectancy at this time because there's no reason for her to be alive.'

Coming up on her fourth open-heart surgery this month, Sophia had a special request: that she get to say 'I do' to six-year-old Hunter Lafferiere.

'That's all she wanted in the world, was to marry the love of her life,' her mom said.

So Kristy talked to Hunter's mom, Tracy Laferriere, who relayed the message to Hunter  and Hunter was all for it.

'He'd do anything to make her happy,' Tracy told Cosmopolitan.com. 'She always agrees to play Mario with him, so I think he'd happily marry her. They have a chemistry that's magnetic, it's adorable to watch.'

Dedication: 'He'd do anything to make her happy,' Hunter's mom said

Deying odds: Doctors didn't think that Sophia would live past the age of two

Tough times ahead: She will continue to require surgery throughout her life

Say cheese! Last month, photographer Marisa Balletti-Lavoie of Sassy Mouth Photography set up the photoshoot

Kissy-kissy: Sophia wore a white dress and the 'groom' wore a suit

Angelic: They seemed to have a lot of fun, holding hands and playing in the leaves

Kristy asked photographer Marisa Balletti-Lavoie of Sassy Mouth Photography to stage the shoot, which took place in a park.

Sophia wore a white princess dress from Bliss Bridal with a matching veil clipped to her blonde hair. She carried a bouquet of flowers and beamed at the camera in every shot.

Hunter wore a cute little suit and also looked quite happy through the shoot, as the two played in leaves, held hands, and went to the swings. They even shared a couple of kisses  on the cheek.

'I teared up watching her get all dressed up,' said Kristy. 'I was terrified once again, like so many other milestones and events, that this may be the only time I see my baby in a wedding dress, that her miracles and time would run out before that day.'

'I hope that Sophia is going to live a long life and marry Hunter when she's 25,' she added to NBC CT. 'But my hope for the future is that Sophia stays happy and healthy as long as her body can handle.

Perfect day: Sophia also had a bouquet and a veil for the occasion

A pretty picture: Sophia's mom, Kristy, said she teared up during the shoot

First marriage: The mom fears this will be her daughter's only 'wedding,' though she hopes it is not

Touching photos: She added that she would love to see her daughter grow up and marry Hunter when she is around 25

Something to treasure: Sophia appeared to have a blast during the photoshoot

The photos have gone viral, melting hearts all over the world.

'I cannot help but be overwhelmed by the love and support we've gotten with Sophia and her recent wish,' her mom gushed on Facebook. 'It was pure innocence in the purest form. My heart aches with joy with the people standing behind Supergirl on this fight.

'She's fought to be alive since her first breath, but that's all she knows. I love the idea of sharing the beautiful story that is her and Hunter. Most people wait a lifetime for someone who wouldn't stand by them through such illness. She met a best friend and love of her life at 3 who does.'

'You know they say marry your best friend, it just doesn't usually happen before 1st grade!' she said.

Hunter's family also set up a GoFundMe page to help with Sophia's medical costs.

Total besties: She and Hunter like to play Mario Bros. together

Holding hands: Sophia has already defied the odds by making it to age five

A bit of teasing: Photos from the little wedding have gone viral
A man has raised the standards of drunken feats by revealing he once asked Denmark to let him borrow the country of Greenland after having one too many drinks.

Joe, of Salem, Oregon, recounted how, after having three 'rum drinks', he felt a strong yearning for a land he could call his own.

'My job put me right around the poverty line, so purchasing any large plot of land would be vastly unreasonable,' Joe wrote on Bored Panda earlier this week. He then explained that he realized it would take him too long to earn enough money to purchase land, and thus decided to ask whether he could borrow some.

Well, that's original: Joe, of Salem, Oregon, took to Bored Panda earlier this week to recount how he once asked to borrow the country of Greenland

Point taken: The man actually took it upon himself to make the case as to why he should be chosen to rule Greenland, pointing out he had 'managerial experience'

Joe settled on Greenland, for reasons that remain unclear to him even to this dayalthough he admitted he might have been inspired by the globe next to his mini bar.

'After a brief couple reconnaissance searches, rum-brain decided that this gigantic island wasn't profitable enough for Denmark, and thought that it would be polite, nay, GRACIOUS of me to take it off their hands. I mean, one less thing to worry about for them, right?' he added.

Joe thus sent a hilarious email to Denmark, explaining that he wanted to become the ruler of Greenland, an autonomous constituent country located in the Kingdom Of Denmark.

'Hey there!' his missive began.

'My name is Joe, I'm 23, and my friend and I are looking to own a country. Now, since we're young, we wanted to start out small, and wanted to make sure that it was okay with the former owner of that country. We don't want to make any mistakes and end up driving such a fine country into ruin.'

I have managerial experience... and my friend has the charisma and courage needed to be co-ruler of Greenland

Joe actually took it upon himself to make the case as to why he should be chosen to rule Greenland, pointing out he had 'managerial experience'.

'Nothing on the scale of a country, but Like smaller, more intricate managing,' he admitted.

'I've PERSONALLY overseen about 5+ people for a few years in one of the United States' 50 largest privately-owned commercial suppliers. And my friend has the charisma and courage needed to be a co-ruler of Greenland, as well.'

The man apparently came to believe his chances of securing Greenland would be higher if her offered something in return, so he offered 'an autograph from Hugh Thomassen' (perhaps referring to the late musician Hughie Thomasson), 'several cans' of Surge, the citrus-flavored soft drink, and his issues of Rolling Stones magazine, which he said he'd have to read before he parted with them.

'We can also share Xbox games. Do you have Titanfall? That'd be sweet. I hear it's good,' Joe added.

His email ended with: 'In advance, thank you for the 836,109 square miles of land. We really appreciate it. If you need to contact me back, you can do so at the email you're receiving this from: [Redacted]@comcast.net.'

It gets better: While it would have been easy to not pay attention to Joe's email, Denmark's Ministry Of Foreign Affairs apparently responded to his request with a kind message

Choice: Greenland is an autonomous constituent country located in the Kingdom Of Denmark. Joe can't remember exactly why he chose it in his quest to have a land of his own

While it would have been easy to not pay attention to Joe's email, Denmark's Ministry Of Foreign Affairs apparently responded to his request with a kind message.

Joe shared a copy of an email with the ministry's signature typed at the bottom.

'Dear Joe age 23. Thank you for your mail,' it reads.

'We like the fact that you dream big. And you never know if your dreams one day are going to come true.

WHAT IS GREENLAND LIKE? Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, with a population comprised between 56,000 and 57,000 people. With a surface of 836,109 square miles, it is the largest island in the world. About 80 per cent of its territory is covered by a vast ice cap, making it the world's second largest ice body after the Antarctic. Greenland is the country with the highest known suicide rate, and also experiences higher rates of unemployment and alcoholism. Advertisement

'But in the matter of us giving you Greenland, it is not possible. But thank you for asking.'

The reply then asks Joe to consider starting small on his dream to borrow Greenland, and perhaps consider applying for a job there instead.

'Here is a job on Greenland where they are looking for a guy who can teach the pupils English,' the email reads next to a link to a job posting. 'That could be you!'

It continues: 'Or maybe just read more about the government of Greenland' next to another link.

'Good luck finding a suitable country,' the message ends. 'Kind regards. MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF DENMARK.'

The nice response actually frightened Joe when it first arrived, because the man had fallen asleep right after sending his email and had woken up hours later without a single memory of the Greenland incident.

It wasn't until he read the new email that he started to remember the previous night.

'I was immediately terrified; had I broken laws?' he wrote. 'What law did I break? What was Denmark-jail like? Did they serve those pastries (Danishes) in Danish-jail? Am I too pretty for jail?'

Joe said he ended up showing both emails to his mother, who framed them and placed them in the bathroom to entertain their guests.

He doesn't regret emailing Denmark with his request, but he is sorry about one thing: not applying to the job posting he was referred to.

'Are you listening, Denmark?' he added. 'I'm available.'
When it comes to fashion, we are all inspired by what we see; whether it be a well-dressed celebrity, a blow-your-mind catwalk presentation or even a super stylish every-day passerby.

As fashion editors, we're moved by all of the above, and then some. We're exposed to under-the-radar labels; we get a first-hand look at collections months before they hit stores; we're tapped into brands with chic-yet-cheap offerings and we shop - a lot.

To share our knowledge, FEMAIL brings you Style Swoon, a weekly series of the latest, greatest and on the verge. We hope this Friday series will serve as a buying guide and point of inspiration for the clotheshorses and fashion fanatics alike.

MONEY MOVES

Making money moves: After much speculation, Footwear News confirmed today that a collaboration between hip hop recording artists Cardi B (left) and contemporary shoe designer Steve Madden (right) may be in the works

After much speculation, Footwear News confirmed today that a collaboration between hip hop recording artist Cardi B and contemporary shoe designer Steve Madden may be in the works.

'We like Cardi  shes great. Were talking to Cardi  were talking to some other people, too, but we like Cardi a lot, Madden told the magazine.

It wouldn't be the first time the shoe giant has partnered with a musician, they designed lines with both Ja Rule and Iggy Azalea.

'The thing about Cardi thats interesting is that shes kind of like an entrepreneur and I admire whats shes done. I dont know yet if [the deal] is going to happen but were friends.'

While the Bronx-born rapper sings about her red bottom Christian Louboutin's in her hit song 'Bodak Yellow,' this potential collaboration is music to our ears.

KERRY'S CASCADING TOP

Now that's a shirt: Blue jean s never looked better! K erry Washington appeared on the Ellen Show this week looking tres chic in a Johanna Ortiz top

Kerry Washington appeared on the Ellen Show this week looking red carpet worthy wearing just jeans and a top.

But this was no ordinary top, the Scandal actress donned a one shoulder design by Johanna Ortiz, featuring beading and a dramatic cascading ruffle that touched the floor at one side.

In a top this dramatic, the other details of Kerry's outfit were irelevant. Shop similar asymmetrical tops below and make a sartorial statement of your own.

Left: Asymmetric Chantilly bird-lace top by Alexander McQueen, $3,075; matchesfashion.com. Right: Malina One Shoulder Poplin Top by Johanna Ortiz, $1,150; modaoperandi.com

Left: Cold shoulder asymmetric top by Christian Siriano, now $358; farfetch.com. Right: Seersucker Trifecta top by Viva Aviva, rent it for $60; renttherunway.com

SB BY SACHIN AND BABI FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Husband and wife design team Sachin & Babi Ahluwalia (known for redefining evening wear with their eponymous line) designed a decadent holiday collection for Macy's, that launched online this week.

With close attention to detail and high fashion artistry, SB by Sachin & Babi goes beyond traditional special-occasion wear with a selection of trendy separates that you'll want to wear beyond the holidays.

'The collection was inspired by New York City nightlife, and its captivating energy and optimistic spirit,' said Sachin Ahluwalia. Babi Ahluwalia continued, 'The collection combines classic evening wear elements with 50 shades of shine, each piece makes a statement offering powerful women the promise of elegance.'

The full collection can be seen online now and can be shopped exclusively in Macy's stores on November 15. Prices range from $99 to $299.

Left: Metallic moto jacket by SB by Sachin and Babi, $169; macys.com. Right: Sequin sleeve bomber by SB by Sachin and Babi, $199; macys.com

Left: Embroidered A-Line Skirt by SB by Sachin and Babi, $129; macys.com. Right: Velvet-Trim A-Line Skirt by SB by Sachin and Babi, $129; macys.com

BOWLING FOR A CAUSE

Playing for a cause: Fashionable New Yorkers traded in their Manolo Blahniks for bowling shoes last night, in an effort to raise funds for elephant conversation nonprofit Space for Giants, with live music provided by Nile Rodgers

Fashionable New Yorkers traded in their Manolo Blahniks for bowling shoes last night, in an effort to raise funds for elephant conversation nonprofit Space for Giants.

The organization hosted its first US fundraising event, Stampede of Sound, at Brooklyn Bowl.

The one night only event brought together a large crowd of socialites and stars, including model Zachary Pricer and Prince William and Harrys cousin Lexi Bowes-Lyon, with the goal of raising one million dollars to put an end to poaching in Africa and sustain Space for Giants ongoing conservation and education efforts.

Live music was provided by iconic musician Nile Rodgers of Chic featuring Nile Rodgers, famous for hits including Le Freak and the original Get Lucky.

An auction also took place at the event to further benefit the organization featuring a signed guitar from Nile Rodgers and a Space For Giants luxury five star safari including elephant collaring.

Do-gooders: The one night only event brought together a large crowd of socialites and stars, including model Zachary Pricer and Prince William and Harrys cousin Lexi Bowes-Lyon, with the goal of raising one million dollars to put an end to poaching in Africa

Makign a difference: An auction also took place at the event to further benefit the organization featuring a signed guitar from Nile Rodgers and a Space For Giants luxury five star safari including elephant collaring

FINE JEWELS AT YOUR CONVENIENCE

Bright Society is a new online retail destination bridging the gap between the brick-and-mortar fine jewelry store and the global consumer.

Offering exclusive access to a vast network of jewelers, the site delivers an unparalleled selection of fine jewelry and luxury timepieces, including brands like Cartier, Rolex and Tiffany & Co., at a wide range of price points.

In hopes of offering best-in-class service and a seamless shopping experience, Bright Society has a Product Concierge service that helps shoppers locate those hard to find products.

Check out a small assortment below.

Left: Diamond Ring, $2,065; brightsociety.com. Right: Tank Francaise Stainless Steel by Cartier, $2,400; brightsociety.com
With little over seven weeks to go until Christmas, the keen and well-prepared among us will be turning our attentions towards festive gifts, cards and decorations.

It seems Royalty are no different. Crown Princess Mary of Denmark unveiled this year's Christmas stamp collection for the Christmas Seal in Copenhagen City Hall on Friday, the sales for which will go towards homes for children in need.

For the occasion, the stylish Princess opted for a stylish jewel-hued purple outfit.

Crown Princess Mary of Denmark unveiled this year's Christmas stamp collection for the Christmas Seal in Copenhagen City Hall on Friday (pictured)

The 45-year-old mother of four did this with the help of this year's artist, Michael Wettendorff (both pictured unveiling the new stamp)

Princess Mary completed her chic get-up with her much-loved Louboutin snakeskin heels - which retail for over AUD $1,000 a pop - simple silver jewellery and a pretty half-up-half-down hairdo.

The Christmas Seal is a specially-designed stamp launched each year and sold throughout Denmark in addition to Christmas stamps.

The Foundation for the Seal is one of more than 25 organisations that hard-working Mary, 45, is the patron of.

She has spent several years involved with their homes, which temporarily house children in need.

The Foundation for the Seal is one of more than 25 organisations that hard-working Mary, 45, is the patron of

For the occasion, the stylish Princess opted for a chic jewel-hued outfit, which she paired with her much-loved Louboutin snakeskin heels (pictured with the artist)

At the event, Princess Mary gave a speech to onlookers, before she unveiled the festive stamp with the help of this year's artist, Michael Wettendorff.

The card this year shows a fun-filled snow scene, complete with Father Christmas, reindeer, snowmen and festivities.

This isn't the first time the 45-year-old Danish Royal has unveiled the Christmas stamp.

Indeed, Princess Mary has done so for the past few years.

Two years ago, she attended the event with her mother-in-law, Queen Margrethe, who designed the card that year and depicted doves delivering letters to children in the snow.

The card this year shows a fun-filled snow scene, complete with Father Christmas, reindeer, snowmen and festivities

The event follows a busy period for Princess Mary - she has recently been on diplomatic trips to both Japan and Mali and this week honoured the 500th Reformation Anniversary Ceremony (pictured right)

The event follows a busy period for Princess Mary.

Following diplomatic trips to Japan and Mali, the mother-of-four is finally back in her home city, where she this week honoured the 500th Reformation Anniversary Ceremony at Christiansborg Palace.

As well as this, this week a biography of her husband, Crown Prince Frederik, was previewed - in honour of his 50th birthday in May next year.

Under The Beam promises to share a fascinating insight into Prince Frederik's life and work - alongside a series of never-before-seen portraits, which show the Prince with his family, his wife and relaxing and on Royal duty.
A new refreshing treat has hit Melbourne, and it's sure to be one in a million - or should we say, watermelon?

The watermelon ice cream sandwich has touched down in the foodie capital, and it's the perfect treat to keep Australians cool for the summer.

Milkcow's limited edition creation is presented in a real slice of the juicy fruit, hollowed out and filled to the brim with watermelon-flavoured soft serve.

Milkcow's watermelon ice cream sandwich has arrived just in time for summer in Melbourne

The Instagram-worthy creation is a thick hollowed out slice of the juicy fruit, filled to the brim with watermelon-flavoured soft serve

Even the seeds, which are actually milk chocolate chips, are edible. The whole thing is topped with just a dash of pink Himalayan rock salt.

And the sandwich is truly something for everyone, thanks to the fact that the soft serve is both vegan and dairy-free.

The original watermelon ice cream sandwich was designed by renowned pastry chef Dominique Ansel, who made it for the South Korean ice cream chain's Tokyo store.

Ansel, who was named the World's Best Pastry Chef this year, is a master of creating desserts that can whip the internet into a frenzy.

Even the seeds, which are actually milk chocolate chips, are edible. The whole thing is then topped with just a dash of pink Himalayan rock salt

The sandwich is truly something for everyone, as the soft serve is both vegan and dairy free

The original watermelon ice cream sandwich was designed by renowned pastry chef Dominique Ansel, who made it for the South Korean ice cream chain's Tokyo store

He is responsible both for the original cronut, the infamous doughnut-croissant hybrid, as well as the cookie shot and blossoming hot chocolate.

Milkcow has become the fastest growing ice cream chain in Asia, renowned for its creamy organic soft serve ice cream.

The chain has become famous for its creative toppings, constantly upping the ice cream experience with the likes of fairy floss and double-glazed caramel corn.

And if Instagram is any indication, the watermelon ice cream sandwich has become yet another viral hit for both Milkcow and Ansel.
The deadly plague epidemic that has rocked the island of Madagascar could reach mainland Africa, a respected disease expert has warned.

The outbreak, which has been described the worst in 50 years and has now reached crisis point, has prompted World Health Organization officials to place nine African countries on high alert.

South Africa, Seychelles, La Reunion, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Comoros and Mauritius have all been told to brace for potential cases in the coming weeks.

Today Paul Hunter, professor of health protection at the world-renowned University of East Anglia, is the first expert to predict it could reach mainland Africa.

Speaking to MailOnline exclusively, he said: The big anxiety is that it could spread to mainland Africa, its not probable, but certainly possible, that might then be difficult to control.

If we dont carry on doing stuff here, at one point something will happen and it will get out of hand control cause huge devastation all around the world.

An analysis of plague cases by this website has revealed they have spiraled by nearly 40 per cent in less than week, with figures showing that at least 1,800 are now infected with the medieval disease which has claimed 127 lives. The epidemic could strike a further 20,000 people in just a matter of weeks if current trends continue.

Earlier today, amid concerns the plague had reached crisis points, the World Bank released an extra $5 million (3.8m) to control the deadly outbreak. The money will allow for the deployment of personnel to battle the outbreak in the affected regions, the disinfection of buildings and fuel for ambulances.

Two thirds of cases have been caused by the airborne pneumonic plague, which can be spread through coughing, sneezing or spitting and kill within 24 hours.

More than 1,300 cases have now been reported in Madagascar, health chiefs have revealed, as nearby nations have been placed on high alert

Analysis of figures by MailOnline show the plague epidemic in Madagascar could strike a further 20,000 people in just a matter of weeks, if current trends continue

Professor Hunters concerns echo that of dozens of leading scientists, many of whom have predicted the extent of this truly unprecedented outbreak will continue to spiral as pneumonic is a more lethal strain than the one that traditionally strikes Madagascar.

Professor Jimmy Whitworth, an international public health scientist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, told MailOnline earlier this week that this outbreak is the worst for 50 years or more.

And Professor Johnjoe McFadden, a molecular geneticist at Surrey University, said that the plague is 'scary' and is predominantly a 'disease of the poor'.

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, he also said: 'Its a crisis at the moment and we dont know how bad its going to get.

Figures show that at least 1,300 cases of the plague have been reported so far in this year's outbreak, with 93 official deaths recorded. However, UN estimates state the toll could be in excess of 120

Officials in Madagascar have warned residents not to exhume bodies of dead loved ones and dance with them because the bizarre ritual can cause outbreaks of plague

HOW QUICKLY WILL IT SPREAD? DATE OF REPORT 26TH OCT 31ST OCT 5TH NOV 10TH NOV 15TH NOV 20TH NOV 25TH NOV 30TH NOV 5TH DEC 10TH DEC CASES 1,309 1,801 2,478 3,409 4,690 6,453 8,879 12,217 16,809 23,128 These figures in italics are MailOnline's analysis of what would happen if the current 37 per cent increase continued in five-day gaps. Actual figures in upcoming reports issued by the WHO completely depend on intervention by international aid agencies, and could paint a much different picture. Advertisement

'It's a terrible disease. It's broadly caused more deaths of humans than anything else, it's a very deadly pathogen.

'It is a disease of poverty where humans are being forced to live very close to rats and usually means poor sewage and poor living conditions.

'That's the root cause of why it's still a problem in the world. If we got rid of rats living close enough to mankind then we wouldn't have the disease.'

Professor McFadden warned in countries such as Madagascar 'people often need to walk more than a day to receive proper medical treatment'.

He also stressed the pneumonic strain of plague which is currently blighting the island off the coast of Africa can still be deadly even with treatment.

Earlier this week MailOnline revealed the 'Godzilla' El Nino of 2016 has also been blamed for the severity of this year's outbreak by causing freak weather conditions.

Aid workers have warned the scale of the outbreak could be made worse by crowds who gathered for an annual celebration to honour the dead on Wednesday.

International agencies have so far sent more than one million doses of antibiotics to Madagascar. Nearly 20,000 respiratory masks have also been donated

Schools and universities have been shut in a desperate attempt to contain the respiratory disease, with children known to come into contact with each other more than adults, and the buildings have been sprayed to eradicate any fleas that may carry the plague

HOW DID THIS YEAR'S OUTBREAK BEGIN? Health officials are unsure how this year's outbreak began. However, some believe it could be caused by the bubonic plague, which is endemic in the remote highlands of Madagascar. If left untreated, it can lead to the pneumonic form, which is responsible for two thirds of the cases recorded so far in this year's outbreak. Rats carry the Yersinia pestis bacteria that causes the plague, which is then passed onto their fleas. Forest fires drive rats towards rural communities, which means residents are at risk of being bitten and infected. Local media reports suggest there has been an increase in the number of blazes in the woodlands. Without antibiotics, the bubonic strain can spread to the lungs - where it becomes the more virulent pneumonic form. Pneumonic, which can kill within 24 hours, can then be passed on through coughing, sneezing or spitting. However, it can also be treated with antibiotics if caught in time. Madagascar sees regular outbreaks of plague, which tend to start in September, with around 600 cases being reported each year on the island. However, this year's outbreak has seen it reach the Indian Ocean island's two biggest cities, Antananarivo and Toamasina. Experts warn the disease spreads quicker in heavily populated areas. Advertisement

All Saints Day, otherwise known as the 'Day of the Dead', is a public holiday which takes place on November 1 each year, sees families often gathering at local cemeteries.

'A TICKING TIME BOMB WAITING TO DECIMATE THE WORLD' Credible experts have warned that there is no threat to the UK, however, some have warned the plague outbreak will reach the UK. Richard Conroy, founder of Sick Holiday, has sent a chilling warning to UK authorities - saying its only a matter of time before the disease arrives on British soil. Mr Conroy warned it is inevitable due to the vast movement of people across the globe its inevitable that plague will continue its march. He told MailOnline: 'I believe that its 100 per cent likely that plague will arrive in the UK once more - its just a question of "when", not "if". 'And its not an exaggeration to say that this is a real threat - a ticking time bomb thats waiting to decimate the world. 'With the current outbreak still remaining treatable with antibiotics, however, the current risk is low.' Advertisement

'In that type of situation, it may be easy to forget about respiratory etiquettes,' Panu Saaristo, the International Federation of Red Cross' team leader for health in Madagascar, told MailOnline.

Plague season hits Madagascar each year, and experts warn there is still six months to run  despite already seeing triple the amount of cases than expected.

It has started earlier as forest fires have driven rats into rural communities, which has then spread into cities for the first time, local reports state.

The most recent WHO figures dispute claims by Dr Manitra Rakotoarivony, Madagascar's director of health promotion, that the epidemic is on a downward spiral.

He told local radio: 'There is an improvement in the fight against the spread of the plague, which means that there are fewer patients in hospitals.'

The WHO, which issues a new report into the outbreak every few days, also remains adamant that cases are on the 'decline in all active areas' across the country.

It said on its website: 'In the past two weeks, 12 previously affected districts reported no new confirmed or probable cases of pulmonary (pneumonic) plague.'

In Madagascar, a sacred ritual sees families exhume the remains of dead relatives, rewrap them in fresh cloth and dance with the corpses

People carry a body wrapped in a sheet after taking it out from a crypt, as they take part in a funerary tradition called the Famadihana

WILL IT TRAVEL ON PLANES AND BOATS? Fears have been raised that the plague epidemic which has quickly blighted Madagascar could spread through air travel and sea trade. However, experts stress the risk of this is low because of the screening protocols that have been implemented to curb the outbreak. But, some are concerned frequent flights and ferries between the island and the mainland of Africa could cause the disease to spread. Dr Ashok Chopra, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Texas, said the crisis in Madagascar had yet to peak. He told The Sun: If they are travelling shorter distances and they're still in the incubation period, and they have the pneumonic (form) then they could spread it to other places. 'We don't want to have a situation where the disease spreads so fast it sort of gets out of control.' Advertisement

Bubonic plague, which is transmitted by rat flea bites, was responsible for the 'Black Death' in the 14th century, which killed 100 million people.

If left untreated, the Yersinia pestis bacteria can reach the lungs. This is where it turns pneumonic  described as the 'deadliest and most rapid form of plague'

Health officials are unsure how this year's outbreak began, but local media report that forest fires have driven rats towards rural communities.

This is believed to have been the start of the bubonic outbreak, which then develops into the more virulent pneumonic form which spreads rapidly without treatment.

Concerned health officials have also warned an ancient ritual, called Famadihana, where relatives dig up the corpses of their loved ones, may be fueling the spread.

To limit the danger of Famadihana, rules enforced at the beginning of the outbreak dictate plague victims cannot be buried in a tomb that can be reopened.

People dance, sing and play music as they carry the bodies of their ancestors during a funerary tradition called the Famadihana

WHY DID THE 'GODZILA' EL NINO TRIGGER THE WORST PLAGUE IN 50 YEARS? Experts also believe last year's natural phenomenon El Nino - dubbed 'Godzilla', triggered an increase in rat populations in rural areas, sparking the beginning of the epidemic which has so far infected at least 1,300 people. Forest fires have also driven the rats and their plague-carrying fleas towards areas inhabited by humans, local reports state as a reason behind the surge in cases recorded this year. But Professor Matthew Bayliss, from Liverpool University's Institute of Infection and Global Health, suggested floods and heavy rains  triggered by Cyclone Enawo, may also be to blame. Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, he warned the particularly aggressive El Nino of 2016 may be behind the aggressive start of this year's outbreak, which has seen it hit two heavily populated cities for the first time, including the capital Antananarivo. '2016 was the strongest El Nino on record, and was nicknamed by some 'Godzilla',' he said. Some have suggested the growing burden of climate change was to blame. 'It is a change to the movements of water in the Pacific Ocean which then has an effect on climate in many parts of the world, including east and southern Africa. 'Our own research suggests that El Nino played a role of the Zika outbreak, but it is also possible that the conditions have facilitated this large scale plague outbreak.' Experts believe the natural phenomenon dubbed 'Godzilla' triggered an increase in rat populations in rural areas of Madagascar, sparking the beginning of the epidemic which has so far infected at least 1,300 people Professor Bayliss, alongside colleagues including climatologist Dr Cyril Caminade, were behind a 2014 study that found outbreaks of plague in Madagascar are linked to the naturally occurring climate event in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they found large outbreaks tend to coincide with the fluctuation of air pressure and sea surface temperature, partly driven by El Nino. It was based on 48 years worth of data. They were also behind another study, released in the same journal in December last year, which found El Nino fuelled the Zika outbreak in South America. It went on to strike more than 70 countries and caused a surge in the number of babies born with abnormally small heads. What is El Nino? El Nino, along with its little sister La Nina, are part of a recurring shift in climate that occurs as warm water shifts from one side of the Pacific to the other. It is caused by a shift in the distribution of warm water in the Pacific Ocean around the equator. Usually the wind blows strongly from east to west, due to the rotation of the Earth, causing water to pile up in the western part of the Pacific. This pulls up colder water from the deep ocean in the eastern Pacific. However, in an El Nino, the winds pushing the water get weaker and cause the warmer water to shift back towards the east. This causes the eastern Pacific to get warmer. But as the ocean temperature is linked to the wind currents, this causes the winds to grow weaker still and so the ocean grows warmer, meaning the El Nino grows. This change in air and ocean currents around the equator can have a major impact on the weather patterns around the globe by creating pressure anomalies in the atmosphere. Advertisement

People in Madagascar believe the ritual honours their dead relatives, who can be 'turned' every five, seven or nine years

Municipal officers clear the ground which blocks the entrance of a family vault during the funerary tradition

Instead, their remains must be held in an anonymous mausoleum. But the local media has reported several cases of bodies being exhumed covertly.

Despite the serious risks publicised by the authorities, few in Madagascar question the turning ceremonies and dismiss the advice.

Willy Randriamarotia, the Madagascan health ministry's chief of staff, said: 'If a person dies of pneumonic plague and is then interred in a tomb that is subsequently opened for a Famadihana, the bacteria can still be transmitted and contaminate whoever handles the body.'

Experts have long observed that plague season coincides with the period when Famadihana ceremonies are held from July to October.

The plague outbreak in Madagascar tends to begin in September and ends in April. Tarik Jasarevic of the World Health Organization confirmed it would be no different this year.

He said: 'After concerted efforts of the Ministry of Health and partners, we are beginning to see a decline in reported cases but there are still people being admitted to hospital.

'It's one of Madagascar's most widespread rituals,' historian Mahery Andrianahag told AFP at a festival in Ambohijafy, a village outside the capital Antananarivo

The unique custom, originating among communities that live in Madagascar's high plateaux, draws crowds every winter to honour the dead and to honour their mortal wishes

AID WORKER ON THE GROUND REVEALS SCALE OF THE PROBLEM A senior aid worker on the ground in Madagascar has provided MailOnline with an exclusive snapshot of what is happening on the island. Panu Saaristo, the International Federation of Red Cross' team leader, has revealed thousands of infected adults are unwilling to seek help because they are scared of hospitals. Mr Saaristo said the cultural stigma associated with seeking medical help was masking the true scale of the problem as it means many of those who are infected are failing to be diagnosed. At the same time there is also a growing shortage of life-saving tests which can provide a rapid diagnosis. Speaking about the decline in plague cases reported today by Madagascan health officials, Mr Saaristo said he feared this is not really the case and that the true scale of the problem growing. He told MailOnline: 'No-one is happier than us, if that is indeed the case'. Malagasy Red Cross volunteers wait for the emergency evacuation of an infant plague suspect at a hospital 'Fear of the fact if they get diagnosed with the infection and the long time they would have to spend in hospital' could be a factor in many not seeking treatment because they connect 'hospitals to death', he added. 'People start avoiding healthcare that may lead to a situation where people start dying.' He warned this year's outbreak has been 'truly unprecedented', and is 'not the plague as usual'. Figures show that at least 1,300 cases of the plague have been reported so far in this year's outbreak, with 93 official deaths recorded. However, UN estimates state the toll could be in excess of 120. Mr Saaristo warned more deaths are expected unless the urgent shortage of rapid diagnostic tests is immediately addressed, as the majority of plague cases spreading through Madagascar can prove fatal in just 24 hours. Advertisement

One by one, the wrapped remains were carried out into the open and carefully placed on a mat where they were rewrapped, or 'turned' in the new shrouds

For Madagascans, the famadihana ceremony is an intense celebration accompanied by music, dancing and singing, fuelled by alcoholic drinks

THE OPENING OF THE RED CROSS' FIRST MAKESHIFT PLAGUE CLINIC Concerned humanitarians have opened a clinic attached to a major hospital in the country's capital in a desperate attempt to contain the plague outbreak. The International Federation of Red Cross has set-up a makeshift treatment clinic at the Andouhatapenaka Hospital in Antananarivo. Twenty beds are available to be used in the clinic, but it is unsure how many patients are currently being treated at the makeshift centre. Aid workers stress it will be able to offer 24/7 treatment to those infected, as officials continue their attempts to clamp down on cases. An international team of doctors are also providing supervision and training on plague treatment The International Federation of Red Cross has set-up a makeshift treatment clinic at the Andouhatapenaka Hospital in Antananarivo Advertisement

As part of the tradition, festivalgoers leave the bodies of their ancestors on a straw carpet

Isabel Malala Razafindrakoto carries the wrapped body of her son, who died aged just three years old

WHAT IS THE FAMADIHANA RITUAL? The unique custom, originating among communities that live in Madagascar's high plateaux, draws crowds every winter to honour the dead and to honour their mortal wishes. 'It's one of Madagascar's most widespread rituals,' historian Mahery Andrianahag told AFP at a festival in Ambohijafy, a village outside the capital Antananarivo. Relatives invite all their fellow villagers to attend the ceremony and to take part in the procession as well as musical and food festivities, but the wrapping of the body is a purely family affair. The dead may be 'turned' more than once but only every five, seven or nine years, and can be wrapped in several shrouds if different parts of the family or loved ones want to honour them. The customary ritual, rather than a religious rite, is a celebration accompanied by music, dancing and singing, fuelled by alcoholic drinks. As soon as it is over, the mats on which the bodies are laid are pulled up. Many participants store them under their mattresses in the belief it will bring them good luck, harboring bacteria. Advertisement

'At this time we cannot say with certainty that the epidemic has subsided. We are about three months into the epidemic season, which goes on until April 2018.

'Even if the recent declining trend is confirmed, we cannot rule out the possibility of further spikes in transmission between now and April 2018.'

However, this year's worrying outbreak has seen it reach the Indian Ocean island's two biggest cities, Antananarivo and Toamasina.

Experts warn the disease spreads quicker in heavily populated areas. It is estimated that around 1.6 million people live in either city.

The first death this year occurred on August 28 when a passenger died in a public taxi en route to a town on the east coast. Two others who came into contact with the passenger also died.

This year's outbreak is expected to dwarf previous ones as it has struck early, and British aid workers believe it will continue on its rampage.

Olivier Le Guillou, of Action Against Hunger, previously said: 'The epidemic is ahead of us, we have not yet reached the peak.

A WHO official added: 'The risk of the disease spreading is high at national level because it is present in several towns and this is just the start of the outbreak.'

The ceremony sees the wrapped remains carried out into the open and carefully placed on a mat where they are rewrapped, or 'turned' in the new shrouds

Two women sit on the ground and hold the body of one of their ancestors as they take part in a funerary tradition

International agencies have so far sent more than one million doses of antibiotics to Madagascar. Nearly 20,000 respiratory masks have also been donated.

However, the WHO advises against travel or trade restrictions. It previously asked for $5.5 million (4.2m) to support the plague response, which has now been issued.

Despite its guidance, Air Seychelles, one of Madagascar's biggest airlines, stopped flying temporarily earlier in the month to try and curb the spread.

Schools and universities have been shut in a desperate attempt to contain the respiratory disease, with children known to come into contact with each other more than adults. The buildings have been sprayed to eradicate any fleas that may carry the plague.

Madagascan press reports that the finances and budget minister, Ms Vonintsalama Andriambololona was pleased with the decision to grant an extra $5 million in the fight against plague.

'We are pleased that the Bank has listened to our call. The ministry promises to closely supervise the good management of such resources in order to quickly tame the epidemic,' she said.
Dr Liang Bartkowiak, of Atloona, Pennsylvania, says she was shocked, since she's an obstetrician-gynecologist who treats women exclusively, and she can only prescribe oils

A Pennsylvania gynecologist says she has been inundated with calls from men trying to set up appointments after hearing she was permitted to prescribe medical marijuana.

Dr Liang Bartkowiak was mentioned in a newspaper article on Thursday as one of the state's first doctors eligible to certify medical marijuana users.

Within hours, her office phone started ringing off the hook. It was primarily men on the line, many seeking smokeable marijuana to treat pain.

Bartkowiak says she was shocked, since she's an obstetrician-gynecologist who treats women exclusively, and she can only prescribe oils.

A 2016 state law gives people under a doctor's care access to medical marijuana if they suffer from an illness on a list of 17 qualifying conditions.

The law permits pills, oils, vapor or liquid marijuana, but not marijuana in plant form.

'The people calling my office  were not understanding that these are tinctures and vapors and balms in whatever form is targeted to the specific illness,' she told the Atloona Mirror today.

'I think laypeople are going to need very plain terminology. You're going to have to come right out and say, "You are not going to get a joint to smoke." That is not what medical marijuana is going to be.'

According to Pennsylvania's Health Department, around 200 doctors are currently being trained to qualify for medical marijuana prescribing.

Dr Bartkowiak said she got qualified by taking a four-hour course in a bid to find an alternative to opioids for pain management.

No states have specifically stipulated the drug can be prescribed for dysmenorrhea (menstrual cramps), but most states with medical marijuana do allow it for pain, including Pennsylvania.

It can also be prescribed to people with epilepsy, HIV, sickle cell anemia, post-traumatic stress disorder and Crohn's disease, among other conditions.

Doctors must certify the illness and patients must obtain an identification card from the Health Department.
A prostitute was hospitalized after pulling a condom off her client and swallowing it whole to avoid being arrested.

Dang, a 48-year-old Vietnamese woman, denied sex work when police raided the 'health spa' in Taichung City, Taiwan, on March 14 at 9pm.

But she soon became short of breath and critically dehydrated, and was rushed to hospital, where an x-ray revealed a shadow inside her digestive tract that police believed the rubber sheath.

Dang was found guilty of perjury and jailed for two months, but escaped further charges of hiding evidence because doctors said the condom was 'never found'.

An x-ray (pictured) showed a shadow in Dang's digestive tract, which police believed to be the condom

According to local media, Dang and her client, identified only as Yao, were both arrested when they were found together in a room on the first floor.

They were interviewed separately, and while Dang denied prostitution, Yao admitted to officers that they were in the middle of having sex.

He told the interrogators that as soon as Dang heard police approaching, she pulled off the condom and swallowed it whole.

However, though police could not find the condom, they found the condom wrapper, so continued to raid the room. It then became clear that Dang was dehydrated, constantly asking for more water.

The officers then escorted her to Jen-Ai Hospital where a scan revealed the shadow that was deemed to be incriminating.

While there are many published papers on the health impact of swallowing condoms, most of them focus on drug mules, and therefore on the contents of the condoms.

However, a 2011 study published in the Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal warned the latex can require surgery to remove since it could obstruct vital organs and digestive pathways if it does not pass through the system.

In fact, in 2016, a study published in the Journal of Medical Reports described the case of a 26-year-old woman in Cameroon who got appendicitis two weeks after swallowing a condom whole during oral sex with her boyfriend.

After surgery, the surgeons found pieces of the condom in her appendix.
Eye syphilis is on the rise in the United States, health officials warn.

More than 200 people across 20 states were diagnosed with the sexually-transmitted disease in their eyes between 2014 and 2016, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ocular syphilis, which can cause blindness and blurry vision, develops out of a syphilis infection in the spinal cord, which spreads to the eye.

While it was once rare but rates have been steadily climbing in America in recent years.

More than 200 people across 20 states were diagnosed with the sexually-transmitted disease in their eyes between 2014 and 2016, CDC data show (file image)

According to the CDC, ocular syphilis can involve any part of the eye, but it typically causes inflammation of the middle layer of the eye.

It can blur vision and ultimately lead to vision loss, and can even travel up into the brain.

A chronic bacterial disease, syphilis can be contracted by other means but is typically a sexually-transmitted disease.

In very rare cases, it can be spread through prolonged kissing, as well as the more common routes of transmission: vaginal, anal and oral sex.

It comes from the bacteria Treponema pallidum.

Syphilis is notoriously difficult to diagnose since its symptoms are similar to other conditions - a runny nose and soar throat. Sufferers develop sores, though these can often go ignored.

However, rates are rocketing across the United States.

While the rate of all sexually-transmitted diseases has gone up, the biggest increase was seen in cases of congenital syphilis, which went up 27.6 percent between 2015 and 2016.

The rate of primary and secondary syphilis infections went up 17.6 percent since 2015.

In the early stages, patients can receive an injection of Benzathine penicillin G. This will not undo the internal damage but will eliminate the infection.

For those with latent syphilis - and are unsure how long they had it - doctors recommend having three doses of the penicillin injection, seven days apart from each other.
Men could become pregnant tomorrow thanks to advances in womb transplantation, according to a leading fertility expert.

The success of womb transplants into women has paved the way for a similar operation being carried out on people born male.

Dr Richard Paulson said that now wombs have been successfully transplanted into women born without them, trans women  people born biologically male but who have had sex change surgery  will also want a womb transplant.

Scientists believe men could give birth if they have a womb transplant and IVF

Dr Richard Paulson, left, said there was no scientific reason why men could not fall pregnant.

This would allow them to carry a baby  and there was no scientific reason why it would not happen, he added.

In recent months, there have been reports of trans men having babies  women who have had sex change operations to become male, but still have functioning wombs.

Dr Paulson, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, made his controversial prediction at the societys annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas.

When asked whether men having babies was pie in the sky, he said: You are talking about trans women. Someone who started out as a man, who became a woman.

There would be additional challenges, but I dont see any obvious problem that would preclude it. I think it would be possible.

Asked when someone who was born male could be fitted with a uterus, Dr Paulson said: They could do it tomorrow.

He added, however: Its still a very complicated procedure. Its a huge team, its not something somebody can do in a community hospital and just get it done.

Dr Paulson explained that one problem is that the male pelvis would not allow a baby to pass through it because it is too narrow, so a man would have to give birth by caesarean section.

But there was room inside a man to hold a womb. Dr Paulson said hormones might have to be given to replicate the changes that go on while a woman is pregnant.

Procuring a uterus would be necessary  either from a living donor or from a brain-dead donor  a complicated, ten-hour operation.

Once the uterus has been transplanted, an IVF embryo would have to be implanted. Dr Paulson said the field of trans medicine has now reached the mainstream, adding: I suspect there are going to be trans women who want to have a uterus and will likely get the transplant.

Womb transplant is still very much an experimental procedure.

The first that resulted in a live birth took place in 2014, carried out by Dr Mats Brannstrom, of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. The first British attempt at a womb transplant is expected to be carried out next year  on a woman  by Dr Richard Smith of Imperial College London.

In the UK it would be illegal for an IVF clinic to create an embryo for the purpose of implanting it in a man under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008.

An international agreement, The Montreal Protocol, also stipulates that womb transplants should be carried out only in biological women.

Julian Savulescu, professor of practical ethics at Oxford University, said womb transplantation represents a significant risk to the foetus and future child.

While there might be a psychological benefit to the mother of carrying her own pregnancy, this had to be weighed against any psychological harm to the child being born in this atypical way.

c.fernandez@dailymail.co.uk
Five-year mortgage rates are set to rise by half a percentage point over the next six months as mortgage lenders withdraw their best rates and experts warn house prices could now start to fall.

It comes as the Bank of England raised the base rate to 0.5 per cent today - the first time in more than 10 years interest rates have gone up.

Off the back of it, mortgage lenders are expected to hike rates and pull their cheapest deals, resulting in experts warning there could be a knock-on effect on house prices.

Bank of England governor Mark Carney announced base rate will rise to 0.5 per cent today

In fact Metro Bank pre-empted the Bank of England and announced this morning that it's pulling its five-year deals at 75 per cent loan-to-value from tomorrow at 5.30pm.

The latest data from Moneyfacts shows nearly half of all lenders have withdrawn at least one of their cheapest rates in the past month.

The cheapest two year-fixed mortgage for homebuyers or movers with a 25 per cent deposit or equity stake at the start of October was 0.99 per cent with a 1,495 fee from Yorkshire Building Society. Today the cheapest rate for the same borrower is now a 1.13 per cent rate with a 1,495 fee.

On a 100,000 mortgage, over 25 years monthly payments on the 0.99 per cent deal come in at 376.42. On the same mortgage at 1.13 per cent, payments jump to 382.79 a month - just 6.37 more a month.

Five-year deals are also getting more expensive. In the past month, Barclays has shelved its 1.75 per cent five-year fix up to 75 per cent LTV and brought out a 1.95 per cent deal.

NatWest, meanwhile, hiked rates across both two-year and five-year deals by up to 0.2 per cent a week ago. AA Mortgages, Skipton Building Society and Accord Mortgages have also raised rates or withdrawn products altogether in the past fortnight.

Five-year mortgage rates are currently still available at less than 2 per cent, but Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, is predicting that average rates will jump by around 0.5 percentage points early next year when a critical Bank of England funding scheme will close its doors in February.

The Term Funding Scheme allows banks to borrow money from the Bank of England far more cheaply than they can on the money markets so long as they can prove the money they borrow is lent back out to households and businesses.

In August, the Bank of England confirmed the scheme would wind down next February, raising the possibility that lenders will pass on higher costs to borrowers.

Now, there is also a higher base rate to factor into the cost of mortgages too.

Tombs said: 'The average quoted rate on a five-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to a record low of 1.90 per cent in September, from 1.96 per cent in August.

'We expect October data to show that the five-year rate jumped to 2 per cent, given that several high street banks recently have shunted up their rates.'

House price growth will slow

He added that borrowers should expect mortgage rates to 'rise sharply' in March, adding: 'Mortgage terms, however, will continue to lengthen, ensuring house prices stabilise, rather than fall, in 2018.'

In the past, growth in house prices has slowed by around eight percentage points when mortgage rates have risen by half a per cent.

Tombs said: 'With most measures of year-on-year growth in house prices currently running between 2 per cent and 5 per cent, this might be enough to push house prices down next year.'

Mortgage rates likely will rise sharply in March

However, he said homeowners could mitigate the effect of a rise in mortgage rates by lengthening the term of their loan.

The proportion of mortgage lending with a term of 30 years or longer has increased steadily, reaching 35 per cent this year from just 18 per cent in 2010.

A further two-year increase in the average mortgage term would be enough to offset the impact of a 50bp rise in mortgage rates on monthly interest repayments.

Tombs added: 'Households have scope to sacrifice other expenditure in order to take out larger mortgages and secure home purchases.

'Accordingly, we look for house prices to stabilise next year, rather than fall outright. This is, nonetheless, a downward revision from our prior expectation of a 2 per cent gain in prices.'

>> How to find a cheaper (and better) mortgage in eight easy steps
Relaxing in the Dubai sunshine, Princess Tessy of Luxembourg dons a bikini for a dip in a hotel rooftop swimming pool as she takes a holiday to forget about her marriage troubles.

The mother-of-two, branded a 'gold digger' over her divorce settlement from Prince Louis, took a break from her legal fight by flying to the Middle East with her two young boys.

Princess Tessy's relaxed demeanour was in sharp contrast to her appearance at the Royal Courts of Justice last month, where she was fighting for maintenance payments from the third son of Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg.

Her divorce battle has pitted her against one of Europe's oldest  and most intriguing  Royal families: the current Duke has five children, his heir Guillaume, Prince Felix, Prince Louis, Princess Alexandra and Prince Sebastien, who are a constant presence in the gossip columns.

Divorce: Relaxing in the Dubai sunshine, Princess Tessy of Luxembourg dons a bikini for a dip in a hotel rooftop pool as she takes a holiday to forget about her marriage troubles

Marriage collapse: Princess Tessy, branded a 'gold digger' over her divorce settlement from Prince Louis, took a rest from her legal fight for a sunshine break with her two young boys

Settlement: Her relaxed demeanour, when she was also pictured at an event for Professors Without Borders, was in contrast to her appearance at the High Court in London last month where she was fighting for maintenance payments from Prince Louis

Dispute: A close friend told MailOnline that Tessy is still hoping to get an agreed settlement for herself and her two sons, Prince Gabriel, 11, and Prince Noah, ten, despite the rancorous case. Pictured: Princess Tessy at the High Court last month

Big day: Tessy's marriage to Prince Louis in 2006 in Gilsdorf, Luxembourg as controversial because she was a commoner who had already given birth to their eldest son out of wedlock

But a close friend has said that Tessy - who celebrated her 32nd birthday on Saturday - is still hoping to get an agreed settlement for herself and her two sons, Prince Gabriel, 11, and Prince Noah, ten, despite the rancorous case.

'Tessy has always wanted the divorce to be amicable,' they told MailOnline. 'She wanted to get separated and get her life back but to stay friends with him, be good parents and keep the family unit.

'Until recently she was speaking very highly of Louis. They were very good friends and she was very proud of him. She even sent him a present for his birthday in August and they celebrated Gabriel's birthday together last month.

'It is only since they have been trying to sort out the finances that things have become complicated. She made a settlement offer which was incredibly reasonable.

'But it is not straight forward because Louis is a Royal. He has a very affluent lifestyle but has never had to work. He is a really decent guy but he lives life in a very different dimension. I think that is why he is being irresponsible.'

Born a commoner, the former Tessy Antony joined the Luxembourg Army in 2002 at the age of 18, rising to the rank of corporal. Two years later, when she was one of a handful of female UN peacekeepers in Kosovo, she met the prince, who was visiting the army.

With her boys: Princess Tessy, pictured in Dubai with her sons Gabriel and his brother Noah, was granted a quickie divorce from Prince Louis after ten years of marriage in February

Legal fight: But the Princess is still battling in the Royal Courts of Justice over the financial settlement. Pictured: Tessy has some Halloween fun with her boys on their fun-filled Dubai trip

Row: Tessy's divorce battle has pitted her against one of Europe's oldest  and most intriguing  Royal families. Pictured: She put her troubles on hold party with friends in the Middle East

A close friend has said that Tessy - who celebrated her 32nd birthday on Saturday - is still hoping to get an agreed settlement for herself and her two sons

Holiday: The 32-year-old mother-of-two who married into the Luxembourg royal family when she was 19 smiles with her sons, Prince Gabriel (left), Prince Noah (front) and Sheikh Nayahan

But their union was under fire from the Luxembourg royal family from the beginning.

She was a tom-boy from a modest family from the small town of Niederkorn, a small town on the French border, who joined the army aged 18.

He was the third son of Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg, the head of one of Europes richest royal families, and grew up in a palace.

However his family only became aware of their love affair when Tessy became pregnant and gave birth aged 19, and unmarried, in September 2005, providing Grand Duke Henri with his first grandson, infuriating the royal family.

Aware of the constitutional crisis they had created by having a child out of wedlock, Prince Louis renounced any claim to the title of Grand Duke.

Relaxation: Mother-of-two Tessy unwinds next to a swimming pool where she is staying

The royal familys anger became apparent when the Grand Duke stripped Tessy of any claim to his title when she married Prince Louis six months after giving birth, in September 2006, in a modest country church wedding.

Her son Gabriel and his brother Noah, who was born the following year, were only allowed to take Louis family name de Nassau but none of the hereditary privileges that went with it.

However the royal familys disenchantment appeared to have subsided when Grand Duke Henri bestowed full titles of Prince and Princess to his grandsons Gabriel and Noah and to Tessy on Luxembourgs national day in 2009.

But while the sight of his grandson melted the heart of the Grand Duke, the Grand Duchess remained appalled that Tessy had become part of Luxembourgs royal family, a close friend has claimed.

After they married, the couple settled in London, where they both studied at Richmond, the American International University in London  Tessy graduated in 2014 with a BA in International Relations while Louis got a degree in Art in Communications.

It was at that point that their paths diverged: while Louis struggled to find work, Tessy's career soared. After gaining a master's degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies, she joined the Mayfair security company DS-48, juggling her job with her work as a UNAIDS global advocate for young women and adolescent girls and her charity work for Professors Without Borders.

'I think their relationship became complicated when Tessy began studying for her masters,' said her friend. 'For me that is when the divergences began to show.

'She was studying full time, taking care of her kids, managing the household and going to all these family functions. It was gruelling. At times, she wanted to quit but she didn't.

'We were all really proud of her for carrying on to the end and writing her dissertation on biochemical terrorism  she has always been interested in security and she poured her heart into it.

'But Louis wasn't involved in the programme and spent the year figuring out what he wanted to do. He found it difficult to find employment, being a public figure.

Split: After they married, Tessy and Prince Louis settled in London, where they both studied at Richmond, the American International University in London and raised their boys (pictured)

Different paths: As they settled into married life the royals' lives diverged: while Louis struggled to find work, Tessy's career soared as she joined security company DS-48, juggling her job with her work as a UNAIDS global advocate for young women and her charity work

A close friend told MailOnline: 'I think their relationship became complicated when Tessy began studying. She was studying full time, taking care of her kids, managing the household and going to family functions. But Louis spent the year figuring out what he wanted to do'

'That was a stress point which any relationship would find difficult: somebody at home who doesn't know where they are going and the other person who is trying to power through and carrying the heavy workload, if not emotional load.

'Ultimately I think she grew up. She finished her masters and got a job. She travels on her own and works really hard. It was all sweat and blood with her. But when you are that high energy and active and come home and find your husband not doing anything, it must be frustrating.'

The flashpoint came after Louis landed a six-month internship in Belgium. 'I think he found a certain freedom that was very tempting,' the friend added.

'He was free to go out, have fun and see his friends, not have a curfew, go home and have chores to do. He was a kid again.

'They were increasingly arguing and making threats to leave and eventually Tessy instigated the legal process. I don't think Louis would ever have had the courage to leave her, even if it was the right thing to do.

'But I think he was very relieved that they weren't going to be fighting over the marriage any more.

'He has told her since how wonderful it is to go back to being friends. I think he's enjoying his new-found freedom.'

Tessy was granted a decree nisi in February on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour. Her name was removed from the Luxembourg Royal family's website.

But they are still battling over their divorce settlement. Once the decree absolute is granted, she will lose her title and diplomatic status and possibly her surname. She also stands to lose her home in Kensington, west London.

'It is very complicated because he is Royal and in a way she is divorcing the family,' her friend said.

'It is sad because she gets on very well with the Grand Duke  she speaks very highly of him  and his father, the former Grand Duke. She sees them as family.

'She has a more difficult relationship with her mother-in-law, who doesn't come from a Royal background. It has always been uneasy.

'I would characterise it as a typical mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a bit of competition between them.'

MailOnline can neither reveal details of the disputed settlement nor the amount in maintenance payments sought after a High Court judge imposed interim reporting restrictions.

But the princess's counsel, Deborah Bangay QC, told the court: 'My client has no wish to litigate and she made a very reasonable and sensible proposal.

'Unfortunately, that proposal was rejected and my client had no option but to pursue this in litigation.'

After the hearing, Ms Bangay added: 'She is not a gold digger. Far from it. She is simply seeking a fair and proper settlement.'
A couple are suing a construction company after they say they found bottles of urine, rodents and rotten food inside the walls of their newly bought $2 million luxury condominium.

The couple's holding company, Shiloh Holding, filed the suit last week after they said they discovered the urine and food during renovations at the luxury unit in Weehawken.

The urine and food were allegedly discovered by a contractor doing renovations on the couple's property after they moved into the condominium in March.

Their attorney Philip C. Chronakis, of the law firm, Budd Larner, said his clients are seeking up to $6 million in damages.

The couple moved into the $2 million luxury unit in Weehawken in March but are now suing the company they bought it off

Bottles of urine were found by the couple when they brought in contractors to do maintenance on their home

It is alleged the bottles and food were left behind by workers after they finished constructing the New Jersey property

According to the lawsuit, the couple demanded that the developers open up more of the house for inspection but refused to do so

The couple are seeking damages for the urine and food in the walls and also allege the property's windows were fraudulently advertised as hurricane-proof, NJ.com reported.

Lennar Corporation, which sold the condominium, acknowledged that it was 'embarrassed by the situation' but allegedly refused to do anything about it, according to the lawsuit.

'We are going to have a judge and jury tell them what to do about it,' Chronakis said, adding the case was 'consumer fraud 101'.

He believes the food and waste had been left behind by workers during construction of the property.

The couple filed the lawsuit through their holding company and are seeking 6 million in damages

Waste material was found inside the walls and while Lennar said it was 'embarrassed' by the situation, nothing was done, the lawsuit alleges

The couple also claim the property's windows were fraudulently advertised as hurricane-proof

The couple demanded Lennar open all of the walls as well as the ceiling in the unit to ensure 'there were no more urine-filled bottles, food scraps or other hazardous and mold-causing substances hidden behind the walls'.

But the firm allegedly only offered to 'open the bottom section of the walls to conduct the inspection' at the 1200 Avenue at Port Imperial property.

Lennar was unwilling to go any further, despite being told that such a measure would not sufficiently detect any other waste.

The law suit says the couple had offered to sell the unit back to Lennar for the original purchase price, but Lennar allegedly rejected the offer.

They have continued to incur maintenance fees, property taxes and mortgage charges 'despite the fact that the unit has been rendered uninhabitable', the suit says.

A spokesperson for Lennar said it would not comment on an ongoing lawsuit.
A New Jersey innocent bystander was on fire after a police chase ended with his car being crashed into, says instead of the officers rescuing him while he was burning- they brutally kicked him, breaking four of his ribs.

'They just started kicking me, and kicking me. They broke four of my ribs. Kicked me here,' Miguel Feliz, 28, said of the incident caught on horrifying cell phone video from June 4th. The four officers involved were indicted on various charges Friday.

A video shot that night captured Feliz exiting his car with his clothes on fire. He was then seen rolling on the ground in an effort to douse the flames, before being surrounded by officers with their weapons drawn. Officers then kicked him and dragged him to the curb.

Miguel Feliz was on fire when officers kicked him after mistaking him for a suspect, after his car burst into flames when he was smashed into during a police chase

'Finally, I see the cops. And I'm thinking  the guy's gonna help. I'm on fire,' Feliz said. 'And I just see them with the guns drawn, and I hear the in the voice  they were so like, mad'

Officers surround Feliz and kick him in the incident on June 4 in a case of mistaken identity

The chase started when Jersey City police pursued Leo Pinkston through the streets of Jersey City. It ended when Pinkston crashed his vehicle along Rt. 1 & 9, and slammed into Feliz' sedan, which then burst into flames, with Miguel trapped in the driver's seat.

'I couldn't get out,' Feliz told WPIX. 'My seatbelt didn't want to come off. I was already on fire.'

The officers also fired shots at the suspect Pinkston as he ran away.

Miguel is seen on video crawling away from the burning wreck, and on fire.

They apparently mistook the 28-year-old grocery delivery driver for their suspect  Pinkston.

'Finally, I see the cops. And I'm thinking  the guy's gonna help. I'm on fire,' Feliz said. 'And I just see them with the guns drawn, and I hear the in the voice  they were so like, mad.'

Feliz' lawyer says the officers were in the wrong on several counts, beginning with a wild street chase, firing their weapons, and ending with them offering Feliz what appears to be violence  instead of help.

'It's outrageous conduct, and we're going to address that in the lawsuit,' said attorney Tom Cammarata.

Officers Eric Kosinski and MD Khan appeared in court Friday.

'He fired at this man to try to prevent someone innocent person from being killed, which Mr. Pinkston almost accomplished anyway. Mr. Kosinski should have been commended  not indicted,' said Officer Kosinki's attorney.

The president of one of Jersey City's Police unions tells WPIX: 'We have a great deal of respect for the legal process that will let our officers have a chance to tell their story regarding the entirety of the incident. Once they do we believe they will be exonerated.'

Feliz ultimately spent more than a month in the hospital, recovering from burns suffered over 30 percent of his body.

The four officers face several charges ranging from aggravated assault to attempted murder. They are due back in court, in January.

Meantime, Feliz  still recovering  has yet to go back to work,

Prosecutors said a grand jury returned charges, including aggravated assault and official misconduct, against Jersey City police Lt. Keith Ludwig and officers M.D. Khan, Eric Kosinski and Francisco Rodriguez on Friday. Khan and Kosinski also are charged with attempted murder.

Jersey City, New Jersey police officer MB Khan (pictured in 2016) is among four New Jersey officers who face criminal charges including aggravated assault after kicking and dragging on fire bystander Miguel Feliz following a June car chase that ended in flames

That crash set off a fire that engulfed Feliz's vehicle. Feliz, 28, had not been involved in Pinkston's chase until that moment.

The four officers were suspended without pay following the indictments, the city said.

'As we stated at the outset, the actions taken that night required serious investigation. We took immediate and appropriate action and will now abide the judicial process,' Jersey City mayor Steven Fulop said.

'Our internal investigation will now begin into all the actions or inactions of department members that night. We want the community to continue to have full confidence in the Jersey City Police Department and its officers.'

Jersey City Public Safety Director James Shea said in June that Ludwig, a 24-year veteran of the force, has an 'excellent' record, and that the four officers, one of whom has been on the force for a year, 'are average police officers.'

In the June video, an on fire Feliz can be seen escaping from the wreck of his car, rolling on the ground in an attempt to douse the flames as cops then surround him with their guns drawn

A police officer kicks Feliz while he is still on the ground after having escaped his burning car

The video also captured another police officer appearing to stomp on Feliz

Officers are then seen dragging Feliz across the sidewalk pavement and to the curb

Shea said at least 20 officers were involved in some aspect of the response to the high-speed chase, which lasted for several miles. Several protocols were violated, he said, including the length of the chase, firing shots at a moving vehicle and placing a car as a roadblock without approval from a supervisor.

Ludwig 'was the supervisor of the officers who started the chase, he was involved from the beginning and he allowed it to go on long after the point where, under the attorney general's guidelines, he should have called it off,' Shea said.

Pinkston, 48, was charged in August with eluding police and aggravated assault while eluding.
The Queensland Greens are trying to lure voters by announcing a plan to introduce four extra public holidays if elected on November 25.

State of Origin game three, national parks, the state's Aboriginal communities and International Women's Day would all be celebrated with a day off under the proposal.

Maiwar candidate Michael Berkman said the Greens would 'consult widely' on its planned public holidays, which would ensure additional days off in the second half of the year.

The Queensland Greens are trying to lure voters by announcing a plan to introduce four extra public holidays if elected on November 25

State of Origin game three, national parks, the state's Aboriginal communities and International Women's Day would all be celebrated with a day off under the proposal

Maiwar candidate Michael Berkman (pictured) said the Greens would 'consult widely' on its planned public holidays, which would ensure additional days off in the second half of the year

Mr Berkman said Queenslanders deserved a break.

'Everyday Queenslanders are working longer and harder while wages are stagnant and corporate profits soar,' he said in a statement on Friday.

Mr Berkman said it wasn't about creating more opportunities but for people to take a trip to the beach or have a barbecue.

'This is about ensuring everyone can enjoy more time with loved ones, volunteering or building community,' he said.

'Australian workers won the five-day work week and the eight-hour day. Since the 70s, we've gone backwards.'

Mr Berkman (pictured) said it wasn't about creating more opportunities but for people to take a trip to the beach or have a barbecue

'Australian workers won the five-day work week and the eight-hour day. Since the 70s, we've gone backwards'

'Everyday Queenslanders are working longer and harder while wages are stagnant and corporate profits soar'

Queensland currently has 12 public holidays, like most states - except for Victoria which celebrates 13.

'At least one would fall between the Queen's Birthday in early October and Christmas Day, December 25 where there are currently no public holidays at all,' Mr Berkman said, according to ABC.

Labor MP Cameron Dick told the publication he doesn't' believe people are looking for additional days off.

'I've not heard people talking about the need for more public holidays, I'm not sure it's something Queenslanders will want,' he said.
Jeremy Corbyn was accused of cosying up to extremists last night after attending an event held by a hardline Muslim group accused of anti-Semitism.

The Labour leader spoke at a Commons meeting staged by an organisation that attacks Israeli Zionists on social media.

He addressed the Muslim Engagement and Development (Mend) event on Wednesday  but last night snubbed a formal dinner with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Jeremy Corbyn has been accused of cosying up to extremists after attending an event held by a hardline Muslim group, Mend

Mend was this week accused of being Islamists masquerading as civil libertarians whose senior figures have publicly expressed anti-Semitic views.

A report by the Henry Jackson Society think-tank said the organisation was an extremist-linked group that has hosted illiberal, intolerant and extremist Islamist speakers.

Mend arranged the Commons event to mark the start of Islamophobia Awareness Month.

Mr Corbyn told the audience: Our future lies in mutual respect between all communities.

Referring to the terror attack outside Finsbury Park Mosque in his Islington constituency in the summer, the Labour leader added: An attack on any one of us is an attack on all of us.

But his appearance fuelled criticism after he refused to attend a gala last night to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, which helped pave the way for the creation of Israel.

Theresa May and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (2nd right) at the Balfour 100 Dinner at Lancaster House in London

Former communities secretary Sir Eric Pickles called his snub a slap in the face of Israel, and of all British Jewish citizens of the United Kingdom.

He said: To not make a dinner is perhaps excusable but to attend a meeting of extremists who are vowed to destroy Israel is contemptible.

Tory MP Philip Davies added: During the election Jeremy Corbyn said his links to violent extremism, such as to the IRA and to Hamas, was a thing of the past.

'We can now see that this is not historical at all. His addiction to hardline extremists continues to this day.

Tom Wilson, of the Henry Jackson Society, said: Public figures and elected officials agreeing to speak at Mends events should be aware that this is an organisation which has hosted preachers known for their extremist and intolerant views.

'That is who they are aligning themselves with.

Jennifer Gerber, of Labour Friends of Israel, said it was utterly unacceptable for the Labour politician to attend an event organised by a group that has repeatedly peddled myths about the Israeli lobby.

Four MPs  Tories Crispin Blunt and Anna Soubry, Lib Dem Sir Ed Davey and the SNPs Joanna Cherry  were all due to attend Mends event but pulled out. They claimed there was controversy over the groups record.

Former communities secretary Sir Eric Pickles called his snub a slap in the face of Israel, and of all British Jewish citizens of the United Kingdom

At least six Labour MPs  including Wes Streeting, Stephen Kinnock and Naz Shah  turned up.

Labour has been dogged by allegations of anti-Semitism within the party. Ken Livingstone was suspended for saying Hitler was an early supporter of Zionism, while anti-Semitic remarks were made at a fringe event at Labours party conference last month.

Mr Corbyn, a supporter of the Palestinian cause, has faced repeated questions about his association with IRA figures.

Mend said the think-tank report equates political dissent with extremism. A statement said it operates in the mainstream of British society and that many of the claims in the report are based on innuendo and false assertions.

The group also said it unequivocally rejects allegations of anti-Semitism, homophobia, or extremism.

A spokesman for Mr Corbyn said the Labour leader was pleased to attend an event to mark the start of Islamophobia Awareness Month.

MEND: Group linked to anti-Semitic speakers The Muslim group that staged a rally in Parliament at which Jeremy Corbyn spoke has worrying links with extremism. The organisation, Muslim Engagement and Development, claims it champions Muslim involvement in public and political life while campaigning against Islamophobia. But the Islamist group has been associated with a number of extremist statements, including links to speakers who have promoted jihad, anti-Semitism and homophobia. Officials and volunteers with Mend have also supported the killing of British troops in Iraq. It is also claimed to want to stir up trouble over the Trojan Horse plot four years ago when Ofsted inspectors uncovered a campaign by hardline Muslims to take over schools in Birmingham and alter their character and ethos. A report released last month by the Henry Jackson Society security think-tank argued that Mend were Islamists masquerading as civil libertarians. Mend was previously known as iEngage. Its boss Azad Ali, lost a libel case against the Daily Mail in January 2010 after he was described as a hardline Islamic extremist who supports the killing of British and American soldiers in Iraq. Advertisement
Mercedes Corby says she feels sorry for 'Cocaine' Cassie Sainsbury but can't understand why drug mules risk decades behind bars 'for a bit of extra cash'.

The sister of convicted marijuana smuggler Schapelle Corby appeared to imply Australians who traffic drugs overseas deserved to be jailed.

'Any Australian caught up with drugs smuggling overseas... The ones that do it for a bit of extra cash, I don't understand,' she told Studio 10 on Friday.

The sister of convicted marijuana smuggler Schapelle Corby appeared to imply Australians found guilty of drug trafficking deserved to be jailed. The pair are pictured together in 2014

'We're not from Africa, we're not feeding our whole families, we're not paying for generations of schools to make a bad choice.

'But I still feel for anybody imprisoned anywhere in the world.'

Mercedes offered Sainsbury's family advice after she was sentenced to six years behind bars in Colombia for trying to smuggle 5.8 kilograms of cocaine out of the country.

'It is hard for the families. They just have to stay together, be there to support Cassie,' she said.

'Having strong supportive family and keeping her up to date with the outside world and giving her something to be happy about when she is released, something to look forward to, will help them all... You have to be strong.'

Schapelle Corby was arrested in 2005 after Balinese customs officials discovered 4.1 kilograms of marijuana hidden in her body board bag.

'Any Australian caught up with drugs smuggling overseas... The ones that do it for a bit of extra cash I don't understand,' Mercedes said on Studio 10

Sainsbury has been sentenced to six years behind bars in Colombia for trying to smuggle 5.8 kilograms of cocaine out of the country

She was convicted of importing the drug and jailed for 20 years, but was released on parole in 2014. She returned to Australia on May 27 of this year.

Since her return, Corby has tried to regain a sense of normality, keeping a relatively low profile and spending time with family.

Though she has avoided the spotlight, Corby has built up a huge social media profile since returning to Australia with nearly 200,000 followers.

'But I still feel for anybody imprisoned anywhere in the world,' said Mercedes, pictured with her sister
Britain's terror watchdog was attacked yesterday for meeting an Islamist group that praised the murderer known as Jihadi John as a beautiful young man.

Max Hill, QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, proudly declared on his blog that he had met representatives of Cage  despite warnings about giving succour to an organisation shunned by the Government due to its reputation as craven apologists for terrorism.

The lawyer, who prosecuted several high-profile terrorism cases before taking on the regulator role in February, spent 90 minutes with the campaign group listening to its views on terrorism legislation.

Britain's terror watchdog was attacked yesterday for meeting an Islamist group that praised the murderer known as Jihadi John (pictured) as a beautiful young man

The meeting came a month after the international director of Cage, Muhammad Rabbani, was convicted of a terrorism offence and fined for refusing to give police the PIN number of his mobile phone when he was stopped and searched at Heathrow Airport last November.

Mr Hill attempted to justify his meeting on October 27, writing in his blog it was his role to engage with anyone who is affected in any way by the legislation, adding that Cage states it aims to empower communities impacted by the war on terror.

Cages extraordinary remarks about British Islamic State executioner Mohammed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John, after his death in 2015 sparked outrage.

Mr Hills predecessor Lord Carlile said: Cage is an organisation with a warped view. No sensible person should be funding it.

In stark contrast, Mr Hill now believes it is crucial to consult the group to inform his views on terrorism legislation.

The meeting came only days after the regulator provoked outrage by suggesting naive militants returning from Syria should be reintegrated into the UK instead of facing prosecution.

Max Hill, QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, proudly declared on his blog that he had met representatives of Cage

Last night critics condemned Mr Hills meeting with Cage.

Security expert Professor Anthony Glees, of Buckingham University, said: I do not believe it is part of his job to meet with such an organisation.

It gives out a signal he is open to discussions with them on future and current counter-terrorism legislation, which is completely unacceptable and wholly wrong.

This is potentially a very dangerous organisation. He should not be sending out a message that he is open to lobbying from a group that has an extremist position totally at odds with mainstream British attitudes towards Islamist extremism.

Cage research director Asim Qureshi, left, speaks next to political activist John Rees, center, and spokesman Cerie Bullivant, right, during a press conference in 2015

Professor Glees also questioned Amber Rudds appointment of Mr Hill, whose short tenure has been engulfed in controversy after he was rebuked by ministers and prosecutors for recently claiming tough new laws to prosecute extremists would be wrong despite a string of jihadist attacks.

Hannah Stuart, co-head of security and extremism at the think-tank Policy Exchange, said: For Cage, the central issue is engagement and legitimacy  something, perhaps naively, the new watchdog seems all too willing to give away.

But Mr Hill denied the meeting lent Cage credibility, saying: As the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, it is my duty and within my remit to engage with anyone who is affected in any way by the legislation.

This not only helps inform my annual review of the legislation but also informs my wider contextual understanding of how our laws apply generally to society.

r.camber@dailymail.co.uk
US fast food giant Taco Bell is making their way down under for their third shot at cracking the Mexican market.

The popular American franchise is set to open its doors on Saturday at their Queensland store, the only one currently in Australia.

The Annerley store, south of Brisbane, is expected to seat almost 100 people for their new Australian curated menu.

The US fast food giant Taco Bell is making its way to Australia for their third shot at cracking the Mexican food market

The popular American franchise is set to open their doors on Saturday at their Queensland store, (pictured) the only one currently in Australia

The Annerley store, south of Brisbane, is expected to seat almost 100 people for their new Australian curated menu

Secret menu tastings and branding tests took place over the last 12 months where the participant's feedback shaped the new menu

Secret menu tastings and branding tests took place over the last 12 months where the participant's feedback shaped the new menu, according to Courier Mail.

Taco Bell left our shores in 2005 and is hoping through 'serious planning' and market research they will be here to stay.

Collins Foods' emerging brands boss, Paula Nelson, said they investigated what Australian customers enjoyed in hopes it would help them successfully break into the already crowded Mexican market.

Along with tacos, fajitas, burritos and nachos, Taco Bell has a selection of margaritas and beers to 'create an environment where people can come with their families ... to relax and enjoy their meal'.

Despite the recent Queensland storms delaying the construction of the drive-thru section, Taco Bell released a statement saying they were ready for 'open arms and hungry bellies'.

The Mexican franchise will be entering a market already saturated with the popular cuisine including Zambrero, Mad Mex and Guzman Y Gomez.

Along with tacos, fajitas, burritos and nachos, Taco Bell has margaritas and beers

The popular American franchise first tried to crack into the Australian market in the 1990s before pulling out more than ten years ago

Taco Bell will replace the old American Sizzler store, known for steak and seafood, in South Brisbane which will employ 60 full-time and casual staff.

The popular American franchise first tried to crack into the Australian market in the 1990s before pulling out more than ten years ago.

'Twenty years ago ... in Australia it was branded with other known quick-service restaurants ... we didn't have a chance to shine,' Taco Bell's US-based International PR and marketing manager Richa Anand told the publication.

'We didn't have a beautiful footprint and show we are cool, fun young brand.'
John Henry Van Uden III of Dana Point, California (pictured above in an undated photo) was arrested Thursday for murdering his mother for financial gain in 1994

A Southern California man was arrested Thursday on a charge of killing his mother for financial gain in 1994.

Newport Beach police arrested 70-year-old John Henry Van Uden III of Dana Point as he got off his boat, the Orange County district attorney's office said.

Prosecutors allege he bludgeoned his mother, 76-year-old Frances Marjorie Van Uden, to death with a blunt object on March 3, 1994. Last week would have marked Frances' 100th birthday.

Concerned neighbors who hadn't seen her in two days called police, who found her dead in the living room of her home in the Corona del Mar section of Newport Beach.

The district attorney's office described the victim as a mother of three who enjoyed spending time with her grandchildren.

Her son John was identified as a possible suspect early on. But the investigation went on for years.

Prosecutors allege Van Uden (right) fatally struck his mother, 76-year-old Frances Marjorie Van Uden (left), with a blunt object on March 3, 1994

Van Uden was taken into custody by police officers after he got off his boat on Thursday (a picture of the arrest seen above)

'Law enforcement did not forget this case. He might have thought he'd gotten away with it, but he had not,' District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said at a news conference after the arrest.

A police officer found Frances' body about two days after her death, after neighbors started to grow concerned by the piling up newspapers and milk deliveries outside her home.

The officer gained access to the home through an unlocked door in the backyard, and found Frances' dead body, slumped over on the couch with a serious head wound.

She was wearing a green bathrobe and sandals, and an empty poppy-seed muffin wrapper sat on a plate on a nearby coffee table.

The bedrooms in the home had been ransacked, and jewelry, cash and credit cards had been stolen - though the credit cards were never used.

Neighbors called police to check on Frances after noticing newspapers and milk deliveries piling up outside her house

Frances body was found slumped over on the count in her living room, with a head wound

Police had continued to follow leads and collect evidence over the years, reviewing and expanding the case file when there was time to delve into cold cases.

The case received renewed attention last year, when the Newport Beach City Council hired two part-time, retired homicide detectives to help with the police department's cold case investigations.

Van Uden claimed he had been staying with his girlfriend at her house in Costa Mesa the night of his mother's murder, but the girlfriend said he left her house for a period during the night. She didn't remember how long he was gone for.

Investigators discovered that Van Uden was having financial problems around the time of his mother's death, and that he appeared to be getting money from her to live on.

Their relationship had become strained in the year before her death however, and she removed him as the executor of her will - placing him to third position behind his brother and sister.

'The victim had also complained to other family members that she was not going to loan or give John Van Uden any more money and that she had to cut him off,' police wrote. 'This angered John Van Uden and it was reported to the family members that this angered him.'

Newport Beach Police Chief Jon Lewis announces Van Uden's arrest in a press conference on Thursday

A neighbor also told investigators that on the night of Frances' death, they saw a red four-door sedan, possibly a Buick, parked outside of her house.

That neighbor had seen Frances' son driving the same vehicle days before.

Police discovered that Van Uden had rented a red Buick Regal matching that description around the time of his mother's death.

Van Uden admitted to renting the car but later tried to distance himself from it when investigators questioned him about the vehicle.

Investigators were able to tie him to it though because he paid a parking ticket on the car under the alias 'Stan King'. They were able to connect Van Uden to the ticket through DNA evidence on the envelope he used to pay the ticket.

Van Uden III was scheduled for arraignment Monday in Santa Ana. It wasn't immediately known if he had an attorney.

On October 26, county prosecutors charged Van Uden III with one felony count of murder with a special circumstances enhancement of murder for financial gain. An arrest warrant was issued.

If convicted, he faces the possibility of life in prison without parole.

Anyone with further information on the case is being asked to call 800-550-6273 or contact Supervising Investigator Kory Degraffenreid at 714-347-8492.
The amount of rubbish in Britain's seas has increased by more than 150 per cent in a year, figures show.

Plastic items, including bags and bottles, accounted for nearly all the litter found last year.

The worrying figures will heap pressure on Government to reduce the use of plastic, which is blighting our seas and killing marine life.

The amount of rubbish in Britain's seas has increased by more than 150 per cent in a year, figures show

MPs said the 'damning' report highlighted the need for Ministers to take urgent action to clean up Britain's coastal waters.

The Daily Mail has led the way on ending the plastic menace, calling for restrictions on bottles, bags, toxic microbeads and coffee cups.

Figures released yesterday by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) show a massive 158 per cent increase in marine litter on last year.

This is an increase of 222 per cent on the 1992-4 figure, which is used to measure subsequent increases or decreases.

Both all projections suggest the situation is likely to deteriorate further in future years, according to the paper.

Marine litter peaked in 2003, when it was nearly 12 times the average, but it has 'fallen considerably' since, the England Natural Environment Indicators paper states.

However, the data from last year shows that the figure is rising again, with 358 items per square km, up from 141 last year. Since 2009, it has remained under 400 items per square km.

The figures also show that plastic, which is non-recyclable in many cases, makes up 77.9 per cent of marine litter.

Plastic items, including bags and bottles, accounted for nearly all the litter found last year

Mary Creagh, chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee, called on Defra and the companies producing plastic to take action.

'These are worrying figures and further evidence of a rising tide of plastic engulfing our seas, beaches and rivers,' she said.

'Defra ministers this week seemed reluctant to embrace a proper strategy to get to grips with tackling Britain's throwaway society that is leading to a plastic epidemic in our oceans.

'We need to ensure that the companies making plastic shoulder their share of the responsibility  they create it and they should clean it up.'

Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Tim Farron added: 'This damning report shows the state of our natural environment is deteriorating at an alarming rate.

'It is particularly worrying to see such a sharp rise in plastic litter polluting our seas. Unless we take action, in a few years Blue Planet will have to be renamed Plastic Planet.

'The Government needs to get its act together and take urgent action to clean up our seas and countryside.'

The Government needs to get its act together and take urgent action to clean up our seas and countryside Tim Farron MP

Hugo Tagholm, from conservation group Surfers against Sewage, said: 'These shocking statistics reflect what our volunteers are seeing on our beaches every day.

'They remove tonnes of plastic pollution from our tidelines every year. The important message is that while we can pick up more plastic bags, we need to turn the tap off and end society's obsession with plastic.'

The Mail has backed calls for a deposit scheme on plastic bottles and non-recyclable coffee cups to stop them polluting our land and seas.

This paper's 'Banish the Bag' campaign, which led to a 5p charge for single-use plastic bags, has led to an 85 per cent drop in their use.

In a major victory for our 'Ban The Beads' campaign, last year ministers pledged to outlaw toxic microbeads which are poisoning our seas.

MPs were told last month that plastic bottles of Lucozade and Ribena are impossible to recycle as they are wrapped in a plastic film that can't be recycled.

The Environmental Audit Committee heard that of 30billion plastic bottles used by UK households each year, only 57 per cent are currently recycled, with the rest going to landfill. As well as this, 700,000 plastic bottles a day end up as litter.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove has signalled support for the idea of a deposit on plastic bottles. The administrations in Scotland and Wales are also looking at it.

Evidence from other countries, including the US, Norway and Germany, shows that the introduction of a simple deposit on plastic bottles and cans can raise collection rates above 90 per cent and reduce littering.

Studies show councils could save up to 35million a year if a deposit and refund scheme for plastic bottles and drinks cans is adopted.

Experts say that adding a small fee - around 15p - to plastic bottles and drinks cans would help clean up the streets, parks, beaches and the seas.

Research by waste consultant company Eunomia suggest the number of plastic bottles that end up as litter would come down by 700,000 per day - 255 million a year - across the country.

At the same time, the number of cans would fall by 600,000 a day, or 220million a year

Prince Charles has given his support to the Mail's call for a deposit and return scheme on plastic bottles and drinks cans.

It is claimed that the initiative will cut the number dumped as litter by more than a million a day, reducing the number dumped in the sea.

Charles said he had 'tried hard' to cut the use of plastic bottles in royal households.

A Defra spokesman said: 'Countries around the world need to take urgent action to stop plastic entering our oceans.

'We are already making great strides, taking nine billion plastic bags out of circulation with our 5p carrier bag charge and drawing up one of the world's toughest bans on microbeads.

'But we know there is always more we can do, and we are now exploring how we can reduce the impact of plastic bottles.'
Lord Justice Gross criticised judicial salaries, despite saying that 'no one goes into the Judiciary to make money'

A senior judge who earns more than 200,000 a year has claimed that the judiciary needs a pay rise.

Lord Justice Gross criticised judicial salaries, despite saying that 'no one goes into the Judiciary to make money'.

Lord Gross, who sits in the Court of Appeal, claimed that there 'is a danger in relying unduly on goodwill'.

He made the comments during a speech to the Institute of Maritime Law on Wednesday.

He told them: 'No one goes into the Judiciary to make money.

'But there comes a point when pay is so far out of line with the private sector market that it endangers recruitment - of the very best - and retention. There is a danger in relying unduly on goodwill.

'More than the money, there is the perception that these issues reflect government not valuing the Judiciary - and even Judges do take note, as recent surveys of judicial morale have so clearly shown.'

It comes after a judicial attitude survey published earlier this year revealed two out of three judges think they are paid too little.

The findings came despite the fact that all those who took part in the survey were on six-figure salaries.

The survey, carried out by academics, gathered answers from virtually all salaried judges in England and Wales, including more than 100 High Court judges and more than 500 of the Circuit judges who typically sit in Crown Court criminal trials.

Among the 33 Court of Appeal judges who took part, each of whom is paid 204,695 a year, two thirds said their pay is not reasonable, and three quarters said their career pay and pension level is inadequate.

Lord Justice Gross, who is Lord Justice of Appeal, was paid an annual salary of 202,668 till 2015, but it has risen to 206,742. Old Bailey (pictured) judges are paid 145,614, while High Court judges are paid 181,566

But Lord Justice Gross - who has sat on the Court of Appeal since 2010 - said recent changes to the judicial pension scheme had 'significantly aggravated' the problem.

'If we do not address pay and pensions, over time the quality of our judiciary will decline,' he added, according to The Telegraph.

The speech was centred on keeping a high quality British legal system so that people continue to visit London courts after Brexit.

He called for Westminster to 'ensure that judicial office remains properly attractive to the best and most able practitioners'.

Lord Chief Justice warned in his annual report published in September that the judiciary is facing a recruitment crisis.

The report said: 'Any failure to address the problems of pay and pensions will have a serious impact on morale and on recruitment.'

The Senior Salaries Review Body is currently undergoing a review into judicial pay - which is due to be completed in June 2018.

Efforts to apply pressure for pay rises date back nearly a century, to a time when High Court judges earned 5,000, a sum which after the First World War was roughly equivalent to their salaries today.

But earlier this year some of country's most senior judges were awarded sweeping pay rises of 11 per cent in a deal quietly approved by ministers and granted by Justice Secretary Liz Truss.

Judges are paid between 85,954 and 252,079, according to figures issued by the Ministry of Justice.

Lord Justice Gross, who is Lord Justice of Appeal, was paid an annual salary of 202,668 till 2015, but it has risen to 206,742.

Old Bailey judges are paid 145,614, while High Court judges are paid 181,566.
A school named after slave trader Edward Colston is to resist calls from activists to change its name.

Colstons Girls School, in Bristol, said there was no benefit in obscuring history and said instead it wanted students to engage thoughtfully with the past.

The school, one of the best-performing in the region, has been under pressure to drop the controversial name over claims it is offensive to ethnic minorities.

Colston was a prominent slave trader but also donated considerable amounts to the school and is known as one of Bristols leading philanthropists.

But campaigners say much of his fortune came from the misery of Africans.

Colston's Girls' School is to resist calls from activists to change its controversial name

The concert venue Colston Hall  which has been a target for activists for decades  will reopen in 2020, after its refurbishment, with a new name.

And a local primary school bearing Colstons name has also said it is consulting on a re-brand.

But yesterday, CGS said in a letter to parents it would not be removing the name of the slave trader from its official title.

It read: It has been suggested that Colstons Girls School should change its name in order to remove the association with Edward Colston.

We have considered this suggestion and we have listened carefully to views on both sides.

After much discussion, it has been agreed that it would not be appropriate to rename the school.

There is no doubt that Colstons Girls School exists today as an outstanding school for girls, nationally known for its academic excellence and well respected for its inclusivity and diversity - because of the financial endowment given by Edward Colston but we see no benefit in denying the schools financial origin and obscuring history itself.

To the contrary, by enabling our students to engage thoughtfully with our past, we continue to encourage them to ask questions about present-day moral values and to stand up for what they believe is right.

In 1680, Colston became an official of the Royal African Company, which at that time held the monopoly in Britain on slave trading.

During his career, London was the main centre of slave trading in Britain, but in the 1730s and 1740s, Bristol took Londons place.

Colstons Girls School is directly descended from Colstons Hospital, a school which opened in 1710 for 100 poor boys, funded entirely by a large financial gift from Colston.

The trade was abolished in 1807.

The row comes amid an international movement to decolonise universities and cities by removing references to slave traders, colonialists and historical figures with racist views.

In 2015, students led an unsuccessful campaign for a statue of the Imperialist Cecil Rhodes to be removed from Oxford over claims it was offensive to ethnic minorities.
Mukhammadzoir Kadirov (above), spoke out to condemn the NYC terror attack after he was found Wednesday by the FBI as a second person of interest. He has not been named a suspect

The devout Muslim man sought by federal officials in the Manhattan truck attack has come forward to condemn the deadly act of terror.

Mukhammadzoir Kadirov, 32, who was previously named a person of interest in the investigation and a friend to aggressor, Sayfullo Saipov, told the Associated Press in a statement Thursday: 'This not from our religion, it is not acceptable.'

The married father of two toddler-aged children revealed he was heartsick over the tragedy, while among other members of the Muslim community who completely 'reject' the actions of Saipov.

Kadirov was found by the FBI Wednesday nearly an hour and a half after a poster was shared, seeking further information on him.

Family members to Kadirov said he was more of an acquaintance to Saipov than a friend - as the two previously met while working as Uber drivers.

Neighbors to Kadirov at the Wexford Park apartment complex in Tampa, Florida, where Kadirov resided earlier this year, said he wore white robes every day and clashed with them over noise disturbances.

They said he, his wife and their two young children, believed to be around two to three years old, rarely ventured outside but were occasionally seen sitting on the banks of the lake behind their home.

Kadirov drove a Honda van but its not clear whether he had a job.

'They were Muslims. He wore traditional clothes and he always dressed in white. I never saw him go out in the morning so I dont know if he did anything,' said neighbor Jeremy Clemente, 17.

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During a press conference in the afternoon, the FBI announced they were no longer seeking Kadirov

His wife wore a hijab but her face wasnt covered and she wore makeup. She looked young, she would say hi to my mom. She didnt look like an extremist to me.'

Clemente said his mother Vicky Perez, 44, clashed with the couple, who lived directly above, after they repeatedly woke her in the middle of the night.

Every now and again there would be a whole bunch of banging, loud footsteps that sort of thing. It would be between two and three in the morning,' he went on.

'My mom had to wake up and complain to the office. When it carried on she went up there herself and yelled at him.

He yelled back at her but he apologized. He said it was his kids which didnt make much sense as it was the middle of the night.

'I never had a conversation with them. My mom didnt like them.

He looked like a caring dad but he always looked cautious, like he was super aware of what was going around him and always worried.'

The wanted poster was released by the FBI for Uzbek national Mukhammadzoir Kadirov on Wednesday, but during a press conference in the afternoon, the FBI announced they were no longer seeking Kadirov.

Authorities said he has not been named as a suspect Tuesday's horrific attack.

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York filed federal terrorism charges against Sayfullo Saipov on Wednesday. The Muslim immigrant from Uzbekistan is accused of killing eight and injuring several others during Tuesday's attack in Manhattan

This came one day after Sayfullo Saipov was accused of driving a Home Depot rental truck down the Hudson River Greenway bike path, hitting and killing five Argentinians, a Belgian national, a New Jersey cyclist and a New York City man before crashing into a school bus.

After the bus crash, the 29-year-old Uzbek national ran through traffic carrying a paintball gun and a pellet gun on West Street before he was shot and wounded by hero NYPD officer Ryan Nash, 28.

Saipov allegedly left a note inside of the rented truck that translated to 'ISIS endures forever'.

The Muslim immigrant from Uzbekistan entered court Wednesday evening in a wheelchair, handcuffed and with his feet shackled, to face terrorism charges filed against him by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Saipov, 29, wore a gray shirt and was surrounded by five guards while in his wheelchair inside a New York federal courthouse after he was charged with providing material support to a terrorist group and committing violence and destruction of motor vehicles.

His lawyers said Wednesday they were not seeking bail and a judge ordered him to be held in federal jail.

NYPD officer Ryan Nash (above), 28, is being credited with stopping the attack from becoming worse by shooting Saipov in the stomach. Saipov is still hospitalized for his injury

Saipov did not enter a plea to terrorism charges and a judge set his next court date for November 15.

Meanwhile, new details are being released about Saipov, who is a married father-of-three.

Reports say that Saipov attended a 'suspicious' New Jersey mosque and appears to have radicalized after moving to the U.S. seven years ago.

He immigrated to the U.S. in March 2010 from his native Uzbekistan. Saipov married two years later and has since fathered three children - the youngest of whom is three months old. Overnight, FBI agents raided the couple's Paterson, New Jersey home.

Saipov was shot in the stomach during the rampage, and underwent surgery at Bellevue Hospital. When he spoke with authorities from his hospital bed, he allegedly showed no remorse for the lives he had taken. One source told ABC News that he seemed 'proud' and the New York Post said he was 'boasting'.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told CNN on Wednesday that Saipov 'radicalized domestically' after moving to America, where he has worked as a commercial truck driver and Uber driver.

The rented Home Depot truck, which plowed through cyclists and runners on a bicycle path on the West Side Highway in lower Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon, is pictured above

The truck came to a stop by crashing into a school bus after plowing through others on the bike path. The two adults and two children inside the bus were injured

It appears that his plans to wreak havoc on innocent New Yorkers was in the works for some time.

Authorities say 29-year-old Saipov watched ISIS videos on his cellphone and picked Halloween for the attack on a bike lane in lower Manhattan because he knew more people would be out on the streets.

Saipov left behind knives and a note, handwritten in Arabic, that included Islamic religious references and said 'it will endure'  a phrase that commonly refers to ISIS, FBI agent Amber Tyree said in court papers.

Questioned in his hospital bed, Saipov said he had been inspired by ISIS videos and began plotting an attack about a year ago, deciding to use a truck about two months ago, Tyree said. Saipov even rented a truck on October 22 to practice making turns, Tyree said.

John Miller, deputy New York police commissioner for intelligence, said Saipov 'appears to have followed, almost exactly to a T, the instructions that ISIS has put out.'

In the past few years, the Islamic State has exhorted followers online to use vehicles, knives or other close-at-hand means of killing people in their home countries. England, France and Germany have all seen deadly vehicle attacks since mid-2016.

A November 2016 issue of the group's online magazine detailed features that an attack truck or van should have, suggested renting such a vehicle and recommended targeting crowded streets and outdoor gatherings, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, a militant-monitoring agency.
A retired factory worker has been entertaining Melbourne crowds every weekend - after discovering an old piano in an op shop as he searched for old records.

Barry 'Bazza' Leadbetter, whose face and head are covered in tattoos, started music lessons in England when he was just six and his talent for music was so prodigious, he ended up studying in Adelaide College of Music in 1954.

'I was pretty square when I was young,' Mr Leadbetter told Caulfield Glen Eira Leader.

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Barry 'Bazza' Leadbetter has been playing the piano for Melbourne crowds every weekend

The retired factory worker with purple moustache and eyebrows plays without music sheets

However, his music career came to a halt when he began working in a factory, where he worked for the majority of his life.

Now with the dusty old piano in his corner, the 72-year-old is reigniting his passion for music and treating others along the way.

With a purple beard and eyebrows, Mr Leadbetter can be found playing the old cream piano with ease and without the help from music sheets as he sits on the velvet red timber stool.

The Collingwood man said he liked every genre from classical to rock and gospel, but it's 'Tulips from Amsterdam' by Max Bygraves that the talented musician enjoys playing the most, according to the publication.

Looking eccentric with his purple hair and face ink, Mr Leadbetter is found weekly at the Posh Opp Shoppe hoping to further his musical career.

The 72-year-old wants to take his music journey full circle, hoping it will again take off as he secures gigs at live music venues.
Car giants have been warned their vehicles will be taken off the road if they fail to repair known safety problems.

A database for garages will identify vehicles with a hidden manufacturers fault and these will automatically fail an MoT test.

This means that garages will stop them being driven away even if they pass the normal checks on roadworthiness.

The new rules are being considered following a scandal involving Vauxhall Zafira B cars which caught fire due to a defect such as this one in November 2015 in south west London

Cars subject to recalls will not pass their MoT if the defect has not been repaired

The system will turn the screw on manufacturers that are slow to identify and repair the faults, but it could also give a nasty shock to the car owner.

And last night, motoring organisations said the MoT failure system should only be used in relation to the most dangerous manufacturing faults in order to minimise disruption for drivers.

The new rules come in response to the scandal involving Vauxhall and a series of terrifying fires involving its Zarifa cars.

The company first became aware of a problem of fires in the heating and ventilation system of the Zafira B model in September 2014.

However it failed to warn the public and the official watchdog, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), for more than a year, potentially leaving the drivers of up to 230,000 vehicles at risk.

Subsequently, some of the cars that were recalled and repaired also caught fire. Vauxhall then blamed third party garages for shoddy work rather than admitting to further problems with the way the cars were made.

An investigation by MPs on the House of Commons Transport Select committee condemned Vauxhall for a reckless disregard for safety.

It said the firm should have acted more quickly to address the problems once it became clear that all the causes of the fires affecting the heating and ventilation system had not been found.

Yesterday, (thrs) the Department for Transport outlined a series of safeguards designed to ensure manufacturers carry out proper repairs as soon as problems are identified.

The DVSA is still investigating the way Vauxhall handled the recalls process. In the meantime, the Government said action is being taken to prevent a repeat of the scandal.

Significantly, the details of all vehicles where manufacturers have admitted to a safety flaw and the need for a repair will be on a central database used by garages which carry out MoT tests.

The Government said the DVSA is working with the Department for Transport to investigate the possibility of automatic fails, at MOT stage, for the severest unremediated defects.

This would take dangerous cars off the road until they are repaired, however it would also be a burden for the vehicle owners.

Ministers hope the system will increase the pressure on manufacturers to ensure vehicles are traced and fixed.

The Government said the DVSA is also reviewing its enforcement powers to police and punish car giants that fail to identify and fix known safety flaws.

There have also been improvements to the method of reporting and managing safety recalls.

Chairman of the Transport Committee, Lilian Greenwood MP, said: I am pleased that the Government has listened to, and is acting upon, the recommendations made by the Committee in the last Parliament.

Vauxhall customers are, quite rightly, still looking for answers. We await the outcome of the DVSA investigation into Vauxhalls actions, which we will be examining closely.

The public needs to be confident that their safety comes first. This response demonstrates that ministers are reassessing key procedures and practices at the DVSA and in their working relationships with other key bodies.

The president of the AA, Edmund King, said: Generally the recall system in the UK works quite well but sometimes goes wrong with change of ownership or non-notification of change of address.

The MOT system should be used to flag up to owners recalls that havent been acted on as advisory notifications but should only lead to an automatic fail if the recall fault is a major safety risk.
Labour was accused of undermining the UKs Brexit talks last night after MPs used an arcane Parliamentary procedure in a bid to force Ministers to publish highly sensitive papers.

MPs voted on Wednesday night to demand the release of Whitehalls economic analysis of how Brexit would affect nearly 60 different sectors of the economy.

But Andrea Leadsom, the Leader of the Commons, suggested that Labours move was not in the national interest.

Yesterday Brexit Secretary David Davis said the Government intends to be as open as we can be when making the studies about the economic impact of leaving the EU available to MPs.

Ministers have repeatedly refused to release the studies in response to Freedom of Information requests and Parliamentary questions, claiming doing so would harm Britains negotiating position with Brussels.

Yesterday Brexit Secretary David Davis said the Government intends to be as open as we can be when making the studies about the economic impact of leaving the EU available to MPs

But on Wednesday, Labour used an ancient Parliamentary procedure known as a humble address to pass a motion to have the studies provided to the Brexit select committee so MPs can analyse how different negotiating outcomes could affect the economy.

The studies show the potential impact of leaving the union on 58 economic sectors.

Mr Davis told MPs he would meet Hilary Benn, chairman of the Brexit select committee, to discuss how to release redacted versions of the documents, which contains confidential information.

I will reiterate the point made by my honourable friend, that is these documents are not some sort of grand plan, theyre data about the regulations and the markets of individual sectors which inform our negotiation, he said.

Of course we will be as open as we can be with the select committee, I fully intend to.

Mrs Leadsom was pressed in the Commons by her Labour shadow Valerie Vaz to explain the time limit for releasing the studies.

She replied: It is absolutely accepted that the motion passed by the House yesterday is binding and that the information will be forthcoming.

Andrea Leadsom, the Leader of the Commons, suggested that Labours move was not in the national interest

But, as I think as has been made very clear, it is the case that it is difficult to balance the conflicting obligation to protect the public interest through not disclosing information that could harm the national interest and the public interest whilst at the same time ensuring that the resolution of the House passed yesterday is adhered to.

Whitehall sources said information in what was published would be heavily redacted.

Last month, Mr Daviss department refused to say whether it has analysed the impact of Brexit on Britains regions because doing so could provoke a reactionary response that could damage the economy.

It was responding to a freedom of information request from the Press Association following claims that the department had carried out analysis showing Scotland and the North East of England would lose most from Brexit.

A Tory source accused Labour of dragging the Queen into party politics because of the mechanism it used to try and force the Governments hand.

Labours Brexit spokesman Sir Keir Starmer tabled a humble address, which requests the Queen to direct Mr Davis to respond.

Tory MPs did not contest the vote as whips believed Labour had peeled off enough Tory Remain supporters to win. As a result it passed uncontested.

Afterwards, the Commons Speaker, John Bercow, warned that a failure to follow the motion could constitute a breach of Parliamentary priviledge and amount to contempt of the House.

His comments will be seen as a threat to Ministers of consequences if they do not follow the letter of the ruling.
The President of France has composed a poem in perfect English to celebrate a British schoolgirls 13th birthday.

Emmanuel Macrons unprecedented gesture comes during a period of particularly frosty Anglo-French relations caused by his opposition to Brexit.

In the past most French presidents would not even deign to speak a word in English, let alone compose poems in the language of Shakespeare.

Emmanuel Macrons unprecedented gesture comes during a period of particularly frosty Anglo-French relations caused by his opposition to Brexit

Sophies imaginative verse (left) included the lines: She is as pretty as a picture / She is the centre of attention. Right is President Macron's poem

The girl Mr Macron wrote to  identified solely by her first name of Sophie  originally wrote her own poem about the Eiffel Tower to France in April.

Sophies imaginative verse included the lines: She is as pretty as a picture / She is the centre of attention.

After Mr Macron was elected in May, Sophie's grandmother posted the letter to the Elysee Palace, the official home of the President of France in Paris, in August.

Mr Macron decided to reply in verse, penning 21 lines, including: On a trip to Paris one day, little Sophie / Met a giant lady lighting up the night sky.

Frances London embassy delivered the message, publishing it on its Twitter account, alongside Sophies original poem.

While mainly written for children, Mr Macrons poem includes highbrow references to French literary greats Jean Cocteau, Louis Aragon, Blaise Cendrars, Charles Trenet and Guillaume Apollinaire.

Mr Macron wrote: So few poets these days sing the praises of my Parisian soul, as did Cocteau, Aragon, Cendrars, Trenet and Apollinaire.

Mr Macron decided to reply in verse, penning 21 lines, including: On a trip to Paris one day, little Sophie / Met a giant lady lighting up the night sky

Mr Macron has described Britains decision to leave the EU as a crime in the past, and in October said the UK is still far off meeting its financial obligations to the European Union.

Despite this, Mr Macron is a confirmed anglophile who in the past often holidayed in the UK with his wife, Brigitte.

Mr Macron, 39, has strong artistic leanings, and when at school used to act in plays put on by Brigitte, 64, who was then his teacher in their hometown of Amiens, northern France.

The French embassy in London was tasked with delivering the message, publishing Sophies poem alongside Mr Macrons response on its Twitter account.

The Elysee Palace said that Mr Macron had written the poem himself.
When the surprise announcement came through that Gavin Williamson was the new Defence Secretary, one former minister was overheard in the Commons saying: Hes our next leader.

On social media there were similar predictions after Williamson, promoted from Chief Whip at 41, leap-frogged far more experienced colleagues to become the youngest person to take the senior Cabinet role since it was created during the Second World War.

The suggestion that he could go all the way to the top is the more remarkable because he has never held ministerial office or made a speech from the dispatch box in the Commons. When he has spoken from the backbenches, many of his colleagues regarded his offerings as leaden and second rate.

Chief whip Gavin Williamson (pictured arriving at the Ministry of Defence today) has replaced Michael Fallon as Defence Secretary

Yet as the Governments Chief Whip  he was appointed last summer  he flourished in the role, where his responsibility was to keep party discipline and make sure MPs voted along Government lines.

Chief whips gather information about MPs indiscretions and misdemeanours, not only to try to pre-empt potential scandals but also to use it to persuade MPs to fall into line.

They need feline cunning and ruthlessness. Williamson demonstrated that he had both in spades last month when he killed stone-dead a plot against Theresa May after her disastrous party conference speech.

Living up to his nickname of the baby-faced assassin, he immediately outed the ringleader  former Tory chairman Grant Shapps  in the Press. Tory MPs loyal to May then queued up to denounce Shapps publicly. The attempted coup fizzled out and Shapps was utterly humiliated.

It was a brilliant operation which flushed out Shapps and showed he had no one publicly supporting him, one Cabinet minister told me.

Gavin is developing into our own Francis Urquhart, steeped in the black arts of political intrigue.

Urquhart was the manipulative chief whip played by Ian Richardson in the TV series in the British version of the political thriller House Of Cards.

Mr Williamson is known as the 'baby-faced assassin' among colleagues, an image enhanced by his pet tarantula Cronus

G avin Williamsons steely cunning  as well as his inside knowledge of MPs peccadilloes  was on display again this week. It was he who was part of a group of senior advisers who told the Prime Minister that Sir Michael Fallon had to go after learning about the bombshell allegations from Andrea Leadsom.

No one, however, foresaw that Williamson would replace Fallon after he resigned on Wednesday evening.

His critics are appalled by the appointment, highlighting his inexperience  not least in defence. They say his sudden promotion to a senior Cabinet post is a telling reflection of his hold over May, to whom he has long been loyal. Others, however, differ. His easy smile, Yorkshire accent and genial quality dont quite manage to mask a first-class political brain, one minister has said.

People might think him a callow youngster from the sticks. That would be a very, very grave mistake.

He makes Francis Urquhart look like Eddie the Eagle.

Williamsons ascent is remarkable. He was brought up in Scarborough by his Labour-supporting parents, Ray, a local government worker, and Beverley, who worked in a jobs centre.

Mr Williamson shakes hands with the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff Gordon Messenger as he arrives at the department today

He went to a local comprehensive then Bradford University  in marked contrast to most on the Oxbridge-dominated Conservative benches.

His wife, Joanne, is a primary school teacher and the couple have two young daughters.

As soon as he left Bradford, where hed joined the Tories, he was offered work with the party  but declined.

The best piece of advice I received was from my father, who told me to get a real job in the real world, he said later. I had been offered a job by the Conservatives, but I took his advice and got a real job.

He chose the pottery industry in Staffordshire, becoming divisional director of Aynsley China before running his own pottery and design practice.

After becoming a Tory county councillor, he won the safe seat of South Staffordshire in 2010.

For three years he was David Camerons parliamentary private secretary, although he had little in common with the metropolitan types who surrounded Cameron.

After Camerons resignation, Williamson pledged allegiance to May, rather than Boris Johnson. May rewarded him with the Chief Whips job.

In this capacity, he was sent to Ulster by May following the botched general election this year to secure a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party, whose support keeps the Tories in power.

Softly-spoken Williamson has joked about his role as Chief Whip and negotiating technique. I dont very much believe in the stick, he says, but its amazing what can be achieved with a sharpened carrot.

Strangely, he keeps a pet Mexican tarantula, Cronus, in a glass box on his desk. Cronus was the Greek god who came to power by castrating his father before eating his own children to ensure they wouldnt oust him.

Whether the Cronus story is symbolic of Williamsons ambition is unclear.

But as a former whip, he knows where all the bodies are buried  and is, Im sure, ruthless enough to use the information to his advantage.
Nick Xenophon's former girlfriend claims he was 'manipulative and controlling' during their 'destructive' secret seven-year relationship.

Jenny Low, 34, claimed the former South Australian independent senator 'aggressively' pursued her when she started working for him as a staffer 25 years his junior.

She launched the personal attack just moments after announcing she would be running against him in the March state election under the Advance SA Party.

Mr Xenophon emphatically denied the 'distressing' claims, slamming Ms Low for using a 'failed long-term relationship... for blatant political gain'.

'The party should be renamed Gutter SA,' he added.

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Nick Xenophon's (left) former 'secret girlfriend' Jenny Low (right) claims he was 'manipulative and controlling' during their 'destructive' secret seven-year relationship

Ms Low (centre) claimed Mr Xenophon, who is 25 years her senior, pursued her 'aggressively' after she worked as his campaign staffer in 2007

Mr Xenophon quit the federal parliament last month to run in SA's state election with the Independent SA-Best party - a direct rival of Ms Low's Advance SA Party.

Ms Low said she was 'very young' when her relationship with Mr Xenophon began.

'It is very difficult for me to speak about my experience with a man in power,' she said.

'The reality is a 48-year-old man in a position of power pursued a 23-year-old who was in a junior role - and denied the relationship to almost everyone.'

'It is not normal to be in a seven year relationship with somebody and for his family not to know.

'It is not normal to have your existence denied to everyone you meet except a handful of trusted people.'

'Lowest form of dirty and desperate political opportunism': Mr Xenophon emphatically denied the claims and questioned the timing of the 'distressing' claims

Ms Low said she never met Mr Xenophon's family during their seven-year relationship

When pressed on how Mr Xenophon was 'aggressive and manipulative', Ms Low said: 'there are many more details I could go into but I prefer not to.'

'I don't want to get into those elements, because it will serve no purpose other than to smear his name and I don't want to do that.

'This is not a personal matter.'

'I'd rather focus on what Advance SA can do for South Australia.'

Mr Xenophon flatly rejected the claims, saying he was 'most distressed by any suggestion my relationship with Jenny was abusive or predatory in any way'.

'I am deeply saddened that a failed long-term relationship that I was involved in has been used by the Advance SA Party for blatant political gain,' he added.

Ms Low (centre, with brother and sister) launched the attack just moments after announcing she would be running against him in the March state election under the Advance SA Party

Mr Xenophon said he had sparked a personal relationship with Ms Low after she finished working as one of his campaign staffers in 2007.

'After Jenny finished working for the campaign, our romantic relationship developed over time,' he said in a statement.

'The relationship waxed and waned and there were several long breaks until we finally parted company in mid-2014.

'We both sought and obtained relationship counselling together in late 2013 and early 2014. Sadly, that did not save our relationship.

'We talked about a future together but unfortunately we couldn't make it work. In the end we were not compatible.'

Mr Xenophon said the timing of the claims 'smacks of the lowest form of dirty and desperate political opportunism.'

'Im deeply disappointed the level of political debate in our state has plummeted to such depths,' he continued.

'When I entered this campaign I forecast my political opponents would throw everything at me including the proverbial kitchen sink. They clearly have not hesitated to get into the gutter at the first opportunity.'
Five foreign firms have been shortlisted for the 2.75billion contract to build 54 HS2 trains amid fears they could be built abroad.

Announcing the list yesterday, rail minister Paul Maynard said the contract would create thousands of skilled British jobs and apprenticeships.

But it emerged that the contract contains no binding clause forcing the winning bidder to build the 225mph trains in Britain, even if they are designed abroad.

The 225mph trains for the HS2 project will be maintained in a facility in Birmingham

The companies merely have to show their plans would boost the British economy.

No British firms design and build high-speed trains from the ground up, so the bidders are Frances Alstom Transport, Canadas Bombardier Transportation UK, Japans Hitachi Rail Europe, Spains Patentes Talgo and Germanys Siemens.

Unions and industry experts were quick to highlight Britains train-building capabilities last night, and three of the five shortlisted companies have factories in the UK.

A spokesman for the manufacturing trade group EEF said: UK industry has an extensive supplier base to support the manufacture of HS2 trains. It is in the interests of the taxpayer that this work is done here.

Diana Holland, assistant general secretary of the Unite union, said: The UK is home to a world-class rail manufacturing industry and supply chain.

Paul Maynard MP, pictured, said the HS2 contract would benefit thousands of British apprentices over the next few years

We would expect our train-making companies, with their highly skilled workforce, to be at the head of the queue.

The trains will be maintained in Washwood Heath, Birmingham, which is expected to create up to 500 jobs.

Some of the entries shortlisted by HS2 Ltd already have UK production lines.

Hitachis plant in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, is building more than 100 trains for the Great Western and East Coast lines.

Bombardier has a manufacturing centre in Derby. It said it had not decided where it would design and build the HS2 trains if it won the contract, but it was capable of doing so in Britain.

Alstom is building a train technology and manufacturing plant in Widnes, Cheshire.

Talgo plans to build a factory in the UK and has already visited potential locations in Leeds and Liverpool.

A spokesman for HS2 said: Contracts cover design, build and 12 years maintenance.

Each of the bidders is putting forward different proposals. Until we know the winner, we cant know exactly how many jobs will be created in the UK.
Young children should be banned from using smartphones over fears online porn and so-called 'sexting' is leading to rise in youth sex attacks.

In a Commons debate on abuse in schools, former culture secretary Maria Miller told MPs there should be age restrictions on smartphones in a bid to tackle the problem.

She said that young children shouldn't be allowed smartphones and tablets as she blamed technology for a rise in sex attacks.

The Tory MP for Basingstoke claimed technology could be as damaging to children as smoking and accused the Government and schools of failing in their duty of care to protect children.

Young children should be banned from using phones in a bid to stop sex attacks, an MP says

In a moving speech, she added that online companies should face a levy to help tackle extreme porn which is 'fuelling' a prolific increase in child-on-child sexual harassment in classrooms.

She said she had spoken to one mother whose six year-old was raped by a schoolmate. Another said his 12-year-old daughter had friends who sexted boys and speaking of sexual acts.

She told MPs: 'We should be considering age restrictions on tablets and smartphones. It wasn't long ago that we thought smoking didn't do us harm - now we know better.

'The second parent I spoke said his daughter was raped at school, and girls were being encouraged to have anal sex by their classmates.

'They have no idea they are experiencing sexual abuse if their first frame of reference is extreme porn.

'We've given our children access to the world through that technology but without the rules and regulations they see in every other aspect of their daily life,' she added.

Parents should stop tickling their children when they ask to teach them about consent, MPs were told yesterday

She said that 50 per cent of three-year-olds and 75 per cent of 11-year-olds use a tablet.

The SNP's Alison Thewliss said that lessons about consent should begin early to teach children that they should be listened to when they say 'no'.

'In thinking about consent, that also starts at a very young age as well - we can think about that with children too. We can do it with something as simple as tickling.

'If you're tickling a child and they say stop, you stop. That's teaching consent to very young children - they understand that, they know that,' she told the House of Commons.

The SNP's Alison Thewliss said that lessons about consent should begin early to teach children that they should be listened to when they say 'no'

'If you're building that kind of resilience from that young age they know if you want somebody to stop, you tell them to stop and that happens.'

Scotland is already set to be the first part of the UK to ban smacking after Nicola Sturgeon's government endorsed a proposed new law.

The legislation will remove the defence of 'justifiable assault' in Scots law, which allows parents to use physical punishment to admonish a child.

Labour MP Chris Elmore said he had needed surgery and suffered a breakdown after being beaten up after being accused of being a 'gayer'.

The Ogmore MP, who is not gay, said he was 'horrifically assaulted' at school at the age of 17 and had needed counselling after school friends attacked him.

He said he had been hospitalised several times and had suffered a breakdown at the age of 14, 16 and 17 following the abuse.

The experience meant he understood the 'horrors' of being attacked for being homosexual, he added, saying abuse in schools has a 'huge' effect on mental health.

'It leaves lasting scars on girls, and on some boys, in terms of when they move then into the workplace,' he said.

'And for those who have committed those offences, or offences in my view, they think it's then acceptable as I say for a society to carry on doing that.'
Most years, on the anniversary of Meredith Kerchers death, you can depend on Amanda Knox to pop back into the headlines in one way or another.

An appearance on a chat show, a pretty plea for clemency and understanding, a penitents gaze into the cameras, a halo brushed and gleaming.

She wrote a book in 2013 and appeared in a Netflix documentary last year, in which she claimed she was perceived as a psychopath in sheeps clothing.

This year, here she is again, regular as clockwork, as predictable as a bang on a dull and cracked gong. Foxy Knoxy has crassly marked the ten-year anniversary of the killing of her former housemate Meredith by publishing a rather self-serving essay.

Victim: Meredith Kercher and, right, Amanda Knox. Knox was twice found guilty of Kerchers murder before being finally acquitted by the Italian judiciary in 2015

There are some people who believe I have no right to mourn Meredith, she writes on the Westside Seattle website, in the West Coast U.S. city she calls home. They believe I had something to do with her murder  I didnt  or that Meredith has been forgotten in the wake of my own struggle for justice  she hasnt.

Knox, twice found guilty of Kerchers murder, before being finally acquitted by the Italian judiciary in 2015, recalls the things she loved about her closest friend Meredith  a girl she knew for only 40 days before the young Briton died of stab wounds.

Quick, pass me a sliced onion and a handkerchief. This is going to get emotional.

Apparently, Amanda loved Merediths cute ol English accent, and remembers fondly how they would have espressos, eat cookies and go shopping together.

She recalls how Meredith even loaned her a pair of tights  like a big sister would.

Such a lovely portrait of a rosy friendship! Perhaps she has forgotten that in the Netflix documentary, she admitted she and Meredith were not close. And it was no secret there had been friction between them over Knoxs unpaid household bills.

But never mind that. Soon, we get down to the real nitty gritty  the terrible, terrible suffering. Amandas suffering that is, not Merediths, or Merediths familys.

Indeed, Knox writes of her decade of suffering, in which her nice memories of Meredith are buried beneath horrific autopsy photos and crime scene footage.

Also to contend with were the slurs, false accusations and wrongful imprisonment, multiple trials, slanderous headlines and the shadows she just cannot shake off.

Knox wrote a book in 2013 and appeared in a Netflix documentary last year, in which she claimed she was perceived as a psychopath in sheeps clothing

Most of all, there is her gripe that the murder of Miss Kercher is something she cannot escape because her death is unfairly interlocked with my identity. Amanda just cant help herself, can she? It is always about her. She never stops to think about the Kerchers, whose loss is so much greater than hers.

Knox is trying to make her name as an author. If she really was a writer, shed stop putting herself in the middle of this tragedy and write about other things.

But she appears too self-centred and tone-deaf to the continuing misery of the Kerchers to do so.

Merediths sister, Stephanie, has also released a statement to mark the ten-year anniversary of the murder in Perugia.

Those who have had to experience the tragedy and despair of having someone taken from them in such a brutal way will tell you the pain and helplessness never ceases, she said.

She writes of seeing her sisters body in the morgue, how the desperate struggle Meredith had put up to live was clear by her wounds. Even now, the family remain baffled by the discrepancies. Particularly that the man now in jail  Rudy Guede  was convicted on the basis that he did not act alone.

Yet Italian police show no sign of investigating further into who else they think may have been involved.

Despite what TV detective dramas may have us believe, crimes are not always cracked. The guilty go free, the bereaved never get justice  and for the Kercher family, this is a particularly piercing agony. For them, the horror rolls on and on.

All the Kerchers want is justice  and for people to remember it was their daughter, not Knox, who was the victim in this crime.

Yet a decade on from that terrible night, Amanda Knox still tries to conflate her sense of grievance and victimhood with Merediths.

If she really cared about her special, tights-lending, coffee-drinking best friend, wouldnt she do the decent thing and keep quiet?

Christmas comes early for Kay Burley

Kay Burley was showing off her gorgeous cache of new Michael Kors outfits this week

Sky News anchor Kay Burley, who was showing off her gorgeous cache of new Michael Kors outfits this week, has finished her Christmas shopping.

Yes, I have, confirms Miss Burley. I have bought dozens of presents. With extras. I have a list of family, then friends, then children of friends, then people who make my life easier, then extras in case Ive forgotten anyone.

For seasonal one-upwoman-ship, that takes the eggnog-dunked biscotti. Yet Kay says it is not that she is super-organised, more that her birthday falls in December. She likes to plan ahead, so that she can enjoy her celebrations  and what she calls her gin-time.

Meanwhile, some have criticised her for posting details online of her 15,000 Kors outfits  which will only see her through six months.

Why? The outfits are paid for by her employer, and part of her job is looking good on-screen.

She looks fantastic! Thank goodness one woman in public life dresses well. Far too many are like potato sacks pretending to be liquorice allsorts caught in a hurricane.

I know Home Secretary Amber Rudd has bigger things to worry about, but she wore a dirndl the other day. What is wrong with these people?

Men are NOT the enemy

At the end of another week of tumult at Pestminster, Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said the culture has to change and the stables have to be cleared out.

I agree. Wellies and muck shovels at the ready. But I also think that accusations of misconduct have to amount to something more than a clammy hand almost brushing against a trembling knee, or a clumsy text (sent by the deputy prime minister Damian Green to a female journalist) that could be misinterpreted.

Women are better than this. For years, feminists fought on our behalf so that we had a place at the table, a foothold in the rough and tumble of public life.

The fight against discrimination and sexism gave us the chance to enjoy the freedoms we have today. Now I worry that those freedoms are being charred in a crazed witch hunt where men are always the enemy, whatever they do or do not do.

I am not a victim waiting to happen, and I dont respect any woman who is.

The case of Bex Bailey is much more serious, but equally troubling. The 25-year-old activist says that she was raped by a senior Labour Party official six years ago. She goes on to say that she was told by another party official not to report the attack because it could damage her political career.

I admire her for speaking out. But equally  and please, this is not a criticism of her or victim blaming  why would she even want to belong to a political party that demanded something so despicable, so loathsome and so retrogressive of her?

Treated royally, HM's corgis...

Favoured: The young Princess Elizabeth and a pet corgi

Following my item about the Queens admirable frugality, I received a lovely letter from a lady called Elizabeth (no relation to HM) who lives in Hampshire.

Many years ago, she had an interview at Windsor Castle for the position of Keeper of The Queens Linen. Unable to take the job because of illness, she was, nevertheless, impressed by her tour of the royal laundry rooms.

I hope I am not breaking the Official Secrets Act by revealing that there were linen sheets with the Crown emblem embroidered on them for the Queens use, she reveals, but everyone else had to make do with pink duvet sets, typical of a supermarket bed-linen pack.

Let them eat cake  and sleep on polycotton sheets! Isnt the Queen ruddy marvellous? Even better, Elizabeth reveals that when the in-house white Turkish towels were past their best, they were cut down and re-hemmed to be used as small towels for the corgis  that was going to be one of my duties.

Keeper of the Royal Corgi Towels! There are worse jobs out there.

Hard to decide who were the most annoying men on Newsnights discussion on sexual politics this week  the right-on young dudes, or the smug, dinosaur older dudes.

Far better to switch over to Nick Ferraris excellent After The News show on ITV. Already this new current affairs programme is a must-see. Instead of blithering bores, Ferrari had guests who were at the heart of the story of the week  including Julia Hartley-Brewer, on whose knee Michael Fallons hand once alighted. Dont waste time anywhere else.

Waynetta, the Material Girl

Are we to presume that Madonna has turned over a new leaf by flying economy to Portugal? Not really. Few carriers have first-class cabins on short-haul flights within Europe. And even the Material Girl must baulk at shelling out for private jets all the time, when she could be spending all that money on fingerless gloves and orphans.

Anyway, I love her Waynetta Slob camouflage  she really is an international mistress of disguise, isnt she? Black roots, greasy hair, awful trousers, Im-a-nobody shoes? Madonna could blend in anywhere, from Wetherspoons to Woollies. And thats just the way she likes it.

No, I dont suppose dog-walking pals Kay Benstead and Anne Finnie will be sharing prosecco and Hula Hoops any time soon.

Kay has been awarded 115,000 compensation after Annies pet Alsatian pulled her off her feet.

It happened in a London park when Annie gave the dogs lead to Kay to hold while she went to get them both coffees.

But the big dog pulled her over and she broke her arm and hip.

Kay had to take seven months off work, on sickness pay.

A friendship in tatters, and a reminder to all of us that life is much better if you can resolve your differences without recourse to lawyers. They almost always make everything much worse. Woof!
Ministers provoked anger yesterday by scrapping the blanket ban on prisoner voting.

Justice Secretary David Lidington caved into European judges by announcing that serving inmates would be allowed to take part in elections.

But only convicts out of jail on day release who are still on the electoral roll will qualify  expected to be fewer than 100.

Justice Secretary David Lidington caved into European judges by announcing that serving inmates would be allowed to take part in elections

Successive governments have spent more than a decade fighting a ruling won by axe killer John Hirst that the current blanket ban was unlawful because it breached prisoners human rights.

Mr Lidington insisted no offenders would be released in order to visit the ballot box and none will be allowed to vote from prison by post.

But the move to abandon the current rules is likely to cause concern that inmates locked up for more serious crimes will eventually be enfranchised.

Conservative MP Philip Davies said: Giving the vote to any prisoners is idiotic, unjustifiable and is about as popular with the general public as finding a rattlesnake in a lucky dip.

He said ministers were putting the rulings of unelected, unaccountable pseudo-judges  many of whom are not even proper judges in their country  above the views of the British public and the British Parliament.

Mr Lidington insisted no offenders would be released in order to visit the ballot box and none will be allowed to vote from prison by post

Philip Hollobone, also a Tory MP, said many backbenchers and members of the public would feel nausea at the decision.

As Prime Minister, David Cameron once said that the thought of prisoners voting made him feel physically ill.

The legal battle began in 2005 when murderer Hirst won a ruling at the European Court of Human Rights that barring prisoners from voting violated their human rights.

The row with Europe has troubled both Labour and Tory governments. Successive Prime Ministers have stood by the ban and it has been endorsed by MPs in repeated debates and votes, including in 2011.

Since then ministers have kicked the issue into the long grass. But now the Ministry of Justice has drawn up a compromise which it hopes will appease the Council of Europe, which oversees the convention.

Mr Lidington said the move would end an anomaly where prisoners released back into the community on licence using an electronic tag could vote but those on day release were banned.

Anyone imprisoned will be told they have lost their right to vote  most likely by judges at the time of sentencing

As voters drop off the electoral roll after a year if they do not register, which serving prisoners are unable to do, ministers insist only those serving under 12 months will be eligible.

Anyone imprisoned will be told they have lost their right to vote  most likely by judges at the time of sentencing. Not making this clear to criminals was criticised by the ECHR.

He said reinstating the civic right of voting would help with inmates rehabilitation while meeting human rights obligations.

Mr Lidington said the move, which will not need new legislation, would maintain the bar on convicted prisoners who are in custody from voting.

Proposals drawn up by the Ministry of Justice will now go to the Council of Europe for consideration.
Until 2014 if you drove over the Dartford Crossing between Kent and Essex, youd toss some coins into a basket when you reached the toll booth.

Now the booths are gone and motorists must pay online in advance of their journey, or by midnight the following day.

Try to park your car on a London street or in an increasing number of car parks nationwide, and youll be hard-pressed to find a pay and display machine.

Until 2014 if you drove over the Dartford Crossing between Kent and Essex, youd toss some coins into a basket when you reached the toll booth.

The only way to pay is via your mobile phone to call a central number or by an app such as RingGo or JustPark.

Some shops, such as the healthy eating chain Tossed, are even starting to refuse cash  theyre only interested in customers who pay by card.

Waitrose is also piloting cashless payments, while in many pubs, bars and restaurants you are immediately offered a card reader along with the bill, and staff seem mightily put out if they have to use the till.

As for travel, the Government aims to make all rail travel cashless by 2025, with passengers buying their tickets online, with a bank card, or via their mobile phone.

Indeed, the growing use of card and contactless payments is such that this week ATM operators announced they are considering axeing 10,000 machines from their networks.

The cashless economy is being forced on us by stealth as electronic payment increasingly becomes the only option.

The argument in its favour is convenience, but the truth is that its all about greed.

Firstly, there is the opportunity to collect fees. The Boston Consulting Group estimates that banks and payment companies such as Visa and Mastercard currently make $1 trillion annually worldwide in fees  typically paid by the retailer  for processing electronic payments.

Try to park your car on a London street or in an increasing number of car parks nationwide, and youll be hard-pressed to find a pay and display machine

This is predicted to double by 2023 as consumers, either through choice or coercion, switch to electronic methods of payment.

And it wont be just the retailers who are being fleeced. Currently, consumers are rarely charged fees to use credit cards and debit cards, but you can bet that would change if there was no option to pay in cash.

An even bigger prize is the opportunity that cashless payments offer to large corporations to collect vast amounts of personal information about individuals.

We are familiar with how tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Twitter harvest information about us via our internet searches and so on.

But few of us are aware that we are also feeding a vast data machine whenever we use our credit and debit cards.

But few of us are aware that we are also feeding a vast data machine whenever we use our credit and debit cards

This data  where, when and what we buy  can be sold on so other retailers can target us with advertising for similar products.

What we pay for in cash leaves no electronic trace and is a missed opportunity as far as the marketing industry is concerned. They want to be able to track every detail of our financial lives.

With full and instant access to data on our spending habits and financial resources, businesses can tailor their marketing to individuals and increase the chances of a purchase.

They may even adjust prices according to what they know about our income or where we live  higher prices for the more affluent.

There are more sinister aspects to consider, too: if we buy train tickets using a mobile phone, for example, then our movement around the network could be tracked. If we boarded the wrong train or used an off-peak ticket at a peak period by mistake, we could be instantly charged a penalty fare.

Data gleaned from our spending  in hotels or while abroad  might be used by insurance companies to work out how many nights we spend away from home.

If we were found to have spent more time away than specified in the terms of our policy, insurers could use the information to void a claim.

The tax office, meanwhile, would be able to track everything we spend, matching it to income and leading to greater scrutiny of our tax returns. It wouldnt just be tax cheats who got picked on in this way  anyone who went on a spending spree, perhaps using savings or a legacy, would be inviting attention.

As for the health service, with access to data on all the food and drink we buy one can foresee a day when people might be denied NHS treatment on the grounds of their inappropriate lifestyles.

Some might argue that none of this matters, that they dont mind having their shopping habits snooped upon. But surely we should be asked for our consent before personal data is used for commercial gain in this way?

It is worth noting that a previous government once considered doing away with cash as a matter of policy. Pressed to come up with a big idea to enliven David Camerons 2015 party conference speech, a Downing Street aide, Daniel Korski, hit upon a bold plan: why not announce the intention to turn Britain into the worlds first cashless economy by 2020?

According to Korski, discussions centred on promoting a cashless society as a way to cut fraud and tax evasion. Electronic payments, in theory at least, would leave a trail allowing more criminals to be caught.

The plan didnt make it into the speech because the then Chancellor, George Osborne, was worried that the public would not be ready for such a drastic change.

The Cameron government believed that going cashless would cut crime because electronic payments are theoretically traceable. That would be a more valid argument were it not for the explosion in online fraud which resulted in Britons losing a total of 755 million in 2015, much of it quickly siphoned abroad. What we have learned is that just because electronic payments are theoretically traceable doesnt mean that the police or anyone else is actually bothering to do the tracing.

Nevertheless, the withdrawal of cash from the economy is continuing, with little regard to the downsides.

One of those is systems failures. If cash were to be eradicated we would become utterly dependent on computer networks which have proved highly vulnerable.

In June 2012, a technician in Hyderabad in India made a small error while inputting data for an upgrade to the RBS computer system. The following day, customers of RBS, NatWest and Ulster Bank found themselves unable to make card payments, causing massive inconvenience and distress.

This has happened to RBS and others on several occasions since. At present, banks experiencing a computer failure can at least open their doors and allow customers to withdraw cash in person  as RBS did in 2012.

Many people, in any case, will keep some cash at home in case of just such an emergency.

If we no longer had the option of paying with cash, a computer failure would not be so easy to deal with and could cause the seizure of the entire economy.

The growing prevalence of technology that allows us to make payments with mobile phones via apps raises its own issues.

There is no way that, through choice, I will ever pay for anything using my mobile phone. For one thing I dont regard it as secure. We are warned not to access our bank accounts on insecure wi-fi networks, so why would you ever risk making a payment via a mobile phone?

I have also lost count of the number of times I have taken my phone out of my pocket and realised the battery has run down.

If my phone had to serve as wallet and train ticket as well as communications device, this would leave me stranded, unable to travel or buy anything.

Nor do I want to fiddle around with a mobile phone every time I want to make a small purchase which previously I could make with a few coins. When I attempted to pay for a ticket in a car park via a mobile phone recently, it took me 15 minutes to find adequate coverage and download the required app.

Using mobile phones might come naturally to youthful policymakers in Whitehall but it doesnt to everybody. Only 18 per cent of the over-65s own a smartphone, while one in ten Britons has never used the internet. What happens to them when nobody will take notes and coins?

Going cashless is indeed convenient  but it is for the convenience and profit of faceless corporations and the tech giants.

A cashless society might sound modern and efficient, but we will live to regret it if we allow government and big business between them to abolish the option of paying in cash.
First Daughter Ivanka Trump said Friday at a women's conference in Tokyo that workplace harassment 'can never be tolerated.'

The senior White House adviser, who was at the summit in her official capacity, said, 'All too often, our workplace culture fails to treat women with appropriate respect.

'This takes many forms including harassment, which can never be tolerated.'

The president's daughter's remarks were immediately pitted against allegations that her father had harassed women in the workplace when he was a businessman.

Aside from the Access Hollywood tape of Donald Trump claiming he grabbed a woman by her genitals, the former 'Apprentice' host and Miss Universe pageant owner has been accused by several women of inappropriate conduct in the workplace.

Scroll down for video

First Daughter Ivanka Trump took the stage at the World Assembly for Women conference alongside Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (left) where she focused on female entrepreneurs during a speech

Ivanka trump took the stage Friday at the World Assembly for Women conference alongside Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe where she focused on female entrepreneurs and women participating in the economy during a speech.

The mother of three touched down in Narita, which is east of Tokyo, on Thursday for the annual conference.

Her second official trip abroad as a senior White House adviser, the president's eldest daughter said that the world must boost women and minority participation in the fields of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).

'Female and minority participation in STEM fields is moving in the wrong direction,' she said. 'We must create equal participation in these traditionally male-dominated sectors of our economy.'

She said her father's tax reforms - unveiled by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday - would benefit American families.

'We are seeking to simplify the tax code, lower rates, expand the child tax credit, eliminate the marriage penalty, and put more money back in the pockets of hard-working Americans,' she told a meeting room in a Tokyo hotel that had a large number of empty seats.

Her appearance at the summit two days before her father arrives in Tokyo for talks had been hyped by the Japanese government, but the New York Times reports that the room was only half full.

White House spokesman Josh Raffel told the Times that the first daughter's speech was the 'most registered event' at the conference - 'security delayed everyone from being able to get into the room on time.'

A foreign ministry representative, Kyoko Hokugo, also said, 'It was unfortunate that there were several people who could not enter the room during the speeches of Prime Minister Abe and Ms. Ivanka Trump. We needed to shut the door during their speeches for our security reasons.'

In her remarks, Trump also talked workplace harassment, inviting commentary of her father's previous conduct.

Rachel Crooks says Trump kissed her outside an elevator bank in 2005 when she working as receptionist for a real estate firm housed inside Trump Tower.

Ninni Laaksonen, a former Miss Universe contestant, claims Trump grabbed her butt during a photo before an appearance on the Late Show in 2006.

Former Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado came after Trump last year, as she threw her support behind Democrat Hillary Clinton, for calling her 'Miss Piggy' and 'Miss Housekeeping' and fat shaming her in an interview, saying 'this is somebody who likes to eat.'

Summer Zervos, once a competitor on Trump's hit television show, 'The Apprentice,' says Trump sexually harassed her in 2007.

Zervos says Trump groped and kissed her during a meeting that year. She's suing him for defamation over his charge last year that a dozen women making allegations against him were 'liars.'

'The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over,' Trump said.

The president's personal lawyers filed a motion this week to have Zervos case thrown out on the grounds that Trump's comments were made in the context of a political event and should therefore be interpreted as political speech, and not defamation.

Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz, said there is 'no merit' for her case anyway, because it 'is based on allegations of events that never occurred.'

The mother of three touched down in Narita, which is east of Tokyo, earlier on Thursday for the annual conference. She spoke ahead of her father's presidential visit to the country

During her second official trip abroad as White House adviser, the president's eldest daughter also spoke about women participating in the economy. She said said that the world must boost women and minority participation in the fields of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM)

Ivanka also said her father's tax reforms - unveiled by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday - would benefit American families

At Friday's event, Abe said his government was aiming to mobilize women in Japan's workforce and boost economic growth, launching policies such as improved childcare in his 'Womenomics' program.

'We've put our full strength into creating an environment where it's easy for women to work,' Abe said in an opening address to the conference.

'I really feel that Japan has come a long way,' he said.

Japan's gender gap remains wide despite such efforts, with little progress made since Abe vowed at the United Nations in 2013 to create 'a society where women can shine'.

Japan ranked 114 out of 144 in the World Economic Forum's 2017 Global Gender Gap report - sandwiched between Guinea and Ethiopia and down 13 places since Abe took power.

Abe appointed only two women to ministerial posts in a Cabinet reshuffle in August, down from three and five respectively in his previous two cabinets. Only 14 percent of Japan's lawmakers are women.

Sporting a bright pink skirt suit with pearl embellished buttons, Ivanka was all smiles for the special event.

After she finished, she tweeted: 'The fact is, ALL women are 'working women.' Let's continue to empower women and ensure they succeed in our modern economy. #WAW2017'

Men also dominate decision-making in business in Japan. Only 3.7 percent of Japanese-listed company executives were women at the end of July, according to the Cabinet Office, barely changed from 3.4 percent a year earlier.

After her speech, the impeccably dressed 36-year-old posed for pictures with Abe on stage.

Sporting a bright pink skirt suit with pearl embellished buttons, Ivanka was all smiles for the special event.

After she finished, she tweeted: 'The fact is, ALL women are 'working women.' Let's continue to empower women and ensure they succeed in our modern economy. #WAW2017'

Travels: Ivanka Trump landed in Japan on Thursday ahead of her speech on female entrepreneurship, which she is due to give on Friday in Tokyo

Arrival: The first daughter, 36, touched down in Narita, east of Tokyo, where she is due to speak about women's role in the economy during Friday's World Assembly for Women 2017

Long journey: Ivanka kept her sunglasses on inside the airport, shielding her eyes after her 14-hour flight from Washington, DC

Greetings: She smiled at the cameras as she passed the photographers and continued her exit

She touched down in the country after a 14-hour flight from the U.S. and waved at the group of photographers who gathered to capture her arrival.

She made sure a member of her entourage filmed her glamorous arrival as she made her way down the escalator, and later shared the footage with her 3.9 million followers on her Instagram Story.

The clip shows Ivanka arriving to Narita International Airport, then focuses on the many photographers taking her picture, before focusing on the first daughter again.

The senior White House adviser, who is traveling at the invitation of Abe, donned a thigh-length, light blue coat white a white, black-rimmed collar.

Ivanka paired the statement jacket with black tailored pants and black flats with a prominent black bow on top.

She finished off her outfit with pearl earrings and a large black purse.

Documenting: She made sure a member of her entourage filmed her glamorous arrival and later shared the footage with her 3.9 million followers on her Instagram Story

VIP: The clip shows Ivanka arriving to Narita International Airport, then focuses on the many photographers taking her picture, before focusing on the first daughter again

Saying hello: Ivanka can be seen in the video pausing to let photographers take her picture, then continuing on her way out

Sharing: The first daughter also posted this photo on her Instagram account to document her visit to Japan

Snaps: Another photo shared by Ivanka on Instagram shows her waving at photographers gathered behind a barrier to capture her arrival

Fine dining: Right after her landing, Ivanka went to enjoy a traditional kaiseki meal, a refined, meticulously prepared multi-course dinner

Mementos: Ivanka shared photos of herself enjoying her meal on Instagram. She can be seen bringing a bowl to her lips and interacting with their hosts

Hospitality: Kaiseki meals, such as the one Ivanka enjoyed, are among the finest cuisine in the world, and are served on individual trays to each guest

Right after her landing, Ivanka went to enjoy a traditional kaiseki meal, a refined, meticulously prepared multi-course dinner.

Kaiseki meals, which are among the finest cuisine in the world, are served on individual trays to each guest. They can vary in composition, but typically include an appetizer served with sake, sashimi, a simmered dish, grilled food, rice, and dessert.

Ivanka shared photos of herself enjoying her meal on Instagram. She can be seen bringing a bowl to her lips and interacting with their hosts, whom she thanked for their hospitality in the caption.

The first daughter was initially supposed to travel with her father after her speech, during President Donald Trump's 12-day trip around Asia, which is his first official visit to the continent as commander-in-chief.

But she is now due to return to the US right after finishing her speech in order to continue pushing for her father's proposed tax reform.

Ivanka, along with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and economic adviser Gary Cohn, will hold tax reform events in the U.S., instead, laying the public opinion groundwork with voters while President Trump is away visiting Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

A trip to China for Ivanka would have been bad optics, as her Chinese clothing factories have attracted negative headlines in recent months.

A White House official told DailyMail.com that Trump canceled meetings in both China and South Korea to come back to the U.S. for tax reform events at the request of the president.

Both Ivanka and Jared Kusher, her husband and fellow White House adviser, accompanied the president on his two previous foreign trips, though they broke off to spend a date night in Rome in May, before peeling off and heading back to the United States.

Sartorial: The senior White House adviser, who is traveling at the invitation of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, donned a thigh-length, light blue coat white a white collar

Details: Ivanka paired the statement jacket with black tailored pants and black flats with a prominent black bow on top.

Accessories: The first daughter finished off her outfit with pearl earrings and a black purse

Before she left, Ivanka shared her excitement over her trip to Japan, even as she admitted that she will miss her three children while she is away.

The 36-year-old was pictured leaving her Washington, DC home on Wednesday morning to head out for her flight.

On that same morning, Ivanka shared a cuddly photo of herself with her three children Arabella, six, Joseph, four, and Theodore, one, just before she set off.

'I'm looking forward to visiting Japan, but sure will miss these three!' Ivanka wrote on Instagram at around 9 am Wednesday morning.

The photo, which appears to have been taken at bedtime the night before, shows Ivanka sitting in a large white bed surrounded by her children.

The first daughter is dressed comfortably in leggings, a black sweater, and socks, and appears to have washed her make-up off for the night.

She is holding a picture book, with Arabella sitting to her right in red and white pajamas, her hair freshly washed.

Off she goes! She was spotted leaving her home for her trip to Japan on Wednesday morning

A little help: A team loaded Ivanka's luggage into the car before she left

Last hugs: Before leaving, the 36-year-old shared a photo of herself with her three kids, which appears to have been taken the night before while reading a bedtime story

Set up: On Halloween, she and Jared Kushner left buckets of candy out for trick-or-treaters, with what looks like beer for parents

Trick or treat! Families stopped by their home to pick out candy on the spooky occasion

Shortly after sharing the snap of her kids, Ivanka was pictured leaving her DC home to catch her flight.

Dressed for the cooler November weather, she wore a heavy-looking black skirt with a small slit up one leg, layered with a $60 chunky gray sweater from Zara, which was covered in pearl-like embellishments.

She accessorized with a pair of gray suede heels but didn't carry a purse as she walked out to a waiting SUV. Her luggage was carried to the car for her and loaded into the trunk by various staff members.

The first daughter managed to find time to pack despite a busy schedule this week, which included celebrating her birthday on Monday and Halloween on Tuesdayand though neither she nor Jared stayed home to greet trick-or-treaters, they did leave a bowl of candy and a pitcher of what looked like beer for parents outside.
Another Hollywood actress has come forward with new rape allegations against disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Actress Paz de la Huerta, known for her roles in 'Boardwalk Empire' and 'Cider House Rules,' claims that the powerful movie producer raped her twice in 2010.

The New York Police Department and the Manhattan district attorney's office have now opened an investigation into the matter, according to The New York Post.

The incidents, as alleged by Paz de la Huerta (pictured right in Boardwalk Empire) occurred in a two month time frame, once in October 2010 and again in December

Paz de la Huerta (pictured), 33, known for her role in 'Boardwalk Empire', said the first incident occurred after a party (Pictured: February 23, 2016_

Paz, 33, claims the two had met at a party in October 2010, and was offered a ride back to her Manhattan apartment.

Weinstein lived in the same neighborhood, and according to Paz, insisted on having drinks at her place to cap off the night.

But things took a dark turn once they got inside her home, with Paz telling CBS News in a phone interview that he took off her dress and forced himself on her.

'He pushed me on the bed ... and it happened all very suddenly,' she said.

The second incident occurred two months later after Weinstein waited for her outside her Manhattan apartment (Pictured: de la Huerta in Cider House Rules)

Two months later, Weinstein allegedly showed up at her apartment after the actress reportedly confronted him weeks earlier. That's when Paz said he made his way back into the apartment and raped her again.

Law enforcement officials say that they are aware of the incident and have appointed a senior sex crimes investigator to conduct an investigation.

'We are aware of the sexual assault complaints,' the NYPD said in a statement.

'We are actively investigating them. The NYPD continues to work with the Manhattan District Attorney's office on the case. The investigation is ongoing,' the statement added.

Since the beginning of October, more than 65 women, including A-list celebrities to budding actresses, have come forward to accuse him of exploiting his position.

Women including Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, and Cara Delevingne have told how Weinstein abused his position of influence and power in the movie industry to attempt to pressure them into sexual encounters.

The accusations range from inappropriate massages to rape.

Weinstein, who is also being investigated by the Beverly Hills Police department, maintains his innocence and denies any allegations of non-consensual sex.


Actor Vince Colosimo has been convicted and fined for driving through Melbourne's CBD while suspended and under the influence of the illegal drug ice.

Colosimo pleaded guilty on Friday in Melbourne Magistrates' Court after being charged with driving on a suspended licence with the drug in his system, when stopped and tested on March 5.

The 50-year-old said nothing in court, except to acknowledge that he understood the penalty.

Vince Colosimo (pictured) was convicted and fined for driving under the influence of ice

He said nothing in court, except to acknowledge that he understood the penalty

Colosimo is to pay a $3,500 fine and his license is suspended for five months

Magistrate David Starvaggi convicted and fined him $3500. He also cancelled his licence for five months.

It was the third time that Colosimo had been caught driving on a suspended license, The Age reported.

The magistrate said that even a child in kindergarten could understand the issue of driving under the influence.

'You're building a nice little history for yourself here,' he said.

'You're risking a jail term ... if you're back here for a fourth time it won't be pretty.'

Colosimo must also pay some court costs, as well as the fine and five-month license suspension.

The actor's license was suspended when he was stopped and tested on March 5
President Donald Trump stoked intra-party Democratic tensions as he took off for a trip to Asia  accusing 'Crooked' Hillary Clinton of 'cheating' and stealing her primary win over Sen. Bernie Sanders and urged a criminal probe

He picked up on sensational charges in a new book by a leading Democratic operative  and leaned on his own Justice Department to probe his election rival even as his own campaign remains under investigation for Russia ties.

'I always felt I would be running and winning against Bernie Sanders, not Crooked H, without cheating, I was right,' Trump tweeted late Friday morning as he began his trip.

'Bernie Sanders supporters have every right to be apoplectic of the complete theft of the Dem primary by Crooked Hillary!' Trump wrote.

'She stole the election from Bernie. So thats what you want to take a look at,' said President Trump

The president posted the accusations after his plane had taken off from Joint Base Andrews for Hawaii.

Trump has accused his 2016 opponent of having stolen her primary victory from Sanders, a Vermont senator  as he repeatedly encouraged the FBI to investigate.

'Honestly they should be looking at the Democrats,' he said of his own Justice Department, after acknowledging Thursday it was wise not his role to interfere in the judicial process.

Trump alleged that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee violated campaign finance and money laundering laws in the run up to the 2016 Presidential Election and the primaries that proceeded it.

The president accused his 2016 rival of 'cheating'

Trump said Sanders supporters had the right to be 'apoplectic'

He amped up his attack Friday morning shortly before beginning his trip to Asia, while pushing back the latest developments in the Russia probe, including claims by two former campaign aides that he entertained a proposal during a March 2016 security meeting with aides to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

'All I can tell you is this. There was no collusion,' Trump told reporters. 'You want to look at Hillary Clinton and you want to look at the new book that was just put out by Donna Brazile, where she basically bought the DNC and she stole the election from Bernie. So thats what you want to take a look at.

Trump wrote that 'everybody' is asking about the DOJ and 'Crooked' Hillary Clinton

He referenced a stunning new book by Donna Brazile

Trump called for the FBI and Justice to 'do what is right and proper'

'I'm really not involved with the Justice Department. I'd like to let it run itself. But honestly they should be looking at the Democrats. They should be looking at Podesta and all of that dishonesty. They should be looking at a lot of things. And a lot of people are disappinted in the Justice Department, including me,' Trump said.

He was referring to Democratic power lobbyist Tony Podesta, who stepped down from his firm after reports the firm did work for a Ukrainian political party that wasn't properly disclosed.

Trump tweeted Friday morning that 'everybody' is asking why the FBI wasn't investigating his primary rival.

President Trump believes Hillary Clinton broke a joint fundraising agreement signed in 2015

Although he didn't explicitly repeat his campaign call to 'lock her up,' he went back to his favorite 2016 moniker, labeling her 'Crooked Hillary,' following stunning disclosures by former Democratic Party interim chair Donna Brazile that Clinton siphoned money out of the party and effectively took it over months before she captured her party's nomination.

'Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn't looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems,' Trump wrote in the first tweet in a series Friday morning.

'New Donna B book says she paid for and stole the Dem Primary. What about the deleted E-mails, Uranium, Podesta, the Server, plus, plus...People are angry. At some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper. The American public deserves it!' Trump said.

Then Trump brought back another of his famous insults, this time for Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Senator who got edged out by Clinton.

'The real story on Collusion is in Donna B's new book. Crooked Hillary bought the DNC & then stole the Democratic Primary from Crazy Bernie!' Trump wrote.

Just Thursday, Trump had seemed to acknowledge that it wasn't his place to tell the Justice Department whom to investigate.

'The real story on Collusion is in Donna B's new book. Crooked Hillary bought the DNC & then stole the Democratic Primary from Crazy Bernie!' Trump wrote Friday

'But you know the saddest thing, because I'm the president of the United States I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department. I am not supposed to be involved with the FBI,' Trump told WMAL's Larry O'Connor.

'I'm not supposed to be doing the kinds of things I would love to be doing and I'm very frustrated by it,' the president acknowledged.

On Thursday, Trump tweeted, 'Donna Brazile just stated the DNC RIGGED the system to illegally steal the Primary from Bernie Sanders. Bought and paid for by Crooked H....'

'This is real collusion and dishonesty. Major violation of Campaign Finance Laws and Money Laundering - where is our Justice Department?' the President continued in a second Tweet.

The tweet was in response to an explosive piece by former Democratic National Committee interim chair Donna Brazile in her upcoming book.

Brazile alleges that she found 'proof' the 2016 Democratic primary was rigged in Clinton's favor. She notes, however, that she believes no laws were violated.

The fundraising agreement, signed in August 2015 during the primary process, was unusual for an open seat.

Months later, Clinton's chief challenger, independent Senator Bernie Sanders, signed his own agreement with the party.

In the piece, Brazile alleges that before Clinton became the Democratic nominee, her campaign signed a joint fundraising agreement with the DNC and Hillary Victory Fund, in which her campaign would finance the DNC in exchange for oversight from the Clinton campaign.

Usually, the nominee doesn't take over fundraising until after they have accepted the nomination.

'This is real collusion and dishonesty,' Trump says.

Speaking on Fox News on Thursday night, the President said that he felt sorry for Bernie Sanders who lost the Democratic primary to Mrs Clinton.

''I think it's a major story. It's illegal and it's really very unfair to Bernie Sanders. I got a lot of his votes when he thrown out, but I thought it was terrible,' Mr Trump said.

In a late-night Tweet, President Trump alleged Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee violated campaign finance and money laundering laws in the 2016 Election

Brazile has written a tell-all article about the dysfunction and mismanagement she uncovered at the organization she was brought in to run after hacked emails revealed efforts by party insiders to tilt the scales toward Clinton.

Brazile, who was herself thrown into controversy when it was revealed she passed on debate questions to the Clinton camp, unloads on her predecessor, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and discloses a smoking gun document in the form of a fundraising agreement that sent resources to the Clinton camp.

Astonishingly, Elizabeth Warren - who campaigned with Clinton - said she believed Brazile.

Asked on CNN by Jake Tapper: 'Do you agree with notion that it was rigged' she answered simply: 'Yes.'

'This is a real problem but what we've got to do its to hold this party accountable,' she said.

Brazille alleges that Hillary Clinton's campaign seized control of the Democratic National Committee months before she won her party's nomination.

It resulted in diverting resources away from struggling state parties, and allowed the national party to accumulate a mountain of debt, writes former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile.

Former interim DNC chair Donna Brazile has written a scorching book about the Clinton camp's virtual takeover of the party before she got the Democratic nomination

'Debbie was not a good manager. She hadn't been very interested in controlling the partyshe let Clinton's headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired so she didn't have to inform the party officers how bad the situation was,' Brazile writes in an essay in Politico magazine.

Brazile only learned of the party's financial troubles in July after she was named interim chair after Wasserman Schultz stepped down, in a call with CFO Gary Gensler.

'What?' I screamed. 'I am an officer of the party and they've been telling us everything is fine and they were raising money with no problems,' she writes that she told him.

One culprit was President Obama, who failed to refill party coffers after his 2012 win.

Hillary Clinton on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Credit: Comedy Central/The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

Former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile writes in a new book that Hillary Clinton virtually took overthe DNC just four months after she announced her run, before she even got the nomination

'Obama left the party $24 million in debt$15 million in bank debt and more than $8 million owed to vendors after the 2012 campaign and had been paying that off very slowly. Obama's campaign was not scheduled to pay it off until 2016,' Brazile writes.

Clinton's fundraising took care of the remaining debt - then put the DNC, which is supposed to be neutral until there is a nominee, on 'an allowance.'

Gensler laid out the state of affairs in a phone call. 'He described the party as fully under the control of Hillary's campaign, which seemed to confirm the suspicions of the Bernie camp. The campaign had the DNC on life support, giving it money every month to meet its basic expenses, while the campaign was using the party as a fund-raising clearing house,' according to Brazile.

She says Wasserman Schultz ignored her board of directors, including on the bombshell development that Russia hacked the DNC's emails.

'She seemed to make decisions on her own and let us know at the last minute what she had decided, as she had done when she told us about the hacking only minutes before the Washington Post broke the news,' she writes.

When the Hillary Victory Fund organized big donors fundraisers who cut checks that were to go to state parties, the funds came back to her won Brooklyn headquarters.

Brazile says she called rival Bernie Sanders had told him she had discovered 'cancer' in the organization

Brazile blasts Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, who stepped down as chair during the campaign following the release of hacked emails

'Money in the battleground states usually stayed in that state, but all the other states funneled that money directly to the DNC, which quickly transferred the money to Brooklyn,' according to Brazile.

States 'kept less than half of 1 percent of the $82 million they had amassed from the extravagant fund-raisers Hillary's campaign was holding,' according to Brazile.

The party was burning through up to $4 million each month.

'When I got back from a vacation in Martha's Vineyard, I at last found the document that described it all: the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America,' according to Brazile.

In exchange for its fundraising, 'Hillary would control the party's finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff,' according to Brazile.

Brazile describes a joint fundraising agreement between Clinton and the DNC as a smoking gun

She said she was searching for evidence of 'internal corruption' before she found the agreement. It wasn't illegal, 'but it sure looked unethical,' she writes.

She writes that she called Sanders to tell him what she'd found. 'Hello, senator. I've completed my review of the DNC and I did find the cancer,' she says she told him. 'But I will not kill the patient.'

She says she urged Sanders to urge his supporters to back Clinton anyway, and says she told him she had concerns about Clinton holding together the Obama coalition.

'When I hung up the call to Bernie, I started to cry, not out of guilt, but out of anger. We would go forward. We had to,' she writes.
Koulanakis, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, called fentanyl 'a chemical' and likened it to a chemical weapon

China is using fentanyl as a potent 'weapon' in a '21st Century Opium War against America,' an academic has declared, arguing President Trump must stop it.

In his latest opinion piece for McClatchy's DC Bureau, Markos Koulanakis, a senior fellow at Hungary's Central European University, laid at least part of the responsibility for America's opioid crisis at China's door.

It's a move that echoed the comments President Trump made on October 26, when he declared that the opioid crisis is a public health emergency. During that speech, Trump called out China for exporting fentanyl to America and vowed to crack down on its importation.

Trump also said that he intended to press the issue of fentanyl exports when speaking with China's President Xi Jinping during his first official trip to Asia  from November 5 to 14  which includes stops in China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines.

'Forcing China's hand on fentanyl is the right thing to do,' Koulanakis wrote, adding that, 'If Trump can get China to constrain its cheap supply, he might significantly reduce the problem' of the easy supply fueling America's destructive demand for illegally-obtained opioids.

Koulanakis, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, noted that Trump 'holds undeniable moral authority' when discussing substance abuse in light of the death of his older brother, Fred Trump, who died of complications from alcoholism.

Because synthetic opioid fentanyl is 'ultimately, a chemical,' Koulanakis urged Trump, while in Beijing, to 'use his plain talk and pushy style' to impress upon Xi that 'with Chinese fentanyl, America is under attack and a chemical weapons red line is being crossed.'

President Trump has called out China for exporting fentanyl (seen here in two different dirivatives) to America and vowed to crack down on its importation

Koulanakis believes Chinese president Xi Jinping (right with Trump) can direct the same authority he wields to arrest protesters and bloggers, to stop Chinese cartels from producing fentanyl and shipping it to the US

Koulanakis also stated that Xi should be able to use his 'monopoly power' to 'monitor and manage domestic criminal activity.'

After all, Koulanakis wrote, 'Since China already easily and regularly arrests bloggers, VPN users, artists, protesters, and other innocents, it can certainly find and disrupt criminal cartels cooking up deadly street drugs for sale in America.'

However, should Xi prove to be incapable of stopping the production and export of Chinese fentanyl, Koulanakis said, 'then the United States needs to take an even more aggressive stance against China.'
The young doctor who was repeatedly stabbed and doused in petrol in her own home by her crazed ex-boyfriend has shared a photo of the scars online.

Angela Jay was brutally attacked by Paul Lambert, 36, who broke into her Port Macquarie home in November 2016 before stabbing her 11 times 'wanting to destroy [her]'.

A year after the violent assault, Dr Jay shared a photo of a scar on her thigh and forearm to social media.

Dr Angela Jay was repeatedly stabbed and doused in petrol in her own home by her crazed ex-boyfriend has shared a photo of the scars (pictured) online one year later

Dr Jay (pictured) was brutally attacked by Paul Lambert, 36, who broke into her Port Macquarie home in November 2016 before stabbing her 11 times

The 28-year-old doctor met Lambert, (pictured) who was later shot dead by police, on Tinder

'Even when there are physical scars to see, it's the scars you can't that hurt the most,' Dr Jay wrote beside the photo.

'A year ago today my life changed forever.

'I narrowly escaped murder, and a part of me definitely died that day.

'I think about the terror I felt every day.

'Sometimes it's a brief thought when my scars ache or burn and other days the memory incessantly haunts me.

'I'm so grateful to my family, friends and colleagues who have supported me over the last year and continue to give me strength as I struggle along.'

The 28-year-old doctor met Lambert, who was later shot dead by police, on Tinder before ending their relationship after six weeks because he was too possessive.

Lambert was waiting for Dr Jay to finish her shift at the local hospital before he grabbed her by the mouth with a knife in one hand.

'I narrowly escaped murder, and a part of me definitely died that day,' Dr Jay posted online

Dr Jay said Lambert had wanted 'to destroy [her]' after she ended their six week relationship

'Sometimes it's a brief thought when my scars ache or burn and other days the memory incessantly haunts me,' Dr Jay wrote

Lambert was waiting for Dr Jay to finish her shift at the local hospital before he grabbed her by the mouth with a knife in one hand, stabbed her and doused her in petrol

Realising she was going to die, Dr Jay ran but was quickly caught by the 36-year-old man.

'I didn't actually feel him stabbing me but I could see the blood when I looked down,' Dr Jay told Sunday Night in May this year.

'I just thought in my head, "Oh my God he's actually stabbing me, he's going to actually kill me".'

Feeling 'scared and alone', Lambert poured petrol over Dr Jay's head before she was able to escape to her neighbours next door.

There, the young doctor instructed her neighbour to perform first aid because she thought she was going to 'bleed to death' in their garage while they waited for the ambulance.

Dr Jay (pictured) escaped to her neighbour and instructed them how to do first aid in the shed

With many of the 'stab wounds in [her] legs and hip', Dr Jay said she wanted people to see the 'true message' of domestic violence

Meanwhile, Lambert fled the scene in a white hire car leading police on a wild chase for 150 kilometres up the Pacific Highway.

The 36-year-old was forced off the road by police, who he then charged at with a knife before being shot dead.

'[It was] Almost a euphoric sense, like, you know, I somehow got away and he's gone. I don't have to worry... I'm well and truly safe,' Dr Jay said.

Dr Jay, who said she felt like she was kept alive for a reason, aims to share the 'significance of domestic violence' and raised more than $80,000 for White Ribbon Australia.

With many of the 'stab wounds in [her] legs and hip', Dr Jay said she wanted people to see the 'true message' of domestic violence.
Donald Trump laid down an immigration marker on Thursday, saying that if congressional Democrats want to maintain an Obama-era initiative protecting so-called 'Dreamers' from deportation, there will be at least two strings attached.

The president told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that initial funding for a border wall and a ban on 'chain migration' will be pre-conditions of any deal to save the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Trump formally ended DACA in September but gave Congress six months to write it into law, a move that now appears to be a ploy for negotiating leverage.

Hanging in the balance are as many as 800,000 people who were brought across the border illegally as children; many arrived as infants.

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President Donald Trump says that if congressional Democrats want to maintain an Obama-era initiative protecting so-called 'Dreamers' from deportation, they'll have to give up a 'chain migration' policy and fund his border wall

'I think for $18 billion or less we're going to have a great wall. We're doing prototypes right now,' Trump said Thursday on the Fox News Channel

About 800,000 people are living illegally in America after being brought across the border as children  and they've become an immigration bargaining chip in the battle between Democrats and Republicans

Under chain-migration policies, immigrants granted legal visas to enter the United States may sponsor family members to follow them.

Chain-migration has become a household word since news that accused terrorist Sayfullo Saipov may have sponsored as many as 23 relatives to enter the U.S.

Most GOP lawmakers are coalescing around a proposal under which sponsors would only be able to get green cards for their spouses and minor children.

Changing the policy 'will be part of a DACA deal,' Trump said Thursday.

'I don't think any Republican would vote for anything having to do with leaving chain migration. Chain migration is a disaster for this country, and it's horrible,' he said.

The issue has become front-page news since the revelation that New York terror suspect Sayfullo Saipov may have sponsored as many as 23 people since he entered the U.S. on a 'diversity lottery' visa in 2010.

Trump's promised border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, too, will be a prerequisite Democrats will have to go along with.

'The wall is actually coming along pretty well. That will also be a part of DACA or whatever,' he said.

Ingraham pressed him on whether he will demand enough government money to complete the construction, or only a mere 'down payment.'

Trump appeared on 'The Ingraham Angle,' a new Fox News Channel program, saying that changing the existing chain migration policy 'will be part of a DACA deal'

'When we get the down payment we're going to have a guarantee, believe me. We're not taking a down payment and then saying, "Where's the rest of the money?"' Trump insisted.

'When we take a down payment, I'm going say, "I want to make sure the rest of the money is coming".'

He predicted that the project will cost $18 billion, covering sections of wall where natural geographic barriers don't already exist separating the U.S. from its neighbor south of the border.

'They're saying the wall's going to cost $40 billion. It's not going to cost anywhere near that. The Democrats are saying [that]. We're talking about less than half,' he said.

Immigration activists and DACA recipients rallied in Washington on September 12; Democrats want the DREAMers to get an amnesty without wrapping other legislation into the same bill

How much? Democrats say a border wall will cost $40 billion but Trump, the builder-president, insists it can be done for less than half that amount

'I think for $18 billion or less we're going to have a great wall. We're doing prototypes right now.'

It's unclear when the collision of immigration priorities will occur on Capitol Hill, but it's increasingly unlikely to come until 2018.

Some GOP senators told the Associated Press after a White House meeting on Thursday that the president had agreed not to attach the issues to a must-pass spending bill scheduled for year's end.

Democrats have indicated that they want to use the budget legislation to force the issue, threatening to hold it up if a DACA fix isn't included.

'No immigration bill on the omnibus or any other must-pass piece of legislation in 2017,' said Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, explaining that Trump had 'agreed to that, as does the Senate leadership, and I think the vast majority of Republican senators.'

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said using the so-called 'omnibus' spending bill to resolve the status of Dreamers was 'the pipe dream of some Democrats.'

'It's more likely than not to be part of a January-February time frame,' Cornyn said.
Police say startled shoppers at the Colorado Walmart where a shooter opened fire and killed three stalled the search process after they drew their own handguns in defense.

The shoppers' immediate response to the violent event 'absolutely slowed' investigation as it left authorities scanning through surveillance tapes in pursuit of the single armed attacker.

The few innocent yet armed individuals were eventually weeded out as suspects, amid the several hour-long investigation which began Wednesday night and into Thursday morning.

A police spokesperson confirmed after the building had been deemed 'safe enough' to enter, officials quickly began examining footage from inside the supermarket, according to The Denver Post.

'That's when we started noticing that a number of individuals had pulled weapons,' said Victor Avila, who works in part for the Thornton Police Department.

'At that point, as soon as you see that, that's the one you try to trace through the store, only to maybe find out that's not him, and we're back to ground zero again, starting to look again. That's what led to the extended time.'

The suspect, Scott Ostrem, 47, was arrested on Thursday at 8am, ten hours after allegedly opening fire at the Walmart superstore in Thornton, Colorado.

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Father-of-two Victor Vasquez was named and pictured by relatives as they raised money on social media to help his family. He was pronounced dead at the Walmart on Wednesday night

Grandfather Carlos Moreno, 66, (left) and Pam Marques, 52, also died in the shooting

Further investigation found Ostrem to be a failed businessman with astronomical credit card debt as well as a bad reputation with his neighbors.

He was arrested near an apartment complex in Twin Lakes around seven miles south of the shooting by police who received a tip that the gunman lived there.

The tipster recognized Ostrem from surveillance footage which showed him entering the store and which police released late on Wednesday as they tried to find him.

On Thursday morning, officers were already at the apartment block when Ostrem drove past in his red, four-door Mitsubishi Mirage. They chased him for a mile and then arrested him by the side of the road.

Neighbors have since described him as 'evil' and told how he walked around with a rifle bag slung over one shoulder.

As details of his Ostrem's life emerged on Thursday, including his $58,000 credit card debt and failed business attempts, the three people who died in the shooting were identified.

They are father-of-two Victor Vasquez, 26, grandfather Carlos Moreno, 66, and Pamela Vasquez, 52.

Friends of Vasquez, one of the victims, said the man had two young daughters and was expecting another child with his fiancee.

He was killed at the store in Thornton, near Denver, as he shopped with his mother and sisters in preparation for an upcoming trip. They are raising money for his funeral on a GoFundMe page.

Suspect: Scott Ostrem, 47, was arrested on Thursday. He is pictured in his mugshot that was released on Thursday afternoon

Marques' niece set up another page to raise money for her funeral expenses and family.

The woman has at least one daughter who her niece said was her 'best friend'.

It was also revealed that Ostrem was working as a sheet metal fabricator for a local roofing company and that he walked off the job at 9am on Wednesday morning without giving bosses any explanation.

Colleagues said he did not seem angry when he suddenly stopped working.

Neighbors who lived near his Denver apartment have since told how he stared out the windows of his home in Arvada and cursed at him when they said hello.

They described him as 'creepy' and 'paranoid'. A typical one-bedroom apartment in the building costs $800-a-month.

In the past few years, Ostrem has bounced between jobs after a string of failed business ventures.

They include Ostrem Installation LLC which he founded in 2012 but was which was defunct the following November.

Ostrem was arrested at 8am on Thursday after a ten-hour manhunt (left) He was seen entering the Walmart in Thornton where the shooting occurred shortly before the first reports of the shooting at 6.10pm on Wednesday (right)

He was arrested after his Mitsubishi Mirage (above) was spotted seven miles from the scene

Police arrested Ostrem at this apartment complex in Twin Lakes, around seven miles from the Walmart store, on Thursday morning when he drove past in his car. They were already there after receiving a tip that the gunman lived there

In June 2014, he founded MKA Electronics LLC but in late 2015, he filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy claim, saying he had just $140 to his name.

He listed his assets as having a total value of $50,000 and his liabilities at between $50,000 and $100,000.

The Denver Post spoke to neighbors who said he cursed at them when they said good morning, shouting: 'Eff you' whenever he was greeted.

One said he made them 'nervous' and often carried a rifle bag.

'He made me nervous because he always had rifle in a case over his shoulder. I would know it was him. He was evil! Evil!' Teresa Muniz, one neighbor, said.

Others described him as 'creepy' and 'paranoid' and said he often was seen staring out of his window.

Ostrem's criminal past is non-violent. The first was in 1999 when he was arrested for resisting arrest.

In 2013, he was arrested in the middle of the night for drunk driving after police saw him driving erratically.

Ostrem was arrested in 2013 (left) for driving under the influence. At the time he said he was unemployed. In 2014, (right) he was arrested again in a motel after failing to appear for a court appearance for his 2013 DUI charge

A police report obtained by DailyMail.com describes how he swayed 'from side to side' as he performed field sobriety tests. At the time, he said he was unemployed.

The following year, he was arrested at a motel room for failing to appear in court to face the 2013 DUI charges. It is not known what that arrest was for or what it resulted in.

On Wednesday morning, hours before the Walmart shooting, Ostrem walked off a job without giving bosses an explanation.

'We're bewildered,' boss David Heidt told Fox News Denver.

Ostrem was arrested at 8am on Thursday morning, ten hours after allegedly opening fire.

The gunman did not say anything as he sprayed his bullets across the store. He then walked back out and fled the scene in a red, four-door Mitsubishi Mirage.

On Thursday, shoppers who abandoned their purchases on Wednesday night returned to the store. One woman was Marlena Fobb (pictured in orange pants) who hugged staff as she went back to buy a vacuum

Police do not believe the shooting is related to terrorism, but they have not ruled anything out.

On Thursday, shoppers who fled in fear of their lives as the shooting took place returned to the store to collect the personal items they had left behind.

They included a family of four who were there to buy a vacuum on Wednesday night when the shots rang out.

Marlena Fobb and her husband dropped to the ground when the shots began.

They then crawled on the ground to an office nearby that was open and waited until police cleared the store.

Marlena grabbed another person nearby and dragged them with her. A family with toddlers saw them entering the office and followed them.

Many were pictured along with Walmart staff standing outside the store as emergency workers closed off the scene.

The shooting happened around 6pm local time inside the crowded retail store. Above employees and shoppers leave the scene
An adorable kitten that was found wandering and emaciated near a dumpster by a good Samaritan in Massachusetts has undergone surgery to have his small face fixed after his nose fell off.

The sweet kitten named Nigel was about six weeks old at the time he was found in July. He was taken to the MSPCA in Dorchester, but staff members were startled when his nose fell off a week after he arrived.

The young feline, who had to wait to have surgery to fix his face, has a growing number of fans on the Instagram account, @NoNoseNigel, that shelter staff created.

His amusing behavior is followed by more than 2,000 people and growing.

Adorable: Nigel, an adorable kitten that was found wandering and emaciated near a dumpster by a good Samaritan in Massachusetts, has undergone surgery to have his small face fixed after his nose fell off

The sweet kitten named Nigel was about six weeks old at the time he was found in July. He was taken to the MSPCA in Dorchester, but staff members were startled when his nose fell off a week after he arrived

The young feline, who had to wait to have surgery to fix his face, has a growing number of fans on the Instagram account, @NoNoseNigel, that shelter staff created. His amusing behavior is followed by more than 2,000 people and growing

'He's really quite amazing and SUCH a trooper,' MSPCA-Angell spokesman Rob Halpin told Boston.com.

Staff at the MSPCA said they thought he was suffering from an upper respiratory infection when he was first brought in.

'His nose and much of his face seemed discolored but that appeared to be a standard infection for which we started him on pain medicine and antibiotics,' adoption center manager Alyssa Krieger said in a July statement.

'We were shocked to discover later just how seriously injured Nigel was.'

MSPCA's Angell Animal Medical Center head of surgery Mike Pavletic, who performed the feline's reconstructive surgery on Thursday, said that it's unclear what exactly cause his nose to fall off.

MSPCA-Angell spokesman Rob Halpin said: 'He's really quite amazing and SUCH a trooper'

MSPCA's Angell Animal Medical Center head of surgery Mike Pavletic, who performed the feline's reconstructive surgery on Thursday, said that it's unclear what exactly cause his nose to fall off. He said: 'It likely got its upper nose caught in something like a can of tuna'

Pavletic said that he believes that Nigel suffered some kind of trauma rather than it being a congenital defect because he saw a similar injury on a cat that was brought from Iran back to New England.

'It likely got its upper nose caught in something like a can of tuna,' he said of that cat.

'Sometimes people will leave the lid partially attached, so the unfortunate animal sticks her head in there scavenging for food and then they get trapped and when it comes out it tends to slice off part of the face.'

He said that whatever caused Nigel's poor injury would have been 'substantial.'

'Unfortunately, this little stray cat got into something,' Pavletic said.

The veterinarian said the sweet Nigel suffered most of the damage to his upper lip. The kitten's lip from his right to left canine teeth is 'essentially gone', as part of the lower part of his nose is missing

'It could have also been bitten in the face, sustained serious injury, gotten infected, and then a different part of the lip and part of the nose just became devitalized.'

The veterinarian said the sweet Nigel suffered most of the damage to his upper lip.

The kitten's lip from his right to left canine teeth is 'essentially gone', as part of the lower part of his nose is missing, Boston.com reported.

'The shelter reports that Nigel seems to barely notice his injury and is kitten like all other kittens: he's cozy and affectionate when he wants to be and loves to hang out on shoulders or curl up on laps,' Halpin said.

'And, because he's a kitten, he adores playtime: he can be found pouncing on toy mice at any time of day or night and he'd play for hours with string toys if his human pals are up to it.'

In terms of him eating food, his injury makes it very difficult for him to do so without spilling food or water from his mouth, Pavletic said.

In terms of him eating food, his injury makes it very difficult for him to do so without spilling food or water from his mouth, Pavletic said.

'He seems to be otherwise a fairly healthy cat,' the Pavletic said.

'It's got a personality to itself, and he is rather a little precocious and likes to play hard.

'But that's being a kitten, so I think with correction of this, the cat will resume a fairly normal life.'

The veterinarian said that due to this type of injury, he prefers to wait until the animal is at least five months old before performing surgery.

'They're larger, they're more mature, they're tissues are stronger, they can hold sutures more effectively than if you're trying to do the surgery on a tiny kitten,' Pavletic explained.

Luckily, Nigel will have a home once he recovers from surgery as more than 50 people have already inquired about adopting the adorable kitten. Anyone interested in adopting Nigel can contact adoption@mspca.org

Halpin said that while waiting for surgery, Nigel had been spending time in both foster homes and the shelter.

Luckily, Nigel will have a home once he recovers from surgery as more than 50 people have already inquired about adopting the adorable kitten.

'He'd do well in any kind of home: kids or no kids,' Halpin said.

'He'll probably get along just fine with cats and dogs owing to how young he is and how much socialization he's already gotten in his foster home.'

Anyone interested in adopting Nigel can contact adoption@mspca.org.
The United States came dangerously close to having a thermonuclear warhead explode inside an underground missile silo in South Dakota over half a century ago, it was revealed on Thursday.

The accident took place at a top secret location where nuclear-tipped missiles were stored underground not far from the small town of Vale, South Dakota, on December 5, 1964.

According to official military and government documents obtained by the Rapid City Journal, an explosion caused by a short circuit which resulted from a faulty repair of a security alarm control box.

The box was located approximately five feet away from the launch tube which housed the thermonuclear-tipped Minuteman I missile.

The Minuteman I carried a thermonuclear warhead that was more powerful than either of the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The United States came dangerously close to having a thermonuclear warhead explode inside an underground missile silo (similar to the one seen above near Wall, South Dakota) in South Dakota over half a century ago, it was revealed on Thursday

The accident took place at a top secret location where nuclear-tipped missiles were stored underground not far from the small town of Vale, South Dakota, on December 5, 1964

Two Air Force officers who were part of the corps of soldiers responsible for maintaining nuclear missiles were called to the Lima-02 silo about 60 miles north of Ellsworth Air Force base.

They were tasked with repairing the security system of Lima-02, which was about 80 feet deep  the depth necessary to house a 56-foot tall missile that weighed 65,000 pounds when loaded with fuel.

According to an Air Force report on the accident, one of the airmen removed a fuse as part of a check on the security alarm control box.

The airman lacked a fuse puller, so he used a screwdriver to pull the fuse from its clip.

The graphic above was taken from an Air Force report on the accident. It shows how the cone was blown off the missile after one of its retrorockets fired accidentally as a result of a jolt of electricity it received the explosion of a security alarm box

According to the report, when the airman tried to re-insert the fuse, he didnt hear the necessary click which would have indicated that it was in the proper position.

Since there was no click, the airman repeated the procedure and re-inserted the fuse.

Once again, there was no click, so the airman tried a third time.

At 1500 hours MST (3pm Mountain Standard Time), simultaneously with the making of this contact, a loud explosion occurred in the launch tube, according to the Air Force report.

Somehow, the two airmen, whose names were never revealed, survived the blast. But what happened as a result of the explosion was far more significant and potentially more catastrophic.

The explosion sent a jolt of electricity through the metal casing of the missiles retrorocket  which is the part of the missile that provides thrust opposing the motion of the projectile.

The retrorocket is supposed to fire when the missile was in outer space in order to separate the third and final fuel stage from the cone.

The cone and the warhead inside it would then fall toward their target.

A test missile breaks up in mid-air in this undated file photo. Though the Pentagon acknowledges that there have been 32 'broken arrow' incidents, the real number if closer to 1,200, according to Eric Schlosser

The jolt of electricity caused one of the retrorockets to fire inside the missile. This caused pressure to build up in the area where the retrorockets were housed.

As a result, the cone of the missile, which stands at 5 feet tall and weighs 750 pounds, popped off and fell down to the bottom of the silo.

The cone did some damage to the missile as it fell to the ground, hitting two of the three suspension cables that were holding the missile up.

Fortunately, there was not enough damage done to make the missile explode  thus averting a catastrophe.

There was also minimal damage to the cone, which stored the thermonuclear warhead.

Luckily, the thermonuclear warhead had safeguards as well. It could only detonate if it received codes from launch-control officers, was at an appropriate altitude, and if it was moving at the proper acceleration and G-force.

Officially, the US government acknowledges that there have been 32 accidents involving mishaps and malfunctions at American nuclear installments (so-called 'broken arrow' incidents).

Command and Control, a book written by renowned investigative journalist Eric Schlosser, revealed that the actual number of mishaps and accidents is closer to 1,200  and that's just between the years 1950 and 1968.
Marty Weiss (pictured) was named by Corey Feldman as an alleged child predator

Corey Feldman has finally begun naming names of alleged child molesters he says took advantage of him and other adolescent screen stars years ago.

Feldman, who became a household name by starring in such blockbuster hits as 'Stand By Me' and 'The Goonies,' said that his former assistant and actor Jon Grissom was the first to take advantage of him in the 1980s.

Feldman made the revelations while speaking to TV host Dr. Oz on Thursday.

'This guy on his My Space page and his Facebook page has got pictures of me and Corey Haim,' Feldman said during the interview.

'He still taunts it and flaunts it.'

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Feldman started naming names following an appearance on 'The Dr. Oz Show' Thursday to discuss an alleged Hollywood pedophile ring (Pictured: Feldman and Grissom, 1988)

Feldman also named his former assistant and actor Jon Grissom (pictured) as his alleged abuser following an interview with Dr. Oz

Dr. Oz, however, said that his legal team uncovered a long criminal past on Grissom, including a conviction for child molestation years ago. Grissom allegedly now lives in Mexico.

'Everything from assault, theft, drugs  in 2001 he was arrested on child molestation charges  he was found guilty in 2003 and served time in prison,' an attorney for Dr. Oz said in a video posted to Facebook.

Feldman also named former child talent manager and convicted sex offender Marty Weiss in a separate interview with Megyn Kelly. Weiss has not commented publicly on the allegations.

This comes after Feldman recently told multiple media outlets that he reported members of a supposed Hollywood pedophile ring back in 1993 with the Santa Barbara Police Department.

That claim is being disputed however by police, and in an exclusive clip from Thursday's episode, Dr. Oz confronted Feldman with this information.

Grissom (pictured left) denies any sexual misconduct between the two occurred, while Weiss has yet to publicly comment on the accusations

'I called the Santa Barbara Police, just got off the phone with them. As you were speaking I was speaking. You claim that you spoke to them about your abuse in 1993 just to be clear,' says Dr. Oz in an exclusive clip obtained by DailyMail.com.

Feldman then interrupts him to state: 'It's on the record.'

Dr Oz continues: 'And you named names. I listened to the recording and I did not hear you name names.'

Feldman responds by claiming that police turned off the recording device when he shared the identity of his molesters, which Dr. Oz accepts as true.

He then pleads with Feldman to reach out to authorities again, at which point the actor makes the decision to call the Los Angeles Police Department and name the two men who allegedly assaulted him and other minors.

It is during this call that Feldman reveals Grissom is allegedly still posting photos of him and Haim on his social media accounts.

Speaking out: Corey Feldman appeared on 'The Dr. Oz Show' Thursday (above) to discuss the Hollywood pedophile ring he claims preyed on him and other young stars

Shock: During the episode, Dr. Oz reveals that Santa Barbara police deny Feldman's claim that he revealed the names of his molesters in a 1993 interview

Moment of truth: Dr. Oz is then able to convince Feldman (above with his wife) to call LAPD and name the men he claims molested him and raped Corey Haim

Dr. Oz also reads a statement from police disputing Feldman's claim during the interview.

'We are aware of the statements that Mr. Feldman is making regarding an investigation in 1993. Our records do not indicate that he named any suspects,' states Dr. Oz, reading from the official statement he was given by a spokesperson from the Santa Barbara Police Department.

He then tells Feldman: 'They want you to reach out to them. Would you call them after the show?'

Feldman responds by saying 'absolutely.'

Dr. Oz then presses him on the question many have wondered, asking: 'Why haven't you already called them and said, guys, I said this to you, how can you not at least acknowledge?!'

Feldman replied by explaining: 'Because we haven't acknowledged it until today and they are acknowledging it by saying they don't have any recollection.'

The host looks a bit shocked when he hears this response, and Feldman goes on to say: 'Well, I think it's the first day that I think anybody has gone to them for a comment... but it's the first time I've heard any recount from them at all.'

DailyMail.com also went to the Santa Barbara Police Department for a comment, and received the same statement as Dr. Oz.

The two men then head backstage to make the call, which can be seen in full on Thursday.

Feldman stopped by 'Megyn Kelly Today' on Monday, where he spoke about telling police the names of these predators over two decades ago while being questioned about his friend Michael Jackson.

'In 1993, I told the Santa Barbara Police Department, when they came to interrogate me about Michael Jackson, when they came to convince me that he was a pedophile. And I said he's not,' said Feldman.

'And I said, 'I've been molested.' They said, 'by who?' I said, 'I can give you the names, here they are.' And they said, 'that's not our area. That's outside of our community.''

Back in the day: He believes this is because people want to silence him now that he is planning to reveal the pedophiles who assaulted him and actor Corey Haim as children (Feldman and Haim in the 1987 film 'Lost Boys')

Money: Feldman (left with Haim in 1989, right in 2007) is hoping to raise $10 million to make a feature film outing his alleged attackers, despite protests from many who want him to just name the predators

He had previously told Matt Lauer in an interview earlier that in the day: 'If I were to go to the police, I would be the one who's getting sued. Henceforth, I need a team of lawyers, I need a team of security to be around me at all times to keep me safe so I can get this message done. I vow I will release every single name that I have any knowledge of, period.'

Feldman also blamed the media and the police for the lack of movement on outing these pedophiles, who he holds responsible for Haim's battles with drugs and alcohol, which led to his death.

Haim was one of the biggest stars of the 1980s, with leading roles in films including 'Lucas,' 'Watchers' and the Oscar-nominated 'Murphy's Romance,' which he starred in alongside Sally Field and James Garner.

The boys first worked together on the 1987 vampire flick 'The Lost Boys,' and paired up again in the films 'License to Drive' and 'Dream a Little Dream.'

Haim was quite the ladies man too over the years, dating Alyssa Milano, Nicole Eggert, Holly Fields and even Victoria Beckham at one point.

Feldman and Haim had a chance to share the screen once more in 2007 with their reality show 'The Two Coreys,' which was cancelled after two seasons.

It was a little over a year after that last season aired that Haim died as a result of drug induced pneumonia.

Life or death: Feldman (above) said that he was almost killed by two pickup trucks that came speeding at him 'the other day' while appearing on 'Megyn Kelly Today' Monday

Naming names: Feldman, 46, also said that he identified some of the pedophiles he alleges molested him and raped Haim in a 1993 interview with Santa Barbara Police (Feldman and Kelly above)

Feldman detailed Haim's struggles with drugs - as well as his own - in his 2013 memoir 'Coreyography.'

In that book he revealed that the first time they tried cocaine was with two of the men who were abusing them.

Feldman also wrote in the book about Haim having sex with adult men on the set of 'Lucas' and 'The Lost Boys,' sharing a story he claims Haim told him one of the first times they met.

'At some point during the filming [of Lucas], he explained an adult male convinced him that it was perfectly normal for older men and younger boys in the business to have sexual relations, that it was what all 'guys do,' wrote Feldman.

'So they walked off to a secluded area between two trailers, during a lunch break for the cast and crew, and Haim, innocent and ambitious as he was, allowed himself to be sodomized.'

Feldman also wrote about Haim spending time with Weiss while they were filming 'The Lost Boys.'

He claimed in the book that one day on set Haim, who was 15 during filming, was aroused and wanted to have sex.

'Marty's gay? Why don't you ask him?' wrote Feldman.

Feldman revealed many of these stories in his 2013 'Coreyography'

'The two walked, single file, into the adjoining room. ... I heard sounds, banging, thumping. I felt my stomach flip-flop. I felt sick.'

Weiss was arrested in 2011 after one of his clients told police he had been sexually abused by the man starting when he was just 11-years-old, claiming the incidents happened 30 to 40 times over a roughly three years period.

He eventually pleaded no contest to two counts of child molestation in 2012 and was sentenced to a year in jail and five years probation.

Weiss was immediately released after entering his plea for time served.

Feldman also detailed a night when he allegedly received oral sex from a man after he was fed a cocktail of drugs.

The abuse at the hands of that man, who he called 'Ron' in the book, went on for years after that first incident.

'I don't know why I couldn't confront Ron, but I was consumed with guilt. I felt like the whole thing was my fault,' wrote Feldman.

'I desperately wanted him to stop, but I was afraid of losing my friend.'

Feldman said in his book that he did at one point name some of the men who abused himself and Haim to authorities, but claimed that they chose to ignore the allegations and allowed the statue of limitations to run out without conducting an investigation or pressing any charges.
Eager Apple fans finally got their hands on the new iPhone X on Friday, many queuing up for days outside Sydney's flagship store.

And while the tenth anniversary iPhone features a 3D face scanner, 5.8-inch screen, glass body, and improved cameras, those boasting about their new purchase were quick to be mocked online.

Social media mercilessly mocked the new owners, many of who appeared to be millennials, for spending AUD$1,829 on a phone.

Daily Mail Australia spoke to the lucky few able to purchase the iPhone X, including Mazen Kourouche, 20, (pictured)

'I do it for the hype. I love the iPhone and I love the Apple atmosphere,' Mr Kourouche said

The tenth anniversary iPhone X was released on Friday, with an AUD$1,829 price tag

'If youre a millennial that doesnt own a home you have no business buying an $1,800 phone,' one user wrote online.

Another man had some very strong feelings about the new iPhone X owners, calling them 'losers'.

'Losers who will rent for the rest of their lives and complain about the lack of government handouts - but hey, at least they have a $2000 phone in their hands,' he said.'

As the cost of living and the property prices continue to rise in Sydney, many social media commentators were quick to point out what the cost of the new iPhone X could pay for.

While some comments seemed harsh, they were quick point out what $1,829 could be saved for instead

Another man had some very strong feelings about the new iPhone X owners, calling them 'losers'

Some devoted fans lined up for seven days ahead of the iPhone X release in Sydney

'How can one person afford two iPhone Xs? Yet alone they cost $1800 each? Like who has a spare $2000-$3000 to blow on a ridiculous phone,' one man said.

He continued: 'If we had that money it would be going to bills and car rego [sic].'

While some comments seemed harsh, they were quick to the point.

'Get a life and not the latest phone,' one user wrote.

Many social media commentators were quick to point out what the cost of the new iPhone X could be saved for instead

The first lot of new iPhone X owners excitedly show off the highly anticipated $1,829 phone

Pre-orders for the highly-anticipated device opened on October 27, and the iPhone X sold out within minutes

Eager Apple fans finally got their hands on the new iPhone X on Friday, many queuing up for days outside Sydney's flagship store

Some devoted fans lined up for seven days ahead of the iPhone X release, telling Daily Mail Australia one of the main reasons was 'to be one of the first'.

'I do it for the hype. I love the iPhone and I love the Apple atmosphere. I've also got a Youtube channel so I'll be heading over the Darling Harbour to record a review soon,' Mazen Kourouche, 20, said.

'I was the first here to get the iPhone X and I was first to get the iPhone 8 as well.'

Pre-orders for the highly-anticipated device opened on October 27, and the iPhone X sold out within minutes.

General sales for the device opened Friday morning at 8am.
Profoundly blind Alistair Lee has not only fallen over the share bikes littered along Sydney footpaths but he is now having them dumped at his home.

Mr Lee's partner Sarah Downie discovered two of the Reddy Go bikes had been thrown over the couple's back fence in North Sydney on Friday morning, reported Sydney Morning Herald.

The two red bikes appeared over night, damaging Mr Lee's clothes line and a table.

Profoundly blind Alistair Lee has not only fallen over share bikes on footpaths around Sydney but now they are following him home (pictured)

Mr Lee's partner Sarah Downie discovered two of the Reddy Go bikes had been dumped over his back fence (pictured) in North Sydney Friday morning

'Whilst I am extremely annoyed, I can see the funny side. I guess you could say I'm 'Reddy' to go to war with them,' Mr Lee said

'Whilst I am extremely annoyed, I can see the funny side. I guess you could say I'm 'Reddy' to go to war with them,' Mr Lee said.

'The bikes are still there. I probably won't get any washing done today.'

Despite being in the busy part of North Sydney, nothing had been thrown into Mr Lee's yard in the past.

Earlier last month the Sydney man tripped on two Reddy Go bikes left 'within half a metre of each other' in the middle of the pathway near his house.

While Mr Lee supports people riding bikes, he has an issue with the bikes being able to obstruct footpaths.

This is not the first share bike incident that has taken over the city, with many photos being shared online of the hire bikes being tossed in trees or dumped into bike stacks.

Mr Lee isn't the first to complain about the bikes, with many people sharing photos of the weirdly spotted share bikes on social media (pictured)

Many photos have been shared online of the hire bikes being tossed in trees or dumped

Just under three weeks ago, an elderly man was spotted taking out his fury towards the share bikes along Bondi Beach by knocking them over.

The incredible moment was captured on camera, revealing the grey-haired man pushing over multiple bikes before calming walking away with a grin on his face.

Daily Mail Australia contacted Reddy Go for comment.
A furious Malcolm Turnbull has blasted warring politicians for starting a 'witch hunt' over the citizenship status of Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg.

The prime minister revealed Mr Frydenberg's mother was born in a Budapest ghetto in 1943 and fled to Australia to avoid certain death during the Holocaust.

'It is a miracle they weren't killed, as so many of their relatives were. Three quarters of all the Jews in Hungary were murdered in the Holocaust,' he said on Friday.

'Are people seriously claiming that Josh Frydenberg is the citizen of a country which has stripped his mother and her family of their citizenship?

'(They) would have pushed them into the gas chambers had it not been that the war was ended before they had time to do so.'

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A furious Malcolm Turnbull has defended Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg and blasted politicians for starting a 'witch hunt' over his citizenship status

Mr Turnbull challenged any politician who still believed Mr Frydenberg held dual citizenship to stand up in Parliament and present their case to the Senate

Mr Turnbull revealed Mr Frydenberg's mother was born in a Budapest ghetto in 1943 and fled to Australia to avoid certain death during the Holocaust

Mr Turnbull challenged any politician who still believed Mr Frydenberg held dual citizenship to stand up in Parliament and present their case to the Senate.

'We are not going to have politicians, members and senators tried by innuendo and smear,' he said.

'That is not our way. That is not part of the Australian way, it is not part of the rule of law, it is not consistent with our values or our principles.

'The only body in our constitution that can determine whether somebody is eligible to sit in Parliament or not is the High Court of Australia. Nobody else can do that.

'Any member of the House is able to stand up and moved to refer one of their colleagues to the High Court.

'If they want to do that they can stand up and make their case.'

Mr Turnbull said Mr Frydenberg's mother and her family would have been pushed into the gas chambers if they had stayed in Hungary

Mr Frydenberg released a form from when his mother entered Australia from Hungary describing her as 'stateless'

Mr Frydenberg is the latest federal politician to become embroiled in the dual citizenship fiasco.

Six politicians have been forced to stand down after a High Court decision ruled them ineligible to sit in parliament

His mother Erica was born there in 1943 and fled to Australia during the Holocaust.

Hungarian law states anyone born in the country between 1941 and 1945 is automatically a citizen, and a child of a citizen also becomes one upon their birth.

Mr Frydenberg released a form from when his mother entered Australia from Hungary describing her as 'stateless'.

He said he had never applied for Hungarian citizenship.

'As someone who was born in Australia with Hungarian ancestors who arrived in Australia after the Holocaust, I would be required to initiate and undertake a lengthy and formal application and interview procedure in order to be considered a Hungarian citizen,' he said.

'Neither I nor anyone on my behalf has ever made such an application or engaged in such a procedure.'

If the Liberal MP was found to be ineligible to sit in parliament it would threaten his party's thin majority.

Six politicians have been forced to stand down after a High Court decision ruled them ineligible to sit in parliament.

Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, his deputy Fiona Nash, One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts and former Greens senators Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters were found to have dual citizenship.

The latest casualty was Senate President Stephen Parry who resigned on Tuesday, who may hold U.K. citizenship by descent, despite being born in the Tasmanian town of Burnie.
The bereft relatives of Moors murderer Ian Brady wish he had been 'flushed down the toilet' as it emerged today he was secretly cremated and his ashes buried at sea.

Britain's most notorious serial killer reportedly demanded to have his remains scattered on Saddleworth Moor - where he buried child victims with lover Myra Hindley.

Brady died of cancer and emphysema at a secure mental health hospital in May this year - and his body was kept in cold storage as the High Court stepped in to stop his dying wish.

After five months Brady's body was finally collected from the morgue at Royal Liverpool Hospital at around 9pm on October 25.

It was taken to Southport Crematorium under heavy police escort before the cremation began at 10pm. His ashes were then driven to Liverpool Marina and dispatched at sea at a secret location at 2.30am the following day.

Terry West, the brother of ten-year-old victim Lesley-Ann Downey, told the Daily Mirror: 'My little sister didn't get to choose how she was buried. If I had my way, I would just flush his ashes down the toilet.'

The ashes of Moors murderer Ian Brady (left in 1966 and right in an artist's impression before his death) have been scattered at sea in a fittingly undignified overnight funeral

Brady's ashes were taken to Liverpool Marina and dispatched at sea at a top-secret location at 2.30am on October 26

Brady murdered five including Lesley-Ann Downey (in painting) whose brother Terry says the killer should have been flushed down the toilet

Brady's body was to be disposed of without ceremony, flowers or music at the orders of a High Court judge.

BRADY'S FIVE VICTIMS WERE SNATCHED BEFORE BEING MURDERED Pauline Reade , 16, was the couple's first victim. She was on her way to a local dance when Hindley persuaded her to get in her car. They drove Pauline to Saddleworth Moor where she was raped Pauline, beaten and stabbed. John Kilbride , 12, was snatched from Ashton market on Saturday November 23, 1963. He was strangled and buried in a shallow grave. He was the second of Brady and Hindley's five victims. Keith Bennett , 12, disappeared on the way to his grandmother's house. Hindley had lured him into her car and driven him to the Moors where he was murdered. The method of killing has never been made clear. The pair buried his body, which has never been found. Lesley Ann Downey , 10, disappeared on Boxing Day. She had been snatched from the fair and taken back to Hindley's house. She was brutally assaulted with the ordeal captured on tape. Edward Evans , 17, was the sick duo's final victim. He had just been to see Manchester United play when Brady lured in Edward. Brady repeatedly bludgeoned Evans with an axe Advertisement

Terry Kilbride, 63, whose brother John was three years his senior, said the families of victims had been told in advance what would happen to Brady's remains and he had a meeting on Thursday with his local councillor, John Taylor, and a Tameside Council solicitor, Sandra Stewart.

He said: 'It just explained what had happened to Brady, him being cremated down in Southport, driven all the way through Liverpool afterwards, went out to sea with the police and dumped the urn in the sea.

'The urn was made of salt and it disintegrated after about 10 or 15 minutes of being in the water, so it will have sunk to the bottom.

'I was originally under the impression he was just going to be burnt and put in the grounds of a prison but being put in the sea is the next best thing.

'I told my family, so they knew and I told the Bennetts and the Downeys.'

Mr Kilbride praised Tameside Council which, he said, fought a legal battle to frustrate Brady's last wishes and to ensure that his ashes were not scattered on Saddleworth Moor.

He added: 'I honestly think he should not have had any wishes, I don't think he had any rights at all to expect anything when he died.

'This was the only way to really put the families at ease and the public as well.'

Mr Kilbride described Brady as 'clever and manipulative', saying he 'tormented' families from his prison cell.

He added: 'He always seemed to come up on TV or in the papers, it was always around an anniversary or Christmas. He actually died on John's birthday, May 15. You can imagine how that feels.'

Brady's crimes shocked the nation as he tortured and murdered five children in the 1960s along with Hindley, who died in prison in 2002.

Pauline Reade disappeared on her way to a disco on July 12 1963 and John Kilbride, 12, was snatched in November the same year. Keith Bennett was taken on June 16 1964 after he left home to visit his grandmother, Lesley Ann Downey, 10, was lured away from a funfair on Boxing Day 1964, and Edward Evans, 17, was killed in October 1965.

Brady and Hindley later confessed to the murders of Pauline and Keith, whose body has never been found.

Pauline's body was only discovered in 1987 following a search of Saddleworth Moor and her family believed they had finally laid her to rest after a funeral ceremony.

Brady (left) tortured and killed five children with his lover Myra Hindley (right) in the 1960s

Ian Brady in court in 2013 in one of several failed, and expensive, bids to get moved to a different prison

There were fears the remains of Scottish-born Brady would be scattered on Saddleworth Moor - where they buried four of their five victims.

Brady posed for ghoulish photographs taken by Hindley on Saddleworth Moor before they were arrested

Brady's executor Robin Makin gave assurances there was 'no likelihood' of this happening, but the Chancellor of the High Court, Sir Geoffrey Vos, ruled in October the issue of disposal should be taken out of Mr Makin's hands.

The Moors murderer died at Ashworth High Security Hospital in Maghull, Merseyside, having been there since 1985.

Brady handed victim Keith Bennett's family one final insult from his deathbed - by refusing to reveal where he buried the 12-year-old.

The boy's mother, Winnie Johnson, died in 2012 after fighting tirelessly to find her son and provide a Christian burial.

It emerged shortly after Brady's death that police attempted to convince him to reveal the mystery location of the grave in his final hours.

Family lawyer John Ainley told Good Morning Britain: 'The police spoke to me in the course of the evening, and they were trying to have access to his papers.

'That's difficult without consent from his solicitors and a court order. [The police] were trying, I think, to implore Brady at this very late stage to pass on any information or documents to them so they could carry out a meaningful search of the moors.'

But Brady's lawyer, Robin Makin, said that if the killer did know where Keith's body was, he would have told police when they took him to the moor in 1986.

'He did go to the Moors a long time ago and I suspect that if there had been information for him that he could have provided, he would have provided it then,' he told Radio 4's Today programme.

He added: 'I would very much hope that the remains can be found, but unfortunately I haven't got any information that's going to assist.'

The sick killer was still claiming before his death that the horrific murders were entirely justified.

Myra Hindley is seen photographed by Ian Brady at an unknown location in an undated handout image supplied by the Greater Manchester Police

Brady's body was taken to Southport Crematorium under heavy police escort before the cremation began at 10pm on October 25

CREMATED AND BURIED AT SEA Wednesday, October 25 2017 9pm - Brady's body collected from the mortuary at the Royal Liverpool hospital by an appointed official from Tameside council and a pathologist who attended his post-mortem. Escorted by an unmarked police car with an inspector and sergeant from Merseyside Police, the corpse is transported by road to Southport Crematorium. Brady's body does not enter any public area and it placed in a standby cremator. 10pm - The cremation begins in the presence of Brady's solicitor, Robin Makin, the police officers, council officials and two crematorium workers. In accordance with a judge's order no music was played, there were no flowers and no photographs were taken. Escorted by an unmarked police car with an inspector and sergeant from Merseyside Police, the corpse is transported by road to Southport Crematorium (pictured) Once the cremation is complete Brady's ashes are placed in a biodegradable urn made of Himalayan rock salt. The weighted urn is designed to sink to the bottom of the sea immediately before dissolving over a few hours. The cremator undergoes cleaning by professionals. Thursday, October 26 2017 12.45am - Brady's are ashes handed to the Tameside council official and the urn is taken from the crematorium in the unmarked police car to Liverpool Marina. The urn is taken aboard a boat from the North West Police Underwater Search and Marine Unit accompanied by the council official and police sergeant. The boat immediately sets out to sea to an undisclosed location. 2.30am - Brady's remains are jettisoned. Advertisement

Twisted serial killer Ian Brady is pictured with his pet dog in an undated photograph. He was still claiming before his death that the horrific murders were entirely justified

Brady, pictured, died in May after spending more than 50 years in prison for his sick crimes

Edward Evans (left), 17, was the sick duo's final victim. John Kilbride (right), 12, was strangled and buried in a shallow grave

The method of 12-year-old Keith Bennett's killing has never been made clear and his body has never been found

Lesley Ann Downey (left), 10, was brutally assaulted with the ordeal captured on tape. Pauline Reade (right), 16, was the couple's first victim

In disturbing letters, he even argued that governments and elites were allowed to kill people in warfare  and that he should be allowed to do the same.

'The question of global serial killers and thieves  politicians, bankers, military etc  forever unpunished and thriving is a separate question of legal/moral relativity, of course, constant throughout history,' he wrote.

Hindley died in prison in 2002. Now Brady  who said repeatedly he wanted to commit suicide  has followed her to the grave.

An inquest into Brady's death heard he died of natural causes.

Home Office pathologist Dr Brian Rodgers said the cause of death was cor pulmonale, a form of heart failure, secondary to bronchopneumonia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or lung disease.

The court heard Brady, who was a heavy smoker up until the smoking ban, had 'very severely diseased' lungs.

In a statement, Tameside and Oldham councils said: 'We are pleased that this matter is now concluded and we are grateful for the support and professionalism shown to ensure Ian Stewart-Brady's body and remains were disposed of expediently at sea in a manner compatible with the public interest and those of the victim's relatives.'

Moors Murders victim 'buried without all her bones' Body parts from a Moors Murders victim have been kept by police for 30 years without her family's knowledge. Pauline Reade was murdered by notorious killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley at the age of 16. Her body was discovered 24 years later in 1987 following a search of Saddleworth Moors. Pauline's family believed they had finally laid her to rest after a funeral at Gorton cemetery. But following the death of Ian Brady in May this year an audit was carried out and some of her remains were discovered at Leeds University where they had been kept on behalf of GMP. Moors Murder victim Pauline Reade's family (niece Jackie pictured) have discovered that she was buried without a jaw bone and other body part It is understood the body parts held include her jaw bone and hair samples. Her family now face having to stage a second funeral. Jackie Reade, Pauline's niece was told about the body parts in a call from Greater Manchester Police. Pauline disappeared before Jackie was born but she was 13 when her body was found and remembers her family's pain. Each week Jackie went with Pauline's mum Joan to lay a single rose on her grave. This week GMP delivered a wooden casket holding Pauline's remains to Jackie's solicitors. Jackie, 44, said: 'I am devastated. It has brought it all back. I am disgusted that part of Pauline could be kept like this. Pauline Reade was murdered by notorious killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley at the age of 16. Her body was discovered 24 years later in 1987 following a search of Saddleworth Moors 'I was 13 when Pauline was found. I remember the day very clearly. My nana and grandad, (Pauline's parents) Joan and Amos, were still alive at the time. 'My nana couldn't believe that they had found her. The family were so relieved. My nana had been very ill from day one of her disappearance with all the stress of it. 'It was peace of a kind for us, that at last she had been laid to rest, and we had some closure. 'My nana held my hand at the funeral. We would take my nana every week to the grave. She would always lay a single rose, every week until she passed away. We had got her back, and knew where she was. 'The police called me in the middle of August and said they had 'stumbled' across some stuff. They came to see me. They said now Ian Brady had died they have found items. I thought it was going to be Pauline's gold necklace. 'They said it was a piece of her jaw bone and I couldn't believe it. It was heartbreaking. We thought she was all there together. They asked what I wanted to do with the jaw bone. Did I want it donated to science, or cremated? I said no way. These parts should not have been separated from her. 'They knew who she was. They had identified the body, yet they kept them. I just can't believe it. 'The family had no idea. This family has been through enough. It is mind boggling. 'It has brought it all back. I feel angry. When the police sent me a letter they said I was Pauline's auntie - they couldn't even get that right. 'The police just said they had been kept for evidence. But they knew who she was there was no need for them keep them. There was no need for them to keep the jawbone. It is awful.' Pauline's grave is a family plot and her mother, Joan, father, Amos, and brother, Paul, who all died after her, all lie in the same place. It means that to bury Pauline's remains four licences will be required from the Ministry of Justice to move the bodies of all the family members. Jackie said: 'As a family we want to put all the parts back with Pauline, where they should be. But to do that we will have to disturb all four graves. I think I should get an apology from the police. We will hold second funerals for all of them.' Advertisement

Ian Brady and Myra Hindley shocked the nation to its core by snatching children off the street, before sexually abusing and torturing them to death

The sadistic crimes of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley shocked the nation to its core.

Across Britain there was an outpouring of loathing for the pair who snatched children off the street, sexually abused them and tortured them to death.

The evidence seen and heard at their Chester Assizes trial chilled the hearts of those who sat through it.

Their first victim was 16-year-old Pauline Reade, who vanished on July 12 1963, on her way to a disco near her home in Gorton, Manchester.

She was lured to the moors by Hindley who said she had lost her gloves there and needed help finding them.

The sadistic crimes of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley shocked the nation to its core. Pictured is the funeral of Pauline Reade in 1987

It was two decades later when Pauline's grieving parents discovered exactly what had happened to her.

Her body was discovered in 1987 after the murderers confessed to the killing.

They were taken to bleak Saddleworth Moor where they located the shallow grave dug over 20 years before.

Pauline was still wearing her pink and gold party dress and blue coat.

Brady had beaten her about the head and cut her throat with such force that her spinal cord was severed.

Pathologists said it was impossible to say whether Brady had sexually assaulted her.

Four months after Pauline vanished, the day after President John F Kennedy's assassination in the US, 12-year-old John Kilbride became Brady's second victim.

Police digging on Saddleworth Moor after Myra Hindley agreed to help try and identify the location of burials in 1986

In the shadow of the presidential assassination little attention was paid to the disappearance of the Manchester boy.

John was lured on to the moor where he was sexually assaulted and murdered.

Brady took a photograph of Hindley standing on the edge of his grave holding her pet dog. The photograph would later lead police to the young boy's resting place.

The body of the third victim, Keith Bennett, 12, has never been found.

Keith died after leaving his home in Chorlton-on-Medlock in Manchester on June 16 1964.

Police mounted an intensive search of the moor in 1986 amid reports that the pair had confessed to his murder.

But even though Brady and Hindley were both permitted to travel to the moor to try to remember where the boy's remains were, they were not found.

Detective Superintendent Peter Topping at the scene on Saddleworth Moor, where he had been searching for the body's of Keith Bennett and Pauline Reade in 1986

It was Brady and Hindley's next killing that sealed their reputation for pure wickedness - the murder of 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey on Boxing Day in 1964.

She became their youngest victim when she was lured from a fairground to the house Hindley shared with her grandmother in Hattersley.

Brady stripped, sexually abused and tortured her, forcing her to pose for pornographic photographs.

Her last moments were recorded on a harrowing 16-minute, 21-second audio tape.

The terrified girl begged for mercy, called out for her mother and appealed to God for help before her voice was stifled forever.

The tape was recorded at the house in Wardle Brook Avenue, Hattersley, as Lesley Ann pleaded with them 'Please God, help me' and 'Don't undress me, will you?'

Her cries reduced the judge, jury, courtroom spectators and even hardened police officers to tears.

John Stalker, former deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester, who was then a detective sergeant, expressed the feelings of many in the courtroom when he said: 'Nothing in criminal behaviour before or since has penetrated my heart with quite the same paralysing intensity.'

Detectives could not say exactly how Lesley Ann died. Her body was dug up naked except for shoes and socks.

Had the pair not made a crucial blunder in involving Hindley's brother-in-law David Smith in their next enterprise, the murder of Edward Evans, 17, might not have been their last.

Edward was lured from a gay bar to a home then shared by Hindley and Brady on the Hattersley estate at Hyde.

Detectives could not say exactly how Lesley Ann died. Her body was dug up naked except for shoes and socks

Smith was summoned to the house by a phone call on a false pretext.

He was then forced to watch as Brady attacked Evans with an axe, smothered him with a cushion and completed his grim task with an electrical cable.

Shocked, Smith helped the pair carry the trussed-up body into a bedroom. He then fled terrified and called the police.

The next morning police searched the house, and began unravelling the gruesome evidence of Brady and Hindley's appalling crimes.

Brady was 28 in May 1966 when he and Hindley were convicted of murdering Lesley Ann and Edward.

He was also convicted of the murder of John Kilbride and received three life sentences to run concurrently.

In 1987 Brady finally confessed to the murders of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett but he was never tried for the crimes.
President Donald Trump set off on an extended trip to Asia today with the rising threat from North Korea and a slew of nagging trade deficits at the top of his agenda.

Trump leaves behind a spate of scandals behind, including the indictment of his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, as he heads to Hawaii, where he will land at local time in the afternoon.

The first-term president will hit five Pacific Rim countries after that, the first of which is Japan. From there he'll go to South Korea, China and Vietnam, a country in which he could reunite with Russia's Vladimir Putin.

The final leg of Trump's trip will be spent in the Philippines, where he will attend the U.S.-ASEAN and East Asia summits and meet for the first time with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

First lady Melania Trump is accompanying the president on the foreign excursion, his fourth since taking office. Trump's daughter Ivanka is not. She's in Japan currently with plans to be stateside next week with other senior White House officials helping to shepherd tax reform.

I'm off: Trump is boarding Air Force One on Friday to start the longest Asian trip by a president since George H.W. Bush's 1991 trip in which he collapsed at a Japanese state dinner

Getting ready: South Korea will be the second stop on the trip, and will be the most charged with Kim Jong-Un's military just a few miles away. There were pro-Trump demonstrations in Seoul Friday ahead of his arrival

Ambitious in length, Trump's journey Asia, which he extended on Friday by a day, is the longest in duration of any U.S. president in 25 years. The last American president to spend as many days in the Pacific was George H.W. Bush.

Bush made history when he hurled in the Japanese prime minister's lap near the end of his 12-day jaunt through Asia in 1992.

Barack Obama generated a commotion his first year in office when he bowed to the Japanese empower during his 2009 trip Tokyo.

Trump will also call on the imperial family, but a bow to the foreign power is almost certainly not in store.

This president's trip to Japan will most likely be remembered for the golf game he plans to play with current Japanese PM Shinzo Abe on his first day in Tokyo.

The 63-year-old Japanese leader whose political party was just reelected bonded with Trump, a 71-year-old novice politician, over the sport early in the U.S. president's tenure.

Abe gifted Trump with a $3,755 gold golf driver when he was elected. Photographs show Trump using it on the course when Abe played with him in February at one of the president's Palm Beach properties.

In Seoul, South Korea, Trump's speech to the nation's National Assembly is likely to hog the spotlight now that a trip to the Korean Peninsula's demilitarized zone has been ruled out.

What Trump will say about North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, who he has called 'Little Rocket Man' on several occasions in the past, is a source of anxiety for officials in the region. They worry Trump's fiery rhetoric will trap them in an unwanted war.

H.R. McMaster, the president's national security adviser, did little to quell concern on Thursday when he said Trump would 'use whatever language he wants to use, obviously' when he's on Kim's border.

'I don't think the president really modulates his language. Have you noticed him do that?' McMaster told a reporter asking if Trump would back off the bombast.

In the spotlight: The Asian trip comes as Kim Jong-Un's North Korea races to build nuclear missile capable of hitting the United States

McMaster said he did not consider Trump's language 'inflammatory' and argued that only the North Korean regime would be responsible for 'ratcheting up' its aggression while the U.S. president is in town, should an incident occur.

'The president will continue to call on all responsible nations, especially those with the most influence over North Korea, to isolate the North Korean regime economically and politically, to convince its leaders that the pursuit of nuclear weapons is a dead end and that it is past time to denuclearize,' McMaster warned. 'And he will remind friend and foe alike that the United States stands ready to defend itself and our allies using the full range of our capabilities.

The White House official's remarks were intended to be a jab at Beijing's leadership in a signal that the U.S. is willing to play hardball with Xi Jinping's government if believes that's what it must do.

Vanguard: Ivanka Trump has already flown to Japan and met its prime minister Shinzo Abe. The Kremlin says there are talks about a one-on-one meeting with Vladimir Putin, which is certain to further roil tensions at home over the Russia probe

The Wilson Center's Sandy Pho told DailyMail.com in advance of the trip that Trump is clearly exiting the 'honeymoon stage' of his relationship with Xi.

He is now 'slowly kind of coming down from this high, kind like a hangover' from the his April Mar-a-Lago summit with the communist leader, Pho assessed, and realizing 'he was wrong' about China's willingness to confront North Korea.

'He's figuring out that Xi's going to do what he's going to do for China,' she said, much like Trump's 'America First' principle.

McMaster countered on Thursday that 'China will, as it always does, act in its interests. But I think this is an area where our interests are really clearly aligned.'

'North Korea is a threat to the entire world. So all nations of the world must do more to counter that threat,' the White House official said of Trump's message to the region during his trip. 'That is happening. But the president recognizes that we're running out of time and will ask all nations to do more.

Trump's two-day visit to Beijing will be an official state visit that the White House says will include undisclosed cultural and commercial events in addition to bilateral talks.

After that the U.S. president will move on to Vietnam, where his defining moment will be a speech at the annual APEC summit. He is also considering a meeting with Putin in Da Nang.

At his last major events, the U.S.-ASEAN conference and East Asia Summit in the Philippines, Trump will deliver more prepared remarks. His oratories are likely to be overshadowed by that of the Philippine president, however. Duterte last year tanked a meeting with former President Obama by publicly calling him 'a son of a whore.'

The incident occurred in the lead-up to their face-to-face meeting in Laos, which Trump misremembered on Wednesday as having taken place in the Philippines.

'You remember the Philippines. The last trip made by a President that turned out to be not so good. Never quite got to land,' the sitting president asserted, as if he were trying to distance himself from Duterte in case their interaction was equally bad.

Trump said Wednesday, at the top of a Cabinet meeting, that he was genuinely looking forward to the journey.

'We're going to meet a lot of presidents and leaders of countries that have been friends and have become very good friends of mine,' he stated. 'And we have great trade relationships, other than the fact that we are right now being taken advantage of, but I think they'll start changing them pretty quickly.'

At each stop Trump will stress the global threat that a nuclear-armed Pyongyang presents. But he also has a bone to pick with almost every country he is visiting when it comes to their trade agreements.

DONALD TRUMP'S ASIA TRIP SCHEDULE FRIDAY, NOV. 3: The president leaves Washington for Hawaii. Tours the USS Arizona and participates in a wreath laying ceremony at Pearl Harbor. SATURDAY, NOV. 4: Trump travels to Tokyo. SUNDAY, NOV. 5: Trump visits Japanese and American troops and plays a round of golf with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. MONDAY, NOV. 6: Abe and Trump attend meetings, including one with Japanese citizens whose family members were abducted by North Korea. Trump also calls on the imperial family. TUESDAY, NOV. 7: The president and first lady arrive in South Korea. Trump and President Moon Jae-in visit Camp Humphreys. WEDNESDAY, NOV. 8: Trump delivers a speech to the National Assembly in Seoul, then flies to Beijing, where he will participate in cultural events and meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. THURSDAY, NOV. 9: The U.S. president continues his trip in Beijing and meetings with Xi's government. FRIDAY, NOV. 10: Trump leaves China for Da Nang, Vietnam, where he will give remarks at APEC. SATURDAY, NOV. 11: Trump attends APEC and flies within Vietnam to Hanoi. SUNDAY, NOV. 12: In Hanoi, Trump will meet with Vietnam President Tran ai Quang. MONDAY, NOV. 13: Trump speaks at the U.S.-ASEAN summit in the Philippines. He will also meet with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. TUESDAY, NOV. 14: The president attends the East Asia Summit and begins his journey back to Washington. Advertisement

Trump ditched Obama's regional trade initiative, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, in favor of one-on-one accords the former businessman has hinged to a reduction in the United States' numerous trade deficits.

For the same reason, Trump has said he wants to renegotiate the U.S-Korea Free Trade Agreement, commonly known as KORUS.

Trump has also griped about Beijing's alleged currency manipulation and railed against the United States' trade deficit with China. Accusations of intellectual property theft and and human rights abuses are also major U.S. issues.

At an April summit, Trump became enamored with China's increasingly powerful president, though. He and Xi hit it off so well that Trump began referring to the foreign leader he hosted for a weekend at his Palm Beach Club as a 'very good man.'

Despite his furious assaults on the ruling government on the campaign trail, where Trump's frequent slams on 'China' inspired viral videos, the American president has been unwilling to act again Beijing because it is helping with his North Korea problem.

He's shown Xi that he's willing to use the stick, as well, ordering the U.S. Trade Representative to open up an investigation into China's intellectual property policies in August.

'Throughout the trip, the president will stress his commitment to free, fair and reciprocal trade,' McMaster said Thursday. 'He looks forward to working with partners across the Indo-Pacific region to ensure that governments do not unfairly subsidize their industries, discriminate against foreign business or restrict foreign investment. This will help increase trade, reduce unsustainable deficits, and promote prosperity for the American people and the people of the Indo-Pacific region.'

Concern about China's growing power prompted Barack Obama's 'pivot to Asia.'

'TPP allows America  and not countries like China  to write the rules of the road in the 21st century,' Obama proclaimed back then.

Obama critics say the two-term Democrat's posturing in the region encouraged Beijing to take a more aggressive role in the South China Sea.

'For all its ambition and incremental achievements, an Asia policy that leaves behind that much trouble will be hard to regard as a success,' the Washington Post's editorial board said after Obama's final trip eleventh and final trip to the continent.

Pho said Trump must be cognizant of the 'delicate dance' on his trip.

'You don't want to make it seem like you are containing China,' she said.

When the Soviet Union tried that in the '70s, China invaded Vietnam and 'taught them a lesson,' she asserted.

Bruce Klingner, the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation, the leading conservative think-tank in America, said the economic and geostrategic ramifications of Trump pulling out of TPP, and potentially KORUS, are enormous.

'Geostrategically, it affirms perceptions the US is only out for itself and cares less about its traditional post-WW II role as a world leader,' he said.

Klingner said that 'by pulling out of TPP the US is ceding a leadership role in Asia to China.'
This is the moment a same-sex marriage row exploded into a clash over gay sex and Islam, before the Yes voter who posted the video online was forced to quit her job.

Pregnant mother-of-one Courtney Griffiths approached No voters campaigning against same-sex marriage on the side of the road in Gladstone, north Queensland, on Tuesday.

In footage she filmed, which was posted online after the stoush, Ms Griffiths can be heard approaching the No voters with the question: 'Who gave you the God-given right to decide who can get married and who can't?'

The No voters did not respond well to her question, telling her to 'get on your bike and ride out of here' before threatening to phone the police.

Scroll down for video

Pregnant mother-of-one Courtney Griffiths (pictured) clashed with No voters campaigning against same-sex marriage on Tuesday

'You are having a baby you reckon, by the time your baby goes to school, he'll be going to a girl's toilets,' the 'No' voters can be heard telling Ms Griffiths (pictured with her son)

Ms Griffiths replied saying: 'What are you going to do, hit a pregnant woman?'

A second No voter entered the conversation telling Ms Griffiths, 'We are exercising our democratic right, if you don't like it you can leave the country'.

'Go live in a Muslim country ok,' he said.

Ms Griffiths asked: 'Do you think I'm Muslim because of the colour of my skin?'.

Ms Griffiths can be heard approaching the No voters with the question: 'Who gave you the God given right to decide who can get married and who can't?

A female no voter stepped in to say: 'You're not Muslim otherwise you'd agree with us'.

When Ms Griffiths questioned the No voters about their signs - which read 'Gay Marriage = Gay Sex Education in Schools' - she defended the future of sex education.

'You know what sex education this is going to lead to, telling kids it's OK to be gay, telling kids it's not OK to cry themselves to sleep every night because of something they can't help,' she said.

'This isn't even a sexuality rights conversation, it's a human rights conversation. Are you going to go up to the next gay person you come across and tell them they're not human?'

The female No voter retaliated by telling Ms Griffiths to 'go home to your girlfriend'.

The stoush ended with Ms Griffiths walking away and telling her opponents she had to go to work

'You're probably pregnant to a girl,' she said.

'You are having a baby you reckon, by the time your baby goes to school, he'll be going to a girl's toilets.'

The stoush ended with Ms Griffiths walking away and telling her opponents she had to go to work.

The young mother has since been forced to quit her job.

The mother-of-one was told to 'go home to your girlfriend' by a female 'No' voter (pictured: Ms Griffiths' partner and their son)

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia on Friday, Ms Griffiths said she was motivated to approach the No voters because the issue 'affects my loved ones and my friends directly'.

'I don't think it should be the norm for teenagers to have to question whether they 'come out' to their friends and family at all, it should just be a case of telling their friends and family they're in love,' she said.

'To have to be on the edge waiting for the results and consequences of this plebiscite and just cross my fingers that my kids will be able to marry whoever they please when they're older, that makes me really quite sad for them as a mother.'
A Billings couple admitted Thursday that they had several pounds of meth in their home and a storage unit for distribution.

During hearings in U.S. District Court in Billings, Raymond Thomas Tetzlaff, 35, and his wife, Crystal Busby-Tetzlaff, 36, each pleaded guilty to charges of possession with intent to distribute as part of plea deals to dismiss other counts.

A grand jury indicted the couple on trafficking charges after an investigation led law enforcement agents to serve a search warrant on their home at 1226 Yale Ave. in February.

A third co-defendant, Sean Patrick Gilmore, 46, of Billings, also was indicted. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

Prosecutor Thomas Godfrey said agents found 1.5 pounds of meth in the home along with $10,000 cash.

Also, a bag Raymond Tetzlaff was carrying when he walked outside the residence contained about a quarter-pound of the drug, Godfrey said.

During the search, agents found receipts for a storage unit in the Billings Heights and one of the receipts was in Crystal Busby-Tetzlaffs name, he said.

Agents searched the storage unit and found an additional five pounds of meth, Godfrey said.

The Tetzlaffs are suspected of supplying meth at least to Gilmore, prosecutors have said. All of the defendants have prior federal felony drug convictions.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Cavan said he will recommended the Tetzlaffs guilty pleas be accepted by U.S. District Judge Susan Watters, who will sentence them.

The couple face a minimum mandatory 10 years to life in prison and a $10 million fine.
The Duchess of Cornwall received a full, flag waving welcome as she visited a school in Kuala Lumpur today.

Camilla was at The International School ParkCity (ISP), a recently opened British curriculum school ranked fifth overall for A-Level results in Malaysia.

Its international student body is made up of over 50 nationalities.

The Duchess, accompanied by Her Majesty The Queen of Johor Raja Zarith Sofiah and the school's principal, Mr Andrew Dalton, toured the impressive facilities.

Students cheering and waving Malaysian flags lined her route clamouring for a sight of their royal visitor.

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Warm welcome: The Duchess of Cornwall received a full, flag waving welcome as she visited a school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia today

The Duchess was all smiles while greeting the children during her visit to The International School at Park City, which is a recently opened British curriculum school ranked fifth overall for A-Level results in Malaysia

The Duchess was accompanied by Her Majesty The Queen of Johor Raja Zarith Sofiah for the visit

She was greeted with flowers from a young pupil as the school's Principal, Mr Andrew Dalton, took her on a tour of the impressive facilities

The Duchess and Her Majesty The Queen of Johor also visited classrooms during the special trip and spoke with children

Students cheering and waving Malaysian flags lined her route clamouring for a sight of their royal visitor. Above they took an all-school photograph to capture the historic event

She also watched a swimming gala and signed a commemorative plaque to officially open the new building. The Duchess also met students in a year six class engaged in a creative writing workshop for The Queen's Commonwealth Essay Competition.

Before she left she met meet Malaysian author Tash Aw - one of south east Asia's most successful writer as he undertook a workshop.

Open to all Commonwealth students, the competition is used to build confidence, develop writing skills, support creativity and encourage critical thinking, Camilla, who has placed childhood literacy at the heart of her public work, described the students she met as 'bursting with ideas'.

'It's all there, they are just uncorked,' she said.

The school has 1,100 pupils aged three to 18, from 50 nationalities.

Listening to their dreams for the future from a class of teenagers, based on tolerance and peace, the Duchess said: 'I expect they're coming up with much more original ideas than we have, they're so new and fresh.'

The trio also observed students during a swim practice at the impressive new school

The Duchess seemed to enjoy her time at The International School at ParkCity

The Duchess signed a commemorative plaque at The International School at ParkCity

Listening to their dreams for the future from a class of teenagers, based on tolerance and peace, the Duchess said: 'I expect they're coming up with much more original ideas than we have, they're so new and fresh.'

She told them: 'You're very bright. If children are all like you there is a lot of hope in this world. You're full of ideas.'

Later she met with a group of female equality pioneers at the Majestic Hotel in Kuala Lumpur for a discussion over tea about the role of women in Malaysian society - and was so engrossed in the conversation that the meeting ran over.

Dr Sharifah Hapsah, president of the National Council of Women's Organisations, described Camilla as 'completely charming' and said she was fascinated by the issues discussed.

'Her husband came in earlier to say how much his wife was looking forward to it and how much she wanted to discuss issues such as domestic violence, which is a particular passion of hers,' she said.

She told them: 'You're very bright. If children are all like you there is a lot of hope in this world. You're full of ideas.'

The Duchess is in the midst of a busy and hectic 11-day tour of the south-east Asia and India. The tour involves nearly 50 engagements for the The Duchess, who is aged 70

After her school visit, Camilla attended a meeting on gender equality with Malaysian female business leaders at The Majestic Hotel Kuala Lumpur

'She did raise the issue of violence within the home and wanted to learn more about what services were available for women in Malaysia.'

Charles, meanwhile, shows off his skills in Arabic - by signing his name in the language.

He began the first full day of his maiden visit to Malaysia by touring the national Islamic Arts Museum with the ruler of the state of Perak, Sultan Nazrin Shah, the deputy Agong.

The heir to the throne, who has a passionate interest in Islamic art, has been learning to read and write the language for around six years.

While Camilla was solo for the day, The Prince of Wales visited the Islamic Arts Museum in Kuala Lumpur. Above he points to his framed signature written in Arabic, which is gifted to the museum during an unveiling by Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah, The Sultan of Perak

Above The Prince of Wales enters through a door shaped in the style of Dr Who's Tardis during his visit to Worq Co-working space for Young Entrepreneurs

He presented his name Charles, written phonetically in Arabic, to the museum as a gift and in return received an image of the qur'an by Japanese calligrapher Fuad Koichi Honda.

Charles told the guests who included members of a number faiths: 'For me, ladies and Gentlemen, this museum serves as a reminder of just how important it is that all societies are able to preserve - and be proud of - their cultural heritage.'

He added: 'The Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia is the most wonderful celebration of the great diversity of traditions in Islamic art, and the rich variety of influences that have shaped it over the centuries.

'I am particularly delighted that the Museum has such strong connections with my own School of Traditional Arts which itself aims to ensure that traditional arts and skills continue to enrich our changing world.'

Earlier, the couple made a quick stop in Brunei for just a few hours in the midst of their 11-day tour of Asia

Camilla, 70, joked that she's not as young as she used to be during a hectic 11-day tour of south east Asia and India

When the prince, who is on an 11-day tour of south-east Asia and India, arrived from a brief visit from Brunei last night he signed his name in Arabic and had it framed as a gift.

He also voiced his concern that society needs to put the pedestrian rather than the car at the centre of urban development.

The Prince was attending a meeting of Malaysian town planners, organised in association with his Prince's Foundation

For Building Community. Malaysia is preparing to host the next UN World Urban Forum (WUF) in Kuala Lumpur next year. Meeting delegates, the Prince remarked : 'We should always start by putting the human being - the pedestrian- at the centre of things so that you have a walkable, liveable area that's attractive and reminds people of their local identity and culture.'

Several hours after meeting the Sultan of Brunei, the couple arrived in Kuala Lumpur for their visit to Malaysia

Camilla is said to have enjoyed a productive 45-minute conversation with the wife of the Sultan of Brunei

Camilla enjoyed catching up with Her Majesty Raja Isteri of Brunei

He also stressed the importance of joint-planning by developers. 'I've been trying for years to persuade the utility companies to put their cables and everything else in one trench so that they don't keep digging up the road.'

The couple is in the of a hectic 11-day tour of south-east Asia and India involving almost 50 engagements.

During a meeting with The Raja Isteri, wife of the Sultan of Brunei the Duchess, 70, admitted the pace is taking its toll.

The royal couple, who are on an official tour of Asia on behalf of the Queen, flew into Brunei for a whirlwind meeting with the country's monarch, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah - worth an estimated $20 billion - and tea with his family.

The royal couple enjoyed tea with the Sultan's family in a gilded room bedecked priceless masterpieces on the walls

Charles and Camilla spent just a few hours in the kingdom of one of the wealthiest men in the world between visiting Singapore and Malaysia.

As The Raja Isteri sympathised about the gruelling schedule, asking if she found it tiring, the Duchess replied cheerfully: 'Very tiring. Every day, we're non stop. It's more tiring as you get older.'

She joked: 'I keep trying to tell everybody that I'm not as young as I used to be, and have to slow down.'

Charles and Camilla, who are travelling in the government's official Voyager jet, were met at the international airport after flying in from Singapore by British High Commissioner Richard Lindsay.

The Duchess looked cool in the 84F heat in a loose Anna Valentine tunic and trousers.

Lindsay introduced them to the Sultan's heir, Crown Prince Al-Muhtadee Billah and his wife, the beautiful Princess Sarah, who was a 17-year-old student when she married her husband, then 30, in 2004. She is pregnant with their fourth child.
A conservative blogger and Internet personality has been banned by the ride-sharing applications Lyft and Uber after making anti-Muslim comments on Twitter following Tuesday's terrorist attack in New York City.

Laura Loomer, known for her right-wing political activism, had her accounts 'deactivated' following multiple incendiary messages aimed at New York's Muslim community.

'Someone needs to create a non Islamic form of Uber or Lyft because I never want to support another Islamic immigrant driver,' Loomer wrote in one post on Wednesday.

Right-wing firebrand Laura Loomer (pictured), 24, was bared from using the ride-sharing applications Lyft and Uber after making incendiary comments about Muslims

The decision came after Loomer posted to Twitter multiple comments expressing anti-Muslim sentiments

Loomer launched into the tirade after it was revealed that the man responsible for the terrorist attack, Sayfullo Saipov, was a Muslim immigrant from Uzbekistan and former Uber driver.

After reports began circulating on social media that the companies had barred Loomer, 24, from using their services, the outspoken commentator took to Twitter to lament the decision.

Sayfullo Saipov (pictured) killed eight people on Tuesday after using his car to ram into pedestrians in NYC

'Uber will literally hire an Islamic terrorist, but they will ban a conservative journalist for addressing legitimate safety concerns,' she tweeted.

Lyft and Uber confirmed that they have imposed an indefinite ban against Loomer following her comments, according to NBC News 4.

She later posted a picture of two women wearing hijabs near where the incident occurred, writing in the caption: 'I bet they're loving this.'

Muslims are out in full force at the scene of the NYC#ISIS attack today rubbing it everyones face. Aimlessly walking around in hijabs,' Loomer stated in a separate message.

Soon after posting the comments, the conservative firebrand received a fierce backlash from social media users, including celebrity model Gigi Hadid.

Laura, I hate to give you attention, but I need to tell you  Youre a f***ing moron, Hadid wrote.

Social media users accused Loomer of being 'racist,' including celebrity model Gigi Hadid

The far-right blogger later doubled-down with the anti-Muslim rhetoric, reveling in the fact that every liberal in Hollywood and members of the main stream media were outraged by her comments.

She wrote: Every liberal in Hollywood and MSM [main stream media] is tweeting at me today. I guess I really p***ed them off! Its not like I killed eight ppl [people].

Hadid, who has become increasingly outspoken in her support of Muslims, replied that Loomers response to the criticism only confirmed her plan to gain attention by spreading messages of hate.

She wrote on twitter: alas.. your RT [retweet] only proves your classless desperation to spread hate for attention.

Hadid, 21, who is half-Palestinian, has increasingly spoken out on Muslim issues which culminated in her cover of Vogue Arabia in March this year.

Loomer, who according to her Twitter profile identifies as Jewish, later wrote: 'Palestinians like @gigihadid are always blasting Jews. What's New?'

Twitter users responded by blasting Loomer as 'racist' and insensitive, accusing her of exploiting Tuesday's terror attack for attention.
Indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his former business associate Rick Gates will remain under house arrest with GPS ankle monitors because a judge fears that they are flight risks.

The two men have been under home confinement since Monday, when they were indicted in relation to special counsel Robert Muller's investigation into the alleged ties between then-candidate Donald Trump's campaign alleged, undisclosed ties to Russia and the question of Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election.

'I have concerns about flight,' U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson told Manafort and Gates while they were in her Washington, DC courtroom on Thursday afternoon, NBC News reported.

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Rick Gates arrives at the courthouse for his hearing on Thursday, revealing the ankle monitor a judge decided he must continue to wear while under house arrest

Gates attempted to hide the court mandated ankle monitor under his trouser sock

Prior to the judge's decision, Gates' legal team had argued that he is not a flight risk and that he should be released from house arrest because his job required that he travel for work

The former Trump campaign chairman entered a not guilty plea on Monday, before being freed on a $10million bond and agreed to be on 'home detention' as a condition of his release.

A federal judge ordered him to wear an ankle bracelet while on house arrest so he can't flee the country, as it was revealed on Wednesday he was holding three passports.

Gates, meanwhile, was placed under house arrest on a $5million bond, also with an ankle bracelet monitor.

Manafort and Gates' bail hearing will be held on Monday, during which time conditions of their release will be determined. It is believed that they could face trial as soon as April 2018.

Prior to the judge's statement, Manafort's legal team filed court documents arguing that he is not a flight risk - despite having three passports - as he claimed his $10 million bail was enough to hold him.

Manafort's legal team claimed evidence has been 'embellished' and argued that because of Manafort's 'strong family ties' he is not a flight risk and his hefty bail is enough to keep him put, according to documents obtained by DailyMail.com.

Manfort's lawyers also worked to dismiss the outcry over Manafort having three passports, saying: 'Although it might be surprising to some, it is perfectly permissible to have more than one U.S. passport, as individuals who travel abroad extensively no doubt know.'

Gates' legal team also attempted to secure his release from home confinement. They argued that his job required that he travel and noted that he is a 'devoted husband' and 'very involved father,' whose family depend on him for financial reasons.

Paul Manafort is insisting he isn't a flight risk after the former Trump campaign chairman was charged on Monday, according to court documents filed on Thursday

Along with his business partner Rick Gates (right), Manafort had the first charges from the probe of possible Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. A courtroom sketch shows Manafort (center) and his former protege Gates entering their not-guilty pleas

Manafort's motion rejected a court filing submitted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that said Manafort and Gates, 'pose a risk of flight based on the serious nature of the charges' against them, their substantial means and foreign connections.

The official also said some house arrest pretrial arrangements can come with allowances for leaving the house for work, school, church services and even grocery shopping.

A bail memo Mueller's team submitted to the court justifying the pair's house arrests and electronic monitoring revealed additional details about conduct the special counsel's office found concerning, like the email address and phone that Manafort registered under an alias.

The phone Manafort took to Mexico in June, and China and Ecuador in May. Manafort registered the alias email address in March, before the Department of Justice approved a special counsel investigation.

Manafort had been under scrutiny long before that, though. He was sidelined and then ousted from Trump's campaign in August of 2016 when he was accused of accepting an off-the-books payment of $12 million from the ex-leader of the Ukrainian government for political consulting work he was known to have done.

A judge ordered Manafort and Gates to wear an ankle bracelet while on house arrest so they can't flee the country, as it was revealed on Wednesday Manafort was holding three passports

Now, Manafort's legal team is claiming evidence has been 'embellished' and argue that because of Manafort's 'strong family ties' he is not a flight risk and want his hefty bail is proof

Manafort and his protege Gates were indicted on Monday on 12 charges that involve their foreign bank accounts and money laundering. According to the government, they had close to $75 million that mostly hid in overseas accounts.

The pair entered not guilty pleas in a federal courtroom, telling a magistrate judge that they'll fight the Justice Department in court. Manafort lives in Alexandria, a close-in suburb of Washington. Gates resides in Richmond, more than 100 miles to the south.

The charges against the men are the first from the probe of possible Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election were unsealed.

The indictment against Manafort, 68, and Gates, 45, includes 12 separate criminal counts: conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts.

Trump insisted via Twitter shortly after the indictments that there was 'NO COLLUSION' and Manafort's lawyer told reporters camped outside of the courthouse on Monday afternoon that the president 'was correct'.

'There is no evidence that Mr. Manafort or the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government,' Kevin Downing said.

His lawyers tried to dismiss the outcry over Manafort having three passports, saying: 'Although it might be surprising to some, it is perfectly permissible to have more than one U.S. passport, as individuals who travel abroad extensively no doubt know'

CIRCUS: Kevin Downing, attorney for Paul Manafort, spoke to reporters after the preliminary hearing on Monday

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said during a Monday press briefing that the 'announcement has nothing to do with the president, nothing to do with the president's campaign or campaign activity.' Sanders told DailyMail.com that Trump and Manafort 'haven't spoken in several months. The last known conversation was back all the way to February.' She said that 'there was some initial contact' with Gates 'after the president was sworn in, with him at meetings here at the White House  but nothing directly with the president.' The government alleges that at least $75 million was moved by Manafort to offshore accounts without declaring the income to the government. From there Manafort allegedly withdrew $18 million to fund a lavish lifestyle, and Gates is accused of pulling out another $3 million. Monday afternoon's preliminary hearing was before U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson. Gates' spokesman Glenn Selig issued a strident defense of his client after his court appearance. He said the former Trump campaign hand 'welcomes the opportunity to confront these charges in court. He is not going to comment further until he has had a chance to review the lengthy indictment with his legal team,' he said. 'In the meanwhile, he would appreciate you respecting his and his family's privacy as they weather this unexpected and hasty proceeding designed to accommodate perhaps political and press considerations rather than his right to have counsel of his choice by his side during this most troubling and challenging day for him and his loved ones. This fight is just beginning.'

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation has brought its first criminal charges and yielded three arrests  including one low-level guilty plea

Kevin Downing, the attorney for Paul Manafort, told reporters in a statement that 'there is no evidence that Mr. Manafort or the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government'

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told DailyMail.com during Monday's briefing that Trump and Manafort 'haven't spoken in several months. The last known conversation was back all the way to February'

President Trump pounced on Monday, denying Manafort's alleged crimes predated his campaign and insisting that he never colluded with Russia to affect the 2016 election

Manafort's attorney said the millionaire lobbyist would fight the charges.

Downing said Manafort 'represented pro-European Union campaigns' for Ukraine and that he was 'seeking to further democracy and to help the Ukraine come closer to the United States and the EU.'

'Today, you see an indictment brought by an office of special counsel that is using a very novel theory to prosecute Mr. Manafort, regarding a FARA filing. The United States government has only used that offense six times since 1966, and only resulted in one conviction,' Downing declared.

'The second thing about this indictment that I myself find most ridiculous is a claim that maintaining offshore accounts to bring all your funds into the United States as a scheme to conceal from the United States government is ridiculous,' he said.

Downing then walked away from a media stake-out site without taking any questions.

The defendants' surrender to the FBI in the morning was followed by a dramatic announcement that one of Trump's campaign foreign policy advisers, George Papadopoulos, had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contact with Russians who promised 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton and access to 'thousands' of her emails.

Papadopoulos secretly agreed to a plea bargain earlier this month, suggesting he may be cooperating with Mueller.

Manafort was involved with the Trump campaign for nearly five months, in senior positions that gave him access to the day-to-day operations of the future president's political operation.

Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidant, said in September that Manafort has no information that could put the president in legal jeopardy, predicting that 'he's not going to lie.'

The possible sentences, if found guilty, would be stiff: up to 80 years in prison for Manafort and 70 for Gates, plus millions of dollars in fines.

More typical federal sentencing for the crimes charged would be 10 to 12.5 years for Gates and 12.5 to 15 for Manafort.

Trump campaign aide Rick Gates, shown at left during the Republican National Convention, faces charges along with Manafort and has also pleaded not guilty

Guilty: George Papadopoulos is facing up to six months in prison. He was a foreign policy adviser to Trump who admits lying to the FBI about contact with Russians who offered dirt on Hillary Clinton and thousands of her emails

HOW MANAFORT SPENT HIS MILLIONS Monday morning's indictment lists a host of lavish expenses that ate up millions from Paul Manafort's alleged offshore accounts, including: $5.43 million for home improvement in the Hamptons

$1.31 million for home improvement in Florida for 'home automation, lighting and home entertainment'

$934,000 at an antique rug store

$849,000 at a men's clothing store in New York

$819,000 for two landscapers in The Hamptons

$623,000 on antiques in New York

$520,000 at a Beverly Hills clothing sto re

$163,700 for payments on three Range Rovers

$62,000 on a Mercedes Benz

$31,900 at a Florida art gallery

$20,000 on New York housekeepers Advertisement

Trump's defiant tweet, and his reference to Clinton who faces her own claims of receiving dirty Russian money, sets the stage for a showdown with Mueller which led on Monday morning to Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, calling for legislative moves to prevent the special counsel from being fired.

The indictment is purely focused on alleged financial crimes and does not include any charges related to the broader question that formed the basis of Mueller's investigation  whether Donald Trump's presidential campaign colluded with Russia to swing the 2016 election in his favor.

It describes criminal allegations that predate the Trump campaign; Trump's name is not mentioned in the 31-page document.

A federal grand jury approved the indictments on Friday and a judge ordered them sealed. A White House official told DailyMail.com on Monday that the administration may not comment at all on the arrests.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who was appointed by former president Barack Obama and confirmed in the Senate by a 97-0 vote.

Among the expenses paid for by Manafort-controlled entities in Cyprus, according to the indictment, were $600,000 for antiques and $500,000 paid to a Beverly Hills tailor and $849,000 to a men's clothing store in New York.

Other money went for premium automobiles and home renovations in Florida and the Hamptons. The Hamptons home alone had $5.4 million in renovations, the indictment said.

Hand them over: The indictment demands that Manafort be stripped of two New York city properties, a SoHo loft (left) and Brooklyn brownstone (right), as well as a Hamptons home which he lavished more than $5 million on in renovations, and an Arlington, VA, condo

Manafort also spent $934,350 at an antique rug store in Alexandria, Virginia.

The indictment demands that four of his properties are seized, including a Brooklyn brownstone he bought to renovate, a loft in New York's trendy SoHo which he let out on Airbnb, a Hamptons home and his Arlington, Virginia condo.

Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez said in a statement that the indictment 'underscores the seriousness of the investigation into Donald Trump's ties to Russia. It's time for Republicans to commit to protecting this investigation and preserving the rule of law.'

In a separate statement, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said the charges demonstrated the necessity of keeping congressional investigations running alongside the Mueller probe.

'Even with an accelerating Special Counsel investigation inside the Justice Department, and investigations inside the Republican Congress, we still need an outside, fully independent investigation to expose Russia's meddling in our election and the involvement of Trump officials,' she said.

'Defending the integrity of our democracy demands that Congress look forward to counter Russian aggression and prevent future meddling with our elections.'

Manafort and Gates were the one-two punch responsible for keeping Republican National Convention delegates in line last year as the possibility emerged of a contentious floor fight over the presidential nomination.

Then-candidate Donald Trump first Manafort after reports that he pocketed at least $12 million in undisclosed payments from Viktor Yanukovych (pictured), the pro-Russia former Ukrainian president.

Manafort was fired shortly after the convention and replaced by pollster Kellyanne Conway, but Gates stayed on and was more recently working to help close out the financial books of Trump's inaugural committee.

He had worked for Manafort's international firm, Davis Manafort Partners, from 2006 to 2007.

The move to throw Manafort overboard came after reports that Manafort pocketed at least $12 million in undisclosed payments from Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russia former Ukrainian president.

Manafort and his firm, which Gates helped run, spent years as Yanukovych's political consultants.

The Justice Department's indictment charges that Manafort and Gates 'generated tens of millions of dollars in income as a result of their Ukraine work.'

'In order to hide Ukraine payments from United States authorities, from approximately 2006 through at least 2016, Manafort and Gates laundered the money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships and bank accounts,' it continues.

Mueller's probe focused on wire transfers Manafort made from Ukraine to private accounts and whether he paid taxes on that income.

Kevin Downing, Manafort's lawyer, was formerly a prosecutor in the Justice Department's criminal tax division.

In July the FBI in July executed a surprise search warrant with guns drawn at Manafort's home in Alexandria, Virginia, seizing financial and tax documents.

Headed to a judge: Paul Manafort was driven by his lawyer on Monday morning to turn himself in to Mueller

It's unclear if Manafort is the biggest fish in Mueller's sights, or if the former FBI director intends to squeeze him for information more directly related to the 2016 election and Russia's possible interference with it.

The Russia investigation has cast a shadow over President Donald Trump's nine-month-old presidency and widened the partisan rift between Republicans and Democrats.

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in January that Russia interfered in the election to try to help Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton by hacking and releasing embarrassing emails and disseminating propaganda via social media to discredit her.

Mueller is also investigating whether Trump campaign officials colluded with those Russian efforts.

Trump tweeted Monday morning about a report that Barack Obama's campaign organization funneled nearly $1 million to the law firm that served as a pass-through last year between Democrats and an opposition research firm that produced the salacious and discredited 'dirty dossier' on the president.

Manafort hid his face from reporters who were staking out his house in Alexandria, Virginia as he left to turn himself in at the FBI's headquarters

'Report out that Obama Campaign paid $972,000 to Fusion GPS. The firm also got $12,400,000 (really?) from DNC. Nobody knows who OK'd!' the president tweeted on Monday.

That tweet came a half-hour before news broke that Manafort and Gates had been indicted. The White House hasn't yet commented on their surrender.

Trump has denied the allegations of collusion with the Russians and called the probe 'a witch hunt.' The Kremlin also has denied the allegations.

Mueller, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has been looking into possible links between Trump aides and foreign governments, as well as potential money laundering, tax evasion and other financial crimes, according to sources familiar with the probe. He also is exploring whether Trump or his aides have tried to obstruct the investigation.

Mueller was appointed to lead the investigation a week after Trump's May 9 firing of FBI Director James Comey, who was heading a federal probe into possible collusion with Russia.

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn could also face charges later related to his contacts with Russian officials

Trump initially said he fired Comey because his leadership of the FBI was inadequate.

In a later interview with NBC, he cited 'this Russia thing' as his reason.

Investigators led by Mueller have interviewed former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, former spokesman Sean Spicer and other current and former White House and campaign officials.
Tiahleigh Palmer's foster mother lied about the slain Queensland schoolgirl's disappearance because she wanted to protect her family and lifestyle, a court has heard.

Julene Thorburn faced Beenleigh District Court on Friday, where she pleaded guilty to one count each of perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Crown prosecutor David Nardone said the 55-year-old gave false information to authorities because she wanted to protect 'her family and lifestyle'.

Julene Thorburn faced Beenleigh District Court on Friday, where she pleaded guilty to one count each of perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice

Tiahleigh Palmer's foster mother lied about the slain Queensland schoolgirl's disappearance because she wanted to protect her family and lifestyle, a court has heard

The court heard she was also motivated because of the 'shame and embarrassment', as well as a desire to protect her son Trent who has since been convicted of incest.

Mr Nardone said Tiahleigh's biological mother Cindy Palmer was 'tormented' by Thorburn's deception and the time it took for her to reveal her statements had been misleading.

'From Mrs Palmer's point of view, Mrs Thorburn has failed terribly,' he said.

As he heard submissions, Judge Craig Chowdhury said he could grasp why someone would want to protect their family.

However, he said one would think 'pangs of conscience' once the schoolgirl's body was discovered dumped on the banks of a Gold Coast river 'like the carcass of an animal'.

To this, Mr Nardone said Thorburn's own motives appeared to 'outweigh that sense of decency'.

Mr Nardone said Tiahleigh's biological mother Cindy Palmer was 'tormented' by Thorburn's deception

Tiahleigh was last seen alive on October 30, 2015, with her decomposing body found on the banks of the Pimpama River on November 5

Family patriarch Rick Thorburn has been committed to stand trial for the schoolgirl's murder.

The couple's son, Trent, was sentenced to four years' imprisonment in September after pleading guilty to four charges, including perjury and incest.

Their eldest son Joshua was jailed for three months in July after pleading guilty to the same charges as his mother.

Tiahleigh was last seen alive on October 30, 2015, with her decomposing body found on the banks of the Pimpama River on November 5.

The couple's son, Trent, was sentenced to four years' imprisonment in September after pleading guilty to four charges, including perjury and incest
Australian residents took more than 10 million trips overseas last year, with around one in every 1,000 requiring consular assistance.



Around 12,454 people asked for help while holidaying overseas, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's 2016-17 Consular State of Play.

But which countries were people most likely to be imprisoned, lose their passport or require hospital treatment in?

Australian residents took more than 10 million trips overseas last year, with around one in every 1,000 requiring consular assistance for imprisonment, hospitalisations and other issues (stock image)

Despite New Zealand being the most visited country according to the report, it was actually in Thailand that most Australians encountered problems.

The country topped the list for hospitalisations, with 195 people requiring help, as well as for deaths and missing persons cases.

Following closely behind was the USA, where Australians were most likely to arrested or detained.

Of the 285 cases documented, 116 were immigration-related while 169 were law enforcement-related, with another 16 cases of drug related arrests.

Despite New Zealand being the most visited country according to the report, it was actually in Thailand that most Australians encountered problems, with more hospitalisations, deaths and missing persons than other places (stock image)

Consular services provided to Australians Reason 2016-17 2015-16 2014-15 Arrest 1,641 1,551 1,256 Imprisonment 370 391 371 Death 1,653 1,516 1,282 Hospitalisations 1,701 1,667 1,453 Whereabouts Inquiries 2,546 5,582 5,697 Repatriation 52 76 61 Welfare 3,081 3,089 3,053 Theft 773 1,238 1,066 Assault 317 315 235 Other 320 315 1,350 Total 12,454 15,740 15,824 Source: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Following close behind for troubles was the USA, where Australians were 285 people were arrested or detained (stock image of a police patrol in Chicago last year)

Indonesia came third among the countries Australians sought help from, with 717 consular cases, while the Philippines and China rounded out the top five.

More than 1,800 people sought 'crisis' whereabouts assistance in the last year, with situations including the attempted coup in Turkey and terrorist attacks in Nice and London.

Top five countries where Australians sought help 1. Thailand - 893 cases 2. USA - 855 cases 3. Indonesia - 717 cases 4. Philippines - 520 cases 5. China - 395 cases Source: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Advertisement

Among the countries where hospitalisations were also quite prevalent were Indonesia and Vietnam, with New Caledonia moving up the list to fourth place wioth 103 people needing help.

'The surge in cases in New Caledonia reflects the growing popularity of cruise tourism in the Pacific, with an older demographic more vulnerable to illness or accident,' the report said.

The study also found cases of sexual assault rose for Australians overseas, with 142 cases in 2016-17 compared to 136 the previous year, however no one country was more likely for an attack to occur.

While theft or loss of passports also proved to be a common occurrence, with more than 4,500 people reporting such cases.

In the UK 237 passports went missing, while a whopping 739 people travelling to America had theirs lost or stolen.

Indonesia came third among the countries Australians sought help from, with 717 consular cases, while the Philippines and China rounded out the top five (stock image of officers in Hong Kong)
A case is also open relating to the 2013 disappearance of Jessica Heeringa, 25

Investigators said the gun linked him to the 2014 killing of Rebekah Bletsch

Police later arrested Willis and a search of his van and house uncovered a pistol, ammunition, a mouth gag, chains, and syringes filled with liquid

The teen escaped Willis by jumping out of his moving silver minivan

He has also been connected to the disappearance of Jessica Heeringa in 2013

Willis was arrested in 2016 also after allegedly attempting to kidnap a 16-year-old girl at gunpoint in Muskegon County, Michigan

Jurors in the case collaborated for nearly two hours before making the final decision Thursday afternoon

He cried as the victim's loved ones cheered after hearing the guilty verdict

Jeffrey Willis, 47, was convicted for the 2014 murder of a woman

A Michigan man is facing life in prison without parole after he was found guilty of murdering a mother while she was jogging.

Jeffrey Willis, 47, wept in court on Thursday after he was convicted of shooting and killing Rebekah Bletsch, 36, in Muskegon County on June 29, 2014.

Jurors in the case deliberated for nearly two hours before making the final decision Thursday afternoon, following over a week of testimony.

'I've never seen pure evil, but the defendant to me is pure evil,' prosecutor D.J. Hilson told jurors during the court hearing, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Jeffrey Willis cries in court as Public Defender Fred Johnson gives his closing statements, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017, at the Muskegon County Courthouse in Muskegon, Mich. Thursday

He was convicted of killing Rebekah Bletsch, who was jogging when she was shot in the head in 2014, one of two murder cases filed against him in western Michigan

Muskegon County Prosecutor D.J. Hilson watches as members of Rebekah Bletsch's family hug after Jeffrey Willis was found guilty

Hilson talks to Rebekah Bletsch's family as Jeffrey Willis enters the courtroom during his murder trial

'Not only does he have the willingness to lie, but he has no problem killing people.'

Bletsch's heartbroken yet relieved father, Nick Winberg, said his family is 'pleased (they can now) heal up somewhat and move on.'

While the victim's relative, Tim Donkin, said in a statement: 'He's going to wake up every day in a place that he'll be reminded about what he's done, so I have nothing to say to him.'

Officers said ballistics from a handgun recovered from Willis's minivan matched those used to kill Bletsch - as did shell casings found at the scene of her murder.

Jeffrey Willis, 46, (left) was also arrested back in 2016 month over claims he tried to kidnap a 16-year-old girl, but is now convicted of the murder of mother Rebekah Bletsch, 36 (right)

Police say ballistics taken from Bletsch's murder scene match a pistol found inside Willis's minivan (center), where officers also discovered a mouth gag, chains, and syringes full of liquid

Willis had long been a suspect in Bletsch's slaying, but officers had never acquired enough evidence to arrest or charge him until two years after the event.

Prosecutor D.J. Hilson said after his May 2016 arrest: 'Today is still a sad day for many people, but is a happy day for law enforcement.'

Willis has also been connected to the disappearance of Jessica Heeringa (pictured) in 2013

Bletsch's father, added: 'It's been a rough couple of years, but we've had our faith and trust in law enforcement and they haven't' let us down.'

Willis will receive his sentence come December.

The convicted killer, who was a factory worker at the time, was also arrested the same month last year over claims he tried to abduct a 16-year-old girl at gunpoint.

A case is currently open on the disappearance of Jessica Heeringa, 25, who vanished from the Exxon Mobil gas station where she worked in 2013.

A silver minivan similar to Willis's was spotted on surveillance cameras near the gas station, and police believe it may have been used to kidnap Heeringa, who was never seen again.

The evidence in the murder trial against Willis only came to light after he was arrested for the alleged kidnapping of the teen girl.

The girl told officers she was lost along a rural road on April 16, 2016 when Willis pulled over and offered her the use of his cell phone.

Relatives of Bletsch, including sister Nicole Winberg (center) break down on May 25, 2016, as they are told of the new charges against Willis

After climbing inside his minivan, a 2006 Dodge Caravan, the girl said he pointed a gun at her and locked the doors before driving away.

However, she said she managed to unlock the door and jumped from the moving vehicle before alerting authorities.

Eventually investigators landed on Willis, who was arrested when detectives carried out a search on his home and vehicle.

Inside his van, police say they found a semiautomatic pistol, ammunition, syringes with liquid, a ball gag, chains, a mask and a bar with wrist restraints. Investigators said the gun linked him to the murder of Bletsch.

A search of his home unearthed child pornography and videos of women being restrained, investigators added.
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With an eye-watering price tag of 999 ($999), customers will be hoping for some decent bang for their buck.

But that didn't put off Apple fans as the much-anticipated iPhone X's with its lush screen and facial-recognition skills tests the patience of consumers and investors with demand outstripping supply around the world.

The X is Apple's next generation smartphone that uses facial recognition software for the first time and is going on sale in cities worldwide today - with queues building at Apple Stores amid rumours of limited stock.

First impressions of the device on Twitter today appeared largely positive, with fans describing the 10th anniversary device as as 'sleek', 'beautiful' and the 'Apple's best phone ever'.

Some, however, appeared to yearn for the home button and headphone jack, while others were confused by the 'notch' at the top of the screen, where the front-facing camera sits.

'Not really trying to be a hater here but the black notch on the top of the iPhone X literally drove me nuts playing with it. Terrible design', tweeted @jareyn412.

'iPhone X looks very sleek. I won't get it soon, though, as I do want a 3.5mm headphone jack as standard. No adapter,' wrote @GraysonPeddie.

The glass design appears to have been a problem for some. At least three Apple fans in China have posted pictures and footage showing their smashed iPhone X after allegedly dropping their brand new gadgets.

But those who managed to get their hands on one this morning, without breaking it, will be pleased to know they are sitting on potential gold mines, with devices already listed for sale on auction website eBay for up to 15,000 ($19,600).

LONDON: People queue outside the Apple Store on Regent Street in London as the iPhone X goes on sale in the UK

LONDON: The queue for the new iPhone X at the Regent Street Apple Store in Central London this morning

LONDON: The new phone will be the first iPhone to use FaceID, facial recognition software used to unlock the device

LONDON: Apple customers try out the new iPhone X at the Regent Street Apple Store in London today

LONDON: The queue builds this morning outside the Apple store in Covent Garden in London as the iPhone X comes out

The notch

While many of the iPhone X's competitors, including Samsung's Galaxy S8 and LG's V30 have edgeless displays, Apple's offering features a bizarre notch at the top of the screen.

The notch contains the 3D scanning sensors and cameras that power Face ID, but cuts into the top of the display.

DailyMail.com reviewed the iPhone X, and found that the notch is actually barely noticeable most of the time, and when you're viewing videos, for example, there's the option of viewing in a window with black bars, or full screen with the notch intruding on the picture.

Several people have taken to Twitter to express their annoyance at the notch. 'Not really trying to be a hater here but the black notch on the top of the iPhone X literally drove me nuts playing with it. Terrible design', tweeted Jared

Apps are a little bit of a problem, in the short term at least.

Apps that haven't been specifically updated for the iPhone X but use Apple's iOS autolayout system fill the screen, but odd things happen, with buttons appearing in strange places.

If an app hasn't been updated you get an annoying black bar at the top and bottom - but expect these to become fewer and fewer as developers rush to update.

Several people have taken to Twitter to express their annoyance at this obstructive feature.

Kyle James Fraser tweeted: 'Apple and their 'top notch' iPhone X, can't watch movies full screen! The future?' along with a screenshot of the device

'Not really trying to be a hater here but the black notch on the top of the iPhone X literally drove me nuts playing with it. Terrible design', tweeted Jared.

And user XO added: 'Probably the dumbest issue w/ iPhone X is notch with it causing the battery % charged/remaining to be cutoff and not displayed.'

Kyle James Fraser joked: 'Apple and their 'top notch' iPhone X, can't watch movies full screen! The future?'

But not everyone was phased by the notch.

'FYI: the notch is a total non-issue in the first hour of playing with this thing', tweeted iPhase, a visual designer from Melbourne.

Lack of home button

In the iPhone X, Apple has ditched the home button in favour of an all-screen device.

Users must now swipe up on the main screen to control the device - a feature that many aren't too happy about.

Juliet tweeted: 'The iPhone X is SO WEIRD. The feel of an iPhone without a home button is a feeling I cannot support.' And Arun Maini said: 'Swiping up every time you want to go home on the iPhone X is way more tiring than a home button - I've got hand cramp after 30 minutes'

Juliet tweeted: 'The iPhone X is SO WEIRD. The feel of an iPhone without a home button is a feeling I cannot support.'

And Arun Maini said: 'Swiping up every time you want to go home on the iPhone X is way more tiring than a home button - I've got hand cramp after 30 minutes.'

But others disagreed and embraced the full-screen display, including Josh Parker who tweeted: 'The swipe motion instead of the home button is so much better!'

Lack of headphone jack

Like its predecessor, the iPhone 7, the iPhone X has ditched the headphone jack.

Users must either buy headphones with a lightning port, or connect their existing headphones to the phone via a connector.

While this was probably expected, considering Apple's last iPhone lacked a headphone jack, many users still aren't happy about it.

PacBilly tweeted: 'iPhone X is stupid, but then so is every other iPhone since they removed the headphone jack.'

And Grayson Peddie wrote: 'iPhone X looks very sleek. I won't get it soon, though, as I do want a 3.5mm headphone jack as standard. No adapter.'

LIVERPOOL: A huge queue builds outside the Liverpool One Apple store in the city centre ahead of the iPhone X release today

LIVERPOOL: Coffee and donuts are handed out to people who have queued through the night for the new iPhone X

Face ID

Without a home button, you can now unlock your phone using facial recognition, known as Face ID.

During its review, DailyMail.com thought this feature was easy to use, and found that the iPhone was very accurate in recognising people - even in sunglasses, hats and scarves.

But other users weren't so convinced.

Ryan tweeted: 'Face ID sucks. It has killed discreet phone use - was this invented by teachers??? Up swipe and Face ID are too obvious.'

And Doveink joked: 'Is it odd I feel I should do my hair and makeup first before setting up Face ID?'

While Apple will sell its own charging mat, this doesn't come with the device, and users must buy their own to make use of the feature. Isabel Rerat tweeted: 'Wait a minute...so you're telling me I'm paying $1,500 for a phone and it doesn't even come with a wireless charger??'

Wireless charging

One of the most futuristic features in the iPhone X is wireless charging, which allows users to charge their device by simply placing it on a charging mat.

But while Apple will sell its own charging mat, this doesn't come with the device, and users must buy their own to make use of the feature.

Isabel Rerat tweeted: 'Wait a minute...so you're telling me I'm paying $1,500 for a phone and it doesn't even come with a wireless charger??'

MANCHESTER: Hundreds of Apple fans queue outside the Apple Store at the Trafford Centre in Manchester this morning

MANCHESTER: People wait for the iPhone X at the Trafford Centre in Manchester as Apple fans around the world queued up

BATH: Fiona Gray, 54, was the first in the queue for the new iPhone X at Southgate Apple Store in Bath

BRISTOL: The queue for the new iPhone X at Quakers Friars Apple Store in Bristol this morning

Among the first to get the new device in Britain was reality TV contestant Marco Pierre White Jr, 22, the son of the celebrity chef, who joined the queue last night to pick up a phone for his girlfriend Francesca Suter.

Conspiracy theorists might suspect that Apple is artificially reducing supply to generate buzz, but analysts say the real reason is that Apple's suppliers so far haven't been able to manufacture the iPhone X quickly enough.

The new phone will be the first iPhone to use FaceID, facial recognition software used to unlock the device while also removing the Home button for the first time to make way for a larger, OLED screen.

One of the iPhone X's key new features is Animoji, which lets you turn your face  captured by the new face recognition camera  into an animated character, such as a panda or even a poo.

Making the iPhone X is proving to be a challenge because it boasts a colour-popping OLED screen, which isn't as readily available as standard LCD displays in other iPhone models.

iPhone X devices are already listed for sale on auction website eBay for up to 15,000

CHINA: Workers staff cheer for the first man to buy the newly released iPhone X at the Sanlitun Apple Store in Beijing today

CHINA: The first customer shows his new iPhone X after buying it at an Apple Store in Beijing this morning

CHINA: Workers open the door to welcome Apple fans at the Sanlitun Apple Store in Beijing this morning

The new iPhone also requires more sophisticated components to power the facial-recognition technology for unlocking the device. Even with the iPhone X's delayed release, Apple is still struggling to catch up.

Apple is now giving delivery times of five to six weeks for those ordering in advance online. Limited supplies will be available in Apple stores for the formal release Friday.

'The Super Bowl for Apple is the iPhone X,' GBH analyst Daniel Ives said. 'That is the potential game changer.'

In Hong Kong, buyers who had pre-ordered the phone online queued to pick up their new purchases, saying they were willing to pay for what they saw as a landmark model.

RUSSIA: People gather by a re:Store shop on Tverskaya Street in Moscow as Apple launches the iPhone X in Russia today

RUSSIA: People gather by a re:Store shop in Tverskaya Street as Apple launches iPhone X sales in Moscow

RUSSIA: A customer poses with iPhone X smartphones at a Svyaznoy store in Tverskaya Street as sales begin in Moscow

'It's the 10th anniversary phone - anyway, other phones like the Samsung are not much less,' said banker Tony Yeung, 35, as he queued outside the Apple store in Hong Kong's Festival Walk mall.

'It's convenient. You can unlock the phone just by holding it up to your face in bed after you wake up,' Mr Yeung added.

He said he had bought two of the 64 GB version, costing HK$8,588 (843) each, one for him and one for his wife. The 256 GB model costs HK$9,888 (972).

Student Keith Li said all his friends were changing to the new phone and had set aside money for it. Mr Li, 22, had traded in his old phone to help him meet the cost.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Customers queue outside an Apple Store during the launch of the new iPhone X at Dubai Mall today

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: A customer looks at the new iPhone X at an Apple Store during its launch at Dubai Mall in Dubai

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Customers look at the new iPhone X at an Apple Store during its launch at Dubai Mall in Dubai

Inside the Hong Kong store, those still considering whether to buy were trying out facial recognition after concerns it may compromise the security of the phone.

Nam So, 36, said he was happy to use it, preferring it to touch ID, which opens the phone at the touch of a finger. 'If your thumb is sweaty then it won't unlock. Face ID would solve this problem,' he said.

Hours after the launch, re-sellers at the Sin Tat Plaza mall in Hong Kong's commercial Mong Kok district were offering the phone at a marked up price of HK$11,500 (1,130).

Around 300 customers waited overnight outside Singapore's Apple store, the first shop in Southeast Asia to sell the new model.

AUSTRALIA: The first purchasers of the iPhone X show off their boxed phones to the media after its release in Sydney

AUSTRALIA: Apple Store staff shout and whistle to encourage people queuing for the release of the iPhone X in Sydney

AUSTRALIA: Mazen Kourouche (right), one of the first purchasers of the iPhone X, is surrounded by media in Sydney

Supakorn Rieksiri and Kittiwat Wang, both 22, said they had flown in from Bangkok on Thursday to pick up pre-orders of two phones each.

'With all the different features like facial recognition and the bigger screen, it's all quite worth it,' said Rieksiri, adding that the second handset was a gift for his mother.

Apple is setting an ambitious goal for itself to reinvent the smartphone as it strives to fend off fierce competition from rivals, especially in China. The iPhone is its main profit driver, accounting for more than half its revenues.

At one of Shanghai's largest Apple outlets, buyers said the facial recognition and screen design were reasons they were happy to pay a hefty price.

GERMANY: Various iPhone models are placed on a table for display, along with the iPhone X, at an Apple Store in Cologne

GERMANY: People queue for the iPhone X launch outside the Apple Store in Berlin this morning

GERMANY: Employees prepare the Apple Store for the iPhone X launch in Berlin this morning

'I get a new phone every year when it launches new products. This time, there are many changes but I feel like the price is acceptable,' said Wu Yi, 27, adding she had wanted to pre-order more phones online but they had sold out too quickly.

In Australia, around 400 people queued outside Apple's flagship store in central Sydney to pay A$1,579 (929) for the 10th anniversary model, a glass-and-stainless-steel device that Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook billed as 'the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone.'

Just 30 people turned up for the September release of the iPhone 8, an incremental update of the iPhone 7.

'It's beautiful bro, what a feeling, I'm excited,' builder Bishoy Behman, 18, said after picking up two iPhone X as the first in line. He said he camped outside the store for a week before paying to improve his place in the queue overnight.

JAPAN: A young woman reacts as she tries an iPhone X at the Apple Omotesando store this morning in Tokyo

JAPAN: Customers wait in line before the launch of the iPhone X outside the Apple Omotesando store in Tokyo today

JAPAN: Customers pose for a selfie photo with a cushion printed with a portrait of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs on it in Tokyo

In Apple's Omotesando store in Tokyo, some 550 people were waiting in a line stretching to around 600 metres.

'I'm going home, and after having a rest, I'd like to have fun (with the phone),' said first-in-line Yamaura, a 21-year-old college student who spent six days in the queue.

In Singapore, two tourists from Thailand - which is not an initial launch market - were the first to receive pre-ordered phones at a flagship store in the Orchard shopping district.

Arbitrage traders were also in line in an attempt to take advantage of the strong demand. In Hong Kong, some buyers quickly resold iPhone X handsets for a profit, but the resale premium eased as waiting times fell and supply concerns eased.

SINGAPORE: People look at iPhone X during its launch at the Apple Store in Singapore

SINGAPORE: One of the first customers, Mod, 22, from Bangkok, poses with his iPhone X during its launch at the Apple Store

SINGAPORE: A man tries out the Animoji feature on an iPhone X during its launch at the Apple Store in Singapore

SINGAPORE: People try the Animoji feature on iPhone X during its launch at the Apple Store in Singapore

Newly purchased iPhone X were reselling for HK$11,800 (1,160) soon after sales began, but the price quickly fell to HK$10,300 (1,012), a trader said. In mainland China - where Hong Kong traders often sell newly purchased goods - the anniversary model's starting price is 8,388 yuan (970).

In Beijing, Zhou Ying, an iPhone trader since 2010, bought two iPhone X from re-sellers at a premium of 300 yuan (34), hoping to make several hundred yuan (46) in profit.

But China iPhone sales have sagged in recent years as consumers switch to cheaper phones, while China becoming a launch market has hit demand for Hong Kong handsets.

'It is getting harder and harder for us to scalp iPhones. It is not the same as before,' said Ms Zhou.

Lines also started to form outside Apple's New York City stores yesterday evening, with a salesperson at one shop in the Upper West Side saying about 20 people had queued up so far.

LONDON: Marco Pierre White Jr speaks to another man as he queues for the iPhone X at the Regent Street store in London

LONDON: Reality TV contestant Marco Pierre White Jr gets a new iPhone X at the Regent Street Apple Store in London today

Pierre White Jr beamed with glee as he headed into the store, hugged an employee and then proudly held the iPhone X

TAIWAN: Taiwanese people queue outside an Apple Store to purchase the new Apple iPhone X today in Taipei, Taiwan

HONG KONG: Customers line up to buy the new iPhone X as they reserved online earlier at an Apple Store in Hong Kong

HONG KONG: An Apple employee counts a customer's money as they pay for a new iPhone X at an Apple Store in Hong Kong

Facial recogniition, 12 megapixel camera and portrait lighting for photographs: Behind the new iPhone X - $999 (999 in the UK) price for 64GB version, and $1,149 (1,149 in the UK) for the 256GB version - Pronounced the 'iPhone 10' - Comes with 64GB and 256GB models - No home button - swipe up from the bottom to unlock or to go home from an app or to multitask - 'Face ID' that allows users to unlock the phone by looking at it (but no fingerprint recognition) The iPhone X has ditched the home button, making room for an almost edgeless display with glass on both sides of the device - Qi and AirPower wireless charging that lets you charge multiple devices at once - 'Screen tap' unlock - Edge to edge display with glass on both sides of the device - Super retina display using OLED technology - highest ever pixel density in an iPhone - Dual 12 megapixel cameras and dual-optical image stabilisation - Portrait lighting that uses machine learning to touch up photos - A11 bionic chips with six cores, can be 70 per cent faster than the previous A10 chip - But 64-bit A11 bionic system processor with an embedded M11 motion coprocessor is the same as iPhone 8 (300) Advertisement
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ISIS's 'caliphate' was reduced to ruins after the terror group was driven from its last strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

Bashar al-Assad's forces announced on Friday morning that the city of Deir Ezzor had been liberated from the terrorists, weeks after their de-facto capital of Raqqa fell to the American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.

Meanwhile the Iraqi army drove the terrorists from the city of Al-Qaim, located on the Syrian border, which was the group's last bastion of control in the country.

A Syrian government tank shells the city of Deir Ezzor, the last stronghold of ISIS in the country, which was liberated from their control on Friday

Like Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa, Deir Ezzor has largely been reduced to rubble as control was wrested back from the terrorists

A Syrian government soldier flashes the 'V' for victory sign as he sits inside a tank outside Deir Ezzor on Friday morning

Forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia, are now clearing the last pockets of ISIS control from the city, sources said

The Syrian Arab Army has been fighting for weeks to retake control of the city from ISIS, which first took control of it in 2014

ISIS now controls a few cities along the Euphrates River, south of Deir Ezzor, and a sparse area of desert stretching into Iraq

That victory comes after Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city from which Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his 'caliphate', was recaptured back in July.

ISIS has now lost almost all of the territory it claimed back in 2014 as it swept through the Middle East in a lightning offensive which established it as the world's most powerful terrorist group.

ISIS executed 741 during Mosul battle ISIS perpetrated 'international crimes' by executing hundreds of civilians in Mosul, the UN says. The terror group executed 741 innocent people, the UN says, while a further 2,521 died during the fighting, mostly after strikes by ISIS. Mosul, Iraq's second city, was captured by IS in 2014 and became the capital of the group's self-styled 'caliphate'. Following IS's defeat in the city, the rights office said it had compiled witness testimony documenting 'mass abductions of civilians, the use of thousands as human shields, the intentional shelling of civilian residences, and indiscriminate targeting of civilians trying to flee'. More than 800,000 people were displaced by the fighting, the report said. Advertisement

Most of the area it now controls is sparse desert which runs from Sukhna in Syria to a few miles west of Baiji in Iraq.

The territory is largely uninhabited except for the cities of Mayadin and Al-Bukamal which sit along the Euphrates river, and several smaller surrounding towns.

Syrian government forces, backed by Russia, are now thought to be clearing out the last ISIS fighters holed up within Deir Ezzor.

'Regime forces and allied fighters... with Russian air support have full control of Deir Ezzor city,' said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information.

'Fighting has ended, now there are sweeping operations under way,' said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

The victory comes after two months of continuous fighting.

State news agency SANA said ISIS fighters were using loudspeakers to urge remaining members of the group 'not to run away from the fighting, and to kill any member who tried to escape or surrender'.

Moscow is a close ally of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and launched a military intervention in support of his government in September 2015.

ISIS has occupied most of the city since 2014.

IS once held large sections of Deir Ezzor city, and for nearly three years laid siege to other parts of it that remained under government control.

In September, Syria government troops finally entered the city, breaking the siege, and they have been battling since to restore control of the rest of it.

This map shows the areas of control in Syria and Iraq on the morning of November 1, including the cities of Deir Ezzor and Al-Qaim, which were captured in early-hours offensives

This map shows the extent of territory held by ISIS when their so-called Caliphate was at its height in early 2015

Iraqi soldiers celebrate on Friday morning as they push into the city of Al-Qaim, ISIS's last bastion of control in the country, located on the border with Syria

An early-morning barrage of artillery and tank fire weakened ISIS forces enough for the army to push into Al-Qaim, before declaring it liberated

On the ground in the city on Thursday, a journalist contributing to AFP saw widespread destruction in neighbourhoods recently recaptured by the army.

Entire floors of buildings had crashed onto those beneath, while facades were completely blown away on others, revealing empty, destroyed interiors.

Trenches dug by IS fighters were still visible, as were army minesweepers working to locate and defuse explosives laid by the jihadists.

A local source said between 150-200 civilian families were estimated to remain in areas held by IS in the city.

The military source said operations were slowed at times to allow searches for civilians and their evacuation.

Oil-rich Deir Ezzor province was once an IS stronghold, but the jihadist group is facing twin assaults there, from the regime and the US-backed Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces.

The jihadists have already been expelled from neighbouring Raqa province, and are now confined to just a few pockets of territory in Deir Ezzor.

Their remaining positions are mostly along the border between Syria and Iraq, including the border town of Albu Kamal inside Syria.

More than 330,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests, before spiralling into a complex, multi-front war that drew in international forces and jihadists.

The capture of Al-Qaim comes three months after Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city from which Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his 'caliphate', was also re-taken

Armoured vehicles from the Iraqi Army and Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation units) sit side by side on the road into Al-Qaim

The liberation of Deir Ezzor comes three weeks after the last ISIS fighters in Raqqa gave up control of the city to American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces

Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, was liberated by the Iraqi army working alongside the US back in July after a long and bloody battle

Meanwhile Iraqi forces unleashed a barrage of artillery fire against jihadist positions inside Al-Qaim on Friday morning, backed by Iraqi and US-led coalition air strikes.

Troops from the army and the elite Counter Terrorism Service 'have started the assault on the centre of Al-Qaim,' Staff Major General Noman Abed al-Zobai, the commander of the 7th Division, said.

Shortly afterwards, another officer said on condition of anonymity that the town's Gaza district had fallen from jihadist hands.

'Counter Terrorism Service units and tribal fighters have liberated Gaza after violent clashes, leaving some terrorists dead, while others withdrew towards the centre of Al-Qaim,' he said.

The paramilitary Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) force said in a statement that jihadists had set fire to civilians' houses in the southwestern neighbourhood to make it hard to see them from the air.

Government forces launched the operation last week to seize Al-Qaim and its surroundings, a pocket of barren desert along the Euphrates river near the border with Syria.

Home to around 150,000 people, mostly from Sunni tribes, it is the last Iraqi remnant of the self-styled caliphate IS declared after rampaging across Iraq and Syria in 2014.

The US-led coalition has said around 1,500 IS fighters are left in the area, which it expects to be the scene of the 'last big fight' against the group in Iraq.
North Korea has accused the US of being 'gangster-like imperialists' trying to 'ignite a nuclear war' after supersonic bombers flew over the Korean Peninsula in a show of force yesterday.

The US Air Force said two B-1B Lancers based in Guam were joined by two South Korean F-16 fighters and aircraft from the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force.

The drills simulated attacks on land targets, but did not involve live weapons, an Air Force official said.

But North Korea's state media denounced the exercise as a 'surprise nuclear strike drill'.

Speaking early this morning, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said: 'The US imperialists are making last-ditch efforts to check the dynamic advance of the DPRK [North Korea] by deploying their nuclear strategic assets in succession, but its army and people are never frightened at such moves.' Pictured: A B-1B Lancer taking off from Guam last month for a similar drill

The US Air Force said two B-1B Lancers based in Guam were joined by two South Korean F-16 fighters and aircraft from the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force. Pictured: B-1Bs taking off from Guam for a similar drill last month

Speaking early this morning, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said: 'The US imperialists are making last-ditch efforts to check the dynamic advance of the DPRK [North Korea] by deploying their nuclear strategic assets in succession, but its army and people are never frightened at such moves.'

It added: 'The gangster-like US imperialists are ceaselessly resorting to their frantic nuclear threat and blackmail to stifle the DPRK with nukes at any cost.'

Tensions are high over Pyongyang's ballistic missile and atomic programmes, which in recent months have included ICBM tests and its sixth nuclear blast.

Trump's visit will throw a spotlight on the issue, after Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (pictured) traded insults and threats of war

The North Korean nuclear threat will likely overshadow President Donald Trump's trip to Asia, which starts on Sunday in Japan and will include stops in South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Trump's visit will throw a spotlight on the issue, after Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un traded insults and threats of war.

In a statement, the US Air Force explained that yesterday's exercise was part of the 'continuous bomber presence' mission in the Pacific and 'was not in response to any current event'.

The operation follows an October 10 'show of force' in which two Lancers staged the first night-time joint aviation exercises with Japan and South Korea.

North Korea in July launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles apparently capable of reaching the US mainland - described by Kim as a gift to 'American bastards'.

It followed up with two missiles that passed over Japan, and its sixth nuclear test, by far its most powerful yet.

Trump has warned of 'fire and fury' in response to Pyongyang's threats, and derisively dubbed Kim 'Rocket Man', who responded by calling him a 'dotard'.

Earlier this week, the North's KCNA news agency described the US president as 'incurably mentally deranged'.

Trump will set off today for his Asian tour, but his message risks being undermined if the North stages some kind of provocation - such as a missile test.

It could be preparing for another launch, Seoul's spy agency reportedly said yesterday.

Tensions are high over Pyongyang's ballistic missile and atomic programmes, which in recent months have included ICBM tests and its sixth nuclear blast. Pictured: The launch of a Hwasong-14 ICBM in July

Trump has warned of 'fire and fury' in response to Pyongyang's threats, and derisively dubbed Kim 'Rocket Man', who responded by calling him a 'dotard'. Pictured: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un inspecting a bomb in September

'Active movements of vehicles have been detected at a missile research facility in Pyongyang,' the National Intelligence Service told a closed-door parliamentary audit, according to the Yonhap news agency.

Any military strike in Korea could see retaliation and rapid escalation, and much of Seoul - a city of 10 million people - is within range of the North's artillery.

The South's President Moon Jae-In has insisted that no military action on the peninsula can be taken without Seoul's approval.

In an interview with Yonhap, Trump's National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said diplomacy was Washington's 'main effort now'.

'The discussion will also be about what more can we do, what more can all countries do to resolve this short of war,' he said.
A former Grindr employee has claimed he was raped by an HR supervisor after the Christmas party.

The employee says the supervisor drugged him, bundled him into a car, took him to a hotel and sodomized him.

He said he woke up with the man lying on top of him and holding down his head before he drifted back into unconsciousness.

A former Grindr employee has claimed he was anally raped by an HR supervisor after the Christmas party

The employee then went to hospital where he says he was subjected to an 'invasive and humiliating' rape examination, reports TMZ.

He also blames other employees for the rape who allegedly knew he was impaired but failed to help him get him home safely from the 2016 party, reports Advocate.com.

The alleged victim has reportedly filed a lawsuit against the Hollywood-based gay dating app and says police are investigating his allegations.

MailOnline has contacted Grindr and police for comment.

It comes after the Harvey Weinstein scandal sparked a wave of sexual harassment allegations as alleged victims were spurred to come forward.

More than 30 women including models and world-famous actresses have accused the movie mogul of sexual harassment, with some alleging he raped them, which he denies.

It comes after the Harvey Weinstein scandal sparked a wave of sexual harassment allegations as alleged victims were spurred to come forward. Pictured: Harvey Weinstein

Kevin Spacey, who came out as gay this week, was also accused of harassment by a host of young men.

Yesterday an anonymous victim alleged that the Oscar-winning actor tried to rape him, saying that the incident occurred just a few months after the two began a sexual relationship.

Spacey was 24 when the pair had consensual sex for the first time according to the anonymous victim, who was just 14 at that time.

He claims he was 15 when the alleged rape took place, and 12 when he first met Spacey at an New York acting camp. Spacey denies the allegations.
Raymond Hansen, 36, was sentenced to 100 years at the Montana State Prison on Thursday for killing 63-year-old Terry Klein at a Sidney construction site last summer.

The killing was seemingly unprovoked. Richland County Deputy Attorney Tom Halvorson said whether Hansen was under the influence of drugs at the time of the killing was a confidential criminal matter.

Judge Richard Simonton issued the sentence, which went above a plea agreements recommendation for 70 years in the state prison. Hansen pleaded guilty to deliberate homicide in July.

Hansen will be eligible for parole after serving 25 years. He will receive credit for time served, which is roughly one year.

Hansen showed up to the job site on the morning of Aug. 24, 2016. Witnesses said he was acting erratically, and he wasn't part of the work crew.

He eventually climbed onto an excavator that Klein was operating. That's when prosecutors believe Hansen shot Klein. Another worker later saw that Klein wasn't moving and called 911.

Klein died from a gunshot wound to the head.

During the sentencing hearing on Thursday, the victims widow, three adult children and a grandchild all testified.

Hansens mother and sister testified on his behalf.

Richland County Attorney Mike Webber said Kleins killing had hurt not just his family, but the entire town of Sidney, and that he was grateful to have the sentencing hearing over.

Terry was a pretty well-known man, Webber said. He had many friends and he was a good person.

Halvorson, the deputy county attorney, commended witnesses who testified Thursday.

"We were impressed by the amazing strength of the members of the Klein family in giving their testimony," he said.
Lebanese authorities have detained an Australian who was allegedly trying to enter Syria to join Islamic State.

The 18-year-old man, known only by the initials 'A.M', was taken into custody by the Internal Security Forces just days before he was due to depart, the ABC reports.

A statement issued by the organisation indicated they had been monitoring the man since he had arrived in the country on August 20 and stopped him two days before his planned exit.

Lebanese authorities have detained an Australian man two days before he was allegedly due to depart for Syria to join Islamic State (stock image)

It alleged he had been living in Sydney for several years and had tried to contact IS members in Syria and a neighbouring country after 'embracing extremist ideology'.

'(The man) embraced the extremist ideology through... publications and videos issued by (IS) on the internet,' the statement reportedly said.

'After his arrival in Lebanon he continued with members of "Daash" in Syria via the Internet.'

He had also allegedly been providing information about Australian ISIS fighters, supporters and those who helped fund the group.

The statement reportedly said that he had used his travels to Lebanon as a way of getting an Australian passport without drawing attention from authorities.

The ISF claim the Australian man was linked to an Islamic State co-ordinator in a neighbouring country

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed it was providing consular assistance to an Australian man detained in Lebanon but did not comment further.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Internal Security Forces for comment.
Sayfullo Saipov, a 29-year-old from Uzbekistan, was a 'soldier' of ISIS, according to the terror group's weekly newspaper

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the New York truck attack, calling terrorist Sayfullo Saipov one of its 'soldiers' in its weekly newspaper.

Saipov, a 29-year-old from Uzbekistan, drove a rented pickup truck down a mile-long stretch of bike path in lower Manhattan packed with Halloween revellers, killing at least eight people and injuring a dozen more.

The title called Saipov 'one of the soldiers of the Islamic State who attacked a number of crusaders on a street in New York City,' according to SITE Intelligence Group.

Director Rita Katz said the belated claim did not suggest ISIS coordinated Tuesday's attack, merely that the terrorist was inspired by the group's vile ideology.

Saipov - who is in detention on terrorist charges - was found with three knives, thousands of IS propaganda images and dozens of videos showing IS fighters executing prisoners.

The father-of-three's method had all the hallmarks of an ISIS attack, which the group has touted in its monthly magazine.

These included using a rented vehicle, leaving propaganda inside, and following up the vehicle attack with secondary weapons.

'He appears to have followed almost exactly to a 'T' the instructions that ISIS has put out in its social media channels,' said John Miller, from New York Police Department.

Saipov's method had all the hallmarks of an ISIS attack, which the group has touted in its monthly magazine. He is pictured here being arrested by police after being shot

Saipov planned an attack for a year, settling two months ago on a vehicle strike and chose Halloween in a bid to kill as many people as possible.

After mowing down pedestrians and cyclists, Saipov crashed his vehicle into a school bus before running down the highway holding fake guns.

It was there that he was shot in the stomach by a member of the NYPD before being arrested and taken to hospital, where he is now being questioned.

ISIS often does not claim attacks where the perpetrator was arrested, not killed.

Pro-ISIS channels have also been sharing propaganda praising the attacker, with posters featuring images of the Statue of Liberty exploding.

While some praised Saipov's actions - calling him a 'brother' - others mocked the low death toll and said they 'would have picked a bigger street'.

Twelve other people were wounded in the worst attack in New York since the September 11, 2001 Al-Qaeda hijackings. It ended when police shot Saipov in the abdomen.

Prosecutors have announced two federal charges so far: provision of material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, and violence and destruction of motor vehicles.

Saipov planned an attack for a year, settling two months ago on a vehicle strike and chose Halloween to kill as many people as possible. Pictured: A lorry similar to the one he used

The second can be punishable by death, but a capital punishment case would be extremely rare in New York, which has abolished the death penalty at the state.

The charging document said the Uber driver, who emigrated in March 2010, confessed to acting in the name of ISIS and "felt good about what he had done," even demanding to hang the jihadist organization's flag in his hospital room.

Three days after the attack, a more detailed picture is emerging about the suspect.

After moving to the United States, his ambitions thwarted, growing out a thick beard and reportedly developing a violent temper.

The New York Times reported that he was a university-educated accountant from a well-off family who won the green card lottery and moved to Ohio, with dreams of prospering, before eventually being forced to find work as a trucker.

He married an Uzbek immigrant, but ran up multiple traffic violations, lost jobs and an imam worried that he increasingly misinterpreted Islam, the Times said.

People place flowers at a memorial at the scene of Tuesday's terrorist attack along a bike path in lower Manhattan on November 2

President Donald Trump had said he was considering sending Saipov to Guantanamo Bay, but backed off the idea in a blast of tweets calling for the death penalty.

'Would love to send the NYC terrorist to Guantanamo but statistically that process takes much longer than going through the Federal system,' he tweeted.

'There is also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed. Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!'
A bungling 'burglar' was caught on camera as he desperately tried to free himself unsuccessfully from an extractor unit he got stuck in for seven hours while apparently trying to rob a fast food restaurant.

The man's bare torso can just be seen as he dangles down inside the DFC Chicken shop in Birmingham, waiving his arms wildly as he tries to wriggle free.

His desperate cries for help went unheard for many hours while his attempts to lasso nearby kitchen furniture with a long rope were caught in rather amusing CCTV footage.

Only his head and shoulders peak out of the small extractor unit as he flails his arms around inside the take-away and whips a rope at nearby furniture, desperately trying to anchor himself to something immobile in the shop.

The very weary-looking burglar, aged 45, can then be seen being helped down a ladder by police who were called to his rescue at 8.20am on Thursday.

He was released today under investigation by West Midlands Police.

The suspect was mocked online after the rescue.

A member of the public spotted a pair of legs sticking out of the extractor space at DFC Chicken in Birmingham and police were called on Thursday morning.

West Midlands Police took a hilarious picture which shows the alleged crook with his body half inside the window and his legs dangling out.

The shoeless man - wearing jeans and black socks - was spotted by a member of the public

The emergency services rushed to the scene and managed to rescue the man after he became stuck

West Midlands Reponse Team tweeted the photograph of the man and wrote #triptocustody

Response officer Pc Matthew was sent to the takeaway at 8.20am and the man was released from the hole by firefighters just before 9am.

Shortly after being freed from the window, the suspect was taken to hospital and arrested on suspicion of burglary.

The West Midlands Response Team mocked him online and wrote on Twitter: '#dontgetstuck if your [sic] trying to break in. 5 hours alter shouting help #triptocustody by all means'

Pc Willocks said: 'The extractor unit had been removed and the suspect had climbed in to the extractor outlet at around 2am.

'He was completely stuck and couldn't move at all.

'The fire brigade had to come in and use the jaws of life to pull back all the extractor casing to release him.'

Where the 'burglar' tried to get into the shop

Manager Kamran Hussain, 30, said he was called to the shop after an elderly resident heard the man shouting: 'Please help me, I'm stuck.'

Mr Hussain, who has ran the takeaway for three years, added: 'I had a call from the police this morning saying a man had got trapped breaking in to our shop.

'I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing so I dashed down to let the officers in the front door.

'One of the residents who lived nearby had heard a bloke calling for help. He was shouting 'help, I'm stuck, can you get me out please'.

'But this old man knew that he was trying to break in, it was quite obvious really, I suppose and told him 'No, I'm not helping you'.

'So he phoned the police and I let them in the front. This bloke was just dangling there. He had no top on and seemed very cold.

'He didn't really say much, they just got him down, arrested him and marched him away after taking his details.

'I think he was too embarrassed to say much really, he did a very stupid thing.'

The 45-year-old man got himself stuck in the hole at DFC Chicken in Birmingham on Thursday morning (pictured)

Kamran Hussain, who has ran the takeaway for three years, added: 'I had a call from the police this morning saying a man had got trapped breaking in to our shop'

The hole where the 'burglar' managed to get stuck at DFC Chicken in Birmingham is pictured

Web users were quick to ridicule the would-be burglar on social media.

Judith Broug said: 'Trying really hard not to laugh'

And Jim Nicholl tweeted: 'Another fine mess Stanley. Must feel a right turkey!'

Henry Smith added: 'This has made my day. What an absolute plonker.'

Lisa Foster wrote: 'Bet he felt like an absolute idiot. He got everything he deserved being stuck there for that long.'
An alleged Comanchero bikie charged with cocaine trafficking is engaged to glamour model Joanna Hill.

Onur Ada, 29, was arrested along with Chris Duspara, 24, on the Gold Coast on Thursday after police intercepted phone conversations between the pair.

They were charged with 12 crimes including trafficking and producing drugs and recruiting others into their cocaine racket.

Alleged Comanchero bikie Onur Ada, 29, (R) charged with cocaine trafficking is engaged to famous Instragram model Joanna Hill (L)

Ada has been dating Ms Hill since at least 2013, when he was first mentioned on her social media and engaged since last 2015

Ada has been dating Ms Hill since at least 2013, when he was first mentioned on her social media and engaged since last 2015.

Their son Denyan was born in April 2016 and Ada has his name tattooed in large print all the way down his back.

The 30-year-old glamour model and actress was Miss England in 2013 for the inaugural Miss Global competition where she finished second runner-up.

She is originally from the UK before moving to the Gold Coast more than four years ago and now splits her time between there and Sydney.

The couple's son Denyan was born in April 2016 (pictured while Ms Hill was pregnant)

Ada has their son's name tattooed all the way down his back in large print

Ms Hill appeared on the March 2015 cover of Maxim Australia magazine straddling a motorbike

Ms Hill (L) appeared in the infamous original 'Rubber Girls' Ultra Tune ad, alongside Laura Lydall (R), that was widely complained about in 2014

The tanned brunette appeared in the infamous original 'Rubber Girls' Ultra Tune ad that was widely complained about in 2014.

The ad featured her and Laura Lydall, who starred alongside Parnia Porche in follow-up ads, dressed as dominatrices in tight black rubber outfits seducing a mechanic.

Ms Hill appeared on the March 2015 cover of Maxim Australia magazine straddling a motorbike alongside Ms Lydall.

She has also modelled for Burberry, BMW, Versache, Lounge Apparel, and various other clothing brands, and has 425,000 Instagram followers.

Ms Hills shows off her trim physique in a mirror selfie while wearing lingerie

The 30-year-old glamour model and actress was Miss England in 2013 for the inaugural Miss Global competition where she finished second runner-up

Ms Hill has never spoken about Ada in interviews but said her Turkish beau was 'the best' in their first snap together posted to her Instagram (pictured)

Ms Hill has also modelled for Burberry, BMW, Versache, Lounge Apparel, and various other clothing brands

Ms Hill reclines poolside at on one of her frequent getaways that Ada sometimes accompanied her on

Ms Hill's prolific Instagram showing her life and modelling work has 425,000 Instagram followers

Ms Hill has never spoken about Ada in interviews but said her Turkish beau was 'the best' in their first snap together posted to her Instagram.

Ada, who has no criminal history, was released on $20,000 bail after facing the Southport Magistrates Court on Friday, according to the Gold Coast Bulletin.

His lawyer Alastair McDougall told the court Ada had a diploma in finance, used to work as a real estate agent, and planned to open a car yard with Duspara.

He also was the carer for his brother until another family member took over earlier this year.

She is originally from the UK before moving to the Gold Coast more than four years ago

Lounge Apparel is one of Ms Hill's key sponsors and she regularly posts to Instagram wearing its clothing

Ms Hill poses in a military-style outfit along with stiletto boots to show off her long legs

She uploaded this snap before s shoot to advertise a luxury car dealer

Ada had to hand over his passport, only have one mobile phone, and live at an address on Orchid Avenue in Surfers Paradise as bail conditions.

Duspara was charged with stealing as a clerk, possessing dangerous drugs, using a carriage service to harass as well as producing and trafficking dangerous drugs.

Policed alleged the finance manager of car dealer von Bibra had been dealing cocaine since September 2016.

He also allegedly made 'threats to bash' a man over access to a gym and threatened a female co-worker in March.

Ada will next face court on December 5.

Ms Hill's fiance Ada, who has no criminal history, was released on $20,000 bail after facing the Southport Magistrates Court on Friday
Five teenagers were killed when the stolen car they were travelling in hit a tree at 118mph and burst into flames.

An officer in a patrol car saw the blue 2012 Dodge Charger traveling at about 100mph east on East Main Street in Kalamazoo Township, Michigan.

According to police reports, the officer attempted stop the vehicle but gave up because the car was traveling too fast.

The dead have now been named as Cortavion Murphy, 15, Jaquarius Hegler, 15, Elexus Hillsman, 16, Marshawn Williams, 15, and Deztanee Cobb, 17.

Though police would not say who was behind the wheel, no drugs or alcohol were in the driver's system.

Cortavion Murphy's mother, Jamilla Mcferrin, told media she believed her son may have been the driver was not certain, the Kalamazoo Gazette reported.

Dash cam footage shows the patrol car coming across a fireball beside the road around two minutes later, three-quarters of a mile east of Sprinkle Road.

The vehicle had crossed into the opposite lane and left the north side of the road, went down a hill and into a yard, and glanced a telephone pole before rolling onto its side and hitting a large tree.

The car was traveling at 118mph when it came off the road. Tyre marks are visible on the road where the driver lost control

A police officer spotted the Dodge Charger but gave up the chasing it because it was traveling too fast

Cortavion Murphy, 15, and Jaquarius Hegler, 15, were killed when their car exploded in flames during the high speed crash. Murphy's mother Jamilla Mcferrin, told media she believed her son may have been the driver

Marshawn Williams, 15, lost his life when the stolen blue Dodge Charger was came off the road while traveling at 118mph, in Kalmazoo, Michigan

The two foot thick tree was uprooted and the car vehicle came to rest on its passenger side, with an approximately 8- to 10- foot section of the tree root and trunk lodged beneath the vehicle.

Police reports say 35 mph speed limit road was dry at the time of the crash and none of the passengers were wearing seatbelts.

Kalamazoo County Sheriff's Sgt. James Harrison estimated the Charger was going 114 to 118 mph before it crashed.

Details of the September 2 crash have now emerged through a freedom of information request by the Kalamazoo Gazette.
A British woman whose 'life ambition' was to kill before hitting 25 before she tortured and murdered an autistic teenager in Australia with her 'kill kit' of knives, scalpels and a bone saw wrote her own horror novel and worshipped its killer protagonist.

Jemma Lilley, 26, wrote: 'I feel I can't rest until the blood of a fresh, screaming, bleeding victim is gushing out and pooling on the floor'.

She would also pretend to be the main character named SOS - which she later adopted as an alias - and would even wear a lead mask like the sadistic killer she had created.

Lilley, originally from Stamford, Lincolnshire, murdered 18-year-old Aaron Pajich with the help of her bondage-loving housemate Trudi Lenon, 43, in June last year.

The pair stabbed the teenager to death in a secret room with various blades before they buried his body under a patio in the backyard of their home in a suburb in Perth, West Australia.

Her stepmother Nina, 48, who still lives in the UK, said: 'She had always had an obsession with serial killers. I always felt on edge with her. I always felt unnerved by her. I don't think she did have empathy'.

Jemma Linney was obsessed with serial killers and wrote a novel about a sadistic killer called SOS, which she later used as an alias and wore a similar lead mask

Linney had built up a collection of knives and scalpels and a bone saw (pictured) which she used to stab Aaron Pajich

Linney and fellow killer Trudi Lenon, who became obsessed with the Briton, had a secret locked room where they tortured and killed their victim

A shallow grave was then dug and then he was buried under this patio in Perth, Western Australia

The pair buried Pajich's body in a shallow grave covered over with concrete and tiles

She also read Lilley's 'disturbing' horror novel 'Playzone', which is a window into the killer's twisted mind.

Linney in her garden in Lincolnshire, her stepmother says she became obsessed with serial killers as a teenager and serious mental health problems

She said: 'The book was a big problem with me. At the beginning I was, 'fair enough you want to write a horror story' bit I didn't like the contents of it, it was all about torture and very violent and no empathy for the victims, which I found very disturbing'.

The killer would write the novel every day in her bedroom.

Nina said she left the family home because she could not bear living with Jemma, who she believed was a psychopath and possibly had bipolar depression.

She said she was receiving psychiatric treatment depression herself but the horrific book made her mental health worse.

'It seemed to escalate before she left for Australia she got so obsessed by it and even preparing to go to another country get sidelined,' said Nina.

'She wanted to get it published, that's what she wanted because it was her ambition to be a horror writer. She didn't see it as a problem, she didn't see it as a bad thing, she assumed people would want to read it and it's not nice to read.

'I always felt on edge with her, I always felt unnerved by her, she seemed to find it funny that they said, 'you need to see somebody', she always found that amusing but in the end I left the relationship - she was one of the biggest reasons'.

Nina was shocked to find out Lilley was in a relationship with a woman and added she had told her that she had a boyfriend. #

She added: 'She was immature for her age, she just had a few friends, she was very tomboyish.

'I regret I wasn't more forceful in getting her to get help. I should have said, "no if you're not going to get her to get help I will" but I had my own mental health to think of as well.

'She was clever, a bright girl, that's what's so frustrating because she was clever but she seemed not to have common sense.'

Jemma Victoria Lilley (left) and Trudi Clare Lenon (right) have been found guilty of killing 18-year-old Aaron Pajich at their Perth house

A giant square of carpet was removed from Lilley's room, which police was put under Aaron before he was killed

Lenon pushes a trolley laden with Hydrochloric acid as Lilley stands at the counter waiting to pay

Bondage obsessive Lenon had become obsessed with Lilley and had her alias 'SOS', a killer she created for a book, tattooed on her arm

Aaron Pajich's body was found in a shallow grave and covered with concrete and tiles on June 13 last year.

Lilley, who moved to Australia six years ago, had a 'life's ambition' to kill someone by the time she was aged 25, a West Australian Supreme Court jury heard.

State prosecutor James McTaggart told the jury: 'At the time of the murder, she was a person obsessed with violence and all kinds of unquestionably cruel manifestations of torture and was writing about it'.

There was 'no doubt' Mr Pajich had been murdered with fatal knife wounds to his chest and neck, the jury heard.

There was also no doubt he was buried in the backyard of the pair's Perth home, a place where a security camera showed the two of them and Mr Pajich on June 13, the last time he was seen.

'Between them, they did all that was necessary to cause Aaron Pajich's death,' Mr McTaggart said.

Lilley was reportedly so 'full of herself and euphoric' after committing the murder, that she could not help boasting about killing someone to one of her colleagues.

She also left incriminating voice messages to her 'obsequious and sycophantic' fellow murderer Lenon, talking about how excited she was experiencing things 'she had not felt before'.

Evidence of Lilley and Lenon's guilt could be found in a series of phone messages, where they were discussing killing someone while referring to each other by their bizarre names SOS and Corvina.

They had also bought cleaning products and concrete to cover up the murder, Mr McTaggart said.

Lenon blames Lilley for the murder, but admits to being an accessory.

Lilley's father Richard Lilley, who flew from England to watch his daughter being convicted, said nothing as he left the court building.

Lilley denied knowing how Mr Pajich died and claimed to have been asleep when he was last seen with Lenon.

Lilley and her housemate Trudi Lennon are accused of murdering 18-year-old Mr Pajich (pictured), who has been described as autistic but 'high functioning'

Sharon Pajich, mother of Aaron, leaves court after the guilty verdict on Wednesday

Mr Pajich was last spotted on June 13 on CCTV cameras at the Rockingham Shopping Centre taxi rank
Cassie Sanisbury's $100,000 legal bill has prompted calls for Australians to pay back any taxpayer assistance to fight criminal charges overseas.

The 22-year-old used the cash in her legal battle against cocaine trafficking charges in Colombia that saw her sentenced to six years jail on Thursday.

The Adelaide woman was entitled to the assistance because she was facing more than 20 years in prison after being arrested with 5.8kg of cocaine.

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Cassie Sanisbury's $100,000 legal bill has prompted calls for Australians to pay back any taxpayer assistance to fight criminal charges overseas

Senator Derryn Hinch said the hefty payout was 'diabolical' given she was found guilty

But critics said the big payout was excessive, especially considering she was found guilty and infamously changed her story numerous times.

'I know you should have assistance if you're overseas and in trouble, but the fact that she's got $100,000 from the taxpayer is diabolical,' Senator Derryn Hinch told Seven News.

'She changed her story more often than the Kardashians change their clothes.'

The taxpayer assistance meant Sainsbury avoided a possible 30-year sentence as her lawyers negotiated a plea deal for a fifth of that time.

The 22-year-old used the cash in her legal battle against cocaine trafficking charges in Colombia that saw her sentenced to six years jail on Thursday

'She changed her story more often than the Kardashians change their clothes,' Senator Hinch said

The Adelaide woman was entitled to the assistance because she was facing more than 20 years in prison after being arrested with 5.8kg of cocaine (pictured)

Her lawyer Orlando Herran, who will be paid by Australia for five months of bills from her arrest in April until August 30, said it was right her country should help.

'These people are just victims of bigger criminals,' he said.

His first payment of $20,000 was received in the past two weeks with the rest still to come, but Sainsbury will have to find her own money to pay her $130,000 fine.

Australian taxpayers also footed the bill for Schapelle Corby and Bali 9 members Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

The cocaine was discovered in 18 headphones in Sainsbury's (pictured) luggage after she was stopped at Bogota's El Dorado International Airport

The taxpayer assistance meant Sainsbury avoided a possible 30-year sentence as her lawyers negotiated a plea deal for a fifth of that time

Sainsbury could be allowed to live in home detention with her mother Lisa Evans and fiance Scott Broadbridge as soon as six months from now.

Mr Herran described that outcome as a real possibility due to overcrowding in Bogota jails, which makes it a common option.

'The mother would have to establish herself in Colombia. Her permanent residence would have to be here so she couldnt constantly be travelling,' he said.

'Either rent or buy a flat. Cassie could then move in with her.'

Sainsbury could be allowed to live in home detention with her mother Lisa Evans (L) and fiance Scott Broadbridge as soon as six months from now

Sainsbury has now spent seven months behind bars at Bogota Women's Prison (pictured)

Schapelle Corby benefited from a similar deal, spending the final years of her prison sentence at her sister Mercedes' home in Bali.

Sainsbury is teaching English inside the prison and with time already served, plus her work in jail, she could be released in as little as three years, 9News reported.

Despite the shorter sentence, it is understood Sainsbury could spend two years living in Colombia on parole after leaving the prison.

A Bogota court heard in October that the deal had been agreed to by prosecution and defence, but an earlier plea deal for the Adelaide woman (pictured) fell through in August

Sainsbury was also ordered by the judge to pay a nearly $130,000 fine, her lawyer Orlando Herran said after the hearing on Thursday (pictured is the seized cocaine)

Her family in Adelaide is thrilled by the news, with her sister Khala Sainsbury telling Seven News: 'It couldn't have gone any better. I believe she'll be okay, she's strong.'

Airport security found the cocaine in the packaging of 18 headphones in Sainsbury's luggage after she was stopped at Bogota's El Dorado International Airport.

She was caught following a tip-off from the the United States Drug Enforcement Agency. She has now spent seven months behind bars at Bogota Women's Prison.
A teenage boy has been arrested after an acid attack on a fast food delivery driver left the victim in danger of losing his sight.

The 14-year-old was arrested on Friday on suspicion of GBH in relation to an attack in Walthamstow, east London.

At around 6pm on Thursday on Walpole Road the victim was approached by two men who were on a scooter, Scotland Yard said.

Detectives are also investigating a second incident 30 minutes later in Tottenham in which a corrosive substance was used a short time afterwards.

A takeaway delivery driver is fighting for his life and will probably be left blind after he was sprayed in the face with acid in an attempted robbery in Walthamstow

The victim, 32, was attacked by two suspects on a moped who tried to steal his scooter yesterday as the acid attack menace continues to plague the capital

The first victim was taken to an east London hospital where his condition is described as 'life-threatening' while the second victim's injuries are not thought to be as serious.

Witnesses said they saw paramedics lead the first victim into an ambulance with his eyes closed.

Mother-of-two Eva Valverde, 43, said: 'I saw the ambulance crew holding his hands and getting him to the ambulance.

'He had his eyes closed, so they were just leading him into the ambulance. He was Asian looking. I don't think he was wearing a uniform. I can't remember what he was wearing.

'There were two ambulance members and another guy in plain clothes talking to him.

'I didn't see any burns. Nothing that was obviously burnt. The clothing don't seem burnt.

'They asked was it liquid, and was it clear. I didn't hear if he said anything back.

'They were holding both of his hands. He was just walking really slow, but they were leading him very slowly.'

Sameena Hussain, 50, lives a few doors down and also saw the victim led to the ambulance. She said: 'I feel sorry for him, it's really scary. He was just quiet, his eyes were closed'

Witnesses said they saw paramedics lead the victim into an ambulance with his eyes closed

Sameena Hussain, 50, lives a few doors down and also saw the victim led to the ambulance.

She said: 'He couldn't see. He looked quite young, and slim.

'He couldn't see, he was walking with help. I was actually shocked.

'One person was holding his hand, the other person was holding his back. They brought him here and put him in the ambulance.

'I feel sorry for him, it's really scary. He was just quiet, his eyes were closed.'

Terrence Casson, 83, and his wife Peggy, 81, saw the aftermath of the attack from their terraced house on the Ferry Lane estate.

Tough new laws to clampdown on acid attacks Tough new laws could see criminals twice caught with corrosive substances without good reason handed an automatic prison sentence of at least six months. The rise of acid attacks has forced ministers to tighten laws and the proposed 'two strikes' rule would be similar to the laws around knives. The Government also said it had plans to create a new offence of possession of a corrosive substance in public without a good or lawful reason. As it stands, corrosive substances are treated as offensive weapons and possession of them carries a maximum four-year prison sentence. Advertisement

The victim went running to their neighbour's house and started banging on the door for help, they said.

Mr Casson said: 'We heard some thumping, some banging. That must have been the bloke thumping next door for help.

'We looked out the window. All of a sudden we heard the fire brigade. They all ran over to the chap, they started pouring water on him.

'They opened the drain and put a stand pipe up, attached it to the hosepipe.

'This poor chap was sitting on the edge of the kerb. They were pouring water over his head and his back.

'He has got his moped there, he is a delivery boy for a takeaway.

'They tried to get the key off him to get the moped. It's despicable.'

Detective Chief Inspector Gordon Henderson, of Waltham Forest CID, said: 'This attack has left a man fighting for his life and with terrible eye injuries. This was an innocent man going about his work as a delivery driver, who may never see again.

'This is not a time to hesitate, if you have any information about this crime I would appeal that you immediately call police.

'Your phone call could save some other innocent person; it is imperative that we arrest those responsible.'

Anyone with information about either attack can contact police on 101, via Twitter on @MetCC or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or at crimestoppers-uk.org.
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A polygamous group of religious fundamentalists fears their community is being destroyed by 'cultural cleansing'.

Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints have been evicted from their homes in Hildale, a 100-year-old red rock community on the Utah-Arizona border.

The evictions stem from an order by a Utah state judge who became fed up with people not paying $100-a-month occupancy fees.

Young girls play together in Colorado City, Arizona, a community of members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

A boy rides a horse in a community on the Utah-Arizona border that has been home for more than a century to a polygamous sect that is an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism

Daily chores: Shirlonna Barlow, 14, bales hay for cattle at her home in a community on the Utah-Arizona border

Lori Barlow feeds her cattle at her home in a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints community on the Utah-Arizona border

Norma Richter, left, and Lori Barlow hug after an eviction notice was served on their Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints church meeting house in their community on the Utah-Arizona border

But the group, which split from the mainstream Mormon Church over the practice of plural marriage, refused to leave the community, with many moving into trailers.

They believe the money was being used by attorneys to take legal action against them.

The sect, which is 7,000-strong and lives across several mid-west towns, has been accused of discriminating against non-believers by, for example, denying them access to water pumps.

Members believe the evictions were accelerated this year to clean out voter rolls and rig upcoming local elections to usher in outside candidates.

On Tuesday city hall elections could deal a crushing blow to the group if voters choose candidates for mayor and two council seats who don't belong to them.

Young girls ride their bikes in Colorado City, Ariz., in a community on the Utah-Arizona border that has been home for more than a century to a polygamous sect that is an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism

A campaign sign in Hildale, Utah, in a community on the Utah-Arizona border. Campaign signs are unusual in the town where elections have long been quietly decided behind the scenes

Shirlonna Barlow poses for a photo in Colorado City, Ariz. Her community fears they are being destroyed by 'cultural cleansing'

What is The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is one of the largest Mormon fundamentalist denominations and one of the largest organizations in the United States whose members practice polygamy. The FLDS Church emerged in the early 20th century when its founding members left The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The split occurred largely because of the LDS Church's suspension of the practice of polygamy and its decision to excommunicate its members who would continue the practice. The FLDS Church is estimated to have 6,000 to 10,000 members residing in the sister cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City in Arizona; Eldorado in Texas; Creston and Bountiful in British Columbia, Canada; and Pringle in South Dakota. Sect leader Warren Jeffs is serving life in prison in Texas for sexually assaulting underage girls he considered brides. Advertisement

In a place where political contests are virtually unknown, the campaign signs offer the latest hint that a polygamous group is losing its grip on this remote red rock community which was founded in the early 20th century.

'For Hildale mayor vote Donia,' reads one sign featuring Donia Jessop, a candidate pictured with a contemporary hairstyle and a red business suit.

The signs hanging from fences and walls are unusual because elections here have long been decided behind the scenes by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a Mormon offshoot that has made its home among the rocks for more than a century and hand-picked men to run unopposed.

Just five years ago, Jessop was a member of the group also known as the FLDS. She wore the sect's traditional prairie dresses and her hair in a conservative up-do.

Now she is among a swelling number of former members who have returned to buy foreclosed homes, open businesses and try to turn Hildale into a place that resembles a typical Western town, not a cloistered religious community.

The competitive elections scheduled for Tuesday could deal a crushing blow to traditionalists if the 367 registered voters elect Jessop and the non-FLDS candidates for two city council seats.

It would be another in a series of recent changes to shake up Hildale and its sister city, Colorado City, Arizona, which have a combined population of nearly 7,800.

The government-ordered evictions of sect families from nearly 150 homes forced many members to seek refuge in trailers around town or in different cities across the West.

The town governments and the police are being watched closely by court-appointed monitors after a jury found them guilty of civil rights violations. And a food-stamp fraud case led 10 people to plead guilty and exacerbated a leadership void.

Jessop and other former sect members hail the changes as long-overdue progress that will help the community break free from the reign of sect leader Warren Jeffs, who is serving life in prison in Texas for sexually assaulting underage girls he considered brides.

A young boy and girl skip rocks in reservoir, in a community on the Utah-Arizona border that is home to a polygamous sect

Eddie Bistline paddles on the north reservoir at sunset, in Colorado City, Arizona

Lydia Ann, eight, and her mother, Norma Richter, hold hands in Colorado City

'The things that were happening in the church were so destructive. And now that destruction can stop, and we can start to rebuild,' Jessop said. 'This city is completely at a standstill until we change the city government.'

But FLDS members believe the town they built is being destroyed. Norma Richter, a 50-year-old mother of 13 kids, said the changes overtaking the town feel like 'a cultural cleansing,' echoing a common refrain among church members and sympathizers.

How members of the FDLS sect live The FLDS Church teaches the doctrine of plural marriage, which states that a man having multiple wives is ordained of and a commandment by God In general, women do not cut their hair short or wear makeup, trousers, or any skirt above the knees. Men wear plain clothing, usually a long-sleeved collared shirt and full-length trousers. In 2000, the Colorado City Unified School District had more than 1200 students. When Jeffs recommended that FLDS Church members pull their children out of public schools, the number declined to around 250. The Colorado City/Hildale area has the world's highest incidence of fumarase deficiency, an extremely rare genetic condition caused by inbreeding. Advertisement

At the heart of the split is Jeffs, who has been jailed in Utah or Texas continually since 2006.

His followers consider him a prophet and believe he was the victim of religious persecution based on fabricated allegations. Former sect members and outsiders consider him a dangerous man who tore apart families and committed sex crimes.

Jeffs is 'a very sick man' who controls the people through 'fear of not making it to the highest celestial kingdom of glory,' Jessop said. She notes that it was he and other leaders who set the evictions in motion more than a decade ago when they opted not to challenge in court allegations of mismanagement of the church trust, leading Utah and Arizona governments to take it over.

His supporters are steadfast in their beliefs. Jeffs is 'still is the only man on this earth that can receive revelation from heavenly father for the people,' FLDS member Lori Barlow said. 'That's a pretty important link to me.'

Authorities say Jeffs still sends some guidance from prison, but Richter says followers have not heard his voice for years and that it's unclear who is in charge of the church locally.

One of Jeffs' brothers, Lyle Jeffs, ran the day-to-day operations until last year, when he was arrested in the food-stamp case. He fled home confinement while awaiting trial and was captured in South Dakota after a year on the run. He faces up to five years in prison.

Amid the leadership void, and with so few people left in town, followers no longer meet for regular worship services, Richter said. Marriages that are arranged by the religion's prophet are on hold until Jeffs returns, Richter added.

Community members gather at a resource center run by a charity called 'Voices for Dignity,' which is dedicated to helping members of a Mormon offshoot religion called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Norma Richter touches a collection of portraits of prophets of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, including Warren Jeffs, bottom right

Jared Nicol plants his campaign sign for city council in Hildale, Utah

The area on the Utah state line in Hildale, Utah. The community on the Utah-Arizona border has been home for more than a century to a polygamous sect that is an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism

Other signs of the sect's dwindling presence abound. Public elementary and high schools that reopened several years ago are now bustling with some 500 kids, despite most FLDS families home-schooling their children.

Women and girls in prairie dresses used to be seen all around town - pumping gas, riding horses and chatting. Now they are harder to find. Several new businesses are opening, including a brewery and hotels - and a Subway.

Incumbent Mayor Philip Barlow, a member of the FLDS and lifelong Hildale resident, said people are coping with change by 'doing what they have to do.'

He acknowledges that having a challenger is new but says he will accept whatever the voters decide.

Jessop wants to make the town an accepting place for everyone. She said she would love to rekindle fond memories of growing up there with her two mothers and 25 siblings.

'I would love to see families reunited,' she said. 'I want them to stay. They are my sisters, my brothers, my aunts, cousins, uncles. They are my people.'

Hildale Mayor Phillip Barlow, a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, said people are coping with change by idoing what they have to do

Hildale, Utah, sitting at the base of Red Rock Cliff mountains, with its sister city, Colorado City, Arizona, in the foreground

Jessop left the FLDS four years ago with her husband and 10 kids over unrest about how Jeffs was running the group. She and her husband later brought a 'sister wife' into the family, and the two women now raise their children and run the family business together.

When she returned, Jessop bought one of the foreclosed houses and reopened a corner gas station as a convenience store. If elected, she would be the town's first female mayor.

Richter said FLDS members won't cower no matter what happens at the ballot box.

'We have a very good man as a leader, but we follow a religion,' she said. 'They have not conquered us. They can take everything, but they can't conquer our spirit.'
Ashleigh Inglis (left), 28, and Samantha Hawkes, 31, wanted a wedding in Cyprus

A British lesbian couple claim TUI ruined their hopes of a beach wedding in Cyprus after wrongly telling them that it wasn't allowed because they are gay.

Ashleigh Inglis, 28, and Samantha Hawkes, 31, had put an 800 deposit on what they thought would be their dream blessing on Nissi Beach in Ayia Napa.

But they claim the holiday firm's wedding team told them seven weeks later that they would have to hold the occasion on a yacht or catamaran rather than on the beach next September.

They researched other companies which offer same-sex blessings on Nissi Beach, and were told by all of them that there were no restrictions that would prevent them having a same-sex wedding.

Miss Inglis, of Spalding, Lincolnshire, claims TUI discriminated against them because they are gay - and initially said they would have to cancel without a full refund if they did not want a boat.

After complaining, they say TUI offered them one alternative beach that could cater for just 12 guests - despite them having already invited 40 friends and family.

Miss Inglis said: 'I can't believe that TUI would discriminate against us like this. They knew we wanted a beach wedding and that we were a same sex couple.

The couple had put an 800 deposit on what they thought would be their dream blessing

'I don't want to book the beach they have offered us as it means that we wouldn't be able to have all our friends and family there.

'We just want our money back so we can look at alternatives. If I'm honest this whole thing has put me and Samantha off our dream blessing abroad.

'How can we trust someone else to do the planning for our wedding when this has happened? Samantha has been in tears over it and we have been treated so awfully.'

Civil servant Miss Inglis and nurse Miss Hawkes said they feel 'really stuck on what to do now'.

They have been together for five years and engaged for two, so had already spent a long time planning their dream ceremony - and a beach was integral for their plans.

Miss Inglis said: 'We were really excited about being able to go and book to get married on a beach.

After complaining, the couple say TUI offered them one alternative beach that could cater for just 12 guests - despite them having already invited 40 friends and family

'We have both always wanted a beach wedding as we love going to the beach to de-stress and it's our favourite place to be.

'As a same sex couple, we couldn't get legally married abroad so we were booking a blessing and doing the legal bit at home.

'We went in store and we were just so excited to book it. The girls in branch were lovely and we looked at loads of different places.

'We told them from the start we are a same sex couple so we presumed they would give us the best options for us.

'It has always been a dream of mine to visit Nissi Beach in Cyprus so we decided on getting married there.

'They told us we need to sign a contract to book it. Then they would send the contract off so we could be assigned a consultant and then be given a date.

Civil servant Miss Inglis and nurse Miss Hawkes said they feel 'really stuck on what to do now'

'TUI told us it usually takes around six to eight weeks to hear back from them and then once we hear back we have a wedding booked.

'We noticed a section in the contract that said something about the blessing being on a yacht and double checked that this didn't mean we couldn't get married on a beach.

'I asked the girls in store and they said that it just meant we have the option of getting married on a yacht if we wanted to.

'We put the deposit down as we felt like we knew what we were getting. It took them almost the full eight weeks to send our contract to the wedding team.

'Once they had sent it and it was accepted by the wedding team we were then told that we could only get married on a yacht.

'Obviously we fought this and told them that we asked when booking and they told us the section regarding a yacht simply meant that we had a choice of one if we wanted.

The couple wanted a dream blessing on Nissi Beach (file picture) in Ayia Napa, Cyprus

'I called the customer service line and they told me we could only get married on a yacht because we are a same sex couple.

'I couldn't believe they would even use that. From the beginning they knew that we were a same sex couple and we wanted a beach wedding.

'They came back and offered us one beach that we could get married on but it only catered for 12 people.

'It didn't suit us but they won't give us a full refund, even though we were mis-sold the wedding. It's so frustrating.'

After being told that they could only get married on a yacht due to it being a same sex blessing, Miss Inglis researched into other companies that offer same-sex blessings on Nissi Beach to see if there were any religious or cultural restrictions.

She said: 'At first I did think that it might have been something to do with religious restrictions so I kind of understood.

'But I phoned a few companies from the area and they all told me that there were no restrictions.

Miss Inglis researched into other companies that offer same-sex blessings on Nissi Beach to see if there were any religious or cultural restrictions - and it turned out there were not

'The people I have spoken to are all refusing to escalate my complaint and won't give us a refund. We can only change location or choose the beach they have offered or a yacht.

'Until we have the money back we can't even consider booking somewhere else as we haven't got the money to do so. TUI have 800 of ours and we need that for a deposit somewhere else.

'This was our dream and TUI have completely ruined it for us. Planning a wedding is meant to be a fun and exciting time, we shouldn't be in tears.'

A spokesman for TUI said: 'We're sorry that Miss Hawkes and Miss Inglis are unhappy with their customer service experience and would to thank them for bringing this to our attention.

'We understand how special planning a wedding can be and would like to apologise that they feel their booking experience has not been acceptable.

'We're currently in direct contact with the customers to better understand their complaint and to resolve the matter to their satisfaction.

'Should the customers not wish to book any of our wedding venues we will of course offer them a full refund of their deposit however we hope that with the help of our dedicated wedding teams in resort, we can find an alternative package that they will love.'
Former Billings legislator Lynda Moss has joined the list of Democrats running for the U.S. House.

Moss is the fifth Democrat to announce a challenge for her partys nomination. The winner will challenge Republican Rep. Greg Gianforte in the 2018 general election. Moss told Lee Newspapers on Thursday that a current political environment harmful to women has prompted her to run.

Part of it is what happened in the election last November, and seeing photos across our media of a lot of white men making decisions on womens health care, Moss said. I have a granddaughter and I was helping her select a Walt Disney movie and saying, Dont watch the television news.

Moss will officially announce her candidacy Saturday at Toucan Gallery in Billings.

Women voters have been a deciding factor in electing Montana Democrats to statewide office in recent years. There is considerable energy among Montana women angered by the election of President Donald Trump, who was caught on tape last fall bragging about sexually assaulting women.

The weekend after Trumps swearing in, thousands of women marched through Helenas January cold in protest. Moss references that march as evidence Montana is ready for change.

Moss said she will make protecting women, children and seniors the core of her platform. The Republican-controlled Congress has this year attempted to repeal the Affordable Care Act and has yet to renew funding for the federal Childrens Health Insurance Program. The working poor and children are key beneficiaries of those services. The recently passed federal budget also calls for trimming growth of Medicare spending over the next decade.

Moss was an eight-year state senator, representing downtown and South Billings. In 2007, she was Senate majority whip. She has been executive director of the Western Heritage Center and is vice chairwoman of the Northwest Area Foundation.

Moss joins fellow Billings resident John Heenan, as well as state Representative Tom Woods, and former state Representative Kathleen Williams, both of Bozeman. Former land trust director Grant Kier of Missoula, and Whitefish attorney Jared Pettinato are also candidates in what is shaping up to be the most crowded Democratic primary for U.S. House in decades.
Pictured: James Wilkinson, 57, leaving Blackfriars Cown Court yesterday where he is on trial for false imprisonment and dangerous driving

A black cab driver described as a blustering bully locked a Channel 4 reporter in his taxi before reversing and knocking her to the ground in a 'racist and sexist' attack.

James Wilkinson, 57, held business correspondent Helia Ebrahim in his vehicle despite her asking ten times to let her out after they got into a row about heating.

When he finally allowed her out of the car, Ms Ebrahim tried to take a photograph of Wilkinson's ID to report him to authorities.

But the driver then reversed his vehicle, ploughing into the journalist and knocking her to the floor.

Ms Ebrahim, 39, had described how she was frightened during the incident and pleaded with the driver to let her out, telling him she felt unsafe.

But she said he had 'sinister' motives and continued to drive in his cab while ranting at her.

Sentencing Wilkinson today, Judge David Richardson said the grandfather would not had behaved this way to a man.

During the episode - which took place on the same day as the Westminster terror attack - Wilkinson also told the Iranian-born broadcaster that police were already too busy 'dealing with the likes of you', the court was told.

This afternoon jurors took just 30 minutes to convict Wilkinson of falsely imprisoning Ms Ebrahimi.

He was sentenced to four months imprisonment, suspended for a year, and was ordered to complete 210 hours community service.

He was banned from driving for two years and ordered to pay 1,000 compensation.

Pictured: Channel 4's business correspondent Helia Ebrahimi, leaving court yesterday, told the jury she was knocked to the ground by Wilkinson's taxi, which left her with bruises and caused damage to her 600 trousers

Judge Richardson described it as a 'racist and sexist' attack and said Wilkinson would not have behaved the same had a man been in the cab.

The driver, of Faversham, Kent - who had not been suspended as a cabbie pending the trial - was also convicted of driving dangerously in Holborn.

Following the conviction, Judge David Richardson told Blackfriars Crown Court that Wilkinson would lose his licence and his job, which he has held for 20 years.

Upon sentencing, the judge said: 'She asked over ten times to be let out of the cab and you ignored her. You committed these offences against a woman in your cab on her own.

'You are a blustering bully and you would never have behaved like that if it was a man in your cab.

'You took the opportunity to bully someone standing up to you in your cab.'

The judge went onto say: 'You were a black cab driver, we trust our black cab drivers to keep their tempers and obey the law but you committed these offences against a woman in your cab on her own.'

Ms Ebrahimi told the court: 'To me it seemed like an incredibly frightening situation. It felt like to me racist attacks, very personal.'

The 1,000 compensation to Ms Ebrahimi was for falsely imprisoning her in the locked taxi. 'Reflecting a short, but frightening period of loss of liberty.

Judge Richardson described it as a 'racist and sexist' attack and said Wilkinson (pictured) would not have behaved the same had a man been in the cab

'We take loss of liberty seriously in this country,' added the judge.

'You could have no complaint if I passed an immediate custodial sentence on you, but I have taken into account your loss of character and career.'

Wilkinson must also pass an extended driving test before his licence is restored.

A probation officer described diabetic Wilkinson as a 'polite and social individual largely' who could do around 7 hours community service a week.

His lawyer Miss Shanthi Sivakumaran told the court Wilkinson has one son, a social worker, and one grand daughter and lives alone, paying a 1,500 per month mortgage.

He has now lost his 2,000 per month taxi job. 'That is going to stop with immediate effect.

To me it seemed like an incredibly frightening situation. It felt like to me racist attacks, very personal

'He is concerned he has lost his livelihood snd is concerned about how losing his licence will impact finding a new job.

'He is very afraid he is going to lose his home and other assets he has.'

During the trial, Ms Ebrahimi told the jury it was just after 8pm when she hailed the cab outside her ITN office in Gray's Inn Road to go to her Notting Hill home.

'I was asking the taxi driver if he could put up the heating,' she told the jury. 'The air coming out of the vents was colder than the air in the taxi.

'He was saying the heating was already on and I said it couldn't be on. He wasn't accepting that there wasn't heating.

'He became frustrated and said: 'If you're going to be like that you'd better get out.'

'I thought that was really unfair, it was a cold night, I had a half-an-hour journey and taxi's are expensive.

'I was quite upset. I didn't understand why he was so angry.Why he was taking it so personally.'

'It seemed personal': Ms Ebrahimi, 39, told the court Wilkinson made comments about the Westminster terror attack which happened on the same day and said, 'Don't you think the police will be busy with people like you?'

She recorded 90 seconds of the row on her phone, which was played to the jury, who heard her repeatedly pleading: 'Can you let me out of the car please.

'I feel very much under threat. I don't feel safe.'

She told the court: 'I said: 'If you're going to kick me out here, I'm not going to pay. It was only three or four pounds.

'At that point he told me: 'Well I'm not going to let you out then. I'm going to take you where I got you. I'm going to take you to the police station.'

Wilkinson then did a u-turn. 'He said: 'Don't you think the police will be busy on a day like this dealing with the likes of you.

'The 'day like this' was the Westminster attack, the terrorist attack. It seemed like a strange thing to tell someone.'

Earlier that day 52 year-old Khalid Masood killed four Westminster Bridge pedestrians he ran over in an van and stabbed to death PC Keith Palmer outside the House of Commons.

'I thought this had escalated to something I couldn't even comprehend. I said: 'Please let me out of the cab.'

She said: 'I couldn't understand his motivation, it seemed a bigger threat. He started to say things like: 'This country use'd to have good people. This city had class.'

'That seemed like a personal attack, that he had an axe to grind.

'I couldn't open the doors. They were locked during this whole period.

'I thought: 'Should I climb out of the window? but that's an idiot's guide. I could break my neck, I was caught in a panic.'

I pleaded with him, saying that I felt unsafe and said please let me out the taxi because I was feeling very unsafe

She described Wilkinson's behaviour as 'sinister' and having a greater motivation than a lost fare.

'He called me a thief and when I pleaded that I was feeling unsafe he said he was feeling unsafe to.

'To me it seemed like an incredibly frightening situation. It felt like to me racist attacks, very personal.'

Wilkinson dropped her off near Gray's Inn Road and can be heard on the recording shouting: 'Get out of my cab!'

Ms Ebrahimi stood by the open door filming Wilkinson's number. 'As I was filming the car's id plate the car went forward and came back and hit me and I went flying into the air.

'I was struck backwards about a metre and a half and fell on my right side.'

She called the police when a second taxi drove her home. 'I had bruises on my knees and legs and a trapped sciatic nerve due to the fall on the lower part of my back.'

Ms Ibrahim is the former Senior City Correspondent at The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph and was a journalist at the Mail on Sunday and CNBC.




Australia's luckiest suburbs for scratch-and-win tickets have been revealed, with more than a dozen hotspots identified across the country.

Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales proved to be the most fortunate states, with winners taking home more than $10 million.

But while one in every three tickets are usually winners, the chance of a life-changing pay out increases depending on where you shop.

Australia's luckiest suburbs for scratch-and-win tickets have been revealed, with more than a dozen hotspots identified across the country

'In 2017 it has been a year for Instant Scratch-It's top prizes, they're so popular we've seen 126 top prizes scratched off instantly,' a Lott spokesperson told A Current Affair.

While an average of two jackpot winners are recorded each week, those buying tickets in Western Australia generally took home more.

More than $4.7 million has been won in the state, with the eastern Perth suburb of Belmont the luckiest place to pick up a prize.

Queensland came second after more than $3.6 million was given out, with Brisbane's northern suburbs Bracken Ridge and Keperra the best chance,

'In 2017 it has been a year for Instant Scratch-It's top prizes, they're so popular we've seen 126 top prizes scratched off instantly,' The Lott spokesperson Alyssa Lewis told A Current Affair

Western Australia proved to be the most fortunate state with some of the more than $4.7 million won there coming from the lucky Perth suburb of Belmont (pictured)

While New South Wales was the third best state for pocketing prize money thanks to advantageous suburbs such as Maroubra, Chatswood (pictured) and Manly

While New South Wales was the third best state for pocketing some prize money thanks to advantageous suburbs such as Maroubra, Chatswood and Manly.

Just eight people had taken out top prizes in Melbourne, but won more than $1.2million between them, with the luckiest places Springvale, Frankston and Sunshine.

Luckiest Suburbs Across Australia Western Australia - Belmont Queensland - Bracken Ridge and Keperra New South Wales - Maroubra, Chatswood and Manly Victoria - Springvale, Frankston and Sunshine South Australia - Modbury, Para Hills and Elizabeth Tasmania - Glenorchy Source: A Current Affair Advertisement

South Australia also had three top spots, including Modbury, Para Hills and Elizabeth, while Glenorchy was the most fruitful suburb in Tasmania

One lucky tradesman from Wangaratta, north-east of Melbourne, defied the trend recently however, pocketing $10,000 on a $1 Instant Scratch-It ticket.

The anonymous man, purchased the ticket at Wang Lucky Lotto on Ryley Street and told The Lott he would be putting the prize towards his home loan.

'The most Ive ever won was 25 bucks! Nothing like this!' he said.

'Once it sunk in we went out for a nice meal and a few beers to celebrate!'

However, keeping to trend last December a man in his thirties took out the top prize from one of New South wales luckiest suburbs, winning a whopping $20,000.

The Crows Nest local had purchased the $2 scratchie from Chase Nextra in the nearby suburb of Chatswood.

Just eight people had taken out top prizes in Melbourne, but won more than $1.2million between them, with the luckiest places Springvale, Frankston and Sunshine (stock image)
A French woman is suing a fortune teller who told her she would be dead within six months.

The 35-year-old claims she suffered severe psychological trauma after a doom-laden prediction by the telephone clairvoyant last July.

The woman, from eastern France, paid 25 for the premium-rate call, in which the medium said her doctor had wrongly diagnosed stomach and chest pains she had been feeling.

Bad karma: The 35-year-old from eastern France said she suffered psychological trauma after the fortune teller predicted her death (stock image)

The woman, named only as Magalie, said: 'She told me that I had heart trouble, and that if I didn't see a better doctor, I'd be dead within six months.

'So I went to see another doctor, who told me there was nothing whatsoever wrong with me.

'I called the clairvoyant back, but she stuck to her prediction, and told me that a lot of doctors were incompetent.

'I began to feel so traumatised, I saw a therapist, who advised me to take legal action against the clairvoyant, so I now I am seeking damages through the courts.'

Liar: The woman visited a doctor who gave her a clear bill of health, but when she called the clairvoyant and told her this, the fortune teller branded the doctor 'incompetent'

The president of France's National Institute of Paranormal Arts told the L'Est Republican newspaper: 'Mediums should never predict someone's death.

'It is completely against our code of practice.

'Fraudulent mediums have been known to do this to frighten their victims into seeking more expensive clairvoyancy reading.

'We receive dozens of similar complaints every month.'

The case is due to come before a judge in Thionville, eastern France, later this month.
A 19-year-old boy from Louisiana has been arrested after he allegedly pulled the trigger on a handgun he thought was empty, killed his grandmother and injured their family dog.

Blaise Horton from Plaquemine, Louisiana, was removing the magazine from a .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun at around 4.30pm on Thursday when he accidentally fired a shot, according to police chief Kenny Payne.

The bullet traveled through the dog and hit Horton's grandmother, 67-year-old Kathleen DuPont Fulton.

Family tragedy: Blaise Horton, 19 (left), is facing a negligent homicide charge after police say he accidentally shot and killed his grandmother, Kathleen DuPont Fulton, 67 (right)

Four-legged victim: The bullet first struck and traveled through Fulton's dog, believed to be this Grand Pyrenees puppy she had adopted in May

Police in Plaquemine, Louisiana, say Horton was removing a magazine form his .45-caliber semiautomatic when he pulled the trigger, thinking it was empty

She was pronounced dead at the scene, despite emergency responders' efforts to revive her.

Based on Horton's 911 call and information from his sister, police say the shooting appears to be accidental.

Nevertheless, Horton was booked into jail on a charge of negligent homicide.

The police chief tells the station WBRZ that Fulton's dog survived and was transported to an emergency veterinary clinic for surgery.

Fulton's dog (pictured) survived and was taking to a veterinary clinic for surgery

Horton lived with his grandmother in Plaquemine (pictured together, left). Based on his 911 call, police believe the shooting was accidental

A Facebook post from May shows that Fulton adopted a six-week-old Grand Pyrenees puppy, which is believed to be the pet involved in Thursday's shooting.

Posts on Horton's social media account suggest that he is an avid fisherman and hunter. It's has been reported that he lived with his grandmother.
A mom who strangled her 9-year-old son to death on Halloween was found by police with cloves of garlic, two lighters and a vial of holy water.

Amber James, 47, murdered Ryan Rosales after watching conspiracy videos on YouTube and earlier that week called 911 complaining she was being followed by cars and airplanes.

After she was arrested by police at her home in Seabeck, Washington, she told detectives she had used the water 'to say a prayer for my baby'.

Amber James, 47,(pictured) murdered Ryan Rosales after watching conspiracy videos on YouTube and earlier that week called 911 complaining she was being followed

The boy's father was taking a shower when he ran downstairs after smelling gas and found his son lying unresponsive in the kitchen where all the stoves were on.

He confronted James, who had scratches on her neck from when her son had tried to fight back. Attempts to revive the child failed.

James was taken away for a mental health evaluation where she confessed to killing the child, saying 'she needed to save her son from people that were after us'.

The mom had been watching conspiracy videos on YouTube about politics and chemtrails, according to Q13Fox .

The boy's father was taking a shower when he ran downstairs after smelling gas and found his son(pictured) lying unresponsive in the kitchen where all the stoves were on

Police also found messages on her son's bedroom wall saying 'Greed kills', 'No pedo', 'God is coming' and 'Michael=Devil'.

James has been charged with second degree murder and is being held in Kitsap County jail.

She appeared in court on Wednesday and is expected to attend again today.

Court documents said she was taking medication for anxiety but did not have a diagnosed mental health disorder.

A GoFundMe page was set up to help with the bills for Ryan's funeral.

A message read: 'Ryan's father, James "Jimbo" Rosales, is understandably struggling to comprehend and deal with the unfathomable loss of his beloved youngest son, and console his two remaining children.

'We can come together and help with the unexpected costs of a funeral for this sweet little boy who was taken too soon from his loving dad, and family.'
This is the horrific moment an American aerial acrobat plunges to the ground from a 13ft-high rig on a in Bali, snapping her neck.

Sam Panda, 26, had been filming herself during a live show in Canggu, Bali, and video from the incident starts with her spinning in a metal hoop suspended from a rig on a stage.

Ms Panda, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is seen hanging upside down in the hoop, when suddenly the metal cable comes loose and she crashes to the ground.

Scroll down for video

Horrifying: Sam Panda had been working as a contortionist and acrobat in Bali for some time when the incident took place

Ms Panda hit the wooden stage and immediately broke her neck in several places before being rushed to hospital.

Ms Panda is unable to walk and has a piece of vertebra lodged in her spinal cord which surgeons fear could leave her permanently disabled.

'I was in the middle of an aerial hoop performance when the cable released and I fell approximately 3-4 meters to the ground head first,' Ms Panda wrote on Facebook.

'I have broken my C5 vertebrae, that means I broke my neck, burst the discs between my C5 and C6 as well as C6 and C7, and those are pushing into my spinal cord.

'I also had to get 8 stitches in my head. I am hospitalized at the moment. I am not paralyzed and can move my arms and legs, but I also cannot walk yet. My spine can't support my weight, plus I'm pretty weak and woozy.

Caught on camera: Ms Panda, 26, had been filming herself during a show in Canggu, Bali

Shocking: The wince-inducing footage shows the moment when she plunges to the ground

Injury: The young acrobat smashes into the stage head-first, breaking her neck

'Time is of the essence at this point and I need to get out of Indonesia for proper treatment. We are working on that now. Every day we wait, the swelling increases and causes more weaknesses in my spine.

Friends and family are now in a 'race against time' to raise money to have her flown outside the country for specialist treatment after insurance from her bosses at the Finn's Beach Club was found to not cover urgent medical evacuation.

Ms Panda had been training and working as a contortionist and acrobat for ten years, performing around the world before arriving in Bali.

Friend Olivia Leonie says the 26-year-old had told organisers before getting up in the metal ring on the rig.

'She had said a few times before that she didn't feel comfortable using the equipment, that it wasn't safe. Her employers had an outside company in to check it was all safe and secure.

High spirits: Ms Panda poses in the hospital after it is established that she broken her C5 vertebrae and burst several discs between others

Race against time: Friends and family are now trying to raise $40,000 to pay for Ms Panda to be transported and receive specialist surgery in Taiwan or Singapore

Aiming high: Ms Panda, from Pennsylvania, has been performing for over a decade

'She records herself on her phone every time she performs and she can use that now as evidence.

'Time really is of the essence, it's urgent that she gets help in a country where they can give the proper treatment. She needs to recover as this is her job and her way of life.''

Medics have quoted $40,000 to have Sam flown out of tourist resort Bali and to Taiwan or Singapore for specialist surgery.

She needs a shard of bone removed from her spinal cord, which if left untreated over the coming weeks could mean that Sam is permanently affected.

She is currently unable to walk but can talk and eat.

Ms Panda and her friends and family have set up a donations website to try to raise the money for her surgery. To help her, click here.

A spokesman for Finns Beach Club said: 'Sam is being treated in one of Bali's best International hospitals and we are in constant communication with her and her family.

'We have been assured by the hospital that she is in excellent care with the best specialists looking after her.'
Police body camera footage shows the moment a thug confronts officers with two large knives before he is Tasered and arrested.

Firearms officers were called to a dispute at a Birmingham city centre housing block and were faced with thug Aron Tesfalem wielding two large blades.

One officer can be heard yelling 'Police, put the knife down now' before telling his partner 'Go to your Taser mate.'

He trains a red laser sight on the man's body before his colleague discharges the 50,000-volt stun gun and the man falls to the ground.

Two police officers called to an apartment block row were confronted by this man, armed with two long knives. Footage has been released showing the man being Tasered to the ground

Tesfalem, 20, later told police he was drunk and angry after a row over a laptop. He claimed he didn't understand police officers' instructions.

He pleaded guilty to two charges of possessing a bladed article and was jailed for 12 months yesterday.

West Midlands Police released the 30 second long video - shot from body cameras now being rolled out to the entire force - to show the threats firearms officers routinely face.

The knifeman, Aron Tesfalem, has now been jailed for 12 months for his crimes

In this incident on October 3, officers ordered the suspect around 10 times to drop the knives before deciding to deploy the Taser.

Tesfalem had stabbed the knives into a reception desk in the housing block, prompting housing workers to lock themselves in an office.

Chief Inspector Danny Delaney, from the force's firearms unit, praised the officers for their conduct.

He said: 'This incident is an example of the professionalism and restraint West Midlands firearms officers demonstrate when dealing with highly volatile violent incidents.

'Officers undergo 14 weeks of intensive training where they are trained to deal with all types of situations, always trying to use the minimum amount of force necessary.'

More than 1,400 West Midlands Police officers have been issued with body worn video (BWV) cameras.

They are used whenever officers are called to domestic incidents, and are routinely used when officers are required to exercise authority.

Within the next six months, all frontline officers are expected to receive their own camera, and all other officers will have access to cameras if they need them.

Police have released the footage to show the nightmare situations they officers have to face
Kareen Bagnall, 22, of Welshpool, posted the picture on Facebook in a barrister's wig

A drug dealer who was jailed for her part in a cocaine and heroin empire posed for a brazen Facebook selfie wearing a barrister's wig after she was arrested.

Kareen Bagnall, 22, of Welshpool, Powys, posted the picture on Facebook as a joke after she was arrested alongside her 54-year-old mother Anthea.

The photo of Bagnall posing for the camera was uploaded on May 19 - which she captioned 'One Day'.

Other pictures of her show her making a gun gesture with her fingers while larking around in a pub with friends.

Bagnall and her mother were caught with 5,000 worth of heroin and crack cocaine after being stopped in a car in Birmingham in January. Both were released on bail after the initial arrest.

They were drug runners responsible for the distribution of Class A drugs from Birmingham to outer city locations, known as a 'County Lines' network.

Bagnall (left) was arrested alongside her mother Anthea (right). Both were jailed for nine years

The pair were both jailed for nine years at Birmingham Crown Court on Wednesday for conspiracy to supply class A drugs.

They appeared in court alongside eight other members of a drugs network led by 29-year-old Mohammed Rafiq Khan from Bordesley Green.

In total, the gang were locked up for 120 years after a court heard they had also sold guns to organised crime groups across the West Midlands.

They were caught after a joint investigation by the West Midlands regional organised crime unit and the National Crime Agency.

Other pictures of Bagnall show her making a gun gesture with her fingers while larking around in a pub with friends

The group distributed heroin and crack cocaine and also sold guns. More than 100 calls per day were made using Khan's line to drug users in Welshpool, Shrewsbury and Birmingham.

Khan and Michael Harkin, 54, from Yardley, were sourcing the weapons and distributing them to criminal associates across the West Midlands.

John Spencer Booth, 68, a registered firearms dealer from Derbyshire, converted lawfully held firearms for Harkin and Khan by shortening barrels and removing serial numbers from shotguns.

A total of 14 sawn-off shotguns were recovered and more than five kilos of Class A drugs were distributed through the illegal operations

Bagnall (above) was jailed at Birmingham Crown Court for conspiracy to supply class A drugs

Harkin and his partner Lucy Wilkie were both arrested last October after officers searched their home in South Yardley and recovered three sawn-off shotguns.

A further search conducted at the address of acquaintances Vineeta Kainth and Mark Adkins resulted in the recovery of component parts, including sawn-off barrels and ammunition.

In January this year, armed officers stopped the vehicle Booth was driving and recovered 10 sawn-off shotguns and 250 cartridges in the boot.

A search of Booth's business premises and home address in Ashbourne revealed a workshop and equipment used to shorten shotgun barrels and stocks.

Bagnall (pictured) and her mother were caught with 5,000 worth of heroin and crack cocaine

Numerous cut barrels were found, suggesting this had been an ongoing criminal enterprise.

The investigation culminated when Khan was detained at Shrewsbury train station in February.

He was found in possession of five mobile phones, over 1,500 in cash and tickets to Dubai.

Detective Inspector James Mahon, from the West Midlands Serious and Organised Crime Unit, said: 'This was a complex investigation but has led to significant prison sentences and illegally held guns and drugs being removed from the streets.

A total of 14 sawn-off shotguns were recovered and more than five kilos of Class A drugs were distributed through the illegal operations

In total, the gang were locked up for 120 years after a court heard they had also sold guns to organised crime groups across the West Midlands

'These converted sawn off shotguns had the potential to be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands; while drugs can ruin lives and communities.'

Jon Greenwell, from the NCA's Armed Operations Unit added: 'Whilst the majority of registered firearms dealers adhere to their licensing arrangements, there are some who are prepared to buy, convert and sell firearms for criminal purposes.

'Booth was one of these individuals. Using his legitimate business as a cover, he actively sought to convert weapons for organised crime groups to make money.

'He gave no thought to where or how the weapons he converted would be used and in my mind posed a very real risk to the public.'

Mohammed Rafiq Khan (left), 29, and Michael Harkin (right), 54, were sourcing the weapons and distributing them to criminal associates across the West Midlands

The group distributed heroin and crack cocaine and also sold guns.

More than 100 calls per day were made using Khan's line to drug users in Welshpool, Shrewsbury and Birmingham.

Detective Inspector James Mahon, from the West Midlands Serious and Organised Crime Unit, said: 'This was a complex investigation but has led to significant prison sentences and illegally held guns and drugs being removed from the streets.

'These converted sawn off shotguns had the potential to be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands; while drugs can ruin lives and communities.'
A former manager of one of George Soros' investment funds has been accused of human trafficking, violent rape and assault in an extraordinary $27million lawsuit filed by three Florida models.

Howard 'Howie' Rubin, 62, is accused of sexually assaulting three women, two of whom are former Playboy bunnies, at an $8million penthouse in Manhattan in 2016 which contains a secret 'dungeon' of sex toys, masks and BDSM 'apparatus'.

The women claim Rubin and his associates lured them to New York on JetBlue flights after contacting them on Instagram.

Once in Manhattan, they say he drugged them then violently beat them while they were gagged and bound in the sex dungeon, hitting woman so hard that she passed out as he demanded she call him 'daddy'.

Two of them say he warned them: 'I'm going to rape you like I rape my daughter,' before attacking them and one says he punched her breast so hard her implant 'flipped'.

They say he then covered up the alleged rapes and attacks and hushed them by paying them up to $5,000 each. His associates then gave them money to cover medical expenses incurred by the injuries he inflicted on them, they said.

They detail their allegations in a 63-page lawsuit filed in Brooklyn, New York, on Thursday which DailyMail.com has seen.

Howard Rubin, 62, pictured with his wife Mary Henry, has been accused or rape, assault and human trafficking in a sensational $27million lawsuit filed by three Florida women including two former Playboy bunnies

Rubin, a notorious Wall Street trader who is blamed for incurring $377million of losses at Merrill Lynch in 1987 and who is featured in Liar's Poker, has not yet responded to their allegations.

He is named alongside associated Stephanie Shon, Jennifer Powers, and lawyer Yifat Schnur in the lawsuit.

Rubin has been married since the 1980s to his former Harvard Business School classmate Mary Henry. They have three children together.

The lawsuit describes four different incidents in 2016. The women sometimes traveled to meet him in pairs and on other occasions they went alone, they said.

The suit says Rubin's 'chief crime location' was the Metropolitan Tower (the glass tower on the left) in Manhattan where the women say he beat and raped them in an $8million penthouse

Each claimed they returned after the first violent encounter because they needed money.

All say they were first contacted by Rubin's staff on Instagram through its direct messaging function.

Rubin's associates Stephanie Shon and Jennifer Powers, a former model herself who claimed to have slept with Rubin before starting to work for him, allegedly offered them thousands of dollars and free flights to New York to appear in photo-shoots and offer him 'companionship'.

Once they were in the city, they say they were took cabs to the penthouse from the airport and were met by his employees who forced them to sign NDAs before they could meet him.

The women say they then went to a nearby bar for dinner and drinks then returned to the apartment where they claim Rubin drugged, beat and raped them before leaving 'to go home to his wife and kids'.

Once in the penthouse, the women say Rubin turned on them and had violent sex, often beating them so severely that they required medical treatment.

His associates then offered them more cash in exchange for their silence and paid their medical bills, they claim.

He continued to punch her, stating: "Howie is the daddy. The daddy has to beat his baby.'

One alleged victim says he once beat her so badly that her breast implant 'flipped'. Another says he once threatened: 'I'm going to rape you like my daughter.'

Rubin allegedly ordered co-defendants to contact the women on social media, initiating the contact.

One says that in August this year, she received a direct message from Stephanie Shon on Instagram.

The view from Metropolitan Tower in Manhattan where the women say the abuse took place. They allege that Rubin bought the apartment through the company Blue Icarus in 2010

'Shon indicated that she worked for Howard Rubin, and that Rubin, who had seen images of her on Instagram, would like to meet her in New York. While Shon initially identified Rubin by name, she then insisted that the woman refer to him only as H so as to protect Rubins identity' the lawsuit reads.

Shon then allegedly told the woman her boss 'loved spending time with Playboy models'.

The initial payment for the trip was $2,000 plus expenses, she said. If Rubin 'liked her', she would receive an additional $3,000, she claimed.

The alleged victim refused because she had never heard of him, she said. Rubin then allegedly had Powers contact her on the phone and over WhatsApp to persuade her to change her mind.

'Powers assured her that Rubin was a great guy, and would not do anything to make her feel uncomfortable. Powers told her that if she ever felt uncomfortable she could simply ask to leave, and would not only be allowed to do so, but would still be paid the initial $2,000 for her time,' it continues.

The women say they met with him for dinner and drinks first at the Viceroy Central Park (above)

Another says Rubin took her to Tao Uptown (above) before bringing her back to the 'penthouse' to rape her

She reluctantly agreed on the condition that she could bring one of the other Plaintiffs, who she was friends with, with her.

That woman had already received a similar request from Shon and Powers, she said. In their messages to her, they said Rubin liked 'large breasted' women.

To her, they allegedly insisted that she would not be required to have sex and that 'at most' Rubin wanted to engage in 'fetish play'.

The two women then flew to New York from Florida on JetBlue flights paid for by Rubin, they said.

Once they arrived at the penthouse, they claimed they were given a cocktail by Powers. Inside the apartment were photographs of famous playmates, they said. Rubin also appeared in some of the images.

The women suggested Rubin violently beat them and one alleges that he raped her with a cattle prod

They were then presented with NDAs, they said, which they signed. They were then taken to the Viceroy Central Park where they claim they met Rubin on the roof.

After dinner and drinks, where they said he was 'cordial and respectful', they claim they all returned to the penthouse and Rubin's demeanor changed.

He then allegedly ordered them to change into fetish clothes and fixed them drinks out of sight which they believe were spiked.

The woman say he then opened the door to a previously locked dungeon which contained sex toys 'labeled A-Z' and 'a large x-shaped machine with straps, a bench, full-face masks with zippers, and metal hooks.'

'Rubin brought the women into this side room (the Dungeon) and immediately slapped [one of them] across the face.

'Not only had the slap been unexpected and hurt, but [she] had recently undergone a cosmetic treatment to her face, known commonly as fillers, and was concerned that Rubin would damage the treatment,' the lawsuit reads.

He then allegedly ordered that woman to hit the other. When she refused, he said he hit her too.

They say he then tied them up, gagged them and said: 'Im going to rape you like I rape my daughter.'

He then punched them in the backs of their heads, breasts and rib cages, calling them c**ts and becoming more violent if they screamed, they said.

Rubin then allegedly threw one woman to the ground and ordered her to call him 'daddy' while he beat her in the back of the head until she lost consciousness.

'He continued to punch her, stating that: "Howie is the daddy. The daddy has to beat his baby.' The woman says he then raped her so violently it caused 'tears to her vagina'.

Rubin is seen here with his eldest daughter at her debutante ball in a throwback photo she posted to wish him a happy Father's Day

They say that after an hour of abuse, he left to 'go home to his wife and children.' Powers, the aforementioned employee, then stepped in to try to 'soothe the traumatized victims'.

The women stayed in the penthouse for the night then flew back to Florida the next day as planned, they said.

Despite their ordeal, one of the women introduced him to another of her friends, claiming she was afraid of what he may do to her if she did not appear to appease him. Rubin allegedly paid her $2,000 for the introduction to the third woman.

She then flew to New York by herself in September 2016 and met him the same restaurant where he'd had dinner and drinks with the two other women.

She claims she knew how violent he had been with the others and told him she was 'nervous' about what he would do to her but was assured she would be in safe hands, the lawsuit claims.

When she went back to the penthouse, she said she drank all of what he gave her because she was nervous.

Once she was drunk, she claims she began talking about her daughter. She says he said he 'slapped' her, told her he was 'completely turned off', left $2,000 on the table then told her to leave which she did the next day.

Despite their first meeting, she agreed to go back weeks later, this time taking back with her the woman who says he raped her in August 2016.

Both claim they returned to New York on September 24, 2016 and met him for dinner at Tao Uptown, an upscale restaurant on the Upper East Side. Afterwards, they claim he angrily raped one of them after tying them up in the master bedroom of the penthouse.

Rubin and his wife are regulars on the New York City social circuit. They are pictured at a 2013 event

The women say that after raping them in the penthouse, Rubin returned to his home on the Upper East Side. It is another multi-million dollar apartment inside this building

In December 2016, he allegedly attacked another of the women with a cattle prod while she visited him by herself.

He raped her with the prod, then with a dildo and finally raped him herself, she claimed.

On other occasions the women say they met with him in Miami and had dinner with him and Wes Edens, owner of the Milwaukee Bucks.

There was no answer at Rubin's Upper East Side home on Friday.

He began his career in mortgaged-backed securities at Salomon Brothers in 1982.

He joined the Mortgage Department at Bear Stearns, becoming a Senior Managing Director and head of the CMO Trading Desk before retiring in 1999 as one of the most-respected men on Wall Street.

In 1987, Rubin caused historic losses at Merrill Lynch through a series of unauthorized trades which cost the company $250million. The figure was later reported by The New York Times to be as high as $377million.

At the time, Wall Street insiders told how he bought billions of dollars worth of mortgage bonds without receiving approval from his seniors.

When the market plummeted, he was unable to sell them off and incurred astronomical losses for the company.

He was fired and the matter was turned over to Wall Street watchdogs but Rubin was never criminally prosecuted.

Despite the loss, he was appointed Senior Managing Director at Bear Stearns, where he ran the Collateralized Mortgage Obligations desk from 1987 to 1999.

In 2008 he came out of retirement to manage a Mortgage-Backed Securities Fund for financier George Soros, run by Soros Fund Management, LLC. He quit the firm in 2015.

In 2008, Rubin came out of retirement to manage a Mortgage-Backed Securities Fund for billionaire financier George Soros (pictured). He left in 2015, before the alleged sex attacks

Rubin has been married to philanthropist and fellow Harvard Business School graduate Mary Henry since 1985.

Before attending Harvard Business School, he attended Lafayette College in Pennsylvania.

The couple raised their three children in New York on the Upper East Side and also have a house in the Hamptons.

They have two daughters and then a son, the oldest child just graduated college.

Jeremy Saland of The Law Office of Crotty & Saland, who is representing the women, told DailyMail.com in a statement: 'While arrogance and self-import may convince certain men otherwise, neither money nor power gives any person the right to victimize a woman.

'It is our collective responsibility to ensure that victims voices are heard, and that abusers positions of privilege do not exempt them from the grasp of justice.'

John Balestriere of Balestriere Fariello, another of the women's lawyers, added his fear there were other victims. 'We implore other victims of the Enterprise to contact us,' he said.
An ex-Tory aide revealed today how she had her drink spiked with a 'date rape drug' in the MPs' bar in Parliament.

Jo Tanner said she had been told by police what happened to her was not the first example reported at the Palace of Westminster.

But she condemned officers and officials present at the time none of whom apparently helped her as she staggered through the Victorian palace.

Jo Tanner said she had been told by police what happened to her was not the first example reported at the Palace of Westminster

In a column for The Times today, Ms Tanner said CCTV revealed she 'zigzagged' from the Strangers Bar on the Thames terrace upstairs to Parliament's Central Lobby without anyone having 'taken any interest in my welfare'.

Ms Tanner said there was no evidence she had been assaulted during the incident but that it was the most unsettling of her two decades in and around Westminster.

Her testimony comes amid a growing scandal around harassment and abuse in politics.

Ms Tanner said: 'I don't tell this story to invite sympathy but as an example of how even when concerns are raised, or a crime reported, the system can be woefully poor.

'It was in Strangers' Bar, the main venue used by MPs, although I stress none was present as far as I can remember.

'I was out with journalists and I chatted away while my spritzer sat intermittently on a shelf. It is only from CCTV footage, later recovered by the police, that I know what happened next.

'I still feel sick at the description of me ''bouncing off the walls as I zigzagged along the corridor'' immediately outside the bar.

'I managed to get to Central Lobby where I sat on my own for at least 15 minutes, speaking to nobody, doing nothing.'

Ms Tanner condemned officers and officials present at the time none of whom apparently helped her as she staggered through the Victorian palace (file image)

Ms Tanner recounted how after getting home she woke in the middle of the night and began acting 'in a completely deranged manner' and how her memory of the events was a 'blank' by the morning.

She said: 'I reported the incident to the police and on their advice had tests, although I was told that most drugs disappeared quickly from your system so are often untraceable.

'The doctor said it was a classic case of a date rape drug incident. I had to have blood and urine tests, and scans to check for heart or brain damage. The police took the issue seriously and I was interviewed in depth.

'Why me? Was I being targeted for information? Was it just random? Or was it someone's idea of fun?

'I was told by the police that it hadn't been the first time it had happened on the parliamentary estate.'

Ms Tanner said she had recommended warning signs about drink spiking be erected in Parliament's bars but said this had not happened.

She added: 'Nobody from the parliamentary authorities ever contacted me. The system to report anything from the minor to the serious clearly doesn't work.

'It's time parliament should recognise its role in protecting people on its premises. It is not simply the responsibility of the parties and if action is not taken now, the message is one of contempt.'
Shocking footage shows two travellers kicking and punching each other to prove 'who the best mother is' in a violent car park brawl, filmed by a little boy.

One of the women was recorded trying to gouge other's eyes out during the fight in an unidentified car park, believed to be in Ireland, as two others try to intervene.

Towards the end of the video, the cameraman filming turns the lens on himself and is revealed to be a boy aged around 10.

Shocking: Footage shows two traveller women kicking, punching and trying to gouge each other's eyes out in a violent car park brawl which was filmed by a little boy

One of the onlookers sounds like she has an English accent and the other Irish

Towards the end of the video, the cameraman filming turns the lens on himself and is revealed to be a boy aged around 10 (right)

The exact location is unknown but the footage was uploaded to a YouTube site called Traveller News on October 21.

One of the onlookers sounds like she has an English accent and the other Irish.

The clip - captioned 'Traveller women fighting' - has been branded as 'disgusting' and 'disgraceful' by social media users.

The video begins with two young women rolling on the ground in what appears to be a secluded car park in the countryside.

Two women, one wearing a white top and one wearing a black top with white stripes, are standing beside them shouting indecipherably.

The woman in the black and white top can be heard shouting: 'Prove who the best mother is, go on our child.'

The video begins with two young women rolling on the ground in what appears to be a secluded car park in the countryside

The woman wearing the black and white top (pictured above) steps in to intervene shouting: 'Don't touch her eyes, no eyes, no eyes, no eyes, no eyes'

The Garda said that they had no knowledge of the video. A spokesman said: 'It is not something that has been flagged to us, it is not something we know about'

The last three seconds of the clip reveal that the brutal brawl was filmed by a young boy

The pair on the ground continue to scrap on the tarmac.

One girl, wearing blue jeans and a green top, forces herself on top of the other girl and starts punching her violently in the face.

The woman wearing the black and white top steps in to intervene shouting: 'Don't touch her eyes, no eyes, no eyes, no eyes, no eyes.'

The two girls scream and pull at each others hair, while another woman, clearly filming the fight, can be heard saying: 'Have a clean fight, have a clean fight, come on girls.'

When the girl wearing the grey top starts to kick back at the girl who had been sitting on her, one of the woman can be heard shouting: 'You're kicking her, you're kicking her no no no.'

Don't touch her eyes, no eyes, no eyes, no eyes, no eyes

She pulls one of the girls legs away, when the other woman approaches and they scream at each other to 'back off'.

The last three seconds of the clip reveal that the brutal brawl was filmed by a young boy.

He jumps and celebrates with the girl who continues to shout: 'Up the Prices.'

The Garda said that they had no knowledge of the video. A spokesman said: 'It is not something that has been flagged to us, it is not something we know about.'

Social media users were quick to share their disgust at the video, with many suggesting it wasn't a fair fight.

Bubalicious Pop said: 'Disgraceful .'

Dave D added: 'FFS That should have been stopped.'

Biggun Biggun commented: 'That was not fair play...f** disgusting .'
A young girl believed to be only three or four years of age has been found wandering by herself as police appeal to locate her parents.

The girl, who says her name is Lily, was found by a member of the public on Richmond Road near Blacktown Showground west of Sydney just after 6pm on Friday.

Police officers searched the area but were unable to find her parents or caregivers.

The girl, who says her name is Lily, was found by a member of the public just after 6pm on Friday

She is described as being of Pacific Islander or Maori appearance with long brown hair and brown eyes.

She has been taken to Blacktown Police Station while police continue to search for anyone who may know her.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact Blacktown Police Station or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Kevin Spacey is being investigated by Scotland Yard over claims he sexually assaulted a young actor in his London home in 2008 (pictured)

Kevin Spacey is being investigated by Scotland Yard over claims he sexually assaulted a young actor in his London home.

The accuser, who cannot be named, claims that Spacey invited him to his London flat for drinks and woke up to find the star, 56, performing a sex act on him.

The actor allegedly told him not to tell anyone what had happened as he fled but has gone to the police after Star Trek actor Anthony Rapp accused him of trying to seduce him as a 14-year-old.

Spacey is 'is taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment' after a string of men accused him of making unwanted sexual advances.

The alleged sex attack is said to have taken place in 2008 when the man, then 23, had asked Spacey for advice with his career, according to The Sun.

He claims he passed out in Spacey's London home, where he was working as artistic director Old Vic Theatre, and woke to find himself being abused.

Police are said to have interviewed the man about the incident and are launching an investigation.

A Met spokesman said: 'On November 1 City of London Police referred an allegation of sexual assault to the Metropolitan Police Service.

'It is alleged a man assaulted another man in 2008 in Lambeth. Officers from the Child Abuse and Sexual Offences Command are investigating.'

A number of staff members and actors have accused The Old Vic theatre in London of 'pleading ignorance' to the behaviour of Kevin Spacey, its former artistic director

Spacey is facing a number of allegations of preying on young men and teenagers yesterday as three more alleged victims made claims of grooming and sexual harassment.

Bar worker Daniel Beal said the actor, 58, had once tried to groom him aged 19, when he was employed at the Goodwood Park Hotel in West Sussex in 2010.

He alleged he was offered a 5,000 watch to keep quiet after the two-time Oscar winner flashed him and tried to make him touch his genitals.

Mr Beal said: Looking back, he was trying to manipulate me from the moment he walked into the bar. In hindsight, that must have been grooming.

A second alleged victim said he woke up on a sofa with Spacey lying on top of him in his underwear following a weekend spent at the stars New York home in 1986.

The unnamed man, who was aged 17 at the time, said: I was uncomfortable at best, traumatised at worst. He was either very stupid or predatory  or maybe a little of both.

And Roberto Cavazos, a former actor at the Old Vic theatre, predicted there would be more accusations to come  in similar numbers to Harvey Weinstein.

The Mexican actor, 35, said that he had fended off two unpleasant advances made by the star in 2008 which bordered on harassment.

Spacey was artistic director of the theatre for 11 years from 2004.

Crew members on House Of Cards have accused Kevin Spacey of sexual assault while on the set of the Netflix series.

Robert Cavazos (left) said Spacey tried to fondle him against his will at a bar at the Old Vic, while Lisa McKeown (right) an actress who used to work at the Old Vic box office, said he 'used his position to take advantage of men in their late teens and early 20s

It comes after more than 80 women accused Harvey Weinstein of rape, sexual abuse and harassment dating back decades

The actor allegedly groped a production assistant while he was driving a car and later cornered him in his trailer.

It came as an artist said Spacey tried to rape him in 1983 when he was 14.

The actor, pictured, is said to be seeking treatment after a string of men accused him of harassment.

Speaking to CNN, eight staff on the Netflix show accused the 58-year-old of inappropriate touching.

One said Spacey, who plays President Francis Underwood and is also an executive producer, made the set a toxic environment. Another said: He would put his hands on me  or touch my stomach sometimes in weird ways that in normal everyday conversation would not be appropriate.

I have no doubt this type of predatory behaviour was routine for him  Kevin had few if any qualms about exploiting his status and position.
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Apple fans who waited at the Palo Alto store overnight for the release of the much-anticipated $999 iPhone X were rewarded Friday morning when chief executive Tim Cook made an appearance.

Cook, who has described the companies latest gadget as the 'biggest leap forward since the original iPhone,' surprised groupies who waited overnight to get their hands on the high-end device.

He even took a moment to sign a few lucky fans' iPhone boxes.

Fans lined up through the night at stores around the country to buy the phone - and those who were able to buy one will be pleased to know they are sitting on potential gold mines, with some devices already being auctioned off oneBay for up to $18,000.

The X is Apple's next generation smartphone that uses facial recognition software for the first time and is on sale today in cities around the world - with queues building at Apple Stores amid rumors of limited stock.

And sales had Wall Street booming as shares hit an all-time high on Friday morning as optimistic reviews poured in about how the X would make this quarter's earnings soar.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Apple fans who waited at the Palo Alto store overnight for the release of the much-anticipated $999 iPhone X were rewarded Friday morning when chief executive Tim Cook made an appearance

PALO ALTO: CEO Tim Cook is pictured hugging a customer, Kathy Jen, as she gets ready to buy her new phone

Cook, who has described the companies latest gadget as the 'biggest leap forward since the original iPhone,' surprised groupies who waited overnight to get their hands on the high-end device

Apple CEO Tim Cook even took a moment to sign a box of a new iPhoneX at the Palo Alto Apple Store

MANHATTAN: Excited consumers lined up down city blocks overnight to get their hands on new iPhone X

MANHATTAN: In SoHo hundreds of people got in line around the block in hopes to get their hands on one of the new phones

MANHATTAN: People took naps as they waited for hours outside the Fifth Avenue store in the Upper East Side

MANHATTAN: The X is Apple's next generation smartphone that uses facial recognition software for the first time and is going on sale in cities worldwide today - with queues building at Apple Stores amid rumors of limited stock

MANHATTAN: An excited customer is greeted with a round of high-fives by enthusiastic Apple employees as he enters the store to purchase his new phone

MANHATTAN: Customers piled into the store as soon as it was open on Friday morning to purchase their new gadgets

BOSTON: The first customer in New England held his hands over his head triumphantly as he left the store with his new device

BOSTON: Adam Cartwright shows off his new iPhone to reporters outside of the store in downtown Boston on Friday morning

TAMPA: People were just as excited on the west coast, with lines reaching all the way around the mall overnight

CHICAGO: Chase Thilleman gets a high five from an Apple employee as he is the first in the Michigan Avenue store to enter and buy his new phone

The company took a major step forward to becoming a trillion dollar company after the tech giant reported a blowout fourth quarter and got ready to start selling their brand-new products.

At least five brokerages raised their price targets on the stock, with Canaccord Genuity making the most bullish move by raising its price target by $15 to $195. The median price target on the stock is $180.

With Canaccord's move, five Wall Street analysts now have target prices for Apple that put its market value above $1 trillion.

In New York people brought sleeping bags so they could wait in lines that wrapped around city blocks overnight for the release of the phone.

'I can't wait to get to my office and plug it in, back it up and play around with it,' said Jordan Shapiro, a 34-year-old recruiter from New Jersey who was one of the first to walk into Apple's flagship store on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue.

'I've been in these lines maybe five or six times for previous launches and its just so much more than when a UPS guy delivers.'

And in the rest of the major American cities people followed suit, some even getting creative and bringing with them air mattresses or folding chairs so they could rest their feet (or maybe take a nap) during their wait.

The record-long lines signaled stronger demand for the 10th anniversary version of the premium smartphone than the last two iterations.

While many waited for hours in technology hub San Francisco - some may have been in vane as thieves snatched hundreds of new iPhones off of a delivery truck outside Stonestown Mall, according to KPIX.

MANHATTAN: An excited customer raises her hands above her hands as the SoHo Apple Store opens on Friday morning

MANHATTAN: Despite the eye-watering price tag, people were willing to shell out the cash for what Apple CEO Tim Cook has billed as 'the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone,'

BOSTON: People up north had to line up wearing heavy jackets and hoods as they waited in the cold New England morning for the store to open

WASHINGTON: Customers lined up outside the store overnight in Georgetown to get their hands on the new iPhone

ATLANTA: Down south people looked more cheery as they stood in line at the Perimeter Mall waiting for the official launch

MANHATTAN: Customers at the Fifth Avenue store were lucky to get in the door to have a chance at buying Apple's exciting new phone

MANHATTAN: David Tukel traveled all the way from Franklin, Michigan, to buy a new iPhone X at the Fifth Avenue Store in New York

MANHATTAN: A customer hands over a $100 bill as she pays for her new iPhone X at the Fifth Avenue Apple store

MANHATTAN: Harry Slotwiner holds up his new iPhone X. And as New Yorkers lined up at stores around the metro area, workers finish installing billboards around the city to advertise the popular new phone

MIAMI: Crowds gathered and waited in beach chairs for the release of the new iPhone near Miami Beach

DALLAS: Some people got creative in and brought mattresses with them to stay comfortable while waiting in the all-night line

CHICAGO: Freddy Drzewiecki traveled to the windy city all the way from Buffalo, New York, to buy his new phone at the recently opened Michigan Avenue store

The glass-and-stainless-steel device that Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has billed as 'the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone,' starts at $999 in the United States.

The handset features an edge-to-edge display designed for deeper color rendition and an innovative camera that uses facial recognition to unlock and operate the phone.

Conspiracy theorists might suspect that Apple is artificially reducing supply to generate buzz, but analysts say the real reason is that Apple's suppliers so far haven't been able to manufacture the iPhone X quickly enough.

The new phone will be the first iPhone to use FaceID, facial recognition software used to unlock the device while also removing the Home button for the first time to make way for a larger, OLED screen.

One of the iPhone X's key new features is Animoji, which lets you turn your face  captured by the new face recognition camera  into an animated character, such as a panda or even a poo.

Making the iPhone X is proving to be a challenge because it boasts a color-popping OLED screen, which isn't as readily available as standard LCD displays in other iPhone models.

The new iPhone also requires more sophisticated components to power the facial-recognition technology for unlocking the device. Even with the iPhone X's delayed release, Apple is still struggling to catch up.

Apple is now giving delivery times of five to six weeks for those ordering in advance online. Limited supplies will be available in Apple stores for the formal release Friday.

'The Super Bowl for Apple is the iPhone X,' GBH analyst Daniel Ives said. 'That is the potential game changer.'

LONDON: The queue for the new iPhone X at the Regent Street Apple Store in Central London this morning

LONDON: Apple customers try out the new iPhone X at the Regent Street Apple Store in London today

LIVERPOOL: A huge queue builds outside the Liverpool One Apple store in the city centre ahead of the iPhone X release today

MANCHESTER: Hundreds of Apple fans queue outside the Apple Store at the Trafford Centre in Manchester this morning

iPhone X devices are already listed for sale on auction website eBay for up to 15,000

Facial recognition, 12 megapixel camera and portrait lighting for photographs: Behind the new iPhone X - $999 (999 in the UK) price for 64GB version, and $1,149 (1,149 in the UK) for the 256GB version - Pronounced the 'iPhone 10' - Comes with 64GB and 256GB models - No home button - swipe up from the bottom to unlock or to go home from an app or to multitask - 'Face ID' that allows users to unlock the phone by looking at it (but no fingerprint recognition) The iPhone X has ditched the home button, making room for an almost edgeless display with glass on both sides of the device - Qi and AirPower wireless charging that lets you charge multiple devices at once - 'Screen tap' unlock - Edge to edge display with glass on both sides of the device - Super retina display using OLED technology - highest ever pixel density in an iPhone - Dual 12 megapixel cameras and dual-optical image stabilisation - Portrait lighting that uses machine learning to touch up photos - A11 bionic chips with six cores, can be 70 per cent faster than the previous A10 chip - But 64-bit A11 bionic system processor with an embedded M11 motion coprocessor is the same as iPhone 8 (300) Advertisement

MADRID: People lined up outside the Apple Store in Puerta del Sol. This release marks the 10-year anniversary of the first ever iPhone

CHINA: Workers staff cheer for the first man to buy the newly released iPhone X at the Sanlitun Apple Store in Beijing today

RUSSIA: People gather by a re:Store shop on Tverskaya Street in Moscow as Apple launches the iPhone X in Moscow today

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: A customer looks at the new iPhone X at an Apple Store during its launch at Dubai Mall in Dubai

In Hong Kong, buyers who had pre-ordered the phone online queued to pick up their new purchases, saying they were willing to pay for what they saw as a landmark model.

'It's the 10th anniversary phone - anyway, other phones like the Samsung are not much less,' said banker Tony Yeung, 35, as he queued outside the Apple store in Hong Kong's Festival Walk mall. 'It's convenient. You can unlock the phone just by holding it up to your face in bed after you wake up.'

He bought two of the 64 GB version, costing HK$8,588 ($1,100) each, one for him and one for his wife. The 256 GB model costs HK$9,888 ($1,250).

In Australia, around 400 people queued outside Apple's flagship store in central Sydney to pay A$1,579 ($1,200) for the 10th anniversary model, a glass-and-stainless-steel device that Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook billed as 'the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone.'

'It's beautiful bro, what a feeling, I'm excited,' builder Bishoy Behman, 18, said after picking up two iPhone X as the first in line. He said he camped outside the store for a week before paying to improve his place in the queue overnight.

In Apple's Omotesando store in Tokyo, some 550 people were waiting in a line stretching to around 600 meters.

'I'm going home, and after having a rest, I'd like to have fun (with the phone),' said first-in-line Yamaura, a 21-year-old college student who spent six days in the queue.

In Singapore, two tourists from Thailand - which is not an initial launch market - were the first to receive pre-ordered phones at a flagship store in the Orchard shopping district.

But China iPhone sales have sagged in recent years as consumers switch to cheaper phones, while China becoming a launch market has hit demand for Hong Kong handsets.

'It is getting harder and harder for us to scalp iPhones. It is not the same as before,' said Ms Zhou.

APPLE'S NEW IPHONE IS A CLIPMSE INTO THE FUTURE BY: MARK PRIGG FOR DAILYMAIL.COM Apple bills it as the future of smartphones - and after spending a day with the iPhone X, it's hard to disagree. It's a simply stunning piece of hardware, with the screen front and center, taking up almost the entire front of the device. While detractors say the lack of a home button and fingerprint scanner are the biggest problems the iPhone X faces, in reality they are what make it - at least in the limited time I used the handset for. It really does feel like a glimpse into the future, and also incredibly natural - after less than an hour I found I'd completely adjusted to not having a home button, and looking at the handset to unlock it. One of the biggest advances in the iPhone X is Face ID. While Face ID isn't perfect, and the 'notch' is an annoyance,. the iPhone X is a glimpse into the future of phones and the best handset of the market by a long way. When you set up the phone for the first time, you'll be asked to rotate your head twice in a process taking 20-30 seconds - and that's it. What's going on behind the scenes is astonishing, but from the user's point of view, it'll just unlock your phone when you look at it. I was shocked at how good it was at recognising me once I held the phone up. It recognised me wearing sunglasses, hats and scarves with absolutely no problems - while rejecting my attempts to fool it with a picture or with my eyes shut. There is a learning curve here - as the phone needs you to look directly at it, you do need to turn your head towards the phone and focus on it. It also struggles when flat on a desk in front of you more than I expected (although I could have simply angled the phone towards me). If your phone is on your desk next to you, for instance, I found myself having to move forward so my head was closer before it would recognise me and unlock. That said, while there are minor annoyances and missteps with the system, overall, I was shocked by how good, and quick it was the majority of the time. This does make one neat feature Apple has built in difficult to use - the iPhone X can withhold showing the detail of notifications until it recognises you, which isn't ideal if your phone is flat on your desk and too far away for it to see your face. However, for the most part, Face ID works as billed - it's just not (yet) perfect unless you are holding your phone up in front of your face. The build quality of the X is superb, it feels far more solid than previous phones, and the size is great - even though its smaller than the iPhone 8 Plus, you're getting an OLED display called the 'super retina display' that, on the diagonal, is 5.8 inches. Put simply, it's stunning. Colours are bright, sharp and vibrant, and crucially, look natural, unlike Google's Pixel 2, for instance, which struggles to make colours look realistic on its display. Apples calling this a 'Super Retina Display' with 1125 x 2436 pixels of resolution, making it the highest-density screen on any iPhone - and it really is noticeable. However, there is a slight elephant in the room - the notch. Containing the 3D scanning sensors and cameras that power Face ID, it cuts into the top of the display. It's actually barely noticeable most of the time, and when you're viewing videos, for example, there's the option of viewing in a window with black bars, or full screen with the notch intruding on the picture. Apps are also a little bit of a problem, in the short term at least. I found that the Face ID was extremely reliable - unless the handset is flat on your desk. App that havent been specifically updated for the iPhone X but use Apples iOS autolayout system fill the screen, but odd things happen, with buttons appearing in strange places. If an app hasn't been updated you get an annoying black bar at the top and bottom - but expect these to become fewer and fewer as developers rush to update. However, one plus from the notch, apart from Face ID, is the fact selfies on the iPhone X are stunning - and can even use Apple's much vaunted Portrait mode. And speaking of pictures, the iPhone X manages to better the iPhone 8 with its dual lens system, and pictures are stunning from the dual cameras - with zoom shots in particular noticeably better. There's also a boost in battery life, and Apple says there is two extra hours of power between charges compared to an iPhone 7, although I was unable to test this given the limited time I've been using the handset for. The fascinating thing about holding the X is that is feels incredibly familiar - but better. Its solid, and the sizing is perfect - theres none of the straining to reach parts of the screen you often get the 7 and 8 plus. After just a minute or two it felt like the most natural thing in the world to swipe up to got to the home screen. Switching between apps is also simple, and there's a neat short cut that means you can move between open apps by swiping horizontally at the bottom of the screen. And while Face ID is not perfect in every situation, I found it worked pretty much all of the time, unless my phone was flat on my desk behind my keyboard. Overall, although I've only had a day with the iPhone X, going back to an iPhone 8 seems unthinkable - and perhaps tellingly, and perhaps tellingly when I reached for my iPad, I swiped up instantly. It really does feel like the future - and while not perfect, a whole new chapter, not just for the iPhone, but for technology in general, where it begins to disappear before your eyes, Advertisement

AUSTRALIA: The first purchasers of the iPhone X show off their boxed phones to the media after its release in Sydney

GERMANY: People queue for the iPhone X launch outside the Apple Store in Berlin this morning

JAPAN: Customers wait in line before the launch of the iPhone X outside the Apple Omotesando store in Tokyo today

SINGAPORE: People look at iPhone X during its launch at the Apple Store in Singapore
This is the dramatic moment a hero cop revived a baby who had a seizure on the New York subway by giving her the kiss of life.

Natalia Alba, who turns one in December had a seizure and stopped breathing at the 42nd Street subway station at Eight Avenue at around 6pm on Thursday.

Her parents rushed her to the headquarters of the NYPD Transit Manhattan Task force, where officers immediately began working to revive her.

Daniel Velasquez did chest compressions as Sgt. Mike Reilly performed mouth to mouth on Natalia Alba after she stopped breathing on the New York subway

Daniel Velasquez did chest compressions as Sgt. Mike Reilly performed mouth to mouth, the NY Daily News reported.

Meanwhile, Officer John Williams diagnosed her as suffering a febrile seizure caused by a fever, and brought Natalia's temperature under control by covering her with ice.

As the officers battled to revive the baby her parents Andy Alban and Nadia Romero, who were visiting New York from Ecuador, held her hand.

After several minutes, Natalia began breathing again. Describing the moment, Williams said, 'It was a beautiful sound'.

Despite the officers' quick-thinking work, Williams spoke for the group in insisting he was not a hero.

'No, it was just part of the job,' he said. 'I was doing my job.'
It seems even the most innocent of gestures is not safe from the red tape of local law.

In Porterville, California, a five-year-old girl who set up a lemonade stand to raise money to buy herself a new bike has been told four months later that she needed a business license to do it.

Her mother received the warning in a citation from city hall which asked her to send back $59, the local fee for applying for a new license plus a fine.

It was prompted by a complaint from a member of the public, according to officials who have since apologized.

Autumn Thomasson proudly set up the stand outside her family's home in June.

Autumn Thomasson, five, proudly sold $82 worth of lemonade and candy to buy herself a new bicycle in June. This week, her mother received a citation from city officials claiming she needed a business license and asking them to pay $25 to obtain one retroactively

She raised $82, more than she had hoped, by selling lemonade for $1 a cup, candy for $1 and snacks for 50 cents.

Afterwards, the ecstatic five-year-old then used the money to buy herself a new bicycle.

Her 22-year-old Gabby Dehaas said she and her partner wanted to teach her the value of a dollar.

But this week, Dehaas took to social media to furiously reveal she had been cited by local officials.

Their letter to her included a print-out of the Facebook page where Autumn had proudly showed off her stand and invited local friends and family to stop by.

In their citation letter to Autumn's mother Gabby, officials included the Facebook post where she had invited local people to come and buy a cup

Autumn's 22-year-old mother Gabby (right together) said she wanted to teach her the value of a dollar and the importance of hard work. They hoped to raise around $70 so that she could buy her new bicycle (left) and the little girl was ecstatic when she exceeded her goal

Autumn with her mother buying her new bicycle after raising the money in June

Autumn with her father and her new bicycle in June. She made $82 out of the lemonade stand

The 22-year-old mother took to Facebook this week to share her outrage after receiving the citation

Sharing a photograph of the letter, her incredulous mother said: 'What kind of world do we live in where kids can't do lemonade stand or any kind of stands for that matter without getting in trouble?!

City officials have since apologized to the girl's parents

'How are we expose to show our kids to work hard for what they want and to expand their ideas/entrepreneurship if they need a license for every little thing!'

Porterville officials have since revealed that they received a complaint about Autumn's stand.

The letter was sent in response to that complaint but they have since retracted their demand.

'There's no excuse why it should have been sent.

'We want our youth to be engaged and looking at business opportunities,' Porterville City Manager John Lollis told Fox News.

He reassured local people they did not need a business license or permit to set up a lemonade stand.
Witnesses say they sensed hostility after Kufrin accused her of flirting with men

Michael Kufrin was charged with the murder of Peggy Sue Case, then-28 (pictured), of Spanish Fork, Utah, who went missing in 1988. She was last seen on July 9 when she attended a hot tub party with Kufrin

The boyfriend of a woman who went missing in 1988 has been charged with murder.

Michael Ignatius Kufrin, now 61, was arrested in July and charged for the murder of then-28-year-old Peggy Sue Case, of Spanish Fork, Utah, who went missing in July 1988.

On May 22, Spanish Fork police officers were sent to the home the couple once shared after the current tenants said they found human remains in a cement cellar behind the home.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, a male resident who was moving out had gone to retrieve items from the cellar and noticed that the soil was sinking. He became suspicious, having been made aware of Case's disappearance.

The man and a friend dug down about 18 inches into the dirt floor and located what appeared to be a human skull and other remains, which were wrapped in plastic mesh and a blanket. The two men then called police.

Case, also known as Peggy Sue Ellsworth, was last seen at a hot-tub party she attended with then-32-year-old Kufrin on Saturday, July 9, 1988.

Spanish Fork police said that witnesses depicted hostility between the couple after Kufrin accused Case of flirting with some men at the party. The two left together.

The next day, Kufrin called Case's workplace and said she was ill. He then told Case's employers she had gone out of town to buy a car.

Kufrin called Case's workplace and said she was ill after the party. He then told Case's employers she had gone out of town to buy a car. He was extradited back to Utah from Illinois on October 30 and charged with first degree felony murder

A male resident moving out of the couple's once-shared home (pictured) noticed that the soil in a cement cellar behind the home was sinking. The man and a friend dug down about 18 inches into the dirt floor and located what appeared to be a human skull and other remains which were wrapped in plastic mesh and a blanket

Coworkers reported Case missing on July 15, 1988, after sensing this behavior to be atypical of her, a police news release said. Kufrin told police at first that Case was staying in contact with him, but then he stopped operating with authorities.

Police allegedly dug through the cellar soil in 1988, but were unsuccessful in locating any evidence.

Kufrin was arrested in October 1988 in an unrelated vehicle-theft case and served five years in Utah State Prison. After his release, Kufrin moved back to his home state of Illinois.

After the remains were determined to be Case's, a warrant was issued for Kufrin and he was arrested on July 17 and charged with first-degree felony murder.

Kufrin remained in custody in Illinois until October 30, when he was extradited back to Utah and booked into the Utah County Jail for murder.

He is scheduled to make his first appearance in Fourth District Court on Monday.
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Images of a romantic encounter between two male lions in Kenya's Masai Mara has upset the country's 'moral police' who has blamed gay men visiting the national park for 'influencing' the animals' behaviour.

Dr Ezekiel Mutua, who is responsible for TV and film censorship in Kenya, has called for the two lions in question to be caught and kept in isolation until scientists can 'determine how they acquired homosexual behaviour'.

Despite the fact that homosexuality among lions has been observed for decades, Dr Mutua is convinced that the lions would either have spotted gay men having sex in front of them, or been possessed by demons.

Gay pride: Two male lions were spotted engaging in sexual activity on the Masai Mara in Kenya, an incident which greatly upset one of the country's self-proclaimed 'moral policemen' who blames gay men for 'influencing' the animals

In his quest to find a alternative explanation for what is a well-documented natural occurrence, Dr Mutua also called for an investigation into whether the two lions - despite their grand manes - were really male.

'These animals need counseling, because probably they have been influenced by gays who have gone to the national parks and behaved badly,' Dr Mutua told Nairobi News.

Missing the mane point: Dr Ezekiel Mutua also said there was not enough evidence that the two lions were male

Dr Mutua is chief executive of the Kenya Film Classification Board (KFCB), and in defense of his own work he told the paper that the animals could not have seen gay sex on film and therefore must have witnessed it in the Masai Mara.

'They must have copied it from somewhere or it is demonic. Because these animals do not watch movies.'

He also demanded confirmation of the genders of the lions, saying 'we should not jump to conclusions that the lions were both male'.

Gay and transgender people are severely discriminated against in Kenya, and any same-sex sexual activity is illegal and punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

The images which so upset Dr Mutua were taken by London-based photographer Paul Goldstein during a trip to the Masai Mara.

Mr Goldstein said he first observed the two lions standing side-by-side, before one lay down and was gently mounted by the other. At one point one lion's head was resting on the other's.

Mr Goldstein, a guide for Exodus Travels, says: 'Sometimes you just see something that takes your breath away. I was guiding in the Masai Mara recently and we saw two impressive alpha males in perfect light.

'After a while they stood together, in perfect symmetry. What then happened was remarkable.

'I have heard of this happening in Botswana but with nothing like this vigour, and indeed at various zoos and safari parks, but incarcerated animals will do strange things, who can blame them.

In the jungle: The couple appear to have walked into some bushes to get some privacy

Hakuna matata: One of the lions lie down under the bushes as the other climbs on top of it

Damn, they've seen us: The happy couple then engaged in a love-making session that lasted for at least a minute, according to the photographer

'This however was astonishing. I normally loathe any sort of humanising with animals and our documentary channels are full of it, but this was not only surprising but it was impossible not to smile.

'When lions mate it normally last a few seconds, these two were at it for over a minute and the obvious affection afterwards was very evident, as opposed to the violent withdrawal when male and female mate.

'Even as he dismounted he did not back off as is normal after mating, he crept round to the other male's muzzle, for a nuzzle and threw a conspiratorial wink his way.'

Happy hump-day! Homosexual activity is not unknown among lions, especially males, and scientists report that some eight per cent of all observed mountings in the wild are male on male

Can you feel the love tonight: The photographer observed the couple affectionately nuzzling each other after the mounting

While male lions engaging in sexual activity is a rare occurrence, it is far from unknown.

In fact, studies published in the 20th century indicated that about eight per cent of 'mountings' observed by scientists had been male lions with other males.

Male lions have been observed courting other lions, including showing affection and caressing, as well as mounting. Lionesses are also known to couple up, however this has mainly been observed in captivity.

Lions are by no means the only animal species where homosexual relations exits. Biologists have recorded same-sex sexual activity in more than 450 species including flamingos, bison, beetles and warthogs.

A 2010 study of Alaskan Albatrosses found that a third of the pairs actually consisted of two females.

HOMOSEXUALITY AMONG ANIMALS: CAN ANIMALS BE GAY? Not unheard of: The male lion couple in Kenya According to Darwin, the sexual impulses of animals are designed to cause reproduction, and are therefore necessarily heterosexual. But recent research suggests that homosexual animals  often dismissed by biologists as the exceptions that prove the rule  may be more common than previously thought. Some biologists claim 'gay' animal behaviour has been spotted in 1,500 different species, and reliably recorded in a third of these cases - roughly 450 species. Animals that have displayed homosexual behavior include emus, chickens, koalas, salmon, cats, owls and dolphins. According to research, about a fifth of captive king penguins are gay and it is common for male black swans to raise cygnets as a couple  possibly to provide better protection. Zoologist Petter Bockman, an expert on the subject at the University of Oslo, dismisses those who draw political implications from the scientific findings. He says: 'If you ask: 'Can animals be gay?' The short answer is: 'Yes.' 'Gay' is a human word, however, so we prefer to use the word 'homosexual' for animals. 'Sexuality is not just about making babies, it is also about making the flock work. For some animals, homosexuality is normal flock behaviour.' He says the issue has long been taboo for researchers who are 'fearful of being ridiculed by their colleagues'. Farmers often come across bulls and rams that simply refuse to mate with females, he claims, and, in 2004, Charles Roselli at the Ohio Health and Science University reported that about eight per cent of domestic rams prefer other males. Bockman curated an exhibition Against Nature's Order for the Norwegian Natural History Museum. One Pentecostal minister told him he would 'burn in hell' for his work. Another said the money would be better spent 'curing gay animals'. Sources: The Telegraph and The Daily Mail Advertisement

Mr Goldstein is set to hold several charity lecture evenings with TV presenter Chris Packham, more information can be found here.
The United States struck ISIS targets in Somalia for the first time on Thursday, a few days after a terrorist linked with the militant group killed eight people in a New York City attack.

President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. military had been hitting the ISIS terror army 'much harder' since it was linked with Tuesday's deadly attack.

'Every time we're attacked from this point forward, and it took place yesterday, we are hitting them ten times harder,' he pledged.

Now it's clear what he meant. Trump vowed Friday that with every ISIS-led act of aggression against Americans, 'we are hitting them ten times harder.'

The president referred to a counter-assault that 'took place yesterday' but didn't offer specifics.

Now U.S. Africa Command says that U.S. forces conducted two separate airstrikes against ISIS in northeastern Somalia. 'killing several terrorists.'

President Donald Trump reacted to an ISIS claim of responsibility for Tuesday's New York Terror attack by saying that with every act of aggression 'we are hitting them ten times harder'

'They will pay a big price for every attack on us,' Trump said of the terror army

'The first strike occurred at approximately midnight local Somalia time with the second separate strike occurring at approximately 11 a.m. local Somalia time.'

The al-Qaeda-linked terror group Al Shabab has seen some of its fighters split off in recent months to join the self-proclaimed ISIS 'caliphate.'

The Trump administration has carried out more than a dozen drone strikes on Al Shabab targets this year, but Thursday's military action marks a new focus there.

Sayfullo Saipov, a 29-year-old from Uzbekistan, was a 'soldier' of ISIS, according to the terror group's weekly newspaper

Somali security officials told the Associated Press that at least six missiles struck in Buqa, a remote mountainous village roughly 60 kilometers from of Qandala town in the northern state of Puntland.

'The airstrike may have targeted top leaders of the group, the official said.

The mayor of Qandala said the strikes sent terrified nomadic villagers and their animals fleeing.

Trump spoke to reporters Friday on the South lawn of the White House as he left for 12 days in Asia.

'So when we have an animal do an attack like he did the other day on the West Side of Manhattan, we are hitting them ten times harder. They claimed him as a soldier. Good luck. Every time they hit us, we know it's ISIS, we hit them like you folks won't believe.'

On the campaign trail, Trump frequently threatened to amp up his activities tenfold in the face of resistance from his political enemies.

Whenever he would threaten to force Mexico to pay for a physical barrier separating it from the United States, past and present Mexican authorities would publicly vow never to spend a peso.

Saipov's method had all the hallmarks of an ISIS attack, which the group has touted in its monthly magazine. He is pictured under arrest by police they shot him

His response was always the same: 'The wall just got ten feet higher.'

Earlier in the morning he had tweeted that 'ISIS just claimed the Degenerate Animal who killed, and so badly wounded, the wonderful people on the West Side, was "their soldier".'

'Based on that, the Military has hit ISIS "much harder" over the last two days. They will pay a big price for every attack on us!'

In this week's issue of 'Al-Naba,' a newspaper published by ISIS, the group claimed 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov is 'one of the soldiers of the Islamic State who attacked a number of crusaders on a street in New York City.'

ISIS didn't provide evidence for this claim, but Saipov was charged Wednesday in federal court with acting in support of the terror group when he plowed a rentde truck into a popular Manhattan bike trail, killing eight and injuring a dozen more.

According to the criminal complaint filed against him, Saipov told investigators he was inspired by watching ISIS propaganda videos and asked for permission to hang an ISIS flag in his hospital room.

People placed flowers at a memorial at the scene of Tuesday's terrorist attack along a bike path in lower Manhattan on Thursday

Trump has twice called for Saipov to be executed for his crime, which represented the deadliest act of suspected terrorism to hit New York since the 9/11 airplane hijackings in 2001.

An analysis from the SITE Intelligence Group concluded there's no evidence to suggest ISIS organized or directed Saipov's attack.

Instead it appears he was inspired by the militant group's extremist ideology.

The structure of Saipov's attack  long-range planning, using a rented vehicle, carrying secondary weapons and leaving propaganda materials behind  mirrors methods promoted in Al-Naba.

'He appears to have followed almost exactly to a "T" the instructions that ISIS has put out in its social media channels,' New York police deputy commissioner John Miller said this week.

ISIS seldom issues claims of responsibility for attacks that don't claim the lives of the perpetrators.
Millionaire banker Paul Morigi, who died last year, and his 'first and last love' Olive Murphy

The British and American wives of war hero banker both want him buried in their own local cemetery on opposite sides of the Atlantic so they can visit his grave, a court heard today.

Morgan Stanley financier and Second World War hero Paul Lewis Morigi, who died last year at 97, had two great loves in his life - on each side of the Atlantic.

He was married to fellow American Muriel Morigi, 96, for 60 years and they had two children, the High Court heard.

But his 'first and last love' was Olive Murphy, 92, of Eastbourne, East Sussex, whom he married briefly in 1944 after a wartime romance.

Then in 2011, he married her again after leaving Mrs Morigi and the US behind him aged 92 and moving to England.

After his death, a bitter row erupted between the American family and Mrs Murphy and her relatives over who should be entitled to 'lie next to him for all eternity'.

And the argument is now centred on whether he should be buried in Durrington-on-Sea, East Sussex - or nearly 3,500 miles away in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Last December, Mr Morigi's daughter, Karolyn Morigi-Armstrong, and his four grandchildren, won an injunction preventing Ms Murphy from burying him in the UK.

The American family: Sarah Lang (grandaughter, left) Karolyn Morigi-Armstrong (daughter, centre) and William Armstrong (grandson, right) pose for a photo outside London's High Court

As a result, his body has been in storage in a Sussex undertakers' for nearly a year. Now Judge Stuart Issacs QC is being asked to decide where he will be laid to rest.

Mr Morigi was a commanding officer in the wartime US Navy when he met and married Mrs Murphy, who is originally from Northern Ireland.

But their marriage was short-lived and the couple divorced in 1948, after Mrs Murphy refused to return with him to the US over fears she would miss her family too much.

Mr Morigi married his second wife the same year. But he divorced her in 2011 and moved to Eastbourne, re-marrying Mrs Murphy, with whom he lived until his death.

He died 'a wealthy man...who did very well for himself' and even bought himself a Maserati while in his 90s, the court heard.

But after his death, the row over his burial began as Don Murphy - Ms Murphy's nephew and one of the executors of the banker's estate - arranged for him to be buried in a cemetery in Durrington-on-Sea, in a plot picked out by his British widow.

But financier Mrs Morigi-Armstrong and the grandchildren insisted that his body must be flown back to the US and buried with full military honours in their family grave plot in Greenwich, Connecticut.

She and Mr Morigi had bought the plot together whilst they were still married, with the intention 'that their entire family would be interred there,' the court heard.

The subject was particularly emotional because Mr Morigi's son - also named Paul - died in 2009, just before his father left the US, and was buried in the family plot in the expectation that his father would lie beside him before too long.

The planned funeral in Durrington was cancelled and, in the year that has passed since, Mr Murphy and a second American executor of Mr Morigi's estate have been unable to agree what to do about the 'very sad' deadlock between the two families.

Joshua Swirsky, for Mr Murphy, told the judge that the wishes of Mr Morigi's British widow must be honoured and 'outweigh' the feelings of his American relatives.

Second World War hero Mr Morigi, who died last year at 97, died 'a wealthy man...who did very well for himself' and even bought himself a Maserati while in his 90s, the court heard

'His widow, Olive Murphy, wants to be near his grave. If he is buried in the US, given her age and state of health, she will never be able to visit the grave,' he said.

'If he is buried in the UK, not only can she visit the grave during the remainder of her life but she can lie next to him for all eternity,' the barrister went on.

'In the ordinary course of events, a person would be expected to want to be buried with their spouse rather than other family, even adult children.

'The US family want him to be buried with them, in order that they can visit the grave and Paul Morigi can be near to his dead son.

'While it is accepted that these are considerations for the court, it is submitted that they are out-weighed by the wishes of the widow.

'The wishes of the US family are unrealistic... Don Murphy heard directly from Olive Murphy what Paul Morigi's wishes were.

'In these circumstances, the court is asked to discharge the injunction and direct Don Martin to make funeral arrangements in the UK,' he told the judge.

In the witness box, Karolyn Morigi-Armstrong, who worked in banking alongside her father, said that he would never have wanted to to be buried in England, 'thousands of miles away from all his family and against his express wishes.

'He obviously moved across the pond, but he wanted to be buried next to my brother on the site he prepared himself,' she told the judge.

'We would have a military funeral for him. He was a commanding officer in World War Two and that was very important for him.'

The argument is now centred on whether he should be buried in Durrington-on-Sea, East Sussex - or nearly 3,500 miles away in Greenwich, Connecticut

She said the family plot had been purchased by her mother and father in 2002, and they had paid to put in benches and walls, even choosing a headstone together.

Denying accusations of a 'serious breakdown' in relations between the dead man and his American family, she insisted they were 'still a close family' even after he moved to England.

But, admitting to 'some animosity towards Olive', she added: 'I wasn't happy about a lot of things. I didn't want my elderly father overseas. I didn't want him leaving the family to go off with somebody we'd never met at the age of 92.'

She also described a row with Olive during which, 'I said words to the effect of 'how dare you take an elderly man away from his family?'

'My father had left us, but at the same time I loved him and wanted to take care of him,' she told the judge.

Mr Swirsky put to her: 'We don't dispute that when the grave site in Connecticut was purchased, it was intended that all members of the family, including him, would be buried there.

'But things change, relationships change. When your father died, he and your mother were divorced and living on different continents. He chose Olive.

'Isn't the important factor who this person wanted to lie with for all eternity? You don't think your father would want to lie next to Olive, his first and last love?'

'I think we are honouring my father's wish to be buried next to my brother in a plot he created him-self,' she responded.

Mr Murphy told the judge that the US war veteran's years living in England were 'the happiest of his life.'

After Mr Morigi's death, the row over his burial began, as Don Murphy arranged for him to be buried in a cemetery in Durrington-on-Sea (pictured), in a plot picked out by his British widow

Mr Murphy agreed that, before he died aged 97, Mr Morigi 'believed he would be buried next to his son' in Connecticut.

He told the judge he had sent an email to the American executor of Mr Morigi's estate two days after he died.

In it, he stated that Mr Morigi 'wanted to be laid to rest with his son' and asked for 'help with the US arrangements.'

But Mr Murphy insisted that repatriation of his body was only ever 'a second choice' for the retired banker.

Mr Morigi's 'first heart's wish', he said, was to be buried in the UK beside his wartime sweetheart, Mrs Murphy, who he married twice.

Mrs Murphy, the court heard, denied that he ever wanted his body to be flown back to America for burial.

'As soon as I spoke to Olive, she said, 'no, that's not what I want, it's not what Paul would have wanted,'' said her nephew.

Explaining his decision to buy a double plot in Durrington Cemetery, and arrange a funeral there, Mr Murphy added: 'I thought I was acting in Paul's best interests.'

The barrister for Don Murphy (pictured) said the wishes of Mr Morigi's British widow 'outweigh' the feelings of his US relatives

To accommodate the wishes of Mr Morigi's US family, he said he would be happy to look into arranging a 'full American military funeral' in the Sussex cemetery.

'I would be more than happy. I have a great respect for veterans of the Second World War,' he told the judge.

Describing Mr Morigi's life in England, he added: 'He said often that his years here were the happiest years of his life.

'He would say to Olive before they went to sleep every night, 'another happy day!'

'That he would be buried beside his son was what he believed when he died, but it was not factually what he really wanted. His first heart's wish was to be buried with Olive.

'Why have I put myself through all this if I didn't believe that?' Mr Murphy asked the judge.

'I knew he loved his American family, but we had a man who for weeks had not been buried. His widow wanted him buried. I thought that was the right thing to do.

'He was such a character. He loved work. He was as sharp as a razor. He was a man, a great man, who hadn't been buried.

'I thought it was the right and decent thing to do. If Paul's wishes were to be buried in the States, I would have 100 per cent backed them.

'Paul's wishes were very important to me,' Mr Murphy said.

Sarah Lang, 32, Mr Morigi's granddaughter, denied claims there was a rift between Mr Morigi and his American family.

'We would blow kisses on the phone,' she explained tearfully. 'We only ever wanted him to be safe and well and happy.'

She described the case as 'a horrible ordeal' for her family.

'I don't understand why he left, or why we are here today, because of all these new actors he brought into his life.

'He and Olive clearly had a close relationship, full of affection by all accounts. They were a marital unit, but I don't consider her part of my family,' she told the judge.

Anna Armstrong, another granddaughter who spoke via videolink, insisted that Mr Morigi wanted to be buried in America.

'There was no mention of alternative burial plans,' she said.

Steven Morigi - the son of Mr Morigi's dead son Paul - described an 'emotional conversation' he had with his grandfather at his father's graveside.

'It was just he and I. I asked him if he wanted to be buried here, or what he wanted now that things were changing.

'He told me he wanted to be buried next to his son because he was his best friend, and he wanted to be with him for all eternity,' he told the judge.

Another grandson, William Armstrong III, 21, said: 'I was under the impression he was going to be shipped home.

'We had conversations. He always said he wanted to be buried next to my uncle in the family plot.

'It was understood that at least we would have the closure of him coming home.'

But Mr Armstrong admitted there were 'no conversations about where he wanted to be buried after he left the US.'

Judge Isaccs, urged the warring families to settle the case, saying: 'You are asking me to decide where the burial should take place.

'I'm deeply troubled by what we have heard in the evidence so far. Whatever I decide in this case, nobody is going to come out of it unscathed.

'To some extent I will be bound to say something about the deceased himself.

'I am concerned to avoid saying anything more than I need to that would be hurtful to one party or another and the family setup, as viewed by the deceased on the one hand and by his family in the States on another.'

Joshua Swirsky, for the British family, told the judge: 'We say that the first consideration should be the widow and her desire for them to lie together.'

Pointing out the difficulties in reaching a settlement, he added: 'The problem in the form of the Atlantic Ocean is going to exist whatever is decided.'

Michael Mylonas QC, for the American family, said Mr Morigi must be returned to lie next to his son in America, as he believed was going to happen when he died.

He added that the American family had made a generous 'open offer' to Olive that she too could be buried in the family plot in Connecticut, next to her late husband.

If she chose to be interred in England, they had offered to instal a plaque in the US graveyard, commemorating her relationship with Mr Morigi.

And the American family was willing to guarantee that he would not be buried alongside his ex-wife, Muriel.

Reserving his decision on the case until a later date, the judge continued to urge the American and British families to reach an amicable settlement.

Otherwise, he said, he would have to 'make a stark choice' and 'direct which executor should have conduct of the funeral arrangements.'

'The time has come to draw a line under this,' he told everyone in court.
Sir Michael, pictured visiting a school in Tonbridge today, resigned on Wednesday admitting his behaviour had fallen short

Commons leader Andrea Leadsom is facing a backlash today after details emerged of her role in the resignation of Sir Michael Fallon.

The Defence Secretary quit on Wednesday after admitting his behaviour had fallen short of the standards expected of the Armed Forces.

His sudden departure took Westminster by surprise, as he appeared to have weathered a storm over allegations he repeatedly put his hand on a journalist's knee at dinner more than a decade ago.

But last night it emerged that Mrs Leadsom played a key part in ending his spell in government.

Tory sources said Mrs Leadsom, the Leader of the Commons, complained directly to Theresa May earlier in the week about 'vile' language used by Sir Michael towards her at a parliamentary meeting of a committee six years ago.

Sir Michael is said to have told Mrs Leadsom, who had complained of cold hands: 'I know where you can put them to warm them up.'

But Mrs Leadsom was facing a backlash from some allies of Sir Michael, with one even suggesting she had been acting to save her own job.

Before Theresa May's disastrous election in June, she had been widely expected to sack her former leadership rival in a reshuffle. In the event, the weakened PM demoted Mrs Leadsom from Environment Secretary to the more junior role of Leader of the House.

One source close to Sir Michael asked: 'If you're offended by something, why wait six years to say it? Is this her way of securing political survival?'

And a Cabinet ally of Sir Michael fumed: 'He made mistakes in the past but what the f*** does Leadsom think she is doing? We're supposed to be a team. Does she want to bring down the whole f***ing Government?'

Sir Michael Fallon (shown on Wednesday, left) was forced to quit following a complaint from Cabinet colleague Andrea Leadsom (right) about his behaviour towards her, it emerged

Sir Michael Fallon, now a backbench MP, visited the Weald of Kent Girls Grammar School in Tonbridge for its official opening today

Sir Michael Fallon pictured receiving his Knighthood at Buckingham Palace with his son Timothy (left), his wife Wendy and his second son Peter last year

One senior Tory raged: 'What the f*** does Leadsom think she is doing?'

There are also questions about how the latest accusations against Sir Michael - which he denies - leaked. Some MPs believe it was an effort to paint herself as getting a grip on the situation, while others said she would not have benefited from the complaints becoming public.

Former business minister Anna Soubry said: 'The real question here is who leaked this. If it was a leak from the disciplinary machinery, then this is exceptionally serious.

MAY UNVEILS NEW CODE OF CONDUCT FOR TORIES Theresa May has released a new code of conduct for Conservative Party representatives, including MPs, drawn up in the wake of the recent series of allegations of sexual harassment at Westminster. As part of the code, the Conservatives are immediately adopting a new complaints procedure with a new hotline for reporting potential breaches and a more detailed process for investigation by a panel, which will for the first time include an independent member. In a letter to Commons Speaker John Bercow, Mrs May said the Government and her party believe there should be 'a common, transparent, independent grievance procedure for all those working in Parliament who wish to raise concerns which provides clarity and certainty about how their concerns will be dealt with, and the support they will receive'. The Prime Minister is due to meet opposition party leaders including Jeremy Corbyn on Monday to discuss proposals to bring forward a new grievance system for Westminster. Advertisement

'How can people come forward except on the strict understanding it will not be leaked?'

Sir Michael is alleged to have been 'tactile' and put his arm around Mrs Leadsom in what a source described as 'unwanted attention'.

According to the Times, officials in the Cabinet Office have been discussing whether Sir Michael can hang on to his knighthood if more claims emerge.

He was awarded the gong in David Cameron's resignation honours list last year.

A source close to Sir Michael said: 'He categorically denies saying something as appalling as he knows where she could warm her hands.'

Mrs Leadsom's complaint is said to have been central to the Prime Minister's decision on Wednesday night that Sir Michael should resign.

The sensational revelation that one Cabinet minister asked Mrs May to sack another will fuel fears that the Westminster sex scandal could tear the Government apart.

Mrs May acted to try and steady the ship today by unveiling a new Code of Conduct for Tory politicians.

As part of the code, the Conservatives are immediately adopting a new complaints procedure with a new hotline for reporting potential breaches and a more detailed process for investigation by a panel, which will for the first time include an independent member.

In a letter to Commons Speaker John Bercow, Mrs May said the Government and her party believe there should be 'a common, transparent, independent grievance procedure for all those working in Parliament who wish to raise concerns which provides clarity and certainty about how their concerns will be dealt with, and the support they will receive'.

The Prime Minister is due to meet opposition party leaders including Jeremy Corbyn on Monday to discuss proposals to bring forward a new grievance system for Westminster.

Sir Michael is alleged to have been 'tactile' and put his arm around Mrs Leadsom (shown leaving Downing Street on Tuesday) in what a source described as 'unwanted attention'

This is the letter Sir Michael Fallon sent to the Prime Minister announcing his resignation

Mrs Leadsom made the allegation to Mrs May on Monday. Hours later, with the PM sat beside her in the Commons, she told MPs that ministers should face the sack if they were found guilty of behaviour that made women 'feel uncomfortable'.

Her intervention sparked a series of crisis meetings in which Mrs May, chief whip Gavin Williamson and Downing Street chief of staff Gavin Barwell tried to establish the truth and agree a way forward with Mrs Leadsom and Sir Michael.

Mrs Leadsom's complaint is said to focus on comments made by Sir Michael at meetings of the Commons Treasury select committee.

He is said to have made 'vile' and 'inappropriate' personal remarks to her as well as sexist remarks about other women.

Mrs Leadsom declined to comment. Downing Street also refused to comment on the claims, although a source said today that Mrs Leadsom had not asked the PM to sack Sir Michael.

Defence sources acknowledged that Sir Michael had made sexist references about other women's looks in Mrs Leadsom's hearing, but denied he made the specific remark attributed to him.

The deal brokered by Mrs May and Mr Williamson was supposed to remain a closely guarded secret to prevent it destabilising the Government. But several sources confirmed details of Mrs Leadsom's complaint.

Sir Michael admitted on Monday evening that he had touched the knee of journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer at a boozy dinner at the 2002 Tory party conference.

Miss Hartley-Brewer said she had not regarded the incident as 'anything but mildly amusing'.

Meanwhile, Tory grandee Edwina Currie, a health minister in the 80s who had an affair with John Major, said the sexual harassment allegations surfacing at Westminster and Holyrood were based on 'flimsy' evidence.

She told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme: 'Most politicians, most of the time are just concentrating on their job and the evidence, such as it is, is not only quite flimsy but also it goes back a long, long time.'

She said it should be acceptable for people to 'make a pass' at work and people had to learn how to deal with it appropriately, adding: 'This is an attempt to shame all sorts of people who have done absolutely nothing wrong.'

'The workplace, these days, is where people meet. It's where many romances and liaisons get developed. You can't ban it from the workplace.'

Sir Michael, entering Downing Street yesterday morning hours before he resigned from his position
Heather Marcotte, 28, was charged with felony child cruelty for biting the two-year-old

A daycare teacher who describes herself as a furry has been arrested for biting a two-year-old boy on the cheek.

Heather Marcotte, 28, is facing felony child cruelty charges for the assault on the child at Northlake Christian School in Covington, Louisiana.

The boy's mother called police after collecting him from school on October 25 and noticing that he had a bite mark on his cheek.

At first, the teacher told colleagues she accidentally caused the mark by hitting his face with her mouth.

Upon police questioning however, Marcotte admitted she bit him.

She told deputies at the St. Tammany Parish Sheriffs Office that she became frustrated with the boy's behavior.

Marcotte was fired as a result of the incident.

Northlake Christian School is a private Christian school which takes in children as young as six weeks old up to 12th grade. Its daycare costs $7,600 a year.

The school's principal declined to go into further detail about Marcotte's firing, saying: 'We've handled it internally and there's no further comment.'

Marcotte was working at Northlake Christian School in Covington, Louisiana, at the time

The woman told police that she bit the child because she was frustrated with his behavior

Marcotte only began working at the school in August this year.

On social media, she describes herself as a 'furry' and a 'gamer'. She often appears in photographs in costume.

Marcotte proudly announced her hiring by the expensive private school just three months ago, writing: 'I will be an Assistant Teacher with the 2 years olds at Northlake Christian School!

'I feel overwhelmingly blessed to be granted this opportunity! I can't wait to see what God has in store for this new chapter in my life'.

A furry is a person who enjoys dressing up as and behaving like animals.
The distraught mother of Sulayman Khalid, 22, who was caught planning ISIS-inspired terror attacks on government buildings says her son was just a 'normal' young boy.

Domenica Biscotta broke down in tears as she came to terms with the grim future awaiting her son inside the country's toughest prison, Nine News reports.

The mother of six was aghast at how her son came to acquire such extremist ideologies, as he enjoyed an 'ordinary' upbringing in Sydney's Regent Park.

Distraught mother, Domenica Biscotta (pictured), of 22-year-old terror plot ringleader Sulayman Khalid says her son was just a 'normal' young boy

'He was just a normal, beautiful young boy. Very happy. Just a very humble, beautiful young boy,' Ms Biscotta said in an interview on Friday.

But she did admit she had seen a shift in her son's demeanor after he began frequenting a prayer room at the back of a Bankstown book store.

'Once he started to go there (the book store) I'm not going to lie, I did realise a change,' she said.

Ms Biscotta later learned of his associations with four other 'violent jihad-minded' men with who he formed the terror cell 'Khalid group'.

The mother was aghast at how her son (pictured) came to acquire such extremist ideologies, as he enjoyed an 'ordinary' upbringing in Sydney's Regent Park

While tormented by her son's 'corruption' and the handing down of his lengthy jail term, she remained loyal to loving her 'beautiful young boy'.

'I want Sulayman to know that I love him very much,' Ms Biscotta said as tears welled in her eyes.

'I'm sorry if I wasn't there for him.'

Ms Biscotta said her son's change in temperament was dismissed as a normal part of young adulthood when she sought help from the Muslim community.

'Unfortunately those people sort of turned around and said to me, "oh it's just adolescence" and brushed it off.'

While tormented by her son's 'corruption' and the handing down of his lengthy jail term, she remained loyal to loving her 'beautiful young boy'

'I want Sulayman (pictured) to know that I love him very much,' Ms Biscotta said as tears welled in her eyes

She believes more accessible de-radicalisation programs could help in keeping others from heading down the same path.

'So this will not happen and continue happening and our youth won't end up in Supermax,' she said.

Supporters broke down in tears as Justice Geoffrey Bellew jailed four young men and a teenager in a NSW Supreme Court on Friday.

Khalid, Jibryl Almaouie, 24, and the teen previously pleaded guilty to conspiring to do acts in preparation for a terrorist act to advance 'violent jihad' in late 2014.

Co-offenders Mohamed Almaouie, 22, and Farhad Said, 25, also pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of knowingly making a document likely to facilitate a terrorist act.

Ms Biscotta (pictured) said her son's change in temperament was dismissed as a normal part of young adulthood when she sought help from the Muslim community

'He was just a normal, beautiful young boy. Very happy. Just a very humble, beautiful young boy,' Ms Biscotta said in an interview on Friday

The group's crude plan involved killing police officers, targeting government buildings, sourcing firearms and engaging in guerilla warfare with the help of an army of indigenous people they'd converted to Islam.

Khalid was sentenced to 22 years and six months with a non-parole period of 16 years and nine months.

He made the one-fingered ISIS salute as he was led to the docks. His sister shouted 'Sulayman, I love you' and his father said 'stay strong.'

Jibryl Almaouie was sentenced to 18 years and six months in jail with a non-parole period of 14 years and two months.
How she doin'?

Wendy Williams appeared on Good Morning America' Friday morning, where she opened up about the scary moment she collapsed on live television while hosting the Halloween episode of her eponymous talk show.

The popular daytime host told Amy Robach that she is feeling fine after her fall, and that her fans have no reason to worry for her health or well being

'People thought that I was having a stroke on TV,' said the host, who was dressed as the Statue of Liberty at the time.

'And other people thought that I was having a heart attack.'

That was not the case however according to the 54-year-old Williams.

'You know, I'm a woman of a particular age. I'm also going through menopause,' explained Williams.

'I didn't think my costume was hot when I first tried it on. It was a catsuit, if it was a dress I'd be like this. You know, like oh my god, I'm hot.'

The incident was so surreal said Williams, that ever her crew thought it was all a stunt.

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How she doin: Wendy Williams sat down for an interview with 'Good Morning America' to talk about the moment she fainted on live TV during her Halloween special Tuesday

Halloween scare: Wendy Williams passed out during her Halloween special on Tuesday

Rushing in: She then dropped to the floor and multiple members of the crew could be seen rushing to her aid

Williams revealed that she realized she was going to faint before she hit the floor about 10 seconds before she dropped, which were all captured on camera.

'Yes, when we came back from the break then I felt it. It felt like I was in the middle of a fire starting down at my feet going all the way up,' said Williams.

'I got very scared because it was a live show. I was more concerned with, "when I fall am I going to crack my skull?"'

The crew meanwhile stood by and watched until after she fell, with the camera even following Williams as she staggered backwards on the stage.

Williams said that she does not blame her staff for their response, and understands why they let the incident play out.

'The crew and security here thought that the bug-eyed look I gave was part of a stunt, because I'm always doing tricks,' said Williams.

'This is the trick show. We're always doing tricks and stunts.'

She went on to explain: 'They thought it was a part of something so nobody came out until I hit the ground then, oh, my gosh, chaos ensued. The studio audience went wild.'

The delay was not all that long, as the second Williams dropped crew members could be seen sprinting to where she landed before the program went to black.

Williams also revealed her final thought before she went down to the ground.

'Well, I'm wearing a costume that, you know, pants, and I have this crown on, so, Wendy, do two things: fall pretty because this will never happen again and go down with a crown,' said said

Williams went on to state that is why she put her hand up in the moment before she fainted, with both her crown and green wig on until the very end.

Paramedics arrived on the scene soon after, and an hour later Williams was headed back home to New Jersey with her husband Kevin looking no worse for the wear.

'Apparently I was dehydrated according to the paramedics, and instead of drinking regular water I had electrolyte drinks,' said Williams.

'Then, you know, I went to my own doctors and I'm fine including blood work.'

Robach then asked Williams how she was even able to tet herself back up off the floor and finish out the episode.

'Well, I'm not your average talk show host,' said Williams.

'You know, it's pretty special thing to be a Wendy Williams. It takes a lot.'

As for Williams taking any time off, that is not in the cards, with the host saying 'that's whgat the weekend is for.'

And with the taping of Williams' 1500th episode just a few weeks away, Robach said: 'You've proven yourself, wouldn't you say?'

Williams agreed, at least for the week.

'Well, I've proven myself for today,' said Williams.

'I got to be in here on Monday to do it again. See, that's why I got up off the floor and came out here and closed out the show.'

Cinched for the gods: Williams (above with Amy Robach) said that her collapse was due her Lady Liberty costume, which included a sequined catsuit and giant crown, being too tight on her body

By her side: Williams was driven off with her husband Kevin Hunter by her side after the incident on Tuesday (above)

Rest and repeat: Williams could be seen leaning heavily on the podium when the show returned from its extended commercial break

On Tuesday, Williams was speaking on stage when she suddenly began to wobble and stagger backwards before dropping to the floor.

The show then went to black.

After a lengthy commercial break, the episode returned to show the audience clapping enthusiastically, but gave no look at the stage or Williams before again going to commercial break.

'That was not a stunt. I overheated in my costume and I passed out. I am a champ, and I am back,' said Williams a few minutes later when the show returned.

She propped herself up on a clear podium and still appeared to be struggling to speak as she announced the winners of the costume contest.

Moments after the incident an ambulance arrived on the scene and a wheelchair was taken out of the emergency vehicle for the host.

An Escalade arrived a short time after and was ushered into the garage by Williams' security team, leaving soon after with Williams smiling in the backseat and waving as she drove off from the studio with her husband Kevin Hunter by her side.

DailyMail.com reported last month that Hunter is leading a double life and engaging in a secret long-term affair with a younger massage therapist.

The episode happened right as Williams was returning from break and preparing to announce the winners, with the host seeming out of breath and a bit dazed as she began to speak.

She then could be seen visibly struggling to read the cue cards just seconds in, and said 'carest' instead of contestant before her eyes widened and she began to fall back from the podium she was leaning on for support.

Williams took four steps backwards and a look of fear and shock could be seen on her face before she dropped completely out of view.

Her breathing was labored and her hands were shaking at the time.

Multiple crew members could be seen rushing towards Williams before the screen went to black.

Crew members were also seen outside the studio waiting for the ambulance when it pulled up to the studio moments after the incident.

The responders quickly unloaded a kit and wheelchair before making their way inside.

There was no sign of Williams after the medical workers entered the building and an Escalade was later ushered straight into the garage by security

The ambulance was parked directly outside of her studio door

A spokesperson for Williams said on Tuesday afternoon that all was well with the host, and more details would be shared on Wednesday's episode of her daytime talk show.

Williams 'is dehydrated and is on her way home for a good day and night of sleep' said Ronn Torrisan.

He also stated that Williams had been examined by medical professionals at her studio, but did not provide any additional details about that beyond saying that she 'is well.'

Torrisan closed out his statement by noting: 'She has never missed a day of work and is looking forward on November 13th to her 1500th show.'

Some have taken to social media to question if the entire incident was a stunt, though the video seems to dispute that notion.

It did occur however during Sweeps Week, the quad-annual time when adjusted viewer numbers are determined for programs and new advertising rates set according to ratings.

Williams already pulls in some incredibly impressive numbers thanks to the fact that almost all of her audience falls within the key demo of viewers aged 25 to 54.
Police are asking for help in tracking down a missing 15-year-old Oregon girl believed to be traveling with a possibly suicidal man.

Annieka Vaughan is believed to be traveling with 23-year-old Zachary Petersen of Pasco, Washington, who may be suicidal and armed, according to the Washington County Sheriff's Office spokesman Deputy Jeff Talbot.

Vaughan ran away from her home in Aloha on Monday. Petersen disappeared the same day and called a crisis line in Washington County before he left, Talbot said. Police believe he has a gun in his possession.

Annieka Vaughan, 15 (left), of Aloha, Oregon, is believed to be traveling with 23-year-old Zachary Petersen of Pasco, Washington (right), who may be suicidal and armed. Deputies say Vaughan reported being sexually assaulted by Peterson on September 28

Deputies with the Benton County Sheriff's Office in Washington state say Vaughan reported being sexually assaulted by Peterson on September 28. They say both Vaughan and Peterson know each other.

Petersen is known to drive a white 1998 Ford F-250 extended cab truck with Washington license plate number C20874C.

His last known location was in the Portland area, but detectives believe he is possibly traveling to Seaside, Oregon or Sacramento, California.

Vaughan ran away from her home in Aloha on Monday. Petersen disappeared the same day and called a crisis line in Washington County before he left. He is known to drive a white 1998 Ford F-250 extended cab truck, similar to the one above

Vaughan is described as five-foot-nine, weighing 150 pounds with shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes. Petersen is described as five-foot-10, weighing 150 pounds, with buzzed brown hair and brown eyes.

The Sheriff's Office asks anyone with information on their whereabouts to call the agency's non-emergency dispatch line at 503-629-1111.
A 95lbs dog that chewed off part of the ear of a New Jersey woman when it attacked her may have been linked to an attack that happened last year, police said.

Elizabeth Romanaux, of Franklin Township, New Jersey, said that the Argentinian Mastiff killed her chickens in an attack that happened prior to the vicious mauling that left her in a hospital unconscious last week.

'I'll be honest with you, I don't remember anything,' she said to NBC New York.

Elizabeth Romanaux, of Franklin Township, New Jersey, said that the Argentinian Mastiff killed her chickens in an attack that happened prior to the mauling

Romanaux claims to have been going over to her neighbor's house to alert them to the rat poison used in the area. But once the door opened ajar, the massive beast (stock pictured) 'just burst right through'

'From the moment I saw that dog coming at me to the moment it was ripping my scalp. I don't remember anything. And that's probably a good thing.'

Romanaux claims to have been going over to her neighbor's house to alert them to the rat poison used in the area.

But once the door opened ajar, the massive beast 'just burst right through' the door and attacked the woman.

She would wind up with extensive bite marks to her head and face, with a piece of her ear munched off.

Romanaux also had cracked her hip and broke multiple fingers.

The dog was put into quarantine for 10 days while a judge decides whether or not it should be euthanized.

Romanaux has reportedly stated that she does not want the dog anywhere near her house.

She would wind up with extensive bite marks to her head and face, with a piece of her ear munched off and also had cracked her hip and broke multiple fingers

The owner of the dog was ticketed after the attack and a judge is deciding whether or not the animal should be euthanized

Romanaux has reportedly stated that she does not want the dog anywhere near her house

She added: 'I have a 1-year-old grandbaby who is moving in along with my son and daughter-in-law in a couple of weeks.'

'And I am not having dogs like this living next door to me. It's out of the question'

The owner of the dog was ticketed after the attack.
President Donald Trump  who has boasted about having the 'greatest memories of all time'  says he doesn't 'remember much' about his 2016 meeting with his foreign policy team where a potential meeting with Vladimir Putin came up.

'I don't remember much about that meeting,' Trump told reporters as he headed out for a 12-day trip to Asia.

'It was a very unimportant meeting. Took place a long time  don't remember much about it,' Trump added.

The March 31 meeting he was referring to was with his national security team. Trump tweeted out an image of it at the time.

'I don't remember much about that meeting': President Donald Trump spoke to reporters as he headed out for a 12-day trip to Asia about a campaign meeting with security advisors. Aides have testified that a potential Trump-Putin meeting got pitched there

Former campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos, who pled guilty last month to lying to the FBI, told investigators it was at that meeting where he stated he had connections that would help arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin, according to an FBI information released Monday.

At that meeting, Papadopoulos stated 'that he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President Putin,' the New York Times reported, quoting testimony from former campaign aide J.D. Gordon.

'He went into the pitch right away,' said Gordon, who attended the meeting. 'He said he had a friend in London, the Russian ambassador, who could help set up a meeting with Putin,' he testified.

Trump, after failing to shed any new light on the meeting, repeated his denial of any collusion with Russia.

Trump said last month he had 'one of the greatest memories of all time' in a dispute with the widow of a fallen U.S. soldier

Former advisor J.D. Gordon testified that George Papadopooulos made a 'pitch' about the Putin meeting, referencing his contacts with a professor in London who had Moscow connections

'All I can tell you is this. There was no collusion. There was no nothing. It's a disgrace frankly that they continue.'

Then he turned to campaign rival Hillary Clinton.

'You want to look at Hillary Clinton and you want to look at the new book that was just put out by Donna Brazile, where she basically bought the DNC and she stole the election from Bernie [Sanders]. So that's what you want to take a look at,' he advised.

Earlier in the campaign, Trump hailed Papadopoulos as an 'excellent guy,' listing him as one of just a handful of early advisors when he spoke to the Washington Post about them in March.

Papadopoulos attended a March 31 national security meeting with Trump and foreign policy advisors where he stated that he had connections that would help arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin, according to the information released by the government. Trump tweeted out a photo of the meeting at the time

Papadopoulos is seen at the middle of the table, at far left in this photo

The White House on Monday tried to minimize Papadopoulos' role after news of his previously secret guilty plea was unsealed.

'It was extremely limited. It was a volunteer position,' said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Asked about how he reported to Sessions, Sanders responded: 'Again, somebody on a voluntary committee, I'm not sure how that would impact the attorney general direction.'

Trump tweeted out a photo of that single meeting in March of 2016. It shows the president and Sessions seated at opposite ends of a rectangular table. Papadopoulos is pictured just one seat away from Sessions and three seats away from the president..

Former Trump foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to concealing information about his conversations with an overseas professor about Russia

Special counsel Robert Mueller's office announced a guilty plea Monday by former Trump foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos, who concealed information about his conversations with an overseas professor about Russia

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office revealed the guilty plea Monday, and laid out the offenses in a criminal information that says Papadopoulos concealed a meeting with a professor overseas who said the Russians had 'thousands of emails' on Clinton.

Besides pitching the potential Trump-Putin meeting, Papadopoulos also proposed setting up a 'potential foreign policy trip to Russia.'
The husband of a woman whose decomposing body was found in a cooler box had to be removed from court after screaming at a judge.

Justin Rey, 35, appeared in a Kansas court for a hearing on child endangerment charges on Thursday after he was found living in a storage unit with his wife, newborn child and toddler.

He yelled in court that Johnson County authorities were trying to take his children away after his wife killed herself.

Justin Rey (right), 35, appeared in a Kansas court for a hearing on child endangerment charges on Thursday

A judge ordered him to be removed saying, 'that's enough' and he screamed back: 'I don't care if it's enough because I have my children out there.

'Their mother just killed herself, and you guys are going to kidnap my children, our children,' reports KCTV.

On Monday, police confirmed that the body, which was found last week, belonged to 32-year-old Jessica Monteiro Rey. Justin Rey has not been charged in her death.

Police had been called to the storage unit in Lenexa, Kansas, last Tuesday after Justin Rey, Jessica's 29-year-old husband, asked a stranger in a restaurant for a ride to a train station so that he and his daughters could leave the state and go home to Arizona.

Jessica Rey's body was found inside a cooler box in a storage unit where her husband Justin was found living with their two young children last week. Justin (pictured right in court last week) was arrested for child endangerment but has not yet been charged over his wife's death

When that person took him to the unit, which was contained in a U-Haul storage facility, to gather their things, they noticed the cooler which was leaking brown liquid and called police.

It took them several days to identify the remains which they said were so decomposed they could not tell if they belonged to a man or woman.

Rey was taken into custody on child endangerment charges and the young children were placed into the care of authorities last week.

Police are still waiting for the result of an autopsy and say they will not file any charges in relation to the woman's death until they have it.

Police found her body inside a storage unit at this U-Haul facility in Lenexa, Kansas, where her husband and their two young daughters had been living

The couple's daughters, who were found inside the U-Haul storage unit, are just two and five days old.

They had four older children removed from their care in 2015 and complained about in YouTube videos where they said the children had been 'illegally stolen' from them.

Police were alerted to the family last week when Justin asked an unidentified person in a restaurant in Lenexa if they would take him and his daughters to the train station.

The person agreed and drove him to the unit where he could gather his things.

There, they saw the conditions the girls were living with along with the cooler and called police.

When questioned over his wife's whereabouts last week, Justin at first repeated his earlier story that she died in childbirth then claimed she had committed suicide.

Jessica had not been seen alive since October 20 when she was last spotted at a Missouri motel 25 miles away where the family had been living.

Her relatives believe this is where she gave birth, KTLA 5 reports.

Jessica (seen above with Justin in one of their YouTube videos) was last seen alive at a motel on October 20

The couple's four older children (one of whom is shown above) were previously removed from their care. Relatives said Justin once served in the military but his record could not be immediately confirmed on Tuesday

Jessica (above during previous pregnancies) gave birth to their youngest child a week ago. Her husband later told police she died in childbirth

Jessica complained in YouTube videos that her four older children were 'illegally taken off of her'

The mother-of-six was last seen alive at Woodspring Suites in Kansas City, Missouri, on October 20. Her family believes this is where she gave birth

Justin remains in custody on child endangerment charges but has not been charged over his wife's death. The couple's daughters are now in the care of authorities

On October 23, staff at Woodspring Suites, the motel, said a man called the front-desk in a woman's voice, pretending to be her, to check them out.

Rey was filmed on surveillance footage that day leaving the hotel with a cooler and a stroller.

His wife was not with him when he left. From there, he is believed to have gone to the U-Haul unit in Lenexa.

When police found him there with the girls last week, neither of them had a place to sleep and neither had diapers on.

Justin and his wife regularly appeared in YouTube videos where she complained about having previous children 'illegally stolen from her' by CPS.

In 2015, she said she'd had four of her children taken off of her.

There were no other children inside the unit last week other than the two-year-old and five-day-old.
Libyan prisoners are being systematically raped as a method of torture and humiliation, an investigation has revealed.

Former prisoners have given harrowing accounts of how guards use various objects, including broom handles, to penetrate male inmates while filming the abuse on their mobile phones.

They also reveal that the inmates would be forced to sexually assault one another, and if they refused, they were told they would be killed.

Shocking: Former inmates in Libya have given harrowing accounts of how guards use various objects to penetrate male inmates, or force them to rape one another (stock image)

The investigation by a Tunis-based group, reported by French journalist and documentary-maker Cecile Allegra, has been published by several international newspaper, including The Guardian.

It reveals that the rumours of systematic rape being used as a weapon of war during the 2011 revolution are not only true, but continue in Libya today.

A man named as Ahmed was detained in a prison near Misrata on a wing which held 450 men.

'They [the guards] take a broom and fix it on the wall. If you want to eat, you have to take off your pants, back on to the broom and not move off until the jailer sees blood flowing. Nobody can escape it,' he reveals.

'There was a black man, a migrant. In the evening, they threw him into one of our cells: "You rape this guy, otherwise, you're dead!"

Horrifying: The tales from the prisons in Libya include eyewitness accounts of systematic rape used to subdue and humiliate inmates (stock image)

Another man imprisoned south of Tripoli said: 'Some of us were locked in a room, naked, for a whole night with groups of migrants. The guards did not release them until they had all raped each other.'

Libya has plunged into chaos since the overthrow of longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, with dozens of armed factions filling the power vacuum. Things are so bad that Libya now has two competing governments.

In addition to abuse of domestic prisoners, there have been several reports on torture in the many migrant detention centres in Libya.

Italy and the European Union have been financing, training and providing aid to Libya's coastguard to stop smugglers from taking migrants and refugees in flimsy boats across the Mediterranean to Europe.

Migrants are then sent to detention centres, where many have witnessed of inhumane conditions and abuse.

Last month, the president of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) called for EU aid to stop, saying Libya's detention of migrants 'must be named for what it is: a thriving enterprise of kidnapping, torture and extortion,'

Detainees told MSF how men are forced to run naked in the courtyard until they collapse from exhaustion, while women are raped and made to call family back home for money to free them.
Anyone who recognises anyone in the images should contact CrimeStoppers

Police are now seeking four men caught on CCTV in connection with the brawl

Rushed to hospital with skull fractures and will sufferer permanent hearing loss

A 25-year-old man was assaulted outside a bar in Surry Hills on Saturday night

A 25-year-old man was rushed to hospital with a fractured skull on Sunday night after he was assaulted outside a bar located in Sydney's Surry Hills.

The man was leaving the venue on Mary Street at around 2.50am when he was allegedly attacked in an incident involving four other men.

He has since been released from Royal Prince Alfred Hospital where he was treated for severe head injuries, although he has suffered permanent hearing loss.

Police are searching for four men who may be able to assist with inquiries into a brutal assault

Authorities are searching for a man who was wearing red shorts and carrying a white bag

Detectives from Surry Hills Local Area Command are investigating the circumstances surrounding the assault, and have released CCTV images of four men who they believe may be able to assist with inquiries.

The first man has been described as being Pacific Islander/Maori in appearance with a stocky build and dark short hair with a rats tail and a beard. At the time of the offence he was wearing a black polo shirt with tan shorts and white shoes.

The second man is described as Pacific Islander/Maori in appearance with a stocky build with black hair and a beard. He had no shirt with red and grey shorts and white shoes. He was carrying a white bag across his chest.

Police are seeking a bald man with a beard who is wearing a light coloured shirt and blue jeans

Police request that anyone who recognises any of the men in the images call the authorities

The third man has been described as Pacific Islander/Maori in appearance with a slim build and short black hair with a beard. He was wearing tan shorts with a white singlet and black shoes.

The fourth man is also of Pacific Islander/Maori in appearance, bald head with a beard and wearing a light coloured shirt with blue jeans.

Anyone who may have information that could assist detectives should contact Surry Hills Police Station on (02) 9265 4144, or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

Police are urging anyone with information in relation to this incident to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or use the Crime Stoppers online reporting page.

Information you provide will be treated in the strictest of confidence. People are reminded that they should not report crime information via police Facebook and Twitter pages.
The desire for longevity in the future chancellor at Montana State University Billings has been a driving issue behind the search so far.

It was so in the latest round of meetings on Friday, when university backers had their first chance to meet the 18-member search committee as a group.

At City College, committee chair and Deputy Commissioner of Higher Education John Cech led the program alongside Montana State University President Waded Cruzado. The schedule included meetings with students, administrators, staff and business representatives.

As MSUB searches for a chancellor for the second time in three years, the longevity issue persists.

"We just hope that if it's a good fit, then they will stay," said Susan Gilbertz, MSUB professor and chair of the Academic Senate, which represents faculty.

Cruzado, who oversees MSUB in the university system, said that identifying someone who will stick around is important to the process.

She characterized the position as a partner, brushing away the idea that an MSUB chancellor would lack adequate autonomy as a subordinate to MSU.

"Someone who shows loyalty to this place  in good times and bad," Cruzado said.

During a noon meeting with business representatives, talk also centered on industry relationships. Cech noted that universities will play a role in replacing an aging workforce. In Montana, he said 24 percent of that force will retire in the next decade.

Billings Clinic Foundation President Jim Duncan said that at their Billings and satellite facilities, there are increasing job openings. He said that he wants to see MSUB, and a potential chancellor, derive university strategies from Billings workers.

"I think the chancellor has to be ingrained in the business community at every level," he said.
Oscar Pistorius has not shown 'genuine remorse' for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, prosecutors have said.

They added that a judge 'overemphasised' Pistorius's disability and gave him a 'shockingly lenient' sentence that amounts to an 'injustice'.

'Murder is murder,' chief prosecutor Andrea Johnson told a five-judge panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa today.

'There is no true, gut-wrenching remorse,' she added.

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Pistorius (left) claimed he mistook Ms Steenkamp (right) for a dangerous intruder hiding in his bathroom in the pre-dawn hours of Valentine's Day 2013 when, without his prosthetic legs on and standing on his stumps, he shot four times through the cubicle door

Ms Steenkamp's mother, June Steenkamp (pictured), did attend. Speaking outside the courthouse, her lawyer said the family supported prosecutors' attempt to get a longer sentence

Johnson asked the judges to overturn the double-amputee athlete's initial six-year sentence given in July last year and instead sentence him to the prescribed minimum of 15 years.

Nearly five years after the once-admired Olympic runner first appeared in court for shooting Ms Steenkamp multiple times through a closed toilet door at his home, his fate is still not certain.

Pistorius claimed he mistook Ms Steenkamp for a dangerous intruder hiding in his bathroom in the pre-dawn hours of Valentine's Day 2013 when, without his prosthetic legs on and standing on his stumps, he shot four times through the cubicle door.

If the court agrees to increase his sentence, Pistorius, 30, could remain in prison until after he is 40.

The judges did not deliver a decision today. Typically, Supreme Court judges take a couple of weeks before the senior judge returns to read out the decision, which is made through a simple majority.

Pistorius was not at the hearing as he serves his sentence at a prison near the capital, Pretoria. He has served more than a year of his six-year term.

But Steenkamp's mother, June Steenkamp, did attend. Speaking outside the courthouse, her lawyer said the family supported prosecutors' attempt to get a longer sentence.

This is the second time prosecutors have gone to the Supreme Court in the city of Bloemfontein to challenge a decision by Judge Thokozile Masipa (pictured), who presided over Pistorius's trial

Prosecutors had two arguments to make to the court.

First, they needed to apply for permission to appeal against Pistorius's sentence. They were asked by the judges to also present their arguments for why, if their appeal is allowed, his sentence should be increased.

This is the second time prosecutors have gone to the Supreme Court in the city of Bloemfontein to challenge a decision by Judge Thokozile Masipa, who presided over Pistorius's trial.

In 2015, prosecutors successfully appealed against Judge Masipa's ruling that Pistorius was not guilty of murder. The court overturned the verdict of culpable homicide - or manslaughter - and convicted him of murder.

Judge Masipa then sentenced Pistorius to six years in prison for murder, a term just one year longer than her original sentence for manslaughter. Prosecutors called that sentence 'shockingly' light.

Judges can deviate from prescribed minimum sentences if there are compelling circumstances. The prosecution says there were no compelling reasons.

'What we are saying is the court exercised its discretion inappropriately,' prosecutor Johnson said, calling the six-year sentence 'unjust'.

Judge Masipa's initial sentence was appropriate in the circumstances, Pistorius's defence lawyers said, and his disability was not exaggerated. He had both his legs amputated below the knee when he was a baby because of a congenital condition.

'Of course his disability is mentioned, but it can't not be mentioned,' defence lawyer Kelly Phelps said. 'It is one of the factors of this case. We can't magic away his disability.'
A two-year-old girl has been caught up in an armed police standoff after her father took her hostage in an allegedly drug-fuelled rampage in Mexico.

The little girl was being held at knifepoint by the man, known only as Gerardo, in an alleyway in the city of Aguascalientes when police intercepted and tore the pair apart.

The child escaped without significant injury and was returned her to her mother, who had been watching helplessly on the sidelines.

Meanwhile, the 28-year-old man was tackled to the ground by a team of policemen.

It is not known why the man took the girl hostage, though he is thought to have been on drugs.

Video footage captured the moment as police held a gun up to the man and shouted: 'Let her go, let her go!'

A Mexican man, known only as Gerardo, held up his two-year-old daughter at knifepoint in an alleyway in the city of Aguascalientes

The man was intercepted by armed police who told Gerardo to let the girl go before intervening to tear the pair apart

A team of policemen stepped in an removed the child from her father, returning her to her mother, who had been screaming on the sidelines

Gerardo, clearly distressed, shouted back and held his daughter around the neck, before police ran in to intercept.

Eyewitnesses said that at one point he was holding a knife to the little girl's neck.

The policemen took Gerardo to the ground and a struggle ensued and they tried to retain the man, thought to have been on drugs

Gerardo, 28, was eventually calmed and arrested by police. He faces a number of charges

Gerardo was arrested by police and faces a number of charges which have not yet been confirmed.

Aguascalientes is part of the Bajio region of central Mexico and is regarded as being the safest and most prosperous part of Mexico.
A sex and drugs gang of four Kurdish illegal immigrants who groomed and abused five girls as young as 13 were jailed for 33 years today.

Young and 'naive' victims were lured to parties in Newcastle and gatherings at houses and flats, where alcohol and drugs were freely available, and they were expected to provide sexual favours and services in return.

The victims were 'forced' at other times or were so intoxicated they were unable to consent to what happened to them.

The five girls, aged between 13 and 16, were treated as 'commodities', passed around various men and sometimes believed they were in relationships with their abusers.

The men, who all entered the UK illegally before claiming asylum hid behind code names such as 'Star' 'Pablo' and 'Shark Tooth' while targeting the vulnerable girls.

Palla Pour, 25, was found guilty of sex offences involving children while Saman Obaid, 26, was convicted of four offences of supplying controlled drugs

Ribas Asad, 29, was also found guilty of child sex offences and Soran Azizi was convicted of two offences of trafficking within the UK for sexual exploitation

They trafficked their victims - held 'in their thrall' by a ready supply of drugs and alcohol - around houses on Tyneside where they were sexually assaulted and treated and as 'commodities.'

The gang - based in Newcastle upon Tyne - controlled the girls with drugs and alcohol, contacted them on Facebook to discuss sex parties and on one occasion demanded sex in return for paying for a tattoo.

The girls were as young as 13 when the grooming began and they were trafficked for sex in return for drugs including ecstasy, cocaine, speed and cannabis it is alleged.

Soran Azizi, 28, was convicted of two offences of trafficking within the UK for sexual exploitation and jailed for six years.

Palla Pour, 25 - who called himself Pablo - was convicted of four offences of sexual activity with a child, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, supplying controlled drug to another and permitting his premises to be used for the supply of drugs and jailed for 12 and a half years,

Ribas Asad, 29, was convicted of sexual assault, paying for the sexual, supplying a controlled drug, causing a child to engage in sexual activity and sexual activity with a child and jailed for nine and a half years.

Saman Obaid, 29, who was known as Shark Tooth, was convicted of four offences of supplying controlled drugs and jailed for four years and nine months.

All the men entered the UK illegally and claimed asylum.

Judge Bob Spragg sentenced the gang to a total of 32 years and nine months in jail.

He quoted one of their victims, saying: 'She summed it up by saying 'They were much older and they pretended to be my friends and drove me around, but they were just totally using me for sex when I was just a child'.'

Judge Spragg added: 'These were vulnerable young women, they were easy targets for exploitation and the lure of drugs and alcohol.

'Once ensnared some were expected to provide sexual favours and services, not because they wanted to but because they were beholden and in thrall to you.

'The effects on their lives has been devastating. It is clear to me the effects on these young women has been hugely damaging.'

The girls were taken to parties across Tyneside, often in these tower blocks, with alcohol and drugs freely available but they were forced to pay with sexual favours

Azizi was granted leave to remain after entering illegally in 2007 and gave his nationality as Iranian, Pour also had leave to remain, entering illegally in 2006 and also saying he was iranian.

Asad was granted leave to remain in the UK after entering illegally in 2006 giving his nationality as Iraqi.

Victims describe having to 'knock out' attackers trying to abuse them at parties One woman told their trial how she was attacked at a house in Newcastle by Ribas 'dirty' Asad after a night out in the city in 2007, when she was 16. She said the attacker grabbed at her clothing and mumbled at her in a foreign language during the ordeal, that left her shaken and in tears. The woman said the sexual assault ended when Asad hit his head against a wall when she pushed him away and appeared to knock himself out. Giving her evidence from behind a screen she said she had been getting dressed in an upstairs bedroom at the house when Asad came into the room and grabbed her around the midriff. She told jurors: 'I said 'don't, stop it, no, pushed him off, tried to push him off. 'He ripped my top off. 'He was grabbing it. He stuck his tongue in my mouth. I bit his tongue. He came again and tried to grab me so I pushed him against the wall, I think he knocked his head off the wall and he slid down the wall. I just ran for it.' Advertisement

And Iraqi Obaid is a failed asylum seeker with further representations outstanding after entering in 2007.

Their victims suffered abuse which left some of them with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

One of the girls recalled her ordeal at the hands of Pablo Pour and another man known as Star, who was not on trial.

Miss Richardson said: 'One of the girls wanted a tattoo and recalled that Palla Pour and Star said they would pay for half of the price if she had anal sex with them.

'She said yes in a sarcastic way but then told Palla Pour she would not have anal sex. She was taken to obtain her tattoo and passed out while it was being done. When it was almost done she was taken back to Star's flat and taken back to have it finished the following day.'

She said that every time the girl was taken back to the flat 'something sexual would happen' between her and Star or Pour which meant she did not have to pay for the tattoo.

In an impact statement to the court the girl, who later developed an addiction to crack cocaine, said: 'The tattoo was done when I was 15 but it will be a reminder forever of what they did to me.'

The girls, some of whom had been placed in the care of social services, were sexually assaulted whilst too drunk to consent on some occasions.

Another victim said in a statement: 'It has a massive impact on my life, I now suffer panic attacks, PTSD and depression. I don't feel safe when I'm alone, even when I am at home on my own.'

Her four children were taken into care because she was unable to look after them.

Another girl has twice attempted suicide by overdose and hanging.

Newcastle Crown Court heard victims were lured to parties and gatherings at houses and flats, where alcohol and drugs were freely available, and were expected to provide sexual favours and services in return.

They were all prosecuted as part of Operation Sanctuary, a larger investigation which included Operation Shelter which recently saw 18 people convicted and jailed for grooming offences.

Jim Hope, from the CPS, said: The Crown Prosecution Service has successfully prosecuted these four men for their involvement in the supply of drugs and the sexual exploitation of five vulnerable girls.

I would like to extend my thanks to the five victims in this case, who have bravely assisted us in piecing together all relevant evidence to present the clearest possible case to the jury.

'After the men had gained their trust, the girls were supplied with drugs and alcohol and then coerced into performing sexual acts'.
The glamorous PA of one of London's wealthiest Russian residents funded an exclusive party at top hotel with his money, a court has heard.

Tatyana Govorov, 31, allegedly used a credit card entrusted to her by top restaurateur Arkady Novikov to rent a London flat and splash out on lavish New Year's festivities at the Intercontinental Hotel.

Mr Novikov, who is a personal friend of Vladimir Putin, owns the famous Novikov restaurant chain, which has a Mayfair branch in Berkeley Square.

Tatyana Govorov, who works for a friend of Russian president Vladimir Putin, is accused of using her boss's bank card to fund an expensive party in a top London hotel

Govorov was entrusted with the card by Mr Novikov, who owns a home in Chelsea, to pay for his household bills.

Govorov is said to have been 'explicitly' told the card was not for personal use by the entrepreneur.

But she is accused of spending over 35,000 on herself.

She is said to have told an estate agents that Mr Novikov had agreed to act as a guarantor for her new home in Brockley, south-east London.

In December 2015 she is then said to have used the HSBC card to fund a 28,000 New Year's eve bash at the luxury Park Lane Hotel, The Intercontinental.

Govorov, of Tulse Hill, now faces four counts of fraud. Today, she indicated to Westminster Magistrates' Court that she would plead not guilty.

Govorov works for Arkady Novikov (left), a Russian restaurateur said to be friends with Putin

Mr Novikov also has successful hospitality ventures in London and is worth over 300million.

His wife Nadezdha Advokatova is herself a successful businesswoman, founding the Moscow florists Studio 55.

They have two daughters and the family regularly holiday to their luxury villas on Lake Como, next to Roman Abramovich's mansion.

Govorov will next appear at Isleworth Crown Court on 4 December.
Picture shows Emma Rowe, head of recruitment at Dentons law firm leaving a tribunal in Bury St Edmunds on Tuesday

A recruitment manager is suing a global law firm for sexual discrimination after she was selected for redundancy days before returning from maternity leave 'because she was easiest to get rid of'.

Bina Hale, 36, broke down into tears as she described the treatment she received from her bosses at Dentons in Milton Keynes.

HR bosses at the firm allegedly shredded handwritten notes of a meeting which decided to select her for redundancy before she had even come back to work.

A Bury St Edmunds tribunal heard that further notes were destroyed which recorded consultations between Ms Hale and her managers.

She is claiming sex discrimination and unfair dismissal, but Dentons say she was selected due to a lack of professionalism.

Ms Hale started working for the firm in December 2014, according to The Times.

Bina Hale, 36, broke down into tears as she described the treatment she received from her bosses at Dentons in Milton Keynes

She said she saved the company thousands of pounds by hiring staff directly, rather than through agencies.

Senior partner at Dentons, Andrew Harris, described her work as 'brilliant'.

Ms Hale experienced a difficult pregnancy and her mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer. She claims she was shouted at over the phone by Emma Rowe, who was head of recruitment at their London office.

Mrs Rowe, HR business partner Suzanne Barnes, and then-practice manager Tina Crawford, marked Ms Hale down on professionalism and said that she was made redundant because she scored the lowest.

HR bosses at the firm allegedly shredded handwritten notes of a meeting which decided to select her for redundancy before she had even come back to work

Ms Hale is claiming sex discrimination and unfair dismissal, but Dentons say she was selected due to a lack of professionalism

Ms Barnes told the tribunal that the notes from the meeting were shredded before they were typed up, due to the office becoming paperless and that they were aware of the risk of discrimination.

Daniel Barnett, for Ms Hale, said: 'Is the reason that those notes didn't exist because there was a decision during that meeting that it would be easiest to make Bina redundant, because her duties had been reallocated during maternity?'

Ms Barnes said: 'Absolutely not.'

The hearing continues.
The US Justice Department has identified six Russian hackers responsible for the breaching of the Democratic National Committee's computers and leaking information during the 2016 presidential race.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Justice Department has gathered enough evidence to bring charges, expected to be filed next year.

Although investigators have linked the attack to Russian intelligence services, they have not disclosed information about the people who are allegedly responsible for the hack or how they reached their conclusions.

The US Justice Department has identified six Russian hackers responsible for the breaching of the Democratic National Committee's computers and leaking information during the 2016 presidential race. Charges are expected to be filed next year (Pictured, left, Russian President Vladmir Putin and, right, 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton)

If brought before federal prosecutors, the case would reveal the hackers behind thousands of stolen DNC emails, including those from Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta (pictured, July 2016), which appeared on WikiLeaks during the final stretch of the campaign

If the case is brought by federal prosecutors, it would pinpoint the specific Russian military and intelligence hackers behind the thousands of stolen DNC emails, including those from Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, which appeared on WikiLeaks during the final stretch of the campaign.

The intelligence community concluded in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the campaign to sway the election in President Donald Trump's favor, although Russia has denied it meddled in the election.

In a series of tweets in June, Trump called the idea of Russia hacking the DNC a 'big Dem HOAX' and added that it was 'a big Dem scam and excuse for losing the election!'

The hacking investigation, conducted by cybersecurity experts, is being conducted separately from the probe of Special Counsel Robert Mueller overseeing the alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with Trump's campaign.

The investigation into DNC hacking (pictured, headquarters) is being conducted separately from the probe of Special Counsel Robert Mueller overseeing the alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with President Donald Trump's campaign

In a series of tweets in June, Trump called the idea of Russia hacking the DNC a 'big Dem HOAX' (above). Russia has denied any sort of meddling in the hacking of the DNC and in the US presidential election

Mueller and the Justice Department agreed to allow the technical cyber investigation to continue under the original team of agents and prosecutors, the Journal said.

By identifying individual Russian military and intelligence hackers with charges, US authorities could make it difficult for them to travel, but arrests and jailing would be unlikely, according to the Journal report.

If and when charges are filed next year, it would be the second time the US has charged Russians with cybercrimes.

In March, the Justice Department charged two Russian intelligence agents and two hackers with masterminding the 2014 theft of 500 million Yahoo accounts.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions may have to go back to Congress to explain why he didn't recall a Trump campaign meeting where George Papadopoulos pitched a meeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin.

Papadopoulos has pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his own Russia contacts, including his meeting with a professor in London who touted his own Moscow connections and offered to help put together a Trump-Putin meeting.

Sessions didn't recall any of his own Russia contacts during his Senate confirmation hearing, but was later revealed to have met with Russia's former ambassador to the U.S

I SWEAR! Attorney General Jeff Sessions could have to testify again in Congress after revelations he was at a Trump campaign meeting where two participants say the idea of a Trump-Putin meeting got pitched

At the March 2016 meeting of Trump's security team, Papadopoulos stated 'that he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President Putin,' the New York Times reported, citing court documents quoting testimony from former campaign aide J.D. Gordon.

'He went into the pitch right away,' said Gordon, who attended the meeting. 'He said he had a friend in London, the Russian ambassador, who could help set up a meeting with Putin,' he said. Sessions vehemently opposed the idea of the meeting and shot it down, according to the Times.

Trump tweeted out a photo of that meeting. It shows the president and Sessions seated at opposite ends of a rectangular table. Papadopoulos is pictured just one seat away from Sessions and three seats away from the president.

Sessions oversaw the president's team of national security advisors.

Then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) denied any Russia contacts during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Sessions to become U.S. attorney general on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. January 10, 2017

Senior Democrats are now saying Sessions must come back to explain his omisions.

Former Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo told CNN Papadopoulos was just a 'coffee boy,' speaking on CNN. Trump had called in an 'excellent guy' in an interview with the Washington Post at the start of the campaign.

'He now needs to come back before the Committee, in person, under oath, to explain why he cannot seem to provide truthful, complete answers to these important and relevant questions,' said Vermont Democratic Sen. Pat Leahy, a former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the Hill reported.

Former Trump policy adviser Carter Paige testified Thursday during a multi-hour grilling that he told Sessions in advance of a planned trip he took to Russia. He made the statement during a six-hour appearance before the House Intelligence Committee, CNN reported.

'This is another example in an alarming pattern in which you, the nations top law enforcement official, apparently failed to tell the truth, under oath, Franken wrote Sessions on Thursday

'I don't make anything sinister out of it. He said Sessions did not react or comment one way or the other,' Conaway told the cable network. 'If I were Sessions, I wouldn't have recalled it either. It was just in passing. He was walking out of the room. A guy he had never met before, grabs him, 'Hey, I'm out on the team. I changed my travel plans to go to Russia.''

Sessions testified during his confirmation hearing that he had no knowledge of Russia contacts by campaign aides. 'Im not aware of any of those activities,' he said under questioning by Sen. Al Franken, a Democrat from Minnesota.

It was later revealed that Sessions had meetings with Russia's then-ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, during the campaign.

'This is another example in an alarming pattern in which you, the nations top law enforcement official, apparently failed to tell the truth, under oath, Franken wrote Sessions on Thursday.

'I don't remember much about that meeting,' Trump told reporters, speaking about the campaign security meeting that Sessions did not mention when asked about any campaign contacts with Russia

Papadopoulos attended a March 31 national security meeting with Trump and foreign policy advisors where he stated that he had connections that would help arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin, according to the information released by the government. Trump tweeted out a photo of the meeting at the time

PSST. THIS IS BEING RECORDED: Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) (L) jokes with U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions (C) and Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) before a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill October 18, 2017 in Washington, DC

During his appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sessions said 'I don't remember' or 'I don't recall' 26 times, according to a count by Democracy Now, as he repeatedly declined to answer specific questions about Russian meddling efforts.

Asked by Sen. Kamala Harris whether he had any communications with Russians that he hadn't disclosed, Sessions responded: 'I dont recall it. But I have to tell you, I cannot testify to what was said as we were standing at the Republican convention before the podium, where somebody came up to me.'

President Trump  who has boasted about having the 'greatest memories of all time'  says he doesn't 'remember much' about his 2016 meeting with his foreign policy team where a potential meeting with Vladimir Putin came up.

'I don't remember much about that meeting,' Trump told reporters as he headed out for a 12-day trip to Asia.

'It was a very unimportant meeting. Took place a long time  don't remember much about it,' Trump added.
The French overseas territory of New Caledonia is set to hold a referendum on independence next year.

The Pacific island nation nearly 10,300 miles from Paris is set to vote on seceding by the end of 2018, after 165 years of French rule.

The vote will be held despite fears that the vote could strengthen divisions between the indigenous 'Kanaks' and the 'Caldoches', the descendants of French settlers.

Freedom: New Caledonia, a French territory in the South Pacific, is set to vote on seceding by the end of 2018, after 165 years of French rule

New Caledonia, located east of Australia, got its name from British explorer James Cook, who said the northern side of the main island reminded him of Caledonia in Scotland when he visited in the late 1770s.

The island nation has been home to European settlers since the mid 1850s, with the territory officially annexed by Napoleon III in 1853.

The soils contain a quarter of the world's nickel resources and the mining industry is a major sector of the archipelago's economy.

The islands are also a popular tourist destination, although not as frequently visited as nearby Cook Islands or Vanuatu. In particular, New Caledonia attracts surfers and divers as it is home to the second-longest double-barrier coral reef in the world.

Far off: The island territory is located nearly 10,300 miles from the capital Paris

New Caledonia has enjoyed strong autonomy for many years, with a legislative assembly and a local government with executive powers.

Unlike the recent referendum in Catalonia in Spain, the 2018 vote is recognised by both the United Nations and the French government.

The referendum has been on the cards since the 1998 Noumea Accord was signed by the French, which officially listed the territory for decolonization.

It has a population of around 275,000, of which around 45 per cent are Kanaks.

President Emmanuel Macron said before he won the recent election that he would prefer the island to remain 'within the national community' but that France would respect the voters' decision.
Labour suspended a second senior politician in less than 24 hours today after Carl Sargeant (file image) resigned from the Welsh Assembly Government

Labour suspended a second senior politician in less than 24 hours today after Carl Sargeant resigned from the Welsh Government.

Mr Sargeant was confronted with 'allegations' about his 'personal conduct' by Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones.

The AM, who was Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children, said he was resigning to clear his name despite not knowing what the allegations are.

He was suspended from Labour less than 24 hours after the party in London also launched a probe into veteran MP Kelvin Hopkins.

Mr Sargeant said he was told about the allegations by Mr Jones but had not been given details about the claims.

'I met with the First Minister today and he informed me allegations had been made about my personal conduct, which was shocking and distressing to me,' the Alyn and Deeside AM said in a statement on Twitter.

'The details of the allegations have yet to be disclosed to me.

'I have written to the general secretary of Welsh Labour requesting an urgent independent investigation into these allegations in order to allow me to clear my name.

'Given the nature of the allegations, I agreed with the First Minister that it was right that I stand aside from Cabinet today.

'I look forward to returning to Government once my name has been cleared.'

Mr Sargeant has been an AM since 2003, becoming the Labour group's chief whip before taking a string of government roles.

A spokesman for the First Minister said: 'Following allegations, received in the last few days, about Carl Sargeant's conduct, the First Minister has removed him from the Cabinet and has asked Welsh Labour to launch a full investigation.'

Mr Sargeant was confronted with 'allegations' about his 'personal conduct' by Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones and the pair agreed he should leave his post

A Welsh Labour spokesman added: 'Carl Sargeant has been suspended from party membership, and therefore the Labour whip in the National Assembly for Wales, while an investigation into allegations received takes place.'

Mr Hopkins was suspended from Labour last night after allegedly rubbing himself against an activist and later sending her lewd texts.

Jeremy Corbyn faced a backlash today after it emerged he promoted the MP to the shadow cabinet after the allegations were first made.
Police in Majorca have arrested nine people blamed for 50 break-ins at hotels and homes in Magaluf and the Brit-popular neighbouring resort of Torrenova.

The detainees have been accused of belonging to a criminal gang as well as carrying out the burglaries.

Officers released pictures of the suspects at work - climbing a wall and entering a building with their faces covered as they walked past CCTV cameras - as they announced the arrests.

Most of the break-ins are said to have occurred in the early hours at weekends.

Surveillance footage shows the criminals at a housing block. Police have now made nine arrests in connection with the break-ins

Police say the offences followed a pattern and were generally committed in the early hours at weekends

The alleged gang leader has been described as a 'very aggressive and violent' man.

Spanish Civil Guard officers, detailing the arrests as part of an operation dubbed Operation Fleas, said: 'The Guardia Civil has arrested nine people suspected of a large number of thefts and membership of a criminal organisation.

'The investigation began after an increase in the number of thefts in hotels and dwellings in the area of Torrenova and Magaluf.

'The break-ins followed a pattern and were generally committed in the early hours at weekends.'

He added: 'Three members of the gang were initially identified and then another four, including the alleged ringleader who is a very aggressive and violent individual who used threats and coercion to terrify the rest of the gang.

'He was also the person who obtained the greatest financial benefit out of the crimes committed.

Each member of the organisation had a specific function, which went from carrying out the break-ins to acting as watch-outs, police said

The investigation was begun after there was an upsurge in break-ins and the gang were described as 'very active'

The break-ins happened in the resorts of Magaluf and Torrenova (pictured) which are popular with British tourists

'The last two, a man and woman, were identified and arrested at the end of last month.

'Investigators discovered each member of the organisation had a specific function, which went from carrying out the break-ins to acting as watch-outs.

'They were very active. At the moment they're accused of 50 thefts from hotel rooms and dwellings in Torrenova and Magaluf.'

Late last month Civil Guard officers revealed they had arrested a 24-year-old Albanian suspected of using an electronic hacking device to break into at least 50 hotels rooms in Magaluf and other parts of Majorca as well as Ibiza and Barcelona.

The device he used enabled him to override door locks without being detected by hotel staff, but his luck run out when he was caught by a cleaner earlier this month and left his work tool behind as he fled.

The municipality of Calvia on Majorca, which includes the Brit-popular resorts of Magaluf and Palmanova, is believed to have been the worst-affected.

The nationalities of those arrested in the latest operation have not been revealed.
A father decapitated his eight-year-old daughter with an axe after a sorcerer told him it would save his troubled marriage.

Police arrested father-of-four Ramacharan Paharia after they found his daughter Jamuna's headless body in Odisha, India.

Officers claim he consulted a sorcerer who suggested he sacrifice his daughter from his first marriage to stop his second wife from abandoning him.

Axe murderer: Police arrested father-of-four Ramacharan Paharia after they found his daughter Jamuna's headless body in Odisha, India

Paharia took his daughter to a nearby crop field and hacked her head off, police say.

The incident allegedly happened on October 26 but police were only informed on Thursday and went to Nuapada district of Odisha where they arrested him.

Tapan Kumar Mahanand, investigating officer in the case, said: 'Ramcharan was a firm believer in black magic and sorcery.'

'There was an ongoing dispute in the family. It is believed Paharia consulted a sorcerer and sought his help to restore peace in the family.'

The father in his 40s also has a daughter and two sons from his second wife.

The police are investigating and are trying to track down the sorcerer.
Republicans have a tough hill to climb as they try to persuade middle-class Americans that they'll emerge from a congressional tax cut plan with more actual money in their pockets.

They'll also earn raspberries from owners of electric cars and the companies that make them.

As the White House has promised all year, the approach unveiled Thursday by Republicans trims tax rates for all but the best-paid workers.

And it doubles the amount of income many taxpayers can wipe off the books before calculating how much they owe to the federal government.

But it also eliminates a series of tax deductions that middle-class strivers count on to lower their tax bills.

Tax cuts? Some middle-class Americans could see their tax bills increase if a Republican plan takes effect, according to a New York Times analysis

President Trump and the GOP are insisting their approach will simplify tax returns nad save ordinary Americans money

What may emerge from the resulting Rube Goldberg contraption, according to a New York Times analysis, are around 13 million filers who earn less than six figures but pay more in taxes than they used to.

The Times, no fan of President Trump's economic vision, warns that a host of benefits aiding Americans in the fat middle of the economic bell curve are on the chopping block.

If Republicans pass their plan, for instance, Americans won't be able to deduct the interest they pay on student loans.

Also gone will be deductions for high out-of-pocket medical expenses.

The valuable and hotly defended mortgage interest tax deduction will only apply to the first $500,000 of a home loan  which sounds palatial in central Iowa but doesn't buy much in New York City.

And a GOP strategy to replace personal tax exemptions with new tax credits could go sour in five years if the credits themselves are allowed to expire instead of Congress renewing them.

Democrats like California Rep. Nancy Pelosi are crying foul and describing the proposal as a giveaway to the rich that will soak the poor

Buy it quick! By next year peope who purchase plug-in electric cars like Teslas might lose the $7,500 tax credit that comes along with it

Examptions are like automatic deductions that forgive taxes owed on the first $4,050 every American earns.

In their place, every taxpayer and taxpayer's spouse would get $300 in tax credits  actual money subtracted from the final tax bill.

And the per-child tax credit would permanently hike from $1,000 to $1,600.

But it's those $300 adult freebies that have a five-year sunset built in.

The White House claims lowering the top tax rate on businesses from 35 per cent to 20 per cent will increase both hiring and wage levels.

Democrats argue that anticipating a 'trickle-down' effect from the rich to the working class is a fool's errand.

They also fret about a green-energy boost built into the federal tax code  a handout to electric car owners  that's likely to go the way of steam power.

Any American who buys a 'qualified plug-in electric-drive motor vehicle' can get as much as $7,500 back from Uncle Sam.

Cheaper plug-in hybrids earn a $2,500 tax credit, while high-end models like those built by Tesla qualify for three times as much.

Republicans want to take that tax incentive away.
Special counsel Robert Mueller estimates his prosecutors will need three weeks to present their case against ex-Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates to a jury, according to a court filing made public Friday.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson set a tentative timeline for filings in the case, scheduling a possible May 7 trial date.

Responding to Judge Jackson in Washington, Mueller prosecutor Kyle Freeny wrote that the government will likely need 15 trial days to present evidence supporting a 12-count indictment unsealed earlier this week alleging violations of federal money laundering, banking and foreign lobbying laws.

President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, and Manafort's business associate Rick Gates have pleaded not guilty to felony charges of conspiracy against the United States and other counts

Rick Gates arrives at the courthouse for his hearing on Thursday, revealing the ankle monitor a judge decided he must continue to wear while under house arrest

Manafort, who served for five months as President Donald Trump's campaign chairman, and his former deputy Gates have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Both men were released on multimillion-dollar bonds but placed on house arrest. Manafort has asked a judge to ease the terms of his pretrial confinement, calling Mueller's case "embellished," in court papers filed this week.

Manafort's lawyer, Kevin Downing, said he expects to file pre-trial motions to suppress evidence "improperly obtained by search warrant, subpoena or otherwise" by Mueller's investigators, a court filing Friday shows.

Manafort's Virginia home was raided in July by FBI agents.

Special counsel Robert Mueller says he'll need three weeks to argue his case against Paul Manafort and Rick Gates

The charges against Manafort and Gates were the first criminal charges stemming from Mueller's six-month probe of potential ties between Russian operatives and the Trump campaign.

Another campaign-era aide, George Papadopoulos, has pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russian agents during the 2016 presidential election and is cooperating with Mueller's investigators, court records unsealed this week revealed.

Mueller's charges against Manafort, 68, and Gates, 45, relate to their financial dealings while lobbying for Russia-friendly political interests in Ukraine as far back as 2012.

Trump wrote on Twitter this week that there was "NO COLLUSION" between his campaign and Russia and said the case centered on acts that occurred "years ago," well before Manafort got involved with his campaign.
A zookeeper in Israel was left jumping up and down but far from joyous after discovering that one of his care had escaped from the park through an open gate.

CCTV footage captures the moment a hippopotamus nonchalantly sauntered towards an open gate at Ramat Gan National Zoo, before strolling out onto the open streets of Tel Aviv, Israel.

Moments later, the zookeeper appeared, using a navigation system to locate the escaped creature in the dark.

On spotting the animal, the zookeeper proceeded to jump up and down in shock, before quickly using his phone to call for back up.

Though help quickly arrived, the self-directed hippo, seemingly startled by a car, appeared less than impressed by the outside world and swiftly returned through the gate unprompted.

Staff at the zoo said the hippo was then quickly directed back to its enclosure.

Hungry hippo: This hippo from Ramat Gan National Zoo in Tel Aviv, Israel was hungry for taste of the outside world

The adventurous animal, one of 24 hippos in its enclosure, escaped from its pen and took a walk on the grounds

On discovering the main gate open, the hippo decided to take a stroll outside, onto the streets of Tel Aviv

They still have no idea how it escaped.

'The safari's management is taking this incident very seriously. This morning we began a thorough investigation of the incident. We will soon come to conclusions and act accordingly,' a spokesperson for the zoo said.

They said that the hippopotamus was one of 24 that they currently have on site.

CCTV footage captures the moment on film as a zookeeper comes into sight in search of the missing animal
A soldier who was wounded searching for Bowe Bergdahl says the lack of prison time in his sentence is 'unacceptable.'

Bergdahl instead will pay a fine and was dishonorably discharged. He left Friday in civilian clothes after arriving in Army dress blues, instead wearing an untucked shirt, cargo pants and bare headed.

Scores of troops searched for Bergdahl after he walked off his post near the Afghan town of Mest.

Prosecutors cited two missions that resulted in serious wounds to two soldiers and a Navy SEAL.

One of the wounded soldiers, Jonathan Morita of California, still doesn't have full use of his dominant hand after bones were shattered when he was hit by an RPG, which didn't explode.

Asked by phone about his reaction to Bergdahl's sentence, he said: 'I've had had better days.'

Former Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl walks out of a military court in Fort Bragg, North Carolina in civilian clothes on Friday

Bergdahl will avoid jail time though he was dishonorably discharged from the military for abandoning his post in Afghanistan in 2009 before falling into Taliban captivity

Scores of troops searched for Bergdahl after he walked off his post near the Afghan town of Mest. Prosecutors cited two missions that resulted in serious wounds to two soldiers and a Navy SEAL. One of the wounded soldiers, Jonathan Morita of California, still doesn't have full use of his dominant hand and expressed outrage at the sentence

Bare headed Bergdahl was driven away from the courthouse in the back of a car

He added: 'The dishonorable discharge means he can't receive any of these services like I can. He'll pay the fine like people get fined for illegal fishing. Ok, whoop-de-doo.'

Referring to the lack of prison time, he said: 'That's the one that's completely unacceptable. It should have maybe not been the life sentence, but it should have been something.'

In a stunning announcement on Friday, the judge deciding the case demoted Bergdahl to the rank of private, dishonorably discharged him and ordered him to pay $1,000 from his paycheck for the next 10 months. The judge made no other comments in his ruling.

The decision was considerably merciful compared to the 14 years in prison that prosecutors had asked the judge to order.

Several soldiers were injured in the search for Bergdahl, after he deserted his post in Afghanistan in June 2009.

He was subsequently captured by the Taliban-linked Haqqani network.

President Trump reacted to the news on Friday, tweeting that the decision was a 'complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military'.

Scroll down for video

Bergdahl is seen above leaving court on Friday earlier in the day, still in his Army dress uniform, after the judge began to deliberate during his sentencing hearing

President Trump reacted to the news on Friday, tweeting that the decision was a 'complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military'

Bergdahl, right, appeared nervous as he arrived at court for the second day of deliberations

Prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Bergdahl to 14 years in prison, but the judge decided against jail time for the admitted deserter (pictured center arriving at court on Friday)

Bergdahl has claimed that he abandoned his post to report his 'unfit' platoon commander to senior officers.

Bergdahl didn't make it far before he was captured, leading some to suspect that Bergdahl had actually fled the Army on purpose to betray his country.

But Bergdahl has always denied claims of treason, and he was never charged with aiding the enemy.

Bergdahl spent nearly five years as a prisoner of the Haqqani network, before President Obama secured his release in exchange for five Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

Bergdahl (pictured) abandoned his post in Afghanistan in June 2009. He said he wanted to report his 'unfit' platoon leader, but was quickly picked up by the Taliban-linked Haqqani network

Bergdahl (pictured as a prisoner) spent nearly five years as a prisoner of the Haqqani network before President Obama secured his release in 2014, in exchange for freeing five Guantanamo Bay prisoners

Friday marked the second day of deliberations in the high-profile case.

Before the judge read his decision, Bergdahl appeared tense, clenching his teeth and grimacing at the floor as he walked into the court room for the morning session.

In closing arguments, defense attorneys argued that Bergdahl already had suffered enough confinement during five years of brutal captivity by Taliban allies. They asked the judge for a dishonorable discharge and no prison time. Their argument for leniency also cited harsh campaign-trail criticism by Donald Trump and Bergdahl's mental disorders.

Capt. Nina Banks, a defense attorney, said it wouldn't be justice to rescue Bergdahl from the Taliban 'only to place him in a cell' now.

President Obama announced Bergdahl's release in a Rose Garden press conference with the soldier's parents, Jami (left) and Bob (right), in May 2014

BOWE BERGDAHL: A TIMELINE A look at key events from Bowe Bergdahl's capture until now: June 2009 - Bergdahl, who is serving with an Alaska-based infantry regiment, vanishes from a base in Afghanistan's Paktika province near the border of Pakistan. July 2009 - The Taliban post video online showing Bergdahl saying he is 'scared I won't be able to go home.' Bergdahl says he was lagging behind a patrol when he was captured. December 2009 - The Taliban release a video showing Bergdahl apparently healthy and making a lengthy statement criticizing the U.S. military operation. June 2013 - The Taliban propose a deal in which they would free Bergdahl in exchange for five of their most senior operatives at Guantanamo Bay. May 2014 - Obama administration officials announce Bergdahl has been handed over to U.S. special forces by the Taliban in exchange for the release of five Guantanamo detainees. Debate quickly rises over whether Bergdahl is a hero or a deserter. June 2014 - The Army says it is investigating the facts and circumstances around Bergdahl's disappearance. December 2014 - The Army says it has finished its investigation. March 2015 - Bergdahl is charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. October 16, 2017 -Bergdahl pleads guilty to desertion. November 3, 2017 - Judge sentences Bergdahl. Bergdahl is demoted to private, dishonorably discharged and slapped with a $10,000 fine. Advertisement

'Sgt. Bergdahl has been punished enough,' Banks added. 'Sgt. Bergdahl paid a bitter price for the choices that he made.'

During the multiday sentencing hearing, Bergdahl himself testified that he was sorry for the wounds suffered by searchers. He also described brutal beatings by his captors, illness brought on by squalid conditions and maddening periods of isolation, most of it in a cramped cage.

A psychiatrist testified that Bergdahl's decision to leave his post was influenced by a schizophrenia-like condition called schizotypal personality disorder that made it hard to understand consequences of his actions, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder brought on partly by a difficult childhood.

Prosecutors asked for a sentence of 14 years in prison, citing serious wounds to service members who looked for Bergdahl.

'Sgt. Bergdahl does not have a monopoly on suffering as a result of his choices,' said Maj. Justin Oshana, a prosecutor. Contrasting Bergdahl to the wounded searchers, he added, 'The difference is, all the suffering stems from his choice.'

Oshana also cited Bergdahl's own words to argue against the idea that his thinking was clouded. On a courtroom monitor he displayed quotes from an initial investigation after Bergdahl returned to the U.S. Bergdahl, who has said he walked off to draw attention to problems with his unit, described to an investigating officer how he envisioned the missing-soldier alert unfolding.

Bergdahl had said that the call goes 'all the way up to Army command, it goes to Air Force, it goes to Marines. ... It goes to every high point and everybody finds out about it.'

Bergdahl pleaded guilty October 16. The judge had wide discretion on sentencing because he didn't strike a deal with prosecutors to limit his punishment. A dishonorable discharge will deprive Bergdahl of most or all his veterans' benefits.

The 31-year-old soldier from Hailey, Idaho, was brought home by President Barack Obama in 2014 in a swap for five Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Obama said at the time that the U.S. does not leave its service members on the battlefield. Republicans roundly criticized Obama, and Trump went further while campaigning for president, repeatedly calling Bergdahl a traitor who deserved death.
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With sweeping views across the Yorkshire countryside and great transport links, Stott Hall Farm sounds like the perfect family home.

But its location comes at a cost as its inhabitants know only too well as the 18th century farm is sandwiched between two very noisy carriageways of one of Britain's busiest motorways.

Jill Falkingham-Throp moved into the famous property eight years ago with husband Paul and son John-William but said despite their triple-glazed windows, noise levels were 'grating'.

Pictured: An aerial view of Stott Hall farm near Huddersfield in Yorkshire, which sits in the middle of the M62

The stunning vistas of the property come at a cost as the Falkingham-Thorps know only too well as the historical home is based just metres from one of Britain's busiest motorways

Family life: Jill Falkingham-Thorp, left, lives at the farm with husband Paul Thorp, top centre, and son John-William, bottom centre

'Traffic is very close,' she said. 'But it's always windy here, which takes the pollution away. Students from the University of Huddersfield took soil and air samples and actually pollution is surprisingly low.

'We have treble glazing and it's no different to living anywhere that has a road.'

However, the rumbling from passing traffic can be annoying.

'The noise does affect me as I am quite noise sensitive. Paul is fine with it but it does grate on me.

'It's the sort of thing that if you are having a bad day the noise is the last straw. But it's not going away,' she admitted.

'Noise sensitive': Jill, who has lived at the farmhouse for eight years, said sometimes the noise can become unbearable

For years, millions of baffled drivers passed Stott Hall Farm in the middle of the M62 and wondered why it was there

The farm was saved because the land beneath the 15 acres which now lies between the carriageways was too steep - making it impossible to build all six lanes on

Jill and Paul threw open their farmhouse to the media today to promote Yorkshire Water's 'Beyond Nature' initiative which is aiming to protect peatland, wildlife and water resources.

The couple were happy to reveal the highs and lows of living on an upland farm at more than 1,000ft above sea level - and only around 40ft from the westbound carriageway of the M62.

Although they both have farming backgrounds in Holmfirth, life at Stott Hall Farm has taken some getting used to.

'It's got its own climate up here,' said Paul, who has worked at the farm since 1992 and lived there since 2008.

'This is home to us now and is what we are used to. The noise is fairly constant through the day but when it's a good clear day the noise does seem to drop.

'When it's wet and foggy you can hear the traffic.'

Stuck in the middle: As a result Stott Hall Farm, pictured above in the 1980s, remained exactly where it was and the M62 was built around it

Owner Ken Wild had refused to sell his land when plans for the motorway on the moors near the town of Brighouse were approved

Jill, who moved into the farm in 2009, is loving life there despite the challenges.

'Working on an upland hill farm is incredibly hard work. The grass doesn't grow because we are so high up and it's so cold. Really, the motorway is the least of our challenges.'

She recalled the early days living at Stott Hall Farm as very testing and difficult.

'When I first came the house was horrendous. It was dated and there was no bathroom upstairs. We had to rip all the flags up as everything was damp. All the carpets were mouldy and I was thinking "I can't have a baby and live in this."

'Paul had been living here on his own for a number of years. He was living in two rooms, living like a bachelor.

'I remember how cold the house was and there being a hole in one of the walls where you could see outside. A huge amount of work has been done and we are slowly getting there.

'A lot of people say it's bleak and like Wuthering Heights but I don't see it like that. I think it's beautiful.'

Farmer Ken Wild had refused to sell his land that his father had purchased in 1934 when plans for the motorway on the moors were approved. Pictured above, the property today

Cosy home: Having moved there eight years ago, Jill said it has taken a while for the family to make the famous farmhouse near Scammonden homely

Cosy home: Jill moved into the property with her family eight years ago and said it took a while to make the farmhouse a proper home

Farmer Ken Wild had refused to sell his land that his father had purchased in 1934 when plans for the motorway on the moors were approved.

Historical home: Stott Hall Farm, pictured, was built in 1737 - long before the arrival of motorcars

Yesterday plans to transform the property as part of Yorkshire Water's 'Beyond Nature' initiative were announced.

As part of the Beyond Nature vision, the farm will not only continue to focus on its traditional work looking after 900 breeding ewes on nearby Moss Moor, but also widen its scope to become a more sustainable farm for the future.

This will include restoring vitally important peatland bog on the farm which helps lock carbon dioxide in the land and reduces the risks of global warming.

Farmer Paul Thorp with his son John herding sheep on a quadbike on their unusual farm near Huddersfield in Yorkshire, which sits in the middle of the M62

Jill, who moved into the farm in 2009, is loving life there despite the challenges

To do this, the moors will be re-wetted by blocking grips and gullies to help raise the water table, which will also improve natural flood management resilience.

Across England, peatland stores more than 3billion tonnes of carbon in the ground - more than all woodlands and forests combined.

There are also plans to open a scientific and educational hub at the farm to enable students of agriculture to carry out environmental studies, such as how best to re-introduce native moorland shrubs.

Farmer Paul Thorp said: Undeniably, hill farming in the Pennines has its challenges, such as with soil quality and inclement weather as well as our motorway location.

However, we are confident that we can successfully combine a commercial livestock enterprise whilst also not only maintaining, but improving this wonderful diverse habitat for future generations as part of the Beyond Nature vision.
A schoolgirl in north-west China was found unconscious in a pool of blood after secretly giving birth during her lunch break.

It's claimed that the 16-year-old had concealed the fact that she was pregnant until she went into labour on November 1.

When being asked by a journalist why the teachers had not noticed the teenager was pregnant, the school's headmaster said the girl had always been 'short and chubby' before questioning the reporter 'you wouldn't be able to tell either, would you'.

The girl and her baby, a boy, were immediately taken to the hospital and they were said to be in stable condition.

A schoolgirl was reported to have given birth at a school (pictured) in Pucheng county, China

She was found lying in a pool of blood in an alley behind the school sports ground

According to Shaanxi Metropolitan Daily, the 11th-grade pupil from Pucheng Professional Education Centre, Shaanxi Province, delivered the baby boy during her lunch break on November 1.

An unnamed school member told the reporter that the girl was found lying in a pool of blood.

'The place where she gave birth was quite hidden and the environment was not ideal to give birth,' the member said.

Li Junfeng, the school's deputy headmaster, confirmed that a 16-year-old girl had indeed given birth in school.

'This student is short and a bit chubby. It'a difficult to spot if she was pregnant,' he said when a reporter asked him why the pupil's pregnancy had gone unnoticed.

The deputy headmaster added: 'I am not a gynaecologist, I could not tell if she was pregnant by looking at her. You wouldn't be able to tell either, would you?'

The 11th-grade girl was a boarding school student, who lives on campus five days a week

Mr Li argued that it's difficult to notice such incident at a school that has 1,700 students.

The girl, who remains unidentified, lives on campus from Monday to Friday and she has always been a bright student, according to Mr Li.

The teenage mother and the baby were taken to Pucheng Hospital immediately.

A gynaecologist told the reporter that the baby boy was born at full term but the girl was found to have symptoms of anaemia.

According to Mr Li, the school had noticed the girl meeting a boy outside the school and they had reported the situation to her parents.

It was claimed that her family did not take any action after being informed the news.

Pucheng Professional Education Centre said they would give all students lectures on sexual health following the incident.

A health check is also set to be arranged for all female students.
A Palestinian Islamist terror group has vowed to avenge five of its fighters who were killed when Israel collapsed a tunnel entering its territory from Gaza.

But Islamic Jihad said it will wait for a 'suitable time' for revenge as Gaza's Hamas rulers and Egyptian mediators try to keep tensions with Israel at bay.

After painstaking rescue operations, the Iran-backed terror group said on Friday the militants' remains were found on the Israeli side of the tunnel.

A Palestinian Islamist terror group has vowed to avenge five of its fighters who were killed when Israel collapsed a tunnel entering its territory from Gaza. Pictured: The tunnel

Palestinians hold rescue operations after Israel destroyed a cross-border tunnel linking the blockaded Gaza Strip to Israeli territory

Israel detonated the tunnel inside its territory on Monday in a rare flare-up along the tense border that has remained mostly quiet since a 2014 Israel-Hamas war

Israel detonated the tunnel inside its territory on Monday raising tensions along the border to a level unseen since a 2014 Israel-Hamas war.

Seven other militants, including two Hamas members, were suffocated by smoke, dust or possibly toxic fumes when they rushed into the tunnel to rescue others.

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the secret tunnel - 'a gross violation of Israeli sovereignty' - was found 'due to a significant technological breakthrough' and destroyed 'for operational reasons'.

The army did not say how the tunnel was destroyed but Palestinian sources claimed it was bombed by the Israel Air Force.

Israel denied reports the tunnel was bombed as an assassination attempt on Hamas commanders and denied that toxic fumes were deliberately sent into the tunnel.

Lieberman insisted Israel has no interest in an escalation but said 'The Strip is still the terror kingdom,' amid fears of retaliation.

It comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday he hoped a US peace initiative would work and praised President Donald Trump for taking a fresh approach to bringing the Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations.

For at least two decades, the goal of US-led diplomacy has been a 'two-state solution', meaning an independent Palestinian state living side-by-side and at peace with Israel.

But neither Trump nor his aides have publicly recommitted to a two-state solution, instead saying it is up to the two parties to work out in peace talks.

Islamic Jihad said it will wait for a 'suitable time' for revenge as Gaza's Hamas rulers try to keep tensions with Israel at bay

Members of Palestinian security forces loyal to Hamas pray near the border with Israel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip

Asked during a visit to London to commemorate the 1917 British declaration of support for a Jewish homeland if he felt now was the moment for peace in the region, noting Trump's involvement in peace efforts, he said: 'Hope so.'

The Islamic Jihad Movement The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine is a Palestinian Islamist terror organization formed in 1981. It wants the destruction of Israel and the establishment of a sovereign, Islamic Palestinian state. PIJ has been labelled a terrorist organisation by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. Iran is a major financial supporter of the PIJ. Like Hamas, the group which rules Gaza, it formed as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Advertisement

'What's being discussed now is an American initiative. Obviously we make our interests and our concerns known to Mr Trump. He's coming with a sort of refreshing 'can-do' thing... they're trying to think out of the box,' Netanyahu said at London's Chatham House think-tank.

Netanyahu has previously expressed doubts about the Trump initiative, telling France's President Emmanuel Macron in July that it would be difficult to move forward quickly because he felt Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas may not be able to deliver on commitments he had made.

But he said that more countries in the region were now beginning to engage constructively with Israel.

'The reason I draw hope from the moment is because of the larger shift in Arab-Israeli relations with the countries of the region. I cannot emphasise how dramatic that is,' he said.

The Palestinians seek to establish an independent state in the Israeli occupied West Bank, territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Most Israelis want all of Jerusalem as their capital and reject a full return to 1967 borderlines as a threat to their security.
There's nowt a Yorkshireman likes better than a Fat Rascal, but the fruity cakes have become the unlikely subject of a bitter legal feud between rival tearooms.

In a David and Goliath battle, the tiny Sandgate Cafe, which has just three customer tables, found itself under threat from the famous Bettys Tearooms chain because it dared to sell the plump scones - best served warm with cream and a cup of tea.

Owners Helen Matos, 52, and Mark Whittaker, 53, were shocked to discover the name of the Yorkshire delicacy, which Mr Whittaker learnt to make as a five-year-old boy at his mother's side, has been trademarked by Bettys.

Sandgate Cafe, in Whitby, North Yorks, has just three customer tables - and found itself under threat from the famous Bettys Tearooms chain for daring to sell Fat Rascal fruit cakes. The tiny cafe has been forced to rebrand them as Whitby Fatties (left). Right, Bettys' Fat Rascals

Sandgate cafe owners Mark Whittaker (above), 53, and Helen Matos, 52, established their shop when Mr Whittaker was made redundant from the local potash mine. He learnt to make the Fat Rascal delicacy as a five-year-old boy at his mother's side

And showing a steely resolve that belies its chintzy image, the firm jealously protected its brand with a threat of legal action if the cafe did not remove the name from the signs on its counter and its social media page.

The pair, who established the cafe in Whitby, North Yorkshire, when Mr Whittaker was made redundant from the local potash mine, were outraged when Bettys' company secretary, Sheila Huntridge, came to the shop in person to confront them.

They said Mrs Huntridge ordered the removal of the Fat Rascal brand immediately and followed up her visit with two legal letters.

Ms Matos said: 'We were absolutely flabbergasted that they would target our tiny little cafe, which they clearly see as some kind of threat.

Mr Whittaker and Ms Matos were outraged when Bettys' company secretary, Sheila Huntridge, came to the shop in person to confront them. Above, Bettys Tearoom in Harrogate

The Sandgate (above), which will have been open two years in February, had no choice but to comply with Bettys' demand. Their rebranded Whitby Fatties are now selling like hot cakes

'And for them to trademark the Fat Rascal name is preposterous. They have been made since the 1800s and the first one on record was made over a peat fire on the edge of Whitby in 1855.

'So if anyone has a right to sell them, surely it's a cafe in the town where they were invented?'

Bettys refused to relent and Mrs Huntridge sent a letter to the Sandgate Cafe pointing out that they were not merely a chain of tearooms but also operate a cookery school, craft bakery and sold its tea, coffee and cakes online.

She continues in her letter: 'Our company has been using the name FAT RASCAL for 30 years and we own UK registered trademarks for FAT RASCAL, YORKSHIRE FAT RASCAL, LITTLE RASCAL and a registered design for the FAT RASCAL face, copies of which are enclosed.

Bettys refused to relent and Mrs Huntridge sent a letter to the Sandgate Cafe pointing out that they were not merely a chain of tearooms but also operate a cookery school, craft bakery and sold its tea, coffee and cakes online

'We believe that your current use of the RASCAL mark puts you at risk of trademark infringement. I appreciate that you were unaware that your activities infringe our trademark rights and I am sorry that I had to bring this matter to your attention, but I am sure you will understand that, like all businesses, we have to protect out intellectual property rights.'

She asks that all use of the Fat Rascal name cease and be removed at once from menus, labels, promotional material and social media.

If anyone has a right to sell them, surely it's a cafe in the town where they were invented? Helen Matos, Sandgate Cafe co-owner

The Sandgate, which will have been open two years in February, had no choice but to comply and have now changed the branding to Whitby Fatties, which appropriately enough are selling like hot cakes.

Ms Matos said: 'I think the real problem here is that we were becoming very well known for our Fat Rascals, which are absolutely delicious and made fresh on site by Mark.

'Someone commented on TripAdvisor that ours are better than Bettys - that's a customer's words not ours - and I think someone at Bettys has noticed.

'We're ranked in the top three in North Yorkshire on TripAdvisor, which is well above Bettys, and I think they decided to try to put us in our place.

'I couldn't believe they went to the trouble of sending someone in person to speak to us. She came into the shop, stood in front of the Fat Rascals and said: "You are infringing our trademark".

Ms Matos (above with Mr Whittaker) said: 'We were absolutely flabbergasted that they would target our tiny little cafe, which they clearly see as some kind of threat'

'She said she was from Bettys but had no ID with her, I found the whole thing very heavy handed and told her she would have a full-time job on her hand policing the Fat Rascal because they're made all over Yorkshire.

'Her visit was followed up with letters and we're only a little business so we changed the cake to Whitby Fatties and they've become very successful, people absolutely love them and still say they're the best in Yorkshire - whatever we choose to call them.'

Mr Whittaker said: 'It's hard to define what a Fat Rascal is. The best way is to try one.

'It's somewhere near a scone and a rock cake, but it's neither. It's a simple recipe, a fat, a flour and fruit, and I learnt by watching my mum, Joyce and my Auntie Doreen.

'I was five and barely big enough to poke my nose over the kitchen table but I learnt from them and I've made them the same way ever since.

'How Bettys were ever able to trademark the name is beyond me, I guess no one thought to challenge it.'

Bettys have six tearooms, two in York, and one each in Harrogate, Beckwithshaw, Northallerton and Ilkley.

The firm Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate have owned the registered trade mark for the name 'fat rascal' since the early eighties.

According to the company it is 'a plump, fruity scone with a 'face' made from cherries and almonds based on a rock cake recipe' and was developed by Helen Frankel, then a buyer and marketing assistant at Bettys.

It went on to become the company's best-selling bake, shifting over 375,000 per year.

The cake was mentioned in a story by Charles Dickens, who likened them to the Singing Hinny, a similar bake from Northumberland. The 19th century method of making them always involved cooking them over a peat fire.

Bettys told MailOnline: 'We're sorry weve had to bring a disappointment to Helen at the Sandgate Cafe.

'While the name fat rascal has some references in old literature, the idea of a plump fruity scone, topped with natural cherry eyes and split almond mouth was created by Bettys over 30 years ago.

'Its since become one of our best-selling specialities. As a family business, were committed to protecting the name of our specialities for the future and on behalf of all those who hold Bettys dear. Its what any business has to do.'
Stephanie Marie DeBoer, 41, paid herself the money in checks over nearly four years, according to court records

An office manager stole more than $300,000 in union funds to pay rent and buy jewellery.

Stephanie Marie DeBoer, 41, paid herself the money in checks over nearly four years, according to court records.

She used the money to supplement her $55,400 salary at the Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 876 in Edmore, Michigan.

DeBoer was indicted earlier this year and pleaded guilty to embezzlement and theft of union funds at a federal court on Wednesday, the Detroit Free Press reported.

In return for her plea prosecutors dismissed a charge of failure to appear at two court hearings in July.

The mother-of-two faces up to five years in prison when she is sentenced in February and will have to pay the money back.

Losses from 2012 to September 2015 totaled upwards of $307,000, with money spent at chains including Victoria's Secret and Kay Jewelers.
On Tuesday, the proprietor of Montana's for-profit prison at Shelby, CoreCivic, (formerly Corrections Corporation of America) offered to contribute $30 million to help alleviate Montana's budget shortfall. Of course, there is a catch; this offer is contingent upon a ten-year extension of the prison's contract to house Montana inmates.

For several reasons, this is a bad idea, rejected out of hand by Gov. Steve Bullock. In the event of a special session, the Legislature should do likewise.

The most obvious reason is contractual blackmail: Unable to secure an extension on the merits, the owners dangle the bait in times of budget angst, akin to the solicitation by a payday lender to a cash-strapped consumer.

A long-term, recurrent issue is the propriety and performance of the Crossroads Correctional facility, and of private prisons in general.

I served on the Montana legislative Law and Justice Interim Committee in 2013 and 2014. The committee heard serious concerns about the operations of the Shelby prison. Former staff, inmates and family told of understaffing, poor food and medical care, and the lack of rehabilitative programs necessary for prisoner transition to society. The problems were chronic enough that some members even wanted to send a letter to the FBI asking for an investigation. Nationwide, CCA leaves a trail of lawsuits alleging prisoner neglect and public safety issues.

The Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, issued a scathing report on the Federal Bureau of Prisons monitoring of contract prisons, including CCA, last year. In a majority of the categories examined, "contract prisons incurred more safety and security incidents per capita than comparable BOP institutions". Particularly troubling was a finding that private prisons "had higher rates of assault, both by inmates on other inmates and by inmates on staff." Based on that report and other concerns, the Justice Department decided to begin phasing out private prisons in August of 2016, stating: "They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources .... they do not maintain the same level of safety and security."

Shelby and other private prisons are corrections on the cheap. I serve on the Criminal Justice Act panel for the federal courts, representing federal defendants, some of whom are housed at Shelby. The facility has exactly one visiting room for 600 inmates, which makes scheduling an attorney visit to talk with an inmate an ordeal. Attorney-client communications are a fundamental Sixth Amendment right and necessary to the functioning of the courts, yet Shelby has continually ignored this problem.

A final concern is Montana's constitutional provision for a balanced budget and the laws passed by the Legislature to get us there. Those laws mandate certain actions by the Legislature and governor when shortfalls occur. To deviate from that system by getting a payday loan from a failing industry sets a bad precedent  for this budget cycle and every other one in the future.
U.S. President Donald Trump said he was unsure whether his top diplomat, Rex Tillerson, would remain in his post for the rest of Trump's term in the White House and was 'not happy' that some State Department staff were not supporting his agenda.

In an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News late Thursday, Trump attacked the department under Secretary of State Tillerson and said he alone determines U.S. foreign policy.

'The one that matters is me,' Trump said. 'I'm the only one that matters because, when it comes to it, that's what the policy is going to be.'

Asked if he planned to keep Tillerson on board for the rest of his term, Trump told Fox, 'Well, we'll see. I dont know.'

Trump left on Friday on a trip to Asia with Tillerson following months of conflict between the two.

No endorsement: Donald Trump told Laura Ingraham on Fox News Thursday that he was not guaranteeing Rex Tillerson's long-term future in his cabinet

So happy together: Tillerson and Trump have been at the center of rising tensions for months. Tillerson was said by multiple sources to have called Trump a 'f***ing moron' in a private meeting, then declined to deny it when he was asked in public

Trump's comments drew criticism in Congress, where many fellow Republicans have joined Democrats in objecting to Trump's plan to slash spending on diplomacy and foreign aid, and his failure to fill key foreign policy jobs.

'One would hope that if he's the only one that matters that he at least gets some feedback from top staff who perhaps can know a little bit more about some of these things than he does,' Representative Eliot Engel, top Democrat on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, told Reuters.

Tensions between Trump, a real estate developer and reality television star in office since January, and Tillerson, former chief executive at Exxon Mobil Corp, resurfaced last month amid reports Tillerson had called Trump a 'moron' and considered resigning.

Tillerson later said he never considered leaving. Trump said they had a good relationship but criticized Tillerson as weak.

Tillerson's State Department has also been at odds with the White House over global issues including rising tensions over North Korea's nuclear program.

All cozy on Air Force One: Trump and Tillerson will be together for 11 days of the president's tour of Asia, which starts in Japan. He left for the first leg, with a stop in Hawaii, on Friday

Richard Haass, president of the Council of Foreign Relations, said Trump's comments spelled trouble not just for the current secretary but for overall foreign policy.

'It's not just about Rex Tillerson, it's about who comes after Rex Tillerson. If the president is not determined to make sure his secretary of state will succeed, the secretary of state can't succeed,' Haass told CBS News.

Tillerson has made overhauling the department a top priority and tightened control by consolidating his authority. Critics have decried the reorganization and unfilled jobs at a time when international crises continue around the world.

At a recent meeting of former national security advisers, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told H.R. McMaster, Trumps national security advisor, that the administration was gutting State. McMaster replied that there were people who did not support the presidents agenda, two people present told Reuters.

On Thursday, Trump said many of the posts were not needed and he is 'not happy' with others already there.

'I want my vision, but my vision is my vision,' he said. 'Rex is in there working hard ... hes doing the best he can.'
The European Union has warned Malta that the 'eyes of Europe' are watching as an investigation is underway into the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The funeral of the anti-corruption campaigner was held in Mosta, close to where she had been blown up in a car on October 16.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna also issued a stark warning to those responsible for the blogger's death.

At the private ceremony held for the blogger, Archbishop Sciculna told relatives: 'We still do not know who killed Daphne.

'Whoever took part, I tell you this: however hard you try to evade the justice of men, you will never escape the justice of God.'

Hundreds gathered outside the Rotunda Parish Church in Mosta, Malta, for the funeral of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia

Caruana Galizia was known for her extensive investigations and allegations into corruption against the Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's inner circle, and had recently begun looking into the opposition as well.

European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans, a leading official within the EU, said those responsible for her death must be brought to justice for their crimes as flags on EU buildings flew at half-mast as a mark of respect to the journalist.

Timmermans said: 'We insist that the Maltese authorities leave no stone unturned to make sure that this atrocious, barbarous assassination does not lead to the situation that the perpetrators apparently want to achieve: that no-one dares ask pertinent questions and no journalist dares investigate the powers that be.

'This will not happen in Europe. Not on this Commission's watch.'

The sons of murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia carry the coffin of their mother out of the church in Mosta

A file picture taken on April 4 2016 of Daphne Caruana Galzia, who exposed her nation's links with the so-called Panama Papers

The 56-year-old Dutchman was responding to an open letter from eight major news organisations, including the BBC, The New York Times, the Financial Times and France's Le Monde, demanding that the European Commission launch its own 'independent enquiry' into the death of Caruana Galizia.

Timmermans added: 'The eyes of Europe are on the Maltese authorities. Answers need to be provided and crimes prosecuted. We want those directly and indirectly responsible for this horrible murder to be brought to justice.'

It is unusual for the EU to comment on a criminal probe in a member state.

European Parliament chief Antonio Tajani has already demanded an international investigation into the murder.

Caruana Galizia's family has accused Muscat of creating a culture of impunity which had transformed Malta into a 'mafia island' following her death

Caruana Galizia's death has prompted soul-searching on Malta over whether the island's economic boom has brought with it a wave of corruption and organised crime.

Her family has accused the Maltese Prime Minister of creating a culture of impunity which had transformed Malta into a 'mafia island' following her death.

Her family had asked for Muscat, Malta's president and international media not to attend the event.

Caruana Galizia's sons Matthew, 31, Andrew, 26, and Paul, 21, carried her coffin which was covered in white flowers at the Roman Catholic ceremony.

The judge in charge of investigating the murder stepped aside from the case on Tuesday following objections from the Caruana Galizia family that she was too close to the Labour Party administration.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera had been accused of misconduct by the blogger and had threatened her with libel proceedings.

Caruana Galizia's death came four months after Muscat won a landslide victory in elections that were called early after she accused his wife of taking kickbacks from Azerbaijan's ruling family and hiding the cash in a secret Panama bank account.

The claims, which Muscat fervently denies, were the latest in a string of scandals on the island based on information leaked from the records of Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca.

The so-called Panama Papers revealed how wealthy individuals around the world, including a number of politicians, used shell companies based in the Latin American state and other tax havens to hide cash.

Among those exposed were Keith Schembri, Muscat's chief of staff, and Konrad Mizzi, a government minister. The premier resisted pressure to fire the pair, insisting their accounts were related to their private business and they had done nothing illegal.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange offered a 20,000 euros reward for anyone who provided information about the attack leading to the conviction of those responsible.

A Roman Catholic ceremony was held today in memory of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia
A woman who was believed to be dead is now facing up to 30 years in prison after being found guilty of federal conspiracy and fraud charges in faking her death.

Alexandra Hatcher pleaded guilty on Tuesday to federal charges after faking her death in 2015. She was living in Portsmouth, Virginia at the time, reported KTLA.

She and her husband Albert Hatcher Jr submitted fake death claims to collect her life insurance policies, and then went on to buy at least 20 luxury cars with counterfeit checks and forged documents.

Prosecutors have said the pair created fake death certificates and published a death notice in the Daily Press newspaper in an effort to legitimize the claims.

Alexandra Hatcher and her husband Albert Hatcher Jr pleaded guilty Tuesday to fraud charges after faking the woman's death in 2015

The now 49-year-old traveled to Washington state and legally changed her name in August 2015, court documents say.

She and her husband re-titled the cars they bought and used them as collateral for loans and to buy more vehicles.

The documents claim she used the name she took just before faking her death to buy, title and resell all of the cars.

The couple also sold some of the cars to dealerships for cash.

Both Hatcher and her husband pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud, possessing and uttering a counterfeit security of an organization, and conspiracy to commit mail fraud, according to KTLA.

They could each receive 30 years, and both are set to be sentenced in January and February of next year.
A married couple were at the centre of a trafficking ring which took Vietnamese girls from care and forced them to work in nail bars.

Viet Hoang Nguyen, known as Ken, and his wife Giang Huong Tran, known as Susan, were today convicted of modern slavery charges following an investigation which spanned the UK.

Another woman, Thu Huong Nguyen, known as Jenny, was also found guilty of forced labour charges after 60,000 in 50 notes was found stuffed inside a teddy bear in a wardrobe.

Viet Hoang Nguyen, known as Ken (left), and his wife Giang Huong Tran, known as Susan, and another woman, Thu Huong Nguyen (right), known as Jenny, face jail for trafficking

A court heard the probe was launched in February 2016 when officials raided a salon called Nail Bar Deluxe in Bath city centre.

Two young women, aged 17 and 18, were put in care following the visit, but they later went missing.

Police then traced them to a nail bar in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, which was also raided and arrests made.

Following today's convictions, DI Charlotte Tucker, of Avon and Somerset Police, said: 'Four victims have been identified so far, but we believe there will inevitably be more victims out there.

'These girls have had difficult and traumatic childhoods and were treated by traffickers as mere commodities  forced to live and work in unsuitable conditions, with little or no pay, and enduring both physical and verbal abuse.'

Both Viet Hoang Nguyen, 29, and his wife, Giang Huong Tran, 23, both of Burton, were found guilty of conspiracy to require others to perform forced or compulsory labour.

The probe took officers across the UK after a nail bar was raided in Bath city centre

Thu Huong Nguyen, 48, of Bath, was found guilty of conspiring to arrange or facilitate the movement of people for labour exploitation.

She was also found guilty of conspiring to require others to perform forced or compulsory labour.

The case comes after it emerged more than 150 Vietnamese youngsters have gone missing from their care and foster homes since 2015.

Baroness Butler-Sloss, chairwoman of the all-party parliamentary group on human trafficking and modern slavery, described the recent figures as 'very disturbing'.
The idea that British jihadis who went to the Islamic State war zone did not know what they were doing is 'fanciful', a top RAF commander said today.

Air Commodore Johnny Stringer, who was in charge of the air wars over Iraq and Syria until last month, said the notion they could have just dabbled with Daesh is 'rubbish'.

Speaking at the Ministry of Defence in London, he also revealed there could be a drawdown of UK personnel in the next four months, but warned the risk to the UK would remain.

His comments will be seen as a slap down of Britain's terror watchdog, Max Hill, QC, who sparked fury last month after calling for 'naive' teenage jihadis to be spared prosecution in the UK.

Air Commodore Johnny Stringer (pictured right at the coalition airbase in Qatar last month) today warned the idea that British jihadis who went to the Islamic State war zone did not know what they were doing is 'fanciful'

Air Commodore Johnny Stringer was in charge of the air wars over Iraq and Syria until last month

The comments will be seen as a slap down of Britain's terror watchdog, Max Hill (file) who sparked fury last month after calling for 'naive' teenage jihadis to be spared prosecution

But Rory Stewart, a foreign office minister, then said the only way of dealing with British fighters who have joined IS will be to kill them in almost every case.

Asked about Mr Stewart's comments, Air Cdre Stringer said UK jihadis had made themselves 'valid' targets by going to the war zone.

He said: 'I think the key part is that you have got British passport holders, British citizens who by their free will have elected to go out and frankly fight on Daesh's behalf.

'Let's not dress this up. They have made themselves valid targets in so doing.

'I think any sense that you could go out and have some sort of Daesh-lite activity is rubbish frankly.

'Equally any sense that you could go there and not know at heart just what a dark organisation it was and what it was conducting in Iraq and Syria and its longer term intent is probably fanciful.'

Last month one of Britain's most wanted women, Sally Jones, known as the White Widow, was killed in a secret CIA drone strike in Syria. Intelligence reports suggested her 12-year-old son was also killed.

The operation was made possible after President Trump granted the CIA powers to kill terror suspects with drone strikes  outside the control of the military  in March.

Air Cdre Stringer, whose job it was to approve military strikes in the war-ravaged nations at the time, admitted for the first time he had no idea the US were going to take her out.

Air Cdre Stringer was the operational commander for British air crews flying sorties over Iraq and Syria until last month (pictured is an RAF Typhoon at the Akrotiri airbase)

British crews (including an RAF Typhoon squadron pictured) have been launching air raids on ISIS in Iraq and Syria since 2014

He also said the British military is not told in advance of targets the CIA kills, even if it involves the death of a UK citizen.

It would have been unlikely the UK  which has much stricter rules of engagement than the US- would have approved the strike if it risked her son, he suggested.

He said: 'The premise of any air strike we took was zero casualties.

'From that answer you can probably deduce that we would have always sought to avoid being in that position if at all possible.'

Speaking about the end of the war, he said: 'We are clearly in the end game now for the campaign in Iraq and Syria.'

He said there would be an enduring contribution from Reaper drones and spy planes, but added: 'I'm hopeful that we may see the ability to drawdown elements of that final bit (fast jets) because frankly the tempo of our operations is going to reduce as Daesh are beaten in Iraq and in Syria.

'I would see us being able to do something in that area certainly in the next six and probably even in the next four months or so.'

White Widow Sally Jones (pictured) travelled to Syria to join ISIS with her 12-year-old son Jojo

But he said that IS would 'morph into an insurgent organisation', and warned the UK is still at risk from terror attacks.

He added: 'I think what we have seen is any notion that they are somehow supermen and that we would have real difficulties taking them on has been revealed as a falsehood'.

He also described how RAF personnel had taken out individuals 'plotting operations in the mainland UK that were able to identify what they were up to'.

These were people who had no interest in civilian life, who thought 'the bigger the outrageous spectacular the better'.

Last month Mr Hill was accused of a 'reckless disregard' for society after saying militants returning from the Islamic State war zone should instead be given space to reintegrate into UK communities.

The independent reviewer of anti-terror laws said those who return in a 'state of utter disillusionment' could be 'diverted' from the criminal justice system.

New Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said: As the campaign to defeat Daesh in Iraq and Syria enters its final phase, we will continue to support the international coalition to decisively defeat our common enemy in Iraq and Syria.

'It is only by defeating them and their poisoned ideology that we can keep Britain safe.
A bloody tactical knife helped police in Ohio link a man to the slaying of his fiancee's mother, who was found dead just days before the couple were set to wed.

According to court documents, Jeffrey Scullin, 20, allegedly stabbed and shot Melinda Pleskovic inside her Strongsville home on the night of October 23, then joined the victims unsuspecting husband for dinner at an Applebees, where his bride worked as a waitress.

Scullin later called 911 to report finding Pleskovic, 49, lying dead in a pool of blood and even acted as a pallbearer at the womans funeral, three days before he was arrested for her murder.

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Bloody trial: Police arrested Jeffrey Scullin Jr, 20, for the murder of his future mother-in-law, 49-year-old Melinda Pleskovic (right), after finding a tactical knife with the victim's blood on the blade and his own DNA on the handle inside a truck he had been driving

After the killing, police say Scullin met his future father-in-law and his wife-to-be Anna for dinner at the at the Southpark Mall Applebee's Neighborhood Grill and Bar restaurant

The suspect was arraigned on Friday morning in Cleveland on charges including aggravated murder, felonious assault and tampering with evidence in the October 23 slaying of the popular school teacher and married mother-of-three. He did not enter a plea.

A judge set his bond at $1million and his lawyer asked that the case now go to a grand jury. Scullins next court appearance is scheduled for November 13.

A search warrant affidavit filed on Thursday - and cited by Cleveland.com - said that police were able to identify Scullin as a suspect after searching a 2002 Chevy pickup truck that he had been driving and recovering a large tactical knife with blood on the blade.

The weapon was hidden beneath various items on the backseat, according to the records.

More blood was found on the inside door handle of the passenger seat, which matched the murder victim, and Scullin's own DNA was found on the handle of the knife leading to his arrest on Tuesday.

According to a narrative presented by police, Scullin killed his future mother-in-law, with whom had a history of disputes, then met his future father-in-law Bruce Pleskovic and his wife-to-be Anna for dinner at the at the Southpark Mall Applebee's Neighborhood Grill and Bar restaurant.

Scullin, who had been living with Pleskovic's family, was breathing heavily when he told a 911 dispatcher that he and the victim's husband Bruce had found her on the kitchen floor with blood all around.

She was found with stab wounds to her back and a medical examiner said she died of 'gunshot wounds and sharp force injuries'.

Police released no information about a possible motive when they revealed on Tuesday that he had been charged with aggravated murder.

During the 911 call, Scullin told authorities that he had taken his 18-month-old daughter and the victim's 18-year-old son, who has Down syndrome, out of the house after discovering her body.

'We just came home. She's on the kitchen floor. I took her son and my daughter outside. Her husband is inside with her now,' he told dispatchers.

'We found her in the kitchen. She's not moving. I took the kids and I walked outside... There's a lot of blood.'

It's not clear yet whether Scullin, who is an HVAC worker, has an attorney. He was being held on a $1 million bond.

Scullin was living with the victim's family at the time of the murder. He was engaged to marry her daughter Anna, who he shared a daughter with, and was a pallbearer at her funeral

Melinda Pleskovic was found with stab wounds to her back and a medical examiner said she died of 'gunshot wounds and sharp force injuries'

The victim's husband also spoke to 911 dispatchers telling them that people had been trying to break into their home 'all year' and 'now someone killed her'.

Police have released little information and would not say whether the suspect was linked to a series of attempted break-ins and suspicious activities at the home in the months leading up to the killing.

Pleskovic blasted Strongsville police for not investigating the strange incidents that were happening at the home.

Just days before, police investigated a report that an unknown man tried to enter the home by forcing open the back door.

Records show police investigated a report of a theft from a car in January, and they went to the house again in July to investigate a suspicious person.

Officers also were called in September when Melinda Pleskovic told officers a set of car keys were missing and that she kept finding her car unlocked and the alarm kept going off.

The victim's husband told 911 dispatchers that people had been trying to break into their home (pictured) 'all year' and blasted Strongsville police for not investigating the strange incidents
An 81-year-old man who was convicted in the 1972 murder of a nephew of notorious mob boss Carlo Gambino has pleaded not guilty to drug charges in Wyoming.

Henry Sentner of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, entered the written plea through his public defender on Friday in District Court. A judge didn't immediately set a trial date.

Sentner has been charged with possession of marijuana with intent to deliver and felony marijuana possession. He is currently free on $3,000 cash bail.

Henry Sentner, 81 (left), who convicted in the 1970s killing of a nephew of notorious mob boss Carlo Gambino (right) has pleaded not guilty to drug charges in Wyoming. The shooting stemmed from an apparent quarrel over gambling debt

He was pulled over on September 24 on a highway in southeast Wyoming for speeding.

Charging documents say about 35 pounds (16 kilograms) of marijuana was found in his vehicle.

District Attorney Jeremiah Sandburg said Sentner's 'colorful' past includes a 15-year prison sentence for the 1972 killing of Emanuel Gambino.

'In the time that I've both lived here and been district attorney, this is kind of unique to have somebody of this seasoned, as it were, to still be engaged in this conduct at his age,' Sandburg said in an interview.

According to New York Times stories published in the early 1970s, Sentner told federal authorities that he accidentally killed Gambino in May 1972 with a gunshot to the head in a deserted area in New Jersey for which Sentner spent 15 year in prison.

The shooting stemmed from an apparent quarrel over gambling debts and then led to an attempt by Sentner and two others to extort money from Gambino's wife.

Gambino's body was eventually recovered from a shallow grave months later.

In 1974, there was a report that Sentner had been hospitalized after being given cocoa laced with strychnine while he was federal detention for questioning in another case.

According to New York Times stories published in the early 1970s, Sentner (pictured) told federal authorities that he accidentally killed Emanuel Gambino in May 1972 with a gunshot to the head in a deserted area in New Jersey. He served 15 years in prison for the murder

Reports from Sentner's sentencing noted that his attorney voiced fear of 'mob vengeance' against Sentner and requested that Sentner serve his sentence at a prison in Alabama.

Sandburg said he doubted there were any parole conditions still in effect for Sentner stemming from the Gambino killing.

There has been no indication of any current mob connection involving Sentner, he added.

The US Attorney's Office in Wyoming had no information about Sentner's latest run in with the law, according to office spokesman Mark Trimble.
An army sergeant who allegedly tried to murder his wife and pocket 120,000 life insurance so he could start a new life with his lover today told a court he has had 'serious issues' with money and debts which 'spiral out of control'.

Sergeant Emile Cilliers, 37, gave evidence for the first time today in court, where he is accused of trying to kill Victoria Cilliers, 42, by sabotaging her parachute.

The South African, of the Royal Army Physical Training Corps, admitted to jurors he 'hid debts from his wife' and 'was afraid she'd leave him' if he told her.

Sergeant Emile Cilliers, 37, pictured here arriving in court today gave evidence in his defence against charges that he attempted to murder his wife Victoria in April 2015

Victoria Cilliers, left, pictured with her husband Emile, plunged 4,000 feet after her parachute failed during a jump at Netheravon airfield in Wiltshire, landing in a freshly ploughed field

Mr Cilliers told the court he had no idea about the type of parachute equipment his wife used

He said he relied on his wife to 'constantly bail him out' and even created a fictitious 'ombudsman' he was 'seeking financial advice from'.

But Cilliers, who allegedly tampered with Mrs Cilliers' parachute before a 4,000ft skydive, told the court he would have had 'no idea' what type of kit was inside the chute's container.

Father-of-six Cilliers, who moved to the UK in 2000, allegedly sabotaged the equipment by removing slinks before his wife's jump on April 5, 2015, at Netheravon airfield, Wiltshire.

Mrs Cilliers, a seasoned skydiver, spun helplessly to the ground after her main and reserve parachute failed. She miraculously survived the fall thanks to her light weight and a freshly ploughed field but suffered severe injuries breaking her pelvis, ribs and fractured her vertebra.

Mrs Cilliers, pictured only survived because of her slight weight and landing in a soft field

The prosecution alleged Mr Cilliers, pictured arriving in court today, sabotaged his wife's parachute equipment in an effort to cash in her 120,000 life insurance policy

The court heard Ms Cilliers was unaware of her husband's debts of between 5,000 and 6,000 when he moved into her home in Bulford, Wiltshire

Elizabeth Marsh QC, defending, today asked Cilliers a series of questions in regard to whether he would have had knowledge about what type of kit was inside Mrs Cilliers' hired parachute container.

She asked: 'Would you have had any idea what kind of reserve chute was in that container? Would you know if it would accompany that main?

'Would you have knowledge of the type of links between the line and risers used in that container? Did you know what kind of linkage was in there?'

Cilliers said 'no' to each question and added: 'I would have had no idea what type of kit was inside.'

The court heard Cilliers, who has prevously been described as 'financially incompetent', was already in debt when he split with his previous wife Carly Cilliers.

He said: 'I was in debt of around 5,000 to 6,000 when we split.

'I tried to deal with it but it spiralled out of control a little bit. I was finding it hard to deal with it, I had serious issues as I was spending money on things I should not have spent it on.'

He added that Victoria Cilliers was unaware of his debts when he moved into her home at the time in Bulford, Wiltshire.

Cilliers said: 'She was not happy about my debts, I didn't tell her from the start but she said she would help me.

Cilliers said: 'I was hiding from Victoria what financial strain I was in. I was living above my means and taking out loans to cover other loans.

'All my money would go on loans and by the end of the month I would take out another one to try and hide it.

'I was embarrassed, I was afraid Victoria would be ashamed of me. I wanted to tell her but was scared of the consequences, I was scared she might leave me.

'At first she offered to help me out with debts from Carly but then I started spiralling out of control again and I was constantly bailed out by Victoria.'

Cilliers told the court when he was under pressure from his wife to repay her, he lied by telling her he was having difficulties and 'getting advice from the Ombudsman'.

He said: 'I kept blaming things when money went missing or did not appear, I never told her the truth about the debts I was in and where the money I got went.

'There came a point where she had enough and gave me an ultimatum - to buy some time I made up a lie.

'I told her I had issues with money being transferred to my account and with financial advisors and that I was asking advice from the Ombudsman.'

Cilliers told the court parachuting, which Mrs Cilliers considered a 'huge part of her life', had 'never really done it for me'.

The court heard that Mrs Cilliers was a passionate and highly experienced sky diver

He said: 'Victoria's passion was skydiving but I had never done it, I never knew the route in but she told me about it and I thought I would give it a go.

'Parachuting was not a passion of mine, it's nice and a bit of an adrenaline thrill but it's never really done it for me in that way.

'I always jumped with other people, it's exciting especially formation skydiving. I did a few competitions with the army - I thrive on competition.'

He added that he had never deployed a reserve parachute or owned his own parachute rig.

Mr Cilliers, left, said he had planned to propose to his his wife, left, while climbing a mountain

Cilliers explained rock climbling was his 'passion' and he had planned on proposing to Mrs Cilliers on top of Table Mountain in his native South Africa after he trained her how to climb.

He said: 'Rock climbing was a passion of mine, I started teaching her as the plan was to climb Table Mountain in South Africa.

'The plan was to propose to her when we climbed to the top of Table Mountain but she had a meltdown halfway up the mountain face so I had to make another plan.'

The court heard details of how Cilliers first came to the UK in 2000 on a working holiday visa and moved around the country working various jobs. He met ex-wife Carly Cilliers while working in a pub.

He married Carly in Oxford, and they later moved to Ipswich, Norfolk, where he was working as an assistant manager in a nightclub and decided to join the army.

Cilliers said: 'In 2004 one day I was walking to work and came across an army careers office so I popped my head in, they asked if I wanted to join and it went from there.'

Cilliers, who said his father was in the South African army and raised him in a 'regimented and disciplined lifestyle', passed through the early stages of his career with ease and was awarded 'best recruit' in phase one of his training.

He had ambitions of joining the SAS and was posted in Plymouth, where he and Carly split up.

It is also alleged he tried to kill his wife by damaging a gas fitting at their home in Amesbury, Wiltshire, in a bid to cause an explosion shortly before the parachute jump.

Cilliers, who lives in army barracks at Aldershot, Hampshire, denies two counts of attempted murder and one count of criminal damage as to whether or not it recklessly endangers life.

The trial continues on Monday.
A devout Christian accused of carrying out female genital mutilation on his own daughter has appeared in court.

The 49-year-old, who is of African descent, faces two charges under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 relating to one child and three counts of child cruelty relating to three of his other children.

He denied all the charges against him at a plea and trial preparation hearing at Woolwich Crown Court.

The man denied all the charges against him at a plea and trial preparation hearing at Woolwich Crown Court (stock photo)

The defendant, from south London, is said to have committed FGM on one of his daughters between 2010 and 2013.

The child cruelty charges date from February 2009 and December 2016 for two of his children, and May 2011 and December 2016 for another.

FGM is illegal in the UK and it is also illegal to take a female abroad for the purposes of FGM. The maximum jail term for carrying out or enabling FGM is 14 years.

The man was granted conditional bail and will next appear at Woolwich Crown Court for a hearing on 21 December.

A provisional trial date has been set for 5 March.
Li Wei Gao (pictured) has a child with Hong Chin who ran a sex trafficking ring. She has been spared jail

Two women who helped a dog show judge run a lucrative prostitution ring described as a 'conveyor belt of cheap, sordid sex' have been spared jail.

Li Wei Gao, 44, and Ting Li Lu, 47, helped bulldog breeder Hong Chin, 45, make over 100,000 from pimping out 18 sex workers based around Gatwick Airport.

Chin began his 'shameful' double life as a pimp while running his business Royal Esher Bulldogs on a country estate in Surrey and presiding over dog shows, which included the London Bulldog Society Open Show in June 2015.

The 45-year-old, of Burton-Upon-Trent, Staffordshire advertised sex workers for up to 100 an hour on a website called 'adultwork.com' and used the money to send his and Gao's daughter to a top private school.

He is believed to have come to the UK from Malaysia in 1998, but the Home Office has no record of when he arrived.

He was jailed for four years last week after a trial at the Old Bailey ended in him being convicted of two counts of conspiracy to control prostitution for gain and two of conspiracy to traffic for sexual exploitation.

Today the mother of his child Gao and former girlfriend Lu walked free from court despite being found guilty of conspiracy to control prostitution for gain and traffic for sexual exploitation.

Ting Li Lu (pictured) is a former girlfriend of bulldog breeding pimp Hong Chin and has also been spared jail over her part in his sex trafficking operation

Judge Philip Katz, QC, told the court: 'You both chose not to give any evidence so I was unable to form a judgement of you apart from through the witnesses, which quite frankly was overwhelming.'

Addressing Gao, Judge Katz said: 'You have a daughter together, at some point you knew once you were in that relationship with him that he was in the business of prostitution.

'As I said when I sentenced Mr Chin, we heard from one of them in the court and her story, sad as it was, shows the level of exploitation suffered by the vulnerability of her position.

'You were the one acting as the channel of communication between the customers and the sex workers.

'Though you were not a founding partner you were extremely enthusiastic when you did join.'

Gao advertised the 100 an hour escorts on 'adultwork.com' while she lived near Chin's business in Esher, Surrey.

Customers are said to have paid for sex with cash for prostitutes in hotel rooms in Sussex, Hampshire, Kent, Surrey, Dorset, Thames Valley and Cardiff.

Gao and Lu, who was a sex worker herself, helped to run the escort service and traffic victims from China and South Korea between February 2013 and June 2015.

Minka Braun, defending Gao, said: 'Her daughter has been lucky enough to receive a private, paid for education.'

But the judge interrupted: 'Yes, while she was pimping - very, very unimpressive.

'As so often in these cases it is a young child who has done nothing wrong who gets caught up in this sordid business.'

Ms Braun continued: 'What is plain is that, on the topic of lavish lifestyle, there is no evidence other than her education.

'She is by all accounts an exceptional child and an exceptional musician.

Hong Chin (pictured) was jailed for four years last week after making over 100,000 from running a sex trafficking ring of 18 girls

'With respect no child gets that without being parented.'

In the space of three years Chin cashed in over 80,000 from the sex ring and paid 1,400 a month in private school fees for his daughter while he lived on a large country estate.

The judge said to Lu: 'You had been a sex worker yourself so you came to this business with open eyes.

'But it is to your shame that the exploited became the exploiter.'

Sarah O'Kane, defending Lu, said: 'What brought them together initially was their love of dogs.

'Mr Chin is a dog breeder and that is what brought them together.'

Chin claimed he earned extra cash through dog breeding, studding and adjudicating in dog competitions.

When the bulldog breeder's Surrey home was raided in June 2015 police discovered 2,900 in cash, 12 mobile phones and written notes containing numbers and messages relating to sex work.

Officers discovered a Legoland pass with his photo and the name 'Goon Saw' - an alias he used to book hotel rooms.

Last week Judge Katz told him: 'This is not a court of morals, but it is for you a truly shameful situation.

Chin (pictured left) was jailed for four years, while Gao (pictured centre) was given a two-year sentence suspended for two years and Lu (pictured right) was given a 26-week sentence suspended for two years

'At least two of the women you arranged for them to come here for them to have their prostitution controlled by you.'

The sex ring was uncovered by a human trafficking investigation called Operation Effect, which saw police identify sex workers staying in hotels including Holiday Inn and Airport Inn in Gatwick.

Only five of them admitted to being sex workers, despite being found in hotel rooms littered with used condoms and lubricants.

Gao, now of Oxshott in Surrey, was given a two-year sentence suspended for two years with a rehabilitation requirement of 15 days and 200 hours unpaid work for one count of conspiracy to control prostitution for gain and one count of conspiracy to traffic for sexual exploitation.

Lu, of Portsmouth, was given a 26-week sentence suspended for two years for one count of conspiracy to control prostitution for gain and one count of conspiracy to traffic for sexual exploitation.
In this troublesome era of anger, violence and blame, its well to look back to a kinder time, and the good and heartwarming story of a remarkable Montana character.

Dorothy Johnson grew up in poverty in Whitefish, and despite a life of crushing adversity, her achievement as a writer has been compared by some critics to that of Ernest Hemmingway, Mark Twain, Mary Austin, Willa Cather and Mari Sandoz. She has been described as possibly the greatest writer of Western fiction who ever lived.

Johnsons tough trail to the top is illustrated by a photo taken by Mel Ruder of the Hungry Horse News, which she found hilarious, and used on her personal stationary. It shows her from the backside struggling to mount a horse in a maneuver that even Mels dog found embarrassing.

From her early years Dorothy Johnson showed great promise as a writer, but her life was always a struggle. Her father died on Christmas Eve when she was 10 years old. In her teens, Dorothy survived by finding work as a telephone operator and the stringer covering Whitefish for the Kalispell Daily Interlake.

Inspired by University of Montana Professor H.G. Merriam, Dorothy graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in English. On her meager salary as a stenographer, she paid off the gambling debts of the deadbeat husband who had deserted her. A short story she wrote at that time was published by the Saturday Evening Post. Encouraged, Dorothy soon moved to the great publishing center of New York City.

Dorothy was able to support herself and her mother primarily as a proofreader and editor. Writing at night in her tiny Greenwich Village apartment, she sent literally scores of beautifully crafted short stories to dozens of publishers. For an agonizing 11 years, she did not sell a single story. Steadfastly believing she was the greatly talented writer Professor Merriam had assured her she was, Dorothy resolutely refused to give up. In her papers from that period, though, this quote was found:

It always breaks my heart when I get turned down. It doesnt get any easier to take. You should be able to get calluses on your soul.

Mostly male editors and publishers who received her stories couldnt believe their readers would accept that the author of these powerful and often violent stories was a woman. When her stories finally began to be published in the World War II years, her bylines usually appeared as D.M. Johnson.

Returning to her beloved Whitefish in 1945, Dorothys story sales again slumped. When her work at the Whitefish Pilot newspaper couldnt support her and her aging mother, she accepted a faculty position in the University of Montana School of Journalism and as manager of the Montana Press Association.

Her never-ending night writing continued in Missoula, and sales again picked up. Her big break suddenly happened when her story The Hanging Tree was made into a movie in 1959. Staring fellow Montanan Gary Cooper, it was a blockbuster. No longer disguised as D.M., Dorothy Johnson was suddenly and dramatically recognized for who she was.

"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," staring John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, soon followed on the silver screen, with similar block-busting success.

Dorothy Johnsons life was a tough struggle in a mans world before there was a womens movement. She bravely broke the barriers of her time.

Looking back, Dorothy noted that her characters were purely imaginary. She commented, no doubt with a twinkle in her eye, that she regrets this because I would like to meet some of them.
Terrion Pouncy, 19, has been charged with two counts of armed robbery after allegedly holding up a hot dog stand and accidentally shooting himself in the penis

A Chicago man is recovering in the hospital after he accidentally shot himself in the penis while allegedly holding up a hot dog stand.

Terrion Pouncy, 19, allegedly held two employees of Maxwell Street Express at gunpoint in Chicago's South Side neighborhood Tuesday morning.

Pouncy had pulled a gun and demanded cash from two employees at the hot dog stand, according to Assistant Cook County States Attorney Erin Antonietti.

Two men, ages 39 and 45, were working at the restaurant during the time of the robbery.

Pouncy allegedly held the gun to the head of the 39-year-old, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

He had been holding a bucket filled with grease and asked the other employee to get cash from the register. As they handed the cash and their wallets over, the bucket of grease spilled and the money went flying.

Pouncy allegedly attempted to rob Maxwell Street Express in Chicago's South Side neighborhood

Pouncy grabbed the money and tucked the gun in his waistband and began to flee.

As he ran, the gun accidentally went off and shot him in the penis.

He ran a few blocks away and then called 911 to say he had been shot. Police arrested him at the hospital.

He allegedly forced two employees to hand over cash from the register and their wallets before running out. His gun accidentally discharged and shot him in the penis

Police recovered the wallets he allegedly stole in addition to the .38 caliber gun that had caused the injury.

He has been charged with two counts of armed robbery.

The robbery was captured on surveillance footage. Pouncys boxers recovered at the hospital matched the underwear he had on in the surveillance video.
Strippers in New York have claimed a new wave of scantily clad bartenders are stealing their tips from under them.

The dancers are complaining that the bar staff, who call themselves 'startenders', dress as raunchily as they do and dance just as provocatively for cash-throwing customers.

They say the only differences are that they are behind the bar and not on stage, and unlike them, they do not have to pay the house to work there.

In some cases, they actually block patrons from the dancers on the stage by standing between them to serve drinks. It allows the bartenders to collect dollar bills that are thrown in the dancers' direction without anyone knowing who the money was intended for.

The disgruntled dancers say the dispute is also tinged with racism. They say most of them are black while most of the high-earning bartenders are white or Hispanic.

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Strippers in New York say bartenders who dress like they do and dance in front of customers are stealing their money and not giving them a fair chance to earn tips. Above, two bartenders are seen collecting cash from the stage as a dancer performs in an example of the alleged theft

They have launched a 'strike' which they are promoting on social media to draw attention to the issue.

Despite their proposed action, none have not actually stopped working because they say they need the money too much to take a break.

The strippers have launched an Instagram campaign to raise awareness about the issue and to encourage other dancers across the country to join their fight.

Startenders are a new breed of bar staff who becoming more popular across clubs in New York.

They draw in huge crowds by promoting clubs on their Instagram pages where they have millions of followers.

In another club, bartenders dressed in orange fishnet bodysuits are seen twerking for customers on the other side of the bar as they throw money. The dancers, in black and pink, do not get access to the cash because the bartenders take it for themselves

Stripper Gizelle Marie organized the strike after falling victim to other bartenders who she claims go as far as to tell customers not to tip the dancers.

'The [New York City] bartenders tell the customers not to tip us.

Stripper Gizelle Marie started the strike earlier this month. She doesn't believe the bartenders should be allowed to dance or, if they do, they should have to pay house fees like the dancers

'They block us from the customers while we dance or they are sweeping our money off the stage while we dance,' she told The Washington Post.

She said they were receiving the perks of their job but without having to pay the same penalties.

'They are basically doing our job and we are left without doing anything. We are just standing there. We are not the stars.

'Their job is to make drinks, and they are taking our job as well. They are dancing behind the bar. They are blocking us from being seen in the customer's eye. It makes the dancer lose her dignity standing on the stage, and make them not want to go to work. A lot of girls have stopped dancing.

'I don't feel that it's right that those bartenders are dancing for customers. What's the sense of us being there?

'They might as well take the poles out of the club,' she told Gothamist.

The strippers are now demanding that their house fees be lowered, that the bartenders should have to pay them too and that black women are hired as bartenders which they say does not happen enough.

Two bartenders have cash thrown on them as they dance beside the stage at another, unspecified strip club

House fees vary club by club and depend on the time of day.

In New York City, they are notoriously high, in some case several hundred dollars for a prime time weekend evening slot.

Industry experts say the competition between dancers and bartenders is inevitable and a bi-product of social media.

Their message to the dancers was to toughen up.

'The whole industry itself has changed. Some clubs are bartender-driven, but thats just because the bartenders are beautiful women.

'Nothing will come from the strike,' Sean Simmons, of the now closed-down Aces nightclub, said.
Wendy Hernandez, 35, pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping in federal court on October 18

A 35-year-old babysitter faces the possibility of life in prison after kidnapping a one-year-old boy and trying to pass the baby off as her own.

Wendy Hernandez had been babysitting one-year-old Jeremias Portillo of Fort Worth, Texas for several months on April 29, when she asked his mother's permission to take him on a quick day trip to visit her aunt in Plano, Texas.

The boy's mother, Ana Lilian Escobar, agreed, as long as Hernandez brought the boy back by the afternoon.

Later that day, Hernandez called Escobar and told her she wouldn't be able to return until morning because of dangerous thunderstorms.

Escobar was uncomfortable with her son spending the night away from her, but agreed to the babysitter's plans.

When morning came, however, Hernandez never showed up with the boy and stopped responding to the family's text messages and calls.

That's when the family decided to go to police and report little Jeremias missing.

'In that moment, honestly, I was thinking the worst,' Escobar told KXAS.

Police were able to track down the 'aunt' Hernandez was going to visit in Plano, who ended up just being a lifelong family friend.

In April, Hernandez kidnapped one-year-old Jeremias Portillo (left) from his mother Ana Lilian Escobar (right) and tried to pass him off as her own

That woman told police that Hernandez never visited her, but did call her telling her not to tell anyone about her whereabouts.

The friend betrayed her request, telling cops that she fled to North Little Rock, Arkansas to meet up with an ex-boyfriend.

When police tracked the couple down, they learned that Hernandez had brought the baby to her ex and convinced him it was his. The two then decided to start living together as a family.

Police shattered that dream pretty fast when they arrived in North Little Rock just a day later, on April 30, and arrested Hernandez. The boyfriend was not taken into custody and is not facing charges.

Little Jeremias was back in his mother's arms just three days after going missing.

'It was the happiest day of my life,' his mother said.

Hernandez faces up to life in prison for kidnapping, but may get a lesser sentence since she accepted responsibility for the crime.

Court documents hint that she may be in the country illegally since there's a part of her plea in which she says she recognizes that she may be thrown out of the country after serving her sentence if officials discover she is an illegal immigrant.

Hernandez is scheduled to be sentenced in February.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has responded to a searing critique running the Democrat National Committee, saying she is 'proud' of her controversial tenure but failing to address claims she essentially handed over the party to Hillary Clinton.

The former DNC chair issued a statement after her successor, interim chair Donna Brazile, released a book excerpt where she said Wasserman Schultz was 'not a good manager' and allowed Clinton to virtually take over the party even before she captured the nomination.

'It was a tremendous honor to be asked by President Obama to serve as chair of the DNC,' the Florida Democrat said in a statement reported by MSNBC.

'I am proud of the work our team did to support Democrats up and down the ballot in the 2016 election and to re-elect the president in 2012.'

Her statement continued to gush about party unity without directly responding to any of Brazile's charges about her tenure.

'PROUD': Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz responded to charges that that she allowed Hillary Clinton to virtually take over the DNC before she got the nomination

'With Donald Trump in the White House, Democrats must stay focused on enacting a progressive agenda to protect our citizens, our values and our democracy and remain united towards our goal of electing Democratic congressional majorities congressional majorities in 2018,' she continued.

Hillary Clinton's campaign seized control of the Democratic National Committee months before she won her party's nomination, diverted resources away from struggling state parties, and allowed the national party to accumulate a mountain of debt, writes Brazile.

Brazile made the charge in a tell-all article about the dysfunction and mismanagement she uncovered at the organization she was brought in to run after hacked emails revealed efforts by party insiders to tilt the scales toward Clinton.

Brazile, who was herself thrown into controversy when it was revealed she passed on debate questions to the Clinton camp, unloads on her predecessor, Wasserman Schultz, and discloses a smoking gun document in the form of a fundraising agreement that sent resources to the Clinton camp.

Brazile says she called rival Bernie Sanders had told him she had discovered 'cancer' in the organization

Astonishingly, Elizabeth Warren - who campaigned with Clinton - said she believed Brazile.

Asked on CNN by Jake Tapper: 'Do you agree with notion that it was rigged' she answered simply: 'Yes.'

President Trump has leapt on the controversy generated by the stunning article, returning to his 2016 pronouncements about 'Crooked Hillary' and 'crazy Bernie.'

Hillary Clinton on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Credit: Comedy Central/The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

Former interim DNC chair Donna Brazile has written a scorching book about the Clinton camp's virtual takeover of the party before she got the Democratic nomination

'Debbie was not a good manager. She hadn't been very interested in controlling the partyshe let Clinton's headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired so she didn't have to inform the party officers how bad the situation was,' Brazile writes in an essay in Politico magazine.

Brazile only learned of the party's financial troubles in July after she was named interim chair after Wasserman Schultz stepped down, in a call with CFO Gary Gensler.

'What?' I screamed. 'I am an officer of the party and they've been telling us everything is fine and they were raising money with no problems,' she writes that she told him.

One culprit was President Obama, who failed to refill party coffers after his 2012 win.

'Obama left the party $24 million in debt$15 million in bank debt and more than $8 million owed to vendors after the 2012 campaign and had been paying that off very slowly. Obama's campaign was not scheduled to pay it off until 2016,' Brazile writes.

Clinton's fundraising took care of the remaining debt - then put the DNC, which is supposed to be neutral until there is a nominee, on 'an allowance.'

Gensler laid out the state of affairs in a phone call. 'He described the party as fully under the control of Hillary's campaign, which seemed to confirm the suspicions of the Bernie camp. The campaign had the DNC on life support, giving it money every month to meet its basic expenses, while the campaign was using the party as a fund-raising clearing house,' according to Brazile.

Brazil says Wasserman Schultz ignored her board of directors, including on the bombshell development that Russia hacked the DNC's emails.

'She seemed to make decisions on her own and let us know at the last minute what she had decided, as she had done when she told us about the hacking only minutes before the Washington Post broke the news,' she writes.

When the Hillary Victory Fund organized big donors fundraisers who cut checks that were to go to state parties, the funds came back to her won Brooklyn headquarters.

'Money in the battleground states usually stayed in that state, but all the other states funneled that money directly to the DNC, which quickly transferred the money to Brooklyn,' according to Brazile.

States 'kept less than half of 1 percent of the $82 million they had amassed from the extravagant fund-raisers Hillary's campaign was holding,' according to Brazile.

The party was burning through up to $4 million each month.

'When I got back from a vacation in Martha's Vineyard, I at last found the document that described it all: the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America,' according to Brazile.

In exchange for its fundraising, 'Hillary would control the party's finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff,' according to Brazile.

'Bernie Sanders supporters have every right to be apoplectic of the complete theft of the Dem primary by Crooked Hillary!' President Donald Trump tweeted Friday, exploiting the infighting.

'I always felt I would be running and winning against Bernie Sanders, not Crooked H, without cheating, I was right,' the president wrote.
Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock had lost a large portion of his wealth over the last two years thanks to mounting gambling losses and real estate deals, which the local sheriff speculates might have driven him to violence.

In an interview with local news station KLAS Wednesday night, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said that Paddock, a millionaire property investor with a passion for high-stakes gambling on video poker machines, hit a rough patch in his finances beginning in September 2015.

'I think that might have a determining factor on what he determined to do,' Lombardo said.

Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo (left) says he thinks Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock's money problems might have driven him to violence

The sheriff said that while Paddock was a 'pretty prolific' gambler, his financial records indicate that 'he was going in the wrong direction.'

CNN reported last month that in 2014, Paddock bought a 2,000-square-foot ranch-style home in Mesquite, Nevada, paying nearly $370,000 in cash for the property.

Over the years, he amassed a portfolio of nine homes, apartments and condominiums in Florida, Texas, California and Reno, Nevada.

Lombardo also said that because of his flagging fortunes, the retired accountant who reportedly gambled $1million a year was concerned about his standing at casinos and with his friends and family.

'Obviously, that was starting to decline in a short period of time, and that may have a determining effect on why he decided to do what he did,' Lombardo said.

As local and federal investigators continued looking for a motive behind the October 1 massacre that left 58 dead and more than 500 others wounded, Lombardo said he was eagerly awaiting the results of a neuropathological examination of Paddock's brain tissue, hoping that it would help answer the question: 'why?'

During the interview, Lombardo also talked about Paddock's girlfriend, suggesting that she might be withholding information from investigators.

Marilou Danley has feigned ignorance of her boyfriend's plans to kill dozens at the Route 91 Music Festival last month.

While that may be true, Lombardo said, he finds it suspicious that Danley hasn't offered any information about why her boyfriend suddenly started amassing a massive arsenal of weapons.

Danley was in the Philippines when Paddock went on his rampage - shooting at hundreds of concertgoers below from his room in the Mandalay Bay hotel (above)

In the days before the shooting, Paddock wired his girlfriend $100,000. She says she thought he was breaking up with her. Above, the mess left at the music festival when the panicked concertgoers fled for their lives

'There is a lot of people that have hundreds and hundreds of guns, but for this individual to do it at a certain point in time and to do it all with such robust action, you would think that Ms. Danley would have some information associated with that,' he said. 'But currently we havent been able to pull that out of her, if its in her.'

'It could have been prevented on many levels,' he added. 'Marilou Danley, his brother, anybody that may have had some modicum of information that would have presented this individuals state of mind, but apparently right now we dont know that.'

Lombardo revealed that Danley will be interviewed again this week.

Danley was out of the country when Paddock carried out the attack, visiting family in the Philippines on a plane ticket her boyfriend bought her at the last minute.

She has said that she thought Paddock was breaking up with her when he sent her to the Philippines, and then wired her $100,000 a few days before the attack.

She immediately returned to the U.S. after the attack to be interviewed by law enforcement.
When President Trump arrives in Beijing to make an aggressive trade push for American exports to China, he'll bring more than his negotiating reputation.

The White House has invited at least 29 bigwigs to join him at a state banquet on November 9, including CEOs from the financial, technology, energy, aerospace, agriculture and chemical sectors.

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf, Cheniere Energy CEO Jack Fusco and Air Products CEO Seifollah Ghasemi will be there.

So will Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Kevin McAllister, DowDuPont Executive Chairman Andrew Liveris, U.S. Soybean Export Council Chairman Jim Miller and Air Products CEO Seifollah Ghasemi.

Alaska Governor Bill Walker is also on the guest list, according to CNBC.

President Donald Trump will take more than two dozen business titans when he is feted at a state banquet in China next Thursday, including CEOs from the financial, technology, energy, aerospace, agriculture and chemical sectors

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein (left) and Qualcomm Inc. CEO Steve Mollenkopf (right) will be among Trump's guests in Beijing as he pushes for new trade deals

Alaska Governor Bill Walker is also on the guest list, according to CNBC

The network obtained a banquet attendance list submitted to China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The business titans and corporate dealmakers are making the trip to engineer trade agreements that will chip away at the trade deficit the U.S. has with China.

The White House chose to invite executives from companies that are prepared to announce 'done deals' to export products to China.

'The Chinese are always willing to play ball with regard to concrete purchases," said Bruce Hirsh, principal at Tailwind Global Strategies and a former official at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative during the Obama, George W. Bush and Clinton administrations.

'The bigger question is whether they're willing to deal with broader trade problems,' he told CNBC.

Senior White House officials have told reporters that Trump is intent on re-balancing what he calls a 'colossal' trade imbalance with Beijing.

Cheniere Energy CEO Jack Fusco (right) and Air Products CEO Seifollah Ghasemi (left) are part of the Trump delegation

Trump embarked Friday on a long swing through Asia, including stops in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines

In 2016 that deficit stood at $347 billion; American exports to China amounted to just $116 billion, while the U.S. imported $463 billion worth of goods.

The president said Wednesday at the White House that 'we have trade deficits with China that are through the roof. They're so big and so bad that it's embarrassing saying what the number is.'

In an Oct. 30 briefing with reporters, China's ambassador to the United States said he was optimistic that both countries would benefit from any new trade deals.

'I think the two teams have already spent a lot of time and a lot of energy on' economic and trade cooperation, Ambassador Cui Tiankai said. 'I am confident that there will be a significant outcome, or what we call deliverables, on the economic and trade front.'
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As the First World War raged across Europe, the age of monarchy in Russia, which had barely evolved from feudal times was approaching a dramatic and bloody end.

Tsar Nicholas II had led his nation to war against the Axis powers, supporting his allies in Britain and France against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Yet, Russia was grossly unprepared for war with a lack of industrialisation. Her deficiencies had been shown during her surprising defeat during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5.

 Slide me  Soldiers are photographed in February 1971 on Liteyniy Prospekt in St Petersburg, manning a barricade while shoppers are photographed some 100 years later crossing the same street without the threat of bread shortages

An incredibly limited form of democracy had been instituted with the creation of a parliament in 1905 - the Duma. Although the vast majority of power remained with the Tsar.

By February 1917 (March under the western Gregorian calendar), Russia was stretched to breaking point. The war was incredibly unpopular and in the imperial city of Petrograd - previously known as St Petersburg - workers took to the streets in order to protest against the lack of bread.

Authorities responded by putting troops on the streets, who opened fire on unarmed workers, leading to a constitutional crisis. The Tsar decided to step aside allowing a provisional government to take over under Alexander Kerensky.

Kerensky decided to continue with the war despite its unpopularity and announced major reforms, including plans to extend voting rights and increase democracy. They also announced plans for land reform, but importantly, these had been delayed until after the war.

 Slide me  These images show the Winter Palace and Dvortsovaya Square in St Petersburg pictured 100 years apart

 Slide me  These photographs from Moscow show soldiers marching with a banner proclaiming communism on a road leading to Red Square, while 100 years later school children walk past shops

 Slide me  These photographs from the same spot around 100 years apart feature the a boat sailing up the River Neva past the WInter Palace in St Petersburg, Russia

Between February and October, the Bolsheviks were busy recruiting members for their Red Army - who first saw action defending Petrograd against a rogue general Lavr Kornilov, who was attempting to seize the city in August.

The Provisional Government were unable to mount a defence against Kornilov's advance. The Bolsheviks, who had been planning their own revolution, were able to mount strikes across the rail network, preventing Kornilov from enacting his plan.

Yet, the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin spent several months planning a second revolution to overthrow the provisional government, halt the war and introduce a communist dictator ship.

By the time of the October Revolution, the Provisional Government had been fatally weakened and Lenin quickly replaced the Duma with his own government.

The Bolshevik revolution was initially bloodless, but the new regime soon ordered the execution of Tsar Nicholas and his family, bringing an end to the Romanov dynasty.

The collapse of Imperial rule sent shockwaves across Europe, especially in the period after the First World War with fears that communism could sweep across Europe.

Vladimir Lenin faced a civil war against elements still loyal to the overthrown regime as well as capitalists and liberals.

 Slide me  In this photograph of Tverskaya zastava square in downtown Moscow photographed in October 1917 women queue for food outisde a shop, which some 100 years later is a plush hotel

 Slide me  A demonstration on Liteyniy Prospekt in St. Petersburg, photographed in October 1917, left, has been replaced by commuter traffic some 100 years later
Kevin Spacey was the focus of a 2012 investigation on the set of House of Cards.

Media Rights Capital told CNN on Thursday that during the filming of the show's first season there was a complaint made about 'a specific remark and gesture' made by Spacey.

The studio said that they launched an investigation into the incident soon after the unidentified worker complained, and were 'confident the issue was resolved promptly to the satisfaction of all involved' after Spacey went through a 'training process.'

What the studio did not do however is tell higher-ups like the creator of the Emmy-winning series.

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Fall from grace: Kevin Spacey was investigated after a crew member filed a complaint against him during filming of the first season of House of Cards in 2012 (Spacey in a scene from 2013)

In the DARK: Producers for the show and its studio Media Rights Capital opted not to tell show creator Beau Willimon about the incident however for unknown reasons (Willimon and Spacey above in 2014)

'Mr. Spacey willingly participated in a training process and since that time MRC has not been made aware of any other complaints involving Mr. Spacey,' said the studio.

That remark came off a bit odd seeing as it was issued in response to a story that detailed the sexual harassment or assault that eight crew members claimed to have suffered at the hands of Spacey on the 'House of Cards' set.

Things then took another bizarre turn when the show's creator Beau Willimon said that he was hearing about this complaint for the first time on Thursday.

It is unclear why producers made the decision not to tell the man who put the show together about the incident.

Spacey is an executive producer on the series, as is his co-star Robin Wright.

'We are deeply troubled to learn about these new allegations that are being made to the press concerning Kevin Spacey's interaction with members of the crew of House of Cards,' said MRC in their statement.

'As the producer of the show, creating and maintaining a safe working environment for our cast and crew has always been our top priority. We have consistently reinforced the importance of employees reporting any incident without fear of retaliation and we have investigated and taken appropriate actions following any complaints.'

Then came the news of the incident five years ago of the set of the show.

'For example, during our first year of production in 2012, someone on the crew shared a complaint about a specific remark and gesture made by Kevin Spacey,' read the statement.

'Immediate action was taken following our review of the situation and we are confident the issue was resolved promptly to the satisfaction of all involved.'

NBC News spoke with someone who worked on the set for two years and got a much different story however than the one being told by MRC.

That person, whose identity was not revealed, said that their colleagues felt uncomfortable with Spacey's behavior and did in fact complain to superiors.

Spacey routinely gave special attention to men, especially the lower level production assistants, said the former crew member.

There weren't any secrets about that behavior.

Netflix also fired back with their own response, which seemed to hint at a possible split between the companies.

'Netflix was just made aware of one incident, five years ago, that we were informed was resolved swiftly,' said the company.

'On Tuesday, in collaboration with MRC, we suspended production, knowing that Kevin Spacey wasn't scheduled to work until Wednesday. Netflix is not aware of any other incidents involving Kevin Spacey on-set.

'We continue to collaborate with MRC and other production partners to maintain a safe and respectful working environment.

'We will continue to work with MRC during this hiatus time to evaluate our path forward as it relates to the production, and have nothing further to share at this time.'

Comment: Willimon wrote on Monday: 'During the time I worked with Kevin Spacey on House of Cards, I neither witnessed nor was aware of any inappropriate behavior on set'

Once friends: 'I am heartsick that anyone on the crew had to endure this sort of behavior. Clearly we as an industry, particularly those in a position of power, myself included, need to be more perceptive and proactive,' said Willimon (abive honoring Spacey in 2014 at the Moving Image)

The statement from MRC caused additional issues because it came just a few days after Beau Willimon, who created the program, commented on the allegations made by Rent star Anthony Rapp.

'Anthony Rapp's story is deeply troubling, wrote Willimon on Twitter.

'During the time I worked with Kevin Spacey on House of Cards, I neither witnessed nor was aware of any inappropriate behavior on set or off.'

He went on to state: 'That said, I take reports of such behavior seriously and this is no exception. I feel for Mr. Rapp and I support his courage.'

The fact that the studio knew made many assume Willimon did as well, and was possibly not telling the whole truth on Twitter.

That was not the case however he explained to Deadline, saying: 'The production did not inform me of the incident that occurred in season one regarding Kevin Spacey or of any action taken as a result.'

He went on to say: 'I am heartsick that anyone on the crew had to endure this sort of behavior. Clearly we as an industry, particularly those in a position of power, myself included, need to be more perceptive and proactive.

'We also need to do a better job at empowering and supporting our colleagues who come forward.'

Spacey meanwhile is currently receiving treatment after being dumped by his agent in publicist in the wake of multiple claims that he assaulted minors.
Paul Manafort was granted more time in presenting a bail package on Friday after his lawyers said they needed more time identifying assets for his $10 million bail, DailyMail.com has exclusively learned.

The former Trump campaign chairman entered a not guilty plea on Monday, before being freed on a $10 million bond and agreed to be on 'home detention' as a condition of his release.

A federal judge ordered him to wear an ankle bracelet while on house arrest so he can't flee the country, as it was revealed on Wednesday he was holding three passports.

Manafort's legal team claimed on Thursday that evidence against their client had been 'embellished' and argued that because of his 'strong family ties' he wasn't a flight risk and his hefty bail was enough to keep him put.

However, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson quickly rejected that notion later that day, simply stating: 'I have concerns about flight'.

But in a small win, Manafort's lawyers were granted a motion that allowed them until Saturday in coming up with a package that both parties could agree upon, according to court documents.

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Paul Manafort was granted more time in presenting a bail package on Friday, after his lawyers said they needed more time identifying assets for his $10 million bail

Manafort's legal team claimed on Thursday that evidence had been 'embellished' and argued that because of his 'strong family ties' he wasn't a flight risk. However, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jacksons disagreed and said she was concerned about flight for Manafort and Rick Gates. Pictured: Manafort (left) on Monday and Gates on Thursday

According to court documents: 'Counsel for Mr. Manafort have been actively attempting to identify assets that can be pledged as part of a bail package that the Government and Mr. Manafort can agree upon and submit for the Courts consideration.

'This has been occurring since the status conference yesterday, through last evening, and continuing throughout today. The discussions are progressing, but additional time is necessary to finalize the particulars of a jointly agreed-upon bail recommendation.'

The court granted Manafort's request on Friday.

On Thursday, Manafort's lawyers had claimed Manafort wasn't a flight risk in attempt to get their client out of his ankle monitor.

They also worked to dismiss the outcry over Manafort having three passports, saying: 'Although it might be surprising to some, it is perfectly permissible to have more than one U.S. passport, as individuals who travel abroad extensively no doubt know.'

The failed motion was in response to a court filing submitted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that said Manafort and his former business partner Rick Gates, 'pose a risk of flight based on the serious nature of the charges' against them, their substantial means and foreign connections.

The official also said some house arrest pretrial arrangements can come with allowances for leaving the house for work, school, church services and even grocery shopping.

Along with his business partner Rick Gates (right), Manafort had the first charges from the probe of possible Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. A courtroom sketch shows Manafort (center) and his former protege Gates entering their not-guilty pleas

Manafort's legal team claimed evidence has been 'embellished' and argued that because of Manafort's 'strong family ties' he is not a flight risk

$5 MILLION LIGHTER: Rick Gates left court where he too was placed on home confinement as part of a multi-million-dollar bond arrangement to avoid custody as his trial approaches

A bail memo Mueller's team submitted to the court justifying the pair's house arrests and electronic monitoring revealed additional details about conduct the special counsel's office found concerning, like the email address and phone that Manafort registered under an alias.

The phone Manafort took to Mexico in June, and China and Ecuador in May. Manafort registered the alias email address in March, before the Department of Justice approved a special counsel investigation.

Manafort had been under scrutiny long before that, though. He was sidelined and then ousted from Trump's campaign in August of 2016 when he was accused of accepting an off-the-books payment of $12 million from the ex-leader of the Ukrainian government for political consulting work he was known to have done.

Manafort and his protege Gates were indicted on Monday on 12 charges that involve their foreign bank accounts and money laundering. According to the government, they had close to $75 million that mostly hid in overseas accounts.

The pair entered not guilty pleas in a federal courtroom, telling a magistrate judge that they'll fight the Justice Department in court. Manafort lives in Alexandria, a close-in suburb of Washington. Gates resides in Richmond, more than 100 miles to the south.

The charges against the men are the first from the probe of possible Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election were unsealed.

His lawyers tried to dismiss the outcry over Manafort having three passports, saying: 'Although it might be surprising to some, it is perfectly permissible to have more than one U.S. passport, as individuals who travel abroad extensively no doubt know'

CIRCUS: Kevin Downing, attorney for Paul Manafort, spoke to reporters after the preliminary hearing on Monday

The indictment against Manafort, 68, and Gates, 45, includes 12 separate criminal counts: conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Trump insisted via Twitter shortly after the indictments that there was 'NO COLLUSION' and Manafort's lawyer told reporters camped outside of the courthouse on Monday afternoon that the president 'was correct'. 'There is no evidence that Mr. Manafort or the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government,' Kevin Downing said. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said during a Monday press briefing that the 'announcement has nothing to do with the president, nothing to do with the president's campaign or campaign activity.' Sanders told DailyMail.com that Trump and Manafort 'haven't spoken in several months. The last known conversation was back all the way to February.' She said that 'there was some initial contact' with Gates 'after the president was sworn in, with him at meetings here at the White House  but nothing directly with the president.' The government alleges that at least $75 million was moved by Manafort to offshore accounts without declaring the income to the government. From there Manafort allegedly withdrew $18 million to fund a lavish lifestyle, and Gates is accused of pulling out another $3 million. Monday afternoon's preliminary hearing was before U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson. Gates' spokesman Glenn Selig issued a strident defense of his client after his court appearance. He said the former Trump campaign hand 'welcomes the opportunity to confront these charges in court. He is not going to comment further until he has had a chance to review the lengthy indictment with his legal team,' he said. 'In the meanwhile, he would appreciate you respecting his and his family's privacy as they weather this unexpected and hasty proceeding designed to accommodate perhaps political and press considerations rather than his right to have counsel of his choice by his side during this most troubling and challenging day for him and his loved ones. This fight is just beginning.'

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation has brought its first criminal charges and yielded three arrests  including one low-level guilty plea

Kevin Downing, the attorney for Paul Manafort, told reporters in a statement that 'there is no evidence that Mr. Manafort or the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government'

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told DailyMail.com during Monday's briefing that Trump and Manafort 'haven't spoken in several months. The last known conversation was back all the way to February'

President Trump pounced on Monday, denying Manafort's alleged crimes predated his campaign and insisting that he never colluded with Russia to affect the 2016 election

Manafort's attorney said the millionaire lobbyist would fight the charges.

Downing said Manafort 'represented pro-European Union campaigns' for Ukraine and that he was 'seeking to further democracy and to help the Ukraine come closer to the United States and the EU.'

'Today, you see an indictment brought by an office of special counsel that is using a very novel theory to prosecute Mr. Manafort, regarding a FARA filing. The United States government has only used that offense six times since 1966, and only resulted in one conviction,' Downing declared.

'The second thing about this indictment that I myself find most ridiculous is a claim that maintaining offshore accounts to bring all your funds into the United States as a scheme to conceal from the United States government is ridiculous,' he said.

Downing then walked away from a media stake-out site without taking any questions.

The defendants' surrender to the FBI in the morning was followed by a dramatic announcement that one of Trump's campaign foreign policy advisers, George Papadopoulos, had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contact with Russians who promised 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton and access to 'thousands' of her emails.

Papadopoulos secretly agreed to a plea bargain earlier this month, suggesting he may be cooperating with Mueller.

Manafort was involved with the Trump campaign for nearly five months, in senior positions that gave him access to the day-to-day operations of the future president's political operation.

Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidant, said in September that Manafort has no information that could put the president in legal jeopardy, predicting that 'he's not going to lie.'

The possible sentences, if found guilty, would be stiff: up to 80 years in prison for Manafort and 70 for Gates, plus millions of dollars in fines.

More typical federal sentencing for the crimes charged would be 10 to 12.5 years for Gates and 12.5 to 15 for Manafort.

Trump campaign aide Rick Gates, shown at left during the Republican National Convention, faces charges along with Manafort and has also pleaded not guilty

Guilty: George Papadopoulos is facing up to six months in prison. He was a foreign policy adviser to Trump who admits lying to the FBI about contact with Russians who offered dirt on Hillary Clinton and thousands of her emails

HOW MANAFORT SPENT HIS MILLIONS Monday morning's indictment lists a host of lavish expenses that ate up millions from Paul Manafort's alleged offshore accounts, including: $5.43 million for home improvement in the Hamptons

$1.31 million for home improvement in Florida for 'home automation, lighting and home entertainment'

$934,000 at an antique rug store

$849,000 at a men's clothing store in New York

$819,000 for two landscapers in The Hamptons

$623,000 on antiques in New York

$520,000 at a Beverly Hills clothing sto re

$163,700 for payments on three Range Rovers

$62,000 on a Mercedes Benz

$31,900 at a Florida art gallery

$20,000 on New York housekeepers Advertisement

The government alleges that at least $75 million was moved by Manafort to offshore accounts without declaring the income to the government. From there Manafort allegedly withdrew $18 million to fund a lavish lifestyle, and Gates pulled another $3 million out.

A source close to the White House told CNN that 'today has zero to do with the White House.'

Trump's defiant tweet, and his reference to Clinton who faces her own claims of receiving dirty Russian money, sets the stage for a showdown with Mueller which led on Monday morning to Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, calling for legislative moves to prevent the special counsel from being fired.

The indictment is purely focused on alleged financial crimes and does not include any charges related to the broader question that formed the basis of Mueller's investigation  whether Donald Trump's presidential campaign colluded with Russia to swing the 2016 election in his favor.

It describes criminal allegations that predate the Trump campaign; Trump's name is not mentioned in the 31-page document.

The move to indict the two men represents a dramatic turn in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Manafort was seen leaving his home at 8:00 a.m. with his attorney and arrived at FBI headquarters less than 20 minutes later.

A federal grand jury approved the indictments on Friday and a judge ordered them sealed. A White House official told DailyMail.com on Monday that the administration may not comment at all on the arrests.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who was appointed by former president Barack Obama and confirmed in the Senate by a 97-0 vote.

Among the expenses paid for by Manafort-controlled entities in Cyprus, according to the indictment, were $600,000 for antiques and $500,000 paid to a Beverly Hills tailor and $849,000 to a men's clothing store in New York.

Other money went for premium automobiles and home renovations in Florida and the Hamptons. The Hamptons home alone had $5.4 million in renovations, the indictment said.

Hand them over: The indictment demands that Manafort be stripped of two New York city properties, a SoHo loft (left) and Brooklyn brownstone (right), as well as a Hamptons home which he lavished more than $5 million on in renovations, and an Arlington, VA, condo

Manafort also spent $934,350 at an antique rug store in Alexandria, Virginia.

The indictment demands that four of his properties are seized, including a Brooklyn brownstone he bought to renovate, a loft in New York's trendy SoHo which he let out on Airbnb, a Hamptons home and his Arlington, Virginia condo.

Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez said in a statement that the indictment 'underscores the seriousness of the investigation into Donald Trumps ties to Russia. Its time for Republicans to commit to protecting this investigation and preserving the rule of law.'

In a separate statement, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said the charges demonstrated the necessity of keeping congressional investigations running alongside the Mueller probe.

'Even with an accelerating Special Counsel investigation inside the Justice Department, and investigations inside the Republican Congress, we still need an outside, fully independent investigation to expose Russias meddling in our election and the involvement of Trump officials,' she said.

'Defending the integrity of our democracy demands that Congress look forward to counter Russian aggression and prevent future meddling with our elections.'

Manafort and Gates were the one-two punch responsible for keeping Republican National Convention delegates in line last year as the possibility emerged of a contentious floor fight over the presidential nomination.

Then-candidate Donald Trump first Manafort after reports that he pocketed at least $12 million in undisclosed payments from Viktor Yanukovych (pictured), the pro-Russia former Ukrainian president.

Manafort was fired shortly after the convention and replaced by pollster Kellyanne Conway, but Gates stayed on and was more recently working to help close out the financial books of Trump's inaugural committee.

He had worked for Manaforts international firm, Davis Manafort Partners, from 2006 to 2007.

The move to throw Manafort overboard came after reports that Manafort pocketed at least $12 million in undisclosed payments from Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russia former Ukrainian president.

Manafort and his firm, which Gates helped run, spent years as Yanukovych's political consultants.

The Justice Department's indictment charges that Manafort and Gates 'generated tens of millions of dollars in income as a result of their Ukraine work.'

'In order to hide Ukraine payments from United States authorities, from approximately 2006 through at least 2016, Manafort and Gates laundered the money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships and bank accounts,' it continues.

Mueller's probe focused on wire transfers Manafort made from Ukraine to private accounts and whether he paid taxes on that income.

Kevin Downing, Manafort's lawyer, was formerly a prosecutor in the Justice Department's criminal tax division.

In July the FBI in July executed a surprise search warrant with guns drawn at Manafort's home in Alexandria, Virginia, seizing financial and tax documents.

Headed to a judge: Paul Manafort was driven by his lawyer on Monday morning to turn himself in to Mueller

It's unclear if Manafort is the biggest fish in Mueller's sights, or if the former FBI director intends to squeeze him for information more directly related to the 2016 election and Russia's possible interference with it.

The Russia investigation has cast a shadow over President Donald Trump's nine-month-old presidency and widened the partisan rift between Republicans and Democrats.

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in January that Russia interfered in the election to try to help Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton by hacking and releasing embarrassing emails and disseminating propaganda via social media to discredit her.

Mueller is also investigating whether Trump campaign officials colluded with those Russian efforts.

Trump tweeted Monday morning about a report that Barack Obama's campaign organization funneled nearly $1 million to the law firm that served as a pass-through last year between Democrats and an opposition research firm that produced the salacious and discredited 'dirty dossier' on the president.

Manafort hid his face from reporters who were staking out his house in Alexandria, Virginia as he left to turn himself in at the FBI's headquarters

'Report out that Obama Campaign paid $972,000 to Fusion GPS. The firm also got $12,400,000 (really?) from DNC. Nobody knows who OK'd!' the president tweeted on Monday.

That tweet came a half-hour before news broke that Manafort and Gates had been indicted. The White House hasn't yet commented on their surrender.

Trump has denied the allegations of collusion with the Russians and called the probe 'a witch hunt.' The Kremlin also has denied the allegations.

Mueller, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has been looking into possible links between Trump aides and foreign governments, as well as potential money laundering, tax evasion and other financial crimes, according to sources familiar with the probe. He also is exploring whether Trump or his aides have tried to obstruct the investigation.

Mueller was appointed to lead the investigation a week after Trump's May 9 firing of FBI Director James Comey, who was heading a federal probe into possible collusion with Russia.

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn could also face charges later related to his contacts with Russian officials

Master of distraction: A half-hour before Manafort's indictment was unsealed, President Trump tweeted about an alleged money-funnel between Democrats and the opposition research firm behind the discredit 'dirty dossier' about him

Trump initially said he fired Comey because his leadership of the FBI was inadequate.

In a later interview with NBC, he cited 'this Russia thing' as his reason.

On Sunday, Trump tried to shift the focus back to Democrats and Clinton, tweeting that the Russia issue was being used to sidetrack the Republican push for tax reform and praising Republican 'anger and unity' on the need to look into whether Democrats and the Clinton campaign paid for a portion of a dossier that detailed accusations about Trump's ties to Russia.

Special White House counsel Ty Cobb said the president's tweets were 'unrelated to the activities of the Special Counsel, with whom he continues to cooperate.'

Investigators led by Mueller have interviewed former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, former spokesman Sean Spicer and other current and former White House and campaign officials.

In July, FBI agents raided Manafort's Virginia home; his financial and real estate dealings and prior work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine have been a focus of Mueller's team.
The National Archives has released hundreds of documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The release of 676 Kennedy assassination documents on Friday, the third so far this year, includes 553 records from the CIA that previously were withheld in their entirety.

One newly revealed document says a CIA internal investigation found that allegations that Oswald was connected to the agency were 'totally unfounded.'

The 1975 CIA memo says a thorough search of agency records in and outside the US was conducted to determine whether Oswald had been used by the agency or connected with it in 'any conceivable way.'

The memo said the search came up empty. The memo also said there was also no indication that any other US agency used Oswald as a source or for recruitment.

Another document in the new batch is a transcription of a calls that Lee Harvey Oswald made to the Soviet embassy in Mexico City two months before the assassination, requesting travel visas to Odessa, Ukraine.

Last week, President Donald Trump ordered all remaining records released to the public.

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Kennedy and his wife Jackie are seen the morning of his assassination. The National Archives has released 676 documents related to the assassination, many revealed for the first time

Oswald is seen in custody on November 22, 1963 after Kennedy's assassination. New transcripts reveal his calls to the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City weeks earlier

He also directed agencies to take another look at their proposed redactions and only withhold information in the rarest of circumstances.

Friday's document dump represents the first in a series of rolling releases pursuant to Trump's directive.

In addition to the newly released CIA documents, there also are records in the Friday tranche from the Justice and Defense departments, the House Select Committee on Assassinations and the National Archives.

The new Oswald transcript reveals intercepted calls to and from the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City.

In the first call, on September 27, 1963, Oswald calls the Soviet embassy and asks to speak to the consul.

'I need some visas in order to go to Odessa,' he says.

The Soviet embassy staffer abruptly tells him the consul is not available and tells him to call back in an hour, and then hangs up.

What follows is a mini-drama of bureaucracy that would be the definition of mundane, if not for the light it sheds on Oswald's movements in Mexico City just weeks before the November 22, 1963 assassination.

Oswald's visit to Mexico City from September 27 to October 2 of that year to request a transit visa from the Cuban embassy was previously known, but precise details of his activities there have remained unclear.

The transcript shows that Oswald appeared on the afternoon of September 27 at the Cuban embassy, where he requested the transit visa for forward travel on to the USSR.

Cuban embassy staff contacted the Soviet embassy asking if he had been approved for a visa into the USSR, but staffers there said they needed approval from Soviet officials in the Washington, DC embassy.

'He wants to go to Russia to stay for a long time with his wife who is Russian,' the Soviet official says. 'But we have received no answer from Washington and it will probably take four to five months.'

Oswald is seen holding a rifle and communist newspapers in a backyard in 1963. The new transcript reveals that Soviet officials were dismissive and brusque as he asked for travel visas

The next day, September 28, Oswald again visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies to press his case for travel documents, according to the transcripts.

On October 1, Oswald placed an additional two calls to the Soviet embassy, asking for any new information on his visa application.

The embassy staff brusquely told him there was no new information and hung up on him.

If anything, the new transcript dampens conspiracy theories surrounding the Mexico City trip, supporting the idea that Oswald's main purpose there was trying to get his family to Odessa - perhaps as a get-away plan in anticipation of the assassination.

In the transcripts, the Soviet embassy officials seem less than cooperative and even exasperated by Oswald's requests.

President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy smile at the crowds lining their motorcade route in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Minutes later the President was assassinated

Other documents newly released on Friday show US officials scrambling after the Kennedy assassination to round up information about Oswald's trip to Mexico City.

Officials wondered whether Oswald had been trying to get visas at the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City in order to 'make a quick escape after assassinating the president'.

A CIA message sent Nov. 24, 1963 - two days after Kennedy was killed - says an 'important question' that remained unsolved was whether Oswald had been planning to travel right away or return to the US and leave later.

The message said that although it appeared Oswald 'was then thinking only about a peaceful change of residence to the Soviet Union, it is also possible that he was getting documented to make a quick escape after assassinating the president.'
We have two good possibilities for the next mayor of Billings. Bill Cole has demonstrated ability to garner contributions to good projects. Jeff Essmann has spent years learning the skills and responsibilities of governing. Which do we need now?

Coles fundraising efforts involved working with groups already committed to a specific goal. Essmanns efforts involve working with legislators from two divided parties to achieve benefits for Billings and Montana. I watched him collaborate with Kim Gillan to pass reduction in the business equipment tax. He shepherded Lew Jones revamp of school funding that brought SD2 up to $2 million per year in additional funds. His pragmatic approach to working with passionate backers of divisive issues demonstrates he has learned the skills of governing.

Listening to friends speak of Coles visionary approach, I remembered the last visionary mayor who took Billings to the brink of bankruptcy. Mike Fergusons article clarified my uneasy thoughts. I was saddened, not surprised by Fergusons tactful report of Coles participation in Chamber of Commerce junket to Green Bay. This act demonstrates Coless lack of understanding of skills and ethics of governing. It demonstrated that those he relies on for advice do not know or do not care about ethical behavior in governing. Cole should serve in a legislative body before seeking to lead it. Do I always agree with Jeff? No. What is important is ability to rationally discuss our differences and agree on financially effective ways to serve Billings. Vote Jeff Essmann for Mayor.
A judge has issued arrest warrants for a Washington state couple who skipped their sentencing after pleading guilty last month to child mistreatment.

Mary Foxworth, 42, and her husband Anthony Foxworth, 45, were no-shows in Lewis County Superior Court Wednesday. They had been out on bail.

The Centralia couple were accused of severely neglecting a 16-year-old boy in their care between 2007 and 2016.

Court documents show that authorities became aware of the neglect when the Foxworths, who had been raising two boys and a girl, brought the 16-year-old to a hospital in January 2016, telling doctors the teen had not eaten in three weeks.

Wanted: A warrant has been issued for Anthony Foxworth, 45 (left), and Mary Foxworth, 42 (right), after they skipped their sentencing Wednesday in a child neglect case

The teenager was found weighing just 54lbs, was unable to talk or stand on his own. Doctors initially thought he was between eight to 10 years old, and his skeletal age was 13.

Records cited by The Centralia Chronicle show the teen had bald patches on his head and required extensive dental work on 24 of his teeth. A doctor later said the youth was whiter than a piece of paper and communicated with grunts rather than words.

The high school-age boy did not know how use the toilet and was wearing pull-up diapers, and was illiterate because he had not been attending school.

At the time, he was diagnosed with severe malnutrition, constipation, an intestinal blockage, anemia and neglect.

It doesnt really get any worse than what we saw in this case, Centralia police detective Corey Butcher told the station Q13Fox.

Two other children in the Foxworths care  a boy and a girl - were reportedly healthy and were enrolled in school.

After spending a year with a foster family, the 16-year-old has put on 93lbs, grew 3.5inches and was finally attending school.

Butcher said he saw the boy just last week and said he is 'doing awesome.'

The Foxworths initially denied any wrongdoing, saying the boy was starving himself because he was depressed.

Admission of guilty: In October, Mrs Foxworth (pictured in court) pleaded guilty to criminal mistreatment of a 16-year-old boy in her care who was found last year weighing 54lbs

After initially denying any wrongdoing, Anthony Foxworth also pleaded guilty (pictured)

Last month, the husband and wife each pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal mistreatment. They have been out on $10,000 unsecured bail.

The couples defense lawyers, Chris Baum and Jacob Clark, told the judge this week their clients were aware of the sentencing date.

Prosecutors are seeking a 51-month prison sentence for each of them.

On Wednesday, a judge issued no-bail warrants for both Mary and Anthony Foxworth. According to police, they were last seen at a gas station in Grand Mound, Washington, traveling in their green-and-silver 1998 Chevy Suburban with the license plate DP25339.

The couple have ties to multiple states, including Georgia, Oregon, Idaho, California and Louisiana.

Anyone with information on the fugitives' whereabouts is being asked to call the Centralia Police Department's detective bureau at 360-330-7614.
El Chapo's lawyers claim he is losing his mind in prison and are demanding that he be able to see a doctor.

The 60-year-old Mexican drug lord is being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Facility in downtown Manhattan where he is in constant solitary confinement.

His attorneys claim the notoriously harsh conditions there have left him with a ringing in his ears, a sore throat and mental health problems.

They say that in the last month, he has forgotten people and places and claim that staff at the prison treat him unfairly by not allowing him to buy bottled water or batteries for his radio.

El Chapo, whose real name is Joaquin Guzman Loera, has been in the prison since January, a year after he was sensationally recaptured in Mexico.

In January 2016, he was recaptured after spending six months on the run having escaped from Mexico's toughest prison through a tunnel which led to the shower in his cell.

Once he arrived at the Metropolitan Correctional Facility in January this year, he was placed under 'special administrative measures' in the prison.

He is due to stand trial in April 2018 but his attorneys say his 'deteriorating mental condition' may render him incompetent.

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El Chapo, 60, (pictured as he was extradited to the US from Mexico in January) is going insane in jail, according to his lawyers

Guzman faces 17 federal charges relating to the drug enterprise he ran as the head of the Sinaloa cartel between the 1980s and when he was caught.

His capture in 2016 came after a now famous interview with American actor Sean Penn and Mexican actress Kate Del Castillo who visited him in the Sinaloa mountains at one of his safe houses while he was still on the run.

Their meeting was the subject of a recent Netflix documentary in which Del Castillo, 40, told how she fell in love with Penn while they worked together to meet Chapo and was devastated when he betrayed her to write an article about it for Rolling Stone.

In a court filing on Friday, his attorneys say they are growing increasingly concerned about his mental health.

'Counsel has noticed that Mr. Guzman has begun repeating himself often and sometimes forgetting what the discussion is about.

'It is plain to the defense team that something is not right with Mr. Guzman,' they said in the filing which was obtained by ABC.

The drug baron is being held in special conditions at the Metropolitan Correctional Facility in downtown Manhattan where he is not allowed outside and is in solitary confinement

The drug lord, whose real name is Joaquin Guzman Loera, was recaptured in Mexico in January 2016 (above) six months after escaping from prison for the second time

They demanded that he be looked over by a neuro-psychologist and said that if his condition deteriorates, he may not be fit to stand trial.

El Chapo is Mexico's most notorious drug baron.

He operated the Sinaloa cartel for decades, evading capture by the country's law enforcement, and became a hero for local communities who saw him as a Robin Hood figure who looked out for them more than their government did.

He was first incarcerated in the 1990s. In 2001, he bribed guards in a prison in Jalisco to help him escape.

El Chapo then spent more than a decade on the run before being recaptured in 2014.

He was only in bars for another year then escaped for a second time to the humiliation of Mexican authorities in July 2015.

By the time of his second escape, he had already struck up a rapport with telenovela actress Kate Del Castillo.

Once out on the run, El Chapo's lawyers contacted her and asked if she would like to meet him to make a movie about his life. They signed over the rights to her as a show of good faith.

El Chapo escaped from the Almoloya prison in Mexico in July 2015 through a hole in his shower which led to an underground tunnel

While on the run, he met with Sean Penn and Mexican actress Kate Del Castillo at a safe house. Penn wrote a Rolling Stone article about the meeting and Castillo planned to make a movie about his life, with his permission. Days after this photograph was taken, a raid on the property days later caused him to flee again. It is thought the pair were under surveillnce by Mexican officials

In January 2016, five months after breaking out of prison and three months after his meeting with Penn and Del Castillo, El Chapo was captured at this house in Los Michos

El Chapo was the head of the Sinaloa cartel between the 1980s and until he was caught. He is pictured in 1993 (left) after his first arrest and in 2014 (right) when he was recaptured after escaping from jail in 2001

Del Castillo, eager to find success in Hollywood, brought Sean Penn in on the venture and the pair traveled to Sinaloa to meet with El Chapo in October 2015.

EL CHAPO TIMELINE 1993: First arrest in Mexico 2001: Breaks out of jail for the first time with help of guards 2014: Is rearrested in Mexico after 13 years on the run July 2015: Breaks out of prison for a second time through secret tunnel October 2015: Meets with Sean Penn and Kate Del Castillo in Mexico Days later, the safe house is raided but he escapes January 8 2016: Captured in Los Michos January 9 2016: Sean Penn's Rolling Stone article is published January 2017: Extradited back to the US October 2017: Netflix documentary about meeting from Kate Del Castillo is published November 2017: El Chapo's lawyers say his mental health is deteriorating April 2018: El Chapo's trial date Advertisement

They were being monitored by the Mexican government at the time and days later, a SWAT team went to the location where they had met to try to find him but he escaped.

In the recently released Netflix documentary, The Day I Met El Chapo, Castillo tells how Penn blindsided her during the meeting by asking El Chapo for an interview for Rolling Stone.

He then appeared in an extraordinary video at Penn's behest to prove he was alive and that their correspondence was genuine.

Before Rolling Stone published the piece, Chapo was recaptured in another location. Five men died in the shoot-out.

Officials have since spoken anonymously to say intelligence honed in on the safe house by monitoring the construction of a tunnel there in the days before he arrived.

On the night of his capture, they said a large taco order to the address gave them reason to believe he was there.

Penn insists he never tipped off authorities about his meeting and tried to block the Netflix documentary for coming out because he felt it suggested he was complicit.

Despite the fact that El Chapo was ultimately captured at a house which neither Penn nor Castillo ever visited, Mexican authorities said their meeting and correspondence with him and his associated helped them.
Sitting in the back of a Rolls-Royce, multi-millionaire James Stunt appears relaxed in the company of a middle-aged man.

But the formally dressed man sitting next to Bernie Ecclestones former son-in-law is no respectable professional.

He is Terry Adams, the Godfather of Britains most notorious crime family which has been linked to 25 murders, money laundering, racketeering and extortion. He is also Mr Stunts godfather.

A chat with his godfather: Gold bullion dealer James Stunt and Terry Adams in the back of Mr Stunt's Rolls-Royce in June

Adams contacted former Formula One boss Mr Ecclestone, 87, and offered to help negotiate financial and other matters relating to his daughter Petras split from gold bullion trader Mr Stunt.

Heiress Petra, 28, was granted a divorce last month after the collapse of her six-year marriage to Mr Stunt, 35, with whom she has three children.

Full details of Mr Stunts close friendship with Adams and the gangsters extraordinary intervention in the divorce battle could not be reported until this week for legal reasons.

Bitter divorce: Petra and Mr Stunt

Mr Ecclestone, whose 40-year reign as head of Formula One ended in January, confirmed that he was contacted by Terry Adams in relation to his daughters divorce proceedings.

The billionaire said the ex-crime baron had offered to give him advice, which he thought would be useful to him in his dealings with Mr Stunt. Mr Ecclestone said: He called me to say he wanted to advise me. I never gave him the opportunity because I was not interested.

I had one of the sinking feelings ... (that it) probably wasnt going to be anything that was helpful to myself, so I stopped the conversation.

He added: I said, I have managed to get this far in life without too much advice. I thanked him very much for trying to help James. Asked whether he knew of Adamss notoriety, he said: I think anyone who has lived in London for a few years would know of his family.

In a statement, Mr Stunts spokesman said: Terry Adams is one of Jamess godparents. James is very grateful for the emotional support he has always given him.

Mr Stunt and Adams, 62, do not hide their friendship.

The pair were pictured in the back of Mr Stunts Rolls-Royce in June, around the time his divorce battle with Miss Ecclestone became extremely bitter.

Mr Stunt and Adams have also been spotted together at a top West End restaurant, which has a private dining area for VIPs.

I am not a gangster

Last month Miss Ecclestone was granted a divorce after she and Mr Stunt ended a bitter legal fight over their 5.5 billion fortune. Lawyers revealed a settlement had been reached as the couple were due to begin a two-day battle at the Central Family Court in London. The couples assets included a 100 million Chelsea mansion and a 158million home in Los Angeles. No details of the settlement were revealed.

The couple met in 2006 and married in 2011 in a 12million ceremony in Rome. But in June they began their court battle which saw Mr Stunt evicted from the Chelsea property.

During a bad-tempered hearing, details of their marriage were laid bare, including hotly disputed allegations that he was abusive, violent and took overdoses.

Rolls: Mr Stunt was pictured smoking in the car

In the summer, Mr Stunt posted a video on YouTube addressing Mr Ecclestones claim that he compared himself to American Mafia boss John Gotti, known as the Dapper Don.

Wearing a towelling robe in his room at a hotel in Knightsbridge, where he took refuge after a judge ordered him to leave the family home, he said: I wish I could be as cool as John Gotti. Im sadly not. I am not a gangster. I am nowhere near clever enough or cool enough to be one of those guys. Do I know any figures in organised crime? Alleged ones, yes.

Terry Adams was jailed for seven years for money-laundering in 2007 after a decade-long police investigation costing taxpayers 50million. In August, his brother Tommy, 59, was jailed for seven years after police smashed his money laundering network. Another brother Patrick, known as Patsy, 61, is serving a nine-year jail term after shooting an associate.
A California couple and their two daughters who had been missing since Sunday when pirates attacked their boat in the Amazon River delta area have been rescued and new details are emerging about how they survived.

Adam and Emily Harteau and their three and seven-year-old daughters were in good condition when they were found by a fisherman in the jungle a few days following the cargo ferry they were on being overtaken by pirates with guns.

According to the Los Angeles Times, who spoke to an official with the Para Deputy Secretary of Public Safety, Andre Cunha, there were no other passengers on board the vessel and the family was sleeping in their van when the pirates boarded and took everyone hostage.

The ferry's crew and the family at some point managed to call the police. When they finally arrived, the pirates had fled, so the officials spoke to the victims and set off in search of the gunmen.

However, when the police returned to the boat the following morning around 6:30am with a laptop they were able to recover from the pirates, the Harteaus were nowhere to be found.

After being lost in the jungle for days, Adam and Emily Harteau and their three and seven-year-old daughters were found floating on a surfboard by rural river dwellers

Dramatic rescue. The Harteau family said they survived on fruit and river water before they were rescued

The new photos were released by Brazil's Secretary of State for Public Security and Social Defense, Adam and Emily Harteau, and their daughters, Sierra, left, and Colette, pose for a photo with personnel of the Regional Hospital in the Breves municipality, Para state, Brazil

'We don't know exactly why they left the boat,' Cunha told Globo, a local TV station.

'If they left for fear of what had already happened and the police being there because of the situation, or maybe they were afraid because of the small amount of marijuana' that police located inside the family van  apparently for recreational use.

The police searched the Amazonian wilderness in search of the family without luck.

A few days later, although the timeline is unclear, the family was found by Ribeirinhos- rural river dwellers- who found the family of four floating on a surfboard in a ravine close to the Jacare Grande River, not far from where police had boarded the ferry.

The family was found almost unscathed, suffering dehydration, inset bites and scratches.

The Harteaus told police on Wednesday that their family survived on fruits and river water before being found floating on the surfboard.

The Harteaus were set to spend the night in a hospital in the small city of Breves, which is not far from where they were found, law enforcement officials in Brazil's northern jungle state of Para said Wednesday.

Police would not confirm if they arrested any of the pirates.

Adam and Emily Harteau and their 3- and 7-year-old daughters were found after they had gone missing when pirates attacked their boat in the Amazon River delta. They are all in good condition and will spend the night in a hospital. Pictured Wednesday

The Harteaus were headed to Breves when gunmen boarded the boat they were on and forced it to go the city of Porto dos Dias

Breves is a Brazilian municipality located in the state of Para, on the island of Marajo

Their crew and passengers were held hostage for several hours and stripped of their personal belongings before the pirates fled, officials said.

Police found the van the family had been using in their journey abandoned in the jungle.

Colby Guillory, a Los Angeles resident acting as a family spokesman, said friends and relatives originally thought the Harteaus decided to flee the boat to get away from the pirates and have been walking in the jungle since, when it was reported the family went missing when police first arrived.

'Me knowing Adam, he probably took it upon himself to save his family,' Guillory said. 'We just know that sometime between pirates overtaking the boat and leaving the boat, (the Harteaus) went missing. We think they jumped.'

When Guillory heard his good friends were safe he said he began 'super excited ugly-crying.'

'We just can't wait to have them home,' he said.

Police say the family were traveling down the Amazon River on a ferry when it was hijacked by several heavily armed men around 7pm on Sunday

The passengers and crew were held hostage for several hours before the pirates left. When police arrived they said the Hearteau family were missing

The family van, which they have been using to travel around the world in since 2012, was found abandoned in the jungle but there were no sign of the occupants

True color satellite image of the Amazon Delta, one of the longest river in the world with numerous bends and tributaries

Adam Harteau's brother, Keith Harteau, told The Associated Press earlier that the attack happened as the family was on its way to move back to California. They were set to arrive in Los Angeles on November 15.

Keith Harteau said the couple wanted to be closer to home and for their girls to be near their family.

'It was their time to get a little bit of foundation,' he said.

Emily Harteau grew up in Sacramento and Adam grew up in Juniper Hills in the San Gabriel Mountains just northeast of Los Angeles.

Police said they have also found a number of boxes taken by the pirates in the jungle close to where the ferry was hijacked, but no sign of the family

Adam works as an artist while Emily is a fashion designer and cook, according to their blog which says they lived in California before deciding to travel the world

The Harteaus had recently been living in the southern Brazil city of Florianopolis

The Harteaus had recently been living in the southern Brazil city of Florianopolis.

They have been using a website to document their journey around South America, which began in 2012 as a plan to travel to Patagonia in their Volkswagen van and return to California one year later.

But the Harteaus fell in love with South America and have been there since after they 'decided to embrace a future unknown and the rewards of slow travel,' according to their site, which says Adam is an artist and Emily a fashion designer.

They wanted their site to 'serve as a modern family portrait, as they shed their robes of comfort to re-examine the American Dream.'

'They hope to inspire others to create, eat well, spend quality time together, and adventure into their own great backyards,' the site says.

The couple financed their road trip by setting up 24Hour Bazaar, a website that sells Fair Trade goods from South American craft-rich areas to clients all over the world.

The incident involving the family-of-four comes a month after 44-year-old British woman Emma Kelty died in the Amazon after sharing fears for her safety on Facebook.

She was kayaking through Brazil when she was killed and her body was left in the river, according to a statement from the Amazonas state homicide division.
Muslim activist Yassmin Abdel-Magied has labelled Australia as a country founded by invasion, theft of land and genocide in a rant in support of the Manus Island asylum seekers.

The 26-year-old former ABC presenter, launched the tirade on Twitter against those in power, saying that the treatment of the people on Manus Island was deeply 'un-Australian.'

Her response comes just days after news broke that 600 detainees had locked themselves inside the 'regional processing centre' without food or water as the government decided to 'discontinue critical services' on October 31, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said.

The 26-year-old former ABC presenter (pictured) said the treatment of people on Manus Island was deeply 'un-Australian'

Muslim activist Yassmin Abdel-Magied (pictured) has labelled Australia as a country founded by invasion, theft of land and genocide in a rant supporting the Manus Island asylum seekers

Pictures claiming to show men digging a makeshift well in the dirt in hopes of finding water have been shared alongside the news, with Abdel-Magied saying the government was 'acting cruelly, unfairly, uncourageously and without integrity.'

'Lest we forget Manus, I suggested, over six months ago. The backlash was said to be because I was unAustralian, disrespecting our history, & sullying the memory of the diggers and the ANZACS,' she wrote online.

'This isn't what they fought for, I was told. How dare you disrespect the Aussie spirit.'

Abdel-Magied was making reference to her Anzac Day tweet earlier this year which read: 'Lest we forget (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine).'

She copped considerable public backlash for the comment, which was later deleted, and was criticised by Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott.

The 26-year-old started a fiery conversation on Twitter about the treatment of asylum seekers on Manus Island

'Tell me. How is what we are doing on Manus Island to other human beings respecting the Australian Spirit? How is what we are doing to people,' she continued.

She continued by calling out the Australian government for 'standing behind a policy that is implemented in the most inhumane way.'

'We CANNOT in good conscious say that we are living up to these 'Australian values.

Pictures claiming to show men digging a makeshift well in the dirt in hopes of finding water have been shared alongside the news (pictured)

More than 600 detainees barricaded themselves inside the 'regional processing centre' after it shut down on October 31 (pictured)

'Whatever it takes to help avoid the fact that today, right now, we are acting cruelly, unfairly, uncourageously, without integrity.

'Right now, you folks in power? You're being pretty damn unAustralian,' she said.

At this point in the rant Abdel-Magied said that because Australia was 'founded after invasion, theft of a land and the genocide of its First Nations people,' perhaps this was truly acting in an 'Australian' way.

The controversial advocate pointed to the way a 23-year-old Iranian refugee named Omid set himself alight last year while being processed on Nauru.

On Saturday Opposition Leader Bill Shorten urged the Prime Minister to allow remaining detainees on Manus Island to be resettled in New Zealand (pictured a man washing himself in the centre)

Asylum seekers sleeping in their bunk beds on Manus Island (pictured)

'Imagine choosing to burn alive to make a point,' she said.

On Saturday Opposition Leader Bill Shorten urged the Prime Minister to allow 150 detainees on Manus Island to be resettled in New Zealand,Sky News reports.

Actor Russell Crowe labelled the situation as 'f***ing disgraceful' and has since offered to find a job and house for six of the remaining asylum seekers.

At present the 606 people left on the island are afraid to leave because they do not feel safe in the replacement accommodation at Lorengau.

'Nobody is here to protect us,' Iranian refugee Behrouz Boochani told AAP.
It was the classic Winnie the Pooh moment that most of us probably can remember from childhood when the lovable huggable bear got stuck in a doorway after eating too much honey.

But it seems raccoons also have a similar problem with one in particular living up to its nickname of being a 'trash panda' after it ended up getting stuck in a sewage grate in Illinois after filling up on a feast of its own.

Police officers in the city of Zion ended up responding to the call about trapped animal which had gone into the sewer in search of some food.

Upon arriving at the scene the plump raccoon was found to be stuck fast in the drain with his belly far bigger than when he entered.

Scroll down for video

Police in the Chicago suburb of Zion had to rescue a raccoon after the critter ate so much that he wound up getting stuck inside a sewer grate,

The furry fatty had to be rescued by city workers and cops, who joked that he ought to diet

In an amusing Facebook post by the Zion PD, the officers realized the raccoon was simply 'too big boned' to be removed.

Even with 'catch poles' to work with, they were unable to dislodge the raccoon from the storm sewer grate, apparently because of the animal's weight

'As a police officer no two-days are the same. Officer Vaughn responded to a call for assistance this morning for one of our furry residents. It seems this little guy has been eating a little too well and got caught in the sewer grate.

'Animal Control Officer Knorr & Officer Ken Vaughn were unable to remove him and had to request help from the real heroes over at the Zion Public Works Department. They were able to free him and our friend was no worse for wear.'

Even with 'catch poles' to work with, Officers Vaughn and Knorr were unable to dislodge the raccoon from the storm sewer grate, apparently because of the animal's weight

Experts were called in from the town's public works department which helped to free the creature.

There was a look of appreciation from the pudgy raccoon as it was freed and left to make its own getaway.

'Officer Vaughn is more scared of the raccoon than it is of him! All in good fun, nice save!;' the officer wrote in a light-hearted post online.
The sons of a murdered Maltese journalist carried her coffin during her emotional funeral service.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed by a car bomb on October 16 by a suspected criminal gang she was investigating.

The anti-corruption campaigner was laid to rest after a service in Mosta, close to the site where the blogger was blown up in a car bombing in an October 16 attack which made headlines around the world.

The coffin of slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was carried by her three sons during her funeral service in Mosta in Malta, less than a month after she was killed in a car bomb

Daphne Caruana Galizia, pictured, was killed by a car bomb near Mosta on October 16

Thousands of people stood outside the church during today's funeral service

Archbishop Charles Scicluna told relatives and friends: 'We still do not know who killed Daphne.

'Whoever took part, I tell you this: however hard you try to evade the justice of men, you will never escape the justice of God.'

Ms Caruana Galizia, 53, had made repeated and detailed corruption allegations for years against Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's inner circle and had recently turned her investigative scrutiny on the opposition as well.

After her death, her family accused Muscat of creating a culture of impunity that turned Malta into a 'mafia island'.

Crowds gathered outside the Roman Catholic Church after the ceremony broke into applause as her coffin, covered in white flowers, was carried outside by her sons Matthew, 31, Andrew, 26, and Paul, 21.

EU Parliament chief Antonio Tajani and the OSCE's media freedom representative Harlem Desir both paid their respects at the church, while flags outside the European Commission in Brussels flew at half mast.

In a statement, the European Commission said: 'The right of a journalist to investigate, ask uncomfortable questions and report effectively, is at the heart of our values and needs to be guaranteed at all times.'

The EU on Friday warned Malta that 'the eyes of Europe' are watching it as it investigates the murder of a campaigning journalist, demanding the authorities 'leave no stone unturned' in their probe.

It is unusual for the EU to comment on a criminal probe in a member state.

European Parliament chief Antonio Tajani has already demanded an international investigation into the murder.
Though many Tories regard the idea as absurd, Andrea Leadsom has been sustained throughout a patchy and profoundly undistinguished political career by an iron conviction that shes destined for the top job. Indeed, she has long dreamed of following her heroine Margaret Thatcher into No. 10.

But today that ambition looks less likely than ever after she dropped a bomb on the Conservative Party and its leadership.

The bottle blonde was catapulted on to the front pages yesterday after treacherously knifing Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon over apparently vile comments he made some six years ago.

Leadsom, a committed Christian who goes to Bible studies each week in Parliament, privately urged Mrs May to sack Fallon after Tuesdays Cabinet meeting.

On a mission: Mrs Leadsom with Mrs May in the Commons on Monday. Earlier she had told the PM of her allegations about Sir Michael Fallon

Her actions have appalled Tory MPs. She talks about her Christian principles but waits six years to assassinate one of her own colleagues, who has been doing a better job than her, said one minister.

If the words upset her so much, why didnt she complain at the time? She is a serpent who has been spitting out poison because she is out of her depth, and thinks its the only way to save her Cabinet job.

Its true most MPs assumed that Leadsom, who ran for the Tory leadership last year, would be dismissed in the next reshuffle as Leader of the House because of the irritation she causes Downing Street.

In June, she made a high-profile visit to Grenfell Tower after scores died in the blaze, despite having no formal government role in dealing with the disaster. She didnt even had the courtesy to ask No 10, merely informing them by phone from her chauffeur-driven car when she was on her way. Talking directly to some of the victims ensured she was compared favourably with Mrs May, who had been criticised for not meeting any of the families. It was bloody treachery, says one May supporter.

In September, there was strong Cabinet backing for the PMs keynote speech on Brexit in Florence, in which she proposed a two-year transitional deal. But the unity didnt last long.

Reports appeared in the media that Leadsom alone, a key figure in Vote Leave, had challenged the Prime Minister by demanding a tougher approach. Leadsom was described as rounding on Mrs May over her soft approach, even dropping the Cabinet protocol of referring to her as Prime Minister. Parts of the speech are disastrous, Theresa, she said.

The leaks delighted the hardline Brexiteers whom Leadsom would have to rely on if she runs again for the leadership.

Keeping a low profile: Sir Michael Fallon visits a grammar school in Tonbridge in his Kent constituency yesterday

Before the Tory conference in October, where she was pointedly denied a platform speech, Leadsom stirred up talk about how long Mrs May could survive.

In an interview, while insisting she was loyal to the PM, she was asked if shed rule out another leadership bid. She could  and should  have simply said that she would rule it out. Instead, she replied: I am not speculating about what happens in the future. Anything can happen.

As one minister says bluntly: She was trying to sabotage May.

Mrs Leadsom was demoted from Environment Secretary in the PMs first reshuffle, to become Leader of the House  a role in which she often answers questions from the dispatch box by referring to my government. A Freudian slip, or a sign of where Leadsom thinks shes headed?

She was moved from the Environment job because she had no grip on policy detail and booked lots of time out of the ministry on constituency matters and school runs.

Leadsom, 54, who was born in Aylesbury, went to Tonbridge Grammar School and studied Political Science at Warwick University. Her parents had divorced when she was four, and she was brought up by her mother.

Andrea married husband Ben in 1993 and they ran a buy-to-let company together. Today, they live in a 17th-century farmhouse in Northamptonshire with their three children. Having been elected in 2010, she became one of the most prominent women in Vote Leave during the EU referendum, performing well in the TV debates. After David Cameron resigned as PM, Leadsom joined Boris Johnsons leadership campaign team: but only for a price. She demanded the post of Chancellor or Foreign Secretary, and a commitment in writing that she would get one of the two jobs. The letter never materialised.

At the time, most people assumed a typically shambolic Johnson simply forgot. In fact, Johnson  who worked closely with her during the referendum campaign  did not think she was up to either of the jobs.

Incensed, she decided to enter the leadership race herself. From the outset it was obvious she was out of her depth. Her first hustings with Tory MPs was a disaster. Her theme was: Brussels, bankers and babies. But she gave no clue what her policy platform would be. When she went on, bizarrely, to tell MPs how important it was to massage babies skulls, she lost her audience.

Andrea Leadsom brought about the end of Sir Michaels Cabinet career this week by making a series of allegations to Mrs May about his past behaviour

Then a speech from 2013 came to light in which Leadsom had said: I dont think the UK should leave the EU. I think it would be a disaster for our economy and it would lead to a decade of economic and political uncertainty.

While Leadsom argued that she was entitled to change her mind, the fact the speech was relatively recent  and that her warnings had been so dramatic  unsettled her supporters, who began to be concerned about her intellectual abilities.

After Johnson quit, she made it through to the last two with the backing of 84 MPs, compared to Mrs Mays 199. This meant that, having been a virtual unknown at the start of the contest, she faced media scrutiny  and everything started to fall apart.

Her strongest point was her career in the City, which had led to speculation she would be the first woman Chancellor. Leadsom said she had risen through the ranks to be the youngest director of Barclays at 32, when she was appointed head of UK banking.

She recalled how she was running Barclays investments team when Barings Bank collapsed in 1995. In an interview she said: I remember spending the weekend with Eddie George (the late Governor) at the Bank of England, ringing all the banks in the world saying Dont panic, be calm.

In her 25-year career, she boasted, she was one of the most senior women in the male-dominated Square Mile.

But was this all true?

In fact, the Mail exposed discrepancies and omissions in her CV. Her job title at Barclays was actually deputy financial institutions director not, as she stated, financial institutions director. The CV also described her position at the De Putron Fund Management firm, run by her brother-in-law Peter De Putron, as managing director. But she was in fact a marketing director.

And while she claimed she was a senior investment officer at financial firm Invesco Perpetual for ten years, she was in fact only authorised as an investment manager for three months. As for Barings, an authoritative book about the bank collapse never mentioned her.

There were also poisonous whispers about her incompetence as a junior Treasury minister before the 2015 general election. One unnamed official told the Financial Times: She was the worst minister we have ever had.

Then, in July last year, she gave an interview to The Times in which she suggested she was a better choice as PM because, unlike Mrs May, she had children. For many, this was a cruel and cynical attack on the childless Mrs May.

Leadsom claimed she was disgusted by the presentation of the article. But when a recording of the interview emerged, it was clear she had not been misreported. Leadsom insisted shed apologised in person, but it later transpired she had merely sent Mrs May a text.

Within days, her campaign was collapsing. When, in mid-July 2016, she finally withdrew, she admitted she was guilty of naivety in running when she was too inexperienced.

In the eyes of one of the MPs who supported her, she was guilty of much worse: Shes a gutless coward who conned us into thinking she was something she wasnt.

During the race, she had pitched herself as the new Maggie. The comparison drew snorts of laughter from Lord (Tim) Bell, the PR man who masterminded Lady Thatchers three election victories, and initially backed Leadsom.

Andrea Leadsom is no Margaret Thatcher, he observed tartly. Hes certainly right about that.
The young couple who moved into St Agathas Road in Birmingham seemed as ordinary as the net curtains hanging in the windows of their modest terrace or the red Ford Fiesta parked outside.

Each morning, they would leave the house together in the Fiesta. He was always dressed in a suit and would drop off his wife at a nearby childrens nursery, where she was an administrator, before continuing the short journey to the family-run accountancy firm where he had been employed since leaving college.

Everyone agreed that newlyweds Ummariyat Mirza and heavily pregnant Madihah Taheer were a welcome addition to the street popular with young families. Neighbours remember the young woman beaming with pride when other mums commented on her baby bump.

Birminghams links with Islamic militancy and terrorism in recent years have overshadowed the positive contribution made by the Muslim community to Britains second city.

But these childhood sweethearts, both 20 when they married in 2016, never aroused suspicion. They werent especially religious; neither of them prayed at the local mosque  which is not to suggest there would have been anything wrong in this. More that, to the outside world at least, they appeared to have fully embraced a very ordinary, British way of life.

Terror threat: Unmariyat Mirza, left, and Madihah Taheer were plotting a massacre

The only outward trappings of their Pakistani heritage was Taheers headscarf  never a burka  which left her face uncovered. Indeed, while at school she didnt even wear a headscarf. Contemporaries recall how she and a friend once performed a rendition of Rihannas hit song Umbrella. Yet their seemingly normal Brummie life was a lie; a sham even before they were joined together in matrimony in an Islamic ceremony which had no basis in British law.

British? The reality was that the couple hated this country and everything it stood for; even though both their families, originally from Pakistan, brought up nine children between them here and Taheer herself benefited from one of the best educations Birmingham could offer.

The truth, despite the exterior, was that this husband and wife were more Mr and Mrs Jihadi than any sort of besotted lovers.

Behind those net curtains in St Agathas Road was perhaps the most grotesque manifestation of the couples true feelings.

It was a life-sized dummy with slash marks across the forehead, throat and abdomen, the result of sickening training sessions when Mirza used a plastic martial arts training knife to practise killing and maiming infidels  non-Muslims.

A real hunting knife, purchased by the wife and wielded by the husband, would have been used in the actual terrorist attack they were planning, had he not been arrested.

Detectives found a number of possible targets on the couples home computer. Internet searches on Google included barracks in Birmingham and Territorial Army in Birmingham, as well as lists of Jewish communities in Birmingham and London and searches for Islamic State (ISIS) propaganda videos featuring beheadings and torture.

Unmariyat Mirza posing with a rifle

Experts say that in criminal partnerships there is often someone who leads and someone who follows. It would be all too easy to stereotype pretty brunette Taheer in the role of the follower. But although her future husband may have initially been the driving force for the plot, she became an enthusiastic participant.

This is apparent from the text messages they swapped shortly before their marriage, in which he called her the perfect partner and soulja (soldier) and soulmate.

And in the eyes of the law they were equally culpable: Madihah Taheer was convicted of preparing an act of terrorism at Woolwich Crown Court last week, a charge her husband had admitted earlier. They will be sentenced next month.

Exposed though they might have been, their trial raises a disturbing question: how many other so-called Mr and Mrs Jihadis like them are concealed in our midst?

A number of similar cases are going through the courts and a string of others have already made headlines recently, including the magistrates daughter from Reading who encouraged her husband to launch a suicide attack on the anniversary of the 7/7 bombings, and newly-weds from Oldham who were preparing to murder members of the local Jewish community within months of meeting on an internet dating site.

So this Birmingham-based terror plot, which was thwarted days after the Westminster atrocity in March, is far from an isolated scenario. Nor is it a new phenomenon.

Recall that the wife of one of Londons failed July 21 bombers was jailed for ten years for helping her husband. She delivered tapes of extremist preachers to one of his friends as a bequest on the evening before the attacks in 2005, which could have caused similar carnage on the Tube and bus network as the July 7 outrage two weeks earlier.

More than this, its likely the threat from such husband and wife pairings, intent on pursuing jihad here, is set only to increase with the collapse of ISIS territory in Syria and Iraq.

More than 400 of the 850 Britons who left to join the self-styled caliphate during the past five years are now believed to have returned home. But as few as one in eight of these jihadists have been prosecuted, the latest Home Office figures reveal, and there are fears many have simply disappeared from the view of the security services.

How many of them, if any, were couples or have since become couples? Whatever the truth, recent events prove that marriage can provide a convenient cover for the new terrorist plots facing Britain.

The two protagonists of this latest story were at separate sixth form colleges in Birmingham when they met, through mutual friends, and started dating. He was 16. She 17.

Madihah Taheer with a gun in an image posted online

Their journey from apparently normal teenagers to murderous fanatics in the space of a few years is truly disturbing. They had barely reached adulthood when the mannequin was installed in their house for Mirza to hone his deadly stabbing technique. His wife also filmed herself striking the dummy violently in the neck and chest, it emerged in court.

Few Muslim girls, however, could have been more Westernised than Madihah Taheer. Both her mother and father, a one-time railway supervisor who now works in a warehouse, were born in Birmingham.

The second of four sisters, Madi, as she was known, went to Thornton Primary, one of the citys most popular infant schools which attracts almost seven applications for each place. Madi was one of the cleverest in the school, said her best friend at the time. She was put into a special class as one of the high performers who needed more stimulation.

She wasnt obviously Muslim. She was into pop music and just normal stuff. At the leavers do, we did dance together to Rihannas Umbrella. We stayed in contact for a couple of years and then lost touch.

The young woman, who is now facing a future behind bars, fulfilled her early academic promise, and later studied at Hodge Hill Girls School, achieving top GCSE grades.

Not long afterwards she started a small online business selling personal items such as Harry Potter books, jewellery, handbags, shoes and clothes. A photograph of each item appeared next to the modest asking price. One such list from about four or five years ago is still online and offers a glimpse of the normal girl Madihah Taheer once was:

Black vintage clutch (Good condition/gold buckle detail. Every girl needs the perfect black clutch); Leather jacket with hood (Comfy, good material. Worn, but looks new); Never-worn heels (Open to offers); Chalcot Crescent by Fay Weldon (A quirky, humorous and cleverly written book).

Like his future wife, Mirza came from a big family. His father owned a restaurant, and it has now been revealed that an older sister, Zainub, 23, is also awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to sending him a series of explicit Isis videos. One of five children, he went to Saltley School, now an academy, which perhaps offers a clue to the path he would later follow.

Police image of a replica gun Taheer played with

Saltley was engulfed in the Trojan Horse storm, when radical Muslims attempted to take over state schools and run them on strict Islamic lines. Mirzas former headmaster was ousted by hardline Muslim governors.

At one time, Mirza lived in Alum Rock Road in Washwood Heath, which could also be significant. For one in ten of all Britains Islamic terrorists, according to a report this year, have come from just five neighbourhoods in Birmingham. One of the neighbourhoods in question is Washwood Heath.

Outwardly, like his future wife, Mirza showed no obvious signs of radicalisation. Someone who remembers him from those days says his main interest was training and mixed martial arts; he was a fan of Bear Grylls, the TV adventurer and survival specialist.

Taheer was specifically asked in court if her then boyfriend was interested in jihad when they met. Not at that stage, no, she replied. But she said their relationship distracted her from her studies and she failed her A-Levels, ending up working in a childrens nursery after a higher education course.

He joined accountancy firm Meer & Co, based in Birmingham, which is run by a member of Mirzas extended family.I would see him most mornings when I took my kids to school and he was always smiling and saying hello, one neighbour said of Mirza.

She was talkative, a nice young lady, another neighbour said of Taheer. You would have had to be a mind reader to have been aware of the transformation that was taking place beneath the surface. By the time she gave birth in May this year, Taheer would be on bail and her husband on remand. From the witness box at Woolwich Crown Court, Taheer said that her husband felt an emotional attachment to ISIS. For me, as well, she admitted.

He thought what they [ISIS] were doing was beneficial, she said. He told me to download a Twitter account where we would keep up to date with the conflict in the Middle East... Thats where I was introduced to IS... It started as something I would humour him with, but as things [in Syria] got worse, I was sucked into it.

But the jury did not believe that she was simply a naive young woman who was groomed for jihad by her more fanatical husband.

After all, it was she who bought the training dummy and the murder weapon. The pair had hoped to travel to Syria to help ISIS but decided to carry out an atrocity in Birmingham instead. The jury was shown hundreds of text conversations from the couples courtship onwards. They provide a frightening insight into the mindset of homegrown jihadists.

In messages to each other, Mirza said he wanted to stab someone 27 times, to which she replied that sounds so satisfying.

In one exchange several months before they married, Taheer told him she needed a brave husband to kill for her: Can we get married already ffs [for f***s sake], she asked rhetorically. I want you to kill for me, I have a list.

The list included the name of MailOnline columnist Katie Hopkins (the biggest kuthi [bitch] of them all).

He replied: The day of nikkah [marriage] Ill kill em all. Give me the list. The only thing that stops me is that we are not married.

The couple took turns to boast about who was the most committed to jihad, with Taheer taunting Mirza as Mr Moderate. There were also occasions when the outrageous dialogue resembled the Four Lions film, a satire about four incompetent British jihadists, like the time the couple wondered if IS would be able to perform laser eye surgery to correct Taheers faltering eyesight. After an eye appointment, she told him: I wont be able to get laser for at least another year, maybe two.

Okay u may as well just get surgery in jannah [paradise], he replied.

The farcical exchange contrasted dramatically with the disturbing material found on their computer at St Agathas Road which showed IS hostages being burned alive, drowned in a tanks of water, and hung upside down on meat hooks with their throats slit.

Police eventually arrested Mirza in rush-hour traffic in March amid fears the couples attack plot was coming to fruition.

Inside that nondescript red Fiesta was a man consumed with desire to kill and wage jihad. Behind the walls of his neat house a few miles away, was his wife who, the courts agree, was as driven to do so as he was. One can only wonder how many other seemingly ordinary couples, plotting terror, are living all around us.
A 13-year-old teenager has been charged with kidnapping and grand theft auto after he stole a Florida's woman's car at gunpoint in front of her own home.

The Columbia County Sheriff's Office said that the 67-year-old victim, who wished to remain unidentified, was unloading groceries from her vehicle when the suspect approached her.

The teenager initially asked her for a lift to an unspecified location, according to NBC affiliate WTLV. When the victim rebuffed his request, he returned with a weapon and took her keys.

The incident occurred in front of the 67-year-old woman's Florida home on Tuesday afternoon

The 13-year-old stole the woman's vehicle after she initially rebuffed his request for a ride to an unspecified location

As the suspect struggled to start the ignition, the woman jumped inside the car and was taken on a high-speed chase

'Every time I close my eyes, I just go through the whole thing over and over and over again,' the woman told police.

As the adolescent suspect struggled to start the ignition, the woman jumped inside.

'I was scared to death... I think I was actually in shock, I just couldn't believe it was happening,' the woman said.

According to police, the boy ran through Lake City stops signs, traffic signals, and heavy traffic while the woman was on the phone with 911 throughout much of the ordeal.

The boy is being charged with kidnapping, grand theft and fleeing from the police

'The victim was very good about giving the location. She was continuing to try to talk the defendant into stopping the vehicle,' Columbia County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Murray Smith said.

The police were finally able to stop the suspect after conducting a pit maneuver, nudging the back-corner of the vehicle causing it to turn sideways and come to a halt.

'So thankful that it turned out the way that it did because I said it could have been so much worse. I mean several people could have been killed, him me and others. He had no regard for anybody in that car,' the woman said.

Police said that they do not condone the victim's actions, but praised her bravery and demeanor throughout the situation.

'For her to give the information that she did and for her to remain as calm as she did was very noteworthy because that allowed us to get on the scene and put and end to this because this could have ended with someone seriously injured and killed,' Smith said.

Authorities later identified the weapon used in the carjacking as a pellet gun.
Bill Cole has my vote for mayor. He is an intelligent Montanan who uses consensus to get things done in Billings. Bill has demonstrated his love of the Billings community many years through his work on various committees and organizations. The latest venture being Yellowstone Kelly interpretative center, a remarkable piece of history well presented. The next time you see Bill Cole thank him for his past service to our community. I know he will continue to serve Billings well.
A hundred years ago this week, Britains Foreign Secretary signed a short statement that changed the world.

The Balfour Declaration, as it is known today, was just 67 words long. Written on the orders of the Conservative politician Arthur Balfour in the autumn of 1917, it was sent to the banker and zoologist Lord Rothschild, a leading light in the British Zionist movement, which sought the establishment of a Jewish homeland.

For the first time, Britain committed itself to the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.

The 1917 Balfour Declaration at 67 words long committed Britain to 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people'

A century on, Palestinian people are still suffering as a result of the Balfour Declaration

No wonder Israel and its supporters were celebrating this week, marking the anniversary of a foundational moment in their brave little countrys struggle for survival.

But there is another side to the story.

The Balfour Declaration ignited a firestorm of controversy and violence that saw an entire people  the Palestinians  uprooted from their homes and condemned to life in squalid refugee camps.

The Declaration was at once the cornerstone of the Middle Easts most enduring democracy, and the death warrant for a historic nation. For the Jews of Europe, it offered salvation. For the Palestinians of the Levant, it meant disaster.

Since its publication in 1917, thousands of people have fought and died in an attempt to resolve those contradictions.

And while the Declaration undoubtedly represents a seminal moment in the life of our great friend, Israel, it is also a terrible warning of the dangers of imperial hubris. For a century on, the Palestinian people are still paying a huge price for Balfours cynicism.

These history enthusiasts are commemorating the Australian Mounted Division and ANZAC troops at the Battle of Beersheba in the fight 100 years ago against the Ottoman Empire

The background to the Balfour Declaration is almost as controversial as its consequences. To cut a very long story short, at the turn of the 20th century, the land we know today as Israel was part of the crumbling Ottoman Empire (the core of which became modern Turkey).

Then called Palestine, it was dominated by Arabic-speaking Muslims. But in the years before the outbreak of World War I, tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants began arriving from Eastern Europe.

Fleeing appalling pogroms in the Russian Empire, they belonged to the Zionist movement, which dreamed of rebuilding the original kingdom of Israel. As one settler put it, the goal was to restore to the Jews the political independence they have been deprived of for these two thousand years.

Against this background, Arthur Balfour came in.

Born into the aristocratic Cecil dynasty in 1848, he was a faintly effeminate figure, known to friends as Niminy Piminy.

Besides being a politician, he was also the author of a book on philosophy and cultivated an air of careless indolence, famously remarking that nothing matters very much and few things matter at all. But he was enviably well connected, and served as an ineffective Prime Minister between 1902 and 1905.

After the voters kicked him out, Balfour remained at Westminster and was made Foreign Secretary in Lloyd Georges wartime Coalition.

Alfred Balfor, with glasses, pictured during a trip to Palestine is partly responsible for the problems in the area which have cost thousands of lives

And in November 1917, hoping to stir up international opinion against the Ottomans  who had taken the Germans side in World War I  he issued his famous Declaration.

It reads, in full: His Majestys Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

On the face of it, the statement could hardly have been simpler. But for every word, thousands would lose their lives.

So why did Balfour do it? After all, Britain did not even control Palestine, so he was giving away territory that actually belonged to somebody else.

The obvious explanation is that with Britain fighting the Ottoman Empire, Balfour saw the Declaration as a way to arouse Jewish support.

Balfour's declaration failed to consider the impact a Jewish state would have on Palestinians

As historian Jonathan Schneer has argued, Balfour and his colleagues believed in the power of international Jewry and were convinced that the Declaration would win them the support of Jewish bankers across the world.

Indeed, Balfour himself predicted that the Declaration would make great propaganda both in Russia and America, which were both our allies in the Great War. But there were three colossal problems. The first, and most obvious, was that somebody else was living in Palestine already: namely, some 737,000 Muslim or Christian Arabs.

They had been there for centuries, tilling the land, raising their families and going about their business.

Nobody asked what they thought. The second problem was Balfour was inexcusably vague. He talked of a national home for the Jewish people. What did that mean? Would the whole of Palestine become a Jewish state?

Would there be two states, one for Jews, one for Arabs? Or would the Jews just get a home within the existing state?

The world is still wrestling with these questions today. Thirdly, and most unforgivably, the Balfour Declaration was not the only promise that Britains politicians made.

They had already told the leaders of the Arab Revolt  a British-backed nationalist uprising led by the Sharif of Mecca against the regions Ottoman overlords  that they would get Palestine as part of a massive Arab-speaking empire after the war.

Palestinians this week protested against the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration

At the same time, the British had also signed a secret deal with the French to carve up Palestine between them. In fact, when World War I was over, Balfour and Co grabbed Palestine for themselves under a so-called League of Nations Mandate which transferred control of vast areas of the Middle East to the wars victors.

The French were fobbed off with Syria and Lebanon while Britain snapped up oil-rich Iraq and Palestine.

It is too glib to blame all the modern Middle Easts problems on Britains mapmakers, as the self-loathing, anti-Western Left likes to do. Even so, there has rarely been a more flagrant example of imperial hubris.

For what followed was a disastrous mess. By 1929, inspired by the Balfour Declaration, some 100,000 Jews had joined their brethren in British-run Palestine, dreaming of a new homeland. The local Arabs took this very badly, and in 1936 launched an unsuccessful uprising against British rule. But by now the eyes of the world were elsewhere.

Balfour died in 1930 at the age of 81 but his declaration continued to cause problems

In 1933 Hitler came to power in Germany, launching the most sickening campaign of hatred and persecution in human history, which culminated in the industrialised slaughter of the Holocaust.

Even as European countries hesitated to accept refugees from Nazi Germany, relief organisations, aided by donations from Jewish groups in America, brought thousands across the Mediterranean Sea to Palestine.

So even as Europes Jewish population was being exterminated, the reality of a Jewish homeland was gaining momentum. Between 1931 and 1945, the number of Jews in Palestine swelled to a staggering 608,000 people, accounting for about a third of the population.Balfour himself was long gone, having died in 1930 at the age of 81. But as a result of the Declaration, his legacy for the Palestinians was bloody indeed.

After the war, as hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors flooded into Palestine, Zionist groups launched a terror campaign against British occupiers, including the 1946 bombing of Jerusalems King David Hotel, which killed 91 people.

In 1948, under pressure from the Americans, Britain pulled out. The Jewish leadership proclaimed the state of Israel, while four neighbouring Arab countries  Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq  sent in their own armies to help the Palestinians.

After ten months of bitter fighting, the Arab armies were thoroughly routed. By the spring of 1949, the Israelis were left in control of the vast majority of what had previously been Palestine, with the Arabs confined to enclaves in Gaza and on the west bank of the River Jordan.

This result is seen by most Israelis as marking the proud birth of their modern state. The Palestinians, however, know it as al-Nakba  the catastrophe.

In the war and its aftermath, some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes.

Among dozens of massacres, the most infamous came at Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948, where Jewish militiamen shot, raped and mutilated some 107 Palestinian villagers, including women and children.

The list of conflicts since 1948 includes the Suez War of 1956, when the Israelis joined Britain and France in attacking Colonel Nassers Egypt; the Six-Day War of 1967, in which the Israelis completely crushed Egypt, Syria and Jordan, taking over Sinai, Gaza and the West Bank; and the October War of 1973, where Egypt and Syria launched a successful surprise attack on Israel which eventually ended in stalemate.

On top of all that, there have been two full-scale wars in Lebanon, two massive Palestinian uprisings and various Israeli incursions into the Palestinian territories in Gaza and the West Bank.

Countless thousands of people have lost their lives. And to pile tragedy upon tragedy, every year has seen new victims added to the list, whether Palestinians killed by Israelis or Israelis killed by Palestinians.

Perhaps no conflict of modern times has generated so much hatred and anguish, or appeared so utterly intractable despite the efforts of generations of international statesmen and women.

Every detail is contested, and the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration itself is no exception.

Earlier this week, Boris Johnson claimed that it was indispensable to the creation of a great nation, and said he was proud of Britains part in creating Israel.

This is surely fair enough. Like all nations, Israel has its faults. I find it hard to defend its governments harsh treatment of the defeated Palestinians, or its callous, cynical policy of expanding Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.

Yet for much of the past 70 years, Israel has been the Middle Easts only functioning democracy and a staunch ally to Britain.

And after all the Jews have suffered in the past millennium pogroms, persecution and the unspeakable obscenity of the Holocaust  what reasonable person would begrudge them a homeland of their own?

What decent person can possibly question Israels right to exist, free from the threat of terrorism or invasion? And who would want to see its 8.6 million people driven into the sea, as Islamist or hard-Left propaganda often demands?

Yet as Mr Johnson also remarked, it is impossible to avoid being deeply moved by the suffering of those affected and dislodged by its birth.

For while no sensible person would want to see the Israeli people cast out, that was precisely what happened to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the late Forties.

In Britain, the tragedy of the conflict is often reduced to simplistic statements. You can usually find people on the Right muttering darkly about Palestinian terrorism and siding with the Israelis, while card-carrying Left-wingers often talk as though Israel is the fount of all evil.

I find it very sad to see supposedly intelligent people reduced to gibbering zealots, particularly on the high-minded, pseudo-intellectual Left.

Only this week, for example, the usual suspects  academics, actors, trade unionists  put their names to a typically simplistic, virtue-signalling appeal in the Guardian for the British government to apologise for the Declaration and its aftermath.

Yet it seems clear to me, as it probably does to most people, that the story of Israel and the Palestinians is a tragic one, with no monopoly on grievance or virtue, and no obvious solution.

What Mr Johnson calls the miracle of Israel, a nation founded on hard work, self-reliance and an audacious and relentless energy, is real enough.

If that were the only result of the Balfour Declaration, then Britain would be justified in feeling proud of itself.

But that isnt the whole story. For the Declaration also bequeathed a legacy of suffering and slaughter which has poisoned Middle Eastern politics, inflamed Arab opinion and fuelled Islamist extremism for decades.

And it has also poisoned British politics. You only have to listen to the hard Left today  which is, of course, enjoying a terrifying renaissance  to realise how they exploit the conflict to perpetuate the most disgusting anti-Semitic stereotypes, even caricaturing Israelis as latter-day Nazis.

How sad, and how telling, that their puppet Jeremy Corbyn, so happy to consort with the IRA in its bloodthirsty pomp, refused to attend an anniversary dinner with Israels Prime Minister this week  yet somehow found the time to attend an event organised by the Muslim group MEND, which has been accused of hosting Islamist preachers with extremist and intolerant views.

Alas, this is par for the course in todays Labour Party, which has conspicuously failed to tackle a dramatic and frankly chilling upsurge in anti-Semitism among its Left-wing activists.

In the demonology of the Left, there has always been a special place for the Jews.

And yes, I know the Corbynistas claim to be talking about Zionists  who specifically believe in the existence a Jewish state  not Jews, but we all know who they really mean.

It is too glib to blame all the ills of the modern Middle East on the West, as so many Left-wing commentators lazily do.

But there is no doubt Balfour, by meddling in matters he barely understood, unleashed decades of conflict.

What a tragedy that his successors  men such as Sir Anthony Eden, Tony Blair and George W. Bush  refused to learn the lessons of his hubris.

The truth, which too many people fail to understand, is that some problems have no easy answers. Sometimes it is better just to leave well alone.

So perhaps there is only one sensible way to mark the centenary of a message that sparked so much hope, caused so much suffering and changed the course of history.

Activists and armchair experts should stop waving the tattered rags of their own virtue, stop pretending they have the solutions to all the worlds problems, and stop using the suffering of others as a chance to parade their own second-hand principles.

But if they havent learned that lesson in the past hundred years, I suppose there is not much chance they will change now.
Whether it's an ex-partner or a traumatic accident, we are often confronted with reminders of unwanted things.

But scientists have now identified the mechanism that helps us inhibit these unwanted thoughts.

The finding could help to develop treatments for people suffering from disorders including anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression.

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Scientists have now identified the mechanism that helps us inhibit these unwanted thoughts. The finding could help to develop treatments for people suffering from disorders including anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression (stock image)

THE STUDY The researchers used a task called the 'Think/No-think' to identify the brain process that allows the prefrontal cortex to inhibit our thoughts. Participants learned to associate a series of words with a paired, but otherwise unconnected, word - for example ordeal/roach and moss/north. In the next stage, participants were asked to recall the associated word if the cue was green or to suppress it if the cue was red. Using MRI scans, the researchers could see what was happening within key regions of the brain. Results showed that the ability to inhibit unwanted thoughts relies on a neurotransmitter - a chemical within the brain that allows messages to pass between nerve cells - known as GABA. The researchers discovered that GABA concentrations within the hippocampus - a key area of the brain involved in memory - predict people's ability to block the retrieval process and prevent thoughts and memories from returning. Advertisement

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have studied the brain mechanism involved in retrieving unwanted thoughts.

Professor Michael Anderson, one of the researchers who worked on the study, explained: 'Our ability to control our thoughts is fundamental to our wellbeing.

'When this capacity breaks down, it causes some of the most debilitating symptoms of psychiatric diseases: intrusive memories, images, hallucinations, ruminations, and pathological and persistent worries.

'These are all key symptoms of mental illnesses such as PTSD, schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety.'

A region at the front of the brain called the prefrontal cortex is known to play a key role in controlling our actions and acts as a master regulator, controlling other brain regions.

In the new study, the researchers used a task called the 'Think/No-think' procedure to identify the brain process that allows the prefrontal cortex to inhibit our thoughts.

In the task, participants learned to associate a series of words with a paired, but otherwise unconnected, word - for example ordeal/roach and moss/north.

In the next stage, participants were asked to recall the associated word if the cue was green or to suppress it if the cue was red.

In other words, when shown 'ordeal' in red, they are asked to stare at the word but to stop themselves thinking about the associated thought 'roach'.

Using MRI scans, the researchers could see what was happening within key regions of the brain as the participants tried to inhibit their thoughts.

Using MRI scans, the researchers could see what was happening within key regions of the brain as the participants tried to inhibit their thoughts (stock image)

FINDINGS COULD HELP TREAT DEPRESSION Previous studies have shown that increased activity in the hippocampus is seen in a range of conditions, including PTSD, anxiety and chronic depression. The researchers believe their findings could one day lead to treatments for these condtions. Professor Anderson added: 'Most of the focus has been on improving functioning of the prefrontal cortex, but our study suggests that if you could improve GABA activity within the hippocampus, this may help people to stop unwanted and intrusive thoughts.' Advertisement

Results showed that the ability to inhibit unwanted thoughts relies on a neurotransmitter - a chemical within the brain that allows messages to pass between nerve cells - known as GABA.

GABA is the main 'inhibitory' neurotransmitter in the brain, and its release by one nerve cell can suppress activity in other cells to which it is connected.

The researchers discovered that GABA concentrations within the hippocampus - a key area of the brain involved in memory - predict people's ability to block the retrieval process and prevent thoughts and memories from returning.

Professor Anderson explained: 'What's exciting about this is that now we're getting very specific.

'Before, we could only say 'this part of the brain acts on that part', but now we can say which neurotransmitters are likely important - and as a result, infer the role of inhibitory neurons - in enabling us to stop unwanted thoughts.

'Where previous research has focused on the prefrontal cortex - the command centre - we've shown that this is an incomplete picture.

'Inhibiting unwanted thoughts is as much about the cells within the hippocampus - the 'boots on the ground' that receive commands from the prefrontal cortex.'

Previous studies have shown that increased activity in the hippocampus is seen in a range of conditions, including PTSD, anxiety and chronic depression.

The researchers believe their findings could one day lead to treatments for these condtions.

Professor Anderson added: 'Most of the focus has been on improving functioning of the prefrontal cortex, but our study suggests that if you could improve GABA activity within the hippocampus, this may help people to stop unwanted and intrusive thoughts.'




Peterborough could be set to become a seaside city if global temperatures rise by 3C - despite the fact it's 35 miles from the coast.

Sea levels could rise by this amount in the coming decades, potentially flooding large swathes of Lincolnshire's low-lying agricultural land and placing Cambridgeshire on the coast.

The UN predicts that this temperature rise could happen within this century.

Globally the world's coastline will completely change shape - with chunks of Florida, Manhattan and Rio de Janeiro all becoming submerged by rising seas.

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Peterborough could be set to become a seaside city if global temperatures rise by 3C - despite the fact it's 35 miles from the coast. This graphic shows the areas that will be flooded (in blue) near Peterborough as a result of sea level rise this century

LINCOLNSHIRE FLOODING Lincolnshire is home to 30,000 vulnerable properties, according to the latest national flood assessment, with many residents unaware of how far inland flooding could happen. Every year, beaches in Skegness are replenished with 350,000 cubic metres of sand. In the small port town of Boston along the coast has had a 100m ($130m) flood barrier scheme. According to a report by the Lincolnshire Research Observatory more than one in ten people in the county are employed in food and farming worth around 1 billion ($1.3 billion) each year. Nearly a quarter of all land used for horticulture in England is in Lincolnshire and the proportion of peas, beans, vegetables and salads grown in the county is even higher. These investments are part of the UK's efforts at managed retreat, although if temperatures do rise by 3C it could demand more drastic action. Advertisement

'We've heard that the coast will move so far inland that Peterborough will become a seaside town,' Jason Elliot who works in a shop in Skegness told the Guardian.

'We all assume we'll be OK for a good while, but it would be sad if one day Skegness was to go.

'So many people live here and so many holidaymakers have had fun here', he said.

Lincolnshire is home to 30,000 vulnerable properties, according to the latest national flood assessment, with many residents unaware of how far inland flooding could happen.

Every year, beaches in Skegness are replenished with 350,000 cubic metres of sand.

In the small port town of Boston along the coast has had a 100m ($130m) flood barrier scheme.

According to a report by the Lincolnshire Research Observatory more than one in ten people in the county are employed in food and farming worth around 1 billion ($1.3 billion) each year.

Nearly a quarter of all land used for horticulture in England is in Lincolnshire and the proportion of peas, beans, vegetables and salads grown in the county is even higher.

These investments are part of the UK's efforts at managed retreat, although if temperatures do rise by 3C it could demand more drastic action.

According to the UN the average surface temperature will rise by this amount within this century - with some areas of the world likely to warm by even more.

In the Pliocene Epoch, which ended 2.5 million years ago, temperatures were three degrees higher than our pre-industrial levels.

Peterborough could be set to become a seaside city if global temperatures rise by 3C as predicted by the United Nations - despite the fact it's 35 miles from the coast

'At that time, there was almost no ice anywhere. The sea level was 20 meters (65 feet) or so higher, and forests went to the edge of the Arctic Ocean where there is now tundra,' Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies told Aljazeera.

'It takes a long time for those changes to manifest, but if we see 3C  it pushes us in that direction,' he added.

Although the nations of the world have agreed to work on limiting the warming to 2C, they have yet to finalise a program that will successfully achieve this goal.

Even if global warming falls below the governments' target of 2C, around 20 per cent of the world's population will be forced to migrate away from coasts.

The red dots show the areas that will be hardest by sea level rise, with 75-100 per cent of the populations in these cities submerged under an 'average' global warming scenario which would be a 2C rise in temperatures. They include Shanghair and Tianjin in China and Mumbai, Calcultta and Dhaka in India

That means that unless we cut carbon emission drastically, major cities such as New York, London, and Shanghai, will be completely submerged, scientists have warned.

Alison Baptiste, director of strategy and investment at the Environment Agency told MailOnline: 'A changing climate will alter the frequency, intensity, duration and timing of extreme weather  as a result we expect to see an increase in extreme events such as flooding.

'The Environment Agency builds climate change projections into the design of flood defences to make sure they are fit for the future  and we plan for the worst case scenarios.'

Rising seas are caused by the expansion of warming ocean water and water runoff from melting ice sheets and glaciers.

A rise of just 2C will cause massive flooding throughout coastal cities like London (pictured) and force residents to retreat inland

Currently, sea levels are rising by three to four millimetres (0.10 to 0.15 inches) a year, but the rate has increased by about 30 per cent over the last decade.

Global average temperatures have increased by one degree Celsius (1.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since the mid-19th century, with most of that happening in the last 70 years.

In May researchers predicted global warming would dramatically increase the frequency of coastal flooding by 2050.

Tropical regions will be the worst hit, and researchers forecast a 10-to-20 centimeter (four-to-eight inch) jump in the global ocean watermark by mid-century.

Major cities along the North American seaboard such as Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, along with the European Atlantic coast, would be highly exposed, the researchers say.

According to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois in Chicago, even at the low end of sea rise spectrum, coastal cities such as Mumbai, Kochi in India and Abidjan in Cote d'Ivoire would be significantly affected.

'We are 95 per cent confident that an added 5-to-10 centimetres will more than double the frequency of flooding in the tropics,' said Dr Sean Vitousek, a climate scientist at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

He said that small island countries, which are already vulnerable to flooding, would fare far worse.
The final resting place of 58 British seaman who were killed when their submarine sank in World War Two has been discovered in the North Sea by accident.

The wreck of the HMS Narwhal was found 77 years after it disappeared by a group of Polish divers who were looking for one of their nation's lost submarines in the area.

A 3D radar scan showing the craft perfectly intact in 308ft (94 metres) of water has confirmed it to be the war-time submarine which was attacked by the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain in July 1940.

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A 3D radar scan showing the craft perfectly intact in 308ft (94 metres) of water has confirmed it to be HMS Narwhal (pictured) which was attacked by the Luftwaffe in July 1940

The wreck was stumbled upon 77 years after it disappeared by a group of Polish divers who were looking for one of their nation's lost submarines in the area

HMS NARWHAL The wreck was stumbled upon 77 years after it disappeared by a group of Polish divers who were looking for one of their nation's lost submarines in the area. HMS Narwhal left its base in Blyth, Northumberland, tasked with the job of laying mines off German-occupied Norway. But the Germans had cracked the Royal Navy's secret codes and were aware of Narwhal's potential route. It was intercepted by a Dornier bomber and attacked on July 23. It sank with all hands 140 miles off the east coast of Scotland. At the time it was one of the Royal Navy's most fierce submarines during the 1930s. It was fitted with 12 torpedoes and was also fitted with a four inch surface gun. It was skippered by Lieutenant Commander Ronald Burch. Advertisement

The submarine left its base in Blyth, Northumberland, tasked with the job of laying mines off German-occupied Norway.

But the Germans had cracked the Royal Navy's secret codes and were aware of Narwhal's potential route.

It was intercepted by a Dornier bomber and attacked on July 23.

Earlier this year members of Santi Diving, a Polish-based group of deep-sea explorers, were carrying out a search for ORP Orzel (Eagle) when they found the Narwhal.

It was 140 miles (225km) off the east coast of Scotland and it's latitude is in line with Edinburgh.

The Orzel has been missing since escaping the German invasion of Poland in 1939.

Polish divers have spent the last 10 years looking for it without success.

Having made the potentially historic discovery the team are now looking to find the families of the 58 men whose remains are inside the wreck.

Tomasz Stachura, one of the divers behind the expedition, said: 'We are very interested in any contact with HMS Narwhal staff relatives as it would be good to hear their stories.

'While we were searching for the ORP Eagle we found an unknown sub at a depth of around 308ft (94 metres) deep.

'At first we hoped it could be the Eagle, one of our own Polish submarines, but we soon found that the wreck was 13ft (4 metres) longer then Eagle, thus excluding it from the sought-after submarine', he said.

The team discovered it was the 290ft-long (88-metre-long) HMS Narwhal, a mine-laying submarine lost on in the vicinity patrol.

The submarine left its base in Blyth, Northumberland, tasked with the job of laying mines off German-occupied Norway. Pictured are 3D radar scans (from side, image two; from above, image three and four; and graphic, image five) of the stricken submarine, which match the dimensions of the Narwhal (artist's impression, image one)

'As far as we know the location of HMS Narwhal is still unknown', said Mr Stachura.

'In my opinion some further research on the wreck would be advisable to ensure that the identity of this wreck can be established for sure.

'Hopefully this can help in confirming the fate of the crew lost with the submarine', he said.

The area it was found in along with the length and shape of the wreck appear to confirm it is the Narwhal.

At the time it was one of the Royal Navy's most fierce submarines during the 1930s. It was fitted with 12 torpedoes and was also fitted with a four inch surface gun.

It was skippered by Lieutenant Commander Ronald Burch.

The submarine left its base in Blyth, Northumberland, tasked with the job of laying mines off German-occupied Norway. But the Germans had cracked the Royal Navy's secret codes and were aware of Narwhal's potential route

Having made the potentially historic discovery (pictured) the team are now looking to find the families of the 58 men whose remains are inside the wreck

HMS Narwhal is believed to have sunk the German U-boat, 'U-1', the first submarine built by the Third Reich, which disappeared on patrol on April 6, 1940.

George Malcomson, creator of archives with the National Museum of the Royal Navy, said he discovery represents just one of several British submarines that are still missing to this day.

Mr Malcomson said: 'There were lots of British submarines and ships that were lost, not just during the Second World War, but the First World War also.

'During WWI there were 54 that went missing and that increased to around 70 during WWII.

HMS Narwhal is believed to have sunk the German U-boat, 'U-1', the first submarine built by the Third Reich, which disappeared on patrol on April 6, 1940. Pictured are radar images

'The problem is that they head into patrol areas, don't come back, and no one knows what happened to them.

'Finding them involves looking at enemy records among various other things, and in recent years there has been a steady trickle of submarine and ship wrecks being found', he said.

He said the Polish team who discovered the Narwhal have a 'burning desire' to locate the Eagle.

'That's is great to see, but unfortunately so many British vessels went missing during those years that if you were to try and find them all it would take up your whole life until you died', he said.
They're often regarded as serving no purpose, but a new study suggests that the arms of Tyrannosaurus Rex may have played a key role in its dominance over the animal kingdom.

A researcher claims that T-Rex's arms were used as vicious weapons, capable of inflicting metre-long gashes in its victims.

But not everyone is convinced by this theory, with some experts calling it an 'illogical' explanation.

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They're often regarded as serving no purpose, but a new study suggests that the arms of Tyrannosaurus Rex may have played a key role in its dominance over the animal kingdom (artist's impression)

THE THEORY Dr Stanley has based his theory on T-Rex's strong arm bones, which at a metre-long, 'were not as tiny as often portrayed.' The dinosaur also had an 'unsual quasi-ball-and-socket-joint', allowing it to move its arms in several directions  ideal for slashing, according to Dr Stanley. During its evolution, T-Rex also lost one of its three claws, resulting in 50 per cent more pressure applied by the remaining two, providing a more powerful slash. Dr Stanley added: 'In light of its formidable weaponry, why should T. rex not have engaged in this activity?' Advertisement

Dr Steven Stanley, a palaeontologist at the University of Hawaii in Manoa argues that T-Rex's arms were more useful than thought.

Speaking at the Geological Society of America Conference in Seattle, Dr Stanley said: 'Its short, strong forelimbs and large claws would have permitted T. rex, whether mounted on a victim's back or grasping it with its jaws, to inflict four gashes a metre [three feet] or more long and several centimetres [more than an inch] deep within a few seconds.

'And it could have repeated this multiple times in rapid succession.'

Dr Stanley has based his theory on T-Rex's strong arm bones, which at a metre-long, 'were not as tiny as often portrayed.'

The dinosaur also had an 'unusual quasi-ball-and-socket-joint', allowing it to move its arms in several directions  ideal for slashing, according to Dr Stanley.

During its evolution, T-Rex also lost one of its three claws, resulting in 50 per cent more pressure applied by the remaining two, providing a more powerful slash.

Dr Stanley added: 'In light of its formidable weaponry, why should T. rex not have engaged in this activity?'

But not everyone is convinced by Dr Stanley's theory. Dr Jakob Vinther suggests that the arms were used for a 'minor subsidiary purpose,' such as to clasp a partner during sex (artist's impression)

But not everyone is convinced by Dr Stanley's theory.

Speaking to National Geographic, Dr Jakob Vinther, a paelobiologist at the University of Bristol, said: 'It seems illogical to me to use such small arms to slash with.'

Instead, Dr Vinther suggests that the arms were used for a 'minor subsidiary purpose,' such as to clasp a partner during sex.
Alphabet boss Eric Schmidt has warned the Chinese are poised to erase a key American advantage  and says the Trump administration is helping them.

'I'm assuming our [U.S.] lead will continue over the next five years and then that China will catch up extremely quickly,' the Google leader told the Center for New American Security's Paul Scharre at the Artificial Intelligence & Global Security Summit on Wednesday, according to Defense One.

Schmidt, who also chairs the Defense Innovation Advisory Board, said the key difference was the importance the Chinese government put on AI - and slammed Donald Trump's administration for falling behind.

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Schmidt said the key difference was the importance the Chinese government put on AI - as slammed Donald Trump's administration for slashing funds for basic science and research.

'We need to get our act together, as a countryThis is the moment when the [U.S.] government collectively, and private industry, needs to say, 'these technologies are important.'

In July, China unveiled its national plan for the future of artificial intelligence.

'By 2020, they will have caught up. By 2025, they will be better than us. By 2030, they will dominate the industries,' Schmidt said.

Trump's 2018 budget request slashes funds for basic science and research by $4.3 billion, roughly 13 percent compared to 2016.

'It feels, as an American, that we are fighting this conflict with one hand behind our back.

'What I would rather do is not adopt the Chinese policies, butfund basic research. The Trump budget does reduce that. It's the wrong direction,' Schmidt said.

Schmidt also hit out Trump's multicountry travel ban and other immigration policies.

'Let's talk about immigration. Shockingly, some of the very best people in AI are in countries that we won't let into America.

'Would you rather have them building AI somewhere else or would you have them building here?' he asked.

'Iran produces some of the top computer scientists in the world. I want them here. I want them working for Alphabet and Google. It's crazy not to let these people.'

Earlier this year Schmidt has revealed he is an 'AI denier'.

'I've taken the position of 'job elimination denier,' he told an audience at MIT according to CNBC.

Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt told an audience at MIT 'I've taken the position of 'job elimination denier,' claiming there's no question that there's job dislocation.'

'I've just decided I'm going to be contrarian, because the data supports me, and it's more fun to be in opposition anyway,' he said.

Still, 'there's no question that there's job dislocation. But there [are] always new solutions,' he said.

'The economic folks would say that you can see the job that's lost, but you very seldom can see the job that's created.'

Artificial Intelligence has been described as a threat that could be 'more dangerous than nukes'.

Stark warning: Professor Stephen Hawking says we must be vigilant about artificial intelligence

One group of scientists and entrepreneurs, including Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking, have signed an open letter promising to ensure AI research benefits humanity.

The letter warns that without safeguards on intelligent machines, mankind could be heading for a dark future.

The document, drafted by the Future of Life Institute, said scientists should seek to head off risks that could wipe out mankind.

The authors say there is a 'broad consensus' that AI research is making good progress and would have a growing impact on society.

WILL A ROBOT TAKE YOUR JOB? From translator droids in Star Wars to robotic maids in The Jetsons, many sci-fi visions of the future involve robots working instead of humans. Now there's a calculator that can tell you whether a computer is likely to make you redundant. It reveals that robots are most likely to take people's accountancy and telemarketing jobs, whereas nuclear engineers, for example will probably keep their roles. Advertisement

Schmidt also hit out as US Visa limits.

'The stupidest policy in the entire American political system was the limit on H-1B visas,' Schmidt said.

'We want the best people in the world, regardless of any form of sex, race, country, what-have-you. We want them to work for us and not our competitors,' he said.

Policy restrictions like that make it more difficult for U.S. companies to remain competitive, he claims.

'We should organize our country to be the most attractive place for those people. Stupid government policies that restrict us from [having] a fair chance of getting those people are antithetical to our mission [and] the things we serve.'
NASA and ESA have spotted an old friend passing through our stellar neighbourhood.

A comet known as 96P was captured on October 25 by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), before disappearing again five days later.

While its not the first time scientists have observed the icy space rock, this particular observation is said to be extremely rare, after a second mission simultaneously viewed it from the opposite side of Earths orbit.

In the animation above, the comet can be seen entering from the lower right corner of SOHO's view, then exiting around the top right. Jupiter can also be seen passing left-to-right behind the solid central disk

SEEING DOUBLE With the two observations, captured from opposite sides of Earths orbit, scientists can now compare different views to learn more about the comet, including its composition and interactions with solar wind. Each craft gathered polarization measurements of comet 96P. These measure the particles in the comets tail, in which light waves are oriented the same way as they travel through a medium, NASA explains. This could reveal information on the composition and size distribution of the particles. Advertisement

NASAs Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) observed the comet between Oct 26 and 28th, as the SOHO mission also watched on.

The comet is also known as Machholz, for amateur astronomer Dan Machholz, who discovered it in 1986.

It was previously seen by NASA and ESAs SOHO mission in 1996, 2002, 2007, and 2012.

According to NASA, its the crafts most frequent cometary visitor.

Comet 96P is also said to have unusual composition, and has created a large family of comet fragments.

Its spurred two separate comet groups, according to NASA.

In 2012, amateur astronomers studying the object spotted two tiny comet fragments trailing behind it.

NASAs Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) also observed the comet between Oct 26 and 28th, as the SOHO mission also watched on

This indicates its in the process of evolving.

Now, theyve spotted a third.

With the two observations, captured from opposite sides of Earths orbit, scientists can now compare different views to learn more about the comet, including its composition and interactions with solar wind.

Each craft gathered polarization measurements of comet 96P.

These measure the particles in the comets tail, in which light waves are oriented the same way as they travel through a medium, NASA explains.

A comet known as 96P was captured on October 25 by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), before disappearing again five days later

Polarization is a strong function of the viewing geometry, and getting multiple measurements at the same time could potentially give useful information about the composition and size distribution of the tail particles, said William Thompson, STEREO chief observer at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Just a week prior, scientists spotted whats thought to be the first alien comet visiting from another solar system.

The comet, called C/2017 U1 was spotted by a telescope in Hawaii on 18 October, and was then seen 34 separate times in the week after.

An image of the object has revealed insight on its possible chemical composition, suggesting it is a small rocky or icy object that may have been drifting through our galaxy for millions or even billions of years, before entering our solar system by chance.
New research shows that there's truth to the idea that nature and spending time outdoors can improve happiness.

The study showed that if people simply take time to notice the nature around them, it will increase their general happiness and well-being.

Even if it's just birds flying in a crowded city or a tree at a bus stop, noticing nature can also improve 'prosocial orientation' - the willigness to share and place value on one's community.

If people simply take time to notice the nature around them, it will increase their general happiness and well-being, a new study has found

HOW THEY DID IT A University of British Columbia (UBC) study examined the effects of a two-week intervention involving nature 395 Undergraduate students were asked to document how nature they encountered in their daily routine made them feel. They took a photo of the item that caught their attention and wrote down a short note about their feelings in response to it. Meanwhile, a second group of study participants tracked their reactions to human-made objects instead, again taking a photo and jotting down their feelings. A third control group did neither, continuing their everyday lives. The researchers founs that after the intervention, levels of positive emotions, elevating experiences and a general sense of connectedness to other people and nature and life as a whole, as well as prosocial orientation, were significantly higher in the nature group compaared to the human-built and control groups. Advertisement

The University of British Columbia (UBC) study examined the effects of a two-week intervention involving nature.

Undergraduate students were asked to document how nature they encountered in their daily routine made them feel.

They took a photo of the item that caught their attention and wrote down a short note about their feelings in response to it.

The examples of nature could be anything not human built: a house plant, a dandelion growing in a crack in a sidewalk, birds, or sun through a window.

Meanwhile, a second group of study participants tracked their reactions to human-made objects instead, again taking a photo and jotting down their feelings.

A third control group did neither, continuing their everyday lives.

'This wasn't about spending hours outdoors or going for long walks in the wilderness,' says Holi-Anne Passmore, a PhD psycholo student at UBC's Okanagan campus and the lead author of the study.

'This is about the tree at a bus stop in the middle of a city and the positive effect that one tree can have on people.'

Passmore, who studies wellness, says she was 'overwhelmed' not just by the response of the 395 study participants - who submitted more than 2,500 photos and and descriptions of emotions - but also by the impact that noticing emotional responses to nearby nature had on well-being.

'This wasn't about spending hours outdoors or going for long walks in the wilderness,' says Holi-Anne Passmore (pictured), a PhD psychology student at UBC's Okanagan campus and the lead author of the study. 'This is about the tree at a bus stop in the middle of a city and the positive effect that one tree can have on people'

'The difference in participants' well-being - their happiness, sense of elevation, and their level of connectedness to other people, not just nature - was significantly higher than participants in the group noticing how human-built objects made them feel and the control group.'

It also had an impact on their prosocial orientation - a willingness to share resources and the value they placed on community.

There is scientific research that people who live in greenspaces generally seem to be happier, and may live longer than those who don't.

Passmore is building on this research, and the latest study is one of a series by a research team in UBC Okanagan's psychology department known as the 'Happy Team,' which is providing evidence that nature can increase happiness.
China has developed a new magnetic propulsion motor that could make nuclear submarines far stealthier, state media have claimed.

According to a new report, the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) has tested the countrys first permanent system of this kind, paving the way for quieter and more elusive high-speed vessels.

The new magnetic drive, if successful, could bring the Chinese navy more on par with the US and other Western naval forces.

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China has developed a new magnetic propulsion motor that could make nuclear submarines far stealthier, state media have claimed. A Chinese Navy nuclear submarine is pictured above, during a celebration in 2009

MAGNETIC DRIVE Engineers around the world have long been working to create reliable magnetic ship drives. Such propulsion systems could vastly reduce the noise emitted by vessels. The magnetic drive uses a superconducting magnet to force water through the submarines shaft, according to Motherboard. Its then funneled out the back. With few moving parts, the magnetic drive is much quieter than conventional systems. Advertisement

Submarine and anti-submarine technology and capabilities have long been considered a weak link in Chinese naval power, Eric Wertheim, author of Combat Fleets of the World, told Motherboard.

It appears that they are making concerted efforts to address this shortfall.

Engineers around the world have long been working to create reliable magnetic ship drives.

Such propulsion systems could vastly reduce the noise emitted by vessels; according to Chinese media, this particular system could cut noises down to their lowest levels.

In a statement from the CSICs official WeChat public account, officials claim a Chinese patented permanent magnet motor was tested on naval vessels docked at Sanya, in South Chinas Hainan Province.

This site is Chinas base for conventional and nuclear submarines.

According to the state media, the tests were conducted on October 18, and vessel achieved the designated speed.

The magnetic drive uses a superconducting magnet to force water through the submarines shaft, according to Motherboard.

Its then funneled out the back.

With few moving parts, the magnetic drive is much quieter than conventional systems.

In recent years, China has been ramping up its efforts to catch up to Western navies.

Just months ago, the Chinese navy released a rare glimpse at the Type 093B Shang submarine, which can launch missiles vertically at ships and other targets overhead. Chinas new nuclear attack submarine is among the militarys most secretive platforms

This past summer, it was revealed that the Chinese navy is developing submersible 'arsenal ships' that can fire missiles at the surface, or dip below the waves to attack from underwater.

According to Chinese media, naval experts have been looking into two types of partially-submerged warships, both of which would displace about 20,000 tons, Popular Science reports.

This type of design could make the massive, missile-carrying warships stealthier by masking their radar signatures as they submerge  or, it could allow for high-speed operations up at the surface.

According to the Popular Science blog Eastern Arsenal, researchers in China have been testing models of the technology since 2011, and rumours claim a full-scale proof-of-concept from the Bohai Shipbuilding Heavy Industrial Corporation will be ready around 2020.

The first type of arsenal ship would remain mostly underwater for stealth operations. But, to switch into high-speed mode  which would sacrifice stealth  it would used the flat hull bottom to hydroplane at high speeds to cut across waves, PopSci explains

ARSENAL SHIPS According to Eastern Arsenal, Chinese institutions are looking into two types of submersible arsenal ships. One would keep most of the hull submerged to optimize stealth. But, it could also switch into a high-speed mode by hydroplaning at the surface. The second would be more like a traditional submarine, and would mostly operate at the surface, dipping down only when in combat. Advertisement

Chinese media claim studies on submersible arsenal ships are underway, including a version with high-speed capabilities, and a ship with two conning towers that operates almost fully submerged.

The first type of arsenal ship would remain mostly underwater for stealth operations.

But, to switch into high-speed mode  which would sacrifice stealth  it would use the flat hull bottom to hydroplane at high speeds to cut across waves, PopSci explains.

The second type of ship would have a more traditional design and act much like those used during WWII, with most of its operations taking place at the surface.

It would only dip below the surface in times of combat, or if attacked, according to PopSci.

And, just months ago, the Chinese navy released a rare glimpse at the Type 093B Shang submarine, which can launch missiles vertically at ships and other targets overhead.

Chinas new nuclear attack submarine is among the militarys most secretive platforms.
British Airways's only father-daughter Boeing 777 pilot team have flown together for the final time.

David and Kat Woodruffe touched down at London Heathrow on Thursday after Mr Woodruffe completed his retirement flight from New York.

Mr Woodruffe, who joined the airline in 1984 and held the role of captain, said he felt mixed emotions during his final flight alongside his daughter.

David and Kat Woodruffe landed at Heathrow after completing Mr Woodruffe's retirement flight from New York

Mother-of-two Miss Woodruffe, 35, believes the father-daughter bond helped them in the cockpit as they are 'familiar with each other and communication is very easy'

The 64-year-old told the Press Association: 'I'm sorry to be leaving BA after so many years, but equally glad that she will be remaining in the airline to continue our legacy, and doing a job I know she has the same passion and enthusiasm for as I do.'

Mother-of-two Miss Woodruffe, 35, believes the father-daughter bond helped them in the cockpit as they are 'familiar with each other and communication is very easy'.

The pair, from Horsham, West Sussex, operated around a dozen flights together for BA, during which she would 'flick quite happily between calling him captain, dad and occasionally Dave'.

Mr Woodruffe said they were '100 per cent professional' on the flight deck.

He joked that 'like any father I always end up paying' when they went out for post-flight meals.

His daughter, a senior first officer, described being alongside him for his last flight as 'wonderful'.

David and Kat Woodruffe have flown together for the final time

By the age of 12, Miss Woodruffe was 'absolutely adamant' she would follow in her father's footsteps after growing up with him 'grabbing his pilot's hat on his way out the door to fly around the world'

She said: 'Dad and flying have influenced my life massively, so it's really special to have been with him at the end of his amazing career. I promised him I will carry on the good Woodruffe name!'

By the age of 12, Miss Woodruffe was 'absolutely adamant' she would follow in her father's footsteps after growing up with him 'grabbing his pilot's hat on his way out the door to fly around the world'.

She said: 'My GCSEs and A-levels were picked in order to help me into aviation, dad insisted on physics and maths, and I used to go away with him on his trips as much as possible.

David and Kat Woodruffe pictured on the flight deck on a trip to Cairo in 2006

'This wasn't a chore of course, it involved spending an inordinate amount of my childhood in the paradise islands of Barbados, Grand Cayman and Tobago.'

Mr Woodruffe, whose other daughter is a former BA cabin crew member, added: 'I am immensely proud of Kathryn.

'She has wanted to be a pilot since a child and I have always encouraged her to fulfil her ambition.'
Sanford Health and Mid Dakota Clinic executives took the stand to defend their companies proposed merger in U.S. District Court Thursday.

The merger is at the center of an anti-trust lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission and North Dakota Attorney General. Thursday was the first day the defense offered testimony in a preliminary injunction hearing to halt merger talks until a formal FTC hearing can be held in Washington, D.C., near the end of the month.

The FTC and attorney general are alleging that the deal would violate antitrust law by significantly reducing competition for adult primary care physician services, pediatric services, obstetrics and gynecology services, and general surgery physician services.

The chief executives of both health care organizations made the argument to the judge that, should their organizations be allowed to join forces, CHI St. Alexius Health would be able to recruit new physicians and maintain competition in the Bismarck-Mandan market.

CHI will be ready for the outcome (of this case) either way, said Sanford Health CEO Kelby Krabbenhoft.

CHI St. Alexius Health President Kurt Schley testified Monday that CHI employs five primary care physicians in its Mandan clinic, compared to nearly 60 employed by Sanford and Mid Dakota combined. In pediatrics, MDC and Sanford would have 20 physicians, 15 OB-GYNs and 10 general surgeons at Sanford and Mid Dakota with few to none of each at CHI.

In early 2015, Mid Dakota was in talks with both Sanford and CHI St. Alexius Health over potential mergers, ultimately trying to make a deal with CHI.

When CHI was initially chosen, Krabbenhoft said his organization was disappointed but not surprised due to Mid Dakota and CHI St. Alexius longstanding relationship.

We just went back to the task at hand, of trying to meet his own operations operational and expansion goals, he said.

But in spring 2016, Mid Dakota lawyers said CHI St. Alexius walked away for undisclosed reasons, which sent the clinic turning to Sanford.

Krabbenhoft said, as an independent clinic, Mid Dakotas search for a health care system to partner with is part of an industry trend that has been going on for about 20 years.

Theres been a significant amount of consolidation into integrated health systems, he said.

When Mid Dakota put its clinic on the market, Krabbenhoft said he was told the decision was driven by indications of potential financial stress in the future, as well as the industrys integration trend.

Theres room for (independent clinics in the market) but theres just not as many as there used to be  The real competition now and in the future will go on between integrated systems, Krabbenhoft said, a scenario which he says fits CHI.

Krabbenhoft and Mid Dakota CEO Marvin Lein also testified that a period of expansion, in which Mid Dakota doctors will continue to admit patients at CHI, also will allow time for CHI to generate revenue while looking for replacement physicians.

The two CEOs said there are not enough beds, operating rooms or treatment rooms immediately available at Sanford to accommodate the Mid Dakota doctors. Buildout is expected to take two to three years.

Sanford and Mid Dakota will offer one more day of testimony Friday.
His departure from One Direction inspired anger from his former bandmates.

And it seems like tensions are still running high among the estranged chart-topping pop stars, as Zayn Malik, 24, admitted to UsWeekly: 'I don't talk to any of them, really.'

'To be honest, I never really spoke to Harry [Styles] even when I was in the band.'

'I don't talk to any of them': Zayn Malik, 24, admitted in the interview that he believes distance and age have caused the boy band to drift apart, saying it's 'just life'

The Pillowtalk hitmaker admitted in the interview that he believes distance and age have caused the boy band to drift apart, saying it's 'just life'.

'Its not the way it used to be, obviously we were a lot closer because we were together the entire time, spending 24 hours a day in the band.'

But not all the fractures can be attributed to simply growing apart, for example his apparently distant relationship with Harry Styles.

'I didnt really expect that much of a relationship with him when I left. And I havent [had one since] to be honest.'

'I never really spoke to Harry': Not all the fractures can be attributed to simply growing apart, for example his apparently distant relationship with Harry Styles. Pictured here in 2012

Zayn quit the boy band in 2015 and his departure was less than acrimonious.

In an interview with The Sun, he revealed he had been unhappy for a long time.

He said: 'You know, I did try to do something that I wasnt happy doing for awhile, for the sake of maybe other peoples happiness.

'And that was mainly the fans. And I only ever tried to do it for the fans,and it was only ever for them.'

Parting is such sweet sorrow: Zayn, seen here in 2014, quit the boy band in 2015 and his departure was less than acrimonious

Speaking of his former bandmates, he said: 'Its not that Ive turned my back on them or anything, its just that I just cant do that anymore because its not real to me.'

Speaking to Elle UK in July last year, Zayn confessed he's enjoyed being able to experiment with his personal every since quitting One Direction.

The boy band was renowned for being notoriously controlling of the public images of Zayn and his fellow bandmates.

'Since leaving One Direction I've been given the freedom to be able to wear whatever I want and that's made it more interesting. More creative,' he told the publication.

Small freedoms: 'Since leaving One Direction I've been given the freedom to be able to wear whatever I want and that's made it more interesting. More creative.' Zayn is seen here in 2014

Zayn is now loved up with striking model Gigi Hadid, 22, and the pair have been dating since November 2015.

'I can understand how it can look, that youve got these two people in a "power couple". Thats not something I want to be a part of,' he told the Evening Standard in June of his relationship with the model.

'Im with her because I like her and I hope shes with me because she likes me.'

'When we come home, we dont really talk about that s***. We just spend time together as a normal couple, cook food, watch TV, have a laugh.'

Power couple: Zayn is now loved up with striking model Gigi Hadid, 22, and the pair have been dating since November 2015. They're pictured here in April 2017

The Bradford, West Yorkshire raised musician certainly explored his newfound dress freedom for Halloween with girlfriend Hadid.

The supermodel transformed into The Black Cat as the pop star became the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

In a snap posted by GIgi, the couple looked to be having fun as Zayn attempted to pick his girlfriend up.
Arnold Schwarzenegger opened up about his split from Maria Shriver.

'I dont need any time to reflect when I know it was a major, major screw-up,' he said in a teaser for his Fox News show, OBJECTified released Thursday.

As previously reported, the action star, 70, was served divorce papers by his ex in 2011 after it was discovered he fathered a child with their longtime housekeeper.

Real talk: Arnold Schwarzenegger, 70, opened up about his split from Maria Shriver in a teaser for his Fox News show, OBJECTified released Thursday; (pictured October)

In the trailer, the former governor of California also confirmed that they have not yet finalized their divorce.

Citing 'irreconcilable differences' as the reason for pulling the plug on their 25-year marriage, Maria sought joint legal and physical custody of the couple's youngest children Patrick and Christopher, 17 and 14 at the time respectively.

They are also parents to 27-year-old Katherine and 26-year-old Christina.

Maria moved out of the family's Brentwood, L.A. home, and the couple announced their separation that May.

Missed out: Maria, 61, has yet to finalize divorce from Arnold; (pictured July)

'This is a painful and heartbreaking time, the 61-year-old journalist said in May 2011.

'As a mother, my concern is for the children. I ask for compassion, respect and privacy as my children and I try to rebuild our lives and heal.'

'I understand and deserve the feelings of anger and disappointment among my friends and family,' Arnold said in a statement.

'There are no excuses and I take full responsibility for the hurt I have caused. I have apologized to Maria, my children and my family. I am truly sorry.'

Better times: The once happy couple married in 1986 in Hyannis, Massachusetts, at St. Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Church

The Terminator star has since opened up about his relationship with his illegitimate son, Joseph Baena, whom he fathered with Mildred Baena

'Hes terrific and he totally understands the situation,' the politician told Howard Stern in June 2015.

So, it all has worked out  Its a very tough situation for him. Its a very tough situation for my kids. Very tough situation for my family. It was tough for everybody. But it has happened and now we have to figure it out, right?'
They have sat side-by-side on The One Show sofa for six years.

But Alex Jones has now confessed she was 'shocked' to learn Matt Baker was being paid a far higher salary, for the same presenting role.

Speaking to the Mirror, the 40-year-old admitted she had 'assumed' the pair were being paid the same - after the BBC's top earners list revealed her 39-year-old co-star received 50,000 more, earlier this year.

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'I assumed we were paid the same': Alex Jones has confessed she was 'shocked' to learn Matt Baker was being paid a far higher salary, for the same presenting role on The One Show

The list revealed that Alex received between 400,000 and 449,000 for her hosting duties, while former Blue Peter host Matt was receiving 450,000 to 499,000.

Weighing in on the scandal with the paper, the Welsh host admitted she had just 'assumed' the pair were on the same salaries, as they do exactly the same job on the show.

She explained: 'Matt and I have never discussed wages, but I assumed we got paid the same. I was quite shocked. I guess everybody else was.'

Shock: She explained: 'Matt and I have never discussed wages, but I assumed we got paid the same. I was quite shocked. I guess everybody else was'

Big gap: The list revealed that Alex received between 400,000 and 449,000 to front The One Show, while former Blue Peter host Matt was receiving 450,000 to 499,000

Back in July, the corporation's 'talent' list of its most generously paid stars revealed women are not being paid as much - despite doing the same jobs.

Just a third of its highest-paid stars were women, with seven male stars paid more than the BBC's biggest earning female presenter, Claudia Winkleman, who is on up to 500,000.

62 of the 96 individuals on the list were men, and half of all the women included were in the lowest pay band.

Stalwart: Alex has presented the magazine show for one year longer than Matt - first hosted proceedings in 2010, alongside comedian Jason Manford

Dream team: Her long-term screen partner joined in 2011

More than 40 well-known female presenters have written to BBC boss Lord Hall since, demanding he immediately put men and women on equal levels of pay.

Alex has presented the magazine show for one year longer than Matt - first hosted proceedings in 2010, alongside comedian Jason Manford, before her long-term screen partner joined in 2011.

The news of the pay gap broke two months after Alex had returned to The One Show from maternity leave.

In January the beauty welcomed her first child, a son called Teddy, with insurance broker husband Charlie Thomson.

Better than ever: The news of the pay gap broke two months after Alex had returned to The One Show from maternity leave, after welcoming her first child

Happy family: In January the beauty welcomed her first child, a son called Teddy, with insurance broker husband Charlie Thomson (pictured in 2015)

She even announced Teddy's arrival in a live telephone call to The One Show that month - gushing to Matt and her temporary replacement Angela Scanlon that the birth was 'straight-forward' and 'lovely'.

Speaking to Daily Mail's You Magazine in April however, Alex confessed she had been anxious about going on maternity leave - but only because she was so passionate about her role on the show.

She explained: 'Id be lying to say I didnt feel any paranoia when I first left the show, but then you get over it because you realise theres nothing you can do about it.

At the same time, you hope theyre doing a good job because you want a show to come back to  its a balance. But anyone who says theres no paranoia is lying.

'Its healthy, I think  it shows you respect the job and you care about it.
By now, she's familiar with formal dress and regal-inspired period costumes.

But Victoria actress Jenna Coleman brought demure dressing right up to date on Thursday night, as she turned out for the Harper's Bazaar Women of the Year Awards.

Looking demure in an ivory gown, she oozed sophistication with just a hint of subtle sex appeal in a neckline that plunged on the bust but also in the back.

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Gorgeous: Victoria actress Jenna Coleman looked exquisite on Thursday night, as she attended the Harper's Bazaar Women of the Year Awards

The dress featured a vintage-style jacquard print and kept her covered to the calf with a puffball sleeve and high collar.

But she smartly pulled off a deep keyhole cutaway on her bust to match the back by forgoing a bra.

Jenna had her hair pulled back into a low chignon and made up her pretty features with pink hues.

Demure: The brunette wore a demure dress that feature a keyhole cutout on the bust, but also on the back

Elegant: The look was paired with silver sandals and matching classic jewellery

Now in its 150th year, Harper's Bazaar UK was celebrating high-flying women in acting, fashion and philanthropy.

Winners included Best Actress Kate Winslet, Victoria Beckham for Best Brand and Ashley Graham as Best Model.

But Jenna attended as a guest on Thursday, choosing to go it alone instead of accompanying co-star and boyfriend Tom Hughes.

Plunging: Her stylish dress made the most of her slender physique

Looks familiar: Jenna is used to dressing in demure, vintage style clothing from her role as Queen Victoria in the eponymous ITV series (right)

Daring design: At the back, the design featured a keyhole cutaway for subtle sex appeal

Elegant display: The stunner was looking incredible as she departed the building

HARPER'S BAZAAR - WOMAN OF THE YEAR AWARDS Ashley Graham, winner of the Model of the Year award Victoria Beckham, winner of the British Brand of the Year award Charlotte Rampling, winner of the British Icon award Adwoa Aboah, winner of the Role Model award Maria Grazia Chiuri, winner of the Designer of the Year award Kate Winslet, winner of the British Actress of the Year award Carey Mulligan, winner of the Philanthropist Award Molly Goddard winner the Breakthrough Designer of the Year Award Jodie Foster, winner of the Inspiration award Advertisement

Looking good: The actress inevitably commanded attention at the event on Thursday evening

An engaging sight: Jenna's sweeping evening dress ensured she stood out

The duo are believed to have just moved in with one another, after pictures captured them moving suitcases into a new home.

Jenna and Tom met on the set of period drama Victoria, which follows the relationship of Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert.

During filming it was said that their 'chemistry was electric' as the married couple and they went public with their romance in late 2016.

Subtle pattern: The dress featured a jacquard print, as well as a split at the middle
Florence Pugh, the fast-rising young British actress, has landed the starring role in the BBC TV adaptation of John le Carres spy novel The Little Drummer Girl

Florence Pugh, the fast-rising young British actress, has landed the starring role in the BBC TV adaptation of John le Carres spy novel The Little Drummer Girl.

Pugh, 21, will play Charlie  a young thespian who is recruited by an Israeli spy chief and persuaded to become a double agent.

Her mission is to help track down Khalil, a shadowy Palestinian terrorist mastermind.

Filming on the six-part drama will begin early in 2018, with master film-maker Park Chan-wook directing. (His previous films include The Handmaiden and Oldboy, which were huge successes on the independent film circuit.)

Park has a stunning visual style and intends to make good use of locations. Le Carres 1983 novel moved through London, Mykonos, Munich, Vienna, Bonn and Tel Aviv.

Executives at production company The Ink Factory, the BBC and its U.S. partner, the AMC network, havent yet decided where to film the six-hour series.

The BBC struck gold with the TV version of le Carres The Night Manager, which was shot in exciting locations. The Little Drummer Girl is set in the late Seventies and early Eighties, and the TV version aims to keep to the same time period.

The casting of Pugh is a major coup for the Oxford-born actress. Her first film, The Falling, was released in 2014 and she made an instant impact.

Pugh starred in the 2016 film Lady Macbeth which, on Wednesday, received 15 nominations in the British Independent Film Awards  including one for best actress

The BBC struck gold with the TV version of le Carres The Night Manager (above), which was shot in exciting locations. The Little Drummer Girl is set in the late Seventies and early Eighties, and the TV version aims to keep to the same time period

A cinema film of The Little Drummer Girl was released in 1984, with a miscast Diane Keaton in the main role

She followed that with Lady Macbeth which, on Wednesday, received 15 nominations in the British Independent Film Awards  including one for best actress.

Pugh was in the TV series Marcella, starring Anna Friel, and earlier this year filmed the upcoming movie Fighting With My Family.

Shes currently playing Cordelia in director Richard Eyres film of King Lear, with Anthony Hopkins in the title role, and a stellar cast that includes Emma Thompson, Emily Watson, Jim Carter, Jim Broadbent and Christopher Eccleston.

The next le Carre TV programme will be a six-part adaptation of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, which will be shown on the BBC in the next few months. It should be handy for those who have read the authors latest novel, A Legacy Of Spies, which focuses on several key characters from the earlier work.

A cinema film of The Little Drummer Girl was released in 1984, with a miscast Diane Keaton in the main role.

Other parts for the new Drummer Girl have yet to be cast. I am told it is very early in the process; and my revelation that Pugh has been cast is unconfirmed  though I know for certain that the actress will be very busy working for Mr Park for most of 2018.
She previously admitted watching gripping BBC dramas is her 'guilty pleasure'.

So it's no wonder Victoria Beckham came over a little starstruck when she met Doctor Foster star Suranne Jones at the Harper's Bazaar Women Of The Year Awards in London on Thursday.

The fashion designer, 43, who proudly scooped the British Brand of the Year gong on the night, looked ecstatic as she cosied up to the critically-acclaimed actress.

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Fangirl moment: Victoria Beckham came over a little starstruck when she met Doctor Foster star Suranne Jones at the Harper's Bazaar Women Of The Year Awards on Thursday

Not content to simply pose with Suranne, 39, Victoria also gushed over their meeting on Instagram as she declared excitedly 'I met Doctor Foster!'

Sharing a snap of the pair together, she wrote: 'Thank you for the British brand award. So proud.

'And thank you @suranne_jones for presenting it to me. I met dr foster!! Kisses VB x'

The mum-of-four also shared a video of them posing on her Instagram stories, writing 'Thank you Doctor Foster'.

Woman of the hour: The fashion designer, 43, proudly scooped the British Brand of the Year gong on the night

Double trouble: Victoria, who previously confessed watching BBC dramas is her 'guilty pleasure', looked ecstatic as she cosied up to the critically-acclaimed actress

Suranne was quick to return the compliment and shared several snaps with Victoria, who she dubbed 'Wonderwoman'.

She wrote: 'Congratulations @victoriabeckham So lovely to meet you. #wonderwoman,' before thanking Victoria for dressing her in her designs.

'Off to bed happy .. that was a truly lovely and uplifting evening thank you for asking me along... thank you @victoriabeckham for my beautiful ensemble,' she penned.

Stastruck: Not content to simply pose with Suranne, 39, Victoria also gushed over their meeting on Instagram as she declared excitedly 'I met Doctor Foster!'

Big day: Sharing a snap of the pair together, she wrote: 'Thank you for the British brand award. So proud. Thank you @suranne_jones for presenting it to me. I met dr foster!! Kisses VB x'

'It was an uplifting evening': Suranne was quick to return the compliment and shared several snaps with Victoria, who she dubbed 'Wonderwoman'

Strutting her stuff: The stunning star was looking chic in her look as she sported her edgy ensemble

Home time: As she headed into her car, she showed a peek of her glittering heels

Their meeting comes after Victoria revealed she loves watching 'BBC dramas' when quizzed on her guilty pleasures while launching her beauty range.

Her successful win on the night paved the way for a host of other stars to collect their awards.

Curvy catwalk star Ashley Graham scooped the Model of the Year award, while edgy model Adwoa Aboah was awarded the Role Model gong.

Screen legend Charlotte Rampling, 71, who has starred in everything from period flick The Duchess to crime drama Broadchurch, won the British Icon award.

Heading off: As the night wore on, Victoria's make-up appeared to wear off slightly

Model of the moment: Curvy catwalk star Ashley Graham scooped the Model of the Year award

Lapping it up: The 30-year-old model beamed as she collected the award from actress Gemma Arterton

Loving life: Edgy model Adwoa Aboah was awarded the Role Model gong and celebrated the win with fellow catwalk star Georgia May Jagger

Taking centre-stage: The 25-year-old model, who has also just been named the face of Marc Jacobs beauty, seemed to be relishing the accolade

Emotional moment: She gave Maria Grazia Chiuri, who won the Designer of the Year award, an affectionate hug

Pioneering creative director of Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri, picked up the Designer of the Year award and Molly Goddard was crowned Breakthrough Designer of the Year.

Titanic starlet Kate Winslet was awarded the coveted British Actress of the Year gong while The Great Gatsby actress Carey Mulligan scooped the Philanthropist Award.

Meanwhile, Hollywood megastar Jodie Foster was there to receive the Inspiration award.

She's raked in the big win: Titanic starlet Kate Winslet was awarded the coveted British Actress of the Year gong

Great minds: She posed alongside Hollywood megastar Jodie Foster, who was there to receive the Inspiration award

Having a whale of a time! Kate, 42, appeared to be in high spirits post-awards as she celebrated with director Stephen Daldry

Come here, you! Stephen wrapped Kate in a big hug as they joined forces on the red carpet after her win

She features in the December 2017 issue of the British title, talking about Hollywood before the recent Harvey Weinstein scandal in the industry.

The 54-year-old Taxi Driver and The Silence Of The Lambs actress confessed she had never made a film 'about women, made by women' despite her lengthy career.

Speaking before the shocking Weinstein allegations broke, Jodie revealed that for a lengthy part of her career, all the scripts she was offered focused on female abuse.

Check her out! The Great Gatsby actress Carey Mulligan scooped the Philanthropist Award

Just hanging out: The 32-year-old star grinned as she held the gong aloft while posing with singer Sam Smith

She confessed she had never made a film that was 'seen through women's eyes'.

She explained: 'Even with the number of movies I've made, I've never made a movie that was about women, made by women, that was seen through women's eyes

'I was saying recently that there was a time in my life, for 15 or 20 years, during which every single script I read, the motivation for the female character was that they had been raped or abused as a child.'

Icon: Screen legend Charlotte Rampling, 71, who has starred in everything from period flick The Duchess to crime drama Broadchurch, won the British Icon award

Legend: Charlotte was an icon of the Swinging Sixties and shot to fame as a fashion model before establishing herself as an actress. Pictured with Sean Connery in the 1973 film Zardoz

Impressive: Molly Goddard was crowned Breakthrough Designer of the Year. Pictured with model Edie Campbell, who wore one of her edgy designs

Quite the accolade: Pioneering creative director of Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri, picked up the Designer of the Year award
Mercedes Corby has revealed more details about Schapelle's 'soulmate' Ben Panangian and the couple's heartbreaking separation.

The convicted drug trafficker's sister spoke about the relationship on Friday's Studio 10, in her first TV interview since Schapelle's return to Australia in May.

Mercedes, 43, suggested the pair's romance has been strained by the distance, but remained tight-lipped on the details out of respect for her family's privacy.

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'He's a lovely man': Mercedes Corby (pictured) has revealed more details about her sister Schapelle's 'soulmate' Ben Panangian and the couple's heartbreaking separation

'He's a lovely man,' Mercedes said of Ben.

'(Schapelle is) getting by, but I don't want to talk too much about her private relationship... she's doing alright.'

Ben, 36, was understood to be very close to Schapelle before she was deported back to Australia earlier this year.

Meeting at a church service inside prison, where Ben was also behind bars for marijuana possession, the couple soon developed a relationship.

'She's getting by': The convicted drug trafficker's sister spoke about the relationship on Friday's Studio 10, in her first TV interview since Schapelle's return to Australia in May

Schapelle was granted parole in February 2014 after serving nine years in Bali's Kerobokan Prison. She returned to Australia almost six months ago.

While still living in Indonesia following Schapelle's release, the couple were often seen spending time together at the beach.

But due to their criminal histories, they are unlikely to be reunited in their respective countries as Schapelle cannot return to Indonesia and Ben cannot enter Australia.

During her Studio 10 interview, Mercedes clarified that Ben 'hasn't tried' to visit Schapelle in Australia.

Prison romance: Meeting at a church service inside Bali's Kerobokan Prison, where Ben was also behind bars for marijuana possession, the couple soon developed a relationship

Mercedes has been her sister's spokeswoman since her arrest in Bali 13 years ago. Schapelle has declined all media interviews since returning home.

Schapelle was arrested in October 2004 for the importation of 4.2kg of cannabis that was stuffed in a boogie board bag.

She was originally sentenced to 20 years in prison at the Denpasar District Court.

Her sentence was downgraded in 2012, and the now 40-year-old served nine years in Bali's infamous Kerobokan Prison, nicknamed 'Hotel K'.
Jamie Bell recalls driving to the Hollywood home of producer Barbara Broccoli to meet Annette Bening, to see if he and the four-time Oscar nominated actress shared that elusive thing: chemistry.

Bening was already signed to portray Gloria Grahame, a one-time Silver Screen femme fatale. And Bell was being summoned, to see what he could do with the part of Peter Turner: a young actor from Merseyside who had a romance with the much older Grahame.

Later, Turner would write an affectionate memoir about their time together called Film Stars Dont Die In Liverpool.

Jamie Bell recalls driving to the Hollywood home of producer Barbara Broccoli to meet Annette Bening, to see if he and the four-time Oscar nominated actress shared that elusive thing: chemistry

When I got there, I found out that Barbara had known Peter and Gloria when they were dating. We basically did a couple of scenes together, and by this time Barbara was already crying. And that was that, Bell said.

He got the part.

And its the best performance he has given since he boogied and pirouetted into our lives as Billy Elliot in the now classic film, released in 2000, that told of a young lad in a mining village who was born to dance, and who achieved his dream against extraordinary odds.

Bell and Bening do indeed have remarkable chemistry in Paul McGuigans bittersweet movie, which shows how Turner met Grahame, and took her home to meet his family in Liverpool.

Bening was already signed to portray Gloria Grahame, a one-time Silver Screen femme fatale. And Bell was being summoned, to see what he could do with the part of Peter Turner: a young actor from Merseyside who had a romance with the much older Grahame. Above, Bening and Bell in Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool

When Grahame falls ill, Turner tucks her up in bed, and Turners mother (played by Julie Walters) cares for her.

Bell said that early on he, Bening and the director had a conversation about what the love scenes would entail.

There are intimate moments, and we each discussed What are you comfortable with? We talked, and there was never a version where wed disagree. There had to be a solidarity between us, otherwise it becomes uncomfortable. And I was already intimidated  and very daunted  before filming started. So Im glad that side of it was sorted.

Daunted? This is Annette Bening! Shes a titan when it comes to acting.

Romance and nerves aside, there were other challenges, too. People say that getting Peters Liverpool accent must have been easy for me, because youre both from the North, the Teessider told me. Firstly, the accents sound nothing alike at all! And were separated by many miles.

But I get it. Hes a working kid from a working class family  a small family in a small terraced house  and all of those things are incredibly familiar to me. Its very easy to bring all of that stuff to this role. Ive lived it.

He laughs. I mean, I havent lived it for a while. But its part of my DNA.

Later, Turner would write an affectionate memoir about his time with Grahame (above)

Bell has lived in LA since he was 17. There was no guarantee that after Billy Elliot I would make it. Just because you do something people liked 17 years ago doesnt mean youre given a free pass to do anything at all.

He has worked with Peter Jackson, and Steven Spielberg, and Clint Eastwood. If I didnt have acting I dont know what I would do. I was 13 when I made Billy Elliot; and 14 when it came out. I left school at 16. I got two As in English, which counts for nothing. Theres not a piece of paper that says that I can do anything, really.

Except, perhaps, survive  and prosper  in the most notoriously fickle of industries. I remember Eileen, his mother, telling me once that Jamie came from a line of hard workers, and its true that hes rarely idle.

When hes not in front of a camera, hes behind one. He just produced his first film, with Max Minghella directing.

But he keeps his most special time for the four-year-old son he had with first wife Evan Rachel Wood, and with the woman who now shares his life: his second wife, actress Kate Mara.

I interviewed Bell in Cannes back in 2000; and spoken to him, on and off, in the intervening years and its a pleasure to see him thrive, without taking any short cuts.

Sometimes I pinch myself, says Bell of his chosen profession. I still get starstruck when I meet, say, Julie Andrews. I still remember travelling to dance classes above a laundrette in Middlesbrough. It seems a long time ago; but I havent forgotten.

I keep thinking about Simon Stephenss Heisenberg: The Uncertainty Principle at the Wyndhams Theatre, which stars the electrifying Anne-Marie Duff and Kenneth Cranham as a seemingly odd couple who fall for each other.

Andrew Lloyd Webber noted that love never goes out of date.

And with the world falling apart, love may be all that holds us together.

Simon Stephenss Heisenberg: The Uncertainty Principle at the Wyndhams Theatre stars the electrifying Anne-Marie Duff and Kenneth Cranham

Shirley Henderson is like a rolling stone  one thats heading right back to Conor McPhersons great play, Girl From The North Country, which is itself rolling into the West End next month

Shirley's rolling back to Dylan

Shirley Henderson is like a rolling stone  one thats heading right back to Conor McPhersons great play, Girl From The North Country, which is itself rolling into the West End next month.

Its a story set in 1934  during the heart of the Great Depression  in Duluth, Minnesota; and McPherson has fused 20 of Bob Dylans songs to his narrative, which revolves around the inhabitants of a ramshackle guest house.

The show, which features new versions of Dylans Tight Connection To My Heart (Has Anyone Seen My Love), I Want You and the title tune, enjoyed a spectacularly successful run at the Old Vic this summer.

When I saw it, I was particularly knocked out by Hendersons sublime performance as a woman struggling to cling to reality while her husband the innkeeper (Ciaran Hinds) cheats on her.

Girl From The North Country transfers to the Noel Coward Theatre from December 29 for a 12-week run.

Karl Johnson, David Ganly and Hannah Azuonye will be joining the cast. Other actors, such as Ron Cook, Sheila Atim and Sam Reid are staying with the show  which some have called one of the years best.
She plays a chaste missionary in Murder On The Orient Express.

But Penelope Cruz showed off her racy side as she attended the film's world premiere in London on Thursday clad in a dazzling sequined gown.

The Spanish actress, 43, oozed sex appeal in the eye-catching black and navy ombre gown which glittered under the bright lights of Royal Albert Hall.

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Sultry: Penelope Cruz showed off her racy side as she attended the Murder On The Orient Express' world premiere in London on Thursday clad in a dazzling sequined gown

She truly dazzled in the glittering number, which remained utterly sophisticated with a round scooped neckline and three-quarter length sleeves, before it cut into a daring thigh-high split at the skirt.

Showcasing her enviably tanned and toned pins, the Oscar-winning actress boosted her frame with a pair of platform peep toe heels as she sashayed down the red carpet.

Penelope accessorised with shimmering silver drop earrings for an added touch of glamour, and left her hair in loose, tousled waves to let her naturally stunning features shine through.

Turning heads: The Spanish actress, 43, oozed sex appeal in the eye-catching gown which glittered under the bright lights of Royal Albert Hall

Dazzling: She truly dazzled in the glittering number, which remained utterly sophisticated with a round scooped neckline and three-quarter length sleeves, before it cut into a daring thigh-high split at the skirt

Penelope stars as missionary Pilar Estravados in Murder On The Orient Express - which is based on Agatha Christie's 1934 novel of the same name - and marks the fourth adaptation of the story so far.

The story follows famed detective Hercule Poirot, who boards the famous Orient Express to enjoy some time off between cases.

However he immediately finds himself faced with a desperate oil tycoon, who begs him for personal protection, as he is fearing for his life on the famous transportation.

Following the ominous encounter, the tycoon is then found stabbed to death the following day, and Poirot is forced to investigate the other weird and wonderful characters on board, to uncover the culprit.

Leggy lady! Showcasing her enviably tanned and toned pins, the Oscar-winning actress boosted her frame with a pair of platform peep toe heels as she sashayed down the red carpet

All about the accessories: Penelope accessorised with shimmering silver drop earrings for an added touch of glamour

Penelope joins a number of Oscar winners in the film's stellar cast, including Johnny Depp, 54 and Judi, 82, as Princess Dragomiroff.

The film is a remake of the 1974 classic, and hits UK theaters on November 3 and US theaters November 10.

It's the fourth adaptation of Christie's novel - following Sidney Lumet's famous 1974 film, a 2001 CBS version, and a 2010 episode of ITV series Agatha Christie's Poirot.

Brunette bombshell! Penelope left her hair in loose, tousled waves to let her naturally stunning features shine through

Dazzling: Penelope looked sensational as she was assisted on the red carpet at the premiere

Stunning: Penelope's glamorous gown featured a low cut design on the back

Strike a pose: Penelope posed up a storm as she sashayed down the red carpet

Penelope was not joined at the premiere by her husband Javier Bardem - who she shares Leo, aged six, and Luna, aged four, with.

The Vicky Cristina Barcelona star recently admitted that becoming a mother changed her outlook in life and contributed in shrinking her ego.

In conversation with Gwyneth Paltrow, the pinup said: 'I'm happy to say, that my ego has gotten smaller over time.'

Cosy: Penelope Cruz cuddled up to Michelle Pfeiffer as they posed together

She continued: 'I used to be so afraid about what people were going to think of me, if I was going to be accepted, if I was going to be loved. I put a lot of energy into the perception of myself.

'When I became a motheralmost seven years agosomething very deep changed in me, where I really dont care about a lot of the stuff I used to care about before.

'Thats part of growing up, and now I have to go through other tests that life will put in front of me. I have new fears now.'

Here come the girls: (L-R) Lucy Boynton, Judi Dench, Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, Penelope Cruz and Olivia Colman posed together on the red carpet

Looking good: Penelope joined : (L-R) Derek Jacobi, Johnny Depp and Leslie Odom Jr.

Glamour goddess: Penelope looked stunning throughout the night in the incredible gown

Flawless: Penelope still managed to look effortlessly stylish as she she exited the venue later that evening

Amazing: Penelope oozed Old Hollywood in her sensational look
Paris Jackson blasted Wendy Williams on social media on Thursday for her 'obsession' with her family.

The 19-year-old daughter of late pop superstar Michael Jackson even suggested her father from above 'decided to clock her' and caused her recent fainting spell.

Paris took to Twitter in response to a tweet by Wendy, 53, on Tuesday in which she asked, 'Have you heard the latest Jackson family drama?'.

Firing back: Paris Jackson, shown last month in Beverly Hills, California, blasted Wendy Williams on social media on Thursday for her 'obsession' with her family

The tweet included a photo of Jackson matriarch Katherine Jackson, her 15-year-old brother Prince Michael Jackson II [Blanket] and a link to a Hot Topics Rundown that included a story about a guardianship issue involving the famous family.

Paris replied to the tweet Thursday and posted: 'your obsession is a little unhealthy, maybe even toxic. i'm sure there are plenty of qualified professional psychiatrists you can seek out.'

Another Twitter user also replied to Wendy's original post and referenced her fainting spell during her Halloween episode along with a picture of her looking woozy.

Paris replied to that tweet by posting: 'looks like someone from above had enough of her bullshit and decided to clock her for not keeping his kids' names outta her mouth o well'.

Maybe toxic: The 19-year-old daughter of Michael Jackson said the obsession was a 'little unhealthy, maybe even toxic'

Family drama: Wendy took to social media on Tuesday to peddle the 'latest Jackson family drama'

Show host: The New Jersey native, shown in July in New York City, has been hosting The Wendy Williams Show since July 2008

The reply included an image of a girl shrugging her shoulders with a shrugging emoticon in a dialog balloon.

Paris's older brother Prince, 20, was involved in a minor motorcycle crash on Thursday morning while headed to Loyola Marymount University near the Playa Vista neighborhood.

Prince lost control in the rain and was taken to a nearby hospital in an ambulance, but suffered no serious injuries, according to a report by TMZ.

Fainting spell: Wendy fainted while dressed as the Statue Of Liberty during her Halloween episode

No trick: The talk show host stumbled with her words and her eyes rolled back before she collapsed

Shrugging emoticon: Paris in a follow-up reply suggested her father from above 'decided to clock her' and caused her recent fainting spell for talking about his family

Pop superstar: Michael Jackson, shown performing in January 1993 at the Super Bowl XXVII halftime show in Pasadena, California, died in 2009 aged 50 while preparing for a comeback

Michael had children Paris and Prince with Debbie Rowe and Prince Michael II via an unknown surrogate.

Paris will make her big screen debut in upcoming action film Gringo by Australian director Nash Edgerton, 44.

Gringo also starring David Oyelowo, Joel Edgerton, Amanda Seyfried and Charlize Theron was scheduled for release on March 9, 2018.
The BBC is clueless about pop music and always has been. Ever since the Beatles teased presenter Brian Matthew for his posh accent on Saturday Club in the Sixties, Auntie has been hopelessly cloth-eared.

The hour-long, one-off music special, Harry Styles At The BBC (BBC1), was in the Beebs worst pop tradition. It was sycophantic, cheesy, slow and embarrassing.

Harry, if you dont know the name, was the cheeky chappie in the manufactured boy band One Direction. These days, at the mature age of 23, hes a solo artist who plays country-tinged melodic rock.

'The hour-long, one-off music special, Harry Styles At The BBC (BBC1), was in the Beebs worst pop tradition'

Its an ambitious genre, ruled by prolific songwriters with a mean streak, from Neil Young to Ryan Adams. Putting Harry in with that lot is like taking a chihuahua to a greyhound track: it wont win, and it might get eaten.

His debut album sold respectably, though hes no Ed Sheeran, the real British mega-seller. Perhaps thats why the bean-counters at the BBC awarded Harry a special. Hes big enough to be famous, but not big enough to say No.

His voice was constipated and faintly flat on the first number, though he did get better. Not that the audience cared  almost all female, they waved their arms and squealed at the loud bits.

Harrys backing band are session musicians who barely move or look at him, and create an efficient, anodyne sound. But nobody in the history of rock ever said: I want to hear some of that note-perfect, passionless country music, yee-haw!

The strongest number of the night was a cover of Girl Crush by Little Big Town. The original is thrilling, a recent country music song of the year. The best you can say about Harry is that he didnt ruin it completely.

'Wearing the sort of florid suit that looks like pyjamas anywhere but Nashville, Harry was quizzed between songs by Radio 1s Nick Grimshaw'

Wearing the sort of florid suit that looks like pyjamas anywhere but Nashville, Harry was quizzed between songs by Radio 1s Nick Grimshaw. Here, he showed what hes really good at: avoiding questions.

Flat souffle of the night A day after Bake Off concluded, so did The Big Family Cooking Showdown (BBC2). But while an estimated nine million watched Paul Hollywood and co, Showdown has been barely scraping one million. What a flop. Advertisement

Every reply in his transatlantic accent was corporate and meaningless, humble and uninformative. The girls shrieked at every half-hearted remark. Grimshaw gave up trying to learn anything, or even getting Harry to crack a joke.

Instead, we watched a bizarre tape of the two of them visiting an old peoples home, and having a fish supper. Harry revealed he doesnt like vinegar on his chips. He must prefer them flavourless and bland, like his music.

Actor and journalist Ross Kemp doesnt look like a One Direction fan. Maybe he is  he could have a poster on his bedroom wall for all we know, but he doesnt seem the type. That gives him a licence to make documentaries among the worlds hardest criminals.

They dont look at him and think: Poncy actor! They just take a step back.

Behind Bars: Inside Barlinnie saw Ross Kemp (pictured) admitted as an inmate at Glasgows notorious jail

Behind Bars: Inside Barlinnie (ITV) saw him admitted as an inmate at Glasgows notorious jail. It began with a claustrophobic ride in a prison truck, before Kemp was strip-searched for weapons and phonecards.

Though he wasnt banged up in a cell, he did take the camera crew into every part of the prison  the landings, the exercise yard, the kitchens  and coaxed some highly candid interviews out of the inmates.

He baulked at the idea of prison as a place of punishment. Deep under that tough exterior, theres a bleeding heart.

But he knows how to wring answers out of people, even when they are incriminating themselves with admissions of crimes. He could even get Styles to say something interesting.
It was announced this week that pop royalty Paris Jackson would be mingling with Australia's racing royalty at the Melbourne Cup.

But doubt was soon cast over the King of Pop's daughters' appearance Down Under following a horrific motorcycle accident involving her brother Prince on Friday.

However, a VRC spokesperson has confirmed the 19-year-old will still be attending the race.

Is she still coming? Paris Jackson's appearance at the Melbourne Cup in doubt after her brother Prince was rushed to hospital after crashing his motorcycle

'Paris is still coming to Australia for the Emirates Melbourne Cup,' the spokesperson clarified.

Prince lost control of his motorcycle during heavy rain in Los Angeles on Thursday, and was rushed to hospital immediately in an ambulance.

After not suffering any serious injuries or broken bones, he was released shortly after.

Lucky: Prince lost control of his motorcycle during heavy rain in Los Angeles on Thursday, and was rushed to hospital immediately

In what is relieving news for punters hoping to catch a glimpse of music royalty, it's also a huge sigh of relief for Paris that he brother is OK.

Earlier this week, the starlet gushed about her impending trip to Australia.

The 19-year-old told the Herald Sun: 'It's always been a dream of mine to visit Australia.'

Paris will head to Australia for the first time next week as a VIP guest of Myer and the Victoria Racing Club.

'I wasn't familiar with the Melbourne Cup before the opportunity came up to attend this year, but once it was brought to my attention, I asked my Aussie friends about it and heard so many incredible things,' she told News Corp.

The model and budding actress, who will star in her first feature film Gringo in 2018, said she was excited to experience the iconic racing event.

First time Down Under: Paris will be mingling with Australia's racing royalty next week as she appears trackside at the Melbourne Cup

'They say it's 'the race that stops a nation', and I'm eager to experience this tradition for myself,' Paris said.

The Herald Sun reports that Paris will enjoy Myer's Fashion On The Fields before taking in the race.

While still only a teenager, Paris is no stranger to fashion and even appeared on the cover of Vogue Australia earlier this year.

Rising star: While still only a teenager, Paris is no stranger to fashion and even appeared on the cover of Vogue Australia earlier this year

She's quickly become a red carpet fixture in the United States thanks to her boho dress style and striking good looks.

This will be the first trip to Australia for Paris, who was raised in the United States by her father Michael Jackson until he died in 2009.

Australia is also where Michael wed Paris' mother Debbie Rowe in 1996 and the pair tied the knot in Sydney.

Debbie gave birth to son Michael Joseph 'Prince,' now 20, and Paris, before she divorced Michael in 1999.
She's the busty brunette that first shot to fame on Married At First Sight.

And Cheryl Maitland was flaunting her assets on Friday, in a busty selfie ahead of her return to the show that made her a household name.

Posting to her Instagram, the 26-year-old took a selfie in her mirror as she sat on the carpet in her room, staring at the camera.

Remember me? Cheryl Maitland flaunted her cosmetically-enhanced assets and VERY busty figure in a selfie posted to her Instagram on Friday ahead of the return of Married At First Sight

'Throwback to before I was a...' she captioned, complete with an emoji at the end.

Cheryl wore a black open jumpsuit that emphasised her cosmetically-enhanced features, staring boldly in the mirror as she took her own picture.

She completed her image with a pair of high-waisted skinny black denim jeans, which hugged her figure as she contorted into a more comfortable position.

Her face was heavily contoured, and she accessorised with a diamond necklace that hung down over her chest and a matching sparkly choker.

Household name: Cheryl, who was a star on the show's fourth season earlier this year, was the subject of controversy during her time on the show for her estranged relationship with fellow contestant Andrew

Cheryl's long brunette locks were slightly-tinged blonde with hair extensions, and fell effortlessly over the front of her shoulders.

It comes after the announcement that Married At First Sight would be returning to screens for it's highly anticipated fifth season in 2018.

Cheryl became a star on the show after her controversial 'marriage' to fellow contestant Andrew, with the pair choosing to leave the experiment at the Final Commitment Ceremony due to constant bickering and minimal romance.

Happy couple! She has since found love outside of reality TV with Dean Gibbs, a plumber from Melbourne, formerly a disgraced police officer and convicted drug trafficker

Since then she has found love with Dean Gibbs, a plumber from Melbourne who was formerly a disgraced police officer and convicted drug trafficker.

The reality series was a catalyst to launch the careers of Nadia Stamp and Zoe Hendrix, who have now gone on to experience social media fame as a result of their time on the show.

The Channel Nine series has been a ratings hit for the network, with four successful seasons to date.
Romantics Anonymous (Wanamaker Playhouse)

Verdict: Delicious!

Rating:

Not for yonks have I been so charmed by a new musical. The little Sam Wanamaker theatre  indoor off-shoot of Shakespeares Globe  has a heart-warmer on its hands with this tale of hesitant love between two late twentysomethings.

The show is based on a 2010 Belgian film and has been adapted and directed by Emma Rice, whose time running the Globe has been foolishly cut short. Miss Rice was too go-ahead for the stodges on the Globes board.

Part of the deliciousness of this production is that, in the most kindly way, it celebrates experimentation over stale tradition. Take ze plunge! cry onlookers as would-be lovers Angelique and Jean-Rene dither.

The show is based on a 2010 Belgian film and has been adapted and directed by Emma Rice, whose time running the Globe has been foolishly cut short

What a pity that Miss Rice was not able to convince her employers at the Globe to take ze plunge artistically.

We are in France, almost in the modern era. The period has a cartooned, retro feel. Modest, pretty Angelique (Carly Bawden) is a genius chocolatier. Tank-topped, square-jawed Jean-Rene (Dominic Marsh) is the owner of a failing chocolate factory. Both are crippled by reticence and attend meetings of Emotifs Anonymes, an Alcoholics Anonymous type of group for people struggling to express their emotions. The vignettes of these shy souls are funny and touching.

It is a musical, but Michael Koomans score has a jazzy lilt and is delivered by a four-piece band. There are catchy melodies  I liked a melancholy ballad, Dont Let Her Go  but the music is a background seltzer rather than the overwhelming medium.

With numerous neon signs and even the use of an umbrella, Miss Rice seems to be defiantly reworking aspects of The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg, a West End flop she had six years ago

Christopher Dimons witty lyrics keep things chipper. The characters are sketched with affection and skill, and the tale ends with Angelique and Jean-Rene bouncing in the air, literally.

With numerous neon signs and even the use of an umbrella, Miss Rice seems to be defiantly reworking aspects of The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg, a West End flop she had six years ago.

There should be no danger of this delightful show failing to win over audiences. Miss Rice is a great mistress of hope and joy and her show will make a perfect romantic evening for couples old and new.

The Slaves Of Solitude (Hampstead Theatre)

Verdict: Underpowered

Rating:

They had a few problems on the opening night of The Slaves Of Solitude. A sliding wall refused to budge in the first half, leaving a large hole in the scenery.

The actors commendably worked round the mishap and it didnt matter. But it left me wondering if this production would have fared better with a minimalist set and focused more on the suppressed emotions in wartime Henley-on-Thames.

The play is adapted from a Patrick Hamilton novel. I have not read the book but suspect it brings out more of the inner turmoil of the lodgers at a boarding house in the town.

Daon Broni (Lieutenant Dayton Pike), Lucy Cohu (Vicki Kugelmann) and Fenella Woolgar (Miss Roach). The play is adapted from a Patrick Hamilton novel

Among them is spinster Miss Roach (Fenella Woolgar), glamorous German emigree Miss Kugelmann (Lucy Cohu) and a rancid windbag called Mr Thwaites (Clive Francis).

When a dashing black American soldier (Daon Broni) turns up, hesitant Miss Roach falls for him and the more vivacious Miss Kugelmann flashes her eyes at him. Mr Thwaites makes racist slurs, but is put in his place by some of the boarding houses nice old ladies. Tim Hatleys set is elaborate, but a crash during one scene change suggested a certain panic backstage. Not all the minor characters were fully in command of their lines.

The story is gentle, being broadly sympathetic to all concerned and catching the stoicism of the English in the Forties

The story is gentle, being broadly sympathetic to all concerned and catching the stoicism of the English in the Forties. Understatement can be powerful on stage, but it benefits from having the alternative (shrieking torment) lightly sketched in the background.

Director Jonathan Kent and adaptor Nicholas Wright never quite offer us that.

Miss Woolgar does clipped reserve well, but could we not, when Miss Roach is alone with her GI, have more sense of surging lusts. The other characters could also do with some more back-story to make sense of that solitude mentioned in the title.

It is all watchable enough but rather underpowered.
78/52 (15)

Verdict: Insightful

Rating:

Ferrari: Race To Immortality

Verdict: Compelling

Rating:

A pair of engaging documentaries this week whisk us back to the Fifties, albeit to tell two very different stories.

The strangely-titled 78/52 analyses the making of Alfred Hitchcocks great film Psycho, released in 1960, and in particular the famously alarming shower scene.

Curtain call: Alfred Hitchcock and Janet Leigh pictured on the set of Psycho

So determined was Hitchcock to get it right that it took seven days to shoot, almost a quarter of the schedule. There were no fewer than 78 camera setups and 52 cuts, hence this documentarys title.

It includes some marvellous archive clips of Hitchcock himself talking about Psycho, in one of which he expresses horror that some people took it seriously. The film was meant, he says, to be tongue-in-cheek.

So heaven knows what he would make of this extensive deconstruction by a variety of academics and movie professionals, including directors Guillermo del Toro and Peter Bogdanovich, and actress Jamie Lee Curtis, whose mother Janet Leigh, as secretary-on-the-run Marion Crane, so memorably came a cropper in that Bates Motel shower.

Some contributions, it must be said, verge on the spurious. I dont buy the theory that Hitchcock was still so cross about the Americans being caught unawares by the attack on Pearl Harbour that he devised the murder to show that even the safest of sanctuaries, in this case a bathroom, could be invaded at any time.

But theres some fascinating material here, all the same, about a film which broke so many taboos and changed the whole landscape of movie-making. It even altered the way films were shown.

Before Psycho, anyone could wander into an American movie theatre at any time, but Hitchcock gave orders that nobody was to be allowed late into Psycho, and nobody was.

Ferrari: Race To Immortality will appeal not only to anyone who loves motor-racing, but also anyone in thrall to the glamour of the Fifties. Pictured: Enzo Ferrari with Peter Collins

Ferrari: Race To Immortality will appeal not only to anyone who loves motor-racing, but also anyone in thrall to the glamour of the Fifties.

Theres loads of it here, mostly in the form of a couple of dashing British drivers for Enzo Ferraris fabled team. Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins were handsome, charismatic, brave and brilliant.

And they both perished before the decade was out. Motor-racings most glamorous age was also its deadliest. Daryl Goodrichs film tells the story simply, but well.
Nicky Hilton Rothschild didn't let being seven months pregnant keep her from rocking black embellished, spike-heeled pumps at the Samsung Charity Gala in Manhattan on Thursday.

The expecting 34-year-old paired her fancy footwear with a long-sleeved black maternity mini-dress featuring a white-ruched Victorian neckline as well as a black chain-strapped purse.

The hotel heiress-turned-designer sported heavy-handed make-up, statement pearl earrings, and coiffed blonde curls for the New York benefit.

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Glam: Nicky Hilton Rothschild didn't let being seven months pregnant keep her from rocking black embellished pumps at the Samsung Charity Gala in Manhattan on Thursday

Teetering: The expecting 34-year-old paired her fancy footwear with a black maternity mini-dress featuring a white-ruched Victorian neckline as well as a black chain-strapped purse

Bump in the night! The hotel heiress-turned-designer sported heavy-handed make-up, statement pearl earrings, and coiffed blonde curls for the New York benefit

Nicky (born Nicholai) - who boasts 2.1M social media followers - tweeted: 'Honored to be a part of the @SamsungUS Annual Charity Gala to help raise funds for youth in our communities!'

On Wednesday evening, Hilton hosted a swanky book soiree for Dr. Brian Coleman's decor tome D. Porthault: The Art of Luxury Linens, which hit shelves back on August 8.

The nepotistically-privileged socialite even served heart-shaped cookies at the book bash in honor of French luxury interior design.

The Haute Joaillerie spokesmodel took 'Halloween very seriously' on Tuesday with Minnie Mouse ears, a Supergirl costume for 16-month-old daughter Lily Grace, and even a lion's mane for her kitty Mac.

Nicky (born Nicholai) - who boasts 2.1M social media followers - tweeted: 'Honored to be a part of the @SamsungUS Annual Charity Gala to help raise funds for youth in our communities!'

'Porthault sweets!' On Wednesday, Hilton hosted a swanky book soiree for Dr. Brian Coleman's decor tome D. Porthault: The Art of Luxury Linens, which hit shelves back on August 8

'A perfect evening!' The nepotistically-privileged socialite even served heart-shaped cookies at the book bash in honor of French luxury interior design

MailOnline exclusively confirmed that Nicky and her second husband, financier James Rothschild, were expecting their second child back in July.

'I feel great. I have more energy than ever. I get more energy when I'm pregnant, it's weird,' the older sister of Paris Hilton told Us Weekly in September.

'I've been craving really random things like eggplant parmesan [and] hot tamales. I didn't have these weird craving the first time around but I do [now]. And dried cranberries!'

'Look who decided to join in!' The Haute Joaillerie spokesmodel took 'Halloween very seriously' on Tuesday with Minnie Mouse ears, a Supergirl costume for 16-month-old daughter Lily Grace, and even a lion's mane for her kitty Mac
When Jennifer Lawrence was preparing for her gig on Thursday's episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, she had a bit of company.

The 27-year-old actress posted a Facebook video that day of herself and her tiny dog Pippi, writing: 'We're hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight! Tune in at 11:35/10:35c.'

Dressed casually in a black T-shirt and matching leggings, Jennifer could be seen on a couch, pulling a pair of shorts onto the pooch.

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Big gig: Jennifer Lawrence posted a Facebook video Thursday of herself and her tiny dog Pippi, writing: 'We're hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight!

The Academy Award winner cooed: 'Now, one more leg. One more leg. There we go! We got your pants on!'

Buttoning the shorts onto her pet, Jennifer quipped: 'Pippi puts her pants on one leg at a time, just like everyone else!'

She went on: 'Okay, now you get a treat,' and turned, presumably to fetch the culinary reward for her dog's forbearance.

Fancy pet: Dressed casually in a black T-shirt and matching leggings, Jennifer could be seen on a couch, pulling a pair of shorts onto the pooch

'Good girl - ,' Jennifer began, only for Pippi to thrash on the couch, knocking the human clothes off of herself.

Jennifer, as well as the person filming this episode, burst into laughter.

Covering the 125th September issue of Vogue this year, Jennifer had fretted about all the other sorts of animals that could do Pippi harm.

Free: 'Good girl - ,' Jennifer began after getting the shorts on, only for her dog to thrash on the couch, knocking the human clothes off of herself

'Coyotes, bigger dogs, rattlesnakes, big crows. Every 20 minutes I have a heart attack. Im going to be a great mother,' said Jennifer, whose new film - directed by her boyfriend Darren Aronofsky - happens to be called Mother!.

Her dog's full name is Pippi Lawrence-Stocking, a reference to the Pippi Longstocking children's books by Astrid Lindgren.

She had clarified as much on Late Night With Seth Meyers last year, joking that when Vanity Fair misnamed Jennifer's dog as 'Pippi Longstocking,' 'Pippi was so upset,' to the point that 'I got a call from her publicist.'
She's known for her stunning red carpet appearances.

And Elsa Pataky once again triumphed in the style stakes as she stepped out in a sheer metallic dress at the Women's Secret Fashion show held in Madrid on Thursday.

The 41-year-old actress and wife of Chris Hemsworth showcased her slender physique in the glitzy number as she posed up a storm on the media wall.

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Sheer daring! Elsa Pataky impresses fans as she steps out in transparent dress at Women's Secret Fashion show in Madrid

The mother-of-three teamed her ensemble with a pair of burgundy velvet heels and a few statement rings.

She wore her blonde locks in messy waves and kept her makeup flawless, with a smokey eye and dark red lip.

Elsa appeared in great form as she beamed from ear-to-ear for the cameras. The Spanish actress then took to the microphone to address the audience.

When not in work mode, Elsa enjoys a laidback lifestyle in Byron Bay, a coastal town in New South Wales.

The 41-year-old showcased her slender physique in the glitzy number as she took to the media wall

Stunning: The Spanish actress then took to the microphone to address the audience

And in an interview with OK! magazine on Wednesday, Elsa's husband Chris, 34, revealed that he and his family made the move from Los Angeles, as Tinseltown was 'exhausting.'

The Thor star said: 'I love what I do as an actor but when you are surrounded by it constantly, it becomes a bit suffocating. It's nice to be a part of a community that doesn't live and breathe that world.'

Chris, Elsa and their three children, five-year-old daughter India and three-year-old twin boys Tristan and Sasha, moved to Byron Bay in 2015.

The actor said he and his wife decided to move because they didn't want their children to grow up 'living shoulder to shoulder in the suburbs.'

Chris also said that living in Hollywood meant 'you just kind of lose touch with reality.'

Glowing: The actor said he and his wife decided to move because they didn't want their children to grow up 'living shoulder to shoulder in the suburbs'

A vision: Elsa was showing off her lingerie beneath the sexy ensemble
She's the fashion blogger who has made a living out of regularly parading her figure in skimpy swimwear.

But Natasha 'Tash' Oakley, the co-founder of A Bikini A Day, looked slightly out of sorts on Thursday as she arrived at The 2017 Revolve Awards in Hollywood.

The 26-year-old covered up her enviable frame in an unusual 80s-inspired sequined jumpsuit.

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Frock horror! Swimwear model Tash Oakley ditches her bikini for a bizarre 80s-inspired sequinned jumpsuit at Hollywood event

Tash's ill-fitted outfit did little to flatter the blonde's stunning curves as she smiled for photographers on arrival at the A-list function.

The jumpsuit's hemline gathered and dragged along the ground, with her heels unable to keep the fabric from touching the floor.

Tash flashed her cleavage and sideboob in the large chest slit as she partied into the evening.

Revealing: Tash flashed her cleavage and sideboob in the large chest slit as she partied into the evening

Selfies: Tash took an Instagram video of herself ahead of the event

Ready to party! Tash's makeup was however flawlessly applied, with a pink lipstick on her luscious pout and metallic eyeshadow used on her eyelids

Tash's makeup was however flawlessly applied, with a pink lipstick on her luscious pout and metallic eyeshadow used on her eyelids.

Her sun-kissed tresses were worn down over her shoulder in styled waves.

Her business partner Devon Brugman, also attended the event, uploading a snap of the pair taking a bathroom together: 'Ive got a disco ball for a date @tashoakley Heading to the @revolve awards! Xx.'

'Ive got a disco ball for a date': Her business partner Devin Brugman, also attended the event, uploading a snap of the pair taking a bathroom together

Bikini empire: Tash and Devin launched the A Bikini A Day brand in 2012 when the pair traveled to exotic locations with a suitcase of bikinis and posted daily photos on Instagram of themselves in different swimsuits

Tash and Devin launched the A Bikini A Day brand in 2012 when the pair traveled to exotic locations with a suitcase of bikinis and posted daily photos on Instagram of themselves in different swimsuits.

The best friends launched their own label Monday Swimwear in 2015.

They have also collaborated with more than one thousand brands on their page over the years.
Meryl Streep and director Danny Boyle were among the big names who turned out to support a fundraiser Thursday benefiting a charity that helps refugees.

The three-time Oscar-winning actress, 68, and the Oscar-winning director, 61, posed for photos together at the 2017 Rescue Dinner hosted by IRC in New York.

Streep wore a black lace-patterned dress with long sleeves and a round neck, while Boyle opted for a dark two-piece suit and a gray shirt without a tie.

For a good cause: Meryl Streep and director Danny Boyle were among the big names who turned out to support a fundraiser Thursday benefiting a charity that helps refugees

The Mama Mia and Florence Foster Jenkins star was in high demand as several high profile guests lined up to pose for photos with her.

Veteran journalist Tom Brokaw, former anchor of NBC Nightly News, got in on the act.

The 77-year-old paired a black suit with a stripy shirt and a purple and yellow striped silk tie.

The three-time Oscar-winning actress, 68, wore a black lace-patterned dress and posed for photos with other high profile guests including veteran anchorman Tom Brokaw, 77

Streep and Boyle, director of Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire, shared a joke with the President and CEO of the nonprofit International Rescue Committee, David Miliband

Former British Labor politician Miliband oversees the work of the IRC that helps people impacted by humanitarian crisis, conflicts and disaster

Streep also received a warm welcome from the President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, David Miliband.

The former high profile British Labor politician, 52, was dapper in a black suit with white shirt and purple tie.

According to its website, IRC 'responds to the worlds worst humanitarian crises and helps people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future.'

Boyle, 62, opted for a navy two-piece suit and a gray shirt without a tie and added brown suede shoes

Thai model Praya Lundberg, 28, brught glamour to the proceedings in a black leather cold shoulder top with one embellished long sleeve and skinny black pants and heels
The Japanese police department in Tokyo has put together an all-female squad of officers for specific assignment to first lady Melania Trump and other visiting female dignitaries, including presidential adviser Ivanka Trump, according to a report. The first lady arrives in Japan on Sunday for a two-day visit with President Donald Trump; Ivanka Trump landed in Tokyo on Thursday.

The female police unit, dressed in smart black suits with white button-down shirts, practiced their moves in front of Tokyo's Imperial Palace for the media on Wednesday, brushing up on defensive maneuvers and drills.

"Typically, by providing this sort of unit, law enforcement is trying to be respectful and not too intrusive," explained CNN law enforcement analyst Jonathan Wackrow, a former agent with United States Secret Service who was assigned to the presidential protection unit. "They think it's more welcoming to have an all-female crew, and it's not uncommon." Wackrow recalls visits to Asian countries during his time on then-first lady Michelle Obama's detail where all-female units were also deployed.

The Japanese unit used for this trip was initially put together as part of preparation and training for the 2020 Summer Olympic games, which will be held in Tokyo.

"Operationally, these support forces are minimal to the actual security program of the United States Secret Service," Wackrow said. "They aren't relied on for any emergency action." In other words, should anything happen to a principle protectee, such as the first lady, the Secret Service detail assigned to her is the primary line of defense.

Wackrow, however, notes that local law enforcement on the ground does a great service for large travel operations such as the one Trump is undertaking next week in Asia. "They provide an essential role in helping gain access, for help with language barriers and for general support," Wackrow said.
Mary J. Blige and Diane Kruger both showcased leggy looks as two of the six honorees at the inaugural IndieWire Honors in Los Angeles on Thursday night.

The 46-year-old Bronx-born R&B belter rocked a bold gold look while the German 41-year-old opted for not-so-basic black attire for the glitzy ceremony.

The Kellyanne Conway Story funnywoman's Dior cocktail dress consisted of a bustier top and short shorts beneath a pleated skirt as well as T-strap pumps selected by stylist Micaela Erlanger.

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Hey girl! Mary J. Blige and Diane Kruger both showcased leggy looks as two of the six honorees at the inaugural IndieWire Honors in Los Angeles on Thursday night

Pin parade: The 46-year-old Bronx-born R&B belter rocked a bold gold look while the German 41-year-old opted for not-so-basic black attire for the glitzy ceremony

Kruger (born Heidkruger) sported brown eyelids applied by make-up artist Kayleen McAdams and hairstylist Bridget Brager coiffed her beachy blonde bob.

Diane - who boasts 807K social media followers - posed with her trophy for lead film performance and joked: 'Always liked phallic objects. Thank you Indie Wire!'

The former fashion model also scored best actress at Cannes for her first German-language role as terrorist attack survivor Katja Sekerci in Fatih Akin's In the Fade, which hits theaters December 27.

'For me, it's a turning point in my life, if not my career. I definitely look at this as the most important work Ive done,' the Infiltrator actress told IndieWire on Monday.

Eccentric: The Kellyanne Conway Story funnywoman's Dior cocktail dress consisted of a bustier top and short shorts beneath a pleated skirt as well as T-strap pumps selected by stylist Micaela Erlanger

Vampy: Kruger (born Heidkruger) sported brown eyelids applied by make-up artist Kayleen McAdams and hairstylist Bridget Brager coiffed her beachy blonde bob

Diane - who boasts 807K social media followers - posed with her trophy for lead film performance and joked: 'Always liked phallic objects. Thank you Indie Wire!'

'The most important work I've done': The former fashion model also scored best actress at Cannes for her role as terrorist attack survivor Katja Sekerci in Fatih Akin's In the Fade, which hits theaters December 27

'It was such an out-of-body experience. There are scenes in the movie where I feel like I'm not acting; I'm reacting to what's happening in front of me. I was desperately searching for the truth.'

Noticeably missing from Kruger's side was her boyfriend, The Walking Dead's Norman Reedus, whom she fell for on the set of Sky in December but only went public with in March.

Meanwhile, Mary flaunted substantial cleavage in a glittering Maria Lucia Hohan pencil dress featuring a thigh-high slit and matching maxi-coat and reptilian pumps selected by stylist Larry Sims.

The nine-time Grammy winner - who also relies on 'image architect' Law Roach - finished her red carpet look off with a platinum ombre wavy wig, smoky eyes, glossy lips, and Le Vian earrings.

Golden girl! Mary flaunted substantial cleavage in a glittering Maria Lucia Hohan pencil dress featuring a thigh-high slit, maxi-coat, and reptilian pumps selected by stylist Larry Sims

Sideswept: The nine-time Grammy winner finished her red carpet look off with a platinum ombre wavy wig, smoky eyes, glossy lips, and Le Vian earrings

'I'm a quiet storm': The How To Get Away With Murder actress was joined at the event by Dee Rees (R), the writer-director of her next film Mudbound

'I wanted to disappear': In the forties-set drama - streaming November 17 on Netflix - Blige play Florence Jackson, whose family copes with racism on a farm in rural Mississippi

'I'm going through my own challenges': The Essence cover girl is still in the midst of a bitter split from ex-manager Martin 'Kendu' Isaacs, whom she's reportedly paying $30K a month after ending their 13-years marriage (pictured in 2016)

The How To Get Away With Murder actress was joined at the event by Dee Rees, the writer-director of her next film Mudbound.

In the forties-set drama - streaming November 17 on Netflix - Blige play Florence Jackson, whose family copes with racism on a farm in rural Mississippi.

'I am explosive on stage and expressive, but I'm a quiet storm,' the Thick of It songstress told IndieWire on Tuesday.

Champs: Mary and Diane made sure to pose with the other actors of the hour - (from L-R) Issa Rae, Abbi Jacobson, Sterling K. Brown, Kumail Nanjiani, and James Franco

A decade strong! 39-year-old Kumail was being honored for writing and starring in The Big Sick, which was co-penned by his real-life wife Emily V. Gordon

Hitting US theaters December 8! And 39-year-old James was being honored for directing, producing, and starring as Tommy Wiseau in The Disaster Artist, which also features his younger brother Dave (L)

'I wanted to disappear...Just being a mother and having to find that wife that had a husband (Rob Morgan) who cared about her, because I was going through my own challenges and it was hard [to get in the headspace] of trying to be intimate with this man.'

The Essence cover girl is still in the midst of a bitter split from ex-manager Martin 'Kendu' Isaacs, whom she's reportedly paying $30K a month after ending their 13-years marriage.

Mary and Diane made sure to pose with the other actors of the hour - Issa Rae, Abbi Jacobson, Sterling K. Brown, Kumail Nanjiani, and James Franco.
She's a Victoria's Secret Angel.

And on Thursday, 28-year-old supermodel Martha Hunt used her fame to serve as an angel to kids in need when she attended the World Of Children Charity event in New York City.

The Louis Vuitton model rocked a sparkling black sequined dress for the event, paired with a black cropped jacket.

Angelic: 28-year-old supermodel Martha Hunt used her fame to serve as an angel to kids in need when she attended the World Of Children Charity event

The North Carolina born beauty wore a pair of black heels that lent inches to her already towering 5'10.5" frame.

The star of Taylor Swift's Bad Blood video wore her straight blonde tresses untied and cascading down her back.

The highlight of the IMG signed model's impeccable makeup was a slash of ruby red lipstick.

You crazy diamond: The Louis Vuitton model rocked a sparkling black sequined dress for the event, paired with a black cropped jacket

Seeing double: Hunt's fellow Victoria's Secret Angel Lindsay Ellingson, 32 was also at the charity event

Hunt's fellow Victoria's Secret models Lindsay Ellingson, 32, and Daniela Braga, 25, were also at the charity event.

Ellingson wore a simple off-the-shoulder white shift dress with billowing sleeves, while Braga slipped into a floor length white dress with cut out sides.

Both the Californian native and Brazilian beauty towered in their heels and wore their hair loose.

White on: Ellingson wore a simple off-the-shoulder white shift dress with billowing sleeves, while Daniela Braga, 25, slipped into a floor length white dress with cut out sides

Model citizens: Both the Californian native and Brazilian beauty towered in their heels and wore their hair loose

Fashion designer Rachel Roy, 43, was also at the star-studded event, wearing a colorful rose print dress with leopard print trim.

The former Rocawear creative director wore gold high heels with bejeweled faux gold bow ties on the toes.

The ex wife of Damon Dash wore her raven locks pulled back in a tight pony tail.

A rose by any other name: Fashion designer Rachel Roy, 43, was also at the star-studded event, wearing a colorful rose print dress with leopard print trim

Solo outing: The ex wife of Damon Dash wore her raven locks pulled back in a tight pony tail

Law & Order: SVU actress Stephanie March, 43, wore a light blue, crushed velvet gown for the function.

The Mr And Mrs Smith star wore her straight blonde locks untied and parted down the center.

March accessorized with a purple box clutch for the charity event.

No blues here: Law & Order: SVU actress Stephanie March, 43, wore a light blue, crushed velvet gown for the function
Hailey Baldwin was a scene-stealer at The Dream Hotel in Hollywood on Thursday when she attended the #REVOLVE Awards.

The 20-year-old model, scion of the Baldwin acting family, showed off her sculpted legs in a tiny black off-the-shoulder cocktail dress.

Black fringe ringed her neckline, and she balanced on a sky-high pair of black ankle-strap stilettos, accessorizing with a trio of necklaces including a cross.

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Showstopper: Hailey Baldwin was a scene-stealer at The Dream Hotel in Hollywood on Thursday when she attended the #REVOLVE Awards

Her signature platinum blonde hair had been arranged into a curly do redolent of the 1950s, and she added a splash of color by way of crimson lipstick.

The catwalk-stomping Tuscon native wore a massive pair of hoop earrings.

The star later slipped on a comfortable leather jacket to make her way to BFF Kendall Jenner's 22nd birthday dinner at Petite Taqueria in West Hollywood.

Hailey, whose father is Stephen Baldwin and whose uncle is his brother Alec, has lately flitted from Fashion Week to Fashion Week.

The Tucson native walked the Bottega Veneta Milan Fashion Week Show in the 18th century Palazzo Archinto in Italy last month.

Posing up a storm: The 20-year-old model, scion of the Baldwin acting family, showed off her sculpted legs in a tiny black off-the-shoulder cocktail dress

Later that day, she trouped down the runway for the Missoni show, and the next day she starred in the Dolce and Gabbana show.

Shortly thereafter, her Paris Fashion Week escapades included the Rimova dinner, held at the swanky 1728 restaurant in the 8th arrondissement.

She also dropped by the Atelier Swarovski By Jason Wu dinner, as well as the L'Oreal Paris X Balmain Party, during Paris Fashion Week.

Glitz: Black fringe ringed her neckline, and she balanced on a sky-high pair of black ankle-strap stilettos, accessorizing with a trio of necklaces including a cross

Legs for days: Hailey wowed with vintage inspired curls as she stepped into the street

Thigh-skimming: Hailey was at risk of a wardrobe malfunction as she headed to BFF Kendall Jenner's 22nd birthday dinner at Petite Taqueria in West Hollywood later that night

Hailey, whose father is a born-again Christian, held forth about her own religious convictions in this year's July issue of Elle UK.

'I quote the Bible all the time. I take it into my everyday life, I'm quite serious about it. It's not funny when people joke about it; I actually find it quite offensive,' she said.

'It's something that's really important to me and I've seen it change a lot of people's lives. It certainly did in my family.'

She went on: 'It's something I plan to stick to for the rest of my life  raise my kids that way, marry someone who believes in the same things. It's important to me.'

Animated: Hailey rocked a red lip and carried a leather strappy bag as she prepared to be reunited with Kendall
Ryan Gosling was spotted on the set of his Neil Armstrong biopic First Man on Thursday.

The actor, 36, is clean-shaven with closely cropped hair for his role as the NASA astronaut who became the first person to walk on the moon.

The new look gives the actor, who previously sported a goatee and sideburns, a boyish appeal.

Getting in character: A clean-shaven Ryan Gosling was spotted in Atlanta on Thursday as he prepares to film the Neil Armstrong biopic First Man

Gosling is filming the movie in Atlanta, Georgia, with his La La Land director Damien Chazelle.

The biopic is based on James R. Hansen's 2005 biography of Armstrong who died in 2012.

After his casting was announced in July, the Canadian actor tweeted: 'Incredibly honored to be a part of telling this story.'

Cropped: The Canadian actor, 36, previously sported a goatee and sideburns, pictured left at the Golden Globes in January, and his new look gives him a boyish charm

Icon: Armstrong, who died in 2012, became the first person to walk on the moon during NASA's Apollo 11 mission. The film is based on James R. Hansen's 2005 biography of the astronaut

The Crown's Claire Foy plays Armstrong's wife Janet while House Of Cards star Corey Stoll plays Buzz Aldrin, who accompanied Armstrong to the moon.

Lukas Haas is Mike Collins, the third astronaut on the Apollo 11 space mission.

Earlier this month, Gosling, who shares two daughters with longtime love Eva Mendes, expressed support for the women who have alleged they are victims of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.

The actor starred in the Weinstein-produced drama All Good Things in 2010 and said on Twitter he was 'deeply disappointed in myself for being so oblivious to these devastating experiences of sexual harassment and abuse.'

Gosling added: 'He is emblematic of a systemic problem. Men should stand with women and work together until there is real accountability and change.'
Roxy Jacenko is known for lifting heavy weights in the gym.

But on Friday, the publicity queen's husband Oliver Curtis was doing the carrying, as he offered to take her Saint Laurent garment bag through Melbourne Airport.

The 37-year-old strutted her stuff through the terminal, after flying in from Sydney for the racing carnival, as Oliver carried what is believed to be Roxy's race day frock.

What a gentleman! Oliver Curtis carries wife Roxy Jacenko's glamorous race day frock in garment bag through Melbourne airport as they arrive for Melbourne Cup Carnival on Friday

Roxy was dressed in head-to-toe designer labels and accessorised with a crocodile skin Hermes Birkin handbag, estimated to be worth $84,350.

The Sweaty Betty PR founder wore her blonde locks out in a straight sleek style, and finished off her look with a leather jacket and a gold Rolex.

Opting for comfort on the flight, she paired Kappa slim-fit tracksuit trousers with black heels.

What will they wear? Oliver Curtis offered to carry a Saint Laurent garment bag through Melbourne airport, which is believed to have housed Roxy's lavish race day frock

Expensive taste! Roxy was dressed head-to-toe in designer wears and toted a crocodile skin Hermes Birkin handbag, estimated to be worth $84,350, on her arm

Oliver cut a more casual figure compared to his wife, wearing jeans, sneakers, a black T-shirt and a puffer vest for the flight.

With a backpack slung over his right shoulder, Oliver happily handled the couple's yet-to-be-revealed outfits as they headed off to Crown Hotel.

The garment bag had two visible coat hangers, which could mean both Roxy and Oliver's ensembles were concealed within it.

The well-heeled pair opted to wear sunglasses indoors, with Roxy sporting $690 Valentino shades as she browsed the aisles of an airport pharmacy.

Shady lady! The couple opted to wear sunglasses indoors, with Roxy sporting $690 Valentino shades as she browsed the aisles of an airport pharmacy

Keeping it casual: Oliver cut a laid-back figure in comparison to his wife, donning jeans, sneakers, a black T-shirt and puffer vest for the commute

Roxy, who is known for her 24/7 attitude to business, used her free hands to keep her iPhone at the ready.

The mobile device was placed within a new customised case with monogrammed initials 'RJC' printed in block letters, courtesy of The Daily Edited.

It's believed the addition of 'C' to the case represents her husband's surname Curtis.

Loved-up! Roxy and Oliver wed in 2012, with the married couple likely to engage in a second nuptial ceremony Oliver re-proposed to Roxy in August

Roxy and Oliver appear to have made the trip without their children - six-year-old daughter Pixie and three-year-old son Hunter.

The couple married in 2012, and it is possible they will have a second ceremony after Oliver re-proposed to Roxy in August following his stint in jail.

Oliver was released from Cooma Correctional Centre on June 23, after serving a year behind bars for insider trading.

Since becoming a free man, Oliver has enjoyed a family holiday to Bali and an intimate romantic escape with Roxy to Singapore.
Mercedes Corby's first major interview since sister Schapelle returned home hasn't been without its critics.

Harsh ones at that, with social media erupting in a barrage of savagery following Friday morning's tell-all piece on Studio 10.

The 43-year-old sister to the famed convicted drug smuggler revealed probably as much as the public will ever get to know about Schapelle's time in Bali's Kerobokan Prison, following her assertion that her sister may never break her silence.

'#NoMoreCorbys': Mercedes Corby's first major interview since sister Schapelle returned home earlier this year hasn't been without it's harsh critics

Despite the amount of substance and information Mercedes' appearance on the show provided, Twitter users were not impressed, with many bearing the hashtag '#NoMoreCorbys' in their tweets, and claiming they tuned out halfway through.

'For the 1st time ever since u started the show I had to turn it off. So disappointed u went so low. Pls. #NoMoreCorbys. Schapelle is a drug smuggler,' one user tweeted.

Another adopted the hashtag with a vow to get the hashtag trending, highly disapproving of the family's media saturation.

'Can we get #NoMoreCorbys trending? Coz I turned it off too,' one user wrote.

'Schapelle is a drug smuggler': Many Twitter users were not impressed with the attention the Schapelle Corby saga was receiving

'I turned it off too': Many claimed they tuned out halfway through the interview

Some weren't so elaborate with airing their grievances, with some simply asking: 'Why @Studio10???? WHY??????'

Some users attempted to play down the authenticity and professionalism of the journalist conducting the interview, Sarah Harris: 'Thank's for today's car crash interview.'

'WHY': Some simply just asked, why?

'Thanks for today's car crash interview': Some attacked Sarah Harris and other journalists on the show

'Why are you making MC (Mercedes Corby) a feature on the show? isn't there anybody else of interest to put in the limelight!?? #disappointing,' one person tweeted.

Schapelle Corby was arrested in 2004 attempting to smuggle 4.2kg of cannabis in a boogie board bag at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar, Indonesia.

Convicted in 2005, her sentence was originally for 20 years, before being downgraded in 2012, and eventually resulting in Schapelle being let out of prison on parole in 2013.

She was deported back to Australia earlier this year in May.
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She is the model of the moment, known for her high-fashion looks and stunning sartorial choices.

And Lottie Moss showed she was the queen of the runway as she joined a glamorous Pixie Lott on the star-studded Dolce & Gabbana runway at the brand's Italian Christmas show held at Harrods in London on Thursday.

The sister of supermodel Kate Moss, 19, looked simply sensational as she slipped on a glittering gold and jewel crown for her turn down the A-list runway.

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Regal: Lottie Moss showed she was the queen of the runway as she joined a glamorous Pixie Lott who cheekily flashed her legs on the star-studded Dolce & Gabbana runway at the brand's Italian Christmas show held at Harrods in London on Thursday

Adding a touch of vintage drama to her catwalk look, the Vogue coverstar slipped on a sequinned gold tasselled dress which showed off her trim midriff and her slender legs as she strutted along, with the lower layers of the dress catching the light.

Toughening up the look, she paired the showstopping number with a chic leather jacket with gold button detail and carried a snakeskin bag.

Keeping her accessories metallic and sparkling, the blonde beauty wore an amber studded gold necklace, teamed with a matching bracelet and chandelier earrings.

Her platinum tresses were styled in soft, romantic waves, while her make-up consisted of fluttery lashes, feline flicks of liner.

Star-studded: Amber Le Bon (L) worked a floral dress and black sequinned jacket while Harry Styles rumoured ex Tess Ward flashed her midriff in a tiny bralet and Rafferty Law worked a powder blue suit.

Wow factor: Lady Kitty Spencer looked stunning in a semi-sheer floral dress, furry bolero jacket and a red floral headband

Glittering: Lady Tatiana worked a taupe bodycon dress while Viscontessa Emma Weymouth joined Jack Guinness for her walk

Floral finesse: (L-R) Model Bella Broekman Tilbury, Penny Lane and Lady Alice Manners rocked pastel florals and stunning headbands for the runway

Star-studded: Oliver Cheshire, Pixie Lott, Olivia Banks, Maddi Waterhouse, Phoebe Merryweather, Isabel Getty, Luke Hall, Viva Gore, Jack Guinness and Rafferty Law caught up at the Italian Christmas Millennial Book Signing beforehand

Engaged: Pixie and Oliver looked like the epitome of true love as they read through the book and smiled

Lottie joined a very racy Pixie Lott who flashed her toned legs in a see-through tulle skirt as she took to the runway with handsome fiance Oliver Cheshire.

Pixie, 26, rocked ethereal elegance as she slipped into an ivory gown, complete with ornate sequinned and flower embroidered bodice .

The stunning dress featured a glittering silver belt which cinched in at her taut midriff along with Victorian inspired cage detail around the waist, before the dress flowed into a dramatic bridal styleskirt.

Model line-up: Isabel Getty, Rafferty Law, Maddi Waterhouse, Jack Guinness, Oliver Cheshire and Luke Hall posed for a glamorous photo

Signature: Handsome Jack wrote his signature as Maddi and Isabel looked on at the glittering event

After-party chic: Lottie wowed in her preppy ensemble, consisting of a scarlet fitted blazer with gold button detail and a school themed embroidered D&G logo, paired with a fitted white blouse at the after-party

Leggy: Showing off her toned and lithe pins, the blonde beauty donned skinny black jeans, adding an extra injection of glamour with bejewelled cream stilettos

Camera-shy? Pixie changed into a stunning leopard-print dress and red stilettos as she exited the after-party with handsome fiance Oliver

Style star: Lottie wore her tresses in soft romantic waves as she made a stylish exit from the party

Tired: Both Pixie and Oliver looked to have had a good night out as they made their way towards a waiting car

Hot couple: Pixie showed off her curled tresses and stunning shoes as she left with Oliver who looked dapper in a brocade coat

Bedtime: Pixie kept her head bowed as Oliver flashed a warm smile at the camera while the couple left

Pixie looked the picture of confidence as she flashed her enviable pins while also working a furry gold bolero jacket.

Her blonde tresses were swept away from her face into an elegant updo, finished with a floral crown.

Looking like perfect husband material, model Oliver, 29, worked an ivory fitted suit.

Ruffled: Lottie ditched her jacket as she climbed into the back of a cab with two male pals at the end of the night

Bed time: Lottie looked sleepy,but still immaculate as she prepared to the hit the hay after the exciting night

Nodding off: Lottie looked ready to roll into bed as she closed her eyes while getting into the taxi

Lithe: Lottie showed off her endless legs in her skinny jeans as she strutted along hand in hand with pal Valentine Sozbilir

Who's that? Rafferty, now clad in a Hugh Hefner-esque silk shirt and dressing gown held hands with a stunning brunette as he left the party

Handsome: The rising fashion star looked cool in his relaxed silken ensemble as he cosied up to his companion

She was in good celebrity company on the runway with up and coming model Rafferty Law, 21, Amber Le Bon, 28, and blogger Tess Ward, 27, also seen making their way down the runway.

Model Amber, who is the daughter of supermodel Yasmin and Duran Duran frontman Simon, looked beautiful with a floral crown and matching floaty dress.

Adding Christmas party glamour she donned a black sequinned jacket and rose embroidered gloves.

Tess, who was rumoured to have enjoyed brief fling with Harry Styles, flashed her cleavage and taut midriff in a tiny black bralet, which she paired with a pencil skirt and floral jacket.

Newlyweds: Olympic diver Tom Daley, 23, posed with new husband Dustin Lance Black, 43 in their co-ordinating black and gold ensembles

Toned: Amber wowed in her blue and burnt orange floral mini dress which flashed her toned and tanned legs

Smitten: Tom rocked ornate gold and red silk trousers while Dustin was a vision in his fitted black shirt embroidered with crowns

Sheer daring: Model Sarah Ann Macklin flashed her bra in a lacy overlay dress paired with silver shoes

While model of the moment Rafferty looked like a true gentleman in a powder blue suit and bow tie.

The festive evening also included a book signing and lighting of the Christmas tree before the afterparty at celebrity hotspot Mahiki.

Lottie changed into a preppy ensemble, consisting of a scarlet fitted blazer with gold button detail and a school themed embroidered D&G logo, paired with a fitted white blouse.

Showing off her toned and lithe pins, the blonde beauty donned skinny black jeans, adding an extra injection of glamour with bejewelled cream stilettos.

Stylish: Jack Guinness, Alice Manners and Amanda Harvey looked incredible as they walked out

Lithe: Made in Chelsea star Olivia Bentley flashed her pins in racy thigh-high boots as she posed with Valentine

She co-ordinated her chic look with a red manicure.

The Vogue cover-star's blonde locks were styled in loose beachy waves and parted on the side while her sparkling peepers were enhanced with fluttery lashes and liner.

Her make-up look was completed with a soft dusting of blush and a glossy pink lip.

Pixie meanwhile, took a walk on the wild side in a funky leopard print dress paired with scarlet heels, while Oliver rocked a patterned shirt and brocade coat.

Socialite sisters: Irene and Lydia Forte looked beautiful in their vibrant floral and fur ensembles

Glam: Viva Gore glowed in a floral pussybow blouse while Maddi (Right) flashed her cleavage in green lace

Blonde bombshell: Kylie Minogue graced the event in a canine inspired satin gown. The stunning Australian pop singer looked ageless in the sophisticated, floor length number with a plunging neckline

Rafferty later ignited romance rumours when he stepped out clad in a black silk shirt and matching floral dressing gown, hand-in-hand with a beautiful brunette.

Tom Daley, 23, and new husband Dustin Lance Black, 43, also cosied up at the afterparty clad in matching black and gold outfits.

Kylie Minogue graced the event in a canine inspired satin gown. The stunning Australian pop singer looked ageless in the sophisticated, floor length number with a plunging neckline.

The blonde beauty let her locks flow past her shoulder, adding a smattering of light makeup to highlight her natural good looks.

Lottie was scouted for her first modelling agency at the tender age of 13.

Lottie first courted the attention of the modelling world when she attended her older half-sister Kate's wedding to Jamie Hince in 2011.

The Sussex native has gone onto land campaigns with Calvin Klein and Bvlgari, as well as fronting the cover of Vogue Paris in 2016.

Work it: Billie JD Porter wowed in a pyjama style top and cat cigarette pants as she toted a goody bag on the way home
She's quickly making her way up the modelling ranks, recently fronting a campaign for renowned clothing label Guess.

And social media sensation Kara Del Toro, 25, made it clear she is one to watch as she pulled out all the stops for the #REVOLVE Awards in Los Angeles on Thursday.

The blonde bombshell ensured all eyes were on her as she hit the red carpet in a show-stopping gown that left seriously little to the imagination.

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All eyes on her! Social media sensation Kara Del Toro, 25, made it clear she is one to watch as she pulled out all the stops for the #REVOLVE Awards in Los Angeles on Thursday

Exuding body confidence, the fitness enthusiast showcased her incredible figure and seriously ample assets in a semi-sheer frock.

Boasting a sizeable cut-out at the cleavage, the design was perfect for displaying her generous bust as she mingled with some of the world's most beautiful women.

As if the frock wasn't show-stopping enough, it was also adorned with ornate beaded detailing for some added pizzazz.

Stunning: The blonde bombshell ensured all eyes were on her as she hit the red carpet in a show-stopping gown that left seriously little to the imagination

Her blonde tresses were styled into glamorous loose waves, while her stunning face was enhanced with a dramatic make-up look.

Be they from the world of showbiz or social media, the event saw some of the world's most influential faces come together to celebrate the trendsetters of the digital landscape.

Kara's stunning Instagram shots have already seen her amass a staggering 520,000 followers on the social networking site.

Sheer she is! Exuding body confidence, the fitness enthusiast showcased her incredible figure and seriously ample assets in a semi-sheer frock

The model certainly isn't coy with her posts, frequently sharing snaps of her incredible physique, often in some of the world's most beautiful locations.

But it isn't only on Instagram that fans can now gaze at Kara's beauty, as she recently landed the honor of fronting Guess' latest campaign.

As well as Kara, last night's event also drew in the likes of Victoria's Secret stunner Romee Strijd, Jasmin Tookes and Pretty Little Liars' Shay Mitchell.
An otherwise celebratory gathering threatened to be overshadowed by simmering resentments as Caitlyn Jenner faced a potentially awkward reunion with ex-wife Kris Jenner on Thursday evening.

The former couple came face to face as they helped supermodel daughter Kendall Jenner celebrate her 22nd birthday at West Hollywood restaurant Petite, just days after Caitlyn claimed Kris knew OJ Simpson was 'responsible for brutal murders of best friend Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman'.

Appropriately dressed for the occasion in a glittering evening dress, Caitlyn, 68, was joined by a friend as she parked outside the local eatery ahead of the soiree.

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Tense: An otherwise celebratory gathering threatened to be overshadowed by simmering resentments as Caitlyn Jenner faced a potentially awkward reunion with ex-wife Kris Jenner on Thursday evening

The potentially awkward meeting was further amplified by the likely presence of Kim Kardashian, with whom the transgender TV personality has had a fractious relationship following the publication of her warts-and-all autobiography.

Caitlyn's outing comes shortly after she told an Australian radio show that they always believed OJ was responsible for the murders of estranged wife Nicole and close friend Ron in 1994.

'Actually we pretty much knew he was guilty, right from the beginning, but the whole thing was: "Is he going to get away with it?"' she said during a phone-in with The Kyle and Jackie O Show.

Incoming: The former couple came face to face as they helped supermodel daughter Kendall Jenner celebrate her 22nd birthday at West Hollywood restaurant Petite

All that glitters: Appropriately dressed for the occasion in a glittering evening dress, Caitlyn, 68, was joined by a friend as she parked outside the local eatery ahead of the soiree

After hearing Nicole tell her she feared for her life, Caitlyn said Kris 'brushed it off' -and has struggled with guilt ever since.

Caitlyn also claimed that Nicole made a frantic call to best friend Kris in the weeks before her death in which she claimed 'he's going to kill me and get away with it because he's OJ Simpson.'

'You know, at the time, she brushed it off and was like [acts out Kris trying to keep Nicole calm] "come on, please, please, please,"' she recalled. 'But unfortunately, it was right.'

Allegations: Caitlyn has claimed Kris believed OJ was guilty of murdering her best friend Nicole and waier Ron Goldman before he went to trial

'He's going to get away with it': Caitlyn also claimed that Nicole made a frantic call to best friend Kris in the weeks before her death in which she claimed "he's going to kill me and get away with it because he's OJ Simpson." (Kris is pictured with late husband Robert Kardashian, OJ Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson)

Special day: Kendall celebrated her 22nd birthday with an extended group of family and friends on Thursday evening

Caitlyn then spoke of how they felt when they found out OJ had been found not guilty.

'We were in [prosecutor] Marcia Clarke's office at the court house when the verdict came down...' she began.

'... Kris turned around and looked at me and says: "You know, we should have listened to Nicole, she was right from the beginning.'

Audibly unsettled, Caitlyn added: 'That whole thing is just so, so sad.'

After being found not guilty, OJ Simpson lived as a free man for 14 years, before he was sentenced to 33 years in prison for an armed robbery that occurred in 2007.

Kris has been open about the guilt she felt following her best friend Nicole's murder in 1994, but details regarding their conversations have remained scarce.

MailOnline has contacted a representative for further comment.

Awkward: The potentially awkward meeting was further amplified by the likely presence of Kim Kardashian, who stepped out with husband Kanye West
She's been a prominent star in the modelling industry, appearing in campaigns for Alexandra McQueen, Donna Karen, H&M and Marchesa.

And Romee Strijd proved just why she is such an asset to the industry as she showcased her model-perfect physique on Thursday while donning a sensational blue and white embroidered dress for the Revolve awards red carpet.

The 22-year-old put on a leggy display in the frock as she attended the event in Los Angeles ' Dream Hotel with the perilous slash extending the length of her pins.

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Amazing: Model Romee Strijd, 22, showed off her amazing figure in a blue and white embroidered dress on Thursday for the Revolve awards red carpet

Joined by her beau Laurens van Leeuwen, Romee showed off her figure in the frock which consisted of a midnight blue netting embroidered with white detailing.

Rocking a sharp navy suit and white shirt, Laurens held his own against his girlfriend in a smart and sophisticated ensemble, making the two a perfect model pair.

Romee teamed her dress with simple black strapped heels and chunky costume hoops, giving the look a hint of 90s chic for the fashion and popular culture awards show.

Power couple: Romee was joined by her hunky beau Laurens van Leeuwen for the awards show in Los Angeles' Dream Hotel

Glamour goddess: Romee teamed her look with strappy black heels as she rocked the midnight blue dress with white embroidery

Stunning: The Dutch model had her blonde locks styled into a half up half down style

Loved-up: Laurens held his own again his beau in a sharp navy suit

Romee kept fans up to date on her adventures from the evening, posting videos of some of the award winners on her Instagram story.

The fashion showcase included awards for categories such as Influencer of the Year and Brand of the Year.

Romee kept her makeup to a minimum, rocking a simple grey smoky eye and pink glossy lip with the look.

Couple goals: The Dutch pair, who have been together since 2009, met through Lauren's sister

Flawless: Romee put on a leggy display in her show-stopping dress for the fashion and popular culture awards

Show-stopper: The blonde beauty kept fans up to the date with the evening on Instagram

Her and beau Laurens have been together since 2009, after first meeting through his sister when the model was still a teenager.

And she gushed over her man earlier this year, saying: 'I want to marry him and have children. We have had serious talks about it together.'

The duo will also be taking part in the upcoming Victoria's Secret Fashion Show later this month, strutting their stuff on the catwalk in Shanghai, China.

Out of here: The couple were seen hand-in-hand as they exited the venue
She's one of Australia's most popular faces on television, hosting ratings smash Australian Ninja Warrior.

And Rebecca Maddern, 40, has plenty to look forward to 2018, confirming on Friday that she is expecting her first child.

Taking to Instagram, the bubbly Channel Nine personality wrote: 'Can't wait for our new arrival in 2018!'

'Can't wait for our new arrival in 2018!' Footy Show host Rebecca Maddern confirms she is pregnant with her first child after battling severe morning sickness

The popular TV presenter shared a photo to social media of a teddy bear, baby blanket and socks to announce her happy news.

The Footy Show host is expecting her first child with husband of three years, cameraman Trent Miller, in May.

Speaking to The Fix, Rebecca revealed she was only just starting to enjoy her pregnancy after suffering from crippling morning sickness.

Cute: The popular TV presenter shared a photo to social media of a teddy bear, baby blanket and socks to announce her happy news

First time mum; The Footy Show host is expecting her first child with husband of three years, Trent Miller, in May

'I suffered quite badly with morning sickness, or as as I like to call it 24/7 sickness, early on,' she said.

'That's tough because you can't tell workmates why you're not 100 percent  but that has pretty much passed now, so it's nice to start to enjoy the feeling of being pregnant.'

The presenter said she was other the moon at being able to finally share the couple's happy news.

'I suffered quite badly with morning sickness, or as as I like to call it 24/7 sickness, early on': Rebecca revealed she had been suffering from morning sickness

'It's been so special over the past few days to share the news with family and close friends,' she says.

Rebecca is a rising star on Channel Nine, hosting Australian Ninja Warrior and The AFL Footy Show.

The journalist previously hosted Channel Seven's afternoon news bulletin.
They took home $547,000 after being crowned winners of the highest rating Block series.

But the auctions haven't yet finished for Josh Barker, 28, and Elyse Knowles, 24, with the pair gearing up to see their own home go under the hammer later this month.

Appearing on A Current Affair the couple revealed they were more worried about the auction of their humble Coburg home than last week's TV phenomenon that attracted an audience of 2.235 million.

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Round two: On Friday, Josh and Elyse revealed they were nervous about putting their Coburg home up for auction

'The Block was a gift but this is reality so it's more stressful,' Josh said.

After buying the home in 2014 for $600,000, the pair took 18-months to completely renovate the area.

With three bedrooms, two bathrooms and an ability to fit five cars, owner of the Block home comedian Dave Hughes said the pair had nothing to worry about whilst hinting he may even make an offer himself.

Making another offer? With three bedrooms, two bathrooms and an ability to fit five cars, owner of the Block home comedian Dave Hughes said the pair had nothing to worry about

Second time buyer? 'If it's anything like what they did in Elsternwick, I think the Coberg joint will be a bargain for whatever it goes for'

'If it's anything like what they did in Elsternwick, I think the Coberg joint will be a bargain for whatever it goes for.'

According to Hocking Stuart director David Wood, the 500m property is set to sell over the $1.3 million mark.

'Our price representation is between $1.35 and $1.45 million dollars,' he said.

Setting the bar high: 'Our price representation is between $1.35 and $1.45 million dollars'

Winner: With a innovative and unique back room which doubles as an outdoor area, David told domain.com.au that their winning feature was 'an area for all seasons' and was 'really stylish and chilled'

With a innovative and unique back room which doubles as an outdoor area, David told domain.com.au that their winning feature was 'an area for all seasons' and was 'really stylish and chilled'.

'It becomes another room, and that's what we wanted - an extension of the house outside,' added Elyse.

'We're outdoor people, we like to entertain outdoors.'

Josh and Elyse's current home will go up for auction on November 18.
Amir Khan was spotted enjoying a night on the town with a stunning brunette in London on Thursday evening, just days after his pregnant ex-wife Faryal Makhdoom broke her silence on their messy split.

The 30-year-old boxer was seen heading into a cab with the stunner, believed to be a Brazilian model, who bore a close resemblance to his expectant estranged partner, following a night out in London, where they were seen outside a shisha bar.

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline earlier in the week, Faryal, 26, exclusively told MailOnline that she will teach her daughter to be an 'independent and strong' example for Muslim women hot on the heels of her split from her husband.

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Who's that girl? Amir Khan was spotted enjoying a night on the town with a stunning brunette in London on Thursday evening, just days after his pregnant ex-wife Faryal Makhdoom broke her silence on their messy split

New York-born Faryal and former unified light-welterweight world champion Amir, who married in 2013, share three-year-old daughter Lamaisah.

After months of public problems, including a family spat, rumours of a sex tape and cheating allegations, Amir and his wife sensationally split earlier this year.

The boxer, from Bolton, who is worth 23million, announced their split in a tweet that read 'So me and the wife Faryal have agreed to split. I'm currently in Dubai. Wish her all the best'. -Weeks later, Faryal revealed she was expecting their second child.

In what will undoubtedly be a shock to his wife, Amir seemed relaxed as he headed out with the gorgeous brunette who was clad in a sizzling ensemble.

Happy days? The 30-year-old boxer was seen heading into a cab with the stunner, who bore a close resemblance to his expectant estranged partner, following a night out in London, where they were seen outside a shisha bar

Home time? The duo both clamoured into a taxi following what looked to be a wonderful night out

Off out: Amir was playing the chivalrous gent as he helped her into the cab and held the door open

Keeping refreshed: He held on to a bottle of water as they stepped out for the night out

She was seen wearing thigh-high boots with a saucy pair of denim shorts all layered beneath a camouflage jacket - to add a low-key touch to the outfit.

Amir's stunning female companion is believed to be Brazilian model Bella Gusamom who divides her time between London and Los Angeles.

The duo seemed totally at ease during the outing, as she was seen holding a rose while he tucked a stylish Louis Vuitton washbag under his arm.

MailOnline has approached Amir and Faryal's representatives for comment.

Last month Faryal deleted her pleading apology after the boxer appeared to snub her attempted reconciliation. Faryal posted a lengthy message on Twitter saying it is time for her and Khan to put their 'differences behind us'.

Bumping along nicely: Last month Faryal deleted her pleading apology after the boxer appeared to snub her attempted reconciliation. Faryal posted a lengthy message on Twitter saying it is time for her and Khan to put their 'differences behind us'

Happier days: Amir and Faryal's relationship has played out publicly, particularly since the split

Sizzling: Amir's stunning female companion is believed to be Brazilian model Bella Gusamom who divides her time between London and Los Angeles

Chic: Amir gave a hint to his superstar star status with his Louis Vuitton bag tucked under his arm

Heading off: She was seen wearing thigh-high boots with a saucy pair of denim shorts all layered beneath a camouflage jacket - to add a low-key touch to the outfit

Taxi time: The handsome boxer was keeping things low-key in a crew-neck T-shirt

Strutting their stuff: The duo were casual as they walked down the streets looking laid-back

Coming up roses: The happy pair were looking stylish as they walked down the streets

Tough times: Amir put his troubles behind him for the evening out

The businesswoman also apologised for all the 'infighting' between her and Khan's parents, which she revealed has had a 'terrible effect' on her marriage.

But soon afterwards Khan took to Twitter, confirming to fans their divorce would go ahead and wishing her well. Faryal had tweeted the statement of apology to her 180,000 followers just hours after announcing the launch of her own lipstick brand.

She wrote: 'The past three months have been really tough on me and my marriage. Matters haven't been helped by the fact that my husband has been out of the ring for quite some time... it's been very stressful for us as a couple, and a family.

On the town: The duo seemed totally at ease during the outing, as she was seen holding a rose while he tucked a stylish Louis Vuitton washbag under his arm

Heading off: The happy duo seemed laid-back in one another's company

Stunner: His pal looked stylish in her ensemble, which boasted tiny shorts

'I now recognise that all this infighting between me and my in-laws has had a terrible effect on my husband and I... and for that I would like to sincerely apologise.

'My mother and father-in-law are the elders of our family and as such deserve love and respect just as much as my own parents do. I've said things in the past out of anger... I didn't really mean and regret now.'

She added: 'My daughter and unborn child do not deserve a broken home. That is why I have decided that it is time to put our differences behind us, and start afresh.

'All families go through hard times. It is unfortunate for us that our difficulties were played out so publicly. I also apologise for my part in that.'

On the way home: 'All families go through hard times. It is unfortunate for us that our difficulties were played out so publicly. I also apologise for my part in that'
Gwyneth Paltrow was one of the first stars to speak out about Harvey Weinstein's abuses.

And on Friday the Oscar-winning actress, 45, told CNBC's Tania Bryer she has no regrets about sharing her story, which subsequently made dozens of women feel safe enough to speak up.

'I think its incredible whats happening. I think this is long overdue,' said the Iron Man actress. 'Theres been this incredible confluence of events thats really led to women coming together  and feeling safe in numbers to come forward and talk about their experiences across all different industries.'

In the spotlight: Gwyneth Paltrow was interviewed by Tania Bryer for a CNBC segment that airs on Friday

Spilling: During the chat the star, 45, said she had no regrets when it came to speaking up about Harvey Weinstein's sexual harassment

Paltrow also said she had her daughter Apple, whose dad is Chris Martin, in mind when she decided to talk.

'Its my hope that this is the beginning of something important and different and that my daughter, when she goes into the workplace, wont experience what you, presumably you, and I and millions of other women have had to endure,' said the It's All Good cookbook author.

'So it feels important and Im happy that I have played a small part in it.'

Frank talk: Paltrow also said she had her daughter Apple, whose dad is Chris Martin, in mind when she decided to talk. 'Its my hope that this is the beginning of something important and different and that my daughter'

On her way: The beauty had on a ruffled white cotton tank top with black slacks as she walked into an office building

Gwyneth worked with Weinstein in her twenties. He cast in her the films 1996's Emma, 1998's Shakespeare In Love and 1999's The Talented Mr Ripley, among others.

Paltrow told the New Yorker that she had been sexually harassed by Weinstein and her boyfriend at the time Brad Pitt had told the movie mogul to back off.

Angelina Jolie had also spoken up in the same article about her bad experience with Harvey.

They were once friends: Gwyneth worked with Weinstein in her twenties. He cast in her the films 1996's Emma, 1998's Shakespeare In Love and 1999's The Talented Mr Ripley, among others. Seen in 2002

After that, several women came out, including Annabella Sciorra and Daryl Hannah.

In her CNBC sit down, Paltrow also discussed the relationship with her father Bruce Paltrow, who was a TV producer and also a director - he directed the star in the 2000 film Duets.

Bruce died in 2002 after a long battle with cancer.

'My father was really the rudder to the ship of my life,' said Gwyneth.

'He was very pragmatic, very funny. Scrappy, really hardworking guy.'

Gold standard: Paltrow also discussed the relationship with father Bruce Paltrow, who died in 2002. 'My father was really the rudder to the ship of my life,' said Gwyneth. Seen in 1999

The actress' mother is the talented stage and screen actress Blythe Danner; here Blythe, Bruce and Gwyneth are seen in 1997

She added that he did not enjoy a privileged life growing up as she did.

'He did not grow up with money and so he was very insistent on kind of instilling us with values and work ethic and having us understand that like where we were, and that it necessarily, that it wasnt by accident,' she shared.

He also had no trouble standing up to his superstar daughter who by the late Nineties had already won and Oscar and appeared on the cover of Vogue. Her high-profile relationship with Pitt also gave her big headlines.

'There was a period of time where he was like "youre going off course here. Youre like believing your own legend,"' she confessed.

'I was probably 27 or 28 years old. And I remember him sitting me down and saying "youre kind of an asshole." And I was like, "oh, oh my god."

'But it was so great because he was so clear and so straight and so loving and what he was pointing out was like "this isnt you. Don't think you're something great. You know who you are and what you are is great. Don't get carried away with all this noise and fame and attention." You know, it's pretty intense.'

Her little ones: The Los Angeles native with Moses and Apple in an Instagram snap

The beauty also talked about launching GOOP.

'I think that I had a lot of trepidation about planting this little flag  and saying I want to do this but I dont know if this could be a business or how I could execute the business but it was scary for me to do it.

CEO: The star on Wednesday in New York at the WSJ. Magazine 2017 Innovator Awards

'Immediately there was a lot of "why is she doing this?" I remember once I also had a movie coming out around the same time and there was a huge article in the NY Times about why am I doing this? And I thought, this seems extreme, like Im just writing banana nut muffin recipes!'

And she said the early days were not easy.

'Its funny, when I look back at those days in London and I had this very secret ambition that one day I would build something that were on our way to building right now.'

Paltrow is also very aware that there are plenty of haters out there that like to ridicule GOOP.

Her reaction to the negativity is well thought out. 'I think the celebrity equally helps and hurts at the same time. When youre a celebrity, people have a pretty clear preconceived notion of who you are and who you should be in the culture.

She added she 'wasnt looked at just like an entrepreneur' and there was 'a lot of baggage that came with it.'

The actress can next be seen in 2018's Avengers: Infinity War.
She's the doting mum to four-month-old son Jett and wife to Dane Rumble.

And on Saturday, Nikki Phillips opened up about relocating her young brood to Melbourne for the Spring racing season.

Speaking to Confidential, the 33-year-old said she was looking forward to the long days of dressing up to the nines before coming home to her little one in all his beauty.

Busy mumma! On Saturday, Nikki Phillips opened up about relocating her young brood to Melbourne for the Spring Racing season

'It's actually going to be a nice change of pace this year, coming home to his little smiling face and dribble,' she said.

'I'll be going from glam to comfy trackpants and dribble, poo and vomit so it's going to be the best of both worlds.'

Taking to Instagram earlier in the day, the new mum flaunted her incredible post baby body whilst showcasing her ample cleavage.

Multitasking: 'It's actually going to be a nice change of pace this year, coming home to his little smiling face and dribble'

Stunner: Wearing a figure-hugging dress, Nikki was seen at the Virgin Australia lounge in a floral number with red heels

Wearing a figure-hugging dress, Nikki was seen at the Virgin Australia lounge in a floral number with red heels.

Accessorising her look, she added a bold red hat.

'Champers and a touch up thanks to @sephoraaus and @virginaustralia now this is what I call travelling in style,' she captioned.

Luky baby: Speaking to Daily Telegraph earlier in the year, Nikki revealed she had suffered three heartbreaking miscarriages

Speaking to Daily Telegraph earlier in the year, Nikki revealed she had suffered three heartbreaking miscarriages.

'The moment he came out and I put him on my chest, you have this little life on top of you,' she said.

'The fear and worry doesn't go anywhere because now you have this amazing little human being and how do you look after him.'

Nikki and Dane welcomed Jett into the world in July.
The WC Fields adage, Never work with animals or children, holds true when youngsters reach a certain age.

At present, theres a glut of them in soapland who are hilarious, doing their own thing while the adults around them try to keep straight faces.

EastEnders Louie (Lauren and Peters son  keep up!) is a real cutie and loves the camera; its funny to see actors improvising as he says his lines as he might do sitting at the breakfast table with his real-life family.

In Coronation Street, Jude and Angies son George keeps us entertained with a youngsters inevitable fascination with the sets lights  not to mention his desire to claw anyones face who happens to be holding him.

Thinking Angie has a drink problem, Mary reports her to the police in Coronation Street

But Im going to return to my bugbear  please keep very young children out of scenes in which adults are shouting and arguing. Ive been asking the soaps to do this for years  with no result.

Producers reply that children are well looked after blah blah blah... Im sorry, but if a child is crying hysterically in shot, he/she is not happy. Its distressing enough to watch; goodness knows what its like for the poor kid.

CORONATION STREET: ITS AN (UN)FAIR COP

Postnatal depression, HIV, double murder, alcoholism, drugs  and that was just October. Seriously, whats happening, Corrie? Its as if someones rummaged around in an EastEnders rubbish tip, circa 1985, and resurrected as many storylines as they can in one month.

Now theyve decided to give Mary a personality transplant. Patti Clare is a brilliant actor, and the subtlety with which she plays the slightly on edge, woman-with-a-past character is nothing short of genius.

But almost overnight, they have turned her into a potential psycho and its just not working. Thinking that Angie (possibly the dullest character ever to have graced the cobbles) has a drink problem, she reports her to the police (pictured), an action that results in Angie having to take a breath test (one to prove shes actually living would be my guess).

Tina comforts Billy after the pair experience an unexpected moment of passion

The whole Jude/Mary storyline was so cleverly built and fantastically well executed, and now its being ripped apart at the seams.

And talking of tedium... when you give Angie that one-way ticket back to Cape Town, please ensure she takes Abi with her. Shes a mess, Tim said of her last week. She is. But, increasingly, so are many aspects of the show  and its heartbreaking.

EASTENDERS: HONEY TRAPPED

BBC political correctness is clearly dictating that everyone wears a poppy (note the relative absence of them in other soaps).

Only during sexual activity can they remove them, as Tina and Billy will doubtless discover when a passionate kiss turns into a night under the duvet (talking of which, have you noticed no one has taken their bed linen to be washed in over 30 years?).

He could be forgiven for straying because Honey kicked him out following his hurtful comments about her relationship with Janet, but really... Tina? If she thought her relationship with Tosh turned out to be a load of old... well, tosh... she aint seen nothing yet.

However, the morning after the night before, Tinas guilt gets the better of her and she tells Billy the truth about Janets accident. Hmm. Not the best post-coital wake-up call. A cup of tea wouldve been nice.

Rebecca's waters break just as her car breaks down in this week's Emmerdale

Its not a great week for Kaffy, either, when she comes face to face with James Willmott-Brown, her rapist from 1988. What will he tell her to try to put the past behind them? Given that Kaffy faked her own death, Id say shes capable of putting several past lives behind her.

Dread of the week has to be Louises birthday meal with Ben. Has there ever been a character with more disgustingly loud eating habits as Ben? Keep your mouth shut, man!

EMMERDALE: OPENING THE FLOODGATES

Why does anyone ever risk getting within spitting distance of a car? If youre not bundled into the boot, youre stranded/attacked/abandoned in one. This week is no different when Rebeccas car plays up and Aaron takes it for a run.

It breaks down just as Rebeccas waters break. If the problem is that the car just needs water, that could be a good thing. Will she get to the hospital in time? Please, yes; the thought of Aaron and an umbilical cord in the same scene is too horrendous.

Meanwhile, Adams arrested but denies Emma was in his car. See what I mean about flamin cars? Stay away from them, people.
They'll both be strutting their stuff down the catwalk at the upcoming and highly anticipated Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

And Jasmine Tookes and Stella Maxwell gave a sneak peek as they sizzled in a winter themed photo shoot for the brand.

Jasmine, 26, and Stella, 28, set pulses racing in gold lingerie as they took part in a new promo for the brand's Dream Angels collection and Bombshell Nights fragrance.

That'll get pulses racing! Jasmine Tookes and Stella Maxwell gave a sneak peek as they sizzled in a winter photo shoot for Victoria's Secret

Golden girl! Stella dazzled in a plunging gold teddy that flaunted her svelte legs

Jasmine looked incredible as she posed up a storm with her envy-inducing physique on full display.

The model wore a lace gold bra and matching underwear as she leaned upon a fur rug.

Stella dazzled in a plunging gold teddy that flaunted her svelte legs.

The model wore a silky white robe as she posed barefoot while leaving very little of her gym-honed physique to the imagination.

Keeping warm: Romee Strijd wore next to nothing as she curled up by the fireside

Three's company! Romee, Elsa Hosk, and Josephine Skriver sizzled as they struck a pose

It wasn't just Stella and Jasmine who were on hand to seductively promote the world-famous company.

It was a who's who of models from the brand, with Elsa Hosk, Josephine Skriver, Romee Strijd, Sara Sampaio, Candice Swanepoel, and Martha Hunt all taking part in a new promo for the brand's Dream Angels collection and Bombshell Nights fragrance.

In one shot, Elsa, 28, Josephine, 24, and Romee, 22, cosied up together as they showcased the brand's champagne gold intimates.

Double the fun: Hosk and Taylor Hill transfixed in their jaw-dropping lingerie

Simply stunning: Josephine Skriver lounged about in the skimpy VS underwear

Elsa was wrapped up in a soft cream sweater as she flashed some leg while nestled against her pals.

In a second image, Sara showcased her extremely svelte torso as she leaned upon Josephine's shoulder.

Martha, 28, meanwhile, flashed some cleavage as she posed about in a lacy white bra while snuggled up in a white sweater.

Playing with fire: Hosk dazzled as she relaxed by the fire place in her underwear and sweater

Hello gorgeous: Hosk looked incredible with her messy bedhead tousled over her face

Candice, 29, dazzled as she gazed seductively towards the camera, pressing the brand's latest fragrance, Bombshell Nights, against her chest.

The star looked simply stunning with her blonde locks swept across her piercing blue eyes.

It won't be long until all the ladies will reunite for the spectacular Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, set to take place in Shanghai and air on November 28.

Heaven scent! Candice Swanepoel clutched the new perfume bottle against her chest

Simply stunning: Martha, meanwhile, flashed some cleavage as she posed about in a lacy white bra while snuggled up in a white sweater

This year, Lais Ribeiro will be wearing the $2 million Fantasy Bra.

Speaking to People, she told the publication of learning she would be wearing the coveted bra: 'I never cried so much in my entire life  and I have a baby. It was so emotional. I couldn't believe it when they told me. It was so beautiful.'

Calling it an 'honor', Lais gushed about joining other big names who have previously worn the coveted bra.

'Who doesn't dream about wearing the Fantasy Bra  I mean it's an honor to be among Gisele [Bundchen], Candice [Swanepoel], Adriana [Lima], and all the big top models who have worn it in the past,' she said.

Lean on me! In another image, Sara showcased her extremely svelte torso as she leaned upon Josephine's shoulder
She's rumored to have just accepted a proposal from her boyfriend, Christian Carino.

But there was no engagement ring in sight as Lady Gaga waved to fans while arriving to a rehearsal at the Bell Centre in Montreal on Thursday.

The 31-year-old looked happy and relaxed as she made her entrance while driving her luxury Porsche.

Where's the ring? There was no engagement ring in sight as Lady Gaga waved to fans while arriving to rehearsal ahead of her performance in Montreal on Thursday

The popstrel certainly looked in high spirits as she greeted fans from inside her car, rocking a large pair of sunglasses, a playful sweater, and a statement top.

She wore her blonde locks down and a bold slick of red lipstick.

The star was also spotted in a second more casual look for the day, as she wore a hat, white T-shirt, and chain necklace.

Gaga, who suffers from chronic pain due to fibromyalgia, announced several months ago that she would be postponing the European leg of her tour due to ongoing health problems.

Let's get this show on the road! The star was also spotted in a second more casual look for the day, as she wore a hat, white T-shirt, and chain necklace

Though she won't be in Europe until January, she will be performing in Montreal on Friday night, followed by a number of performances throughout the U.S. until the end of the year.

It all comes amid Gaga's rumored new engagement.

Us Weekly reported this week that Gaga had accepted 48-year-old agent Carino's proposal over the summer.

New love: Us Weekly reported this week that Gaga had accepted 48-year-old agent Carino's proposal over the summer (pictured July 2017)

The Million Reasons hitmaker did not want to make an announcement as she was battling fibromyalgia according to the publication.

The proposal took place about one year after Gaga broke off her engagement to actor Taylor Kinney, who famously presented the blonde songbird with a diamond ring in the shape of a heart.

Dailymail.com has contacted Christian as well as Lady Gaga's rep, but has not heard back.

The site added that Carino, who works at CAA, first asked Gaga's father for permission to propose.

There are no wedding plans in the works yet as the Star Is Born is focusing on feeling better. She has reportedly been suffering from fatigue and muscle pain and even had to be hospitalized at one point. It has also caused her to delay her European tour.
She is one of the most outspoken figures in the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal that has rocked Hollywood.

And it appears Rose McGowan has turned to TV personality Anthony Bourdain, who is dating fellow Weinstein accuser Asia Argento, for support amidst the ever-worsening scandal.

The duo had dinner at Locanda Verde in New York and were pictured chatting on the sidewalk outside.

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Coming together: Harvey Weinstein accuser Rose McGowan met with TV personality Anthony Bourdain on Thursday. Bourdain's girlfriend Asia Argento has also accused Weinstein of rape

The Charmed actress wore all black apart from an orange cropped jacket and sported dark eyeshadow.

Bourdain, 61, enjoyed a cigarette while chatting with the actress and at one point wrapped a supportive arm around her shoulders.

This week it was reported that Rose, 44, had a warrant issued for her arrest in connection with small bags of cocaine left on an airplane in Washington, DC.

She claims the warrant ordered because she refused to take disgraced producer Weinstein's 'hush money'.

The Grindhouse star has been vocal about the mogul's abuses and a New Yorker report alleged that she had been paid a $100,000 settlement to not talk about how the icon raped her.

The outing came after Rose, 44, claimed she's trying to be silenced after it emerged there's an arrest warrant out for her stemming from a January incident

'Women fight on,' she wrote afterwards. 'And to the men out there, stand up. We need you as allies.'

After the arrest warrant was issued on Monday, Rose tweeted: 'Are they trying to silence me?

'There is a warrant out for my arrest in Virginia. What a load of HORSES**T', she tweeted.

It's been alleged that Rose is wanted by the police in Virginia after 'a few small bags of cocaine' were discovered inside her belongings on a plane which arrived at Dulles International Airport on January 20, a source close to the investigation told.

Meanwhile, Bourdain has firmly stood behind his girlfriend Argento, 42, who has bravely spoken out about her own experiences with Weinstein.

Support: Bourdain, 61, put a supportive arm around the actress as he smoked outside Locanda Verde

Standing out: The Charmed star was spotted out on Wednesday in a yellow turtleneck and long red coat

Her claims stemmed from an incident in 1997. She was at a party hosted by Miramax at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc when Weinstein led to her an empty room and asked her to give him a massage.

She reluctantly agreed, and halfway through he began to perform oral sex on her despite her repeated request for him to stop.

The shocking allegations against Weinstein emerged last month revealing that he had settled with at least eight women in sexual harassment claims over the past three decades.

Actress Ashley Judd went on the record for the New York Times report, saying Weinstein had greeted her in a bathrobe in his hotel room in 1996, inviting her to give him a massage or watch him shower.

Standing by his lady: Asia, 42, has accused Weinstein of raping her in 1997. She and Bourdain have been dating since earlier this year, they are pictured on September 9
Kenneth Branagh has revealed Dame Judi Dench once accidentally flashed him in her dressing room.

The actor and director revealed he got an eyeful of Judi, 82, while the pair were performing together in the play The Winter's Tale.

Recalling the comic moment on The Graham Norton Show, Kenneth admitted Dench whipped off her dressing gown in front of him as she rushed to make her stage cue.

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Oops! Kenneth Branagh has revealed Dame Judi Dench once accidentally flashed him in her dressing room

Kenneth, who described Judi as a 'troublemaker', revealed he was in her dressing room so he could pitch the project for Murder On The Orient Express.

'I went into her dressing room one night and she was sitting in her dressing gown,' he recalled.

'We are excitedly talking about the film and Johnny Depp and possibly Michelle and Josh when we get the call to go on stage.

'We are still chatting in the wings and with 30 seconds to go she throws off her dressing gown and there is nothing on below the waist!'

Cheeky: The actor revealed he got an eyeful of Judi, 82, while the pair were performing together in the play The Winter's Tale - and discussing their excitement at working with Johnny Depp

More than he bargained for: Recalling the comic moment on The Graham Norton Show, Kenneth admitted Dench whipped off her dressing gown in front of him as she rushed to make her stage cue

As he and Judi erupted into giggles, the Wallander star admitted he couldn't resist taking a peek as Dench accidentally exposed herself.

'I had the briefest of looks, but I can confirm, like the song, there is nothing like a dame!' he joked. 'Her dresser ran to get her skirt and Judi went on clutching it around her.'

Laughing, Judi interjected: 'I was quite surprised too!' Judi - who plays Princess Dragomiroff in Murder On The Orient Express - talked about working on the set, which included a recreated train.

She said: 'It was so convincing and tremendously good. I think I actually moved only about eight feet in the whole film but you would never know it  It was fantastic.'

She added: 'Because everyone was jiggling up and down I actually got motion sickness!'

Loving it: He said: 'We are still chatting in the wings and with 30 seconds to go she throws off her dressing gown and there is nothing on below the waist!'

Self-deprecating: Laughing, Judi interjected: 'I was quite surprised too!'

Meanwhile her co-star Johnny talked about some of his iconic roles - including Willy Wonks and Edward Scissorhands.

'In my head Willy Wonka was a combination of a rather creepy children's show host and a very stoned George W Bush,' he quipped.

On Edward Scissorhands, he added: 'When I was sent the script I thought this will never be for me. But when I read it, it destroyed me. I had to do it.'

Revealing how he fulfilled a long-held ambition of going to Disneyland dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow and pretending to be a statue, he said: 'I was very excited to stand stock still and then shout out (in Jack's voice), "Oi, what you lookin' at?"

'I got no reaction whatsoever  nothing! I then had to start describing the people I was shouting at so they knew I was real it was exhausting and such a bad idea!'

All-star cast: Judi appeared on The Graham Norton Show with Murder On The Orient Express co-stars Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer

Close pals: After Kenneth's embarrassing tale, Johnny expressed his support for Judi with an affectionate kiss on the cheeek

Johnny joins a number of Oscar winners in Murder On The Orient Express' stellar cast, including Penelope, CruZ 43, as the missionary.

In addition, Sergei Polunin, 27, takes on the role of the mysterious aristocrat Count Rudolph Andrenyi, while Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, 36, appears as Cuban charmer Biniamino Marquez.

Finally, Leslie Odom Jr, 36, is soldier Colonel John Arbuthnot, Lucy Boynton, 23, appears as the countess, Josh Gad, 36, is Hector MacQueen, Mr Ratchett's secretary and Sir Derek Jacobi, 78, plays the murdered man's valet.

The film is a remake of the 1974 classic, and hits UK theaters on November 3 and US theaters November 10.

It's the fourth adaptation of Christie's novel - following Sidney Lumet's famous 1974 film, a 2001 CBS version, and a 2010 episode of ITV series Agatha Christie's Poirot.

Who did it? The film is a remake of the 1974 classic, and hits UK theaters on November 3 and US theaters November 10
North Dakotans dont like changing their clocks twice a year, says a state senator who tried to exempt the state from daylight saving time earlier this year.

Clocks will fall back an hour at 2 a.m. Sunday as daylight saving time ends and the U.S. returns to standard time.

Though a bill to end daylight saving time permanently in the state failed to gain traction during North Dakotas recent legislative session, Sen. Dave Oehlke, R-Devils Lake, said he heard from many citizens who supported the idea.

Frankly, everyone thought it was a great idea, Oehlke said. They like the idea of having it the same all year round, but people could not agree on which way they want to have it, either daylight or standard.

Oehlke sponsored a bill to stay on standard time year-round after hearing from constituents who said adjusting to the time change twice a year disrupted their sleep and made it more difficult to take medications at consistent times.

The bill, Senate Bill 2167, also would have required the entire state to be on Central Standard Time.

The bill attracted little testimony during a hearing last January and failed in the Senate with 33 legislators opposed to it and 11 who supported it.

Sen. Jonathan Casper, R-Fargo, one of the committee members who considered the bill, said there was little evidence presented to legislators about the need for it.

We needed a lot more information than we were given, Casper said.

Committee members also raised concerns about how eliminating daylight saving time in North Dakota would affect border communities.

Oehlke said despite his support for the idea, he doesnt plant to introduce a similar bill in the future.

Its probably not going to happen unless we really get some nationwide effort for it, Oehlke said.

North Dakota was one of 18 states that considered bills related to daylight saving time this year, but none of the efforts passed, said Jim Reed, group director for environment, energy and transportation for the National Council of State Legislatures.

Some of the arguments for keeping clocks the same year-round include eliminating the inconvenience and concerns about drivers being less attentive if theyre tired from the time change, Reed said.

Federal law allows states to be exempt from observing daylight saving time if the state legislature approves it. Federal law does not allow permanent observance of daylight saving time, Reed said.

Arizona and Hawaii do not observe daylight saving time.

Oehlke said although he finds changing his clocks to be a hassle, he thinks it may be a more difficult adjustment for his dogs.

They wonder how come were sleeping in," he said.

Clocks spring forward again on March 11, 2018.
They are two of Australia's leading female television identities who have enjoyed long and successful careers.

But Ita Buttrose, 75, and Sonia Kruger, 52, have reflected on darker times involving terrifying encounters with stalkers.

The pair have both been targeted by crazed fans whose obsessions reached dangerous levels, they revealed to BW Magazine on Friday.

Terrifying letters, showing up at work and sending an engagement ring: Sonia Kruger (left) and Ita Buttrose (right) recounted their encounters with stalkers

Veteran journalist Ita said she spent more than a decade being stalked by a man with Bipolar disorder called Fred.

She said Fred would become 'enamoured' with her when he wasn't on his medication and would come into the car park at her workplace.

'I got love letters, things arriving at the studio. I even got an engagement ring, but I gave that back of course, to police,' Ita told the publication.

Today Extra host Sonia revealed a similar experience after receiving letters that began raising security's eyebrows.

'They (security) were going to go over and see him because some of the things he was writing were towards the dangerous end of the spectrum,' she said.

'I even got an engagement ring': Veteran journalist Ita revealed on Friday she spent more than a decade being stalked by a man with Bipolar disorder called Fred

'Things he was writing were towards the dangerous end of the spectrum': Today Extra host Sonia revealed a similar experience after receiving letters that began raising security's eyebrows

'But I said to them: "Dont go too hard on this guy because hes obviously not all there".'

Meanwhile, Australia's darling Sophie Monk slept with the light on for years after receiving 'creepy and alarming' social media messages from her stalker James Scott McCabe, who received an eight-month suspended jail sentence in 2015, according to the publication.

The messages McCabe sent detailed a plan to kill Sophie so they could be together, as well as describing how he would masturbate over her.

Up to 10 per cent of Australians have had a stalker, with lawyers, doctors, mental health professionals and public figures most likely to fall victim, BW Magazine reported.

'Don't go too hard': Sonia said she instructed security to go lightly on her stalker because she felt like he was 'not all there'
Scott Disick boarded a private jet with his teenage girlfriend Sofia Richie at Van Nuys Airport on Friday for a romantic getaway to Cabo San Lucas.

The 19-year-old Select Model shared a seaside snap, seemingly in Mexico, shortly after the 34-year-old father-of-three announced: 'Let's get the f*** outa here!'

The 5ft6in catwalker also shared a foot-selfie of the May-December couple sporting matching white Adidas Yeezy Powerphase 'Calabasas' sneakers on the plane.

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Mile high club! Scott Disick boarded a private jet with his teenage girlfriend Sofia Richie at Van Nuys Airport on Friday for a romantic getaway to Cabo San Lucas

Scott and Sofia's united front stands in stark contrast to People's report Friday that their 'relationship is starting to fizzle.'

'They're starting to argue more, and it's bothering Sofia,' a source claimed to the mag.

'She thought he would be more serious about their relationship...Everything everyone has been telling her to look out for, she's now starting to see for herself. It's really upsetting for her, but she is trying to work through it.'

While Richie has shared numerous PDA posts, the preppy 'Lord' Disick has yet to post even one image of his ladylove for his 29M social media followers.

The 19-year-old Select Model shared a seaside snap, seemingly in Mexico, shortly after the 34-year-old father-of-three announced: 'Let's get the f*** outa here!'

'Movin': The 5ft6in catwalker also shared a foot-selfie of the May-December couple sporting matching white Adidas Yeezy Powerphase 'Calabasas' sneakers on the plane

'They're starting to argue more': Scott and Sofia's united front stands in stark contrast to People's report Friday that their 'relationship is starting to fizzle'

'Legacy': While Richie has shared numerous PDA posts, the preppy 'Lord' Disick has yet to post even one image of his ladylove for his 29M social media followers

The biracial blonde and the KUWTK bearded bad boy kicked off their morning with beverages at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Calabasas.

As for the the nepotistically-privileged socialite's famous father Lionel Richie, he confessed to Us Weekly he was 'in shock' and 'scared to death' about their fall fling.

'The kids that I grew up with in elementary school, they all just went off to college this year,' Sofia said in the November edition of DuJour.

'They literally look at me like I'm an alien. They're like, "You are so weird and so not normal. Where did you go left and we went straight?" I have no idea.'

'She thought he would be more serious': The biracial blonde and the KUWTK bearded bad boy kicked off their morning with beverages at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Calabasas

Does not approve: As for the the nepotistically-privileged socialite's famous father Lionel Richie, he confessed to Us Weekly he was 'in shock' and 'scared to death' about their fall fling

Self-described 'sex addict': The HAIRtamin spokesmodel sported a red, white, and blue tracksuit for his international flight

In a teaser for this Sunday's episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Scott complained that his summer flings with models were 'not fulfilling' or making him 'happy.'

'[My ex-partner Kourtney Kardashian] was on vacation with one man [Younes Bendjima] the whole trip. That looks like a happier scenario,' Disick lamented.

'Sometimes I just feel kind of insecure, like, if Kourtney met somebody, fell in love, got married and then everyone's like, "Eh, we have a new Scott. We don't really need to be close with him anymore." It's a scary thing for me.'

The HAIRtamin spokesmodel co-parents son Mason, 7; daughter Penelope, 5; and son Reign, 2; with his 38-year-old babymama after ending their on/off decade relationship in 2015.

Thanks, Daddy! Sofia currently covers the November edition of DuJour, in which she reveals her college-bound childhood friends all look at her like an 'alien' for her luxurious lifestyle

Insecure: In a teaser for this Sunday's episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Scott complained that his summer flings with models were 'not fulfilling' or making him 'happy'
The Soubre dam is to boost Ivory Coast's power capacity while helping it reach emissions goals

President Alassane Ouattara on Thursday inaugurated a huge Chinese-funded dam in southern Ivory Coast designed to boost the country's power capacity by nearly 14 percent.

The four-turbine, four-kilometre (2.5-mile) -long Soubre dam is expected to add 275 megawatts of power to the network's present annual supply of 2,000 MW, said Amidou Traore, managing director of the electricity firm CI-Energie.

China has provided 85 percent of its cost, estimated at 331 billion CFA francs (500 million euros, $583 million). Construction began in 2013, and the first turbine went online in June.

Large dam projects are widely attacked by environmentalists for their impact on river flow, which affects habitat.

But Outtara, in his inauguration speech, noted the country's commitments under the 2015 Paris climate-change agreement to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions by 28 percent by 2030, across all sectors.

"The Soubre hydroelectric dam, by producing renewable energy, will help us to reach this goal," he said, adding that companies would also get a boost in "competitiveness".

The Chinese embassy described the initiative as "emblematic" of bilateral cooperations.

A major economy in West Africa, Ivory Coast launched a scheme to rebuild its electrical infrastructure after a bout of violent political upheaval in 2010-11.

Production will double by 2020 according to the plan, which foresees investment of nearly 16 billion euros, funded mostly from the private sector, by 2030.

As the country's biggest hydro-electric scheme, Soubre will boost the share of renewables in Ivory Coast's energy mix to 45 percent, Traore said. The rest is provided by fossil fuels.
Two US Air Force B-1B Lancers prepare to take off from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam last month

US bombers overflew the Korean peninsula Thursday as part of an exercise with Japanese and South Korean warplanes, the US Air Force said, days before President Donald Trump arrives in the region for a trip set to be dominated by the nuclear-armed North.

Tensions are high over Pyongyang's ballistic missile and atomic programmes, which in recent months have seen it test ICBMs and carry out its sixth nuclear blast.

Trump's visit will throw a spotlight on the issue, after the US President and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un traded insults and threats of war.

Flights by supersonic B-1B Lancer bombers in the area always infuriate North Korea, which condemned the drill as "blackmail" early Friday.

Two B-1B aircraft took off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, and were joined west of Japan by Japan Air Self-Defense Force fighters, the US Pacific Air Force said in a statement.

"The Lancers then transited overland to Korea to integrate with Republic of Korea fighters in the Yellow Sea," the statement read, adding that the aircraft later returned "to their respective home stations."

The exercise was part of the "continuous bomber presence" mission in the Pacific and "was not in response to any current event," the statement said.

The operation follows an October 10 "show of force" in which two Lancers staged the first night-time joint aviation exercises with Japan and South Korea.

North Korea in July launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles apparently capable of reaching the US mainland -- described by Kim as a gift to "American bastards".

It followed up with two missiles that passed over Japan, and its sixth nuclear test, by far its most powerful yet.

Trump has warned of "fire and fury" in response to Pyongyang's threats, and derisively dubbed Kim "Rocket Man", who responded by calling him a "dotard".

This week the North's KCNA news agency described the US president as "incurably mentally deranged".

- Missile test? -

Trump will on Friday set off for his Asian tour, which will include Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

But his message risks being undermined if the North stages some kind of provocation, such as a missile test.

It could be preparing for another launch, Seoul's spy agency reportedly said Thursday.

"Active movements of vehicles have been detected at a missile research facility in Pyongyang," the National Intelligence Service told a closed-door parliamentary audit, according to the Yonhap news agency.

The North habitually condemns B1-B flights as rehearsals for an attack, and KCNA said Friday: "The reality clearly shows that the gangster-like US imperialists are the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war."

Any military strike in Korea could see retaliation and rapid escalation, and much of Seoul -- a city of 10 million people -- is within range of the North's artillery.

The South's President Moon Jae-In has insisted that no military action on the peninsula can be taken without Seoul's approval.

In an interview with Yonhap, Trump's National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said diplomacy was Washington's "main effort now".

"The discussion will also be about what more can we do, what more can all countries do to resolve this short of war," he said.
President Donald Trump has 41.7 million followers on his personal Twitter account, from which he blasts his most controversial and attention-grabbing comments

A Twitter employee on their last day with the company was responsible for taking down Donald Trump's account, the social network said Thursday, as the president resumed tweeting after the 11-minute outage.

Visitors to @realDonaldTrump around 7:00 pm (2300 GMT) were greeted with the message "Sorry, that page doesn't exist!"

Twitter initially said the account had been "inadvertently deactivated due to human error", but later indicated it was done intentionally by a departing worker.

"Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee's last day," it said.

"We are conducting a full internal review," it said on the official Twitter Government account.

The outspoken president has 41.7 million followers on his personal Twitter account, which he uses to blast controversial and attention-grabbing comments.

Trump has even used the social media site to announce policy, and surprised Pentagon chiefs in July by tweeting that transgender people would be barred from serving "in any capacity" in the US military, a ban that has since been blocked by a US court.

The outage sparked discussion of the security of Trump's account, given the potentially dire consequences of messages falsely attributed to the president.

- Security concerns -

"It is shocking that some random Twitter employee could shut down the president's account. What if they instead had tweeted fake messages?" Blake Hounshell, the editor-in-chief of POLITICO Magazine, wrote on Twitter.

He added: "Seriously, what if this person had tweeted about a fictional nuclear strike on North Korea?"

Many praised the temporary shutdown of Trump's account, with users saying the unnamed employee responsible "deserves a medal" and that "not all heroes wear capes."

"Trump's Twitter deactivated for 11 min, and I suddenly thought I'd jumped back into the real timeline where things aren't so damned absurd," tweeted Star Trek actor turned social media personality George Takei.

But the temporary disappearance of the account -- and the glee this prompted among the president's detractors -- drew fire from others.

"Liberals were celebrating for the 15 minutes that Trump's Twitter disappeared, proving once again they love censorship and hate free speech," one popular tweet read.

Trump's official White House account, @POTUS, which has 20.9 million followers, was apparently not affected by the outage.

After the account was restored Trump did not tweet about the vanishing act, but made several posts on other topics.
At least 24 US embassy officials in Havana were affected by mysterious health attacks, according to the State Department, but Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez says there is no evidence of deliberate acts

Cuba's foreign minister on Thursday accused anyone claiming attacks took place against US diplomats in Havana of "deliberately lying," echoing comments he made last week in an ongoing dispute.

"It is time the United States tells the truth or presents evidence," Bruno Rodriguez insisted during a press conference in Washington, referring to incidents which affected the health of at least 24 US embassy officials in Havana, according to the State Department.

"Those who state there have been attacks, deliberate acts or specific incidents causing damage to health are deliberately lying," he said, adding that so far US authorities "have not presented an atom of evidence" the alleged attacks happened.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson earlier described the incidents, which began last year, as "health attacks." Several Canadian families were also affected.

Washington's ties with Havana were only fully restored in 2015 after a half-century Cold War breakdown, but have been strained since President Donald Trump took office in January.

Washington has not formally blamed Havana, but in mid-October Trump said that he holds Cuba responsible -- and the White House has said it believes the country could bring the attacks to a halt.

"The so-called sonic attacks ... are totally false," Rodriguez said last Saturday in a surprise appearance at a Washington meeting of Cubans living in the United States.

He called the allegations "political manipulation aimed at damaging bilateral relations."

Both governments opened investigations into the mysterious incidents -- which US officials said may have been carried out with some sort of acoustic device.

Cuban experts investigating the case said it "is impossible that only one cause explains the diverse range of symptoms" reportedly experienced by diplomats.

The State Department says the most recent incident was at the end of August, with those affected experiencing hearing loss, cognitive problems, and difficulty sleeping.

On September 29, the United States halved its personnel in Havana and suspended visa services indefinitely.

The White House also expelled 15 diplomats from the Cuban embassy in Washington, arguing Havana did not comply with responsibilities under the Vienna Convention to ensure the safety of diplomats on its soil.
Riders wait for customers on trishaws with illuminated LED lights and Hello Kitty dolls in Malaysia's historical city of Malacca

Decked out with flashing lights and cartoon characters, with loud music pumping, rickety bicycle rickshaws have become a hit with tourists visiting the historic Malaysian city of Malacca.

Once a common sight in many parts of Malaysia, the three-wheelers, known locally as trishaws, were largely phased out as cars became more affordable and took over the country's roads.

But in Malacca, a former colonial settlement that is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of Malaysia's top tourist draws, the pedal-powered vehicles live on.

They have adapted to the modern era in a bid to appeal to tourists, adding figures of cartoon characters such as Hello Kitty and Pokemon's Pikachu and blinking fairy lights that are turned on at night.

Their sound systems blare out an eclectic mix of music, from techno to Bollywood hits and Chinese ballads.

"Malacca's trishaws are unique for their decorations -- other trishaws, they don't come close," said driver Mohamad Isa Mursidi, whose three-wheeled steed was decorated with Hello Kitty dolls and a bouquet of plastic flowers in a heart-shaped frame.

Tourists ride on trishaws with Pikachu and Angry Bird decorations on a street in Malaysia's historical city of Malacca

When they are not ferrying visitors around Malacca, the rickshaws can usually be found hanging around the historic central square in the shadow of the Stadthuys, an imposing red building that was the governor's office during Dutch colonial rule.

A 30-minute ride on a selected route around some of the city's historic buildings costs around 25 ringgit (US$6).

The noisy, garish trishaws may not be to the taste of everyone visiting the ancient city.

But for many heading to Malacca, a trip in one of the colourful rickshaws is all part of the experience.

"It gives a romantic feeling to the heart at night," said local tourist Ganapathy Kuppusamy.

Malacca, on peninsular Malaysia's southwest cost, has a history dating back to around the 15th century. With a strategic location on the Straits of Malacca, it became a wealthy entrepot and attracted traders from around the world.

It was colonised first by the Portuguese, later by the Dutch and finally by the British in the 19th century, when it became part of the Straits Settlements with Penang, in modern-day Malaysia, and Singapore.
The world was rivetted by the Pistorius trial -- a case that combined a disabled sporting hero, a blonde model and a bloody night-time killing. Prosecutors are now appealing against Pistorius' six-year term, saying it was too lenient for a murder conviction

South African prosecutors will argue Friday for Oscar Pistorius to be given a longer jail sentence, saying the six years he is serving for the murder of his girlfriend was "shockingly low".

The National Prosecution Authority will present its case to a one-day hearing at the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein.

Pistorius, 30, will not be present for the latest stage of his long legal case, with judges expected to hand down their ruling at a future date.

The Paralympic athlete shot dead Reeva Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine's Day in 2013, when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet.

He pleaded not guilty at his trial in 2014 and has always denied that he killed Steenkamp in a rage, saying he mistook her for a burglar.

Pistorius was originally convicted of culpable homicide -- the equivalent of manslaughter -- but the appeal court upgraded his conviction to murder in 2015.

The minimum sentence for murder in South Africa is 15 years, but he was sentenced in 2016 to six years due to mitigating factors, including his claim he believed he was shooting an intruder.

"We believe the sentence is shockingly low," NPA spokesman Luvuyo Mfaku told AFP. "It is inappropriate if you look at the gravity of the offence."

Mfaku denied that the NPA was pursuing Pistorius due to his fame, saying "it is not personal, we are addressing a principle here".

- 'Pay for his crime' -

A spokesman for the Pistorius family was not available to comment, but his lawyers have previously said they accepted his sentence.

At the sentencing hearing last year, High Court judge Thokozile Masipa said: "He cannot be at peace. I'm of the view that a long term of imprisonment will not serve justice."

But Steenkamp's father Barry told the court that he wanted Pistorius to "pay for his crime".

Members of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) women's league, who attended many court sessions, have criticised the sentence for failing to send a message against domestic violence.

The year before he killed Steenkamp, Pistorius became the first double-amputee to race at the Olympics when he competed at the London 2012 games.

Previously a role model for disabled people worldwide, he was released from jail in 2015 after serving one year of a five-year term for culpable homicide.

He returned behind bars after his conviction for murder, and is being held at a prison in Pretoria.

In a television interview, he said he believed an intruder was in the house and "instant fear" drove him to grab his gun from beside his bed and walk on his stumps towards the bathroom.

"All of a sudden I hear a noise, at the toilet. I presumed it was the toilet door opening and before I knew it, I'd fired four shots," he said.
Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, leaders of the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples' Democratic Party, were detained in November last year

One year after the arrest of its charismatic chief, Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party defiantly insists it is the only true opposition against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but faces an uphill battle to remain a major force.

Selahattin Demirtas was detained in a police raid on his home overnight on November 4 last year. His then co-leader Figen Yuksekdag was detained in a simultaneous swoop.

While the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) splits all its main posts between men and women to ensure gender parity, Demirtas was and remains the main face of the party, an impassioned speaker with an instinct for political symbolism.

The HDP first entered the Turkish parliament after the June 2015 elections and is now the second-largest opposition party after the secular Republican People's Party (CHP), a breakthrough largely credited to Demirtas.

Selahattin Demirtas is regarded as the only politician in Turkey who can match President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's rhetorical skills

Demirtas and Yuksekdag were among 12 HDP lawmakers rounded up under the state of emergency imposed after the July 15, 2016 failed coup, which the party strongly opposed. Now, nine HDP MPs remain in prison including Demirtas and Yuksekdag.

Yuksekdag was stripped of her MP status in February and she stepped down as the party's co-chair in May. Demirtas remains co-leader but his incarceration severely limits his ability to communicate with the outside world.

"The (government) is trying to paralyse us with these attacks but I can in fact say that they have not succeeded," Serpil Kemalbay, who replaced Yuksekdag as co-leader, told AFP.

- 'Not easy to shut up' -

Before his arrest, Demirtas was the only politician in Turkey who matched Erdogan's rhetorical skills, even earning himself the moniker the "Kurdish Obama".

But now Demirtas, 44, who is being held at a prison in Edirne, northwest Turkey, risks up to 142 years in jail if convicted.

Rallies have been held in support of Selahattin Demirtas following his detention in 2016

He and the other HDP suspects are accused of links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), blacklisted as a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies. Despite being held for a year, Demirtas has yet to go on trial on those charges.

But HDP officials insist he retains his political weight.

"He is in prison but his words reach the people," HDP MP Filiz Kerestecioglu told AFP. "He is not a person easily shut up."

He has written poetry, produced artwork, tweeted while in prison through a third party and even written a selection of short stories entitled "Seher" ("Dawn" in Turkish).

His publisher Dipnot said Seher was sold out within three days after 20,000 copies were bought in September while 130,000 copies have been put on sale.

- 'Attracted non-Kurd votes' -

But some observers question whether the party can remain a major political force without its most recognisable figure who managed to expand its popularity beyond the traditional Kurdish electorate.

"Demirtas was attracting especially non-Kurdish leftist and liberal voters," said Burak Bilgehan Ozpek, author of the upcoming book "The Peace Process between Turkey and the Kurds: Anatomy of a Failure".

Figen Yuksekdag and Selahattin Demirtas were among 12 HDP lawmakers rounded up under the state of emergency imposed after the July 2016 failed coup

"Without Demirtas, it is not surprising to expect the HDP to adopt an ethnic and radical agenda," he said, adding it was not an "influential" party anymore.

Ankara accuses the HDP of merely being a political front for the PKK, which has battled the Turkish state for over three decades in search of greater rights and powers for the Kurdish minority.

But even Demirtas never succeeded in fully distancing the HDP from the outlawed group, a predicament not helped by the fact his own brother fought for the PKK in Iraq.

But Aykan Erdemir, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said Demirtas' imprisonment had "not made a dent in the HDP leader's charisma, but seems to have strengthened it".

"Demirtas could end up as an even more powerful campaigner for the Kurdish cause from his prison cell," he argued.

- 'Deliver a solution' -

But the party has been hit hard by arrests. Some 11,500 officials, members and HDP sympathisers have been detained since the end of the PKK ceasefire in July 2015 while 4,537 have been formally arrested.

A total of five MPs lost their lawmaker status while authorities have opened investigations into 55 out of 59 HDP MPs, the party says.

Figen Yuksekdag was stripped of her status as an MP in February

Opinion polls -- to be treated with caution in Turkey -- suggest it is currently well short of the 10 percent threshold needed to get into parliament.

But Kemalbay expressed determination that the HDP would pass the threshold to enter parliament again in general elections in November 2019.

"We may not be able to see this because of the media embargo but the people see the reality," she said.

"They see the HDP as the force to deliver a solution" to the Kurdish issue.
A Glebelands welcome: The lawless Durban hostel complex is a reputed recruiting ground for hitmen

In the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, local politics is a deadly game, with at least 40 people killed in politically motivated shootings since last year.

A battle for control is raging ahead of a conference of the African National Congress to choose a new leader when President Jacob Zuma steps down as ANC chief in December

Violence has spread across the province on the country's east coast, but much of the killing can be traced back to hitmen hired from the notorious Glebelands complex of hostels in the provincial capital Durban.

The 71 lawless hostel blocks -- originally built to house migrant workers -- are home to about 20,000 people, often crowded into decrepit accommodation, sleeping more than 30 to an apartment and sharing a single toilet.

"Hitmen here are being used by the politicians," one Glebelands resident, a father of five dressed in a grey tracksuit and sitting under a bullet-scarred shelter, told AFP.

"It looks like we have no government. We have been forgotten," said the 48-year-old man, adding that giving his name would put his life in danger.

Around 20,000 people live in the crowded hostels. Sometimes there are more than 30 people to an apartment, sharing a single toilet

Vanessa Burger, a community rights activist who works with Glebelands victims' families, has kept a detailed log of each killing by hitmen living in or hired from the hostels.

Burger's log now stands at 93 dead since 2014, with many of the victims linked to politics through factional fighting, tit-for-tat revenge killings and criminal associates.

But there have been few arrests. The low number fuels allegations that murders are sanctioned by some parts of local ANC branches and ignored by the police.

"If you are using hitmen from a specific area to take out rivals... that must have political support, otherwise they would have been removed a long time ago," said Burger.

"It needs political will to change the situation and I don't see that happening in the near future."

After sitting for a year, a judicial inquiry into the killings was due to complete its hearings last month, but has asked for more time to gather evidence.

"We have to extend until March next year because it's only now that the commission is gaining momentum," said Solo Mdledle, secretary of the Moerane Commission.

- Culture of violence -

KwaZulu-Natal is the ANC's heartland. Whoever controls the province could determine the party's next leader from December.

In the run-up to the party conference, few weeks go by without an ANC provincial official or elected councillor being murdered in the struggle for power, jobs, money and lucrative government contracts.

African National Congress (ANC) ward candidate Khanyisile Ngobese-Sibisi, murdered in July 2016, was among dozens of victims of politically-motivated killings

The victims are gunned down in their cars, shot dead outside their homes or killed at public events, but the police and authorities seem helpless.

When former ANC Youth League secretary-general Sindiso Magaqa died in September after being shot 15 times in an ambush in July, his family laid the blame squarely with the party.

"We love [the ANC] but when they do this` we are scared... Everything points to December," Magaqa's uncle said at his funeral.

The culture of violence in KwaZulu-Natal was graphically demonstrated recently by an internet video of two bodyguards of an ANC regional secretary bragging they were about to kill someone.

"That dog is going to die today," one said as they sat in a car and cocked their pistols and an assault rifle.

KwaZulu-Natal is not new to political unrest.

It endured the worst of the violence in the final days of apartheid as the ANC fought against another black party, the Inkatha Freedom Party.

Zuma, who was born in KwaZulu-Natal, will remain in office after giving up the party chief post in December, but the new ANC leader will have a strong chance of succeeding him as president in 2019 elections.

- 'Shockingly commonplace' -

The province is seen as divided among supporters of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, Zuma's ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Zweli Mkhize, the party's treasurer.

Speaking in the small town of Harding, where four government officials have recently been murdered, Dlamini-Zuma told AFP that the killings must stop.

"We cannot continue with this kind of culture. Killing is a crime... so we cannot tolerate it," she said after addressing party supporters.

Graca Machel, widow of former ANC leader Nelson Mandela, has also voiced disgust at the bloodshed, saying political assassinations were "shockingly commonplace".

"Death threats is a completely normal mechanism for enforcing political control in that part of the country," said Richard Pithouse, a professor at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

The country's Police Minister Fikile Mbalula recently said he was "very much confident that we will make major breakthroughs in relation to the killings".

But many analysts and activists worry that the violence points to a volatile general election in 2019.

The ANC provincial leadership, which admits that corruption and the battle for local positions are fuelling the assassinations, have vowed to stamp out the killings.

"We must address these things swiftly before the violence escalates," said ANC's provincial chairman Sihle Zikalala.
FARGO -- You might call it a clash of ideas pitting traditional brick-and-mortar campuses against an increasingly digital world.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and North Dakota State University President Dean Bresciani hold vastly different visions of the future of higher education in a time of head-spinning technological transformation.

Both leaders presented their views Thursday during a meeting of an interim legislative committee that is studying the North Dakota University System.

Burgum, reiterating a message he has delivered before, said traditional universities are increasingly under threat because of new modes of knowledge transfer enabled by advancing technology.

As a result, colleges and universities that fail to adapt could find their economic foundation crumbling as students and other constituencies -- notably employers -- flock to more attractive and efficient ways of learning and career preparation, including large online courses, some of which are free.

Were in a world today where knowledge transfer can occur anytime, anyplace, on any device, said Burgum, a former software executive and technology entrepreneur. Meanwhile, he added, more people are questioning the worth of a college education, and interest in certificate programs is growing, threatening to undermine the traditional higher education model.

That cultural shift is happening, Burgum said. Employers want qualified applicants, he said, not credentials.

As a result of those changes, he added, colleges could find competitors, including large online course providers, stealing their profit centers, notably large lecture classes with low costs that bring in lots of tuition. He conceded, however, that some experiences, such as lab classes, are less likely to move online.

But Bresciani, whose presentation to the legislative panel immediately followed the governors, outlined a strategic vision for NDSU that focuses on students wanting a traditional, four-year experience at an affordable, competitive research university.

NDSU is part of a diverse state higher education system with 11 campuses, each filling a distinct role and catering to different pools of students, Bresciani said. Some campuses, including the University of North Dakota, have placed a higher priority on providing online instruction.

Since he took the helm in 2010, Bresciani has become more selective in admissions, rejecting students who are not well prepared and unlikely to find success. As a result, he said, NDSUs retention and graduation rates are increasing along with students grade-point averages.

Were not an institution for all students, he said. Later, he added, Were marketing ourselves to a very specific kind of student, many pursuing degrees in so-called STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Bresciani said his belief in a traditional model of higher education is the result of spending 35 years in the field, at nine universities spanning the coasts and Midwest. Throughout his career, he said, people have been prognosticating the end of traditional higher education.

Thirty-five years later, there are more people enrolled in traditional higher education than ever before, he said.

There really is no substitute for a teacher and a classroom, meeting face to face, immersed in discussion, Bresciani said. Its hard to exchange ideas online.

Rewarding performance

Members of the North Dakota Legislatures Higher Education Committee also heard ideas about how the university systems funding formula could go further in rewarding performance.

Already, under a change made several years ago, campuses only receive revenue under the formula for students who successfully complete their courses. Further steps could include rewarding improved graduation and retention rates as well as for enhanced enrollment of adult learners, minority students and other at-risk groups.

Another approach under discussion would include work-force targets, such as an increase in the number of certificates or degrees awarded in high-demand jobs in North Dakota, with higher weights for those in greatest demand.

Don Morton, a retired Microsoft executive and chairman of the State Board of Higher Education, who attended the legislative meeting, credited Burgum with a thought-provoking presentation that should spur debate.

Hes a very visionary guy, a very bright guy, Morton said. He agrees that technology presents both challenges and opportunities. New technology grows exponentially and after awhile it just explodes, he said.

Birgit Pruess, faculty adviser to the State Board of Higher Education and a professor of microbiology at NDSU, asked that faculty have a seat at the table in the discussions. There is a perception that faculty are resistant to change, she said, but they are navigating significant change.

I agree with many of the things he said, Pruess said, referring to Burgum. Maybe we can come up with a hybrid system that accommodates all the needs.
Palestinian Hitler Abu Hamad, deputy head at a West Bank school, points at his nose, which was allegedly broken when he was 15 by an Israeli army officer who asked him his name

Hitler, Castro and Saddam Hussein meet in a bar. It may sound like the beginning of a joke, but in the Palestinian territories it is actually possible.

Palestinians often name their children after famous celebrities, national heroes or backers of their cause.

But from time to time, they pick far more controversial names and the children have to live with the consequences.

Hitler Abu Hamad is not proud to carry the name of a man responsible for the slaughter of millions.

"There is no relationship between my name and the actions of Adolf Hitler," he told AFP at his home in the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank. "I hate what he did."

"I am against killing, violence and human rights abuses, but I got used to my name and it is part of my character."

How the quiet, polite 41-year-old school teacher came to be named after the most hated man of the 20th century says a lot about Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967 in a move never recognised by the international community.

Jewish settlers moved into the territory and the occupation continues.

When Abu Hamad was born in 1976, his father wanted to send a message, though in perhaps the most offensive way possible: picking the name of the man who systematically murdered six million Jews in the Holocaust.

"My father gave me the name to provoke the occupation," he said.

"He was not political. He was a simple man who made mistakes. He wanted to make the occupation think with my name."

The father-of-two studied English literature and is a deputy head at a school near his home, while also teaching adults.

His name is "weird for the kids at school", he said.

He says it also causes him endless problems at Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank.

When he was 15 and living in Hebron's Old City, an army officer approached him and asked him his name.

When he told him, the soldier flew off the handle, he alleges.

"He said 'you are a criminal'," Abu Hamad said, alleging he was then beaten by soldiers, leaving him with a broken nose still bent out of shape.

Israel's military did not respond to a request for comment.

He believes the name also stopped Israelis from giving him permits to study or work outside the Palestinian territories.

"We are not against the Jews," he said.

"We are against the occupation and dont respect it. It destroys our homes, confiscates our possessions and restricts our freedom."

- Saddam Hussein -

Many Palestinians have named children after their longtime leader Yasser Arafat, while other names heard include Castro, Guevara and Chavez -- after the Latin American figures who supported their cause.

In Hebron, there is a Carter Abu Isneyna, named after former US president Jimmy Carter, who tried to get Israel to end the occupation and led the Camp David peace talks between Israel and Egypt.

Qais Hussein Omar was born in 1976 under a different name -- Saddam Hussein.

He alleges he was regularly harassed at checkpoints by Israeli soldiers angered by his name, and was once hospitalised by a particularly brutal beating.

"My name was the source of psychological and physical suffering," he said.

In other countries, too, he faced issues and it all affected his health, so seven years ago he changed it.

He urges parents not to name their children after famous people as it "won't fit the personality"

"His name could be Yasser Arafat and he wants to become a ballet dancer."

- Benjamin Netanyahu Nicola -

In the city of Haifa in northern Israel, an Arab Israeli man is named after Jules Jammal, a Syrian military hero believed to have driven his boat into a French warship during the 1956 Suez crisis.

"I am happy with my name," he told AFP.

Hitler Abu Hamad, deputy head at a school, sits at his desk in the Israeli occupied city of Hebron. Like many in the Palestinian territories, he carries a name that can make life difficult

Naji Obeid, a Christian Arab who tries to encourage members of his community to join the Israeli army, named his son after former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin.

"I loved the leader Menachem Begin and he was my friend, so I called my son Begin Obeid, and he serves in the Israeli navy," he told AFP.

Arab Israeli Christian Waheed Nicola named his son Benjamin Netanyahu after the right-wing Israeli leader won elections in 1996.

Delivery man Benjamin Netanyahu Nicola, 21, has said in previous interviews with Israeli media the name has caused him no end of problems when he delivers goods in Arab areas.

Israeli media reports have said he wanted to change his name but his father, who is a member of Netanyahu's Likud party, refused.

He didn't want to speak to AFP.

"My son is beautiful and kind and his name has caused him a lot of problems, especially after media interviews," his mother said. "So we won't do any more."
Canberra has become increasingly worried about homegrown extremism and officials say they have prevented 13 terror attacks in recent years

A 22-year-old Australian man described as a "devout terrorist" was sentenced to 22 years in jail Friday for plotting to attack government buildings in Sydney, as authorities grapple with the rise of homegrown Islamist extremism.

Sulayman Khalid was handed the sentence at the New South Wales Supreme Court after pleading guilty to conspiring to act in preparation for a terrorist attack.

He was arrested during a series of police raids in Sydney and Brisbane in late 2014.

Four others, including an unnamed teenager, were jailed for between nine and 18 years for similar or lesser offences -- such as intentionally making a document connected with the preparation of a terrorist act.

Khalid "occupied a co-ordinating role" in the plot, Justice Geoffrey Bellew wrote in his ruling.

"In offending as he did, Khalid demonstrated that he was a devout terrorist," he added.

Canberra has become increasingly worried about homegrown extremism and officials say they have prevented 13 terror attacks in recent years.

But several have taken place, including the murder of a Sydney police employee in 2015 by a 15-year-old boy, who was then killed in an exchange of gunfire with officers.

In his ruling, Bellew said Khalid adhered to the "religious ideology of Wahhabi-Salafism".

"The cause that was to be advanced in the proposed terrorist act or acts was that of violent jihad... The offender had publicly displayed his support for the violent jihad espoused by ISIS (Islamic State)," he said.

The group had been planning to kill police officers and attack government buildings, and had considered using weapons such as firearms, Bellew added.

Australian counterterrorism police have made a series of arrests since late 2014, with the young age and radicalisation of many of those detained a growing concern for authorities.
A US soldier taking part in training in Senegal last year

US politicians are voicing concern over America's growing military presence across Africa, where they worry the Pentagon is getting ever more embroiled in a secretive campaign against a shifting enemy.

Last month's killing of four US soldiers in a Niger ambush has thrust the issue into the spotlight, with lawmakers calling for greater transparency on what is going on in Africa.

"The footprint in Africa is much bigger than the American public understands," Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said this week.

The Niger ambush has also rekindled debate over the legal authorities the Pentagon uses to fight jihadist groups overseas, particularly in Africa where about 6,000 US troops are deployed across the vast continent.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis this week faced lawmakers' questions on these warfighting powers. They were initially passed three days after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington to go after Al-Qaeda but have since been used to hunt Islamists from a variety of other groups.

US lawmakers are considering updating or repealing this Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), but Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson do not think it should be changed or repealed, unless a replacement is ready to go.

"I'm not sure that Congress envisioned that we would have the potential of ground troops in Northern Africa in combat missions," Democratic Senator Ben Cardin said.

Mattis said Al-Qaeda has morphed into various offshoots, including the Islamic State group, so the AUMF still applies.

"These groups come apart, go back together, they change their names as often as a rock-and-roll band," Mattis told lawmakers.

- G5 force -

"The tragedy in Niger, the loss of four American soldiers, helped focus us on the fact that we've got citizens and we've got senators who are unclear on exactly where in the world we are engaged against this morphing, changing enemy in a new era of skirmishes," Democratic Senator Chris Coons said.

US troops on maneuvers in Senegal

The United States this week pledged $60 million to support the new "G5 Sahel" regional counter-terrorism force.

Members of the G5, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, are viewed by the US as regional partners.

Officially, the Pentagon's missions across Africa are primarily to "train, advise and assist" African militaries to help nations stand up to various Islamist groups.

But in reality, as demonstrated in Niger, the US role sometimes goes beyond this.

According to information from the White House to Congress in June, combat-ready US troops are deployed in 19 countries -- 11 of them in Africa: Somalia, Libya, Kenya, Niger, Cameroon, Uganda, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Djibouti and Egypt.

For Republican Senator Rand Paul, the official training mission is a euphemistic fudge concealing what's really going on.

"It sounds like you got a conflict going on there. You've got conflict going on in Niger. We have 6,000 troops in 54 countries in Africa," Paul told Mattis.

According to the Pentagon, the Niger incident unfolded in early October, as a US-Niger team made a routine reconnaissance patrol in the village of Tongo Tongo near the Niger-Mali border. They were attacked by about 50 local fighters associated with the Islamic State group.

ABC News reported on Thursday that the mission changed and they were actually trying to capture or kill a jihadist leader linked to IS and Al-Qaeda.
Pro-government forces advance on the city of Al-Qaim in the Islamic State group's last stronghold in Iraq on November 2, 2017.

Iraqi forces on Friday entered Al-Qaim, the main town in the Islamic State group's last bastion in the country, military commanders said.

Early Friday morning, Iraqi forces unleashed a barrage of artillery fire against jihadist positions inside the town, backed by Iraqi and US-led coalition air strikes.

Troops from the army and the elite Counter Terrorism Service "have started the assault on the centre of Al-Qaim," Staff Major General Noman Abed al-Zobai, the commander of the 7th Division, told AFP from the scene.

Shortly afterwards, another officer said on condition of anonymity that the town's Gaza district had fallen from jihadist hands.

"Counter Terrorism Service units and tribal fighters have liberated Gaza after violent clashes, leaving some terrorists dead, while others withdrew towards the centre of Al-Qaim," he said.

The paramilitary Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) force said in a statement that jihadists had set fire to civilians' houses in the southwestern neighbourhood to make it hard to see them from the air.

Government forces launched the operation last week to seize Al-Qaim and its surroundings, a pocket of barren desert along the Euphrates river near the border with Syria.

Home to around 150,000 people, mostly from Sunni tribes, it is the last Iraqi remnant of the self-styled caliphate IS declared after rampaging across Iraq and Syria in 2014.

The US-led coalition has said around 1,500 IS fighters are left in the area, which it expects to be the scene of the "last big fight" against the group in Iraq.

IS is also under pressure from separate offensives by Syrian regime and US-backed forces in the neighbouring Syrian province of Deir Ezzor.

The Hashed said Friday several IS fighters had fled across the border towards the Syrian town of Albu Kamal.
A Syrian soldier flashes the victory sign during an operation against Islamic State group jihadists in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor on November 2, 2017

Syria's army has seized Deir Ezzor from the Islamic State group, state media said Friday, driving the jihadists from the last major city where they were present.

"The army announces full control of Deir Ezzor city," state television said in a breaking news alert, citing sources on the ground.

State news agency SANA also reported that Deir Ezzor had been "fully liberated."

State television reported that engineering units from the army were combing captured neighbourhoods to defuse mines and other explosives.

On Thursday, a reporter contributing to AFP saw widespread destruction in the city, with whole buildings hit by air strikes or artillery fire crumpled into themselves and streets strewn with rubble.

Trenches dug by IS fighters to defend their positions were still visible as government minesweepers worked.

Syrian troops and allied fighters backed by Russian air power have been battling inside the eastern city since September, when they broke an IS siege of nearly three years on government-held districts.

In recent days they have advanced, capturing a string of neighbourhoods and encircling remaining IS fighters.

The city is the provincial capital of surrounding Deir Ezzor province, an oil-rich region that sits on the county's eastern border with Iraq.

The province was once largely held by IS, though parts of Deir Ezzor city stayed under government control throughout the jihadist group's reign.

IS is now facing twin assaults in the province, from the army as well as US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters.

The jihadist group has lost much of the territory it once held in the province. Its most important remaining position is the town of Albu Kamal on the Iraqi border.

More than 330,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.
Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago nation of more than 250 million people, is home to a vibrant art scene but lacks high-quality museums

Indonesia's first international gallery of contemporary art opens Saturday, bringing together works by Ai Weiwei, Mark Rothko and Indonesian masters in a freeflowing modern space overlooking the Jakarta skyline.

The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara (Museum MACAN) holds nearly 800 paintings and sculptures, and aims to provide a world-class gallery to a country starved of quality museum infrastructure.

The collection, mostly acquired by businessman Haryanto Adikoesoemo over the past 25 years, is showcased in an airy 4,000 square metre space on the fifth floor of a city tower.

Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago nation of more than 250 million people, is home to a vibrant art scene but lacks high-quality museums.

The museum occupies an airy 4,000 square metre space on the fifth floor of a city tower

"What we are offering is something very different to what already exists in Indonesia. We are one of kind in a sense of our international and national focus," museum director Aaron Seeto told AFP.

The opening underlines growing interest in Southeast Asian art and comes amid a number of high-profile gallery launches this year outside of Europe and North America.

Cape Towns Zeitz MOCAA opened in September and the Louvre Abu Dhabi is set to open this month.

Seeto said Museum MACAN is uniquely positioned to boost the profile of Southeast Asian art.

"We really want to encourage cultural exchange, but also working relationships with other museums around the world."

The opening underlines growing interest in Southeast Asian art

Around half the museum's collection is Indonesian, and the remainder takes in international works including paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Willem de Kooning, and sculptures by Yayoi Kusama and Damien Hirst.

Designed by Londons MET Studio, the museum will also feature conservation and education spaces, which Seeto hopes will help boost the appreciation of art within Indonesia.

- Civic role -

The gallery's inaugural exhibition "Art Turns. World Turns" features 90 pieces from Indonesian and international artists.

Works by Raden Saleh, the founder of modern Indonesian painting, hang alongside pop artist Andy Warhol and Chinese realist Luo Zhongli.

Several pieces tackle issues pertinent to current political debate in Indonesia.

Director Aaron Seeto says the museum can play a role in fostering discussion in the Muslim-majority country

FX Harsono weighs in on the treatment of ethnic-Chinese minorities in his painting "Wipe Out #1", while Balinese artist Dewa Ngakan Made Ardana addresses Indonesias 1960s anti-communist massacres in "A Father is Trying to Collect the Memories of His Family".

Arahmaiani Feisals painting "Lingga-Yoni", meanwhile, is being displayed for the first time since she was forced to flee Indonesia in the 1990s.

The painting, which overlays Hindu iconography of male and female genitalia on Arabic script, infuriated Islamic hardliners who threatened to kill her.

Seeto said the piece was an important acquisition for the museum and highlights the future role it can play in fostering discussion.

"Even though we are a private museum we very much consider that what we do occurs within the public sphere," he said.

"The museum has a civic responsibility".
Russia accused the United States of committing a "war crime" in Syria, saying its army had denied Syrian refugees access to humanitarian aid

Russia on Friday accused the United States of committing a "war crime" in Syria, saying its army had denied Syrian refugees access to humanitarian aid.

"The most severe humanitarian situation remains in the Al-Tanf region," the Russian defence ministry's Syria reconciliation centre said, referring to a garrison where US and other foreign troops train anti-Islamic State group fighters.

Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees from the Al-Rukban refugee camp on the Jordanian border are deprived of humanitarian aid because of the United States, which "illegally placed their military base there and forbids approach within 55 kilometres (35 miles) under the threat of death," the centre said.

"The actions of the US military and the so-called international coalition in Al-Tanf are a gross violation of international humanitarian law and could qualify as a war crime," it said in a statement quoted by Russian news agencies.

Earlier this month Moscow accused the US of supporting IS jihadists and enabling them to mount counter-offensive attacks in eastern Syria from near the Al-Tanf garrison.

Al-Tanf, on the key highway connecting Damascus with Baghdad, has been repeatedly menaced by a surge of Iran-backed troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Washington says the garrison is used by US and British special forces to train rebel Syrian groups fighting IS jihadists.

Russia has been flying a bombing campaign in Syria since 2015, when it stepped in to support the Assad regime and tipped the conflict in his favour.
Paz de la Huerta has accused Harvey Weinstein of raping her

Actress Paz de la Huerta has accused Harvey Weinstein of raping her twice in 2010, joining dozens of women who have levelled sexual assault allegations against the disgraced Hollywood mogul.

The 33-year-old, known for her role in hit TV series "Boardwalk Empire", described the alleged assaults, which police are investigating, to Vanity Fair magazine.

The first occurred when Weinstein demanded to come inside De la Huerta's apartment after driving her home, she said.

"He pushed me onto the bed and his pants were down and he lifted up my skirt. I felt afraid... It wasn't consensual," she told the magazine.

De la Huerta said the second assault occurred about a month later when Weinstein showed up at her building despite her having asked him to leave her alone, and suggested talking about it in her apartment.

She had been drinking and "was in no state. I was so terrified of him... I did say no, and when he was on top of me I said, 'I don't want to do this,'" the actress said.

"He's like a pig... he raped me," she said.

New York Police Department spokesman Sergeant Brendan Ryan told AFP that the department is "aware of the sexual assault complaints" and is "actively investigating them."

"The NYPD continues to work with the Manhattan District Attorney's office on the case. The investigation is ongoing," Ryan said.

Accounts of abuse by Weinstein that were published last month in The New York Times and The New Yorker encouraged others to speak out, unleashing a cascade of allegations of sexual harassment and assault against leading figures in Hollywood and elsewhere.

Weinstein has denied the allegations.
Zambian President Edgar Lungu warned judges in the country against blocking him from running in 2021 elections

President Edgar Lungu has warned Zambia's judges against blocking him from running in 2021 elections, saying a judicial intervention like that in Kenya could plunge the country into chaos.

Lungu is expected to contest the 2021 race but may face a legal challenge from opposition parties which claim it would be unconstitutional as he has already served two terms -- the maximum permitted by law.

"Don't become a copycat and think that you are a hero if you plunge this country into chaos," Lungu told supporters at an event in Solwezi, north west Zambia, that was broadcast on state radio late Thursday.

"I want to close by saying that those people who don't like peace and freedom will say 'President Lungu is intimidating the courts of law' -- I am not intimidating the judiciary.

"I am just warning you because I have information that some of you want to be adventurous, your adventure should not plunge us into chaos please."

The warning comes after Kenya was rocked by two months of political drama and acrimony, triggered by the Supreme Court's decision to overturn an election in August over widespread irregularities.

If Lungu formally registered his candidacy to contest 2021's polls then opposition parties could seek to have the bid ruled illegal by the constitutional court.

The country's constitution says that a president can serve only two terms of five years.

Lungu, who became president in January 2015 after the death of Michael Sata, was controversially reelected in 2016 but it remains unclear whether that would count as two terms under the law.

"I want to make it very clear. People are saying Zambian courts should emulate Kenyan courts," said Lungu. "People are saying Zambian courts should be brave and make decisions which are in the interest of the people -- but look at what's happening in Kenya now.

"Whether I am eligible to stand or not in 2021 should not be dependent on the case in Kenya."
Members of Iraq's Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation units) carry an upsidedown Islamic State group flag in Al-Qaim on November 3, 2017

The Islamic State jihadist group Friday lost control of two of the last major towns under its grip in Syria and Iraq, as Syrian troops and Iraqi security forces advanced in the Euphrates Valley border region.

The simultaneous assaults on Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria and Al-Qaim in western Iraq dealt fresh blows to IS in its former heartland, leaving Albu Kamal, on the Syrian side of the border, as the last town of note under its control.

The jihadist group that once laid claim to a self-styled "caliphate" spanning swathes of Syria and Iraq has seen its proto-state crumble in recent months under the pressure of multiple offensives.

In October, it lost its one-time de facto Syrian capital Raqa after an assault of more than four months waged by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-Arab alliance.

Syrian army retakes Deir Ezzor

On Friday, Syria's army announced that its Russian-backed assault had recaptured all of Deir Ezzor city, in the oil-rich east of the country, while Iraqi forces captured the Husaybah border post and the nearby town of Al-Qaim.

"The army forces... restored security and stability to all of Deir Ezzor city," a spokesman for the Syrian army command said in a statement broadcast live on state television.

"Deir Ezzor represents the final phase in the complete elimination of Daesh," the statement added, using the Arabic acronym for the group.

Smoke billows from the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor on November 2, 2017

The city "was the headquarters of the organisation's leadership, and in losing it, they lose their capacity to direct terrorist operations", it added.

State television said engineering units from the army were combing captured neighbourhoods to clear mines and other explosives.

Syrian forces entered Deir Ezzor city in September, breaking an IS siege of nearly three years on government-held parts of the provincial capital.

The battle has been ferocious, with heavy Russian air strikes and Syrian artillery fire leaving much of the city in ruins.

- Iraqi forces take Al-Qaim -

Before Syria's war began in March 2011 with anti-government protests, around 300,000 people lived in the city, the capital of Deir Ezzor province along Syria's eastern border with Iraq.

Iraqi forces and members of the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation units) advance towards the city of Al-Qaim, in Iraq's western Anbar province, during an operation against Islamic State group jihadists on November 3, 2017

But in 2014, IS jihadists seized the city and much of the surrounding province, including vital oil and gas fields that once served as a key source of revenue for the extremists.

IS has now been driven from most of its strongholds in Deir Ezzor, but it still controls more than 35 percent of the province, much of it empty desert.

Its last major position is the town of Albu Kamal, though it also holds a string of smaller towns and villages and at least one oilfield, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

IS, which at its peak controlled territory roughly the size of Britain, has suffered a string of losses in recent months in both Syria and Iraq.

Iraqi forces and members of the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation units) advance against Islamic State group jihadists in Al-Qaim, in Iraq's western Anbar province near the Syrian border on November 3, 2017

On October 17, it lost the city of Raqa to the US-backed SDF, a highly symbolic blow that illustrated how its "caliphate" has disintegrated.

Despite its defeats on the battlefield, analysts are warning that IS is not down and out in the absence of a political vision to ensure stability in Iraq and Syria.

"This absence of a long-term strategy leaves Daesh (IS) a lot of room for regrouping in the near future, while continuing to work its networks of supporters around the world," said Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor at Sciences Po university in Paris.

In Deir Ezzor province, IS is under attack from both regime and SDF forces, while across the border in Iraq it had retained a foothold in just a single town, Al-Qaim, after losing its stronghold of Mosul in July and the town of Hawija in October.

Iraqi forces captured Al-Qaim within hours of seizing an important border crossing nearby, military commanders said on Friday.

Iraq's Prime Minister Haider Abadi hailed what he called "the liberation of Al-Qaim in record time".

Iraq's Joint Operations Command said earlier that troops had "regained full control" of the Husaybah border post on the edge of Al-Qaim.

The Britain-based Observatory said several trucks with dozens of IS fighters fleeing from Al-Qaim crossed the border and sought refuge in Albu Kamal.

Government forces launched the operation last week to seize Al-Qaim and its surroundings, a barren pocket of desert along the Euphrates near the Syrian border.

The jihadists have been squeezed into nearby Rawa and surrounding desert areas of the two towns in Iraq's vast Anbar province.

The US-led coalition has said around 1,500 IS fighters are left in the area, which it expects to be the scene of the "last big fight" against the group in Iraq.

On the other side of the border, Syrian regime forces are now around 30 kilometres (18 miles) from Albu Kamal. Their advance on Albu Kamal is being supported by Russian air power.

On Friday, four members of the same family were killed in an air strike on an IS-held village south of Albu Kamal, the Observatory said, without identifying the aircraft.

burs-sah/hc/srm
U.S. Sen. John Thune set South Dakota history by winning his fourth Senate term. He became the second South Dakota senator to win four terms, defying what is known in local political circles as the Curse of Karl" because Sen. Karl Mundt was the only politician to accomplish the feat. But it's not clear whether Thune's party will hold the majority after a midterm election in which the GOP failed to meet expectations of a sweeping victory. Thune says he wants to stay focused on solutions, especially on inflation, rather than bombastic politics. He is also pressing for his party to look beyond former President Donald Trump's influence.
Park was impeached by parliament in December after months of mass protests against her over a sprawling corruption scandal, and the constitutional court upheld the decision in March, removing her from office. She went on criminal trial in May

Ousted South Korean president Park Geun-Hye's own political party expelled her Friday as it seeks to distance itself from the sprawling corruption scandal that led to her impeachment.

The decision had been taken "for the future of our party and the country", said Hong Joon-Pyo, chairman of the Liberty Korea Party -- which has already changed its name from the Saenuri banner under which Park was elected.

Park was impeached by parliament in December after months of mass protests against her over a sprawling corruption scandal, and the constitutional court upheld the decision in March, removing her from office. She went on criminal trial in May.

Her dismissal dealt a huge blow to her party, with some of its lawmakers defecting to back her impeachment, and Hong came a distant second to new President Moon Jae-In in the election to choose her successor.

Liberty Korea, which currently holds 107 seats in the 299-member parliament, is hoping that Park's expulsion will prompt some lawmakers to return and help it regain its status as the largest party from Moon's Democrats, who have 121 seats.

"I judged that in order for the Liberty Korea Party to regain its status as the main conservative bloc, it must cast off its yoke as the Park Geun-Hye party," Hong said.

Park rose to power in 2012 largely thanks to the popularity of her late strongman father, Park Chung-Hee, who had spearheaded the South's stellar economic growth under his 1961-79 military-backed rule.

But the scandal that emerged last year unleashed nationwide fury, even among many of her conservative supporters.

Park denies multiple charges including bribery, coercion and abuse of power for offering governmental favours to tycoons, and is being held in custody.

It is unclear when the court will deliver a verdict on Park, whose trial was put on hold indefinitely after her entire defence team resigned to protest the court's decision to extend her detention.

Park is the third former South Korean president to be put on trial.

Two former army-backed leaders who ruled in the 1980s and 1990s -- Chun Doo-Hwan and Roh Tae-Woo -- received lengthy prison sentences, but served only two years before being released under presidential pardons.

Hong described Park's fall from grace as "extremely regrettable" and signalled that he could pardon her if she was convicted and he won a future election.

The proceedings against her were an "extremely political trial", he said, adding: "Although former president Park Geun-Hye's party membership will be revoked today, I will do my utmost to make sure that she does not face any unfair punishment."
A file picture shows Cypriot security personnel escorting Egyptian Seif al-Din Mohamed Mostafa, accused of hijacking an EgyptAir plane and diverting it to Cyprus, to an extradition hearing at the court in Nicosia on May 13, 2016

Cyprus has delayed the extradition of an Egyptian man accused of hijacking a plane and diverting it to the Mediterranean island, after Europe's top rights court took up his case.

The Justice Ministry said Thursday that extradition procedures against Seif al-Din Mohamed Mostafa, 60, had been suspended so the European Court of Human Rights could review his case.

The ECHR "has requested that the Republic suspend, as a temporary measure, the handing over to the Egyptian authorities of Seif al-Din Mohamed Mostafa, wanted for hijacking offences," it said in a statement.

The ministry had instructed officials to suspend moves to hand him over "until the matter is dealt with by the ECHR," it added.

Defence lawyers had appealed to the ECHR after the Cypriot Supreme Court dismissed Mostafa's appeal against extradition on Thursday.

He is accused of using a fake suicide belt to seize the EgyptAir plane from Alexandria to Cairo in March 2016 and redirect it to Cyprus.

The hijacking ended peacefully with his arrest and the release of the 55 passengers after a six-hour standoff.

Egypt requested Mostafa face trial under a bilateral agreement.

The defence argues that he should not be extradited because he would not receive a fair trial and there was a possibility he could be tortured.

But the Cypriot Supreme Court rejected Mustafa's appeal against his extradition.

In a unanimous decision, the five-judge bench upheld a lower court ruling rejecting Mostafa's defence that he may be tortured or face a "show" trial.

Last year the lower court said it had no reason to doubt assurances given by the Egyptian authorities that Mostafa's human rights would be respected.

During that hearing Mostafa painted himself as a liberal who wanted democracy for an Egyptian people subjected to "abductions, disappearance, illegal detention and extrajudicial killings".

Mostafa said his motive for hijacking the domestic Egyptian flight was to seek asylum in Italy and tell the world about the "repressive" Egyptian government.

He urged the court not to extradite him to Egypt as he would become a "dead man walking".
Smokes billows from the Syrian village of Hader on November 3, 2017 after a suicide car bomb attack

A suicide car bomb attack killed nine people in a government-held village in Syria's Golan Heights on Friday, state media said, reporting clashes between government forces and jihadists afterwards.

State news agency SANA said the car bomb hit the outskirts of the village of Hader, which lies near the disengagement line that divides the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan from that occupied by Israel.

"A suicide bomber from Al-Nusra Front detonated a car bomb in the midst of the homes of citizens on the outskirts of Hader, killing nine people and injuring at least 23," the agency said.

Al-Nusra Front is the old name for a jihadist group that was formerly Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria and is now known as the Fateh al-Sham Front.

"In the aftermath of the terrorist attack, terrorist groups carried out a heavy attack on Hader, and army units and the Popular Defence units (pro-government militants) clashed with the attackers," SANA added.

The agency said the toll was expected to rise because a number of those wounded in the bombing were in serious condition and the ongoing assault on the town made it difficult to remove the injured to safety.

Hader is a majority-Druze village and has been attacked in the past by rebel and jihadist groups.

It lies in southwestern Syria's Quneitra province, around 70 percent of which is held by either rebel or jihadist groups, with the government controlling the other 30 percent, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it, a move never recognised by the international community.

The Israeli army said Friday that a civilian in the town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan was lightly wounded as a result of "shots fired from Syria".

It said the shots were "stray fire resulting from the intense fighting on the Syrian Golan Heights".

Israeli army spokesman, Brigadier General Ronen Manelis, said the military was ready to "prevent Hader from being harmed or occupied, as part of our commitment to the Druze population".

Druze men residing in Israel hold their community's flag after hearing about clashes in the Syrian Druze village of Hadar, on November 3, 2017 in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights

Nearly 140,000 members of the Druze minority, which follows a secretive offshoot of Shiite Islam, live in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan.

In Majdal Shams, residents approached the disengagement line but were prevented from crossing to support villagers in Hader by the Israeli army, which closed off the area.

Some Syrian Druze have expressed sympathy for the opposition since the start of the civil war but the community has largely been loyal to the regime.
The suspect could face life imprisonment as he has been charged under India's Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act

A man accused of raping a toddler in front of his own children has been arrested in India, police said Friday, the latest in a series of sex attacks against minors in the country.

The 18-month-old girl had gone to play with her neighbours' two children aged two and four on Wednesday when she was allegedly raped by their father in their one-room home, police said.

The girl, who is recovering at a New Delhi hospital, was found dumped outside her house bleeding and in pain by her mother after the alleged assault.

The suspect was arrested on Thursday, said Harinder Singh, an officer in the Aman Vihar neighbourhood where the assault apparently took place.

He has been charged under India's Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, which means he could face life imprisonment.

The head of the Delhi Commission for Women Swati Maliwal met the child and said she was in a stable condition after undergoing surgery.

"The poor child cannot even speak, she is just laying there," Maliwal said.

The attack adds to a grim record of sexual assaults on women and children in India.

Nearly 11,000 cases of child rape were reported in 2015, according to the National Crime Records Bureau's latest figures.

About three children are raped everyday in Delhi alone, it said.

A UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2014 said one in three rape victims in India was a minor and expressed alarm over the widespread sexual abuse of children.
The US-backed military campaign claimed the lives of more than 1,100 people including around 900 militants

Armed stragglers supporting the Islamic State and hiding out among the ruins of a Philippine city after the end of a five-month battle still pose a threat to returning civilians, the military said Friday.

The admission came after authorities arrested an armed Indonesian militant this week and killed three other gunmen in the bombed-out southern city of Marawi.

"The main battle area, where most of the very heavy fighting occurred in the last few weeks prior to the liberation and the cessation of combat operation still harbours a number of stragglers," military spokesman Major-General Restituto Padilla said.

"These so-called stragglers continue to pose a huge threat to our people in Marawi as has been proven by the events of the past few days," Padilla told reporters in Manila.

Hundreds of local and foreign gunmen who had pledged allegiance to IS rampaged through Marawi, the principal Islamic city in the mainly Catholic Philippines, on May 23.

An ensuing US-backed military campaign claimed the lives of more than 1,100 people including around 900 militants, displaced 400,000 residents and reduced large parts of the city to rubble.

Padilla said the authorities were trying to confirm information provided by the captured suspect that more than 30 militants continue to hide out in building basements and tunnels.

Their hiding places were likely surrounded by booby traps and improvised explosive devices to prevent troops from approaching, he added.

The authorities were working "to ensure that not one of these terrorists may be able to escape because one terrorist who is able to escape has the potential of inflicting harm on many nationals -- on many of our nationals", he said.

More than 6,000 Marawi residents have been allowed to return home to areas that were previously cleared by authorities and did not suffer major damage, the authorities said Friday.

However the main battle area remained closed indefinitely.

Officials have said the fight for Marawi marked the Philippines' longest urban battle, with Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana estimating that the government will need $1.1 billion to rebuild the city.
Prosecutors are appealing against Pistorius' six-year term, saying it was too lenient for a murder conviction

South African prosecutors argued Friday that Oscar Pistorius' six-year jail sentence for murder must be increased, saying he failed to show genuine remorse after killing his girlfriend.

The Paralympic athlete shot dead Reeva Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine's Day in 2013 when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet.

He pleaded not guilty at his trial in 2014 and has always denied that he killed Steenkamp in a rage, saying he mistook her for a burglar.

At a one-day hearing at the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, state prosecutors fought for the right to appeal against what they described as a "shockingly lenient" sentence.

Pistorius, 30, was not present for the latest stage of his long legal case, but Steenkamp's mother June was in the public gallery.

"One of the essential ingredients of a balanced sentence is that it must reflect the seriousness of the offence," Andrea Johnson, of the National Prosecution Authority, told the court.

"Genuine remorse is missing -- namely a reason from the respondent for firing the four fatal shots.

"One cannot say his regret absolves him from the crime."

In 2015, Pistorius found was guilty of murder, irrespective of whoever was behind the door when he opened fire with a pistol he kept under his bed.

- Too lenient? -

The prosecution believes Pistorius has not shown "genuine remorse"

He was given less than half of the minimum 15 years in jail for murder, in a ruling that the prosecution authority has fought to challenge.

Pistorius was originally convicted of culpable homicide -- the equivalent of manslaughter -- but the appeal court upgraded his conviction.

Pistorius' lawyer Barry Roux launched a strong defence of the judge who handed down the six-year sentence, saying she took into account his claim that he believed he was shooting an intruder.

"She balanced what he did with the circumstances," Roux said, adding that the judge understood Pistorius was "a broken man" after the killing and had repeatedly apologised to Steenkamp's family.

"It was a comprehensive judgement. Leave to appeal should not be granted," Roux said.

Members of the ruling African National Congress women's league, who have attended many of the court sessions, criticised the sentence for failing to send a message against domestic violence.

"We are not satisfied and we are not going to keep quiet until justice is served," local ANCWL chairwoman Mapaseka Nkoane told reporters.

"The only thing that could bring justice and peace to all the women in South Africa... is when he receives the necessary sentence.

"We have men and women in prison who have killed their spouses who are serving... more than 20 years. Why is Oscar Pistorius an exception in this case? Is it because he has got money?"

- 'Law must run its course' -

Previously a role model for disabled people worldwide, Pistorius was released from jail in 2015 after serving one year of a five-year term for culpable homicide.

Reeva Steenkamp's parents June and Barry Steenkamp "believe in the justice system", their lawyer says

He returned behind bars after his conviction for murder, and is being held at a prison in Pretoria.

The year before he killed Steenkamp, Pistorius became the first double-amputee to race at the Olympics when he competed at the London 2012 games.

In a television interview, he said he believed an intruder was in the house and "instant fear" drove him to grab his gun and walk on his stumps towards the bathroom.

"All of a sudden I hear a noise, at the toilet. I presumed it was the toilet door opening and before I knew it, I'd fired four shots," he said.

Outside the court on Friday, June Steenkamp's lawyer Tania Koen said that family were focused on honouring her memory.

"The family believe in the justice system, and they support the state," Koen said. "The law must run its course."

The court reserved judgement until an unspecified later date.
Moroccan architect Salima Naji specialises in construction that blends in with the environment and local traditions

An unexpected gust of cool air greets visitors to the new archives centre in Tiznit in the mountains of southern Morocco, even without air-conditioning despite extreme heat outside its walls.

That is thanks to the ancestral building methods used by Salima Naji, a French-educated Moroccan architect who specialises in construction that blends in with the environment and local traditions.

Rather than concrete, she used adobe and mudbrick, and built in high air vents for circulation.

A granary in the oasis village of Amtoudi restored by Moroccan architect Salima Naji and local artisans

"First I look at what's available on the scene, rather than bring things in from elsewhere," said the architect who has a second degree in anthropology and who has restored several historical buildings.

The priority is always two-fold: to protect local traditions and the environment.

Naji said she was baffled as to why "at a certain time people stopped building with local materials" and how they had "turned their back on this heritage".

- 'Landscape falling apart' -

Adobe, rock, limestone, palm tree wood -- this is the heritage that she refuses to abandon.

Traditional buildings in the oasis village of Amtoudi restored by Moroccan architect Salima Naji

Naji, 47, daughter of a Moroccan father and French mother, started working with traditional construction methods and materials for private clients.

Then she realised that "it's all very well building for the rich but the landscape is in the process of falling apart," she said.

She started to restore old ksours, or fortified villages, former mosques and communal granaries at the oasis settlement of Amtoudi.

In Tiznit, a town about 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Agadir where she lives in a small traditional house, she has stayed loyal to tradition with a new museum, the archives centre and a community hall.

Despite her aversion to the material, she had to use some concrete to respect Morocco's urban code for public buildings.

Traditional buildings in the oasis village of Amtoudi restored by Moroccan architect Salima Naji

"I don't understand how we can credit this material that has no value, not historical, not in terms of climate control, not aesthetically, and its expensive!" she said.

"It's cold in winter, hot in summer."

- 'Traditions are alive' -

Traditional buildings in the oasis village of Amtoudi restored by Moroccan architect Salima Naji

The essential thing for Naji is that "in Morocco, traditions are alive, slowing down of course, but not dead like elsewhere".

She worked on the Amtoudi granaries with local artisans, although it was a challenge to persuade the youngest among them to learn old methods.

Apart from being an architect and anthropologist, she has also had to serve as an advocate for the use of local materials and ancestral techniques.

She was warned that her constructions would not hold up to the rains.

Traditional buildings in the oasis village of Amtoudi restored by Moroccan architect Salima Naji

But she insists that sound construction and good maintenance provide a longer-term foil to the elements than concrete, as proven by the ancient ramparts of the Moroccan capital Rabat where she was born.

Her campaign is to find "alternatives to an all-concrete way of life" and she remains optimistic.

"I've seen people who want change in this country, who want something beautiful, intelligent, something which turns to the future without forgetting the past," she said.
Iraqi forces advance towards the town of Al-Qaim near the Syrian border as they fight to capture the last holdouts of the Islamic State group in the country on November 3, 2017

Iraqi forces said they recaptured an important crossing on the border with Syria from the Islamic State group on Friday as they advanced into the jihadists' last bastion in Iraq.

Iraq's Joint Operations Command said troops had "regained full control" of the Husaybah border post on the edge of the town of Al-Qaim after launching a push to oust the jihadists.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi released a statement congratulating the armed forces for "entering into Al-Qaim and liberating" the border crossing.

An Iraqi army officer told AFP that the jihadists "deserted the border post after several of them were killed" and headed off into Syria.

Al-Qaim and the surrounding areas are the last remnants of the self-styled caliphate IS declared after rampaging across Iraq and Syria in 2014.

Iraqi forces backed up by air strikes from a US-led coalition launched the operation last week to seize back the strategically located pocket of barren desert along the Euphrates river.

IS is simultaneously battling for survival in its holdouts across the border in Syria, where government troops said they ousted the group from the key city of Deir Ezzor on Friday.
Druze men from Majdal Shams on the Israeli side of a disengagement line that divides the Syrian-controlled Golan Heights from the part occupied by Israel rally after on November 3, 2017 in support of Syrian Druze

The Israeli army on Friday issued a rare statement in support of a government-held village in Syria's Golan Heights, pledging not to allow it to be taken by attacking rebel forces.

The army was ready to "prevent Hader from being harmed or occupied, as part of our commitment to the Druze population," a statement from chief military spokesman Brigadier General Ronen Manelis said.

Manelis did not specify how Israel would act, but firmly denied "claims of Israeli involvement or help to global jihad elements in the fighting".

The majority-Druze village, which lies near the disengagement line that divides the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan from that occupied by Israel, was targeted early in the morning by a suicide car bomb that killed nine.

Clashes were reported between government and rebel forces, and one Israeli was lightly wounded by spillover fire.

Meanwhile, Druze from Majdal Shams, a village on the Israeli side of the disengagement line, rushed to the fence in a bid to help their brethren in Syria, an AFP reporter said.

The Israeli army sealed off the area to prevent any such crossings.

There are approximately 140,000 Druze in Israel, including 20,000 in the Golan Heights.

Israel has long professed a policy of not intervening militarily in the Syrian civil war, while carrying out strikes on weaponry that could threaten it and treating people wounded in the fighting.

Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it, a move never recognised by the international community.
A US citizen has been arrested for a tweet just weeks after Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe appointed a cyber security minister charged with policing social media

Zimbabwean police arrested a US citizen on Friday for allegedly tweeting that President Robert Mugabe is a "goblin whose wife and step-son bought a Rolls-Royce," lawyers said.

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) said officers detained Martha O'Donovan in a dawn raid at her home just weeks after Mugabe appointed a cyber security minister charged with policing social media.

Police confiscated her laptop and transferred O'Donovan, who works for Harare-based Magamba TV, to the city's central police station, the group added in its statement.

"The reported offensive and insulting tweet does not make any mention of the president's name," ZLHR said.

However Mugabe's stepson with his wife and first-lady Grace, Russell Goreraza, is thought to have recently imported two Rolls-Royce vehicles into the country, local media reported.

The British-built cars -- both Rolls-Royce Ghosts that sell for around $220,000 (190,000 euros) and have a top speed of 155 miles per hour -- are marketed by the manufacturer as "more measured, more realistic" than the $300,000 Rolls-Royce Phantom.

Grace Mugabe's son is also reported to have purchased two Range Rover 4X4s, two Mercedes-Benz S-Class limousines and an Aston Martin, while Grace herself is also thought to have acquired a Rolls-Royce.

"The US embassy has been in contact with the American who has been arrested and her counsel," an embassy spokesman told AFP. "We will continue to monitor the situation."

Police did not respond to calls for comment.

There have been several arrests in recent years for actions deemed to undermine the president, although no one has been convicted.

Two men were arrested separately on Friday after they allegedly said they would not vote for the ruling ZANU-PF party and comparing Mugabe to a dog.

The new cyber-security ministry is "an attempt to clamp down on social media movements that pose a big threat to his regime ahead of the election," Bulawayo-based analyst Dumisani Mpofu previously told AFP.

Mugabe has already been named by ZANU-PF party as its presidential candidate for the 2018 poll.

Zimbabwe has an unemployment of more than 90 percent and rising levels of poverty.
President Donald Trump said that the Islamic State group will pay a "big price" for every attack it stages against the United States, following the New York truck attack by an IS loyalist

President Donald Trump said Friday that the Islamic State group will pay a "big price" for every attack it stages against the United States, following the New York truck attack by an IS loyalist.

The US military has hit IS "much harder" over the past two days after the jihadist group claimed the attacker was one of their soldiers, Trump said.

"They will pay a big price for every attack on us!" Trump wrote on Twitter. The New York attack Tuesday left eight dead and 12 wounded.

Trump has said the alleged attacker, Uzbek immigrant Sayfullo Saipov, 29, should be executed.

Trump backed off initial comments that he would like to see the man sent to the US prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Oscar Pistorius shot his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp dead in 2013

A South African appeals court on Friday more than doubled Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius' sentence for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, bringing it up to 13 years and five months.

Here is a timeline of events following the shooting on Valentine's Day in 2013, in a case that shocked the world.

- Shot four times -

February 14, 2013: Police arrest the Olympic and Paralympic sprinter for killing Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, who was shot four times at his Pretoria home.

February 15: Pistorius bursts into tears as he is charged, denying murder "in the strongest terms".

February 19: Pistorius claims in an affidavit he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder. He said he fired through a locked bathroom door, in what prosecutors term "premeditated" murder.

February 21: Global sportswear manufacturer Nike suspends its sponsorship contract with the athlete.

February 22: Pistorius is granted bail.

- The trial begins -

March 3, 2014: The trial opens in Pretoria before crowds of journalists from around the world, with the testimony of a neighbour who tells the court she heard "terrible screams" from a woman. Ten days later, Pistorius vomits when a picture of Steenkamp's body is flashed on the court's television screens.

April 7-15: Pistorius takes the stand and begins with a tearful apology to Steenkamp's family. This is followed by five days of often intense cross-examination, marked by bouts of tears and breaks in the session. Pistorius steadfastly denies any intention to kill Steenkamp.

June 30: After a six-week break, a panel of three psychiatrists and a psychologist conclude Pistorius does not suffer from mental illness.

September 12: Judge Thokozile Masipa finds Pistorius guilty of culpable homicide or manslaughter.

October 21: The judge sentences him to a maximum of five years in jail. He is taken to Pretoria prison.

- Under house arrest -

October 20, 2015: Pistorius is allowed out of prison after just one year to spend the remainder of his sentence under house arrest.

December 3: The Supreme Court of Appeal convicts him of murder, saying his testimony was "vacillating and untruthful".

December 8: Pistorius is released on bail pending sentencing, and remains under house arrest.

- 'Shockingly lenient' sentence -

March 2, 2016: Pistorius, now 29, loses his final bid to appeal his murder conviction.

July 6: He is sentenced to six years in jail for murder.

August 14: South African media reports say Pistorius is put on 24-hour suicide watch.

September 15: Prosecutors say they will petition the Supreme Court of Appeal for a tougher sentence for Pistorius, having described the six-year term as "shockingly lenient".

November 14: Prison authorities say Pistorius has been transferred to a prison adapted for disabled inmates just outside Pretoria to serve the rest of his sentence.

- Jail term extended -

A South African appeals court has increased paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius' sentence to 13 years and five months

November 3, 2017: The appeal court adjourns to consider its ruling after prosecutors argue that Pistorius' jail term is too short, while defence lawyers say the judge handed down a fair sentence.

November 24: The Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein more than doubles Pistorius' sentence of six years to 13 years and five months.
The UN says Rohingya refugee children are suffering from life-threatening malnutrition in camps in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar

Life-threatening levels of malnutrition have risen dramatically among Rohingya refugee children who have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh, the United Nations warned Friday.

The UN children's agency said preliminary data indicated a full 7.5 percent of the children crammed into one of the camps in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar district were at risk of dying from severe acute malnutrition.

More than 600,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar's Rakhine state since late August during military operations that the United Nations has described as ethnic cleansing and the world's most acute refugee crisis.

Around half of them are children.

"It's very worrying to see the condition of children who keep arriving," UNICEF spokesman Christophe Boulierac told reporters in Geneva after a recent trip to the camps.

The agency and its partners are already treating more than 2,000 acutely malnourished children at 15 treatment centres, and are in the process of setting up six additional centres.

AFP correspondents on the ground also witnessed scores of obviously malnourished children near treatment centres in several refugee camps in Cox's Bazar.

"He cannot eat enough food as he suffers from pneumonia, fever and diarrhoea," Rohingya woman Fahima Bibi told AFP as she emerged from one centre with her two-year-old grandson Mohammad Jabed, who is suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

UNICEF said its preliminary findings were based on a nutrition assessment conducted last week of children under the age of five in 405 households in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox's Bazar.

- 'Catastrophe' -

"The Rohingya children in the camp, who have survived horrors in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State and a dangerous journey here, are already caught up in a catastrophe," UNICEF Bangladesh Representative Edouard Beigbeder said in a statement.

"Those with severe malnutrition are now at risk of dying from an entirely preventable and treatable cause," he warned.

Malnutrition rates among children in northern Rakhine were already above emergency thresholds before the latest crisis erupted.

"The condition of these children has further deteriorated due to the long journey across the border and the conditions in the camps," the UNICEF statement said.

The journey by boat is particularly treacherous, with the International Organization for Migration on Friday putting the number of drownings since August at around 250.

Some 26,000 people now live in the Kutupalong camp, where they are faced with an acute shortage of food and water, unsanitary conditions and high rates of diarrhoea and respiratory infections, the agency said.

UNICEF said it was planning two additional assessments in other sites in Cox's Bazar this month to help determine if the numbers found in Kutupalong might apply to the entire area.

Boulierac however told AFP the agency was concerned by the preliminary findings, since the Kutupalong camp has existed for a long time and the services there are believed to be better than in the many new, makeshift camps.

The overall rate of life-threatening malnutrition could therefore turn out to be even higher than what was found in Kutupalong, he said.

The influx of refugees is continuing, with the UN refugee agency estimating that some 3,000 people crossed through a single border crossing at Anjuman Para between Wednesday and Thursday alone.

"We need far more attention to the crisis, and far more resources for the response," Beigbeder said, stressing that "these children need help right now."
The US trade gap broadened in September as American companies increased their imports of semiconductors, aircraft and petroleum products, the Commerce Department reported

The US trade gap broadened in September as American companies increased their imports of semiconductors, aircraft and petroleum products, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

Even record exports of US goods and services could not fend off the rising deficit. Export hit their highest level in nearly three years, driven upward by growing international sales of crude oil and transport services.

President Donald Trump has taken an aggressive stance on trade, vowing to reduce bilateral trade deficits, and launching high-stakes talks to renegotiate trade agreements and investigate the practices of foreign trading partners.

The September trade gap rose 1.7 percent to $43.5 billion, in line with analyst expectations, according to the report. So far this year, the US trade deficit is up 9.3 percent over the same period in 2016.

Exports rose 1.1 percent to $196.8 billion in September, the highest level since December 2014. Services exports also were the highest on record at $66.2 billion.

But imports rose 1.2 percent to $240.3 billion, with services like transport also at their highest level on record at $44.3 billion.

Crude oil imports by volume fell to their lowest level since October 2015 at 206.8 million barrels -- helping shift the US trade balance with members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to a $600 million surplus from an $800 million deficit.

The US deficit with China is just under $30 billion, while the deficit with Germany expanded $1.1 billion to $5.9 billion for the latest month, and the US trade gap with India rose by $700 million to $2.3 billion.

The US recorded a $100 million surplus with Canada but a $5.1 billion deficit with Mexico, coming amid fraught negotiations to revamp the North American Free Trade Agreement.

US exports to Britain were the highest on record at $5.5 billion, for an overall surplus of $700 million.

Officials said the back-to-back late-summer hurricanes impacted the September trade data, but the distortions could not be isolated or quantified.
Investigators suspect the Islamic State group has been selling and giving its fighters Tramadol tablets to dull pain and suppress fatigue

Italian police have seized 50 million euros worth of tablets of a synthetic opiate destined to be sold by the Islamic State (IS) group in Libya to raise funds for attacks, a court said Friday.

Financial police discovered over 24 million Tramadol tablets, en route from India to Libya, at the port of Gioia Tauro in southern Italy.

The painkiller has been described as the "fighter drug" as it is known to be popular among jihadists for its ability to dull pain and suppress fatigue.

The haul is estimated to be worth 50 million euros ($58 million), and was found following a police crackdown sparked by the discovery of a similar shipment in Genoa in May.

Investigators believe the IS group planned to sell the tablets to their foot soldiers for the equivalent of two euros a tablet.

"According to the information shared with foreign investigative sources, the traffic of Tramadol is directly handled by IS to finance terrorist activities planned and carried out across the world," the court of Reggio Calabria said.

Part of the money raised from the sales would also go "to subsidize terrorist groups and extremists operating in Libya, Syria and Iraq," it said in a statement.

The court said the catch had been possible thanks in part to the DEA, the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
There have been numerous deadly attacks in Afghanistan blamed on the Taliban

War crimes prosecutors said Friday they will ask the International Criminal Court's judges for permission to launch a full-blown probe into crimes committed in war-torn Afghanistan.

"In due course, I will file my request for judicial authorisation to open an investigation, submitting that there is a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in connection with the armed conflict in Afghanistan," chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a statement.

"Following a meticulous preliminary examination... I have come to the conclusion that all legal criteria to commence an investigation has been met," the Hague-based court's chief prosecutor said.

During a lengthy probe first made public in 2007, the ICC has been looking at possible war crimes dating back to 2003 by the Taliban, Afghan government forces and international forces including US troops.

Bensouda a year ago said her office was "concluding its assessment" but postponed her decision in July after her investigators received "substantial" new information from Kabul.

In what is likely to become a hot-potato issue, Bensouda has previously said US forces may have committed war crimes in Afghanistan by torturing prisoners in what may have been a deliberate policy.

She stressed that the Taliban militia and the affiliated Haqqani network, Afghan government forces and US troops as well as the CIA all appeared to have carried out war crimes since the Islamic militia was ousted by a US-led invasion in 2001 which followed the September 11 attacks that year.

Bensouda blamed the Taliban and its allies for the deaths of some 17,000 civilians since 2007 to December 2015 in a brutal insurgency with "numerous attacks" on schools, hospitals and mosques.
The US government has released a major scientific report that says climate change is real, 'extremely likely' to be caused by human activity, and affecting the daily lives of Americans.

The findings of the federally mandated report are starkly at odds with the position of US President Donald Trump, who has labeled global warming a Chinese hoax and named fossil fuel ally Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Climate Science Special Report spans more than 600 pages and is part of a larger report known as the Fourth National Climate Assessment.

The federally mandated report is starkly at odds with the position of US President Donald Trump, who has labeled global warming a Chinese hoax and named fossil fuel ally Scott Pruitt to head EPA

THE REPORT The government is required to produce the National Assessment every four years. It has been split into two documents, one that lays out the fundamental science of climate change and the other that shows how the United States is being impacted on a regional basis. Combined, the two documents total over 2,000 pages. The first document, called the Climate Science Special Report, is now a finalized report, having been peer reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences and vetted by experts across government agencies. Advertisement

Based on 'a large body of scientific, peer-reviewed research,' global annually averaged surface air temperature has increased by about 1.8 Fahrenheit (1.0 Celsius) over the last 115 years (1901-2016), it says.

'This period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization,' said the report, available here.

It was compiled by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, with contributions from NASA, the Department of Energy and other federal agencies.

Since the last report of its kind was issued in 2014, 'stronger evidence has emerged for continuing, rapid, human-caused warming of the global atmosphere and ocean,' it said.

'It is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century,' the report added, noting there 'is no convincing alternative explanation.'

(left) Global annual average temperature has increased by more than 1.2F (0.7C) for the period 19862016 relative to 19011960. Red bars show temperatures that were above the 19011960 average, and blue bars indicate temperatures below the average. (right) Surface temperature change (in F) for the period 19862016 relative to 19011960. Gray indicates missing data.

It is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century

After examining long-term climate records and data going back thousands of years, the report said that in the modern era, 'average temperatures in recent decades over much of the world have been much higher, and have risen faster during this time period than at any time in the past 1,700 years or more.'

The findings came as no surprise to climate scientists.

'This isn't new,' said Peter Gleick, president-emeritus of the Pacific Institute and a member of the US National Academies of Science.

The US government's Fourth National Climate Assessment says that that human activities, 'especially emissions of greenhouse gases' like carbon dioxide fumes from vehicles, are primarily responsible for climate change

Global annual average radiative forcing change from 1750 to 2011 due to human activities, changes in total solar irradiance, and volcanic emissions. Black bars indicate the uncertainty in each.

'This is news only because Trump couldn't censor it,' he said on Twitter.

The Trump administration has repeatedly denied or downplayed the role of fossil fuels in global warming.

EPA chief Pruitt shocked scientists earlier this year when he argued in a media interview that carbon dioxide was not a primary contributor to global warming.

The NOAA said the report 'serves as the foundation for efforts to assess climate-related risks and inform decision-making about responses.'

The last report of its kind came out in May 2014.

Democratic Senator Al Franken of Minnesota and eight of his colleagues this week sent a letter to Trump asking 'what safeguards are in place to ensure that the National Climate Assessment and the Climate Science Special Report give fair and accurate summations of the latest climate science without political interference.'

The senators also asked how the Trump Administration plans to address the report's findings.
In the past two years, addicts in search of cheaper drugs have turned to fentanyl or heroin cut with fentanyl

Chinese authorities on Friday disputed US President Donald Trump's claim that most of the drug fentanyl, which is blamed for thousands of American deaths, was made in China, reports said days before his visit.

Last week, Trump declared the US opioid crisis a national public health emergency and vowed to step up the fight against an epidemic that kills more than 150 Americans every day.

He said the United States needed to stop "the flood of cheap and deadly fentanyl" that was "manufactured in China," declaring that discussions on the topic would be a priority during his first state visit to Beijing next week.

China did not "deny or reject" the claim that some Chinese-produced fentanyl found its way into the US market, the deputy director of the Ministry of Public Security's narcotics control bureau Wei Xiaojun told a press briefing, according to the state-run Global Times newspaper.

But "according to the intelligence and information exchanged... between China and the US, the evidence is insufficient to illustrate that the majority of fentanyl or other new psychoactive substances come from China," he said.

Legal and illegal synthetic opioids were behind most of the 64,000 drug overdose deaths across the US in 2016, a record level expected to rise further this year.

With the supply of prescription opioids on the market cut back in the past two years, addicts have turned to the cheapest alternative, fentanyl or heroin cut with fentanyl.

China, which is a significant producer and supplier of fentanyl and the chemicals used to make the compound, has outlawed an increasingly large portfolio of drugs this year at the behest of the US.

Last month, the US Department of Justice announced that it had indicted two Chinese nationals for selling fentanyl made in labs in China to US consumers over the Internet.

Wei criticized the decision, expressing "regret" that the US had chosen to act "unilaterally," as it would "impact the ongoing joint investigation into the case" by the two countries.

An estimated 2.6 million Americans are hooked on prescription opioid painkillers like oxycodone and hydrocodone, or on heroin and fentanyl.
Smokes billows from the Syrian village of Hader on November 3, 2017 after a suicide car bomb attack

Jihadists launched an assault Friday on a government-held village in Syria's Golan Heights, killing at least nine people in a car bomb, and clashing with regime troops, state media said.

The attack hit the village of Hader, populated by members of the Druze majority, which lies near the disengagement line that divides the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan from that occupied by Israel.

The fighting prompted concern from Druze residents of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and a statement from the Israeli army, which pledged to "prevent Hader from being harmed or occupied".

The assault began when a suicide car bomb attacked the outskirts of the village, Syrian state media said.

"A suicide bomber from Al-Nusra Front detonated a car bomb in the midst of the homes of citizens on the outskirts of Hader, killing nine people and injuring at least 23," SANA said.

Al-Nusra Front is the old name for a jihadist group that was formerly Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria and is now known as the Fateh al-Sham Front.

"In the aftermath of the terrorist attack, terrorist groups carried out a heavy attack on Hader, and army units and the Popular Defence units (pro-government militants) clashed with the attackers," SANA added.

The agency said the toll was expected to rise because a number of those wounded in the bombing were in serious condition and the ongoing assault on the town made it difficult to remove the injured to safety.

SANA did not provide details on the identity of the victims.

- 'Shots fired from Syria' -

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said the clashes that followed the blast killed several forces on both sides.

Hader lies in southwestern Syria's Quneitra province, around 70 percent of which is held by either rebel or jihadist groups while the government controls the remaining 30 percent, according to the Observatiory.

Some Syrian Druze have expressed sympathy for opposition forces battling the government since the start of the civil war but the community has largely been loyal to the regime.

Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and later annexed it, a move not recognised by the international community

Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it, a move never recognised by the international community.

The Jewish state has officially maintained a posture of non-intervention in the war in Syria that erupted after anti-government protests in March 2011.

But it has bombed Syrian territory on a sporadic basis, sometimes in response to stray Syrian army fire.

On other occasions, it has been accused of carrying out air strikes targeting weapons intended for Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group that is an ally of Damascus but has fought Israel.

The Israeli army said Friday that a civilian in the town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan was lightly wounded as a result of "shots fired from Syria".

It said the shots were "stray fire resulting from the intense fighting on the Syrian Golan Heights".

- Israel pledges help -

Israeli army spokesman, Brigadier General Ronen Manelis, said the military was ready to "prevent Hader from being harmed or occupied, as part of our commitment to the Druze population".

Nearly 140,000 members of the Druze minority, which follows a secretive offshoot of Shiite Islam, live in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan.

Druze men rally near a barrier that separates the Syrian Golan Heights from the Israeli-occupied side after hearing of clashes in the Syrian part of the plateau of on November 3, 2017

In Majdal Shams, Druze residents gathered along the buffer zone seeking to cross over and help.

Around 10 of them entered the buffer zone, the Israeli army said, before forces caught them and returned them to the Israeli-occupied side.

"This behaviour is a serious violation of the law," the Israeli army said, urging all civilians to refrain from crossing the fence or even approaching it.

Speaking from London, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "we safeguard our borders. Our borders in the south, our borders in the north. And we also cherish our sympathy for our Druze brethren".

Israel has a policy of providing medical assistance to Syrians wounded in the conflict, transporting some into its territory for treatment.

The policy has been controversial, and in 2015, members of the country's Druze minority attacked two ambulances transporting Syrians, killing one and injuring another.
Former national security adviser of ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, Sambo Dasuki (right), speaks with his lawyer Ahmed Raji, during his trial at the federal high court in Abuja, on September 1, 2015

Nigeria's former national security adviser on Friday denied illegally channelling money meant for the fight against Boko Haram to fund Goodluck Jonathan's failed re-election campaign.

Sambo Dasuki told the Federal High Court in Abuja that he "did not enter into an unlawful act with respect to any transaction" with Olisa Metuh, who is on trial for corruption.

Metuh, the former spokesman for Jonathan's Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is accused of receiving 400 million naira ($1.1 million, 955,000 euros) from Dasuki before the 2015 vote.

The money allegedly came from defence funds earmarked to buy weapons and equipment for the Nigerian military tackling the Islamist militants in the country's remote northeast.

At the time, the army was being out-gunned and out-manoeuvred by the jihadists, whose insurgency has left at least 20,000 dead and more than 2.6 million homeless since 2009.

The case is one of the most high-profile in a series of trials linked to President Muhammadu Buhari's campaign against endemic corruption.

Both Dasuki, who is on trial separately accused of sending the defence cash to other prominent PDP members, and Metuh have said Jonathan was aware of the transactions

But the former head of state, whose wife and other close family members are facing claims of graft, is not thought to have been questioned.

Jonathan has been summonsed to appear as a witness in the Metuh trial but his lawyer, Mike Ozekhome, said earlier this week that he was "not the proper person to testify".

The court also threw out a request for him to receive the equivalent of $2.7 million to cover his security and logistics costs to attend the trial.

Ozekhome has also said Jonathan's evidence "will amount to invasion of his personal right to privacy and family life" and could breach his rights against self-incrimination.

Dasuki, appearing as a defence witness, told Metuh's lawyer that he followed lawful procedure in all his transactions while in office between 2012 and 2015.

The alleged contract with Metuh's company and records of an electronic payment of the money have been shown to the court but Dasuki said he had "nothing to say".

"I have already mentioned, for any details I have to make reference to my records," he told the court.

Judge Okon Abang discharged Dasuki from the witness box and adjourned the case until December 4.
Analysts warn the Islamic State group will continue despite the Syrian army recapturing the city of Deir Ezzor, the last major city under the group's control

The Islamic State group may have just lost the last major city of its self-proclaimed "caliphate", but experts and officials warn this is far from being the jihadists' deathblow.

Analysts say the Syrian army's recapture of Deir Ezzor announced Friday will push IS underground after losing territory once as large as Italy spanning the Iraq-Syrian border.

The most widely predicted scenario is that the group will transform into a guerrilla force on the ground in Sunni areas remaining outside the full control of Baghdad and Damascus.

At the same time, its "cyber-caliphate" will continue to churn out jihadist propaganda of the kind that inspired Tuesday's deadly truck attack in New York.

"Daesh is cornered," French Defence Minister Florence Parly said Tuesday, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

"It has lost its two capitals. The final offensives are under way to annihilate this pseudo-caliphate and its so-called soldiers," she told the Senate.

But she warned: "Daesh's swansong will be accompanied by new clandestine terrorist acts, sometimes spectacular ones, and the group's online influence will absolutely endure."

She pointed to Africa's unstable Sahel region along the southern rim of the Sahara, as well as Yemen, Nigeria, the Levant and the Philippines as areas where "the cancer of blind hatred is still spreading".

In Iraq, IS may have been drastically weakened, but "the military victory is not being accompanied by a political vision for after Daesh in terms of re-integrating the Arab and Sunni populations into politics," warned Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor at Sciences Po university in Paris.

- 'From insurgents to terrorists' -

In Syria, he said, "the prospects are even worse".

"This absence of a long-term strategy leaves Daesh a lot of room for regrouping in the near future, while continuing to work its networks of supporters around the world."

Analysts expect IS to revert to tactics it used in its earlier incarnation as the Al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgency of 2004 to 2008.

In the coming months or years, they warn, it could potentially then re-emerge as a reinvigorated IS.

"There is unfortunately little doubt that IS, or something similar, will survive the worldwide campaign against it," Richard Barrett, a former British intelligence official, wrote in a report for the Soufan Group.

"There is little predictable about the trajectory of terrorism in a world in flux, except that it will continue to challenge international security for many years to come."

He said surviving members of what was once a 40,000-strong force of foreign fighters from more than 100 countries were among the main threats.

Some are now imprisoned in Syria and Iraq; others will be heading home.

"These recruits may also decide to seek new theatres of jihad once they have rested and recuperated," the report warned.

Colin P. Clarke, a terrorism expert at the RAND Corporation, said IS "is being forced to change its strategy and tactics, but it has been proactively preparing for the next phase of the conflict".

"In short, it is transitioning from an insurgent organisation to a terrorist group," he wrote in a blog post.

The world is watching it shift from being "an insurgent organisation with fixed headquarters to a clandestine terrorist network dispersed throughout the region and the globe", he said.
A worker stands in front of a pile of mine waste near the Gecamines factory in Kolwezi, southern DR Congo on May 31, 2015

Some $750 million (644 million euros) in revenue from Democratic Republic of Congo's mines between 2011 and 2014 "cannot be reliably tracked" in the records of the state-owned Gecamines, the Carter Center said Friday.

The US foundation, in a report, suggested Gecamines used "its privileged position to generate US$1.1 billion from copper and cobalt deals between 2011 and 2014" yet had failed to reliably account for almost two-thirds of the revenue.

Gecamines wields control of the vast nation's "best mining permits", enabling it "to generate substantial revenues from its partnerships, averaging US$262 million per year in royalties, bonuses and other contractual fees from 2009 to 2014," the report said.

"Those revenues are not directed to the public treasury, and they are largely beyond the realm of public oversight," it said.

It noted that significant income generated by mining proved "difficult to trace" ahead of elections that took place in 2006 and 2011, both won by President Joseph Kabila.

"As the country faces a period in which critical elections are supposed to take place, conditions are ripe for additional unreported sales and revenue diversion," the report warned.

"It is troubling that Gecamines has refused to publish contracts for several mining deals that may have generated more than half a billion dollars in 2016-2017."

The next presidential election is overdue, for Kabila refused to quit at the end of his second constitutional term last December, sparking protests, bloodshed and arrests.

The vote was set to take place this year under a transitional deal reached on New Year's Eve, but the electoral commission has since said that there can be no vote before early 2019, mainly since a voters' roll is unfinished in the troubled Kasai region.

No immediate reaction could be obtained to the report from authorities.

The NGO Global Witness charged in July that the Congolese mining sector served as a funding machine for the Kabila regime, which has been in power since 2001.

"A toxic combination of corruption and mismanagement in Congo's revenues agencies and state mining companies is leaching a fifth of mining revenues away from the state budget that should be used on vital public services such as schools, hospitals and roads," Global Witness asserted in its report.

The Carter Center said its report is based on 200 interviews, the study of more than 100 mining contracts, more than a thousand corporate documents and data from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative covering 2007-2014.

The foundation was set up by US former president Jimmy Carter to promote democracy and human rights around the world.

The world's leading producer of cobalt and fifth largest copper producer, the DRC is one of the world's poorest nations, where 90 percent of its estimated 71 million population lives in extreme poverty.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was working "very hard" to establish an effective alliance with "the modern Sunni states" to condemn and counter Iranian aggression

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that the threat posed by Iran to its Middle Eastern neighbours was driving them into hitherto unthinkable alliances with the Jewish state.

"Iran is devouring one nation after the other," Netanyahu said at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs think-tank in London.

"It is doing so either by direct conquest or by using proxy. They took over Lebanon, Yemen... they try to do the same thing with Iraq, in Syria.

"The good news is that the other guys are getting together with Israel as never before. It is something that I would have never expected in my lifetime."

He said Israel was working "very hard" to establish an effective alliance with "the modern Sunni states" to condemn and counter Iranian aggression.

"I think that actually has a great promise of peace" for the region, he said.

He said the Middle East was witnessing "the emergence of a battle between the Islamists and the modernists", provoking a "new alliance between Israel and Islamic states".

Israel has long viewed Iran as its number one enemy, while Sunni Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia are regional rivals of the Shiite country.

Since Israel was established in 1948, only two Arab states -- Egypt and Jordan -- have signed peace deals with the country and established full diplomatic relations.

The United States has sought to promote links between Israel and the Arab world, with President Donald Trump's administration hoping to leverage regional interests to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu said the 2015 Iran nuclear deal reached with the international community does not go far enough to prevent Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon.

The agreement "basically says within X years of time, not much -- and times goes quickly -- you will have unlimited capacity to enrich uranium," he said.

The greatest danger is not that Tehran would violate the deal, "but that Iran would keep it".

He demanded tough sanctions be put in place and inspections of Iranian military sites.

Turning to relations with Washington, he said ties were stronger since the election of President Donald Trump.

He said he had "very strong" disagreements with Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, saying the former US president saw Iran as part of the solution to problems in the Middle East, while he saw it as the main problem.

Netanyahu said he thought Trump saw Iran as the problem.

"And that a strategical and important shift that we appreciate," he said.

Netanyahu is in Britain for events marking the centenary of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the British statement which helped head to the creation of the state of Israel.
Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, who briefly served as interim chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2016, has accused Hillary Clinton's campaign of controlling the party apparatus during the presidential race

Explosive revelations by a top Democratic operative that the 2016 primaries were tipped in Hillary Clinton's favor have convulsed the party as it struggles to rebuild, and whipped up accusations of cheating from President Donald Trump.

Donna Brazile, the Democratic National Committee's interim chairwoman during key months of the presidential campaign, said Clinton's team essentially took over day-to-day operations of the DNC, in essence rigging the system against Senator Bernie Sanders, who was challenging Clinton for the party's nomination.

In a book excerpt published Thursday by Politico, Brazile said her DNC chair predecessor, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had "let Clinton's headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired" when it came to controlling party strategy and staffing.

She also said that an agreement reached between the DNC and Clinton's campaign to bring the party out of debt allowed Clinton to "control" party finances, strategy, and the money raised.

"This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party's integrity," Brazile said.

Political Washington shuddered with the revelations, with members of the Sanders camp crying foul and demanding changes to the DNC framework.

As of Friday, Neither Sanders nor Clinton had responded publicly to Brazile's remarks.

US President Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton of "cheating" to win the 2016, Democratic nomination, after a Democratic strategist's explosive revelations that the Clinton campaign controlled much of the party's operations

- Rigged -

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Sanders ally who campaigned with Clinton after she won the nomination, expressed exasperation over what happened.

"This is a real problem," Warren, seen as a potential 2020 presidential candidate, told CNN. "We've got to hold this party accountable."

Asked whether she believes the system was rigged, Warren said "yes."

Trump seized on the crisis Friday, telling reporters that Brazile's book shows that Clinton "bought the DNC and stole the election from Bernie."

He also took the unusual step of suggesting that US justice officials investigate one of his political rivals.

"Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn't looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems," Trump said at the start of a series of tweets about the scandal.

"Pocahontas just stated that the Democrats, lead by the legendary Crooked Hillary Clinton, rigged the Primaries! Lets go FBI & Justice Dept," he said.

Pocahontas is a nickname -- some call it a slur -- that Trump has repeatedly used to refer to Warren, in reference to her self-proclaimed Native American ancestry.

Minutes later, as he departed for an extended trip to Asia, Trump tweeted from Air Force One that Sanders supporters "have every right to be apoplectic."

"I always felt I would be running and winning against Bernie Sanders, not Crooked H, without cheating, I was right."

Brazile, 57, is a longtime Democratic strategist, having worked on several political campaigns.

She became a Democratic analyst for CNN. Although she was on leave since July 2016 to serve as interim DNC chair, she resigned from the network that October after hacked emails released by WikiLeaks showed that she had shared questions with Clinton's campaign ahead of a debate sponsored by the network.

The new DNC chairman Tom Perez, who served in president Barack Obama's cabinet, did not respond directly to the Brazile allegations.

"We're moving forward," Perez insisted to CNBC.

"One of my goals here as DNC chair is to make sure that the nominating process for 2020 is a process that's totally fair and transparent for everybody," he said, adding that the Democratic primary debate schedule will be set "well in advance" of knowing who the candidates will be.

Sanders had complained last year that the debate schedule was set to favor Clinton, because they were held during off-hours so that fewer people saw Clinton's challengers.
In September 2017, in one of the largest waves of migrants to reach Cyprus, 305 Syrian migrants were rescued from two boats

A boat carrying 175 Syrian refugees arrived Friday off northwest Cyprus near the coastal resort of Paphos and the migrants were safely brought to shore, police said Friday.

They said the vessel with 81 men, 59 children and 35 women on board had travelled from Turkey. The migrants received medical checks and food, and they were to be moved to a reception centre near Nicosia.

In September, in one of the largest waves of migrants to reach Cyprus, 305 Syrian migrants were rescued from two boats.

Cyprus, an EU member state located 100 miles (160 kilometres) from Syrias Mediterranean coast, has not seen the massive inflow of migration experienced by Turkey and Greece.

But Nicosia has raised the alarm, calling on the European Union to act as it receives more and more asylum seekers.

EU data shows that Cyprus ranks fourth among the blocs 28 nations in the number of asylum applications per capita.

Since September 2014, over a dozen migrant boats have reached the island, bringing in around 1,700 migrants including the latest arrivals.
Smoke billows from the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor during an operation by Syrian government forces against Islamic State (IS) group jihadists on November 2, 2017

Russia's decision two years ago to intervene militarily in Syria appears to have saved Bashar al-Assads regime but a peace settlement seems ever more elusive, analysts say.

On Friday, Syrian government troops retook Deir Ezzor, the last major city where the Islamic State group had a presence. Assad's forces did so with Russian air support.

The successful action edged the Syrian president closer to what looks like victory in the six-year-long war.

"Russia has won the war," foreign affairs analyst Vladimir Frolov told AFP, "but it remains unclear if it can win peace in Syria."

When the Russian army began its bombing campaign in support of Assad's government in September 2015, the regime seemed fragile and its army was exhausted and demoralised by major setbacks against rebel groups and jihadists.

Syrian army retakes Deir Ezzor

Moscow demonstrated its military force by sending helicopters, submarines, bomber aircraft and long distance missiles to hit groups fighting the regime.

Supported by Russia's unrelenting bombing, Assad's forces regained control of more than half the country, recapturing the ancient city of Palmyra from IS in a symbolic victory and chasing rebel groups out of their stronghold of Aleppo in the north.

- 'Get out of Syria' -

The difficulty for Moscow now is to balance its military success with a political process and put an end to a conflict that has killed more than 330,000 people and displaced millions.

Syrian migrants carry their national flags and pictures of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad prior a World Cup football qualifying match between Australia and Syria in Sydney on October 10, 2017

"The strategy is simple: get out of Syria through the negotiation process," said Alexander Shumilin, a Middle East scholar at the Institute for US and Canadian Studies.

"It is clear that these military operations will not lead to political solutions, without which nothing can be achieved."

The attempts for peace talks under Moscow's watch started in January this year with the first conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, when regime envoys and representatives of Syrian rebel groups that still control considerable territories gathered for the first time.

Initiated by Assad's allies Russia and Iran, the Astana negotiations led to the creation of "de-escalation zones," which limit the violence inside designated areas without implementing a real cease fire.

Under the agreement that also involves rebels' backer Turkey, Russian military police were deployed to monitor the zones.

The Astana talks have run in parallel to repeated negotiations held in Geneva with the backing of the United Nations. The latter have failed to gain traction.

The fate of Assad remains a huge stumbling block, preventing global players from reaching a peace settlement over Syria.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly blocked Western efforts to oust Assad but his departure remains a critical point Syrian opposition groups insist on.

- 'Never ending trap' -

Frolov said Moscow could not and did not want to remove Assad.

"Russia expects Assad's regime to stay forever with slight modifications and embellishments sold internationally as an all-inclusive national reconciliation government," he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to be seen as the main political power broker over Syria

Alexei Malashenko, head of research at the Dialogue of Civilisations Institute, added: "Russia has found itself in a never ending trap because it cannot reach a consensus on Syria."

He also said that Moscow cannot bear the costs of reconstructing the country alone.

Aware of the deadlock, Russia, Turkey and Iran announced a new initiative this week, pledging to bring Assad's regime and its opponents together for a "congress" in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on November 18.

Moscow said 33 Syrian organisations including pro-regime forces and the full spectrum of opposition groups had been invited.

But Syrian opposition groups in exile have said they will boycott the talks, calling them a joke.

"Sochi will not work because Assad, supported by Iran, is uncompromising and thinks he has nothing to sacrifice," said Shumilin.

"Assad wants a military victory while Russia wants negotiations."
Iraqi forces enter the town of al-Qaim near the Syrian border as they fight to caputre the last pockets of Islamic State group territory on November 3, 2017

Iraqi forces Friday captured the biggest town under Islamic State group control in Iraq, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said, driving another nail into the coffin of the jihadists' self-styled caliphate.

Abadi hailed the "liberation of Al-Qaim in record time" in a statement, just hours after Iraqi troops backed up by local Sunni tribal militia fighters entered the key town on the border with Syria.

The fall of Al-Qaim leaves IS fighters in Iraq holding just the smaller neighbouring town of Rawa and surrounding pockets of barren desert along the Euphrates river.

That is all that remains in the country from the vast swathes of territory that the group seized in 2014 as it rampaged across Iraq and neighbouring Syria.

The US-led coalition supporting Iraqi forces with air strikes had predicted that the battle for AL-Qaim would be the "last big fight" of the punishing military campaign to dismantle their brutal experiment in statehood.

But the town appeared to have fallen in lightning time after commanders announced that Iraqi troops pushed into the town of some 50,000 inhabitants on Friday morning.
Kevin Spacey has become embroiled in Hollywood's widening sexual misconduct scandal

Hollywood's explosive sexual harassment scandal deepened Friday as New York police revealed they were gathering evidence for a possible arrest warrant against Harvey Weinstein in a credible double rape allegation.

Weinstein, once one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, and Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey are the most high-profile scalps in a monthlong torrent of allegations bringing down like dominoes male power players from the worlds of politics, finance, entertainment and journalism.

Around 100 women have come forward since early October to accuse Weinstein, a twice-married father of five, of sexual misconduct ranging from harassment to rape, sparking police investigations in London, Los Angeles and New York.

On Friday, a top Manhattan detective confirmed that officers were gathering evidence for a possible arrest warrant over Weinstein's alleged double rape of "Boardwalk Empire" actress Paz de la Huerta at her New York apartment in late 2010.

"She put forth a credible and detailed narrative to us," NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce told reporters. The former producer, now dumped by the company he co-founded and ostracized by Hollywood, denies any non-consensual relations.

"If this person was still in New York and it was recent, we would go right away and make the arrest, no doubt. But we're talking about a seven-year-old case and we have to move forward in gathering evidence first," said Boyce.

"We have an actual case here," he added. "Mr Weinstein is out of state. We would need an arrest warrant to arrest him. So right now we're gathering our evidence. We continue to do so. Every day."

It is at least the third Weinstein case New York police have investigated in recent years, and Boyce did not rule out others.

The Manhattan district attorney's office confirmed it had assigned a senior sex crimes prosecutor to the case.

Spacey, whose once glittering acting career is now also in serious jeopardy, is reportedly being investigated by British police for assault in 2008, accused of attempting to rape a 15-year-old boy in New York and of making advances on a 14-year-old.

British police said only that they had opened an investigation into an allegation from a man of sexual assault in 2008. Officers do not publicly identify the subject of an inquiry unless they are charged, but British media said it was Spacey.

- London investigation -

"Officers from the Child Abuse and Sexual Offences Command are investigating," said a spokesman for London's Metropolitan Police, giving no further details.

Actor Anthony Rapp accuses Spacey of making a sexual advance on him at a 1986 party when he was only 14 years old

Spacey's publicist and talent agency have dropped him, and he has made no public comment other than declaring that he was "beyond horrified" by the first allegation from actor Anthony Rapp, which he claimed not to remember.

Eight current or former employees on Netflix hit series "House of Cards" told CNN that Spacey turned the set into a "toxic" environment through a pattern of sexual harassment of younger, male crew members.

It was a stunning fall for an actor who chilled and thrilled audiences in equal measure in memorable roles such as corrupt US president Frank Underwood in "House of Cards," a midlife-crisis-ridden father in "American Beauty" and as a serial killer in "Seven."

Netflix and "House of Cards" production company, MRC, said they were previously aware of only one complaint against Spacey, in 2012, but that it had been resolved.

The award-winning show, of which Netflix had already announced the upcoming sixth season would be its last, now hangs in the balance.

MRC said it was "deeply troubled" by the latest allegations, implemented a complaint hotline and offered crisis counselors and legal advisors to the crew, and would "thoroughly investigate" all claims formally brought to its attention.

Rapp opened the floodgates by saying the actor tried to "seduce" him and lay on top of him when he was 14-years-old at Spacey's New York apartment 31 years ago.

A 48-year-old East Coast artist told Vulture he began a sexual relationship with Spacey when he was 14 that ended when he was 15 after the actor, then 24, allegedly tried to rape him.

"It seems the only requirement was to be a male under the age of 30 for Mr Spacey to feel free to touch us," said Mexican actor Roberto Cavazos, who claimed he fended off "unpleasant" advances while at The Old Vic, the London theater where Spacey was artistic director from 2003-2015.

"It wouldn't surprise me if there were similar numbers to Weinstein's."
The Louisiana Supreme Court ruled Warren Demesme may have been asking for representation from a dog instead of an actual lawyer, so officers were not required to stop questioning him

When suspect Warren Demesme told New Orleans police to "just give me a lawyer dog," he thought he was exercising his right to counsel, albeit with a touch of slang.

Unfortunately, neither detectives nor the Louisiana Supreme Court saw it that way.

The court ruled officers were not required to stop interviewing the 22-year-old over alleged child sex offenses, as there was a possibility he was asking for representation from an actual dog -- meaning it was apparently not clear he wanted a human lawyer.

According to the court, police do not have to stop questioning if a suspect "makes a reference to an attorney that is ambiguous or equivocal in that a reasonable police officer (...) would have understood only that the suspect might be invoking his right to counsel."

In this case, the court ruled Demesme's use of the slang word "dog" was open to interpretation.

"In my view, the defendants ambiguous and equivocal reference to a 'lawyer dog' does not constitute an invocation of counsel that warrants termination of the interview," Associate Supreme Court Justice Scott Crichton said in a concurrence published in late October.

Whether canine lawyers actually exist is another matter altogether -- and there is debate over whether the statement should have been transcribed as "give me a lawyer, dog," with a comma to eliminate the apparent confusion.

Prosecutors told the Washington Post Demesme -- charged with aggravated rape and indecent behavior with a juvenile -- went on to make incriminating statements during the October 2015 interview.

As a result of the ruling, they can be used as evidence during his pending trial.
Malian troops led the first patrol by the brand-new G5 Sahel force -- a five-nation venture to combat jihadism in the vast, poor region on the Sahara's southern rim

In a cloud of ochre dust, a column of army pickup trucks slowly advances on a dirt road near Mali's border with Burkina Faso -- one of the world's hotspots for jihadism.

The national flag of Mali flaps in the wind: an appropriate symbol for a brand-new force whose first task is to assure terrified locals that governance is returning to lawless lands.

"We are here to secure the zone and to reassure people that they can live a normal life," Lieutenant Gaoussou Diara, who commands 100 Malian troops in the convoy, told AFP.

"The track between Tessit and Kayrougouten (in central Mali) is a major route, used by traders and the population."

The new force, called the G5 Sahel, aims at pooling the military resources of five desert nations -- Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger -- that are reeling from years of jihadist attacks.

Thousands of civilians have died, many of them in suicide bombings, and tens of thousands have fled their homes. Villagers or nomads who fall under jihadist rule are subject to vicious punishments in the supposed name of Islamic justice.

The idea behind the 5,000-troop force dates back to November 2015, but it took another two years to become operational, with its first forays launched this week.

Funding remains a major challenge, given the extreme poverty of the five nations. France, the former colonial power in the Sahel, is the scheme's biggest political backer and is providing a hefty dose of support to help the multinational force get going.

- Border fear --

Priority number one is to re-establish authority in the frontier region, especially in the "tri-border" area where the frontiers of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso converge.

Here, the stony landscape, sparsely interspersed by trees, sprawls to the horizon.

It is nominally inhabited by nomadic cattle farmers -- but it has also become a blood-stained haven for jihadist groups linked to the so-called Islamic State and al-Qaeda, and for traffickers of almost every hue.

In Tillit, a Malian village located several dozen kilometres from the Burkinabe border, bears the scars of these overlords.

In the middle of a cluster of poor houses made of daub stands a sign bearing the jihadist insignia. The village's mayor and teacher, threatened, have fled. On the school's blackboard is written the date that children last had a lesson: June 1, 2017.

"I cannot talk to you, I cannot sell anything," the owner of a modest grocery apologises to the visitor.

Mamadou, an interpreter, explains. "The people here are afraid. The Malian security forces do not often come here."

- Five-nation force -

On paper, the G5 Sahel plans to number up to 5,000 military, police and civilian troops by March 2018, placed under the leadership of a Malian general, Didier Dacko, at a command post in the Niger capital Niamey.

The troops will comprise two battalions each from Mali and Niger and one each from Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania.

In these very early stages, the national contingents are not being mixed, as operational procedures are hammered out.

And French support -- providing training, air and armoured backup and logistical support -- is critical.

About 20 armoured vehicles drawn from France's forces in the Sahel, known as Operation Barkhane, were part in the G5's first border convoy this week. France intervened militarily in northern Mali in 2013 to help drive out al-Qaeda-linked gunmen.

"We don't have the same resources as Barkhane, but we have acquired a lot of experience with them," said a Malian lieutenant who spoke on condition of identification only by his first name, Diara.

He had just ordered his troops to carry out security checks on two motorbikes that came near the convoy.

Support from France's Barkhane anti-jihadist mission is vital for the G5 force in its fledgling stages. Ultimately, says France, the five Sahel nations will be able to ensure their own security in the troubled region

"Today, we are the ones who are leading the patrol, and our French friends are in support."

A French infantry captain, Gauthier, pointed out that the Malians had a unique skills set.

"This is their country, and it is easier for them to distinguish between a farmer and a terrorist -- and their knowledge of the terrain is critical."

As if to prove the point, his armoured vehicle was guided by Malian troops to the safest point for crossing a dried-out riverbed.

"The goal is for these countries to be able to work together to ensure their own security. We are there to help them gain capability," said a French lieutenant colonel, who gave his name as Marc-Antoine.

"Ultimately, these operations aim at providing an exit door for French forces" in the Sahel, he said. "We do not wish to become an army of occupation."
Department of Justice lawyers took their case to the US Supreme Court over a migrant teen who got an abortion against the will of the administration

The administration of President Donald Trump suggested on Friday that disciplinary action should be taken against lawyers for an undocumented migrant teenager who was allowed to have an abortion.

Her case is the first major legal battle concerning abortion during the Trump's presidency, taking on heavy symbolic weight because it touches the rights of both women and immigrants.

A US appeals court last week ruled that the teen, identified only as "Jane Doe", could get an abortion -- against the will of the administration.

In a 130-page submission to the US Supreme Court on Friday, the Department of Justice accused attorneys for the 17-year-old of interrupting her pregnancy without allowing her legal battle to continue.

"Disciplinary action may therefore be warranted" against the attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) after a "highly unusual" chain of events, the Department of Justice argued.

The nearly century-old ACLU has undertaken numerous legal challenges of the Trump administration.

In this case, the teen crossed the US-Mexico border without authorization after fleeing violence in Central America. Her lawyers said she realized she was pregnant after her arrival and detention at a government-funded facility in Texas.

The adolescent requested an abortion in September, when a medical examination estimated she was already about 11 weeks pregnant.

Authorities gave her a choice between not having an abortion or expulsion in order to interrupt her pregnancy.

After the appeals court ruled in the teen's favor on October 24, her supporters took her for the abortion early the following morning, short-circuiting the Department of Justice which had planned to appeal to the Supreme Court the same day.

Texas law requires a delay of at least 24 hours between the first meeting of a patient with an abortion doctor and the abortion itself.

Government lawyers said their ACLU counterparts had assured them that the initial interview with the doctor would take place on October 25, before an abortion on the 26th.

In fact, the teen had the interview on October 19 which the ACLU said allowed for termination of her pregnancy on October 25.

On Friday the ACLU's legal director, David Cole, said the group's lawyers "acted in the best interest of our client and in full compliance with the court orders and federal and Texas law."

Cole said the administration "has gone to astounding lengths to block this young woman from getting an abortion. Now, because they were unable to stop her, they are raising baseless questions about our conduct."

There was an urgency to the case of the teen because she was more than 15 weeks pregnant. Texas prohibits most abortions after 20 weeks.

The US Supreme Court affirmed the right to abortion nationwide in 1973 but the landmark legislation has come under threat since Trump took office in January.

Turning to the conservative-leaning Supreme Court reflects the determination of Trump's administration to act in favor of abortion's opponents, who control both the White House and Congress.
Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi visited Sittwe in restive Rakhine state on November 2, 2017. US lawmakers have proposed sanctions on Myanmar's military in response to a campaign of violence there against the Rohingya

US lawmakers proposed sanctions Friday against Myanmar's military, in some of the strongest efforts yet by Washington to pressure the Southeast Asian nation to end abusive treatment of its Rohingya Muslim minority.

House Republicans and Democrats introduced legislation that would curtail assistance or cooperation with Myanmar's military and require the White House to identify senior military officials who would have US visa bans imposed or reimposed against them.

A bipartisan group in the Senate, including Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain, introduced their bill Thursday.

It calls for renewal of import and trade restrictions on Myanmar, including re-imposing a ban on jade and rubies from the country also known as Burma.

"Our legislation would hold accountable the senior military officials responsible for the slaughter and displacement of innocent men, women and children in Burma, and make clear that the United States will not stand for these atrocities," McCain said in a statement.

The tough proposals came as US President Donald Trump departed for an extended trip to Asia, where he will attend a summit with Southeast Asian nations including Myanmar.

The United States, while condemning the deadly violence that has prompted more than 600,000 people to flee to neighboring Bangladesh, has been careful to say it holds the military responsible, not Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi's civilian government.

House Democrat Eliot Engel said lawmakers wanted to send a "clear message" with the targeted sanctions, both to the military and the civilian leadership, about the violence that has left hundreds of people dead.

"This violence must stop, perpetrators must be held accountable, and there must be meaningful civilian control over Burma's military and security forces," Engel said.

Lawmakers also want Myanmar's military to ensure safe return of refugees displaced from northern Rakhine State, where the military has been accused by the United Nations of a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

"There will be consequences for their crimes against humanity," said Senator Ben Cardin, a Democratic sponsor of the bill.

Myanmar officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

But dealers in the gem industry -- a lucrative sector that was under US sanctions until last October -- shrugged off the threat, saying China was still the top buyer.

"If (sanctions) are reimposed, there will be no harm to us. We used to work under sanctions in the past as well," Tun Hla Aung, secretary of Myanmar Gems and Jewellery Entrepreneurs Association, told AFP.

The fate of the legislation may rest in part with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a longtime friend and ally of embattled Suu Kyi.

The two politicians spoke by telephone in September, when she assured McConnell she was working to get aid to Rohingya Muslims.

McConnell defended the Nobel peace laureate after the call, warning that "publicly condemning Aung San Suu Kyi, the best hope for democratic reform in Burma, is not constructive".

Suu Kyi has been hammered by the international community for failing to use her moral power to speak up in defense of the Rohingya.

On Thursday she visited Rakhine for the first time.

McConnell's office said the Republican leader was reviewing the sanctions legislation. As Senate leader, McConnell determines which bills get to the floor for a vote.
There may be enough evidence to arrest Harvey Weinstein for sexually-based offenses, according to a detective investigating the former producer's alleged felonies

New York police have a credible rape allegation against fallen Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and are gathering evidence for a possible arrest warrant, a senior officer confirmed Friday.

"Boardwalk Empire" actress Paz de la Huerta accused Weinstein of raping her twice at her New York apartment in late 2010. Her claims were published in Vanity Fair magazine on Thursday. Police said they became aware of the victim on October 25.

"She put forth a credible and detailed narrative to us. We then sought to garner corroboration... and we found it, corroboration," NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce told a news conference.

"If this person was still in New York and it was recent, we would go right away and make the arrest, no doubt. But we're talking about a seven-year-old case and we have to move forward in gathering evidence first," said Boyce.

"We have an actual case here," he added. "Mr Weinstein is out of state. We would need an arrest warrant to arrest him. So right now we're gathering our evidence. We continue to do so. Everyday."

A warrant requires a court order, Boyce said. "So we want to get our evidence first before we go out and do something like that."

De la Huerta's allegations are at least the third Weinstein case to have been investigated by New York police in recent years. Boyce did not rule out others.

"I'm not going to close the door and say others won't come forward but this is what we have right now. This is what we're moving forward with," he said.

The Manhattan district attorney has also assigned a senior sex crimes prosecutor to the case, working in collaboration with New York police, his office confirmed.

Around 100 women have come forward to accuse Weinstein of sexual misconduct since a New York Times expose was published in early October. The accusations range from harassment to rape. Weinstein denies any non-consensual relations.

The NYPD previously confirmed one active Weinstein investigation regarding actress Lucia Evans, who accused the disgraced mogul of forcing her into oral sex in 2004.

Italian model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez also went to police, accusing Weinstein of groping and harassing her in 2015, but the district attorney ultimately decided that evidence was insufficient to prosecute.
The rebel-held Eastern Ghouta region outside Damascus is one of the last strongholds of rebels fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since 2011

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday urged his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to "use his influence" with the Syrian regime to allow aid to reach the besieged Eastern Ghouta region.

Macron told Putin in a phone conversation that "humanitarian access (should be) guaranteed as soon as possible, in particular in Eastern Ghouta where hundreds of thousands of people are in great distress," the president's office said in a statement.

A "de-escalation zone" deal agreed by regime allies Iran and Russia and rebel backer Turkey has been in place in the region near the capital Damascus since July.

But humanitarian aid, subject to authorisation by the Syrian authorities, is only trickling in and hundreds of cases of severe malnutrition have been reported in recent weeks.

The region is one of the last strongholds of rebels fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since 2011.

Macron also stressed "the need to renew the mandate" of investigators from the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in the coming weeks, the statement said.

The UN panel known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) issued a report -- disputed by Damascus and Moscow -- last month that blamed the Syrian government for a sarin gas attack in April.

"France will not give up on the fight against impunity and the full and complete dismantling of the Syrian chemical programme," the statement from the French president's office said.
A Syrian child receives treatment near Khan Sheikhun, Syria, in April 2017 following a toxic gas attack that a UN report found had been launched by the Syrian government; a British offical rebuked Russia's motion for a new investigation

Britain and the United States on Friday sought to thwart a Russian bid to attach conditions to the extension of a UN-led panel tasked with identifying who is behind chemical attacks in Syria's six-year war.

Russia has circulated a draft Security Council resolution that calls for a six-month extension of the panel, known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM). Its mandate expires on November 16.

The United States has put forward a rival text seeking two more years for the JIM following the release of its latest report blaming the Syrian government for a sarin gas attack.

Moscow's text proposed that the council shelve that report on the use of the nerve agent to allow for a new investigation of the April 4 attack on the opposition-held village of Khan Sheikhun.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley said the panel must be allowed to continue its work to identify of perpetrators of many other chemical attacks including another case of sarin use on March 30 on the village of Ltamenah.

"Unless the Security Council takes immediate action to renew the mandate for the JIM, there will be no independent, impartial tool to identify who is responsible for these terrible attacks," Haley said.

"Now more than ever, Security Council members must put aside political games and meet our responsibility to protect the world against chemical weapons use," she said.

- Shoot the messenger -

The Security Council will discuss the fate of the panel and its findings on Khan Sheikhun on Tuesday.

British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft accused Russia of "trying to shoot the messenger to cover up for the crimes of its abhorrent ally."

"The Russian draft resolution is a cynical ploy to discredit a professional, independent and impartial body."

Britain called on the council to renew the JIM's "existing mandate, which has already delivered rigorous and conclusive findings."

Russia has questioned the work of the panel because the experts did not go to Khan Sheikhun and worked from samples Moscow maintains may have been tampered with by Western intelligence.

The Russian-drafted measure "requests the JIM to retain its findings... until such time when full-scale and high-quality investigation on the site of an incident becomes possible."

The US draft resolution expresses "grave concern" over the findings on the sarin attack and said the experts should "undertake their respective investigations in a manner that they deem appropriate to fulfill their mandate."

More than 80 people, including young children, died in the Khan Sheikhun attack that provoked global outrage and prompted the United States to fire cruise missiles at a Syrian air base.

Russia in late October vetoed a US-drafted resolution that would have extended the mandate of the JIM for a year, casting its ninth veto at the Security Council to block action against its Syrian ally.
A man looks at a computer displaying the portrait of Somali-born cleric Abdiqadir Mumin, accused of heading the Islamic State group in East Africa

The US conducted a pair of drone strikes against Islamic State fighters in Somalia on Friday, the first time America has hit the jihadists in the Horn of Africa nation, officials said.

The strikes occurred in northeastern Somalia and killed "several terrorists," the US military's Africa Command said in a statement.

According to Voice of America, which cited the chairman of the town of Qandala in the semiautonomous region of Puntland, six missiles hit an IS base in Buqa village, 60 kilometers (35 miles) away.

"Local residents and pastoralists were shocked and fled from the area," Jama Mohamed Qurshe told VOA.

AFRICOM spokesman Lieutenant Commander Anthony Falvo said no civilians were in the vicinity of the strikes.

"They struck their intended targets," he told AFP, noting these were the first anti-IS air strikes in Somalia.

The first strike occurred around midnight Somalia time (0300 GMT) with the second strike coming at about 11:00 am (1400 GMT).

In recent months, the US has repeatedly hit Somali jihadists from the Shabaab rebel group that is aligned with Al-Qaeda, but Friday's development marks a significant step in the ever-evolving war against IS.

"US forces will continue to use all authorized and appropriate measures to protect Americans and to disable terrorist threats," AFRICOM said.

IS claimed its first suicide attack in Somalia in May, killing at least five people as it stepped up activities in a region dominated by the Shabaab.

The militants are led by former Shabaab cleric Abdiqadir Mumin, who switched allegiance from Al-Qaeda to IS in October 2015 and was named a "global terrorist" by the US State Department in August.

Mumin was born in Puntland and lived in Sweden before moving to the UK in the 2000s, where he was granted British citizenship.
The smog-shrouded Los Angeles skyline is seen in this file photo from May 31, 2015. The latest US report says this current period in time is "the warmest in the history of modern civilization"

The US government released Friday a major scientific report that says climate change is "extremely likely" to be caused by human activity and will get worse without major cuts to carbon emissions.

The findings of the federally mandated report were approved by the White House, even though they are starkly at odds with the position of President Donald Trump, who has labeled global warming a Chinese hoax and named fossil fuel ally Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Climate Science Special Report spans more than 600 pages and is part of a larger report known as the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which is being issued in draft form for public comment.

Based on "a large body of scientific, peer-reviewed research," global annually averaged surface air temperature has increased by about 1.8 Fahrenheit (1.0 Celsius) over the last 115 years (1901-2016), it says.

"This period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization," said the report, available at science2017.globalchange.gov.

Since the last report of its kind was issued in 2014, "stronger evidence has emerged for continuing, rapid, human-caused warming of the global atmosphere and ocean," the text said.

"It is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century," the report added, noting there "is no convincing alternative explanation."

It was compiled by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, with contributions from NASA, the Department of Energy and other federal agencies. Co-authors included more than 50 scientists from government agencies, universities and the private sector.

"I am quite confident to say that there has been no political interference in the scientific messages from this report," co-lead author David Fahey, director of the chemical sciences division at NOAA, told reporters on a conference call.

"I think whatever fears we had were not realized," he added.

"The word interference might have been a threat, but it never materialized. This report says what the scientists wanted to say."

- Worse effects ahead -

After examining long-term climate records and data going back thousands of years, the report said that in the modern era, "average temperatures in recent decades over much of the world have been much higher, and have risen faster during this time period than at any time in the past 1,700 years or more."

By the end of the century, "without major reductions in emissions, the increase in annual average global temperature relative to preindustrial times could reach 9 Fahrenheit (5 Celsius) or more," it said.

Sea level can be expected to rise "several inches in the next 15 years," and one to four feet (30 to 120 centimeters) by century's end, it said.

A global "rise of as much as eight feet by 2100 cannot be ruled out."

And Americans are already experiencing the effects of climate change through heavier rainfall, coastal flooding, drought, more frequent heatwaves and wildfires, and earlier snow melt.

- 'Not new' -

The findings came as no surprise to climate scientists.

"This isn't new," said Peter Gleick, president-emeritus of the Pacific Institute and a member of the US National Academies of Science.

"This is news only because Trump couldn't censor it," he said on Twitter.

The Trump administration has repeatedly denied or downplayed the role of fossil fuels in global warming.

EPA chief Pruitt shocked scientists earlier this year when he argued in a media interview that carbon dioxide was not a primary contributor to global warming.

However, the White House cleared the report for release, NOAA said.

NOAA said the report "serves as the foundation for efforts to assess climate-related risks and inform decision-making about responses."

The findings do not contain policy recommendations, but serve to inform future strategies.

The Union of Concerned Scientists senior climate scientist, Rachel Licker, said "the American public must hold legislators and policy-makers accountable for taking action commensurate with the problem."

Democratic Senator Al Franken of Minnesota and eight of his colleagues this week sent a letter to Trump asking "what safeguards are in place to ensure that the National Climate Assessment and the Climate Science Special Report give fair and accurate summations of the latest climate science without political interference."

The senators also asked how the Trump Administration plans to address the report's findings.
Country singer Brad Paisley took exception to proposed rules, now rescinded, restricting reporters' questions at the CMA Awards

The Country Music Association on Friday apologized and reversed course after it warned journalists covering its annual awards not to ask about gun rights and other political topics.

The organizers of the CMA Awards, which take place on Wednesday in Nashville, had triggered an uproar with the initial guidance issued to the press.

Pointing to "sensitivities" following last month's massacre at a country music festival in Las Vegas, the organizers asked reporters not to focus "on the Las Vegas tragedy, gun rights, political affiliations or topics of the like."

"If you are reported as straying from these guidelines, your credential will be reviewed and potentially revoked via security escort," the original guidelines said.

Brad Paisley, one of the most awarded artists in country music, was among those who took exception, writing on Twitter that the rules were "ridiculous and unfair."

The association rescinded the guidelines Friday, saying in a statement: "CMA apologizes for the recently distributed restrictions in the CMA Awards media guidelines, which have since been lifted."

"The sentiment was not to infringe and was created with the best of intentions to honor and celebrate country music," it said.

Stephen Paddock is accused of opening fire at a country music festival in Las Vegas on October 1, killing 58 people and injuring hundreds in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.

The massacre brought familiar calls for tougher rules on guns, but with Republicans controlling the White House and Congress there was little chance of a move to significantly tighten restrictions.

Unlike Hollywood and the US pop music industry, which lean overwhelmingly to the left, country music has plenty of conservative artists, although few have been outspoken in supporting President Donald Trump.

The fan base for country is predominantly white, with roots in the states of the former pro-slavery Confederacy.

The CMA Awards are one of two major prize shows for country music.

The other major event for the genre, the Academy of Country Music Awards, steered clear of overt politics during its last edition in April in Las Vegas.

Music publicists in the United States routinely press journalists to avoid controversial topics in coverage of their artists, although direct attempts to prevent reporters' work are unusual.
Brigadier General John Baker, who heads up the defense teams at Guantanamo, was released after two days of confinement

A US Marine general who had been sentenced to confinement on the Guantanamo Bay naval base was freed Friday, two days after he had been found in contempt of military court.

Brigadier General John Baker, who heads up the defense teams at Guantanamo, had been ordered to spend 21 days confined to quarters at the US military base in Cuba.

He had refused to comply with a judge's demands during a hearing in the case against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the accused mastermind of the attack on the USS Cole in 2000.

The unprecedented action drew quick scorn from critics, who said it illustrates the overall disfunction of the drawn-out military hearings against Nashiri and other high-profile inmates including the alleged plotters of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Harvey Rishikof, a civilian lawyer and the so-called "convening authority" in the Nashiri case, needed to approve Baker's sentence.

Just as lawyers in Washington were preparing to appeal to a federal judge for Baker's release, Rishikof agreed to defer the punishment while he considers the case.

At about 1:00 pm (1700 GMT), "Brigadier General Baker was served a letter notifying him that the imposition of the remainder of his sentence was delayed until the convening authority makes a final decision on the matter," said military hearings spokesman Major Ben Sakrisson.

The general's confinement stems from a dispute with the military judge in the Nashiri case, Air Force Colonel Vance Spath.

Baker had agreed to let Nashiri's civilian defense team quit the case over a series of ethical conflicts and a lack of confidence that their privileged conversations were in fact confidential.

But Spath ordered them to appear in person at the base or via video conference, the Miami Herald reported.

When Baker refused, Spath found him in contempt.

Michel Paradis, a civilian lawyer who works for Baker, told the Herald that Baker's release was a positive step, but that the deferred sentence was worrisome.

"At any time, the (authorities) can re-impose the sentence on him," Paradis told the Herald.
14 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation have been leveled at staff of the Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the past three months

The United Nations reported 31 new allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation in three months Friday, with nearly half of those involving staff or partner organizations of the UN refugee agency.

From July to September, there were 12 new cases reported in six peacekeeping missions in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Liberia, Mali and South Sudan.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR reported 15 allegations, while three new cases involved staff at the International Organisation on Migration and one allegation was directed against the UN children's agency UNICEF.

One allegation at UNHCR has been substantiated, while two others are still under investigation. The other cases are being reviewed, according to UN information.

In all, 14 investigations have been launched during the three months.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has made fighting sexual abuse by peacekeepers and UN staff a priority of his tenure.

The UN chief is "obviously disappointed and saddened that these actions continue," said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

The United Nations has been damaged by a wave of rape cases involving peacekeepers in the Central African Republic, prompting former UN chief Ban Ki-moon to fire the mission commander.

Of the 31 cases, 12 took place this year, two were from last year and six in 2015. The dates have not been established for the remaining 11 allegations.

The United Nations is monitoring staff who have been involved in cases to ensure that when the allegations are substantiated they are not re-hired by the world body, said the spokesman.
Theodorin Obiang is estimated to have used France to launder 150 million euros in misappropriated funds

The son of Equatorial Guinea's leader, Teodorin Obiang, who was given a three-year suspended prison sentence in France for using public money to fund a jet-set lifestyle, will appeal the landmark ruling, his lawyer said Friday.

The 48-year-old vice president of the small west African state, tried in absentia, was also given a suspended fine of 30 million euros (35 million dollars) by judges for money laundering, corruption and abuse of trust in last week's verdict.

The case, which was sparked by two anti-corruption NGOs, is the first of three involving families of African leaders, which campaigners hope signals a new willingness of French authorities to tackle money laundering.

Obiang's lawyer Emmanuel Marsigny announced the decision to appeal the verdict.

Paris has long been a favoured destination for the ill-gotten gains of wealthy figures linked to political leaders in Africa, particularly in France's former colonies.

Obiang is estimated to have used France to launder 150 million euros in misappropriated funds.

During his three-week trial in June and July, the court heard about the fortune and playboy Parisian lifestyle of Obiang, who is the son of Equatorial Guinea's president of 38 years, Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

He was accused of spending more than 1,000 times his official annual salary on a six-storey mansion in a posh part of the French capital, a fleet of fast cars and artworks, among other assets.

The Paris court ruled that his 107-million-euro mansion near the Champs-Elysees avenue -- which boasts a hammam, a disco and gold-plated taps -- should be confiscated, along with other assets.
Republican Senator Rob Portman was among the sponsors of the Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking bill in Congress

Major US tech firms reversed course Friday and endorsed a proposal in Congress which could hold website owners liable for human trafficking.

The Internet Association, which includes giants Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Amazon, said in a statement it supported the measure after reaching a compromise with legislative sponsors.

The association "is committed to combating sexual exploitation and sex trafficking online" president Michael Beckerman said in endorsing the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA).

"Important changes made to SESTA will grant victims the ability to secure the justice they deserve, allow internet platforms to continue their work combating human trafficking, and protect good actors in the ecosystem."

Tech firms and others had argued earlier this year the measure, aimed at modifying the liability provisions of the Communications Decency Act, could eliminate the free-speech underpinnings of the internet, giving websites immunity from content posted by others.

It remained unclear whether digital rights activists would support the compromise, which some said appeared aimed at websites such as Backpage accused of facilitating sexual exploitation.

The changes, according to lawmakers, would make clear that any criminal charges are based on a violation of the federal human trafficking law and also clarify the definition of participating in a venture "knowingly" for websites that are facilitating sex trafficking.

The Senate Commerce Committee plans a vote November 8, which could send the bill to the full chamber for passage. It would still need passage in the House of Representatives to be sent to the White House.

"This important bill will hold online sex traffickers accountable and help give trafficking survivors the justice they deserve," said Senator Rob Portman, a sponsor.

"I'm pleased we've reached an agreement to further clarify the intent of the bill and advance this important legislation."
A new trove of secret documents about the November 22, 1963 assassination of president John F. Kennedy has been released by the National Archives

A new batch of files, mostly secret CIA records, related to the November 1963 assassination of US president John F. Kennedy was released by the National Archives on Friday.

Nearly 680 records were made public including 553 never-before-seen files from the Central Intelligence Agency, which had objected to their release previously on national security grounds.

Among the CIA files released were detailed records, for example, of efforts to recruit Soviet diplomats serving in foreign missions, complete with transcripts of wiretaps.

The National Archives said the other documents published online were from the Justice Department, the Defense Department and a House committee which conducted an inquiry into Kennedy's November 22, 1963 assassination in Dallas, Texas.

The official Warren Commission which investigated the slaying of the charismatic 46-year-old president determined that it was carried out by a former Marine Corps sharpshooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone.

The commission's formal conclusion that Oswald killed Kennedy has done little, however, to quell speculation that a more sinister plot was behind the murder of the 35th US president.

Hundreds of books and movies such as the 1991 Oliver Stone film "JFK" have fed the conspiracy industry, pointing the finger at Cold War rivals the Soviet Union or Cuba, the Mafia and even Kennedy's vice president, Lyndon Johnson.

Kennedy scholars have said the new documents are unlikely to contain any bombshell revelations or put to rest the rampant conspiracy theories.

Friday's document release by the National Archives is the third this year and in compliance with a 1992 act of Congress that mandated that all Kennedy documents be released within 25 years.

President Donald Trump has given the FBI and CIA six months -- until April 26, 2018 -- to make their case for why remaining documents should not be made public.

The National Archives released 2,891 assassination documents on October 26 and 3,810 records on July 24.

Oswald defected to the Soviet Union in 1959 but returned to the United States in 1962.

He was shot to death two days after killing Kennedy by a nightclub owner, Jack Ruby, as he was being transferred from the city jail.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Roused by the first major ISIS-inspired attack on U.S. soil since he took office, President Donald Trump urged swift repeal of an immigration program that brought the suspect to America and laid into a political foe he said was responsible for it - though Republican George H. W. Bush signed the law.

Trump insisted Wednesday that Congress must end the visa lottery program under which Uzbek immigrant Sayfullo Saipov entered the country, and he ordered still tighter scrutiny of immigrants already subject to what he calls "extreme vetting." But the White House offered no indication of what new steps the president might be planning.

"We have to get much tougher, much smarter, and less politically correct," Trump said. He also said the U.S. justice system for dealing with such cases must be strengthened, declaring, "What we have right now is a joke and it's a laughingstock." Again, there was no elaboration from the White House.

In this Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2017 photo, President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. Trump is calling for "Merit Based immigration" following the truck attack in New York City that killed eight people and injured 11. Trump says on Twitter Wednesday that the driver in Tuesday's attack "came into our country through what is called the 'Diversity Visa Lottery Program,' a Chuck Schumer beauty." (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Trump denounced the 29-year-old suspect in the truck attack, which killed eight and injured many more, as an "animal," and said he was open to sending the man to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, instead of to trial in New York. "I would certainly consider that. Send him to Gitmo," Trump said.

Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the White House considered Saipov an "enemy combatant" and had yet to decide whether to seek to move him out of the civilian judicial system to military detention.

A little later, however, prosecutors in New York filed charges in federal court accusing Saipov with providing material support to a terrorist group and committing violence and destruction of motor vehicles.

On the political front, Trump took to Twitter early Wednesday to blame Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat who represents New York, for the bipartisan visa program used by the suspect to enter the country in 2010.

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that Saipov entered the U.S under the Diversity Visa Lottery Program, which gives people from countries with low rates of immigration an opportunity to come to the U.S. Trump branded the program "a Chuck Schumer beauty," and called on Congress to immediately begin work to end it.

It was not immediately clear when Saipov was radicalized by the Islamic State group, but the New York City Police Department said he began planning the attack weeks ago.

Schumer did back the lottery program as a member of the House when it was approved with the support of both parties in 1990. It was signed by Republican President George H.W. Bush.

Trump's broadside against a senator from the state still reeling from the attack drew bipartisan criticism.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that Trump's attack against Schumer "plays right into the hands of the terrorists," by sowing division at a time when unity is needed. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said it was "probably not the best way to bring out the best in our country." Corker, who has announced he will not run for re-election in 2018, has been increasingly critical of Trump's temperament.

Schumer himself offered this advice: "The president ought to stop tweeting and start leading."

Sanders later said Trump "has not blamed Senator Schumer and doesn't feel that the senator is responsible for the attack."

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, defended Trump's criticism of the visa lottery program.

"The diversity lottery visa's been criticized by many people as being pretty indiscriminate in terms of who's accepted into the country. I think it needs to be looked at. And I agree with the president that it can certainly be improved by more of a merit-based system."

Sanders dismissed complaints that Trump was politicizing a tragedy, saying his calls for increasing extreme vetting of immigrants are "something that frankly the president has been talking about for a long time."

Indeed, Trump has made repeated attempts to restrict entry into the country through various iterations of a travel ban, which have been blocked by federal courts. The administration has argued that it needs a temporary pause on entry from certain countries in order to develop stricter vetting measures and put them in place.

In the meantime, the administration has worked to improve information-sharing with various countries. It also has developed new requirements for entry into the U.S., such as the use of biometric passports that are more difficult to forge.

Officials could not elaborate on what new measures Trump was referring to in his tweet hours after the attack when he said he had "just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program."

Sanders said that, since the tweet, the president had spoken several times with members of his national security team to "look and see" what more can be done.

"But," she said, "we have put in place executive orders already since the president's taken office that help go as far as we can at this point."

Trump's swift political response to the New York attacks contrasts with his wait-and-see approach after the October massacre of 59 people by a Las Vegas gunman. The White House then argued it was "premature" to discuss a legislative response and says now it is still studying whether to seek a ban on the modifications used by the Las Vegas shooter to fire his rifles at near-automatic rates.

The two responses offer the latest suggestions of how the culture wars that defined Trump's campaign may be coloring his actions.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump proposed a total ban on Muslim immigration to the U.S. before embracing "extreme vetting." He has backed legislation that would curb legal immigration and shift the nation toward a system that would place an emphasis on merit and skills over family ties and diversity criteria.

___

Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.

Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of N.Y., attends a news conference on American labor on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017, Trump said on Twitter that the driver in Tuesday's attack "came into our country through what is called the 'Diversity Visa Lottery Program,' a Chuck Schumer beauty" - a reference to the Senate's Democratic leader. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders gestures as she answers questions while speaking to the media during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

This image released by the FBI shows the seeking information poster for Mukhammadzoir Kadirov. The FBI is looking for information on a second man in connection with a deadly truck attack on a bike path near the World Trade Center. The bureau on Nov. 1, 2017, issued the poster saying it is seeking the public's help with information about the 32-year-old. The poster doesn't say why investigators want to know more about the man. (FBI via AP)
CINCINNATI (AP) - A University of Cincinnati music teacher is apologizing for his fiery online responses to a Muslim student who was critical of Donald Trump's presidency and talked about celebrating freedom and diversity.

College-Conservatory of Music assistant professor Clifford Adams wrote a letter to The Cincinnati Enquirer saying he is "deeply sorry" for hurting feelings and offending people with recent comments he says made him "come across as a religious bigot."

He says he intended to have a "lively, provocative, scholarly argument" and didn't expect the discussion to go outside his "What's Hot in Popular Music" class.

His comments to the student cited Islamic terrorist attacks and said Muslim females are safer in America than in any Middle Eastern county, asking "how dare" she complain.

The university says in a statement that its investigation is continuing.

___

Information from: The Cincinnati Enquirer, http://www.enquirer.com
GENEVA (AP) - A new United Nations report has found that the Islamic State group committed serious "international crimes" such as using civilians as human shields during the Iraqi military's nine-month campaign to liberate the city of Mosul.

The report published Thursday by the U.N. assistance Mission for Iraq and the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights is based on witness testimony. It documents the mass abduction of civilians, the intentional shelling of civilian residences and indiscriminate targeting of civilians trying to flee the city.

Mosul fell to IS in a matter of days in 2014, but the campaign to retake the city lasted nearly nine months. The fight, closely backed by airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, brought an end to the extremists' so-called territorial caliphate.
GAINESVILLE, Ga. (AP) - Authorities say two teenagers have been charged in connection with a street-racing wreck in Georgia that killed another teenager.

Gainesville police Sgt. Kevin Holbrook told news outlets that 18-year-old Brandon Eduardo Sanchez and a 17-year-old were racing Monday around 11:45 p.m. when Sanchez lost control of the vehicle, crossed the median and hit a tree.

Sanchez's passenger, another 17-year-old boy, died in the wreck and was pronounced dead at the scene. A Hall County Schools news release says the victim was a student at West Hall High School.

Authorities learned Sanchez only had a learner's permit. He was charged with first-degree vehicular homicide. The teenage driver of the other vehicle was charged with being a party to first-degree vehicular homicide.

It's unclear if the two have lawyers.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - When Virginia elected L. Douglas Wilder as the first black governor in the country nearly 30 years ago, many heralded a new chapter in a state with a painful racial past.

"The day of extreme racism may be over," Ernest Miller, an African-American educator from Farmville, told a reporter at Wilder's election night victory party in Richmond.

Now retired and unhappy with President Donald Trump as well as the tone of the current governor's race, Miller said racism "seems to be coming more alive."

FILE - In this Monday Oct. 9, 2016, file photo, Republican gubernatorial candidate, Ed Gillespie, right, gestures during a debate with Democratic challenger Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, during a debate at University of Virginia-Wise in Wise, Va. Political observers say Virginia's closely watched race for governor has become one of the state's most racially charged campaigns in recent memory. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)

"Back then I had more hope," Miller said.

The contest between Republican Ed Gillespie and Democrat Ralph Northam has become one of Virginia's most racially charged campaigns in memory, observers say. Shaped by Trump's moves to crack down on immigration and this summer's deadly white nationalist rally over Confederate monuments in Charlottesville, it has involved bare-knuckled, personal attacks involving race by both the candidates as well as their allies.

And Election Tuesday's outcome is likely to hinge on minority turnout.

"Here you have two relatively bland, unexciting candidates running these brutal, negative attack ads," said longtime political observer Bob Holsworth. "It's almost as if both campaigns are very worried their base won't turn out, so they're going to work to terrify them."

Gillespie has made campaign bedrocks of preserving Confederate statues and enacting tougher policies toward Virginia's undocumented immigrants. He's spent millions on hard-edged ads, including some accusing Northam of being "weak" on the Hispanic gang MS-13 - which critics called race-baiting.

A Gillespie mailer called undocumented immigrants "illegals," a pejorative term his campaign later disavowed. And the state party had to apologize after tweeting that Northam - because an ancestor may have fought in the Civil War - "turned his back on his own family's heritage" by favoring the statues' removal.

Gillespie's campaign also has run ads trying to link Northam to sex offenders for supporting automatic rights restoration of felons who have served their time. The new policy of automatic restoration of voting and other rights, enacted by term-limited Gov. Terry McAuliffe, was designed to end decades of black disenfranchisement.

Gabriel Schonfeld, who worked with Gillespie on Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential run, is one of several conservatives publicly blasting Gillespie's campaign strategy.

"A great guy, now covering himself in filth," Schonfeld said on Twitter.

Northam's TV attacks on Gillespie have focused more on his lobbying career than racial issues, but a Northam mailer lumped Gillespie in with the torch-wielding white supremacists at Charlottesville, saying Election Day was a chance to "stand up to hate."

The Latino Victory Fund, a group backing Northam that's funded partly by mega-donor George Soros, called Trump and Gillespie "two racist peas in a pod" in one ad. Another shows a Gillespie supporter chasing down children of different minority groups in a pickup truck.

"The only people I see stoking political racism right now are the people in the groups that are running ads like the one you saw take place in Virginia," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday.

The truck ad was pulled after an Uzbek immigrant was arrested and accused of using a truck to kill eight people in Manhattan.

Neither Gillespie nor Northam has backed down from their or their allies ads.

Racial politics once took center stage in Virginia, home of the former Confederate capital and hub of a past segregationist movement known as Massive Resistance. But recent decades have seen Virginia turn more cosmopolitan and liberal.

Democrats control all statewide seats and have won three of the last four gubernatorial contests. Virginia was the only Southern state Trump didn't win last year. And voter-rich northern Virginia, where Democrats frequently run up insurmountable totals, is one of the nation's most ethnically diverse areas. Strong black support in urban areas is another reason for the Democrats' success.

Against those headwinds, Gillespie has worked to develop ties with Northern Virginia's various ethnic groups, and he proposed criminal justice reforms he said would help the African-American community. As a former Republican National Committee chairman, Gillespie also has advocated for a more welcoming GOP for years.

But critics say Gillespie has undercut those efforts as the broader population sees campaign ads targeted at white Trump voters.

"You cannot say one thing and do another," said Miller, a past president of the state NAACP chapter.

Northam is facing headwinds of his own. Minority voters historically turn out in lower numbers in off-year state-level elections, and in last year's presidential election, voter turnout in mostly black precincts dropped 8 percent compared to when President Barack Obama was running in 2008 and 2012, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.

Northam is keenly focused on courting black voters, with frequent campaign stops at African-American churches and seven-figure spending on outreach efforts. And all of Northam's high-profile campaign surrogates from out-of-state have been black, including Obama, former Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris.

Harris, who stumped last weekend for Northam, said reaching diverse communities is crucial in the Trump era and she's heartened by the enthusiasm she's seeing in Virginia.

"There's an incredible amount of excitement," she said.

FILE - In this Oct. 19, 2017, file photo, former President Barack Obama, left, and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov., Ralph Northam laugh during a rally in Richmond, Va. Political observers say Virginia's closely watched race for governor between Northam and Republican Ed Gillespie has become one of the state's most racially charged campaigns in recent memory. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)

FILE - In this Tuesday March 21, 2017, file photo, Republican gubernatorial candidate, Ed Gillespie, gestures during a kitchen table discussion at a private home in Toano, Va. Political observers say Virginia's closely watched race for governor between Gillespie and Democrat Ralph Northam has become one of the state's most racially charged campaigns in recent memory. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee warned the Trump administration on Thursday not to nominate any more executives from major defense contractors for senior Pentagon positions.

During a hearing, Sen. John McCain said he's long had reservations about defense contractors filling out the Pentagon's upper ranks and potentially undercutting rigorous oversight of the defense industry. McCain, however, signaled his support for the nomination of Raytheon Vice President Mark Esper, who was selected by President Donald Trump in July to be Army secretary.

He told Esper during the confirmation hearing his concerns "grew out of early consultations I had with the administration about potential nominations, including yours and a handful of others that were yet to be nominated." McCain said "it was then that I decided I couldn't support further nominees with that background, beyond those we had already discussed."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaks to reporters following the weekly Republican policy luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2017. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

The Arizona lawmaker did not elaborate on who the last nominee with heavy defense industry ties would be.

Esper has been Raytheon's top lobbyist since 2010. He agreed, if confirmed, to recuse himself for two years from matters related to the Raytheon Company that may come before him.

Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed and General Dynamics are among the Pentagon's largest contractors.

The Senate in recent months has confirmed former Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan to be deputy defense secretary and Ellen Lord, the former chief executive officer of Textron Systems, to be undersecretary of defense for acquisition. Heather Wilson, who represented New Mexico in the House before becoming a defense industry consultant, was approved in May as Trump's Air Force secretary.

Although Esper was nominated in July, his confirmation was delayed over a clash between McCain and the Pentagon that had nothing to do with his qualifications. McCain said the Trump administration wasn't keeping his committee in the loop on key military matters, such as the details underpinning Trump's new strategy for Afghanistan and the deadly ambush in the African nation of Niger.

Until the information started to flow, McCain blocked most Defense Department nominations from proceeding. He eased the grip last week after two senior Pentagon officials gave the committee a classified briefing on the Niger ambush that killed four U.S. soldiers. Members earlier this week received another closed-door update from Navy leaders on their investigation of two deadly ship collisions in the Pacific.

Esper is Trump's third choice for Army secretary, a post the president has struggled to fill. Trump's first pick for the Army's top civilian job, Vincent Viola, dropped out in early February because of financial entanglements. Mark Green, Trump's second choice for Army secretary, stepped aside in May amid criticism over his remarks about Muslims and LGBT Americans.

___

Contact Richard Lardner on Twitter at http://twitter.com/rplardner
LONDON (AP) - The number of European Union nurses and midwives registering to work in Britain fell by almost 90 percent in the 12 months to September, according to the first full-year figures since the U.K. voted to leave the bloc.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council said Thursday that the number of EU nationals joining the profession here was 10,178 in the year to Sept. 2016 and 1,107 in the year to Sept. 2017.

The number of EU nurses and midwives leaving the profession also rose sharply.

Liberal Democrat health spokeswoman Judith Jolly, who opposes Brexit, said it was evidence of a "deeply worrying Brexodus of EU nurses."

But the Department for Health said 3,193 more EU nationals are working in Britain's health service than at the time of the June 2016 referendum.
The deepest division running through the West is not between Right and Left, or liberty and collectivism. Western civilization must choose this day whether it is grounded in a covenant or a degraded and authoritarian form of populism, according to the former Chief Rabbi of the UK.

While receiving AEIs highest honor, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks distinguished between two rival views of society derived from his exegesis of I Samuel 8. A social contract creates a government, while a covenant creates a society:

In a contract, you make an exchange, which is to the benefit of the self-interest of each.  A covenant isnt like that. Its more like a marriage than an exchange. In a covenant, two or more parties each respecting the dignity and integrity of the other come together in a bond of loyalty and trust to do together what neither can do alone. A covenant isnt about me; its about us. A covenant isnt about interests; its about identity. A covenant isnt about me, the voter, or me, the consumer, but about all of us together. Or in that lovely key phrase of American politics, its about We, the people.

The social consequences of each path become clear. A covenant calls a people upward toward virtue, higher purpose, and values shared in community. Degraded populism inflames self-interest to the point of envy. A covenant unifies society in pursuit of the peoples agreed telos. Degraded populism Balkanizes by generating conflict based on ever-finer divisions. A covenant creates the social trust necessary for society to create wealth through free (not to mention honest and harmonious) exchange, specialization of labor, and economies of scale. Degraded populism divides society to redistribute some of its members belongings.

Populism remains on the march across the transatlantic sphere. Rabbi Sacks cited a recent Bridgewater Capital survey that found populist sentiments in the West highest levels since the 1930s. Similarly the European Policy Information Center (EPIC) found that Authoritarian-Populism has overtaken Liberalism and has now established itself as the third ideological force in European politics. (The European definition of liberalism is akin to libertarianism in American parlance.)

One need not turn to academic surveys when election returns will do. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the first populist party to land a seat in the German Bundestag in the postwar era. Europes youngest leader, 31-year-old Sebastian Kurz of Austria, is seeking to form a governing coalition between his conservative Peoples Party (OVP) and the populist Freedom Party. The newly elected prime minister of the Czech Republic, Andrej Babis, is trying to form a coalition government with anyone who will partner with his populist ANO Party. (So far, his only takers have been the Communists.) They join the populist leaders entrenched in Central and Eastern Europe.

Much populist sentiment is fueled by justifiable disenchantment with the academic-government-lobbyist nexus typified by rampant cronyism, bailouts, and sweetheart deals. Todays elites, wrote Philip Stephens in the Financial Times, should ask themselves just when it became acceptable for politicians to walk straight from public office into the boardroom of big corporate monopolies that have eschewed wealth creation for rent-seeking. The self-interest of the powerful provokes populist backlash.

Thankfully, the call of covenant is deeply embedded in American culture. It is reflected in the closest thing the United States ever had to a national prayer book, the Book of Common Prayer, which asks God every morning to keep all in authority  ever mindful of their calling to serve this people in Thy fear.

America, Rabbi Sacks said:

understands more clearly than any other Western nation that freedom requires not just a state, but also and even more importantly a society, a society built of strong covenantal institutions, of marriages, families, congregations, communities, charities, and voluntary associations. Alexis de Tocqueville rightly saw that these were the buffers between the individual and the state.

Family decay undermines our national covenant, as a growing share of Americans have no traditional family structure or role model for healthy problem-solving. Instead, they turn to the State  which so adeptly enriched the elites  for our bailout. A disengaged and self-serving people outsource their compassion to the government  and, in Rabbi Sacks phrase, the covenant degenerates into a social contract.

At that point, politics begins to indulge in magical thinking, and people begin to think that all political problems can be solved by the state, said Rabbi Sacks. Then comes populism, the belief that a strong leader can solve all our problems for us. And that is the first step down the road to tyranny.

First, of course, comes perpetual social upheaval. But this can be arrested, even reversed. Covenants can be renewed, Rabbi Sacks said, and that has to be our project now and for the foreseeable future  strengthening marriage and the family.

The temporal response to authoritarian-populism comes when politicians competently steward the power entrusted to them. The opposite of populism, said Hungarian MP Zoltan Kesz at the 2017 European Liberty Forum in Budapest, is taking responsibility and working hard for citizens. Government is most competent when limited to constitutionally delegated powers, the market is free to generate wealth, and civic and faith institutions create a self-reliant citizenry.

The permanent antidote to authoritarian-populism demands spiritual renewal. When faith forms, informs, and transforms the culture, then families are literally  and virtuous people are figuratively  their brothers keeper. And the people recognize, and embrace, everyone as a member of the covenantal family.

Can covenantal kinship be revived in the West? The prophet Ezekiel experienced a mystical vision of a national regeneration from mere dry bones. When he followed the commandment to speak Gods word over the graveyard:

Behold, there was a shaking, and the bones approached each one to his joint. And I looked, and behold, sinews and flesh grew upon them, and skin came upon them above  and the breath entered into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, a very great congregation (Ezekiel 37:7-10, LXX).

Such a resurgence demands the recitation of our covenantal creed, the values of Western civilization, and a strong respect for the faith traditions that constituted the very heart of the culture.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Churches would gain the right to endorse political candidates and still retain their tax-free status under a provision in the House GOP's tax overhaul plan.

The bill would repeal a 63-year-old law credited to former President Lyndon Johnson when he served in the Senate.

Critics warn it could open a loophole that could funnel tax-free money into campaigns. The provision would cost $2 billion over the coming decade, according to congressional scorekeepers.

The Johnson amendment law prohibits tax-exempt charitable organizations such as churches from participating directly or indirectly in any political campaign to support or oppose a candidate. If the IRS determines that a group has violated the law, it can revoke its tax-exempt status.

The law doesn't stop religious groups from weighing in on public policy or organizing in ways that may benefit one side in a campaign.

Democrats have argued that undercutting the law comes too close to mixing church and state. They say religious leaders already have First Amendment rights, just like anyone else. But if they want to get political, they don't have a constitutional right not to pay taxes.

The GOP plan permits political activity by churches so long as there is a minimal cost.

Campaign finance groups warned the change could have far-reaching implications, turning "churches into tools for secret campaign spending," said Tiffany Muller, president of End Citizens United.

Johnson introduced the measure in 1954 when he was a Democratic senator from Texas, driven by his anger over a few nonprofit groups that had attacked him as a communist in a Senate campaign.

The law was signed by a Republican president - Dwight Eisenhower - but Republicans have been criticizing it in recent years and pledged to repeal it as part of the tax overhaul.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in May discouraging the IRS from enforcing the law.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Nicolas Maduro announced Thursday that he will begin restructuring Venezuela's foreign debt, calling it the best way to get around U.S. financial sanctions that he said are crippling the oil-dependent nation.

But in a sign that he may be trying to avoid an ugly fight with Wall Street, Maduro also ordered state-run oil company PDVSA to make one last $1.2 billion bond payment in full before attempting to postpone future foreign payments.

"I decree a refinancing and a restructuring of all external debt and all of Venezuela's payments," Maduro said in a nationally broadcast address.

FILE - In this Oct. 17, 2017 file photo, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a press conference at the Miraflores presidential palace, in Caracas, Venezuela. Maduro said Thursday, Nov. 2 2017, that his socialist government will begin restructuring a foreign debt estimated at more than $120 billion, saying U.S. financial sanctions are crippling the oil-dependent economy's ability to pay. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

As Venezuela's economy has shrunk more than 35 percent since 2014 - more than the U.S. did during the Great Depression - Maduro's socialist government has found itself forced to choose between paying its foreign creditors and helping a population ravaged by triple-digit inflation and widespread food and medicine shortages. For the most past, it's gone out of the way to prioritize paying its debt, finding new funds from ally Russia and proving wrong critics who for months had been predicting a doomsday default.

But financial sanctions announced in August by the Trump administration banning U.S. investors from lending new funds to Venezuela has made it harder to maintain the delicate balance.

"We have had to face a real global financial persecution," Maduro said, adding that Venezuela had paid $72 billion in debt since he came to power in 2013 despite a precipitous fall in oil income for the OPEC nation.

___

This story has been corrected to show that the bond payment will be $1.1 billion.
SAN DIEGO (AP) - Three animal rights activists are barred from SeaWorld San Diego after participating in a protest led by actor James Cromwell.

A judge Thursday also barred Ricky Chavez Rodriguez, Lyanne Fernandez and Lisa Lange from its waterslide park, Aquatica, for three years.

The three People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals members and Cromwell barged into an Orca Encounter show on July 24 with signs reading "SeaWorld Kills." PETA wants the orcas released from tanks.

SeaWorld said the three acted aggressively when security staff removed them. PETA has said the guards roughed them up.

SeaWorld San Diego President Marilyn Hannes said the ruling shows such behavior will not be tolerated, though the judge did not rule on the incident.

PETA says both parties agreed on the ban. It plans to still protest against SeaWorld.
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - A Day of the Dead altar with family photos of orphaned children in the arms of the departed stood as silent testimony to New Mexico's struggle to reduce the toll of opioid addiction, while state lawmakers and health care experts searched Thursday for new tools to combat deaths from the drug crisis gripping the nation.

The unique display at a summit attended by some 300 people in the most Hispanic state comes amid Dia de Los Muertos, a Mexican holiday remembering loved ones who have died.

The number of annual drug overdose deaths in New Mexico has plateaued amid a series of pioneering policies to combat opioid addiction, including becoming the first state to require law enforcement agencies to provide officers with overdose antidote kits.

A Day of the Dead altar in memory of people who died from drug overdoses stands in silent testimony to New Mexico's struggle to reduce the toll of opioid addiction, as state lawmakers and public health experts met on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017, in Santa Fe, N.M. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

Other solutions include a prescription monitoring database to prevent dangerous overlapping drug sales; increasingly expanding access to naloxone, a drug that can reverse overdoses; and allowing more medical providers to prescribe the opioid anti-craving drug bupenorphine.

Six states rushed to adopt many of those measures this year by declaring public health emergencies over opioid abuse ahead of the national emergency that President Donald Trump declared last week.

New Mexico epidemiologist Michael Landen on Thursday said he expects the state to fall to about 15th place in the rate of drug overdose deaths in 2016 from eighth place the prior year. Federal rankings are due out later this year.

He cautioned that New Mexico's ranking has improved only because the crisis is surging elsewhere. That left a committee of lawmakers grasping for new solutions at the summit in Santa Fe.

Against one wall, candles and orange marigold flowers decorated a makeshift altar. People wrote down the names of loved ones lost to addiction or propped up family photographs.

Lupe Salazar, 50, added a photo of a sister who overdosed on heroin, leaving her to care for two nieces, ages 4 and 10.

"There's this empty space now," she said. "No matter how many years go by, there is that void."

Lawmakers on a health care committee sought advice from a panel of experts in pain management, opioid antidote treatments and pharmacy practices on whether the state should adopt a seven-day limit on post-surgery opiate pain medication.

And they looked for scientific research on the use of medical marijuana to ease withdrawal symptoms. Republican Gov. Susana Martinez vetoed legislation this year that would have added "opioid use disorder" to the list of eligible conditions for medical marijuana.

Joanna Katzman, executive medical director at the University of New Mexico Pain Center, said it's not clear if limiting post-surgery opioid prescriptions can reduce overdose deaths, though several states have made that change.

State Sen. Liz Stefanics, a Santa Fe Democrat, suggested the widest possible distribution of antidote medication.

"I'm interested in legislation that would make Narcan available just like contraceptives in the state," Stefanics, referring to a brand-name antidote.

State Rep. Deborah Armstrong helped organize the gathering and hopes it will expand successful approaches to combatting the opioid crisis, especially if more federal funding becomes available.

Trump's commission on the opioid crisis called Wednesday for more drug courts, more training for doctors and penalties for insurers that won't cover addiction treatment.

State Rep. Doreen Wonda Johnson, left, of Church Rock, N.M., pauses to console Paula Ortiz, of Chimayo, whose daughter, pictured on the table, died of a heroin overdose in 2016, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017 in Santa Fe, N.M.. A Day of the Dead altar with family photos the departed stood in silent testimony to New Mexico's struggle to reduce the toll of opioid addiction, as state lawmakers and public health experts searched at a policy summit in Santa Fe, N.M., for new weapons against fatalities. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - An ex-con accused of killing a University of Utah student from China casually strolled multiple floors of a downtown Salt Lake City library about 15 hours after the fatal shooting and amid a massive manhunt. But he was quickly arrested in a bathroom by security, according to surveillance video released Thursday.

Videos released by the Salt Lake City Public Library showed Austin Boutain, 24, enter the building just after noon Tuesday, about 4 miles (6 kilometers) from the canyon on the edge of the university campus where police believe Boutain killed 23-year-old student ChenWei Guo during an attempted carjacking.

Boutain, with tattoos on his arms, face and back of his neck and wearing a white T-shirt, black beanie and jeans, can be seen carrying a water bottle and dark jacket around as he walks through multiple floors of the library and rides an elevator.

Austin Boutain, a suspect in Monday night's fatal shooting of University of Utah student ChenWei Guo, is led out of the University of Utah Department of Public Safety in Salt Lake City, Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2017. Boutain surrendered to police in Salt Lake City on Tuesday after a manhunt in the foothills near the University of Utah campus. Golden police say he's a person of interest in 63-year-old Mitchell Bradford Ingle's death. (Spenser Heaps/The Deseret News via AP)

About 20 minutes after he arrived in the library, the video showed Boutain enter a bathroom on the third floor. About two minutes later, a security guard entered the bathroom.

The guard left but returned quickly with a second guard and entered the bathroom with his hand hovering over a gun on his hip.

A third guard can be seen arriving in the hallway, talking on the phone to someone as the other guards emerge from the bathroom with Boutain, whose wrists are handcuffed behind his back.

Police later said he surrendered without incident.

Other library surveillance footage shows Boutain in a library security holding room standing calmly as officers pat him down and have him sit on a bench waiting for police to arrive.

After about 10 minutes, officers showed up and walked Boutain calmly out of the nearly empty library, according to the footage.

Boutain, who has yet been formally charged, was being held Thursday in jail on suspicion of aggravated murder, robbery and other charges. He will likely face charges in Utah, then be extradited to Colorado, where police believe he killed 63-year-old Mitchell Ingle, stole his guns and drove his truck to Utah.

Ingle's body was found in his trailer in Colorado on Tuesday.

Boutain's wife, Kathleen Boutain, is also named as suspect in Ingle's death. She was in jail in Utah on drug and theft charges.

No attorney has been listed for the Boutains.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday blocked parole for a former Mexican Mafia prison gang leader, saying he remains a danger to society despite efforts to turn his life around and years of cooperating with law enforcement.

For the third time in as many years, Brown reversed a state parole panel decision that Rene "Boxer" Enriquez should be freed from jail.

Enriquez has been in prison since 1993, serving a sentence of 20 years to life for two murders, multiple assaults and drug trafficking conspiracy.

FILE - This April 17, 2015 file photo from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shows Rene "Boxer" Enriquez. Gov. Jerry Brown is again blocking parole for Enriquez, a former leader of the Mexican Mafia prison gang who now helps law enforcement. Gov. Jerry Brown has again blocked parole for the for Enriquez, saying the double-murderer remains a danger to society. For the third time in three years, Brown on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017 overruled a parole panel decision to free Rene Enriquez from prison. (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation via AP, File)

Enriquez is not expected to be eligible for another parole hearing for more than a year, said Laura Sheppard, his lawyer.

"I think he's absolutely deserving of parole. If I didn't, I wouldn't be representing him," Sheppard said. "I think he's no danger to society."

In his parole release review, Brown wrote that Enrique joined the Mexican Mafia in 1985 while serving time for rape and armed robbery. For nearly two decades while in and out of prison, Enriquez bolstered his reputation in the gang through murder, drug-running and terror, the governor wrote.

He killed two gang associates for violations such as stealing drugs and money. He and another man also stabbed Mexican Mafia leader Salvador "Mon" Buenrostro 26 times with inmate-made weapons in a 1991 gangland dispute, though Buenrostro survived.

However, Enriquez has said he quit the gang in 2002 when he realized members were killing children and innocent relatives of gang members who fell into disfavor.

Enriquez has been cooperating with authorities for 15 years, providing information and testifying against the gang. During previous parole consideration, he received dozens letters of support from the FBI, local law enforcement officials, and state and federal prosecutors.

"The DA offices of three different counties are supporting his parole," his attorney said.

Brown acknowledged that Enriquez has become a model prisoner and commended him for efforts to turn his life around.

But the governor also wrote that the former gang member has been personally responsible for "an immeasurable amount of death and destruction."

He only recently alleged that his path of violence was prompted by childhood physical and sexual abuse by family members. However, Brown wrote that the explanation didn't explain his "single-minded pursuit of violence and control."

"I still do not believe that he has shown an adequate understanding of why he was so willing to devote himself to brutality and gang leadership," Brown wrote.

The governor also noted that Enriquez is still considered an enemy of the Mexican Mafia, implying there could be attempts to kill him that would put his family, parole agents and the community where he might live at risk, Brown wrote.

Enriquez said last year that he would enter a witness protection program if he is released.

But Brown argued that there currently was no plan in place that would mitigate the serious risks posed by his release.
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) - Half of Brazilians want former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to win next year's election and return to the office he occupied between 2003 and 2010. The other half wants him in prison for a corruption conviction.

Those dueling sentiments now underscore an important question as campaigns begin gearing up ahead of the 2018 election: Will da Silva, who is appealing the conviction, be allowed to run?

"Whether Lula runs or not makes all the difference in the next election," said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo. "Even if he is jailed he won't be out of the race, as whoever he supports could be a competitive candidate."

FILE - In this Friday, March 4, 2016, file photo, Brazil's former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is surrounded by supporters as he leaves the Worker's Party building in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Half of Brazilians want former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to win 2018's election and return to the office he occupied between 2003 and 2010. The other half wants him in prison. (AP Photo/Nelson Antoine, File)

With a lead in all polls, the man universally known as Lula is campaigning across Brazil while he appeals the guilty verdict. If it's upheld, he could go to jail and be barred from running. If it's overturned, da Silva is facing several other trials that could interfere with his campaign.

Despite the setbacks, da Silva has seen his approval rating rise since the conviction, cementing the reality that he will likely be a force in the election one way or the other.

The chairman of a group of three magistrates has said that he expects the court to rule on da Silva's appeal before next August. The election is in October.

Da Silva was convicted in July by Judge Sergio Moro as part of a sprawling investigation into kickbacks by construction companies and public officials. Da Silva was sentenced to 9 1/2 years in jail and barred from holding public office for seven.

But while candidates figure out how to position themselves depending on da Silva's legal fate, there are also questions about whether the former president's own Workers' Party has a Plan B.

"Lula's candidacy is irreversible," Workers' Party chairwoman Gleisi Hoffmann told The Associated Press.

Ciro Gomes, a former Cabinet minister in da Silva's government and a presidential hopeful himself, disagrees.

"The Workers' Party will have a candidate, but it won't be Lula," Gomes said recently at a conference in Sao Paulo.

The election is Oct. 7, 2018, with a likely runoff three weeks later if none of the candidates obtain more than 50 percent of the vote.

A survey by polling firm Datafolha says Silva has 30 percent support for the first election round, compared to 20 percent for his closest rival, Congressman Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain who speaks glowingly about the country's 1964-1985 dictatorship.

The poll also indicates da Silva would beat every adversary in a runoff, except for a tie with Moro, the judge who convicted him but who has repeatedly said he will not run despite being hailed by many Brazilians as a hero.

Meanwhile, 54 percent of the Brazilians surveyed said they want the former president in jail.

The poll was conducted Sept. 27-28 after da Silva's conviction in the "Car Wash" probe. Datafolha interviewed 2,772 people and said the poll had a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

Overall, the poll said da Silva has become more popular since he was found guilty. In July, Datafolha found that he was rejected by 46 percent of voters and would tie with former Cabinet minister Marina Silva in a runoff, compared to 42 percent of voters in October who said they would not back the ex-president.

Hoffmann believes President Michel Temer's dismal approval rating, which has hovered around 3 percent in recent polls, is a key reason why da Silva is gaining strength.

"People look at Temer and think of all the good things Lula did in office. The difference is staggering. And people have noticed how politicized the investigations against him are," she said.

Another factor fueling da Silva's lead is division among opponents who have not coalesced around an "anti-Lula" candidate.

The right-leaning Brazilian Social Democracy Party is torn between two possible candidates: Sao Paulo Gov. Geraldo Alckmin, who lost to da Silva in the 2006 presidential election, and Sao Paulo Mayor Joao Doria. So far, both are polling at less than 10 percent.

Da Silva has been holding large rallies across the country. He contends all the charges against him are politically motivated and promises better economic times, a message that resonates with many as Brazil struggles to emerge from its worst recession in decades.

At any moment, however, the higher court decision on his appeal could throw his campaign into a tailspin.

Fernando Castelo Branco, law professor at Sao Paulo's PUC University, said da Silva's candidacy will be revoked if the conviction is upheld before official campaigning begins in August.

"If he has already registered his candidacy, the court could still uphold the conviction or add to his penalties and in that case his candidacy could be annulled," Branco said.

FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 3, file 2017 photo, Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks at a protest against the government's plan to increase privatizations, including in the oil industry, in front of the state-run oil company Petrobras headquarters in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Half of Brazilians want da Silva to win the coming 2018 election and return to the office he occupied between 2003 and 2010. The other half wants him in prison. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado, File)
CLEVELAND (AP) - A bloody knife found in a pickup truck helped police connect a man to the slaying of his fiancee's mother, who was found dead just days before he was supposed to be married, investigators said in court documents.

Police in suburban Cleveland say blood on the tactical knife in the truck Jeffrey Scullin had been driving matched that of his future mother-in-law, according to the search warrant affidavit filed Thursday. His DNA was on the knife's handle, authorities wrote.

Scullin, who served as a pallbearer at the woman's funeral, was arraigned Friday on charges including aggravated murder and tampering with evidence.

A judge set his bond at $1 million and his lawyer asked that the case now go to a grand jury. A message seeking comment was left with his attorney.

Scullin, 20, had been living with his girlfriend's parents at their Strongsville home where 49-year-old school teacher Melinda Pleskovic was found dead on Oct. 23.

Investigators said in court documents that Scullin stabbed and shot his future mother-in-law, then ate dinner at a restaurant with her husband and his fiancee.

When the two men returned to the home, both called 911 and said they had found the schoolteacher on the kitchen floor with blood all around.

Pleskovic's husband told a dispatcher that people had been trying to break into their home "all year."

Police reports show the family complained about a series of pranks and minor crimes, including last week when Scullin told police that an unknown man tried to enter the home by forcing open the back door.

___

This story has been corrected to show that Pleskovic was found Oct. 23, not Oct. 24.
BEIJING (AP) - A Chinese official on Friday disputed President Donald Trump's claim that the deadly opioid fentanyl that is flooding the U.S. is mostly produced in China, just days before a visit by Trump at which he has said he will make China's role in the crisis a major theme of his discussions.

China doesn't deny that some fentanyl produced illicitly inside the country is contributing to the epidemic, Wei Xiaojun, deputy director-general of the Narcotics Control Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, said at a news conference.

However, according to the intelligence the two countries have exchanged, "the evidence isn't sufficient to say that the majority of fentanyl or other new psychoactive substances come from China," Wei said.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's representative in Beijing, Lance Ho, right, speaks next to Wei Xiaojun, deputy director-general of the Narcotics Control Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security during a press conference at a hotel in Beijing, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Wei disputed President Donald Trump's claim that the opioid flooding the U.S. is mostly produced in China. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Trump last month said the U.S. was stepping up measures to "hold back the flood of cheap and deadly fentanyl, a synthetic opioid manufactured in China and 50 times stronger than heroin."

He said he would mention it to Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing next week. "And he will do something about it," Trump said.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's representative in Beijing, Lance Ho, declined to comment on Wei's assessment.

However, DEA officials have said in the past that their investigations consistently lead back to China. DEA data also show that when China regulates synthetic drugs, U.S. seizures plunge.

Both the DEA and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy have pointed to China as North America's main source of fentanyl, related drugs and the chemicals used to make them.

Beijing is concerned enough about international perceptions of China's role in the opioid trade that after The Associated Press published investigations highlighting the easy availability of fentanyl online from Chinese suppliers, the narcotics commission made a rare invitation to a team of AP journalists to discuss the issue at the powerful Ministry of Public Security.

Beijing has long regulated fentanyl and 18 related compounds, and in February also placed carfentanil's less-potent cousins furanyl fentanyl, acryl fentanyl and valeryl fentanyl under control.

Friday's rare news conference was held at the Ministry of Public Security, apparently in a move to emphasize China's progress on cooperation with the U.S. on fighting opioids ahead of Trump's visit.

China, Wei said, has noted Trump's announcement of an opioid crisis and "China attaches great importance to this."

Wei also said the Justice Department's public announcement last month of indictments against two Chinese men accused of making tons of fentanyl and other powerful narcotics sold in the U.S. could impede efforts to bring them to justice.

"I have to admit regret regarding the U.S. move to unilaterally use the method of calling a news conference to announce the matter of these two wanted individuals who've fled to China," he said.

The release of information will "impact on the ongoing joint investigation into the case," Wei said, adding that China noted the U.S. failure to mention their successful cooperation on this and other cases.

The Department of Justice said Xiaobing Yan and Jian Zhang worked separately but similarly and controlled one of the most prolific international drug-trafficking organizations. The lack of an extradition treaty significantly reduces the chances they will be returned to the U.S. for trial.

The Trump administration's anti-drug efforts suffered another recent setback when its nominee for drug czar withdrew from consideration following reports that he played a key role in weakening the federal government's authority to stop companies from distributing opioids.

Trump last week declared opioid abuse a national public health emergency and announced new steps to combat the crisis.

Fentanyl can be lethal even in small amounts and is often laced with other dangerous drugs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated the drug and its analogues killed more than 20,000 Americans last year, and the number is rising.

Wei Xiaojun, second left in front, deputy director-general of the Narcotics Control Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, speaks with U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's representative in Beijing, Lance Ho, left, after a press conference at a hotel in Beijing, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Wei disputed President Donald Trump's claim that the opioid flooding the U.S. is mostly produced in China. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Wei Xiaojun, deputy director-general of the Narcotics Control Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security pauses during a press conference at a hotel in Beijing, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Wei disputed President Donald Trump's claim that the opioid flooding the U.S. is mostly produced in China. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Wei Xiaojun, left, deputy director-general of the Narcotics Control Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security speaks next to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's representative in Beijing, Lance Ho during a press conference at a hotel in Beijing, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Wei disputed President Donald Trump's claim that the opioid flooding the U.S. is mostly produced in China. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
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World Series MVP George Springer planted the Houston Astros' championship trophy at the front of a fire truck amid the roar cheering fans as the team began its victory parade on Friday, with orange and blue confetti raining down as they passed tens of thousands of fans in downtown Houston.

Four military jets soared above a sea of orange and blue T-shirts, jerseys, pennants and banners along the 20-block parade route, which was quickly extended to accommodate the larger-than-expected crowd. Fans stood more than 10 rows deep, with chants of 'Let's go Astros' echoing off skyscrapers, while some claimed bird's-eye views from the upper floors of parking structures, draping banners down the walls.

'This is amazing. This is awesome,' General Manager Jeff Luhnow said from atop a float that carried a giant baseball. 'Everybody is smiling. We've been excited all day.'

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Houston Astros center fielder George Springer (No. 4) greets fans during the World Series championship parade and rally for the Houston Astros in downtown Houston. Pitcher Dallas Keuchel (No. 50) is holding the Commissioner's trophy

Astros players (from left) Josh Reddick, Carlos Correa and George Springer celebrate during a rally honoring the champs

Astros fans celebrate during a parade honoring the World Series on Friday in downtown Houston

Astros fans watch from a parking garage during a parade honoring the World Series in downtown Houston on Friday

World Series MVP George Spring (No. 4) tied a Fall Classic record with five home runs over seven games against the Dodgers

Astros fans cheer from atop a building as the team passes by during the World Series championship parade on Friday

(Left) A young fan holds a waves a Houston Astros flag in the Reflection Pool of City Hall before a parade honoring the World Series champions on Friday. (Right) A man wearing 'Evil Kenevil' briefs enjoys the Astros parade while others take pictures

Astros fans celebrate during a parade honoring the World Series on Friday in downtown Houston

Houston Astros right fielder Josh Reddick (No. 22) greets fans during the World Series championship parade on Friday

Harris County Sheriff's deputies Wayne Schultz, left, and Robert Goerlitz, right, patrol along Smith Street near the Chevron Sky Ring before a parade honoring the World Series champion Houston Astros on Friday

Mounted Houston Police officers on their horses, one whose tails is painted orange and blue, walk down the street before a parade honoring the World Series champion Houston Astros on Friday

Astros teammates (from left) Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve, and Alex Bregman pose behind the commissioner's trophy

Several Astros players and manager A.J. Hinch waved at fans from the top of a double-decker bus as the parade started. Some fans threw caps and jerseys in their direction. Players autographed the items and tossed them back.

Scored of fans had gathered downtown hours ahead of the parade's start, including Manuel Mejia and his 15-year-old son, Jonah. They snatched a key spot along the route by 9 a.m. and set up four folding chairs at a street corner to be able to see the start and end of the parade.

'I'm just trying to get a good spot. It's going to get packed,' the 43-year-old father said before the parade began, noting he'd been an Astros fan since his father took him to his first Astros game when he was 8 years old.

But he and other fans said the World Series win is great for all of Houston, as the city continues to recover from Harvey and the devastating rains and flooding that followed the late August storm.

'We needed this win real bad for the city of Houston,' said 47-year-old LaShawn Harris, who lives in the suburb of Baytown. 'Harvey is gone. Harvey is smashed. Harvey is no more. It is all about today.'

Harris, dressed in an orange Astros T-shirt and cap, and a fanny pack with gold-colored sequins, said she got up at 5 a.m. so she, her two nieces and her granddaughter could get to the site of the parade and rally in front of City Hall and get 'a good spot.'

The Astros took home their first championship in franchise history with a Game 7 win Wednesday in Los Angeles against the Dodgers. Playing for a city still recovering from Hurricane Harvey, and wearing an 'H Strong' logo on their jerseys, the Astros won the title that had eluded them since they started out in 1962 as the Colt .45s.

Houston saw record-setting floods during Harvey, which killed 88 people and left much of the city under water.

'This is meant to be,' Harvey victim Joe Eaton Jr told local television station KHOU. 'We are all champions now. We are rooting for one thing.'

'For the city of Houston, this was personal,' said Mayor Sylvester Turner prior to the parade.

'The Astros, literally, they have brought the city together like never before.'

The parade is the first championship for professional sports team in the city since the Houston Rockets Rockets won back-to-back NBA titles in the mid-1990s. The 1995 Rockets parade attracted an estimated 500,000 people.

The Houston school district cancelled classes on Friday so students, staff and their families could attend the parade. And the city's public transit agency waived all fees and people were encouraged to use public transportation because parking downtown was limited.

Many underground garages remain closed because of damage caused by the flooding that devastated parts of the city after Harvey.

Houston Astros fans celebrate before a parade honoring the World Series baseball champions on Friday

Astros fans Mario Murillo and John Stewart look up the street in anticipation of a parade honoring the World Series champs

Houston Astros fans celebrate before a parade honoring the World Series baseball champions on Friday

Houston Astros fans celebrate before a parade honoring the World Series baseball champions on Friday

Houston Astros' George Springer arrives to Houston holding the Commissioner's Trophy on Thursday

Fans cheer as the Houston Astros return to Minute Maid Park after winning the 2017 World Series

Houston Astros shortstop Carlos Correa appeared on the Today show Friday morning with his new fiancee to detail their heartwarming live TV engagement after winning the World Series

Astros shortstop Carlos Correa appeared on the Today show Friday morning with his new fiancee to detail their heartwarming live TV engagement moments after he won the World Series.

In the middle of a TV interview after the Astros' victorious Game 7, Correa got down on one knee and asked his girlfriend Daniella Rodriguez to marry him.

Rodriguez said yes, put the humongous rock on her finger and the rest is history.

On the show, Correa said he had been planning to pop the question for about a month.

'I really wanted to do it. I was waiting for the right time to do it. I knew we had championship potential in our team. I was waiting it out. We were able to win. So for me, that was Plan A. I'm glad Plan A worked because I didn't have a plan B,' he said with a laugh.

If they hadn't won, Correa said he may have taken Rodriguez to 'the beach or something' and popped the question there.

Rodriguez says she was completely taken by surprise because her boyfriend had been so focused on the baseball.

'It was something that I never imagined him doing, especially there. He was so focused on all those games that when he got down on one knee I, like, was absolutely crying,' Rodriguez said.

Correa added: 'The only thing I was talking about during those days was baseball, baseball, baseball. It was Game 7, I was laser-focused on just playing baseball that she would have never thought that I was going to propose at that point.'

When asked if he kept the ring in his pocket during the game, Correa said he didn't because it was 'way too big' for his pocket.

The proposal - which was live on television - completely surprised Rodriguez, who has been with Correa for over a year

'I knew we had championship potential, so I decided to hold out until the last game of the season,' Correa said

'I could not slide with it in my back pocket,' he said. 'But in the ninth inning, I went in the clubhouse and I told [indistinguishable] - I didn't want to jinx anything, but if we get three outs, bring me my ring.'

The Astros did get those outs, and today Correa and his new fiancee are planning their nuptials.

Houston's players have not made the decision yet on whether to visit the White House if President Donald Trump extends an invitation.

Astros fans celebrate before a parade honoring the World Series champions on Friday in downtown Houston

'We just won the first world championship in Houston Astros history,' Astros manager A.J. Hinch said shortly before the team left for a celebratory parade through downtown Houston on Friday. 'We're also in one of the most divided countries, polarizing countries in politics. I don't know that this is the best stage for everybody to declare one way or the other and try to comment on the moment and be too much of a political statement.'

The New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Penguins and Clemson Tigers have all visited the White House in recent months to be congratulated by the president for their titles. The Golden State Warriors did not make the trip after being disinvited by Trump. The president has been outspoken for weeks about his opposition to players kneeling during the national anthem to protest social injustices.

Following the Astros' 5-1 victory against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 7 on Wednesday night, Trump tweeted his congratulations to the team.

Hinch said he believes that the Astros should savor their accomplishment, but a decision on a White House visit would need to wait.

'What comes out of this moving forward on the political side or what we do or don't do or what sports has turned into, to kind of representing the country's tone - that'll be decided in time,' he said. 'We're not going to allow anything to polarize this moment that we want to celebrate with our fans.'

World Series MVP George Springer said his grandfather worked in Washington for years and he has respect for what a visit to the White House would mean.

'That's the most historic place in our country, it stands for a lot, it means a lot to a lot of people,' Springer said. 'If the team goes I'm going. I'm not going to say no. I understand the impact of it. ... I understand the stuff that's been happening. Yes there are things that have to change but there are always things that have to change. There isn't anything that is ever going to be perfect. If the team goes I'll go.'

Also on Friday, general manager Jeff Luhnow said the team had picked up the options on the contracts of All-Star second baseman Jose Altuve and utility man Marwin Gonzalez. Altuve's option is for $6 million and Gonzalez will make $5.12 million next season.

Houston Astros fans gather before a parade honoring the World Series baseball champions on Friday

Fans cheer as the Houston Astros return to Minute Maid Park after winning the 2017 World Series
SRINAGAR, India (AP) - Two Indian army soldiers and a militant were killed in a gunbattle in disputed Kashmir and suspected insurgents killed a political activist associated with India's ruling party, police said Friday.

Fierce fighting began overnight after government forces laid a cordon around a cluster of homes in southern Samboora village on a tip rebels were hiding there, police officer S.P. Pani said.

As the fighting raged, hundreds of residents, mostly young men, hit the streets in solidarity with rebels while demanding the end of Indian rule over Kashmir and chanting pro-militant slogans.

Government forces fired tear gas, resulting in clashes with protesters, who hurled back rocks at the troops. No one was immediately reported injured in the clashes.

Police said at least two rebels escaped amid the clashes.

In recent years, Kashmiris, mainly youths, have displayed open camaraderie with anti-India rebels and sought to protect them by engaging troops in street clashes during military operations against the militants.

The anti-India protests and clashes have persisted despite the Indian army chief warning recently that "tough action" would be taken against stone-throwers during counterinsurgency operations.

On Thursday evening, police recovered the body of an activist in India's ruling Bhartiya Janta Party in an orchard in southern Shopian area. Police blamed militants for slitting the activist's throat.

The Hindu nationalist party's president Amit Shah tweeted that he was "pained to learn about the brutal murder."

Rebels also ambushed a paramilitary convoy in southern Anantnag town on Thursday, wounding at least five soldiers.

Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. Rebel groups demand that Kashmir be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep in the region, and most people support the rebels' cause while also participating in civilian street protests against Indian control.

Since 1989, nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown.

India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the rebels, which Pakistan denies.
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Turkish officials say police have raided an apartment allegedly used by a Kurdish militant in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, triggering a clash that left a police officer and the suspected rebel dead.

The Diyarbakir governor's office said nine other police officers were wounded in Friday's raid. The state-run Anadolu Agency said the suspected militant of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, threw a hand grenade to try and stave off the officers.

The operation comes a day after eight Turkish security force members and 46 suspected PKK rebels were killed in three separate skirmishes in southeast Turkey.

In this photo released by the Turkish army, weaponry, including several rocket launchers, ammunition, hand grenades and an automatic rifle used according to the army by Kurdish militants, were seized during an operation near Semdinli, southeastern Turkey, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017. Clashes between Turkish security force members and Kurdish militants in two mainly Kurdish provinces in southeastern Turkey on Thursday killed eight security force members and 22 militants, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. (Turkish Military via AP)

The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey and its allies, has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey's southeast. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people.
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump's national security adviser says North Korea could be returned to the list of countries the U.S. believes sponsor terrorism, as part of Trump's strategy to counter the North's growing nuclear threat.

"You'll hear more about that soon, I think," the adviser, H.R. McMaster, said at a briefing on the eve of Trump's five-nation tour of Asia, which starts Friday. North Korea's nuclear and missile weapons threat will be a key focus of Trump's meetings with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines during the 12-day trip, the president's first official visit to the region.

McMaster cited the killing in a Malaysian airport earlier this year of the estranged half-brother of North Korea's leader as an act of terrorism that could lead to the North's being added back to a list that includes only Iran, Sudan and Syria.

National security adviser H.R. McMaster gestures as he answers questions from members of the media during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

While Malaysia has not directly accused North Korea, South Korea's spy agency has claimed the attack was part of a plot by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to kill his brother, Kim Jong Nam.

"A regime who murders someone in a public airport using nerve agent, and a despotic leader who murders his brother in that manner, I mean, that's clearly an act of terrorism that fits in with a range of other actions," McMaster said. He said returning North Korea to the state sponsors of terrorism list "is something that's under consideration."

Kim Jong Nam died in February after two women rubbed his face with a liquid later identified as VX nerve agent as he passed through the airport in Kuala Lumpur.

Under legislation enacted Aug. 2, the State Department was required to determine within 90 days - or around Thursday - whether North Korea meets the criteria for being designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson "continues to evaluate whether or not to designate DPRK as a state sponsor of terror," an official said Thursday. "The Department has informed Members of Congress that he expects to conclude his review and announce a decision within the month."

Trump's trip comes amid escalating tensions with North Korea, which has continued to pursue its missile and nuclear programs and ramped up its missile testing. In a recent speech at the United Nations, Trump said he would "totally destroy" the nation, if necessary. He has also derided the North Korean leader as "little Rocket Man." Kim has returned the favor, calling Trump a "mentally deranged U.S. dotard."

McMaster said the president would not temper his rhetoric against North Korea while on tour.

"The president will use whatever language he wants to use," he said. "That's been of great reassurance to our allies, partners and others in the region who are literally under the gun of this regime."

McMaster said a denuclearized Korean peninsula "is the only plausible outcome" and he called on other nations, including China - North Korea's chief benefactor in the region - to do more to help make that a reality.

The national security adviser said Trump would address North Korea's human rights record during the trip.

The U.S. kept North Korea on its terrorism blacklist for two decades after the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner that killed 115 people. But President George W. Bush lifted the designation in 2008 to smooth the way for aid-for-disarmament negotiations.

Re-designating North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism would be largely of symbolic significance. North Korea is heavily and increasingly sanctioned for its nuclear and missile activity in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions. Sanctions from a terror designation are unlikely to inflict significant, additional economic punishment.

___

Associated Press writers Jill Colvin, Matthew Lee and Matthew Pennington contributed to this report.

___

Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap
HILDALE, Utah (AP) - In a place where political contests are virtually unknown, the campaign signs offer the latest hint that a polygamous group is losing its grip on this remote red rock community straddling the Utah-Arizona border.

"For Hildale mayor vote Donia," reads one sign featuring Donia Jessop, a candidate pictured with a contemporary hairstyle and a red business suit.

The signs hanging from fences and walls are unusual because elections here have long been decided behind the scenes by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a Mormon offshoot that has made its home among the rocks for more than a century and hand-picked men to run unopposed.

In this Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2017 photo, Norma Richter, left, and Lori Barlow hug after an eviction notice was served on their Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints church meeting house in their community on the Utah-Arizona border. Authorities later canceled the eviction after working out a deal with church leaders. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Just five years ago, Jessop was a member of the group also known as the FLDS. She wore the sect's traditional prairie dresses and her hair in a conservative up-do. Now she is among a swelling number of former members who have returned to buy foreclosed homes, open businesses and try to turn Hildale into a place that resembles a typical Western town, not a cloistered religious community.

The competitive elections scheduled for Tuesday could deal a crushing blow to traditionalists if the 367 registered voters elect Jessop and the non-FLDS candidates for two city council seats. It would be another in a series of recent changes to shake up Hildale and its sister city, Colorado City, Arizona, which have a combined population of nearly 7,800.

The government-ordered evictions of sect families from nearly 150 homes forced many members to seek refuge in trailers around town or in different cities across the West. The town governments and the police are being watched closely by court-appointed monitors after a jury found them guilty of civil rights violations. And a food-stamp fraud case led 10 people to plead guilty and exacerbated a leadership void.

Jessop and other former sect members hail the changes as long-overdue progress that will help the community break free from the reign of sect leader Warren Jeffs, who is serving life in prison in Texas for sexually assaulting underage girls he considered brides.

"The things that were happening in the church were so destructive. And now that destruction can stop, and we can start to rebuild," Jessop said. "This city is completely at a standstill until we change the city government."

But FLDS members believe the town they built is being destroyed. Norma Richter, a 50-year-old mother of 13 kids, said the changes overtaking the town feel like a "cultural cleansing," echoing a common refrain among church members and sympathizers.

At the heart of the split is Jeffs, who has been jailed in Utah or Texas continually since 2006.

His followers consider him a prophet and believe he was the victim of religious persecution based on fabricated allegations. Former sect members and outsiders consider him a dangerous man who tore apart families and committed sex crimes.

Jeffs is "a very sick man" who controls the people through "fear of not making it to the highest celestial kingdom of glory," Jessop said. She notes that it was he and other leaders who set the evictions in motion more than a decade ago when they opted not to challenge in court allegations of mismanagement of the church trust, leading Utah and Arizona governments to take it over.

His supporters are steadfast in their beliefs. Jeffs is "still is the only man on this earth that can receive revelation from heavenly father for the people," FLDS member Lori Barlow said. "That's a pretty important link to me."

Authorities say Jeffs still sends some guidance from prison, but Richter says followers have not heard his voice for years and that it's unclear who is in charge of the church locally.

One of Jeffs' brothers, Lyle Jeffs, ran the day-to-day operations until last year, when he was arrested in the food-stamp case. He fled home confinement while awaiting trial and was captured in South Dakota after a year on the run. He faces up to five years in prison.

Amid the leadership void, and with so few people left in town, followers no longer meet for regular worship services, Richter said. Marriages that are arranged by the religion's prophet are on hold until Jeffs returns, Richter said.

Members of the FLDS believe the evictions were accelerated this year to clean out voter rolls and rig the elections to usher in the outside candidates. The evictions stem from an order by a Utah state judge who became fed up with people not paying $100-a-month occupancy fees.

Sect members refused to pay the fees because they believe the money was being used by attorneys overseeing the church trust to take legal action against the FLDS. They also believe the trust should still belong to them.

Across town, many large houses with enough room for plural families stand empty as a community board in charge of the trust works out redistribution of the evicted homes. Others are in disrepair, a result of an edict from Jeffs in the early 2000s, when he ordered a halt to all construction in the Utah-Arizona community to focus on building a compound in Texas.

After seeing so many of her fellow church members evicted, Barlow and her husband want to buy a home but fear they won't find anything suitable in other towns in the region for their five kids and 14 cows.

"Everything I ever needed was here," Barlow said. "The very idea that I'm looking to buy a house somewhere else is shocking to me."

When authorities recently served an eviction notice at the sect's meetinghouse, Barlow and Richter hugged and cried as they recalled the building's history and all the funerals and services held inside. The trust leaders made a deal to stave off eviction, but it served as more evidence of the sect's waning power.

Other signs of the sect's dwindling presence abound. Public elementary and high schools that reopened several years ago are now bustling with some 500 kids, despite most FLDS families home-schooling their children.

Women and girls in prairie dresses used to be seen all around town - pumping gas, riding horses and chatting. Now they are harder to find. Several new businesses are opening, including a brewery and hotels.

Incumbent Mayor Philip Barlow, a member of the FLDS and lifelong Hildale resident, said people are coping with change by "doing what they have to do." He acknowledges that having a challenger is new but says he will accept whatever the voters decide.

Jessop wants to make the town an accepting place for everyone. She said she would love to rekindle fond memories of growing up there with her two mothers and 25 siblings.

"I would love to see families reunited," she said. "I want them to stay. ... They are my sisters, my brothers, my aunts, cousins, uncles. They are my people."

Polygamy is a legacy of the early teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but the mainstream Mormon church abandoned the practice in 1890 as Utah moved toward statehood. State law prohibits polygamy in Utah today, but prosecutors have long had a policy of not enforcing it against consenting adults unless there is another crime involved such as child abuse, domestic violence or fraud.

Jessop left the FLDS four years ago with her husband and 10 kids over unrest about how Jeffs was running the group. She and her husband later brought a "sister wife" into the family, and the two women now raise their children and run the family business together.

When she returned, Jessop bought one of the foreclosed houses and reopened a corner gas station as a convenience store. If elected, she would be the town's first female mayor.

Richter said FLDS members won't cower no matter what happens at the ballot box.

"We have a very good man as a leader, but we follow a religion," she said. "They have not conquered us. They can take everything, but they can't conquer our spirit."

In this Thursday, Oct. 26, 2017 photo, Donia Jessop holds her mayoral campaign sign outside her store in Colorado City, Ariz. Campaign signs are unusual in a town where elections have long been quietly decided behind the scenes, with hand-picked men from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints running unopposed. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

In this Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2017 photo, young girls play together in Colorado City, Ariz. The community on the Utah-Arizona border has been home for more than a century to a polygamous sect that is an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism. The community is undergoing a series of changes as the sect's control of the town slips away amid government evictions and crackdowns. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

This Thursday, Oct. 26, 2017 photo shows the area on the Utah state line in Hildale, Utah. The community on the Utah-Arizona border has been home for more than a century to a polygamous sect that is an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism. The community is undergoing a series of changes as the sect's control of the town slips away amid government evictions and crackdowns. The change is hailed as progress by some but considered cultural cleansing by members of the religious group known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

This Thursday, Oct. 26, 2017 photo shows Hildale, Utah, sitting at the base of Red Rock Cliff mountains, with its sister city, Colorado City, Ariz., in the foreground. Government-ordered evictions of nearly 150 homes have forced Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints families to seek refuge in trailers around town or in different cities across the West. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

In this Thursday, Oct. 26, 2017 photo, Jared Nicol plants his campaign sign for city council in Hildale, Utah. The community on the Utah-Arizona border has been home for more than a century to a polygamous sect that is an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism. Nicol, a member of the mainstream Mormon church, moved to the rural community for a better life for his two children. He's hoping he can bridge the gap between the two worlds. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

In this Friday, Oct. 27, 2017 photo, Norma Richter touches a collection of portraits of prophets of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, including Warren Jeffs, bottom right, on a wall at her home in a community on the Utah-Arizona border. "We still have a faith. We don't follow a man. We have a very good man as a leader, but we follow a religion," Richter said. "They have not conquered us. They can take everything but they can't conquer our spirit." (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

In this Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2017 photo, Warren Bistline, left, and Freddy Richter play in the north reservoir in Colorado City, Ariz. The community on the Utah-Arizona border has been home for more than a century to a polygamous sect that is an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

FILE - This photograph provided by the Tooele County Sheriff's Office shows Lyle Jeffs. Jeffs ran day-to-day operations for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints until 2016, when he was arrested in a food-stamp fraud case. He fled home confinement while awaiting trial and was captured in South Dakota after a year on the run. He faces up to five years in prison. (Tooele County Sheriffs Office, via AP)

In this Thursday, Oct. 26, 2017 photo, Hildale, Utah Mayor Phillip Barlow, speaks during an interview in front of the city hall, in a community on the Utah-Arizona border that has been home for more than a century to a polygamous sect that is an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism. Barlow, a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, said people are coping with change by "doing what they have to do." He's reticent to discuss religion, but says he's best suited to lead the town because he's lived in the community his whole life and is focused on making sure the town has good services. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

This Thursday, Oct. 26, 2017 photo shows a campaign sign in Hildale, Utah, in a community on the Utah-Arizona border. Campaign signs are unusual in the town where elections have long been quietly decided behind the scenes, with hand-picked men from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints running unopposed. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
MANILA, Philippines (AP) - A Filipino militant leader's widow, who has been arrested for allegedly calling on fighters to join a pro-Islamic State group siege in southern Marawi city, also faces allegations that she recruited Indian men to fight in Syria and Iraq, Philippine officials said Friday.

National Bureau of Investigation investigator Joshua Raymundo said India has asked the Philippines to help investigate Karen Aizha Hamidon, who allegedly worked to encourage several Indian militants last year to join the Islamic State group in the Middle East. Hamidon denied the allegation.

"They have detained several individuals who were recruited by Karen to join ISIS in Iraq and Syria," Raymundo told reporters in Manila, adding that the arrested Indian militants identified Hamidon as their recruiter.

Karen Aizha Hamidon, who allegedly worked to encourage several Indian militants last year to join the Islamic State group in the Middle East, is surrounded by reporters after attending a hearing at the Department of Justice in Manila, Philippines on Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Philippine officials say a militant leader's widow who has been arrested for allegedly calling on fighters to join a pro-Islamic State group siege in the south also faces allegations that she recruited Indian men to fight in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

India and the Philippines do not have a mutual legal assistance treaty and the Indian government requested Philippine authorities to help collect documentary evidence and recording of statements of witnesses, according to a letter sent by India's Ministry of Home Affairs to Filipino officials.

Filipino authorities arrested Hamidon last month on suspicion of recruiting Muslims to join a deadly siege in Marawi that had dragged on for five months before being crushed by thousands of troops last week.

The siege left more than 1,100 combatants and civilians dead, including more than 900 Filipino and foreign militants, displaced about half a million people and turned the mosque-studded city's central business and residential districts into a smoldering war zone.

After examining her cellphones and laptop computers, Philippine officials said the 32-year-old Hamidon called on Muslims to join jihad, or holy war, in Marawi in at least 296 messages she posted on social media, mostly through Telegram and WhatsApp messaging services. She faces as many counts of inciting to rebellion, they said.

Hamidon acknowledged she's the widow of Mohammad Jaafar Maguid, an IS-linked Filipino militant commander killed in a clash with police in the southern Philippines in January, but she denied terrorism allegations against her.

"I'm just a blogger. I am into journalistic articles, composition ... and social media usage but no more, no more than that," she told reporters after she appeared before a prosecutor at the Department of Justice.

"I only use the social media as my avenue to spread the message of Islam for religious purposes, for maximum audiences," said the handcuffed Hamidon as she was led away by authorities.

Karen Aizha Hamidon, center, who allegedly worked to encourage several Indian militants last year to join the Islamic State group in the Middle East, is escorted by security after attending a hearing at the Department of Justice in Manila, Philippines on Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Philippine officials say a militant leader's widow who has been arrested for allegedly calling on fighters to join a pro-Islamic State group siege in the south also faces allegations that she recruited Indian men to fight in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Karen Aizha Hamidon, who allegedly worked to encourage several Indian militants last year to join the Islamic State group in the Middle East, answers questions from reporters after attending a hearing at the Department of Justice in Manila, Philippines on Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Philippine officials say a militant leader's widow who has been arrested for allegedly calling on fighters to join a pro-Islamic State group siege in the south also faces allegations that she recruited Indian men to fight in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
SOMERSET WEST, South Africa (AP) - A judge "overemphasized" Oscar Pistorius' disability and was far too lenient on the double-amputee athlete, prosecutors said Friday as they tried to convince a South African court to more than double his prison sentence from six to 15 years for the murder of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

"Murder is murder," chief prosecutor Andrea Johnson told a five-judge panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal. She asked them to overturn Pistorius' initial sentence and give him the prescribed minimum of 15 years. There is no death penalty in South Africa.

If the court agrees with prosecutors that he deserves a harsher sentence, Pistorius, now 30, could remain in prison until after he turns 40.

FILE - In this Tuesday, June 14, 2016, file photo, Oscar Pistorius leaves the High Court in Pretoria, South Africa, after his sentencing proceedings. The Pistorius case is back in court, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017, with prosecutors seeking a longer jail sentence for the double-amputee athlete after he was found guilty of murder for shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, File)

The judges did not deliver a decision on Friday. Typically, Supreme Court judges take a couple of weeks before the senior judge returns to read out the decision, which is made through a simple majority.

Nearly five years after the once-admired Olympic runner first appeared in court for shooting Steenkamp multiple times through a closed toilet door at his home, Pistorius' fate is still not certain.

He was not present at Friday's hearing as he serves his sentence at a prison near the capital, Pretoria. He has served more than a year of his six-year term. Steenkamp's mother, June Steenkamp, did attend. Speaking outside the courthouse, her lawyer said the Steenkamp family supported prosecutors' attempt to get a longer sentence.

Prosecutors had two arguments to make to the court. First, they needed to apply for permission to appeal Pistorius' sentence. They were asked by the judges to also present their arguments for why, if their appeal is allowed, his sentence should be increased.

This is the second time prosecutors have gone to the Supreme Court in the central city of Bloemfontein to challenge a decision by Judge Thokozile Masipa, who presided over Pistorius' trial.

In 2015, prosecutors successfully appealed against Masipa's judgment that Pistorius was not guilty of murder. The court overturned Masipa's verdict of culpable homicide - or manslaughter - and convicted Pistorius of murder.

Legal analysts say, however, it is more difficult to get the court to change a sentence.

After the manslaughter conviction was overturned, Masipa sentenced Pistorius to six years in prison for murder, a term just one year longer than her original sentence for manslaughter. Prosecutors called that sentence "shockingly" light.

Judges can deviate from prescribed minimum sentences if there are compelling circumstances. The prosecution says there were no compelling reasons.

"What we are saying is the court exercised its discretion inappropriately," prosecutor Johnson said, calling the six-year sentence "unjust."

She said Pistorius still had not shown "genuine remorse" for killing Steenkamp and that Masipa put the athlete's personal circumstances and his disability ahead of the need for "retribution" when she sentenced him.

Pistorius claimed he mistook Steenkamp for a dangerous intruder hiding in his bathroom in the pre-dawn hours of Valentine's Day 2013 when, without his prosthetic legs on, standing on his stumps and feeling vulnerable, he shot four times through the cubicle door.

Masipa's initial sentence was appropriate in the circumstances, Pistorius' defense lawyers said, and his disability was not exaggerated. Pistorius had both his legs amputated below the knee when he was a baby because of a congenital condition.

"Of course his disability is mentioned, but it can't not be mentioned," defense lawyer Kelly Phelps said. "It is one of the factors of this case. We can't magic away his disability."

June Steenkamp, mother of Reeva Steenkamp, inside the High Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, South Africa, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. The Pistorius case is back in court with prosecutors seeking a longer jail sentence for the double-amputee athlete Oscar Pistorius, after he was found guilty of murder for shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. (AP Photo)

FILE -- In this Wednesday, June 15, 2016, file photo, Oscar Pistorius leaves the High Court in Pretoria, South Africa, after his sentencing proceedings. The Pistorius case is back in court, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017, with prosecutors seeking a longer jail sentence for the double-amputee athlete after he was found guilty of murder for shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, File)

June Steenkamp, mother of Reeva Steenkamp, looks on inside the High Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, South Africa, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. The Pistorius case is back in court with prosecutors seeking a longer jail sentence for the double-amputee athlete Oscar Pistorius, after he was found guilty of murder for shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. (AP Photo)
SYDNEY (AP) - America's Cup-winning skipper John Bertrand has offered to help Tom Slingsby in his bid to get Australia into the prestigious sailing regatta for the first time in more than 20 years.

Bertrand guided Australia II to victory in 1983, breaking the United States' 132-year monopoly of the competition. Australia hasn't had a boat in the America's Cup since 2000.

Slingsby, the 2012 Olympic men's Laser gold medalist and two-time America's Cup sailor aboard Oracle Team USA, is keen to get an Australian boat up for the 2021 challenger series in New Zealand, most likely off Auckland. Emirates Team New Zealand won the America's Cup in June.

"Tom Slingsby is endeavoring to pull it together. I've said to Tom, 'I'll help in any way I can'," Bertrand told Australian Associated Press on Friday. "But it's up to the people who are willing to underpin something like this to maybe 90 percent of the total budget, so that's always the challenge."

Bertrand says there is no doubt that Australia has the technology and sailors to make a successful challenge.

"But as we say in the hard-nosed world of the America's Cup, 'no cash, no splash', so you've got to have the bucks to be able to play this game," Bertrand said.

Bertrand and his Australia II crew on Friday were among the initial inductees into the Australian Sailing Hall of Fame.
VALLETTA, Malta (AP) - Malta's Roman Catholic archbishop warned those who killed an investigative reporter with a car bomb that they "would never escape the justice of God" and urged other journalists Friday to pursue the truth without fear.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna celebrated Daphne Caruana Galizia's funeral Mass in the church nearest to where the 53-year-old Malta native lived before the bomb exploded as she drove away from home on Oct. 16. More than 1,500 mourners packed the venue and several hundred more spilled out into the square outside.

Mourners included her husband, three adult sons and European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, while top Maltese government and opposition figures stayed away in deference to the wishes of Caruana Galizia's family.

Peter Caruana Galizia, at right, front row, surrounded by his three sons, watches as the coffin of his wife Daphne Caruana Galizia, an investigative journalist killed by a car bomb, arrives for the funeral service in Valletta, Malta, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Malta observed a national day of mourning Friday as the Mediterranean island's largest church hosted funeral services for the journalist. (AP Photo/Jonathan Borg)

The family has been vocal in its criticism of the government for its failure to root out the kind of corruption that Caruana Galizia covered in her blog, which was a must-read in the small Mediterranean island nation.

While investigators have yet to make any arrests in the case, Scicluna told Caruana Galizia's killers to "repent before it is too late."

"Whoever took part, in one way or another, in Daphne's murder, I have this to tell you: However hard you try to evade the justice of men, you will never escape the justice of God," he said.

Addressing her fellow journalists, the archbishop said "do not be afraid."

"I encourage you never to grow weary in your mission to be the eyes, the ears, and the mouth of the people. Do this without fear and with full respect of the truth," Scicluna said. "Dear journalists, we need you. We need people in your profession who are unshackled, who are free, intelligent, inquisitive, honest, serene, safe and protected."

As Caruana Galizia's coffin was driven away from the church, the crowd broke out singing the Maltese national anthem.

The Malta government declared Friday as a day of national mourning in "a sign that no attack on freedom of expression is accepted in Malta's democracy."

In Brussels, the flag at European Commission headquarters flew at half-staff in Caruana Galizia's memory. The commission issued a statement condemning "this brutal attack" that killed her.

"The right of a journalist to investigate, ask uncomfortable questions and report effectively, is at the heart of our values and needs to be guaranteed at all times," the statement said.

Journalists representing newspapers that included Britain's Guardian, Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Italy's La Repubblica and the Financial Times wrote an open letter to the commission demanding an investigation into the state of editorial independence in Malta.

Caruana Galizia's reported on corruption for her blog, which had thousands of followers, and wrote twice weekly for The Malta Independent. One of her targets was Malta Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, whose wife's name surfaced in the Panama Papers, leaked documents detailing offshore financial accounts maintained by prominent people.

Both Muscat and his wife have denied wrongdoing.

At the time of her death, the journalist was facing 42 libel lawsuits in the Maltese courts. Most of the cases are expected to proceed. Opposition leader Adrian Delia, one of her more recent subjects, has withdrawn the five suits he brought against her.

Malta's government has offered a 1 million euro ($1.18 million) reward for information leading to those responsible for the killing and full protection for anyone stepping forward.

The journalist's family has refused to endorse the reward, calling instead for Muscat's resignation for "failing to uphold our fundamental freedoms" by not rooting out corruption.

The FBI and Europol are helping the Malta police. Dutch experts were also brought in to assist with analyzing forensic evidence from the scene of the crime.

Tajani, who met later with the editors and journalists of The Malta Independent, said the participation of Europol is a sign that Europe is taking the matter seriously.

"We want to know who Daphne's killer is, but we want to know also who is behind the killers," he said, saying her killing was a problem "for every person in Europe. If we accept the murder today without a strong reaction, attacks on journalists will only continue."

FILE -- This photo taken on April 4, 2016 shows Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Maltese investigative journalist who exposed her island nation's links with the so-called Panama Papers. Galizia was killed on Monday, Oct. 16, 2017, when a bomb destroyed her car as she was driving near her home in Mosta, a town outside Valletta, Malta's capital. Malta observes a national day of mourning Friday, Nov. 3, 2017, as the funeral of slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia takes place in the Mediterranean island's largest church. (AP Photo/Jon Borg)

The coffin of Daphne Caruana Galizia, an investigative journalist killed by a car bomb, arrives for the funeral service in Valletta, Malta, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Malta observed a national day of mourning Friday as the Mediterranean island's largest church hosted funeral services for the journalist. (AP Photo/Jonathan Borg)

European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, center, attends the funeral service for Daphne Caruana Galizia, an investigative journalist killed by a car bomb, in Valletta, Malta, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Malta observed a national day of mourning Friday as the Mediterranean island's largest church hosted funeral services for the journalist. (AP Photo/Jonathan Borg)
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) - When Martin Owor, a father of six, told his wife he was considering having a vasectomy, she told him it was out of the question. How would they live as husband and wife after his surgical sterilization?

But after a long conversation about growing up poor, the Ugandan man went ahead with a procedure that remains widely unpopular in sub-Saharan Africa, where misunderstandings are high.

To spur development, this East African country that has been a regional leader in tackling health challenges like AIDS now hopes to lower population growth. The issue is widespread in Africa, which faces a population boom even as other parts of the world see dropping birth rates. Over half of the global population growth between now and 2050 will take place in Africa, the United Nations says.

In this photo taken Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017, health worker Sylvia Marettah Katende displays reproductive health products and information at a family planning exhibition in Kampala, Uganda. Over half of the world's population growth between now and 2050 will take place in Africa and Uganda, a leader in taking on global health issues like AIDS, is turning to "champion men" to promote vasectomies in family planning. (AP Photo/Stephen Wandera)

Sub-Saharan Africa, with some of the world's most impoverished nations, will continue to be plagued by poverty unless governments reduce high fertility rates, development experts say.

Uganda has started recruiting "champion men" to speak publicly on television and elsewhere about vasectomies as a method of family planning. It has proven difficult.

Many men fear it leads to impotence. Some worry about being stigmatized. Others ask what might happen if, after a vasectomy, they lose all their children in some catastrophe.

"Many people think that when a man goes for a vasectomy he is not going to continue being a normal man," said Owor, who runs a grocery store in eastern Uganda. "But there is no problem. My wife is very happy."

Owor said he was compelled to have a vasectomy because he did not want his children to grow up hopelessly poor.

"My father had 12 children, so we never had a chance of having a quality education," Owor said. "I needed a number that I would try to manage."

Uganda's population has ballooned from 17 million in 1990 to more than 41 million in 2016. It one of nine African countries in the world's top 10 fastest-growing populations, according to U.N. figures.

Only 35 percent of married women in Uganda use modern methods of contraception, according to government statistics. Abortion is illegal in Uganda, except to save the mother's life.

Although Uganda's fertility rate dropped from 6.9 births per woman in 2001 to 5.4 today, officials say a desirable rate is four births per woman.

As "champion men" speak out, the government is working to increase male involvement in family planning as a way to meet that goal.

"We can't coerce them, because family planning is voluntary and is supposed to be based on human rights, and we want to keep on engaging them," said Placid Mihayo, an assistant government commissioner in charge of sexual and reproductive health.

Uganda's openness recalls its public campaigns against the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s, when many African countries, including Kenya and South Africa, did not fully acknowledge the crisis.

"Uganda has done extremely well," said Alain Sibenaler, the U.N. Population Fund representative in Uganda, whose office has been working closely with the government on family planning options. "The total fertility rate has dropped in a very short time."

Uganda remains one of the world's poorest countries, with a per capita income of $615, according to World Bank data. The situation is dire in rural areas, where health facilities often lack basic medicines and many children drop out of school.

Some warn that the country won't come close to meeting its ambitious development targets - achieving lower-middle-income status by 2040 - without wider use of birth control.

"If you produce 100 children and create only two jobs in that period, so where are the other 98 going to get jobs?" asked Sam Mwandara, project coordinator for Reproductive Health Uganda, a U.N.-supported group. "The population is expanding so fast in relation to land, jobs, education and health. So it's alarming."

Vasectomies are still a small part of Uganda's effort. Each month two or three of the procedures are performed at a clinic run by Reproductive Health Uganda in the capital, Kampala, said Dr. Kenneth Buyinza, an expert on reproductive health. The vasectomy costs about $13, which Buyinza said is affordable to most Ugandans. The price is $50 or more at some private facilities.

The organization also distributes millions of free condoms each year in a country where their use has become widespread.

"When it comes to the permanent methods of family planning we are still on the low side," Buyinza said of vasectomies, though the organization tries to spread the word that of all the modern family planning methods the procedure has the fewest side effects, if any.

"The uptake of vasectomy, much as it offers the best option in terms of lifetime birth control, it is still not yet easy to sell."
BEIRUT (AP) - The Latest on developments in Syria whether government forces have liberated the eastern city of Deir el-Zour from the Islamic State group (all times local):

6 p.m.

The Russian military says that its long-range bombers and cruise missiles have struck the Islamic State group in eastern Syria.

This frame grab from a video released on Nov. 2, 2017 by the Syrian official news agency SANA shows smoke and debris rising after Syrian government shelling of the Deir el-Zour city during a battle against Islamic State militants, Syria. The Syrian army announced on Friday, Nov. 3 it liberated the long-contested eastern city of Deir el-Zour from the Islamic State group. (SANA via AP)

The Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, said that six Tu-22M bombers on Friday unloaded bombs on IS targets near Boukamal. He said two Russian submarines in the Mediterranean also launched six cruise missiles at IS targets.

Konashenkov said the strikes hit groups of IS militants and the group's ammunition depots. He added they were launched in support of the Syrian army offensive in the area.

The strikes followed several other bombing raids and missile launches earlier this week on the same area.

The raids by long-range bombers that flew from their base in Russia came in addition to daily sorties flown by Russian warplanes based in Syria.

___

2:45 p.m.

Israel says it's ready to intervene militarily if necessary to defend a Druze area on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.

Military spokesman Ronen Manelis said in a Facebook posting on Friday that the army is "prepared and ready to assist residents ... and prevent harm" to the village of Hadar "out of commitments to the Druze population."

Syria's state-run news agency said at least six people were killed and 21 were wounded in a suicide bombing on Friday that targeted the outskirts of Hadar in the southern province of Quneitra.

The Druze in Israel are part of the country's Arab minority. They are full citizens of Israel and generally serve in the army. They also have a large community in Syria.

___

2:40 p.m.

Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is congratulating Iraqi forces on entering the border town of Qaim and retaking the nearby Husaybah border crossing with Syria in the latest military operation against the Islamic State group in Iraq.

The statement, released on Friday afternoon, comes just over a week after Iraqi forces, closely backed by the U.S.-led coalition, began the operation to retake IS-held Qaim, located about 200 miles (320 kilometers) west of Baghdad.

Over the past three years Iraqi forces have retaken more than 90 percent of the territory IS once held in the country, reducing the militant group's territorial control to a corner of Iraq's western Anbar province along the Syrian border.

Coalition officials say the recapture of Qaim and its surrounding villages will make the end of the conventional military fight against IS in Iraq.

___

2:10 p.m.

Syria's military has declared victory over the Islamic State group in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, describing it as the "last phase" in its campaign toward the complete annihilation of IS in Syria.

The statement was read on Syrian state TV on Friday. It hails the recapture of Deir el-Zour as a strategic win, noting its location on a crossroad that links Syria's eastern, northern and central regions, as well as an oil and gas reservoir.

Army spokesman Gen. Ali Mayhoub said that with the loss of Deir el-Zour, IS militants are now completely isolated and encircled in the city's eastern countryside.

He pledged the military would go on to chase IS remnants across Syrian territory.

___

1:10 p.m.

Israel's military says a civilian was shot and wounded from stray fire from across the border amid "intense fighting" in neighboring Syria.

It says the Israeli civilian was lightly hurt on Friday from the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.

Israel has mostly stayed out of Syria's civil war that's raging near its northern frontier.But it has carried out a number of strikes in response to spillover fire.

It is also believed to have carried out airstrikes on suspected weapons convoys from Syria to its archenemy Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite militant group which has members fighting alongside Syrian government forces.

Israel captured the Golan from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and the two countries remain enemies.

___

12:40 p.m.

An Iraqi officer says troops battling the Islamic State group in Iraq's far west have reached the border with Syria as they fight IS near the militants near the border town of Qaim.

Maj. Bassam Fawaz with the federal police says that Iraqi forces reached the border on Friday morning as they continue to close in on the last remaining pocket of militant-held territory in Iraq's Anbar province.

The joint operations command says Iraqi forces began pushing into the western neighborhoods of Qaim and that Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi pledged the battle will be finished within days.

Qaim, located about 320 kilometers, or 200 miles, west of Baghdad lies along a border crossing with Syria in the Euphrates River Valley. It has been used by IS to ferry fighters and supplies between the two countries when the militants' territorial hold included nearly a third of both Iraqi and Syrian territory.

___

11:45 a.m.

Syria's state-run news agency says at least six people were killed and 21 were wounded in a suicide bombing that hit a government-held town in the southern province of Quneitra.

SANA says Friday's bombing targeted the outskirts of the town of Hadar in the northern countryside of Quneitra, near the Israel-occupied Golan Heights. It gave no further details.

Opposition activists reported that a suicide car bomb targeted a position of Syrian soldiers in that area amid clashes between government forces and rebels there.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll at seven and said 23 people were wounded. It also reported heavy clashes between the two sides in the area.

___

10 a.m.

Syrian state media say the army has liberated the eastern city of Deir el-Zour from the Islamic State group.

Friday's report says the military is now in full control of the long contested city.

Syrian government forces and their pro-government allies first broke the militant group's siege of their part of the city in September and have been advancing against IS positions since then.

Deir el-Zour had been divided into a government-held and an IS-held part for nearly three years.

The development is the latest significant defeat for IS as the militant group sees its self-proclaimed "caliphate" crumble and lose almost all urban strongholds.

The Syrian army and Kurdish-led forces backed by the U.S. are now racing to take the rest of the oil-rich eastern province.

This frame grab from a video released on Nov. 2, 2017 by the Syrian official news agency SANA shows a Syrian army tank firing during a battle against Islamic State militants in Deir el-Zour, Syria. The Syrian army announced on Friday, Nov. 3 it liberated the long-contested eastern city of Deir el-Zour from the Islamic State group. (SANA via AP)
MOSCOW (AP) - Alex Ovechkin's new "social movement" to support President Vladimir Putin received Kremlin backing Friday.

The Washington Capitals captain said Thursday on Instagram he was starting a group called Putin Team to "show everyone a strong and united Russia." Ovechkin added that he has never hidden his feelings about Putin and has "always supported him openly."

The Russian presidential election is scheduled for March 18. Putin hasn't confirmed he will run for a fourth term, but is widely expected to do so.

FILE - In this May 29, 2012, file photo, Russian national ice hockey team member Alexander Ovechkin, right, holds a certficate of recognition given to him by President Vladimir Putin, left, in the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow. Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin has voiced his support for Vladimir Putin ahead of the upcoming Russian presidential elections. Ovechkin posted a message in Russian on his Instagram account Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017, announcing he's starting "a social movement called Putin Team." From right in the background are Russian ice hockey federation president Vladislav Tretyak and Russia's captain Ilya Nikulin. (AP Photo/Sergei Karpukhin, Pool, File)

"We obviously welcome in general Sasha's desire to express support for our president, especially from abroad," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, referring to Ovechkin.

Peskov added that Ovechkin is "a very famous Russian, a very successful Russian, and we really know that he values our president highly."

Ovechkin, speaking after the Capitals' game against the New York Islanders on Thursday, said he didn't mean his post as a political gesture, but as a sign of Russian patriotism.

He hasn't said what exactly the movement will do or how it will be organized.

Putin is a hockey fan who takes to the ice for annual televised exhibitions games using the branding of the NHL - though in that case it stands for "Night Hockey League." Putin plays alongside former star players and government officials, and regularly scores several goals, though his opponents seem reluctant to challenge him for the puck.
LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) - Six Florida police officers fatally shot a 71-year-old man who fired a gun into the air and shouted racial slurs at his neighbors Thursday night several hours before a confrontation with law enforcement outside his home.

The incident unfolded Thursday night in Lakeland, which is between Orlando and Tampa in central Florida.

Police said in a news release that officers made continuous requests for Jerry Roach to come out of his home. During a phone conversation with negotiators, Roach declared he was "coming out and officers would have to kill him."

The report says Roach stepped outside, armed with a shotgun even though officers had asked him numerous times to leave the home without it. He refused additional demands to drop the shotgun and continued toward the officers. Six of them fired simultaneously. The report didn't say how many times Roach was struck..

The officers started CPR, but he died at 11:20 p.m. Thursday at a hospital.

The report identified the officers as Camilo Almeida, Nick Harrison, Travis Miller, Sean Mulderrig, Raj Patel and John Renew. The report didn't list the race of the officers. Roach was white.

The officers are all on paid administrative leave pending an investigation. An independent review of the shooting also will be conducted by the state attorney's office.

Roach was a convicted felon and was prohibited from having a firearm.
SELANGOR, Malaysia (AP) - Prince Charles began his first visit to Malaysia on Friday by touring a museum of Islamic art and meeting with students from Commonwealth nations.

In a speech at the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, the Prince of Wales said he has "always been fascinated by Malaysia's rich cultural and racial diversity which . is something to be both cherished and celebrated."

Charles also visited the University of Nottingham Malaysia campus in Selangor, where he officiated at a Commonwealth Youth Summit and met with students from across the region.

Britain's Prince Charles, left, waves to students as Graham Kendall, Provost and CEO of University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, as he arrives for the Commonwealth Youth Summit in Semenyh, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, arrived Malaysia as they continue an 11-day trip aimed to strengthen ties between Britain and Asian countries. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

He and his wife, Camilla, are to meet Prime Minister Najib Razak before attending a gala dinner to celebrate 60 years of diplomatic relations between Malaysia and the United Kingdom.

They also are to visit Sarawak and Perak, as well as George Town in Penang, originally named Prince of Wales Island.

They started their 11-day tour of Asia with visits to Singapore and Brunei. The last stop of their tour will be India.

Britain's Prince Charles, center, talks with young adults during the Commonwealth Youth Summit at University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus in Semenyh, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, arrived in Malaysia for the second stop of an 11-day trip to strengthen ties between Britain and Asian countries. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

Britain's Prince Charles talks with young adults during the Commonwealth Youth Summit at University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus in Semenyh, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, arrived in Malaysia for the second stop of an 11-day trip to strengthen ties between Britain and Asian countries. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

Britain's Prince Charles talks with young adults during the Commonwealth Youth Summit at University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus in Semenyh, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, arrived in Malaysia for the second stop of an 11-day trip to strengthen ties between Britain and Asian countries. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

Britain's Prince Charles, gesture as he arrives for the Commonwealth Youth Summit at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus in Semenyh, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, arrived in Malaysia as they continue an 11-day trip aimed to strengthen ties between Britain and Asian countries. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
BERLIN (AP) - Germany's foreign ministry says a German citizen who was held in Turkey for what Berlin considers political reasons has been released from jail.

Ministry spokesman Rainer Breul said Friday the German was freed from investigative custody on Oct. 22, but isn't allowed to leave Turkey. He said the person asked authorities not to release further details.

Breul noted that nine other German citizens remain "in custody for political reasons in Turkey."

The jailing of several Germans in the aftermath of a coup attempt in Turkey last year has been a major irritant in German-Turkish relations.

Those held included journalists Deniz Yucel and Mesale Tolu.

Last week, a Turkish court released German Peter Steudtner and seven other human rights activists pending a verdict in their trial for allegedly aiding terror groups.
SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) - A court in Macedonia has sentenced an alleged ethnic Albanian militant gunman to life in prison over a deadly 2015 gunbattle with police, a day after 33 other suspects also received heavy sentences.

Prosecutors said Sulejman Osmani was a key organizer of the deadly attack in Kumanovo, in northern Macedonia, that left eight police officers and 10 militants dead. He was tried separately and sentenced Friday following his extradition from neighboring Kosovo.

Macedonia has a large ethnic Albanian minority, and the 2015 incident was the worst outbreak of violence in the tiny country since a nine-month insurgency by fighters from the minority in 2001.

On Thursday, seven suspects were handed life sentences, and 26 others got prison sentences from 12 to 40 years.
PERTH, Australia (AP) - Paceman Steven Finn and allrounder Moeen Ali will miss England's first two matches of its tour of Australia.

Finn hurt his left knee while batting at practice on Thursday, while Ali has a left side strain that has bothered him in recent days.

England starts a two-day tour match against a Western Australia XI side at the WACA ground on Saturday. It has a four-day match against CA XI at the Adelaide Oval starting Wednesday.

England says Finn will be monitored over the next week, before a further decision on his fitness will be taken. The teams says Ali is expected to return to "by mid-November" ahead of a tour match in Townsville starting Nov. 15.
PARIS (AP) - Rafael Nadal pulled out of the Paris Masters on Friday because of a right knee injury, putting in doubt his participation in the ATP finals.

The top-ranked Spaniard, who had his knee taped during the third set of his third-round win over Pablo Cuevas, said he wouldn't be able to play Serbian qualifier Filip Krajinovic.

"I have to pull out. Of course it's a very tough decision for me, especially here in Paris, which has been the most important city in my career without a doubt," said Nadal, a 10-time French Open champion. "It's a tough situation but I tried my best ... I did one treatment yesterday night to try and play today."

Rafael Nadal of Spain attends a press conference to announce he pulled out of the Paris Masters with a right knee injury, at the Bercy Arena in Paris, France, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Top-ranked Rafael Nadal held a news conference on Friday to announce he could not play his scheduled match against Serbian qualifier Filip Krajinovic. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

He didn't say whether he will be able to play at the ATP finals in London, which starts No. 12.

"It's not about London, it's about the longer term," Nadal said. "It's important to play tennis as long as possible"

The 31-year-old Nadal said he will consult a doctor to assess the state of his right knee.

"I'm going to go back, check again with the doctors (like) I did after Shanghai," Nadal said. "Let's see. I'm going to do my treatment. In the past it worked well."

As the match against Cuevas went on, Nadal's movement looked restricted and he lacked his usual speed and mobility around court. While he was serving for the match, Nadal hardly had any spring as he double-faulted.

"Yesterday, the pain during the match was too much. But I didn't want to stop," Nadal said. "It's not the thing that I love to do."

Nadal missed large chunks of last season with a wrist injury and came back to win the French Open for the 10th time and the U.S. Open for the third time, taking his tally to 16 Grand Slam titles.

He began the year with a five-set loss to Roger Federer in the Australian Open final. Federer has beaten Nadal three other times this year.

Nadal has also been troubled by knee injuries in the past and preferred not to take any risks by continuing to play at the Paris Masters, where he has never won. He has only reached the final once, on his debut in 2007, losing to David Nalbandian.

But Nadal had already done enough in the tournament to finish No. 1 at the end of the year for the fourth time in his career, and first since 2013.

Rafael Nadal of Spain leaves a press conference after he pulled out of the Paris Masters with a right knee injury, at the Bercy Arena in Paris, France, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Top-ranked Rafael Nadal held a news conference on Friday to announce he could not play his scheduled match against Serbian qualifier Filip Krajinovic. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Rafael Nadal of Spain leaves a press conference after he pulled out of the Paris Masters with a right knee injury, at the Bercy Arena in Paris, France, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Top-ranked Rafael Nadal held a news conference on Friday to announce he could not play his scheduled match against Serbian qualifier Filip Krajinovic. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Rafael Nadal of Spain celebrates his victory over Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay during the third round of the Paris Masters tennis tournament at the Bercy Arena in Paris, France, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Rafael Nadal of Spain returns the ball to Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay during the third round of the Paris Masters tennis tournament at the Bercy Arena in Paris, France, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump is extending his trip to Asia by another day to attend the East Asian Summit.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirms the president will be spending an extra day in the Philippines to accommodate the annual event on Nov. 14.

Trump had been criticized by many experts in the region for skipping the summit, saying it put into question U.S. commitment to and focus on Southeast Asia.

First lady Melania Trump looks and President Donald Trump walk to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House for a trip to Asia, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Trump had originally been scheduled to leave Manila right as the summit got under way.

Trump announced the news to reporters as he departed the White House en route to his first flight to Hawaii.

He says of his visit: "I think we're going to have great success."
Donna Byrne, 53, had a blood alcohol level of .161 while riding her horse on the freeway in Polk County, Florida

A 53-year-old woman riding a horse down a busy Florida highway has been arrested and charged with driving drunk.

Polk County Sheriff's officials said in a news release that someone called 911 about a woman, who appeared confused and possibly in danger.

When deputies arrived they found Donna Byrne riding her horse in the road.

Officers did a sobriety test and said she gave breath samples that registered blood alcohol level of .161 - much higher than Florida's legal limit of .08.

Byrne is charged with DUI and animal neglect for endangering and failing to provide proper protection for the horse.

'Ms. Byrne was obviously not in any condition to be on the road. She not only put herself and the horse in danger, but also anyone who was driving on the road, which is typically very busy,' Sheriff Grady Judd said, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

Deputies took the horse to the Polk County Sheriff's Animal Control livestock facility. She was booked into the Polk County Jail.

It's unclear whether she retained an attorney.

Byrne had been arrested for charges relating to 10 misdemeanors and five felonies. Animal cruelty and drug possession were among them.
MOSCOW (AP) - The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama.

Bodies lie at a main intersection in St. Petersburg and people flee gunfire from soldiers at the bloody end of a demonstration. A phalanx of soldiers marches down one of central Moscow's main streets bearing a banner reading "Communism." Pro-Bolshevik Red Guard volunteers stare boldly outside a factory in St. Petersburg, some holding belt-fed machine guns and rifles.

Photos culled from Russian state archives also show Vladimir Lenin, disguised by being clean-shaven, as he hid out in a village near St. Petersburg. Later, with his goatee and mustache restored, he is shown haranguing a crowd celebrating the revolution's one-year anniversary in 1918.

In this photo taken in Oct. 1917, provided by Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, members of the revolution Red Guards pose for a photo with their arms at the Smolny Institute building which was chosen by Vladimir Lenin as Bolshevik headquarters during the October Revolution in 1917. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (Russian State Archive of Social and Political History via AP)

And in a static but suggestive photo, deposed Czar Nicholas II sits on a tree stump, three of the soldiers that held him captive standing in the background. The heavily bearded face of the czar, whom many regarded as dull-witted, is somber but shows no fear.

By the next summer, in July 1918, he and his family would be executed in a fusillade of gunfire in a basement.

In this photo taken in Oct. 1917, provided by Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive, people walk at the damaged Nikolskaya Tower right after the revolution fighting in Moscow, Russia. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive via AP)

In this photo taken in Aug. 1917, provided by Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, Vladimir Lenin, disguised by being clean-shaven, as he hid out in a village near Razliv railway station, 35 kilometers north-west of St. Petersburg, Russia. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (Russian State Archive of Social and Political History via AP)

In this photo taken in Nov. 7 1918, provided by Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin addresses a crowd during the first year of Revolution in Red Square in Moscow, Russia. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (Russian State Archive of Social and Political History via AP)

In this photo taken in Oct. 1917, provided by Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive, machine-gunners guard the Kremlin's Borovitsky Gates, in Moscow, Russia. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive via AP)

In this photo taken in Oct. 1917, provided by Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive, a machine gunner looks through a window at his position near the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive via AP)

In this photo taken in Oct. 1917, provided by Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive, Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive, armed soldiers carry a banner reading 'Communism' march alone Nikolskaya street towards to the Kremlin Wall in Moscow, Russia. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive via AP)

In this photo taken in Oct. 1917, provided by Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, members of the revolution Red Guards pose for a photo with their arms at the Smolny Institute building which was chosen by Vladimir Lenin as Bolshevik headquarters during the October Revolution in 1917. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (Russian State Archive of Social and Political History via AP)

In this photo taken in Oct. 1917, provided by Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive, junkers get ready at their position atop of the Kremlin Wall in Moscow, Russia. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive via AP)

In this photo taken in Oct. 1917, provided by Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, soldiers of the Grenadier Regiments lieby wait for Lenin's arrival on the parade ground near the barracks in St.Petersburg, Russia. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (Russian State Archive of Social and Political History via AP)

In this photo taken in Oct. 1917, provided by Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, armed revolution workers warm themselves at a bonfire in St.Petersburg, Russia. From left: Ivanov, Yarosh and Gribovsky. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (Yakov Steinberg, Russian State Archive of Social and Political History via AP)

In this 1917 photo provided by Karl Bulla Historical Foundation, members of of Red Guards on Konnogvardeisky Boulevard pose for a photo in St.Petersburg, Russia. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (Karl Bulla, Karl Bulla Historical Foundation via AP)

In this photo taken in Oct. 1917, provided by Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive, people line up to get food at Tverskaya Zastava, in Moscow, Russia. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive via AP)

FILE - Russia's Czar Nicholas II, seated second from left, Czarina Alexandra, center rear, and their family are shown in this undated file photo. Bottom row left to right, Princess Olga, Czar Nicholas II, Princess Anastasia, Prince Alexei and Princess Tatiana. Top row left to right, Princess Maria and Princess Alexandra. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (AP Photo, File)

In this photo taken in Oct. 1917 provided by Karl Bulla Historical Foundation, armed workers of Vulcan plant, called themselves as Red Guard pose for a photo in St.Petersburg, Russia. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (Karl Bulla, Karl Bulla Historical Foundation via AP)

In this photo taken in spring-summer of 1917, provided by Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive, Russia's deposed Czar Nicholas II, sits on a tree stump, three of the soldiers that held him captive standing in the background in Tsarskoe Selo, the residence of the Russian czar, outside St. Petersburg, Russia. Nicholas, his wife Alexandra and their five children were executed by Bolsheviks in 1918 . The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive via AP)

In this photo taken in July 4, 1917, provided by Karl Bulla Historical Foundation, Russian troops fire on demonstrators with machine guns, on the corner of Nevsky Prospect and Sadovaya Street, in St.Petersburg, Russia. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was long before the digital revolution allowed anyone to instantly document events. But the clumsy cameras of the time still caught some images that capture the period's drama. (Karl Bulla, Karl Bulla Historical Foundation via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) - Legislation providing five more years of financing for an expired children's health program won House approval Friday, but a partisan battle over paying for the extension seemed certain to delay the bill in the Senate. Each side is using the fight to accuse the other of jeopardizing a program that serves more than 8 million low-income children.

Fresh federal money for the health insurance program stopped on Oct. 1. States are continuing to use unspent funds, but Arizona, California, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon and the District of Columbia are among those expected to deplete that money by late December or in January.

Republicans want to pay for the extension in part by cutting a public health program created under President Barack Obama's health care law and raising Medicare premiums on upper-income recipients. They say it makes sense to trim some health programs to beef up others and said wealthy Medicare recipients could easily afford higher premiums.

House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis., left, speaks next to Rep. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., during a news conference announcing GOP tax legislation, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democrats opposed both and most of them voted "no" on Friday. They say cutting the public health program would reduce money for providing vaccines and opioid abuse efforts, and charging top earners more for Medicare would prompt many of them to drop their coverage. They say that would undermine Medicare finances and erode political support for it.

Friday's House vote was a mostly party-line 242-174.

"Delay, delay, delay," said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., chief author of the bill, about Democrats' opposition. "And vote against kids, vote against their hospitals and vote against their doctors."

Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the committee's top Democrat, said Republicans were using the children's health bill to try damaging Obama's health care overhaul and were ensuring a stalemate by sending the measure to the Senate. Senators have agreed on a bill extending the program's money for five more years but remain divided over how to pay for it.

"It will go to the Senate, and it will sit there," Pallone said. "This bill is going nowhere. They know it."

An eventual deal on extended financing for the children's health care program is expected to be part of in a huge year-end spending bill aimed at preventing a federal shutdown. That measure seems likely to become home for a host of compromises.
LONDON (AP) - London police are investigating an alleged 2008 sexual assault reportedly linked to Kevin Spacey in the latest setback for the "House of Cards" star.

Police Friday did not identify Spacey by name but said the department's child abuse and sexual offenses unit is investigating the reported assault after it was referred to police two days ago.

British media including The Sun reported Spacey was the subject of the investigation. The Sun said the new allegation comes from a man who was in his early 20s at the time.

FILE - In this Oct. 27, 2017 photo, Kevin Spacey presents the award for excellence in television at the BAFTA Los Angeles Britannia Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. British media reported Friday, Nov. 3, that London police are investigating Spacey over an alleged 2008 assault. Police declined to name Spacey as the subject of the investigation, but confirmed they are looking into a 2008 incident in Lambeth that several British media outlets say involved Spacey, who has been accused of sexual harassment by several men in recent days. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)

London's Metropolitan Police released a statement saying the force is investigating a 2008 assault in Lambeth in south London. The statement noted police do not identify people who may or may not be subject to investigation.

Asked whether police were investigating Spacey, a spokesman asked for details about the alleged incident and then provided the statement.

London police policy in cases like this is not to respond to questions about individuals but to respond to questions about incidents.

Spacey has not been arrested or charged with any crime. Police would not say if he has been questioned.

His publicist did not immediately return an email message seeking comment.

Spacey, 58, has been prominent in London since serving for more than a decade as artistic director of the Old Vic theater.

The two-time Academy Award winner's reputation was badly damaged last weekend when BuzzFeed News reported that actor Anthony Rapp said that Spacey attempted to seduce him in 1986, when Rapp was 14.

That report helped spur the announcement that "House of Cards" was being canceled and has cost Spacey other opportunities.

CNN reported that eight current or former "House of Cards" workers claim that Spacey made the production a "toxic" workplace and one ex-employee alleges the actor sexually assaulted him.

The report accuses Spacey of allegedly targeting staffers who were typically young and male with nonconsensual touching and crude comments. The show's producers acknowledged one complaint involving Spacey during production of the show's first season, but said the actor attended training and it was not aware of any issues since 2012.

The reports have cost Spacey other opportunities as well. A Dutch business forum has canceled a headline appearance by Spacey after the allegations surfaced.

BusinessBoost Live said in a statement Friday that "it is not desirable" to let Spacey speak at their conference Nov. 29 in Rotterdam.

Spacey has in the past spoken at other business conferences including the prestigious World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
WOBURN, Mass. (AP) - Two men have pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the death of a teenage boy at an alcohol-fueled underage party last year in Massachusetts.

Prosecutors say 19-year-old Joseph Zagarella slammed 15-year-old Ethan Costello's head on a concrete floor after Costello bumped into him during a party in Lowell in October 2016. The Tewksbury resident died days later from his injuries.

Zagarella pleaded not guilty Thursday to manslaughter and other charges.

The 51-year-old Thomas Ogden allegedly bought the alcohol for the party, which was hosted by his 15-year-old daughter. He pleaded not guilty to furnishing alcohol to minors.

Prosecutors say the party was supposed to be for about 10 people, but 60 to 80 showed up.

Zagarella's lawyer says her client did not mean to hurt Costello. Ogden refused comment outside court.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - An Arkansas judge dismissed an effort Friday to halt next week's planned execution of a convicted killer despite his attorneys' arguments that he's not mentally competent.

The ruling came shortly after Gov. Asa Hutchinson said he was unlikely to grant clemency to Jack Greene, who is scheduled to be executed Thursday night. Greene was convicted in the 1991 death of Sidney Burnett, who was beaten with a can of hominy, stabbed and later shot.

Jefferson County Circuit Judge Jodi Raines Dennis dismissed a lawsuit filed by Greene's attorneys challenging an Arkansas law that gives the state's top prisons official authority to determine an inmate's mental competency. Dennis ruled that the state Supreme Court had already upheld the law as constitutional. Dennis also said she did not have the authority to halt Greene's execution.

FILE - In this April 13, 2017 file photo, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson speaks at the Governor's Mansion in Little Rock, Ark. Hutchinson said Friday, Nov. 3 that he expects to let the execution of death row inmate Jack Greene proceed. Hutchinson, speaking to reporters from China, said that in reviewing Greene's case he had uncovered nothing that would lead him to rescind a death warrant. (AP Photo/Kelly P. Kissel File)

Greene's attorneys plan to appeal to the state Supreme Court. They argue that Greene suffers from psychotic delusions and believes prison officials and his attorneys are conspiring to cover up injuries he believes corrections officers inflicted on him.

"The U.S. Supreme Court has clearly found that severely mentally ill death row prisoners like Mr. Greene must have access to competency hearings presided over by neutral decision makers in order to prevent unconstitutional execution," Scott Braden, an assistant federal defender representing Greene, said in a statement Friday.

The state said it was prepared to defend its plan to execute Greene.

"The attorney general continues to believe the execution will occur as scheduled, but is prepared to respond to any and all challenges from inmate Greene in the days leading up to the execution," said Judd Deere, a spokesman for Attorney General Leslie Rutledge.

If carried out, Greene's execution would be the first since Arkansas put four inmates to death over an eight- day period in April. Arkansas originally planned to put eight inmates to death over an 11-day period, scheduling the executions before its supply of a lethal injection drug expired, but four of the executions were blocked by the courts.

Hutchinson scheduled Greene's execution in August after the state obtained a new supply of midazolam, the expired drug. The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the state to identify the manufacturer of the drug, saying the information was not protected by an execution drug secrecy measure.

The ruling, which requires a lower court to determine what information on the drug's label other than the manufacturer can be withheld, doesn't directly address Greene's execution and will take effect early next week.

Hutchinson earlier Friday said he was unlikely to halt Greene's execution. The state Parole Board last month recommended Hutchinson not grant clemency, rejecting Greene's argument that he was not mentally competent. Hutchinson said he believed Greene was mentally competent based on U.S. Supreme Court standards, and didn't plan on granting clemency.

"I've seen nothing that causes me concern in proceeding forth at this point," Hutchinson told reporters. "Obviously, we will continue to receive any information, continue to evaluate that, but at this point the execution is still scheduled and will remain on schedule."

___

Follow Andrew DeMillo on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ademillo
CINCINNATI (AP) - A Thunderbirds pilot was going too fast in bad weather and without enough stopping distance when landing on a wet runway, causing a crash that destroyed a $29 million F-16D jet during practice for the Dayton air show, the U.S. Air Force concluded Friday.

The pilot and crew member were treated June 23 after their two-seat plane ran off the runway and flipped over at Dayton International Airport. The Air Force accident investigation board report stated that the pilot suffered multiple injuries, while the crew member was uninjured. Details of the pilot's injuries weren't released Friday, although at the time of the accident, authorities said he had an injured leg and lacerations.

Capt. Erik Gonsalves was hospitalized after the Dayton accident. Air Force spokeswoman Maj. Lindy Singleton said Friday he has resumed traveling with the Thunderbirds and narrating shows, but hasn't been cleared medically to fly.

FILE - This June 23, 2017, file photo shows a military jet that ran off a runway and flipped over following a practice flight for the Dayton Air Show at Dayton International Airport in Dayton, Ohio. The U.S. Air Force concluded Friday, Nov. 3, that a Thunderbirds pilot was going too fast in bad weather and without enough stopping distance when landing on a wet runway, causing a crash that destroyed a $29 million F-16D jet during practice for the Dayton air show in Ohio. (Ty Greenlees/Dayton Daily News via AP, File)

She declined to say whether he faces possible disciplinary action as a result of the investigative board's findings. A Thunderbirds spokesman said Gonsalves was traveling with the team Friday and wasn't available for comment.

The report also cites failure to follow procedures and environmental conditions as contributing factors to the accident. The team was practicing on a rainy afternoon with crosswinds, and the report stated that there was standing water on the cockpit's canopy that affected vision. The report also said proper braking procedure wasn't followed.

The probe's conclusions came after an interview with the pilot and with first responders, along with flight data and technical analysis, the investigative board stated.

The Thunderbirds air demonstration team canceled its scheduled appearances at the annual two-day air show after the accident, and organizers said attendance fell.

The Thunderbirds are assigned to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

___

Follow Dan Sewell at http://www.twitter.com/dansewell
MANDAN, N.D. (AP) - Trial likely will be delayed for an American Indian activist accused of inciting a riot during protests in North Dakota against the Dakota Access oil pipeline, as his attorneys gather more evidence to present a "necessity" defense.

Chase Iron Eyes is seeking a judge's permission to use the defense in which a suspect argues a crime was justified because it prevented a greater harm.

Pipeline protesters who have recently tried the necessity defense in other cases in North Dakota and other states have argued that the greater harm they're trying to prevent is climate change due to fossil fuels. Iron Eyes also has said he wants to "stop global climate chaos," but his necessity argument goes further.

FILE - In this Feb. 6, 2014, file photo, Chase Iron Eyes, an attorney and American Indian activist on the Standing Rock Reservation, speaks in Fort Yates, N.D. The trial for Iron Eyes, accused of inciting a riot during protests in North Dakota against the Dakota Access pipeline will likely be delayed. Attorneys for Iron Eyes said Friday, Nov. 3, 2017, they want to gather more evidence for their effort to present a "necessity" defense, arguing a crime was justified because it prevented a greater harm. (AP Photo/Kevin Cederstrom, File)

Iron Eyes hopes to show that civil disobedience was his only option to resist a pipeline's incursion on his ancestral lands and prevent a threat to the tribe's water supply. He also wants to argue that he was trying to prevent a "civil rights conspiracy" to portray pipeline opponents as terrorists and result in them being treated as such.

Iron Eyes and 73 others were arrested on Feb. 1 after erecting teepees on land that authorities said is owned by pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners. Protesters maintained they were peacefully assembling on land they believe rightfully belongs to American Indians under old treaties.

Iron Eyes hasn't disputed his involvement, but the Standing Rock Sioux tribal member has pleaded not guilty to felony inciting a riot and misdemeanor criminal trespassing. He could face up to five years in prison if convicted of the more serious charge.

Defense attorney Alexander Reichert during a Friday hearing received permission from Judge David Nelson to request more material from the prosecution, including video taken the day of Iron Eyes' arrest and documents that might give more insight into the efforts of law enforcement and pipeline private security.

"They labeled Chase as a terrorist and a jihadist," Reichert said. "Obviously, that came from somewhere."

Assistant Morton County State's Attorney Chase Lingle said he thought all available information had been given to the defense but that he would double-check.

Iron Eye's one-day trial scheduled for Feb. 8 is likely to be delayed until next summer and likely lengthened to several days. Nelson called Iron Eyes "one of the premier cases" of the 761 arrests made during six months of protests last year and earlier this year.

"I'm not going to try to rush this through," the judge said. "We want to make sure this gets done right."

Nelson eventually will decide whether Iron Eyes can use a necessity defense. In recent months, judges in Washington state and Minnesota have allowed climate change protesters to use a necessity defense at trial. But judges in recent pipeline protest trials in North Dakota, Montana and Washington have rejected the defense.

___

Follow Blake Nicholson on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/NicholsonBlake
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - A Ukrainian opposition politician who helped uncover off-the-books payments allegedly made to former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort says he provided information on the matter to the FBI, but never received a follow-up.

Serhiy Leshchenko also told The Associated Press on Friday that his attempts to inform Ukrainian officials about the payments ran into roadblocks.

Manafort worked as a consultant to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who went on to be ousted in the wake of bloody street protests in 2014.

Leshchenko, a former investigative journalist, said that in February he "shared some documents" with the FBI about Manafort receiving a $750,000 payment via Kyrgyzstan.

He said: "Since that moment I have no feedback."

Leshchenko says letters he sent Ukraine's prosecutor-general about the payments were received only months later.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - The Latest on an execution planned next week in Arkansas (all times local):

12:45 p.m.

An Arkansas judge has dismissed an effort to halt next week's execution of a convicted killer despite his attorneys' arguments that he is not mentally competent to be put to death.

Jefferson County Judge Jodi Raines Dennis on Friday dismissed the lawsuit by attorneys for Jack Greene. Greene is scheduled to be put to death on Thursday.

His attorneys have challenged a state law that allows the state's top prison official to determine an inmate's competency. Greene's attorneys have argued he suffers from psychotic delusions.

Dennis ruled that the Arkansas Supreme Court has already upheld the constitutionality of the law. The judge says said she doesn't have the power to stay Greene's execution.

___

10:50 a.m.

Arkansas' governor says he's unlikely to halt the execution next week of a convicted killer whose attorneys have argued is mentally incompetent to be put to death.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Friday he's seen nothing in the case file so far that would prompt him to grant clemency to death row inmate Jack Greene, who's scheduled to be put to death on Thursday.

The Arkansas Parole Board unanimously recommended against granting clemency to Greene last month. Greene was convicted in the 1991 death of Sidney Burnett, who was beaten with a can of hominy, stabbed and later shot.

Hutchinson said he'd evaluate any additional information that comes to him, but believes Greene is competent to be executed based on Supreme Court standards. Greene's attorneys have argued the inmate suffers from psychotic delusions.
BEIRUT (AP) - With new losses Friday, the Islamic State group has been driven from more than 96 percent of the large parts of Iraq and Syria it once held, crushing its goal of establishing a "caliphate" in the region.

Syrian President Bashar Assad's military announced the capture of the eastern Syrian city of Deir el-Zour, while Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi proclaimed victory in retaking the town of Qaim on the border, the militants' last significant urban area in Iraq.

The militants are left fighting for a final stretch inside Syria and desert regions along the Iraq-Syria border. Three years ago, they had defiantly erased that line, knocking down berms marking the frontier.

This frame grab from a video released on Nov. 2, 2017 by the Syrian official news agency SANA shows a Syrian army tank firing during a battle against Islamic State militants in Deir el-Zour, Syria. The Syrian army announced on Friday, Nov. 3 it liberated the long-contested eastern city of Deir el-Zour from the Islamic State group. (SANA via AP)

Since then, they have lost infrastructure, resources, supply routes, control over about 8 million people and - most importantly - administration of a contiguous territory. The extremist group may still prove to be a major challenge for months as it turns to a clandestine insurgency.

What the group lost in the last 11 months, and what is left:

QAIM

Iraqi forces' last conventional military fight against IS played out in Qaim, on the western edge of Anbar province along the border with Syria. Operations began there in the last week of October. On Friday, Iraq said it now controls the town and the nearby border crossing with Syria.

The crossing in the Euphrates River Valley was used by IS to move fighters and supplies between the two countries when the group controlled nearly a third of Iraqi territory.

Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy for the fight against the Islamic State, said Thursday the group is now facing "annihilation" with the losses in western Iraq and nearly 96 percent of its territory. He earlier said 6.6 million people have been liberated as the group lost over 90,000 square kilometers (35,000 square miles) in the last year.

The Islamic State "has not reclaimed single meter of this ground. Migrant and refugee flows reversed," McGurk tweeted Thursday.

___

DEIR EL-ZOUR

The Syrian government declared Friday that it has taken full control of Deir el-Zour, where its troops and tens of thousands of civilians have been besieged by IS militants for nearly three years.

Gen. Ali Mayhoub, spokesman for the Syrian army, called it a strategic victory, noting Deir el-Zour's location on a crossroads linking Syria's eastern, northern and central regions, and its role in distributing the province's oil.

Mayhoub said IS militants are now isolated and encircled in the countryside east of the city. Government forces are focused on Boukamal, the last IS urban center in Syria.

Kurdish forces backed by the U.S. also are making a bid for the strategic border town from the other side of the Euphrates, renewing fears of a confrontation between the two forces seeking to control the border area.

___

RAQQA

Raqqa, the IS group's de-facto capital, fell to Kurdish-led forces on Oct. 17, four months after operations to reclaim it began. The city was the group's hub of operations, and its capture was a major symbolic blow.

The first city to fall into IS hands, foreign fighters flocked to Raqqa. The U.S.-led coalition estimated that 40,000 fighters from Europe, North Africa and Asia once flowed into IS territory.

The group carried out beheadings and other killings in a public square in Raqqa to try to project its ruthless nature. The city also was the center of its media operations, where videos about the benefits of life under IS were produced.

Planning for some of the major violence in Europe was traced to Raqqa, including the deadly attacks in Paris in 2015 and in Brussels in 2016.

___

MAYADEEN

On Oct. 14, the Syrian government said its troops and allied fighters seized the town of Mayadeen, on the western bank of the Euphrates River. The town had become a refuge for the militant group's leaders from fighting in Raqqa and Deir el-Zour to the north and Iraq to the east.

Mayadeen was also a major point in the race for control of the oil-rich eastern Deir el-Zour province. Washington has feared advances by Syrian troops and allied fighters toward the Iraqi border could help Iran expand its influence in the region and establish a "Shiite corridor" of land links from Iraq to Lebanon, and all the way to Israel. Iran backs militias fighting alongside the Syrian military.

The Syrian government had feared that U.S.-backed forces would get to Mayadeen first, but the militants pulled back a few days after the battle began, disappearing into the desert.

___

HAWIJA

It took 20 days to liberate Hawija, depriving IS of its last significant urban area in Iraq.

Iraqi forces fought alongside the Kurdish peshmerga to retake the city in oil-rich Kirkuk province on Oct. 10. Hundreds of IS fighters and their families surrendered to the Kurdish forces.

The fall of the city also eliminated a unifying factor for the peshmerga and the Iraqi military and federal police along with their Shiite militia allies. That opened the way for the tension that followed among the former allies.

___

TAL AFAR

The town was liberated by coalition-backed Iraqi forces Aug. 30, ending the IS presence in northern Iraq. Thousands of IS fighters and their families turned themselves over to Iraqi and Kurdish forces as the town fell, the first instance of mass surrenders of IS fighters on the heels of a military victory.

Unlike the nine-month battle for Mosul, the swift military victory in Tal Afar was the first sign of the battlefield losses had weakened IS as a conventional military force, according to the coalition.

___

MOSUL

Iraqi forces declared victory in Mosul on July 10. While clashes continued between small groups of IS fighters in tunnels under the old city for weeks after, the loss of Mosul effectively broke the back of the caliphate.

Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul was a hub for meetings of the IS leadership. It was the largest city under the militants' control and was an important site of facilities for making car bombs, smaller explosives and mortar rounds. The militants used civilians as shields to prevent the weapons factories from being targeted by coalition airstrikes.

The fight for Mosul was long and costly, killing thousands of civilians and Iraqi security forces. IS fighters used years of tight control of the city to build defenses that prolonged the battle and caused widespread death and destruction.

___

WHAT IS LEFT

The Syrian city of Boukamal is the last major urban center in the hands of IS.

The group also is spread along the Syria-Iraq border in villages in the provinces of Hassakeh and Deir el-Zour in eastern Syria.

There also are small IS cells in Iraq's Nineveh, Anbar and Salahudin provinces, where the central government has lacked strong control for years.

Along this thin line on the border of the two countries, the militants still have a presence in a region running west of the Euphrates River toward the Syrian desert, between Deir el-Zour and Homs provinces. There also is a small IS presence near Damascus.

In a briefing last week, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said small numbers of IS leaders are "attempting to leverage local insurgencies" in Africa and Asia as they lose territory in Iraq and Syria.

The group's militants and local affiliates in Egypt, Libya, the Sahel area of Africa and the Philippines continue to challenge authorities, carrying out regular attacks.

___

George reported from Baghdad. Brian Rohan in Cairo contributed.

This frame grab from a video released on Nov. 2, 2017 by the Syrian official news agency SANA shows a Syrian army tank firing during a battle against Islamic State militants in Deir el-Zour, Syria. The Syrian army announced on Friday, Nov. 3 it liberated the long-contested eastern city of Deir el-Zour from the Islamic State group. (SANA via AP)

FILE - In this July 4, 2017 file photo, fleeing Iraqi civilians walk past the heavily damaged al-Nuri mosque as Iraqi forces continue their advance against Islamic State militants in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq. A new United Nations report published Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017, has found that the Islamic State group committed serious "international crimes" such as using civilians as human shields during the Iraqi military's nine-month campaign to liberate the city of Mosul. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)

This frame grab from a video released on Nov. 2, 2017 by the Syrian official news agency SANA shows smoke and debris rising after Syrian government shelling of the Deir el-Zour city during a battle against Islamic State militants, Syria. The Syrian army announced on Friday, Nov. 3 it liberated the long-contested eastern city of Deir el-Zour from the Islamic State group. (SANA via AP)
LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) - A former physician assistant at a Veterans Affairs hospital in eastern Kansas has been sentenced for sexual crimes against patients.

The Kansas City Star reports 66-year-old Mark Wisner was sentenced Friday to 15 years and seven months in prison.

Wisner was convicted in August of sex crimes involving four patients at the Eisenhower Veterans Administration Medical Center in Leavenworth.

Prosecutors said Wisner performed improper and medically unnecessary genital examinations on patients from 2012 to 2014. He resigned and had his license to practice revoked in 2015.

Dozens of other former patients have filed civil lawsuits claiming they were subjected to similar behavior by Wisner.

Leavenworth is about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northwest of Kansas City.

___

Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com
WASHINGTON (AP) - A militant accused of playing an instrumental role in the 2012 Benghazi, Libya, attacks was ordered to remain behind bars during a brief appearance in federal court Friday.

Mustafa al-Imam was captured Oct. 29 by U.S. special forces in a Navy SEAL-led raid and brought to Washington for trial. He appeared in court for the first time Friday, wearing an orange jumpsuit and listening to the proceedings through an ear piece as they were translated from English.

Al-Imam faces three charges that were filed in May 2015 but only recently unsealed: killing or conspiring to kill someone during an attack on a federal facility, providing support for terrorists, and using a firearm in connection with a violent crime.

President Donald Trump has said he ordered the raid that netted al-Imam and that the capture signified that the four Americans who died, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, "will never be forgotten."

The arrest occurred in Libya's north coast, and al-Imam was taken to a U.S. Navy ship and brought by military plane to the United States.

The Justice Department has not specified exactly how al-Imam, who has been identified as a Libyan national and about 46 years old, was involved in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi. But in court Friday, prosecutors requested that he remain in custody, citing the nature of the accusations against him. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson granted the request and scheduled a preliminary hearing for Thursday.

Al-Imam is the second suspect in the attacks to have been captured by the U.S. and brought to court. Ahmed Abu Khattala, a suspected ringleader in the attacks, is currently on trial.

___

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - Local government officials were not negligent in the death of an elderly man who had reported for jury duty and was later found covered with snow outside a Washington state courthouse, jurors ruled.

Kay Mita, 84, reported for jury duty in the city of Spokane on Nov. 26, 2007, but did not return to the courtroom after a lunch break. He was found dead of exposure the next day, slumped against a trash container next to the base of the courthouse steps.

Mita's family sued Spokane County. While the jury on Thursday found that the county was not negligent, it asked officials to update policies on how a person should be determined "at risk."

"I think that's an indication of how serious they took their jobs as jurors," attorney Heather Yakely, who defended the county, told the Spokesman-Review newspaper of Spokane. "One of the things the jurors told me was to talk to the communications center to see if they can do more to make it as professional and effective and successful as possible."

Richard Eymann, attorney for Mita's family, said his clients were disappointed but he hoped the county would address the issues they raised.

The family's lawsuit claimed the county mishandled a missing-person call and provided false assurances that police would search for Mita. The county denied those claims in court documents.

In closing arguments Thursday, John Allison, another attorney for Mita's family, said the county was negligent in not sending the missing-person report to police so they could launch a search the night Mita didn't return home.

Mita's son, Floyd, believed police would search for his father after he called the Spokane Crime Reporting Center, Allison said. As a result, he stayed with his distraught mother that night instead of going to search himself.

The couple had been married for 58 years "when he froze to death on the steps of this building," Eymann said of the Spokane County Courthouse.

Kay Mita was the son of Japanese immigrants who spent three years in a World War II internment camp in Wyoming. Lawyers for the family said during trial that he was excited to serve on a jury.

Perhaps Mita saw jury service "as a way to put out of my mind that when I was a young boy I was interred in a Japanese internment camp and sent all the way to Wyoming," Eymann said.

The attorney said Mita died a slow, painful death from hypothermia and that statistically he was expected to live for six more years.

Yakely, the lawyer for Spokane County, said the case did not rise to negligence.

"Simply because there is a loss of life does not mean it's anybody's fault," Yakely said.
SAO PAULO (AP) - Police in Brazil's northern state of Para say a California couple and their two daughters are heading back to the U.S. after suffering an attack by pirates in the Amazon River delta area.

Para state police inspector Vanessa Macedo says Friday that Adam and Emily Harteau and their 3- and 7-year-old daughters left Para for the country's capital of Brasilia and would fly to the U.S.

The couple spent several hours Friday testifying to police in the state's capital city of Belem.

It was unclear when the family would leave Brazil, and the U.S. embassy had no immediate comment.

The family was found safe earlier this week after they went missing on Sunday.
MIAMI (AP) - A Pentagon spokesman says a Marine Corps general is no longer confined to quarters for contempt at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay.

Air Force Maj. Ben Sakrisson says the Pentagon suspended a sentence which found that Brig. Gen. John Baker should be confined to quarters for 21-days and fined $1,000 pending a review by a Department of Defense legal official.

Baker was informed of the decision Friday while awaiting a ruling to a legal challenge filed in civilian federal court in Washington.

Baker is in charge of the defense teams for war crimes cases at Guantanamo. A military judge ruled he was in contempt of court for dismissing three defense lawyers without court permission in the case of a prisoner charged in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) - A man has pleaded guilty to punching a woman as she yelled anti-racist chants at white supremacists at a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Thirty-seven-year-old Dennis Mothersbaugh of North Vernon, Indiana, pleaded guilty to assault and battery Friday in Charlottesville. He was sentenced to eight months in jail.

The Daily Progress reports that 21-year-old Jacob Smith of Louisa County, Virginia, also pleaded guilty Friday to misdemeanor assault and battery. He was charged with assaulting a reporter on Aug. 12 as she was covering the events following the car attack that killed Heather Heyer and injured of others.

Smith received a suspended sentence and was ordered to perform community service.

___

Information from: The Daily Progress, http://www.dailyprogress.com
BOSTON (AP) - Massachusetts on Friday became the first state to impose a ban on bump stocks since the deadly shooting at a Las Vegas music festival.

An appropriations bill that included a prohibition on the devices, which are designed to make semi-automatic rifles mimic the firing action of fully automatic weapons, was signed into law Friday by Republican Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito. The Democratic-controlled Legislature gave final approval to the measure on Thursday.

Polito is Massachusetts' acting chief executive with Republican Gov. Charlie Baker on vacation outside of the state. Baker had previously expressed support for banning the devices.

Authorities investigating the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history said the gunman, Stephen Paddock, used a bump stock when he opened fire Oct. 1 from his Las Vegas hotel room on concert-goers below. Fifty-eight people were killed and hundreds more wounded.

The Gun Owners Action League of Massachusetts, an affiliate of the National Rifle Association, had sent an alert to its members earlier Friday urging them to contact Baker's office and demand that he use his line-item veto power to separate out the bump stock ban from the rest of the $85 million budget bill, which was needed so the state's comptroller can close out the books on the previous fiscal year.

"The provision passed by the legislature ... allows for excessive punishment including life imprisonment, with a minimum sentence of 18 months, for the mere possession of these accessories," said the group.

The legislation, which would also ban most trigger cranks, provides no "pathway to legal ownership," for the devices and no ability for current owners to sell them, said the gun owners group. The group previously criticized lawmakers for taking a vote before even holding a public hearing.

Democratic state Rep. David Linsky, one of the first in Massachusetts to call for outlawing the devices, said it would make the state safer while respecting the rights of gun owners.

"I am proud of my colleagues in the Legislature for continuing Massachusetts' reputation as having among the safest and most effective gun laws in the nation," Linsky said in a statement.

An organization founded by former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was grievously wounded in a 2011 shooting in Arizona, praised Massachusetts lawmakers for banning bump stocks and urged other states to follow suit.

California law already prohibited the sale of bump stocks.
NEW YORK (AP) - Another Margaret Atwood novel is getting the Hollywood treatment, this time on Netflix.

In "Alias Grace," a six-episode Netflix miniseries starring Sarah Gadon, an Irish immigrant working as a maid in Canada in the 1840s is accused of murdering her boss and his mistress. Her case is covered with breathless scrutiny, making the young woman infamous.

Based on Atwood's historical novel, Gadon plays Grace, who recounts her life story to a young psychiatrist trying to help jog her memory.

In this Aug. 16, 2017 photo, actress Sarah Gadon poses for a portrait to promote her series, "Alias Grace" in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)

"While he's having these interviews with Grace throughout the show, you start to question his motives," Gadon said in a recent interview. "Is he falling for Grace? Does he want to save her? Has he become obsessed with her or is she manipulating him?"

Gadon said the compelling part of the story is the gray area of it all. She and director Mary Harron analyzed different scenarios that would make Grace guilty or not. Gadon says they have their own beliefs about what happened but don't want to influence anyone watching the series.

"The series and the book are all about the ambiguity and it's all about the journey," Gadon said. "Did Grace do it? Did she not do it? Do you want her to have done it? It kind of plays with all those human emotions that we all feel."

To prepare for the role, Gadon spent time at Black Creek Pioneer Village, a working village in Ontario, Canada, that transports visitors back to the late 1700s to mid-1800s.

"I learned how to milk a cow, churn butter, start a fire and ... use a Victorian-era kitchen," she said.

Gadon also learned to sew because Grace sews a quilt by hand as she is being interviewed by her doctor. Gadon says she would need a refresher on sewing, but "could churn some butter. It's pretty easy. It's a lot of work but I could definitely churn some butter."

Another Atwood novel, "The Handmaid's Tale," is an Emmy-winning series on Hulu.

___

Online:

http://www.netflix.com/

In this Aug. 16, 2017 photo, actress Sarah Gadon poses for a portrait to promote her series, "Alias Grace" in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)

In this Aug. 16, 2017 photo, actress Sarah Gadon poses for a portrait to promote her series, "Alias Grace" in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Poland's government is protesting a comment by the German defense minister, calling it an "unacceptable" attempt to meddle in Poland's internal affairs.

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said during a talk show Thursday on German's ZDF broadcaster that it is important to support the "healthy, democratic resistance of the young generation" in Poland. The comment came as part of a discussion of the many troubles the European Union faces, including the erosion of liberal democracy in parts of Central Europe.

Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said on Friday that he wants von der Leyen to retract the words, which he called "unacceptable." He said the comment is evidence of "German politicians trying to interfere in the internal affairs of Poland."
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - After months of public debate, Philadelphia officials said Friday they will remove the iconic statue of former Mayor Frank Rizzo from its prominent downtown location in the shadow of City Hall.

Rizzo's likeness becomes the latest casualty in a national conversation around the fate of statues honoring Confederate generals and other racially charged, publicly displayed figures and symbols in American history. Calls to tear down the Rizzo statue followed a deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August.

The debate has roiled the city for weeks as Philadelphians have wrestled with Rizzo's complicated legacy. The South Philadelphia native served as mayor from 1972 to 1980 and is remembered by supporters as a devoted, outspoken public servant who championed the city.

FILE - In this Sept. 14, 2017, file photo, police officers guard a statue of former Philadelphia mayor and police commissioner Frank Rizzo on Thomas Paine Plaza outside the Municipal Services Building in Philadelphia. Philadelphia will move the statue from its location in the shadow of City Hall, the city announced in a statement Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. A new site for the statue has not been announced. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

"He was a very consequential mayor. ... His importance to the city is not a complete positive, but we have to look at his significance in its entirety," said Philadelphia attorney Christine Flowers. "I'm not happy at all. There are communities of color who have very, very bad memories of Mayor Rizzo, but what we need is transparency, not to hide this away in the corner."

Flowers suggested a marker that more fully explained Rizzo's history as a better solution to the issue.

Rizzo's critics, many of them people of color, recall his approach to policing and governing as corrupt and racist, and say his actions are a reminder of the current polarized political climate.

"He tells us a lot about who Philadelphia was, and now our public spaces tell a different story about who we aspire to be and what our future holds for us," said city councilwoman Helen Gym, who called for the statue to be relocated in August. "Relocating the statue is not and has never been about erasing history. It's about acknowledging how complex and complicated our history is, and being thoughtful and deliberate about what images we uphold in our public spaces."

Black Lives Matter activist Asa Khalif said the city's decision represents "the will of the people, especially those who are black and brown for whom the statue represents generational oppression and violence."

"It sends the message that there is very little tolerance for white supremacy and racism and celebrating those in the past who have oppressed black and brown people," said Khalif, adding that Rizzo's actions and demeanor preceded the country's current racial climate around issues of community policing and outspoken rhetoric.

The statue, a towering bronze sculpture depicting a waving Rizzo descending the plaza steps of a government building, was donated to the city and unveiled in 1999. City officials took public comment on the issue earlier this fall and received more than 4,000 suggestions on what to do with the statue. The city has not said when and where the statue will be moved.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - A television show hosted by celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse is at the center of a brewing court battle pitting the Florida House against the producer behind the cooking show.

The Republican-controlled House wants years of records detailing how the show spent millions of dollars paid out by the state's tourism agency and how much was paid directly to Lagasse.

Tallahassee television producer Pat Roberts and his company MAT Media sued the House on Friday, contending that the records sought by the House include trade secrets and confidential business information. Attorneys for Roberts are asking a judge to block a subpoena issued by the House for the records.

Tim Jansen, one of the attorneys, blasted House Speaker Richard Corcoran for the subpoena.

"One politician in his drive for publicity, power and higher office has trampled over the rights of private businesses and individuals that properly contracted services with a quasi-state agency," Jansen said.

The show called "Emeril's Florida" aired on The Cooking Channel and featured the chef touring the state and visiting some of Florida's top restaurants. Visit Florida paid at least $10 million over a five year period for the show.

Visit Florida, which relies primarily on state funding, has made public the contract it has with MAT Media, but the House wants a long list of other records, including contracts the production company had with cable networks as well as federal tax returns. The House, which asked the company and Roberts to hand over the information voluntarily, also wants an accounting of how much money Roberts was paid directly for producing the show. A House panel approved the subpoena last month and has demanded that Roberts turn over the information by next Monday.

Corcoran, who is widely expected to run for governor next year, defended the subpoena as a "completely reasonable request from the people responsible for guarding taxpayer money.

"If he has nothing to hide, he should have cooperated," said Corcoran in a statement. "Instead of cooperating, he's hired high priced lawyers to shield himself from the taxpayers and avoid telling the truth ... If it's a fight he wants then it's a fight he'll get. We will win."

Visit Florida came under fire last year for a secret contract in which it agreed to pay $1 million to rapper Pitbull. Pitbull, whose real name is Armando Christian Perez, disclosed the contract after Corcoran and the House sued to make it public.

Corcoran initially pushed to slash funding to Visit Florida, but relented after a highly contentious battle with Gov. Rick Scott, who argued cuts to the agency would harm the state's economy.
U.S. authorities on Friday released a 10-year-old immigrant girl with cerebral palsy who had been detained by border agents after surgery because she is in the U.S. without legal permission.

The ACLU and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro said that Rosa Maria Hernandez was returned Friday afternoon to her family. Her parents brought her into the U.S. from Mexico in 2007, when she was a toddler, and they live in the Texas border city of Laredo.

A cousin who is an American citizen took Rosa Maria from Laredo to a children's hospital in Corpus Christi on October 24, where she was scheduled to have emergency gallbladder surgery.

Scroll down for video

Rosa Maria Hernandez has lived in the United States illegally since she was three-months-old but she needed emergency surgery and was taken to hospital 130 miles from where she lives

After her surgery, border agents waited outside her hospital room for her to recover and take the 10-year-old into custody in San Antonio

Hernandez needed gallbladder surgery and was taken in an ambulance with her cousin, pictured, right, a U.S. citizen, from Laredo to a hospital in Corpus Christi, about 130 miles away

Courtesy of KGNS

To get to Corpus Christi, about 150 miles away, she had to pass through an interior checkpoint in South Texas operated by the Border Patrol.

Border Patrol agents followed Rosa Maria and the cousin to the hospital, then took the girl into custody after the surgery and transported her to a facility in San Antonio for unaccompanied immigrant minors, under the custody of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The Border Patrol has said it had no choice but to detain Rosa Maria, arguing that she was considered an unaccompanied minor under federal law, the same as a child who crosses into the United States alone without legal permission.

The ACLU sued the government on Rosa Maria's behalf Tuesday, argued that the U.S. government violated federal law on unaccompanied minors and endangered Rosa Maria's health by not sending her home.

Border Patrol agents followed Rosa Maria and the cousin to the hospital, then took the girl into custody after the surgery and transported her to a facility in San Antonio for unaccompanied immigrant minors

Hernandez has been reunited with her family but she still faces the threat of deportation

'She never should have been in this situation in the first place,' ACLU lawyer Michael Tan said Friday. 'There is no reason Border Patrol had to target a child.'

While Rosa Maria has been reunited with her family, she still faces the threat of deportation. Tan said Friday that Border Patrol agents had issued Rosa Maria a notice to appear in immigration court, but that the case had yet to move forward.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol, declined to comment. HHS declined to comment on Rosa Maria's case, but said the agency's focus was 'on the safety and best interest of each child.'

Leticia Gonzalez, an attorney for Rosa Maria's family, said the 10-year-old had the mental capacity of a child closer to four or five years old due to her cerebral palsy.

Priscila Martinez, an activist at the Workers Defense Action Fund, said the child had started to show signs of socially withdrawing while in detention and refusing to eat her favorite kind of bread.

Federal immigration authorities have faced strong criticism from advocates and some Texas Democratic congressmen over their handling of the case.

Castro, a San Antonio Democrat, said Friday that he had tried to see Rosa Maria earlier in the day and had spoken to federal officials about her case.

He said Border Patrol agents could have chosen to let Rosa Maria pass through the checkpoint without following or detaining her.

'Staking out the hospital room of a young, sick girl and keeping her away from her family is not a humane treatment for her,' Castro said.

But U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a previous statement after she was detained that 'there is no discretion with regard to the law whether or not the agents should enforce the law.'

Gabriel Acosta, assistant chief patrol agent for the Border Patrol's Laredo sector, said Tuesday that his agents moved quickly to get her through the checkpoint and 'acted professionally and compassionately to get this child the medical attention she needed.'
PARIS (AP) - French authorities filed preliminary charges Friday against the brother of a Tunisian man who stabbed to death two young women in the city of Marseille.

Anis Hanachi was transferred to France from Italy on Thursday and appeared Friday before an investigating judge, according to a French judicial official.

The judge handed down preliminary charges of criminal association with a terrorist enterprise with a view to committing an attack, the official said. The official spoke under condition of anonymity due to an ongoing investigation.

Preliminary charges under French law mean investigators have strong reason to believe a crime was committed, but allow further time for investigation.

Hanachi, 25, was arrested last month on an international warrant issued by French authorities accusing him of involvement in the Oct. 1 Marseille train station attack and of international terrorism.

The brother, who has fought in Syria, is suspected of having radicalized the attacker, and may have had a role in organizing the attack. The attacker, 29-year-old Ahmed Hanachi, who was shot dead after the attack.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility though French authorities have not publicly confirmed a link with the extremist group.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United Nations on Friday reported 31 new allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation against peacekeepers and civilians working for U.N. agencies in the three-month period from July and through September - almost half against those employed to help refugees.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric released the figures and said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres "is obviously disappointed and saddened that these actions continue."

The United Nations has been in the spotlight for several years over allegations of child rape and other sexual abuses by its peacekeepers, especially those based in Central African Republic and Congo.

According to U.N. figures, there were 80 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse involving U.N. peacekeepers and 65 allegations involved U.N. civilian staff in 2016 - an increase from 2015.

Guterres announced new measures in March to tackle the increase in sexual abuse and exploitation by U.N. peacekeepers and staff, including a new focus on victims and bans on alcohol and fraternization for troops.

According to Dujarric, there were 12 allegations against peacekeepers and 19 against civilians working for U.N. agencies between July 1 and Sept. 30.

Fifteen of the allegations involved the Geneva-based U.N. refugee agency known as UNHCR which helps more than 22 million people who have fled to another country, he said. Three involved civilians working for the U.N. migration agency, the International Office for Migration, and one who worked for the U.N. children's agency UNICEF.

This was the first three-month update and Dujarric said the U.N. will continue the practice of quarterly reporting.

Of the 12 U.N. peacekeepers alleged to have been involved in sexual abuse or exploitation, he said four were serving in Congo, three in Liberia, two in Central African Republic, and one each in Mali, Haiti and South Sudan.

The other alleged perpetrators included five civilians from host countries working for the U.N., 10 civilians helping to implement U.N. programs, and three U.N. consultants, Dujarric said.

The alleged victims included at least 24 women and six girls, he said.

As for the allegations, Dujarric said an investigation had substantiated one claim involving UNHCR.

He said 13 others - including two involving UNHCR - were at various stages in the investigative process, 10 others were under preliminary assessment, and seven where limited information had been provided were under review.

The first victims' rights advocate, Jane Connors, who was appointed as part of Guterres' initiative, just returned from a visit to Central African Republic with the U.N. chief. Last year, the violence-torn country had the highest number of misconduct allegations against peacekeepers in the world.

Connors told reporters Friday that her priority "is to give visibility to those who have suffered ... and support them as they rebuild their lives."

Victims in the Central African Republic are getting medical assistance, food and psychological and social support, Connors said, and she talked to them "about their wishes and needs and aspirations, and how they saw their lives going forward."

She added that some receive opportunities for education and income generating activities, she said.

The Code Blue campaign, a watchdog group, reported in September that leaked case files show "egregious mishandling" of sexual misconduct allegations against U.N. peacekeepers in CAR.

Code Blue cited 14 cases which were investigated last year in order to determine whether the allegations could be substantiated. In eight cases, it said, the alleged victims were not even interviewed.

Paula Donovan, co-director of AIDS-Free World which organized the Code Blue campaign, said she was "appalled and offended" at Connors' presentation.

The focus of the victims' rights advocate has swung away "from ensuring victims' access to justice" to "a vague, ever-shifting menu of services," she said.

"There is no victims' bill of rights that codifies exactly which rights victims of U.N. sexual abuse hold and can demand," Donovan told AP. "The concept is a public relations response to serious crimes, a further exploitation of women and children who have already been violated by the U.N."
A fundraising campaign has been launched to transform the childrens home made famous by Beatles song Strawberry Fields Forever.

The Strawberry Field home in Woolton, Liverpool, was made famous by John Lennons song, released 50 years ago.

The Salvation Army now hopes to turn the site, where Lennon used to play as a child, into a training and work placement hub for young people with learning disabilities.

Former children's home Strawberry Field, in Woolton, Liverpool, inspired the Beatles song Strawberry Fields Forever

To mark the launch of the fundraising campaign, a choir, formed of people who could benefit from the plans, recorded a special version of the song at Abbey Road studios.

Major Drew McCombe, divisional leader for The Salvation Army, North West, said: Lennon grew up close to Strawberry Field, and gave generously to the home as soon as he got his first pay cheque.

He also had a vision for it, expressed in the song, as a place where anybody, whatever their personal background and difficulties, could realise their dreams.

Strawberry Field has the potential to bring that vision to life; changing the lives of young people with learning disabilities, who find it difficult to find gainful employment, as well as encourage more projects similar across the UK.

Even the dark side are behind our campaign to raise money for our new vision for Strawberry Field! Find out more: https://t.co/N7fkPoLpwd pic.twitter.com/CmgN289lBD  The Salvation Army (@salvationarmyuk) July 12, 2017

TV presenter Paul OGrady has given his support to the project.

He said: Im sure John Lennon would be smiling down on this project.

As the song lyrics say, Living is easy with eyes closed  hopefully this campaign will open peoples eyes so they see the many individuals living alongside us that arent being given the support they need to thrive and flourish.

Funds raised by the campaign will go towards creating the hub for young people with learning disabilities as well as a new visitor experience based on the place, song and Lennons early life.
The Great Pyramid has been shrouded in mystery for millennia, but now a long-held secret of its structure might be known thanks to particle physics.An apparent void lying undiscovered deep within the ancient Wonder of the World was found by scientists who had been mapping it using cosmic-ray based imaging.

The internal structure is located above the Grand Gallery  that links two of the Pyramids chambers  and traces a similar route for at least 30 metres, according to a study published in the journal Nature.

While the precise design and purpose of the space is unknown, it was hailed by the team of academics as the biggest discovery inside the Giza landmark since the 19th century.

The Great Pyramid

Made under the watch of the Pharaoh Khufu and completed in around 2550 BC, the Great Pyramid, also known as Khufus Pyramid, served as the worlds tallest man-made construction for thousands of years.

It is the sole survivor of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World. How it was built has long been a bone of academic contention and there is no universal agreement about its creation.

To find out more about the Pyramid, researchers from countries including France and Japan began a project to scan the structure in October 2015.They employed by-products of the cosmic ray known as muons that are only partially absorbed by stone and take noticeably different trajectories through air.

The void is at the centre of the Great Pyramid (PA)

Detectors were set up inside the Pyramid, including in the so-called Queens Chamber.

This allowed the Pyramids insides to be visualised without physically disturbing it, as the results showed empty space differently from rock.

The presence of the void, dubbed the ScanPyramids Big Void, was confirmed using three different muon detection technologies over several months after first being spotted, the paper said. The results were then analysed three times.

Despite the breakthrough, the newly discovered structure has yet to be reached in person by any researcher.

Experts, led by Mehdi Tayoubi, said they were very confident the results were correct.
Everton caretaker boss David Unsworth has labelled Sundays Premier League clash with Watford a cup final that is huge both for him individually and the Merseyside club as a whole.

The 18th-placed Toffees will head into the match at Goodison Park on a losing streak that extended to five games with Thursdays 3-0 Europa League defeat at Lyon.

DU: "We can't cave in the way we do when we concede a goal. We need to rectify that very, very quickly." pic.twitter.com/mWstPnI9i4  Everton (@Everton) November 2, 2017

That latest reverse, as Everton crashed out of the continental competition with two more group matches still to play, was the third since Unsworth took temporary charge following Ronald Koemans sacking.

David Unsworth

Unsworth has expressed his desire to become full-time manager, while the likes of Sam Allardyce and Sean Dyche have been linked with the vacancy.

And the club are expected to make a decision on a permanent successor to Koeman in the international break that follows the Watford fixture.

When asked after the Lyon game how big a blow he thought the loss was for his chances of getting the job, Unsworth said: What will be will be. Other people will decide whoever gets the honour of being Everton manager.

Its not about me, its about getting over this disappointing result, taking the positives and trying to pick a team to go and win a massive game on Sunday, a cup final for me. Its about the club and what is best for the club.

We need to start winning games, particularly on Sunday, where I think its a huge game for me and a huge game for the club, and Ive left the players in no uncertain terms that it is a huge game for them as well. Im sure they will respond and the Goodison faithful will get behind us all, because we need them. We need three points on Sunday.

Update: Cuco Martina has been released from hospital and will travel back home with the squad. https://t.co/2c5aV3PKri  Everton (@Everton) November 2, 2017

Unsworth, who opted to rest Wayne Rooney, Leighton Baines and Phil Jagielka for Thursdays match, put out a starting line-up that featured six changes and no recognised striker, with Gylfi Sigurdsson playing in the nine position.

Everton kept Lyon at bay until Bertrand Traore opened the scoring in the 68th minute, and his strike was then added to by substitute Houssem Aouars 76th-minute effort and a Memphis Depay header two minutes from time.

Also, the Toffees had Morgan Schneiderlin sent off for a second bookable offence in the 80th minute.

57' Yellow card for Schneiderlin. Moments earlier, Lyon claimed for a penalty but it looked a clean challenge from Holgate. 0-0. #EFCawayday pic.twitter.com/kw8UpiIOtQ  Everton (@Everton) November 2, 2017

80' #EFC down to 10 men. Schneiderlin shown a second yellow. 2-0. #EFCawayday  Everton (@Everton) November 2, 2017

Unsworth added: For nearly 70 minutes we were nearly perfect with our game-plan. But we just cant cave in the way we did when we concede a goal.

There was some positive news for Everton later in the evening as it emerged right-back Cuco Martina had been released from hospital with the all-clear to fly back to Merseyside with his team-mates.

Martina had been carried from the field on a stretcher with a neck brace on late in the first half of the match after landing awkwardly from an aerial challenge with Maxwel Cornet and receiving treatment on the pitch for several minutes.
Ian Poulter certainly thinks hes in line to win the unluckiest shot of the year award after an unfortunate break on Friday.

The 41-year-old was two shots off the pace after an opening round of 66 in the second round of the Turkish Airlines Open when Lady Luck frowned on him.

Unluckiest shot of the year? pic.twitter.com/K8hAKXg07t  DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) November 3, 2017

The Englishman found the fairway from the tee on the par-four fifth but came a cropper when his next shot clattered into the flag.

Ian Poulter suffered a stroke of bad luck in Turkey (Owen Humphreys/PA Wire)

To make matters worse, Poulter could then do nothing but watch as his ball rolled across the green and into the water, leaving him to take a penalty drop on the way to a bogey.

At least he had a sense of humour about the incident:

Bloody good shot sir.. Oh Lovely, Simply Lovely..

it's ok, Got plenty in the tank for the weekend... 

Worse, how could it be worse..  https://t.co/toqN0llRYj  Ian Poulter (@IanJamesPoulter) November 3, 2017

Poulter finished his second round in a 10-way tie for 13th place on five under par after a second round of 71, nine shots behind leader Nicolas Colsaerts.
In what has very much been a stop-start career, Coneygree gets another chance to prove himself as one of the best chasers in training in the bet365 Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby.

One of the traditional starting points for horses with Gold Cup aspirations, Coneygree, of course, has already provided connections with a day they will never forget when Mark Bradstocks inmate became the first novice for 41 years to win the blue riband in 2015.

He runs without a penalty in the Charlie Hall as he has not won a race for almost two years, while any further rainfall will also be beneficial for the notoriously fragile 10-year-old.

Sara Bradstock, wife of trainer Mark, celebrates Gold Cup success

Bradstocks wife, Sara, said: We had him ready to go to Listowel in the summer, but got cold feet when the ground was very testing.

Since then he did have a bit of a head cold, which held him up for a little bit, so we have been slightly rushed, but nothing too major.

Hell obviously be better for the run, but the conditions of the race meant that we always wanted to come here, as long as the ground was suitable. Only Cue Card is rated above us, but hes got to give us weight.

Once we didnt make Ireland we always wanted to come for this.

Cue Card winning his third Betfair Chase at Haydock last November ( Anna Gowthorpe/PA)

Coneygrees presence slightly overshadows the return of Cue Card, who won the Charlie Hall in 2015.

The popular 11-year-old was a beaten odds-on favourite in the race last season, but changes to the conditions of the race mean he will carry 4lb less this year.

Colin Tizzard blamed himself for defeat last year, thinking he was not quite fit enough, but told At The Races: Weve been very wary of that and hes had a lot of work.

Colin Tizzard with Cue Card

Tizzard added: Hes had a racecourse gallop and Joe (Tizzard) schooled him earlier this week. He jumped a couple of hurdles and four fences  just ticking the boxes, really.

Out of respect for the horse, weve got to make sure were doing our bit and not going there pussy-footing around, thinking, This is Cue Card, hell be fine.

When we took him for his racecourse gallop, at one time hed have been running away for two miles, but this time he was behind the bridle. He still came six lengths away from a 156-rated horse, so hes just as good as hes ever been.

Trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies (Nick Potts/PA)

Nigel Twiston-Davies saddles Grand National fourth Blaklion and Bristol De Mai.

The Naunton handler said of Blaklion: It was a heroic effort in the National and he probably didnt quite get home on the day.

He came back in good form. He has been good over the summer and we are really happy.

We had one or two off-days last season with Bristol De Mai but for the most he was superb. He is in really supreme form and he should go well.

Trainer Brian Ellison

Definitly Red suffered misfortune when his saddle slipped in the National, but prior to that was an easy winner of the Grimthorpe Chase at Doncaster.

Definitly Red is in good form and we are very happy with him, said trainer Brian Ellison.

But looking at the race, he will need to be in good form as it looks like a mini Gold Cup.
Around eight out of 10 foreign businesses with British interests are pessimistic about the outcome for the UK in the divorce talks with the European Union, polling has found.

Most firms (55%) believe Brexit will have a negative impact on their future investments in the UK, according to Ipsos Mori.

Just 8% said the vote to leave the bloc has had a positive effect on their company interests in Britain so far, compared with 54% who found it had been detrimental, while 36% said it had made no difference.

The survey of members of 13 foreign Chambers of Commerce, including the US, China, France and Germany, found 82% were either not very or not at all confident of a positive result for Britain in the exit talks compared with 13% who expressed optimism.

One in five (22%) firms believe the fall in their investment in the UK will be more than 10%, while only one in 10 think it will have a positive impact.

Nearly three-quarters (72%) put smooth access to the EU market for goods and services as a top priority for the talks.

Some foreign firms believe Brexit will harm their British interests (PA)

Brian Gosschalk, head of the presidents office for Ipsos, said: There have been a number of recent surveys of British business which reveal their concerns about the impact of Brexit.

This new survey is noteworthy insofar as it covers businesses from 13 different countries, both from within and beyond the EU. Their views deserve careful consideration by key decision-makers.

:: 1,046 members of 13 Chambers of Commerce with British interests took part in an online survey conducted by Ipsos Mori between October 7-21. The countries involved were Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and the US.
SOUBRE, Ivory Coast, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Ivory Coast started producing power on Thursday at a 275 megawatt (MW) hydroelectric plant that will boost the country's electricity output by more than 10 percent.

Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa grower, has emerged from a decade-long political crisis as Africa's fastest-growing economy, but that growth has strained power supplies.

The new plant near the southwestern city of Soubre was financed by a $500 million low-interest loan from China's Export-Import Bank and built by China's state-owned hydropower engineering firm Sinohydro Corp.

"The Soubre dam will allow Ivory Coast to produce abundant and inexpensive electricity," President Alassane Ouattara said at the inauguration ceremony. "We are going to continue constructing other hydroelectric plants."

Sinohydro started construction on Thursday of another 112 MW hydro plant near Soubre, which is expected to take three years to build. The Ivorian government will fund half of the $306 million cost, with the rest coming from bilateral donors.

Unlike many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Ivory Coast has a reliable power supply. It exports electricity to neighbours Ghana, Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo and Mali, and plans to extend its grid to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone this year.

But with domestic consumption rising by about 10 percent a year, the government is under pressure to boost supply at home and aims to increase output to 4,000 MW by 2020, from the current 2,275 MW. (Reporting By Loucoumane Coulibaly; Editing by Aaron Ross and Susan Fenton)
By Laila Kearney and Karen Pierog

NEW YORK/CHICAGO, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Democratic-leaning states are set to bankroll a big chunk of the tax cuts unveiled in a Republican tax plan on Thursday, as the plan slashes deductions used the most by residents of states that voted against Donald Trump in the 2016 elections.

The bill, introduced by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means on Thursday, took aim at state and local tax deductions as one part of its plan to pay for reductions in taxes elsewhere. Overall, the plan would reduce federal revenues by roughly $1.5 trillion over 10 years.

The bill eliminates the most widely-used deduction - income tax - and caps property tax deductions, the second most-used, at $10,000. State and local deductions are used largely by high-tax states that tend to vote Democratic in presidential elections and local officials say the tax bill appeared to divide its benefits and burdens along partisan lines.

"I do think this has been developed in a way that looks at who were the prevailing forces in the presidential election and who were not," Kevin Sullivan, Connecticuts Commissioner of Revenue Services, told Reuters.

Connecticut is one of several high-tax Democratic states where, local officials say, middle-class households will end up paying more taxes under the Republican plan.

Among those potentially hardest-hit are California and New York with state income tax rates of 13.3 percent - the nation's highest - and 8.82 percent respectively, according to a recent report by the Tax Foundation.

That group also includes New Jersey, Minnesota and Oregon - all of which have voted for Trump's Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

By contrast, out the seven states that levy no income tax, Trump only lost Washington and Nevada, while winning Alaska, Florida, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming.

"By eliminating or rolling back state and local tax deductibility, Washington is sending a death blow to New York's middle class families and our economy," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat and one of the most outspoken opponents of the bill, wrote in a letter to Trump this week. "It's clear this is a hostile political act aimed at the economic heart of New York."

To be sure, some Republican legislators from high-tax states, including Representative Lee Zeldin, of New York, have opposed the bill.

The legislation would also end a tax exemption for billions of dollars of so-called private activity bonds issued by state and local governments annually to finance affordable housing, non-profit hospitals and colleges, as well as airports and port facilities - a measure that would affect Democrat and Republican states alike.

Conservative groups have defended the tax bill, saying it would simplify the tax code, reduce overall burden on the economy and spread the costs and burdens more fairly.

"The principles outlined in this federal tax reform effort will provide pro-growth tax rate reductions, while adding fairness and simplicity to the tax code," Jonathan Williams, chief economist at the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization of conservative state legislators, said in an email.

Nick Samuels, a senior credit officer at Moodys Investors Service, said the proposed bill would hit primarily high-income and high-tax states like California, New York and New Jersey, making it harder for them to raise revenue from income and property taxes.

Officials in the affected states say millions of residents, not just high-earners, would suffer because of lost tax breaks and less funding available for public services.

In New Jersey, 1.8 million households deduct a total of $17 billion in state income or sales taxes and 1.6 million households deduct a cumulative $14.9 billion in local property taxes from their federal taxes, according to the nonpartisan think-tank New Jersey Policy Perspective.

"This deal is still terrible for New Jersey's working families, with big tax breaks that overwhelmingly go to the wealthiest 1 percent, setting up deep cuts to programs and services that we all rely on," said Jon Whiten, the groups vice president.

Minnesotas Democratic Governor Mark Dayton warned on Monday that the legislation would eliminate tax deductions totaling over $12.3 billion annually for 900,000 families in his state.

The states with the highest property tax collections per capita include New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut and New York, according to the Tax Foundation.

For California, the Internal Revenue Service reported that approximately one in three residents took a state or local deduction in 2015, totaling roughly $113 billion, according to H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the states finance department.

"Congress is trying to rush consideration of a tax proposal that will have profound and widespread impacts on California," Palmer said.

National Conference of State Legislatures President and Republican South Dakota state senator Deb Peters in a statement called the legislation "an attack on the sovereignty of states." (Reporting by Laila Kearney and Karen Pierog; Additional reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento; Editing by Daniel Bases and Tomasz Janowski)
By Matt Spetalnick and Prak Chan Thul

WASHINGTON/PHNOM PENH, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Just days after the killing of a prominent Cambodian government critic last year during a crackdown by the country's longtime leader, President Barack Obama dispatched Washingtons chief human rights envoy to Phnom Penh to attend the activist's funeral.

In meetings with Cambodian authorities, then-Assistant Secretary of State Tom Malinowski warned the military not to intervene in the political turmoil or else crucial U.S. ties would suffer, sending a clear message that America stood behind the opposition.

It was one example of the kind of high-level, rapid-response U.S. diplomacy that President Donald Trump has so far avoided in Cambodia even as the Southeast Asian nation - together with many of its neighbors - has lurched increasingly away from the democratic path.

As Trump prepares to depart on his first Asia tour, which will bring him face-to-face with a number of leaders with poor human rights records, his administration has been taking a more muted approach than his predecessor to such concerns, said current and former U.S. officials, rights activists and diplomats.

In addition to the situation in Cambodia, they cite what they see as a slow, overly cautious response to Myanmars Rohingya crisis, Trump's failure to publicly call out autocratic leaders he meets over rights abuses, an eagerness to engage with the Philippines' controversial president, Rodrigo Duterte, and a less vocal approach to human rights in China.

National security adviser H.R. McMaster pushed back against the notion that Trump would downplay human rights on his Nov. 3-14 trip, saying he would speak out "about the importance of promoting freedom and individual rights."

When asked why Trump condemns U.S. adversaries such as Syria and Venezuela on human rights grounds but not the Philippines, Turkey and Russia, McMaster told reporters on Thursday: "How much does it help to yell about these problems? It hasn't really delivered in recent history anyway."

"AMERICA FIRST"

The dominant view within Trumps White House is that under his "America First" world-view human rights concerns related to allies and strategically important countries should be managed gently to avoid impeding job-creating business deals or undercutting security efforts such as isolating North Korea, several Trump aides said.

Soft-pedaling human rights may also help Washington avoid alienating countries in Southeast Asia that it wants to keep from moving further into China's orbit, those aides said. Beijing puts little pressure on its neighbors over such issues.

This approach, however, has sown frustration among some U.S. diplomats who deal with human rights and disappointed dissidents in several countries, according to Reuters interviews with more than a dozen people involved in these matters in Washington and Asian capitals. The failure so far to fill several senior Asia and human rights posts at the State Department is a further handicap, they say.

Obama's former top Asia adviser, Evan Medeiros, is one of those critical of what he sees as the Trump administration's lower-key approach to human rights. "Its a false dichotomy to say that somehow a focus on human rights detracts from American security or economic well-being," he said.

Even under Obama, however, there were some in the human rights community who at times found fault with U.S. actions.

While the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was praised for stressing human rights in Asia-Pacific trade negotiations, he faced criticism that he suspended sanctions on Myanmar prematurely and lifted a ban on the sale of lethal arms to Vietnam.

"He spoke eloquently and sometimes delivered," said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "But he also didnt fully use the carrots and sticks of American power."

Though Trump has said little on human rights beyond condemning adversaries such as North Korea and Venezuela, United Nations envoy Nikki Haley has been one of the few top aides who have spoken out more broadly. She visited sub-Saharan Africa and pressed leaders to tackle political and humanitarian problems.

'WE ARE NOT HERE TO LECTURE'

Trump set the tone in Saudi Arabia in May when he told an audience that included monarchs and strongmen from the Muslim world: "We are not here to lecture."

He has hosted several autocratic leaders - including Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who had been frozen out of White House visits since leading a 2014 military coup - but has steered clear of publicly criticizing their records on human rights.

Such visits under Obama usually included addressing rights concerns, the Democratic president's former aides said.

McMaster insisted that Trump preferred to deal with such issues "quietly in every relationship."

One closely watched meeting will be with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte. Trump praised him in a phone call in April for a bloody anti-drugs campaign. An administration official told reporters human rights would be part of their "frank and friendly discussions."

But the government in Manila has been feeling less heat from the Trump administration about extrajudicial killings linked to drugs crackdown, according to a foreign ministry official.

"Its a very different White House under President Donald Trump, not like under President Barack Obama, who pushed human rights hard during his term," the official told Reuters. "We are not hearing this from the White House."

Another issue expected to be front and center is Myanmars Rohingya crisis.

Trumps critics, including Democratic lawmakers, have chided the administration for what they have seen as a halting response. U.S. officials have been reluctant to label the situation as "ethnic cleansing" even though the United Nations has used the term. Myanmar rejects that accusation, saying action was needed to combat terrorism.

Two months after an outbreak of violence that sent more than half a million Rohingya Muslims fleeing into Bangladesh, Washington has now sent a senior delegation, announced a planned visit by Tillerson on Nov. 15, and is threatening modest sanctions.

CAMBODIA CRACKDOWN

When Kem Ley, a popular Cambodian political commentator, was killed by a gunman in July 2016, Malinowski, the State Department official, flew to Phnom Penh just days later and met top aides to Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has ruled for more than three decades.

Malinowskis stern words helped give local diplomats leverage to press rights concerns behind the scenes, said one U.S. official involved in Southeast Asia diplomacy.

This year Hun Sen has intensified his crackdown, including the arrest of opposition leader Kem Sokha, while also stepping up rhetoric against Washington.

The State Department has largely limited its response to statements of "deep concern."

Cambodian government spokesman Phay Siphan said Cambodia had not felt pressure from Washington and Trump was clearly taking a different approach than Obama.

"Their tone is lighter. Before, they would bully," said ruling party parliamentarian Sok Eysan. The change under Trump, he added, "means we are on the right path towards democracy," an assertion that contradicts human rights advocates who say the political climate has deteriorated.

In Vietnam, dissident Nguyen Quang A expressed pessimism about Trumps visit.

Nguyen, who was detained by authorities on his way to meet Obama during a visit last year, said: "I don't think Trump will talk about human rights. Just look at his words and actions."

The White House has not signaled that Trump plans to meet any dissidents during his Asia trip, something Obama frequently did in his foreign travels.

There has been frustration among some U.S. diplomats in Beijing over perceptions that botched messaging from the United States signaled a retreat on human rights. But some U.S. officials said that behind the scenes the administration has been supportive of work in China on behalf of Chinese dissidents.

A Beijing-based diplomat from another Western country said, however, that U.S. participation in meetings between Western allies to coordinate strategy on human rights was much reduced, for example, when it came to putting out joint statements on issues of concern.

China has been "relieved" to see Trump giving human rights less weight, according to a Chinese diplomat in Washington.

But Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said: "As for human rights, we are always willing to have constructive dialogue with countries of the world on the basis of mutual respect." (Additional reporting by by Jason Szep in Washington, Antoni Slodkowski in Yangon, Manuel Mogato and Karen Lema in Manila, Michael Martina and Ben Blanchard in Beijing, Matthew Tostevin in Bangkok; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Ross Colvin)
By Michael Martina and Mai Nguyen

BEIJING/HANOI, Nov 3 (Reuters) - China and Vietnam have reached agreement on managing their dispute in the South China Sea through friendly talks, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Friday, following an ugly spat over the summer between the two communist neighbours.

The countries have long been at loggerheads over the strategic waterway, through which more than $3 trillion in cargo passes every year, with Vietnam having emerged as the most vocal opponent of China's claims to the majority of the regional sea.

A scheduled meeting between their foreign ministers in August was cancelled on the sidelines of a regional gathering in Manila amid an argument about militarization in the South China Sea and island-building.

Hanoi and Beijing, however, have sought to get relations back on track, with a top Chinese leader telling his Vietnamese hosts in September that their two communist parties have a "shared destiny".

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met senior Vietnamese officials in Hanoi this week.

Speaking before Chinese President Xi Jinping goes to Vietnam next week for a state visit and to attend a summit of Asia Pacific leaders, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong said national leaders of the two countries have had many "deep, frank" discussions on maritime issues.

"They reached an important consensus," Chen told a news briefing.

"Both sides will uphold the principle of friendly consultations and dialogue to jointly manage and control maritime disputes, and protect the bigger picture of developing Sino-Vietnam relations and stability in the South China Sea."

Vietnam's Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh said in a statement late on Thursday that he had proposed in a meeting with Wang that the two countries resolve disputes based on common sense and international law.

The latter point is a contentious one in the South China Sea, where Vietnam has long said China's extensive territorial claim has no legal basis.

China and Southeast Asian countries are willing and able to handle the South China Sea issue themselves, Chen said, in an oblique reference to the United States, whose comments on the dispute and naval patrols in the waterway have angered Beijing.

"We also hope countries outside the region can objectively view positive change in the South China Sea situation, and do more for peace and stability in the region," Chen said.

China has appeared uneasy at Vietnamese efforts to rally Southeast Asian countries over the busy swathe of sea as well as at its neighbour's growing defence ties with the United States, Japan and India.

In July, under pressure from Beijing, Vietnam suspended oil drilling in offshore waters also claimed by China.

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan also claim parts of the South China Sea, and dispute China's contention of sovereignty over most of the waters.

China has undertaken more construction and reclamation in the South China Sea, recent satellite images show, and is likely to more powerfully reassert its claims over the waterway soon, regional diplomats and military officers say.

Xi is also visiting Laos during his tour, another communist-run county once firmly in Vietnam's orbit, but which is now increasingly close to Beijing and the site of several major Chinese infrastructure projects. (Reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING and Mai Nguyen in HANOI; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Tom Hogue)
Nov 3 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Friday.

TAXES

Romania's government holds a meeting at 1200 GMT at which it could approve a fiscal overhaul.

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis urged the government on Thursday to reconsider a planned overhaul of taxes that he said could hurt the economy and risked breaching the European Union's rules on budget deficits.

A major trade union representing public and private sector employees meanwhile said it planned to call a general strike. Economists and investors have also expressed concerns about the measures.

PPI

Romanian industrial producer prices ROPPIY=ECI rose 4.3 percent on the year in September and 0.3 percent on the month, data from the National Statistics Board showed on Thursday.

CEE MARKETS

The Czech crown retreated from a 4-year high on Thursday on surpise that the central bank's board had agreed unanimously to a modest 25 basis point rate hike and an outlook which pointed to fewer than expected rate hikes ahead.

DACIA

Roughly 8,000 employees of carmaker Dacia, owned by French Renault, are expected to protest on Nov. 7 against the government's proposed measures, the company's union said. Ziarul Financiar

For the long-term Romanian diary, click on

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ISTANBUL, Nov 3 (Reuters) - A policeman and a militant from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were killed in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Friday, the local governor's office said.

It said nine other policemen were wounded during a security operation against the Kurdish group in the city. "Clashes broke out as our security forces entered the address to apprehend a member of the PKK," the governor's office said.

The PKK, which is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union, has led a three-decade armed insurgency against the Turkish state.

The government has been increasing operations against the militant group since the collapse of a ceasefire in 2015. (Writing by Ali Kucukgocmen; Editing by Dominic Evans)
By Thin Lei Win

ROME, Nov 3 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The tracking technology used to halt the deadly Ebola and Zika viruses could now be turned against wheat rust as scientists try new ways to stop the fungus devastating world grain crops.

Wheat rusts are nothing new - ancient Romans honoured the rust god Robigus, hoping to protect their fields - but they are adapting to outwit man and pose an ever growing global risk.

So now technology is stepping in, in the form of a pocket-sized tracking device invented by a British company with the hope that early detection can limit the damage of any outbreak.

Early detection is "the most critical part" of tackling any type of wheat rusts, said Fazil Dusunceli, plant pathologist at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Caused by fungal pathogens, the rusts can devastate the world's most widely grown crop, the source of food and livelihoods for more than 1 billion people in developing countries, according to the United Nations.

Key to halting the devastation is stopping its spread.

"People can walk through an infected field, unknowingly pick up a few spores on their clothes, then get on a plane and accidentally take the disease to other countries or continents," said Dave Hodson, senior scientist with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Ethiopia.

"With globalisation, we are increasingly seeing this happening. In addition, wheat rusts are continually evolving so we're seeing new strains appearing all the time," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

According to FAO, the risks posed by wheat rusts are growing, with modern versions of the fungus becoming ever more virulent, evolving to adapt to the earth's higher temperatures.

ALARM

There are only two ways to control wheat rust diseases - planting varieties that are resistant to rusts or using chemicals to kill the fungi.

But as rusts mutate and produce new strains, resistant varieties may only be effective for a couple of years. In addition, the fungi are airborne, meaning the spores can spread rapidly over large distances.

In February, the FAO sounded an alarm, saying wheat rusts old and new are appearing in new countries, including Italy, Morocco and Scandinavian countries.

Yellow rust is considered the most economically damaging, leading to annual losses of nearly 5.5 million tonnes of wheat, according to research published in 2015.

This translates into a loss of about $1 billion a year, said Hodson, who is leading a technology project to tackle the rust.

Key to success is speed.

The new method proposed by Hodson could cut yellow rust disease diagnosis from months to days.

Currently, only specialised labs can do the diagnosis and the process could take months.

"By the time we've got the answer to that question (of whether we have a potentially damaging new race), the damage could already have been done," Hodson said. "That's what we want to change."

MOBILE LAB

He is banking on MinION, a pocket-sized device that used sequencing technology to help track Ebola and Zika outbreaks in Guinea and Brazil by providing real-time diagnosis.

Developed by a British-based firm, Oxford Nanopore Technologies, the device connects to a laptop via a USB cable, creating a mobile lab that can generate DNA sequences directly from samples collected in the field.

These are then compared to a range of known DNA sequences to diagnose their particular strain of rust, with results visible in just a few days.

"If successful, the initial platform could be immediately deployed for yellow rust surveillance all around the world," Diane Saunders, a plant pathologist at the British-based John Innes Centre who built the database of known DNA sequences, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Hodson is planning to test the device next summer in Ethiopia, where more than 500,000 hectares of wheat were affected in by yellow rust in 2010.

Deploying the device widely would not be cheap - the MinION, which weighs 100 grams, costs $1,000. However, top-end sequencing equipment costs and weighs much more, Hodson added. (Reporting By Thin Lei Win, Editing by Lyndsay Griffiths. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, womens rights, corruption and climate change. Visit www.trust.org)
Nov 3 (Reuters) - Copper miner Kaz Minerals said on Friday that Kyrgyzstan had reversed a suspension of operations at its Bozymchak mine which had been imposed a day earlier.

The mine had resumed full production, it said in a statement.

Kaz Minerals had said on Thursday that the government of Kyrgyzstan had suspended operations at the Bozymchak mine for three months, adding it did not know why.

However, a source familiar with the situation pointed to political disputes between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. (Reporting by Sanjeeban Sarkar in Bengaluru; editing by Alexander Smith)
By Suphanida Thakral

BANGKOK, Nov 3 (Reuters) - People in Thailand celebrated the Loy Krathong or "floating basket" festival on Friday, following a year of mourning for late King Bhumibol Adulyadej that saw many celebrations muted or cancelled.

The mourning ended on Monday after a five-day funeral last week, and many citizens have returned to wearing coloured garments after having stuck to black for a year.

Participants in the festival pay respects to the water spirits, floating small, traditionally-hand crafted rafts carrying flowers, bamboo and candles on waterways in an ancient ritual.

The rafts are also thought to carry away bad luck and usher in good fortune during the festival, which is celebrated all over Thailand, but is particularly spectacular in the north.

Festivities will stay in a low key this year, out of respect for the late monarch, however, authorities in the capital said.

"We will not have excessive celebrations but will focus more on showcasing Thai culture," Chalermpon Chotinuchit, of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA), told Reuters.

The BMA urged celebrants to use rafts made from natural materials this year, after environment groups flagged concerns about non-biodegradable components clogging rivers and drains.

Festival participants also struck a sombre note.

"It will be a sadder period this Loy Krathong because everyone loves the late King Rama IX," said 23-year-old Nanthicha Sorndee.

Safety concerns have prompted national carrier Thai Airways International to cancel some roundtrip flights between Bangkok and Chiang Mai on Friday and Saturday, it said in a statement, without elaborating.

The northern Thai city celebrates Loy Krathong alongside Yi Peng, a festival in which brightly lit lanterns are wafted into the sky. (Reporting by Suphanida Thakral; Editing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Clarence Fernandez)
By Rina Saeed Khan

KHUNJERAB PASS, Pakistan, Nov 3 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - This border outpost on the Karakoram Highway, slashed through the glacier-strewn Karakoram mountains to join China and Pakistan by road, boasts a new world record: It has the worlds highest automated bank teller machine.

But the ATM is just one of the changes happening along the high altitude highway, which is increasingly a tourist attraction after a major upgrade as part of a $54 billion Chinese-funded effort to boost transport and trade links between the two countries.

At the border post, the highest paved international crossing in the world, more than a dozen diesel semi-trailer trucks now crawl over the pass each day, and hundreds of vehicles crowded with tourists from Pakistan and China clamber up for photos and picnics.

But experts say all this exhaust-spewing traffic and increasingly heavy tourism threatens the fragile Khunjerab National Park, which surrounds the high-mountain border post, and particularly its glaciers, already melting faster as a result of rising temperatures linked to climate change.

The highway upgrade, part of the ambitious China Pakistan Economic Corridor, "has two impacts - one is positive and the other negative," said Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, the author of Pakistans national climate change policy.

"It will bring in much-needed infrastructure. But the carbon emissions and the soot going into the atmosphere will definitely increase - and our mountain glaciers will melt. We need to do a comprehensive study on the impacts and then develop a strategy," he said.

Pakistan has more glaciers than any other country outside the polar region - more than 7,200 in the Karakoram, Himalayan and Hindu Kush ranges, according to Pakistans meteorological department.

They feed the Indus River system, the countrys water lifeline. But data gathered over the last 50 years shows that all but around 120 of the glaciers are showing signs of melting, meteorological officials said.

Warming temperatures are to blame for much of the melting but so-called "black carbon" - black soot released from diesel vehicle exhaust, factories, open fires and cookstoves - also is to blame, experts say.

The wind-blown pollutants settle onto glaciers, darkening them and reducing their ability to reflect away sunlight, which leads to a faster rate of melting, said Ghulam Rasul, director general of Pakistans Meteorological Department.

He said a 2013 sampling of five glaciers in northern Pakistan had shown that winds from India were blowing black carbon, largely from coal-fired power plants and steel industries, onto the lower reaches of Pakistans mountain glaciers.

But because the particles tend to be heavy, "at a higher level our glaciers are not tainted", he said.

That may be changing, however, as the newly expanded China-Pakistan highway brings an army of vehicles through Pakistans high mountains each day.

"Now our own development will be contributing to the melting," Chaudhry noted.

FASTER TRAVEL

The Karakoram Highway has been around since 1982, but the Chinese-funded upgrade - which opened in 2015 - has turned a once treacherous track into a 15-foot-wide paved road.

A series of tunnels, cut through the mountains, have reduced the driving time to the Khunjerab Pass from Gilgit, the capital of Gilgit-Balistan region, from eight hours to four hours.

Now trucks are pouring over the border, laden with Chinese goods and equipment headed to Sost, the first border town on the Pakistani side, and then further down the 1,300-kilometre (800-mile) highway toward the port of Gwadar.

"So far, there are around 12 to 18 trawlers (semi-trailer trucks) a day coming across five days in a week. They are expected to go up to 100 a day," said Shabbir, a hotel owner in Sost. "We are also expecting more Chinese tourists," he said.

The highway upgrade is just part a huge Chinese investment push into infrastructure in Pakistan - including a series of new coal-fired power plants - under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor project.

At the Khunjerab Pass, what once was verdant grassland covered with patches of purple wildflowers is giving way to muddy, tourist-trampled grass. A large new parking has been built alongside the road to accommodate tourists. Formerly pristine streams are accumulating plastic garbage.

On the way up to the pass, several glaciers - including the Batura, one of the worlds longest outside polar regions, and the Passu - reach down to the highway. Seven glaciers emerge from Passu peak, which towers above the highway.

"There is definitely increased melting at the terminus of these glaciers and they are thinning" said Rasul, of Pakistans meteorological department. Melting of the Batura glacier has led to a large lake forming next to the highway in recent years.

In 2008, the melting Passu glacier, above the highway, led to a glacial lake outburst flood, which blocked and damaged the road prior to its upgrade.

"Definitely, the new infrastructure projects including the (highway) itself will be threatened by the increased melting" Chaudhry said.

Rasul, however, said he is confident that the increased climate-changing emissions from the expanded highway will be absorbed by ambitious efforts now underway to replant forests in Pakistan, which has seen heavy deforestation in recent decades.

He also has faith the world will cut climate-changing emissions, as agreed under the Paris climate deal in 2015, sufficiently to prevent the worst impacts of climate change.

"There is no big danger to Pakistan," he predicted. "Our huge ice reserves in the high mountains will last for millennia."

(Reporting by Rina Saeed Khan; editing by Laurie Goering :; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women's rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate)
By Caroline Pailliez

SAVIGNY-LE-TEMPLE, France, Nov 3 (Reuters) - In a warehouse outside Paris, university drop-out Celine Galland stacks palettes and fills out an inventory sheet, part of a logistics apprenticeship she hopes will put a decade of short-term contracts and unemployment behind her.

France's jobless rate has sat stubbornly above 9 percent for nearly a decade. President Emmanuel Macron blames a notoriously rigid labour market and has two ideas to change it: more vocational training for school leavers and making it easier for workers to retrain and change jobs.

On Nov. 10, his government will open talks with unions, business leaders and the regions on how to reform the apprentice system, cutting through its bureaucracy and financing.

The former investment banker promises an extra 15 billion euros ($17 billion) for professional training over five years, but beyond the money he will need to counter public prejudice if he is to reverse a slide in apprentice numbers.

University did not sit well with Galland, who quit after several weeks. Since then the 31-year-old has worked at menial jobs in McDonald's and local supermarkets.

"What I love about this is the variety of tasks," she enthused last week at an AFTRAL logistics and transport training centre in Savigny-le-Temple, east of Paris. "There's no boredom in this job."

France's unemployment rate is more than double Britain's and several points higher than Germany's. Particularly troubling for Macron's centrist government is youth unemployment - nearly one in four 15-24 year olds are without a job, according to official data, a major drag on long-term growth.

Macron has already defied union-led street protests to loosen labour laws, necessary he says to make hiring and firing workers cheaper and easier for small companies.

Leftist opponents and hardline trade unions accuse him of abandoning France's long-cherished ideals of an egalitarian society to side instead with corporate interests.

But the 39-year-old president is standing firm. He promises greater support for workers through an overhaul of training and a revamped welfare system, pointing to the Nordic model of flexibility in the labour market underpinned by security through the social welfare system.

He will, though, need to overturn a widely-held perception that apprenticeships are a poor alternative to school and university diplomas, which France obsesses over.

"We have to put an end to French defeatism, to people saying that apprenticeships are for those who have failed," Macron said this month while visiting a college.

DECLINE IN APPRENTICESHIPS

France's existing apprenticeship system involves the signing of a contract between the apprentice, the employer and the training institution. Students earn a percentage of the minimum wage and gain workplace experience, while companies can source talent and receive welfare payment waivers.

France lags behind numerous European peers. OECD data from 2016 shows 4.9 percent of French youths aged between 16 and 29 completed apprenticeships in 2012, compared with 8.6 percent in Denmark and 15.1 percent in Germany.

As a recovery in the euro zone's second biggest economy gathers strength, employers complain they cannot fill vacancies despite the near double-digit jobless rate because of a skills gap - a mismatch Macron says apprenticeships can help fix.

"Our figures have shown a clear trend for several years: 80- 95 percent of our apprentices are in jobs within six months of finishing," said Pierre de Surone, director of the Savigny-Le-Temple training centre. "Apprenticeship works!"

While the number of higher education apprentices is rising, the number of youngsters gaining college-level apprenticeship diplomas fell to 260,000 in 2016 from 335,000 a decade ago, Education Ministry data shows.

That presents a challenge for Macron. Data published by Cereq, a French government think-tank, shows apprenticeships boost the employability of individuals with low academic qualifications more than for those at higher education grade.

"We don't value practical jobs, technical jobs. If we don't give recognition to these jobs then we're in trouble," said Gabriel Schumacher, director at a local distribution company. (Writing by Richard Lough, Editing by William Maclean)
By Alexis Akwagyiram

LAGOS, Nov 3 (Reuters) - A Nigerian militant group whose attacks on energy facilities in the Niger Delta last year helped push Africa's biggest economy into recession said on Friday it had ended its ceasefire.

The Niger Delta Avengers announced a halt to hostilities in August 2016, although they carried out attacks in October and November last year.

"Niger Delta Avenger's ceasefire on Operation Red Economy is officially over," the group said on its website ( http://www.nigerdeltaavengers.org/ ).

"Our next line of operation will not be like the 2016 campaign which we operated successfully without any casualties; this outing will be brutish, brutal and bloody," it said in a section of its statement addressed to oil companies.

The move threatens Nigeria's fragile economic growth and poses a further security challenge for President Muhammadu Buhari, in addition to the jihadist Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast and rising secessionist sentiments in the southeast.

The government has been in talks for more than a year to address grievances over poverty and oil pollution but local groups have complained that no progress has been made, despite Buhari receiving a list of demands at a meeting last November.

Buhari's office did not immediately comment.

The 2016 attacks cut oil production from a peak of 2.2 million barrels per day (mbpd) to near 1 mbpd, the lowest level in Africa's top oil producer for at least 30 years.

The attacks, combined with low oil prices, caused the OPEC member's first recession in 25 years. Crude sales make up two-thirds of government revenue and most of its foreign exchange. Nigeria came out of recession in the second quarter of this year, mostly due to the rise in oil production after attacks stopped and as prices strengthened.

The Niger Delta Avengers, who say they want a greater share of Nigeria's energy wealth to go to the impoverished swampland region, said they decided to end the ceasefire because they had "lost faith" in local leaders.

"We can assure you that every oil installation in our region will feel the warmth of the wrath of the Niger Delta Avengers," it said.

There have been no substantial attacks in the region since January.

Eric Omare, president of the Ijaw Youth Council, which represents the largest ethnic group in the Niger Delta, said the government had paid only "lip service" to communities' concerns.

"The truth is that the federal government has not demonstrated any seriousness towards addressing the issues that led to the Niger Delta agitation," Omare said, while adding that his group sought a "peaceful dialogue."

Nigeria's economy grew 0.55 percent year-on-year in the second quarter, largely on higher oil receipts.

The World Bank cut its 2017 growth forecast in October to 1 percent from 1.2 percent as the oil production increase was lower than expected and non-oil sector growth was subdued. (Additional reporting by Libby George in Abuja, Anamesere Igboeroteonwu in Onitsha and Christopher Johnson in London; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Robin Pomeroy)
By Brian Ellsworth and Andrew Cawthorne

CARACAS, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Venezuela's cash-strapped government invited creditors to a Nov. 13 meeting in Caracas on Friday, after announcing plans to potentially restructure some $60 billion in bonds that sent the OPEC nation's debt prices plunging.

President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday vowed to make a $1.2 billion bond payment but said future payments would be refinanced. Investors were unsure about what he meant, because U.S. sanctions has taken refinancing off the table.

Many saw the announcement as paving the way for default - despite Venezuela's promises to the contrary - because the debt burden has left the country desperately short of basic goods such as food and medicines.

A default could create a sovereign debt crisis of a scale not seen in Latin America since the massive 2001 default in Argentina that shut it out of markets for years.

Investors say a newly created debt negotiation commission has little chance of making progress, in part because it is headed by Vice President Tareck El Aissami - who is blacklisted by the United States for alleged drug dealing.

"This commission will lay the groundwork for true and transparent dialogue between the government and bondholders," El Aissami, who has no known experience in debt negotiations, said in a televised address.

Investors were bewildered that Maduro, who narrowly won election in 2013 after the death of Hugo Chavez, appeared to be opening the door to default immediately after authorizing more than $2 billion to bond payments.

Market wisdom had been that Venezuela would not make such payments if it expected to end up in default. It will need those funds because it will be locked out of financial markets.

"Nobody has ever paid a bond in full only to announce default the next day," said an executive from one local brokerage, who asked not to be identified.

In addition to outstanding bonds, Venezuela owes some $26 billion to bilateral and multilateral creditors and $24 billion in commercial loans, according to New York-based Torino Capital.

It put the total public sector debt at $152 billion, though Maduro's announcement appeared to be focused primarily on bonds.

The government and PDVSA owe some $1.6 billion in bond service and delayed bond interest payments by the end of the year, plus another $9 billion in bond servicing throughout 2018.

'ZERO POSSIBILITY'

U.S. President Donald Trump, accusing Maduro of dictatorship, barred U.S. banks from participating in or negotiating new Venezuelan debt deals. That rules out swap operations, which allow investors to voluntarily exchange near-term debt for new securities that mature later.

Restructuring - which generally follows a default - refers to an involuntary arrangement under which creditors agree to change payment conditions. But they usually do so only in exchange for major economic reforms, which Maduro has balked at.

"A restructuring has a very close to zero possibility given U.S. sanctions, time constraints given the payment schedule, and the fact that Venezuela obviously does not have the technical capacity to negotiate," said Jim Barrineau, co-head of emerging market debt at Schroders.

The International Monetary Fund issued a warning to Venezuela on Friday for failing to provide it with economic data on time and gave it six months to address the problem. The IMF could issue a "declaration of censure" for non-compliance, two sources told Reuters.

Although the IMF's warning is unrelated to Maduro's announcement, it added to investor worries about the economy.

Venezuelan bond prices took a beating on Friday.

Near-term maturities were hardest hit. The PDVSA 2021 bond dropped 20 percentage points to a bid price of 27 points. Longer-dated bonds fared better, with PDVSA's 2027 bond slipping 4.83 points to bid 25.13. Venezuela's 2018 bond was down 31 points.

Investors holding longer-dated paper generally expect a default will take place well before maturity, while the profitability of short-term bets is more dependent on the bonds being paid off.

Bank of America on Friday estimated that bond prices would drop to around 20 cents on the dollar if a default took place.

There was no immediate impact on oil exports and production from Maduro's announcement.

EMTA, a trade association that sets practices for emerging markets, recommended that Venezuelan bonds not under U.S. sanctions continue trading with accrued interest - a sign Venezuela is for now expected to keep up with its payments.

The Washington-based International Institute of Finance (IIF) held an investor call for bondholders in the event talks with the government go ahead, according to two market sources who participated in the call.

Most were not planning to go to Caracas, the sources said.

IIF declined to comment.

'NOBODY TRUSTS HIS GOVERNMENT'

Leaders of the opposition-led National Assembly said on Friday that any restructuring would be invalid without congressional approval.

"Maduro won't be able to restructure the debt because nobody in the world trusts his government," National Assembly head Julio Borges said.

Though there is widespread public disquiet at economic hardship, the opposition coalition is cracking after a disastrous showing at last month's gubernatorial elections, and there is speculation Maduro may bring forward the presidential vote, which had been expected for the end of 2018.

Vice President El Aissami said a $1.2 billion payment on PDVSA's 2017N bond that matured on Thursday had already been transferred. The Central Bank's website showed a drop of $430 million in international reserves, signaling the government may have dipped into reserves to pay the PDVSA bond.

That pushed reserves to $9.7 billion, their lowest level in at least 20 years.

The company spent days trying to make payment on its 2020 bond, which finance industry sources attributed to nervousness by bank officials over possible U.S. sanctions violations.

Principal payments on the two bonds were moving through the clearing system without a problem, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The next hard payment deadline for PDVSA is an $81 million bond payment that was due on Oct. 12 but on which the company delayed payment under a 30-day grace period. Failing to pay that on time would trigger a PDVSA default, investors say.

That would expose Venezuela and PDVSA to lawsuits by creditors seeking to seize assets such as refineries in the United States.

(Reporting by Eyanir Chinea, Corina Pons, Alexandra Ulmer, Andreina Aponte in Caracas, Marianna Parraga in Houston, and Dion Rabouin, Davide Scigliuzzo in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Susan Thomas)
By Anna Koper

WARSAW, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Poland's Orbis expects its revenues and core earnings to rise at a slower pace after years of double-digit growth, the hotel operator's chief executive Gilles Clavie said on Friday.

"The trend will remain positive, but of course acceleration will not be the same. Our revenues and EBITDA have been growing by double digits for the last 4 years," Clavie told Reuters.

"This is a trend which cannot be continued forever."

The number of foreign tourists visiting Poland increased by 5 percent in the first half of 2017, while the country's economy is expected to grow by more than 4 percent this year.

Orbis, a unit of France's Accor and Poland's top hotel operator, expects its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), to rise by 15-18 percent this year to 450 million to 460 million zlotys ($127 million).

"There is general growth of the market linked to the GDP strength. This is one of the main reasons. The second factor is linked to the safety feeling people can get in this region, compared to other countries," Clavie said.

Orbis plans to grow organically, but also through takeovers and it is considering acquisitions mostly in Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania. It also wants to continue to pay dividends, the CEO said. ($1 = 3.6353 zlotys) (Writing by Agnieszka Barteczko; editing by Alexander Smith)
COPENHAGEN, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Nykredit, Denmark's largest mortgage lender, said on Friday it could sell a minority stake rather than pursue a planned listing, after its main investor Forenet Kredit received an offer for its holding.

Nykredit is 89.8 percent owned by Forenet Kredit, which is a union of Danish homeowners with mortgage loans in Nykredit.

A consortium of three Danish pension funds, PFA Pension, AP Pension and Pension Danmark, had made the offer, Danish media group Finans reported. All three declined to comment.

"The Managements of Forenet Kredit and Nykredit are pleased to note that the Group's significantly improved financial results have expanded the opportunities for raising new equity," Forenet Kredit and Nykredit said in a statement.

The boards would consider whether the offer "constitutes an attractive alternative to a stock exchange listing, including whether it ensures a satisfactory scope for raising new equity capital", they added.

Nykredit said in September it had chosen U.S. banks JPMorgan JPM.N and Morgan Stanley and Danske Bank as joint global coordinators for its IPO.

The IPO preparations will continue unchanged until further notice, Nykredit and Totalkredit said. (Reporting by Stine Jacobsen; editing by Alexander Smith)
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 3 (Reuters) - South Africa's NB Publishers said on Friday it had received a letter from the State Security Agency (SSA) ordering it to pull a new book on President Jacob Zuma off the shelves as it contravened the Intelligence Service Act.

The publishers said they stood by "The President's Keepers - Those keeping Zuma in power and out of prison", and its lawyers would respond to the letter sent by the SSA.

The book by journalist Jacques Pauw alleges millions of dollars in taxpayers' money flowed into the bank accounts of spies and Zuma's government and details the actions of law-enforcement agencies. It alleges Zuma failed to submit tax returns for the first five years of his presidency.

The president's office has issued a statement rejecting the accusations contained in the book, adding that Zuma had declared all income received to tax authorities.

The SSA warns NB Publishers in a letter seen by Reuters that it will launch criminal charges if the book is not withdrawn.

"Noting your admission that you did not seek the views of the people apparently implicated, it is not surprising that this book is replete with inaccuracies," the SSA said in the letter sent to NB Publishers by its lawyers Kgoroeadira Mudau Inc.

The letter said the book contained elements in contravention of the country's Intelligence Service Act.

No SSA spokesperson was available for further comment.

A spokeswoman for NB publishers said its lawyers were handling the matter.

"We have received the letter but have not pulled the book yet because our attorneys have been given time to respond," Jean Pieters, NB Publisher's spokeswoman said. (Reporting by James Macharia; editing by Ralph Boulton)
By MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE, Nov 3 (Reuters) - A U.S. citizen was charged on Friday with attempting to overthrow the Zimbabwean government, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years in jail, after police earlier accused her of insulting 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe.

Martha O'Donovan, who works for Magamba TV, which describes itself as Zimbabwe's leading producer of political satire, was picked up in a dawn raid on her Harare home, her lawyer said.

O'Donovan, who denies both charges, was expected in court on Saturday, lawyer Obey Shava said.

Police spokeswoman Charity Charamba could not be reached for comment on the new, much more serious, charge.

O'Donovan was first charged with insulting and undermining the president, according to a police charge sheet, which accused her of last month calling Mugabe a "selfish and sick man" on Twitter, the first such arrest since the creation of a Ministry of Cyber Security last month.

That charge carries a maximum sentence of one year in jail, her lawyer said.

Shava said police then accused O'Donovan of setting up Magamba, being behind a "shadowy Twitter character" called @matigary and setting up another Twitter account @OpenParlyZw "for the sole purpose of overthrowing the government through unconstitutional means".

The government has been particularly uneasy about social media after activists such as pastor Evan Mawararire and his #ThisFlag movement last year used social media to organise a stay-at-home demonstration, the biggest anti-government protest in a decade. A national election is due in 2018.

The police search warrant showed that central to its investigation was a post on O'Donovan's Twitter feed referring to a "Goblin" whose wife and step-sons had imported a Rolls-Royce, an apparent reference to Mugabe, though he was not named.

In a statement to police seen by Reuters, O'Donovan said:

"I deny the allegations being levelled against me as baseless and malicious. That is all I wish to say."

The U.S. embassy in Harare confirmed an American citizen had been arrested and said it was monitoring the situation closely.

Shava said his client had refused to sign a new document known as a "warned and cautioned statement" with the fresh charge. The document sets out the government's case and signing it signals a suspect understands the charge.

She had signed the statement on the lesser charge.

Police seized her computers, cellphones and other electronic devices in the raid on her home. (Additional reporting by Ed Cropley; Editing by Alison Williams)
Fouzul Hameed  Managing Director, Hameedia Group

Hameedia, Sri Lankas leading menswear specialist will soon present the fifth edition of its annual fashion showcase  Envoy Concept 2018. This year, the show will run under the theme CurioCity, and is meant to inspire urban men to embrace their curiosity and intrigue when it comes to fashion, grooming and the latest style trends. The event will feature seven exclusive clothing collections including Down to Earth, Art in Loom, Contemporary, De Rigueur, GENZ, Prince of Wales and Celebrate Life, which will be made available at Hameedia outlets Island-wide during the course of 2018.

The Envoy Concept show is the only one of its kind in the country and derives its inspiration from global and international standards of menswear fashion. This years theme CurioCity is meant to encourage gentlemen from all walks of life and professional backgrounds, to learn more about the latest trends in the fashion industry, so they can equip themselves with the knowledge and expertise needed to put together a mix of chic, eclectic, trendy and timeless looks.

The fifth edition of Concept will be graced this year by the presence of Jack Eyers - Mr. England 2017/2018 who is also the Brand Ambassador of Envoy London. He will be attending the event, along with his two colleagues, Jack Hesslewood  1st runner up, Mr. England 2017/2018 and Zac Oldershaw  2nd runner up, Mr. England 2017/2018.

Envoy Concept 2018 will present exclusive collections that draw on the latest fashion trends and embody elegance and sophistication; two quintessential elements of fashion. The collections will feature shirts, trousers, jackets, kurthas, printed shirts, smart casual must-haves, pieces for power dressing, as well as an array of formal attire. Tailored with the finest fabrics and embellishments, each collection has been designed to encapsulate the essences of confidence, boldness and suavity that together will enable gentlemen to step out in style on every occasion. With its consistent commitment to upholding global standards, Hameedia continues to complement every mans sense of style and fashion by enabling him to look his best at all times.

Chinthaka Wanigasekara  General Manager Operations, Hameedia Group, Fouzul Hameed  Managing Director, Hameedia Group, Alexandre Diaz-Albo  General Manager, The Kingsbury Colombo, Daminda Jayawardena  Director of Rooms, The Kingsbury Colombo, Ameer Hamza  Head of Business Development and HR, Hameedia Group

Commenting on the highly anticipated Envoy Concept 2018 show, Fouzul Hameed  Managing Director, Hameedia Group said: The Concept show is at the forefront of the Sri Lankan fashion industry and is the most highly anticipated mens fashion event of the year. Initiated as a stepping stone to transform the menswear fashion industry in the country, each year the show has become bigger and better and now features an expanded portfolio of world-class garments. This year, we are delighted to have our Envoy London Brand Ambassador, Mr. England 2017/2018 and the 1st and 2nd runners up from the competition attending the showcase. As a Sri Lankan brand, we are extremely proud to have partnered with such a prestigious international event such as the Mr. England competition, and we look forward to Jack Eyers and his colleagues being a part of this years event. The ability to make a strong fashion statement can bolster a mans self-esteem whilst speaking volumes about his personality and character. The Concept 2018 show offers an extensive range of the latest and most contemporary designs and outfits that meet the needs and styles of modern men with varying tastes and personalities.

As serving society has always been a core value of the Hameedia Group, the Concept 2018  CurioCity showcase will feature a variety of fundraising initiatives that will support the My Friend project. All proceeds from the show will help educate children in underprivileged schools in the country through the My Friend foundation. This year, partners that specialize in mens retail as well as many lifestyle brands, will also come on board for the showcase. These partners include Dialog as the official telecommunications partner, Vision Care as the official eye care partner, adidas as the official sportswear partner, Real Men as the official fragrance partner, Management Studios as the official knowledge partner and The Kingsbury Hotel is named as the official hospitality partner of the event.

A part of the Concept 2018 collection
Murtaza Tajbhoy  Chief Strategy Officer, Leo Burnett Sri Lanka receiving the IAA Champion award

Murtaza Tajbhoy, Chief Strategy Officer of Leo Burnett Sri Lanka was awarded the IAA Champion award. He is the first Sri Lankan to win this prestigious accolade. The International Advertising Association (IAA) selected Murtaza as one of five global leaders in the marketing communications industry to receive this honour.

Murtaza received the IAA Champion award recently at IAA's 2017 Global Conference held in Bucharest, Romania where more than 600 delegates from the international advertising and marketing communications industries were gathered to celebrate the future of the industry and to celebrate individuals who have made a difference to the industry. The IAA Champion Award, introduced this year as part of IAAs 2017 Inspire Awards, honours notable leaders for their lifetime achievements, vision and their contribution to the global marketing communications industry.

I am incredibly proud that Murtaza was honoured by the International Advertising Association with its first-ever Champion Award, says Ranil de Silva  Managing Director, Leo Burnett Sri Lanka. Murtaza has transformed the strategic approach to marketing communications in our industry and is a torch bearer not only for us at Leo Burnett, but also for the advertising industry in demand. His insights, initiatives and perspective have blazed a new trail for the Sri Lankan advertising industry. His insights into people and their behaviours and his desire to understand social norms and cultural fuels has helped us transform brands under his stewardship.

Murtaza joins luminaries from the global advertising industry as one of only five recipients of the first IAA Champion award  his fellow champions include Brendan Ripp, Executive Vice President of the Fox Networks Group and Akira Kagani of Japans Drill Inc.

In a statement to congratulate all IAA Inspire Award winners, Felix Tataru, World President and Chairman of IAA said The IAA Inspire Awards have been initiated to pay tribute to our members for their many achievements and contributions of Leadership, Vision, Commitment and Service to make a difference in the worldwide arena of marketing communications. They have contributed their professional expertise and inspired the marketing communications community locally, regionally and globally."

I am honoured to receive the IAA Champion Award, says Murtaza Tajbhoy. Insight driven, analytical thinking is changing the marketing communications landscape around the world. To be recognized for the value Ive added to this industry is a very satisfying reward. This recognition is a reward for my team and Id like to share this honour with my mentors and the diverse people who have guided and inspired me. This IAA Champion award is not an accolade for me, its a reward for Sri Lankas marketing communications industry.

Murtaza joined Leo Burnett in 2000, rising from a Junior Brand Executive to Chief Strategy Officer spearheading the companys belief that creativity can transform human behaviours. In 2010 he was also named a Star Reacher by the Leo Burnett Worldwide and was invited to the companys headquarters in Chicago. Sri Lanka didnt have sufficient in-depth data to understand the attitudes and behaviour of the growing middle class. So he convinced Leo Burnett to invest in its own study: engaging both academics and a research agency to develop a multi-dimensional approach to study people across the country. The qualitative and quantitative studies which emerged from this initiative uncovered that this large populous could be categorized into 4 segments. Similarly, his research on Sri Lankan Celebrities was an invaluable asset to the strategic planning process of several brands which were managed by Leo Burnett. His white paper on the Pettah entrepreneur, originated from his curiosity to understand a specific group of entrepreneurs in the country. The paper was presented at multiple management conferences across the country and was championed by the Postgraduate Institute of Management in Sri Lanka. Murtazas commitment to lead regular Dirty Feet initiatives with his team to uncover people-led behaviours of Sri Lankans across the island has been extremely valuable to his clients, the agency and himself.

In 2012, Murtazas work earned Sri Lankas first ever Gold Spike for creative effectiveness, followed by accolades at AMES, APPIES and Effies. This year he crowned his accomplishments claiming for Leo Burnett the title of Agency of the Year at the Sri Lanka Effies. He was also the first Sri Lankan juror of AMES ASIA PACIFIC in 2015, and the Spikes Effectiveness Awards in 2016.

In his 17 years career at Leo Burnett he has played a pivotal role to drive the agency to its current pinnacle of success despite his many successes and illustrious career Murtaza remains a grounded professional who loves his role and responsibilities and is inspired by the world that surrounds him.
A very informative seminar on how the Central Bank could help the business community and the business potential will be addressed by the senior officials of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka on Thursday, November 23, 2017, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., at the chamber auditorium, No: 450, D R Wijewardene Mawatha, Colombo 7.



Topics that would be discussed are:

Exchange rate policy and foreign reserves management.

Investment in government securities.

Role of the Central Bank in promoting SMEs in Sri Lanka and the different loan schemes available for SMEs.



The target group is business owners, bankers, SME entrepreneurs, exporters and importers and financial analysts.



The resource persons from the Central Bank would be Deputy Director Economic Research Dr. D.S.T. Wanaguru, Deputy Director Economic Research Dr. R.A. Anil Perera, Public Debt Department Senior Manager L.R.C. Pathberiya and Regional Development Department Senior Assistant Director M.C.D. de Silva



At the panel discussion, the participants will get an opportunity to find out answers to their queries.

For registration, those interested may contact the chamber: Madushika TP 4741788 or email fm@nationalchamber.lk: tradelinks@nationalchamber.lk.
Aries (Mesha):



A favourable Mercury is in your 8th House signifying financial stability and success in all ventures. Now you are relieved of the malefic period  Ashtamaya Shani Erashtaka you have been going through. Mars in your 6th House continues to give a whip hand over enemies and rivals, financial gains and higher status. Venus in your 7th House holds out happiness and prosperity in addition to marital happiness, good health, a happy time at the workplace and cordial relations with friends and relatives being held out Jupiter already posited in the same House.



Taurus (Vrushabha):



Mercury now in your 7th House signifies a bad time for you both mentally and physically. Given Saturns malefic influence causing from your 8th House you are advised to safeguard your health and income sources in particular. Venus in your 6th House produces the beneficial effects such as a buoyant spirit and moral integrity. Sun in the 6th House greatly strengthens that House to bring you power over rivals, success at contests and competitions and an increased income. However, Jupiter being weak in this House could cause ill-health and financial problems.



Gemini (Mithuna):



Lagnadhipati Mercury in the 6th House holds out a good income, good health and cordial relations with relatives. Venus in your 5th House has made it very strong. Sun already in it has turned benefic due to the association with Jupiter who assures a favourable time marked by happy family reunions, festivities, matrimonial prospects and success in educational pursuits. Mars in the 4th House could cause you anxiety and tensions if you are running unfavourable Dasas. Saturn, now in the 7th House, being the lord of the 9th House could produce beneficial results for natives if it were strong at birth and if they are currently running its Maha Dasa.



Cancer (Kataka):



Mercury in the 5th House is not favourable for trading in stocks and shares or making decisions based on speculation either. Venus in your 4th House holds out enhanced living comforts and a generally happy time. Saturn in your 6th House can give you monetary gains, career success and invincibility. Mars in your 3rd House can bring you courage and confidence as well as power and influence. Rahu in the Lagna can give you fame but push you towards taking hasty decisions and hasty actions. Jupiter in your 4th House can cause you mental unrest and financial problems in the long run.



Leo (Sinha):



Living comforts, a good time for studies and happiness and harmony in the family are held out by Mercury transiting the 4th House. You are advised to pay greater attention to the security and safety of your children given the adverse influence of Saturn in your 5th House. It can also cause disputes with the spouse and business partners. Venus in your 3rd House holds out career success, financial stability and joyous short journeys. Sun already in the 3rd House with Jupiter gives you courage and a sense of adventure. Mars in your 2nd House can make you rude and discourteous.



Virgo (Kanya):



Mercury in the 3rd House signifies tensions, disputes with relatives and peers at the workplace. Saturn now in your 4th House being the lord of the 5th House could bring you benefits if Saturn was strong at your birth too. Otherwise, you have to brace for health problems, financial losses, disputes and problems relating to land, vehicles and other property in the long run. Venus in your 2nd House associated with both Sun and Jupiter assures you of marital happiness and an increased income. Meanwhile, Jupiter already in your 2nd House assures wealth, an increased income and a generally favourable of state of affairs in all areas of life.



Libra (Thula):



Financial stability and happiness in the family are indicated by Mercury now in your 2nd House. A generally auspicious time is ahead for you with Lagnadhipati Venus in your Lagna. Saturn already in your 3rd House assures the restoration of practically everything precious you have lost in the past- career, status and wealth. The Sun in your Lagna imbues you with a sense of humility, sagacity and foresight. However, you have to act with caution and the circumspect in regard to all matters as Mars in your 12th House is a threat to your personal safety and your reputation.



Scorpio (Vrushika):



Worries and minor ailments in the head are possible due to Mercury transiting in the Lagna. Venus in your 12th House with Moolatrikona strength is very auspicious for it will imbue with a keen perception, a positive outlook and an altruistic bent. The Erashtaka continues in its final phase despite Saturn leaving your Lagna for the 2nd House. A trying period that calls for your inner strength is ahead. Mars already in the 11th House assures you of high status, honours, increased wealth, a rise in career and happiness in the family.



Sagittarius (Dhanu):



Mercury in the 12th House signifies heavy expenditure and impediments to your plans. With Saturn now back in your Lagna you are technically under the Shani Erashtaka. The Erashtaka does not harshly impact on Sagittarius natives. However, a period when you have to act with patience, foresight and circumspect is lying ahead. Mars in your 10th House is favourable for your career or whatever activity you are engaged in for a living. Your 11th Ayasthana has gained further strength with Venus moving into it when Sun and Jupiter already posited there assure you of material gains, wealth, higher status, more comforts and a generally good time.



Capricorn (Makara):



An increase in income sources is indicated by Mercury favourably posited in the 11th House. Your 10th House has gained immense strength from Swakshetra Venus entering it to generate the effects of Amala and Malavya Yogas envisaging a very favourable time ahead. Saturn in your 12th House could cause the loss of lifes earnings. Time is not opportune for foreign travel either. However, Saturn being your Lagnadhipati the impact of the Erashtaka will be very mild. In the short run, your 10th House or Karmasthana strong with Sun posited in it raises the prospect of a higher rank or a promotion for natives running favourable Dasas.



Aquarius (Kumbha):



Mercury in the 10th House assures a smooth progress in all your projects. Your 9th Bhagyasthana has gained further strength with Venus joining Sun and Jupiter already in assuring you of a very favourable time ahead. Saturn in your 11th House can bring you sound health, job satisfaction and general prosperity. The Sun conjunct with Jupiter in the 9th House holds out gainful foreign travel, financial gains, high profits from business and general prosperity and generally a happy time. However, you have to develop a keener awareness of the need for personal safety and security in view of Mars in your 8th House.



Pisces (Meena):



Mercury now transiting in your 9th House could cause bad luck like loss of wealth. Saturn now in your 10th House could adversely affect your career and create problems for you at your workplace. However, Venus - Sun  Jupiter combination in the 8th House can bring a host of benefits such as comforts, pleasures, increased gains from whatever economic activity you are engaged in and even robust health. Mars in your 7th House is not favourable in that it can mar your marital happiness and even cause harm to your spouse..
If not rebirth, why was I born a Muslim? Was it by choice, or was it or is it, I was to have this one single and profound experience which will resolve all things for me or mould me into that perfection by which all things are resolved for me?

My typewriter is getting old, almost falling apart and so am I. Before things get any worse let me put some crucial thoughts down. So many hundreds have done this sort of thing before - some of the greatest, noblest beings, those who have reached the pinnacle of spirituality.



What is the purpose of our lives? Have our purposes been determined for us? Or have we been set down upon this earth, as a machine may have been set down, programmed to live through for a certain number of years depending on the vagaries of our environments and the potentialities set down for us? Or are we part of the vast evolutionary processes described by Charles Darwin? Where does God come into all this? And what about the different views held by the different religions of the world ? What about belief and unbelief? What about miracles and what do they do to enlighten us on the way ? What indeed is the meaning of all this wondrous existence of ours? I despair even before I begin to ever find answers to these questions, questions which are nevertheless of utmost importance to our lives, as to how we carry on from day to day, hour to hour and perhaps second to second. I am not like the philosophers or religionists trying to find answers to universal problems, I merely wish to understand things for myself.



First, let me try and resolve this question of whether there is rebirth or not, or whether we have simply to through one lifetime, given the one single chance in life to make it or break it. If not rebirth, why was I born a Muslim? Was it by choice, or was it or is it, I was to have this one single and profound experience which will resolve all things for me or mould me into that perfection by which all things are resolved for me?

As a Muslim I am given to know that God knows all things and we with our puny understanding can know but little and are all but ignorant



To my way of understanding, there is nothing that can possibly explain and resolve the iniquities and inequities replete in this world of ours, the sufferings that human beings have been heir to throughout the annals of human existence, the existence of animals

And creatures lower down the evolutionary scale. Yet why such an apparently endless detour to reach the eventual happiness or goal of life we envisage.



As a Muslim I am given to know that God knows all things and we with our puny understanding can know but little and are all but ignorant . As the Sufis who have as far as we can tell reached the pinnacle of spirituality will tell us it is the final absorption in God, in the Divine through first an entry into states of bliss and into an Heaven that will be the ultimate revelation.



We are given revelations through the Prophets sent down to earth by God as guidance for humanity and finally the revelations sent down to the Prophet Muhammad setting a seal as it were upon all the earlier revelations and therefore perfecting them. Is this then the solution that has been and is available to the billions of beings both human and otherwise, the solution which offers salvation to them all ?



The Sufis moreover tell us that it is Love at its loftiest heights, Love that infuses all things that surely is the grand finale to such a grandiose play which describes our sojourn on earth.



True perhaps as it would seem to many, but is it open to all and to all things and how long does it take finally - an eternity or many eternities? It is known that our Earth in cosmic time is said to be 5 billion years old and human beings have been around for the past 10,000 to 15,000 years- that is a long, long time. The Hindus believe that there have been in the course of time 6 Pralyas (Extinctions) and we are nearing the end in a 7th extinction.



A contemporary Muslim theologian, Sheikh Imran Hussain who has made Islamic eschatology his specialty says that the Akirazaman ( the end of the world) as it is known to Muslims is round the corner and predicts the appearance of the personage known as Dajjal - a one-eyed being who is said to make his appearance in order to mislead humanity. He avers this may be a metaphor for the Zionist State - and also of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ as it has been predicted in the Quran. . He says that all the predictions in the Quran and the Hadis -the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad which include his sayings point to the Malhama or end of the world. I may have no doubt about all these and no doubts about much more Islamic theologians may speak about. My problem, however, is how to reconcile all this in terms of what happens to us in our personal lives, in our relationships with each other, who hold such a diversity of beliefs.



Those who have had Near Death Experiences (NDEs) , gone out of their bodies and beyond our earthly prison to a beyond and returned again to earth reluctantly speak of an inconceivably peaceful world in those other realms. This surely does not accord with the notion of an earthly sojourn which has to end, with a resurrection followed by an eternal life with a hell or heaven in-between. Or as Buddhist and Hindus believe with renewed life again on earth in forms determined by how a beings life was conducted during an earlier lifetime - a form of trial otherwise spoken of in the traditions of the monotheistic religions.



God-realisation may be one thing but how to conceive of a God can be quite puzzling. The Greeks had the conception of gods, goddesses, various powers of nature and of an all-powerful deity controlling all. The Hindu conception encompasses deities too with their multifarious functions like the Greek pantheons. Buddhism although in its original form propounded by the Buddha was purely rationalistic later acquired the trappings of the deistic Hindu religions and though it continued to rebirth as fundamental came to accept Nibbhana - annihilation or as others would have it ultimate bliss as the end of it all..



Will it ever be possible in the course of our brief lives on earth to find consensus, ever to have one religion for the entire humanity and have beliefs and experiences each according to the findings, the revelatory experiences, visions and certitudes in miracles of those belonging to different dispensations ? There are many Christians who believe that Jesus Christ was crucified and died in order to absolve the sins of humanity while Muslims believe Christ was taken up to Heaven bodily. Then there is incontrovertible evidence of stigmata among Christian savants like Father Padre Pio. If one were to ask contemporary Muslim theologians like Sheikh Ismail Menk, Nouman Ali, Hamza Yusuf and others like them they would say we cannot have final answers and would have to stop when it comes to probing what they would call the Unseen. What then?



Do we follow whatever dispensation we take up as the most credible, as the best that should be followed according to the experiences and beliefs which we can come closest to understanding and wait for the rest to unfold in a beyond, whatever that beyond may hold for us ?



We may not know him as God; we may know him as Nature, our Higher Self, Infinity, some ineffable goal. It was so that the Buddha approached Him. He is accessible even to the Atheist. To the materialist he disguises Himself in matter. For the Nihilist he waits ambushed in the bosom of Annihilation, says Sri Aurobindo the Hindu sage.



Man is a transitional being. His is not final. He is the middle term of the evolution, not its end, crown or consummating masterpiece, he also said.



I shall end with another quote from Sri Aurobindo after which little needs said. It is as follows:

There is nothing mind can do that can be better done in the minds immobility and thought-free stillness.



When mind is still, then Truth gets a chance to be heard in the purity of the silence.



....Truth lives in the calm wordless Light of the eternal spaces; she does not intervene in the noise and cackle of logical debate.



...Cease inwardly from thought and word, be motionless within you, look upward into the light and outward into the vast cosmic consciousness that is around you. Be more and more with brightness and the vastness. Then will Truth dawn on you from above and flow in on you from all around you.
There is a huge stigma associated with the topics related to mental illnesses in Sri Lanka. One of these mental illnesses is Postpartum Depression. Patients dont recognize treatment for Postpartum Depression as important. This can negatively impact the health of both the mother and the baby.

Speaking to the Health Capsule Dr. Gayani Punchihewa, Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychiatry, Medical Faculty, University of Ruhuna, explained the causes, signs and symptoms, treatment and the screening tests that are available in Sri Lanka connected to Postpartum Depression.



Definition

Explaining what Postpartum Depression is Dr. Punchihewa said, Postpartum Depression (PPD) or Postnatal Depression is a psychiatric illness that occurs after the delivery of a child. It is recognized as a unique entity in psychiatry because associated factors and the circumstances under which it occurs are different. After the pregnancy, the physiology of the womans body is different as there are hormonal and emotional changes.10 to 15% of mothers would develop PPD. But it usually goes undetected and therefore remains without being diagnosed. It is a principal condition which can be cured. The most important thing is that a mother needs to be both physically and mentally healthy for the newborns development. If the mother is depressed it will affect the mother -baby bonding, which is of utmost importance in the cognitive development of the baby,Dr. Punchihewa said.



Causes

Dr. Punchihewa stated that the genetic factor is one of the causes adding, It has genetic contributions. If the mother has a family history of psychiatric illness, there is a genetic predisposition, she said.



Dr. Punchihewa further said,With the changes that occur in the mothers body following delivery, the hormonal, neurochemical and emotional changes make the mother more vulnerable to develop PPD. There are new responsibilities and she has to maintain family relationships. It is also physically exhausting especially if the mother has experienced difficulties during labour. So all these changes contribute to PPD. The risk factors regarding the development of PPD are past history of psychiatric illness, stress during pregnancy, domestic violence, poor family support, social issues etc.,she explained.



Signs and symptoms

Speaking of the signs and symptoms, Dr. Punchihewa said, It doesnt happen soon after delivery. Generally the signs and symptoms will appear three to four weeks after the delivery. The mother would feel tired, not interested in attending to the baby, her sleep will be disturbed, appetite will be low, she will be thoughtful, withdrawn, irritable and weepy. These are the normal symptoms of depression. But for a postpartum mother there are some other specific symptoms that will be exhibited which revolve around the baby and the family. In our community what we normally see is that they feel that they are inadequate as mothers. They have difficulties in breastfeeding. Most of the mothers visit pediatricians complaining that they dont have enough breast milk and that the baby is not putting on weight, the doctor said.



She further explained that when it gets worse the patient would start having hallucinations and delusions.



They can experience hallucinations and start hearing things when nobody is around; such as people talking to her. Common phrases they hear are: you are a bad mother or you are not playing the proper role of a mother. And then the delusions are that they develop abnormal beliefs concerning the baby or the other family members. This is not common and happens when the depression is severe and left untreated, she said.



She further said, The highest risk is suicidal thoughts. It is so important to recognize this condition. when you see the news we hear of how mothers jump into rivers and take their lives, often along with the baby. These incidents are reported and the message given is that these incidents happen due to relationship issues with the husband and the in-laws, but the underlying cause (PPD) has been untreated,she explained.



Treatment

Speaking of the treatment thats administered, Dr. Punchihewa said that it depends on whether the depression is mild, moderate or severe.If it is mild, cognitive behavioural therapy, a form of psychological treatment, which would suffice. But if it is moderate or severe you need to specify medication so that pharmacological treatment is done and anti depressants are given. Medications that do not harm the baby are given, because the medication can enter the blood stream and go to the baby through breast milk. There are medicines which have minimum side effects on the baby, she explained.



She further said,When you start treatment you wont get cured immediately. It takes time to be cured. Even after you feel better you are not supposed to stop the medication. You continue with it for about six months and then you gradually tail off the medication. It might take 6 to 9 months of treatment and you should follow the psychiatrists advice,she affirmed.



Dr. Punchihewa further said that there is another type of treatment for severe depression, especially regarding mothers who are having suicidal thoughts. The recommended treatment is electro convulsive therapy or what is called shock treatment. That acts faster, because medication takes time to act and patients who are having suicidal thoughts need to be treated aggressively. Many people have the wrong notions about electro convulsive therapy, but it is effective and a well tested method of treatment,Dr. Punchihewa said.



Difference between Postpartum Blues and Postpartum Depression

Dr. Punchihewa said, Postpartum blues is also known as maternity blues. It is a mild condition which resolves spontaneously. It lasts for about a week or two. The mother will be crying, will have a loss of appetite, find it difficult to cope and adjust to the new situation. But it will not last long. So the mother needs a lot of support from the family, the partner and the health care team. With support they can return to normalcy. It is a milder form of psychiatric condition and can be controlled with support and acceptance that she is getting adjusted to the new situation. It doesnt call for the use of medications. Around 30 to 80% of mothers can get maternity blues. But there is a risk of a mother who has developed maternity blues developing PPD later on,she said.



Men

Dr. Punchihewa further said that it is also recognized that men too can develop PPD, with the changes that occur in the responsibilities and the relationships. In other countries Governments authorize paternity leave after the baby is born and even in Sri Lanka now the fathers are entitled to paternity leave. But in our society leave for the father has not been recognized. Although this condition is present, we have not encountered fathers with PPD, she said.



Screening test

Dr. Punchihewa stated that since the problem associated with PPD goes without being diagnosed and is unrecognized, they have now introduced a screening tool to the antenatal records in the primary health care system. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale has been included as a screening tool. This was introduced in our country around three or four years ago.



A questionnaire is given to the postpartum mothers in their third or fourth week by the midwife and they are supposed to fill it. There is a marking system involved. The total is 30 marks. If any mother gets 9 or more than 9 marks that mother needs to be referred to a psychiatrist. That doesnt mean that she has depression, but there is risk of developing depression. The condition of such mothers needs to be fully assessed by a psychiatrist. We need to raise awareness regarding the use of this screening tool as some mothers are reluctant to use it. They dont recognize it as something of importance and dont fill it. A difficulty we encounter is that when they are referred to the psychiatrist, they stay away due to the stigma associated with such mental conditions. It is important that they at least see a general practitioner to get themselves assessed, she concluded.
REUTERS, 02nd NOVEMBER, 2017

Myanmars leader Aung San Suu Kyi arrived on her first visit to conflict-battered northern Rakhine State on Thursday, an official said, in an unannounced trip to an area that has seen most of its Rohingya Muslim population forced out by an army campaign.



The State Counsellor (Suu Kyis official title) is now in Sittwe and will go to Maungdaw and Buthiduang too. It will be a day trip, government spokesman Zaw Htay told AFP, mentioning two of the epicentres of the violence but without elaborating on her schedule. It is her first trip in office to northern Rakhine, which has hosted the worst of the communal violence that has cut through the western state since 2012, severely damaging Myanmars global reputation.



It was not clear if Ms. Suu Kyi would visit some of the hundreds of Rohinyga villages torched by the army -- allegedly aided by ethnic Rakhine Buddhist locals -- or if she would be taken to see remaining clusters of the Muslim group, who are living in fear and hunger surrounded by hostile neighbours.
Looking at the world through the eyes of the Web
Although critics lashed out at his play for being too divisive and anti-police, Josh St. Hill and the rest of the Monticello High School drama department went on to premiere A Kings Story on Oct. 25.

But what St. Hill, who wrote and stars in the play about a fictional black Charlottesville teenager who is shot and killed by police, saw that night was support.

The performance drew a standing ovation, and some audience members approached St. Hill to shake his hand, give him a hug and offer congratulations.

Those who have seen or read the play said it has the potential to kick-start community conversations over complex and sensitive topics on current events in America, and that its essential that student voices are heard, especially in Charlottesville.

A Kings Story is a one-act play that St. Hill, a junior, wrote over the summer and updated to include references to the white supremacist and white nationalist rallies in Charlottesville in July and August.

The main character, Elijah, loses his best friend, James King, when he is shot and killed by a white Charlottesville police officer. In the story, King is unarmed and in possession of a small amount of marijuana when he is shot.

A Kings Story not only taps into the frustration and anger of Elijah, who wants to know why his friend was killed, but also how a community reacts to an officer-involved shooting.

St. Hills work received most of its criticism after radio host Rob Schilling at WINA aired a story that focused on messages in the set design.

You have a bunch of people now who haven't even seen the show commenting and saying, Wow, this show is, like, so biased, this show is so anti-America, this show it so anti-police, and were sitting here like, You guys havent even seen the play, St. Hill said.

Schillings report pointed out slogans on the backdrop that he deemed offensive and anti-police. St. Hill said the messages were not ones that he or the other actors endorse or believe.

We have a set piece that isnt really what we think, but it reflects what would be happening in that fictional set, what people would be thinking, he said.

Since the report, the backdrop was changed slightly, with the addition of the common protest chant no justice, no peace. St. Hill did not make any other changes to the set.

Though most of the criticism has been that A Kings Story is anti-police, St. Hill said that is not the plays message.

This isnt anti-police in any way, shape or form, he said. There are great police officers. I know great police chiefs, sergeants. This isnt bashing the police, its bashing the bad police. Were not throwing everybody under one category.

St. Hill said he hasnt received any negative feedback directed at him personally, but Madeline Michel, a theater teacher at Monticello High, said she and social media accounts for the drama department have.

The goal of the production was not to offend people, Michel said, nor was it to push a political cause. She has long been an advocate of giving her students the freedom and the space to explore what they are thinking about and put it into artistic form.

Sometimes, the content students confront will be uncomfortable and based on difficult situations, she said, especially after Charlottesvilles deadly Aug. 12 white nationalist rally.

I mean, every show just cant be unicorns and rainbows, because lifes not like that, Michel said. These kids were really scared this summer. We have kids in this school who were hurt in that car terrorist attack, so theyre very aware of whats been happening.

But in the wake of it all, they also have received an outpouring of support from the community, including the parents of students in the drama department.

Im really grateful that they have the opportunity to have a stage to stand on and have their voice be heard, because our kids are thinking about a lot of things and they have a lot on their mind, said Valerie Goodman, parent of an MHS drama student, after the Oct. 25 show. Theyre thoughtful and sensitive, and this gives them a way to express themselves peacefully and artistically and to be heard.

Several parents wrote letters to the Albemarle School Board encouraging its members to support St. Hill, Michel and the rest of the students. Board Chairwoman Kate Acuff said the vast majority of the letters were positive  only one letter suggested the board halt the production.

I think its important for students to have discussions  about what happened on Aug. 11 and 12 and how that fits into the bigger picture of whats going on in our country, she said.

***

Friday will be the first time James St. Hill sees his sons play, although he has read it and kept up with it as it went through the development process.

When the play drew negative reactions, St. Hill said he did not have a problem with it, nor did it seem to bother his son.

For my son, weve always told him to speak your truth, he said. And so, if you really believe in something, then youve got to stand behind your beliefs.

Anyone who sees A Kings Story can find common ground within it, such as dealing with the pain of losing a close friend, he said.

Those are universal themes that are beyond race, that are beyond police activity, in terms of some of the questions that will come about police shootings across the country, he said. I just think that the play speaks to a more basic element of human beings, and once were able to deal with it on that level, I think that folks will be pleased with the play.

St. Hill said a friend who works with the Albemarle County Police Department expressed concerns about the play containing some anti-police sentiment.

Efforts have been made within the county school division to set up a dialogue between Josh St. Hill and other students and county police officers.

I think for us to have a sit-down with police officers who want to do good in the community, police officers who are doing good in the community, I think thats beautiful to have, St. Hill said.

***

A public performance of A Kings Story, as well as another student-written one-act play, Birthday Boy, is scheduled for Friday at Monticello High School.

Doors open at 7 p.m. and admission is free, but donations are encouraged to help fund scholarships within the drama department.

The Oct. 25 performance received $700 in donations, Michel said, which went toward the departments recent trip to Norfolk for a Virginia Theatre Association contest. A Kings Story placed in the top six in the statewide competition.

On Saturday, students will perform the play at a Virginia High School League theater event, which is being hosted at Monticello High this year.
Charlottesville firebrand civil rights attorney Jeff Fogel has filed suit over the citys decision to commission former U.S. Attorney Tim Heaphy to conduct an independent review of the white nationalist and white supremacist rallies held in the city this year.

Fogel, a defense attorney who has brought multiple suits against the city in the past, filed a lawsuit Thursday alleging that City Manager Maurice Jones did not have the authority to sanction the contract between the city and Heaphys law firm, Hunton & Williams. The suit asks the Charlottesville Circuit Court to declare the contract null and void.

Only the city attorney has the right to hire outside counsel, and then only with the approval of the City Council, Fogel said at a news conference Thursday. That did not happen here.

Fogels suit, which lists five city residents as plaintiffs, includes a copy of the Aug. 24 contract signed by Heaphy and Jones but not by City Attorney Craig Brown. Hence, Fogel argues that Jones actions went beyond his authority.

When reached, Brown said that he was aware that the city was hiring outside counsel ahead of the contracts completion. Asked about Fogels assertion that only Brown could make such a hire, Brown said the city will disagree with that when they file a response to the suit.

A spokeswoman for the city declined to comment on the matter. A request for comment from Heaphy went unanswered.

Fogel said the matter was not merely a procedural issue because, had the contract come before the City Council for approval, the public would have been able to enter objections to Heaphys hiring. Emails between Heaphy and city officials show that Heaphy solicited the independent review and offered praise to both Jones and Mayor Mike Signer  a move that led Fogel to question Heaphys ability to remain fair.

The price tag of Heaphys services  $545 per hour, with costs capped at $100,000  is also an eyebrow-raiser, said Fogel, who argues that the market price for legal counsel in Charlottesville is much lower. He further referenced Heaphys long relationship with some of the people whose conduct he is reviewing, including Signer.

Tanesha Hudson, one of the five plaintiffs in the case, said she had concerns about Heaphys prior work as a federal prosecutor. Hudson and Fogel said Heaphy had a penchant for doling out harsh sentences for drug offenders and using unnecessary mandatory minimums.

You were just a U.S. attorney, abusing your power to give people life sentences, Hudson said, specifically pointing to the adjudications of Louis Antonio Bryant and Claiborne Maupin.

Bryant, an alleged leader of a Charlottesville gang, was sentenced in 2006 to life in prison on charges of kidnapping and attempted murder. Maupin pleaded guilty to racketeering and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

I just think we deserve way more than [the city] is willing to give us at this point, Hudson said.

City residents Joy Johnson and Walt Heinecke also weighed in, saying that the community has not been provided accountability or transparency in the wake of the violent Aug. 12 rally, during which one person died and dozens were injured.

While the dockets in Charlottesville Circuit Court are busy for the months of November and December, Fogel said he is hopeful the matter can go before a judge before the end of the year. He said the lawsuit would not interrupt Heaphys review unless so ordered by a judge.

Fogel added that it is the responsibility of city officials and the Charlottesville Police Department to inform citizens about what happened during the rally  information that should not come from an intermediary such as Heaphy.

They know why Fourth Street was open, they know how that happened, they know what their plans were, why they didnt intervene in the fights and attacks being made  they know the answers, Fogel said. The question all along has been, Why wont they tell us?
An Indiana man who punched a woman in the face as she shouted anti-racist chants at white supremacists during the failed Unite the Right rally this summer pleaded guilty on Friday to assault and battery.

Dennis Mothersbaugh, 37, of North Vernon, Indiana, did not say a word Friday as he stood in a black-and-white striped jumpsuit in Charlottesville General District Court. In exchange for the prosecution not charging him with an additional assault count, Mothersbaugh agreed to plead guilty to punching Kendall Bills on Aug. 12.

Standing stoically in court next to Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Nina Antony, Bills read her victim impact statement to Judge Robert Downer. As she spoke about the long-term effects of the assault on her psychological state, Bills continued to look directly at Mothersbaugh.

I stood with my God and my church, Bills said. And I was singled out and attacked by a grown man. You punched me hard enough to leave me dazed, with blood pouring out of my face.

Since the attack, I havent been able to stop questioning the motives of strangers passing me on the street, she said.

Showing the video of the assault to Downer, Antony spoke about the brutal nature of the attack and pointed out Mothersbaughs extensive criminal record, which includes multiple assaults, resisting law enforcement and intimidation.

There is no question there were people yelling on both sides, Antony said. But its Mr. Mothersbaugh who inflicts physical damage. You can see how hard and how vicious that punch was.

Antony asked Downer to sentence Mothersbaugh to 12 months in jail with no more than six months suspended. Acknowledging the hefty length of sentence for a misdemeanor, she said it would be appropriate in this case.

It would send a significant message that this court takes such actions seriously, said Antony.

After voicing concern about the violent nature of the assault, Downer sentenced Mothersbaugh to 360 days in jail, with 120 days suspended, and a $1,500 fine. Mothersbaugh also will have to complete an anger management course.

This was a vicious punch, Downer said. He has caused great harm to this victim and to the community at large.

The name Charlottesville is now synonymous with violence and racism, he said. I feel I must hold him accountable for his actions.

In a statement released by her lawyer following Mothersbaughs hearing, Bills said it was a small, but lasting, measure of justice for Charlottesville. She also criticized the city for the charges against counter-protesters and the need for the city to fully cooperate with an independent investigation of Aug. 12 currently underway.

Nearly three months have passed since racists were permitted to terrorize our town, and yet I remain the only survivor who has seen any measure of justice, Bills wrote. The city continues to devote its limited resources to the prosecution and harassment of the brave anti-racist advocates who stood willing to protect our city when others could or would not.

She asked that the city drop the charges against counter-protesters.

Bills was charged with obstructing free passage from an incident during a July 8 Ku Klux Klan rally, but that charge was dismissed earlier this week.

Jacob Smith, 21, of Louisa County, also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and battery Friday. He was charged with the assault of a Hill reporter on Aug. 12 as she was reporting the events following a car attack that killed one woman and injured dozens of others.

As part of a plea agreement, Smith was sentenced to 270 days in jail  all suspended  as long as he completes 80 hours of community service and an anger management class by May.

Its up to you to complete these, Downer said. Otherwise, I wont hesitate to impose the full 270 days.
News / Africa

by AFP

Namibia has gotten the ball rolling on plans to scrap visa requirements for African passport holders after Cabinet authorised the implementation of this process - to be carried out in line with diplomatic procedures.Namibia will soon start issuing African passport holders with visas on arrival at ports of entry as a first step towards the eventual abolition of all visa requirements for all Africans.However, no deadline has been announced for the conclusion of the visa-free regime with all countries.The Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Tjekero Tweya, on Tuesday during a Cabinet briefing announced that Namibia is ready to implement the diplomatic procedure, although it was waiting for some countries to finalise reciprocal arrangements with Namibia.According to the Namibian Visa Policy, the Government of Namibia allows citizens of specific countries and territories to travel to Namibia for tourism or business purposes for three months with an ordinary passport, and diplomatic and service passports without having to obtain a visa. All visitors must hold a passport valid for six months.Cabinet last year resolved to abolish all visa requirements into the country for all African holders of diplomatic or official passports, as a gesture to African countries for the role they played during Namibia's liberation struggle.Even though the visa exemption process was cumbersome due to some countries' complex processes, Tweya said that while negotiations are still continuing, no person with a diplomatic or official passport would be shunned.Last year, the Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation was directed to transmit this decision to all Namibian embassies abroad for speedy implementation.Hammering home the importance of his decision, President Hage Geingob at the time reminded Cabinet about the critical role played, in a true Harambee spirit, by African brothers and sisters towards the liberation of Namibia."African nations offered refuge to our people as they fled the brutality of the apartheid system. Many of our young people found shelter in fellow African countries, enabling them to continue with their education, which would in turn equip them with the knowledge and skills needed to contribute to the development of our country," a State House statement had said.It is against this background that Cabinet at its meeting on the 24th of May 2016, in the spirit of Harambee and African unity decided to, with immediate effect, exempt all visa requirements into Namibia for all Africans that are holders of diplomatic or official passports.Meanwhile, Cabinet also endorsed the appointment of new members to the Namibia Film Commission (NFC), for a period of three years.These are Joel Janus Kaudife Haikali (chairperson), Nelao Helena Haukongo (vice-chairperson), Ziegie Willemse, Mirinda Stein, Uatirohange Tjiuoro, Katrina Diedericks (alternate member), Mutaleni Nadimi (alternate member). .
After seeking public input, Albemarle County staff is recommending changes to current regulations for short-term rentals such as Airbnb.

Currently, the zoning ordinance allows residents in both the rural area and the development area to rent out as many as five rooms in a single-family detached structure as a short-term rental if the owner or a manager is present on site and other inspections are passed. The county currently does not allow transient lodging in townhouses, other single-family attached residences or apartments.

Residents in the rural area also can rent out as many as five rooms in an additional structure on the parcel, for a total of 10 rooms.

A short-term rental is defined as fewer than 30 days at a time.

The owner/manager residing there is important so that the primary use of the property is still a residence and the general idea is that tourist lodging is an accessory use, Rebecca Ragsdale, a senior permit planner in the countys community development department, said during a recent county Planning Commission work session.

County staff is recommending changes to the zoning ordinance. One change is that whole-house rentals without an owner or manager present would be allowed in single-family detached structures, limited to no more than 90 days per year in the rural area and no more than 60 days per year in the development area. A local contact for emergencies also would be required.

In the rural area, staff is recommending that property owners could have short-term rentals on abutting parcels where the owner or manager resides, provided the short-term rental would meet all other requirements and the same number of guest rooms were possible if the property line were eliminated.

Staffers also are recommending that residents of apartments, condominiums, townhouses and other attached houses be allowed to have one guest room in their unit with no restriction on the number of times this could occur per year, but the resident of the unit must be present during the rental. Staff also recommended that whole-unit rentals of townhouses and attached houses could be allowed without the presence of a resident manager for a maximum of 30 days per year. They were not recommending whole-unit rentals of apartments or condominiums be allowed without the presence of a resident manager.

***

After being directed by the Board of Supervisors to study potential changes to the ordinance, county staff in September held 11 public input sessions to discuss possible changes and accepted public comment online. About 100 people attended the input sessions and 14 people submitted comments online.

Some of the residents who submitted comments had concerns that more crime, noise and disturbances could occur in their neighborhoods if the regulations were changed.

Unsupervised transients coming in and out of otherwise stable neighborhoods, at a financial gain for the owners and county, and a loss to a neighbors sense of safety and security, wrote one person, expressing their concerns about changing the regulations.

Other people said the county should let homeowners use their properties as they wish.

If I live there, I can (should) be able to utilize my own home as a part of my livelihood, one person wrote.

In feedback activities conducted at the input sessions and online, more than 85 percent of respondents indicated support for whole-house rentals in the rural area and about 75 percent of respondents supported whole-house rentals in the development areas.

About 35 percent of respondents thought short-term rentals should not be allowed at all in apartments or condos, and approximately 36 percent supported allowing it with an owner present during rental. About 30 percent did not support short-term rentals in townhouses or other attached units and 31 percent supported the use with an owner or manager present.

During a public comment period at the Planning Commission meeting, only Travis Pietila, of the Southern Environmental Law Center, spoke. He said the group recognizes that this is a challenging issue, and that homestay allowances shouldnt undercut other key goals of the Comprehensive Plan.

We need to make sure that the revenue to be gained from homestays does not lead to building new houses in the rural area that would not otherwise be built, and its critical that the limits put in place to keep that from happening are enforceable, he said.

Pietila said that the 90-day limit proposed for whole house rental was too high and that a 30-day limit seemed much more appropriate.

But a more fundamental concern is that the limits based on a number of days a property can be rented would prove unenforceable, he said.

Pietila said officials should consider limiting whole-house rentals in the rural area to existing houses.

This would give existing homeowners the ability to earn some extra income and help defray housing costs, while reducing the risk of encouraging new house construction, he said.

***

Planning Commissioner Bruce Dotson asked what property owners would do with the home when it wasnt being rented out.

In my mind, its almost like if somebody rented it for the whole year, theyre going to be there, theyre going to keep it up and so forth, he said. If we get great gaps in when its occupied, things run down quickly. I just wonder about the wisdom of limiting the number of days that a place can be occupied and the practicality of it. If I own a place, I can rent it for 90 [days], what do I do with it for the rest of the year?

Youre supposed to live there, Ragsdale said.

Ok, unless we change that, Dotson said. If we changed it, then my question would be relevant.

Elaine Echols, the countys principal planner, clarified that with current regulations a person is supposed to live there, and used an example of a family renting out their home on the weekend.

That is kind of what we were getting at with this, is you live there, but you can rent your house and make several hundred dollars in a weekend if youre willing to do that, Echols said.

Commissioner Jennie More said she didnt think the rural and development areas should have different short-term rental restrictions.

I think this idea that because things arent as dense as they are in the development area we should have less restrictions, when Im very sensitive to the possibility that by doing that could create a situation where ... were incentivizing more development in the rural area, which is not what were trying to do at all in our Comprehensive Plan, she said.

And I know were not here to talk about having the owner be residing in the home, but I think that is really, really essential to having it not turn into something where people are starting to build homes in the rural area because its profitable to do this, More said.

Commissioner Pam Riley said she is concerned about the impact on local housing, especially as the county considers adding apartments and townhomes.

The more you remove what could be housing units, really at any price range, from the long-term rental, youre really exacerbating your affordability problem, she said.

Commissioner Daphne Spain said she noticed that many comments said that people should be able to do what they want with their homes to generate income.

I dont give much credence to that, because if they wanted to open a brewery or a speakeasy to earn money, or a brothel, that wouldnt be allowed, so there are limits for the public good on what a person can do with their home and these are all residential areas, she said.

Many of the planning commissioners agreed that 90 days per year for a short-term rental was too many days, and asked the county to do more research on 60-day and 30-day rental lengths.

The Planning Commission will have a second work session in November or early December, when it is expected to also discuss in more depth potential ways to enforce the regulations.
News / Africa

by Staff reporter

Lawmakers allied to Kenya's main opposition National Super Alliance (NASA) yesterday urged their supporters to boycott products manufactured by companies that have close ties to the ruling Jubilee Party. The lawmakers said at a press briefing in Nairobi that boycott of products and services from those firms seeks to re-invigorate the electoral and administrative reforms in the East African nation."Today, we are launching the programme of economic liberation through targeted boycott of companies, corporations and businesses that are beneficiaries and supporters of the current regime," the lawmakers said in a joint statement. We have a long and comprehensive list of companies, both local and global on our radars and which we will be naming at intervals," they added.Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga on October 31 announced the formation of a national resistant movement to exert pressure on the government.Odinga said that economic boycott, picketing and formation of a grassroots movement will underpin his quest for justice in the electoral system as well as political inclusivity. The veteran opposition leader clarified that he will use constitutional and non-violent means to push for his cause. The lawmakers said they intend to put pressure on private enterprises that are friendly to the ruling party to change their political stance and support broad reforms.Kenya's political stalemate in the wake of the Supreme Court nullification of presidential election results did not seem to subside after the conclusion of the repeat polls on October 26, where the incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta won with a landslide. Odinga and his co-principals boycotted the repeat polls, citing lack of a level playing field. Pundits expressed mixed reaction on the announcement of economic boycott by Odinga's allies but agreed the move could worsen political polarisation in the country.
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

A political analyst Albert Matapo has appealed to the South African authorities never to envy the chaotic land reform programme that was conducted in Zimbabwe saying it was the reason why the nation has prolonging economic problem."I strongly and sincerely urge our South African brothers and sisters and those from other nations not to envy or admire the way "land reform" was done in Zimbabwe. This exercise mostly benefited the ruling elite. Most of those ordinary citizens who also "benefited" are still tied to Zanu and Robert Mugabe even today, 17 years after the commencement of the so called land reform," he said."Mugabe and Junta are using land as their own personal money which can enable them to cling on power. And indeed this has helped them at the expense of the majority of us. This is why you continue to see millions of Zimbabweans running away from Zimbabwe, choosing to be refugees in other countries and leaving behind that land."He said it is not easy for many people who are not Zimbabweans to understand this matrix."Most non-Zimbabweans take Mugabe as an African hero. I am really very sorry to say that the image of Mugabe that you see is not the way he does things in Zimbabwe. He is a hypocrite," he said."The whole so called land reform was just a political gimmick. Mugabe is not sincere at all. I know some people may choose to look at it differently but this is the truth. The idea of land reform never came from this illegal Zanu PF regime but from the people and opposition. The same idea was then hijacked and implemented the wrong way by Zanu. In Zimbabwe it is generally agreed that every situation is Zanu vs the people. Zanu no longer stand for the people but always against.""Go ahead and do your land reform but not in the Zimbabwean way."
News / National

by Staff reporter

The project to establish a new airline, Zimbabwe Airways, whose relationship with flag carrier Air Zimbabwe is opaque, is moving towards finality amid revelations Transport minister Joram Gumbo and AirZim chief operating officer Simba Chikore might be caught in a massive conflict of interest storm.Investigations show that Gumbo and Chikore have been assisting in the setting up of what is supposed to be a privately owned airline at the expense of the national flag carrier, Air Zim.More to follow....
State Bank of India (SBI) is expecting to get a substantial chunk of the government's latest announcement to recapitalise all the public sector banks. (File Photo)

Kolkata: Country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) is expecting to get a substantial chunk of the government's latest announcement to recapitalise all the public sector banks amounting to Rs 2.11 lakh crore.

"The government had announced the recapitalise the public sector banks to the tune of Rs 2.11 lakh crore. SBI, being the biggest among them, expects to get a substantial portion of that", a senior official of the bank said.

He said that although the bank was sufficiently capitalised, the additional capital which would flow in due to recapitalisation would help the bank in dealing in stressed assets as well as to fund future credit growth which was expected to pick up from 2018-19.

Besides this, the internal accruals through generation of profits would also help in building up the capital base of the base of the bank, which was now well above the RBI stipulated requirement. The official said that lots of assets were under stress which SBI would have to address.

"Now we have avenues like the NCLT and IBC. The issue is whether we have enough capital", he said. For the public sector banking system as a whole, there would be restrictions in terms of getting money.

Now it is required to be seen how the government treated the weak and healthy banks in terms of giving capital, he said. "SBI is a very healthy bank. How much money we will get will depend whether the government decided to fund more the weak ones to make them healthy or otherwise", he said.
The Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court that all customers should finish linking their mobile phone numbers with Aadhaar by February 6. (Photo: AFP)

Mumbai: The Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court that all customers should finish linking their mobile phone numbers with Aadhaar by February 6 under E-KYC verification.

Citing an order passed by the Supreme Court, the government said that apex court had in February, 2017, approved that all SIM cards have to be linked with Aadhaar within a year from the date of judgement. The Centre also said that the production of the 12-digit biometric number was mandatory for opening new bank accounts.

The government said that deadline for linkage of Aadhaar with SIM cannot be modified by the government unilaterally (as it is fixed by the SC)." The government also said that it has decided to extend the deadline for linking Aadhaar with existing bank accounts from December 31, 2017 to March 31, according to a report by Economic Times.

The government also asserted that no starvation death had taken place anywhere because of anyone not having Aadhaar.

The move to link Aadhaar with SIM was seen as a step towards curbing terrorists, fraudsters, criminals who use multiple SIMs to get away with crime.

Amidst controversies surrounding the safety of data submission with telcos, the government has introduced a number of measures for secure linking of Aadhaar with SIM. The Department of Telecom and telecom operators are also working on a process of SMS/IVRS and app-based verification.
Infosys Ltd has deployed more IT experts and engineers in states to steady the GST Network.

New Delhi: Facing criticism over glitches in the software it developed for the GST Network, Infosys Ltd has deployed more IT experts and engineers in states to steady the Goods and Services Tax return filing portal, a government official said today.

Infosys, which had won the Rs 1,380 crore deal in 2015 for developing and running GST's back-end, has stepped up efforts to remove outages the system faced during peak tax and return filing period, he said.

"Infosys has started deploying more engineers and IT experts for the GSTN project. They are being sent to major states to address issues and help states better understand the system," the official said.

Businesses and traders have complained of problems faced in filing of return on the GST-Network portal in the last few days, forcing the government to extend deadlines.

While it had extended the date for maiden GSTR-3B return filing in August, the due date for final returns GSTR-1, 2 and 3 has also been extended.

Glitches in invoice matching while filing GSTR-2 was flagged at the meeting of Group Of Ministers (GoM) on October 28 following which it directed Infosys to deploy more software engineers in every state to assist state tax officers with the new IT system.

The official said Infosys has already deployed more than 100 IT people in their team for GSTN functioning.

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and head of GoM on GSTN Sushil Modi had last week said that Infosys was earlier asked to deploy engineers in major states by October 30.

"They have done so in 9 states and sought time till November end to deploy in other states," Modi had said.

Infosys won a 5-year government contract worth Rs 1,380 crore in 2015 to develop the IT system for the biggest indirect tax reform GST.

While some believe that the onus was on Infosys to ensure a glitch free system, others say that the last moment finalisation of rules relating to returns took toll on the system's performance.

The GST Council, comprising Centre and states, had in June finalised rules for return filing and transition credit claims.

GST was rolled out from July 1. GST Network has since then been working very closely with Infosys to ensure timely availability of software and utilities on the portal.

Replying to questions emailed by PTI, Infosys said: "Given the complex nature of the project and rapid change management, there have been several stakeholder concerns that have also been raised.

"Some of our finest engineers are supporting the GSTN team as they work towards resolving these and serving all stakeholders".

The GoM on GSTN chaired by Modi was set up in September to streamline the issues faced by businesses while transacting on the portal and also to make it more user friendly.

After the third meeting of the GoM on October 28, he had said: "27 functionalities had to be launched or issues had to be resolved by Infosys, out of which 18 of them have been operationalised. This is about 66.7 per cent success. Infosys is doing their best..."
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

ZIMBABWEAN authorities have arrested an American citizen and confiscated her laptop after claiming that she undermined authority or insulted President Robert Mugabe through a message which she allegedly posted on social media.Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) officers arrested Martha O'Donovan, an American citizen, who works for Magamba TV, during a dawn raid at her Harare residence and confiscated her electronic devices including her laptop and detained her at Harare Central Police Station's CID Law and Order Section.The ZRP officers, who arrested O'Donovan, were armed with a search warrant, which was granted on Thursday 02 November 2017 by Harare Magistrate Elisha Singano authorising the law enforcement agents to confiscate all her electronic devices as they reportedly investigated a case of undermining authority of or insulting President as defined in Section 33 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act.The ZRP officers claimed that Martha O'Donovan, who is represented by Obey Shava of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, posted a tweet on her profile during the recently held Shoko Festival, which referred to a certain Goblin, whose wife and step sons imported a Rolls Royce vehicle. However, the reported offensive and insulting tweet does not make any mention of the President's name..
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday exhorted global as well as domestic companies to invest in the food sector. (File Photo)

New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday exhorted global as well as domestic companies to invest in the food sector, saying that it has the potential to become a principal industry.

Addressing business leaders at the World Food India event here, he said that as the economy grows it will impact the lifestyles of people and the food industry would be a major beneficiary this change.

"Therefore, what happens to the traditional concept of agriculture and the farm-to-the-kitchen relationship will undergo a change. It's already visible in large part of urban India," he said.

He also stressed upon the need to increase farm productivity, improve storage facilities and spur food processing activity.

The current infrastructure is not sufficient to meet the future demand and there is need to add capacity as population would not only grow but also become richer with increase in GDP, Jaitley said.

He said the most sensible investor is the one who doesn't look at what India is in 2017, but what it will be in 2040 and 2050.

"I think, in 2017, we should start thinking of this group in 2040 and 2050. If we keep that in mind, this is going to be one industry which is going to be one of principal industries as far as India is concerned," he added.

He also assured investors that the country will not shy away from taking tough decisions in the long term interest of the economy.

India has displayed a great capacity to take difficult decisions, he said, citing examples like demonetisation and implementation of Goods and Services Tax.

"India is willing for a change. India is changing... Not only are our doors open, those who come in they get red carpet. The experience of our investors has been, they have always gone back as happy investors. I am sure those who enter the sector they will also have the same experience," he said.

On infrastructure development, Jaitley said the government has undertaken many initiatives like construction of 250 highways, addition of 35-40 new airports and modernisation of 400 railway stations.

Food Processing Industries Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said the government has initiated various reforms in the sector.

Some other reforms are also underway, she said, adding that there is a proposal for setting up of a Food Processing Bank.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asserted that it is now easier to do business in India than ever before. (Photo: AFP)

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said starting business in India is easier than ever before as procedures have been simplified, archaic laws repealed and compliance requirements reduced.

The reforms initiated by the government in the last three years have helped India jump 30 places since last year in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business ranking to break into the top 100-nation club.

"This is the highest ever improvement for India, and the highest jump for any country this year. From a rank of 142 in 2014, we have now reached the top 100," he said at the World Food India 2017 conference here.

India, he said, ranked number one in the world in 2016 in greenfield investment and has also rapidly progressed on the Global Innovation Index, the Global Logistics Index and the Global Competitiveness Index.

"Starting a new business in India is now easier than ever before. Procedures for obtaining clearances from various agencies have been simplified. Archaic laws have been repealed, and the burden of compliances has been reduced," he said.

Modi pitched India as one of the fastest growing economies of the world today.

The introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST) from July 1 has eliminated the multiplicity of taxes, he said further.

Incidentally, the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business ranking does not take into account the impact of GST as June was set as cut-off for judging the parameters. It will be accounted for in the next year's ranking.

With CEOs of top global and Indian firms in the food processing sector in attendance, Modi invited investment in India's food processing sector and promised full support.

"Come. Invest in India," he said. "The place with unlimited opportunity from farm to fork. The place to produce, process, and prosper. For India, and for the world."

The Prime Minister listed out "transformational initiatives" of the government in the food processing sector, namely allowing 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in trading, including through e-commerce, of food products manufactured or produced, single-window facilitation cell, attractive fiscal incentives and easy credit.

"Today, our strong agricultural base provides us a solid launchpad to create a vibrant food processing sector. Our vast consumer base, rising incomes, favourable investment climate and a government dedicated to ease of doing business, all make India 'the place to be' for the global food processing fraternity," he said.

While private sector participation has been increasing in many segments of the value chain, more investment is required in contract farming, raw material sourcing and creating agri linkages, he emphasised.

"Many international companies in India have taken a lead in contract farming initiatives. This is a clear opportunity for global supermarket chains considering India as a major outsourcing hub," he said.

Detailing investment opportunities, he said post-harvest management like primary processing and storage, preservation infrastructure, cold chain, and refrigerated transportation offer much potential. Also, there is immense potential for food processing and value addition, especially in niche areas such as organic and fortified foods.

According to Modi, increasing urbanisation and a growing middle class are resulting in an ever-growing demand for wholesome, processed food.

Citing an example, he said over a million passengers have a meal on a train in India, every single day. "Each one of them is a potential customer for the food processing industry. Such is the scale of opportunity that is waiting to be tapped," the prime minister stressed.

He also highlighted combining traditional Indian food with modern technology, processing and packaging that can help the world rediscover health benefits and refreshing taste of Indian food ingredients such as turmeric, ginger and tulsi.

"The perfect blend of hygienic, nutritious and tasty processed food with the added benefits of preventive healthcare can be produced economically, here in India," he said.

On initiatives for farmer welfare, the Prime Minister said the government is targeting doubling farm income within five years.

The recently-launched national level programme, the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana, with an aim to create world-class food processing infrastructure expects to leverage investment of USD 5 billion, benefit two million farmers and generate more than half a million jobs over the next three years.

Creation of mega food parks, using digital technology to improve last-mile delivery and simplifying processes and procedures are all aimed at stimulating investments, he said.

Modi called upon each state to identify at least one food product for specialisation. "Can we link our potential to the world's requirements? Can we link Indian traditions with the future of mankind? Can we connect India's farmers with markets around the world? These are some questions that I wish to leave you with," he concluded.
Shah Rukh Khan cutting the cake during his birthday celebration with media (L) and doing his iconic pose for fans outside his house, Mannat (R).

Mumbai: Bollywood Superstar Shah Rukh Khan, who has won hearts with his brilliant performances over the years and made the whole world go crazy over his charming persona, has turned 52 today. To celebrate their favourite stars special day, huge number of fans gathered outside SRKs house Mannat with just one chant on their lips: Happy Birthday SRK!!

Shah Rukh Khan alongside his son AbRam greeted the fans at Mannat on his birthday evening.

King Khan greets his his fans gathered outside Mannat on his birthday.

From being an outsider to becoming one of the biggest stars of Indian film industry, Shah Rukh Khan's journey has been quite colourful and the actor is content with the way life has treated him. With the magical stardom that Shah Rukh Khan has been sustaining from past 25 years in Bollywood, theres nothing really that the actor would wish for, at least in terms of any materialistic success.

In the candid conversation with media people, SRK said he feels 'extremely blessed' that people love him so much. SRK also spoke about how his definition of achievements has changed over the time and how he has became gentler towards the people around him. He mentioned that it is no longer just about successes of his films but also about how the actor conducts himself once the arclights are switched off.

SRK during his birthday celebration with media at Taj Lands End in Bandra, Mumbai.

When you reach this age, what you want is your children to be healthy. My way of thinking and sentiments has changed over the last few years. As I am aging, I am becoming gentler, towards everyone including you all. I just feel really gentle towards people. When I become a thorough gentleman, that will be big achievement. Success will follow when we do good films. I have other businesses also, which, touchwood, are doing well, Shah Rukh Khan said.

When asked whether he received any gifts from his children, King Khan said, "Nobody has gifted me anything yet. AbRam said to me 'Happy Birthday, birthday boy!"

Shah Rukh Khan poses with his youngest kid AbRam.

The 'Raees' star celebrated an evening prior to his birthday in Alibaug with wife Gauri Khan and children, his best friend Karan Johar, Deepika Padukone, Katrina Kaif, Alia Bhatt, Sidharth Malhotra, Farah Khan, Shweta Bachchan, Farhan Akhtar, Ritesh Sidhwani, Sussanne Khan amongst others.
Mumbai: Hundreds of people took to the streets and blocked roads across Rajasthan's Chittorgarh city on Friday, to protest against the release of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's highly anticipated epic period drama, Padmavati.

In Chittorgarh, all schools, markets and medical shops were shut down as a part of the strike, backed by the Rajput Karni Sena.

The protest march started from Maharana Pratap Chowk and ended at the Circuit House.

The protest was peaceful, but the people alleged that yet-to-be-released Deepika Padukone starrer shows much-celebrated Rajput queen, Padmini, in a poor light.

The historical drama, is based on the story of Queen Padmini, who famously refused to submit to emperor Alauddin Khilji when he arrived at the Chittorgarh fort with his army and killed herself, along with scores of other women before he could storm the fort.

The protesters allege that the film has love scenes between Queen Padmini and Alauddin Khilji, played by actors Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh.

Earlier on Thursday, Pramod Rana, the national convenor of Rajput Karni Sena, said that they wouldn't let the movie release with wrong facts.

Talking exclusively to ANI, Rana said, "We cannot give permission to tamper with the rich history of India. The only thing that we want is that Sanjay Leela Bhansali should show the movie to some of the foremost people of our organisation and tell them that we are not tempering any fact of the history."

He also said that if the movie still gets released with historically incorrect facts, then Bhansali would have to feel the heat again.

The movie, which stars Deepika Padukone as Rani Padmavati, Shahid Kapoor as Rawal Ratan Singh and Ranveer Singh as Alauddin Khilji, is all set to hit the theatres on December 1.
Mumbai: Abhishek Kapoor's next directorial venture and Sara Ali Khan debut vehicle, Kedarnath, which was supposed to hit the screens in June 2018 , has reportedly been postponed to the end of 2018. Saif Ali Khan and Amrita Singhs daughter Sara Ali Khan will be making her debut with this movie opposite Sushant Singh Rajput.

According to a report in Mid-Day, the shooting of the film has been extended because of one crucial sequence. The director is planning to recreate the set in Mumbai, as they couldnt shoot at the real locations at the moment. This has pushed the release of the film further.

A source close to the development told the daily, "The makers felt that the sequence deserves a grander canvas. So, they have decided to recreate the town of Kedarnath in Mumbai. The set will be erected by February next year. Abhishek intends to wrap up the sequence by June. This has, in turn, pushed the release."

The report also suggests that the makers have roped in a VFX team from Los Angeles to effectively show the natural disaster on screen . "Gallons of water will be used to create the flood effect. The sequence will be high on VFX," added the source.

Producer Prernaa Arora confirmed the news, "It's going to be a challenging shoot. I completely believe in Gattu's (Kapoor) vision."

Kedarnath is a love story of a young couple, being played by Sara Ali Khan and Sushant Singh Rajput, set against the backdrop of pilgrimage, and the dangerous natural calamity that hit Uttarakhand in 2013.

While Sushant Singh Rajput is currently busy shooting for Tarun Mansukhanis Drive alongside Jacqueline Fernandez and Sanjay Puran Singhs Chanda Mama Door Ke, Sara hasnt signed any other film yet.
Tragedy is a great unifier: The floods in Chennai brought everybody, rich or poor, powerful or insignificant, to their knees. S. Murugaboopathy, founder of the Manalmagudi Theatre Land and widely accepted as one of the finest theatre practitioners of our time, was in the midst of the upheaval, dispatching his troupe of actors to lend a hand. They made their way to Cuddalore, Puducherry and across Chennai, distributing food and helping the displaced. Boopathy, immersed as he is in literature and art, was struck at once by the countless water disasters that have drowned Tamil civilisations through the course of history. "Around water bodies people grow as trees. These are the gods in which they place their lives," he said, speaking in lyrical Tamil, a day before his play, Neer Naadodikal (Nomads of Water) makes its debut in Bengaluru. It was this thought that led to the conception of the play: the story of the Chennai floods, written and directed by Boopathy. It is, incidentally, the first student-driven production by Manalmagudi Theatre Land - "This was their opportunity to be part of a serious play and they came to me with great excitement," he said.

It is, incidentally, the first student-driven production by Manalmagudi Theatre Land.

Our story, however, begins Kovilpatti, a small village that lies about 100 km away from Madurai. This place contains his abode: an ancestral home with a sprawling courtyard that doubles up as rehearsal space. Born into a family of scholars and playwrights, his grandfather, Madhurakavi Bhaskardas, was a theatre practitioner and lyricist: Boopathy compiled his diary entries into a book, published in 2009 as part of his PhD. In this world, theatre is more than an art form, it is a ritual, an ancient one, he says, "explained at length in Tamil literature." To augment this philosophy, Boopathy travels to temples across the state, both big and small, to observe their practices. Maayakomaligalin Jaala Kannadi, for instance, is the product of serveral years' research into the lives of clowns and gypsies in Tamil Nadu.

Neer Naadodikal, like his other plays, is broken up into chapters, breaking away from a linear storyline and interspersed heavily with heady percussion, actors in masks, gestures and voices, all of which lament, in a sense, the death of a God, linking ancient myths and beliefs with the traditions that have grown out of modern life. "The fact that we saw our water bodies as deivam (god), protected them. However, in todays world, as society grapples with development, converting water spaces into high-rises, the source of life has been reduced to droplets," Boopathy says. Here, water is compared with the female archetype, who arose from war and tragedy, rising from the fragments of reservoirs she has left, to claim what is rightfully hers. "Crowds follow her, calling her to heaven, when her journey on earth has not yet ended," he remarks.

A gripping scene unfolds on stage: Women appear, clutching ragged bits of cloth, their eyes filled with pain and memories of loss, which they fondle as a mark of affection, perhaps, for the children they have lost. "It is the story of helplessness, driven forward by memories." He captures, during the course of the narrative, the panic that rained down on the people, as actors mumble hurriedly into their phones and strut about in plastic bags (Boopathy, during his visit to Chennai after the floods, was struck by the fact that everything had been covered in black plastic bags.

There is very little dialogue, a complex tool that Boopathy uses with the unmistakable touch of a master. He chooses instead to make his way to the audiences heart, telling the story of a disaster that several of us in the Bengaluru audience might not have witnessed but will understand, nevertheless for no human being, he emphasises, is exempt from life's many frailties. So join them, in their songs of love, loss, power, death and life itself - The Nomads of the Water.

What: Neer Naadodikal (Nomads of the Water)

When: Nov. 3, 7 pm onwards

Where: Ranga Shankara, 36/2, 8th Cross Road, JP Nagar, 2nd Phase
The Tamil film Mersal starring Vijay was in the news recently because a few dialogues talked about GST, and there was doubt whether the censor board would clear the Telugu version Adirindi because of those dialogues. However, putting an end to all the rumours, Sharrath Marar, who is distributing the Telugu version, confirmed that the film is releasing on November 9.

Yes, the Telugu version Adirindi was cleared by censor officials on Thursday and we are releasing it on November 9, says Sharrath while adding that there is no problem at all for the dubbed version. When the Tamil version has already released, there should be no problem for the Telugu version as whatever there is in the Tamil film is also there in the Telugu version, he says.

Interestingly, for a while, there was also a rumour that Allu Aravind of Geetha Arts had bought the remake rights of the film, which is why the film never got a release date. Even I heard about it, but I dont know, we are releasing the film next week, says Sharrath, adding that they are planning to release the film in nearly 400 screens.
Mumbai: Vibrant Ceramics Expo & Summit 2017 held its press meets on 31st October, 2017. The primary reason to visit Mumbai was to increase the awareness among the Ceramic Industry and also to prove the fact that they stand second after China when it comes to Ceramic Industry.

Also, another noteworthy observation was made during the meet that if Indian Ceramics Industry starts importing Ceramics from Morbi, Gujarat, India can overtake all other nations who top the list in this industry like China.

Vibrant Ceramics Expo and Summit (VCES), 2017 is being held from 16 to 19 November 2017 at Exhibition Center, near the town hall, Gandhinagar Gujarat . The event is spread across 50,000 square meter area with more than 250 exhibitors, 400+ brands, and ceramics in several sizes and designs under one roof.

Shri Nilesh Jetpariya  President, Vibrant Ceramics Expo & Summit-2017 said India is the second largest tiles market in the world. While the global tiles production grew at an annualized rate of 6.3% for the period 2006-2013, tiles production in India grew almost double at 12.0% during the same period. Ceramic tiles that accounts for close to 60% of the total tiles demand in India is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.7% for the period 2014-2019.

He added Ceramics industry, in line with the key agenda of the Government of India of Make in India, Skill India, and Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan amongst others. It is our constant Endeavour to keep innovating and contribute to the countrys economic growth and create further employment across states. At present, we are contributing to close to $ 4 billion in revenues and employ more than 10 lakhs skilled and unskilled personnel.

Shri Sandip Patel  CEO, Vibrant Ceramics Expo & Summit-2017 said Technology transfer, investment, joint ventures, B2B as well as B2G networking opportunities will be key highlights at the conference, while the exhibition will showcase the latest technology, ceramic tiles, sanitary-ware, and bath-fittings. Vibrant Ceramics is the initiative that aims towards unifying and synergizing the key players in the ceramics industry. We shall bring forward all sorts and types of business resources to a common destination to enable flawless interaction, channeling and networking."

The first edition of Vibrant Ceramics held last year witnessed more than 610 foreign delegates from more than 22 countries which are going to be far surpassed this year with participation of over 2500 overseas buyers from 65+ countries. The event witnessed an overall footfall of over one lakh visitors over four days. By the end of the event, the sector saw business worth Rs 500 crores and an order pipeline of about Rs 1300 crores.
Trump has made extensive use of messages on Twitter to attack his opponents and promote his policies both during the 2016 presidential campaign and since then. (Photo: AFP/File)

US President Donald Trumps @realdonaldtrump Twitter account was deactivated by a Twitter Inc employee who was leaving the company on Thursday and was down for 11 minutes before it was restored, the social media company said.

We have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer-support employee who did this on the employees last day. We are conducting a full internal review, Twitter said in a tweet.

We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again, the company said in an earlier tweet.

A Twitter representative declined to comment further.

The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Trump has made extensive use of messages on Twitter to attack his opponents and promote his policies both during the 2016 presidential campaign and since taking office in January. He has 41.7 million followers on Twitter.

Great Tax Cut rollout today. The lobbyists are storming Capital Hill, but the Republicans will hold strong and do what is right for America! he wrote in his first tweet after Thursdays outage.

Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorseys account was briefly suspended as a result of what he said was an internal mistake in a similar incident last November.

Twitterati soon took to the micro-blogging site to put forward their views:

One The Seuss is Loose penned a poem,

Trump's Twitter was down

We've heard the news;

Inadvertently deactivated

Was the term Twitter used.

But why inadvertent?

Why not make it for keeps?

And spare us dangers

His account daily reaps?

So @twitter, how bout it?

Make it right:

Delete @realDonaldTrump

For good tonight  The Seuss is Loose (@SeussIsLoose_) November 3, 2017

While, another, Ed Krassentein found politicla humor in it,

Trump's Twitter account was deactivated for 11 minutes. For 11 minutes America declared its independence from Russia.  Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) November 3, 2017

And another wanted to immortalise the employee,

Making a kickstarter to tear down a confederate monument and put up a statue of this ex Twitter employee https://t.co/X1Ajh67qD7  Emily Kirkpatrick (@kirkpate) November 3, 2017

And another, offered him a job,

If I saw on a resume, "Deactivated Trump's Twitter account." That person is getting hired immediately. https://t.co/7m7mJ2dIXi  Jesse Kim (@jckim206) November 3, 2017

Others reacted too,

Twitter almost did something right for a change, then apologized profusely for it. https://t.co/1byYibIxX2  Thorne Melcher (@ExistentialEnso) November 3, 2017

And the ex-twitter employee got a marriage proposal as well!

how do i tell my parents im marrying the twitter employee?  ground beef baby (@geekylonglegs) November 3, 2017

And finally, many hailed him as a national hero.

no gods, no masters, no heroes. except for that former twitter employee who deactivated trumps account on his last day.  mrde R2-DS2 (@GeneMachina) November 3, 2017

I do not know who this Twitter employee is, but he/she/they are a national hero. https://t.co/5QVzxe5Pd5  Howdy Danielle  (@HowdyDanielle) November 3, 2017
It was the public who spotted a pair of legs sticking out of the extractor space at DFC Chicken in Birmingham and police were called in to investigate the situation. (Photo: Facebook/ West Midlands Police)

In another bizarre case, a suspected burglar was mocked online when he had to be rescued by police during a break-in, where he got stuck in a fried chicken shops extractor unit for seven hours.

The shirtless man was just wearing jeans and socks and had to be retrieved by officers after desperately crying out for help when he got trapped in a tight spot.

It was the public who spotted a pair of legs sticking out of the extractor space at DFC Chicken in Birmingham and police were called in to investigate the situation.

West Midlands Police took a hilarious picture which shows the alleged crook with his body half inside the window and his legs dangling out.

Shortly after being freed from the window, the 45-year-old man was taken to hospital and arrested on suspicion of burglary.

The West Midlands Response Team mocked him online and wrote on Twitter: '#dontgetstuck if your [sic] trying to break in. 5 hours alter shouting help #triptocustody by all means'

According to the article originally published in MailOnline, the officer on scene, Pc Willocks said that the extractor unit had been removed and the suspect had climbed in to the extractor outlet at around 2am but got stuck. He went on to add that he fire brigade had to come in and use the jaws of life to pull back all the extractor casing to release him.'

According to the restaurant manager, Kamran Hussain, he was called to the shop after an elderly resident heard the man shouting: 'Please help me, I'm stuck.'

According to Hussain, an old man, who saw the man dangling phoned the police who was let in through the front by him.

'He didn't really say much, they just got him down, arrested him and marched him away after taking his details. I think he was too embarrassed to say much really, he did a very stupid thing, Hussain said.

Social media was quick to ridicule the situation with one Judith Broug saying, 'Trying really hard not to laugh' and Jim Nicholl tweeteing, 'Another fine mess Stanley. Must feel a right turkey!'
Opinion / Columnist

EDITOR,It is sad that with the 2018 election around the corner most of us are still in the dark on what the opposition parties are doing to prepare for this crucial polls.Constitutionally, elections in Zimbabwe are supposed to be held next year from mid-year to any day or month after.This is clearly a constitutional matter which is not open for negotiations as anything apart from that will be a suspension of the book of law and good governance.This does not need the blessing of anyone and anyone hoping to contest in that election lackadaisically preparing must not cry foul or feel ambushed.The Constitution cannot be suspended for the opposition to be organised, if they continue fighting waiting to mediated into forming a workable coalition at their pace.The opposition parties seem to be just too many and judging by their actions they are likely to fail in the next elections if they do not organise themselves as soon as possible.My concern is that they seem to have taken a back seat and all they do is just talk and no action.One thing for sure, Zanu-PF is already busy campaigning be for the next election and encouraging their members to register to vote.It is sad that if opposition parties have already started campaigning it is not visible.All that people know is they opposition are not willing to come together and form one strong coalition instead of having many coalitions that at the end of the day will split the votes.Another issue of concern is that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission stated months ago that there were 75 parties contesting in next year's elections, one wonders how many more have been added to that list and why so many parties.It is sad that MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai is not feeling well adding to the confusion in the opposition camp.And with Joice Mujuru and others forming another coalition. People are confused.I would like to call upon the opposition to get their house in order and make sure that people are informed and they are also visible ahead of the 2018 elections.It is high time opposition parties up their game otherwise they are bound to disappoint many Zimbabweans once again.
People can go to any length when it comes to avoiding getting into prison, and sometimes they can resort to drastic measures. Hiding evidence is the first thing anyone would do to get away with a crime, but how far can one go?

A prostitute in Taiwan was desperate to evade arrest during a crackdown on sex workers and this caused her to take a desperate step. The 48-year-old ripped off the condom from a clients penis and swallowed it in a bid to hide the evidence.

The woman called Dang was caught by police during a raid at a health spa and denied any illegal activity. But her client admitted that they were half way into the act when the police barged in and Dang quickly removed the condom.

As police searched for the condom in the room, Dang was constantly asking for water. It was after she was taken to a hospital that a scan revealed a shadow in her chest which police believed to be the condom.

The woman was found guilty of perjury for misleading the police.
The bar, which has a whisky collection honoured in the Guinness Book of World Records, had 47 options, ranging from seven Swiss francs to ten grand per glass. (Photo: Pixabay)

Geneva: Talk about needing a refund. A shot of Macallan whisky purportedly made in 1878 that a Chinese man paid $10,000 for at a Swiss hotel was actually distilled between 1970 and 1972, local media reported Friday.

In August, the young customer entered the Devil's Place Whisky Bar at the luxury Waldhaus Hotel in St. Moritz, northeast Switzerland, and expressed particular interest in rare Macallans.

The bar, which has a whisky collection honoured in the Guinness Book of World Records, had 47 options, ranging from seven Swiss francs to ten grand per glass.

The customer chose the bottle marked as an 1878 vintage, which went for 9,999 Swiss francs ($10,000, 8,500 euros) for a two-centilitre (0.66-fluid-ounce) measure.

Whisky experts were not convinced.

According to the Swiss news site 20minuten.ch, specialists at Rare Whisky 101, who regularly serve as consultants at whisky auctions, established that the bottle's label was a fake.

The proprietor of the Waldhaus, Sandro Bernasconi, then travelled to Beijing and refunded the customer to prove that "the Swiss are honest people and do not engage in scams", 20minuten quoted him as saying.

The site also published a photo of the two men holding a symbolic voucher valued at 9,999 Swiss francs, dated October 2017.

Bernasconi said the bottle with the fake label was bought 25 years ago by his father who previously ran the hotel.

"This whole time, we never doubted that the bottle was an original," Bernasconi told 20minuten.
Hyderabad: Despite deploying 10 security guards and installing 40 CCTVs, an official of Sujatha School said they were shocked at the horrific child abuse incident. We didnt expect this from the 30-year-old watchman who was friendly with parents, the school authorities said.

The CCTVs at the schools reception and in the vice-principals cabin were examined after the incident was reported. We monitored the old records and did not find any such incident in our CCTV system in the last few days, a school official said. The watchman went on leave from October 16 as his mother was unwell. The school came to know about the incident on October 26. The watchman was arrested on October 31 outside the school, the school authorities added.

We had sleepless nights until the watchman reached the city. We had warned all the security guards that they should not pass on the information about his arrest. When he did not come after the leave, we called him. We alerted the police after he reached the city and he was arrested by the police party, which was waiting outside the school, the school authorities said.

Like the CBSE, the state government should direct the state board to conduct the psychometric test for school staff for safety, said the vice-principal. She added that the school had reported the incident to the police. We also held an orientation programme and counselled the fourth-grade employees. This is the first incident in our 52-year history, she noted. To tighten security, the authorities have replaced security guards and more CCTVs have been installed in the school.
Hyderabad: An man from Malkajgiri, K. Naresh, 33, has been arrested by the Marredpally police for impersonating as a police constable and cheating people. On October 13, the accused approached G. Charan who was with his relative on his two-wheeler near Rethifile bus stop and claimed that he is a police constable from the Ramgopalpet PS. He questioned Charan about his presence in the area.

Naresh then told Charan that he would take action against him, which frightened him. The accused then took Charans two-wheeler and debit card and fled the spot. Worried Charan approached the Ramgopalpet police station and narrated the incident to the police officials.

According to the police, the accused had withdrawn Rs 39,000. Naresh, a barber at Malkajgiri was arrested for a similar offense in 2016 and remanded to judicial custody. Police recovered Rs15,000 and the two-wheeler belonging to Charan. After interrogation, Naresh confessed that he also committed the recent theft at Picket Junction, Secunderabad, where he took Rs 8,000. A case has been registered under 420, 379 of IPC at Marredpally PS.
At least 26 people died after a massive explosion in one the boilers at the state-run power giant's Unchahar plant on Wednesday. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi/Lucknow: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government over the death of 26 people in a blast at an National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) plant in Rae Bareli.

Expressing its concern over the incident, the Commission said in a statement on Thursday that a "high-level probe into the matter is immediately required to ascertain the negligence and errors, if any, behind the incident, which involves the right to life".

At least 26 persons died after a massive explosion in one the boilers at the state-run power giant's Unchahar plant on Wednesday.

The rights panel said there was need to ensure that such tragedies do not recur.

The notice has been sent to the state's chief secretary Rajive Kumar and a detailed report is expected from the government within six weeks.

"The state government has been directed to look into the matter and take utmost care to see that the families of the deceased are suitably compensated by way of monetary relief, without any delay," NHRC said.

The administration has been asked to ensure that the "best treatment" is provided to those injured in the incident, and steps are taken for their rehabilitation, it added.

The state-run power major said that around 80 people were rushed to the NTPC Hospital, most of whom were discharged after first-aid.

The 1,550-MW plant supplies electricity to nine states, according to officials, and employs around 870 people.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved ex-gratia payment of Rs 2 lakh each for the families of those killed and said he was "deeply pained" by the accident at the power plant.
China on Thursday for the fourth time blocked India, the US and other nations' bid to list Pathankot terror attack mastermind Azhar as a global terrorist. (Photo: PTI | File)

New Delhi/Beijing: China on Friday said it was ready to work with India to promote "constant progress" of bilateral relations, amid fresh strains in ties after Beijing again blocked Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar's designation as a global terrorist by the United Nations.

China on Thursday for the fourth time blocked India, the US and other nations' bid to list Pathankot terror attack mastermind Azhar as a global terrorist, saying "there is no consensus" within the members of the sanctions committee.

Also Read : China blocks another bid by UN to list Masood Azhar as global terrorist

India reacted sharply to China's move, saying "accommodating with terrorism" for narrow objectives was both short-sighted and counterproductive.

Also Read : 'Accommodating with terrorism' short-sighted: India to China

China's Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong on Friday told the media that China attached great importance to its relations with India.

"India is an important neighbour of China," Chen said, adding China plans to step up ties with neighbours under the "neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in the new era" enunciated by President Xi Jinping during the recently concluded key Congress of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

"We are ready to work with India to promote constant progress of bilateral relations guided by this diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for the new era," Chen said without elaborating.

He said China has been following this concept and vision over the past few years in its cooperation with the neighbours and deepening mutual political trust promoting practical cooperation with them.

In the last two years, China has stonewalled efforts by India to declare Azhar as a global terrorist.

Last year in March, China was the only member in the 15-nation UN organ to put a hold on India's application with all other 14 members of the Council supporting New Delhi's bid to place Azhar on the 1,267 sanctions list that would subject him to an assets freeze and travel ban.

The relations between the two neighbours are also strained by a 73-day standoff at Dokalam over Chinese army's plans to build a strategic road in the area also claimed by Bhutan.

Officials said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to India next month to New Delhi to attend the Russia, India, China (RIC) Foreign Ministers meeting during which he would also hold talks with the Indian leadership on the bilateral relations during the second term of Xi.
A Delhi court has sought the response of Tihar Jail authorities on Shamiun Rahmans complaint. (Photo: AFP/File)

New Delhi: A Delhi court has sought the response of Tihar Jail authorities on a sexual harassment complaint of a British national inside the prison where he is lodged for allegedly recruiting youths for al-Qaeda to carry out terror activities.

27-year-old Shamiun Rahman, a British national of Bangladeshi origin, was arrested in September for his alleged involvement in recruiting Rohingya Muslims for the terror outfit and training them to fight against the Myanmarese army.

In his application moved before Additional Sessions Judge Siddharth Sharma, he alleged that he was sexually harassed by Tihar Jail security personnel and inhuman behaviour was meted out to him by the prison authorities.

The court directed the jail authorities to file response on the application moved by advocate MS Khan by November 8.

The accused alleged that he was forced to live in inhuman conditions inside the jail and it lacks basic facilities such as proper food, drinking water, sanitation and medical aid.

The Special Cell of Delhi police had alleged that the process of radicalisation of Rahman alias Raju Bhai began in a jail in London where he was lodged on charges of rash driving.

During this period, he stayed at various madrassas in Kishanganj (Bihar), Hazaribagh (Jharkhand), NCR and other places. He had plans to set up base in Mizoram or Manipur to train radicalised youths.

An FIR was filed by the special cell after his arrest under various provisions relating to the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Arms Act and Passport Act.
Bengaluru: Giving broad indications of the shape the BJPs campaign would take during the Assembly polls in 2018, the partys national president Amit Shah on Thursday made a scathing attack on Chief Minister Siddaramaiah remarking that the CM was more enthusiastic about celebrating the birth anniversary of erstwhile Mysuru ruler Tipu Sultan then the prestigious Kannada Rajyotsava or State Formation Day.

It was obvious from the tenor of his speech that the BJP, during the polls, now just six months away, would try to tap pro-Hindu sentiments and focus on the shortcomings of the Congress government and Mr Siddaramaiah in particular.

The party has been opposing Tipu Jayanti as it considers Tipu a religious bigot and a brutal killer of Hindus.

Flagging off the BJP's 75-day Parivarthana rally, which will touch all 224 Assembly constituencies in the state, on Thursday, Mr Shah said the Chief Minister should have celebrated Rajyotsava in a grand manner but was more focused on Tipu Jayanti which falls on November 10. Dubbing it vote bank politics by the Congress, he said it would not help in the development of Karnataka in any way.

Law and order in the state has collapsed in the state after the Congress came to power and more than 19 RSS and BJP workers had been brutally killed but the CM was busy withdrawing cases filed against the pro-minority SDPI, which has even been branded anti-national, said the BJP chief. "Mr Siddaramaiah branded himself as a champion of the backward classes but his party has opposed the Central bill on providing constitutional status to the BCs Commission. The Congress even defeated the bill in the Upper House of parliament, he said. He made it clear that the intention of the Yatra was not to remove Congress government or its CM but to harp on the need to transform Karnataka, change the status of farmers and youth and ensure that a honest and transparent government is installed. Hitting out at the CM for his attempts to blame the Centre for meting out step-motherly treatment to the state, Mr Shah reeled out statistics on the release of massive Central grants to Karnataka after the Modi-led government came to power. According to him, during the tenure of the 13th Finance Commission, the Centre released Rs 88,583 crore to Karnataka which went up to Rs 2,19,506 crore under the 14th Finance Commission. The state thus got an additional Rs 1.30 lakh crore funds, he said and demanded that the CM furnish an account on where the funds had gone?

Besides, the Centre had released Rs 39,000 crore under the Mudra Bank scheme, `960 crore under the Smart City scheme, Rs 2,617 crore for Bengauru Metro and Rs 2197 cr for railway projects, but these funds had not been spent by the government, he claimed.

Mr Shah spoke of a recent survey which had ranked Karnataka as the most corrupt state and alleged that the Siddaramaiah government was involved in the steel bridge scam and murky real estate deals. He referred to the seizure of a diary from a Congress MLC considered close to the CM in which the names of several ministers and payments made, had allegedly figured and said the CM was hesitant to demand the resignation of these ministers as he feared they would expose him.
Experts predicted the campus placements set to be down this year around 35 per cent to 50 per cent in all engineering colleges including the elite institutions and deemed universities.

Chennai: A major shift in recruitment trend has hit campus placements in engineering colleges across the state as IT companies have stopped bulk recruitment this year due to automation and slowdown of the industry.

Now, major recruiters, IT services companies have cut their intake and are hiring students only in small numbers based on their needs and students who got specific skill sets in emerging areas alone are getting placed, according to the placement officials of top engineering colleges.

Experts predicted the campus placements set to be down this year around 35 per cent to 50 per cent in all engineering colleges including the elite institutions and deemed universities. However, some sections are still hopeful that the situation will improve after the announcement of third-quarter results by IT companies.

Last year, the top engineering colleges and deemed universities have placed around 55 per cent to 60 per cent of their students. This year so far 30 per cent to 35 per cent students alone got job offers.

The campus recruitment is very slow compared to last year. The bulk recruitment is the gap this year. But we are anticipating the demand to go up once next quarter results are announced, said John Bruce, dean, placement and corporate affairs, Sathyabama University.

He said the students who project as a complete product has edge over others in campus recruitments. Instead of looking for corporate to train you, the student can project them as a complete product to get placed, he said.

The number of companies visiting our university is always higher. Last year around 150 companies visited our campus. This year we are targeting more than 200 companies as bulk recruiters are not hiring in big numbers. By increasing the companies we can maintain over normal placements placement which is over 90 per cent, he added.

Companies are hiring students with specific skills in emerging areas like big data, cybersecurity, cloud computing and machine learning. The talented students still get jobs provided the upgraded their skills, said an official from a leading IT company.

Overall the industry is getting tougher. We are getting projects at the higher level and the expectation on fresh engineers is also increasing. Now the companies want the students to be equipped with programming skills. They now want to train students only on advanced concepts, he added.

IT industry will do well. Earlier the growth is 30 per cent or 40 per cent . Now it has been reduced to 8 per cent to 10 per cent. The low-level jobs are carried out through automation.

Earlier the testing will be carried out on the mass scale. Due to automation, these works are being carried out by the computers. Those jobs will not be there, another official from IT services industry said.

It is not as bad as we expected. There are good IT product companies, the core engineering companies, and even IT services companies also visiting our campuses, says Sriram Padmanaban, director, Career Centre, SRM University.

He further said Core companies will come only in December. The job market is down compared to last year. It is premature to say that bulk recruitment has stopped entirely.

The on-campus recruitment landscape is changing in recent times. Earlier, they have hired students based on their aptitude and communication skills and later trained them. Now, the companies are looking for students with specific skills before hiring them, said T.Thyagarajan, director, The Centre for University Industry Collaboration (CUIC), Anna University.

He also said the students should acquire specific skills in emerging areas like machine learning, internet of things (IoT), big data analytics, cybersecurity, cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI). Many students also get placed through competitions and challenges which test the coding skills and problem-solving ability of the students.

Campus recruitment will be down by 35 per cent to 50 per cent this year in engineering colleges. Unlike previous years the IT companies want only students from specific branches. Colleges should go beyond the syllabus to enable the students to learn specific skills in machine learning, said - Jayaprakash A.Gandhi, career consultant, and educationist.

Some college principals said many start-up companies have visited their campuses this year. The big recruiters did not even recruit 50 students this year. We expect more offers from new start-ups and IT product companies, they said.

Many of the city colleges have got only 50 per cent offers compared to last year. Skilled students alone are getting placed on campuses. Colleges started to advise their students to acquire special skills through certificate programmes to get placed on-campus recruitment.
Haasan, in a weekly column on Thursday, took on the right-wing groups, saying that these outfits cannot deny the existence of Hindu terror. (File photo)

Chennai/Lucknow: A case of defamation was on Friday filed against actor Kamal Haasan over his Hindu terror statement in a column in a Tamil magazine.

500 (Punishment for defamation), 511, 298 (hurting religious sentiment), 295(A) (intend to outrage religious feelings), and 505(C) (attempt to incite hatred enmity between classes) of the Indian Penal Code.

Haasan, in a weekly column on Thursday, took on the right-wing groups, saying that these outfits cannot deny the existence of Hindu terror.

The Hindus cannot challenge others to show extremists among them since extremism has spread to that extent even among the Hindus, Haasan wrote in a weekly column, titled One cannot say there is no Hindu terror anymore, in Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan.

In the past the Hindu right used to engage only in intellectual debates with the other religious groups. Once this approach started failing they have resorted to muscle power. They too started indulging in violence, he wrote.

Haasans column was in response to a question by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The Kerala chief minister had asked the actor to express his view on Hindutva forces and its attempt to dilute Tamil culture.

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy responded to Haasans claim of Hindu terror and called him a morally corrupt person.

BJP national spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao went on to compare the actor to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder Hafiz Saeed.
Bengaluru: With more than 5,000 private medical establishments in the city, including hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centres, going on strike on Friday following a call given by IMA Karnataka unit, patients had to reschedule their appointments.

"We are not running out-patient departments on November 3, but will run our emergency and ambulance services," said Govindaiah Yatheesh, medical superintendent, Apollo Hospital. The strike is in protest against some issues related to the Karnataka Private Medical Establishments (Amendment) Act, which is expected to be introduced in the forthcoming Assembly session in Belagavi.

"IMA was assured that some points would be changed in the amended bill, but nothing has changed. And the same thing will be implemented on November 13," said Dr B Veeranna, State Secretary of IMA. "In Karnataka, 80 per cent health coverage to the public is done by private sector. Why can't the government strengthen the public healthcare establishments so that they can compete with us? Why hold us to ransom?" he argued.

Terming it as draconian private hospital doctors wonder why Public Health Establishments have not been included under the Act. They have also objected the clause that provides power to the Government to fix the cost of treatment rendered by a private hospital.

Dr Devi Prasad Shetty, founder and Chairman of Narayana Health, said, Our profession is being threatened by the KPME Act. Whenever there is a malpractice litigation we are investigated by the state medical council, consumer court, criminal court, civil court, Indian Medical Council and many other agencies. Now, the State Government wants to come up with one more body to investigate to any case of malpractice litigation by creating a district grievance cell. This is not the tragedy, the tragedy is that first time in the history of this country we are not allowed to represent ourselves with a lawyer. Even Kasab was allowed to represent himself.

"There has been no response yet by the government on the strike. But if this continues we might shut establishments for good," Dr Veeranna said. If they do not address our concerns and demand, we will escalate the strike on November 10," said H.N. Ravindra, president-elect, IMA.

They should have their own regulatory bodies: Activist

However, the Bill has its set of supporters. "The best that the private doctors of the state should do, if they really care about patients, is to put forward regulatory mechanisms that they would like to enforce on themselves, said Dr Sylvia Karpagam, public healthcare activist. They should apologise for the innumerable violations that have taken place till date, ensure grievance redressal for all those patients who have experienced negligence and violation, set limits on costs and stop viewing the government as an endless source of funds that can be squeezed to its last paise. This is the only way the noble profession can be salvaged," Dr Karpagam added
A 31-member delegation of the KSTB visited Bihar to take tips from Nitish Kumar on the prohibition policy as well as its implementation. (Photo: ANI)

Patna: The representatives of the Karnataka State Temperance Board (KSTB), inspired by the alcohol prohibition in Bihar, met Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to discuss the different aspects of the ban.

The 31-member delegation of the KSTB, headed by Chairman HC Rudrappa, visited to take tips from Nitish on the prohibition policy as well as its implementation.

During the event, Nitish termed prohibition as a 'mass movement' and said a major change was witnessed in the standard of living of the people after this initiative.

The Bihar chief minister said that his government's next agenda was to root out the ill-practice of child marriage and dowry from the society.

He further said there were people who broke the laws, but the state government was very vigilant and was taking an apt action against them.

Nitish Kumar added a strong will was needed to take decisions like the implementation of prohibition of alcohol.
Puducherry: Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy visited some of the rain-affected areas on Thursday. The Chief Ministers visit follows the havoc wreaked by continuous rain for the last three days, where several parts of Puducherry were severely affected as the northeast monsoon intensified.

The Chief Minister visited Paavanar Nagar, Boomiyanpet, Gangaiamman Koil Street - Pillaithottam, Krishna Nagar and Ezhil Nagar. PWD minister A. Namassivayam, agriculture minister R. Kamalakannan, transport minister MOHF Shajahan and top officials accompanied him.

Rain-affected people told him that they are yet to get free rice, sugar or kerosene. Mr Narayaansamy assured the distribution of rice shortly and said that the government will not be able to distribute kerosene as there is no supply from the Centre. Citing the power outage these days, people requested the Chief Minister to ensure at least one litre of kerosene to which the Chief Minister said that he will ask the officials to see whether there is any possibility.

Later, Narayanasamy told reporters that all departments were alerted and 16 teams constituted with officials to meet any situation. A review meeting of the preparedness was also conducted, he added and said if necessary the Coast Guard would also work along with the official team.
Bengaluru: Bengaluru Development Minister K.J. George has assured that by April next year the city would be free from bumpy rides and pothole ridden roads. With the assembly elections scheduled for next year, the government is eager to improve its sagging image by providing motorable roads, high rise median, bus bays, signages, footpaths and lure urban voters.

The recent flooding caused due to blocked storm water drains and the death of several people owning to killer potholes had severely affected its image. Addressing reporters after reviewing ongoing developmental works in the city, Mr George said, Of the 1,400 km major roads, works orders have already been issued to asphalt 500-km stretch of roads with proper drains and footpaths along its length.

In addition over 100 km of road will be white topped in the city and works have already begun. They would be completed by April, he said and added that White topped roads are the future. In a gradual manner all roads in the city at an average of 200-300 km roads every year will be white topped.

Signal-free corridors

Commenting about the progress of signal free corridor on Old Airport Road, Mr George said, Signal free corridor work on Old Airport Road got delayed as we had land acquisition issues on the stretch. During the review meeting we got to know that the people werent willing to give up land for the project near Hope Farm junction.

Chief minister Siddaramaiah has directed officials to issue notification and acquire lands under the emergency clauses of the Land Acquisition law and complete the project soon, he said. Old Madras Road, Old Airport Road and Bellary Road have been identified as High Density Corridors. These roads will have street lights, high rise median, bus bays, signages and foothpaths, Mr George said. The Minister asserted that by April the whole image of Bengaluru city will be improve, as majority of works would be completed by this time.

Indira Canteens

Regarding Indira canteens, Mr George said that every since its inauguration it has so far served food to 93.12 lakh people. At present we have 141 canteens running and 16 are ready for inauguration. Some are under construction and in some wards they are looking for suitable land. In 18 wards till we find suitable location, food will be served through mobile canteens, he said.

96% potholes filled: BBMP chief

In the review meeting, BBMP Commissioner Manjunath Prasad claimed that over 96 percent of potholes in the city have been filled. As per the new deadline all potholes should be filled by November 6. Chief minister Siddaramaiah is set to tour the city and if any pothole is found, the zone chief engineer concerned and other engineers will be held responsible and suspended, Mr George said.

Hennur flyover in 2 months

Bengaluru Development Minister K.J. George defended his son Rana George move to seek permission to drive his personal car in Karnataka forests.

Inspecting the long pending Hennur flyover on Thursday, Mr George said that Rana has been member of wildlife board and the members were authorized to use their personal vehicles in the forest. Now, he has sought permission through a letter.

As for the flyover he said it was taken up at a cost of Rs 128 crore and should have been completed in 2011. It has been delayed owing to technical issues and would be completed in the next two months, he assured. The work was delayed as the temple authorities sought time to shift the main idol and land acquisition issues too were responsible for the delay, Mr George added. The president of Veeranjaneya temple said the flyover work should be completed without disturbing the sacred anthill at the sanctum sanatorium.
Former Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mukul Roy joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday. (Photo: ANI)

Kolkata: Ending all speculations, former Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mukul Roy joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday.

Roy was once considered as one of the closest aides of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Talking to reporters, Roy said he is privileged to work under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Today I have Joined BJP and its my proud privilege to work under PM Modi, Roy said.

Mukul Roy joined the party in the presence of union minister and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad and West Bengal in charge Kailash Vijayvargiya.

"I am very much confident. I believe BJP is not a communal force but a secular force. In the near future, the BJP will come to power in West Bengal," Roy said.

Happy to inform that Mukul Roy is joining BJP, we welcome him, Ravi Shankar Prasad said at a press conference.

He added that Roys experience will be benefit the party. His experience will benefit us surely I believe, said Prasad.

Roy quit the TMC in October and resigned from Rajya Sabha membership after a fallout with party chief Banerjee.

After quitting from TMC, Roy had said all members in a party should be comrades and not servants.

After joining BJP Mukul Roy met party national president Amit Shah, railways minister Piyush Goyal and others.
Government agencies and organisations will have to obtain appropriate clearance from local police and aviation authorities before launching any UAS/UAV. (Photo: Pixabay/Representational)

Hyderabad: The city police on Friday ordered banning the flying of drones, para-gliders and micro-light aircraft for a month starting November 8 in the wake of inputs that terrorist and anti-social elements may organise attacks through such flying object.

According to an official order issued by the city police commissioner M Mahendar Reddy, the no-flying order is being issued in the wake of inputs it received that terrorist and anti social elements may organise attacks through such flying object.

There is an increasing trend by events organisers to use remote controlled drones for getting aerial view for live telecasts and photography of various events, the statement said.

No non-government agency, organisation or individual will be allowed to launch Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Unmanned Aerial Survey (UAS) among others, it added.

He said some inputs have been received by Intelligence agencies about the possibility of attacks by terrorist or anti-social elements using flying devices and there is every likelihood of breach of peace and disturbance of public tranquility which may lead to grave danger to human life, health, safety and damage to public property on that account.

And whereas, it is necessary that reasonable checks are imposed on activities of such anti social elements in the limits of Hyderabad City Police Commissionerate to prevent the attack through remote controlled drones or through para-gliders or through remotely controlled micro-light aircraft, it said.

Government agencies and organisations should obtain appropriate clearance from local police and aviation authorities before launching any UAS/UAV for any purpose, it further said.

Any person contravening this order shall be punishable under section 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) of the Indian Penal Code and the ban will remain in force from November 8 to December 7, it said.
The deadline to link Aadhaar with accounts in banks and financial institutions is also December 31.

Hyderabad: Four crucial Aadhaar linkage deadlines are approaching but there is still a backlog of 30 per cent in Telangana.

This may result in those who have not linked up losing out on banking, mobile and government services in the new year.

The backlog is more in the case of PAN-Aadhaar and PAN-mobile SIM linkage at 20 per cent, while 10 per cent backlog prevails in Aadhaar linkage with banks, financial institutions and government schemes. The agencies have started sending out SMSes to those who failed to link their Aadhaar card, asking them to do linkage at the earliest to avoid inconvenience and disruption in availing services.

The deadline to link Aadhaar and PAN is December 31, 2017, which was extended twice from July 1. Many people could not link the two cards due to spelling errors and mis-match of other data. The latest deadline is December 31. If the linkage is not done. their income-tax returns will not be processed.

The deadline to link Aadhaar with accounts in banks and financial institutions is also December 31. It is mandatory to submit the Aadhaar and PAN details to be KYC (Know Your Customer)-compliant. If this is not done by December 31, the account will become inoperable till the time the required details are submitted.

The third deadline pertains to the linkage of Aadhaar with the mobile phone SIM card, which has been set as February 6, 2018.

The department of telecommunications (DoT), after the Supreme Court judgement on February 6, 2017, has asked telecom operators to re-verify all the existing mobile subscribers (pre-paid and post-paid) via Aadhaar-based e-KYC. It has also become mandatory to provide Aadhaar details while buying new mobile SIM connections.

As per the Supreme Court order, the process of re-verification of all existing mobile subscribers must be completed by February 6, 2018.

Telecom companies, on their websites, are cautioning users that their mobile connection services might get restricted or their numbers might become inactive in case Aadhaar-based compliance is not done.

The deadline to link Aadhaar with government schemes is also December 31. It is mandatory to link Aadhaar to avail various government benefits such as availing subsidy on LPG cylinders, the Centres scholarship schemes, pensions and subsided ration under public distribution system. The original deadline of September 30 was extended to December 31.

UIDAI deputy director general M.V.S. Rami Reddy said the servers had been upgraded to meet rush.
New Delhi: India will soon make a request to Malaysia for the extradition of radical preacher Zakir Naik, charged by the NIA for radicalising youth, the ministry of external affairs said on Friday, adding that it was very clear Naik was in Malaysia.

MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said Indias internal legal processes before approaching a foreign country with an extradition request was nearing completion in the case of Naik.

Elaborating, he said these internal processes involved legal consultations by the MEA with other ministries. The MEA said India has an extradition treaty with Malaysia.

Asked about reports that Naik has been given permanent residency by Malaysia, which maintained that it has not received any official request from India related to terrorism allegations involving the preacher, the MEA spokesperson said, We are nearing completion of the internal legal process required first for the extradition process and once that is done we will make an official request to the Malaysian government.
Hyderabad: In a major boost to the TS government, the Central Water Commission on Friday accorded inter-state clearance for the Kaleshwaram irrigation project.

The government had entered into an MoU with the Maharashtra government last year for construction of the project after Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had redesigned erstwhile Pranahitha-Chevella project conceived by previous Congress government in 2007.

The TS government approached the CWC for clearance and secured approval, paving the way for faster completion of the project.

Irrigation minister T. Harish Rao hailed the CWC approval, terming it as an important development.

The project, aimed to irrigate over 18 lakh acres in 13 districts had got hydrology clearance a few days ago, regarding availability of water at Medigadda. The project aims to fill Sriram Sagar, Nizamsagar and Singur dams and stablise 18 lakh acres covered by these projects.

Maharashtras appro-val was necessitated as the some portion of land on which the Medigadda, Tammidihatti and Chan-aka-Korate barrages are planned as part of Kaleshwaram project fall in that state.
Hyderabad: The AP government has decided to ignore the Krishna River Management Board orders directing it to stop release of water to the Pothireddypadu head regulator from Srisailam dam that supplies water to a majority of the Rayalaseema districts.

On Wednesday, AP released about 11,000 cusecs (close to 1 tmc ft) of water to the Pothireddypadu head regulator, besides releases to Handri-Neeva lift scheme at Malyala in the foreshore of Srisailam dam.

I havent received any instructions from my government to stop water release, hence releases are continuing, said Srisailam dam chief engineer C. Narayana Reddy.

Sources said that faced with growing demand for water in Rayalaseema from Pothireddypadu, the AP government cannot ignore the calls. The sources also said in the last three-member KRMB meeting, AP had made its stand clear that it may have to release more water to Pothireddypadu over and above the allocation of 5 tmc ft made by the Board. It had even got it version recorded in the minutes of the meeting.

Its quite surprising that whenever Telangana officials make a hue and cry, KRMB bows to their demands and issues stop release orders. This is not proper; we will continue our releases and will account everything in the next full-fledged Board meeting, a senior irrigation department official said.

AP has complained against TS Genco for restarting generation from Left Bank power house without any orders from the KRMB.
IN TEXAS, SOME LEGENDS ARE BORN, SOME ARE MADE, AND SOME ARE CREATED BY DESTINY.........









Im so happy, happy to FINALLY share TO MARRY A TEXAS OUTLAW with you! It seems this third book, the story youve all waited so patiently for, would never come. (A watched pot never boils.) I think youll find it well worth the wait.





At last, Luke Weston has the location for the man who pinned a federal judges murder on him. Hes searched for Ned Sweeney for two long years and finally has his location. He only has a one-hour window before Sweeney goes underground again. Hes riding to Dead Horse Creek when he sees a woman bound and gagged underneath a scrawny tree and covered in blood. Hes torn about what to do but his honor wont let him ride on.





The woman has amnesia--doesnt know her name, where she belongs, or how she got there. But shes mad enough to whip someone.





Deliverance Canyon is close by. He decides to leave her with Tally Shannon and the other woman hiding out that you met in Book #1 To Love a Texas Ranger.





I often think how scary it would be to wake up and not know who I was or where I lived. You would have no starting point or nothing to relate anything to. I cant imagine. But Josie somehow keeps her sense of humor and stays optimistic for the most part. She trusts the outlaw Luke Weston and feels safe with him.





As pieces of her life slowly start to emerge, she falls deeper in love with Luke. Its at that point she begins to pray she never finds out who she is because she senses it will change things between them. Something tells her that her past is riddled with bad people. She's found contentment with Luke and is desperately clinging to that.





He yearns for redemption with every fiber of his being in order to take the family name of Legend and claim his birthright.





Despite the seriousness of her situation, Josie is so funny and sweet and I love that. I think you will too. But that doesnt mean shell be a doormat for anyone. Shes quite a fighter. I think thats what Luke likes most about her. She takes whatever is thrown at her and finds a silver lining.





This story is full of twists and turns and Luke will steal your heartall over again. Will he clear his name and get to claim the Legend name? So many forces are working against him. Youll just have to see. All I can say is youd better hold on tight.





Many secrets are revealed, and love claimed. By the end of the book, Luke and the Legend family will forever remain etched in your memory.













* * *





"A gunslinger whos better than he thinks he is; a lovely amnesiac; a young, wannabe gunslinger; an abused boy; a scruffy dog; and a sadistic killer make the third book in Brodays outstanding family saga, Men of Legend, an unforgettable jou rney through the Old West. " ~~Booklist Starred Review





" This is one author that knows how to tie you in knots keeping you on the edge and making you smile through it all." ~~ Cyn's Reviews





"This densely plotted historical continues Brodays tradition of well-realized, emotionally rich novels." ~~ Publisher's Weekly





Brodays gritty depiction of the Texas frontier will strike a chord in the hearts of fans who long for proud, rugged cowboys and strong-willed women. ~~ Romantic Times 4 Stars
























HYDERABAD: Telugu Desam president and AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu expects a hung Assembly in TS in 2019, and sees the TD playing a crucial role, if it retains its 15 Assembly seats. As part of his pre-election agenda that has already been blueprinted, Mr Naidu plans to tour TS in December and January. This will not just pump up the morale of the party cadre, but also cement the party position in the minds of the public. According to speculation, the elections could be advanced to October next year. TD leaders said a clearer picture will emerge on this after the Gujarat elections.

In the 2014 Assembly elections TD won 15 assembly seats in TS. According to members of Mr Naidus coterie, he told them that he expects a hung Assembly in TS. According to Mr. Naidu, many sections including students and the youth are distanced from the TRS. After completing five years, there would be some anti-incumbency, he said. Mr Naidu said that even when all sections supported the TRS with the statehood demand, the TRS could win only 68 seats. In the next elections, it would not be possible for the TRS to retain the seats.

On the other hand the Congress is picking up gradually, he said. Mr. Naidu told party leaders that the strengthening of the Congress and the loss of support to the TRS from several sections would benefit the TD. If we retain even 15 seats in the next elections, in the event of hung Assembly TD will play a key role, said Mr Naidus close associate. Mr Naidu asked the party leaders to identify the second line leaders in all districts. He asked party cadre not to agitate if senior leaders left the party, as the public was with the TD. Mr Naidu was of the opinion that even after a few senior leaders had left the party in some districts, TD had a strong cadre base.:We feel that once Mr Naidu tours Telangana, the party cadre will gain confidence and work hard in the elections, said a Telangana TD leader.
Hyderabad: TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy in a letter to party workers asked them to send details of crop loan waivers in their villages. He said the claim of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on repaying farmer loans with interest as a part of crop loan waiver scheme was far from the truth. The TPCC chief said that the details should be given to district Congress presidents by November 5. The details can be sent to TS Kisan Congress president M. Kodanda Reddy on 9618713456.
HYDERABAD: Deputy Chief Minister Mohammad Mahmood Ali said the state government was introducing a legislation to regulate the contract marriages. He said the government had initiated measures to curb illegal contract marriages. Mr Ali, replying to a question by MLC M.S. Prabhakar Rao during Question Hour in the Council, said nine cases were registered in the city between 2011 and 2017 and four qazis were suspended for performing illegal marriages. The issue was a social menace, he said.

MIM MLC Syed Amin Jafri said his party would support all measures to curb illegal contract marriages. Some guidelines including the mandatory age difference between the bride and groom and financial support to the girls families are followed in Gulf Cooperation Council, Indian rules were over 140 years old and there was a need to formulate new rules in consultation with the external affairs ministry, he said.
Hyderabad: Though not surprised at the Election Commissioner O.P. Rawats statement on Thursday hinting at the holding of simultaneous polls for both the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies, the political leadership in Telangana state and Andhra Pradesh is hoping this will not happen without arriving at a political consensus.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had mooted the proposal sometime ago, but the political leadership of both Telugu states dont know when and if this will happen.

A senior Telugu Desam functionary in Andhra Pradesh said, We are not aware how and when it will happen. We expect Prime Minister Modi to speak to Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu before taking a final call on the issue.

Polls in September 2018 need law change

TRS MP B. Vinod Kumar said: We have not formed an opinion on this move yet. We know this has been on the cards for sometime now, but we think without political consensus on the issue it is not possible.

The term of the TS Assembly will end on June 8, 2019 and the AP House on June 18, 2019.

Under the law, the Election Commission can hold elections up to six months before the term of the Assembly ends. This means polls can be advanced to January 2019. If they need to be advanced, either the Centre must bring in a constitutional amendment and make changes in the Representation of the Peoples Act, or the Governor must dissolve the Assembly on the recommendation of the state Cabinet. This applies even for the Lok Sabha.

We dont know anything of the Prime Ministers moves in this direction, either for bringing in amendments to allow simultaneous polls, or convincing Chief Ministers to pave the way for early dissolution of the Assemblies. For both the things it requires a political consensus, Mr Vinod Kumar said.

The plan has not gone down well with most TRS members in TS and TD members in Andhra Pradesh.

A TS minister said: We have promised that several things will be completed by the 2019 elections, like Mission Bhagiratha and the Kaleswaram project. We cannot face the electorate without completing this work.

The Polavaram project in AP may not be completed before September 2018, so the party sentiment in that state is likely to be the same.
US secretary of state Rex Tillerson dropped by in New Delhi while on a five-nation tour October 20-27, which included Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan and Switzerland. A month earlier, he had visited China to lay the groundwork for US President Donald Trumps coming visit. US-China ties have been strained by Mr Trumps criticism of Chinas trade practices and by the demands that Beijing do more about North Korea. A visit by US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross preceded Mr Tillers-ons visit, where we can presume the only topic discussed would have been the ever-increasing trade gap between the two countries, and the gripes aired by candidate Donald Trump. These clearly highlight the differing perceptions of the US vis-a-vis China and India.

In the run-up to Mr Tillersons India visit, the US media made no secret about its purpose. Their view was that as Chinas clout in the Asia-Pacific region rises, the US was wooing India into a closer embrace. Indians chaff at the suggestion that Chinas growing power is the reason why the US sees value in ties with India. And not because of shared values. India has a certain sense of self-esteem that Americans misunderstand entirely. India doesnt want its relationship to be dependent on the intensity of Amer-icas competition with China. Most Indians recall the long-held US animosity and the convergence of its Cold War interests with Chinas, and directed towards India. At that time the US was building China as a power to outflank the former Soviet Union. Most Indians hence dont miss the irony when, standing beside external affairs minister Sus-hma Swaraj during his maiden visit to South Asia as Mr Tillerson said the US supports Indias emergence as a leading power.

Indias external diplomacy is heavily invested in realism, which means it will always be focused on its own immediate and long-term interests. Its non-alignment policy served it well when it was a low-income country with myriad economic problems. Now that its a middle-income country with the worlds third largest GDP, about $9.7 trillion (PPP), theres no reason why it should be the US or for that matter anybody elses junior partner against a third power. Especially one which is also a physical neighbour, and not one separated by a large body of water  like the US, Japan and Australia. India doesnt see its place in the world like Britain, latched on to Uncle Sams coattails.

The US made no bones about what it seeks from India. Said state department spokesperson Heather Nauert: US and Indian officials discussed strengthening US-India partnerships, Indias leadership on peace and security in the India-Pacific region and Indias role in the administrations South Asia strategy. For the foreseeable future, India has few interests beyond the immediate neighbourhood. The region the US state department has suddenly taken to calling India-Pacific spans about half the world. Even if its interested, India cant afford to be a part of the policing arrangement in this huge region. India has a mostly undemarcated 3,488-km border with China. The fact that both countries havent even agreed on military border, otherwise called the Line of Actual Control (LAC), compounds the dispute. So by tacit agreement, later ratified by the Border Defence Cooperation Agreement 2013, India and China undertake patrolling up to their LACs without confronting each other, not tailing each others patrols. The Doklam standoff took place as India perceived that a Chin-ese road even up to its own LAC would alter the local military balance. Both nations have kept this border peaceful, and not a single shot has been fired at each other since 1967.

However peaceful the border may have actually been, it is not without tension. About half a million troops and powerful air forces face each other and are at triggers edge. India has no illusions about who will bear the burden and pay the price. India is also aware that Japan and the US are Chinas biggest trading partners and extra-regional investors. The economic inter-linkages between the three are well understood and, by and large, India knows that these relationships are much too deep to sustain another cold war. India didnt take sides even in that Cold War. There is no reason why it should take sides in a future one. The pivot of Indias foreign and security policy is the notion of strategic autonomy. This simply means it will act upon its own perceived interests and fight its own battles.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a blistering attack on the Congress while campaigning on Thursday for his party in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh, where Assembly elections will be held on November 9. But its just possible that Mr Modi may have gone in for an overkill, stressing the corruption issue, his partys favourite subject against its opponents. While the incumbent Congress CM, the octogenarian Virbhadra Singh, is fighting corruption allegations brought by BJP elements in court, it is hard to think of any political party which has not faced criticism  often found valid  on the same count. In the not too distant past two BJP presidents had to resign as they were up against serious allegations of corruption.

In Himachal Pradesh, the Congress and the BJP have alternated in the seat of power in Shimla, and by that logic it is due to be the saffron partys turn at the wheel this time. The BJP is thought to be reasonably placed in this battle for the 68-seat Assembly. In small legislatures, frequently the winning side tends to capture a disproportionately large number of seats. On this occasion it has to be seen to what extent the difficulties to ordinary people caused by GST and demonetisation impact the election result. The election in the hill state is less than a week away but the Congress is yet to bring out its heavy artillery. In contrast, BJP president Amit Shah and Prime Minister Modi have made whirlwind tours. The focus of the Congress appears to be on Gujarat, where the Assembly poll is scheduled for Decem-ber. A setback to the BJP in the state, where the party has been in power for 22 years, is likely to have national implications for it.

Only a couple of months ago, it was widely believed that the Congress wasnt on the electoral map of Gujarat at all. But suddenly Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has shown that he can run a blistering and a credible campaign, making the BJP brass work much harder. Rural Gujarat is in ferment. The very basis of the so-called Gujarat model of development canvassed by the BJP in 2014 is under question. The OBCs have indicated a preference for the Congress, with their most important leader Alpesh Thakor joining the party. Hardik Patel, the Patidar leader, has not joined up. Nor has the states most prominent dalit leader, Jignesh Mevani. But their anti-BJP campaign appears strong. However, the Congress organisation in Gujarat has been rendered weak over a period of time. All things considered, the Gujarat Assembly election presents the country very engaging fare and the stakes are high.
On Tuesday, as New Yorkers celebrated Halloween, a 29-year-old Uzbek, Sayfullo Saipov, drove his truck through revellers in Lower Manhattan, killing eight people  five Argentinians celebrating their graduation from technical college 20 years earlier, a Belgian woman and two Americans; and leaving a few dozen more injured. After his truck hit a school bus, Saipov came out shouting Allahu Akbar (God is great, in Arabic) before he was shot by a policeman. He is now being treated in hospital. His truck had a note fixed to it saying: Islamic supplication will endure forever. This was the worst terrorist attack in New York City since the horror of 9/11 a decade and a half ago. Saipov has confirmed that he acted on behalf of the Islamic State, and that he had responded to the call of its caliph to all Muslims to revenge the killing of their brethren during the US bombings on Mosul as the ISIS capital in Iraq was under military assault from Iraqi forces.

US President Donald Trump has criticised the politically correct US immigration policies that had enabled Saipov to enter the country, and the feeble judicial system that had failed to impose harsh deterrent punishments. According to Mr Trump, Saipov was an animal who deserved the death penalty or being sent to Guantanamo. New York governor Andrew Cuomo has said that Saipov was a lone wolf who had been radicalised domestically after reaching America, affirming that Saipov had not had any direct contact with a jihadi organisation. Early investigations reveal that Saipov had been planning the attack for over a year, but seriously started doing dry runs with a truck over the last two months. He said he had deliberately chose Halloween for carrying out his attack as there would be large crowds in Lower Manhattan. He was radicalised by exposure to ISIS propaganda material available on the social media. Investigators have found 90 ISIS videos in his possession, with 3,800 pictures of ISIS activities, including beheadings, killings of prisoners, bomb-making instructions, and other slick material produced by the organisation to attract recruits from diverse countries and backgrounds.

Saipov used the truck as his weapon of attack, following similar earlier attacks by ISIS adherents in France, Britain, Germany, Sweden, Spain and Canada. Saipov is said to have closely followed the manual from ISIS on the social media that describes the type of vehicle to rent and the type and timing of the attack to wreak maximum destruction. In the November 2016 issue of its mouthpiece, Rumiyah, ISIS had said: Though being an essential part of modern life, very few actually comprehend the deadly and destructive capability of the motor vehicle and its capacity of reaping large numbers of casualties if used in a pre-meditated manner. Such vehicle-ramming attacks are particularly devastating since they are easy to carry out and it is almost impossible to pre-empt them.

The latest New York attack has revived the debate on the factors that radicalise Muslims and lead them to perpetrate violence. Given the fact that lone-wolf violence is a relatively recent phenomenon, both academics and counter-terrorism experts have made little progress in addressing these issues. Analysts have observed that the profiles of lone-wolf terrorists present a very unclear picture, indicating variously  confused sexuality, confused religious identity, possible mental illness, anger management issues and possibly a dysfunctional family life. On several occasions, the perpetrators have indicated no clarity about jihadi ideology being their motive force. This leads to the tentative conclusion that the act of violence is just an opportunity for a socially ill-adjusted individual with violent tendencies to seek some meaning in his miserable life by associating himself with a dramatic act that would serve a larger historic purpose, far beyond his tawdry existence.

American security analyst Tom Mockaitis believes that lone-wolf attackers could have dysfunctional backgrounds along with personal grievances which lead them to identify with an existing movement and act on its behalf. ISIS is of course particularly adept at alluring such misfits to carry out acts of violence in its name. But this understanding is of little use for law enforcement officers to prevent such lone-wolf attacks. As a European security officer said, a lone-wolf attack can come in any size, any shape, and any ethnicity, as well as representing any ideology. There is similar uncertainty on the sources of radicalisation of lone-wolf terrorists. Observers have noted that the social media, through bits and bytes of the digital age, creates a community of followers of a borderless loyalty.

Here, Jen Easterly and Joshua Geltzer make the important point that, whatever the influence of social media, the actual move from inspiration to action is that of the lone-wolf himself; it is he who selects the targets, the weapons, the timing and the mode of attack. They believe that ISIS messages on the social media are particularly effective for people who are lonely: they are now made partners in a historic cause, an enterprise far bigger than anything they could on their own have been associated with. Thus, they note the social media in todays digital media age has made the term homegrown obsolete. But there is now a bigger challenge before us. ISIS expert Graeme Wood sees Saipov as a complete idiot since he had a fake gun and could easily have been taken down by a policeman. What he fears is that, with the fall of the ISIS in both Iraq and Syria, some of the ISIS battle-hardened fighters could return home and launch what he calls the campaign of competent terror, marked by careful planning and lethal weaponry, on the lines of the Batacalan attacks in Paris in November 2015, in which 90 people were killed, and the more recent (non-ISIS related) attack by Stephan Paddock in Las Vegas, where 58 persons were killed and over 600 others injured. That is the dreadful prospect before the international community after the defeat of the Islamic State at US hands in Iraq and Syria.
False the king, false the subject, false the whole world.

False the gold, false the silver and false those who wear them

The false one is attached to falsehood, forgetting the creator.

Whom to be friends with? The whole world is transient...

Nanak, praise to thee, all else is false without thee

The only truth, says Guru Nanak, is the supreme being. He is ikk (one), second to none, the ultimate reality. He is Karta-Purakh and being the creator he regards everyone as equal. Why would he discriminate? Why would he harbour hatred? All are equal and no one would attain salvation on the basis of caste, religion and gender. Guru Nanaks path of realisation is based on love, devotion and faith in one God  the true name (Satnam). True in the beginning, true for ever, true he is... Nanak, true he will ever be! says the Guru. Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, was born in 1469 at Rai Bhoi di Talwandi, now called Nankana Sahib. Even as a child, Guru Nanak would not accept anything without probing it. There was a strong desire to know the truth, to attain gian (spiritual knowledge) and most importantly, how to maintain a balance between this and other worldly life.

Guru Nanaks philosophy of salvation is simple and practical. He says the source of gian lies within ones self. There is no need to renounce the world. Guru Nanaks religion is a religion of affirmation. The world is real and so are the ways of life. How to realise the truth? How to cross the ocean of illusion? The simplest way is nam simran, the remembrance of God, nam japna. It is the remembrance of the attributes of the almighty who is nirbhau (fearless), nirvair (without enmity) and ever benevolent, compassionate and merciful. The Sikhs, the followers, not only have to meditate upon his attributes but are required to imbibe the same qualities  to help others, to treat others equally and to not to be scared of anyone except the Akal-Purakh. The knowledge of his vastness instils humility in man and helps him to get rid of his ego (haumai), which is regarded as the greatest obstacle in the path of realisation. With the grace (mehar) of the Guru, a person surrenders himself to the will (hukam) of the God. Guru Nanak says: Steadily I danced in his will. Nanak is ever happy to follow him. My wandering is due to him. I live his teachings, one who follows him knows himself. And is submerged in truth.

Can there be any love of God without seva (service)? Guru Nanak stressed the futility of meaningless rituals and superstitions. Instead, selfless service is the only true path. All living beings are Gods own creatures, and none can obtain any reward without rendering service, says the Guru. With seva is attached the notion of sharing  vand chchakna. A true Sikh loves to contribute to others well being, in addition to earning his livelihood through labour (kirat karni). Nam japna, vand chchakna and kirat karni are the three simple ways to live the life as prescribed by Guru Nanak.

Guru Nanaks message was based on love, devotion and simple living. The complete faith in the creator (hukam) is offered as the remedy of all sufferings. No wonder, every Sikh in his daily prayers, remembers and repeats: Tera bhana meetha lage har nam padarath Nanak mange (Everything happens as per his will, which is always sweet. To remember him is the only thing Nanak wishes for).
They were arrested following an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is looking into allegations that members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to get him elected. (Photo: AP)

Washington: US President Donald Trump's ex-campaign chairman and an associate were ordered by a judge Thursday to remain under house arrest while they await trial for money laundering and other charges.

Paul Manafort, 68, who managed Trump's campaign from June to August 2016, and Rick Gates, 45, will also continue to be subject to GPS monitoring.

The two men appeared before Judge Amy Berman Jackson in a Washington court to argue for an easing of the pretrial conditions of their release.

Judge Jackson ordered that the pair remain under home confinement and GPS monitoring for the time being and that they appear in court again on Monday.

Manafort and Gates have pleaded not guilty to charges that they allegedly hid millions of dollars gleaned from work with Ukrainian politician Viktor Yanukovych and his pro-Moscow political party.

Read: Ex-Trump campaign manager charged in US Russia probe, surrenders

They were arrested following an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is looking into allegations that members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to get him elected.

Manafort's lawyers on Thursday argued that he was not a flight risk and had no intention of abandoning his wife of nearly 40 years, his two daughters or his grandchildren.

"Given the substantial media coverage surrounding Mr Manafort and this investigation, it is fair to say that he is one of the most recognizable people on the planet today," his lawyers said in a filing with the court. "Query where such an individual could even hide?"

Judge Jackson made it clear she was not happy about the widespread coverage the case is attracting and asked all parties to "refrain from making public statements."

"This case has already received and continues to receive a lot of attention," she said. "It is a criminal trial, not a PR campaign."

Following the arrests, Trump said in a tweet that there was "no collusion" between his campaign and Russia, and noted that the allegations of criminal activity by Manafort came "years ago," before he joined the campaign.

Manafort's indictment made no mention of Russian involvement in the US election campaign, focusing instead on his earlier Ukrainian ties.

A long-time political operative and consultant, Manafort was recruited in March 2016 to round up pro-Trump delegates to the Republican Party convention.

Trump named him campaign chairman in June but he resigned in August as Ukrainian corruption investigators released files showing large payments to Manafort companies and it became clear he was under investigation in the United States over related claims.
North Korea in July launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles apparently capable of reaching the US mainland - described by leader Kim Jong-Un as a gift to American bastards. (Representational image | Photo: AFP)

Washington: US bombers accompanied by Japanese and South Korean warplanes flew a mission in the South Korea region Thursday amid high regional tensions, the US Air Force said.

Two supersonic B-1B Lancer bombers took off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, then flew south of South Korea and west of Japan where they were joined by Japan Air Self-Defense Force fighters, the US Pacific Air Force said in a statement.

"The Lancers then transited overland to Korea to integrate with Republic of Korea fighters in the Yellow Sea," the statement read, adding that the aircraft later returned "to their respective home stations."

The statement noted that the exercise was part of the "continuous bomber presence" mission in the Pacific and was planned in advance.

It "was not in response to any current event," the statement said.

Still, the operation follows an October 10 "show of force" in which two Lancers staged the first night-time joint aviation exercises with Japan and South Korea.

Regional tensions on the Korean Peninsula remain high and Pyongyang may be preparing for another missile test, South Korea's spy agency reportedly said Thursday.

North Korea in July launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles apparently capable of reaching the US mainland - described by leader Kim Jong-Un as a gift to "American bastards."

It followed up with two missiles that passed over Japan, and its sixth nuclear test.

US President Donald Trump, who has warned of "fire and fury" in response to North Korean threats, begins on Friday an Asian tour that will include a visit to South Korea. The trip is set to be dominated by the North Korea nuclear issue.
Appellate Court of Illinois, Third District. THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. WILLIAM S. THOMAS, Defendant-Appellant. Appeal No. 3-15-0542 Decided: October 31, 2017

OPINION

 1 Defendant, William S. Thomas, appeals from the denial of his motion for forensic testing. He argues that his motion set forth each of the elements required for such testing to be granted and thus requests this court reverse the Tazewell County circuit court's judgment. We find that any result of the proposed testing would not have the potential to produce evidence that would raise a reasonable probability that defendant would have been acquitted had he proceeded to trial. We therefore affirm the circuit court's denial of defendant's motion.

 2 FACTS

 3 Defendant pled guilty on June 24, 2011, to one count of being an armed habitual criminal (720 ILCS 5/24-1.7 (West 2010)). As a part of the factual basis for the plea, the State submitted certified copies of defendant's previous convictions for burglary, aggravated battery, and unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon.

 4 The State further declared that Genie Hopkins would testify that she saw defendant with a green and orange sawed-off shotgun. That shotgun was later recovered from a vehicle being driven by defendant on or about November 26, 2010. In a videotaped interview with police, defendant admitted to purchasing and possessing that sawed-off shotgun. Following the factual basis, defense counsel responded: Your honor, that's a very, very truncated version of the case, but yes, we agree that they could present that evidence. The court accepted defendant's plea and, at a later date, sentenced him to a term of 18 years' imprisonment.

 5 Following his plea hearing, defendant filed numerous motions seeking to withdraw the plea and to obtain new representation. In one of those motions, defendant alleged that his videotaped confession was involuntary because he was under the influence of alcohol and Xanax when the statements were made. Defendant attached to one motion an affidavit from Hopkins, in which she admitted to perjuring herself.

 6 On June 28, 2012, just over a year after defendant's plea hearing, the court held a hearing on defendant's motion to withdraw his guilty plea. At the hearing, Hopkins testified that defendant is the father of her child and her boyfriend of six years. Hopkins testified that around November 26, 2010, she and defendant had been arguing and defendant was threatening to leave her. Hopkins decided to frame defendant for possession of firearms. She first put six Xanax into three beers that defendant drank. She then retrieved the sawed-off shotgun from another residence and brought it to the home she shared with defendant. When defendant saw Hopkins with the sawed-off shotgun, he tried to wrestle it away from her. In the ensuing scuffle, the shotgun struck Hopkins in the face, causing a gash on her forehead. Hopkins then put the gun into her Jeep. Hopkins later asked an acquaintance to hit her with a pistol to make it look like defendant had battered her. She then reported to the police that defendant had kidnapped their son and was in possession of multiple firearms. She recanted her story about the kidnapping prior to defendant's guilty plea. She did not recant the portion of her story relating to the firearms because she feared being charged herself.

 7 Defendant testified that he asked his original defense attorney, Fred Bernardi, to conduct DNA testing on the sawed-off shotgun, but Bernardi refused. According to defendant, Bernardi also refused to introduce expert testimony regarding the effects of Xanax. Defendant insisted that his confession to police was involuntary.

 8 Bernardi testified that he did not seek DNA testing on the sawed-off shotgun because defendant had consistently acknowledged, both in a videotaped interview with police and in jail phone recordings, that he possessed the weapon.

 9 The court denied defendant's motion to withdraw the plea. The court rejected the notion that counsel had been ineffective, observing: [Defendant] knew he couldn't prevail at trial, or the likelihood was infinitesimal. The court outright rejected Hopkins's testimony, stating: [Hopkins] has no credibility at all. The story that she put forth today in front of the Court was completely a manufactured story, [and] was an insult to the Court's intelligence. She clearly lied today again. She's a habitual liar. The court declared that Bernardi was the only credible witness.

 10 On appeal, this court granted appointed counsel's motion to withdraw and affirmed the court's denial of defendant's motion to withdraw the guilty plea. People v. Thomas, No. 3-12-0544 (Jan. 1, 2014) (unpublished summary order under Supreme Court Rule 23(c)).

 11 On July 2, 2015, defendant filed a pro se motion for DNA testing, the only subject of the present appeal. In the motion, defendant sought DNA testing on the green and orange sawed-off shotgun, alleging that he never touched the weapon and that Hopkins and two other individuals complicit in the scheme to frame him likely did touch the weapon. Defendant asserted that the presence of Hopkins's DNA or that of her two alleged cohorts would prove that she placed the weapon in the Jeep without defendant's knowledge. The court denied defendant's motion.

 12 ANALYSIS

 13 On appeal, defendant argues that his motion for DNA testing satisfied each of the elements required for such testing to be granted. We disagree, finding that no reasonable probability exists that any potential test results would have led to an acquittal had defendant proceeded to trial instead of pleading guilty.

 14 Section 116-3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 (Code) sets forth the procedures a criminal defendant must follow in order to seek and obtain postconviction forensic testing. 725 ILCS 5/116-3 (West 2014). While the Code requires defendants to satisfy no fewer than five distinct elements, only one is relevant to the present appeal:

(c) The trial court shall allow the testing under reasonable conditions designed to protect the State's interests in the integrity of the evidence and the testing process upon a determination that:

(1) the result of the testing has the scientific potential to produce new, noncumulative evidence (i) materially relevant to the defendant's assertion of actual innocence when the defendant's conviction was the result of a trial, even though the results may not completely exonerate the defendant, or (ii) that would raise a reasonable probability that the defendant would have been acquitted if the results of the evidence to be tested had been available prior to the defendant's guilty plea and the petitioner had proceeded to trial instead of pleading guilty, even though the results may not completely exonerate the defendant[.] Id.

 15 We note initially that defendant argues the incorrect legal standard on appeal. Throughout his briefs, defendant asserts that [t]he testing requested has the potential to produce noncumulative evidence materially relevant to [defendant's] claim of actual innocence. Defendant then establishes the definition of materially relevant and argues that the potential test results in this case would be so relevant. Of course, defendant's argument references the language of subsection (c)(1)(i), which only applies when the defendant's conviction was the result of a trial. 725 ILCS 5/116-3(c)(1)(i) (West 2014). Subsection (c)(1)(ii) governs the present situation, wherein defendant's conviction stemmed from a guilty plea. 725 ILCS 5/116-3(c)(1)(ii) (West 2014). It requires defendant not to show material relevance, but the potential for a reasonable probability that defendant would have be acquitted had he proceeded to trial. Id.

 16 Effective August 15, 2014, the General Assembly amended section 116-3 to make forensic testing available to criminal defendants who had pled guilty. Pub. Act 98-948 (eff. Aug. 15, 2014) (amending 725 ILCS 5/116-3). Previously, such testing was available only to defendants who had proceeded to trial. See 725 ILCS 5/116-3 (West 2012). Because of this relatively recent amendment, Illinois courts have not yet established the precise bounds of the reasonable probability standard. In any event, it seems clear that the reasonable probability standard of subsection (c)(1)(ii) is necessarily a higher threshold than the materially relevant standard of subsection (c)(1)(i). Test results are materially relevant so long as they significantly advance a claim of actual innocence. People v. Savory, 197 Ill. 2d 203, 213 (2001). However, to satisfy subsection (c)(1)(ii), those tests results would have to advance a claim of innocence so far that an acquittal becomes a reasonable probability.

 17 Clearing such a hurdle is even more difficult in defendant's case, given the strength of the State's evidence. To obtain a conviction for being an armed habitual criminal, the State needed only to prove that defendant possessed a firearm and that he had two prior convictions of the type listed in the armed habitual criminal statute. 720 ILCS 5/24-1.7 (West 2010). In its factual basis, the State presented three key pieces of evidence: (1) Hopkins would testify that she saw defendant with the sawed-off shotgun, (2) the sawed-off shotgun was found in a vehicle being driven by defendant, and most significantly, (3) defendant admitted to police in a videotaped confession that he had possessed the sawed-off shotgun. Further, defendant had apparently admitted to possessing the sawed-off shotgun in a phone conversation he had while in jail.

 18 To be sure, Hopkins later recanted her statement that defendant possessed the sawed-off shotgun. However, there is no way to know whether Hopkins would have recanted that statement prior to defendant's hypothetical trial. See 725 ILCS 5/116-3(c)(1)(ii) (West 2014) (requiring the potential that test results raise a reasonable probability of acquittal at trial had those results been available prior to the defendant's guilty plea). Still, even if Hopkins had testified to her most recent version of events, the State would have impeached her testimony with her earlier statements accusing defendant of possessing the sawed-off shotgun. Further, the hearing on defendant's motion to withdraw his plea in this case provides the blueprint for how a finder of fact at defendant's trial would have taken Hopkins's changed story. As the circuit court put it, that version of events was completely a manufactured story, [and] was an insult to the Court's intelligence.

 19 Regardless, defendant insists a DNA result that did not reveal his DNA on the sawed-off shotgun would undermine Hopkins's previous statements that he possessed the weapon. Moreover, he insists that the presence of Hopkins's DNA or that of her two accomplices would substantiate his claim that he was framed. Such results, if raised at trial, however, would not create a reasonable likelihood that defendant would be acquitted. It would be decidedly unlikely that a trier of fact would outright reject defendant's multiple confessions to possessing the sawed-off shotgun in favor of the implausible version of events in which the defendant was framed. Moreover, test results showing a lack of defendant's DNA would not raise a reasonable probability of acquittal at trial, as there could be no guarantee that defendant's possession of the shotgun would result in a transfer of DNA. Indeed, possession of a weapon does not necessarily include the physical handling of the weapon itself. E.g., People v. Spencer, 2012 IL App (1st) 102094,  17 (delineating elements of constructive possession of a weapon).

 20 In coming to this conclusion, we note that throughout his briefs on appeal, defendant asserts that he has repeatedly denied possessing the sawed-off shotgun and ha[d] continued to maintain his innocence. Of course, those repeated denials represent only the more recent past. Previously, defendant pled guilty, thus admitting he possessed the sawed-off shotgun, and also admitted to police on videotape that he was in possession of the sawed-off shotgun. Defendant insists that his confession was induced by the effects of Xanax. This appeal, however, concerns only the circuit court's denial of defendant's motion for forensic testing. It is not an opportunity for defendant to challenge the voluntariness of his confession, the performance of his attorney, or the voluntariness of his guilty plea. Defendant was obligated to show, based on the record, that certain forensic results, had they been available for a trial, could have raised a reasonable probability of an acquittal. He has failed to do so.

 21 CONCLUSION

 22 The judgment of the circuit court of Tazewell County is affirmed.

 23 Affirmed.

JUSTICE LYTTON delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

Justices O'Brien and Schmidt concurred in the judgment and opinion.
McMaster said it's time to recognise that there's been progress on three fronts  first, denying terrorists safe havens and support bases; second, cutting off their funding; and third, discrediting their wicked ideology. (Photo: AFP)

Washington: The US has made "significant" progress in its fight against terror, National Security Advisor H R McMaster has said, underlining that President

Donald Trump would reiterate key elements of his counter-terrorism policy during his visit to the Indo-Pacific region.

McMaster said it's time to recognise that there's been progress on three fronts - "first, denying terrorists safe havens and support bases; second, cutting off their funding; and third, discrediting their wicked ideology."

"I think it's time for us to recognise that there's been significant progress on all three fronts," McMaster said, noting that Trump articulated his counter-terrorism policy for the first time in a major policy speech in Riyadh early this year.

Raqqa (in Syria) and Mosul (in Iraq) have been liberated as the US has worked very hard with allies and partners to deny that safe haven and support bases, in this case to the Islamic State militant group, he said during a White House news conference.

"Second, we should recognise that there's been considerable progress on terrorist financing; as you saw (Treasury) Secretary (Steven) Mnuchin's visit to the region last week, during which he opened the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center," he said. Trump will embark on a 12-day trip to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Hawaii beginning Friday.

"And then...a lot of leaders across the world, and the president foremost among them, discrediting this jihadist ideology," he said and praised the Saudi crown prince's speech during which he called for a return to moderate Islam.

"At the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) 50th birthday party in Manila, the president will discuss how to strengthen partnerships across the Indo-Pacific to further efforts against transnational terrorist organisations," McMaster said.
Washington: As the Russia probe intensifies, it has been reported that senior White House adviser and President Donald Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner has turned over documents in recent weeks to special counsel Robert Mueller. Investigators are reportedly zeroing in on his role in the firing of FBI director James Comey, the CNN reported.

Mr Muellers investigators who are looking into the alleged Russia meddling in the 2016 US Presidential elections have expressed an interest in Mr Kushner. This new development means the spotlight could now be on Mr Trumps inner circle.

The investigators are also looking for potential obstruction of justice in Mr Comeys firing, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. White House sources, however, have indicated that Mr Kushner is not a target of the investigation. His attorneys have repeatedly said he will cooperate with Mr Muellers investigators.

Mr Kushner voluntarily turned over documents he had from the campaign and the transition and those related to any contacts with Russia, according to a source familiar with the matter. Mr Kushner has been widely reported to have pushed Mr Trump to fire Mr Comey, starting a chain of events which finally led to the Russia probe. He was also among three top Trump campaign officials who attended an infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Kremlin-backed lawyer. He also established multiple contacts with Russians and other foreign nationals that he did not initially disclose on forms when he joined the government.

A White House official told CNN the Mueller teams questions about Mr Kushner did not come as a surprise. He would be among a list of people the investigators would be asking about, the source said. On Monday, former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates had been indicted and charged with money laundering.
He has spent most of the time since in London, where his wife is receiving treatment for cancer. He arrived in Islamabad on Thursday. (Photo: File)

Islamabad: Pakistan's ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif appeared in court on Friday, a day after returning from overseas to face corruption allegations that saw him ejected from office and targeted with an arrest warrant.

In a brief hearing in Islamabad, Sharif paid two surety bonds of five million rupees ($48,000) each before leaving under tight security, his lawyer Khawaja Haris said.

The court is set to reconvene on November 7.

The former premier, who was forced out by the Supreme Court in July over a scandal kindled by the Panama Papers leak, had been facing an arrest warrant for failing to appear at hearings since early October.

He has spent most of the time since in London, where his wife is receiving treatment for cancer. He arrived in Islamabad on Thursday.

Sharif became the 15th premier in Pakistan's 70-year history to be ousted before completing a full term, after the corruption investigation against him.

The claims against the prime minister stemmed from the Panama Papers leak last year, which sparked a media frenzy over the luxurious lifestyles and high-end London property portfolio owned by his family.

Sharif and his supporters have denied the allegations and hinted at a political conspiracy driven by the powerful military.

"I am going to Pakistan despite (my wife's) chemotherapy to appear in a bogus case," he told media in London before departing.

"Pakistan's system has contradictions, all this must be changed, now is the time to change it."

He said nothing to media outside the court in Islamabad, but his son-in-law Muhammad Safdar also hinted at a conspiracy.

"Till the time the courts are free from the fear of some other people, I can't expect any fair trial from this court," Safdar said outside the court.

Earlier this week Sharif summoned top officials from his eponymous ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to London for a summit on the party's leadership as legal pressure grows.

Sharif named loyalist Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as prime minister days after his ousting, and said his younger brother Shahbaz, currently the chief minister of Punjab province, would eventually succeed him.

Pakistani media reports have said the party plans to keep Sharif as a central figure during campaigning for a general election due to be held sometime next year, despite the Supreme Court barring him from holding office.
Islamabad: The Trump administration is believed to have shared a list of 20 terrorist groups with Pakistani officials, in its efforts toward helping Islamabad eliminate terrorists.

This comes after US secretary of state Rex Tillerson told senate foreign relations committee that the United States is going to test Pakistan by giving them a chance to act against terrorism, according to the Dawn.

While giving a rundown of his visit to Pakistan last week, Mr Tillerson informed that Pakistan has indicated to act against terrorists, if given information regarding their whereabouts.

The list, shared by US, differentiates among three types of militants groups  those who launch attacks in Afghanistan, those who target attacks inside Pakistan, and those who are focused on Kashmir.

The Haqqani network, a group that is claimed by US to plan attacks in Afghanistan from Fata, tops the list. Pakistan has however denied the charge.

Terrorist groups, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba are listed as those that focus on Kashmir.

Meanwhile, groups claimed to plan attacks in Pakistan are Lashkar-i-Jhanghvi, an offshoot of anti-Shia sectarian group Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan, and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, an umbrella organisation of various militant groups, relocated from Fata to Afghanistan.

Harakatul Jihadi-i-Islami, Jamaatul Ahrar, Jamaatud Dawa al-Quran and Tariq Gidar Group, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Commander Nazir Group, Indian Mujahideen, Islamic Jihad Union, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan ISIS-Khorasan, Al Qaeda in the Indian Sub-Continent and the Turkistan Islamic Party Movement are also on the list.
United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit. Ryan PYLE and Marlon Jones, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. James WOODS; Kelvyn Cullimore; Cottonwood Heights, Defendants-Appellees. American Civil Liberties Union of Utah; American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado; American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas; American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico; American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma; American Civil Liberties Union of Wyoming; American Civil Liberties Union, Amici Curiae. Nos. 15-4163 and 15-4187 Decided: November 01, 2017

Before BRISCOE, MURPHY, and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges. Scott Michelman, Public Citizen Litigation Group, Washington, D.C. (Taylor B. Ayres, Ayres Law Firm, Draper, Utah; Scott C. Borison, Legg Law Firm LLC, San Mateo, California; and Scott L. Nelson, Public Citizen Litigation Group, Washington, D.C., with him on the briefs), for Appellants. J. Michael Hansen, Nelson Jones, PLLC, Sandy, Utah (David C. Richards and Sarah Elizabeth Spencer, Christensen & Jensen, P.C., Salt Lake City, Utah, with him on the brief), for Appellees. Nathan Freed Wessler, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York, New York; Leah Farrell and John Mejia, ACLU of Utah Foundation, Inc., Salt Lake City Utah; Mark Silverstein and Sara R. Neel, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado, Denver, Colorado; Stephen Douglas Bonney, ACLU Foundation of Kansas, Overland Park, Kansas; Alexandra Freedman Smith, ACLU of New Mexico Foundation, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Brady R. Henderson, ACLU of Oklahoma Foundation, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Courtney A. Bowie, American Civil Liberties Union of Wyoming, Cheyenne, Wyoming, on the brief for Amici Curiae in support of Appellants.

I. Introduction

After Detective James Woods accessed a state database containing the prescription drug records of Plaintiffs Ryan Pyle and Marlon Jones, Pyle and Jones brought separate lawsuits pursuant to 42 U.S.C.  1983, each challenging Defendants' conduct as violative of the Fourth Amendment and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). In both suits, the district court dismissed the claims against Defendant Woods, concluding Woods was entitled to qualified immunity because the law governing warrantless access to prescription drug information by law enforcement was not clearly established. The district court also dismissed the FCRA claims because Defendants' actions fit within an exemption set out in the Act.

In Jones's suit, the district court dismissed the constitutional claims against the city of Cottonwood Heights with prejudice because Jones's complaint failed to state a claim for municipal liability plausible on its face. In Pyle's suit, the district court dismissed the constitutional claims against Cottonwood Heights without prejudice, concluding Pyle failed to notify the Utah Attorney General of those claims as required by Rule 5.1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Pyle and Jones each appealed. Exercising jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.  1291, we affirm the district court's judgments.

II. Factual Background

The Utah Controlled Substance Database (the Database) was created in 1995 pursuant to the Utah Controlled Substance Database Act (the Database Act). Utah Code Ann.  58-37f-101, -201. The Database is administered by the Utah Department of Occupational and Professional Licensing (DOPL) and contains data regarding every prescription for a controlled substance dispensed in the state [of Utah] to any individual other than an inpatient in a licensed health care facility. Id.  201(5). At the time of the events giving rise to this appeal, the Database Act permitted local law enforcement authorities to access the Database without a warrant. Id.  58-37f-301(2)(i) (2013).

Defendant James Woods is a detective in the Cottonwood Heights Police Department. In April 2013, Woods was informed by Utah's Unified Fire Authority (UFA) that medications, including opioids and sedatives, were missing from several UFA ambulances. Detective Woods received a list of 480 UFA employees with access to the ambulances from Robbie Russo, the Cottonwood Heights Chief of Police. Russo had obtained the list from Defendant Kelvyn Cullimore, the Mayor of Cottonwood Heights. Detective Woods accessed the Database and searched the prescription drug records of 480 UFA employees in an effort to develop suspect leads of those who have the appearance of Opioid dependencies. Consistent with Utah law at the time, Woods did not obtain a search warrant before accessing the Database. Based on the information Woods obtained from the Database search, he developed suspicions about Plaintiffs Pyle and Jones. Neither Plaintiff, however, was ever prosecuted for the thefts from the ambulances.

Pyle and Jones filed separate, but substantially similar, suits against Detective Woods, Mayor Cullimore, and the city of Cottonwood Heights, alleging, inter alia, violations of their Fourth Amendment rights because Woods did not obtain a search warrant before accessing the Database. Plaintiffs also alleged violations of the FCRA. Defendants filed motions to dismiss both matters, arguing, inter alia, (1) Plaintiffs' constitutional rights were not violated, (2) the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity, and (3) the FCRA does not prohibit a search of the Database under the facts at issue.

Defendants' motion to dismiss was granted in the Pyle matter. As to Pyle's Fourth Amendment claims against Woods and Cullimore, the district court concluded those defendants were entitled to qualified immunity because the law on the constitutionality of a warrantless search of the Database was not clearly established. The court dismissed Pyle's municipal liability claim against the city of Cottonwood Heights without prejudice, concluding the claim implicated the constitutionality of the Database Act and Pyle failed to notify the Utah Attorney General of the claim, as required by Rule 5.1(a)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Finally, the district court dismissed the FCRA claim because Defendants' conduct fell within an exception to the definition of consumer report.

Defendants' motion to dismiss Jones's lawsuit was also granted. As in the Pyle matter, the district court concluded Detective Woods and Mayor Cullimore were entitled to qualified immunity because the constitutional right at issue was not clearly established. The court dismissed the municipal liability claim against the city of Cottonwood Heights on the ground that Jones did not identify any municipal policy or show a link between a policy or custom and any injury caused by the alleged Fourth Amendment violation. The district court concluded Defendants' actions were exempt under the FCRA and dismissed that claim also.

The two cases have been consolidated for purposes of appeal. Neither Plaintiff appeals from the dismissal of the Fourth Amendment claims against Mayor Cullimore.

III. Discussion

A. Qualified Immunity

Qualified immunity is a defense that shields governmental officials performing discretionary functions  from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). Detective Woods raised a qualified immunity defense to the Fourth Amendment claims asserted against him by Pyle and Jones and sought dismissal of the claims. When a defendant raises a claim of qualified immunity, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to show that the defendant is not entitled to that immunity. Douglas v. Dobbs, 419 F.3d 1097, 1100 (10th Cir. 2005).

The qualified immunity test is a two-part inquiry involving the questions of whether the defendant violated the constitutional rights of the plaintiff and whether such rights were clearly established at the time of the defendant's conduct. Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 232, 236, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009). In each case, the district court addressed only the second prong, concluding the constitutionality of a warrantless search of a prescription drug database was not clearly established and, thus, Woods was entitled to qualified immunity. This court has the discretion to determine which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first in light of the circumstances in the particular case at hand. Id. at 236, 129 S.Ct. 808. The matters before this court involve a situation in which it is plain that a constitutional right is not clearly established but far from obvious whether in fact there is such a right. Id. at 237, 129 S.Ct. 808. Accordingly, under the circumstances, we will also address only the second prong of the qualified immunity test.

Whether a constitutional right is clearly established is a question of law which we review de novo. Johnson v. Martin, 195 F.3d 1208, 1215-16 (10th Cir. 1999). Our analysis focuses on whether, at the time of the incident, every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates the constitutional right at issue. Reichle v. Howards, 566 U.S. 658, 132 S.Ct. 2088, 2093, 182 L.Ed.2d 985 (2012) (quotations and alteration omitted). A reasonable official possesses this understanding if courts have previously ruled that materially similar conduct was unconstitutional, or if a general constitutional rule already identified in the decisional law applies with obvious clarity to the specific conduct at issue. Buck v. City of Albuquerque, 549 F.3d 1269, 1290 (10th Cir. 2008) (quotation and alternation omitted). To resolve the question, therefore, we must determine whether a Supreme Court or Tenth Circuit decision on point, or the clearly established weight of authority from other courts  have found the law to be as the plaintiff maintains. Clark v. Wilson, 625 F.3d 686, 690 (10th Cir. 2010) (quotation omitted). The law is not clearly established unless this precedent place[s] the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate. Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 179 L.Ed.2d 1149 (2011).

The touchstone of Fourth Amendment analysis is whether a person has a constitutionally protected reasonable expectation of privacy. California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 211, 106 S.Ct. 1809, 90 L.Ed.2d 210 (1986) (quotation omitted). Both Plaintiffs assert they had a reasonable expectation of privacy in their prescription drug records and, thus, the warrantless search of the Database conducted by Detective Woods necessarily violated their Fourth Amendment rights. According to Plaintiffs, the issue of whether they had a reasonable expectation of privacy is beyond debate because it was definitively decided by this court in Douglas. 419 F.3d at 1099.

In Douglas, the plaintiff brought suit under 42 U.S.C.  1983, alleging her civil rights were violated when defendants conducted a search of her pharmacy records pursuant to a warrant issued by a magistrate. Id. at 10991100. The Douglas plaintiff claimed the Assistant District Attorney violated her Fourth Amendment rights by authorizing the submission of the Motion and proposed Order to the magistrate judge to obtain approval to conduct the search. Id. at 1100. Relying on the Supreme Court's opinion in Whalen v. Roe, this court held that the right to privacy protecting the disclosure of medical information extended to an individual's prescription drug records. Id. at 1102; see also Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589, 599600, 97 S.Ct. 869, 51 L.Ed.2d 64 (1977) (considering whether a state's assembling of prescription information into a database violated the privacy rights of doctors and patients). The Douglas court, however, made it clear that a plaintiff alleging a Fourth Amendment violation is not entitled to relief merely upon identifying an abstract right to privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment. Douglas, 419 F.3d at 1103. A plaintiff must also show that the defendant's actions violated the right at issue. Id. at 1102-03.

Here, Plaintiffs allege Detective Woods violated their Fourth Amendment rights by searching the Database for their prescription drug information without a warrant. Plaintiffs concede that this court has never directly addressed whether a warrantless search by law enforcement of a patient's prescription records in a state database violates the Fourth Amendment but they are correct that a case directly on point is not required. Al-Kidd, 563 U.S. at 741, 131 S.Ct. 2074. Plaintiffs must only identify existing precedent that place[s] the  constitutional question beyond debate. Id. They assert two legal propositions, taken together, provided a clear answer to the Fourth Amendment question at the time Woods conducted the warrantless search of the Database, namely: (1) individuals have a constitutionally protected privacy right in their prescription drug records and (2) warrantless searches violate the Fourth Amendment absent an exception. This argument is unavailing.

In Douglas, this court stated that any right to privacy in prescription drug records is not absolute  as it is well settled that the State has broad police powers in regulating the administration of drugs by the health professions. 419 F.3d at 1102 n.3 (quotation omitted). It is uncontested that Detective Woods accessed the Database as part of an investigation into the theft of narcotics from UFA vehicles. More than ten years ago, this court recognized that [w]hether a warrant is required to conduct an investigatory search of prescription records  is an issue that has not been settled. Id. at 1103. Because, as we have held, the right to privacy in prescription drug records is not absolute, Plaintiffs' two-part paradigm does not provide an answer to the constitutional question. Instead, resolution of the issue will involve a determination of the scope of the constitutionally protected privacy right. At the time Detective Woods accessed the Database to search Plaintiffs' records, no court had conducted the necessary analysis and no judicial opinion held that a warrantless search of a prescription drug database by state law enforcement officials is unconstitutional.

Our precedent makes clear that any right to privacy in prescription drug records is not absolute under the circumstances present here. Neither Plaintiffs' two-part paradigm nor existing precedent places the Fourth Amendment question beyond debate. Accordingly, Plaintiffs cannot show Detective Woods acted contrary to clearly established law and Woods is entitled to qualified immunity on the claim he violated Plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment rights by accessing the Database without a warrant.

B. Municipal Liability

Qualified immunity is not available as a defense to municipal liability. Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U.S. 622, 637-38, 100 S.Ct. 1398, 63 L.Ed.2d 673 (1980); Mocek v. City of Albuquerque, 813 F.3d 912, 933 (10th Cir. 2015). Thus, our conclusion the law was not clearly established at the time Detective Woods accessed the Database without a warrant does not resolve the claims against the city of Cottonwood Heights. Those claims were resolved in two different ways by the two different district court judges.

In the Pyle matter, the district court refused to address the issue of whether Cottonwood Heights violated Pyle's constitutional rights. The court, instead, dismissed the claims without prejudice because Pyle failed to notify the Utah Attorney General of the lawsuit as required by Rule 5.1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Rule 5.1 requires a party drawing into question the constitutionality of a  state statute to promptly notify the state attorney general of the lawsuit and the question raised. Fed. R. Civ. P. 5.1(a)(2). Pyle argues he was not required to file a Rule 5.1 notice because he is only challenging the actions of the Defendants, not the constitutionality of the Database Act. The district court considered and rejected this argument, noting that allegations in Pyle's complaint and arguments he made in opposition to Defendants' Rule 12(b)(6) motion left no doubt Pyle was challenging the constitutionality of the Database Act. The district court is correct. Because Detective Woods acted in reliance on the Database Act when he accessed the Database without a warrant, if his actions are unconstitutional then the Database Act, which permitted him to do so, is also unconstitutional. Accordingly, Pyle was required by Rule 5.1 to notify the Utah Attorney General of his lawsuit and the district court did not err by dismissing his claims against Cottonwood Heights without prejudice.

Jones filed the required Rule 5.1 notice on October 29, 2015, two months after briefing was completed on Defendants' Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. Rule 5.1(c) requires that a district court give a state attorney general sixty days to intervene in the matter before enter[ing] a final judgment holding the statute unconstitutional. Fed. R. Civ. P. 5.1(c). If the court reject[s] the constitutional challenge, however, it may act within the sixty-day period. Id. Here, the Utah Attorney General received the Rule 5.1 notice via certified mail on November 9, 2015, less than one week before the district court ruled on Defendants' motion to dismiss. Cottonwood Heights argues the notice was not promptly filed, as required by Rule 5.1(a). Any delay in filing the Rule 5.1 notice, however, did not hinder Utah's ability to defend the statute at that time because the district court granted the motion to dismiss, concluding the allegations in Jones's complaint did not satisfy the pleading requirements for municipal liability.

On appeal, Jones challenges the dismissal of his municipal liability claims with prejudice, arguing the dismissal can be affirmed only if it is both patently obvious that he cannot prevail on the allegations contained in the complaint and that amendment of the complaint would be futile. See McKinney v. Okla. Dep't of Human Servs., 925 F.2d 363, 366 (10th Cir. 1991). [A] complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.  Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)). A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. Id. Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements are not sufficient to state a claim for relief. Id.

Municipalities can be liable under 42 U.S.C.  1983 only for their own unlawful acts. Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51, 60, 131 S.Ct. 1350, 179 L.Ed.2d 417 (2011). Accordingly, to prove a  1983 claim against a municipality, a plaintiff must show the existence of a municipal policy or custom which directly caused the alleged injury. City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 385, 109 S.Ct. 1197, 103 L.Ed.2d 412 (1989). A policy or custom includes a formal regulation or policy statement, an informal custom that amounts to a widespread practice, decisions of municipal employees with final policymaking authority, ratification by final policymakers of the decisions of subordinates to whom authority was delegated, and the deliberately indifferent failure to adequately train or supervise employees. Brammer-Hoelter v. Twin Peaks Charter Academy, 602 F.3d 1175, 1189 (10th Cir. 2010).

Here, the district court concluded Jones's complaint failed to adequately allege either a municipal policy, or a link between a policy or custom and the alleged injury. Jones argues his complaint is sufficient because it contains an allegation it was the policy of Cottonwood Heights to query employees' prescription drug records without a warrant. It is true Jones's complaint does so allege, but this allegation is the type of formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action that is insufficient to meet the Twombly pleading standard. 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955.

Jones's complaint contains insufficient factual allegations to support an inference that Detective Woods was following a policy or custom when he accessed Jones's information in the Database. Jones's assertion Chief Russo and Mayor Cullimore were personally involved in supplying the list of UFA employees to Woods is unavailing because the complaint does not allege that those acts, or any other acts Chief Russo or Mayor Cullimore purportedly took in relation to Detective Woods's search of the Database, were taken pursuant to a policy or custom. Accordingly, we agree with the district court that Jones's complaint does not contain factual allegations sufficient to support a plausible inference that a municipal policy directly caused the injuries Jones allegedly suffered.

Jones is correct that the district court sua sponte dismissed his claims against Cottonwood Heights as inadequately pled without first giving him an opportunity to amend the complaint. He asks this court to remand the matter to the district court so he may be given that opportunity. We deny the request.

After the district court issued its memorandum decision but before judgment was entered, Jones had an opportunity to file a motion seeking to amend his complaint to clarify his factual allegations against Cottonwood Heights. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2) (providing a party may move to amend his complaint at any time before judgment is entered); Ideal Steel Supply Corp. v. Anza, 652 F.3d 310, 325 (2nd Cir. 2011) (Prior to trial, after the time to amend as of right has passed, the court should freely give leave to amend when justice so requires (quotation and alterations omitted)). Jones, however, did not file a Rule 15(a)(2) motion. Instead, he filed a notice of appeal, presumably choosing to stand on his complaint rather than amend it. As we have concluded, that litigation strategy has not produced the result Jones hoped for. The courts of appeals are not second-chance forums where litigants, whose appellate arguments are deemed unavailing, are given the opportunity to relitigate their cases in ways previously available to them. Jones's request for a remand to provide him an opportunity to amend his complaint is denied because, rather than seek that relief from the district court when it was available to him, he instead chose to appeal the dismissal of his original complaint.

C. The Fair Credit Reporting Act

In addition to their constitutional claims, Jones and Pyle alleged Defendants violated their rights under the FCRA. Both Plaintiffs asserted Defendants' actions failed to comply with the requirements of 15 U.S.C.  1681b, which permits a consumer reporting agency to furnish a consumer report only under specifically delineated circumstances. The district court assumed, without deciding, that the DOPL is a consumer reporting agency and the information in the Database is a consumer report. It nevertheless dismissed the FCRA causes of action for failure to state a claim, concluding the communications from the Database were exempt under the Database Act because they were made in connection with an investigation of suspected misconduct relating to employment. See 15 U.S.C.  1681a(y)(1)(B)(ii).

On appeal, Plaintiffs argue the 15 U.S.C.  1681a(y) exception is inapplicable because the term investigation as used in that section should be read to incorporate a requirement of individualized suspicion. They assert any investigation must involve a preexisting suspicion of a particular individual. This argument finds no support in either the FCRA or the case law. And Plaintiffs' fishing expedition argument rings hollow in this situation where Detective Woods narrowed his search to those UFA employees who had access to the ambulances from which the drugs were stolen. Accordingly, we can find no reversible error in the district court's dismissal of Plaintiffs' FCRA claims and that dismissal is affirmed for substantially the reasons stated by the court in its orders dated October 1, 2015, and November 16, 2015.

IV. Conclusion

In Pyle's appeal (Appeal No. 15-4163), the district court's October 2, 2015, judgment granting qualified immunity to Detective Woods, dismissing the Fourth Amendment claims against Cottonwood Heights without prejudice, and dismissing the FCRA claims with prejudice is affirmed. In Jones's appeal (Appeal No. 15-4187), the district court's December 16, 2015, judgment granting qualified immunity to Detective Woods, dismissing the Fourth Amendment claims against Cottonwood Heights for failure to state a claim, and dismissing the FCRA claims with prejudice is also affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

. The motion of the ACLU et al. for leave to file a brief, as amici curiae, is granted.

. The Database Act was later amended to add a warrant requirement. Utah Code Ann.  58-37f-301(2)(k) (2016). In 2016, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) filed a Petition in the United States District Court for the District of Utah challenging the warrant requirement and arguing administrative subpoenas issued by the DEA are sufficient to gain access to the Database. DEA v. Utah Dep't of Commerce et al., No. 2:16-cv-611, 2017 WL 3189868 (D. Utah July 27, 2017). The district court issued a memorandum decision and order on July 27, 2017, granting the DEA's Petition to Enforce the Administrative Subpoenas. Id. The Utah district court's ruling that the DEA may access the Database without a warrant is consistent with a recent ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. See Or. Prescription Drug Monitoring Program v. DEA, 860 F.3d 1228 (9th Cir. 2017).

. The suits were assigned to two different district court judges.

. After Detective Woods accessed the database, the United States District Court for the District of Oregon concluded individuals have an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in their prescription information. Or. Prescription Drug Monitoring Program v. DEA, 998 F.Supp.2d 957, 966 (D. Or. 2014). It further concluded the DEA's use of administrative subpoenas to access prescription records violates the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 967. The latter ruling was reversed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. See Or. Prescription Drug Monitoring Program v. DEA, 860 F.3d 1228 (9th Cir. 2017); infra n.2.

. As the district court noted, Pyle's brief in opposition to Defendants' motion specifically states: If [the Database Act] allows government agents to obtain confidential and sensitive medical records in criminal investigations without a warrant or even reasonable suspicion of a crime then it does not comply with the U.S. and Utah Constitutions

. From the timing of the notice, it appears Jones filed the Rule 5.1 notice in response to the district court's identification of the omission in its October 1, 2015, ruling in the Pyle matter.

. We only consider the factual allegations related to the search of the Database because Jones expressly abandoned all federal constitutional claims except his Fourth Amendment claims. In his memorandum in opposition to Defendants' motion to dismiss, Jones referenced several paragraphs in his complaint that allegedly support the propositions that Mayor Cullimore directed and approved the actions of  Chief of Police Russo and Detective Woods and that Mayor Cullimore and Chief Russo initiated and implemented policies and procedures that disregarded Jones's constitutional rights. The referenced paragraphs, however, contain unrelated facts and appear to have been cited in error.

. The district court's memorandum and order was docketed on November 16, 2015. Final judgment was not entered until December 16, 2015. Accordingly, Jones had a full month in which to file a Rule 15(a)(2) motion. Instead, he filed a notice of appeal on December 11, 2015.

MURPHY, Circuit Judge.
United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit. PATRICK RYAN, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. CORRECTIONS CORPORATION OF AMERICA; CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS AND REHABILITATION; KEITH IVENS, Defendants - Appellees. No. 17-6057 Decided: November 02, 2017

Before LUCERO, O'BRIEN, and MORITZ, Circuit Judges.

ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

Proceeding pro se, California prisoner Patrick Ryan appeals the district court's order disposing of his 42 U.S.C.  1983 claims based on Ryan's alleged failure to exhaust his available administrative remedies. See id.  1997e(a). We affirm.

I

Ryan brought suit against Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), and CCA employee Keith Ivens (collectively, the defendants), alleging deliberate indifference under  1983. The defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that Ryan failed to first exhaust his available administrative remedies. See  1997e(a) (No action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under [ 1983]  by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted.). In support, the defendants provided affidavits indicating that Ryan failed to comply with CDCR's grievance policies. See Brodheim v. Cry, 584 F.3d 1262, 126465 (9th Cir. 2009) (describing California's multi-tiered administrative scheme for inmate grievances). The magistrate judge agreed that Ryan failed to exhaust all available administrative remedies and recommended granting the defendants' motion.

Ryan lodged several objections to the magistrate judge's report and recommendation. Before ruling on them, the district court concluded that the magistrate judge had properly converted the defendants' motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment. See Brown v. Zavaras, 63 F.3d 967, 969 (10th Cir. 1995). The district court then overruled Ryan's objections, adopted the magistrate judge's report and recommendation, and entered judgment for the defendants. Ryan appeals.

II

At the outset, Ryan suggests that the magistrate judge impermissibly converted the defendants' motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment without notifying him first. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(f). But the district court expressly concluded that the magistrate judge's September 6, 2016 order provided the parties with adequate notice of the conversion. And Ryan neither acknowledges the district court's ruling on this point nor explain[s] to us why [it] was wrong. Nixon v. City & Cty. of Denver, 784 F.3d 1364, 1366 (10th Cir. 2015). Thus, we assume the magistrate judge provided Ryan with sufficient notice and review the district court's order granting summary judgment to the defendants de novo, resolving all factual disputes and drawing all reasonable inferences in Ryan's favor. See Argo v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Kan., Inc., 452 F.3d 1193, 1199 (10th Cir. 2006); Fitzgerald v. Corr. Corp. of Am., 403 F.3d 1134, 1138 (10th Cir. 2005).

In challenging that order, Ryan first argues that the district court erred in failing to accept as true his complaint's assertion that he exhausted all available remedies. R. vol. 1, 30. But Ryan appears to be laboring under the misapprehension that the district court was proceeding under the standards that apply to a motion to dismiss. Instead, because the magistrate judge converted the defendants' motion to one for summary judgment, the district court correctly noted that Ryan was required to rebut [the defendants'] evidence that he failed to exhaust administrative remedies with evidence of his own. Id. at 181; see also Self v. Crum, 439 F.3d 1227, 1230 (10th Cir. 2006) (Unsubstantiated allegations carry no probative weight in summary judgment proceedings. (quoting Phillips v. Calhoun, 956 F.2d 949, 951 n.3 (10th Cir. 1992))). Accordingly, the district court didn't err in declining to accept as true the unsupported allegations in Ryan's complaint.

Next, Ryan argues that the district court erred in relying on the Martinez report. See Martinez v. Aaron, 570 F.2d 317, 31819 (10th Cir. 1978) (describing process by which district court may order prison officials to conduct investigation and prepare report so as to enable the trial court to decide  preliminary issues including those of jurisdiction). But Ryan doesn't address the district court's ruling that he waived this argument below by failing to timely object when the magistrate judge initially directed the defendants to prepare the report. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a) (requiring party to object to magistrate judge's order within 14 days; explaining that [a] party may not assign as error a defect in the order not timely objected to); Nixon, 784 F.3d at 1369 (affirming because appellant's opening brief contain[ed] nary a word to challenge the basis of the district court's decision). And in any event, we see no indication that either the magistrate judge or the district court relied on the Martinez report in a manner that prejudiced Ryan. The magistrate judge referred to that report only in a footnote that discussed Ryan's medical records. And the district court didn't address the report at all, other than to say that Ryan waived any challenge to it. Thus, any errorassuming one occurredwas harmless. See Palmer v. Hoffman, 318 U.S. 109, 116 (1943) (explaining that litigant who seeks to have a judgment set aside because of an erroneous ruling carries the burden of showing that prejudice resulted).

Ryan next presents various factual allegations that, if true, might conceivably support an argument that any administrative remedies he failed to exhaust weren't available to him.  1997e; see also Ross v. Blake, 136 S. Ct. 1850, 185960 (2016) (listing three kinds of circumstances in which an administrative remedy, although officially on the books, is not capable of use to obtain relief). The problem is that Ryan doesn't point to any evidence in the record that might support these factual allegations. See Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(8)(A) (requiring argument section of appellant's opening brief to contain citations to the  parts of the record on which the appellant relies). Accordingly, they don't provide a basis for reversing the district court's judgment. See id.; Self, 439 F.3d at 1230.

Finally, Ryan suggests that he received ineffective assistance of counsel; he cites Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), and argues that if counsel had performed adequately, the result would have been different. Aplt. Br. 10; see also Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694 (holding that in order to demonstrate violation of Sixth Amendment right to counsel, defendant must establish reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different). But as a civil litigant, [Ryan] has no Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Johnson v. Johnson, 466 F.3d 1213, 1217 (10th Cir. 2006). Accordingly, this argument fails.

* * *

We affirm the district court's order granting summary judgment to the defendants on Ryan's  1983 claims. As a final matter, we construe Ryan's assertion that he had insufficient time to prepare his opening brief as a motion for an extension of time and deny that motion as moot.

Entered for the Court

FOOTNOTES

. After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined unanimously that oral argument wouldn't materially assist in the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment isn't binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. But it may be cited for its persuasive value. See Fed. R. App. P. 32.1; 10th Cir. R. 32.1.

. We liberally construe pro se filings. But we won't act as an advocate for pro se litigants. Garrett v. Selby Connor Maddux & Janer, 425 F.3d 836, 840 (10th Cir. 2005).

. The magistrate judge also recommended denying Ryan's motion to transfer, and the district court ultimately adopted that recommendation. In a single sentence in his opening brief, Ryan asks us to reverse that portion of the district court's order. But he provides no argument as to why we should do so. Because such perfunctory complaints fail to frame and develop an issue sufficient to invoke appellate review, we decline to address this issue. Murrell v. Shalala, 43 F.3d 1388, 1389 n.2 (10th Cir. 1994).

. For similar reasons, we decline to address Ryan's assertion that he was denied timely and complete access to his C[entral] File, Aplt. Br. 10; Ryan fails to provide a record citation that might support this statement, see Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(8)(A).

Nancy L. Moritz Circuit Judge
Multi-lingual actor Prakash Raj on Friday came out in support of actor Kamal Haasan's remarks on "Hindu extremists".



"If instilling fear in the name of religion...culture...morality is not terrorising...then what is it. Just asking," tweeted Prakash Raj.



In his post titled "To whomsoever it may concern", Prakash Raj said "If abusing and manhandling young couples on the streets of my country in the name of morality is not terrorising... If taking the law into hands and lynching people on slightest doubt of cow slaughter is not terrorising...If trolling with abuse, threat...to silence even a slightest voice of dissent is not terrorising...Then what is terrorising... Just asking."



In a Tamil news magazine, Kamal Haasan had written, "The right wing cannot challenge talk of Hindu terrorists because terror has spread into their camp as well."



Prakash Raj had criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month for being silent on journalist-activist Gauri Lankeshs murder and called him a good actor.
Fresh confirmation of the corruption allegation against IAS officer Radheshyam Mopalwar emerged on Friday as Thane police arrested a private detective turned blackmailer who received Rs 1 crore to cover-up evidence of corruption.



Private detective Satish Mangle alleged to have provided the audio tapes to the television channels that unmasked Mopalwar aChairman and Managing Director of Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation- that resulted in his suspension.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis asked Mopalwar to step aside pending inquiry into his conduct.

Before the scandal, Mopalwar was given in-charge to implement the Mumbai-Nagpur Super Communication Highway, Maharashtra Samruddhi Mahamarg, which is Chief Minister Fadnavis' dream project.

Mangle said to have demanded Rs 10 crore from Mopalwar to stop release of more audio tapes on his misconduct. He was supposed to receive Rs 1 crore of that amount on Friday in Thane.

Acting on a tip-off, police caught Mangle red-handed as he received the money. "We arrested him in Thane," police commissioner Parambir Singh said. They also seized video tapes showing the detective demanding Rs 7 crore from Mopalwar.

Mangle said to have mediated the divorce of Mopalwar and his ex-wife and later used his personal relationship to extort money from both.

Last year, the detective demanded Rs 56 lakh from Mopalwar through his associates at the MSRDC headquarters in Bandra. A report had been filed against him at the Bandra police station for the extortion attempt.

In July, Mangle gave an audio tape to the news channels in which Mopalwar was negotiating Rs 4 crore to allot a plot in Borivali to on Jal Mehta.

However, the commissioner of Konkan Revenue Division said he did not receive application for the plot and clarified that no such deal had taken place.
United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. RICHARD BALLARD, Defendant - Appellant. No. 16-3274 Decided: November 01, 2017

Before BRISCOE, EBEL, and MATHESON, Circuit Judges.

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

Richard Ballard appeals an order requiring payment of restitution to victims of his wire fraud offense. Exercising jurisdiction under  1291, we hold that his plea agreement contains an enforceable waiver of appellate rights. Accordingly, we dismiss this appeal.

I. BACKGROUND

Mr. Ballard pled guilty to committing wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C.  1343 by diverting investor funds to his personal use. In his plea agreement, he waived his right to appeal his sentence, including any order of restitution imposed by the court. The district court sentenced him to 27 months in prison and ordered him to pay restitution of $415,477.11 to 11 victims who had submitted victim impact statements. Despite his appeal waiver, Mr. Ballard filed this appeal challenging his restitution order as excessive. He argues the district court erred by including in the restitution calculation (1) losses suffered by three individuals he claims were not victims of the offense, and (2) salary payments to his son he claims were not losses.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Jurisdiction

The Government argues we lack subject matter jurisdiction over this appeal due to 18 U.S.C.  3742(a), which provides that a defendant may appeal an otherwise final sentence if the sentence: (1) was imposed in violation of law, (2) was imposed as a result of an incorrect application of the sentencing guidelines, (3) is greater than the term of imprisonment under the applicable guidelines range, or (4) was imposed for an offense for which there is no sentencing guideline and is plainly unreasonable. 18 U.S.C.  3742(a). But we need not rely on  3742(a) to establish jurisdiction here. The district court's entry of a sentence constitutes a final order, thereby establishing subject matter jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.  1291. United States v. Hahn, 359 F.3d 1315, 1320 (10th Cir. 2004) (en banc); see 28 U.S.C.  1291 (providing that courts of appeals have subject matter jurisdiction over final orders of district courts).

The Government also suggests we lack jurisdiction due to 18 U.S.C.  3742(c), which limits when a defendant who entered a Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement that included a specific sentence may appeal. But the plea agreement here only included restitution as determined by the court rather than a specific amount of restitution. ROA, Vol. 1 at 28. Section 3742(c) is thus inapplicable. In any event, as explained above, we derive our jurisdiction from  1291. See Hahn, 359 F.3d at 1320.

B. Appellate Waiver

The primary question is whether to enforce Mr. Ballard's appeal waiver and dismiss his challenge to the restitution order. In this section, we provide legal background on the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA) and this court's Hahn framework for determining when to enforce appellate waivers. We then apply Hahn and conclude that Mr. Ballard's waiver bars this appeal.

1. Legal Background

a. The Mandatory Victims Restitution Act

Federal courts lack inherent authority to order restitution and may do so only when authorized by statute, such as the MVRA. United States v. Gordon, 480 F.3d 1205, 1210 (10th Cir. 2007). The MVRA requires courts to order restitution if the offense of conviction involves as an element a scheme, conspiracy or pattern of criminal activity. 18 U.S.C.  3663A(a)(2). Wire fraud includes as an element a scheme to defraud. United States v. Daniel, 749 F.3d 608, 613 (7th Cir. 2014); see also 18 U.S.C.  1343.

The maximum amount of restitution permitted under the MVRA is the full amount of each victim's losses as determined by the court. 18 U.S.C.  3664(f)(1)(A); see also Gordon, 480 F.3d at 1211 (providing that the MVRA authorizes restitution to cover victims' loss[es] resulting from the count to which [the defendant] pled guilty) (citing Hughey v. United States, 495 U.S. 411, 420 (1990)); United States v. James, 564 F.3d 1238, 1246 (10th Cir. 2009) (stating that courts determine restitution based on victims' actual loss). Restitution must not unjustly enrich crime victims or provide them a windfall. United States v. Ferdman, 779 F.3d 1129, 1132 (10th Cir. 2015).

In calculating loss under the MVRA, the court is not required to use absolute precision. United States v. Gallant, 537 F.3d 1202, 1252 (10th Cir. 2008). A sentencing court may resolve restitution uncertainties with a view towards achieving fairness to the victim, so long as it still makes a reasonable determination of appropriate restitution rooted in a calculation of actual loss. Id. (quotations omitted). Although the statute permits some imprecision, a restitution order that exceeds the maximum amounti.e., the victims' actual lossis unlawful under the MVRA. See Gordon, 480 F.3d at 1210.

b. Hahn's three-part framework

Under Hahn, we will enforce an appeal waiver if (1) the disputed appeal falls within the scope of the waiver of appellate rights, (2) the defendant knowingly and voluntarily waived his appellate rights, and (3) enforcing the waiver would [not] result in a miscarriage of justice. 359 F.3d at 1325. One of the situations we identified as a miscarriage of justice is where the sentence exceeds the statutory maximum. Id. at 1327 (quotations omitted). Enforcing an unlawful restitution order constitute[s] a miscarriage of justice because [the order] is beyond the remedy authorized by the statute. Gordon, 480 F.3d at 1212.

2. Analysis

Mr. Ballard does not dispute that he waived his appellate rights knowingly and voluntarily; the only questions here relate to (a) the scope of the waiver and (b) whether enforcement would result in a miscarriage of justice.

a. Scope of the waiver

Mr. Ballard's challenge to the restitution award falls within the scope of his appeal waiver. In paragraph 11 of the plea agreement, Mr. Ballard waive[d] any right to appeal  the components of the sentence to be imposed herein  ROA, Vol. 1 at 32. In paragraph 3, the components of the proposed sentence included restitution as determined by the court. Id. at 28. The plea agreement also stated that the defendant waives the right to appeal the sentence imposed in this case, except to the extent, if any, the Court imposes a sentence in excess of the sentence recommended by the parties under Rule 11(c)(1)(C). Id. at 32. But the parties did not recommend a specific restitution order amount, so this exception does not apply. Because restitution, as determined by the [district] court, was a component of the sentence, Mr. Ballard's appeal is within the scope of his waiver. Id. at 28.

2. Miscarriage of Justice

Mr. Ballard contends that the restitution order exceeds the MVRA's statutory maximum because it requires payments to individuals who were not victims and includes amounts of money that were not losses under the MVRA. The restitution order, he concludes, is thus unlawful and unenforceable. We disagree.

The district court's restitution order does not exceed the victims' actual loss and thus does not exceed the MVRA's statutory maximum. The court imposed a restitution award of $415,477.11the amount of investors' money the FBI determined Mr. Ballard embezzled for personal use. But the record supports that the victims' actual lossthe proper basis of a restitution calculationis actually much higher. Mr. Ballard's top two investors invested a total of $500,000 into his companies, which because of [Mr. Ballard's] fraud  were basically worth nothing to the investors in the end. ROA, Vol. 2 at 93. Even without taking into account the losses of the additional nine victims receiving restitution, the losses attributable to these two investors alone provide ample support for the restitution order. Nor does the restitution result in a windfall for the victims, as the amount each was awarded is still significantly less than what the U.S. Probation Office determined they were duea fact Mr. Ballard does not contest.

Mr. Ballard contends that losses attributed to three individuals should have been subtracted from the award because they were not victims. Although these individuals were never slated to receive restitution, their losses were included in the total amount of restitution to be divided among the 11 victims who submitted victim impact statements. Mr. Ballard has a point. If someone is not a victim deserving restitution under the MVRA, then the restitution awardwhich must reflect the actual loss suffered by the victimsshould not include losses attributable to that person. But any such error here is harmless because, as explained above, ample record evidence supports the restitution award even without these contested amounts, and thus there is no need to remand. See United States v. Seignious, 757 F.3d 155, 164 (4th Cir. 2014).

The same point applies to Mr. Ballard's argument that the restitution award erroneously includes salary payments to his son, which he contends were legitimate business expenses. Again, restitution is calculated based on the victims' actual loss. Even if the payments to his son were legitimate, the total amount of the investors' losses caused by his fraud far exceeded the actual restitution award of $415,477.11.

Finally, Mr. Ballard argues that our decisions in Gordon and United States v. Hudson, 483 F.3d 707 (10th Cir. 2007), permit him to appeal the legality of the restitution order. To the extent he argues his appellate waiver does not preclude us from engaging in the Hahn analysis above, he is correct. Under Hahn, we have jurisdiction over this appeal and a framework for deciding whether an appellate waiver applies. 359 F.3d at 1320, 1325. We have determined that Mr. Ballard has failed to demonstrate that any of the three Hahn factors preclude enforcement of the appellate waiver.

To the extent Mr. Ballard contends Gordon and Hudson allow him to circumvent our en banc decision in Hahn, we disagree. Taken together, these two cases support the proposition that we cannot enforce an appeal waiver when the sentence includes an unlawful restitution orderessentially a reiteration of Hahn's third prong, which provides that a sentence [that] exceeds the statutory maximum, such as an unlawful restitution order, would be a miscarriage of justice. Id. at 1327. Mr. Ballard's restitution order, however, was not unlawful, and thus these cases are inapt.

* * * *

In sum, Mr. Ballard signed a plea agreement waiving his right to appeal any component of his sentence, including restitution. He appealed the restitution order, challenging its legality. Applying Hahn's framework, we conclude that Mr. Ballard failed to demonstrate any of the three circumstances that would preclude application of the appellate waiver. First, his appeal falls within the scope of the waiver. Second, he does not contest that the waiver was knowing and voluntary. Third, the restitution order is within the MVRA's statutory maximum so enforcing the appellate waiver, regardless of whether the district court committed any errors in calculating the award, would not result in a miscarriage of justice.

Accordingly, we hold Mr. Ballard's waiver of appellate rights enforceable and dismiss this appeal.

Entered for the Court

FOOTNOTES

. Paragraph 3 of the plea agreement stated:3. Proposed (c)(1)(C) Sentence. The parties propose, as an appropriate disposition of the case: (a) 27 months in prison  ; (b) 5 years of supervised release;  (e) restitution as determined by the court.ROA, Vol. 1 at 28 (emphasis added).Paragraph 11 of the plea agreement stated:11. Waiver of Appeal and Collateral Attack. The defendant knowingly and voluntarily waives any right to appeal or collaterally attack any matter in connection with this prosecution, his conviction, or the components of the sentence to be imposed herein  In other words, the defendant waives the right to appeal the sentence imposed in this case, except to the extent, if any, the Court imposes a sentence in excess of the sentence recommended by the parties under Rule 11(c)(1)(C).Id. at 32 (emphasis added).

. Although more than 20 investors suffered losses due to Mr. Ballard's fraud, only those who submitted victim impact statements were awarded restitution.

. Section 3742(c) refers to Rule 11(e)(1)(C). In 2002, Rule 11(e)(1)(C) was renumbered as Rule 11(c)(1)(C), though no substantive changes were made.

. The plea agreement expressly preserved Mr. Ballard's right to appeal two issues: (1) ineffective assistance of counsel and (2) prosecutorial misconduct.

. According to the FBI's forensic report, the restitution award included losses of $18,500, $6,600, and $8,000 attributable to three individualstwo of whom the Government conceded were not victims.

. In Gordon, we held that the defendant's appellate waiver preserved her right to appeal an unlawful restitution order. 480 F.3d at 1208-09. The restitution order in question was unlawful because it included losses not associated with the sole count of conviction and thus exceeded the MVRA. Id. at 1207. Applying Hahn, we declined to enforce the appellate waiver because an appeal of an unlawful restitution order [wa]s beyond the scope of the waiver, id. at 1210, and enforcing an unlawful restitution order would constitute a miscarriage of justice, id. at 1212 (citing Hahn, 359 F.3d at 1327). Mr. Ballard's restitution order is not unlawful, so this case is inapt.

. In Hudson, the defendant, who had pled guilty to selling counterfeit software, appealed the amount of restitution, arguing the copyright holder had failed to demonstrate any losses related to his offense. 483 F.3d at 709. Citing Hahn and Gordon, we held that a defendant cannot be deemed to have waived his right to appeal the legality of the court's restitution order and proceeded to find the restitution order unlawful because there was no support in the record that the defendant's actions had deprived the copyright holder of potential sales. Id. at 711. Enforcing an unlawful restitution order constitutes a miscarriage of justice under Hahn, and we declined to do so. Id. Again, the restitution order here is not unlawful.

Scott M. Matheson, Jr. Circuit Judge
Many Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are set to join the race for 'Institute of Eminence' tag which would provide them a complete autonomy in their functioning.



Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, along with the some of the older Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and central universities are also expected to apply for it.

The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry recently had an interaction with these institutions to encourage them to join the race.

The Centre has initiated a move to establish a total of 20 'Institutes of Eminence' as a distinct category of deemed-to-be-universities so that they become "world class" institutions over the next 10 years and also figure in the international list of top 100 best universities in the world.

Ten out of these twenty distinct category of deemed-to-be-universities will be established by declaring best of the government-run higher educational institutions as 'Institutes of Eminence' in public sector while the remaining ten will be set up by approving applications to be coming coming from the private sector.

"All these institutions have been suggested to apply for the tag by December," sources added.

"We will apply for 'Institute of Eminence' tag. WE are preparing our applications," IIT-Delhi director V Ramgopal Rao told DH when asked.

Under the scheme, the Centre will provide a fund of Rs 1000 crore for a period of five years to each of the 10 higher institutions to be selected and declared as the 'Government Educational Institutions of Eminence' under the scheme.

The Government, however, will not provide any fund for establishment of the proposed higher educational institutions in private sector.

Other six older IITs including IIT-Bombay, IIT-Madras and IIT-Kharagpur will also join the race, official sources in the All India Council for Technical Institute (AICTE) said.

"All the older IITs, IISc, some of the IIMs and some of the central universities will apply for 'Institute of Eminence' status. Institutes proposal will be evaluated in a challenge mode and only best of the institutions will be selected for the tag," he added.

The HRD Ministry has identified as many as 102 universities and colleges in the country as "potential" to higher educational institution for grant of the 'Institution of Eminence' status under the scheme.
Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar on Friday, said that the country's second International Prakrit University will be established at Vaishali in Bihar, the birth place of Mahavira, the 24th Tirthankara of Jainism. It has to be mentioned that the ground work is under progress to establish the first such university at Shravanabelagola.



The minister was addressing the gathering during the inaugural ceremony of the International Prakrit Conference, here. Ananth Kumar said it is a proud moment for Karnataka as the first Prakrit University is being established at Shravanabelagola. "The Union government will provide necessary finical aid for the establishment of the university. I will speak to Prakash Javadekar, Minister for Human Resource Development, in this regard," he said.

Ananth Kumar said that he would approach Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi about the establishment of the second university. He assured the Union government's support for the Mahamasthabisheka scheduled to be held in February 2018. The invitation will be extended to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said. Ananth Kumar also released the translated work of 'Gomatasara'.

Shravanabelagola Jain mutt pontiff Charukeerthi Bhattaraka Swami said, the Union government had provided Rs 90 crore for the previous Mahamastakabhisheka. The state government has provided Rs 21 crore for the development of the Prakrit University. He urged the minister to provide Rs 100 crore to develop the varsity to match the international standards.
Ahead of the Tipu Jayanthi in view of maintaining law and order in the city, the City Police have issued stern warnings to history-sheeters under the Mysuru City Police Commissionerate on Friday. The police conducted a history-sheeters parade at the City Armed Reserve (CAR) Grounds in the city.



As many as 991 people are listed as history-sheeters for their involvement in various criminal activities. Out of them, 500 persons, including two women, attended the parade. The remaining 491 were absent for various reasons. Accused, serving judicial custody, and those suffering from health issues were absent for the parade.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Law and Order, N Vishnuvardhan, issuing warnings said, anti-social elements would be booked under Goonda Act if they are involved in criminal activities on any occasion. The DCP said as many as 30 sheeters have appealed to the department to remove their names from the list. We will remove the names if they have changed their ways, said the DCP.

While 330 history-sheeters are under KR Sub-Division, NR Sub-Division has the highest of 406 sheeters and Devaraja Sub-Division has the least 255 sheeters. The police enlist accused who were involved in criminal activities such as murder, robbery, sexual harassment, chain-snatching, fraud among other crimes.

Stating that the police have received complaints about hafta collection, the DCP said that the police and Anti-Rowdy Squad are watching the people involved in such activities. The police collected fingerprints, phone numbers, address, photographs and other details of the sheeters.
Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Rajasthan Police, in an inter-state operation, arrested three persons, including group chairman and managing director (CMD) for allegedly duping 25,000 people in the state.



Police said Group CMD Manoranjan Roy from Bengaluru and three others belong to Pincon Spirits Limited and they had duped people, who invested money in company's 56 crore debentures.

SOG ADG Umesh Mishra said, "Along with Roy, Vinay Singh from Bengaluru, accounts head Raghu Shetty from Varanasi was also arrested.".

SOG, IG Dinesh M N told DH, "West Bengal-based Pincon Group made an excuse to dupe public by giving them false hope of exchanging Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency bank notes after demonetisation last November. The company announced that they were accepting deposits in demonetized notes for investment purposes".

"The Kolkata-based firm, which has its office in Rajasthan also raked in cash deposits worth more than Rs 1 crore in banned notes", Dinesh added.

Police have unearthed that Roy, the alleged mastermind of the scheme, had a bank credit limit of Rs 400 crore, which he allegedly created using scammed money.

The accused were brought to Jaipur and subjected to a medical examination. They will be produced before the court and thoroughly interrogated. A case was registered against the accused under various sections of the IPC and the IT Act.
United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Adam LONGORIA, Defendant-Appellant. No. 16-17645 Decided: November 01, 2017

Before TJOFLAT, MARCUS, and JORDAN, Circuit Judges. Michelle Thresher Taylor, Arthur Lee Bentley, III, Shauna S. Hale, Suzanne C. Nebesky, U.S. Attorney's Office, TAMPA, FL, for Plaintiff-Appellee. Aliza Bloom, Adam Joseph Nate, Federal Public Defender's Office, TAMPA, FL, Rosemary Cakmis, Donna Lee Elm, Federal Public Defender's Office, ORLANDO, FL, for Defendant-Appellant.

Adam Longoria was convicted of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison under an Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) sentence enhancement. This ACCA sentence enhancement, applicable when a defendant has three previous convictions  for a violent felony or a serious drug offense, or both, committed on occasions different from one another, was based upon three previous serious drug-related convictions: two counts of distribution of cocaine and one count of participation in a conspiracy with intent to distribute cocaine.

Longoria appeals his conviction and sentence on four grounds. Three are squarely foreclosed by our precedent. See infra part IV. Longoria's first issue, whether the District Court erred in determining that he had three predicate offenses that occurred on different occasions under the ACCA, is also unavailing. Accordingly, we affirm his conviction and sentence.

I.

In 2009, Longoria was charged with one count of participation in a conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, a violation of 21 U.S.C.  846, and two counts of distribution of cocaine, a violation of 21 U.S.C.  841(a)(1). The indictment charged that the conspiracy occurred from an unknown date which was no later than December, 2007, through on or about December 10, 2008. The indictment also charged that the two distribution offenses occurred on November 24, 2008 and December 3, 2008.

Longoria pleaded guilty to each of the three counts. He admitted to the following facts in his plea agreement. Longoria told undercover detectives that his co-defendant, Richard Caraballo, could sell them kilograms of cocaine for $20,000 per kilogram. Undercover detectives contacted Longoria on November 24, 2008, and Longoria arranged a meeting between the detectives and Caraballo. The detectives purchased five and a half grams of cocaine from Caraballo on that date. Longoria and Caraballo met with the detectives again on December 3, 2008, when the detectives purchased thirty-five grams of cocaine. One week later, on December 10, Longoria met with the detectives to verify that they had $20,000 to purchase one kilogram of cocaine from Caraballo before the detectives went to Caraballo's house. Authorities later discovered 1,142 grams of cocaine at Caraballo's house.

Longoria was sentenced to thirty-seven months in prison in April 2010. The judgment stated that the distribution offenses ended on November 24 and December 3, 2008, and the conspiracy offense ended on December 10, 2008. Longoria was incarcerated and later left prison under supervised release.

In 2016, Longoria was arrested and charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, a violation of 18 U.S.C.  922(g)(1). Longoria pleaded guilty and admitted the following facts. In March 2015, while on supervised release, Longoria had arranged via Facebook to sell a rifle to an undercover detective for $300. He told the detective that he was a felon and that his wife would carry out the sale. The detective met with the woman, and she exchanged the rifle with him for $300. Longoria called the detective after the sale to explain that he had been afraid to sell the rifle in person because of his past arrest.

The maximum sentence under 18 U.S.C.  922(g)(1), without a sentence enhancement, is ten years in prison. Longoria's plea agreement noted this maximum. The Probation Office, however, later indicated that Longoria qualified as an armed career criminal under the ACCA and was subject to a fifteen-year statutory minimum sentence. After this discovery, the District Court gave Longoria the opportunity to withdraw his plea. He declined. The District Court then examined Longoria's 2009 plea agreement and the transcript of the change-of-plea hearing, and, relying upon the three counts relating to the incidents of November 24, December 3, and December 10, 2008, determined that the three previous convictions constituted serious drug offense[s]  committed on occasions different from one another. 18 U.S.C.  924(e)(1). Consequently, the District Court sentenced Longoria to fifteen years in prison.

Longoria appeals his conviction and sentence on four grounds. First, he claims that the District Court erred by finding that his three predicate offenses occurred on occasions different from one another to qualify for a sentence enhancement under the ACCA. Second, he claims the District Court improperly considered non-elemental facts, the dates of his prior convictions, in determining that they qualified as serious drug offenses that occurred on different occasions under the ACCA. Third, he claims that his sentence enhancement violated his rights under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Fourth, he raises a new argument that his statute of conviction, 18 U.S.C.  922(g), is beyond Congress's grant of power under the United States Constitution's Commerce Clause and is therefore unconstitutional.

II.

This Court reviews de novo whether prior offenses meet the ACCA's different-occasions requirement. United States v. Sneed, 600 F.3d 1326, 1330 n.5 (11th Cir. 2010). We also review de novo whether a prior conviction qualifies as a serious drug offense for purposes of the ACCA. United States v. Braun, 801 F.3d 1301, 1303 (11th Cir. 2015). Constitutional challenges to sentences are reviewed de novo. United States v. Weeks, 711 F.3d 1255, 1259 (11th Cir. 2013). Longoria's second constitutional claim, a Commerce Clause challenge to 18 U.S.C.  922(g), is reviewed for plain error because he raises it for the first time on appeal. United States v. Wright, 607 F.3d 708, 715 (11th Cir. 2010). Plain error occurs if (1) there was error, (2) that was plain, (3) that affected the defendant's substantial rights, and (4) that seriously affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.  Id. (quoting United States v. Jones, 289 F.3d 1260, 1265 (11th Cir. 2002)).

III.

Under the ACCA, a defendant found guilty of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon pursuant to 18 U.S.C.  922(g) is subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of fifteen years' imprisonment if he has three prior convictions for a violent felony or serious drug offense committed on occasions different from one another. 18 U.S.C.  924(e)(1). To determine the nature of a prior conviction, a court is generally limited to examining the statutory definition [of the offense of the prior conviction], charging document, written plea agreement, transcript of plea colloquy, and any explicit factual finding by the trial judge to which the defendant assented. Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 16, 125 S.Ct. 1254, 1257, 161 L.Ed.2d 205 (2005). The existence of both prior convictions and the factual nature of those convictions, including whether they were committed on different occasions, may be determined by district courts so long as they limit themselves to Shepard-approved documents. Weeks, 711 F.3d at 1259.

To qualify under  924(e)(1), prior convictions must have arisen from separate and distinct criminal episode[s] and be for crimes that are temporally distinct. Sneed, 600 F.3d at 1329 (quotations omitted). When evaluating whether crimes were committed on different occasions, we have held that so long as predicate crimes are successive rather than simultaneous, they constitute separate criminal episodes for purposes of the ACCA. United States v. Pope, 132 F.3d 684, 692 (11th Cir. 1998).

This Court has yet to address the resolution of the ACCA's different-occasions inquiry when a substantive drug distribution offense occurs within the span of a conspiracy to distribute that drug. We have, however, addressed an analogous issue under a similar statutory scheme. In United States v. Rice, 43 F.3d 601 (11th Cir. 1995), we affirmed a sentence enhancement under 21 U.S.C.  841(b)(1)(A) for substantive drug offenses that overlapped with a conspiracy. We held that crimes which occur on different occasions or are otherwise distinct in time may be used as predicate offenses, and we determined that acts constituting substantive drug offenses and conspiracies which are separate in time and locale and  requir[e] separate planning and execution are sufficiently unrelated for  841(b)(1)(A) enhancement purposes. Id. at 608. We later determined a substantive drug offense that occurred within a conspiracy was sufficiently unrelated under this statute, even if it may have resulted from criminal conduct in furtherance of one overall conspiracy. United States v. Hansley, 54 F.3d 709, 717 (11th Cir. 1995).

The present substantive-conspiracy different-occasions question under the ACCA has been answered elsewhere. The Eighth Circuit addressed it in United States v. Melbie, 751 F.3d 586 (8th Cir. 2014). In Melbie, the Eighth Circuit concluded that a possession offense that occurred during the period of the conspiracy and was related to the object of the conspiracy was a discrete episode in a series of events. Id. at 587. As such, the possession offense and conspiracy offense occurred on different occasions for ACCA purposes. Id.

We agree with the Eighth Circuit in Melbie, and with our rationale under a similar statute in Rice and Hansley, that a drug conspiracy and a substantive drug offense occurring within its span may have been committed on occasions different from one another under the ACCA. Here, the facts of Longoria's case make this determination simple. Longoria's three predicate crimes are temporally distinct. His two distribution offenses occurred at clear and obvious points in time separated by nine daysNovember 24, 2008 and December 3, 2008and were discrete episodes in the series of events constituting his participation in the drug conspiracy.

The conspiracy offense is no less clearly defined for ACCA purposes. The District Court consulted Shepard-approved documents to determine the conspiracy concluded December 10, 2008, a full week after Longoria's second distribution offense. There is no question that Longoria had the opportunity to desist but chose instead to commit another crime during the seven days between selling thirty-five grams of cocaine and consummating his conspiracy to sell one kilogram of cocaine. United States v. Proch, 637 F.3d 1262, 1266 (11th Cir. 2011). Because Longoria's predicate crimes were successive rather than simultaneous, they constitute separate criminal episodes under the ACCA. Pope, 132 F.3d at 692. Accordingly, the District Court did not err in determining that Longoria's two convictions for distribution of cocaine and one conviction for participation in a conspiracy with intent to distribute cocaine qualified as predicate offenses for a sentence enhancement under the ACCA.

IV.

Longoria's three remaining argumentsthat the District Court erred in looking at the dates of his prior convictions because they were non-elemental facts, that his sentence enhancement violates his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights, and that his statute of conviction is unconstitutionalare directly foreclosed by Eleventh Circuit and Supreme Court precedent. As such, they require little discussion.

A.

Longoria argues that the District Court should not have looked at non-elemental facts, the dates of his prior convictions, in Shepard-approved documents when deciding whether his predicate offenses were committed on different occasions. This argument is directly foreclosed by our precedent. We held directly to the contrary in United States v. Weeks, 711 F.3d 1255 (11th Cir. 2013). In Weeks, we explained that for ACCA purposes, district courts may determine both the existence of prior convictions and the factual nature of those convictions, including whether they were committed on different occasions, so long as they limit themselves to Shepard-approved documents. Id. at 1259 (emphasis added). That is precisely what occurred here. Because Longoria's claim is in direct opposition to Weeks, it must fail.

B.

Longoria's claim that his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights were violated by the District Court determining his convictions occurred on different occasions is unavailing due to Eleventh Circuit and Supreme Court precedent. We held in Weeks that district courts are permitted to determine the factual nature of the convictions, including whether they were committed on different occasions. Id. The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has held that a penalty provision, which simply authorizes a court to increase the sentence for a recidivist, need not be alleged by the government in its indictment. Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 22627, 118 S.Ct. 1219, 1222, 140 L.Ed.2d 350 (1998) (interpreting 8 U.S.C.  1326). Longoria's arguments on this point cannot succeed.

C.

Longoria's Commerce Clause challenge to  922(g) is without merit. We have clearly held that  922(g) is constitutional under the Commerce Clause. United States v. McAllister, 77 F.3d 387, 391 (11th Cir. 1996) (We hold that  922(g)(1) is not an unconstitutional exercise of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause). Therefore, his argument is foreclosed at this stage. See Sneed, 600 F.3d at 1332 (describing the strength of this Court's prior precedent rule). Longoria has not shown the District Court committed error, let alone plain error, on this issue.

V.

The District Court did not err in determining that Longoria had three ACCA predicate convictions that were committed on occasions different from one another. 18 U.S.C.  924(e)(1). Longoria's guilty plea to three serious drug offenses relating to the events of November 24, December 3, and December 10, 2008all separated by one week or moreconstituted sufficient temporal distinctness under the ACCA. All of Longoria's remaining arguments also fail. Accordingly, we affirm the District Court's judgment and uphold Longoria's conviction and sentence.

AFFIRMED.

FOOTNOTES

. 18 U.S.C.  922(g)(1).

. Id.  924(e)(1).

. Id.

. 21 U.S.C.  841(a)(1).

. Id.  846.

. Longoria confirmed that this version of facts was correct at his change-of-plea hearing.

. Longoria also confirmed that this version of facts was correct at his change-of-plea hearing.

. The woman who met with the detective to consummate the sale, Crystal Arjona, was actually Longoria's girlfriend.

. Longoria argues that the District Court's use of the words transaction and sale in reference to the December 10, 2008 incident constitutes error because sale is not an element of conspiracy. The District Court's language, while imprecise, does not constitute error here. Longoria's sentence was enhanced because his two distribution convictions and one conspiracy conviction constituted the necessary three serious drug offense predicates.

. Longoria was sentenced to an additional twenty-one months, to run concurrently with the fifteen-year sentence, because this crime was a violation of the terms of his supervised release in the 2009 case.

. Appellee argues that part of this argument is unpreserved and thus should be reviewed only for plain error. But the arguments below relating to this issue are messily interwoven and at least some appear to have been properly preserved. Here, under a de novo review standard, we affirm on this issue. Therefore, we would also affirm under a plain error standard and need not reach the question of which standard of review should apply to each issue and sub-issue in this argument.

. Although this Court has not spoken directly to this issue to date, it has been argued here before. In United States v. Bargeron, 435 Fed.Appx. 892 (11th Cir. 2011) (per curiam), we avoided the question of whether one federal drug conspiracy offense and two Florida drug trafficking offenses satisfied the different-occasions inquiry by determining that even if the district court erred by concluding that Bargeron's conspiracy conviction qualified as a third predicate ACCA conviction, any such error was harmless because the necessary three predicate convictions existed in that case with or without the conspiracy. Id. at 894.

PER CURIAM:
United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ABEL SABINO-HERNANDEZ, a.k.a. Abel Hernandez, a.k.a. Abel Sabino, a.k.a. Jose Hernandez Sabino, a.k.a. Jose Sabino-Hernandez, Defendant-Appellant. No. 17-11562 Decided: October 31, 2017

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, JILL PRYOR and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

Abel Sabino-Hernandez, a citizen of Mexico, appeals his 20-month sentence for illegal reentry into the United States, in violation of 8 U.S.C.  1326(a) and (b)(2). He argues that during sentencing the prosecutor engaged in misconduct by misrepresenting the number of times he had entered and been removed from the United States and that the district court relied on the misrepresentations when it imposed a 14-month upward variance from the high end of his guidelines range, rendering his sentence procedurally unreasonable. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.

I.

After Sabino-Hernandez pled guilty to illegal reentry, the probation office prepared a presentence investigation report (PSI). The PSI detailed Sabino-Hernandez's several passages to the United States. In September 1999, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered him in California and permitted him to return voluntarily to Mexico. The PSI additionally noted that Sabino-Hernandez admitted returning to Mexico (from the United States) in 2001 to care for a family member. By 2003, Sabino-Hernandez was back in the United States, where he was arrested and convicted of various state-law offenses. In October 2010, CBP again encountered Sabino-Hernandez, this time in Arizona, and again permitted him to return voluntarily to Mexico. Less than a week later, CBP found Sabino-Hernandez back in Arizona. This time, CBP issued a Notice and Order of Expedited Removal, pursuant to which Sabino-Hernandez was deported to Mexico. In September 2016, Sabino-Hernandez was arrested and jailed in Dekalb County, Georgia, for discharging a firearm near a highway or street and reckless conduct. After confirming that Sabino-Hernandez was a citizen of Mexico and had entered the United States illegally, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took him into custody.

The PSI calculated a base offense level of 8 under U.S.S.G.  2L1.2(a). With a two-level decrease for acceptance of responsibility under U.S.S.G.  3E1.1(a), Sabino-Hernandez's total offense level was 6. The PSI assigned him no criminal history points, although it noted his previous arrests and convictions, including for driving under the influence, aggravated assault, battery, criminal trespass, and theft by taking, all of which occurred in 2003 and 2004. Based on an offense level of 6 and a criminal history category of I, the PSI calculated Sabino-Hernandez's guidelines range to be 0 to 6 months' imprisonment.

Neither party objected to the PSI, and at sentencing, the district court accepted the PSI's guidelines range calculation. Sabino-Hernandez advocated for a within-guidelines sentence. The government, however, argued for an increased sentence because, according to the prosecutor, this would be the sixth time that [Sabino-Hernandez] has entered or attempted to enter the United States illegally and the fourth time [the government has] had to remove him. Doc. 27 at 2-3. The government asserted that the current Sentencing Guidelines underestimated the seriousness of Sabino-Hernandez's conduct and that his range would have been 24 to 30 months' imprisonment under a previous version of the Guidelines. For these reasons, the government asked for a sentence of 24 months' imprisonment.

The district court agreed with the government that an increased sentence was warranted and sentenced Sabino-Hernandez to 20 months' imprisonment. In support of the upward variance, the court emphasized the number of times that the defendant has come back to the United States after either being removed or just turned around at the border, which, in the court's view, demonstrated a high risk of recidivism. Id. at 8. Sabino-Hernandez objected to the reasonableness of the sentence. He did not, however, object to the prosecutor's statements regarding the number of times he had illegally reentered and been removed.

This is Sabino-Hernandez's appeal.

II.

We generally review prosecutorial misconduct claims de novo, but where the defendant fails to make an objection to the alleged misconduct before the district court, we review such claims for plain error. United States v. Merrill, 513 F.3d 1293, 1306-07 (11th Cir. 2008). Under plain error review, we may reverse only if we conclude that there is error, the error is plain, and the error affected the defendant's substantial rights. Molina-Martinez v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1338, 1343 (2016). Once these three conditions have been met, the court of appeals should exercise its discretion to correct the forfeited error if the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). In the sentencing context, the test for determining whether an error has impacted a defendant's substantial rights is whether there is a reasonable probability that, but for the error, the outcome of the proceeding would have been different. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

To establish prosecutorial misconduct, the defendant must demonstrate that: (1) the prosecutor's remarks were improper, and (2) the remarks prejudicially affect[ed] the substantial rights of the defendant. Merrill, 513 F.3d at 1307 (internal quotation marks omitted). A statement is improper if it is a material misstatement. United States v. Hands, 184 F.3d 1322, 1333 (11th Cir. 1999).

We review the procedural reasonableness of a sentence for an abuse of discretion. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007). A sentence may be procedurally unreasonable if, as relevant here, the district court selects a sentence based on clearly erroneous facts. Id. at 51. A factual finding is reviewed for clear error and must be supported by substantial evidence. United States v. Robertson, 493 F.3d 1322, 1329-30 (11th Cir. 2007). A fact will be clearly erroneous only if, upon review, we are left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed. Id. at 1330 (internal quotation marks omitted).

III.

On appeal, Sabino-Hernandez argues that the government misrepresented the number of times he illegally reentered and was deported. Although the precise nature of his argument is unclear, it appears that he is alleging prosecutorial misconduct and challenging the procedural reasonableness of his sentence. We reject both claims.

We first conclude that Sabino-Hernandez cannot show error, plain or otherwise, in either of the prosecutor's statements. The prosecutor correctly represented, based on information in the PSI, the number of times Sabino-Hernandez was in the country illegally: (1) CBP encountered him in Arizona in 1999 and permitted him to return to Mexico; (2) he returned to Mexico in 2001 (presumably from the United States); (3) he was convicted in 2004 based on arrests in the United States in 2003 and 2004; (4) CBP encountered him in Arizona in October 2010; (5) less than a week later, and after he had voluntarily departed, he was encountered again in Arizona; and (6) he was in the United States in 2016 when he was arrested in Dekalb County. These six data points support the prosecutor's contention that Sabino-Hernandez had entered the country at least six times. Thus, Sabino-Hernandez cannot demonstrate that the prosecutor's comment was a material misstatement such that it could constitute misconduct. See Merrill, 513 F.3d at 1307

Nor can Sabino-Hernandez show that the prosecutor committed misconduct in stating that the government had to remove Sabino-Hernandez on three previous occasions. It is true that technically Sabino-Hernandez was only removed once previously, because he voluntarily departed the other two times. Assuming for the sake of argument that the prosecutor's technically imprecise statement was improper, Sabino-Hernandez cannot make the second required showing for prosecutorial misconduct: that the statement prejudiced him. See id. The district court acknowledged that Sabino-Hernandez returned illegally to the United States either being removed or just turned around at the border. Doc. 27 at 9 (emphasis added). Thus, the district court clearly considered the different circumstances under which Sabino-Hernandez previously had departed from the United States when he encountered immigration officials.

For these same reasons, Sabino-Hernandez's procedural reasonableness challenge fails. The district court was entitled to rely on the prosecutor's statement that Sabino-Hernandez had illegally reentered the country six times because that fact was not erroneous. See Gall, 552 U.S. at 51. And assuming for argument's sake that the prosecutor's statement that the government had to remove Sabino-Hernandez on three prior occasions was clearly erroneous, Sabino-Hernandez cannot demonstrate that the district court relied on that statement in determining his sentence. Thus, he cannot demonstrate that his sentence is procedurally unreasonable. See id.

We therefore affirm the sentence the district court imposed.

AFFIRMED.

FOOTNOTES

. Doc. refers to the numbered entry onto the district court's docket in this case.

. Sabino-Hernandez states twice in his brief on appeal that his sentence was far greater than necessary to comply with the 18 U.S.C.  3553 factors, but he never provides reasons in support of this assertion. Appellant's Brief at 9, 12. To the extent Sabino-Hernandez seeks to challenge the substantive reasonableness of his sentence, we conclude the district court was within its discretion to impose the sentence it did based on the  3553(a) factors. See Gall, 552 U.S. at 41, 51. The district court provided sufficiently compelling [justification] to support the degree of the variance it imposed, including the need for deterrence in light of Sabino-Hernandez's multiple reentries and prior convictions United States v. Irey, 612 F.3d 1160, 1186 (11th Cir. 2010) (en banc) (internal quotation marks omitted).

PER CURIAM:
The Encinitas City Council is moving forward to consider two maps, one of which would decide how the city is split into districts.

The council on Oct. 30 at a special meeting decided, with Council member Mark Muir voting no and Deputy Mayor Tony Kranz abstaining, to dwindle down a total of 22 maps to two citizen-submitted ones.

Either of the two maps would divide Encinitas into four districts with an at-large mayor. According to the submitters comments on the citys website, one of the maps, titled Citizen 15, would Keep core communities in tact [and] give all four a stake in El Camino Real. The other map, Citizen 16, would Keep the core of communities together, cluster neighborhoods, and give three communities responsibility for the coast, El Camino Real and the Escondido Creek San Elijo Watershed, according to the submitter.

Doug Johnson, the demographer the city hired to help with the maps, said it would be impossible for Encinitas to keep all five of its existing communities in tact and meet the demands of attorney Kevin Shenkman, who threatened the city with a lawsuit in July because he said the city is diluting the votes of minorities with its current at-large election system, thus violating the states Voting Rights Act of 2001.

He also accused Encinitas of being discriminatory against Latinos, saying the city has a long history of hostility toward Latinos as evidenced by the fact that its first mayor repeatedly made racist statements during council meetings in the late 1980s.

Shenkman has targeted many cities around California to move from at-large elections to district elections. In San Diego County, Carlsbad, Oceanside, Poway and Vista recently made the moves to district elections to avoid litigation from Shenkman.

Currently, Encinitas residents are asked to vote for two at-large candidates for city council and one candidate for mayor every two years. In the past, the mayor was a rotating position.

In August, the city council declared its intent to move toward district elections to avoid litigation and is deciding whether to implement four districts with an at-large mayor or five districts with a rotating mayor.

Johnson advised the council that it cant achieve all the goals perfectly. Populations in Olivenhain and Cardiff made it difficult to not divide New Encinitas, for example, he said.

We have to come up with the best map that balances all of those, he said. All the maps have challenges, but equal population is the roughest thing to get. You cant follow natural borders like freeways.

The council appeared to generally favor map 16 but is expected to make a decision at the Nov. 8 meeting. The map would then be adopted Nov. 15. The city must make a decision by Nov. 28 to stay within a 90-day litigation hold window.

But many people at the meeting also spoke in opposition to the city moving forward with districts at all.

Deputy Mayor Tony Kranz said he believes Encinitas should keep its current at-large system, at least while a similar case in Poway is being heard.

Former Poway Mayor Don Higginson filed a federal lawsuit earlier this month challenging the constitutionality of the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA), according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Because Kranz received little support for waiting until the Poway decision  although Muir and Council member Joe Mosca each said theyre also curious about that court ruling  Kranz decided to abstain from the Oct. 30 vote.

Were doing a wrong thing but I dont want it to be a no vote so people dont think I have a problem with one map or the other, he said.

Kranz also asked if Encinitas could fight this issue in court and form a class action lawsuit with Poway.

Christopher Skinnell, the special counsel the city hired regarding districting, said the city could sue but there would be no guarantee it would be the same judge from the Poway case, and therefore the Encinitas decision may be entirely different from Poways.

Kranz and Mosca were unanimously appointed to a subcommittee for potential litigation regarding the California Voting Rights Act at the end of the meeting.

Muir, the only voting council member who voted no, said he was tempted to abstain but decided not to. He said he wished the issue could go to the residents to vote on, but if the city must choose between the two maps, he preferred 16.

Other residents urged the council to fight the districting process.

Resident Sandy Beck said the city should not give in to a bully lawyers demands.

We are unique here, she said. We have resolve to fight for our rights. I think youll see a clear majority of citizens here want you to fight this. We are worth it.

Mayor Catherine Blakespear, however, said it is important the city move forward with district elections to avoid possible litigation. The city is already spending money on lawsuits involving the housing element update, she said.

Robert McFarlane, a 47-year resident who helped the city incorporate, said, above anything, Encinitas should keep in mind the values it was founded on, of five communities banding together to keep their unique characters alive.

Districts will be implemented in the November 2018 or November 2020 election.
By Darryl Fears

24 October 2017

(The Washington Post)  The Trump administration made history Tuesday in proposing that nearly 77 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico be made available for companies wanting to purchase federal oil and gas leases  the largest offering ever in the United States.In announcing the sale, the Interior Department compared the targeted waters to about the size of New Mexico and said the first lease sales off Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida are scheduled for March next year. The event will include all available unleased areas on the Gulfs Outer Continental Shelf, a statement said.Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke first broached such a sale shortly after he took office in March 2017, proposing to offer 73 million acres for leases. This part of the Gulf was the scene of arguably the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent spill of 215 million gallons of crude that fouled beaches from Louisiana to Florida.Years later, the spills effects are still being felt, according to a report by the nonprofit group Oceana.Scientists have detected hydrocarbons from the well in 90 percent of pelican eggs more than 1,000 miles away in Minnesota, where the birds spend summer after wintering along the gulf. Dolphins living in Barataria, La., have experienced mortality rates 8 percent higher than dolphin populations elsewhere, and their reproduction success dropped 63 percent.British Petroleum, which owned the operation, had paid penalties in excess of $61 billion as of July 2016. []Few conservation groups reacted to Interiors announcement Tuesday, although several had called the unprecedented lease sale a terrible idea when Zinke first discussed it this spring. Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Clubs Lands Protection Program, said it similarly opposed a bid by Trumps predecessor, Barack Obama, to open up 66 million acres to leases last year.Manuel hinted at the reasons behind the muted response Tuesday. Its not really news, he said of the actual announcement. While larger in scale, it is not significantly different from what Obama proposed. The gulf, Manuel said, has become a sacrifice zone for the oil and gas industry. [more]
The third Public Health Collaboration (PHC) annual conference is coming to London in May 2018 for an in-depth discussion that is sure to be filled with a wealth of valuable insight into todays most challenging health issues.

The PHC is a not-for-profit organisation of scientists, healthcare professionals and laypersons which passionately advocates and follows a philosophy that lifestyle and nutrition are first line medicine and the cornerstone of good health.

Since its launch in 2016, it is dedicated to training health practitioners working with people with type 2 diabetes on how to integrate simple and practical lifestyle advice, such as low carb principles, into care management.

This year, the PHC held its second annual conference at the Metropolitan University Business School of Manchester. The weekend meet saw 250 people attend per day, some of whom came from as far as Australia to see leaders like Dr Jason Fung speak.

Next year, PHC members and attendees will be gathering at the Royal College of General Practitioners in London, on Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th of May, with a turnout expected to be even larger than the previous year.

During the two-day seminar, PHC founding members will be joined on stage by some of the biggest names in the low carb movement, including Professor Tim Noakes, Dr Zoe Harcombe and Dr Aseem Malhotra.

Charlotte Summers, Chief Operating Officer of Diabetes.co.uk, will be among the speakers at the event. She will be talking about the success of the Low Carb Program in helping people with type 2 diabetes to reclaim their health.

On May 19 and 20 will be held talks geared toward the general public as well as healthcare staff on a variety of topics around low carb nutrition and lifestyle as well as how to prevent and reverse metabolic disease with functional medicine.

In addition to the talks, 100 lucky people will have the opportunity to dine with the speakers and conference delegates for a very special dinner at the rooftop terrace and state rooms of the Royal College of General Practitioners.

This gives guests a chance to mingle with lifestyle medicine thought-leaders in an informal setting, get to know what makes them tick as well as enjoying the company of likeminded friends  all the while enjoying a stunning real food dinner.

Tickets to attend the full weekend of events including the exclusive Saturday evening networking dinner are available for purchase here.
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United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. MIGUEL MANRIQUEZ, a.k.a. 3 Eyes, a.k.a. Paisa, a.k.a. Juan Ricardo Campos, Defendant-Appellant. No. 16-17311 Decided: November 02, 2017

Before ROSENBAUM, JULIE CARNES, and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges.

After a jury trial, Miguel Manriquez was convicted of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C.  846, 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(A). On appeal, he argues that the government did not present sufficient evidence to identify him as one of the conspirators involved in a methamphetamine-distribution scheme operating within Georgia state prisons. He also argues that the district court abused its discretion by refusing to suppress a photograph of a tattoo on his back that the government belatedly disclosed to him in violation of the court's discovery order. After careful review, we affirm.

I.

We review de novo the sufficiency of the evidence to support a criminal conviction. United States v. Davis, 854 F.3d 1276, 1292 (11th Cir. 2017), petition for cert. filed, (U.S. June 15, 2017) (No. 16-9642). In doing so, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the government and draw all reasonable inferences and credibility determinations in favor of the jury's verdict. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Our inquiry is limited to whether a reasonable trier of fact could conclude that the evidence establishes the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. The evidence need not exclude every hypothesis of innocence, and the jury is free to choose between reasonable constructions of the evidence. United States v. Rodriguez, 732 F.3d 1299, 1303 (11th Cir. 2013).

A.

We begin by summarizing the trial evidence. As a result of George O'Leary's arrest for trafficking in methamphetamine and his subsequent decision to cooperate with the authorities, law enforcement became aware of a methamphetamine-distribution scheme operating within the Georgia prison system. O'Leary told investigators that he had been buying large amounts of methamphetamine from someone he knew as Francisco, who was somewhere in the Georgia prison system. According to O'Leary, Francisco coordinated drug deals using a cell phone, directing O'Leary where to pick up the drugs and how to make payment. From various pieces of information obtained during the investigation, investigators were able to identify Francisco as Jose Rolando Arroyo Balcazar (Arroyo), who was housed in Georgia's Wilcox State Prison.

As part of the investigation, O'Leary made several recorded calls to Arroyo to set up controlled buys of methamphetamine. These controlled buys led to the arrests of Arroyo's sister, whose house was often used as a rendezvous point, and Yesenia Montufar, who ran drugs for Arroyo. In addition to these recorded calls, investigators obtained a wiretap to monitor communications to and from one of the cell phones used by Arroyo.

O'Leary and Montufar both testified at Manriquez's trial. They each explained that Arroyo introduced them by phone to someone named Miguel. At one point, Arroyo told O'Leary that Miguel was his new methamphetamine supplier. Thereafter, O'Leary spoke with Miguel several times by phone. During one conversation, O'Leary talked to Miguel about sending him $400 for methamphetamine. During another call, O'Leary and Miguel discussed wiring money, and Miguel mentioned the name Carmen Manriquez.

Montufar likewise was introduced to someone named Miguel by Arroyo. She knew Arroyo because her brother was in prison with him. In addition to running drugs for Arroyo outside the prison, Montufar also smuggled things into the prison, such as cell phones and sometimes drugs. After Arroyo introduced her to Miguel, whom Arroyo also referred to as Three Eyes, Montufar spoke with Miguel on the phone. Miguel asked Montufar to call him Angel. Angel never told Montufar where he was located, but Arroyo told her that he was in Calhoun State Prison. In one phone call intercepted during the wiretap, Miguel referred to himself as Three Eyes and stated that he was in Calhoun.

Based on information obtained during the investigation, such as the names Miguel and Manriquez being mentioned, along with references to Calhoun State Prison, investigators began looking for Miguel Manriquez. And they found someone by that namethe defendantwho was incarcerated in Calhoun State Prison. Further investigation revealed that Manriquez listed Carmen Manriquez as his brother and contact person, and that a known alias of Manriquez was Miguel Angel Manriquez.

Montufar's testimony also linked Angel with a back tattoo of the Virgin Mary. Montufar explained that, on one occasion, she and Angel had been talking on the phone about tattoos. Angel said that he had a tattoo of the Virgin Mary on his back and he sent Montufar a picture of it with his cell phone. A similar tattoo was found on Manriquez's back after his arrest in connection with this case. As part of the booking process at the Hoover City Jail, a corrections officer took a picture of a tattoo on Manriquez's back. The tattoo was of the Virgin Mary with the words Three Eyes above it. Montufar testified that the tattoo in the booking photograph looked like the tattoo that Angel sent her.

Both Montufar and Manriquez were held in the Hoover City Jail on these charges. Montufar testified that she spoke to Angel through a door in the jail and recognized his voice as the person she spoke to on the phone. She did not see him, however. Montufar also identified Angel's voice on a call between Arroyo and Miguel, associating Angel's voice with Miguel. She was not on the call, but she recognized his voice from her own conversations with him.

B.

In arguing that he should have been granted a judgment of acquittal, Manriquez's central contention is that the government's evidence failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was the person identified in the evidence variously as Miguel, Angel, and Three Eyes. He points out that O'Leary and Montufar could not identify him at trial and did not connect him with the voice they heard on the phone. As a result, he asserts, the government failed to prove that he was the voice on the phone.

Although no direct evidence connected Manriquez to the methamphetamine-distribution conspiracy, the government provided sufficient circumstantial evidence to identify Manriquez as the voice on the phone. The test for sufficiency of evidence is identical regardless of whether the evidence is direct or circumstantial, and no distinction is to be made between the weight given to either direct or circumstantial evidence. United States v. Mieres-Borges, 919 F.2d 652, 65657 (11th Cir. 1990). But [w]hen the government relies on circumstantial evidence, reasonable inferences, not mere speculation, must support the conviction. United States v. Mendez, 528 F.3d 811, 814 (11th Cir. 2008).

Here, reasonable inferences support Manriquez's conspiracy conviction. O'Leary and Montufar's testimony, along with corroborating recordings and transcripts, established that the voice on the phone was known as Miguel, Angel, or Three Eyes, that he was incarcerated at Calhoun State Prison, that he had a tattoo of the Virgin Mary on his back, and that he knew someone named Carmen Manriquez. Other evidence established that Manriquez was incarcerated at Calhoun State Prison during the relevant period, that his brother's name is Carmen Manriquez, that a known alias of his was Miguel Angel Manriquez, that he has a tattoo of the Virgin May on his back with the words Three Eyes above it, and that Montufar identified his voice at the Hoover City Jail where he was being held in connection with this offense. Given the substantial overlap between the facts known about the voice on the phone and Manriquez and the absence of any reasonable possibility of mere coincidence, a jury could reasonably infer, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the voice identified on the phone calls as Miguel, Angel, and Three Eyes belonged to Manriquez.

Accordingly, the district court properly denied Manriquez's motion for judgment of acquittal.

Manriquez raises a new argument on appeal that was not presented to the district court at trial, though he does so only in passing and without citing any legal authority. Even assuming that this argument has been properly raised on appeal, it is reviewed for plain error, which Manriquez cannot establish. See United States v. Hunerlach, 197 F.3d 1059, 106869 (11th Cir. 1999) (new grounds for acquittal not raised to the district court are reviewed for plain error).

Manriquez asserts that, even if evidence was sufficient to prove that the voice on the phone was his, the government failed to present evidence that he was part of a conspiracy to distribute or possess with the intent to distribute methamphetamine. He points out that there is no evidence that he ever actually or constructively possessed methamphetamine.

But the government did not need to prove that Manriquez possessed methamphetamine in order to sustain a conspiracy conviction. To sustain a conviction under 21 U.S.C.  846, the government must prove (1) that an illegal agreement existed to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance; (2) that the defendant knew of the agreement; and (3) that the defendant knowingly and voluntarily joined the agreement. United States v. Barron-Soto, 820 F.3d 409, 418 (11th Cir. 2016). O'Leary's testimony along with corroborating recordings and transcripts demonstrate that Manriquez was knowingly involved in a conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. According to O'Leary, Arroyo said that Manriquez was his new methamphetamine supplier and, thereafter, O'Leary spoke with Manriquez about sending him $400 for methamphetamine. It was not plainly erroneous for the district court to fail to sua sponte grant a judgment of acquittal on this ground.

II.

Manriquez maintains that the government should not have been able to use at trial the booking photograph of his back tattoo, which provided a clear link between Manriquez and the person Montufar knew as Angel, because the government failed to disclose the photograph by the deadline in the district court's discovery order. He argues that the district court abused its discretion by failing to suppress the photograph.

In a criminal trial, the government must permit the defendant to inspect and to copy or photograph certain documents, including photographs, that are within the government's control if they are material to preparing the defense or the government intends to use them in its case-in-chief at trial. Fed. R. Crim. P. 16(a)(1)(E). In this case, the district court had entered a discovery order requiring the government to disclose any such evidence at least fourteen days before trial. And it is undisputed that the government violated the order by disclosing the booking photograph eleven days before trial. But the district court denied Manriquez's motion to prevent the government from introducing the evidence at trial. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 16(d)(2) (providing that that the court may sanction a party for failure to comply with Rule 16, including by granting a continuance or prohibiting the party from introducing the undisclosed evidence).

We review the district court's decision whether to impose a sanction for the violation of a discovery order for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Euceda-Hernandez, 768 F.2d 1307, 131112 (11th Cir. 1985); see United States v. Campagnuolo, 592 F.2d 852, 858 (5th Cir. 1979) (district courts have broad discretion to administer sanctions for the violation of a valid discovery order). A discovery violation does not automatically prohibit the use of unrevealed evidence. United States v. Rodriguez, 799 F.2d 649, 652 (11th Cir. 1986). We will reverse a conviction based on the government's violation of a discovery order only if the violation affected the defendant's substantial rights. United States v. Rivera, 944 F.2d 1563, 1566 (11th Cir. 1991). Prejudice is measured mainly by how the violation affected the defendant's ability to prepare a defense. United States v. Chastain, 198 F.3d 1338, 1348 (11th Cir. 1999).

Here, Manriquez has not shown substantial prejudice due to the district court's refusal to exclude the booking photograph. While the evidence was important to the government's case, the government missed its deadline by just three days, and Manriquez had eleven days before trial to develop a defense strategy in response to the evidence. Manriquez asserts that the government's belated disclosure prevented him from taking certain actions, such as researching statistics about the prevalence of Virgin Mary tattoos or producing a photo lineup of similar tattoos to present to Montufar under cross examination, but he fails to explain how an additional three days would have made a difference in that regard. Moreover, the district court found that defense counsel was on notice that [Montufar] had made reference to the tattoo, so he at least had some inkling that that might be at issue even before the photograph was disclosed. More importantly, if [Manriquez] had, in fact, been prejudiced by the delayed disclosure of [the photograph], he should have moved for a continuance. See Rivera, 944 F.2d at 1566. But he did not, and instead elected to proceed to trial.

In light of the relatively minor violation of the district court's discovery order, the court acted well within its discretion by refusing to impose the extreme sanction of exclusion of the evidence. United States v. Rodriguez, 765 F.2d 1546, 1557 (11th Cir. 1985) (internal quotation marks omitted). Manriquez has not shown that the belated disclosure prejudiced his ability to prepare a defense. See Chastain, 198 F.3d at 1348. While it may have been within the district court's discretion to exclude the evidence despite a lack of prejudice, see Campagnuolo, 592 F.2d at 858 (We find no abuse of discretion where, as here, a district judge for prophylactic purposes suppresses evidence that, under a valid discovery order, the government should have disclosed earlier, even if the nondisclosure did not prejudice the defendants.), the absence of prejudice to Manriquez's substantial rights precludes granting relief on appeal. See Rivera, 944 F.2d at 1566

III.

In sum, sufficient evidence supports Manriquez's methamphetamine-conspiracy conviction, and the district court did not abuse its discretion by allowing the government to introduce at trial a photograph of a tattoo on Manriquez's back that was not timely disclosed by the deadline in the court's discovery order.

We therefore AFFIRM Manriquez's conviction.

FOOTNOTES

. Investigators determined that the individual with whom O'Leary, Montufar, and Arroyo communicated used the same cell-phone number throughout the course of the investigation.

. This Court adopted as binding precedent all Fifth Circuit decisions prior to October 1, 1981. Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc).

. Manriquez appears to dispute that fact on appeal, but he did not object to or dispute that finding below, and he points to nothing in the record to contradict it now.

PER CURIAM:
Tracy O'Day remembered as high priestess of PR'

A celebration of her life will take place March 17, 2018, on her favorite holiday, St. Patrick's Day.



O'Day

Public relations veteran Tracy O'Day died suddenly on Oct. 25 at her home in Seattle. She was 69.

O'Day has been called the high priestess of real estate and construction PR, and operated her firm, Tracy O'Day Marketing, for much of the last 34 years.

She had a rich personal life, mentored numerous people who became lifelong friends, and had a talent for connecting people that enriched many lives, said her daughter, Laura Johnson, in a death notice.

O'Day was born in 1947 and grew up on a ranch in Great Falls, Montana. She earned a degree in psychology and social work from Eastern Washington University, and arrived in Seattle in 1972.

Her peripatetic early career included an eight-year stint as a co-owner of Wee Bit O'Ireland, a retail import store in Pioneer Square, which she helped operate until 1980. She also served as a media relations and marketing director for several businesses, including the Benaroya Co. and Jack McGovern's Music Hall.

O'Day founded her marketing firm in 1984, and specialized in commercial real estate and construction clients.

She told the DJC in 2000 that she found her way into the real estate industry while working for developer Jack Benaroya.

Jack is a legend, so when I struck out on my own, all of the development community wanted to talk to me, she recalled. Not that they wanted to hire me. They just wanted to know about Jack.

O'Day dropped her solo act in 2000 when she merged with the PR and marketing firm Firmani & Associates. Her client list at the time included CBRE, Bentall US LLC, Harbor Properties, Kauri Investments, Commercial Real Estate Women Northwest, Associated Builders and Contractors of Western Washington, Construction Associates Inc., and Donald B. Murphy Contractors.

She told the DJC she looked forward to spending more time on client service, which is my love, and less on administrative duties.

In 2004, O'Day announced her retirement with the proviso that she might come back to work one day.

The retirement didn't take.

She just kept trying to retire or at least slow down, but people kept calling her, said Kathleen Garrity, a friend and former president of ABC of Western Washington. She loved her clients and her work.

O'Day is survived by her daughter Laura Johnson, grandchildren Jake and Cejay, sister Kelly O'Day Parsons, brother-in-law Jerry, and nephews Jeremy and Josh (Molly), as well as many cousins and adopted loved ones.

A celebration of O'Day's life will take place March 17, 2018, on her favorite holiday, St. Patrick's Day, at a time and place to be announced. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Humane Society, Pasado's Safe Haven or to a favorite charity.




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BISMARCK, N.D. (AP)  The builder of the Dakota Access oil pipeline and the federal agency that permitted the project are objecting to an effort by American Indian tribes to bolster protections for their water supply.

Lawyers for Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners and the Army Corps of Engineers argue separately in court documents that the proposals by the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux are unnecessary or unwarranted.





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By JOHN O'CONNELL

Capital Press

EAGLE, Idaho  A Boise woman plans to make a miniature rental home of the 6-ton (5.4-metric ton) replica Russet Burbank that's traversed the U.S. since 2011 aboard the Idaho Potato Commission's Great Big Idaho Potato Truck.

Kristie Wolfe, 35, spent two seasons as a crew member on the truck, created to commemorate the commission's 75th anniversary.





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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP)  The West Virginia Tourism Office says it has obtained rights to use the song Take Me Home, Country Roads in marketing and will begin this week.

Made famous by John Denver, it calls the mountain state almost heaven, has been an unofficial West Virginia anthem almost since its 1971 release and was named an official state song in 2014.





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Q. Shanghai (China), Barbados (Caribbean), Soloi (Athenian colony, Cilicia), Buncombe County (North Carolina): All are colorful, distinctive places lending their names to verbs. Can you name and define any of them?

A. The verb shanghai suggests the meaning, to kidnap men to work on ships, says Anu Garg on his A.Word.A.Day website. Since China was often the destination for these ships, Shanghai came to mean to recruit forcibly. In a similar vein, Barbados, formerly a British colony, became the verb barbados, to forcibly ship someone to another place to work. Between 1640 and 1660, thousands of Irish people were sent by the British as indentured servants to work in Barbados and elsewhere in the Caribbean.





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United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. ELBIA NOEMI LEMUS-DE UMANA, KAREN JULISSA UMANA-LEMUS, OSCAR LEONIDAS UMANA-LEMUS, and YEIMI LISSETH UMANA-LEMUS, Petitioners, v. JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS III, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL, Respondent. 16-121 Decided: November 01, 2017

PRESENT: JON O. NEWMAN, RICHARD C. WESLEY, CHRISTOPHER F. DRONEY, Circuit Judges. FOR PETITIONERS: Judy Resnick, Far Rockaway, NY. FOR RESPONDENT: Benjamin C. Mizer, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General; Shelley R. Goad, Assistant Director; Julia J. Tyler, Trial Attorney, Office of Immigration Litigation, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC.

Petitioner Elbia Noemi Lemus-de Umana (Umana) and her minor children, Karen Julissa, Oscar Leonidas, and Yeimi Lisseth Umana-Lemus, all natives and citizens of El Salvador, seek review of a December 15, 2015, decision of the BIA affirming a July 13, 2015, decision of an Immigration Judge (IJ) denying Umana's application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). In re Elbia Noemi Lemus-de Umana, Karen Julissa Umana-Lemus, Oscar Leonidas Umana-Lemus, and Yeimi Lisseth Umana-Lemus, Nos. A206 791 253/254/255/256 (B.I.A. Dec. 15, 2015), aff'g Nos. A206 791 253/254/255/256 (Immig. Ct. N.Y. City July 13, 2015). We assume the parties' familiarity with the underlying facts and procedural history in this case.

Under the circumstances of this case, we have reviewed both the IJ's and the BIA's opinions for the sake of completeness. Wangchuck v. DHS, 448 F.3d 524, 528 (2d Cir. 2006). The standards of review are well established. See 8 U.S.C.  1252(b)(4); Gjolaj v. Bureau of Citizenship & Immigration Servs., 468 F.3d 140, 142 (2d Cir. 2006). Petitioners have failed to challenge the dispositive bases of the agency's ruling, presenting no argument regarding either their proposed social group needed to state a claim for asylum and withholding of removal, or the government acquiescence needed to establish entitlement to CAT relief. Accordingly, Petitioners have effectively waived review. See Norton v. Sam's Club, 145 F.3d 114, 117 (2d Cir. 1998) ([I]ssues not sufficiently argued in the briefs are considered waived and normally will not be addressed on appeal.). Even were we to excuse that waiver, our review of the record reveals no error in the agency's decisions.

To establish eligibility for asylum and withholding of removal based on membership in a particular social group, the applicant must establish both that the group is legally cognizable, see Paloka v. Holder, 762 F.3d 191, 195 (2d Cir. 2014), and that the applicant has suffered past persecution or has demonstrated a well-founded fear or likelihood of future persecution on account of her membership in that group, see Rodas Castro v. Holder, 597 F.3d 93, 100 (2d Cir. 2010), i.e., the membership in the group must be at least one central reason for the alleged persecution, 8 U.S.C.  1158(b)(1)(B)(i). A particular social group is cognizable if it refers to a discrete class of persons and the relevant society perceives, considers, or recognizes the group as a distinct social group. Matter of W-G-R-, 26 I. & N. Dec. 208, 210, 217 (BIA 2014) (internal quotation marks omitted); see Paloka, 762 F.3d at 195 (deferring to the BIA's construction of particular social group).

The agency reasonably found that Umana's initially proposed particular social group, people who oppose and are threatened by gangs, could apply to a diverse array of people with very differing characteristics. See Matter of M-E-V-G-, 26 I. & N. Dec. 227, 239 (BIA 2014) (particular social group cannot be amorphous, overbroad, diffuse, or subjective). And Umana failed to show that the proposed group was perceived as a distinct social category in El Salvador. Paloka, 762 F.3d at 196 ([W]hat matters is whether society as a whole views a group as socially distinct.). Moreover, Umana did not testify that she opposed the gangs; even if she had, she presented no evidence that her persecutors were aware of her stance, so she could not show that any harm was on account of her social group. Rodas Castro, 597 F.3d at 100; Kyaw Zwar Tun v. U.S. INS, 445 F.3d 554, 565 (2d Cir. 2006) (applicant must show that his persecutor is, or could become, aware of the applicant's possession of the disfavored belief or characteristic). Instead, she testified that she believed she was targeted because she had a job and so was perceived to have money; however, the appearance of wealth is not sufficient to identify a particular social group. Ucelo-Gomez v. Mukasey, 509 F.3d 70, 72-74 (2d Cir. 2007) (upholding BIA's determination that wealthy people are not a particular social group for asylum purposes).

Umana redefined her social group on appeal to the BIA as people whose family members were murdered by gangs. Again, the agency reasonably found that this group was overbroad and that there was no evidence of social distinction. Matter of M-E-V-G-, 26 I. & N. Dec. at 239; Paloka, 762 F.3d at 196. Nor did Umana present any evidence that the threatening callers were aware of the fact that her husband was murdered. Kyaw Zwar Tun, 445 F.3d at 565; see also Jian Hui Shao v. Mukasey, 546 F.3d 138, 157-58 (2d Cir. 2008) ([W]hen a petitioner bears the burden of proof, his failure to adduce evidence can itself constitute the substantial evidence necessary to support the agency's challenged decision.).

With respect to CAT relief, the agency reasonably determined that Umana did not show that she would more likely than not suffer torture at the hands of or with the acquiescence of a government official in El Salvador. The telephone threats here do not constitute torture. See 8 C.F.R.  1208.16(c)(3)(1) (listing past torture as one factor to consider in CAT analysis); Gui Ci Pan v. U.S. Att'y Gen., 449 F.3d 408, 412 (2d Cir. 2006) (recognizing that unfulfilled threats do not rise to the level of past persecution). Nor did she establish that the police acquiesced in their behavior. At most, she shows that the police did not prioritize her reports, which does not rise to the level of refusal to act. Cf. Aliyev v. Mukasey, 549 F.3d 111, 119 (2d Cir. 2008) (finding government acquiescence where, despite repeated reports of violence to the police, no significant action was taken on [the alien's] behalf). Umana presented no other evidence to show that it was more likely than not that she would be tortured by or with the acquiescence of a government official. See Mu Xiang Lin v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 432 F.3d 156, 158 (2d Cir. 2005) (denying petition where applicant presented no particularized evidence suggesting that she is likely to be subjected to torture).

Finally, Umana contends that the IJ exhibited impermissible bias and speculation in denying her relief, and deprived her of due process. As discussed above, we find no error in the agency's decisions. Although framed as a due process claim, this argument merely expresses Umana's disagreement with the merits of the IJ's decision. She does not dispute that she received the full and fair removal hearing that due process requires. See Yuen Jin v. Mukasey, 538 F.3d 143, 157 (2d Cir. 2008).

For the foregoing reasons, the petition for review is DENIED. As we have completed our review, any stay of removal that the Court previously granted in this petition is VACATED, and any pending motion for a stay of removal in this petition is DISMISSED as moot. Any pending request for oral argument in this petition is DENIED in accordance with Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 34(a)(2), and Second Circuit Local Rule 34.1(b).

FOR THE COURT: Catherine O'Hagan Wolfe, Clerk
Singapore Airlines unveils bedroom in the sky in Airbus A380

Singapore Airlines yesterday unveiled new seats for its Airbus A380, its first major cabin overhaul in a decade.

The new first class with six suites, down from 12, redesigned to feature beds, defines a whole new experience in airline travel.

The beds in the cabin are arranged perpendicular and a wall can slide to allow privacy to travellers.

The suites come with a 21-inch wide leather chair upholstered by Italian furniture maker Poltrona Frau.

The full-flat beds have plush bedding and duvet designed by French luxury label Lalique.

The suits have been designed to give the feel of a bedroom and offer passengers the options of both a bed and a seat, according to SIA's divisional vice-president for customer experience Betty Wong who spoke to Channel NewsAsia in an earlier interview ahead of the launch. The seat in the suite currently needs to be folded to make the bed.

The new A380s can seat 471 people. In addition to the six suites, the planes have 78 business class seats on upper deck, and 44 premium economy and 343 regular economy class seats on the main deck.

The revamp is the latest step to attract wealthy travelers. Many carriers like Delta and United are designing their premium cabins for frequent business travelers, with some international airlines offering spacious first class suites. Etihad, for instance, offers a three-room suite it calls "The Residence."

Singapore Airlines will fly the revamped Airbus A380 next month from Singapore to Sydney.

The US$850 million (S$1.16 billion) cabin overhaul comes as the carrier completes a decade of flying the superjumbos and as it reviews its business in the face of increasing competition.

The business class seats feature a carbon fibre composite shell structure, as against the conventional aircraft seats which use metal as the primary support structure.

This allows a thinner base structure which makes for better optimisation of the seat and creates more under-seat storage space to accommodate a standard-size trolley bag, which according to SIA chief executive officer Goh Choon Phong is a "first in the world".
China on Friday said it was ready to promote bilateral ties with ''important neighbour'' India, a day after it again rejected a United Nations resolution to sanction Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as an international terrorist. ''India is an important neighbour of China. China attaches great importance to relations with India. We are ready to work with India to promote constant progress of bilateral relations guided by neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for a new era,'' said assistant foreign minister Chen Xiadong, referring to principles enunciated by President Xi Jinping during the recently concluded congress of the Communist Party of China. China on Thursday for the fourth time blocked attempts by India, backed by the US and other nations, to list Pathankot terror attack mastermind Azhar as a global terrorist, saying "there is no consensus" within the members of the sanctions committee. India reacted sharply to this, saying "accommodating with terrorism" for narrow objectives was both short-sighted and counterproductive. Chen, speaking on China's policy with its neighbours at a press meet on President Xi Jinping's upcoming visit to Vietnam for the APEC summit, claimed that Beijing has always stressed on a policy that focuses on the principles of ''sincerity, amity, inclusiveness and mutual benefit''. ''We have been following this concept (of building partnerships with neighbours) for the last few years, deepening our political mutual trust,'' he said, adding that this was ''the guiding principle'' for Beijing. On Thursday, Beijing had cited ''lack of consensus'' among United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members on sanctioning Azhar under a US-backed resolution. Signalling its intention to block the resolution, the ministry of foreign affairs said, ''It is a fact that the (UN) committee is yet to reach an agreement (on the move).'' China, a veto-wielding permanent member of the UNSC, has repeatedly blocked moves to sanction Azhar under the Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee (the 1267 committee) in the last one year. Beijing flatly denies that its close ties with Pakistan is the reason for blocking the move, stating that it has more to do with the process of collecting ''solid evidence'' against the alleged terrorist. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying insisted that China always upholds the ''principle of objectivity and fairness''. ''We judge the matter on its own merit. Pakistan is also a victim of terrorism, and we support it in countering terrorism in accordance with its own national conditions,'' she said. Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar expressed regret at the Chinese move. ''We are deeply disappointed that once again, a single country has blocked international consensus on the designation of Masood Azhar, an acknowledged terrorist and leader of a UN-designated terrorist organisation,'' he said in a statement, without naming China. Kumar said double standards and selective approaches would undermine the international community's resolve to combat terrorism. ''We can only hope that there will be a realisation that accommodating terrorism for narrow objectives is both short-sighted and counter-productive,'' he contended. Last year in March, China was the only member in the 15-nation UNSC to put a hold on India's application, with all other 14 members of the Council supporting New Delhi's bid to place Azhar on the 1267 sanctions list that would subject him to an assets freeze and travel ban. The relations between the two neighbours were also strained by a 73-day standoff at Dokalam over Chinese army's plans to build a strategic road in the area also claimed by Bhutan. Officials in Beijing said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to India next month to attend the Russia, India, China (RIC) foreign ministers' meeting, during which he would also hold talks with the Indian leadership on the bilateral relations during the second term of Xi.








Susan Hyman spent months working on the details of her special occasion cake  from the weeping angels at the base to the blue TARDIS spinning on top.

Her hard work paid off as Hyman, who lives in Geneva, won Best in Show in this years National Peanut Festival cake decorating contest. The decorating job was, of course, a nod to Doctor Who.

Im a Whovian, Hyman, 21, said.

She carved the angels and stones from fondant she made at home and used royal icing for grass. The TARDIS lit up and spun thanks to a battery-powered holiday light found at a home improvement store. This is Hymans third year entering the cake decorating contest, and the peanut festival contests are something of a family affair. Her mother, Glenda Hyman, won grand prize in the adult division in this years recipe contest.

Contests have long been a part of the National Peanut Festival. Each year, locals of all ages submit their best recipe, craft, plant, jar of honey, photograph and painted pumpkin.

The cake decorating contest is judged on the decoration, presentation and originality of the cake. Theres no tasting involved. In fact, the entries are typically decorated foam molds rather than actual cake  although real cake is allowed.

Winners are displayed in the premium exhibit building during the National Peanut Festival.

The wedding cakes are always beautiful, volunteer Michelle Simmons said. I havent seen a wedding cake thats been turned in yet that I didnt like  Just to see the originality in all of them  thats what makes them unique.

Entries were down this year but didnt lack in originality. In the special occasion category, there was a zombie brain cake complete with droplets of blood. Cakes in the peanut festival theme category featured popcorn and kettle corn, a Ferris wheel, a funnel cake, an elephant ear, and, of course, peanuts. A cake in the youth division featured a taco and a bottle of hot sauce.

Erin Smith, 18, of Dothan entered the wedding cake category. In her second year entering the contest, Smith was inspired by doing a wedding cake for a cousin. The lavender-colored flowers that covered her cake were Smiths favorite detail.

Its not difficult at all, Smith said. Its just a matter of the tools you use.

Wanda Williams of Dothan has been entering the cake decorating contest for years and even won it once. This year, her tiered cake decorated in sea creatures with a mermaid perched on top received a blue ribbon.
Houston County Sheriff Donald Valenza officially announced Thursday he will seek re-election.

Valenza began his 38-year law enforcement career with the Houston County Sheriffs Office in 1980. Over the years with the sheriffs office, he has climbed several ladders. In 2014, Valenza was appointed by former Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley in July 2014 to serve as sheriff from mid-August until the November 2014 election, when he was elected by county voters.

I am focused and dedicated to serving the residents of Houston County, Valenza said. Striving to meet the residents needs while cracking down on crime in Houston County is my number goal. I believe every resident of the county needs to be served and protected. With that being said, I am working on new program that is designed to help protect our senior citizens who are seeing early signs of dementia. I am also working closely with the district attorney to help protect our senior citizens and our elderly residents in the county. Too many of our senior citizens in the community are falling victim to abuse, and I am not speaking of physical abuse. There is mental abuse and financial abuse and I want to do what we can to help prevent others from becoming a victim. I am working closely with our district attorney in efforts to protecting our children. My job as sheriff is to protect each county resident to the best of my ability.

Since taking office Valenza has accomplished several goals, including restructuring the office to include 36 promotions, increasing vehicle fleets, new equipment, adding K-9 patrol units, and creating new programs to better assist the residents of Houston County.

Over the years, the office has worked hard to address the concerns of our residents, Valenza said. While working with the residents and business owners in the county, we have established a great relationship. I have, and I always will, have an open door policy as sheriff. My job is not only about serving and protecting, but it is also about being available when needed. My job is a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week job, and I love it. I am dedicated to it.

If re-elected, Valenza plans to continue to move the Houston County Sheriffs Office forward to better serve its community.

I can sit here and say I am going to work on decreasing drug crimes, but there is no need, Valenza said. Thats what I have been doing. Thats part of my job. It is my goal to continue to decrease all crimes in the county, including drug crimes. I am also working towards decreasing the juvenile crime rate in the county. In order to decrease the crime rate with juveniles, we have to educate the youth on the dangers and consequences associated with committing a crime.

Valenza is grateful for the time he has served as the sheriff of Houston County, and looks forward to being re-elected.

I received a lot of support from our community in 2014, Valenza said. I greatly appreciate all the support I have received as serving as your sheriff, and once again I ask for your continued support during the upcoming election.

The Houston County Primary Election is set for June 5, 2018.
United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. KENNETH PHILLIP JACKSON, Appellant v. SUPERINTENDENT SOMERSET SCI; ATTORNEY GENERAL PENNSYLVANIA No. 16-1230 Decided: November 02, 2017

Before: CHAGARES, JORDAN, and FUENTES, Circuit Judges.

OPINION*

Kenneth Jackson appeals the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. For the reasons set forth below, we will affirm.

I. Background

Kenneth Jackson pleaded guilty in Pennsylvania state court to one count of third-degree murder, one count of abuse of a corpse, two counts of theft by deception, two counts of forgery, and one count of identity theft. That plea was entered after trial had already begun in the case, which arose from Jackson's murder of his uncle and use of his uncle's identification papers to cash social security checks. Prior to sentencing, Jackson sent the trial judge a pro se letter and motion asking to withdraw his guilty plea. At the time, Jackson was represented by court-appointed counsel Patrick Thomassey. At Jackson's July 19, 2004 sentencing hearing, the judge denied Jackson's pro se motion to withdraw his guilty plea.

After denying the motion, the judge turned his attention to Thomassey's representation of Jackson. Thomassey said he was in a precarious position because of his contentious relationship with Jackson. (App. at 130.) After the judge reminded Thomassey that the court had appointed him as defense counsel, Thomassey replied, I will do as instructed by the court. (App. at 130.) Jackson then stated, I'm asking for a new counsel to be appointed to me. I do not want this man. (App. at 130.) The judge, after listening to Thomassey and Jackson, said, Well, it's apparent to the court, Mr. Jackson, you don't want Mr. Thomassey to represent you anymore. And Mr. Thomassey doesn't want to represent you anymore. Is that accurate? (App. at 132.) Jackson replied, Yes. (App. at 132.) Recalling that Jackson had already had a Public Defender with whom he had difficulty working, the judge told Jackson, Then you will represent yourself. I'm not going to appoint you yet another lawyer. (App. at 132.) The judge instructed Thomassey to have a seat. (App. at 133.) Jackson represented himself during the remainder of the sentencing hearing. That was not the first time the judge and Jackson spoke about Jackson's dissatisfaction with Thomassey. Immediately prior to Jackson's trial, the judge had given Jackson three options: (1) hire a private attorney; (2) continue to be represented by Thomassey; or (3) proceed on his own without an attorney. The judge warned Jackson then that if he did not cooperate with Thomassey, he would be on his own.

The judge ultimately sentenced Jackson to a term of imprisonment of 240 to 480 months on the homicide charge and a term of imprisonment of two-and-a-half years to five years for each of the five counts of theft and forgery. The several terms of imprisonment were to run consecutively. The judge did not impose an additional sentence on the charge for abuse of a corpse. Although the record demonstrates that all parties understood the plea agreement to contemplate a sentence in accordance with the applicable guidelines range, Jackson's sentence on the five theft and forgery counts exceeded Pennsylvania's sentencing guidelines range. The judge appointed counsel to assist Jackson with his post-sentence motions and his appeal. On July 29, 2004, Jackson's appointed direct appeal counsel filed a motion to reconsider the sentence, which was denied by operation of law on December 2, 2004 pursuant to Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 720. See Pa. R. Crim. P. 720(B)(3)(a) (If the judge fails to decide the [post-sentence] motion within 120 days, or to grant an extension  , the motion shall be deemed denied by operation of law.).

Jackson appealed to the Pennsylvania Superior Court. His direct appeal counsel raised a single issue: whether the trial court erred in denying Jackson's pre-sentence request to withdraw his guilty plea. The Superior Court affirmed Jackson's conviction and sentence. On January 3, 2007, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied Jackson's Petition for Allowance of Appeal.

Jackson then filed a pro se petition pursuant to Pennsylvania's Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa. Cons. Stat.  9541 et. seq. After the court appointed the Office of Conflicts Counsel to represent Jackson on post-conviction review, counsel filed an amended PCRA petition raising four issues: (1) appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge the sentencing judge's imposition of sentences above the guidelines range on the theft and forgery charges; (2) appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge the sentencing judge's imposition of consecutive sentences; (3) trial counsel was ineffective throughout voir dire, trial, plea, and sentencing proceedings; and (4) Jackson was denied counsel at sentencing, in contravention of United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648 (1984). The PCRA court denied Jackson's PCRA claims but re-imposed sentence to correct a clerical error. Through counsel, Jackson filed a motion for reconsideration, which was denied, and then filed a notice of appeal to the Superior Court, challenging only the sentences imposed in connection with the non-homicide charges.

That PCRA appeal raised four issues: (1) the re-imposed sentence was illegal because it violated the terms of the plea agreement; (2) the re-imposed sentence was an abuse of discretion and manifestly excessive because the sentences ran consecutively; (3) trial counsel was ineffective throughout the underlying proceedings; and (4) the sentencing court erred in refusing to appoint Jackson counsel at the sentencing hearing. The Superior Court affirmed the PCRA court's denial of Jackson's petition. In relevant part, the Court held that Jackson had waived his argument that his sentence violated his plea agreement because he did not raise the issue on direct appeal and his amended PCRA petition did not argue that direct appeal counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge the sentence on that basis. The Court further held that Jackson had waived his argument that he was denied counsel at sentencing because he failed to raise the issue on direct appeal. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied Jackson's Petition for Allowance of Appeal on June 23, 2015.

Jackson next filed the present petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which was denied on December 7, 2015. We granted Jackson's request for a certificate of appealability to address only whether counsel on direct appeal rendered ineffective assistance in failing to argue that [Jackson's] sentence violates the plea agreement because sentencing was to be within the standard guidelines range for all counts, and whether Jackson was denied his Sixth Amendment right to counsel at sentencing. (Certificate of Appealability, dated August 11, 2016, at 1.) The certificate of appealability also directed counsel to address whether procedural default applies to either issue, and the impact, if any, of [Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012)]. (Certificate of Appealability, dated August 11, 2016, at 1.) Because we conclude that Jackson's claims on appeal are procedurally defaulted, we will affirm the denial of Jackson's petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

II. Discussion 1

The Magistrate Judge exercised jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.  636(c)(1), 1331, and 2254. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.  1291 and 2253. Because the Magistrate Judge denied Jackson's petition without conducting an evidentiary hearing, our review is plenary. Jacobs v. Horn, 395 F.3d 92, 99 (3d Cir. 2005).

A petition for a writ of habeas corpus brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C.  2254 is procedurally defaulted if a state court has declined to consider the petitioner's claims based on a failure to meet the state's procedural requirements. Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 729-30 (1991); Johnson v. Pinchak, 392 F.3d 551, 556 (3d Cir. 2004). A federal habeas court is thus prohibited from hearing a petitioner's claims if the state court's denial rested on independent and adequate state procedural grounds, unless the petitioner can demonstrate cause for the default and prejudice resulting from the alleged violation. Coleman, 501 U.S. at 750; Johnson, 392 F.3d at 556.

The Superior Court held that Jackson had waived both issues that we identified in the certificate of appealability. First, it held Jackson had waived his argument that his sentence was illegal for violating the terms of his plea agreement. The basis of the waiver was direct appeal counsel's failure to raise that issue, and failure to raise in the amended PCRA petition direct appeal counsel's ineffectiveness for failing to raise the issue. Second, the Superior Court held that Jackson had waived his argument that he was denied counsel at his sentencing hearing because he failed to raise that issue on direct appeal. See 42 Pa. Cons. Stat.  9544(b) ([A]n issue is waived if the petitioner could have raised it but failed to do so before trial, at trial, during unitary review, on appeal or in a prior state postconviction proceeding.). Jackson is time barred from further litigating those issues through the Pennsylvania state courts. 42 Pa. Const. Stat.  9545(b). He has thus procedurally defaulted on the two claims certified for appeal by the certificate of appealability. See Collins v. Sec'y of Pa. Dep't of Corr., 742 F.3d 528, 542 (3d Cir. 2014) (A claim is procedurally defaulted if the petitioner failed to exhaust that claim in state court and if state procedures prohibit the petitioner from later presenting the claim in state court.). We can only proceed to the merits of Jackson's claims if cause and prejudice exist to excuse the procedural default, Coleman, 501 U.S. at 750; Johnson, 392 F.3d at 556, but Jackson has not established cause for his procedural default.

Jackson does not appear to dispute that he procedurally defaulted on the issues identified in the certificate of appealability. Rather, he maintains that his procedural default of both issues is excused by the United States Supreme Court's holding in Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012). (See Opening Br. at 6 (The above issues may have been procedurally defaulted in the state courts, but this Court should excuse the procedural default pursuant to Martinez  .).)

In Martinez, the Supreme Court created an equitable exception to the rule announced in Coleman v. Thompson that ineffectiveness of post-conviction counsel does not establish cause to excuse a procedural default. Davila v. Davis, 137 S. Ct. 2058, 2065 (2017) (citing Martinez, 566 U.S. at 16-17). The Martinez Court held that, in situations where state law prevents an inmate from litigating claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel on direct appeal, the ineffective assistance of state post-conviction counsel can serve as cause to overcome the procedural default of a substantial ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim. 566 U.S. at 17.

After we granted Jackson's request for a certificate of appealability, the Supreme Court, in Davila v. Davis, declined to extend the Martinez exception to cover claims of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. 137 S. Ct. at 2065. The Supreme Court thus clarified that ineffectiveness of post-conviction counsel does not establish cause to excuse the procedural default of an ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claim. Id.

Davila definitively forecloses Jackson's first claim over which we granted appeal: whether Jackson's direct appeal counsel was ineffective for failing to object that his sentence was illegal for violating the terms of his plea agreement. Jackson argues that his procedural default of that claim should be excused pursuant to Martinez because his PCRA counsel was ineffective for failing to properly raise the plea bargain issue on appeal. (Opening Br. at 12.) Because the Supreme Court rejected that precise argument in Davila, it is plain that Jackson has failed to establish cause for his procedural default of that claim.

Jackson largely fails to address the second claim that we allowed him to appeal, i.e., whether the state sentencing court denied his Sixth Amendment right to counsel at the sentencing hearing. Instead, he focuses on whether trial counsel Thomassey rendered ineffective assistance of counsel at sentencing. The record demonstrates, however, that Thomassey was not acting as Jackson's lawyer at the sentencing hearing. The sentencing judge explicitly told Jackson, you will represent yourself[,] and instructed Thomassey to have a seat. (App. at 132-33.) The issue of Thomassey's alleged ineffectiveness at sentencing is thus outside the scope of the certificate of appealability and is not properly before us. 28 U.S.C.  2253(c)(3); 3d Cir. L.A.R. 22.1(b); see also Miller v. Dragovich, 311 F.3d 574, 577 (3d Cir. 2002) (refusing to address argument that was outside the scope of the relevant certificate of appealability).

To the extent that Jackson does address the Sixth Amendment denial of counsel claim we certified for appeal, he argues that we should excuse the procedural default of that claim pursuant to the Martinez exception. But Martinez, as the Supreme Court recently clarified, only allows the ineffectiveness of post-conviction counsel to excuse the procedural default of a single claimineffective assistance of trial counsel  . Davila, 137 S. Ct. at 2062. The Martinez exception does not apply here for two distinct reasons. First, we did not grant a certificate of appealablity as to Jackson's ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim, which means Martinez is inapplicable to the claim at issue. Second, Davila mandates that Jackson could not establish cause to overcome the default even if he argued (which he does not) that post-conviction counsel was ineffective for failing to raise a claim on collateral review that direct appeal counsel was ineffective for failing to appeal the denial of counsel claim. Id. at 2065. Accordingly, Jackson has failed to establish cause for the procedural default of his Sixth Amendment denial of counsel claim.

III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the denial of Jackson's petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

FOOTNOTES

. The court below denied Jackson's habeas corpus petition on the merits. Because we affirm on the basis that Jackson has not established cause to excuse his procedural default of the claims that we certified for appeal, we do not reach the merits of Jackson's claims.

. That the Superior Court opinion contains an alternative holding on the merits does not alter our conclusion that Jackson's denial-of-counsel argument is procedurally defaulted. We have previously emphasized that, even if a state court provides an alternative holding, the adequate and independent state ground doctrine [still] requires the federal court to honor a state holding that is a sufficient basis for the state court's judgment[.] Johnson, 392 F.3d at 558 (quoting Harris v. Reed, 489 U.S. 255, 264 n.10 (1989)). Here, it is clear that the procedural ground for denying Jackson's claim (i.e., waiver) was a distinct and separate basis for the Superior Court's decision. Because we are not reaching the merits of Jackson's claims, we decline to address the Superior Court's alternative holding.

. We again note that we do not reach the propriety of the sentencing judge's decision to compel Jackson to proceed pro se.

. Jackson makes this argument primarily in connection with the ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim he attempts to bring, which, as discussed above, falls outside the scope of the certificate of appealability. He advances no separate argument for why we should excuse the procedural default of his Sixth Amendment denial of counsel claim, but we construe his argument to also refer to the Sixth Amendment denial of counsel claim that we did certify for appeal.

JORDAN, Circuit Judge.
Laverty Motor Factors of Dundalk were among the award winners at the prestigious Irish Auto Trade Awards 2018, which took place at Carton House on Thursday.

The awards programme, in its 4th year, is a celebration of excellence in the Irish auto trade in Ireland, a sector that accounts for almost 40,000 jobs.

John and Brenda Laverty collected the Motor Factor Of the Year award from Shaun Greasley and Fabrizio Giannelli of sponsors TecAlliance. Winners from across the country were honoured in 26 categories, spanning aftersales, parts, components, tools, equipment and service.

This was the second year in-a-row that John and the team at Laverty Motor Factors have taken home the national award.

McManus Tyres, Dundalk were regional winners in the Tyre Retailer of the Year category.

Retail auto businesses undergo a rigorous selection process that includes phone and personal mystery shops before being finally adjudicated on. Manufacturer and distributor companies were shortlisted based on votes received by readers of the Irish Auto Trade Journal over recent months.

Irish Auto Trade Awards organiser Padraic Deane of Automotive Publications commented, From the outset these awards were all about standards, and 4 years in we can see how the bar has been raised across the various sectors which we honour. The commitment to standards is evidenced by the fact that many of our winners are repeat winners, striving year-on-year to do better for their customers.
St Vincents Secondary School was one of five schools nationwide to have been selected from over 500 submissions to receive funding from Google for their Code Week Activities.

Googles decision to directly sponsor schools for Europe Code Week is a result of the companys ongoing efforts to encourage more students to learn about computing and to ensure that they are well-equipped with the technical skills that are increasingly required for the future.

467 primary school students from 12 different primary schools in the North Louth area visited St Vincents over EU Code Week to take part in their Codathon. Transition year students gave lessons in how to use Scratch, how to programme a BBC microbit, they used inventors kits to make fans and they also used iPads to code Spheros and Lego Boost around the St Vincents maze as well as bowling with them.

The Primary Schools included Rampark NS, Bellurgan, St Olivers NS Carlingford, Realt na Mara, St Daighs, St Malachys GNS, Mullabuoy NS and St Furseys NS.

Deputy Principal Linda McCusker explained, 'The school hosted a range of activities which aimed at bringing coding and programming to life for the younger students. It was also a wonderful opportunity for our own students as they experience 'teaching' ICT in a practical and fun way.'

By the end of Europe Code Week, almost 3,000 Irish students, teachers and parents will have benefitted from the programme, just one of many of Googles educational initiatives run in Ireland and worldwide.

Claire Conneely, CS Education Manager, Google said; Its a fantastic achievement that two Louth schools were selected from 500 applications for funding for Code Week. Congratulations to the staff and pupils of both schools and we hope they had a great Code Week!
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The Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, Kate Carnell, has floated the idea of a Government-backed approach to small business lending, modelled on the British Business Bank, to improve access to finance for SMEs.

Kate Carnell told Dynamic Business that the tightening of prudential requirements by APRA and other regulators globally, following the Global Financial Crisis, meant it has become more profitable for banks to lend against properties.

Simply put, banks make less money from lending against strong business cases, good cash flows and so on, she said. Consequently, banks are increasingly not lending to people seeking to buy, expand or invest in a small business unless they have bricks-and-mortar security.

This is impacting our economy, job creation and so on, so it would be dangerous for Government to do nothing about this problem. If we want small businesses to be the engine room of the economy, we need more capable business people to be able to access money to invest in businesses.

Carnell said she has asked the Productivity Commission to explore the extent to which prudential risk weighting standards and capital requirements have had unintended consequences on lending to small businesses.

Asked whether alternative lenders are easing the pain for SMEs, Carnell replied: Nobody is meeting the needs of the SME sector, although thats not to say theyre not meeting any of the needs. Obviously private equity, venture capital and fintech are all playing a part. However, if I wanted to, for example, buy a franchise, I might be looking at possibly half a million to a million  but Id still struggle to get a loan without property security.

Carnell said the Government should consider an Australian version of the British Business Bank, which like similar initiatives in Canada and parts of the US, support SME lending.

The British Government, through the British Business Bank, not only underwrites loans, it works with lenders to make it a more cost-effective exercise for various financial institutions, not just banks, to provide capital to small businesses, she said.

The British Business Bank can provide a government-backed 75 per cent guarantee against the outstanding facility balance, potentially converting a no credit decision from a lender to a yes. It can also help small finance providers to tap institutional investors funds.

Without a creative approach to small business lending in Australia we risk stifling growth, investment and employment.
Australias peak advocacy group for startups, StartupAUS, has welcomed four new board members: Elaine Stead (MD, Blue Sky Venture Capital), Rachael Neumann (investment advisor and strategist), Attila Brungs (Vice Chancellor and President, UTS) and Aaron Birkby (CEO, Startup Catalyst).

The newcomers join current board members Alex McCauley (CEO, StartupAUS), Teresa Engelhard (company director and investor), Alan Noble (Engineering Director, Google ANZ), Peter Bradd (Co-founder and CEO, The Beanstalk Factory), Bill Bartee (General Partner, Main Sequence Ventures  CSIRO Innovation Fund) and Topaz Conway (Chair of the Board, StartupAUS and Chair of SBE Australia)

According to McCauley, the chief executive of StartupAUS, the combination of the advocacy groups new and existing board members means it has one of the most diverse and influential boards in the country.

We are excited to welcome our new board members to help us build a world-class startup sector here in Australia, he said. Each member brings complementary expertise, knowledge and credentials. Weve got representation from leading founders, investors, multinationals and universities. Weve got a wealth of experience from around the country and overseas, and from an array of different backgrounds. That breadth of experience is really important to us, because what we are trying to do is for the economic benefit of the country as a whole.

We think startups deserve world-class representation, so weve put together a world-class board. The talent sitting at our board table represents one of the strongest leadership teams in the country, he said.

McCauley called on corporate Australia to follow the lead of the newly-appointed board members in supporting Australian startups.

Of course, Id still love to find an iconic Australian corporate that is prepared to step up and take on a leadership role in helping to build Australias new digital economy. Thats the only piece of the puzzle thats still missing as far as I am concerned, he said.

Conway, the chair of the StartupAUS board added, This board refresh has come at a really important time. On the 1st of December, well be launching our 2017 Crossroads Report, looking at the state of play of the startup sector across the country. We know from the work weve done to put that report together that this is a critical time for Australias emerging tech industry. The most pressing issue facing Australian startups is access to a global pool of talent, and its something that needs urgent attention. Weve brought high-quality people onto the team who understand how important it is to think globally, while at the same time building a world-class talent pool here at home.

StartupAus provided the following biographies for its new board members

Elaine Stead is a venture capitalist who has spent the last decade focused on the innovation investment spectrum. In 2012, she established the Blue Sky Venture Capital Fund, which has expanded to include over $200 million in assets under her management. Elaine is a member of AVCALs venture capital stakeholder committee, the investment committee of ANUConnect, and the Australian National Universitys (ANU) venture capital fund.

Rachael Neumann is a prominent contributor to the startup ecosystem in Melbourne and Silicon Valley. Rachael is an investor in Startmate, where she is also a mentor, and was a founding board member of LaunchVIC, a $60 million venture that seeks to solidify Victoria as a global destination of choice for entrepreneurs. She is a mentor, advisor, and board director to early-stage startup founders. Rachael was previously Managing Director of Eventbrite Australia.

Professor Attila Brungs is a key figure supporting the next generation of Australias startup leaders. Currently Vice-Chancellor and President of UTS, Professor Brungs has held many distinguished senior positions, board appointments and committee memberships throughout his career, spanning not-for-profit, federal government, and institutional organisations, including the CSIRO. He is a Rhodes Scholar, and a passionate and thoughtful advocate for innovation policy.

Aaron Birkby is a serial tech entrepreneur. He learned to code at eight years old and has started more than 10 businesses. As CEO of Startup Catalyst, Aaron leads missions to Silicon Valley, Europe, Israel and Asia for youths, founders, investors and innovators. He is a member of the Queensland Government Startup Working Group, a Director of the River City Labs Accelerator, and has served as entrepreneur in-residence at River City Labs. In 2016 Aaron was awarded the national Benson Award for Entrepreneurship, and the Pearcey Award for Queensland.
United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. CLINTON LEWIS; H. L., A Minor; S. L., A Minor, Appellants v. DEFENDER ASSOCIATION OF PHILADELPHIA; CITY OF PHILADELPHIA; JOHN DOE, In his individual and Official Capacity, a/k/a FJD Security Officer Dibernardo; FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA; COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA; MATTHEW SIMONE, RNP; TENET HEALTH SYSTEM HAHNEMANN LLC, d/b/a Hahnemann University Hospital; REBECCA LYNN MAINOR No. 16-3594 Decided: November 02, 2017

Before: VANASKIE, COWEN, and NYGAARD, Circuit Judges

OPINION*

Clinton Lewis and his two minor children filed a lawsuit in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, bringing federal and state claims relating to events surrounding the removal of the children from Lewis's custody. Noting the federal claims, two of the defendants removed the action to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Subsequently, Lewis and his children amended their complaint.

In the amended complaint, Lewis and his children brought claims against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (the Commonwealth), the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania (FJD), FJD Security Officer DiBernardo, the City of Philadelphia (the City), the Defender Association of Philadelphia (the Defender Association), and Rebecca Mainor (a lawyer at the Defender Association), under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C.  1962(c) and (d), 42 U.S.C  1983, and several state law causes of action. Clinton also sued Tenet Healthsystem d/b/a Hahnemann University Hospital (Tenet), and Matthew Simone (a Tenet nurse practitioner) for medical professional negligence.

All of the defendants but Tenet and Simone moved to dismiss the amended complaint. Tenet and Simone filed an answer instead. In an order entered on August 24, 2016, the District Court granted the motions to dismiss. Specifically, the District Court dismissed all the claims against the Commonwealth and the FJD with prejudice on the basis of sovereign immunity. The District Court also dismissed the RICO claim against the City with prejudice (noting the plaintiffs' agreement that those claims should be dismissed) and the RICO claims against Mainor and the Defender Association without prejudice. The District Court dismissed the  1983 claims against the City, Mainor, and the Defender Association without prejudice. Having dismissed all of the federal claims, the District Court then declined to exercise jurisdiction over the state law claims. The District Court twice explicitly stated that it was dismissing the complaint in its entirety. Order, 1 & 11. Lewis appeals.

We first consider our jurisdiction, which Appellees challenge in responses to a jurisdictional notice issued by the Clerk and in their briefs. Upon review, we conclude that the District Court issued a final order over which we have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.  1291.

We reject the argument that the District Court's order was not final because some claims were dismissed without prejudice in order to provide Lewis an opportunity to amend his complaint to state a claim. Generally, an order which dismisses a complaint without prejudice is neither final nor appealable because the deficiency may be corrected by the plaintiff without affecting the cause of action. Borelli v. City of Reading, 532 F.2d 950, 951 (3d Cir. 1976) (per curiam). Only if the plaintiff cannot amend or declares his intention to stand on his complaint does the order become final and appealable. Id. at 951-52. Lewis chose not to amend his complaint; he instead appealed and has declared his intention to stand on his complaint. See Frederico v. Home Depot, 507 F.3d 188, 192-93 (3d Cir. 2007) (determining that a plaintiff had elected to stand on her complaint where she did not seek to correct the purported pleading deficiencies, but instead repeatedly asserted that her complaint was sufficient as filed). Accordingly, that the District Court's ruling was without prejudice as to some claims does not preclude our review.

We also reject the argument that the District Court's order is not final and immediately appealable because claims remain against Tenet and Simone, who filed an answer to the complaint, not a motion to dismiss. The appellees are correct that a judgment, to be appealable, must be final as to all parties, all causes of action, and the whole subject-matter. See Andrews v. United States, 373 U.S. 334, 340 (1963) (citing Collins v. Miller, 252 U.S. 364 (1920)); Mellon Bank, N.A. v. Metro Commc'ns, Inc., 945 F.2d 635, 640 (3d Cir. 1991). And, as they note, an order that does not resolve all the claims against all the parties does not end the action and is not an immediately appealable order unless the district court, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b), expressly directs the entry of a final judgment as to some subset of the claims or parties. Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b); Hill v. City of Scranton, 411 F.3d 118, 124 (3d Cir. 2005). However, in this case, as the District Court twice stated, the complaint was dismissed in its entirely. Although Tenet and Simone did not move to dismiss the complaint, which presented a state law claim of medical professional negligence against them, the District Court dismissed the complaint against them. After the District Court dismissed the federal claims against other defendants, the District Court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction to review the state law claims, including the claim of medical professional negligence. No claims remain to be considered in the District Court, and we have jurisdiction over this appeal.

We exercise plenary review over a district court's order dismissing a complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted or for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. See Warren Gen. Hosp. v. Amgen Inc., 643 F.3d 77, 83 (3d Cir. 2011); Taliaferro v. Darby Twp. Zoning Bd., 458 F.3d 181, 188 (3d Cir. 2006). We review a district court's exercise of supplemental jurisdiction for abuse of discretion. See De Asencio v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 342 F.3d 301, 311 (3d Cir. 2003). We do not review, however, arguments that are not raised on appeal; those arguments are waived. See Kost v. Kozakiewicz, 1 F.3d 176, 182 (3d Cir. 1993); see also Al-Ra'Id v. Ingle, 69 F.3d 28, 31 (5th Cir. 1995) (noting that pro se litigants are not excepted from the requirement to raise and argue issues on appeal).

As some Appellees argue, Lewis's brief is deficient. Although he filed his notice of appeal to challenge the District Court's order of August 24, 2016, he states in his brief that he challenges the District Court's order of February 27, 2017 (the order permitting his counsel to withdraw from the case for medical reasons). Appellant's Informal Brief 1. He misidentifies the date of his notice of appeal as January 23, 2017, though it appears that he did not file anything in this Court or the District Court on that date that could be considered a notice of appeal. Id. As his statement of the case, he notes that the District Court stayed his case at that time for 60 days so that he could secure new counsel. Id. He does present a summary of the facts of his case insomuch as he repeats his claim that his rights were violated in the proceedings that removed his children from his custody, and he asserts that he wants a fair and adequate trial. Id. at 2. But in explaining how the District Court wrongly decided his case, he complains only that the case was wrongly removed to the District Court. Id. at 3. He states that there is no other reason why the District Court's ruling was wrong and that the District Court did not apply the wrong law. Id. at 4 & 5.

First, the District Court's order permitting counsel's withdrawal from the case is not before us. Lewis's notice of appeal specified the August order and predated the February order by months. He simply did not appeal from the February order.

Second, Lewis raised no objection in the District Court to the removal of his complaint, which raised federal claims on its face. Because he did not present the issue to the District Court, the argument is waived. See Brenner v. Local 514, United Bhd. of Carpenters & Joiners, 927 F.2d 1283, 1298 (3d Cir. 1991).

As some Appellees assert, all other issues also have been waived. See United States v. Pellulo, 399 F.3d 197, 222 (3d Cir. 2005) (It is well settled that an appellant's failure to identify or argue an issue in his opening brief constitutes waiver of that issue on appeal.); see also United States v. Albertson, 645 F.3d 191, 195 (3d Cir. 2011) (explaining when extraordinary circumstances allow review of a later-raised argument).

For these reasons, we will affirm the District Court's judgment.

FOOTNOTES

. Some of these state law claims were brought by Lewis and the children; two only by Lewis; and one only by the children.

. Tenet later identified itself as Tenet HealthSystem Hahnemann, LLC.

. Lewis and his children filed a notice of appeal through counsel. After counsel was permitted to withdraw from this case for medical reasons (the District Court also permitted his withdrawal in the District Court on February 27, 2017), Lewis filed a brief on behalf of himself and his children. We notified him that he could not represent his children and that the appeal would proceed only as to him unless new counsel entered an appearance. No new counsel has entered an appearance, so this appeal proceeds only as to Lewis.

. On that day, we granted his counsel's motion to withdraw from this appeal.

. To the extent that he seeks reconsideration of our order of January 23, 2017, allowing his counsel to withdraw in light of his serious medical problem, reconsideration is denied.

PER CURIAM
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit. KAREN TAYLOR BAGHERI, Administrator of the Estate of Shawn Matthew McKee, deceased, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. DWIGHT L. BAILEY, M.D.; APPALACHIAN EMERGENCY PHYSICIANS, Defendants - Appellants, FAMILY HEALTH CARE ASSOCIATES OF SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA, PC, Defendant. No. 16-1712 Decided: October 25, 2017

Before KING and THACKER, Circuit Judges, and John A. GIBNEY, Jr., District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation. ARGUED: Frank Kenneth Friedman, WOODS ROGERS, PLC, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellants. Monica Taylor Monday, GENTRY LOCKE, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Michael P. Gardner, WOODS ROGERS, PLC, Roanoke, Virginia; James N.L. Humphreys, Jimmie C. Miller, HUNTER SMITH DAVIS, LLP, Kingsport, Tennessee, for Appellants.

Dwight L. Bailey, M.D. (Dr. Bailey) and Appalachian Emergency Physicians (AEP) (collectively, Appellants) appeal from a $2.75 million jury verdict in favor of Karen Taylor Bagheri (Appellee) in a medical malpractice action involving death. On appeal, Appellants argue, among other issues, that the district court erred in denying their motions for mistrial and new trial after several jurors admitted to having seen negative news reports about Dr. Bailey during the trial and after Appellee introduced evidence that Dr. Bailey's medical license had been suspended.

We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Appellants' motions because it correctly applied the relevant law and took corrective measures to mitigate any prejudice. Further, the record lacks evidence that either the news reports about the trial or the testimony about Dr. Bailey's license suspension influenced the verdict.

I.

A.

The decedent presented to the emergency room at a Virginia hospital on June 7, 2013, complaining of chest and back pain, shortness of breath, and other symptoms. He also had a red toe that was  draining. J.A. 879. As the emergency room physician on duty, Dr. Bailey examined the decedent and conducted a series of diagnostic tests. One such test Dr. Bailey ordered was a CT scan. However, at 460 pounds, the decedent was too heavy for the hospital's CT machine. Dr. Bailey ultimately concluded that the decedent's symptoms were caused by acute bronchitis and a foot infection. Upon discharging the decedent, Dr. Bailey verbally instructed the decedent to seek a CT scan if he did not feel better.

Five days later, on June 12, 2013, the decedent and his family moved from Virginia to Idaho, a cross-country trip that lasted four days. Although the decedent's cough persisted during the drive and after the family arrived in Idaho, the decedent seemed to be feeling better and was not in pain.

On June 24, 2013 -- 17 days after he presented to the emergency room in Virginia -- the decedent's cough suddenly worsened, and he started coughing so hard that he passed out. J.A. 628. However, the decedent did not go to the hospital that night. The next morning, he began to suffer from shortness of breath, and his wife called an ambulance. The decedent stopped breathing entirely and went into cardiac arrest around the time the ambulance arrived at the hospital. Efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful, and he was pronounced dead shortly after his arrival at the hospital. An autopsy concluded that a pulmonary artery thromboembolism caused the decedent's death.

Appellee, the mother of the decedent and the administrator of his estate, filed a medical malpractice action against Appellants on October 28, 2014, alleging that Dr. Bailey failed to diagnose a pulmonary embolism that resulted in the decedent's death. The case eventually went to trial, which began on Wednesday, December 2, 2015. The trial lasted four days.

B.

During jury selection, outside the presence of the other members of the venire, the court individually questioned several potential jurors who indicated that they had heard of Dr. Bailey. Some of these venire members expressed that they knew Dr. Bailey had previously been accused of overprescribing opioids to his patients.

Prior to the start of the third day of trial, Appellants' counsel informed the district court that several local television stations had run a story about the trial and Dr. Bailey, and one of those stations had posted an article about Dr. Bailey on Facebook. These news reports stated,

A civil trial has begun against a Russell County doctor accused of malpractice. The estate of Shawn Matthew McKee is suing Dr. Dwight Bailey and two other defendants for $3 million. McKee died while under Bailey's care; one of five patients over a period of six years. Last year, the Virginia Department of Health suspended Bailey's license to practice medicine for two years, finding Bailey prescribed large amounts of opiate drugs to several patients with drug-seeking behavior. Bailey and his co-defendants have denied any negligence in the treatment of McKee.

J.A. 992. The Facebook post also included a headline reading, Va. doctor on trial for deadly malpractice involving drugs. Id. at 993.

The television news stories aired on several local stations' 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. newscasts on Thursday, December 3, 2015, and the Facebook article was posted around the same time. After seeing the news reports, Appellants' counsel contacted at least one television station to correct the false statement that the trial involved drugs and to remove prejudicial facts from the stories. As a result, an updated version of the Facebook article was posted later that night, and the updated story ran on the 11:00 p.m. newscast on December 3 as well as on the next morning's newscast.

On the afternoon of Friday, December 4, 2015, after allowing Appellants' counsel time to obtain copies of the news reports, the district court asked the jurors if any of them had been exposed to the reports. Four jurors indicated that they had. The district court then excused the jury to the jury room and individually questioned each of the four identified jurors about what they had been exposed to and whether it would affect their fairness and impartiality. Two jurors stated that they were in the other room when the television mentioned Dr. Bailey, and one of those jurors heard a statement about an amount of money sought in the trial. See J.A. 912, 915. A third juror stated that he saw the story on the news the previous evening and that it mentioned the names, and  said it was over, like an overdose, or something like that. Id. at 917. This juror called the news story pretty much gossip and said that [i]t wasn't anything we were doing here today. Id.

Only one juror saw the Facebook post. That juror explained that he was scrolling down Facebook when he saw Dr. Bailey's picture  , and [he] clicked it. J.A. 913. He stated that the story was stuff not even about this case and was something about [Dr. Bailey] over medicating, or something. Id. at 91314. This juror further stated that he told the other jurors about seeing the Facebook post but did not go into detail about its contents. A fifth juror heard another juror say that his wife told him [t]hat the case was about over medicating somebody, and that the amount being sued for was around $3,000,000, [but] he put that off to reporters getting everything wrong. Id. at 921. Most importantly, each of these five jurors assured the district court that any information he or she heard had no effect on his or her ability to be fair and impartial and had not influenced his or her perception of the case.

Appellants moved for mistrial on the basis of the news reports and Facebook post, arguing that the information had prejudiced the jury. The district court denied the motion. In concluding that there was no reasonable possibility or probability that the jury was influenced by the news reports, the district court determined that the jurors' exposure was brief and inconsequential and that the jurors understood what this case is about, which doesn't have anything to do with drugs. J.A. 926, 929. The jury returned to the courtroom, and the district court instructed the jurors to put the news reports out of [their] mind[s]. Id. at 931.

When trial resumed shortly afterward, Appellee's counsel asked Dr. Bailey on cross-examination if his license ha[d] been suspended and if Dr. Bailey agreed to have [his] license suspended. J.A. 940. Appellants' counsel objected to this line of questioning, and the district court overruled the objection. After the jury had been excused for the day, the district court asked Appellee's counsel about the relevance of the license suspension testimony and expressed concern that it was raised without advance warning to the court or to opposing counsel. Appellee's counsel argued that the questioning was appropriate because Appellants presented Dr. Bailey as an expert witness on the issue of the standard of care.

Appellants' counsel moved for mistrial, which the district court ultimately denied on the next trial day, Monday, December 7, 2015. However, the district court concluded that the questioning regarding Dr. Bailey's suspended license was unfairly prejudicial because the license suspension had [nothing] to do with the issues of malpractice asserted in this case. J.A. 1010. In this regard, when the jury entered the courtroom that morning, the district court explained to the jury that it made a mistake in overruling the objection by Appellants' counsel and instructed the jury to completely disregard that evidence, and not consider it or even discuss it in [the] deliberations. Id. at 1013.

The jury eventually returned a verdict of $2.75 million in favor of Appellee. Appellants filed a motion for new trial, arguing that the jury was influenced by the negative news reports and the evidence that Dr. Bailey's medical license was suspended, among other issues. The district court denied the motion, holding that the jury was not prejudiced by the news reports, J.A. 1527, and that the curative instruction as to the license suspension issue negated the information's effect, id. at 1536. Appellants timely appealed.

II.

In general, we review the district court's denial of a motion for mistrial or new trial for abuse of discretion. See United States v. Johnson, 587 F.3d 625, 631 (4th Cir. 2009) (mistrial); United States v. Basham, 561 F.3d 302, 319 (4th Cir. 2009) (new trial). [I]n cases involving possible improper communication with jurors,  we apply a somewhat narrowed modified abuse of discretion standard that grants us more latitude to review the trial court's conclusion in this context than in other situations.  Basham, 561 F.3d at 319 (quoting United States v. Cheek, 94 F.3d 136, 140 (4th Cir. 1996)).

The district court abuses its discretion when its conclusion is guided by erroneous legal principles' or rests upon a clearly erroneous factual finding.  In re Jemsek Clinic, P.A., 850 F.3d 150, 156 (4th Cir. 2017) (quoting Westberry v. Gislaved Gummi AB, 178 F.3d 257, 261 (4th Cir. 1999)). Further, the district court may not act[ ] arbitrarily, as if neither by rule nor discretion or fail[ ] to adequately take into account judicially recognized factors constraining its exercise of discretion. United States v. Alvarado, 840 F.3d 184, 189 (4th Cir. 2016) (alterations and internal quotation marks omitted). A new trial is warranted only if the verdict: (1) is against the clear weight of the evidence; (2) is based upon false evidence; or (3) will result in a miscarriage of justice. EEOC v. Consol Energy, Inc., 860 F.3d 131, 145 (4th Cir. 2017).

III.

A.Jury Exposure to News Reports1.

Appellants argue that the district court erred in denying their motions for mistrial and new trial after several jurors were exposed to prejudicial news reports about Dr. Bailey during trial. When prejudicial publicity is brought to the court's attention during a trial, the district court must first determine if any jurors were exposed to that publicity and then examine each juror individually and outside the presence of the other jurors, to determine the effect of the publicity. United States v. Hankish, 502 F.2d 71, 77 (4th Cir. 1974) (quoting Margoles v. United States, 407 F.2d 727, 735 (7th Cir. 1969)). The district court must then, in its sound discretion, take appropriate measures to assure a fair trial, such as cautionary instructions, excusing individual jurors when alternates are available, or a mistrial if nothing else will cure the prejudice. Id. (footnotes omitted). In this case, the district court followed these procedures and gave a cautionary instruction to the jury, charging the jurors to put [the news reports] out of [their] mind[s]. J.A. 931. We presume that the jury followed such an instruction where, as here, there is no reason to believe that the jury  ignored the curative instruction or otherwise was confused. EEOC v. Consol Energy, Inc., 860 F.3d 131, 146 (4th Cir. 2017). Thus, under Hankish, the district court here did all that was required of it.

2.

Nonetheless, Appellant contends that the news reports should be deemed presumptively prejudicial pursuant to Remmer v. United States (Remmer I), 347 U.S. 227 (1954), reh'g granted, 348 U.S. 904 (1955). In Remmer I, the Supreme Court held that any private communication, contact, or tampering, directly or indirectly, with a juror during a trial about the matter pending before the jury merits a presumption of prejudice if it is not made in pursuance of known rules of the court and the instructions and directions of the court made during the trial, with full knowledge of the parties. 347 U.S. at 229. The Remmer presumption applies when the party attacking the verdict demonstrates that extrajudicial communications or contacts [between a juror and a third party] were more than innocuous interventions. Barnes v. Joyner, 751 F.3d 229, 245 (4th Cir. 2014) (quoting United States v. Cheek, 94 F.3d 136, 141 (4th Cir. 1996)). Significantly, not every allegation of an unauthorized communication between a juror and a third party will trigger the presumption. Id. at 244.

Appellee argues that the Remmer presumption does not apply to juror exposure to public communications such as news reports. But we need not reach the issue because Appellant's arguments fail even if we apply the Remmer presumption in this case. Upon application, [t]he burden  shifts to the prevailing party to prove that there exists no reasonable possibility that the jury's verdict was influenced by an improper communication. Cheek, 94 F.3d at 141 (internal quotation marks omitted). In determining whether such a possibility exists, the district court is to consider the extent of the improper communication; the extent to which the communication was discussed and considered by the jury; the type of information communicated; the timing of the exposure; and the strength of the opposing party's case. See United States v. Basham, 561 F.3d 302, 320 (4th Cir. 2009). Of these, the extent of the communication is the most important factor. Id.

The district court properly considered these factors here. It determined that the jurors' exposure to the news reports was brief and inconsequential. J.A. 929. Indeed, the jurors' combined exposure lasted, at most, several minutes. One juror saw the entire 20-to-30-second news clip on television, and two others heard parts of the segment from another room in their homes. Only one juror took an affirmative step to intentionally read the Facebook post about the trial. Id. at 1527. The district court referred to this juror's conduct as a momentary lapse in judgment but determined that the juror had not been prejudiced by the information. Id. at 1528. Notably, Appellants did not request that this juror, or any of the others, be removed from the panel due to their exposure to the news reports.

Moreover, after questioning each juror individually about what he or she heard or saw, the district court concluded that the jurors believe[d] that the TV station just got it wrong and that they understood the case doesn't have anything to do with drugs. J.A. 929. The jurors' brief exposure to the news reports gave them very little opportunity to glean any prejudicial information, and no juror indicated that he or she learned from the news reports that Dr. Bailey's medical license had been suspended. Most importantly, the district court d[id] not believe that anything [the jurors] saw or heard influenced them such that they would be incapable of rendering a fair and impartial verdict in the case. Id. To emphasize that the jurors were not to further consider the news reports, the district court also told the jurors that the reports did not ha[ve] any relation to this case and instructed them to put [anything they had seen or heard] out of [their] mind[s]. Id. at 931.

3.

On the whole, the record demonstrates that the district court took the issue of improper influence seriously. Appellants were permitted to collect the news reports and provide copies to the district court before the district court raised the issue with the jury. The district court asked each juror who was exposed to the news reports about what he or she read or heard and whether that would affect his or her perception of the case. The jurors indicated that they believed the story was not related to the trial and that they understood not to consider the information. The district court, which was in the best position to observe the jurors' demeanor and evaluate their credibility, determined that the jurors did not draw any [prejudicial] conclusions from the news reports. J.A. 1526. Nothing about the district court's process or its ultimate conclusion suggests an abuse of discretion. It employed the Remmer presumption despite doubts about the applicability of the Remmer presumption to public communications, conducted the required evidentiary hearing, and determined that there was no reasonable possibility that the news reports improperly influenced the jury. Even under the narrowed abuse of discretion standard we must apply here, there are no grounds for reversal.

B.

Cross-Examination Regarding License Suspension

Appellants contend that the district court erred in denying their motions for mistrial and new trial after Appellee introduced evidence at trial that Dr. Bailey's medical license had been suspended. According to Appellants, the probative value of this line of questioning was substantially outweighed by its prejudice to Dr. Bailey. In addition, Appellants emphasize that the questioning violated an agreement between the parties, not to mention in the presence of the jury, that Dr. Bailey's license had been suspended.

1.

The district court initially overruled Appellants' objection but ultimately determined that the testimony about Dr. Bailey's license suspension was unfairly prejudicial because the reason for the suspension was unrelated to the case. The district court has broad discretion to make this determination, and we see no reason to disturb the district court's decision to ultimately exclude the evidence. See Minter v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 762 F.3d 339, 349 (4th Cir. 2014) (Under Federal Rule of Evidence 403, determining whether the probative value of evidence is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, misleading the jury, or confusion of the issues is within the district court's broad discretion.).

2.

The parties agreed prior to trial that Appellee would not seek to inform the jury that Dr. Bailey [wa]s  not licensed to practice medicine unless [Appellants] introduce[d] evidence which ma[de] Dr. Bailey's lack of a license relevant. J.A. 1280. Then, during trial, when they called Dr. Bailey as an expert witness as to the standard of care in a medical malpractice action, Appellants made this issue relevant. Appellants asked Dr. Bailey if he believe[d] that [his] care and treatment of [the decedent] met the standard of care and asked him to explain why he believed the standard of care had been met. Id. at 903.

Under Virginia law, a standard of care witness in a medical malpractice action who is not licensed by the state at the time of trial must have had active clinical practice  within one year of the date of the alleged act or omission forming the basis of the action to be qualified to testify as to the applicable standard of care. See Va. Code Ann.  8.01-581.20 (2015). Dr. Bailey technically met this requirement. However, the fact that Dr. Bailey was not licensed at the time of trial is clearly relevant to the credibility of his testimony that he believe[d] -- at the time of trial -- that he satisfied the standard of care when he treated the decedent. Therefore, Appellee was well within the realm of reasonableness to ask Dr. Bailey about the suspension of his license.

3.

Further, the district court took sufficient measures to mitigate the possibility that the jury would be influenced by the evidence. At the earliest opportunity after determining that it should have sustained Appellants' objection to the questioning, the district court explained that it made a mistake and instructed the jury to completely disregard that evidence, and not consider it or even discuss it in [the] deliberations because it ha[d] nothing at all to do with this case, or with the treatment of [the decedent] by Dr. Bailey. J.A. 1013. We see no inherent prejudice to Appellants in the fact that the district court modified its ruling admitting the testimony after a weekend recess, and the delay in providing the curative instruction does not in itself indicate abuse of discretion. See United States v. Wallace, 515 F.3d 327, 331 (4th Cir. 2008). The district court, which was in the best position to assess the impact of the evidence on the jury, concluded that the curative instruction it gave was sufficient. See Arizona v. Washington, 434 U.S. 497, 51415 (1978).

Moreover, Appellants were permitted to present an additional expert witness to testify as to the standard of care. Under these circumstances, the district court did not abuse its discretion by initially overruling Appellants' objection to the line of questioning about the suspension of Dr. Bailey's medical license.

C.

The remaining issues raised by Appellant likewise do not warrant granting a new trial.

1.

Exclusion of Testimony Regarding Dr. Bailey's Discharge Instructions

The district court took great care to avoid the presentation of evidence that would create an inference of contributory negligence on the part of the decedent, given that Appellants were barred from asserting this defense. See Chandler v. Graffeo, 604 S.E.2d 1, 5 (Va. 2004) (To constitute contributory negligence in a medical-malpractice case [pursuant to Virginia law], a plaintiff's negligence must be contemporaneous with the claimed defendant's negligence.). The district court held prior to trial that there was no evidence of contemporaneous negligence on the part of the decedent, and Appellants do not challenge that ruling on appeal. On this basis, the district court properly excluded evidence that the decedent's wife told the emergency room physician at the hospital in Idaho that Dr. Bailey instructed the decedent to obtain a CT scan if he did not feel better.

To the extent that this evidence supported Appellants' assertion that a CT scan was unnecessary because the decedent improved with treatment, this argument was presented at trial. Dr. Bailey testified about his discharge instructions, and several other witnesses testified that the decedent did feel better in the days leading up to his death. Additional testimony on this point from the decedent's wife was therefore unnecessary, and it is unlikely that its exclusion prejudiced Appellants.

2.

Jury Instruction Regarding Duty to Arrange CT Scan

We also find no abuse of discretion in the district court's jury instruction that after seeing Dr. Bailey, [the decedent] had no duty to arrange his own CT scan. J.A. 1127. The district court apparently thought it necessary to give this instruction in order to prevent an inference of contributory negligence because it was not an issue in this case and there was no evidence supporting it. Id. at 1084. [W]e accord the district court much discretion to fashion the charge. Noel v. Artson, 641 F.3d 580, 586 (4th Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). Even if the district court could have framed the instruction differently, there is nothing in the record to indicate that its failure to do so seriously impaired [Appellants'] ability to conduct [their] defense. United States v. Passaro, 577 F.3d 207, 221 (4th Cir. 2009) (describing standard for reversible error in refusing to provide a proffered jury instruction). Appellants argued at trial that a CT scan was entirely unnecessary because the decedent's condition improved with the treatment Dr. Bailey prescribed. By contrast, Appellee's expert witnesses testified that a CT scan was required despite any later improvement. The jury was entitled to believe either standard of care theory. In this light, giving the instruction as Appellants requested -- or not giving it at all -- would have no bearing on the evidence Appellants presented at trial.

3.

Jury Instruction Regarding Corroboration of Dr. Bailey's Testimony

For similar reasons, we find no reversible error in the district court's instruction that [t]here can be no verdict against the plaintiff based on the uncorroborated testimony of Dr. Bailey. J.A. 1127. The jury instructions are deemed sufficient if construed as a whole, [they] properly informed the jury of the controlling legal principles without misleading or confusing the jury. Hartsell v. Duplex Prods., Inc., 123 F.3d 766, 775 (4th Cir. 1997). The district court's instruction with regard to the uncorroborated testimony of Dr. Bailey was an accurate statement of Virginia law. See Va. Code Ann.  8.01-397 (2015) (providing that [i]n an action by or against any person who  is incapable of testifying,  no judgment  shall be rendered in favor of an adverse or interested party founded on his uncorroborated testimony). Moreover, any resulting prejudice to Appellants is minimal because there is nothing to indicate that the jury disregarded any of Dr. Bailey's testimony for lack of corroboration.

4.

Damages

Finally, we find no error in admitting the damages calculation performed by Appellee's damages expert. To calculate the decedent's personal consumption of his expected income for the remainder of his lifetime, Appellee's expert used information about the decedent's income, family size, and the number and ages of the children in the household, as well as statistical rates corresponding to this data. To determine the value of the household services performed by the decedent, the expert spoke with the decedent's wife about the kinds of activities the decedent performed in the household and the amount of time per week the decedent spent doing these tasks. The expert then multiplied the amount of time spent by the national average hourly rate for such services.

Appellants assert that the expert inflated the overall damages calculation by failing to include facts related to the decedent's financial situation and by relying on national statistical data not tailored to the decedent personally. However, the expert employed an accepted method of determining an individual's projected consumption by applying facts specific to the decedent and his family to the statistical data. See J.A. 170. He also explained that he used a national rate to determine the value of the decedent's household services rather than a local rate because the decedent lived in two places  almost completely across the country, and because the rate included a variety of jobs. Id. at 679. Absent some other indication that the expert's methodology was unreliable, it cannot be said that the district court abused its discretion in permitting the expert to testify as to this calculation. See United States v. Wilson, 484 F.3d 267, 27374 (4th Cir. 2007) (stating that the test of reliability is flexible and discussing district court's discretion in determining whether expert testimony is reliable).

IV.

For the foregoing reasons, the order of the district court is

AFFIRMED.

FOOTNOTES

. Citations to the J.A. refer to the Joint Appendix filed by the parties in this appeal.

. A pulmonary artery thromboembolism is a blood clot located in the lungs. See J.A. 552, 694.

. The district court applied the presumption out of an abundance of caution and reached the same result. See J.A. 1525.

. Additionally, at least one of the jurors who was exposed to the news reports already knew that Dr. Bailey had previously been accused of overprescribing opioids to his patients. Juror Kilgore was among the potential jurors who stated during jury selection that they had heard of Dr. Bailey and his alleged over-prescription of opioids. Yet, neither party moved to have Juror Kilgore excluded for cause as a result of the fact that he knew this information.

. There is some question as to whether Dr. Bailey was properly designated to testify on this subject in the first place. Appellants' initial expert disclosures state that Dr. Bailey would testify to the subject matters of causation, damages, and his care and treatment of [the decedent]. J.A. 128182. To the extent that the standard of care may be subsumed within care and treatment, Appellants technically designated Dr. Bailey as a standard of care expert. However, the fact that there was some confusion at trial as to the extent of Dr. Bailey's expert testimony suggests that Appellants' language should have been clearer if in fact they intended to designate Dr. Bailey as a standard of care expert from the outset.

PER CURIAM:
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee v. MICHAEL GEORGE IVERSON, also known as Michael George Byrnes, also known as Michael Byrns, also known as Michael G. Iverson, also known as Mike Bernard, also known as John P. Byrns, also known as Michael Barnes, also known as J. D. Barnes, also known as Michael Belanger, also known as Michael Byrne, also known as Mike Barnes, also known as Michael Belager, also known as J. D. Byrns, also known as Mike Byrns, Defendant - Appellant No. 16-51034 Decided: October 31, 2017

Before WIENER, HIGGINSON, and COSTA, Circuit Judges. Joseph H. Gay, Jr., Assistant U.S. Attorney, Margaret Mary Embry, Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Texas, San Antonio, TX, for PlaintiffAppellee. Laura G. Greenberg, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Maureen Scott Franco, Federal Public Defender, Federal Public Defender's Office, Western District of Texas, San Antonio, TX, for DefendantAppellant.

Michael Iverson pleaded guilty to failure to register as a sex offender. He now challenges the length of his prison term and some of the conditions of his supervised release. The principal question his appeal raises is whether the Sentencing Guidelines' obstruction-of-justice enhancement covers false statements made to obtain appointed counsel. We join the majority side of a circuit split in concluding that it does.

I.

Iverson was required to register under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act because he had been convicted of rape and kidnapping in New York. Because he was classified as a sexually violent offender under New York law, Iverson had to register every 90 days. Although Iverson moved to Texas in 2013, he never registered in the state. The authorities learned about Iverson's failure to register when they arrested him in Guadalupe County on a parole violation warrant.

Iverson was convicted of failure to register as a sex offender, and the district court imposed a sentence of thirty-seven months, which was the low end of the Guidelines range. That range included a two-level enhancement for obstruction of justice. The presentence report (PSR) recommended that enhancement because Iverson admitted to intentionally lying to U.S. Pretrial Services regarding the value of his assets with intentions to make himself appear more destitute. That false statement, which the magistrate used to determine eligibility for court-appointed counsel, was included in a financial affidavit that Iverson signed under penalty of perjury. In the affidavit, Iverson claimed the value of three vehicles he owned was $5,500, much less than the $18,500 later listed in the PSR.

The district court also required Iverson to serve five years of supervised release after he finishes his prison term. As part of that supervision, it required that Iverson abide by a number of special conditions typically directed at sex offenders.

II.

A.

Iverson contests the obstruction enhancement on two grounds. He first argues that making misrepresentations on a pretrial financial affidavit does not fall within the Guidelines' definition of obstruction of justice because it does not interfere with the investigation or prosecution of the offense. If Iverson loses that legal argument, he also maintains that he did not intentionally mislead the court in seeking appointed counsel.

The enhancement applies when (1) the defendant willfully obstruct[s] or impede[s], or attempt[s] to obstruct or impede, the administration of justice with respect to the investigation, prosecution, or sentencing of the instant offense of conviction, and (2) the obstructive conduct relate[s] to (A) the defendant's offense of conviction and any relevant conduct; or (B) a closely related offense. U.S.S.G.  3C1.1. On its face, that language appears to include lying to a court to obtain free counsel. Procuring the financial resources of a court under false pretenses interferes with the proper administration of the criminal justice system. And that obstruction is with respect to, and relates tothat is, it occurred in connection withthe prosecution of Iverson's failure-to-report offense. The commentary to this section also lists examples of obstruction, which include producing a false, altered, or counterfeit document or record during an official investigation or judicial proceeding and providing materially false information to a judge or magistrate judge. Id. at cmt. n.4(C), (F). Lying on a financial affidavit used by a magistrate judge to assess eligibility for appointed counsel falls within either example.

We have applied the enhancement to false statements made to obtain appointed counsel, albeit in unpublished opinions only briefly addressing the question. See United States v. Sanchez, 227 Fed.Appx. 412, 413 (5th Cir. 2007) (False statements on a financial affidavit can serve as the basis for the obstruction adjustment.); United States v. Resendez, 1999 WL 499774, at *1 (5th Cir. June 16, 1999) (also finding no error in applying the obstruction enhancement because the defendant submitted a false financial affidavit). Other circuits have divided on this question. Two agree with our unpublished cases in applying the obstruction enhancement to false statements made to a court in connection with obtaining appointed counsel. See United States v. Hernandez-Ramirez, 254 F.3d 841, 842-43 (9th Cir. 2001); United States v. Ruff, 79 F.3d 123, 125-26 (11th Cir. 1996); cf. United States v. Greig, 717 F.3d 212, 220-22 (1st Cir. 2013) (applying the enhancement to false statements made in connection with obtaining bail).

But the Second Circuit holds that a false statement that only has the effect of obtaining free counsel does not qualify for the obstruction enhancement. United States v. Khimchiachvili, 372 F.3d 75, 80, 82-83 (2d Cir. 2004). The disagreement among these circuits is over whether the defendant's false statements must have been intended to undermine the investigation or prosecution of the offense. Compare id. at 80 (holding that the enhancement only applies to conduct that is intended to affect or interfere with the disposition of the criminal charges against a defendant), with Ruff, 79 F.3d at 126 (explaining that false statements made to a judge need not have an effect on the investigation or prosecution and the sole question is whether [the] statement was material).

In concluding that a false statement to a court must be intended to prevent or delay justice, as opposed to just being the product of wanting a free lawyer, the Second Circuit cited its common understanding of obstruction and a 1998 amendment to the adjustment. Khimchiachvili, 372 F.3d at 78-80. As to the ordinary meaning of obstruction, the Second Circuit may have overlooked a distinction between false statements made to judicial officers and false statements to law enforcement officials that may nonetheless have an effect on the proceeding. We have recognized that attempts to improperly influence judicial proceedings more directly interfere with the administration of justice than does similar conduct occurring in non-judicial contexts. See United States v. Reeves, 752 F.2d 995, 999 (5th Cir. 1985) (comparing an obstruction statute applying only to judicial proceedings, in which many acts can be deemed per se corrupt, with an obstruction statute not limited to conduct in court, which thus required a heightened showing of corrupt intent). The commentary to the obstruction enhancement also makes this distinction, as the Eleventh Circuit has recognized. See Ruff, 79 F.3d at 125-26 (underscoring the importance of the identity of the person to whom the false statement is provided (quoting United States v. Mafanya, 24 F.3d 412, 415 (2d Cir. 1994))). As noted above, the commentary lists providing materially false information to a judge and producing a false document during an investigation or judicial proceeding as examples of obstructive conduct without any need to show the effect of that conduct. U.S.S.G.  3C1.1 cmt. n.4(C), (F). In contrast, when it lists the example of providing false information to law enforcement, it limits the enhancement to acts that significantly obstructed or impeded the official investigation or prosecution of the instant offense. Id. at cmt. n.4(G); see also Hernandez-Ramirez, 254 F.3d at 844 (noting that lack of candor toward judicial officers is regarded differently than lack of candor toward law enforcement).

Admittedly, this distinction does less to undermine the second reason the Second Circuit cited for concluding that the enhancement does not cover false statements about indigence used to obtain counsel. Khimchiachvili highlighted a 1998 amendment to the enhancement commentary that added lying to a probation or pretrial services officer about defendant's drug use as an example of conduct not ordinarily covered. 372 F.3d at 78-79 (quoting U.S.S.G.  3C1.1 cmt. n.5(E)). Although the Second Circuit analogized falsehoods about drug use to falsehoods in a CJA financial affidavit on the basis that neither necessarily thwarts the prosecution of the case, id. at 79-80, the drug situation addressed in commentary note 5(E) was a targeted Guidelines response to end a circuit split. See U.S.S.G. app. C, amend. 582. Regardless, when a false statement seeking appointed counsel is exposed there is a more direct effect on the administration of justice than occurs when a defendant lies about using drugs. The appointment of counsel affects the entirety of the casediscovery, plea or trial, sentencing, and notice of appealand, among other things, discovery of the false statement might cause delay if new counsel needs to be engaged.

We therefore follow the previous decisions of this court and those of the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits in holding that lying to a judicial officer to obtain appointed counsel qualifies as obstruction under the Guidelines.

B.

We have thus far assumed that Iverson did intend to mislead the magistrate, but he also disputes that factual finding. So we must decide whether the district court clearly erred in finding that Iverson lied about the value of his vehicles. See United States v. Juarez-Duarte, 513 F.3d 204, 208 (5th Cir. 2008).

Iverson contends that the discrepancy between his statements to pretrial services and his statements to the probation officer merely resulted from confusion over whether to state the value of his assets as is (he notes that the motorcycle has a cracked block and broken-down engine) or in perfect running condition. He also argues that although at one point he possessed title to all three vehicles, the ownership is not mine because I don't have the titles in my name at all.

The problem with Iverson's claim is that the PSR asserts that he admitted to intentionally lying to U.S. Pretrial Services in an attempt to make himself appear more destitute and qualify for appointed counsel, and the district court implicitly adopted that finding. Even if Iverson now has an innocent explanation for his erroneous valuation, he cannot overcome the deference we afford the district court's contrary finding when one of the more powerful forms of evidencea confessionsupports it.

III.

Iverson also challenges the special conditions he must follow while on supervised release. Those five conditions are:

[First,] [t]he defendant shall abide by all program rules, requirements, conditions of the sex offender treatment including submission for polygraph and any other testing. The defendant will be required to make a copayment based on the defendant's ability to pay.

Second, the defendant shall follow all other lifestyle or restrictions or treatment requirements imposed by the therapist and continue those restrictions as they pertain to avoiding risk situations throughout the course of supervision. This includes not residing or going to places where a minor or minors are known to frequent without prior approval of the officer.

Third, the defendant shall reside in a residence approved in advance by the probation officer.

Four[th], the defendant shall have no direct or indirect  contact with victims without prior consent of the probation officer. 

[Fifth]: If required to register under the Sex Offender Registration Act, the defendant shall submit his person and any other property, house, residence, vehicle, papers, computer, or electronic communication, or data storage and effects to search at any time with or without a warrant by any law enforcement officer with reasonable suspicion concerning a violation of a condition of probation or unlawful conduct by the person and the probation officer in the lawful discharge of the officer's supervision function.

At the outset, we can readily vacate the second one as it suffers from the same defect that existed in identical conditions we have repeatedly rejected even on plain error review. United States v. Morin, 832 F.3d 513, 517-18 (5th Cir. 2016); see also United States v. Huor, 852 F.3d 392, 403 (5th Cir. 2017); United States v. Pitts, 670 Fed.Appx. 375, 376 (5th Cir. 2016). We have done so because allowing private therapists to set restrictions on a defendant's conduct, without the court having to approve those restrictions, usurps a judge's exclusive sentencing authority. Morin, 832 F.3d at 517-18. We again exercise our discretion on plain error review to correct this unlawful delegation of sentencing authority and vacate the condition.

As to the remaining four conditions, Iverson argues that the district court failed to explain how they are reasonably related to factors the court must consider, which include the nature and circumstances of the offense, the history and characteristics of the defendant, and the need to protect the public from further crimes. 18 U.S.C.  3583(d)(1) (referring to the factors in 18 U.S.C.  3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B)-(D), and (a)(4)-(7)). The government argues that Iverson's objection to the conditions was not preserved because it was made [o]n the grounds that failure to register is not a sex offense. This argument, however, ignores that Iverson then objected on the additional ground that these sex offender conditions are not rationally related to the offense of conviction. That objection was sufficient to put the district court on notice that Iverson believed it was not complying with the statutory mandate to connect the conditions to the particular circumstances of the case. As a result, our review is for abuse of discretion. United States v. Salazar, 743 F.3d 445, 448-50 (5th Cir. 2014).

The district court did not give reasons for imposing the challenged conditions. We can nonetheless uphold them if the justification can be inferred from the record. United States v. Prieto, 801 F.3d 547, 550 (5th Cir. 2015); Salazar, 743 F.3d at 451. This case fits within that it goes without saying category. In 1995, Iverson and another assailant beat and raped a woman in New York. To keep the victim from speaking to police, Iverson and the other assailant brought her to a wooded area, gagged her, and tied her to a tree. The victim suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder as well as physical injuries from the beating. Iverson was convicted of rape and kidnapping, and was also charged with attempted murder. Despite undergoing sex offender and aggression replacement programmingboth in and out of custodyIverson was later fired from a carnival job in Louisiana after exposing himself to the wife of a political official.

With all this information detailed in the PSR, the district court reasonably concluded that the four remaining special conditions (numbers 1 and 3-5) were necessary to account for the history and characteristics of the defendant and to protect the public from additional crimes Iverson might be inclined to commit. Notably, the conditionswhich order sex offender treatment, prevent contact with victims, require approval of any residence, and authorize a search upon reasonable suspicion of a probation violation or other unlawful conductare not as onerous as conditions often imposed on sex offenders. See, e.g., United States v. Miller, 665 F.3d 114, 126, 133 (5th Cir. 2011) (affirming special conditions that barred the defendant from using computers or other electronic devices with Internet access, unless permitted by his probation officer); United States v. Weatherton, 567 F.3d 149, 152-54 (5th Cir. 2009) (upholding special conditions requiring the defendant to undergo psychosexual evaluation and refrain from possessing sexually explicit material). And it does not matter that the failure-to-register offense itself was not one involving sexual conduct. We have rejected challenges to conditions aimed at preventing further sex crimes even when imposed for a fraud offense because the conditions can take account of a defendant's history and characteristics and the need to protect the public from further crimes. See id. at 153 (citing 18 U.S.C.  3583(d)(1)); see also United States v. Dupes, 513 F.3d 338, 343-44 (2d Cir. 2008) (upholding sex offender conditions for a defendant sentenced for securities fraud).

Although the better course is for a district court to explain why the special conditions of supervised release being imposed are needed to satisfy the statutory sentencing objectives, we find that connection can be inferred from the record in this case.

***

The judgement of the district court is AFFIRMED except for special condition two, which is VACATED, and the case REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

FOOTNOTES

. Although a circuit split exists about whether the two-level obstruction enhancement applies to false statements made to obtain appointed counsel, its practical effect may be minimal. Even though the Second Circuit does not believe two levels should be added for this conduct, it recognizes that a court can nonetheless consider this misconduct in its overall determination of the appropriate sentence. Khimchiachvili, 372 F.3d at 82-83.

. The Guidelines define a material statement as a statement that, if believed, would tend to influence or affect the issue under determination. U.S.S.G.  3C1.1 cmt. n.6.

GREGG COSTA, Circuit Judge:
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. GWENDOLYN A. ATKINS, Plaintiff - Appellant v. SOUTHEAST COMMUNITY HEALTH SYSTEMS; SELENA SENEGAL, Defendants - Appellees No. 17-30257 Decided: November 01, 2017

Before WIENER, DENNIS, and SOUTHWICK, Circuit Judges.

Gwendolyn A. Atkins appeals the district court's summary judgment dismissal of her Title VII claims for retaliatory termination against her former employer, Southeast Community Health Systems (SCHS) and its CEO, Selena Senegal. Because we conclude that Atkins failed to produce sufficient evidence to permit a reasonable jury to return a verdict in her favor, we affirm.

I

In 1996, Atkins was hired by SCHS, a nonprofit organization that provides medications to patients with limited financial means. By 2010, her job duties included ordering free prescriptions for income-qualifying patients through SCHS's Patient Assistance Program's (PAP) online portal.

Atkins was terminated for the first time in March 2008 after allegations of misconduct. She subsequently filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC alleging discrimination based on race. Following settlement discussions with SCHS, she was reinstated. Atkins alleges, however, that SCHS did not fully comply with their reinstatement agreement after she returned to work. In response, she filed a second charge with the EEOC in which she alleged that SCHS's failure to abide by this agreement was retaliation for her first EEOC charge in 2008. Atkins's supervisors at SCHS became aware of this second charge no later than July 2009. On early October 2009, Atkins also filed an internal grievance directly with SCHS. In mid-November 2009, she was transferred to a different jobsite within the organization.

Then, in May 2010, an investigation by SCHS's human resources department uncovered evidence that Atkins had requested numerous Viagra shipments through the PAP online portal for friends and family members. None of these shipments were supported by prescriptions in their patient files, and Atkins often picked up the free medication herself. Several days later, on May 20, 2010, Atkins's employment was terminated. The following day, SCHS filed a criminal complaint, and the State of Louisiana subsequently instituted criminal prosecution against Atkins. These charges were ultimately dismissed.

Atkins filed the instant lawsuit in 2011, alleging, inter alia, that SCHS and Senegal terminated her in violation of Title VII as retaliation for filing a charge with the EEOC. This case was stayed in February 2012 pending disposition of the aforementioned criminal proceedings, and reopened in November 2014. In March 2017, the district court granted SCHS's motion for summary judgment and dismissed all of Atkins's claims. The district court concluded that Atkins failed to present evidence to make a sufficient showing as to two required elements of her Title VII claim: (1) that there was a causal connection between her protected activity and an adverse employment action, and (2) that SCHS's proffered non-discriminatory reason for terminating her was mere pretext for a retaliatory motive. Atkins timely appeals.

II

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. Evans v. City of Houston, 246 F.3d 344, 347 (5th Cir. 2001). Summary judgment is appropriate if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. FED. R. CIV. P. 56(a). Though summary judgment must be denied if the non-movant demonstrates that evidence in the record would permit a reasonable jury to find in her favor, Anderson v. Liberty Lobby Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986), she cannot make this showing merely by raising some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts, or by conclusory allegations, unsubstantiated assertions, or a mere scintilla of evidence. Little v. Liquid Air Corp., 37 F.3d 1069, 1075 (5th Cir. 1994) (en banc). Summary judgment is appropriate if the non-movant fails to make this necessary showing as to at least one essential element of her claim. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986).

Title VII prohibits an employer from retaliating against any employee because that employee has opposed any practice made an unlawful employment practice or has made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under Title VII. 42 U.S.C.  2000e-3(a). To prevail in a retaliation claim, the plaintiff must first establish a prima facie case of retaliation by demonstrating that: (1) she engaged in protected activity; (2) an adverse employment action occurred; and (3) a causal link exists between the protected activity and the adverse employment action. Feist v. Louisiana, Dep't of Justice, Office of the Atty. Gen., 730 F.3d 450, 454 (5th Cir. 2013). The employer must then provide a legitimate, non-discriminatory justification for the adverse employment action. Id. The plaintiff ultimately has the burden of demonstrating that this proffered reason is merely pretext, and that she would not in fact have suffered the adverse employment action but-for the defendant's retaliatory motive. Id.

We hold that the district court did not err in determining that no reasonable jury could conclude either that she established a causal link to support her prima facie case, or met her burden of demonstrating that SCHS's justification for her termination was mere pretext for retaliatory motive. Atkins relies entirely on an allegation of temporal proximity as her only evidence for a causal link between protected activity and an adverse employment action. At most, this is a mere scintilla of evidence. See Little, 37 F.3d at 1075. [T]he mere fact that some adverse action is taken after an employee engages in some protected activity will not always be enough for a prima facie case, Roberson v. Alltel Info. Servs., 373 F.3d 647, 655 (5th Cir. 2004), especially if a lengthy period of time passed between the two, e.g., Raggs v. Miss. Power Light Co., 278 F.3d 463, 47172 (5th Cir. 2002) (five-month lapse was, on its own, insufficient to permit a reasonable jury to find that employee had demonstrated a causal link). Atkins acknowledges that, at a minimum, ten months passed between when SCHS had notice of her second Charge and when she was terminated. She contends, however, that there is a causal link because her EEOC charges were in the picture continuously for the last two years of [her] employment from 2008 until 2010. This argument amounts to an assertion that any employee who experiences an adverse employment action while an EEOC charge is pending can make out a prima facie showing of a causal connection, even if the employer has been aware of the charge for almost a year. We reject this.

Atkins contends that the district court erred by failing to explicitly discuss either the October grievance she filed with SCHS or her jobsite reassignment in November. However, the closer temporal proximity between these two intervening events does not provide evidence that she was ultimately terminated because of protected activity. See Raggs, 278 F.3d at 47172.

Additionally, even if this argument were persuasive, the district court correctly concluded that Atkins did not provide sufficient evidence to permit a reasonable jury to find that SCHS proffered reason for her termination was mere pretext. SCHS contends that Atkins was terminated because its investigation demonstrated that she abused her access to the PAP online portal to obtain free prescription medication for friends and family. As the district court noted, Atkins's evidence that this was mere pretext consists solely of her arguments that she was not guilty of this conduct. Even if these contentions are sufficient to create a genuine dispute as to this fact, Atkins also bears the burden of providing evidence to support a finding that, but-for her protected activity, she would not have been terminated. As noted, however, Atkins provides no evidence that SCHS's adverse employment action was motivated by her protected activity other than stating that her EEOC Charges was in the picture continuously from 2008 onward. As discussed, this mere scintilla of evidence is not sufficient for a reasonable jury to return a verdict in her favor.

III

Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

FOOTNOTES

. Though Atkins's brief includes conclusory assertions that this grievance was also protected activity, she does not sufficiently brief this point. Consequently, this argument is forfeited. SEC v. Life Partners Holdings, Inc., 854 F.3d 765 (5th Cir. 2017).

PER CURIAM:*




Minus 1 obstacle: Canada pork producers a step closer to EU market

The Canadian pork industry has hurdled one major obstacle that has prevented it from accessing the EU market under the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), the Canadian Pork Council (CPC) said.

In a release posted on its website, the CPC said the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has made changes to its Manual of Procedures, which will allow packers to apply health mark labels after the pork has been frozen.

The previous provision required the label to be applied to boxes before the product was eligible to be exported, which effectively prevented the industry from benefiting from CETA, which became effective provisionally last Sept. 21.

"The Canadian Pork Council (CPC) thanks the CFIA for reviewing its policy surrounding the health mark labels", said Rick Bergmann, chair of the CPC.

"The elimination of this barrier enables increased sales which is of utmost importance to a prosperous pork sector", he added.

With the removal of the trade barrier, the industry and government must now focus their efforts on having the EU approve the "full suite of antimicrobial interventions used in Canada to enhance food safety", according to Canadian Meat Council President and CEO Chris White.

"These interventions have been accepted by food safety authorities in Canada, the United States, Japan and numerous other countries", he stressed.

The Canadian Pork Council is the national voice for hog producers in Canada, while the Canadian Meat Council has been representing Canada's federally inspected meat processing industry since 1919. --Rick Alberto
To build the largest and most complete Amateur Radio community site on the Internet - a "portal" that hams think of as the first place to go for information, to exchange ideas, and be part of whats happening with ham radio on the Internet. eHam.net provides recognition and enjoyment to the people who use, contribute, and build the site. This project involves a management team of volunteers who each take a topic of interest and manage it with passion. The site will stand above all other ham radio sites by employing the latest technology and professional design/programming standards, developed by a team of community programmers who contribute their skills to the effort. The site will be something of which everyone involved can be proud to say they were a part. We welcome your comments. The eHam.net Team, Revision 07/2020.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit. Victor L. SMITH, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF TROY, OHIO; Miami County, Ohio; P.M. Osting; S.A. Gates; H. Hohenstein; C.A. Madigan, Defendants-Appellees. No. 16-4719 Decided: November 01, 2017

Before: COLE, Chief Judge; DAUGHTREY and DONALD, Circuit Judges. ON BRIEF: Bryan K. Penick, Joseph E. Zeis, Jr., SEBALY, SHILLITO & DYER, Dayton, Ohio, for Appellant. Edward J. Dowd, Kevin A. Lantz, SURDYK, DOWD & TURNER CO., L.P.A., Dayton, Ohio, for Appellees City of Troy, Gates, Hohenstein, and Madigan. Daniel T. Downey, Paul M. Bernhart, FISHEL HASS KIM ALBRECHT DOWNEY LLP, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellees Miami County and Osting.

OPINION

Victor L. Smith, represented by counsel, appeals the district court's judgment granting summary judgment to the defendants on his claims under 42 U.S.C.  1983 and Title II of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C.  12132. The parties have waived oral argument, and the panel unanimously agrees that oral argument is not needed. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a).

Smith has epilepsy. On the morning of February 11, 2014, he began experiencing a seizure while driving in Troy, Ohio. Smith steered his car into a yard located at 449 Glendale Avenue, exited the car, and walked a few houses away. A neighbor called the police to report that Smith was involved in suspicious activity. Miami County Deputy Sheriff Phillip M. Osting was the first to arrive at the scene. Osting observed Smith grasping a waist-high chain-link fence, swaying back and forth. Smith's pants were down around his knees, revealing his white longjohns, and he was yelling out, Baby. Osting identified himself and asked Smith to return to his car to discuss the incident. Smith did not respond and kept yelling, Baby. Although it was cold, Osting noticed that Smith was sweating. Osting thought that Smith was under the influence of something by the way Smith was acting. Osting placed his hand on Smith's right hand, which was grasping the fence, and his other hand on Smith's back, and again asked Smith to return to his car. Osting felt Smith tense up, and so he began to peel Smith's fingers from the fence. Once Osting pried Smith's fingers from the fence, Smith pulled his arm away. Osting then took Smith to the ground with a leg sweep. Smith hit the ground facedown and Osting fell on top of him.

Osting had control of Smith's right arm and was struggling to gain control of Smith's left arm. After Osting wrestled with Smith for 30 seconds to a minute, Troy Police Officer Scott Gates arrived on the scene. Gates drew his taser and ordered Smith to put his hands behind his back. Smith looked at Gates blankly but did not comply. Gates put his taser in drive-stun mode and tried to grab Smith's left arm. Smith moved his arm underneath his body. Gates then applied the taser to Smith's upper-back and lower-neck area. By that time, Troy Police Officers Hans Hohenstein and Chris Madigan had arrived on the scene and grabbed Smith's legs, allowing Osting to gain control of Smith and handcuff him. The data recorder on Gates's taser later showed that he had deployed it eight times, for a total of 48 seconds, during an encounter with Smith that lasted less than two minutes. None of the officers ever informed Smith that he was under arrest.

Smith testified that he drifted in and out of lucidity during the incident. He remembered the onset of the seizure, leaving the road, honking his horn for help, and exiting the car. He remembered trying to support himself on the fence, encountering Deputy Osting, telling Osting he was sick and having a seizure, and being taken to the ground. Smith did not remember struggling with the officers or being tased. Smith thought that he came out of the seizure when he was on the ground but then had another seizure and did not wake up until he was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Smith claimed that he has post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the incident.

Smith filed a complaint against the City of Troy; Miami County, Ohio; Deputy Osting; and Officers Gates, Hohenstein, and Madigan under  1983 and under Title II of the ADA. Smith sued the individual law enforcement officers in their official and individual capacities, claiming that they violated his Fourth Amendment rights by using excessive force against him and by failing to intervene to protect him against the allegedly excessive force employed by the other officers. Smith claimed that the City of Troy and Miami County were responsible for their respective officers' allegedly unconstitutional conduct under theories of ratification, negligent hiring and retention, and failure to train. Smith also claimed that the City of Troy's and Miami County's alleged failure to train its law enforcement officers properly on confronting and attending to persons with disabilities denied him the benefit of law enforcement services, in violation of Title II of the ADA. Finally, Smith asserted state-law claims against the defendants for assault and battery and for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants on Smith's federal civil rights claims. As to Smith's excessive-force claims, the district court concluded that the officers used measured force in response to Smith's defiance of their orders and reaching where the officers could not see his hands. The district court held, therefore, that the officers did not use excessive force as a matter of law. The district court concluded further that even if the individual officers did use excessive force, they were entitled to qualified immunity under the facts of the case. The district court held that the municipal defendants could not be liable under  1983 without an underlying constitutional violation. The district court concluded further that Smith's  1983 claims against the municipal defendants failed because he did not produce evidence of a pattern of constitutional violations by their law enforcement officers. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment on Smith's ADA claim because the officers did not take action against Smith because of his disability. After granting the defendants summary judgment on Smith's federal claims, the district court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over his state-law claims and dismissed them without prejudice. Smith's timely appeal followed.

We review de novo a district court's order granting summary judgment. See Rose v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 766 F.3d 532, 535 (6th Cir. 2014). Summary judgment is appropriate if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). A court reviewing a summary judgment motion must draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party. See Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986).

I. Individual Liability Under  1983

The Fourth Amendment prohibits law enforcement officers from using excessive force when making an arrest. See Smoak v. Hall, 460 F.3d 768, 783 (6th Cir. 2006). In order to comply with the Fourth Amendment, an officer's use of force must be objectively reasonable under the totality of the circumstances. See Kent v. Oakland Cty., 810 F.3d 384, 390 (6th Cir. 2016). In evaluating whether a police officer used excessive force on a particular occasion, the court must view the situation from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene at the time and without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. See id. To determine whether the officer's use of force was reasonable, the court must consider the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect posed a threat to the officers or others, and whether the suspect was actively resisting arrest or attempting to avoid arrest by fleeing. See id.

A public official is entitled to qualified immunity and, thus, is shielded from suit under  1983 if his conduct does not violate a clearly established statutory or constitutional right of which a reasonable official would have known. See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). The official, however, is entitled to qualified immunity only for actions taken in objective good faith within the scope of his duties. See Harlow, 457 U.S. at 819 n.34, 102 S.Ct. 2727.

Determining a public official's entitlement to qualified immunity involves a two-step inquiry. The court must determine whether the facts alleged, judged in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, show that the officer's conduct violated a constitutional right. See Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001). If no constitutional right would have been violated on the facts alleged, the inquiry stops at this point and the officer is entitled to qualified immunity. See id. If a violation can be made out based on a favorable view of the pleadings, the court must determine whether the right at stake was clearly established. See id. In making this determination, the court must rely on decisions from the United States Supreme Court, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, or finally, the decisions of other circuit courts. See Walton v. City of Southfield, 995 F.2d 1331, 1336 (6th Cir. 1993). Courts have discretion to decide in which order to address the two parts of the qualified-immunity analysis. See Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009).

Whether the right alleged to have been violated is clearly established and whether the official reasonably could have believed that his conduct was consistent with that right are questions of law for the court. See Walton, 995 F.2d at 1336. But if genuine issues of material fact exist as to whether the official committed acts that would violate a clearly established right, then dismissal of the claim is improper. See id. When a defendant raises qualified immunity as a defense, the plaintiff bears the burden of demonstrating that the defendant is not entitled to qualified immunity. See Everson v. Leis, 556 F.3d 484, 494 (6th Cir. 2009). In order to deny public officials qualified immunity, existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate. Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 179 L.Ed.2d 1149 (2011). When more than one officer is involved, the court must consider each officer's entitlement to qualified immunity separately. See Morrison v. Bd. of Trs. of Green Twp., 583 F.3d 394, 401 (6th Cir. 2009). Finally, the court must segment the incident into its constituent parts and consider the officer's entitlement to qualified immunity at each step along the way. See id.

A. Deputy Osting

Viewing the record in the light most favorable to Smith, we conclude that Deputy Osting violated Smith's right to be free from excessive force when he took Smith to the ground with a leg sweep and landed on top of Smith. There is little in the record to suggest that Smith committed any crime, even a minor one. There are factual disputes concerning whether Smith was involved in an automobile accident or whether he parked his car in the yard, and whether he left the scene of an accident or simply wandered away in a stupor due to his seizure. Smith claims that he told Osting that he was sick and having a seizure. In his incident report, Osting concedes that Smith was holding the fence to maintain his balance and that Smith told him that he was sick and needed to use the restroom. Osting did not state, either in his incident report or in his deposition testimony, that he believed that Smith presented a safety threat.

Moreover, Osting never told Smith that he was under arrest, and there is a factual dispute as to whether Smith actually resisted Osting before Osting took him to the ground, or whether Smith merely failed to comply with Osting's order to return to the car. It was well-established at the time of the incident in this case that a non-violent, non-resisting, or only passively resisting suspect who is not under arrest has a right to be free from an officer's use of force. See Kent, 810 F.3d at 396 (stating that it was clearly established in 2005 that a police officer cannot use force against a detainee who has been subdued, is not told that he is under arrest, and is not resisting arrest). A reasonable juror could conclude that, in pulling his arm away, Smith's resistance was minimal and that Osting's response in taking Smith to the ground was excessive. See Shreve v. Jessamine Cty. Fiscal Court, 453 F.3d 681, 687 (6th Cir. 2006) (holding that passive resistance does not justify substantial use of force). Viewing the record in the light most favorable to Smith, a reasonable officer in Osting's position would have known that he would violate Smith's right to be free from excessive force by using a leg sweep to force him to the ground. Accordingly, for purposes of summary judgment, we conclude that Osting violated Smith's right to be free from excessive force by knocking him to the ground and then landing on top of him. Osting is not entitled to qualified immunity for this use of force.

Smith also has presented a genuine factual dispute regarding whether his failure to put one of his arms behind his back while lying face-down on the ground constitutes resistance sufficient to justify forcible handcuffing by Osting. Significantly, at no point during the entire episode was Smith under arrest for any offense whatsoever. And, during his deposition testimony, Osting conceded that the mere failure of a citizennot arrested for any crimeto follow the officer's commands does not give a law enforcement official authority to put the citizen in handcuffs. If Smith indeed had committed no crime, if he was unarmed, and if no evidence was adduced that he posed a threat to himself or to others, Osting's forcible handcuffing of him would be excessive and in violation of well-established constitutional principles. Osting thus also was not entitled to qualified immunity for his actions in this regard, especially given the fact that there is no evidence that Osting took Smith to the ground for any reason other than to handcuff him and restrain him forcibly.

Smith also claims that Osting failed to intervene to protect him from Officer Gates's allegedly excessive deployment of the taser to subdue him. In order to establish a claim against a police officer for failing to intervene or for failing to protect him from another officer's use of excessive force, the plaintiff must prove that the officer observed or had reason to know that excessive force would be or was being used and that the officer had both the opportunity and the means to prevent the harm from occurring. Turner v. Scott, 119 F.3d 425, 429 (6th Cir. 1997). In this case, Osting was occupied trying to gain control of Smith's arms while Gates was deploying the taser. Consequently, no reasonable juror could find that Osting had the opportunity and the means to prevent Gates from tasing Smith excessively.

B. Officer Gates

Osting had already taken Smith down and was struggling to gain full control of him before Gates arrived on the scene. Gates therefore could not have prevented Osting's initial use of force against Smith. Gates was justified in tasing Smith because Gates was unaware of what had transpired before his arrival on the scene and because Smith appeared to be resisting being handcuffed. See Hagans v. Franklin Cty. Sheriff's Office, 695 F.3d 505, 509 (6th Cir. 2012). Smith, however, has presented evidence that Gates tased him for 48 seconds in less than two minutes and that, under the circumstances, Smith did not have sufficient time to comply with the officers' commands to submit to handcuffing. It was clearly established at the time of the incident in this case that a police officer violates a suspect's right to be free from excessive force by repeatedly tasing the suspect without giving him a chance to comply with orders. See Kent, 810 F.3d at 392 (holding that a police officer uses excessive force where the suspect could not have actively resisted police in between a rapid series of taser applications). Consequently, viewing the record in the light most favorable to Smith, we conclude that Gates's repeated deployment of the taser on Smith was unreasonable and that Gates is not entitled to qualified immunity on this aspect of Smith's excessive-force claim.

C. Officers Hohenstein and Madigan

The record does not support an inference that Officers Hohenstein and Madigan violated Smith's right to be free from excessive force or that they failed to protect him from the other officers' allegedly excessive use of force. Like Gates, Hohenstein and Madigan arrived after Osting took Smith to the ground; therefore, they could not have prevented this use of force. Hohenstein and Madigan were trying to control Smith's legs while Gates was deploying his taser. The record thus does not support a conclusion that they had a realistic opportunity to prevent Gates's unreasonable deployment of his taser. Accordingly, we conclude that the district court correctly granted summary judgment to Hohenstein and Madigan on Smith's excessive-force claim.

II. Municipal Liability Under  1983

Smith claims that the City of Troy and Miami County are liable under  1983 for their respective officers' unconstitutional conduct under theories of ratification, negligent hiring and retention, and failure to train. However, a municipality cannot be held liable under  1983 simply because one of its employees violated the plaintiff's constitutional rights. See Miller v. Calhoun Cty., 408 F.3d 803, 813 (6th Cir. 2005) (citing Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 690, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978)). In other words,  1983 does not impose respondeat superior liability on municipalities. See id. In order to impose  1983 liability on a municipality, the plaintiff must prove that the constitutional deprivation occurred as a result of an official custom or policy of the municipality. See id.

Smith cannot establish municipal liability under a failure-to-train theory because he has not shown that the municipal defendants ignored a history of abuse and [were] clearly on notice that [their] training [in the deployment of tasers and the proper use of force] was deficient and likely to cause injury. Burgess v. Fischer, 735 F.3d 462, 478 (6th Cir. 2013) (citation omitted). Smith has not shown that the municipal defendants have demonstrated a pattern of inadequately investigating excessive force claims and, therefore, that they have a custom of tolerating the use of excessive-force by their officers. See id. Similarly, Smith has not shown that the municipal defendants' allegedly inadequate investigation into his case, or their alleged post hoc ratification of the officers' conduct, was itself a source of injury to him. See id. at 478-89. It appears that on appeal Smith has abandoned any claim that the municipal defendants negligently hired and retained the individual defendants by not advancing an argument in support of it in his merits brief. See United States v. Johnson, 440 F.3d 832, 845-46 (6th Cir. 2006). In any event, Smith has not shown that the plainly obvious consequence of hiring and retaining these officers would be the deprivation of a third party's federally protected rights. See Bd. of Cty. Comm'rs of Bryan Cty. v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 411, 117 S.Ct. 1382, 137 L.Ed.2d 626 (1997).

Accordingly, we conclude that the district court properly granted summary judgment to the municipal defendants on Smith's  1983 claims.

III. Americans With Disabilities Act

Smith also claims that the defendants denied him access to police services because of his disability, in violation of Title II of the ADA. In order to establish a Title II violation, the plaintiff must show that the defendants intentionally discriminated against him because of his disability. See Thompson v. Williamson Cty., 219 F.3d 555, 558 (6th Cir. 2000). In this case, even granting that the officers used excessive force against Smith, he has not shown that they intentionally discriminated against him because of his disability. Accordingly, we find that the district court correctly granted summary judgment to the defendants on Smith's ADA claim.

IV. Pendent State-Law Claims

Because the district court dismissed all of Smith's federal claims, it declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Smith's state-law causes of action. In light of our reinstatement of a number of federal claims raised in Smith's complaint, it is possible that the district court now may wish to examine the state-law claims arising from the same operative facts.

The district court should have the opportunity on remand to determine anew whether to exercise its discretion under 28 U.S.C.  1367(a).

Conclusion

For the reasons discussed, we REVERSE the district court's judgment granting summary judgment to Deputy Osting on Smith's claims that Osting used excessive force in taking him to the ground with a leg sweep and in handcuffing him forcibly; REVERSE the district court's judgment granting summary judgment to Officer Gates on Smith's claim that Gates excessively deployed his taser; and REVERSE that part of the district court's judgment dismissing Smith's pendent state-law claims. We AFFIRM the remainder of the district court's judgment and REMAND this case to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

PER CURIAM.
Lee University faculty Kristen Holritz, flute, and ChoEun Lee, piano, will perform a recital on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in the Squires Recital Hall, located in Lees Humanities Center.

The evenings performance will feature Erno Dohnanyis Sonata Op. 21 in C# Minor, Philippe Gauberts Sonata No. 1 in A Major, and Introduction and Variation on Trockne Blumen from Die schone Mullerin by Franz Schubert.

Dr. ChoEun Lee, an assistant professor in collaborative piano at Lee, has extensive collaborative experiences in vocal and chamber music repertoires and has given numerous performances in Korea, the United States, Austria, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand, in major venues including Carnegie Hall in New York City, Ozawa Hall in Tanglewood Music Center and Harris Concert Hall at the Aspen Music Festival.

She has worked in recitals and masterclasses with renowned musicians such as Stephanie Blythe, Phyllis Curtin, Dawn Upshaw, Martin Katz, and Anne Sofie von Otter, among others.

Dr. Lee was twice invited to Tanglewood Music Festival and has been named a recipient of the Grace B. Jackson Prize. In the summers of 2016 and 2017, she was invited to the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, and will be returning in 2018.

Ms. Holritz, adjunct professor in flute at Lee, made her solo debut with the United States Air Force Band in 2005 as winner of the Colonel George S. Howard Young Artist Competition. In addition to teaching at the university, she teaches at Southern Adventist University in Collegedale. She has appeared with the University of North Carolina School of the Arts Symphony Orchestra and the University of Georgia Symphony Orchestra.

She is a winner of the Atlanta Flute Club Young Artist Competition and a Third Prize recipient in the MidSouth Flute Festival Young Artist Competition. In the fall of 2013, she accepted the Principal Flute position with the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera.

Ms. Holritz has appeared as guest principal flute with Memphis Symphony and as a substitute flute with Alabama, Knoxville, Nashville, Huntsville, and Charleston symphonies.

The Wednesday evening recital is free, non-ticketed, and open to the public.

For more information about the concert, contact the School of Music at 614-8240 or by email at music@leeuniversity.edu.
Police want to identify man in car park

Police in the north of the Island are appealing for help to identify a male seen entering a parked car.

The incident happened in the public car park opposite Bride Church at around 10am on Wednesday.

The male is described as being in his late teens and was wearing a blue motorbike jacket, and he rode off from the area on a motorbike with L plates.

Anyone who can help officers trace the male is asked to contact the Northern Neighbourhood Policing Team at Ramsey Police Station.


Almost 800m aircraft import VAT refunded since 2011

Almost 800m of VAT has been refunded by the Island's Treasury on aircraft imports over the last six years.

Since October 2011, 790.1m has been claimed back by those importing jets into the European Union through the Isle of Man.

During this time, 231 claims for refunds have been submitted, all of which have received a 100% refund.

The 2014-15 financial year saw the highest number of claims, with 61 refunds worth 224m being issues.

The Island's aircraft imports are under scrutiny following allegations of tax avoidance by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

The Manx Government has denied any wrongdoing, but has asked the UK Treasury to check its VAT receipts.
A bank in East Brainerd has been sold for $2.3 million.

The sale was of the Cohutta Bank at 1821 Gunbarrel Road.

It was to Halle Properties Llc from Ant Group Llc.

The bank was built in 2008 with 4,422 square feet.
Josh Flagg and Bobby Boyd got married in Los Angeles weeks ago and soon, fans will watch as they prepare to tie the knot on the 10th season of Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles, which premieres later tonight on Bravo TV.

Just a couple of years ago, fans of the Bravo TV reality series watched as Flagg and his former fiance, Colton Thorn, prepared to buy a home where they would live as a married couple. However, after seemingly finding their dream home in a pricey area of town, the couple parted ways during the show's hiatus and when the series returned, Flagg had a new man in his life.

A short time later, Flagg and the new man, Boyd, got engaged during a visit to Paris, France with Flagg's mom and dad and the moment ultimately aired on Bravo TV during an episode of Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles season nine.

Bobby and I are truly over the moon happy, Flagg told People after the proposal. Very seldom do couples share what Bobby and I share. What makes our partnership complete is we are most importantly best friends. We are both extremely happy and excited for the next chapter.

Throughout their whirlwind romance, Flagg and Boyd did tons of traveling and chronicled many of their outings on their Instagram pages with their many fans and followers.

After their September wedding in Beverly Hills at the iconic Beverly Hills Hotel, Flagg gushed over their stunning ceremony and revealed their first dance was to Etta James' "At Last."

The wedding was magical, we danced the night away with all of our closest family and friends, Flagg told The Daily Dish.

Among the guests at their wedding were Eden Sassoon and Kyle Richards of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Sonja Morgan of The Real Housewives of New York City, and David Parnes and his wife Adrian Abnosi of Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles.

Josh Flagg and Colton Thorn never revealed the reason behind their sudden split and he has not been seen on the show since their breakup.

To see more of Josh Flagg, Bobby Boyd, and their costars, including Josh Altman, Tracy Tutor-Maltas, Heather Bilyeu, Madison Hildebrand, James Harris, and David Parnes, tune into the premiere episode of Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles Season 10 tonight, Nov. 2 at 9 p.m. on Bravo TV.
Kailyn Lowry doesn't believe Farrah Abraham's claims against MTV and Viacom are genuine.

According to a new report, Abraham, who has been starring on MTV since 2009 when she made her debut on 16 & Pregnant Season 1, accused the network of sex shaming her, instigating fights between her and her co-stars, and tons of other outrageous behavior, but Lowry says her statements are false.

Ive never, ever experienced any of those things with our production crews, Lowry confirmed to Radar Online on Nov. 2. I have a great relationship with a lot of the crew.

In 2013, while Teen Mom OG was in a hiatus, Abraham shockingly released a sex tape with porn star James Deen and proceeded to embark on a number of other sexually-charged business ventures. She even created a line of adult toys and wrote a number of adult novels, in addition to making several appearances at strip clubs and participating in XXX web shows on CamSoda.

Although MTV seemingly lets her sex tape slide, despite Maci Bookout's threats to quit the show because of it, Abraham went on a rant on Monday and suggested she had been fired from Viacom.

Morgan J. Freeman of 11th Street Productions is unprofessional, fake, women hater, press hungry, Sex Shaming, Hate Crimes, Poor Business Practices, unsafe working environment & accomplice Dia Sokol anxious 11 production, Viacom associate pill popping Larry Musnik & Executive promoted alcohol binger producer Kirsten Malone, taking advantage and acting as a friend to spread jealous, hate crimes to the other Teen Moms & influence a toxic unsafe working culture, she wrote in a barely understandable post.

Abraham went on to threaten the company and its executives, saying that she will turn them in if they don't change. She also said that she wants them to sign an agreement that will require them to maintain good ethics and good business practices from "here on out."

To see more of Kailyn Lowry, tune into Teen Mom 2 season eight on Monday nights at 9 p.m. on MTV and to Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars on Friday nights at 9 p.m. on WE tv.

As for Farrah Abraham, she and the cast of Teen Mom OG, including Catelynn Lowell, Amber Portwood, Gary Shirley, Maci Bookout, and Tyler Baltierra, are set to return to MTV for season seven on Nov. 27 at 9 p.m. on MTV.
A FedEx freight building on Shallowford Road has been sold for $11.3 million.

The facility, that includes over 45,000 square feet of office and warehouse space, is at 4250 Shallowford.

The sale was to Setzer Properties Cha Llc from La Jolia Group B Llc.

FedEx is moving into a new $30 million headquarters near I-75 at Apison Pike.

Setzer Properties is a real estate group headquartered in Lexington, Ky.
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governments Make in India policy appears to be unravelling even before it takes off, hurting Indias military preparedness where it matters most. On 3 August 2017, the USIndia Business Council (USIBC), which represents 400 firms in the United States (US), wrote to the Ministry of Defence seeking guarantees that US firms would be allowed to retain control over sensitive technology even as junior joint venture partners. The USIBC letter said that

[t]o allow foreign Original Equipment Manufacturers to provide the most advanced technologies the partnership arrangements between an India-owned strategic partner company and a foreign OEM needs to provide an opportunity for the foreign OEM to retain control over its proprietary technology.
As soon as the annual report Prison Statistics India (PSI) is published by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Ministry of Home Affairs, many newspapers report each year that Dalits, Muslims and other minorities are over-represented in Indian prisons (Rukmini 2014; Indian Express 2015; Wall Street Journal 2014). Such reports also appear in weeklies and fortnightlies such as Frontline (2015, 2016), India Today (2014, 2016), and Tehelka (2013). However, follow-up analyses by journalistssuch as Rukmini (2014) and Vajpeyi (2013)are rare. Scholars have so far not paid sufficient attention to the PSI data, much less drawn implications from the data to shed light on the health and working of Indian democracy. A noticeable exception is Raghavan and Nair (2013). However, their analysis is limited to Maharashtra. Furthermore, they do not foreground analytical connections between democracy and the prison data they have meticulously gathered. An in-depth, sustained, scholarly analysis of the PSI data at a pan-India level, inquiring into its connections with the ideals and practices of democracy, is, we maintain, urgently needed.

The aim of this article is twofold. First, it offers a detailed, multipronged analysis of the PSI data from 1998 to 2014. Since the data prior to 1998 is not available, we limit ourselves to that period.1 We analyse the prison data along anthropological and sociological coordinates of communities such as Adivasis, Christians, Dalits, Muslims, and Sikhs. We compare their percentage in prison populations with their respective proportion in the total population. This comparison is undertaken at a pan-India level as well as at state levels. We must point out that our focus on communities by no means implies that other factorssuch as gender, income, age, nature of offence, and educational capital of the detainees, which the PSI recordsare not significant.
Hi,



I am trying to get referral experienced letter from Infosys. What is the best way to get it?



I left the company in 2013 and I don't have any information regarding my manager.



I have total experience of 7 years. How to get referral letter. Require to apply for Ontario.



Urgent. Any help on this would be appreciated.



Thanks!
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I've been here for a couple of years and despite shipping a container here when I arrived I still have a few boxes of books I'd like brought over.



Prices are high to ship by volume (full container was reasonable) so I'd like to share space with anyone bringing a container over.



Items are books in transparent and openable boxes so I"m happy for them to be checked if you're worried about customs clearance.



I'd also willingly kick in for fees.



I'm in Dubai but would drive to Abu Dhabi or any of Northern Emirates to pick up.



Items currently based in London, can be dropped off anywhere within M25
HI Guys. I am looking at the idea of palay buying and selling. in the area I live farmers are selling rice straight from harvest for as low a 13 peso per kilo, if I were to transport that rice to a city 85km away I can get 19-23 peso per kilo. we have a bodega already but no truck. I am considering a truck that good handle 300 cavan approx 1500kg. I would also need a Isuzu elf etc to get to the not so accessible farmers. I have a family member that would act as a buying agent in the locality. My Mother in law thinks we could for sure do at least 2 trucks a month (I'm also considering bringing something back from city rather than an empty truck- maybe fertilizer, feed etc to sell in a commercial lot)..



Any recommendations on trucks (Isuzu forward or Giga- flat back??) plan on going to subic to have a look at the truck dealers. I'm thinking used surplus model from Japan) anyone have any experience and could make recommendations especially on the trucks- I plan on bringing the local truck mechanic with us.



Looking forward to some feedback.
We leased for 12 months in Celadon towers in San Lazaro Sta Cruz, 90 m2 with good security and a quiet bunch of mixed residents. Very convenient, walk across the road to the SM Mall, plenty of taxis and tricycles, 4 to 5 mins walk to Blumentritt train station (PNR). Liked the location but was a little far from the hub if you like glitz, pollution was the same as most places in manila.

We stayed in Luxor suites for 2 months prior to San Lazaro (close to Bengies work) and while sitting on top of Robinson's in Malate found the area too busy and while some what central offered the same pollution, noise, opportunities and fallacies as one finds in Manila, only my experience there but I/we are more country/back blocks orientated so for us Condo living while an experience proved that it was not our bag, others love it.



Must add tdd1984, welcome to the forum and hope you enjoy, plenty of info if you care to trawl. Good luck with your search. Boots on the ground etc.



Cheers, Steve.
I have some plan for business. I am trying to buy a business in south Africa. can anyone suggest me about this.
I am trying to buy a business on south africa. can any one know any business broker in south africa???
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Erick Buenrostro and Goutham Dhongadi Rukmasah will make history in December when they walk across the graduation stage at St. Marys University to receive the schools first masters degrees in cybersecurity.

The two are graduating with a new degree in a field suffering from a shortage of qualified workers: science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM. Local employers say the lack of such workers is particularly acute in Texas, which is projected to add 715,000 STEM jobs by 2018, according to a 2011 study by Georgetown University.

Ayad Barsoum, director of the masters program at St. Marys, predicts students could graduate with starting salaries of $100,000 or more.

Here in San Antonio its booming; cybersecurity is booming, Barsoum said.

San Antonio is one of the nations largest cybersecurity hubs outside the Washington, D.C., metro area, anchored by the Air Forces cyber hub at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland and the National Security Agencys Texas Cryptologic Center, commonly called NSA Texas.

Truly the job opportunities are endless, especially in a city like San Antonio where cybersecurity is a big hub now, Buenrostro said.

Buenrostro said hes planning to take a spring and summer off after graduation to earn additional certifications and further his studies in hopes of starting a Ph.D. program in the fall. His long-term plan is to open his own business in his hometown of El Paso, helping small and medium-sized businesses with their cybersecurity needs.

Unfortunately, a lot of times what happens is people will originate from a city, and theyll gain this experience, and theyll go out and learn, but they never come back. So that city never benefits from that kind of person that couldve brought so much more to that city. So I want to do that; I want to go back home and build a cybersecurity company out there, Buenrostro said.

The future is still murky for Rukmasah, whos from India and wants to get authorized for optional practical training to legally work temporarily in the U.S. after graduation. There are fewer opportunities for international students to work in cybersecurity in the U.S., he said. But he hopes to become a penetration tester. That job testing the vulnerabilities of a companys cyber defense systems pays an average of $101,000 a year, according to CyberSeek.

This is the best technical cybersecurity course available in San Antonio, Rukmasah said.

Barsoum, the director of the cybersecurity masters and the graduate certificate programs, said his major task at St. Marys was to put it on the cyber map of San Antonio. If St. Marys was going to have a masters program, it would need to be unique, Barsoum said.

If there are some programs in other institutions, it doesnt make any sense to duplicate yourself, he said.

Other institutions of higher learning also have added advanced cybersecurity programs in recent years. The University of Texas at San Antonio offers a Master of Science in information technology with a concentration in cybersecurity, and a Master of Science in computer science with a concentration in computer and information security, according to the universitys website.

Our Lady of the Lake University offers a Master of Science in information systems and security, according to its website.

The NSA has honored Texas A&M University-San Antonio for the rigor of its cybersecurity certification program. The spy agency recently renewed the universitys designation as a National Center for Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education through 2022.

St. Marys doesnt yet have that designation, which also has been bestowed on UTSA, Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio College and St. Philips College.

While researching programs, Barsoum said, they found that others were handling cybersecurity more from the management side.

So we said, OK, here we have a niche, this can be our point. We will focus on the technical side of cybersecurity; its really needed, but at the same time we would like to have the flavors of the management and business side as well, Barsoum said.

Rukmasah was working for IBM in India after getting an undergraduate degree in electronics and communications. He was taking care of a corporate email system for a client, he said.

From that point I started working on security, Rukmasah said. So that was the main reason for me to working towards and choosing a profession towards cybersecurity.

In a search for top cybersecurity cities in the U.S., of course San Antonio pops up, Rukmasah said. So he began searching for companies doing business in cybersecurity in San Antonio.

Buenrostro was pushed into technology in middle school by one of his teachers. He started helping tech support and the web developer at his high school with minor tasks in 2012, during his junior year.

While working on his undergraduate degree at St. Marys, he worked for the district in the summer. He was hired in summer 2014 as a temporary programmer to build a web portal for students and employees, and finished his bachelor degree in computer science from St. Marys in 2016, Buenrostro said. Most recently, he worked for the district as a project manager for a Chromebook deployment.

The combination of theory and hands-on at this program here is what really made me stay for his master degree, Buenrostro said.

He and fellow student Rukmasah started in the program in fall 2016.

I think it was a great choice, Buenrostro said. You know one of the big things about St. Marys as a community, theres a great community of people that are willing to help, and people that are open and really willing to lend a hand.

Not all the students can study full time because some are simultaneously working at everywhere from the National Security Agency to CPS Energy, Barsoum said.

When some students are from the NSA, they are working with, for example, a bachelors degree in computer science. And during working at the NSA they have some security problems or they started to work on security issues, so they need to have the academic studies of cybersecurity and a complete advanced degree, Barsoum said. So they are coming here to take this advanced degree so they can benefit themselves, or even to change the career inside NSA, so if he is an entry level in cybersecurity and would like to go one level or two levels up.

Core classes in the program include applied cryptography; computer networking and data communication; and computer security and privacy, Barsoum said.

Students also can perform experiments in a specialized cybersecurity lab with an isolated network and controlled environment, Barsoum said.

The Hearst Foundations gave the university a grant to develop the lab, he said.

sehlinger@express-news.net | Twitter: @samehlinger
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Q: Yesterday, I received my CATNIP newsletter from Tufts University, and it had an interesting article about a spay/neuter and release program in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is called Save-A-Gato. They need help. Could you share their web page, saveagato.com, in your column? Thanks a million. I start every Tuesday with your Animals Matter column.

Jeanne

A: Thanks for sending the article. While I dont normally mention organizations outside of South Texas, I am happy to mention Save-A-Gato, since everyone knows Puerto Rico is suffering through some tough times after Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Save-A-Gato feeds the islands feral cats, provides trap-neuter-return and places friendly cats up for adoption. Limited electric power and potable water have made it difficult for them to take care of cats right now.

Since Hurricane Katrina, animal shelters have learned many ways to support each other after disasters. Naturally, people in Puerto Rico arent adopting pets right now, so Save-A-Gato has flown some cats to animal shelters in the U.S. for adoption.

After Hurricane Harvey, animal shelters in San Antonio, Austin, Dallas and other Texas cities stepped up in a big way to take in stray and adoptable animals from East Texas, so that they could find homes for these animals.

If anyone wants to help or see whats going on with Save-A-Gato, the organization keeps information current on Facebook: Save A Gato.

More on S.A. animal ordinances

Last week, I mentioned some of the updates to San Antonios chapter 5 Animal Ordinances, specifically the ban on the use of chains of any weight as tethering for dogs. This new ordinance does not outlaw tying your dog up outside; only prohibiting chains as a means for doing so.

While its a step in the right direction, I wanted to add that tethering dogs in general sometimes leads to neglect and can result in injury or even death. There are stories of neglected dogs out on a tether or chain their entire lives, and stories of dogs who get hung up on fences and asphyxiate.

Just a few weeks ago, a young pup arrived at the San Antonio Humane Society with a cable tether grown  an inch into his neck. The puppy had to have lived on the cable 24/7 for the cable to have grown this deeply into his neck as he grew.

Thankfully, the dog is all right now, but there is no excuse for this neglect.

Please dont tether your dog. If you must because you dont have a fence or your dog escapes your fenced yard, then please supervise your dog and limit his time outside while on the tether.

Dogs are social creatures and need to be with their families.

Send pet stories and questions to cathy@petpundit.com. You can read her blog, Animals Matter, at blog.mysanantonio.com/animals. Twitter: @CathyMRosenthal
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A capital campaign kicked off this week to raise $5 million for a new, state-of-the-art child development center on the East Side, an area historically lacking in high-quality early childhood education and burdened with a high poverty rate.

The center will be part of and adjacent to Healy-Murphy Center, an alternative high school for youths in crisis and pregnant/parenting teens. But it will also be open to residents of the surrounding community, more than half of whom live in poverty and virtually all of whom are eligible for government-subsidized child care, said Douglas Watson, the high schools executive director.

This new center will allow children in the area to really spread their wings, Watson said, standing next to renderings of the future center, designed by local firm LPA Architects and featuring 14 classrooms, including two prekindergarten classrooms. The classrooms will surround an outdoor courtyard that offers kids an open and protected place to play.

The fundraising goal got a major assist from the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate, a sponsoring organization of the school, whose members presented a check for $1 million at an event in the schools community room, reducing the amount of money that needs to be raised to $4 million.

The 12,000-square-foot Healy-Murphy Child Development Center will be built on land next to the school purchased by the Sisters two years ago, Watson said, and will expand capacity at an existing child care center, built in 1972, from 110 to 136 children. The center cares for kids from infants to age 5.

Officials took to the podium to extol plans for the new center, as well as the legacy and purpose of Healy-Murphy, which opened in 1888 when Irish immigrant and widow Margaret Mary Healy-Murphy used her money to educate the child descendants of slaves in San Antonio. She founded the order of the Sisters of the Holy Spirit in 1893, and its members ran the school for decades. Nowadays, the high school collaborates with San Antonio Independent School District.

Joe Barajas, 36, a well-known barber and business owner who graduated from Healy-Murphy in 2000, said two of his five sons attended the existing center, an experience that played a part in molding them into successful young adults.

I grew up in the projects on the West Side, he said. My mother was an alcoholic; my father was in prison. The nuns here loved us unconditionally. Being at Healy-Murphy changed my whole family tree. And the day care center is how lives are changed.

Sister Geraldine Klein, an English teacher at the school and chair of the Healy-Murphy board, said the center represented a dream come true for us, really.

We still believe that education is the key, something that uplifts all of humanity, which is why were here today, she said.

Capital campaign head Michael Black, chief operating officer of UT Health San Antonio, spoke at the event, as did state Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, D-San Antonio, City Councilman William Cruz Shaw and Healy-Murphy board member and 4th Court of Appeals Judge Luz Elena Chapa, who said the new center will not only expand the number of children served but also enhance the quality of services provided.

These kids need a bigger space, they need more light, more windows to flourish, she said. Theyll be given opportunities that all children should have.

The center will also feature a large multipurpose room and an administrative area. In addition to child care, parental support and health services and wellness education will be offered, as they are now at Healy-Murphy.

In recent years, targeted neighborhoods on the East Side have been the focus of intensive anti-poverty efforts, thanks to an infusion of millions of dollars of government and private investment. Much of that effort has been aimed at increasing access to high-quality early childhood education.

But it hasnt been enough, Watson said. This new center will really help.

mstoeltje@express-news.net
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The medics competing at Camp Bullis had endured a 3.5-mile road march, carrying a patient on a stretcher. They went through a dry creek bed, used a rope to get up a hill, came under simulated rifle fire and performed life-saving medical care.

They navigated an obstacle course. They cut through a fake helicopters metal skin to rescue a wounded crewman. The tests mimicked what they might do in a war zone, much of it taught at Bullis, a hilly 28,000-acre training range in Northwest Bexar County that has long contributed to military readiness.

The Armys Jack L. Clark Memorial Best Medic Competition, an annual event, went well on a recent night for Staff Sgt. Lionel Semon and Sgt. Matthew Dougherty despite nearby high-end suburban development. Light from those new neighborhoods might have interfered with their night-vision goggles, rendering the training useless.

Bad things happen. You end up going (without the goggles) and you run around in the dark, said Dougherty, 31, of Tallahassee Florida. And the enemy could be sitting there waiting for you and you cant even see them, and you just get lit up.

Lit up, as in killed.

As medics have honed their craft here, a less visible battle has been fought to preserve Camp Bullis mission. Helped by the city and county, the Army and Joint Base San Antonio have mostly prevailed against the assertion of property rights by builders and homeowners.

The camp is now protected by a 5-mile lighting overlay district created in 2009, with input from developers and real estate professionals, to limit light pollution east of the range. The county and city also have spent nearly $30 million to buy land so the Army can expand training.

Still, homes are within walking distance of the camps perimeter fence, and if a developer-friendly Texas Legislature ever tinkers with the citys ability to control light from businesses dotting the area, it would complicate the simplest training tasks for a military that does much of its fighting in the dark.

If youre trying to see something and somebodys shining a light into your eyes, it makes it difficult to see, and you have to move and adjust, said Sgt. Rolando Fender, 25, of Jamaica.

Growth and light pollution have worried commanders at JBSA-Randolph and JBSA-Lackland as well, but the issues first came to public attention at Camp Bullis. More efforts are in the works, among them a city annexation election, possibly next year, for unincorporated areas around Camp Bullis and JBSA-Lackland, where field training is done on the Medina Annex.

There is not another asset like Joint Base San Antonio in terms of having a major urban medical complex within 15 minutes of a large natural training area with air and ground assets, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said Thursday. Camp Bullis in that respect is unique in the world and we need to protect it as a national priority.

The stakes are high. The Pentagon spends more than $5.9 billion a year in San Antonio, employing 87,384 military and civilian personnel at three bases and Camp Bullis. Only the counties surrounding San Diego, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii have more active-duty personnel than Bexar Countys 60,076.

Combat medics from every service branch study at the Medical Education & Training Campus on JBSA-Fort Sam Houston, which uses Camp Bullis. The program typically graduates 16,500 medics a year.

The Army Medical Commands 72-hour Best Medic Competition honors the most technically competent  and physically and mentally tough  medic team in the service. GIs like Semon and Fender, who are assigned to the 6th Ranger Training Battalion at Eglin AFB in Florida, went up against 28 other two-soldier teams.

They competed in helicopter medical evacuations, tactical combat casualty care, firing range and physical fitness challenges and chemical, biological or radiological attacks  all routine for GIs preparing to deploy overseas.

The 2005 base-closure round created the joint medical training mission at Fort Sam, but without Camp Bullis the field training would have to go elsewhere. Just where, no one knows.

Some of the alternatives that have been looked at are places like Fort Hood, Fort Benning, Fort Bragg, places that are extremely friendly and have plenty of range space, said retired Army Master Sgt. Mike Eldred, who designs and builds big events like the medic competition.

The citys 2009 dark sky zoning ordinance largely stabilized the situation or prevented it from getting worse, Army military environmental attorney Jim Cannizzo said. Outdoor lights have to be shielded downward and some, including those at businesses, must be off after 11 p.m.

Development in the area years ago drove an endangered migratory songbird known as the golden cheeked warbler into the heavily wooded range, making it harder to utilize the camp. The city strengthened its tree ordinance in response, in 2010. State lawmakers failed this year in attempts to strip the city of its ability to regulate tree cutting in its extraterritorial jurisdiction but Cannizzo is worried that theyll try again.

Soldiers say theres no place quite like Camp Bullis.

Its an outstanding place to train, said Maj. Manuel Menendez, 44, of San Juan, Puerto Rico and a 20-year Army veteran with eight combat deployments. Its a big city, its easy to fly to, we have a lot of brain power in this place and the ability to execute that stuff in the field nearby. Its pretty priceless.

Sgt. 1st Class Ilker Irmak and his partner, Capt. Andrew Fulton, thought the Best Medic contest was a realistic test.

We are able to replicate, in a sense, battlefield conditions, said Irmak, 37, a native of Germany whose family comes from Turkey.

Menendez, who is preparing for a fifth tour of Afghanistan, said he found the terrain and role playing stressful, enough to honestly give me a little flashback.

Realistic training helps medics find their weak spots well before entering combat and prepares them to save lives in the worst conditions, said Dougherty, a veteran of Afghanistan based in South Korea.

It becomes muscle memory at that point, he said. So even if youre tired you can still do all the steps and provide the care.

sigc@express-news.net
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U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke is hoping a whole lot of barbecue will help give his campaign for the U.S. Senate a major boost.

On Saturday, the El Paso Democrat is hosting what his campaign said will be more than 100 barbecues statewide. The events come nearly a year before 2018s Election Day, in which he is hoping to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Houston.

From El Paso, Del Rio, Longview to Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Waco, Lufkin, Taylor and other communities across the state, more than 100 BBQs have been registered with nearly 1,000 Texans RSVPd. Beto will be using YouTube LIVE to speak directly to voters at their BBQs, ORourkes campaign said in a news release promoting the events.

ORourke, first elected to Congress in 2012, is running an unconventional campaign trying to defeat Cruz while raising no money from political action committees. He has raised $4 million since getting into the race and has $2.9 million in his campaign account. Cruz has raised $4.7 million and has $5.7 million in his account, which includes funds transferred from his 2016 presidential bid.

On the campaign trail, ORourke takes aim at Cruz for spending time running for president instead of being focused on Texas. During a campaign speech in Austin two weeks ago, ORourke told the crowd that while Cruz was in Iowa and New Hampshire trying to advance his political career, he was not looking out for the Lone Star State.

He should be serving your interests, ORourke said.

At least two barbecues are planned for San Antonio and one for New Braunfels, according to ORourkes campaign website. For locations visit ORourkes Facebook page at facebook.com/betoorourke.

To be sure, ORourke faces a tough challenge. A Democrat has not won a statewide seat in Texas since the 1990s, and national political watchers such as the Cook Political Report and Nathan Gonzales of Inside Elections list the seat as solidly in Republican hands.
In 2007, ballerina Li Ying decided to retire at the age of 38.

It was a tough decision because she had foot surgeries twice already and had been forced to endure the pain of recovery while dancing.

Suzhou Ballet Theater's version of Romeo and Juliet gives the classic play a Chinese look. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Her husband, Pan Jiabin, also a former ballet dancer, retired that year too to support his wife, and the couple returned to Pan's hometown of Suzhou, Jiangsu province, where they founded the Suzhou Ballet Theater, one of the country's youngest ballet troupes, the same year.

The couple met at the Beijing Dance Academy and were married in 1991. Both of them had been principal dancers with the National Ballet of China from 1987 to 1992 and joined the US ballet company BalletMet in Columbus, Ohio, before dancing with the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater for 12 years until 2006.

"Although I stopped dancing onstage, I have never stopped dancing in my mind," says Li, who was born in Shanghai and started dancing at the age of 11.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, Suzhou Ballet Theater began its one-month debut tour in Europe from Oct 30, presenting 10 shows of the troupe's original ballet work, Romeo and Juliet, in nine cities including Paris, Amsterdam and Hasselt in Belgium. The company had previously performed in many countries around the world including Poland, Singapore, Qatar and Bahrain.

Choreographed by Li and Pan, the ballet, Romeo and Juliet, gives William Shakespeare's classic play a distinct Chinese look.

"The story of Romeo and Juliet is well known to Western audiences but I believe that they will be surprised to see our production with all these Chinese elements," says Li.

For example, a Chinese paper fan is used to carry the message, and a gourd is used as a container for poison. The changing shapes of the moon on the stage set also reflect the emotions of the main characters, from a crescent moon to a full moon.
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The police detective responsible for failing to investigate more than 130 sexual assault and family violence cases was fired Thursday, City Manager Sheryl Sculley announced.

Detective Kenneth Valdez, who has been with the department 17 years, received an indefinite suspension, which is tantamount to firing, for insubordination; failing to act on DNA evidence; not properly preserving or handling evidence; and closing cases without approval from a supervisor, records released by the city show.

There simply is no excuse for such improper behavior, and Detective Valdez is not representative of the thousands of men and women in our Police Department who are passionately committed to protecting the most vulnerable among us, Sculley said in a news release.

In fiscal year 2016, Valdez received about $157,100 in total compensation  including $23,955 in overtime, records show. It was not clear how much Valdez received in overtime other years.

Valdez  who hadnt been named by the city prior to Thursdays announcement  has not appealed the indefinite suspension yet, a spokesman for the city said Thursday afternoon. He has 15 days under the police unions collective bargaining agreement to appeal.

On Thursday, Mayor Ron Nirenberg applauded Chief William McManus for his swift response.

The mishandling of these cases cannot be taken lightly, and todays response was in keeping with the seriousness of the situation, Nirenberg said in a statement. We will ensure that systemic issues discovered by the independent investigation are resolved and justice is delivered.

Specifically, the suspension records state:

At least twice, the Bexar County Crime Lab gave Valdez documentation of DNA in sexual assault cases that Valdez failed to act on.

Valdez didnt submit evidence to the crime lab for 27 cases he was responsible for between Aug. 15, 2016, and Aug. 15, 2017. The evidence was found in the departments property room.

Valdez failed to properly handle or preserve other evidence. When looking through Valdezs office, officials found seven cellphones  two of which had no identifying case information  five untested cheek swabs, DVDs and CDs with no case information and $50 in an envelope.

On three occasions, Valdez closed cases without forwarding them to a supervisor.

In July of this year, a supervisor asked Valdez to perform additional tasks in five cases, but Valdez allegedly closed the cases anyway.

The announcement Thursday comes exactly a week after Sculley and McManus revealed the mishandled cases, making some of them ineligible for prosecution.

At the same time, a supervising lieutenant and two sergeants were transferred from the Special Victims Unit.

McManus said he became aware of the issue after supervisors with the unit noticed the division was not filing as many cases as usual with the Bexar County district attorneys office.

The unit initiated an internal audit that found that several cases had not been properly investigated or pursued.

The audit prompted an Internal Affairs investigation, McManus said, which is ongoing.

The city attorneys office also has started an external audit of the Special Victims Unit that is being led by Lisa Tatum, former president of the State Bar of Texas.

We will address any other issues that are identified through the independent review, and SAPDs SVU will be a better unit as a result, Sculley said Thursday.

McManus said he thinks Valdez was the only officer in the unit who did not properly investigate cases, but if other officers were involved, they will be disciplined accordingly.

There are any range of disciplinary actions, if it turns out that way, McManus said last week.

The Special Victims Unit  formerly called Sex Crimes  is responsible for investigating about 28 different offenses, including human trafficking, family violence, child abuse and sexual assault. A large portion of the cases handled by the unit involve children.

Officials said its too soon to tell how many of the 130 cases were not prosecuted due to insufficient evidence. Its also too soon to tell how many cases involved children.

eeaton@express-news.net
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After San Antonio Police Officer Julio Cavazos patrol partner was shot and killed this year, Cavazos decided he wanted to get into precision shooting and build a commemorative rifle in memory of Officer Miguel Moreno.

Cavazos, a nine-year veteran of the department, bought all the parts online, and at a friends suggestion, he went to Sons of Liberty Gun Works on the South Side to have the rifle assembled.

I walked in and I was treated immediately like a million dollars, Cavazos said Thursday. I was treated like their best customer, and they didnt even know who I was.

After owners Michael Mihalski and Kyle Grothues realized who Cavazos was  and whom he was building the gun in memory of  they suggested he use their parts.

Cavazos, who was critically wounded in the shooting, called his wife to tell her the bad news: Hed be spending even more money, but she said it was OK because it was for Mo.

A few weeks later, once the gun was assembled, Cavazos went to the shop, where Mihalski and Grothues told Cavazos they would be donating the parts and labor.

This is for you and him, Cavazos recalled the owners saying.

The shop employees gave the weapon to Cavazos on Thursday during a public presentation  the first time Cavazos made public remarks since the shooting June 29. The rifle, a semi-automatic Mk12, is engraved with Morenos badge number, 1603, and his end of watch date, June 30, 2017.

Mihalski said the shop, which builds and sells custom rifles for enthusiasts and law enforcement agencies, took the task as a pretty big responsibility.

Its an honor to give you this, man, and I want you to use it, and keep that thing close to you, brother, Mihalski told Cavazos.

Now Playing: Officer Julio Cavazos, who was shot and injured in June, speaks about his experience, his recovery, and his appreciation for a community that supported him. (Video courtesy of SAPD) Video: San Antonio Express-News

Cavazos, who appeared emotional throughout, said the rifle was such a beautiful weapon.

Words cant begin to explain how thankful I am for ... the generally good people of San Antonio and a small shop like this, that do things like this for us, Cavazos said. So thank you. Thank you for this beautiful gift, and thank you everyone in San Antonio for being so supportive of us.

About 3:30 p.m. June 29, Moreno and Cavazos were investigating a car burglary in the 200 block of West Evergreen Street near San Antonio College when they saw two suspicious men walking nearby, officials have said.

Moreno and Cavazos had just exited their cruiser when one of the men, later identified as Andrew C. Bice, pulled out a handgun and shot Moreno in the head and Cavazos in the chin, with the bullet eventually lodging in his chest.

Bice, 34, was wounded in the buttocks when Cavazos returned fire as he was moving his partner to safety. Bice ran and shot himself in the head yards away from the attack, dying shortly afterward.

At the time, Police Chief William McManus said it was unclear what motivated the attack. Bices past arrests included charges of kidnapping, drugs and evading arrest. A subsequent autopsy revealed that Bice had a RIP COPS tattoo on his wrist.

Police said the other man did not participate in the shooting, though he was arrested afterward on unrelated charges.

Moreno, 32, died the next day. He had served the city for nine years.

His friends have said that he was a proud officer who had an adventurous side. He loved to fish, ride his Harley-Davidson motorcycle and travel.

After the ceremony Thursday, the Police Department released a video of Cavazos explaining what happened that day and how much he appreciates the communitys support.

The video is the first of several the department will release chronicling Cavazos recovery.

In the video, Cavazoss voice cracked and he fought back tears as he recalled the afternoon of June 29.

So I get out the car, Miguel gets out the car, and I saw the open barrel and it happened so slow, Cavazos recalled. I saw the white flash, and I heard the boom, and I knew I had been shot.

  I looked over my right shoulder and I expected Miguel to be standing there, and he wasnt, Cavazos continued. I saw that he was injured, and I saw that he was down. I wish that I had something better to say, but all I told him was Stay with me buddy.

Cavazos is still recovering from his injuries, and he hopes to return to work in January.

I know its what Miguel would want, he said.

eeaton@express-news.net |Twitter: @emilieeaton
For the second week in a row, a titan of San Antonio Republican politics has decided to step down.

U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith officially declared Thursday that he would leave Congress after more than 30 years in office. Last week, Texas House Speaker Joe Straus announced he wouldnt seek another term.

The two men have deep connections. Back in the days when Republicans in Bexar County practically had to roam the streets searching for GOP candidates for any office, Smith and Strauss mom, Joci, cut a path through the political wilderness.

When Smith made his first, modest run for political office  seeking the Olmos Park precinct chairmanship for the Bexar County Republican Party  the person he turned to for political advice was Joci Straus. A decade later, when Smith ran for Congress, Jocis boy Joe served as his campaign manager.

Given that there are no accidents and few coincidences in politics, its natural to assume the resignation announcements of Straus and Smith are connected. Many local Democrats, who loathe Smith for his antagonistic attitude toward climate science (not to mention his hawkish views on immigration), briefly hoped that Joe Straus  with his pragmatic, bipartisan mindset  might make a move on Smiths U.S. District 21.

Well, its not happening. Straus quickly made it clear hes not running for Smiths seat and its hard to blame him. After all, going from the most powerful person in the Texas House to one of 435 U.S. representatives is a demotion, any way you slice it.

State Sen. Donna Campbell, a scriptural warrior who once actually attempted to carry a bill prohibiting the Alamo from being sold to a foreign government, sounds more amenable.

Allen Blakemore, Campbells campaign spokesman, said: Any list of serious candidates would have to include Sen. Campbell at this point. Open congressional seats dont come along often and shes prayerfully considering whats best for her and the district.

One snag for Campbell is that shes up for re-election in 2018, so she would have to give up her Senate seat to run for Congress.

Blakemore said he expected a quick decision from Campbell.

Shes not one to play Hamlet, he said.

Jeff Wentworth, a Bexar County justice of the peace and former state senator, has known Smith since they were kids attending the First Church of Christ, Scientist. Wentworth lost his Senate seat to Campbell in 2012, and hes not enthused about the prospect of her running in District 21.

I certainly hope not, Wentworth said. Only if she were to run and lose in the primary, and we would be rid of her and her inane statements.

Lyle Larson, a four-term North Side state representative, has eyed Smiths office over the years. Hes a folksy Straus ally who probably would command support from pragmatic, moderate Republicans, but like Straus he tends to get attacked by the Empower Texans crowd on the hard right.

Larson said he needs time to think about District 21, but added: My inclination is to stay (in the Texas House) and keep working on water issues. I need to talk to some people about it.

Bexar County Commissioner Kevin Wolff, another Strausian Republican, will face some recruiting pitches from his supporters, but his interest in Congress (which once was pretty high) seems to have cooled in recent years.

Progressive Democrats will tell themselves that they successfully drove Smith out of Congress, in the same way that hard-core conservatives told themselves last week that they pushed Straus out of the Texas House.

Neither claim is correct.

Straus faced noisy but ineffectual opposition from the GOPs right flank and his position was secure. He left on his own terms. As for Smith, he never won a general election by less than a 20 percent margin, and never faced a serious primary challenge.

Love him or hate him, Smith was a political survivor. He came of age when Republicans had little power in Texas, and they embraced moderation and bipartisanship because it meant at least they had a voice at the table. As his party became more powerful, and more dogmatic, however, Smith adjusted and became more of a partisan attack dog.

The Congress hes leaving has become so divided, and so dysfunctional, its easy to wonder whod want the job.

Congress is a lot less appealing than serving in the Texas Legislature, in a lot of ways, said Matt Mackowiak, a Republican consultant and chairman of the Travis County GOP. Congress is having so much trouble getting things done. Its a very screwy time in politics. Theyve made serving in Congress about as unappealing as they possibly can.

ggarcia@express-news.net
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Xi Jinping (C), chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), poses for a group photo with Zhang Shengmin (1st L), secretary of CMC discipline inspection commission, after a promotion ceremony in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 2, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

The Central Military Commission (CMC) on Thursday promoted Zhang Shengmin, secretary of its discipline inspection commission, to the rank of general, the highest rank for officers on active service in China.

At the promotion ceremony, CMC Chairman Xi Jinping presented Zhang with a certificate of command, shook hands with him and extended his congratulations.

Zhang is also a member of the CMC.
Doctors recently diagnosed Doug Pezolds son with leukemia

By Diego Flammini

News Reporter

Farms.com

A farming community from Montgomery County, Illinois has rallied around a local farm family that received some sad news.

Doug Pezold, who grows corn and soybeans in Walshville, Ill., with his father and brother, recently learned that doctors diagnosed his son, Layton, with leukemia.

And splitting time between the hospital and his fields can be difficult, Pezold said.

Were hanging in there. Its tough, but were getting through it, he told KSDK yesterday.

Knowing Pezold needed to spend time with his family and still finish harvest, other local farmers got together to lend a hand or, in this case, a combine.

This is (his) entire wages and income for the entire year, Robby Meyer, one of the volunteer farmers, told KSDK. Thats the thing. He has to collect his money.

Other farmers brought tractors, grain carts and semis to help harvest Pezolds crop.

And the less work Pezold needs to do, the more time he can spend with his son, says Corey Johnson, a producer from Litchfield.

Pezold understands how busy harvest time is, making the outpouring of support from other farmers a little more special.

Ive known weve always had very good friends who would do anything for us, as we would for them, he told KSDK. But its their busy time of the year too, and some of them arent done (harvesting) and they came to help me. Im very appreciative.

Word of the farmers generosity also spread to social media.

Members of the community, like Beck Ann, posted messages of support to the Facebook page Pezold Strong, which the family is using to post updated about Laytons condition.

What an outstanding group of men, she wrote.

Farmers really have a way of being there when its needed! added Kelly Sinclair.

Top photo: This group of farmers helped Doug Pezold with his harvest/Facebook
His belief theres a pretty bright future for wool was reinforced by woolgrower trips to Vietnam and China during his time as an AWI director and Mr Morgan said AWI played an important role in relaying that message back to woolgrowers and educating them on industry development.
When his mother lost contact with the family, Xiao Wei was only a toddler.

A nine-year-old boy has shown extraordinary devotion while taking care of his father hospitalized for liver cirrhosis.

Nine years on, the boy, a native of Lantian in Shaanxi Province, has taken time off from school to serve at his ailing father's bedside. The father was hospitalized for liver cirrhosis in the provincial capital of Xi'an.

In the past few weeks, the boy has brought food and drinks to his father, feeding and massaging him several times each day to show his love and fulfill his obligations as a son.

Once when sharing rice noodles with his father, the boy said, "My father is feeble, he needs more nutrition."

His filial piety has touched many in the hospital.

"My son asked for leave from school to take care of me. He is so kind and considerate, which makes me feel much indebted," his father said with tears streaking down his face.

Despite his eagerness for schooling, Xiao Wei still chose to stay with his father in the hospital.

"I cannot leave my father alone in the hospital, because he cannot take care of himself," the boy explained.

The father is at risk of variceal hemorrhage, a potentially fatal bleeding of abnormally enlarged veins in the esophagus and stomach. Because the illness is contagious, the hospital gave Xiao Wei a thorough physical exam and was relieved to find the boy already had a strong immune system.

The local government of Lantian offered emergency subsidies totaling 10,000 yuan (US$1,516) to the family and hired a nursing aide to take care of Xiao Wei's father to assure that the boy can go back to school. The school has also waived all the boy's food and accommodation fees .
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The Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday that Charles Cain is the new Chief of the Enforcement Divisions Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Unit.

Cain has served as Acting Chief of the FCPA Unit since April 2017.

He replaces Kara Brockmeyer as head of the 38-lawyer FCPA group. She left the SEC in April and joined Debevoise & Plimpton as a partner in its DC office. Brockmeyer led the FCPA unit from 2011.

Cain graduated from GW Law in 1997 and joined the SEC in 1999 as a Senior Counsel.

He was Deputy Chief of the FCPA Unit for nearly six years before becoming Acting Chief in April.

Cain was a co-author of the Resource Guide to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Steven Peikin, co-leader of the SECs Enforcement Division, said: Our anti-corruption program under our Foreign Corrupt Practices Unit remains a top priority for the Enforcement Division.

Charles wrote the book on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and his strong leadership ensures that the great work of the FCPA Unit continues, Peikin said.

Cain said, Its an honor and privilege to be selected to lead the enormously talented and dedicated people in the FCPA Unit. I look forward to building upon the important work the unit has done to combat corruption and level the playing field globally.

____

Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog.
The 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act paved the way for the landmark 1997 OECD Anti-Bribery Convention requiring major exporting nations to criminalize bribery of foreign public officials in international business. All the Parties to the Convention now have foreign bribery laws and global enforcement has ratcheted up, spurring enhanced compliance.

Yet, challenges remain, including securing consistent vigorous global enforcement and addressing solicitation, kleptocracy, and opaque offshore vehicles misused to hide illicit assets. What has been accomplished so far, and what is planned for the future in the fight against corruption in international business?

American Universitys Washington College of Law Anti-Corruption Law Program, The Association of Women in International Trade Anti-Corruption and Corporate Social Responsibility Program Section, the American Bar Association Section of International Law, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development invite you to join FCPA Blog contributing editor Shruti Shah and other policy makers, enforcement officials, scholars, businesspeople and civil society in Washington, DC on Wednesday, November 8, 2017 from 8:30-11 am to discuss the progress made and what the future holds.

The program will consist of a light breakfast followed by two panels, the first on the history and accomplishments of the Convention and the FCPA and future plans, and the second on leveraging the Convention and addressing corruption challenges ahead.

Featuring:

Stuart Eizenstat, Former Domestic Policy Advisor, President Carter & U.S. Ambassador to the EU, Under Secretary of State & Commerce, Deputy Secretary of Treasury

Drago Kos, Chair, OECD Working Group on Bribery

John P. Cronan, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Department of Justice

Daniel Claman, Principal Deputy Chief, Money Laundering & Asset Recovery Section, Department of Justice

Eva Hampl, Director, Investment, Trade & Financial Services, U.S. Council for International Business

Brooks Hickman, Analyst, OECD Anti-Corruption Division

Heather Lowe, Legal Counsel & Director of Government Affairs, Global Financial Integrity

Leo Tsao, Assistant Chief, Fraud Section, Criminal Division, Department of Justice

With welcoming remarks by Nancy Boswell, Director of the U.S. & International Anti-Corruption Law Program, American University Washington College of Law, and moderators Kathryn Nickerson, Senior Counsel, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Shruti Shah, Vice President, Programs and Operations, Coalition for Integrity (formerly Transparency International-USA).

For more information, speakers bios, the agenda and registration, see:

https://wiit.org/celebrating-oecd-anti-bribery-convention-20-fcpa-40-addressing-challenges-ahead/

https://www.wcl.american.edu/news-events/events/detail/5703/

http://www.oecd.org/washington/eventsarchive/20th-anniversary-anti-bribery.htm?mc_cid=b60c90faae&mc_eid=e9ff5693ba

* * *

The U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the OECD have organized an all-day conference hosted by the New York University School of Laws Program on Corporate Law and Enforcement on November 9, 2017, entitled: No Turning Back: 40 Years of the FCPA and 20 Years of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.

For more information on the New York conference, see:

http://www.oecd.org/corruption/40-20-anniversary-conference-2017.htm


A French court last week convicted Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the vice president of Equatorial Guinea and son of the president, of embezzling public money and spending it on himself.

The judge confiscated all of Obiangs assets in France, fined him 30 million ($35 million), and gave him a suspended three-year prison sentence.

The court said Obiang used the stolen money to buy a 20-room apartment in Paris worth about 80 million ($93 million), a fleet of luxury cars, and high-end art.

Obiangs government salary was less than $100,000 a year.

In 2014, the U.S. DOJ brought a forfeiture action against Obiang under the Kleptocracy Initiative.

In a settlement, Obiang was forced to sell a $30 million mansion in Malibu, California and donate the money to a charity to help people in Equatorial Guinea.

He also forfeited a Ferrari and Michael Jackson memorabilia, and another $10.3 million in cash. The DOJ said the assets were the proceeds of corruption.

Despite the countrys oil wealth, 70 percent of Equatorial Guineas one million people are poor. Nearly half lack access to clean water. In 2016, 42 percent of the kids werent registered in primary school.

Meanwhile, Obiang is known as the Playboy of Instagram for showing off his wealth on social media.

The French investigation of Obiang started in 2010 after Transparency International France and Association Sherpa filed a complaint.

Obiang  who was promoted from minister of agriculture and forestry to vice president after the French investigation started  claimed immunity from prosecution. But the judge in Paris ruled that the trial should go ahead.

Obiang wasnt in France during the trial.

Heres a clip from the Economist about Obiang and his Instagram lifestyle.

____

Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog.
Corey Feldman claims former actor Jon Grissom sexually molested him as a child

Corey Feldman

The 'Goonies' actor recently vowed to expose paedophilia in Hollywood, and after previously detailing the abuse he allegedly received in his 2013 autobiographer 'Coreyography' using a pseudonym for the man involved, he has now named his 'License to Drive' and 'Dream a Little Dream' co-star as the person who allegedly attacked him.

Speaking on 'The Dr. Oz Show' as Dr. Mehmet Oz held up a photo of Grissom, Corey said: "That is him. That's the guy.

"This guy, on his Myspace page and his Facebook page has pictures of me and Corey Haim.

"He still taunts it and flaunts it."

In his book, Corey referred to his alleged abuser as 'Ron Crimson', and there had been widespread speculation it referenced Grissom, and the 46-year-old actor admitted he deliberately chose a pseudonym as close to the real name as possible.

He said: "We had to change the names legally. The lawyers made me change the names. ... They gave me a list of three or four, you know, names. I picked the one that sounded closest to his name."

The 'Stand By Me' actor called the LAPD to file a report against Grissom during the show, and said he had previously told the Santa Barbara Police Department (SBPD) in 1993.

And Corey encouraged his alleged abuser to turn himself into police.

He said: "Now is your time. Be a man for the first time and come forward yourself. ... Let it be known and you will be dealt with in a much more tolerant way, I'm sure. However, if you do not, we are coming for you."

Dr. Oz later released a video saying their legal counsel believes Grissom was previously jailed for child molestation, currently lives in California and is a "fugitive from justice" as he never registered as a sex offender.

Jon - whose name is often misspelled as John and whose legal moniker is Cloyde Jon Grissom - has not commented on the claims.
Do happier people live longer and are healthy people happier?

Most of us know that connecting with nature is good for both health and happiness.

In recent years there has been an increased focus on happiness. From the United Nations to the UK government, happiness is a hot topic and if youre like me, youll love the annual World Happiness Report and scour the top countries to see what secret they hold to being happy. (It was Norway in 2017).

So, here are some reasons why lifting your happiness levels can lead to better health and how maintaining good health can make you happier.

Exercise

Small amounts of regular exercise are vital for both health and happiness. A stroll in the park, bike ride or jog around the block reduces blood pressure and cholesterol, boosts your immune system and strengthens bones. It also increases energy levels and confidence, improves sleep quality and concentration, reduces stress and jump starts creativity.

Nature

Intuitively, most of us know that connecting with nature is good for both health and happiness. Walking in the park, feeding birds and planting flowers have been proven to help people suffering from both physical illness and mental health disorders, such as depression and anxiety. Interacting with nature can help people control their symptoms or even recover, alongside conventional medication.

Ref: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0149777

Doing good

Thinking beyond yourself leads to happiness. Human beings are social animals and evidence shows that helping others is actually beneficial for your own mental health and well-being. It can reduce stress and improve your emotional well-being which has a positive impact on your physical health.

Ref: https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/the-happiness-health-connection

Loneliness

Loneliness and isolation can be detrimental to your health. Conversely, connecting with others can have a positive effect on your health. According to research, loneliness increases the risk of mortality, obesity and heart disease. Isolated individuals are also more prone to depression and suicide.

Ref: https://www.campaigntoendloneliness.org/threat-to-health/

Stress

Physical symptoms dont lead to unhappiness - stress does. The biggest predictor of unhappiness is stress and it is often stress that leads to poor well-being, as opposed to the psychical symptoms of a health condition. According to the World Psoriasis Happiness Report, for people living with the skin condition, stress is the biggest indicator of unhappiness, not physical symptoms.

Ref: https://goo.gl/am7FFv

Social media

Social media causes stress. People on Facebook are 39% more likely to feel unhappy and 55% more likely to feel stressed. Social media is a constant flow of edited lives  seemingly happy, healthy people  and this distorts our perception of reality. We compare our own lives, for the worse, and this has a detrimental impact on both our happiness and health.

Ref: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/928487_680fc12644c8428eb728cde7d61b13e7.pdf

Support from others

A lack of public awareness can make it more difficult to live with a health condition. Often, the impact of a health condition will be more significant if there is low public understanding about it.

Support from health professionals

A lack of trust in your doctor can lead to higher levels of unhappiness. If we look at the World Happiness Report, all the countries in the top five have some form of socialised medicine. There is an intimate connection between trust in your healthcare system and levels of happiness. Health professionals who prioritise the impact of a health condition on our happiness can contribute to higher levels of happiness for their patients.

Family and friends

Lack of social support from those close to you can increase the negative effects of a health condition. Indeed, recent research shows that friendships are a stronger predictor of health and happiness than relationships with family members.

Ref: http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2017/are-friends-better-for-us-than-family/

Visible health conditions

Finally, the effect of a health condition is not blanket and it will vary depending on where youre affected. Different body areas can have different impacts on happiness. If you are affected on visible and intimate areas of your body, you are likely to less happy.

So, you can see how health and happiness are interlinked. Happiness is being prioritised increasingly as a measure of progress because it encourages us to focus on what really matters - how we feel.

However, happier countries dont necessarily lead to happier people with health conditions. A healthy person is not necessarily a happy person but a happy person is more likely to be a healthy person.

What can you do today to improve your happiness?

About the author

Catalina Cernica is the project owner of PsoHappy, a global movement built in partnership with The Happiness Research Institute, dedicated to understanding the impact of psoriasis on happiness.

She recently ran a research project looking into the effects of psoriasis on happiness - and will be investigating other conditions very soon - and found that happiness and the impact of a health condition are deeply interlinked.

The World Psoriasis Happiness Report is the first global report on the happiness and psoriasis and contains insights from 121,800 people living with psoriasis from 184 countries. It found that the UK ranks third from bottom in The World Psoriasis Happiness Index. Find out more here: https://goo.gl/am7FFv
Michelle Pfeiffer burst into tears when she met Dame Judi Dench on the set of 'Murder on the Orient Express'.

Michelle Pfeiffer at Murder on the Orient Express premiere

The 59-year-old actress is currently starring alongside the iconic actress in Sir Kenneth Branagh's re-imagining of Agatha Christie's whodunit novel set in the 1930s and Pfeiffer, 59, admitted she was "completely star-struck" meeting screen legend Dench, 82.

Speaking at the world premiere of the new movie at The Royal Albert Hall in London on Thursday (02.11.17), Pfeiffer said: "When I met her, I just cried ... I had tears coming down my face. I was just completely star-struck and moved by meeting her."

Pfeiffer - whose filmography includes acclaimed roles in movies such as 'Scarface', 'Batman Returns' and 'Dangerous Liaisons' - said it took a lot of effort to act in front of Dench who is considered a master at period piece dramas.

She said: "It just takes jumping into the deep end, but it's hard to trust that in the beginning. And so I was at that stage and I'm acting in front of Judi Dench, and I'm thinking OK, you cannot bomb in front of Judi Dench. This just can't happen."

'Murder on the Orient Express' follows Belgian detective Hercule Poirot who finds himself wrapped in a murder mystery after a passenger is murdered during the lavish trip through Europe.

The film sees Branagh take on the helm of the iconic detective and features a stellar cast which includes Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Olivia Colman, Daisy Ridley, Josh Gad and Willem Dafoe.

Although the story is well-known and has been made into a movie back in 1974, which saw Albert Finney portray Poirot, Branagh believes his version his different to any other production because he has "added some pieces" in order to make it unique.

And Branagh would "love" to make more films based around Christie's books.

He said: "I would love to make more films from Christie's books, although I'm sure we're not going to make 37 of them, which is how many we have to choose from."
Duchess Camilla finds her royal duties "very tiring".

Duchess Camilla

The 70-year-old royal has recently jetted off to Brunei where she visited the palace of the Sultan of Brunei and met with Queen Saleha, and when she was asked about how she copes jetting across the globe and visiting various people she honestly admitted she finds it "non stop" and a "lot more tiring" now she is getting older, the Express Online has reported.

Asked by the Queen consort of Brunei - who is also the same age as Camilla - about her feelings, the Duchess of Cornwall said: "Very tiring. Every day, we're non-stop. It's more tiring as you get older."

And the star has revealed she has warned people she needs to "slow down" because she is not as young as she used to be and able to keep up with the busy schedule.

She added: " I keep trying to tell everybody that I'm not as young as I used to be, and have to slow down."

During their visit to a Gurkha battalion located in Brunei, Camilla was given a huge garland to carry around her neck, and the couple enjoyed a tea party hosted by the 71-year-old Sultan, as well as 60 other members of his family.

Camilla and her husband the Charles, the Prince of Wales, are currently on their 11-day tour of South East Asia and India, which will see them travel to Singapore and Malaysia.

Although Camilla has revealed her hectic lifestyle has been taking its toll on her, she has admitted she does do "a bit of yoga" and pilates to stay supple.

Speaking previously, she said: "It's very good for you yoga, isn't it? I do a bit of yoga. A bit of yoga and a bit of Pilates. It's very good for you as you get older, it makes you less stiff - good for your muscles. It makes you much more supple. I think it's very important as you get older to take exercise and stretch."
Serves: 16

Vegan Nutty Cranberry And Cinnamon Rolls

900g strong white flour sieved

75g dried cranberries

2 tsp fast-acting yeast

1 tsp salt

3 tbsp caster sugar

300ml tepid plant based milk and 300ml / 101Z2fl oz / 11/4 cups tepid water, combined

50g unsalted vegan butter, softened

100g light brown sugar

2 tsp ground cinnamon

100g Dorset Cereals Simply Nutty or Gloriously Nutty Muesli

For the Icing

300g cups icing sugar

2 tbsp maple syrup

1 tsp good vanilla extract

a little just-boiled water

To make in a mixer, place the flour, cranberries, yeast, salt and sugar in the mixer bowl, and fit with the dough hook. Add the warm plant based milk and water with the machine running on a low speed. Continue mixing for 5 minutes. Remove the bowl, cover, and leave in a warm place until the dough is doubled in size, about 11/2 hours. To mix by hand, mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl and add the milk and water. Using your hands, mix well. Transfer to a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes, return to a clean bowl and leave to prove as above.

Tip on to a floured surface and knead lightly; you dont want to knock out the air. When the dough has a smooth appearance, roll it out into a 60cm / 24in square. Spread the butter on the dough, right to the edges. Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle this over the butter  again, right to the edges. Now sprinkle over the muesli. Roll up the dough into a Swiss roll, keeping it tight and even. Then slice into 16 equal slices.

Turn the sliced rolls over to expose the swirl. Place all 16 on a lined baking tray, leaving a small space between each roll. Cover loosely with another piece of baking parchment and put in a warm place for an hour. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200C / 400F / Gas Mark 6. Bake the rolls for 15 minutes until golden brown.

Sieve the icing sugar, then add the maple syrup and vanilla extract with enough just-boiled water to make a thick but pourable icing. As soon as the rolls come out of the oven, drizzle over the icing. Tear apart and enjoy!

Recipe courtesy of Dorset Cereals who have just released their Limited Edition Spiced Carrot and Apple Muesli. Inspired by the moreish taste of carrot cake, the delicious cereal is a beautiful blend of rolled and toasted flakes with carrot, dried fruits and crunchy pecans - spiced with warming cinnamon and nutmeg with no added sugar and vegan friendly.
The Bangladesh Government recently gave the nod to Akij Jute Mills, an Akij Group company, to remit $20 million to buy a Malaysian firm and its subsidiary for $80 million. This will make it the seventh Bangladeshi company to invest abroad. The approval came at a meeting of the cabinet committee on economic affairs chaired by finance minister AMA Muhith.Akij will acquire Robin Resources and its subsidiary Robina Flooring. Both companies manufacture reconstituted wood products and export to about 60 countries, a top English-language daily in the country reported quoting the investment proposal.

The Bangladesh Government recently gave the nod to Akij Jute Mills, an Akij Group company, to remit $20 million to buy a Malaysian firm and its subsidiary for $80 million. This will make it the seventh Bangladeshi company to invest abroad. The approval came at a meeting of the cabinet committee on economic affairs chaired by finance minister AMA Muhith.#

The company will remit $20 million from its export retention quota (ERQ) and the remaining will be borrowed from banks overseas. (DS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
The US National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO) has praised the US Department of Commerces recent determination reaffirming Chinas non-market economy status for anti-dumping purposes and called for even more aggressive enforcement to crack down on unfair trade practices. The evidence could support no other decision, said NCTO CEO Auggie Tantillo.NCTO is a Washington-based trade association that represents domestic textile manufacturers.

The US National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO) has praised the US Department of Commerce's recent determination reaffirming China's non-market economy status for anti-dumping purposes and called for even more aggressive enforcement to crack down on unfair trade practices. The evidence could support no other decision, said NCTO CEO Auggie Tantillo.#

China has a set of unfair and extraordinary advantages that allow them to displace investment, production and employment in our market, an NCTO press release quoted Tantillo as saying.As President Donald Trump will visit Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines this November, NCTO urged him to use his Asia trip to reaffirm his commitment to enforcing US trade laws fairly and resolutely.U.S. employment in the textile supply chain was 565,000 in 2016. The value of shipments for US textiles and apparel was $74.4 billion last year, a nearly 11 per cent increase since 2009. US exports of fibre, textiles and apparel were $26.3 billion in 2016. (DS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
The US department of commerce has announced affirmative preliminary determinations in the countervailing duty (CVD) investigations, finding that exporters of fine denier polyester staple fibre (PSF) from the Peoples Republic of China (China) and India received countervailable subsidies of 41.73 to 47.64 per cent and 7.18 to 9.86 per cent, respectively.

The commerce department will instruct US customs and border protection to collect cash deposits from importers of fine denier polyester staple fabric from China and India based on these preliminary rates, secretary of commerce Wilbur Ross announced.

The investigation is being carried out in response to petition made by DAK Americas LLC (NC), Nan Ya Plastics Corporation, America (SC), and Auriga Polymers Inc. (NC).

The US department of commerce has announced affirmative preliminary determinations in the countervailing duty (CVD) investigations, finding that exporters of fine denier polyester staple fibre (PSF) from the People's Republic of China (China) and India received countervailable subsidies of 41.73 to 47.64 per cent and 7.18 to 9.86 per cent, respectively.#

Last year, the US imports of fine denier polyester staple fibre from China and India were valued at an estimated $79.4 million and $14.8 million, respectively.

Unless the final determinations are aligned with the concurrent anti-dumping (AD) investigations, the department of commerce is currently scheduled to announce its final CVD determinations on January 16, 2018, a statement said.

If the commerce department makes affirmative final determinations of subsidisation and the US International Trade Commission (ITC) makes affirmative final injury determinations, the department will issue CVD orders. If the department makes negative final determinations of subsidisation or the ITC makes negative final determinations of injury, the investigations will be terminated, and no order will be issued, it added.

Meanwhile, in a separate announcement Kelley Drye & Warren LLP has announced the preliminary CVD rates by company. For fine denier PSF imports from China, the preliminary CVD rate will range from 41.73 per cent to 47.64 per cent. The lowest rate of 41.73 per cent would be applicable for import from Jiangyin Hailun Chemical Fiber Co. Ltd, while import from Jiangying Huahong Chemical Fiber Co. Ltd. would attract the highest slab of 47.64 per cent. CVD on imports from all other Chinese producers and exporters would be 44.69 per cent, US based Synthetic Yarn and Fabric Association said.

Likewise, the CVD preliminary rate of Kelley Drye & Warren for fine denier PSF imports from India would be between 7.18 per cent and 9.86 per cent. While import from Bombay Dyeing & Mfg. Co. Ltd. would entail CVD of 7.18 per cent, CVD on import from Reliance Industries Limited would be 9.86 per cent. Import from all other Indian companies would attract 9.37 per cent CVD. (RKS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Regina Bruckner, managing associate of Bruckner Trockentechnik, has been named as the chairperson of VDMA, mechanical engineering textile machinery association of Germany. The businesswoman from Leonberg was elected at the members meeting of the Association in Berlin. Bruckner produces high-tech lines for the dry finishing of knitted and woven fabrics.The new executive board is completed with Verena Thies, Thies Textilmaschinen, and Fritz P. Mayer, Karl Mayer Textilmaschinenfabrik, who were elected as vice chairpersons.

Regina Bruckner, managing associate of Bruckner Trockentechnik, has been named as the chairperson of VDMA, mechanical engineering textile machinery association of Germany. The businesswoman from Leonberg was elected at the members' meeting of the Association in Berlin. Bruckner produces high-tech lines for the dry finishing of knitted and woven fabrics.#

Regina Bruckner said, I am pleased to have Thies and Mayer by my side, the two chairpersons who complement each other very well. Mayer is an entrepreneurial personality with decades of experience which he is meanwhile bringing in as the president of CEMATEX, the European Committee of Textile Machinery Manufacturers. Thies assumed responsibility in the family company early on and has been working for the traditional company Thies in international textile machinery business since 2009. (GK)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
As of 30 June, 18 out 39 Chinese listed banks have overseas branches across 60 territories (including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan), seven of which have branches only in Hong Kong. As newcomers with limited experience in overseas operations, how should these banks effectively manage compliance risks?

Taking Hong Kong as an example, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) revealed that, while banks have generally made efforts to promote a proper culture, they still need to monitor the potential implications of management and staff behaviour.

The HKMA issued a circular on bank culture reform (HKMA, Bank Culture Reform, 2 March 2017) to guide financial institutions to develop and promote a sound corporate culture that supports prudent risk management and contributes towards incentivising proper staff behaviour with the aim of achieving positive customer outcomes and high ethical standards for the industry.

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, the HKMAs circular is a good reference for Chinese banks to promote sound bank culture in three areas:

1) Governance

It is commonly observed that Chinese banks tend to send senior management from the domestic market to manage overseas operations. If a senior executive does not demonstrate a sound understanding of operations, regulations and compliance rules, conflicts could arise in management teams and weaken the governance framework. This could also lead to regulators developing an impression that the senior management assigned is not promoting prudent risk management behaviour or striking the balance between business growth and sound risk management. In practice, a dedicated board-level committee should be established and chaired by an independent non-executive director. Its remit should be to advise and assist the board in the build-up of a risk management framework.

2) Incentive schemes

As most senior executives of Chinese banks overseas branches are sent from headquarters, there could be frequent changes of leadership and the organisational structure may also be rapidly expanding as the business grows. The board of directors at the head office level should pay special attention to the organisational structures and personnel movement in overseas entities and ensure timely review and appropriate incentive schemes in line with the banks desired culture.

3) Assessment and feedback mechanisms

Banks should establish appropriate assessment and feedback mechanisms as part of business units and staff compliance risk monitoring. An effective and confidential whistle blowing channel should be put in place to allow timely reporting of any illegal, unethical or questionable practices.

Anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) as global issues

In additional to corporate culture, anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) are also sources of compliance risk. These issues are global in nature, and cannot be underestimated by Chinese banks planning for overseas expansion.

In recent years, regulators around the world have taken tougher measures with increasing sanctions. Both the US (New York State Department of Financial Services) and European (Financial Conduct Authority of the UK) regulators have inspected Chinese banks for AML/CTF compliance.

As the number of collegial orders signed with Asian banks continues to increase, it is expected that there could be more enforcement activities and sanctions imposed on Asian banks.

While regulations and laws differ around the world, Chinese banks should consider AML/CTF as part of wider compliance risk management. In particular, they should focus on the following three key areas:

Effective system monitoring on AML/CFT

AML and CTF risk assessment (on each product inventory list) should be incorporated into the transaction monitoring system, which clearly defines the risks required to be detected. When running IT applications, it is important to ensure model design (i.e. scenario design) is processed, tested and recorded by experienced data analysts. It should also have a proper structure to support the system with the capability to detect and update related scenarios and parameters. In the operation of a transaction monitoring system, periodic checks should be conducted to assess the completeness of system list and database, as well as to ensure a dedicated model design and governance framework in place to detect and approve related scenario changes. Compliance, operation and IT departments need to be given clear roles and responsibilities.

Three lines of defence with clear roles

Roles and responsibilities need to be properly assigned to each line of defence. In the first line, business heads and relationship officers are responsible for daily compliance of AML and CTF. In the second line, risk management and compliance departments are responsible for reviewing policies and procedures on AML and CTF standards so that management and staff can be compliant. For the third line, the internal audit department shall independently test the internal control over AML and CTF compliance so that the Board can be assured that effective AML/CTF controls are in place. Last but not least, the Board should timely address and resolve any reported compliance issues concerning AML and CTF.

Understand local business practices

The extent to which management given overseas assignments can familiarise themselves with local business practices and the expectations of regulators will help mitigate the compliance risk arising from overseas operation. It is key to appreciate and address the principles behind the rules of regulation set by the regulators so that required regulations and compliance obligations can be fulfilled.

List of key considerations for compliance risk management

Can corporate policies catch up with changing laws and regulations?

Have you well understood the requirements of domestic and overseas regulatory bodies and known how to respond accordingly ?

Have the board and senior management set a right tone from the top to ensure a sound risk management practice is adhered to especially on the build up and promotion of proper bank culture in managing overseas operation and risk taking behaviour

Is enterprise risk assessment regularly performed?

Is the risk assessment on AML / CTF incorporated and carried out on new products and services?

How well do you understand your high risk customers?

Have we continuously monitored customer business relations & transitions so that suspicious activities can be timely identified

Is the system checked regularly testing on its effectiveness & efficiency so that constant improvement can be made on AML / CTF transactions monitoring

Are senior management and staff trained appropriately?

Is the risk management framework periodically reviewed to ensure compliance?

Feel free to contact PwCs Advisory team to discuss further.

Industry specialists from PwC will address FinanceAsia's Compliance Summit in Hong Kong on November 8.

Contact Us

Mary Wong

Partner, Forensic Services

+(852) 2289 2587

[email protected]

Mary is a Partner in PwCs Forensic Services practice who specialises in Financial Crime. She has extensive in-house experience in the private banking industry. Prior to joining PwC, Mary served, for over five years, as a Vice President in the Hong Kong office of leading global financial institution specialising in Anti-Money Laundering Compliance.


PARIS (dpa-AFX) - The following are some of the biotech stocks that made their way onto the Day's Gainers & Losers' list of November 2, 2017.



GAINERS



1. Dicerna Pharmaceuticals Inc. (DRNA)



Gained 28.19% to close Thursday's (Nov.2) trading at $7.23.



News: The Company has teamed up with Boehringer Ingelheim to develop novel treatments for chronic liver diseases including nonalcoholic steatohepatitis.



As per the deal terms, Boehringer Ingelheim will pay Dicerna up to $201 million in upfront and success-based development and commercialization milestones, excluding royalties, for an undisclosed target.



2. Juno Therapeutics Inc. (JUNO)



Gained 24.01% to close Thursday's trading at $59.91.



News: The Company reported stellar Q3, 2017 financial results, crushing analysts' estimates. Updated data from its phase I study of JCAR017 in patients with relapsed or refractory (r/r) aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, dubbed TRANSCEND, were also detailed.



For the third quarter of 2017, non-GAAP net loss was $76.3 million or $0.73 per share on revenue of $44.8 million. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the Company to incur a loss of $0.79 per share and revenue of $16.03 million.



The Company had incurred a non-GAAP net loss of $58.3 million or $0.57 per share on revenue of $20.8 million in the third quarter of 2016.



As regards the update on the TRANSCEND trial, the Company noted that dose level 2, the dose in the pivotal cohort, showed a 3 month overall response rate of 80% and a 3 month complete response rate of 73% in the core group. Data support a dose response relationship.



The TRANSCEND pivotal trial is ongoing using dose level 2.



Near-term catalyst:



-- BLA filing of JCAR017 for relapsed or refractory (r/r) aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma is expected to be completed in the second half of 2018.



3. Foundation Medicine Inc. (FMI)



Gained 19.50% to close Thursday's trading at $50.25.



News: The Company reported better-than-expected Q3, 2017 financial results.



Net loss for the recent third quarter was approximately $32.6 million or $0.90 per share on total revenue of $42.7 million. Analysts expected the Company to incur a loss of $1.10 per share on revenue of $37.99 million.



In the third quarter of 2016, the Company had reported a net loss of $31.3 million or $0.90 per share and total revenue of $29.4 million.



Looking ahead, Foundation expects 2017 revenue to be in the range of $135 million to $145 million. The Company had generated revenue of $116.9 million in 2016.



4. Neurocrine Biosciences Inc. (NBIX)



Gained 19.45% to close Thursday's trading at $72.78.



News: The Company reported better-than-expected third-quarter financial results.



The net loss in the third quarter of 2017 narrowed to $11.1 million or $0.13 per share from $36.9 million or $0.43 loss per share for the same period in 2016. The net product sales from INGREZZA were $45.8 million in the recent third quarter whereas no sales were generated in the comparable year-ago period as the drug was made available for commercial distribution only on May 1, 2017.



Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the Company to incur a loss of $0.49 per share on revenue of $29.86 million in Q3, 2017.



Near-term catalysts:



-- A phase II, proof-of-concept study of NBI-74788 in adult males and females with classic, 21-hydroxylase deficiency Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia is planned for initiation this month. -- The NDA for Elagolix for the management of endometriosis with associated pain is under priority review by the FDA - with a decision expected in the second quarter of 2018.



Elagolix is being developed by AbbVie, in collaboration with Neurocrine Biosciences.



-- Top-line data from phase IIb trial of INGREZZA in pediatric patients with Tourette syndrome is expected in late 2018.



5. Calithera Biosciences Inc. (CALA)



Gained 19.45% to close Thursday's trading at $72.78.



News: The Company reported Q3, 2017 financial results and provided an overview of its pipeline.



Net loss for the recent third quarter narrowed to $6.07 million or $0.17 per share on collaboration revenue of $7.25 million. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting a loss of $0.22 per share and revenue of $4.51 million.



In the third quarter of 2016, the Company had posted a loss of $8.54 million or $0.44 per share and zero collaboration revenue.



LOSERS



1. OraSure Technologies Inc. (OSUR)



Lost 27.66% to close Thursday's trading at $13.76.



News: The Company announced Q3, 2017 financial results.



While net revenues for the third quarter of 2017 grew 31%, net income slumped 7% from the year-ago comparable quarter.



Net income for the third quarter of 2017 was $5.76 million or $0.09 per share down from $6.24 million or $0.11 per share in the third quarter of 2016. Net revenue for the recent third quarter was $42.3 million, up from $32.25 million in the comparable year-ago period.



Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the Company to earn $0.09 per share on revenue of $40.83 million.



2. AMAG Pharmaceuticals Inc. (AMAG)



Lost 19.75% to close Thursday's trading at $12.80.



News: The Company reported financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2017, and lowered its revenue outlook for the year.



Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of 2017 was $56.7 million, down from $76.2 million in the third quarter of 2016. Non-GAAP revenue totaled $155.1 million in the third quarter of 2017, up from $145.8 million in the third quarter of 2016.



Looking ahead, the Company has trimmed its non-GAAP revenue outlook range to $601 million - $633 million from its prior forecast of $630 million to $690 million range.



3. Intellia Therapeutics Inc. (NTLA)



Lost 17.55% to close Thursday's trading at $21.00.



News: The Company has priced its public offering of 6.25 million shares of its common stock at a price of $24.00 each.



Intellia is a genome editing company focused on developing curative therapeutics using CRISPR technology.



4. Syros Pharmaceuticals Inc. (SYRS)



Lost 16.79% to close Thursday's trading at $12.64.



News: No news



Pipeline:



The Company's drug candidates are SY-1425, in a Phase 2 clinical trial for genomically defined subsets of patients with acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome, and SY-1365, in a Phase 1 clinical trial for patients with advanced solid tumors, including transcriptionally dependent cancers such as triple negative breast, small cell lung and ovarian cancers.



Near-term catalysts:



-- Initial clinical data from phase II clinical trial of SY-1425 are expected to be reported on December 10, 2017. -- Preliminary clinical data from phase I clinical trial of SY-1365 is expected in 2018.



5. Myriad Genetics Inc. (MYGN)



Lost 15.60% to close Thursday's trading at $28.56.



News: The Company's subsidiary, Assurex Health, announced positive results from a trial assessing the impact of GeneSight Psychotropic test.



GeneSight Psychotropic test is a genetic test that helps doctors figure out which depression medications work best for their patients.



According to the trial results, patients receiving the GeneSight test achieved a clinically meaningful and statistically significant improvement in both remission rates and response rates at eight weeks compared to the treatment-as-usual group.



Referring to the clinical trial milestone payment to be made to former stockholders of Assurex, Myriad says that the payment will not be due because this endpoint did not achieve statistical significance in the entire study population.



Myriad acquired Assurex Health last August for $225 million upfront with the potential for $185 million in additional performance-based milestones.



6. Omeros Corp. (OMER)



Lost 13.84% to close Thursday's trading at $13.26.



News: No news



Near-term catalysts:



-- A subset of data from phase II trial of OMS721 for the treatment of glomerulonephropathies will be presented on November 4, 2017. -- The Company is scheduled to report Q3, 2017 financial results on any day between Nov 7, 2017 and Nov 13, 2017.



7. Cellectis SA (ADR) (CLLS)



Lost 12.71% to close Thursday's trading at $25.47. This is the second straight day of loss for the stock.



News: No news



Recent events:



-- On November 1, 2017, the Company reported preliminary results of its phase 1 trial of UCART19 in pediatric patients with high risk relapsed refractory (R/R) CD19+ B-ALL and no therapeutic options.



In 2015, Servier acquired exclusive rights from Cellectis for UCART19, which is being co developed by Servier and Pfizer.



As of 24 June 2017, 5 children (3 males and 2 females), including two infant leukaemias, aged between 8 months and 16.4 years had been enrolled and treated in the trial.



Preliminary results of the trial reveal no unexpected toxicities. GvHD, which was mild and self-limiting, lymphodepletion-related viral complications and persisting neutropenia are some of the toxicities encountered in the trial. One subject died in remission from transplant related complications, noted the Company.



-- On September 4, 2017, the Company's phase I studies evaluating UCART123 in acute myeloid leukemia and in blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN) were placed on hold by the FDA, following one fatality in the BPDCN clinical trial.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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SAI Global Awarded "Five Stars" by SC Media

SYDNEY, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SAI Global, a leading provider of integrated risk management solutions, announced today that its Digital Manager 360 solutionachieved "five stars" in a SC Media comprehensive product review for the fifth consecutive year.

Named by SC Mediaas "one of the heavyweights of GRC" and an "800 pound gorilla of content in the GRC space", Digital Manager 360 is composed of five core modules: risk management, IT vendor risk management, cybersecurity and vulnerability risk management, compliance management, policy management and workflow management.

According to SAI Global, the velocity of risks that companies face have the ability to severely impact business operations, and even more importantly the resilience and reputation of an organization's brand. Recent well-publicized issues that illustrate this point, include the Equifax, Yahoo and Home Depot breaches.

Taking an integrated approach to managing risk and compliance, SAI Global's Digital Manager 360 solution provides organizations the visibility into their risks, supported by integrated reporting and analytics for executives and risk owners to make the best decisions to help protect their businesses.

"This industry recognition further reinforces our strong leadership in the market and is a reflection on the investment in research and development for our suite of risk management solutions, said Peter Granat, CEO, SAI Global.

"We are in the business of helping our clients protect their most valuable assets, so they can focus on their business and delivering for their customers."

Underpinning this market-leading solution is a professional services team, with the industry knowledge and domain expertise to help companies obtain faster time to value and maximise returns on their investment, with solutions delivered in weeks versus months.

Other product strengths highlighted by SC media report Digital Manager 360's integration with third-party tools to manage vulnerability scanning and vendor security scoring, and a targeted reporting capability which delivers out-of-the-box reporting from Board level to CEO and Compliance Officer level and beyond.

These modules work hand in hand with a deep and diverse cross-mapped content library with 44,000 controls and 41,000 requirements. This solution is able to implement the streamlined management of digital risk and compliance processes for customers in weeks versus months, allowing businesses to see a return on investment early.

Find out more about SAI Global's Digital Manager 360 solution.

About SAI Global

At SAI Global, we help companies take an integrated approach to risk lifecycle management using an innovative mix of world-class technology, solutions and advisory services.

We have global reach with locations across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, powered by local expertise and knowhow.

Media enquiries:

Bria Lamberton

Global Channel Communications Manager

SAI Global

Level 38, 680 George St, Sydney NSW 2000

M: + 61 (0) 428 009 117

E: Bria.Lamberton@saiglobal.com

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Company Recognized for Leadership and Commitment to Conservation in the Amazon Region at Annual Gala

RACINE, Wisconsin, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SC Johnson today announced it has received Conservation International's most prestigious award: the Global Conservation Hero award. Conservation International (CI) presents this award to remarkable individuals and organizations whose environmental commitment and actions have had a transformative impact for the good of the planet and its people.

Experience the interactive Multichannel News Release here: https://www.multivu.com/players/English/8031131-sc-johnson-conservation-international-under-the-canopy/

"Tropical rainforests are one of the planet's most vital ecosystems, needed by people everywhere to thrive," said Fisk Johnson, Chairman and CEO of SC Johnson. "We are honored to be recognized by Conservation International for our contributions to the health and future well-being of Amazonia. Protecting forests is critical to protecting our future, and I hope that our support encourages others to get involved."

CI paid tribute to SC Johnson's long and rich history with, and support for, the Amazon region. The company was recognized for the decades of respectful collaboration and sustainable action it has provided in partnership with communities in the Amazon.

"SC Johnson's bold commitment to help protect the Amazon rainforest - particularly the recent action to save 10,000 acres of Amazonia in partnership with Conservation International earlier this year - demonstrates exemplary leadership and a deep connection to ensuring the health and prosperity of Amazonia, its indigenous communities and the rest of the world," said M. Sanjayan, CEO of Conservation International.

The award was presented to SC Johnson at Conservation International's 30th Anniversary Gala Nov. 2 in Los Angeles. The evening's theme of No Forest, No Future highlighted the complexities as well as the great benefits of protecting one of the planet's most valuable ecosystems: tropical forests and particularly the Amazon. During the gala, for every acre of rainforest protected, SC Johnson provided an acre-for-acre match up to 4,000 acres.

Partnership with Conservation International



SC Johnson and CI have partnered on environmentally focused projects for nearly 16 years. Since 2001, the company has served on the board for CI's Centre for Environmental Leadership in Business. In 2009, SC Johnson became a founding member of Conservation International Team Earth, a worldwide preservation effort unifying businesses, nonprofit organizations and other participants to confront environmental issues. SC Johnson has also worked with CI through itsREDD+program in the Peruvian Amazon to engage communities in conservation, safeguarding forests and securing livelihoods while offsetting carbon emissions.

Through a partnership with CI earlier this year to support the virtual reality film Under the Canopy, SC Johnson enlisted the public to help protect 10,000 acres of the Amazon rainforest through an acre-for-acre match campaign. The campaign garnered donations from all 50 U.S. states and 31 countries through CI's website.

Last month the company announced that the funds raised from its acre-for-acre match challenge will be used to kick off the world's largest tropical reforestation project in the Brazilian Amazon. The multimillion-dollar, six-year project, which is the result of a partnership between CI, the Brazilian Ministry of Environment, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the World Bank and Rock in Rio, will restore 73 million trees in the Brazilian Amazonia region by 2023. The endeavor will also help Brazil move toward its Paris Agreement target of reforesting 12 million hectares of land by 2030.

SC Johnson, Deforestation and Brazil



SC Johnson has been operating in Brazil for more than 80 years. In that time, the company's manufacturing plant in Manaus has achieved zero landfill status, a protocol estimated to keep some 91 tons of refuse out of Brazilian landfills each year. In the 1990s, SC Johnson contributed to the protection of two reserves in Brazil's Caatinga ecoregion. Since then, as part of the company's work with and contributions to CI, more than 100,000 acres of land have been conserved - much of that in the Amazon region.

The Johnson family has a long personal connection to Brazil. In 1935, third-generation company leader H.F. Johnson, Jr. led an expedition up the Amazon in search of the Carnauba palm, whose wax was the principle ingredient in the company's products at the time. In 1998, fourth-generation leader Sam Johnson and his sons, including fifth-generation leader Fisk Johnson, retraced the historic expedition made by H.F. Johnson, Jr.

About SC Johnson



SC Johnson is a family company dedicated to innovative, high-quality products, excellence in the workplace and a long-term commitment to the environment and the communities in which it operates. Based in the USA, the company is one of the world's leading manufacturers of household cleaning products and products for home storage, air care, pest control and shoe care, as well as professional products. It markets such well-known brands as GLADE KIWI OFF! PLEDGE RAID SCRUBBING BUBBLES SHOUT WINDEXand ZIPLOCin the U.S. and beyond, with brands marketed outside the U.S. including AUTAN TANA BAMA BAYGON BRISE KABIKILLER KLEAR MR MUSCLEand RIDSECT The 131-year-old company, which generates $10 billion in sales, employs approximately 13,000 people globally and sells products in virtually every country around the world. www.scjohnson.com

About Conservation International



Conservation International (CI) uses science, policy and partnerships to protect the nature people rely on for food, fresh water and livelihoods. Founded in 1987, CI works in more than 30 countries on six continents to ensure a healthy, prosperous planet that supports us all. Learn more about CI and its groundbreaking "Nature Is Speaking" campaign, and follow CI's work on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

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TechnipFMC (NYSE: FTI) and (PARIS: FTI) has been awarded a subsea contract by Murphy Sabah Oil for the Phase 1A Block H Gas Development Project. The project is located in offshore Sabah, Malaysia, at a water depth of approximately 1,300 meters.

This contract covers the Engineering, Procurement, Construction, Installation and Commissioning (EPCIC) of the umbilicals, risers and flowlines as well as the transportation and installation of subsea hardware and controls.

Hallvard Hasselknippe, President Subsea Projects at TechnipFMC, commented: "We are proud to have been awarded this contract from Murphy Sabah Oil which demonstrates the strength of our solutions and deepwater capabilities in Malaysia."

Note: this inbound order was included in the company's second quarter results.

Important Information for Investors and Securityholders

Forward-Looking Statement

This release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined in Section 27A of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The words "scheduled," "estimated" and other similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, which are generally not historical in nature. Such forward-looking statements involve significant risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from our historical experience and our present expectations or projections. Known material factors that could cause our actual results to differ from those in the forward-looking statements include the Company's ability to successfully deliver, and Murphy Sabah Oil's acceptance of, the subsea products ordered. For additional information regarding known material factors that could cause actual results to differ from projected results, please see our risk factors set forth in our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, which include our Registration Statement on Form S-4, Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K.

We caution you not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any of our forward-looking statements after the date they are made, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except to the extent required by law.

About TechnipFMC

TechnipFMC is a global leader in subsea, onshore/offshore, and surface projects. With our proprietary technologies and production systems, integrated expertise, and comprehensive solutions, we are transforming our clients' project economics.

We are uniquely positioned to deliver greater efficiency across project lifecycles from concept to project delivery and beyond. Through innovative technologies and improved efficiencies, our offering unlocks new possibilities for our clients in developing their oil and gas resources.

Each of our more than 40,000 employees is driven by a steady commitment to clients and a culture of purposeful innovation, challenging industry conventions, and rethinking how the best results are achieved.

To learn more about us and how we are enhancing the performance of the world's energy industry, go to TechnipFMC.com and follow us on Twitter @TechnipFMC.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171102006570/en/

Contacts:

TechnipFMC

Investor relations

Matt Seinsheimer, +1-281-260-3665

Vice President Investor Relations

Matt Seinsheimer

or

James Davis, +1-281-260-3665

Senior Manager Investor Relations

James Davis

or

Media relations

Christophe Belorgeot, +33 1 47 78 39 92

Vice President Corporate Communications

Christophe Belorgeot

or

Delphine Nayral, +33 1 47 78 34 83

Manager Public Relations

Delphine Nayral

or

Lisa Adams, +1-281-405-4659

Senior Manager Digital Communications

Lisa Adams
LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc. (SMT.L) reported Friday that its first-half net return on ordinary activities before taxation increased to 869.34 million pounds from 846.34 million pounds last year. Net return per ordinary share was 62.66 pence, compared to 64.35 pence last year. Earnings per share were 0.82 pence, compared to last year's 0.80 pence. Gains on sales of investments increased to 130.48 million pounds from 110.18 million pounds last year. The net asset value or NAV per share increased 17.5% over the first half of the Company's financial year, whilst its share price rose by 15.4% as the shares moved to trade slightly closer to the underlying NAV. Further, the company said its Board wishes to repeat the guidance given earlier. The Board proposed to pay an interim dividend of 1.39p, which is unchanged from the same period last year. 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.
One of Eight Innovations Selected From Nearly Fifty Submissions to Present

BROOKLYN PARK, Minnesota, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- 4C Medical Technologies, Inc. (4C Medical), a developer of minimally invasive technologies for structural heart disease, today announced that its medical device for mitral regurgitation (MR) was presented at the Shark Tank Innovation Competition at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) meeting held October 29-November 2, 2017 in Denver, CO. The device was one of the eight innovations selected among nearly fifty submissions.

4C Medical is developing the first MR treatment that preserves the native mitral valve and left ventricle using a supra-annular, atrial-only fixation technology. The novel design eliminates issues associated with current transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR) technologies - which rely on placement and fixation in the native mitral annulus and left ventricle - such as obstruction of the left ventricular outflow tract, impaired function of the left ventricle and device embolization.

Philippe Genereux, MD presented "A Novel Trans-catheter Mitral Valve Replacement Technology (4C)" in which he explained how the design and supra-annular placement of the 4C valve may extend TMVR therapy to patients who would be ineligible for alternative TMVR procedures based on the irregular anatomy of their mitral annulus or left ventricle or presence of severe calcification. Dr. Genereux is Co-Director of the Structural Heart Program at the Gagnon Cardiovascular Institute of Morristown Medical Center (Morristown, NJ) and a practicing Interventional Cardiologist at Hopital du Sacre-Coeur de Montreal (Montreal, Canada).

"One aspect that excites me most about the 4C valve is that it is the only scalable technology that will provide treatment options for a broad MR patient population," said Dr. Genereux. "Because the device is placed and anchored entirely in the left atrium, it does not rely on or interact with the dynamic and irregular anatomy of the mitral annulus and left ventricle. Additionally, the 4C valve may be delivered transapically or transseptally, which gives options to operators. No other valve in development today can offer the same advantages. 4C Medical's technology will answer a real unmet clinical need."

"We are honored that from nearly fifty submissions our innovation was one of the eight selected to present at TCT," said Robert Thatcher, CEO of 4C Medical. "We will carry this momentum forward as we finalize the design of the technology and progress toward the early feasibility study. Because a broader patient population will be eligible for the 4C valve as compared to other TMVR technologies, we anticipate quicker patient enrollment."

About 4C Medical Technologies, Inc.

4C Medical is a medical device company developing minimally invasive technologies for structural heart disease, focusing initially on mitral regurgitation (MR) therapy and, in the future, on tricuspid regurgitation therapy. The company's transcatheter mitral valve device is the first MR treatment with supra-annular positioning and atrial-only fixation. It preserves the native mitral valve and left ventricle - eliminating known issues associated with other transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR) technologies which rely on placement and fixation in the native mitral annulus and left ventricle - and will expand the patient population eligible for TMVR therapy.

Media Contacts

Robert Thatcher

Chief Executive Officer

(612) 600-8951

rthatcher@4CMed.com

Jim Flaherty

Chief Financial Officer

(612) 599-0650

jflaherty@4CMed.com

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VANCOUVER, 2017-11-03 09:00 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Etherparty, the easy-to-use smart contracts creation platform, is pleased to announce that it has completed the verification process from its crowdfund campaign. It has also compensated fuel tokens to 61 contributors affected by the security breach that took place on Oct. 1st, 2017 prior to 10:00 am PDT.



"We are making every effort to ensure that we take care of those who were affected by the security breach," commented Founder, Lisa Cheng.



The breach which occurred shortly after the launch of the sale, was quickly identified and resolved. The issue affected a minimal number of users due to a security vulnerability that Etherparty has since taken steps to eliminate.



Since the launch of its beta on Oct. 17th, the company has added over 800 beta testers to its platform launching a variety of escrow, token, and crowdfunding contracts on the Ethereum network. Interested users can request an invite to the beta by visiting: etherparty.io/beta-testing-registration.



About Etherparty



Etherparty is a contract wizard that removes the complexity of creating, managing, and executing smart contracts on multiple blockchains. The platform allows users with zero knowledge of smart contract programming to create an enforceable, self-executing digital agreement for all types of transactions.



Media Contact Todd Hauptman todd@vanbex.com



Disclaimer



Please be advised that the purchasing of FUEL tokens are solely for the purpose of receiving services, participating in the Etherparty Ecosystem, and supporting the development, testing, deployment and operation of the Etherparty Ecosystem. As set forth in the Etherparty Smart Contracts Inc. (Etherparty) Crowdsale Terms and Conditions (the Terms and Conditions.) You have acknowledged to and agreed with Etherparty that you are aware of the commercial risks associated with Etherparty, the purchase of FUEL tokens and the Etherparty Ecosystem, and you have acknowledged to and agreed with Etherparty that you are not purchasing FUEL tokens for any other purposes other than use and consumption on the Etherparty Ecosystem, including, but not limited to, any investment, speculative or financial purpose.

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
MINSK, Belarus, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mapbox, the mapping and location platform for developers, today announced that it is bringing on the deep learning team at MapData, a neural network-based map SDK team in Minsk, Belarus. The company also plans to open a new office in the High Tech Park in Minsk.

The team in Minsk will be dedicated to supporting deep learning, computer vision and self-driving vehicles to complement the company's larger investments in autonomous driving and growing presence within the automotive industry.

"Navigation apps have not innovated in years," said Eric Gundersen, CEO of Mapbox. "Drivers are looking at 2D maps on their phones like the old school atlas our parents had - we can do so much better. Front-facing cameras and navigation displays need to merge. Drivers should see an augmented reality, with directions showing up in front of where they need to turn. Phones will be the heads-up displays of the future without the need for expensive hardware."

"It's great to see how fruitful cooperation during the last one and a half years has grown into a new breathtaking project," said Alexander Matveenko, General Manager for Mapbox in Minsk. "My big dream was always to have and ride in a self-driving car. It's incredible that I get to be part of it and work on creating it."

During the past few years, Minsk has been rapidly growing as an innovation hub. Mapbox has been successfully working with developers in the city for the past 18 months and felt the timing was right to expand its investment and activities in the area.

"The President of Belarus is expanding benefits for the members of the High Tech Park area in Minsk and making it easier for companies to set up shop," said Denis Alienkov, Alienkov & Partners, who has been supporting Mapbox's activities in Minsk.

Mapbox was initially introduced to Minsk by Yury Melnichek, the founder of Maps.me and lead investor AIMatters, who currently serves as an advisor to Mapbox. Melnichek saw potential in Mapbox's technology, not only for the automotive industry, but for the growth of Minsk as well.

"The combination of technical talent and a really dedicated work ethic is going to drive a lot of startups here. I believe this is an ecosystem that is important for Mapbox to be a part of," said Melnichek.

About Mapbox

Mapbox is the location platform for developers. Mapbox provides a global map, real- time traffic, location search and navigation via our APIs and SDKs. Our services power industry leaders, including CNN, General Electric, IBM, Instacart, Lonely Planet, Mastercard, Snapchat, Tableau, and The Weather Channel. Mapbox is the foundation for other platforms, letting enterprises analyze their data, drone companies publish flyovers, friends find each other, real estate sites visualize properties, satellite companies process cloud-free imagery, and insurance companies track assets. Founded in 2010, Mapbox has over 290 employees with global locations in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Bangalore, Berlin, Minsk, Shanghai, and Ayacucho. Learn more at mapbox.com, and follow our blog. Or follow us on Twitter.

Contact:

Mapbox

Leslie Nakajima

(415) 250-9336

mapbox@methodcommunications.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596585/udrives.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596584/mapbox_logo_color.jpg
MoneyTV with Donald Baillargeon television program, Copyright MMXVII, all rights reserved. MoneyTV does not provide an analysis of companies' financial positions and is not soliciting to purchase or sell securities of the companies, nor are we offering a recommendation of featured companies or their stocks. Information discussed herein has been provided by the companies and should be verified independently with the companies and a securities analyst. MoneyTV provides companies a 3 to 4 month corporate profile with multiple appearances for a cash fee of $11,995.00 to $17,250.00, does not accept company stock as payment for services, does not hold any positions, options or warrants in featured companies. The information herein is not an endorsement by Donald Baillargeon, the producer, publisher or parent company of MoneyTV.

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
LONDON, ENGLAND -- (Marketwired) -- 11/03/17 -- In business, administrative tasks can be a nuisance. Employees often find them a minefield, and heads of organisations may find they take a toll on company profits. After all, the more time staff spend on chasing invoices, checking paperwork and phoning up contractors, the less time they have for the more significant activities. In fact, Tungsten Network estimates that companies lose almost GBP 89,000 a year when their workforce is engaged in minor tasks.

In a video interview with European CEO, Richard Hurwitz, CEO of the company, explains why it's now more important than ever for managers and business operators to whittle down the time they spent on such activities. Tungsten Network has built unique technology to help others achieve this - and their ultimate goal, which is a 'frictionless' workplace. This term describes an environment where admin doesn't get in the way of important work.

Technological solutions are the way forward for multiple industries, which Tungsten Network offers in the form of e-invoicing, finance and analytics solutions. Its tools have been praised for their ability to eliminate human error and free up time, thereby boosting companies' profits.

Speaking to European CEO, Hurwitz explains how Tungsten Network has crafted its solutions and remained a market leader for 15 years. What gives the business its edge is its commitment to research, which constantly informs its products. This year alone it undertook a major study across the UK and US to understand how friction can affect the global supply chain. Hurwitz says that the answer lies in digital, where "there is no longer room for error."

To watch Hurwitz's interview in full and discover why Tungsten's solutions are regarded as some of the best in the business, visit European CEO now.

World News Media is a leading publisher of quality financial and business magazines, which enjoys a global distribution network that includes subscriber lists of prominent decision-makers around the world.

Contacts:

World News Media

Elizabeth Matsangou

Editorial Department

+44 (0)20 7553 4162

elizabeth.matsangou@wnmedia.com




LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / November 3, 2017 / SymBio has substantially increased the value of its Treakisym franchise through in-licensing novel bendamustine formulations from Eagle Pharmaceuticals for $12.5m. The new formulations bring a lower cost of goods and 10 years of additional patent protection to help in lifecycle management of the Treakisym franchise. Sales of Treakisym following the approval of two new indications in 2016 have exceeded the company's expectations, leading it to upgrade FY17 sales guidance. Interim data from the global Phase III rigosertib trial could become available during Q417. We value SymBio at $174m, with the enhanced Treakisym portfolio offsetting the suspension of IONSYS development.

Our risk-adjusted valuation is $174m or $3.6/ADR (unchanged). We have revised our forecasts to account for: greater market share and improved profit margins for Treakisym liquid formulations from 2021 onwards, offset by anticipated $13m development costs; risk-adjusted revenues and $18m development costs for the new DLBCL indication; the 23% increase in 2017 Treakisym sales guidance; and suspension of development of the IONSYS pain product.

Click here to view the full report.

All reports published by Edison are available to download free of charge from its website

www.edisoninvestmentresearch.com

About Edison: Edison is an investment research and advisory company, with offices in North America, Europe, the Middle East and AsiaPac. The heart of Edison is our world-renowned equity research platform and deep multi-sector expertise. At Edison Investment Research, our research is widely read by international investors, advisers, and stakeholders. Edison Advisors leverages our core research platform to provide differentiated services including investor relations and strategic consulting.

Edison is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Edison is not an adviser or broker-dealer and does not provide investment advice. Edison's reports are not solicitations to buy or sell any securities.

For more information please contact Edison:

Dennis Hulme, +61 (0)2 9258 1161

Maxim Jacobs, +1 646 653 7027

healthcare@edisongroup.com

Learn more at www.edisongroup.com and connect with Edison on:

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/edison-investment-research

Twitter www.twitter.com/Edison_Inv_Res

YouTube www.youtube.com/edisonitv

SOURCE: Edison




LAS VEGAS, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SPECTRE.ai (Speculative Tokenized Trading Exchange) is the world's first brokerless, financial trading platform with an embedded, autonomous decentralized liquidity pool funded by Pre-launch investors, that acts as a counter-party to all trades.

Without having a broker acting as the middleman and often the counterparty of a trade, the Ethereum based blockchain project, SPECTRE.ai raises expectations and the level of security for trading while removing unnecessary risks and conflicts of interest. All transactions are governed by smart contracts, and human intervention is not possible.

Through the elimination of the broker, SPECTRE.ai improves upon the element of mistrust in financial trading, in several ways;

SPECTRE.ai will never require its users to deposit money in a SPECTRE.ai account. They trade from their own Blockchain based Ethereum wallet.

SPECTRE.ai does not take the opposite side of a trade. The counterparty to the trades is the autonomous decentralized liquidity pool. Therefore there is co conflict of interest between SPECTRE and its users.

All transactions are verified by the blockchain and no user intervention is possible.

For each trade that takes place on the SPECTRE.ai platform, the SPECTRE team receives a 2% technology fee on the value of the trade, while another 2% is paid out proportionally to early Pre-Launch investors.

Additionally, SPECTRE.ai aims to offer its users a unique feature that involves a technology that learns user behavior patterns and will predict the likelihood of trading mistakes and will actually issue a warning.

"Unlike trading platforms out there today, SPECTRE.ai has a range of trader protection algorithms which help with emotion control, risk management, trade opportunity recognition and the ability to track one's stats including strengths and weaknesses through time. SPECTRE.ai learns the trader's weaknesses over time and alerts them when they are about to make a silly mistake."

- As seen in the landing page text at www.spectre.ai

Progress

The public alpha went live in September 2017 and the connection to the live Ethereum mainnet environment is scheduled for the first quarter of 2018.Access will be made available on www.spectre.ai.

Media Contact

Cheryl Buckingham

+44 7540 187 313

team@spectre.ai

www.spectre.ai

The SPECTRE AI Whitepaper

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596671/Spectre_AI_Logo.jpg
EBENE, Mauritius, November 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

A gala reception was held on the 27th of October, 2017, in Ebene, the business capital of Mauritius, to mark the 4thanniversary of Alpari's presence in the region. The gala, organised by the company, was attended by the Prime Minister of Mauritius The Hon Pravind Kumar Jugnauth and other top government officials. The evening began with an opening speech by the owner of the international Alpari brand, Andrey Dashin, who emphasised the key role played by Mauritius in the company's development.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596712/Alpari_Andrey_Dashin_with_Prime_Minister.jpg )



"Mauritius, with its flexible and progressive legislation, offers favourable conditions for conducting business. The transparency of government regulators and their business approach create a positive business climate for Alpari and other international companies and lay the foundation for long-term cooperation. Alpari plans to continue its successful development on global markets and to further contribute to establishing Mauritius as an international financial centre." - noted Andrey Dashin.

Pravind Jugnauth, the Prime Minister of Mauritius, was keen to stress that the presence of such major players on the international market as Alpari is evidence of a high level of confidence in Mauritius. The government is constantly working to improve the country's business climate and regulatory framework, particularly in the financial sector, which undoubtedly attracts foreign business to the country. Jugnauth further expressed hope that his government's working relationship with Alpari would continue to develop. Today, Mauritius has the potential to become a recognised financial centre.

About Alpari

Andrey Dashin, Ultimate Beneficial Owner, has been working in the Forex industry for almost 20 years. Alpari today is an influential and globally connected brand, with its products, services and trademarks making it one of the most recognisable companies in the financial industry. Alpari services over one million clients from 150 countries of the world and has over 80 offices across the globe. Alpari's aggregated trading turnover exceeded $1 trillion in 2016.

Contact: Andrei Loboda; tel.: +7-495-721-5959
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THIS CIRCULAR IS IMPORTANT AND REQUIRES YOUR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you are in doubt as to any aspect of this circular or as to the action to be taken, you should consult your stockbroker or other registered dealer in securities, bank manager, solicitor, professional accountants or other professional adviser.

If you have sold or transferred all your shares in Zhejiang Expressway Co., Ltd., you should at once hand this circular with the accompanying form of proxy and reply slip to the purchaser or the transferee or to the bank, stockbroker or other agent through whom the sale or transfer was effected for transmission to the purchaser or the transferee.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited and The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited take no responsibility for the contents of this circular, make no representation as to its accuracy or completeness and expressly disclaim any liability whatsoever for any loss howsoever arising from or in reliance upon the whole or any part of the contents of this circular.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ZHEJIANG EXPRESSWAY CO., LTD.

(A joint stock limited company incorporated in the People's Republic of China with limited liability)

(Stock code: 0576)

(1) INTERIM DIVIDEND FOR THE SIX MONTHS ENDED 30 JUNE 2017

(2) PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION

AND

(3) NOTICE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A notice for convening the extraordinary general meeting (the "EGM") of the Company to be held at 10 a.m. on Monday, 18 December 2017 at 5/F, No. 2 Mingzhu International Business Center, 199 Wuxing Road, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, the People's Republic of China is set out on pages 10 to 11 of this circular.

A form of proxy for use at the EGM is enclosed. Whether or not you are able to attend the meeting in person, you are requested to complete and return the accompanying form of proxy in accordance with the instructions printed thereon. In case of H Shares, the proxy form shall be lodged with the Company's H Shares Registrar, Hong Kong Registrars Limited, at 17M Floor, Hopewell Centre, 183 Queen's Road East, Wanchai, Hong Kong, not less than 24 hours before the time for holding the EGM (i.e. by no later than 10 a.m. on 17 December 2017) (or any adjournment thereof). Completion and delivery of the form of proxy will not preclude you from attending and voting in person at the EGM or any adjournment thereof should you so wish.

3 November 2017

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CONTENTS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Definitions

Letter from the Board

Appendix I - Proposed Amendments to the Articles ofAssociation

Notice of EGM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DEFINITIONS

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In this circular, unless the context specifies otherwise, the following expressions shall have the meanings stated below:

"Articles" the articles of association of the Company, as amended from time to time "Board" the Board of Directors "Circular" this circular to the Shareholders "Company" Zhejiang Expressway Co., Ltd., a joint stock limited company incorporated in the PRC with limited liability "Director(s)" the director(s) of the Company "EGM" the extraordinary general meeting of the Shareholders to be held at 10 a.m. on Monday, 18 December 2017 at 5/F, No. 2 Mingzhu International Business Center, 199 Wuxing Road, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, the PRC, the notice of which is set out on pages 10 to 11 of this Circular "H Shares" overseas listed foreign shares in the share capital of the Company with a nominal value of RMB1.00 per share, which are listed on the Main Board of the Stock Exchange "Hong Kong" the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the PRC "Listing Rules" Rules Governing the Listing of Securities on the Stock Exchange "MOF" the Ministry of Finance of the PRC "PRC" the People's Republic of China (for the purpose of this Circular, excludes Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) "RMB" Renminbi, the lawful currency of the PRC "Shareholder(s)" holder(s) of the share(s) of the Company "StockExchange" The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LETTER FROM THE BOARD

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ZHEJIANG EXPRESSWAY CO., LTD.

(A joint stock limited company incorporated in the People's Republic of China with limited liability)

(Stock code: 0576)

Executive Directors: Registered office in the PRC: Mr.ZhanXiaozhang(Chairman) 12/F, Block A Mr. Cheng Tao Dragon Century Plaza Ms. Luo Jianhu 1 Hangda Road Hangzhou Non-executive Directors: Zhejiang Province 310007 Mr. Wang Dongjie The People's Republic of China Mr. Dai Benmeng Mr. Zhou Jianping Independent Non-executive Directors: Mr. Zhou Jun Mr. Pei Ker-Wei Ms. Lee Wai Tsang, Rosa 3 November 2017

To the Shareholders

Dear Sir or Madam,

(1) INTERIM DIVIDEND FOR THE SIX MONTHS ENDED 30 JUNE 2017

(2) PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION

AND

(3) NOTICE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING

1. INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this Circular is, among other things, to give you notice of the EGM and to provide you with information in relation to the resolutions to be proposed at the EGM to enable you to make an informed decision on whether to vote for or against the resolutions at the EGM.

2. INTERIM DIVIDEND FOR THE SIX MONTHS ENDED 30 JUNE 2017

Reference is made to the announcement of the Company dated 23 August 2017 in relation to, among other things, the Board's recommendation of the payment of an interim dividend of RMB6 cents per share to the Shareholders. Such proposed payment of interim dividend is subject to the approval of the Shareholders at the EGM. Subject to the approval by the Shareholders having been obtained at the EGM, the interim dividend is expected to be paid to the Shareholders on or about 19 January 2018 instead of by no later than 31 December 2017.

3. PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION

Reference is made to the announcement of the Company dated 31 October 2017 in relation to the Board's recommendation to make amendments to the existing Articles.

As the organization department of Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee and the party committee of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Zhejiang Province recently proposed more specific requirements on party construction to be incorporated into the articles of association, the Company intends to amend the Articles. The proposed amendments are set out in Appendix I to this Circular. According to the Articles and the relevant laws and regulations, the proposed amendments to the Articles are subject to the approval of the Shareholders by way of special resolution at the EGM.

The legal advisers to the Company as to the laws of Hong Kong and the laws of the PRC have respectively confirmed that the proposed amendments to the Articles comply with requirements of the Listing Rules and applicable laws of the PRC. The Company confirms that there is nothing unusual about the proposed amendments for a company incorporated in the PRC and listed on the Stock Exchange.

4. CLOSURE OF REGISTER OF MEMBERS

For the purpose of determining the Shareholders' entitlement to attend and vote at the EGM and to qualify for interim dividend payment as well as compensation payment (details of which were provided in the same announcement of the Company dated 23 August 2017), the register of members holding H Shares of the Company will be closed from 18 November 2017 to 17 December 2017 (both days inclusive), and from 22 December 2017 to 27 December 2017 (both days inclusive), respectively. Holders of H Shares who intend to attend and vote at the EGM and to qualify for interim dividend payment as well as compensation payment must deliver all transfer instruments and the relevant share certificates to Hong Kong Registrars Limited at Rooms 1712-1716, 17/F, Hopewell Center, 183 Queen's Road East, Wanchai, Hong Kong, at or before 4:30 p.m. on 17 November 2017 and on 21 December 2017, respectively. For the purpose of the EGM and for interim dividend payment as well as compensation payment, the record dates are 23 November 2017 and 27 December 2017, respectively.

5. EGM

You will find on pages 10 to 11 of this Circular a notice of the EGM to be held at 10 a.m. on Monday, 18 December 2017 at 5/F, No. 2 Mingzhu International Business Center, 199 Wuxing Road, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, the People's Republic of China.

A form of proxy for use at the EGM is enclosed. Whether or not you are able to attend the meeting in person, you are requested to complete and return the accompanying form of proxy in accordance with the instructions printed thereon. In case of H Shares, the proxy form shall be lodged with the Company's H Shares Registrar, Hong Kong Registrars Limited, at 17M Floor, Hopewell Centre, 183 Queen's Road East, Wanchai, Hong Kong, not less than 24 hours before the time for holding the EGM (i.e. by no later than 10 a.m. on 17 December 2017) (or any adjournment thereof). Completion and delivery of the form of proxy will not preclude you from attending and voting in person at the EGM or any adjournment thereof should you so wish.

6. RESPONSIBILITY STATEMENT

This Circular, for which the Directors collectively and individually accept full responsibility, includes particulars given in compliance with the Listing Rules for the purpose of giving information with regard to the Company. The Directors, having made all reasonable enquiries, confirm that to the best of their knowledge and belief the information contained in this Circular is accurate and complete in all material respects and not misleading or deceptive, and there are no other matters the omission of which would make any statement herein or this Circular misleading.

7. RECOMMENDATION

The Directors (including the independent non-executive Directors) consider that all resolutions set out in the notice of EGM for consideration and approval by Shareholders are in the interests of the Company and the Shareholders as a whole. Accordingly, the Directors (including the independent non-executive Directors) recommend the Shareholders to vote in favour of all resolutions to be proposed at the EGM.

Yours faithfully, For

and on behalf of

Zhejiang Expressway Co., Ltd.

ZHAN Xiaozhang

Chairman

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

APPENDIX I- PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TABLE OF THE PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION

Proposed amendments Reasonsfororbasisofamendments CHAPTER19APARTYCOMMITTEE

Article 19A.1 This chapter is formulated to suit the needs of the development of socialistic market economy, establishing modern state-owned enterprise regulating system with Chinese characteristics, governing the organization and action of company, protecting the legal interests of investors, the Company and creditors, as well as pursuant to relevant laws, rules and regulations, including but not limited to, the Company Law of the People's Republic of China, the Enterprise State-owned Asset Law of the People's Republic of China, and the Articles of Association of the Chinese Communist Party (the "Party Articles").

Article 19A.2 These Articles of Association constitute a legal document that governs the organization and action of company, with binding power over investor, company, leading members of party organization (and disciplinary inspection organization), directors, supervisors, as well as senior management.

Article 19A.3 Pursuant to relevant rules under the Party Articles, the Company sets up organization of the Chinese Communist Party, carries out activities of the party. Party organization, acting as core of leadership and politic, sets direction, oversees overall situation, and ensures implementation. The Company establishes working organization of the party, providing sufficient staff for party affairs, ensures the funding needed for party organization works, and providing the necessary condition for party organization's activities.

Article 19A.4 The Company sets up Chinese Communist Party Commission of Zhejiang Expressway Co., Ltd. (the "Party Commission") and Chinese Communist Party Disciplinary Inspection Commission of Zhejiang Expressway Co., Ltd. (the "Disciplinary Commission").

Article 19A.5 Positions of secretary, deputy secretary and members oftheParty Commission and the Disciplinary Commission are to be set up in accordance with directive given by higher level party organization, and to be elected or appointed pursuantto relevant rulesunder the Party Articles. Party Commission secretary and chairman of the Company should be assumed by the same person in principle. Qualified leading members of the Party Commission may assume positions within the board of directors, the supervisory committee, and the management through legal procedures. Likewise, qualified members of the board of directors, the supervisory committee, and the management may assume positions within the leading members of the Party Commission following relevant rules and procedures.

Article 19A.6 The Company sets up working organization for party affairs independently or jointly, providing party affairs working staff no less than the average staffing level for internal organizations, with party affairs working staff enjoying the same treatment as operation management staff at the same level. The Company's Disciplinary Commission provides working staff to carry out disciplinary inspection works independently or jointly. Atthe same time, the Company should setup social organizations such as labor organization and communist youth league in accordance with law, safeguarding the legal interests of employees.



Article 19A.7 The organization structure and staff hiring quotas of the Party Commission should be incorporated into corporate management structure and staff hiring quotas, with working funds of party development works constituting part of corporate management cost.

Article 19A.8 The Party Commission of the Company shall discharge the following duties in accordance with the Party Articles and relevant rules:

1. to supervise and ensure the principles and policies of the party and the country are implemented at the Company, including important strategic decisions from party central committee, the state council,the provincial party committee and the provincial government.



2. to participate in major decisions of the Company, taking part in discussions on reform, development and stability of the Company, major operation management decisions, as well as major issues involving core interests of employees, supporting the board of directors, supervisory committee and management in discharging their responsibilities in accordance with law.



3. to integrate the principle of party in charge of cadres with the board of directors' selection of management in accordance with law, as well as the management's power to select staff in accordance with law. The Party Commission of the Company should place checks on various personnel selection processes, including standards adopted, regulate procedures, participate in investigation and recommendation of candidates,ensuring the formation of a robust cadres team at the Company. The party organization should be resolute on the principle of party in charge of human resources, fully implement the strategy of bolstering enterprise with talents.



4. to strengthen the supervision over management of the Company, enhance internal supervision system, integrate internal supervision resources, and improve supervision mechanism over power functioning.



5. to strengthen party organization development, party member development and training management at the local level, fully exert fighting spirit of local party organization and exemplary vanguard role of party members.

6. to discharge the main responsibility of constructing clean party and clean government, fight against corruption and support the works of the Disciplinary Commission.

7. to lead the Company's works on ideology and politics, the united front, development of socialist culture and ethics, development of corporate culture, as well as organizations such as labor union and communist youth league.

8. towork onremaining issues that theCompany's Party Commission should have participated in or decided upon.

Article 19A.9 The main procedures for the Company's Party Commission to participate in decision making:

1. thePartyCommission holdsmeetingstodiscuss major issues to be decided upon by the board of directors and management, providing advices and recommendations. The Party Commission can propose other major issues to the board of directors and the management for consideration should it believe that they need to be decided by the board of directors and management.

2. members of the Party Commission who are also members of board of directors, the management, especially the chairman of the board and general manager, should communicatewith other membersof boardof directors and management about the advices and recommendations from discussions held by the Party Commission before the subjects are formally presented to the board of directors or management.

3. members of the Party Commission who are also members of board of directors and management should expressly convey the advices and recommendations from discussions held by the Party Commission during the decision making process of the board of directors and management, and report the decisions made to the Party Commission in a timely manner.

4. the Party Commission must propose to repeal or delay any decision made by the board of directors or management should it find them contradicting with the courses, principles and policies of the party or the laws and regulations of the country, or that they may damage the legal interestsof the country,thepublic,theenterprise and the employees. If the decision is not rectified, it must bereportedto the higher levelpartyorganization in a timely manner.

5. the decision making at the Company's Party Commission must reflect collective leadership, democratic centralism, individual consultation, and decision after group consultation. Major decisions should be reached after full consultation, going through scientific, democratic and legal processes.

Article 19A.10 The Company can hold extraordinary board meeting upon proposal from the Party Commission.

Article 19A.11 The board of directors and management should take note of advices of the Company's Party Commission prior to deciding on the Company's major issues.

Article 19A.12 When provisions at other parts of these Articles of Association differ or conflict with provisions within this chapter, provisions within this chapter shall prevail. The chapter "Party Committee" is added in accordance with the written notice from the organization department of Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee and the party committee of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Zhejiang Province, including Articles 19A.1 - 19A.11.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTICE OF EGM

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ZHEJIANG EXPRESSWAY CO., LTD.

(A joint stock limited company incorporated in the People's Republic of China with limited liability)

(Stock code: 0576)

NOTICE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT the extraordinary general meeting (the "EGM") of Zhejiang Expressway Co., Ltd. (the "Company") will be held at 10 a.m. on Monday, 18 December 2017 at 5/F, No. 2 Mingzhu International Business Center, 199 Wuxing Road, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, the People's Republic of China (the "PRC"), for the purpose of considering and, if thought fit, passing with or without modification or amendment the following resolutions:

AS ORDINARY RESOLUTION

To consider and approve interim dividend of RMB6 cents per share in respect of the six months ended 30 June 2017.

AS SPECIAL RESOLUTION

To consider and approve the amendments to the articles of association of the Company and relevant authorization.

By Order of the Board

Zhejiang Expressway Co., Ltd.

Tony Zheng

Company Secretary

Hangzhou, PRC

3 November 2017

Notes:

1. Registration procedures for attending the EGM

(a) Holders of H shares of the Company ("H Shares") and domestic shares of the Company ("Domestic Shares") intending to attend the EGM should return the reply slip for attending the EGM to the Company by post or by facsimile (address and facsimile numbers are shown in paragraph 6(b) below) such that the same shall be received by the Company on or before 27 November 2017.

(b) A shareholder or his/her/its proxy should produce proof of identity when attending the EGM. If a corporate shareholder appoints its legal representative to attend the meeting, such legal representative shall produce proof of identity and a copy of the resolution of the board of directors or other governing body of such shareholder appointing such legal representative to attend the meeting.

2. Proxy

(a) A shareholder eligible to attend and vote at the EGM is entitled to appoint, in written form, one or more proxies to attend and vote at the EGM on behalf of him/her/it. A proxy need not be a shareholder of the Company.

(b) A proxy shall be appointed by a written instrument signed by the appointor or an attorney authorized by him/her/it for such purpose. If the appointor is a corporation, the same shall be affixed with the seal of such corporation, or signed by its director(s) or duly authorized representative(s). If the instrument appointing a proxy is signed by a person authorized by the appointor, the power of attorney or other authorization document(s) shall be notarized.

(c) To be valid, the power of attorney or other authorization document(s) (which have been notarized) together with the completed form of proxy must be delivered, in the case of holders of Domestic Shares, to the Company at the address shown in paragraph 6(b) below and, in the case of holders of H Shares, to Hong Kong Registrars Limited at

17M Floor, Hopewell Center, 183 Queen's Road East, Wanchai, Hong Kong, at least 24 hours before the time designated for holding of the EGM (i.e. by no later than 10 a.m. on 17 December 2017).

(d) Any vote of the shareholders of the Company present in person or by proxy at the EGM must be taken by poll.

3. Book closing period

For the purpose of the EGM and to determine the shareholders who qualify for the proposed interim dividend and compensation payment, the register of members holding H Shares will be closed from 18 November 2017 to 17 December 2017 (both days inclusive) and from 22 December 2017 to 27 December 2017 (both days inclusive), respectively.

4. Last day of transfer and record date

Holders of H Shares who intend to attend the EGM and qualify for the proposed interim dividend and compensation payment must deliver all transfer instruments and the relevant shares certificates to Hong Kong Registrars Limited at Rooms 1712-1716, 17/F, Hopewell Center, 183 Queen's Road East, Hong Kong, at or before 4:30 p.m. on 17 November 2017 and 21 December 2017, respectively.

For the purpose of the EGM and qualify for the proposed interim dividend and compensation payment, the record date will be 23 November 2017 and 27 December 2017, respectively.

5. Dividend payment date and compensation payment date

Upon relevant approval by the shareholders of the Company at the EGM, the interim dividend and compensation payment are expected to be paid out on or about 19 January 2018 instead of by no later than 31 December 2017.

6. Miscellaneous

(a) The EGM will not last for more than one day. Shareholders of the Company who attend shall bear their own traveling and accommodation expenses.

(b) The principal place of business of the Company in the PRC is:

5/F, No. 2 Mingzhu International Business Center

199 Wuxing Road

Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province

People's Republic of China

310020

Telephone No.: (+86)-571-8798 7700

Facsimile No.: (+86)-571-8795 0329

As at the date of this notice, the executive directors of the Company are: Mr. ZHAN Xiaozhang, Mr. CHENG Tao and Ms. LUO Jianhu; the non-executive directors of the Company are: Mr. WANG Dongjie, Mr. DAI Benmeng, and Mr. ZHOU Jianping; and the independent non-executive directors of the Company are: Mr. ZHOU Jun, Mr. PEI Ker-Wei and Ms. LEE Wai Tsang, Rosa.
HONG KONG, CHINA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/03/17 --Beijing Gas Blue Sky Holdings Limited ("the Company" or "Beijing Gas Blue Sky," together with its subsidiaries, the "Group") (HKSE: 6828) is pleased to announce that, the Company, Beijing Gas Group Co., Ltd. ("Beijing Gas Group") and Beijing Gas Company Limited ("Beijing Gas HK"), an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Beijing Gas Group, entered into a memorandum of understanding which sets out the proposal under which the Company intends to acquire the entire issued capital of Beijing Gas JingTang Company Ltd. (the "Target Company") from Beijing Gas HK. The Target Company is expected to own 29% equity interest in PetroChina Jingtang LNG Co., Ltd. ("PetroChina Jingtang") through its wholly-owned subsidiary upon completion of its acquisition of the aforesaid 29% equity interest under a signed share transfer agreement.

PetroChina Jingtang is incorporated with limited liability in Tangshan City, Hebei Province, the People's Republic of China (the "PRC"). It is principally engaged in provision of port facilities for vessels of liquefied natural gas; provision of cargo handling services, warehousing and loading services of liquefied natural gas within the port area; receiving, storage and re-gasification of liquefied natural gas.

If the Proposed Acquisition materializes, the consideration for the Proposed Acquisition is expected to be no more than RMB1,008 million and the Company would satisfy the consideration through the issuance of new shares of the Company to Beijing Gas HK or its nominee(s). The price for the Consideration Shares is currently expected to be HK$0.50 per Consideration Share, and will be determined by the parties upon entering into the definitive agreement.

Beijing Gas HK is a substantial shareholder of the Company holding approximately 26.91% of the issued shares of the Company as at the date of this announcement. If the Proposed Acquisition materializes, it would result in Beijing Gas HK holding more than 30% voting rights of the Company. Accordingly, completion of the Proposed Acquisition would be conditional upon, among other things, the grant of a whitewash waiver by the Executive.

In addition, the Company has completed the acquisition of two natural gas projects in Shanxi Province, including Shanxi Minsheng Natural Gas Co., Ltd. ("Shanxi Minsheng") and Yongji Minsheng Natural Gas Co., Ltd. ("Yongji Minsheng").

Mr. Tommy Cheng, Co-Chairman and Executive Director of the Group said that "We expect that the Proposed Acquisition will further secure the source of supply of natural gas to Beijing Gas Blue Sky. It represents strategic importance for the Group through improving the security for gas supply, as well as enhancing the Group's industry position in the gas distribution sector."

About Beijing Gas Blue Sky Holdings Limited

Beijing Gas Blue Sky Holdings Limited ("Beijing Gas Blue Sky") (HKSE: 6828) is an integrated natural gas provider, distributor and operator, with an emphasis on the midstream and downstream natural gas development. Our natural gas business includes: (i) construction and operation of compressed natural gas ("CNG") and liquefied natural gas ("LNG") refueling stations for vehicles; (ii) construction of natural gas pipelines and operation of city gas projects by providing piped gas; (iii) direct supply of LNG to end-users; and (iv) trading and distribution of CNG and LNG.

The Group has adapted to the "One Belt One Road" policy, and focus on operating and investing natural gas business. The Group is actively expanding its business development and distribution, as well as continues to gradually expanding the scale of operations. Currently, the Group has business presence in several provinces in Northeast China, East China, Central South China and Southwest China, including Liaoning Province, Shandong Province, Anhui Province, Zhejiang Province, Hubei Province, Guizhou Province, Sichuan Province and Hainan Province, etc. The Group is committed to its vision: "Develop clean energy, enhance customer value, create a beautiful blue sky." In the future, it will continue to actively investing and developing natural gas business, as well as participating in the development of natural gas industry value chain.

For media inquiries, please contact:

Stimulus Investor Relations Ltd.

Contact: Ms. Hill Ho / Mr. Michael Yeung

Tel: +852 3159 2944 / +852 3159 2994

Email: Email Contact / Email Contact




WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - CenterPoint Energy Inc (CNP) released a profit for third quarter that retreated from last year. The company said its bottom line fell to $167 million, or $0.38 per share. This was down from $177 million, or $0.41 per share, in last year's third quarter. Analysts had expected the company to earn $0.39 per share, according figures compiled by Thomson Reuters. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items. The company said revenue for the quarter rose 11.1% to $2.10 billion. This was up from $1.89 billion last year. CenterPoint Energy Inc earnings at a glance: -Earnings (Q3): $167 Mln. vs. $177 Mln. last year. -Earnings Decline (Y-o-Y): -5.6% -EPS (Q3): $0.38 vs. $0.41 last year. -EPS Decline (Y-o-Y): -7.3% -Analysts Estimate: $0.39 -Revenue (Q3): $2.10 Bln vs. $1.89 Bln last year. -Revenue Change (Y-o-Y): 11.1% -Guidance : Full year EPS guidance: $1.25 - $1.33 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.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/03/17 -- Asanko Gold Inc. ("Asanko" or the "Company") (TSX: AKG) (NYSE American: AKG) (NYSE MKT: AKG) reports its third quarter ("Q3") 2017 operating and financial results. The Company released its production and revenue results for Q3 2017 on October 19, 2017. All amounts are in US dollars unless otherwise stated. Management will host a conference call and webcast today at 9am Eastern Time, further details below.

Q3 2017 Highlights:

-- No lost time injuries during the quarter, maintaining industry leading safety statistic lost time injury frequency rate ("LTIFR") of 0.19 per million man hours worked -- Gold sales of 50,241 ounces at an average realized gold price of $1,265 per ounce generating revenue of $63.7 million -- Quarterly gold production of 49,293 ounces, an increase of 7% over the previous quarter -- AISC(3) increased to $975/oz (Q2 2017: $930/oz) quarter on quarter, primarily due to higher capitalized pre-stripping cost associated with the progression of Cut 2 in the Nkran pit -- Reduction in operating cash costs(2) to $485/oz (Q2 2017: $572/oz) and total cash costs(2) to $549/oz (Q2 2017: $634/oz) -- Cash provided by operating activities of $40.7 million ($31.7 million before working capital changes), an increase of 21% or $7 million compared to Q2 2017 -- Earned net income of $4.7 million ($0.02/share), a $4.0 million increase relative to Q2 2017 -- Cash and immediately convertible working capital of $64.3 million, as at September 30, 2017 -- On track to meet revised 2017 guidance of 205,000-225,000 ounces at AISC(3) of US$920-960 per ounce

Commenting on the Company's quarterly performance, Peter Breese, President and CEO, said "The improved operational performance for the quarter was the result of the new mining systems we recently introduced to improve the ore loss and dilution metrics, as well as mining through multiple zones of mineralization within the Nkran pit.

These encouraging operational results translated into an improved financial performance for the quarter, continuing our track record of generating positive cash flows. Compared to Q2 2017, cash flow from the operations before working capital increased by 19%, earned net income increased by $4.0 million or $0.02 per share and our cash and immediately convertible working capital balance increased by some 9% to $64.3 million."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This news release should be read in conjunction with Asanko's Management Discussion and Analysis and the Condensed Consolidated Interim Financial Statements for the quarter ended September 30, 2017, which are available at www.asanko.com and filed on SEDAR. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Key Operating and Financial Highlights Asanko Gold Mine Q3 2017 Q2 2017 Q1 2017 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Waste Mined ('000t) 7,339 6,457 5,620 Ore Mined ('000t) 1,181 1,049 1,017 Strip Ratio (W: O) 6.2:1 6.2:1 5.5:1 Mining Cost ($/t mined) 3.35 3.22 3.89 Ore Treated ('000t) 862 887 908 Gold Feed Grade (g/t) 1.9 1.7 2.1 Gold Recovery (%) 94 94 95 Processing Cost ($/t treated) 12.94 12.80 13.36 Gold Production (oz) 49,293 46,017 58,187 Gold Sales (oz) 50,241 48,461 57,812 Average Realised Gold Price ($/oz) 1,265 1,238 1,199 Operating Cash Costs(2) ($/oz) 485 572 578 Total Cash Costs(2) ($/oz) 549 634 638 All-in Sustaining Costs ("AISC")(3) ($/oz) 975 930 956 All-in Sustaining Margin ($/oz) (1) 290 308 243 Gross Gold Revenue ($m) 63.5 60.0 69.3 Production Costs, including Royalties ($m) 28.0 31.3 37.7 Income from Mine Operations ($m) 17.9 14.5 15.1 Net Income attributable to common shareholders 4.7 1.0 7.8 ($m) Net Income per share $0.02 $0.00 $0.04 Cash provided by Operating Activities ($m) 40.7 33.7 14.4 Cash provided by Operating Activities b/f 31.7 26.7 28.8 working capital ($m) Cash provided by Operating Activities per $0.20 $0.17 $0.07 share

Q3 2017 Operating Results

-- Industry-leading safety record maintained, with a rolling 12 month LTIFR of 0.19 per million man hours worked and no lost time injuries reported during the quarter. -- Gold production of 49,293 ounces, an increase of 7% over the previous quarter as mining interventions delivered results. -- Ore mining rates for the Asanko Gold Mine ("AGM") averaged 393,000 tonnes per month ("tpm") for the quarter at an average mining grade of 1.8 g/t and a strip ratio of 6.2:1. -- At Nkran, during Q3, mining operations extracted ore from multiple zones of mineralization with an average mining grade of 1.8 g/t. The deployment of blast monitoring technology to minimize ore losses and dilution has continued to yield positive results. -- The grade control versus the resource model reconciliation continued to improve with a positive ounce variance of 8% in the quarter. In addition, with the introduction of the Blast Movement Technology and improved ore delineation techniques within the pit, the reserve to mill feed reconciliation was within 1% on an ounce basis for the quarter. Both of the these positive reconciliations clearly validate the Mineral Resource and Reserve Estimates. -- At the Akwasiso satellite deposit mining operations delivered approximately 20,000tpm @ 1.3g/t of oxide ore for the quarter. These levels are expected to continue in Q4 2017. -- The Company completed a confirmatory drilling program at Akwasiso to infill drill test the previously inaccessible area which was covered with tailings from historic artisanal mining activities and the results confirmed the Akwasiso reserve model. -- At Dynamite Hill, the second satellite pit to be brought into production, site establishment commenced during the quarter in preparation of mining operations in Q4 2017. This included 3,096m of grade control drilling which validated the resource model and confirmed the mine plan and oxide ore volumes. -- The processing facility was impacted by three mill motor outages, which resulted in a total of 11 days of lost milling time during the quarter, equating to in excess of 5,000 ounces of lost gold production. In Q3 the plant processed 862,000 tonnes with a feed grade of 1.9 g/t. -- Gold recovery continued to exceed design levels at 94%. -- Commissioning of the Project 5 Million volumetric upgrades was completed during the quarter. The upgrades were designed on a fresh to oxide ore ratio of 9,000:6,000tpd. The processing facility is currently achieving milling rates in excess of 13,500 tonnes per day on a campaign basis. The increase in higher fresh ore tonnes is being achieved by modifications to the communiton circuit, currently consisting of three mobile crushers. A secondary crusher is expected to be permanently installed in Q2 2018.

Q3 2017 Financial Performance

-- Net income attributable to common shareholders increased by $4.0 million compared to the previous quarter, up to $4.7 million or $0.02 per share (Q2 2017: $0.00 per share). -- Mining and processing costs for Q3 2017 averaged $3.35/tonne mined (Q2 2017: $3.22/tonne) and $12.94/tonne milled (Q2 2017: $12.80/tonne), respectively. Mining costs per tonne were moderately higher than Q2 2017 as a result of the progression of Cut 2 into more competent material, offset partially by lower per unit costs associated with the development of the Akwasiso pit in oxides. Of the mining costs incurred during Q3 2017, a total of $19.0 million was deferred as stripping costs. Processing unit costs were also moderately higher than Q2 2017 due to the impact of three mill motor outages that resulted in higher maintenance costs, while fewer tonnes were milled which had the impact of increasing fixed processing cost on a per unit basis. -- Operating cash costs(2) and total cash costs(2) decreased to $485/oz (Q2: $572/oz) and $549/oz (Q2: $634/oz) respectively. The reduction was predominantly the result of lower production costs, augmented by the impact of higher sales volumes which had the effect of reducing fixed production costs on a per unit basis -- AISC(3) increased quarter on quarter to $975/oz (Q2 2017: $930/oz), predominantly due to higher sustaining capitalized stripping cost, partly offset by the reduction in total cash cost per ounce. -- Gold sales of 50,241 ounces at an average realized price of $1,264/oz (Q2 2017: $1,238/oz). With revenues, net of royalties, of $60.5 million (Q2 2017: $57.0 million). -- Total cost of sales (including depreciation and depletion) was $42.6 million. -- Cash provided by operating activities was $40.7 million or $0.20 per share. Cash provided by operating activities before working capital adjustments was $31.7 million.

Q3 2017 Liquidity and Capital Resources

-- Cash and immediately convertible working capital amounted to $64.3 million as at September 30, 2017, comprising cash and cash equivalents of $60.8 million, unrefined gold dore on hand with a cost of $2.2 million (and a market value of $3.5 million) and $1.3 million in receivables from gold sales.

2017 Outlook

From Q4 2017 onwards, the AGM's mine plan will incorporate all sources of ore available from its multiple pits to blend to the mill to enable the optimization of the various pit extraction rates, the stockpile balances and operating costs. As a consequence, the mill feed grades are expected to reflect the average reserve grades from the respective pits as they are mined, including the blended grade average from the various stockpiles.

The Company is on track to meet its revised 2017 guidance of 205,000 to 225,000 ounces at AISC of US$920 to US$960 per ounce.

Notes:

(1) Non-GAAP Performance Measures

The Company has included certain non-GAAP performance measures in this press release, including working capital, adjusted net income (loss), adjusted net income (loss) per share, operating cash costs, total cash costs, all-in sustaining costs per ounce of gold produced and all-in sustaining margin. These non-GAAP performance measures do not have any standardized meaning. Accordingly, these performance measures are intended to provide additional information and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance prepared in accordance with GAAP.

(2) Operating Cash Costs per ounce and Total Cash Costs per ounce

Operating cash costs are reflective of the cost of production, adjusted for share-based payments and by-product revenue for each ounce of gold sold. Total cash costs include production royalties of 5%.

(3) All-in Sustaining Costs Per Gold Ounce

The Company has adopted the reporting of "all-in sustaining costs per gold ounce" ("AISC") as per the World Gold Council's guidance. AISC include total cash costs, corporate overhead expenses, sustaining capital expenditure, capitalized stripping costs and reclamation cost accretion for each ounce of gold sold.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q3 2017 Operating and Financial Results Conference Call & Webcast Details Management will host a conference call and webcast at 9am EST on Friday, November 3, 2017 to discuss the Q3 2017 operating and financial results, which will be published on the same day: US/Canada Toll Free: 800 954 0585 UK Toll Free: 0800 496 1094 International: + 1 312 281 1210 Webcast: Please click on the link: https://cc.callinfo.com/r/1p4r4b25z6ku0&eom Replay A recorded playback will be available approximately two hours after the call until December 3, 2017: US/Canada Toll Free: 800 558 5253 International: +1 416 626 4100 Passcode: 21860092 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enquiries:

For further information please visit: www.asanko.com, email: info@asanko.com.

About Asanko Gold Inc.

Asanko's vision is to become a mid-tier gold mining company that maximizes value for all its stakeholders. The Company's flagship project is the multi-million ounce Asanko Gold Mine located in Ghana, West Africa. Asanko is managed by highly skilled and successful technical, operational and financial professionals. The Company is strongly committed to the highest standards for environmental management, social responsibility, and health and safety for its employees and neighbouring communities.

Forward-Looking and other Cautionary Information

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address estimated resource quantities, grades and contained metals, possible future mining, exploration and development activities, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements should not be in any way construed as guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices for metals, the conclusions of detailed feasibility and technical analyses, the timely renewal of key permits, lower than expected grades and quantities of resources, mining rates and recovery rates and the lack of availability of necessary capital, which may not be available to the Company on terms acceptable to it or at all. The Company is subject to the specific risks inherent in the mining business as well as general economic and business conditions. For more information on the Company, Investors should review the Company's Annual Form 40-F filing with the United States Securities Commission and its home jurisdiction filings that are available at www.sedar.com.

Neither Toronto Stock Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Note to US Investors Regarding Mineral Reporting Standards:

Asanko has prepared its disclosure in accordance with the requirements of securities laws in effect in Canada, which differ from the requirements of US securities laws. Terms relating to mineral resources in this press release are defined in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects under the guidelines set out in the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. The Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") permits mining companies, in their filings with the SEC, to disclose only those mineral deposits that a company can economically and legally extract or produce. Asanko uses certain terms, such as, "measured mineral resources", "indicated mineral resources", "inferred mineral resources" and "probable mineral reserves", that the SEC does not recognize (these terms may be used in this press release and are included in the public filings of Asanko which have been filed with securities commissions or similar authorities in Canada).

Contacts:

Asanko Gold Inc.

Alex Buck

Manager, Investor and Media Relations

Toll-Free (N.America): 1-855-246-7341

Telephone: +44-7932-740-452

alex.buck@asanko.com



Asanko Gold Inc.

Rob Slater

Executive, Corporate Development and Strategy

Telephone: +27-11-467-2758

rob.slater@asanko.com

www.asanko.com




Notice to the Extraordinary General Meeting of Valoe Corporation



Notice is given to the shareholders of Valoe Corporation to the Extraordinary General Meeting to be held on 28 November 2017 at 12:00 (Finnish time) at the company's headquarters at Insinoorinkatu 5, 50150 Mikkeli, Finland. The reception of persons who have registered for the meeting and the distribution of voting tickets will commence at 11:30 (Finnish time).



A. Matters on the agenda of the General Meeting



At the General Meeting, the following matters will be considered:



1. Opening of the meeting



2. Calling the meeting to order



3. Election of persons to scrutinize the minutes and to supervise the counting of votes



4. Recording the legality of the meeting



5. Recording the attendance at the meeting and adoption of the list of votes



6. Authorization of the Board of Directors to decide on a share issue as well as option rights and other special rights entitling to shares in the company



The Board of Directors proposes to the General Meeting, that the General Meeting authorizes the Board of Directors to decide on a share issue with and/or without payment, either in one or in several occasions, including right to resolve on option rights and other rights entitling to shares pursuant to the Chapter 10, Section 1 of the Finnish Companies Act so that the number of new shares issued based on the authorization or number of shares issued based on option rights and other special rights entitling to the shares pursuant to the Chapter 10, Section 1 of the Finnish companies Act, would equal to the total maximum amount of 50,000,000 shares. The authorization does not exclude the Board's right to decide also on directed issue of shares or option rights and other special rights pursuant to the Chapter 10, Section 1 of the Finnish Companies Act. It is proposed that the authorization shall not revoke any previous authorizations. It is proposed that the authorization is in force until 30 June 2018.



7. Closing of the meeting



B. Documents of the General Meeting



The above mentioned proposals for the decisions on the matters on the agenda of the General Meeting, this Notice to the Extraordinary General Meeting and other documentation required by the Companies' Act are available on Valoe Corporation's website at www.valoe.com.



Copies of these documents and of this Notice to the Extraordinary General Meeting will be available at the General Meeting and will be sent to shareholders upon request.



The minutes of the meeting will be available on the above-mentioned website as from 12 December 2017.



C. Instructions for the participants in the General Meeting



1. Shareholder registered in the shareholders' register



Each shareholder, who is registered on 16 November 2017 in the shareholders' register of the company held by Euroclear Finland Ltd., has the right to participate in the General Meeting. A shareholder, whose shares are registered on his/her personal Finnish book-entry account, is registered in the shareholders' register of the company.



A shareholder, who is registered in the shareholders' register of the company and who wants to participate in the General Meeting, shall register for the meeting no later than 23 November 2017 by 4:00 p.m. (Finnish time) by giving a prior notice of participation which shall be received by the company no later than on the above-mentioned date. Such notice can be given:



a) by e-mail to the email address minna.wilkman@valoe.com;



b) by telephone to the number +358 (0) 40 5600 530 (Minna Wilkman) from Monday to Friday between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. (Finnish time); or



c) by regular mail to the address Valoe Corporation, Minna Wilkman, Insinoorinkatu 5, 50150 Mikkeli, Finland.



In connection with the registration, a shareholder shall notify his/her name, personal identification number, address, telephone number and the name of a possible assistant or proxy representative and the personal identification number of a proxy representative. The personal data given to Valoe Corporation is used only in connection with the general meeting and with the processing of related registrations.



The shareholder, his/her authorized representative or proxy representative shall, where necessary, be able to prove her/her identity and/or right of representation.



2. Holder of a nominee registered share



A holder of nominee registered shares has the right to participate in the General Meeting by virtue of such shares, based on which he/she would be entitled to be registered in the shareholders' register of the company held by Euroclear Finland Ltd on 16 November 2017. The right to participate in the general meeting requires, in addition, that the shareholder on the basis of such shares has been registered into the temporary shareholders' register held by Euroclear Finland Ltd. at the latest by 23 November 2017 by 10:00 a.m. As regards nominee registered shares this constitutes due registration for the General Meeting.



A holder of nominee registered shares is advised to request without delay necessary instructions regarding the registration in the temporary shareholder's register of the company, the issuing of proxy documents and registration for the General Meeting from his/her custodian bank. The account management organization of the custodian bank has to register a holder of nominee registered shares, who wants to participate in the General Meeting, into the temporary shareholders' register of the company at the latest by the time stated above.



3. Proxy representative and powers of attorney



A shareholder may participate in the General Meeting and exercise his/her rights at the meeting by way of proxy representation. A proxy representative shall produce a dated proxy document or otherwise in a reliable manner demonstrate his/her right to represent the shareholder at the General Meeting. When a shareholder participates in the General Meeting by means of several proxy representatives representing the shareholder with shares at different securities accounts, the shares by which each proxy representative represents the shareholder shall be identified in connection with the registration for the General Meeting.



Possible proxy documents should be delivered to the address Valoe Corporation, Minna Wilkman, Insinoorinkatu 5, 50150 Mikkeli, Finland or by email minna.wilkman@valoe.com, before the last date and time for registration.



4. Other instructions/information



Pursuant to Chapter 5, Section 25 of the Finnish Companies Act, a shareholder who is present at the General Meeting has the right to request information with respect to the matters to be considered at the meeting.



On the date of this Notice to the Extraordinary General Meeting, 3 November 2017, the total number of shares in Valoe Corporation is 5,269,436 shares.





In Mikkeli, on 3 November, 2017



Valoe Corporation



Board of Directors

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
Road Town, British Virgin Islands--(Newsfile Corp. - November 3, 2017) - Talon Metals Corp. (TSX: TLO) ("Talon" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an update on the Tamarack Nickel-Copper-PGE project ("Tamarack Project"), located in Minnesota, USA. The Tamarack Project comprises the Tamarack North Project and the Tamarack South Project. Talon currently owns an 18.45% interest in the Tamarack Project.

As previously announced on September 25, 2017, Talon's wholly owned subsidiary, Talon Nickel (USA) LLC ("Talon Nickel"), has received the exclusive option (the "Purchase Option") to purchase Kennecott Exploration Company's ("KEX") 81.55% interest in the Tamarack Project (which would give Talon Nickel a 100% interest in the Tamarack Project) on the terms and conditions set forth under the Exploration and Option Agreement between KEX and Talon Nickel (the "Exploration and Option Agreement").

Previously, Talon Nickel had until November 6, 2017 to make an election as to whether it will exercise the Purchase Option. However, following a request by Talon for an extension of time to make its election, KEX has agreed to grant Talon Nickel until December 31, 2017. In return for this accommodation by KEX, Talon Nickel has agreed to grant KEX a 0.5% NSR in the event Talon Nickel exercises the Purchase Option.

About Talon

Talon is a TSX-listed company focused on the exploration and development of the Tamarack Nickel-Copper-PGE Project in Minnesota, USA (which comprises the Tamarack North Project and the Tamarack South Project). The Company has a well-qualified exploration and mine management team with extensive experience in project management.

For additional information on Talon, please visit the Company's website at www.talonmetals.com or contact:

Sean Werger

President

Talon Metals Corp.

Tel: (416) 361-9636 x102

Email: werger@talonmetals.com

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain "forward-looking statements". All statements, other than statements of historical fact that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements reflect the current expectations or beliefs of the Company based on information currently available to the Company. Such forward-looking statements include statements relating to whether Talon Nickel elects to exercise the Purchase Option, the terms upon which the Purchase Option may be exercised, and the grant of a 0.5% NSR. Forward-looking statements are subject to significant risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements, and even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on the Company. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to: failure to exercise the Purchase Option, the terms of such exercise, and the effect of the 0.5% NSR should it be granted.

Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein.
--MEMS & Sensors Executive Congress speakers feature smart sensing components in new industrial, automotive, biomedical, agricultural applications

SAN JOSE, California, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --SEMI-MSIG's MEMS & Sensors Executive Congress (MSEC) held November 1-2 in San Jose, CA, challenged industry executives to see beyond traditional dividing lines of human-machine interaction. MEMS and sensors were hailed as the enablers for pervasive, connected and contextually aware computing and seen as drivers for an explosion of new applications and possibilities. Securing autonomous vehicles from hackers and improving crop yields to feed the 10 billion people we will have on the planet by 2050 were two popular examples of new applications.

Lama Nachman, Intel fellow and director of the company's Anticipatory Computing Lab, explored contextually aware systems during her keynote. Lachman said that technology needs to be more proactive, anticipating our needs, e.g., Google Now. One challenge lies in using sensors to measure things for which they were not designed, such as emotions and physiology. Lachman exhorted MSEC attendees to develop more configurable systems and sensors so that they can be used for other applications and possibly drive the next "killer app."

Photo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596598/Lama_Nachman_SEMI_MSIG.jpg

Lars Reger,

CTO, NXP Automotive Business Unit

, described the essential and extensive use of MEMS and sensors in automotive connectivity, autonomy, electrification, and safe and secure mobility during his keynote. Reger noted that "motion sensors are the key to increasing security in keyless entry systems, reducing hacking." He concluded that "entering a new era of automated driving requires functional safety and security," telling MSEC attendees, "we need the best sensors to achieve a failure-free model in autonomous vehicles."

Photo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596599/Keynote_Speaker_NXPs_Lars_Reger_explored_MEMS.jpg

Alissa Fitzgerald, founder and managing member, A.M. Fitzgerald & Associates, noted that the pipeline for emerging technologies generally begins with university labs turning out proof-of-concept devices. "The next $1B product is lurking in a lab somewhere," said Fitzgerald. She also encouraged attendees to look for key trends in emerging technologies, citing "ultra-low power, a migration from capacitive MEMS to piezoelectric sensors and actuators, the stagnation of silicon sensors, and a movement toward paper and plastic sensors." She drew her results from a review of more than 500 papers from academic conferences, filtered for commercial viability.

Henri Hekman, CEO and president of SoilCares BV, explained how his company is using MEMS near infrared (NIR) devices to scan soil samples. "To feed a surging global population, we cannot increase arable land so we must increase agricultural productivity. The place to start is in the soil." Hekman said that SoilCares is conducting trials in Africa and North America as it launches in 20 countries in 2017.

Photo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596600/SoilCares_Henri_Hekman_explained_how_MEMS.jpg

SEMI-MSIG Executive Director Frank

Shemansky

expanded upon themes from MEMS & Sensors Executive Congress. "From device-makers to commercial application developers, there was a collective buzz around ubiquitous intelligent sensing," said Shemansky. "Speakers explored the critical role of sensing in more natural and immersive user interfaces, including voice, in interpreting emotion, in anticipating needs, in managing medication, and in providing safer, more secure ways to build autonomous vehicles that will actually save human lives. As we look toward 2018 and beyond, the MEMS and sensors industry will continue to work closely with the consumers of our products, as we help them to further advance human-machine interaction in meaningful ways."

Technology Showcase Winner and Hall of Fame Recognitions

A highly anticipated event at the Executive Congress, the Technology Showcase, was a forum where four finalists competed for attendees' votes and the title of "winner." The 2017 Technology Showcase winner, Menlo Digital-Micro-Switch Technologyby Menlo Micro, demonstrates fundamental materials' advancements that improve the size, speed, power handling and reliability of MEMS switches. Menlo Micro's MEMS-based switching element is the width of a human hair, enabling RF switching 1,000 times faster and lasts 1,000 times longer than traditional mechanical switches.

Photo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596597/Menlo_Micros_MEMS_based_switches.jpg

SEMI-MSIG also inducted two new members into the SEMI-MSIG Hall of Fame: Raji Baskaran, pathfinding lead, Hardware and Software Co-optimization, Intel Corporation: Saffron Technology Group, and Kevin Crofton, executive vice president and COO, SPTS Technologies, an Orbotech Company.

Upcoming Events

SEMI-MSIG will host a MEMS & Sensors Pavilion at CES 2018, January 12-19, 2018 at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas, NV.

MEMS & Sensors Technical Congress will take place February 12-15, 2018 at the Hyatt Regency Monterey in Monterey, CA.

For a complete list of SEMI-MSIG events, please visit: http://www.semi.org/en/msig-events-and-blog

About MEMS & Sensors Executive Congress

Now in its 13th year, MEMS & Sensors Executive Congress is an annual event that brings together business leaders from a broad spectrum of industries: automotive, communications, consumer goods, energy/environmental, industrial, Internet of Things and biomedical. Premier sponsors of MEMS & Sensors Executive Congress 2017 include: Platinum Sponsor: EV Group; Gold Sponsors: AMEC and SPTS Technologies; Silver Sponsor: Lam Research and NXP; and Bronze Sponsors: Analog Devices, Applied Materials, Okmetic, Tecnisco, ULVAC and X-FAB. Event sponsors include: Coventor, mCube, PNI Sensor and Rogue Valley Microdevices. Media sponsors include: 3D InCites, AZoNano, LUX Research, MEMS & Nanotechnology Exchange, MEPTEC, MIPI Alliance, Semiconductor Packaging News, Sensors Online, Solid State Technology and Yole Developpement.

About SEMI-MSIG

SEMI connects over 2,000 member companies and 1.3 million professionals worldwide to advance the technology and business of electronics manufacturing. SEMI members are responsible for the innovations in materials, design, equipment, software, devices, and services that enable smarter, faster, more powerful, and more affordable electronic products. FlexTech and MEMS & Sensors Industry Group (MSIG) are SEMI Strategic Association Partners, defined communities within SEMI focused on specific technologies. Since 1970, SEMI has built connections that have helped its members prosper, create new markets, and address common industry challenges together. SEMI maintains offices in Bangalore, Berlin, Brussels, Grenoble, Hsinchu, Seoul, Shanghai, Silicon Valley (Milpitas, Calif.), Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.semi.org.

The SEMI logo is a registered trademark, and MEMS & Sensors Industry Group and the MEMS & Sensors Industry Group logo are trademarks of SEMI. All other product and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596630/MEMS_and_Sensors_Industry_Group_Logo.jpg
Growth on total revenue 2013 2016 was 167%

Egremont Group, the London and Chicago based consultancy firm, has been recognised as the 33rd fastest growing firm in Consultancy Magazine's 2017 rankings, out of a field of 195,000.

At a gala ceremony hosted at the Yale Club in New York last night, Egremont Group CEO, Sean Connolly was presented with the award which symbolises the culmination of a phenomenal year for the company. Growth on total revenue between 2013 and 2016 was 167%.

In the past twelve months the Egremont Group team has criss-crossed the USA working with Walgreens to deliver an ambitious business transformation programme that has so far directly touched more than 100,000 employees. The project involved strategy execution, operating model and organisation design, process and operational excellence and leadership across head office and the stores. The result was a multi-million dollar benefits case. On the West Coast, Egremont has worked with Snapfish to help shape the company's new operating model, end-to-end core processes and organisation design as well as the right economic model and the leadership approach required to ensure sustainable success.

Sean Connolly, CEO at Egremont Group said: "Egremont Group has steadily built up our reputation in the US over a number of years and we have seen demand for our consultancy services take off in 2017. Our strength is in helping large organisations with a dispersed workforce to achieve transformational change, we do that by bringing UK and European retail expertise to our clients, employing different and refreshing thinking. Our ability to field a small consulting team, which works with a much larger client team, transferring our skills and partnering with them to design and deliver change enables us to scale the work quickly. We deliver exceptional business results through deep insight and expertise, working alongside our clients to bring the best out of them, helping them to solve their most intractable problems collaboratively."

He continued: "In an uncertain world, where the only certain thing is change, organisations need to be able to embed the ability to change into their DNA. We call that being 'changeable' and we can help you make that change."

To find out more about how Egremont Group work with our clients please visit www.egremontgroup.com / LinkedIn

ENDS

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171103005387/en/

Contacts:

Vetch Mahne

Lindsay Vetch Christian Mahne

+44 20 3488 3100

office@vetchmahne.com

or

Egremont Group Limited

Natalie Gordon

+44 20 7298 7878

nataliegordon@egremontgroup.com

T: +44 (0)20 7298 7878

M: +44 (0)7412 641 882

W: www.egremontgroup.com
CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - At 8:30 am ET Friday, Statistics Canada will release Canada jobs data for October and trade report for September. The economy is expected to add 15,000 jobs in October, following an increase of 10,000 jobs last month. Ahead of the data, the loonie traded mixed against its major rivals. While the loonie held steady against the greenback and the euro, it fell against the yen. Against the aussie, the currency rose. The loonie was worth 88.89 against the yen, 1.2826 against the greenback, 1.4947 against the euro and 0.9835 against the aussie as of 8:25 am ET. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
REVIEW CONCLUDES EXECUTIVES ACTED APPROPRIATELY

ATLANTA, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Directors of Equifax Inc. (NYSE: EFX) today released a report by the Special Committee regarding the trading of Company securities by certain executives following the detection by Equifax cybersecurity personnel of suspicious activity in the Company's network and prior to public disclosure of the incident. The Board formed the Special Committee in September to conduct an independent review of various aspects of the cybersecurity incident and the Company's response to it. The report released today relates exclusively to the securities trading matter.

The Special Committee's report, which is attached, concludes that "none of the four executives had knowledge of the incident when their trades were made, that preclearance for the four trades was appropriately obtained, that each of the four trades at issue comported with Company policy, and that none of the four executives engaged in insider trading." As part of the review process, the Special Committee conducted dozens of interviews, and reviewed more than 55,000 documents including emails, text messages, phone logs and other records.

"I'm grateful for the timely and thorough review by the Special Committee of this important matter. The Board takes very seriously any allegation of insider trading. It is critically important for the public, our shareholders, our customers and our employees to know that we will not tolerate any violation of Company policy or the law regarding the trading of securities. The conclusion that the Company executives in question traded appropriately is an extremely important finding and very reassuring," said Non-Executive Chairman Mark L. Feidler.

The Special Committee of the Board is comprised of independent directors and is advised by independent counsel. The Special Committee continues to review the cybersecurity incident, the Company's response to it, and all relevant policies and practices.

About Equifax

Equifax is a global information solutions company that uses trusted unique data, innovative analytics, technology and industry expertise to power organizations and individuals around the world by transforming knowledge into insights that help make more informed business and personal decisions.

Headquartered inAtlanta, Ga., Equifax operates or has investments in 24 countries inNorth America, Central andSouth America,Europeand theAsia Pacificregion. It is a member of Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500Index, and its common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol EFX. Equifax employs approximately 10,100 employees worldwide.

Contact

Marisa Salcines

Media Relations

mediainquiries@equifax.com

REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE OF

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF EQUIFAX INC.

Elane B. Stock, Chair

Robert D. Daleo

G. Thomas Hough

November 1, 2017

Counsel

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP

REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE

In September 2017, the Board of Directors of Equifax Inc. formed a Special Committee of independent directors to address matters related to the cybersecurity incident disclosed by Equifax on September 7, 2017. The Special Committee was charged with conducting an independent review of the circumstances of trading in Equifax securities by certain executives following the discovery by Equifax of suspicious activity on its network and prior to the public disclosure of the incident. The Special Committee was advised by Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP ("WilmerHale") in conducting the review, and the Special Committee directed WilmerHale during the course of the investigation. This report presents the findings of the Special Committee and the work of WilmerHale resulting from the review of the trading.

Equifax has an Insider Trading Policy applicable to all employees. Under that policy, no employee may trade in Equifax securities if he or she possesses material non-public information regarding Equifax. In addition, Equifax directors and certain senior Equifax officers may trade in Equifax securities only in specified "trading windows" and only if they first receive preclearance by the Equifax Chief Legal Officer or his designee.

Four senior officers at Equifax who are subject to this trading preclearance requirement sought and received preclearance to sell shares in Equifax securities between July 28 and August 1, 2017. Those officers are John W. Gamble, Jr. (Chief Financial Officer), Joseph M. ("Trey") Loughran, III (President, U.S. Information Solutions), Rodolfo O. ("Rudy") Ploder (President, Workforce Solutions), and Douglas G. Brandberg (Senior Vice President, Investor Relations). Equifax identified some suspicious activity on its network on the evening of Saturday, July 29, and Equifax personnel immediately began to assess the activity.

The Special Committee examined whether the trades of those officers comported with the Company's Insider Trading Policy, whether the executives had any information about the security incident when they made their trades, and whether preclearance was appropriately obtained.1

For the reasons set out below, the Special Committee has determined that none of the four executives had knowledge of the incident when their trades were made, that preclearance for the four trades was appropriately obtained, that each of the four trades at issue comported with Company policy, and that none of the four executives engaged in insider trading.

METHODOLOGY

The Special Committee's review examined the circumstances under which Equifax identified suspicious activity on its network, and the review was designed to pinpoint the date on which each of the four senior officers first learned of the security investigation that uncovered the breach and to determine whether any of those officers was informed of or otherwise learned of the security investigation before his trades were executed. The review also entailed analysis of the Company's Insider Trading Policy as applied to these four trades.

The Special Committee conducted an extensive review of documents and communications during the period surrounding the four officers' trading in Equifax securities. The Special Committee also conducted dozens of interviews with individuals involved in or knowledgeable about the security investigation and/or the trade preclearance process in the relevant period. Finally, the Special Committee conducted lengthy in-person interviews with each of the four senior officers who executed trades. In conducting its review, the Special Committee received full cooperation from all Equifax employees including from the four senior officers, who supplied all requested information.

Document Review. The Special Committee reviewed over 55,000 documents, comprising emails, text messages, phone logs, and other records:

As to each of the four senior officers, the Committee reviewed all of their Equifax emails, texts, calendars, voicemails, phone logs, and electronic documents, along with all Equifax emails and texts of each of their administrative assistants, for the period July 29 through August 2, 2017 . 2 For the period of August 3 through September 7 (when the incident was announced publicly), the Committee conducted a targeted review of their Equifax communications, using search terms designed to identify documents concerning the incident or trading. The Committee also reviewed relevant materials from their personal emails, texts, phone logs, and other documents. Finally, the Committee reviewed documents related to the officers' Equifax holdings and trading history.

. For the period of (when the incident was announced publicly), the Committee conducted a targeted review of their Equifax communications, using search terms designed to identify documents concerning the incident or trading. The Committee also reviewed relevant materials from their personal emails, texts, phone logs, and other documents. Finally, the Committee reviewed documents related to the officers' Equifax holdings and trading history. As to employees in the Equifax Legal Department most involved in the security investigation and/or the preclearance of the trades at issue, and for Equifax's then-Chief Security Officer, the Committee reviewed all Equifax emails, texts, voicemails, calendars, and other electronic documents for the period of July 29 through August 2. The Committee also conducted a targeted review of their emails from August 3 through September 7 , using search terms to identify documents concerning trading.

through August 2. The Committee also conducted a targeted review of their emails from , using search terms to identify documents concerning trading. As to all Equifax employees identified as having knowledge of the security investigation on or prior to the dates of the trades at issue, the Committee conducted a targeted review of Equifax emails in the period July 29 through August 2 , using search terms to identify documents concerning the four officers and, where feasible, a full review of Equifax text messages from the period July 29 through September 7 .3

Interviews. The Special Committee conducted 62 interviews, including lengthy in-person interviews with each of the four senior officers. During those interviews, the Committee addressed the officers' trading history, documents and recollections surrounding the August 2017 trades, and knowledge of the security investigation that uncovered the breach. The Committee also interviewed, in person or telephonically, each current or former Equifax employee identified as potentially possessing knowledge of the security investigation on or before the date on which the senior officers conducted their trades. During those interviews, the Committee sought to determine whether the employee had contact with any of the four officers during that period, and if so, whether that contact included any discussion of the security investigation then underway.

FINDINGS

The Special Committee found the following concerning the trading by each of the four senior officers:

John Gamble. As is standard under the Company's Insider Trading Policy, Mr. Gamble received notification by email on Tuesday, July 25 that the trading window for Equifax share transactions by executives would open on Friday, July 28 and remain open through Monday, August 31. The email instructed Mr. Gamble and the other recipients of the notification to seek preclearance from the Legal Department for any contemplated securities transactions during the window, and that preclearance, if given, would be valid for two days.

Mr. Gamble traveled to Utah with his wife on July 28 on non-Equifax business. On July 31, while in Utah, Mr. Gamble sent an email to the Legal Department requesting preclearance to sell 6,500 shares of Equifax stock (approximately 13.4% of his holdings at the time). Mr. Gamble's Equifax share grants had recently started to vest, and he had previously discussed with his financial adviser his goals to diversify his assets and to pay for an ongoing home renovation. Mr. Gamble's request to trade was approved via email on July 31, and the trade was executed on August 1.

Nine days after Mr. Gamble's trade, on August 10, during a management offsite meeting, Mr. Gamble first learned of the existence of a security incident at Equifax that was under investigation. Mr. Gamble received a more detailed briefing the following week, on August 17, and received additional details of the incident on August 22, during a Senior Leadership Team meeting.

The Special Committee concluded that Mr. Gamble did not have any knowledge of the security incident when he sought preclearance to trade on July 31 or when he executed his cleared trades on August 1. The Special Committee further concluded that Mr. Gamble fully complied with Company policy and did not engage in insider trading.

Trey Loughran: As is standard under the Company's Insider Trading Policy, Mr. Loughran received notification by email on Tuesday, July 25 that the trading window for Equifax share transactions by executives would open on Friday, July 28 and remain open through Monday, August 31. The email instructed Mr. Loughran and the other recipients of the notification to seek preclearance from the Legal Department for any contemplated securities transactions during the window, and that preclearance, if given, would be valid for two days.

Mr. Loughran sent an email to the Legal Department requesting preclearance to sell Equifax securities on July 28, 2017, one day before suspicious activity on the network was identified. On July 31, in response to a request from the Legal Department for greater specificity regarding the number and type of shares he wanted to sell, Mr. Loughran clarified that his request was to sell 4,000 shares (approximately 9.4% of his holdings at the time). Mr. Loughran's request for preclearance was approved on July 31, and the sale occurred on August 1. Mr. Loughran's sale of Equifax securities was consistent with previous sales he had made and was part of an effort to diversify his holdings.

Mr. Loughran first learned, at a general level, that a security issue was being investigated in a series of texts, emails, and phone calls he exchanged with members of the Equifax Legal Department on August 13 and 15. Mr. Loughran learned details of the breach on August 22, when he attended the Senior Leadership Team meeting referenced above.

The Special Committee concluded that Mr. Loughran did not have any knowledge of the security incident when he sought preclearance to trade on July 28 or when he executed his cleared trades on August 1. The Special Committee further concluded that Mr. Loughran fully complied with Company policy and did not engage in insider trading.

Rudy Ploder: As is standard under the Company's Insider Trading Policy, Mr. Ploder received notification by email on Tuesday, July 25 that the trading window for Equifax share transactions by executives would open on Friday, July 28 and remain open through Monday, August 31. The email instructed Mr. Ploder and the other recipients of the notification to seek preclearance from the Legal Department for any contemplated securities transactions during the window, and that preclearance, if given, would be valid for two days.

Mr. Ploder sent an email to the Legal Department requesting preclearance to sell Equifax securities on August 1. Preclearance was granted that same day, and his trade executed on August 2. Mr. Ploder sold 1,719 shares (approximately 3.8% of his holdings at the time). Mr. Ploder's trade was motivated by, among other things, a need to meet costs associated with a business-related move to St. Louis and was consistent with his previous sales of Equifax shares.

Mr. Ploder learned of the security incident on August 22, 2017, when he participated in the Senior Leadership Team meeting referenced above.

The Special Committee concluded that Mr. Ploder did not have any knowledge of the security incident when he sought preclearance to trade on August 1 or when he executed his cleared trades on August 2. The Special Committee further concluded that Mr. Ploder fully complied with Company policy and did not engage in insider trading.

Douglas Brandberg: As is standard under the Company's Insider Trading Policy, Mr. Brandberg received notification by email on Tuesday, July 25 that the trading window for Equifax share transactions by executives would open on Friday, July 28 and remain open through Monday, August 31. The email instructed Mr. Brandberg and the other recipients of the notification to seek preclearance from the Legal Department for any contemplated securities transactions during the window, and that preclearance, if given, would be valid for two days.

Mr. Brandberg sent an email to the Legal Department requesting preclearance to sell Equifax securities on August 1, 2017. Preclearance was granted on August 1, and his trade was executed on August 2. Mr. Brandberg sold 1,724 shares. Mr. Brandberg's sale of Equifax securities was consistent with his previous practice of selling shares as they vested; his sale was driven by family expenses.

Mr. Brandberg first learned that a security issue was being investigated on approximately August 14, and learned details of the security incident on August 22, when he attended the Senior Leadership Team meeting referenced above.

The Special Committee concluded that Mr. Brandberg did not have any knowledge of the security incident when he sought preclearance to trade on August 1 or when he executed his cleared trades on August 2. The Special Committee further concluded that Mr. Brandberg fully complied with Company policy and did not engage in insider trading.

The Application of the Insider Trading Policy. Messrs. Gamble, Loughran, Ploder, and Brandberg each sought and received clearance from the appropriate Legal Department personnel prior to trading. Based on its review, the Committee has concluded that neither Equifax's Chief Legal Officer nor his designated preclearance officer had reason to believe that Messrs. Gamble, Loughran, Ploder, or Brandberg had knowledge of the security incident's existence as of the date of their preclearance requests or the date of their trades. Accordingly, the Special Committee has concluded that the preclearance authorization obtained by Messrs. Gamble, Loughran, Ploder, and Brandberg was within the authority permitted under the policy.

The Special Committee continues to review the cybersecurity incident, the Company's response to it, and all relevant policies and practices.



1Initially, the Special Committee focused on the three officers of Equifax (Messrs. Gamble, Loughran, and Ploder) who sold shares during the period under review and who are Section 16 officers of the Company, i.e., covered by Rule 16a-1(f) under Section 16 of the Securities Exchange Act on 1934. The Committee thereafter determined to expand the review to cover all officers of the company - whether covered by Section 16 or not - who required pre-clearance for trading in Equifax shares under the Company's Insider Trading Policy and who sold shares during the relevant period. This change led to the inclusion of Mr. Brandberg in the review.

2This period spans the Company's detection of suspicious activity on the network through the date on which the last of the senior officer's securities transactions were executed.

3 On August 15, 2017, the Equifax Legal Department imposed a trading blackout on all company personnel identified as aware of the breach as of that date. The Special Committee used the recipient list for the August 15 blackout notice to isolate the initial population of Equifax employees whose documents and communications should be reviewed. To the extent additional individuals were identified as potentially knowledgeable about the breach investigation during the Committee's review, their emails and texts were subject the same process, and those persons were interviewed.

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View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/equifax-board-releases-findings-of-special-committee-regarding-stock-sale-by-executives-300549254.html
PALO ALTO (dpa-AFX) - Network-1 Technologies, Inc. (NTIP) said it has agreed to settle its patent litigation against Juniper Networks, Inc. (JNPR) pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, for infringement of Network-1's Remote Power Patent - U.S. Patent No. 6,218,930. Juniper was one of sixteen original defendants named in the litigation. Under the terms of the settlement, Juniper will pay $13.25 million and receive a fully-paid license to the Remote Power Patent for its full term which expires in March 2020, which will apply to its sales of Power over Ethernet or PoE products. This includes those PoE products which comply with the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers or IEEE 802.3af and 802.3at Standards. In September 2011, Network-1 initiated patent litigation against sixteen data networking equipment manufacturers in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, for infringement of its Remote Power Patent. Network-1 noted that it has now reached settlement and license agreements with fifteen of the sixteen original defendants. The sole remaining defendant in the lawsuit is Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ). Network-1 said it is seeking monetary damages based upon reasonable royalties. The trial against Hewlett-Packard is scheduled to commence on November 6, 2017. Network-1 currently has twenty-seven license agreements with respect to its Remote Power Patent. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Former interim chief of the Democratic Party has accused that the 2016 Democratic primary was rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton in exchange for funding during the presidential campaign.



The allegation was made by former acting Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Donna Brazile in her upcoming book, 'Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House.'



An excerpt of the book that Politico published Thursday says the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America campaign specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party's finances, strategy, and all the money raised.



Donna Brazile, who previously resigned as a CNN contributor after Wikileaks revealed she had passed debate questions on to the Clinton campaign, says the deal was 'not a criminal act,' but 'compromised the party's integrity.'



She said she came to know from Gary Gensler, the chief financial officer of Hillary's campaign, that the Democratic Party was in a huge debt after a party convention in July.



The Hillary Campaign and the Hillary Victory Fund had taken care of 80 percent of the remaining debt in 2016, about $10 million, and had placed the party on an allowance, Brazile says.



She says she realized by that time that the party was fully under the control of Hillary's campaign, which seemed to confirm the suspicions of the rival Bernie Sanders camp.



Hillary has been controlling the Victory Fund even before she got the nomination.



Brazile blames her predecessor, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, for letting Clinton's headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired so she didn't have to inform the party officers how bad the situation was.



The Russia-hacked emails revealed Hillary's campaign was grabbing money from the state parties for its own purposes, leaving the states with very little to support down-ballot races, according to Brazile.



The Bernie Sanders camp was angry, saying this was part of a calculated strategy to throw the nomination to Hillary.



Usually, the nominee doesn't take over fund raising until after they have accepted the nomination.



President Donald Trump reacted sharply to the claims, and demanded an investigation into the allegations.



'This is real collusion and dishonesty. Major violation of Campaign Finance Laws and Money Laundering - where is our Justice Department?,' he asked.



'People are angry. At some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper. The American public deserves it,' he said on Twitter.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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UK MORTGAGES LIMITED

(a closed-ended investment company incorporated in Guernsey with registration number 60440)

LEI Number: 549300388LT7VTHCIT59

("the Company")

3 November 2017

NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Notice is hereby given that the Second Annual General Meeting of the Company will be held at the offices of Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Guernsey) Limited, Trafalgar Court, Les Banques, St Peter Port, Guernsey, GY1 3QL on 4 December 2017 at 9.30am.

In addition to the ordinary resolutions, the Company is proposing two extraordinary resolutions seeking Shareholders' consent to disapply pre-emption rights in respect of potential issues of new Ordinary Shares equivalent to an aggregate 20% of the number of existing Ordinary Shares.

Ordinary Shares issued (or sold from treasury) pursuant to these disapplications would not be issued at a price that is less than the prevailing net asset value per Ordinary Share.

The Board believes that it is appropriate to seek this aggregate 20% authority as it would provide enhanced flexibility for the Company to execute attractive investment opportunities sourced by the portfolio manager without having to convene an EGM. It would also bring the authority into line with the UKLA Prospectus Rules, which were recently amended to enable companies to the issue new shares without issuing a prospectus, provided that such new shares represent, over a period of 12 months, less than 20% of the shares already admitted to trading.

Copies of the Notice of the Annual General Meeting and the Annual Report and Audited Consolidated Financial Statements for the period ending 30 June 2017 are available to view on the Company's website at https://twentyfouram.com/funds/uk-mortgages-fund/fund-literature/.

In accordance with Listing Rule 9.6.3, the documents have also been submitted to the National Storage Mechanism and will shortly be available for inspection at: www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/NSM.

Enquiries:

Numis Securities Limited, Corporate Broker

Hugh Jonathan

Nathan Brown

Tel: 020 7260 1000

Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Guernsey) Limited

The Company Secretary

Trafalgar Court

Les Banques

St Peter Port

Guernsey

GY1 3QL

Tel: 01481 745189

END
India and China [File photo]

Ever since the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), held on October 18 -24 in Beijing, enshrined the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the Party Constitution, it has once again become the hot talking point in the Indian media.

A number of mainstream Indian media outlets, flanked by some ultra-nationalist politicians in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have claimed that the inclusion of the BRI in the CPC Constitution will mean intense pressure on a reluctant India to join the initiative. In addition to enticing Indian leaders with attractive construction projects, China will be promoting President Xis ambitious political model as a financial fund for India's neighbors. The suggestion is thus that this construction project should put India on high alert, as the BRI is actually a veiled military agenda that will inevitably encroach on Indian territory after expanding its power base in Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

It is understandable that the Indian media serves the interests of India. But its worth considering the way a section of the Indian media criticized the mention of BRI in the CPC Constitution. Taking an aggressive stance against China, the sole aim of these reports is to stir up the flames of Indian nationalism by calling for a boycott of Chinese goods and anti-dumping investigations on imports from China.

The hawkish rhetoric used by Indian newspapers is so unreasonable and arrogant that it will have an adverse impact on the common public sentiment regarding Sino-Indian ties. It can be hoped that Indian media will be truly objective and neutral in their reporting on an initiative which has been figured in a UN resolution like the BRI. They should not see the BRI's mutually beneficial objectives through a clouded lens, as it is not deceptive.

Proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2013, the BRI is a historic endeavor under which China has invested US$560 billion overseas. Comprised of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, Xi called it "the project of the century." Over the past four years, it has been serving as China's blueprint for global development and coordination. So far, the initiative has won support from more than 100 countries and international organizations, over 40 of which have signed cooperation agreements with China.

However, India was the notable absentee at the high-profile Belt and Road Forum held in Beijing on May 14-15 this year in which 29 world leaders took part. India abstained from the summit to highlight its concerns over the landmark $50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is a chief component of the BRI and traverses Gilgit and Baltistan in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). India has expressed unhappiness over the route, despite the fact that the CPEC is an economic project which has nothing to do with the Kashmir issue.

On October 24, Xi called on foreign leaders to participate in this plan for a "shared destiny for all mankind" under the BRI. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the decision to enshrine the BRI in the Party Constitution will not alter China's relations with India. Luo Zhaohui, the Chinese ambassador to India, also called on India to join the BRI project and assured the Indian government that the CPEC would not impinge on anyones sovereign rights.

Without a doubt, this initiative has the potential to benefit a number of developing countries by lifting them out of poverty. The advantages of the BRI have already been felt by people in many developing countries. As such, India must explore the economic opportunities that the BRI affords.

The time has come for India's current foreign policy makers to discover new avenues for our relations with China and Pakistan, our two principal neighbors, for creating peace in the region. If the Modi administration really wants peace in the region, it should abandon its biased views of China. More importantly, India should refrain from embracing American President Donald Trumps new South Asia policy, as nothing will come for free from todays U.S.

Furthermore, as two large neighbors, there is a need to set a long-term vision for India-China relations. Surely, the two countries have great cooperative potential in their economic and social development. If they work together, they will drive economic growth, promote trade and bring peace and happiness to the peoples of the world.

Hopefully, the two countries will actively explore the feasibility of aligning Chinas BRI and India's "Act East Policy." China is sincere in its intention to cooperate with India on the BRI, as it benefits both countries. India should now follow China, which is "taking center stage in the world."

Rabi Sankar Bosu, Secretary of New Horizon Radio Listeners' Club, West Bengal, India
PUNE, India, November 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

According to the new market research report "Power Tools Market by Mode (Electric (Corded & Cordless), Pneumatic, Others), Tool Type (Drilling & Fastening, Sawing, Demolition, Material Removal), Application (Industrial (Construction, Automotive, Aerospace, Energy), DIY) - Global Forecast to 2023", published by MarketsandMarkets' , the market is expected to grow from USD 27.19 Billion in 2017 to USD 35.58 Billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 4.6% between 2017 and 2023. The factors driving the market include the constantly growing construction industry in emerging economies, increasing sales of commercial vehicles across the world, and rising demand for cordless tools.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 )

Browse68 Market Data Tables and53 Figures spread through204Pages and in-depth TOC on"Power Tools Market - Global Forecast to 2023"



http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/power-tools-market-50744034.html

Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report



Electric tools held the largest size of the overall power tools market in 2016

Electric power tools held the largest market size, in terms of value, in 2016. Electric tools are primarily used by professionals as well as DIY users. Electric tools are operated either through the battery, based on application, or through the corded power supply. Corded electric tools are plug-n-play tools, whereas cordless tools are easy to operate, efficient, and handy in nature. The growth of the electric tools is fueled by innovations in the battery technology and the growing adoption of cordless tools among industrial as well as residential users. Due to their ergonomic advantages, end users prefer cordless tools over conventional tools. The European Union has already banned the use of nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) for power tool batteries due to the toxic properties of Cadmium. As a result, the demand for cordless electric tools with Li-ion batteries is likely to increase over the next few years.

Drilling and fastening tools expected to dominate the power tools market between 2017 and 2023

Currently, drilling and fastening tools hold the largest market share among all other tool types in the power tools market, and a similar trend is likely to continue during the forecast period. Drilling and fastening tools are used in several industries, namely automotive, aerospace, electronics, and consumer appliances, energy, and shipbuilding. The growth of the market for electric drilling tools is driven by the rising adoption of cordless drilling and driving tools by professionals as well as DIY consumers. Pneumatic drilling and fastening tools are mostly used in manufacturing industries, such as automotive and aerospace, wherein high torque tools are required. According to the OICA, the sale of all types of vehicles is expected to increase in the near future. Hence, the increase in the production of automobiles is likely to boost the electric fastening tools market growth in the coming years.

Download PDF Brochure : http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownload.asp?id=50744034

Construction industry held the largest size of the overall power tools market

The construction industry is at the leading position in the power tools market as these tools are used in a majority of construction projects. The rapidly increasing industrialization and urbanization propel the growth of the market for the construction industry. Power tools play an important role at every stage of the construction activity, including the design, survey, construction, and maintenance phases. They are used for various construction applications such as drilling, driving, demolition, concrete cutting, and polishing. Tools such as impact drills, drivers, and rotary hammers are widely used in construction projects. The growing construction activities in countries such as the US, China, and India and the rising demand for technologically advanced and innovative power tools, drive the market growth.

North America to dominate the market between 2017 and 2023

North America is expected to dominate the global power tools market during the forecast period due to the significant growth in construction, manufacturing, and automotive industries. In North America, power tools are extensively used for both industrial as well as residential applications. The DIY trend is already prevalent among consumers in this region and is likely to continue to drive the demand for cordless tools. The increasing wind energy installations have boosted the demand for fastening tools in this region. The region registered the sales of ~12.9 million commercial vehicles in 2016. Hence, power tools find major opportunities in the commercial vehicle market. Moreover, aerospace is one of the prominent industries contributing significantly to the growth of the power tools market.

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The power tools market was dominated by the key players such as Robert Bosch (Germany), Stanley Black & Decker (US), Techtronic Industries (TTI) (Hong Kong), Makita (Japan), Hilti (Liechtenstein), Atlas Copco (Sweden), Apex Tool Group (US), Ingersoll-Rand (Ireland), Hitachi Koki (Japan), Snap-on (US), and C. & E.Fein(Germany).

Browse Related Reports

DC Torque Tool Market by Type (Handheld and Fixtured Tools), Power Source (Corded and Cordless), Control System (Transducer and Current), Industry (Automotive, Aerospace, and Energy), and Geography - Global Forecast to 2023

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/dc-torque-tool-market-25084634.html

Servo Motors and Drives Market by Offering (Motor & Drive Component, Software & Service), Type (AC/DC, Linear Servo Motor, Adjustable Speed Drives), Voltage Range, MoC, Communication Protocol, Industry, and Geography - Global Forecast to 2022

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/servo-motors-and-drives-market-1127.html

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Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka has been featured as the 19th Most Powerful Woman in the world on Forbes' annual list for 2017, whereas the First Lady Melania Trump failed to find a place.



Since Forbes incepted annual list of World's 100 Most Powerful Women in 2004, this is the first time that the magazine's directory of the women who matter most on the global stage does not include the wife of the U. S. President. Interestingly, it is also the only time a First Daughter has found herself in the prestigious ranking.



Working as an adviser to her father, Ivanka's role is to serve as the president's 'eyes and ears' while providing broad-ranging advice, not just limited to women's empowerment issues.



She has already shared many high-profile platforms along with President Trump and world leaders.



In April, she was named in TIME magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2017 list along with her father and her husband Jared Kushner.



Kushner is a senior White House adviser, who heads the Office of American Innovation (OAI). Kushner and Ivanka have three children.



Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka has made women's issues one of her key policy areas since joining the White House.



Friday, Ivanka addressed the World Assembly for Woman in Tokyo, where she said sexual harassment of women should never be tolerated, and called for boosting equal participation in 'traditionally male-dominated sectors of our economy'.



She is in Japan also to lay the groundwork for President Trump's visit to the country at the weekend.



Ivanka is known to have more liberal views than Melania, who appears to have assumed a far quieter role.



Laura Bush, in 2004, and Michelle Obama, in 2009, are the First Ladies whom Forbes recognized as one of the most powerful women in the world.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Cloud Communications Company to employ 100 in Dublin over three years

An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar TD, Ireland's Prime Minister, today announced in San Francisco that Twilio (NYSE: TWLO), the leading cloud communications platform, is expanding its existing EMEA headquarters in Dublin and expects to employ 100 employees in marketing, sales, HR, legal, security, finance, support and engineering by the end of 2019. Twilio continues to experience rapid growth in the region as developers and businesses increasingly rely on Twilio to better engage with their customers.

An Taoiseach and Martin Shanahan, CEO IDA Ireland will meet with Twilio Chief Operating Officer George Hu and Chief People Officer Marty Reaume later today in San Francisco to discuss the company's expansion plans in Europe as part of an IDA Ireland investment mission to the West Coast.

Making the announcement An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said, "During this trade mission on the US West Coast, I have been meeting with existing and potential investors to talk to them about Ireland's strengths as a location for investment. From our young, skilled workforce to our commitment to the European Union, Ireland is an ideal place for inward investment. With the backdrop of Brexit and uncertainty elsewhere in the globe, Ireland's attractiveness is only increasing. I am delighted that Twilio is now joining a growing list of tech companies expanding their Irish operations, with the employment of 100 high quality jobs at its Dublin office."

"I am excited to officially announce the establishment of our EMEA Headquarters in Dublin," said Marty Reaume, chief people officer of Twilio. "As a home to many established and high-growth companies, Ireland was an ideal choice for us because of the incredible talent in the country and because it brings us closer to our European customers which contribute a growing portion of our revenue. We can't wait to see what they'll build next."

As part of Twilio's dedication to serving its EU customers and expansion in the region, the company also recently announced its commitment to be compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by May 2018. Twilio is investing to ensure all its customers are able to safely and securely communicate with their global customer base.

An Tanaiste and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation Frances Fitzgerald TD, warmly welcomed the investment and said, "I am delighted that a company of Twilio's stature and expertise has decided to invest in Ireland by employing 100 people in their Dublin office. We already have a strong footprint of ICT companies in the Greater Dublin area and we are very keen to expand that by attracting a wider range of specialist IT companies. Twilio's decision to locate its EMEA headquarters in Ireland, which will support its cutting-edge services in the Cloud Communications area, is very good news indeed. We have the skills available to enable the company to grow and to embed their operations in Ireland. Their arrival is a great vote of confidence in what we have to offer."

Martin Shanahan, CEO, IDA Ireland said, "Twilio was attracted to Ireland due to our international reputation as a location where companies can quickly establish their operations and rapidly expand using the strong pool of tech talent. The EMEA HQ in Dublin will play a central role in the company's international expansion. Twilio joins an impressive portfolio of dynamic, high-growth IDA companies that are already located here in Ireland."

Twilio is the leading cloud communications platform and has modernized communications by bringing it into the realm of software and the cloud. With Twilio, developers can build virtually any customer engagement into their business applications using simple and powerful APIs for voice, messaging and video. Any business or developer that communicates with customers, suppliers or employees can build exactly what they need, and communicate more effectively with Twilio. Twilio currently has six European offices including Dublin, London, Madrid, Malmo, Munich and Tallinn.

About Twilio

Twilio's mission is to fuel the future of communications. Developers and businesses use Twilio to make communications relevant and contextual by embedding messaging, voice, and video capabilities directly into their software applications. Founded in 2008, Twilio has over 800 employees, with headquarters in San Francisco and other offices in Bogota, Dublin, Hong Kong, London, Madrid, Malmo, Mountain View, Munich, New York City, Singapore and Tallinn.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, which statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or our future financial or operating performance. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "could," "intends," "target," "projects," "contemplates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential" or "continue" or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions that concern our expectations, strategy, plans or intentions. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements about: Twilio's commitment to comply with the new EU General Data Protection Regulation going into effect in 2018; and Twilio's expectations regarding its Dublin office. You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events.

The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are also subject to additional risks, uncertainties, and factors, including those more fully described in Twilio's most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2017 filed on August 10, 2017. Further information on potential risks that could affect actual results will be included in the subsequent periodic and current reports and other filings that Twilio makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. Moreover, Twilio operates in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment, and new risks and uncertainties may emerge that could have an impact on the forward-looking statements contained in this press release.

Forward-looking statements represent Twilio's management's beliefs and assumptions only as of the date such statements are made. Twilio undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made in this press release to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this press release or to reflect new information or the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171103005160/en/

Contacts:

Twilio Public Relations

press@twilio.com

or

IDA Ireland Press Office

Celine Crawford, +353 1 6034289

IDAIreland@ida.ie
OAK BROOK (dpa-AFX) - Ohio Police is in search to find an young man who frightened a McDonald's women employee by pulling his gun. The man reportedly came to the drive-thru asking for Egg McMuffins at around 3.30 am. The employee informed that the McMuffins were not available at that time. The driver tried to tease the women with an offensive name and pulled out a gun. Employees at the restaurant in Warren immediately called the police, but by that time the car sped away. The suspect and his friend in his car appear to be around twenty years old. The police said no one is hurt in the incident. The store will share the surveillance video with the police to find out the suspect. Police said they want these guys and that gun off the street. 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.
FRANKLIN, Ind., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --G&H Orthodontics is very excited to announce an exclusive partnership with Osteoclass LDA to distribute G&H products in Portugal. This will provide orthodontists of Portugal with greater access to the great products from G&H and improved service levels across the country. Osteoclass will offer all of the premier brands of G&H products like miniPrevail brackets, TitanMoly wires, Bambino-Ties ligatures, and the complete suite of orthodontic products.

"The best partnerships in the orthodontic community last a very long time, so it is important to establish your business with the right companies," says Steven Torelli, International Sales Director for G&H Orthodontics. Torelli, having more than 25 years' experience in the orthodontic industry, is very confident in the selection of Osteoclass to represent the G&H brand for all of Portugal. He continues, "After a long and detailed search process, it is exciting to begin this new chapter in Portugal."

Osteoclass is located in Lisboa, Portugal. It's a company that shares the same values as G&H Othodontics: Quality products and great customer care. Mr. David Antunes, Marketing and Business Strategy Manager at Osteoclass, said, "I want everyone to know this is a great day to be recognized as the exclusive dealer for G&H Orthodontics brand products,and the entire company looks forward to continuing to deliver exceptional services to all orthodontists in Portugal."

About G&H Orthodontics

G&H Wire Company, Inc. is a leading provider of clinical solutions for the orthodontic community serving customers for over 40 years in over 90 countries. G&His the manufacturer of a full line of products made in the U.S.A. including brackets, bands, tubes, wires, springs, elastomeric and other orthodontic supplies. G&H is compliant with the U.S. FDA, ISO 13485:2003, Medical Device Directives, 93/42 EEC and Canadian Medical Device Guidelines which ensures availability of products worldwide. G&H Orthodontics is headquartered in Franklin, Indiana. To learn more about G&H Orthodontics breadth of products, visit GHOrthodontics.com.

Media Relations Contact:

Heidi Helms

+1 (317) 346-6655

hhelms@ghortho.com

www.ghorthodontics.com

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MORRISVILLE, NC / ACCESSWIRE / November 3, 2017 / Issuer Direct Corporation (NYSE American: ISDR) (the "Company"), an industry-leading communications and compliance company, today reported its operating results for the three months ended September 30, 2017. The Company will host an investor conference call today at 4:30 PM Eastern Time (November 2, 2017) to discuss its operating results.

The initial Press Release issued by the Company on November 2, 2017 is being amended and restated in its entirety to correct the reported customer count numbers for Services customers during the second fiscal quarter of 2017, which was incorrectly reported at 622 rather than the correct number of 550 customers. The second bullet point of the "Customer Count Metrics" section of the amended and restated press release set forth below contains the correct information. Except for this change, there are no other changes to the initial press release.

Third Quarter 2017 and Recent Highlights:

Total revenue was $2,931,000, a 2% increase from $2,873,000 in Q3 2016, and a 15% decrease from $3,443,000 in Q2 2017.

Platform and Technology revenue increased 56% from Q3 2016 and decreased 5% from Q2 2017.

Overall gross margin was 72%, compared to 74% in Q3 2016 and Q2 2017.

Platform and Technology gross margin remained strong at 82%, consistent with Q3 2016, and compared to 84% in Q2 2017.

GAAP earnings per diluted share was $0.10, compared to $0.07 in Q3 2016 and $0.16 in Q2 2017.

The Company generated cash flows from operations of $638,000, compared to $534,000 in Q3 2016 and $810,000 in Q2 2017.

On October 2, 2017, Issuer Direct acquired Interwest Transfer Company, Inc. for cash and 25,235 shares of the Company's common stock totaling approximately $3,228,000.

On October 10, 2017, the Company's Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.05 per share, marking the ninth straight quarter of paying dividends.

Customer Count Metrics:

The Company had 1,582 Platform and Technology customers during the third quarter of 2017, compared to 1,530 during Q3 2016 and 1,854 during Q2 2017.

The Company had 493 Services customers during Q3 2017, compared to 554 during Q3 2016 and 550 during Q2 2017.

Brian Balbirnie, CEO of Issuer Direct, commented, "We are pleased to see our Platform and Technology business performing well. A strong Platform and Technology revenue increase of 56% over the same period last year, brings revenue from this business to 55% of our overall revenues, compared to 36% in the same period last year and 50% during the second quarter of 2017. As our business continues to transition into our platform first strategy, we have been able to continue to outpace our legacy services business decline, with total revenues increasing 2% and cash flow from operations increasing 19% year over year. Although there is still some seasonality in our business due to the nature of annual meetings, the strong year over year increase in cash flow illustrates the leverage and earnings power in our model, especially as more and more of our revenues are derived from our higher margin Platform and Technology business."

"We were also very excited to have completed the acquisition of Interwest Transfer, right after the end of the quarter. This acquisition adds 300+ customers to our growing install base. With the integration of their employees, customers, and processes well underway, we hope to provide many of our new customers with solutions for all of their shareholder communication and compliance needs," added Mr. Balbirnie.

Financial Results for the Third Quarter Ended September 30, 2017:

Total revenue for the third quarter of 2017 was $2,931,000, compared to $2,873,000 for the same period of 2016.

Platform and Technology revenue increased $584,000, or 56%, during the third quarter of 2017, as compared to the third quarter of 2016. The increase is primarily due to an increase in revenue from our ACCESSWIRE platform, as we continue to penetrate the newswire market. We also achieved increases in revenue from increased licensing of most of our other Platform id.  cloud-based products. As a percentage of overall revenue, Platform & Technology revenue increased to 55% of total revenue for the three months ended September 30, 2017, compared to 36% for the same period of 2016.

Services revenue decreased $526,000, or 29%, during the third quarter of 2017, as compared to the same period of 2016. A majority of the decrease is related to the continued customer attrition we experienced in our legacy ARS business as companies elect to leave the service or transition to our electronic delivery alternative (reflected as Platform and Technology revenue). Our print and proxy distribution services declined compared to the same quarter of the prior year due to timing of certain projects and the impact of one-time projects that occurred in the prior year. In addition, we experienced continued decline in our compliance services business as the market for these services commoditizes and we experience continued pricing pressure.

Gross margin for the third quarter of 2017 was $2,110,000, or 72% of total revenue, compared to $2,134,000, or 74% of revenue, in the third quarter of 2016. The decrease in gross margin percentage is primarily due to a decrease in gross margin in our Services business as a result of lower revenue associated with fixed costs of delivering the services.

Operating income was $481,000 for the three months ended September 30, 2017, as compared to operating income of $294,000 during the same period of the prior year. The increase is primarily attributable to decreases in employee related expenses, bad debt expense and amortization of intangible assets.

On a GAAP basis, we generated net income of $308,000, or $0.10 per diluted share, during the three months ended September 30, 2017, compared to $195,000, or $0.07 per diluted share, during the three months ended September 30, 2016.

Third quarter EBITDA was $663,000, or 23% of revenue, compared to $550,000, or 19% of revenue, during the third quarter of 2016. Non-GAAP net income was $445,000, or $0.15 per diluted share, compared to $403,000, or $0.14 per diluted share, during the third quarter of 2016. The Non-GAAP results exclude amortization of intangible assets, stock-based compensation, unusual, non-recurring gains, integration and acquisition costs, the impact of discrete items impacting income tax expense and tax impact of adjustments. Please refer to the tables below for the calculation of EBITDA and the reconciliation of GAAP income and earnings per share to Non-GAAP income and earnings per share.

Financial Results for the Nine Months Ended September 30, 2017:

Total revenue was $9,229,000 for the nine months ended September 30, 2017, compared to $9,284,000 for the nine months ended September 30, 2016. It is important to note that included in revenue for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 was $316,000 related to the reversal of an accrual for unused postage credits related to ARS customers acquired from PrecisionIR. Absent this one-time benefit, revenue for the nine months ended September 30, 2017 would have increased 3% over the same period of the prior year.

Platform and Technology revenue increased $1,628,000, or 52%, during the nine months ended September 30, 2017, as compared to the same period of 2016. As noted earlier, the increase is primarily due to an increase in revenue from our ACCESSWIRE platform, as well as increased licensing of most of our other Platform id. cloud-based products. In keeping with our strategy, Platform and Technology revenue represented 51% of our overall revenue for the nine months ended September 30, 2017, compared to 33% for the same period of 2016.

Services revenue decreased $1,683,000, or 27%, during the nine months ended September 30, 2017, as compared to the same period of 2016. Included in revenue for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 is a one-time benefit related to the reversal of an accrual for unused postage credits, noted above. The decline in Services revenue can be primarily attributed to continued customer attrition in the ARS business, pricing pressure in our compliance services business, as well as the timing of certain print and proxy distribution projects.

Gross margin for the nine months ended September 30, 2017 was $6,753,000, or 73% of total revenue, compared to $6,951,000, or 75% gross margin, in the first nine months of 2016. Absent the one-time benefit noted earlier, gross margin as a percentage of revenue would have been 74% for the nine months ended September 30, 2016.

Operating income was $1,588,000 for the nine months ended September 30, 2017, as compared to operating income of $1,451,000 during the same period of the prior year.

On a GAAP basis, we generated net income of $1,126,000 or $0.37 per diluted share, during the nine months ended September 30, 2017, compared to $1,045,000, or $0.36 per diluted share, during the nine months ended September 30, 2016.

EBITDA for the nine months ended September 30, 2017 was $2,093,000, or 23% of revenue, compared to $2,426,000, or 26%, during the same period of 2016. Non-GAAP net income was $1,441,000, or $0.48 per diluted share, compared to $1,485,000, or $0.51 per diluted share, during the nine months ended September 30, 2016. The Non-GAAP results exclude amortization of intangible assets, stock-based compensation, unusual, non-recurring gains, integration and acquisition costs, the impact of discrete items impacting income tax expense and tax impact of adjustments. Please refer to the tables below for the calculation of EBITDA and the reconciliation of GAAP income and earnings per share to Non-GAAP income and earnings per share.

Non-GAAP Information

Certain Non-GAAP financial measures are included in this press release. In the calculation of these measures, the Company generally excludes certain items, such as amortization and impairment of acquired intangibles, non-cash stock-based compensation charges and unusual, non-recurring gains and charges. The Company believes that excluding such items provides investors and management with a representation of the Company's core operating performance and with information useful in assessing its prospects for the future and underlying trends in the Company's operating expenditures and continuing operations. Management uses such Non-GAAP measures to evaluate financial results and manage operations. The release and the attachments to this release provide a reconciliation of each of the Non-GAAP measures referred to in this release to the most directly comparable GAAP measure. The Non-GAAP financial measures are not meant to be considered a substitute for the corresponding GAAP financial statements and investors should evaluate them carefully. These Non-GAAP financial measures may differ materially from the Non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies.

CALCULATION OF EBITDA

($ in '000's)

Three Months ended September 30, 2017 2016 Amount Amount Net income: $ 308 $ 195 Adjustments: Depreciation and amortization 182 263 Interest income (1 ) (1 ) Income tax expense 174 93 EBITDA: $ 663 $ 550

Nine Months ended September 30, 2017 2016 Amount Amount Net income: $ 1,126 $ 1,045 Adjustments: Depreciation and amortization 532 900 Interest income (3 ) (3 ) Income tax expense 438 484 EBITDA: $ 2,093 $ 2,426

RECONCILIATION OF SELECTED GAAP MEASURES TO NON-GAAP MEASURES

($ in '000's, except per share amounts)

Three Months ended September 30, 2017 2016 Amount Per diluted

share Amount Per diluted share Net income: $ 308 $ 0.10 $ 195 $ 0.07 Adjustments: Amortization of intangible assets(1) 83 0.03 190 0.07 Stock-based(2) 105 0.03 123 0.04 Unusual, non-recurring (3) - - 7 - Integration and acquisition(4) 20 0.01 - - Tax impact of adjustments(5) (71 ) (0.02 ) (109 ) (0.04 ) Impact of discrete items impacting income tax expense(6) - - (13 ) (0.01 ) Non-GAAP net income: $ 445 $ 0.15 $ 393 $ 0.13

Nine Months ended September 30, 2017 2016 Amount Per diluted

share Amount Per diluted share Net income: $ 1,126 $ 0.37 $ 1,045 $ 0.36 Adjustments: Amortization of intangible assets(1) 249 0.08 706 0.24 Stock-based compensation(2) 365 0.12 460 0.16 Unusual, non-recurring gains(3) 28 0.01 (391 ) (0.14 ) Integration and acquisition costs(4) 20 0.01 - - Tax impact of adjustments(5) (225 ) (0.07 ) (263 ) (0.09 ) Impact of discrete items impacting income tax expense(6) (122 ) (0.04 ) (72 ) (0.02 ) Non-GAAP net income: $ 1,441 $ 0.48 $ 1,485 $ 0.51

(1)The adjustments represent the amortization of intangible assets related to acquired assets and companies.

(2)The adjustments represent stock-based compensation expense related to awards of stock options, restricted stock units or common stock in exchange for services. Although the Company expects to continue to award stock to employees or in exchange for services, the amount of stock-based compensation is excluded as it is subject to change as a result of one-time or non-recurring projects.

(3)The adjustment removes gains or losses during the period that are unusual, non-recurring or infrequent in nature and don't relate to the core business of the Company. For the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017, these losses include a loss on the change in fair value of stock received, in lieu of cash, related to the settlement of a receivable. For the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016, these gains include a gain on the change in fair value of stock noted above and the reversal of an accrual related to unused postage credits related to ARS clients acquired during the acquisition or PrecisionIR.

(4)The adjustments represent legal fees and other non-recurring costs in connection with the acquisition of Interwest.

(5) This adjustment gives effect to the tax impact of all non-GAAP adjustments at the Federal rate of 34%.

(6)The adjustment eliminates the income tax benefit of discrete items impacting income tax expense. For the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017, this related to the excess stock-based compensation tax benefit recognized in income tax expense during the period, in connection with the Company's adoption of ASU 2016-09. During the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016, this related to the reversal of a valuation allowance established for net operating losses for PrecisionIR Group, Inc. at the date of acquisition.

Conference Call Information

To participate in this event dial approximately 5 to 10 minutes before the beginning of the call.

Date, Time: November 2, 2017, 4:30PM ET

Toll free: 888.567.1602

International: 404.267.0373

Live Webcast: https://www.investornetwork.com/company/816

Conference Call Replay Information

The replay will be available beginning approximately 1 hour after the completion of the live event, ending at midnight eastern on December 2, 2017.

Toll free: 877.481.4010

International: 919.882.2331

Reference ID: 21907

Web replay: http://www.issuerdirect.com/earnings-calls-and-scripts/

About Issuer Direct Corporation

Issuer Direct is an industry-leading communications and compliance company focusing on the needs of corporate issuers. Issuer Direct's principal platform, Platform id. , empowers users by thoughtfully integrating the most relevant tools, technologies, and services, thus eliminating the complexity associated with producing and distributing financial and business communications. Headquartered in RTP, NC, Issuer Direct serves more than 2,000 public and private companies in more than 18 countries. For more information, please visit www.issuerdirect.com.

Learn more about Issuer Direct today: Investor Tear Sheet.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act") (which Sections were adopted as part of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995). Statements preceded by, followed by or that otherwise include the words "believe," "anticipate," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "plan," "project," "prospects," "outlook," and similar words or expressions, or future or conditional verbs, such as "will," "should," "would," "may," and "could," are generally forward-looking in nature and not historical facts. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the Company's actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any anticipated results, performance, or achievements. The Company disclaims any intention to, and undertakes no obligation to, revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, a future event, or otherwise. For additional risks and uncertainties that could impact the Company's forward-looking statements, please see the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and Form 10-K/A for the year ended December 31, 2016, including but not limited to the discussion under "Risk Factors" therein, which the Company has filed with the SEC and which may be viewed at http://www.sec.gov/.

For Further Information:

Issuer Direct Corporation

Brian R. Balbirnie

(919)-481-4000

brian.balbirnie@issuerdirect.com

Hayden IR

Brett Maas

(646)-536-7331

brett@haydenir.com

Hayden IR

James Carbonara

(646)-755-7412

james@haydenir.com

ISSUER DIRECT CORPORATION

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

(in thousands, except share and per share amounts)

September 30, December 31, 2017 2016 ASSETS (unaudited) Current assets: Cash and cash equivalents $ 6,407 $ 5,339 Accounts receivable (net of allowance for doubtful accounts of $434 and $429, respectively) 1,067 1,300 Other current assets 396 189 Total current assets 7,870 6,828 Capitalized software (net of accumulated amortization of $436 and $207, respectively) 2,767 2,048 Fixed assets (net of accumulated amortization of $372 and $318, respectively) 159 204 Deferred income tax asset 137 141 Other long-term assets 18 18 Goodwill 2,242 2,242 Intangible assets (net of accumulated amortization of $3,573 and $3,324, respectively) 1,131 1,380 Total assets $ 14,324 $ 12,861 LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY Current liabilities: Accounts payable $ 481 $ 344 Accrued expenses 680 806 Income taxes payable 80 112 Deferred revenue 958 843 Total current liabilities 2,199 2,105 Deferred income tax liability 54 66 Other long-term liabilities 86 112 Total liabilities 2,339 2,283 Commitments and contingencies Stockholders' equity: Preferred stock, $0.001 par value, 1,000,000 and 30,000,000 shares authorized, no shares issued and outstanding as of September 30, 2017 and December 31, 2016, respectively. - - Common stock $0.001 par value, 20,000,000 and 100,000,000 shares authorized, 2,955,759 and 2,860,944 shares issued and outstanding as of September 30, 2017 and December 31, 2016, respectively. 3 3 Additional paid-in capital 9,776 9,120 Other accumulated comprehensive income (loss) 29 (36 ) Retained earnings 2,177 1,491 Total stockholders' equity 11,985 10,578 Total liabilities and stockholders' equity $ 14,324 $ 12,861

ISSUER DIRECT CORPORATION

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS

(UNAUDITED)

(in thousands, except per share amounts)

For the Three Months Ended For the Nine Months Ended September 30, September 30, September 30, September 30, 2017 2016 2017 2016 Revenues $ 2,931 $ 2,873 $ 9,229 $ 9,284 Cost of revenues 821 739 2,476 2,333 Gross profit 2,110 2,134 6,753 6,951 Operating costs and expenses: General and administrative 758 839 2,525 2,482 Sales and marketing expenses 613 652 1,920 1,947 Product development 156 133 410 291 Depreciation and amortization 102 216 310 780 Total operating costs and expenses 1,629 1,840 5,165 5,500 Operating income 481 294 1,588 1,451 Other income (expense) 1 (6 ) (24 ) 78 Income before taxes 482 288 1,564 1,529 Income tax expense 174 93 438 484 Net income $ 308 $ 195 $ 1,126 $ 1,045 Income per share - basic $ 0.10 $ 0.07 $ 0.38 $ 0.37 Income per share - fully diluted $ 0.10 $ 0.07 $ 0.37 $ 0.36 Weighted average number of common shares outstanding - basic 2,955 2,836 2,931 2,807 Weighted average number of common shares outstanding - fully diluted 3,036 2,936 3,013 2,899

ISSUER DIRECT CORPORATION

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME

(UNAUDITED)

(in thousands)

For the Three Months Ended For the Nine Months Ended September 30, September 30, September 30, September 30, 2017 2016 2017 2016 Net income $ 308 $ 195 $ 1,126 $ 1,045 Foreign currency translation adjustment 31 (2 ) 65 10 Comprehensive income $ 339 $ 193 $ 1,191 $ 1,055

ISSUER DIRECT CORPORATION

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS

(UNAUDITED)

(in thousands)

For the Nine Months Ended September 30, September 30, 2017 2016 Cash flows from operating activities: Net income $ 1,126 $ 1,045 Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash provided by operating activities: Depreciation and amortization 532 900 Bad debt expense 119 191 Deferred income taxes - 73 Stock-based compensation expense 365 460 Changes in operating assets and liabilities: Decrease (increase) in accounts receivable 122 (274 ) Decrease (increase) in deposits and prepaid assets (207 ) (135 ) Increase (decrease) in accounts payable 127 (95 ) Increase (decrease) in accrued expenses (193 ) (281 ) Increase (decrease) in deferred revenue 104 136 Net cash provided by operating activities 2,095 2,020 Cash flows from investing activities: Capitalized software (891 ) (751 ) Purchase of fixed assets (9 ) (59 ) Net cash used in investing activities (900 ) (810 ) Cash flows from financing activities: Proceeds from exercise of stock options, net of income taxes 235 33 Payment of dividend (440 ) (309 ) Net cash used in financing activities (205 ) (276 ) Net change in cash 990 934 Cash - beginning 5,339 4,215 Currency translation adjustment 78 (14 ) Cash - ending $ 6,407 $ 5,135 Supplemental disclosures: Cash paid for income taxes $ 659 $ 435 Non-cash activities: Stock-based compensation - capitalized software $ 57 $ 352

SOURCE: Issuer Direct Corporation
EDMONTON, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/03/17 -- The Kaye Edmonton Clinic and the Fort Saskatchewan Community Hospital will be test sites for a project looking to improve the efficiency of large commercial buildings, reducing GHG emissions and energy costs. This is just one of 11 projects focused on innovative clean energy and water technologies receiving $28.8-million in joint federal and provincial support.

For the first time, Alberta Innovates (AI) and Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA) are combining efforts with Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) to fund technology from small and medium enterprises that enhances environmental stewardship and supports economic development in Alberta. The 11 projects are expected to create 300 new jobs.

"By providing a single window to access funding, Alberta and Canada are leveraging resources to stimulate investment and advance GHG-reducing technologies," said ERA CEO, Steve MacDonald. "By accelerating innovation, ERA is helping Alberta be successful both economically and environmentally in a lower carbon future."

"This joint funding opportunity demonstrates how by working together, our innovation ecosystem can provide all of the supports needed to move ideas into market solutions," said Alberta Innovates CEO, Laura Kilcrease.

For this opportunity, ERA and SDTC will fund up to 66.7 per cent of a projects' eligible expenses. This is more than an applicant could get by applying for funds from either organization individually. ERA and SDTC are committing up to $22.6 million to four projects. The projects have a total combined value of more than $39 million. The technologies support energy efficiency and conservation, new and better uses of carbon dioxide, methane reduction and cleaner energy production and usage.

There is potential for these technologies to reduce cumulative market GHG emissions by more than 300,000 tonnes by 2030. That amount is roughly equivalent to reductions achieved by switching more than 10 million incandescent bulbs in households to LEDs or bringing 76 wind turbines online.

Projects include:

-- Testing technology to improve the efficiency of large commercial buildings -- Low energy water treatment for steam assisted heavy oil recovery -- Demonstration of the Near Zero Emission well control system -- Commercialization of a heating technology with potential to reduce oil sands production costs, GHG emissions and water use.

In addition, AI and SDTC are providing $6.2 million to seven companies developing and demonstrating new and innovative water technologies, with a maximum of $1 million per project. Funding will accelerate commercialization of water-related technologies that benefit Alberta and Canada. Projects are focused on water treatment for municipalities, hydraulic fracturing and oil sands operations.

Over 175 submissions from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were received through two separate competitions, ranging from prototype development, field pilots and commercial scale demonstration projects. The companies selected for support are from across Canada, but all technologies are being tested in Alberta. Projects are required to secure a minimum of one-third of the total funding for any project from non-government sources.

These two joint-funding programs invited submissions from organizations incorporated and operating in Canada with less than 500 employees and less than $50 million in annual gross revenue. Each funding process offered applicants a streamlined, harmonized model with one window of access to two pools of money.

The funds available are more than applicants could get through the organizations individually. This is the first time the organizations have worked together to allow companies to access funding through a single application process.

ABOUT EMISSIONS REDUCTION ALBERTA (ERA):

ERA works with industry, government and the innovation community to invest in and advance the solutions Alberta needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build a stronger, more diversified economy. To date, ERA has committed to more than $327 million in funding to over 120 projects with a total value of over $2 billion.

ABOUT ALBERTA INNOVATES (AI):

Alberta Innovates delivers 21st century solutions to the most compelling challenges we are facing as Albertans. Building on our province's strengths in environment, energy, health, food, fibre and emerging technology sectors, we are working with our partners to diversify Alberta's economy, improve our environmental performance and enhance our well-being.

Project descriptions are available here: http://eralberta.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/SDTC-ERA-AI-Backgrounder.pdf

Contacts:

Emissions Reduction Alberta

Michelle Gurney

587-783-4420

mgurney@eralberta.ca

www.era-sdtc.ca or www.eralberta.ca



Alberta Innovates

Bruce Marpole

780-490-8907

bruce.marpole@albertainnovates.ca

www.albertainnovates.ca




FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

3 November 2017

Bisichi Mining Plc ("Bisichi" or the "Company")

Director/PDMR Shareholding

The Company has today been notified that on 27 September 2017, Mrs Susan Heller, transferred 25,700 ordinary shares of 10 pence each in the Company ("Ordinary Shares") into the Self Invested Personal Pension of Mr Andrew Robert Heller, a director of the Company, for a consideration of 71pence per Ordinary Share (the "Transfer").

Following the Transfer, Mr Heller's beneficial holding remains unchanged at 785,012 Ordinary Shares representing 7.35 per cent. of the current issued share capital of the Company.

The notification below, made in accordance with the requirements of the EU Market Abuse Regulation, provides further details of the Transfer.

1 Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities / person closely associated a) Name Mrs Susan Heller and Mr Andrew Heller 2 Reason for the notification a) Position/status

Mrs Susan Heller is the spouse of Mr Andrew Heller (director of the Company) b) Initial notification /Amendment Initial notification 3 Details of the issuer, emission allowance market participant, auction platform, auctioneer or auction monitor a) Name Bisichi Mining Plc b) LEI

213800RRWN6ZBPW2ZV03 4 Details of the transaction(s): section to be repeated for (i) each type of instrument; (ii) each type of transaction; (iii) each date; and (iv) each place where transactions have been conducted a) Description of the financial instrument, type of instrument



Identification code Ordinary shares of 10 pence each in the Company ("Ordinary Shares")



GB0001012045 b) Nature of the transaction Transfer of Ordinary Shares from Mrs Susan Heller to the SIPP of Mr Andrew Heller







c)





Price(s) and volume(s)

Price(s) Volume(s)

71pence per share

25,700 Ordinary Shares d) Aggregated information



- Aggregated volume



- Price





N/A (single transaction) e) Date of the transaction 27/09/2017 f) Place of the transaction

LSE

Contact: Garrett Casey, Company Secretary 020 7415 5030
STUTTGART, Germany, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- After making an equally thrilling entrance as the EXEED TX at the Frankfurt Motor Show, the all new Chery star, RUIHU 5X hit the road. With china.com and over ten domestic and international media channels the new model began its all terrain Eurotrip. It visited the 100+ year old Bosch in Stuttgart, maxed out on the German Autobahn, traversed country roads and made short work of the Hessen mountain paths. Later the RUIHU passed through Rudesheim and Rothenburg becoming part of the picturesque scenery offered there. Exhibiting passion and also control the RUIHU 5X maintained a smart charm and stayed connected the entire time, bringing to fruition Chevy's new philosophy "fun, boundless amazement" and this time Europe gives a thumbs up.

Tracing Quality: Top Notes -European Engineers Approve!

Chery is China's largest independant exporting company and has a business system worthy of the top 100. RUIHU 5X on its quality tracing Eurotrip made its first stop in Stuttgart to pay a visit to one of Chery's partners - and the world's first big motorcar technical specialists - Bosch.

Bosch and Chery have enjoyed a 20 year partnership so far bringing Chery to the European standards it can now boast. This time RUIHU 5X came prepared with the automatic safety system supplied by Bosch, the electronically controlled fuel injection and top of the line dashboard are just a couple of many other featuresthat owe their creation to this decades long partnership. All of these features meet the strict European standards and are designed toimprovethe control and general driving experience of the car.

Unimpeded all-terrain,"easy to drive and smart", you are the scene

On the German Autobahn, RUIHU 5X remained beautifully steady and did its track record justice. This combined with the progressive pedal power and the ergonomics of the seat givesthe driver a great sense of confidence and tremendous feeling when driving.

In the majestic old towns and on the quiet streets of rural Germany, the new RUIHU 5X attracted some attention from local passers-by causing them to even stop and admire Chery's new star child. In their eyes the RUIHU 5X is richer and braver in design than the traditional European equivalents.

One challenge that the RUIHU 5X looked forward to was the mountain roads of Hessen. These routes are very demanding on a car's control, stability and safety; the perfect opportunity for RUIHU 5X to demonstrate her 1.5T + DCT, both energetic and responsive.

RUIHU 5X comes with Chery's own interconnected Cloudrive 3.0 smart system. A 99.9% accurate voice command system that supports Android and iOS connections and offers both Baidu Maps and AutoNavi satnav systems. Drivers can also connect to the car's systems via the mobile app for features such as long distant route safety and calculations, making Chery the first Chinese brand to provide a vehicle mounted system with mobile connectivity and mobile app features.

This time, Europe gives a thumbs up

Utilising Germany's precise technical art with an attitude that strives for quality of life and searches for beauty with the Chery brand, this Eurotrip tracing quality back to the source won RUIHU 5X positive acclaims such as "easy to drive" and "smart". The high approval RUIHU 5X received from the media and European engineers set the stage for further praise and attracted the interest from young drivers.

Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596708/1.jpg

Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596703/2.jpg

Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596702/3.jpg

Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596705/4.jpg

Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596704/5.jpg

Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596709/6.jpg

Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596706/7.jpg

Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596707/8.jpg



View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cherys-new-ruihu-5x-exhibits-supreme-quality-on-its-all-terrain-eurotrip-300549420.html
FINEOS AdminSuite now generally available to deliver next generation Policy Administration, Billing and Claims Solutions

FINEOS AdminSuite FastTrack offers clients pre-configured option in the cloud for speed to market

FINEOS Corporation, a market leading provider of core systems for Life, Accident and Health insurance, today announced the general availability of FINEOS Policy Billing as part of FINEOS AdminSuite adding next generation policy administration and billing capabilities to our industry leading FINEOS Claims. The announcement was made during the 2017 FINEOS Global Summit currently taking place in San Francisco.

FINEOS Policy and Billing, delivered in the cloud, provide clients an integrated solution to support new business acquisition through member record keeping with best in class billing flexibility. AdminSuite, including FINEOS Claims, provides Insurance Carriers with the ability to service both Group and Voluntary business, with flexible administrative oversight to meet each specific case's needs while driving a superior customer experience. Included with the FINEOS AdminSuite is an open API structure allowing integration with most complimentary systems such as CRM, Underwriting/Rating, and Producer Compensation.

FINEOS has developed a pre-configured, cloud-based offering, FastTrack, to enable a quick start for our clients. The FastTrack offering will enable a Carrier to get up and running with new products and services more quickly than the traditional policy administration implementations. FINEOS clients leveraging FastTrack can launch a new product, enter a market segment, or offer new services with much less risk than ever before. AdminSuite FastTrack empowers the carrier to compete in the ever-changing benefits market, without technology holding them back.

FastTrack supports pre-configured Group Term Life, Disability and Voluntary products available out of the box. Additionally, leveraging the FINEOS OpenCore approach, API connections are available for Enrollment, Benefits Administration, and Digital solutions to integrate with your existing infrastructure.

Commenting on FINEOS AdminSuite, Michael Kelly CEO, FINEOS said, "We are very pleased to offer our clients a complete solution for Policy Administration, Billing, Claims and Absence. We are investing significantly in new product development to provide our customers comprehensive core solutions in the cloud. Extending our FastTrack program to the complete AdminSuite will enable our customers to get down to business faster and easier than ever before."

FINEOS is a global market leader in core systems with customers in nine countries and has been chosen by 8 of the top 20 Group Life, Accident and Health insurers in the US and 4 of the top 5 Life, Accident and Health insurers in Australia. FINEOS has many years' experience working with insurers in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

About FINEOS Corporation

The FINEOS flagship product, FINEOS AdminSuite, is a cloud based core product suite for Life, Accident and Health carriers. FINEOS AdminSuite delivers full service Policy, Billing, and Claims, providing best-in-class functionality for Group, Voluntary, and Individual administration on a single platform, while also supporting self-admin, full-admin, and TPA assist models. FINEOS delivers innovative core systems to a global market and has customers, employees, and established bases in North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific markets. For more information, visit www.FINEOS.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171103005737/en/

Contacts:

FINEOS Corporation

Victoria Jamison

Marketing Manager

+ 353 1 639 9700

Victoria.Jamison@FINEOS.com
CORAL GABLES, FL / ACCESSWIRE / November 3, 2017 / The legal marijuana industry is projected to achieve a compound annual growth of 25% to hit $20 billion in the next 4 years. It's no surprise that the marijuana industry is one of the most dynamic and rapidly growing industries throughout the United States and Canada. With that being said, here are three active marijuana stocks to have on your watch-list on Friday.

CNRP Mining, Inc. (CRPGF) has seen an increase in trading activity in the last week of trading. The company recently announced the completion of its acquisition of X-SPRAYS; a product line of oral sprays to deliver medicines, nutrients, and vitamins. (CRPGF) acquired all of the issued and outstanding shares of 1127455 B.C. Ltd., which holds the worldwide exclusive license for X-SPRAYS. As of today, X-SPRAYS has 8 products ready for commercializing, 4 that include hemp CBDs and 4 that contain nutraceutical ingredients.

Over the last seven trading days, (CRPGF)'s price per share has jumped over 178% from Tuesday's (10/24/17) closing price of $0.33, to daily highs during Friday's (11/3/17) trading session of $0.92.

Canopy Growth Corporation (OTC PINK: TWMJF) one of the largest marijuana companies throughout Canada has seen an increase in momentum in the last week of trading. The surge came on the heels of an announcement that the leading total beverage alcohol supplier in the U.S. Constellation Brands (STZ) has acquired a 9.9% stake in Canopy Growth.

Over the last week of trading (TWMJF) recorded a 30.83% increase in price per share from Friday (10/27/17) closing price of $9.99 to daily highs during Friday's (11/3/17) afternoon trading session of $13.07.

Lexaria Bioscience Corp. (LXRP) a drug delivery platform innovator released news on Thursday (11/2/17) that the company has acquired 100% ownership of Poviva Tea, LLC.

"This acquisition strengthens Lexaria's intellectual property positioning and we reaffirm our commitment to the ViPova Tea product lines," stated Chief Executive Officer Chris Bunka. "Lexaria thanks the founders of Poviva Tea, LLC for their assistance and vision in this transaction."

Since the beginning of this trading week (LXRP) has gained 46.09% from Monday's (10/30/17) closing price of $0.397 to highs during Friday's (11/3/17) trading session of $0.58.

The company also announced on Tuesday (10/31/17) that they received a U.S. patent allowance for its DehydraTECH, a delivery platform for all cannabinoids including THC, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory, nicotine and fat-soluble vitamins.

"This wide-ranging patent allowance from the USPTO exceeds our expectations," quoted Chief Executive Officer Chris Bunka. "This vastly expanded intellectual property protection will enable us to aggressively pursue new business opportunities in 2018 such as what could be the world's first nicotine edibles for the smokeless tobacco industry or enhanced products for NSAID-derived pain management, as well as in the rapidly growing cannabis market."

About marijuanastocks.com

MarijuanaStocks.com is the leading web destination for all things cannabis. Investors can find marijuana-related financial, medical, legal, and social news anytime day or night. Writers are invited to submit cannabis related articles for publication.

Legal Disclaimer

Except for the historical information presented herein, matters discussed in this article contain forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. MAPH Enterprises LLC which owns www.MarijuanaStocks.com, is not registered with any financial or securities regulatory authority and does not provide nor claims to provide investment advice or recommendations to readers of this release.

MarijuanaStocks.com is owned by MAPH Enterprises LLC., a Florida Corporation that has been compensated $100,000 by a non-affiliate 3rd party for a 1-year period beginning August 1, 2017 and ending August 1, 2018 to publicly disseminate information about CNRP Mining, Inc. (CND.CN) (CRPGF). We own zero shares.

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SOURCE: MarijuanaStocks.com
DUBLIN, November 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Connected Truck Market by Range (DSRC and Cellular), Service (Fleet Management and Cybersecurity & Updates), Component (Hardware and Software), Communication (V2V, V2I, and V2C), Vehicle (LCV and HCV), and Region - Global Forecast to 2022" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

The global connected truck market is estimated to be USD 18.60 Billion in 2017 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 15.14% during the forecast period, to reach USD 37.64 Billion by 2022.

Some of the key market drivers are increasing industry compliance norms and government mandates supporting connected technology in commercial vehicles. Also, the vehicle data updates, which are generated by the telematics control unit (TCU), will help to reduce the overall recalling cost of OEMs and increase customer satisfaction.

The commercial vehicle manufacturers are taking several initiatives to expand the advanced innovation in their trucks. With the electrification and digitization of various components, infotainment, telematics systems, and autonomous driving are becoming an integral part of high-end automobiles. Most of these technologies use real-time data for live traffic, road conditions, and roadside help during a breakdown.

The commercial vehicle is increasingly equipped with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) such as adaptive cruise control (ACC), lane departure warning (LDW), blind spot detection, and park assist system to enhance the safety of drivers as well as pedestrians. Also, automakers are looking forward to enhance customer satisfaction with the help of cybersecurity & over-the-air (OTA) updates to rectify the bugs generated in the software of various applications. The advancement in connected features will increase the overall operational efficiency and vehicle performance of fleet operators.

Some of the major restraints identified in the global connected truck market are lack of supporting infrastructure in developing countries and threats to cybersecurity. These factors may hinder the growth of the connected truck market to some extent.

Some of the major players in the global connected truck market are Bosch (Germany), Continental (Germany), Verizon Communications (US), Harman International (US), Denso Corporation (Japan), ZF Friedrichshafen AG (Germany), Magna (Canada), and Delphi (UK).

Key Topics Covered:



1 Introduction



2 Research Methodology



3 Executive Summary



4 Premium Insights



5 Market Overview



6 Industry Trends and Technology Overview



7 Connected Truck Market, By Range



8 Connected Trucks Market, By Components Type



9 Connected Truck Market, By Communication Type



10 Connected Truck Market, By Service



11 Connected Truck Market, By Vehicle Type



12 Connected Truck Market, By Region



13 Company Profiles



Continental

Delphi

Denso

Harman

Magna

NXP

Robert Bosch

Sierra Wireless

Tomtom

Trimble

Verizon

ZF

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/7f8r4l/connected_truck

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



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Technavio has announced the top five leading vendors in their recentsoup market in the USreport. This market research report also lists nine other prominent vendors that are expected to impact the market during the forecast period.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171103005824/en/

Technavio has published a new report on the soup market in the US from 2017-2021. (Graphic: Business Wire)

Competitive vendor landscape

According to the research analysis, the soup market in the US is a large market and is one of the leading markets in the global soup market. A large variety of soups are available in the market. The rising consumer inclination toward healthy food products is driving the demand for soups in the US.

There are several large vendors like General Mills, CSC Brand, Unilever, and others in the soup market in the US. Several small vendors are also present in the market; however, most of the market share is captured by the large brands. CSC Brand alone holds a share of more than 30% in various soup segments. The availability of a wide variety of products in the market allows consumers to choose products based on packaging, flavor, and type (canned, microwavable, chilled, frozen, and others).

"Vendors compete based on product offerings, product differentiation, and customer base. There is intense competition in the market among the top players which necessitates continuous innovations in products to sustain in the market as consumer demands change frequently. With the trend of healthy eating, vendors are now trying to reformulate their products and reduce the use of artificial preservatives," says Manjunath Reddy, a lead food research analyst from Technavio.

The report also states that there has been an increase in demand for instant, ready-to-serve, microwavable, and canned soups. The concept of cold soups has also aided the market growth with the availability of chilled and frozen soups. Packaged soups, both dry and wet soups, can be consumed with minimal preparation. Being a complete dish with healthy ingredients, soups are largely preferred by health-conscious consumers. Thus, the convenience factor associated with soup products available in the market increases the volume consumption of these products.

This report is available at a USD 1,000 discount for a limited time only: View market snapshot before purchasing

Buy 1 Technavio report and get the second for 50% off. Buy 2 Technavio reports and get the third for free

Technaviomarket research analysts identify the following key vendors:

Conagra Brands

Conagra Brands is one of the leading players in the food industry and offers several variants in the soup category. The Healthy Choice brand of the company offers a wide range of canned and microwavable soups, which are packaged in such a manner that they are portable and easy to consume. The Marie Callender's brand offers a range of chicken soups in various flavors. The foodservice division of the company offers products to retailers, restaurants, commercial customers, and others.

CSC Brand (Campbell Soup Company)

CSC Brand is one of the leading manufacturers of food and beverage products and is the leading player in the soup market in the US. The company owns several brands that offer soup products and offers several varieties of soups like condensed soups, stock, broth, and others through these brands.

General Mills

General Mills is a multinational manufacturer of consumer foods. The PROGRESSO brand of the company is one of the best-selling soup brands in the US. It offers a wide range of soup products in different categories. The brand also offers products for specific customers like vegetarian and those who are intolerant to gluten. Several flavors are offered under different categories, and thus consumers have a variety of options to choose from. The Annie's brand offers an organic range of products for health-conscious consumers.

The Kraft Heinz Company

The Kraft Heinz Company is engaged in various segments such as cheese and dairy, sauces and condiments, and confectionary. The company offers a variety of soups like noodle soup, broths, and stocks in different flavors. Brands like TrueSoups and Heinz offer a wide variety of soup products in the market. The soup variants are available in both vegetarian and non-vegetarian segments.

Unilever

Unilever is one of the leading consumer goods companies globally. Their product range caters to different segments ranging from food and beverage to health and wellbeing. The company is one of the leading players in the soup market in the US with Knorr being a popular soup brand in several regions. The brand, apart from offering flavors that have global acceptance, also offers regional variants to increase sales. Other brands like Lipton also offer products in the soup category.

Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report

Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.

Browse Related Reports:

Global Cheese Powder Market 2017-2021

Global Shrimp Market 2017-2021

Global Maple Syrup Market 2017-2021

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

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www.technavio.com
Richmond, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 3, 2017) - Stina Resources Ltd. (CSE: SQA) (OTCQB: STNUF) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement with the Austrian liquidator to the insolvency proceedings over the assets of an Austrian based energy storage company to purchase the assets of the insolvent company on an "as is, where is" basis. Under the terms of the agreement the Company has agreed to purchase the assets for 5,210,000 (CDN$7,788,950) plus applicable value added tax, with an initial down payment of 1,000,000 (CDN$1,495,000) to be made immediately. In addition, the Company is obligated to fund the operations of the insolvent company, estimated to be 300,000 (CDN$448,500) per month, until the proposed closing date of January 30, 2018. The Company intends to fund the acquisition through private placements or entering into joint ventures.

The agreement is subject to a number of conditions, including the approval of the creditors' committee; legally binding approval of the insolvency court under Austrian insolvency law, which is scheduled for November 14, 2017; and all necessary corporate and regulatory approval, including approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange.

The Company's management and geology team are currently evaluating exploration and development plans on the Bisoni Mckay and Bisoni Rio pure-play vanadium deposits in Nevada and is pursuing vanadium electrolyte technology using vanadium from those deposits.

For further information, please contact:

Brian Stecyk, Director, COO

Telephone: 1-800-882-3213

This news release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts which address events, results, outcomes or developments that the Company expects to occur; they are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "aims", "potential", "goal", "objective", "prospective", and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "can", "could" or "should" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Certain material assumptions regarding such forward-looking statements are discussed in this news release and the Company's annual and quarterly management's discussion and analysis filed at www.sedar.com. Except as required by the securities disclosure laws and regulations applicable to the Company, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

Neither the CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - November 3, 2017) - Avalon Advanced Materials Inc. (TSX: AVL) (OTCQX: AVLNF) ("Avalon" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has completed a non-brokered private placement today consisting of 3,215,000 flow-through common shares at a price of $0.145 per share and 4,800,000 non-flow-through units at a price of $0.12 per unit for gross proceeds of $1,042,175.

Each unit consists of one non-flow-through common share and one half non-transferable common share purchase warrant, with each whole warrant being exercisable to acquire one non-flow-through common share of the Company at a price of $0.16 for a period of 24 months from today.

In conjunction with this private placement Avalon paid finder's fees of $34,560 and issued 288,000 non-transferrable finder's warrants, with each finder's warrant being exercisable to acquire one common share of the Company at a price of $0.15 for a period of 24 months from today. Pursuant to Canadian securities laws, the securities issuable under this private placement are subject to a hold period which expires on March 4, 2018.

The proceeds from this offering will be used to advance exploration work on the Company's Separation Rapids Lithium Project and for general corporate purposes.

This press release is not an offer of securities for sale in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the US Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "US Securities Act"), and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to US persons (as defined in Regulation S under the US Securities Act) absent registration or an applicable exemption from registration.

About Avalon Advanced Materials Inc.

Avalon Advanced Materials Inc. is a Canadian mineral development company focused on technology metals and minerals. The Company has three advanced stage projects, all 100%-owned, providing investors with exposure to lithium, tin and indium, as well as rare earth elements, tantalum, niobium, and zirconium. Avalon is currently focusing on its Separation Rapids Lithium Project, Kenora, ON and its East Kemptville Tin-Indium Project, Yarmouth, NS. Social responsibility and environmental stewardship are corporate cornerstones.

For questions and feedback, please e-mail the Company at ir@AvalonAM.com, or phone Don Bubar, President & CEO at 416-364-4938.

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements related to how the Company plans to use the net proceeds from the Private Placement. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "potential", "scheduled", "anticipates", "continues", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "scheduled", "targeted", "planned", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be" or "will not be" taken, reached or result, "will occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Avalon to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions management believes to be reasonable at the time such statements are made. Although Avalon has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expected results described in forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to market conditions, and the possibility of cost overruns or unanticipated costs and expenses as well as those risk factors set out in the Company's current Annual Information Form, Management's Discussion and Analysis and other disclosure documents available under the Company's profile at www.SEDAR.com. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Such forward-looking statements have been provided for the purpose of assisting investors in understanding the Company's plans and objectives and may not be appropriate for other purposes. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Avalon does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that are contained herein, except in accordance with applicable securities law
Exaltare Capital Partners, a Boston, MA-based lower middle market-focused private equity firm, closed its maiden fund, at $90m.

Limited partners include institutional investors, family offices and asset managers.

Founded in 2012, Exaltare is focused on acquiring niche-leading, owner-operated lower middle market businesses.

With the closing of Fund I, Exaltare also recapitalized ECP-PF Holdings Group, Inc. Formed in December 2012 by the firm and Brightwood Capital Advisors to acquire 15 clubs in Connecticut operating under the Planet Fitness brand, PF Holdings is based in Orange, CT and is one of the largest Planet Fitness franchise ownership groups. PF Holdings currently operates 59 locations across Canada, Arizona, Connecticut, New Mexico and New York.

FinSMEs

03/11/2017
Loraxian Inc., a Toronto, Canada-based global renewable energy and infrastructure company, raised $50m in Series B funding round.

Treasure Union Limited, a Hong Kong based company, made the investment.

The company intends to use the funds to drive global growth and scale, with an initial focus on Canada, Asia, and the Middle East, as well as strategically acquire key technologies currently being used in its infrastructure projects.

Led by Roland Kielbasiewicz, Founder and CEO, Loraxian is a professional services firm specializing in the development, finance, ownership, and management of sustainable energy infrastructure projects with a focus on southeast Asia and North America. It develops, constructs, builds, finances, procures, operates, maintains, and owns conservatively-managed, building and energy infrastructure assets with a long-term, build and hold strategy.

FinSMEs

03/11/2017
Snag-A-Slip, a Baltimore-based online boat slip reservation company, acquired Marinalife, a source for premium content, marina information and cruising concierge services.

The amount of the deal, which follows the close of Snag-A-Slips $4.8M Series A round, was not disclosed.

Led by Joy McPeters, Founder and CEO, who will join Snag-A-Slip as Chief Strategy Officer, Marinalife connects more than 60,000 active boaters with thousands of marina partners across the country and beyond. Through its web, mobile and magazine platforms, the company will continue to provide boaters with detailed marina information, travel resources, itineraries and destination guides.

The acquisition will further support Snag-A-Slips sales and marketing efforts around the country, and in the Caribbean.

Led by Dan Cowens, Founder, Snag-A-Slip connects boaters with available slips, while also showcasing marinas via digital channels. The mobile-responsive website and mobile apps allow boaters to explore marinas by region, city or marina name and then search for slip availability based on travel dates, length, beam, draw and power requirements. Boaters can pick their preferred marina based on amenities, location and availability and book immediately with any credit card. The companys mobile apps are now available for free download on the App Store and Google Play.

FinSMEs

03/11/2017
TeamFusion, a Los Angeles, CA-based B2B provider of a personalized training platform, received an investment from AVentures Capital.

The amount of the deal was not disclosed.

Founded in 2015 and led by Mark Woodward, Executive Director, TeamFusion is a B2B startup that delivers engagement and training solution to organizations using Microsoft Office 365. The company, one of the eleven organizations in the United States showcased by Microsoft as a top strategic software partner for their Office 365 ecosystem, has R&D and Content Development teams located in Ukraine.

TeamFusion intends to use the funds to nearly double its Ukrainian operations.

FinSMEs

03/11/2017
Editor's note: Travelling across some of the coal belts in India, Shantanu Guha Ray, in a two-part series, looks at the insurmountable crisis facing the coal sector. This is the second part in the series.

Troubled by mounting criticism that bottlenecks and red tape delay supply of coal in India, the government is trying to evolve an unique strategy to boost production, improve efficiencies and sell this dry fuel in the open market.

At the heart of this effort is a move to push commercial mining of coal in India, a country with 309 billion tonnes of resource identified so far spread over approximately 14,000 sq km. Stakeholders, claim those in the know in the coal ministry, have already sent in their recommendations to an approach paper offered by the NDA government in March 2017.

The idea is to auction large coal mines to private mining companies with freedom to sell and no restriction on end use, a deviation from the previous rule which forced companies to use coal mined from captive mines for use in their plants, be it power, steel, cement or aluminium.

The ministry, it is learnt, even wants to support an online platform to electronically track coal trade across the country every day. The ostensible objective is to make the process of coal sale and purchase transparent and ease the process of doing business for both Indian and multinational companies under a well-defined market framework.

Commercial mining of coal, having been turned into a law by Parliament, will be a path-breaking move, and will usher in a regime of efficient mining with induction of much-needed capital, technology and new skill sets and help develop a vibrant domestic coal market, says Prabir Niyogi, head of the Ficci Committee on Power.

A lot of coal deposits remain unexplored, claims Niyogi, Chief Executive, Corporate Affairs, RP-Sanjeev Goenka group of companies. Out of 309 billion tonnes of identified resource, only 138 billion tonnes are classified as proved. The balance 171 billion tonnes are grouped under indicated and inferred categories, signifying that detailed exploration to confirm such resource into mineable category is a tall task that the government cannot do it alone.

Herein lies the opportunity to invite private companies with specialised exploration skills to take part in Indias coal story and help develop the coal sector befitting a growing economy, adds Niyogi.

Market observers say the government must push the proposal hard, keeping in mind growing pressures from companies on state-owned Coal India Ltd (CIL) for supply of the fuel.

In the offices of the coal ministry, located in the heart of Lutyens Delhi, representatives of private power, steel, and aluminium producers have been making regular presentations to explain their helplessness with coal supplies.

Their grievances are being met with stoic silence from bureaucrats who, in turn, are explaining their side of the story, including how the scenario has changed post the coal block de-allocations of 2014. And how, theres little one can do about it.

The allocations had happened over the two decades between 1993 and 2008 when the government decided to allocate captive coal blocks to investors committing thousands of crores to create power, steel, cement and aluminium plants.

The blocks to be offered were either not economically attractive for mining to CIL or not part of its development plans; to make matters worse, bulk of the blocks were located in the interiors of mineral rich belts of Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh, virtually inaccessible from nearest towns.

A few companies acquired the blocks and invested thousands of crores to set up pit-head-based plants and the associated infrastructure, including access roads and rail links to and from the mines. Interestingly, the region around these coal blocks flourished as a host of companies set up operations in the vicinity. But following the alleged loss of Rs 1.86 lakh crore of revenue to the exchequer raked up by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), the Supreme Court termed all these allocations illegal and arbitrary, ordering their de-allocation in 2014. An additional levy of Rs 295 per tonne of coal mined since the date of commencement of production came as an additional burden on the few companies that were successful in converting the coal blocks into operational mines after years of hard work. None of the captive coal block allottees were heard by the apex court before passing the judgment.

The government is keen to beef up coal production and solve routine supply and demand problems but is grappling with finding an effective solution. The once publicised coal swapping mechanism, to smoothen the coal movement from pit head to plants, continues to remain on paper.

The NITI Aayog has already recommended, in the draft of a new National Energy Policy, that the seven units of CIL be split into independent companies to make them more competitive. The idea, said the think tank, was to make seven subsidiaries of CIL independent companies and allow them to compete against one another in an open coal market. The splitting up of CIL and radically altering the method of allocating coal blocks are measures aimed at introducing transparency of coal pricing under competition while increasing production, reducing costs and improving the economies of scale riding on the crest of efficient mining practices. In its recently published India Action Plan in August 2017 that looks at revitalising the economy across all industrial sectors, NITI Aayog has taken up the cause of commercial coal mining in order to bring in specialised skills and push the frontiers of efficiency.

The coal business has always been tricky in India but there were some rays of hope when the auctions took place. But eventually, the coal block de-allocation was the first trigger for the current crisis, says energy expert and author Gautam Banerjee.

Banerjee, who once operated out of the coal belt of Durgapur-Asansol in Bengal, said it is important for analysts to look into what the CAG said in its report. The CAG never said that there was any scam  let alone the imaginary figure of Rs 1.86 lakh crore. What the CAG said was that the national exchequer could have accrued a part of the gains made by captive coal block allottees if these captive coal blocks were auctioned. Secondly, what CAG calculated was on the net margin CIL made on per tonne of coal sold in 2010-11. This figure came to Rs 295 per tonne. There was no consideration made to look at any previous year, when the price of coal was much lower. There have been occasions when CIL made losses on every tonne of coal produced.

By imposing a uniform penalty of Rs 295 per tonne of coal mined from the inception of captive mining, without reference to the cost of the mining and quality of coal, the court has in effect imposed an inequitable retrospective tax, wrote former Coal Secretary PC Parakh in his book, The Coal Conundrum.

The NDA government, which swept to power in 2014, announced in fresh auctions in 2015 of coal blocks, which were de-allocated by the Supreme Court. The first two rounds were hyped to be a big success, and are tipped to have raised over Rs 3 lakh crore for the national and state exchequer. After the coal-hungry bidders realised the grave mistake of aggressive, if not irrational, bidding in first two rounds, the third round was tepid. Raising a big question mark on viability of auctions. The fourth and fifth rounds of coal block auctions were terminated for want of minimum bidders. Tepid industrial demand in a slowing economy did not help the cause either. Coal auctions have been an unfound solution, raising the question if they are an unsound solution, said Captain Ehsaan Khalid, a socio-economic expert.

Parakh, against whom the CBI has registered a case in coal block allocation, says only five of the 31 mines auctioned by the government in 2015 have resumed production". "What a waste of a national resource when the country is facing serious coal shortage, he says. From 2015-16, captive coal production from the de-allocated blocks that came up for auctions has seen a sharp fall with most mines  that were buzzing with activity until 2014 and bringing prosperity to the neighboring society remain shut.

Such is the crisis in the coal sector that no one in India wants to look at the fuel as a possible source of investment. Worse still, the present cash inflows to the sector - claimed PricewaterhouseCoopers in a report for the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) - are simply not sufficient. Industry players may face challenges in securing the required funding for the project. In the last few years, more funds have been raised through non-traditional instruments such as bonds. Presently, the countrys spending on exploration is low as compared to major mining countries, it said.

But the demand for coal is increasing in India, the worlds third-largest carbon emitter that relies on coal-fired power plants to produce most of its energy for its 1.3 billion plus population. The Indian coal industry aspires to reach the 1.5 billion tonne mark by 2020.

Indias energy efficiency is on a high but so is demand for coal, says Ajay Mathur, director of The Energy and Research Institute (TERI) in New Delhi. He feels India could be looking at peak coal within the next five to 12 years.

Mathur says companies in the business need to develop pipelines to ferry coal from the mines to their plants, else issues of transportation will continue to plague the plants and impact production cycles. Some companies have developed such pipelines but the rest have not, says Mathur. Market observers say companies in the power generation business are not keen to make heavy investment in pipelines because such investments pay back over a very long period and worse, there is a huge push in India for renewable and alternative sources of energy.

Their fears are not out of place, says Roopen Roy, one of Indias foremost consultants and head of Kolkata-based Sumantrana, a high-end advisory firm.

Roy, a former Deloitte India head, says coal, eventually, will not be the ultimate answer for Indias power problems. The time is not far when this great demand for ever more coal will end. I can see technology-driven changes happening faster and Indias future demand slowly turning flat, says Roy.

He says in the last two years, coal consumption has slowed to its lowest level in two decades despite the economy growing at a 7 percent annual pace. Thermal power plants have been running below full capacity for years and as of June 2017, the plants were operating at only 57 percent of the total capacity, the lowest level ever. The rate of increase in coal consumption in India is now the slowest its seen since 2000 with the decades average of 6 percent, argues Roy. He says there is fast progress in adding renewable energy capacity and new measures to improve energy efficiency.

Indias coal consumption will peak within the next decade and a half and then slow down, says Roy. The International Energy Agency, however, says Indias coal consumption will climb by 4-5 percent a year through 2030.

Some efforts have also started to introduce efficient burning of coal and make it more environment-friendly. Power plants have started using washed coal before burning it. New plants are using super-critical technology which raises efficiency of the coal burned while reducing pollution.

Indias renewable energy generating capacity is expanding by 20 GW a year, toward a goal of 175 GW by 2022. Ray says this could cut annual growth in coal demand further down to as little as 2.5 percent.

Kolkata-based CIL wants to ramp up production, and is also looking to chart a new roadmap. Recently, it hired KPMG to design a future growth strategy beyond 2030. Interestingly, the tender document says the coal sector is at a cross-roads, while it has performed well in the last several years, the potential for performance of the sector needs to be assessed in light of multiple changes in the energy sector.

Even former CIL chairman Partha Bhattacharyya was recently quoted at an energy workshop in Singapore that CIL must find alternative uses for its coal as demand from the power sector wanes. Bhattacharya noted how China is using coal to make fertilizers and methanol, and South Africa is using coal to make oil and chemicals.

(Click here for first part of the series.)
Demonetisation, which gets divergent reactions depending on which side of the fence the people are in, has one unequivocal group of supporters -- digital wallet companies. Going by data complied by HDFC, the volume of retail electronic transactions peaked to 130 crore in December 2016, after demonetisation was announced by the government on 8 November 2016 as part of its drive to counter black money menance as well as promote cash-less culture, according to a PTI report.

PhonePe, a digital payments company founded as an UPI-based payments system was launched in August 2016, a couple of months before the high value currencies were banned. Since then, it has achieved Rs 16,150 crore total payment volume (TPV) annual run rate in 10 months, according to the company. Its monthly transactions have grown 800 percent since December last year, fueled largely by exponential growth in online merchant, mobile recharge and bill payment transactions. In the first article in a series on demonetisation, Rahul Chari, co-founder and chief technological officer spoke to Firstpost on how demonetisation has helped charge the company to new heights though the demand has now been sloped off.

Excerpts from the conversation:

Demonetisation has been a growth driver for digital payments.

While most articles talk of demonetisation as a driver of digital payments, it was only a catalyst. The government has been doing a great job in getting the building blocks for Indias digital transformation ready with Aadhaar, Jan Dhan Yojna, UPI etc. Demonetisation was a very effective catalyst in driving wide spread awareness of various digital payment methods available to the consumer and also the value and convenience of going digital wherever possible.

PhonePe was launched as an app for UPI. Did that help you to get traction quickly?

PhonePes app was launched for customers only in September 2016. Demonetisation did give us a fillip by increasing the number of users for PhonePe given that we were the best UPI app in the market at that point. Since then we have continued to add more and more use cases for the consumer in the PhonePe app which has helped us maintain our leadership in UPI. We have seen a tremendous amount of growth since our launch last year and have crossed the milestone of a million transactions a day. Before demonetisation, we had 10,000 transactions a day.

PhonePe is a digital payments container in which a consumer can choose any instrument they prefer, be it UPI, credit and debit cards, wallets, including third-party wallets like JioMoney, and use it for money transfers, salary payment, recharges, paying utility bills, shopping online and offline etc. Customers can also set monthly payment reminders and check their bank account balance.

You recently launched a POS device. What took you so long to come out with a device for merchant payments?

We were working on developing this device for more than a year now. The device has been built keeping Indian merchants and customers in mind. It does not require an internet connection and runs on a regular battery. The use of Bluetooth as the underlying technology makes the protocol used for the transaction robust and widely compatible. The solution provides several layers of security to ensure merchant and customer transaction safety. We will pilot it in Bengaluru with about 5,000 devices shortly before rolling it out across the country.

The POS device is a new addition which is a simple calculator for small merchants who are still uncomfortable with the concept of digital payments. We chose to model it in the form of a simple calculator as it is ubiquitous and anyone can use. All that the merchant has to do is enter the amount, and press the PhonePe button. The customer brings the phone close to the POS device to receive the transaction details. The customer selects the payment mode of his choice on the PhonePe app and completes the payment. The green LED lights up on the device to confirm the payment to the merchant.

Haven't the effects of demonetisation waning with easing of the liquidity crunch?

Our transactions have been almost doubling every two months and we do not see that changing in the near future. By all measures we are the fastest growing payments app in the country. We have over 50 million app installs in the span of 10 months and have very high customer retention at 85 percent. The focus is obviously to create more brand awareness but we are very happy with our retention. We are constantly also working on giving a great experience to our users by creating more use cases in-app and also increasing the number of acceptance points at online and offline merchants. When we launched last year, the initial traction was from urban centres but with more coverage on localisation and by converting cash use cases such as Cash on Delivery (COD) payments into PhonePe payments for e-commerce players like Flipkart and others, we have been seeing more and more transactions from Tier 1 and 2 cities. Our addressable audience is large because of direct transfer from account through UPI.

What have been the challenges for you with demonetisation?

When we launched PhonePe, we started with our core offering of Person-to-Person (P2) money transfers using UPI. UPI makes sending money to anyone very easy. However, UPI itself was very new when demonetisation happened. A lot of people were trying UPI for the first time and there were many questions. what does UPI mean? How to use it? what is a UPI PIN? We helped customers by increasing the number of languages they could use from four to six and now the PhonePe app is available in over 12 languages. We built easy FAQs on how to set a UPI account, how to use the PIN and how to transact using UPI. We changed the FAQs (frequently asked questions) and worked on educating customers since there was a rush of people using UPI through PhonePe.

UPI was to our advantage when we started but besides that wallet, credit and debit card transactions have also seen traction at our end. Though we have a lot of instruments for payments, the demand continues to be the highest for UPI payments.

Are regulations in favour? If a customer loses money there are strong laws abroad for protecting them but it is not so in India. Your take on it?

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has always put the customer first and continues to ensure that the customer is not impacted in non-cash transactions. Because of the two-factor identification rule, the number of fraudulent usages of digital money instruments is very low in India. Besides that the RBI also focusses on regular audits of systems and processes of all companies providing digital payment solutions through which they ensure that the consumer continues to be protected.
Time was when real estate was substantially bankrolled by black money with places like Delhi witnessing as much as 40 percent payment being made in cash hush-hush. State governments have been setting store by periodic revision in guideline value to counter this menace in order to guard their own revenue -- stamp duty on transfer. But then the guideline value is only for land whereas used properties involve both land and buildings. That is why cash still ruled the roost. However demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on 8 November 2016 has put the fear of God into the minds of real estate dealers as well as one-off buyers and sellers.

Cash is no longer insisted upon or offered much less and that rules the roost. This is the single most important achievement of demonetisation. Real estate along with gold has had the dubious distinction of being branded as convenient shelters for parking black money.

On the gold front too, the surge in investments in paper gold (ETF) is a ringing endorsement of Modi governments relentless and frontal attack on black money including through demonetisation. Of course paper gold has other factors too going in its favor like---safety, purity, no storage cost etc.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) that followed demonetisation has been pilloried by detractors of the Modi government with Rahul Gandhi calling it Gabbar Singh Tax (GST) whereas the truth is it is a tax on Gabbbar Singhs of the nether world hitherto operating in subterranean channels.

Out of the Rs 15.44 lakh crore in currency that was rendered invalid on 8 November 2016, Rs 15.28 lakh crore has come back into the Indian banking system. This means that 98.96 percent of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes that were banned returned to the banks by the end of June 2017.

Carping critics like Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie have interpreted these figures to mean official money laundering of illicit money, little realising that tax sleuths are still investigating the genuineness of these deposits with many jewelers shaking in their boots for their dubious complicity for playing the handmaiden role on the night of 8 November, 2016.

A report in The Wire also discounts a good chunk of the high value demonetised notes not returning into the banking system on the ground. As much as Rs 3,000 crore of Indian currency is held in the tiny neighboring country Bhutan and it suspects Bhutan blithely countenancing the circulation of the demonetised notes as does Nepal. In these two countries, the Indian governments writ does not run admittedly.

Indeed, the jury is still out on the success of the admittedly traumatic demonetisation. While mainstreaming of the economy is a feather in the governments cap, whether crooks bluff has been called will be revealed only in the future. Excess deposit growth in the banking system during the demonetisation period (11 November, 2016 to 30 December, 2016) works out to 4.0-4.7 percentage points says a report in The Hindu . Banks must be goaded into advancing loans for business purposes instead of sitting tight on it.

Arun Jaitley has put the issue in perspective quite picturesquely -- the Modi government has achieved ease of doing business whereas the UPA government facilitated ease of doing corruption. That by about brings out the success or otherwise of demonetisation.

Modi has indeed won the perception war on demonetisation whereas pedantic economists and pathological Modi-baiters refuse to give him credit on the ground that in the short term the nation, especially its small business, was traumatised.

Is cash payment a crime, wonders Rahul Gandhi and his ilk. No, it is not in the humdrum of life for small transactions but it tantalises crooks with its anonymity when it comes to big time transactions away from the mainstream. The Modi government can take pardonable pride in celebrating November 8 as anti-black money day.
In a few days, the first anniversary of demonetisation will be here. The Narendra Modi government will continue doing what it has done in the last one year  give demonetisation a positive spin.

But how can a decision which made 86.4 percent of the currency in circulation useless overnight, in a country where 80-98 percent of the transactions were carried out in cash (depending on which estimate you would like to believe), be a positive one?

Lets take a look at Figure 1. It basically plots the annual growth in non-oil non-gold non-silver imports.

Figure 1:

What does Figure 1 tell us? First, it tells us that the annual growth in non-oil non-gold non-silver imports had been rather subdued since January 2015. In fact, it has been in the negative territory several times, especially in a few months before November 2016, when demonetisation was announced.

But after November 2016, the growth in non-oil non-gold non-silver imports simply took off and reached a peak of 42.5 percent in April 2017. This basically means that these imports were 42.5 percent higher in April 2017 comparison with April 2016.

What does this tell us? It tells us that a significant portion of the consumer demand post demonetisation has been fulfilled through higher imports. So far so good.

Demonetisation basically disrupted and destroyed supply chains, both in the formal as well as the informal economy. With supply chains being destroyed, the supply of domestic goods has been replaced by imports and has not been fulfilled through the production of domestic firms.

It is worth remembering here that imports are a negative entry into the gross domestic product (GDP) formula.

Y = GDP

C = Private Consumption Expenditure

I = Investment

G = Government Expenditure

NX = Exports minus imports

Hence, if imports grow at a faster pace than exports, they pull down the GDP to that extent. Exports during this year (between April to September) have gone up by around 10.9 percent compared with last year. Imports are up by 22.3 percent. Given this, it is not surprising that the economy has slowed down. The growth for the non-government part of the economy, which forms around 90 percent of the total, was around 4.3 percent during April-June 2017. This was more than 9 percent in early 2016.

Hence, demonetisation has played a huge role in slowing down economic growth. And this is tragic given that one million Indians are entering the workforce every month. In fact, it has also rendered a standard tactic in reviving economic growth, pretty much useless.

Allow me to explain. When countries are not doing well on the economic front, the standard prescription offered by economists is for the government to spend more. When the government spends more, the extra spending becomes somebodys income. When that income is spent, businesses benefit, and the economy revives.

The trouble is that in the current situation if such a prescription is applied on India (actually to some extent it already has been), the government spending will eventually create consumer demand, a substantial portion of which will be fulfilled through imports. Imports, as we have already seen, are a negative entry into the GDP formula. Given this, a fiscal expansion instead (the act of government spending more) of creating faster economic growth might just slow it down.

The point being that we arent done yet with the negative effects of demonetisation. Theres more to come.

(Vivek Kaul is the author of Indias Big GovernmentThe Intrusive State and How It is Hurting Us.)
India has jumped 30 places in the Ease of Doing Business rankings by the World Bank for 2018. What has helped India to get to the top 100 are its reforms in access to credit, power supplies and protection of minority investors. This is for the first time the country is surging to this spot. Though it has given the Narendra Modi government reasons to be happy, it has attracted much criticism from the Opposition. At Firstpost, we spoke with investors, founders and chief executive officers of startups to know their experience for a ground reality check.

In the first of our video interview series, we feature 1441 Pizzeria, a chain of pizza outlets by two young entrepreneurs Krishna Gupta and Istayak Ansari who tell us the hurdles on the journey to set up a startup. The idea for the Pizzeria was the brainchild of Gupta, managing director and co-founder, who along with his dad found wood-fired pizzas in Italy, which is a big hit with customers there.

"That set my dad and me thinking about starting a similar thin crust and wood-fired pizza chain in India. We roped in Istayak Ansari who we know for many years now and who is a co-founder in another startup with us," says Gupta.

1441 Pizzeria, so-named after the latitude and longitude of Naples - the city that inspired the pizzeria, started operations in Mumbai early this year and has opened one unit each in Fort and Lokhandwala in Mumbai. The third outlet opened on Friday at Lower Parel and the fourth one will open in Malad on 8 November. It has also opened two kiosks in Inox theatres. "We plan to open 22 outlets by end 2022," said Ansari.

"Our differentiation is that we allow the customers to choose unlimited toppings and offer authentic pizzas with an Italian chef on board," he says.

Expressing happiness over India's jump in ease of doing business rankings, Ansari feels that India has a 'long way to go' before it can reach the top 50. "I say that because the competition gets tougher as you climb up the rankings and for that we need to ease a few hurdles that impact businesses," he says.

Watch the video to find out how the duo evaluate the 10 parameters for the the ease of doing business.
New Delhi: An association of traders has blamed Infosys for the glitches in the GST Network and demanded a CBI probe into its alleged negligences, a charge that India's second-largest IT services firm vehemently denied.

Infosys in 2015 won a Rs 1,380-crore deal for developing and running Goods and Services Taxs (GST) backend, called GST-Network or GSTN.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) in a statement said it was "disgusted with the poor and dismal performance of GST portal" and held Infosys majorly responsible for it.

The traders body demanded a "CBI enquiry against Infosys and other companies who were assigned the work of creating, updating and maintenance of GST portal".

Refuting the allegation, Infosys said they were "completely false".

"Infosys is very proud to be associated with the prestigious GST project which is the largest tax project of its kind in the world. The system has already demonstrated success across several parameters," it said in a statement.

Infosys, however, said a transformative large project has to deal with changes in both policy and stakeholder usability and some of these modifications have resulted in rapid changes to the system like its integration with Aadhaar and heterogeneous IT ecosystems.

"Given the complex nature of the project and rapid change management, there have been several stakeholder concerns that have also been raised. Some of our finest engineers are supporting the GSTN team as they work towards resolving these and serving all stakeholders," it added.

CAIT said it needs to be investigated as to upon what conditions the work was awarded to Infosys and other companies and negligence in their part for non performance of the contract.

"Even after four months of GST implementation, the GST portal which was supposed to function properly from July 1 itself is still working like an experiment project causing much harassment and concern to traders," it said.

CAIT said more than three years and Rs 1,400 crore has already been spent on the portal with "no results".

"The failure of the portal could be gauged from the fact that date for filing of GST return for even July month is extended upto November 30," it said.

On the other hand, Infosys said the network has seen 37 crore invoices being uploaded till date while the system is designed to handle 300 to 320 crore invoices every month.

While 70 lakh tax payers have successfully migrated to the new system, 29 lakh new taxpayers have been registered.

"Central and state level tax regimes have been integrated with all 29 States and 7 Union Territories successfully migrating onto this system," Infosys said adding the system has handled 1 lakh active users.

The system saw peak loads during the last two days of filing, with 50 percent of the filings done in that time frame and 70 percent of the collection achieved with just 25 percent of server utilisation, demonstrating the systems ability to manage scale, it said.

CAIT demanded a third party audit into technical and other issues related to the portal. It asked the government to release a White Paper on date status of GST portal.

It claimed that the poor functioning of portal has brought bad name for a good taxation system like GST and utter frustration to the traders who are mostly unable to make GST compliance on account of malfunctioning of the portal.
Mumbai: The Haryana government on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Verbind, an integrated trade facilitation services organisation, to set up a logistics and trading hub in the state that would attract investment to the tune of Rs 20,000 crore, a release from CII said.

The hub will be spread over an area of 600 acres near Gurugram, and the public-private project is expected to generate employment for six lakh people, it said.

Under the MoU, the government will facilitate Verbinds efforts to obtain necessary permissions, registrations, approvals and clearances with reference to the projects from relevant departments, in line with existing rules, policies and regulations, the release said.

The Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) will be the nodal agency for the project.

"Haryana is ranked first among north Indian states in the ease of doing business index of the government, and sixth in the country," Haryana Principal Secretary, Industries and Commerce, Sudhir Rajpal said at the CII Invest North 2017 event here on Thursday.

Investor-friendly policies, a young population, skilled manpower, highest per capita income and a huge urban market are the key factors driving the states growth, he said.
The Supreme Court took up the Aadhaar case on Friday and pulled up private companies for their messages asking customers to mandatorily link Aadhaar number to bank accounts and mobile phone numbers. The apex court also sought the Centre's response on the four petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act.

SC directs gvt to tell banks that messages sent to customers for linking Aadhaar to bank a/c should indicate customers hv time till Dec31'17  ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017

It was brought to the notice of the court by the petitioners that telecom companies and Banks were sending messages threatening to freeze SIMs and bank accounts. In response to this, a bench comprising Justices AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan, however, said that the banks and telecom service providers should indicate the last date of linking bank accounts and mobile numbers with Aadhaar is 31 December and 6 February respectively, in the messages sent by them to their customers.

Justice Sikri said that even he was receiving such messages which warned that non-compliance could lead to disconnection of connection, according to CNN-News18.

"We make it clear that in the messages sent by banks and telecom service providers, the date of 31 December, 2017 and 6 February, 2018, shall also be indicated as the last date of linking Aadhaar with bank accounts and mobile numbers," the bench said.

The court also declined to grant a stay as the Aadhaar case would be heard at the end of November. However if the case was not heard as scheduled, then a stay would be considered.

On 30 October, a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra had said that a Constitution bench would be constituted and Aadhaar-related matters would come up for hearing before it in the last week of November.

Several petitions challenging the Centre's move to make Aadhaar card mandatory for availing various services and benefits of government welfare schemes have been filed in the apex court.

The Centre had on 25 October told the Supreme Court that the deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar to receive the benefits of government schemes has been extended till 31 March, 2018 for those who do not have the 12-digit unique biometric identification number and were willing to enroll for it.

Some petitioners in the top court have termed the linking of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) number with bank accounts and mobile numbers as "illegal and unconstitutional". They also objected to the CBSE's alleged move to make Aadhaar card mandatory for students appearing for examinations, a contention denied by the Centre.

Recently, a nine-judge constitution bench of the apex court had held that Right to Privacy was a Fundamental Right under the Constitution. Several petitioners challenging the validity of Aadhaar had claimed it violated privacy rights.

The centre in an affidavit had earlier told the Supreme Court that all subscribers must link their Aadhaar card number with their mobile phone numbers by 6 February, under the e-KYC verification. According to The Times of India, this order had come in the wake of the Lok Niti Foundation case, where the court is said to have made the linking mandatory. The apex court had also said that linking should be completed by 6 February. Failing to do so may lead to deactivation of the SIM card. This effort is to ensure that terrorists and fraudsters cannot be issued SIM cards.

The Centre had further added that the 12-digit number and the mobile number must be linked within the stipulated time frame since a decision like extending the deadline cannot be extended unilaterally.

However, one of the counsel representing the petitioners had earlier said the final hearing in the main Aadhaar matter, which is pending before the apex court, was ecessary as the government "cannot compel" citizens to link their Aadhaar with either bank accounts or cell phone numbers.

This report takes inputs from Gautam Bhatia's twitter feed where he reported the proceedings
Kochi: Superstar Dileep, who is out on bail in the Malayalam actress abduction and assault case, has written to the state home secretary seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the case.

The 12-page letter, sent on Friday to the secretary, said that he was given a raw deal by the police team headed by additional director general of police B Sandhya. The actors request came at a time when the police is set to file the final charge sheet in the kidnapping of an actress.

Dileep was released on bail, on the fifth time he applied for it, last month and since then, he has been on a pilgrimage visiting various places of worship, including the Sabarimala temple.

Dileep was arrested on 10 July after the police probe team found clinching evidence to link him to the conspiracy part of the kidnapping.

The abduction of the popular actress took place in February when she was on her way from Thrissur to Kochi. She was driven around in her vehicle and allegedly molested for about two hours before being dumped near an actor-directors home.

The key accused Pulsar Suni and his accomplices, involved in the actual abduction, were arrested a week later.
Ittefaq is not a remake. Its basic inspiration has of course come from the 1969 thriller of the same name directed by Yash Chopra, starring Rajesh Khanna, Nanda and Iftekhar (which in turn drew on already existing sources), but apart from a handful of building blocks, there is really no resemblance between these two films.

Here's what this week's release has in common with the original: a man accused of his wife's murder escapes and takes a hostage in a house where another murder takes place. The roles played by the lead trio nearly half a century back are here taken on by Sidharth Malhotra, Sonakshi Sinha and Akshaye Khanna.

Malhotra is Vikram Sethi, a bestselling UK-based author who is in Mumbai for the launch of his new book. When we first encounter him, he is driving his car down a busy road while a bunch of police vehicles give chase. He has an accident and disappears from the scene in a severely injured condition. Through a chain of circumstances, Vikram ends up accused of two murders, his alleged victims being his wife Catherine Sethi and a man called Shekhar Sinha, the husband of a woman called Maya Sinha (Sonakshi Sinha) in whose house he took refuge while hiding from the police. Dev Verma (Akshaye Khanna), who is in charge of the investigations, is given three days by his boss to solve the case, due to the political pressure from the UK government to let Vikram go since he is a UK citizen.

Director Abhay Chopra's Ittefaq (written by Chopra with Shreyas Jain and Nikhil Mehrotra) has the audience and Dev grappling with one question throughout its 107 minutes and 48 seconds running time: should we believe Vikram or Maya's version of events that took place in her house before and after Vikram's arrival? I did not arrive at an answer till the end, and when the truth was finally revealed, it was not what I was expecting.

This is not to suggest that this Ittefaq is an oh-my-god-my-breath-just-stopped kind of whodunit. One major irritant persists throughout and robs the film of finesse. (Possible spoiler ahead, please do not read the rest of this paragraph before watching the film) Although we are told that Vikram is well-connected and that the UK sarkar is pushing its Indian counterpart to tighten the screws on the Mumbai police, we see no evidence of this. Quite to the contrary, Vikram goes to the extent of speaking freely with Dev without once asking for a lawyer or being advised by friends to do so. Also, clearly merely in the interests of stretching the narrative across the pre-determined three days of its length (rather than that one night in the earlier Ittefaq), Dev takes two days to get Vikram and Maya's respective stories out of them in installments during interrogations, instead of extracting the complete story out of each at one go and then cross questioning them. This defies logic since he is otherwise shown to be a smart policeman who is often frustrated with his colleagues' inefficiencies. Further, the cocky confession from the otherwise level-headed killer in the end, at a time when they could still have been booked for the crime, seems uncharacteristic of them and appears to have been timed to needlessly elevate the suspense in that climactic scene, considering that the person could well have waited for a day or two to disclose their secret without risk. (Spoiler alert ends)

Still, Ittefaq has enough going for it to make it an entertaining experience. Crucial to its effectiveness is the manner in which it sustains interest levels from start to finish with its crisp storytelling, Nitin Baid's editing that walks a fine line between keeping the narrative fast-paced and unhurried (it is just right), and the excellent balance between silent stretches interspersed with background music.

Malhotra, Sinha and Khanna deliver credible performances. And Michal Sebastian Luka's camerawork replete with close-ups of the three central characters, mostly in semi-lit spaces and golden glows, heightens the sense of mystery and lends an air of realism to the proceedings. The slip-ups by the police are believable since we are all well acquainted with the state of Indian crime scene investigations (look no further than the very public Aarushi Talwar murder case for evidence).

Ittefaq may not be perfect, but it is clever enough. Bollywood rarely does thrillers well. This one is not brilliant, but it is fun while it lasts.
In William Shakespeare's adaptation of Julius Caesar, there's a line that stands out in context of current news: "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." This seems to fit perfectly with Kevin Spacey, given the current crop of accusations and allegation hurled at him.

According to recent reports, the talent agency CAA is no longer representing Kevin Spacey as of late Thursday (2 November) evening.

A person with knowledge of the decision who was not authorised to speak, publicly confirmed that both CAA and Spacey's publicist Staci Wolfe have parted ways with the actor amid growing claims of sexual harassment against him.

Representatives from the agency did not immediately respond to Associated Press' request for comment.

CNN reported, on 2 November, that eight current or former House of Cards workers claim Spacey made the Netflix production a "toxic" workplace and one ex-employee alleges the actor sexually assaulted him.

Along with that, Vulture carried a report that interviewed a man who claims to have had a sexual relationship with Spacey when the former was 14 and the latter was 24. This anonymous person, currently aged 48, had first met Spacey in the year 1981. This was two years before their alleged "relationship" started.

Spacey then took weekend acting classes as a guest teacher in Westchester County, while he was an active member of the New York theater scene. Two years later, in 1983, they met again after Spacey shared his telephone number. And with that began a physical relationship that met a rather unpleasant end.

He says that he was really excited by the prospect of dating Spacey then. "I felt like I'd won the lottery. A little drunk with it and very delighted with the attention," he told Vulture.

But a year into the relationship, when the anonymous interviewee turned 15, Spacey, in one of their encounters, said he wanted to have sex with him. Till then, they just fooled around without going all the way. When he refused, Spacey allegedly pounced at him and attempted to rape him.

However, Spacey's lawyer reverted to these claims stating his client absolutely "denies the allegation".

The whole controversy to Spacey's alleged "predatory" advances began when Anthony Rapp revealed that Spacey tried to make sexual advances at him when he was 14 and Spacey was 26. Rapp's revelation came in the wake of Weinstein's scandalous sexual harassment row. Post this, Spacey apologised to him and attributed his misconduct to being under influence of alcohol.

(With inputs from AP)
Noted writer of Hindi literature Krishna Sobti will be conferred with the country's highest literary honour, Jnanpith Award this year in 2017.

Sobti will be awarded with a cash prize of Rs 11 lakh, a certificate and a memento as part of the 53rd Jnanpith Award ceremony.

According to a report by NDTV, Leeladhar Mandloi, ex-officio of the selection board, said that Sobti was unanimously selected as this year's awardee in the selection board's meeting.

Jnanpith Award is given every year to an author for his/her outstanding contribution to Indian literature.

Sobti was born on 18 February, 1925 in the Gujarat province of now Pakistan. After the partition, she came to Delhi and ever since she has been writing from the capital itself, reports livehindustan.com.

In 1980, Sobti was conferred with the Sahitya Akademi Award for her novel Zindaginama. In 1996, she was also awarded with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, NDTV reports.

Sobti's other magnificent works include Aye Ladki, Mitro Marjani and Jaini Meherban Singh, to name a few.

This year the Jnanpith Awards' selection committee had Girishwar Mishra, Harish Trivedi, Ramakant Rath on board. Last year, the award was given to the popular Bengali writer Sankha Ghosh.

As part of the rules of the governing body, Bengali and Gujarati language writers were not eligible for this year's award  as the past two winners were from these languages.
In an exclusive chat with Firstpost, director Praveen Sattaru spoke about his new film  PSV Garuda Vega, which is being pitched as the first Telugu movie on the National Investigation Agency (NIA); working with yesteryear star Rajasekhar, and the action sequences, which have generated quite the buzz. Slated for release on Friday (3 November), the film also stars Pooja Kumar and Shraddha Das. Excerpts from the interview:

It surprised a lot of us that you chose actor Rajasekhar, who hasnt been in great form, for this big-budget action spectacle...

I felt hes the right choice. When he was at the top of his league, some of his popular films had insane action sequences and this film too has realistic action which I wanted my lead actor to perform with minimum to no support from a body double. Youd be surprised to know the kind of effort he (Rajasekhar) has put into this film, especially in the action scenes. From underwater action to jumping off a fly-over, he had no qualms about doing these things. Moreover, hes fit and was quite apt for the role. All I had to do was change his mannerisms to play a contemporary NIA officer, who is struggling to balance his professional and family life.

Was Rajasekhar the first choice when you wrote the script?

I wrote the first draft of the script in 2006. I never approached anyone with the script because I needed an actor who can stand tall in the character. When I got a call from Jeevitha (Rajasekhars wife) and we sat down to discuss a few scripts, I pitched PSV Garuda Vega and I was confident that itd work with Rajasekhar. I told him the film will be a modernised version of his highly popular cop drama Magaadu. Since I first wrote it in 2006, I had to make changes to suit the contemporary setting and at the same time customize it for Rajasekhar.

Rajasekhar is the biggest star you have associated with in your career so far. Did that have any effect on your working experience?

I always consider the script as the star. If a character and the script demand certain things, then we give it and the actor has to adapt. In his case, he came to the set with no expectations. He treated himself as a debutant and gave full freedom to me to make the film I had set out to deliver. He was clear about the fact that he was not used to contemporary characters as most of his films had in-your-face kind of drama, so he wanted me to extract work out of him. If you see the trailer, you dont find his usual mannerisms and that was the first step of our success.

Given that this is a Rs 25 crore action extravaganza, did it never occur to you that you could have made this film with a bigger star with bigger market potential?

When you start a project with some actor, the thought should not cross your mind that you could have made this film with a bigger star because then youre not focusing on your product. It really doesnt matter how much budget is spent on the film because times have changed. Post-Baahubali, the industry has opened up and the market has widened. If a film like Arjun Reddy, made on a budget of Rs 2 crore, can rake in around Rs 40 crore, where is the concept of 'star'? Its all about whether or not a film is able to engage the audience and it doesnt matter if it features a star or not. Audiences dont go by the fact that Rajasekhar is in a film anymore because if they are engaged, they just dont care about anything else. In our case, having Rajasekhar in such a big budget film helped us garner a lot of attention because people wanted to know what we are doing. When the teaser and trailer came out, their curiosity was piqued and it took their expectations to the next level. I think audiences have set limitations to what Rajasekhar could do going by his past work and this is exactly what we wanted because when they watch the film on Friday, most of them would be blown away by what weve achieved with him.

The high-end action, going by the visuals from the trailer, has already created quite the hype. Could you elaborate on what youve achieved in terms of action?

I strongly believe action has to always blend in with the story. I designed the action sequences while writing the script because I wanted them to be realistic. I designed it in a way that itd make sense. I wrote elaborate action sequences and we choreographed each action episode with miniature toys even before we went on the floors. Also, the action in the film will have an emotional appeal and I believe its very important to connect with the audience. I cant think of a better example than the amazing 10-minute highway sequence in The Matrix Reloaded because it had a lot of elements and it was not just mindless action.

The film talks about the NIA and how it operates. Did it require extensive research to write a script around the lifestyle of an NIA officer?

In India, we dont have a clandestine organisation such as the CIA, or FBI. There is the CBI, but it has its limitations. When youre writing about an FBI counterpart in India, youre giving the writers the scope to run their imaginations wild. NIA, in a way, gave us the freedom to imagine a lot of things because nobody quite knows it operates.
Mumbai: A special court in Mumbai trying the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks case on Friday issued non-bailable warrant against an assistant commissioner of Delhi Police's special cell for non-appearance in the court.

The court had last month summoned Manishi Chandra, who had arrested key plotter and Lashkar-e-Taiba operative Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal.

It had also asked the registrar of Patiala Court to come before it.

Chandra informed the court that he was busy in some investigation.

Special judge GA Sanap observed that the matter was fixed for evidence and the accused (Jundal) was an undertrial.

The court also said that the matter is required to be disposed of as early as possible and summons was issued for attendance of witness as well as for production of documents well in advance.

"I am satisfied on perusal of record that the witness has avoided to attend this court without any sound reason," judge Sanap observed.

The court said that Chandra has not only avoided attending the court but informed the officer of (Patiala) court that he will not be attending, hence the officer of the court has not attended the court and provided documents.

"It seems that the witness who is served with the summons and the officer of court  Pankaj Bharti  decided unilaterally that hearing of this matter should not go on," observed the court.

"In my view this is very serious and wrong on their part. Both of them have directly or indirectly attempted to interfere with the proceedings by not attending the same," the judge said.

Noting that Chandra has disobeyed the summons and the grounds stated for non attendance are totally unacceptable, the court said, "Police officer must give first preference to the evidence matter before any other matter. In view of this state of affairs, I am of the view that it would be proper to issue NBW against the witness (Chandra)."

The court also rejected the prayer of special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam that last chance be granted and warrant may not be issued.

Last month Chandra was summoned by the court to record his evidence in the 26/11 case.

Chandra had arrested Jundal and seized a Pakistani passport bearing name Riyasat Ali Khusi Mohammed which bears Jundal's photograph.

He had also seized a national identity card of the government of Pakistan and a green coloured card both bearing Jundal's photograph.

A native of Beed district of Maharashtra, Jundal was interrogated after he was brought here from Delhi where he had been arrested following his deportation from Saudi Arabia in June 2012.

The Mumbai terror attacks of November 2008 left 166 dead and many more injured. In the case Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab was caught alive and later he was tried in court and was executed.

The charge sheet has details about Jundal's training in Pakistan, preparations ahead of 26/11, LeT hierarchy, the precise role played those involved, among others.

According to Jundal's confession, LeT training camps enjoyed full support from local, federal police and paramilitary organisations in Pakistan.

According to the charge sheet, after fleeing from Maharashtra, Jundal entered Bangladesh in May 2006 where he was received by an ISI agent.

He then used a boarding pass issued in a fictitious name to fly PIA flight to Pakistan.

Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley was in 2016 examined as witness in the case. He deposed via video link from US.
Srinagar: Contrary to claims made by the central government that demonetisation will help curb incidents of militancy, Kashmir has continued to witness deadly attacks while people continue to resort to stone pelting to help militants escape from encounter sites. It is clear that a wide network of over-ground workers (OGWs) and militant sympathisers is intact, due to which they have managed to procure a regular flow of funds.

Even as better security surveillance has ensured that the militants don't openly raise funds through public donations  a practice prevalent in the 1990s  security officials said that the dependence on funding from sympathisers and OGWs in Kashmir continues.

According to officials, there has been no check on the number of youths who have joined militant ranks and demonetisation has not been able to curb the incidents of militancy in the Valley. As per records of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and Jammu and Kashmir police, in 2013, as many as 53 security force personnel and 67 militants were killed. In 2014, it was 47 and 110 respectively, while in 2015, the number was 39 and 108. In 2016 the number remained as high as 82 and 150.

This year, while 160 militants have been killed so far, the number of security personnel killed is around 40. Director general of police SP Vaid said that of the 40 security personnel killed since January, 24 are police personnel.

According to security officials, militants had faced a shortage of cash for some time after demonetisation, due to which they turned to bank robberies, but their primary source of funding was from local businessmen. Police earlier disclosed that the militants of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Hizbul Mujahideen were behind the incidents of bank robberies.

On 10 September, the government forces killed two Hizbul militants in Barbugh area of Shopian while a third militant had surrendered. Among the slain militants, Tariq Ahmad Bhat was involved in an incident of a bank robbery which had taken place at Turqwangam area of Shopian on 16 February this year, said a top police official.

Four masked gunmen had looted Rs three lakh from a bank. Senior police officials said that the south Kashmir areas of Shopian, Kulgam and Pulwama have seen increasing number of bank robberies. In Shopian district, officials said, at least six incidents of bank robberies have been reported while as in Kulgam as well half a dozen such cases took place.

But police officials said that the militants depend largely on OGWs for both arms and money. Days after forces killed Tariq in south Kashmir, on 24 September, they arrested two youths working as OGWs for Hizbul. Identified as Waheed Ahmad Bhat and Mohammad Shafi Mir, they were found to be working for Hizbul's divisional commander, Pervaiz Ahmad Wani, who was killed in September in the Sopore town of Kashmir.

The police also recovered hand grenades and other ammunition from them. "The OGWs are not only used for ferrying weapons, they also help the militants hide in some houses and arrange money for them," a senior police official said.

In the last one year, after the killing of Hizbul militant commander Burhan Muzafar Wani, public support for militants has only increased which has helped them grow their network of sympathisers, officials said.

"The militants are short of money, but nevertheless they depend on their sympathisers for funds. Demonetisation is one factor which partly created a cash shortage for them, but the killing of top militants is actually responsible for drying up of cash. Financial dealings are done by the militant commander... we killed many commanders due to which the rank and file is facing a shortage of money," superintendent of police, Shopian, AS Dinkar said.

Former chief commander of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), Javed Ahmad Mir, said that the "freedom movement in Kashmir has been running on public support". He said that when militancy started in 1989, the "ongoing resistance movement was supported by the people by giving cash".

Mir, who had become a part of the separatist movement in 1979, by remaining associated with the Students League, said that the public support for militancy has not dwindled and they depend on the "money from their sympathisers" to carry on with their activities.

"Home Minister Rajnath Singh is wrong when he says that militancy incidents have declined in Kashmir after demonetisation. The arm-twisting policies will have no impact on Kashmir. The armed movement has been continuing for several decades and there is no impact," he said.

Mir remained active as a JKLF militant for five years since 1989, seeking independence from Indian rule before the Liberation Front declared a ceasefire. "JKLF has a record of receiving money from people... because we were seeking independence," he said.

Former Hizbul commander Zafar Akbar Bhat, who was part of the group lead by slain militant commander Abdul Majeed Dar, which had declared a ceasefire with the Indian government in 2000, said: "It was due to the public support that the ongoing movement is still continuing. The support for Mujahids has always been there."

Bhat was an active militant of Hizbul, which has been seeking a merger of the state with Pakistan, for over 22 years and was one of the only few commanders who remained associated with militancy since its start in 1989.

Read: Kashmir's economy still in doldrums; security at banks, ATMs remains a concern
New Delhi: The CBI has carried out searches at six places in Delhi and Kolkata in connection with its probe into the AgustaWestland chopper case and seized documents, cash and jewellery, an official said on Thursday.

During searches,among others, at the premises of Om Metals Managing Director Sunil Kothari in Delhi, Abhinand Vanchiya Director NK Jain and Rajesh Kumar Jain in Kolkata on Wednesday, several documents and Rs 55.68 lakh in cash were seized from Kothari's residence and Rs 29 lakh from NK Jain's residence, the official told IANS.

The agency also seized jewellery worth over Rs one crore from the lockers of Jain's wife and their daughter-in-law.

Income Tax authorities had been informed about the seizure of cash, the official said.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has alleged that the accused had laundered the money of three alleged European middlemen  Christian Michel, Guido Haschke, and Carlo Gerosa  given to the former Indian Air Force chief, SP Tyagi, and his cousin Sanjeev alias Julie through shell companies.

The CBI official said that a request for the extradition of Gerosa had been made to the Ministry of External Affairs for onward transmission to Italy's Ministry of Justice.

The CBI action comes in a case registered on 12 March, 2013, wherein the agency alleged that Tyagi took bribes of several crores of rupees through middlemen and a complex route of companies in several countries from AgustaWestland to change the specifications of the contract for the supply of 12 choppers for VVIP duties.

The specifications were related to reducing operational flight ceiling from originally proposed 6,000 metres to 4,500 metres and bringing down the cabin height to 1.8 metres to enable the company win the contract.

The CBI said the illegal gratification was accepted through different companies in the name of consultancy services.

The agency filed a charge sheet on 1 September in the Rs 3,726 crore AgustaWestland chopper case against Tyagi, Sanjeev, then IAF Vice Chief JS Gujral, advocate Gautam Khaitan, Italian defence and aerospace major Finmeccanica's former chief Giuseppe Orsi, former AgustaWestland CEO Bruno Spagnolini, and three alleged European middleman.
Editor's note: This is the fourth and last article in a multi-part special series done by Firstpost where we document several problems of illegal immigration and ethnic turmoil that authorities in Assam face.

For the past over 32 years Assam has been searching for the definition of the terms "Assamese" and "indigenous people" of the state to decide the "constitutional safeguards" for them in accordance with the Assam Accord, but in vain, for want of political consensus. Now, when Assam is on the cusp of scripting history of becoming the first state in the country to get an updated National Register of Citizens, a fresh controversy as to who are the "original inhabitants" of the state threatens to overshadow the historic moment.

The controversy is brewing despite the office of State Coordinator of NRC clarifying through a public announcement leaflet that the "NRC will contain list of only Indian citizens and no categorization such as 'original inhabitant' or otherwise shall be made in the draft and final NRC list". The All Assam Minorities Students Union, the opposition parties Congress, All India United Democratic Front, CPM and several organisations from Barak valley in the state have objected to identifying applicants as "original inhabitants" for inclusion of names in the NRC on the ground that term "original inhabitant" is yet to be defined by constitutional authorities.

The All Assam Students' Union and 28 other organisations of different ethnic communities including All Bodo Students Union, on the other hand, insisted that "original inhabitants" must be used for compiling the updated NRC.

Eight political parties and 42 organisations of Assam placed their stand on the issue on record in separate meetings with the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India, Sailesh in Guwahati on 2 November when the latter visited the state with top officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs to take stock of the NRC work and take representation of political parties and the organisations.

Speaking on behalf of the AASU and 28 organisations, AASU advisor Samujjal Bhattacharya insisted that as the NRC is being updated on the basis of the Citizenship Act and The Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003 there is no scope for objecting or opposing the use of the term "Original Inhabitants" for compilation of the NRC and it must be used. The AASU as well as the student bodies and other organisations of the different ethnic communities expressed the apprehension that a conspiracy was on to include names of Bangladeshis in the NRC and demanded the RGI, NRC authorities, the Central and the state governments to make the verification process to be foolproof to foil any such attempt by vested forces.

The office of the State Coordinator, NRC has explained on its website the legal provision of "Original Inhabitant" thus: "As per provisions of Clause 3(3) of Schedule of The Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, The names of persons who are originally inhabitants of the state of Assam and their children and descendants, who are Citizens of India, shall be included in the consolidated list if the citizenship of such persons is ascertained beyond reasonable doubt and to the satisfaction of the registering authority. The Honble Supreme Court of India vide the Order dated 21st July 2015 in WRIT PETITION (CIVIL) NO(S). 562/2012 further stated that Insofar as clause 3(3) of the Schedule appended to the Rules is concerned, we clarify that the expression original inhabitants of the state of Assam would include the Tea Tribes and the inclusion of such original inhabitants would be on the basis of proof to the satisfaction of the Registering Authority which establishes the citizenship of such persons beyond reasonable doubt.

It has further clarified as the law provides for the "Original Inhabitants" to be included in NRC, this provision is being implemented to ensure that no "Original Inhabitant" is deprived of this legal protection and is excluded from NRC due to unavailability of any document or any such reason.

The issue came to the fore when the State Coordinator, NRC Prateek Hajela, in a report submitted to the Supreme Court on 10 October stated that of 47 lakh applicants who claim inclusion on the basis of certificates issued by Gaon Panchayat secretaries approximately 17.40 lakh are "original inhabitants" and the registering authority is satisfied with regard to their citizenship.

Earlier on 24 August, a division bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Navin Sinha while passing an order on a bunch of Special Leave Petitions, directed the state coordinator, NRC to segregate the exercise of "original inhabitants" from among the 47 lakh applicants who claimed inclusion on the basis of certificates of panchayat secretaries, within four weeks times after he had submitted before the court that on being queried that expects about 20 lakhs claims to be in respect of "original inhabitants", which fact, if proved, will not require, any further proof or inquiry and all such persons will be included in the draft NRC and indicated that the exercise could be completed within four weeks.

The AAMSU stand is that in absence of a clear definition of "original inhabitants" names of many applicants belonging to religious and linguistic minorities who also have, the student body claim, "original inhabitants" in the state may be left out in the process of verification of the claims based on certificates issued by the Gaon Panchayat secretaries. The Congress too insisted that the use of the term Original Inhabitants would create a divide among those included in the NRC, which the party said is not warranted.

While the updated NRC is expected to provide an answer to the most difficult question as to how to identify the Bangladeshi migrants staying illegally in Assam so that they can be expelled back to the neighbouring country in accordance with the Assam Accord, the latest political developments in the state indicate that an updated citizens register might push the state to look for a consensus definition of the term Original inhabitants. Nobody will dare to hazard a guess, as to how long the search may continue the search for the definition of Assamese and indigenous people has not yielded any answer for over three decades.

Also Read

Quest for citizenship Part 1: As millions try to prove nationality in Assam, one man's story reveals the burden of proof

Assam's NRC quandary Part 2: No immediate end in sight as cut-off date for citizenship is yet to be finalised politically

Assam's NRC quandary Part 3: Sarbananda Sonowal will have his hands full in 2018 with draft citizenship registry, electoral roll

The author is a senior journalist and editor of NEZINE.
Pune: Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Thursday said the army has asked the HRD ministry to include a book on heroic achievements of the highest gallantry awards recipients from the armed forces in the school curricula.

He said the Army is hoping that this book will become part of the CBSE syllabus next year, as promised by the Human Resources Development minister.

"As far as honouring our martyrs is concerned, this year we have approached the HRD ministry to ensure that valour, bravery and sacrifice of some of our highest award winners are taught in the schools. Therefore this year we have come out with a book which highlights the gallant actions of our gallantry award winner officers from the Armed Forces," said Rawat at a function.

Rawat also said the Army is aiming to set up "galleries" giving information about the heroic deeds of personnel from the armed forces at universities and colleges. "We have successfully reached out to about 200 colleges and universities, but our aim in the next one or two years is to ensure that we have a gallery of these valiant officers in every university and college of our nation," he said.

These galleries will display sketches and photographs of gallantry award winners, their brief biodata and records of their achievements.

Rawat was speaking at a program organised by the BN Srivastava Foundation to mark completion of 10 years of an initiative under which school children are encouraged to make greeting cards as well as rakhis which are sent to members of the Armed Forces.

Asked about the government's decision to rope in the Army to build foot overbridges in Mumbai, Rawat told reporters, "Yes, we will construct these bridges, and the work will start soon". The decision, in the wake of a deadly stampede at Elphinstone Road station in September, has drawn criticism from some quarters, as it seeks to assign a 'civilian' task to the Army. "We do feel that if we can aid the government by doing a faster job before there are more casualties (then we would do it)," the Army chief said.

Asked about the situation on the China border, Rawat said everything was peaceful on that front.

As to whether the talks by the special representative appointed by the Centre with various stake-holders in Jammu and Kashmir and the operations of the security forces can proceed simultaneously, he said, "Interlocutors will have their dialogue and we will do our job."
A bus carrying many school children overturned and hit a divider on the Yamuna Expressway in Uttar Pradesh on Friday afternoon, police has said. Four of the children are reportedly in critical condition.

The students belonged to classes VI to VII of Alok Bharti School in Mandi in Himachal Pradesh. They were on their way to Agra for an excursion tour when the accident took place.

Agra : Students injured in bus accident due to trye burst, on Yamuna Expressway ; #Visuals from the hospital pic.twitter.com/4rg0gfBkUN  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) November 3, 2017

A police officer told IANS that the driver lost control of the bus after a tyre burst. "Since the bus was at a high speed, it overturned," he said. Those seriously injured have been admitted to the SN Medical College in Agra. Others were given first aid. Some of the teachers accompanying the students were also injured. However, according to ABP News, around 45 students were injured and one person was killed in the incident.

1 person dead, 45 students injured incl 5 critical in bus accident due to tyre burst on #YamunaExpressway near Agra  ABP News (@abpnewstv) November 3, 2017

According to News18, as many as 50 high school students were onboard and around 15 are critically injured.

#BREAKING -- Bus overturns after a tyre burst. 50 students were onboard, 15 are critically injured. The Bus was coming to Agra from Himachal pic.twitter.com/kOO81vorpN  News18 (@CNNnews18) November 3, 2017

With inputs from IANS
New Delhi: The Centre has given a six-month extension to the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) to submit its report, according to an official order.

The tribunal, which is looking into the dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over sharing of Cauvery water, was to submit the report by Thursday. The CWDT has, however, sought more time to do so.

The tribunal had on 5 February, 2007 asked Karnataka to release 192 thousand million cubic (TMC) feet water to lower riparian Tamil Nadu every year from June to January.

The party states had, however, challenged the CWDT order in the Supreme Court.

"...The central government hereby further extends the period of submission of further report by the said tribunal for a period up to 2 May, 2018," a notification reads.

The CWDT was constituted on 2 June, 1990 under section 4 of the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956 for the adjudication of the water dispute.

Kerala and Puducherry are the other two states party to the dispute.

Tamil Nadu has been accusing Karnataka of not releasing its due share of water. Whereas, Karnataka has expressed its inability to release the stipulated quantum of water owing to the drought situation in the state.
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Tamil Nadu chief minister E Palaniswamy took stock of the rain situation on Thursday, a day after two children were electrocuted after coming in contact with a live wire submerged in water, in Kodungaiyur locality in Chennai.

There are eports of downpour in many parts of the southern state, including Nagapattinam, where the monsoon fury has not only inundated low-lying areas, but also affected standing crops. Vaitheeswarankoil and Sirkazhi in the district have also been battered by heavy rains.

The State government has asked all schools and colleges across Chennai to remain closed for Friday citing precautionary measures after five died of electrocution on Wednesday, NDTV reported.

Some numbers which may be helpful for Chennai residents

Chennai expected to get more rains from afternoon onwards

According to the BBC weather forecast, Chennai is expected to receive at least 300-500 mm of rainfall in the next few days. "Chennai has already seen over 200 mm rain in the past 3 days. 300 to 500 mm more rain possible in the next few days," BBC weather reported.

Chennai residents be safe while driving in the rains

The combined storage of four reservoirs feeding Chennai  Poondi, Cholavaram, Red Hills and Chembarambakkam-- stood at 1,925 mcft (million cubic feet), as against the full combined capacity of 11,057 mcft, data by the Chennai Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board said. The combined storage on 2 November, 2016, stood at 1,270 mcft, it said.

The relentless rain in and around Chennai also resulted in an increase in the storage levels of reservoirs supplying drinking water to the city.

The coastal town of Nagapattinam is receiving very heavy rainfall, media reports said. Times Now reports that the canal at Tharangambadi breached and entered low lying areas. Around 500 houses have been affected so far while the authorities have cut power supply to the areas as a precautionary measure.

According to Times Now, the state government has advised fishermen to be cautious while venturing into the sea in coastal areas of South Tamil Nadu and Delta districts.

In the next two days (Friday and Saturday), moderate rainfall is expected in many places in south Tamil Nadu and a few areas in the north coastal parts of the state, S Balachandran, Director, Area Cyclone Warning Centre, said on Thursday.

NDTV reported that several coastal pockets of Chennai witnessed severe water-logging on Thursday after rains lashed the city for a non-stop five hours following a low pressure on the Bay of Bengal near Sri Lanka.

Tamil Nadu state polytechnic exams which were scheduled on Friday have been postponed due to heavy rains. The revised date will be announced later, The NewsMinute reported.

Chennai and Nungambakkam registered 18 centimetre rain and Meenambakkam in the southern suburb recorded 14 centimetre, till 8.30 am today, according to the Met department.

"Rainfall activity will continue over north coastal Tamil Nadu with heavy to very heavy rain over Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram and Chennai districts during the next 24 hours," a special bulletin issued at 8.30 am said on Friday.

Hindustan Times reported that residents of Mudichur held protests, sitting in stagnant water, blaming the officials and government for doing nothing even as water entered their homes.

The two girls, aged 7 and 8, died after stepping on a snapped electric wire lying under water, ANI reported on Tuesday. Three electricity board officials in Chennai were suspended following the incident.

State minister RB Udhaya Kumar says none of the lakes across Tamil Nadu have overflown yet. Speaking to media persons, he urged people to not believe in any of these rumours and said that none of the lakes are full yet.

Don't believe in any of the rumours, says minister

According to Hindustan Times, flight operations at the airport are running normally despite the occasional rains.

Hindustan Times reports that power supply, which was cut as a precautionary measure on Thursday, was restored on Friday.

Good samirtans take to Twitter to help Chennai residents

Speaking to NDTV, Khushbu said, "Where were the government officials back then and even now. It is the NGOs who are doing the good work. They are providing people with food and medicines. Why did the municipal officials dig the road before the monsoon? This will be threatening to motorists during the monsoon."

People try to catch fish after a compound wall collapsed in Redhills following heavy rainfall

Greenways Road, the area where Palaniswamy lives, is under water

According to The Hindu , there is no major disruption in services, except for some minor delays. According to the report, the section between Kodambakkam and St Thomas Mount was affected by signalling problems from 9.30 pm on Thursday night. The problem was set right and the section restored at 03. 20 am on Friday.

Suburban railway service is running more or less on time

According to media reports, DMK working president MK Stalin has left to attend a book fair in UAE amid the ongoing flooding in Chennai.

DMK spokesperson Manu Sundaram slammed the Tamil Nadu government for not doing enough to stop a repetition of what took place during the 2015 floods. "Each week, the state government seems to be facing a new crisis. After just 12 hours of rains, Chennai city has brought back unhappy memories of 2015 floods. The government is ill-prepared and ill-equipped to handle another monsoon. Chennai and its residents may once again have to rise up to save each other," he told India Today.

According to The Hindu, 347 people, 17.64 lakh cattle died and 1.16 lakh huts were damaged, forcing the late chief minister to write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and declaring the Tamil Nadu floods as a "national calamity" and a "calamity of severe nature".

The Madras High Court has directed the Tamil Nadu government to pay Rs 10 Lakh as compensation to the families of the two girls who were elctrocuted on Wednesday. Two girls, aged 7 and 8 were electrocuted when they stepped on a power cable hidden under stagnant rain water.

The torrential rain came close to breaking an almost 100-year-old record for the city, prompting deployment of defence forces for relief and rescue operations. Overflowing lakes and breaches in bunds caused considerable damage forcing people to flee the areas. Lakes in Mudichur, Vardarajapuram, West Tambaram, Manivakkam flooded the areas throwing life completely out of gear.

The Wire reported that after the 2015 floods, the response by municipal bodies to the Cyclone Vardah the very next year was quicker. Nearly 20,000 trees were uprooted at the time. The civic authorities cleared off the trees and restored power, phone and Internet connectivity faster than the previous year.

DId 2015 debacle help TN officials be prepared for Cyclone Vardah in 2016?

Rain fury continues in parts of Tamil Nadu. Days after two minor girls were electrocuted, a similar incident took away the life of a farmer, News18 reported.

Notably, Thalaignayiru, Vedaranyam and Nagapattinam Taluks in the district have been experiencing heavy rains.

News18 reported that Tamil Nadu Handlooms Minister OS Manian, accompanied by Nagapattinam District Collector C Sureshkumar, visited several rain-hit areas in the district and inspected relief works.

According to News18, more than 10,000 fishermen did not venture into the sea for the fifth consecutive day. Salt production in Vedaranyam area has come to a standstill as saltpans in 10,000 acres of land remain submerged.

According to documents accessed by CNN-News18 , the Public Works Department of Chennai sanctioned funds for pre-monsoon work only on 30 October, the day that most parts of the city started flooding.

Respite for Chennai as radar image shows rains have taken a break

But in most of the areas power supply is being maintained, the report quoted him as saying.

Tamil Nadu electricity minister P Thangamani told The Hindu that power has been shutdown in 70 localities across the city which have been identified as low lying areas.

Power down in various parts of the city

After heavy rain continued to lash Chennai, the Madras High Court on Friday asked the Tamil Nadu government to file a status report on the steps taken, reported CNN-News18.

IANS quoted some officials as saying that the dry reservoirs that cater to the drinking needs of the people of Chennai are now filling up due to rains.

According to industry sources, some IT companies have "voluntarily" allowed employees to work from home if there was water-logging in the localities where they reside. - PTI

Some Information Technology companies located on the IT Corridor allowed their employees to work from their homes in view of torrential rains that lashed the city, an industry official said.

Some IT companies allow employees to work from home

After heavy rain continued to lash Chennai, the Madras High Court on Friday asked the Tamil Nadu government to file a status report on the steps taken, reported CNN-News18.

Skymet weather reported that the non-stop rainfall in Chennai can be attributed to the low-pressure area building over Sri Lanka and the adjoining Coast. This is expected to persist over the area and weaken gradually, the report said.

Water entered Tambaram Taluk Government Hospital in Chromepet, forcing doctors and staff to shift patients to a higher floor, The Times of India had reported.

IANS quoted some officials as saying that the dry reservoirs that cater to the drinking needs of the people of Chennai are now filling up due to rains.

According to industry sources, some IT companies have "voluntarily" allowed employees to work from home if there was water-logging in the localities where they reside. - PTI

Some Information Technology companies located on the IT Corridor allowed their employees to work from their homes in view of torrential rains that lashed the city, an industry official said.

Some IT companies allow employees to work from home

Actors M Nasser, Vishal and Si Karthi have formed teams to help people affected by the Chennai rains, reports Times of India. Affected individuals can reach out through the contact numbers: 9710444442 and 7904084228.

#EXCLUSIVE CNN-News18 accesses drone shots of areas in Chennai submerged in water. Schools,colleges are shut & IT companies declared holiday pic.twitter.com/hNWHo3GC1y

Spell of rains expected in Chennai, downpour has started in Adambakkam area, reports SkymetWeather

Water-logging in various areas of #TamilNadu : Visuals of flooding in village areas of #Nagapattinam pic.twitter.com/aF057Kfp96

Bright sunshine in many parts of the city and its neighbourhood this morning gave way to dark clouds by the afternoon, with rains resuming in several areas here after a lull.

Tamil Nadu chief minister E Palaniswamy took stock of the rain situation on Thursday, a day after two children were electrocuted after coming in contact with a live wire submerged in water, in Kodungaiyur locality in Chennai.

While the sun had come out in the morning in Chennai and neighbouring Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts, by afternoon rain clouds had gathered in many parts.

Sharp showers resumed in parts of Chennai like Kodambakkam, Perambur, Guindy, Ennore and T Nagar, besides nearby areas such as Avadi and Tambaram.

Palaniswamy held discussions with his cabinet colleagues including Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and senior government officials.

"Honourable CM of TN taking stock of situation arising out of #rains (and) giving instructions to Ministers and officers," a tweet from the official handle of Tamil Nadu State Disaster Management Agency said.

The meeting came amid reports of downpour in many parts of the southern state, including Nagapattinam, where the monsoon fury has not only inundated low-lying areas, but also affected standing crops.

Vaitheeswarankoil and Sirkazhi in the district have also been battered by heavy rains.

With the northeast monsoon remaining active over the state, the MeT has forecast more rains for the next two days.

"A low pressure has formed over the southwest Bay of Sri Lanka coast. During the last 24 hours, fairly widespread rainfall occurred over Tamil Nadu," S Balachandran, Director, Area Cyclone Warning Centre, said.

In the next two days, moderate rainfall is expected in many places in south Tamil Nadu and a few areas in the north coastal parts of the state, he told reporters.

Heavy rainfall is also expected at one or two places over south Tamil Nadu and Cauvery delta districts, Balachandran said, advising fishermen in the coastal areas of the regions to be "cautious".

As far as Chennai is concerned, some light spells of rain are expected in the next two days, he said.

The relentless rain in and around Chennai also resulted in an increase in the storage levels of reservoirs supplying drinking water to the city.

The combined storage of four reservoirs feeding Chennai  Poondi, Cholavaram, Red Hills and Chembarambakkam-- stood at 1,925 mcft (million cubic feet), as against the full combined capacity of 11,057 mcft, data by the Chennai Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board said.

The combined storage on 2 November, 2016, stood at 1,270 mcft, it said.

The storage is likely to go up following the forecast of more rain, and with the ongoing north-east monsoon scheduled to last till December.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar on Thursday condoled the death of two children who were electrocuted at Kodungaiyur yesterday.

He expressed his condolences to the families of Yuvasri and Bhavana, who died after coming in contact with a live wire submerged in stagnant water.

The minister told reporters that the government would not tolerate any "laxity" on such issues and pointed out that eight officials of TANGEDCO (Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Limited) had been suspended in connection with the incident.
The Madras High Court directed the Tamil Nadu government to pay Rs 10 lakh as compensation to families of two girls who were electrocuted on Wednesday due to a wire from an open pillar box.

Eight-year-old girls Bhavna and Vijayshri, who were playing outside their homes on Wednesday, were electrocuted in Chennai's RR Nagar suburb, as heavy rains continued lashing the city and other coastal districts of Tamil Nadu.

Another girl escaped after she jumped on a cement slab. The girls were playing near their home since schools were closed following the rains.

Eight officials of the electricity board, including an executive engineer and an assistant engineer, were suspended for dereliction of duty, electricity minister SP Velumani told reporters.

He said leakage of electricity to the wire from an open pillar box was the reason for the girls' electrocution. A five-member group has been set up by the Electricity Board to ensure that such incidents do not recur, he added.

He had also announced a solatium of Rs 2 lakh for kin of the dead. However, the Madras High Court has directed the government to provide more compensation for families of the deceased, CNN-News18 reported.

Velumani said chances of electrocution were less in Chennai because of underground cabling of electric wires, but the accident took place because of lack of proper upkeep of the pillar box. There were 40,000 such pillar boxes in the city, he added.

Meanwhile, angry residents staged a protest on Friday condemning government negligence. They said that the pillar box wasn't fixed despite their complaints, and that's the reason for the girls' death.

The weather department has predicted rain and thundershowers at several places over coastal and interior Tamil Nadu and Puducherry for the next two days. Intermittent heavy rains have also been forecast for Chennai and neighbouring districts of Kanchipuram and Tiruvallur.

With inputs from IANS

Follow LIVE updates of the Chennai rains here
Beijing: China on Friday said it was ready to work with India to promote "constant progress" of bilateral relations, amid fresh strains in ties after Beijing again blocked Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhar's designation as a global terrorist by the UN.

China on Thursday for the fourth time blocked India, the US and other nations' bid to list Pathankot terror attack mastermind Azhar as a global terrorist, saying "there is no consensus" within the members of the sanctions committee.

India reacted sharply to China's move, saying "accommodating with terrorism" for narrow objectives was both short-sighted and counterproductive.

China's Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong on Friday told the media that China attached great importance to its relations with India.

"India is an important neighbour of China," Chen said, adding China plans to step up ties with neighbours under the "neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in the new era" enunciated by President Xi Jinping during the recently concluded key Congress of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

"We are ready to work with India to promote constant progress of bilateral relations guided by this diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for the new era," Chen said without elaborating.

He said China has been following this concept and vision over the past few years in its cooperation with the neighbours and deepening mutual political trust promoting practical cooperation with them.

In the last two years, China has stonewalled efforts by India to declare Azhar as a global terrorist.

Last year in March, China was the only member in the 15-nation UN organ to put a hold on India's application with all other 14 members of the Council supporting New Delhi's bid to place Azhar on the 1267 sanctions list that would subject him to an assets freeze and travel ban.

The relations between the two neighbours are also strained by a 73-day standoff at Dokalam over Chinese armys plans to build a strategic road in the area also claimed by Bhutan.

Officials in Beijing said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to India next month to New Delhi to attend the Russia, India, China (RIC) Foreign Ministers meeting during which he would also hold talks with the Indian leadership on the bilateral relations during the second term of Xi.
The death toll in National Thermal Power Corp (NTPC) plant explosion in Rae Bareli climbed to 32 on Friday morning, PTI quoted the CMD of NTPC as saying. Nine people, including a top officer of the corporation, died during treatment on Thursday.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders descended on the accident site and demanded a judicial probe. Union Power Minister R K Singh also arrived at the site to oversee relief measures in what is one of the worst tragedies at a power plant in recent history, and even came face to face with Rahul Gandhi at one point.

Power producer NTPC shut down the 500 MW unit following the accident.

Union Power Minister R K Singh also arrived at the site to oversee relief measures in what is one of the worst tragedies at a power plant in recent history, and even came face to face with Rahul Gandhi at one point. Singh announced Rs 20 lakh ex-gratia for the next of kin of those killed in the accident at the Unchahar plant in Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli.

The Centre also ordered a probe by the NTPC's executive director into the incident, while the state administration ordered a magisterial probe.

The National Human Rights Commission has issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government over the deaths.

Nine of the injured in the boiler blast are to be shifted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi, an official said on Thursday.

Three senior officials of the NTPC who suffered critical injuries are being flown in an air ambulance to Medanta Hospital in Gurugram.

Doctors warned the toll was likely to rise as more than a dozen contractual labourers were battling for life with more than 90 per cent burn wounds.

On Thursday, contractual labourers at the Feroze Gandhi Unchahar Thermal Power Station here raised slogans against the NTPC management. They claimed they had warned about an impending disaster at unit six as the temperature near the furnace had been steadily rising.

The NTPC has launched a probe into the incident, which it said took place due to "excess ash deposition" in the furnace. The state government has ordered a magisterial probe.

Union Power Minister R K Singh also arrived at the site to oversee relief measures in what is one of the worst tragedies at a power plant in recent history, and even came face to face with Rahul Gandhi at one point.

Singh announced Rs 20 lakh ex-gratia for the next of kin of those killed in the accident at the Unchahar plant in Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli. The Centre also ordered a probe by the NTPC's executive director into the incident, while the state administration ordered a magisterial probe.

Among the deceased was assistant general manager (AGM) at NTPC's Unchahar power plant Sanjeev Kumar Sharma, who died at a private hospital in Lucknow. "Sanjeev Kumar Sharma died around 6 pm in spite of best efforts by doctors," said his college mate and secretary of vocational education and skill development of Uttar Pradesh Bhuvnesh Kumar said.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took a break from campaigning in poll-bound Gujarat and met the victims and their families.

The Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency is represented by his mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

His office tweeted, "Labourers have said that the accident took place due to negligence and that there should be a judicial probe into the accident."

"I was sad to see the pain of victims of the NTPC incident and their families should get better compensation and government jobs, while the injured should get all possible help," the Congress vice-president said.

Rahul Gandhi was accompanied by senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and UP Congress chief Raj Babbar. Azad claimed that a judicial inquiry was important as in the case of a probe by a government agency, facts could be concealed.

Uttar Pradesh Energy Minister Shrikant Sharma tweeted, "The Centre has constituted a committee to probe the accident. The committee headed by executive director of NTPC will submit its report in 30 days."

During his visit to the site, Rahul Gandhi was heard making enquiries about the number of workers deputed at the plant.

"People are saying that it (the plant unit) was run early (before schedule). It should not have been run that way. We will demand a probe," he told reporters.

Union Power minister Singh announced a compensation amount of Rs 20 lakh to the next of kin of those killed observing that the earlier ex-gratia was not enough.

"I am of the view that the ex-gratia which was earlier announced was not enough. Rs 20 lakh compensation will be given to the next of kin of those who died in the accident, while the seriously injured will get Rs 10 lakh and those who sustained minor injuries will be given Rs 2 lakh," he told reporters.

This amount is in addition to the compensation provided under the workmen compensation rules, he said. In addition, Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved an ex-gratia payment of Rs 2 lakh each for the families of the deceased.

"Prime Minister @narendramodi has approved an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh each for the next of kin of those who have lost their lives due to the accident at the NTPC plant in Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh. PM has approved Rs 50,000 each for those injured due to the accident," the prime minister's office said on Twitter.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who is abroad on an official tour, has also announced Rs 2 lakh compensation for the families of those killed and Rs 50,000 for the grievously injured besides Rs 25,000 for the other injured workers.

The opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) demanded a probe by a retired high court judge into the boiler explosion.

The families of the deceased should be given Rs 50 lakh as compensation, while those injured should get Rs 10 lakh, senior SP leader Ahmed Hasan said.
Rae Bareli: The death toll in the NTPC plant explosion climbed to 29 as nine people including a top officer of the corporation died during treatment on Thursday, even as Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders descended on the accident site and demanded a judicial probe.

Union Power Minister RK Singh also arrived at the site to oversee relief measures in what is one of the worst tragedies at a power plant in recent history, and even came face to face with Rahul at one point.

Singh announced Rs 20 lakh ex-gratia for the next of kin of those killed in the accident at the Unchahar plant in Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli.

The Centre also ordered a probe by the NTPC's executive director into the incident, while the state administration ordered a magisterial probe.

"Twenty-nine people have succumbed to injuries and 85 were being treated at hospitals in Rae Bareli and Lucknow," the NTPC said in an official release.

Among the deceased was Assistant General Manager (AGM) at NTPC's Unchahar power plant Sanjeev Kumar Sharma, who died at a private hospital in Lucknow.

"Sanjeev Kumar Sharma died around 6 pm in spite of best efforts by doctors," said his college mate and secretary of vocational education and skill development of Uttar Pradesh Bhuvnesh Kumar said.

Rahul took a break from campaigning in poll-bound Gujarat and met the victims and their families. The Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency is represented by his mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

His office tweeted, "Labourers have said that the accident took place due to negligence and that there should be a judicial probe into the accident."

"I was sad to see the pain of victims of the NTPC incident and their families should get better compensation and government jobs, while the injured should get all possible help," the Congress vice-president said.

Rahul Gandhi was accompanied by senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and UP Congress chief Raj Babbar. Azad claimed that a judicial inquiry was important as in the case of a probe by a government agency, facts could be concealed.

Uttar Pradesh energy minister Shrikant Sharma tweeted, "The Centre has constituted a committee to probe the accident. The committee headed by executive director of NTPC will submit its report in 30 days."

During his visit to the site, Rahul Gandhi was heard making enquiries about the number of workers deputed at the plant.

"People are saying that it (the plant unit) was run early (before schedule). It should not have been run that way. We will demand a probe," he told reporters.

Union Power minister Singh announced a compensation amount of Rs 20 lakh to the next of kin of those killed observing that the earlier ex-gratia was not enough.

"I am of the view that the ex-gratia which was earlier announced was not enough. Rs 20 lakh compensation will be given to the next of kin of those who died in the accident, while the seriously injured will get Rs 10 lakh and those who sustained minor injuries will be given Rs two lakh," he told reporters.

This amount is in addition to the compensation provided under the workmen compensation rules, he said.

In addition, Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved an ex-gratia payment of Rs two lakh each for the families of the deceased.

"Prime Minister @narendramodi has approved an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh each for the next of kin of those who have lost their lives due to the accident at the NTPC plant in Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh. PM has approved Rs 50,000 each for those injured due to the accident," the prime minister's office said on Twitter.

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who is abroad on an official tour, has also announced Rs two lakh compensation for the families of those killed and Rs 50,000 for the grievously injured besides Rs 25,000 for the other injured workers.

The opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) demanded a probe by a retired high court judge into the boiler explosion.

The families of the deceased should be given Rs 50 lakh as compensation, while those injured should get Rs 10 lakh, senior SP leader Ahmed Hasan said.

Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma, who visited the accident site, said, "Our priority at this point in time is that proper treatment should be ensured to the injured persons. We stand by the families of those dead in their hour of grief. Teams of NTPC and NDRF have already arrived here."

Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued a notice to the UP government over the blast.

Expressing concern, the commission in a statement said that a "high-level probe into the matter is immediately required to ascertain the negligence and errors, if any, behind the incident, which involves the right to life".

It said there was need to ensure that such tragedies do not recur. A detailed report is expected from the government within six weeks, the rights panel said.

The NTPC in an official release said that Unit No. 6 (500 MW) of the plant was shut down after the accident. However, five other units of 1,050 MW capacity were operating normally.

The 1,550-MW plant supplies electricity to nine states, according to officials, and employs around 870 people.

This evening, two middle-aged men, who suffered serious burns, were brought to Delhi and admitted to Safdarjung Hospital, doctors said.

More people, who have suffered grievous injuries in the blast, are likely to be brought for treatment at the hospital as well the AIIMS, a senior official of the health ministry said.

All necessary arrangements have been made at the AIIMS trauma centre and the Safdurjung hospital "as directed by the Union health minister", the official said.

Union Health Minister JP Nadda is in regular touch with the state authorities, he said.

Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel visited Safdarjung Hospital tonight to oversee and ensure that the injured get the best treatment and care.
#FirstpostLive #NotePeCharcha While the effects of demonetisation on urban India are immediately apparent to those with access to mainstream English media, its impact on rural lives is as yet unclear. We'll attempt to understand why during the second leg of our trip into the country's villages. This time we travel north, to Gujarat's Himmatnagar. We are now live from a turmeric farm in Boriavi village, Anand district, Gujarat, where we are talking to farmers about the impact of demonetisation on their lives and livelihoods.
Dina Wadia, the daughter of Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah, passed away at her home in New York on Thursday, a spokesperson of Wadia group said. She was 98.

Dina, who had married Bombay-based Parsi businessman Neville Wadia over her father's objection and stayed back in India after Partition, is survived by her daughter Diana N Wadia, son Nusli N Wadia, her grandsons Ness and Jeh Wadia and two great-grandchildren Jah and Ella Wadia.

According to The Times of India report, the London-born Dina spent a major part of her life in Mumbai but had been living in the US for the past few decades. The report added that Jinnah was furious was when he was told by his daughter that she wanted to marry Neville Wadia, Parsi businessman.

Journalist Sheela Reddy in her recent book, Mr And Mrs Jinnah: The Marriage That Shook India, says that Jinnah saw Dina's marriage to a Parsi Christian as a serious political embarrassment, said The Telegraph report.

Jinnah, according to a report in Dawn, loved Dina deeply, but their relationship had become strained after Dina fell in love with and married Neville at the age of 17.

"He tried to dissuade her (Dina) but finding her adamant, Jinnah threatened to disown her. Instead of relenting, she moved into her grandmother's home, determined to go ahead with the marriage," Reddy noted in her book.

"There are millions of Muslim boys in India," Jinnah reportedly told Dina, and she could marry anyone she chose. To which, the adamant Dina, according to The Times of India replied, "Father, there were millions of Muslim girls in India. Why did you not marry one of them?" Jinnah himself had married a Parsi girl, Rattanbai "Ruttie" Petit, who died in 1929.

Dina was the only child of Jinnah and his second wife Ruttie who was also known as Maryam Jinnah, says The Free Press Journal report. Dina's paternal grandparents were from Gujarat, who moved to Karachi for business in the mid-1870s, where her father, Jinnah, was born, added the report.

After the death of Ruttie, Jinnah, according to The Indian Express, became increasingly orthodox. However, he later permitted Dinas grandmother, Dinbai Petit, to have a major say in the upbringing of his daughter and even permitted the child to take her grandmothers name.

The report added that Dina didn't visit Pakistan until her father's funeral in Karachi in September 1948. In 2004, Dina visited Jinnah's tomb in Karachi. In the visitors' book, she then wrote, "May his dream for Pakistan come true."

After the death of her mother, Dina was raised by Jinnah's sister, Fatima Jinnah. Dina at an interview had shared that she never shared a healthy relation with her aunt, according to a DNA report.

After Jinnah returned to Mumbai from England to take charge of the Muslim League, according to IANS, he built himself a palatial mansion South Court (Jinnah House) in Mumbai, which became his residence during the politically momentous decade preceding the creation of Pakistan.

The house, designed by Claude Batley, a British architect, was built in 1936 and is located at Malabar Hill. In 1948, it was leased to the British Deputy High Commission which occupied it till 1982.

During his visit to India, then president Pervez Musharraf had renewed Pakistan's claim to the house which he had suggested to then Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee should be given to Pakistan so that it could be turned into a consulate.

However, Dina who lived in New York City, wrote to the Indian prime minister demanding that the house on the Malabar Hill, be handed over to her.

With inputs from agencies
While the Uttar Pradesh government and the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) management are in fire-fighting mode to conduct rescue and relief operations after a deadly explosion at the Unchahar plant claimed 29 lives on Wednesday, those on the ground say that safety lapses on part of the public sector company may have caused the accident.

According to Bal Govind Tripathi, an electrical contractor who provides 70 workers to NTPC, the unit where the blast occurred was not completely ready for operations and did not fully comply with all safety standards.

He said that the labourers had complained of operational trouble about three-and-a-half hours before the mishap on Wednesday but their complaint went unheard. "Some of the workers even left the premises when they were asked to pour water to deal with a blockage in the furnace. Some others were still trying to rectify the problem by tapping the furnace with iron rods when ash and hot gasses exploded out of the boiler," Tripathi said.

Among the labourers contracted by Tripathi, one was injured in Wednesday's mishap.

RD Singh, general secretary of Bharatiya Majdoor Sangh (BMS), demanded a high-level probe in the industrial disaster. He alleged that although the unit where the blast occurred had been functional for about six months, considerable work on it was still pending.

"Why was the unit started when work was yet to be completed? Why did the NTPC administration neglect labourers' complaints submitted to the unit operator and the plant engineer hours before the blast? Sirf shoes aur apron dene se saara safety poora nahi ho jaata (Safety norms are not just met by providing safety shoes and aprons alone)," Singh said.

Amrit Lal, 45, an injured worker from Umra village who has been admitted to a hospital, said that there was no stringent implementation of the safety policy at the plant as workers used the full safety gear only when a senior official was visiting.

"Workers are only interested in getting the shoes but not in wearing the helmet and other safety gear," he said, blaming this attitude on lack of proper training. Lal, who suffered severe burns to his face, was working at Unit VI at the time of the accident.

Singh, who worked at the NTPC Unchahar plant till 2015, said the workers were not given fire retardant gloves and jackets, lifeline belts and other accessories, which are a must while working near a furnace or boiler.

NTPC has, however, refuted the allegations, saying that entry inside the plant is restricted without safety gear. An eight-member probe committee will find out if there were any safety lapses, the Maharatna-status awardee PSU told Firstpost.

Ruchi Ratna, additional general manager (AGM) and public relations officer (PRO) of NTPC's north zone, said that the company has an internal safety department to train workers on safe practices before sending them on the floor. "The corporation has never been soft on the safety policy," she insisted, adding that regular safety audits, both internal and external, are conducted at all the units.

She could now, however, provide details of the last safety audit of unit VI, despite mentioning that it was conducted "recently". The safety audit of thermal power plant units is done at an interval of one year. Since Unit VI has not yet completed an year of operation, there are speculations that a safety audit may not have been conducted yet.

Ratna informed that almost 95 percent of workers in the power plant are contractual labourers and the onus of getting them an insurance cover lies with their contractor.

A junior engineer, requesting anonymity, told Firstpost, "You can say that there were some safety lapses. Not every norm was being followed. Sometimes, the safety measures were being taken for granted."

Another senior boiler expert at the NTPC north zone office, who wished to remain unnamed, said that at first glance, it looked like one of the fans of the boiler would have stopped due to the malfunctioning of the controls, which would have caused other fans to trip, leading to accumulation of steam and causing this accident. He explained that the boiler generates steam, which rotates the blades of turbines and produces electricity with the help of a generator.

The officer said that there were more than 200 workers in the unit at the time of the accident, as opposed to the normal strength of about 80 workers needed in a fully operational plant, implying that they could have been involved in some additional work.

Meanwhile, Shailendra Dubey, chairman of the All India Power Engineers Federation, demanded a safety audit of all the power plants. He said that their demands are concerned with the safety of power engineers and the audits would help ascertain the exact cause of Unchahar mishap.

Saurabh Sharma is a Lucknow based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters
The first ever Gender Vulnerability Index (GVI), developed by Plan India, a non-governmental organisation, indicates that Goa is the safest for women and girls while Bihar ranked the lowest for their safety and security. The GVI is a composite index developed for a study for Plan Indias Plan for Every Child  a campaign that is targetted at understanding the problems that women and girls face in difficult circumstances.

The report and findings were released by Justice Madan Lokur of the Supreme Court on 1 November. The GVI looks at a state-wise ranking and has been computed by evaluating and analyzing four parameters, namely, - health, education, poverty and protection/safety from violence. The findings of the study and the use of the GVI will assist policy makers to look at programmes earmarked for leadership, autonomy and empowerment of women and girls.

The study is aimed to understand gender inequality and exclusion of women and girls from basic human rights and all basic opportunities that can translate into a productive and prosperous adulthood. Plan Indias approach is interesting  it follows a Lifecycle approach, which means that it looks at vulnerabilities that a girl child might face from womb to tomb. The understanding is that an approach like this will yield mechanisms to replace vicious cycles with virtuous cycles. The approach underlines each phase of a girls life and issues during that period contribute to the vulnerability making it more extreme; it is rooted in the belief that the challenges women face along the lifecycle are unique, but their impact carries on throughout their life.

The report also keeps the human rights framework at its centre, stating that several international laws, especially that United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) acknowledge that substantive equality is a key human rights principle.

The purpose of the GVI is to generate a normative consensus on the status of girls and women in India taking into account the condition of education, health, poverty and protection for women and girls in the country. Protection against violence has 26 indicators; education has 68 indicators; health has 57 indicators and poverty has 19 indicators. The GVI is multidimensional and analyses more than 170 indicators, on which the data was available across all states, including the Census from 2011, National Family Health Survey IV, Health Management Information System, District Information for School Education, Rapid Survey on Children, Annual Economic Survey, Annual Survey on Education report and National Achievement Survey.

With regard to the ranking, Goa ranks on top with a GVI of 0.0656, more than the national average of 0.531 (the closer the score is to one, the better the state performs). Goa ranks first in protection against violence, fifth in education, sixth in health and eighth in poverty.

Bihar scored a GVI of 0.410, and is at the bottom of the table, indicating that its women and girls are the most vulnerable, least healthy and poorest amongst the 30 states. In Bihar, education is ranked as one of the lowest, while its performance in protection is unsatisfactory  "For instance, in Bihar, 39 per cent of the girls are getting married before the legal age. Furthermore, 12.2 per cent of girls aged 15-19, when surveyed, were either mothers or pregnant."

Expectedly, Delhi ranks 28 among 30 states, with a score of 0.436, and the findings suggest that it fared poorly because education in Delhi is the poorest among the 30 states" and the "protection dimensions ranks poorly as well. In terms of education, Delhi ranked last and for protection, its rank was 28. In fact, for poverty and health as well, Delhis performance was unsatisfactory. The factsheet of Delhi also suggested some shocking statistics: 13 percent of girls are getting married before legal age, and this results in an increase of overall vulnerability; 26.8 percent women have ever experienced a form of spousal violence indicating that in private spaces, the girls and women of Delhi are not safe; Only 35 percent of women own land/properly (either alone or with others).

The report also makes a mark when it comes to issues. Spousal violence is a pressing issue in India, and the report suggests that in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, spousal violence is very high. Andhra Pradesh has an alarming high (43.2 percent) rate of spousal violence.

When it comes to crime against women, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal were all states where there was a high crime rate, but Delhi was a clear outlier with about 184.3 percent crimes against women.

The report comes at a time when India is grappling with the issue of understanding and acting on issues of gender disparity. This will help activists, policymakers and social implementers prioritise issues around gender equality and women empowerment for outcomes that topple the current structure in India.

The report, through its examination of various parameters and especially its life-cycle approach, provides for a workable trajectory of stigma and discrimination against women and girls in India from birth throughout their whole lives.

It would, however, be interesting to see how each parameter pans out for different strata of women and girls in various states. For instance, a young Dalit, school drop-out girl is far likely to be trafficked, and have no financial savings, and hence, be more vulnerable to spousal violence than an upper-caste, educated girl.

Another issue in the report is that it leaves out trans-people from the gender vulnerability index  a blasphemous move, since India is moving towards recognizing a spectrum of gender identities and the transgender community has been recognised by the Supreme Court as the third gender. Moreover, since the policymakers are yet to figure out protection mechanisms in law for the third gender, it would be good to see the state-wise data that exists on trans-people on the various parameters. The report also does not look at violence within workplace contexts  a major issue that contributes to gender disparity in India.

Overall the report is valuable for policy-making, and will be helpful in identifying mechanisms to curb violations against women and girls with regard to education, health, poverty and protection.
Jammu: Indian security forces are retaliating effectively with the use of "more force" to ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops along the India-Pakistan border, Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police SP Vaid on Thursday said.

He also said that forces were effectively dealing with militancy.

"Our forces are dealing effectively (to ceasefire violations by Pakistan). Our forces are giving an equal response. Rather they are retaliating with more force", he told reporters.

Vaid was speaking after a wreath-laying ceremony of Constable Tapan Mondal, who was killed in firing by Pakistani Rangers during patrolling along the International Border in Samba district on Thursday.

The ceremony was organised at the martyr memorial at BSF headquarters and was attended by top security officials.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a plea challenging Tamil Nadu government's decision to set up a one-man commission to probe the death of AIADMK chief and former chief minister J Jayalalithaa.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud dismissed the plea filed by a Chennai-based PA Joseph alleging that there was a possibility of undue influence and bias as the panel was set up by the state government itself without any resolution passed by the state Assembly.

The state government has set up the panel headed by Justice A Arumughaswamy, a former Madras High Court judge, to probe the death of Jayalalithaa on 6 December, 2016 at a private hospital in Chennai.

"Your (Joseph) challenge has been accepted by the high court. Do you want the inquiry to go on or you do not want the inquiry," the bench asked.

When the lawyer for Joseph replied in affirmative, the bench made it clear that it would not entertain the appeal against the high court order.

Joseph, in his appeal, had said, "party MLAs are involved in the whole episode of hospitalisation, treatment, death of the former chief minister of Tamil Nadu J Jayalalithaa. There is every possibility of influence, pressure, bias when it comes to a commission constituted by the state government themselves, the present commission cannot be expected to do an independent inquiry...".

The petition had alleged that Madras High Court had erred in holding that a resolution from the legislature was not mandatory and a mere opinion of the government itself was enough to constitute a commission under the Commission of Inquiry Act, 1952.

The plea said that the prior resolution by Parliament or the State Legislative Assembly is mandated under Section 3 of the Commission of Inquiry Act, 1952.

It alleged that the Commission of Inquiry was set up by the Tamil Nadu government unilaterally without prior legislative debate or resolution.

Joseph moved the apex court after the High Court dismissed the allegations on 4 October.
New Delhi: Justice for slain journalist Gauri Lankesh, release of Delhi University professor GN Saibaba, probe into alleged human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir were among 15 demands made in a resolution that was passed unanimously at a two-day human rights conference.

Organised by an umbrella organisation of human rights bodies, national confederation of human rights organisations (NCHRO), the conference held on 28 and 29 October saw participation of several activists and also relatives of victims of alleged human rights violations.

Senior journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot dead at her house in September by unidentified bike-borne assailants. During one of the sessions, JNU professor Nivedita Menon said the new chancellors appointed by the NDA government were "trying to introduce a culture of "Rashtravaad" (nationalism).

A law against torture, repeal of laws like armed forces special powers act (AFSPA) and ending fake encounters were some other demands.
Bengaluru: Around 40,000 private hospitals and clinics remained closed on Friday as private doctors went on strike protesting against Karnataka's proposed amendments to a medical bill to fix costs for private hospitals and penalise doctors.

"Nearly 50,000 private doctors from across Karnataka will abstain from their duties on Friday against the amendments proposed to Karnataka Private Medical Establishments (KPME) Bill 2017," the President of the Karnataka chapter of the Indian Medical Association DrHN Ravindra told IANS in Bengaluru.

The bill proposes regulation of costs in private hospitals, prohibiting the hospitals from levying any additional costs from those set by the government, setting up of a grievance redressal committee to look into any complaints against the private hospitals and penalising the doctors for any negligence in their work.

The state was proposing amendments to the KPME Act, 2007, through this new bill.

The bill is likely to be tabled in the winter session of the legislative assembly in November in Belagavi.

"If the government sets up a law this way, doctors are going to be extremely wary of taking up risky cases, as the bill even proposes imprisoning the doctors for up to three years and imposing a fine of Rs 5 lakh," Ravindra said.

With the Medical Council of India already laying down rules for the doctors and prohibiting them from practicing in case of any errors while treating a patient, the doctors' associations in the state have been against setting up another committee.

"Private hospitals are being treated as commercial entities by the state  the electricity charges, water charges, everything we pay is at commercial rates and not subsidised, unlike in government hospitals. How can the state government, in such case, regulate costs in private hospitals?" Ravindra questioned.

Terming the bill "draconian", medical associations in the state have been demanding the removal of these amendments.

"If the state government wants to bring out a new medical law, then it has to include the government hospitals too, by which the government hospitals could also improve," Ravindra added.

Nearly 80 per cent of the patients opt for private hospitals for treatment in the state.

"We will be meeting all the medical associations in the state on 5 November, after which we will decide our next action," he added.
Continuing the crackdown against terror funding in Kashmir, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) notice for contravention of Rs 48 lakh to Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front leader Yasin Malik, media reports said on Friday.

According to Times Now, ED issued notices to three persons, which include Mushtaq Ahmad Dar and his wife Shamia, alias Shazia. Yasin Malik is being viewed as the kingpin of the FEMA violation network.

The four-page notice mentioned that the complaint was received on 25 October. The notices, issued by the ED's regional office in Srinagar, were issued for contravention of Section 3C and 4 of the FEMA.

#BREAKING: ED steps up anti terror crackdown on Pak dalal. TIMES NOW accesses ED notice given to Yasin Malik pic.twitter.com/dBdAHtaYoD  TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) November 3, 2017

In March, ED had summoned Yasin Malik in connection with its probe in the FEMA case. He was asked to appear before the central probe agency in Srinagar on 28 March.

The FEMA case pertaining to Malik is based on a 2001 FIR of the local police where they seized $100,000 from Dar and his wife. Dar had reportedly told the police that he was handed over the money by a person in Nepal to be further handed over to Malik.

Malik was arrested in the case by the police but was later let off on bail.

The FEMA notice has been issued after investigators completed their probe.

ED has asked Malik and the two others to reply to the notice within the next 30 days after which civil adjudication proceedings will begin against them.

With inputs from PTI
Mumbai: Two Parsi high priests have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to realign the upcoming Metro-III rail project saying it threatens the sanctity of two fire temples in south Mumbai, which would be a "great religious loss" to the community.

The two senior-most high priests of the Zoroastrian community, Dastur Firoze Kotwal, and Dastur KM Jamaspasa have written the letter to the prime minister on 21 October, to register their protest against the metro tunnel planned underneath or near two Atash Behrams (fire temples) in south Mumbai.

The Metro-III tunnel will pass underneath the Wadia Atash Behram, which was consecrated in 1830 at the Princess Road junction and in close proximity to the Anjuman Atash Behram (1897) across the road. These two are among the eight Atash Behrams in India.

"An Atash Behram (fire temple) is a composite whole comprising not just the consecrated fire enthroned in the sanctum sanctorum, but also includes, within this definition, the whole edifice in which the divine fire is housed. During the process of consecration and enthronement, the holy fire is linked spiritually, to the earth below it, from which it draws sustenance," they said in the letter.

"Hence, you will find that our ancestors took great ritual precautions to protect and maintain this connection and sanctity," the letter read.

"The tunnelling process could affect the water tables adversely, and there is a distinct possibility of the Atash Behram will go dry, in which case, none of the high rituals of the Zoroastrian faith can be performed in these Atash Behrams. This would be a great religious loss to our community. This loss is clearly unacceptable to us as high priests of the community," they said in the letter.

Commenting on the development, Marzban Hathiram, a Parsi priest, said, "Ever since the Metro-III proposal was mooted, we have been raising our concerns, but unfortunately the Metro makers ignored us and went ahead with their plan. First, they kept us in dark and procrastinated in furnishing the details of the project under RTI and by the time they gave the copy of the plan, the construction work for the Metro project had begun."

Before the digging work for the Metro-III project started earlier this year, Vada Dasturji Khurshed Dastoor of Udawada, a member of the National Commission for Minorities, had expressed his satisfaction after meeting officials from the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC).

However, the two high priests have raised objections over the Metro route.

Hathiram said, "We believe that the fire temple is a unique entity. This complex is a sacred entity, which is to be separated from the normal world. If you are digging under the ground, be it five feet deep of 50 feet, you are disturbing the facial construction and sanctity of the holy premises."

Hanoz Mistry, the editor of The Parsee Voice and a community activist, said that out of all the five high priests of the community in the country, four of them have opined that the tunnel is affecting the very sanctity of the fire temple.

A fire temple is not just the fire in the sanctum sanctorum, but a composite whole along with the building in which fire is housed, he said.

"There are only eight fire temples in the whole world and Mumbai houses four of them within a periphery of one kilometer. We cannot sit quiet and see two of them getting affected," Mistry said.

He said they have launched an online petition on change.org over this issue and received over 10,000 signatures including from non-Parsi people.

When contacted, a spokesperson from the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL) said the alignment of Mumbai Metro-III is neither below the sanctum sanctorum of Parsi fire temples nor it would affect them during the construction.

"Same is true for all the Parsi wells along the Metro route. Recently, we had an opportunity to meet respected Vada Dasturji Khurshed Dastoorji of Udawada, during which we gave him a detailed presentation on these issues. Dasturji was convinced that the sanctum sanctorums of the fire temples, as well as the wells, will not be affected by the construction activity. He expressed his satisfaction over the project," the official said.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday held talks with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Latvian Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis separately to cement India's bilateral ties with the two countries.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said prime minister Modi and president Sargsyan discussed ways to intensify cooperation.

"They (Armenia) are a big importer of our pharma products. There were some discussions to assess on how to take it forward," Kumar said in response to a question on the nature of talks.

He said that there is also cooperation between India and Armenia in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector.

"We have set up an ICT centre in Yerevan (the capital of Armenia) and some discussion took place on how this can be upgraded," he said.

"Reinvigorating age-old ties. PM @narendramodi meets President Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia, discusses ways to intensify cooperation," Kumar tweeted earlier.

Reinvigorating age-old ties. PM @narendramodi meets President Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia, discusses ways to intensify cooperation pic.twitter.com/oUUhYsCCPC  Raveesh Kumar (@MEAIndia) November 3, 2017

With Latvia, talks were held to strengthen cooperation especially in the field of Information Technology. "Strengthening the bonds of friendship. PM @narendramodi met PM Maris Kucinskis of Latvia, discussed wide range of bilateral issues," Kumar tweeted.

Strengthening the bonds of friendship. PM @narendramodi met PM Maris Kucinskis of Latvia, discussed wide range of bilateral issues pic.twitter.com/vnX6sDHoZy  Raveesh Kumar (@MEAIndia) November 3, 2017

He quoted prime minister Modi as saying that India and Latvia have strong potential for cooperation in higher education, IT, food processing, fisheries and allied sectors.

PM @narendramodi: India & Latvia have strong potential for cooperation in higher education, IT, food processing, fisheries & allied sectors. pic.twitter.com/Ls2AfszBgt  Raveesh Kumar (@MEAIndia) November 3, 2017

Kumar said there are around 1,000 Indian students studying in the European country.

The visiting dignitaries also took part in the World Food India conference.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed on India's crucial role in food processing as he inaugurated the 'World Food India Festival 2017' in New Delhi on Friday.

"Food processing is a way of life in India. It has been practiced for ages. Simple, home-based techniques, such as fermentation, have resulted in the creation of our famous pickles, papads, chutneys and murabbas that excite both the elite and the masses across the world," Modi said.

Modi also talked about India's improved ranking on the World Bank's 'ease of doing business' index.

"India has jumped 30 ranks in the World Bank 'doing business' rankings. India was ranked number 1 in the world in 2016 in greenfield investment. India is also rapidly progressing on the 'Global Innovation Index', 'Global Logistics Index' and 'Global Competitiveness Index'," he said.

"Private sector participation has been increasing in many segments of the value chain. However, more investment is required in contract farming, raw material sourcing and creating agri linkages. This is a clear opportunity for global chains," he said.

"There are opportunities in post-harvest management, like primary processing and storage, preservation infra, cold chain and refrigerated transportation. There is also immense potential for food processing and value addition in areas such as organic and fortified foods," he added.

"Lifestyle diseases are raising consciousness globally about the nature and quality of food consumption. There is growing awareness of the use of artificial colours and chemicals. India can offer a solution... Increasing urbanisation and the growing middle-class has boosted food industry in India," Modi said, adding that India's economy was in "high gear".

Over a million passengers consume food on trains in India in a single day, they are potential customers for food processing industry:PM Modi pic.twitter.com/vPjR9ht3Ms  ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017

"Our farmers, who we respectfully call our annadata, are central to our efforts in food processing," Modi added. "We launched the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana to create world-class food processing infrastructure. This will leverage investment worth $5 billion, benefit 2 million farmers and create more than half a million jobs," he said.

"The food processing industry is a top priority under 'Make in India'," Modi said. "Food processing holds solutions to nutrition security. Our coarse grain and millets have high nutritional value. They can withstand adverse agro-climatic conditions. Can we take up a venture based on these? It will raise farmers' income and also enhance nutrition levels," he said.

Over 800 kgs of khichdi will be prepared live on 4 November at the festival in a bid to create a world record and popularise the dish globally. A giant seven-metre kadhai with a 100-litre capacity will be used to cook the khichdi on slow steam. The khichdi will be prepared by renowned chef Sanjeev Kapoor, who has been roped in as brand ambassador of the 'Great India Food Festival', for the three-day event that started on Friday.

With inputs from PTI
Greek and Chinese state officials and representatives of major enterprises signed here Thursday a series of memoranda of understanding to promote bilateral economic cooperation in key sectors under the 2017-2019 Greece-China Action Plan.

The plan was sealed in May this year in Beijing during the visit of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.Following the inaugural meeting in Beijing of the working groups established for the materialization of this framework, a Chinese delegation led by National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) vice head Ning Jizhe visited the Greek capital for the second meeting in order to advance collaboration.

Shoppers browsing goods at Monastiraki flea market, held every Sunday morning in Greece.[File photo: VCG]

"The basis of this cooperation we believe is that Greece's growth strategy meets China's Belt and Road Initiative and the benefits are mutual," Greek deputy economy and development minister Stergios Pitsiorlas said welcoming the Chinese delegation.

"Today we have the first tangible results. The signing of a series of agreements and MOUs are the first steps in the implementation of this action plan; therefore we are on the right path," he said.

On his part, Ning said he is happy to see that the action plan has provided a good collaboration platform and some initial tangible results have been achieved.

Ning hoped that under the principle of planning together, building together and benefiting together, the two sides can enhance their cooperation on investment, trade, and industrial capacity under the Belt and Road Initiative.

On Thursday, the two sides specified details of cooperation projects included in the three-year action plan, and witnessed the signing of several MOUs which are expected to further boost bilateral ties.

Among them was the signing of an agreement between Shenhua, China's largest coal producer, through its subsidiary for renewable energy sources Shenhua Renewable Co. Ltd, and Copelouzos Group, one of the largest investment groups in Greece, for the acquisition of 75 percent of the shares of four wind parks developed by the Greek company.

In addition, a three-party agreement (MOU) was signed between Shenhua, Copelouzos Group and Power Public Corporation (PPC), Greece's largest power utility, for the entrance of Shenhua as a partner in the joint company of PPC and Copelouzos Group, PPC Solar Solutions.

ADMIE, Greece's power transmission operator, also signed an MOU with China Development Bank, following the acquisition earlier this year of a minority stake in the company by China's State Grid.

ADMIE Chairman and CEO Manos Manoussakis told Xinhua that cooperation with the Chinese side so far has been excellent -- the efficiency of ADMIE has already improved and subsequently the company seeks deeper collaboration with Chinese partners.

"Today we signed a very important memorandum of understanding with China Development Bank in order to explore the possibilities for financing our new projects and our company's working capital," Manoussakis said.

"Ahead of us, there are great interconnection projects between the mainland of Greece and the Greek islands, and also international interconnection projects in the Mediterranean sea," he added.
New Delhi: The Congress on Friday accused the BJP of "compromising" with internal security whenever in power and said its "ineffective" diplomacy has led to China once again blocking the move to list Masood Azhar as a global terrorist by the UN.

Party spokesperson RPN Singh cited the example of Azhar saying he is the same person who was released by the previous NDA government in 1999 in Kandahar.

"They have always compromised with terrorists. The BJP has neither the policy nor the intent to act against terrorists and terrorism. We urge the government to act strongly against wanted terrorists like Dawood Ibrahim, Masood Azhar and those 60 terrorists in the list provided to Pakistan by the previous UPA regime," he told reporters.

He said China never used that kind of veto power in the UN when the UPA was in power as the Congress-led government's used international diplomatic pressure on it and managed to "isolate" Pakistan on the issue of terrorism.

He asked where that kind of diplomacy was now, adding Prime Minister Narendra Modi was touting before elections that his government will arrest Ibrahim after bringing him back but never took any action.

Singh said that the BRICS summit joint statement declaring the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) among groups responsible for committing, organising or supporting terrorist acts was "hailed as a big diplomatic victory by the Modi government".

"BJP's ineffective diplomacy compromised India's internal security," he said.

Singh said the BJP's hallmark has been 'false bravado, chest thumping and hyperbole' and that is there on national security too.

He said "this is the same Azhar Masood, who was released by this government".

"If you see their history, the have always done a compromise with terrorists and terrorism.

"In 3.5 years, no action has been taken and one has seen how BJP leaders attended a marriage in Mumbai and Dawood Ibrahim's wife came to Mumbai and left, but government did not take any action and never gave any report on her visit," Singh said.

The Congress leader said ever since the BJP government came to power, there have been attacks on military establishments in Jammu and Kashmir and several jawans and civilians have been killed.

He said on the international fora, this government has also provided an opportunity to the ISI, which has masterminded attacks on India, this government invited them to carry out a probe on the Pathakot attack.

To another question whether the Congress has any action plan since it criticises the government over internal security, Singh said that is something for the external affairs ministry to look into.

"When we were in government, we put international pressure on various countries regarding Hafiz Sayeed, and the American government released a 10 million bounty on him and that was something because of the international and foreign policy.

"We managed to isolate Pakistan completely. It found itself completely alone and China was not using that kind of veto regularly saving a terrorist which are having a safe heaven in Pakistan," he said.

China on Thursday had for the fourth time blocked the bid to list Pathankot terror attack mastermind Azhar as a global terrorist by the UN, saying "there is no consensus" within the members of the sanctions committee.
New Delhi: Men and women who feel wronged by the state and showed up at Jantar Mantarthe capitals key protest siteare being evicted because the National Green Tribunal believes they violate environmental laws.

Until the eve of November, on the wide footpaths on either side of a road adjacent to Jantar Mantar, an astronomical monument in Central Delhi, people would sit like vendors of grievances. Theyd pin banners on walls, spread out folding cots and plant placards two inches into the soil; a sense of permanence was an acceptance of the unlikelihood of justice. The banners have now been neatly removed; the cots might have been folded back and taken away along with clothes and shoes, and photocopies of petitions that these protesters loved to share with anybody who showed up to chat with them.

The agitators, as per the order, were to be relocated to Ramlila Maidan, which is, structurally, more suited for political rallies. The site has been a venue for social reformer Anna Hazares anti-corruption andolan, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwals oath-taking ceremony and Narendra Modis Idea of India speech. Walk into the ground and you see a chaos of tentwalas and tandoors and roll-over-roll of carpets. Ask people whats going on and there are chances that theyll tell you the entire venue is booked for five days for an event on spiritual harmony.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi is opposed to designating space to protesters here because a single party books the entire ground for a fee and that is a source of revenue generation for Delhis municipal body. Even the agitators have complained of a lack of public toilets, drinking water and shaded nooks over here. "I am a rape victim. I have been agitating against my offender, an Inspector General of Police from Punjab, since 2013. The municipal bodies are demanding Rs 1.20 lakh from us and are giving us permission only for a day," asks Jagjit Kaur, who was the only agitator to be seen roaming around Jantar Mantar. She confessed that she spent the night at the foot of the Patel Chowk Metro Station, ever since the police beat her up while she was asleep.

She also asks why the NGT is hell bent on sending a rape victim like her to a place where sanitation and safety may prove to be a challenge. Moreover, booking the sprawling 12 acres of this facility can cost up to Rs 50,000 a day. Protesting at Jantar Mantar was free of cost. The North Delhi Municipal Corporation still hasnt made it clear if it has worked out an arrangement to carve out fragmented portions of the ground for full-time protests to move into, a possibility highly unlikely at this point since the ground is mostly booked by one group at a time. Members of the All India Kisan Sabha, a national level farmers association, arrived in the capital to protest against the rising of support price for sugarcane by Uttar Pradesh farmers and cotton price by Telangana farmers. Given the Ramlila Maidans unpreparedness, they started their programme at ITOs Ferozeshah Kotla Park. On Thursday, all major groups of protestors from Jantar Mantar have coined the slogan Insaaf do yaan maut do (give us justice or death) and are in the process of filing a common petition against their eviction.

The Jantar Mantar, closer to Parliament, was a place where people would scream in the desire to be heard, to be watched, by those higher powers theyd become nearly infatuated with. Among those who have been expunged were farmers from Tamil Nadu sat here with skulls and chained hands, using spectre to tickle anybodys morality, one former national-level fencing player from Tamil Nadu had set up a bar with empty liquor bottles to convey, inversely, his demand for a liquor ban. Ostracised by the khap panchayat of a village in Haryana, some young men moved here, theyd often ask where else they should go? The wives of retired army men demanded one rank one pension - same pension, for same rank, for same length of service, irrespective of the date of retirement. Followers of godman Santh Rampal who has been accused of rape and murder, also sat here disapproving of the countrys judicial system and in support of a man who sponsored their every meal in a large tent throughout the protest.

The nature of complaints of the recent lot of stationed protesters ranged from A big corporate company in Madhya Pradesh stole my factory and the police didnt register my FIR twenty years ago to The state of Uttar Pradesh has declared me dead and my brother now owns everything that was once mine to I want to marry Narendra Modi. Some protesters would proudly confess theyd been living here for months. Another type would come here on any given day, typically before or after a court judgment or an incident, to attract media and social media. Earlier this year, people from 20 cities, including Chandigarh, Amritsar, Lucknow, Kanpur, Bhopal and Nagpur came to Jantar Mantar to stage a satyagraha for men, demanding the revocation of Section 498A (a law regarding the harassment of women for dowry). From #NotInMyName against mob lynching and subsequently, against the death of journalist Gauri Lankesh, to Mai Bhi Kisaan ki Santaan - a national agitation for farmers rights, day-long protests at the venue made headlines the day after.

Not yet at the Ramlila grounds, not at Jantar Mantar anymore, where did those on a hunger strike disappear? Will they now give up on their cause because both their stage and their audience have been withdrawn? Or will they find newer and more fatal ways to speak out? The vacant silence at Jantar Mantar quickly fills up with these questions. A cluster of police barricades and water cannon trucks, and chai and kulcha stalls have suddenly lost their purpose. The walls resemble unmarked epitaphs that stand erect in silence and in denial of a mortal end. In a city whose government came to power on the strength of its political activism, the key protest site is now barren of all its fury.
Editor's note: The state of Punjab has been plagued by a series of political killings in recent times  many of which remain unexplained and unsolved. The latest of these was the murder of Hindu Sangarsh Sena leader Vipan Sharma, who was shot dead in Amritsar last week. This is the first in a three-part series that seeks to shed some light on these mysterious killings that appear to share a very similar modus operandi.

Chandigarh: Much like the turbulent time of the 1980s, the fault line of religion is re-emerging in Punjab, anger on one side and fear on another. The spate of murders of non-Sikh religious leaders in the state since last year has established undercurrents of hostility in the region.

In Punjab, the 1980s was a chaotic decade. Miffed with the Centre over a host of issues, thousands of Sikhs took to arms to press for their demands. Gradually, militancy began to spiral out of the government's control and a major armed uprising was imminent. To quell the rebellion, the then prime minister Indira Gandhi ordered Operation Blue Star in 1984, which saw the Indian armed forces entering the Golden Temple  the holiest pilgrimage site of the Sikhs  and engaging with the militants hiding there in a six-day-long gun battle.

This was widely viewed as a desecration of Sikhism. About five months later, two Sikh bodyguards of Gandhi gunned her down. The resultant anti-Sikh sentiment snowballed into riots and massacres across north India. Revenge attacks on Hindus in Punjab followed.

Three decades after that stormy phase, 65-year-old Braj Bhushan Bedi feels that the vitiated atmosphere is returning. A prominent leader of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), he said non-Sikhs in Punjab are a frightened lot today, much like they were back then. Noting that all the victims of last two years' murders were people associated with promoting non-Sikh faiths, he likened it to the milieu of the 1980s and dubbed it the doctrine of extremism.

Recalling the intolerance towards other religions in those days, he said followers of other faiths could not take out religious processions and were compelled to follow certain protocols of Sikhism, such as having to cover their head and growing a beard. He said attempts to instil a similar sense of fear and subordination are underway. He said the similar modus operandi of the recent murders suggests they are a part of a common strategy.

Harpal Singh, 43, a member of five districts' managing committee of Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS), said the memories of the militancy days have come back to haunt them. Commenting that the situation is similar, he said the Hindus are afraid because of the murders. He believes these attacks are being orchestrated to put Hindus in their place, to deter them from publicising their religion and celebrating their festivals. He blamed religious extremism for this situation.

Ludhiana-based journalist Sukhbir Singh Bajwa, 46, begs to differ. He said it is Sikhism that has been under attack for the past decade, adding that the Hindus or the DSS must be behind it. He said while there's nothing wrong with promoting one's religion, dissing another is pushing it too far.

He remarked that Sikh youth are fiercely protective of and sensitive about their religion and won't put up with any unsavoury treatment directed at it. He said radical outfits talk such youth into joining their ranks, which is one of the reasons behind increasing communal incidents in the state.

The Dera factor

Journalist Rajkumar Sharma, 48, who has been doing a research on the relation between Deras and Punjab politics, described how the emergence and evolution of Deras changed the socio-political equation in the state. He said a few places in the state do not allow Dalits to enter Gurudwaras, inadvertently driving them to join the Deras. He said the state has 1,255 Deras at present, of which 119 boast of lakhs of followers. About 10 have crores of followers.

He said about 46 percent of Punjab's population hails from Scheduled Castes and Backward Castes  the highest in the country  and about 80 percent of them are associated with Deras, which is why their voice holds sway.

Sharma explained that as Dalit votes got organised under these Deras and they began enjoying political patronage, they began to push back against Sikh hardliners. And this led to friction between the two groups. As it is, the Sikhs were miffed over the desecration of their holy text Guru Granth Sahib during the tenure of the Akali Dal government, causing simmering anger, which reached a boiling point with Deras' newfound boldness.

Making martyrs of militants

Mahender Singh Kaka, 55, a resident of Sangrur district who works as a truck driver in Canada, revealed how Sikh militants are hailed as heroes there. Currently in his native village Saifipur Kalan, he told Firstpost some Gurudwaras in Canada tell that their religion is facing a constant threat from non-Sikh and Hindutva outfits and how the governments too back home are subjugating them. This propaganda is shared on social media to attract youth and alarmist speeches are followed by a collection of donations.

It is believed that the latest victim of these killings, Hindu Sangharsh Samiti's Amritsar district president Vipan Sharma, was on the hitlist of Sikh hardliners owing to his vocal disapproval of 1980s militancy. On the anniversary of Operation Blue Star last year, he was a part of the group that burnt an effigy of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the Sikh leader who spearheaded militancy. And Sharma got murdered just a day before the 33rd anniversary of Indira Gandhi's assassination for ordering Operation Blue Star.

Hotbed for trouble

Social activist and president of the civic group Youth for Justice, Virender Singh, 29, said recruiting youth is easy for radical groups owing to the extent of unemployment and drug addiction in the state. Further, he pointed out that Punjab shares its western border with Pakistan, which is believed to be supplying arms and ammunition for militancy in the state. He said many farmlands in Punjab extend till the border and the Border Security Force often stumbles upon a cache of arms.

The impact of militancy in the state is evident. Now, RSS activities happen under police security as a pre-emptive measure to avoid attacks. Punjab DGP Suresh Arora said the police are committed to preventing the situation from deteriorating. He said if any Hindu leader perceives a threat, he can ask for police protection. Further, he said Special Investigation Teams are striving to get to the bottom of recent murders.

He said it's too early to conclude that religious fundamentalism is behind these incidents since the investigating agencies don't have any evidence in this regard. However, he said all possible angles are being explored. Ludhiana police commissioner RN Dhoke said they were examining how active the terrorist group Babbar Khalsa International is in Punjab. He said the seven youth associated with the group who were arrested in Ludhiana in September-end will be interrogated again to find out about the involvement of foreign-based radical Sikh organisations in these murders.

(Sat Singh and Manoj Kumar are freelance writers based in Rohtak and Chandigarh respectively. Both are members of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.)

Read Part 1: Too many agencies, too little progress; probe into 15 murders headed nowhere
Navsari: Gujarat Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani Friday met Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and claimed that the Opposition party had assured to incorporate "more than 90 percent" of his demands in its manifesto for the upcoming state Assembly election.

Stopping short of declaring an open support to the Congress, Mevani, after his meeting with the Gandhi scion, said he would ask his community members to defeat the ruling BJP in the Gujarat polls.

The 182-member Gujarat Assembly is scheduled to go to the polls in two phases on 9 and 14 December.

"We listen to everyone and work after hearing their problems, be it Jignesh, Hardik (Patidar quota stir leader Hardik Patel) or Alpesh (OBC leader Alpesh Thakor)," Rahul Gandhi said after the meeting.

On the other hand, the BJP was only interested in making the people listen to its "Mann Ki Baat", the Congress MP said, taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's radio programme.

Gandhi and Mevani had a half-an-hour long closed-door meeting at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Navsari.

Mevani, a Dalit rights campaigner who shot to fame after the Una Dalit flogging incident last year, dubbed the BJP government in Gujarat as "anti-Dalit".

"Since Una (the flogging incident), we have launched numerous agitations and submitted memorandums. Despite this, the thick-skinned BJP government, which is not only anti-Dalit but also anti-people, has not considered even one demand of our community. They have not even bothered to talk to us (about the demands)," Mevani told reporters after the meeting.

"The people of the state will put an end to this arrogance of the BJP," he said.

On the other hand, the Congress was receptive to the demands of the Dalit community, Mevani added.

"We (him and other Dalit leaders) had a detailed discussion with Rahulji on our 17 demands. Rahulji not only listened to us but said over 90 percent of our demands were our constitutional rights. He assured us that most of the legitimate demands would be included in the Congress' manifesto (for the Gujarat polls)," he said.

Asked if he would advise his community members to vote for the Congress in the upcoming Assembly polls, Mevani said, "I will ask my community not to vote for the BJP."

Mevani, who has been critical of the BJP government in the state, discussed the 17 demands of his community with the Congress vice-president, who is currently on an election campaign tour of south Gujarat.

The demands include an allotment of five acres of farmland to the Dalits, alternative employment for those involved in cattle-skinning and manual scavenging and the release of a probe report into an incident of firing on the community members at Thangadh in Surendranagar district in 2012.

Mevani had earlier said he had no plans to join any political party.

Of the three young and prominent caste or community leaders in Gujarat, Thakor has already joined the Congress, while Patel is in negotiations with the party regarding his community's demand for reservations in jobs and education.

The third one, Mevani, too appears to be supportive of the Opposition party, which has been out of power in Gujarat, Modi's home state, for over two decades.
As torrential rains continued to lash Chennai and brought the city to a standstill on Friday, the scene evokes memories of the 2015 floods in Tamil Nadu that claimed around 347 lives across the state.

On Thursday, several coastal pockets of Chennai witnessed severe water-logging after rains lashed the city for a non-stop five hours following a low pressure on the Bay of Bengal near Sri Lanka. As a result of the rain in the state, schools in Nagapattinam, Kanchipuram, Thiruvallur and Chennai remained closed on Friday.

The state government has advised fishermen to be cautious while venturing into the sea in coastal areas of South Tamil Nadu and Delta districts. According to the Met Department, Chennai and Nungambakkam registered 18 cms of rain while Meenambakkam in the southern suburb recorded 14 cms, till 8.30 am on Friday.

Low lying areas in Chennai were flooded forcing people to wade through knee-deep water. S Balachandran, director of the Area Cyclone Warning Centre, warned moderate rainfall is expected in many places in south Tamil Nadu and a few areas in the north coastal parts of the state in the next two days.

Continuous rains bring back 2015 flood memories

DMK spokesperson Manu Sundaram slammed the Tamil Nadu government for not doing enough to stop a repetition of what took place during the 2015 floods. "Each week, the state government seems to be facing a new crisis. After just 12 hours of rains, Chennai city has brought back unhappy memories of 2015 floods. The government is ill-prepared and ill-equipped to handle another monsoon. Chennai and its residents may once again have to rise up to save each other," he told India Today.

In December 2015, the Jayalalithaa government faced flak over the staggering number of deaths and damage to property during the deluge. According to The Hindu, 347 people, 17.64 lakh cattle died and 1.16 lakh huts were damaged, forcing the late chief minister to write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and declaring the Tamil Nadu floods as a "national calamity" and a "calamity of severe nature".

Following heavy rains on Thursday night, waterlogged streets made vehicular movement difficult with train services between St Thomas Mount and Kodambakkam station in Chennai stopped since 9.30 pm. Heavy traffic could be seen at the arterial Kathipara grade separator, Guindy intersection, Saidapet and till Velachery through the Raj Bhavan point, as per News18. Vyasarpadi amd Otteri areas in north Chennai, parts of West Anna Nagar in central Chennai and Madipakkam in south Chennai faced severe waterlogging as well.

Angry residents expressed their frustration and said the government had learnt nothing from horrific 2015 floods experience. According to the India Today report, Sunnambu Kolathur residents poured out on the streets to protest against the civic bodies as their homes also got flooded. "We have been regularly complaining to the authorities about lack of storm water drains and to ensure the area doesn't get flooded. The monsoon has just set in, and see our condition. What if it rains harder in the days to come," the report quoted Shivraj, a resident, as saying.

DMK working president MK Stalin also hit out at the E Palaniswamy-led government for negligence. He added that Monday's rain adversely affected Mudichur on the outskirts of Chennai. According to The Times of India, Mudichur was of the worst affected areas in the 2015 floods. "The government ought to have taken steps to prevent flooding in Mudichur and other areas which were affected in the 2015 floods. But the present government is worried only about saving the number of MLAs as it has already lost majority," said Stalin to The Times of India.

Lack of storm water drains

In 2015, absence of storm water drains was identified as one of the major causes of the floods. However, even after laying storm water drains, areas continue to get inundated, reported The Times of India. On Tuesday, the civic body boasted that Villivakkam SIDCO Nagar, which was was flooded for 10 days in 2015, was benefitting from the new drains. While claiming Rs three crore was spent on building them, officials continued to use high power pumps to empty water out of the area instead.

As per another The Hindu report, delay in receiving funds for constructing storm water drains continued to pose a major challenge to the level of monsoon preparedness of the city. While the city corporation claims the city is prepared, there has been no improvement in the storm water drain or canal network in the past five years since the Rs 3,000 crore project was proposed in 2012, as per the report.

Reviewing relief and rescue work carried out by Chennai Corporation on Thursday, state revenue minister RB Udhaya Kumar told The Hindu, We have identified vulnerable locations but cannot prevent waterlogging. However, we can remove the water immediately. These spots should have motor sets, super suckers and JCBs to remove the water and the field-level staff should work efficiently.

However, the government's response to a flood situation seems to have improved. The Wire reported that after the 2015 floods, the response by municipal bodies to the Cyclone Vardah the very next year was quicker. Nearly 20,000 trees were uprooted at the time. The civic authorities cleared off the trees and restored power, phone and Internet connectivity faster than the previous year.

With inputs from PTI

Follow LIVE updates here
New Delhi: The external affairs ministry on Friday rejected suggestions that the recent repatriation of prisoners between India and Pakistan could be linked with the resumption of stalled talks and asserted that Islamabad had not made any efforts to curb terrorism.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar also said India has made 52 requests for consular access to Hamid Nihal Ansari, who is in a Pakistani jail, but it has not been granted.

Ansari had crossed over to Pakistan from Afghanistan in 2012 and then went missing. He was later arrested and tried by a Pakistani military court, which pronounced him guilty of espionage.

Replying to a question on whether the repatriation of prisoners between India and Pakistan was indicative of any thaw in ties and may lead to resumption of stalled talks, Kumar said, "It is not right to extend it to that level. There is regular exchange of prisoners from both sides. So, we should not take it to that conclusion." Kumar's remarks came a day after India repatriated to Pakistan nine fishermen and four civilian prisoners along with a child.

India-Pakistan dialogue hit a roadblock after the Pathankot terror strike by a Pakistan-based terror outfit in 2016.

Asked about Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed's activities, the spokesperson said the 2008 Mumbai terror attack mastermind is an international terrorist and it is the responsibility of the Pakistan government not to give him space to carry out strikes against other countries. He also asserted that India believes that Pakistan has not put any efforts to curb terrorism or dismantle terror infrastructure in its territory.

On reports from Pakistan that US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had offered mediation on Kashmir during his recent visit to the subcontinent, the spokesperson said there was no truth in it and the issue never figured during the meetings Tillerson had in India.
Why did Rev. Valson Thampu disrupt the quality criteria at St Stephen's College by championing the case for reservations for (Anglican) Christians (and SC, STs) for 50% of total seats? Thampu, the first St Stephen's principal in the college's 136 year history to have written a memoir, spoke with Firstpost from his Thiruvananthapuram residence on this and 10 other issues that inform what he calls his "explosive" book - "On a stormy course - In the hot seat at St. Stephen's". Thampu's tenure at St. Stephen's was dogged by controversy and front page news week on week. But the recently retired principal isn't giving up just yet.

Excerpts from the conversation, lightly edited, are here:

Firstpost: What made you choose the word storm, what are the chapters, the serious dimensions in the book, specific controversies that you think you have addressed?

Valson Thampu: The word storm exists in the title merely to connect the book with the existing perceptions about my tenure which as everybody knows was extremely tumultous. To start a dialogue, it always helps to start with a settled image and then subject it to objective discourse. The metaphor of storm exists in the title for the purposes of linkage of prevailing public imagination.

FP: Coming to your tenure as Principal, your critics say you were too much in the news and you were forever getting into trouble. Give us a peek into the book which I imagine has your counter version.

Valson Thampu: I have not written this book in order to counter anybodys view. I have written this book in the interest of truth. Unfortulately, when things were happening, for reasons unclear to me, the media chose to play a partisan role. Therefore, the truth was not available to the public. I owed it to the public to present my side of the story, since all these details were played out in front of the same public. That is why I allowed six months to pass so I could distance myself emotionally from all these events before I wrote with completely scientific and objective treatment.

FP: I tread here on ground that many non-Stephanians ask of your tenure. Why did you ruin the quality criteria by championing the case for reservations for (Anglican) Christians (and SC, STs) for 50% of total seats. Other colleges have 50% reservation too. But their criteria allows millions of OBCs to compete for the reserved seats, not merely a handful of Anglican Christians. Didnt your decision amount to a sell out to the Church of North India and add to the state that St Stephens is in - kids failing, kids not getting into IIMs or the IAS?

Valson Thampu: Whether I ruined the academic standards of the college or not has to be discussed objectively. When I took charge of the college in 2007, the college was not in the list of the top 5 colleges in this country in the India Today MARG Survey which is considered the most elaborate, comprehensive rating exercise in this country. By 2011, the college was recognised as the best for all science subjects. By 2012, it was adjudged the best among 40,000 colleges in the Arts and Humanities which means all subjects taught in college. I leave it to the viewers to decide whether the academic standards of the college were ruined or bolstered in my time.

What is at work in this kind of apprehension is a class bias which we inherit. In India, we are accustomed to think of merit being domicile in certain castes and classes. This was one myth I wanted to subject to empirical examination, and my exercise undertaken and completed in full public view in total transparency proves this myth beyond reasonable doubt that such associations and ascriptions are purely arbitrary. What one of my predecessors, namely S K Rudra said in 1909 - he was the first Indian principal of St Stephens college - he said the real merit of India is to be found in her villages. In fact, Gandhi got this idea from S K Rudra which I was called upon to steward. So I will not accept the idea that merit can be found only among certain classes and certain castes. My task was to open up the portals of St Stephens College to people from all walks of life. In fact everybody agrees that the composition of the student body changed for the better. When students started coming from different socio economic backgrounds, they brought a new enthusiasm into the life of the college, It became a transformed place. Look at any parameter of assessing an institution. You will find that during my tenure, St Stephens not only improved but improved very dramatically. There is absolutely no basis in saying that the college suffered on account of my tenure and on account of my initiating social justice into higher education, which I believe is a fundamental need in higher education in India.

FP: At one time you reported great pressure on you by your religious leadership to admit undeserving students. There was talk of money changing hands. Does your book talk of that? Do you talk of times when the UPA chairpersons envoys supposedly asked you to sneak a loyalists child through the back door? How lonely is the Principal of St Stephens among the swamp of denominational reservations, keeping the church happy and having a criteria for interviews where the entire elite of the country (and alumni, of course) want to sneak their young?

Valson Thampu: A position and a responsibility is only as difficult or complex as you want to make it. What life has taught me is that the path of truth and transparency is fairly simple. There will always be conflicts. The most difficult thing is not that there are pressures from external sources, particularly in a city like New Delhi where almost everybody is in a position to exercise pressure. Therefore, if one has to stay afloat and not sink in this process, one has to be abide by simple principles - that I will practice justice to every applicant. That I will not allow influence or money to tilt admission to this or that candidate. If I did, I would not be able to sleep that night. I have dealt with this subject in great detail in my book. I have resisted all pressures but (yes), there is one exception.I leave it to the curiosity of the readers. There is one particular instance where I compromised this inflexible conviction on my part. It was done as a strategy and that strategy was absolutely necessary at that time.

FP: Your term is called the worst ever by way of relations between the Principal and the entire faculty, at least the non-Christian ones and even a Christian faculty who had been your competitor for the Principals job. We thought the defining point in St Stephens is the faculty. Why did you fail to take them along?

Valson Thampu: Did I fail? Did I not try? If you try to do anything with the administration of St. Stephens college.the history is such that the bane of the college from long ago has been that administration has been kept a closely guarded mystery and very, very few individuals were allowed a foothold into that exercise. The first thing I did was to broadbase administration so that more colleagues could participate. Unfortulately, my relationship with the faculty got politicised but till the last moment, I continued with my effort to include more and more colleagues in the administration. I created new offices and new frontiers of academic activity. Human nature has the habit of being unhappy with whatever is provided. Embracing victimhood is a common, cheap temptation and nobody should succumb to it.

FP: A question on Rohtas, the iconic dhaba owner who you shooed away to penury and complete breakdown - couldnt he have been treated better? Similarly, one Ms Jain who claimed she was sexually harassed. These are things that have never been said of any Principal of the college in 136 years. Why you?

Valson Thampu: I dont know who gave you this idea that Rohtas was shooed out. He retained that kiosk in college till the last day. Nobody shooed him out. The only restriction I brought in was that he would not be allowed to indulge in activities that are inimical to the discipline of the college. I am very troubled that you mentioned the name of a former employee of mine because you know that in such matters, taking anybodys name in unlawful, so I will not comment on it. All I can say is that the internal committee looked into the matter and the person concerned went and testified before the community that nothing of the sort happened.

FP: Let's end on a sombre note, respectful of both the hard work entailing a book like this and a life of service that you have led. What are the broader issues staring higher education, a notch above a slightly self-absorbed image we have of (St) Stephen's and Stephanians?

Valson Thampu: I wrote this book primarily as a case study on what ails higher education. There is really no attempt to engage with ground realities when attempts to reform higher education are undertaken. Now, no matter what fantastic models of higher education you evolve, if an institution is not rendered approrpriate medium of translating policies into action. If St Stephens is beset with such problems, then you can imagine the state of the other colleges. If we say that the 12th principal of the college was a villain and all the problems happened only because of him, then we are running away from reality. When the idea of introducing college autonomy was introduced in January 2017, it ended up in turmoil. Any such idea will meet with resistance. I have only two things to say. I was aware of the great tradition that I was called upon to steward and I delivered consistent to that spirit and enlarged opportunities. Principals are the most vulnerable employees in India, they live in fearI have proved to them that it is possible to lead a useful and inspiring life.

FP: Finally, your successor Prof John Varghese has vouched for autonomy and therein power to announce new courses and become more self dependent than UGC has allowed the college to ever be. Whats your wager - can St Stephens survive this gamble?

Valson Thampu: First of all, autonomous colleges cannot grant degrees. That power rests only with the University. I have serious apprehensions about how the college would exercise its autonomy because to bring in academic results, the faculty must be willing to take on additional responsibilities. Unfortunately, in this country, the teaching faculty are accustomed to a very laidback life. They are not used to hard work, very unlike the US where it is very rigorous and where there is accountability and transparency. In the Indian system, a person can spend their entire life teaching 5,6,7 texts. For autonomy to work, I have analysed the spiritual and cultural aspects for success. It is very sad that teachers in higher education lack understanding, they hang on to status quo. Why cant we as a nation look at the reasons for our continuing institutional mediocrity in education?

Some other questions that Rev. Thampu answered:

Tell us about yourself - not as Principal, but well before that. Tell us about your life as a child and the formative influences. What/who shaped your world view. Your was your mother impacted you in a truly meaningful way. Do you, as you look at your life, miss the imprint of your Dad?

I understand you faced considerable economic difficulties when you joined St Stephens as an MA student. So much that despite having the requisite marks to be allotted a room in Residence, you had to live outside the College campus. How did absence of abundance, which I imagine many of your fellow students had, impact your relationship with money (and with God)?

Having done well in MA, you were invited to join the St Stephens faculty. Did the idea of doing a PhD first (or even concurrently with teaching) strike you then? I ask because at the pinnacle of your professional career, when you were appointed Principal, the absence of PhD (rules state it should be in a subject relevant to St Stephens) became an object of national interest. You finally had to show the world a theology doctorate from an agriculture institute in Allahabad. Have you addressed this matter in your book?
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday disposed of 14 petitions seeking its nod to deposit demonetised notes and said that a five-judge constitution bench would deal with this aspect besides deciding the validity of Centre's decision to demonetise currency notes.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud said the constitution bench would also deal with the individual plea of those who could not deposit their currency notes during the window period provided by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Some petitioners claim that they have not challenged the constitutional validity of either certain provisions of the RBI Act and Centre's 8 November, 2016, notification, rather they want to deposit their demonetised currency notes.

"Our hard-earned money has been confiscated without due process of law and without granting fair opportunity," lawyer Pranav Sachdeva, appearing for one of the petitioners said adding the constitution bench be constituted as expeditiously as possible.

The bench asked the petitioners to file two to three page long interlocutory applications in the pending petitions which would be dealt by the constitution bench later.

It then disposed of individual petitions filed by 14 persons seeking permission to deposit currency notes on the grounds that they could not deposit the notes with banks due to some unavoidable and compelling reasons.

The apex court had on 16 December, last year referred to a constitution bench, the issue of the validity of government's decision to demonetise currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500.

While holding that the challenge to 8 November notification was in the arena of "public importance" as complaints of inconvenience have been brought, it said there was a need for a direction for referring it to a larger bench for "authoritative pronouncement by five judges".
Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court on Thursday issued a notice to BJP president Amit Shah's son, Jay Shah, on a petition filed by online news portal The Wire challenging a gag order passed by a lower court.

Justice Paresh Upadhyay issued the notice, seeking a reply within two weeks.

The website's lawyer, senior advocate Dushyant Dave, argued that the lower court's order prohibiting it from publishing any article related to Jay Shah was a curtailment of the Constitutional freedom of speech and expression. Its readers have the right to know, said the petition, while maintaining that there was nothing defamatory in its article about Jay Shah's firm.

A local court recently issued a gag order against The Wire in response to a civil defamation suit of Rs 100 crore filed by Jay Shah against the reporters, editors and the company over an article which claimed that his company's turnover rose 16,000 times in one year after the NDA came to power.

The company saw a huge rise in its turnover following Narendra Modi becoming prime minister in 2014, and its revenue rose from Rs 50,000 to over Rs 80 crore in one year, the article said.

It triggered a political firestorm, with the Congress demanding inquiry into the matter and while the BJP calling it slanderous.

Jay Shah has also filed a criminal defamation suit against author of the article Rohini Singh, founding editors of the news portal Siddharth Varadarajan, Siddharth Bhatia and MK Venu, managing editor Monobina Gupta, public editor Pamela Philipose and the Foundation for Independent Journalism, the non-profit company that runs The Wire.

In his suit, Shah termed the article as "scandalous, frivolous, misleading, derogatory, libelous and consisting of several defamatory statements."

In the criminal defamation suit case, the metropolitan magistrate has summoned all the respondents on 13 November.
New Delhi: Two of the injured in the NTPC boiler blast in Uttar Pradesh have been shifted to the Safdarjung hospital in New Delhi. Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel visited them on Friday.

A green corridor was created to bring the patients to the national capital, considering the seriousness of their condition.

Seven more injured in the Tuesday's blast were also to be shifted to the city's AIIMS hospital, besides the Safdarjung's 's trauma centre, said an official.

Patel visited Safdarjung hospital late on Thursday "to oversee and ensure that patients from the blast got the best medical care and treatment", said the official from the Union health ministry.

She suggested that facilities and doctors from the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital could also be used, if necessary.

The death toll in the blast in National Thermal Power Corporation's 500MW unit in Rae Bareli rose to 30 on Thursday. The government has ordered a magisterial probe into the tragedy.

The massive explosion took place in state-owned power plant's Unchahar town unit on the Lucknow-Allahabad Highway on Tuesday. Many were trapped when the boiler burst and a huge ball of dust rose, making the rescue operations difficult.
China's largest cutter-suction dredger is due to be launched on Friday in the city of Qidong, Jiangsu Province, reports China Youth Daily.

China's largest cutter-suction dredger, the Tiankun, was due to be launched on November 3, 2017. [File Photo: VCG]

The Tiankun, which is 140-meter-long and 27.8-meter-wide, can dredge to a depth of 35 meters, and carry its load for 15-thousand meters.

The dredger was designed by the China State Shipbuilding Corporation, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Guangzhou Wenchong Shipyard as well as the China Merchants Industry, and was built by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries.

China's largest cutter-suction dredger, the Tiankun, was due to be launched on November 3, 2017. [File Photo: VCG]

Tiankun is larger and has greater capability than the Tianjing, formerly the largest cutter-suction dredger in Asia, which was built with imported parts.

Wang Jian, President Assistant at the China Communications Construction Tianjin Dredging Group, says Tiankun represents a landmark as China's first independently developed heavy-duty self-propelled cutter-suction dredger, over which China has completely independent intellectual property rights.

Tiankun leads the field of similar boats in the world in terms of distance of delivery and in many other respects.

Its advanced systems allow automated dredging and monitoring. It can also carry out dredging and reclamation work at ports, in coastal waters, in addition to deep-sea operations.

It will be put into service in the first half of 2018.




Bhubaneswar: Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu is scheduled to undertake a two-day tour of Odisha from 10 November, said commissioner of police YB Khurania.

As per the schedule, Naidu will arrive on 10 November evening and will stay in Raj Bhavan, Khurania said.

On 11 November, the vice-president will attend KIIT University convocation and return to Delhi on that day.

A high-level meeting attended by chief secretary and DGP RP Sharma, held discussion on the arrangements to be made for the vice-president's visit. Khurania among others also attended the meeting.

"Security to the vice-president will be provided as per the Blue Book," Bhubaneswar DCP Satyabrata Bhoi said.
Slackliner Samar Farooqui is on a mission  to provide a platform for fellow adrenaline junkies so they can channelise their 'extra' energy.

"A lot of people turn to drugs and alcohol because they dont have a platform to channelize their energy. I was fortunate enough to find slacklining. I want to spread the benefits of the sport to the millions of people who are out there, who can use this positive energy," said Farooqui.

Farooqui was 'the kid with the extra energy' while growing up, and liked to push himself physically all the time. "Once I got locked out of my home in Mumbai. Our flat was on the fifth floor but there was renovation work being done to the building. I climbed the bamboo stilts they had built to paint the building and got in through the window," he recalled.

The 27-year-old Business Administration graduate had never planned on making a career around slacklining though. He was introduced to the sport by a friend in 2010, and later found opportunity to sharpen his skills in New Zealand, where he completed graduation.

Returning from New Zealand, Farooqui found it hard to find spaces to slackline in India. He even got arrested once by the Mumbai police. "The tipping point for me... when I realised this has actually reached really far, was in 2014, when I got arrested for slacklining. I knew I had to do something about," he said.

He founded Slacklife Inc.  a sport and recreation company  in 2014. "The company was actually born out of the need for all the misfits, that are branded by the society, to feel one and feel welcome".

The company hosted India's first slacklining and highlining fest called 'Between Years' in 2016 and is already preparing for the second edition of the event.

Farooqui believes "Graffiti artists, skateboarders, us  all the people who are branded as misfits are just doing something they like something that keeps them sane in an insane world. And it's important that we give them that platform."
A day after news emerged about controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik seeking refuge in Malaysia, the external affairs ministry has announced that India will soon make a formal request to Kuala Lumpur for Naik's extradition.

Our legal internal process is nearing completion. Once it is complete,will then make offl request to Malaysian Govt very soon:MEA #ZakirNaik pic.twitter.com/E0NYbkxYzP  ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017

Addressing a press briefing, the external affairs ministry's official spokesperson Raveesh Kumar also added that the ministry's legal internal process is nearing completion, after which the request will be sent to the Malaysian authorities.

Maybe in the next couple of weeks, it will clear what will be the nature of the request: Raveesh Kumar,MEA #ZakirNaik  ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017

Earlier, a Reuters report stated that Naik, who is banned in the United Kingdom, was given permanent residency in Malaysia five years ago.

The report also quoted Malaysian deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi as saying, "Over the time spent in this country, he (Naik) has not broken any laws or regulations. As such, there is no reason from a legal standpoint to detain or arrest him. The government has not received any official request from India related to terrorism allegations involving him.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on 26 October charged Naik with inciting youth to take up terror activities, giving hate speeches and promoting enmity between communities.

The NIA had filed 4,000-page chargesheet in a special court in Mumbai against him and said that he promoted hatred between different religious groups in India through his public speeches and lectures.

Naik is also being probed under terror and money-laundering charges by the NIA. He fled from India on 1 July, 2016, after reports emerged that terror accused in neighbouring Bangladesh claimed that they were inspired by his speeches.

Earlier this year, Naik's passport was also revoked by the external affairs ministry at the request of the NIA. The NIA issued notices to him thrice under Section 160 of the Code of Criminal Procedure asking him to join the investigation. However, he did not appear before the investigating agency.

With inputs from agencies
New Delhi: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Thursday said that though his government doesn't have legal power in many areas, they know how to get things done.

Kejriwal, who is also the National Convenor of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), was speaking at the annual cof the party attended by more than 300 party delegates.

"We don't have legal power, but we are people from the ground and street. If things can't be done in that way, then we know how to do it this way. When we didn't have power, we used to get things done, now at least we have some power," he said, referring to AAP MLAs protest at the Lieutenant Governor's office for "not passing" files related to Mohalla Clinics, a flagship project of the Delhi government.

"One day all these MLAs went and sat at the L-G's house and said that 'sir either you clear the files or else we will eat here'. Later the files were cleared in two day's time," Kejriwal said in his address to the delegates.

"I'm not exaggerating, but I can't even appoint my peon, all our powers have been taken away," he said.

Kejriwal said that the Supreme Court is hearing a case on power distribution in Delhi between the Central and state governments and added that if they get back control over the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB), then they'll show the Central government the grit they had in the first, 49-day AAP government.

He said that when they came to power in 2013 for 49 days, officers and police were not taking any bribe as the ACB was under the Delhi government, but though the ACB was taken away from the Delhi government when AAP came to power for the second time, "they couldn't take one thing from us - passion".

Kejriwal said that two things  Jan Lokpal and Swaraj  were their foundation, but the party has not been able to achieve these.

He said that though the Jan Lokpal Bill was passed by the Delhi assembly, it was pending with the central government.

"If Jan Lokpal is passed in Delhi, then our MLAs will be trapped, our ministers will be trapped, our chief minister will be trapped, it's good for you (central government), so pass it. But they won't pass it because, if it happens in Delhi then there will be demands from the whole country to pass it in their states too," he said.
Indore: Taking a swipe at the CBI for its "clean chit" to Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the Vyapam scam, senior Congress leader Kamal Nath on Friday said the investigation agency has turned into a "shakha of the RSS".

"Has any court given him (Chouhan) a clean chit? The CBI, which gave him a clean chit, has reduced itself to a department (shakha) of the RSS," Kamal Nath told reporters.

The Congress veteran leader said the CBI was asked to investigate the scam but the agency has started delivering the verdict. "This proves that this investigating agency has turned into a 'shakha' of the RSS."

The CBI, in the charge sheet filed in a special court on 31 October, said the forensic analysis of the hard disk drive, recovered from Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (also known by its Hindi acronym Vyapam) officer Nitin Mohindra, showed that the discs carrying reference to the letters 'CM' had been tampered with.

Kamal Nath termed the state government the "most corrupt" in the entire country, and claimed that 160 scams had surfaced during the last 14 years of BJP rule.
Nana Pondha (Gujarat): Drawing an analogy with the Pandava-Kaurava tussle in the epic Mahabharata, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday that the fight between his party and the BJP in Gujarat was one between "truth and lies", where the truth lay on the Congress's side.

Gandhi said that while the prime minster was armed with his "government, police, army, governments in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh", he had truth on his side "and we need nothing other than truth".

"The fight is between truth and lies. Kauravas had a huge army, weapons, and Pandavas only had truth and nothing else. I would like to tell you that we only have truth and nothing else," he said at a rally at Nana Pondha town in the tribal-dominated Valsad district.

Gandhi resumed campaigning in the poll-bound state after returning from Rae Bareli where he had flown to meet the victims of Wednesday's blast at an NTPC power plant.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi has failed in providing jobs to the youth, and instead of creating two crore jobs every year as promised by him, only one lakh jobs are being generated a year," Gandhi said.

He also accused Modi of lying over the promise of depositing Rs 15 lakh in every person's account by bringing back black money stashed abroad.

The Congress government will stick to truth, even if it is unpalatable, Gandhi said.

"What is being said by the six crore people of Gujarat is different from what is being said by these three-four people and their industrialist friends who run the state," he said.

"The truth of Gujarat has nothing to do with the truth of BJP. And the truth of BJP has nothing to do with the truth of Gujarat," he said, alleging that farmers, tribals, the poor, patidars, Dalits were all aggrieved due to the BJP government's policies.

"The truth of Gujarat is unemployment among youths, difficulties faced by farmers, costly private education and health care, corruption and theft of land. And the truth of BJP is profits pocketed by five-ten corporates, theft of land and water, and toffee of Rs 35,000 crore in the name of Nano (apparent reference to a loan for Tata Nano plant), and 'suit-boot ki yaari' (closeness to corporates)," he said.

The BJP government in the state has failed to provide employment, and is privatising education and health for the benefit of a few people which has made them expensive, the Congress vice-president said.

Addressing the pre-dominantly tribal audience, Gandhi also blamed the state government for not implementing the tribal bill introduced by the UPA government.

"Ask Modi-ji when he comes here (Gujarat), you had promised to create jobs for two crore youths, today only 450 youths get job. Also ask why did you snatch away the land of farmers. And also whether you are giving the Narmada water to tribals, farmers, or only your corporate friends," he said.

"Only Congress can offer you jobs, education, health care. We will not make false promises like giving Rs 15 lakh. Sometimes you may not like the truth. But this state cannot go ahead without truth. No one better than Gujarat understands truth... Two sons of Gujarat, Gandhi-ji and Sardar Patel fought against a superpower and let it know the power of truth," Rahul Gandhi said.
Through the grueling Monday afternoon at the Congress headquarters in Ahmedabad, hordes of television crews and bubbling and balding journalists alike were waiting endlessly for a meeting to get over. Everyone outside was discussing and debating and wondering what that meeting was going to yield. Everyone had almost predicted for sure what would the meeting reveal, but they were still guessing.

For nearly two decades, and even now in Gujarat, it has only been Narendra Modi who could provoke such debates and discussions about his next mystery move. One would certainly have not thought that a 24-year-old lad would do so. But this was different, something that had not happened all these years.

The meeting was between a delegation of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) drafted by the maverick Hardik Patel and Gujarat Congress leadersat their invitation. Hardik chose to send his lieutenants instead of going himself, as though sending the message that he does not deal with lesser leaders.

They were discussing, yet again, the long-standing demand of Hardik Patels PAAS for reservation to the community in government jobs and educational institutions under the OBC category, besides three other demands that emerged during the agitation. One of them was withdrawal of police cases imposed on the Patidars during their two-year-old agitation. The ruling BJP has also agreed to withdraw the cases, but had not agreed to withdrawing the serious charges of sedition on Hardik.

The teeming crowd outside could give onlookers the impression that some national political topshots were engaged in tough negotiations. The parleys were being held between Gujarat Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki and two former state chiefs Arjun Modhwadia and Siddharth Patel and a PAAS delegation led by Alpesh Kathiria and Dinesh Bhambhania.

The suspense was whether Hardik Patel would declare his vocal support to the Congress, though his agitation has left nothing to imagination about his going all out against the BJP and even pulling jubilant crowds wherever he goes. Gujarat has only one major party besides the BJP, but Patel says Congress is not our mai-baap and keeps them on tenterhooks too.

Notwithstanding the open secret that he is in touch with the opposition party, the firebrand leader rides a high horse of morality maintaining that he is an agent of the people as he ridicules the BJP for calling him an agent of the Congress.

Days earlier, he was apparently driven to the wall when CCTV footage of his past-midnight meeting with Congress leaders, including allegedly party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, was leaked. Soon afterwards, Hardik on Sunday served a Twitter ultimatum to the opposition to come clean on reservations for the Patidars under the OBC category and other demands by 3 November.

This was when Gandhi would be on his three-day campaign in South Gujarat beginning 1 November. He was also expected to meet the Congress scion publicly but he changed his strategy and held out the Twitter threat that the Patidars would do an Amit Shah on Rahul in Surat if there was no clarity on the quota issue.

The PAAS activists had in September last year disrupted a BJP show of strength in Surat forcing BJP president Amit Shah and Chief Minister Vijay Rupani to curtail their speeches and leave the venue in a hurry.

It was following this Twitter threat that the Monday meeting took place. The Congress agreed to fulfill his demands if it comes to power. But on the contentious issue of reservation under the OBC category the Congress said it would examine all constitutional aspects and find out the best solution. The Patidar leaders too, according to Hardik Patel, would consult former judges of the Gujarat High Court and explore avenues.

Hardik told Firstpost, The Congress party has at least expressed their willingness to give reservation, but the BJP has not. Our demand to the Congress is to convince us on how will you give us reservations under Constitutional limitations.

The BJP gave a lollipop 10 per cent quota to economically backward classes (EBC), but even that was rejected by the Gujarat High Court and now the case is with the Supreme Court. In the same way, the Congress' promise of a similar 20 per cent EBC is not convincing, he added.

He asserted that, The bottomline is that we want reservation for my community and not at the cost of others, this should be very clear. I don't care how...you move heaven and earth if you need to."He, however, insisted that the reservation should pass judicial scrutiny.

Finally, at the end of the Monday meeting, it was decided to arrive at a final decision by 7 November and that Hardik would not meet Rahul on November 3. On Friday, the maverick leader told reporters in Surat, where he had come to the local court in connection with the sedition case against him, I have quite a few public meetings lined up, so it is not possible to meet Rahul Gandhi. In any case, wait and watch till November 7.
Valsad: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi would meet Gujarat Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani on Friday at Navsari, a spokesperson of the party said.

Mevani, who has been critical of the ruling BJP in the state, is expected to discuss the demands of his community when he meets the Congress vice-president, who is currently on an election campaign tour of south Gujarat.

"Jignesh Mevani and other Dalit leaders had met Ashok Gehlot (Congress' Gujarat affairs in-charge) earlier and presented a set of demands to him," Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said.

"We have extended an invitation to Mevani to meet our vice-president Rahul Gandhi today. The two will meet at Navsari later in the day," he added.

Congress Scheduled Castes (SC) cell national president K Raju also said a meeting had been arranged between Rahul Gandhi and Mevani.

Mevani had earlier said he would meet Rahul Gandhi only when he was called to discuss the opposition party's stand on various demands of the Dalit community.

The Dalit rights campaigner, who has dubbed the BJP "anti-Dalit", had also said he had no plans to join any political party.

"I want to make it clear that neither have I joined the Congress nor am I going to join the party in the future. Not just the Congress, I have no plans of joining any other party as of now," he had told reporters in Ahmedabad on Thursday.

However, the young leader, who shot to fame after the Una Dalit flogging incident last year, had added that he was ready to meet Rahul Gandhi to know about the Congress' stand on 17 demands related to his community.

The demands include an allotment of five acres of farmland to the Dalits, alternative employment for those involved in cattle-skinning and manual scavenging and the release of a probe report into an incident of firing on the community members at Thangadh in Surendranagar district in 2012.

"Since the BJP government is not even ready to hold talks with us on these demands, it is very clear that it is anti Dalit. And, that is why we are also anti-BJP. But, that does not mean we are joining another party," Mevani had said.

"However, I am ready to meet Rahul Gandhi to know about his party's stand on these demands. I want to know what can they do for our community if they come to power (in Gujarat)," he had added.
Even as Hardik Patel kept Congress hanging in balance over lending support in upcoming polls, Rahul Gandhi managed to hold positive talks with another young leader from Gujarat, who the Congress had been trying to woo for some time.

Jignesh Mevani, who shot to prominence after the Dalit flogging incident in Gujarat's Una some time back, met Rahul in Navsari. The 36-year-old 'Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch' leader appeared buoyant after meeting the Congress vice-president even as he stopped short of announcing his support to Congress. He, however, declared that he would ask his followers not to vote for BJP.

Eyeing to gain from the anti-incumbency sentiment against the almost two-decades-long rule of BJP, the Congress has been seeking to court dynamic young leaders representing different caste interests ahead of the Gujarat polls. Rahul was on the third leg of his Gujarat Navsarjan Yatra when he held 'positive' discussions with Mevani.

"Since Una (incident), we launched numerous agitations and submitted memorandums. Despite this, the thick-skinned BJP government, which is not only anti-Dalit but also anti-people, has not considered even one demand of our community. They have not even bothered to even to talk to us," Mevani told reporters after the meeting.

On the other hand, the Congress was receptive to the demands of the Dalit community, Mevani said.

Rahul also assured the Dalit leader that 90 percent of his 17-point demand letter would be accommodated in the Congress' poll manifesto, even as he said that most of those demands were indeed constitutional rights of all citizens.

"We had a detailed discussion with Rahulji on our 17 demands. Rahulji not only listened to us but said over 90 percent of them were our constitutional rights. He assured us that most of the legitimate demands would be included in the Congress manifesto," he said.

Meanwhile, Rahul also repeated his barb on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's monthly radio address Mann Ki Baat, claiming, we hear everyone's mann ki baat.

"We listen to everyone and work after hearing their problems  be it Jignesh, Hardik or Alpesh (OBC leader Alpesh Thakor)," Rahul said after the meeting.

Terming the assembly elections in Gujarat a fight between truth and lies, Rahul said the truth lies with his party, and not the BJP.

"This is a fight between truth and lies. On one side, it is Gujarat's people, on the other 5-10 industrialists. Modiji and BJP have everything, they have power in many states. They have power in the central government, in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. They have a lot of power, they have police.

"But the Congress party will win in Gujarat because the truth is with us. They don't represent the truth. The truth lies in the hearts of the people of Gujarat," said Gandhi during a corner meeting in Pardi.

"There is about 30 lakh unemployed youths in Gujarat today. Modi had promised two crore jobs every year. Only one lakh youth are given jobs every year. In China 50,000 jobs are created per day, under Modi government, it is 450 per day. It is a matter of shame," the Congress vice-president said.

The Congress leader said all the communities in Gujarat are agitating against the state government, be it the Patidars, the Adivasis, Dalits and the farmers.

"The truth of Gujarat is corruption, land-grabbing, attack on Patidars, lathi-charge on Dalits in Una, poverty of Adivasis and unemployment," Gandhi said.

"The BJP government has handed over the resources of Gujarat like wealth, electricity, water, land, to just 5-10 industrialists. It gave Rs 33,000 crore to one company to manufacture Nano cars. In the past 10-15 days, I travelled more than 1,000 km, why couldn't I see a single Nano car?

"I didn't see it anywhere. Not just Gujarat, you'll not see it anywhere. The question is..this money belonged to whom? Was it Tata company's, the chief minister's or did it belong to Gujarat's farmers, labourers and the poor," he asked.

"With a similar amount (Rs 33,000 crore), the Congress government implemented MNREGA scheme in the entire country, gave employment to crores," said Gandhi, adding the same amount was given to one company by Gujarat government but the people of the state did not benefit from it.

The Congress, out of power in the key western state for over 22 years now, has been trying to woo three young leaders who have emerged on Gujarat's political firmament in recent times through various agitations. Thakor, an OBC leader, has already joined the party.

Hardik, the Patidar quota stir leader, the most prominent among the three, has so far not declared support to the Congress but has been critical of the BJP.

The reservation issue, however, can prove a major hurdle in Hardik extending support to the Congress as Thakor, who heads the Kshatriya Thakor Sena, has been opposed to the reservation for Patels within the quota meant for the backward classes. In fact, Thakor had launched an agitation to counter the one led by Hardik demanding reservation for his community.
Shimla: Chief Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala on Thursday dubbed the Modi government as "anti-hill states" and said it failed to fulfil its poll promises.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi abolished the special category state status to Himachal Pradesh in 2015, he claimed.

He said that the BJP, which was attacking the Congress on the issue of corruption, should explain how the turnover of BJP president Amit Shah son's business firm "increased phenomenally" after the Modi government assumed office.

He alleged that cases were also pending against the BJP's chief ministerial candidate Prem Kumar Dhumal and his son Anurag Thakur in the Supreme Court.

Surjewala said that decisions on demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) were "undemocratic" and these moves hurt the economy.

He claimed that the election was between the money power of the BJP and the dedicated workers of the Congress.

He also alleged that the NDA government was "misusing" investigating agencies such as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to "hijack" the mandate in Himachal Pradesh.

The state goes to polls on 9 November.
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As political parties of all shades pursue the 50,25,541 legitimate voters for electing 68 representatives to the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly, some 14,000-odd votes hold special significance, not for their numbers but for defining the future status of about 1,20000 Tibetans, living in India, as refugees. But the decision to grant voting rights to people of Tibetan origin born in India, taken after long-drawn detailed procedures that took 3 to 4 years, according to Pushpendra Rajput, Chief Electoral Officer, Himachal Pradesh, has divided the community. A 2013 court order granted Indian citizenship to Tibetan refugees born in India after 26 January 1950 and before 1 July 1987.

To the contesting parties, their vote doesn't hold  much significance because of the minuscule number involved. But within the community, the issue is hotly debated. For the 2014 general elections too, Rajput informs, provision for voting rights was available to the community, but only a few came forward to avail it.

Tibetans born in India were legally recognised as foreigners and needed a permit renewed every year till a few years back, now, in most cases the RC (registration certificate-as Tibetan refugee) is renewed every five years. Under refugee status, they are not allowed to own land, outside the allotted area of Tibetan settlements, were deprived of professional job opportunities, and faced problems in getting foreign visas. A few have even faced imprisonment for participating in anti-China protests. Adopting Indian citizenship would make life convenient, but most office-bearers of the Tibetan government in exile, based out of Dharamshala, leave it to the personal choices of people.

Most choose not to opt for Indian citizenship for reasons political as well as cultural. The idea behind coming here, in exile, is to go back to our country of origin. By adopting Indian citizenship, I will lose out on the struggle and on my responsibility as a third-generation exiled person to work towards reclaiming our country, says Tenzing Khepahk, 38, a wildlife photographer and filmmaker, who worked with filmmaker Mike Pandey for 12 years.

Not all look at the issue in political and cultural terms alone, the matrix involves economic interests too.

Tsering Wangchuk, known for the popular Friends Shop, in Bir Tibetan Settlement, gets agitated at the very mention of voting rights. Forefathers of many like Tsering were given close to 1,000 acres of land for settlement in 1964. There are two more Tibetan settlements in the area, Nangthen and Bege. Milling tourists to the Bir and Billing paragliding area have brought prosperity to the region, complicating the simple issues of identity.

They don't have a PAN card, they don't pay taxes on the businesses they run; hotels, restaurants, shops. There are reserved seats for them in medical colleges. After studying here at subsidised rates, they migrate to foreign countries. They get a lot of help from international agencies, which they never admit to. They live here but think of themselves as somewhat superior. Why would they take Indian citizenship? says an agitated taxi service owner, on condition on anonymity.

A few times, the police has been called in the area by the locals complaining of encroachment of land by the Tibetan community. Though things have always been sorted out amicably, resentment persists, They add so many storeys, build houses and shops and monasteries. For locals even building a toilet requires so many permissions and paper work from SADA ( Special Area Development Authority) that monitors the paragliding area. That's why they prefer the RC, adds a paragliding trainer.

When Indians take up American or British citizenship, they don't cease to be Indian. The same applies to us, says Tsering Dolma, 48, caretaker of Dorzong Monastic Institute, Palampur. Yet, she hasn't registered to be a voter. I know change of citizenship wont take away my Tibetan identity, we can be more unified living in Tibetan settlements for our cause. The RC is a reminder of our cause. 

Dhondhup Chokey, 28, who lives in the Majnu Ka Tila Tibetan settlement in Delhi says, If I take Indian citizenship, I lose on all the benefits I get as a refugee. At best, Indian citizenship can get me visas to a few countries and a better paying guest accommodation. I would rather retain my identity, she says. Her friends too debate about the lack of job opportunities with refugee status, but they would not like to lose their RC.

Of the 50 people who got the right to vote from Bir area in 2014, only 4 to 5 voted, comments Sonam Palmo, who migrated to India in 1950 and would rather carry her Tibetan identity till her death.

Leaving this struggle at this juncture, when China is facing so many pro-democracy underground movements, when so many young Chinese are looking for their roots in Tibetan Buddhism, will be a bad decision on our part, I'm optimistic of getting Tibet back and I will stick to it, Tenzing Khepahk voices the hope of thousands of Tibetans who, despite having given a choice, would rather maintain their in-exile status, hoping to return home one day.
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However, the young leader, who shot to fame after the Una Dalit flogging incident last year, had added that he was ready to meet Rahul Gandhi to know about the Congress' stand on 17 demands related to his community.

"I want to make it clear that neither have I joined the Congress nor am I going to join the party in the future. Not just the Congress, I have no plans of joining any other party as of now," he had told reporters in Ahmedabad yesterday.

Mevani had earlier said he would meet Rahul Gandhi only when he was called to discuss the opposition party's stand on various demands of the Dalit community.

Mevani, who has been critical of the ruling BJP in the state, may meet Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who is currently on an election campaign tour of south Gujarat.

"Kya mujhe mandir jaana mana hai (am I not allowed to visit temples?)" he had told reporters who alleged that his visit was intended to cancel out the BJP's allegation that the Congress minces around Hindu symbolism to appease Muslims, reported NDTV .

Meanwhile, the BJP has been critical of the Congress VP's temple visits in Gujarat. The ruling party had taken digs at Rahul for his "new-found" faith in Hindu Gods. Rahul, had however, hit back at the saffron party claiming that temples were open for all and not the private property of BJP leaders.

On his way to Surat from Valsad, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi took a stop at Shri Ranchhodray temple in a village in Valsad. Rahul performed aarti and offered prayers at the temple according to the local rituals.

Directed by Rakesh Jaggi, who had also worked on popular soap operas like Kahani Ghar Ghar ki and Kyu Ki Sas Bhi Kabhi Bahu thi. The starcast includes popular names like Ankit Bhardwaj, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, and Sudesh Berry.

This is one of the key regions where the Patidar agitation took birth in July 2015.

Hours before Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to address a public rally in Surats Patel-dominated Varachha area at 7 pm, firebrand Patidar leader Hardik Patel is launching a Hindi film made on him called, Hammein Haq Chahiye, Haq Se, in the same area.

Rahul Gandhi, who was on the third day of his visit to south Gujarat, today, claimed that Congress would ease the land acquisition laws if voted to power. He claimed that he biggest corruption in the present government was in acquiring lands of poor farmers for dishing out favours to big industrialists, an India Today report stated.

It is raining promises in Gujarat! As the Assembly elections draw closer, politicians are striving to woo voters with multiple poll promises, each trying to package their claims in a new, more attractive wrap.

"Gujarat's 90% Colleges, Universities are private. This is the only state in India where 15,000 government schools have been shut:" Rahul Gandhi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has failed in providing jobs to the youth, and instead of creating two crore jobs every year as promised by him, only one lakh jobs are being generated a year, Gandhi said.

" Mr Modi doesn't understand that all cash is not black money. The daily wage of a paid labourer is not black money. The daily earnings of small shopkeepers is not black money," Gandhi said amid loud applause. He claimed that the black money Modi was busy looking for in poor man's pockets was hidden in foreign bank accounts.

Various media reports claim that the Convener of the Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch Jignesh Mevani has met Congress VP Rahul gandhi and the duo managed to come to a consensus to ally ahead of the Assembly polls. Mevani has reportedly declared his support for Congress in the elections.

Mevani had met Rahul Gandhi wanting the Congress' stand on 17 demands related to his community. The demands include an allotment of five acres of farmland to the Dalits, alternative employment for those involved in cattle-skinning and manual scavenging and the release of a probe report into an incident of firing on the community members at Thangadh in Surendranagar district in 2012.

He said that he will do whatever it takes to defeat "janvirodhi BJP". He also claimed that the Congress VP had said that 90% of their demands were not even demands but the constitutional rights of Dalits.

Jignesh Mevani spoke to the press after meeting Rahul Gandhi. The Dalit leader appeared positive about his interaction with the Congress VP but stopped short of declaring his party's support to the Congress. He said that Rahul at least heard his community's demands while the BJP was never even interested to talk.

Rahul Gandhi said 90% of our demands were not demands but constitutional rights: Jignesh Mewani after meeting Congress VP

"Patidars will be given reservation without interfering with the current quota of 49 per cent. There will not be any change in the current quota. If we give reservation, it has to be outside that quota," said Rathwa, a tribal leader and the senior-most Congress MLA in the state.

Rathwa, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, made the statement at a rally before party vice president Rahul Gandhi's arrival at the tribal-dominated Nana Pondha village in Valsad district on Thursday.

The BJP asked Patidar leader Hardik Patel and the Congress to clarify their positions after senior Congress leader Mohansinh Rathwa said it is not possible to carve out a quota for the Patidar community in the existing 49 per cent reservations.

Rahul-ji called us in a pro-active approach. There was discussion, there was debate, there was a dialogue. He has promised to include most of our demands in the Congress manifesto. We will do everything to defeat the anti-people BJP, Mevani said.

Moreover, the region not only emerged as a nerve point of the Patel agitation but is also strategically important given the problems faced by traders owing to demonetisation and implementation of the GST regime. The textile and diamond hub in the region have suffered due to the short-term impacts of the Modi government's policies and the Congress would want to woo them over.

As the Congress party looks at gaining off the Patidar community's disenchantent with the BJP, Surat automatically assumes importance for the party as the Patidar agitation took birth in July 2015 in this region.

That apart, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhis temple visits during his campaign in the state has also made them think that the opposition party is adopting a soft-Hindutva approach in a bid to counter the BJP," an article in Hindustan Times states.

"Absence of a credible option has once again made Muslims reliant on the Congress despite resentment that the grand old party has dumped them for the influential Patidar community.

As Congress goes all out to woo Patidars, its core votebank Muslims disenchanted over party abandoning them for Patels

Rahul Gandhi said that there's a huge difference between the state's truth and the BJP's version of the truth. While on one hand, the state suffered, the BJP's truth is their friendship to big industrialists.

"While the Congress party invested money in the MGNREGA scheme to generate employment, the BJP gave your money, your land and your resources to Tata to make Nano cars. Where are those cars," Rahul Gandhi said.

"BJP used all your resources, your power and channeled it to a few industrialist. That's how they ran the state for 22 years," Rahul Gandhi said.

"Only Surat's businessmen have the capacity to match up to China's challange. If ever India were to compete with China, only Surat's traders can do it and they will add impetus to the rest of the nation's growth," Rahul Gandhi said.

"He spent two percent of India's GDP in implementing demonetisation, now he wants to celebrate it too," Rahul Gandhi said. He said that Modi did not even stop there. He went on and implemented the GST in a wrong manner. It was our idea and he ruined it. We told them to implement it in a phased manner but they acted on a whim. This did not harm the richest of the richest. It destroyed Surat," Gandhi said.

"This is not GST, this is Gabbar Singh Tax. Its aim is to take away your hard earned money. They talk about Ease of Doing Business and bring back American certificate to make tall claims. We don't need certificates to see the reality.," Gandhi said.

"Modi used to say he was the guard against corruption, I say he is a partner in corruption," Gandhi said.

Criticising the BJP over the controversial business dealings of Jay Amit Shah, Rahul said that it was a miraculous formula perhaps with which they could multiply there gains at such a rate. Rahul said that Modi should change his slogan frm "na khaunga na khane dunga" to "na bolunga na bolne dunga".

8 November is also the anniversary of demonetisation, which the Congress has decided to observe as a 'black day."

Rahul Gandhi said that he does not just believe in giving speeches but also listening to the people. He said that he will visit again on 8 November and visit the industries and workshops in Surat to understand the traders' sentiment.

"While the Congress party invested money in the MGNREGA scheme to generate employment, the BJP gave your money, your land and your resources to Tata to make Nano cars. Where are those cars," Rahul Gandhi said.

"BJP used all your resources, your power and channeled it to a few industrialist. That's how they ran the state for 22 years," Rahul Gandhi said.

"Only Surat's businessmen have the capacity to match up to China's challange. If ever India were to compete with China, only Surat's traders can do it and they will add impetus to the rest of the nation's growth," Rahul Gandhi said.

"He spent two percent of India's GDP in implementing demonetisation, now he wants to celebrate it too," Rahul Gandhi said. He said that Modi did not even stop there. He went on and implemented the GST in a wrong manner. It was our idea and he ruined it. We told them to implement it in a phased manner but they acted on a whim. This did not harm the richest of the richest. It destroyed Surat," Gandhi said.

"This is not GST, this is Gabbar Singh Tax. Its aim is to take away your hard earned money. They talk about Ease of Doing Business and bring back American certificate to make tall claims. We don't need certificates to see the reality.," Gandhi said.

"Modi used to say he was the guard against corruption, I say he is a partner in corruption," Gandhi said.

Criticising the BJP over the controversial business dealings of Jay Amit Shah, Rahul said that it was a miraculous formula perhaps with which they could multiply there gains at such a rate. Rahul said that Modi should change his slogan frm "na khaunga na khane dunga" to "na bolunga na bolne dunga".

8 November is also the anniversary of demonetisation, which the Congress has decided to observe as a 'black day."

Rahul Gandhi said that he does not just believe in giving speeches but also listening to the people. He said that he will visit again on 8 November and visit the industries and workshops in Surat to understand the traders' sentiment.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi would meet Gujarat Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani on Friday at Navsari, a spokesperson of the party said.

Mevani, who has been critical of the ruling BJP in the state, is expected to discuss the demands of his community when he meets the Congress vice-president, who is currently on an election campaign tour of south Gujarat.

"Jignesh Mevani and other Dalit leaders had met Ashok Gehlot (Congress' Gujarat affairs in-charge) earlier and presented a set of demands to him," Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said.

"We have extended an invitation to Mevani to meet our vice-president Rahul Gandhi today. The two will meet at Navsari later in the day," he added. Congress Scheduled Castes (SC) cell national president K Raju also said a meeting had been arranged between Rahul and Mevani.

Mevani had earlier said he would meet Rahul only when he was called to discuss the opposition party's stand on various demands of the Dalit community.

The Dalit rights campaigner, who has dubbed the BJP "anti-Dalit", had also said he had no plans to join any political party. "I want to make it clear that neither have I joined the Congress nor am I going to join the party in the future. Not just the Congress, I have no plans of joining any other party as of now," he had told reporters in Ahmedabad on Thursday.

However, the young leader, who shot to fame after the Una Dalit flogging incident last year, had added that he was ready to meet Rahul to know about the Congress' stand on 17 demands related to his community. The demands include an allotment of five acres of farmland to the Dalits, alternative employment for those involved in cattle-skinning and manual scavenging and the release of a probe report into an incident of firing on the community members at Thangadh in Surendranagar district in 2012.

"Since the BJP government is not even ready to hold talks with us on these demands, it is very clear that it is anti Dalit. And, that is why we are also anti-BJP. But, that does not mean we are joining another party," Mevani had said.

"However, I am ready to meet Rahul Gandhi to know about his party's stand on these demands. I want to know what can they do for our community if they come to power (in Gujarat)," he had added.
New Delhi: A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the appointment of Gujarat-cadre IPS officer Rakesh Asthana as a special director in the CBI.

The petition, filed by NGO 'Common Cause', termed the decision to appoint Asthana as "illegal" and "arbitrary".

The plea, which is likely to come up for hearing next week, has claimed that the CBI was probing a matter in which Asthana's name had cropped up.

Demanding quashing of his appointment, it has sought a direction to the Centre to transfer him out of the agency during the pendency of the investigation.

The plea, filed through lawyer Prashant Bhushan, has also urged the court to direct the government to produce the entire records relating to Asthana's selection and appointment.

The petition claimed that the government and the selection committee overruled the opinion of the CBI director in violation of the law.

It said that the special director was the second highest office in the CBI after director and supervised almost all the important cases being handled by the agency.
When Anil Baijal took charge as Lieutenant-Governor of Delhi in December 2016, he was asked about his relationship with the AAP government.

"This is a speculative thing and I don't know how the relationship will improve. We will sit together and talk," Baijal had said at that time. And there is a very good reason why Baijal chose such a cautious answer to that question.

The Delhi government's ties with the L-G have been anything but amiable.

Ever since it came to power in February 2015, Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP has had troubles with the L-G. Everyone knows about the bitter relations between Kejriwal and Baijal's predecessor Najeeb Jung.

Whether it was Jung annulling bureaucratic postings in New Delhi and claiming that all powers to appoint and transfer rested with him, or Kejriwal blaming Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Jung for CBI raiding the Chief Minister's Office, the Kejriwal-Jung tussle seemed to be never-ending.

And the Kejriwal-Baijal ties seem to be going the same way. On Thursday, the Supreme Court commenced a crucial hearing to determine whether the elected government or the L-G enjoys supremacy in the administration of the Union Territory of Delhi, observing that the constitutional scheme was prima facie tilted in favour of the L-G. However, Justice Chandrachud said that L-G cannot stultify a scheme by sitting over the files. Instead, he is bound to under Article 239AA to refer the matter to president in case of difference of opinion.

So why does the Delhi L-G have so many powers when there is a chief minister?

"The Supreme Courts observations about the powers of the Lieutenant-Governor of Delhi bring to the fore the tussle between the officer and the state government. However, Delhi is not the only example where the federal government has a say in the functioning of the capital. Washington, DC is another instance of a system where the federal government exerts authority," Milind Mhaske, project director at Praja Foundation (a non-partisan organisation working on urban governance), told Firstpost.

"There is a reason why such a system is put in place in many countries. The rationale for this is that the federal government should not face impediments while developing the city in a certain way. Further, the Centre wants public services to be of a certain level in Delhi, as a large number of dignitaries and government officials live there. Indeed, if Delhi had not been the capital city, it would not have received this level of investment in infrastructure and public services. The position of the L-G is to ensure the presence of the central government in running the affairs of the capital," Mhaske further said.

But he also stressed on the power and need for the state government.

"However, primarily, the L-G is answerable to the citizens of Delhi, not the prime minister who appointed him or her. There is a civilian population in Delhi whose rights and needs have to be taken care of. Policies and programmes for them need to be designed and run by the elected government. There should be mutual respect between the officer and the state government. As of now, this is not seen to be the case. There can be conflicts between the two power centres, but these conflicts need to be resolved within a certain framework. Political differences can exist, but they should not affect the smooth functioning of governance," Mhaske said.

"Primarily, the reasons that the Union government needs to have a say in the capital are security (law and order) and land. The important institutions of the government of the entire country are present in Delhi, and they need to be able to function in a stable and secure environment. Further, the Centre has a say in matters of land, in the form of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) which has been set up. In these matters, the L-G should assert his or her stand."

"However, on other civilian issues such as health and education, it is a different story. In these matters, the L-G should, as far as possible, not interfere with the functioning of the state government, which has a mandate from the people. So, for instance, if the L-G has certain reservations about mohalla clinics, he should act promptly and make these reservations clear to the state government. But the L-G should not sit on the files and delay them," he said.

Maybe it is a lack of understanding of the need for both the L-G and the state government that has caused a lot of other tussles between Kejriwal and Baijal.

In October, Kejriwal had dramatically hit out at Baijal for "opposing" a bill to regularise guest teachers in New Delhi. "I am an elected chief minister, not a terrorist," he had said. Kejriwal had also alleged that files relating to the regularisation of the teachers were never shown to Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also holds the education portfolio, by the officials on the direction of the L-G.

In September, Kejriwal had lashed out at Baijal for "stalling" the mohalla clinics file for a year "at the behest of the BJP".

He had also raised this issue in August when he had said that there should be no politics over mohalla clinics and urged Baijal to sort out objections over the matter across the table.

In April, Kejriwal had said that Baijal "fires one bullet at me" every day. That was his first direct attack against Baijal since he was appointed as L-G.

With inputs from Neerad Pandharipande and PTI
Shimla: Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh on Friday targeted BJP president Amit Shah over the meteoric rise in the revenues of his son's company, a year after the party came to power at the Centre.

Virbhadra Singh, charged by the CBI with holding assets disproportionate to his known sources of income, lashed out at Prem Kumar Dhumal, BJP's chief ministerial candidate for the 9 November election in the hill state, saying his party's main achievement was "ease of doing corruption".

"Dhumalji, your remarks on BJP's supposed fight against corruption made me laugh. Last time, I saw your own sons were out on bail," the chief minister tweeted.

. @DhumalHP Ji, your remarks on BJPs supposed fight against corruption made me laugh. Last time I saw, your own sons were out on bail. 1/4  Virbhadra Singh (@virbhadrasingh) November 3, 2017

"Your party's (the BJP) main achievement is 'ease of doing corruption'. Amit Shah and son's miracle of 16,000 times lucre hike happens only in BJP rule."

Ur partys main achievement is ease of doing corruption. @AmitShah & sons miracle of 16,000 times lucre hike happens only in BJP rule.2/4  Virbhadra Singh (@virbhadrasingh) November 3, 2017

According to a report on The Wire, Temple Enterprises, a company owned by Jay Shah, reported a 16,000 percent increase in its turnover at Rs 80.5 crore in 2015-16 from a meagre revenue of Rs 50,000 and a profit of Rs 18,728 in 2014-15. The company is involved in the business of exporting agri-products.

Virbhadra Singh said the BJP had launched personal attacks on him because it was fearing his government's "real vikas (development)" in Himachal Pradesh.

BJPs fear of real Vikas, as being witnessed in Himachal Pradesh today, is the reason why personal attacks on me is your main agenda. 3/4  Virbhadra Singh (@virbhadrasingh) November 3, 2017

"Let's not forget the time when your party chose a joyous day of the wedding of my daughter, Himachal's daughter, to carry out a CBI raid," he added.

Lets not forget the time when your party chose a joyous day of wedding of my daughter, Himachals daughter, to carry out a CBI raid. 4/4  Virbhadra Singh (@virbhadrasingh) November 3, 2017

Virbhadra Singh's response came after Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi sharply criticised the chief minister over the Congress poll manifesto vowing zero tolerance on corruption if the party retains power in the hill state.

""Singh 'saheb' is claiming there will be zero tolerance against corruption. Can anyone believe him? Can you digest it?

"The Congress has become a laughing club. Their chief minister has a corruption case against him. He is out on bail. Nothing is left for them and they have lost their hold from every part of the country," Modi told an election rally in Kangra in Himachal Pradesh on Thursday.
PTI

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today asserted that India could not lag behind in the "digital currency era", as he took a dig at "stalwarts" who had mocked his government's push for digital transactions.

"Now an era of digital currency has started, and India should not lag behind," Modi said at a rally here, about 50km from Mangaluru in the coastal district of Dakshina Kannada.

He said digitisation was aimed at bringing in accountability and added that more cash would bring with it social evils.

The prime minister also hit out at people who saw themselves as "Tees Maar Khan", a colloquial phrase used forthose who pretend to be smart or heroic, and had been sceptical of digital transactions."Last November, December, and January, stalwarts made speeches in the Parliament. If you haven't heard them, hear them. These stalwarts who see themselves as "Tees Maar Khan", those who think themselves as the epitome of knowledge, used to say that in India there is poverty, lack of education, how can digital transaction work," Modi said.They also wondered how people could go cashless, he said.

"They spared no effort to speak ill about digital transactions," he said at a rally of the Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project, where he symbolically presented a beneficiary with a RuPay card, an Indian version of a credit or debit card.

Under the project, run by the organisation managed by the Dharmadhikari (hereditary administrator) of Dharmastala, Veerendra Heggade, about 12 lakh Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana account holders would benefit from the RuPay card.

"Our mothers and sisters who live in villages, whether they are educated or not, have taken a pledge. Twelve lakh people have taken a pledge that they will transact their self-help group related business cashless; they will go with digital transaction, with RuPay card," Modi said. Complimenting Heggade for his efforts, Modi said he worked towards ensuring digital India.

Noting that the times had changed, Modi said currencies had been changing with time, too. "At one point of time it used to be stone. Then came leather, then gold and silver, ornaments, paper and plastic.

It has been changing from time to time. Now an era of digital currency has started and India should not lag behind," he said.

The Prime Minister also spoke of the government's efforts at ensuring that every rupee from the Centre was used for the welfare of Indians and that it reached the intended

beneficiary without any scope for leakage.

"One of our former Prime Ministers had said if one rupee goes from Delhi, by the time it reaches a village it will become 15 paise. Who are these people who do this," he asked.

Highlighting the direct benefit transfer scheme, Modi said because of the government's efforts, Rs 57,000 crore "going into someone's hand illegally" had been stopped and the money was now reaching the right beneficiary. "Now tell me, those people whose pocket the Rs 57,000 crore used to go to, will they like Modi? Will they not get angry with Modi?... Difficulties will come, but standing at this holy place I'm saying whether we are there or not, we will not let this country be destroyed," he said.

Speaking on skill development, Modi said, "In this 21st century, developed counties of the world are also discussing skill development. It is regarded as a prime sector."

Pointing out that India took pride for its demographic dividend of having 800 million people, or 65 per cent of its population, below the age of 35, he said skill development should not only be used for meeting basic needs such as food but also for ensuring that the dreams of the country were

fulfilled.
PTI

Satya Nadella, the India-born CEO of tech giant Microsoft, will be in India next week on a two-day visit to promote his book Hit Refresh.

Nadella, who will be in India on 6 November to 7 November, will visit Hyderabad and Delhi and engage with government officials, industry leaders, students, and academia among other stakeholders, a Microsoft spokesperson told PTI.

"The two-day trip is focused on the book. His (Nadella) engagements include meetings with customers and industry leaders across sectors, union government and employees," the spokesperson added.

The company has also lined up a public event on the book with a diverse audience comprising students, academia, startups, and community influencers.

Hyderabad-born Nadella, who took over as Microsoft CEO in February 2014, has chronicled his personal journey, the ongoing transformation at the Redmond-based company and the wave of technological changes in his book Hit Refresh that was launched in September.

The book carries a foreword by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. It will also be available in three Indian languages, Hindi, Telugu, and Tamil, later this month. All proceeds from the book will go to Microsoft Philanthropies
PTI

The company, which forayed into the Indian market by selling its handsets online only, has been gradually ramping up its offline presence through partners.

"Offline is growing at a fast pace for us...In July- August (this year), about 20 percent of our sales was coming through offline channels. We hope this will increase to 30 percent by end of the year or early next year," Xiaomi India Head Manu Kumar Jain told reporters here.

Xiaomi sells its products through offline channels like large format stores, multi-brand outlets and its own Mi Homes.

"Apart from a few thousand retail points, we are also well on track with the expansion of our Mi Homes. We had said we will have 100 of those in 2 years and nine are already in place," Jain said.

Xiaomi, which competes with the likes of Samsung, Lenovo, Vivo, and Oppo in India, had earlier in the year said it expects to clock revenues in excess of USD 2 billion (Rs 12,867 crore) from its India operations this year, doubling its topline over 2016.

Xiaomi today launched a new smartphone series with two devices, Redmi Y1 and Redmi Y1 Lite, aimed at selfie enthusiasts.

The devices will compete with those from the stables of Oppo and vivo and are priced at Rs 6,999 onwards.

Besides, it has also unveiled the global version of its operating system MIUI 9 that includes new features designed for India.

"Redmi Y1 is our first phone in India which boasts a Selfie-light. This, paired with a 16 MP front facing camera, ensures selfies come out bright and clear even in challenging conditions," Jain said.

Redmi Y1 Lite features 5.5-inch display, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage (expandable upto 128GB), 13MP rear and 5MP front camera, and 3,080mAh battery. It is priced at Rs 6,999.

The Redmi Y1 features 13MP rear and 16MP front camera. The 3GB RAM/32GB storage variant is priced at Rs 8,999, while 4GB/64GB variant will be available for Rs 10,999.

The devices will be available from November 8 across Amazon.in, Mi.com, Mi Home stores, and Xiaomis offline partners.
Seoul: South Korean civil groups on Friday called for protests over the weekend throughout the country against US President Donald Trump's visit next week.

At least 1,000 people are expected to gather in Jongno in Seoul, for an anti-Trump protest, while similar rallies are expected to take place simultaneously in other cities such as Gwangju, Daejeon, Ulsan and Changwon, reports Efe news.

Trump will visit South Korea between 7 November and 8 November for a summit with his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in, and discuss North Korea's nuclear threats and the bilateral free trade pact, among other issues.

South Korean progressive groups have blamed Trump's hard-line policy  sending strategic military assets to the region and his belligerent comments to the regime led by Kim Jong-un  for aggravating tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

The civil groups have called on Moon to take bold measures such as the suspension of joint military drills with the US to bring Pyongyang to the negotiating table.

Besides the anti-Trump rallies, pro-US rallies, led by conservative groups and supporters of the South Korea-US alliance are also expected to take place to welcome Trump.
Washington: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will make his maiden trip to Myanmar in November to discuss the Rohingya crisis.

Tillerson will travel to Naypyidaw on 15 November to hold talks with senior officials on the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine state and US support for Myanmar's democratic transition, the State Department said on Thursday.

More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh following a security crackdown in Rakhine, drawing allegations of ethnic cleansing and overshadowing Myanmar's US-backed transition to democracy.

Tillerson will also accompany President Donald Trump on his five-nation trip to Asia that starts this weekend.

Trump is travelling to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

The Secretary will also make an additional stop in Burma, State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert said.

"Tillersons six-country visit demonstrates the Trump administrations commitment to our alliances and partnerships in the Asia Pacific and highlights our ongoing engagement in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the East Asia Summit (EAS) on regional issues of mutual interest and concern," she said.

Giving a detailed itinerary of Tillersons Asia trip, Nauert said he will first travel to Tokyo for Trump's meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that starts Sunday.

Tillerson will also join the president for summits with the leaders of South Korea and China, and for regional summits of Asia-Pacific leaders in Vietnam and the Philippines.

In Japan, he will also engage with Japanese and American business leaders and meet with the families of Japanese citizens abducted by the North Korean regime.

"He will support the presidents focus on bolstering the US-Japan Alliance, strengthening our shared resolve on North Korea, and pressing for more balanced trade that fosters strong domestic demand-driven growth and free and fair trade practices," the spokesperson said.

In Seoul, he will join Trump in meeting with senior Korean officials to discuss the US-South Korea alliance and their shared global priorities, including coordinated response to the threat posed by North Korea.

Between 8-10 November, Tillerson will visit Beijing and will participate in Trumps summit meeting with President Xi Jinping.

He will have discussions with Chinese officials on bilateral, regional, and global issues that affect both countries.

At the top of the agenda will be North Korea and the economic relationship between the United States and China.

The US seeks a constructive and results-oriented relationship with China, Nauert said.
Maia Jaycox has a very unusual party trick.

The 19-year-old calls it a bee beard: She lets honeybees crawl onto her face. However, its for a good cause.

Jaycox, the 2017 American Honey Queen, has spent the last 10 months traveling the United States visiting farmers markets, beekeeping clubs, schools and government groups. Her mission? Spreading awareness of the problems honeybees face in todays climate, and raising grassroots support for local beekeepers, from Minnesota to Florida and everywhere in between.

Jaycox made a stop in the Chippewa Valley the week of Oct. 30, visiting several local schools and beekeeping organizations. Shell cap off her Wisconsin visit with an appearance at the Wisconsin Honey Producers Association Convention in Eau Claire. The conference began Thursday and will end Saturday evening, at Holiday Inn Eau Claire South at 4751 Owen Ayres Court.

Its been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Honestly, I didnt expect this, Jaycox said.

It all began when Jaycox mother found out she had an allergy to honeybees. I got pushed into the picture. Maia, youre going to be the beekeeper now, Jaycox remembered. Things went from there.

Her family now keeps ten hives, harvesting roughly 50 pounds of honey from each one every year.

Four years after she began keeping bees, the Iowa teen was discovered volunteering at her state fair. The then-Iowa Honey Queen met Jaycox, encouraged her to apply for the position, and the rest is history.

People are typically surprised when they bump into her, Jaycox said. They honestly dont know theres a Honey Queen. Its amazing to see peoples reactions on how much we can talk about bees and what we do for the beekeeping industry. The position has been a state Honey Queen chosen by the American Beekeeping Federation since 1959.

Not a fan of insects? Jaycox knows the feeling. Honestly, starting off  I was afraid of the bees. Working with them for the past five years, Ive grown to like them. If youre calm around bees, theyll be calm around you, she said.

She doesnt recommend picking up beekeeping as an impulse hobby, however: It can be costly, but the rewards are long-lasting. Learn about bees before getting bees, Jaycox said. Join a beekeeping club, get a mentor. Youll want to start in the springtime, so they can establish in the year before winter comes.

Apartment- and city-dwellers can also do their part. Bee-friendly plants are disappearing, Jaycox said, and people can plant blue, white, purple or yellow flowers to attract them.

Jaycox is a sophomore at Iowa State University, studying agricultural business and communication. No matter what the Midwestern native ends up doing after college, she said beekeeping will always be a part of her life: Ill always have bees. In, at or around me, even after I graduate.

Jaycoxs message always circles back to cultivating honeybees and supporting the people who keep them. Help support local beekeepers. Buying local from them shows a lot of support, she said.

For more information on the Wisconsin Honey Producers Association Conference in Eau Claire, visit www.wihoney.org.

For more information on the Honey Queen and the American Beekeeping Federation, visit www.abfnet.org/?12.
China blocked a US-backed proposal, again, to have Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar declared a "global terrorist" at the United Nations, saying "there is no consensus" within the members of the sanctions committee to do so. It was the fourth time China has blocked this bid.

Azhar, the Pathankot attack mastermind, is currently in Pakistan, and has been at the center of a diplomatic tussle between the three nations. In March last year, China was the only member among the 15-nation body not in favour of India's application to have him designated a global terrorist. The other 14 members of the council had agreed to place him on the list, which would subject him to an assets freeze and travel ban.

India worries that China, a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, would stand by Pakistan, its nuclear armed arch-rival. On Thursday, India reacted sharply to the latest development, saying "accommodating with terrorism for narrow objectives was short-sighted and counterproductive".

External affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar, in a strongly-worded statement, said, "We are deeply disappointed that once again, a single country has blocked international consensus on the designation of an acknowledged terrorist and leader of UN-designated terrorist organisation, Masood Azhar."

Kumar said that "double standards" and "selective approaches" will undermine the international community's resolve to combat terrorism.

Why is Masood Azhar so important to China?

As per a report on Livemint, India providing shelter to the Dalai Lama hasn't gone down well with China, and by defying India over the Masood Azhar issue may be Beijing's idea of "payback".

The Dalai Lama has long been a thorn in China's side, and it has held it against India. "For the Chinese, the Dalai Lama is sort of the equivalent of Hafeez Saeed for India," an Indian diplomat who was posted in Beijing recently was quoted as saying in the report.

Furthermore, India also opted out of China's ambitious 'One-Belt-One-Road' summit earlier this year. Japan and the US had both attended the summit, making India the most conspicuous absentee.

Considering how important OBOR was to China and given how Beijing bent backwards to try and accommodate India, as argued by Firstpost earlier, New Delhi's boycott would have left a sour taste. Already, several experts had claimed that China's bullish stance on Doka La was in part due to the snub it received regarding OBOR. The stance it has taken up on the Masood Azhar case could be a continuation of the same.

More importantly, however, is the fact that Pakistan has been China's ally, and has had Beijing's back at summits like the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Non-Aligned Movement, where China has no representation. As argued in Financial Express, Beijing sees Pakistan as a means of countering India's rapid rise.

At a time when India and the US are moving ever closer  Washington has backed India on both the Masood Azhar issue and on OBOR  China would not want to antagonise Pakistan. And if all it takes to keep Pakistan happy is block a bid to have Masood Azhar designated a "global terrorist", it would be happy to do this.

With inputs from agencies
Thornton (Colorado): Police in Colorado on Thursday captured a man accused of walking calmly into a suburban Denver Walmart and fatally shooting three people at random before driving away.

Scott Ostrem, 47, was taken into custody without incident a day after the shooting following a tip from the public, the Thornton Police Department said.

Police said they have yet to establish a motive for the rampage and that Ostrem had only a minimal criminal history.

Video broadcast from CBS affiliate KCNC-TV showed the suspect being handcuffed by police against the side of an SUV as FBI agents carrying rifles and wearing body stood by.

KCNC-TV said police SWAT team officers had ringed his last known address in suburban Adams County on Thursday morning when Ostrem drove past. He was followed by law enforcement and journalists, KCNC-TV reported, and was arrested in the nearby suburb of Westminster after a quick pursuit.

Police had earlier released a surveillance camera photograph of a middle-aged white man wearing a black jacket and blue jeans. They also published a photo of the red four-door Mitsubishi hatchback he was believed to be driving.

Ostrem nonchalantly entered the store in Thornton, about 10 miles (16 kilometres) northeast of downtown Denver, and opened fire on shoppers and employees shortly after 6 pm (8 pm EDT) on Wednesday, police spokesman Victor Avila told reporters.

Two men were killed in the shooting and a woman who was shot was taken to a hospital where she died, according to police. No one else was wounded.

What we have determined is that it is random as of right now, Avila told reporters. As witnesses stated, the person came in and just shot towards a group.

The Walmart had been quickly surrounded by police and fire crews. Avila said there was no indication the shooting was an act of terrorism and no one had claimed responsibility.

We cant rule anything out, he said.

Ostrem is due to appear on Friday morning in Adams County District Court, where he will be advised of the charges against him.

The victims were identified as Pamela Marques, 52, Carlos Moreno, 66 and Victor Vasquez, 26.

Walmart customer Aaron Stephens, 44, of Thornton told Reuters he was buying groceries at a self-checkout stand when he heard gunshots and ricocheting bullets.

The employees started screaming and the customers started screaming as people began to flee, he said. I ran out, too, because I didnt want to get shot.

Early accounts of multiple casualties had revived painful memories for the Denver area, where a gunman killed 12 people in 2012 at a midnight screening of the Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises at a theatre in the suburb of Aurora. The shooter, James Holmes, is serving a dozen consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

In 1999 two 12th-graders fatally shot 12 fellow students and a teacher at Columbine High School in suburban Jefferson County. The pair, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, then committed suicide in the campus library.
Washington: Donald Trump promised he would fill the military prison at Guantanamo Bay with "bad dudes" and slammed the Barrack Obama administration for prosecuting terrorists in US courts. But so far, Trump has treated terror suspects just as Obama did, passing on Guantanamo in favour of having his own Justice Department lawyers try them in federal court.

The strongest sign yet that he is retreating from his earlier promise came on Thursday when Trump conceded that the civilian courts offer a swifter way to bring terror suspects to justice in the communities they attacked.

A day after he assailed the US criminal justice system as a "joke" and a "laughingstock," Trump backed off his threat to send the suspect in Tuesday's New York bike path rampage to the troubled military commission system at Guantanamo.

"Statistically, that process takes much longer than going through the Federal system," Trump said in an early morning tweet, adding that there is "also something appropriate" about keeping him "in the home of the horrible crime he committed."

It was legally questionable whether the Trump administration could have sent 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov to Guantanamo, in part because the courts have not ruled whether the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force  which permits the government to detain enemy combatants for the duration of a military conflict  applies to the Islamic State and its followers. And no one held within the US has been sent to Guantanamo since the detention centre opened in January 2002 to hold suspected members of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Trump has passed on other chances to send suspects there, including earlier this week, when the Justice Department said a militant captured in Libya and accused of playing an instrumental role in the 2012 Benghazi attacks would be prosecuted in federal court in Washington, where a trial for the alleged mastermind is already underway.

On Wednesday, the US announced that a man arrested in Bosnia had been brought to New York to face charges that he abandoned the United States in 2013 to join the Islamic State group. And the administration this summer sent an Al-Qaeda suspect linked to a plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist from Spain to Philadelphia to face terrorism charges in federal court, another break from Trump's tough-on-terror talk.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has long argued that terror suspects should be prosecuted at the military prison, expressed confidence Thursday that the US justice system can handle terror suspects like Saipov, an immigrant from Uzbekistan who authorities say was inspired by the Islamic State.

Sessions said the administration would "use all lawful tools at our disposal" in the fight against terror, leaving open the possibility of sending suspects to Guantanamo, but touting for the first time the hundreds of terrorism-related convictions the Justice Department has secured since the 11 September, 2001, attacks.

Trump's early record is a far cry from the rhetoric of his fellow Republicans who for years demanded terror suspects be held as enemy combatants.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on Thursday he was "dumbfounded as to why the Trump administration still follows the Obama playbook when it comes to dealing with terror suspects." Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona made a similar call for Saipov to be interrogated as an enemy combatant, without some of the protections afforded under the American legal system.

Trump's argument that Saipov should be tried in the same place where he committed his attack closely resembles the one Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder made in trying to move the five men accused in the 11 September attacks from Guantanamo to New York for trial in a civilian court. That effort that was derailed by political opposition. The men remain at Guantanamo and have yet to be tried. Their cases are likely years from resolution.

Holder expressed vindication after Trump changed course on Thursday, writing on Twitter: "Those who criticised my decision to try 9/11 plotters in the federal system take note. I was right. 16 years-no justice. Use courts-not Gitmo."

Just seven men have been convicted at Guantanamo either by trial before the military commission or through plea bargains, including four whose convictions were later overturned on appeal or invalidated.

Mary McCord, who oversaw the Justice Department's National Security Division before her departure in April, said she hoped Trump and Sessions were beginning to recognise the long and successful track record of federal terrorism prosecutors.

"It's a good sign that the president and the attorney general are listening to the advice of counterterrorism prosecutors, career professionals who have a lot to offer" when it comes making decisions about where to try such suspects.

But the Justice Department said only that such decisions are made on a case-by-case basis and wouldn't say whether the recent cases are a sign of any formal policy. It remains to be seen how the administration will handle a US citizen picked up on the Syrian battlefield in September for allegedly fighting with Islamic State militants.

In at least a physical sense, there are no practical reasons why the US couldn't hold someone at Guantanamo. The detention centre, which reached a maximum population of about 680 in the summer of 2003, is now down to just 41.
Tehran: Iran has accused the CIA of spreading "fake news" about the Islamic republic with newly declassified files seized in the 2011 raid in Pakistan in which Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed.

The CIA on Wednesday released 4,70,000 additional files found in May 2011 when US Navy SEALs burst into Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad and shot him dead.

According to scholars from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), who were allowed to see the trove before it was made public, the files shed new light on the murky relationship between the Sunni extremist group and Shiite Iran.

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif dismissed the allegations.

"A record low for the reach of petrodollars: CIA & FDD fake news w/selective AlQaeda docs re: Iran can't whitewash role of US allies in 9/11," he wrote on Twitter late Thursday.

The release of the files comes as US President Donald Trump's administration seeks to ramp up pressure on Iran, refusing to certify a landmark nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

Iran denies any link to Al-Qaeda and has provided financial and military backing to help the Syrian regime fight Sunni extremists and other opponents.

The Fars News Agency, which is close to Iranian conservatives, said that the selective publication of documents by the CIA related to Al-Qaeda was part of efforts "to put pressure on Iran".
Washington: The Senate on Thursday confirmed by a voice vote the nomination of Kenneth Juster as the next US Ambassador to India.

Juster, 62, is an old India hand who played a key role in the landmark Indo-US civil nuclear deal.

He would replace Richard Verma as the top American diplomat to India. The position has been lying vacant since 20 January after Verma resigned from the post with the swearing in of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States.

The latest development follows Juster's nomination confirmation which was on last Friday agreed by the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee by a voice vote, reflecting the bipartisan support his nomination has in the Congress.

Juster is soon expected to be headed to India for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Hyderabad later in November. The annual summit is being co-hosted by India and the United States. Trump's senior adviser and daughter Ivanka Trump will be leading a high-powered American delegation of entrepreneurs to the GES, which will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Powerful Democratic Senator Mark Warner welcomed the Senate confirmation of Juster. "I was proud to support Ken's nomination to be our country's representative in India, one of our most important defence partners in the region," he said. "I have known Ken since we were in law school in the 1970s. As Ambassador, I trust his decades of work on critical issues like trade, cybersecurity and defence will help advance the US-India relationship in a positive direction," Warner said.

Juster was nominated to be the Ambassador to India on 5 September. He has over 35 years of experience as a senior business executive, senior law partner, and senior government official, including serving as the US Under Secretary of Commerce from 2001 to 2005.

Juster founded and served as the US Chair of the US-India High Technology Cooperation Group, and was one of the key architects of the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership initiative between the United States and India. His work related to India played an important role in the transformation of the US-India relationship and helped provide the foundation for the historic civil nuclear agreement between the two countries.

Most recently, Juster had served as the Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council. Juster played a key role in enhancing the Indo-US ties under the Bush administration. Juster has also served as the Counsellor (acting) of the State Department from 1992-1993, and deputy and senior adviser to the Deputy Secretary of State from 1989-1992.

In the private sector, he has been a partner at the investment firm Warburg Pincus LLC, Executive Vice-President at Salesforce.com, and senior partner at the law firm Arnold & Porter. He has also served as Chairman of Harvard University's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and as Vice-Chairman of The Asia Foundation.

Juster holds a law degree from the Harvard Law School, a masters degree in Public Policy from the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and a bachelors degree in Government from Harvard College.
United Nations: Myanmar must grant citizenship to the Rohingyas to allow hundreds of thousands of people from the Muslim minority to return to Rakhine state from where they were driven by an army campaign, the UN refugee chief said on Thursday.

"These people cannot remain stateless because this statelessness exposes them to discrimination and abuse, as has been the case in the past," said Filippo Grandi, the UN high commission for refugees.

More than 600,000 Rohingyas have fled Rakhine since late August during military operations that the United Nations has described as ethnic cleansing and the world's most acute refugee crisis.

Myanmar authorities say the security crackdown was in response to attacks by Rohingya militants on police posts in late August.

"For people to go back and for this return to be sustainable, you need to address the very complex issue of citizenship," Grandi told reporters after addressing the Security Council.

"No return will be sustainable...if that issue is not unblocked."

For decades, the Rohingyas have faced discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship and denigrated as illegal "Bengali" immigrants.

Aside from recognizing the Rohingyas as citizens, the government must also agree on a development program for Rakhine state, one of the poorest in the country, said Grandi.

The violence has to stop and humanitarian aid workers must be given access to Rakhine to reach those in need after villages were torched and remaining residents face hunger, Grandi said.

Myanmar authorities are in talks with the UN World Food Programme to resume food deliveries in Rakhine, but details on the relief effort have yet to ironed out, he added.

Grandi said the Myanmar government had invited the UN refugee agency to a meeting to discuss the plight of the Rohingyas and he expressed hope that this will lead to more cooperation.

In Washington, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced that he will travel to Myanmar next week, becoming the most senior US official to visit since the start of the Rohingyas crisis.
Sittwe (Myanmar): Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi visited conflict-battered northern Rakhine State for the first time Thursday, reportedly meeting Rohingya Muslims who have faced an army crackdown that has seen hundreds of thousands of the minority flee.

Suu Kyi, a nobel laureate who leads Myanmar's pro-democracy party, has been hammered by the international community for failing to use her moral power to speak up in defence of the Rohingya.

Some 600,000 of the stateless minority have fled to Bangladesh since late August carrying accounts of murder, rape and arson at the hands of Myanmar's powerful army, after militant raids sparked a ferocious military retaliation.

The UN says that crackdown is likely tantamount to ethnic cleansing, while pressure has mounted on Myanmar to provide security for the Rohingya and allow people to return home.

Suu Kyi left via state capital Sittwe as evening fell on Thursday after a visit that also took in Maungdaw and Buthidaung in northern Rakhine.

It was her first trip in office to the region, which has seen some of the worst communal violence that has cut through the western state since 2012, severely damaging Myanmar's global reputation.

"The Lady" -- as she in known -- did meet with the Rohingya community in Maungdaw town, according to local media, a first for a leader keen to convince observers inside the country and abroad that the crisis has abated and reconstruction of Rakhine can begin.

But it was not clear if Suu Kyi visited some of the hundreds of Rohingya villages torched by the army -- allegedly aided by ethnic Rakhine Buddhist locals.

The Rohingya who remain in northern Rakhine are living in fear, surrounded by hostile neighbours, who refuse to let them farm or move freely.

The UN on Thursday again called for unfettered humanitarian access to a zone still under army lockdown.

On Thursday around 3,000 Rohingya arrived by land at the Bangladesh border, a sign hunger and fear is still driving people from their homes.

"The army didn't attack us but made our life very difficult,"Mohammad Zafar, 35, from a village in Buthidaung told AFP at the Bangladesh border.

"We were not paid for any work and couldn't go to markets. How long is it possible to live like that?"

'Here for generations'

Suu Kyi heads a committee charged with rebuilding Rakhine.

She was joined on Thursday by businessman Zaw Zaw, one of a host of military "cronies" who thrived under junta rule and are now taking prominent roles in rebuilding the battered region.

There are fears a carve-up of contracts in Rakhine by big business will further divorce the Rohingya from their land.

Suu Kyi says the Rohingya who have fled are now welcome back, if they meet contested "verification" criteria for re-entry to Myanmar.

The Rohingya are loathed in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship and denigrated as illegal "Bengali" immigrants.

Their legal status is at the crux of communal tensions, with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists adamant that Rohingya are foreign interlopers.

A Rohingya resident who has remained in Maungdaw town appealed to Suu Kyi to reconsider foisting a controversial national verification card (NVC) on the minority.

The card grants them limited rights of residence in Myanmar, but does not recognise them as an ethnic group with citizenship.

The Rohingya say it is a bureaucratic attempt to erase their identity and force a shaky legal status onto them in a region where many claim generations of ancestry.

"We can not do anything with this NVC card, so we do not want to receive it," the resident said, requesting anonymity fearing reprisals.

"We are not Bengalis from Bangladesh, we are Rohingya living here for generations."

Observers say Suu Kyi has chosen not to criticise the army in fear of a backlash from a powerful institution that controls all security matters.

The plight of the Rohingya garners little sympathy inside Myanmar, making a defence of the minority a politically toxic cause.

The Rohingya have packed into makeshift camps on a poor, already overcrowded slip of border land inside Bangladesh.

Aid groups say the risk of major outbreaks of disease is high, while they struggle to deliver food and basic supplies to the unprecedented number of refugees.

Myanmar's army denies abuses in its campaign to flush out Rohingya militants whose attacks in late August sparked the latest round of a festering communal crisis.
Islamabad: Pakistan's ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday appeared before an anti-graft court which adjourned till 7 November the hearing of corruption cases against him, his daughter and son-in-law spiralling from the Panama Papers scandal.

Sharif, 67, and some of his family members are facing charges relating to their ownership of properties in London. He resigned as prime minister in July after the country's Supreme Court disqualified him over undeclared income.

Three cases were registered by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on 8 September against Sharif, his children and son-in-law in the Accountability Court Islamabad, following a verdict by the Supreme Court.

Sharif, who returned home from London on Thursday, appeared in the court along with legal team. He had went to London in October to be with his ailing wife Kulsoom Nawaz who is battling throat cancer. His daughter Maryam and her souse Muhammad Safdar also were present during today's hearing.

At the start of the hearing, the defence asked the accountability judge to consider the verdict of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), which yesterday ordered the accountability court to hear again the plea that Sharifs three cases should clubbed together. The anti-graft court in October rejected an application by Sharif that since all three cases deals with assets beyond means, so they should be taken up as a single case.

The decision was challenged in the IHC which referred the case to the Accountability Court with an order to re-hear it. However, the IHC did not issue detailed verdict and Sharifs lawyer asked the court to adjourn the hearing till a comprehensive judgement.

The court then adjourned the hearing till 7 November.

Sharif told the media that he was victimised. He also said that Pakistan Peoples Party leader Asif Ali Zardari was speaking against him "to please someone". "I dont have to say anything as the present situation and actions are in front of everyone," he said.

Heavy security arrangements were made around the judicial complex today to deal with any untoward situation.

Sharif was indicted in absence in three cases. Maryam and Safdar have been indicted in one case with him, while the court is proceeding separately against his two sons Husain and Hasan who are co-accused in three cases. The court during the hearing on 9 October decided to separate the trial of his sons from Sharif and his daughter and son-in-law.

The cases are based on 28 July disqualification verdict of the Supreme Court and to launch three corruption cases against him, his family, and one case against Finance Minister Ishaq Dar. The political future of Sharif, who leads the country's most powerful political family and the ruling PML-N party, has been hanging in balance since then. If convicted, Sharif can be jailed.

Sharif's family alleges that the cases are politically motivated.
Santiniketan: Indo-China relations are not going to be a walk in the park, but the two nations need to have the confidence to make things work, Chinese Consul General in Kolkata, Ma Zhanwu said on Friday.

Speaking at the inaugural session to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Cheena Bhavana in Santiniketan, he said the "differences" between the two countries were outweighed by their shared interest and trust.

Calling for a new impetus in the bilateral relations, Ma said, "China-India relationship is not going to be a walk in the park. It is going to be difficult with ups and downs. However, we need to have confidence that we can do it".

Quoting a recent statement of Chinese President Xi Jinping, he said his country did not pose a threat to any other nation, and "certainly not India".

"Our president had said China will never seek hegemony or engage in expansion, and will not pose any threat to anybody," he said.

Describing China as a "modern, prosperous, socialist and democratic" country, Ma said it wants to make its relationship with India the most vibrant one.

"We need to aim high. We need to have mutual trust. We need to hear from the other side as well," the Chinese diplomat said.

Ma also asked the media to play a key role in bolstering ties between the two nations.

"Talk more of great nations and less of conflicts," he said.

Hailing the two-day conference to mark the 80th anniversary of Cheena Bhavana, he said over 70 scholars from China were attending the meet for which preparations had begun one-and-a-half years back.

The Cheena Bhavana (Institute of Chinese Language and Culture) at Visva Bharati University was founded by Rabindranath Tagore in April, 1937.

Stressing the need to realise Tagore's vision for the institute, he said, "There should be more interaction in boosting Sino-India relations. We need to focus on economic development and political relations as part of our study".

The Consul General lamented that there were many interpreters of Chinese language from countries like Canada, but very few from India.

"We need to look at our immediate neighbours. This is true for both nations," he said.

Ma also advocated the introduction of Chinese learning course from a junior level in India, and Hindi and other Indian language courses in China.

Talking about Cheena Bhavana retaining its heritage, acting vice-chancellor of the varsity, Swapan Dutta, said, "We have kept the building design intact, and will never tinker with these things. However, we are modernising the lab with interactive audio and video."
After a century of colonial rule, and long spells of authoritarianism, self- imposed isolation and sanctions; Myanmar is just about finding its feet. With many insurgencies, its nation-building is fraught. As Myanmar stabilises its nationhood, the Rohingya crisis has flared up as an unwelcome addition to its many problems.

Myanmars history of insurgency and violence makes it difficult for the leadership to see the Rohingya crisis in moral terms alone. There can be no case for Myanmars use of force, but its behavior is realpolitik.

After the agreement of 24 October, both sides have backed off from bluster and posturing. We are now seeing a search for balance and stability, the normal diplomacy of an imperfect world.

Things are not straightforward. After ARSAs attacks on police stations in August, Myanmar stole a bit of the moral thunder. If Bangladesh can fear Rohingya radicalisation, why cant Myanmar?

From the Bangladeshi side, the situation is dire. Government officials, members of think-tanks, professors and informed citizens I spoke to during a recent visit to Dhaka were united in acknowledging that, with elections due in 2018, home-grown extremists could exploit the Rohingyas for electoral gain. The refugees are not yet radicalized, but some indulge in criminal activities.

For Bangladeshis, war is not an option. A professor told me how students, bristling with rage and itching for war with Myanmar, calmed down when asked how the war might be fought. Patient diplomacy is the need of the hour, he asserted. A leader of a think tank said: Myanmar was the fifth country to recognize Bangladesh. We neglected Myanmar.

So, how will diplomacy work? All I spoke to stressed that, beyond statements and humanitarian help, the world will not tilt towards Bangladesh, which must deal with Myanmar bilaterally. There is no diplomatic support even for a peaceful settlement, said the president of a think tank.

Both sides can manipulate precedent as a template for a solution, however imperfect. The agreement is just the start of a tortuous process. I am optimistic, asserted a member of a think-tank.

Friends in Dhaka said that Bangladesh kept a little under half the refugees after an agreement for repatriation in the 1990s. This renders Bangladeshs negotiating position fragile, a professor conceded, as Myanmars leaders feel they can push them out, and Bangladesh will keep them again. But half of the refugees were also allowed to return to Myanmar in the 1990s.

For India, which took ten million Bangladeshi refugees in 1971, the moral aspect is persuasive. India has been hospitable to refugees through history. 50,000 Rohingyas are not an unbearable burden, but the fear of radicalization is real. Some Rohingyas are thought to work for Pakistani agencies. Some Bangladeshis understand Indias Rohingya refugee problem, asserted a professor.

From Indias point of view, if Myanmar takes back refugees from Bangladesh, it could just as well do so from India. Thus, India needs to keep Myanmar on its side, which explains the diplomatic minuet between two friends.

But diplomacy is not a musical score. It can be administered only in workable doses. Recall how India came to grief by taking Kashmir to the UN in 1947. As Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar said at a seminar on 26 October, in addressing the Rohingya crisis, constructive conversation is better than condemnation.

In the combustible politics of Bangladesh, where even a rumour can trigger diplomacy by the mob, Indias able high commissioner and his team have kept open communication with the government and civil society. I did not notice anger at India, only very high expectations. On 22 October, visiting External Affairs Minister Sushma Swarajs calming words of support for Bangladesh were timely.

As so many young nations, including India, do, Bangladesh keeps ticking the morality box. But Bangladeshis also need to humanize Aung San Suu Kyi, and appreciate the competing dilemmas of a fragile democracy. This beacon light of human rights is also a mirror to the imperfect world that Myanmar is.

Jitendra Nath Misra is a former ambassador to Portugal and Laos.
The state Assembly approved a measure Thursday that would prohibit state health insurance programs from covering abortions for state workers.

The bill died in the Senate in 2013 under opposition from a broad coalition of opponents and indifference from Republican leaders. It remained unclear whether the bill had enough backing to become law this time

Meanwhile, efforts to curb research using fetal tissue obtained from abortions were heard by a Senate committee. Republicans are offering opposing approaches in the face of opposition from the medical and scientific communities, and GOP leaders have said they dont know if consensus can be reached.

Time is running short for the Legislature, which has its highest Republican majorities in decades. After next week, lawmakers wont return to vote on bills until January and they are expected to be in session for only a few days before quitting until 2019.

Sensing the closing window, anti-abortion groups urged action Thursday on a bill that would ban the use of aborted fetal tissue for research or any other purpose. It would only apply to research on stem cells obtained since January 2017 and there are no criminal penalties for researchers. Facilities that obtain stem cells illegally could face a fine.

I believe this bill may reduce incentives for abortions and thereby possibly reduce some abortions, said the measures sponsor, Sen. Terry Moulton, R-Chippewa Falls.

The Wisconsin Catholic Conference, Wisconsin Family Action, Wisconsin Right to Life and Pro-Life Wisconsin testified in support.

The time to act is now, testified Chelsea Duffy with Wisconsin Right to Life. Wisconsin has an extraordinary opportunity to lead the nation by championing research that is ethical, innovative and effective.

A coalition opposing restrictions on fetal tissue research called Cures for Tomorrow includes BioForward, representing the states bioscience industry, the Medical College of Wisconsin, UW-Madison, UW Health and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

It will definitely end potential lifesaving research in Wisconsin, UW medical school dean Robert Golden testified. Researchers and biomedical companies will leave the state, Golden said, and ongoing work looking for cures for everything from asthma to Alzheimers disease will be halted.

A competing proposal  backed by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos  would target only the sale of fetal tissue and regulate certain research. That doesnt go far enough for the anti-abortion groups that support the other measure. They are registered in opposition to the bill, introduced by Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills.

Vos, R-Rochester, said this week that he didnt know if Republicans would be able to reach agreement on a direction.

We got to the point where neither bill had the necessary votes to pass in our caucus, which is why the issue kind of fell by the wayside, Vos said.

The bill prohibiting Wisconsin state health insurance from covering abortions for state workers is back, even though the impact of such a ban would be minimal. Thats because state health insurance plans currently cover only medically necessary abortions. But state law doesnt define a medically necessary abortion and the bills sponsors want to remove any ambiguity.

The measure would allow coverage for abortions only in cases of rape or incest or if a doctor certifies the abortion is needed to save the womans life or avoid long-term damage to her health.

Opponents include the Wisconsin Medical Society, the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Planned Parenthood and the Wisconsin Alliance for Womens Health. Democrats blasted the bill as an ideological attack on womens health care, but in the end the measure passed 61-35. It goes next to the Senate. Its unclear if theres enough support in that chamber to get the proposal through to Gov. Scott Walkers desk. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, didnt immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
United Nations: UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi has told the UN Security Council that over 800,000 Myanmar Rohingya were probably in the "most acute" situation.

Grandi made the remarks about Rohingya refugees, as in comparison to 65 million to 66 million people forcibly displaced in the world, Xinhua news agency reported.

"We spoke about some of the most complex crisis in Africa especially South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo," he told reporters outside the council's chambers.

"There was much focus on the situation in Bangladesh  Rohingya refugees coming from Myanmar  and the way forward in that crisis which is probably the most acute at the moment."

Of those 800,000 refugees, the UN officials said 607,000 fled violence in northern Rakhine State since 25 August when Rohingya rebels allegedly staged deadly attacks against security posts, triggering retributions from government forces and civilian vigilantes. Villages were torched and villagers fled in face of deadly violence.

"There was support for the role the UNHCR can play in facilitating discussion on voluntary safe and dignified return if and when conditions are created in Rakhine State for this to happen," the head of the UN Refugee Agency said.

"We spoke about important overlaps of the agenda of my office and the agenda of the Security Council."

He explained that since refugees are a humanitarian issue they are discussed within the UNHCR as "a non-political manner", but it is an issue which overlaps with the peace and security agenda of the Security Council.

So, the solutions for refugee problems "are essentially political", he added.

Grandi said the problem for the Rohingya refugees is to "safely and in a dignified manner go back home" .

Thursday's Security Council session "was an opportunity to exchange views on all these matters, both policy issues and operational issues".
United Nations: The United States and Russia have circulated rival UN resolutions on extending the work of experts seeking to determine who is responsible for chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

Russia vetoed a US-sponsored Security Council resolution on 24 October that would have renewed the mandate of the experts from the UN and the international chemical weapons watchdog for a year.

The rival resolutions, obtained on Thursday by AP, would renew the mandate of the Joint Investigative Mechanism, the expert body known as the JIM, but under very different conditions.

Two days after Russia's veto, the JIM released a report blaming Syria's government for a sarin nerve gas attack last April on the town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed over 90 people and the Islamic State extremist group for a mustard gas attack at Um Hosh in Aleppo in September 2016.

Russia, a close ally of Syria, has strongly criticized the JIM, finding fault with its methods of collecting evidence and its failure to visit the sites of alleged attacks. In vetoing the resolution, Russia's UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said Moscow wanted to wait for the JIM report.

Last year, the JIM determined that Syrian president Bashar Assad's government was behind at least three attacks involving chlorine gas, a finding that Russia disputed. The JIM also said the Islamic State extremist group was responsible for at least one attack involving mustard gas, a conclusion supported by Russia.

The US draft resolution circulated to the Security Council expresses "grave concern" at the JIM's reports, especially its latest findings on Khan Sheikhoun and Um Hosh.

The attack in Khan Sheikhoun sparked outrage around the world as photos and video of the aftermath, including quivering children dying on camera, was widely broadcast.

The United States blamed the Syrian military for the attack and launched a punitive strike, days later on the Shayrat air base where it said the attack was launched. Syria has denied using chemical weapons, and Russia has strongly backed Assad's government

A fact-finding mission by the chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, reported on 30 June that sarin nerve gas was used in the Khan Sheikhoun attack.

But the job of determining responsibility for chemical attacks was given to the JIM, initially in a joint US-Russian resolution.

The US draft resolution would reaffirm support to the OPCW fact-finding mission and the JIM "as they undertake their respective investigations in a manner they deem appropriate to fulfill their mandate." It would renew the JIM's mandate, which expires on 17 November for two years.

Russia's draft would extend the JIM's mandate for six months, until 16 May, 2018. It states clearly that "there is the need for further improvements and update of the JIM's mandate."

In Moscow, Mikhail Ulyanov, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's arms control and non-proliferation department, harshly criticised the latest JIM report and said the ground rules must be changed to include on-site inspections.

He argued that the report on Khan Sheikhoun was unsubstantiated and ignored evidence suggesting that sarin could have been used by Syrian rebels in order to blame Assad's government.

Ulyanov particularly criticized the JIM for failing to take samples from the site of the attack in Khan Sheikhoun and the Shayrat air base despite security guarantees offered to inspectors.

"Imagine a criminal investigation in which police refuse to visit the site of the crime. No court will ever accept it," Ulyanov said. "But they consider it possible to do such thing at the UN Security Council."

He said the JIM's conclusion that a Syrian warplane dropped a bomb containing sarin isn't supported by images of the explosion site that shows a crater that he said could only have been left by an explosive device planted on the surface.

Ulyanov also said photos and videos made by the White Helmets volunteer first responders at the Khan Sheikhoun attack site show them without proper protection gear  an indication he argued that the attack was a fabrication.

The Russian draft resolution urges the JIM to send investigators to Khan Sheikhoun and Shayrat as soon as possible  and it urges the JIM "to reevaluate its earlier assessments and conclusions."

If on-site investigations can't be organized to investigate a chemical incident, the draft urges the OPCW to inform JIM so the Security Council can be made aware of the problem.

The proposed resolution would also order the JIM to conduct its investigations "guided by high standards" established by the Chemical Weapons Convention.

It asks the JIM to collect and analyze information and evidence that is not from the OPCW fact-finding mission, including material from UN counterterrorism and nonproliferation bodies and the Syrian government.

The draft also asks Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to ensure that JIM staffers are recruited from "as wide a geographical area as possible."

The Security Council is scheduled to discuss the latest JIM report on Tuesday.
Wisconsins top elected Democrat, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, said Friday that Democratic National Committee failures led to an unfair process in the 2016 primaries that made Hillary Clinton the partys White House nominee.

Democratic Party of Wisconsin chairwoman Martha Laning, meanwhile, said state party officials did not put our thumb on the scale for Clinton or any other candidate in the 2016 primary.

Baldwin and Laning were responding to what Laning called really disturbing claims from former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile, who wrote that Clintons campaign secretly controlled much of the DNCs operations during last years primaries.

But both commented Friday before a memo surfaced about the connection between Clintons campaign and the DNCs fundraising apparatus.

A memo governing the relationship, revealed late Friday by various news outlets, showed that the fundraising arrangement was focused on preparing for the general election.

The memo also didnt preclude the DNC from entering into similar agreements with other candidates and included language saying it was not intended to upend the committees pledge of neutrality during the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, when Clinton was locked in a spirited race with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

However, the Clinton-DNC deal also called for Clintons campaign to oversee the hiring of new DNC staffers immediately after it was signed in August 2015  well before primary voting took place.

Baldwin, D-Madison, said in a statement issued earlier Friday that the new DNC leadership needs to make sure this doesnt happen again.

Braziles claims reflect arguments by supporters of Sanders that the DNC failed to remain neutral, favoring Clinton long before she became the partys nominee.

President Donald Trump took advantage of the claim, tweeting earlier Friday that Bernie Sanders supporters have every right to be apoplectic of the complete theft of the Dem primary by Crooked Hillary!

Baldwin was an early Clinton endorser, backing her at least as early as 2015.

Braziles claims were published Thursday in Politico in an excerpt from her forthcoming book. She divulged that the DNC, under the leadership of her predecessor, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, signed what Brazile called an unethical joint fundraising agreement with the Clinton campaign that allowed it to control the partys funding and strategy. The DNC is the national umbrella organization for the Democratic Party, overseeing the presidential nominating process and helping to raise funds for down-ballot Democratic candidates.

The agreement was signed in August 2015, nearly a year before Clinton became the Democratic presidential nominee. Its existence was publicly reported at that time, but Brazile wrote that she unearthed a document in 2016 that gave new insight into the implications of the agreement.

Laning said the Democratic Party of Wisconsin took pains during the primary to make its resources equally available to the Sanders and Clinton campaigns. Sanders soundly defeated Clinton in Wisconsins primary, 57 percent to 43 percent. Clinton failed to keep the state in the Democratic column in the general election, losing by about 22,000 votes to Trump.

Both Laning and Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Black Earth, said they think the current leadership of the DNC will operate fairly.

Pocan said earlier Friday that he had not read the excerpt from Braziles book.

If the party clearly had a preference for one candidate, thats wrong, Pocan said. They have to be neutral in primaries, period.
3rd Annual New England-wide GO Conference on February 16-17, 2018



SPRINGFIELD, Mass., Nov. 3, 2017 /



GO Conference 2018 keynote speakers will be: Dr. Lina Abujamra, physician, author, host of Today's Single on Moody Radio, and founder of Living with Power; Jill Briscoe, pastor, speaker, author of over 40 books and executive editor of the magazine, Just Between Us; Lecrae, New York Times best-selling author of Unashamed and Grammy Award winning artist; Father James Mallon, author of Divine Renovation: From a Maintenance to a Missional Parish; Miles McPherson, senior pastor of The Rock Church in San Diego and author of Do Something: Make Your Life Count; and Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, professor of church growth and evangelism at North Park University in Chicago and author of Prophetic Lament.



GO Conference 2018 will have 18 interactive workshops that coincide with the event theme. Facilitated by New Englanders, these workshops will help attendees to discover how they can go and impact the region. An exhibition hall will showcase 60 of New England's finest ministries and resources.



GO Conference 2018 will open at 8 a.m. on Friday, February 16 and end mid-afternoon on Saturday, February 17. Attendees may commute or reserve discounted overnight lodging at participating hotels. Opportunities exist for sponsors, exhibitors and volunteers. For more details and online registration, please call toll-free 888-853-9602 or visit



Founded in 1887 as the Evangelistic Association of New England, Vision New England (VNE) has been a vibrant catalyst for inspiring, equipping and uniting the body of Christ and strengthening churches for 130 years. For details on VNE, visit



Share Tweet Contact: Drew Crandall, 860-871-6500SPRINGFIELD, Mass., Nov. 3, 2017 / Christian Newswire / -- On February 16-17, 2018, Vision New England will host the third annual GO Conference to inspire, encourage and unite Christians and strengthen churches across the six-state region. The conference will be held at the MassMutual Center, 1277 Main Street in downtown Springfield. The theme will be Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly and Make Disciples, based on the Bible passage in Micah 6:8. The event will feature a mix of praise and worship, prayer, plenary sessions, workshops, an exposition and networking.GO Conference 2018 keynote speakers will be: Dr. Lina Abujamra, physician, author, host of Today's Single on Moody Radio, and founder of Living with Power; Jill Briscoe, pastor, speaker, author of over 40 books and executive editor of the magazine, Just Between Us; Lecrae, New York Times best-selling author of Unashamed and Grammy Award winning artist; Father James Mallon, author of Divine Renovation: From a Maintenance to a Missional Parish; Miles McPherson, senior pastor of The Rock Church in San Diego and author of Do Something: Make Your Life Count; and Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, professor of church growth and evangelism at North Park University in Chicago and author of Prophetic Lament.GO Conference 2018 will have 18 interactive workshops that coincide with the event theme. Facilitated by New Englanders, these workshops will help attendees to discover how they can go and impact the region. An exhibition hall will showcase 60 of New England's finest ministries and resources.GO Conference 2018 will open at 8 a.m. on Friday, February 16 and end mid-afternoon on Saturday, February 17. Attendees may commute or reserve discounted overnight lodging at participating hotels. Opportunities exist for sponsors, exhibitors and volunteers. For more details and online registration, please call toll-free 888-853-9602 or visit www.GoConf.org Founded in 1887 as the Evangelistic Association of New England, Vision New England (VNE) has been a vibrant catalyst for inspiring, equipping and uniting the body of Christ and strengthening churches for 130 years. For details on VNE, visit www.VisionNewEngland.org
It was just a few months back at MWC that Nokia announced the first few devices. The comeback comprised of phones that were decidedly mid-range and good enough to get their foot in the market. The following months have seen HMDs strategy take more concrete form as we saw with the Nokia 8 and the Nokia 7 announcements. Entry level smartphones, however, are the bread and butter for any company planning to make money in India. And that brings us to the Nokia 2. Hitting a 99 Euro price point, the Nokia 2 distills the higher end Nokia experience to a level that is palatable for first-time smartphone buyers. Is it any good though? Lets find out.

Nokia 2 specifications

5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD LTPS LCD In-Cell Touch display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 display protection

1.3 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 212 Mobile Platform with Adreno 304 GPU

1GB LPDDR3 RAM, 8GB internal memory, expandable memory up to 128GB with microSD

Android 7.1.1 (Nougat) OS, upgradable to Android 8.0 (Oreo)

Dual SIM

8MP autofocus rear camera with LED Flash

5MP front-facing camera

Splash proof (IP52)

3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio

Dimensions: 143.5 x 71.3 x 9.30 mm

4G VoLTE, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS / GLONASS

4100mAh battery

Design & Hardware

There are some very obvious cuts that have been made to the hardware to be able to hit this price point but despite that, the Nokia 2 feels relatively robust and maintains that Finnish je ne sais quoi. The front of the device is in line with the rest of the mid-range Nokia phones and to be fair isnt all that different from most other phones in the category.

The phone comes equipped with a 5 inch 720p screen that is par for the course. In our time with it, we found the screen to be fairly bright even outdoors. The contrast ratio is decent but the Redmi series has marginally better displays albeit at slightly higher price points. The screen does have Gorilla Glass 3 protection which is an added benefit. There are large bezels on all sides and itd have been nice if Nokia used capacitive keys here to maximize screen real estate. Up above the display is a 5MP front-facing camera.

Despite being on the larger size for a device with a 5-inch screen, the phone feels quite nice in the hand though certainly not luxurious. The quality of materials helps in giving the phone a somewhat premium feel, particularly so in the copper and black colorway. The volume rocker and power button on the right-hand side are ergonomically positioned and easy to reach out.

Sure, HMD Global / Nokia doesnt skip a beat to inform you that the phone has a Series 6000 aluminum build but thats really just the middle frame. The back of the phone is polycarbonate and can be removed. An 8MP camera and LED flash lie towards the top of the phone. We spent some time testing this out since we werent very happy with the results wed obtained from the Nokia 3 and 5. It would be unreasonable to expect the Nokia 2 to replace a dedicated camera but clearly, Nokia has learned a lot over the past few months. The Nokia 2 is capable of taking some very respectable shots when the lighting is good and it should serve most users quite well.

Powering the show here is a Snapdragon 212 processor and 1GB of RAM, specs which have left fans and tech enthusiasts a bit miffed. First things first, this isnt quite the smoothest Android experience out there. For a budget phone and pre-production hardware, general performance seemed satisfactory but certainly not free of stutters and jerky animations. Juggle between a few apps and even system animations appear visibly slow. In contrast, the Redmi 4 delivers double the RAM, a better processor and visibly improved performance at a slightly higher price point.

In the Nokia 2s favor though, you get pure unadulterated Android 7.1.1 here with an update to Oreo coming shortly. And with all the optimizations that Google has been making to improve performance on the Android 8.0 update, we expect to see at least some improvements on the Nokia 2 as well. More on this when we get our review device in. The battery unit here is rated at a massive 4100mAh which combined with the low-end processor should easily match up to Nokias claim of 2-day battery life. The phone ships with dual SIM card slots as well as a dedicated microSD card slot to augment the built-in 8GB of storage.

With the Nokia 2, HMD Global finally has an entry point into the ultra-budget, first-time smartphone buyer demographic. You might want to dismiss the Nokia 2 for having somewhat lowly specifications compared to the entry-level competition but we feel that the handset will do quite well. Nokia seems to be targeting the user base for which branding, reliability and after sales service would rank just as high or even higher than pure specs. We would recommend that you look elsewhere if entry-level performance is your priority. Check back in for the full review later this month once we get our hands on the hardware.
This blog covers software patent news and issues with a particular focus on wireless, mobile devices (smartphones, tablet computers, connected cars) as well as select antitrust matters surrounding those devices.
France's drive to force internet giants to pay more taxes is losing steam, amid resistance from other EU countries that serve as tax shelters to companies like Apple.

Under pressure from Ireland, Luxembourg and Britain, EU leaders in Brussels stopped short of calling for a Europe-wide policy for digital multinationals.

The EU's 28 leaders agreed to push for "an effective and fair taxation system fit for the digital era," but said it should be an international system, not just European.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Friday he helped convince EU partners that "we shouldn't disadvantage ourselves in terms of other countries" outside Europe.

French President Emmanuel Macron has led the tax charge, arguing it's not fair that internet companies don't pay taxes where they make most of their money.
President Donald Trump is taking tougher stance on companies trying to take advantage of businesses in the United States, he told the FOX Business Networks Maria Bartiromo during an exclusive interview.

We lose with almost every country, we have massive deficits. And that is [going to] change, we can't allow the world to look at us as a whipping post. Not [going to] happen, anymore, Trump said.

His focus on shrinking the $74 billion trade deficit with Mexico within the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has attracted companies such as Ford (NYSE:F), who will pump billions into Michigans economy to build three new factories, to invest in the U.S.

The auto companies are coming back into our country. Coming up to Michigan again, they are going back. We're not going to be taken advantage of. We were taken advantage of -- I wouldn't say the companies so much, but by other countries, he said.

Trumps America First agenda has also encouraged Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturer of electronics for Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and other tech companies, to invest $10 billion in Wisconsin to build a new manufacturing plant.

As you know we're negotiating with NAFTA. And they have an election right now, and lots of things. But at some point either NAFTA will be renegotiated so that its fair to the United States or it will be terminated, he said.

Trump also weighed in on the importance of social media. He told Bartiromo that he has a tremendous platform to promote his agenda and overall message.

I doubt I would be here if weren't for social media, to be honest with you. Because there is a fake media out there, I get treated very unfairly by the media, Trump said.
In secret, behind locked gates, our Nation's Oldest City dumped a landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir), while emitting sewage in our rivers and salt marsh. Organized citizens exposed and defeated pollution, racism and cronyism. We elected a new Mayor. We're transforming our City -- advanced citizenship. Ask questions. Make disclosures. Demand answers. Be involved. Expect democracy. Report and expose corruption. Smile! Help enact a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore. We shall overcome!
The mayors of London, Los Angeles, Paris and several other major world cities are pledging to ban gasoline and diesel vehicles from "large parts" of their cities by 2030.

Some cities are moving even faster to reduce emissions, and the announcement Monday by leading metropolitan areas is a bid to encourage others to do the same.

Mayors meeting in Paris promised to "progressively abandon combustion engines" to make their cities cleaner and quieter, boost economic productivity and reduce pollution-related deaths.

Monday's pledge was released by the mayors of London, Los Angeles, Paris, Mexico City, Seattle, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Vancouver, Milan, Quito, Cape Town and Auckland.

While U.S. President Donald Trump is pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, American and other politicians are moving to reduce emissions on a local level.
Facebook, Twitter and Google say they will send representatives to a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing next week on Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

The Oct. 31 hearing is the third scheduled with the social media companies as congressional investigators probe the spread of false news stories and propaganda online. The three companies are already scheduled to testify at Senate and House intelligence committee hearings on the same subject the next day, Nov. 1.

The Senate intelligence committee announced on Wednesday that each company will send its general counsel to testify. That's Facebook's Colin Stretch, Twitter's Sean Edgett and Google's Kent Walker. The companies have confirmed their attendance at the other two hearings but have not yet said who will appear.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the GOP chairman of Judiciary's crime and terrorism subcommittee, said he's pleased the companies have agreed attend his hearing. "It's an important topic for our democracy and security," he said.

All three committees are investigating the Russian interference and whether it is linked to President Donald Trump's campaign. Facebook recently provided all of the committees with more than 3,000 ads they said were seen by an estimated 10 million people.

The ads, which Facebook said were traced to a Russian internet agency, focused on divisive political messages, including LGBT issues, immigration and gun rights.

Legislation proposed by Democratic Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota would require social media companies to keep public files of election ads and meet the same disclaimer requirements as political broadcast and print advertising. Both Facebook and Twitter have said they will provide more information to the public about political ads, including who is funding them.

Federal regulations now require television and radio stations to make publicly available the details of political ads they air. That includes who runs the ad, when it runs and how much it costs.

___

Associated Press writers Ryan Nakashima in San Francisco and Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this report.
Of all the beautiful scenery to see in Honolulu, officials want to make sure residents and tourists get a good look at the street.

Honolulu this week became the largest city in the U.S. to make it illegal for people to look at cellphones, tablets or video games while crossing a road or highway. It comes as a few states still have not outlawed texting while driving.

It remains to be seen how the law can be enforced on an island that draws tourists from across the globe. The tourism industry is trying to educate visitors, but a smattering of tourists interviewed Wednesday  the day the law took effect  said they had no clue.

Amy Pawlowski, who was visiting from Phoenix, had not heard about the new restrictions on mobile devices.

"It seems as though the enforcement aspect would be quite difficult and almost that the government efforts would be better spent with the law prohibiting drivers from being on their phones while driving," she said just after glancing at her phone while crossing a Waikiki street. "Perhaps they (pedestrians) are using a navigation device that is helping them navigate Waikiki or Honolulu."

The law applies to the entire island of Oahu, where it is also illegal to drive while using handheld mobile electronics. A first offense for the distracted walking ordinance carries a fine of between $15 and $35. It increases to between $75 and $99 for a third offense within a year of the first violation.

Officers in tourist-heavy Honolulu have discretion to issue a warning or a ticket, police spokeswoman Michelle Yu said.

"We realize not everyone is going to know," she said. "Local laws could vary."

The National Safety Council, which has been looking at the issue of distracted walking since 2015, praised Honolulu for being a leader on the issue. The small Idaho city of Rexburg passed an ordinance in 2011 making it illegal to text while driving or crossing a street or highway. Other cities have considered similar measures, said Tatyana Warrick, a council spokeswoman.

The ordinance aims to reduce the number of injuries after the state ranked as the 13th most dangerous for pedestrians from 2010 to 2014, said Honolulu Councilman Brandon Elefante, who wrote the measure.

Elefante said he pushed the measure partly because a high school in his district with nearly 2,500 students is on a busy highway. Students at Waipahu High School did a survey and found 1,000 classmates in a 20-minute period jaywalked, crossed against traffic lights and used electronic devices while crossing, he said.

The law went into effect 90 days after the mayor signed it in July. During the 90 days, police say they have passed out informational fliers across the island.

Jim Cartisser, a tourist from Twin Falls, Idaho, said getting a ticket while on vacation "could leave a lot of people with a sour taste in their mouth leaving Honolulu."
The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission said he's willing to work with corrections officials, telecom companies and the FBI to combat cellphones in the nation's prisons.

In a letter obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai wrote to U.S. Rep. David Kustoff of Tennessee, telling him that he'll try to arrange a meeting among those groups within 120 days and report its progress to Congress, fulfilling a request

"I share your concerns about the proliferation of contraband wireless devices in prisons and the potentially devastating implications for public safety," Pai wrote in the letter, dated Tuesday. "We continue our efforts to push for even better procedures and solutions for this very serious problem."

Pai was responding to a letter sent earlier this month by Kustoff and dozens of other House members and U.S. senators. In it, they wrote that addressing the security threat posed by contraband cellphones is "an issue of critical importance" and called on the FCC to bring together the different groups for a discussion, giving a deadline for resolving how best to prevent prisoners from using contraband phones behind bars.

Inmates use the phones, the members of Congress wrote, to continue the violent crimes and gang activity that landed them behind bars in the first place. The signees, which include both of South Carolina's U.S. senators and all of its Republican House members, asked the FCC to set up a meeting with state prison officials, cellphone companies and the FBI within 120 days, and to report back to Congress on their progress.

Noting that some on Capitol Hill would like to fix the issue by congressional mandate, the members wrote they would prefer a more "collaborative approach."

The interaction follows letters by a top official with the U.S. Department of Justice and South Carolina Corrections Director Bryan Stirling describing the dangers posed by inmates' unfettered ability to communicate via cellphones.

Earlier this year, Stirling, a leading voice on the need to eradicate the phones from prisons, wrote to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, beseeching the top prosecutor for help pursuing FCC permission to jam cell signals.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster also lobbied, writing a memo to Sessions in August on the dangers of prison cellphones and thanking him for any help he could provide. Assistant Attorney General Beth Williams also weighed in, telling FCC officials that addressing the security threat posed "should be a chief priority" of both the FCC and Justice, which oversees the federal Bureau of Prisons. U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford has also called for action.

Stirling and others in his position say the phones  thrown over fences, smuggled by employees, even delivered by drone  present the biggest threat to prison security. A decades-old law says federal officials can grant permission to jam the public airwaves only to federal agencies, not state or local ones. Telecommunications companies are opposed, saying jamming cell signals could set a bad precedent and interfere with legal cell users nearby.

Pai has signaled willingness to work on the issue, a stance he reiterated in his letter to Kustoff. In March, after Pai took testimony from Stirling and a former South Carolina corrections officer who was nearly killed in an assassination attempt orchestrated by an inmate using an illegal phone, commissioners voted 3-0 to approve rules to streamline the process for using technology to detect and block contraband phones in prisons and jails across the country.

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Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP. Read more of her work at https://apnews.com/search/meg%20kinnard
GENEVA (Reuters) - Greenhouse gas emissions are on course to be about 30 percent above the level needed to keep global warming to an internationally agreed target in 2030, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

"Without enhanced ambition the likely global average temperature increase will be in the range of 3.0-3.2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century," U.N. Environment said as it issued its annual audit of emissions reductions.

By 2030, annual emissions are likely to be 53.0-55.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, far above the 42 billion ton threshold for averting a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) this century, the U.N. environment agency said.

The latest projection, which assumes all countries meet their commitments, is slightly lower than the gap of 12-14 billion tonnes foreseen a year ago, reflecting new data on national emission reduction programs.

The report said there was increasing evidence that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, cement production and other industrial processes remained stable for the past three years, largely due to slower growth in coal use in China and the United States. But the trend could be reversed, and 80-90 percent of coal reserves must remain in the ground, it said.

In 2015, 195 countries signed the Paris climate accord, pledging to limit global warming to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. Ministers will meet in Bonn next month to work on guidelines for the agreement.

A harder target of keeping warming to within 1.5 degrees would mean a further reduction of about 5 billion tonnes of emissions.

The U.N. said on Monday that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere grew at record rate in 2016 to a level not seen for millions of years, potentially fuelling a 20-metre (65-foot) rise in sea levels and adding 3 degrees Celsius to temperatures.

The Paris agreement is already under pressure because U.S. President Donald Trump has said he plans to pull the United States out of the deal unless there is a renegotiation more favorable to Washington.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
A group of national prosecutors is pressing federal regulators to find a solution to the dangers they say are posed by inmates' access to illegal cellphones inside prisons, adding their voices to others adamant that a technological fix is needed to shut down the dangerous devices.

In a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, National District Attorneys Association President Michael Freeman writes his members have seen effects of inmates' use of cellphones, such as witness intimidation and harassment.

"The numbers appear to keep rising at the expense of public safety," Freeman wrote, noting that 13,000 cellphones were confiscated in Georgia's prisons in 2014. "As Chairman, you have also expressed the desire for the FCC to further address this issue, and we strongly encourage you to do so as soon as possible."

The letter, which is dated October 27, was obtained Thursday by The Associated Press. It's the latest in growing calls for the FCC to do something to quell the problems caused by the phones, which corrections officials say allow inmates to continue their criminal enterprises behind bars and even plot acts of violence against the officers who guard them and people outside prison.

South Carolina prisons director Bryan Stirling has been among the most vocal in the country in speaking out about how dangerous the phones, thrown over fences, smuggled by employees  even delivered by drone  can be in the hands of prisoners. Last year, he took Pai on a tour of a South Carolina prison to show him firsthand the benefit of technologies such as jamming, which renders cell signals useless.

Stirling, who says the phones present the biggest threat to prison security, has been exploring technological solutions to shut down smuggled phones. But he and other directors have been hampered by a decades-old law that says federal officials may grant permission to jam the public airwaves only to federal agencies, but not state or local ones.

Telecommunications companies are opposed, saying jamming cell signals could set a bad precedent and interfere with legal cell users nearby.

Pai has signaled willingness to work on the issue. In March, after Pai took testimony from Stirling and a former South Carolina corrections officer who was nearly killed in an assassination attempt orchestrated by an inmate using an illegal phone, commissioners voted 3-0 to approve rules to streamline the process for using technology to detect and block contraband phones in prisons and jails across the country.

Facing mounting pressure from directors like Stirling, as well as U.S. Justice Department officials and members of Congress, Pai has said he'll arrange a meeting with corrections officials, telecom companies and the FBI, reporting progress back to Congress.

"I share your concerns about the proliferation of contraband wireless devices in prisons and the potentially devastating implications for public safety," Pai wrote last month in a letter to U.S. Rep. David Kustoff of Tennessee. "We continue our efforts to push for even better procedures and solutions for this very serious problem."

___

Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP. Read more of her work at https://apnews.com/search/meg%20kinnard
The Republicans released the details of their tax reform plan yesterday and  amazingly - many small business owners aren't happy about it.

"It doesn't go far enough," one client complained to me. "The big companies are getting more of an advantage," said another.

Their sentiment was summed up by a statement from the National Federation of Independent Businesses, an association representing 325,000 small businesses around the country. The organization lamented that it is "unable to support" the plan in its current form.

This bill leaves too many small businesses behind," said NFIB President and CEO Juanita Dugga. "We are concerned that the pass-through provision does not help most small businesses. Small business is the engine of the economy. We believe that tax reform should provide substantial relief to all small businesses, so they can reinvest their money, grow, and create jobs.

Can you believe this? After almost a decade of rising taxes we're finally getting a tax cut. And people are complaining? Really?

I'm a fan of the NFIB - they do great work for small business owners like me. But do I agree with them and all the other small business owners who are disappointed with the GOP's proposal? Nope. As a small business owner (and advocate) heres what I say: quit your griping.

Sure, it would be nice if the proposed 25 percent rate on "pass-through" income - which affects many of us who run S-Corporations or partnerships - were as low as the proposed corporate rate and wasn't limited to just 30 percent of earnings. I get it that this reduction won't affect as many small business owners as hoped. But even so, it's still a tax reduction, people! Oh, and combine that with the GOP's proposals for lower individual rates, a doubling of the standard deduction and the elimination of both the alternative minimum and estate tax and we're all looking at a cut in our taxes.

Are big companies getting a better deal? Yes, it's true that the GOP is proposing to reduce the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from its current 35 percent level and is offering a very sweet deal on a one time, low tax rate for companies that choose to repatriate the billions of dollars of cash they're holding overseas back to the U.S. Some of my smaller clients are disappointed because these rules wouldn't really affect them.

But actuallythey do.

That's because, many small businesses like me provide services for other small businesses and, more importantly, for a few large corporate clients that generate a significant percentage of our yearly profits. The more that big companies can save on taxes the more they will spend on other things. Things that we are providing - technologies, maintenance, parts, cleaning, painting, accounting, landscaping, consulting, legal, pizza, office supplies, limousines - and countless other products and services that big companies buy from their smaller vendors, freelancers and independent contractors.

And wait a secondwhat about all those years when I heard small business owners complain about the billions in annual deficits and trillions being added to our national debt under the Obama administration? While I will never complain about getting a tax break, the current tax reform proposals could add even more debt over the next decade. What, suddenly we dont complain anymore?

The good news is that GOP leadership seems to be aware. Sure, it would be fantastic to have even more tax cuts. But given the high levels of debt were already leaving to our children one could argue that any tax cuts aren't just unrealistic but downright selfish. But hey, I'll take what I can get.

So to my fellow small business owners I say this: stop whining. Be grateful. After the past eight years of rising taxes we're finally getting a tax cut! That's in addition to a loosening of regulations and a more pro-business environment in Washington. Let's take what we can get and appreciate it.

Gene Marks is an author, columnist and President of The Marks Group, a ten-person technology consulting firm near Philadelphia. Gene is also a Certified Public Accountant and a small business expert.
Security and trade will loom large during President Donald Trump's first official visit to Asia, which begins Sunday in Japan.

North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons programs are likely to be the issue dominating the first part of his trip, which includes stops in South Korea's capital and Beijing as well as Tokyo. Trade will figure throughout, both in North Asia and at his stops in Southeast Asia for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vietnam and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders' meeting in the Philippines.

A look at the top issues from veteran AP correspondents:

NORTH KOREA

For North Korea, the more blustery Trump comes off during his visit, the better.

It has insisted that the U.S. president's threatening comments and tweets reveal a belligerence that has driven decades of Washington's policy on North Korea and proves the North's decision to develop nuclear weapons was a defensive measure and not only justified but a laudable example of resistance.

North Korea's state-run media have been hitting that argument hard over the past week.

"It has become clearer who is a harasser of peace," the ruling party's newspaper said an editorial Wednesday. "Owing to the U.S., there is constant danger of a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula and peace and security is always at peril."

The editorial added that if North Korea hadn't developed nuclear weapons, its "sovereignty and national dignity would have been mercilessly violated" by the United States.

North Korea has long said that but also clearly believes Trump's unfiltered words have opened a way for it to gain sympathy among potential critics of Trump in the U.S. media, academic circles and foreign governments.

An added bonus for North Korea would be discord during the visit on regional trade or military burden-sharing issues with Japan and South Korea. Or any problems with China.

At a background briefing on the trip, a senior U.S. administration official said the White House believes the Chinese have done a great deal and "the U.S. is working more closely with China on the North Korea problem than ever," but added it wants more out of Beijing.

North Korea will be weighing the nuances of those meetings particularly closely.

 Eric Talmadge, AP Pyongyang Bureau Chief

___

TRADE

Trump has often named Asia, and China and Japan in particular, as a source of American economic woes. A persisting U.S. trade deficit with most Asian countries and the president's frequent threats to impose sanctions or raise tariffs on exports from the region make trade a fraught issue.

"We have trade deficits with China that are through the roof," he said Wednesday. "They're so big and so bad that it's embarrassing saying what the number is. But you know what the number is. And I don't want to embarrass anybody four days before I land in China, but it's horrible."

Trump repeatedly called China a currency manipulator during the presidential campaign in 2016, saying "they're killing us" by devaluing the yuan to make it harder for American companies to compete against Chinese products, even though Beijing was struggling to prevent the yuan's value from falling. He threatened to impose tariffs of up to 45 percent on Chinese goods.

Since he took office, though, the need for Beijing's help in countering threats from North Korea has helped temper his approach. His administration is pressing Beijing to give American companies more access to its state-dominated economy and held talks aimed at lowering the huge trade deficit with China. But it has refrained from designating China a currency manipulator.

Trump's decision to pull the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact left the other 11 members bereft of the agreement's $12 trillion anchor consumer market. The remaining TPP countries, from vast Canada to tiny oil sultanate Brunei, are thrashing out a framework for moving forward without the U.S. An agreement may be reached in time for the regional APEC economic summit in Vietnam.

The country-to-country agreements that Trump prefers over multi-nation deals such as the TPP could be discussed during stops in Tokyo, Beijing and other regional capitals. That includes a free trade agreement with South Korea, which Trump is seeking to renegotiate. He said Wednesday that it's very important for the U.S. to renegotiate its trade deals.

"Our trade deals are horrible," he said. "They were made by people that, honestly, it's sad. It's very sad for our country. Every trade deal we have is disastrous."

 Elaine Kurtenbach, AP Asia Business Editor

___

SOUTH CHINA SEA

One of the world's busiest sea lanes, the South China Sea is a trouble spot where Trump can showcase American leadership and commitment to the region in a high-profile way. Or display a lack of both.

China, the largest and most aggressive of six claimant states in the disputed waters, has alarmed others by transforming seven barren reefs and atolls into islands  three with military-grade runways  in an impressive feat of engineering. It has even reportedly installed a missile-defense system on newly built islands in the hotly contested Spratly archipelago.

While China denies that it has hegemonic ambitions in the strategic waterway, it insists it has indisputable sovereignty over virtually the entire sea and declares itself ready to fight for every inch of it. It ignored a landmark ruling by a U.N.-linked arbitration tribunal last year that invalidated China's sprawling territorial claims, despite calls by the U.S. and others to uphold the rule of law.

Under Trump, the U.S. Navy has continued "freedom of navigation operations" and naval drills in the South China Sea in a challenge to China's claims, but many wonder whether Trump will do more at a time when he is seeking Beijing's help in reining in North Korea's nuclear ambitions, an issue which tops his national security concerns.

The dynamics of the territorial disputes have changed too. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, unlike his predecessor, has tried to veer away from his country's close alliance with the U.S. and reached out to China and Russia. Duterte, who will chair the ASEAN summit meetings that Trump will attend, has stopped joint patrols with the U.S. in the disputed waters and considerably toned down his country's criticism of China over the sea disputes.

"You have the chairman of ASEAN, Philippines, and China, the leading claimant country, essentially saying the situation is fully stable, there's no reason for external interference," Manila-based analyst Richard Heydarian said. "So, it's going to be much more difficult to talk about the South China Sea than North Korea, where there's a consensus across the board that there is a problem."

 Jim Gomez, AP Manila Chief Correspondent

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Gomez reported from Manila.
A nearly $1 billion remodel of Kansas City International Airport will either provide an important boost to the city's economy, air service and national reputation, or it will be colossal waste of money designed to line the pockets of airlines and contractors while making air travel less convenient.

Those are the arguments swirling ahead a citywide vote Tuesday in a contentious, years-long fight in Kansas City, Missouri, about whether to replace the 45-year-old airport's three horseshoe-shaped terminals with a single terminal.

City leaders say the project will be funded by user fees and the airlines, and no tax dollars will be required. Opponents scoff at the claim, saying taxpayers will eventually foot at least part of the bill and note that the city still doesn't have any final plans or signed contracts with the chosen developer, Maryland-based Edgemoor.

The opposition, led by a grassroots group called Citizens for Responsible Government, argue the city-owned airport could be modernized at a much lower cost. Mayor Sly James and other supporters say revitalizing the airport is key to the city's economy and will improve security.

"Your airport is everything if a city wants to grow," said Kevin Burke, president and CEO of Airports Council International-North America, an organization that advocates on issues that affect airports.

"It attracts businesses, offers employment to locals. It builds up the tax base, the employee base. If your airport is a first-class airport, that is a good thing for that part of Missouri. Without it, it's going to be a challenge to compete," Burke said.

The airport handled 5.3 million passenger boardings in 2016, ranking it the 39th busiest airport in the U.S. But it currently offers few restaurants, retail shops or bathrooms, with small waiting areas near the gates and few amenities, such as charging stations.

Those things matter to travelers, said Jolie Justus, a member of the City Council and chairwoman of Kansas City's airport committee. She said companies and convention organizers have declined to come to the city because they say the airport's layout is too congested, doesn't offer convenient flights and offers few services.

"Our airport has served us well for 45 years, but it really is not meeting the needs the city has, not only as a front door but also our needs to provide an airport configuration to expand services and grow as a city," Justus said.

Those arguments don't persuade opponents, who say the existing terminals could be improved for millions of dollars less while maintaining the current airport's convenience and offering amenities that modern travelers require. The fight has also been divided between local passengers who use the airport occasionally and those who travel extensively.

Dan Coffey, treasurer of Citizens for Responsible Government, said Tuesday's vote is a way for the city to get around a 2014 ordinance his group pushed that prohibits the city from demolishing or starting a major renovation project at any airport owned by the city.

The proposal on the ballot also would give almost complete control of the airport to airlines, with little or no input from city officials or citizens, Coffey said.

"The ballot language only says, 'Give us permission to destroy the terminals we have now, and then just trust us that we'll build something you like,'" he said. "They've spent $2 million to convince people we need this, and that seems like a bad signal to me. We are just asking people to consider our arguments, get educated and use your best judgment."

Polls commissioned by the opposing camps indicate the vote will be close. Justus, the city councilwoman, said it may come down to turnout for an election on a day with few other issues to draw out voters.

"I'm focused on it passing," Justus said. "But if it doesn't, we'll do what we always do, get up the next day, roll up our sleeves and figure out what we can do to get a modern, safe airport to move us into the future."
The GOP released its tax reform framework on Thursday, which it is heralding as a blueprint to boost growth for U.S. businesses both large and small, but larger corporations appeared more satisfied with the proposals than their smaller counterparts.

UPS (NYSE: UPS)  commends Congressional leaders on the release of The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the next step in creating a simpler, but comprehensive tax system to stimulate the economy, create jobs and develop a globally competitive tax structure, the company said in a statement, adding that it hoped to see the reforms enacted before years end.

Meanwhile, AT&T (NYSE:T) CEO Randall Stephenson said in a statement late Thursday that he was encouraged by the proposal to slash the business tax rate by 15 percentage points.

Comprehensive tax reform with competitive business tax rates will ensure lasting economic growth, investment and job creation, Stephenson said. We are very encouraged by the legislation introduced today in the U.S. House that proposes a permanent 20% corporate tax rate.

Manufacturer and aerospace giant Boeing (NYSE:BA) said it was still analyzing the proposal, but was encouraged by the momentum on tax reform, and generally supported a simpler, more competitive and efficient system.

On the other hand, small business groups came out full force on Thursday, alleging they would be left behind by the proposed changes to the tax code.

This bill leaves too many small businesses behind. We are concerned that the pass-through provision does not help most small businesses, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) said in a statement, adding it is unable to support the House plan in its current form.

Similarly, the founder and CEO of the Small Business Majority John Arensmeyer said the bill would drive up the deficit while doing virtually nothing to benefit Americas small businesses.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin trumpeted the legislation as a means to boost small businesses at the Franchise Expo West in Los Angeles on Thursday. As detailed by the GOP on Thursday, Republicans are sticking with their goal of slashing the corporate tax rate by 15 percentage points to 20%; a change they want to make permanent. Additionally, the plan would cut the pass-through rate to 25%, something Arensmeyer said wont help small business owners because many small firms are already paying that rate.

The GOP aims to tax repatriated overseas profits at a rate of 5% for illiquid assets and 12% for cash, so long as the company brings back those profits within 8 years.

The bill is set to be taken up in the House of Representatives next week for discussion and amendments. The administration is still aiming to pass tax reform before the end of the year.
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The new House Republican tax reform plan released on Thursday calls for changes to the estate tax, otherwise known as the death tax, including its elimination after a period of six years.

Currently, single taxpayers can leave up to $5.49 million tax-free to their heirs, while married couples can leave up to nearly $11 million. Any amount above those figures means beneficiaries would be faced with a 40% federal estate tax.

The estate tax exemption, under the new plan called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, will double and eventually be repealed after 2023. The provision will maintain the beneficiarys stepped-up basis, meaning if an asset is inherited and then sold for more money than its original cost, the person would not pay a capital gains tax.

Economists tend to see the estate tax as one of the most economically harmful taxes per dollar of revenue raised, Jared Walczak, senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, told FOX Business. By raising the estate tax threshold and ultimately repealing the estate tax outright, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would remove an impediment to economic growth.

Some argue that the tax in its current form hurts farms and family-owned business in America and that it is essentially a form of double taxation, since the assets being passed down have already been taxed as income.

If were really going to get back to a tax code that helps people and doesnt harm them, thats fair, that doesnt have special provisions or penalties by us picking winners and losers, then we have to repeal the death tax, House Ways and Means Committee member Kristi Noem (R-S.D.), whose father was killed in an accident on the familys farm, said during the unveiling of the tax plan on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Richard Neal (D-Mass.) criticized the plan upon its release, calling it a rushed and partisan plan that yielded over 400 pages of broken promises to middle-class families.

This bill falls short of reform, falls short of middle-class tax relief and falls short of the fiscal principles to which Republicans have long held themselves, Neal said in a statement.

FOX Business request for Neal to comment specifically on the estate tax was not returned at the time of publication.
Kimmie Candy Company Owner Joe Dutra on Thursday explained how President Trumps tax plan will benefit small businesses.

House Republicans rolled out their tax reform bill that lowers the corporate tax rate to 20% from the current 35% rate - a plan that involves a tax cut of $1.5 trillion.

Any break we can get with the tax code helps us actually survive better. I think this tax break we are getting from the government could be just a real winner for small business, Dutra told FOX Business Cheryl Casone on Risk & Reward.

However, not all House Republicans are on board with the tax plan, including Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) who tweeted, I am a NO to House #TaxReform bill in its current form. A lot of good aspects, but its not there yet.

Dutra also detailed how the GOP plan will impact local economies.

If you can reduce corporate tax for small businesses like ours, we create more jobs. This money goes back to our local economies. Small business owners usually give back to their employees and I think we give it back in benefits and higher wages over time, Dutra said.

A staple in the the GOP tax reform plan is to simplify the tax code by reducing the number of brackets from seven to four, with the new rates set at: 12%, 25%, 35% and 39.6%. Initially Republicans considered dropping the top bracket for high-income earners.

John Conrad, a president for a trucking supply company, said the tax breaks will help Americans across the board. During a CNN debate between Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Conrad pressed Sanders on the issue of tax reform.

I definitely think a tax break in general across the board makes a lot of sense. Anybody that wants to penalize someone for being successful by having them in a higher tax bracket than the rest of the country is unfair," Conrad said.
President Donald Trump on Thursday announced his decision to nominate Jerome Powell as the next Federal Reserve Chair. Powell will succeed Janet Yellen when her term ends in February.

Former Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser weighed in on the decision, telling the FOX Business Networks Neil Cavuto, I think it was a pretty safe choice in some sense its not going to roil the markets very much, so I think [President Trump] was just kind of making the play for continuity, not much change.

According to Plosser, one challenge the Fed has faced is transparently when conveying its strategy.

The Feds had a terrible time communicating its strategy, how its going to behave and they need to work hard on that, he said.

But Powell could potentially change that.

Hell be a good communicator, I think the challenge is going to be deciding what to communicate and whats the most effective way of doing it, Plosser said on Cavuto: Coast to Coast.

Plosser then warned the Feds independence is under attack.

I think one of the things nobody is talking about very much is the fact that the Fed is under attack in many cases, that may be a little strong but, from both the left and the right and its independence to make good monetary policy decisions is being threatened.

But Plosser was hopeful Powell would defend the Fed, saying, Im really anxious to see what Jay [Powell], how Jay attacks that battle and how he hopefully more aggressively defends the Feds independence and defends its protection from being politicized.
Under the GOPs proposed tax law, the estate tax exemption will be doubled over the near-term, up from $5.49 million currently for individuals and nearly $11 million for married couples.

After six years, the GOP plans to eliminate the tax entirely.

Heres what that means for taxpayers:

In 2017, there were an estimated 11,300 estate returns filed, but only 5,500 of them were taxable, according to data from the Tax Policy Center. The amount of taxable returns will decrease under the current proposal, because it increases the exemption threshold. Therefore, only wealthy individuals passing on high-value assets will be subject to the 40% tax through 2024, when it is due to be repealed entirely.

I do think that its very exciting that its going to be phased out and ultimately eliminated in 2024, William Kambas, partner at Withers Bergman, told FOX Business. It gives a lot of people comfort that the estate tax revenue is of diminishing value.

The proposed plan keeps the step-up in basis provision, which essentially means the decedent can pass on an asset that has appreciated in value since its original acquisition tax-free. Taxes will only be levied from the time the inheritor receives the asset to the time when they decide to sell it. This is particularly valuable, Kambas points out, for beneficiaries in high-tax states whose assets are subject to both state and federal estate taxes.

It also provides a substantial break for the wealthiest Americans.

The people who are going to gain are really the wealthiest people in the country, Jeffrey Geida, partner at Weinstock Manion, told FOX Business. When you have a repeal of the estate tax combined with keeping the step-up in basis rules  It [benefits] people with really, really substantial assets.

The short-term increase in the estate tax exemption will chiefly benefit people that have a net worth between $10 million and $20 million, Geida added.

Meanwhile, the top rate for the gift tax would be reduced by 5 percentage points to 35%, while the lifetime exemption threshold would increase.

Cumulatively, the proposed changes to the estate tax could have a negative impact on charitable giving, Geida said.

For most really wealthy clients  theyre slowly shifting assets down to their kids and grandkids, he said. Once they decide ... theyve given them enough  they give to their charity, they give to their private foundation  [Under this proposal] there would be no benefit to giving money to charity on their death.

Estate planning

It is important to keep in mind that the entire tax plan will be up for amendments and votes in Congress throughout the coming weeks. Additionally, the decision to eliminate the estate tax could be reversed before it is fully implemented by the year 2024.

As such, Kambas recommends individuals dont center their estate planning on perceived tax benefits.

I think that there are many reasons to engage in estate planning well beyond what your effective tax rate is going to be, he said. So that whether we have this repeal or not, theres absolutely reason to continue planning, whether youre rich or poor. The non-tax reasons are still vitally important from an estate planners perspective.

Geida agreed, saying he wouldnt advise any of his clients to make changes based on the current proposal.

Once this bill becomes law, it could look a lot different, he said.
On Thursday, the House Ways and Means Committee unveiled their coveted tax reform plan -- but despite promises that Congress will pass it by 2018, National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn said it is unlikely to be retroactive this year.

House Republicans will meet next week to fine tune the plan while the Senate creates its own plan, but Cohn told FOX Business Stuart Varney that we will work out those differences.

Concerns that high-income earners in states including New York, California and New Jersey could end up paying more under the plan because of controversial changes to the State and Local Tax Deductions are unwarranted, Cohn said.

You have to look at the tax plan in its entirety, thats what weve been trying to design, he said, adding that, Were trying to drive economic growth, and were trying to drive wages for middle-class Americans. Thats whats really important. When we drive economic growth everyone in the country wins.

Some hope that if tax reform is passed in 2017, it would be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2017. But during an interview on Varney & Co., Cohn said, Were trying to deliver great tax reform to the American public. We cant get it retroactive to this year, were trying to do a tax plan that starts on January first of next year.

The House plan as it stands would permanently cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%. Some rumblings in the Senate have raised concerns that the maximum corporate tax rate would increase to 22% instead.

President Trumps not going to agree to that, Cohn said.

Democrats were quick to take issue with the Republican tax plan, with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) even calling it a Ponzi scheme.

But Cohn countered Democrats claims saying, I dont think theyve read the piece of legislation yet, I really dont. Because if theyd read it, they wouldnt be able to say that. If you look at what The Washington Post said yesterday, they gave the Democrats four Pinocchios and told them to take down their text because they were actually lying.
President Donald Trump will begin a 12-day trip to Asia on Friday, and he could face tensions in South Korea where United States trade and geopolitical interests are concerned.

Strategies for dealing with North Korea and international trade will be the main topics for the trip, Gordon Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China, told FOX Business, and Trump will have to tread a fine line between those two issues in Seoul.

For [strategies to deal with] North Korea, he will want to keep South Korea on his side, he said. But when it comes to trade [Trump] will want to raise some particularly difficult issues because they have been predatory on trade.

Tech giant Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) is a critical source of trade strain between the two allies, Chang said. In December, the Korea Fair Trade Commission found the chip-make guilty of employing unfair trade and monopolistic practices. Qualcomm said the ruling and resulting fines represent a violation of due process rights owed American companies under the Korea-U.S. Trade Agreement (KORUS). Chang agreed, saying the decision ignored important procedural requirements guaranteed to a U.S. company.

The U.S. International Trade Court (ITC) also recently ruled in favor of Whirlpool (NYSE:WHR), which brought a complaint against its South Korean competitors LG and Samsung over unfair trade practices related to washing machines. The commission is set to recommend penalties to the Trump administration before years end.

Weve got real big beef with South Korea on trade, Chang said. [But] I think that, whatever happens, Trump probably will moderate his complaints on trade in order to get the governments cooperation on North Korea.

Chang also noted that its significant that the president will visit Japan and South Korea before he heads to China.

American presidents have traditionally gone to china first, he noted. Were emphasizing our allies. China is stuck in the middle of the itinerary and I think thats a good thing.

Chang said U.S. presidents have previously ignored the Japanese, particularly when it comes to warnings about North Korea. Trump is paying attention to what theyre saying, which is important, he said.

With respect to China, Chang said that Trump needs to put more pressure on Beijing in order to incentivize them to help more with geopolitical issues, specifically North Korea.

Trump will begin his trip in Hawaii on Friday, from where he will head on to five Asian countries including Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Rapper Fetty Wap was arrested early Friday morning in New York on charges of DUI and 14 other charges, including reckless driving and operating a vehicle with an expired license issued under his real name, Wille Maxwell.

Maxwell was spotted drag racing another vehicle on the Gowanus Expressway in Brooklyn. TMZ reports he going over 100 mph in a 50 mph zone in his 2015 Mercedes-Benz. The specific model was not identified, but Maxwell has owned several of the company's high performance cars.

New York Police Department spokesman Sgt. Thomas Antonetti told the Associated Press that Maxwell was pulled over and registered a blood-alcohol level of .09. The legal limit in New York is .08.

Maxwell will be arraigned sometime on Friday.
Actress Paz de la Huerta is the latest person to come forward with allegations that she was raped by Harvey Weinstein. However, what separates her from the almost 60 other women who have come forward is the fact that the NYPD may be able to bring up charges against the disgraced Hollywood mogul in her case.

The former Boardwalk Empire star claims Weinstein raped her on two occasions in 2010 in New York City. Because this happened after 2006, it falls within the statute of limitations for the NYPD to both investigate and, potentially, prosecute. Through a representative, Weinstein has routinely denied any and all claims of non-consensual sex.

A senior sex crimes prosecutor is assigned to this investigation, and the Office has been working with our partners in the NYPD since the new allegations came to light," a statement provided to CBS News from the Manhattan District Attorneys office read. "As this is an active investigation, we will not be commenting further."

As previously reported, the NYPD, LAPD and police in London have all opened investigations into the allegations against Harvey Weinstein following two exposes into his misconduct as well as a litany of women coming forward with claims of harassment and assault.

Speaking to Vanity Fair, de la Huerta detailed her experience with Weinstein when she was 26. He allegedly offered her a ride home and, upon arriving, insisted he come inside.

Immediately when we got inside the house, he started to kiss me and I kind of brushed [him] away, de la Huerta told the outlet. Then he pushed me onto the bed and his pants were down and he lifted up my skirt. I felt afraid... It wasnt consensual... It happened very quickly... He stuck himself inside me... When he was done he said hed be calling me. I kind of just laid on the bed in shock.

In December of the same year, she alleges that Weinstein showed up at the lobby of her apartment building. She was reportedly intoxicated at the time but was frightened by Weinstein, who she says had been calling her despite her requests for him to stop. She says that, although she said protested, she found herself in her apartment with Weinstein, who allegedly raped her a second time. When it was over, she recalls thinking that Weinstein knew hed done something bad. He reportedly offered to put her in a play, but she never heard from him again.

The investigation into Weinstein is ongoing and no charges have been filed against him so far.
The allegations against House of Cards star Kevin Spacey continue to mount as eight crew members reportedly have come forward to detail allegations of sexual harassment and groping on the set of the popular Netflix drama.

On Thursday, CNN reported that eight people close to the production of the series, which shoots just outside of Baltimore, Maryland, have come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct from the 58-year-old star that made working on the set an alleged nightmare.

All eight accusers have chosen to remain anonymous, but claim that the behavior was very well known on set and that it created a difficult work environment. Netflix and Media Rights Capital, the companies behind "House of Cards," claim they had no reports of any widespread misconduct.

When the allegations broke about Kevin Spacey on Sunday night, in conjunction with MRC, we sent a representative to set on Monday morning," Netflix told Fox News in a statement.

"Netflix was just made aware of one incident, five years ago, that we were informed was resolved swiftly," it continued. "On Tuesday, in collaboration with MRC, we suspended production, knowing that Kevin Spacey wasnt scheduled to work until Wednesday. Netflix is not aware of any other incidents involving Kevin Spacey on-set, the company said.

We continue to collaborate with MRC and other production partners to maintain a safe and respectful working environment. We will continue to work with MRC during this hiatus time to evaluate our path forward as it relates to the production, and have nothing further to share at this time.

The report cites a production assistant who details that he had to drive Spacey to set one day and the two-time Academy Award-winning actor reached into his pants in a nonconsensual manner. He said he didnt disclose the details of what happened next for fear of being identified, but said that when they got to the set, he was asked to help bring things to the actors trailer.

The production assistant then alleges that Spacey cornered him, blocked his ability to exit and made inappropriate contact with him.

The incident allegedly happened months after the same production assistant had complained that Spacey was harassing him. His supervisors solution was to make sure they never were alone. The harassment stopped, making him feel comfortable enough to drive Spacey on the day in question.

Other members of the production crew told the outlet that they witnessed Spacey be inappropriate with many younger male members of the staff. It was typically done out in the open, in full view of others.

They allege that most on set were aware of Spaceys behavior, and that it was well-known among the crew. However, Netflix and MRC maintain they were not made aware of any serial behavior on the part of Spacey.

We are deeply troubled to learn about these new allegations that are being made to the press concerning Kevin Spaceys interaction with members of the crew of House of Cards,'" MRC said in a statement provided to Fox News.

"As the producer of the show, creating and maintaining a safe working environment for our cast and crew has always been our top priority. We have consistently reinforced the importance of employees reporting any incident without fear of retaliation and we have investigated and taken appropriate actions following any complaints," MRC said.

"For example, during our first year of production in 2012, someone on the crew shared a complaint about a specific remark and gesture made by Kevin Spacey. Immediate action was taken following our review of the situation and we are confident the issue was resolved promptly to the satisfaction of all involved," the statement reads.

"Mr. Spacey willingly participated in a training process and since that time MRC has not been made aware of any other complaints involving Mr. Spacey.

MRC also noted that, in the wake of the new allegations it has set up an anonymous hotline where crisis counselors and sexual harassment advisors will help any crew members that come forward with complaints about anyone on the set.

The allegations come days after actor Anthony Rapp revealed to Buzzfeed News that Spacey had made a sexual advance on him when he was 14, and Spacey was 26. Since then, several other men have come forward with similar stories about the star, prompting Netflix to suspend production on season six of House of Cards. Meanwhile, Spacey has announced that he will seek an undisclosed treatment during the hiatus.

Additionally, Deadline reports that the talent agency that's repped Spacey for eight years, CAA, has dropped him. His publicist, Staci Wolfe at Polaris, has also parted ways with the actor.
Disgraced former CNN contributor Donna Brazile made explosive allegations that the Democratic National Committee basically rigged the 2016 primary in Hillary Clintons favor, but ABC, NBC and CBS evening newscasts failed to cover it.

Brazile admitted that Hillary Clinton's campaign gained significant control over the Democratic National Committee's finances and strategy in exchange for helping the party wipe out 2012 presidential campaign debt. In laymens terms, Brazile explains how the party rigged the primary for Clinton to defeat Bernie Sanders through shady financial deals  which would typically be major news.

An excerpt from her new book, Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House, was published by Politico at 5 a.m. ET on Thursday morning  over 12 hours before the big three networks air their newscasts.

Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren even appeared on CNN at roughly 4:40 p.m. ET to discuss the scandal but ABCs World News Tonight, CBSs Evening News and NBC Nightly News skipped it completely. These programs start at 6:30 p.m. ET.

On Thursday, after CNN and Fox News both covered the Brazile claims, CBS opened with details on the deadly ambush in Niger, while NBC and ABC both opened with the proposed tax cut.

The winner of the 2016 presidential race took notice.

The Donna Brazile story is astonishing. The media loves to tell stories of Republican discord. Here's the woman who was the interim head of the DNC saying Bernie Sanders got screwed by the party and Team Clinton. No matter how much the media wants to hide that, it's a huge issue and will impact future elections, Media Research Center Vice President Dan Gainor told Fox News.

Brazile took over as interim party chairperson in July 2016 when the DNC was plagued by email scandals and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. was ousted on the eve of the partys 2016 convention. Brazile, who resigned from her role as a CNN contributor after she was accused of leaking questions to Clinton ahead of a CNN Town Hall event, doesnt exactly have the nicest things to say about her DNC predecessor in the book.

Debbie was not a good manager. She hadnt been very interested in controlling the party -- she let Clintons headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired so she didnt have to inform the party officers how bad the situation was, Brazile wrote. Obama left the party $24 million in debt$15 million in bank debt and more than $8 million owed to vendors after the 2012 campaignand had been paying that off very slowly.

Gainor said Braziles revelation might explain why Sanders has been absent during the close Virginia gubernatorial campaign, but journalists don't want to tell you that either.

NBC Nightly News didnt cover the scandal on Thursday, but it was mentioned Friday morning on the Today show. A network insider told Fox News that the story is on the rundown for Fridays edition of Nightly News.

The Mueller investigation is attracting so much attention that other details of the post mortem of Campaign 2016 get squeezed out. Yesterday, for example, Attorney General Jeff Sessions attracted the spotlight, not Donna Brazile: both ABC's Pierre Thomas and NBC's Kristen Welker cited anonymous sources that exonerated the then-senator of any collusion with the Kremlin, TV news historian Andrew Tyndall told Fox News.

ABC and CBS did not immediately respond to request for comment regarding why they failed to cover the bombshell, but Media Research Center News Analyst Nicholas Fondacaro has a theory.

They didnt want to ruin their narrative that Clinton was a pure angel who was a victim of Donald Trump and Russian collusion, Fondacaro wrote.
Academy Award-winning actor Dustin Hoffman has been accused by a second woman of sexual harassment.

Wendy Riss Gatsiounis said she had two meetings in 1991 with Hoffman and screenwriter Murray Schisgal to talk about adapting her script A Darker Purpose into a movie, Variety reported. The playwright said she was in her 20s at the time of the meetings and The Graduate actor was 53.

Riss Gatsiounis, who is known for her writing work on television shows The Killing and Reign, said the first meeting with Hoffman and Schisgal was professional. She was asked to rewrite her film pitch before the second meeting.

In the second meeting, which occurred three weeks after the first, Hoffman acted really different, Riss Gatsiounis said.

I go in and this time its, like, Dustin Hoffmans really different, Riss Gatsiounis told Variety. He says, Before you start, let me ask you one question, Wendy  have you ever been intimate with a man over 40?'

DUSTIN HOFFMAN ACCUSED OF SEXUALLY HARASSING THEN-17-YEAR-OLD GIRL

Riss Gatsiounis said she attempted to laugh off the comment but Hoffman kept pressing the question.

Ill never forget  he moves back, he opens his arms, and he says, It would be a whole new body to explore,' she said. Im trying to go back to my pitch, and Im trying to talk about my play. Then Dustin Hoffman gets up and he says he has to do some clothing shopping at a nearby hotel, and did I want to come along? Hes like, 'Come on, come to this nearby hotel'.

Riss Gatsiounis said Schisgal told her she should go shopping with Hoffman but she declined the offer.

After she declined, Schisgal told her they were not interested in her play.

Riss Gatsiounis said the meeting left her close to tears and she feared she had ruined her career. She called her agent, Mary Meagher, to tell her about the encounter.

She [Meagher] said that she didnt want me to think that it was something I had done, Riss Gatsiounis said. She had heard rumors about him [Hoffman] for years.

COREY FELDMAN NAMES HIS SEXUAL PREDATOR

The whole thing was just a source of torment for me, Riss Gatsiounis said. I was just this writer and he had been my hero, and it stayed with me for a long time.

Earlier this week, writer Anna Graham Hunter alleged the actor groped her on the set of the 1985 TV movie Death of a Salesman and talked about sex to me and in front of me. Hunter was 17 years old at the time of the alleged incident.

Hoffman apologized after Hunter spoke out.

"I have the utmost respect for women and feel terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation. I am sorry. It is not reflective of who I am," Hoffman wrote in a statement.

Hoffman was the latest Hollywood star to be accused of inappropriate behavior following the bombshell allegations against disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Since the fallout from Weinstein, a number of women have come forward with their experiences of sexual misconduct in the film industry.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Chip Gaines is ready to cut his long hair  for a price.

The HGTV star of Fixer Upper made the hair-raising announcement on Instagram Wednesday.

Alright, fine. Ill cut my hair, the 42-year-old TV contractor captioned. But first its time to put your money where your mouth is. Interested? Ill be back to tell you more tomorrow.

The next day, the popular house flipper revealed on social media hell make the daring chop if fans donate to St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital.

Its come to my attention that most of you hate my current hairstyle, wrote Gaines. But how MUCH do you hate it? Nows the time to put your money where your mouth is.

"So heres the deal: Next week, Jo and I are visiting the beautiful kids at Target House with St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis. No family ever pays @StJude for treatment, travel or food  so basically we want to bring them a giant check from YOU to help cover the costs.

Gaines added, Donate to @StJude through the link in my profile, and the more money we raise over the next FOUR days, the shorter my hair goes. Thats a promise. And, who knows, maybe if you really exceed my expectations Ill buzz it all off.

However, the one person who might miss the stars tresses is his wife and business partner Joanna Gaines.

Back in July, the 39-year-old shared a photo on Instagram featuring the two of them together.

He competes with the view, she wrote. Man bun, tube socks, adult onesie and all He still looks mighty fine to me.
The New York Police Department said Friday that a 2010 rape accusation against Harvey Weinstein is credible and the Hollywood mogul would have faced immediate arrest if he were currently in the state and the incident was more recent.

The NYPD said they corroborated portions of actress Paz de la Huertas account, in which she alleges Weinstein raped her twice in her apartment, and are seeking more evidence in their investigation to obtain an arrest warrant.

Because the incident reportedly occurred after 2006, the NYPD can legally investigate and prosecute Weinstein if they find enough evidence.

HARVEY WEINSTEIN COULD FACE CHARGES FROM NYPD AFTER ACTRESS PAS DE LA HUERTA ACCUSES HIM OF RAPE

Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said police found the "Boardwalk Empire" actress' story believable and that if Weinstein were currently in New York and the assault allegation had just happened, we'd go right away and make the arrest. No doubt."

But he said that since Weinstein is in another state and the allegations are years old, investigators have to gather evidence first.

Weinstein, through his legal representative, has denied all accusations of non-consensual sex.

De la Huerta told Vanity Fair of her experiences with Weinstein, which she said happened when she was 26-years-old. She said the producer drove her home one night and insisted on going inside with her.

Immediately when we got inside the house, he started to kiss me and I kind of brushed [him] away, de la Huerta told the outlet. Then he pushed me onto the bed and his pants were down and he lifted up my skirt. I felt afraid... It wasnt consensual... It happened very quickly... He stuck himself inside me... When he was done he said hed be calling me. I kind of just laid on the bed in shock.

FROM KEVIN SPACEY TO DUSTIN HOFFMAN TO HARVEY WEINSTEIN: ARE THEIR CAREERS OVER?

De la Huerta said the next time she saw Weinstein was in December 2010, when he allegedly showed up in the lobby of her apartment building. The actress said she was returning from a photoshoot and had been drinking and tried to get him to go away.

He hushed me and said, Lets talk about this in your apartment, de la Huerta said. I was in no state. I was so terrified of him. . . . I did say no, and when he was on top of me I said, I dont want to do this. He kept humping me and it was disgusting. Hes like a pig. . . . He raped me.

After it was over, she recalled thinking that Weinstein knew hed done something bad. He reportedly offered to put her in a play before he left. But she said she never heard from him again.

As previously reported, the NYPD, LAPD and police in London have all opened investigations into the allegations against Weinstein following multiple exposes into his alleged misconduct as a litany of women have come forward with claims of harassment and assault.

So far, no charges have been filed against him.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Following reports that Netflix may kill off Kevin Spacey's character on "House of Cards," the streaming service announced Friday that it is severing ties with the actor.

The move is being prompted by multiple sexual assault allegations against Spacey, who stars as Frank Underwood on the series about political intrigue in Washington, D.C.

Also scrapped was a Gore Vidal biopic that Spacey was reportedly developing with Netflix.

Netflix will not be involved with any further production of House of Cards that includes Kevin Spacey," Netflix said in a statement, according to the Hollywood Reporter. "We will continue to work with MRC during this hiatus time to evaluate our path forward as it relates to the show."

MRC refers to Media Rights Capital, the production company for "House of Cards."

"We have also decided we will not be moving forward with the release of the film Gore, which was in post-production, starring and produced by Kevin Spacey," Netflix added.

News of the cut ties followed a Variety report Friday that producers were considering killing off Spaceys character and have the shows sixth and final season focus on his villainous wife Claire, played by Robin Wright.

MRC was reportedly concerned that recent sexual harassment allegations against the 58-year-old Spacey would make it difficult for the cast to continue working with him.

Production on the show was suspended Tuesday, two days after actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of assaulting him when he was 14 years old and Spacey was 24.

Consequently, Spacey was dropped by his agency and publicist Thursday. Then on Friday, Britain's Scotland Yard open an investigation after a male actor claimed he was sexually assaulted by Spacey in London.

Allegations against the actor continued to mount as eight crew members reportedly came forward with assertions about sexual harassment and groping on the set of the streaming drama.

CNN reported Thursday that eight people close to the production, which shoots just outside of Baltimore, have come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct from Spacey that allegedly made working on the set a nightmare.

All eight accusers have chosen to remain anonymous, but claim that the behavior was very well known on set and that it created a difficult work environment.

But both Netflix and MRC claimed they had received no reports of any widespread misconduct.

When the allegations broke about Kevin Spacey on Sunday night, in conjunction with MRC, we sent a representative to set on Monday morning," Netflix told Fox News in a statement.

"Netflix was just made aware of one incident, five years ago, that we were informed was resolved swiftly," it continued. "On Tuesday, in collaboration with MRC, we suspended production, knowing that Kevin Spacey wasnt scheduled to work until Wednesday. Netflix is not aware of any other incidents involving Kevin Spacey on-set, the company said at the time.
Jennifer Lawrence had a blast filling in for Jimmy Kimmel on his late-night show Thursday.

Lawrences guest, Kim Kardashian West, was happy to answer all of the Oscar-winning actress questions.

While talking with Kardashian, Lawrence revealed to the audience of Jimmy Kimmel Live that she had dinner with the reality stars mom, Kris Jenner, and the two had a few too many.

GEENA DAVIS: WOMEN ARE PORTRAYED AS VIRTUALLY SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS

I drank five martinis and wound up naked in her closet, Im dead serious, Lawrence told the audience.

"I've never seen my mom more drunk in our lives," Kardashian said. "It was so funny."

Kardashian said the mother! star asked the reality diva and her rapper husband Kanye West to dress her.

You said, Im not joking, I really want Kanye to style me and so I said, OK. I come back in and youre fully butt naked, Kardashian said.

TED STAR JESSICA BARTH CLAIMS EX-MANAGER DRUGGED AND SEXUALLY ASSAULTED HER

After the two reminisced about the evening, Lawrence asked the mother of two if she had talked to O.J. Simpson since he was freed from prison.

Lawrence also asked if Kardashian thought it was a coincidence her ex-boyfriend Reggie Bushs wife looked like you. The reality star laughed the question off.

Lawrence has previously said she is a fan of Keeping Up with the Kardashians and even introduced the show to her mother! co-star Javier Bardem, People reported.
What would Mother Jones have said about this?

Emails from 2014 and 2015 suggest that a top editor for the progressive magazine Mother Jones sexually assaulted subordinates and made inappropriate comments about their bodies, a report said.

The disclosures regarding Washington bureau chief David Corn prompted the magazines editor and chief executive to announce Thursday that they would investigate Corns conduct for the second time in three years, Politico reported.

Copies of the two emails, written by former Mother Jones staffers, were obtained by Politico.

Corn, now 58, often joked about rape and regularly gave unwelcome shoulder rubs to several women, according to the email written in 2015.

The email also alleged that Corn engaged in uninvited touching of their legs, arms, backs and waists and made inappropriate comments about womens sexuality and anatomy.

The 2014 email, which was written by a female employee, charged that Corn came up behind me and put his hands and arms around my body in a way that felt sexual and domineering.

Mother Jones disclosed Thursday that Corn had been counseled three years ago about inappropriately touching female employees and referring inappropriately to sexual violence, according to Politico.

But top magazine officials, who vowed to seriously investigate the allegations in the 2015 and 2014 emails, insisted to Politico that employees had previously raised concerns only about nonsexual touching by Corn.

Corn, who authored the 2007 Iraq war book Hubris with Michael Isikoff, said in a statement to Politico that his behavior had been misinterpreted.

I am an exuberant person and have been known to pat male and female colleagues on the shoulder or slap them on the back, but always in a collegial or celebratory way, Corn said. I have never touched any work colleague in a sexual manner. Once concerns were raised about this type of contact, I have been mindful to avoid it to prevent any misperception. If anyone ever perceived any of this as sexual or domineering, I am sorry  that was never my intent. Sexual violence is not funny, and I have never joked about it, or about womens sexuality and anatomy.

"I am an exuberant person and have been known to pat male and female colleagues on the shoulder or slap them on the back, but always in a collegial or celebratory way."  David Corn, Washington bureau chief at Mother Jones magazine

But several current and former Mother Jones staffers told Politico that the environment in the companys Washington office was uncomfortable for women.

Corn had previously mocked President Donald Trump on the topic of sexual assault. He tweeted in March: "When it comes to raising awareness about sexual assault, Donald Trump leads by example."

Corn isnt the only progressive bigwig to face sexual misconduct allegations this week. In a misogynistic 2000 memoir about his time as an editor in Russia, high-profile Rolling Stone magazine journalist Matt Taibbi and co-author Mark Ames described mistreating and sexually harassing young women.

After the memoir resurfaced this week, Taibbi -- who released the anti-Trump book Insane Clown President earlier this year -- responded to the criticism by describing the memoir as satirical.
Wall Street Journal reporter and MSNBC contributor Eli Stokols is upset that President Trump called for the death penalty when discussing New York City terrorist Sayfullo Saipov but didnt mention the death penalty when discussing the already-dead Las Vegas shooter.

The unifying thread is sort of the broad politics of Donald Trump, the ethno-centric nationalism. He did not react this way when a white person shot dozens of people in Las Vegas We need to give this guy the death penalty, Eli Stokols told MSNBC host Nicole Wallace.

Wallace didnt mention that the Las Vegas shooter, Stephen Paddock, is already dead.

Trump took to Twitter to condemn Saipov after he killed eight people on Tuesday in Lower Manhattan in what is being described as a terror attack. Saipov reportedly wanted to fly an ISIS flag in his hospital room and "wanted to kill as many people as he could," according to a federal criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

NYC terrorist was happy as he asked to hang ISIS flag in his hospital room, Trump tweeted. He killed 8 people, badly injured 12. SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!

While both attacks are tragic and horrifying, Stokols attempted to paint Trump as someone who is harder on an ISIS-affiliated terrorist than a deranged white man who gunned down fellow Americans. Paddock opened fire on a country music festival in Las Vegas last month, killing 58 people and injuring over 500 more, in what is the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.

The problem for Stokols is that Paddock was killed by suicide as police closed in on his Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino hotel room. Since hes dead, hes obviously not a candidate for the death penalty  making the MSNBC correspondents point essentially meaningless.

Trump did refer to Paddock as demented and a very sick individual, so its not like the president spoke kindly about him. He simply didnt call for the death penalty because you cant kill someone who is already dead.

The Gateway Pundit called Stokols moronic, while the Media Research Center said the Wall Street Journal needs to better police the people that it has in important positions if it wants people to take its journalism seriously.

Stokols issued the following comment to Fox News: I am aware the Vegas shooter is already dead; and I did not mean to sound critical of President Trump for failing to call for the death penalty in that case. I understand how ridiculous that sounds. I was making a broader point about the presidents responses to Las Vegas, where he did not push for a policy change, and Charlottesville, where he did not call for the death penalty after a driver crashed into a crowd, in comparison to his more emotionally charged rhetoric following the terrorist attack this week  calling to end the visa lottery, labeling the driver an animal and urging for the death penalty. As I acknowledged Thursday night, I did not distinguish clearly enough between the different circumstances in my on-air remarks, which I regret."
Ted actress Jessica Barth alleged her former manager David Guillod drugged her in 2012 while they were having dinner together and then sexually assaulted her.

Barth, 37, told The Wrap she decided to come forward with her accusations after another woman contacted her stating she was also drugged and assaulted by Guillod.

Barth said she went to the Los Angeles Police Department with the allegations for a second time, after attempting to press charges in 2012. Barth said she chose not to press charges after Guillod threatened to sue her.

However, Guillods attorney, Thomas M. Ferlauto, told The Wrap the case was dropped due to lack of evidence.

Witnesses were interviewed whose version of events belied and completely contradicted Ms. Barths and LAPD determined the charges to be unfounded. No criminal or civil case was ever brought against Mr. Guillod, Ferlauto said.

The Los Angeles Police Department declined to comment.

HOUSE OF CARDS CREW CLAIM KEVIN SPACEY ROUTINELY SEXUALLY HARASSED PEOPLE ON SET

Barth said she was not aware of witnesses who may have contradicted her allegations and said her boyfriend at the time and now-husband Danny Cusumano, confirmed her statements.

Last week, Barth wrote in a blog post for The Wrap that she blacked out while having dinner with Atomic Blonde producer Guillod.

The next thing I remember is waking up at home with six hickeys on my neck, she wrote.

I was horrified. I was completely and utterly confused and I was sick to my stomach. Through email, he tried to play it off as a silly make-out session between friends. He sent me message after message begging that we talk and letting me know how upset he was and that he couldnt sleep because of the pit in his stomach, Barth wrote.

The actress said she dropped Guillod as a manager immediately.

Barth claimed Guillod made sexual advances toward her on previous occasions and only went to the noted dinner because actress Felisha Terrell was going.

DOLLY PARTON, KID ROCK AND OTHER COUNTRY STARS FIRE PUBLICIST KIRT WEBSTER AFTER SEXUAL ABUSE ALLEGATIONS

Terrell, whose manager is still Guillod, told The Wrap Barths recount of the dinner seemed to be inaccurate.

There were some inaccuracies in the story as I recall it. If I felt these accusations were 100 percent true I would not have remained a client. As a woman in this business, I am both supportive and inspired by women speaking their truth, Terrell said.

Barth said that after her blog post was published, another woman contacted her and named Guillod as a person who sexually assaulted her.

She titled the email with his name. I immediately had shivers from head to toe, Barth told The Wrap. The woman said that she had a similar experience, which was horrific  She said it was about three years ago. The woman asked not to be identified.

Barth said she inspired co-star Seth MacFarlanes jokes at the 2013 Oscars about Harvey Weinstein after she told him the disgraced producer made sexual advances toward her in 2011.
Its been 41 years since a sitcom about a man pretending to be gay so he could share an apartment with two single women premiered in 1976.

Close to half the people in America who were watching TV were watching Threes Company," Suzanne Somers told Closer Weekly Wednesday. It will never be like that again.

SUZANNE SOMERS TURNS 70

The cast still remembers their beloved co-star John Ritter fondly. The 54-year-old died suddenly in 2003 due to complications from a heart condition.

John was a great friend, an extraordinarily talented actor and amazingly good at comedy, said Joyce DeWitt. I miss the presence, I miss his smile, I miss the gift that he was.

However, the cast members werent always on good terms. The Hollywood Reporter previously reported that back in 1980 Somers asked for a pay hike from $30,000 an episode to $150,000, which was equal to what Ritter was receiving.

However, ABC offered a $5,000 hike instead. The network and the then-34-year-old actress battled it out and consequently the network fired her.

Life isnt fair, Somers told the magazine. Getting fired for asking about a raise wasnt fair, but I landed on my feet and Ive done OK.

Threes Company came to an end in 1984.

In 2012, DeWitt and Somers reunited for the first time in 30 years after the infamous firing. They buried the hatchet on Somers web series Breaking Through.

I always saw this [show] as a business venture, Somers told DeWitt. In a group of serious actors, I probably pissed you all off, and if I did, Im sorry. I just really needed the money at the time.
A diner suffered permanent damage after he bit into a cauliflower taco he ordered in New York City.

In February, New York resident Neal Lerner said he ordered the Roasted Sriracha Cauliflower Tacos, at Dutch Freds, a cocktail bar that serves a wide variety of food.

When he bit down into the taco, he unexpectedly bit down on a hard foreign object, to wit a stone, which had been concealed within the aforementioned cauliflower tacos, Lerner claims in the suit he filed to the Manhattan Supreme Court last week.

DELTA AIRLINES SUED FOR BREAKING WOMAN'S TOOTH

Lerner suffered serious, severe and permanent injuries, and damage which have caused him to rack up medical bills and he still continues to suffer great physical pain and mental anguish, the suit continues.

The suit also suggests the $14 cauliflower tacos should have been checked for dangerous foreign objects before being served.

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Lerner is seeking unspecified damages, along with the costs for the lawsuit.
The changing colors of the fall foliage are largely lost on those who suffer from colorblindness, but not in Tennessee.

The state's Department of Tourist Development announced earlier this week that they have installed special viewfinders at three of the states most popular lookout points  and each will allow colorblind leaf-peepers to view the fall foliage in all its vibrant splendor.

WHERE TO SEE THE BEST FALL FOLIAGE ACROSS THE COUNTRY

The reds, oranges and yellows in the fall and the incredible colors in the spring are a staple of what comes to mind when people think about Tennessee or visit here, said Kevin Triplett, the commissioner of the states Department of Tourist Development, in a press release.

But to realize, through red/green deficiencies and other forms of colorblindness, there potentially are more than 13 million people in our country alone who cannot fully appreciate the beauty our state has to offer, we wanted to do something about that," he added.



The colorblind-less viewfinders, as theyre called, were unveiled on Nov. 1, and theyre reportedly equipped with special lenses for alleviating red-green color-deficiencies.

Judging by a short video the department posted to YouTube, the technology appears to work incredibly well, too.

MUSICIAN SEES COLOR FOR FIRST TIME WITH SPECIAL GLASSES

Jim Nichols, who reveals in the video above that he suffers from a more extreme version of colorblindness than most, was overcome with emotion after looking through the viewfinder.

Im glad to have seen it. I just wish I had seen this all my life, Nichols said through tears. Kinda like what I would imagine the difference between here and heaven.

Another colorblind traveler said he finally understood what all the foliage-based fuss was about.

I mean, I really feel like now I know why people come from miles and states around just to see this, he said.

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According to the Tourism Department's official website, Tennessees new colorblind-less viewfinders are currently installed at the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area near Oneida; at Ober Gatlinburg in Gatlinburg, and the Westbound Interstate 26 overlook near Erwin in Unicoi County.
Hospital officials met with the relatives of a toddler in need of a kidney on Thursday, after protesters called for action on a decision to delay the childs transplant until January over his fathers criminal record. A second meeting is expected to take place on Monday, after Emory Healthcare released a statement acknowledging a breakdown in communications between the two parties.

Were anticipating a very important meeting to occur on Monday to get this process back on track, Mawuli Davis, the attorney for A.J. Burgess family, told Fox 5 Atlanta. What we hope we are able to reestablish on Monday is trust.

A.J. made headlines earlier this month when it was reported that the toddler couldnt receive a kidney from his father, Anthony Dickerson, 26, over a probation violation in September. The hospital reportedly worked on behalf of Dickerson, who was jailed at the time, to request he be escorted to the hospital for blood work and pre-operative testing.

DISTRAUGHT WOMEN TELL COURT HOW ILLEGAL FAKE BOTOX LEFT THEM DISFIGURED, LOOKING 'LIKE A HAMSTER'

Days after testing, the family said they received a letter from the hospital saying the surgery would be delayed until Dickerson complied with his parole officer after three months. A petition to reverse the decision created by the boys mother, Carmellia Burgess, has gained over 58,000 signatures.

On Sunday, A.J. was rushed to the hospital for an abdominal infection. Protesters gathered to express their anger over the hospitals decision, which culminated in the initial meeting between A.J.s relatives and hospital officials.

We are as committed to making sure we are back in these streets, back in the streets picketing, protesting, doing whatever we need to do, Derrick Boazman, a community activist, told Fox 5 Atlanta.

NURSE DELIVERS OWN BABY OUTSIDE HOSPITAL SHE WORKS IN

Burgess told the news outlet that A.J.s health had improved since being admitted, and thanked the community for their support. In a statement on Thursday, Emory released a statement on the ongoing situation.

We have had an open and honest discussion in focusing on our shared goal of ensuring the health and well-being of A.J. and his father, Emory Healthcare said the statement, according to Fox 5 Atlanta. In reviewing our communication with the family, Emory Healthcare wants to acknowledge and apologize for a breakdown in communication on our part. In addition, the Emory Health care team and the family agreed to meet again on Monday, Nov. 6, to continue the process. In our meeting this afternoon, we were able to review the situation and agree that moving forward on behalf of A.J. is everyones most important goal.
If you've ever glared at the back of a co-worker's head as he or she left the office on a smoke break, wondering why you don't get to just take breaks from work whenever you want, you'll applaud a Japanese company's recent decision.

Piala Inc., a Tokyo-based marketing firm, introduced a policy last month granting six extra paid holidays per year to non-smoking employees to make up for the cigarette breaks of employees who do smoke. It all started when a non-smoker used the company suggestion box to complain about smoking breaks, a spokesperson tells the Telegraph.

"Our CEO saw the comment and agreed, so we are giving non-smokers some extra time off to compensate," the spokesperson explains.

Smoke breaks are particularly time-consuming at the company  about 15 minutes each  because smokers must travel from the office on the 29th floor to the basement. So far, 25 percent of the employees have taken days off under the new policy  and, at least according to the spokesperson, four people have quit smoking as a result of the policy.

Kyodo News says in Japan, where 21.7 percent of adults are estimated to smoke, more companies are starting to attempt to rein in the practice, with one company going so far as to ban smoking during work hours. (In related news, here's what happens when packs of cigarettes cost $1 more.)

This article originally appeared on Newser: "Company Finds Ingenious Way to Make Up for Smoke Breaks."
If Japans media coverage of Ivanka Trumps arrival in Tokyo is any indication, the country seems to be slightly obsessed with the first daughters high-ranking position and great sense of style.

Trumps arrival at the Narita International Airport on Thursday evening was covered by four television stations and treated as major news, according to the New York Times. The same went for her subsequent dinner plans at a swanky Tokyo restaurant.

The citys metropolitan police, too, have assigned Trump an all-female riot squad to protect her from overzealous admirers during the visit  and its the same security measure they plan to extend to first lady Melania Trump when she and President Donald Trump arrive in Japan on Nov. 5.

VICTORIA BECKHAM IS ONE DESIGNER NOT OPPOSED TO DRESSING MELANIA TRUMP

Many people think shes like a princess, said Lully Miura, a political scientist at the University of Tokyo, in a statement to the Washington Post. Shes well educated, beautiful, sophisticated and rich. And its very surprising to Japanese women that she can also talk about things that are important to society.

The DailyMail added that Japan views Ivanka as "a fashion icon" who will attract onlookers during her stay.

On Friday, Ivanka spoke at the World Assembly for Women Conference at Tokyos Prince Hotel, which reportedly held a lottery for attendees.

The event was not as well attended as one might expect considering her popularity  Trump delivered an 18-minute speech to a partially-empty auditorium  but White House spokesman Josh Raffel said the hotels strict security measures kept people from getting to their seats. (A Washington Post reporter in attendance denies this was the case.) Nevertheless, the women who heard Trumps speech seemed to view her as a role model.

She is a beautiful female leader, Rena Hayakawa, a 21-year-old college student, told the Times. Her fashion is great.

Another woman and former U.S. Senate staffer Mieko Nakabayashi, told the site that Ivankas kind of celebrity resonates with the Japanese people.

However, its unclear if Ivankas father is looked at as favorably. In a January article in the Independent, titled Why Japan loves Ivanka Trump, an Ivanka-admiring blogger  who reportedly writes about the first daughters fashion and lifestyle for the Japan Times  hinted that not everybody is as enamored of Donald.

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She is a good example that a woman can do an outstanding job and handle a misogynist father like Trump, without pushing too much of a feminist agenda or confronting men too much, said Yuriko Shinzato.

That is something that Japanese women want, but have a hard time doing in a still male-dominated society.
Tuesdays attack by a radical Islamic terrorist that took the lives of eight people and injured a dozen in New York City was a startling wake-up call for many Americans.

Such attacks continue across the Atlantic, as well as in Asia and the Middle East, but now this particular brand of violence and murder has once again brought mass casualties to our shores.

But lets be clear: radical Islamic terrorists have been launching attacks here in the United States for years, with the deadliest occurring on Sept. 11, 2001. These attacks are not going to stop unless we first admit that we have been and are under attack and  finally  take strong steps to prevent further attacks.

For eight years, the Obama administration refused to even use accurate language and terminology to describe what was occurring here in the U.S., as our nation suffered violent assaults in the name of Islam.

Radical Islamic terrorists have been launching attacks here in the United States for years, with the deadliest occurring on Sept. 11, 2001. These attacks are not going to stop unless we first admit that we have been and are under attack and  finally  take strong steps to prevent further attacks.

President Obama and his team liked to call the radical Islamic terrorists lone wolves or say their attacks were acts of violence, always avoiding terms focusing on the twisted religious faith that inspired their terrorism.

In fact, more than 200 individuals have been charged with terrorism-related crimes in the U.S. since 2009  including in Garland, Texas; Boston; Orlando, Riverside, Calif.; and now New York City.

These arent lone wolves. These are individuals working toward the same goal, via the same broad organization known as ISIS and related groups. The question  now that we have a president who understands the threat  is: How do we prevent such acts from occurring again?

First, as President Trump has noted, we need to holistically examine the means by which immigrants enter the United States and then shut down as many of the duplicative and unvetted programs as possible. The Diversity Visa Lottery, sponsored by Senate Democratic leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York in 1990 when he served in the House, is Exhibit A on that list.

There are actually more than 20 different visa categories and programs offered by the U.S. State Department alone. Almost all are temporary and require some monitoring by other federal agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Labor, the FBI, and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, among others.

Our nations population reflects more than 200 years of diversity in one form or another; we didnt need another visa program to achieve that goal. But unfortunately, the Schumer visa program and others arent simply adding new ethnicities, cultures or creeds to our shores; they are giving radical Islamists from regions other than the Middle East the opportunity to enter.

Once here, these radicals dont assimilate. Instead, they connect with like-minded Islamists to plan and perpetrate acts like the ones we witnessed on Tuesday afternoon in New York.

Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, the man who deliberately drove his truck down a bike path in Manhattan in a deadly act of terrorism, came from Uzbekistan, a Russian satellite where more than 90 percent of the population is Muslim and the government is totalitarian.

Raise your hand if you think it was good idea to allow a young disaffected Islamic man with no prospects, no ties to the U.S., and only his religious zeal to keep him going into our country.

We as a nation must disabuse ourselves of the naive notion that somehow our Western values are magically transferred to all newcomers to our shores and embraced and lived by those individuals.

The Western values of respect for freedom, human dignity, tolerance and peaceful coexistence  as well as the Wests Judeo-Christian system of thought that gave root to those values  are not respected in many parts of the world. This includes locales like Uzbekistan, and large swaths of Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, North Korea and even Russia.

As a result, the only diversity we seem to be importing from these countries  short of legitimate, heavily vetted refugees, such as Christian minorities  is the diversity of hate for the United States and our institutions.

Second, we must accept that there is evil in the world and that no matter how much we would like to avoid it, evil can never be appeased. It is voracious and ever-encroaching and it can only be stopped and destroyed by forceful action.

Radical Islam is evil; it is full of hatred and seeks to destroy our way of life. Our way of life and our system of government, is anathema to radical Islam  like oil and water, they will never mix.

And so we must take a strong stance and stop acting as though common sense is the same thing as intolerance. In fact, you can only defy common sense for so long before you start to see more incidents like Tuesdays terrible attack in New York.

Common sense tells us that in addition to having a realistic view of immigration, we should address the breeding grounds of hatred that we have allowed to fester within our own nation. We can no longer allow radical clerics who preach hatred of America in mosques on American soil, seeking to radicalize young Muslim men in particular.

By some estimates there are dozens and dozens of radical mosques in the United States. The very basic premise of powerful rhetoric is to spur action, to touch the heart and push hands and feet into motion.

The venomous words of the radical clerics are ticking time bombs. It is only a matter of time before even more hands and feet are set into motion by this incitement, and therefore only a matter of time before more American people lie dead on American streets.

Diversity and tolerance are Americas strengths, but we should not sacrifice innocent American lives in the name of these lofty goals. Our temporary visa policies based on economic, educational and human rights requirements can work if appropriately managed and monitored.

Its time the Trump administration and Congress did what the Obama administration refused: reset our nations visa process across the board to meet Americas needs and values, intensively vet all visa applicants, and limit entry from countries on the State Department terrorist watch list. Our nation will remain diverse, but well also be safe.
Several factors may account for the Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahls seemingly light sentence Friday of a dishonorable discharge but no prison time for leaving his post in Afghanistan in 2009. He faced a possible sentence of up to life in prison for desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.

I am one of many who believe Bergdahl was guilty of the higher crime of treason. However, six factors seem to have played a role in prompting Army Col. Jeffrey Nance, the judge in his case, to let Bergdahl off without prison time.

First, Bergdahl was held captive for five years by the Taliban and says he was tortured.

Second, several soldiers who served with Bergdahl made favorable comments about his military service.

Bergdahl was not a victim, albeit some will make this argument; he was an instrument to be used by the president in his desire to empty U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

Third, Bergdahls attorneys asked Nance to give Bergdahl a dishonorable discharge.

Fourth, it is alleged that Bergdahl was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder that was undiagnosed when he left his post in Afghanistan.

Fifth, there was the claim that Bergdahl suffered from a schizotypal personality disorder prior to military service.

And finally, Bergdahls willingness to share information and cooperate with investigators warranted some leniency.

However, lest we forget, Bergdahl put other soldiers in danger. Despite his trauma, he had to realize that desertion would jeopardize those attempting a rescue operation.

One witness pointed out that the platoon that searched for Bergdahl went without food and limited water for 19 days. Chief Petty Officer James Hatch came under fire while looking for Bergdahl. Hatch was shot in the leg and has had 18 surgeries in the aftermath.

It is noteworthy that the Bergdahl case has had an effect on military morale, The Army Code includes the belief that you do not abandon your fellow soldiers in battle. That is axiomatic. After the Bergdahl case, that matter is somewhat ambiguous.

Perhaps the one issue that remains unambiguous is the role played by President Barack Obama. By honoring Bergdahl in 2015, despite a full 2009 Army report indicating his desertion from duty, President Obama intentionally misled the American public and has contributed to the cynical belief you cannot trust comments emanating from the White House.

When Obamas National Security Adviser Susan Rice maintained that Bergdahl represented the Army with honor and distinction she undermined the heroism of thousands who have defended the principles in this land of the free.

In some ways, the Bergdahl case is a contemporary exercise in post-modernism. What you believe to be true often isnt. Not only is truth elusive, it has been buried beneath the desire for a political gain.

Bergdahl was not a victim, albeit some will make this argument; he was an instrument to be used by President Obama in his desire to empty U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

Five Taliban prisoners being held at Guantanamo were released in exchange for Bergdahl and three are now fighting for Al Qaeda

I have it on good authority that the Taliban were prepared to return Bergdahl for cash exclusively. But that was not what President Obama wanted. As a consequence, the United States paid a price in spiritual loss, political legerdemain and military morale.
Proponents of amnesty for illegal immigrants point to President Reagan as an iconic conservative leader who supported a path to legal status for such individuals in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. If it was good enough for President Reagan, they say, it should be good enough for todays Republican Party.

What these armchair historians often fail to say, however, is that President Reagans support for amnesty was part of a compromise that his congressional counterparts reneged on. In exchange for amnesty, Congress was supposed to fund and enforce the other half of the deal to make it unlawful to hire or recruit individuals illegally residing in the U.S. The compromise would have required employers to attest to their employees immigration status.

However, no successive Congress since the Reagan years  regardless of which party held the majority  has ever lived up its side of the bargain. Democrats fear uproar from immigrants rights groups and organized labor. Republicans fear angering employers who count on cheap immigrant labor to fill low-paying, low-skill jobs.

While Republican leaders today might emulate President Reagans willingness to compromise in the interest of halting the flow of illegal immigration, they would be wise to also learn from his experience. Were President Reagan around to advise Republicans today, he might remind them of the old adage: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

While its possible that President Reagan might still support a compromise today that includes a path to lawful status for immigrants here illegally, its a certainty that he would withhold that opportunity until Congress actually acts to dramatically reduce or eliminate the flow of illegal immigration into the U.S.

A Reaganesque immigration reform package for todays world would blend a willingness to compromise with an application of the lessons learned from 1986. It would prioritize border security before granting amnesty or a path to citizenship.

Ronald Reagan was a fan of big, bipartisan, blue-ribbon commissions formed to tackle particularly tough issues outside the realm of congressional compromise. Fox example, a signature piece of legislation signed by President Reagan that saved Social Security in 1983 was the direct result of the recommendations of his National Commission on Social Security Reform.

Such commissions were useful because they took hot potatoes out of the hands of Congress and put them into the hands of a bipartisan group created with the sole aim of finding common ground.

Creating an immigration commission would be a way for President Trump to reach across the aisle to ensure that whatever agreement is made on immigration is bipartisan and earns enough support to avoid a Senate filibuster.

As a student of the Reagan presidency who lived through the immigration debates on Capitol Hill during the Reagan years  and speaking for myself, not the Reagan Foundation  Ive come to believe that a Reaganesque deal on immigration today could be structured around a provision that no amnesty or path to citizenship would be granted until such a blue-ribbon commission certifies that:

The border wall President Trump wants to build between the U.S. and Mexico is at least 75 percent complete.

The flow of illegal entries by immigrants into the U.S. has reached a specified minimum, reflecting a historic low.

At least 75 percent of U.S. employers have adopted an E-Verify type approach to dissuade future illegal immigration.

Upon achieving the above goals, illegal immigrants on an approved list with no criminal history would be granted amnesty.

How many immigrants here illegally would make it onto approved list and who would get on it?

A compromise plan might offer amnesty and an eventual pathway to citizenship for 3.2 million undocumented immigrants  the same number granted the privilege under President Reagans reforms in 1986.

If 3.2 million was appropriate for Reagan, it should be sellable today. Democrats will want to raise that number substantially. Republicans can determine how hard to hold the line to establish a solid bipartisan consensus.

A blue ribbon commission might have better ideas. But no doubt it could be tasked with prioritizing qualifications  such as military service, Dreamer status, special work skills, or something else  for inclusion in the number of immigrants accepted.

Once the commission certifies to Congress that the border wall is complete, those granted amnesty could legally apply for citizenship. All of those who reside in the U.S. illegally and do not apply for inclusion under the plan or who are not admitted under the cap for amnesty would need to self-deport by a certain date. They should be given enough time to arrange their affairs and safely and expeditiously return to their country of origin.

Ronald Reagan embodied the idea of a compassionate conservative before it was a popular term. As he said in a 1984 debate: I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here, even though some time back they may have entered illegally. But he also knew the importance of enforcement and of learning from ones mistakes.

Though he might support a path to legal status for todays illegal immigrants, its difficult to imagine that President Reagan would repeat the mistakes of the 1986 immigration deal. Todays Republican leaders who would follow in his footsteps should pursue a plan that puts enforcement first.
President Trump is right: We should end the diversity lottery for immigration. It is an absurd system for randomly selecting who should come to the United States. The lottery system should instead be replaced with a merit-based system that actively seeks people who will help grow the American economy.

Instead of continuing liberal, politically correct immigration rules that emphasize what the left calls diversity, we need a system that focuses on an individuals merit, work and achievement. What a person can contribute to America should be more important when making immigration decisions than whether he or she fits some political science mantra of diversity.

However, in light of the terrorist attacks in New York, Orlando, San Bernardino, Boston and elsewhere, closing the lottery loophole isnt enough. We need to take far more decisive steps in improving and securing our immigration system.

First, we need to identify terrorists as enemy combatants. They should be thoroughly interrogated and a new law should be developed so that captured terrorists are not able to benefit from Miranda rights.

As a matter of national security, we need to know who our enemies are and what threats they may pose. This overrides the legitimate principles for defending the innocent in traditional criminal cases.

The Supreme Court has ruled that people who are arrested and questioned by police must be advised of their Miranda rights in order for police to use their statements as evidence. The minimal Miranda warning that police must read to an arrested person before questioning states: You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense.

As a matter of national security, we need to know who our enemies are and what threats they may pose. This overrides the legitimate principles for defending the innocent in traditional criminal cases.

Take, for example, Tuesdays attack in New York City. Eight people were killed. Twelve people were wounded  and we know who did it. We should have a system in place that enables us to aggressively push to find out what the terrorist knows, who he relates to, and what else we must do immediately to prevent future attacks.

Second, while today's focus is on immigration, we have a disturbingly large number of home-grown American citizens being radicalized. We must develop a new legal framework for dealing with local and imported terrorists alike.

Third, we must find out how people are radicalized in America and cut off these sources of radicalization. This might include, when necessary, monitoring and closing radical mosques that encourage violence. This means police need to be able to proactively monitor potential terrorists, recruiters, and propagandists. Prior to Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York City had one of the finest counterterrorism efforts of any city in the world.

This is going to be a long war with radical Islamic Supremacists. Closing the immigration lottery system immediately is an important step, but we will need to do far more than this in order to be truly safe.
American industry has always been a primary source of strength and jobs in our nation. But today, a great industry that has played a vital role in building and defending the United States  the steel industry  is in crisis.

Surging steel imports, largely subsidized by foreign governments, have hammered prices, forced some steel mills to close, and cost thousands of steelworkers their jobs. Since 2000, more than 60,000 steelworkers have seen their jobs disappear, including 14,000 in 2015 and 2016 alone.

Unfortunately, the import surge continues to grow. Through the first eight months of this year, steel imports have increased by 21 percent compared to the same period last year. And in June, imports of finished steel matched the record level of 30 percent.

Foreign steel producers continue to find every way possible to circumvent trade laws and dump products in our market.

As a result, the U.S. steel industry is making less steel. Output is approximately 22 million tons lower than it was before the recession. While steel mills ideally should be running at above 85 percent of their capacity to maintain economic sustainability, capacity utilization rates since 2009 have been unsustainably low, fluctuating between approximately 70 and 75 percent.

But there is a solution to this crisis. In April, President Trump recognized both the importance of steel to U.S. national security and the crisis facing the industry. He announced that his administration would begin an investigation pursuant to Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The law authorizes the secretary of Commerce to conduct investigations to determine what effects imports of any product have on U.S. national security.

Launching the investigation was an important signal that the Trump administration would not tolerate further erosion of the steel industry.

Unfortunately, the steel crisis has only deteriorated further since the investigation was announced. Given the expectations of swift, decisive action, steel imports have flooded the market to avoid the anticipated response. This has siphoned badly needed sales from domestic manufacturers and hurt American workers.

Despite the urgent need for action, reports now are that a decision on trade violations will be delayed until after Congress deals with tax reform.

The U.S. steel industry cannot afford to wait. This is President Trumps decision; and congressional stalemate should not keep him from doing whats best for U.S. national defense, economic security and tens of thousands of American steel workers. With each delay, the communities and workers that rely on paychecks, taxes and economic activity created by the steel industry suffer.

Steel is used to build the ships, armored vehicles and weapons that keep our troops safe. It is used to build the roads, bridges, railways and airports that keep our economy running. And the steel industry provides jobs that support steelworkers and their families.

In a time of national crisis, the U.S. cannot afford to rely on foreign steel suppliers like China or Russia. National security begins with primary steelmaking. We need the president to act now.

Soon after our nations entry into World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt told Congress: Powerful enemies must be out-fought and out-produced. His words are as true today as they were then.

To ensure a strong and prosperous America, we must be able to produce the steel that supports our military, our infrastructure and our communities across the country. Our national security and economic strength comes from making, building, and innovating right here in the United States. This is only possible with a healthy steel industry.
The opioid crisis is characterized by despair  for those caught in the grip of addiction, for their loved ones, and for those who want to solve what President Trump has now officially deemed a public health emergency.

For many Americans, an effective antidote to despair is faith and community. Its a shame that President Trumps announcement last week on the opioid crisis did not include this essential component.

After all, there is a legitimate role within our government for the empowerment of local, faith-based solutions. As the leader of a culturally divided and spiritually struggling nation, the president should acknowledge and leverage the power and importance of community and faith-based solutions for addicts and others in despair.

After President Trumps passionate and personal speech last week, Fox News Host Dana Perino remembered the way her former boss, President George W. Bush, described his own commitment to local, faith-based solutions. He used to say that government cannot heal a heart, Perino recalled.

Indeed, the White House Faith-Based & Community Initiative, established by President Bush in 2001, successfully channeled federal funds to the organizations that were most effective in the nations social service network.

President Bush knew that faith-based groups and institutions are frequently best positioned to help Americans in need. His administration enabled those groups to compete for federal dollars on an even playing field. This change in the way the federal government addressed social challenges enabled more hearts to be healed.

There is no doubt that President Trump feels strongly about ending the opioid epidemic. His compassion for those affected is apparent, and his own experience as the brother of an alcoholic brings a deeply personal element to his dedication.

The president would do well to bring that personal element more deeply into his list of opioid crisis solutions by involving those who can impact the lives of individuals when it comes to addiction.

Federal initiatives for the development of non-addictive pain medication or the regulation of certain types of pharmaceuticals are interesting tactics, but none get to the heart of the matter in the way that only community and faith-based programs  and, frankly, a higher power  are able to do.

Put another way: Is Washington going to heal the hearts of the opioid crisis? Can the swamp adequately address an epidemic wrapped in despair?

These questions remain to be answered, but I do know this: The federal government often does its best work when it returns power and resources where they belong  to states, localities, communities and neighborhoods.

In a perfect world, the money would never go to Washington in the first place, but its return to a place closer to the people can be appreciated by anyone  including the president  who believes the federal government has grown too large, too powerful, too arrogant and too distant from the people it is supposed to serve.

President Bushs faith-based emphasis made many non-believers uncomfortable. He endured cries about the separation of church and state in order to leverage the unique ability of local and faith-based programs to help those in need. I believe he did the right thing and that his initiatives were an admirable acknowledgement that Washington cant solve every problem.

We know that President Trump is  rightly  critical of the swamp, and that he doesnt shy away from upsetting his opponents on the left. When it comes to the opioid crisis, he should partner with those on higher, drier land: states, communities, and those helping their brothers and sisters rise above despair through faith.
President Donald Trump flew to Hawaii on Friday before embarking on a 12-day trip to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. The trip gives him a key opportunity to change the direction of his administration at a time when the media is obsessed with investigations of Russia and his presidential campaign.

The president should use this trip, which includes two international summits, to lay out a clear foreign policy strategy at a time when things back in Washington are bogged down in partisan combat. A strong performance in Asia could show the world  and most importantly President Trumps critics  that the president belongs on the international stage.

The art of smart, well-reasoned and strategic foreign policy begins and ends with setting realistic priorities, assigning realistic goals and seeing them through to their logical conclusion.

Its important for President Trump to avoid the mistakes of President Barack Obama, who blundered into making commitments he could not keep, overly extended the United States, and concocted pie-in-the-sky slogans  like the fictional pivot to Asia. Following the Obama example would be a recipe for disaster.

What President Trump promised the American people  to the shock of the foreign policy establishment  was something very different from the Obama foreign policy.

While he never proclaimed a formal Trump Doctrine, candidate Trump called for an America First foreign policy that would make serving Americas own national interests his top priority.

For me, this translates to mean ending nation-building and the promotion of democracy at the barrel of a gun. It means a return to focusing on the great game of power politics in foreign policy.

America First means we should seek compromise and cooperation with nations like Russia and China if it is in our mutual, shared interests and oppose any nation that tries to undermine our objectives. It means that if America is under grave danger we should respond  with overwhelming force if necessary.

But most importantly, those of us who firmly believe in a more realist and restrained foreign policy hope America First means ending once and for all the era of toppling regimes that we have no conceivable way of putting back together.

If the above is a good representation of America First, then that means the Trump administration must turn its attention in a realistic way to Asia  a vital region where we face immense challenges.

To respond to a nuclear-armed North Korea led by a dictator who threatens to use his weapons of mass destruction, President Trump needs to reassure our Asian allies that we will honor our commitments to them, and set the stage for North Koreas containment.

Here are four steps President Trump should take:

Focus on North Korea. The American people once again are facing a mortal enemy with nuclear weapons that could, at least in theory, hit the U.S. homeland  and we are unsure of what direction to take. President Trump must rally our allies of South Korea and Japan to the cause of containing and deterring the North Korean threat, because there is no military option that can wipe out Pyongyangs nuclear weapons with certainty.

This means we need even stronger multilateral economic, diplomatic and financial isolation for Pyongyang, to limit its ability to add to its nuclear and missile arsenal. And it also means building up allied missile defense and conventional strike capabilities in the face of the North Korean thereat.

Make few threats, focus on policy and listening: While President Trump has made clear he will not tolerate a nuclear North Korea and aggression by the Communist nation, his use of Twitter to trade insults and threats with dictator Kim Jong Un is becoming increasingly unhelpful. This only legitimizes Kim.

President Trump should be working full-time on a strategy to push back against Kims nuclear and missile capabilities. Unfortunately, words arent going to stop Kim from testing more nuclear weapons or advanced missiles  or starting a war. Only smart policies have a shot of taking away the resources Kim needs to achieve his goals. When President Trump touches down in Asian capitals he should spend as much time as possible behind closed doors listening and reassuring allies.

Make China part of the solution. North Korea cant exist without Chinas help. Beijing accepts most of North Koreas exports and provides the regime with the natural resources it needs to survive. So when President Trump meets Chinese President Xi Jinping, he needs to reinforce the idea that China must continue its commitment to enforce United Nations Security Council economic sanctions against North Korea. This message must come with a strong warning that if China once again does not keep its word on North Korea, China will have to pay a price.

Develop a trade plan. Asia loves free trade, and diplomats and government officials across the region are still smarting over Trumps move to leave the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Vietnam, Japan and other nations looked at TPP as not just a trade deal, but rather an assurance that America was committed to a stable and balanced Asia-Pacific region.

These nations also saw TPP as sending a strong message that China  no matter how powerful it became  would always be faced with a strong economic as well as strategic, American presence. TPP, and its commitment to free trade, brought some of the most dynamic Asia-Pacific nations into an economic pact that was seen as a way to strengthen ties with Washington.

How will President Trump replace this trade pact? Will he work on bilateral trade deals with say Japan, Vietnam or others? Or, will misguided protectionism and trade barriers go up all over the region, hurting workers and business all across the Pacific? If President Trump acts boldly, he can work to push a free trade agenda that unites and binds the region together but is fair to American workers as well.

Let there be no doubt, President Trump faces a tall task ahead of him on his Asia trip. But with a little dose of realism, a little pragmatism and some luck he can come home with a big win under his belt.
President Donald Trump gave a wide-ranging interview on Fox News The Ingraham Angle Thursday, revealing his thoughts on this weeks terror attack in New York City and the campaign actions of the Democratic National Committee.

Trump responded to claims from former DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile alleging that the committee rigged last years Democratic presidential primary between Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

It's illegal, number one, and it's really unfair to Bernie Sanders, Trump said of the Vermont senator. Im not a Bernie Sanders fan, although I must say I got a lot of his votes when he was thrown out. Many of those people voted for me because of trade because I agreed with him on trade.  But that was, I thought that was terrible.

Trump also responded to recent revelations that the DNC  along with the Clinton campaign  funded the now-infamous opposition research dossier released last January. The president called the findings absolutely inconceivable.

That dossier, which is totally fake and made up its like a novel  is a disgrace and it should not have been allowed to be used and then I hear the kind of money they spent, Trump said, referring to reports Democrats paid as much as $9 million on it. I think its a disgrace that a thing like that can take place.

TRUMP CALLS FOR 'DEATH PENALTY' FOR NYC TERRORIST IN WAKE OF HALLOWEEN ATTACK

After Tuesdays terror attack in Lower Manhattan, allegedly carried out by a man from Uzbekistan  whom Trump called a "horrible animal"  who was granted a green card through the Diversity Visa Program, Trump called for Congress to end the lottery-based immigration program.

The justice system has to go quicker and it has to be really stronger and fairer, the president said, one day after he referred to the U.S. justice system as a laughingstock and a joke.

Its very sad when you look at a lottery system and you have people coming into the country through the form of a lottery, Trump said. The countries arent putting their finest in there, theyre not putting their best and their greatest and their finest in there.

Trump added hes already instructed Congress to bring the Diversity Visa Program to an end.

TRUMP'S TAX PLAN: THE MAJOR CHANGES

Jumping to Trumps tax reform plan, the president said his proposed tax cuts are the biggest cuts in the history of our country.

We have reform and we have simplification and honestly Im surprised a little bit to hear what youre saying because weve really gotten great reviews people are loving it, Trump said when he was told he was getting criticism from both Democrats and Republicans.

He alluded to a Washington Post report that recently gave Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., four Pinocchios for not telling the truth about the tax plan, which Trump said is really not for the rich, its for the middle class and its for jobs.
President Trump let loose with new threats against North Korea in an interview on The Ingraham Angle Thursday.

We have one problem. Thats called North Korea, Trump told Fox News Laura Ingraham.

I must tell you North Koreas a thing that I think we will solve and if we dont solve it, its not going to be very pleasant for them. It's not going to be very pleasant for anybody, Trump warned. He did not elaborate.

The warning came just one day before the president is set to embark on a 10-day trip to Asia. It includes planned stops in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, after an initial stop in Hawaii.

Trump told Fox News he may also meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin is very important because they can help us with North Korea, Trump told Ingraham.

The presidents main goal during the trip will be to strengthen international resolve to denuclearize North Korea, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Thursday during the White House press briefing.

I think a lot of good things are going to happen. I think this is one of the more important trips a president has made, Trump said.
As the investigation into Russias involvement in the 2016 election continues, President Trumps former campaign adviser Carter Page has found himself at the center of the controversy.

Page was asked last year by congressional investigators to turn over records from the past seven years pertaining to Russian contacts and communications.

And Page also was the subject of a surveillance warrant obtained by the FBI and Department of Justice as part of their probe, according to a memo released by House Republicans earlier this month.

Heres a look at who Page is and how hes connected to Trump and the Russia investigation.

Who is Carter Page?

Page, 46, is the founder and managing partner at Global Energy Capital LLC, an investment service company in New York. He was an investment banker for Merrill Lynch for seven years, having spent time in London and Moscow, in addition to New York, his biography on the companys website states.

Much of Pages life is relatively unknown. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and has an MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business.

What is his connection to Trump?

Page is a former foreign policy adviser to Trump. He left the campaign after only a few months, following questions about his connections to Russian officials. He also was mentioned in former British spy Christopher Steele's controversial dossier -- a 35-page document he compiled for opposition research firm Fusion GPS.

White House officials have sought to downplay the role he played in the campaign.

"I did nothing that could even possibly be viewed as helping them in any way," Page has told Fox News about his conversations with Russian officials.

He also told Fox News he became a liability pretty quick on the campaign because of his Russian connections.

What do we know about Page's connections to Russian officials?

Page spent three years in Moscow, where he opened a Merrill Lynch office, according to his biography.

Russian intelligence agents once unsuccessfully tried to recruit Page as a spy in 2013, Foreign Policy has reported. Page contended that any information he shared with Russians was nothing more than "the same energy documents that [he] sent [and] gave" to his students at NYU.

In a 2013 letter, Page bragged that he was an informal adviser to the Kremlin, TIME reported. He was questioned about his Russian contacts by the FBI in 2013, as well, according to the magazine.

Page testified before the House Intelligence Committee that he had contact with a high-level Russian official while on a trip to Russia in 2016, according to transcripts of the hearing. During the trip, Page said he briefly said hello to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich.

Page also testified that he had alerted then-Sen. Jeff Sessions  now the U.S. attorney general  of the trip he took to Russia, contradicting previous testimony given by Sessions.

Additionally, Page testified that he did not have information about Russian election interference.

Why was Page under surveillance?

According to the memo released by the House Intelligence Committee earlier this year, the infamous Trump dossier "formed an essential part" of applications by the FBI and DOJ to spy on Page.

The dossier claimed Page met with Russian oil magnate Igor Sechin; Page told Fox News that hes never met the man.

In requesting the surveillance warrant, investigators did not reveal the partisan nature of the dossier or that it was paid for, at least in part, by the Democratic National Committee and the campaign for Hillary Clinton, the memo alleged.

Republicans have said the memo showed improper surveillance techniques used by the Justice Department and FBI; Trump said the document totally vindicates him in the Russia probe.

But Democrats hope to release their own rebuttal memo soon that purportedly shows distortions and inaccuracies in the first documents.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Still reeling from Hillary Clintons loss to Donald Trump in last years presidential election and wondering how to move forward, the schism within the Democratic Party appears to have widened even more in the wake of the bombshell claims made Thursday by a former interim party boss.

The allegations by Donna Brazile not only asserted that the Democratic National Committee helped rig last years presidential primary in favor of Clinton over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, but also raised a number of troubling questions as the party attempts to regroup ahead of next years midterm elections.

Are Braziles revelations the first shots in a virtual civil war between the Democratic establishment faithful to the Clintons and a growing progressive wing represented by lawmakers like Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren? Is this the final nail in the coffin for Clinton's influence within the Democratic Party? Will this scandal linger into 2020 when the party challengesTrump for the White House?

This is standard in politics when you dont have the presidency because there is nobody in charge of the party, Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist and Fox News contributor, told Fox News. Youre going to have an all-out battle and a new voice will eventually emerge.

Finding out who that voice is and when it will emerge appears, for the time being, to be a long way away as the fallout from Braziles claims reverberate throughout the Democratic Party.

"It was obviously a shocking revelation," Sanders' campaign manager Jeff Weaver told CNN on Friday. "It was pretty clear that they were on the Clinton side ... I don't think any of us imagined that there was actually a formal arrangement giving the Clinton campaign control of the DNC.

In her new book  excerpts of which were published on Politico  Brazile writes that the DNC signed a joint fundraising agreement document with the Hillary Victory Fund and Hillary for America. It had been signed in August 2015, four months after Clinton announced her candidacy and a year before she officially secured the nomination over Sanders.

The agreementsigned by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook with a copy to Marc Eliasspecified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the partys finances, strategy, and all the money raised, Brazile wrote. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff.

Defenders of Clinton have noted that the Sanders campaign also signed its own joint fundraising agreement with the DNC during the campaign season.

Brazile took over as the interim DNC chairman in 2016 when Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced out as chairman over emails that indicated the party organization unfairly favored Clinton over Sanders during the primary.

DNC spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa, who works under current DNC chairman Tom Perez, told Fox News that the party must remain neutral in the presidential primary process, and there shouldnt even be a perception that the DNC is interfering in that process. But it appears the damage has been done.

Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii said Braziles revelations confirmed what many suspected for a long time and added that the deep financial debt, closed door decision-making, complete lack of transparency, and unethical practices are now front and center.

Gabbards statement was preceded by a video earlier in this week in which she slammed Perez for a recent overhaul of the partys executive committee, which she said was intended to cast out those who havent fallen in line with the establishment and who are actually demanding real reform.

Massachusetts Warren, who campaigned for Clinton during the presidential campaign and is rumored to be eyeing a run herself in 2020, said yes when asked if the campaign was rigged and called it a real problem.

"But what we've got to do as Democrats now, is we've got to hold this party accountable," she said, according to the BBC.

Trump weighed in on social media on the mounting scandal and said the American public deserves an inquiry, while lashing out at Clinton in a series of tweets.

Alex Pappas contributed reporting to this story.
Three GOP congressmen introduced a resolution Friday calling for special counsel Robert Mueller to resign from the Russia collusion probe, citing his ties to the FBI and its role in controversies involving Russia.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., a member of the House Judiciary Committee, along with co-sponsors, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., and Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, introduced the resolution on Friday.

Evidence has emerged that the FBI withheld information from Congress and from the American people about Russian corruption of American uranium companies, Gaetz said in a statement Friday. A confidential U.S. witness, working in the Russian nuclear industry, revealed that Russia had deeply compromised an American uranium trucking firm through bribery and financial kickbacks.

Gaetz was referring to Muellers supervision of a bribery probe involving a subsidiary of Russias Rosatom, which eventually got approval from the U.S. to buy a Canadian mining company, Uranium One, that controlled a swath of American uranium reserves. At the time of the probe, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller as special counsel, was a U.S. attorney and Mueller was FBI director. Republicans want to know how that deal was approved despite the evidence gathered in the bribery probe.

MUELLER FACING NEW REPUBLICAN PRESSURE TO RESIGN IN RUSSIA PROBE

Gaetz also pointed to the FBI informant, whose gag order was lifted by the Justice Department last week, and is now able to provide information to Congress, free of the FBIs nondisclosure agreement he signed when Mueller served as director.

Although federal agents possessed this information in 2010, the Department of Justice continued investigating this matter for over four years. The FBI, led at the time by Robert Mueller, required the confidential witness to sign a non-disclosure agreement. When the witness attempted to contact Congress and federal courts about the bribery and corruption he saw, he was threatened with legal action, Gaetz said in a statement. By silencing him, Obamas Justice Department and Muellers FBI knowingly kept Congress in the dark about Russias significant and illegal involvement with American uranium companies.

Gaetz said that due to these deeply troubling events, Muellers impartiality is hopelessly compromised.



He must step down immediately, Gaetz said Friday.

Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., has also called for Muellers resignation.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has called for an independent special counsel to investigate the Obama-era Uranium One deal.

There are currently two pieces of legislation in the Senate, with bipartisan sponsorship, that would ensure a judicial check on the executive branchs ability to remove a special counsel. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., are behind the bills, along with Democratic senators.

The proposed resolution comes just days after Muellers team announced the first charges in their investigation into Russian meddling and potential collusion with Trump campaign officials in the 2016 presidential election.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates were indicted on 12 counts by a federal grand jury as part of the probe. Both pleaded not guilty. And Former Trump foreign policy campaign volunteer George Papadopoulos entered a guilty plea on Monday after admittedly making false statements to the FBI.
Nancy Pelosi is running away from impeachment.

And the fact that shes doing so speaks volumes about where her party is in the Trump era.

Lets start with the inconvenient factinconvenient for Democratsthat President Trump hasnt committed anything close to an impeachable offense. Critics can skewer him over his policies and persona, or speculate about what the Russia investigation might find, but mostly they just wish that somehow he could be magically removed from the White House.

That, however, is not the view of much of the liberal base that can provide the energy and the money as Pelosis party pushes toward the 2018 campaign.

A smart piece in Politico says the House minority leader has privately criticized a $10-million ad campaign pushing impeachment by Democratic mega-donor Tom Steyer:

Pelosi is eager to show her party can govern  in contrast to the chaos surrounding Trump  and she believes that a reputation as the no drama Democrats is key to taking back the House in 2018 and whisking her backing into the speakers chair.

While not an official slogan, Pelosi has discussed the strategy broadly in recent leadership and caucus meetings, urging members to avoid talk of impeachment and resist taking Trumps bait on whatever topic is dominating his Twitter feed that day.

Yammering about impeachment might make her liberal supporters feel good, but if Pelosi she hopes to wield the speakers gavel againa long shot--needs to win some seats in Republican districts. And that would require more moderate candidates, not those talking about evicting a duly elected Republican president after less than a year.

Still, Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois says hes part of a group that will file an impeachment measure by Thanksgiving, though he wont say what the charges will be.

Its true, of course, that high crimes and misdemeanors are whatever a majority of the House (and two-thirds of the Senate) say they are. Many Democrats are still steamed over the party-line vote to impeach Bill Clinton, which boomeranged on the GOP even though he did lie about Monica Lewinsky. So is the solution to gin up another impeachment, creating a cycle of each party trying to undo the election?

Still, the I-word has a visceral appeal for people like New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, who questions why inside the Beltway, calling for impeachment remains strangely taboo.

The failure to move ahead on impeachment, she writes, leaves many Americans terrified by Trumps erratic behavior and incompetence feeling marooned, confused as to why their leaders arent treating this presidency like the civic emergency that it is.

Goldberg praises Steyers campaign, if only to produce a shift in public opinion to make impeachment feasible down the road in case the Republicans turn against Trump. Or just to scare Trump into behaving.

Any impeachment effort just turns the Democrats into the anti-Trump party, which didnt work so well in 2016. The media already report every bad thing they can dig up about Trump. Pelosi says her party needs to run on a positive agenda, and on that point shes right.
Wanna get away?

No. This isnt a Southwest Airlines advertisement where a man mistakenly climbs into an Uber  which turns out to be the getaway car for a pair of bank robbers.

Its Capitol Hill. And apparently, a lot of people would love to unearth a hidden off-ramp away from the building with the big white dome perched on top.

Senate Republicans scheduled a Monday afternoon press conference about the religious views of President Trumps judicial nominees. This was on the books long before the indictments of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates.

Nine GOP senators piled into the Lyndon Baines Johnson Room at the Capitol Monday afternoon to stand behind a lectern and in front of a row of flags. A few reporters came to ask about the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett for the federal bench and her Catholic faith. But most scribes wanted to hear what senators made of the criminal charges.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R- KY, launched the press conference. But after yielding to his colleagues for their remarks, the Kentucky Republican beat an exit to the doorway.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, began plotting an escape route early as well. A set of tall, mahogany double doors loomed directly behind the senators, though blocked by an array of four American flags. As other senators spoke, Grassley methodically reached behind the banners. He tinkered with the doorknobs to determine if they were unlocked. They were. But Grassley didnt try to exit then. The Iowa Republican patiently stood beside Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and dutifully listened to the remarks of his colleagues.

They continued. Grassley discreetly checked the doors two more times.

Anybody have any questions for Sen. Grassley or anybody else up here on this topic? inquired Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas.

I have a question about a different Catholic named Paul Manafort, said a reporter in the back, dispatching the room into howls of laughter.

Thats why I said this topic, responded Cornyn.

Another reporter asked a question on faith and public service. Then CBSs Nancy Cordes posed her interrogative.

Former campaign manager Paul Manafort was indicted today, began Cordes.

Cornyn interrupted.

And thats not really not our job. Thats not our wheelhouse, said Cornyn.

A portable, Tungsten TV camera light with a crew in the back then accidentally dimmed. Its unknown if Grassley saw the cover of darkness as an advantage to execute his great escape. But Grassley made his move as soon as Cordes said Manafort.

Grassley swung open the back door, jostling three of the flags. Two of the flags nearly tipped over on Cornyn. The TV light came back up as the press corps shouted a cacophony of questions at Grassley. The door slammed behind the senator.

If you would all hold on just a second, implored Cornyn, trying to restore order.

Grassleys departure meant it was up to Cornyn to field questions from a ravenous press corps.

Speaking of someone who wanted to get away.

Will the indictments interfere with tax reform?

The short answer is no, fumed Cornyn.

When the press conference broke, a scrum of reporters bee-lined for Hatch. The Senates President Pro Tempore left the room via Grassleys egress  but lacking the same stealth. Hatch may hold seniority over Grassley in the Senate. But Grassleys Houdini skills upstage those belonging to Hatch. The reporters wanted to know what the Senates most-senior Republican thought about Manafort.

Im having a rough time seeing why in the world he indicted, said Hatch about Manafort. I think its an overreach.

Not 30 minutes later, Hatchs office blasted around a statement which flew in the face of what the Utah Republican said in the hall.

These are serious charges and I believe that its in the best interest for all parties to allow (Special Counsel) Bob Mueller to conduct a full and vigorous investigation, read Hatchs statement. The Special Counsel needs the time and support necessary to get to the bottom of things.

Perhaps Hatch wished he had ducked out prematurely, too.

It was reporters who wanted to escape the Capitol on Tuesday night. Word came around 7 pm that House Republicans were postponing their ballyhooed Wednesday rollout of the tax reform bill. GOP members of the House Ways and Means Committee huddled in a Capitol enclave belonging to Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R- Texas, for more than two hours. What would Brady say? Why the holdup? What went wrong?

Naturally, Brady probably wanted to skedaddle too. His beloved Houston Astros were about to face the Los Angeles Dodgers in game six of the World Series. During an earlier session with the press, Brady assured reporters the bill was on target for a Wednesday release. He also prognosticated the Astros would capture their first World Series title later that night.

As it turns out, Brady was wrong on both counts  by a day. The Ways and Means Committee rolled out the legislation Thursday instead of Wednesday. And the Astros finally defeated the Dodgers in a decisive game seven Wednesday instead of Tuesday.

But confusion reigned Tuesday night. Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, emerged as the first Ways and Means member out of the room.

Who are all of these people? Johnson asked an aide about the cadre of reporters camping outside the Ways and Means office.

Still, Johnson didnt reply to any questions as he boarded his motorized scooter and zipped away down the Capitol corridor.

Reps. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., George Holding, R-N.C., and Kenny Marchant, R-Texas, were next. They too fled as reporters peppered them with questions about the status of the bill.

Talk to the chairman, hollered one, over their shoulder.

When Brady finally emerged a little after nine, he indicated that the bill was on schedule. But 45 minutes later, Bradys office announced they shelved the plan for a day.

While the House wrestled with tax reform, Mitch McConnell was still trying to confirm judges this week.

Around the time of Mondays press conference, there was concern the Senate may be in session around the clock and into Friday, whittling through a slate of circuit court nominations. In recent years, senators loathe late-night or Friday sessions. Some whispered that dilatory tactics could delay the confirmations until next week.

But then again, this was Capitol Hill and everyone wanted to get away.

By mid-afternoon Thursday, the Senate completed the slate of circuit court nominees with a final confirmation vote.

Not surprisingly, senators sprinted for the exits.
Although specifics werent provided, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un joined his counterpart to the south in promising to rid the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons.

The vow to create a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula through complete denuclearization came during the Koreas historic summit between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in in late April, and just before a much-anticipated meeting between Kim and U.S. President Trump.

I feel like Im firing a flare at the starting line in the moment of (the two Koreas) writing a new history in North-South relations, peace and prosperity, Kim told Moon.

Kim is the first known member of his familys dynasty to set foot on South Korean soil since 1953. There, at least in front of cameras, his rhetoric drastically changed since he engaged in a war of words with Trump throughout the first year of the U.S. presidents time in the White House. (Kim called Trump a dotard; Trump called the North Korean leader short and fat.)

Since Kim took over North Korea in 2011, the regime rapidly expanded and tested its missile arsenal with weapons capable of striking the U.S. mainland. His end goal, he once said, was to "establish the equilibrium of real force with the U.S. and make the U.S. rulers dare not talk about military options for the North.

Read on for a brief look at how North Koreas nuclear weapons program has grown throughout the regimes in the past century.

Kim Il Sung, leader from 1948-1994

Kim Il Sung can be credited with founding North Korea and propelling the nations nuclear program forward  but he did not live to see his country conduct its first nuclear test.

It was under the first Kim that North Korea began to build up its nuclear reactors. And it was under his leadership that the nation began the Korean War  surely a catalyst that led the leader to believe his nation needed nuclear weapons, Dr. Sung-Yoon Lee, the Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, told Fox News in an interview.

TRUMPS COMMENTS ON NORTH KOREA, FROM FIRE AND FURY TO BLAMING CHINA

The seeds of nuclear aspirations were sown in the Korean War, Lee said.

The Korean War pitted North Korea and its ally China  two nations that did not have nuclear capabilities at the time  against a nuclear-armed U.S., making it clear to the first Kim that nuclear weapons are very powerful, a powerful deterrent, Lee said.

Kim Jong Il, leader from 1994-2011

When the second leader of the Kim dynasty died in 2011, Kim Jong Il was remembered as the dictator who turned North Korea into a nuclear state, in his New York Times obituary.

And its Kim Jong Il that really gets the credit of taking the country down the nuclear path," Lee said.

In the beginning of his reign  he was North Koreas supreme leader from 1994 to 2011  North Korea denied that it had a nuclear weapons program.

TIMELINE OF NORTH KOREAN MISSILE LAUNCHES IN 2017

However, in 2003, Pyongyang announced that North Korea was withdrawing from the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which barred the nation from making nuclear weapons.

By 2005, North Korea confirmed that it had its own nuclear weapons. It tested its first nuclear device in 2006.

Kim Jong Un, leader from 2011-present

Kim Jong Un is credited with accelerating North Koreas push for nuclear weapons, and under the Obama administration, many of the worlds attitudes toward the East Asian nations nuclear capabilities became less blase than in the past, Lee said.

Kim Jong Un also crossed a major threshold for his country in the summer of 2017  the ability to credibly threaten the U.S. with an intercontinental ballistic missile.

In 2017, North Korea successfully tested its longest-ever flight of a ballistic missile. The intermediate-range weapon traveled 3,700 miles and passed over Japan before it landed in the Pacific. The country also tested its most powerful nuclear test to date this year.

After the missile test, Kim Jong Un said North Korea is nearing equilibrium with the U.S. in terms of its military force.

The increasingly frequent and aggressive tests added to outside fears that North Korea is closer than ever to building a military arsenal that could viably target the mainland of the U.S. or its allies in Asia.

Calling Kim Jong Un Rocket Man, Trump said in 2017 the dictator is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.

The United States has great strength and patience, Trump said. But if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.

But 2018 brought a dramatic turn of events after he declared in a stark New Years address that a nuclear launch button is always on my table. Kim Jong Un offered to meet with Trump and became the first known member of his familys dynasty to set foot in South Korea since 1953. At the historic summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, both leaders pushed for peace and would work toward a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

However, neither leader provided any specific measures or seemed to forge a potential breakthrough on the issue that has captivated and terrified many, especially since last year.

Before Trump canceled a much-anticipated meeting with Kim Jong Un, North Korea said it demolished what it claimed to be its nuclear test site, setting off several explosions over the course of a few hours in the presence of foreign journalists.

The planned closing of the Punggye-ri site was previously announced, but it's unclear if another facility could be used to continue the country's nuclear weapons program. Yongbyon nuclear complex, located about 64 miles north of Pyongyang, has a new reactor that could produce weapons-grade plutonium. Pyongyang insists is being used to produce electricity for its citizens.

Trump ultimately rejected Kim Jong Un's invitation to a June meeting in Singapore, citing North Korea's "open hostility."

Fox News Edmund DeMarche, Ryan Gaydos and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Senate Democrats want Attorney General Jeff Sessions to testify before Congress about why he failed to disclose a March 2016 meeting with then-candidate Donald Trump and members of his campaign team in which an adviser allegedly offered to set up a meeting between the president and Vladimir Putin.

Sessions' attendance at the meeting was revealed in court documents released Monday by special prosecutor Robert Mueller. The documents seem to show George Papadopoulos was the adviser who offered to set up the meeting. Papadopoulos pleaded guilty this week to lying to federal investigators.

Sessions has been quiet on his involvement at the session, despite being asked about it multiple times during several appearances on Capitol Hill.

A source familiar with the meeting told Fox News that it seems clear that the people who remember the conversation believed that Papadopoulos was proposing a prospective idea of using his Russian contacts to try to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin, which was immediately rejected by then-Senator Sessions.

The source added, At the time, of course, Papadopoulos was some 29-year old that nobody had ever heard of and who struck people in the room as someone who didnt have a lot of credibility. As far as Sessions seemed to be concerned, when he shut down this idea of Papadopoulos engaging with Russia, that was the end of it and he moved the meeting along to other issues."

The same documents that disclosed the meeting show Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contact with Russians during the 2016 campaign.

Sessions has been dogged over his testimony before Congress about interactions with Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign.

During his confirmation hearing in January, Sessions told Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., that he had no communications with Russian officials during the campaign. It was subsequently revealed that he had conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Under pressure, Sessions later recused himself from the Department of Justice investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Last month he reiterated he did not know of any Trump campaign official having contact with Russian officials  a claim Senate Democrats are pushing back on.

He needs to clarify his testimony before our committee, Judiciary Committee member Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told The Chicago Tribune. There were questions that elicited exactly the kind of information that the Papadopoulos plea agreement made.
An anti-racism student group at one of America's most liberal colleges entered the 12th day of an administrative building occupation Friday.

The group at Reed College in Portland, Ore., called for the school to cut ties to Wells Fargo Bank over its relationship with privately run prisons and stop teaching what it called a whitewashed curriculum that is too focused on the ideas and accomplishments of white Europeans and their descendants.

The group, called Reedies Against Racism (RAR), has been camping out in college President John Kroger's office.

The students say that a mandatory humanities course dubbed Hum 110 focuses overtly on European thought leaders, leading to "whitewashing" of the students' education. The course has long been a target of the school's left-leaning activists, who successfully shut down an Aug. 28 lecture on Ancient Greece.

We believe that the first lesson that freshmen should learn about Hum 110 is that it perpetuates white supremacy  by centering whiteness as the only required class at Reed, reads a RAR declaration delivered to all new students, the Atlantic reported.

The required freshman course should be reformed to represent the voices of people of color, read the demands posted online. Before this is accomplished, Hum 110 should be conscious of the power it gives to already privileged ideas and welcome critique of that use of power.

The group also demands that Reed College cut ties with Wells Fargo Bank over its links to the private prison system.

A rotating team of up to 40 students has been camping inside the presidents office, with some reportedly sleeping there in tents, prompting the college to close down its finance office and transport sensitive documents to a new location, the Washington Times reported.

The college was forced to issue around two-dozen no-contact orders to the protesters over the harassment of school staff members.

You have been identified as having participating in an incident on Thursday, October 26, 2017, that resulted in the reported harassment of a college staff member, reads a letter issued by Mike Brody, vice president of student services, ordering students to cease such actions.

The letter also outlined possible consequences for the occupation of the building and harassment of staff, including complete expulsion from the college.

We condemn this behavior, Kroger wrote in an Oct. 27 email to the campus community, according to the Washington Times. This conduct violates the principles of respectful dialogue upon which this community is based. Dissent is encouraged at Reed, but harassment is not.

Despite talks between the faculty and protesters, it remained unclear when a solution would be found.

"We don't assume we are going to agree anytime soon," Brody told Fox 12. "But we need to find a way to disagree productively so that we can honor each other's positions and perspectives and try to find a path forward."
President Trump opened up on Democrats with both Twitter barrels from high in the sky Friday, exploiting fractures in the rival party after top operative Donna Brazile revealed insiders plotted to steal last year's presidential primary from Bernie Sanders.

"Bernie Sanders supporters have every right to be apoplectic of the complete theft of the Dem primary by Crooked Hillary!" Trump tweeted from Air Force One, as he headed off on a 13-day tour of Asian nations.

It was part of a mid-morning Twitter barrage in which Trump called for his own Justice Department to probe a range of scandals involving the Democratic Party and his vanquished 2016 presidential rival, Hillary Clinton.

Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isnt looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems, Trump tweeted early Friday. New Donna B book says she paid for and stole the Dem Primary. What about the deleted E-mails, Uranium, Podesta, the Server, plus, plus

In excerpts released Thursday from an upcoming book, Brazile, a longtime party stalwart and Clinton confidante, confirmed longstanding suspicions that the Democratic National Committee she once headed worked with Clinton to ensure she won the party's presidential primary over Sanders, the Vermont senator who built a huge following with his blend of Democrat politics and socialism.

"I always felt I would be running and winning against Bernie Sanders, not Crooked H, without cheating, I was right," Trump tweeted.

Brazile's explosive charge has sent shockwaves through the party.

I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clintons team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested, Brazile wrote in a book excerpt first published in Politico Magazine. By Sept. 7, the day I called Bernie, I had found my proof and it broke my heart.

The proof, according to Brazile, was a joint fundraising agreement document between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund and Hillary for America. It had been signed in August 2015, four months after Clinton announced her candidacy and a year before she officially secured the nomination over Sanders.

The agreement signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC and Robby Mook, with a copy to Marc Eliasspecified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the partys finances, strategy, and all the money raised, Brazile wrote. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decision on all the other staff.

DONNA BRAZILE: I FOUND 'PROOF' THE DNC RIGGED THE NOMINATION FOR HILLARY CLINTON

Even before Friday morning's tweetstorm, Trump reacted to the allegations against Clinton on Thursday night on The Ingraham Angle.

Its illegal, number one, and its really unfair to Bernie Sanders, Trump said. Im not a Bernie Sanders fan, although I must say I got a lot of his votes when he was thrown out. Many of those people voted for me because of trade because I agreed with him on tradeBut that was, I thought that was terrible.

"Pocahontas just stated that the Democrats, lead by the legendary Crooked Hillary Clinton, rigged the Primaries! Lets go FBI & Justice Dept.," Trump tweeted again. 'Pocahontas,' when used by the president, is typically in reference to Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

In an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN Thursday, Warren, D-Mass., was asked whether she believed the DNC was rigged, to which the senator simply responded, "Yes."

But on Friday, Trump took the opportunity to add the Brazile bombshell to a list of allegations and situations that he wants his Justice Department to investigate, including her deleted E-mails and the Server, pointing back to the months-long Clinton email investigation.

Trump also referred to Uranium, alluding to the controversial Obama-era Uranium One deal. The 2010 deal concerns the sale of Canadian mining company Uranium One to Russias Rosatom nuclear company. The U.S. was involved because the sale gave the Russians control of part of the uranium supply in the U.S. Clinton, at the time, was secretary of state.

TRUMP CALLS DNC PRIMARY-RIGGING 'ILLEGAL,' SLAMS 'FAKE' DOSSIER IN FOX NEWS INTERVIEW

Trump also referred to Podesta, though it is unclear if he was referring to Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta, or his brother, Clintons longtime confidante and 2016 campaign manager John Podesta.

This week, Tony Podesta stepped down from his lobbying firm, which was co-founded with his brother John, in the wake of special counsel Robert Muellers probe expanding to question Podestas Foreign Agent Registration (FARA) filings, and whether he was in violation of that law.

A spokesperson for Podesta told Fox News that they were compliant with their FARA filings and were fully cooperating with Muellers team.

The president tweeted again, moments later, underscoring the need for a federal probe.

"....People are angry. At some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper. The American public deserves it!" Trump tweeted.
Candidates are spending the final days of the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey battling over illegal immigration and sanctuary cities as voters head to the polls Tuesday.

In both contests, Republicans and Democrats have recently hit each other over immigration-related issues, including sanctuary cities, where local policies protect illegal immigrants from federal deportation.

In Virginia, the race between Republican nominee Ed Gillespie and Democratic nominee Ralph Northam has gotten particularly nasty in recent weeks, with each side accusing the other of running ads that are out of line.

Earlier this week, a liberal group called the Latino Victory Fund released a television ad showing immigrant and minority children in Virginia being chased down the road by a man in a pickup truck with a Confederate flag and a Gillespie bumper sticker.

The group eventually took the ad down after the terrorist attack in New York, where eight people were killed when a man intentionally mowed them down in a truck.

Virginians respect and appreciate civil discourse, but the Latino Victory Funds ad was far out of bounds of the civility Virginians expect and deserve, Gillespie campaign manager Chris Leavitt said.

Meanwhile, Democrats have protested ads from Gillespie accusing Northam of voting for bills that would lead to sanctuary cities and a threat increase from the MS-13 gang.

Northams campaign has accused Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, of being a mini-Trump whose ads demonize immigrants.

WHITE HOUSE SLAMS DEMOCRATIC AD IN VIRGINIA WHERE MAN IN TRUCK CHASES MINORITY CHILDREN

From his toxic ads to his embrace of Trumpcare, Ed Gillespie has transformed himself into Virginias very own mini-Trump, Northam spokesman David Turner said.

As Gillespie has embraced illegal immigration as a campaign issue, President Trump has tweeted his support for Gillespie in the race.

Ralph Northam, who is running for Governor of Virginia, is fighting for the violent MS-13 killer gangs & sanctuary cities, the president tweeted last month. Vote Ed Gillespie!

Yet in New Jersey, Trump has not spoken out in support of Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who is running against Democratic nominee Phil Murphy.

Guadagno has spent the campaign railing against sanctuary cities, releasing an ad drawing attention to Murphys debate comments in support of New Jersey being a sanctuary state and telling the story of an illegal immigrant who was convicted of killing several students in 2007.

Murphy doesnt have our backs, the ads narrator says. Referencing criminal illegal immigrants, the narrator continues: He has theirs.

Like Northam in Virginia, Murphy has responded by accusing Guadagno of taking a page from Trump with her emphasis on the issue.

Kim Guadagno should be ashamed of herself for the way shes politicizing the deaths of three children and painting a community with the broad brush of a murderer, a tactic she must have gleaned from President Trump, Murphy said in response to the ad. To say the least, these are not New Jerseys values.

In both states, the candidates are battling to succeed two well-known governors, Republican Chris Christie of New Jersey and Democrat Terry McAuliffe of Virginia.

Heading into Tuesdays vote, Democrats have the advantage, according to recent polling. The Real Clear Politics polling average has Northam leading Gillespie by 3 points in Virginia; in New Jersey, the polling average has Murphy ahead of Guadagno by 15 points.
Striking images capture the moment an American woman kissed Hitler  leaving him so enraged he reportedly fired all his security guards for their failure to thwart her.

Carla de Vries, from Norwalk, Calif., asked the Nazi leader for an autograph before she quickly pecked him at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.

The Nazi leader was keen to watch the event, sitting next to General August von Mackensen, after German Jewish athletes had been banned form participating.

Carla, who had traveled through Europe trying to take a photo of Hitler at a close range, was desperate to get close to the leader so she asked for his autograph.

After she managed to burst through lines of Schutzstaffel police guards, she managed to land a smacker on his cheek  on her second attempt.

Hitler is captured humorously trying to evade her advances as he willingly signs the autograph before she is pushed away by a laughing General Mackensen.

The 20,000-strong crowd at the Berlin Olympics allegedly burst into applause as she returned to her seat.

Carla  who was married to a dairy farm owner called George  later said: Why, I simply embraced him [Hitler] because he appeared so friendly and gracious.

I don't know why I did it. Certainly I hadn't planned such a thing. It's just that I'm a woman of impulses, I guess.

It happened when I went down to take Hitler's picture with my small movie camera.

Hitler was leaning forward, smiling, and he seemed so friendly that I just stepped up and asked for his autograph, which he wrote on my swimming ticket. He kept on smiling and so I kissed him."

After the incident, Hitler was furious about the incident for his security's failure to halt the woman.

Several of Hitlers Schutzstaffel guards were dismissed in disgrace while several more were demoted in rank.

The 1936 Olympic Games were held in Nazi Berlin, Germany and were the first games to be televised across 41 countries.

This story originally appeared in The Sun.
Police in Zion, Illinois got one of their more unusual calls this week then they had to assist in the rescue of an obese raccoon that was trapped in a sewer grate.

As a police officer no 2-days are the same, explained the police department, in a Facebook post Thursday. Ofc. K. Vaughn responded to a call for assistance this morning for one of our furry residents. It seems this little guy has been eating a little too well and got caught in the sewer grate.

THE WORLD OF ANIMALS

Animal Control Ofc. R. Knorr & Ofc. Vaughn were unable to remove him and had to request help from the real heroes over at the Zion Public Works Department, the department added. They were able to free him and our friend was no worse for wear.

Police officers elsewhere in the U.S. have also had interesting animal encounters recently. Cops in Kings Beach, California, for example, recently found a bear roaming around near local shops. The bear eventually disappeared into a nearby park. A video of the encounter with the suspicious suspect has garnered 836,000 shares on Facebook.

BUCKS CAUGHT BATTLING AT ILLINOIS CONSTRUCTION SITE

Last month, police in Georgia shot and killed a Bengal tiger after it escaped from a truck in a suburb of Atlanta.
A lost species of salamander has been rediscovered alive and well in Guatemala.

The Jackson's Climbing Salamander (Bolitoglossa jacksoni), a brilliant yellow-and-black amphibian, was last seen in 1975 and feared extinct. But this month, a guard at the Finca San Isidro Amphibian Reserve (also called the Yal Unin Yul Witz Reserve) in the Cuchumatanes Mountains spotted a juvenile of the species while out on patrol. The guard, Ramos Leon, snapped a photo and sent it to Carlos Vasquez, a curator of herpetology at USAC University in Guatemala, who confirmed its identity.

Vasquez himself had spent more than 3,000 hours hunting for the salamander since 2005, and trained Leon and his fellow guards on how to search for it.

"We had started to fear that the species was gone, and now it's like it has come back from extinction," he said. "It's a beautiful story and marks a promised future for the conservation of this special region." [Golden Wonder: Photos of the Jackson's Climbing Salamander]

Stunning rediscovery

The Jackson's Climbing Salamander is known as the "golden wonder" for its bright-yellow body, which is topped by a black streak running from its head to most of the way down its tail. It's named after its discoverer, Jeremy Jackson, who first identified it while exploring the Cuchumatanes with his friend Paul Elias, who was a college student at the time. They found three new species of salamander on that trip, including the long-limbed salamander (Nyctanolis pernix) and the Finca Chiblac Salamander (Bradytriton silus). Those species were found again on expeditions in 2009 and 2010, but the Jackson's salamander stayed missing.

The nonprofit group Global Wildlife Conservation put the Jackson's salamander on its Top 25 "most wanted species" list as part of its Search for Lost Species initiative. The initiative, which launched in April, aims to seek out 25 species that have not been seen for years or decades but aren't confirmed extinct. Among them are the Wondiwoi tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus mayri), seen only once in 1928 in Indonesia, and the pink-headed duck (Rhodonessa caryophyllacea), last seen in Myanmar in 1949.

Finding lost species

It was shocking to find the Jackson's salamander so quickly, said Lindsay Renick Mayer, a spokesperson for Global Wildlife Conservation. The group had planned an expedition to the region to search for the salamander in January, but Leon found the amphibian first.

"The night I got the news from Carlos that Bolitoglossa jacksoni had been rediscovered, I flew off the couch where I'd been falling asleep, let loose a string of expletives (in a good way), and did a little happy dance," Jackson, the salamander's original discoverer, said in a statement. He went on to praise the reserve that has protected the unwitting salamander species throughout the years.

"I'm more than delighted that Yal Unin Yu Witz exists so that Jacksoni and other wonders can survive, and I'm so pleased to hear that it was a guard protecting the preserve who found this beauty," he said.

"I love this story because it conveys how protecting habitat gives species a fighting chance to survive on this planet," Don Church, the president of the Austin, Texas-based Global Wildlife Conservation, said in the statement. "This rediscovery can only be a good omen for the future of the Search for Lost Species campaign. It's a sign that if we get out there and work at it, many of these species can be found and saved."

Original article on Live Science.
The Tyrannosaurus Rex was one of the scariest killers in the history of Planet Earth.

But its fearsome image was undermined a little by the ridiculousness of its puny arms, which were among the smallest of all dinosaurs when considered proportionally against the size of its body.

Now one scientists has claimed the tiny arms were actually "vicious weapons" equipped with four-inch claws which would have allowed it to eviscerate its unfortunate prey.

Steven Stanley, a palaeontologist working at the University of Hawaii, gave a presentation to The Geological Society of America last week in which he claimed nature equipped the monster with "formidable weaponry".

The research flies in the face of previous suggestions that the T-Rex was a lover as well as a fighter, which used its little arms to clasp its partner close during sex.

Its short, strong forelimbs and large claws would have permitted T-Rex, whether mounted on a victims back or grasping it with its jaws, to inflict four gashes a metre or more long and several centimetres deep within a few seconds, said Stanley, according to New Scientist.

And it could have repeated this multiple times in rapid succession.

Other scientists have cast doubt on these claims, with Jakob Vinther, a paleobiologist from the University of Bristol, suggesting Stanley's argument was "illogical".

The T-Rex's stubby extremities were just three feet long, meaning it would have needed to get extremely close to its victims if it wanted to rend them limb from limb.

And the arms really were used for lovemaking, the claws would hardly have made the encounter very comfortable.

Previous research suggested the T-Rex was more of a sensitive lover than you might think.

The terrifying meat-eater, which stood 20 feet tall and had jaws bristling with serrated teeth up to nine inches long, was believed to have had a snout as sensitive to touch as human fingertips.

A team of researchers suggested two rexy beasts would rub their noses together during foreplay, before getting down to the monstrous act of physical love.

This story originally appeared in The Sun.
President Trump blamed his 11-minute Twitter account outage on Thursday on a "rogue employee."

"My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee. I guess the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact," Trump tweeted early Friday morning.

Twitter launched an internal investigation Thursday after a "customer support" employee, reportedly working his or her last day with the company, briefly deactivated the highly viewed account of the president.

"We are conducting a full internal review," the company said in a statement about the approximately 11-minute outage.

It was unclear how a customer support worker had obtained clearance to deactivate such a high-profile account. The president has tweeted more than 36,000 times and has nearly 42 million Twitter followers.

When reports first surfaced about the outage, Twitter officials initially blamed human error.

Shortly before 7 p.m. Thursday, social media reports surfaced that Trumps personal account, @realDonaldTrump, was unavailable, providing the error message that the user "does not exist." The account was restored by 7:03 p.m.

But about two hours later, the company said the deactivation "was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee's last day."

The company has in the past suspended other accounts for violating its terms and conditions. The company has resisted calls from those opposed to the president to delete his account.

A spokesperson for the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump did not immediately address the outage after his account was reactivated. Instead, he tweeted about the GOP tax plan.

"Great Tax Cut rollout today. The lobbyists are storming Capital [sic] Hill, but the Republicans will hold strong and do what is right for America!"

The Washington Post pointed out that Trump credited social media for its role in getting him elected.

He told Fox Business Maria Bartiromo that, You have to keep people interested.
U.S. wildfires have left a trail of devastation behind them in recent months. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, from Jan. 1 through Oct. 6, 2017 there were 50, 283 wildfires in the United States up from 46,618 last year. Acres lost numbered about 3.7 million more than 2016 as well, with 8.5 million acres of forestland going up in smoke. Its not just a problem in the USwildfire numbers are going up worldwide, and its only going to get worse.

As air temperatures continue to increase over time, there will be more days during which wildfires can be ignited and burn, so there will be more fires, Research Forester David L. Peterson told Fox News. More extreme temperatures will allow some fires to burn more intensely and spread faster, making them more difficult to suppress.

Now, U.K.based startup BioCarbon Engineering hopes to reverse some of the damage with drone technology. Reportedly, their drones can plant up to 100,000 trees in one day.

SILICON VALLEY HISTORY LOST: ARCHIVE OF DOCUMENTS THAT BELONGED TO HP FOUNDERS DESTROYED IN WILDFIRE

The current state-of-the-art is the handplanting of saplings, former NASA engineer and BioCarbon CEO Lauren Fletcher said. The goal of our technology is to make the current planters more effective at what they do.

According to Fletcher, his drones can plant trees 60 times faster than hand-planting. First, a group of drones perform a 3D aerial survey of the land for topography and soil quality data. After a seeding pattern is planned, the drones are loaded with seed pods. These pods are pressurized canisters that burst upon impact and are filled with germinated seeds soaked in a nutrientrich gel. The drones then set out over the mapped terrain, hovering up to 6 feet and firing their pods (about ten per minute) into the ground. The seedlings are then monitored for growth.

We have designed our system so that two pilots will run multiple drones simultaneously, allowing for a daily planting rate of 100,000 trees per day, Fletcher told Fox News. Just 60 teams will allow us to plant 1 billion trees a year, with the potential to scale to 10's of billions of trees every year.

DRONES CAPTURES CAPSIZING BOAT AND FLORIDA TEEN'S DARING RESCUE

Another advantage drones have over human planters is that theyre able to plant in difficult-to-reach areas, such as mountainsides or mangroves.

BioCarbon is currently looking to have its drones replanting forests in the U.S. by April 2018 at the latest, just in time for the spring planting season. The startup hopes to replant in areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina as well as out west where forests have been decimated by bark beetle infestations and wildfires.

The next phase for us is to continue to work in larger scale and to upgrade the designs to make them more automated so that we can start distributing this technology to those people who are already planting trees, Fletcher said. The key to success is empowering governments and local communities with this emerging technology.

DRONES FLYING OVER CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES HURT FIREFIGHING EFFORTS, OFFICIALS SAY

Drones, however, can pose challenges in emergency situations if their operators are not part of the emergency recovery effort. For example, drones capturing footage of the recent California wildfires were hindering firefighters efforts, according to officials.

The technology, however, can be a great asset if it is in the right hands. Drones are being used to help ground crews monitor wildfire activity, and firefighters in New York have also used drones for fire monitoring. With technology advancing quickly, who knows what the future holds? For example, a prototype drone that will harness foam to fight fires recently went on display in Dubai.

Whether its seeding or firefighting or wildlife management or insect/disease scouting, the large land areas that must be managed means that drones will play an ever greater role in such forestry operations, Dr. Daniel Schmoldt, an expert on high-tech applications in natural resources, told Fox News. As autonomy-enabling technologies advance, flight times increase, and government regulations fully enable drone deployment, especially smart and autonomous ones, drones will be a game-changer for forest and environmental management.
In September, Apple CEO Tim Cook paid homage to company co-founder Steve Jobs, by unveiling the iPhone X with the phrase, "One more thing."

That "one more thing" has helped propel Apple's market cap over the $900 billion mark and may hit $1 trillion, experts say.

Apple reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings Thursday, one day prior to the iPhone X's official launch and analysts noted how upbeat management sounded at the company's propsects, in particular Cook.

IPHONE X REVIEW ROUNDUP: SHOULD YOU BUY?

"The sentiment on Apple's call was the most upbeat that we have heard in quite some time as we believe the company feels the momentum of this iPhone cycle, combined with the positive trends across the company's non-iPhone portfolio," Drexel Hamilton analyst Brian J. White wrote in a note to investors.

He raised his Apple price target to $235 a share, which implies a market cap over $1 trillion, when taking into account Apple's 5.1 billion shares outstanding.

Apple said it expects fiscal first-quarter revenue to be between $84 billion and $87 billion, due in large part to pent-up demand surrounding the iPhone X.

Shares were up more than 3 percent to $174.46 in early Friday trading and are up more than 40 percent year to date.

Demand is "off the charts"

Customer demand for the iPhone X (pronounced "ten") has been exceptional, with Apple telling media it is "off the charts." On the company's conference call, Cook expanded upon that sentiment.

Cook said that the Apple Store in Sydney, Australia had "several hundred people" waiting outside to get the iPhone X and he also received "similar reports from across that region."

The iPhone X, which went on pre-sale on Oct. 27, starts at $999. Prior to the announcement, there was significant speculation that the high-end iPhone X would start at a cost of $1,000 or more.

It has a 5.8-inch super retina display and Face ID facial recognition technology, which can be used to unlock the phone and for Apple Pay. "Face ID learns your face. It learns who you are," Apple's vice president of marketing, Phil Schiller, said when introducing the iPhone X in September.

IT LOOKS LIKE APPLE WANTS TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE SKY-HIGH PRICE OF THE IPHONE X

Not everyone is happy though

Though consumer interest in the device is high, Apple has not been able to catch up to demand - at least not yet.

"The ramp for iPhone X is going well, especially considering that iPhone X is the most advanced iPhone we've ever created and it has lots of new technologies in it," Cook said, when asked by an analyst when iPhone X supply would meet demand. "And so we're really happy that we were able to increase week by week what we're outputting and we're going to get as many of them as possible to the customers as soon as possible."

A look on Apple's website shows iPhone X ship dates between 3 and 4 weeks for both the 64GB and 256GB models.

Sources have told Fox News that some iPhone X orders, which were originally scheduled to be shipped between December 5 and 11 have since been told they will be shipped between the 1st and the 8th.

Other sources have told Fox News they have received emails showing the order has already shipped, a sign that Apple is working to get as many iPhone X units in consumers hands as it can.

Follow Chris Ciaccia on Twitter @Chris_Ciaccia
Twitters internal security is in the spotlight after a rogue employee briefly deactivated President Donald Trumps account on Thursday.

The social media site said that the account was taken down by a customer support employee during their last day with the company.

Amazing. That this could happen to a President's account demonstrates Twitter has poor insider threat controls and indicators, tweeted Micah Zenko, a foreign policy and national security analyst at international affairs institute Chatham House.

WHAT TWITTER'S 280-CHARACTER LIMIT COULD MEAN FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP AND US POLITICS

Matt Tait, a senior cybersecurity fellow at the Robert Strauss Center, tweeted a series of satirical comments on the incident but warned that the employee involved could be in legal hot water.

What if someone had hijacked the President's Twitter and issued policies for DHS or DOD that the department wasn't aware it had to implement?, he tweeted.

What if the Twitter employee had tweeted about some ongoing terror case and jeopardized it?, he wrote, in another tweet.

TRUMP MAKE FIRST TWEETS AS PRESIDENT

What if the Twitter employee tweeted a video of him assaulting a media organization or a political opponent? Imagine the damage to the dignity of the office, Tait tweeted.

Tait also suggested that the rogue employee could face charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Going to be boring and say the Twitter employee who deleted Trump for 11 minutes should get an attorney and get ready for CFAA charges, he tweeted.

Technologies such as artifical intelligence are being touted as a way for companies to gain visibility into their employees working practices. Questions will also inevitably be asked about Twitters employee vetting processes.

TRUMP'S TWITTER: COULD HACKERS WREAK HAVOC FROM THE WHITE HOUSE?

Twitter says that it is conducting a full internal review into the deactivation of the Presidents Twitter account. When contacted by Fox News, Twitter declined to comment beyond its initial tweets.

The President himself addressed the situation early Friday. My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee. I guess the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact, he tweeted.

Trump, who has more than 41 million followers on Twitter, turned his @realDonaldTrump account into a powerful political weapon during his run to the White House. Experts, however, have warned that hackers could potentially use the same account to wreak havoc.

JAMES COMEY'S 'SECRET' TWITTER ACCOUNT REVEALED

Trumps Twitter account has already been hacked, albeit briefly, in 2013, when an unknown attacker tweeted out an offensive lyric by rapper Lil Wayne. "My Twitter has been seriously hacked---and we are looking for the perpetrators," tweeted Trump, in response to the incident.

The brief deactivation of Trumps Twitter account on Thursday also sparked amusement on social media, with some people hailing the rogue employee as a hero.

TWITTER SUSPENSION: HERE ARE A FEW ACCOUNTS THAT HAVE BEEN DEACTIVATED

Dear Twitter employee who shut down Trump's Twitter: You made America feel better for 11 minutes. DM me & I will buy you a Pizza Hut pizza, tweeted Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu.

This story has been updated to clarify the tone of Matt Tait's tweets.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers
American Airlines has suspended the use of an onboard catering service at Los Angeles International Airport after an inspection turned up traces of listeria at the facility where some of its in-flight meals are prepped.

In a statement obtained by Fox News, American Airlines said no one had been sickened by the bacteria, which was discovered during the facilitys frequent monitoring.

AIRLINE CLAIMS WORKERS AT JFK FORGOT TO LOAD TWO COFFINS INTO AIRCRAFT

During recent food safety audits by Gate Gourmet of its facility at LAX, which is used by multiple airlines, we were informed that traces of Listeria were found on surfaces that do not come into contact with food, including the drains and certain places on the floor of the facility, said American Airlines in a statement obtained by Fox News.

American added that none of the bacteria had been discovered on the food-preparation surfaces in the facility  and that Gate Gourmet also has put a comprehensive correction action plan in place to correct the issue  but that the airline is acting out of an abundance of caution nonetheless.

The airline says it continues to use Gate Gourmet as a caterer in other locations, as listeria has not been detected elsewhere.

Gate Gourmet, too, has issued a statement detailing their "aggressive" efforts to treat the issue, which the company itself detected during an inspection.

"As part of routine inspections, we identified traces of listeria in non-food contact areas, primarily floor drains, at our LAX unit," reads part of a statement issued by Gate Gourmet. "Immediately and in accordance with our protocols, all floor drains and surrounding areas were immediately and aggressively treated.

"Independent food safety agencies have confirmed that our unit adheres to food safety regulations and we are not aware of any instance where passengers are put at risk. We reaffirm our commitment to food safety and the safety of the travelling public. Our unit is open for business and we continue to cater our other customers," the company added.

STRANGERS ON DELTA FLIGHT ENGAGED IN SEX ACT IN THEIR SEATS, OFFICIALS SAY

Meanwhile, American has said its currently looking into alternate food-service solutions in order to accommodate passengers flying out of LAX. The airline added that it plans to work with other caterers in the L.A. area, or send out for meal delivery from other facilities.

American said it is also is proactively calling customers to notify them of any changes to their meal service, and is issuing electronic travel vouchers to those affected.

We know this will have an impact on many of our team members and our customers, and we apologize, the airline added. The team is committed to resuming our standard level of food service as quickly as possible.

CNBC, however, is reporting that the same food service facility where listeria was discovered  Gate Gourmet  is still being used by Delta Air Lines. Forbes further reported that "half a dozen other carriers" were still using the catering company.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

News of the listeria discovery comes just days after a Denver-based onboard catering company informed United Airlines of possible listeria contamination in non-airport retail venues, the Denver Channel reported. In response, United made arrangements for delivery from other catering locations.
Getting tipsy at 36,000 feet is rarely a good idea, as one British man recently learned the hard way.

Last week, a TUI Airways flight en route from Cancun, Mexico to Manchester, England, made an emergency landing in Newfoundland, Canada, to eject a rowdy 24-year-old passenger, CBC News reports.

AMERICAN AIRLINES SUSPENDS USE OF CATERING SERVICE AFTER LISTERIA IS FOUND AT FACILITY

The man allegedly was already behaving raucously on the bus transfer prior to the Oct. 25 flight, an unidentified witness told the Manchester Evening News. After boarding, he was seemingly intoxicated and heckled other passengers after being denied more alcohol.

"On the flight the disruptive passenger kept walking up and down the aisles, trying to aggravate passengers," the witness said. "The flight crew did refuse to serve him alcohol. He kept saying, 'You have given it to everyone else'.

DELTA PASSENGERS WHO HAD SEX ON FLIGHT WILL PROBABLY NOT BE CHARGED, SAYS FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR

Once the flight landed at Gander International Airport, the man was escorted off the aircraft by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The mans partner, who tried to calm him down during the flight, was allowed to continue on the journey to Manchester, the Evening News added.

TUI Airways confirmed that the flight had been forced to make an emergency landing during the Oct. 25 incident and apologized for the matter.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

"Were aware of the situation that occurred on board flight TOM173 from Cancun to Manchester, which diverted to Canada due to a disruptive passenger," a spokesman told the Evening News. "Once the passenger was offloaded and after a short delay we can confirm that the aircraft departed safely and continued its journey to Manchester."

"We would like to again apologize to any passengers inconvenienced by this and would like to reassure customers that we take a zero-tolerance approach to any behavior of this kind, they added.

The man was reportedly being held in a facility in Gander, Newfoundland, and scheduled to appear in court on Thursday to answer for violating the Aeronautics Act, CBC said.
Theyve gone from fighting for $15 to fighting allegations of abusive behavior toward women.

Another two union bigwigs from the nations second largest union, the Services Employees International Union (SEIU) have been accused of sexual misconduct and abusive behavior toward female staff members. The resignation of Kendall Fells  a top national leader for the unions Fight for $15 minimum wage campaign  and the firing of SEIU Detroit leader Mark Raleigh comes on the heels of the controversial resignation of chief strategist of Fight for $15, SEIU Executive Vice President Scott Courtney resigning amid allegations against him of sexual misconduct.

These personnel actions are the culmination of this stage of the investigation which brought to light the serious problems related to abusive behavior towards staff, predominantly female staff, an SEIU spokeswoman said to Bloomberg.com.

This brings the total number of ousted SEIU officials of abuse allegations to four. Along with Courtney, Fells and Raleigh, Caleb Jennings, head of the Fight for $15 Chicago chapter was fired last week after he was accused of misconduct and abusive behavior.

Hollywoods skeletons may be falling out of the closet, but the movie industry is certainly not alone, Luka Ladan, communications director at the Center for Union Facts said to Fox News. Despite talking the talk on sexual harassment, the SEIUs walk has exposed female employees to terrible consequences. Perhaps the union should clean up its glass house before throwing stones at other employers.

According to a recent report from BuzzFeed News, current and former SEIU staffers have come forward and said that complaints about top-level Fight for $15 staff was an open secret, and that no action ever was taken on filed complaints.

Last month, Courtney, who had a history of dating subordinates, was suspended following his marriage to a union employee. The union was forced to launch an investigation into potential violations of an anti-nepotism policy. They also formed an external advisory group, which includes Cecilia Munoz, former White House Domestic Policy Council director; Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Womens Law Center; and employment attorney Debra Katz, founding partner of law firm Katz Marshall & Banks.

Officials for SEIU did not immediately return requests for comment.
Prosecutors at the sentencing hearing for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl pushed the judge Thursday to hand him a 14-year prison term as both sides delivered their closing remarks.

Army Col. Jeffery Nance said he planned to spend Thursday afternoon deliberating the punishment for Bergdahl, who endangered his comrades by walking off his post in Afghanistan in 2009.

Prosecutors again cited serious wounds to several service members who searched for Bergdahl. They recommended a prison sentence of 14 years and a punitive discharge.

Defense attorneys argued for leniency, citing Bergahl's five years in Taliban captivity, campaign-trail criticism by Donald Trump and his mental disorders. They asked for a dishonorable discharge but no confinement as Bergdahl's sentence.

Nance planned to open court again Friday and could continue deliberating then, The Associated Press reported. He didn't indicate when he would deliver the sentence.

ARMY SGT. BOWE BERGDAHL: WHO IS HE?

Bergdahl, who pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, told the judge Monday that he didn't mean to cause harm when he walked off his post.

He spoke for two hours, apologizing to those wounded searching for him, and describing his captivity and the challenges he still faces with daily life.

Asked by a defense attorney what the worst part was, he said it wasn't the beatings: "The worst was the constant, just the constant deterioration of everything. The constant pain from my body falling apart. The constant screams from my mind," he said, haltingly.

"It was the years of waiting to see whether or not the next time someone opens the door if that would be the person coming to execute you."

Earlier Monday, the wife of a soldier who was shot in the head during a search mission Bergdahl in Afghanistan delivered emotional testimony, tearing up as she described him as no longer being able to play with their children and how they can't even hold hands anymore.

Shannon Allen, the final witness for the prosecutors, said National Guard Master Sgt. Mark Allen is unable to speak, uses a wheelchair and needs help with everyday tasks.

BERGDAHL APOLOGIZES TO WOUNDED SERVICE MEMBERS

Last week, a former U.S. Navy SEAL cried while testifying about his military dog who was shot in the head by enemy fighters in Afghanistan while he was on a mission to find Bergdahl.

Nance said Monday that the court has not been directly affected by Trump's remarks, nor would the comments cause a reasonable member of the public to have doubts about the fairness of the military justice system.

"I am completely unaffected by any opinions President Trump may have about Sgt. Bergdahl," the judge said. He added that prosecutors had convinced him that the Trump comments won't put "an intolerable strain" on the public perception of military courts.

Then-Republican nominee Trump repeatedly called Bergdahl a traitor on the campaign trial and suggested that he be shot or thrown from a plane without a parachute. Trump revived those comments when Bergdahl pleaded guilty on Oct. 16 by saying at a news conference that he thinks people are aware of what he said before.

Fox News Terace Garnier and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The employer and neighbors of a 47-year-old man accused of killing three people inside a suburban Denver Walmart described him Thursday as a constantly angry man who had just quit his job.

Scott Ostrem abruptly walked away from his roofing company job hours before the attack, his former boss said.

Ostrem worked at a metal fabrication shop for the last three years without any problems, said David Heidt of B&M Roofing. He called Ostrem a quiet worker who was skilled at making metal flashing for roofs. But midmorning Wednesday, he left his work station without explanation.

Two men and a woman were killed at the store that evening.

Killed were Pamela Marques, 52, Carlos Moreno, 66, and Victor Vasquez, 26, the coroner said. None were Walmart employees, and all were Hispanic.

Ostrem is white.

Though quiet at work, Ostrems neighbors described him as a hostile loner who cursed at them and often carried a shotgun in and out of his third-floor unit.

Police arrested Ostrem, 47, following a brief chase Thursday morning in the northern Denver suburb of Thornton, several blocks from his apartment building and about five miles from the Walmart.

Ostrem was handcuffed at a crowded intersection about 14 hours after the shooting that sent dozens of shoppers and workers fleeing in panic from the busy store.

Police spokesman Victor Avila declined to say whether Ostrem had a weapon.

Ostrem was identified as a suspect after investigators reviewed surveillance video, police said, though they first had to rule out a few other people who drew weapons when the gunman opened fire.

Avila said he didnt know if any of the people were security officers employed by Walmart.

At the Samuel Park Apartments building where Ostrem lived, most tenants talk to each other, but renter Teresa Muniz said Ostrem never returned her greetings and swore at people for sitting on exterior stairways and leaving laundry in communal machines.

He didnt seem to have anybody, she said. Being angry all the time. Thats what he seemed like, always angry.

Muniz said she sometimes saw Ostrem carrying a shotgun or a bow and set of arrows to and from the building, which faces the back side of a liquor store, a dollar store and a cellphone store.

Gerald Burnett, a 63-year-old retiree who lives in a first-floor unit, said he was sitting on the stairs drinking coffee one morning when Ostrem came down, told him to move and cursed at him.

Dude had an attitude, big time, Burnett said. Hes the type of person if you said, Good morning, he wouldnt say nothing. If you greeted him, he wouldnt say anything back. I just learned not to even talk to the clown.

Thornton is a mostly blue-collar community where about a third of its 136,000 residents identify as Hispanic or Latino. Its about 10 miles north of downtown Denver.

Ostrem had minor run-ins with police dating to the 1990s, including a December 1999 charge of resisting arrest in Denver that was dismissed the following year.

In September 2015, Ostrem filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and listed his income for the previous year as $47,028.00. He estimated that he owed more than $85,000, including credit card debt.

There was no evidence Ostrem ever had worked for Walmart, spokesman Ragan Dickens said.

Witnesses said the shooter walked calmly into the store, opened fire and fled.

Marlena and Jason Fobb said they were paying for a vacuum and contact lenses when a man at a nearby register was shot.

We were all looking at each other like, Oh gosh, this is it, Marlena Fobb said.

The couple and others hid in a small storage room, she said. When officers arrived, they told them to hurry and run and not look at bodies, she added.

Ragan Dickens, Walmarts director of national media relations, said in a statement to Fox News the company was deeply saddened by this tragic event.

Our thoughts, prayers and condolences go out to the families who lost loved ones and to all who were impacted by what took place. We are assisting law enforcement however we can and are referring all requests for information to them, the statement read.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Marine Corps general in charge of war court defense teams at Guantanamo Bay was found guilty of contempt Wednesday for disobeying a judge, marking the first time anyone has faced the charge during the military commissions.

The military judge, Air Force Col. Vance Spath, sentenced Brig. Gen. John Baker to 21 days of confinement at his living quarters on the base and fined him $1,000.

Pentagon spokesman Ben Sakrisson told Fox News that as in any state, federal, or military court, the judge "has the obligation and power to enforce decorum in the courtroom.

As part of the guidelines for military commissions at Guantanamo, Rule 801 outlines that the military judge is responsible for ensuring that military commission proceedings are conducted in a fair and orderly manner, without unnecessary delay or waste of time or resources."

Under another section in the guidelines, Rule 809, those found in contempt in military commissions can be sentenced up to 30 days of confinement and no more than a $1,000 fine.

The decision came after Baker released three civilian defense attorneys from the death-penalty case against Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, who is accused of attacking the USS Cole in 2000, according to the Miami Herald, who first reported the incident.

The three non-military defense attorneys quit the case for ethical reasons "related to secret government eavesdropping on their communications," according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Spath declared Baker's decision null and void, and ordered the three civilian attorneys -- identified by the Miami Herald as Rick Kammen, Rosa Eliades, and Mary Spears -- to participate in a hearing on Friday.

The contempt conviction of an American official was the first handed down since military commissions began at Guantanamo Bay in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Baker is permitted to have internet and phone communications while in his confinement, according to the Herald. Under Rule 809, the "Convening Authority designates the place of confinement for those found in contempt, according to Sakrisson.

"The military judge yesterday ordered General Baker to be confined to his quarters at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Sakrisson told Fox News on Thursday. The convening authority will determine whether to affirm, defer, suspend or disapprove the sentence in the next few days."

The decision drew outrage from civil liberties groups that have long complained about military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, saying the decision "needs to be reversed."

The contempt finding and confinement of General Baker is unlawful and an outrage, Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Unions National Security Project said in a statement.

General Baker was continuing the honorable military defense counsel tradition of trying to act ethically, despite being part of a system rigged against the rule of law. The military judges unprecedented contempt ruling against General Baker shows just how difficult that is.

Nashiri, who has been in U.S. custody for 15 years, is accused of orchestrating the 2000 suicide bombing by Al Qaeda of the USS Cole off Yemen that killed 17 sailors.
A man in Chicago paid a hefty price when he tried to rob a hot dog stand  he accidentally shot himself in the penis during the getaway.

Terrion Pouncy, 19, held two employees of Maxwell Street Express at gunpoint early Monday morning, demanding that they hand over their wallets and the restaurant's cash, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

MICHIGAN MAN SENTENCED IN THEFT FROM CASKET

At the time of the robbery, one of the victims reportedly had been carrying a large bucket of grease. With the gun pointed at his head, the employee was trying to hand over a stack of $1 bills but the bucket slipped and the money flew out of his hands.

Pouncy grabbed the fallen money and started to run away while trying to secure his gun at his waist. But as he fled, the gun accidentally went off and shot him in the penis, the Sun-Times said.

The thief didnt make it very far before the pain of his injuries took over and he collapsed in front of a house nearby.

IDITAROD MUSHER CHARGED WITH THEFT OF KENNELS

He was taken to Christ Hospital, where he was later arrested by the Chicago Police and charged with two counts of armed robbery, the Sun-Times said.

As of Thursday, he was reportedly still in the hospital and unable to attend a bond hearing. The judge ordered him held without bond.
Bruce Paddock, the brother of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock, is banned from a nursing home in California after he reportedly screamed at and threatened the staff there -- including at least one threat to kill.

Complaints about his behavior at Four Seasons Healthcare & Wellness Center in Los Angeles included one incident in which he yelled at the administrator, "don't f--- with me and tell your nurses not to f--- with me because I'm the one that hurts people," TMZ reported.

As recently as Sunday night, Paddock reportedly broke into the facility center and blocked himself in a room, screaming "Get the f--- out of my way or I'm going to kill you," when an employee approached him.

LAS VEGAS MASS SHOOTER STEPHEN PADDOCKS BROTHER ARRESTED FOR CHILD PORN

On a different occasion, Paddock shouted at one of the tenants in the facilty, "hey bitch, I want my f---ing razor back, TMZ reported.

When I get my a-- over there I'm going to shove that f---er so far up youre a-- it'll come out of your ear," he said.

Paddock cannot go within 100 yards of the building and three of its employees, according to a judge.

This isnt his first run-in with the law. On Oct. 25, Paddock was arrested for possession of child pornography.

Bruce Paddock's brother, Steven, killed 58 people and wounded hundreds of others when he fired onto a crowd at a country music festival in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, according to investigators.
Sayfullo Saipov, the suspect in the New York City terror attack on Oct. 31, pleaded not guilty during his arraignment in federal court on Tuesday.

Saipov, who allegedly drove a rented truck down a crowded bike lane in New York City on Halloween, is 29 years old and from Uzbekistan. He's in the United States with a green card.

His alleged actions killed eight people and injured 12 more near the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.

Federal prosecutors have charged Saipov with providing material support to a terrorist group and violence and destruction of motor vehicles.

On Nov. 1, the day after the attack, President Donald Trump said Saipov should receive the death penalty.

"He killed 8 people, badly injured 12. SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!" he wrote on Twitter.

NYC TERROR SUSPECT SAYFULLO SAIPOVS LEGAL RIGHTS

"Would love to send the NYC terrorist to Guantanamo but statistically that process takes much longer than going through the Federal system.." Trump added.

"...There is also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed. Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!" he said in a third tweet.

Additional details about the attack

After driving through the crowded bike path, Saipov crashed into a yellow school bus near Chambers and West Streets in lower Manhattan, police said.

After exiting the vehicle, Saipov yelled Allahu akbar ("God is great") and waved around weapons believed to be a paintball gun and a BB gun, police said. The suspect was shot twice by police and taken into custody. He survived his wounds.

NYC TERROR ATTACK LEAVES 8 DEAD, SEVERAL INJURED

Law enforcement officials said they discovered two notes, handwritten in Arabic, pledging loyalty to ISIS in and near the truck, Fox News has confirmed.

The New York Post reported that some type of symbol or picture of the terrorist organization's flag was discovered.

It's been reported that Saipov rented the truck from a Home Depot store in Passaic, N.J., around 2 p.m., approximately an hour or so before the attack occurred.

Suspect worked as an Uber driver, had a Florida drivers license

Saipov had worked as an Uber driver in New Jersey, where he was living as recently as this summer. Uber confirmed to Fox News that Saipov passed the company's background check for drivers, but was now banned from the company. Uber added it has not found any safety reports concerning the terror suspect.

In a statement to Fox News, Uber said the company was in contact with the FBI and offered its assistance to the investigation into Saipov. It added that Uber was reviewing Saipov's history with the ride-hailing company.

Authorities discovered that Saipov had a Florida driver's license and has been connected to an address in the Tampa area.

POLITICIANS REACT TO FATAL NYC TRUCK ATTACK IN LOWER MANHATTAN

A friend, Kobiljon Matkarov, said he met Saipov while the two were living in Florida. He described Saipov as being very friendly and very nice.

Matkarov said he last saw Saipov a few months ago when the suspect picked him up from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. Saipov had moved to the area in order to seek better work opportunities.

Matkarov told Fox News that he never noticed any unusual behavior from the suspect, let alone that hed been radicalized. He said that Saipov was generally a happy-go-lucky person who seemed to love America.

I know his good side. I know nothing of his bad side, Matkarov said. He was always happy. He liked the U.S. He loved this country. Thats why this is all very confusing.

Fox News Perry Chiaramonte, Nicole Darrah, Madeline Farber and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
A public high school in Minnesota implemented a required, race-based English course aimed at eradicating white privilege, but it wasnt billed that way to students or parents, according to a public policy organization.

Pre-AP English 10 constitutes an abuse of parents trust, taxpayers money and  most importantly  vulnerable children, Katherine Kersten, a senior policy fellow for the Center of the American Experiment, told Fox News. Edina citizens should hold district leaders accountable for substituting political indoctrination for a real education.

The Minnesota-based think tank started researching Edina public schools after they heard students, parents, and teachers in Edina complaining about the aftermath of the 2016 election, when 80 staff members  most teachers  co-signed an editorial in the student newspaper bashing President-elect Donald Trump and aligning themselves with the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton.

Many of you [students] have made clear ... that right now, you dont feel physically safe, the article read. Know that we will do all that we can ... to fight for you, and that we will teach rebellion against a broken world.

Kersten discovered a required 10th grade English course adopted in 2013 by Edina, focused on colonization, immigration, and social constructions of race, class, and gender. Kersten published a broader finding in a cover story titled: Whose Values? Educational excellence threatened by ideology in Edina schools.

Students, especially young, white males, said they constantly were humiliated.

One of the boys wrote on the Rate My Professor website that the class should be renamed, Why White Males Are Bad, and How Oppressive They Are.

Edina High School, located in an affluent suburb outside the Twin Cities, started experiencing lower test results and their ranking in the state started dropping since the race-based policies were implemented. For example, going from 5th to 29th in reading proficiency between 2014 and 2017.

For the English class, EHS claimed student assignments would be carefully chosen for their rigor because were aiming for the top.

While the school sold the course in one way, English teacher Jackie Roehl, one of the principal designers of the course, shared a more candid version in a book written for teachers called: More Courageous Conversations About Race.

Understanding Critical race theory was a significant reason behind our school taking another step on our equity journey  incorporating a study of Critical race theory into our sophomore English classes, Roehl wrote. English teachers felt that our districts mission to give all learners the ethical values necessary to thrive in a rapidly changing, culturally diverse, global society could not be fully met without explicit discussions of race, racism, and Whiteness.

Roehl added that they encouraged students to examine the role that power has in the stories studied to get a sense of the ways Whiteness silences some voices and amplifies others.

Roehl complained about confrontation at parent-teacher conferences, but she said she was able to stay on track because of her PEG (Pacific Educational Group) training.

She revealed that Edina schools started working with PEG in 2009 through diversity workshops and trainings that emphasize courageous conversations that isolate race, and specifically, a study of critical race theory helped me reach the place I am today.

It should be noted that a black teacher in Minnesota, Aaron Benner, slammed PEGs race-based, regressive policies making it dangerous for teachers, and said the district discriminated him for it.

PEG pushes the idea that black students are victims of white school policies that make it difficult or impossible for them to learn, Benner told Fox News.

BLACK MINNESOTA TEACHER SAYS DISTRICT DISCRIMINATED AGAINST HIM FOR QUESTIONING RACE-BASED PROGRAMS

While PEG spokesman Kevin Cartwright told Fox News they dont implement any disciplinary policies that we incorporate in any district whatsoever, in this case, Roehl credited PEG for the changes.

We placed an equity lens over all staff development discussions  from literacy to home to assessment, she said. We even used specific reading and films from PEG seminars with our staff. For example, one three-hour session on critical race theory and the film, The House We Live In, impacted many staff members, especially examining whiteness as property, and pushed them to understand the importance of equity work at Edina High School.

WITNESSING WHITENESS INFLUENCING LESSIONS FOR CHILDREN AT ST. LOUIS SCHOOL

Kersten told Fox News she believes the English course is the textbook definition of propaganda, where there is a hidden agenda, separate from what is shared with the public.

The Edina schools new race-based ideology undermines all students ability to think creatively and critically  that is, to think freely, Kersten wrote. Students are learning to parrot orthodoxy back to teachers and to look nervously over their shoulders in case the authorities catch them in a forbidden thought or a microaggression. They are learning that, at school, a top priority must be to please those in power. Disturbingly, some parents say that their children appear to see nothing out of the ordinary in this.

EPS Superintendent John Schultz acknowledged in September the high school has failed to meet its First Amendment obligations, as reported by the Star Tribune.

The district has invited a team of attorneys to conduct training on employee and student free speech rights and limitations, which was attended by administrators and all high school staff, Schultz wrote.

The course is still being taught, but Kersten adds: There is a lively and intense debate in Edina as parents digest this information.

The Edina Public School District responded to Fox News with a statement:

The curricula of Edina Public Schools are developed to align with the academic standards established by the State of Minnesota. Teachers are expected to teach the content, skills and knowledge necessary for students to master the standards and advance their learning.

As part of the Districts regular continuous improvement and curriculum review process, including the gathering of insights and input from students and parents, adjustments are made to curricula so that teachers can adapt instruction to provide more choices for students, reflect best practice and meet individual student needs.
Three Nevada residents are suing Gov. Brian Sandoval and Attorney General Adam Laxalt in Clark County District Court over what they allege is the states failure to implement a new law requiring federal background checks on private gun sales.

The law went into effect Jan. 1 after a referendum on the November 2016 ballot passed. The lawsuit claims the governor is stonewalling efforts to enforce it.

The Background Check Act has not been enforced and remains in limbo, contravening the will of the people of Nevada who exercised their constitutional right to change the law to promote public safety and protect the communities of this state, the lawsuit says.

Dale Zusi, Vicki Delatorre, and Sydney Gordon are the three plaintiffs in the case and were instrumental in getting the issue on the ballot. Delatorre herself is a gun owner and supporter of the Second Amendment.

I believe in safety, Delatorre said. When I bought my guns I had to go through a background check and I think everyone should.

The law requires an FBI background check on any private gun sales between individuals in Nevada, including online sales. The murky legal issue right now is that this is not federal law, therefore the FBI, a federal agency, cannot be legally obligated to carry it out. Currently, residents are required to go through a background check administered by the state if they purchase guns from an official licensed dealer.

In a legal opinion written after the lawsuit was filed, Laxalt said Sandoval has the authority to ask the FBI to conduct the checks. The FBI had refused to conduct the checks on the basis that state law cant dictate how federal resources are used.

It is not the attorney general's role to block or implement any act, and obviously the opinion issued by my office did neither. In December [2016], the FBI said they will not conduct the background checks required by the Background Check Act. Without the FBIs involvement, the central function of the Act could not be implemented, Laxalts office said in a statement to Fox News.

Some in the community are hoping the issue gets resolved quickly.

The attorney general and the governor have a choice, they can either spend tax payer dollars at this point to fight this lawsuit or they can pick up the phone and call the FBI, said Elizabeth Becker, a local gun safety advocate. I dont think that most people think its normal to sell a gun without a background check because most people who buy guns buy them at stores and they do undergo a background check and the want to prove that theyre that good guy with a gun.

Eighteen states have background checks on the books when it comes to unlicensed and private sales. Sandoval had vetoed a similar bill that passed in 2013, leading activists to put it on the ballot for a state-wide referendum.

The controversy over the law comes in the wake of the Oct. 1 Route 91 Harvest Country music festival, where Stephen Paddock shot and killed 58 people and injured 500. There is no evidence to suggest this law would have prevented that and it is known that Paddock passed state background checks and legally obtained his weapons.

Delatorre is frustrated that the law is not being enforced because she thinks it could show that Nevadas leaders are serious about gun safety.

I think that the fact that there have been discussions about gun safety issues and an issue has been put forth regarding gun safety and yet they havent been followed up on and enforced, it saddens me.
A $10,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the whereabouts of a woman who disappeared nearly two months ago after leaving her family's rural North Carolina home.

Abby Patterson, 20, told her mother she'd return in an hour when she left her Lumberton, N.C., home on Sept. 5 and stepped into an old brown Buick driven by a "male acquaintance," according to police. She has not been seen or heard from since.

Patterson vanished from the same area where three other women were found dead within the last six months -- though authorities do not believe there is a connection between Patterson and the victims.

"Anything is possible but we do not think they're related," Lumberton Police Capt. Terry Parker told Fox News on Wednesday.

The Robesonian newspaper reported that an increased reward of $10,000 is being offered for any tips leading to the location of Patterson, who had just been released from a drug rehabilitation center at the time of her disappearance.

A local chicken-processing facility is adding $5,000 to the reward money already being offered by the woman's family, Patterson's sister, Sandy Bryan, told the newspaper.

"We know she's not out there by choice," Bryan said. "She talks to my mom every day, and we havent heard from her since (she was seen getting into the Buick)."

Investigators discovered the body of Christina Bennett, 32, on April 18 inside an abandoned home in Lumberton  a city of close to 22,000 people in Robeson County. That same day, the remains of Rhonda Jones were found in a nearby trash container.

Neighborhood resident 28-year-old Megan Oxendine was interviewed by a local news station at the time Jones' body was discovered. Weeks later, on June 3, Oxendine's remains were found about 500 feet away from where the other bodies were found.

There were no obvious signs of trauma to the victims, and police are still waiting for official autopsy reports from the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Raleigh.

An FBI spokeswoman previously confirmed to Fox News that the bureau is assisting local police with the death investigations.

Patterson is described as 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighing 140 pounds, with brown hair and eyes. She has light skin, with a birthmark on the back of her left thigh and a bird tattoo on her shoulder.

In the case of Patterson, police said they have identified the man last seen with the young woman, who was living in Florida and visiting her mother in Lumberton for two days when she disappeared.

"We think its someone she knew, but we're not sure," said Parker, who did not name the man or say whether he's considered a person of interest in the case.

Anyone with information on Patterson's whereabouts or on the deaths of Bennett, Jones and Oxendine is urged to call the Lumberton Police Department at (910) 671-3845.
Amanda Knox penned a tribute Wednesday to her former roommate, who she was accused of killing in a protracted legal case where she was convicted, acquitted, and then convicted again before she was finally acquitted.

The letter to Meredith Kercher was published in WestsideSeattle.com on the tenth anniversary of her friends brutal death. It recounted the experiences she had with Kercher while the two were living together in Perugia, Italy.

When I look back on my memories of Meredith, what I find are beautiful, banal moments we shared in the weeks we lived side-by-side, Knox wrote.

Knox recounted the times she and Kercher would carry groceries back to their apartment, drink espressos and watch television.

And I remember the last time I saw her, ten years ago today, slinging her purse over her shoulder and waving goodbye to me on her way out to meet up with her British friends, Knox wrote.

Knoxs letter then took a dark turn when she mentioned her friends brutal murder.

ITALYS HIGHEST COURT ACQUITS AMANDA KNOX OF KILLING ROOMMATE

My memories of Meredith are buried beneath the horrific autopsy photos and crime scene footage I saw, the slurs I was called, the death threats I received (and still receive), the false accusations I fought, the years of wrongful imprisonment I endured, the multiple trials and slanderous headlines that juxtaposed our names and faces, unfairly interlocking her death with my identity, Knox wrote.

On Nov. 2, 2007 Kercher, 21, was found murdered in the apartment she shared with Knox and two other students. Her throat was slashed and she had been sexually assaulted.

Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were arrested a few days later along with Rude Guede, an Ivory Coast native raised in Perugia. Guede was convicted of murder in a separate trial and is serving a 16-year sentence.

Knox, dubbed Foxy Knoxy by the international media, and Sollecito were convicted, acquitted, and convicted in three different highly publicized trials. Knox was found guilty in 2009 but acquitted and freed in 2011 after spending nearly four years in prison.

Knox returned to her hometown of Seattle following the acquittal but was then tried and convicted in absentia and ordered a new appeals trial in 2014. In 2015, Italys highest court acquitted Knox of murder, ending the drawn-out legal saga.

AMANDA KNOXS EX-BOYFRIEND SUING JUDGES AND JURY OVER WRONGFUL CONVICTION

Knox noted in her tribute that some people believe she has no right to mourn Meredith.

They believe that I had something to do with her murder  I didn't  or that Meredith has been forgotten in the wake of my own struggle for justice  she hasn't, Knox said.

Knox concluded that Kerchers murder changed her life because innocent people suffer.

We are all driven to do something about itto speak out against unrepentant killers or incompetent and cruel prosecutorseven though no one can ever give Meredith back her life, or me the years of life I lost to wrongful imprisonment, Knox wrote.

I hate it that my memories of her are buried beneath the years of suffering Raffaele and I endured in the wake of her murder. And its depressing to know that mourning her comes at the price of being criticized for anything I say or dont say today. But most depressing of all is that Meredith isnt here, when she deserves to be. She is painfully missed by everyone who loved her. I miss her, and Im grateful for the memories of our time together, Knox concluded.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
President Trump's national security adviser said North Korea could be returned to the list of countries the U.S. believes sponsor terrorism, as part of Trump's strategy to counter the North's growing nuclear threat.

"You'll hear more about that soon, I think," the adviser, H.R. McMaster, said at a briefing on the eve of Trump's five-nation tour of Asia, which starts Friday.

North Korea's nuclear and missile weapons threat will be a key focus of Trump's meetings with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines during the 12-day trip, the president's first official visit to the region.

Meanwhile, two U.S. B-1B bombers conducted drills on Thursday with South Korean and Japanese fighters in central South Korea, the largest show of force in the region in a decade, Reuters reported.

KCNA, North Koreas state news agency, said it regarded the drills as a threat. The show of force over the Korean Peninsula shows that U.S. is seeking to ignite a nuclear war, the agency said.

The drills were deliberately staged at a time when three U.S. aircraft carriers are in the Asia-Pacific, and coincides with a planned 10-day trip by President Trump to Asia.

The trip, which will include Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, is intended to garner international support in deterring North Koreas missile program.

Although no missiles launches by North Korea have been reported since September 15th, South Koreas spy agency has detected a possible launch. Seoul held a National Security Council on Friday to discuss unilateral sanctions against North Korea.

However, South Koreas president Moon Jae-in on Wednesday warned against U.S. military action against saying before the countrys national assembly, No military action on the Korean Peninsula shall be taken without prior consent of the Republic of Korea.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
President Trump tweeted Friday that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's sentence-- a dishonorable discharge, but no prison time for leaving his post in June 2009 -- was a "complete and total disgrace."

More than eight years after Bergdahl walked off his base in Afghanistan -- and unwittingly into the clutches of the Taliban -- Bergdahl walked out of a North Carolina courtroom a free man Friday. Bergdahl, who pleaded guilty to endangering his comrades, was fined, reduced in rank to E1 and dishonorably discharged -- but he received no prison time.

Trump, aboard Air Force One en route to meetings in Asia, tweeted his disapproval of the sentence.

"The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military," Trump wrote.

As part of the sentence, Bergdahl will forfeit his pay of $1000 per month for ten months.

Bergdahl was shaking and appeared emotional as the verdict was quickly read.

Bergdahl's defense lawyer has told reporters after sentencing that his client "has looked forward to today for a long time."

Eugene Fidell added: "Sgt. Bergdahl is grateful to everyone who searched for him in 2009, especially those who heroically sustained injuries."

Fidell told reporters that he looks forward to the appeals court reviewing Trump's statements as a candidate, which he appeared to reaffirm on the day Bergdahl pleaded guilty Oct. 16.

Addressing reporters before Trump tweeted about the sentence, Fidell said Trump had already caused one of the "most preposterous" legal situations in American history.

He said he looks forward to the appeal, adding: "We think there's an extremely strong basis for dismissal of the case."

Prosecutors had requested a 14-year prison term following a week of emotional testimony from the survivors who were wounded during missions to find Bergdahl after he left the base in June 2009. Bergdahl's defense team had asked for no prison time.

Bergdahl faced up to life in prison for desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.

Capt. Nina Banks, a defense attorney, said it wouldn't be justice to rescue Bergdahl from the Taliban "only to place him in a cell" now.

"Sgt. Bergdahl has been punished enough," Banks added. "Sgt. Bergdahl paid a bitter price for the choices that he made."

During the multiday sentencing hearing, Bergdahl himself testified that he was sorry for the wounds suffered by searchers. He also described brutal beatings by his captors, illness brought on by squalid conditions and maddening periods of isolation, most of it in a cramped cage.

Bergdahl pleaded guilty on Oct. 16.

The 31-year-old soldier from Hailey, Idaho, was brought home by President Barack Obama in 2014 in a swap for five Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Obama said at the time that the U.S. does not leave its service members on the battlefield.

Republicans roundly criticized Obama, and Trump went further while campaigning for president, repeatedly calling Bergdahl a traitor who deserved death.

Fox News' Terace Garnier and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Good grief! A 5-year-old girl in Porterville, Calif., received a citation in late October for operating a lemonade stand without a license.

In June, Autumn Thomasson decided to operate the stand to raise money to pay for a new bike.

Gabby Dehaas, Autumns mother, got the word out on social media about her daughters idea, and in less than 24 hours the girl had enough money for a new ride.

It meant so much to know she earned her own money, that Mom and Dad didn't need to go buy her. She got to bring her own wallet and buy it herself and pay at the cash register," DeHaas told Fox26.

But four months later, DeHaas received a letter from Portervilles Finance Department with an image of her Facebook post. Enclosed was a citation, ordering the mom to pay for a business license for her daughters stand, Fox26 reported.

"I was thrown back by that. I didn't appreciate a screenshot of my daughter sent back to me," DeHaas said.

Porterville City Manager John Lollis told Fox26 the letter was sent in response to a complaint filed with the city. He is now apologizing.

There's no excuse why it should have been sent, he said. "We want our youth to be engaged and looking at business opportunities.

A business license is not required to sell lemonade, Lollis added.

Lollis and City Councilmember Cameron Hamilton went to apologize to DeHaas in-person on Sunday, but she was not home at the time, Fox26 reported.

DeHaas said the experience taught her daughter a valuable lesson.

"There's always gonna be bitter people or bad people," she said. "But there's always gonna be good outweighing everybody."
Joaquin El Chapo Guzman is reportedly suffering from hallucinations, depression and paranoia due to his severe jail conditions, his lawyers claim.

The Mexican drug lord has been locked up in New York Citys Metropolitan Correctional Center since January and was reportedly not happy with his conditions. The drug kingpin was being held under special administrative measures in the jail, ABC News reported.

EL CHAPO SEEKING NEW LAWYERS IN US DRUG TRAFFICKING CASE

Guzman's attorneys said as a result of his restrictive conditions, the inmate was suffering physical and mental deterioration. The attorneys have requested El Chapo undergo a psychological evaluation, a court filing stated.

Counsel has been visiting with Mr. Guzman since February and has noticed that during the last month Mr. Guzman has suffered a marked deterioration in his mental state, the filing stated.

The defense attorneys alleged Guzman has trouble remembering times, people and places. The drug kingpin was also suffering from hallucinations, depression and claimed the government has wiretapped his jail cell.

SEAN PENN BATTLES WITH NETFLIX OVER EL CHAPO DOCUMENTARY SERIES

The defense attorneys argued if the alleged deteriorations continue, the drug kingpin could be discovered incompetent to stand trial.

Prosecutors have not commented on the allegations, NBC News reported.

Counsel has noticed that Mr. Guzman has begun repeating himself often and sometimes forgetting what the discussion is about, the court filing stated. It is plain to the defense team that something is not right with Mr. Guzman.

The filing also alleged that Guzman is experiencing headaches, throat pain and ringing in his ears.
The Las Vegas shooter who would spend hours sitting in front of video poker machines  sometimes reportedly wagering more than $10,000 a day  was on a significant losing streak in the years leading up to the Oct. 1 massacre, the citys sheriff revealed this week.

Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told KLAS on Wednesday that, since September 2015, Stephen Paddock had lost a huge amount of money.

I think that might have a determining factor on what he determined to do, Lombardo said.

The sheriff added Paddock was narcissistic, suffered bouts of depression and was very status-driven, based on how he liked to be recognized in the casinos and by his family and friends.

VEGAS SHOOTER'S GAMBLING BRINGS NEW ATTENTION TO VIDEO POKER

I dont know in the casino environment whether he was considered a big gambler or not. I think in his own mind he believed himself to be, Lombardo told KLAS. If you look at the numbers that he did gamble, he was pretty prolific, but he was going in the wrong direction. So I dont know if that had any effect on what he decided to do.

The gunman, who killed 58 people in at attack staged from his hotel room at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, also generated cash from real estate transactions.

"If you look at the numbers that he did gamble, he was pretty prolific, but he was going in the wrong direction."  Sheriff Joseph Lombardo

One of Paddock's brother in the past described him as a substantial gambler who treated the activity like a job.

"He won cars and $250,000 checks and all this stuff from the hotel, Eric Paddock told The Associated Press.

PADDOCK'S GIRLFRIEND MAY BE HIDING SOMETHING, SHERIFF SUGGESTS

Paddock apparently was wagering more than $10,000 a day in some cases, according to reports.

John Weinreich, a former executive casino host at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa in Reno, Nev., where Paddock used to frequent, said it was not a lot of smiles and friendliness when the shooter was staring into the video poker machines.

There was not a lot of body movement except for his hands, he told The New York Times in October.
In the late afternoon on Oct. 31, Sayfullo Saipov, 29, from Uzbekistan, allegedly drove a rented truck down a path filled with pedestrians and cyclists, killing eight people and injuring at least 12 others.

The incident, which occurred around 3 p.m. near the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, has been called a cowardly act of terror by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

As more information regarding the tragic incident comes to light, heres a look at how it unfolded:

2010

Saipov moved from Uzbekistan to the United States in 2010, according to The New York Times. He first lived in Tampa, Fla., and then in Paterson, N.J., where he worked as an Uber driver. Uber confirmed to Fox News that Saipov passed the companys background check, but added that he is now banned. He had no rider complaints.

Oct. 31

2 p.m. ET

The suspect reportedly rented a truck from a Home Depot in Passaic, N.J.

3:05 p.m.

The suspect reportedly drove the truck into a crowd of pedestrians and cyclists who were on a bike path near the West Side Highway in New York City, killing eight people and injuring at least 12. According to officials, five of the victims were Argentinian tourists.

The truck then crashed into a school bus, injuring two adults and two children. After the crash, the suspect reportedly got out of his vehicle and yelled Allahu akbar, which means God is great in Arabic. He also was holding two weapons which were later determined to be a pellet gun and a paintball gun, according to officials.

NYC TERROR SUSPECT SAYFULLO SAIPOV: WHO IS HE?

The suspect was then shot in the abdomen by a police officer and was arrested.

Officials identified the police officer as 28-year-old Ryan Nash, who has been on the force for five years.

The suspect later underwent surgery for his shotgun wound. Police later found two handwritten notes, written in Arabic, that pledged loyalty to ISIS.

According to William Sweeney, FBI assistant director-in-charge, there were also knives found at the scene.

4:34 p.m.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tweeted about the event, thanking the New York City Police Department for rapidly responding to the tragic situation downtown.

4:40 p.m.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that President Donald Trump was briefed on the attack by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected, she added.

4:57 p.m.

First Lady Melania Trump tweeted about the incident.

5:23 p.m.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio held a press briefing along with Gov. Andrew Cuomo. De Blasio called it an act of terror while the governor assured it was a lone wolf attack, emphasizing that there was no evidence to suggest the attack was part of a wider plot.

5:30 p.m.

Trump tweeted about the attack, saying it looks like another attack by a very sick and deranged person.

He later tweeted, We must not allow ISIS to return, or enter, our country after defeating them in the Middle East and elsewhere. Enough!

5:34 p.m.

The suspect is officially identified as Sayfullo Saipov, from Uzbekistan with a green card, Fox News confirmed.

6:49 p.m.

Didier Reynders, the deputy prime minister of Belgium, said on Twitter that he was "deeply saddened" to learn that one of the victims who died in the attack was Belgian.



6:57 p.m.

Trump expressed his condolences to all those who were impacted by the attack.

7 p.m.

The annual Village Halloween Parade in Manhattan went on as scheduled despite the attack. De Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo both attended to show their support.

Nov. 1

10:20 a.m.

Pope Francis said he was profoundly saddened by the terror attack.

11:03 a.m.

In a press conference on Wednesday morning, James ONeill, the commissioner for the New York City Police Department, called the incident the worst terror attack in New York City since Sept. 11.

What happened yesterday was not ok, he said. We will never accept it as inevitable-- and were working hard to get to the bottom, and working tirelessly so its not repeated.

NYC TERROR ATTACK SUSPECT, SAYFULLO SAIPOV, ENTERED US THROUGH DIVERSITY VISA PROGRAM

Daniel Nigro, the commissioner for the New York City Fire Department, confirmed that there were eight deaths and 12 injuries.

One victim, he said, underwent a bilateral amputation following the attack. He said others had severe head and neck injuries.

De Blasio said the incident was an attack on New York City and America adding that it was the definition of terrorism.

The mayor added that one million New Yorkers showed up at the Halloween parade on Tuesday evening following the attack.

[New Yorkers] show the whole world right now that we will not be moved by terror, de Blasio said.

There are no additional threats, de Blasio assured -- but encouraged New Yorkers to be part of the solution.

Cuomo called Nash, the young NYPD officer who shot Saipov, a hero. The attack was the action of a depraved coward, he added.

Police forces in the city will be doubled, he said.

Officials said that searches were conducted throughout the night and into the morning.

The suspect planned the attack for a number a weeks before it occurred, William Sweeney, FBI assistant director-in-charge, said. He confirmed the attack was carried out in the name of ISIS.

The suspect has never been the subject of a NYPD or FBI investigation, Sweeney added, but he may have connections to those who are subjects of an investigation.

4:58 p.m.

Federal prosecutors filed holding charges against Saipov, accusing him of providing material support to a terrorist group and committing violence and destruction of motor vehicles in the attack. More charges are expected to be filed.

A source told Fox News that Saipov was interviewed by authorities while he was in the hospital and was described as cooperative but showed no remorse for his actions in the deadly attack.

Saipov also requested to display the ISIS flag in his hospital room.

8:43 p.m.

Trump tweets that Saipov should receive the death penalty for his actions.



9:00 p.m.

Federal prosecutors brought terrorism charges against Saipov, which could bring the death penalty.

Nov. 2

4:50 a.m.

Trump tweets about Saipov, this time saying he would "love to send the NYC terrorist to Guantanamo but statistically that process takes much longer than going through the Federal system."

4:54 a.m.

Trump tweets again, re-emphasizing his desire to see Saipov face the death penalty.



9:30 a.m.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions held a press conference in which he addressed the attack.

The perpetrator will be brought to justice, he said, adding that the incident was another reminder of the dangers we face from the threat of radical terrorism.

He expressed his condolences to the families impacted by the attack, as well as to the people of New York. He also called NYPD officer Nash a hero not just in New York but across America.

Sessions said it has been the Department of Justices goal since 9/11 to fight terrorists. Terrorists diminish our freedom and threaten our lifestyle, he said.

Sessions also addressed some of Trumps recent executive orders, like the much debated travel ban.

The president was right to issue his order [the travel ban], he said. He has a legal right to take this action.

12:49 p.m.

In addition to the people he attacked near the World Trade Center, the suspect told investigators that he also had plans to strike pedestrians on the Brooklyn Bridge, according to a criminal complaint as reported by FOX 13.

Nov. 3

Officials said Saipov called his friend, Mukhammadzoir Kadirov, just before the attack. What was said during the call is currently unknown, and Kadirov is not being called a suspect.

Nov. 6

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and the president of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, held a joint press conference on Nov. 6 to honor the victims of the attack. Five of the eight victims were from the South American country.

Nov. 28

Saipov is scheduled for arraignment in Manhattan federal court.

3 p.m.

Saipov pleaded not guilty in federal court on Tuesday.
Sayfullo Saipov, the suspect in the New York City terror attack on Oct. 31, pleaded not guilty during his arraignment in federal court on Tuesday.

Saipov, a 29-year-old legal U.S. resident, was charged with federal terrorism offenses just one day after police said he rammed a rental truck down a popular Manhattan bike path, killing eight people and injuring 12 others. He allegedly pledged his allegiance to ISIS in the aftermath of the attack.

Shortly after the attack, President Trump publicly called for Saipov to be put to death.



From Trumps calls for the death penalty to other GOP lawmakers demand that Saipov be held as an unlawful enemy combatant, will he be able to have a fair trial?

This guy is going to have rights no matter what you call him or where you take him, Wells Dixon, a senior attorney with the progressive Center for Constitutional Rights, told Fox News.

How does Saipovs legal status affect his due process rights?

Saipov came to the U.S. seven years ago through the Diversity Visa Program, a State Department initiative that allows citizens of nations with few people in the U.S. to immigrate to America.

But Saipovs status  whether hes a lawful resident or natural born citizen  doesnt matter when it comes to his due process rights, law experts said.

Legal residents have the same due process rights under the Constitution that citizens would, Trevor Burrus, a research fellow at the Cato Institutes Center for Constitutional Studies said.

Burrus noted that non-citizens could, however, be subjected to deportation.

Can he be labeled an enemy combatant?

Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and John McCain, R-Ariz., immediately called for Saipov to be held as an enemy combatant to allow investigators to gather certain intelligence regarding his activities without a lawyer present

If an individual acts like a terrorist and says theyre a terrorist, they should be treated like a terrorist, Graham said.

While its still possible to apply that designation to Saipov, Burrus said its very unlikely that he could even meet the definition of an enemy combatant.

Could Saipov be sent to Guantanamo?

Earlier this week, Trump indicated that he was considering sending Saipov to Guantanamo Bay, a naval base in Cuba. He later walked back what would have been an unprecedented move.

Fundamentally, sending him to Guantanamo is unconstitutional and unnecessary, Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Unions national security project, told Fox News. The federal criminal justice system is fully capable and more capable of fair trials for terrorism suspects.

Dixon also argued that sending a terrorism suspect to Guantanamo Bay would only provide more fodder for terrorist groups.

If Senator Graham or Donald Trump are serious about protecting the national security of the United States, they will not hand groups like ISIS a propaganda windfall by sending someone to Guantanamo, he said.

What about Trumps calls for the death penalty?

There is a case to be made by Saipovs defense team that his right to a fair trial has been impeded by Trumps tweets, Burrus said.

He said Saipovs legal team could argue that Trump tainted the entire jury with his tweets.

It doesnt help the government pursuing the death penalty to have the president calling for the death penalty, Burrus said.

Joshua Dratel, a veteran defense attorney in terrorism cases, told the Associated Press that the tweets should disqualify prosecutors from seeking the death penalty.

"It's inconceivable that it would be fair to seek the death penalty when the president has expressed it twice in a tweet," he said. "It poisons the jurors, all the prospective jurors."

However, Michael Wildes, a former federal prosecutor, said even presidents are entitled to First Amendment rights.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A school district in Oregon is under fire for following the law  mostly because they are the only ones doing it.

Officials at the Salem-Keizer School District recently told staff and teachers that under Oregon law they must report to law enforcement or state officials if they learn, or suspect, a student is sexually active.

Failure to report could lead to a state investigation, job loss or a misdemeanor charge.

We do training on mandatory reporting every year, Lillian Govus, a spokeswoman for Salem-Keizer, told Fox News on Friday. A hypothetical question was posed on what happens regarding sexual activity.

We teach our students how words matter. The legislators are learning that their words are impacting our students."  Lillian Govus

She said they sought legal clarification and it was determined that sexual conduct between teens falls under mandatory reporting.

PUBLIC SCHOOL IN MINNESOTA REQUIRES ENGLISH COURSE AIMED AT ERADICATING WHITE PRIVILEGE

Under Oregons mandatory reporting and child abuse laws, any person under the age of 18 is unable to give consent  meaning any sexual activity, even if its consensual, is considered abuse and needs to be reported.

All employees of Salem-Keizer School District, including parents of high school parents, are mandatory reporters. Reports are sent to the Department of Human Services or law enforcement if a person has "reasonable cause" to believe a child is being abused.

Oregon's so-called "three-year rule," or ORS 163.345, which addresses when individuals are similar in age and force and coercion is not present, only applies in criminal proceedings and does not apply to mandatory reporting.

A recent survey by the Center for Disease Control said more than 40 percent of high school students in the U.S. said they have had sex. Salem-Keizer has more than 11,800 high school students.

According to the Statesman Journal, most school districts in Oregon reportedly do not follow mandatory reporting to this degree.

GEORGIA PARENTS INFURIATED AFTER PORN PLAYED ON SCHOOL'S CAFETERIA TELEVISION

Govus, who acknowledged that state laws put district employees in a difficult position, said they must follow the letter of the law.

We cannot direct our teachers to not comply with the law, she said. We cannot pick and choose what laws to comply with.

Just because it is reported to the state, it does not mean that anything will come from it, Govus said.

Simply because we report to the state doesnt mean they take action, she said. I would suspect that if they receive a report of two students that are 17 having sex, theres not going to be a cop knocking on the door.

The school district does not keep track of reports sent to DHHS, so it's unclear if employees were reporting on students' sexual activity before officials spoke about it at this year's mandatory training.

MASSACHUSETTS HIGH SCHOOL APOLOGIZES FOR 9/11 MATH PROBLEM

However, some see strict mandatory reporting as a potential breakdown of trust between students and staff. This group of people is demanding the school district stop the practice, which they say will end up hurting students and staff in the long run.

This leaves students with no one, Kimberly Scott, a student at McNary High School in Keizer wrote in the petition on Change.org. "The students no longer have that safe teacher they can talk to. Instead, the students must find a way to be sneaky and hide so that they dont get reported, which could lead to several more issues.

The petition had garnered more than 1,250 signatures as of Friday midday.

I lose the ability to have a private conversation with a trusted adult who works for the district, about something personal to me, Angel Hudson, a junior at McNary High School wrote in a letter to district superintendent Christy Perry, according to the Statesman Journal. Talking about sexual activity between teachers and students should be confidential.

A group of students recently protested outside Oregons Capitol steps.

Govus applauded the students rallying in Salem, saying it was 100 percent the right place to share these concerns.

She added the school district has been in conversation with several legislators, who acknowledged they never intended to have such strict reporting requirements.

We teach our students how words matter. The legislators are learning that their words are impacting our students, said Govus, adding that she expects to see clarification around these pieces of legislation coming from the Capitol soon.
A police officer in southwest Michigan has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor neglect of duty for leaving his jurisdiction to drive by an ex-girlfriend's home to see who she was dating.

The Berrien County prosecutor's office said Friday that 30-year-old Robert Fuller has been sentenced to a $575 fine.

Fuller is a Benton Township police officer. Prosecutors say a reported use of the Law Enforcement Information Network led investigators to discover that Fuller left his patrol jurisdiction several times in 2016 for personal reasons.

Police officers are only permitted to leave their jurisdictions for limited legitimate reasons.

Administrative hearings regarding Fuller's employment status are underway with the police department. Benton Township is southwest of Grand Rapids.
Two Playboy Playmates and a third woman have filed a lawsuit seeking $27 million, alleging a former fund manager for billionaire George Soros raped and beat them in a New York City penthouse described as a dungeon.

The three plaintiffs, who were not identified, claim portfolio manager Howie Rubin beat them to the point they needed extensive medical attention, the New York Post reported, citing a lawsuit filed in federal court.

Im going to rape you like I rape my daughter, Rubin, a former Bear Stearns trader, yelled out during one of the attacks, according to the lawsuit.

It states that Rubin rented out the $8 million penthouse in Manhattan and paid women $2,000 to $5,000 for brutal sex sessions in a side room with ropes, chains and sex toys.

The New York Post said it reached out to Rubin, but he declined to comment.

John Balestriere, the lawyer who filed the suit, said Rubin gagged, tied up and abused women in the penthouse. Balestriere alleged Rubin punched one woman in the head.

In another encounter, Rubin is accused of beating a womans breasts so badly that her right implant flipped, the lawsuit stated. The suit alleges the woman was paid $20,000 by Rubin to repair the damage.

The New York Post report also said Rubin had the women sign non-disclosure agreements. Rubin collaborated with two female fixers and a lawyer who sought to cover up his sexual misconduct and criminal abuse of women and to serve as a cover for his wide-ranging human trafficking scheme, Balestriere added.

According to MSHopeForACure, Rubin received an MBA in 1982 from Harvard. His profile  which was removed from the website Friday morning  also said Rubin enjoys Texas Hold em Poker, swimming, yoga and Soul Cycle.

Rubin worked for Soros Fund Management from 2008 to 2015.
A North Texas woman is behind bars accused of killing her two young daughters hours after deputies visited her home in response to a call that she was suicidal, according to reports.

KayLee and Kenlie Henderson were shot dead in their sleep in rural Payne Springs, about 60 miles southeast of Dallas, Fox 4 Dallas reported Thursday. KayLee was 7; Kenlie, 5. Their mother, Sarah Henderson, 29, was charged with capital murder. She was on a suicide watch at the jail.

Why did I do that, babe? Henderson asked her husband as he spoke to a 911 operator, the Dallas Morning News reported Friday. Whats going on here?

Nothings going on, thats what I keep telling you, Jake Henderson told his wife.

He was asleep and woke up to hear her saying, Babe, I just shot the kids, he told the 911 operator, the paper reported.

And I didnt want to believe it, I went in there and they were dead, Jacob said as he held the gun away from Sarah, according to the recording. He told the operator that she kept trying to take it and was attempting to choke herself.

Please just shoot me, she is heard saying.

Im not shooting you, no, the husband responded. No, I cant.

The paper reported that Jake Henderson told the operator that the girls were sleeping in the living room and he found them both shot in the head. He is heard sobbing and crying during the call.

Around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, he reported that he was worried his wife was suicidal and requested the assistance of emergency medical services. He then called right back to say everything was fine. A deputy went to the home to make sure and did not find any cause for alarm, Fox 4 reported.

Her husband had told EMS that she felt like people were out to get her and thats pretty much all the information that weve got at this time, Henderson County Sheriff Botie Hillhouse told the station. Deputies spoke to them. Everything appeared to be fine. There [were] no signs of violence. Everybody said they were okay. Nobody was suicidal.

Three hours later around 2:30 a.m. Thursday the husband reported that his wife had shot the children.

Hillhouse told the station Friday that Sarah Henderson also tried to shoot her husband.

The pistol misfired and thats when he was able to take the pistol away from her and call law enforcement, the sheriff said.

He said Sarah Henderson had been planning the shooting for at least two weeks and that the motive was still under investigation.

We havent seen any sign of remorse right now, he told the station.

The sheriff had told WFAA-TV that Sarah Henderson said little to deputies after the shooting.

The only thing she told us was that she had smoked some marijuana early in the evening, Hillhouse said. She was very blunt. We just dont have any answers as to why.

A family member told the station Sarah Henderson had been acting erratically in the last couple of weeks.

Texas child welfare workers interviewed her in 2010 which would have been the year KayLee was born, the station reported.

Neighbors heard Sarah Henderson yelling at her kids all the time, Fox 4 reported.

We could hear her yelling and cussing at the girls, Jaylne Palmer told the station. Terrible language. Get youre blah blah blah in here.

KayLee and Kenlie attended Southside Elementary School in Mabank.

A judge on Friday ordered her held on $2 million bail.

Click for more from Fox 4 Dallas.
Texas police are on the hunt Friday for a panhandler after a 77-year-old man whom he accepted $5 from was found robbed, beaten and dumped on the side of the road.

Fort Worth police said the victim had withdrawn money from an ATM at a Texaco gas station around 3 a.m. Wednesday when the suspect approached him for money, the Dallas Morning News reported.

The panhandler, described by police as a black man in his 50s wearing jeans and a maroon and white jacket, then offered the victim a ride home. The two got into a parked car with a second would-be robber, police told the newspaper.

A half hour later, the man was found on the side of the road about 2 miles north of the gas station, according to police.

A description of the other man in the car wasnt available, but the car being driven was a gray or silver early 2000s Buick sedan with only a temporary license plate on the back, the Dallas Morning News reported.
Officials at travel website TripAdvisor apologized Wednesday for deleting a Texas woman's posted claim of being raped by a security guard at a Mexican hotel.

Other customers have also claimed that the site -- which hosts more than 535 million user reviews of hotels, vacation hotspots, and restaurants -- has deleted their posts warning fellow users about crimes and other problems at vacation destinations.

Kristie Love, 35, says her review of the highly rated Iberostar Paraiso hotel in Mexico was removed soon after it was published seven years ago because TripAdvisor said Love's language was not "G-rated."

Love alleged in the post that a uniformed hotel security guard dragged her into bushes and raped her, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Claims of more crimes

Two other woman have since reported being sexually assaulted at the same hotel, the newspaper reported. They include a 19-year-old who told hotel officials that a security guard raped her in a bathroom a year after Love posted her review.

Another woman, Wisconsin mother Jamie Valeri, 34, alleged she was sexually assaulted at the same resort in 2015.

Valeri said TripAdvisor deleted several reviews she attempted to post to warn other customers.

Maybe we wouldnt have gone or maybe that wouldnt have happened to me if TripAdvisor did not censor the reviews, Valeri told the Journal Sentinel.

TripAdvisors apology stated that the company regrets deleting Loves review and changed its language policy for reviews a few years ago so that similar reviews will not be deleted in the future. Love's review has been restored on TripAdvisor.

Broader problem?

But the company's apology came only after an investigation by the Journal Sentinel found that the incident may have been just one example of a much broader problem.

Since July, more than a dozen travelers reported to the newspaper that TripAdvisor deleted their posts mentioning rapes, blackouts, and other injuries suffered at establishments featured on the site.

In one instance, the Journal Sentinel found that TripAdvisor had conspicuously deleted 27 posts in a thread created by an Indianapolis woman inquiring whether the Mexican resort Riviera Maya was safe to visit.

But TripAdvisor refused to provide those deleted posts to the newspaper, and explained only that they were deleted for various reasons, including inappropriate language and irrelevance.

The $1.5 billion travel website, which was founded 17 years ago, wields substantial power in the tourism industry because businesses typically enjoy better business if they receive stronger reviews.

While TripAdvisor says it maintains a strict separation between its business interests and its user reviews, its policies do not explicitly identify who has the permission to delete user comments or reviews.
Two B-1B bombers flew near the Korean peninsula on Thursday as part of a previously scheduled operation, the U.S. Air Force confirmed.

The Air Force, in tangent with Japan Air Self-Defense Force fighters and the Republic of Korea Air Force, conducted a planned, bilateral mission in the area, according to a statement from the Pacific Air Force.

The two B1-B Lancers reportedly took off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam and flew south of Korea and west of Japan to join Koku Jietai, or the Japanese fighters. They then flew over the Korean Peninsula to meet with the Korean fighters in the Yellow Sea. After the mission was over, the jets all flew back to their original locations.

WHITE HOUSE: NKOREA COULD BE LISTED AS TERRORISM SPONSOR

The bilateral continuous bomber presence (CBP) mission was planned in advance, to include coordination with the JASDF and ROKAF, and was not in response to any current event, the Pacific Air Force said.

Earlier Thursday, the North Korean regime acknowledged the flyover and said it was done to threaten and blackmail the government, Yonhap News Agency reported.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency reportedly claimed that the mission was to train for a nuclear strike on North Korea.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.
A Canadian man held hostage by the Taliban for five years said he buried food underground to save his unborn children.

In an interview with Fox News, Joshua Boyle, 34, said his kidnappers poisoned his pregnant wifes meals with estrogen to force her to miscarry. Boyle and his family moved to Canada, where he is from, after they were rescued.

Boyle told Fox News one unborn baby was killed by the terrorists, who were members of the Haqqani network, and his wife delivered two babies while she they were in captivity.

CAITLAN COLEMAN, AMERICAN WOMAN RELEASED WITH HER FAMILY IN PAKISTAN: WHO IS SHE?

But in order to make sure she carried to term, the couple kept her pregnancy a secret and buried their food underground to keep a safe supply.

His wife, Caitlan Coleman, 31, who claims she was raped many times by a guard, gave birth to three children while in captivity.

The captors later told us after the forced abortion how it was done, which made it easier for us to avoid on the next two pregnancies, he said. We buried safe food in the dirt floor in some houses before she was pregnant.

The couple tried to keep the pregnancies a secret but Boyle said that the militants became suspicious. Boyle delivered his second son and daughter by torchlight.

FORMER HOSTAGE CAITLAN COLEMAN RUSHED TO HOSPITAL, HUSBAND SAYS

Boyle and his family were rescued by Pakistani commandos three weeks ago along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The rescue operation ended a five-year ordeal for the couple, who say they were kidnapped in 2012 while hiking in Afghanistan during their honeymoon.

Boyle said there are still many questions that need to be answered. He questioned why Americans knew their location for years but never tried rescue them and also questioned the timing of the rescue, the fifth anniversary of when they were taken hostage.

We are glad that we were finally rescued, on the fifth anniversary of our kidnapping, nonetheless, he said, which indicates it was certainly not coincidence - but a planned and rehearsed day for at least one of the parties involved.

Boyle said that while his kidnappers tried to force him to join the Haqqani network, he refused to do so.

I have standards, he said. Its what sets me apart from them.

He said because of his refusal to join the network, the kidnappers tried to kill his unborn babies. Boyle said they spiked his wifes food so they could force her to miscarry once they realized she was pregnant. The group has denied this claim, saying she miscarried naturally.

But Boyle said the kidnappers admitted to him what they had done.

The Haqqani network recruited Osama bin Laden in the 1980s and now runs the Talibans lucrative kidnapping network. The Taliban said yesterday that the health of another American held by the Haqqanis, Kevin King, a university professor, was deteriorating.

The insurgents have threatened to kill King and his Australian colleague, Timothy Weekes, unless one of their senior commanders, Anas Haqqani, is released from death row in Afghanistan.

Boyle believes that, far from being religious zealots, the captors had little knowledge of Islam and were mere thugs.

You could always tell when an actual Taliban representative had come to the prison compound because suddenly all of our remarkably secular, mercenary guards would be wearing black turbans and reciting Quran, something they never did unless there was a pious visitor, he said. Their opposition is not based on religious fervor but a primitive love of blood sports, the desire to dominate, rape, kill and be feared.

Haroon Janjua is an award-winning Pakistan-based journalist who has reported on a wide range of political, military and economic developments.
Two U.S. supersonic bombers have flown over the Korean Peninsula in bombing exercises that are also a show of force against North Korea ahead of President Donald Trump's first official visit to Asia.

A South Korean military official said Friday the B-1B bombers flown from Guam were escorted by two South Korean F-16 fighter jets during the drills Thursday at a field near the South's eastern coast. The official did not want to be named, citing office rules.

North Korea's state media denounced the exercise as a "surprise nuclear strike drill" and says "gangster-like U.S. imperialists" are seeking to ignite a nuclear war.

The United States has been sending its strategic assets to the region more frequently for patrols or drills as North Korea further advances its nuclear weapons program.
Catalonian separatists won a razor-thin majority on Thursday, with the three separatist parties winning a total of 70 seats in the 135-seat regional parliament.

But the snap regional election failed to clarify the way forward, as parties seeking Catalonia's independence will be a majority in the new parliament but a pro-union party got the most votes.

Still, ousted Catalan President Carles Puigdemont celebrated the results from Belgium on Thursday -- the same country he sought refuge in after Spain issued European arrest warrants for him and other separatists in November.

Puigdemont also said that he's ready to meet with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in any location but Spain, because that's where he's facing arrest. In addition, Puigdemont also said he wants guarantees to return to Catalonia and be reinstated as the region's leader.

In response, Rajoy said he expects a "new era based on dialogue" will begin in Catalonia following the snap election, adding that he will talk with the region's new leaders as long as they don't violate Spain's Constitution.

The election comes after the Spanish government took control of Catalonia when separatist lawmakers, led by Puigdemont, declared independence in October.

Spain invoked its never-before used constitutional amendment to take control of the region, giving it the ability to sack Puigdemont and his cabinet as well as authorize the government to curtail the regions parliamentary powers. Spain's Constitutional Court officially annulled the Catalan parliaments independence vote in November.

European neighbors  including Italy, France and Germany  have condemned the independence declaration and rallied behind Spain.

In light of the election, here's what you need to know.

What is Catalonia?

Located in the northeast region of Spain, Catalonia is largely independent with its own culture and language. Its one of the richest and most industrialized areas of the country with a heavy emphasis on manufacturing, according to the BBC.

The region, which includes Barcelona, is home to about 7.5 million people.

Valuing its autonomy, Catalonia has its own parliament and executive, called Generalitat in its language.

Why do they want independence?

Because of its own cultural identity, those in favor of Catalan independence have pushed for the region to become separate from Spain. Supporters also believe that they have given more to the Spanish government than they have gotten back.

The push for independence raises questions of the future of democracy and democratic rule, Pamela Radcliff, a University of California, San Diego professor and modern Spain historian, told Fox News. Whats being contested between Spain and Catalonia, one of the things is different visions of what defending democracy looks like.

SOME SEPARATIST-MINDED CATALANS URGE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

Radcliff said that its very possible that neither side has much incentive to compromise.

The region held a referendum on Oct. 1.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in the streets of Barcelona around the Catalan regional government palace to celebrate the independence vote. They chanted for the Spanish flag to be removed as live music played.

The regions parliament voted to establish an independent Catalonia with 70 votes in favor of independence, 10 votes against and two blank ballots. Opposition leaders had left the chambers in protest before the vote.

How did the Oct. 1 vote go?

Catalonias parliament voted for independence after an Oct. 1 referendum with about 90 percent of the 2.3 million people who voted choosing independence, according to Catalan officials. However, fewer than half of the eligible voters participated in the highly contested referendum.

About 900 people were treated for injuries after voting turned violent when Catalan civilians and Spanish police clashed.

Andrew Dowling, an expert in Catalan history at Cardiff University in Wales, said that an independence declaration by the Catalan parliament is symbolic without border and institutional control and no international support.

PRO-INDEPENDENCE CATALANS: 'I'VE NEVER FELT SPANISH'

The declaration "will see the fracture between hardliners and the pragmatic people in Catalonia who are already seeing an economic fallout," Dowling told The Associated Press.

But Spains Constitutional Court officially annulled the Catalan independence vote on Nov. 8.



What has been Spains response?

Spain's top court declared the Oct. 1 independence referendum illegal, and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy had warned that the governments first move will be to remove Puigdemont from power when the Senate granted him the special powers under Article 155.

Rajoy said what is happening in Catalonia is a clear violation of the laws, of democracy, of the rights of all, and that has consequences.

Hundreds of thousands of anti-independence protesters demonstrated in the streets of Barcelona and called for the Catalonia region to remain a part of Spain.

Rajoy reportedly refused help from outside civil-society groups and lawyers to mediate negotiations between the two factions. He has also declined to engage in talks with Catalan leaders.

There is no possible mediation between democratic law and disobedience and unlawfulness, Rajoy said.

What is Article 155?

Spain invoked a clause of its constitution after Catalonia forged ahead with its plans to secede from the country that would take away the regions autonomy.

Catalonia's refusal to backtrack from its independence threats triggered Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, the government said, which allows central authorities to take over control of any of the countrys 17 regions. Its a provision that hasnt been used in the four decades since democracy was restored in the European nation.

OUSTED CATALAN LEADER SAYS HE IS NOT SEEKING POLITICAL ASYLUM, SUPPORTS SNAP ELECTION



An English translation of the constitution states that if an autonomous community breaks the law or disregards the constitution, the Spanish government can  after following certain procedures  take the measures necessary in order to compel the [community] forcibly to meet said obligations, or in order to protect [Spains] general interests.

Rajoy's cabinet met in a special meeting to approve measures to take direct control of the Catalan region under Article 155. The Senate gave him the power to do so.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A court in Macedonia has sentenced an alleged ethnic Albanian militant gunman to life in prison over a deadly 2015 gunbattle with police, a day after 33 other suspects also received heavy sentences.

Prosecutors said Sulejman Osmani was a key organizer of the deadly attack in Kumanovo, in northern Macedonia, that left eight police officers and 10 militants dead. He was tried separately and sentenced Friday following his extradition from neighboring Kosovo.

Macedonia has a large ethnic Albanian minority, and the 2015 incident was the worst outbreak of violence in the tiny country since a nine-month insurgency by fighters from the minority in 2001.

On Thursday, seven suspects were handed life sentences, and 26 others got prison sentences from 12 to 40 years.
New Zealand's prime minister has repeated her country's offer to take 150 refugees from an Australian immigration camp in Papua New Guinea where more than 600 weakened men are continuing a standoff with authorities.

Jacinda Ardern on Friday said she would personally restate the offer to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull when they meet on Sunday in Sydney. New Zealand has made the offer before but Australia has declined on the grounds it could allow the refugees access to Australia.

Iranian Behrouz Boochani, who is living in the camp on Manus Island, says the refugees are starving and are without medical treatment.

The camp was declared closed Tuesday based on a Papua New Guinea court ruling, but the refugees fear for their safety from locals and have refused to leave.
Radiation emanating from North Koreas overused, crumbling nuclear test region could reportedly threaten northern Japan, as strengthening winds from the northwest blow the radiation across the Sea of Japan.

Dr. Joel Myers, the founder and chairman of AccuWeather, said next week's forecast could spread lingering radiation and threaten nearby countries with contamination from the Hermit Kingdoms Sept. 3 nuke test.

As winds pick up out of the northwest over the next few days, it is possible that any radiation that leaks from the site [where the nuclear test took place] could be carried and dispersed across the Sea of Japan and even to the Japanese islands, Myers said.

The AccuWeather chairman said he believed the rogue regime purposely tested nuclear weapons on days when the wind was moderate.

NORTH KOREA SLAMS FALSE NUCLEAR TEST SITE DEATHS REPORT

"One might speculate that North Korea conducted these nuclear tests purposefully on days with light wind conditions, so that any resulting radiation leakage would remain within its borders and would go undetected internationally, Myers said.

Myers noted, however, that North Koreas luck may have run out.

"We know from other news reports that there has been an accident at the nuclear test site, and the situation that North Korea may have anticipated with radiation being contained within North Korea has changed, Myers said.

Japanese TV reported the nuclear site, Punggye-ri, had destabilized following Pyongyang's most recent test, and the sites tunnels reportedly collapsed on Oct. 10 killing hundreds of people.

North Korea denied the report.

TRUMP UNLEASHES NEW THREAT ON NORTH KOREA IN FOX NEWS INTERVIEW

AccuWeather reported North Korean soldiers and families were exposed to radiation following the tunnels collapse.

Myers said the radiation could travel to the Japanese island of Hokkaido and far-northern Honshu -- and possibly farther south by the weekend.

A week after the Sept. 3 nuke test, South Korea's nuclear safety agency said it found traces of xenon gas, a radionuclide, in the environment, Yonhap News Agency reported.

Meanwhile, South Korean officials reported detecting active movement at a Pyongyang missile research facility that indicated Kim Jong Uns regime may be planning a new missile test, Yonhap News Agency reported. Punggye-ri test sites tunnel 3 was also reportedly ready to conduct another nuclear test despite reports questioning its stability.

President Trump is set to leave for his five-nation Asia tour on Friday, stopping in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and Philippines  his first trip to the region since taking office. He is expected to be in South Korea on Tuesday.

Fox News' Katherine Lam and Travis Fedschun contributed to this report.
In an emotional appeal on Thursday, a teary-eyed Pope Francis pleaded for world peace.

Please Lord, stop. No more wars. No more of these useless massacres, the pope said at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery in Nettuno, Italy, south of Rome.

The mass was a celebration of All Souls Day, when Italians honor their dead. The pontiff said the venue, a cemetery, was a fitting place for an anti-war speech.

Wars produce nothing more than cemeteries and death, Pope Francis said. Humanity seems to have not learned that lesson, or doesnt want to.

The cemetery is set on 77 pristine, rolling green acres. The graves of 7,860 American soldiers killed in World War II are buried there. They are marked by white crosses or Stars of David. The marble walls of the chapel are inscribed with the names of 3,095 soldiers missing in action.

These are the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice, never made it home, even in death, and are far from relatives who might want to make regular visits, to leave flowers or thoughts. Pope Francis placed white roses on some of the headstones on Thursday.

He also starkly told the solemn crowd: The world is once more at war and is preparing to go even more forcefully into war.

Sixteen women lay buried in the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery. And 30 pairs of brothers were laid to rest at there. Twenty-one of those pairs were buried together.

Most of the fallen soldiers were killed in the liberation of Sicily in 1943 and the landings in Salerno and Anzio Beach. Thus began the endthe toppling of Mussolini and the expulsion of the Nazis in Italy. This weakened Hitlers grip in Europe.

Italians have largely been grateful to the Americans for liberating them from the Nazis. History, however, erodes those memories of what it meant, and what it was like in Italy during the war.

Duquesne University has a program in Rome to keep the fallen alive in the hearts and minds of both American students and their Roman counterparts.

Its called Be the Difference and its broadly meant to encourage young people to take action. It allows them to reflect on the value of sacrifice, and not take for granted the freedoms we are accustomed to.

The students are given the names of individual soldiers buried in the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, and asked to research their short lives. The students then visit the cemetery to pay honor and respect, singing anthems and reciting letters they have written to the souls who sacrificed their lives so others could be free.

One Italian student wrote a letter to a soldier she researched.

I thank you for your service and your courage in sacrificing your life for our country. During our research we discovered that you did not have a family. In this case our duty is even more essential because every soul deserves at least one person who dedicates a thought, an idea or a prayer just for them, she wrote to the fallen soldier. I dont know how much this gesture could be wanted or appreciated by you, but in a very simple and humble way, I want to offer you this letter. I send you thoughts and a prayer, hoping your soul has found peace.

American students said they were humbled by the experience, too, and it made them feel more proud to be American. They said it was an honor to get to know the soldiers.

Pope Francis asked the thousands gathered at the cemetery on All Souls day to not forget the tears of the mothers and wives who lost husbands and sons in past wars.
Syrian state media say the army has liberated the eastern city of Deir el-Zour from the Islamic State group.

Friday's report says the military is now in full control of the long contested city.

Syrian government forces and their pro-government allies first broke the militant group's siege of their part of the city in September and have been advancing against IS positions since then.

Deir el-Zour had been divided into a government-held and an IS-held part for nearly three years.

The development is the latest significant defeat for IS as the militant group sees its self-proclaimed "caliphate" crumble and lose almost all urban strongholds.

The Syrian army and Kurdish-led forces backed by the U.S. are now racing to take the rest of the oil-rich eastern province.
The Ugandan government has started recruiting champion men to promote vasectomies as a method of family planning as high fertility rates continue to plague the African nation.

"Many people think that when a man goes for a vasectomy he is not going to continue being a normal man," said Martin Owor, a father of six. "But there is no problem. My wife is very happy."

Owor said his wife initially objected to him having the procedure, but after a long conversation, he decided to go ahead, hoping it will help his children avoid living in poverty.

"My father had 12 children, so we never had a chance of having a quality education," he said. "I needed a number that I would try to manage."

The so-called champion men speak out publicly as the government tries to increase mens participation in family planning to decrease birth rates.

"We can't coerce them, because family planning is voluntary and is supposed to be based on human rights, and we want to keep on engaging them," said Placid Mihayo, an assistant government commissioner in charge of sexual and reproductive health.

Uganda has long tried to tackle its booming population, with development experts suggesting the high fertility rate is an obstacle in combating poverty.

The population reportedly skyrocketed from 17 million in 1990 to more than 41 million in 2016. The United Nations figures put Uganda as the worlds top 10 fastest-growing population. The country remains one of the poorest in the world, with only $615 per capita income per year, with even lower incomes recorded in rural areas.

"If you produce 100 children and create only two jobs in that period, so where are the other 98 going to get jobs?" said Sam Mwandara, project coordinator for Reproductive Health Uganda, a U.N.-associated group. "The population is expanding so fast in relation to land, jobs, education and health. So it's alarming."

The increasing demographics are facilitated by the fact that only 35 percent of married women use modern methods of contraception. Abortion remains illegal in Uganda, with the only exception being to save the womans life.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The governments of Canada, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Britain have expressed "concern" to Egypt over the case of a detained human rights lawyer.

In a rare public joint statement Friday, the countries urged Egyptian authorities "to ensure the freedom of civil society and the protection from torture that are enshrined in the Egyptian Constitution," regarding the case of Ibrahim Metwally Hegazy.

Metwally, a prominent rights lawyer who focused on the issue of forced disappearances, was himself arrested in secret on Sept. 10 at Cairo airport on his way to a U.N. meeting on the topic. Authorities only acknowledged his detention days later, and he remains in custody on charges of "spreading false news."

Metwally's son disappeared during clashes at an Islamist protest in 2013.
JEANNE MUKAMURENZI :

"The cleansing that MUSEVENI is conducting now could have be done a long time ago, it was long overdue.

President Joseph Kabila Jr did it with the help of UNSCO.the infamous M23 created by criminal Kagame to destabilize Congo ,is now a history.

President Jacob Zuma cleansed his country of criminal Kagame,s agents by sending away some key diplomats from Rwanda accredited to his country.

Tanzania followed suit by making sure All Kagame,s elements were cleansed from the Tanzanian soil.

Burundi did not want to be left behind. As I write this text, all these counties i have mentioned are free from criminal Kagame,s agents.when all this was happening M7 thought his surrogate son was being unfairly treated,he allowed him to bring his bunch of junks from South Africa,Congo,Tanzania and Burundi and dumped them into his country.

Museveni saw nothing wrong with this piles of criminal Kagame,s junks until recently when he discovered that Uganda  has become a dump site of these junks and they contaminating his country.Now the cleansing has began, from the look of things, Museveni is leaving no stone unturned.

Kagame utakuwa Mugeni wa nani mara hii?? Baba yako Mzee Museveni amekugeuka!!

I congratulate these countries which chose to make their countries clean by chasing away criminal Kagame,s criminal agents.

For those who are still associating yourselves with this criminal, work up and smell the coffee.

It is never too late, Learn from Mzee Museven .

Aluta continua."

JEANNE MUKAMURENZI


New U.K. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt has reversed most of an economic package announced by the government just weeks ago, including a planned cut in income taxes. Hunt said Monday he was scrapping almost all the tax cuts announced last month by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Liz Truss, and also signaled that public spending cuts are on the way. It was a bid to soothe turbulent financial markets spooked by fears of excessive government borrowing. The move raises questions about how long the beleaguered prime minister can stay in office, though Truss insisted she has no plans to quit. She vowed to lead the Conservatives into the next general election, but many in the party want her gone.
THOR: RAGNAROK (PG-13)

3.25 STARS

Taking many clues from the way audiences have loved the Guardians of the Galaxy films, humor and great comedic performances propel this latest Marvel offering to a rollicking good time.

Though the whole Ragnarok prophecy doesnt make all that much sense, it doesnt really matter.

Thats because an A-list cast that includes Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Mark Ruffalo and Benedict Cumberbatch make perfect use of a script that alternates between dynamic action and moments of fun and humor.

Hemsworth deserves the lions share of the credit for the fun and levity, demonstrating once again that though the big hunk can do the action scenes, hes also a really talented comedic actor.

His specialty fits what hes called on to do often here: deadpan and glower as he does something silly, like smacking himself in the head with a ball that ricochets off a window when he throws it. Or get insulted by Loki, Odin or especially, the deliciously evil sister Hela (Blanchett), whos no slouch herself when it comes to delivering humorous dialogue.

The story line here is fairly simple: two years after the struggle with Ultron, Thor follows up a battle in a dark world by a return to Asgard, where Loki is posing as Odin.

The royal brothers quickly go to Earth where they learn from Odin that the sister they knew little about, Hela, will soon escape the banishment the king imposed and will try to take over the throne.

When the brothers confront her, they are lost as the trio head to Asgard, Thor ending up a prisoner who must fight the champion there in a battle royal. Yep, he takes on the big green Hulk, who hasnt reverted to Bruce Banner in the years since Ultron.

The big green guy and Thor have some interesting moments, especially when they both try to describe themselves as the strongest and baddest superhero around. For a stretch, the film becomes a buddy pic as the pair try to figure out a way to help others.

Another highlight: the films director, Taika Waititi, plays a rock monster named Korg who gets some of the films best lines. Goldblum is also funny as the leader who has chosen the Hulk as his champion in a gladiator sort of arena.

At he slowly battles his way back to Asgard, Thor finds some unique allieswow, a Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson)and confronts the love/hate connection he has with brother Loki (Hiddleston.)

And though the film sags a bit before the big finale, the truly funny script and face-paced action that jumps from one dynamic battle to the next makes it hard to quibble with much here.

The other thing the humor does is prevent the battle fatigue that comes from the endless string of comic book movies that fill theaters these days. After all, this is a comic book movie, not "War and Peace."

While theres plenty of action here, the battles Thor finds himself in are like firework shells that explode, dazzle for a bit and then end, moving on quickly to the next magical explosion of light and movement on screen.

While there are a few interesting scenes after the credits, the best unexpected moment is a cameo that happens in a play going on at Asgard when Thor first remains.

Like the movie itself, its a bunch of fun.

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and brief suggestive material. 130 min. Playing locally at Marquee Southpoint 9 and Regal Fredericksburg 14.
After hours on the witness stand Thursday, psychologist Elizabeth Wheeler finally gave the opinion defense attorneys in the Christopher M. Ellis murder trial wanted a jury to hear.

Ellis was unable to distinguish right from wrong when he brutally killed his mother, Elizabeth Betsey Ellis, on Dec. 11, 2015, at their home on Fagan Drive in southern Stafford County, Wheeler concluded.

Ellis, 40, is charged with first-degree murder, aggravated malicious wounding and assault on a law-enforcement officer. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Betsey Ellis, 67, a retired teacher, was beaten beyond recognition early that morning with fists, feet and a hammer. Christopher Ellis confessed to the slaying right away and told detectives later that morning that he would seek an insanity defense.

Wheeler, who works at Central State Hospital in Petersburg, was the final witness called by defense attorneys Joshua Parrett and Sharon Fitzgerald. She was the second doctor to give an opinion that Ellis did not know right from wrong when he killed his mother.

The doctor testified in detail about the six sessions she and fellow psychologist Lindsay Ingram had with Ellis between February and July of last year and how she reached her conclusion. She diagnosed Ellis with schizoaffective disorder, a mental health condition that includes a combination of schizophrenia and mood disorders.

No one has disputed that Ellis has serious mental health issues, but prosecutors Tara Mooney and Sandra Park contend that he was well aware he was doing wrong when he killed his mother.

The prosecution is expected to counter the defense evidence Friday with doctors who have different opinions from those expressed by Wheeler and Ingram.

Friday marks the sixth day of a trial in Stafford Circuit Court that is scheduled for nine days.
An independent candidate vying to represent Smyth, Carroll and Wythe counties in the House of Delegates is a convicted sex offender who was one of more than 156,000 felons to have his rights to vote and run for office restored this year under Gov. Terry McAuliffe's 2016 clemency order.

Smyth County resident Kenneth D. Browning is making a longshot bid to unseat Del. Jeff Campbell, R-Smyth, in the 6th House District.

Brownings campaign flew under the radar until a mid-October public forum held at the Lincoln Theater. Once news of Brownings candidacy began to circulate, residents began to point out his criminal history.

Browning pleaded guilty to using a computer to facilitate sex with a minor in 2008 that year and was sentenced to serve six months in jail. He also pleaded guilty to failing to register as a sex offender, according to online court records. He is currently listed on the Virginia Sex Offender Registry.

Browning admitted in a criminal complaint that he contacted then 15-year-old Lucas Firestone and asked to have sex with him. Although Firestone told Browning he was underage, Browning persisted in trying to get Firestone to either meet with him or allow him to sneak into his bedroom, the complaint stated.

The court document indicated that Browning then followed Firestone and his sister when they left the home, flashing his headlights and sounding his horn in an attempt to pull them over.

I was blown away when I found out he was running, said Firestone, who agreed to speak publicly. I feel very uncomfortable with his rights being restored and representing the [district].

Firestone voiced concern that, if elected, Brownings duties may more frequently bring him in contact with children.

Browning, who denied that the events played out the way the criminal complaint indicated, said he believes voters should consider what he can do for the community and not his criminal record when going to the polls.

I knew my past would come up, but Im trying to help the people in the 6th District, he said. The past needs to be left in the past; lets concentrate on the future. They should vote for the man who gets the job done. I want to be the man that hears the peoples voice.

Browning said he plans to take steps to have his record expunged, but Smyth County Commonwealths Attorney Roy Evans said one would generally have to have been acquitted of charges or have the charges dropped before an expungement can take place.

Browning isnt the only ex-felon contending for a seat in the House this year.

In Fauquier County, Libertarian candidate Nathan Larson is on the ballot after spending 16 months in federal prison for threatening to kill former president Barack Obama. The Fauquier Times reported that Larson also had his rights restored under McAuliffes executive order.
Political newcomer Morgan Goodman is challenging two-term incumbent Republican Del. Hyland Buddy Fowler for the 55th District seat in the House of Delegates in the Nov. 7 election.

Fowler, a former business owner and legislative aide and research director, was first elected in 2013 to represent the district, which includes parts of Spotsylvania, Caroline and Hanover counties. He lists boosting the economy and creating jobs and improving education and public safety as his key campaign issues.

Goodman, 36, an environmental specialist at the Virginia Department for Environmental Quality, is a first-time candidate. A wife and mother of two elementary-school-aged children, the Democrat said she was inspired to run for office after attending the Womens March in Washington in January.

Certainly there was such a feeling of togetherness and progress there, that we could do more if we just work together and if we had people standing up for the things that we believe in, she said in a phone interview.

Goodman said she would use her ability to listen and not shy away from difficult conversations to truly represent all constituents in the district.

I like talking to people, I like listening to people and Ive always been interested in getting all the information that I can, she said. I want to understand other peoples points of view and how they came to those points of view.

Goodman grew up in Northern Virginia and said her positive experience in public school made her want to ensure that all Virginia children have access to quality public education.

When you talk to families about why they live in a certain area, often its because of the good schools, she said. But you shouldnt have to move somewhere for good schools. Were not doing enough to make sure that all of Virginias public schools are where they need to be.

As a child, she spent summers camping on the Eastern Shore and those times formulated her passion for protecting Virginias environment. She said she is against fracking and would push for finding alternative sources of energy such as solar and offshore wind.

Goodman said one of her first priorities if elected would be to work on campaign finance reform.

At the end of the day, it is supposed to be a citizen legislature, not a full-time job, and yet it is very difficult for the average citizen to run, she said. It certainly doesnt help when you look at campaign finance and look at gerrymandering. Those types of issues make it harder for the General Assembly to truly be representative.

Fowler said if re-elected, he would continue working to bring jobs to Virginia. He cited his work on the finance committee, which he said has been looking at tax credits to see whether they are actually working to incentivize businesses to move to the state.

He said hed like to further explore whether Standards of Learning tests measure actual learning.

Im concerned that all were doing is teaching people to be good test-takers, not really providing an education, he said.

He said he is passionate about working to expand Medicaid waiver programs to provide more services for children with intellectual disabilities.

Fowler would also like to see amendments made to the VDOT Smart Scale program so that road improvement projects in rural counties like Spotsylvania and Caroline will be able to compete more fairly with urban areas of the state for funding.

Folks of the 55th District have been nice and supportive of me and Im truly thankful, he said. Its just been an absolute privilege to represent what I believe are the best people in the best district in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

According to reports compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project, Fowlers campaign raised $72,238 from January 2016 through Sept. 30 and spent $38,702, leaving a balance of $34,595 for the final month of the campaign. His largest donations were $46,908 from the Republican Party of Virginia, $10,500 from the Republican Party of the 7th Congressional District and $7,825 from the Republican Party of Hanover County. He received a total of $12,750 from real estate and construction companies.

Goodman raised a total of $53,979 between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30 and spent $21,403, leaving a balance of $32,575. She received her largest donations from political groupsWin Virginia contributed $6,122 and the Democratic Party of Hanover County contributed $5,500. Individuals make up her next largest donor group.
A pastor is up against a Stafford County supervisor in the race to determine Republican House Speaker Bill Howells successor in the 28th District.

Democratic candidate Joshua Cole, an associate pastor at Union Bell Baptist Church in southern Stafford, said he would represent a fresh voice in Richmond and look out for the average person, not special interests. His opponent, Republican Bob Thomas, a Stafford supervisor since 2012 and a former Marine, emphasized his experience as an elected official and small business owner.

Both candidates have run a respectful campaign ahead of Tuesdays election for the 28th District seat representing parts of Fredericksburg and Stafford.

A key disagreement between the two is over Medicaid expansion, which Cole supports and Thomas opposes. The GOP-controlled General Assembly has blocked Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffes attempts to expand the federal health insurance program for the poor under the Affordable Care Act.

Cole, who is also a behavior aide in Richmond Public Schools, called Thomas a great guy, but added: I just fear he will be another puppet for the Republican Party.

We have too many people  who are stuck in the crux of disagreements between parties, he added.

But Thomas, who received Howells endorsement before winning a three-way GOP primary in June, said he would bring a bipartisan approach to the job. He noted that he has worked with Democrats and Republicans in his leadership role with the Virginia Association of Counties.

Ive learned a lot from Bill [Howell] in how to reach across the aisle and have those relationships, he said. Howell announced in February that he would retire after 30 years in public office, including 14 years as the speaker of the House of Delegates.

Cole criticized Republicans for trying to run the state like a business, saying they focus on cutting spending to the detriment of public schools. He said he would push to reallocate money in the state budget, but did not go into details.

The commonwealth is not a business, said Cole, who wants to increase spending for public education. [Republicans] are looking at where they can cut money instead of sending it where it needs to be sent.

He called himself a staunch advocate for increasing the states hourly minimum wage of $7.25, which he hopes will rise to around $10 by 2020.

Cole noted that any state-mandated increase could be based on a persons age or professional experience. The current minimum wage may be enough for some high-schoolers, but not a single mom with two kids, he added.

Thomas, who described himself as a policy geek, said he wants to put forward legislation allowing localities to reduce the merchants capital tax for distribution companies and wholesalers. He thinks that legislation would help Stafford attract large online distributors to property near Interstate 95.

He also said hed like to see top-to-bottom tax reform, adding: If we keep trying to do these piecemeal things  theyre so politically charged that we dont see the forest through the trees.

Thomas said he would be open to eliminating the personal property tax and other taxes he considers anti-business, but that the state would need to come up with another source of revenue for cities and counties. The only way to do that would be a comprehensive reform where we looked at something like a local income tax, he said. Currently, a public referendum is required before a locality can impose an income tax.

On Medicaid expansion, Thomas said the health care program will eventually receive more money than public schools under the current trajectory. He said he realizes theres a coverage gap for some low-income Virginians, but thinks it would be irresponsible to expand a program that needs reform.

A commission should study the issue and make recommendations, Thomas said.

Cole said he thinks some Republicans could be swayed on Medicaid expansion if Democrats pick up seats this year. Republicans, he said, should view health insurance coverage as a necessary right rather than a privilege.

In addition, Cole said he would support a transportation authority here that could impose a 3- to 5-cent increase to the gas tax, which would go toward local road improvements. Thomas has not ruled out an authority, but said he wants to have detailed discussions about the topic.

Thomas has a big fundraising advantage, having reported $166,403 in monetary donationsincluding $40,000 from Howell, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. His campaign had spent $139,909 as of Sept. 30.

Cole has reported $31,750 in donations, including $2,600 from local Democratic groups. His campaign had spent $15,592 as of Sept. 30.

Cole said he was inspired to seek office after serving as a page for the House of Delegates and former Democratic Gov. Mark Warner and as a Senate staff assistant last year. He said he thinks lawmakers are overlooking the struggles of everyday people.

My focus in Richmond  is making sure the average citizens are taken care of, Cole said.

Thomas, who owns a government contracting business, said his experience in the private and public sectors will help him get things done for the 28th District.

My time as a business leader and as a member of the Board of Supervisors has provided me with the experience and the knowledge I need to go to Richmond and help this region on day one, he said.
Both candidates for the 2nd District seat in the Virginia House of Delegates are all too familiar with backups on Interstate 95, which is why Jennifer Carroll Foy and Mike Makee consider transportation a pressing problem.

Our neighbors lose too much family time being stuck in traffic, said Foy, the Democratic nominee and a Woodbridge resident. As a daily commuter to Arlington, I know the pain of being stuck on 95.

Commuting to work has become intolerable, said Makee, the Republican candidate who lives in Stafford County and works as a government contractor. We need to leverage technology to bring the work to us.

Foy and Makee are looking to represent the mostly urban 2nd District, which covers North Stafford and eastern Prince William County. The winner will replace Republican L. Mark Dudenhefer, who gave up the statewide seat so he could run for the Garrisonville District post on the Stafford County Board of Supervisors.

Foy narrowly defeated Josh King in the June primary to win the Democratic nomination. A recount showed she won by 12 votes.

Makee became the Republican candidate in August after Laquan Austion withdrew following revelations that he claimed to have degrees from George Washington University that he hadnt earned.

While both Foy and Makee acknowledge the problems commuters face, they propose different solutions. Foy suggests taking commuters off the road by offering more public transportation, such as bringing the Metro Blue Line to Potomac Mills, getting PRTC to add bus stops in Stafford and and running VRE trains more frequently.

Makee would advocate for the federal government to rent satellite buildings in the 2nd District, which he said would save commuters time, fuel and money.

Both candidates spent their college years, not at party schools, but military academies.

Makee, 48, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and spent 20 years in the Navy. He and his family, which includes wife Katy and six children age 12 to 25, have been stationed across the country and have lived in Japan, Italy and Germany.

Foy, 36, was one of the first women of color to graduate from Virginia Military Institute in Lexington. A lifelong Virginian, she works for the Arlington Public Defenders Officer and is a foster mother who created a foundation to improve the lives of foster children and orphans.

Foy says womens health care is under attack, and she would protect Planned Parenthood funding and make sure women have access to affordable birth control and cancer screenings. She said shed also work on behalf of the 2,400 people in the 2nd District who dont have access to affordable health care because politicians refused to expand Medicaid in Virginia.

Foy said she also would make increasing teacher pay a top priority, as teachers leave Stafford and Prince William schools for higher pay elsewhere.

Likewise, Makee said quality education is one of his biggest passions. Raised by educators and the husband of a substitute teacher in Stafford, Makee would focus on promoting marketable skills such as vocational training, apprenticeships and certification training. He also wants more resources in classrooms, higher teacher pay and more focus on science, technology, engineering and math education.

Last month, Foy sent out press releases saying she was the only 2nd District candidate who had agreed to attend public forums in both counties. Makee said he had prior commitments on both dates, including the 25th reunion of his class at the Naval Academy.

According to reports compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project, Foys campaign raised $298,000 from Jan. 1 through Sept. 30 and spent $193,669, leaving her a balance of $104,334 for the final weeks of the race. Her largest donors were the House Democratic Caucus and Democratic Party of Virginia, which gave $37,838 and $26,021, respectively.

MaKee reported raising $102,812 from July 1 to Sept. 30 and spent $68,211, leaving a balance of $34,599, according to VPAP. His top donors were the House Republican Campaign Committee ($30,000) and the Republican Party of Virginia ($29,335).
EVERY FOUR years, Virginia voters statewide elect an attorney general to act as the commonwealths top lawyer and chief law-enforcement officer. The AGs role is clearly spelled out in the Virginia Constitution and statutory law: provide legal advice to the governor, state officials, and members of the General Assembly; enforce state laws and defend their constitutionality when challenged; and represent the commonwealth of Virginia in court, if necessary.

John Adamsa distant relative of former Presidents John and John Quincy Adamshas both the legal background and experience to be Virginias next attorney general.

After attending Virginia Military Institute and serving his country as a naval officer, Adams attended the University of Virginia Law School on the GI Bill. He then clerked for Judge David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, where he got real-world experience in the application of constitutional principles to the law.

After serving as assistant counsel in the White House under President George W. Bush, Adams was appointed as an assistant U.S. attorney in Richmond, where he prosecuted violent gang members under the successful Project Exile program, as well as white-collar criminals, including former Virginia Secretary of Finance John Forbes, who was convicted of stealing more than $4 million from the commonwealths tobacco settlement.

And as a partner at McGuire Woods in Richmond, Adams also obtained invaluable experience on the other side of the courtroom as a criminal defense attorney.

Most importantly, Adams understands that a good part of the attorney generals job is to keep state officials and state agencies in their laneswhich also applies to the attorney generals office. When the AG pulls out the sword instead of a shield, it cant be political, he told The Free Lance-Star.

The attorney generals job description does not include unilaterally substitute your own personal opinions for laws passed by the duly-elected members of the state legislature and signed by the governor or refuse to defend a constitutional amendment ratified by a majority of Virginia voters after taking an oath to do just that. Unfortunately, thats what Mark Herring, the current occupant of the AGs office, has done.

Although Herring is to be commended for fighting the commonwealths opioid epidemic and aggressively going after payday lenders and other fraudsters, he has occasionally strayed far outside his lane.

Even though Virginia is a right-to-work state, Herring filed an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit to force non-union workers to pay the cost of union contract negotiations. He also refused to defend a law requiring that Virginia voters present a valid photo ID at the polls. And after voting for Virginias Marriage Amendment when he was in the state Senate, Herring used his office to attack the amendment, which was passed by the legislature, signed by the governor, and ratified by 57 percent of Virginia voters in 2006.

Its unacceptable when one elected official unilaterally attempts to nullify state laws passed by the peoples elected representatives. Its even more unacceptable when that same officials job is to defend those laws.

Like many other activist state attorneys general around the nation, Herring has overstepped his bounds and politicized his office. We believe that John Adams will return the attorney generals office to its proper lane: defending the laws and the constitution of the commonwealth of Virginia.
I am impressed by the quality of progressive Democrats running for office in our area. Last year's election was a jarring wake-up call for me to pay more attention, and I am grateful that Josh Cole is running for the House of Delegates in the 28th District. We need more diversity in our leadership, as well as a delegate who will be a voice for all people in our district.

Josh works in the school system. His experience there makes him particularly sensitive to the needs of both students and teachers. He believes in a universal preschool, which would be of great benefit to students and parents. He wants to increase funding and support of the arts within the schools, as well as protect public funding.

Josh has witnessed first-hand the gross inequalities in public school funding and is taking a stand to deal with the problem. He also believes in pay increases for our teachers and paraprofessionals, because competitive pay keeps quality educators in our district.

Our future delegate believes that free college tuition for all qualified Virginia students would set our future workforce on the path to success. And he is an advocate of forgiveness of all student and parent loans taken out to finance post-secondary and vocational education.

We need Josh to improve our education system!

Josephine Kamel

Stafford
THANK YOU!

Beth revolutionized the landscape of breast cancer, said Caldwells partner in founding MET UP, fellow metster Jennie Grimes. Rather than televised, this revolution was tweeted.

The social media maven used her increasingly visible Twitter and Facebook accounts to create accountability for breast cancer organizations and pharmaceutical and insurance companies. By tweeting, posting messages on Facebook and telling her own and others personal stories  through the virtual empowerment of the patient voice, as Grimes put it  Caldwell pressured drug companies into providing medications otherwise unavailable to patients, shamed insurance companies into overturning payment denials and convinced breast cancer organizations to stop neglecting metastatic disease.

Beths own voice in her blog is rich with a combination of dark humor, vulnerability, joy, fear and the truth of living with, and dying from, metastatic breast cancer, Grimes said. Beth has shown me the importance and reach of using ones own difficult experience to make change for others, even if that change and advocacy may never directly affect you. She has forever changed me  and the cancer world  for the better.

To Dr. Corrie Painter, who with Dr. Nikhil Wagle runs the Metastatic Breast Cancer Project at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Caldwell has been a steadfast partner in everything Ive been working toward with the metastatic breast cancer community. The MBC Project is an unusual collaboration between patients and researchers that is patient- and social mediadriven. In other words, right up Caldwells alley. Not surprisingly, Caldwell was one of the first to respond when Painter put out a call for MBC patient volunteers via Twitter.

Beth has been a mentor to me and countless others, said Painter, a scientist-turned-patient-turned-advocate herself (she has a rare and aggressive cancer called angiosarcoma). She tells it as shes seen it and inspires others to question the status quo. Things dont change if they arent challenged.

Painter described the first time she met Caldwell over (naturally) a video chat.

When her face appeared, I was so happy and grateful for her willingness to help, I immediately said, THANK YOU! Painter said. And she looked at me and immediately said THANK YOU! and we both looked at each other for a moment as we recognized that same sense of urgency in each others faces.

Painter described herself as gutted at the thought of losing her friend and partner.

I never want to refer to her in the past tense, she said. I want her forever present. I will honor her always by giving everything that I am to helping others live.

A virtual vigil

Here is one measure of Caldwells impact. When it became clear that every grueling treatment she had taken to stay alive as long as possible for The Hubs, The Boy, The Girl, the friends, the community, was no longer working, the cancer warrior wrote that she had started hospice care. And, via Twitter, she lamented that she would probably die before eggnog latte season began.

And do you know what? Her hometown coffee company, Starbucks, made and delivered one of her beloved eggnog lattes to her house.

As the days passed, the tweets  mostly retweets now  slowed, then stopped. Cant breathe, she wrote on her blog on Oct. 25, then  classic  took the home oxygen tank delivery company to task for taking so long.

J Caldwell took over the updates and helped post the last entry his wife wrote for her blog:

We knew there was nothing more that could be done for me. The Hubs and I went home and cried. A lot. It felt like when we found out that I had stage 4 cancer  we went home and climbed in bed and cried and faced my death. And now we wait for my death.

The kids stayed home from school. Sisters and best friends gathered. Around the country, metsters and allies kept a virtual vigil.

The word came on the evening of Nov. 2  All Souls Day  one week and one day shy of Beth and J Caldwells 15th wedding anniversary: Beth Caldwell had passed.

She was mighty, wrote J. She is loved and was surrounded by her kith and kin and the first dog she ever owned. I held her when she went. It was a rainy autumn day in Seattle, which switched to sunshine in the afternoon, which is perfect for a native Seattleite. Safe journey, my love. #forbeth.

Epilogue: fallen trees

A former Girl Scout who volunteered as an adult until sidelined by cancer, Caldwell often recalled hiking a favorite trail where she first learned how a forest renews itself. Fallen trees become nurse logs, nurturing mosses and ferns and eventually new trees, she wrote in a September 2016 blog post. Trees became her metaphor for her metastatic community, and even as her friends fell to the disease, she strove through her grief to find a message.

The only thing that brings me any sense of meaning these days is to think of these fallen trees as nurse logs. Their memories, their lives, their children, their passions, their faces, their senses of humor, their wisdom, their spirits, their beautiful beautiful beautiful spirits are nurturing us, feeding us, giving us strength to go on, to demand change, to bring research to our friends, to fight against death death death so much death. Their falling leaves a hole in the forest canopy, but their souls are bringing new life to our movement and nutrients to keep us growing.

And someday this forest will cover the world.

Please join us in remembering Beth Caldwell on Facebook.

Memorial gifts may be made to In Memory of Beth Caldwell, a campaign created by friends of Beth at her request. All donations will go directly to support Dr. Kevin Cheung's research in metastatic breast cancer.
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A Pinch of Salt: The election is over, I think, so what now?
A 57-year-old Corvallis woman who became incapacitated by alcohol while caring for her grandson should spend 15 days in jail, a Benton County Circuit Court judge ordered Thursday.

Carla Jean Page pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal mistreatment, a felony carrying a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

In additional to jail, Page should spend three years on supervised probation, Judge David Connell decided. Page should also undergo a substance abuse evaluation and complete all recommended treatment, the judge ordered.

Page appeared in court out of custody and is expected to turn herself into the jail later this month. David Corden represented Page in court.

According to a Corvallis police officers report, Page was caring for her 6-year-old grandson in August 2016 when the boys mother returned to the home to find Page unresponsive. The woman called for an ambulance and Page was taken to Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, the report states. Nurses there told police Page was suffering from alcohol withdrawals and had methamphetamine in her system, according to the report.

Page declined to comment during the hearing. The judge advised Page not to have any unlawful contact with the victim.
This log includes incidents in which there might have been a public disturbance or a risk to the public. Information comes from the Corvallis Police Department, the Benton County Sheriffs Office and the Oregon State Police. It does not include all calls for service. The status of incidents might change after further investigation. Locations are approximate. People arrested or suspected in crimes are considered innocent until proven otherwise.

Corvallis Police Department

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1

ASSAULT: Police arrested Heidi June Honeycutt, 33, of Corvallis, for fourth-degree assault. A woman had reported to police on Oct. 2 that she was leaving work when Honeycutt walked up to her and started punching her in the face. The fight stopped when a passer-by said they were calling police. Honeycutt reportedly left the area prior to police arriving.

CAR THEFT: 1:15 p.m., Northwest 23rd Street and Northwest Harrison Boulevard, Corvallis. A woman called to report she saw a man attempt to open her car door. Police searched the area but did not find the suspect.

DRUGS: 9 p.m., 1300 block of Northwest Ninth Street, Corvallis. An employee at Jacksons Food Store reported they believed a woman had used drugs in the bathroom. The woman was in the bathroom for 30 minutes and after she left, the employee found tin foil and bloody paper towels in the garbage. The stores video surveillance also captured the woman stealing snack bars from the store. Police were not able to identify the suspect.

DUII: 11:47 p.m., Northwest Sixth Street and Northwest Tyler Avenue, Corvallis. Police responded for a report of a car stuck on the railroad tracks. The driver, Joanna Dunn, 35, reportedly told police she did not see the tracks while turning onto Sixth Street from Polk Avenue. Police arrested Dunn for driving under the influence of intoxicants. Dunn reportedly had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.12 percent.
DETROIT  A certified pre-owned vehicle costs more than a regular used car, but it can give buyers some peace of mind in an often murky market.

Certified pre-owned vehicles are used cars that are backed by an automakers guarantee. Theyre usually newer cars, coming off two- or three-year leases. Certified pre-owned programs limit the miles the cars can have on them  under 60,000, in many cases  and put the cars through a rigorous inspection. They come with extended warranties and, sometimes, extra perks like roadside assistance or a satellite radio subscription.

If I want a car that hasnt been abused, this is one of the best ways to avoid all that guesswork, says Matt Jones, senior editor of consumer advice for the car shopping site Edmunds.com.

Certified pre-owned programs have been growing in popularity as the supply of used cars balloons in the U.S. New vehicle sales have risen for seven straight years and as many as a third of those vehicles were leased. That has left automakers with a steady stream of two- or three-year-old vehicles with limited mileage that are ideal for certified pre-owned programs.

U.S. certified pre-owned sales grew by 61 percent to 2.6 million between 2010 and 2016, according to Cox Automotive. Still, they only made up a fraction of the 28.7 million used cars sold by franchised and independent dealers last year.

Certified pre-owned status generally adds 6 to 8 percent to the price of the car, or between $1,000 and $1,500, Jones said. A Ford dealer in Michigan is currently advertising a certified pre-owned 2014 Ford Edge SEL with 22,748 miles on it for $21,943. A CarMax dealer in Maryland is offering a non-certified pre-owned 2014 Edge SEL, with 33,000 miles, for $1,044 less. By comparison, a new 2017 Edge SEL starts at $31,790.

For the extra cost, factory-trained mechanics will perform 150-, 160- or even 180-point inspections of the vehicle, which is usually less than five or six years old. Among other things, theyll check for any outstanding recalls and make those repairs.

After that, what you get depends on the brand. Automakers may include whatever is left over from the original powertrain warranty, which covers the engine and transmission, along with a shorter bumper-to-bumper warranty, which covers the engine as well as interior parts like the infotainment system or air conditioning. Roadside assistance is often included for at least some period of time. Some manufacturers charge a $50 to $100 deductible for repairs while the car is under warranty; others dont. Buick offers three months worth of OnStar and lets buyers return the car within three days if theyre not happy.

Dealers pay automakers a fee to certify a used vehicle. Kia, for example, gets $450 for every certified pre-owned vehicle sold, says Maria Williams, a senior certified pre-owned retail support manager with Kia. Whats more, she says, Kia is getting a relationship with buyers who will keep coming back to the dealership for service. In 2016, 47 percent of buyers who returned to the car market after owning a certified pre-owned Kia bought a new Kia, she says, based on data from the consulting firm R.L. Polk. That rate dropped to 33 percent among owners of a non-certified pre-owned used Kia.

Here are some things to think about if youre shopping for a certified pre-owned vehicle:

DECIDE IF ITS WORTH IT

Experts are split on this one. Jones, who owns a certified pre-owned vehicle, says a certified pre-owned vehicle is worth the extra cost because youre getting a higher quality car and the promise of less hassle. Dealers are also more willing to deal on a certified pre-owned car, he says, because theyve already paid the automaker to get it certified. But Consumer Reports advises against getting a certified pre-owned vehicle. The magazine says certified pre-owned cars may not be in any better shape than any other low-mileage used car and buyers are better off pocketing the $1,500 or so and saving it for repairs or putting it toward a new car. Consumer Reports says shoppers considering a used car should have it inspected by a trusted independent mechanic before they buy.

MAKE SURE ITS REALLY CERTIFIED

Certified pre-owned vehicles can only be sold by a brands franchised dealers. Independent dealers may sometimes call a vehicle certified or Carfax certified, but that doesnt mean its a manufacturer-backed program with the same quality guarantees as an officially certified vehicle. Check the details of certified pre-owned programs on automakers web sites or in dealership brochures so you know what you should be getting, and look for the certified pre-owned sticker or logo on the car.

READ THE FINE PRINT

Some certified pre-owned programs are more generous than others. Kia certified pre-owned buyers, for example, get whatever is left of the cars 10-year, 100,000-mile powertrain warranty, plus an additional year or 12,000 miles of bumper-to-bumper coverage. Honda certified pre-owned buyers get a similar deal, but the original warranty is for seven years and 100,000 miles. Lexus offers a two-year full warranty with unlimited mileage, a great perk for drivers who drive a lot of miles. Porsche will certify vehicles that are up to 8 years old, as long as they have low enough mileage. Familiarize yourself with the terms for the brands youre interested in and see what might work best for you.
Learn the facts

To the Editor: Last Thursday I attended the third Town Hall meeting presented by the Mayors Committee for St. Pauls. The subject was different types of demolition. This series of...

Penny wise; pound foolish

To the Editor: All must exercise patience until the Board is satisfied that the candidate Westerman Co. is the right choice to be cost estimator, or another company is chosen,...

Honoring our veterans

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Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
Organizer aims to be climate friendly : Bonn shines for three days

Bonn Bonns inner city will be colorfully illuminated this weekend as Bonn shines takes place once again this year. Organizers are working with climate protection experts to keep it as climate friendly as possible.

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Bonn shines once again. According to the organizers, the initiative from City Marketing Bonn is going to be even more beautiful and extravagant than it has been in recent years, and it will focus on climate neutrality in the wake of the World Climate Change Conference.

From Friday, November 3 until Sunday, November 5, buildings and public squares in the city center will be bathed in a colorful sea of lights. As night falls, the Old Town Hall, the Beethoven House and the sculpture by Tony Cragg on Remigiusplatz will be illuminated in a lighting design by Wolfgang Flamersheim. Added to the lights, on the stage in front of the Old Town Hall, acrobatic clowns will be juggling with fire, and at Marktplatz, the Cologne Adventure Museum Odysseum will host a quiz show.

Street food market on the Munsterplatz

For the first time, in addition to the well-known Euromarche on Munsterplatz, there will also be a street food market there. About 30 food trucks will be offering international dishes. Because the World Climate Change Conference takes place in Bonn this year, City Marketing also wanted to set an example and has been working together with the local climate protection expert Cool.

Together, they determined in advance the carbon footprint which will be left by all those involved in the festival. "It's never possible to avoid all emissions, but one can reduce them," says Ekelhof, stressing that this could be offset by a financial contribution for climate protection projects.

A highlight of the three-day lighting extravaganza will be the "illuminated underwater worlds" in the Kaiserpassage. Each day, visitors will have the opportunity to choose from an extensive documentary program about oceans between 5 and 11 pm. Light installations will turn the shop windows into a sea of light, and songs of whales will be heard.
Skoda Greenline: Auf Sparsamkeit getrimmt

Der Fabia ist unter den Greenline-Modellen mit 3,4 Liter Diesel auf 100 km der Sparmeister. Foto: Werksfoto

Beim Preis-Leistungs-Verhaltnis machen Skoda-Modelle von jeher eine gute Figur. Jetzt sind sie auch noch besonders umweltfreundlich unterwegs.

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Beim Preis-Leistungs-Verhaltnis machen Skoda-Modelle von jeher eine gute Figur. Jetzt sind sie auch noch besonders umweltfreundlich unterwegs. Die tschechische Volkswagen-Tochter hat namlich fur alle funf Baureihen je eine Version auf auerste Sparsamkeit getrimmt und sie mit dem Namenszusatz "Greenline" gekennzeichnet.

Bereits seit 2008 konnten die Modelle Fabia, Roomster, Octavia und Superb mit verbrauchsmindernder Technik geordert werden. In der zweiten Greenline-Generation prasentieren sich daruber hinaus jetzt auch das SUV Yeti und das Flaggschiff Superb Combi als besonders kraftstoffeffizient.

Alle Greenline-Varianten sind mit mindestens sechs Airbags, Klimaanlage, Audioanlage mit CD- und MP3-Player, Bordcomputer sowie Leichtmetallfelgen ausgestattet; bei Octavia und Superb sind auerdem auch Lederlenkrad und Parksensoren serienmaig. Die Preise reichen von 16 980 Euro fur den Fabia Greenline bis zum 27 950 Euro teuren Superb Combi Greenline.

"Greenline" kombiniert verschiedene Modifikationen an Fahrzeug und Antriebsstrang und entspricht dem, was bei VW "Blue Motion" und bei der spanischen Schwester Seat "Ecomotive" heit.

Als wichtigste Manahme sind die Sparmodelle mit einer Start-Stopp-Automatik ausgestattet, die den Motor immer dann abschaltet, wenn der Fahrer vor einer roten Ampel, an einer Bahnschranke oder im Stau in den Leerlauf schaltet. Das Triebwerk wird wieder gestartet, sobald die Kupplung getreten wird. Das System arbeitet erfreulich direkt; Verbrauchssenkungen um bis zu 0,8 Liter im Stadtverkehr sollen damit moglich sein.

Daruber hinaus verfugen die Oko-Varianten uber ein System zur Bremsenergie-Ruckgewinnung, rollwiderstandsarme Reifen und eine Schaltempfehlung. Der hochste Gang des manuellen Funfganggetriebes ist besonders lang ubersetzt. Zusatzlich wurden aerodynamische Optimierungen an Karosserie und Unterboden sowie eine Anpassung des Motorsteuergerates vorgenommen.

Die Greenline-Technik ist an zwei direkteinspritzende Turbodiesel-Motoren aus dem Volkswagen-Regal mit 1,2 und 1,6 Liter Hubraum gekoppelt. In den Modellen Fabia, Fabia Combi und Roomster kommt der 1,2-Liter-Dreizylinder mit 55 kW/75 PS zum Einsatz, dessen maximales Drehmoment von 180 Nm bei 2 000 U/min erreicht wird. Damit mutieren Fabia und Fabia Combi zu absoluten Sparmeistern mit einem Normverbrauch von nur 3,4 Litern Diesel je 100 Kilometer bei 89 Gramm CO2-Aussto pro Kilometer; sie sind noch einmal deutlich verbrauchsgunstiger als in der ersten Generation.

Die vom Fabia abgeleitete Hochdachversion Roomster gonnt sich in der Greenline-Version im kombinierten Verbrauch 4,2 Liter Kraftstoff je 100 Kilometer (109 g CO2/km). Mit dem 1,6-Liter-Vierzylinder sind die Greenline-Versionen von Octavia und Superb - jeweils als Limousine und Combi - sowie der frontgetriebene Yeti besonders sparsam unterwegs. Das Aggregat leistet 77 kW/105 PS und stellt sein bestes Drehmoment von 250 Nm zwischen 1 500 und 2 500 U/min zur Verfugung.

Wie der kleinere Motor harmoniert auch der groe Selbstzunder gut mit den Sparmodellen und ist ausreichend durchzugsstark, wenn auch nicht besonders leise. Selbst der 4,84 Meter lange und immerhin 1,5 Tonnen schwere Superb Combi wirkt mit dem 77 kW-Aggregat nicht untermotorisiert.

Wie die Limousinen-Variante konsumiert er im kombinierten Verbrauch lediglich 4,4 Liter Diesel je 100 Kilometer, die CO2-Emissionen liegen bei nur 114 g/km - beeindruckend fur ein Fahrzeug dieser Klasse. Dabei ist der tschechische Lademeister mit einer Hochstgeschwindigkeit von 190 km/h durchaus flott unterwegs und beschleunigt in 12,6 Sekunden auf 100 km/h.

Noch umweltschonender prasentiert sich der kompakte Octavia Greenline. Er wartet mit einem durchschnittlichen Kraftstoffverbrauch von nur 3,8 Liter je 100 Kilometer und 99 g CO2/km auf, der Kombi kommt auf 4,2 Liter und 109 g/km. Von null bis 100 km/h vergehen 11,4 Sekunden, maximal 192 km/h sind moglich.

Beim Fahrverhalten fordert die grune Vernunft kaum Kompromisse. Der genugsame 1,6-Liter-Selbstzunder mit Turboaufladung und Direkteinspritzung zieht muhelos an und erlaubt eine ruckfreie, leicht untertourige Fahrweise.

Einen neuen Bestwert in seinem Segment markiert auch der Yeti Greenline. Ihn gibt es nur als Fronttriebler mit einer um funfundzwanzig Millimeter reduzierten Bodenfreiheit. Trotz groer Stirnflache begnugt sich das kompakte SUV im Normverbrauch mit 4,6 Liter Diesel je 100 Kilometer (119 g CO2/km).
Protest action in advance of conference : Court says no to bicycle demonstration on the A 555

BONN A Cologne court has ruled against an autobahn bicycle demonstration on Saturday but there will still be plenty of protestors in Bonn this weekend. Police advise avoiding the B9 and Reuterstrae for part of Saturday. Postbank will close its city branch as a precaution.

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A Cologne court has ruled against allowing a bicycle demonstration to take place on the A 555 autobahn this Saturday. The court noted that there is a high volume of traffic on the stretch of the autobahn from Wesseling to Bonn-North, even on Saturdays. Uwe Hisksch of the group Naturfreunden (Friends of Nature) had sought permission to register the demonstration, and said they wanted to appeal the decision to a higher court.

"We are hopeful that we will be given the right. It's important to get as much attention as we can. We need a fundamentally different transportation policy. For this, it is necessary to demonstrate on location," said Hiksch. The development of motorways is in conflict with climate goals.

In addition to Naturfreunden, BUND, Greenpeace, the Nabu, German Watch and the ADFC (bike club) are among the other protesters. They demand an exit from the coal industry. The anti-globalization network Attac and the conservation group Robin Wood are also supporting the demonstration.

Max Matta, who organized the participants from the ADFC in Bonn, said they would meet on Saturday morning to make their way to the starting point of the demonstration in Cologne. "We expect at least 100 participants, and maybe more cyclists from Belgium and the United Kingdom to join in," he said.

Meanwhile, the Postbank announced it would close its branch at Munsterplatz this Saturday and on November 11 because of the planned demonstrations on both days. "Due to the central location of the Postbank branch, this will be closed as a precautionary measure for security reasons and for the protection of customers and employees," said spokesman Tim Rehkopf.

On November 4 at 1 pm, around 9,000 demonstrators are expected at Munsterplatz in Bonn city center, the bicyclists would join at around 2:30 pm. Police advise motorists to avoid the B9 and Reuterstrae between 1:30 and 3 pm.
Dacia Duster: Fur kuhle Rechner

Aufgeraumt und ubersichtlich prasentiert sich das Cockpit des Dacia Duster.

Auf die Groe kommt es eben doch an. Mit bulligen Kompakt-SUV wie dem Dacia Duster lasst sich Eindruck schinden, in diesem Fall sogar ohne viel Geld investieren zu mussen. Der kaum gebrauchte Allradantrieb wird einfach auf die Optionsliste verfrachtet.

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Ein Abenteurer steckt in jedem Menschen. Das passende Gefahrt fur den Grostadt-Cowboy: der Dacia Duster. Das rumanische Kompakt-SUV macht mit seiner markant-wuchtigen Optik einen auf Gelandeganger, der den unbandigen Freiheitsdrang eines jeden Betrachters uber Stock und Stein weckt. Da er in der Praxis genauso wie seine Artgenossen jedoch eher durch asphaltierte Straenschluchten als querfeldein fahrt, gibt es Allradantrieb nur als Option. Der Preis bleibt dadurch niedrig.

Mit einer ordentlichen Bodenfreiheit, knappen Uberhangen und deutlich erkennbarem Unterfahrschutz scheint zumindest optisch kein Hindernis gro genug zu sein, den kompakten Rumanen zu stoppen. Er folgt damit einem Trend, den andere Hersteller mit Modellen wie dem Skoda Yeti, dem Toyota RAV4 oder dem VW Tiguan bereits erfolgreich beschritten haben. Ob es dann tatsachlich auch abseits befestigter Straen reicht, wird in der Praxis eher selten ausprobiert.

Aufgeraumt gibt sich der kostenoptimiert gestaltete Innenraum. Keine groen Uberraschungen erwarten den Fahrer, sobald er seinen hohen, aber kaum konturierten und recht weichen Sitz erklommen hat. Die ubersichtlichen Instrumente sind intuitiv bedienbar.

Einzige Ausnahme stellt in bewahrter Dacia-Manier die Scheibenwischanlage dar: Durch Ziehen des Hebels spritzt das Wasser auf die Frontscheibe. Um den Durchblick zu behalten, muss jedoch zusatzlich der Scheibenwischer aktiviert werden, um das Frontfenster wieder vom Wasser zu befreien. Doch mit etwas Ubung gelingt auch dies einigermaen problemlos.

Einfacher gelingt der Familienausflug mit Kind und Kegel. Der Platz ist auf beiden Vordersitzen und auf der Ruckbank recht uppig bemessen. Grogewachsene Menschen haben weder vorn noch hinten Probleme mit einem zu niedrigen Dach, nur die Kopfstutzen konnten eine Spur weiter ausfahrbar sein, um optimalen Ruckhalt zu bieten. Der Kofferraum schluckt viel Gepack, so dass die Reise in den Skiurlaub ebenso moglich ist wie der Groeinkauf im Mobelgeschaft. Nur die SUV-typische hohe Ladekante erschwert die Beladung ein wenig.

Fur die Motorisierung stehen Aggregate aus dem Mutterhaus Renault zur Auswahl. Wer viel fahrt, kommt um den starksten Selbstzunder im Sortiment nicht umhin. Der Turbo-Vierzylinder mit Commonrail-Direkteinspritzung schopft 79 kW/107 PS aus 1,5 Litern Hubraum, was fur die gemutliche Ausflugsfahrt genugt. Unter einem bestandigen Dieselnageln und mit leichten Vibrationen am Lenkrad geht es gemachlich von der Kreuzung los.

Unspektakular verlauft die Reise durch den Grostadtdschungel und uber die Autobahn. Nur bei Unebenheiten auf dem Fahrbahnbelag federt das Kompakt-SUV hart und die Insassen werden ordentlich durchgeschuttelt. In der Kurve druckt der Rumane und neigt sich bei einer Hohe von 1,63 Meter recht stark.

Eine Bewahrungsprobe ist das Einparken in der Stadt: Die Lenkung ist leichtgangig, die breite D-Saule zum Heck hin erschwert jedoch jegliches Rangieren. Verwohnte Autofahrer durfte dies das Grauen lehren, zumal es keine Komfortdetails wie Einparksensoren gibt - nicht mal auf der Optionsliste. Kommt das Fahrzeug anschlieend zur Ruhe, zeigt sich ein durchschnittlicher Verbrauch: 7,0 Liter Diesel auf 100 km nennt der Bordcomputer. Das sind 1,7 Liter uber der Norm, die neben Dacia auch VW fur seinen ahnlich motorisierten Tiguan ausgegeben hat.

Unschlagbar ist der Preis. Der frontgetriebene Top-Diesel ist ab 15 690 Euro zu haben. Alles, was nicht unbedingt notig ist, gibt es wenn uberhaupt als Option. Neben dem mit 1 800 Euro aufpreispflichtigen Allradantrieb trifft dies beispielsweise auf den Schleuderschutz ESP zu, der 300 Euro extra kostet.

Der Dacia Duster lasst zumindest in der Allradversion auch den einen oder anderen Ausflug ins Gelande zu. Fotos: Werksfoto zuruck

weiter
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.
felicilin at 3-11-2017 04:25 PM (5 years ago) (f)

A video clip showing the sad moment a team of Zambian police and immigration officials teargassed and forced an Omega Fire Ministries pastor out of his home in Zambia alongside his pregnant wife has been revealed.

A video clip showing the sad moment a team of Zambian police and immigration officials teargassed and forced an Omega Fire Ministries pastor out of his home in Zambia alongside his pregnant wife has been revealed. Pastor Augustine Oso Ebosele who leads the church in Zambia was accosted by immigration officials at his home where he locked himself from being deported.

Zambian government accused the pastor of overstaying in the country after the expiration of his four-year work permit in June. However, instead of renewing the permit, the Zambian immigration authorities gave the pastor four months extension to wind up his activities and leave for allegedly preaching against the President of the country.

According to the Zambian Observer, Oboseles quit notice comes on the heels of the Senior Pastor and General Overseer of Omega Fire Ministries International, Apostle Suleman, claim that Zambia is one of the nations in the world that deports Nigerians through Zambianisation to take over their successful massive investments.

He alleged that Nigerian churches that are growing including his own with branches in Chingola, Ndola and Livingstone are being targeted to remove pastors sent by him.

The Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services who is also Chief government spokesperson, Kampamba Mulenga, described the allegations as baseless.

She said Zambia has not closed Omega Fire Ministries and is not against Nigerian Pastors, adding that Omega Fire Ministries Headquarters in Auchi, Nigeria is free to send a senior pastor to come and help reconcile the membership in Lusaka.



The cleric claimed he is being targeted by government officials for refusing to pay K30,000 bribe to facilitate his stay.

He said that he had presented tangible evidence of corruption to both the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Ministry of Religious and National Guidance but that it was largely ignored.

The cleric also alleged that some expelled members of his church had reported falsehoods about him to the ministry, which they investigated but did not find any fault.

I got a call from one man from Religious Affairs. This man can call thirty times in one minute, I dont know how much they gave him. I went to the office to see him at his office, there he accused me of a lot and lots of things.

From there he told me that I needed to cooperate with him because my deportation order is already on his table. He said if I dont cooperate he would have me deported and I should give him K30, 000, to which I questioned whether it was his ministry that deported people, he told Lusaka Times.

Pastor Obosele said that when his documents were up for renewal, he submitted to the Immigration but that he had found it difficult as was promised to get his papers cleared.

Apostle Johnson Suleman in his reaction as warned the Zambian government that they are playing with fire as the government's action is capable of incurring God's wrath.



Pastor Augustine Oso Ebosele who leads the church in Zambia was accosted by immigration officials at his home where he locked himself from being deported.Zambian government accused the pastor of overstaying in the country after the expiration of his four-year work permit in June. However, instead of renewing the permit, the Zambian immigration authorities gave the pastor four months extension to wind up his activities and leave for allegedly preaching against the President of the country.According to the Zambian Observer, Oboseles quit notice comes on the heels of the Senior Pastor and General Overseer of Omega Fire Ministries International, Apostle Suleman, claim that Zambia is one of the nations in the world that deports Nigerians through Zambianisation to take over their successful massive investments.He alleged that Nigerian churches that are growing including his own with branches in Chingola, Ndola and Livingstone are being targeted to remove pastors sent by him.The Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services who is also Chief government spokesperson, Kampamba Mulenga, described the allegations as baseless.She said Zambia has not closed Omega Fire Ministries and is not against Nigerian Pastors, adding that Omega Fire Ministries Headquarters in Auchi, Nigeria is free to send a senior pastor to come and help reconcile the membership in Lusaka.The cleric claimed he is being targeted by government officials for refusing to pay K30,000 bribe to facilitate his stay.He said that he had presented tangible evidence of corruption to both the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Ministry of Religious and National Guidance but that it was largely ignored.The cleric also alleged that some expelled members of his church had reported falsehoods about him to the ministry, which they investigated but did not find any fault.he told Lusaka Times.Pastor Obosele said that when his documents were up for renewal, he submitted to the Immigration but that he had found it difficult as was promised to get his papers cleared.Apostle Johnson Suleman in his reaction as warned the Zambian government that they are playing with fire as the government's action is capable of incurring God's wrath.

Post Reply Posted: at 3-11-2017 04:25 PM (5 years ago) | Hero
PERTH, Australia, Nov. 02, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

Location of the Yaoure Gold Project



Yaoure Gold Project layout



Yaoure Gold Project  Processing Flowsheet



Yaoure Gold Project  Major Infrastructure



Yaoure Gold Project - Scheduled monthly material movement (M tonnes) by cutback



Yaoure Gold Project  Monthly vertical rate of mining advance by cutback



Yaoure Gold Project  Annual tonnes and grade to mill



Yaoure Gold Project  Annual Gold Production by Source





NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

Perseus Mining Ltd. (Perseus or the Company) (TSX:PRU) (ASX:PRU) has completed the Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) for its Yaoure Gold Project in Cote dIvoire, West Africa, which has confirmed the high quality of the project, demonstrating that:

Yaoure generates attractive economics at a range of gold prices and discount rates:

Gold Price

(US$/Oz) IRR1

(%) Payback

(Months) NPV 5 NPV 10 US$ m A$/sh US$ m A$/sh 1,200 23 35 210 0.26 130 0.16 1,250 27 32 259 0.33 170 0.21 1,300 30 30 302 0.38 205 0.26

1 After tax, ungeared

Yaoure is technically very robust and is based on an estimated Ore Reserve of 26.8 Mt of ore grading 1.76g/t gold containing 1.52 million ounces of gold.

Technical Parameters Annual Average

Years 1-5 Total Life

of Mine2 Ore mined Mt 4.61 26.81 Strip ratio t:t 5.4:11 5.1:11 Ore processed Mt 3.3 26.8 Head grade g/t gold 2.27 1.76 Gold recovery rate % 90.1 90.1 Gold production 000 ounces 215 1,367 Unit Operating Costs Production costs US$/oz 670 690 Royalty US$/oz 44 44 Sustaining capital US$/oz 20 25 Average All-in site costs US$/oz 734 759

1 Includes ore mined ex-pit plus ore drawn from decommissioned heap leach pads

2 Total mine life is 8.5 years

Development of Yaoure is well within Perseuss funding capacity using internally generated cash from its Edikan and Sissingue Gold Mines combined with an amount of bank debt to fund the up-front development cost of US$263 million that includes US$11 million of pre-stripping costs.



Yaoure has good potential for growth, being located on a very prospective tenement package that provides significant potential to incrementally expand Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves and rapidly extend expected mine life through further drilling in and around the planned pits as well as systematic exploration of the surrounding 513 square km land holding.



Yaoure is highly likely to create the significant value envisaged by Perseus when the project was studied in detail prior to its acquisition in April 2016.





Overview

The Yaoure Gold Project is located in a rural area on the southern edge of Lake Kossou, 35 km north-west of the capital Yamoussoukro and 25 km east-north-east of the city of Bouafle in central Cote dIvoire, West Africa. The Kossou hydroelectric power station is 6 km east of the Project. The villages of Angovia and Allahou-Bazi are adjacent to the mine site.

Figure 1 accompanying this announcement is available at:



http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a1066807-6b2f-4500-8966-0e57be7a5eae

The Project is comprised of two adjacent open pits (CMA and Yaoure). Ore will also be sourced from three pre-existing heap leach pads close to the ROM pad. Ore will be transported to the adjacent processing plant and waste will be taken to a single, large waste dump between the pits and the adjacent villages. Tailings from the process plant will be stored in a single facility to the south of the process plant. A camp will be constructed for the non-local workforce, with the majority of the workforce expected to come from the five local communities.

Figure 2 accompanying this announcement is available at:

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7a1a011c-18b5-43e2-8932-eb116dfadcd4

Based on the mining and processing schedules, the key forecast operating statistics for Yaoure are summarised below.

Mining cost estimates are based on a competitive Request for Quotation involving five mining contractors currently operating in West Africa.

Recoveries and processing costs have been estimated based on a comprehensive metallurgical test work program. G&A and other costs are based on very recent experience at Perseuss other mines in West Africa, namely Edikan in Ghana and Sissingue in Cote dIvoire, as well as from quotes specifically received for the Yaoure Project.

Overall, the capital and operating cost estimate has been prepared to an accuracy of approximately +-15%.

Table 1: Overview Key Parameters



Units Average per year Total Mining Years 1-5 Life of Mine Total ore + waste mined Mt 29.5 164.01 Waste mined Mt 24.9 137.21 Ore mined Mt 4.6 26.81 Mined grade g/t gold 1.92 1.761 Strip ratio t:t 5.4:1 5.1:11 Processing Quantity ore processed Mt 3.3 26.8 Head grade processed g/t gold 2.27 1.76 Contained gold Kozs 239 1,518 Gold recovery rate % 90.1 90.1 Gold production Kozs 215 1,367 Units Average per year Total Operating Costs Years 1-5 Life of Mine Average mining costs US$/tonne mined 3.202 3.312 Average processing costs US$/tonne processed 11.66 11.97 Average general & administration costs US$/tonne processed 3.49 3.45 Production costs US$/oz 670 690 Royalty3 US$/oz 44 44 Sustaining capital US$/oz 20 25 All-in site costs US$/oz 734 759

1 Includes all ore and waste mined ex-pit plus ore drawn from Heap Leach pads.

2 Excludes pre-strip costs.

3 Assumed gold price of US$1,250/oz.

The estimated development capital cost is US$262.7 million.

Table 2: Development Capital Cost

Area Cost Excluding Contingency Contingency Total Cost US$ M US$ M US$ M Distributables 26.2 3.2 29.4 Treatment Plant 69.7 7.5 77.2 Reagents & Services 9.9 1.4 11.3 Infrastructure 49.2 4.8 54.0 Mining 17.9 0.2 18.11 Management 17.7 1.9 19.6 Owners Costs 48.3 4.8 53.1 Total 238.9 23.8 262.7

1 Includes US$11.0 million of pre-stripping costs

Mineral Resources

Yaoures Indicated Mineral Resource at 2 November 2017 is estimated at 43.1 million tonnes grading 1.39 g/t gold and containing 1.93 million ounces of gold at a cut-off grade of 0.4g/t.

A further 46 million tonnes of material grading at 1.0 g/t gold and containing a further 1.5 million ounces of gold is classified as Inferred Resources. Table 3 reports the Mineral Resources by category, deposit and type. The classification categories of Indicated and Inferred under the JORC Code are equivalent to the CIM categories of the same name (CIM, 2010).

Table 3: Yaoure Mineral Resources  2 November 2017

Deposit Deposit

Type Indicated Resources Inferred Resources Quantity Grade Gold Quantity Grade Gold Mt g/t gold Moz Mt g/t gold Moz CMA Open Pit 24.8 1.81 1.44 16 1.2 0.6 Yaoure Open Pit 16.5 0.81 0.43 30 0.9 0.9 Sub-Total Open Pit 41.3 1.41 1.9 46 1.0 1.5 Heap Leach4 Stockpile 1.8 1.02 0.06 Total 43.1 1.39 1.93 46 1.0 1.5

Depleted for previous mining. 0.4g/t gold cut-off applied to in situ open pit material In situ resources constrained to US$1,800/oz pit shell Heap leach resources are stated at 0.0g/t gold cut-off if the average grade of the heap component is above 0.4g/t Mineral Resources are inclusive of Ore Reserves Numbers are rounded

3. Ore Reserves

The Ore Reserve is based on the Yaoure Mineral Resources as at 2 November 2017 and pit optimisation, design and scheduling of the resources. All Ore Reserves are reported in accordance with the JORC Code. The following Table reports the Ore Reserves by category, deposit and type, above variable cut-off grades. The classification categories of Proved and Probable under the JORC Code are equivalent to the CIM categories of the same name (CIM, 2010).

Probable Ore Reserves are located within the economic limits of two adjoining open pits that have been designed based on Indicated Mineral Resources that incorporated all available Resource in-fill drilling results, a gold price of US$1,200/oz and mining, processing and general and administration costs derived from a combination of Perseuss operating experience at Edikan and Sissingue, as well as Yaoure specific test work, studies and quotations.

The CMA and Yaoure Ore Reserves are based on Mineral Resources estimated using Multiple Indicator Kriging techniques.

Ore Reserves contained in decommissioned heap leach pads created by prior owners of the Yaoure Mining Leases have been included in the Ore Reserve estimate.

Table 4: Yaoures Proved and Probable Ore Reserves as at 2 November 2017

Deposit Deposit

Type Proved Probable Proved + Probable Quantity Grade Gold Quantity Grade Gold Quantity Grade Gold Mt g/t gold Moz Mt g/t gold Moz Mt g/t gold Moz CMA Open Pit - - - 20.7 1.97 1.31 20.7 1.97 1.31 Yaoure Open Pit - - - 4.7 1.04 0.15 4.7 1.04 0.15 Sub-Total Open Pit - - - 25.3 1.80 1.47 25.3 1.80 1.47 Heap Leach6 Stockpile - - - 1.4 1.14 0.05 1.4 1.14 0.05 Total - - - 26.8 1.76 1.52 26.8 1.76 1.52

Numbers are rounded All the estimates are on a dry tonne basis Based on November 2017 Mineral Resource estimate Variable gold cut-off grade based on material type Inferred Mineral Resource is treated as mineralised waste Heap Leach refers to decommissioned heap leach pads established by prior owners of Yaoure

4. Open Pit Mining

The chosen method for the Open Pit Reserves is conventional open pit mining utilising hydraulic excavators and trucks. In ore, mining bench heights are 5m with 2.5m flitches to minimise ore loss and waste rock dilution. Waste blocks adjacent to ore are mined on 5m benches, while waste more distant to ore is mined on 10m benches.

During the DFS a competitive Request for Quotation involving five mining contractors currently operating in West Africa was completed. The equipment selected by the mining contractors consisted of 24-30, 100 tonne class trucks and a combination of 100-140 tonne excavators for mining in ore and 200-300 tonne excavators for mining in bulk waste.

The ore and waste in both the CMA and Yaoure pits is of high strength (P80 UCS>200Mpa) and with relatively widely spaced fractures. Drilling and blasting will therefore be a key component to ensure adequate productivity of mining equipment and optimum fragmentation for ore processing. Closely spaced blast holes and high powder factors have been adopted to ensure that both mining and processing productivity and cost estimates are optimised.

Processing Plant and Infrastructure

The process plant will be comprised of a primary crusher with a 6MW SAG mill and a 6MW ball mill, pebble crushing and a gravity and CIL circuit with cyanide detoxification.

The ore is particularly hard and careful consideration was given to the design of the comminution circuit in conjunction with the mine drilling and blasting. The optimum grind size of 75m was determined from extensive metallurgical test work at a range of grind sizes to optimise cost and recovery. Power will be supplied off the national grid from the nearby sub-station at Kossou via a dedicated 225kV power line. Water will be supplied from a combination of pit dewatering, bores and extraction from the nearby Bandama River.

A high quality dual carriageway connects the port of Abidjan to Yamoussoukro, meaning easy access to site during construction and operations. Local roads will be upgraded and/or diverted to allow for the increased traffic and infrastructure.

Figure 3 accompanying this announcement is available at:

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/53166c90-bbc6-4720-bf1b-0afe2b0de7df

Figure 4 accompanying this announcement is available at:

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/958d3e71-5f56-4cea-8fa1-b320b9cf5c5a

Mining and Processing Schedules

Based on the Ore Reserves stated above, the mining production profile for Yaoure is forecast as shown in Figure 5 below.

Ore and waste will be mined from the CMA and Yaoure pits along with a small amount of previously processed heap leach ore. The CMA pit is current backfilled with oxide waste. Total material movement from the pits is an average of 26.0 million tonnes per year and a maximum of 31.2 million tonnes per year during the period when the heap leach and CMA backfill is mined in year 1.

Mining is completed in the first 6 years of operation, with only rehandling of stockpiled ore thereafter.

During the pre-production period, 3.5 million tonnes of waste material is mined to provide construction materials. During the first 6 months of gold production, heap leach ore is fed to the mill while the pre-strip in the CMA pit is carried out. Over the following 5 years the CMA pit is mined in 3 stages, with the highest grade ore fed to the mill and medium and low grade material stockpiled. Following completion of the CMA pit, the Yaoure pit is mined and medium and then low grade ore is fed to the mill from stockpile.

Figure 5 accompanying this announcement is available at:

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/fdaac2d1-2391-4ed0-aaf8-367819a36ced

Careful consideration was given to the vertical rate of advance employed in the schedule as shown in Figure 6.



Figure 6 accompanying this announcement is available at:

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/49d40434-2e75-4190-b6c2-52c0cd0a587f

The mining strategy is aimed at maximising the return on funds employed at Yaoure and the mining sequence of the pits along with mill feed profile has been optimised and scheduled accordingly. The result of this scheduling is that the gold production profile and resulting cash flows from Yaoure are very strong over the first 5 years of production.



The processing rate is nominally 3.3 million tonnes per year over an 8.5 year mine life. The average gold production for the first 5 years of the Project is estimated at 215,000 ounces at an average head grade of 2.27g/t and an average metallurgical recovery of 90.1%. The Project is planned to recover 1.37 million ounces over the 8.5 year period.

Figure 7 accompanying this announcement is available at:

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/96069e3a-46d0-4d09-b787-f1581a564f9a

Figure 8 accompanying this announcement is available at:

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/361a1195-feca-44cb-a43b-750450989349

Financial investment metrics and sensitivity analysis

Operating Costs

Operating costs have been estimated from first principles and are based on firm quotes in the case of goods and services that are common to all three of Perseuss West African projects.

In the case of mining, costs are based on the results of a Request for Quotation which resulted in prices being offered by five reputable mining contractors currently operating in West Africa. Drill and blast costs are estimated based on testwork and analysis covering the full range of material types. Grade control costs are estimated based on Yaoure specific requirements and experience from Edikan and Sissingue.

Mining costs also include an allowance for mining costs incurred by the owners operating team as well as costs relating to potential costs of a mining contractor.

Processing costs include all consumables including maintenance consumables, electricity, fuel, labour and other processing overheads.

General and Administration costs include all labour costs, Abidjan regional office costs, HR administration costs as well as all costs associated with the management of the environment, OH&S, security, government and community relations, general administration including insurances and other contracts.

Table 5: Yaoure Operating Costs

Units Average per year Total Operating Costs Years 1-5 Life of Mine Average mining costs US$/tonne mined 3.201 3.311 Average processing costs US$/tonne processed 11.66 11.97 Average general & administration (G&A) costs US$/tonne processed 3.49 3.45 Production costs US$/oz 670 690 Royalty2 US$/oz 44 44 Sustaining capital US$/oz 20 25 All-in site costs US$/oz 734 759

1Excludes pre-strip costs for construction materials. 2Assumes gold price of US$1,250/oz gold.

Capital Costs

The total capital cost of developing the Yaoure Gold Project is estimated at US$263 million, including US$252 million for the process plant and all infrastructure with an additional US$11 million for the mining pre-strip which will provide materials for construction earthworks. This sum also includes a contingency of US$24 million representing 10% of the base estimate.

Table 6: Yaoure Development Capital Costs

Component Cost

excluding Contingency

US$ million Contingency



US$ million Total Cost

Including Contingency

US$ million Distributables 26.2 3.2 29.4 Process Plant 69.7 7.5 77.2 Reagents and Services 9.9 1.4 11.3 Infrastructure 49.2 4.8 54 Mining 17.9 0.2 18.1 Management 17.7 1.9 19.6 Owners Costs 48.3 4.8 53.1 Total 238.9 23.8 262.7

Sustaining capital costs include stage lifting of the TSF, closure costs, progressive clearing, contractor demobilisation, plant modifications and an annual allowance of 5% of the direct development capital cost of the plant and infrastructure development spread over the life of the mine. The total sum estimated for Sustaining Capital is US$34.7 million which over the current life of mine equates to US$25/oz of gold produced.

Cashflow

Based on the Yaoure financial model, at a range of gold prices, the Project generates material after tax cash flows as follows:

Table 7: Yaoure Cashflow Forecasts

Gold Price



(US$/oz) Gross After Tax

Cashflow1



US$ million Net After Tax

Cashflow2 2



US$ million Cashflow (A$ per share3) Annual

Average

Years 1-5 Annual

Average

LOM 1,100 457.0 194.3 $ 0.10 $ 0.06 1,150 519.4 256.7 $ 0.11 $ 0.07 1,200 581.7 319.0 $ 0.13 $ 0.08 1,250 643.9 381.1 $ 0.14 $ 0.09 1,300 697.6 434.9 $ 0.15 $ 0.10 1,350 759.4 496.7 $ 0.16 $ 0.11 1,400 821.2 558.5 $ 0.18 $ 0.12

1 Before deducting development capital. 2 After deducting development capital. 3 Assumes A$1.00=US$0.77

Key Investment Metrics and Sensitivity analysis

At a range of gold prices and discount rates, the Yaoure Project is expected to generate the following economic outcomes:

Table 8: Sensitivity Analysis

Gold Price

(US$/oz) IRR1

(%) Payback

(Months) NPV (US$ million) NPV 5 NPV 10 1,100 15 44 111 50 1,150 19 39 160 90 1,200 23 35 210 130 1,250 27 32 259 170 1,300 30 30 302 205 1,350 33 28 351 245 1,400 36 26 400 284

1After tax, ungeared, real internal rate of return

Project Development Funding

It is envisaged that the funding required to finance the development of the Yaoure Project will be sourced from a combination of:

Internally Generated Cash flow  Perseuss Edikan and Sissingue Gold Mines are forecast to generate significant quantities of after tax cash flow at current gold prices that will be available for re-investment in the Yaoure Gold Project development.



Bank Debt  Perseus has conducted encouraging preliminary discussions with a range of international banks to determine the bank markets appetite for financing a project with Yaoures metrics located in Cote dIvoire. Based on these discussions, it is apparent that debt finance based on a 50:50 gearing ratio is available at either the Project level or at a corporate level.

The recently completed project financing of Perseuss Sissingue project has paved the way for the use of project finance as a viable funding mechanism in Francophone West Africa.

Potential exercise of warrants. Perseus currently has on issue a total of 130,554,910 warrants to subscribe for ordinary shares in Perseus at a price of A$0.44 cents per share on or before 19 April 2019. While there is no guarantee that any or all of these warrants will be exercised, if they were exercised in full, at current US$:AU$ exchange rates, this would result in additional cash totalling US$44.2 million being available to Perseus to apply to the development of Yaoure.

The cash that is potentially available from a combination of the three mechanisms referred to above exceeds the estimated capital cost of development of the Yaoure Project without any requirement for Perseus to raise additional equity finance.

In coming months as the capital cost estimate for Yaoure is firmed up through the Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) process, Perseus will engage with the banking community and firm up funding arrangements with a view to having sufficient funding in place to enable, subject to Board approval, a commitment to full scale development of the project in the December Half of 2018.

Way Forward

The next step in the way forward for the Project is to finalise all documentation associated with the Definitive Feasibility Study and NI 43-101 Technical Report. This work is expected to be complete by the end of December 2017.

Once documentation is complete, an application will be made to the Minister for Industry and Mines in Cote dIvoire for the granting of an Exploitation Permit for the development of the Project. In parallel, a Mining Convention will be negotiated with the Ivorian government setting out the legal framework for development of the Project and including a guarantee of fiscal stability from the Ivorian government for the life of the Yaoure Gold Mine.

In parallel to the above process, Perseus will undertake the FEED study to bring the costs to an accuracy of 10%, immediately after which preliminary construction works may commence. The FEED will be completed following the same proven principles as those used at Sissingue. The FEED is scheduled to be completed by mid-2018 followed by an 18 month construction period, with first gold in 2020.

The potential for addition of further Ore Reserves has been identified through conversion of Inferred Resources to Indicated Resources and conversion of near mine targets identified through sterilisation drilling. Identified sources could extend the mine life, with any additions to the Ore Reserve incorporated into the FEED study.

To discuss any aspect of this announcement, please contact:

Managing Director: Jeff Quartermaine at telephone +61 8 6144 1700 or email jeff.quartermaine@perseusmining.com; Media Relations: Nathan Ryan at telephone +61 4 20 582 887 or email nathan.ryan@nwrcommunications.com.au (Melbourne)

Caution Regarding Forward Looking Information:

This report contains forward-looking information which is based on the assumptions, estimates, analysis and opinions of management made in light of its experience and its perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors that management of the Company believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances at the date that such statements are made, but which may prove to be incorrect. Assumptions have been made by the Company regarding, among other things: the price of gold, continuing commercial production at the Edikan Gold Mine without any major disruption, development of a mine at Sissingue and/or Yaoure, the receipt of required governmental approvals, the accuracy of capital and operating cost estimates, the ability of the Company to operate in a safe, efficient and effective manner and the ability of the Company to obtain financing as and when required and on reasonable terms. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list is not exhaustive of all factors and assumptions which may have been used by the Company. Although management believes that the assumptions made by the Company and the expectations represented by such information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that the forward-looking information will prove to be accurate. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any anticipated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, among others, the actual market price of gold, the actual results of current exploration, the actual results of future exploration, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be evaluated, as well as those factors disclosed in the Company's publicly filed documents. The Company believes that the assumptions and expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things, the Companys ability to carry on its exploration and development activities, the timely receipt of required approvals, the price of gold, the ability of the Company to operate in a safe, efficient and effective manner and the ability of the Company to obtain financing as and when required and on reasonable terms. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Perseus does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Competent Person Statement

All production targets for the Yaoure Gold Project (YGP) referred to in this report are underpinned by estimated Ore Reserves which have been prepared by competent persons in accordance with the requirements of the JORC Code. The information in this report that relates to Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves for the YGP was first reported by the Company in compliance with the JORC Code 2012 and NI43-101 in a market announcement released on 2 November 2017. The Company confirms that it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affect the information in that market release and that all material assumptions underpinning those estimates and the production targets, or the forecast financial information derived therefrom, continue to apply and have not materially changed.




Vancouver, November 2, 2017 - American CuMo Mining Corp. (TSXV: MLY) (OTCQX: MLYCF) ("CuMoCo" or the "Company") announces that it will conduct a rights offering to raise gross proceeds of up to $5 million (the "Rights Offering").

The Company will issue rights (the "Rights") to existing shareholders in Canada and to eligible shareholders in the United States and in certain other jurisdictions at the close of business on the record date of November 10, 2017.

Eligible shareholders will receive one (1) Right for each common share held. Two (2) Rights will entitle the holder to subscribe for one (1) common share of the Company upon payment of the subscription price of C$0.07 per share (the "Subscription Price"). For example, a holder of 1,000 common shares will be entitled to subscribe for 500 common shares for an aggregate subscription price of C$35.00.

Shareholders who fully exercise their Rights will also be entitled to subscribe for additional shares in the Rights Offering, if available as a result of unexercised Rights prior to the Expiry Time, subject to certain limitations set out in CuMoCo's rights offering circular.

The Rights will trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol MLY.RT commencing on November 9, 2017 and until 9:00 a.m. (Vancouver time) on December 11, 2017. The Rights will expire at 2:00 p.m. (Vancouver time) on December 11, 2017 (the "Expiry Time"), after which time unexercised Rights will be void and of no value. No fractional shares will be issued.

A rights offering notice and rights certificate will be mailed to each registered shareholder of CuMoCo resident in Canada and to each eligible shareholders in the United States as at the record date. Registered shareholders who wish to exercise their Rights must forward the completed rights certificate, together with the applicable funds, to the rights agent, Computershare Trust Company of Canada, on or before the Expiry Time. Shareholders who own their shares through an intermediary, such as a bank, trust company, securities dealer or broker, will receive materials and instructions from their intermediary. Further details of the Rights Offering are contained in the Company's rights offering circular, which has been filed on SEDAR under CuMoCo's profile at www.sedar.com.

There are currently 143,214,988 common shares of the Company outstanding. If all of the Rights issued under the Rights Offering are validly exercised, an additional 71,607,494 common shares would be issued. The Company will apply the amounts raised from the Rights Offering and from other sources of funding it is currently pursuing towards the repayment of the secured convertible notes (the "IEMR Notes") due to International Energy & Mineral Resources Investment (Hong Kong) Company Limited ("IEMR HK") in the principal amounts of Cdn$1,000,000 (due with accrued interest on December 15, 2017) and US$1,500,000 (with US$597,500 (including US$97,500 of accrued interest) being due on November 25, 2017, and the remaining US$1,000,000 (with accrued interest) due on December 15, 2017), along with a penalty fee of US$300,000 (the "Penalty Fee") which IEMR HK has confirmed is due on December 15, 2017, and towards a pre-feasability study for the CuMo Project and general working capital purposes. There can be no assurance that the Company will be able to raise enough funds from the Rights Offering or from other sources of funding to repay the IEMR Notes and Penalty Fee in full prior to the due dates for payment.

This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy the securities of the Company. There shall be no offer or sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification of such securities under the laws of any such jurisdiction.

About CuMoCo

CuMoCo is focused on advancing its CuMo Project towards feasibility. CuMoCo is also advancing its newly-acquired Calida Gold project. For more information, please visit cumoco.com, idahocumo.com and cumoproject.com.

For further information, please contact:

American CuMo Mining Corporation

Shaun Dykes, President and Chief Executive Officer

Tel: (604) 689-7902

Email: info@cumoco.com

Cautionary statement regarding forward-looking information

Certain disclosures in this release constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by words such as the following: expects, plans, anticipates, believes, intends, estimates, projects, assumes, potential and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements also include reference to events or conditions that will, would, may, could or should occur, including, without limitation, details of the Rights Offering, the intended use of proceeds of the Rights Offering, and expected outcomes. In making the forward-looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied certain factors and assumptions that the Company believes are reasonable, including that the Company's permitting will proceed as expected; that the Rights Offering will be completed and will raise the expected proceeds; that the results of exploration and development activities are consistent with management's expectations and that the assumptions underlying mineral resource estimates are valid. However, the forward-looking statements in this news release are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements, including without limitation: that the Rights Offering will otherwise not be completed or will raise less than the expected proceeds; uncertainties as to the costs to completion of the rights offering; the results of exploration and development activities will not be consistent with management's expectations, the risk of unexpected variations in mineral resources, grade or recovery rates, delays in obtaining or inability to obtain required government or other regulatory approvals or financing, failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated, the risk of accidents, labor disputes, inclement or hazardous weather conditions, unusual or unexpected geological conditions, ground control problems, earthquakes, flooding and all of the other risks generally associated with the development of mining facilities and the operation of a producing mine. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company does not intend, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to, update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this new release.



###


The Opioid Epidemics Toll on State Finances

Connecticut Ends Budget Standoff

A New Type of Bond for Disasters

There's no doubt that the opioid epidemic has impacted state spending over the past decade. But putting a price tag on the crisis is difficult, mainly because states aren't specifically tracking its costs or reporting them in a comparable way. Nevertheless, a report this week by S&P Global Ratings takes a stab at quantifying those expenses.One of the ways it does this is by looking at Medicaid, which is one of the few available state-by-state measurements on the opioid crisis. The report notes that 3 in 10 nonelderly adults on Medicaid struggled with opioid addiction in 2015 -- double the rate of 2010. West Virginia, for example, told S&P analysts that the total number of substance abuse patients in its Medicaid population more than tripled in just two years to 100,209 last year.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that the provisional 2016 drug overdose death toll of 65,094 is up 19 percent from 2015. Thats more deaths in a year than the 58,000 U.S. soldiers who died during the entire Vietnam War.Beyond health care, the report says that states' efforts at breaking out opioid-related costs for social services, law enforcement and criminal justice aren't done in a way that's comparable.Additionally, the report warns that there are indirect costs. Working age populations have been the most effected. Nearly half of prime working age men not in the labor force were taking pain medication, the report says, which may be a reason for the stubbornly high percentage of the potential labor force that remains out of the workforce despite the currently low unemployment rate.As opioid death rates climb, so does the cost of combating the crisis. Kentucky, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island and West Virginia, which have recorded some of the nations highest overdose death rates, are likely to see the biggest influence on finances.All told, costs may be manageable for now, the report says, but even small increases are an unwelcome development for states straining to retain structural budget balance. Federal grants may help cushion the blow, it adds, but only to some degree.After operating for 123 days without one, Connecticut finally has a budget. Gov. Dannel Malloy this week signed a two-year, $41.3 billion state budget bill that ends the longest stalemate in the states history.The bipartisan bill has a little something for everyone. It fully funds state pensions, restores many of the cuts to the state university system, creates a new educational cost-sharing formula that provides money to all 169 cities and towns, and contains spending restrictions such as a constitutional spending cap on expenses and a bonding cap on construction projects.The budget also ends speculation -- for now -- about a potential Hartford bankruptcy by providing an additional $40 million in state aid to the struggling city.Connecticuts municipalities were left extremely vulnerable without a state budget, so having certainty for the remainder of the fiscal year is welcome news. Most important, the new budget does not pass on the annual $400 million cost of teacher pensions to municipalities, as had been threatened.But it still leaves most cities with some kind of loss, as virtually all local governments will see some reductions in state aid. Only a few -- those with the greatest economic challenges -- will see flat year-over-year state aid. It's an open question, though, whether the state will be able to fully make good on its promised aid amounts in the first place. Since new state revenue measures would have less than a year to be collected," S&P Global Ratings notes, "this may leave the state without the available resources to fully appropriate for these intergovernmental revenues."Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin called the budget a sustainable solution because, in addition to helping the city with its immediate cash flow problem, the document provides the city with a path to avoid Chapter 9 bankruptcy by calling for concessions from city employees and bondholders. Moodys Investors Service, which earlier this month had warned Hartford could soon default on its debt, says that particular danger has been avoided for now. However, says analyst Nick Lehman, Hartford continues to have very high credit risk with significant long-term structural issues that need to be addressed.Congress is considering authorizing a new type of tax-free municipal bond that would help finance localities disaster rebuilding. The Give A HAND Act was introduced this week by representatives from districts in California, Massachusetts and New Jersey. The act would codify and make permanent programs that have up to now offered ad hoc federal tax relief and rebuilding help to residents, businesses and municipalities in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster.Notably, the bill creates so-called qualified disaster area recovery bonds , a new category of permanent, tax-exempt private activity bonds that would help finance rebuilding in designated disaster areas. Private activity bonds are tax-exempt and issued by or on behalf of a government for a project built by a private company. This new category could give governments more flexibility in their tax-free bonding capacity and help spur faster rebuilding. Its modeled after the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 that Congress created for Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.Unlike the $36.5 billion aid package Congress passed last week, this act would provide tax relief to people and localities affected by the wildfires in California. It would also provide retroactive tax benefits to those who suffered from past natural disasters, including New York and New Jersey residents still recovering from Superstorm Sandy five years ago.
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Gov. John Bel Edwards cannot protect the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people working for state government from discrimination, harassment and firing, Louisiana's First Circuit Court of Appeal ruled Wednesday (Nov. 1). The decision hands Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican who challenged the Democratic governor's policy, another notable victory over the governor."We do not live under a King in Louisiana; we have a Governor, an independent Attorney General, an elected Legislature, and a Court system who are all involved in the governing of our State," Landry said in a written statement. "I applaud the professionalism and attention of the Court of Appeal in these matters."The decision comes after a three-judge panel reviewed Edwards' executive order protecting LGBT state workers and contractors to determine whether it is constitutional."The Governor's Executive Order in this case goes beyond a mere policy statement or directive to fulfill law, because there is no current state or federal law specifically outlining anti-discrimination laws concerning and/or defining sexual orientation or gender identity," reads the decision written by Judge Toni Higginbotham on behalf of the court.
State Rep. John Huffman resigned Saturday evening, according to a resignation letter provided by the House Republican Caucus.Huffman, a Republican from The Dalles, told The Oregonian/OregonLive last week he would not seek re-election to pursue a Trump administration appointment to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Huffman said his chances of getting a job leading the agency's rural development office in Oregon were "very positive."Huffman, a commercial property developer, was not immediately available for comment Thursday.House Republican Leader Mike McLane praised Huffman's work ethic in a statement Thursday, saying Huffman is "a people first, politics second public servant who has worked tirelessly on behalf of his constituents."Huffman has been a member of the Legislature since 2007 and served on several powerful committees. He has not served on the House agriculture committee.Commissioners of Deschutes, Jefferson, Wasco and Wheeler counties -- the counties that intersect with Huffman's district -- now have fewer than 30 days to appoint his successor.Huffman is the latest of several Republicans who have said they intend to leave the House.Rep. Sal Esquivel, R-Medford, will not seek re-election. Same for Rep. Mark Johnson, R-Hood River, who has accepted a job leading Oregon's top business lobbying group. Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, has said he will seek an appointment to a state Senate seat soon to be vacated by Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day.
Before he died on the floor of his prison cell in East Texas, Robert Allen Webb asked for help.Im feeling dizzy, weary, cramps, muscle spasms, Webb wrote to prison medical personnel in 2009, according to The Marshall Project , a nonprofit news organization. He complained about being dizzy again in 2011, shortlybefore he was found dead on a mattress on the floor of his cell. His cellmate says Webb was trying to keep cool by sleeping on the floor. The day he died, it was over 100 degrees outside.That year, Webb's family believes, a deadly heat wave in Texas claimed his life. His autopsy revealed a potentially lethal amount of an antidepressant in his system, but the pathologist also noted Webb had several risk factors for heat exhaustion, including the prescribed use of psychotropic medication, which interferes with the body's ability to regulate heat.Nine other state prisoners in Texas -- where The Marshall Projects says roughly 80 percent of inmates lack air-conditioned cells -- died during that same heat wave, when temperatures stayed above 100 degrees for 18 days in a single month.Last month, The Marshall Project and The Weather Channel released "Cooking Them to Death," a 20-minute documentary about Webbs death, the lawsuit his family filed against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the dangerous consequences of a warming climate forprisoners living without air conditioning.Across the country, inmates or their families are suing states for the heat conditions that they argue amount to a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment. Just this year, there was an uproar in St. Louis after prisoners were filmed yelling for help out the windows of their un-air-conditioned cells, and Arizona prisoners in county tent cities endured temperatures so high their shoes were allegedly melting States say they either can't afford to air-condition prisons or don't need to because they're already taking steps to keep them cool.Nevertheless, several cases nationwide have been decided in favor of prisoners when it comes to overheated cells. So far, there hasn't been an overarching case that addresses exactly what temperature constitutes a violation or requires whole state penitentiary systems to install air conditioning.But some legal experts say global warming could soon change that.I think theres a real possibility that the law will move in that direction, says Michael Gerrard, a professor at Columbia Law School who oversaw a 2015 report on climate change and prison policy. But I think its going to require extensive legal advocacy efforts by lawyers around the country.One of the more far-reaching cases was in Arizona: A 2014 settlement in Parsons v. Ryan required prisons to keep temperature logs, along with other measures. (Some logs recorded temperatures up to 119 degrees, and one prison allegedly falsified information on its logs.)In 2012 in Louisiana, a federal judge ordered the State Penitentiary to control dangerous heat levels for three medically vulnerable inmates on death row. The heat index in that prison (meaning how hot it felt, taking into account humidity) had at times reached 109 degrees. The judge didn't go as far as requiring air conditioning, however, ruling that low-tech methods like ice chests and fans would be sufficient.Theres been quite a bit of variation in the remedies granted [by courts] but very little disagreement on the underlying legal principle, which is that heat can constitute cruel and unusual punishment, says Gerrard.Cases in Arizona, Mississippi and Wisconsin have also been decided in favor of prisoners suing over excessive heat or excessive cold in their cells.The general legal principle for considering Eighth Amendment questions comes from Farmer v. Brennana 1994 U.S. Supreme Court case in which justices ruled that there had to be deliberate indifference to risk of serious harm and concluded that the Constitution does not mandate comfortable prisons.Its unquestionably difficult to muster political will in statehouses for what many see as a luxury being afforded to criminals serving time. Expense has also been a concern. Legislatures around the country would likely have to apportion substantial amounts of money to retrofit old buildings or build entirely new ones with air conditioning.Texas State Sen. John Whitmire, who chairs the criminal justice committee, appeared to exemplify these points in a 2011 interview, according to the Marshall Project: We couldnt afford to [air-condition prisons] if we wanted to. But number one, we just dont want to.A current class action suit in Texas, though, could set a precedent regarding climate change and prison policy.The suit involves conditions at a geriatric prison north of Houston, where many inmates are on medications that could interfere with their ability to regulate their body temperature, and where the heat index regularly climbs above 100 degrees in the summer. The state of Texas argued it would cost $1.2 million to cool the prison every summer, but in a preliminary ruling in July, federal Judge Keith Ellison disputed that number and required medically vulnerable prisoners to be moved from the unit in question and put into air-conditioned facilities.The state is appealing the ruling . In an emailed statement tothe Texas Department of Criminal Justice stressed that the department takes steps to keep prisoners safe from the heat.Everyone has access to ice water. Fans are strategically placed in facilities to move the air. All inmates have a fan, and they can access air-conditioned respite areas, the email reads. These efforts work. There have been no heat-related deaths in the last five years.Part of the states argument in the case is that extreme heat events like the 2011 wave that may have killed 10 people are rare and likely not to be repeated. But, in a section of his ruling referencing the 2015 Columbia study on climate change and prisons overseen by Gerrard, Ellison appeared to disagree: The Court and the parties have no way of knowing when a heat wave will occur, but it is clear that one will come.Indeed, studies have consistently found that, without a significant decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, deadly heat days will be more and more common in the coming century. Nine of the 10 deadliest heat waves in history have taken place since 2000.
Description

GIS - 03 November, 2017: Encouraging and lifting the participation of women in decision making positions in Parliament as well as increasing the number of women workforce along with gender equality issues were at the fore of discussions this afternoon between the Former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Mrs Helen Clark, and the Prime Minister Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth. : Encouraging and lifting the participation of women in decision making positions in Parliament as well as increasing the number of women workforce along with gender equality issues were at the fore of discussions this afternoon between the Former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Mrs Helen Clark, and the Prime Minister Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth.

The issues were evoked during a courtesy call by Mrs Helen Clark on the Prime Minister at the New Treasury Building in Port Louis in the context of the formers visit to Mauritius to address on how women participation in workforce which is relatively low as compared to male workforce is crucial to maintain economic momentum.

In her statement following the courtesy call, former New Zealand Prime Minister expressed her satisfaction regarding her meeting with Prime Minister Jugnauth whereby she highlighted that she shared her experiences regarding the various challenges she faced as Prime Minister. She also spoke of the position of women in Mauritius and where the country has a declining demographic which is predominantly male dominated.

Mrs Helen Clark was the first woman in New Zealand to hold the office of Prime Minister for the period 1999 to 2008.
Description

GIS - 03 November, 2017: The Prime Minister, Minister of Home Affairs, External Communications and National Development Unit, and Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr. Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, exhorted youths to make it a point to acquire further knowledge of the history of Mauritius as it portrays the evolution of Mauritius. The

He was speaking yesterday in the context of the celebrations marking the 183rd anniversary of the arrival of indentured labourers in Mauritius at the Aapravasi Ghat, World Heritage Site, Trou Fanfaron Wharf, Port-Louis, in the presence of the Minister of Arts and Culture, Mr Prithvirajsing Roopun and the Chief guests from India namely the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mr Yogi Adityanath, and the Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Mr Giriraj Singh.

Prime Minister Jugnauth called for unity in diversity by quoting Mahatma Gandhi Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be a beauty and the test of our civilisation. On this score, he appealed for a concerted effort of one and all especially the youths to preserve the harmony and solidarity that prevails in Mauritius and to live with dignity, respect and humility as transmitted by our ancestors. These qualities helped to make the country the star and key of the Indian Ocean and a reference in the world, he added.

Prime Minister Jugnauth also dwelt on the importance of education which has been at the grassroots of all development in Mauritius. According to him, the country stands where it is today due to the hard work and perseverance of our ancestors. He underscored that despite the huge sacrifices and moments of hardships, our ancestors persevered, and did not let go of their culture, which he said, should serve as example for the younger generation.

He recalled the strong bond of kinship that binds Mauritius to India with the arrival of the first Indian immigrants as Indentured labourers also called the Girmitias, some 182 years ago. This episode, he added, has marked an important landmark in the history and development of a modern Mauritius. The Prime Minister also expressed his gratitude to India for its continuous unflinching support to Mauritius.

For his part, Minister Roopun paid tribute to the Indian immigrants who came from various parts of India but in particular from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. He stated that the struggle of the Girmitias marks an inspirational chapter in our history and deserves to be taught. He reiterated that Mauritius has witnessed a tremendous transformational change in a short era of time and attributed it to the hard work of our ancestors.

Chief Minister Adityanath underscored the special relationship between India and Mauritius and expressed the firm and strong commitment of India to assist Mauritius in its developmental phase. He recalled that Mauritius has always been privileged on various fronts by India as both countries shared common historical linkages.

The Chairperson of the Aapravasi Ghat Trust Fund, Mr Dharam Dhuny, highlighted the various development phases of the Aapravasi Ghat which he said mark the beginning of the indentured era with the migration of over two million indentured labourers between the year 1834 and 1920 who brought along with them their culture hence contributing into making Mauritius a multi-cultural society. He recalled that Aapravasi Ghat, is among the earliest explicit manifestations of what was to become one of the greatest migrations in history and dwelt on the way forward which is the Indentured Labour Route Project as well as the conservation and restoration of the labourer camp at Trianon for the setting up of a model village which existed a decade ago.

Aapravasi Ghat formerly known as the Coolie Ghat, was listed in 1985 among the National Monuments of the island and was renamed Aapravasi Ghat in 1987 as the landing place of immigrants. It was inscribed on the World Heritage Sites List of the UNESCO in 2006. It is also the first site chosen by the British Government in 1834 for the great experiment in the use of indentured labour.
Description

GIS - 03 November, 2017: The summer 2017-2018 weather outlook by the Mauritius Meteorological Services (MMS) forecasts normal to slightly above normal temperatures for Mauritius, with temperatures exceeding the monthly average by more than two degrees Celsius on certain days in Port Louis and in some coastal areas during afternoons of peak summer months (January to March). Cumulative summer rainfall is expected to be near normal, with a mean of about 1350 mm. The summer 2017-2018 weather outlook by the Mauritius Meteorological Services (MMS) forecasts normal to slightly above normal temperatures for Mauritius, withtemperatures exceeding the monthly average by more than two degrees Celsius on certain days in Port Louis and in some coastal areas during afternoons of peak summer months (January to March). Cumulative summer rainfall is expected to be near normal, with a mean of about 1350 mm.

The possible evolution of the 2017-2018 South West Indian Ocean (SWIO) summer, starting from 01 November 2017 to 15 May 2018, was presented by the Director of MMS, Mr Rajan Mungra, during a press conference on 31 October 2017 at the Mauritius Meteorological Services, Vacoas. The forecast covers specific climatic occurrences, namely cyclone activity, summer rainfall and temperature in Mauritius, Rodrigues, St Brandon and Agalega.

He underlined that according to regional and global observations over the past two decades, the frequency of extreme weather events has increased for the SWIO islands. It is very likely that extreme weather events in the form of heavy and/or torrential rainfall leading to flash floods, violent thunderstorms as well as electric storms, and heat wave with above normal temperatures lingering for days may occur during the forthcoming summer 2017-2018, he added.

Temperatures

A warmer summer 2017-2018 is expected as the maximum temperatures may reach 35 degrees Celsius in Port Louis and along the coastal areas on certain days. As regards Rodrigues, maximum temperatures are likely to reach 32 degrees Celsius along the coastal areas on certain occasions. Temperatures in St Brandon and Agalega, will be near normal with maximum reaching 31 and 32 degrees Celsius, respectively.

Successive days with above normal temperatures, high humidity and light wind may cause torrid conditions resulting in severe discomfort. Such conditions are more likely to occur from January to March 2018.

Rainfall

The onset of summer rainfall will be slightly delayed and is expected to occur during the second fortnight of December in both Mauritius and Rodrigues . The cumulative summer rainfall over Mauritius is expected to be near normal with about 1350 mm . However, the mean rainfall over Rodrigues will be slightly below normal with a mean of around 550 mm. In Agalega and St Brandon cumulative summer rainfall will be near normal with about 1200mm and 700 mm, respectively.

Cyclone/Storm formation

A total of six to eight storms are expected to evolve in the SWIO basin during the forthcoming summer . Most of the storms for this season are likely to form to the west of Diego Garcia and the first storm expected by the end of December 2017 is likely to be named Ava.

All named storms that will develop in the SWIO will not necessarily be a direct threat to the islands of the Republic of Mauritius. Nevertheless, the tropical cyclones may generate high waves and heavy swells that are most likely to reach the shores of the islands of the Republic of Mauritius.

Any storm/cyclone originating from the Australian region and entering the area of responsibility of Mauritius will retain its original name and vice versa.
(TNS) -- Norwell, Mass., selectmen are laying the groundwork to switch to electronic voting for future town meetings and town elections.Selectmen voted to expand the electronic voting committee expansion group from five to seven members during their meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 18, and to have a trial run for the electronic voting at the May Town Meeting.According to committee member Mary Beth Shea, between 80-to-90 percent of the voting at town meetings is done by voice votes, where people say yay or nay to cast their vote. If the vote appears to sound close, meeting volunteers will count votes.The other time a non-verbal count is necessary is a secret ballot, which is required if the town is spending over $200,000 and a two-thirds majority is required. Voters are distributed a yes and no slip, where they tear off either yes or no, place their vote in a box and throw away the other slip.The technology would allow voters to use handheld devices to vote from their seats at town meetings."We have no other bylaw regarding a secret ballot vote and the device would be a secret ballot because voters won't be holding an authority card," said Norwell Town Clerk Patricia Anderson. "Every vote would be a secret vote essentially. At town meetings, there is a screen behind the moderator who reads the article and calls for a vote. The votes would be tabulated and the moderator would say if the votes have it or not."Once the vote is cast from the device, there will be a small amount of time where votes can be changed.The equipment will most likely be rented or leased for the time necessary and will cost between $6,000-to-$10,000 per night and meetings often go more than one night."It's going to be a two-year process to get this passed," said Shea. "At the next Town Meeting in May, the Town Meeting body will be voting on authorizing a bylaw change which would then allow electronic voting at the next Town Meeting. We are two Town Meetings out."Anderson has looked into the use of poll pads, which are iPads that are used to check voters in before meetings. The state does not currently allow them to be used by towns to check voters in when they vote in elections, only for Town Meetings, according to Anderson. If the secretary of state approves them for both check-ins, she will then bring the measure forward to the selectmen to eventually bring to Town Meeting to be voted on.
Monroe church hosting dinner

MONROE -- Monroe United Methodist Church will host a turkey dinner from 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Sunday in the Monroe gymnasium north of Highway 22.

The meal will include side dishes and pies. Cost is $10 for adults and $5 for children younger than 12. There will also be handmade items for sale.

The event is open to the public.

Soup supper in Raeville

RAEVILLE -- St. Bonaventure Catholic Church in Raeville will hold a soup supper from 4:30-7:30 p.m. Nov. 12 in the new parish hall.

A freewill offering will be accepted for the meal, which includes a choice of chili, chicken noodle or vegetable beef soups plus homemade bread, pies and desserts.

CDA welcoming new members

COLUMBUS -- Court Little Flower #988 of the Catholic Daughters of the Americas will meet at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 13 at the Knights of Columbus Hall.

The meeting will include a reception for new members with Communion service. Sandwiches and desserts will be served.

Supper supports youth ministry

COLUMBUS -- The public is invited to attend a soup supper from 4:30-7:30 p.m. Nov. 10 at the Peace Lutheran Church Fellowship Hall.

Featured soups will include chili, ham and bean and chicken noodle, and there will also be desserts and beverages available. Cost is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors ages 65 and older, $4 for kids ages 6-11, and free for children 5 and younger.

Proceeds will be used to support youth ministry activities. The Peace Womens Guild will hold its craft and bake sale during this event.

Nativity scenes on display

SCHUYLER -- The public is invited to St. Benedict Center to view Nativity scenes from around the world, including the Holy Land, Africa, Asia, South America, North America and Europe.

The Nativity display will run 8 a.m.-7 p.m. Nov. 26Dec. 17 and Jan. 25. There is no admission fee.

For more information, call 402-352-8819 or visit www.christthekingpriory.com.

Christmas play at St. Benedict

SCHUYLER -- The Teens of Divine Mercy Parish will present a play for the whole family in several acts related to the Christmas message.

Two indoor shows will be performed at 5 and 7 p.m. Dec. 2 at St. Benedict Center. There will be hot chocolate, cider, coffee and homemade Christmas cookies following each show. Tickets are $3 for adults and $1 for children.

For more information, call 402-352-8819 or visit www.christthekingpriory.com.

Church hosting harvest dinner

COLUMBUS -- The public is invited to the Immanuel Lutheran Church harvest dinner from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Nov. 12 in the Family Life Center, 1470 23rd Ave.

The menu will include turkey and all the trimmings. Cost is $10 for adults, $5 for kids ages 6-10, and free for children 5 and younger.

Proceeds will be used for the youth mission trip and Camp Luther summer camp. Tickets can be purchased at the door or in advance by calling the church at 402-564-0502.

CYM holding breakfast

COLUMBUS -- Catholic Youth Ministry will hold a pancake and sausage breakfast from 7:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Sunday in the St. Isidore Elementary School cafeteria.

Cost is $6 for adults, $4 for youths and free for children younger than 5.

Proceeds will support youth ministry activities, including summer youth missions.

OACCW meeting in Petersburg

PETERSBURG -- The Omaha Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women (OACCW) will hold its fall meeting Nov. 14 at St. John the Baptist Parish, 201 N. Fourth St., in Petersburg, hosted by the women of the Rural Central (RC) Deanery.

All Catholic women of the Archdiocese of Omaha are invited to attend. Registration is at 9:30 a.m. with the meeting beginning at 10 a.m. Registration includes rolls, coffee and lunch. Mass will be offered.

The group will review the recent conventions of the National Council of Catholic Women and OACCW. Deacon John Starman will discuss a new program he is leading in his parish. Bring any board books, underwear, socks or diapers to donate for service projects.

For more information, call RC Deanery Secretary Barb Tassemeier at 402-582-3216.
Organizations within the civic tech and open data communities have launched a strong response after U.S. senators questioned tech executives at a hearing in Washington, D.C., this week about divisive political advertisements purchased on social media by shell firms funded with Russian money to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Representatives from Facebook, Google and Twitter appeared at the hearings on Capitol Hill, where they were grilled by members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. During the proceedings, lawyers from Facebook disclosed that as many as 126 million users may have seen election-related content from Russia. Twitter reported that it found 2,752 accounts linked to Russia and more than 36,000 bots that spread similar propaganda. That companys lawyers reported that those accounts tweeted about the election more than 1.4 million times, generating as they did 288 million views. Google, which owns YouTube, reported that that platform had 18 channels with 1,100 videos uploaded by users suspected to be related to this effort.

The response from the open data, civic tech and digital activists communities has been swift and strong. A number of organizations in the space  including the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Digital Democracy , among others  signed letters to Facebook and Google urging executives to protect the integrity of American elections by working with Congress on new laws, as well as to support the bipartisan Honest Ads Act , which is aimed at increasing transparency for online political advertising and thus preventing foreign interference in the future. The Information Technology and Innovation Fund also released a statement . Both Facebook and Google have since vowed to hold themselves to higher standards of transparency.

Civic technologists have also created a platform aimed at illustrating who might have been affected by the ads and how their experience was changed. Users click on boxes that describe their views, and the site lists the Russian propaganda they likely saw. Investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election remain ongoing.

EXPERTS TO SPEAK ABOUT IMPORTANCE OF TECH IN REBUILDING PUERTO RICO

A panel of tech and government experts will soon speak about the value of a coherent digital strategy in order to effectively and efficiently rebuild Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

This event, dubbed Rebuilding Puerto Rico Requires a Digital Strategy, will take place Nov. 16, at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., and it is the third installment of the Dear Fiscal Board series , which seeks to discuss and promote tech-based solutions for improving the lives of residents of Puerto Rico overall, not just after natural disasters. It is being organized by Piloto 151 and Giancarlo Gonzalez, who was Puerto Ricos CIO from 2013 until 2015.

The events speakers include Cecilia Munoz, who served as senior staff in the Obama administration; Bill Cooper, the lead drafter of the 2016 Puerto Rico Oversight Management and Economic Stability Act ; and members of the Maria Tech Brigade , a group of civic technologists formed in the wake of the hurricane.

A central question will be posited at the event: What are the necessary building blocks of digital policy and infrastructure required to rebuild Puerto Rico? The event will also address how to best sustain Puerto Ricos tech ecosystem , which had made progress despite the financial crisis that was facing the island when the storm arrived. The event will also raise money for ConPRmetidos , an organization that seeks to develop public and private partnerships to accelerate economic development in Puerto Rico.

BLOOMBERG'S WHAT WORKS CITIES INITIATIVE NOW INCLUDES 95 JURISDICTIONS

Bloomberg Philanthropies has added five new participants to its What Works Cities initiative  a program that helps local governments use data-driven strategies to improve life for residents  bringing the number of total jurisdictions to 95.

The new additions are Athens, Ga.; Chula Vista, Calif.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Gainesville, Fla.; and Palmdale, Calif. With that list, the initiative now includes 29 million people throughout 37 states, and the local governments it seeks to help have combined annual budgets of more than $98 billion.

Moving the needle on city challenges requires knowing what to measure and how  then acting on what you find, said Simone Brody, executive director of WWC at Results for America, in a press release . By teaching cities how to put data at the core of their decision-making, were equipping them with the tools to best solve local challenges and serve their communities.

The programs scope is broad, helping the cities do better work in areas that range from public safety to the reduction of poverty. The program gives the cities access to WWCs expert partners, who help them develop and enhance their use of performance analytics, data management, randomized control trials, results-driven contracting and more. Planned projects for the five new cities vary.

Athens, Ga., will use performance analytics to measure and communicate progress on economic prosperity goals.





Chula Vista, Calif., will use data to improve public safety outcomes and increase transparency by sharing key public safety data with residents.





Colorado Springs, Colo., will use performance analytics to measure progress on its strategic plan goals, beginning with local infrastructure investments. The city will also develop an open data policy and explore opportunities for residents to use municipal data.





Gainesville, Fla., will apply best practices in data management and performance analytics toward transportation and business life cycle improvements, part of a partnership announced earlier this year with the University of Florida that aims to transform Gainesville into a new American city.





Palmdale, Calif., will use data to further its recreation and culture goals and create an open data policy to target sharing data with the public.





The program last added new participants at the end of September

CHARLOTTE, N.C., RELEASES DIGITAL INCLUSION PLAYBOOK TO HELP OTHER CITIES WITH EQUITY EFFORTS

Charlotte, N.C., has emerged as a leading municipality in its region for its work in digital inclusion, and, as such, public officials and others involved with efforts there have started to share their methods for fostering digital equity.

To this end, the Charlotte Digital Inclusion Alliance, which is made up of local governments and other public and nonprofit agencies in the area, recently released its digital inclusion playbook . The alliance has set a goal of reducing the number of residents who do not have access to the Internet from 19 percent to 9 percent by 2026, and the document contains a comprehensive roadmap of key strategies for accomplishing this. Essentially, the document is a report about the state of digital inclusion in Charlotte, one that also details why the problem matters as well as what can and should be done to solve it.

Digital inclusion has become an area of increasing focus for local governments across the country, as more jurisdictions begin to realize that things like poor computer skills and not having access to a high-speed Internet connection can lead to problems with employment, public safety, housing and even public health. This year marked the first for Digital Inclusion Week , an effort aimed at raising awareness for both digital inequities and the ongoing nationwide efforts to bridge such gaps.

Charlotte is far from the only municipality to be focusing on digital inclusion and subsequently sharing its plans and success. Chicago has done so , as have many other cities.
(TNS) -- Gov. Larry Hogan plans to ask state lawmakers to set standards for computer science training in public schools, one of several steps he says will help create a more tech-savvy workforce in Maryland.The Republican governor said Thursday that hell work with teachers, school system officials and business leaders in the coming months to develop goals for what children should be taught and a timeline for working the lessons into the curriculum.He plans to propose legislation on the computer science standards in the next General Assembly session, which convenes Jan. 10.The curriculum legislation was among several computer science training initiatives Hogan announced during a State House news conference. He called his plan ACCESS: Achieving Computer Science Collaborations for Employing Students Statewide.The governor said the state needs a well-trained workforce for the increasing number of technology jobs  and needs to address the shocking lack of gender diversity in the technology field.Hogan said unless current trends are reversed, only one-fifth of technology jobs of the future will be held by women in 2025.At a time when companies across the country are desperately in need of a skilled computing workforce, more than half of the population could be left behind, Hogan said.Del. Eric Luedtke, who chairs a House of Delegates subcommittee on education, said hes interested in hearing more about Hogans ideas for legislation. Luedtke, a Montgomery County Democrat and former school teacher, said theres broad agreement on the need to teach computer science and coding in schools.But he cautioned its usually better left to teachers and education experts to set curriculum standards, not elected officials.You dont want politicians writing curriculum, he said.A representative of the state teachers union was also cautious.When it comes to implementing education policy, the devil is in the details, and the involvement of classroom educators is essential, Adam Mendelson, spokesman for the Maryland State Education Association, said in a statement.Mendelson said the unions door is always open to discuss ways to best help students.Alec Ross, one of several Democrats vying for a chance to take on Hogan in the gubernatorial election next year, welcomed the governors interest in computer science education. Ross announced a plan in May to require every school to offer computer science and coding classes at a cost of $80 million over the next 10 years.Im glad to see my ideas are catching on, Ross said in a statement. And this proves that Marylanders need a leader who knows how to innovate  not just copy and paste from others.The Maryland State Department of Education already is working on updating curriculum standards for technology, based on recommendations from the Computer Science Teachers Association, a national organization that advises school systems on K-12 educational computer science standards.State and county education experts are working on how Maryland schools can modify their lessons to meet the new standards, said William Reinhard, a state schools spokesman. The governors bill would likely help carry out that work, he said.We think its a terrific idea, he said.Hogan also signed an executive order directing a state cybersecurity task force to study ways to grow the states technology industry and to promote opportunities for women and minorities in the field. That report is due in June.The governor said he also plans to commit $5 million in next years state budget for grants to local school systems. The money would be used to train teachers in computer science and to buy equipment for classrooms.And he also said the state will partner with the nonprofit Girls Who Code to create a Governors Club Challenge. Girls Who Code is a national organization that promotes computing skills for girls. Its website boasts membership of nearly 40,000 girls nationwide.The Governors Club Challenge will work with school and business leaders to open new Girls Who Code clubs in the state. Maryland already has 23 Girls Who Code clubs.
(TNS)  A $5.3 million excavation project that would protect hundreds of Oceanside homes from flooding along the San Luis Rey River has fallen through for the second year in a row, and the city wants its share of the money back.The city, which is on the hook for 25 percent of the costs of the federal project, has written a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers asking to be reimbursed for more than $1.8 million the city made in two payments on the project, plus almost $30,000 for staff time, materials and equipment invested in the project.I want to express the citys frustration due to the Corps (in)ability to get the project started and completed, states a copy of the Oct. 25 letter signed by Oceanside Mayor Jim Wood.The letter requests the refund of a $425,000 payment to the Corps made on March 11, 2016, a $1,411,750 payment made July 1, 2016, and $29,892.24 for the citys staff time, materials and expenses to prepare for the work.The invoice does not include the numerous hours of staff time spent in weekly meetings with the Corps, site visits, securing an agreement  for site access, media requests, presentations to various groups, as well as providing updates and answering questions for citizens, business owners, community groups and other interested parties, the letter states.A spokesman for the Corps, Greg Fuderer, said Tuesday he had no new information on the contract, what caused the breakdown, or whether the work might be done next year.Weve agreed that a solution for this year is not available, Fuderer said.The Corps also administers contracts to clear brush along the river every few years, which also helps to protect nearby low-lying areas from flooding.The excavation project to widen and deepen the river channel was first scheduled to start in October 2016 and to remove 230,000 cubic yards of sediment from about one mile of the riverbed between the bridges at Foussat and Benet roads. That project was delayed and then postponed until this year because of problems getting a permit from the Regional Water Quality Control Board.This year, the work had been scheduled to begin Sept. 15 and end by March 15, which is the environmental window left open over the winter by the nesting season of endangered native bird species under state and federal regulating agencies.Environmental issues, construction plans and equipment staging plans all came into question on the project this year, said Kiel Koger, the citys public works division manager. As the delay progressed, it again became clear the contractor would not be able to complete the work in the time available.To prepare for the work, the city posted signs over the summer to announce the expected closure of a segment of the bike trail atop the levee on the southern side of the river. Cyclists and pedestrians were to be detoured around the trail between Douglas Drive and Foussat from mid-October through March 15 to allow access to construction traffic; however, that detour is no longer necessary.The Corps $5.3 million contract with the Northern California company Steelhead Constructors Inc. called for 210,000 cubic yards of sand and sediment. The amount of material to be removed was reduced this year because the 2016-17 winter was the wettest in several years and for the first time in a while the heavy rains flushed some of the river sediment into the ocean.Beach-quality sand excavated in the flood-control project would be trucked to city beaches for sand replenishment, and sediment not clean enough for the beach would be dumped at the citys El Corazon property north of Oceanside Boulevard.A receptionist at the Steelhead office said this week that no one there was available to discuss the contract.The companys website lists 130 completed projects dating to 1996. Most were things like road, bridge and stream bank erosion repairs in Northern California and for contracts less than $1 million.One of the largest projects listed was a $3.3 million contract in 2011 to rebuild a county road in Trinity County. Last years work included a levee restoration in Fresno for $2 million and bridges replaced for $2.2 million in Yuba County and for $1 million in Nevada County. None of the projects was in San Diego County.philip.diehl@sduniontribune.comTwitter: @phildiehl2017 The San Diego Union-TribuneVisit The San Diego Union-Tribune at www.sandiegouniontribune.com
(TNS) -- Oceanside agreed this week to set some rules for flying drones in public places, the result of recent incidents, including one that injured a beachgoer.We just want to establish some protocols so we can be sure people are safe, police Lt. Aaron Doyle told Oceanside City Council members at a meeting Wednesday.The rapid spread of remotely piloted aircraft has some cities looking for ways to control them. Poway was one of the first cities in the area to set limits in 2015, and San Diego adopted its regulations in April. The Federal Aviation Administration also sets regulations for drones, but those rules are administrative and cant be enforced by local police.Oceansides proposal would require operators to get a permit before flying drones over the beach, the pier and a few other places. Among other restrictions, it would require drones to remain within the operators line of sight, outside the flight path of any occupied aircraft, and only operate during daylight.Oceanside City Council members unanimously supported the proposal, which would be effective 30 days after a second presentation to the council expected later this year.Three incidents over the summer prompted Oceanside police to request the ordinance, Doyle said.A drone fell onto a beachgoer causing minor injuries in July after the pilot lost sight of his flying machine and it crashed into a palm tree near the city pier, he said. Another narrowly missed a young girl on the beach in August after the operator lost control.Perhaps the most serious problem occurred in June, Doyle said. City and county firefighters were battling an 85-acre blaze near the border of Oceanside and Camp Pendleton. Crews in aircraft delivering water drops on the fire spotted a drone in their flight path, and all aerial operations had to cease for about one hour until it was gone.Not only does the delay hinder firefighting efforts, but a mid-air collision between a remotely operated drone and an occupied aircraft could have tragic results, with fatalities and extensive property damage, the lieutenant said.The proposed ordinance also prohibits drones over occupied schools, or to transmit visual images or audio recordings of anyone who has a reasonable expectation of privacy.Drones must remain within the line of sight of the operator without the use of binoculars or other vision-enhancing devices, and cannot approach any closer than 25 feet to any person but the operator or an assistant.Also, the ordinance requires a pre-approved, one-time city permit to operate a drone over the beach, the pier, the City Hall complex or police and fire stations. The cost of the permit is expected to be about $150, but Councilwoman Esther Sanchez said the amount should be less.Some beautiful videos have been made with drones over Oceansides pier, mission and beaches, Sanchez said, and she wants to encourage people to make more of them. Posted on the internet, the videos can boost the citys image and help attract tourists to the area.Councilman Jerry Kern said the cost of the permit should be enough to recover the citys costs for regulating the activity, and that the amount can be adjusted later, if necessary.The technology is moving so rapidly, were playing catch-up, Kern said.The proposed regulations should not prohibit the average person from flying drones they receive as gifts or buy for hobbies, Councilman Jack Feller said.This does not prohibit a guy who gets a drone from flying it in his cul de sac, Feller said.Violators of the ordinance could be subject to fines of $1,000 for each violation, and could have their drone impounded as evidence.
(TNS) -- As the world changes, so do the opportunities to engage it.A current example can be found on the campus of Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville. The Board of Regents recently voted to approve a new bachelor of science in cybersecurity; by this time next year, students there can choose to be fully immersed in this blossoming career field.This is both an opportunity and a sad reality about the rise of new technological threats  to businesses, banks, health systems, power grids, personal privacy and even the stability of governments.According to Forbes, experts predict a global shortage of 2 million cybersecurity professionals by 2019. As many as 40,000 positions for information security analyst go unfilled in the United States each year, and employers must work to fill 200,000 related positions.Well-paying, in-demand roles include that of a security analyst, who works to prevent and mitigate security breaches, and security manager, who develops and implements processes to keep information private.It stands to reason that as Northwest adds to its capabilities and expertise in this evolving field, the entire region will benefit.One important uptick will come from the number of students who will acquire new marketable skills. The program outline states students will gain a broad understanding of computer systems; learn about the prevention and detection of cyberattacks; and develop skills related to implementing security policies and best practices.Another positive will come in the regions ability to support the needs of businesses and organizations that require workers with these skills. Business recruitment and expansion will be made easier as we compete for leading-edge employers.Also, we will miss out on an opportunity if we do not find a way to develop partnerships  internships, consulting contracts and more  that will both directly and indirectly benefit these businesses and organizations as the world of information security evolves.With expertise in our midst, the region will be well-positioned to perfect our brand as a place that is capable of developing and supplying skilled professionals for a wide variety of career paths, including those in cybersecurity.
(TNS) -- The federal government will give a few select areas around the country a chance to experiment with new uses for drones, and Gov. Susana Martinez wants New Mexico to be one of them.Speaking Thursday in Washington, D.C., Martinez touted a new program from President Donald Trumps administration that will allow state, local and tribal governments to expand the use of drones.Though unmanned aerial vehicles have proliferated in recent years, the federal government still tightly controls their use. For example, drones must stay within a pilots sight and remain below 400 feet.This program would loosen those restrictions in select cases.The U.S. Department of Transportation will take applications from state, local and tribal governments interested in creating zones to test more complex uses of unmanned aerial systems, such as package delivery or responding to disasters.The government will create at least five such areas, collect data on drone use in those areas and help integrate unmanned aerial systems into air traffic.These partnerships will help us innovate across the board in agriculture, emergency management, transportation, just about any field possible, Martinez told a crowd at the departments headquarters, sharing the stage with Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.A spokesman for the governor did not specify which organizations or governments around the state might apply for the program.New Mexico State University already oversees a large testing area for drones that stretches across the southwest corner of the state.And Google has tested solar-powered drones at Spaceport America, near Truth or Consequences.Drones also have posed particular challenges in New Mexico. Unmanned aerial vehicles have frustrated wildland firefighters calling in planes to douse forest fires, for example.But some in the industry say this new program, first announced last week, will help develop new policies for broadening the use of drones in everyday life.The visit to Washington was the governors latest step in getting closer to the Trump administration after clashing with the president during his election campaign.Martinez will return to New Mexico on Friday, according to her staff.
The online theft of money from Iowa Public Employees Retirement System (IPERS) member accounts discovered on Halloween was not the result of a hack, an agency official said, but sparked an FBI investigation and changes to security practices.The incident at the state pension fund that began in mid-October came to light on Tuesday, Oct. 31, when IPERS received a telephone call indicating one of its more than 350,000 members had not received a check.The agency, which counts more than 115,000 retirees among its members, ran system queries and discovered 103 retiree accounts had been compromised, according to Judy Akre, IPERS director of communications.The amount thieves took electronically amounted to several hundred thousand dollars, Akre said, but by reaching out to banks and financial institutions involved, a portion of that money was able to be reverted to its previous destinations. IPERS had assets of about $30.7 billion as of June 30.The theft appears to have happened when thieves gained access to Social Security numbers and dates of birth for members and were able to leverage this information to register for IPERS online account access, then alter existing direct deposit information, Akre explained.It would be as if someone jumped onto your employers system and posed as you and logged in as you and updated your personal information. They had the information they needed to establish a user name and password and get their online access. But well be doing a lot of changes right now to strengthen that accessibility, the director of communications said.Its unclear how the criminals obtained the member information, though Akre said they did not get the Social Security numbers from IPERS.When IPERS learned of the incident, it immediately disabled online account access and made telephone calls to alert members who had been affected.Online account access was restored on Wednesday, Nov. 2 with exceptions: direct deposit information cannot be changed online; online member access remains unavailable for the 103 retired members whose payments were redirected; and the 103 fraudulent accounts detected have been disabled.IPERS has reissued the payments affected to their original financial institutions, Akre said, and members should receive their money on or before Monday, Nov. 7.With an investigation ongoing, the communications director said its too early for IPERS to offer advice to other state pension funds.I guess the best advice would be more directed to everyone, the general public, as far as online access and being very vigilant. Check your online account very frequently and change passwords, Akre said.State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald, a member of the IPERS' Investment Board, told the Des Moines Register that he credits IPERS for catching the incident but called it a very serious concern.But this has to be stopped or this great system that we have will just have to be changed, Fitzgerald told theWilliam Petroski.Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director at the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation in the state Department of Public Safety (DPS), confirmed via email that IPERS contacted his agency, but said he referred it to the FBI and DPS has no involvement in the investigation.Huston Pullen, public affairs officer for the FBI in Omaha, Neb., said via email that the agency is aware of the situation and in communication with local authorities, but declined further comment.
(TNS) -- The nation needs to treat cybersecurity the same as the race to put man on the moon during the 1960s, gathering the best and brightest to work on and solve the problem, an expert said during a panel discussion Thursday in Colorado Springs.Ron Ross, a computer scientist and fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Washington, compared the challenge of improving cybersecurity to President John F. Kennedys 1962 speech setting a goal to put a man on the moon. Ross made his comments during the National Cyber Symposium, the second annual two-day conference at Broadmoor West that is hosted by the year-old National Cybersecurity Center based here.Cyber is the new frontier. It will be a national priority like the space race. We need to gather the best and brightest to meet that challenge. We can bring ourselves together to meet the challenge. We have to do better, Ross said during a panel discussion kicked off by Gov. John Hickenlooper. The institute has established standards for cybersecurity and other areas that are followed by many government agencies and businesses.Fellow panel member Chuck Grindle, chief information officer for the state of Kentucky, agreed that the nation needs to bring the best and brightest to work on this idea. It is high time to issue that call and develop a consortium to come up with a national effort.Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy said the job of his states chief information officer is to make sure people like me can sleep at night, but the job of the chief security officer is to make sure that we cant. He said he was not aware that some of his states cities and towns had been victims of ransomware  a cyberattack in which a hacker gains control of sensitive data and locks out the government agency and business from that data until they pay a ransom.Hickenlooper, who called for the cybersecurity center to be launched in Colorado Springs last year during his State of the State address, also called cybersecurity the next frontier and said cyberattacks are a threat to the country, and with the rate of change, the risk is growing rapidly. He said he believed when he made the speech that Colorado could be a national and international leader and as we go further into the vision and reality, it will happen quicker than anticipated.Panel member Dale Drew, chief security officer of Level 3, now part of CenturyLink Inc., said during a follow-up presentation that the stakes have never been higher for companies and agencies impacted by a cyberattack. He described the risk of a cyberattack as equal to the threat, multiplied by the vulnerabilities, multiplied by the value of the information that hackers are seeking.
(TNS) -- The state should take its first-ever measures to protect biometric data collected by employers and businesses  which is based on personal characteristics like fingerprints, eyes and facial patterns  from computer hacking, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Thursday.Schneiderman introduced a proposed law that would add biometric data to updated state protections aimed at a growing number of high-profile computer hacks of confidential personal data kept by businesses on their customers.Named the "Stop Hacks and Improve Electronic Data Security," the law also would apply to any businesses that collect such digital and biometric information on their employees, such as companies that use fingerprint-based systems to manage employees' work hours."It's clear that New York's data security laws are weak and outdated," said Schneiderman, who had proposed tougher data laws in 2015 that did not gain approval in the state Legislature."It's time for Albany to act, so that no more New Yorkers are needlessly victimized by weak data security measures and criminal hackers who are constantly on the prowl," he said.Current state law sets data security and reporting requirements on companies if hacked personal data is linked to Social Security numbers. But companies are not required to report breaches that involve username-and-password combinations, or biometric data.In 2016 alone, the Attorney General's office received a record 1,300 data breach notifications, representing a 60 percent increase over the previous year. The recent breach at the Equifax credit history reporting service could have compromised financial records of more than eight million New Yorkers.Schneiderman's proposal would require companies to adopt "reasonable" administrative, technical, and physical safeguards for sensitive data, and report breaches on these other types of data, including confidential health data.The law could also provide legal liability protection to companies that show the state that strong protective measures were taken to guard against hacks, while exposing firms that had weak security to potential penalties and legal action from the Attorney General.Such requirements would be less strict for small businesses with fewer than 50 employees.Zack Hutchins, a spokesman for The Business Council, an Albany lobbying group for businesses, said they are "very concerned" about a growing number of cyberattacks by criminals seeking personal data.He said allowing looser standards for small business makes sense, but questioned how part of the proposed law  which would require reporting by any business, regardless of its location, that has data on New Yorkers  could be implemented.The bill is being sponsored by state Sen. David Carlucci, a Rockland County Democrat, and Assembly member Brian Kavanagh, a Democrat from Manhattan.AARP New York State Director Beth Finkel said, "Identity theft is no longer a vague worry that might impact someone we know; the Equifax scandal has made it a threat to each of us."
Sebastian Vettel has counted himself out of next year's running of the well-known Race of Champions event.

Fans of the fun annual event were surprised recently when it was announced that it would be held next January in the controversial Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Vettel is a Race of Champions regular, reportedly having attended every event since 2009.

But just days after losing the 2017 title to Lewis Hamilton, he has announced that he will not be attending Race of Champions next year.

Germany's Sport Bild quoted the Ferrari driver as saying he will instead be working in the Ferrari simulator.

"My goal is to take Ferrari back to the top," said Vettel.

"I think it would be magical to take the title back to Maranello, just like Michael Schumacher managed to do. He still inspires me," said the 30-year-old.

(GMM)
Nov. 3, 1979

Five Communist Workers Party members were killed in a clash with heavily armed Ku Klux Klansmen and neo-Nazis during an anti-Klan protest in Greensboro. Twenty years later Tom Steadman of the News & Record wrote: On Tuesday night, three demonstrators who survived what they called the Greensboro Massacre told a gathering at Guilford College that they and their comrades had been the victims of a ruling-class conspiracy in which police allowed the Klansmen and Nazis to shoot demonstrators and in which government lawyers thwarted efforts to prosecute the shooting. It was really a troika that carried out the killings, said Paul Bermanzohn, one of three survivors who spoke to about 100 students, faculty and community residents. ... Its completely unbelievable, what happened here not that many years ago, said Bermanzohn, now a psychiatrist and medical director of Queens Day Center in New York. Wounded in the 1979 shootings, he is still partially paralyzed.
GREENSBORO  A discussion on Russian liberalism Monday will kick off the inaugural N.C. A&T History Department Faculty Lecture Series.

Dr. Thomas Earl Porter, a Russian historian and professor at the school, will lead the lecture on Russian liberalism and discuss his new book, "Prince George E. L'vov."

The event will be held Monday at 7 p.m. in room 109 in the Academic Classroom Building.
FORT BRAGG  The Latest on the sentencing hearing for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl:

1:10 p.m.

President Donald Trump says a judge's ruling that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl will serve no prison time is a "complete and total disgrace."

The president's comment on Twitter came Friday, less than an hour after the White House declined to comment on the sentence.

Bergdahl is the Army sergeant who walked off his post in Afghanistan and triggered a search that wounded some of his comrades.

He was captured by the Taliban and held for five years, until President Barack Obama traded Taliban prisoners to bring him back.

A military judge ruled Friday that he should not serve prison time.

Trump issued his tweet from Air Force One on Friday as he embarked on the first leg of his trip to Hawaii and Asia.

The president has long been a critic of Bergdahl. During the presidential campaign, Triump called him a traitor who deserved serious punishment.

___

1:05 p.m.

President Donald Trump says Bowe Bergdahl's sentence for leaving his post in Afghanistan is "a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military."

The president's comment on Twitter came Friday, less than an hour after the White House declined to comment on the military sentence given to Bergdahl.

A military judge in North Carolina ruled Friday that Bergdahl should serve no prison time for endangering his comrades by walking off his Afghanistan post. The judge also gave Bergdahl a dishonorable discharge, reduced his rank to private and said he must forfeit pay equal to $1,000 per month for 10 months.

While campaigning for president, Trump repeatedly called Bergdahl a traitor who deserved serious punishment.

___

12:25 p.m.

The White House says it has no comment on the sentence given to Bowe Bergdahl for leaving his post in Afghanistan.

Instead, White House officials referred back to a previous statement from several weeks ago.

The statement said President Donald Trump "expects all military personnel who are involved in any way in the military justice process to exercise their independent professional judgment, consistent with applicable laws and regulations."

A military judge in North Carolina ruled Friday that Bergdahl should serve no prison time for endangering his comrades by walking off his Afghanistan post. The judge also gave Bergdahl a dishonorable discharge, reduced his rank to private and said he must forfeit pay equal to $1,000 per month for 10 months.

___

11:40 a.m.

A military judge has found that Bowe Bergdahl should serve no prison time for endangering his comrades by walking off his Afghanistan post.

The judge also gave Bergdahl a dishonorable discharge, reduced his rank to private and said he must forfeit pay equal to $1,000 per month for 10 months. The judge made no other comments.

Bergdahl appeared tense, grimaced and clenched his jaw. His attorneys put their arms around him and one patted him on the back.

Bergdahl pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy and had faced up to life in prison. The judge had wide leeway because Bergdahl made no deal with prosecutors to limit his sentence.

Prosecutors had sought stiff punishment because of wounds to service members who searched for Bergdahl after he disappeared in 2009. He was held captive by Taliban allies for five years.

The defense sought to counter that evidence with testimony about Bergdahl's suffering during five years as a captive of Taliban allies, his contributions to military intelligence and survival instruction and his mental health problems.

___

9:25 a.m.

A military judge has resumed his deliberations on Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's punishment for endangering comrades by leaving his post in Afghanistan in 2009.

Col. Jeffery Nance called Bergdahl and lawyers for both sides into court briefly Friday to let them know that he was returning to his chamber to continue deliberations. He didn't give an indication of when he would hand down Bergdahl's sentence.

The 31-year-old Bergdahl, who faces up to life in prison, appeared tense during the short court session. He clenched his jaw as if grinding his teeth, then grimaced and looked at the floor when he walked out of the courtroom.

The judge began deliberating Thursday after hearing closing arguments by defense attorneys, who asked for no prison time, and prosecutors who are seeking 14 years behind bars.

2:45 a.m.

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was held for five years by Taliban allies after walking off his post in Afghanistan, will soon learn his punishment after pleading guilty to endangering his comrades.

A military judge began deliberating Thursday after hearing closing arguments by defense attorneys, who asked for no prison time, and prosecutors who are seeking 14 years behind bars.

Army Col. Jeffery Nance said he would open court again Friday morning to continue deliberating. It wasn't clear when he would deliver the sentence.

Bergdahl faces up to life in prison for desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. In closing arguments, prosecutors cited serious wounds to service members who looked for Bergdahl.
A fourth prison employee  maintenance mechanic Geoffrey Howe  has died as a result of injuries received during the Oct. 12 escape attempt at Pasquotank Correctional Institution.

Howe, 31, worked in the former Correction Enterprises sewing plant at the prison. He died Thursday at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital in Norfolk, Va.

Geoffrey Howe was a valued member of his community and his workplace, and he will be greatly missed, Gov. Roy Cooper said Thursday night. We send our heartfelt sympathies to his loved ones and wish for them comfort during this difficult time.

We owe it to Geoffrey and his fallen coworkers to do all we can to keep an attack like the one that claimed their lives from ever happening inside our prisons again, and thats what Ive directed prison leaders to do, Cooper said.

Correctional officers Justin Smith and Wendy Shannan, and Correction Enterprises sewing plant manager Veronica Darden also died as a result of injuries from the attack.

Howe celebrated his one-year anniversary with the Department of Public Safety in August.

Our thoughts, prayers and condolences go out to the Howe family, Department of Public Safety Secretary Erik Hooks said. This tragedy has horribly impacted the lives of four families, as well as co-workers and friends.

The assaults at the Eastern North Carolina prison also injured eight other employees.

Four inmates were charged with first-degree murder in the attacks.

Law enforcement authorities said the inmates were working in the prisons sewing plant when they tried to carry out the escape plan.

The inmates beat employees with hammers and stabbed them with scissors, according to prison workers who called 911. It was the deadliest escape attempt in North Carolina prison history.

One of the inmates charged in the attacks was in prison for shooting a state trooper in the face. Another had repeatedly stabbed an Army sergeants wife with a kitchen knife. A third was incarcerated for shooting a co-worker to death behind a west Charlotte gas station.

Some current and former prison officers questioned whether the inmates with violent histories should have been put to work in a sewing plant, where they would have access to potentially lethal tools.

Just one officer  Justin Smith  was overseeing the more than 30 inmates in the sewing plant when the violence erupted, sources told the Observer.

In October, more than 30 percent of the officer positions at the prison were vacant, state Department of Public Safety records show.

The prison continues to be on lockdown. Members of the prison emergency response team from other state prison facilities continue to assist Pasquotank staff.

Pasquotank Correctional Institution houses 676 male inmates in close, medium and minimum custody.

Joe Marusak: 704-358-5067, @jmarusak

Ames Alexander: 704-358-5060, @amesalex

Gavin Off: 704-358-6038



2017 The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.)

Visit The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.) at www.charlotteobserver.com

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Topics: t000002458,t000027866,t000149877,t000027879,t000002481,t000183274,t000194172,g000362661,g000065598,g000066164
WENTWORTH  Heather Gwynn was sentenced by Judge Eric Morgan to a minimum of 58 months in prison Friday morning in Rockingham County Superior Court  ending a four-year saga in the 2013 death of 17-month-old Toni Gwynn.

Heather Gwynn, 26, Toni's mother, who faces a maximum of 82 months in state custody, agreed to a plea deal in late September to testify during the mid-November trial of co-defendant and former husband Antonio Gwynn, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder Thursday afternoon.

His plea came after authorities recovered the missing blanket Antonio Gwynn used to suffocate the baby.

On Oct. 12, Heather Gwynn led two Eden investigators and a detective from the Rockingham County Sheriffs Office to a pond in which Antonio Gwynn had dumped the blanket more than four years prior  when the couple went on the run from authorities.

Detectives searched the pond but could not find the blanket.

On Oct. 25, it was recovered by members of the dive team from the Guilford County Sheriffs Office.

Defense attorney Jason Ross said Gwynn pointed out the area in which the pond was located, to the three police officials that are lifelong Rockingham County residents.

They had never heard of or seen the pond before Oct. 12.

[Antonio Gwynn] never would have pled guilty if Heather didnt lead them to that blanket, Ross said.

Testimony provided to prosecutors was based on proffers submitted by Heather Gwynn in her own handwriting, during the early stages of the investigation and court process.

Both prosecutor Charlene Coggins-Franks, who took on the case earlier this year, and Ross, who was appointed in October 2013, said Friday that evidence wasnt recovered earlier due to the previous administration in the Rockingham County District Attorneys Office sitting on the information Gwynn had provided.

Franks said the plea deal for Heather Gwynn was required because of the age of the case and what the previous administration didnt do.

Gwynn was given credit for more than four years served in Rockingham County Jail, while awaiting resolution in the case.

With the plea deal, she could serve six months to 2.5 more years in prison under the direction of the North Carolina Department of Correction.

Like Antonio Gwynn, Judge Eric Morgan ruled that Heather Gwynn is not allowed to have any type of contact with her two other daughters, who are both minors.

New Details emerge during sentencing

According to testimony from Heather Gwynns defense attorney on Friday morning, Antonio and Heather Gwynn had lived in Rockingham County with their three daughters for only 30 days before the death of their infant in July of 2013.

Ross said the family moved to the Eden area from Burlington after police had responded to various domestic violence calls at their residence.

The defense attorney added that during their time in Rockingham County Jail, Heather Gwynn received letters from Antonio discussing details of the case. Gwynn would also send letters to his wife by having other inmates pen the letters.

Ross said that information coming to his client in various ways from Antonio Gwynn told her that if she kept her mouth shut, then both defendants would walk away from charges.

Instead, Heather Gwynn turned over the incriminating letters from her husband and other inmates to her attorney and Ross submitted them to state prosecutors.

Assistant District Attorney Charlene Coggins-Franks also said Friday morning that if Antonio Gwynn would have went to trial in November, the eldest minor child in the case would have been called to testify about the events that transpired through the evening of July 10, 2013.

On the afternoon of July 11, 2013, emergency personnel responded to a call of a child not breathing at 503 Prospect St. in Eden.

Responders performed CPR on the scene and transported Toni to Morehead Memorial Hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.

Eden detectives initiated an investigation at the scene to figure out the circumstances of the childs death and interviewed Antonio and Heather Gwynn in depth and asked them to reenact events leading up to the toddlers death.

On July 12, 2013, the Office of the State Medical Examiner in Raleigh performed an autopsy. The cause of death was later determined as mechanical asphyxiation.

According to medical examiners, Toni was strapped in a car seat in a closet for over 12 hours. Bruises were found on her chest and abdomen that were consistent with the shapes of buckles and straps on the car seat.

According to an arrest warrant, Antonio Gwynn then put a blanket in her mouth, leaving her unable to breath.

The most likely cause of death is asphyxia due to a combined of mechanical compression of the chest by the straps and buckles of the car seas and smothering by the blanket, the report read.

Ross told Judge Morgan that Heather Gwynn had been abused for years and that nobody in the courtroom would believe that she played in active role in the death of her daughter.

If she would have been up front from the beginning, I dont think she would be sitting here right now, Ross said.

Before returning to custody, Gwynn apologized for being dishonest during the initial investigation.

Im sorry for lying to police. If I could go back, I wouldnt do it again, she said.
Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta will visit York Saturday to talk about tax reform.

Pence will be joined by Congressman Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Congressman Lou Barletta (R- Pa.) to meet with local business leaders and families to discuss tax reform, the Office of the Vice President announced Friday morning.

The vice president will conclude his visit with formal remarks to attendees at the Military and Commercial Fasteners Corp. at 11 Grumbacher Road, Manchester Township.

Pences Air Force Two plane will fly into Harrisburg International Airport Saturday morning around 11:15 a.m. and he will hold a media conference at 193rd Special Operations Wing of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard facility at the airport in Middletown before heading to York.
Where did Greenwich come from? It seems as if its a bit of a mystery. According to the late William E. Finch Jr., legend has it that it was Jeffrey Ferris who came to town before it was formally founded in 1640 by Captain Daniel Patrick and the Robert Feakes at Tods Point.

It seems probable that it was named for Greenwich, England as I mentioned in my last column that you all enjoyed reading, and so I thought I would continue on Greenwich history from the remarkable special section put out by Greenwich Time: Greenwich 1640-1990, celebrating the town, its history and its people on its 350th anniversary.

Greenwich as we all know was founded east of the Mianus River in 164. But it soon turned out to be as popular as it is today. So in 1669, according to Greenwich Old and New by Lydia Holland and Margaret Leaf, a wonderful book on town history, a group acquired land owned by the Miosehasseky Indians. A point was found on the west side of the river. They were smart gentlemen, as the land they found was good pasture land for their horses, and was then known as Horseneck Field Point. Think what that land is valued at now.

It was then called Horseneck and became Greenwich.

Town government was established in 1665 and the citizens voted for fence viewers, impounders, horse branders, and sheep masters, rather than selectman and the Board of Education.

By 1703, the minister, the Reverend Joseph Morgan, had to split the town meetings, which caused trouble between the old Greenwich and the new.

As the gateway to New England, our town saw much action during the Revolutionary War, where we had the famous General Putnam story, in which he managed to escape the British by riding down the big hill on the Post Road.

Then downtown Greenwich started to take shape about the early 1850s. Greenwich Avenue was not much until Henry M. Benedict, president of the Gold Exchange Bank, took issue with the poor street, at this time merely a country lane. From his house on what is now the Post Road, then known as Main Street, he could see the train where it crossed the Cos Cob Bridge, and would know that it was time to leave for the station. Greenwich Avenue at that time made rough going for his horses, so Benedict set about to have it widened, according to our good friend Frederick A. Hubbard in my favorite book, Other Days in Greenwich. Nothing happened so Benedict took it to county court. It took two years but eventually the road was widened and named Greenwich Avenue.

Then, John Dayton and his partner Daniel Merritt Mead bought a lot for the sum of $500, and erected a building in 1854, with Daytons shoe store on the first floor, and Meads law office on the second.

According to Hubbards book, the two men were considered injudicious for buying the land. Certainly not so. Ive looked around to see if I could buy a lot on the Avenue for five hundred dollars, but unfortunately there were none for sale.

Greenwich native Norma Bartol, a former Greenwich Time reporter and columnist, lives in the backcountry.
Probably a good sign for Whole Foods diehards. Photo: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

In a somewhat surprising move, given the fact it just bought Whole Foods, Amazon has announced plans to scale back its grocery-delivery service. It told customers yesterday in at least five states that they have until November 30 to place their final AmazonFresh orders  which may or may not be long enough to find another way to get next-day delivery on a box of kosher, gluten-free waffles; low-carb, ketogenic meal-replacement mix; and a K-Cup sampler pack.

The reduction will affect certain ZIP codes in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and California. Outside of these states, AmazonFresh is also currently available in New York City, D.C., Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Miami, Dallas, and Denver. Its unclear which specific areas inside of those states are losing service (for example, seven regions in California have it), but a company rep told Recode that shoppers in big cities like New York, L.A., Chicago, and Philly have nothing to worry about right now. She added that the changes are unrelated to the Whole Foods acquisition, but that was as specific as she got.

This could be another reminder that the AmazonFresh model has never been a knockout. It debuted in Amazons home of Seattle back in 2007, but didnt expand for another five years. Its not a service thats even available in all parts of the cities it serves. Amazon previously tried selling its Go brick-and-mortar concept as a potential physical pickup site for AmazonFresh, but its since sort of put Go on ice. Amazon has tried pushing AmazonFresh as the place to get quick delivery of all the new Whole Foods products, and while yanking it from some markets wont help Prime members do more of that, there is the fact that Whole Foods 400-plus locations look like dandy AmazonFresh pickup sites. Not surprisingly, just last week Amazon suggested that shoppers might start seeing more cooperation between Whole Foods and its other food arms.
It does look old. Photo: Sandro Bernasconi/Hotel Waldhaus am See

A Chinese multimillionaire who paid more than $10,000 for a glass of 139-year-old whiskey got served a glass full of baloney. Zhang Wei, one of Chinas most popular authors, was vacationing in St. Moritz with his grandma, and they swung by their fancy resort bar, which happened to be Devils Place at the Waldhaus am See hotel, which claims its whiskey collection (over 2,500 bottles) is more comprehensive than any bar in the world.

Zhangs gaze quickly settled on an unopened bottle of Macallan single malt from 1878. He wanted it, and decided to splurge (this was vacation, and he reportedly makes $16 million a year), later explaining that he felt especially drawn to this particular Macallan  because 1878 was the year his great-great-grandmother was born, and presumably also because itd be a serious status symbol. He ordered one glass for 9,999 Swiss francs (about $10,500), a pour Decanter has dubbed the worlds most expensive scotch.

Hotel manager Sandro Bernasconi poured himself a glass, too, because why not? Both were underwhelmed. Zhang later blogged that it had a good taste, but online followers began pointing out that the bottle looked bogus. Eventually, someone called up the hotel. Bernasconi hired a consultancy that does valuations of whiskeys to test the bottle. Experts did some carbon-dating; results showed it was probably from the 70s. The bottle, the label, the cork, and the whisky were all counterfeit, the companys co-founder told Britains Times. The Scotch ended up being a blend of probably 60 percent malt and 40 percent grain  not a single malt, either, in other words. Crushed, Bernasconi says his dad bought that bottle 25 years ago when he was the hotels manager. He calls the whole scam a big shock to the system.

Bernasconi not only refunded the mans money as a gesture of goodwill, but apparently flew all the way to China so he could do it in person.
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Haiti - Politic : Moise calls for innovation and investment in the energy sector





As part of the CARICOM Energy Month 2017, which began in late October in Port-au-Prince https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-22563-haiti-caricom-first-edition-of-the-month-of-energy-in-haiti.html President Jovenel Moise in his assessment of the Haitian energy sector, said he intended "[...] make universal and reliable access to energy a key factor of economic development," highlighting the country's potential to use and develop clean and renewable sources of energy.



Specifying ""But its not only a question of producing energy and making it accessible to people said the president. We also have to collect revenue. Energy cannot be free; everywhere in the world one has to pay for energy. This has to be properly reflected in our energy policy."



President Moise explained that the public and private sectors both have a role to play in the development of the sector to stimulate clean and renewable energy (solar, hydro, hydro, wind and biomass) in the global energy mix.



In order to meet this challenge, the Jovenel Moise has called for innovation and investment in the production and distribution of energy.



Throughout the month of November, the CARICOM Secretariat, under the theme "RE-thinking energy: shaping a resilient community," will spearhead activities aimed at raising awareness of energy issues and options in the region, at generating support for innovation and solutions, and at encouraging behavioural change.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-22563-haiti-caricom-first-edition-of-the-month-of-energy-in-haiti.html



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - UN : A woman at the head of Minujusth





United Nations SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres announced the appointment of Susan D. Page of the United States as his Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH).



The SecretaryGeneral expresses his gratitude to his Deputy Special Representative, Mamadou Diallo of Guinea, who has provided excellent leadership since the establishment of the new Mission on 16 October https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-22430-icihaiti-minujusth-messages-from-the-united-states-and-the-un.html , and to his former Special Representative, Sandra Honore, who successfully led the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) for four years until its closure on 15 October, contributing to the many achievements that made the transition to MINUJUSTH possible.



Learn more about Susan D. Page :

Ms. Page brings to this position extensive managerial and leadership experience in diplomacy, international development and rule of law. She served as Deputy Special Representative for Rule of Law in MINUSTAH since January 2017 and was the first United States Ambassador to South Sudan, after which she served as the Acting United States Ambassador to the African Union and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.



She held the position of Senior Adviser in the Office of the United States Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan and served as United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. Her United Nations experience includes positions as Director of the Rule of Law Advisory Unit in the United Nations Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS) and Senior Legal Adviser for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Sudan and in Rwanda.



Ms. Page holds a Juris Doctor degree from the Harvard Law School and a degree in English with high distinction from the University of Michigan.



Born in 1964 in Chicago, she is married and has a son.



See also :

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-22430-icihaiti-minujusth-messages-from-the-united-states-and-the-un.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20656-haiti-flash-bye-bye-the-minustah-hello-the-minujusth.html



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Religion : President Moise pleads for an enlightened and committed Protestantism





This week at the Montana Hotel, President Jovenel Moise , accompanied by Antonio Rodrigue, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cults, took part in the commemoration ceremony of the 500 years of the Protestant Reformation in the world, in the presence of several parliamentarians and guests from other sectors of national life.



Organized by the Protestant Federation of Haiti, this activity was an opportunity for Reverend Pastor Sylvain Exantus, President of the Protestant Federation of Haiti, to make the history of this great movement, launched by Martin Luther (1483-1546) and who arrived in Haiti in 1816, under the President of Alexandre Petion.



Pastor Exantus said he was satisfied with the progress of the Protestant Reformation after 201 years of service and evangelization in Haiti. While enumerating the main works carried out by the Protestant sector in the country he invited the Protestant Christians to work for a Protestantism of quality, towards the holistic development of the Haitian man.



In his speech, President Moise declared "This Christian morality that Protestantism brings to Haiti is essential to the smooth running of the country", which took the opportunity to present to the leaders of Missions, churches, organizations, leagues of Pastors, Associations and institutions, the priorities of his administration and reiterate his determination to dialogue with all sectors of national life.



Moise pleaded for "enlightened and committed Protestantism aimed not only at leading man to God, but at instilling in the faithful a civic and patriotic sense".



In conclusion, President Moise promised to make every effort to guarantee freedom of religion and association. While emphasizing the secular nature of the state, he also advocated tolerance and living together among all the girls and sons of Haiti.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















GMA Hall of Fame Inductee and multi-award winning vocalist Jonathan Wilburn is excited to announce his inclusion on the upcoming Gold City Alaska Cruise, August 5 - 12, 2018.

Jonathan will be joining Gold City and additional special guests Tim Riley and Jay Parrack on this week-long cruise headed to beautiful Alaska. The artists and fans will be sailing on Princess Cruise Line's Emerald Princes through the untouched natural beauty of Alaska. The cruise departs Seattle, Washington and makes calls on the Alaskan posts of Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway in Alaska, as well as Victoria, British Columbia in Canada.

Jonathan said, "I am so excited to announce a trip of a lifetime. We are going to Alaska! Templeton Tours is the leader in Christian Travel. I have traveled with them on over 30 cruises in my singing career. I've never been disappointed with their level of expert travel assistance and professional approach to every detail. This cruise is an inside passage cruise where we will see some of the most beautiful creations on God's green earth. The food, the singing and the fellowship is unmatched. I hope you will join us on this most memorable cruise to Alaska. I believe it was an artist by the name of Johnny Horton who sang the hit song 'North To Alaska.' Well, lets all get on board and head North To Alaska for the first annual Gold City and Friends Alaska Cruise."

In addition to the beautiful scenery, Jonathan will minister in song with Gold City, Riley and Parrack. Cruisers will also enjoy inspired preaching on the trip as well.

Call and reserve your cabin. Space is limited. On board credit and tips/gratuities will be waived if you sign up before November 15, 2017. Call Templeton Tours today at (800) 334-2630 to reserve your spot and make sure to tell them that Jonathan Wilburn is your cruise sponsor.

If you would like to interview Jonathan Wilburn contact AG Publicity at [email protected].

To purchase Jonathan's music click any of these icons or go to : https://jonathanwilburn.com/.

Tags : jonathan ilburn Gold City Alaska Cruise Daywind Records wilburn and wilburn
Published on 2017/11/03 | Source

Added episode 7 captures for the Korean drama "Avengers' Social Club" (2017)

Advertisement

Directed by Kwon Seok-jang

Written by Hwang Da-eun, Kim Yi-ji

Network : tvN

With Lee Yo-won, Ra Mi-ran, Myung Se-bin, Lee Jun-young, Jang Yong, Choi Byung-mo,...

20 episodes - Wed, Thu 21:30

Also known as: "Buam-dong Revenge Social Club", "Avengers Social Club" and "Revenge Social Club" ( , bok-su-ja so-syeol-keul-leob)

Synopsis

This webtoon adaptation tells the story of three women from different walks of life - the daughter of a chaebol, an ahjumma in a fish market, and a housewife - come together to enact revenge.

Broadcast starting date in Korea : 2017/10/11

More
Tim Atkin MW: Rich pickings for the vineyards of Burgundy

By Tim Atkin

Remind me never to play poker against Frederic Engerer.

Last week I was tasting at Domaine dEugenie in Vosne-Romanee with the CEO of Artemis Domaines and asked him about the impending sale of Clos de Tart. The 7.53ha grand cru had been on the market since the spring, but there were strong rumours that a deal was nigh. Interested parties were said to include Roederer, Dassault and a group of Chinese investors, but what about the billionaire Francois Pinault, the founder of the umbrella Artemis Group? Engerer played a straight bat worthy of Geoffrey Boycott at his stonewalling best. If Monsieur Pinault has bought it, Im sure Id have heard about it, he said.

Within 24 hours, Artemis had added Clos de Tart to a wine portfolio that includes Chateau Latour, Chateau Grillet, Eisle Vineyard and Domaine dEugenie, for an undisclosed sum. Engerer himself had presumably overseen the deal, or at least been party to it. The final price was allegedly 250-270 million, setting a new record for Burgundy.

What is certain is that the value of the best grands crus is going up by the month. Earlier this year, the American businessman Stan Kroenke paid 200 million for Bonneau du Martray (the equivalent of 18.18 million per hectare); the Clos de Tart purchase was somewhere north of 33.20 million per hectare. In the circumstances, LVMHs acquisition of neighbouring Clos des Lambrays for 101 million in 2014 (11.66 million per hectare) almost looks like a bargain.

Like the Bonneau du Martray sale, that of Clos de Tart seems to have been a source of family friction. The Mommessins have owned the grand cru monopoly vineyard  one of only five in Burgundy  since 1932 and, according to Didier Mommessin, head of the company that bears his surname, he didnt want to part with it. But with 21 shareholders the decision was inevitable. Great vineyards, he added in an interview with Le Bien Public, Burgundys local newspaper, are becoming like works of art. There will be other sales of this type, he added ruefully, comparing it to bidding for a Basquiat at Christies.

Hes definitely right about that. In the history of Burgundy, there have been four moments that saw a significant shift in vineyard ownership. The first was after the French Revolution, the second after phylloxera, the third after World War I and the fourth is happening right now. The higher the prices  and the stratospheric sums paid for the grands crus are having a trickle-down effect on premier cru, village and even generic land  the more tempted people are to sell, especially if they are faced with punitive inheritance taxes.

If Clos de Tart is worth 250 million (or thereabouts), what would someone pay for Domaine de la Romanee-Conti? Three years ago, a reliable source told me that a prospective buyer had offered 75 million for a single hectare of Richebourg. Given that DRC owns 27.99has of grands crus (including 3.51ha of Richebourg), its asking price could be 2 billion. Who would part with such a sum? There would be no shortage of bidders, according to micro-negociant Olivier Bernstein. Anyone with capital is happy to buy vineyards at any price.







Cashing in

There is an old saying in Burgundy that vignerons live poor and die rich, but a growing number of them have decided to cash in while they are still active. The pressure to do so has been made more acute by a number of small crops in recent years, especially in frost and hail-hit 2016. The abundant 2017 harvest may have eased that to a degree, but the reality, as Jean-Louis Trapet of Domaine Jean-Louis Trapet puts it, is that there have never been as many sellers  or buyers.

The spiralling value of land is having an impact on the price of the wines they produce, although even they cant keep up. But whats even more worrying is that most Burgundians cant afford to buy top vineyards any more. As recently as the early 1980s, it was possible to purchase a hectare of grand cru and pay off the investment in three years, just by selling the wine it produced. Now it takes three generations. Or more. Only big businesses (the Faiveleys, LVMHs and Artemis Groups of this world) or very, very rich individuals (Stan Kroenke) can afford to play in this league.

Even families who want to keep their vineyards are facing ruinous inheritance taxes, which are calculated according to the value of the land. Philippe Drouhin, of the Domaine Drouhin-Laroze, says it took him 15 years to pay the bill after his father died, but is worried about what his children, Caroline and Nicolas, will have to face when he hangs up his pipette.

One solution proposed by Francois Patriat, a key figure in Emmanuel Macrons En Marche movement and the senator for the Cote dOr region, is that inheritance taxes would only apply if families decided to sell their vineyards. The government would lose considerable revenue, but it would help to secure the future of many smaller domaines. Right now, that future is looking very uncertain indeed.





Photo: Frederic Engerer, by Tim Atkin
Copestick Murray swoops in on Slurp

By Michelle Perrett

Copestick Murray, the drinks distributor and producer, has acquired a 40% stake in The Slurp Wine Company.

The purchase price of the deal, which was completed on Friday, 27 October, was not disclosed.

In a statement it said that the aim of the new partnership was to quickly establish Slurp as one of the most successful premium wine retailers in the Uk.

The deal saw Copestick Murray purchase the stake from wine retailer SH Jones, meaning that Slurp is now jointly owned by Copestick Murray, Richard Jones, Hugh Taylor and James Keef.

Slurp is based in Banbury and has two shops  one in Banbury and one in Leamington Spa. It has also recently launched a new website at Slurp.co.uk.

Hugh Taylor, managing director of Slurp, said that the company had gone through the first stage of a five-year plan that included launching a new website, merging hawksheadwines.co.uk and re-branding the two SH Jones shops under the Slurp umbrella.

We were then looking for capital injection to help us scale the business and establish Slurp as a major premium online UK wine retailer, he said.

When we discovered that Copestick Murray were looking to enter the UK digital arena it made a lot of sense to for us to have an industry partner and particularly one as innovative and successful as Copestick Murray. With the funding now in place we are really looking to implementing our long term strategy for Slurp.

Robin Copestick, managing director of Copestick Murray, who will sit on the board of Slurp, said the deal was part of the company strategy to become much more involved in online retailing.

When we heard that Slurp were looking for investment it was very clear that this was an excellent opportunity for us to play a significant part in their future. I am excited to start working with Hugh and Richard and help them realise their own ambitious plans for Slurp.

Copestick Murrays parent company is Henkell & Co, Germanys largest sparkling wine producer and a leading producer of wines and spirits in Europe.

It has subsidiaries in 20 countries and exports to over 100 countries worldwide.








The week that was

By Jo Gilbert

In case you missed some of the headlines this week on harpers.co.uk, we have put together a review of the top online news, Q&As, and opinion stories.



Top Stories: Californian staple Echo Falls announced another big change in direction this week, stepping across from fusion wine into the flavoured spirits category.

Also from California, we reported on the stellar support from Naked Wines and its supporters who have collectively raised $500,000 for the relief effort.

Meanwhile in Europe, we looked at how cremant production is ramping up in Bordeaux  where the number of producers making cremant is believed to have doubled in three years  and the stars from this years Rioja Recognises.



Show Stoppers: Wine exhibitions are big business, drawing buyers from across the world with the promise of making new connections and discovering business opportunities.

As we enter into the second half of 2017, organisers of the big events are looking at how to refine their offering into to 2018 and beyond.

This includes Vinexpo, which is heading to Paris in 2019, and the London Wine Fair which is looking internally to celebrate the products grown on home turf.

Analysis and Insights: A pretty diverse range of stories this week which straddled everything from technology driving frost prevention methods in the vineyard, to Vermouth and the wines sure to pack a punch this Christmas.



People and Opinion: This week we caught up with industry stalwart David Cox ahead of his retirement and columnist Tim Aktin MW dissected the recent sale of Clos de Tart.

We also got up close and personal with the buying team from The Wine Society to see what makes them tick.
An area man was arrested and charged in a child abuse case in Park Hills involving his adopted son.

Jeffrey Sawtelle, 50, of Park Hills, is being charged with a class D felony of abuse or neglect of a child.

According to a probable cause statement, on Oct. 3, a woman came into the Park Hills Police Department of her own freewill to speak to a detective and the Division of Family Services in reference to an ongoing investigation involving her adopted son, who is less than 18-years-old.

The detective read the woman her Miranda Rights and she chose to continue to speak with officials. She was asked to explain the bruises on her sons back and side and she said her husband, Sawtelle, spanked the boy with a belt on Sept. 19 when he got home from work.

The woman said the reason Sawtelle spanked the boy was because while she was at church with the child, he apparently ate their 4-year-old childs food and was confronted about it. The boy got mad and went in the church bathroom where he pooped and then smeared it on the walls of the bathroom.

She said she was too mad to handle the discipline so she asked Sawtelle to handle it. She said when he got home he took the boy to the bedroom and spanked him with a belt. She did not witness the spanking, but knew it happened.

The woman denied seeing any bruising on the boy and wasnt even aware of it until she was sent photographs of them by Sawtelle on Sept. 29. Apparently he had taken the boy to the doctor for a checkup and get medicine.

The doctor noticed the bruises and reported it to the Missouri Abuse Hotline and Sawtelle told the woman that he had no idea how it happened. He said the boy claimed a teacher or a student did it. The woman said Sawtelle has a bad temper and has acted out his anger by punching holes in their walls and even knocked a window out of their vehicle.

The detective asked the woman if she felt the bruising was excessive and she agreed it was. The detective then spoke with Sawtelle and asked him to explain how the boys back and side got bruised.

The detective reported that Sawtelle initially denied knowing what happened to the boy and it was claimed that his wife asked him to handle disciplining the boy for eating the 4-year-olds food and smearing his poop all over the church bathroom walls.

Sawtelle admitted to using a belt and swatting the boy twice on his butt. The detective explained to Sawtelle that there was no way that two swats on the butt bruised the boys back and side like that. The detective also said there were at least three to five swats.

Sawtelle eventually admitted that he wasnt sure how many swats he gave and that the belt probably did hit him on the side. Sawtelle said he didnt mean to hurt the boy, but he was trying to get away from the belt.

Sawtelle also admitted that the spanking was excessive and that he was sorry for what he had done. The reason he didnt tell the truth from the start was because he said he was afraid and ashamed. At that time Sawtelle was released pending the application of formal charges.

The detective wrote in his report that when the bruises were first viewed on Sept. 28, it was one solid mass and he couldnt tell what may have caused it. The boy told the detective he had fallen on his bike and the detective asked him to show him where he landed on his bike.

The boy led him to a green bike and pointed to the kickstand area of the bike and said he fell on that. He also said he was sure that is what happened. The boy also told two other officers the same thing.

The detective said they had also been informed that the boy told other people that kids in his neighborhood did it, teachers did it and students at school did it. The detective said he was told that the boy is autistic and has very limited ability to communicate.

A few days later the detective received more photographs of the bruised area and now that the bruise was settled, several defining lines could be seen, which were consistent with numerous belt strikes.

A warrant was issued for Sawtelle on Oct. 18 and was served on Oct. 20. A $10,000 bond was posted that same day and Sawtelle's arraignment is scheduled for Dec. 7 at 9 a.m.
DEAR ABBY: I met this guy through a dating site. We began chatting and hit it off. We talk almost every day, and have Skyped a few times. We've been getting closer and closer. I really like him, and he has told me he feels the same.

The thing is, I'm not sure if he's telling me the truth. We live in different countries, and for all I know, he could have a girlfriend and be messing with me. I also don't know how to tell my parents. They don't support online dating, and they don't think I'm ready for a relationship. Please help me. I'm really confused. -- CHATTING FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY

DEAR CHATTING: It is hard to keep emotions in check and think clearly when the adrenaline is pumping and our hearts are beating a mile a minute.

Because you are a minor, you have to respect your parents' decisions until such time as they agree you're ready for a relationship. A way to earn their trust and prove that you are mature enough would be to be honest about what you are doing and thinking, rather than sneak around hoping to slip something by them. When that time comes, finding someone closer to home, somebody you can introduce to them IN PERSON will make your life easier. In the meantime, concentrate on school and the opportunities it provides.

DEAR ABBY: A good friend of my husband's, "Eric," offered us a very generous wedding present. It was something we needed in our home, and he told us he would like to build it for us. Time went on, the project was delayed and my husband offered him numerous opportunities to back out. Each time the friend continued to support his offer. When it was finally finished, Eric admitted it had pushed him beyond capacity.

It has become obvious that Eric feels resentful, and now he's holding his generosity over my husband's head. He recently asked my husband to help with a project in his own home, and when my husband couldn't do it that week, the conflict came to a head.

My husband has reached out trying to explain that he wants to help his friend, but he needs to plan for it. We haven't heard back from Eric, and my husband is very sad. I'm good friends with Eric's wife, and this conflict has made it uncomfortable for us to see each other.

I want to mediate, but it's difficult to objectively step back and see where my husband has wronged and needs to make amends. I realize that nothing in life is black and white, and I need an unbiased perspective on how we can move forward. -- GOOD FRIENDS

DEAR GOOD FRIENDS: I agree that few things in life are black and white, but after reading your letter, I can't see how Eric was wronged. Your husband didn't refuse to help with the project; he just said he couldn't do it unless it was scheduled in advance.

I don't know why Eric is nursing a grudge and neither do you. Not all friendships last forever. That's why, if you are smart, you will refrain from inserting yourself in the middle of this.

DEAR ABBY: My husband is a nice guy, but he's not particularly good at planning ahead. This means that special events, holidays and birthdays often go unmarked because he doesn't remember in time to get something sent.

In my parents' marriage, all family communications fell to my mom. It was her job to send the Christmas cards, birthday gifts for nieces and nephews and to remember her mother and her mother-in-law on Mother's Day. Our marriage is more egalitarian, and I don't want the job of communicator-in-chief.

My husband knows this and agrees that he should share some responsibility, but doesn't act on it, even after being reminded. I feel guilty when an important milestone in one of his parents' lives goes by and they receive no acknowledgement from our household. The source of my guilt is surely the nagging feeling that it's my job as the wife to make these connections and that I am judged when the things are not sent.

How do I let go of the guilt, or at least let my in-laws know I love them and their son is the one who is letting them down? I want absolution. -- NO CALENDAR GIRL IN CALIFORNIA

DEAR NO CALENDAR GIRL: Not everyone excels at every task. That's why there is division of labor in partnerships, including marriage. If you think you will look better after explaining to your in-laws that the reason they haven't heard from the two of you is their son didn't remember, you are dreaming. Because you are better at planning ahead, deal with the chore. I'm sure he does things for you that are a pain in the neck (and even below). In this day of automation, sending "something" to relatives is practically a no-brainer. And it certainly beats feeling guilty because your husband isn't up to it.

DEAR ABBY: My parents are in their late 60s and suffer from multiple lifestyle-related illnesses. Although they had every opportunity to make healthy changes, they chose not to. I live on the other side of the country, and I am busy with my career and family.

I love my parents and accept our relationship for what it is. However, I do not feel obligated to disrupt my life and upset my children to be with them as they die slow, painful deaths. If their illnesses were not directly related to their own poor choices, I might feel and behave differently toward them. Knowing it won't change their behavior, should I tell them why I won't be with them for what appears will be prolonged and terrible deaths? -- SADDENED BY THEIR CHOICES

DEAR SADDENED: If your parents are as sick as you have indicated, they already feel terrible. I see nothing to be gained by adding emotional pain to their physical pain. Put aside your anger and find enough compassion to NOT say it unless asked directly.

DEAR ABBY: Taking care of a loved one who has Alzheimer's is difficult. My boyfriend came up with a brilliant idea to help me maintain my own space (the basement in the family home) and still keep track of my mom upstairs. A baby monitor! I could hear everything going on upstairs, at night especially, and it made a challenging time much easier.

Both of my parents had Alzheimer's disease, and I wish I had known about the monitor when Dad was still alive. I hope this will help others to be more effective caregivers without compromising their own lives. -- MISSING MOM AND DAD IN MONTANA

DEAR MISSING: So do I, because placing a baby monitor in the room of a sick person of any age is a good idea in case the person needs assistance. I have heard of this being done not only with Alzheimer's patients but also with people in hospice programs whose caregivers can't be with them every minute. Thank you for writing.

DEAR ABBY: I was unhappily married years ago and conceived a child by an ex-boyfriend. My son is now 31. I divorced my husband 28 years ago. He knew the baby was not his, but claimed him as his own son. He refused to do a DNA test when we were going through the divorce. He died a few years ago.

I am in contact with my son's biological father. They look identical, and my grandson looks just like his father and grandfather.

My guilt is consuming me. I want to tell my son that even though the dad he knew all his life is gone, he still has a chance to get to know another father who is his blood. On the other hand, I don't want to ruin my relationship with my son and grandchildren, whom I love very much. How can I tell the truth without hurting my son and our relationship? -- RIGHTING A WRONG

DEAR RIGHTING: Better late than never. Your son needs to know that the man who raised him and claimed him as his own was not his biological father so that he can have a complete medical history. If the birth father wasn't interested in knowing or supporting his son, he sounds more like a sperm donor than a "blood" relative to me. Do not be surprised if your son isn't interested in knowing more about his birth father than the information I suggested.

DEAR ABBY: My mother died from a heroin overdose when I was 8. As a mother with children of my own, I often find myself getting upset when people say nice things about her -- things that would normally make people feel good, such as, "Oh, she would have been so proud of you," or, "She was such a great woman." I feel that if she was such a great woman, she wouldn't have chosen drugs over her (or our) well-being. How can I let go of the anger I feel toward her when everyone else sees her only in a good light? -- MIXED FEELINGS ABOUT MOM

DEAR MIXED FEELINGS: I'm sorry for the loss of your mother at such a tender age and under such tragic circumstances. Far more is understood about drug addiction today than was known when you were a child. We now know that addiction can be less about a lack of character than a medical problem.

I seriously doubt that when your mother gave herself her final fix she realized it would be her last. While I sympathize with your anger at being cheated out of her presence in your life, it would be better for your own quality of life if you could accept that she was a human being and fallible. A licensed mental health professional can help you work through your anger, and I hope you will talk to one soon.

DEAR ABBY: We host many gatherings in our home during the year, including picnics. We have a downstairs bathroom that is intended for guests. But twice now, I have encountered guests using my upstairs bathroom. I have never offered it, and I'm offended that they take it upon themselves to go uninvited into private territory. I would never do that in someone else's house. Am I wrong, or are they overstepping the boundaries here? -- WONDERING IN THE EAST

DEAR WONDERING: To use your upstairs bathroom without asking your permission is overstepping. The exception might be if the downstairs bathroom was in use, and the need to get into one was urgent.

DEAR ABBY: My three best friends over the last four years recently decided to start a business together. They said I was more than welcome to join them, but financially I wasn't able to swing it. I work part-time, so I have been helping them when I can.

When we get together for dinner once a month, most of their conversation focuses on their business. But recently they discussed a shopping trip they took together. They went on a day I could have gone, but I was not invited. Should I take this -- and other similar incidents -- as a hint that our friendship has run its course? -- FEELING LEFT OUT

DEAR FEELING LEFT OUT: Talking about the shopping trip in front of you was insensitive. However, you may not have been invited because your friends were afraid you might be embarrassed it you could not participate in the shopping. You mentioned that their business arrangement is recent. They may be discussing business because that's what is on their minds.

Don't write them off or withdraw just yet. You can always do that. Wait to see how things play out.

DEAR ABBY: Help! I'm a 67-year-old man being relentlessly chased by a 68-year-old woman. I have told her I want to date other women and will be moving out of the country at the end of the year. Despite this, she is constantly trying to maneuver me into an exclusive relationship, probably ending in living together. I don't want to hurt her, but I'm at a loss as to how to get her to back off. -- HAPPILY UNCOMMITTED

DEAR UNCOMMITTED: Here's how. Tell her you can't handle the pressure she's putting on you and end the relationship NOW.

DEAR ABBY: I am in a predicament. My therapist is great, but sometimes I think she shares too much. Last time I went, she was running late. When I finally got into her office, she told me the previous patient was nonverbal and had painted her nails during the session. Later in the session, she confided that years ago she had been date raped.

Abby, I am in counseling because my father raped me when I was 15 (I am now 24). Her sharing has me worried because I don't want her telling others what I say or do during counseling. Further, her story of the date rape scared me. She described a situation that is not uncommon for me to be in, and it caused something almost like a flashback in me. I think what she did was insensitive, to say the least.

I have nobody else to ask, so what should I do? I'm getting counseling for free now due to my income, and it took months to get set up with a counselor. Should I report her or accept that this was a mistake and say nothing? If I need to report her, how would I go about doing that? -- CONFLICTED ABOUT IT

DEAR CONFLICTED: You should change therapists because it appears this one has more problems than you do. As to what agency you should report her breach of professional ethics to, contact the state organization that has licensed her to practice.

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069
The claims were made by his counterpart from Russia, Sergei Lavrov, in Moscow on Tuesday, according to YLE .

Timo Soini (BR), the Minister for Foreign Affairs, has denied claims that Finland wants Russia to participate in the operations of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki.

Soini confirmed to the public broadcasting company that the centre of excellence was discussed during his meeting with Lavrov in mid-October but stressed that it was Lavrov who revealed that Russia would be interested in co-operating with the newly opened centre of excellence.

I didnt comment on the issue, he said in a written response to YLE.

Lavrov delivered a speech at a meeting of the Association of European Businesses in Russia in Moscow on Tuesday, accusing both the United States and a small group of European countries of Russo-phobia. The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, he said, is one example the anti-Russian entities created recently to counteract the evidence-free danger coming from Moscow.

I asked [Soini] what the centre will actually be doing, he stated according to a transcript of his remarks found on the website of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He said that, probably, it will engage in studying all the hybrid threats that there are, and that he would be glad if Russia joined this centre. It was mentioned during a conversation, but nobody invited us there officially. If they do, it will probably be an interesting project to join.

The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats was officially opened in Helsinki in September.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Vesa Moilanen  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
YLE on Thursday reported that voter support for the opposition party plummeted by 3.0 percentage points to 6.9 per cent  its lowest level in over seven years  in October, as voters shifted their support for the Social Democrats and National Coalition.

The Finns Party has lost almost a third of its support over the past month, finds a poll commissioned by YLE .

Thats really a significant drop. Its rare to see changes in the region of three percentage points, Jari Pajunen, the chief executive of Taloustutkimus, commented to YLE.

Taloustutkimus interviewed a total of 2,448 people for the opinion poll between 4 and 31 October. The Finns Partys skid, thus, falls well outside the margin of error for the poll, +/-2.1 percentage points.

Jussi Halla-aho, the chairperson of the Finns Party, admitted to being surprised by the poll results but insisted that there is no reason to panic.

The result was surprising but its difficult to say anything insightful about it until weve look at the polls raw data. Theres on reason to panic, however. The party members have been in high spirits, and studies indicate that theres demand for our political agenda, he wrote on Facebook.

We have to focus on what were doing and keep doing what we know is right.

The Finns Party was not the only party to record a substantial change in voter support, according to the public broadcasting company. The Green League saw its support drop by 2.6 percentage points to 14.0 per cent, as it continued its skid for the second consecutive month after taking over as the most supported opposition party in August.

The Green League was polling at a record-high level of 17.6 per cent between July and August.

The National Coalition and Social Democrats, the latest poll also shows, both recorded an up-tick of 1.1 percentage points in voter support to 22.8 and 18.4 per cent, respectively, as the former consolidated its status as the most and the latter the second most supported political party in Finland.

The Centre Party, in turn, rebounded after seeing its support slip to its lowest level since mid-2012, recording an increase of 1.6 percentage points to 17.4 per cent.

The Left Alliance recorded a 0.7 percentage point rise in support, to 9.0 per cent, and overtook the Finns Party as the third most supported opposition party after the Social Democrats and Green League.

The Swedish Peoples Party was the only smaller party to record a notable increase, of 1.4 percentage points, in voter support, receiving 4.9 per cent of the hypothetical vote.

The Christian Democratic Party contrastively saw its popularity wane by 0.5 percentage points to 3.4 per cent and the Blue Reform  the smallest of the three ruling parties  by 0.2 percentage points to 1.3 per cent, according to YLE.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Emmi Korhonen  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
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A Limerick businessman has settled his High Court action against Jedward and their parents over an alleged merchandising agreement.

Patrick Noonan had claimed 625,000 losses, mostly arising from the design and production of Jedward wristbands, jigsaws, board games and websites.

Identical twins John and Edward Grimes (26), from Dublin and known as Jedward, were in court with their estranged parents John Grimes and Susanna Condron when the confidential settlement was announced.

Jedward made it to the finals of The X Factor in 2009, represented Ireland twice in the Eurovision Song Contest and also appeared in Celebrity Big Brother.

Confidential

On the second day of the case yesterday, Patrick O'Reilly SC, for Mr Noonan, said the case had been compromised on confidential terms.

The judge adjourned the matter to December 12 to enable the terms to be concluded.
Gardai at the scene after 25 people were left homeless when fire swept through the Station Hill apartments

A man who caused 1.25m damage and left 25 people homeless when he set fire to his girlfriend's flat has been jailed for five-and-a-half years.

John McGovern (25) torched the flat in Station Hill, Clongriffin, last November after a "vicious attack" on his girlfriend.

The fire then spread to other flats in the building.

McGovern was "out of his mind" on drugs and drink at the time, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told.

Judge Karen O'Connor said he was at very high risk of re-offending, but noted he was making good use of his time in custody and was trying to find a way to rehabilitate himself.

She suspended the last 12 months of a six-and-a-half year prison sentence.

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Assault

McGovern, of Shangan Terrace, Ballymun, admitted arson causing damage to a number of flats and assault causing harm to his girlfriend, Grainne O'Brien.

Judge O'Connor said he had endangered the lives of the residents in the flats and that the financial loss to those who had lost their homes had been considerable.

She said the "vicious attack" on Ms O'Brien in the presence of her child had been "frightening" and "painful".

The court was told the couple had a tumultuous relationship and that they had been drinking heavily in the days leading up to the fire.

On the morning of the fire, McGovern threw a vacuum cleaner at Ms O'Brien as she lay in bed before kicking and punching her.

He then left the flat and went to the Travelodge in Ballymun, where he took controlled drugs and continued to drink.

Later that day, Ms O'Brien's ex-partner visited her, bringing their young child with him. He said Ms O'Brien had a black eye, a split lip and was missing a tooth.

McGovern returned in an "agitated state" and threatened to hit Ms O'Brien's ex-partner. Ms O'Brien ran to a neighbour's home and asked her to call gardai.

Ms O'Brien then saw her flat "on fire" as McGovern stood on the far side of nearby train tracks shouting, "Look at your gaff Grainne, I'm after setting it alight".

McGovern caught a train to Raheny Station, where he was arrested after he was seen acting erratically with a knife.

When questioned by gardai, he blamed the fire on Ms O'Brien and her ex-boyfriend.

McGovern had 26 previous convictions, including those for theft, public order offences and escaping from custody.

The court was told it took 14 fire trucks four-and-a-half hours to bring the fire under control. All the residents were evacuated and six homes were destroyed. Others were badly damaged by water.

Twenty-five people were left homeless, including a young child with cancer.

One of them described how he and his daughter had lost all their furniture. Another described how she experienced depression as a result of the fire.

Apology

Sean Guerin, defending, said his client failed to take his prescribed anti-psychotic pills in the days leading up to the fire.

He said that, along with the alcohol and drugs, led to a "cocktail of reasons" why he was "out of his mind".

A letter of apology from his client described the fire as the "worst mistake of my life".

"If I could turn back the clock, I would," he said. He described his actions as "irresponsible and unacceptable".

McGovern had been in custody since the fire, was now drug-free and eager to make progress, said Mr Guerin.

Judge O'Connor backdated the sentence to November 1, 2016, and ordered McGovern to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for two years, on release.

McGovern was also ordered to remain under the supervision of the Probation Services for two years and attend programmes as directed.
A jury has convicted retired surgeon Michael Shine of indecently assaulting two young male patients in a hospital in the 1970s.

Shine (85), of Wellington Road, Dublin, had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to eight charges of indecently assaulting six patients at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and at his private clinic, both in Drogheda, between 1964 and 1991.

Weird

On Wednesday the jury of four men and eight women acquitted him of a number of these charges.

Just before midday yesterday, having deliberated for just over six hours, the jury returned majority guilty verdicts on the outstanding counts.

These alleged that Shine assaulted two teenage patients on dates between 1974 and 1976.

Shine admitted examining these patients but denied he had done anything inappropriate.

One victim was aged around 15 or 16 in 1976 when he attended the hospital with an ingrowing toenail.

He told the trial that Shine strapped him down on a bed with rubber bungee restraints and then slipped his hand under the blanket and started massaging his testicles.

He said he knew what was happening was weird but didn't know if he could speak out because he was "just a young boy".

The second victim testified that during two follow-up examinations for undescended testes at Shine's clinic, the doctor massaged the base of his penis.

The victim, who was in his mid teens at the time, told the trial that he told himself for years that there was nothing improper about what Shine did.

Judge Cormac Quinn remanded Shine on bail until December 1 for sentencing.

Injury

The six complainants were all teenage boys at the time they allege Shine touched them in their genital areas while treating them for injuries such as cuts to a knee, an injury to a finger and an injured toe.

On Wednesday the jury found Shine not guilty of four charges which covered alleged offences against three teenagers in 1964, 1970 and 1976. Shine denied ever seeing these patients.

During the 12-day trial the judge directed the jury to acquit Shine of one count of indecent assault between 1988 and 1991, after a defence application.
A sound engineer accused of carrying out a campaign of harassment against her ex- boyfriend was re-arrested and taken to court in custody after failing to turn up for a previous hearing.

Emma Butt (29), who allegedly hacked into her ex's social media accounts and blogged about their break-up, appeared before Dublin District Court after gardai executed a warrant for her arrest. However, after Judge Anthony Halpin granted her bail and released her from custody, she left the courtroom without signing her bail bond.

Judge Halpin then vacated his bail ruling and instead made no order.

Chased

Ms Butt, of Riverside Grove, Coolock, was accused of harassing her ex-partner at various locations between February 1 and May 30, 2015.

Among the allegations the court heard was that she moved two doors down from the man's apartment after their split, sent him a stock photo of a positive pregnancy test and chased him down a road.

A warrant had been issued for her arrest when she failed to appear in court in September. On Wednesday, gardai took her to court in custody after executing that warrant.

Judge Halpin initially granted her bail and said he would adjourn the case to a date in January for the service of a book of evidence, pending a circuit court trial.

However, when Ms Butt's case was repeatedly called for her to sign her bail bond, she was not present. "I will have to vacate my original order and make no order," said the judge.

At an earlier hearing, another judge had refused jurisdiction to deal with the case in the district court.

On that date, Gda Mark Nolan had outlined the prosecution's case, saying Ms Butt had been in a relationship with the complainant for seven months.

After they split, the man was subjected to a large number of emails and phone calls, he said.

Horrible

The court heard Ms Butt wrote a six-part blog about their relationship, which she sent to members of the man's family and other people known to him.

It was alleged that she accessed his Twitter account and his followers were sent the blog, as were his employer and clients.

"His Facebook account was hacked, his ex-girlfriends were contacted saying how horrible he was and that he ended the relationship, she claimed, because she was pregnant," Gda Nolan alleged.

The court heard it was also alleged that Ms Butt sent a photo of a pregnancy test, which turned out to be a stock image.

At one stage, she allegedly moved into the same apartment complex, two doors down from her ex, and lived there for about three months.

She would be outside in the car park waiting for him and "he would be forced to literally run down the road while she chased him," Gda Nolan said.

It was alleged she contacted his father with claims of how badly she had been treated and this caused stress to his family.
The Dublin mother looking through her smashed windows hopes Tusla will arrange for her son to be given treatment

A woman is pleading for her 12-year-old autistic son to be taken into a residential treatment centre because he has repeatedly assaulted her.

"I barricade myself in my bedroom with my three girls at night," said the mother, from Dublin.

"He has smashed up my windows and televisions several times.

"I have marks all over my body. I have to highlight this before my kids or me are dead."

Knife

The woman said gardai were called to her home more than a dozen times this year to deal with her son's violent behaviour.

The mother-of-four said she had pleaded with Tusla, the child and family agency, to put her son into a residential treatment centre to give him the mental healthcare he needs.

She said her son had autism, ADHD and symptoms of manic depression, and her GP had told her that he needed residential treatment.

He has been prescribed medication but is not taking it, she said.

Although he is only 12, he is the size of a grown man and is very strong, she added.

"Tusla continue to refuse to arrange residential treatment for him," she said.

"But they offered me counselling. I don't want counselling - I just want help for my son and for my family.

"He has given me black eyes and attacked me with a knife. He broke a bone in my hand and I was in a plaster for weeks.

"His sisters are terrified. He gave our babysitter a black eye."

She said her son's violent behaviour began to get worse three years ago. His father no longer lives in the family home.

The boy's behaviour resulted in him having to leave the local primary and he attended a special school.

However, his continued abuse of teachers and pupils meant he was no longer welcome at there either.

He received home tutoring and loved his tutor, said his mother.

In September he was given a place in a special unit in a secondary school but often arrived home within an hour and did not attend regularly.

Welfare

A Tusla spokeswoman said the organisation could not comment on individual cases.

"Tusla endeavours to retain a child within their family, within their community at all times, where this is appropriate and the local Tusla team would actively engage with the family to put a plan in place to offer supports," she said.

"One of the key principles of child protection and welfare is that children should only be separated from their parents/guardians when alternative means of protecting them have been exhausted."
Transport Minister Shane Ross has insisted that he won't intervene in the Irish Rail row - despite the prospect of extra strikes in the run-up to Christmas.

It has emerged that union chiefs are threatening to ramp up industrial action over pay ahead of the festive season.

Two further 48-hour strikes are being considered on the weekends before Christmas - including on December 23 and Christmas Eve - unless staff are offered the same pay rate as bus and Luas drivers.

Miserly

Around 155,000 commuters around the country were affected by the one-day strike on Wednesday, which brought all rail services including Dart and Intercity routes to a halt.

Business groups have raised fears of the potential economic impact if industrial action is expanded in the build-up to Christmas.

However, Mr Ross has stuck to the Government's position that it won't get involved in the row.

Instead he said the State's industrial relations mechanisms were the appropriate forum to resolve the dispute between Irish Rail management and unions.

"I sincerely hope that won't happen," the minister said, responding to the threat of additional industrial action ahead of the festive season.

"I very much urge both sides, the management and unions, to go back to the WRC [Workplace Relations Commission] and the Labour Court as soon as possible. I will not be intervening."

The four remaining one-day strikes already planned - including the second strike next Tuesday - are set to go ahead as workers seek a 3.75pc pay rise.

Irish Rail has offered employees a 1.7pc increase, which the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU) and Siptu have described as "miserly".

Separately NBRU general secretary Dermot O'Leary dismissed Taoiseach Leo Varadkar's suggestion of restricting the right to strike by workers in essential services as "populist bluster".

Mr Varadkar made the proposal during his Fine Gael leadership campaign.

Commenting on the Irish Rail dispute during his trip to the United States, the Taoiseach said his promise to restrict strikes in essential services could become party policy ahead of the next election.

Protest

"Workers will find an alternative way to protest," Mr O'Leary said, if such moves were implemented by a future government.

Mr Varadkar was also critical of the current industrial action by rail workers, saying they would end up with a deal that "will probably be no different than if there'd been no strike at all".

Mr O'Leary said the Taoiseach was showing "ignorance of industrial relations" with his comments.
ABINGDON, Va. The Virginia Department of Transportation is seeking public input on its $21.2 million project to improve traffic congestion in the area of Interstate 81s Exit 17  a plan first proposed in 1999.

VDOT held a location and design public hearing Thursday night at the Virginia Highlands Small Business Incubator so local residents could view maps and plans and ask questions of traffic engineers, environmental managers and other VDOT representatives. There was no presentation.

Those attending could also comment in writing or orally. The deadline for comments, which can also be mailed or emailed to VDOT, is Nov. 20.

The main focuses of the project are safety and to create [traffic] congestion relief, said Dennis Harris, assistant district administrator. There is always tremendous backup on Cummings Street.

The project includes improvements to the Exit 17 northbound on and off ramps, improvements to a segment of Route 75, reconstruction and relocation of Gravel Lake Road, and relocation of the frontage road adjacent to the northbound Exit 17 off ramp.

Riley Clark, who has lived on Fairway Drive in Abingdon for 14 years, said hes enthused, about the project.

We need all the help we can get to get in and out of here, he said.

Clark said that it looks like a workable project.

Harris said that the interchange improvements will also provide economic development opportunities, with the improvements to Gravel Lake Road, which will provide access to businesses that have been accessed from Commerce Drive.

The project is part of the SMART SCALE program, Michelle Earl, VDOT communications manager for the Bristol District said. In 2014, the General Assembly approved SMART SCALE, which is aimed at providing VDOT and localities with more affordable solutions to existing roadway problems, Earl said.

SMART SCALE is a process where localities apply for projects and those projects are scored on criteria such as safety, economic development, access management, congestion, environmental and land use, Earl said.

Once a project is approved, the goal is to fund it through construction and complete it within VDOTs six-year plan, according to Earl.

Abingdon Mayor Cathy Lowe said Exit 17 has been a focus of the Town Council for years.

Most citizens complain about that area, Lowe said. This [project] is addressing their concerns.

Lowe added that the project is beneficial for infrastructure in Abingdon.

Washington County Supervisor Phillip McCall said he has not heard any negative comments about the Exit 17 project.

Its going to be a great benefit, he said. It seems like everyone would like to see it be done.

Even though the project is in Abingdon, it will benefit all of Washington County, he added.

The next phase is the right-of-way process, during which VDOT will determine what accommodations are needed for construction. This phase could begin in the spring, Harris said.

From there, the project will be advertised for bids.

Once the plans are all tied up, we will be ready to dig dirt, Harris said.
Kerrville, TX (78028)

Today

Sun and a few passing clouds. High 56F. Winds NE at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Mostly clear during the evening followed by cloudy skies overnight. Low 36F. Winds light and variable.
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Hollywood,



If you spent a little time reading the threads rather than trying to troll people and attempting to control them while you hijack threads, you might learn something. Let's revisit the instant case:



Clara007 asked another poster if they had read the Bible. I asked Clara007 if he / she had read the Bible and reminded him / her what that book has to say relative to the OP. Nothing more, sir and nothing less. My response was related to the OP based upon the book a poster inquired about.



In doing so, any credibility given to the Bible is between Clara007 and myself. It don't have squat to do with you and the authority of the Bible is not at issue here. This thread is not about whether or not the Bible has any authority. I answered a poster's question. Period.



I asked you politely that if you wanted to argue the Bible START ANOTHER THREAD. Now, either you cannot read OR you have no respect for your fellow posters. And here's the deal:



You are all over this board with ******** this and **** that, always pretending to be the Head Honcho in Charge and never starting threads that articulate YOUR position. You're satisfied being everyone else's judge. You think the world revolves around you and you hate the Bible because you've decided that you're God. Time you got that bubble bursted: Nobody died and left you in charge. You are not God and I don't owe your fat *** a damn thing.



I came here to post about topics, not have a never ending personality contest with a loser that is so henpecked that the only way he feels important is to demean and bully people he's never met. You lack the guts to start threads and show people where you stand. You blow hot air that you cannot and will not say to a person's face. That's why you act this way anonymously on the Internet. I'm just not your boy. I'm damn sure not someone you can bully. And if you don't have enough respect to leave people alone when politely asked, someone should figure a way to hold you accountable.



You don't have enough IQ nor common sense to evaluate what I put on this board. If you weren't so totally uncouth, you'd take a hint and leave people alone when they asked it of you. I don't like your smart *** attitude and you will never be good enough to judge me.
HICKORY  The Cognitive Connection and Rudisill Family Practice have officially joined forces to better treat individuals faced with addiction, and will now be known as Integrated Care of Greater Hickory.

The unique thing about this partnership is when dealing with (patients and) addiction, the quicker you can get someone into treatment the more opportunity they have in order to move towards recovery, Cognitive Connections CEO Julie Walker said.

The fight against opioid addiction recently received state and national recognition, too.

Chief Deputy Whip Patrick McHenry released a statement after President Donald Trump's declaration of the opioid epidemic as a Nationwide Public Health Emergency.

"The opioid epidemic has devastated communities throughout the United States, including here in western North Carolina, McHenry said via a press release. Congress has already taken important steps to address this crisis but more must be done.

This afternoon, President Trump took another important step by declaring the opioid epidemic a Nationwide Public Health Emergency. I applaud the President for his leadership in combatting this epidemic. In the months ahead, I look forward to working with President Trump to curb the spread and use of these dangerous drugs."

Despite the recent attention given to the opioid crisis, Cognitive Connection has been serving recovery patients in Catawba, Burke, Caldwell and Alexander counties during the last 23 years.

If you cant get them when they are ready, they move backwards and dont attempt to recover, Walker said. With the opioid crisis, there are so many unintentional overdoses that lead to death, and that makes getting them into recovery quickly even more important.

Walker said partnering with Rudisill Family Practice was an easy decision and will offer patients more specialized medical treatment.

What we are able to do now is get people in within 24 to 48 hours, and they can see the medical doctor first and get them into treatment quicker, Walker said.

Walker added the toxicology laboratory, located in Rudisill Family Practice, is another bonus to patients treatment and recovery.

The full toxicology lab is around $200,000 worth of equipment  we have a certified technician and she is working every day, Clinical Director Corey Richardson said. If youve slipped and are starting to relapse, we dont have to wait seven days; we know the same day that you have slipped.

Richardson said getting drug test results back quicker allows counselors to engage with the patient so they do not relapse further.

In the past, we would contract with labs, and it may be three to four days until we got confirmations, Walker said. In the meantime, if we dont have the labs results in hand, we may be prescribing, and the toxics between other substances combined with buprenorphine can lead to overdose.

With the on-site lab, we have confirmations within 24 hours, which will also reduce unintentional overdose and potential death.

Richardson, like Walker, is thankful for the partnership and what it holds in store for their patients.

We want to celebrate our partnership with Cognitive Connection, because (our patients) dont have to be stuck on a waiting list for medication, Richardson said. People are dying on waiting lists  With our program, you can start getting medication as soon as the same day you come in.

Cognitive Connections also provides expanded services.

The great thing about being co-located with (Cognitive Connections) is they have enhanced program, Richardson said. The programs are much more involved, and these people are more severely addicted.

Cognitive Connection offers a multitude of counseling programs where patients visit three to five times a week, including services for adults and adolescents.

One of the programs both organizations praised is the Pregnancy Support Program.

We often will find that women will be addicted, and when they find out they are pregnant all of a sudden there is a real emphasis to get well, Richardson said.

Richardson added expectant mothers tend to reach out to Integrated Care of Greater Hickory in the early stages of pregnancy.

Once they have already been on opiates, it is safer for the baby, in gestation, for the mother to stay on an opiate for the entire pregnancy  this has been studied extensively, Richardson said. The safest way that we can maintain that babys health is buprenorphine.

Buprenorphine can treat pain as well as addiction to narcotic pain relievers, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Buprenorphine does not cause a euphoric high  it is an opiate that you do not get high from, Richardson said. It acts as a blocker so if they try to use again they wont feel it.

Its like if an alcoholic goes to get a drink, but they dont feel anything from that drink, so why bother?

Richardson added that using buprenorphine is helpful when attempting to help the patient with other behavioral interventions.

If you dont use medication assisted treatment in early recovery, very often women will go back out and use, Richardson said. Getting the baby to the delivery room is one of the most important aspects of this whole process.

If a mother overdoses and dies while pregnant, neither one makes it to the delivery room.

Although Cognitive Connection specializes in the counseling aspect of treatment, Rudisill Family Practice also provides help.

Our program is based on recovery-oriented systems  that means we use many modalities, but we focus on a 12-step model, Richardson said. They may not get as much therapy here, but they also have tasks that they do with a family member or sponsor.

Richardson added with this set-up, once treatment is completed, the patient has a stable long-term recovery plan.

Many of our counselors, even myself, are in recovery as well, Richardson said. We know what its like to be an addict, and thats nice that they can come in a work with someone who is experiencing recovery.

Richardson will celebrate his 20th year in recovery in July 2018.

Walker said Cognitive Connection board members have been excited about the partnership and are anxious to see success come from it.

The idea is to not only treat their behavioral issues, but to also get them linked into primary care, Walker said. We are trying to treat the whole person, and we can only do this through collaboration.
Editors Note: This article contains strong language that may not be suitable for younger audiences. Reader discretion is advised.

NEWTON Defendant William Howard Lail III testified in Catawba County Superior Court on Wednesday and Thursday, recalling Jaydon Ray Sandlins death and admitting to lying to investigators on multiple occasions.

While Lail had the option not to testify in his own trial because of his Fifth Amendment rights, he decided to take the stand after conferring with his attorneys.

Lail is charged with one count of first-degree murder and four counts of felony child abuse. He does not face the death penalty.

He is accused of killing Jaydon, 1, and physically abusing both Jaydon and his older sister Kylie Madison Sandlin at a residence in Long View. Kylie was 3 at the time of Lails arrest.

Kylie and Jaydon were the children of Lails now ex-girlfriend, Whitney Weathers.

Weathers pleaded guilty to several felony counts of child abuse earlier this year.

On May 3, 2013, first responders arrived to a duplex in Long View to find Jaydon dead from an apparent drowning and covered in burns and bruises.

Kylie also was covered in burns and bruises.

Lail was arrested later that evening.

On Wednesday, he first answered questions from his attorney Victoria Jayne about how he met Weathers and her children, and he described to the jury his relationships with all three of them and the major events that led up to Jaydon's May 3 death.

Lail first met Weathers at a strip club in June 2012, and after a week or two of spending time together, Lail saw Weathers Facebook profile revealing she had children.

Pretty soon, Lail, Weathers, Kylie and Jaydon moved into a duplex in Conover.

He said that was when he first saw Weathers mistreat Kylie.

I came home one day and could hear Kylie crying outside, he said.

When he went inside, he described seeing Kylie as strapped in her car seat, facing the corner.

Soon, Kylie kicked at the wall and flipped her car seat over, which Weathers responded to by hitting Kylie repeatedly with a pillow, Lail added.

Wed fight all the time about her mistreating the kids, he said.

Lail testified to watching Weathers hit the children with plastic clothes hangers, a belt, her hand and the stick used to open the blinds.

He said Weathers did not like taking care of the children, adding it was like a burden, and she would get upset easily.

I remember specifically one time she put her hand over Jaydons mouth until he stopped crying, Lail said.

While he did admit to disciplining the children with his hand, belt and sometimes a clothes hanger, Weathers administered the majority of the punishment, he testified.

In addition to hitting the children, Lail said Jaydon and Kylie would sometimes be left at home alone in their car seats or in the closet if his and Weathers work schedules overlapped.

However in March 2013, Lail lost his job at Synthetics Finishing in Long View after an injury, and other than working for Weathers stepdad briefly, he was unemployed and left alone with the children often.

Im not trying to make excuses, Lail said on multiple occasions when talking about his decision not to stop Weathers from mistreating the children and his decision not to seek professional medical care for the kids after they were burned.

A week and a half prior to Jaydons death, Lail said Jaydon and Kylie were scalded by the running shower water after he left them alone in the tub to take the trash out.

I didnt realize the extent of the injuries, Lail said, referring to when he returned inside to find Jaydon in the tub crying and Kylie at the door saying she had a boo-boo.

Soon, he noticed the childrens skin was peeling and starting to blister.

When I realized the extent of the injuries, I apologized to the kids, he said. It was my fault. I left them alone.

Weathers was not home at the time of the incident. When she came home, Lail said he told her what happened.

She didnt want to go to the hospital because she was in an ongoing custody battle with her ex-husband, and she was afraid of social services, he added.

Maggie Ervin, Kylie and Jaydons grandmother, testified last week to making at least six or seven phone calls to social services in the months leading up to Jaydons death, beginning in fall 2012.

Social services investigated and decided to leave the children in the home.

Lail said he went to CVS Pharmacy to purchase Motrin, Tylenol, bandages and aloe lotion to treat the burns since Weathers did not want to take the children to the hospital.

To help soothe their pain, he testified he would let Kylie and Jaydon sit in the tub with lukewarm water and when he did so, Jaydon wouldnt cry as much.

May 3, 2013

On the day of his death, Lail said Jaydon wasnt very active and wouldnt eat much, despite saying Jaydon was walking and eating the night before.

That morning, Lail woke up to take a trip to the methadone clinic, taking Weathers and Kylie with him and leaving Jaydon asleep on the loveseat in the living room.

Lail said he had an addiction problem since he was about 17 years old and had sought help at the McLeod Center.

After leaving the clinic, they stopped at Bojangles and Food Lion before returning home to Jaydon.

When it was time to take Weathers to work, Lail said they left Jaydon and Kylie at home alone.

When he returned, he spent time outside working on his car, came in and noticed the children had dirty diapers.

It wasnt unusual for him to wash the kids off in the bath after they soiled a diaper, he said, so he washed off their bottoms, filled the tub and stuffed the drain with a T-shirt.

I didnt use soap that day, he said, admitting the story he told investigators in his post-arrest interview about Jaydon getting soap in his eye was false.

After taking Kylie out of the tub and drying her hair, he left Jaydon in the tub and went outside.

Some time passed, Lail couldnt remember how much, and he made a few phone calls using an app on the computer because his cellphone did not work.

I came in looking for him and realized he was still in the tub, Lail said, crying.

When he walked into the bathroom, he saw Jaydon lying face-up.

It was like he was floating, he said, describing Jaydons face as partially underwater, with his eyes closed. I took him out and tried to do CPR.

When he realized CPR wasnt working, he said he ran to the computer and attempted to call 911, and when that didnt work, he called Weathers at work and told her to call 911 and to come home before running next door to borrow the neighbors phone.

I went outside and screamed for help, Lail said. I was panicking.

In the 911 call, which was played for the jury, Lail was frantic as he begged the operator to send help and said, He isnt breathing.

Lail said he continued to administer CPR until EMS arrived.

I didnt know if I was doing it right, he added. I didnt want to accept I was too late.

After learning Jaydon was dead from an officer, Lail began to experience chest pains and shortness of breath.

Everything happened so fast, he said. Best way I can describe it as is surreal.

Once he was released from Frye Regional Medical Center after receiving some medication, he was questioned by two State Bureau of Investigation agents before being taken to Long View Police Department to be interviewed again.

There, he was arrested and charged.

I have a very hard time, even today, it's hard for me to picture in my mind how I found him, Lail said, facing the jury. What happened couldve been avoided, and I wasnt paying attention.

Wednesdays cross examination

In cross examination by Assistant District Attorney Michael Van Buren, he asked Lail to explain why he lied to investigators multiple times at the scene of the incident and during his four-hour post-arrest interview. I was ashamed of what happened, he said.

Van Buren proceeded to go through each instance where Lail didnt tell investigators the truth and asked him if he remembered lying and why.

While talking about using methadone, Lail testified to have never failing a drug test at the center, other than the first one, which is required in order to be accepted to the program.

Van Buren had documentation that proved otherwise.

Lail became agitated and said, again, hes never failed a drug test at the McLeod Center, despite Van Buren obtaining the document from Lails attorneys.

Theres more than one William Lail in Hickory, Lail said.

Van Buren then asked him why he said the terms, hand to God, and swear to God, before statements he eventually admitted were lies.

Dont you take swearing to God seriously? he asked. You did that today before taking the stand didnt you?

Lail replied he did take it seriously.

I didnt back then, he said. I pray to God every day now.

In his post-arrest interview, Lail didnt tell the agents much about Weathers abusive actions with the children.

When asked why he didnt, he told Van Buren he wanted to protect Weathers at the time and that decision was a mistake.

Why didnt you stop her from hurting the children, Van Buren asked. Is it because they werent your kids? Like you told the agents?

Lail replied yes.

You were selfish, werent you Mr. Lail? Van Buren said.

Lail said he was.

As for the large bruise on Jaydons forehead, Lail testified he does not remember the injury being there at the time of Jaydons death.

Before court adjourned for the day, Van Buren presented two new pieces of video evidence to the jury, taken from Lails cellphone.

In the first video, Lail is behind the camera and Kylie is on the floor.

Say, f------ b----, Lail said, with Kylie repeating him. Say, f------ c---.

Kylie repeated him again while Lail laughed.

That was not appropriate, he admitted in court.

The second video, which was not played for the jury, depicted Lail and a friend shooting guns after Lail said, This is why you dont f--- with me and Rusty.

I wasnt intentionally threatening anyone, he testified.

Thursdays cross examination

On Thursday, during the second part of Van Burens cross examination of Lail, Van Buren asked questions about his statement to Kari Whisnant on May 6.

Whisnant was a social worker with the Catawba County Department of Human Services at the time of Jaydons death, and was first assigned to Kylies case when she was taken to Frye Regional Medical Center on May 3.

In this interview, he told Whisnant what happened May 3, along with how he and Weathers treated the children.

Although Lail testified Wednesday he did not lay the children on the bed to spank them, only Weathers did, he told Whisnant on May 6 that was one of the ways he would discipline the children.

I dont recall doing that, Lail said Thursday.

Van Buren pointed out that on the day of Jaydons death, Lail barely made any statements to police about Weathers treatment of the children.

You started to implicate Whitney when things got turned around on you, didnt you? Van Buren asked.

Lail responded, saying he only began to implicate Weathers when social services asked him if Kylie should go back to her mother.

When asked why he didnt tell law enforcement officers about Weathers treatment of the children to begin with, Lail reiterated he wanted to protect Weathers in the beginning.

Moving on, Van Buren decided to ask Lail about the burns on Jaydon and Kylie again.

If the shower head was on when you came back inside, and Jaydon was standing under the water, how come he doesnt have any burns on his back and chest? he asked, displaying the pictures of Jaydons burns from his autopsy for Lail and the jury to see.

Lail repeatedly said he wasnt sure why Jaydon only had burns on his head and bottom. He also said when Jaydon died, he didnt have bruising on his forehead.

I feel like youre asking questions Im not qualified to answer, Lail said. Im just telling you what I saw.

When asked why he left Jaydon alone in the tub again after he was burned the last time he was left alone, Lail testified he didnt know why he left him alone again.

It was a mistake, he added.

In Lails statement to Whisnant, he told her he took Jaydon and Kylie out of the tub at the same time May 3, but Jaydon defecated on the floor, so he put him back in.

Van Buren shared his theory with Lail about what happened.

Jaydon pooped on the floor and you got mad and threw him in the tub and murdered him, didnt you? he asked, adding thats why Lail doesnt remember the bruises being on Jaydons forehead when he died.

Lail grimaced at the accusation and said, I did not murder him.

After a few more questions, from both Van Buren and Jayne, Lails testimony ended.

After a brief testimony from the mother of Lails daughter, who said she did recall having a conversation with Lail where he expressed concern about Weathers treatment of the children, the defense rested their case.

Jayne asked Superior Court Judge Forrest D. Bridges for Lail's charges to be dropped, again.

He denied her motion.

Closing arguments will begin Monday.
I think in the moment killing him would've been justified, as he was a threat to others, but now? I don't think so. I think that would just be for bloodlust and really wouldn't be a punishment, as he is the sort of fellow who wants to die. Our taxes already go to funding illegal wars all across the world, welfare for millions, and an already overburdened prison system. The money isn't even real anyway.
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Around 270 boats, their crew dressed in bright T-shirts, began competing along a stretch of the Tonle Sap river that runs in front of the royal palace in Cambodia. Concerts and fireworks are also part of the three-day festival, which celebrates the reversal of the flow, a phenomenon that occurs when monsoon rains bloat the Mekong river, pushing the waters of the smaller Tonle Sap in the other direction.

The two rivers intersect in the capital, where Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni, Prime Minister Hun Sen and senior government officials looked on as the yearly extravaganza began. The water festival is important for all Cambodian people, it is the festival for the king, for our king, spectator Bun Narath, 51, told AFP. We celebrate the water festival to thank ancestors who won the fight with enemies and to thank rivers that provide water for all people, he added.

On the last day of the water festival in 2010, more than 350 people were killed in a stampede on an overcrowded bridge after panic spread over rumours it was about to collapse. Hun Sen described the disaster as Cambodias worst tragedy since the Khmer Rouges 1975-1979 reign of terror, which killed up to a quarter of the population.

Follow @htlifeandstyle for more
For 68-year-old Deepak Mehta, a Gujarati businessman based in Mumbai, last year was a particularly difficult period. Two major decisions by the Modi government, a government he voted for in 2014, threw things off gear.

Just as we were recovering from the impact of the note ban, the government brought in the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Theres so much unnecessary paperwork  returns to be filed every month. This is not what we expected from our government. I am disenchanted, he said.

Mehta runs a medium-scale manufacturing business in Mumbai and Gujarat. He is among the 42 lakh Gujaratis at home in the megapolis but who have strong links with their home state.

Around 550km away in Ahmedabad, his son, Kaushal, who manages their two Bakelite handles manufacturing units in Bhavnagar and Ahmedabad, shared his fathers distress. But he continues to be optimistic about the government. This split of opinion within the family is reflected in the Gujarati diaspora here, closely watching the polls.

The community, which has been a steadfast BJP supporter and has voted for the party in power at the Centre, the state as well as the Mumbai civic polls held earlier this year, today stands divided over its support for the party.

Like the Gujarati diaspora, the vernacular Gujarati media also stands split on the issue. While Gujarat Samachar, a Gujarati newspaper headquartered in Ahmedabad, is perceived to be anti-BJP, the other two Gujarati dailies in the city  The Mumbai Samachar and Divya Bhaskar  are said to be taking more of a balanced view on the developments.

Over the last few weeks, Gujarat Samachar has dissected the state of the economy in Modis home turf and slammed the ruling government. In an editorial earlier this week, it pointed to the neglect of the rural economy, especially after demonetisation announced last November.

The editorial said, There is a new problem and since the poll bugle has been sounded no one would be able to hear it. In the rural areas of Gujarat, there is a severe shortage of cash. This has been going on for the last one year and now the problem has only magnified.

However, there is unanimity even among journalists across newspapers that the narrative has shifted.

A senior journalist with a leading Gujarati daily told HT, The overall sense from the ground is that the BJP is rattled and PM Modi himself is slated to address a record number of rallies in Gujarat. The BJP is likely to win fewer seats than it did in the 2012 elections due to various factors ranging from anti-incumbency, impact of GST, demonetisation, and Patel agitation.

Jatin Desai, a former journalist and a community expert, agrees. Earlier, the Gujaratis, especially the trader community, were not ready to listen to anything against [PM ] Modi and the BJP. That has changed now. People are taking against the policies of the government, he says.

Despite the gap created between the expectations of 2014 and the reality of 2017, the community is unlikely to completely abandon the BJP yet, mainly because they still dont think that the Congress offers a suitable alternative.

In Mumbais garment and cloth markets, the usually cramped and chaotic Mulji Jetha has been uncharacteristically desolate despite the approaching wedding season. Traders and businessmen here told HT that their business is down by almost 70% though they did not wish to be quoted. Since last November, they say that markets have been sluggish and they have been forced to give hefty discounts at the cost of their profit margins.

Girish Shah, a diamond trader and managing trustee of Samast Mahajan (an association of the Jain community), said that the new tax regime operates with the presupposition that traders and small businessmen are thieves.

Whether you look at traders or the Jain community, it is synonymous with business. With GST, there are three returns to be filed in a month. Should the government facilitate the businessmen or create such headaches? he asked. Around 20 lakh people from the Jain community live in Mumbai.

Echoing his views, Viren Shah, owner of clothing retail chain Roopam, said, We are not happy with the way GST was brought in and the way demonetisation flopped. Traditionally, the BJP is supposed to be a traders party, but the traders are the most affected. But even though people may curse the government, there is no alternative in sight today.

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Patidar leader Hardik Patel wont meet Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi during his ongoing tour of Gujarat, an aide said on Wednesday, setting November 6 deadline for the party to spell out the plan for the quota it has promised the community.

Patel-led Patidar Ananmat Andolan Samiti (Paas) is seeking other backward classes (OBC) status for the community that would entitle it to reservation in education and government jobs.

The opposition Congress is trying to woo the Patels, who have traditionally backed the ruling BJP but are upset over being denied quota, ahead of the December assembly election.

The Paas core committee has decided not have any talks with the Congress until the party clears its stand on how it will allot the economically backward class (EBC) reservation to Patidars, co-convener Dinesh Bambania said.

The Congress, out of power in the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for around 22 years, has promised EBC status to the community, which accounts for 12% of the population and can influence outcome in 60 of the states 182 assembly seats.

The Congress promised a constitutional way out and should spell out the plan by November 6 else the Paas will not hold any talk with it, Bambania said.

Patel and his aides met Congress leaders on Monday during which the 24-year-old Paas leader agreed to take the talks further on the EBC quota.

But some social and religious bodies of the community, comprising farmers, diamond merchants and industrialists, accused Patel of misleading them.

When the government has met all the demand of Patidars, including an EBC commission, by continuing the agitation, Hardik is misleading the community. The Congresss offer for EBC is a lollipop, AM Patel of Umiya Foundation said at a press conference.

Representatives of six such bodies were also present at the press meet.

Voting for the Gujarat assembly will held on December 9 and 14 and results declared on December 18.

Gandhi on Wednesday started a three-day tour of south Gujarat and again hit out at the Modi government over demonetisation and its alleged mishandling of economy.
After the Obama administration approved the sale of a Canadian mining company with significant U.S. uranium reserves to a firm owned by Russias government, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission assured Congress and the public the new owners couldnt export any raw nuclear fuel from Americas shores.



No uranium produced at either facility may be exported, the NRC declared in a November 2010 press release that announced that ARMZ, a subsidiary of the Russian state-owned Rosatom, had been approved to take ownership of the Uranium One mining firm and its American assets.



A year later, the nuclear regulator repeated the assurance in a letter to Sen. John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican in whose state Uranium One operated mines.



Neither Uranium One Inc. nor AMRZ holds a specific NRC export license. In order to export uranium from the United States, Uranium One Inc. or ARMZ would need to apply for and obtain a specific NRC license authorizing the exports of uranium for use in reactor fuel, then-NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko wrote to Barrasso.



The NRC never issued an export license to the Russian firm, a fact so engrained in the narrative of the Uranium One controversy that it showed up in The Washington Posts official fact-checker site this week. We have noted repeatedly that extracted uranium could not be exported by Russia without a license, which Rosatom does not have, the Post reported on Monday, linking to the 2011 Barrasso letter.



Yet NRC memos reviewed by The Hill show that it did approve the shipment of yellowcake uranium  the raw material used to make nuclear fuel and weapons  from the Russian-owned mines in the United States to Canada in 2012 through a third party. Later, the Obama administration approved some of that uranium going all the way to Europe, government documents show.



NRC officials said they could not disclose the total amount of uranium that Uranium One exported because the information is proprietary. They did, however, say that the shipments only lasted from 2012 to 2014 and that they are unaware of any exports since then.



NRC officials told The Hill that Uranium One exports flowed from Wyoming to Canada and on to Europe between 2012 and 2014, and the approval involved a process with multiple agencies.



...



The United States actually imports the majority of the uranium it uses as fuel. In 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 24 percent of the imports came from Kazakhstan and 14 percent came from Russia.



The sale of Uranium One to a Russian state-owned firm, however, has created political waves that have led to multiple congressional investigations. Republicans say they want to learn how the sale could have been approved and whether there was political interference.



The more that surfaces about this deal, the more questions it raises," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement released after this story was published. Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has launched an investigation into Uranium One.



"It now appears that despite pledges to the contrary, U.S. uranium made its way overseas as a part of the Uranium One deal," Grassley said in the statement. "Whats more disturbing, those transactions were apparently made possible by various Obama Administration agencies while the Democrat-controlled Congress turned a blind eye.



Americans deserve assurances that political influence was not a factor in all this. Im increasingly convinced that a special counsel  someone with no prior involvement in any of these deals  should shine a light on this ordeal and get answers for the American people.



Government officials told The Hill that the NRC was able to amend the export license affecting Uranium One because of two other decisions previously made by the Obama administration as part of a Russian reset in President Obamas first term.



...
I want to die with my boots on. Chief minister Virbhadra Singhs hazel eyes crinkle as he says this. The 83-year-old is the campaigner-in-chief of the Himachal Congress, fighting with its back to the wall in the assembly elections against a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

But Raja sahib, as the six-time CM is called in the hill state, is fighting valiantly.

I have lived a good life. There are times I tell myself that enough is enough. But then something happens and I am again thrust into the battlefield, he says. Its 4pm and Virbhadra is taking his first break of the day, with two more meetings to go, but he is in good spirits.

Earlier, addressing a rally at Nurpur for sitting legislator Ajay Mahajan, he admits its a tough battle.

All my bank accounts have been frozen. I dont have money to contribute to the elections, he says. This is evident from the absence of choppers from his campaign. The Raja sahib hit the road after the polls were announced last month.

CONGS BEST BET

Attired in a grey Nehru collar coat with his trademark green Himachali topi (cap), he looks feeble as he gently holds on to Mahajan on the stage, but his wit is intact. Thanking the gathering of Congress legislators from Punjab, led by Fateh Bajwa, he says, Wherever he goes, candidate ki fateh hoti hai (the candidate wins).

The gathering, which has been waiting for three hours, pipes down once he takes the stage after a flurry of speeches in which Youth Congress chief Raja Warring slams the case of disproportionate assets against the CM as vendetta, pointing out how the police raided Virbhadras residence on the day his daughter was getting married. The poll, he declared, was a battle for the states honour.

MP Ranjeet Ranjan, co-in charge of Himachal Congress affairs, said the party believed Virbhadra was enough to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his selected not elected men, taking a jibe at Amit Shah, Smriti Irani and Arun Jaitley campaigning in the state.

Virbhadra said never had he seen such a display of wealth and power in Himachal elections. It was an observation that resonated with the locals who agreed they had never seen so many placards or banners. Its carpet bombing. Its as if they want to destroy the very existence of the state, Virbhadra said.

Modi, he frowned, was behaving in a manner that didnt behove his stature.

Just outside the venue, Modi peered down from posters as jeeps carrying his cutouts sped by, prompting a confused woman to ask, Kya Modi ji bhi Virbhadra ke liye aaye hain (Has Modi also come for Virbhadra?).

MY WEALTH IS ANCESTRAL

Venue after venue, Virbhadra brought up the charges of corruption against him. Im not an industrialist or a trader, all my wealth is ancestral. But the authorities, he said, had decided that his assets were disproportionate to his source of income, as the gathering laughed. There was a round of clapping as he declared, I have never asked anyone for money, not even for the party.

Virbhadra, who was presented with a sword, said he wasnt afraid of the BJPs intimidatory tactics. Mere mein dum hai (I still have the guts).

His message to party workers is: Dont be afraid. I have toured villages, people are still with us. These people who come by air havent been able to touch the masses like us.

Later, while grabbing a quick bite, the Raja called his ability to connect with people across classes his biggest strength in his political innings that included four terms in the Lok Sabha as well. Ive also been very lucky, he says with a charm shining amid a bunch of worried looking party men. Ask him if he ever thought he should have done things differently, and he says, Of course, I have so many regrets when I look back.

And no, even though speaker after speaker waxed eloquent about his six stints as CM, its still miles to go for him. One life is not enough to achieve everything, he adds with a smile.
Global turmoil after seismic events such as Brexit and the election of President Donald Trump may push readers away from dystopian crime fiction to novels with a more comforting message, best-selling author Ian Rankin says.

The Scottish writer has made millions penning dark tales of serial killers and murderous gangsters, but thinks the current bleak outlook for world affairs may be a catalyst for a shift in what readers look for in fiction.

I think this may happen -- a move away from serial killers and bleak dystopian crime fiction towards something with a more comforting message, Rankin tells AFP. Maybe good will be seen to triumph and ordinary people will overcome crises in psychological crime novels, he adds.

It has been 30 years since Rankin first introduced his famous protagonist John Rebus in Knots & Crosses, where he is a Detective Sergeant investigating the Edinburgh Strangler, a serial killer who has been abducting young girls.

As the brooding Rebus probed case after case involving shootings, prostitution, junkies and hit-and-runs, his books surged in popularity -- and are now bestsellers on several continents.

Ian Rankin, 57, poses for a portrait in Hong Kong. (Anthony Wallace/AFP)

But Rankin believes troubled times in the real world could lead consumers to search for more light relief in fiction, pointing to the success of British writer Alexander McCall Smith, whose traditional mysteries set in Zimbabwe became popular after the 9/11 attacks in America. Rejecting gruesome crime in favour of exploring everyday problems, his hit No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series also delighted in the simple things in life such as drinking tea.

People craved normality and stories of kind people helping each other, Rankin says of McCall Smiths success.

He adds that he believes that fiction is currently more believable than real-life events, and readers would soon turn to books to provide a dose of comfort and stability.

Right now, the world seems so crazy and irrational that many novelist(s) have difficulty trying to shape it into a coherent narrative. Fiction must be credible; the real world right now feels to me like the opposite of that, the 57-year-old explains.

Playing God

But he insists he would not abandon his tales about the grim underbelly of Edinburgh for kind and gentle books.

Right now, the world seems so crazy and irrational that many novelist(s) have difficulty trying to shape it into a coherent narrative. Fiction must be credible; the real world right now feels to me like the opposite of that.

I am too much of a cynic. Maybe my books will become wilder and more chaotic instead, he adds.

The writer has previously said it took him 14 years to make a decent living from his books. But he never considered stopping and despite forays into other genres, including comic books, an opera libretto, thrillers and film scripts, he says that he has stuck with crime fiction because every theme... can best be explored with a detective.

When I write, I feel like a child, playing games and having adventures with my imaginary friends in a universe where I get to play God, he says.

A criticism regularly levelled at the publishing industry is that it is too dominated by white authors but Rankin rejects the idea it is white, male and stale.

New voices are always being heard and crime fiction is leading the way. Recently there has been the success of Scandinavian crime fiction and this has led publishers to look at other cultures in search of the Next Big Thing, he says.

Ian Rankins latest Inspector Reubus novel, Rather Be The Devil, was released in June this year.

But there are no signs that Rankins worldwide popularity -- hes sold more than 30 million novels and his work has been translated into 22 languages -- is dwindling in favour of younger writers. His 22nd Rebus novel will be published in autumn 2018.

Asked why there is still interest in the recently retired detective after three decades, Rankin says readers like that he is a believable character. Rebus is a complex human being who ages and changes... and also they like that he is a force for good -- he seeks justice for victims.

And will he ever be killed off? He replies: When I begin work on a new book I am never entirely sure if Rebus will be alive or dead on the final page.

Ian Rankin will be speaking at the 2017 Hong Kong International Literary Festival, which takes place from November 3 to 12.
Pradeep Damodarans Borderlands makes for an unusual re ad because it is not merely a travelogue. The 10 places the author has chosen to visit and write about evoke some unsettling questions about identity, privileges and nationalism. Located on the peripheries of the Indian Territory, some of these places are known to most, others have been heard of, and at least two, this reviewer can safely assume, are unheard of even by the most avid travelers. The social structure, absolute absence of a need to engage with the mainstream, and the almost unimaginable lives in places like Dhanushkodi, Minicoy, Raxaul, Moreh and Hussainiwala are a revelation. Dhanushkodi, for instance, is the postcard image of a sleepy town stuck in the last century, untouched by electricity, healthcare, potable drinking water, let alone shops, hotels and bars. Located at the southern-most tip of the country, it used to be as big a town as Rameswaram until it was hit by a cyclone in 1964, which swept away most of its population, every building, structure and even the railway lines. The government declared it unfit for permanent habitation and Kodi residents were allocated houses elsewhere. But a fisherman can go only so far away from the sea. Some 250 odd families returned and began to resettle on the smooth shores and narrow strips of land that emerged and were submerged with every rain like some tropical island forgotten by time. The hardships of Kodis fisherfolk, their torturous encounters with the Sri Lankan navy, and the Indian navys reluctance to acknowledge and help them makes for a chilling read.

While most have heard about the Lakshadweep archipelago,few are familiar with the southern-most island in this cluster that is just 70 nautical miles away from the Maldives. The nearest Indian island is 114 nautical miles away! Unsurprisingly, Minicoy has more in common with Maldives than any island of the archipelago. Bizarre facts about this place include restricted entry through government approval and ferries being available from Kochi only twice in a fortnight. The population comprises 10,000 people, who speak Mahl, which has a script written from right to left like Arabic. Minicoy is known for producing world-class sailors and not a single resident has been convicted of a crime since independence. The structure of Minicoys predominantly Muslim society sets it apart. When a man here gets married, he inherits his wifes home as well. He has to take care of two homes; he spends the night at his wifes ancestral home and returns to his parents place for his afternoon meal. Unlike other parts of the country, a man has to take care of all marriage expenses and only those who can afford to get married, do so.

The book is loaded with many other such bits of information including about the temporary nature of living at Hussainiwala or the integrated culture of Moreh with Punjabis, Nepalis and Tamils living with the local tribal population in a fringe town on the Indo-Myanmar border. Each of these places has its personal struggles but the lack of access to education and other amenities and the apathy of the mainland is a common complaint. However, the aspirations of the youth in these parts are no different to those of young people living in other parts of the country. Some of these accounts inspire trepidation, to say the least.

Read more: Living on the edge: Excerpt from Borderlands by Pradeep Damodaran

Borderlands brings out how identity changes as we move farther away from our cities and towns and leaves you wondering about the idea of identity itself. While it is difficult to finish this book in a single sitting, the author successfully plants in the reader a desire to follow his trail across the country.
Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death, says the ancient Chinese military treatise; the Art of War- attributed to Sun Tzu.

In our country, the heroism of the military  made even more poignant by the staggering humility of the Indian soldier  has been repeatedly brought home. It has stood by the citizenry not only unto death; but in every national crisis  riots, floods, earthquakes, evacuations  even crowd control. Soldiers have courageously gone to battle; but more than that they have helped to keep the peace. Even today a flag march by the Army  through neighbourhoods that have been divided by violence and hate or in the most volatile and scarred areas of insurgency zones  carries a moral authority and calming influence that no other institution does.

But there is a certain sanctity to the uniform that we need to respect at all times; its virtue cannot be confused with easy availability for jobs meant for others.

The soldier is not a stepney to be brought in every time the vehicle of civil administration develops a snag; he is not a spare part meant to fix faulty administrative performances. Which is why, the decision by the government to use the Army to build foot-bridges in Mumbai  after a stampede at Elphinstone killed 23 people in September has created a gigantic furore.

We must ask: What is the accountability of the countrys richest civic body  the BMCs budget this year was over 25,000 crore rupees  that it needs to deploy the military for a job that should squarely fall with its ambit? Where is the Public Works Department? And these are elected bodies that are able to take positions and express themselves freely in a way that a silent solder never can. If it is bridges today, will it be the cities killer  potholes  tomorrow?

I dont disagree with the Railway Ministers impulse to bring urgency to the matter  bureaucratic delays in a new tender for the Elphinstone bridge cost lives  and he is right in assessing that the Army will deliver ahead of deadline. But its one thing to count on the troops to build pontoons and baileys in emergencies or their aftermath; its quite another to use them in more controlled situations. The BJP is not the first party to have fallen back on the military because of civilian failure; the Congress did it too. During the commonwealth games when the UPA was in power, a suspension bridge crashed on the street. The Army was called in to reconstruct it in a record five days, saving India from international embarrassment.

The precedent set by either of these decisions is institutionally unhealthy. There is already seething, if unexpressed, resentment among soldiers at the overweening influence of babudom in their lives and the lack of parity with the bureaucracy. While the militarys core characteristic is discipline and thus you will almost never hear a soldier complaining, a number of retired chiefs have spoken of the need for a greater say in decisions that are directly related to the military. The disquiet over the 7th Pay Commission and its perceived inequality in pay, pensions and stature between the civilian cadres and the military, was serious enough for the serving chiefs to write to the prime minister.

Though the government tried to address many anomalies under the Ashok Lavasa- led panel, the military is still angry at what it sees as a downgrading of its rank and authority. A high-level committee under the Defence Ministry to unpack these sensitive issues of equivalence has not reached any consensus yet. Promotions can be quicksilver in the bureaucracy and even in the police and paramilitary, compared to the military, creating an intractable set of inequities and problems in the chain of command, especially in areas where both are on duty together. And while the government has doubled the hardship allowance of soldiers at Siachen and in the Naxalite areas, there is still residual resentment over similar perks for bureaucrats in postings like Guwahati. Also dont forget, while a civil servant retires at 60, 85% of the Army is compulsorily retired between 35 and 37.

If the military is going to be used to do the job of municipal bodies or the local police, the simmering tension in the civil-military equation over emoluments and status, will only worsen. Of course the Centres decision is guided by an entirely sincere intention; but it comes with risks and warnings. The soldier must never be used as a stop-gap.

Barkha Dutt is an award-winning journalist and author

The views expressed are personal
The Haldwani police, accused of going slow in the case against Girdhari Lal Sahu, the husband of state women empowerment minister Rekha Arya, have summoned Sahu to join the probe within next three days.

Naresh Gangwar, a native of Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh who lives in Haldwani, has filed a police complaint against Sahu alleging that he (Sahu) got his kidney removed and transplanted fraudulently on his first wife, Vaijanti Mala.

More than a month after Gangwar filed the complaint, the Haldwani police have now summoned the accused for questioning. The police denied there was any political pressure in the case.

Nanital senior superintendent of police (SSP) Janmejay Khanduri has set up an inquiry into the case that is being conducted by Haldwai Kotwali inspector KR Pandey.

Pandey said he has recorded the statement of Gangwar, who has alleged that Sahu had taken him to Sri Lanka in June 2015 on the pretext of donating blood to his ailing wife, Vaijanti Mala. After the alleged blood transfusion, Gangwar woke up in pain to find that he had been operated upon and his kidney had been removed. When he confronted Sahu on the matter, Sahu allegedly promised to give him money and house, but did not fulfil his promise.

The matter involving the husband of a minister has assumed political overtones. Karan Mahra, the deputy leader of opposition in the state assembly, said that the issue would be raised in the coming session of the House. The Congress is not going soft on Sahu, who receives patronage from some leaders within the BJP and the matter would be raised with seriousness in the oncoming session of the state assembly that would be held in Gairsain from December 7, he said.

BJP state general secretary Gajraj Singh Bisht said that the party was not exerting any pressure for saving Sahu. The law will take its own course and the guilty will not be spared, he said.
It is a dubious tag which the Uttarakhand capital could do without. A Right to Information (RTI) reply shows Dehradun alone accounts for 43% police cases related to flesh trade ever since Uttarakhand came into existence in November, 2000.

A total of 139 cases were registered in the state in the last 17 years and only 19 accused were convicted by courts while 60 were freed of charges. RTI activist Nadeem Uddin had sought the information on the police cases filed under The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act and convictions done under the Act.

In response, deputy inspector general (training) NS Napalchiyal mentioned that the highest number of cases (22) were registered in 2014 and 2015. No case was registered in 2001 and 2005, according to the RTI response. Uttarkashi, Chamoli and Rudraprayag came clean with no case registered under the Act.

The four districts of Nainital, Dehradun, Haridwar and US Nagar account for the maximum number of cases in Uttarakhand. Dehradun reported 55 cases, followed by US Nagar and Nainital with 27 cases each and Haridwar 17. Baring Nainital, the three other districts share border with western Uttar Pradesh.

Nonetheless, Nainital is a key tourist destination. Corbett Park falls in Nainital district and several resorts around Corbett are said to be a hotbed of flesh trade and prostitution. In 2013, a major sex racket was busted at a resort outside Corbett.

Being the state capital, Dehradun remains crowded by locals and visitors. Mussoorie, which falls in Dehradun district, attracts visitors round the year. Haridwar is a major religious destination. Udham Singh Nagar was in news in October after the police arrested three people and rescued six women from Nepal who were being trafficked to the Gulf.

Anti-human trafficking activist Gyanendra Kumar says flesh trade is rampant and the total 139 cases is just the tip of the iceberg. We know several cases where girls were forced in sex trade. In most cases, it is not consensual (sex). We believe the police needs to do more on this issue (to bring culprits to books), Kumar said.

Shahjahan Javed Khan, nodal officer of Uttarakhand polices anti-human trafficking cell, denied there was any underreporting of such cases. In fact, we formed dedicated teams for checking human trafficking activities, especially for most vulnerable parts of the state. Cases are reported as soon as they come to our notice. The anti-human trafficking units are functional in Dehradun, Haridwar, Pauri, Uttarkashi, Nainital, Champawat (Banbasa at Nepal border) and Pithoragarh.

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Nearly three children are raped everyday in the national capital according to the latest data of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). HT spoke to a cross section of policemen, child rights activists and juvenile justice lawyers who identified some of the causes  such as mindset and consumption of pornography  which leave children vulnerable to such crimes.

Bharati Ali, from HAQ Centre for Child Rights, said the root cause of high juvenile rape instances is the mindset of the people. She said more efforts need to be put into reforming people and changing their mindset.

Juvenile Justice lawyer Anant Kumar Asthana, who has dealt with many such cases in the past, said that what separates Delhi from less urbanised or rural areas is a huge migrant population with no community participation. This, he said, takes away the secondary safety net that a child has in villages or even small towns.

On recent rape trends, both said that consumption of pornography by offenders is also a major factor.

Citing the example of an 18-year-old offender, Asthana explained how the offender regretted his actions but said pornography had left him with an urge he was unable to control.

It is not just about nuclear families. Many victims are from families where both parents go out to leaving them under the care and protection of neighbours, who usually are not as vigilant as ones own parents would be. This gives an opportunity to those on the prowl to assault children, said Asthana.

Also, these numbers may just be a fraction of the overall numbers as reporting rapes is still a taboo. That is again an area where work is needed to educate people to come and report cases even more so that they themselves desist, she said.

Wednesdays incident where an 18-month-old was abducted and sexually assaulted by her 33-year-old neighbour in Aman Vihar serves as a gruesome reminder of the extent of the problem. Stakeholders said that despite efforts of government agencies, factors aiding such crimes  from poor conviction rates to lack of awareness and community support  continue to thrive as ever.
How about setting out on foot to explore Delhis heritage, music, food and ecology? Or imagine a blindfolded walk through the lanes of the Qutub complex exploring the monument through your senses  sound, smell and touch?

All this and more is a possibility at the ongoing Delhi Walk Festival  an initiative by a group of cultural enthusiasts  offering Delhiwallahs an opportunity to experience a fast-transforming city through the expertise of historians, ecologists, anthropologists, musicians, gastronomes, and seasoned flaneurs.

You dont love Delhi in the wider discourse of pollution. You love it in the nuances and the stories that it is made up of, says Aastha Chauhan, the festival director.

From 85 walks in February last year to 170 in the third edition this year, the festival has come a long way in terms of its grandeur and the number of people associated with it. The idea was conceptualised in 2016 when the group of cultural enthusiasts joined hands to form Delhi I Love You  a non-profit organisation, and the organiser of the festival. Before the first event, different people used to lead individual walks  some did it for free, others sometimes charged as much as ~2,500 per walk.

It was then that we decided to bring all the organisers on one platform and make it bigger, better and more organised, Chauhan adds. Last year In December 2016, 2,700 people participated and we are expecting a bigger turnout this time.

This year the 11-day festival (November 2-12) was promoted not just by word of mouth but also through an extensive social media campaign, particularly on Facebook.

I came to know about the event last year through a Facebook page. I attended a few walks in the Old City in the last festival. This year, it is different in the sense that there is much more on the platter, says Reema Ahmed, a history walk enthusiast from Agra and a regular participant.

Along with other parts of Delhi, the festival explores three major hubs, Town Hall at Chandni Chowk, 1AQ Gallery at Mehrauli where ideas in contemporary art are often discussed and India Post head office at Lodhi Road, because of the grandeur of the building. Among the celebrities conducting the walks this year are activist Aruna Roy, historian William Dalrymple, musician Iqbal Ahmad Khan, urban planning expert Gautam Bhan, theatre director, MK Raina, chef Joe Baath, to name a few.

The high point is that the walks cater to different tastes of different people. For example, someone who is interested in art can attend the Ladies Only: Representation of Women in Modern India walk at the National Gallery of Modern Art by Flow India facilitators on November 5. Similarly, nature lovers can attend the Jamali Kamali Tree Walk by Kavita Prakash, a graduate from Lady Shriram College, on November 12. Those interested in science can attend the Science Fiction Walk at The National Science Centre on November 10. Foodie Anubhav Sapra will take meat lovers to old Delhi to open up a delicious world of kebabs, biryanis and kormas on November 5.

At times people feel disconnected from science. The walk is a light-hearted and playful way to pass on information to people, says Poornima Sardana, museum educator and founder of Mazzedaar Laboratory who will head the Science Fiction Walk.

Historian William Dalrymple, who will head the walk in Mehrauli, finds the initiative terrific as it provides an occasion for connecting people of Delhi with the city.

Delhi used to be a neglected city. Bengalis swear by Bengal, Mumbaikars swear by Mumbai but people in Delhi have no such connection, says Dalrymple. I think it is changing now. The city is extraordinary in itself and that is why I chose to live here. Exploring Delhi through walks is an enriching and rewarding experience.

His walk will explore the ruins of Dilkusha, the tomb house of the British agent, Sir Thomas Metcalfe, the summer palaces of the last three Mughal emperors, and Zafar Mahal completed by Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar just before the great uprising of 1857.

The walking culture is not new to Delhi though. As historian Sohail Hashmi says, it was started by Prof Thomas George Percival Spear when he taught at St Stephens College (1924-48). Spear used to take his students for a walk or on a bicycle from the college to Hauz Khas. That culture is catching up fast and we have seen an increase in the number of walks happening in the city, says Hashmi, who will conduct five walks during the festival.

Visually impaired entrepreneur Baldev Gulati will take blindfolded visitors to experience the Qutub on November 5. The idea is to develop empathy among the masses about the challenges of the differently-abled in everyday urban space. It will be a walk with a difference, where you get into the shoes of those who feel and sense their surroundings differently says Gulati.

Details

 11 day festival. Till November 12, 2017

 Festival to include over 170 walks led by more than 70 organisations/individuals

 Special walks by the likes of historian William Dalrymple, restaurateur Riyaaz Amlani, RJ Sarthak, architect Pradeep Sachdeva, activist Aruna Roy

 Special walks for the disabled and dog lovers

 Walk Festival to go pan-Indian from 2018 in cities like Bangalore and Jodhpur

 How to register: www.delhiwalkfestival.com

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A month ago, Delhi Police launched the trial run of Quick Reaction (QR) codes in 10 kaali-peeli taxis at Delhi airport, which the passengers can scan using the city polices women safety Himmat app to inform police about their journey.

Although 94 of the 100 passengers who used the QR code rated the initiative between excellent and average, the project may not achieve its objective because the Himmat app still has few takers and has failed to catch up despite its relaunch in April.

According to the Delhi Police, the app has 40,677 registered users and is downloaded by 1,06,581 people. In January 2015, when it was launched by Union home minister Rajnath Singh, it got 68,318 downloads and 19,474 registered users. In 2016, another 9,799 new users came on board.

To encourage more people to download Himmat, the Police decided to relaunch it in April this year, unveiling new features to make it more user friendly. The app that was earlier launched in English and only for Android-based phones was now made available in Hindi as well and on both Android and iOS platforms.

From the archives: Delhi Polices smart initiatives fail to pack a punch

After its relaunch, 11,404 new users registered for it.

On the reasons behind the fewer downloads and usage of the application, Kalpana Viswanath, co-founder of Safetipin, said, Availability of a number of similar women safety mobile applications, some of them launched much before the Himmat app, is one of the major reasons why this application has failed to catch up. The lack of aggressive publicity and promotions in colleges, schools and places frequented by women is another reason. Safetipin runs a mobile application that collects information for safety audits.

Vishwanath, however, said that women in Delhi using smart phones should download and register themselves with the Himmat application because unlike other private women safety applications, it is the official application of the Delhi Police, which can be held accountable for any crime against women in the city.

Asked what new measures the city police are talking to get the expected response from public, Delhi Police chief spokesperson Dependra Pathak said, Our technical team is trying to rectify the glitches the application has. We will soon come up with an improved and advanced version of the app for seamless functioning. We will promote it by interacting with communities at large besides using advertisements.
Ever since their homes were razed to the ground in a demolition drive by Delhi Development Authority (DDA) on Monday, the residents of the Kathputli Colony are forced to live in the open  on the pavements or under the Shadipur flyover. Angry at being evicted from their homes, most of these residents have refused to shift to a nearby transit camp at Anand Parbat.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal interacted with the locals in Kathputli Colony on Thursday, but there was little comfort for the homeless. No politician visited our colony when our houses were being demolished. Nobody came forward to help us then. So why now? said Poonam Bhatt (20).

The homeless locals said that they are battling the cold weather and begging for food and water for the past four days. Many women said they found it humiliating to relieve themselves in the open.

The evicted locals alleged that police tried to remove them from the roadside early this week, but stopped after the Delhi High Court order Tuesday. (Arun Sharma/HT PHOTO)

They alleged that police tried to remove them from the roadside early this week, but stopped after the Delhi High Court order Tuesday. The colony was demolished to construct multi-storey buildings by a private builder, as part of Delhi Master Plan 2021 of DDA. During the last three years, 1,355 families have shifted to a transit accommodation at Anand Parbat. However, some families stayed put, refusing to move out.

Few residents told Hindustan Times that they have been promised alternative allotment in Narela by the DDA. However, they are hesitant to shift there.

I have never heard of Narela before. It isnt on the Delhi Metro route. How will we commute from there for our daily work? My four daughters study in a government school near the colony. How will they manage their studies from Narela? asked Pinky Singh (30). Her house was demolished when she had stepped out to pick her daughters from school.

Mohammed Akbar (21), a tailor, hasnt gone to work in the last four days. Earlier, he earned Rs 500 per day. But now he lives under Shadipur flyover with his parents, two sisters and a younger brother, and spends the entire day arranging food and water. At night, when it becomes cold and dark, the women of his house go to a nearby open space to relieve themselves. Akbar spends anxious moments until they return safely.

What is the government doing for us? First our electricity supply was cut off, and then our houses were demolished. I am a tailor and earn on the basis of the number of hours I put into my work. How will I work and commute daily if I shift to Narela? said Akbar, anxiously glancing at his ageing parents.

Bhatt, who is from a family of dhol players, said that Kathputli Colony had been home to three generations of her family. On Monday afternoon, I was preparing lunch, when police arrived at our doorstep and dragged us out of our ancestral house. I saw bulldozers breaking down my home and I couldnt do anything. My family managed to bring out three dhols. But many other musical instruments were destroyed, she said.

Police and DDA officials have denied allegations of use of force.

DDA officials said that about half of the demolition work has been completed and about 2.50 hectares of the total encroached area of 5.2 hectares has been reclaimed for redevelopment.

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On the one hand, Dot.Don does come across as such a narcissist. But then, when I look at the 10, count them - 10 tweets he spewed last night going on and on about "Crooked Hillary" it makes me think he must be the most insecure idiot in the world. Plus the world's worst winner, just like his base.



What is it, is he afraid the country might wake up and realize the mistake it made and transform her into president somehow?
Many Many moons ago, after the fall of the Mughal dynasty in 1857, the poet Ghalib had this to say about his beloved city, Delhi: The existence of Delhi is dependent on many spectacles: The Red Fort, Chandni Chowk, the daily crowds at Jama Masjid, the weekly jaunt around the Jamuna bridge, the annual fair at the Phool Waalon ki Sair  now that these five things are gone, Delhi isnt Delhi.

Today, the Red Fort is a shell of its former self; Chandni Chowk is a traffic nightmare; the crowds that assembled on the steps of Jama Masjid to watch dastangoi performances, cockfights and enjoy conversations, are now composed of tourists or the faithful who go to offer prayers; and the Jamuna has receded far away.

But the Phool Waalon ki Sair still continues, though in a restricted form.

It was a week-long fair in which the emperor, his queens, the royal prince, princesses, nobles and inhabitants of Shahjahanabad went to Mehrauli every year. Much fun would be had by all: there were shopping stalls, diving competitions in the jharna, and swings in the mango orchards. Oil was heated in huge woks and piping hot sweets and savouries would be served; malhar or monsoon songs would be sung and dancing girls would show their moves.

The entire area from the Yogmaya temple till the Bagh e Nazeer [now Ashoka Mission] would be lit up, full of vendors selling jewellery, food or other artifacts.

Phool Waalon ki Sair has an interesting history: The Mughal emperor, Akbar Shah II (1808 -1837) had wanted to nominate his younger and favourite son Mirza Jahangir as his heir, instead of the eldest son [who later succeeded him as Bahadur Shah Zafar], a move that didnt meet with the British Resident, Sir Archibald Setons approval. Mirza Jahangir, a hotheaded youth, mocked the Resident and later shot at him from one of the buildings in the Red Fort. Though Sir Archibald escaped the bullet, a guard got killed. Mirza Jahangir was exiled to Allahabad Fort. This caused great consternation and grief to his parents, particularly his mother, Mumtaz Mahal Begum.

She made a vow that if he came back safely she would offer a chadar at the dargah of Delhis great Sufi saint Hazrat Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki in Mehrauli. When Mirza Jahangir was finally released, his mother fulfilled her vow with great pomp and ceremony. When the floral canopy and chadar for the shrine were being made, the flower sellers also made a floral pankha [fan shaped banner on a pole] and offered it on the shrine. According to her vow she walked barefoot, even as flower sellers spread flowers in her path to act as a cushion.

The emperor and the queen shifted to Mehrauli for the Sair and the emperor also sent a floral offering to the nearby, ancient temple of Yogmaya Devi, Lord Krishnas sister. Every year the emperor ensured he and his courtiers went to both the dargah and the temple. If he couldnt go to the temple for some reason, he wouldnt go to the dargah either.

After the fall of the Mughal empire in 1857, Phool Waalon ki Sair was stopped. Later, it was continued by the British Commissioner of Delhi. In 1942, during the Quit India movement, the British government put a stop to the Sair to prevent popular participation and mass gatherings. Nehru asked Yogeshwar Dayal, a businessman of Delhi, to revive the festival. In 1962, it was registered under the Societies Registration Act and Nehru attended it in 1962 as a symbol of secular, modern India. It is a unique festival that truly symbolises Indias syncretic culture. The Sair e Gul Faroshan or Phool Waalon ki Sair which was traditionally held in the month of Bhadon [August/September], is now held after the monsoon.

Though the Mughal empire is no more, the tradition continues with the head of state being represented. Every year the President and Lt Governor of Delhi send a pankha which is carried in a procession from the Town Hall in Chandni Chowk to Mehrauli. On the first day, which is Thursday, a joyous procession goes to Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kakis dargah and offers floral chadars. Here it is the Hindu brethren who are supposed to take the lead.

On Friday, the procession goes to Yogmaya Temple and offers the floral chadar, this time with the Muslim brethren taking the lead.On Saturday (today), there is a cultural function at Jahaz Mahal, a building from the Lodi period which may have been built for use of pilgrims to the dargah. Cultural troupes representing the states of India come in a procession holding pankhas and perform on stage. This year, there is a qawwali performance by Rais Anees Saabri and Yusuf Malik.

DETAILS

What: Procession of pankhas, performance of cultural troupes; cultural programmes, qawwaali.

When: November 4, Performance by cultural troupes (5:30 pm); procession of pankhas (7:30 pm); prize distribution (7 45 pm); Qawwaali by Rais Anees Saabri, Yusuf Malik(8pm)

Where: Jahaaz Mahal, Mehrauli

Nearest metro station: Chhattarpur
If you are in Delhi this weekend, avoid taking the India Gate C-Hexagon and its radial roads. Delhi traffic police has said that roads in central Delhi are likely to be choked with traffic, at least till Sunday, with mega food festival World Food India 2017 being organised at India Gate lawns.

Office-goers were caught in long traffic jams in central Delhi on Friday morning after the inauguration of the event at Vigyan Bhavan. When contacted, Delhi traffic police advised vehicle owners to steer clear of the stretch till Sunday.

The India Gate stretch will witness a lot of traffic this weekend because of World Food India 2017 which was inaugurated at Vigyan Bhavan on Friday morning. Due to VIP movement, all roads of India Gate C-Hexagon were closed in the morning. It will take a couple of hours for the traffic to normalise. However, it is best to avoid this stretch from 9am-7pm this weekend, a traffic police official told Hindustan Times at noon.

As the event kicked off, thousands of commuters had a hard time reaching their destination in Central Delhi. Bhairon Marg was shut. So it took me 30 minutes to reach ITO from Sarai Kale Khan. All the smaller inside roads also had bumper-to-bumper traffic, said Nisha Singh, a Noida resident.

Roads leading to India Gate  like Kasturba Gandhi Marg, Ashoka Road, Akbar Road, Shahjahan Road and Dr Zakir Hussain Marg  were either barricaded, as the police diverted traffic away from the festival venue, or had very slow movement.

It is the regular week day traffic, plus the heavy footfall at the food festival that has led to the congestion. Both vehicular and pedestrian moment are heavy. We had issued an advisory. Traffic police has made additional deployment and local police have also been roped in for traffic duties, said Joint CP (traffic) Garima Bhatnagar.

Organised by the ministry of food processing industries, the three-day event will host over 2,000 participants from 200 companies spanning 30 countries. Besides representatives of 28 states, 18 ministerial and business delegations, nearly 50 global CEOs along with CEOs of all leading domestic food processing companies are also participating in the event.

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The Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) on Friday extended the date for raising objections against the preliminary answer key for the written exam to recruit Forest Section Officers (FSO) in the Forest Department of the state. The last date for receiving objections was November 3, which has been now extended to November 9.

In a notification issued on the official website of TSPSC, the commission said,  The last date of receiving objections on the Preliminary Keys which was declared as 03/11/2017 is now extended upto 09/11/2017. Candidates are advised to note the above dates and submit their objections through the link provided. Objections received beyond 09/11/2017 will not be considered at any cost. The candidates are instructed to submit their objections only in English and only as per the order of questions appearing on the screen with the question numbers allotted by TSPSC.

TSPSC had released the preliminary answer key of the FSO exam last Friday. The commission intends to fill approximately 90 vacancies through this recruitment process.

The selection of candidates will be made by written examination (objective type), walking test and medical test. The final selection of these posts will be based on marks obtained in the examination, giving weightage (bonus marks) to the NCC certificate holders.

Candidates who qualify in the exam will be called for verification of certificates. The minimum qualifying marks for selection are OCs 40%, BCs 35% SCs and STs 30%. The minimum qualifying marks are relaxable in the case of SC/ST/BC at the discretion of the commission.

The candidates will be selected and allotted to Service/ Department as per their rank in the merit list and as per district preference for allotment of candidates against vacancies and for the vacancies available.

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Scientists monitoring Earths climate and environment have delivered a cascade of grim news in 2017, adding to the urgency of UN talks in Bonn next week tasked with ramping up efforts to tame global warming.

Heres a summary of recent findings:

1.1 degrees

Earths average surface temperature last year was a record 1.1 degree Celsius (1.98 Fahrenheit) above the preindustrial era.

Our planets rising fever is caused by the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide (CO2) cast off when fossil fuels are burned to produce energy.

Sixteen of the hottest years on record have occurred since the start of the 21st century.

The 196-nation Paris Agreement calls on humanity to block the rise in temperature at well below 2.0 C (3.6 F) compared to pre-industrial levels, and to consider setting the cap at 1.5 C.

403.3 ppm

The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) reached an average of 403.3 parts per million (ppm) in 2016, the highest level in at least 800,000 years.

Last month, CO2  three-quarters of greenhouse gas emissions  hit nearly 407 ppm. Prior to industrialisation, the global average hovered at about 280 ppm.

Concentrations of the second-most important greenhouse gases  methane (CH4)  have also risen sharply over the last decade, driven by leakage from the gas industrys fracking boom, and growth in global livestock.

Many climate scientists argue that capping CO2 at 450 ppm gives us a fighting chance of staying under the 2 C threshold. Others say that the limit for a climate-safe world is much lower, around 350 ppm.

Melting ice

Arctic summer sea ice in 2017 shrank to 4.64 million square kilometres (1.79 million square miles). Thats only the eighth-smallest ice cover since 2012, when it dropped to 3.39 million km2.

But long-term trends are unmistakable: Arctic sea ice cover is declining at a rate of 13.2 percent per decade, relative to the 1981-2010 average.

Climate models predict that the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in summer as early as 2030.

At the other end of the world, Antarctic sea ice hit the lowest extent ever recorded by satellites last year as well.

Earths two massive ice sheets  atop Greenland and Antarctica  are currently shedding 286 and 127 billion tonnes of mass per year, respectively.

High-altitude glaciers, meanwhile, declined in surface area in 2016 for the 37th year in a row.

Extreme events

The WMO says there are demonstrable links between man-made climate change and some extreme events, especially heatwaves.

The number of climate-related extreme events  droughts, forest fires, floods, major storm surges  has doubled since 1990, research has shown.

2017 saw the first severe tropical storm known to sustain winds of 295 kilometres per hour (185 miles per hour) for more than 33 hours (Irma); and a hurricane that dropped a record 125 centimetres of water (nearly 50 inches) on land (Harvey).

The intensity of typhoons battering China, Taiwan, Japan and the Korean Peninsula since 1980, one study has shown, has increased by 12 to 15 percent.

Natural disasters drive about 26 million people into poverty every year, says the World Bank, and cause annual losses of about $520 million (463 million euros).

84.8 millimetres

Sea level  caused mainly by the expansion of water as it warms, and runoff from ice sheets and glaciers  is currently rising by 3.4 millimetres (0.13 inches) per year. Since 1993, the global ocean watermark has gone up by 84.8 mm (3.3 inches).

The pace is likely to pick up, threatening the homes and livelihoods of tens of millions of people in low-lying areas around the world.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in January the global average sea level could be between 0.3 and 2.5 metres (one foot to 8.2 feet) higher by 2100.

1,688 species

Of the 8,688 species of animals and plants listed as threatened on the International Union for the Conservation of Natures (IUCN) Red List, 19 per cent  1,688 species  have been negatively affected by climate change.

Scientists say that Earth has entered a mass extinction event, only the 6th in the last half-billion years.

(Sources: peer-reviewed studies, NASA, NSIDC, WMO)
Women with a history of infertility are at a significantly increased risk of early death, a study has warned. The study also showed that women with a history of infertility have a 20% increased risk of cancer-related mortality. While associations between infertility and overall health have been noted in the male population, until now, the relationship between a womans fertility and her overall health has not been as robustly examined, said Natalie Stentz, from the University of Pennsylvania in the US.

Though we cant yet explain the association between infertility and mortality, it is possible that the condition may be an early indicator of either endocrine or inflammatory disruption that over time lead to long-term health issues such as malignancy or diabetes, said Stentz. Researchers examined data from the 78,214 women enrolled between 1992 and 2001, who were followed for 13 years, or until study withdrawal or death.

They examined the effect of self-reported infertility  inability to conceive for one year or greater  on all causes of mortality and primary cause of death. Infertility was reported in 14.5% of the study population. At the completion of follow up, infertile women were 10% more likely to be deceased when compared to women who were able to get pregnant more easily.

When examining reproductive cancers, researchers found that while patients with infertility were 44% more likely to die of breast cancer, infertility was not associated with an increased risk of ovarian cancer or death from ovarian or endometrial cancers. Additionally, individuals with infertility were 70% more likely to die from diabetes, despite both groups of women having a comparable prevalence of diabetes.

The results raise significant questions over the long- term effects of infertility and whether it is infertility itself or an underlying condition that predisposes an individual to infertility that drives these increased risks, Stentz said. However, since infertility is diagnosed during a womans reproductive years, typically many years before the end of life, a correlation between fertility and health can be challenging to study on a population level because of the amount of time that is needed to follow these patients.

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Madhu Azad, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) councillor from Ward 7, was elected unopposed as the citys mayor, a post that has been lying vacant for the last 17 months. In a major surprise, Congress-supported Pramila Devi Kablana of Ward 9 bagged the post of the senior deputy mayor after an election, while the post of deputy mayor went to BJP councillor Sunita Yadav, who was also elected unopposed.

The mayoral elections were conducted at the John Hall in Civil Lines on Friday under heavy police cover in the presence of political leaders and senior bureaucrats.

Madhu Azad, the new mayor

With her selection, Azad becomes the citys first woman mayor and the second mayor, overall, following Vimal Yadavs election in 2011.

Madhu is the wife of Ashok Azad, who has been with the BJP for nearly two decades. Madhu was an undergraduate student in the Delhi University but did not finish her education. She contested the 2017 Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) elections for the first time.

Madhu was viewed as a party candidate who rose through the BJP ranks. This term, the mayors seat had been reserved for a woman candidate from the Scheduled Caste.

Azad and BJP councillor Sheetal Bagri of Ward 10 were the front-runners for the post and senior leaders within the party were divided over their selection.

However, the leaders made a unanimous choice after BJP state president Subhash Barala held a series of meetings with party members at the state office on Thursday evening and at Hotel Acura in Civil Lines on Friday morning.

Pramila Kablana, the unexpected winner

Pramila, the wife of senior Congress leader Gaje Singh Kablana, fought the 2017 elections as an independent candidate after Congress decided against contesting the elections on party symbol.

Pramilas victory may have been a direct result of the lack of resolution on the BJPs part for picking the senior deputy mayor.

BJPs pick, Brham Yadav, councillor of Ward 13 was reportedly backed by PWD minister Rao Narbir Singh. However, he faced resistance from within the party, from the faction backed by Rao Inderjit Singh, sources said.

Pramila bagged 23 of 35 votes.

Sunita Yadav, the new deputy mayor

Sunita was widely expected to bag a post in the mayoral elections. The two-time councillor from Ward 33 is the wife of senior BJP leader Anil Yadav.

BJP had won 14 of 35 seats in the MCG elections on September 24 and later garnered the support of 12 councillors, following which it became clear that the top post would be bagged by the BJP.

Unlike last elections, where BJP and INLD councillors had boycotted the polls, all councillors cast their votes.

Gurgaon didnt have elected representatives since June 2016, after a delimitation order by the urban local bodies (ULB) contended that the citys population was less than 10 lakh and the ward count needed to be revised from 35 to 33.

Later, the population figures were found to be in excess of 10 lakh and revision of the number of wards was no longer required.

The sequence of events

April 2016: A delimitation order by the urban local bodies (ULB) contended that citys population was less than 10 lakh and the wards count needed to be revised from 35 to 33. MCG elections postponed indefinitely.

June 30, 2016: Term of councillors ends

September 9, 2016: Ad hoc committee formed to oversee delimitation order.

September 25, 2016: Ad hoc committee finds the citys population to be above 10 lakh.

December 16, 2016: Post for mayor reserved by ULB for a woman candidate from the Scheduled Caste.

December 20, 2016: State committee recommends changes in the demarcation of wards.

February 1, 2017: Petition filed against demarcation of wards in the Punjab and Haryana high court.

August 30, 2017: Election Commission notifies date for MCG elections.

September 24, 2017: MCG elections conducted and results announced the same day.

November 3, 2017: Mayoral elections conducted and results announced the same day.

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30 Rock star Alec Baldwin has admitted that he treated women in a sexist manner in the past. Baldwin, who was honoured at a luncheon at the Paley Center for Media, said he would like to change his attitude towards women.

The actor was recently criticised for working with James Toback as the director has been accused of sexual misconduct by over 300 women.

I certainly have treated women in a very sexist way. Ive bullied women. Ive overlooked women. Ive underestimated women. Not as a rule.

From time to time Ive done what a lot of men do, which is... when you dont treat women the same way you treat men. You dont. Im from a generation where you really dont and Id like that to change. I really would like that to change, he said at the event.

Alec Baldwin, winner of the award for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series for Saturday Night Live, left, walks with James Corden on the red carpet stage at the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday. (Invision for the Television Academy)

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the actor also addressed the swirl of sexual misconduct allegations currently dominating Hollywood and called for a change.

I think its important for us to try to make the workplace and beyond not only comfortable and right and fair and appropriate but as productive, as well.

I think a lot of what were dealing with within this issue is hurting our business. Its making it less productive.

Baldwin said while he was aware of some rumours, he did not know the problem was so widespread.

I didnt necessarily know the scope when you hear the hundreds and hundreds of women who are complaining about this, Baldwin said.

Its been a very eye-opening experience for me personally. Weve got to be vigilant in a new way to make sure that everybody is comfortable and that we get the job done together that were there to do.

Hollywood is reeling under a major scandal with some of the prominent faces such as Toback, Kevin Spacey, Dustin Hoffman and Brett Ratner facing allegations of sexual misconduct in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein expose.

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Independence Day actor Randy Quaid, in a series of tweets, claimed that he was brutally raped by a teenage neighbour when he was 5 years old.

The actor claimed that he and his 14-year-old neighbour were hanging out when he asked Quaid to go into the bathroom.

Taking it to Twitter, the actor claimed the boy raped him in the bathroom at his own home whilst his parents were at work, threatening to smash a bottle of rubbing alcohol over his head if he didnt do exactly what he told him to do.

He tweeted, When I was 5 years old I was brutally raped by my next door neighbour, Rodney Lombardi(y?). He was 14. Both of Rodneys parents had jobs. So we would spend the afternoon hours together watching tv or playing croquet out in his front yard. One summer day in 1956 I went over to Rodneys house to see if he wanted to play croquet. He said we could if I would go into the bathroom. I remember thinking this was an odd request, but I complied. He followed me into the bathroom and shut the door behind us. He told me to pull down my pants and underwear. Even at five years old I knew something wasnt right what he was asking and I told him I wanted to leave. I started to cry, begging him to let me go. He reached in the medicine cabinet and pulled out a bottle of rubbing alcohol (they were made of glass in those days), and held it like a weapon above his head in a threatening gesture.

When I was 5 years old I was brutally raped by my next door neighbor, Rodney Lombardi(y?). He was 14. Both of Rodneys parents had jobs....  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

so we would spend the afternoon hours together watching tv or playing croquet out in his front yard. One summer day in 1956 I went over.....  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

to Rodneys house to see if he wanted to play croquet. He said we could if I would go into the bathroom. I remember thinking this was an....  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

odd request, but I complied. He followed me into the bathroom and shut the door behind us. He told me to pull down my pants and.....  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

underwear. Even at five years old I knew something wasnt right what he was asking and I told him I wanted to leave. He said I could.......  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

after I pulled down my pants and underwear. The look in his eyes frightened me. He had suddenly transformed from being my friend into......  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

this hideous monster I didnt recognize. I started to cry, begging him to let me go. He reached in the medicine cabinet and pulled out a...  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

bottle of rubbing alcohol (they were made of glass in those days), and held it like a weapon above his head in a threatening gesture.......  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

He said he was going to bust me over the head with it if I didnt pull down my pants. Sobbing,, and scared to death that he was about to...  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

make good on his threat, I undid my pants and pulled them down, underwear too. He move closer, brandishing the bottle. He told me to.......  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

turn around and bend over the toilet seat. Reluctantly, I complied, unsure what to expect. All of a sudden I felt something hard...........  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

and very painful going into my anus; whatever it was remained inside me for what seemed like a very long time - a sharp, burning,..........  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

stinging pain jabbing inside of me over and over. I wanted so badly for it to stop, for him to stop hurting me. My crying turned to........  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

screams, screams for help to the neighbor who lived in the house just outside the bathroom window. I screamed for my mother although I.....  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

knew she couldnt hear me from our place. I thought I was dying. Then, suddenly, it was over. I got up, quickly pulling up my pants,........  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

sobbing uncontrollably. He was quiet, his eyes averted. I flung open the door and ran out of his house, yelling as loud as I could,.........  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

making a beeline for my mother who was now coming off our front porch. I dont remember exactly what I said to her, something like,........  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

"Rodney stuck his wee wee in my hiney".

A policeman lived across the street and my mother hurried with me to his house. The cop went to...  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

My career was practically destroyed by the false accusations of another producer, Robert Boyette. False arrests followed. A corrupt........  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

With all the other victims of abuse coming forward now is a good time to tell this story and join others dealing with their own, similar....  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

Hollywood encounters that must to be addressed and the perpetrators exposed for their evil smarminess. Time to drain the Hollywood swamp...  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

and get rid of these creeps.  Randy Quaid (@RandyRRQuaid) November 2, 2017

He also explained how he thought the trauma led to him pursuing an acting career.

Immersing myself in a character is a means of channelling the rage, removing me from myself essentially allowing me to utilise the emotional baggage thats piled up inside through the years. Many actors have experienced severe emotional trauma in their lives to one degree or another. For us, acting is more than just a career, its a way of coping, a welcomed survival mechanism, noted Quaid.

He said a policeman who lived across the street rushed over and went to the teens house with Quaids mother and waited for his parents to get home.

The actor went on to claim that he continued to be taken advantage of by Hollywood predators.

The actor ended his tweets by declaring its time to drain the Hollywood swamp and get rid of these creeps.

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Manhattan prosecutors are investigating actor Paz de la Huertas accusations that Harvey Weinstein raped her twice in her apartment in 2010.

The actor told CBS News for a report aired Thursday that the first incident happened in October 2010 after Weinstein gave her a ride home after a party. The actor told the network the second rape occurred in December 2010.

Manhattan district attorneys spokeswoman Joan Vollero says a senior sex crimes prosecutor has been assigned to the investigation, which is being conducted along with New York police.

Weinsteins representative, Sallie Hofmeister, says the 65-year-old Oscar winner denies any allegations of non-consensual sex. De la Huertas agent did not return an email message seeking comment.

Police in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles and London are also investigating allegations against Weinstein.

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Ted actor Jessica Barth has alleged that her former manager drugged and sexually assaulted her in 2012. Speaking to The Wrap, Barth, who was one of the voices against Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, said that she wants to prosecute David Guillod, and wants to do whatever is in my power to make sure this never happens to another woman.

Barth was encouraged to name Guillod after another woman responded to her story - which she wrote last week without taking names - and claimed to have had a similar experience.

Separate sources told the Wrap that Guillod had been removed from his previous two positions after allegations of sexual harassment were made against him.

This allegation was initially made five years ago and was fully investigated by LAPD at that time, Guillods attorney, Thomas M Ferlauto, told TheWrap. Witnesses were interviewed whose version of events belied and completely contradicted Ms Barths and LAPD determined the charges to be unfounded. No criminal or civil case was ever brought against Mr Guillod.

This combination of pictures created shows the several women who accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct. (AFP)

Nothing was found to be unfounded. I just stopped pursuing it because he threatened to sue me, Barth said. I wasnt in a place emotionally or financially to take him on legally.

Barth detailed her account of the assault. She said that Guillod pursued her relentlessly, asking her out for dinners and dates. When she agreed against her better judgment, she remembers passing out after consuming wine.

The next thing I remember is waking up at home with six hickeys on my neck. I was horrified. I was completely and utterly confused and I was sick to my stomach. Through email, he tried to play it off as a silly make-out session between friends. He sent me message after message begging that we talk and letting me know how upset he was and that he couldnt sleep because of the pit in his stomach, she wrote.

Barth previously came out against Harvey Weinstein, allegations against whom have set a chain reaction in Hollywood - director Brett Ratner and actor Kevin Spacey have also been accused of sexual misconduct.

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FOCUS ON DEFENSE CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND OCEANIA
Around 40,000 private hospitals and clinics remained closed on Friday as private doctors went on strike protesting against Karnatakas proposed amendments to a medical bill to fix costs for private hospitals and penalise doctors.

Nearly 50,000 private doctors from across Karnataka will abstain from their duties on Friday against the amendments proposed to Karnataka Private Medical Establishments (KPME) Bill 2017, Dr HN Ravindra, president of the Karnataka chapter of the Indian Medical Association, told IANS in Bengaluru.

The bill proposes regulation of costs in private hospitals, prohibiting the hospitals from levying any additional costs from those set by the government, setting up of a grievance redressal committee to look into any complaints against the private hospitals and penalising the doctors for any negligence in their work.

The state was proposing amendments to the KPME Act, 2007, through this new bill.

OPDs of private hospitals in #Karnataka to remain non-functional today, in protest against the proposed medical bill; visuals from Bengaluru pic.twitter.com/wEIfmYhs37  ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017

The bill is likely to be tabled in the winter session of the legislative assembly in November in Belagavi.

If the government sets up a law this way, doctors are going to be extremely wary of taking up risky cases, as the bill even proposes imprisoning the doctors for up to three years and imposing a fine of Rs 5 lakh, Ravindra said.

With the Medical Council of India already laying down rules for the doctors and prohibiting them from practising in case of any errors while treating a patient, the doctors associations in the state have been against setting up another committee.

Private hospitals are being treated as commercial entities by the state -- the electricity charges, water charges, everything we pay is at commercial rates and not subsidised, unlike in government hospitals. How can the state government, in such case, regulate costs in private hospitals? Ravindra questioned.

Terming the bill draconian, medical associations in the state have been demanding the removal of these amendments.

If the state government wants to bring out a new medical law, then it has to include the government hospitals too, by which the government hospitals could also improve, Ravindra added.

Nearly 80% of the patients opt for private hospitals for treatment in the state.

We will be meeting all the medical associations in the state on November 5, after which we will decide our next action, he added.
Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah hit back on Friday at BJP chief Amit Shah for attacking his government for celebrating Tipu Jayanti and accused him of making a desperate attempt to communalise the situation ahead of the state assembly polls.

A day after coming under fire by the BJP chief at a rally in Bengaluru, Siddaramaiah said the assembly election has brought tourists like Shah who display ignorance about the state.

We celebrate birthdays of 26 leaders & builders of #NavaKarnataka. @AmitShah in a desperate attempt to communalise, picks on Tipu Jayanthi, Siddaramaiah said in a tweet.

Election is coming! It brings tourists like @AmitShah who display ignorance about our state & call #KannadaRajyotsava as Karnatak Mahotsav, he said.

We celebrate birthdays of 26 leaders & builders of #NavaKarnataka. @AmitShah in a desperate attempt to communalize, picks on Tipu Jayanthi.  Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) November 3, 2017

Flagging off a 75-day statewide yatra spearheaded by BJP state mascot BS Yeddyurappa at a rally on Thursday, Shah flayed the Tipu Jayanti celebrations, accusing the Siddaramaiah government of practising vote bank politics.

Yesterday (Wednesday), was November 1. It was Karnatakas formation day. Karnataka Mahotsav (Rajyotsava) celebrations had to happen with grandeur, but Siddaramaiah government had no interest in Karnataka Mahotsava, they are more enthusiastic towards celebrating Tipu Jayanti on November 10, he had said.

In a series of tweets in Kannada, Siddaramaiah defended the Tipu Jayanti celebrations.

People of the state have accepted Tipu Jayanti. Tipu was a patriot. He was not against Hindus or any other community, he said on Twitter.

Siddaramaiah also took a jibe at state BJP leaders, alleging they had once described Tipu Sultan as a freedom fighter but had become enlightened after learning lessons from Shah.

He claimed the BJP yatra was a failure on the very first day, proving that the people were not with the party.

The BJP has been opposing the event as it sees Tipu Sultan, the 18th century ruler of erstwhile Mysore kingdom, as a brutal killer and areligious bigot who converted people to Islam.

Assembly elections are due in Karnataka early next year in which the BJP is hoping to capture power, unseating the government led by Siddaramaiah.

Making history, the BJP had installed its first-ever government in the south in 2008 before losing power to the Congress.
Upmarket stores are set to open in Andhra Pradeshs countryside as the government plans to convert the existing 29,000 fair price shops across the state into mini-malls.

Christened as Chandranna Village Mall after chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, these stores will sell not just subsidised rice, but also over 500 grocery items and fast-moving consumer goods.

To begin with 6,500 mini-malls will be launched in the third week of November. The entire scheme is expected to be rolled out by January.

At present, only rice is being supplied to the consumers through public distribution system (PDS). By converting these fair price shops into village malls, the government wants to improve the lifestyle of rural population by giving them access to high-quality grocery and nutritious food products, cosmetics, stationery items, commissioner of civil supplies B Rajasekhar told Hindustan Times.

At present rice is being supplied through state civil supplies corporation at Re 1 a kg. To supply grocery and FMCG products at a cheaper rate to these village malls, the Andhra Pradesh government in July called for open tenders from reputed retailing companies.

It has engaged noted consultant KPMG to conduct the bidding process. The technical bids were opened on August 28 and financial bids on September 8.

After the bidding process, we have short-listed two major companies  Reliance Retail and Future Group as suppliers for village malls. The final decision will be taken by the chief minister shortly, a KPMG spokesman said.

According to official sources, Reliance Retail has grabbed the bid for supply of commodities in 10 districts and the Future Group, which operates the retail store chain under the name of Big Bazar, in the remaining three districts.

The bidding period is three years. The two companies will extend their logistic support to the malls through their supply chain management, IT systems, manufacture linkages, a source said.

While a Reliance group spokesman refused to comment on the concept saying the company was yet to get the confirmation, an official spokesperson of the Future Group confirmed that it participated in the bidding.

The fair-price shop dealers can order products from around 350-550 food brands and 250-300 non-food brands.

The dealers will be provided products at up to a maximum of 30-40% below MRP on food items and 25-45 % below MRP on non-food items. The dealer can retain 40 % of the negotiated margin and pass on the remaining 60 per cent to the consumer.

The consumers can expect to get the commodities at least at a 20 % lesser rate than the market price, minister for civil supplies Prathipati Pulla Rao said.

He said to set up the malls, FP shop dealers will have to pay 50% of the total investment. The government will bear 25% of the investment and remaining 25% will be mobilised through Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana or other bank loans.

The loan can be used by the dealers for undertaking civil work for physical facelift of shop and for working capital requirement to purchase items from the two suppliers, an official source said.

As per the bidding agreement, the suppliers will bear 50% cost of fixtures, branding, decoration etc, the source added.

In the coming days, the government aims at extending more services and products through village malls such as banking, telecom, medicines, electronics etc, the sources added.

The opposition parties are, however, not amused by the concept. They said it was a ploy to do away with the PDS and also alleged some underhand dealings.

It looks like Naidu has chosen Reliance Retail and Future Group in a calculated manner, because his family concern Heritage Foods has business links with both these group, YSR Congress party MLA Ramakrishna Reddy Alla alleged.

While Heritage Foods sold out its retail wing to Future group, retaining a 3.65% stake last year, it has recently taken over the dairy wing of the Reliance Retail.

Essentially, the village mall concept appears to be meant for helping these business groups to expand their activity in the entire state at the cost of FP shops and local retail markets, Reddy said.

Former MP and CPI (M) leader P Madhu said the village malls will completely destroy the PDS and corporatise the rural markets.

In the long run, they will also monopolise the village markets and convert the FP dealers into their workers, he alleged.

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A 14-year-old girl was allegedly raped on Wednesday in Madhya Pradesh, which is witnessing protests over lack of womens safety after a daughter of a Railway Protection Force officer was sexually assaulted barely 200 metres from a police station in the state capital.

Police on Friday said the latest incident came to the light after parents of the minor girl filed a complaint at Kotwali police station in Agar Malwa district.

Avinash Shrivastava , in-charge Kotwali police station in Agar Malwa told HT that a 19-year old youth along with his two friends lured a minor girl to the house of one of the friends.

The youth raped the minor girl while other two friends stood guard. The house belonged to one of the friends, who is also a minor. There was no one else in the house as the parents of the youth had gone on a pilgrimage, he said.

Shrivastava said parents of the victim initially didnt lodge any complaint because of some fear or taboo.

They approached us on Thursday and filed the complaint. As the case was very sensitive we filed the case against the three under IPC 376 D (gang rape) . We have arrested all the three accused, he said.

On Tuesday, 19-year-old daughter of the RPF officer was allegedly gang-raped by four rag pickers in Bhopal, once again exposing the states poor track record on women safety.

Data submitted in the state legislative assembly in February this year shows 11 women were raped every day and six gang-raped took place almost every week in the state between February 1, 2016, and mid-February 2017. Most of the victims were minor.

Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the hearing in the gang rape of 19-year old would be conducted in a fast-track court and that action would be taken against police officials for initially refusing to register her complaint.

Officers in charge of MP Nagar, Habibganj and GRP police stations have been suspended for the delay in registering the case even after the family of the woman approached them to lodge a complaint.

The city superintendent of police in the area has also been transferred.

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The Army on Friday paid tributes to two soldiers who lost their lives during an encounter with militants in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir.

General officer Commanding of Chinar Corps Lt Gen J S Sandhu led officers in paying homage to the soldiers on behalf of a proud nation, a defence spokesperson said.

Officials and representatives from the state government and other security agencies also paid their last respects to the martyrs, he said.

Sepoy Suraj Singh Topal (25) and Signal-man Kushwah Pradip Singh Brijkishor Singh (22) had sustained bullet injuries during the operation at Sambura in Pulwama district on Thursday.

They were given immediate first aid and taken to the 92 Base Hospital but the jawans succumbed to their injuries, he said.

Topal, who hailed from Falota village in Uttrakhand, had joined the force in 2012. He is survived by his parents and two sisters, the spokesperson said.

Singh (22), who belonged to Savitrinagar village in Gujarat, had donned the uniform in 2013. He is survived by his parents and a brother.

The mortal remains of the soldiers were flown to their native places for last rites with full military honours, the spokesperson said.

In this hour of grief, the Army stands in solidarity with the bereaved families and remains committed to their dignity and well being, he added.
The brutal gang rape of a 19-year-old college student in the heart of Madhya Pradeshs capital Bhopal on Tuesday has once again put the spotlight on the rising cases of sexual violence against women in the state much to the embarrassment of the Bharatiya Janata Party government.

Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan recently claimed that Madhya Pradesh was way ahead of the United States in terms of womens empowerment after he returned from his visit to the country.

Figures, however, show Madhya Pradesh continues to be one of the most unsafe and dangerous places for women in the country as one woman is raped in the central state almost every two hours.

Data submitted in the state legislative assembly in February this year shows 11 women were raped every day and six gang-raped almost every week in Madhya Pradesh between February 1, 2016, and mid-February 2017.

As many as 4279 women were raped and 248 gang-raped in Madhya Pradesh. And of the 4279 rape victims, over half or 2260 were minors.

Read more: CM assures trial in fast-track court, action against police officers

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data released for 2015 shows Madhya Pradesh reported 4391 - the highest number of rape cases in the country in that year. In 2014, the state reported 5076 rape cases, accounting for 14% of the total rape cases reported from across the country.

Bhopal-based NGO Sangini Gender Resource Centre said in its 2013 study that most of the girls in the state capital have been the victims of sexual harassment of one or the other kind such as stalking (23%), unwarranted touching in public places (6%), obscene talk (11%), obscene talk on mobile phones (14%), attempt to rape (7%), being cheated after lured into love (3%) and obscene gestures (1%).

Womens rights activists are worried over the prevalence of sexual violence against women in the state. Upasana Behera said such horrific incidents create fear in the minds of women and affect their sense of freedom.

Many parents and girls will be apprehensive about late tuitions. The chief minister recently said that MP was better in womens empowerment compared to the US. How can women feel empowered when they cant even move in the heart of Bhopal without fear? she asked.

Behera also rubbished the argument that the figures were higher in Madhya Pradesh as more cases were registered in the state.

Everybody knows this that reported rapes are just tip of the iceberg. Very large number of rapes are not reported at all due to social taboo, she said.

The state women and child development minister Archana Chitnis admitted such incidents create fear among women and the government is concerned about the rising cases of sexual violence against women.

We are already pushing for capital punishment for people convicted of raping minors below 12 years. The police should also deal with such incidents with more sensitivity and more promptly, she said.

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The Centre has given a six-month extension to the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) to submit its report, according to an official order.

The tribunal, which is looking into the dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over sharing of Cauvery water, was to submit the report by Thursday. The CWDT has, however, sought more time to do so.

The tribunal had on February 5, 2007 asked Karnataka to release 192 thousand million cubic (TMC) feet water to lower riparian Tamil Nadu every year from June to January.

The party states had, however, challenged the CWDT order in the Supreme Court.

...The central government hereby further extends the period of submission of further report by the said tribunal for a period up to 2nd May, 2018, a notification reads.

The CWDT was constituted on June 2, 1990 under section 4 of the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956 for the adjudication of the water dispute.

Kerala and Puducherry are the other two states party to the dispute.

Tamil Nadu has been accusing Karnataka of not releasing its due share of water. Whereas, Karnataka has expressed its inability to release the stipulated quantum of water owing to the drought situation in the state.
Torrential overnight rains for about ten hours brought Chennai and neighbouring districts of Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur to a grinding halt, paralysing normal life completely.

Schools and colleges, which are closed since 31 October due to rains, will be shut on Saturday as well in Chennai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts.

A wary Tamil Nadu government asked IT companies to declare a holiday for their employees and universities postponed examinations with most of the roads under water.

The Met department forecast heavy to very heavy showers in north coastal Tamil Nadu till tomorrow.

In 24 hours, heavy rainfall is expected in few places in north coastal region, while heavy to very heavy rainfall in south coastal region, said MeT official S Balachandran.

Here are the highlights:

3pm: We have worked out Rs 600 crore master plan which will work in various ways to drain out the water, said minister KP Anbalagan, who visited water-logged area of Kovilambakkam.

2.50pm: Massive water-logging in parts of Tamil Nadu followed by heavy rainfall.

Locals wade through flood waters in Chennais Sunnambu Kolathur area on Friday. (ANI Twitter)

12.59 pm: People have been evacuated to safety in Tarangambadi and Sirkazhi Taluks in the district where hundreds of houses have been flooded.

12.58 pm: Incessant heavy rains lashed Nagapattinam district for the fifth consecutive day on Friday, inundating hundreds of houses and submerging paddy crops in thousands of hectares.

11.52 am: With heavy rains abating and power supply restored, residents in several localities come out for buying essential supplies.

11.42 am: Clogged sewer lines, coupled with the heavy rain, forces water inside several houses in south Chennai.

11 am: Severe water-logging in Kovilambakkam, a suburb within Chennai.

10.57 am: Flight operations at the city airport were normal, airport officials said.

10.50 am: The power supply, which was cut as a precautionary measure on Thursday, was restored on Friday.

10.35 am: A signalling snag, hit train services between the St Thomas Mount and Kodambakkam suburban section since 9.30 pm Thursday. Services were restored at 3.20 am today, Railway officials said.

10.31 am: Mudichur and Velachery were nearly cut off due to the heavy rain.

10.05 am: Residents of Mudichur held protests, sitting in stagnant water, blaming the officials and government for doing nothing even as water entered their homes.

9. 55 am: Traffic on most of the arterial roads came to a crawling halt as the roads were flooded with water of up to knee level in most areas.

9.43 am: Traffic police personnel were on the ground even at midnight, guiding traffic in hevay rain, from Chennai central railway station and beyond and were stationed at most of the places that were inundated.

9.30 am: Rainfall activity will continue over north coastal Tamil Nadu with heavy to very heavy rain over Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram and Chennai districts during the next 24 hours, a special bulletin issued at 8.30 am said .
Bright sunshine greeted Chennai on Friday, after heavy rains in the city and most parts of the state Thursday night, but the showers resumed in the evening.

Vast areas of the coastal belt of the state remained flooded and more heavy showers are forecast for Saturday. Another death was reported after a farmer stepped on a submerged live wire. Two eight-year-old girls in a Chennai locality died after they were electrocuted the day before.

Schools were shut for the fourth straight day and all scheduled semester examinations of Anna University and Madras University were postponed.

S Balachandran, a senior weather department official, said the next 24 hours could see heavy rain, even as Chennai residents hoped that they wouldnt see a repeat of 2015 when floods ravaged the city.

Voluntary groups worked with rescue teams to provide food, water and shelter to those stranded by the rain and floods. Anger mounted in flooded areas as people accused the government of tardy relief work.

The situation in Pallaikarani in southern Chennai, one of the worst affected areas during the 2015 floods, was similar to the horror the residents faced two years ago.

We have seen no one, no government official or minister in our area, V Srinivasan, a resident told a private television channel.

In the north of the city, retired government official KV Ramakrishna echoed those sentiments. It doesnt matter which government is there, DMK or AIADMK. For us, the people, the problem remains the same, he said.

A storm that swept through Tamil Nadu from the Bay of Bengal brought heavy rain for the past three days. Rainwater flowed into houses, streets and entire localities were waterlogged, and overhead electricity cables snapped.

Chief minister Edapaddi Palanisami and his deputy, O Panneerselvam, led a team to Pallaikarani on Friday to review the situation as residents struggled in knee-deep water.

They visited five localities and told reporters that officials were working round-the-clock to pump out rainwater that has accumulated in low-lying areas after Chennai received 36cm of rain over three days.

The chief minister dismissed allegations that the government had done little to desilt lakes and waterways. He said the storage capacity of lakes has increased 30% because of the desilting operation taken up after the 2015 floods, which were the worst to hit Chennai for almost a century.

State fisheries minister D Jayakumar also said 98% of the work has been done and we are capable of taking care of the waterlogging.

People living in flooded homes were not convinced.

S Ciba, a software professional in Madipakkam, said his house was surrounded by waist-deep water. They may have done all the work they are claiming, but here you can see for yourself that it has been a total failure.

The fear of diseases lurked too as overflowing sewage mixed with the rainwater.

The government has not learnt any lessons from the 2015 floods, environmentalists said. Environmentalist Nityanand Jayaraman warned of worse to come. The first rains of the northeast monsoon drowned Chennai.

Chennai struggles with flooding every year. Unabated construction on floodplains and coastal areas, and storm-water drains and waterways clogged by plastic garbage and silt, have made the city increasingly vulnerable to floods, the environmentalists added.

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Amid criticism of the AIADMK regimes handling of the rain situation in Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister K Palaniswami on Friday visited various parts of the city and its suburbs, hit by water-logging, insisting that his government was working on a war-footing.

Accompanied by his deputy O Panneerselvam and senior officials, the chief minister visited RK Nagar and Perungalathur on the city outskirts.

Low-lying areas with water-logging were identified in the Chennai Corporation (limits) and Kancheepuram district. Workers (here) worked on a war-footing and stagnant water has been removed, he told reporters.

People asked me to devise a permanent solution to the issue of inundation, Palaniswami said.

As part of the governments resolve to address the issue, a storm water drain system is being constructed for the citys needs and the work is over on 300 km of the proposed 386 km long system, he said.

The entire work will be completed soon, he said without divulging further details.

Chennai received 36 cm of rains in the last three days, the AIADMK leader said, adding, the government acted quickly to ensure there was no water stagnation in the city.

People walk through a flooded area of Marina Beach on the Bay of Bengal coast after heavy rains in Chennai on November 3, 2017. (AFP)

To a question, he said encroachments on water bodies were being removed in line with court orders, and denied that there was any delay in this work.

The chief minister said following the plans devised post-December 2015 deluge in the city, the government has ensured there was no stagnation of water this year despite the heavy downpour, he said.

You saw how much of water stagnation was there in Bengaluru and Mumbai, Palaniswami said while asserting that his government was doing a better job.

Tamil Nadu ministers accompanied by designated officials have fanned out to various affected areas and are overseeing the relief activity, he said.

An Indian resident carry drinking water in a pot at a residential area flooded after heavy monsoon rains in Chennai on November 03 ,2017. (AFP)

The state government has been facing criticism from the opposition, including DMK, over handling of the monsoon fury.

They have also questioned the claim of the state government that it had undertaken desilting works ahead of the monsoon.

Meanwhile, Principal Revenue Secretary K Satyagopal said a 43 personnel-strong team of State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) was camping in suburban Tambaram to attend to any kind of exigencies.
In Kottakkal municipality of Keralas Muslim-dominated Malappuram district, girls bring joy as well as gold for their family.

For their municipal councillor, Abdul Raheem has a unique way of celebrating the birth of a girl child in his ward. The independent councillor has been gifting a gold coin weighing one gram to mothers, who give birth to a girl, for the last two years.

I have seen people cursing the birth of girls. No, not again is the common refrain in many families. But most of them are not aware they are the real wealth. Can we imagine a world without them? the father of a four-year-old daughter asked.

In all religions and scriptures, girls find a prime place. But in real life, the situation is quite different. Even in birth, they face severe discrimination and neglect. Our attitude should be changed, he said.

In the recently-released global gender gap index, India was ranked 108 behind neighbouring Bangladesh. The World Economic Forums Global Gender Gap Index said India slipped 21 places from the earlier 87th rank.

British medical journal the Lancet published a study in 2011 in which it said that as many as 12 million Indian girls may have been selectively aborted between 1980 and 2010.

Experts say this trend, in a deeply patriarchal society where girls are often seen as a financial liability, has led to a rise in crimes including rape, trafficking and the emergence of wife-sharing in villages where the sex ratio is low.

Kerala has a healthy sex ratio of 1084 females for 1000 males. But social scientists have warned that the ever-declining birth-rate in the state would affect its healthy sex ratio in coming years.

Sixteen mothers have received his gift so far and Raheem is now planning to double the weight of the coin. There are instances of parents calling him from the hospital bed to announce the arrival of their daughter and he wastes no time in felicitating them.

Many leading jewellers in Kottakkal approached Raheem with offers to sponsor the gift after they got to know about this initiative. But he declined because the 38-year-old said he not doing this for any publicity and he has no plan to commercialise it either.

As a councillor, I get a sitting allowance between Rs 8000 to 10,000 a month. One gram coin costs only Rs 2500. I can afford to spare my salary for this, he said adding he joined politics not to make money but to serve people.

Raheem, who belongs to a business-owning family that owns pharmaceutical and ayurvedic companies, said he is now planning a mega function to honour these mothers.

Such initiatives will help remove barriers in the society, Jaseena Rehman, who was the first mother to get the coin two years ago, said.

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Kashmir separatist leaders, in an unusual move, have approached State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) over the sufferings of Kashmiri political prisoners in two prominent jails, including Tihar.

Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik, in a signed letter, have written to SHRC chairman bringing to his notice the plight of political inmates in Tihar and Kathua jails.

Deprivation of rights of Kashmiri prisoners in Indian jails goes against prisoners rights. Imprisoning Kashmiri does not mean that they should be treated as animals, the letter says.

Written for the first time by the top three Kashmir separatists jointly, the letter has alleged that Kashmiri inmates are subjected to inhuman deprivation in Tihar.

Medical treatment, for those who require it, is lacking. The inmates are deprived of contact with their near and dear ones and also other basic needs, the trio has written.

They have also claimed that Kathua jail has become a torture chamber where Kashmiri inmates are deprived of human contact for many months.

The separatist leaders have alleged that a large number of undertrials are cramped in unhygienic conditions. Medication provided to them is substandard. The inmates also have to seek permission from jail authorities even in health matters. Food provided is of bad quality and is provided during odd hours, they have written.

The letter also states that Kashmiri inmates are kept with hardened criminals in cramped prisons which poses life threat to them. Their movement is restricted and water is also not in their cells. Inmates with health issues are not given required treatment, the trio claimed.

The separatists have requested the SHRC to look into these grave violations and have sought instructions to restore the dignity of Kashmirs political prisoners.
On September 10, 2015, a frail-looking Sheela Kaur stood in front of a packed court  30 years, 10 months and nine days after her husband, father-in-law and brother-in-law were burnt alive by a frenzied mob in the aftermath of Indira Gandhis assassination.

She pointed a finger at Congress leader Sajjan Kumar, identifying him as the person who instigated the mob in Delhis Sultanpuri, where she lived.

Kaise bhool sakti hoon us din ke baare mein kuch bhi. Meri aankhon ke saamne mera poora parivar khatam ho gaya. (How can I ever forget anything about that day? My entire family was murdered in front of my eyes), Sheela says stoically.

The 53-year-old is one of the few surviving witnesses to have testified against the Congress leader.

Of the three cases against Kumar that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) re-investigated, the Sultanpuri case is being heard by a sessions court.

In 2010, the agency closed another case related to mass killing of Sikhs in Mongolpuri for lack of evidence. In a third case on similar killings in Delhi Cantonment, Kumar was acquitted in 2013. The CBI contested the clean chit.

Kumar approached the Delhi high court in 2013 seeking quashing of the Sultanpuri case against him. His counsel told the court the witnesses were unreliable as they surfaced after 24 years and had not named the leader in their previous appearances in other related cases. The court rejected the plea.

Sheela, however, insists she had named Kumar from the day of the carnage.

Main toh hamesha se Sajjan Kumar ka naam leti rahi par anpadh hone ke kaaran mujhe pata nahi police ne kab kya likha. (I have always been naming Sajjan Kumar as the accused but being an illiterate, I did not know what the police were writing).

After her deposition, Sheela will now be cross-examined by Kumars lawyers as the case drags on in the Patiala House district court. When contacted by HT, Kumars lawyer, IU Khan, refused to comment, saying the matter is sub-judice. Kumar himself did not respond to calls or a message seeking a comment.

For all these years, the gruesome story of her family members murders has remained a mere statistic in the footnote of the countrys history.

On October 31, 1984, Sheela watched the announcement of Gandhis death on a small black and white television. We never thought we could be targeted as we were poor daily wage labourers.

Her block in Sultanpuri did not witness violence that night but the morning would be streaked with blood.

As news spread of mobs attacking a market nearby, a tense Sheela stepped outside her house tentatively. Near my house was a small park where lots of people had gathered. That is where I saw Sajjan Kumar. He was saying, kill those who killed our mother, she claims.

She ran back inside but the mob was on her heels. The three men in her house were taken out even as she tried to stop them. A while later, they were burnt alive. Their screams, she says, still haunt her.

Na sar pe chunni, na pair mein chappal, bas ek mahine ke bete ko uthakar main bhagi. (I picked up my one-month old son and ran without a dupatta or slippers).

She spent the next two days hiding in her Muslim neighbours houses  whoever was brave enough to give her shelter. It was only on the third day when the army arrived and took them to a relief camp set up at Rani Bagh.

It was at the camp that her first police complaint was registered. The only document she has from then is a laminated page browned with age. The handwritten complaint is now illegible. Only the police seal of December 15, 1984 is visible.

She does not know what happened with the cases in the immediate aftermath  all she remembers is the police and mediapersons coming to speak to her over and over again.

It was as late as in 2005, when a report by Nanavati Commission, the tenth such panel created to probe the riots, led to the Sultanpuri case being handed over to the CBI for re-investigation. It took another five years before a charge sheet was filed.

In the days leading up to her deposition, Sheela recalls a friendly neighbour coming to her several times advising her not to name Sajjan Kumar. Sheela instead requested for police protection, which was granted to her by the court.

She remembers being a little nervous on the day of her testimony but the thought of her late husband gave her the strength.

Sajjan Kumar did not go to jail even for a day while my entire life was shattered. Even if he went to jail for one day, I will feel some relief, she says.

Till the time I am alive, I will continue to fight. Though it seems that the case is on me not on him, she adds.

The years have taken their toll. Her voice wavers between faith in a system that she feels has failed her and anguish at the prospect of giving up the fight.

Kya aapko lagta hai usse saza milegi? (Do you think he will ever get punished?) she asks.

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A five-judge constitution bench, which would decide the validity of the Centres November 8, 2016 decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, would also deal with the pleas seeking to deposit the demonetised currency, the Supreme Court today said.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra disposed of as many as 14 petitions, seeking its nod to deposit scrapped currency notes on the ground that they could not be deposited during the window period provided by Reserve Bank of India due to compelling reasons.

It asked the petitioners to file interlocutory pleas in the pending petition to be dealt with by the constitution bench.

We think it appropriate that the writ petitioners shall file interlocutory pleas in the pending writ petition... before the Constitution bench, the bench, also comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, said.

The top court said it has not opined on the merits of the validity of the ordinance or on the demonetisation decision, which would be dealt with by the larger bench along with the individual grievances.

Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, said the persons, who have approached the court for depositing scrapped notes, would not be prosecuted with regard to the amount specifically mentioned in their petitions.

Some petitioners claimed they have not challenged the constitutional validity of either the provisions of the RBI Act or the Centre notification, but they want to deposit their demonetised currency notes.

Our hard-earned money has been confiscated without due process of law and without granting fair opportunity, lawyer Pranav Sachdeva, appearing for one of the petitioners, said, adding that the constitution bench should be constituted as expeditiously as possible.

The bench was hearing a batch of petitions, including one filed by one Sudha Mishra seeking a direction to authorities to allow her to deposit demonetised notes as she could not do so during the period specified by the Centre and the RBI.

The Centre has already filed an affidavit saying that the government was not going to open any window now to deposit the old notes.

One of the pleas said the government had assured the people that demonetised currency notes could be exchanged at banks, post offices and RBI branches till December 30, 2016. If people were unable to deposit them by that day, they could do so till March 31, 2017 at RBI branches after complying with certain formalities.

The Prime Ministers address to the nation on the evening of November 8 last year on demonetisation and subsequent notifications of the federal bank that the devalued currency notes can be exchanged at RBI offices even up to March 31, 2017 were valid assurances which stood breached by the Specified Bank Notes Cessation of Liabilities Ordinance, it said.

The Ordinance had specified that only those who were abroad or armed forces personnel posted in remote areas or others who could give valid reasons for not being able to deposit the cancelled notes at banks, could deposit the demonetised currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes till March 31 this year.

The apex court had on December 16 last year referred to a Constitution Bench, the issue of validity of governments decision to demonetise currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500.

While holding that the challenge to the November 8 notification was in the arena of public importance as complaints of inconvenience have been brought, it had said there was a need for a direction for referring it to a larger bench for authoritative pronouncement by five judges.
The death toll in the disaster at NTPCs Unchahar unit rose to 32 on Friday, two days after a boiler at the power plant exploded to fatal consequences.

NTPC chairman and managing director Gurdeep Singh confirmed the count, adding that a panel headed by executive director SK Roy has been appointed to probe the cause of the accident.

The NTPC plant explosion was the rarest kind of incident, said Singh. The people maintaining the unit were very experienced.

Union power minister RK Singh had earlier denied claims from political detractors that negligence was to blame for the blast. I have seen everything during my physical inspection of the accident scene and I can say that there is no human negligence in the unfortunate incident, the politician said during his visit to the NTPC plant on Thursday.

Gurdeep Singh said the blast had caused untold damage to the facility, and it would take at least three-six months to make it functional again.

The incident came in for intense criticism, and many Opposition candidates  including Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi  visited the spot to assess the situation.

Gandhi also demanded a judicial probe into the incident. Was very sad to see the pain of the victims of the incident. Their families should be better compensated... he tweeted. The political leader later visited the Rae Bareli district hospital to meet the injured.

Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who accompanied Gandhi to the site, demanded that the allegations levelled by workers about deteriorating safety standards at the plant be investigated thoroughly.

The National Human Rights Commission has called for an inquiry into the incident, which occurred on Wednesday. It has asked the Uttar Pradesh government to submit a detailed report within six weeks.
An uneasy calm prevailed on Saturday at the NTPCs Unchahar power plant where an explosion in a boiler two days ago killed more than 30 people, triggering angry protests from workers.

To deal with any untoward incident, one company of Rapid Response Force (RRF) has been deployed in addition to the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) manning the main gate of the 1550-MW plant in Rae Bareli.

The deployment of force was in view of the massive demonstration staged by agitating workers all through the day on Thursday.

The NTPC administration is not taking any chance and in anticipation of any further agitation, the security forces will continue to maintain round the clock vigil for the next few days, said an official of the state-run power giant.

Under heavy security presence, workers were seen working in the four functional units of the coal-fired power station.

The work was stalled at the ill-fated sixth unit of the plant, while the unit one witnessed a massive overhauling purportedly after it developed some snag.

Despite the semblance of normalcy, workers were at unease while entering the power plant premises.

Every worker from now onwards would prefer not to work near a boiler. I will never be comfortable working near a boiler, said Bhulai (who goes by only one name), a labourer working on contract in the second unit of the plant.

Joku Lal, a resident of neighbouring Amethi, who has been working in the fourth unit as a contract labourer for nearly two years, said, If I get another job I will leave this one. It is very risky, which I did not realise earlier.

The NTPC has appointed a panel headed by executive director SK Roy to probe the cause of the accident.

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After cross-border terror, its cross-border pollution.

Pakistan on Friday blamed India for causing an incursion of smoke due to crop stubble burning and emissions of thermal power plants in the border states of Punjab and Rajasthan.

A report in Pakistani English daily, Dawn, blames the Indian states for the alarming situation in south and central (Pakistan) Punjab as the region warms up to winter.

It is not good in Lahore. Environment protection department officials said control over local pollution contributions thinned the lower layer of smog though its upper layer thickened because of enhanced incursion of smoke and ash of the crop stubble being burnt on a large scale in adjoining Indian Punjab, the report said.

An official said though emissions from the coal power project at Sahiwal in Pakistan was causing pollution, the four power plants in Indian Punjab and nine in Rajasthan were to blame for the worsening situation over four days.

Crop stubble burning is causing smog over a large area in India, and media reports there say it has failed to control the pollution-causing practice despite public outcry and censure by courts, the report said. It claimed that 2,620 fire incidents had been spotted via satellite in Indian Punjab in 24 hours. There were just 27 cases of torching of crop residue in Pakistans Punjab, it added.

The smog was particularly thick in Bahawalpur, Multan, Okara, Pakpattan, Chiniot and Faisalabad.

The smog was a concern in Pakistan Punjab last year too, irritating eyes and the throat besides causing breathing problems.

Rain is seen as the only way to clear the phenomenon but it is not forecast in a week.
Rajkot VL Desai is an angry man and when Mukeshbhai Yadav wondered about the reason behind the demand of socially and economically influential Patidars for reservation in Gujarat, he had a ready answer.

Why dont we? We are no longer the landlords and there are no jobs for us, Desai, a Kadva Patel, said and lauded Patidar quota agitation leader, Hardik Patel, for making it a national issue.

Standing nearby at Teen Bati Chowk in Jetpur, about 70km from Rajkot, Keshubhai Veljibhai Sakhrelia, a Leuva Patel, blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government for their condition. Where is vikas (development) for us? There are only promises but no action, the 50-year-old said.

The Patidars angst against the BJP government has become more pronounced. But it remains to be seen if the Congress is able to tap into that anger.

At the same time, the Congress is caught between a rock and a hard place as it draws up a strategy to deal with Hardik, Other Backward Class (OBC) leader Alpesh Thakor, and Dalit activist Jignesh Mevani to dethrone the BJP.

Hardik has been demanding reservation for Patidars, and Thakor will not allow any tampering with the OBC quota.

While OBCs constitute 40% of Gujarats 60 million population, Patidars comprise 12%. The OBCs in the state are given 27% quota in jobs and education. The Scheduled Castes (SCs) have 7% and Scheduled Tribes (STs) 15%, making a total of 49%, just under the 50% reservation cap set by the Supreme Court.

Ever since Hardik came in contact with the Congress, he has vacillated from one extreme to another. Last week, he called the BJP maha chor (super thief) and Congress chor (thief) but insisted that he, along with the grand old party, will work to defeat the ruling side.

But a few days later, he issued an ultimatum to the Congress to clear its stand by November 3 on the Patidar reservation issue or else he would disrupt its vice-president Rahul Gandhis public meeting at Surat, the same way his supporters disturbed BJP chief Amit Shahs rally in the textile city on September 8.

For its part, the Congress is trying to do a balancing act. It has offered 20% reservation in jobs and education to the Economically Backward Classes (EBCs), including upper caste communities such as the influential Patidars, in addition to the existing 49% reservation to SCs, STs and OBCs, if voted to power in Gujarat.

This will also have a reflection in the partys manifesto, a document of policies and programmes issued by a political party before an election, being prepared by a team headed by senior leader Madhusudan Mistry.

Will the Congress keep tolerating Hardiks tantrums?

His language and attitude are that of a 24-year-old youth. We cannot be like the BJP, which uses bullets and batons against its people. We will find a way to deal with him, former Gujarat Congress chief, Arjun Modhwadia, said.

Political experts say that there will be legal hurdles in implementing the promise to give quota to EBCs.

Constitutionally, it is most difficult to give a specific quota. Hardik is a problem for the Congress and his demand is difficult to meet. But I still think they might try and negotiate with him, said political analyst Achyut Yagnik.

Out of power in Gujarat since 1995 and fancying its chances for the first time in 22 years, the Congress does not want to antagonise the OBCs, fearing a backlash from these communities.

How will the Congress negotiate the Patidars demand? Political expert Vidyut Joshi said reservation cannot be given on the basis of economic backwardness and for the time being the Congress is focussed only on elections.

The Constitution doesnt promote economic equality. They (Congress) have to devise some other criteria for backwardness. That they can. If the Parliament says, they can, he said. I think at this time the Congress is trying to woo Patidars and rest things after elections. What will happen in Parliament remains to be seen.

On Monday, Gujarat Congress chief Bharatsinh Solanki and his predecessors, Modhwadia and Siddharth Patel, met Hardiks associates to discuss the proposals before finalising the deal.

The Congress assured them that it will consult constitutional experts and lawyers on the matter and it has started the process by discussing the issue with senior party leader and senior advocate Kapil Sibal.

The two sides will also discuss the Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan models of reservation. Rajasthan passed a bill on October 26 raising the reservation for Gujjars and four other backward communities from 21% to 26%, taking the total quota in the state to 54%. In the mid-1990s, the then Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa provided legislative support to the 69% quota scheme.

The Anandiben Patel government in May 2016 announced 10% quota for the economically backward among upper castes (for those under Rs 6 lakh of annual income) through an ordinance. However, the Gujarat high court quashed the move in August 2016, terming it unconstitutional.

Hardik has now set November 7 as the new date of announcement of his support to the Congress.

Is Jignesh Mevani a hard nut to crack?

Similarly, Mevani has also kept the Congress on tenterhooks. On Tuesday, Mevani took to Facebook to refute reports about his proposed meeting with Gandhi.

Even if I meet Rahul Gandhi or any other leader, it will not be for my personal gain but to know Congress stand on the issues of Dalit communities on which the BJP government in the state is not ready to talk. Why shall I meet anyone secretly? he wrote in his post.

Dalits constitute 7% of the states population and for both the BJP and Congress every vote counts in this high-stakes battle for Gujarats throne.

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Jammu and Kashmir police are updating the security cover provided to leaders and activists of political parties in the militancy-hit Valleys southern region after state BJPs youth unit chief Gowhar Bhat was found murdered.

Bhat was found dead with his throat slit in the Kilora area of Shopian on Thursday evening, the second political killing in the district in 20 days.

We are reviewing and updating the security of all mainstream political workers in the district, Shopian police superintendent Shriram Ambarkar said.

The officer refused to give the number of leaders or workers whose security would be enhanced.

Shopian has become a headache for security forces of late, though new army camps were built in the area to counter growing militant activities after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in July last year.

Prima facie it seems a militant action, Ambarkar said and refused sharing any details about the investigation.

Bhat was killed after suspected militants on October 16 shot dead Mohammad Ramzan Sheikh, a worker of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Shopian.

Hundreds of people, wailing and mourning, participated in the funeral of Bhat. He was laid to rest in Bongam after his funeral prayers were offered in Eidgah Bongam.

Locals said no prominent politician was present in his funeral. Chief minister Mehbooba Mufti condemned the killing.

Kashmirs BJP leaders blamed militants for Bhats abduction and killing, saying he was active and played an important role in organising the partys first-ever youth convention in Srinagar on October 22.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday held talks with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Latvian Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis separately to cement Indias bilateral ties with the two countries.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said prime minister Modi and president Sargsyan discussed ways to intensify cooperation.

They (Armenia) are a big importer of our pharma products. There were some discussions to assess on how to take it forward, Kumar said in response to a question on the nature of talks.

He said that there is also cooperation between India and Armenia in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector.

We have set up an ICT center in Yerevan (the capital of Armenia) and some discussion took place on how this can be upgraded, he said.

Reinvigorating age-old ties. PM @narendramodi meets President Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia, discusses ways to intensify cooperation, Kumar tweeted earlier.

With Latvia, talks were held to strengthen cooperation especially in the field of Information Technology.

Strengthening the bonds of friendship. PM @narendramodi met PM Maris Kucinskis of Latvia, discussed wide range of bilateral issues pic.twitter.com/vnX6sDHoZy  Raveesh Kumar (@MEAIndia) November 3, 2017

He quoted prime minister Modi as saying that India and Latvia have strong potential for cooperation in higher education, IT, food processing, fisheries and allied sectors.

Kumar said there are around 1,000 Indian students studying in the European country.

The visiting dignitaries also took part in the World Food India conference.
Ending the south Gujarat leg of his Navsarjan Yatra, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday addressed a public meeting in Surat, during which he reached out to the Patidars and traders of the famous diamond and textile hub.

The meeting was held in the Patidar-dominated Varachha area of Surat, which had witnessed violence during the Hardik Patel-led stir demanding quota for community members.

Gandhi began the meeting with a Jai Sardar chant, a slogan used by Patidar leaders in honour of Vallabhbhai Patel, the communitys most prominent leader. .

During his address, Gandhi chose to steer clear of the reservation demand and instead spoke on the problems faced by small and medium-sized enterprises, many of which are owned by the Patel-Patidar community members.

Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling BJP government of misleading people, Gandhi said: Only a handful of people are gaining in Modi and BJPs rule. The government gave money, land and water owned by you to this small group of people. The businessmen in Surat can even take on those in China but they are not being encouraged.

Gandhi also announced that he would return to Surat on November 8 and interact with the GST-hit traders.

The Congress vice-president said the new tax regime and demonetisation had crippled businesses in Surat but the government was not paying any heed to the demands of the affected traders. Their businesses were affected by note ban. Government said that note ban was done to weed out black money but the traders are not thieves, he said .

The 47-year-old leader also demanded that PM Modi order an inquiry into the business transactions of BJP president Amit Shahs son Jay.

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The ministry of home affairs has asked the Jammu and Kashmir government to stop advertising in local newspapers that allegedly publish anti-national articles.

Without naming any newspaper, the ministry has told the state government that some publications were publishing highly radicalised content glamorising terrorists and anti-national elements.

The Centre has written to the Mehbooba Mufti-led government in the state to deal strictly with such newspapers. In a letter dated October 18, 2017 and addressed to senior officials of the state government and the Jammu & Kashmir police, the home ministry says: It is understood that some newspapers in J&K are publishing highly radicalised content glamorising terrorists and anti-national elements. This is against the Constitution of India as well as the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir. Hindustan Times has seen a copy of the letter.

The letter further says, ...publishing of anti-national articles in the newspapers of the state should be strictly dealt with. Such newspapers should also not be given any patronage by way of advertisements by the state government. This may be circulated to all concerned for strict compliance.

Home ministry officials declined comment.

Shujaat Bukhari, editor of Rising Kashmir newspaper, told HT that the move was not in sync with the Centres effort to start a dialogue in Kashmir.

Three major papers of Kashmir, which include Greater Kashmir, Rising Kashmir and Kashmir Times, have been banned from getting any central government advertisements from the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) for the last eight years. We are already bleeding and now they want us to bleed more by telling the state government to stop state advertisements as well, Bukhari told HT.

A few days after the note was sent, the central government appointed former Intelligence Bureau chief Dineshwar Sharma as its special representative to start a dialogue in the state by engaging all political parties and stakeholders. Sharma will visit the state on Monday.

Bukhari added that local papers reported the ground situation in Kashmir. The government has expressed concerns over our coverage of militant funerals. National newspapers do the same. So why are local papers being singled out?

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Citing serious anomalies in the discharge summaries and medical bulletins issued by Apollo Hospital, a DMK leader has asked the commission probing the death of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa to summon top political leaders, bureaucrats and medical professionals to clear the air.

DMKs P Saravanan on Thursday demanded that VIPs, including former acting governor C Vidyasagar Rao, chief minister Edapaddi Palaniswami, deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam, former AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala, health secretary J Radhakrishnan, Apollo Hospital chairman Pratap C Reddy, be summoned by the probe panel headed by justice (retd) A Arumugasway.

Raising several questions on Jayalalithaas illness and treatment by the hospital from September 22 to December 5 last year and the statements made by the hospital and the VIPs who called on her, Saravanan urged that he be given a chance to cross examine the VIPs to bring out the truth.

Sarvanan, who lost the Thirupparankunram assembly bypoll last November, had objected to the thumb impression of Jayalalithaa affixed on the forms of his rival and AIADMK candidate A K Bose on the contention that she was undergoing ventilation by tracheostomy and would not have been in a position to convey her decision to anyone as she would have been unconscious. But his plea was rejected, leading to his defeat in the bypoll.

In his petition to the Arumugasway commission, Sarvanan alleged that there were contradictions between the treatment summary and the press bulletins on her health issued by the hospital.

The bulletins had said that Jayalalithaa was admitted for fever and dehydration and would be discharged soon, which Saravanan pointed out was contradictory to the treatment summary.

The DMK leader also highlighted that after visiting Jayalalithaa on October 1, then-acting governor Rao had re-assigned certain portfolios held by her to Panneerselvam on her advice.

Such a statement (by the governor) appears to be false and misleading as the patient according to the treatment summary was very serious and had the central venous line intubated and connected to ventilator and therefore was unconscious and had been at sedation, he said and asked the commission to probe whether Jayalalithaa was able to advice Rao on October 11 last year.

In another release on October 22, the Raj Bhavan said the governor was happy to note that the CM was progressing well when her condition seemed otherwise. It is quite misleading to issue such a press statement, Saravanan said.

Noting that Jayalalithaa had undergone Tracheostomy to facilitate prolonged ventilator support, he said in such a condition she would not have been able to communicate to others verbally or by signs as she would have been conscious.

Therefore, all her actions said to have been done from the day she was admitted till her demise could not have been done by her, he said.

Sarvanan alleged that statements that she was communicating with government officials could not be true. No doctor/hospital will allow any stranger to do such type of activities when the patient is lying in the bed unconsciously.

He also submitted that putting the patient all of a sudden on ECMO and declaring her death in one day raised suspicion, and also sought a probe into this.
Just over a year ago, when in a surprise move Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the scrapping of old 500 and 1,000 currency bank notes on November 8, West Bengal-based Pincon Group found in it a perfect excuse to dupe gullible public.

The company announced that they were accepting deposits in demonetized notes for investment purposes. The Kolkata-based firm, with offices in various cities in Rajasthan including Ajmer, Chomu, Kota and Bharatpur, reportedly raked in cash deposits worth more than Rs 1 crore in banned notes, police said Friday.

This came to fore after Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Rajasthan Police, in an inter-state operation, arrested four persons, including chairman and managing director (CMD) of the group Manoranjan Roy from Bengaluru for allegedly duping 25,000 people in the state. Along with Roy, SOG also arrested company director Vinay Singh from Bengaluru, accounts head Raghu Shetty from Varanasi and another director (of Pincon Spirits) Hari Singh from Agra, SOG ADG Umesh Mishra said.

The various centres of the Pincon Group announced that they were accepting deposits in old currency notes for investment purposes. As a result, a large number of people deposited the demonetised currency with them, said Sanjay Shrotriya, SP, SOG.

Officials said discrepancies in the account books of the company have come to fore during investigation.

Preliminary investigation suggests that the company took deposits till November 22, 2016 in old currency notes and later made entries in back dates to make it look as if the money was received before demonetisation was announced, said a senior official investigating the case.

The police said more than Rs 1 crore in demonetised notes were disposed of with the help of bank officials in cities such as Firozabad, Agra, and Dholpur.

It appears that the fraudsters made substantial effort to turn black money into white and benefitted from the scheme by inviting deposits after demonetisation, said Shrotriya.

Officials said that Roy, the alleged mastermind of the scheme, had a bank credit limit of Rs 400 crore, which was allegedly bolstered by the scam money.

ADG Mishra said the company has its regional office in Ajmer. The accused have been brought to Jaipur and subjected to medical examination. They will be produced before the court and thoroughly interrogated, he added.

A case was registered against the accused under various sections of the IPC and the IT Act.
The Rajasthan government has directed all the private and government colleges enrolled with the National Service Scheme (NSS) to take part in the massive Vande Mataram recital event in Jaipur on November 8.

The two-hour event, jointly organised by Rajasthan Youth Board and Hindu Spiritual Service Foundation (HSSF), will be held in the citys SMS Stadium.

In an order issued on Wednesday, the Directorate of College Education has directed the principals of all the private and government colleges to appoint a convener to ensure all the students enrolled in the NSS take part in the event.

The order states that the event aims to inculcate good values among the youth so that they could rise above caste, religion and gender-based discriminations and develop positive attitude and a sense of patriotism.

The event has nothing to do with the religion as people of different faiths will be taking part. First, a yoga event will be held followed by recital of Vande Mataram, said Rajasthan Youth Board secretary Kailash Pahadiya.

However, the opposition Congress has criticised the move. Its a ploy to divert attention from the real issues of unemployment and lack of women empowerment. The youth need jobs. The government should be focusing on these issues, Rajasthan Congress spokesperson Archana Sharma told Hindustan Times.

The event is the latest in a series of controversial orders issued by the state government in the past.

In an order issued on October 30, the government had asked the colleges to take students on educational tours to Pratap Gaurav Kendra Rashtriya Tirth in Udaipur, which provides information about 16th century Rajput ruler Maharana Pratap of Mewar.

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A tourist bus driver was killed and 24 school students from Himachal Pradesh injured when the bus overturned after the driver lost control of the vehicle due to a tyre burst on the Yamuna Expressway on Friday.

The students of Alok Bharti Vidyalaya of Kotli town in Himachals Mandi district were on a tour to Agra, Vrindavan and Fatehpur Sikri, and had hired the bus from Chandigardh.

The driver Harish Kumar lost control as a tyre got punctured near Khandoli toll plaza at about 10 am, said Bharat Bhushan, the tour operator who also got injured and is recuperating at Agras Jay hospital, where the driver succumbed to injuries.

The inside of the state-run bus after it met with the accident. (HT Photo)

The injured, nine of whom were critical, were taken to various hospitals in Agra and the students parents were informed.

Agra district magistrate Gaurav Dayal said the one of the arms of a class 12 student, Abhishek Kumar and a leg of the cook, Pushp Raj had to be amputated.

We were sleeping when the tyre got flat and the bus hit the side wall of the road. There was panic all around before we were brought to hospital, said Ankit Malhotra, a class 9 student.

Agra division commissioner, K Ram Mohan Rao visited SN Medical College where eight students and one teacher are undergoing treatment.

There were 50 other students from the same school travelling in another bus. They have reached the hotel safely and without knowledge of the incident.

The bus was hired from Chnadigarh. Nine of the passengers were critically injured.

A police officer told IANS that the driver lost control of the bus after a tyre burst. Since the bus was at a high speed, it overturned, he said.

India witnessed 17 deaths and 55 road accidents every hour in 2016, one of the highest in the world, according to the latest report released by the Union road transport and highways ministry.

The spiralling road accident numbers bring to the fore the urgency to expedite the passage of the of the motor vehicle amendment bill that lawmakers have put on hold for the last several years. The amendments, proposed in 2010, is yet to see the light of the day.

Inaugurated in 2012, the 165-km-long Yamuna Expressway connects Agra with Noida.

(With agency inputs)

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As many as 20 phones were reported stolen outside Shah Rukh Khans residence Mannat in Bandra (West) after fans thronged the premises on Wednesday and Thursday. Khan, who turned 52 on Thursday, was expected to step out in his balcony to greet the fans, as he does every year. The massive crowd gave thieves an opportune moment to loot fans, despite the presence of police officials.

On Wednesday night, 13 people reported to the Bandra police station, saying their mobile phones had been stolen. The first FIR was registered based on a complaint from Ankit Sahu, 26, who is from Raipur in Chhattisgarh. It was filed under section 379 (theft) of the Indian Penal Code. A second FIR was filed on Thursday morning, based on the complaints of seven people.

Spokesperson for Mumbai police, Deepak Deoraj, confirmed that the police had launched an investigation. He said the officers were currently scanning the CCTV camera footage of the area. They have also put the phones under technical surveillance and are questioning history sheeters.
Activists have demanded that bodies of women brought for post-mortem at Mumbais public hospitals should only be handled by women morgue attendants.

However, the demand will be difficult to implement because there only two women working as forensic doctors at the nine hospitals in the city that conduct post-mortems. The other employees at the post-mortem centres, whose job it is to prepare Accidental Death Report (ADR) and prepare the body for the autopsy, if the cause of death is not clear, are all men.

If we have women doctors, nurse, labourers and police officers, then why cant we have a separate morgue and women staff members conducting post-mortem, said Aziz Amreliwala, an activist who has written to the state government asking for more women attendants at the morgues.

However, the officials have a different story to tell, with around 124 posts of forensic doctors and assistants at morgues in five state government hospitals (the other four hospitals are municipal hospitals), around 15 posts are vacant, but there arent any women who would want to work in morgue. Of the two women forensic doctors, one works at a municipal hospital and the other at a state government hospital. It has been a tough task to get more women doctors, said senior forensic officials.

When we make the announcement for vacant positions, we call for males as well as females. There have been times when all the applicants have backed out even after appearing for the interview. It is a difficult task for females, and they dont prefer to take the job, said Dr SM Patil, police surgeon.

Though the number of post-mortems centres have increased - there were only three earlier, there is an increase in the number of female doctors taking up forensic courses. But, no women are coming forward to work as autopsy assistants. With around 2,220 post-mortems in the last 10 months, Rajawadi Hospital in Ghatkopar gets the most number of accident cases in the city, but the hospital does not have women morgue workers.

Somehow women doing such jobs is not acceptable to society, said Dr Girish Tarate, medical officer, Rajawadi Hospital.

In forensics, ones job is demanding and challenging, which is not a lot of women prefer taking it up, said Dr Vasudha Apte, former head of the department of forensics department at BYL Nair and TN Hospital, Mumbai Central.
The Mumbai police crime branch busted a major fake call centre racket and arrested 14 people, including a computer engineer, from two different offices in Malad on Thursday night. The scam was similar to the Rs 1,900-crore racket busted in Mira Road last year, in which the callers posed as Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officials and conned US citizens.

Interestingly, the owners of the Malad call centre had worked in the Mira Road one.

The preliminary probe into the racket has found that the callers posed as officials of the US treasury department and duped around 300 people. The racket is estimated to run into crores, but the police have not yet revealed the exact scale as they are still questioning the accused.

Read more: Call centre scam mastermind who gave girlfriend Rs 2.5-cr Audi held in Mumbai

Acting on a tip-off, the crime branch raided the two locations in Malad  B2B Centre and Aditya Industrial Estate  where the accused the rented the premises. Police said the racket had been operational for the past four to five months.

The employees would send messages to US citizens, posing as treasury department officials, and ask them to pay tax dues.

They would send at least 1,000 messages in a day and even if 50 people called back, the staff would dupe them, a senior crime branch officer said. The content of the message kept changing. Once the victim called, the staff would speak to them in an American accent and use every trick in the book to dupe them.

Read more: Fake call centre in Mumbai suburb would offer Americans loans, dupe them of cash

The arrested accused, most of who are in their twenties, have been identified as Amey Lokare, 28, a computer engineer who allegedly arranged the data of US citizens; Musir Shaikh, 27; Talib Ansari, 29; Ajim Shaikh, 24; Adil Sayyad, 24; Ronald Rodrigues, 30; Farhan Shaikh, 28; Prashant Kamble, 21; Sohel Shaikh, 24; Zarar Haidar, 24; Sadad Sayyad, 21; Sabad Shaikh, 22; Hemant Gaikwad, 23; and Abhishekh Dubey, 29.

All the accused are residents of Mumbai and have worked in various call centres in the city for several years. They were produced in a city court on Friday and remanded in police custody till November 9.
A family of six, who live in Global City in Virar, have been missing since October 15, said police.

Neighbours told police that the family mentioned an upcoming trip to Shirdi, where they were expected to perform the last rites of a relative who died in August. However, all their phones are switched off and they are yet to be traced.

Surendra Sharma, 50, his wife, Malati, 52, daughter Priyanka Sharma, 16, distant relative, Anita Sharma, 60, and her sons, Varun, 40, and Ashwini Sharma, 32, were last seen getting into a car in front of their building.

Varuns wife Sangeeta told the police that she was unaware of her familys whereabouts as she was in Amravati, after having delivered her first child.

Arnala police suspect that the family was unhappy that Sangeeta had delivered a girl and so decided to cut contact with her.Sangeeta delivered on June 15 and Varun stayed with her for a fortnight, said police.

In August, Varuns father died and the family blamed Sangeeta, saying the birth of the girl was a bad omen.

In October, Varun visited Sangeeta in Amravati once again. He returned on October 11 and the last time he called his wife was on October 14. Sangeeta called Varuns uncle, Satishchandra, who promised to call her but switched off his phone instead.

Sangeeta also told police that she had sent a WhatsApp message to Ashwini, who read it but did not reply.

Sangeeta, who works at a corporate firm, contacted us. We sent a team to her in-laws house, which was locked, said inspector Keshav Naik, Arnala police.
In 1992 as Bombay was hit by communal riots following the demolition of the Babri Masjid, shops and eateries across the city pulled down their shutters, threatened by violence.

One bakery near Horniman Circle became a notable exception, withstanding the fear by churning out fresh loaves of bread through the night. Parvez Irani Zend, co-owner of Yazdani Bakery, remembers the day vividly.

His story is brought to life with a striking black-and-white photo of Zend manning the counter at Yazdani, on writer Anushka Guptas Instagram @anushkagupta5.

One of the stories in the series features Yazdani Bakery and its owner, who chose to keep the bakery open even as those around it shut during the 1992 riots in Bombay. (Anushka Gupta )

The 29-year-old Mumbai resident is behind The Parsi Project, a series chronicling stories of Mumbais Parsis. Ive always been interested in their culture and history, she says. Theyre so proud and passionate about what they do. Mr Parvez recalled how he kept the bakery running during the riots, saying people could not do without them  the bread must go on.

Gupta also conducts heritage walks in Mumbai and began the project on Instagram earlier this year. While she takes most of the pictures herself, she has collaborated with San Francisco-based photographer Alpana Aras for others, like the story of nonagenarian Rhoda and her daughter Hootakshi from Dadar Parsi Colony.

#TheBombayProject captures stories from Parsi homes and their architecture, which will ultimately find a place in a book called The Bombay Book, alongside other historical buildings across the city. (Anushka Gupta )

Alpana is great with portraits while Im good with architecture and culture. Thats how we thought of bringing in old Parsi homes and the people who live in them, she says. In the homes, every nook and was filled with character  grandfather clocks passed down through generations and aged wooden furniture like bentwood chairs.

As Rhoda narrated stories of her late husband, how he always brought her chocolates and asked her to guess which pocket they were hidden in, Hootakshi, who used to be a hairdresser in Iran, insisted on doing Guptas hair.

The photographs are of course important but Im more interested in the stories in their rawest, truest form. Beautiful pictures come easy, but stories are hard to tell. She plans to incorporate the series into a book shes working on, The Bombay Book, documenting stories of historical buildings across the city.

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Flamenco-Kathaa Where: Prithvi Theatre, Juhu When: Saturday, 6pm Tickets: From Rs 355, call 2614-9546

Two countries with a rich history of music and performance. Two dance forms. One stage.

Flamenco-Kathaa presents a fusion form performed by kathak dancer Aditi Bhagwat and flamenco artist Kunal Om. With a combined dance experience of almost 40 years, Bhagwat and Oms jugalbandi aims to bring out the best of the two forms.

The 90-minute performance will start with solos of the individual forms before they meld on stage to live music. Flamenco-Kathaa is a story of how two dance forms can be merged together, rhythmically and musically, says Bhagwat.

The live dance performance will see Aditya Kudtarkar on Cajon and Darbuka percussion, Shruti Bhave on violin, Tanay Rege on tabla and Anubhav Sharma on the vocals.

Aditi Bhagwat will bring in her Indian classical flavour to Spains folkloric dance

Om believes the seemingly disparate forms have more in common youd imagine. Flamencos roots can be traced back to Rajasthan, when a nomadic community travelled to Europe before settling in southern Spain. Flamenco, in Spanish, loosely translates to like-gypsy.

Bhagwat trained from kathaks Jaipur gharana. One similarity between the two dances is that apart from being culturally rooted, both have a very similar foot tapping work and rhythm, said Om. The rhythm, Om explains, comes from the same Jaipur gharana and therefore it is easier to synchronise the footwork. So ghungroos and flamenco shoes will find much in common.

This isnt the first time when these two dance forms have joined forces. In 2014 at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre in San Francisco, kathak master Chitresh Das and Spanish flamenco artist Antonio Hidalgo Paz collaborated for Yatra: Journey From India to Spain.

Bhagwat has her own take. Its just about crossing boundaries and taking the risk of doing it. Once you get pass your initial inhibitions, the skys the limit.
The defence advocate for artist Chintan Upadhyay has demanded an inquiry against investigating officers for framing him in the double murder of his artist wife Hema and her elderly lawyer Haresh Bhambani.

Hema and Bhambhani were killed on December 11, 2015. Chintan was arrested in connection with the double murder in the same year. According to the prosecution, he hatched the plot and hired Vidyadhar Rajbhar, a prime accused who is still absconding. Pradeep Rajbhar, Azaad Rajbhar and Shivkumar Rajbhar are other accused who are behind the bars.

In July, Chintan had filed a discharge application before the Dindoshi sessions court. During a two-hour-long arguments, advocate Raja Thakare on Thursday informed the court about loopholes in the charge sheet  ranging from the statements to missing call detail records of witnesses.

The defence told the court that they are not only seeking discharge but also an inquiry against officers of the Kandivli police. Thakare also said Chintans purported scribbling I will destroy you mentioned in his diary was not part of the charge sheet.

He also questioned Pradeeps statement about a phone call between Vidhyadhar and Chintan and said according to call data records no such call took place.

The defence also contested claims by Vidhyadhars mother that he had committed the crime at the behest of Chintan. There is no corroborative evidence, said Thakare

In the discharge application, Chintan had stated, The prosecution's theory about hatching alleged conspiracy is also not firm and consistent. If according to the prosecution, the conspiracy was hatched on December 8, 2015, then this is inconsistent with their own theory where the prosecution tries to project that the godown was hired in October for committing murder and the chloroform was brought in August.

In another petition before the Bombay high court, Chintan has claimed that the crime branchs probe was prejudiced and that he was being made a scapegoat in the case.

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During his three years as a law student at Bhagubai Changu Thakur College of Law, Panvel, Amey Malshe stayed away from activism and campus politics. He focused on academics and scored well in every examination. However, all that changed when the result for final semester of the LLB course was delayed by several months, owing to the assessment mess at the University of Mumbai (MU). Malshe decided to make his voice heard.

Earlier this month, Malshe sat on a hunger strike outside Examination House, office of the exam department at the Kalina campus, to protest the results delay. As Malshe refused to budge, the authorities assured him of declaring pending results within a week.

Often accused of being complacent, the results mess saw students from Mumbai take a stand against the MUs shoddy handling of the new on-screen assessment system. From staging hunger strikes and protests to filing petitions and memoranda, students upped the ante and kept the pressure on varsity officials. The protests resulted in the ouster of former vice-chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh, making him the first V-C in MUs 164-year-old history to be sacked.

Speaking to HT, Malshe said, During my entire college life, I had never faced such a problem. So after waiting for a few months, I decided to go on a hunger strike for the benefit of the students affected by the results delay.

He added that he decided against taking help from political parties, as they have their own agenda. He also wanted his protest to be peaceful.

Students organisations upped their ante against Deshmukh after governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao took a cognisance of the results delay. Firing Deshmukh was a political decision, said a senior professor from MU.

Criticism of Deshmukh and his actions had started even before Mumbai students began raising their voice against him. In July, activists from Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) made a satirical video titled Vice-Chancellor University of Mumbai, Dont you believe in Yourself?. A parody of famous Marathi song, the video got 4,000 hits on YouTube.

We made the video to spread awareness about the problems resulting from on-screen assessment. Though the issue was being discussed to some extent, the students werent aware of its gravity. The [former] vice-chancellor himself seemed clueless about the implications of his decision, said Budhbhushan Kamble, MU vice-president, ASA.

Student Law Council (SLC), a students group from Mumbai, followed up the matter with the governor.

The [former] vice-chancellor took the decision to implement digital assessment on his own. We submitted three to four memorandums to the governor to draw his attention to the issue, said Sachin Pawar, president, SLC.

A few of the protesting students took legal recourse against the varsity by filing petitions in the Bombay high court, which were eventually turned down by the court.

We set an example by fighting against the system. After our petition, several students decided to move court, said Abhishek Bhat, a student activist from Aam Aadmi Party.

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The state highway police have found a unique way to deal with errant motorists on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, and it has paid off. They have collected Rs4 crore in fines, penalising more than 2 lakh drivers in the past one year.

The force has resorted to invisible policing, where the personnel dress up as civilians and are deployed on the 94-km expressway to spot drivers, who do not follow the speed limit or indulge in lane-cutting.

Explaining the concept, officials of the highway safety patrol (HSP) said they have divided the expressway into six sectors and their invisible teams are deployed in each sector. These personnel alert teams placed at toll nakas  Khalapur and Talegaon  about the errant drivers. The drivers are penalized when they stop to pay the toll.

It is not possible to stop drivers on the expressway as at most places, the traffic speed is 80kmph, but the vehicles have to stop at the toll booths. So, we penalise them as soon as they exit the toll booth as it is easy to stop the vehicle then, said an officer from highway safety patrol.

The police have a WhatsApp group that they use to communicate with each other, apart from old methods such as using walkie-talkies.

Besides being in civil clothes, the teams also use private and other government vehicles to avoid being spotted by drivers. There are six teams manning the six sectors and each team, comprising two constables, is called the spotter. The team at the toll plaza is the catchers.

One of the biggest problems on the expressway is heavy vehicles, which have to, as per rules, drive in the third lane, but they invariably use all three lanes, slowing down other vehicles. This is the third offence that is under the scanner apart from lane-cutting and rash driving, said the official.

Expressway has three lanes on each side. The first lane (the one adjacent to the divider) is for overtaking. The second lane is for light vehicles and the third is for buses and other heavy vehicles. However, most of the motorists do not follow rules. Drivers randomly enter unauthorised lanes and end up hitting other vehicles, causing accidents and leading to jams.

Superintendent of police (highway) Vijay Patil said they had started the invisible policing from October 2016 and it was yielding results in curbing driving offences, which many times lead to mishaps.

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The Fadnavis government on Thursday urged the Centre to launch a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into farmer deaths owing to pesticide poisoning in Vidarbha.

At least 50 farmers have died because of suspected pesticide poisoning since August. A majority of deaths were reported from Yavatmal, a major cotton-growing district that has often been in the news for farmer suicides.

More than 1,000 farmers have been affected by pesticide inhalation, showing symptoms such as respiratory problems, blurred vision, nausea, skin rashes, headaches and dizziness, and are still recovering at the government-run medical college and hospital at Yavatmal. Some have lost their sight, while others are still in the intensive care unit (ICU).

Following the spate of deaths, the Central Institute of Cotton Research (CISR) conducted a detailed study and has submitted a report to the state government. According to the report, herbicide-tolerant genes were found in the BT Cotton seeds of five branded companies. These genes are not permissible under the provisions of Environment Protection Act 1986. An FIR has been registered against the companies.

It was found that these type of seeds are also being produced in other states, which has prompted the state to approach the Centre for a CBI investigation.

Before recommending the CBI probe, the Maharashtra government had constituted a seven-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) to inquire into the deaths, and was given three weeks time to submit a report. Though pesticide-related cases and deaths were reported in other districts too, the SIT was asked to inquire into cases in Yavatmal district only.
A 27-year-old married woman was allegedly strangled to death by her 23-year-old boyfriend over a financial dispute in a hotel in Sewri on Friday. The man, Irshad Qureshi, was arrested.

According to the Kalachowky police, Farhana Sohail Shaikh and Qureshi checked into the hotel on Friday morning. They were also partners in an apparel business at Grant Road. They had been in a relationship for the past one year, said Dilip Ugale, senior inspector of Kalachowky police station. She told Qureshi that they will be partners in business but asked him to pose as an employee rather than a partner in front of her husband, he said.

Qureshi was indignant that he did not get his share of money from the business. He told us that he was not happy with the earnings as he had to meet expenses for his family, said Ugale.

At 10am, they entered the hotel to discuss the finances. The discussion snowballed into an altercation. Farhana took her dupatta and tied it around her neck. She told him that this will teach him a lesson. In a fit of rage, Qureshi told her that he will teach her a lesson instead and tightened the grip of the dupatta, thus smothering her to death, said Ugale.

Police stated that the woman was killed between 1.20 pm and 1.25 pm as Qureshi contacted the police control room at 1.28pm. He told the police about this and informed them about his hotel room on the first floor.

The Kalachowky police reached the hotel and arrested him. The body has been sent for a post-mortem. Qureshi will be produced before a local court on Saturday.

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Knee-deep in controversy, the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL) now wants to make a documentary film on the construction of the Metro-3 line (Colaba-Bandra-Seepz).

On Wednesday, the authority called for expression of interests (EOI), inviting applicants to undertake the three-year-long project.

The Metro-3 is a fully underground line connecting south Mumbai to the citys western suburbs.

The 33.5-km-long line will have 27 stations and is expected to be operational by 2021.

Since its inception, the MMRCL has faced flak for felling trees in South Mumbai, for causing stress to old, heritage buildings such as the JN Petit Institute and Siddharth College in Fort and for its proposal to construct a 33-hectare Metro car-shed in Aarey colony by chopping 3,130 trees. Activists have demanded that the car shed be shifted to Kanjurmarg.

Green activists have also contested MMRCL officials claim that they have transplanted these trees earlier.

In the scope of work to be filmed for the documentary project, MMRCL has also listed aspects such as tree transplantation and the challenges of constructing structures in narrow streets with heritage buildings. Officials said these are expected the thematic centre of the documentary.

We want to showcase the engineering aspects involved in the construction. Generally, any big infrastructure project is documented with video-graphic elements, said a senior MMRCL official, who did not wish to be identified.

The official, however, said that the project cost will be clear only once they receive applications.

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To widen Pali Mala Road in Bandra (West), the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) demolished legal extensions such as boundary walls, fences, ramps etc of housing societies and shops on Friday. In a first, seven housing societies and 15 shops had a few days ago decided to set their properties back to allow the BMC to widen the road between Dr BR Ambedkar Road junction and Nargis Dutt Road junction to 40 feet. Only one of the housing societies razed its setback land (distance at which a structure is pushed back from the road) on its own.

Assistant engineer (maintenance) Rajeshkumar Yadav We will start widening the road from Monday.

The housing societies and shop owners received the BMC notices on Wednesday. In lieu of surrendering part of their properties, they are likely to get additional FSI and TDR.

Assistant municipal commissioner Sharad Ughade lauded people for willingly pushing back their properties. People however complained that the BMC should have given them at least seven days.
A 24-year-old police constable lost Rs 50,000 from his bank account on Wednesday in what appears to be a case of card cloning and online fraud.

Constable Pravin Dabhade, 24, a resident of Kanjurmarg, has registered a complaint with Tardeo police station. He had swiped his card while shopping at a supermarket a few days ago. Then, on Wednesday, he received a message that Rs 50,000 had been debited from his account, said Sanjay Surve, senior police inspector, Tardeo police station.

The police are investigating whether his debit card details were used for the fraudulent transfer. Officials suspect that data was stolen from his card and cloned on to another card using which money was transferred out later. The transaction occurred in Delhi. We are investigating if its a case of card cloning, Surve said.

In the past, there have been several card cloning incidents involving waiters in the city. Usually, unsuspecting customers hand over their cards and PIN to waiters, who swipe them on skimmers. There have been some cases where waiters have sneaked a look at the customers pin code while he or she was entering it on the swipe machine. But in such cases, mostly customers have handed over their credit / debit cards along with their PIN, making it easy for the waiters to steal data.

An FIR has been registered under section 420 of the Indian Penal Code for cheating as well as sections 66 C and 66D of Information Technology Act for identity theft and impersonation using computer resources.

Dont get scammed Dont give photocopies of both sides of the debit/credit card to anyone. The three-digit card verification value (CVV), required for online transactions, is printed on the back of the card. Anyone can use the card to make online purchases once they have your CVV. Dont click on links in e-mails seeking your bank account or card details, these could be phishing e-mails from fraudsters. Most reputable companies will only ask you to visit their website. While using a debit/credit card to make online payments, check whether the website is secure. Dont share any information with anyone seeking credit/debit card details over the phone. Notify your bank/credit card issuer if you dont receive a monthly statement on time. If a credit/debit card is misplaced or lost, get it cancelled immediately.
Albany city officials evicted tenants this week from three transition homes used by Signs of Victory Ministries, saying the buildings are dangerous and uninhabitable.

The city first issued a compliance order in May. Officers with the Albany Police Department spent much of Thursday sending residents away and boarding up windows and doors at 331 Calapooia St. SW, 533 Fourth Ave. SW and 525 Fourth Ave. SW to keep them from returning.

City officials didn't know how many people were renting space in the residences. A departing tenant estimated there were between 30 and 36 between the three homes, including children.

Kris Schendel, the city's code compliance officer, said all three buildings have leaky roofs and substantial black mold. A two-story balcony at the 525 address is in danger of collapsing.

Marilyn Smith, spokeswoman for the city, said people were living in rooms without windows or rooms where windows didn't open, a potential hazard in case of a fire. Halls and stairways don't have adequate lighting. Piles of garbage litter the property.

"This has always been a matter of public safety. We're concerned for the people who live there, and for their neighbors," Smith said.

"The codes are in place for a reason. Theyre intended to keep properties safe for the people who occupy them," she continued. "Thats why this is being enforced."

The three homes, all two-story residences built between 1890 and 1910, share a single tax lot. They are assessed, collectively, at about $237,000.

Signs of Victory has been leasing the property for several years, but Director George Matland said his operation is in the process of purchasing the buildings for $1.

According to county records, the original owner, Marlene G. Graff, conveyed the property to the Bank of New York Mellon in 2016 in lieu of foreclosure. The Linn County assessor's office lists the Bank of New York Mellon as the current owner.

Matland said he went to court after receiving the eviction notice to represent the people living in the homes. He said an attorney for the Bank of Mellon was present and Matland told him he was interested in purchasing the buildings.

"He called last Thursday and said would sell us houses for a dollar," Matland said.

Representatives from the Bank of New York Mellon could not immediately confirm Matland's assertion, saying the bank likely is only the trustee of an asset that owns the mortgages and doesn't have anything to do with properties themselves. Information on the actual mortgage owner was not immediately available.

In Albany, however, city officials concur Matland is the new owner. Matland said as soon as the transfer paperwork is complete, which he is anticipating as soon as today, he plans to ask for a loan from the Central Albany Revitalization Area to repair the buildings.

CARA has helped Signs of Victory before, loaning the nonprofit $130,000 in urban renewal funds to complete an emergency shelter on Jackson Street.

The new shelter received its city occupancy permit a few days ago. However, Ed Hodney, the city's interim urban renewal director, said the city is withholding the final $30,000 of the loan until everyone is moved from the old shelter  a duplex at 118 and 120 Seventh Ave. SE  and code issues there are brought into compliance.

Matland said he thinks it could take $100,000 per house at the Fourth Avenue and Calapooia addresses to fix all the issues there. He said he hopes to ask CARA for help this month.

"Were going to talk to the city about getting rehab loans and going to do all three houses, one at a time, and put people back in the house," he said.

That's not good news to some of the neighbors, who say Matland must maintain the houses better if people are to live there.

Steve Saylor, who lives across the street from the property, said he often heard from residents complaining about fleas, rats and bedbugs. A few houses away, Eric and Peggy Udolf said they'd heard the same.

"I really feel sorry for the conditions that they live in, that they paid to live in," Saylor said. "If they're paying for it, they need a place that's free of rats and rodents and fleas."

"Nobody should have to live like that," agreed Peggy Udolf. "I have sat there and I've watched them, and my heart just cries. They shouldn't have to live like that."

Both Saylor and the Udolfs said they'd called police more than once after yelling, fights and other disturbances broke out at the homes. In that respect, they said, they're glad the homes have been vacated.

"The fact of the matter is, they should have done something sooner," Eric Udolf.

On Thursday, Linda Dent and her fiance, Bill Howerton, packed up the last of their belongings and departed the Calapooia address. Dent called the home a "cesspool" but said she didn't have any other options.

"We have nowhere to go," she said. Staying was "a roof over your head, but it's not where we want to be, at all."
By posting a selfie set against the backdrop of potholes on the Katraj-Undri bypass and Bopdev Ghat roads on Tuesday, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MP Supriya Sule unwittingly or wittingly launched a social media campaign against the Devendra Fadnavis-led state government.

Sule posted the picture on her Twitter handle in response to the public works departments (PWD) promise to eliminate potholes across the state.

Since the condition of roads has deteriorated owing to the monsoons, the PWD has begun to repair them. By November 15, not a single pothole will be seen on any of the roads, said PWD minister Chadrakant Patil.

Sule said she plans to continue her protest till this deadline.

She was joined by other NCP leaders, including state party president Sunil Tatkare, leader of the Opposition in Maharashtras legislative council Dhananjay Munde, and NCP womens wing president Chitra Wagh.

With social media users across the state following suit, the online campaign has popularised the hashtag #selfiewithpotholes.

This is the latest instance of the NCP upping its social media presence while taking on the Fadnavis-led government.

Sule has been vocal in her criticism of the Fadnavis-led government, having called him short tempered in September last year.

Sources from within the party have hinted that the NCP is gearing up to make Sule the face of the party in the near future.

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The National Green Tribunal (NGT) pulled up the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) on Thursday for failing to publish draft Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) maps for Thane and Palghar. The maps are required to verity that there is no construction in coastal areas that are supposed to remain free of development for ecological and safety reasons. Areas classified as Coastal Regulation Zone -lll cannot be subjected to any sort of construction.

The NGT western division bench of Justice UD Salvi, judicial member, and Dr Nagin Nanda, expert member directed the MCZMA to turn down proposal in Thane and Palghar districts, where maximum coastal zone regulation (CRZ) violations have taken place. The bench said this needs to be followed until the draft maps were published on its website. The next hearing in the matter has been scheduled for November 15.

The tribune was hearing an application filed by NGO Vanashakti in 2013, in which it alleged that the states coastline was being destroyed as the Union environment ministry was repeatedly giving extensions to the Maharashtra government to finalise the CZMP maps without checking the number of proposals being cleared and its impact on coastal areas.

We appraised the bench about the delay in preparing the CZMP maps by MCZMA time and again, which were supposed to be out by the end of 2013. We also told the bench that maximum CRZ violations were being reported from Thane and it is a serious problem, said Zaman Ali, counsel for Vanashakti. The bench seemed furious with the delay and ensured that the next hearing was scheduled when the MCZMA member secretary would be present in person.

On February 10, 2016, the NGT had issued a similar directing the MCZMA to not consider any proposals until they prepared draft CZMP maps for all coastal districts in Maharashtra. Soon after, MCZMA challenged the order by approaching the Bombay high court (HC). In July 2016, the HC stayed NGTs interim order and gave MCZMA three months time to prepare the maps (October 2016).

In October 2016, MCZMA developed draft CZMP maps for Mumbai, Ratnagiri and Raigad districts but failed to develop the same for Sindhudurg and Thane. In January, they filed a civil application asking for more time to prepare the maps. After a lot of to-and-fro, in June this year, MCZMA told the HC that they had developed the draft map for Sindhudurg but needed more time for Thane and Palghar. The HC bench issued a deadline of September 30, which they could not meet, said Ali.

MCZMA officials told HT that there was a payment issue with various civic bodies of these districts. Municipal corporations of Thane, Vasai, Virar, Panvel, Palghar and Navi Mumbai are have not submitted the funds for the development of these draft maps. While some of the corporations recently paid the amount, some are still yet to. However, we are in the process of developing them and it should take a couple of months. We will be submitting the same to the tribunal, said a senior MCZMA official.

The applicants welcomed the tribunals order. The coastal zone management authority has colluded with the people who wanted to destroy the coastline and deliberately delayed publishing these draft maps, said Stalin D, director, Vanashakti.

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Although monsoon ended nearly two weeks ago, civic officials are still trying to destroy sites where the aedes aegypti mosquito breeds. After three people died of dengue last month, officials blamed breeding spots in homes and other private areas that are inaccessible to them.

Aedes aygepti mosquitoes tend to breed more during the monsoon owing to the accumulation of stagnant water. They carry viruses of dengue, malaria and chikungunya and bite people during the day.

This year, 17 Mumbaiites have died of dengue till November 2, according to data released by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

There must be more than a million breeding spots in the city. We cant find and destroy all of them. The only way breeding can be curtailed is through better public awareness, said Dr RajanNaringrekar, insecticide officer, BMC.

Municipal health workers inspect the homes of those who are suffering from or have succumbed to dengue. The neighbouring homes are also inspected.

Between January and October 27, health workers destroyed 26,236 breeding spots.

Dr Naringrekar said that indoors, mosquitoes commonly breed tin defrost trays of refrigerators, trays under plant pots and buckets and drums used to store water.

The BMC has sent notices to 14,954 houses and residential and commercial complexes for ignoring mosquito-breeding sites on their premises.

The civic body also has the authority to book people under section 381 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation (MMC) Act and fine them between Rs2,000 and Rs10,000.
Decisions taken for Haj 2018 is likely to evoke mix responses from the pilgrims.

While the proposal for allowing women above the age of 45 years to travel without a mehram  a male companion  has been approved, the subsidy given by the government could be phased out from the next year.

This comes in the wake of 2012 Supreme Court order, wherein the Central government was asked to gradually reduce and abolish Haj subsidy in 10 years.

The decision was taken during a Central Haj Committee meeting held on November 2 in the presence of Union minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Air India, Indian consulate Jeddah and high administrators of the departments related to Haj.

However, the Haj Committee of Indias (HCOI) suggestion on deferring the decision to reduce embarkation points, airports from where pilgrims can travel to Saudi Arabia, has been accepted by the government. Currently, there are 21 embarkation points across the country.

If Hajis want to travel from an embarkation point, which is away from the main city, they will have to give up their subsidy. But if they are willing to travel to one of the main cities, then the government may still provide the subsidy to them, said Maqsood Ahmed Khan, chief executive officer, HCOI.

It was also decided that the entire process of registration for Haj would take place 45 days in advance.

All the processes have been advanced, we will begin the registration process by next week, Khan said.

The Committee plans to wind up all the Haj-related work by mid-May.

Earlier, Khan had mentioned that the registration process would mostly take place online this year because they were planning to launch an iOS mobile application soon. This comes almost a year after Naqvi inaugurated an android mobile application as a part of PM Modis Digital India campaign.
A tough contest is on the cards for the seat of Khoda Municipal council chairperson as two women candidates appear to be the top contenders for the post. They are the wife of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Gajendra Bhati who was gunned down on September 2, and the wife of former MLA Amarpal Sharma who is in jail in connection with the conspiracy for Bhatis murder.

Making the contest even more interesting, Ghaziabad police and administration have decided to impose the provisions of the Gangster Act against Sharma.

This move will further delay bail for our client. We have applied for bail at the sessions court in Ghaziabad which is set to be heard in a few days, said Kuldeep Singh, Sharmas lawyer.

Rajesh Kumar Yadav, additional district magistrate (finance & revenue), confirmed that Sharma has been charged with the Gangster Act.

Khoda was earlier a gram panchayat and the post was held for a few months by Sharmas wife Mohini. Her term expired on March 10, 2016, a post she had held since December 2015. After this, Khoda was declared a Nagar Palika (municipal council) and this is the first time that the local body will go to polls to select chairperson and councillors.

The seat of the chairperson of Khoda nagar palika is reserved for a woman this time.

Bhatis wife Reena Devi is expected to contest against Mohini Sharma for the seat. We will be contesting elections and have purchased the nomination form. We will be banking on support from the residents over local issues. We expect that they will support us, said Yogesh Bhati, Gajendra Bhatis brother.

On the other side, family members of Amarpal Sharma claim that the former MLA had no involvement in Bhatis murder.

He has been implicated in the case due to political rivalry and because my aunt was going to contest election for the seat of chairperson. Now, the officials have levied the Gangster Act. This has been done just ahead of elections so that there is a delay in him getting bail and as a result my uncle stays in jail longer, said Rahul Sharma, Amarpals nephew.

However, we will be contesting as independent whether or not any party gives us a ticket. The fight will be tough, he added.

Sharma is a former MLA from Sahibabad and won the seat on a ticket from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Just ahead of the UP assembly polls earlier this year, the BSP leadership expelled him and he had joined Congress. He unsuccessfully contested for the Sahibabad seat on a Congress ticket.

He is reported to have a strong voter base in Khoda, where more than 1.55 lakh voters will cast their votes for the posts of councillor and will also be electing a woman chairperson.

Gajendra Bhati was gunned down on September 2 in Khoda by two armed motorcycle-borne men. Ghaziabad Police later arrested Narendra Gurjar alias Fauji, while the Special Cell of Delhi Police arrested Raju Kumar alias Pehalwan.

The two are allegedly the bikers who gunned down Bhati, police said.

According to the statement made to police, Fauji had alleged that the murder conspiracy had been hatched on the orders of Sharma, who had wanted to get rid of Bhati ahead of the local body election.

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Noida: The district health department of Gautam Budh Nagar has begun its third round of inspection in residential colonies and societies to look for possible mosquito breeding spots, as there has been a rise in dengue cases of late.

On Thursday evening, the health department officials inspected houses in Ghijore village of Noida and fined residents for their negligence in not destroying the breeding spots of mosquitoes. Aedes aegyptia mosquitoes that cause vector-borne diseases such as dengue and chikungunya breed in still water that gets collected in old tyres, discarded vases, utensils and desert coolers.

We issued notices to five households in Ghijore village on Thursday and the total penalty stands at Rs2,500. If residents do not pay the fine within the stipulated period of two days, then an FIR will be filed against them under relevant sections. Later, fogging was also conducted in the village, said Dr Anurag Bhargav, chief medical officer, Gautam Budh Nagar.

The health department officials will be conducting more inspections in the city and surrounding areas. In the first two rounds of inspections, the department had issued notices to various private, government and civic bodies in Noida and Greater Noida.

We have been carrying out this exercise for the last few months. We will be carrying out more inspections in the district, said Dr Bhargav.

In the last one month, there has been a rise in the number of dengue cases in the district. The official figure of the number of dengue cases is at 48. However, unconfirmed reports from other hospitals suggest that the figure could run into hundreds. There have been two dengue-related deaths in the district.

Read I Noida: Health dept issues notice to schools on mosquito breeding

Till now, we have come across 48 positive cases of dengue with over 500 samples tested. However, there are over 200 positive cases of dengue at the Child PGI Hospital in Sector 30, Noida, said Dr Bhargav.

However, the director of Child PGI hospital refused to confirm the number of positive dengue cases registered at the hospital.

There have been two deaths in our hospital related to dengue. We admit patients as they come and then we treat them. However, we dont maintain a record of the number of positive dengue cases, said Dr AK Bhatt, director, Super Specialty Child PGI Hospital, Noida.

The health department has also constituted a seven-member committee to spread awareness about dengue-causing mosquitoes and prevention of mosquito breeding in rural areas. A seven-member committee involving staff of health department has also been formed to spread awareness regarding dengue and malaria in urban villages of Noida.
PATNA A spat between JD(U) and its former ally RJD, over success or otherwise of prohibition in Bihar, turned into a bitter slanging match between the two sides on Friday, with dignity of a woman turning an incidental casualty.

The ruling Janata Dal (United) accused RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his sons Tej Pratap Yadav and Tejashwi Prasad Yadav as habitual drinkers. Ruling party spokesmen also produced a snap shot of Tejashwi Prasad Yadav with a girl and a bottle of liquor in the background.

The move came a day after Prasads younger son and leader of Opposition in state assembly Tejashwi had targeted chief minister Nitish Kumar for meeting Ara hooch tragedy (2012) accused and JD(U) block president Rakesh Singh. citing Singhs selfie with CM that had gone viral on the social media.

Taking unkindly to Tejashwi mocking the CM for claiming that he was unaware of Singhs antecedents, JD(U) chief spokesman Sanjay Singh led the charge, saying, The picture is indicative of the stuff former deputy CM, who claims himself to be a youth icon, is made of. He seems to be more interested in wine and women.

Tejashwi was quick to respond, saying, It is a snap that was taken when I played Indian Premier League (IPL). Lot of fans and women get themselves photographed during post match parties. What is wrong about it? he asked.

These people are slighting the girl, who might be married and having kids by now, said Tejashwi, clearly upset.

Though other JD(U) spokespersons Neeraj Kumar, Nikhil Mandal, Arvind Nishad and Om Prakash Setu, were present with Singh, were unsure whether Tejashwis picture was taken before or after his elevation as deputy CM (in November 2015).

But their retaliation, targeting Tejashwi, seemed to have been fuelled at least in part by Lalu Prasads allegation earlier that JD(U) spokesmen regularly consumed liquor but the police did not dare to raid their homes.

Neeraj Kumar said that the matter could best be explained by the person concerned. He, however, stuck to his charge that Prasad and his sons consumed liquor. We are ready to provide our blood samples to a pathology lab of Prasads choice, provided the other party also agrees, he said.

Refuting the charge that authorities felt handicapped in raiding the premises of ruling party spokesmen, Neeraj Kumar said all of them were willing to authorise Prasad for carrying a search at their homes, once he was ready to have his house searched.

It will expose, who has stock of liquor at his home and who is doing what, he said.

The JD(U) spokespersons, accompanied by state general secretary Naveen Arya, also raised the question why Tejashwi did not stay in Bihar Niwas in Delhi, despite he being entitled to. They appeared to be hinting Tejashwi had other reasons for not staying at the Bihar government guest house in New Delhi.

Tejashwi, on his part, said, I am amazed at the (low) level of the issues being raised. By this standard, we will also want to know why the chief minister prefers to stay at Dwarka in Delhi.

On being asked where the mud-slinging would end, JD(U) spokesperson Neeraj said, Lalu and his family have started it. We will follow him to his grave. RJD spokesperson Shakti Singh Yadav retorted, We will not back off. It appeared there was more to come.

QUOTE

It is a snap taken when I played IPL. Lot of fans, women get themselves photographed at post match parties. What is wrong about it? These people are slighting the girl

Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, RJD leader

QUOTE

The picture is indicative of the stuff former deputy CM, who claims himself to be a youth icon, is made of. He seems to be more interested in wine and women

Sanjay Singh, JD(U) chief spokesman

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The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Pune Police has frozen 70 bank accounts of DS Kulkarni Developers Ltd (DSKDL) and other group companies as a part of its investigations into allegations of fraud and non-payment of dues to investors.

It has also sought information from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on possible illegal transfer of funds abroad by prominent Pune businessman DS Kulkarni who is the chairman of DSKDL.

Speaking to Hindustan Times, Kulkarni said that he has applied for anticipatory bail. We owe around 600 crores to our investors and will make the payments as and when we get the funds, he said, adding that the group made payments of 200- 250 crores to the investors last year.

The businessman, who is famous for his rags-to-riches story, said that he has filed a writ in the court which detailed the paying capacity of the group comprising details of land parcels and real estate holdings.

Deputy commissioner of police (cyber crime) Sudhir Hiremath told Hindustan Times that the Pune Police have written to ED, DRI and SEBI and have requested them to ascertain if DSK has sent money outside the country.

As many as 70 bank accounts of the company have been frozen by the EOW, he said.

The EOW has added IPC Sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy), Section 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent).

The agency has also added a section of Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978. The EOW has sought the audited balance sheets of DSKDL and group companies from the Registrar of Companies for its investigations.

On Thursday, searches were conducted at five business and residential properties of the 68-year-old businessman. Till Friday, 599 people had approached EOW for filing cases involving payment defaults on fixed deposits (FD) with DSK.

Last week, a case of cheating and breach of trust was registered at Shivajinagar police station against DS Kulkarni and his wife, Hemanti Deepak Kulkarni.
Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday issued directions to the state police and the intelligence agencies to go all out to counter the increasing misuse of social media to spread hate campaigns in the state.

The CM, who held a meeting to review law and order in the state, also ordered stern steps to break the nexus between terrorists and gangsters, as well as between gangsters and jail staff, to prevent use of prisons by gangsters to carry out their nefarious operations.

He also took serious note of reports of some gangsters operating from prisons, asking the authorities to undertake strict monitoring of jails. The home department was also directed to take immediate steps to fill vacancies in state prisons.

There is a need to instil the fear of the law to ensure that the states peace and harmony is maintained at all costs, he said. Besides senior police and administrative officials, ministers Navjot Singh Sidhu, Manpreet Singh Badal and Tript Bajwa were also present at the meeting.

Expressing concern over the recent killing of a Hindu Shiv Sena leader in Amritsar, Amarinder ordered the police to expedite investigation into the case.

The police officials assured the chief minister that the culprits, who had already been identified, would be caught soon, according to an official spokesperson.

He also instructed security agencies to adopt overt and covert measures to effectively counter the online hate campaign by Pakistans ISI and the communal tirade being launched by a section of the hardline Hindus against the Sikh community and vice versa.

There was a clear bid to revive terrorism in the state, which could be traced to foreign handlers not just in Pakistan but also in other countries such as Canada, Germany, the UAE, Belgium, South Africa, Portugal and Saudi Arabia, the CM was informed at the meeting, which took stock of the steps being taken by the security forces to curb the spread of divisive and communal forces.

Director general of police (DGP) Suresh Arora informed that since March 2017, seven terror modules had been busted and 43 terrorists and radical operatives arrested by the state police.

The police had identified 16 foreign handlers affiliated to various militant outfits to be involved in terror operations so far, and as many as 38 weapons, including those pushed into India by Pakistans ISI, had been seized.
Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh has directed the cabinet sub-committee headed by health and family welfare minister Brahm Mohindra to expedite drafting of the legislation on the Punjab Control of Organised Crime Act (PCOCA) to crack down on the menace of organised crime and gangsters in the state.

The directive was issued at Thursdays law and order review meeting. The chief ministers instructions came after director general of police (DGP) Suresh Arora raised the issue of giving more teeth to the police to tackle organised crime in the state.

The CM, who was in Patiala on Friday, told reporters that the draft PCOCA legislation to arm police with more teeth to tackle criminals, gangsters and radical forces was in the process of finalisation and the new law would soon be enacted to control the spread of crime and hatred in the state.

He also agreed that it was important to instil the fear of the law into the gangsters to check their attempts to create lawlessness and trouble in the state. The proposed legislation would ensure that the police are not obstructed in dealing with such gangsters with an iron hand, according to an official release. Though the proposed law would provide wide powers to police to take any action, as needed, to control gangsters and criminal gangs operating in the state, it would have sufficient checks and balances to prevent misuse, the spokesperson said.

PCOCA was the brainchild of former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal, who was also holding charge of home minister during the Akali-BJP regime. However, the cabinet struck down the planned legislation fearing its misuse and he sent it back to the states advocate general for revision. The Congress government had, soon after taking over earlier this year, revived the proposal to introduce PCOCA in view of the large number of organised gangs operating in the state and a spate of recent incidents of jailbreaks and violent clashes in prisons.

HT EXPLAINER

What is PCOCA?

Modelled on the controversial Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), the proposed law is said to be the brainchild of Punjab DGP Suresh Arora to tackle organised crime, especially committed by gangsters. It was originally proposed in September 2016 under the SAD-BJP regime.

Why Punjab needs PCOCA?

While pushing forward the proposed law, the police had claimed that since 2012 not a single gangster in the state was convicted and all 55 cases ended in acquittals because witnesses turned hostile in the court fearing gangsters. Out of 105 gangsters arrested between 1996 and 2016, only 10 were convicted.

Why the previous government did not pass the law?

The original draft of the law says that a statement given before an SP-rank officer will be admissible in the court. When the draft was tabled before the SAD-BJP cabinet, apprehensions were raised by senior ministers about the possibility of misuse of the law.

What are salient features of the law?

All electronic evidence, including secret recordings of phone calls, gathered by the police will also be proof. Proceedings can be held in camera, away from the public eye. The names of the witnesses can be kept secret. Special courts will be set up for speedy trials. If an accused commits a crime while on bail, he will not be able to apply for bail after that. Police can seek remand of the accused again even while he is in jail or judicial custody. A crime in which more than two persons are involved would be considered fit for PCOCA.

Which states already have PACOCA-like law?

Maharashtra, Karnataka, Bihar, Delhi, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala are the states where this kind of Act exists to deal with the organised crime.
A Thursday morning drug-related search warrant in Sweet Home netted eight suspects, methamphetamine, scales and packaging material, and a gun, according to the Sweet Home Police Department.

With assistance from the Linn County Sheriffs Office, Albany and Lebanon police departments, the US Forest Service and the Oregon State Police, Sweet Home officers served the warrant at 8:30 a.m. at 2225 Long Street.

Robert Dean Whiten, 63, was taken into custody for possession of methamphetamine and a Marion County Circuit Court warrant for contempt of court. He was lodged at Linn County Jail. Travis Earl Pressey, 39, was also arrested for possession of methamphetamine, felon in possession of a restricted weapon and carrying a concealed weapon, as well as a State Parole Board warrant. He was booked, cited and lodged at Linn County Jail.

Deanna Berniece Terwilliger, 32, was arrested for possession of methamphetamine and a Linn County probation warrant for the same crime. She was booked, cited and lodged at Linn County Jail. Ronnette Leeanne Robertson, 34, was arrested for possession of methamphetamine and a Lebanon Municipal Court warrant for contempt of court. She was booked at the Lebanon Police Department.

Billy Gene Seibert, 53, showed up during the warrant search and was arrested for possession of methamphetamine and a Justice Court warrant. He was booked, cited and released.

Andrew Benton Ericsson, 47, was arrested for possession of methamphetamine and a Lebanon Municipal Court warrant for contempt of court. He was booked, cited and released to Lebanon Police Department for transport.

Nova Wyntersnow White, 20, was also taken into custody for possession of methamphetamine. She was booked, cited and released.

Finally, James Millard Robertson, 56, was warned for frequenting a place where drugs are used and sold.

The Sweet Home Police Department opened the investigation due to reported short-stay traffic and frequent disturbances at the residence.

Anyone with information related to the incident is asked to call Detective Cyndi Pichardo at the Sweet Home Police Department 541-367-5181.
Director Praveen Sattaru had visualised Garuda Vega as a new-age, racy action thriller. And he has translated his vision remarkably well, says Rajasekhar, the films subtle and measured NIA (National Intelligence Agency) officer. He talks about what is unique about the film, why Praveen Sattaru is a class apart, what made him accept the film, its high points, and more.

Excerpts from the interview:

You sound quite confident about PSV Garuda Vega

I had always wanted to do films like Bourne Identity, Die Hard and Lethal Weapon, in a way that would suit the Indian sensibilities. But no producer came forward with such an offer for years. I am lucky that Praveen Sattaru came up with Garuda Vega, and it has a gripping narration, rich visuals and an interesting screenplay which make it a unique film for Telugu audiences.

Its rumoured to be a Rs 25 crore budget film. Do you feel that kind of lavish spend has been justified?

I see this as my comeback film. Praveen came to me with this script. He had called it Magadu 2, initially, but it was later rechristened PSV Garuda Vega. The estimated budget was Rs 7-8 Cr. When I wondered as to who will invest such a huge amount, my wife Jeevitha told me that this film has to be done. My fathers friends son was interested in making a movie. Initially, when my father told me about this, I thought he was saying it in order to console me during my bad days. But when we met Koteswar Raju (producer) in Chennai, we knew he was ready to do a film with us. The same film could have been made in Hyderabad and such places. But had it not been shot in Georgia, Malaysia among other places, it wouldnt have got so much of grandeur. Thats why the budget is rational.

You have been all praise for Praveen Sattaru. What makes him a director to watch out for?

Praveen had come to us with a bound script. I have worked with the likes of highly popular filmmakers such as Muthyala Subbaiah, Raviraja Pinisetty and Kodi Ramakrishna. All of them would improvise on the scenes during the shoot. But Praveen never did it even once. The entire shoot was completed in 93 days. He had a clear vision, and he took care of everything related to the film. He even got involved in selling the film to distributors.

What makes this thriller different from other films?

Its very realistic. Our director took this up after doing a thorough research. When we spoke to NIA officers, they told us that the kind of set-up we had created is very close to how it is in real life. Even their behaviour is similar to how I behave in the film.

So, how did you approach the role, you being known for your angry young man avatar?

My director didnt want me to act the way I did in Ankusam. I play NIA officer in the film. And in such an officers life, finding suspects is a daily routine. So, he wouldnt behave like the hero of Anuksam upon finding a suspect. My acting in PSV Garuda Vega is totally subtle and understated. You will see a new Rajasekhar.

What kind of physical exercises did your training for your role involve?

I underwent a physical training for this movie. Its a James Bond-like movie where the hero has to do flight and parachute shots. I promised the director that I will be as energetic as I was in Prathighatana and Vande Mataram. But a month before the shoot was to start, I had chest pain. A stent was put in my left artery. I was asked to take complete rest for one month. But after just 10 days, I was ready to join the shoot.

How is the pre-release buzz? We heard that in the US, about 80-100 premieres have already been planned

I would have been happy if the teaser got even 1 million views. But in the first five days, it got 5 million views. It has so far got more than 7-8 million views. The trailer is a bigger hit. Yesterday when I met Chiranjeevi garu, he told me that he and his team at his office had watched the trailer and talked about it!

Are you ready to play negative roles?

Yes. Even if PSV Garuda Vega becomes a big hit, I will be ready. I was looking to do roles like the one played by Arvind Swami in Dhruva. I wanted to act with Chiranjeevi garu and Ram Charan. Its always easy to play a villain. A hero has to cry beautifully. But a villain need not look handsome. He can do anything by making his face dirty and yet he will be liked.

You became very emotional at the films pre-release event. Did your mothers death affect you so much?

I am feeling like a criminal. I am guilty of not being able to save my mother. My mother complained of pain in her stomach on the day when she died. I spent five minutes of crucial time thinking about whether I should give her the same tablet that I had given her the previous day. Had I administered her the same tablet on time, she might have been alive.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

ott:10:ht-entertainment_listing-desktop
Alias Grace

Cast - Sarah Gadon, Edward Holcroft, Anna Paquin, Zachary Levi, David Cronenberg

Rating - 3.5/5

Stairs are an important, and a rather dreadful motif in Alias Grace, the lush new Margaret Atwood TV adaptation. We see them - like the shows heroine, Grace Marks - in fevered flashes, and as haunting, almost-mocking metaphors for the prison she lives in, and the freedom she aspires towards.

There is the rickety, rotting ladder that Grace emptily stares at during her journey from Ireland to Canada in the mid-1800s; a cruel reminder that fresh air is only a few feet away from the disease-ridden hull shes cramped into with other immigrants like her.

There is the more conventional staircase that separates her from her aristocratic masters at the grand mansion she finds work at; a literal representation of the shows upstairs-downstairs approach to class.

And then theres the shrouded wooden ladder underneath the floorboards from which she is said to have pushed a woman to her death.

For decades, Grace  whose story was turned into a feminist fable by Atwood in her novel  is haunted by the images of these stairs, locked away, first in an asylum and then in a penitentiary. So often has she been accused of this crime that she begins questioning what is real and what isnt. To make matters worse, she can picture, in great detail, the victims face. She can see the life leaving her eyes, the trickle of blood escaping her mouth, and she can hear the sound She can hear the fabric as the body is dragged across the wooden floor, and she can hear the crack of breaking bones as it tumbles to the bottom.

But she refuses to believe that she did it. Others may call her a celebrated murderess, rich families might invite her into their homes to gawk at, to catch a glimpse up close of a new attraction, a celebrity - just like their American cousins, who only a few years later, would pay good money to be photographed with the slain body of outlaw Jesse James.

But for decades, Grace maintains her innocence.

While Alias Grace shares more than a few similarities with this years other, and decidedly more celebrated Atwood adaptation, The Handmaids Tale  mostly thematic, but good news for fans regardless  it would be more accurately described as the worlds oldest true-crime tale; like Sarah Koenigs Serial podcast meets Euripedes Medea. Im immensely proud of that description, by the way.

But unlike the dystopian Handmaids Tale - which, in all likelihood is the biggest reason why most people are intrigued about Alias Grace at all  its story is firmly rooted in the past, in a time when men can switch careers as a peddler to a hypnotist because theres a real appetite for it now more than ever.

It is also very, very Canadian. But thats hardly surprising, what with the exorbitant number of national treasures involved  Atwood, of course, and director Mary Harron (American Psycho), writer Sarah Polley, and in a cameo appearance, the great David Cronenberg.

Polley and Harrons involvement in particular  they wrote and directed all six episodes  brings that much sought-after authorship that TV always strives for but so rarely attains. Like Jean Marc Vallee (who directed all seven episodes of HBOs Big Little Lies) and David Lynch (who returned to direct every episode of the Twin Peaks revival, because who else?), Alias Grace is bound by the singular vision of three unique voices working in harmony, spearheaded by a gripping central performance by Sarah Gadon.

In terms of its rather episodic structure  Grace recounts the misfortunes of her past to a kind doctor  its strangely similar to Lars Von Triers morbidly entertaining film, Nymphomaniac  which, at five-and-a-half-hours, is longer than the entirety of this show, believe it or not.

Depressingly, though, while the women in both the Handmaids Tale and Alias Grace wear bonnets on their heads and demure looks on their faces, and while one of the shows is set in the near future and the other a couple of centuries in the past, theyre saying the same things: Women have it rough. And since both shows are, understandably, a comment on the present, chances are, they always will.

Alias Grace doesnt offer the fantasy of exploitation flicks, and nor is it as insightful as the Handmaids Tale, but as a historical cautionary tale about gender, class, and identity, its is a solid entry in a rather cluttered genre.

Watch the Alias Grace trailer here

Follow @htshowbiz for more

The author tweets @RohanNaahar
Bhagwanji Lakhani, who was among thousands expelled from Idi Amins Uganda in the early 1970s and emerged as a major figure in the community after he arrived in the British the town of Leicester and opened the first Indian vegetarian restaurant when racism was rife, has died aged 89.

Bobbys, his restaurant named after the 1976 Bollywood hit film, has become a landmark in the east Midlands city and a symbol of the journey of thousands of Indian refugees from destitution to integration and success.

Known for his affable disposition and love for Bollywood, Lakhanis restaurant on Belgrave Road (also called the Golden Mile) witnessed the area become a hub of Asian business and culture as many Indian banks and shops established themselves over the decades.

Several residents of Leicester expressed grief on Friday and paid tributes to Lakhanis life and work that reflected the journey of many Indians across continents and constraints. His wife Mangala died in 2006, and he is survived by four daughters and two sons.

Jaffer Kapasi, a prominent Indian businessman who was among those expelled from Uganda but is now that countrys honorary consul general, said: He won many awards for the quality of food served and for service with a smile. He was a refugee like me from Uganda.

Bhagwanji Kaka was involved in a number of charities, sponsored food at several temples and other organisations. He contributed to the success of the Golden Mile and will be sorely missed not only by his family but customers and the business world of Leicester.

According to Uday Dholakia, chairman of the Indo-British Trade Council, Bhagwanjibhai epitomised the Asian entrepreneurial spirit, having the resilience and courage to start a business against all odds. He was an icon who stamped the unique contribution to Leicester by the Bobbys brand.

Ather Mirza of the University of Leicester added: He was a towering personality, always friendly and very well respected. His restaurant was instrumental in creating a hub for people especially when East African Asians were settling in Leicester in the 1970s, helping to create that home away from home atmosphere for the community.

Dharmesh, Lakhanis son, told the Leicester Mercury, a leading local daily: He worked at Bobbys until well into his 80sHe was an amazing man and a very special dad to me and my five siblings as well as being something of a pillar of the community here.

Lakhani, who would have turned 90 on November 10, died in his family home in Syston. We all said our goodbyes and we sang his favourite songs from Bollywood films together. It bought him great peace, he added.

Leicesters assistant mayor Manjula Sood said: He was a legend  weve lost a friend and a great community champion. Ive known him since he and his family came to Leicester, he was an amazing man.

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China on Friday said it was ready to promote bilateral ties with important neighbour India, a day after it again rejected a UN resolution to sanction Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as an international terrorist.

India is an important neighbour of China. China attaches great importance to relations with India. We are ready to work with India to promote constant progress of bilateral relations guided by neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for a new era, said assistant foreign minister Chen Xiadong.

Speaking on Chinas policy with its neighbours at a presser on President Xi Jinpings upcoming visit to Vietnam for the APEC summit, Chen claimed that Beijing has always stressed on a policy that focuses on the principles of sincerity, amity, inclusiveness and mutual benefit.

We have been following this concept (of building partnerships with neighbours) for the last few years, deepening our political mutual trust, he said, adding that this was the guiding principle of Beijing.

On Thursday, Beijing had cited lack of consensus among United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members on sanctioning Azhar under a US-backed resolution. Signalling its intention to block the resolution, the ministry of foreign affairs said: It is a fact that the (UN) committee is yet to reach an agreement (on the move).

China, a veto-wielding permanent member of the UNSC, has repeatedly blocked moves to sanction Azhar under the Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee (the 1267 committee) in the last one year. Beijing flatly denies that its close ties with Pakistan is the reason for blocking the move, stating that it has more to do with the process of collecting solid evidence against the alleged terrorist.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying insisted that China always upholds the principle of objectivity and fairness. We judge the matter on its own merit. Pakistan is also a victim of terrorism, and we support it in countering terrorism in accordance with its own national conditions, she said.

Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar expressed regret at the Chinese move. We are deeply disappointed that once again, a single country has blocked international consensus on the designation of Masood Azhar, an acknowledged terrorist and leader of a UN-designated terrorist organisation, he said in a statement, without naming China.

Kumar went on to say that double standards and selective approaches would undermine the international communitys resolve to combat terrorism. We can only hope that there will be a realisation that accommodating terrorism for narrow objectives is both short-sighted and counter-productive, he contended.

On the importance of Xis trip to Vietnam, Chen said: This visit by President Xi will help open neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for a new era, a goal that will foster a new type of international relations and build a community of shared future for mankind.

This will be the overall direction for neighbourhood diplomacy for China in the next stage, he added.
Explosive revelations by a top Democratic operative that the 2016 primaries were tipped in Hillary Clintons favor have convulsed the party as it struggles to rebuild, and whipped up accusations of cheating from President Donald Trump.

Donna Brazile, the Democratic National Committees interim chairwoman during key months of the presidential campaign, said Clintons team essentially took over day-to-day operations of the DNC, in essence rigging the system against Senator Bernie Sanders, who was challenging Clinton for the partys nomination.

In a book excerpt published Thursday by Politico, Brazile said her DNC chair predecessor, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had let Clintons headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired when it came to controlling party strategy and staffing.

She also said that an agreement reached between the DNC and Clintons campaign to bring the party out of debt allowed Clinton to control party finances, strategy, and the money raised.

This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the partys integrity, Brazile said.

Political Washington shuddered with the revelations, with members of the Sanders camp crying foul and demanding changes to the DNC framework.

As of Friday, Neither Sanders nor Clinton had responded publicly to Braziles remarks.

Rigged

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Sanders ally who campaigned with Clinton after she won the nomination, expressed exasperation over what happened.

This is a real problem, Warren, seen as a potential 2020 presidential candidate, told CNN. Weve got to hold this party accountable.

Asked whether she believes the system was rigged, Warren said yes.

Trump seized on the crisis Friday, telling reporters that Braziles book shows that Clinton bought the DNC and stole the election from Bernie.

He also took the unusual step of suggesting that US justice officials investigate one of his political rivals.

Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isnt looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems, Trump said at the start of a series of tweets about the scandal.

Pocahontas just stated that the Democrats, lead by the legendary Crooked Hillary Clinton, rigged the Primaries! Lets go FBI & Justice Dept, he said.

Pocahontas is a nickname -- some call it a slur -- that Trump has repeatedly used to refer to Warren, in reference to her self-proclaimed Native American ancestry.

Minutes later, as he departed for an extended trip to Asia, Trump tweeted from Air Force One that Sanders supporters have every right to be apoplectic.

I always felt I would be running and winning against Bernie Sanders, not Crooked H, without cheating, I was right.

Brazile, 57, is a longtime Democratic strategist, having worked on several political campaigns.

She became a Democratic analyst for CNN. Although she was on leave since July 2016 to serve as interim DNC chair, she resigned from the network that October after hacked emails released by WikiLeaks showed that she had shared questions with Clintons campaign ahead of a debate sponsored by the network.

The new DNC chairman Tom Perez, who served in president Barack Obamas cabinet, did not respond directly to the Brazile allegations.

Were moving forward, Perez insisted to CNBC.

One of my goals here as DNC chair is to make sure that the nominating process for 2020 is a process thats totally fair and transparent for everybody, he said, adding that the Democratic primary debate schedule will be set well in advance of knowing who the candidates will be.

Sanders had complained last year that the debate schedule was set to favor Clinton, because they were held during off-hours so that fewer people saw Clintons challengers.
The Islamic State jihadist group on Friday lost control of two of the last major towns under its grip in Syria and Iraq, as Syrian troops and Iraqi security forces advanced in the Euphrates Valley border region.

The simultaneous assaults on Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria and Al-Qaim in western Iraq dealt fresh blows to IS in its former heartland, leaving Albu Kamal, on the Syrian side of the border, as the last town of note under its control.

The jihadist group that once laid claim to a self-styled caliphate spanning swathes of Syria and Iraq has seen its proto-state crumble in recent months under the pressure of multiple offensives.

In October, it lost its one-time de facto Syrian capital Raqa after an assault of more than four months waged by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-Arab alliance.

Syrias army today announced that its Russian-backed assault had recaptured all of Deir Ezzor city, in the oil-rich east of the country, while Iraqi forces captured the Husaybah border post and the nearby town of Al-Qaim.

The army forces... restored security and stability to all of Deir Ezzor city, a spokesman for the Syrian army command said in a statement broadcast live on state television.

Deir Ezzor represents the final phase in the complete elimination of Daesh, the statement added, using the Arabic acronym for the group.

The city was the headquarters of the organisations leadership, and in losing it, they lose their capacity to direct terrorist operations, it added.

State television said engineering units from the army were combing captured neighbourhoods to clear mines and other explosives.

Syrian forces entered Deir Ezzor city in September, breaking an IS siege of nearly three years on government-held parts of the provincial capital.

The battle has been ferocious, with heavy Russian air strikes and Syrian artillery fire leaving much of the city in ruins.

A reporter contributing to AFP inside the city on Thursday saw entire floors of buildings that had crashed onto those beneath, while on others, facades were completely blown away to reveal empty, destroyed interiors.

Trenches dug by IS fighters were still visible, as were army minesweepers working to locate and defuse explosives laid by the jihadists.

Before Syrias war began in March 2011 with anti- government protests, around 300,000 people lived in the city, the capital of Deir Ezzor province along Syrias eastern border with Iraq.

But in 2014, IS jihadists seized the city and much of the surrounding province, including vital oil and gas fields that once served as a key source of revenue for the extremists.

IS has now been driven from most of its strongholds in Deir Ezzor, but it still controls more than 35 percent of the province, much of it empty desert.

Its last major position is the town of Albu Kamal, though it also holds a string of smaller towns and villages and at least one oilfield, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

IS, which at its peak controlled territory roughly the size of Britain, has suffered a string of losses in recent months in both Syria and Iraq.

On October 17, it lost the city of Raqa to the US-backed SDF, a highly symbolic blow that illustrated how its caliphate has disintegrated.

In Deir Ezzor province, it is under attack from both regime and SDF forces, while across the border in Iraq it had retained a foothold in just a single town, Al-Qaim, after losing its stronghold of Mosul in July and the town of Hawija in October.

Iraqi forces captured Al-Qaim on Friday, within hours of seizing an important border crossing nearby, military commanders said.

Iraqs Prime Minister Haider Abadi hailed what he called the liberation of Al-Qaim in record time.

Iraqs Joint Operations Command said earlier that troops had regained full control of the Husaybah border post on the edge of Al-Qaim.

The Britain-based Observatory said several trucks with dozens of IS fighters fleeing from Al-Qaim crossed the border and sought refuge in Albu Kamal.

Government forces launched the operation last week to seize Al-Qaim and its surroundings, a barren pocket of desert along the Euphrates near the Syrian border.

The jihadists have been squeezed into nearby Rawa and surrounding desert areas of the two towns in Iraqs vast Anbar province.

The US-led coalition has said around 1,500 IS fighters are left in the area, which it expects to be the scene of the last big fight against the group in Iraq.

On the other side of the boder, Syrian regime forces are still around 30 kilometres (18 miles) from Albu Kamal. Their advance on Albu Kamal is being supported by Russian air power. (AFP) PMS
The United States Senate on Thursday unanimously confirmed Kenneth Ian Juster as the next ambassador to India, filling a position that has been vacant for months after Richard Verma, an Obama appointee, left in the traditional churn accompanying the administration change.

Justers unanimous confirmation signals the bipartisan support he enjoys in the upper house. Not all of President Donald Trumps nominees have found such overwhelming support  David Friedman, the ambassador to Israel, was narrowly confirmed by a 52 to 46 vote, and Nikki Haley, the nominee for UN, by 96-4.

I was proud to support Kens nomination to be our countrys representative in India, one of our most important defence partners in the region, said Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat who had introduced Juster, nominee of a Republican president, at his confirmation hearing. Warner is also co-chair of the bipartisan India Caucus in the Senate.

During his confirmation hearing, Juster told senators, India and the United States share common values and a commitment to democracy, pluralism, and the rule of law... The (Trump) administration views India as a leading power and a true friend, whose influence internationally is important and growing.

An experienced bureaucrat in Indian affairs, the 62-year-old was serving as deputy assistant to the president for International Economic Affairs and deputy director of the National Economic Council in the White House before his nomination as ambassador to New Delhi and emerged as the leading interlocutor for the administration with India and visiting officials.

He was a key part of the White House faction that had come to be branded the globalists or "moderates", led by the president's chief economic advisor Gary Cohn and one that includes Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner, both advisers to the president.

They stood for continued engagement with the world; for instance, they argued for the United States to remain in the Paris Climate Accord. However, they lost to the nationalists group led by former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who pushed for an America First thrust on all Trump policies.

Justers confirmation as ambassador, coming within just a few months of his appointment to a key White House position, was said to have been the unintended outcome of that same tussle according to news reports. But India and India-watchers in the United States came to see him as a good choice

Indians like the US ambassador in Delhi to have high-level connections in the White House, if not to the president directly, and Juster has excellent connections there, specially with Cohn, who hired him, an observer, who has known the nominee, said at the time of Justers appointment.

Ashley Tellis, a leading US expert on India who himself was the subject of speculation of being named ambassador to Delhi, told Hindustan Times earlier that Juster was an excellent choice.

A lawyer from Harvard, Juster is an experienced India hand. As deputy secretary of commerce in President George W Bushs administration  a position roughly the equivalent of minister of state in India  he had launched the High Technology Cooperation Group to promote trade in sensitive dual-use goods and technology.

He served as under secretary of commerce from 2001 to 2005, counsellor (acting) of the state department from 1992 to 1993, and deputy and senior adviser to the deputy secretary of state from 1989 to 1992.

In the private sector, the White House statement about his nomination said Juster had been a partner at the investment firm Warburg Pincus LLC, which remains very bullish on India and scaled up investments there, and was executive vice president at Salesforce.com as well as senior partner at the law firm Arnold & Porter.

The new ambassador was also chairman of Harvard Universitys Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and vice chairman of The Asia Foundation. Apart from a law degree, Juster has a masters degree in public policy from the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and a bachelors degree in government from Harvard College.
Britain has announced a 1-million fund to help projects in countries where journalists face attacks and help lobby governments to change laws that put pressure on reporters, such as anti-defamation legislation.

Committing support for freedom of expression projects in countries where press freedom is curtailed, foreign secretary Boris Johnson said that as a former journalist, he was alarmed that attacks on journalists across the world were rife and increasing.

On Thursday  the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists  Johnson said: Civil society is all about free people. Where governments fear freedom of expression they often try to shut down media and civil society, or clip their wings. This both violates human rights and crushes creativity.

A free media is vital to creating a vibrant, informed and engaged population and helps to support a safer, more prosperous and progressive world.

Funds will be allocated to projects that help reporters build their international support networks to drive up journalistic standards, build the capacity of local journalists to help support and safeguard press freedom, and monitor human rights violations, trial monitoring and long-term advocacy on targeted impunity cases.

A statement from the Foreign Office noted that over the past 11 years, more than 900 journalists had been killed globally for doing their jobs.

Many countries are increasingly turning to restrictive measures to control their media with journalists being subjected to or threatened with arrest, detention and prosecution on a daily basis, it added.

Thomas Hughes of campaign group Article 19 said: Whilst today we mark the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, the reality is that the impunity rate for these crimes remains staggeringly high, with 90% unresolved.

For each journalist killed, attacked, threatened or detained, countless others are intimidated to self-censor, eroding press freedoms and resulting in entire societies being deprived of important information.

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Pakistan on Friday mourned the death of Dina Wadia, the only daughter of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who passed away in New York at the age of 98, though some in the country were unaware that the Father of the Nation had any offspring.

President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi conveyed condolences on behalf of the people to Dinas family, said a statement from the Foreign Office. Wadias son, businessman Nusli Wadia, was informed of the sadness of the Pakistani nation on the demise of his mother, who was greatly respected and admired.

Messages of condolence poured in immediately after news of Wadias death broke on Thursday night. Politicians and activists took to Twitter to offer their respect.

Some, however, commented on social media they were not aware Jinnah had any family or offspring. Some expressed surprise on finding out about the death of his only child.

Nearly seven decades after his death, Jinnah continues to tower over almost all aspects of life in Pakistan but his family has been largely airbrushed out of the official history, mostly because of the Parsi heritage of his wife Ruttie Petit and daughter Dina.

Few official accounts refer to the family of the Quaid-e-Azam, as Jinnah is known in Pakistan.

Jinnah was estranged from Dina because of her decision at the age of 17 to marry Neville Wadia, a member of a leading Parsi business family, in 1938. He met her for the last time shortly before the creation of Pakistan.

English newspapers prominently covered the news of Dinas death. The Dawn newspaper, which was founded by Jinnah, reported the news on its front page while other dailies gave it good display. The news was also telecast on most channels, which beamed footage of Dinas visit to Pakistan in 2004, her first since her fathers funeral in 1948.

In comparison, coverage in the Urdu newspapers and news channels was less prominent.

Many political leaders and opinion makers expressed grief and offered condolences to the Wadia family. She was the last symbol of our leader and nations founder. We are sad to see her go, said information minister Marriyum Aurangzeb.

Former minister Shah Mehmood Quteshi of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party conveyed condolences on behalf of his party. PML-Q leader Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi recalled Dinas visit to Pakistan in 2004 and said: She was a majestic personality.

She visited Pakistan twice. During her second trip to Karachi in March 2004, Dina was accompanied by son Nusli and grandsons Ness and Jehangir. They visited Jinnahs mazar or mausoleum and laid a wreath.

This has been very sad as well as wonderful for me. May his dream for Pakistan come true, Dina wrote in the visitors book. This statement was widely quoted in the media and her stay at the mausoleum lasted about an hour.

Dina had been at the site once before  in September 1948 after the death of her father. She never visited Pakistan in Jinnahs lifetime.

She also visited the hall where Jinnahs personal belongings are on display. Dina showed a liking for three pictures and requested for blow-ups. One of the pictures shows Dina with her parents, another is that of her mother, while the third, which she liked the most, shows Jinnah dictating a letter to someone. Later she paid her respects at the tomb of Fatima Jinnah, her aunt.

Dina spent her final years mostly in New York though she remained close to her son Nusli Wadia, who heads the Wadia Group.

She was also involved in a long-running legal battle to gain control of Jinnah House, the stately mansion in Malabar Hills in Mumbai that her father had bequeathed to his sister Fatima Jinnah. India took over the bungalow after Partition as evacuee property but Dina contested Jinnahs will.

Dina visited Pakistan twice. During her second trip to Karachi in March 2004, Dina Wadia was accompanied by son Nusli and grandsons, Ness and Jehangir. They visited the Quaids Mazar and laid a wreath.

This has been very sad as well as wonderful for me. May his (Quaids) dream for Pakistan come true, she wrote in the visitors book. Her stay at the mausoleum lasted about an hour.

She also visited the hall where personal belongings of the Quaid are on display. The Quaids daughter showed a liking for three pictures and requested for their blow-ups. One of the pictures shows Dina with her parents, another is that of her mother while the third, which she liked the most, shows the Quaid-i-Azam dictating a letter to someone. Later she paid her respects at the tomb of Fatima Jinnah, her aunt.

Dina Wadia had been at this place only once before  in Sept 1948 after the death of her father. She had never visited Pakistan in the Quaids lifetime.
An anti-corruption case against Nawaz Sharif was adjourned till November 7 after the ousted prime minister appeared in the accountability court along with his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Mohammad Safdar on Friday.

Sharif, his daughter and son-in-law arrived at the judicial complex in the morning to appear in the anti-corruption court to be present for the hearing of cases filed against them by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

The head of the ruling PML-N party, who was disqualified as the prime minister by the Supreme Court in July for dishonesty in declaring his assets, returned on Thursday to Islamabad from London, where his wife Kulsoom Nawaz is being treated for cancer.

Sharif returned to Pakistan after the ant-graft court issued a bailable arrest warrant for him because he had skipped earlier hearings.

The judge adjourned the hearing because he had not received an order passed by the Islamabad high court on Thursday for clubbing three cases against the Sharif family. The high court had accepted Sharifs petition for the cases to be taken up together.

This was the first time Sharif appeared for a hearing since he, his daughter and son-in-law were indicted on October 19.

The former premier left Punjab House in Islamabad for the court amid high security. Tight security measures were also put in place at the judicial complex with large contingents of troops deployed in and around the area.

Talking to the media, information minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said Sharif had presented himself in person at all the platforms where he was summoned. His absence in some cases was because of a genuine reason, which was that he was looking after his wife in London.

Sharif appeared in the court on September 26 and October 2, while he skipped proceedings, despite being summoned, on September 19, October 9, October 13 and October 26.

During the last month, he was looking after his ailing wife in London. However, due to his continuous absence, the court issued the bailable arrest warrant on October 26.

The Sharif family is facing trial in connection with cases filed by the NAB pertaining to the Avenfield flats, Al-Azizia Steel Mills and Hill Metal Establishment.

Sharif, his daughter and son-in-law have pleaded not guilty to the charges. His sons Hassan and Hussain were named co-accused in the charge-sheet in the cases. They are currently outside Pakistan.
A Sweet Home man is in jail after running from police in Lebanon and hiding in a neighborhood.

The officers were responding to a report of a burglary at about 7:45 a.m. Oct. 25 near the 500 block of South 16th Street.

Officer Scott Barnes reported seeing the suspect, Ovid Teixiera, 53, of Sweet Home, pushing a hand truck with a garbage can on it. Teixiera ran when hailed, and Barnes called for backup. Police established a perimeter and swept the area after seeing Teixiera running and jumping over neighborhood fences, which resulted in a foot chase.

Teixiera was ultimately captured, and the hand truck he'd abandoned was found to contain a collection of stolen items from the home whose residents had called in the burglary report. He was arrested and charged with first-degree burglary and was also found to be wanted on several warrants in Linn County Circuit Court for failure to appear on a burglary charge. His bail amount was set at $300,000.

The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to call the Lebanon Police Department at 541-451-1751
It lasted 11 minutes.

Shortly before 7 pm on Thursday, social media reports surfaced that the US Presidents personal account @RealDonaldTrump was unavailable  showing an error message that the user does not exist. The account was restored minutes later.

This short span of time was commemorated by many as the Trump Twitter Outage of 2017. Some users heaved a sigh of relief, revelling in the silence, while others mockingly warned against forgetting this day.

People speculated over why the account was down, with some suggesting it could be a conscious but shocking decision by Trump. More elaborate theories linked the move to Robert Muellers probe into the Trump campaigns alleged collusion with Russia for interfering in the 2016 US election.

The US Presidents love for the platform is well-documented. With over 40 million followers, Trump has indiscriminately voiced his opinions on Twitter  often evoking the wrath of critics who consider his unfiltered outpourings unpresidential. Trump has tweeted threats of war with North Korea, posted an edited video of him tackling CNN to the ground, and lashed out at rivals, among other controversies.

Trump's twitter account was shut down. Those few precious minutes was like when Andy played the opera on the Shawshank PA system  Swami Tommy (@swami_Tommy77) November 3, 2017

Dont ever let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was Camelot.  Lauren Santo Domingo (@TheLSD) November 2, 2017

The Doomsday Clock moved one minute away from midnight during this.  Bart Bruyninckx (@FrostPegasus) November 2, 2017

It was the best of times.  Angela (@AngelaQueensNY1) November 2, 2017

When future generations ask, "Where were you during Covfefe and the Trump Twitter blackout of 2017? Man, that must have been amazing!"  Natasha @ Luscious (@myLusciousLife) November 2, 2017

Any chance that the temporary downtime was due to Twitter handing data over to Mueller? Or deleting it, paid by Trump?  Jordan Myers (@FidgetyWizard) November 3, 2017

I dont want Trumps Twitter taken down. Every tweet is evidence. Keep tweeting, Trump. No one tell him Mueller can see them #TrumpRussia  Scott Dworkin (@funder) November 3, 2017

The hoopla refused to die down even after Trumps account was restored.

Twitters statement that Trumps account was deactivated by an employee who was leaving the company sparked another line of jokes and memes. Many claimed the unnamed employee went out with a bang on his/her last day at work, and even suggested that the company reinstate the true American hero with a raise.

Trumps Twitter was deactivated by a "Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employees last day."



!!! pic.twitter.com/9xYfL9SAVE  Philip Lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) November 3, 2017

Shouldnt he be promoted?  Ethan Savage (@ethansavage) November 3, 2017

way to go out with a bang, buddy.   molly (@mollymermaids) November 3, 2017

An occasional voice of support propped up:

Pathetic.. he/she deserved getting the boot for attempting to silence the president.  Rai Mix (@RM3Q2) November 3, 2017

When everything was over, Trump went back to tweeting like the outage had never happened. And the White House remained silent.
President Donald Trump vowed to hit the Islamic State ten times harder every time it attacks the United States as he left for an Asia tour.

What were doing is every time we are attacked from this point forward and it took place yesterday, we are hitting them ten times harder, Trump told reporters before boarding a flight for Hawaii, his first stop before he heads out to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

So when we have an animal do an attack like he did the other day on the West Side of Manhattan, he added referring to the suspect in the truck attack, Sayfullo Saipov.

We are hitting them ten times harder. They claim him as a soldier, good luck. Every time they hit us, we know it is ISIS, we hit them like you folks wont believe.

Trump will focus on terrorism on the trip, especially in Manila, at the 50th anniversary of Asean, on the sidelines of which he will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

ISIS just claimed the Degenerate Animal who killed, and so badly wounded, the wonderful people on the West Side, was "their soldier." .....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

...Based on that, the Military has hit ISIS "much harder" over the last two days. They will pay a big price for every attack on us!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

The IS claimed responsibility late on Thursday for the terror attack in Manhattan that killed eight people and wounded a dozen more. A statement issued in the groups weekly newsletter called Tuesdays rampage one of the most prominent attacks targeting Crusaders in America.

It described Sayfullo Saipov, 29, as a soldier of the Caliphate and went on to say the attack was carried out in response to the groups call to target citizens of the Crusader countries involved in the alliance against the Islamic State.

It was an uncharacteristically late claim for a group that in the past year has typically issued its statements within the first 24 hours after an attack. It was also not released through the ISs Amaq news agency, which is usually the first to carry such statements.

And it marks a break with the usual pattern of not claiming responsibility for an attack when a suspect is in custody.

As the investigation continues, US authorities are increasingly focusing on a wedding in Florida two years ago attended by Saipov as a possible key to understanding whether he had personal ties to people connected to the Islamic State, law enforcement officials said.

Time running out with North Korea

During his trip to Asia, Trump is also expected to say the world is running out of time with North Korea and all nations need to do more.

The denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and North Korea will be the top issue for Trump during the trip followed by the need for free and open Indo-Pacific and free, fair and reciprocal trade, National Security Adviser HR McMaster said while previewing the tour.

The president recognises that were running out of time and will ask all nations to do more, McMaster said. Especially those countries that exercise more influence on Pyongyang, will have to convince North Korean leaders that the pursuit of nuclear weapons was a dead end.

And he will remind friend and foe alike that the US stands ready to defend itself and our allies using the full range of our capabilities, he said.

Trumps focus on a free and open, rule-based Indo-Pacific, which he is expected to call for from Japan, his first stop on the 12-day tour, will be largely aimed at China, which has sought to restrict and regulate maritime and overflight in the region to enforce its claims in the disputed South China Sea.

India will be watching closely as it has had its own concerns about Chinas aggression in the region and has joined other nations, including the US and Japan, to call for unrestricted air and maritime navigational rights.

China will also be prime target of Trumps call for free, fair and reciprocal trade. He is expected to deliver a clear message that for bilateral economic relations to be sustainable over the long term, China must provide fair and reciprocal treatment to US firms and cease predatory trade and investment practices.
Two U.S. strategic bombers conducted drills over South Korea, the U.S. Air Force said, raising tensions with North Korea just days before President Donald Trump visits the region seeking to shut down Pyongyangs nuclear program.

News of the Thursdays drills was first reported by North Korean state news agency KCNA on Friday, which said the exercises involving South Korean and Japanese fighter jets were a surprise nuclear strike drill.

The reality clearly shows that the gangster-like U.S. imperialists are the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war, KCNA said.

Trump arrives in Asia on Sunday, beginning his first trip to the region as president in Japan before heading to South Korea and China, then Vietnam and the Philippines.

A series of missile tests by North Korea and its sixth and largest nuclear test, defying U.N. Security Council resolutions, have fueled the most critical international challenge of Trumps presidency.

China, under U.S. pressure to do more to rein in its ally, on Friday stressed that it had been enforcing U.N. resolutions and reiterated its opposition to the use of force.

Over the long term, China has made unremitting efforts to appropriately resolve the peninsula nuclear issue and promote dialogue and negotiation between all parties, Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang told reporters at a briefing in Beijing.

You can say weve made our greatest effort.

The goal of Trumps visit will be to increase international support for efforts to deprive North Korea of resources as leverage to coerce it to give up nuclear weapons, U.S. officials said.

The president recognizes that were running out of time (to deal with North Korea) and will ask all nations to do more, White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters at a briefing in Washington.

McMaster said Trump, who has approved a variety of sanctions against North Korea while pressing China to do more, was at the beginning of his drive for Pyongyang to give up nuclear weapons. Trump has warned he would totally destroy North Korea if it threatened the United States.

I think we have to be a little patient here for at least a few months to see what more we and others can do, including China, said McMaster. I dont think we need to reassess our strategy now. I think we have to give it a couple of months, a few months, and then see what adjustments we might need to make.

SHOW OF FORCE

While North Korea has not launched any missiles since Sept. 15, the longest such lull this year, a flurry of activity has been detected at its missile research facilities in Pyongyang, pointing to another possible launch, South Koreas spy agency told lawmakers on Thursday.

Seoul held a National Security Council meeting on Friday to discuss possible unilateral sanctions against Pyongyang, and may announce the measures ahead of Trumps arrival in South Korea, a presidential official said.

The United States has wanted the South Korean government to take further steps to sanction the North. Unilateral sanctions by South Korea wouldnt have much practical impact but have a symbolic importance, the official said.

Ahead of Trumps visit to Asia, the drills involving the U.S. bombers marked the latest show of force by the United States and its allies.

The planes flew over the Pilsung Range training area in central South Korea, Air Force spokeswoman Captain Victoria Hight said.

Japanese and South Korean fighter jets carried out sequenced missions with the U.S. bombers but no ordnance was dropped, the Air Force said.

The drill was staged at a time when three U.S. aircraft carrier groups are in the Asia-Pacific, the first time such a potent projection of force has been together in the region in a decade.

U.S. officials said earlier this week a decision may be made for the three carriers to carry out a joint exercise to coincide with Trumps trip.

KCNA said the combination of the bomber drills with the presence of the carrier groups underscored the gravity of the situation.

The U.S. imperialists are making last-ditch efforts to check the dynamic advance of the DPRK by deploying their nuclear strategic assets in succession, but its army and people are never frightened at such moves, KCNA reported, referring to North Korea by the initials for its official name.

The U.S. imperialist warmongers should not act rashly.
A poem for a poem.

French President Emmanuel Macron responded in verse to Sophie, a British teenager who had written a poem on the Eiffel Tower during a family trip to France in April.

The French Embassy in UK tweeted on Wednesday that Macron wrote the poem for the British school girl on her 13th birthday. It imagines a conversation between the Eiffel Tower and the girl, opening with: On a trip to Paris one day, little Sophie met a great lady lighting up the night sky.

Sophie, impressed by the iconic tower had sent her poem superimposed on a hand-drawn sketch to the French presidential palace Elysee. Describing one of the most popular tourist sites across the world, she wrote in Centre of Attention that the Eiffel Tower was elegant and tall and pretty as a picture, second to none.

Happy birthday to Sophie who is 13 today. She wrote a #poem to @emmanuelmacron about @LaTourEiffel... and he wrote her one in return! pic.twitter.com/etESO8oVeK  French Embassy UK (@FranceintheUK) November 1, 2017

According to BBC, Macrons poem was in French but it was translated by the embassy in London, explaining why the English verse was less lyrical than the original.

Sophies poem:

Centre of Attention

She has four beautiful legs,

Which help her stand proud,

She looks over everyone,

With her heads in the clouds,

She is elegant and tall,

Wears a pretty, lacy skirt,

Whilst staring at her in awe,

Your eyes will not avert,

Her spine is amazingly straight,

Whilst her head touches the sky,

People look up and take pictures of her,

As they are passing on by,

You need to tilt your head up,

To be able to see all of her,

But when you do,

She is as pretty as a picture,

She is the centre of attention,

Noticed by everyone,

She is the Eiffel Tower,

She is second to none

When hes not a poet, the French President is an amateur pianist who was described by French newspaper Le Monde as the Mozart of the Elysee when Macron was the economy minister in 2014, NPR reported. Wolfgang Mozart was an Austrian composer and pianist whose work through his lifetime had a profound impact on classical music.

The new 'lighthouse' beams at the top of the Eiffel Tower that lights up the night sky. (AFP Photo)

Macrons poem:

On a trip to Paris one day, little Sophie

Met a giant lady lighting up the night sky.

Whats your name, you magical monster?

My many visitors call me the Eiffel Tower.

In all your attire, dont you sometime tire

Of being seen only as a humdrum tower?

You, a dragon, a fairy watching over Paris,

An Olympic torch held aloft in grey skies?

How you flatter me! So few poets these days

Ever sing the praises of my Parisian soul,

As did Cocteau, Aragon, Cendrars,

Trenet and ApollinaireSince youre so good

At seeing beneath the surface, you could-

If you like, when youre back from France-

Take up your pen and write down

Why you like me-it would be nice and fun!

You can count on me! Theres so much to say!

Ill write twenty linesbut who will read them?

Well, I know a man wholl read your verse.

Really? Who?

The President of France.
Linn County Sheriff Bruce Riley has requested the resources of the Oregon State Police Crime Lab to determine the cause of death of the unidentified male found Monday in an embankment along Bryant Drive, just south of Bryant Park.

Albany Fire Department personnel responded after an individual flagged them down Monday afternoon and told them about the body. Linn County Sheriff's Office deputies and detectives responded to the area.

Riley said the body had been on the ground for "more than a few days" before it was found, making efforts to identify the victim more difficult. He said investigators are looking through fingerprints, DNA evidence, and even dental records to try and identify the victim, while at the same time trying to explain how he died.
News, events, history, and other mid-week tidbits.

Tuesday, October 25, 4:30  7 p.m.

Orr Area EMS Open House

Brats and burgers will be served. Event includes a new ambulance tour and blood pressure screenings. For more info: 218-780-3798.

Orr Fire Hall

4540 Lake St., Orr

Tuesday, October 25, 12  6 p.m.

Essentia Health Job Fair

Talent recruiters and department managers will be on-site at Essentia Health-Virginia. Candidates from all backgrounds are encouraged to attendnurses, nursing and clinical assistants, surgery technicians, radiology technicians, respiratory therapists, human resource professionals, and those interested in environmental services or nutrition services. Essentia staff will greet candidates, conduct an initial screening and filter them to appropriate hiring managers for interviews. Select candidates will be verbally offered a position before leaving. Candidates are asked to bring a resume, but its not required. Attire is business casual. For more info: www.essentiacareers.org.

901 9th St. N., Virginia
Two people were killed Thursday afternoon in a two-vehicle head-on collision on Highway 20 in Santiam Pass, according to the Oregon State Police.

The highway was closed for about three hours during the crash investigation.

The crash happened at 1:15 near milepost 81, just east of the Santiam Summit. An investigation revealed a 2003 Ford Van was traveling eastbound on Highway 20 when it crossed the double centerline and struck an westbound 2010 Subaru Legacy head-on. Both drivers were pronounced deceased at the scene. There were no passengers in the vehicles.
Oil closed at its highest in more than two years for a second day as support grew for OPEC to prolong output cuts, while supply threats abounded.

Futures jumped 2 percent in New York, closing above $55 a barrel for the first time since July 2015. While Nigerian militants and Venezuelas debt woes imperil crude output from two of the worlds chief suppliers, the overarching bullish factor remained the increasing prospects for an extension of the OPEC-led curbs to be decided as early as this month. In the U.S., oil rigs declined by the most in more than a year, and WTI surpassing Thursdays intraday high also provided upward momentum later in the session.

OPEC has indicated they are looking to extend the agreement through the end of 2018, Andrew Lebow, senior partner at Commodity Research Group, said by telephone. Weve made a new high and the fundamentals have finally improved.

Oil has surged on signs that global inventories are shrinking and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allied producers may stick to their glut-killing accord beyond its March expiration. Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait -- which together pump more than 50 percent of OPECs crude -- signaled firm support for an extension that would forestall a re-emergence of the glut next year.

OPEC chatter also sounds like both the Saudis and Kuwait are both game for extending the deal sooner rather than later, Bob Yawger, director of the futures division at Mizuho Securities USA Inc. in New York, said by telephone.

West Texas Intermediate for December delivery advanced $1.10 to settle at $55.64 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and climbed for a fourth week. Total volume traded was about 13 percent below the 100-day average. Prices rose as high as $54.84 a barrel on Thursday intraday.

Brent for January settlement added $1.45 to end the session at $62.07 on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The global benchmark traded at a premium of $6.21 to January WTI.

The U.S. oil rig count fell by eight rigs to 729, according to Baker Hughes data Friday. Thats the lowest level since May.

A group of the Nigerian militants who inflicted devastating attacks on oil installations last year pledged to resume their campaign in Africas second-largest crude producer. In Venezuela, home to the worlds largest tranche of reserves, President Nicolas Maduro announced plans to refinance or restructure sovereign debt, a destabilizing move that may impede the state-controlled oil producers ability to do business.

--With assistance from Ben Sharples and Angelina Rascouet

To contact the reporter on this story: Jessica Summers in New York at jsummers24@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net, Carlos Caminada, Steven Frank

2017 Bloomberg L.P.
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Houston will see more two-story grocery stores inside Loop 610 as the rising cost of land forces developers to build vertically.

Grocers are finding it harder to find large tracts of land to build traditional, suburban-style stores closer in town, Jason Gaines, a retail broker with NAI Partners, said in a recent breakfast presentation.

"Retailers are building multilevel, not because they're trying to project a certain image but because they have to," Gaines said. "It's more expensive, with more X factors. It takes little more daring."

Phoenicia Specialty Foods opened a two-story grocery store inside a downtown apartment tower in 2009, and H-E-B and Whole Foods Market are expanding the double-decker concept in Houston, Gaines said.

In 2014, Whole Foods opened its first multilevel location in Houston: a 55,000-square-foot store off Post Oak in Uptown. Shoppers use a "travelator" - a traveling escalator with magnetic strips for carts - to get from the below-ground parking garage to the ground-floor store. Inside, shoppers can eat grab-and-go food at an mezzanine lounge.

H-E-B began building multilevel grocery stores in Mexico and San Antonio several years ago, and is now bringing that concept to Houston. The San Antonio-based grocer is building a wave of two-story, standalone sites inside the Loop as it expands its urban footprint.

More Information Mixed-use groceries Grocers are partnering with other developers to incorporate stores into mixed-use projects. Two local grocery-anchored projects are expected to open in spring 2019: H-E-B and Houston-based Midway worked together to develop a 96,000-square-foot store within Buffalo Heights. The mixed-use project, located at Washington and Heights, will also feature 232 luxury apartment units, 37,000 square feet of office space and 2,000 square feet of shops. Whole Foods Market, the Austin-based grocer acquired by Amazon earlier this year, has teamed up with Houston-based Morgan Group to bring a grocery store to a Pearl-branded luxury apartment project in Midtown with 260 Class A apartment units above a 96,000-square-foot Whole Foods. See More Collapse

H-E-B typically builds on 10- to 15-acre tracts in the suburbs. The company's smaller "pantry" stores can go on sites as small as 7 acres.

With a two-story concept, H-E-B can build on even smaller 4-acre sites, allowing the grocer to enter upscale, urban neighborhoods where land is more expensive and harder to come by.

"It's a way for us to get into a market that may not have the square footage we typically need for our store and parking," said Armando Perez, senior vice president with H-E-B Houston. "It does open up the potential to serve a more dense core of the city."

H-E-B's first two-story store in Houston will open in Bellaire. The grocer is redeveloping an older "pantry" store at Bissonnet and Rice into a double-decker with 225 parking spots on the ground floor and a 70,000-square-foot store with 70 parking spots on the second floor. Shoppers use escalators and elevators to go between the two floors.

H-E-B also broke ground in October on a two-story project in the Heights, a 92,000-square-foot store at Shepherd and 23rd Street. Two-story H-E-Bs are rumored for other sites being considered in Upper Kirby and Meyerland.

Scott McClelland, H-E-B's Houston president, said he and other executives traveled to Mexico and Florida to study the way grocers like Florida-based Publix operate two-story stores. They used stopwatches to time how long it took shoppers taking elevators, escalators and travelators to get into the store. The elevator and escalator proved fastest, taking an average of 22 seconds and 25 seconds respectively.

"We put a lot of time and effort into making access into our stores as easy as possible," McClelland said.

Another side benefit of having a two-story garage: Cars will stay cool and dry during Houston's hot and wet summers, Perez said.

Two-story stores allow grocers to offer a different shopping experience than traditional one-story stores, said Kelli Hollinger, director of Texas A&M's center for retailing studies.

Grocers can program their second floors as gathering spaces, like a coffee bar, or a place for more shelf-stable foods like cheese, cured meats, spices and oils, Hollinger said.

"Grocers will certainly make that second floor more of a destination," Hollinger said. "They're going to envision something lively and engaging. It won't be an afterthought."

Unlike a suburban grocery store, where large families stock up for the week, urban groceries will likely target single professionals or couples who can shop more frequently, Hollinger added.

Multilevel grocery stores may be spreading in Houston, but retail broker Gaines said they will likely remain an exception. Many national grocers, like Cincinnati-based Kroger, will most likely stick with the tried-and-true suburban model, he said.

For innovative grocers, however, multilevel stores are here to stay, he said.

"H-E-B is going to be doing this for the foreseeable future," Gaines said.
Downtown officials Friday will release an ambitious vision for the heart of the city, a plan they say builds on the dramatic growth of recent years while considering the technological advances and cultural shifts facing modern metropolises.

The 20-year plan imagines downtown with four times as many residents, thousands more hotel rooms and more collaborative offices to attract millennials, small businesses and startups.

The most ambitious piece of the plan is the "Green Loop," a five-mile transportation and recreation circuit connecting neighborhoods along the edges of downtown. It would be built in conjunction with the Texas Department of Transportation's highway realignment project.

The plan will be formally presented at the annual meeting of Central Houston Inc., which developed the 88-page "Plan Downtown" report along with several other downtown and area organizations.

"It was a fairly massive effort," Central Houston President Bob Eury said. "We had pretty broad community engagement on it."

Officials from the city, Harris County, Houston First Corp. and management districts from adjacent neighborhoods provided input, as did downtown residents who provided feedback via Twitter and in public meetings.

The last time Central Houston embarked on such a sweeping plan was in 2004, when it released a similar study on the future of downtown that included the announcement of Discovery Green.

The report offers a series of 10 long-term strategies and 144 specific recommendations for the city center over the next 20 years.

Some of the recommendations are already underway. But others, Eury acknowledged, "quite frankly, we've got a ways to go to achieve them."

The plan puts forth ideas to improve downtown's business climate while addressing changes in the dominant energy industry.

It proposes a "Downtown Innovation District" and a 20 percent increase in the workforce.

Housing options would be expanded with the addition of 12,000 new residential units to support an urban population of 30,000 over the next two decades, up from about 7,500 today. Elementary and middle schools would attract more families. Developers would build larger units to house them.

"When you start getting up in that range, it really helps change the environment so much in what happens with street life seven days a week. We can already see change now," Eury said, referring to new downtown residential towers that resulted from a financial incentive program.

The so-called Downtown Living Initiative offered developers tax rebates to build housing. The program was successful in terms of the amount of interest it created, but it was criticized because most of the units built were for relatively affluent Houstonians.

Eury said housing affordability was part of the discussions in the new plan, but challenges persist.

"Unless we can find public land so you can basically write off the land costs, it's extremely challenging to build affordable high-density housing without a continuous subsidy," Eury said.

The report identifies downtown's adjacent neighborhoods as opportunities for more affordably priced housing.

TxDOT's North Houston Highway Improvement Project provides a rare opportunity to rethink the edges around downtown, the report states.

The 24-mile, $7 billion, decade-long infrastructure project includes rebuilding the three highways encircling downtown and realigning Interstate 45 to the north and east.

The project would be used to create a "Green Loop of civic places and amenities."

"It's an extremely high-profile piece of it," Eury said. "Rarely do you have projects of that significance happening in a city."

The plan was nearly complete when Hurricane Harvey hit Houston.

Eury said resiliency is a recurring thread.

"We're saying as you carry out the recommendations, resiliency should be one of factors when you do that," he said.

Very little of downtown is in the floodplain, Eury said, but there are opportunities to create additional detention.

The roughly $1 million Plan Downtown was funded by the Houston Downtown Management District; Houston First, the city's convention arm; and the Downtown Redevelopment Authority.

The process was guided by a 19-member leadership group and a 166-member steering committee.
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SUNDAY

C. Morgan Babst: Author will discuss and sign "The Floating World," 5 p.m., Brazos Bookstore, 2421 Bissonnet; 713-523-0701 or brazosbookstore.com.

MONDAY

Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor: Authors will discuss and sign "It Devours! A Welcome to Night Vale Novel," 6:30 p.m., Murder By The Book, 2342 Bissonnet; 713-524-8597 or murderbooks.com.

Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush: Authors, the twin daughters of President George W. Bush, will discuss "Sisters First: Stories From Our Wild and Wonderful Life," 7 p.m., St. Martin's Episcopal Church; 717 Sage. Event is sold out.

Jennifer Egan and Claire Messud: Egan will discuss and sign "Manhattan Beach" and Messud will discuss and sign "The Burning Girl" as part of Inprint's Margarett Root Brown Reading Series, 7:30 p.m., Stude Concert Hall, Rice University, 6100 Main. Tickets $5; purchase online at inprinthouston.org.

Anthony Romero: Author, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union and author of "In Defense of Our America: The Fight for Civil Liberties in the Age of Terror," will speak at the Progressive Forum, 7:30 p.m., Congregation Emanu El, 1500 Sunset. Tickets start at $70; progressiveforumhouston.org.

TUESDAY

Leigh Fought: Author will discuss and sign "Women in the World of Frederick Douglass," 2 p.m., Houston Community College, 1010 W. Sam Houston Parkway N.; 713-718-5700.

Samuel Axelrad: Author and Vietnam veteran will discuss and sign "Peaceful Bones," 4:30 p.m., Harris County Public Library Fairbanks Branch, 7122 N. Gessner; 713-466-4438.

Eryk Pruitt: Author will discuss and sign "What We Reckon," 6:30 p.m., Murder By The Book.

Mary Lindsey: Author will discuss and sign "Haven," 7 p.m., Brazos Bookstore.

WEDNESDAY

Beauty for Freedom: New York nonprofit presents "Illuminate," a collection of photos created by young survivors of human trafficking in Kolkata, 6-8 p.m., River Oaks Bookstore, 3270 Westheimer; 713 520-0061 or riveroaksbookstore.com.

Deb Perelman: Author will sign "Smitten Kitchen Every Day: Triumphant and Unfussy New Favorites," 7 p.m., Blue Willow Bookshop, 14532 Memorial; 281-497-8675 or bluewillowbookshop.com.

Justin Spring: Author will discuss and sign "The Gourmand's Way," 7 p.m., Brazos Bookstore.

Chitra Divakaruni: Author will discuss "Before We Visit the Goddess," in conversation with Chronicle editor Lisa Gray. Light bites and book signing afterward. 7 p.m., Houston Chronicle, 4747 Southwest Freeway. RSVP at houstonlibrary.org/hplq.

Naomi Shihab Nye: Poet will read and discuss her work as part of the series The Slant, 7 p.m., St. Mark's Episcopal Church, 3816 Bellaire Blvd. 713-664-3466 or stmarks-houston.org/arts.

THURSDAY

Connie Parks: Author will sign "The Secret Place," 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday; Kroger, 11565 Texas 6 S., Sugar Land; 281-340-1500.

Helen A. Grant: Author will sign "The Earl of Ice" and "In Pursuit of Mariam," 3 p.m., Kroger, 20168 Eva, Montgomery; 936-256-7220; and 10 a.m.- 3 p.m. Saturday, Kroger, 223 Interstate 45 S., Huntsville; 936-999-7000.

BJ Elliott Prior: Author will sign "Behind My Wings: Untold Stories of Vietnam Vets," 4-6 p.m., River Oaks Bookstore.

David Abrams: Author will discuss and sign "Brave Deeds," 7 p.m., Brazos Bookstore.

Jennifer Ackerman: Author of "The Genius of Birds" speaks at a Houston Audubon event, 7:30 p.m., MATCH Houston, 3400 Main. Admission is free, but reservations are required: houstonaudubon.org.

Naomi Shihab Nye: Poet will read her work in response to the exhibit of Mona Hatoum's sculpture, "Terra Infirma," 7 p.m., Menil Collection, 1533 Sul Ross; 713-525-9400 or menil.org.

FRIDAY

Andrew Fairchild: Author will sign "Have You Seen My Egg?" and other titles, noon-4 p.m. Friday and Sunday, Kroger, 1905 El Mar, Spring; 281-474-4001.

Deborah K. Frontiera and Mary Wright: Frontiera will sign "To Build a Tunnel" and other titles and Wright will sign "Stranded: Stormy's Adventure" and other titles, 3-7 p.m. and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Kroger, 6200 Texas 6, Missouri City; 281-208-1737.

Larry Powalisz: Author will sign "Circle of Terror," 3-7 p.m., Kroger, 24350 Kuykendahl, Tomball; 281-205-0532.

Paul Tastad: Author will sign "A Belly Full of Laughs" and "More Belly Full of Laughs," 3-7 p.m. and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Kroger, 4747 Research Forest, The Woodlands; 281-367-1591.

Michael Tarvin: Author will sign "Light in the Midst of Darkness," 5 p.m., Barnes & Noble, 1029 W. Bay Area Blvd., Webster; 281-554-8224.

Kate Winkler Dawson: Author will discuss and sign "Death in the Air: The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City," 6:30 p.m., Murder By The Book.

Frank Billingsley: Author and KPRC-Channel 2 weatherman will discuss and sign "Swabbed and Found" at an Adoptive Families of Houston event, 6:30 p.m., St. John the Divine Episcopal Church, 2450 River Oaks Blvd. Light dinner. Admission $10, free for Adoptive Families of Houston members. adoptivefamiliesofhouston.org.

Jared Yates Sexton: Author will discuss and sign "The People Are Going to Rise Like Waters Upon Your Shore," 7 p.m., Brazos Bookstore.

SATURDAY

Stacy Holden: Author will sign "People of Memorial Park," 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Kroger, 1938 W. Gray; 713-521-1909.

Karen Pepkin: Author will sign "Senior Wonders," 1352 W. 43rd; 713-681-0901.

Samuel Axelrad: Author and Vietnam veteran will sign "Peaceful Bones," 1-3 p.m., Barnes & Noble, 2030 W. Gray; 713-522-8571.

Alexander McCall Smith: Author will sign "The House of Unexpected Sisters," 2 p.m., Murder By The Book. Afterward, Smith will read and discuss the book, 7 p.m., Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church, 6221 Main. Tickets to the reading, $25.95 each, include a copy of "The House of Unexpected Sisters"; purchase online at brazosbookstore.com.

Joy Jones and Jim Nelson: Authors will sign "Billy Love," 2-4 p.m., Galveston Bookshop, 317 23rd St., Galveston; 409-750-8200 or galvestonbookshop.com.

Mary Lindsey: Author will disuss and sign "Haven," 3 p.m., Blue Willow Bookshop.

Jeffery Tracey Sr.: Author will sign "A Family Reunited," 3-5 p.m., Kroger, 250 S. FM 270, League City; 281-332-1422.

Tim Ewell: Author will sign "Triumph: Living Inside and Out," 4-6 p.m., River Oaks Bookstore.

Alyson Ward
SAN FRANCISCO - President Trump boasted Friday of his social media influence after his personal Twitter account was briefly deactivated by a departing company employee, raising serious questions about the security of tweets the president wields to set major policy agendas, connect with his voter base and lash out at his adversaries.

The deactivation Thursday sparked deep and troubling questions about who has access to the president's personal account, @realDonaldTrump, and the power that access holds. The deactivation also came at a time when the social network is under scrutiny for the role it played in spreading Russian propaganda during the 2016 presidential election.

Trump's account disappeared at around 6:45 p.m. ET Thursday, when visitors to the page were met with the message, "Sorry, that page doesn't exist!"

By 7 p.m., it was back, and the Twittersphere began joking about the short-lived window of history without @realDonaldTrump.

Then, at 8:05 p.m., at the same time Trump was tweeting about tax revisions, the company posted a statement saying the president's "account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee."

"The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored," the statement read. "We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again."

But two hours later, the company admitted that the deactivation wasn't an accident at all: A preliminary investigation revealed that the account was taken offline "by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee's last day." Twitter said it was conducting a full internal review.

Early Friday, Trump blamed a "rogue employee" for pulling the plug.

Trump tweeted: "My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee. I guess the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact."

Emily Horne, a Twitter spokeswoman, declined to comment further on Friday, saying: "We won't have anything to share beyond the Tweets we put out last night."

The company has suspended other high-profile accounts in the past for violating its terms and conditions. But there has not been a case where an employee has acted to take down the account of a well-known person seemingly on their own.

A spokeswoman from Twitter said no new information about the investigation would be released Thursday night. It was still unclear who the employee was, how that employee got access to the president's account and whether any security breaches led to the subsequent deactivation.

"A lot" of employees at Twitter can suspend a user's account, a former employee of the company told BuzzFeed. But far fewer - only hundreds - have the power to deactivate one. There was some discussion at the company about special protections on verified or high-profile accounts, but that extra measures were "never implemented," the unnamed source said.

On Twitter, some people made light of the deactivation, while others wondered about the potential consequences of employees who have access to an important megaphone used by the president of the United States.

Ted Lieu tweeted: "Dear Twitter employee who shut down Trump's Twitter: You made America feel better for 11 minutes. DM me & I will buy you a Pizza Hut pizza."

Blake Hounshell tweeted: "Seriously, what if this person had tweeted about a fictional nuclear strike on North Korea?"

Trump has used the account since March 2009. He has tweeted more than 36,000 times and has 41.7 million followers. His use of the social media platform is no trivial matter.

The National Archives has advised the Trump administration to preserve all tweets as presidential records, and a professor at the U.S. Naval War College is worried U.S. enemies could be using Trump's tweets to build a psychological profile of the president.

Recent @realDonaldTrump tweets about North Korea heightened tensions between the two countries, with Trump threatening that "they won't be around much longer!" and that "only one thing will work!" In the past, officials in Pyongyang have responded to Trump's tweets as declarations of war.

In September, Twitter defended its decision not to remove a controversial Trump tweet that some interpreted as a threat directed toward North Korea.

Twitter's rules prohibit violent threats, some users pointed out, arguing that the Trump tweet fell into that category.

Twitter said it would not remove the tweet or suspend Trump's account, explaining that the company takes a number of factors into consideration when faced with controversial user-generated content, including its "newsworthiness" and whether it has "public interest."

Twitter added that it stands by its commitment to "keeping people informed about what's happening in the world."

It was Twitter's clearest explanation for its stance toward Trump, despite repeated calls from some users for the president's account to be banned.

Earlier this year, Kal Penn, the actor and former aide to President Barack Obama, urged Twitter to take stronger measures after Trump warned North Korea that the U.S. military was "locked and loaded." On another occasion, Trump tweeted a video of himself beating somebody up outside a wrestling ring, with the victim's face obscured by CNN's logo - giving the impression that Trump was physically assaulting the news network.

Trump recognizes the power of the social platform.

"Let me tell you about Twitter," he said in an interview with Tucker Carlson in March. "I think maybe I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Twitter."

A tool once used by a campaigning candidate to disparage his opponents and rally his supporters is now Trump's favorite online means of promoting his presidential agenda.

"Twitter is a wonderful thing for me because I can get the word out," he told Carlson.

On the campaign trail, Trump once described his rapidly growing Twitter following not only as a means to get the truth out, but also as a way to get even with his enemies.

"Someone said I'm the Ernest Hemingway of 140 characters," he told a crowd in South Carolina, air-typing into a pretend phone. "If someone says something badly about you: Bing, bing, bing! I say something really bad."

As president, Trump has continued to use Twitter as a weapon: He repeated his "bing, bing, bing" explanation in a recent interview with Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business Network, and explained why he finds it such an appealing outlet.

"You have to keep people interested also," he said. "You know, you have to keep people interested."

Bartiromo asked Trump if some of his unscripted tweets get in the way of the larger message his administration is trying to sell.

Trump acknowledged that he has friends who tell him not to use social media. But, he said, it's a very useful tool to counter "fake news" and respond to critics.

"I can express my views when somebody expresses maybe a false view that they said I gave," he said.

Trump - whose tweets sometimes contain spelling errors and randomly capitalized words - also relayed that he thinks he is well-suited for the medium.

"You know they are well-crafted," he said of his tweets. "I was always a good student. I am like a person that does well with that kind of thing. And I doubt I would be here if weren't for social media, to be honest with you. Because there is a fake media out there, I get treated very unfairly by the media."

The deactivation controversy comes at a time when Twitter and other technology companies are under greater scrutiny for the way they can be abused.

Earlier this week, lawyers from Twitter, Facebook and Google testified on Capitol Hill as part of the investigation into Russian attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election. In public statements, Twitter acknowledged that it had identified 2,752 accounts controlled by Russian operatives, as well as more than 36,000 bots that issued 1.4 million tweets during the election.

On Thursday, Trump used his account to congratulate the Houston Astros for winning the World Series, call on Congress to "TERMINATE" the diversity visa lottery program and announce the nomination of Jerome Powell as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Trump was back tweeting at 8:05 p.m., praising the day's "Great Tax Cut rollout" before taking aim at some of his adversaries.

Before daybreak Friday, he was back at it, launching a tweetstorm about Hillary Clinton, the Democrats and the Justice Department.

Trump tweeted: "Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn't looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems..

"...New Donna B book says she paid for and stole the Dem Primary. What about the deleted E-mails, Uranium, Podesta, the Server, plus, plus...

"....People are angry. At some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper. The American public deserves it!"

---

Siegel and du Lac reported from Washington. The Washington Post's John Wagner, Avi Selk, Brian Fung and Brian Murphy contributed to this report.
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He stashed it in tote bags, spent it on properties and made nightly deposits but the cash from drug sales kept piling up at Muhammad Shariq Siddiqi's home in Sugar Land, federal investigators said.

There was so much money police were summoned to his son's school because the boy was handing out $20 and $100 bills to classmates.

Siddiqi, 48, and the father of seven, owned three gas stations, two smoke shops, multiple cars and had purchased six new properties worth $3 million in a two-year span. The Pakistani native and his mistress oversaw a team of workers who produced the products in cement mixers at a farm near Huntsville, according to court testimony.

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When federal drug agents searched his house, they found $700,000 in cash and checks, an amount his wife commented was low for a daily haul.

The lavish, jet-setting lifestyle came to a halt in April 2016 when Siddiqi was arrested along with a University of Houston-Victoria professor and more than a dozen others in a massive sting on synthetic cannabinoid operators in the Houston area. The raid by federal agents targeted several independent players believed to manufacturing, distributing or aiding in transactions related to the smokable street drug known as K2 or kush--a leafy substance that's soaked in a chemical mixture that mimics the effect of marijuana.

On Thursday, Siddiqi's situation had drastically altered, as he stood before a federal judge in shackles and an orange jail uniform.

Raising a cuffed right hand, the former business man swore to U.S. District Judge Gray H. Miller he would tell the truth about allegations he supplied $14 million of kush to retail stores in Houston. As part of a deal with federal prosecutors, Siddiqi pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess multiple formulations of synthetic cannabinoids. He also agreed to cooperate with the government and not to appeal his conviction or contest forfeiture of seized assets.

If he abides by the deal, prosecutors will presumably dismiss five other charges at his sentencing set for May 24.

Siddiqi's wife watched the plea from the courtroom gallery, seated with her sister and the couple's grown daughter.

"It's just completely overwhelming," said Sarah Siddiqi, who is struggling, without a lawyer of her own, to figure out how to retain the family's home.

Siddiqi's lawyer, Kent Schaffer, said afterward that the plea deal came after a sober review of the government's evidence, including 800 pounds of the raw chemical seized that experts said could be stretched exponentially to manufacture massive amounts of the smokable drug.

"We just thought in light of the amount of evidence the government had, the smartest course was to cut his losses," Schaffer said. "He feels bad about his involvement and the things he did and he understands there will be a punishment involved that will be a lot less significant than had he gone to trial and lost."

Siddiqi was among the first defendants from that massive takedown to plead guilty.

Seven other (codefendants) nabbed in the narcotics string have scheduled re-arraignment hearings in the coming weeks where they will have the opportunity to change their pleas to guilty.

The first to confess was Omar Maher Alnasser, a popular assistant professor of finance at UH-Victoria, who admitted in December to running an unlicensed business that wired more than $200,000 of drug proceeds to accounts in Jordan. Alnasser, 37, was sentenced to a year in federal custody. His attorney contended he knew nothing about the drug operation.

The others in the group face significantly steeper prison terms if convicted on the most serious charges.

Another defendant, Khalil Munier Khalil, 42, of Houston, also entered into a deal, pleading guilty Oct. 26 to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute the drug.

In recent years, synthetic drugs surfaced as a serious public health threat as emergency rooms across the country began seeing overdoses and some deaths.

Unlike marijuana, cocaine or heroin, synthetic cannabinoids do not get their effect from a plant. Batches are crafted in home labs, garages or storage units by combining ingredients ordered from overseas. A batch is often uneven in potency, so a single dose might be weak have or super potent "hot spots" where the leaves soaked up more of the chemical in the mixing process.

Detective Aaron Crowell, a narcotics investigator who has been tracking the upsurge of kush incidents for Baytown police department for several years, has seen it trigger nausea, seizures, increased body temperatures, heart palpitations, increased blood palpitations and a handful of deaths. Each batch is different.

"I equate smoking kush to playing Russian roulette," Crowell said. "You don't know what you're smoking and you don't know how your body's going to react to it. I've talked to users who have been smoking for years and they got one bad batch and it put them in the ICU."

Recent data from emergency responders indicates that kush was responsible for more than a third of overdoses, according to Dr. David Persse, the city's director of Emergency Medical Services. On a day-to-day level, the cases remain steady.

Ben Taub Hospital last year was seeing about four to five emergency admissions daily and an occasional death related to synthetic drugs, said Dr. Spencer Greene, an attending emergency physician and director of medical toxicology at Baylor College of Medicine.

Pursuing civil and criminal charges against vendors, manufacturers and distributors is a fairly new phenomenon. The chemicals the homemade drugmakers spray on the leaves keep changing and none of them have been illegal for long -- a point Siddiqi's lawyer touched on at a previous hearing.

But momentum is building to criminally prosecute kush suppliers, and seek civil court injunctions to halt vendors.

In September 2015, Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan teamed up with then-Sheriff Ron Hickman in stings and emergency injunctions at a series of smoke shops and sex novelty shops. The Katz Boutique chain ultimately reached a $1.1 million settlement and a Harris County District Court judge prohibited the nine Houston-area stores from selling synthetic drugs, including fake cannabis.

In April 2016, then-U.S. Attorney Ken Magidson announced that 16 defendants were facing charges in a massive bust on kush makers and distributors.

Several weeks later, 16 people were taken to Houston hospitals after overdosing on synthetic cannabinoids in a section of Hermann Park dubbed as "Kush Corner."

The following August, brothers Minh "Mike" and Tuan "Josh" Dang, who owned smoke shops, were arrested along with four clerks. Officials suspected the stores had supplied some of the drugs responsible for the June overdoses in Hermann Park. Criminal changes against the Dang brothers are pending in county district court.

The string of cannabinoid enterprises in South Texas targeted in the federal case had links to criminal conduct in California, Wisconsin and Virginia, and netted $35 million from sales of packages with like Mr. High, Climax, Bob Marley, Mardi Gras and California Dreams, according to investigators.

Siddiqi had set up an extended family operation, according to James Semrick, a special agent with the DEA, who testified at a hearing last year. He said Siddiqi ran a kush lab at a farm in Onalaska that he co-owned with his mistress, codefendant Ayisha Khurram. Federal agents intercepted a U-Haul van leaving that property loaded with 813 pounds of kush in plastic garbage bags. They found cement mixers and cans of acetone, used to mix the drug, inside a barn on the property, Semrick said.

Federal agents also found drug-making materials during a search of the Sugar Land home where he lived with his wife and seven children, Semrick said in testimony. In the master bedroom, officers found packages of a powder labeled "cosmetics" that was shipped from China and addressed directly to Mohammad Siddiqi at his residence. They also seized an overnight bag containing $279,876 and $459,573 in cashiers checks, which Siddiqi admitted at the time were the product of synthetic cannabinoid sales.

Siddiqi's wife told officers executing the search warrant the cash wasn't anything much.

"She said that was a low amount for the amount of money he generally brings in, and he pretty much runs the money counter every day," Semrick testified.

Siddiqi's daughter said he brought in cash bags daily and she made the deposits on his behalf in increments under $10,000 -- presumably to avoid notice by bank officials.

Her little brother, she told officers, had been taught to line up the president's face in the same direction when he loaded stacks into the money counter.

Siddiqi himself told investigators he didn't have any manufacturing equipment at his home but they could find at his girlfriend's house, according to testimony.

Khurram, who is accused of supervising the workers in Siddiqi's manufacturing business, owned four deluxe cars, two properties and a business the government says is linked to the drug manufacturing, according to testimony.

In Khurram's master bedroom closet, police found synthetic products from China addressed directly to the Sugar Land home she shared with her husband. According to testimony in a previous hearing, Khurram's husband made a furtive movement while police were executing a search warrant at their home and sustained a non-life-threatening gunshot wound.

A federal trial is set for Jan. 29 for Khurram, Salem Fahed Tannous, identified in testimony as another alleged major manufacturer and operating out of a Houston jewelry store, his brother Khader Fahed Tanous and two others. They all remain in federal detention.

Ziad Mahmoud Alsalameh, who investigators say is a major synthetic cannabinoid distributor linking many of the disparate manufacturers, remains a fugitive.
WASHINGTON - Standing before reporters in February, President Donald Trump said unequivocally that he knew of nobody from his campaign who was in contact with Russians during the election. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has told the Senate the same thing.

Court documents unsealed this week cast doubt on both statements and raised the possibility that Sessions could be called back to Congress for further questioning.

The special counsel, Robert Mueller, unsealed his first charges Monday in a wide-ranging investigation into Russian attempts to disrupt the presidential election and whether anyone close to Trump was involved. Records in that case show that George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser, had frequent discussions with Russians in 2016 and trumpeted his connections in front of Trump and Sessions.

Fateful March meeting

For months, journalists have revealed evidence that associates of Trump met with Russians during the campaign and the presidential transition. But the court documents represent the first concrete evidence that Trump was personally told about ties between a campaign adviser and Russian officials.

At a March 31, 2016, meeting between Trump and his foreign policy team, Papadopoulos introduced himself and said "that he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President Putin," according to court records.

"He went into the pitch right away," said J.D. Gordon, a campaign adviser who attended the meeting. "He said he had a friend in London, the Russian ambassador, who could help set up a meeting with Putin."

Trump listened with interest. Sessions vehemently opposed the idea, Gordon recalled. "And he said that no one should talk about it because it might leak," he said.

Several of Trump's campaign advisers attended the March 2016 meeting, and at least two of those advisers are now in the White House: Hope Hicks, the communications director, and Stephen Miller, a senior policy adviser.

President's denial

After Trump was sworn in, he could not escape questions about Russia. At a Feb. 16, 2017, news conference, a reporter asked Trump, "Can you say whether you are aware that anyone who advised your campaign had contacts with Russia during the course of the election?"

"No," Trump said. "Nobody that I know of. Nobody."

The White House has sought to portray Papadopoulos as an insignificant figure in the campaign.

Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer dealing with matters related to Mueller's investigation, said the White House stood behind the president's comments.

"The media's willingness to inflate Papadopoulos, a young unpaid volunteer and supposed energy expert, into an important thought leader in the campaign or Russian operative is ludicrous," Cobb said. "The evidence so far suggests he attended one meeting, said something about Russia and was immediately shut down by everyone in the room. It's very important to remember that he is not a criminal now because of anything he did for the campaign - he is a criminal because he initially lied to the FBI."

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

Democrats in the Senate said on Thursday that they would push to have Sessions return to the Judiciary Committee for further questioning.

"He now needs to come back before the committee, in person, under oath, to explain why he cannot seem to provide truthful, complete answers to these important and relevant questions," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., who is on the Judiciary Committee.
WASHINGTON  Texas Republican Kevin Brady, the point man for a sweeping GOP overhaul of the U.S. tax code, unveiled long-awaited tax cut legislation Thursday aimed at spurring jobs, the economy and his party's prospects in the 2018 elections.

The "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act"  cast as a once-in-a-generation rewrite of the nation's tax laws  was met with furious criticism from Democrats who denounced it as a giveaway to corporations and the wealthy at a time of increasing economic disparity and a growing national debt.

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The coming congressional battle could crystallize partisan differences on the economy leading up to the mid-term elections, even if much of the negotiation will be limited to Republicans who make up the majorities in both the House and the Senate.

The rollout  delayed a day to accommodate last-minute differences among Republican lawmakers  mirrored a blueprint that Brady, as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, has been preparing for more than a year.

It calls for lower individual and corporate tax rates and the elimination of most itemized deductions, including, most controversially, deductions for state and local income and sales taxes.

Deductions for local property taxes, a major tax saving for many Texans, would be capped at $10,000, a partial concession to Republican lawmakers from high-tax states who balked at an earlier proposal to eliminate the property tax deduction altogether.

In another concession, Brady's plan would preserve the home mortgage interest deduction for existing loans, a popular write-off backed strenuously by realtors and home builders. But the deduction would be capped for newly purchased homes up to $500,000.

Brady, an 11-term congressman from The Woodlands, also backed away from earlier proposals to dial back or change how Americans save for retirement in 401(k)s and Individual Retirement Accounts.

While Republicans sought to keep their focus on the modest savings to low- and middle-class Americans, Democrats aimed much of their fire at the expected outsized savings to high-income Americans and big business, which would see corporate tax rates drop from 35 percent to 20 percent.

Significantly, in an effort to live up to President Donald Trump's promise of stemming the flow of U.S. businesses and jobs overseas, the GOP plan would make it easier to repatriate foreign earnings and eliminate tax incentives for offshore investments.

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin, the ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, invoked Trump to argue that the GOP tax plan would do little to help the economy grow or help the middle class.

"Ultimately, what the American people really get from this tax plan is a huge bill for the debt incurred to pay for tax breaks that line the pockets of Donald Trump personally along with his billionaire buddies," Doggett said. "Like a Trump University degree, it is phony. The smiles and middle-class hype cover up a giant giveaway to special interests. Since most of the tax benefits go to giant corporations, this bill is a testament to the power of limousine lobbyists."

Democrats also were critical of provisions that would repeal the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax, changes that would help taxpayers on the upper-end of the income scale.

Republican tax writers, in an effort to blunt Democratic criticism, decided in the end to keep the current 39.6 percent tax rate for high-income Americans. But for most taxpayers, the current seven tax brackets would be compressed to three: 12 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent.

In exchange for a host of lost write-offs and deductions for those who itemize their tax returns, the plan would nearly double the standard deduction to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for married couples. Because of the simplified tax tables, Brady said, most Americans could file their returns on a document the size of a postcard.

Republicans said that for a typical family of four with a household income of $59,000, their plan would lessen the tax burden by nearly $1,200 a year. For a "main street" business earning $62,000, the savings would be more than $3,000.

"With this bill, there's real relief for American families," Brady said.

Brady, in an unaccustomed spotlight as the plan's top salesman, launched into a day of press conferences and multiple television appearances, starting with a closed-door PowerPoint presentation to fellow GOP lawmakers.

Challenged in the public rollout to spell out the differences between his plan and the tax cuts of former President George W. Bush, which failed to live up to growth projections, Brady cited his plan's soup-to-nuts redesign of the nation's entire tax structure.

"We are not just putting higher octane fuel in an old clunker of a tax car," said Brady, accompanied by House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republican leaders. "We propose to drive a new tax car that can compete against any country in the world."

But while Brady cast his tax cuts as "transformational," his bill represents just the opening bid in legislative slog that must go through the House and the Senate before it reaches the president's desk.

Trump issued a statement applauding the bill, but stopped short of supporting it in detail: "We are just getting started, and there is much work left to do," he said. "The special interests will distort the facts, the lobbyists will try to save their special deals, and some in the media will unfairly report on our efforts."

Republicans are hoping the enact a tax cut plan by the end of the year, an ambitious timetable given the complexity of a thousand-page-plus bill whose details have been largely under wraps until now.

Some business and conservative groups remained dissatisfied with the 11th-hour changes, while others cast as concessions to special interest groups protecting valued tax loopholes.

"Many of the concessions made in the proposal are the direct result of self-serving special interests groups like the National Association of Realtors and a small group of lawmakers placing parochial interests above the nation's interests," said Michael Needham, chief executive officer of the conservative group Heritage Action.

At the same time, Republican lawmakers from high-tax states like New Jersey, New York and California remained wary of the plan do drop the federal deduction for state and local taxes, a major write-off for taxpayers in those states.

The potential for Republican defections could prove problematic for party unity, which Brady will need in the House and the Senate, where the 52-member GOP majority plans to use special budget procedures to get around a Democratic filibuster.

But those procedures also require that the tax plan not add significantly to federal deficits over a 10-year budget window, necessitating a number of trade-offs such as curbing the mortgage interest and property tax deductions and eliminating the state and local income tax deduction.

Those trade-offs became a major sticking point in recent days as details leaked out and alarmed industry groups in the housing market.

Among those speaking out was Granger MacDonald, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders and a home builder and developer from Kerrville, Texas.

"The House Republican tax reform plan abandons middle-class taxpayers in favor of high-income Americans and wealthy corporations," he said in a statement. "The bill eviscerates existing housing tax benefits by drastically reducing the number of home owners who can take advantage of mortgage interest and property tax incentives."

But other business groups in Texas weighed in to support the GOP plan. In a letter Thursday to the state's congressional delegation, nearly 40 business associations and business owners called on immediate action on tax reform.

"Passing tax reform is imperative given the current state of the tax code, the heavy burden of the corporate tax rate, and the impact both have on the economy and job creation," they wrote.

Concerns about federal deficits are expected to fuel a continuing debate about whether the tax cuts for corporations should be made permanent. A budget resolution paving the way for the Republican tax cuts allows for increasing deficit spending by $1.5 trillion over the next decade. But Brady and other Republicans argue that the economic stimulus from business and personal tax cuts will all but pay for themselves, a proposition that economists have long debated.

Democrats also plan to litigate the GOP tax plan in the 2018 mid-term elections, particularly in potentially competitive districts such as the Seventh Congressional District in Houston, represented by Republican John Culberson.

Alex Triantaphyllis and Jason Westin, among a half-dozen Democrats running for the seat, called on Culberson to oppose the GOP tax plan, which they said would help the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.

But as Republicans still have several weeks under the current time-table to make substantial changes to the tax bill, immediate GOP defections seem unlikely.

Former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, a close Brady confidante who represented Texas in both houses of Congress, predicted that Republicans will unify around some form of tax reform.

"In the end, every Republican is going to vote for this bill," Gramm said. "Now, they may vote to change it, but whatever happens in the end, if you're a Republican office holder, unless you plan to leave Congress and go into the priesthood or something, you're going to vote for this bill."

Facing broad Democratic opposition and regional and policy differences among Republicans from different states, GOP leaders remained mindful during Thursday's tax plan unveiling of the stakes for Trump and their party.

"We are going to get this done," Ryan said. "Because this is what we told the American people we would do if we get the majority."
Russian trolls tried to touch off a dangerous confrontation in downtown Houston as part of a wider effort to sow discord in American politics.

In 2016, a rally that pitted people waving White Lives Matters signs across the street from the Islamic Da'wah Center against people with bullhorns denouncing them was all staged by Russian-back social media groups that were trying to incite unrest, according to new information released by Congress.

"What neither side could have known was that Russian trolls were encouraging both sides to battle in the streets and create division between real Americans," U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, said in citing the confrontation as a prime example of how Russians were trying to meddle in U.S. politics through social media platforms.

In the days before the May 21, 2016 rally, a Russian-linked group calling itself the Heart of Texas called on people in Houston to attend a rally to "Stop the Islamification of Texas." It included encouragement for people to bring firearms. At the same time, another Russian-linked group promoted a counter rally at the same location at the same time urging people to "Save Islamic Knowledge."

It almost worked.

About 10 people waving U.S., Confederate and Texas flags amassed on the street while about 60 people gathered on the other side of the street near the Islamic Da'wah Center.

"This is America. We have the right to speak out and protest," Ken Reed, who wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase "White Lives Matter," told the Houston Chronicle at that rally then. "We feel Texas, our great state and the United States is being threatened by the influx of Islam."

The event grew raucous at times but was mostly peaceful. Houston police made one arrest after one protester did not move out the way of a police vehicle.

Leaders of the Islamic Da'wah Center praised Houston police for maintaining the peace in what could have been a dangerous confrontation. Executive director Ameer Abuhalimeh said its unfortunate that the Russian-groups tried to target Houston and a place of spirituality and peace.

"The important thing is that we can learn from this," Abuhalimeh said. "People need to be vigilant and smart and not fall for these traps."

The fake site calling itself Heart of Texas group had been trying to develop a following using other ads as well. In one sponsored ad, they twist the Texas anti-litter campaign and declare "Don't Mess With TX Border Patrol" in a fake news feed that declares "Thanks to Obama's and Hillary's policy, illegals come here because they wait for amnesty promised."

In another, the group calls for Texans to "Get ready to secede!" before the election.

For months, talk of Russian-back ads have been alleged, but on Wednesday, the ads released by the members of Congress were the first clear examples of ads and the names of the accounts that were used to try to manipulate American voters in 2015 and 2016.

The ads were released on a day that both the U.S. House and the Senate held hearings to investigate how Facebook, Twitter and Google have been used by Russian operatives to try to influence politics in the United States.

"The public does need to know how your platforms operate," U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said during the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.

In a hearing in the House, Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch said the Russian ads showed a level of sophistication in understanding how social media could be used for their purposes.

"These people were not amateurs," Stretch said. "And I think (that) underscores the threat we're facing and why we are so focused on addressing it going forward."

U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, said the fake social media campaigns are "going to go down in history as the greatest covert action campaign in history of mother Russia." He said it is clear they were working to drive a wedge in American politics and create distrust between the public and the press and the government.

"What the Russians are doing is bigger than an election," Hurd, a former CIA undercover officer, said in an interview.

Hurd said the Russians are playing a long game to undermine democratic institutions and foment discord.

Burr had a similar message, warning that what is happening is more than about who won last year's elections.

"This is about the deliberative and multi-faceted manipulation of the American people by agents of a hostile foreign power," Burr said.

The social media companies have all pledge to improve security and crack down on the fake political ads, but particularly on those coming from people overseas.

"They should not have run on the site," Stretch said of the ads from Russian ad buyers.

Jeremy Wallace writes about state politics and government for the Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter at @JeremySWallace
A U-Haul truck traveling southbound on Interstate 5 went into the median and crashed into the cable barrier near Grand Prairie Road shortly before 2 p.m. on Thursday, according to the Oregon State Police.

The driver, Kevin Smith, 28, sustained minor injuries and was taken to Samaritan Albany General Hospital for observation. Smith is in the process of moving to California.

Smith's U-Haul truck came to rest near a creek.

Investigation is continuing into the case.

Traffic was slowed in both directions in the aftermath of the crash, and Albany and Tangent fire personnel were dispatched to the wreck.
WASHINGTON - Veteran San Antonio GOP Rep. Lamar Smith of San Antonio declared Thursday that he won't seek re-election after three decades in Congress, citing the loss of his Science Committee chairmanship due to term limits and lamenting to supporters the "humbling" routine of sleeping in a Washington apartment four nights a week.

Smith, 69, who rose high in the ranks to chair three House committees during a 30-year career, disclosed his intention to retire in a letter to supporters and said later he has no immediate favorite among Republicans who might seek their party's nomination.

Texas House Speaker Joe Straus's name was almost immediately raised as a potential successor, but supporters of the longtime legislator, who also unexpectedly announced he's not running for reelection, said it's not likely he will make a bid for the seat.

Smith called his announcement "a big decision, a tough decision, one I am relieved to have made in a way."

"Frankly, if I were able to continue as chairman of Science Committee, I would have not decided not to run for re-election," Smith said, referring to the GOP's self-imposed limit of three terms running a committee.

The departure was the second by a powerful Texas committee chair this week. Jeb Hensarling, 60, the Dallas Republican who fought against strict regulations on Wall Street as chairman of House Financial Services, said Tuesday he's calling it quits after this term.

Smith, whose fiercely political views belie unfailing optimism and courtesy, gained a national reputation as a leading skeptic of climate change and his been an unfailing loyalist to President Donald Trump.

Anemic fundraising in recent months offered a clue to his intentions. He was favored to win re-election in his 21st District which runs north from San Antonio and includes significant portions of Austin. The district has a 10 percent GOP advantage, according to the authoritative Cook Partisan Voting Index.

Smith declined to say if he has a favorite to replace him as the Republican nominee, adding that he isn't concerned if their viewpoints on climate and other matters diverge from his own.

"There are going to be a number of good candidates," he said. " I am sure nobody is going to agree with me on every issue; that's perfectly fine."

San Antonio GOP consultant Kelton Morgan said he believed the GOP nomination would be Straus's if he wants it. But a source close to the San Antonio Republican moderate cast doubt on whether he would be interested. Straus was not immediately available to comment.

"The two biggest hurdles are time and money," Morgan said. "You've probably got to raise a couple million dollars. How many people are there with the ability to come up with that much money in that short a time?"

Straus is leaving office with $10 million in unspent campaign funds, a portion of which could be transferred to a congressional campaign.

Smith announced his decision less than two weeks before the filing period opens for party primaries, scheduled for March 6.

Robert Stovall, chairman of the Bexar County Republican Party, is considering a contest and said he's been encouraged to do so amid speculation that Smith wouldn't run again.

"I am still county chairman and it's still my focus," said Stovall, who became party chair in 2012 and owns a floral business. "I want to weigh everything."

"I am a business guy and I love what Donald Trump is doing with the Republican party and I think that what is going to happen in the next few years is you are going to see a spur of economic growth we haven't see for sometime and it interests me a lot," Stovall added.

Five Democrats are already competing for the nomination, among them Austin tech entrepreneur and Iraq War veteran Joseph Kopser. Kopser's $200,000 fundraising receipts he reported last week surpassed Smith for for the second straight quarter.

Among the Democratic contestants, Derek Crowe, a former congressional staffer and business owner from Austin, called Smith's retirement good news for environmental advocates.

"Smith's retirement is a sign we're winning the fight to retake our government from the alt-right," Crowe said in a statement. "He obviously saw the power of the grassroots uprising against him and opted to leave before suffering a loss in the general election."

Speaking with reporters, Smith dismissed any notion that his departure is related to unrest among congressional Republicans or frustration with Trump.

He noted a desire to spend time with a grandchild and another on the way and said he had "absolutely no idea" of what he might do when he leaves office and has made no overtures about another career.

"I do know I'm not going to go to 100 percent retirement and I do know I plan to stay actively engaged in the politically arena in one form or the other," he said.

Smith will have chaired the Judiciary, Ethics and Science committees in a body that rewards seniority, albeit not as much since imposing chairmanship term limits in the 1990s. Throughout his career, he has been regarded in the GOP caucuses as among the most ardent conservatives.

He has used his Science Committee post to repeatedly cast doubt on scientific conclusions about the warming planet and to seek rollback of Environmental Protection Agency regulations. This week, he challenged the sources of a report by the Government Accountability Office about the economic threats from climate change and paid a visit to EPA headquarters to offer support for administrator Scott Pruitt.

He was an early Trump supporter an enthusiastic backer of the president's hardened immigration policies as well as the White House campaign to rein in the EPA.

"I think there's a lot right about the way the country is going and I think the president deserves a lot of that credit," Smith said, noting the stock market rise and other positive economic news.

Smith referred to his support of Congress's last balanced budget, in the 1990s, and his work on immigration reform in that decade as highlights of a career.

"I've been able to shape policy involving ethics, immigration, crime, intellectual property, space, energy, the environment, the budget and high tech," he said in his letter to supporters.

"I am grateful for the trust voters have placed in me, the friendship constituents have shown me, and the opportunities that serving in Congress have given me," he wrote.

Allie Morris contributed to this report.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the city set up a free clinic at the George R. Brown Convention Center to help care for Louisiana evacuees' medical needs. Some on the volunteer medical team were shocked and saddened when lifelong Houstonians showed up at the clinic requesting help. Apparently they had gone decades without medical care.

It's a sad fact that medical deserts exist in the shadow of the world's premier medical center. It's a tragedy that some neighborhoods in Houston have lower life expectancies and higher maternal morbidity rates due in part to this lack of access to care. And it's a disgrace that our current system tolerates these health disparities.

Now the University of Houston has a plan to help underserved communities get their medical needs met. Next month, the UH Board of Regents will consider the feasibility of a campus medical school. The goal isn't to train the next generation of aesthetic dermatologists or plastic surgeons. Rather, the new medical school would emphasize training primary care physicians who would work in community clinics.

Some regents' knee jerk reaction might be to ask why Texas needs another medical school. Houston already has two outstanding medical schools, and two new University of Texas medical schools have just come on line: Dell School of Medicine in Austin and Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine in the valley.

But the regents should give this feasibility study a close look. It describes a medical school that would aim to recruit the next generation of physician leaders. These new doctors - who would mirror the population that they will seek to serve - would get training in the more cost-effective, patient-centric and team-based style of medicine needed in community clinics.

Note to University of Texas: No need to jump in and try to mess this up.

"I'm hoping that it would complement what's happening in Houston, that it would not really compete," Chancellor Renu Khator told the editorial board.

Besides, the last time a medical school opened in Harris County was in the 1970s, when the population was around two million. Our population has exploded since then.

In fact, the entire state is in dire need of more front-line doctors.

Texas ranks 47th in the nation in active primary care physicians per 100,000 population according to a study from a physician consulting firm. Thirty-five Texas counties have no physician of any kind. Eighty Texas counties have five or fewer physicians.

Unlike most medical schools in Texas, UH would be able to locate its facility on its campus. This unusual proximity would present opportunities for collaboration in both teaching and research. It would draw upon the broad expertise at UH in not only health professional training in nursing, pharmacy, social work and optometry but also in engineering, law, business and others.

Several years ago, Khator announced a "bigger and bolder" path for UH that includes supporting the Third Ward neighborhood where the university is located. A first class of medical students entering in 2020 would be one more step in UH's bold vision to serve our community.
The rush for tax reform

Regarding "Tax reform not as easy as Republicans believe" (Page A21, Wednesday), my question is, why the urgency to implement tax cuts immediately? We are not in a recession and, therefore, don't need these tax cuts to stimulate growth. In fact, the stock market is at record highs, and unemployment, at 4.2 percent, is at a 16-year low. Similarly, federal income-tax rates are at historic lows.

Everybody knows that the government has an enormous debt now, so why decrease its revenues even more by cutting taxes? With tax cuts, where will the money come from to pay for new highways, new city roads, FEMA's aid to flood victims, terrorist reduction programs, clean air and water, Medicare and Social Security? The money for these programs has to come from somewhere.

One idea in the tax plan is to eliminate estate taxes. That sounds great, but the loss of trillions of dollars of revenue has to be found elsewhere. It baffled me when I saw supporters at one of the president's rallies cheering wildly when he said he was going to cut the estate or death taxes. In that crowd of 10,000, only about 20 of their children would end up paying the estate taxes. About 99.8 percent of those attendees would pay no estate taxes at all.

The purpose of taxation is to allow the government to make sure we all have clean air and water, uncontaminated food, roads without potholes, bridges that don't collapse when we drive on them, and social safety net government-run programs called Medicare and Social Security. How are these tax cuts going to help the majority of us?

Nancy Rilling, Houston
Imagine the Texas Legislature authorizing a vote for Texan Independence - a referendum on the Lone Star State once again becoming an independent republic. Imagine that Texans vote overwhelmingly for independence, and that state lawmakers then vote to secede, something that has not happened in the United States since 1861, the eve of our horrible Civil War.

A current U.S. President in similar circumstances most likely would send in the military and have members of the Texas Legislature arrested and imprisoned, thereby putting a quick end to Texan secession.

This is basically what is happening now in Catalonia, Spain. About 43 percent of Catalans - less than a majority - voted in an Oct. 1 referendum on independence. Of that number, 90 percent voted in favor.

In response, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy invoked Article 155 of the country's constitution, giving him the authority to "take all measures necessary" to end the region's bid for independence.

Toward that end, Rajoy suspended Catalonian self-rule, including by dissolving the Catalonian parliament, calling for new parliamentary elections by December and taking control of the regional police force, Mossos d'Esquadra. Acting with a measure of forbearance, Rajoy called for the arrest of neither Catalonian President Carles Puigdemont nor members of the lawmaking body. For now, they are merely fired.

Rajoy also did not deploy the Spanish military to the region, at least not yet, likely to avoid exacerbating this internal constitutional crisis. Moreover, both the European Union and the United States support Spain on the matter of Catalonia.

In examining the Catalan independence vote, as well as the Scottish independence referendum of 2014, what is the takeaway here regarding such independence movements? Consider those for the Spanish Basques, the Flemish Belgians and the French Corsicans. Take into account as well as movements elsewhere in the world, for the British Cameroons, the Iraqi Kurds, the Burmese Karen, the Sri Lankan Tamils, the Palestinians, the Indian Sikhs and the Russian Chechens.

This sort of nationalism, especially in its extremes, has caused much blood to be shed in the name of ethno-nationalist independence. Similarly problematic is nationalism to preserve power via the "pathological state," - think fascism, genocide and totalitarian purges.

Some ethnic minorities are so enamored of the promise of their own nation, they will do almost anything to achieve it, even to the extent of committing violence for their ideals. Theirs is a kind of religious fervor, a futuristic "imagined community," where any means necessary becomes legitimate to achieve nationhood.

In any event, it is difficult to be accepted among the already recognized 193 member countries of the United Nations. The most powerful of states make such decisions. Those upsetting the balance, or proposing to do so, are inevitably excluded.

Neither Spain, nor the present world order will accept a Catalonian independent nation. So says the European Union, so says the United States and, by default, so says the United Nations. The only hope, therefore, is that this unrest not lead to bloodshed.

Those who study such questions argue whether self-determination should be granted wherever it arises and wherever ethnic minority groups hold legitimate claims to statehood. Yet, the worry among established countries is that if such claims are allowed and such peoples permitted their own nations-states, it would be like pulling a string and allowing the whole garment to unravel.

Governments today are simply not willing to allow this. Secessionism means loss of territory and diminished economies. Even so, complex problems remain in post-colonial nations where major European powers such as Great Britain and France drew regional borders without heed to existing ethnic territories. (The continent of Africa is a good example in this regard.)

And yet, problems of independence such as the one in Catalonia are not going away anytime soon. But neither is the desire for established countries to maintain the integrity of their borders.

Linstroth is an adjunct professor at Barry University, a former Fulbright Scholar and author most recently of "Marching Against Gender Practice: Political Imaginings in the Basqueland."
We may shortly be facing a national crisis. President Donald Trump's base is egging him on to undertake his own "Saturday Night Massacre" and fire Robert Mueller for committing ... for committing ... uh, well, for working too hard as a prosecutor.

On Fox News, the host Jeanine Pirro proposed firing Mueller, blaming the Democrats, and imprisoning Hillary Clinton. Speaking of the Mueller investigation, Pirro said, "It's time to shut it down, turn the tables, and lock her up."

Wow. I've reported from tin-pot countries where public figures talk blithely of shutting down prosecutors and imprisoning rivals. I never thought I'd live in one.

Lou Dobbs of Fox Business Network denounced Mueller's "gross overreach," and the pro-Trump site Gateway Pundit excoriated "deep state crooked cop Robert Mueller." Across the right wing, ideological snipers are taking potshots at Mueller, and even The Wall Street Journal has suggested in an editorial that Mueller resign.

All this amounts to a perilous pirouette. After all, Mueller was last known to be a registered Republican and was appointed FBI director by a Republican president, George W. Bush. Newt Gingrich reflected the Republican consensus when he wrote in a May tweet: "Robert Mueller is superb choice to be special counsel. His reputation is impeccable for honesty and integrity."

Yet these days, Gingrich describes Mueller as an "out-of-control prosecutor" guilty of "grotesque abuse."

What changed? Mueller is vigorously investigating whether Trump's campaign colluded with Moscow, and I believe he has found evidence that it did. A Trump foreign policy aide, George Papadopoulos, has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about this collusion, which involved meetings with Russian representatives, disclosures by Moscow that it had Clinton emails and discussions with three top Trump campaign officials about how to pursue the relationship. We don't know whether Trump himself colluded, but thanks to Mueller, it seems to me clear that his campaign did.

So Mueller is himself in the cross hairs.

In a July interview with The Times, Trump said that Mueller would be crossing a red line if he investigated the Trump family finances broadly, and in such a case Trump reserved the option to fire Mueller. The indictments disclosed Monday do indicate that Mueller is exploring financial transactions, and it's easy to see why Trump would be sensitive to this. After all, there's evidence that he and his family played fast and loose with real estate transactions and tax laws.

"The walls are closing in," The Washington Post quoted a senior Republican as saying. "Everyone is freaking out." As that happens, and as some conservative voices cheer for Mueller's ouster, I fear that Trump may replicate the 1973 Saturday Night Massacre and fire Mueller - and presumably a couple of layers of officials in between.

Nixon did this in 1973, firing special prosecutor Archibald Cox and provoking a national bellow of outrage that I remember well, even though I was then a 14-year-old Oregon farm boy. Both houses of Congress were then in opposition hands, providing honest oversight, and the firing of Cox eventually led to Nixon's ouster.

What's different this time is that both houses of Congress are controlled by the same party as the president, and I fear that if Trump fired Mueller the result would be less a bellow than a squeak.

Some Republicans earlier backed bills providing Mueller extra job security, but they now seem to have lost interest. The Times and others have suggested that if three Republican senators - Jeff Flake, John McCain and Bob Corker - pledged not to support legislation or judgeships, they could force Trump to back off, but I wouldn't bet on that, either.

The reason for Republican reticence is simple: Trump still has 78 percent backing among Republicans, and senators like Flake who have challenged him have lost support. If you're a Republican senator, I fear that your political interest may be to respond to Trump firing Mueller by calling for an investigation of Hillary Clinton. Governing is hard, so it can feel more rewarding to pretend that Clinton won and scream for her imprisonment. Indeed, Sean Hannity forgot himself and referred to her as President Clinton.

After Nixon fired him, Cox declared: "Whether ours shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people."

That is our challenge now, and I hope we can all rise to it, Republicans and Democrats alike. That means not acting as cheerleaders for Mueller's ouster and for a national crisis. That means insisting that Mueller's investigation continue, unimpeded by firings or pardons. That means recognizing that there is something larger than party labels, and that is our adherence to laws and the pursuit of truth.

In 1973 we passed the test, and our institutions held; now we may face a similar crisis. It's time for Congress to wake from its snooze and for citizens to brace themselves not to roll over, but to roar.

Kristof is a New York Times columnist.
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Representing our community as a member of the Legislature continues to be an incredible honor, Sprenger said. As I look ahead to 2018, I continue to believe there is more we can do to improve the quality of life for Oregonians across the state, including attracting family-wage jobs to our rural communities and improving our public education system. I look forward to once again having the opportunity to earn the support of my friends and neighbors in House District 17.
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Our politicians are in a bit of a quagmire in terms of domestic policy. The June election kick-started an important debate on the role of the state - but much of the space usually taken up by sensible discussion is being relentlessly absorbed by Brexit. And the air time that isn't filled with Brexit is taken up by tabloid friendly (albeit very serious) issues such as MPs' conduct.

A key domestic "battle ground" should be the role of the market in public services. A pure free market approach, where independent providers play an unrestricted role, is an idea of the traditional right - whilst the traditional left have a preference for state-owned and delivered services. However, the world is more complex than either of these extreme views would have you believe. Both approaches have serious weaknesses. Too laissez faire an approach and you would end up with a multitude of profit focused providers all trying to cherry pick the easiest interventions. Too statecentric and there would be no competitive pressure to innovate or drive to satisfy and retain service users.

Until relatively recently, you would have been forgiven for assuming that the debate on the role the market should play in public services had been largely settled in favour of the principles of choice and competition. The last Labour government (under Tony Blair at least) was in favour of market forces and did a huge amount to open up the public service market to a range of providers. This orthodoxy is being challenged now with both of the main political parties moving to the left of their previous positions.

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There is no doubt that since the financial crisis the "market" as a concept has been under attack. People feel, with some justification, that the system is rigged in favour of others. The current Government appears torn between the free market instincts of many conservative Ministers and MPs and the more interventionist mood music of the Conservative election manifesto. For the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn there is a definite move away from markets and the involvement of independent service providers towards state monopolies, including ambitions to renationalise postal and rail services. So, to varying degrees, the majority view in parliament is that "untrammelled" free markets are not an appropriate model for today's public services. I would agree with this. In a public service market place there needs to be both innovation fuelling competition but also some facilitation to ensure the poorest or the least well informed are not taken advantage of or indeed left out completely.

So accepting that markets can play an important role - what is the best mix of public and independent delivery?

The truth is there will probably never be a definitive answer to whether public services are better delivered in-house or by independent providers. There are too many variables to do with the specific service in question, the local social and environmental conditions and the team of people delivering the service. The only thing we know for sure is that both public and independent provision can enjoy great success but also suffer catastrophic failure.

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I would argue that the best approach is for commissioners to encourage a mixed market of in-house public sector providers, private sector providers and (critically) social enterprises and charities.

The market is dominated by in-house public sector delivery and traditional outsourcing to large scale private sector providers. Both of these have strengths. The public sector brings a strong public service ethos (most of the time) and the private sector focuses on delivering value for money (most of the time) - but both seem to lack something the other has. This is where social enterprises and charities come into their own and must form an important part of a balanced market. They occupy the middle ground between the state and the traditional private sector and have that strong public service ethos but also employ the entrepreneurialism and commercial discipline of the private sector. Equally important is the disruptive effect these organisations can have on the behaviour of the public and private sectors. They are making the public sector think more commercially and private sector providers focus more on staff empowerment and social impact.

So how should this all be managed?

Achieving the right provider mix is not something that can be set at a national level. Local factors such as deprivation levels, local economy etc. have a huge impact on public services. Recognising this, the government is actively devolving power and responsibility to local areas. So far, devolution deals have been struck in nine places including the seven areas that now have elected mayors. Areas with a new mayor include the major urban conurbations of Greater Manchester and the West Midlands. These areas have sufficient scale to merit adopting their own market approaches that will best meet local needs. Commissioners should be assessing the strengths and weaknesses of their available providers and then be working with those providers (public and independent) to co-produce solutions to the range of wicked issues that persistently hold communities back.
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A curious thing happened in Parliament on Wednesday night. We saw a debate in which the Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer, the pro-European backbench Conservative MP Anna Soubry and the fanatical hard-line Brexit supporter Jacob Rees-Mogg, all found themselves on the same side of an argument. So, what was this unifying moment, bringing together politicians with wildly different ideological backgrounds? The answer is simple: it was the basic principles of parliamentary scrutiny and sovereignty on which our democracy is founded. The right of elected representatives to have proper access to information relevant to the lives of their constituents. The power of our Parliament to vote against or in favour of something, and the requirement of Government to abide by that decision.

Wednesday night's debate focused on the Brexit sectoral impact assessments the Government has conducted, analysing the effects of Brexit on 58 different sectors of the UK economy. The sectors themselves range from aerospace, to construction, to pharmaceuticals, to museums with much more in-between. Overall, as Open Britain calculated, these 58 sectors cover about 88% of the UK economy, affecting approximately 29million workers of this country's workers. So far, the Government has repeatedly refused to release these impact assessments, arguing that to do so would undermine the ongoing Brexit negotiations. But as has been repeatedly pointed out, this argument is patently ridiculous. A number of Government ministers have admitted they haven't even read the reports in full, so how can they possibly know whether or not the contents would undermine the negotiations? And putting that ludicrous argument to one side, do working people in this country not have the right to know how Brexit will impact their jobs, their careers and their livelihoods?

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Parliament's unanimous vote in favour of the Brexit impact assessments being handed over to the Brexit Select Committee came after the Government chose not to oppose the motion. In all likelihood, this decision was made because they knew they would lose the vote if they tried to block it. The cross-party consensus on the issue of Government transparency and accountability is very clear: the majority of MPs do not want the Government to be given a blank cheque to pursue a hard, destructive Brexit or an extreme no-deal Brexit, whilst keeping the public in the dark about what the effects of that will be.

The Government had no choice but to agree to share the documents with the Committee, which it has now committed to do. What is vital now is that this happens quickly, and that there are no redactions or deletions of material. That would not be good enough and it would ignore the express wishes of our sovereign Parliament. Government's ultimate responsibility is to the people it represents, not its own political survival. The real reason the Government has been so reluctant to release these reports is glaringly obvious, and was highlighted during Wednesday night's debate in scathing fashion by pro-European Conservative MP Anna Soubry. Confronting the die-hard Brexit fanatics on her own benches, she said: "The implication is quite clear: there's something in them that's not to be disclosed because it might prick this golden bubble, this balloon, of the promised land of Brexit."

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Clearly this is the case. The reports will show just how damaging leaving the Single Market and the Customs Union would be to every sector of the UK economy. They also undoubtedly show what by now everyone except the most ideologically committed of Brexit supporters knows: that a no-deal Brexit would be an absolute, unmitigated catastrophe for this country. It would drive the economy off a cliff, leave millions of EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU in legal limbo, create a hard border in Ireland and bring to a halt everything from police and counter-terrorism cooperation to flights between the UK and Europe.
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We need to talk about abortion more.

In one sense, people talk about abortion all the time. In many countries, debate rages about a woman's right to choose versus the rights of the foetus. Right now in the UK, the 50th anniversary of the Abortion Act 1967 is prompting debate about reform, while the creation of 'buffer zones' around abortion clinics, and Scotland's decision to allow women to take abortion-inducing medication at home are making headlines.

But in another way, we don't talk about abortion. Nearly 200,000 abortions are performed in the UK every year, and one in three women will have an abortion in her lifetime. Yet very few women speak about their experience. This is partly because choosing to end a pregnancy can be a conflicted and intensely personal decision. It is also because having an abortion carries a substantial stigma.

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We need to remove this stigma so that women can talk openly about their choice, helping them to process and seek support if they need it, without fear of judgment. Women internalise this stigma as shame, and suffer as a result.

But there is another important reason why we need to be able to talk about abortion, which is that without understanding why women terminate, we cannot have an informed, and hopefully respectful, empathetic, realistic discussion about whether and how we should reform the law.

Fifty years ago, the Abortion Act gave women access to safe, legal abortions. Today, the law prevents very few women from terminating their pregnancies, so why think about reform?

One reason is that arguably, the damaging stigma around abortion is partly sustained by the way the law frames abortion. In 2017, performing or procuring an abortion remains a crime in the UK. The Act merely provided defences to this crime. There is no 'right' to have an abortion in the UK. Rather, for an abortion to be lawful, the woman must offer one of the reasons outlined in the Act - risk of foetal anomaly, or risk to the woman's life or her mental or physical health (or that of her existing children)

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Part of our conversation must be about whether the consensual ending of a pregnancy should still be considered criminal. We might think that some or all abortions should be crimes. Or we might think that a woman's decision to avoid an unwanted pregnancy is not something that belongs in the same category as rape, assault or murder.

We are all free to form our own views on this, but in doing so we need to understand what it means to call something 'criminal', to deem an act so wrong that it is the state's business to punish those who perform it. It makes a complex, personal decision one that the community, via the state, can judge, leaving thousands of women to defend their decision to those whom it does not affect.

Another reason we should think about reform is that a woman's choice alone is not sufficient to render an abortion lawful; two doctors must vouch that these risks really exist. In addition, a woman who takes medication to induce miscarriage must take the pills at the dispensing clinic, often subjecting her to the distress of beginning to miscarry as she travels home. While permitting abortion, the law's failure to trust women and their choices, shames and infantilises women as it does so.

We should think about how the way we frame abortion, and the legal steps it involves, affect women. We need to reform with women's stories in mind, and we need to craft a law that lets each person follow their conscience and respects their choices and their dignity.

Dr Imogen Goold is an Associate Professor in Law at the University of Oxford. She writes about a wide range of issues in medical law and ethics.

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Halloween is over. No more ghost stories, costume parties or horror movies. However, the nightmare doesn't end on the 31st - it's only just beginning.

November is flight-booking season - you've got your Christmas holiday plans sorted and you're eagerly counting down the days, but then something goes horribly wrong! Perhaps you lose your passport a few days before you're due to fly. Or you forget to get vaccinated at least six weeks in advance of your travel date and now you're missing the chance to get some winter sun. Or you were mugged while enjoying a holiday in Paris?

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Holiday nightmare mistakes can happen to anyone. A simple blunder can ruin your entire break! While sometimes things go wrong and it's completely out of your control, most of the time you can make sure you have a nightmare-free holiday with some simple planning and preparation.

To avoid a fright this holiday season, have a read through these holiday nightmare mistakes you definitely need to avoid!

A hotel from hell!

Sometimes hotel bookings do not go according to plan, as Joanna Coates, a student at Newcastle University, found out when travelling to Gran Canaria with her family.

She said: "[We] got to the airport and got told our hotel was overbooked and that they'd have to move us into an 'adults only hotel' despite my sister only being 15 at the time."

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Unfortunately, hotel overbookings are a common holiday nightmare mistake, especially when you book a package holiday deal. Rachel Ellen, a student at the University of Glasgow, experienced similar issues in Magaluf when an overbooked hotel meant she had to stay in the hotel from Magaluf Weekender for one night.

She said: "When we went into our rooms, they were nothing like you see on TV [...] Our room had a 30cm gap under the foot door, smelled terrible and we [saw] a cockroach in the bathroom.

We wish we had checked to see if anyone else had that issue with the hotel before we booked it."

To avoid an overbooked hotel, it is ideal to have your accommodation booked months in advance, around the same time you book your flights, and do your research to make sure that overbooking isn't a common practice in the hotel you are planning to stay in. Also, it is helpful to call the hotel a few days before your flight to confirm your booking and ensure you will have a place to sleep on arrival.

However, sometimes there is nothing you can do as the situation may be out of your control, so it is just as important to make sure that you have a plan B for alternative accommodation if necessary, and make sure that you have appropriate travel insurance to protect yourself against any unforeseen circumstances.

Taxi scammers!

Eve Willis, a student at the University of Surrey, found herself in an unfortunate taxi scam when backpacking around Argentina with friends.

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Arriving in Buenos Aires, Eve had not arranged transportation from the airport to her hostel and decided to queue at the taxi rank in the airport. However, taxi drivers in Argentina are known to regularly overcharge passengers, using a clicker to jump the meter.

Eve said: "We got in a taxi after a wait, I asked in Spanish how much it would be. He said he didn't know, but our bags had been put in the back and there was a huge queue.

...We drove a journey that should have cost no more than 10 pounds [...] but the price was four times that in Argentinian pesos."

Eve's advice: "Always arrange with a hostel if you can as [it] is cheap and safe."

While taxi ranks in airports may look professional, it is better to research beforehand to find the most effective mode of transportation to and from the airport and book in advance using a trusted online service if a taxi is the only option.

Travel sickness!

If you know that you are prone to travel sickness, always ensure that you have the correct medication prepared and packed well before you're due to travel.

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However, if you normally do not experience travel sickness, but find yourself adventure travelling, you might experience some unanticipated travel sickness as Leena Anis, a student at the University of York, did while volunteering in India for the summer.

Leena said: "The dangerous driving when we travelled long hours to get to Bir, a place that was high up in the mountains, did make us feel really nauseous and anxious on the ride up."

"We were going to take a flight back, but they said not to bother because it was monsoon season and the visibility was very bad."

You never know what to expect when travelling in unfamiliar territory so if you want to avoid a holiday nightmare, bring a first aid kit with you that includes all the essentials, but also any additional medication that you might need, such as travel sickness medication to prepare for travel in high altitudes. Before you travel, it is important to check medical regulations in the country that you are travelling to as rules differ from country to country.
What is the work ethic of the millennial generation? originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

Answer by Maria Matarelli, Founder & President at Formula Ink:

Millennials are a generation built around certain expectations. Expectations they have of themselves, of their duties, and of their place of business. And many companies are going out of their way to try to appeal to this generation new to the workforce, offering on-site benefits like ping pong tables, oatmeal bars, or yoga studios.

And while those bells and whistles might be nice perks, or might sway their decision to one place over another, they're not what millennials are truly looking for at work. What they're really looking for is freedom. The freedom to create, to innovate, to express themselves and their ideas.

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Millennials are simply looking for the freedom to be heard and make a difference.

Life In the Fast Lane:

Millennials grew up with the latest innovations right at their fingertips.

Think about it. This is the generation of kids that grew up alongside every major technological innovation of the last 30 years. From video game systems, to computers, to phones, and now apps--which combine all of the above. These are people always looking for the next best thing. But that's not a bad attitude to have.

The next best thing usually means more innovation, making something simpler, easier. Look at online food-ordering apps. GrubHub was a major revelation years ago, coming onto the scene and eliminating the old phonebook way of ordering food. And it was all the rage until UberEats reared its head--taking the delivery time from 60 minutes to 20-30 as they utilized Uber's fleet of drivers. As of the first quarter of 2017, UberEats sees about 9 million monthly users, while GrubHub sees just under 4 million monthly users.

The millennials didn't switch apps because one had shinier packaging, they switched because it was more efficient.

It's About the Outcome, Not the Journey:

Millennials are less concerned with the approach to the work than they are with the outcome.

Because they've been exposed to so much ease and innovation, millennials work toward outcomes with efficiency in mind. They look for the expedient route that won't waste time. If they need to know a piece of information, they will either Google it, email, or send a quick text.

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Just look at how much more time they spend texting versus Gen X. According to Forbes, 68% of millennials text daily, compared to only 47% of the generation above them. They text more as a means of efficiency. They send out a quick text, get the information they need, and then move on to work with that info.

They've maximized efficiency on their own terms.

So, if they skirt traditional approaches and practices, they do so because they know there are more efficient means available. This is far from the labels of "lazy" that many older generations have placed on millennials. Yes they look for ease, but only in as much as it helps them to accomplish what they need in as little time as possible, freeing them up to keep pushing and accomplishing more.

But in order to arrive at those innovative outcomes, they need to have the freedom to control their path to get there.

Handle With Care:

Managers of millennials need to learn how to foster their spirit of innovation in order to maximize their potential as employees.

This doesn't mean they need to cater to their every whim--a pinball machine in every room, bean-bag office chairs, or free popcorn. What it means is that they need to create an environment where they can feel comfortable to create, to experiment, and to express their ideas.

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The worst thing you could do with your millennial employees is to confine them to only doing things a certain way. The second-worst thing you could do is to ignore them. Both lead millennials to feeling oppressed, underutilized, overlooked, or that their ideas just don't matter. Pretty soon they'll become just another employee punching a clock--likely looking for another company that will cater to their need for freedom.

Giving millennials their freedom shows confidence and trust in their individual value to the company--and that's what they're truly after.

You don't have to reinvent the office wheel in order to get the most out of your millennials. You just have to give them an environment where they can become their most productive selves. An Agile environment, an environment that allows for freedom, collaboration, and creativity. In his book, Drive, Daniel Pink talks about how people are more motivated by internal factors than external drivers. Traditional means of bonuses and incentives are not as effective as you might think. People tend to be more motivated by autonomy, having a sense of purpose, and a desire for mastery. All of us are the products of our environment, and for millennials, there is no exception.
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Not so long ago, there was a glut of stories of interview woes. Magazines and television chat shows would discuss in sombre tones, the young man or woman whose budding career had been shattered by ill-considered social media posts. Whether throw-away, yet socially inappropriate comments, or one too many references to drunken nights out, squeamish employers were turning away in droves, thanks to the unprecedented access to candidate's personal lives that the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram were granting them.

'Young people must learn to be more circumspect,' commentators would say. 'It's bad enough that they're doing these things; they don't need to broadcast them too!' conveniently forgetting that they were young once, and doing all of the things that they're censuring now, they just didn't have social media to record it all for posterity.

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It took a couple of years for the message to sink in, but then students, first, followed by an increasing number of job hunters discovered their social media security settings, allowing them to post their antics for friends to view with impunity, while being safe in the knowledge that the 73% of employers who now search applicant's SM accounts prior to interview would be none-the-wiser. But then something else began to happen - rather than just taking control of their own profiles, job hunters began to use social media to their own advantage.

We've been looking into this at Digimax, and while it won't surprise anyone to learn that 68% of job hunters actively use social sites, such as LinkedIn, in their search for work, some of the other activities may well raise a few eyebrows, as the tables really seem to be turning.

While almost half (48%) of interviewees use social media for general interview prep, many go a lot further, with a quarter (24%) searching interviewer's profiles to find common interests to 'coincidentally' discuss before or after the set questions: 'Well, thanks for seeing me, I hope you have a good weekend - I'm off to see the Foo Fighters at the Brixton academy on Saturday, can't wait... Oh really, you saw them at Cardiff? Incredible! I hope they play Walking After You... Yeah, absolutely, it's a real classic...' delivered with such innocence of expression that who could doubt it! Is there any real difference between proactivity and deviousness? Like it or loath it, you at least have to give them points for trying... And yet it still doesn't stop there.

A little background digging is surely fair game, and a further 18% use social sites, such as LinkedIn, to check out their interviewer's employment history, just to get a fair idea of who they're dealing with. Fine. The truly dedicated, however, admit to what is now being termed as 'social stalking'; the practice of systematically and regularly viewing every one of on interviewer's social sites. Not content with their business profile, they'll search for them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube and Tumblr, hoping to gain enough insight to leverage employment. And the practice is on the up, with 22% of job hunters admitting to participating - 61% of those are female.

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While social stalking may sound a little creepy, employers must take some of the blame. Being comfortably settled with no intention of changing careers and - it must be acknowledged - a little less tech savvy, many more mature management personnel are failing to protect their digital profiles, with one in five (21%) saying that they can't even remember the last time they checked or adjusted privacy settings on their social accounts. To them, social media is a tool for snooping on potential candidates - although today they largely (82%) seem to be interested in their candidate's ability to correctly use grammar, or spell (59%), rather than how they spend their free time. It hasn't occurred to them that the hunter might become the hunted.

When it comes to technology - all technology - the thing that we probably all need to remember is that it's not a static thing. It evolves with us and different generations find different uses, so for now, for a short window of time before this generation of job hunters become the next generation of interviewers, social media stalking could be giving the canny candidate a leg up into their chosen career.

Is it underhanded? No more so than the employer has been in searching applicant's profiles. Is it taking the initiative to get the career of your choice? At least it shows a pleasing degree of determination. Is it creepy? Well, that all depends on whether they continue once the interview is over with!
WASHINGTON  President Trump's job approval rating fell to just 33 percent in a Gallup poll this week. One of his campaign aides pleaded guilty in the Russia probe and two more were indicted. Republicans are fighting over their tax plan, increasing the odds of yet another legislative debacle.

It would seem that the midterm election is the Democrats' to lose. And you can be sure they will try their best to do exactly that.

Democrats seldom miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Several recent incidents of self-sabotage have already proven the great Will Rogers adage: "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat."

Rich guy Tom Steyer gets October's Rogers Prize for turning one of the Democrats' most unifying themes (the singular disaster that is Trump) into a source of discord. He launched a petition drive, backed by advertising, pressuring Democratic candidates to go on record supporting the impeachment of Trump and committing to "remove him from office at once." Pretty much no Democrat thinks Trump should be in the White House, but even perfect unanimity among Democrats for impeachment won't remove Trump. And the Steyer "pledge" just might prevent Democrats from winning in Trump-friendly districts they need to retake the House.

First runner-up for the Rogers Prize for Democratic Entropy is Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who nearly salvaged Republican attempts to repeal Obamacare with his ill-timed "Medicare for All" rollout. The attempt to get Democrats to commit to single-payer health care, and particularly the attempt by some Sanders advisers to make it a litmus test for Democrats, provided a welcome diversion for Republicans at a time when they were feeling intense heat for their votes to take insurance from millions. Democrats are now fighting about an ideal solution that has no chance of becoming law for at least three years.

Second runner-up for the Democratic Chaos Prize is Rep. Linda T. Sanchez, D-Calif., the fifth-ranking House Democrat, who just called for House Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi, Steny H. Hoyer and James E. Clyburn to step down after next year's election. "There comes a time when you need to pass that torch, and I think it's time," she said on C-SPAN. It's not a crazy idea to say Democrats need younger leaders, but Sanchez's call to make these ducks lame halfway through the current Congress causes more disunity and distraction.

And honorable mention goes to Tom Perez, the Democratic National Committee chairman. When Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., delivered his passionate denunciation of Trump on the Senate floor last week, he validated the Democrats' case against Trump. Yet Perez chose to attack  Flake. "His retirement is a symbol of a Republican Party whose leaders allow Donald Trump's divisive politics to flourish as long as it serves their political interests, and who fail to criticize this dangerous president until it's too late," Perez said of the early and outspoken critic of Trump. The malpractice baffled John Weaver, the anti-Trump Republican who advised John Kasich during his 2016 presidential run. "They can have the left and the center, but for some reason the leadership of the DNC doesn't want that," Weaver told me.

Nor apparently, do a number of Democrats. They've struggled so far to come up with a clear midterm election message  Health care for all! Make the rich pay their fair share! A living wage!  that would give people a reason to vote for Democrats rather than just against Trump. House Minority Leader Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer attempted to roll out just such a populist, aspirational agenda earlier this year  and it was immediately ridiculed on the left because of its name ("A Better Deal"), and it quickly disappeared.

I called some of my favorite strategists, both Republican and Democrat, for this column, to see how they thought the Party of Rogers would, as one Democratic operative put it, "seize defeat from the jaws of victory." Bernie backers and "establishment" types will chop each other to pieces in primaries even if their ideology is much the same. Democrats will overplay the Russia scandal rather than simply letting special counsel Robert S. Mueller III do his job.

Underfunded party committees won't vet the flood of new candidates, some of whom will turn out to have played guitar in nudist colonies. And Democrats will struggle, as out-of-power parties do, with the absence of a leader.

Of course, Trump has generated such destruction that Democrats might win the House in 2018 despite their best efforts to screw things up. But when it comes to self-immolation, nobody holds a candle to them.
The other week I rang my bank to open a new account. It was all very easy.

A helpful woman checked my details over the phone, explained how the account would work and rattled off points about regulatory oversight by the Financial Conduct Authority and sharing my details with credit referral agencies.

Did I agree to all that? she asked. Yes. Did I have any other questions? No. A few days later, there was a form to sign in the post and that was it. New account open.

What no-one at the bank knew of course was whether I really understood the product, as banks and other financial retailers like to call the accounts and policies they offer us. Did I understand not just the language but the financial concepts and the illustrative figures set out in the marketing literature? To put it plainly, did I get the numbers? Did I understand the difference between 0.5% and 0.05%?

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Well, yes, I did. But that's not quite the point. I might not have done. A report just out from the Money Advice Service (MAS) suggests that an awful lot of people don't in fact get the numbers and can't work with them to do fairly simple things.

MAS is the body set up by the government (and funded by a levy on the banks) to give the public impartial advice on managing their money. It is, naturally, very concerned about the growing number of people who aren't managing well and who are spiralling into debt. Apparently 16 million people - 40% of the UK's working-age population - have less than 100 in savings, which means they're likely to be in trouble when the unexpected happens.

The reasons why people get into debt are complex and often beyond the immediate control of the debtor. But If you can't do the numbers, you start off at a severe disadvantage. MAS interviewed 2,000 people, asked them about their financial behaviour and attitudes and tested their numeracy with questions like:

Susie is paid 9.00 an hour. She gets a 5% pay increase. What is her new pay per hour?

or:

Susie buys a laptop costing 144 from a company in Germany, at an exchange rate of 1 = 1.20. What is the cost in pounds?

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Nearly half of respondents (45%) had 'poor' or 'low' numeracy - that is, they struggled with the Susie and other questions. And this group was less likely to save money and more likely to fall behind with the bills (even controlling for variables in income and other demographics).

Scale the 45% up across the UK working-age population and you have 18 million. That's a lot of people baffled by percentages and exchange rates.

Now it may seem blindingly obvious that numeracy and financial nous are linked, but surprisingly the evidence hasn't emerged that clearly before.

What's also surprising - or maybe it isn't since the evidence has been hidden - is that banks and other companies selling financial products by and large don't have a clue about their customers' numeracy. Even debt counsellors do not routinely offer numeracy advice.

National Numeracy, the charity of which I am a trustee (and which helped MAS with its report), wants the banks and the debt advice sector to do something about this. Ideally we'd like them to make use of the services we offer - such as an online check-up that assesses people's numeracy levels and helps them improve. Even a quick five-minute version of this can give an initial indication. And with a will, most people can improve, we've discovered.

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I can see the difficulty of course. In the competitive world of High Street banking (not to mention pensions, insurance, utilities and the sometimes murkier reaches of credit provision), companies aren't readily going to put what may look like hurdles in the way of customers. Before I sell this you this policy, before you open this account, before you sign up to this loan, can I just check that you can do the numbers and understand a few simple concepts?

One relatively easy and interim step could mean adapting better to customers' understanding, using not just plain (and fully - not partially - honest) language but plain numbers too. However, to do that successfully, you do need to know what that level of understanding is...
Police Find Pellet Gun Behind Taconic High School

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  Police found a pellet gun behind Taconic High School after reports that a student had brought a weapon to school.

Police said that on Tuesday the school officials and the Police Department's School Resource Officers were told that a student had seen another with a handgun. The suspected student was located and a search of a backpack did not result in finding a weapon.

On Wednesday, however, more information was reported supporting the student's claim of seeing a gun. Police reviewed surveillance footage and found the original incident was "misreported." Officer John Gray continued the investigation, finding additional witnesses.

On Thursday, Police called in the K9 unit to search behind the school. There Police found an air-powered pellet pistol.

Police say criminal charges could be pending.
Girls Inc. Region III Director Annie Heitman said the program was first developed in 1987. Brigham Center CEO Kelly Marion. Avangrid Foundation Director Nicole Licata Gran. State Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier. BCC's Dean of Academic Affairs Charles Kaminski. Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at MCLA Adrienne Wooters. PreviousNext

Girls Inc. Launches 'Eureka!' Program, Focus On STEM Education



In honor of the launch of the new program, Mayor Linda Tyer presented Brigham Center CEO Kelly Marion a copy of 'She Persisted' written by Chelsea Clinton. PITTSFIELD, Mass.  The students who stand out for BCC's Dean of Academic Affairs Charles Kaminski are the ones who come in with bold dreams.

It is the women who come from a family of nurses and want to take that a step forward and become biochemists. Or the girl who starts out thinking about becoming a teacher and instead aims to become a data analyst.

It is the women who refuse to just accept what society tells them they can and cannot do that stands out to Kaminski because at one time women weren't encouraged in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.

Now, Kaminski is preparing to meet a whole lot more of those women who think bigger and bolder. Berkshire Community College is one of the many partners establishing the Eureka! Program through Girls Inc.

"It is programs like Eureka that gets students to that tipping point, that catalyst to this realization that they can really pursue a field in STEM that they want to do and have a passion for, not just what they feel is expected of them because of their gender," Kaminski said.

The program is one Gladys Allen Brigham Community Center CEO Kelly Marion has wanted to roll out locally for years but hasn't had the funding. It is a five-year program guiding a girl from middle school to college in the STEM career path.

For the first two years, the student attends a summer camp on the campuses of Berkshire Community College and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts doing hands-on experiments and programs. There is a focus on sports, specifically swimming, and personal growth. During the school year, there is continued mentoring, relationship building and field trips. In year three and four, the girls, in partnership with the Berkshire County Regional Employment Board, are given paid internships with local companies in the STEM field.

And the fifth year, the focus is on preparing them for college.

"Girls need opportunities, girls need resources, girls need to know they can be their best, accept challenges, support each other in achieving goals, take risks, to learn from and make mistakes, and to develop new skills," Marion said.

The program is particularly aimed to help those of low-income and minorities. At the Brigham Center, 59 percent of the girls identify as a minority, 44 percent come from homes with annual incomes less than $25,000 per year, and 40 percent of the girls come from a single-parent household. Starting next year, 20 of those girls will be able to attend the program at no cost.

"Our goal is to add new cohorts, eventually having 100 girls participating annually in a five-year cycle," Marion said.

While the program is free for those participating, it does cost about $50,000 per year to run. Marion had talked about the program at business events and other social gatherings. And then she was put in touch with Berkshire Gas and the parent company's charitable arm, the Avangrid Foundation.

The proposal came before Avangrid Foundation Director Nicole Licata Grant's desk. Grant went through a similar program when she a was a young girl so it wasn't hard for her to decide to get involved.

"We were excited by the opportunity and it was one I similarly had as a kid growing up in New Haven, Conn. It made an enormous impact in my life. It was the first time I met engineers who were women. It was my first time on a college campus. It made all the difference in the world," Grant said.

Avangrid Foundation and Berkshire Gas have put forth $25,000 for the first year of the program. It is a challenge grant and Marion said she will now be seeking other sponsors to get it off the ground.

"In so many ways STEM represents the future of generations to come. Preparing young women to pursue STEM-based professions will create new possibilities for them and significantly expand the STEM talent pool for the benefit of all. Nothing could be more exciting. A new day is upon us and horizons for young people will be brighter than ever before," said Berkshire Gas President and Chief Operating Officer Karen Zink.

Zink is hoping her company's gift becomes a "magnet" to bring in others. The Brigham Center will become just the 19th Girls Inc. Affiliate to run it.



Karen Zink said the program opens up a bright future for local girls. According to Girls Inc. Regional III Director Annie Heitman, the program was designed in 1987 and in 1992 the National Science Foundation funded a pilot program of it at five different sites in the country.

"It was designed to help women develop leadership and career skills and was targeted to girls of color, living in the inner city many of whom were economically disadvantaged," Heitman said.

In 2010, the Clinton Global Initiative funded a massive expansion of the program and monitored the outcomes.

"Girls participating in Eureka stay interested in math and science through high school and prepares them for a world that is increasingly technological," Heitman said.

And now, the program continues to find its way into Girls Inc. Affiliates throughout the country  with the Berkshires becoming the latest to take it on.

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at MCLA Adrienne Wooters said the program ties directly into the work of local educators. In 2003, MCLA, BCC, local school districts, and non-profits came together to form the Berkshire STEM Pipeline. Together they have focused on getting more and more students into the science and technology fields.

"We have been meeting regularly and thinking about how we get STEM into the schools, how we increase the quality of teaching in the schools, and how we get more of our Berkshire County students to move into STEM fields. This is a big deal for us," Wooters.

"Working with Girl's Inc. is absolutely part of the mission. It is part of the mission at BCC. It is part of the mission at MCLA."

Marion added the importance the program will have to the local economy, where the workforce lacks employees with strong STEM backgrounds.

State Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier said the program is "changing lives" and reflected on the years in which women were discouraged and told they could not go into these fields. And Mayor Linda Tyer praised the support in helping young girls become the best they can be.
Mayoral Candidate Moulton Cites Newspaper Investor's Donation to Opponent

NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  Mayoral candidate Robert Moulton Jr. is crying foul over a donation to his opponent by a Berkshire Eagle owner.

Hans Morris of Stockbridge donated $250 to the campaign of Thomas Bernard last month. Morris is a member of the group of investors who purchased New England Newspapers last year.

Mention of Morris' donation was omitted from a Thursday article in The Eagle on the pre-election campaign finance reports. iBerkshires also wrote an article about the filings but did not catch Morris' name in connection to the newspaper group.

In a statement, Moulton said he did not expect the newspaper's endorsement but did not think one of the owners would provide financial backing to a North Adams mayoral candidate.

"Further, I was incredibly disappointed that our local newspaper  which we count on to provide truth and transparency  has completely failed to meet its obligation and disclose the donation by one of its owners, Mr. Morris," he wrote, adding that The Eagle must have known about the contribution.

Morris is also chairman of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and a member of its board since 2001. The museum's director, Joseph Thompson, contributed $200 to Bernard's campaign.

Bernard, currently director of special projects at Smith College, was development officer at Mass MoCA more than a decade ago. He was endorsed this week by outgoing Mayor Richard Alcombright.

The Eagle's Executive Director Kevin Moran is quoted in a followup story in the paper saying a reference to the donation should have been included in the article. However, he added, "Hans Morris has not played a role in editorial decisions, including endorsements."

Moulton intimated in his statement that the $250 donation to Bernard, who has so far raised nearly $20,000, came with strings attached. "What does he expect in return for this support?" asks Moulton.

With Tuesday's election fast approaching, Moulton, a local businessman who's served five terms on the City Council and bid unsuccessfully four years ago for mayor, is positioning himself as running against an establishment that "tries to push back and put us down."
The School Building Committee goes over plans for the revote of the $19 million school project.

Clarksburg School Building Committee Review Plans for School Vote

CLARKSBURG, Mass.  Town and school officials are preparing for the next round of voting on the $19 million school proposal.

School officials are hoping to get their reasoning for the renovation/addition out to the voters again. Town officials have set three information sessions leading up to vote focusing on the town's financial picture.

The School Building Committee wants to make clear the school requires major investment because of its condition and the consequences of another failed vote.

"There has not been investment in this building for years and years and years," Principal Tara Barnes said. "You cannot expect a facility to run if you don't take care of it."

Superintendent Jonathan Lev said the town really had three choices: approve the school project; come up with a Plan B to fix the several million in immediate repairs; close the school.

"People are saying the school won't close but it absolutely will," he said.

The borrowing authorization failed in September by one vote with a record turnout of more than 400, the largest number of voters to ever attend a town meeting. The revote of the project on Saturday, Nov. 18, is expected to draw crowd as large, if not larger. The town has more than 1,100 registered voters.

Lev gave the School Building Committee the rundown on Thursday of the logistics being worked out by Town Clerk Carol Jammalo and Moderator Bryan Tanner and what the school's role will be.

First, the school is hiring Dufour buses to shuttle voters to the school; there will be no general parking on the school grounds.

Using a hand-drawn illustration, Lev described how voters at the special town meeting on Nov. 18 would enter the building, where they sit and how the voting would go. The gym/cafeteria will be full and school officials anticipate opening four our more classrooms upstairs for the overflow.

"There will be streaming but no communication other than walkie talkies and asistant moderators," he said. "They will be able to see what's happening and hear what's happening."

But any questions would have to be relayed through the walkie-talkies or the individuals would have to come downstairs to the gym.

Northern Berkshire Community Televison is aiding in the livestream process with a camera set up in the cafetorium to feed televisions placed upstairs.

NBCTV Director David Fabiano and Northern Berkshire School Union's IT technician Shawn Tierney were using the meeting, held downstairs, to test the broadcast feeds in the rooms.

The plan as it stands now is to have senior citizens and residents with accessibility issues would have reserved seating in the gym. Voting would occur one room at a time to prevent the somewhat chaotic conditions of the last vote.

A space will be cordoned off with cones for the voting line, and police and election workers would maintain the order as voters step up to one of the six positions based on street they live on, register, receive their ballot, and vote.

Barnes said the meetings with town officials brought up the need for a trash receptacle for the discarded part of the perforated yes/no ballot.

"We talked a lot about a trash can that has a lid with slit on it," she said. "Apparently some people were refusing to throw the other half of their vote in the trash can, and they took it with them, because they thought someone was going to take it out of trash or something."

The discarded ballots can act as a check if needed, Barnes said. So the receptacle has to be secure so people feel confident putting their discarded ballot in but not similar to the ballot box itself so there's no confusion.

Other members said they'd heard from people who weren't sure they put the right part of the ballot in the box. Member Edward Denault asked if the ballots could be different colors for yes or no, but was told that was up to the town clerk. Also, since the ballot is supposed to be secret, different colors would immediately indicate the voter's preference to everyone standing around him or her.

Barnes said she'd work on a "stop sign" or visual cue to remind voters to look at their votes before dropping them in the box.

Denault also questioned the order of voting, thinking having those upstairs come down to vote first would be better. Otherwise, the voters in the gym who'd already cast their ballots might be wandering around or talking in disruptive way.

Lev said the expectation is that many people would vote and leave but he would bring it up at the next logistics meeting.

That discussion led into who would be allowed in to vote because the written draft plan noted that people could stay outside and then come in to vote. They would not be allowed to vote on motions or participate in discussion, if there was any.

"How are we going to be fair?" Barnes asked. "Can people come in and vote if there's still a line? Should we check in to have a time to be here?"

Normally at town meetings, voters register as they come in to get their pink cards; that stops once the town meeting begins.

"This isn't an election," Denault said. "If you walk in and the vote's not done, you can still vote?"

Lev also put that question, too, on the list to be discussed.
Southwestern Vermont Health Care Appoints One to Board of Trustees

BENNINGTON, Vt.  Southwestern Vermont Health Care has announced the appointment of Stephen Kelly to its Board of Trustees.



"Stephen has an accomplished background in helping nonprofit organizations fulfill their missions while meeting their financial and regulatory obligations," said Tommy Harmon, SVHC board chair. "I anticipate that he will make important contributions to our work, and I am delighted to have him join our organization."



Kelly works as the chief financial officer for The Boma Project, a 106-employee international non-profit headquartered in Manchester, Vt., which works to relieve poverty in East Africa. In the past, he served as chief financial officer for Meals on Wheels of Rockland and as president of Heron's Ghyll Builders, a custom home builder, both in New York State. He lives in Andover, Vt.



"We are grateful for the time and expertise our trustees contribute to SVHC, said Thomas A. Dee, SVHC's president and CEO. "Stephen will add a new perspective to our board, and I look forward to working with him to advance our mission of providing exceptional care and comfort to the people we serve."



Board members are nominated by the board's Nominating Committee and voted on by the entire board. In selecting new SVHC board members, the nominating committee looks for candidates who exemplify SVHC's values, can be counted on to actively participate in board work, and have leadership capabilities. SVHC looks for candidates who represent the communities the health system serves and have special expertise in fulfilling board duties.




iciHaiti - Canada : 7,5 million for maternal and child health





This week, Carlos Rojas-Arbulu, the Head of Cooperation of the Canadian Mission in Haiti, went to Leogane and Gressier to visit a maternal and child health project.



This project builds on Cardinal Leger's new action strategy and addresses two of the maternal, newborn and child health priorities identified by the Canadian government: strengthening health networks and reducing the burden of diseases that affect mothers and young children.



The objective of PROSAMI is to reduce the mortality rates of pregnant women, newborns and children under 5 years of age and to directly assist more than 30,000 people in these two densely populated communes and by providing support to four health centers to provide emergency obstetric and neonatal services.



Canada provided 7,5 million dollars Canadian to Oeuvre Leger for the implementation of these activities.



To learn more about this project visit : leger.org/en/our-work-abroad/americas/health-in-haiti/



See also :

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-20870-icihaiti-health-assessment-visit-to-the-materno-infantile-center-of-leogane-and-gressier.html



IH/ iciHaiti






















iciHaiti - UEH : End of fees for end of studies memoirs





The Council of the State University of Haiti (UEH), at its last ordinary session held in Montrouis adopted four resolutions on the distribution of the budget 2017-2018; the reserve duty of members of the Executive Council and the University Council; on the prohibition of teachers of the UEH to require students to pay a fee to accompany them in the realization of their graduation memoirs and finally and the construction project of the main campus of the UEH.



With regard to memoirs, however, there is an exception to Article 2 which states: "It is understood that this resolution does not concern memoirs funded by certain projects executed with third-party institutions or organizations whose budgets clearly provide for an allocation for their supervisors. The University Council threatens sanctions against all teachers who do not respect these measures."



IH/ iciHaiti


















November means December is around the corner, and December means it's time to buy presents.

But not these.

For the kids:

 Anxious Barbie. This is a Barbie who prefers to stay in her Dreamhouse. Really. Go away. Ken has taken to driving his Corvette to the bar and grousing to anyone who will listen, usually Skipper, who could tell you stories about her own disastrous marriage(s). And she will, when you pull her string ... and buy her a mojito.

 G.I. Tract Joe. The first action figure to come with a retractable intestine. Hours of fun!

 E-Z Break Oven. Can't say we didn't warn you. Minutes of fun.

For him:

 Eau de Regret. Cologne with the scent of potato pancakes, which whisks you right back to your mother-in-law's kitchen when you were first married and she told you to buy Apple, but that was crazy, because it was $4.37 a share.

 Eau de Further Regret. This cologne  with top notes of sage, saddle soap and dysentery  is sure to remind you of that trip you took with your buddies to the dude ranch in Montana. The one that served all those beans.

 Eau Enough Already. Is that a hint of musk? Or the entire musk shoved into a manly bottle, his little paws pressed against the glass? Whatever. It sure is musky.

 Alligator wallet. A popular item. But first you have to pick the pocket of the alligator.

For her:

 Pumpkin spice hair spray. The look and feel of an expensive limited-time latte, but in your hair.

 "50 Shades of Hay." The naughty novel of two intensely attracted horses.

 "50 Shades of Neigh." The stallion's wife finds out.

 Spa in a Box. OK, so it's a very small spa. Give your pinkie a day of bliss.

 Whitman's Sampler. Walt Whitman, that is. First stanzas of 24 assorted poems.

 Chanel No. 6. Yes, yes, it knows it's not quite what you asked for. Have you ever even tried  wait, wait. Hold on. Deep breath. It's not "cheap;" it's a "value scent." Some people like it even better! One gal ... It's ... Look, could we please talk about something else?

 The Tiffany Ring. Group of guys who planned a heist at a Tiffany store in the '70s. Not really relevant on a gift list.

For the home:

 The Smart Spoon. Tired of trying to get soup to your mouth and having it splash and spill? The Smart Spoon scoops up soup and seals it in a tiny plastic pouch. Simply puncture the pouch once it is inside your mouth and voila -- piping-hot soup (and a little bit of plastic). Best of all, no more mess! (Except for spitting out the pouch.)

 The Smart Fork. Tired of trying to spear your food and having it fall off halfway to your teeth? The Smart Fork wraps your food in fine 8-gauge wire. Simply chew through the wire once it is inside your mouth and voila  delicious food (and little bits of wire).

 The Smart Knife. Tired of your boss? Simply insert the smart knife into part of his or her torso when he or she is least expecting this. Voila! No muss, no fuss (provided you have a plausible alibi).

For your pet:

 100 percent carrot chew toy. A bone-shaped carrot that will make any Fido healthier, if he chews it. Let's hope he will. Although, none of the test dogs did. But they were probably fussier than yours.
BERNE  Dr Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, met today with the President of the Swiss Confederation, Doris Leuthard, to review topics of mutual interest, including the latest developments in the global energy scene and modernisation of the IEA.

President Leuthard, who is also the head of the Swiss Federal Department of Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications, and Dr Birol also discussed Switzerlands energy policy, and the IEAs upcoming 2017 Ministerial Meeting.

President Leuthard expressed strong support for the IEAs mandate to be the global clean energy hub, and its policy of opening its doors to emerging countries.

The IEA will soon begin an in-depth review of Switzerlands energy policies, a timely and strategic opportunity to consider how the IEA can support the Swiss governments implementation of its national energy strategy. This support includes multi-lateral efforts such as the 21 IEA Technology Collaboration Programmes (TCPs) that Switzerland already participates in.

During his visit to Berne for the meeting, Dr Birol also gave a keynote presentation on the IEAs energy technology work, highlighting scenarios for the energy transition. The speech before an audience of about 100 people focused on key findings from the 2017 edition of the IEA publication Energy Technology Perspectives.
Imperial Valley News Center

International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists

Washington, DC - Around the world, journalists work often at great personal risk to report on issues that impact the lives of individuals in all societies. They shine a light on abuses and corruption, expose threats posed by transnational criminal organizations, and counter disinformation and propaganda that spread false narratives. These efforts play an indispensable role in the healthy functioning of our own democracy and also underpin democratic values around the world.

Due to their profession, journalists are often under threat from those who wish to silence them. In too many parts of the world, crimes against journalists go unpunished.

In Syria, both local and foreign journalists have regularly been attacked and killed while reporting on the conflict. In Venezuela, the government arbitrarily closes media outlets as punishment for reporting facts, or maintaining an editorial line, critical of the regime. Security forces and armed colectivos that harassed and physically attacked journalists during protests earlier this year remain unpunished.

In Iraq, media workers report accounts of intimidation, death threats, and harassment. In Sudan, the government arrests, harasses, and intimidates journalists with impunity. In Uganda, government officials intensified their crackdown against freedom of expression, including by intimidating journalists. In Nigeria and South Sudan, there is no evidence of accountability for police and other officials who have abused journalists. For the third year in a row, Somalia holds the world's worst record for unsolved murders of journalists.

In Russia, the lack of progress towards any accountability for the killing of high profile journalists persists.

In Turkey, perpetrators of attacks against journalists or independent media institutions often receive minimal penalties. This impunity has been exacerbated by the use of the judicial system to target independent media.

In Azerbaijan, nine out of ten physical attacks against journalists go unsolved.

Together with others in the international community, we will continue working to eliminate impunity for crimes against media professionals. On International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, the United States renews its dedication to promoting a free, professional, and independent press abroad, and to advocating for accountability for those who would undermine a free press with threats, intimidation, and violence.
Imperial Valley News Center

Secretary of State Tillerson Travels to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Burma

Washington, DC - Secretary Tillerson will accompany President Trump on his travels to Japan, the Republic of Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The Secretary will also make an additional stop in Burma. The Secretarys six-country trip demonstrates the Administrations commitment to our alliances and partnerships in the Asia Pacific and highlights our ongoing engagement in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the East Asia Summit (EAS) on regional issues of mutual interest and concern.

The Secretary will travel to Tokyo, Japan November 5-7. Secretary Tillerson will participate in the Presidents bilateral summit meeting with Prime Minister Abe, engage with Japanese and American business leaders, and meet with the families of Japanese citizens abducted by the North Korean regime. The Secretary will support the Presidents focus on bolstering the U.S.-Japan Alliance, strengthening our shared resolve on North Korea, and pressing for more balanced trade that fosters strong domestic demand-driven growth and free and fair trade practices.

Secretary Tillerson will travel to Seoul, Republic of Korea November 7-8. He will join the President in meeting with senior Korean officials to discuss the U.S.-Republic of Korea alliance and our shared global priorities, including our coordinated response to the threat posed by North Korea.

On November 8-10, the Secretary will visit Beijing, China and will participate in the Presidents summit meeting with President Xi Jinping. He will have discussions with Chinese officials on bilateral, regional, and global issues that affect both countries. At the top of the agenda will be North Korea and the economic relationship between the United States and China. The United States seeks a constructive and results-oriented relationship with China.

Secretary Tillerson will travel to Danang, Vietnam on November 10, to participate with the President in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings. APEC is the preeminent leaders-level forum for promoting cooperation on reducing barriers to trade and investment throughout the Asia-Pacific region. On November 11, the Secretary will travel to Hanoi, Vietnam with the President for bilateral engagements with senior Vietnamese leaders.

On November 12-13, the Secretary will join the President in Manila, Philippines to reaffirm the enduring U.S. commitment to the U.S.-Philippines alliance and ASEAN-centered regional architecture as the President engages with his counterparts from the East Asia Summit (EAS), the regions premier leaders-led forum for addressing the Asia-Pacifics most pressing political and security issues. The Secretary will join the President in celebrating the 50th anniversary of ASEAN and in participating in the U.S.-ASEAN 40th Anniversary Commemorative Summit. He will also join President Trump on November 13, for a bilateral meeting with President Duterte. On November 14, Secretary Tillerson will represent the President and the United States at the EAS plenary meeting.

The Secretary will then travel to Naypyidaw, Burma, where on November 15, he will meet and consult with senior leaders and officials on actions to address the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State and U.S. support for Burmas democratic transition.
Often during the summer, I hear anglers talk about the lake turning as the algae comes on strong and the color of the water changes. But a lake turns when the surface water temperatures equalize with the water temperatures of the depths in the fall, not the summer. With this falls above average temperatures, surface water changes are well above normal and area lakes will likely turn over later than normal.

Temperature changes very slowly in a large body of water as its mass acts as a storage unit for heat. During the summer, the top layer of water heats up, while the depths hold the cooler denser water. The two layers are separated by another layer called a thermocline. This is an area of rapid oxygen and temperature change in a relatively thin layer.

As the surface layer cools down with the longer nights and colder weather it becomes denser. When it gets close to the temperature of the depths, generally around 50 degrees, it starts to sink into and through the thermocline.

Eventually the temperature of all the layers becomes similar and the different layers mix together. This is when the lake turns. The surface is stirred by winds mixing oxygen into the water, it becomes cooler, and therefore denser because it is exposed to the cold air temperatures and sinks deeper, drawing the less oxygenated warmer water to the surface. This cycle continues for a while, drawing oxygen down into the depths.

Like most compounds, water gets denser as it gets colder, until around 39 degrees. That is where it is at its densest. Below that temperature it gets lighter, until it becomes a solid at 32 degrees where it is so light that it floats on the denser, colder water. This ice on the surface helps insulate the water below from even colder air temperatures.

With the oxygen being replenished in the deeper water, fish can descend into that area, which during the cold of winter is actually warmer than near the surface. This is how many fish can survive Nevadas harsh winters. It also keeps the depths of the lake from becoming sterile areas as the decay of dead plants and animals that settle to bottom would use up most of the oxygen without this mixing.

Both Wild Horse and South Fork are dimictic (the word of the day), which means that they mix twice a year, once in the spring and then again in the fall.

Fly-tying classes

NDOW will be holding free fly tying classes starting Nov. 15, at 6 p.m. They will be held at the NDOW office at 60 Youth Center Road. This is a progressive fly tying class that will take place every Wednesday night except during holiday weeks until mid-March. The class will end with an introductory fly fishing class in the spring.

There are some fly tying kits available for loan on a first come first served basis. Supplies for the class are free and provided by NDOW. For more information or to reserve a space in the class, call 777-2305 or email to jdoucette@ndow.org.

WILDHORSE

Little change here as the water is clearing and Wildhorse is fishing very well as shore anglers report good fishing for trout in the Hendricks Arm on both sides of the highway and all the way to the canyon that leads to the dam. Fish are averaging 14 to 17 inches with the occasional fish between 20 and 24 inches. Penrod arm is also fishing well as is the area on the west side of the lake near the hot springs. Boaters are also doing well, though no report on how the canyon by the dam is fishing. Minnow imitators with black or blue over white or silver should work as well as fire tiger patterns. Fishing Bait fishermen should use the usual worms or PowerBait for trout. While most fly rodders report good luck with leeches, especially when fished under an indicator (bobber), they also should be trying the standard fall reservoir patterns: scuds, damselfly nymphs, and blood midges. Chironomid patterns should also be near the top of the list for flies. Fall stocking wrapped up a couple of weeks ago bringing this years total to almost 186,000 fish stocked in Wildhorse Reservoir!

SOUTH FORK RESERVOIR

Surface water temperatures range from the high 40s to low 50s, depending upon where on the lake you are and time of day. There is still a fair amount of algae in the lake which appears to be affecting fishing, though hopefully this weekends stormy weather and cooler temperatures will change that. Fishing has improved from slow to fair. Anglers report catching some fish on the southeast side of the lake in eight to 10 feet of water from float tubes using olive or peacock bead head crystal buggers. The trout being caught are averaging between 14 and 18 inches with an occasional 20 incher. Other flies to try include hares ears, scuds, copper Johns, prince nymphs, damsel nymphs, blood midges and of course wooly, crystal and seal buggers. Bass fishing is also slowing down, but what it lacks in numbers it makes up for in size as large bass are on the prowl fattening up for winter. Bass anglers should be targeting south facing shorelines where the sun will have the most exposure heating up the water. South Fork was stocked with more than 96,000 trout this year.

JIGGS/ZUNINO RESERVOIR

Fishing from shore continues to improve and anglers are catching 12 to 14 inch fish with a few 19 to 20 inch fish thrown in for good measure. Worms fished below a bobber or PowerBait suspended off of the bottom should produce fish, though PowerBait has been doing better than worms from most reports. Black and gold or green and gold spinners and rooster tails should also be effective, while fly rodders should be using leeches, blood midges, snail patterns, small nymphs and wooly buggers. Please return any black bass or blue gill back to the lake to help with rebuilding the warm water fishery here. Jiggs was recently stocked with approximately 2,000 trout.

WILSON RESERVOIR

The water is clear with the lake about 50% of capacity and trout are moving into shallower water near the boat ramp or along the north shore near the cabin. The usual PowerBait or worms work well. Gold, green and yellow, or black and yellow spinners are still working. Fly fishermen should be using chironomids, mayfly nymphs and emergers, or black crystal buggers for best results. Expect bass numbers to go down with the cooler temperatures. Wilson was stocked with approximately 45,000 fish this year.

RUBY LAKE NWR

Bass fishing has slowed considerably due to the cooler temperatures with surface water temperatures here in the 40s. Best fishing for bass is late afternoon when the water temperatures are at their warmest. Fishing in the ditch for trout has been good for trout, though most of the ditch has low clear water with weeds. Anglers are hooking a lot of fish, but in some areas having trouble landing them as they head for the weeds. Fly rodders should try the usual assortment of nymphs under an indicator as well as wooly, seal and crystal buggers. Scuds, midges, pale morning duns, small blue winged olives and damselfly nymphs are all worth a try. Of course the usual small hares ears, PTs, copper Johns and buggers are all staples in the ditch. Fish are even taking a few hoppers and stimulators on the surface. The trick seems to be to give the dry flies a small twitch every so often. Spin fishermen should try small minnow imitators and gold spinners. The collection ditch is artificial lures only and no wading is allowed.

JAKES CREEK/BOIES RESERVOIR

The weeds are dying off, and while shore fishing is getting easier, a small boat or float tube will still give you an advantage. Trout fishing is picking up while bass fishing is slowing down due to cooler water temperatures. Dark soft plastics in blue or black with sparkles were working for bass. Worms and PowerBait are popular here as are black or olive woolly buggers, prince nymphs, PTs, leech patterns, scuds and hares ears. Fish the edges of the dying weeds with scuds or leech patterns.

COLD CREEK RESERVOIR

Water temperaturess are sitting in the high 40s to low 50s. Anglers will do well on night crawlers, Mepps, Panther Martins and Cast Masters for trout. Bass have been moving but are not extremely active yet. Trout fishing has been good using common nymph and emerger patterns as well as buggers.

CAVE LAKE

Fishing at Cave Lake continues to be productive. Anglers are catching summer carryover trout and fall stocked trout. Most fish being caught are 10 inches to 12 inches with the occasional 14+ inch rainbow. Water temperatures are in the low 50s. PowerBait, nightcrawlers, mealworms, Mepps, and Panther Martins should do well on Cave Lake. For fly rodders: hares ears, pheasant tail nymphs, prince nymphs, small crystal buggers and Cave Lake specials are all good flies.

COMINS LAKE

Fishing has been very good for trout with an occasional bass being caught. Anglers have been catching trout on a little bit of everything including, Powerbait, nightcrawlers, Panther Martins, Mepps, and Cast Masters. Flyfishers can use a variety of nymphs including scuds, chironomids, zebra midges, pheasant tails. Wooly buggers should also be on the menu. Anglers can expect to catch 12+ inch trout with some trout being over 19 inches. Please return any black bass back to the lake while the bass fishery rebuilds.

ILLIPAH

Surface water temps are currently setting around the high 40s to low 50s depending upon where on the lake you are and time of day. Fishing has been fair to good as anglers have been catching mostly rainbow trout but several brown trout have shown up in creel surveys. Best fishing for browns would be first thing in the morning or late in the evening. Anglers should continue to do well using Powerbait, nightcrawlers, Panther Martins, Cast Masters, and Mepps. Fly fishermen should be using wooly or crystal buggers, chironomid patterns, copper Johns and blood midges.

WILLOW CREEK RESERVOIR

The road is rough so care should be taken driving here. Crappie like structure so fish near submerged brush, willows and rocks. Fishing for crappie has been good, so the lake is worth a try if you happen to be in the area. White jigs fished under a bobber near structure such as the riprap on the dam may be productive. Crappie fishing has been good and if the weather holds, should continue to be good for a bit.

ANGEL LAKE

Fishing continues to be good with the trout trying to fatten up for the long winter under the ice. The fall has some of the best fishing at Angel Lake, especially for fly fishermen. It wont be long before this lake freezes over, so get out while you can. Dress in layers here as the lake is at 8400 feet of elevation with cold mornings and warm afternoons. Bait anglers have seen fishing slow as trout are keying on aquatic insects. Fly rodders have had success using small elk hair caddis, hopper or yellow stimulator with an olive or peacock soft hackle dropper below, though any dropper fly with green or peacock herl will work. Small spinners and rooster tails should also be effective, just give them enough time to sink to the level the fish are at. Spin anglers can put a fly behind a bobber for casting and have better luck that way.

ALPINE LAKES

Anglers will need to prepare to get to the lakes through snow. Lakes are starting to ice over though the recent warm spell has kept some open water on most of the lower elevation lakes. It wont be long before they are completely iced over. With the precipitation predicted this weekend, only experienced back country travelers should attempt fishing the high mountain lakes. The same presentations and techniques that work at Angel all work well up here. Remember the further you get from the trailhead, there is less fishing pressure therefore the better the fishing is. Many local fly fishermen like flies with yellow or red in them such as small humpies or stimulators. However, take a supply of small black flies such as black Adams, beetles, ants, chironomids and Griffiths gnats. When nothing else seems to work, turn to the small black flies. Expect changing weather conditions in the high elevations and dress accordingly. Be prepared to spend the night.

STREAMS

Most area streams are near normal for flows for this time of year with little or no change from last week. Lamoille Creek is flowing at 5 cfs, Bruneau River at 29 cfs, Jarbidge at 7 cfs and the east fork of the Owyhee near Mountain City is flowing at approximately 14 cfs. The Owyhee is very low and fish are hanging in the pools. East central Nevada streams: Cleve Creek is flowing at 6 cfs and Steptoe at 4 cfs, This is a good time of year to target brook and brown trout as they are very active as many are in spawning mode and very colorful. Dead drifting worms on a light wire hook through the pools and runs can be productive. Very small panther martins and rooster tails in the pools will also work. Fly rodders can still expect dry flies to work, starting with small stimulators and elk hair caddis. Terrestrials such as hoppers, beetles and ants will also produce fish. Swinging soft hackle nymphs in the runs or at the bottom and tops of pools can be very productive.
Governor Brown Issues Statement on Republican Tax Proposal

Sacramento, California - Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. issued the following statement on the Republican tax proposal released today:

The hurried tax proposal unveiled by Congress today transfers income from individuals and families to large and powerful corporate structures. This is bad economic policy and bad for the American people.

Last week, Governor Brown sent a letter calling on California's 14 House Republicans to do what's right for California and their constituents and held a media call with New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo to discuss the potentially devastating impacts of the proposed elimination of state and local tax deductions.
Federated States of Micronesia's Independence Day

Washington, DC - Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson: "On behalf of the Government of the United States of America, we offer congratulations to the Federated States of Micronesia to commemorate your 31st anniversary of independence on November 3.

"The United States and the Federated States of Micronesia have enjoyed a longstanding partnership based on shared democratic values and close cooperation on matters ranging from promoting regional maritime security to improving economic growth and development. Our people continue to enjoy close ties with each other, and we recognize the service of many citizens of the Federated States of Micronesia in the United States Armed Forces. Their service helps promote global peace, security, and stability.

"As a close friend and partner, the United States celebrates with you on this special day."
Redflow aims for 250 batteries/month from Thailand

Redflow Chairman Brett JohnsonAustralian battery company Redflow Limited aims to produce as many as 3000 batteries a year from its new Thai factory, which it is currently fitting out, reports Redflow Chairman Brett Johnson.

In a letter to shareholders, Mr Johnson said that once the Thai facility was fully operational, it would have the capacity to manufacture as many as 250 batteries a month. I am confident that once our new factory is producing quality batteries, Redflow will be able to demonstrate that it has a unique and viable product with real benefits for many energy storage applications, he said.

Our initial sales focus will be on market sectors with established battery demand where our technology has a clear competitive advantage over conventional batteries, notably lead-acid. These markets include telecommunications and network power and applications where there is either no or limited grid power available.

ASX-listed Redflow announced last month that it has started installing battery production equipment at its new factory in Thailand, putting it on track to commence initial operation by the end of this year. Through its Thai subsidiary, Redflow has signed a three-year lease on the 1500-square-metre building at the Hemaraj Chonburi Industrial Estate, part of the IEAT free trade zone, 110km southeast of Bangkok and 25km from the Laem Chabang deep sea container port.

Mr Johnson, who became Redflows independent non-executive Chairman in September, has more than 10 years experience as a director of listed companies, including Scott Corporation Limited and Helloworld Limited. He also worked for more than 25 years as a senior executive of listed Australian companies, including Memtec Limited and Qantas Airways Limited.

Mr Johnson said Redflow CEO Richard Aird and his team were working tirelessly to establish the companys new manufacturing facility near Bangkok. While fully supporting the work in Thailand, the Redflow team in Brisbane continues to enhance our battery technology, support our customer base and manufacture a limited number of batteries to ensure supply for our customers, he said.

Redflow is at an exciting point in its history, after developing the worlds smallest zinc-bromine flow batteries with unique energy storage benefits; having established demand for its batteries from telecommunications, commercial and residential customers; and recently starting the installation of its production line equipment at a new factory in Thailand.

Redflows sales team is working with our ZBM2 and ZCell installation partners to ensure that once battery production commences in Thailand, we have the orders and strategy to increase our installed base of Redflow batteries.

Mr Johnson said that Redflows largest shareholder Simon Hackett, who was acting CEO and Executive Chairman until September, remained fully engaged with the company as a non-executive director and a champion for its world-leading energy storage technology.

Mr Johnsons letter also noted that Redflows 2017 Annual General Meeting is scheduled for 10.30am on Friday, November 24, at the Jindalee Hotel, near the companys head office in Brisbane.

For media assistance, call John Harris on +61 8 8431 4000 or email john@impress.com.au.

About Redflow

Redflows unique zinc-bromine flow batteries are designed for stationary energy storage applications ranging from its ZCell residential battery to its scalable ZBM2 batteries for industrial, commercial, telecommunications and grid-scale deployment. Redflow Limited, a publicly-listed company (ASX: RFX), produces high energy density batteries that are sold, installed and maintained by an international network of system integrators. Redflow batteries offer unique advantages including 100 per cent depth of discharge, tolerance of ambient temperatures as hot as 50 degrees Celsius and sustained energy storage of 10 kilowatt-hours (kWh) throughout their operating life.




This Isnt Our Last Love Letter



Dear Don Don,

Way back in 92



I walked into the room and knew



Never felt this way before



I shook your hand while gazing into your eyes



And the feeling grew



As I took a seat I knew



A love that would have my heart



Forever



I knew



Way back in 92





They say love at first sight doesnt always last or isnt true



We were the exception to that rule



Our love had no where to hide



A spark set fire



As if this is how the universe started





I never doubted our love or what we could do



Together we grew



Forming a bond everlasting



That became our glue



My euphoria was YOU



Im eternally grateful for the love and life we shared



For how fortunate we were :



to have and to hold

through sickness and in health

Til death do us part



Until we are together again



This isnt our last love letter



I love you with all my heart and soul



Yours forever,



Deirdre (Mrs. Hank Snow)





Im fortunate to have fallen in love with, marry and make a life with the sharpest, coolest, funniest, most rare, bad ass, tender loving, loyal man on the planet, my husband Don Imus.









A True American Hero

I dont know why it has been so hard for me to write about my dear friend Don Imus.



I certainly know what he meant to me, my family, my charity, my hospital and the millions of fans that listened and loved him for so many years.



I keep reading all the beautiful condolences that people are writing about how much a part of their lives were effected by listening to him over the years.

But what most people dont talk enough about is what he did for all of us.

In every sense of the word, he was an American Hero. His work with children with so many different illnesses and his dedication to their future was unmatched by anyone I have ever known or heard about.



Besides raising over $100,000,000 for so many causes, he took care of young people for over 20 years in a state where he could not breathe. Along with his incredible wife Deirdre, he created a world where children were not defined by their disease. That was a miracle! He was a miracle.

I will miss him ever day for the rest of my life.

I was blessed to be a part of his and Deirdes life.

No one will ever do what he did.

I love you Don Imus - A TRUE AMERICAN HERO





David Jurist

IMUS IN THE MORNING

FIRST DAY BACK!
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A documentary about an alleged paedophile ring in Hollywood has been viewed more than 3 million times after creators released it for free.

An Open Secret, which promises to shine a light on child abuse in the film industry, was posted online two years after it was apparently rejected by film and TV distributors.

Billed as "the film Hollywood doesn't want you to see", the documentary focuses on the alleged abuse of young boys and teenagers who want to work in the film industry.

Director Amy Berg, who won an Oscar for her film Deliver Us From Evil about sex abuse in the Catholic church, obtained information with her team about an alleged group of child abusers in Hollywood, including managers, agents, publicists and directors.

It tells of lavish parties where men allegedly gave boys drugs and alcohol before "trading" them for sex. Others were accused of spending years earning the trust of victims' families, grooming them, then sexually assaulting them.

One interview features Evan Henzi, who says he was 11-years-old when his manager Martin Weiss began molesting him.

Weiss pleaded no-contest in 2012 to two counts of child molestation and was sentenced to a year and a half in jail with five years probation.

Henzi, who is now 24, said: "I shared my story in An Open Secret so other victims who have been molested for years just like me can heal.

"When the film was released, I witnessed a lot of support by people who actually saw the film. What I did not witness was support from film festivals or Hollywood at large to promote the film."

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Gabe Hoffman, a hedge fund manager based in Florida who financed the film, told the Guardian: "We got zero Hollywood offers to distribute the film. Not even one. Literally no offers for any price whatsover."

Creators have since decided to upload the film onto video-sharing website Vimeo this month, in response to the sex abuse scandal currently engulfing Hollywood.

The free viewing was supposed to end on Tuesday 31 October but people will now be able to watch it until Sunday 5 November.

Creators hope it will eventually be available on TV, Netflix or Amazon. You can watch An Open Secret here.

Follow Independent Culture on Facebook for news in Film, Music, TV and more
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Corey Feldman has publicly identified a man he alleges molested him when he was a child film star in the 1980s.

The Goonies actor named his former assistant and co-star Jon Grissom as one of his abusers during a TV appearance in which he also reported the allegations to police.

Feldman has long told of being sexually abused by a Hollywood paedophile ring but has never previously named those responsible.

He named Grissom, an actor who had small roles in films alongside Feldman in the 1980s, on The Dr Oz Show.

"That is him," said Feldman as presenter Mehmet Oz held up a photo of Grissom on a mobile phone. "That is the guy."

The Lost Boys star said Grissom had sexually assaulted him when he was aged 13 or 14. He reported the alleged abuse on air in a phone call to Los Angeles Police Department.

The department said it was aware of the programme, broadcast on Thursday, but no report had yet been formally filed.

Jon Grissom is alleged to have sexually abused Corey Feldman (Facebook)

According to The Dr Oz Show, Grissom has an extensive criminal record and was jailed for child molestation in 2003. He has since been released and is thought to live in California.

Grissom had minor roles in Eighties teen comedy films License to Drive and Dream a Little Dream, both of which featured Feldman and fellow child star Corey Haim.

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Haim, who died in 2010, spoke of being sexually abused as a teenager by an acquaintance of Feldman.

Grissom's Myspace page features photos of himself with Haim and Feldman.

"He still taunts it, flaunts it," Feldman told Dr Oz.

The actor wrote of the abuse in his 2013 memoir Coreyography but said lawyers stopped him from naming Grissom. He instead used a pseudonym, "Ron Crimson", in the book.

He said: "They gave me a list of three or four, you know, names. I picked the one that sounded closest to his name.

Corey Feldman, pictured singing in Los Angeles, said he was abused as a child by several men in the film industry (AP)

In the book, he writes: I had taken some pills, some concoction that Ron had made up Ron came over and sat down next to me, a triple-X magazine in his hands Ron started touching me, reaching across my thigh to the crotch of my pants.

When I woke up, he was on me, touching me, tugging on the zipper of my pants. I realised it was happening again.

Last week Feldman also named talent manager Marty Weiss, a convicted child sex offender, as one of his alleged abusers.

He launched a $10m (7.6m) fundraising drive for a film in which he said he would expose paedophilia in Hollywood and name other sexual predators.

He said the money would pay for security for himself and his family and a legal fund, as well as the production and distribution of the movie.

But he was criticised by Haim's mother, Judy, who told the Hollywood Reporter: Hes been talking about revealing the names of his and other abusers for seven years, since my son died.

Now he wants $10m to do it? Come on. Its a long con. Hes a scam artist. If he was serious about this, hed share the information he has with the police.

 Corey Feldman says he is the victim of paedophilia in Hollywood

Felman told Dr Oz he had reported abuse to police in 1993 but no action had been taken.

He said: "I told the Santa Barbara Police Department, when they came to interrogate me about Michael Jackson, when they came to convince me that he was a paedophile. And I said He's not.

"And I said, 'I've been molested.' They said, 'By who?' I said, 'I can give you the names, here they are.' And they said, 'That's not our area. That's outside of our community.''

The department confirmed it had been in contact with Feldman, but said in a statement: "Our records do not indicate that he named any suspects."

Grissom has not commented on the allegations.
Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free 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 are investigating after another actress accused Harvey Weinstein of raping her twice.

Paz de la Huerta  best known for a role in HBOs acclaimed series Boardwalk Empire  claims the disgraced Hollywood mogul sexually assaulted her on two occasions in 2010.

Speaking to CBS, De la Huerta said Weinstein forced himself upon her following a New York party. The producer offered to drive her home, as the pair lived in the same neighbourhood.

After Weinstein reportedly insisted they have drinks, she said they ended up inside her apartment. He pushed me on the bed ... and it happened all very suddenly, she said.

Following the incident, Weinstein allegedly kept pestering De la Huerta, turning up in the lobby of her apartment on 23 December that year. She claims that Weinstein raped her a second time that day.

Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Show all 42 1 /42 Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Harvey Weinstein Harry Weinsteins reputation as one of Hollywoods leading executives was long cemented in stone. The acclaimed movie mogul, who produced Oscar-winning films Shakespeare in Love, The English Patient, and The Artist, clocked up box office successes and accolades aplenty. But this has quickly changed since a chorus of women have come forward to accuse the Hollywood producer of sexual harassment and assault. Since the New York Times bombshell report disclosed sexual harassment and rape allegations against the film mogul dating back decades, Weinstein has been fired from his namesake company, expelled from the Oscars and has had his wife leave him. Weinstein has apologised for having caused a lot of pain but has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Annabella Sciorra The Sopranos actor alleged Weinstein raped her after shooting The Night We Never Met, a 1993 movie that Weinstein produced. Similar to the stories told by other women, Weinstein drove the actor home, only to reportedly burst into Sciorra's apartment and start unbuttoning his shirt. He shoved me onto the bed, and he got on top of me, Sciorra said. I kicked and I yelled. Weinstein then allegedly locked her arms and forced sexual intercourse on her. After the incident, Sciorra found it increasingly hard to get work, many filmmakers saying 'We heard you were difficult', something the actor claims was because of the 'Weinstein-machine'. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Natassia Malthe The model and actress, who has appeared in around 50 films, said she met Weinstein at a BAFTA after party in 2008 while she was working as a spokeswoman for LG. She told a press conference in New York that she felt pressured into telling Weinstein she was staying at the Sanderson Hotel after being put on the spot. Malthe, now 43, said after her shift on February 10 she went back to her room and went to sleep, but was awoken by "repeated pounding" on her door, from someone yelling: "Open the door Natassia Malthe, it's Harvey Weinstein." Feeling humiliated, she said she opened the door. She alleged Weinstein began implying sex would get her a role in an upcoming film while semi-undressed and then he began to masturbate. "I was sitting on the bed talking to Harvey when he pushed me back and forced himself onto me. It was not consensual. He did not use a condom," she said. AP Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Sean Young The actor, best known for her role in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, said that Weinstein exposed himself to her in the early 1990s, when she was starring in the Miramax-produced Love Crimes - a production company that Weinstein headed at the time. "I personally experienced him pulling his you-know-what out of his pants to shock me," she said. "My basic response was, 'You know, Harvey, I really dont think you should be pulling that thing out, its not very pretty.'" Young never worked with Weinstein again after the incident. Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Mimi Haleyi Mimi Haleyi said she was assaulted by Weinstein in what appeared to be a child's bedroom in his New York City apartment in 2006 when she was in her 20s. She said she was aspiring to work in television and film production when she was first introduced to him at the London premiere of The Aviator around two years earlier and he helped her get experience on the set of a TV show being produced by The Weinstein Company. But, she added, he repeatedly hassled her and even tried to force himself through her front door in an effort to get her to join him on a trip to Paris. At one point he allegedly forcibly performed oral sex on an aspiring production assistant while she was on her period. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Lupita Nyong'o In an op-ed for The New York Times, the Oscar-winning actor said she was invited to Weinsteins family home in Connecticut on the premise of watching a film shortly after they met in 2011. But she said shortly after it started he "insisted" in front of his children that she follow him and she was led to his bedroom. The Kenyan-Mexican actress, now 34, said she felt pressured into giving him a massage after he offered her one. "Before long he said he wanted to take off his pants," she wrote."I told him not to do that and informed him that it would make me extremely uncomfortable. He got up anyway to do so and I headed for the door, saying that I was not at all comfortable with that." Over the years that followed, he continued to get in touch, Nyong'o said, and when she declined another proposition she felt her career was threatened. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Lena Headey Writing on social media, the Game of Thrones actor claims she first met Weinstein at the Venice Film Festival in 2005 where, after taking her for a walk by the water, he made some suggestive comment and gesture. Headey claims she bumped into Weinstein years later where he kept asking her questions about her love life. She alleges that, when Weinstein invited her to his hotel room to show her a script, the "energy shifted. The actor notes how, after saying she was not interesting in anything but the work, Weinstein was furious, apparently marching her back to a lift, "grabbing and holding tightly to the back of [her] arm." She claims that, after paying for her car, he whispered in her ear: "Don't tell anyone about this, not your manager, not your agent. Headey finished the post, writing: I got in the car and I cried. Getty Images Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Lucia Evans The actor told The New Yorker that after a meeting to discuss casting her in various projects, Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him. I said, over and over, I dont want to do this, stop, dont. She added: Hes a big guy. He overpowered me. I just sort of gave up. Thats the most horrible part of it, and thats why hes been able to do this for so long to so many women: people give up, and then they feel like its their fault. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Laura Madden Madden, a production assistant who worked at Miramax for a decade, told the Times that Weinstein allegedly prodded her for massages at hotels, a common theme among the sources the Timess reporters spoke with. On one occasion, she claims she locked herself in his hotel bathroom, sobbing Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Ashley Judd Judd recounted for the Times how Weinstein allegedly harassed her while she was filming Kiss the Girls in 1996, inviting her to his hotel room and asking her for a massage, then inviting her to watch him shower. Judd first went public with the allegations in a 2015 interview with Variety during which she discussed the experience without naming the producer involved. She described Weinsteins alleged behaviour as coercive bargaining; I said no, a lot of ways, a lot of times, and he always came back at me with some new ask, she told the Times AFP/Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Rose McGowan McGowan reportedly reached a previously undisclosed $100,000 settlement with Weinstein in 1997, over an incident that occurred in a hotel room Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Mimi Haleyi Mimi Haleyi said she was assaulted by Weinstein in what appeared to be a child's bedroom in his New York City apartment in 2006 when she was in her 20s. She said she was aspiring to work in television and film production when she was first introduced to him at the London premiere of The Aviator around two years earlier and he helped her get experience on the set of a TV show being produced by The Weinstein Company. But, she added, he repeatedly hassled her and even tried to force himself through her front door in an effort to get her to join him on a trip to Paris. At one point he allegedly forcibly performed oral sex on an aspiring production assistant while she was on her period. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Emily Nestor Nestor had been temping at the Weinstein Company for only one day in 2014 when Weinstein allegedly offered to boost her career in return for sexual favours, according to the Times. She declined and reportedly complained of his behaviour to colleagues, who later passed the information on to senior executives. An internal Weinstein Company document cited by the Times describes Nestors encounter with Weinstein as follows: She said he was very persistent and focused though she kept saying no for over an hour Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Ambra Battilana In March 2015, Battilana, an aspiring model and actress, was reportedly summoned to Weinsteins office on a Friday night to discuss her career. According to a police report cited by the Times, Battilana claimed she was assaulted by Weinstein, who grabbed her breasts after asking if they were real and put his hands up her skirt. Weinstein later claimed that Battilana had set him up, according to colleagues of his who were interviewed by the Times. The Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus Vance, later declined to press charges, and according to the Times, made a payment to Battilana. On 5 October, the International Business Times reported that after Vance dropped the charges, he received $10,000 from Weinsteins lawyer Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Lauren OConnor Lauren OConnor, an employee of the Weinstein Company, penned a memo to executives alleging a toxic environment for women at the company. The memo cited numerous incidents of Weinstein harassing or coercing women who worked for him. She expressed fear that Weinstein was using her and other female employees to facilitate liaisons with vulnerable women who hope he will get them work. That same year, Weinstein allegedly reached a settlement with OConnor Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Kate Beckinsale The actor, who starred in the Weinstein Company films Serendipity and The Aviator, alleges that she was invited to Weinsteins hotel room at the age of just 17. When she approached the door, the producer reportedly greeted her dressed in just a dressing gown. I was incredibly naive and young and it did not cross my mind that this older, unattractive man would expect me to have any sexual interest in him, she wrote on Instagram. After declining alcohol and announcing that I had school in the morning I left, uneasy but unscathed. Theo Wargo/Getty Images Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Gwyneth Paltrow The actor alleges that after he cast her in the title role of the film Emma when she was 22, he took her to his hotel room, placed his hands on her and suggested massages. I was a kid, I was signed up, I was petrified, Paltrow told the New York Times. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Asia Argento Italian actress Asia Argento has alleged that in 1997 Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her as she repeatedly told him to stop. When I see him, it makes me feel little and stupid and weak, Argento told The New Yorker. After the rape, he won. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Cara Delevigne The British model and actress penning an Instagram post claiming that Weinstein had ordered her to kiss another woman in his hotel room, and tried to kiss her on the lips. AFP/Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Ashley Judd Ashley Judd said she rebuffed Harvey Weinsteins unwanted sexual advances by offering to consent only after she had won an Oscar. When she was initially invited to a meeting with Weinstein, Judd said, she was surprised to learn the producer was in his hotel room - a tactic that recurs in other womens accounts. Echoing the accounts of other women, Judd said Weinstein suggested she give him a massage and then invited her to watch him shower. After a volley of nos she said she would only after she wins an Oscar, fleeing after making the comments. Reuters/Mike Segar Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Judith Godreche French actress Judith Godreche said when she was 24 Weinstein invited her to his hotel room and asked to give her a massage. The next thing I know, hes pressing against me and pulling off my sweater, she told the New York Times. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Mira Sorvino The Oscar-winning actor said she found herself in a hotel room with Weinstein in 1995 where he started massaging my shoulders, which made me very uncomfortable, and then tried to get more physical, sort of chasing me around. According to an interview in The New Yorker Weinstein subsequently arrived at her apartment late at night and she had to call a friend to come over to pose as her boyfriend in order to get Weinstein out of the house. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Katherine Kendall The actress said Weinstein undressed and chased her around a living room when she was just 23. She subsequently felt that telling others meant Ill never work again and no one is going to care or believe me, she told the New York Times. WireImage Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Tomi-Anne Roberts As an aspiring actress and working in a restaurant in New York, Tomi-Ann Roberts encountered Weinstein who encouraged her to audition for one of his films back in 1984. She subsequently went to meet him and found him naked in the bath and invited her to get naked and get into the bath with him, she told the New York Times. She said she left feeling manipulated. Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Myleen Klass It has also been alleged that the disgraced film producer propositioned Myleene Klass with a sex contract at Cannes Film Festival in 2010. One of the singer and television personalitys friends reportedly told The Sun, Klass had told Weinstein to f*** off. Getty Images Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Sophie Dix Sophie Dix, best known for her role as Captain Sadie Williams in Soldier Soldier, described her encounter with Weinstein when she was 23 as the single most damaging thing thats happened in my life. She told The Guardian Weinstein had pushed her to her bed and was tugging at her clothes. She rushed to the bathroom to escape, but when she came out she found him standing there masturbating. I quickly closed the door again and locked it, she said. Then when I heard room service come to the door I just ran. Rex Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Lea Seydoux The actor and director claims she had to fight off Weinstein after he brought her to his hotel room during what she remembers to be 2012. He suddenly jumped on me and tried to kiss me. I had to defend myself. Hes big and fat, so I had to be forceful to resist him. I left his room, thoroughly disgusted, she wrote in The Guardian. AFP/Getty Images Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Claire Forlani British actress Claire Forlani wrote on Twitter that she had evaded Weinsteins advances on five occasions at the age of 25. At meetings with the Hollywood a-lister, she says massage was suggested, and that Weinstein had boasted of all the women hed had sex with. Mark Douet Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Florence Darel French actress Florence Darel claimed Weinstein relentlessly pursued her in the mid 1990's and propositioned her while Eve Chilton, his wife at the time, was in the hotel room next door. I was astonished, she told People magazine. When you have someone so physically disgusting in front of you, continuing and continuing as though this was all perfectly normal What happened to me may not be illegal but it was inappropriate. Very inappropriate. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Lysette Anthony Lysette Anthony, who starred as Marnie Nightingale in Hollyoaks, has claimed Weinstein raped her in the late 1980's after turning up to her London home in the late 1980s. She described the disgraced film producers alleged attack as pathetic and revolting and said it left her feeling disgusted and embarrassed. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Dawn Dunning Dunning said she met Weinstein in 2003 when she was 24-years-old and the disgraced film producer suggested she have a threesome with him and someone else. She told the New York Times Weinstein got angry when she refused. Youll never make it in this business, she said he told her as she left. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Rosanna Arquette Rosanna Arquette was already well known for her role in Desperately Seeking Susan, when she said she met Weinstein at his hotel to pick up a script in the early nineties. Weinstein was dressed only in a dressing gown, and tried to put her hand on his erect penis. Speaking to the New York Times, Arquette said as she left she told him: I will never be that girl. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Emma de Caunes Caunes, a French actor, claimed Weinstein took her to his hotel room in 2010 supposedly to retrieve a book he was making into a film, but once there he went into the bathroom. De Caunes said he then emerged naked, with an erection and told her to lie on the bed. She fled the room. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Zoe Brock Model Zoe claimed that she had to lock herself in a bathroom at Weinsteins hotel in 1997, after the mogul had sent all of the assistants out of the room, and then appeared naked. I was alone with Weinstein, she told ITVs This Morning programme. He very quickly left the room and came back naked. He chased me naked. Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Jessica Barth Actress Jessica Barth described an encounter with Weinstein in 2011 in an interview with The New Yorker in which she said Weinstein veered between offering her roles in films and demanding a naked massage. She alleges the producer said to her: So, what would happen if, say, were having some champagne and I take my clothes off and you give me a massage? When she tried to leave, he then promised to give her the number of a female executive at the company. He gave me her number, and I walked out and I started bawling, Barth said. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Romola Garai The actress told The Guardian she felt violated after she went to a meeting with Weinstein at the age of 18 and he met her in his hotel room wearing nothing but a dressing gown. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Heather Graham Graham claimed that during a casting opportunity in the early 2000's Weinstein had told her he had an open relationship with his wife. He could sleep with whomever he wanted when he was out of town. I walked out of the meeting feeling uneasy, Graham told Variety. There was no explicit mention that to star in one of those films I had to sleep with him, but the subtext was there. Graham was never hired to work in a Weinstein film. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Jessica Hynes Spaced and W1A star Jessica Hynes tweeted about an encounter with Weinstein earlier this week, but subsequently deleted the tweet. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Lucia Evans The actor told The New Yorker that after a meeting to discuss casting her in various projects, Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him. I said, over and over, I dont want to do this, stop, dont. She added: Hes a big guy. He overpowered me. I just sort of gave up. Thats the most horrible part of it, and thats why hes been able to do this for so long to so many women: people give up, and then they feel like its their fault. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Louisette Geiss The former actress said she met Weinstein to pitch a film script she was working on. During the meeting, Weinstein allegedly went out and reappeared naked and got into a jacuzzi where he masturbated in front of her and said he would make the script into a film if she stayed and watched. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Liza Campbell Liza Campbell, a British writer and artist, alleged that Olympically ugly Weinstein asked her to join him in the bath and began getting undressed at a hotel. In a piece for The Times, Campbell claimed she was forced to sprint to the door to escape. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Louise Godbold Writing in a blog post, Louise Godbold, a non-profit director in Los Angeles, said her encounter with Weinstein took the form of an office tour that became an occasion to trap me in an empty meeting room. She said then Weinstein was begging for a massage, his hands on my shoulders as I attempted to beat a retreat.

We are aware of the sexual assault complaints, an NYPD spokesperson said in a statement on Thursday. We are actively investigating them. The NYPD continues to work with the Manhattan District Attorneys office on the case. The investigation is ongoing.

The Manhattan District Attorneys office senior sex crimes prosecutor has since been assigned to investigate the case.

The accusations by De la Huerta follow similar allegations from actresses Rose McGowan, Natassia Malthe and Lysette Anthony, all claiming Weinstein raped them.

UK police are also investigating seven allegations of sexual assault against the producer, which date from the 1980s up to 2015.

Weinstein, who has recently been expelled from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences  the organisation behind the Oscars  and sacked from The Weinstein Company, has previously unequivocally denied all accusations of non-consensual sex.
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Paul Hollywood has commented on fellow judge Prue Leith accidentally revealing this years Great British Bake Off winner hours before the episode aired.

"What can you say? I was horrified, Hollywood said on Channel 4's spin-off show An Extra Slice. "She's made a mistake."

Jo Brand  who hosts the show  joked: "Unfortunately Prue can't be with us as she's too busy deleting her Twitter account.

Leith had accidentally Tweeted the series winner, Sophie Faldo, 12 hours before the final episode was broadcast on Channel 4, writing: No one told me judging a #gbbo final would be so emotional. I wanted them all to win. Bravo Sophie.

Best Great British Bake Off innuendos Show all 6 1 /6 Best Great British Bake Off innuendos Best Great British Bake Off innuendos 'Dip your cherries in the dough and off we go!' Baking offers so many opportunities for naughty jokes - and Mel and Sue take full advantage Best Great British Bake Off innuendos 'Bakers! Stop nozzling your princesses!' Hosts Mel and Sue offer up a relentless stream of puns and innuendos every week, much to Paul Hollywood's feigned despair (he loves it really) Best Great British Bake Off innuendos 'Was that leakage?' There's a lot of talk of 'leakage' on the Bake Off these days. Most puzzling. Best Great British Bake Off innuendos 'The crimp is critical to stop any leakage from the meat' Paul and Richard are full of innuendos as Mary Berry looks on pretending not to find it amusing Best Great British Bake Off innuendos 'Stop touching your dough balls!' The BBC have been tweeting their 'innuendo of the week' throughout the series Best Great British Bake Off innuendos 'It's got to be risen and rested before it goes in' Oh stop it Paul...

The judge  who was in Bhutan at the time  quickly deleted the message and apologised, saying moments after the incident that she was in too much of a state to talk about it.

Later she tweeted: I am so sorry to the fans of the show for my mistake this morning, I am in a different time zone and mortified by my error.

Despite the mishap, the final was watched by record numbers of people for Channel 4. According to reports, 7.7 million tuned in to see Sophie crowded winner, the most-watched Channel 4 programme since the 2012 Paralympics opening ceremony.
Today the sun is shining during my commute home from work. But this weekend, public service announcements will remind us to fall back, ending daylight saving time by setting our clocks an hour earlier on Sunday, Nov. 5. On Nov. 6, many of us will commute home in the dark.

This semiannual ritual shifts our rhythms and temporarily makes us groggy at times when we normally feel alert. Moreover, many Americans are confused about why we spring forward in March and fall back in November, and whether it is worth the trouble.

The practice of resetting clocks is not designed for farmers, whose plows follow the sun regardless of what time clocks say it is. And it does not create extra daylight  it simply shifts when the sun rises and sets relative to societys regular schedule and routines.

The key question is how people respond to this enforced shift. Most people have to be at work at a certain time  say, 8:30 a.m.  and if that time comes an hour earlier, they simply get up an hour earlier. The effect on society is another question. Here, the research shows that daylight saving time is more burden than boon.

No energy savings

Benjamin Franklin was one of the first thinkers to endorse the idea of making better use of daylight. Although he lived well before the invention of light bulbs, Franklin observed that people who slept past sunrise wasted more candles later in the evening. He also whimsically suggested the first policy fixes to encourage energy conservation: firing cannons at dawn as public alarm clocks, and fining homeowners who put up window shutters.

To this day, our laws equate daylight saving with energy conservation. However, recent research suggests that it actually increases energy use.

This is what I found in a study co-authored with Yale economist Matthew Kotchen. We used a policy change in Indiana to estimate daylight saving times effects on electricity consumption. Prior to 2006, most Indiana counties did not observe it. By comparing households electricity demand before and after daylight saving time was adopted, month by month, we showed that it had actually increased residential electricity demand in Indiana by 1 to 4 percent annually.

The largest effects occurred in the summer  when shifting clocks forward aligns our lives with the hottest part of the day, so that people tend to use more air conditioning  and late fall, when we wake up in a cold dark house and use more heating, with no reduction in lighting needs.

Other studies corroborate these findings. Research in Australia and in the United States shows that daylight saving time does not decrease total energy use. However, it does smooth out peaks and valleys in energy demand throughout the day, as people at home use more electricity in the morning and less during the afternoon. Though people still use more electricity, shifting the timing reduces average costs to deliver energy because not everyone demands it during typical peak usage periods.

Other outcomes are mixed

Daylight saving time proponents also argue that changing times provides more hours for afternoon recreation and reduces crime rates. The best time for recreation is a matter of preference. However, there is better evidence on crime rates: Fewer muggings and sexual assaults occur during daylight saving time months because fewer potential victims are out after dark.

Overall, net benefits from these three durational effects of crime, recreation and energy use  that is, impacts that last for the duration of the time change  are murky.

Other consequences of daylight saving time are ephemeral. I think of them as bookend effects, since they occur when we change our clocks.

When we spring forward in March we lose an hour, which comes disproportionately from resting hours rather than wakeful time. Therefore, many problems associated with springing forward stem from sleep deprivation. With less rest, people make more mistakes, which appear to cause more traffic accidents and workplace injuries, lower workplace productivity due to cyberloafing and poorer stock market trading.

Even when we gain that hour back in the fall, we must readjust our routines over several days because the sun and our alarm clocks feel out of synchronization, much like jet lag. Some impacts are serious: During bookend weeks, children in higher latitudes go to school in the dark, which increases the risk of pedestrian casualties. Dark commutes are so problematic for pedestrians that New York City is repeating the Dusk and Darkness safety campaign that it launched in 2016. And heart attacks increase after the spring time shift  it is thought because of lack of sleep  but decrease to a lesser extent after the fall shift. Collectively, these bookend effects represent net costs and strong arguments against retaining daylight saving time.

Pick your own time zone?

Spurred by many of these arguments, at least 16 states have considered changes to daylight saving time this year. Some bills would end daylight saving time, while others would make it permanent. For example, Massachusetts is studying whether to move in coordination with other New England states to Atlantic Time, joining Canadas Maritime provinces one hour ahead of Eastern Standard Time. If they shift, travelers flying from Los Angeles to Boston would cross five time zones.

Some states have good reason for diverging from the norm. Notably, Hawaii does not practice daylight saving time because it is much closer to the equator than the rest of the nation, so its daylight hours barely change throughout the year. Arizona is the sole contiguous state that abstains from daylight saving time, citing its extreme summer temperatures.

In my research I have found that everyone has strong opinions about daylight saving time. Many people welcome the shift in March as a signal of spring. Others like the coordinated availability of daylight after work. Dissenters, including farmers, curse their loss of quiet morning hours.

When the evidence about costs and benefits is mixed but we need to make coordinated choices, how should we make decisions? The strongest arguments, with the exception of energy costs, support not only doing away with the switches but keeping the nation on daylight saving time year-round. This provides the benefits of after- work sun without the schedule disruptions. Yet humans adapt. If we abandon the twice-yearly switch, we may eventually slide back into old routines and habits of sleeping in during daylight. Daylight saving time is the coordinated alarm to wake us up a bit earlier in the summer and get us out of work with more sunshine.
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Los Angeles police are investigating after three women reported being sexually assaulted by actor Danny Masterson in the early 2000s, but the actor denies the allegations, which he says are motivated by the producer of an anti-Scientology television series.

The probe was launched after three women came forward and reported they were sexually assaulted by Masterson in the early 2000s, Officer Drake Madison, a Los Angeles police spokesman, said on Friday. He declined to provide any further details, citing the ongoing investigation.

The 40-year-old actor is best known for his role as Steven Hyde on That 70s Show, which aired from 1998 until 2006. He's currently starring in a Netflix series called The Ranch.

A representative for Masterson, who has not charged with a crime, denied the allegations in a statement to Friday, saying one of the accusers was his longtime girlfriend who continued to date him after the alleged incident.

The alleged incident occurred in the middle of their six-year relationship, after which she continued to be his longtime girlfriend, the statement said.

Masterson's statement also said another one of the accusers had brought the same allegations to the LAPD about 14 years ago but police determined the claim had no merit.

The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they are the victims of sexual assault.

Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Show all 42 1 /42 Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Harvey Weinstein Harry Weinsteins reputation as one of Hollywoods leading executives was long cemented in stone. The acclaimed movie mogul, who produced Oscar-winning films Shakespeare in Love, The English Patient, and The Artist, clocked up box office successes and accolades aplenty. But this has quickly changed since a chorus of women have come forward to accuse the Hollywood producer of sexual harassment and assault. Since the New York Times bombshell report disclosed sexual harassment and rape allegations against the film mogul dating back decades, Weinstein has been fired from his namesake company, expelled from the Oscars and has had his wife leave him. Weinstein has apologised for having caused a lot of pain but has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Annabella Sciorra The Sopranos actor alleged Weinstein raped her after shooting The Night We Never Met, a 1993 movie that Weinstein produced. Similar to the stories told by other women, Weinstein drove the actor home, only to reportedly burst into Sciorra's apartment and start unbuttoning his shirt. He shoved me onto the bed, and he got on top of me, Sciorra said. I kicked and I yelled. Weinstein then allegedly locked her arms and forced sexual intercourse on her. After the incident, Sciorra found it increasingly hard to get work, many filmmakers saying 'We heard you were difficult', something the actor claims was because of the 'Weinstein-machine'. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Natassia Malthe The model and actress, who has appeared in around 50 films, said she met Weinstein at a BAFTA after party in 2008 while she was working as a spokeswoman for LG. She told a press conference in New York that she felt pressured into telling Weinstein she was staying at the Sanderson Hotel after being put on the spot. Malthe, now 43, said after her shift on February 10 she went back to her room and went to sleep, but was awoken by "repeated pounding" on her door, from someone yelling: "Open the door Natassia Malthe, it's Harvey Weinstein." Feeling humiliated, she said she opened the door. She alleged Weinstein began implying sex would get her a role in an upcoming film while semi-undressed and then he began to masturbate. "I was sitting on the bed talking to Harvey when he pushed me back and forced himself onto me. It was not consensual. He did not use a condom," she said. AP Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Sean Young The actor, best known for her role in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, said that Weinstein exposed himself to her in the early 1990s, when she was starring in the Miramax-produced Love Crimes - a production company that Weinstein headed at the time. "I personally experienced him pulling his you-know-what out of his pants to shock me," she said. "My basic response was, 'You know, Harvey, I really dont think you should be pulling that thing out, its not very pretty.'" Young never worked with Weinstein again after the incident. Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Mimi Haleyi Mimi Haleyi said she was assaulted by Weinstein in what appeared to be a child's bedroom in his New York City apartment in 2006 when she was in her 20s. She said she was aspiring to work in television and film production when she was first introduced to him at the London premiere of The Aviator around two years earlier and he helped her get experience on the set of a TV show being produced by The Weinstein Company. But, she added, he repeatedly hassled her and even tried to force himself through her front door in an effort to get her to join him on a trip to Paris. At one point he allegedly forcibly performed oral sex on an aspiring production assistant while she was on her period. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Lupita Nyong'o In an op-ed for The New York Times, the Oscar-winning actor said she was invited to Weinsteins family home in Connecticut on the premise of watching a film shortly after they met in 2011. But she said shortly after it started he "insisted" in front of his children that she follow him and she was led to his bedroom. The Kenyan-Mexican actress, now 34, said she felt pressured into giving him a massage after he offered her one. "Before long he said he wanted to take off his pants," she wrote."I told him not to do that and informed him that it would make me extremely uncomfortable. He got up anyway to do so and I headed for the door, saying that I was not at all comfortable with that." Over the years that followed, he continued to get in touch, Nyong'o said, and when she declined another proposition she felt her career was threatened. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Lena Headey Writing on social media, the Game of Thrones actor claims she first met Weinstein at the Venice Film Festival in 2005 where, after taking her for a walk by the water, he made some suggestive comment and gesture. Headey claims she bumped into Weinstein years later where he kept asking her questions about her love life. She alleges that, when Weinstein invited her to his hotel room to show her a script, the "energy shifted. The actor notes how, after saying she was not interesting in anything but the work, Weinstein was furious, apparently marching her back to a lift, "grabbing and holding tightly to the back of [her] arm." She claims that, after paying for her car, he whispered in her ear: "Don't tell anyone about this, not your manager, not your agent. Headey finished the post, writing: I got in the car and I cried. Getty Images Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Lucia Evans The actor told The New Yorker that after a meeting to discuss casting her in various projects, Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him. I said, over and over, I dont want to do this, stop, dont. She added: Hes a big guy. He overpowered me. I just sort of gave up. Thats the most horrible part of it, and thats why hes been able to do this for so long to so many women: people give up, and then they feel like its their fault. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Laura Madden Madden, a production assistant who worked at Miramax for a decade, told the Times that Weinstein allegedly prodded her for massages at hotels, a common theme among the sources the Timess reporters spoke with. On one occasion, she claims she locked herself in his hotel bathroom, sobbing Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Ashley Judd Judd recounted for the Times how Weinstein allegedly harassed her while she was filming Kiss the Girls in 1996, inviting her to his hotel room and asking her for a massage, then inviting her to watch him shower. Judd first went public with the allegations in a 2015 interview with Variety during which she discussed the experience without naming the producer involved. She described Weinsteins alleged behaviour as coercive bargaining; I said no, a lot of ways, a lot of times, and he always came back at me with some new ask, she told the Times AFP/Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Rose McGowan McGowan reportedly reached a previously undisclosed $100,000 settlement with Weinstein in 1997, over an incident that occurred in a hotel room Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Mimi Haleyi Mimi Haleyi said she was assaulted by Weinstein in what appeared to be a child's bedroom in his New York City apartment in 2006 when she was in her 20s. She said she was aspiring to work in television and film production when she was first introduced to him at the London premiere of The Aviator around two years earlier and he helped her get experience on the set of a TV show being produced by The Weinstein Company. But, she added, he repeatedly hassled her and even tried to force himself through her front door in an effort to get her to join him on a trip to Paris. At one point he allegedly forcibly performed oral sex on an aspiring production assistant while she was on her period. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Emily Nestor Nestor had been temping at the Weinstein Company for only one day in 2014 when Weinstein allegedly offered to boost her career in return for sexual favours, according to the Times. She declined and reportedly complained of his behaviour to colleagues, who later passed the information on to senior executives. An internal Weinstein Company document cited by the Times describes Nestors encounter with Weinstein as follows: She said he was very persistent and focused though she kept saying no for over an hour Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Ambra Battilana In March 2015, Battilana, an aspiring model and actress, was reportedly summoned to Weinsteins office on a Friday night to discuss her career. According to a police report cited by the Times, Battilana claimed she was assaulted by Weinstein, who grabbed her breasts after asking if they were real and put his hands up her skirt. Weinstein later claimed that Battilana had set him up, according to colleagues of his who were interviewed by the Times. The Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus Vance, later declined to press charges, and according to the Times, made a payment to Battilana. On 5 October, the International Business Times reported that after Vance dropped the charges, he received $10,000 from Weinsteins lawyer Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Lauren OConnor Lauren OConnor, an employee of the Weinstein Company, penned a memo to executives alleging a toxic environment for women at the company. The memo cited numerous incidents of Weinstein harassing or coercing women who worked for him. She expressed fear that Weinstein was using her and other female employees to facilitate liaisons with vulnerable women who hope he will get them work. That same year, Weinstein allegedly reached a settlement with OConnor Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Kate Beckinsale The actor, who starred in the Weinstein Company films Serendipity and The Aviator, alleges that she was invited to Weinsteins hotel room at the age of just 17. When she approached the door, the producer reportedly greeted her dressed in just a dressing gown. I was incredibly naive and young and it did not cross my mind that this older, unattractive man would expect me to have any sexual interest in him, she wrote on Instagram. After declining alcohol and announcing that I had school in the morning I left, uneasy but unscathed. Theo Wargo/Getty Images Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Gwyneth Paltrow The actor alleges that after he cast her in the title role of the film Emma when she was 22, he took her to his hotel room, placed his hands on her and suggested massages. I was a kid, I was signed up, I was petrified, Paltrow told the New York Times. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Asia Argento Italian actress Asia Argento has alleged that in 1997 Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her as she repeatedly told him to stop. When I see him, it makes me feel little and stupid and weak, Argento told The New Yorker. After the rape, he won. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Cara Delevigne The British model and actress penning an Instagram post claiming that Weinstein had ordered her to kiss another woman in his hotel room, and tried to kiss her on the lips. AFP/Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Ashley Judd Ashley Judd said she rebuffed Harvey Weinsteins unwanted sexual advances by offering to consent only after she had won an Oscar. When she was initially invited to a meeting with Weinstein, Judd said, she was surprised to learn the producer was in his hotel room - a tactic that recurs in other womens accounts. Echoing the accounts of other women, Judd said Weinstein suggested she give him a massage and then invited her to watch him shower. After a volley of nos she said she would only after she wins an Oscar, fleeing after making the comments. Reuters/Mike Segar Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Judith Godreche French actress Judith Godreche said when she was 24 Weinstein invited her to his hotel room and asked to give her a massage. The next thing I know, hes pressing against me and pulling off my sweater, she told the New York Times. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Mira Sorvino The Oscar-winning actor said she found herself in a hotel room with Weinstein in 1995 where he started massaging my shoulders, which made me very uncomfortable, and then tried to get more physical, sort of chasing me around. According to an interview in The New Yorker Weinstein subsequently arrived at her apartment late at night and she had to call a friend to come over to pose as her boyfriend in order to get Weinstein out of the house. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Katherine Kendall The actress said Weinstein undressed and chased her around a living room when she was just 23. She subsequently felt that telling others meant Ill never work again and no one is going to care or believe me, she told the New York Times. WireImage Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Tomi-Anne Roberts As an aspiring actress and working in a restaurant in New York, Tomi-Ann Roberts encountered Weinstein who encouraged her to audition for one of his films back in 1984. She subsequently went to meet him and found him naked in the bath and invited her to get naked and get into the bath with him, she told the New York Times. She said she left feeling manipulated. Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Myleen Klass It has also been alleged that the disgraced film producer propositioned Myleene Klass with a sex contract at Cannes Film Festival in 2010. One of the singer and television personalitys friends reportedly told The Sun, Klass had told Weinstein to f*** off. Getty Images Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Sophie Dix Sophie Dix, best known for her role as Captain Sadie Williams in Soldier Soldier, described her encounter with Weinstein when she was 23 as the single most damaging thing thats happened in my life. She told The Guardian Weinstein had pushed her to her bed and was tugging at her clothes. She rushed to the bathroom to escape, but when she came out she found him standing there masturbating. I quickly closed the door again and locked it, she said. Then when I heard room service come to the door I just ran. Rex Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Lea Seydoux The actor and director claims she had to fight off Weinstein after he brought her to his hotel room during what she remembers to be 2012. He suddenly jumped on me and tried to kiss me. I had to defend myself. Hes big and fat, so I had to be forceful to resist him. I left his room, thoroughly disgusted, she wrote in The Guardian. AFP/Getty Images Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Claire Forlani British actress Claire Forlani wrote on Twitter that she had evaded Weinsteins advances on five occasions at the age of 25. At meetings with the Hollywood a-lister, she says massage was suggested, and that Weinstein had boasted of all the women hed had sex with. Mark Douet Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Florence Darel French actress Florence Darel claimed Weinstein relentlessly pursued her in the mid 1990's and propositioned her while Eve Chilton, his wife at the time, was in the hotel room next door. I was astonished, she told People magazine. When you have someone so physically disgusting in front of you, continuing and continuing as though this was all perfectly normal What happened to me may not be illegal but it was inappropriate. Very inappropriate. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Lysette Anthony Lysette Anthony, who starred as Marnie Nightingale in Hollyoaks, has claimed Weinstein raped her in the late 1980's after turning up to her London home in the late 1980s. She described the disgraced film producers alleged attack as pathetic and revolting and said it left her feeling disgusted and embarrassed. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Dawn Dunning Dunning said she met Weinstein in 2003 when she was 24-years-old and the disgraced film producer suggested she have a threesome with him and someone else. She told the New York Times Weinstein got angry when she refused. Youll never make it in this business, she said he told her as she left. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Rosanna Arquette Rosanna Arquette was already well known for her role in Desperately Seeking Susan, when she said she met Weinstein at his hotel to pick up a script in the early nineties. Weinstein was dressed only in a dressing gown, and tried to put her hand on his erect penis. Speaking to the New York Times, Arquette said as she left she told him: I will never be that girl. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Emma de Caunes Caunes, a French actor, claimed Weinstein took her to his hotel room in 2010 supposedly to retrieve a book he was making into a film, but once there he went into the bathroom. De Caunes said he then emerged naked, with an erection and told her to lie on the bed. She fled the room. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Zoe Brock Model Zoe claimed that she had to lock herself in a bathroom at Weinsteins hotel in 1997, after the mogul had sent all of the assistants out of the room, and then appeared naked. I was alone with Weinstein, she told ITVs This Morning programme. He very quickly left the room and came back naked. He chased me naked. Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Jessica Barth Actress Jessica Barth described an encounter with Weinstein in 2011 in an interview with The New Yorker in which she said Weinstein veered between offering her roles in films and demanding a naked massage. She alleges the producer said to her: So, what would happen if, say, were having some champagne and I take my clothes off and you give me a massage? When she tried to leave, he then promised to give her the number of a female executive at the company. He gave me her number, and I walked out and I started bawling, Barth said. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Romola Garai The actress told The Guardian she felt violated after she went to a meeting with Weinstein at the age of 18 and he met her in his hotel room wearing nothing but a dressing gown. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Heather Graham Graham claimed that during a casting opportunity in the early 2000's Weinstein had told her he had an open relationship with his wife. He could sleep with whomever he wanted when he was out of town. I walked out of the meeting feeling uneasy, Graham told Variety. There was no explicit mention that to star in one of those films I had to sleep with him, but the subtext was there. Graham was never hired to work in a Weinstein film. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Jessica Hynes Spaced and W1A star Jessica Hynes tweeted about an encounter with Weinstein earlier this week, but subsequently deleted the tweet. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Lucia Evans The actor told The New Yorker that after a meeting to discuss casting her in various projects, Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him. I said, over and over, I dont want to do this, stop, dont. She added: Hes a big guy. He overpowered me. I just sort of gave up. Thats the most horrible part of it, and thats why hes been able to do this for so long to so many women: people give up, and then they feel like its their fault. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Louisette Geiss The former actress said she met Weinstein to pitch a film script she was working on. During the meeting, Weinstein allegedly went out and reappeared naked and got into a jacuzzi where he masturbated in front of her and said he would make the script into a film if she stayed and watched. Getty Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Liza Campbell Liza Campbell, a British writer and artist, alleged that Olympically ugly Weinstein asked her to join him in the bath and began getting undressed at a hotel. In a piece for The Times, Campbell claimed she was forced to sprint to the door to escape. Rex Features Harvey Weinstein: his accusers Louise Godbold Writing in a blog post, Louise Godbold, a non-profit director in Los Angeles, said her encounter with Weinstein took the form of an office tour that became an occasion to trap me in an empty meeting room. She said then Weinstein was begging for a massage, his hands on my shoulders as I attempted to beat a retreat.

Masterson, who has identified himself as a practicing Scientologist, said in the statement that he believes the false allegations are an attempt to boost a television series featuring former members of the Church of Scientology. He says one of the women only came forward after speaking with one of the show's producers.

AP
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The man at the front of London's iPhone queue wasn't actually able to buy an iPhone because he spent all his money.

While the unnamed man was waiting in line for the much desired phone, he went to kill time at casino but ended up without the cash needed to actually buy the phone, according to the man who took his place.

Disaster struck when people in the queue were given wristbands that meant they could leave, take some time for themselves, and then come back, the Metro reported. In that time, the man headed to the casino and spent the money he had been intending to use to buy an iPhone, it claimed.

iPhone X on sale across the world: in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 iPhone X on sale across the world: in pictures iPhone X on sale across the world: in pictures iPhone X Launch People try the Animoji feature on iPhone X during its launch at the Apple store in Singapore Reuters iPhone X on sale across the world: in pictures iPhone X Launch Apple staff congratulate customers as they are of the first to enter Apple's Regent Street store AFP/Getty Images iPhone X on sale across the world: in pictures iPhone X Launch People queue outside Apple's Regent Street store AFP/Getty Images iPhone X on sale across the world: in pictures iPhone X Launch The new iPhone X EPA iPhone X on sale across the world: in pictures iPhone X Launch Customers line up to buy the new iPhone X in Hong Kong AP iPhone X on sale across the world: in pictures iPhone X Launch Customers sleep, while in line, before purchasing the iphone X in Australia Rex Features iPhone X on sale across the world: in pictures iPhone X Launch People queue outside Apple's Regent Street store in central London AFP/Getty Images iPhone X on sale across the world: in pictures iPhone X Launch Customers queue at Dubai Mall EPA iPhone X on sale across the world: in pictures iPhone X Launch Customers wait in line in Tokyo Getty Images iPhone X on sale across the world: in pictures iPhone X Launch A man gestures as he holds an iPhone X in Sydney EPA iPhone X on sale across the world: in pictures iPhone X Launch Customers wait outside an Apple store at Dubai Mall EPA iPhone X on sale across the world: in pictures iPhone X Launch Customers queue outside an Apple store in Dubai EPA iPhone X on sale across the world: in pictures iPhone X Launch The first purchasers of the iPhone X show off their boxed phones in Sydney EPA iPhone X on sale across the world: in pictures iPhone X Launch Dozens of customers queue as they wait to buy the new iPhone X in Cologne EPA iPhone X on sale across the world: in pictures iPhone X Launch Customers queue at the Apple store Schildergasse in Cologne EPA

"I ended up number one in the queue!" Marco Pierre White Jr, a friend of the man who took his place in the Regent Street store's queue, told the Metro. "My friend didnt have enough money so he f***** off back home.

"He overspent in the casino last night and so I ended up first."

Marco Pierre White Jr poses with an iPhone X after being the first to buy one upon its release in the U.K, on November 3, 2017 in London, England. The iPhone X is positioned as a high-end, model intended to showcase advanced technologies such as wireless charging, OLED display, dual cameras and a face recognition unlock system (Carl Court/Getty Images)

Last year, the model admitted in court to racking up thousands of pounds on a then girlfriend's bank card, which the court was told included a visit to an Apple Store and paying for an Uber.

Mr White said that he already had one iPhone X, presumably bought online and delivered the morning of the release. But he said that he was buying another for his girlfriend,

Labelled the "future" of the iPhone by Apple boss Tim Cook, the iPhone X uses Face ID facial recognition to unlock the device, doing away with the Home button and Touch ID fingerprint sensor of previous iPhone handsets.

Hundreds queued overnight to ensure they were among the first to buy the device, including White, amid reports of limited early stock being available in the first days of sale.

Many other customers who pre-ordered the iPhone X had been given delivery dates up to six weeks away, after the initial stock sold out in minutes when pre-orders began on October 27.

Large queues were reported outside Apple retail stores globally, including in Australia and China.

Tweeting early on Friday morning, Apple chief executive Mr Cook thanked customers who were "turning out around the world" to buy the new phone.

The launch comes in the wake of strong quarterly financial results on Thursday night, with Apple predicting revenue in the next quarter of more than 80 billion dollars (61.3 billion), a suggestion that the company is confident of strong sales of the X.

Additional reporting by agencies
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A popular far-right Twitter account has reportedly been revealed as a Russian propaganda account.

Jenna Abrams gradually grew a large following on the social media platform over a number of years.

The account, which first appeared in 2014, was at first non-political and featured on many mainstream publications  including The Independent and its sister site Indy100  for her viral tweets on matters such as the life of reality star Kim Kardashian, piano-playing dogs and National Unicorn Day in the US.

Then gradually she began to tweet and blog about politics, advocating for xenophobic and far-right policies and expressing support for Donald Trump.

In September 2016, she wrote a now-deleted Medium post arguing for a return to segregation in the US.

The account, which has now been deleted, gathered up to 70,000 followers and was quoted as a figure on the so-called 'alt-right' blogsphere.

This included in news outlets including Bustle, US News and World Report, USA Today, several local Fox affiliates, BET, Yahoo Sports, Sky News, IJR, Breitbart, The Washington Post, Mashable,the New York Daily News, Quartz, the Dallas News, France24, the Huffington Post, The Daily Caller, The Telegraph, CNN, the BBC, Gizmodo, The Daily Dot, The Observer, Business Insider, The National Post, Refinery29, The Times of India, BuzzFeed, the Daily Mail and The New York Times as well as conspiracy site InfoWars and the Moscow-backed Russia Today and Sputnik.

In an article written by The Independent in February about Twitter criticism of White House advisor Kellyanne Conway kneeling on a sofa in the Oval Office without shoes on, the account was quoted as a Trump supporter accusing others of hypocrisy.

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

But the Abrams account, @jenn_abrams, is now believed to have been created by the Internet Research Agency, a troll farm in St Petersburg funded by the Russian government which is believed to have created thousands of troll accounts and dark ads on social media to target US voters during the presidential election, the Daily Beast reported.

Even Abrams poorly spelt and argued tweet claiming the US Civil War was about money rather than slavery seems to have been calculated to ensure maximum attention in the West.

The account, which has now been suspended, even got the attention of respected Russia experts such as former US ambassador Michael McFaul, who got into a number of Twitter spats with whoever was running it between February 2015 and August 2016.

Congressional investigators who have been tasked with sifting through the thousands of fake accounts and posts believed to have been created by Russian trolls to smear Hillary Clinton, the Democrats and progressive such as Black Lives Matter have confirmed the account was fake.

This is not the first time a political Twitter account in the West has been accused of being a sophisticated Russian fake.

In August, analysts concluded that a pro-Brexit account called David Jones and claiming to be from Southampton/Isle of Wight was a Russian fake after they noticed it only seemed to post tweets between the hours of 8am and 8pm Moscow time (5am to 5pm in the UK) and of its 137,000 tweets sent over four years, the majority were pro-Russia.

The account expressed support for the 2014 annexation of Crimea and President  a Russian ally  Bashar al-Assads brutal crackdown on rebels in Syria.
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WhatsApp has been hit by a major outage, stopping millions of people from using it around the world.

People couldn't send or receive messages using the Facebook-owned app, apparently because of a server problem. Service appears now to be gradually being restored.

The app didn't initially look broken, with chats and contacts able to load. But once a user was into a chat, the app just showed a "connecting" message that never resolves itself, and so new messages couldn't be sent or received.

12 useful WhatsApp features you didnt know existed Show all 12 1 /12 12 useful WhatsApp features you didnt know existed 12 useful WhatsApp features you didnt know existed Unsend messages You can unsend a message by tapping and holding it, hitting the Delete symbol and selecting Delete for Everyone. The feature works for all types of messages, but only if they were sent less than seven minutes ago. 12 useful WhatsApp features you didnt know existed Dodge the blue ticks WhatsApps blue ticks show when sent messages have been read, but you can disable them buy going to Settings > Account > Privacy > Read Receipts. However, bear in mind that, by doing so, youll lose the ability to see when your own sent messages have been read. Another, more fiddly way of reading your messages without triggering the blue ticks, is enabling Aeroplane Mode before opening your messages - just remember to close the app before switching Aeroplane Mode off again. 12 useful WhatsApp features you didnt know existed Hide your 'last seen' time Prevent your friends from finding out when you were last online by hiding your last seen time. Go to Settings > Account > Privacy > Last Seen. As is the case with disabling read receipts, hiding your last seen time will also stop you from seeing anybody elses. 12 useful WhatsApp features you didnt know existed Limit data usage You can control how much data you munch through on WhatsApp by limiting the types of media you automatically download on a mobile connection. Go to Settings > Data Usage and choose the best option for you. 12 useful WhatsApp features you didnt know existed Customise notifications If youre expecting an important WhatsApp message from someone, set a custom notification for them by opening the chat, tapping their name at the top and hitting Custom Notifications. 12 useful WhatsApp features you didnt know existed Format your messages To jazz up any of your messages, simply highlight it by tapping and holding it, hit the More Options key on the pop-up menu and tap the formatting option you want - bold, italic, strikethrough or monospace. 12 useful WhatsApp features you didnt know existed Type hands-free You can get Siri or Google Assistant to type your WhatsApp messages out for you by saying either Hey Siri or Okay Google, followed by the name of the person you want to message and the actual contents of the message. 12 useful WhatsApp features you didnt know existed Mark chats as unread When youve read a message but cant reply to it straight away, you can set a visual reminder by marking it as unread. On Android, long-press the conversation, and on iOS, swipe from left to right on a chat. 12 useful WhatsApp features you didnt know existed Email entire conversations You almost certainly wont do this on a regular basis, but its a handy option to have. You can export entire conversations - complete with emoji and media attachments - by hitting More inside a chat a selecting Email Chat. 12 useful WhatsApp features you didnt know existed Mass-message contacts You can send the same message to lots of your contacts without lumping them all into one group, much like the BCC option on email, by hitting the New Broadcast option on the apps main menu. 12 useful WhatsApp features you didnt know existed Pin conversations You pin up to three contacts and groups to the top of your WhatsApp conversation list by tapping and holding a chat, then hitting the pin icon. 12 useful WhatsApp features you didnt know existed Make things easier to find You can easily mark key messages with a star, allowing you to find them easily when you need to. Just tap and hold a message and hit the star icon to save it, and return to it later by selecting Starred Messages in WhatsApps main menu.

That also meant there was no easy fix to the problem, since it appears to be on WhatsApp's side. Shutting and opening the app, for instance, just reset the connecting message but wouldn't stop it showing.

The website Down Detector showed a huge spike in problems with the app, suggesting that almost everyone is unable to get online. The problems are focused in western Europe and Asia, but were reported across the world.

There were relatively few reports of problems from the Americas, but that might simply be a result of the fact that timezones mean that many people there were asleep.

WhatsApp Web, which uses the phone's connection, was also broken.

 WhatsApp 'Delete for Everyone' feature lets you unsend messages

Unlike its owner Facebook, and many other large social networks and internet companies, WhatsApp doesn't maintain a page to give users information when the site is down. It has an official Twitter account that is supposed to post when it is experiencing problems  but that appears to have fallen into disuse, and hasn't posted since 2014.

It's far from the first time that WhatsApp has gone down, and it now appears to be doing so on a roughly monthly basis. The outages are often resolved quickly, though can sometimes also take hours to fix.
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As prices for the cryptocurrency skyrocket, investors and pundits are increasingly taking sides.

Whether youre a backer or a detractor, whats not in doubt is bitcoins dizzying rally this year. The most widely used digital currency crossed the $7,000 (5,360) mark on Thursday and is up more than 650 per cent in 2017. Its managed to whip past the $100bn total value mark despite governmental crackdowns and mainstream market skepticism. Bitcoin was trading at $7,207 at 3 pm Hong Kong time on Friday.

With the rhetoric for and against heating up this week amid bitcoins barreling gains, heres a look at where some big names in finance stand  from those who see it as the natural evolution of money, to the naysayers waiting for the asset to crash and burn.

Bitcoins Backers

The digital currencys evangelists are led by Roger Ver, known in the industry as Bitcoin Jesus. Ver remains optimistic about bitcoins sustainability amid attempts from governments like China to curb some of the more speculative elements of trading. The only way to stop (bitcoin) is to turn off the entire Internet in the entire world and keep it turned off, he said in a September interview with Bloomberg News. Some countries are jumping on the bitcoin bandwagon, with Argentinas most important futures market considering offering services to investors in digital currencies, while Turkish Central Bank Governor Murat Cetinkaya said digital currencies may contribute to financial stability if designed well. Former Legg Mason Inc. fund manager Bill Miller has boosted his Miller Value Funds holdings in bitcoin to 30 per cent from 5 per cent a year ago. The investment has paid off  his fund is up 72.5 per cent this year.

Bitcoins Detractors

Speculation around bitcoin is the very definition of a bubble, Credit Suisse chief executive Tidjane Thiam told reporters in Zurich on Thursday. The only reason today to buy or sell bitcoin is to make money, and such speculation has rarely led to a happy end, Thiam said. Themis Trading raised a red flag this week after CME announced plans to introduce bitcoin futures, saying the worlds largest exchange owner appeared to have caved in to pressure from clients. A bitcoin future would be placing a seal of approval around a very risky, unregulated instrument that has a history of fraud and manipulation, the firm said in a blog post. JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon remains one of Wall Streets most strident bitcoin opponents, saying in October that people who buy the currency are stupid and that governments will eventually crush it.

On the Fence

While CMEs decision to offer bitcoin futures by the end of the year appears to be an endorsement of the currencys viability, chief executive Terry Duffy demurred when asked whether hes concerned about a potential bubble. Ive seen a lot of different bubbles over the last 37 years, he said on Bloomberg TV. Its not up to me to predict if its a bubble or not  what Im here to do is to help people manage risk. Goldman Sachs.

Chief executive Lloyd Blankfein isnt sure what to make of bitcoin and is unwilling to reject the digital currency just yet. I know that once upon a time, a coin was worth $5 if it had $5 worth of gold in it, Blankfein said in another Bloomberg TV interview. Now we have paper that is just backed by fiat ... maybe in the new world, something gets backed by consensus. While Thomas J. Lee of Fundstrat Global Advisors has turned cautious on bitcoin in the short term because of its big gains, he remains a long-term bull on the digital currency  maintaining a 2022 price target of $25,000.

Bloomberg

Weve teamed up with cryptocurrency trading platform eToro. Click here to get the latest Bitcoin rates and start trading. Cryptocurrencies are a highly volatile unregulated investment product. No EU investor protection. 75% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs.
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Its only day one, but the grey market trade in Apples new iPhone is already in full swing in Hong Kong.

About a dozen card tables and Styrofoam boxes had been set up along Argyle Street in Mong Kok, one of the citys busiest shopping areas, on Friday morning.

Manned by touts surrounded by piles of Apples 10th anniversary smartphone, they were mobbed by shoppers  many of them reselling iPhone Xs bought earlier at one of Apples six official stores in Hong Kong.

Reselling the new iPhone X on Hong Kong streets: in pictures Show all 7 1 /7 Reselling the new iPhone X on Hong Kong streets: in pictures Reselling the new iPhone X on Hong Kong streets: in pictures Reselling iPhone X on Hong Kong streets A reseller counts cash over a pile of iPhone X's near an Apple store in Hong Kong AFP/Getty Images Reselling the new iPhone X on Hong Kong streets: in pictures A man receives new iPhone X's from those who just bought them at Apple Stores REUTERS Reselling the new iPhone X on Hong Kong streets: in pictures A man holds a stack of banknotes REUTERS Reselling the new iPhone X on Hong Kong streets: in pictures A man pays to buy the new iPhone X's from those who just bought them at Apple Stores REUTERS Reselling the new iPhone X on Hong Kong streets: in pictures A woman buys the new iPhone X's REUTERS Reselling the new iPhone X on Hong Kong streets: in pictures Street sellers reselling the new iPhone X's REUTERS Reselling the new iPhone X on Hong Kong streets: in pictures People who just bought the new iPhone X's from an Apple Store check resale prices on a street REUTERS

The touts were paying around HK$10,300 to HK$10,500 (1,011 to 1,031) to buy the 256-gigabyte iPhone X, while the 64-gigabyte edition netted HK$8,800 to HK$8,900. Apple retails the two phones for HK$9,888 and HK$8,588 respectively in Hong Kong, according to its website.

The iPhone X went on sale globally on Friday, spurring long queues outside stores from Tokyo to Sydney.

Innovations in the phone  including a facial recognition system that uses 3D sensors  have led to delays in production, with shipping times lengthened after people started pre-ordering the handset last month.

Bloomberg
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Starbucks didnt get what it ordered last quarter from its biggest growth opportunity: Asia.

Same-store sales in the region rose 2 per cent in the quarter ending 1 October, short of the 3.2 per cent predicted by analysts. The performance contributed to generally sluggish results, sending the shares down as much as 7.5 per cent in late trading.

The slow sales reflect a broader problem for the worlds biggest coffee chain. After saturating much of the US with cafes, it needs overseas markets more than ever to maintain growth.

Recommended Costa profits fall as it is hit by the rising cost of coffee imports

While Chinese demand for coffee is still surging, its getting harder for the company to find blockbuster opportunities.

The Seattle-based roaster was also hit by growing pains as the company took charges related to restructuring and refining its operations. Major hurricanes that hit two of the most populous US states also clipped same-store sales growth, the company said.

Weve been streamlining the business, chief executive Kevin Johnson said in an interview after the release of results.

Total comparable sales rose 2 per cent, short of the estimate of 3.2 per cent from Consensus Metrix. After excluding the effects of hurricanes Harvey and Irma -- which mauled Texas and Florida during the quarter and forced Starbucks to close a total of 1,100 locations -- same-store sales growth was 3 per cent.

Starbucks also took steps to placate shareholders. It boosted its quarterly dividend 20 per cent to 30 cents a share. And the company committed to returning $15bn (11bn) to investors over the next three years through dividends and stock buybacks.

Excluding some items, profit amounted to 55 cents a share last quarter -- in line with analysts forecast. Net revenue was $5.7bn, short of the estimate of $5.8bn.

Unilever Deal

Starbucks also announced an agreement to sell Tazo brand to Unilever for $384m, part of an effort to better focus a tea business that has disappointed. It had to close 379 stores from its Teavana division, in part because many locations were in poorly trafficked shopping centres.

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Even as overall Asian sales missed analysts projections, Chinese demand was strong. Same-store sales gained 8 per cent last quarter in the country.

Starbucks doubled down on the market in July when it announced plans to buy out the partners in its East China joint venture. The company agreed to acquire the remaining 50 per cent of the business in a $1.3bn transaction, giving it complete ownership of about 1,300 cafes in Shanghai and the Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.

With the integration of East China into our company-operated model just around the corner, China represents a significant growth opportunity for the company going forward, Mr Johnson said.

Bloomberg
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Laikas last moments on earth were spent strapped into a windowless Soviet rocket awaiting lift off.

The stray dog had enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame in 1957, having been plucked from a Moscow street, hastily trained and blasted into space.

That ill-fated mission resulted in Laika overheating and dying five hours into the flight.

 Amanda Holden asks Tim Peake about walking on the moon

But Sputnik 2s launch  60 years ago, today  was a defining moment in the history of space exploration; only the second time a spacecraft had been launched into Earths orbit, and the first time a living creature had been on board.

While Laika may have been a trailblazer in orbiting the Earth, animals were being employed in the name of space exploration more than a decade earlier.

Russian and American scientists have long used animals to test the limits of their ability to send living organisms into space  and return them unharmed.

The first sent into outer space were fruit flies blasted to an altitude of 68 miles inside a re-fashioned Nazi V2 rocket in 1947.

In the years that followed, Nasa sent several monkeys, named Albert I, II, III, IV, into space attached to monitoring instruments. All of them died.

Laika, the Soviet satellite dog in the specially designed space equipment in Sputnik 2 (Getty)

It was not until the flight of a monkey named Yorick (accompanied by 11 mice) in September 1951 that scientists could claim to have sent a primate into space and returned it back to Earth alive

Following the success of that flight, the experiments became more elaborate. On one mission, two white mice  Mildred and Albert  were placed inside a rotating drum allowing them to float during the period of weightlessness.

Closely watching these tests were Soviet scientists, who began sending mice, rats and rabbits of their own as one-way passengers on low-level orbits.

A visitors guide to the International Space Station Show all 8 1 /8 A visitors guide to the International Space Station A visitors guide to the International Space Station The training's over, Tim next stop: the greatest lab in the universe! (NASA) NASA A visitors guide to the International Space Station Your sleep pod  don't forget your sleeping bag (NASA) NASA A visitors guide to the International Space Station Alcohol is barred on the ISS, but you won't escape daft initiations  such as drinking a blob of floating water (NASA) NASA A visitors guide to the International Space Station Keep your fingers crossed for a pop at a spacewalk: repairs are scheduled for January (Getty/NASA) Getty/NASA A visitors guide to the International Space Station Floating about is a joy, but it takes about a month to crack it (NASA) NASA A visitors guide to the International Space Station There's work to do, including 300 ongoing experiments and repairs to billion-dollar devices (NASA) NASA A visitors guide to the International Space Station Wash down the spicy prawns with some recycled urine (NASA) NASA A visitors guide to the International Space Station Savour every second; soon enough, you'll be brought back down to Earth (NASA) NASA

But to gather the necessary information to design a cabin fit for a human astronaut, they also turned to stray dogs.

On 15 August 1951, Dezik and Tsygan were launched, becoming the first canine suborbital astronauts.

Several more embarked on similar, suborbital flights until stray mongrel Laika  dubbed Muttnik  was picked up from the street and trained for her Earth-orbiting mission.

It harks back to a time when people knew very little about the space, Martin Barstow, director of the Leicester Institute of Space and Earth Observation, said of Laikas mission.

He told The Independent: They didnt know if people could survive in space. It was very much a pathfinder.

It was a precursor to Yuri Gagarins flight [in 1961]. They were testing their capsule technology, testing the oxygen supply, whether or not radiation might have harmed it and whether it could have survived the mission.

Adilya Kotovskaya, a 90-year-old Russian biologist who helped train Laika, speaking on the 60th anniversary, said: Those nine orbits of Earth made Laika the worlds first cosmonaut  sacrificed for the sake of the success of future space missions.

We chose bitches because they dont have to raise a leg to urinate which means they need less space than the males, she told the AFP news agency.

And [we chose] strays because they are more resourceful and less demanding.

The first animals to reach outer space and return alive were a pair of dogs  Belka and Strelka  who blasted off on 19 August 1960, returning a day later.

International Space Station flies in front of solar eclipse

In 1968 the Soviet Union sent a spacecraft to orbit the moon carrying two tortoises, wine flies and mealworms.

Frogs, cats and spiders have followed. But once humans landed on the moon in 1969, the role of animals began to fade.

Attention  and controversy  has only recently returned to the use of animals in 21st century space exploration and in particular, the bid to send humans to Mars.

A major risk to astronauts attempting to reach the red planet is the high level of radiation, so US, European and Russian space agencies have considered testing the effect on monkeys before sending humans to Mars.

Boris Lapin, director of the Sochi Institute of Medical Primatology, said monkeys and humans have approximately identical sensitivity to small and large radiation doses.

It is better to experiment on the macaques, but not on dogs or other animals, he said.

Professor Barstow said there was no chance that dogs would be tested on in future space missions.

The largest creatures in the International Space Stations laboratory are likely to be small insects, he said.

Were a bit more alert to the nuances of whether or not you should test anything on animals these days.

And putting animals in space is not a lot different to testing cosmetics on them. When and if you do it, it has to be under controlled circumstances. It is a different era now.

We know a lot about radiation and how it affects humans and animals. The issue of radiation for a trip to Mars is more about understanding what the doses will be, and testing protection systems and I dont see why you would need to use animals to test and verify that. We are much more sophisticated in the ways we measure and test that now.

From left to right: Ham, the first chimpanzee in space; a Russian dog is prepared for lift off (Alamy)

The Caenorhabditis elegans worm is the latest animal set to reach space, chosen because it has similar nerve, muscle and digestive systems to humans.

The worms will reach the International Space Station in just over a year as part of the Molecular Muscle experiment.

Libby Jackson, human spaceflight and microgravity programme manager at the UK Space Agency, told The Independent the experiment will look at how these worms age in space and how their muscles are affected by weightlessness.

This could help scientists understand the molecular mechanisms responsible for muscle-wasting conditions, such as muscular dystrophy, which could improve the lives of people on Earth, she added.

Dr Julia Baines, science policy adviser at animal rights group Peta, said: Animals arent astronauts and, unlike human volunteers, cant give their consent to being the subjects of experiments or to risking their lives on a frightening mission into the unknown.

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Laika, the first animal to be launched into orbit, died from overheating and panic in the tiny spacecraft  all alone and in severe pain.

In 2010, under mounting pressure from animal rights campaigners, Nasa announced it was shelving a plan to conduct radiation experiments on squirrel monkeys.

The European Space Agency also ruled out further primate tests, saying it did not see any need or use for them.

But reports suggest Russia is also moving ahead with plans for primate experimentation.

Nasa argues that without testing in the early days of space exploration, Soviet and American programmes could have suffered great losses of human life.

These animals performed a service to their respective countries that no human could or would have performed, the agency said.

They gave their lives and their service in the name of technological advancement, paving the way for humanitys many forays into space.
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British police are investigating a new allegation of sexual abuse against Kevin Spacey amid mounting claims of misconduct.

The actor is accused of attacking a man in the Lambeth area of south London in 2008, The Independent understands.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said the case had been referred from the City of Londons force on Wednesday, adding: It is alleged a man assaulted another man in 2008 in Lambeth.

Officers from the child abuse and sexual offences command are investigating.

Police have not officially identified 58-year-old Spacey, who was artistic director of the capitals Old Vic theatre at the time.

The investigation is believed to relate to claims by a British actor who alleges that Spacey abused him after he passed out at his home.

The unnamed man, who was 23 at the time, told The Sun he woke to find the actor performing a sexual act on him and was warned: Dont tell anyone about this.

The man, now 32, is said to have contacted police earlier this week after separate allegations that Spacey had assaulted Anthony Rapp as a 14-year-old child actor in New York.

A filmmaker has also accused Spacey of groping him in 2003, a British barman claimed the actor flashed him before giving him a valuable watch seven years later, and an artist claimed they had a relationship when he was 14, which Spacey denies.

In a statement responding to Mr Rapps allegations, he said he did not remember the encounter, adding: If I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behaviour, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years.

This story has encouraged me to address other things about my life.

I know that there are stories out there about me and that some have been fuelled by the fact that I have been so protective of my privacy.

As those closest to me know, in my life I have had relationships with both men and women. I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man.

I want to deal with this honestly and openly and that starts with examining my own behaviour.

Kevin Spacey: his accusers Show all 6 1 /6 Kevin Spacey: his accusers Kevin Spacey: his accusers Anthony Rapp In an interview with Buzzfeed, he claimed that Spacey had made sexual advances on him when he was 14 years old, attending a party at the actor's apartment.



Spacey responded to Rapp's allegations in a statement, saying he is beyond horrified to hear his story but does not remember the incident Rex Kevin Spacey: his accusers Roberto Cavazos The actor wrote on Facebook that he encountered Spacey at the bar of London's Old Vic Theatre, where Spacey was artistic director from 2004-15, and that the actor tried to grope him against his will Twitter Kevin Spacey: his accusers Daniel Beal The British barman alleged the actor approached him as he took a cigarette break while working at a West Sussex hotel, sitting down beside the then 19-year-old on a bench, flashing his privates and telling him, "It's big, isn't it?", before trying to pull his hand toward him.



When Beal returned to the bar to work, Spacey allegedly followed him and insisted on giving him a Swiss watch worth 5,000 in value. "I thought he was joking but he took off his watch and gave it to me," Beal stated. "Looking back I realise it was to keep me quiet." Dan Beal/Facebook Kevin Spacey: his accusers Tony Montana The filmmaker has accused Spacey of groping him while he was in an LA bar in 2003. "I went up to order a drink and Kevin came up to me and put his arm around me," he said. "He was telling me to come with him, to leave the bar. He put his hand on my crotch forcefully and grabbed my whole package." Youtube Kevin Spacey: his accusers Anonymous A man, identified as John, which is not his real name, said he was left traumatised after waking up to find Spacey lying on him in the 1980s BBC Kevin Spacey: his accusers Harry Dreyfuss The son of actor Richard Dreyfuss, Dreyfuss junior has claimed that Spacey groped him while his father and Spacey were rehearsing for a play in London in 2008

LGBT campaigners reacted angrily to Spaceys decision to use the statement to publicly come out.

Dutch bank ING is the latest body to cancel an engagement with the actor, who had been due to appear at a business conference it is organising in Rotterdam.

The Oscar-winner is seeking unspecified treatment, according to his representatives, who said: Kevin Spacey is taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment.

The allegations have forced a halt in production of Netflix show House of Cards, where Spacey plays the starring role as fictional US President Frank Underwood.

On Thursday, CNN published a report in which eight current and former employees of the series, who were not identified, made claims of sexual misconduct against Spacey.

Production company Media Rights Capital said it was deeply troubled to learn about these new allegations, confirming that action had been taken over one incident in 2012 following a crew members complaint.

It said Spacey had willingly participated in a training process and that it was not aware of any complaints since then involving the actor.

Netflix said in an emailed statement that it was aware of the 2012 case and is not aware of any other incidents involving Kevin Spacey on-set.
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An alleged neo-Nazi accused of buying a machete with the intention of murdering a Labour MP has appeared in court.

The 22-year-old will go on trial next year, alongside five other men accused of being members of a banned far-right terrorist group,

The man from Lancashire, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is charged with intending to commit acts of terrorism, making threats to kill a female police officer and being a member of National Action.

He allegedly purchased a Gladius Machete  a type of weapon used by Celtic tribes and Roman legions  for the purpose of murdering Labour MP Rosie Cooper earlier this year.

Christopher Lythgoe, the alleged regional leader of National Actions regional faction, is accused of the encouragement of murder by approving the alleged plot at a meeting.

Lythgoe, 31 from Warrington, and the 22-year-old have also been charged with membership of a terrorist organisation, alongside Garron Helm, 24, of Seaforth, Matthew Hankinson, 23, of Newton-Le-Willows, Andrew Clarke, 33, of Prescot and Michael Trubini, 25, of Warrington.

The men appeared at the Old Bailey via video link before Mr Justice Haddon-Cave, and were remanded in custody.

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 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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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They had been among 11 suspects arrested across England and Wales during a crackdown on National Action in September.

The group and two of its aliases  Scottish Dawn and NS131  have been banned by the Government, which cited its virulently racist, antisemitic and homophobic ideology.

The six defendants are accused of continuing to be members of National Action after the group was banned in December - an offence punishable by up to 10 years' imprisonment.

The judge set their trial for Woolwich Crown Court in London on a date to be fixed after April next year.

Additional reporting by PA
LAS VEGAS  Nevada-based mining company Bonanza Goldfields Corp. has acquired the Columbus Mine, located north of the companys Golden Gem Mine near Kingman, Arizona.

The Columbus Mining Claim was included in the same transaction under which the company obtained its option on the Idaho and Broken Hills Mines; however, the Columbus acquisition took longer to complete as the deed had to be recorded with the Arizona State Office of the United States Bureau of Land Management in addition to the Mohave County Recorder, according to a press release.

The Columbus Mine is on the Idaho-Columbus Vein and historically was worked together with the Idaho Mine. The company reports that there are two mine shafts at 175 to 200 feet deep, as well as an adit and at least two winzes. Past sampling by the U.S. Bureau of Mines of one of the Columbus Mine winzes encountered gold, silver, zinc, lead and copper.

The Columbus, Idaho, Broken Hills, Golden Gem and Payroll mines are among 14 mines in the BONZ Chloride portfolio. On more than 500 acres, the other mines are (from north to south) the Badger, Hercules, Rambler, Molly Gibson, Arizona & Montana (A&M), Towne, Summit, OBrien and Daisy Twins mines.

That might not sound like a lot in Elko, but when youre talking about private property, its actually pretty large, said Fred Bauman, general counsel Bonanza Goldfields, which he has co-managed with wife Barbara Bauman, CEO, since February.

There is also land to build two mineral processing facilities on the Terminal Millsite, on Tennessee Avenue in the Town of Chloride, and the recently acquired Golden Gem Millsite. The BONZ office building and assay office are also on Tennessee Avenue in the town of Chloride.

When this is all done, we have what we hope will be a viable land position to start exploration on, Fred Bauman said in an October interview.

BONZ is a Las Vegasbased mineral exploration and mining company that is exploring gold and silver properties in the Comstock and Goldfield Mining Districts of Nevada, and the Chloride, Oatman and Congress Mining Districts of Arizona.

Hondo Minerals Corp. is a Nevada-based mineral exploration and mining company that is exploring its Thunder Mountain and Mizpah Extension gold and silver properties at Tonopah. Hondo is a shareholder of BONZ, and BONZ is exploring Hondos Arizona properties.
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The Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi is to be stripped of her honorary presidency at a UK university's student union over her country's treatment of Rohingya minority Muslims.

Once seen as a symbol of freedom and non-violent resistance, Burmas de facto president Ms Suu Kyi was recognised by students at the London School of Economics (LSE) in 1991.

But amid accusations of ethnic cleansing carried out by the Burmese army in the north-western Rakhine state, the LSE student union is now expected to pass a vote removing her from the role.

More than 500,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled across the border to Bangladesh amid increasing violence. Although the country's military leaders retain control of internal security, Ms Suu Kyi was accused of inaction in the face of genocide.

A motion has now been tabled by the LSE student union and senior members of the leadership, including general secretary Mahatir Pasha, are confident it will pass.

I have asked all LSE students to support a motion I will be taking to UGM on 9 November, asking to strip Aung San Suu Kyis honorary presidency away from our union. This will act as a strong symbol of our opposition to her current position and inaction in the face of genocide, Mr Pasha told The Independent.

Students at LSE "have often been at the forefront of fighting for social justice", Mr Pasha said. Suu Kyis silence in the face of this genocide has come at too much a cost  her complicity in the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people. It is time for the world to take action in support of the Rohingya people and against Aung San Suu Kyi, he added.

Quratulain Ahsan, president of LSE's Human Rights Society, said it was important to show solidarity with those who have been forced to leave their homes in Burma.

The crisis of the Rohingya today mirrors several historical incidents of ethnic cleansing, but the idea that such violations of the basic human rights of a particular ethnicity can take place in a progressive 21st century, is both appalling and shaking, Mr Ahsan told The Independent.

And Kamilia Rozlan, treasurer of the union's Student Action for Refugees group, said the student body would not stay silent in the face of "blatant persecution".

"The Rohingya people deserve a voice, and if Suu Kyi wont lend hers, we will," Ms Rozlan said.

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. 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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. 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Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. 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All students of the LSE have been invited to attend the debate and subsequent vote at the university next Thursday.

If the motion passes, LSE will join the cities of Oxford and Glasgow, both of whom have also stripped Ms Suu Kyi of honorary awards in recent weeks.
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A mother has spoken of the heartbreaking failure of her eight-year search for the truth about her sons death in a police chase after misconduct cases against two officers involved in the resulting crash and its aftermath were dismissed.

Liam Albert, 17, died a week after crashing a stolen Mazda in Surrey in 2009 following a high-speed pursuit that began in south-west London.

PC John Wills, the passenger in the pursuing Metropolitan Police car, and Inspector Mandy Chamberlain, who arrived at the crash site later, faced gross misconduct proceedings over claims they removed an exhibit from the scene and ordered the deletion of photographic evidence, respectively. PC Wills was also said to have failed to install his cars video recording system.

The driver of the police car, PC Paul Rogers, retired last year after the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said there was not enough evidence to bring criminal charges over the crash, so did not face a misconduct hearing. It was claimed Insp Chamberlain had ordered him to delete phone photos of the crash.

On Thursday PC Wills and Insp Chamberlains request to throw out the cases was granted after senior officers ruled so much time had elapsed that a fair hearing was not possible.

Speaking exclusively to The Independent, Liams mother Sharla John said she felt her concerns about the crash evidence had been shoved under the carpet like it means nothing. She and Liams father, Delroy Albert, first filed a complaint to the Met in 2010.

Ms John said: What we were looking for were answers to how he died, how did the collision happen, what were the events leading up to [it]. Which will not bring my son back but at least gives us some idea.

Theres so many questions that havent been answered, that, deliberately, to us it looks like, they have skimmed past. Theyve just humoured us from the beginning, I believe.

We look to the police for guidance, for help, for confidence, for protection. Thats just knocked me for six. Emotionally its not going to leave us, were not going to get a closure.

Surrey Police first investigated the crash, finding no case to answer against any officer.

A year after Liams death his parents filed a complaint with the Met after learning of the phone pictures. Documents seen by The Independent show how it was repeatedly put off until the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) launched its own probe in 2013.

The Met first said it would postpone its investigation to allow Liams inquest to take place, a process which did not conclude until December 2011. After the teens parents filed a renewed request based on information that came to light at Woking Coroners Court, the force twice asked the IPCC for permission to end its investigation, in March and May 2012, on grounds it was repetitious.

The second request was granted but overturned by judicial review in 2013. The IPCC began its investigation in May that year  now nearly four years after the crash. However, it did not interview PC Wills or Insp Chamberlain until the autumn of 2014, Thursdays hearing was told, and only finished its investigation in June 2015 when it handed its findings to the CPS.

Met commander Ivan Balhatchet, leading the misconduct panel, said the delay was entirely unsatisfactory and completely unacceptable. On Thursday the commission apologised to Liams parents and the officers, saying it had undergone a substantial change programme and has made significant improvements in the way we work.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 15 November 2022 Lesley Sutcliffe shelters from the rain next to a life-sized replica of the innermost coffin of King Tutankhamun by artist Amanda Stoner as it goes on display inside a traditional red telephone box which has been converted into a museum, in Barnsley, South Yorkshire PA UK news in pictures 14 November 2022 Members of the hospitality sector demonstrate outside parliament in London. The head of the Confederation of British Industry is urging the UK government to relax immigration rules to help British companies with severe staff shortages, ahead of the chancellors autumn statement EPA UK news in pictures 13 November 2022 England celebrate winning the mens T20 World Cup in Melbourne Cricket Ground, Australia AAP Image/Reuters 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 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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

The CPS decision not to prosecute came in March last year. In April, the IPCC told the Met to begin the misconduct process  some 18 months before the hearings eventually took place. Cmdr Balhatchet said: Significant periods of time passed because of disagreement between the Met and the IPCC as to whether the latter had provided proper disclosure of investigation material.

On 8 July 2009, PCs Rogers and Wills chased Liam from Merton over the county border into Surrey. The teen crashed into another car near a roundabout in Lammas Lane, Esher, at about 4.50am. He was taken to Kingston Hospital but died of his injuries on 15 July.

PC Wills was later accused of failing to install an in-car ProVida video system before the chase, failing to provide an appropriate commentary during it and removing an item from the crash scene without permission. Insp Chamberlain withheld evidence from Surrey Police and ordered the deletion of photographs, it was alleged.

But Cmdr Balhatchet ruled the eight-year time gap between the crash and the hearing had resulted in prejudice against both officers. Also on the panel were assessors Superintendent Tony Josephs, of the Met, and Yvonne Taylor, from the Mayors Office for Policing and Crime. The legal advisor was Jonathan Swift QC.

Insp Chamberlain was only notified her conduct was under scrutiny in January 2014, denying her the chance to reflect on potentially material matters and so causing prejudice, the hearing was told. And the passage of time had put PC Wills at a disadvantage due to possible problems in speaking to his statements and actions of eight years ago, it heard.

At an earlier hearing PC Wills lawyer, Kevin Baumber, said that while Liam's death was tragic PC Wills faced no allegations blaming him for it and there were no circumstances which justified the delay in misconduct allegations being brought forward.

Hugh Davies, counsel for Insp Chamberlain, added that all evidence against her was available by mid-December of 2009. In the intervening time, Insp Chamberlain believed she was only a witness and may have disposed of evidence that could help her case now, while her memory of her two hours at the scene of the crash would have been compromised by the passage of time, Mr Davies told the earlier hearing.

Andre Clovis, representing Ms John and Mr Albert, told The Independent: Despite knowing of the disturbing conduct issues in this case from very early on, the MPS delayed and then actively opposed this investigation commencing, such that no steps were taken by them between 2009 and 2013.

The IPCCs inability to make coherent submissions to the misconduct panel for the unexplained delays since 2013, and their open concessions of fault, is considered by Liams parents to be nothing short of an embarrassment and a disgraceful waste of public funds.

This outcome was foreseeable and confirms all that is wrong with the complaints system. Lessons seem not to be learnt and so it is almost impossible to hold police officers to account for alleged misconduct.

Ms John, 48, a facilities manager, added: Another family is going to sit here and have this interview next year, next month. Nothing has changed. I dont think its fair that the ex-police investigate the police in any case. Its establishment against establishment.

Its not going to give any other family the incentive to take the IPCC on. I would probably be put off. But youve got to try. We had to try. Its been a slog, its been a long eight years. Its not for nothing but they make it feel like we have done it for nothing because they havent put any effort in. Its heartbreaking to listen to.

The panel concluded on Thursday that the disciplinary charges should be dismissed on the basis that it is not possible for there to be a fair hearing of them.

Cmdr Balhatchet added: The conduct of the investigation into the complaint made by Liam Alberts parents was entirely unsatisfactory and completely unacceptable. It must not be allowed to happen again. Situations such as this do nothing but harm public confidence.

The delay that has occurred has betrayed the trust of Liam Alberts parents. The complaint that they made should have been investigated promptly. I have not seen a case that comes close to this case in terms of the length of time to investigate.

We cannot see that there was any sense of urgency."

Richard Martin, the Mets deputy assistant commissioner for professionalism said: It is crucially important for public confidence that police officers are held to account and the sad death of Liam has been investigated twice, through a managed and then independent IPCC inquiry, and fully scrutinised during an inquest.

However, it is also very important that officers are treated fairly and in the exceptional circumstances of this case the panel determined that could not happen.

While there are often some unavoidable delays in arranging misconduct hearings, we will review what happened in this case and I would like to express our regret to Liams family if there are things we could have done better.

IPCC commissioner Cindy Butts apologised to Liams parents and PC Wills and Insp Chamberlain.

She said: While our investigation was completed within two years, we recognise that, at eight years, this process has taken far too long.

Since this investigation concluded, the IPCC has undergone a substantial change programme and has made significant improvements in the way we work to prevent similar delays occurring. This includes the introduction of a quality assurance process to highlight issues before unnecessary delays can set in and a more streamlined investigation process.
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Boris Johnson has criticised the planned closure of a police station in his constituency  despite it being shut as part of a policy he introduced as Mayor of London.

The Foreign Secretary said he was very disappointed and mystified at the decision by the Mayors Office for Policing and Crime to close the station in Uxbridge.

He wrote on Twitter: Very disappointed and mystified at closure of Uxbridge Police Station. Fully support Hillingdon Conservatives [sic] call for rethink.

However, the policy of closing local police stations was introduced in 2013, when Mr Johnson was Mayor. Under the plans, 65 police stations across London were earmarked for closure, leaving just one publicly-accessible station in each borough.

Officials say the vast majority of crimes are now reported online or over the phone, making front desks at police stations redundant.

At the time, Mr Johnson said: Londoners have repeatedly told us that putting more officers on the streets is their top priority, not keeping them hidden behind desks in offices which the public rarely set foot in.

On another occasion he said: Sometimes I think police front counters havent been well used. People dont want to report a crime there.

A lot of people find a police station intimidating. They are becoming less and less central to our thinking.

Mr Johnsons then Deputy Mayor for Policing, Stephen Greenhalgh, said in 2013: We have to accept that the old-fashioned front counter provision is probably not the solution for the 21st Century.

The policy of closing police stations was continued by the current Mayor, Sadiq Khan, in an attempt to save 400 million by 2021. As part of this, Uxbridge police station in Mr Johnsons Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency is set to shut.

Labour politicians rushed to point out that it was Mr Johnsons own policy that was to blame for the potential closure.

Alice Perry, an Islington councillor and member of Labours National Executive Committee (NEC), said: When Boris Johnson was Mayor he lavished money on vanity projects while cutting community policing and closing police and fire stations.

Sadiq Khan's 5 most significant policies Show all 5 1 /5 Sadiq Khan's 5 most significant policies Sadiq Khan's 5 most significant policies Tackle the housing crisis Khans key policy is an ambitious target to make 50 per cent of all new homes being genuinely affordable, and improving conditions for people renting Getty Images Sadiq Khan's 5 most significant policies Freeze transport fares Khan says he will freeze London transport fares for four years and introduce a one-hour bus Hopper ticket, paid for by making TfL more efficient and exploring new revenue-raising opportunities. He claims Londoners wont pay a penny more for their travel in 2020 than they do today Getty Images Sadiq Khan's 5 most significant policies Make London safer Resore neighbourhood policing, tackle gangs and knife crime, and a new plan to tackle the spread of extremism, and a review of the resourcing of our fire service Getty Images Sadiq Khan's 5 most significant policies Restore London's air quality Pedestrianise Oxford Street and prioritise measures to improve Londons air quality Getty Images Sadiq Khan's 5 most significant policies Make cycling and walking safer More segregated cycle routes with a promise to spend money improving dangerous junctions Getty Images

Others said they had previously had to fight against Mr Johnsons plans to close police stations in their own areas.

David Lammy, the Tottenham MP, wrote on Twitter: Bit bloody rich of you this Boris  only a few years ago when you were Mayor you tried to close Tottenham police station.

Westminster North MP Karen Buck said: Could this be the same Boris Johnson who accepted 600m cuts to the Met Budget and closed Harrow Road, Marylebone [and] St John's Wood stations?

Some also suggested Mr Johnson should speak to his Cabinet colleague, Home Secretary Amber Rudd, to object to cuts to Metropolitan Police budgets that have forced savings to be made.

Wes Streeting, MP for Ilford North, tweeted: No reason you should be mystified, Boris. Have a word with the Home Secretary about the 600m cut from the Met and further 400m by 2021.
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Theresa May has announced plans for a full statutory inquiry into the contaminated blood scandal after victims and families denounced offers of a probe run by the Department of Health.

In a major U-turn, the Prime Minister said the Cabinet Office would now oversee the investigation into how thousands of haemophiliacs and other patients were given blood products infected with HIV and hepatitis C during the 1970s and 1980s, leaving around 2,400 people dead.

Family members have previously condemned the potential involvement of the Department of Health in the UK-wide probe  as it would be effectively investigating itself  with many campaigners boycotting a meeting with officials at Downing Street earlier this year.

Recommended Victims of contaminated blood scandal win ruling to seek damages

Ms May vowed to set up an inquiry earlier this year into the appalling tragedy which should simply never have happened. She said thousands of NHS patients have been failed by the health service.

The Prime Ministers official spokesman told a Westminster briefing: The inquiry will be conducted under the responsibility of the Cabinet Office rather than by the Department of Health with immediate effect.

We have been absolutely clear of our determination to establish what happened in relation to the contaminated blood scandal of the 1970s and 1980s and to work with the families of those affected, and we are now moving forward with that process.

There was a strong view that it should be done away from the Department of Health. We have listened to those views and thats why it will be conducted under the auspices of the Cabinet Office.

Downing Street said there had been more than 800 responses to the consultation into setting up the inquiry and more detail would be announced by the end of the year.

Labour ex-minister Diana Johnson previously compared the decision to allow the Department of Health to be involved in the inquiry to asking South Yorkshire Police to lead an inquiry into the Hillsborough disaster.

Ms Johnson, who chairs the all-party group on contaminated blood, said today: I welcome the Governments confirmation that the Department of Health will not be the sponsoring body for the contaminated blood inquiry; and that it will be a statutory inquiry under the 2005 Inquiries Act.

This shows that the Prime Minister has listened to the overwhelming and unanimous opposition to this inquiry being led by a department so implicated in this disaster.

She called for a clear commitment that the Department of Health would have no involvement other than providing evidence and that the probe would cover the aftermath of the tragedy, as well as how patients were infected.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 8 November 2022 A migrant attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA UK news in pictures 7 November 2022 Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of a protester who has climbed a gantry on the M25 between junctions six and seven in Surrey, leading to the closure of the motorway PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2022 A grey seal with its pup, at the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in north Lincolnshire, where they come every year in late October, November and December to give birth to their pups near the sand dunes, the wildlife spectacle attracts visitors from across the UK PA UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 A villager cooks roti bread at the site of the annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty

Norman Lamb, a former Liberal Democrat health minister, also welcomed the move, adding: This is crucial to ensure that the inquiry is completely independent from the Department of Health, whose role in this scandal needs to be fully scrutinised.

The imperative now is to rapidly appoint a chair, and finally deliver answers and justice for all those affected by this horrific tragedy.

A spokesman for the Haemophilia Society said: We welcome the Governments recognition of our concerns about the impartiality challenges the Department of Health faced regarding the contaminated blood inquiry.

We hope the decision to make the Cabinet Office the sponsor of the now statutory inquiry will be a turning point in helping the victims of this scandal finally get the justice they have long deserved.

We now hope a new and fresh discussion will be launched to establish the chair and terms of reference, which can now include the many groups who, like us, had felt unable to work with the Department of Health when it was so clearly conflicted.
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Harriet Harman has been criticised by Jewish groups for repeating an anti-Semitic joke on the BBC.

The Labour party deputy leader was speaking on Andrew Neils This Week where they were discussing whether it was ever acceptable to make bad-taste jokes when she repeated an anti-Semitic joke she had protested against in the past.

She said: Ive long been accused of being a humourless feminist and Ill give you two examples that Ill protest about because they were offensive and hurtful.

So, this was a Guy's Hospital rag magazine back in the day, and people like Andrew say that these things are perfectly all right.

One was How do you get a hundred Jews into a mini? One in the driving seat, 99 in the ashtray and that is not funny.

Mr Neil reacted with fury at the comment and said: All right, well well stop with that one example and we wont bore with the minute silence that you would dare to think that I would think about that because you have no knowledge of that at all.

She then tried to defend herself but he told her to be quiet.

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said Show all 14 1 /14 Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On Israel and Palestine The simple fact in all of this is that Naz made these comments at a time when there was another brutal Israeli attack on the Palestinians; and theres one stark fact that virtually no one in the British media ever reports, in almost all these conflicts the death toll is usually between 60 and 100 Palestinians killed for every Israeli. Now, any other country doing that would be accused of war crimes but its like we have a double standard about the policies of the Israeli government Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On Antisemitism in the Labour Party As Ive said, Ive never heard anybody say anything antisemitism-Semitic, but theres been a very well-orchestrated campaign by the Israel lobby to smear anybody who criticises Israeli policy as antisemitic. I had to put up with 35 years of this Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On Naz Shah Its completely over-the-top and rude, but who am I to denounce anyone with all of that. It was wrong. I dont think she is antisemitic, it was incredibly rude but I dont believe she is an antisemite. When the NEC investigation is finished they'll say it was rude and over the top but they wont find any evidence that she actually hates Jews. Weve got to investigate all these charges and the context in which they are made. If she is antisemitic like the other three or four members weve found who are antisemitic, shell be expelled Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On other alleged antisemites in Labour That is part of the classic antisemitic thing about an international Jewish conspiracy  that is the reason we need to have an investigation. Ive got an open mind. Ive seen nothing to suggest to me that she is antisemitic. I wouldnt have supported her if I [thought] she was antisemitic Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On whether what Hitler did was legal, as stated by Naz Shah Thats a statement of fact  Hitler, Im sure, passed all those laws that allowed him to do that  its history  literally, Hitler was completely mad, he killed six million Jews. Shes not saying its legal to kill six million Jews: what they were doing in that country allowed them not just to kill six million Jews, kill all the communists, kill all the leftists like me, my father almost died when a Nazi sub sank his boat. I have no sympathy with Hitler Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On another alleged antisemite in Labour No, that is, and thats why shes been suspended or expelled. What Ive said is that in 47 years of the party in all the meetings Ive been in Ive never heard anyone say anything antisemitic. There are bound to be in a party of half a million people youll have a handful of antisemites, youll have a handful of racists. Youve managed to dig out virtually every antisemitic comment that Labour members have made out of half a million people. Ive never met any of these people. Theres not a problem. Youre talking about a handful of people in a party of half a million people. Jeremy Corbyn has moved rapidly to deal with them Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On Jeremy Corbyns response to the allegations He met with Naz and she agreed she would stand down while the investigation is going on. He called her in to see her. Theres been a huge investigation of virtually everything that anybody put on the internet  many of these people are quite new and recent members of the party that joined in the big influx. 300,000 new people came in Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On his meeting a man accused of antisemitism in London This is the man who called for Muslims around the world to donate blood after the attacks of 9/11 when he came to London I went with him to the Regents Park mosque where he said no man should hit a woman and you should not discriminate against homosexuals. So I cant equate what I heard him say he made no antisemitic statement while he was here in London. I dont investigate people. Ive simply said what I believe to be true which is that Naz was not antisemitic. She was completely over the top, very rude, but that does not make her an antisemite Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On John Manns comments He went completely over the top. I was actually doing a radio interview at the time that he was bellowing that Im a racist antisemite in my ear. Ive had that with John Mann before a few weeks ago screaming that I was a bigot down the phone. Im not an apologist for anyone who makes antisemitic statements. What Im saying is dont confuse antisemitism with criticism of the Israeli government policy Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On calling a Jewish journalist a concentration camp guard whilst Mayor of London I cant tell if a journalist is Jewish or Catholic or anything. If a journalist is chasing you down the street at nine of clock at night you might be rude to them. Some people might have hit him! He said he was just doing his job. We went all the way to the High Court and the judge opened his judgement by saying I hope no one here is going to suggest that Mr Livingstone is antisemitic. We won the case Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On claims about Hitler and Zionism I cant tell if a journalist is Jewish or Catholic or anything. If a journalist is chasing you down the street at nine of clock at night you might be rude to them. Some people might have hit him! He said he was just doing his job. We went all the way to the High Court and the judge opened his judgement by saying I hope no one here is going to suggest that Mr Livingstone is antisemitic. We won the case Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On John Mann Id simply say to John Mann go back and check. Is what I say true, or is it not? The BBC, youve got a huge team of researchers, it will take just an hour or two to go back and confirm. I was asked a question, I answered it. I have never in 45 years since I won my first election, I have never lied. I have always answered the question Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On raising the issue if Hitler It lays you open to people smearing and lying about you. Ive always answered the questions put to me and that simple fact is weve had a handful of people saying antisemitic things in the Labour Party, theyve been suspended, some of them are on their way to being expelled, some of them have been expelled already Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On people calling for him to be suspended All my usual critics  but the simple fact is I agree with them; there is no place for antisemitism in the Labour party. For them to suggest I am antisemitic is a bit bizarre considering we worked with Jewish groups and put on exhibitions about the scale of the holocaust, we worked with Jewish groups to tackling the scale of antisemitism back in the 1970s. Ive always opposed every form of racism whether its against black people or Jews. Im going to stay in the Labour party and continue to fight against all forms of racism and discrimination as I have my entire life

Mr Neil is has been vocal in the past about the need to fight anti-Semitism and recently addressed the Holocaust Education Trust where he spoke of how it was becoming more insidious and how society needed to be even more vigilant.

Writing on Twitter after the programme was aired, the presenter said: What was wrong was 1) Even to tell that so called joke on live TV. 2) Claim I would like the joke. Appalling on both counts.

He rejected claims he had overreacted to Ms Harmans, saying: Really? How would [you] have handled being accused of liking a vile anti-Semitic slur?

But Ms Harman defended herself on Twitter by posting an extract from her recent autobiography, A Womans Work, where she recounted seeing the anti-Semitic joke, along with another racist one about a Pakistani man, which she complained about to the hospital and referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

She wrote: The South London Press ran an editorial condemning me for overreacting and being humourless. But the Jewish community and local black and Asian organisations were deeply appreciative when the hospital apologised.

Ms Harman has been the MP for Camberwell and Peckham in south London since 1983 and her constituency includes Guy's Hospital.

But Simon Johnson, the chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said it was still a "staggering error of judgement" to repeat it on live television.

He told The Independent: I cannot recall being so disappointed in a politician. Harriet Harman must surely know better than to repeat a vile holocaust joke, irrespective of the point she was trying to make. She must apologise and do so quickly. It is a staggering error of judgement.
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Legal action is being taken against Jeremy Hunt and the Department of Health over their proposals to restructure the NHS, The Independent can reveal.

Plans have been tabled to convert the NHS into a public/private enterprise, which critics say is based upon the US private health insurance-based system.

Senior health professionals and campaigners have now come together to take legal action and demand a judicial review, to ensure full parliamentary scrutiny of the proposals.

 Hammond: Money spent on a no deal Brexit is money "we cant spend on the NHS or social care"

Under NHS England's new plans, the boundary between health and social care would be dissolved and new systems and structures would allow alternative funding sources, ultimately leading to the creation of new healthcare overseers called Accountable Care Organisations (ACOs).

ACOs would permit commercial, non-NHS bodies to run health and social services. They could be awarded huge contracts to manage and provide whole packages of care, allowing the ACOs to either provide the NHS service themselves or sub-contract it.

This means ACOs will have control over the allocation of NHS and taxpayers money but their accountability for spending it and their obligations to the public will be under commercial contracts, not government statutes.

Solicitors representing prominent NHS campaigners have now contacted Mr Hunt to inform him that they are seeking a judicial review in an attempt to ensure parliament can fully scrutinise the proposals.

They claim the Department of Healths consultation process was limited, inadequate and unlawful due to the lack of national consultation or parliamentary approval.

The Health Secretary has long been the focal point of protests by NHS staff and supporters, as here during a demonstration in 2016 (AFP/Getty Images)

Dr Colin Hutchinson, Professor Allyson Pollock, Professor Sue Richards and Dr Graham Winyard are all working together to put the case to the Department of Health.

Prof Pollock, a BMA council member and co-author of the NHS reinstatement bill, said the proposals were an attempt to Americanise health care in England and that the NHS was progressively being dismantled.

"Our NHS has been an international model for countries around the world for a health system that represents fairness, efficiency and freedom from the fear of illness. It has provided health care for all free at the point of delivery through public funding, public ownership and public accountability, Prof Pollock told The Independent.

Its popularity has endured since 1948 and is a symbol of all that is decent about Britain. However it is being starved of funds and progressively dismantled and replaced with corporate structures known as Accountable Care Organisations which will facilitate the introduction of American-style healthcare systems.

These latest proposals are the tipping point in steps towards the Americanisation of Englands health care.

Recommended New head of NHS regulator refuses to give up private healthcare

The government has not only failed to consult the people of England about its plans but it has failed to lay its proposals before parliament. In so doing, it is acting beneath the statutory radar in attempting the Americanisation of our health care and this fundamental re-organisation by stealth.

We call on everyone to support this legal action against the Secretary of State for health to ensure proper national public consultation and full parliamentary oversight and scrutiny, she added.

A Department of Health spokesperson said: It is completely inaccurate to suggest ACOs are a step towards an insurance based system. They have absolutely nothing to do with the funding model of the NHS, which will remain a taxpayer-funded system free at the point of use, and are simply about making care more joined-up between different health and care organisations.

It is irresponsible to scare vulnerable patients with these type of misleading allegations.

The news comes as NHS bosses reportedly issued a cry for help after years of funding cuts.

NHS and social care leaders have written to Chancellor Philip Hammond to demand an increase in the pace of investment and an end to public sector pay restraint.

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 heads of groups representing the entire NHS, medical royal colleges and a host of UK charities have co-signed a letter to the Treasury in advance of the upcoming budget.

It follows assessment from regulator the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which said that front-line services are now in a precarious condition.

The letter says: Even if the Government were only to stick to its current commitment, we believe the remaining 5.2bn should not be reserved for the last two years of the Parliament. It should instead be brought forward now to address significant current challenges.

Clive Lewis MP has endorsed calls for a judicial review and said the plans were an attempt to erode and meddle until a US healthcare style system was in place.

 John Major: The NHS is about as safe with Tory Brexiteers as a hamster is with a phython

"I, like many, feel increasingly alarmed by what is happening to the NHS. Its perilously threatened. Jeremy Hunts reply to me in health questions indicates that he feels he has the right to change fundamental structures without reference to those who work in, use and care about the NHS, without an Act of Parliament and without explaining properly why these commercial organisations are needed and how they will improve care, Mr Lewis told The Independent.

Hes wrong. If we dont stay vigilant the Tories will erode and meddle until they get the US healthcare system they appear to have planned.

The Labour party conference voted unanimously to oppose ACOs and we must fight Hunt and Simon Stevens [CEO of NHS England] every step of the way until a Labour government can reinstate the NHS as a publicly provided and funded service," Mr Lewis added.
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Sir Michael Fallon was forced to quit as Defence Secretary after Cabinet colleague Andrea Leadsom accused him of lewd sexual comments, it has emerged.

According to The Sun, when Sir Michael and Ms Leadsom were on committee together, she once complained of cold hands to which Sir Michael is said to have replied: I know where you can put them to warm them up.

Leader of the House Ms Leadsom passed a dossier of claims to No 10 after Sir Michael was allowed to escape censure for an incident in which he put his hands on a female journalists knee.

Ms Leadsom is said to have accused Sir Michael of a string of inappropriate remarks when they were on the Treasury Select Committee together between 2010 and 2012.

As well as the hands comment to Ms Leadsom, he is accused of making comments of a sexual nature about other MPs on the committee and members of the public who attended hearings.

While the ex-Defence Secretary denied the claim that he made the comment to Ms Leadsom, The Sun reports he admitted making other comments during committee meetings that may have been inappropriate.

 Michael Fallon announces resignation as Defence Secretary

On Wednesday after admitting that his behaviour had fallen below the high standards required as a Defence Secretary, he announced his resignation.

A Downing Street spokesman would not get into a conversation over whether anything had been passed over from Ms Leadsom, but a source later denied she had asked the Prime Minister to consider sacking Sir Michael.

Ms Leadsom is herself leading the Governments drive to push for new rules and systems of support for staff in Parliament who fall victim to sexual harassment.

Theresa May has faced a backlash after appointing former chief whip Gavin Williamson, who has never held ministerial office, to replace Sir Michael.

Tory former defence minister Anna Soubry said: It does rather look like he picked himself a plum job.

Ms May has called a meeting of all party leaders on Monday to agree a new system of dealing with abuse complaints in Parliament.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister released a new code of conduct for all Conservative Party representatives, including a new complaints procedure with a hotline for reporting potential breaches.

For the first time, an investigation panel will include an independent member and a more detailed process, a letter to Commons Speaker John Bercow said.

Ms May called on other leaders to help her deliver a serious, swift, cross-party response to the problem, allowing complainants to take their concerns to a single body, regardless of the party of the alleged offender.

The letter rebuffed Mr Bercows suggestion that policing MPs behaviour should primarily be a responsibility for the political parties, pointing out that some MPs have no party affiliation  including the Speaker himself.

It cannot be right, when dealing with serious issues relating to behaviour in Parliament, that vulnerable or concerned people are expected to navigate different grievance procedures according to political party, Ms May said.

Neither can it be right that such difficult issues themselves are dealt with on a party-political basis, or that no support should be provided for those with no political or party affiliation.
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No 10 has brushed off allegations that Priti Patel, the International Development Secretary, broke ministerial rules on a visit to Israel, saying: There is no investigation.

The Cabinet minister is under fire for keeping the Foreign Office in the dark over political meetings where she was accompanied by an influential pro-Israeli Conservative lobbyist.

Ms Patel met Yair Lapid, the leader of one of Israels main political parties, and made visits to several organisations where official departmental business was discussed, the BBC claimed.

She was accompanied by Lord Polak, honorary president of Conservative Friends of Israel, (CFI), which has close links with wealthy Tory donors, during the visit in August.

Ministers are supposed to tell the Foreign Office when they are conducting official business overseas, but British diplomats in Israel were not informed, the BBC reported.

The Liberal Democrats seized on the revelation to argue the International Development Secretary would have to resign if it was shown she had breached the ministerial code of conduct.

Priti Patel has made a grave error of judgement, which goes against the openness, accountability and scrutiny the work of a government minister demands, said Shas Sheehan, the partys International Development spokeswoman.

Theresa Mays spokesman acknowledged that Ms Patel had taken the opportunity to meet some people and some organisations.

But he insisted: She was in Israel on a private holiday that the Secretary of State paid for herself.

Asked if the Prime Minister was concerned by the allegations, he replied: There is no investigation taking place.

However, asked if it was true that Ms Patel had conduced government business while on holiday, the spokesman acknowledged: I dont know whether that is correct or not.

And, asked if there was a possible issue concerning the ministerial code, he replied it depends on the circumstances, adding: I dont have a list of who she met.

Ms Patel's office has not responded to a detailed list of questions concerning the visit to Israel.

Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, backed his colleague, tweeting she was a good friend & we work closely together for GLOBAL BRITAIN. Quite right that she meets w/ people & organisations overseas.

Ms Patels meeting with Mr Lapid, on August 24, was only revealed after he tweeted a photo of it and described the Cabinet minister as a true friend of Israel.on.

According to a source who spoke with the BBC, at least one of the meetings was held at the suggestion of the Israeli ambassador to London.

Ms Patel, a potential future Tory leader is suspected of trying to win favour with wealthy pro-Israeli party donors and of conducting her own freelance foreign policy for Israel.

The code of conduct states ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests.

Ms Sheehan added: Shockingly, the Secretary of State has seemingly swanned off to Israel to pursue her personal career.

Priti Patel now must answer questions over whether she has broken the ministerial code of conduct. If she has, her position as Secretary of State is untenable.
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A lawyer in Egypt who said women who wear ripped jeans should be raped in an act of national duty has been reported to a top prosecutor after being accused of promoting sexual harassment.

Nabih al-Wahsh faces legal action after he made the controversial comment in a live TV discussion as part of a panel which was debating laws on inciting debauchery.

He suggested that if women who wore provocative clothing became victims of a sex attack it would teach them not to put on such garments again.

Recommended Human rights groups urge Egypt to halt crackdown on LGBT people

Mr al-Wahsh said: Girls must respect themselves so others respect them. Protecting morals is more important than protecting borders.

But campaign group National Council for Women reported Mr al-Wahsh to Egypts top prosecutor over his comments.

It said in a press release: All the members of the council denounce and decry this statement that explicitly promotes rape and sexual harassment.

Its member Nada Draz said the campaign group also plans to file a complaint to the TV station Al-Assema - where the Egyptian lawyer made his comments that sparked outrage.

Mr al-Wahsh had been speaking on the satellite channel two weeks ago over laws on inciting debauchery in Egypt.

He told fellow panellists: "Are you happy when you see a girl walking down the street with half of her behind showing?

I say that when a girl walks about like that, it is a patriotic duty to sexually harass her and a national duty to rape her.

It came after he branded a liberal cleric an "infidel" in a TV debate last October that ended with chairs and shoes flying around the studio.

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 row erupted after Sheikh Rashad, who is famed for his liberal interpretation of Islam, argued women should not necessarily be required to cover their hair with a headscarf.

Mr al-Wahsh's latest rape comments came after a 2008 study found that 83 per cent of Egyptian women said they had been sexually harassed and 53 per cent of men blamed women for bringing it on themselves.

The countrys capital, Cairo, was last month branded the most dangerous megacity for women.

Campaigners there say this stems from centuries-old traditions of discrimination, with women having limited access to good healthcare, education, and finance.
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Two lions spotted in a gay sexual encounter must have seen a homosexual couple "behaving badly" in their park and should be separated and given counselling, an official in Kenya said.

The animals were photographed after one mounted the other in a secluded bush area of the Masai Mara game reserve in the south-west of the African country.

Ezekial Mutua, the chief executive of the Kenya Film Classification Board, said the pair must have been influenced after they viewed a human same sex couple.

He claimed that was the only explanation for their bizarre behaviour, on the basis that lions don't watch TV or movies to see such acts there.

But he added it was also possible that they were driven by evil forces, saying that demons also possess animals.

Mr Mutua is an infamous figure in Kenya, dubbed the country's "moral policeman" for his controversial and often anti-LGBT public statements. He has in the past banned "pro gay" movies and cartoons  because he believed it glorifies such relationships.

He spoke out over the two gay lions after seeing photos of the pair in a rare display of such behaviour captured by wildlife photographer Paul Goldstein.

He told the Nairobi News: We do not regulate animals, but this is a first and interesting to hear that there are two male lions in love. Some research needs to be done.

"And also I wish I can get the bio to confirm the two lions were actually male, because it is not normal.

He added: These animals need counselling, because probably they have been influenced by gays who have gone to the national parks and behaved badly. I dont know, they must have copied it somewhere or it is demonic. Because these animals do not watch movies.

Mr Mutua argued that homosexuality was caused by evil spirits and hinted that the gay lions could also have been possessed by the same source.

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: The demonic spirits inflicting in humans seems to have now caught up with animals.

Gay sex between lions is rare but not unheard of and happens elsewhere in the animal kingdom.

Some biologists claim same-sex relations have been spotted in 1,500 different species, and reliably recorded in a third of these cases  or roughly 450 species.
TORONTO -- McEwen Mining Inc. reported its consolidated production and gave updates on its projects in its third-quarter report released Oct. 18.

Gold Bar Project, Nevada

The Gold Bar Project achieved a major milestone in the permitting process with the publication by the Environmental Protection Agency of the Notice of Availability of the Final Environmental Impact Statement in the Federal Register. Following a regulated review period, a signed Record of Decision will be published, signifying the completion of the National Environmental Policy Act process.

The Record of Decision is expected in early November this year and development of Gold Bar is planned to begin upon receipt, in line with earlier estimates. Gold Bar is expected to contribute an average of 65,000 ounces to McEwens annual gold production beginning in 2019.

Black Fox, Timmins

The companys growth strategy in the Timmins region, which started in April 2017 with the acquisition of Lexam VG Gold, reached a second important milestone on Oct. 6 with the purchase of the Black Fox Complex. Black Fox consists of: 1) the fully operational Black Fox underground gold mine, 2) the Black Fox-Stock mill, 3) an experienced workforce, and 4) the nearby Grey Fox and Froome development projects. The addition of Black Fox boosts the companys global 2018 production guidance to between 172,000-185,000 gold equivalent ounces.

Los Azules, Argentina

The results of the 2017 PEA demonstrate that Los Azules could become a robust, high margin, rapid pay-back, and long-life open pit mine at current copper, gold and silver prices. Financial highlights from the 2017 PEA, assuming a $3 per pound copper price, are: 1) $2.2 billion after-tax net present value, 2) an internal rate of return of 20.1 percent, and 3) a payback period of 3.6 years and a total mine life of 36 years. Estimated average annual copper production is 415 million pounds at a cash cost of $1.11 per pound during the first 10 years of mining operations.

San Jose Mine, Argentina

The companys attributable production from San Jose in Q3 was 11,862 gold ounces and 747,960 silver ounces, for a total of 21,834 gold equivalent ounces. Year-to-date attributable production was 64,563 gold equivalent ounces, 2.8 percent below the same period in 2016.

El Gallo Mine, Mexico

Production in Q3 was 7,213 gold equivalent ounces, compared to 11,849 gold equivalent ounces during the same period in 2016. Production in Q3 continued to be below expectations as a result of a serious mechanical failure at the end of July that removed the crushing circuit from operation. As a result, the company was unable to crush and place fresh ore to leach on the leach pad for a period of time.

McEwen has almost twice its normal crushing capacity available for the remainder of the year. Production is improving on account of the increased throughput, and access to better grades of ore in the pit that was predicted in the second half of the year. Increased production in Q4 will partially compensate for the shortfall experienced to date.

Financing

To purchase Black Fox and provide funding for further investment in capital spending and exploration, the company completed a financing in which a total of 20,700,000 shares and 10,350,000 warrants were sold at a price of $2.25 per share and associated one-half warrant, for aggregate gross proceeds of $46,575,000. Each whole warrant entitles the holder to purchase one share at an exercise price of $2.70 per share until Sept. 28, 2018.

Financial Results

Operating costs for the quarter ended Sept. 30 will be released with the companys 10-Q quarterly financial statements in early November. As of Oct. 12, the company is debt-free with liquid assets of approximately $60 million.

For Q3 2017, the company produced 19,051 gold ounces and 749,749 silver ounces.
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A US judge has ordered President Donald Trumps former campaign manager Paul Manafort to remain under home arrest and wear an electronic monitoring device for now as he awaits a tentative trial date on money-laundering and other charges.

Manafort, who ran Trumps presidential campaign for several months last year, and his associate Richard Gates pleaded not guilty on Monday to a 12-count indictment.

The charges include conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy against the United States and failing to register as foreign agents of Ukraines former pro-Russian government.

They are part of Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation of alleged Russian efforts to tilt the 2016 election in Trumps favour and into potential collusion by Trumps associates.

The investigation has cast a shadow over the first nine months of the Republicans presidency.

Another top Trump former campaign advisor, Sam Clovis, withdrew his candidacy for an administration job, apparently as a result of Muellers probe.

For Manafort and Gates, a conviction on conspiracy to launder money alone could carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Both men appeared in court in Washington on Thursday. US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said initial bail terms for the pair would remain in place for now, and set a bail hearing for Monday to consider changes.

Manafort and Gates are under house arrest, under unsecured bonds of $10 million and $5 million respectively, which means they do not have to post the bail unless they fail to show up for court or violate other conditions.

Prosecutors have argued there is a risk the men would flee.

They are also subject to electronic monitoring.

Manaforts attorney, Kevin Downing, argued that while his client is willing to comply with a daily curfew, he would like to have the GPS monitoring lifted.

Jackson expressed reservations about the idea, saying she would need to see some good reasons and that he must articulate those in writing.

I am concerned - very concerned... that an unsecured appearance bond in and of itself is not sufficient without some sort of monitoring, she said. If they leave and dont come back, we need to know where they went.

In a filing with the court, Downing said the governments case against his client is flimsy and that the bail conditions should be softened because Manafort does not pose a flight risk. Gates attorneys made a similar request.

Manafort and Gates remained quiet throughout the proceeding.

Jackson set a bail hearing for Monday morning, and said she would aim to set a tentative trial date next week.

She sharply warned lawyers for the duo about speaking about their case outside of court.

This is a criminal trial and not a public relations campaign, Jackson said during a hearing. I expect counsel to do their talking in the courtroom and in their pleadings, and not on the courthouse steps.

Muellers team is probing allegations that Russia interfered in the election to undercut Americans faith in their democracy, damage Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and help Trump.

The inquiry also is meant to determine whether there was any coordination between Russians and associates of the Trump campaign.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied meddling. Trump has denied collusion between his associates and Russia, calling the investigations a witch hunt.

Trump had nominated Clovis, his campaigns national co-chairman, to a post as chief scientist at the Department of Agriculture.

In a letter to Trump describing his decision to withdraw from consideration, Clovis made no mention of the Russia controversy, but cited the political climate inside Washington.

The relentless assaults on you and your team seem to be a blood sport that only increases in intensity each day, Clovis wrote in the letter. As I am focused on your success and the success of this Administration, I do not want to be a distraction or negative influence.

A source familiar with Muellers investigation identified Clovis as the unnamed campaign supervisor in a court filing who had discussions with Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos about efforts to improve US-Russian relations and setting up meetings between senior Trump campaign and Russian officials.

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

Papadopoulos pleaded guilty earlier this month to lying to FBI agents about his dealings with Russians. Clovis has not been charged with wrongdoing.

Mr Clovis nomination was only withdrawn because that would certainly have been a topic during his upcoming testimony, under oath, before the Senate Agriculture Committee, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, a member of the committee, said. I know because I was going ask him all about it to get more facts on the record and before the American people.

Reuters
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Isis has claimed responsibility for the New York attack in a propaganda article describing the perpetrator as a one of the soldiers of its self-declared caliphate.

Investigators have already confirmed Sayfullo Saipov was inspired by the terrorist groups propaganda to carry out a rampage leaving eight people dead in Manhattan.

But nothing in either Isis own statement or the criminal complaint against Saipov suggests he was in direct communication with the group.

An article in its weekly Arabic language newspaper, which was released overnight, hailed the attack by soldier of the Islamic State and noted its proximity to the National September 11 Memorial.

Repeating details of the attack that appeared to be taken from news reports, it celebrated calls to increase security measures and tighten restrictions on immigration, following warnings that Isis seeks to profit from growing division.

Isis repeated its claim for the Las Vegas shooting, which has still not been confirmed in the article, adding: The attacks come in response to calls to target the citizens of Crusader countries that participate in the coalition against the Islamic State.

The article did not name Saipov or include a kunya, an Arabic nickname commonly used to identify terrorists who have been in direct contact with the group.

 Trump calls New York attack suspect an 'animal' and signals scrapping lottery visa scheme

Isis normally releases claims initially via its Amaq news agency, with articles in al-Naba and its Rumiyah propaganda magazine later providing more detail.

Despite widespread scepticism about the groups statements, Isis is selective with its claims for terror attacks.

Investigations have shown the vast majority of its soldiers had directly contact with militants or had communicated their allegiance.

Recommended Isis propagandist who communicated with terrorists arrested in Germany

Isis has not claimed responsibility for several attacks where perpetrators have been inspired by the group but had no contact, particularly when they have been detained.

An Isis flag was found inside a van ploughed into pedestrians in the Canadian city of Edmonton last month, by an extremist who attacked a police officer with a knife before being arrested.

A Palestinian asylum seeker who killed one person and injured six in another knife rampage in Hamburg was also a known Islamist, and the man who detonated a bomb that injured 30 victims in New York as part of a wider attack plot had written a journal saying he had been inspired by both Isis and al-Qaeda.

By contrast, Isis has claimed responsibility for minor incidents including an arson attack in Sweden that injured no one, when they have communicated with the perpetrator.

A criminal complaint filed against Saipov said he was inspired to carry out the truck attack by Isis videos he had watched on his mobile phone, which was found containing 90 Isis-related propaganda videos, including executions and bomb-making instructions, and 3,800 images.

New York Truck attack Show all 6 1 /6 New York Truck attack New York Truck attack Investigators inspect the truck following the attack Investigators inspect a truck following a shooting incident in New York on 31 October 2017. Several people were killed and numerous others injured in New York on Tuesday when a suspect plowed a vehicle into a bike and pedestrian path in Lower Manhattan, and struck another vehicle on Halloween, police said. A suspect exited the vehicle holding up fake guns, before being shot by police and taken into custody, officers said. The motive was not immediately apparent. Getty New York Truck attack A paramedic looks at a body along the bike path A paramedic looks at a body covered under a white sheet along the bike path 31 October 2017, in New York. A motorist drove onto a busy bicycle path near the World Trade Center memorial and struck several people Tuesday, police and witnesses said. AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews New York Truck attack The truck driver collided with a school bus Authorities respond near a damaged school bus Tuesday, 31 October 2017, in New York. A motorist drove onto a busy bicycle path near the World Trade Center memorial and struck several people, police and witnesses said. Two adults and two children were on the bus at the time. AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews New York Truck attack A young girl reacts to the scene A young girl reacts as police officers secure an area following a shooting incident in New York on 31 October 2017. Several people were killed and numerous others injured in New York on Tuesday after a vehicle plowed into a pedestrian and bike path in Lower Manhattan, police said. 'The vehicle struck multiple people on the path,' police tweeted. 'The vehicle continued south striking another vehicle. The suspect exited the vehicle displaying imitation firearms & was shot by NYPD.' DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images New York Truck attack Police officers arrive at the scene Police officers arrive at the scene following a shooting incident in New York on 31 October 2017. Multiple people were hurt in downtown Manhattan, US media reported after police confirmed that they were responding to reports of a shooting. Police said they had mobilized to the scene in Lower Manhattan and that one person was in custody, giving no further details. DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images New York Truck attack Emergency personnel respond to truck attack in lower Manhattan Emergency personal respond after reports of multiple people hit by a truck after it plowed through a bike path in lower Manhattan on 31 October 2017 in New York City. According to reports up to six people may have been killed. Kena Betancur/Getty Images

He allegedly started plotting the massacre a year ago but settled on the plan to use a truck two months ago and appeared to closely follow Isis instructions to followers by carrying secondary weapons including a bag of knives.

The attack started at 3pm local time on Tuesday, seeing Saipov drive a rented pick-up truck into a bicycle lane and pedestrian walkway in Manhattan, hitting as many people as possible before crashing into a school bus.

Saipov emerged carrying a paintball gun and pellet gun and shouting Allahu Akbar, meaning God is Great, in an apparent attempt to be killed by police and become an Isis martyr.

He was shot by police and taken into custody, where he remains awaiting trial for killing five Argentine tourists, a Belgian woman, a New Yorker and a New Jersey man, and injuring a dozen more victims.

Investigators said a document found in the truck was written in Arabic and English, including the phrase meaning Isis will endure.

They also found a black bag containing three knives and a wallet including a Florida drivers licence for Saipov, two mobile phones and a stun gun.

In a police interview, the 29-year-old allegedly declared that he wanted to kill as many people as he could and initially planned to display Isis flags on the front and back of the truck before deciding it would draw too much attention.

While being questioned, investigators said Saipov asked to hang the terrorist groups flag in his hospital room and stated that he felt good about what he had done.

The New York Police Department said he had followed Isis instructions almost to a T but no formal links to the group had been uncovered.

Isis has released detailed instructions on carrying out vehicle attacks while intensifying calls for global atrocities as its territories shrink in Syria and Iraq.

The Nice attack was followed by Isis advice specifically calling on supporters to use lorries and other vehicles to commit atrocities (AP)

The first terror attack using a lorry came in Nice, where an Isis supporter killed 86 people in July 2016.

Vehicles have since been used in attacks in Berlin, Stockholm, London, Paris, Spain and the Canadian city of Edmonton.

Isis has released several rounds of instructions on how to use vehicles in deadly rampages, stipulating what kind to use and how to hire or steal them.

The groups propaganda has cited pedestrianised areas and crowded streets as prime targets after declaring murdering civilians halal, meaning permissible under Islam.

An issue of its Rumiyah propaganda magazine released in November 2016 cited the Nice attack as a superb demonstration and urged jihadis behind the wheel to carry a secondary weapon, such as a gun or a knife to continue massacres after crashing.

Isis also advises supporters to leave letters or other proof of their allegiance to be found by authorities lest the operation be mistaken for one of the many random acts of violence that plague the West.

A propaganda article says flags can be used or something as simple as a note like that found in New York.

Isis says the best outcome is then to attain martyrdom by being killed by security forces.

Donald Trump has called for Saipov to be handed the death penalty, sparking fears lawyers may use the statement to argue his trial has been prejudiced.

In a tweet around 11 hours after Isis' claim was released, Mr Trump called Saipov a degenerate animal.

He added: Based on [the claim], the military has hit Isis 'much harder' over the last two days. They will pay a big price for every attack on us!

There is no indication that American forces have changed their strategy supporting local forces in Syria and Iraq, while conducting air strikes, as a result of the atrocity.

The President has repeated calls for Congress to end the Bush-era Diversity Immigrant Visa program under which Saipov entered the US from Uzbekistan in 2010.

The FBI has located another Uzbek man, Mukhammadzoir Kadirov, 32, who was wanted for questioning as a person of interest in the attack.
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The sister of the New York terror attack suspect has pleaded for him not to get the death penalty, claiming he was brainwashed and deserves a fair trial.

Umida Saipova spoke with Radio Free Europe (RFE) about her brother, 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov, who is charged with carrying out the deadly truck attack. Authorities say Mr Saipov drove a rented truck through a bike path in lower Manhattan this week, killing eight people and injuring 12 in an Isis-inspired plot.

Ms Saipova told RFE that her family had not noticed any signs of radicalisation in her older brother. She claimed they had a normal conversation with him the day before the attack, in which he said he was eating his mothers favourite pastry, and was on his way to pick up a client at the airport. Mr Saipov worked as an Uber driver after legally moving to the US in 2010.

Recommended Isis claims responsibility for New York terror attack

We dont know who has brainwashed him, Ms Saipova told RFE, from her home in Uzbekistan. We dont know his circumstances. We dont know. Perhaps hes become part of some organised group.

She added that her mother, 50-year-old Muqaddas Saipova, had visited Mr Saipov in the US earlier that year and seen no sign of radicalisation.

My mother said she would have brought him back to Uzbekistan had she noticed anything, she said.

New York Truck attack Show all 6 1 /6 New York Truck attack New York Truck attack Investigators inspect the truck following the attack Investigators inspect a truck following a shooting incident in New York on 31 October 2017. Several people were killed and numerous others injured in New York on Tuesday when a suspect plowed a vehicle into a bike and pedestrian path in Lower Manhattan, and struck another vehicle on Halloween, police said. A suspect exited the vehicle holding up fake guns, before being shot by police and taken into custody, officers said. The motive was not immediately apparent. Getty New York Truck attack A paramedic looks at a body along the bike path A paramedic looks at a body covered under a white sheet along the bike path 31 October 2017, in New York. A motorist drove onto a busy bicycle path near the World Trade Center memorial and struck several people Tuesday, police and witnesses said. AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews New York Truck attack The truck driver collided with a school bus Authorities respond near a damaged school bus Tuesday, 31 October 2017, in New York. A motorist drove onto a busy bicycle path near the World Trade Center memorial and struck several people, police and witnesses said. Two adults and two children were on the bus at the time. AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews New York Truck attack A young girl reacts to the scene A young girl reacts as police officers secure an area following a shooting incident in New York on 31 October 2017. Several people were killed and numerous others injured in New York on Tuesday after a vehicle plowed into a pedestrian and bike path in Lower Manhattan, police said. 'The vehicle struck multiple people on the path,' police tweeted. 'The vehicle continued south striking another vehicle. The suspect exited the vehicle displaying imitation firearms & was shot by NYPD.' DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images New York Truck attack Police officers arrive at the scene Police officers arrive at the scene following a shooting incident in New York on 31 October 2017. Multiple people were hurt in downtown Manhattan, US media reported after police confirmed that they were responding to reports of a shooting. Police said they had mobilized to the scene in Lower Manhattan and that one person was in custody, giving no further details. DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images New York Truck attack Emergency personnel respond to truck attack in lower Manhattan Emergency personal respond after reports of multiple people hit by a truck after it plowed through a bike path in lower Manhattan on 31 October 2017 in New York City. According to reports up to six people may have been killed. Kena Betancur/Getty Images

The family did become worried, however, when they saw him sporting a full beard after his marriage in 2013. Ms Saipova described the family as terrified to see her brother adopting the facial hair style of some religious extremists. She said that he told the family the beard was an attempt to appear older, and to scare off potential muggers.

I dont know, honestly, how long it will take for his head to get rid of that poison, she said of her brother now, but Im sure he will come to his senses, God willing.

Isis took responsibility for the attack on Thursday, calling Mr Saipov a soldier of the Caliphate. According to a criminal complaint, Mr Saipov told authorities that Isis videos had inspired his attack.

The complaint also alleges he had about 90 videos and 3,800 images on his cell phone featuring Isis propaganda, including video of a beheading. Documents show he wanted to hang the groups flag in his hospital room after the attack.

 Trump calls New York attack suspect an 'animal' and signals scrapping lottery visa scheme

Mr Saipov has been charged with providing material support to a terrorist group and violence and destruction of motor vehicles. He made a brief court appearance on Wednesday, but did not enter a plea.

President Donald Trump called the suspect a degenerate animal and added that he should get death penalty, in a move condemned by several legal experts. Mr Trump also claimed that the US military had hit Isis much harder in the days following the attack.

Speaking to RFE, Ms Saipova begged US authorities to give her brother a bit more time.

We dont think he should be given the death penalty immediately, she said. We are hoping for a fair trial. We are ready to go there, if its possible, to talk to him.

She added: Please pass my message to Trump, if possible.
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Jessica Allen was already the mother of two boys when she decided to become a surrogate.

The pay she would receive to carry another woman's child to term - $30,000 - would allow Allen to become a stay-at-home mom, as well as save for a new house. It would also be her chance to give a family the blessing of a child, her partner, Wardell Jasper, told her, according to The New York Post, which first reported the story.

So Allen signed up to become a surrogate with the San Diego-based Omega Family Global, which matched her with a Chinese couple identified in the article only as the Lius, a pseudonym. In April 2016, after in vitro fertilisation treatments, Allen became pregnant with the couple's baby.

Six weeks later, the first of many surprises in her surrogacy would crop up: A second baby had appeared in her scans.

I was a bit scared, but I heard the Lius were thrilled to be having twins, Allen, 31, told the newspaper. My $30,000 payment, including expenses - which I received in instalments by check each month - was increased by $5,000 for the second child. Not once during the pregnancy did any of the medical staff provided by the agency say that the babies were in separate sacs. As far as we were concerned, the transferred embryo had split in two and the twins were identical.

Recommended Surrogate mother gives birth to biological son in rare medical event

Last December, Allen gave birth to both babies by C-section at a hospital in Riverside, California. She claimed she was not allowed to see the newborns or spend an hour with them, as her contract with Omega Family Global had outlined - leaving her heartbroken days after the delivery. She had only briefly seen a cellphone picture of the babies and remarked that they looked different.

Only later would she realise how accurate her observation had been.

On 10 January, nearly a month after the babies were born, Allen said she received a message from Mrs Liu with another picture of the twins.

They are not the same, right? the message read, according to The New York Post. Have you thought about why they are different?

A DNA test would soon reveal the truth: One of the twins was actually Allen and Jasper's biological son. Despite using condoms, they had apparently conceived the child after becoming pregnant with the Lius' baby, in what is believed to be an extremely rare case of superfetation.

The condition - in which an already pregnant woman conceives another child - is so rare that alleged cases are usually treated with scepticism.

In a widely publicised 2009 case of a pregnant Arkansas woman becoming pregnant again, Karen Boyle, a reproductive medicine specialist, told ABC News there were only about 10 reported cases of superfetation in medical literature.

I was heartbroken knowing I carried a baby I didn't know was mine and that he was taken from me without my knowledge and was in the arms of other people where he did not belong, Allen told The Independent.

She and Jasper became focused on getting their son back, Allen added.

What followed was a lengthy, expensive legal battle. The San Diego agency reportedly told Allen that the Lius had relinquished the baby who was not their biological match - and also wanted up to $22,000 in compensation. Allen told The New York Post they couldn't afford that and were shocked when the agency put up other barriers to reuniting with their son:

To my disgust, a caseworker from the agency lined up parents to adopt him and absorb the money we owed the Lius. Or, if that didn't work out, the Lius were thinking of putting Max up for adoption, as they were still his legal parents.

I told the agency in no uncertain terms, We want our son, but we would still be responsible for the bill if we kept him. It was like Max was a commodity and we were paying to adopt our own flesh and blood. A caseworker from the agency also said we owed her a further $7,000 for expenses she had incurred for the bureaucracy and for looking after our son.

We spent $3,000 on an attorney, and there was a lot of strained negotiation between us, our lawyer and Omega. It was an uphill battle, but the agency finally reduced the fee we owed the Lius to zero.

Despite the monetary dispute being resolved, Omega Family Global, in a statement to The New York Post, disputed Allen's claims. The full letter from a lawyer for the agency is here.

In the United States, commercial surrogacy - carrying another woman's baby with monetary compensation beyond medical expenses - is legal only in a few states, including California, where Allen lives. The practice comes with a slew of ethical and legal questions, including what rights the surrogate mother and the child have, particularly when the surrogacy takes place in another country.

Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publishes statistics on assisted reproductive technology, which includes donor embryo services and gestational carrier services, the federal agency's data does not break out exactly how many of those births were by surrogacy. About 1.6 percent of all infants born in the United States each year are conceived using assisted reproductive technology, a figure that has doubled over the past decade, according to the CDC.

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The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. 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For Allen, her surrogacy was a nightmare that ultimately had a happy ending. She told The New York Post her family was reunited with her son on Feb. 5, in the parking lot of a Starbucks in Riverside County. She and Jasper renamed their newest family member Malachi, and he is now 10 months old.

The moment was incredibly emotional, and I started hugging and kissing my boy, Allen told the newspaper. Wardell and I, who got married in April, weren't planning to expand our family so soon, but we treasure Malachi with all our hearts. I don't regret becoming a surrogate mom because that would mean regretting my son. I just hope other women considering surrogacy can learn from my story. And that a greater good will come out of this nightmare.

The Washington Post
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The US military for the first time has conducted two air strikes against Isis group fighters in Somalia.

A US official said the strikes were carried out in northeastern Somalia, with the first around midnight local time and the second later in the morning.

The official was not authorised to discuss the mission publicly so spoke on condition of anonymity.

Isis-linked fighters are a growing presence in the Horn of Africa nation long threatened by the al-Qaeda-linked extremist group al-Shabaab.

A Somali security official says at least six missiles struck in Buqa, a remote mountainous village roughly 60km (37 miles) north of Qandala town in Somalia's northern state of Puntland. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The US Africa Command said "several terrorists" were killed in the strikes. It said they were carried out early on Friday in northeastern Somalia in coordination with Somalia's government.

AP
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US Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl won't serve time in prison for endangering his comrades by walking off his Afghanistan post, a military judge has ruled.

Sgt Bergdahl was held captive by the Taliban for five years after he left his Afghan post in 2009, sparking a massive manhunt in the region. He pleaded guilty last month to charges of desertion and misbehaviors before the enemy.

Although he did not receive any further jail time, he has been dishonourably discharged from the military. Sgt Bergdahl's lawyers had pushed for that punishment, while the US military had asked for a 14-year sentence. He had originally faced the potential for life in prison.

Recommended Bergdahl pleads guilty to desertion after being captured by Taliban

Sgt Bergdahl was captured by the Taliban in 2009, and endured brutal captivity for five years before President Barack Obama struck a deal to release the captured soldier in exchange for Taliban prisoners. Immediately after he was captured, the US military conducted a massive search operation that resulted in the deaths of six American soldiers.

That search, and, later, the contentious deal struck by the Obama administration to secure Sgt Bergdahl's release, made the 31-year-old a contentious figure among Washington politicians, and the military community.

President Donald Trump has been one of those politicians, having called Sgt Bergdahl a "no-good traitor who should have been executed" last year during his campaign to become president. Mr Trump tweeted just this week that he wanted the military court to give Sgt Bergdahl the death penalty for his actions. Sgt Bergdahl's lawyers had argued that the President's statements made it impossible for their client to receive a fair trial.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. 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The judge had said that he was not influenced by the President's comments.

The White House said Friday that it did not have a comment on the sentence, and referred to a previous statement several weeks ago. In that statement, Mr Trump said that he expects everyone in the military justice system "to exercise their independent professional judgement, consistent with applicable laws and regulations."

Mr Trump later tweeted that the judge's decision was a "disgrace".

"The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military," Mr Trump tweeted while on board Air Force One.

Sgt Bergdahl's lawyers had asked for leniency during the hearings, saying that their clients had been undiagnosed with mental illness when he abandoned his post.

"Hypothetically, he probably should not have been in the Army," Capt Nina Banks, one of Sgt Bergdahl's military defence attorneys, said in her closing arguments.

Sgt Bergdahl had suffered from numerous mental illnesses, including schizotypal personality disorder, and post traumatic stress disorder, according to forensic psychiatrist Dr Chales Morgan, who testified for the defence this week.

Dr Morgan testified that a troubled upbringing had led to some of those mental illnesses. She said that Sgt Bergdahl's tense and sometimes scary childhood household had contributed to her client's social anxiety and cognitive defects, a condition established before he joined the US military.

Defence lawyers also argued that Sgt Bergdahl's cooperation with officials after being returned to the US warranted a lenient sentence.

Government prosecutors argued that the former Army man had known what he was doing when he deserted his post, and that he knew what the risks were. Soldiers were brought in to testify about Sgt Bergdahl's desertion, and told horrifying stories of the conditions that they were forced to endure while looking for their captured comrade.

That included Capt John Billings, who served as Sgt Bergdahl's platoon leader while in Afghanistan. He said that he and his platoon searched for Sgt Bergdahl for 19 days. During that time they had gone without food and water at points.

Another soldier called to testify became emotional while describing a situation during the search in which he and his dog came under fire. Retired Navy SEAL Chief PEtty Officer James Hatch said that he was shot in the leg, and that his K-9 partner was killed during the attack.

"I thought I was dead," Chief Hatch said of his injury.

Sgt Bergdahl apologized earlier this week to the service members who searched for him, noting that his actions brought intense suffering to those soldiers.

"My words can't take away what people have been through," he said. "I am admitting I made a horrible mistake."

Sgt Bergdahl was originally charged with desertion and misbehaviour before the enemy in March 2015.

He said that he was tortured by the Taliban during his capture, including having been beaten, chained to a bed for months, and being locked in a cage.

While it is not certain what Sgt Bergdahl may do now, he has already been offered a position at an animal sanctuary, and military officials who design survival training say they are interested in bringing him in for lectures on how to survive captivity.
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Donald Trump has responded to the rogue employee at Twitter who deleted his account, suggesting it was done because his account was "finally getting out... and having an impact".

The president's Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes overnight, in a move that initially appeared to be a mystery. Many speculated that the account might be shut down for good  but Twitter has repeatedly said that it won't ban Mr Trump even if he breaks its rules.

The company explained that it had been done by a rogue employee on their last day, and that it was now looking to avoid such things happening again.

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Shutdown the government for over a month in an effort to secure funding for his wall With Mexico declining to pay for the wall, the president has faced difficulty in raising the required $5bn at home. Due to his demand that the money for the wall be included in the budget, and Congress's refusal, the government partially shut down on 22 December 2018. It remained shut for over a month, the longest period in history Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Joking about the Nazi occupation of France to President Macron In this tweet from 13 November 2018, the president mocks Emmanuel Macron's suggestion of a "true, European army" by invoking the conflict between France and Germany in the world wars Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... 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Praising crowd size while touring Hurricane Harvey damage After Hurricane Harvey ravaged southeastern Texas, Trump paid the area a visit. While his response to the disaster in Houston was generally applauded, the president picked up some flack when he gave a speech outside Houston (he reportedly did not visit disaster zones), and praised the size of the crowds there AP Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... 'Little Rocket Man' During his first-ever speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Trump tried out a new nickname for North Korea leader Kim Jong-un: Rocket Man. He later tweaked it to be little Rocket Man as the two feuded, and threatened each other with nuclear war. During that speech, he also threatened to totally annihilate North Korea Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... 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Many of his supporters have suggested that the move was done by someone who was opposed to free speech. British right-wing commentator Paul Joseph Watson, for instance, said that liberals had given up on free speech and instead "have orgasms whenever free speech gets censored, either at the whim of a Twitter staffer or a violent Antifa thug".

Recommended What happened when the president disappeared from Twitter

Mr Trump, however, only suggested that his account had been removed because it was so important. "My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee. I guess the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact," he wrote.

The post was the first time the President had addressed the controversy, about half a day after it had happened. His response recalled his "covfefe" post  in which he misspelt a word and then appeared to delight in the fact that people were confused or attacking him over it.

He then continued to post about the investigation into Russia, and repeated his suggestion that a similar probe should be launched into the Democrats and the FBI. That was articulated in a flurry of tweets, which swiftly covered up his statement on the deleted account.
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Donna Brazile, a former Democratic National Committee (DNC) interim chair, has claimed that the party organisation helped Hillary Clintons campaign rig the 2016 Democratic primary against Bernie Sanders.

In a Politico op-ed, Ms Brazile alleged that Ms Clinton was controlling the finances of the party before officially winning the 2016 Democratic nomination for president.

This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the partys integrity, Ms Brazile said about the arrangement.

The piece, titled Inside Hillary Clintons Secret Takeover of the DNC, is an excerpt from Ms Braziles forthcoming book.

Last year, Ms Brazile took over as DNC chair after Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced out of the role over leaked emails suggesting she may have favoured Ms Clinton during the primary.

I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clintons team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested, Ms Brazile wrote.

By Sept 7, the day I called Bernie, I had found my proof and it broke my heart, Ms Brazile said.

The proof, according to Ms Brazile, was a joint fundraising agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund and Hillary for America. It had been signed in August 2015, four months after the former Secretary of State announced she was running for president and a year before she officially became the Democratic nominee.

Sources point to FBI office in New York City for Hillary Clinton leaks Show all 8 1 /8 Sources point to FBI office in New York City for Hillary Clinton leaks Sources point to FBI office in New York City for Hillary Clinton leaks NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 4: A view of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a field office on the 23rd floor, November 4, 2016 in New York City. FBI Director James Comey informed Congress last Friday that his agency was taking steps to review newly discovered emails relating to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary ClintonAs private email server. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Getty Sources point to FBI office in New York City for Hillary Clinton leaks NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 4: A view of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a field office on the 23rd floor, November 4, 2016 in New York City. FBI Director James Comey informed Congress last Friday that his agency was taking steps to review newly discovered emails relating to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary ClintonOs private email server. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Getty Sources point to FBI office in New York City for Hillary Clinton leaks NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 4: A view of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a field office on the 23rd floor, November 4, 2016 in New York City. FBI Director James Comey informed Congress last Friday that his agency was taking steps to review newly discovered emails relating to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary ClintonOs private email server. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Getty Sources point to FBI office in New York City for Hillary Clinton leaks NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 4: A view of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a field office on the 23rd floor, November 4, 2016 in New York City. FBI Director James Comey informed Congress last Friday that his agency was taking steps to review newly discovered emails relating to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary ClintonOs private email server. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Getty Sources point to FBI office in New York City for Hillary Clinton leaks NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 4: A view of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a field office on the 23rd floor, November 4, 2016 in New York City. FBI Director James Comey informed Congress last Friday that his agency was taking steps to review newly discovered emails relating to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary ClintonOs private email server. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Getty Sources point to FBI office in New York City for Hillary Clinton leaks NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 4: A view of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a field office on the 23rd floor, November 4, 2016 in New York City. FBI Director James Comey informed Congress last Friday that his agency was taking steps to review newly discovered emails relating to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary ClintonAs private email server. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Getty Sources point to FBI office in New York City for Hillary Clinton leaks NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 4: A view of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a field office on the 23rd floor, November 4, 2016 in New York City. FBI Director James Comey informed Congress last Friday that his agency was taking steps to review newly discovered emails relating to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary ClintonAs private email server. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Getty Sources point to FBI office in New York City for Hillary Clinton leaks NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 4: A view of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a field office on the 23rd floor, November 4, 2016 in New York City. FBI Director James Comey informed Congress last Friday that his agency was taking steps to review newly discovered emails relating to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary ClintonAs private email server. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Getty

Ms Brazile said joint fundraising committees were created between the DNC and both the Clinton and Sanders campaigns during the 2016 election cycle. However, Ms Clinton was the only candidate who raised money for the party, she said.

In a statement to Fox News, Ms Wasserman Schultz didnt directly address Ms Braziles allegations but defended her tenure as head of the DNC.

"It was a tremendous honor to be asked by President Obama to serve as chair of the DNC, Wasserman Schultz said on Thursday. I am proud of the work our team did to support Democrats up and down the ballot in the 2016 election and to re-elect the president in 2012.

DNC spokesperson Xochitl Hinojosa, who works under current DNC chair Tom Perez, told Fox News that the partys official policy is to not take sides during the primaries.

The DNC must remain neutral in the presidential primary process, and there shouldnt even be a perception that the DNC is interfering in that process, Ms Hinojosa said.

In an interview with CNBC, Mr Perez said, Were moving forward, when asked about the Ms Braziles allegations.

One of my goals here as DNC chair is to make sure that the nominating process for 2020 is a process that is totally fair and transparent for everybody, he said.

Ms Clinton has so far declined to comment.
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A group of Republican congressmen want Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller to resign, saying he was compromised by his connection to a controversial sale of uranium assets to Russia.

While the resolution introduced by Republicans Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, and Louie Gohmert is non-binding, it reflects rising conservative frustration with Mr Mueller, whose investigation of potential links between Donald Trumps presidential campaign and Russia has begun producing indictments.

Republicans and conservative media have been arguing that the aggressiveness of Mr Muellers probe stands in contrast to a lack of oversight for a 2010 deal in which a Russian nuclear agency acquired a controlling stake in a Canadian company, Uranium One, that had mining licenses for American uranium deposits.

They have pointed to the fact that the deal was approved when Hillary Clinton was serving as Secretary of State and as her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had received hefty speaking fees from a Russian-linked institution. Critics have also noted that at least one Uranium One investor donated money to the Clinton Foundation.

 Steve Bannon says the firing of James Comey was the biggest mistake in modern political history

There is no evidence that Ms Clinton personally approved the deal, which had to receive authorization from a nine-member of panel that includes one spot for the State Department.

But amplifying criticisms of the Uranium One deal was a report in the Hill said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation gathered evidence that Russian nuclear officials were paying bribes to advance their business.

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

The resolution argues that Mr Mueller was complicit in the FBI, which he then led, not bringing any charges.

Any thorough and honest investigation into the corruption of American-uranium related business must include investigating the willful blindness of the FBI and its leaders, the resolution says.

Mr Muellers impartiality is hopelessly compromised Mr Gaetz said in a statement. He must step down immediately.
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Despite President Donald Trumps insistence that investigations into possible connections between his campaign and Russia are a witch hunt, nearly half of all Americans say they think the President likely committed a crime.

Thats according to a new ABC News poll, which paints a worrisome picture for the American president who has already seen his tenure in the Oval Office beleaguered by concerns about Russian influence.

A cool 49 per cent of Americans say they think Mr Trump likely committed a crime, compared to 44 per cent who say that it is an unlikely scenario. At the same time, 51 per cent say they dont think the President is cooperating with the investigation, compared to just 37 per cent who think that Mr Trump is doing its best to cooperate with special prosecutor Robert Muellers probe.

Those numbers come days after the first indictments related to the Russia investigation and Mr Trumps team were made public. The Presidents former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, voluntarily surrendered to the FBI Monday, as did his deputy from the campaign, Rick Gates.

The public apparently thinks that those arrests are a sign that the worst is yet to come, according to the poll.

Fifty-three per cent of Americans say that the arrests are a sign that broader crimes were committed, and that Mr Muellers investigation may uncover those crimes. Just 28 per cent say that Mr Manafort and Mr Gates are the only people who have done anything wrong.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Mr Manafort and Mr Gates have been accused on 12 federal counts, including international money laundering, conspiring to defraud the United States, and for providing false information on federal financial disclosure forms.

Theres still some good news for Mr Trump, however. Fewer than 9 per cent of those polled said they think solid evidence of criminal activity has been presented.
ELKO  In the wake of announcing his gubernatorial bid, Attorney General Adam Laxalt launched a 17-county tour in the campaigns opening week, including a stop in Elko on Nov. 2.

Certainly you guys know how much I care about Elko, how much I care about rural Nevada, Laxalt said. Ive been around the state tons and tons the last three years as Ive promised and I will continue to do that in this coming year. If you all get me in as your next governor, you know I am going to be here for Elko.

Laxalt addressed a standing-room only crowd at the Coffee Mug with guests including Assemblyman John Ellison, R-Elko; Sen. Pete Goicoechea, R-Eureka; County Commissioner Cliff Eklund; Elko Mayor Chris Johnson; and Elko City Councilman Reece Keener; along with area residents and business owners.

The fourth-generation Nevadan, a Republican, described his upbringing, education and career, and reviewed his accomplishments since taking office as attorney general in 2015.

He shared that he was raised by a single mother, then struggled with alcoholism as a young adult. Later in life, he served in the U.S. Navy, through which he volunteered to go to Iraq and was trained as a prosecutor and legal adviser.

During the 2014 race for attorney general, Laxalt said critics from both political parties only further motivated him in his resolve to hold the public office.

I felt like we needed an attorney general that was going to stand for Nevada, he said. We were facing unprecedented federal overreach, and I promised all of you that I was going to fight against the federal government to try to protect our state.

Once elected, Laxalt said he worked to protect Nevadas lands, veterans and victims of sexual assault.

He touted his offices military legal assistance program, through which 2,000 service members have received pro bono legal service over the past two years. He also worked to eliminate the backlog of sexual assault kits.

Laxalt touched on his efforts to protect the use of Nevadas public lands by filing a lawsuit in conjunction with other states to slow down greater sage-grouse rules after the federal government ignored us, he told the Elko Daily Free Press after his presentation. The litigation slowed down the process long enough to vote in a new presidential administration that Laxalt said is more receptive to partnering with the states.

Turning to the race for governor, Laxalt said character and principle would win over politics.

I think a lot of us are concerned the direction we are headed, he said. We are concerned about the Californication of Nevada, right? I think we are a Republican governor away from keeping this state the way its been.

Former Nevada Gov. Robert List, who served 1978-1982, attested to Laxalts character, having known the family for four generations.

So I know the history and integrity of his family. Theyre really servants in every way, said List, who is volunteering on the Laxalt campaign. I got to know Adam, and I could see that he had all the same character. ... I got back involved because of who this guy is. Nevada needs him.

Goicoechea commended Laxalt for his achievements and for remaining dedicated to Nevada more than politics.

His total commitment to the state is what impresses me, he said.

Proudly wearing a Laxalt sticker reminiscent of a campaign button, fourth-generation Elko resident Judi Boyce, with husband Francis Buck Boyce, said she was grateful that Laxalt spoke in Elko.

Im a supporter at this point, and I like what hes done with the state, Judi Boyce said, explaining that she values state sovereignty and quality education. Its a privilege to have someone come and talk to us.
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President Donald Trump says that the decision not to send Bowe Bergdahl to prison is a "complete and total disgrace".

"The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military," Mr Trump tweeted while on Air Force One, reacting to the news that a military judge had let Bergdahl walk free after deserting his post in Afghanistan.

Sgt Bergdahl pleaded guilty to charges of desertion and misbehaviour last month, saying that Mr Trump's past comments on his case had made it impossible for him to receive a fair trial.

Recommended Bowe Bergdahl to receive no jail time for deserting Afghanistan post

Those comments first started last year during Mr Trump's election campaign, in which he called Sgt Bergdahl a "no-good traitor who should have been executied."

More recently, Mr Trump has tweeted about Sgt Bergdahl's case, saying that he would have liked to see the former soldier given the death penalty. Legal experts said that calling so publicly for that penalty made it very unlikely that Sgt Bergdahl would face such a sentence.

The military judge who decided Sgt Bergdahl's case said that he had not been influenced by the President's statements on the case in making his decision to let him walk free.

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The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. 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Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. 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Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. 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

Sgt Bergdahl left his post in Afghanistan in 2009, and endured five years of imprisonment with the Taliban. During that time, he says he was repeatedly tortured in a variety of ways, including being chained to a bed for months, and being locked into metal cages. The massive military search for Sgt Bergdahl resulted in six American soldier deaths, and many in the rescue operation went without food and water for long periods of time during the search.

He was finally let go in 2014, after the administration of President Barack Obama negotiated his controversial release in exchange for five Taliban prisoners being held by the US military.

During the trial, Sgt Bergdahl's defence urged the judge to be lenient, saying that their client had grown up in a stressful environment, and suffered from mental illness before joining the Army.

Lawyers representing the military brought in several soldiers who had participated in the search, including one who had been shot in the effort. Those soldiers described an incredibly difficult and taxing search operation in which many members of the military put themselves in danger for Sgt Bergdahl.

Sgt Bergdahl was dishonourably discharged for desertion.
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A US government agency report has concluded the evidence of global warming is stronger than ever - starkly contradicting the official position of the Trump administration, which released it.

It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century, the document says.

For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.

Reports suggested there was concern among scientists that the report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration might suffer from political interference from the White House. Instead, the scientists said there was none.

The Associated Press said the 447-page report, one of two scientific assessments required every four years, is the most comprehensive summary of climate science since 2013.

 Climate change might be worse than thought after scientists find major mistake in water temperature readings

During the election campaign and since assuming office, Mr Trump has rejected much climate change science as a hoax. Earlier this year, he withdrew the US from the Paris Accord, placing the country alone with Syria as the two nations that have refused to be part of it.

A lot of what we've been learning over the last four year suggests the possibility that things may have been more serious than we think, said Robert Kopp of Rutgers University, one of the dozens of scientists inside and outside the government who wrote the studies.

Since 1900, the earth has warmed by 1C degree and seas have risen by 8 inches. Heat waves, downpours and wildfires have become frequent, the report noted.

Lisa Murray's climate change photography Show all 12 1 /12 Lisa Murray's climate change photography Lisa Murray's climate change photography Dinka cattle herders starting their migration in South Sudan Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography A Dinka woman fetches water in South Sudan Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Veronica in South Sudan preparing tea outside her home, recently ravaged by heavy flooding Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Children playing in Vietnam. When it floods, transport to and from school is a major challenge Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Sugeng, a fish and crab farmer from Indonesia who suffers financially every time the area floods Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Tan, a vegetable farmer, learning new methods through Oxfam in Vietnam Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Maluk, a 19-year-old from Tonj South, South Sudan Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Normally this farmer in South Sudan would be harvesting sorghum, but rains are late so the hunger season continues Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Herders bringing home their cattle in Afar, Ethiopia Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Farmers harvesting chilli in Ethiopia Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography A woman in Tigray, Ethiopia, scares birds away from her crops with a slingshot Lisa Murray Lisa Murray's climate change photography Irula tribe woman in Tamil Nadu Lisa Murray

Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, have repeatedly said carbon dioxide is not the primary contributor to global warming.

Yet, the scientists who wrote the report said it was extremely likely - that is, to a level of certainty between 95 to 100 per cent - that global warming was man-made, mostly from the spewing of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.

For the first time, scientists highlighted a dozen tipping points of potential dangers that could happen from warming, things that co-author Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University, said keep me up at night.

They include the slowing down of the giant Atlantic Ocean circulation system that could dramatically warp weather worldwide, much stronger El Ninos, major decreases in ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, which would spike sea level rise, and massive release of methane and carbon dioxide from thawing permafrost that could turbo-charge warming.


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Senator Elizabeth Warren has hit back at Donald Trump after he used a racial slur to describe her in a tweet - saying that such posts won't stop the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller or keep your people out of jail.

The President tweeted on Friday: Pocahontas just stated that the Democrats, lead by the legendary Crooked Hillary Clinton, rigged the Primaries! Lets go FBI & Justice Dept.

Mr Trump has seemed extra keen this week to get the public to focus on alleged misconduct by Democrats and ignore new bombshell developments in a probe into alleged ties between Trump campaign advisers and the Russian government.

Recommended Elizabeth Warren thinks the Democratic presidential process was rigged

This week, Mr Mueller announced charges against three advisers to Mr Trumps campaign, laying out the most explicit evidence to date that his team appeared ready to coordinate with alleged intermediaries with the Russian government.

On Monday, Mr Trump's ex-campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and Mr Manafort's longtime associate, Rick Gates, were indicted for alleged money laundering and for purportedly acting as unregistered agents doing lobbying work in the US on behalf of pro-Russia Ukrainian political parties. Both defendants have pleaded not guilty.

Less than a few hours after Mr Manafort and Mr Gates surrendered to federal authorities, it was revealed that a Trump campaign aide - George Papadopoulos - had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contact with Russians.

Mr Trump has continued to insist that there was no collusion and has worked to distance himself from Mr Papadopoulos, calling him a low level volunteer for the campaign and claiming few people knew him.

The foreign policy aide attended a meeting of then-candidate Trump's national security team in March 2016 and is pictured a few seats away from Mr Trump.

I dont remember much about that meeting, Mr Trump told reporters on Friday. It was a very unimportant meeting. It took place a long time ago.

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

Echoing similar comments he has made on Twitter, the President then put the spotlight on the Democrats, who are also embroiled in their own controversy.

You ought to look at Hillary Clinton and you ought to look at the new book that was just put out by Donna Brazile where she basically bought the [Democratic National Committee] and she stole the election from Bernie, Mr Trump declared. Thats what you ought to look at.

On social media, Mr Trump has criticised the media's coverage of the issue and has pointed to how Ms Warren  who he called Pocahontas has said she agrees with a report alleging that the DNC rigged the 2016 Democratic primary in favour of Ms Clinton.

Ms Brazile, a former DNC interim chair, says Ms Clinton was controlling the party's finances before officially winning the 2016 Democratic nomination for president. That, in Mr Brazile's view, compromised the party's integrity, she wrote in a Politico op-ed.

The report seemed to bolster critiques from Bernie Sanders supporters, who have long argued that the Democratic establishment undermined their insurgent candidate.

Last year, Ms Brazile took over as DNC chair after Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced out of the role over leaked emails suggesting she may have favoured Ms Clinton during the primary.

During an interview with Ms Warren, CNN's Jake Tapper asked the Massachusetts Democrat point-blank if she agreed with the notion that it was rigged.

Yes, replied Ms Warren, who helps make up the party's farther-left progressive wing with Mr Sanders.

Calling the arrangement detailed in Ms Braziles report a real problem, Ms Warren said Democrats needed to hold this party accountable or risk alienating its constituents.
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The university professor who predicted Donald Trumps election win has now claimed that the President will be impeached within a year.

American University Professor Allan Lichtman predicted a Trump win in September 2016  long before most Americans considered it a possibility. But his prediction came with a hedge: the Republican president would also be impeached.

Now, Mr Lichtman writes in an essay for TIME, the Mr Trump is closer to impeachment than ever.

A Russian sword of Damocles is hanging over this American president by the slenderest of threads, Mr Lichtman writes. When this sword falls even Republicans, as in the Nixon case, will likely be compelled to begin impeachment proceedings.

In fact, Mr Lichtman told the Daily Star, the impeachment will likely come in the spring of 2018.

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

The reason for this, Mr Lichtman claims, lies with the indictments recently handed down by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Mr Trump claims he was nonplussed by the indictment of his former campaign manager and the plea deal signed by one of his campaign staffers  Im not under investigation, as you know, he told the New York Times  but Mr Lichtman says he should be concerned.

Already, Muellers filing in federal court of just partial information from his plea deal with [former campaign staffer George] Papadopoulos, contains stunning new revelations, Mr Lichtman writes.

 Will Donald Trump be impeached?

The most stunning of these revelations, he says, is the suggestion that Mr Trump likely knew about Mr Papadopouloss attempts to reach out to Russian officials.

The professor points to a March 2016 meeting in which Mr Papadopoulos  according to court filings  boasted about his Russia connections and offered to broker a meeting between Mr Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. A photograph of the meeting shows that then-candidate Trump was present.

Mr Trump claims the gathering was a very unimportant meeting, which happened a long time ago.

Questioned about the meeting on Friday, Mr Trump said flatly: Don't remember much about it.

But this, Mr Lichtman insists, is just the tip of the iceberg. Based on his strong case against Mr Manafort, the professor predicts Mr Mueller will be able to flip a Trump insider who can tie evidence of collusion directly to the President. It was the testimony of a Watergate insider, he points out, that helped bring down Richard Nixon.

These revelations may not by themselves establish the case for impeachment, but Muellers investigation is still in its early stages, he writes.

To the Daily Star, he added: The odds on a Trump impeachment or a Nixon-style resignation are now quite high.
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US President Donald Trump has claimed he does not need to fill vacant government posts because he is the only one that matters.

The President has failed to fill dozens of vacant positions in his administration, particularly at the State Department. He has successfully nominated only one of six under secretary positions at the department, and only three of 24 assistant secretary positions.

Employees at the governments diplomatic wing have called the current situation a disaster.

Recommended Donald Trump again uses racist slur to refer to female senator

Addressing the situation on Thursday, Mr Trump said: We dont need all the people that they want. I am a business person. When you don't need to fill slots, don't fill them.

"The one that matters is me, he added. I am the only one that matters. When it comes to it, that's what the policy will be."

Mr Trump made his comments in a Thursday night interview with Fox News, on the eve of his first diplomatic trip to Asia.

Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Show all 22 1 /22 Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Donald Trump's international Presidential trips French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Donald Trump AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Donald Trump talk as they leave the Army Museum at Les Invalides in Paris AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump arrive for the group photo at the G7 Taormina summit on the island of Sicily in May 2017 Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Mr Trump was pressed on the subject at the G7 summit in Italy Getty Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump gives a speeech at the Warsaw Uprising Monument on Krasinski Square Getty Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump and Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May during a ceremony at the NATO headquarters before the start of a summit in Brussels, Belgium Reuters Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Montenegro's Prime Minister Dusko Markovic is seen to the right of Donald Trump at a Nato summit in Brussels REUTERS Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Pope Francis meeting with US President Donald J. Trump EPA Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Pope Francis poses with US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump arrives at Palazzo del Quirinale ahead of the meeting with Italian President Sergio Mattarella Ufficio Stampa Presidenza della via Getty Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump is seen during a joint press conference with the Palestinian leader at the presidential palace in the West Bank city of Bethlehem AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas meets US President Donald Trump PPO via Getty Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with US President Donald Trump prior to the President's departure GPO via Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands after delivering a speech at the Israel Museum AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump lay a wreath in the Hall of Remembrance as White House senior advisor Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump watch on during a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump visit to Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem accompanied by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu GPO via Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump takes his seat before his speech to the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia Reuters Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, US President Donald Trump and US First Lady Melania Trump look at a display of Saudi modern art at the Saudi Royal Court in Riyadh AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud take part in a signing ceremony at the Saudi Royal Court in Riyadh AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips King Salman presents Donald Trump with The Collar of Abdulaziz al-Saud Medal at the Royal Court Palace on 20 May AP Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump is welcomed by Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud upon arrival at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump walk on the South Lawn prior to their first foreign trip Getty Images

During the interview, Mr Trump was asked about his relationship with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who has clashed with the President on several occasions.

Asked whether Mr Tillerson would be with the administration for the remainder of the presidency, Mr Trump replied: "We'll see. I don't know who's going to be [here for the] duration.

Later, he said Mr Tillerson is "working hard" and "doing his best.

 Ivanka Trump 'greeted with half empty-room' while giving Tokyo speech on women's empowerment

Tensions flared between Mr Trump and his Secretary of State last month, when NBC News reported that Mr Tillerson had called the President a moron behind his back. The report also stated that Mr Tillerson had considered leaving his role over the summer, and had to be talked out of it by Vice President Mike Pence.

Mr Tillerson later gave a speech in which he denied ever wanting to quit, but refused to answer questions about calling the President a moron.

"I'm not going to deal with petty stuff like that," he said at the time. ...The places I come from, we don't deal with that kind of petty nonsense.

A State Department spokesperson later denied that Mr Tillerson had made the comment.

Mr Tillerson will not be accompanying Mr Trump on his 12-day tour through Asia, which will bring him to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The President left for the tour on Friday with First Lady Melania Trump, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, US Trade Representative Bob Lighthizer, and several members of the national security team.

The trip is the longest taken by a sitting president since George HW Bush's trip to Asia in 1992. According to national security adviser HR McMaster, it will focus on reducing the nuclear threat from North Korea, advancing international trade, and promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific region.
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The White House was placed on lock down and one suspect was arrested after reports of "suspicious activity" in the area, the US Secret Service said.

The Secret Service arrested 33-year-old Ervin Pettaway of Washington, DC, for making verbal threats near the complex. Mr Pettaway allegedly claimed to have "dropped explosives" on the north side of Lafayette Park, near Pennsylvania Avenue. He has been charged with one count of felony threats.

The north fence line of the White House was closed due to the suspicious activity on Friday morning. The Uniformed Division of the Secret Service responded to the scene and Mr Pettaway was arrested minutes later.-

Recommended Elizabeth Warren hits back after Trump calls her racial slur

Pennsylvania Avenue and Lafayette Park near the White House were briefly closed to pedestrians, and reporters and staffers were instructed not to leave the White House until the investigation concluded, according to the Associated Press. CBS News reported that reporters were asked to leave the North Lawn.

The incident occurred as President Donald Trump departed Washington for his 12-day tour through Asia. He boarded Air Force one at 9:16 am, according to pool reports  just fifteen minutes before the lock down was put in place.

Mr Trump was accompanied on the plane by First Lady Melania Trump, Chief of Staff John Kelly, US Trade Representative Bob Lighthizer, and two top advisers. The diplomatic trip will take them to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Show all 22 1 /22 Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Donald Trump's international Presidential trips French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Donald Trump AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Donald Trump talk as they leave the Army Museum at Les Invalides in Paris AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump arrive for the group photo at the G7 Taormina summit on the island of Sicily in May 2017 Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Mr Trump was pressed on the subject at the G7 summit in Italy Getty Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump gives a speeech at the Warsaw Uprising Monument on Krasinski Square Getty Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump and Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May during a ceremony at the NATO headquarters before the start of a summit in Brussels, Belgium Reuters Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Montenegro's Prime Minister Dusko Markovic is seen to the right of Donald Trump at a Nato summit in Brussels REUTERS Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Pope Francis meeting with US President Donald J. Trump EPA Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Pope Francis poses with US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump arrives at Palazzo del Quirinale ahead of the meeting with Italian President Sergio Mattarella Ufficio Stampa Presidenza della via Getty Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump is seen during a joint press conference with the Palestinian leader at the presidential palace in the West Bank city of Bethlehem AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas meets US President Donald Trump PPO via Getty Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with US President Donald Trump prior to the President's departure GPO via Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands after delivering a speech at the Israel Museum AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump lay a wreath in the Hall of Remembrance as White House senior advisor Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump watch on during a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump visit to Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem accompanied by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu GPO via Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump takes his seat before his speech to the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia Reuters Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, US President Donald Trump and US First Lady Melania Trump look at a display of Saudi modern art at the Saudi Royal Court in Riyadh AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud take part in a signing ceremony at the Saudi Royal Court in Riyadh AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips King Salman presents Donald Trump with The Collar of Abdulaziz al-Saud Medal at the Royal Court Palace on 20 May AP Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump is welcomed by Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud upon arrival at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump walk on the South Lawn prior to their first foreign trip Getty Images

The President did not mention the lock down on Twitter, but did issue several comments about the 2016 Democratic primary race.

"Bernie Sanders supporters have every right to be apoplectic of the complete theft of the Dem primary by Crooked Hillary!" he wrote shortly after the incident.

The lock down was lifted approximately an hour after it was put in place.
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Indian police have refused to file a report on the gang rape of a student who was allegedly tied up by four men who took tea breaks during the attack.

Three police stations dismissed the 19-year-old's complaint, according to The Times of India which reported that one officer had mocked her for "coming with a filmy story".

Detectives in Bhopal, in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, only began investigating the attack after the teenager and her parents - both themselves police inspectors - accosted two of the suspects themselves.

The city's police force has suspended one officer for failing to file a report on the woman's ordeal, which lasted three hours and took place just 100 metres from a busy rail station.

Officers at two other stations reportedly refused register the crime as it happened outside their jurisdictions.

The woman was allegedly grabbed by two of the men. She fought back but was hit with a stone, stripped, tied up and raped. Two other men later joined and raped her, it was reported.

They allowed her to dress and leave but forced her to hand over her earrings, watch and phone.

Police have arrested four suspects and Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan pledged the case would be heard in a fast-tracked court.

India protests against sexual violence Show all 20 1 /20 India protests against sexual violence India protests against sexual violence April 2015 School girls wear black bands on their faces during a protest rally against the rape case of a 16-year-old girl at Dhupguri town in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal Reuters India protests against sexual violence March 2015 Students of Convent of Jesus and Mary School participate in a protest against the alleged gang rape of a nun in her 70s AP India protests against sexual violence March 2015 Official figures for the number of women raped in India are often disputed by Women's Rights experts who claim the numbers are far higher SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP/Getty Images India protests against sexual violence March 2015 Women protest after the horrific rape and murder of Jyoti Singh in India BBC India protests against sexual violence June 2014 Women in India protest against rape and other attacks on women and girls in the country AP India protests against sexual violence June 2014 Indian activists from the Social Unity Center of India (SUCI) shout slogans against the state government in protest against the gang rape and murder of two girls in the district of Badaun in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and recent rapes in the eastern state of West Bengal, in Kolkata AFP/Getty India protests against sexual violence June 2014 Supporters of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were protesting against the rape and hanging of two girls Reuters India protests against sexual violence May 2014 Members of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union shout slogans during a protest against a gang rape of two teenage girls in Katra village, outside the Uttar Pradesh state house, in New Delhi. A top government official said the northern Uttar Pradesh state has sacked two police officers who failed to respond to a complaint by the father of the two teenage girls who went missing and were later found gang raped and killed. The placard at right reads, "Punish the culprits of gang-rape and murder of two Dalit girls" AP Photo/Manish Swarup India protests against sexual violence January 2014 Student protesters outside a Suri hospital where a rape victim is being treated Andrew Buncombe India protests against sexual violence January 2014 West Bengal Women's Forum activists walk a protest rally against a rape case in Calcutta, eastern India. A young girl was gang-raped on October 25 and afterwards repeatedly threatened by the accused, following which the disturbed girl set herself on fire December 23. She was admitted to the hospital with 40 percent burns and finally succumbed to her burn injuries on 31 December EPA India protests against sexual violence August 2013 Republican Party of India supporters protest in Mumbai against the rape of a female photographer Reuters India protests against sexual violence May 2013 Indian demonstrators shout slogans at the police during a protest calling for better safety for women AFP/Getty Images India protests against sexual violence April 2013 An Indian woman holds a poster as she protests with others against how Indian authorities handle sex crimes near the Parliament in New Delhi, after a second suspect was arrested in the rape of a 5-year-old girl. Child rights activists say the rape of the girl is just the latest case in which Indian police failed to take urgent action on a report of a missing child. Three days after the attack, the girl was found alone in locked room in the same New Delhi building where her family lives AP India protests against sexual violence March 2013 Indians protests against all-too-common gang-rapes in their country Getty Images India protests against sexual violence January 2013 Indian students of various organisations hold placards as they shout slogans during a demonstration in Hyderabad Getty Images India protests against sexual violence January 2013 A protester chants slogans as she braces herself against the spray fired from police water canons during a protest against the Indian government's reaction to recent rape incidents in India, in front of India Gate on December 23, 2012 in New Delhi Getty Images India protests against sexual violence January 2013 Indian children paint messages during a gathering to mourn the death of the 23-year old rape victim. Her statement was used in the trial AP India protests against sexual violence January 2013 Indians hold a candlelight vigil in Delhi in memory of a gang-rape victim. Five men have been charged with murder AP India protests against sexual violence December 2012 Indian protesters are escorted by police as they demonstrate against the brutal gang-rape of a woman AP India protests against sexual violence December 2012 Indian protesters destroy a police van during a violent demonstration near the India Gate against a gang rape and brutal beating of a 23-year-old student on a bus AP

He said action would be taken against the police officers who refused to file the report.

"It's one of the worst experiences of my life," the victim's mother told The Times of India. "If I, as a policewoman, have to face such problems in filing my daughter's gang rape complaint, I can't imagine what a common man goes through."

India's parliament introduced fast-track courts to hear rape cases after campaigners said the country's legal system was slow to prosecute such crimes. But sexual assaults and violence against women remain widespread."
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Syrian government forces have liberated the last remaining Isis stronghold in the country as the group's self-proclaimed caliphate continues to crumble.

The Syrian military said it had driven extremist fighters from Deir Ezzor and regained full control of the eastern city on the west bank of the Euphrates following weeks of fighting, state media reported.

Isis had held most of the city since 2014, except for one large pocket where Syrian army troops and 93,000 civilians were trapped for three years.

Recommended Syrian army breaks Isis siege on Deir Ezzor after three years

Syrian forces and pro-government allies first broke the militant group's siege on the city in a Russian-backed offensive in September and have been advancing against Isis positions ever since.

The recapture of the city, the largest in eastern Syria, leaves Isis militants isolated and encircled in the region's countryside.

In a statement issued on Friday through state TV, army spokesman General Ali Mayhoub said the military had "completely" liberated the city and declared it had entered the "last phase" of its fight to annihilate Isis.

A Syrian soldier flashes a for 'V for victor'y sign in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor (AFP/Getty Images) (AFP)

Isis is estimated to have lost 90 per cent of its territory since 2014, including key urban strongholds Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in northern Syria.

Deir Ezzor was strategically significant to the extremist group due to its location near the Iraqi border and its importance as the capital of the oil-rich province which shares its name.

The city's liberation all but reduces Isis's self-proclaimed caliphate to a pair of border towns on the Iraq-Syria frontier.

Iraqi forces and allied Shia militia are chasing remnants of the terror group inside the town of al-Qaim, on the Iraqi side of the border.

The Syrian army, backed by Russia and Iran, and Kurdish-led Syrian forces supported by the US, are racing to take the rest of the Deir Ezzor province, including the town of Albu Kamal near the Iraq border.

Footage posted on the website of the Syrian state news agency Sana showed the last moments of the fighting between the army and Isis in Deir Ezzor city. Plumes of smoke could be seen rising over the city's Isis-held neighbourhoods of Jamiayat and Jabiliyeh amid shelling by Syrian tanks.

Smoke billows from Deir Ezzor during fighting between Syrian government forces and Isis (AFP/Getty Images) (AFP)

"Army units, in co-operation with allied forces, liberated the city of Deir Ezzor completely from the Daesh terrorist organisation," said General Mayhoub, using the Arabic name for Isis. "With the loss of Deir Ezzor, Daesh loses its ability to lead terrorist operations by its militants who are now isolated and encircled east of the city."

Deir Ezzor's residents were reliant on UN air drops of food, medicine and other supplies during the siege. Some were pictured on Syrian media celebrating as the first of Isis's defences collapsed in September.

The breakthrough allowed the army to dismantle mines around a besieged airbase, allowing troops and advancing forces to reunite.

Forces in Syria and Iraq, backed by regional states and global powers, now appear on the cusp of victory over Isis, which proclaimed its authority over all Muslims in 2014 when it held about a third of both countries and ruled over millions.

 Isis kills 128 civilians in 'revenge' surprise counter attack on Syrian town

A US-led international coalition which has been bombing Isis and supporting ground allies on both sides of the frontier said the militant group now has a few thousand fighters left, mainly holed up in al-Qaim and Albu Kamal.

"We do expect them now to try to flee, but we are cognisant of that and will do all we can to annihilate Isis leaders," said spokesman US Colonel Ryan Dillon.

He estimated there were 1,500 to 2,500 fighters left in al-Qaim and 2,000 to 3,000 in Albu Kamal.

But both the Iraqi and Syrian governments and their international backers have warned fighters will still be able to mount guerrilla attacks once they have no territory to defend.

Colonel Dillon said: "As Isis continues to be hunted into these smallest areas ... We see them fleeing into the desert and hiding there in an attempt to devolve back into an insurgent terrorist group.

"The idea of Isis and the virtual caliphate, that will not be defeated in the near term. There is still going to be an Isis threat."
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North Korea has accused America of attempting to "ignite a nuclear war" after two US strategic bomber planes carried out drills in the region.

Pyongyang claimed the exercises, also involving South Korean and Japanese fighter jets, were a "surprise nuclear attack drill" simulating an attack on key North Korean targets.

News of the Thursday's drills was first reported by state news agency KCNA on Friday, raising tensions days before President Donald Trump visits the region for the first time.

"The reality clearly shows that the gangster-like US imperialists are the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war," a statement issued by KCNA said.

Mr Trump will begin his trip to Asia in Japan on Sunday before heading to South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. He is looking to win support for ramping up sanctions on North Korea, in a bid to deprive the country of resources and coerce leader Kim Jong-un into abandoning his nuclear weapons programme.

North Korea has defied international pressure by testing a series of intercontinental missiles and its sixth and largest nuclear bomb this year. Pyongyang last month threatened to carry out a powerful hydrogen bomb test over the Pacific Ocean.

"The President recognises that we're running out of time and will ask all nations to do more," White House national security adviser HR McMaster said at a briefing in Washington ahead of Mr Trump's trip.

"I think we have to be a little patient here for at least a few months to see what more we and others can do, including China," he added. "I don't think we need to reassess our strategy now. I think we have to give it a couple of months, a few months, and then see what adjustments we might need to make."

 H R McMaster calls North Korea a threat 'to the entire world'

On Friday China, under US pressure to do more to rein in its ally, stressed it had been enforcing United Nations resolutions and reiterated its opposition to military action.

"Over the long term, China has made unremitting efforts to appropriately resolve the peninsula nuclear issue and promote dialogue and negotiation between all parties," Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang told reporters in Beijing. "You can say we've made our greatest effort."

North Korea has not launched any missiles since 15 September, the longest lull this year. But a flurry of activity detected at its missile research facilities in Pyongyang pointed to possible plans for another launch, South Korea's spy agency said on Thursday.

Seoul held a National Security Council meeting on Friday to discuss possible unilateral sanctions against Pyongyang, and may announce the measures ahead of Mr Trump's arrival in South Korea, a presidential official said.

"The United States has wanted the South Korean government to take further steps to sanction the North. Unilateral sanctions by South Korea wouldn't have much practical impact but have a symbolic importance," the official said.

The drills involving the US bombers marked the latest show of force by the United States and its allies.

Donald Trump will visit Asia this week (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

The planes flew over the Pilsung Range training area in central South Korea, US Air Force spokeswoman Captain Victoria Hight said.

Japanese and South Korean fighter jets carried out sequenced missions with the US bombers but no bomb was dropped, the Air Force said.

The drill came as three US aircraft carrier groups were in the Asia-Pacific, the first time such a potent projection of force has been together in the region in a decade.

US officials said earlier this week a decision may be made for the three carriers to carry out a joint exercise to coincide with the President's trip.

KCNA said the combination of the bomber drills with the presence of the carrier groups underscored the gravity of the situation.

"The US imperialists are making last-ditch efforts to check the dynamic advance of [North Korea] by deploying their nuclear strategic assets in succession, but its army and people are never frightened at such moves," KCNA reported.

"The US imperialist warmongers should not act rashly."

The statement contained little of the incendiary and threatening rhetoric that has defined Pyongyang's escalating war of words with the US.

Mr Trump has previously warned North Korea would "face fire and fury like the world has never seen", while Pyongyang has threatened the "total destruction" of the US.
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The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is to seek approval to open a formal investigation into allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan, said to have been committed by both the Taliban and US forces.

Fatou Bensouda, the Hague-based prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), has said she believed there is evidence to suggest war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed over a period from July 2002 to the present day. She said more than 10,000 civilians were said to have been killed from 2007 to 2011 alone.

She said there was evidence to suggest that, at a minimum, crimes against humanity were committed by the Taliban and its affiliated Haqqani Network, and that war crimes of torture were carried out by Afghan government forces, and by US military forces and the CIA.

She said there was also evidence that a number of civilians had been killed incidentally by other international forces that contributed to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) that could warrant further investigation. Thousands of British troops were among those deployed to Afghanistan following the US and UK-led invasion in October 2001.

In accordance with the office's policy and practice, the ultimate focus will be upon those most responsible for the most serious crimes allegedly committed in connection with the situation in Afghanistan, she said in a statement.

Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear Show all 16 1 /16 Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2001 Afghans at the Killi Faizo refugee camp desperately reach for bags of rice being handed out to the thousands who escaped the bombardment in southern Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. (Chaman, Pakistan, December 4, 2001) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2002 Mahbooba stands against a bullet-ridden wall, waiting to be seen at a medical clinic. The seven-year-old girl suffers from leishmaniasis, a parasitical infection. (Kabul, March 1, 2002) All photos Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2003 A mother and her two children look out from their cave dwelling. Many families who, fleeing the Taliban, took refuge inside caves adjacent to Bamiyans destroyed ancient Buddha statues now have nowhere else to live. (Bamiyan, November 19, 2003) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2007 Students recite prayers in a makeshift outdoor classroom in the Wakhan Corridor, a mountainous region in northeastern Afghanistan that extends to China and separates Tajikistan from India and Pakistan. (Northeastern Afghanistan, September 2, 2007) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2007 Bodybuilders in the 55-60 kg category square off during a regional bodybuilding competition. Many Afghan men, like others around the world, feel that a macho image of physical strength is important. (Kabul, August 6, 2007) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2008 A woman in a white burqa enjoys an afternoon with her family feeding the white pigeons at the Blue Mosque. (Mazar-e-Sharif, March 8, 2008) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2009 Addicts inject heroin while trying to keep warm inside the abandoned Russian Cultural Center, which the capital citys addicts use as a common gathering point. Heroin is readily available, costing about one dollar a hit. (Kabul, February 9, 2009) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2009 An elderly man holds his granddaughter in their tent at a refugee camp after they were forced to flee their village, which US and NATO forces had bombed because, they claimed, it was a Taliban hideout. (Surobi, Nangarhar Province, February 7, 2009) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2009 Seven-year-old Attiullah, a patient at Mirwais Hospital, stands alongside an X ray showing the bullet that entered his back, nearly killing him. Attiullah was shot by US forces when he was caught in a crossfire as he was herding sheep. (Kandahar, October 13, 2009). Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2010 US Army Sargeant Jay Kenney (right), with Task Force Destiny, helps wounded Afghan National Army soldiers exit a Blackhawk helicopter after they have been rescued in an air mission. (Kandahar, December 12, 2010) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2010 An Afghan National Army battalion marches back to barracks at the Kabul Military Training Center. (Kabul, October 4, 2010) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2014 Eid Muhammad, seventy, lives in a house with a view overlooking the hills of Kabul. He and millions of other Afghans occupy land and housing without possessing formal deeds to them. (Kabul, November 21, 2014) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2014 Razima holds her two-year-old son, Malik, while waiting for medical attention at the Boost Hospital emergency room. (Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province, June 23, 2014) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2014 Young women cheer as they attend a rally for the Afghan presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani. (Kabul, April 1, 2014) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2014 Burqa-clad women wait to vote after a polling station runs out of ballots. (Kabul, April 5, 2014) Paula Bronstein Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear 2015 Relatives, friends, and womens rights activists grieve at the home of Farkhunda Malikzada, who was killed by a mob in the center of Kabul. Farkhunda was violently beaten and set on fire after a local cleric accused her of burning a Quran. (Kabul, March 22, 2015) Paula Bronstein

We will always strive to do everything possible to ensure that our engagement in the exercise of our mandate is sensitive to the plight of victims in Afghanistan.

The ICC was established in 1998 as part of the Rome Statue and given the power to investigate genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Several major countries, including the United States and Russia, have made clear they do not intend to cooperate with the court and believe they have no legal obligations arising from any court decision.

 President Trump Delivers Remarks Regarding Afghanistan

In July, Reuters said any formal investigation into whether crimes were committed by US personnel in Afghanistan would hurt "already tenuous" relations between the ICC and the United States, which is not a member of the court and has in the past vehemently opposed it.

The court has previously been accused of pro-Western bias. Prior to January 2016, all nine situations the ICC had been investigating were in African countries.

It has subsequently established preliminary probes into events in Afghanistan, Colombia; Iraq, Palestine, Greece, and Cambodia and Ukraine.

Lawrence Douglas, a war crimes expert and Professor of Law at Amherst College, said if the ICC was to demonstrate its legitimacy as a tool of international justice, it must function as something other than a legal dumping ground for cases involving African atrocities.

In this regard, Prosecutor Bensouda's announcement represents a welcome move toward demonstrating that the ICC can act in an even-handed fashion, holding all parties - the strong as well as the weak - responsible for grave human rights abuses, he said. That said, it is not clear the American and British actions rise to the level of egregiousness that should supply the standard for ICC cases.

Fadi El Abdallah, an ICC spokesman, told The Independent the terms under which the court was established, meant it can investigate alleged offences perpetrated by citizens from countries which are not signatories of the Rome Statue, if the events were said to have taken place in a country that is.

The CIA declined to comment, referring inquiries to the Department of Justice. The DoJ and the British Foreign Office did not respond to inquiries. The British Ministry of Defence declined to comment.

A spokesperson for the US State Department, said: Our view is clear: an ICC investigation with respect to US personnel would be wholly unwarranted and unjustified. More broadly, our overall assessment is that commencement of an ICC investigation will not serve the interests of either peace or justice in Afghanistan.

Of course, the United States strongly condemns the deliberate killing of innocent civilians by the Taliban and other non-State armed groups, and we support accountability for these and other serious crimes in Afghanistan.

Richard Dicker, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said: "We welcome the ICC President's action convening a pretrial chamber of judges to consider the prosecutors request to begin an investigation in Afghanistan. We look forward to reviewing the scope of the prosecutors filing when it is public. Having documented egregious crimes in Afghanistan that have gone unpunished over many years, we hope this step will open a path to justice for countless victims there."

Amnesty Internationals Head of International Justice Solomon Sacco said Ms Bensouda's announcement was a "seminal moment for the ICC".

He added: "Justice for victims of the Afghanistan conflict has taken far too long to arrive, but investigations like this one are the reason the court was set up - to provide a last chance for justice when states parties have failed to deliver it."
Officials say all four University of Idaho students who were found dead inside a home near campus on Sunday are considered victims in the case, but police have yet to release the cause of death or other details. Mayor Art Bettge said that the deaths were believed to have occurred hours before the bodies were discovered, prompting police to determine there wasn't an active threat to the community. Police found the students dead in a home near the Moscow, Idaho campus. No one had been taken into custody by Monday evening. The university canceled school on Monday and increased campus security, but some students opted to leave for Thanksgiving break early because of safety concerns.
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A judge in Spain has issued a European arrest warrant for former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and his cabinet colleagues who fled to Belgium after facing charges including sedition and rebellion.

The warrant, which adds two further indictments of perjury and willful disobedience of the law, is the first step in attempts to extradite the Catalan leadership to face trial which carries a possible sentence of 30 years on conviction.

The latest escalation in the crisis came as Barcelonas city council published a declaration demanding the immediate release of eight Catalonian ministers being held by the Spanish authorities after they attended a court hearing in Madrid. But the regional politicians are being increasingly viewed by many independence supporters as impotent in the current confrontation, with Madrid seemingly holding the whip hand.

Recommended Spain jails eight sacked Catalan ministers

There appears to be little prospect of the detained men being released and there were reports, unconfirmed, that a European arrest warrant has already been issued for Mr Puigdemont, the regions President and his colleagues who had fled to Belgium after facing charges including sedition and rebellion. At the same time a court panel today rejected an appeal for the release of two activists who were jailed last month after the declaration of independence by the Catalan government following a referendum.

With the government of Mariano Rajoy taking a tough and uncompromising stance, a growing number of separatist activists believe the answer lies in mobilising street power. Thousands came out to protest on Thursday night in Barcelona and other Catalan towns after the jailing of the leaders and The Committee for the Defence of the Republic  a grassroots group  has called for demonstrations to continue in the coming days.

The crowds had chanted  Freedom for Political Prisoners and  Puigdemont Our President and sang the Catalan national anthem,  Strike with your sickle, defenders of the land as they converged in central Barcelona in front of two iconic public buildings which highlight the fractured nature of governance here at the moment . The Generalitat, the headquarters of the regional executive, has been taken over by Madrid while the Catalans hang on to the Casa de la Ciutat, the City Hall.

Catalan pro-unity demonstration  in pictures Show all 6 1 /6 Catalan pro-unity demonstration  in pictures Catalan pro-unity demonstration  in pictures Pro-unity supporters take part in a demonstration in central Barcelona. Hundreds of thousands of Catalans took to the streets of Barcelona on Sunday to call for their region to remain part of Spain, two days after regional lawmakers exacerbated a political crisis by voting for the wealthy region to secede Reuters/Jon Nazca Catalan pro-unity demonstration  in pictures A woman with the Senera and Spanish flags painted on her face shouts slogans as she takes part in a rally against Catalonia's declaration of independence, in Barcelona AP Photo/Gonzalo Arroyo Catalan pro-unity demonstration  in pictures Thousands of pro-unity protesters gather in Barcelona, two days after the Catalan parliament voted to split from Spain Jeff J Mitchell/Gett Catalan pro-unity demonstration  in pictures People support a pro-unity demonstration from their balconies in central Barcelona Reuters/Rafael Marchante Catalan pro-unity demonstration  in pictures Pro-unity supporters take part in a demonstration in central Barcelona Reuters/Yves Herman Catalan pro-unity demonstration  in pictures Protesters wave Spanish flags and carry banners during a pro-unity demonstration on in Barcelona Jack Taylor/Getty

There were calls from the marchers for the Spanish flag on the Generalitat to be torn down : but no attempts were made to do so. The heavy presence of Guardia Civil in large numbers sent in from other parts of Spain was a very visible deterrence but those taking part repeatedly stressed that they wanted to avoid violence and continue protesting while also channelling their energy into fighting the regional election called in December by Madrid.

Mateu Porra, who had arrived from an outlying village to take part in the rallies, wanted to caution : The Spanish will use any trouble as an excuse to take hard measures, arrest people and send in more of their police. We must not give them that opportunity. At the same time the size of the crowds we get will show that we are not going to give up.

Ariadna Olivas, an activist organiser, added It is important to keep up the pressure. But we must also plan for the election. A lot of people had wanted to boycott it because it is imposed by the Spanish. But that is no longer an option, we must vote if we want independence. The people will have to do a lot of organising with so many of the leaders in prison. We dont know what will happen to President Puigdemont even.

Speaking to Belgian TV Mr Puigdemont said: I will not flee from justice. I will go towards justice, but real justice. Ive told my lawyers to tell the Belgian justice system that Im completely available to cooperate. Its obvious its politicised. The guarantees are not there for a fair, independent trial. He called on Catalans to continue their protests  without violence, peacefully and with respect for everybodys opinions.

Mr Puigdeonts lawyer in Brussels, Paul Bekaert, believes that the warrant for the arrest of his client and four others have already been issued, although there has been no corroboration of that by the Spanish authorities.

Mr Bekaert repeated that Mr Puigdemont would not be voluntarily going back to Spain for the time being. The atmosphere is not good to give testimony at the moment, it is better to step back, he said.  They can have him arrested and handcuffed. Bu the investigating judge does not have to arrest him. He can also leave Mr Puigdemont at liberty under certain conditions. I will try to go down these alternative routes.

Judge Carmen Lamela of the National Audience Court, in charge of issuing the warrant, will need to send papers to prosecuting authorities in Belgium who, if they decide the documents are correct, will have 15 days to arrest Mr Puidgemont and the four others. Mr Baekart said that his client will appeal any decision to comply with the Spanish request. This will take a minimum of 15 days more and further legal processes may extend the timeframe past the election due to be held 21st December.

Inigo Mendez, official spokesman for the Spanish government stated the government guarantees there will be elections where the parties which want to run can present their programmes. We hope that the election can end this period of uncertainty and the deterioration of harmonious coexistence in Catalonia. He refused to address the issue of the arrested ministers and Mr Puigdemonts warrant saying there is a separation of powers in Spain and what has happened is in the realm of the judicial system and beyond the reach of the government.
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The European Commission has continued to wash its hands of the political crisis in Catalonia, refusing to comment on the imprisonment of former ministers and the planned arrest of disputed president Carles Puigdemont.

In a frustrating press conference in Brussels a spokesperson refused to be drawn on recent events, giving short and repetitive answers to a variety of questions relating to the recent troubles in the region.

The Commission would also not confirm whether president Jean-Claude Juncker would even raise the issue of Catalonia when he visits the Spanish city of Salamanca next week.

Recommended Spain jails eight sacked Catalan ministers

Asked by reporters in whether Spain was right to use a European Arrest Warrant to pursue Mr Puigdemont for political crimes, a spokesperson for the Commission would only say: This is a matter entirely for the judicial authorities whose independence we respect fully.

The spokesperson would also not be drawn on whether it was right for Spanish authorities to jail eight Catalan ministers before they had been convicted of a crime.

This is a question for judicial authorities and respect their independence, she said.

And asked about the lack of international and domestic confidence in the independence of Spains judiciary, the spokesperson said:

We fully respect the constitutional order of Spain and I have absolutely nothing to add to that well-established position.

When it was put to the spokesperson that the Commission should get off the fence about the crisis a spokesperson would only reply: It is a judiciary issue, for the judicial authorities. The judicial authorities are independent. We respect that independence.

The spokesperson would not be drawn on why the Commission regularly intervened on the internal matters of other member states but was refusing to do so on Spain.

Mr Puigdemont is currently in Belgium, where he fled to avoid charges of rebellion, sedition, and misuse of public funds for his role in Catalonias declaration of independence last month.

Other members of his government have returned to Catalonia to face questioning on these charges; eight of them were imprisoned yesterday. Spanish authorities have indicated that they will seek to use a European Arrest Warrant, an EU instrument, to force the former president to face a Spanish court.

Catalonia referendum protests  in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Catalonia referendum protests  in pictures Catalonia referendum protests  in pictures Demonstrators block a Guardia Civil vehicle as they try to leave the Department of External Affairs, Institutional Relations and Transparency of the Catalan Government office in Barcelona AP/Emilio Morenatti Catalonia referendum protests  in pictures Demonstrators react as they try to stop the car carrying Xavier Puig, a senior at the Department of External Affairs, Institutional Relations and Transparency of the Catalan Government office, after he was arrested by Guardia Civil officers in Barcelona AP/Emilio Morenatti Catalonia referendum protests  in pictures A demonstrator reacts as he tries with others to stop the car carrying Xavier Puig, a senior at the Department of External Affairs, Institutional Relations and Transparency of the Catalan Government office, after he was arrested by Guardia Civil officers in Barcelona AP/Emilio Morenatti Catalonia referendum protests  in pictures Spokeswoman of the Catalan pro-independence anticapitalist party "Candidatura d'Unitat Popular - CUP" (Popular Unity Candidacy), Ana Gabriel, talks to the media in Barcelona Josep Lago/AFP Catalonia referendum protests  in pictures Republican Left of Catalonia party's (ERC) Member of Parliament Joan Tarda (C) attends a demonstration outside the regional Economy Ministry in Catalonia during a police search for documents connected with the organisation of the Catalan independence referendum, in Barcelona EPA/Alejandro Garcia Catalonia referendum protests  in pictures A man holds pro-referendum poster next to a Spanish Civil Guard who stands in front of the Economy headquarters of Catalonia's regional government in Barcelona. The operation comes amid mounting tensions as Catalan leaders press ahead with preparations for an independence referendum on October 1 despite Madrid's ban and a court ruling deeming it illegal Josep Lago/AFP Catalonia referendum protests  in pictures People hold placards reading "Democracy" as they protest in front of the Economy headquarters of Catalonia's regional government in Barcelona AFP Catalonia referendum protests  in pictures A crowd of protesters gather outside the Catalan region's economy ministry after junior economy minister Josep Maria Jove was arrested by Spanish police during a raid on several government offices, in Barcelona Reuters/Albert Gea Catalonia referendum protests  in pictures People holding 'Esteladas' (Catalan pro-independence flags) attend a protest near the Economy headquarters of Catalonia's regional government Lluis Gene/AFP Catalonia referendum protests  in pictures People demonstrate on a Spanish Civil Guard Police car outside the Catalan Vice-President and Economy office as police officers holds a searching operation inside David Ramos/Getty Images

The Madrid government has called snap Catalan regional elections for 21 December in order to elect a new Catalan parliament, after the current one voted to declare independence.

The Catalan separatists have said they will accept the result of the polls.
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The gunshots began soon after midnight on 17 July, 1918. Chaotically, the firing squad executed Tsar Nicholas II, his 13-year-old son Alexei, daughters Maria, Anastasia, Olga and Tatiana, wife Alexandra and their attendants in the cellar of a merchant house in Yekaterinburg, western Siberia.

Then they set about destroying the evidence.

The bodies were removed  first by truck, and then by horse and cart, to a deep pit called Ganina Yama 25km away. There, the Bolsheviks tipped the bodies in, and began to dissolve the bodies in acid.

The Ganina Yama pit has today been converted into a monastery complex. It is a religious Disneyland, with shrines, shops and cafes, and a multitude of icons in honour of the tsar. Inside, excited guides talk of the tsars ultimate, redemptive sacrifice, and point to the now sanctified pit, where, elderly, sickly-looking women are muttering prayers.

Forgive us, saintly passion-bearer, Tsar-Martyr Nicholas, they say.

The pilgrims are certain they have arrived at the final resting spot of their hero. Except they havent. It turns out, the Bolsheviks hadnt brought enough acid to destroy the bodies completely. So when local villagers began to ask awkward questions, the soldiers retrieved the bodies and desperately looked for another place to bury their crime.

The Bolsheviks eventually decided on a field called Porosenkov Log in the Koptyaki forest, approximately 4km away.

With the Communist Party unkeen to advertise the nature of the familys death, the bodies would remain at Porosenkov Log, untouched for the next sixty years. In 1978, an Interior Ministry filmmaker called Geli Ryabov began a new search. No one knows why he started; perhaps hed been tipped off about the diamond-studded corset the Tsarina had been wearing. Or why, when a year later he sought an urgent audience with Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow to show the bones and bullet ridden-skulls, he was turned down.

A 1928 photo of the Ipatiev house in Yekaterinburg where Tsar Nicholas ll and his family were executed (Sovfoto/UIG/Getty) (Sovfoto/UIG via Getty)

Regardless, the bodies were reburied in Yekaterinburg, and it would only be when the Soviet Union fell that the full story was made public. Even then, the remains of only nine bodies were recovered. The other two bodies, children Maria and Alexei, were found sixteen years later, in 2007, in a separate grave about 20 metres away. Today, simple crosses mark the burial sites in Porosenkov Log, in stark contrast to the glitz at Ganina Yama. When The Independent visited the memorial, the only person in sight was a man walking his dog.

Every year, on the anniversary of the killings, a nocturnal pilgrimage from Yekaterinburg passes 50 or so metres past the memorial. This year, as with every previous year, none of the pilgrims turned in, and instead carried onwards, towards Ganina Yama.

Nikolai Neuimin was part of the 2007 research group that put the final pieces of the burial mystery together. The imposing, bearded academic today heads the Romanov history department in the local Sverdlovsk Regional History Museum.

His modest exhibition shows the surviving artefacts: the original testimonies, the pistols, and the iron bars of the cellar window, recovered from the now-destroyed merchant house. One of the exhibits is the very first report into the killing, the 1919 commission by the monarchist investigator Nikolai Sokolov. Mr Sokolovs claims to have recovered the remains in Ganina Yama have since been contradicted by four separate genetic analyses.

Mr Neuimin calls the Sokolov report the writings of a madman. The only real evidence the investigator offered, he says, were bones, and these were later proven not to be of human origin.

Incredibly, the report remains the basis for the official position of the Orthodox Church, which refuses to accept the bodies are anywhere but Ganina Yama.

In 1998, the remains of the first nine bodies were reburied in a grand ceremony in St Petersburg. The Orthodox leadership stayed away from the funeral, but two years later, the church canonised Nicholas II and his family.

When the remains of the final two bodies were found in 2007, Orthodox authorities refused to accept them: they were saints, after all. In the confusion, the Russian State Archives stepped forward, and, by quirk of fate, the remains of Alexei and Maria, the Tsars now saintly children, ended up in the same drawer as the skull and gold-toothed jawbone of Adolf Hitler.

The unremarkable spot in Porosenkov Log where remains of Maria and Alexei were found in 2007 (Oliver Carroll/The Independent)

The Churchs inflexible position has given rise to a culture of ignorance and hysteria around the Romanovs, says the historian. And at its extremes is a movement that has come to be known as tsarebozhniki or Russias tsar worshippers, who go one step further to sanctify everything the tsar did.

The tsar-worshipper ideology is simple as it is attractive: the supposedly peace-loving Nicholas II sacrificed himself and his family to atone for the sins of the entire Russian nation. But it is the Wahhabism of the Orthodox faith, says Mr Neuimin  a fantasy that has given birth to any number of other historical untruths.

Appearing at the end of the 1990s, Russias tsar worshippers were initially a cranky group that few paid attention to. But earlier this year, the radical edge of the movement showed its teeth. The trigger was a new film, depicting  at times, erotically  the true story of a love affair between Nicholas and a young ballerina, Matilda Kshesinskaya. The director of the blasphemous film, Alexei Uchitel, was targeted in two separate arson attacks.

Yekaterinburg saw its fair share of Matilda protests, and one especially violent turn. In early September, a 39-year-old man rammed a truck loaded with gas canisters into the citys Cosmos cinema, which had been scheduled to screen the film. The attack didnt quite work out as planned, however, and the suspect was forced to present himself at hospital with serious burns.

Here, he admitted to investigators that he had spent the previous day receiving divine instruction in the Temple on the Blood, the church overlooking the cinema.

The Temple on the Blood in Yekaterinburg. The cathedral is built on the exact place where the Bolsheviks executed Tsar Nicholas and his family (AFP/Getty)

The Temple on the Blood is no accidental place of worship. It is built on the grounds of the old Ipatiev merchant house, the site of the Romanovs execution  or rather 20m away, since architects thought that spot more impressive. Today, it is no less than a shrine to Nicholas II. Filled with icons and paintings of the Romanovs, it contains a replica cellar, and an extensive exhibition exalting the peace-loving, saintly nature of the tsar redeemer. A simple cross marking the actual location of the merchant house is, naturally, ignored by parishioners.

The temple has served as a regular backdrop for protests against the film. One of the leaders of the pickets, a former boxer called Sergei Aliyev, even directed his own documentary response to the film, called The Lies of Matilda. Through a series of monologues with experts, the film claims to prove an anti-Russian conspiracy to undermine the tsar.

Timeline (all new calendar) March 8, 1917: Revolution begins with food protests March 15, 1917: Tsar Nicholas abdicates March 22, 1917: Nicholas II and family placed under house arrest by provisional government in Tsarkoye Selo, St Petersburg August 1917: Romanovs evacuated to Tobolsk, western Siberia, supposedly to protect from revolution November 7, 1917: Bolsheviks seize power, civil war begins April 1918: Romanovs moved from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg, where they are secretly imprisoned in Ipatiev House, an old merchant house June 13, 1918: Grand Duke Michael, the younger brother of Nicholas II, shot in Siberian forest June 14, 1918: The tsars sister-in-law Elizabeth, cousin Sergei and nephews Ivan, Constantine, Vladimir and Igor thrown into mine shaft in Alapayevsk, near Yekaterinburg. Autopsies suggest some might have initially survived July 17, 1918: Tsar Nicholas II, wife Tsarina Alexandra and five children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexei executed along with attendants in Yekaterinburg July 25, 1918: Yekaterinburg falls to the White Army 1919: Sokolov Commission established to investigate the murders. His report is published in French in 1924 1979: Burial site discovered by filmmaker Geli Ryabov and local geologist Alexander Avdonin 1989: At height of Perestroika, Geli Ryabov reveals secret of burial site to The Moscow News 1991: Remains of nine bodies exhumed at Porosenkov Log field 1998: Nine coffins reburied in Peter and Paul Cathedral in St Petersburg. Leadership of Russian Orthodox Church stays away, disputing remains 2000: Imperial Family of Russia elevated to sainthood by the Orthodox Church 2007: Remains of children Alexei and Maria found in Porosenkov Log. Church does not accept them and they are transferred to the Russian State Archives 2008: Russian prosecutor generals office officially rehabilitates Romanov family, who are declared victims of political repressions

When we speak, Mr Aliyev asks if The Independent is a moral publication. The media has subordinated itself to the masons of the United States and Europe, he reasons. As a former analytics officer of Yekaterinburgs police force, he says he knows what he was talking about.

Mr Aliyevs problem with the film is basic. Just imagine someone makes a film showing your mother as a prostitute and your father a German gay-porn actor, he says. Go inside the church, look at the lord tsars blue eyes and youll see how moral he is.

The Temple on the Blood is, in fact, one of two local congregations most commonly associated with the citys tsar worshippers. The other seat of the movement is the Sredneuralsk womens monastery, located on the edge of town near the Ganina Yama complex.

The Sredneuralsk monastery boasts one of the largest followings of any in Russia. Every week, hundreds of pilgrims come here, all seeking the healing guidance of its secretive 62-year-old leader; a priest going by the name of Father Sergei.

In real life, Father Sergei is Nikolai Romanov  he changed his name to match the tsar, of course. He has a colourful past. A former policeman, he has several criminal convictions, and has spent 13 years in a prison colony  the documents say for murder, though his supporters dispute this.

After being released at the end of the 1990s, Father Sergei claims to have traversed the 140km from the Nizhny Tagil colony to Yekaterinburg on foot, wondering deep thoughts about his future.

From there, the biography becomes hazy. Little is known about how Father Sergei got to know church leaders, how he rose so remarkably fast in the hierarchy, or how, in 2002, he came to be the man who built the Ganina Yama complex. Some say he is the spiritual confessor to Timur Sverdlovsky, the nephew of Grandpa Hassan, linchpin of Russias criminal underworld until his untimely death in 2013.

Father Sergei (left) leads a congregation of tsar worshippers. He was not available to speak to The Independent (Darya Shelekhova/Znak.com)

What isnt disputed is his role as confessor to the prominent Russian politician and former Crimean attorney general Natalya Poklonskaya.

Ms Poklonskaya, who married in the monastery, has played a leading role in the radical religious reaction against Matilda. She has also frequently appeared alongside Father Sergei, including when the priest made a televised trip to Crimea in July 2014, three months after the disputed annexation.

Set inside woodlands, the Sredneuralsk monastery is by now a well-developed set of living quarters and temples. There are three active temples  one, naturally with a cellar room in homage to the Romanovs  and a huge, brick temple with golden domes that is currently under construction. There are JCBs, heavy machinery and a fatigued Kamaz army truck at the entrance. A graveyard extends down into the birch forest.

 Russian State Duma member Natalia Poklonskaya says because Nicholas II is a saint, his private life is off-limits

Fifteen years ago, things were very different. The only residents in the area were farmers Sergei Krekov and his wife Daniya Suleimenova, who set up a small farmstead in 1989, alongside the site of the future monastery. Speaking with The Independent in Moscow, Ms Suleimenova says the family were never rich, and the post-Soviet 1990s were hard. But they produced enough eggs, meat and milk to sell locally and scrape a living.

The farmers world changed on 3 June 2002, the day when Father Sergei and future monastery managers arrived on the territory. First, they noticed subtle changes; the locks on the main gates had been switched. By evening, they were under little doubt about the strange future that lay ahead. Washing up after dinner, Ms Sulemeinova looked up from the sink to find two dozen nuns standing in front of her window.

They stood there, staring at me, with their icons, crossing themselves, reading prayers, she says. They circled around the house; devil this, devil that. And then they put a cross outside our toilet.

The ritual became a daily event, says Ms Suleimenova. She tried to negotiate. Every few weeks, there would be a visit, they would agree to be friends, but the pressure would be ratcheted up again. Soon, the already elderly couple began to experience sporadic problems with electricity and water supply; in 2008, it was cut off completely. Ms Suleimenova says she and her husband have been forced to abandon the property.

I understand its funny, bizarre, she says. Id be laughing too if I didnt have to live through it.

An orthodox icon of the last tsar, Nicholas II, and his family, inside the Temple on the Blood in Yekaterinburg (AFP/Getty)

Today, Father Sergei is out of town and The Independents attempts to speak with the monasterys management are given short shrift. Hes gone to visit his remote forest sketes, says a senior nun, who would not give her name. Nobody had been blessed to speak to us, she says nervously, and Father Sergei really didnt like the media sniffing around. The nun, a rounded woman of about 40, scuttles off to the main temple.

Darkness has fallen, and the sharp bite of early Siberian winter is beginning to let itself be known. The sounds of bells and female voices repeating prayer mantras begin to echo across the territory. From time to time, black shadows emerge from the darkness, but they disappear just as quickly. We seem to have been transported back three centuries.

At half past six, perhaps a hundred black shadows appear from inside the temple. They scuttle across the ice at unfathomable speed, up the slope towards the monastery gates. Screams. Shrieks. Cries. Within a moment, the object of the nuns excitement becomes clear, as five Cossack soldiers emerge from the gates carrying a huge icon.

The nuns raise their arms and shriek some more, before following the men and muttering mantras as they make their way back towards the temple.

One inside, the new icon is raised at the altar, among the icons of Nicholas and his family. A woman hurls herself to the ground, and begins moaning, convulsing. Her cries grow. Others join in. The mantras become louder, more spine-tingling.

Cossack soldiers pass notes to the senior nun; there is money rolled up in them. Are they donations? Maybe. How can anybody understand what is going on?

It takes a while, but eventually, a frail nun called Mother Antonina, perhaps 60 years old, begins to speak. This was a magical place, she says: One of the priests told us that hed seen the tsar wandering in the grounds  for real, but dont say I told you.

Wed missed the main show, of course, the exorcisms. Every morning, while Father Sergei is in residence, they begin at six oclock sharp.

Being the only monastery in the region offering such cleansing of the soul, people come here from all around, says Mother Antonina. Theyve come from Japan, India, Germany; there was one couple from Austria who since left for one of Father Sergeis forest sketes. There have been many visitors from Ukraine. Yes, there was one nice chap called Alexander who came from the Berkut riot police. He came a few years ago.

Inside the Temple on the Blood. The Russian Orthodox Church has declared the last Romanovs saints and holy martyrs (AFP/Getty)

My word, the Lord knows what happened to him, she says. First he was lying there, on a bench. Then he jumped from the bench at such a distance that he broke it  this is when Father Sergei cleansed him. The demon ran out of him, screaming and threatening him, shouting Ill show you, Ill kick you.

Father Sergei seems to possess extraordinary powers over the nun, a presence that seeped deep into her professed opinions. At one point, Mother Antonina declares the Matilda film to be full of powerful manipulations that make the 25th frame effect seem like yesterdays technology.

How so?

Well the viewer sees these images on the screen, and then they are projected thats what happens roughly.

Sorry?

Perhaps you should speak to Father Sergei, he has the experts that come to visit him.

With the priest away, Mother Antonina proposes we should speak to his wife. Could she call her? Not possible. There is only one mobile phone on the monastery and Mother Antonina is not blessed to use it. The nun leaves with a promise to search for someone we could talk to, but returns 20 minutes later with a worried face.

I cant speak with you, she says. Im not blessed to speak to you.

Part criminal, part shaman, part sect, the secretive edges of the tsar worshipper phenomenon would appear to ask many questions of both church and state. So far, both have seemed reluctant to act.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, while distancing himself from criticism of the Matilda film, failed to condemn the terrorist turn of the tsar worshippers in Yekaterinburg. Instead, he suggested the state should investigate if a crime has been committed.

Andrei Kurayev, a prominent and outspoken deacon of the Russian Orthodox Church, told The Independent that the Patriarch had an obligation to condemn such actions. You arent attorneys, but priests, he said. You need to say if it is in line with the teachings of the Gospel or not.

A woman sells candles in the Temple on the Blood (AFP/Getty)

The Church seems no more ready to accept the weight of the Romanov burial fate. For historian Neuimin, its leaders are too scared to entertain a major climbdown. If they recognise the remains, and hit at the heart of this movement, they will show themselves to be idiots, he says.

Another complicating factor is the extent to which local business has been supporting the movement. Whether in the Ganina Yama complex, constructed so obviously on a historical untruth, or in support for Father Sergeis activities in Sredneuralsk, or in the riches of the Temple on the Blood, or in any number of advertising boards declaring the redemption of the Romanovs that have been displayed around the city in recent years, it is clear that local businessmen have been a major pillar of support for the tsar worshippers.

What seems less clear is why they are doing it. Perhaps, here, the scale of the movement might offer clues. This years nocturnal pilgrimage to Ganina Yama was attended by no less than 25,000. The number of tsar worshippers is likely to be many times more.

Deacon Kurayev suggests that control might also be at the heart of the churchs thinking.

The church is taking a cynical, manipulative stand, he says. The Patriarch wants to be the leader of all Russias angry people. He wants to keep them his own.
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Three years before Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Adolf Hitler ordered the construction of the world's largest tourist resort, located on a beachfront property on the island of Rugen.

The Nazis called it Prora.

Hitler never finished construction on Prora due to the onset of World War II. As German soldiers marched through Europe, Prora was left to rot  until 2013.

Prora is now the property of German real-estate company Metropole Marketing, which rents out rooms to international travelers and Germans alike.

Here are a handful of insane facts about the mega-structure.

More than 9,000 workers helped construct Prora.

(Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty) (TOBIAS SCHWARZ/AFP/Getty Images)

Historian and tour guide Roger Moorhouse told Business Insider that Prora was intended as the carrot to the stick of the Gestapo  a pacifying gesture to get the German people on Hitler's side.

At the time, Germany was still enmeshed in the concept of people's community, or volksgemeinschaft, from World War I. It was a sense that Germans stood united, no matter what.

The structure was built to hold 20,000 people.

(Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty) (TOBIAS SCHWARZ/AFP/Getty Images)

While the Nazi police state was in development, the overarching German vision was a hopeful one, Moorhouse told Business Insider. And this, he said, is where something like Prora comes in.

Each room would measure 16 feet by 8.2 feet and include two beds, a sink, and a dresser.

In the centre of Prora, Hitler commissioned a festival hall large enough to hold all 20,000 residents at once.

Hitler's megalomania  a trait shared by many dictators  was also manifested in his plan for the Festival Hall. The Nazi leader commissioned architect Erich Putlitz to design it.

The hall would contain two wave pools and theaters for movies and live performance.

The entire building measures 2.8 miles long, and is located 150 yards from the beach.

(Jens Koehler/AFP/Getty) (JENS KOEHLER/AFP/Getty)

The photos cannot physically do it justice, Moorhouse said. It's too big. By all accounts, it would have been one of the most impressive structures in the world.

It also features the world's longest youth hostel, which contains 402 beds and 96 rooms.

In the early 2000s, several German developers fought for the initial rights to revive Prora.

In 2006, Germany's federal agency for real estate bought Block 5, which contained the hostel.

The hostel opened in 2011.

The largest units costs nearly $1 million to buy.

(Metropole Marketing (Metropole Marketing)

People who want to stay at Prora can choose between hotel rooms for temporary visits, and long-term investments in the form of luxury apartments.

The apartments run between $400,000 and $900,000 depending on the block in which they're located and the size.

 Every terrorist attack worldwide over 20 years in maps

 10 major differences between successful and unsuccessful people

 Nine ways to make people like you without saying a word

Read the original article on Business Insider UK.  2016. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.
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Isis has lost its last major stronghold in Syria after the fall of Deir Ezzor to the Syrian army, but destroying the ideology inspiring terror attacks around the world will be much harder than crushing the physical caliphate.

Analysts told The Independent the rate of atrocities carried out in the West could continue to increase as the group struggles to remain relevant to jihadis.

Bashar al-Assads forces have re-taken Deir Ezzor with support from the Russian military, pushing Isis militants into the surrounding desert.

The Syrian armys general command hailed the restoration of security and stability to the city, which has been partly controlled by Isis since 2014.

State media hailed the strategic importance of the victory in a region connecting eastern, northern and central Syria to the Iraqi border, which is the centre of national oil production and contains lucrative agriculture and gas reserves.

The army general command described the recapture of Deir Ezzor as the final stage in the complete elimination of Isis, claiming it has completely lost the ability to lead terrorist operations of groups that have become isolated and encircled in the eastern countryside of the city.

Smoke billows from Deir Ezzor during fighting between Syrian government forces and Isis (AFP/Getty) (AFP)

Militants had besieged districts held by the Syrian Army for more than three years, with the end of brutal fighting seeing frontlines pushed back and forth in once-populated streets until battles finally ended on Friday.

The long-running offensive also inflamed tensions between Russia, which is backing the Syrian regime, and the US-led coalition against Isis that opposes Assad, but de-confliction channels and peace talks have since calmed relations.

Meanwhile across the Iraqi border, the Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi announced that government forces had captured al-Qaim, the border town where the Euphrates spills from Syria into Iraq.

Jean-Marc Rickli, head of global risk at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and visiting fellow at Kings College London, said the loss of Deir Ezzor presented both a financial and territorial blow to Isis.

Together with the loss of Mosul and Raqqa it represents the end of the physical caliphate of Daesh [Isis], he told The Independent.

It has now become impossible for Isis to sell the image of the caliphate that attracted so many jihadis back in 2014.

 Isis kills 128 civilians in 'revenge' surprise counter attack on Syrian town

Isis has lost this lever of propaganda and hence in order to remain relevant the organisation has to diversify by staging attacks elsewhere, notably in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

Dr Rickli expects that only a minority of foreign fighters will return to their home countries  a prospect that has caused British and European security services to increase surveillance and controls for months.

It is more probable that the bulk of fighters will stay in the region for some time by joining new groups in Syria or Iraq or find new sanctuaries such as in Yemen, Afghanistan or Libya, he added.

Although Isiss physical caliphate is dead, its ideology remains and destroying it will be much more difficult and take longer than what has be done with its territorial control in Syria and Iraq.

American commanders have said Isis has just a few thousand fighters left in border regions, where Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is believed to be hiding in the desert.

We do expect them now to try to flee, but we are cognisant of that and will do all we can to annihilate Isis leaders, Colonel Ryan Dillon said.

As Isis continues to be hunted into these smallest areas ... we see them fleeing into the desert and hiding there in an attempt to devolve back into an insurgent terrorist group.

Analysts have forecast a new and violent phase for Isis, which continues to hold territory in Iraq and Syria, as well as in countries including Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Egypt and the Philippines.

Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures Show all 8 1 /8 Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures Syrian Democratic Forces fighters celebrate victory in Raqqa atop of military vehicles REUTERS Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures Fighters of Syrian Democratic Forces march past destroyed buildings as they celebrate victory REUTERS Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures Fighters of Syrian Democratic Forces gesture the "V" sign in Raqqa REUTERS Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures Fighters of Syrian Democratic Forces evacuate a civilian from the stadium REUTERS Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures A civilian prays after she was rescued by fighters of Syrian Democratic Forces from the stadium REUTERS Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures Syrian Democratic Forces fighters ride atop of military vehicles as they celebrate victory in Raqqa REUTERS Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures Syrian Democratic Forces fighters celebrate victory in Raqqa REUTERS Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures A fighter of Syrian Democratic Forces celebrates in Raqqa Reuters

While losing territory, the group has intensified calls for global terror attacks and issued waves of detailed guidance used in attacks, including the atrocity that killed eight people in New York.

Dr Rickli said Isis was trying to maintain its cyber caliphate, disseminating propaganda and support among sympathisers, which has declined in recent months.

Haid Haid, a consulting research fellow at Chatham House, said huge territorial losses have forced Isis to change its recruiting policy.

He told The Independent: Isis is asking its supporters in the West to carry out attacks in their countries.

Doing so will allow the group to stay relevant to the jihadi scene. As a result, there might be an increase in the terror attacks abroad, especially the attacks that use cars or knives, which are more difficult to prevent.

Mr Haid said local sources reported that most Isis fighters have withdrawn to the border town of Abu Kamal but some are likely to be moving either to other areas inside Syria or neighbouring countries.

Abu Kamal itself is surrounded from all directions pending another advance by the Syrian military, which does not expect fierce resistance amid reports of collapsing Isis morale and dried-up supply lines.

The current proclaimed caliphate is most likely finished but the group is not defeated, Mr Haid warned. Other other types of future caliphate might re-emerge if the situation allows.
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A journal made public by the CIA and apparently handwritten by one of Osama bin Laden's daughters offers a glimpse into how the al-Qaeda leader viewed the world around him and reveals his deep interest in the 2011 Arab Spring revolutions unfolding in the months before he was killed in a US raid.

He talks about Libya becoming a pathway for jihadis to Europe; of his visit as a youth to William Shakespeare's home in Britain; of how quickly turmoil had gripped the Middle East.

The 228-page journal meanders among discussions, thoughts and reflections bin Laden shared with his family about how to exploit the uprisings, what to make of the rapid changes unfolding in the Arab world and when al-Qaeda should speak out.

This chaos and the absence of leadership in the revolutions is the best environment to spread al-Qaeda's thoughts and ideas, bin Laden is quoted as telling his family in the document.

Bin Laden's wife, referred to as Um Hamza, assures him that a tape he released seven years earlier calling out the rulers of the region as unfit could be one of the major forces behind the Arab Spring protests roiling the region.

The Associated Press examined a copy of the journal uploaded by The Long War Journal to its website. The CIA released it on Wednesday as part of a trove of material recovered during the May 2011 raid that killed bin Laden, then took down the files, saying they were temporarily unavailable pending resolution of a technical issue.

The journal appears to cover conversations between bin Laden and his daughters, Miriam and Somiya, his wife and his sons, Khaled and Hamza  the latter of whom would become a potential successor to lead the group his father founded.

The journal is titled, Special diaries for Abu Abdullah: Sheikh Abdullah's points of view  A session with the family, which refers to bin Laden by his traditional Arabic name. The conversations took place between February and April 2011, with the journal entries dated according to the Islamic calendar.

During that time, uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt had ousted longtime autocratic rulers, touching off protests in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria. The Middle East was on the cusp of unstoppable change, chaos and turmoil.

In Libya, the uprising would end with Moammar Gadhafi's death months after bin Laden was killed. In Yemen, al-Qaeda would gain a greater foothold and remain active amid the chaos of war and famine. In Bahrain, the Sunni-led monarchy would launch a crackdown on the country's Shiite majority. In Syria, the government's lethal response to a protest by schoolchildren in early 2011 would spark mass protests and ignite a war and massive refugee crisis that continues today.

The reflections, jotted at times in blue ink and others in red, refer repeatedly to media reports of what was happening across the region.

At one point, they criticize Al-Jazeera TV's broadcast of gruesome images from a deadly protest in Yemen, saying a warning should have been given to shield children from viewing them. However, the Qatari-backed channel is also hailed for working on toppling regimes and for carrying the banner of the revolutions.

Bin Laden appears concerned by the speed of some of the region's revolts, believing that a gradual approach would help avoid the backlash of a counter-revolution as regime figures sought to hold onto power at all cost.

I am upset by the timing of the revolutions. We told them to slow down, bin Laden is quoted as saying, though it's not entirely clear which countries he is referring to.

On Libya, bin Laden says he believes the uprising has opened the door for jihadists.

This is why Gadhafi and his son say that the extremists will come from the sea, which will be an area of operation for al-Qaeda. This will be the Somalia of the Mediterranean, he is quoted as saying.

Still, bin Laden appears reluctant to issue a statement in support of Islamists in Libya for fear that if Gadhafi is ousted, the US will try to expand its footprint there.

Yemen is a primary focus of the journal entries. Al-Qaeda's branch there is among its most active in the world and the journal suggests al-Qaeda was plotting an assassination attempt against Yemen's embattled ruler at the time, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

There is little indication that the writer had much information about what was happening in the region beyond what was reported in the media. This could indicate that bin Laden had become isolated in his final months hiding out in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where US forces would find and kill him a little over a month later. Or it could also be that bin Laden was shielding his relatives from al-Qaeda intelligence.

In the early pages of the document, bin Laden is asked about his thoughts on jihad, and replies that he first considered it in secondary school.

He says this was a result of his home and school environment. Separately, he describes his father as a pious man.

There wasn't a particular group that was guiding me, like the Muslim Brotherhood, he is quoted as saying.

From a young age, he appeared to be unfazed by worldly spoils, recounting a story about declining a new watch from his wealthy father.

He recalls a summer spent studying in the UK when he was 14, including a visit to the home of Shakespeare. His time in Britain left him feeling uneasy and he decided not to return the following summer.

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I saw that they were a society different from ours and that they were morally corrupt, he says.

Bin Laden imagines that Saudi Arabia would soon feel the tsunami of change sweeping the region. The late al-Qaeda chief held Saudi citizenship until the early 1990s, before he was stripped of his nationality by the government.

He talks about wanting to deliver a message to Saudi youth and Saudi rulers: The flood is coming and it will lead to a change so there is no need for violence.

AP
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Fog in the London area has wrecked the travel plans of more than 10,000 passengers.

On the busiest day of the week, dozens of Heathrow flights have been cancelled, while at Gatwick some delays are extending beyond four hours.

British Airways cancelled more than 50 flights to and from Heathrow, including services to Brussels, Dublin, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hamburg, Manchester, Milan and Rome. A BA round-trip to Baltimore-Washington was also cancelled, though this was unrelated to the had weather.

A spokesperson for BA said: We're sorry that some of our customers' travel plans have been affected due to thick fog at Heathrow, which has led to a reduction in the number of aircraft which can land each hour.

For safety reasons Air Traffic Control has to allow greater space between each aircraft in low visibility and this has a knock-on effect onto airlines' flight schedules.

We are refunding or rebooking any affected customers onto alternative flights so they can continue their journeys as soon as possible.

Passengers are not entitled to cash compensation, but the airline must provide meals and, if necessary, accommodation in cases of disruption.

Work has yet to begin on a third runway at Heathrow, which would increase resilience.

Many other airlines cancelled flights, including Aer Lingus to Dublin and Shannon, Flybe to Edinburgh, KLM to Amsterdam, SAS to Oslo, Stavanger and Stockholm, LOT to Warsaw, Lufthansa to Frankfurt and Munich, Swiss to Zurich and TAP Portugal to Lisbon.

Some departures were heavily delayed, including the 11.35am Iberia flight to Madrid which was shown as leaving almost six hours late. Passengers on the corresponding inbound service from the Spanish capital

At Gatwick, passengers on Royal Air Maroc to Casablanca, Flybe to Newquay, Thomas Cook to Barbados and Norwegian to Seattle were at least three hours late.

An easyJet departure to Lyon left four hours behind schedule. The airline told passengers: Your plane was delayed on an earlier flight it operated due to arrival restrictions at London Gatwick because of poor weather conditions.

Two British Airways Caribbean departures from Gatwick left over four hours late: the 10.05am departure to St Lucia and Trinidad, and the 10.20am to Antigua and Tobago.

Eurocontrol in Brussels said that apart from the slowed rate of arrivals at Heathrow due to low visibility, the two Istanbul airports were experiencing delays due to lack of capacity.

On the railways, passengers between Darlington and Durham face delays for the rest of the day due to defective rails.
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London native Karen Edwards, 32, used the year-long maternity leave from her nursing job to travel to 10 countries with her husband and newborn baby, Esme. Now a toddler, Esme has been to 17 countries and counting.

Edwards blogs about their adventures, as well as reviews of baby travel products and advice for travelling parents, as the Travel Mad Mum. While the occasional tantrum or lost toy might cause a few bumps in the road, Edwards loves traveling as a family and seeing the world with a baby on her back.

Edwards, a full-time nurse with a flexible schedule, and her husband, Shaun, have always travelled frequently.

When they found out that they were expecting a child, the couple was determined not to let that stop them from seeing the world.

"I was just like, 'I can't give this up yet,'" she said. "We started thinking, 'Well maybe we could bring the baby with us.' And it was quite an instant decision."

When Esme was born, they decided to use Karen's maternity leave to travel.

Edwards started her blog, Travel Mad Mum, in May 2015 in order to chronicle her travels with Esme in tow. At the time she was a little over halfway through that first 10-month trip.

Edwards said she would have started it earlier, but "Just like any other new mom, I was definitely in that same daze."

Edwards was most nervous about visiting Taiwan because she found little information about travelling there with kids. However, she was pleasantly surprised by how accessible it was.

"Every Metro station has nappy-changing facilities, and they're so extensive as well," she said. "They have free wipes, and they have a big sofa where you can sit down and breastfeed, and it's really, really child-friendly."

"I loved how friendly the local people are with her, and they're so helpful," she said. "I think parenting is definitely a community approach [there] in comparison to other countries."

While some people called her selfish for using her maternity leave to travel, Edwards said the reality is quite the opposite.

It's an amazing time for all the family to be together, to get used to being a new family, she said.

Shaun, her dad, got to spend the year with her just as much as I did, and their bond is just as close.

She also consulted a doctor who said that the best time to travel with babies is when theyre breastfeeding, since they get immunity from breast milk.

Travelling came with some unexpected parental perks, too.

We didn't have to do any cooking or cleaning, or maintain a household, she said. We just had unlimited 24/7 eyes on Esme, and she had our full attention all the time.

Now two years old, Esme has been to 17 countries and counting, and they continue to travel about once a month.

This year, theyve already been to Thailand, Cambodia, South Africa, Spain, and Cuba, with Italy next on the list.

Not every moment is glamorous...

And travelling with a baby certainly has its challenges.

Edwards captioned this photo "This is us lying down beside the bed on the floor in our hotel room trying to hide from our girl who NEEDS to sleep!!!...naps are few and far between resulting in a cranky baby!!"

But the Travel Mad Mum (and dad!) are well-practiced at handling them, and said that Esme couldnt be happier.

The other day she said something to me like, 'Mom, I want to go on a swing,' and then she said, Actually, I prefer to go on an airplane, as if it's such a frequent occurrence that it's as often as going to the playground.

 Every terrorist attack worldwide over 20 years in maps

 10 major differences between successful and unsuccessful people

 Nine ways to make people like you without saying a word

Read the original article on Business Insider UK.  2016. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.
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The travel review website TripAdvisor has apologised to one of its users after it deleted her post about being sexually assaulted on holiday.

In a response to an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel  which accuses the company of deleting first-hand accounts of rape and sexual assault  TripAdvisor apologised for repeatedly taking down her post, adding: We are horrified that this victim experienced this assault on her vacation in Mexico, and other travellers should be aware of this incident.

Kristie Love, 35, was raped seven years ago on holiday in Mexico. After legal prosecution fell through she decided to post on the website in order to warn other travellers.

The only thing I could do was post to TripAdvisor. So I posted the story and it obviously got a lot of response. Every day it would be deleted and the next day I would go and immediately upload the post again and it would be removed again, she said.

Ms Love is one of many users who have had their experiences of sexual assault removed as the content were deemed inappropriate for the family friendly site, the Journal Sentinel reports.

The mother of two says she was raped by a security guard in 2010 while on holiday in Iberostar resort in Riviera Maya, Mexico. When she tried to report the incident to management she says they refused to call the police, instead encouraging her to go to the hospital.

After flying home she says Iberostar refused to cooperate with an investigation. They said they had no report of anything that happened to her and threatened to sue.

Ms Love said comments warned her that her post would be deleted and after daily posts TripAdvisor eventually blocked her IP address.

Within a year of Ms Loves rape, another woman, 19, was reportedly raped at the same resort by a security guard while on vacation with her family.

In 2015, Jamie Valeri, 35, told the newspaper l how she was sexually assaulted at the same resort after both her and her husband blacked out in the middle of the day after two drinks.

The mother of six from Wisconsin also tried to warn other travellers on TripAdvisor but like Ms Love, she says her posts were removed.

Id get a generic email saying it 'didnt meet the requirements', she said. After several unsuccessful attempts despite rewording her review Ms Valeri says she gave up.

She added that if she had seen a post like Ms Love tried to post "maybe we wouldn'tt have gone or maybe that wouldn'tt have happened to me".

I had no options. I didn'tt know the risk existed, she explained.

After multiple inquiries by the Journal Sentinel TripAdvisor has now agreed to republish Ms Loves post, seven years on.

The company told Ms Love: If this post had been published at this time they would not have deleted it which is why they are willing to repost it.

However, according to the newspaper, in the same month the website republished Ms Loves post, a man from Bostons post warning travellers about how he was drugged in the same area of Mexico was not published.

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

TripAdvisor wrote to him in an email suggesting his post violated the companys hearsay guidelines.

A TripAdvisor spokesperson said: "Like any other content business, we work to adhere to publishing guidelines that are in place to ensure the accuracy and integrity of those reviews. Since 2010, when the forum post was removed, our policies and processes have evolved to better provide information like this to other travellers.

"In fact, a simple internet search will show numerous reviews from travellers over the last several years who wrote about their first hand experiences that include matters of robbery or theft, assault and rape.

The firm added that it will be creating a badge notification to alert customers of health and safety or discrimination issues.
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President Trumps stance on conflict in the Middle East is a mixture of bellicose threats and demonisation of opponents combined with rather more cautious and carefully calculated action or inaction on the ground. Leaders in Baghdad, Damascus, Riyadh and Tehran face the same problem as those in Tokyo and London, uncertain where the rhetoric ends and the reality begins and unsure if Trump himself distinguishes much between the two.

The debate about Trump in the Middle East does differ from that in the rest of the world in one important respect: the need for an answer here is more urgent because of the greater likelihood of a crisis, which Trump might provoke or exacerbate.

When he was first elected, the urgency seemed very great but there has been no major new crisis that put him to the test. For all his denunciations of President Obama for his supposedly feeble defence of American interests, US strategy in Iraq and Syria has remained very much the same. The priority has continued to be the destruction of the caliphate and the elimination of Isis.

The continuity is because the strategy has been successful and surviving Isis fighters are being hunted down or are taking refuge in hideouts in the deserts of western Iraq and eastern Syria. But victory over Isis brings with it the prospect of a new US set of priorities in the Middle East with a more confrontational approach to Iran topping the list.

 Donald Trump says Isis are "giving up" now he is president

In his jeremiad against Iran on 13 October, Trump justified his refusal to certify the Iran nuclear deal with gobbets of propaganda, one-sided history and straight lies. He proposed a new US policy towards Iran based on a clear-eyed assessment of the Iranian dictatorship, its sponsorship of terrorism, and its continuing aggression in the Middle East and all around the world. The speech sounded like the opening volley in a new campaign against Iran, to be fought out on multiple fronts.

Some sort of collision between the US and Iran looks possible or even likely, a battle which will probably be carried out by proxies and will not be fought to a finish. This is because Trumps approach to the outside world is a blend of American nationalism and isolationism. The former produces belligerent threats and the latter a wish to avoid getting entangled in any new Middle East war.

This could be bad news for the US because, if it cannot use its massive military superiority, it will become bogged down in the sort of part military, part political struggle in which the Iranians are past masters. They have a PhD in this sort of warfare, said an Iraqi friend with long experience of dealing with them.

It may not come to that: such is the intensity of political strife in the US that new foreign policy ventures do not look very feasible. But any sensible leader in the Middle East always looks at the worst case scenario first. The wars in Syria and Iraq are either coming to an end or their present phase is ending, but in both cases the situation is fragile. People in Baghdad are wary of good news after forty years of wars and emergencies and would not be too surprised if things turned sour again.

It would be a pity if this happened, because just for once the professional pessimists in Iraq are not having it all their own way. The central government is far stronger than it was three years ago when Isis was rampaging across the country. Its army, with great help from American airpower, defeated Isis in the nine-month siege of Mosul. The Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi faced down the Kurdish leadership and won an almost bloodless success regaining Kirkuk.

Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures Show all 8 1 /8 Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures Syrian Democratic Forces fighters celebrate victory in Raqqa atop of military vehicles REUTERS Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures Fighters of Syrian Democratic Forces march past destroyed buildings as they celebrate victory REUTERS Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures Fighters of Syrian Democratic Forces gesture the "V" sign in Raqqa REUTERS Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures Fighters of Syrian Democratic Forces evacuate a civilian from the stadium REUTERS Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures A civilian prays after she was rescued by fighters of Syrian Democratic Forces from the stadium REUTERS Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures Syrian Democratic Forces fighters ride atop of military vehicles as they celebrate victory in Raqqa REUTERS Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures Syrian Democratic Forces fighters celebrate victory in Raqqa REUTERS Syrian Democratic Forces take Raqqa from Isis  in pictures A fighter of Syrian Democratic Forces celebrates in Raqqa Reuters

It is doubtful if either the US or Iran would come out the winner in any new confrontation, but Iraqis would certainly come out the losers.

The best policy for the US in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere is to do nothing very new. But this may be difficult for Trump. It is not just him who has wrong-headed ideas about the Middle East. There has recently been a stronger than usual surge of apocalyptic commentary about how Iran is winning victory after victory over the US in the region.

Washington think-tankers, retired generals and journalists warn of Iran opening up a land corridor to the Mediterranean, as if the Iranians travel only by chariot and could spread their influence by no other means.

It could be that Trumps menaces really are serious, in which case the Iranians are understandably going to react. But even if they are largely rhetorical, they might trigger an Iranian over-reaction.

The Iranians are under the impression that others want to topple their regime, an Iraqi politician told me. The Iranians are very smart. They do not send their armies abroad. Once you do that you are lost. They fight by proxy on many fronts outside their borders, but this destabilises everybody else. Once again Iraq would find itself in the front line.

Curiously, Iran owes much of its expanded influence not to its own machinations but to the US itself. It has been the collateral beneficiary of US-led regime change in two of its neighbours, Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, both which had been viscerally anti-Iranian.

The sheer ignorance of Trump and his administration about the Middle East is dangerous. It is usual, particularly in liberal circles, to see people in the Middle East as passive victims of foreign intervention. This is largely true, but it masks the fact that at any one time there are several governments and opposition movements trying to lure the US into a war with its enemies by demonising them as a threat to the world.

The Iraqi opposition spent a long time in the 1990s trying to manipulate the US into going to war to overthrow Saddam Hussein and, thanks to 9/11, got its wish in 2003. The Syrian opposition backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey were hoping to do the same thing in Syria in 2011-13 and were much frustrated that Obama did not play along.

Trump may speak of confronting Iran, but there is no sign that he has a coherent plan to do so. Much of what is happening in the region is beyond his control and US influence is going down, but for reasons that have nothing to do with him. The US has never quite recovered from its failure to achieve its ends in Iraq after the invasion. The return of Russia to the region as a great power has also limited US influence. The US public does not want another war in the Middle East.

Obama accepted these limitations and Trump will probably have to do the same. But his sheer unpredictability already makes the region feel a more dangerous place, even when he is doing nothing.
Nevada sheriff resigns after 30 years on force

ELY (AP)  A Nevada sheriff announced his decision to resign after 30 years with the department.

The Ely Times reports White Pine County Sheriff Dan Watts has accepted another position with the Shoshone Tribe as its chief of police. Watts signed a four-year contract with the tribe.

Watts will be the chief over all law enforcement for tribal land in the Shoshone area. Watts says he had many sleepless nights trying to decide if this was something he wanted to do but there were many contributing factors, including financial ones that made this decision right for him and his family.

During his 30-year tenure with the White Pine County Sheriffs Department, Watts made substantial changes to the White Pine County jail facility, so that it met National Jail Standards.

Day care worker sentenced for babys death

OGDEN, Utah (AP)  The Utah day care worker who was convicted of killing an 8-month-old boy in 2014 was sentenced to five years to life in a state prison.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports the maximum sentence for 36-year-old Tisha Lynn Morley was handed down in an Ogden courtroom on Wednesday after a jury convicted her of first-degree felony child abuse homicide in May.

Lincoln Penland died in the hospital after his skull was fractured, both arms were broken, and his brain and spine were injured while at Morleys in-home day care in Roy. Prosecutors say Morley grabbed the infant by his arms and slammed him on a changing table.

Morley apologized in court and asked for leniency. She says she made a neglectful and careless mistake.

High-end wine thief steals 55 bottles from store

INCLINE VILLAGE (AP)  Authorities at Lake Tahoe are looking for a man who made off with an estimated $15,000 worth of expensive wine from a grocery store in Incline Village.

The Washoe County Sheriffs office says the white male suspect stole 55 bottles of high-end red wine from the Raleys Supermarket just before 7 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 23.

Surveillance video released on Wednesday shows the man wearing flip-flops with a jacket vest and a scarf around his neck with several bottles of wine in a shopping cart.

The loot included two dozen bottles valued at more than $150 each and one bottle of Joseph Phelps 2012 Insignia red wine worth $240.

The suspect is about 6-foot tall, 180 pounds. Anyone with information should call the sheriffs office at 775-328-3320 or Secret Witness at 775-322-4900.

Credit union apologizes for workers in blackface

LEWISTON, Idaho (AP)  The president and CEO of an Idaho credit union apologized after four female employees wore blackface to work as part of their Halloween costume.

The Lewiston Tribune reports the women wore yellow stocking caps and green, yellow and black windbreakers, and what appear to be black wigs. They posed alongside a cardboard bobsled with the word Jamaica on it in a picture taken on the Potlatch No. 1 Federal Credit Union Orofino premises that circulated widely on social media.

P1FCU President and CEO Chris Loseth said in a statement published on the credit unions primary Facebook page the women were portraying the first Jamaican national bobsled team, which became famous during the 1988 Winter Olympics and inspired the 1993 film Cool Runnings.

Loseth says the employees involved have been reprimanded.

Mountain lion captured in Cheyenne

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP)  Police and animal control officers have tranquilized and captured a mountain lion roaming Wyomings largest city.

The Wyoming Tribune Eagle reports the male lion caught in Cheyenne on Thursday was about a year old and weighed 60 pounds.

Police warned residents to stay inside after the lion was spotted. A nearby elementary school was locked down although school wasnt in session because of parent-teacher conferences.

Wyoming Game and Fish Department spokesman Renny MacKay says the lion could be released in a wild area if its healthy and hasnt previously encountered humans.

Mountain lions are rare in Cheyenne though moose, antelope and deer occasionally wander into town from surrounding areas.
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Remembrance Sunday is the most important United Kingdom national ceremony. Unchanged in the lifetime of most British citizens, it symbolises British heroism and British sacrifice  the struggles and victories that the British achieved, alone, in two world wars and since.

Except that we were never alone. Even in the darkest months of World War Two, during the Battle of Britain which has come to encapsulate the image of a free and sovereign Britain defending liberty against a hostile European continent, we were sustained by others: the Polish and Belgian pilots in the RAF, the Indian forces fighting in Egypt, the food and raw materials from the Commonwealth and Empire, and above all the armaments and other supplies flowing from the USA. All of these have since been written out of our national story. The forces at the Cenotaph are solely British. The Commonwealths contribution is dimly recalled in the wreaths quickly laid by groups of High Commissioners, usually without any comment on radio or TV about the roles any of those countries played in either world war.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 A villager cooks roti bread at the site of the annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images

Commemoration of World War One has also supported this image of Britain alone. And not by accident: as a Liberal Democrat minister in the coalition government, I remember one early memo to David Cameron as Prime Minister included the warning that we must ensure that our commemoration does not give any support to the myth that European integration was the result of the two World Wars. Even the American contribution has been downgraded. The French marked the American entry into World War One with American forces and aircraft in the centre of Paris, with President Trump as an official guest; the British will be holding a small ceremony in 2018 on Islay, the Scottish island where two US troopships were wrecked. There is also to be a modest event to mark the point at which British troops came under overall French command, in front of the statue of Marshal Foch outside Victoria station. No official attempt has been made to remind the British public of the contribution of the Indian Army, in France, Palestine and Mesopotamia.

The contrast with French attitudes and public education is sharp. In 2004 the band of the Royal Marines was invited to lead the 14 July parade, with contingents of the Household Cavalry and Grenadier Guards following, to mark the centenary of the Entente Cordiale  the third occasion since 1919 that British troops had been invited to take part. The most that British protocol allows is for occasional regiments from colonial territories and those Commonwealth countries which still have the Queen as their head of state to take turns in guard duty outside Buckingham Palace; the Gibraltar regiment took its turn some years ago. The French, again, marked the centenary of the outbreak of war in 1914 with an outdoor exhibition along the Champs Elysees that pictured English, Scottish and Indian soldiers in the trenches alongside French and French colonial forces, following a parade which included colour guards from 69 other countries involved in the war.

 WW1 map: How Europe changed in just one minute

Conservative ministers have determinedly resisted giving publicity to British military cooperation. Liam Fox suppressed information on the extent of Franco-British defence joint operations, and would not invite the media to visit the British-led headquarters of the EUs anti-piracy operations in Northwood. Philip Hammond, his successor as defence secretary, swept aside a suggestion that the withdrawal of British forces from bases in Germany which they had occupied for nearly 70 years might merit a celebration and a joint parade; the Germans are very transactional, he remarked. What was unspoken was that it would have angered the Eurosceptics in his own party, the guardians of Britains exceptionalist national myth.

Radek Sikorski, when Polish foreign minister, attempted to interest the British government in presenting a Spitfire to Warsaws national museum, to commemorate the role of Polish pilots in the last war; but Conservative ministers paid no attention to what would have been a goodwill gesture. Since then the Spitfire Heritage Trust has nevertheless provided a replica aircraft to Lesotho.

So on Remembrance Sunday the same military contingents will play the same tunes as ever, as we rightly remember the sacrifices British people made in successive conflicts, while ignoring the contributions made by others. And the public will go home or switch off their televisions, secure in their beliefs that Poles are taking our jobs, Belgians have never fought for anything, the French left us alone in 1940, and Indians are unwelcome immigrants  and that none of them have played a positive part in Britains island story. No wonder that popular euroscepticism, and belief in the uniqueness of British sovereignty, are so entrenched. Thats the message that our unchanging national ceremony conveys.

William Wallace is a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords
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The conflict between Catalan separatists and the Spanish state has escalated further and entered yet another phase, this time implicating the judicial power in Spain. After declaring Catalan independence on contestable grounds, i.e. without an unambiguous democratic mandate from the Catalan people, Carles Puigdemont, the deposed president of the Catalan Generalitat, fled to Belgium together with five of his ministers.

This is not a coincidence or  as Puigdemont claims  because Brussels is the capital in Europe. They fled to Belgium because the largest political party in the Belgian Federal government, the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), is a populist Flemish nationalist party whose parliamentarians and ministers are very much soul mates of the Catalan nationalists, to put it mildly. In Flemish nationalist circles, the deposed Catalan president is nothing less than a hero, doing what many of them wished they could do as well, namely declaring Flemish independence.

A few days before Puigdemont fled to Belgium, the N-VA Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration, Theo Francken, already laid the ground by pompously declaring that Catalan people who feel politically threatened can ask for asylum in Belgium. That includes President Puigdemont. This is 100 per cent legal. Once Puigdemont arrived in Belgium, flying in from Marseilles, the chairman of the N-VA and mayor of Antwerp, Bart De Wever, said that Puigdemont is a friend and friends are always welcome.

 Carles Puigdemont says he cannot return to Catalonia because Spain is intent on 'vengeance'

All this explains why the political crisis between the Spanish government and the Catalan separatists is bound to also create tensions and conflicts in Belgium, especially now that a Spanish court has issued a European arrest warrant, which the Belgian government, led by someone from the same political family as Rajoy, cannot just ignore.

With good legal counselling, which Puigdemont has already secured of course, extradition from Belgium to Spain for such a politically loaded case can be delayed for months and even years. These delays will, however, increase diplomatic tensions with Spain, a fellow key member of the EU. This will conveniently also keep the conflict in the news across Europe for months to come, fueling nationalist fevers, not only in Belgium, but also across Europe.

The Spanish right-wing government is also not without blame here. It consciously chose to strategically escalate the conflict, through repression, violence and judicial persecution, rather than following a path of mutual dialogue and political negotiation.

It could have, on the contrary, taken inspiration from Belgiums political history in order to learn how the shift from a strong unitary state to a centrifugal federal state structure can be achieved in a peaceful, democratic and negotiated manner. The very presence in the federal government of a political party who in the depths of their hearts wants (Flemish) independence attests to the success of the Belgian compromise. It would be the same as seeing the SNP serving in a UK Government.

Belgium is indeed no stranger to institutional crises  they tend to occur every 10 years or so, they always involve protracted and complicated negotiations, and often result in intricate and surreal solutions and constitutional changes and a temporarily ceasefire in an ongoing conflict between the political elites in the north and the south of the country. Despite these tensions, there has not been any violence nor has there ever been a majority in North-Belgium in favour of independence.

If the Belgian model is to be followed, however, both the Spanish and Catalan elites need to be willing to compromise and to de-escalate the conflict. The Catalan separatists will need to renege on their undemocratic declaration of independence and the Spanish state has to drop the court cases.

Subsequently, all relevant political actors will need patience and perseverance to negotiate a respectable compromise which cannot fully satisfy anyone, but will pacify the conflict in a democratic manner and with the interests of all Catalan people in mind, rather than only those who favour independence.
At some point in our lives, the jobs we do become our identities and provide the defining traits of our interaction with others. Police officers think and act like police officers, whether theyre on or off duty. Professors look for logic and reason outside the classroom. Accountants view the world in precise terms, very unlike comedians, who see subtlety, humor and irony in the world.

When a friend of my son told me a few years back that I didnt need to use correct grammar and punctuation when texting, that I was not in the classroom at the time of our text exchange, I told him that my habits with the written word had nothing to do with being a school teacher. The way I handle the written word, I responded, was a product of 20-plus years as a writer and editor.

Ill exercise restraint and save my views on what texting has done to the writing habits of teenagers for another column.

The years spent attempting to become a better writer and editor mark who I am today, despite nearly seven years teaching business and marketing at the high school level.

That can sometimes be a curse, however, marked by my habit of critiquing the written or verbal communication of others, whether in books, magazines, websites, newspapers or emails. I simply cant help myself, and it only becomes a real problem when I verbalize my criticism, which I usually dont do outside the classroom.

One pet peeve is on regular display in the academic world. The use of two spaces after a period in a written document is especially pervasive among educators. This may seem arbitrary and petty to some, but to those who have worked in publishing for any amount of time, its an abomination.

Using two spaces after a period, in fact, can be found nowhere in modern newspaper, magazine or book publishing. Yet the use of two spaces is common among those who should know better, educators. The habit is a holdover from the typewriter days, when monospaced lettering required two spaces after a period to prevent jumbled typewritten text.

Typewriters, of course, have been out of vogue since the early 1980s. But you wouldnt know it by reading emails originating within school systems. Google slate.com two spaces after a period to read an excellent treatise on this subject.

Another common misuse with language involves spoken, not written, communication. We often hear someone referred to as an overachiever when they are actually high achievers.

In a way of explanation, we all have abilities that are based on our experiences in life, our intellect, our education, our training, our God-given talents, and so forth. These serve to establish what Ill call our skill level, which serves as a baseline for our achievements. If someone produces something that does not reach that baseline, whether in school, work, or anywhere else in life, then they are an underachiever. Theyve achieved at a level below what their skillset should produce.

Conversely, if someone achieves above what their baseline, or skill level, indicates they should achieve, then they are overachievers. Too often, however, we label high achievers as overachievers simply because they achieve over and above what is required. In reality they are often achieving above those around them but not beyond their capabilities. High achievers tend to stand out simply because they outperform their peers. Overachievers stand out because they surprise us by doing the unexpected.

In a collection of speeches by Antonin Scalia, the late Supreme Court Justice, he addresses the idea of how our careers mark us, a column idea Ive pondered for quite a while because of the above examples. Scalias articulate, erudite treatment of this provided the motivation for the words youre reading.

Scalia is discussing the traits of a lawyer in the passage below, but what he is specifically addressing is the written word, so careful writers and editors, and others who deal with the written word, can relate:

The entire parade of life comes before the lawyer and must be described precisely in the instruments, the opinions, and the statues with which he or she deals. So that describing a thinganythingprecisely becomes a habit, a compulsion that tends to spread into all aspects of a lawyers life.

Ill not presume that the training of an ordinary writer is on the level of that of a lawyer, but there are, nonetheless, commonalities between the two. The paragraph above expresses the reason I have refused to read the work of a particular sportswriter for a North Carolina daily newspaper for more than 20 years. The poor fellow is not a talented writer, and his work compelled me to mentally rewrite every piece of his writing that appeared in this particular publication, thereby removing the joy of reading articles he wrote.

It occurs to me that our jobs are merely a part of what shapes us, albeit a major part. A friend of mine, a retired educator, and I often view the world the same way. Many conversations over the past two years have revealed this fact.

Yet our experiences are very different. He is a black person who grew up in the city, while Im a country boy who grew up in an area populated by whites. Where we have common ground is that we both grew up during the same approximate time period. Its clear that the prevailing values and mores during the time of our youth matter as much as what we choose as a career.

That fact makes me fearful for the current generation of young people.

The writer can be reached at lgcothren@aol.com.
Taxpayers in India that still need to file their income tax returns (ITR) and submit reports for audit covering the Financial Year (FY) 2016-17 have just been granted some relief.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), Indias federal tax department, extended the last filing date from October 31 to November 7 for the FY 2016-17 (Assessment Year 2017-18). The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) made the announcement on October 31 via notification F.No 225/270/2017ITA.II.

RELATED: Tax Compliance Advisory

The extension is welcome to taxpayers who have yet to file their income tax returns or associated ancillary reports for AY 2017-18, which are required for their business audits as directed by the Income-Tax Act, 1961.

However, taxpayers must note that this time around, the tax department will require the 12-digit Aadhaar identification number (or the 28-digit Aadhaar enrolment number) while filing the tax return. The government has made it mandatory for taxpayers to disclose their Aadhaar information from July 2017, as well as linking the identification number with all banking, financial, and identification documents.

In addition, taxpayers filing their returns in this grace period will need to submit their complete financial information: bank account number and the IFSC code. This is relaxed for bank accounts not in use for three years or longer.

Please review the following hyperlinks for more information on filing income tax returns, mandatory income tax forms, calculating income tax for expatriates, and annual audits.
Were excited to announce that indmin.com is now part of fastmarkets.com.

A new look and an improved experience means you can still stay ahead of this fast-moving market with price data, news and market intelligence right here on Fastmarkets.

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If you already have a Fastmarkets account, youll still have uninterrupted access to your markets by logging in with your current details.
Greece's finance ministry, as expected, has included ain a tabled draft bill on gaming that allows for the relocation of the greater Athens area's sole casino from atop a mountain overlooking the Greek capital to an urban area closer to the city's center.
The creme de la creme of Washington, D.C. insiderdom. Thats how a newspaper columnist described Kate OBeirne, the Washington editor of National Review and a panelist on CNNs Capital Gang about 20 years ago, when I first started working at NR. I thought of that as Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake announced his decision to not run for re-election. I thought of Kate, who died this spring, because politics was never the most important thing in life. Thats what endeared her to people with serious political power: Shed remind them of more enduring things.

When Flake went to the Senate floor on Tuesday, he said: I rise today with no small measure of regret. Regret because of the state of our disunion. Regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics. Regret because of the indecency of our discourse. Regret because of the coarseness of our leadership. He continued: Regret for the compromise of our moral authority, and by our, I mean all of our complicity in this alarming and dangerous state of affairs. It is time for our complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptable to end.

A lot of Flakes ire was implicitly directed toward President Donald Trump, his supporters and the circus surrounding them. But theres a lot more that Flakes decision says, including this root principle: Our politics is only ever going to be as good as our culture. And our culture is only ever going to be as good as we demand it to be. And we make demands on our culture not just by picket signs or grand statements and impassioned commentary, but by what we spend our time and money on. Theres a complicity that goes beyond sitting senators.

And letting your opinion be known of the president isnt enough. Because while he is president now, and he does happen to be coarse and seemingly erratic, he was elected in spite of those things  and for some people, because of those things.

The most important part of Jeff Flake removing himself from the senatorial scene, it seems to me, is what it says about Washington, D.C. insiderdom: Its not how were going to change the world.

Theres a new book by Bishop Robert Barron in which, at one point, he talks about the genius of Pope Francis. Dont begin with the true or the good, begin with the beautiful, and it leads you to the true and the good ... begin with ... the kind gesture. He continues: We all think of the Church as giving laws, wagging fingers and clarifying sexual ethics, but in the great tradition ... the project begins with beatitude, with happiness, with joy.

And while thats not a political project, if it fuels people in politics, people commenting about politics and the people voting, you could see how things could start to look better. Instead of a constant war between the media and the White House and the constant barrage of acrimony and argument, we could be aspiring to work together, to have a debate, yes, but ultimately to respectfully listen, consider and strive for the common good.

In To Light a Fire on the Earth, Bishop Barron writes: We no longer dare to believe in beauty, and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it. Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness.

I think its fair to say that most Americans today dont think of any of these words in association with politics. Which is why Sen. Flake is leaving and why we must do better. Its something beautiful well fight for and rally behind and become better people for. Remembering that and coming together around it requires more beautiful standards, ones that dont come from politics but from our choices on a whole host of even more important things.

Our politics is only ever going to be as good as our culture. And our culture is only ever going to be as good as we demand it to be.
The 2016/2017 Batch B members of the National Youth Service Corps have reportedly given birth to as many as 72 babies during their service year.

According to The Nation, the National Youth Service Corps ( NYSC ), Oyo state, has disclosed that the 2016/17 batch B (stream1) Corps Members deployed to the state gave birth to no fewer than 72 children.

The Oyo state NYSC Coordinator, Mrs Ifeoma Anidobi made this known in an interview in Ibadan.

Anidobi noted that the state also recorded 20 marriages by the corps members and three deaths out of the total of 3,406 corps members passing out in the state on Thursday.

The 3,406 consists of 1,504 males, 1,902 females, 3 members received states awards while 1 received chairmans award; 38 have commendation letters, 28 have disciplinary cases.

Those with disciplinary cases are to serve extension of service ranging from two weeks to four months, she said.

She urged the corps members not to view the countrys economy negatively but to see it as an opportunity to maximize their potential and utilise the knowledge acquired during Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development ( SAED ) training.

Anidobi assured them that the skills would definitely help them not only to meet the expectations of the society but overcome the challenges that may come thereafter.

Develop positive attitude towards the gains of the SAED programme, within a foreseeable future, you will not only be smiling to the bank but will become a great force to reckon with as outstanding entrepreneurs and industrialists,she said.

The Coordinator further advised the outgoing corps members to always strive to do the right thing at the right time and abide by the law all the time.

She urged them to remain focused and be good ambassadors of the NYSC and their respective families.

Anidobi, however, commended the corps members for leaving their host communities better than they met them.

As you take your final bow out of this prestigious, noble scheme, God will order your steps and make all crooked ways straight.

The lines will fall into pleasant places for you distinguished ones, safe journey to your respective glorious destinies, the coordinator prayed.
The fourth day at the ongoing Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) kicked off with a catch them young approach for school kids. The initiative began last year, when AFRIFF decided to engage over 250 secondary school pupils in Lagos to an IMAX education in line with the festivals goal to build capacity.

This time, the excitement for these kids is the screening of animation shorts at the Genesis Deluxe Cinemas, Lekki.

The films, showed different levels of artistry but were all mostly impressive in the ways they sought to educate and entertain. Gyrow, for instance, is instructive about health and sickness, and follows the title character, a nine year old doctor who heals sick people through magical assistance. Aje & Kpako highlights economic inequality between two 10 year olds, growing up in 80s in Nigeria.

The graphic work in Dawn of Thunder was received enthusiastically, underlying the need for more creative adaptations of local myths and folklores. Town Crier is a wild tale that invokes a host of dysfunctional characters and situations, while Crush is a more traditional treatment of boy-girl attraction.

The British Council presentations continued with Creative Hustle, a panel discussion on alternative pathways in film, moderated by Nadia Denton. The series of shorts forming part of the Councils Film Connections were screened. They include, Robot & Scarecrow, Tower XYZ, Brixton Rock, A Viable Candidate, and 1745 among others.

The United States Embassys spotlight was on the documentary, Class Divide, a riveting exploration by Mark Levin of gentrification and income distribution in a New York suburb where the class distinction is visible just across the road, on a particular street.

A couple of short films were screened at the Silverbird Galleria. Some of them are, Slip, a tense domestic drama, directed by Joshua Enakarhire and Yesterday, Emmanuel Udochukwus treatise on ethnic relations and the passions they inflame.

There was a repeat screening of Kenneth Gyangs latest, The Lost Cafe, starring Tunde Aladese and a brief Q & A followed shortly after in which Gyang as well as the cast and crew present, narrated the films journey to existence. The reception to Idemuza, a heart-warming, grass to grace drama about an orphans struggle to make something for her family was quite welcoming. The film featured strong performances from the cast of mostly unknown actors.

Kunle Afolayan with a guest at the French Embassy

Previously released films, Dinner and Tatu rounded out the feature length screenings for the day.

Earlier, AFRIFF artistic director, Newton Aduaka moderated an interesting keynote conversation with Abba T. Makama (Green White Green), C.J. Obasi (O-Town) and Michael Omonua, members of the Surreal 16 Collective, a group of filmmakers making a case for arthouse cinema through offbeat, impressionistic visuals such as that represented in Visions, a collaborative anthology consisting of three expressions  Shaitan, Brood and Bruja.

Punuka Attorneys and Solicitors, a Lekki-based law firm presented a masterclass on the legal aspects of producing content for television. Facilitated by Isioma Idigbe, the session touched on issues like writer, producer and non-disclosure agreements.

The day came to a close with a cocktail at the residence of the French Consul General, Laurent Polonceaux, kicking off the French Embassy showcase.

The night of cultural exchange had German Ambassador to Nigeria, Hugo Herbert in attendance, as well as film industry heavyweights like Joke Silva, Kunle Afolayan, Seun Kuti, Bolanle Austen-Peters and Steve Ayorinde, Lagos State Commissioner for Information & Strategy.

Patron of AFRIFF/MD/CEO, Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe, in his remarks, stressed on the importance of the festival as a great platform to help young people realize all they can be, while AFRIFF founder, Chioma Ude expressed her delight with the French partnership.

AFRIFF is an annual weeklong, all-encompassing world class showcase running, this year, from October 29, to November 4, 2017.

About 200 carefully curated feature lengths, shorts, documentaries and student films are being screened this year. The festival also encompasses talent development classes, industry workshops and inspiring creative discussions

source: Thenation
The Anambra State Police Command on Thursday said it arrested two suspected members of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, at a printing press in Onitsha.

We recovered thousands of pamphlets printed by the IPOB members who were planning to distribute same to the public in order to cause apprehension and prevent people from exercising their franchise during the Anambra State Governorship election slated for 18 November 2017, the state Commissioner of Police, Garba Baba Umar said in a statement.

Mr. Umar said the printing press was raided at about 11:00 a.m. following an intelligence report.

According to a police, the suspects arrested during the operation were identified as Udeagha Ebube Chukwu, 27, and Elochukwu Okoloji, 37.

The commissioner further assured law abiding citizens in the state that it will not relent in its efforts towards ensuring safe and secured environment before, during and after the election.

Chief among some of the hurdles before the successful conduct of the election is the call for its boycott by the Nnamdi Kanu-led separatist IPOB group.

The group says it does not want the November 18 election to hold until the Nigerian government accedes to its demand for a referendum for the realisation of the breakaway state of Biafra.

However, Mr. Kanus whereabouts remain unknown after clashes occurred between IPOB members and soldiers who were on a military operation in Abia State.

As the clashes continued, the military labelled IPOB a terrorist organisation, a decision later backed by the federal government through a court order. While Mr. Kanus lawyer accused the army of kidnapping his client on September 14.

Ahead of the forthcoming election, heads of security formations in Anambra said they are ready to provide adequate security, before, during and after the November 18 governorship election in the state.

The police commissioner, Mr. Umar said 28,000 personnel will be deployed to man the election.

Source: ( Premium Times )
Founder of Omega Fire Ministries, Apostle Johnson Suleman has warned the Zambian government after the forceful deportation of one of his pastors that work in their country.

Pandemonium broke out on Tuesday, October 31st, as men of the Zambian police and officials of the Zambian Immigration service, stormed the home of the pastor of Omega Fire Ministries in Lusaka, Austine Obosele, a Nigerian, to deport him back to Nigeria.

They accused him of staying in their country despite the expiration of his employment permit.

Obosele who has reportedly been deported back to Nigeria, accused some of the Zambian government officials of attacking him because he refused to give them a bribe.

Obosele told Zambian press that he had been trying to renew his immigration documentation but that a senior official from the Ministry of Religious National Guidance had vowed to see to it that he was deported after he refused to give him K30, 000 as bribe.

Obosele alleged that some expelled members of the church had also teamed up with the government officials so that they could take over the church, money in the church account and properties after his deportation.

He said that some suspended members of the church had reported falsehoods about him to the Ministry of Religious Affairs and National Guidance, which they investigated but did not find any fault.

I got a call from one man from Religious Affairs. This man can call thirty times in one minute, I dont know how much they gave him. I went to the office to see him at his office, there he accused me of a lot and lots of things. From there he told me that I needed to cooperate with him because my deportation order is already on his table. He said if I dont cooperate he would have me deported and I should give him K30, 000, to which I questioned whether it was his ministry that deported people, he said

Pastor Obosele said that when his documents were up for renewal, he submitted to the Immigration but that he had found it difficult as was promised to get his papers cleared.

Reacting to the attack on Obosele, the founder of the church, Apostle Suleiman in a statement released yesterday, accused the Zambian government of always allowing foreigners to start big investments in the country, grow the investment and later deport them so that Zambians can take over the investments.

He added that Nigerians were the biggest investors in Zambia. He warned that when small little known countries like Zambia continue doing such to foreign investors, no investment will come into the country.

According to him, his church in Zambia has grown so much that it is attracting attention and now the state wants to fight it.

If you fight my pastor, you are fighting me. And if you fight me, wait for the results, there will be problems. There will be reactions. Its not the best thing to do. When you do this, you send signals around the world. I am saying this because I know they are watching me. There are people you touch and things will just spoil. he said

The pregnant wife of the pastor and one of his senor church members have been detained for obstructing the arrest and deportation of the pastor.

LindaIkeji
A criminal gang that takes advantage of the growing e-commerce market to scam unsuspecting Nigerians has been busted by the police in Lagos.

The Police in Lagos has smashed an organised crime ring through which Nigerians buying phones on the internet were being robbed on a daily basis.

Thirty-five-year-old Alade Olalekan and Olumide Oluwole, 31, contrived a means of returning fake money to those who they lure to the Computer Village in Ikeja, Lagos, to make payment for iPhones advertised on Jiji.

According to the suspects, more victims fall into the trap at the end of every month when workers had just received salaries. Lagos State Police Commissioner, Imohimi Edgal, while parading the suspects on Thursday, told reporters how his men smashed the syndicate.

Edgal said in a statement: On Monday October 30, 2017 at about 15:00hrs through the Trust-Built Community Police & Safety Partnership, intelligence report was received from a concerned citizen who had previously been defrauded.

The victim, who was defrauded through a phone contact number 08081273170 gotten online at www.jiji.ng website after purchasing an iPhone6 (64gb) for the sum of N70,000 and was to make a physical payment before receiving the product, was lured to make the payment to one of the suspects at Awolowo way around computer village, Ikeja.



After the victim had made the payment, she was manipulated to believe that task force officials were after them. In that confused state, the cash she handed over to suspected fraudsters was later exchanged with neatly cut-to-size papers covered with three genuine N1000 notes presented as the complete money. It was hurriedly refunded to her. On further confirmation of the money, it was discovered to be a scam of ordinary paper notes.

The victim reported to the police and gave full information which led to the tracking of suspected online fraud syndicate by Lagos police personnel of the SIB who staged a covert operation on the 31st of October 2014 with another would-be victim.

This led to the arrest of their kingpin and leader of the gang, Alade Olalekan (m) age 35 years, and Olumide Oluwole (m) age 31 years. Upon arrest, police recovered a bundle of neatly cut-to-size paper wrapped with N1000 notes in their possession.

The suspects have confessed to the crime and are helping with the progress of identifying other members of the gang at large.

One of the suspects, Oluwole, told reporters that they usually collect phones from dealers who want us to scout for buyers.

Olalekan said, We started by buying China phones and passing it as original. We buy the China phones for N17, 000 and well hold it like original and sell at high price. Most people dont know the difference.

After many people have reported us, government started paying attention and the market chairman banned hawking. Then, things became tough because they were just packing everybody. So, we started this online method that has been on at the Computer Village.

Expressing faith in what he described as the new partnership with members of the public and their continuous support to the police, Edgal said that the police would perform better when members of the public give useful information to aid investigation and arrest of suspects committing crime in the state.

He said that the suspects would be charged to court, as he urged Lagosians to be more vigilant and security conscious at all times in order not to fall victim to fraudulent and criminal activities.
Controversial Nigerian male Barbie, Bobrisky, is never tired for being in the news. Either he is replying someone who he thinks hates him or he is dishing out advises to some of his followers.

Bobrisky, who was spotted recently in Accra, Ghana, disclosed that he had gone there to represent Nigeria at a cooking show.

The cross dresser took to his Snapchat handle to share pictures of him cooking fried rice while his Ghanaian friend made jollof rice.

He posted the pictures with the caption: Fine girl the cooking show was lit. We were told to cook fried rice. The one I circle is mine represented Nigeria while the other one is Ghana my new friend.

After Bobrisky took to his Snapchat handle to reveal that he is waiting for the right man who would walk him down the aisle, a Port Harcourt based engineer revealed that he is capable of paying his N200 million bride price.

source: Snapchat
A mere seven-year-old boy has died a really tragic death after drowning inside a swimming pool during a surprise party for his family friend.

Harvey Worgan, a 7-year-old boy has drowned in an indoor swimming pool during a surprise birthday party for a family friend.

According to The Sun UK, the seven-year-old was found at the bottom of the pool in a tragic accident, an inquest heard.

Harvey Worgan died after going swimming at a family friends home in North Wales.

The inquest into his death heard he had been told by his dad to stay at the shallow end, as he swan during the party.

Harvey and his parents, Ben and Lucy Worgan, were among 50 guests at a surprise birthday celebration for Jane Price, at her home.

In a statement read out at Welshpool County Court, Mr Worgan said he had last seen his son walking around the outside of the pool.

Dyfrig Huw Rees, who went to the pool area, was looking for a towel when he saw Harvey lying face down at the bottom.

He said: I saw a figure at the bottom of the pool face down near the deep end, I asked for help.

I dived down, but missed him. I tried using my feet and then grabbed him and got him by the side.

He was very pale, other than being sick there was no other movement.

Dr Andrew Bamber, a paediatric pathologist based at the Heath Hospital in Cardiff, said: There was no evidence of significant injury nothing to give cause for concern and no definite natural cause.

There was a presence of 300ml of water in the stomach and changes to the lungs, his death is consistent with one from immersion in water.

Mr Worgans statement described his son as a boy with a lovely smile, who had a huge interest in tractors and diggers often went to work with him on Saturdays.

Coroner Andrew Barkley said: These are very tragic circumstances and I extend my sincerest condolences to the family.

At the particular time of the incident no-one specifically saw Harvey.

It seems to me that Harvey was only out of sight for a matter of moments. Theres no clear evidence how he got to the pool.

No indication that he fell in. No indication he choked on the food or how long he was in the pool before he was spotted.

The cause of death is immersion in water as a result of an accident.
Speaking with State House reporters yesterday after a meeting with President Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Nigerias Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chris Ngige revealed that no administration in the history of Nigeria had surpassed that of Pres. Buhari in job creation.

According to the Labour Minister, seven million jobs have been created so far, as he further disclosed that the creation of blue collar jobs received a boost because of the economic diversification policy of the government.

We promised jobs when we came on board, but what has happened is that people tried to quantify jobs in terms of white collar jobs for graduates from universities, polytechnic but they dont want to look at the blue collar jobs. .

Agriculture and its chains alone have created more than five to seven million jobs. I am talking in terms of rice from rice tilling, harvesting, sending to the paddies, mills, and even where people are making the jut bags, transportations, people are getting jobs. So, that value chain alone from agriculture is enormous. Take the N-power, we have created millions of jobs from here, skill acquisition from the National Directorate of Employment(NDE) and other agencies of government, jobs are being created. . We give them tools as plumbers, electricians, cosmetologists, shoe makers, tilers and several other areas. We have created several jobs he said.

Source  Naijaexclusive
The former governor of Zamfara State, Mahmuda Shinkafi, has picked the All Progressives Congress (APC) partys membership card at the partys secretariat in Gusau, the state capital.

The event took place on Thursday before a large crowd of supporters.

Mr. Shinkafi, who was accompanied to the venue by party supporters, was received by states Deputy Governor, Ibrahim Wakkala on behalf of Governor AbdulAziz Yari.

The former governor, after picking his membership card, promised to work for the development of the party not only at the state level but the country as a whole.

My coming to APC is home coming for me, because I left it before and now I am back home to my brothers and sisters. Together we are going to work for the party to become stronger and the party to beat in the state, he said.

Speaking at the event, the deputy governor described the return of Mr. Shinkafi as a `boost to the APC in the state

It is not a matter of coming back but it is a return to the fold of Yarimawa. Together we are going to build the APC to become more vibrant and a viable political party in the state and country, he said.

Mr. Shinkafi was a deputy governor to the first Zamfara civilian governor, Ahmad Sani, for eight years under the platform of the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP).

He later became the governor of the state in 2007 in the same party before defecting to the People Democratic Party (PDP) in 2008, after being elected as the governor in 2007.

Mr. Shinkafi contested for governor as PDP candidate in 2011 and 2015 losing at both times to the incumbent Governor AbdulAziz Yari of the APC.

Source : (NAN)
Gonzalo Rubalcaba to show his mastery to Yerevan (video)

The most intriguing event of the year "Yerevan Jazz Fest 2017" will end with a performance by world renowned pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba. Vahagn Hayrapetyan quintet and saxophonist Alexis Avagyan will also participate in this event. I am always open for invitations. A week ago I was in Japan, today in Yerevan, and tomorrow I will go to Vienna. This is the musician's life, which, of course, requires great effort, but also, gives a lot. You can communicate with different people, get acquainted with different cultures, and enrich your soul, says Gonzalo Rubalcaba and continues, This is my first visit to Armenia. Unfortunately, I have to leave tomorrow. But I hope that I will have an opportunity to come here again and work with Armenian musicians. " Rubalcaba 's performance will be a piano solo concert that, in his opinion, is always a challenge and a good opportunity for the soloist to demonstrate his mastery. Yes, says Vahagn Hayrapetyan, "the piano solo is a special business card, a wonderful way to open the soul of a jazz musician." I was born in a family of musicians, I started playing at the age of six, but not piano, but drums, and then I went to classical piano lessons. All this has left its mark on my performance technique, says Gonzalo Rubalcaba. The saxophonist Alexis Avagyan, who is originally from Vanadzor, is also in Armenia for the first time. But he decided to fill this "gap" and visit Armenia as often as possible. Yerevan Jazz Fest has a history of three years, but according to Kamo Movsisyan, the president of the Armenian Association of Jazz, this festival is already well-known in the world.
A middle-aged man, Agu Echezona Harrison, who was arraigned before an Ikeja High Court for allegedly defiling his six-year-old daughter, yesterday attacked some journalists covering the proceeding.

Earlier before his arraignment, Harrison harassed some journalists who approached the state prosecutor to clarify an issue relating to another matter during a short recess.

On seeing Mathew Irinoye of Peoples Daily discussing with the prosecuting counsels, the defendant approached them and shouted, what do you want? What are you writing? This is a family matter. Get away from there. If you write anything, I will sue you.

After proceedings, as he was being taken to the cell by prison officials, Harrison attacked another journalist, Olamide Fadipe of Morning Daily by throwing his bottled water at her to prevent his photograph from being snapped.

Harrison was alleged to have defiled his daughter between 2013 and 2015 before he was caught at their 13, Omotosho Street, Isheri-Osun, Lagos residence.

State prosecuting counsel, Adebayo Haroun, told the court that the wife of the defendant reported the incident to the police station.

He said the mother reported that her daughter had been weeping between 2013 and 2015 and that she found the development strange.

She said it was two weeks after the last incident that her daughter opened up about what she had been going through in the hands of her father.

He said she reported to the police station in the area from where she (daughter) was taken to Mirabel Centre for tests, which confirmed her fears.

Harrison pleaded not guilty to the one count charge.

Defendants Counsel P.C. Ebiem pleaded with the Judge to allow the accused to continue to enjoy the bail terms earlier granted him by the magistrate court, saying that he has never missed a court sitting.

But Haroun opposed him and urged the court to remand him in prison custody.

He said incident of child rape and defilement is now rampant and that those involved should be made to pay dearly for such crime to deter others.

Justice Ogunsanya remanded Harrison in the custody of Kirikiri Maximum Prison and adjourned the matter till November 2.

NAN
Every person who has sexually assaulted a woman or man in Hollywood will probably be shaking in their boots now as more alleged predators are being exposed  and there are so many of them.

Ever since Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women, more men have been outed. Some of them sexually assaulted women while some, like Kevin Spacey, were accused of sexually harassing men.

LIB compiled a list of all the famous men accused of sexual harassment and assault. See them below.

1. Harvey Weinstein: The media mogul and co-founder of Weinstein Co. was the first one accused of sexual misconduct. Over 56 women have come forward to accuse him of sexual assault dating back to the 70s when he was just in his 20s. These women are from different continents and different generations. Two of his alleged victims, Ms. Exiner dAmore and Ms Cynthia Burr, who are now in their 60s (both 62), say he sexually assaulted them when they were in their 20s in the 1970s.

Weinsteins brother, Bob Weinstein is also being investigated by Spike network following reports of sexual harassment though he has denied it through his lawyer. The allegations against Weinsten set off a ripple effect, empowering people who say they also were victims to come forward with stories of abuse by people in power.

2. Terry Richardson: Is a famous fashion photographer who has worked with people like Beyonce, Kim Kardashian, Rihanna and more. Richardson has been dogged for years by allegations of misconduct during photo shoots . A lot of his models have accused him of sexual harassment and those who know him say he boasts about his conquests.

In 2014 lots of odels complained. A stylist accused the New York photographer of sexual assault in 2014, saying she had been invited to a shoot at his home and told to reveal her breasts. He then went on to press his d*** into the side of her face.

He pressed it to my lips. He clearly wanted a blow job and wanted it documented on camera, the stylist wrote in 2014.

But the 52-year-old defended his actions, saying the explicit acts were part of exploring sexuality. After the Weinstein scandal, Richardson, who works with a host of major magazines was barred from working with those magazines.

Staff at Conde Nast International, the publisher behind Vogue, GQ, Glamour and Vanity Fair, were told to stop working with Terry Richardson.

3. Kevin Spacey: Actor Kevin Spacey is being accused by a number of men of sexual assault. Actor Anthony Rapp was the first to accuse him. Then US filmmaker Tony Montana also came out to claim he was groped by the actor in a Los Angeles bar in 2003. He says he was left with PTSD for six months after Spacey forcefully grabbed his crotch.

Mexican actor Roberto Cavazos, who acted in several plays at the theatre, claims Spacey routinely preyed on young male actors. Following the allegations, Netflix halted production of the drama series, House of Cards in which Spacey plays the lead character.

4. Brett Ratner: Six women have accused Hollywood filmmaker Brett Ratner of sexual harassment or misconduct. The women include The Newsroom actress Olivia Munn and Natasha Henstridge, who appeared in Species and The Whole Ten Yards. Henstridge claimed she had been forced into a sex act with Ratner as a teenager.

Ratners lawyer categorically denied all of the accusations on his behalf. He then proceeded to file a libel case against a woman who accused him on Facebook of rape more than 10 years ago. Ratner has been dropped by the movie studio Warner Bros since the allegations came to light.

5. Dustin Hoffman: The Oscar-winning actor has been accused of sexually harassing an intern on the set of one of his films in 1985.

6. Michael Oreskes: Senior news editor, Michael Oreskes, who has worked for the Associated Press and the New York Times, was accused of kissing female colleagues without their consent during business meetings.

The 63-year-old has resigned following the accusations. He was asked to step down by the National Public Radio (NPR) network in response to the allegations. He has previously worked for the Associated Press and the New York Times.

7. Leon Wieseltier: Leon Wieseltier is a former editor at The New Republic. He has been accused of sexual harassment by several women who once worked at the magazine.

Some of the women said Wieseltier kissed them on the mouth; others said he shared details of his sex life and asked about their own intimate relations, according to a New York Times report released October 24. Wieseltier apologised in an emailed statement to the Times.

The prominent editor had planned to unveil a new magazine, backed by the Emerson Collective, this week. However, the organization, which was founded and is run by investor and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, decided to terminate the project following the allegations.

8. Mark Halperin: Veteran journalist and political analyst, Mark Halperin has been accused of sexually harassing five women while working at ABC, according to a CNN report published last week.

He apologised for his conduct and has now been fired from his job at NBC News and MSNBC.

9. Roy Price: Amazon Studios chief, Roy Price was accused by producer Isa Hackett of making lewd comments toward her and propositioning her while she was promoting the show, The Man in the High Castle in 2015.

Following the allegations, Price was placed on a leave of absence for five days before he resigned on Oct. 17.

10. Robert Scoble: Silicon Valley VC, Robert Scoble was accused by Journalist Quinn Norton of touching her inappropriately at an event in the early 2010s. In a blog posted published on October 19, she accused him of touching her breast and grabbing her butt.

Afterwards, several other women have accused the technology evangelist of assault. Scoble apologised but said each of the women who have come forward used grains of truth to sell false narrative.

In the wake of the allegations, he resigned on October 22 from the Transformation Group, an augmented reality consulting firm he co-founded.

11. Chris Savino: Nickelodeon producer, Chris Savino has been accused of sexual harassment by up to 12 women.

Savino reportedly engaged in unwanted sexual advances, explicit text messages, threats of industry blacklisting after the end of consensual relationships with co-workers, and offers of work in exchange for sexual favors, according to a report on the website Cartoon Brew.

On Facebook, Savino wrote on Oct. 23 that hes deeply sorry and ashamed that his words and actions created an uncomfortable environment, which he says was unintentional.

Nickelodeon said on October 19 that Savinos employment has been terminated.

12. Lockhart Steele: Vox Medias editorial director, Lockhart Steele was accused of sexual harassment by a former employee.

Vox Media said that Lock admitted engaging in conduct that is inconsistent with our core values. Steeles employment has since been terminated.

13. Gavin Baker: He is a former well-known stockpicker at the mutual-fund giant Fidelity Investments. Female employees of the company complained to superiors about harassment by Baker and he was fired last month for it though he denies the allegations.

14. John Besh: New Orleans celebrity chef John Besh was accused by 25 current and former female employees of fostering an environment that encourages sexual harassment, according to an investigation published the weekend of Oct. 20 by The Times-Picayune and NOLA.com.

The accounts included inappropriate touching and comments by several of the companys male employees and managers, some of whom tried to leverage their power for sex. Besh apologised for his actions.

He wrote in a statement: Two years ago, I deeply hurt those I love by thoughtlessly engaging in a consensual relationship with one member of my team . (I) sincerely apologize to anyone past and present who has worked for me who found my behavior as unacceptable as I do.

Following the allegations, Besh stepped down from the company he founded on October 23.

15. James Toback: Hollywood director and screenwriter, James Toback has been accused by over 235 women of sexual assault.

On October 22, The Los Angeles Times reported that more than 35 women accused Toback of sexual harassment. Toback told the Times that he had not met any of the accusers, or that if he did, it was for five minutes and (I) have no recollection.

Within two days of publication, 200 additional women contacted the paper, recalling similar encounters with Toback, the Times reported. Tobacks agent, Jeff Berg, has now terminated his relationship with the filmmaker following the accusations.

16. Andy Signore: He is Defy Medias senior vice president of content, He is the creator of Screen Junkies and the Honest Trailers parodies. He was accused of sexual harassment by YouTuber April Dawn, in addition to former intern Emma Bowers.

Defy Media fired Signore on October 8 because of the allegations.

17. Bill OReilly: Fox news host, Bill OReilly was accused of sexual harassment by legal analyst and Fox contributor Lis Wiehl. He settled the lawsuit for $32 million.

Despite the allegations in January, Rupert Murdoch and his sons, James and Lachlan, senior executives at 21st Century Fox, decided to keep OReilly as host. But OReilly subsequently lost his job in April. His talent agency, United Talent Agency, dropped him as a client on October 23, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

18. Ben Affleck: The Batman actor was accused by various women of sexual harassment.

Shortly after the Weinstein scandal, Affleck, who is his protege, condemned his actions but it backfired as women who Affleck have assaulted came out to remind him of it. Actress Hilarie Burton reminded him of the time he groped her on live TV in 2003.

Following Burtons accusation, Annamarie Tendler also accused Affleck of touching her inappropriately during a Golden Globes party three years ago. Comedy writer, Jen Starkey also said that multiple women endured similar experiences to Tendler in the hands of Affleck at the same event.

19. George H. W. Bush: Five women have made allegations against former US President, George H.W. Bush, saying he groped them. Actress Heather Lind accused Bush Sr of sexual assault. The actress said he grabbed her butt while sitting on his wheelchair and told her a dirty joke.

Novelist Christina Baker Kline came forward on Oct. 26 with allegations that former President George H.W. Bush had groped her during a photo op in 2014. She said she was at a 2014 fundraiser organized by Barbara Bush in Houston when she and her husband stood next to George H.W. Bush and he told her a dirty joke then grabbed her butt. She says more women have contacted her with similar stories.

This has been happening for decades, says Kline.

Kline, her husband, and Bush with his hand close to her butt

The women who have been groped by Bush claim he makes a joke first before groping them.

Do you want to know who my favorite magician is? hell say, then answer, David Cop-a-Feel! as he grabs the womens butt.

Bush, 93, apologized through a spokesman to anyone he has offended. Meanwhile, his daughter-in-law, former First Lady Laura Bush called incidents in which her father-in-law, George H.W. Bush, allegedly groped women very innocent.

Laura Bush told CNN: Im just sad weve come to this. That was something that was very, very innocent that hes been accused of. But I know he would feel terrible. He would never hurt anybody.

Critics of the women accusing Bush have defended the former president on the grounds of his age and mental status.

20. Andrew Kramer: The Lionsgate executive, Andrew Kramer has been accused of sexual harassment by a former assistant. He has since been dropped.

21. Eli Wiesel: The Nobel Prize-winning author and human-rights advocate has been accused of groping a 19-year-old in 1989. Wiesel passed away in 2016 and is thus unable to confirm or deny the account.

22. Tyler Grasham: The Hollywood agent, has been accused of sexual assault and sodomy by actor Tyler Cornell, who has also filed a police report. Grasham has since been fired by his agency, ACA.

Source: Linda Ikejis blog
The much anticipated faith-based movie, Idahosa Trails, by an award winning script writer and director, Stanlee Ohikhuare has been premiered in Benin, ahead of its cinema release this Friday.

The movie is centred on the Founder of Church of God Mission Intl, Benson Idahosa. It narrates the coincidental experience of an American journalist, who seeks to meet Archbishop Benson Idahosa based on his perception of the preachers role in the miraculous recovery of a popular chief in Benin City, who regained consciousness miraculously after many years in coma.

According to Stanlee,  the title of the movie is to describe what happened in the movie because the man through whose story was given to me the things that happened in the life of Benson Idahosa is actually on a trail of Benson Idahosa, trying to get to know him, which is why the trails is there.

It is a movie that touches on what can happen if someone experiences God. Even from the layman perspective, someone who doesnt have any intimate relationship with God and suddenly starts experiencing things that are strange to him and he is searching for the truth and answers. Then when you search for those answers, you find salvation, which is the bottom line of the story. It is a movie that spreads the message of hope and faith not necessarily the religion. He said the story line was derived from his quest to understand more about Benson Idahosa.

On the challenges, he said: It is a movie we have being on for 8 years and its being hectic because we wanted to get it right. It is a faith based movie and faith based movies are not given the kind leverage that other movies enjoy. But surprising, before we started shooting the movie, we got a release date.

Its going to be in the cinemas and this is the first time a Nigeria Christian movie will run in the cinemas and I believe it will open doors for other people who would want to venture in.

Award winning Nollywood actor, Charles Okafor, who played the role of Benson Idahosa, said the movie provoked a very sober disposition in him as a role interpreter.

When I was called upon to replicate and enact Benson Idahosa, in spite of my many years as an actor and role interpreter, it became very challenging for me but i was able to pull an average deliverability to who this icon was when he walked the face of the earth.

It gives me great joy and honour because it is the most resounding aspect of my career as an actor, to have the opportunity to enact a global icon, someone who traversed this world so much from nothing. For me it came very humbling, gratifying, challenging and above all very rewarding.

The movie features Nollywood stars such as Veteran actors like Liz Amiye, Patrick Doyle, , Kunle Idowu popularly known as Frank Donga, Osas Ighodaro, Adedamola Akapo, Mike Omoregbee, and Emmy Award Winner, David Schifter.

source: Thenation
Ahead of the upcoming gubernatorial election in Anambra state, the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner of the state reportedly said officials will sleep with corps members on the eve of the election.

An instance of using words with multiple meanings nearly gave away a senior official of Independent National Electoral Commision (INEC), today when he said plans have been put in place for officials to sleep with corps members on the eve of the Anambra gubernatorial election.

According to a report by DailyTrust, while addressing civil society at a dialogue in Abuja, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of Anambra, Dr Nkwachukwu Orji said INEC is ready for the election to the last detail.

However, his choice of sleep with caused a little drama in the hall, but he was quick to clarify that he meant the officials and corpers to be deployed for the election, would sleep in the same place on the eve of the election.

Participants laughed at this even as the convener of the dialogue, the Executive Director of Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC), Clement Nwankwo joked that only those with dirty minds would interpret Orjis words with cynical interests.

Not left out, the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of Operations in Anambra, DCP Mike Okoli during his speech said policemen deployed for the upcoming election would only be stationed there to guard the officials, corpers and materials.
A court in Lagos state has sent a 16-year-old slay queen to prison after she reportedly stabbed her boyfriend to death.

An Ebuta-Meta Chief Magistrates Court, on Friday, remanded 16-year-old Hannah Osazuwa in Ikoyi Prison for allegedly stabbing her boyfriend to death in Lagos.

Chief Magistrate, Mr Tajudeen Elias, gave the order when the defendant appeared before him on a one-count charge of murder.

Elias ordered that the case file be duplicated and sent to the office of the State Director of Public Prosecutions (DPPs) while the accused should remain at the Ikoyi Prisons pending a legal advice.

He adjourned the case to Dec. 12.

Earlier, the Police Prosecutor, Sgt. Kehinde Omisakin, had told the court that the defendant committed the offence on Oct. 16 at 9.00 a.m. at No. 34, Road K, Close, Gowon Estate, Egbeda.

She said that the accused had stabbed her boyfriend, Tomide Akintewe, 20, on his chest with a pair of scissors, resulting in bleeding that claimed his life.

The prosecutor said that the offence contravened Section 222 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015, which prescribes a death sentence for convicts.
Just after the wife of the president, Aisha Muhammadu Buhari raised an alarm over the deplorable state of Aso Rock after billions were budgeted for its operations, the National Assembly has uncovered more rots in the state house clinic.

The Ministry of Health and Federal Capital Territory (FCT), have been ordered by the Hon. Magaji Aliyu-led House of Representatives ad-hoc committee investigating the deplorable state of the Presidential Clinic on Thursday, to provide a detailed account of the State House Clinic.

The Nation reported that the House of Reps members expressed the willingness to ensure the effective management of the State House Clinic which according to them, is the first point of call in case of health-related emergency at the office of Nigerian President.

The members expressed concern over the disclosure in the report presented by the State House Permanent Secretary Jalal Arabi that out of 329 personnel working in the State House Clinic, 47 non-core medical personnel for several years illegally collected call-duty allowances.

According to him, some doctors sponsored by the State House on Residency Programmes (usually 2 years), got their call duty allowances paid even though they are no longer performing call duties at the Medical Centre.

He further stated: Sadly, some of them were discovered to have spent close to 7 years doing a residency, with many changing institutions, as they fail to qualify. In view of the fact that paying doctors on sponsored Training programmed call duty allowance was considered unearned allowances.

IPPIS (OAGF) was advised to cease paying them such allowances pending their return to duty from training. This has, however, become controversial and we are reviewing with the assistance of the Federal Ministry of Health who are guiding us appropriately, Arabi said.

He said despite their failure to enlist on the State House Clinics National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), 80 percent of the State House workers and their spouses are enjoying free medical services, at the expense of the government

The State House reached an agreement with HMOs with regard to the remittance of all NHIS payments in respect of State House Staff whose NHIS point is the State House Medical Centre. It is instructive, however, to note that whereas almost 80% of the personnel serving in the State House access medical services at the State House Medical Centre, only about 20% of them selected the medical Centre as their NHIS point.

The implication of the foregoing is that, whereas they access free medical services at the Centre, their respective NHIS contributions go to those medical facilities they selected as their providers, even though they do not go there for any medical service. This explains the quick depletion of the drugs and other consumables due to the very high number of patients being attached, he said.
The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) has announced the resumption of hostilities against oil and gas facilities any moment from now.

This is coming in the wake of the current about 2.2mbpd rise in crude oil export the country is enjoying, a situation that has upped the countrys oil income in recent time particularly owing to the relative peace being enjoyed in the oil-rich Niger Delta region after the intervention of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) led by Chief Edwin Clark.

Spokesman of the group, self-styled Maj. Gen Murdoch Agbinibo, made the threats in a statement posted in the website of the lethal group, on Friday.

He expressed the anger of the group over the disgrace meted out on members of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) during its 4th General Assembly held in Port Harcourt recently, saying the ignominious treatment had justified its earlier warning against dining with the Buhari-led Federal Government in a bid to dialogue.

We want to make it known to the PANDEF and the Nigeria government that our call for halt on Operation Red Economy is officially over.

We have just concluded head count of our operatives across the country; we are pleased to announce that all our operatives are intact and focused; ready to implement instructions from the High Command of the NDA in the going few days, NDA alerted.

Agbinibo further disclosed in the statement that the current lethargic and deceptive attitude of the Federal Government towards the Niger Delta region was responsible for the decision to resume onslaught.

Source  Ebiwalismoment
When the first phase of MKO Abiola International Airport, Ido Osun in Osun state is completed, the facility will save the country a foreign exchange of N22 billion per annum.

The contractor handling the MKO Abiola International Airport in Ido-Osun, Osun, on Thursday said that the first phase of the N69 billion project would be ready within eight months.

Mr Nurudeen Ogunlade, the Chief Executive Officer of AWOL Group of Company in charge of the airport project, disclosed this at a news conference in Osogbo on Thursday.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Osun Government, on Oct. 26, signed a concession agreement with AWOL for the construction of the airport.

The concession agreement will be on Build-Operate-Transfer basis and to last for 30 years.

The contract was first awarded on Oct. 14, 2012 at the cost of N4.5 billion and was to be completed within eight months.

The contract was later reviewed to N11 billion.

Ogunlade said with construction of the airport, the economy and tourism potential of the state would be fully realised.

The states tourism potential will not be fully realised without an international Airport. And tourism is likely to be our foreign exchange earner for a long time to come.

Ogunlade said the airport project would provide about 10,000 jobs for youths during the construction period and 2,000 jobs after its completion.

He said that there would be a cargo and maintenance section as part of the airport structural design which would be one of its kind in the country and the West African sub-region.

With the increasing alarm in agriculture food shortage in the country, the MKO Abiola International Airport will double up with manufacturing products and food bank warehouse cargo sector.

Ogunlade said the airport project was increased from N11 billion to N69 billion under the concession agreement due to its expansion and other modern facilities that were included.

He, however, said that the airport, which would be built on 839 hectares of land, would be funded 100 per cent by the company.

On his part, the State Commissioner for works, Mr Kazeem Salami, said the airport would bring development to the state after its completion.
Dear Mr. President,

I believe you will not mind my scant courtesy. It is due to the sense of urgency with which I am writing this letter. However, it does not detract from the very high regards that many Nigerians (chief of whom I am one) and a lot of people globally have for you. That is not to say that there are not many who are pathologically opposed to your person and will therefore not see anything good in your policies and actions in office. While one may ignore this category of naysayers, there is this other category you must not ignore. They are those who mean well for Nigeria and are supportive of your government but feel disappointed with the recent turn of events in the government with particular regard to the fight against corruption.

Mr. President Sir, with the exception of first time voters, most of those who voted for you as President in 2015 did so without much persuasion because of your untainted record of public service exemplified by your almost Spartan lifestyle and incorruptibility at least, by human standards. Your modest lifestyle despite the many plum offices you occupied in the past, attests to your character. Even when you were overthrown as military Head of State, your successor could not fault your honesty. These were the reasons why the then opposition chose you in a most rancour-free primaries as its presidential candidate. With your choice of Prof. Yemi Osinbajo as running mate, it was clear even to the then party in power that their time was up. Truth be told, most of the governors and legislators in the National Assembly and the various state assemblies also rose to power on the strength of your popularity and the fact that they ran on the platform of the same political party as you.

Though the country has been challenged by dwindling economic fortunes since your assumption of power, most Nigerians have been very fair to you in their assessment of the situation. It is obvious to many that the nosedive suffered by the economy was largely due to the mismanagement of our national revenue during boom time. After all, that was the main reason why a majority of Nigerian voters queued behind you on the Election Day. Thankfully, the prudence of your administration in managing the drastically reduced national revenue and the concerted fiscal and monetary policies of your government seem to be reversing the negative growth of our economy and stabilising the fundamentals. What is needed now is for these to be sustained and translate to better standard of living for Nigerians.

However, despite the modest achievements of your Presidency in managing the economy and the degrading of the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East, recent developments in your administration with respect to the fight against corruption and the emergence of new security concerns are dealing telling blows on your personal integrity and diminishing the achievements of your government. For purpose of clarity, let me itemise the most damaging of these developments.

Allegation of abuse of office against the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr. Babachir David Lawal. Though no court of competent jurisdiction convicted the now dismissed SGF, your continued retention of him months after the Yemi Osinbajo committee submitted report of its findings to you has given fillip to the claim of your traducers that your anti-corruption fight is selective. And they have some justification. As President, you have no legal encumbrances in relieving Lawal of his appointment immediately. You are not bound or required by any law to give reasons for the removal of certain categories of political appointees. The Secretary to the Government of the Federation belongs to this category. It is therefore disturbing that it took you that long to fire or clear Lawal. Your earlier decision to suspend him was a confirmation that the allegation against him had some substance. He may not have committed any crime but for a government that thrives on its anti-corruption posture, it should not be seen to condone even the slightest suspicion of misconduct at such a strategic level of leadership.

The National Intelligence Agency slush funds. This issue along with that of the SGF were referred to a committee headed by the Vice President for investigation. It is in the public domain that the committees report was submitted to Your Excellency almost three months ago. Your Excellency Sir, while you were away on medical vacation, many activists pressured the Acting President to take a decision on the matter. However, some of us agreed with the Acting President that he could not in good conscience take a decision on his own report. The reasonable thing was for a decision to be taken after the report has been submitted to you. Unfortunately, no decision was taken on that report for until this week making many to wonder whether there was more than met the eye on that matter.

Reabsorption of Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina. Your Excellency, the news that the erstwhile Chairman of the defunct Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina, has been reinstated into the Federal Civil Service and promoted to a substantive Director in the Ministry of Interior was one sour grape too many. I have no doubt in my mind that those who masterminded Mainas recall did so clandestinely knowing full well that you would never have sanctioned such impunity. Your swift directive that Maina be immediately sacked might be well-intentioned but is too inadequate a response to an issue of such magnitude. Indeed, Maina may successfully challenge your directive in a court of law as not following due process. However, there are those whose dismissals are not only desirable but also not subject to legal challenge in court. Those who authorised Mainas recall should be given the boot. Anything short of this, Mr. President, cannot be defended by us, your unrepentant supporters.

Menace of herdsmen. Your governments achievement in restoring peace and order in the North-East states of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa are being dwarfed by the murderous activities of herdsmen across the country. The premeditated killings and maiming going on in the name of cattle grazing is mind-boggling. Sadly, the response of security agencies to these incessant killings leaves much to be desired. Your perceived indifference to the issue and the impunity of the herdsmen have made many to believe they are being protected because they share ethnic affinity with Your Excellency. Not a few people wonder how such terror can be unleashed on fellow citizens by the herdsmen without the active connivance of state apparatus. Your Excellency, it is gratifying that you have condemned in the strongest of terms the most recent killings in Plateau State and ordered that the criminals be fished out. I appeal that this order must not only be fully and consistently complied with, but culprits should be made to face the full wrath of the law.

It is my belief that your prompt response to the issues raised above will allay the fears of many Nigerians that your government has been hijacked by the enemies within and restore their confidence in your ability to take decisive actions at critical moments.

Please, accept the assurances of my highest regards, Sir.

Citizen Yemi Mapaderun, Badagry, Lagos

+234 808 502 9191
Michelle Obama, Former First Lady of United State said at the first Obama Foundation international summit which held on Wednesday, the 1st of November that parents were the ones who created gener inequality by raising their children differently.

She was of the opinion that men are raised to be babies and protected by women , who are brought up to be strong.

The First Lady also asserted that that men are entitled and self-righteous because women protect them too much.

The couples plans to invite civic leaders to Chicago for a summit was primarily in order for them to exchange ideas and plan ways to solve some of the worlds common problems.

The former president said the summit would bring hundreds of leaders from all around the world for a hands-on exchange of ideas. and this is exactly what happened.

Here are some interesting things Michelle said in her chat.

1. On her parents helping her to grow beyond racism

My parents helped us to grow. They were raised in the Jim Crow period but they encouraged us to rise above being black.

2. On her marriage to Barrack

Michelle asserted that she and her husband make a powerful team and work so well together because he operates with his head while she operates with her heart.

3. On the cause of gender strife in the world

Its like the problem in the world today is we love our boys, and we raise our girls,

4. On how men are raised

We raise them to be strong, and sometimes we take care not to hurt men  and I think we pay for that a little bit.

5. On how people think girls should be perfect

Are we protecting our men too much so they feel a little entitled and self-righteous sometimes? But, thats kind of on us too as women and mothers, as we nurture men and push girls to be perfect.

6. On women befriending women

Yall should get you some friends, And talk to each other, because thats the other thing [women] do  we straighten each other out on some things, our girlfriends.

7. On raising children

We have to raise our children to be compassionate and that is not different with sexes. Our view is that parents should encourage their kids to be responsible

We have the full video below;

https://youtu.be/jxA1aDESUvs

source: Fabwoman.ng
Ucoms mobile customers will benefit from the best internet roaming rate of 8 AMD/MB when travelling to Georgia, Egypt or the UAE

Ameriabank Launches Google Pay and Google Wallet Support for Card Users in Armenia

Karen Vardanyan donated 112 million drams for the medical equipment for National Center for Infectious Diseases.

UCOM HAS INTRODUCED FUTURE NETWORK WI-FI 6E ROUTERS

Statement by the Spokesperson on the conflict resolution and reconciliation efforts

Foreign Minister of Armenia to participate in the Fifth Paris Peace Forum

Armenia: EU and Armenia Hold annual Dialogue on Human Rights

Todays Shushi, Occupied and Cleared of Armenians, is a Real Example of Turkish-Azerbaijani Policy of Ethnic Cleansing of Artsakh

Ookla, the the global leader in internet testing and analysis has awarded Ucom

Sweden will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union

Ameriabank: At the Vanguard of Armenia's Banking Sector

STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARTSAKH

SUBSCRIBERS OF UCOMS ALL TIME BEST OFFER TO ENJOY ADDITIONAL BENEFITS

Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders

PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces

There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan

Google Ad

Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia

Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair

Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan

I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General

I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox

UCOMS SPECIAL OFFER OF THE UNLIMITED INTERNET IS NOW TERMLESS

There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022

Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully

The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces
Anok Yai, a student at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire is getting ready to pursue the modeling career of her dreams.

The Sudanese black beauty was in Washington, D.C. last two weekend for the Howard Homecoming festivities when she was spotted by photographer Steven Hall who was taking photos of guests.

In an interview with The Boston Globe, the 19-year-old South Sudanese student admitted that she thought it was an average photo and that shed possibly gain a few new followers from the post. However, after receiving thousands of likes, the photo went viral.

My phone just started vibrating rapidly for a long, long time, Yai told The Boston Globe. At first, I honestly thought someone made a meme of me or something.

Yai was contacted by several modeling agencies and on Tuesday, October 2, she signed with Next Models.

Yai, whos studying biochemistry, is planning to pursue modeling part-time while she continues college.

It was a dream that I always wanted, but I wasnt sure if it was going to happen, she told The Boston Globe.

Source: Linda Ikejis blog
It has been revealed that a computer recovered from Osama bin Ladens compound in 2011 contained a vast video collection including childrens cartoons and documentaries about himself.

According to Reuters, the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released a list of material found on the computer, which was taken during the military operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed the al Qaeda leader.

Among the 470,000 or so files, the fourth collection to be made public by the US were videos such as childrens films Antz and Cars along with games such as Final Fantasy VII. There were three documentaries on the computer about bin Laden, one was called Where in the World is Osama bin Laden.

His sons wedding video was also among the collection. Some of the material has not been released due to fears of breaching national security, the files were corrupted, or because they were pornographic.

CIA director Mike Pompeo said: Todays release of recovered al Qaeda letters, videos, audio files and other materials provides the opportunity for the American people to gain further insights into the plans and workings of this terrorist organisation.

CIA will continue to seek opportunities to share information with the American people consistent with our obligation to protect national security. The release also includes 18,000 documents, including bin Ladens journal, about 79,000 audio and image files and more than 10,000 videos.

The CIA said the material gave an insight into the differences between al Qaeda and Islamic State. It said they also revealed disagreements within the group and its allies and the problems it faced at the time of the death of its leader.

Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio, of think tank Defence of Democracies, were allowed to study the trove before it was made public. Mr Roggio said: These documents will go a long way to help fill in some of the blanks we still have about al Qaedas leadership.

Source  Kemifilani
Chima Okoroji has revealed the reasons why he was involved in a serious quarrel with popular Nollywood actress, Tonto Dikeh.



Nollywood producer and director of Hooked, Chima Okoroji aka Nwa Chineke, has reminisced on his relationship with actress Tonto Dikeh, and how it has been sour between them since then.

In an interview with the Entertainer, the producer on the eve of the release of his latest movie, Breaking Call in Liberia opened up on what caused the quarrel between him and Tonto.

How do you endure the pain of movie production?

First is the passion, if there is passion there is always endurance. I dont usually complain of my work because I know what it entails before delving into it.

How do you cope with female admirers?

First, you have to be focused and every other thing comes second. I dont allow anything to distract me when I am working. There will be distraction from all sides but if managed well you will get the best from them

Which artiste have you crushed on in Nollywood?

That is a very difficult one. We are all like family on set. So, it is hard to have anything for them. The only person that has come to distract me on stage is Tonto Dike. It led to a misunderstanding with her but I stood my ground and didnt cave in. We were taught that as a director, if you cant keep emotion aside and gather your artiste; then you cant be a director. We are all equal on set. When any talent goes beyond the space I give, I show them the kind of person I am.

What did you do to Tonto Dike?

I tried several times to caution her in a very soft way. As a director, you have to know how to pamper your artiste. If you dont pamper them, they would not give you the best. It does not mean that pampering works all the time, some talents are stubborn and as such pride stops them from learning. Tonto thought nobody can talk to her, and as far as I am concerned in this industry, she is a kid to me.

It was said that once you sleep with a girl she gets role?

Definitely people will say all kinds of things but I dont buy that. It may be happening, yes, but it is not for me. I believe that any girl who is very good, no director needs to sleep with her before getting roles. I go for the best. If I see that a girl is very good, I would want to have her on my set. On the long run, if I ask her out and she gives a negative reply, am I going to force her? What I am interested in is her interpreting the role well.

Most times some of these girls are not good and they feel they can sell their bodies to get roles, and when they do that, the director will still go for the best. If any girl throws herself at me, I will welcome her and if I dont have any role for her, then it is story.

If an actress is beautiful, it is an advantage because she will be an asset for any director, but when she cant deliver, she would just be wastage irrespective of how popular she later turns out to be. I will advice her to just learn how to act, no one is born with the talent, it can be learnt, the beautiful girl should go and learn how to act.

Source  Tori
In collaboration with Lost in Lagos, Visa West Africa kicks off Visa Restaurant Week, which will be happening in the beautiful cosmopolitan city from the 1st  21st November 2017. Visa Restaurant Week is about getting access to the largest selection of unforgettable dining experiences that Lagos has to offer at unbelievable prices, a complete foodie paradise. Three weeks of restaurants opening their doors to customers to try lunch, dinner and fine dining options at highly discounted prices.

Targeted at lovers of food, curiosity and adventure, Visa Restaurant Week provides people with the perfect opportunity to sample the best cuisine the Lagos food scene has to offer this November, with friends and loved ones.

With over Over 30 diverse and exciting menus to choose from, Visa Restaurant week is open exclusively to Visa card holders and mVisa users. So all you have to do is walk into any of the participating restaurants with your visa card or mVisa integrated banking app and request the special menu on offer. mVisa is the new revolutionary mobile payment solution from Visa, for more information follow the link https://www.visa.com.ng/pay-with-visa/featured-technologies/mvisa.html.

Free vouchers from Lost in Lagos are available, to stand a chance of winning, customers can follow Lost in Lagos on instagram at @LostinLagos12 or @Tukemorgan. Also at the end of the program, the best performing restaurants and staff with the most positive reviews will be given awards.

For more information on the restaurants participating and special menus available, visit www.lostinlagos.com. You can follow the Visa Restaurant Week by following and tweeting at @VisaNigeria on twitter and @LostinLagos12 on instagram with the hashtag #VRW.
SmartStop Asset Management LLC, a diversified real estate company that manages 108 self-storage facilities in Canada and the United States, has appointed Ken Morrison to chief operations officer for self-storage. Morrison has been with SmartStop since 2011 and was promoted from his role as senior vice president of operations, according to a press release.

Ken is a consummate professional with two decades of experience in managing, operating and maximizing revenue for self-storage portfolios, said H. Michael Schwartz, founder, chairman and CEO. He is an exceptional leader and a key member of our executive management, who will continue to play a key role in our ongoing growth.

Prior to SmartStop, Morrison spent 14 years with self-storage real estate investment trust Public Storage Inc., rising to senior vice president of Northeast operations. In this role, he was responsible for more than 300 facilities in 11 states that generated more than $335 million in annual revenue.

Morrison attended West Valley College in Saratoga, Calif., as well as the Center for Creative Leadership in San Diego.

SmartStop has approximately $1.3 billion of real estate under management. Its self-storage portfolio comprises about 7.9 million rentable square feet. Its also the sponsor of Strategic Storage Growth Trust Inc., Strategic Storage Trust II Inc. and Strategic Storage Trust IV Inc., all public non-traded REITs focused on self-storage assets.
StorageMart, which operates more than 190 self-storage properties across Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, has inducted two employees from its Colchester, England, facility to its Wall of Fame, which recognizes staff who exemplify the company's core values of easy, clean, service. James Dale and Rhys Peck were each awarded a service pin, and their signatures will be hung on the Wall of Fame board at the companys headquarters in Columbia, Mo., according to a press release.

"Both Rhys and James have a strong sense of pride and ownership over store cleanliness and performance, and manage to have a lot of fun along the way, said Debbie Robinson, regional manager for StorageMart in the U.K.

StorageMart expanded its footprint in the U.K. last year with the acquisition of Big Box Storage Centres for 100 million. The portfolio includes 15 locations in Southern England comprising 674,756 square feet in 9,655 units.

Peck has worked for the Colchester location since it opened. Dale joined the company in January. Together, the team has played a key role in transforming the facility under the rebranding and embraced its pledge to provide excellent service, the release stated.

"StorageMart asked a lot of our U.K. team when we purchased Big Box Storage Centres and raised the bar for customer service and cleanliness. By and large, our team members have embraced our commitment to service, said Cris Burnam, president of StorageMart. Rhys and James stood out as having gone the extra mile, turning the Colchester storage facility into a top-notch property. It's my pleasure to recognize and thank them for the hard work they've done."

Founded in 1999 and based in Columbia, Mo., StorageMart is privately owned and operated by the Burnam family, which has been in the storage industry for three generations. Its portfolio consists of more than 12 million square feet of storage. It serves more than 75,000 self-storage customers, and operates in Chinese, English, Punjabi, Quebecois French and Spanish.
Most brokers are accustomed to early starts and long hours but thats not the case for one firm, where employees work a four-day week and are free to start when they like.Ben Webster is the founder of travel insurance platform Insured by Us  he says the firm is a remote-first company where employees are empowered to work in a way that suits them best.It all started from a purely selfish standpoint because I had children and I wanted flexibility so I could be around and they could know who I was, Webster tells Insurance Business.This morning, I didnt get in until 10.30 because I went to the beach and dropped the kids off at school, he continues. That means I might work late tonight but I got to spend all morning with them  it was beautiful.Webster, who is also the Sydney lead for newly-launched Insurtech Australia, says employees also feel comfortable making the most of the perk because they see leaders taking advantage of it too.We bake that culture in from the start so that makes a big difference, he says.As well as ingrained flexibility, Webster says employees are free to work from where they like  whether thats in the Sydney office, out of state or even overseas.In fact, one team member recently came to work and announced shed be moving to Broome.Her partner got a job in indigenous health and she knew that her job wasnt in jeopardy so they were able to go, says Webster. She packed up her house on Friday, her day off, and was at her desk in Broome on Monday with absolutely no hit to productivity at all.However, Webster says the organisation is only able to function effectively under these circumstances because it has a remote mindset.We have systems in place and we call ourselves a remote-first company so that its baked into every single thing that we do, he tells insurance Business. We think in a remote-first way, in every meeting we have and in every kind of communication we have, we always make sure that we can communicate across time zones and asynchronously.While the approach relies on a lot of trust, Webster says the rewards are well worth it.That trust gets repaid in so many different ways  primarily in retention, he says. Losing staff is so costly in terms of the knowledge thats walking out of the door, then theres replacement costs as well.Recruitment has also been made significantly easier as a result of the unique workplace approach.Employees are demanding more flexibility and the companies that offer it find it a lot easier to hire people, he says. I dont really have any trouble filling positions whenever we need them  whenever a position becomes available, I have a queue of people who are keen to change the way they work.
Legal & General is tapping a new market, whose ageing population could drive growth for the firms retirement business.



Weve just got approval from the Japanese regulator  youll see us win business very quickly, said L&G chief executive Nigel Wilson, as quoted by Reuters. We are evolving. America and Japan, given the size of the markets there, are two great opportunities for us.



Search and compare insurance product listings for Fiduciary Liability from specialty market providers here



According to Wilson, who was interviewed by the news agency, the operation in Japan will start off with around six employees to offer investment management and company pension scheme insurance. The report also cited a spokesperson for the British insurer who said retail pensions will not be part of the Japanese unit.



In 2013 Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) entered Asia Pacific by putting up Legal & General Investment Management Asia Ltd (LGIMA). Wilson noted that LGIM currently sells funds to Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese customers without local operations in those markets.



One of the biggest asset managers in Europe, LGIM has total assets of US$1.2 trillion as of June 30, 2017, including those managed by LGIMA.





Related stories:

Legal & General to bid for $16 billion Prudential business - report
London, UK-based TheJudge Group Holdings Limited has just opened its litigation finance and litigation risk-sharing insurance businesses in Canada.



The broker acquired a team of litigation insurance specialists from Canadian boutique broker Justice Risk Solutions, which specializes in arranging adverse costs, disbursement financing and after-the-event insurance in the personal injury and medical malpractice space.



Dont miss our exclusive CE webinar, Climate Change in Insurance: How to Sell Catastrophic Coverage



The Canadian arm, operating under TheJudge Canada Limited, will offer attorney fee insurance and contingency fee insurance.



A large portion of medium- to large-sized commercial enterprises still elect to self-finance their legal disputes, notwithstanding the potential for external funding, commented Nick Robson, TheJudge vice-president and general counsel. However, that doesnt mean they need to carry the litigation risk exposure. Its now possible for the client to insure the fees and expenses claimants pay their external counsel against the risk of losing a case.



Search and compare product listings for Insurance Brokers from specialty market providers here



According to the company, TheJudge brokers policies with large specialist international insurers who can insure 40-70% of a law firms budgeted legal fees if the case is lost. This insurance is available to law firms for matters taken on either a full or partial contingency basis. The premium is only paid if the law firm is successful in collecting the contingency fee.





Related stories:

SCC to hear lawyers liability case regarding non-legal referrals

Winnipeg fires lawyer over bungled multi-million lawsuit
In recent years there has been an explosion of tech advancements that have the ability to make broking insurance easier, faster, and, therefore, more profitable.



But with so many different innovations, systems, and approaches available, the choice of what to invest in and how to apply it to your business can be overwhelming.



Celebrate excellence in insurance. Join us for the Insurance Business Awards in Chicago.



Thats why we asked some experts to tell us what they think are the best things an agency can invest in to make business better. These are the things agencies should not being doing business without in todays marketplace.



Comparative raters



Laird Rixford, president of ITC, said a comparative rater for an agencys website is the must-have in-house tech innovation.



There have been comparative raters since the mid-1980s, so why is that a must-have now? When you look at insurtech, and the industry going forward, its about pricing, its about making sure youre providing the right price and value for your consumer so they wont feel like they have to continue to shop, he explained. They want to feel like theyve received the right number of quotes, and theyve been compared against multiple carriers.



Traditionally, comparative raters have been focused on personal lines. But one of the newest movements is having comparative raters ... that do commercial lines.



Rixford said the comparative raters should be available for agents to use, but should also be available on agency websites for customers to use on their own.



According to a study by IVANS, comparative raters provide a more accurate quote, they allow [agents] to respond to a customer quickly, they allow them to quote more insurers per customer, and all of that ultimately drives them to the right price for the consumer, he said.



And making it available to the consumer on the website gives them the ability to quote and possibly even purchase that policy without ever having to speak to an agent. It gives the consumer the choice to transact business where, when, and however they want to  its meeting the needs of the consumer  that wants to buy online. Thats a growing segment of the market.



Even with the ability for consumers to buy directly off an agency website, however, the agents can still generate their broking fees, Rixford said. Which makes it a win-win for agents and customers.



Any competent comparative rater that you can place on your website, it has the ability for you to attach broker fees and to add on products  to make sure youre monetizing that traffic on your website, he explained.



Workflow automation



Derek Armentrout, senior product manager at EZ Lynx, said agencies were making life more difficult for themselves by not using some sort of workflow automation system.



There are a ton of different things that I would say are critical [for agencies to be employing], but Ill focus on workflow automation, he said. Workflow automation is, to me, at the simple level, your system automatically sending out notifications, creating emails, creating tasks, registering notes  taking away some of the manual data entry you need to do.



At a more advanced level, you can start to add in actual multi-step workflow processes, with custom actions. [You can, for example,] have policy trees within, where a policy gets renewed in one line of business, we want to route that to this department, this document, and file it in this directory, and send it over for billing.



Armentrout said the most important consequences of a good workflow automation system are greater efficiencies and better task prioritization.

As commission rates continue to get tighter you need to milk every dollar out of it as an independent agent, he noted. Being able to automate some of these things is really critical for being efficient.



The thing for agencies to do is look at their processes and ask, What do I have staff doing repeatable stuff that they do every day or every month  and how much of that can we automate? If theyre spending a couple of hours a day [doing those tasks], and now suddenly you can handle 90% of that automatically, thats time every day youve just saved.



Web/mobile site



Jerry Fox, principal of client market strategy at CoreLogic, said the one thing that too many agencies still arent up-to-date with is having a good user-friendly mobile enabled website.



There is a sub-group out there, he said, who maintain that they are relationship companies, and they actively avoid using technology to interact with customers, preferring solely face-to-face or phone interactions. But theyre living in the past, Fox said.



First and foremost, you have to meet the customers needs.



In todays market, many of [your] relations are built on electronic means, he explained. You need an enabled site that allows for two-way communication  and it has to be effective on a mobile device. Because if youre doing anything today without [a mobile platform], thats braindead.



Too many agencies have bland, unimpressive, non-functioning websites.



Theyre brochures. Theyre electronic brochures, thats all they are, Fox said. The good news, in this industry, is there are opportunities out there to get your websites created and get the technology moving rather inexpensively.



I dont think the industry is doing enough to address the wants and needs of the consumer. Were still dragging our feet, and usually dragging some kind of legacy technology with us.





Do you have an issue you wish to discuss or see featured in our market analysis section? Reach out to Sam Boyer now  [email protected]


Forced into a corner by surging claims costs, AIG has funneled an additional $840 million into its reserves.The move is a reflection of the companys struggles as it attempts to stage a turnaround under the new leadership of CEO Brian Duperreault.AIGs shares by market capitalization dropped 3.6% in after-hours trading on Thursday after it posted Q3 losses that were over 50% wider than projected.The insurer also saw huge losses thanks to recent severe weather events; Hurricanes Harvey and Irma together cost AIG about $3 billion. And unlike other insurers, the company got limited benefit from catastrophe reinsurance. Each storm cost AIG less than $1.5 billion which, unfortunately for the insurer, is the level at which reinsurance applies.Although AIG had disclosed its losses from the hurricanes, it is the strengthening of reserves to cover much older policies that has analysts worried the most.Continuous adverse development in commercial lines, in conjunction with the lack of a tangible improvement plan, will continue to lead investors to avoid this name, Buckingham Research Group Amit Kumar told Financial Times.At the time the older policies were sold, claims costs were higher than AIG had anticipated. The $5.6 billion charge that the insurer took earlier this year to help cover the costs led to the dismissal of the companys previous CEO, Peter Hancock.The latest reserve charge is equivalent to only 1.3% of AIGs overall commercial reserves.AIGs charge was based on additional information that became available in the third quarter through our quarterly reserve review, which primarily related to the 2016 accident year, CEO Duperreault said in a statement.We are laser focused on commercial underwriting, he continued. We will continue to execute on our strategy to better position AIG for long-term profitable growth.
Report sheds light on why insurance in the state is only deceptively affordable
California insurance commissioner Dave Jones has approved the filing of the states first commercial insurance company that covers the cannabis business.With the approval, Golden Bear Insurance can now begin writing policies and offering coverage for cannabis business owners, spokesman Erik Olsen told Reuters.Major insurers have typically shied away from covering the cannabis industry out of fear of reprisal from federal authorities.Earlier this year, Commissioner Jones launched an initiative to encourage commercial insurers to fill the insurance coverage gaps of the cannabis industry.Our mission remains insurance protection for all Californians, which includes insurance for Californias legalized cannabis businesses and customers, Jones said.Recreational cannabis is currently legal in eight states across the US. In California, the production and possession of marijuana was legalized just last year. As the industry expands and more states legalize cannabis, it is expected that more insurers would welcome clients in the recreational drug business.
The Coalition for Competitive Insurance Rates (CCIR) has released a statement in response to the tax plan recently revealed by Congresss House Ways and Means Committee, arguing that the proposal to tax global reinsurers is counterproductive and could ultimately hurt American consumers.As Texas, Florida and other states, as well as Puerto Rico, continue efforts to rebuild in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, it is unfathomable that the House Ways and Means Committee  chaired by Texas Republican Kevin Brady  would propose in its tax plan a measure that will shrink competition in the insurance marketplace and increase the cost of insurance coverage for consumers, the statement opened.Pushing a Made-in-America requirement for insurance is counterproductive when it comes to disaster risk, the CCIR explained, noting that foreign insurers would be hit the hardest by the proposed Disaster Recovery Assistance Tax.When it comes to extreme risk, all insurance companies, US and foreign-based, use reinsurance in order to most efficiently and safely pool catastrophic and other risks and match capital to support those risks, it said. Such pooling diversifies risk into a global portfolio providing substantial price and capacity benefits to insurance markets globally.Taxing global reinsurers as a means to provide a competitive advantage to US-based insurance companies is a very risky and unnecessary move, the industry group added.The CCIR said that global reinsurers are expected to pay over 50% of the US losses from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. But under the Disaster Recovery Assistance Tax, consumer prices could surge by $100 per policyholder in some states in order to maintain the same level of coverage, thus negating any benefit consumers might have had through the plan.While the goal of advancing meaningful tax reform is to be commended, inclusion of a proposal to tax the global reinsurance market will raise revenue at the expense of American homeowners and businesses who continue to struggle from recent natural disasters, CCIR stated.We call on lawmakers to put American consumers first  ax the disaster recovery assistance tax.
With headquarters in Quito, Ecuadors capital, PROFILE has been a major firm in Ecuador for the last twenty years. The firms team is comprised of tax and legal professionals specialising in domestic and international tax, transfer pricing and corporate law.

The tax team at FIDESBURo is based in Guayaquil, the largest city in Ecuador, and offers advice covering a wide range of sectors such as construction, real estate, manufacturing, shipping and logistics.

The two firms are undergoing a merger to become FidesProfile.

Since its relaunch in 2014, Andersen Global has expanded its reach in Latin America to encompass firms in Brazil and Uruguay. The group now has a presence in 71 locations and employs 2,200 professionals worldwide.
What Is an Indirect Quote?

The term indirect quote is a currency quotation in the foreign exchange market that expresses the variable amount of foreign currency required to buy or sell one unit of the domestic currency. An indirect quote is also known as a quantity quotation, since it expresses the quantity of foreign currency required to buy units of the domestic currency. In other words, the domestic currency is the base currency in an indirect quote, while the foreign currency is the counter currency.

Key Takeaways An indirect quote in the foreign exchange markets expresses the amount of foreign currency required to buy or sell one unit of the domestic currency.

An indirect quote is also known as a quantity quotation, since it expresses the quantity of foreign currency required to buy a unit of the domestic currency.

The opposite of an indirect quote is a direct quote which expresses the price of one unit of a foreign currency in terms of variable number of units of the domestic currency.

1:15 Indirect Quote

Understanding Indirect Quotes

An indirect quote is the opposite, or reciprocal, of a direct quote, also known as a price quotation, which expresses the price of one unit of a foreign currency in terms of a variable number of units of the domestic currency.

As the U.S. dollar (USD) is the dominant currency in global foreign exchange markets, the convention is to generally use direct quotes that have the U.S. dollar as the base currency and other currencieslike the Canadian dollar (CAD), Japanese yen (JPY) and Indian rupee (INR)as the counter currency. Exceptions to this rule are the euro and Commonwealth currencies like the British pound (GBP), Australian dollar (AUD) and New Zealand dollar (NZD), which are typically quoted in indirect form (for example GBP 1 = USD 1.30).

Consider the example of the CAD, which we assume is trading at 1.2500 to the U.S. dollar. In Canada, the indirect form of this quote would be C$1 = US$0.8000 (i.e. 1/1.2500). However, the conventional quotation in foreign exchange markets is 1.2500, which is an indirect quote from the U.S. perspective because it shows how much of a foreign currency (CAD) is required to get 1 USD. Conversely, USD 0.8000 would be a direct quote.

In an indirect quote, a lower exchange rate implies that the domestic currency is depreciating, or becoming weaker. Continuing with the above example, if the USD/CAD quotation now changes to US$1 = C$1.2300 (indirect quote), then that means the USD (domestic currency) has gotten weaker as less CAD would be needed to get 1 USD. The direct quote, which is 0.8130 (1/1.2300), shows that 1 CAD will get you USD 0.8130, as opposed to 0.8000.

Currency Crosses

What about cross-currency rates, which express the price of one currency in terms of a currency other than the U.S. dollar? A trader or investors should first ascertain which type of quotation is being useddirect or indirectto price the cross-rate accurately.

For example, if USD/JPY is quoted at 100, and USD/CAD is quoted at 1.2700, what is the quotation of CAD/JPY from both the Canadian and Japanese perspectives.

CAD/JPY (conventional quote) = USD/JPY  USD/CAD

So, if domestic currency is CAD then

1 CAD (indirect) = 100  1.2700 = 78.74 JPY

and

if domestic currency is JPY then

So, 1 JPY (indirect) = 1.2700  100 = 0.0127 CAD
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Breaking EV Stock News: Mullen's (NASDAQ: MULN) 'Strikingly Different' EV Crossover Tour Heads to Texas After Completing a Successful Sold Out Stop in Las Vegas

BREA, Calif. - November 15, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Mullen Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ: MULN), an emerging electric vehicle ("EV") manufacturer, announces today that it has successfully completed the third stop of the Mullen FIVE Strikingly Different EV Crossover Tour in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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Armenian President is amazed with Indias success

Within the framework of his working visit to India, President Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia on Friday met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. At the beginning of the talk, PM Modi expressed the hope that President Sargsyans current visit to India will give new impetus to Armenian-Indian relations. Sargsyan, for his part, presented his impressions of the World Food India 2017 conference and exhibition, which opened in the morning in New Delhi. In addition, the Armenian President stressed that he is amazed at the success of India, which is considered one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and added that Armenia is interested in making relations with India grow deeper. He likewise expressed the hope that his visit to India will give new impetus to the Armenian-Indian friendship. The interlocutors expressed a conviction that despite the high level of mutual relations, there is a great potential for development between the two friendship countries. Separately, the President noted that Armenia stands ready to provide favorable conditions for the Indian companies activities in the country, also considering Armenias membership in the Eurasian Economic Union. President Serzh Sargsyan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi noted that there is active cooperation between the two countries, in multilateral formats, too. Furthermore, the interlocutors reflected on the present-day situation and challenges in South Caucasus, including the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. At the end of the talk, President Serzh Sargsyan signed the honorary guestbook.
The Irish Tatler Man Men of the Year Awards winners were announced today at a special luncheon in The Gibson Hotel, Dublin.

The Defence Forces were awarded overall Man of the Year while Christy Dignam was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Almost two hundred guests from sport, comedy, literature, music, public life and business gathered to watch as 14 awards were presented to Irish men for their achievements in their respective fields.

Speaking of the event, the third of its kind, Ciaran Casey, CEO of Harmonia said: It is such a necessity to have an awards of this kind, one that honours the men of Ireland who have, and continue to make, a difference. Not only do they act as an inspiration to the next generation but light the way for those who are forging ahead in a similar field.

"At this time in history, more than ever before, it feels like we need to celebrate those who are exceptional, inspirational and role models. For a small island we have so many heroes deserving of recognition and we at Irish Tatler Man are proud to celebrate these great men. We are also delighted to partner with Mens Sheds for the third year; the organisation offers a vital life line to hundreds of men in communities around Ireland.

The awards ceremony supported the Irish Mens Sheds Association, a community project that allows men of all ages to come together and discuss their lives, issues, and health in an open and safe environment with their peers.

WINNERS:

Irish Tatler Man Overall Man of the Year: Oglaigh na hEireann (Defence Forces Ireland)

Hall of Fame: Christy Dignam

Social Entrepreneur: John Kearney

Most Stylish Man sponsored by Arnotts: James Patrice

One to Watch sponsored by Raymond Weil: Chef Adrian Martin

Music: Rusangano Family

Comedy: Jarlath Regan

Sport sponsored by Nature Valley: Joe Canning

Drama: Sean McGinley

Media sponsored by No7: Sean ORourke

Special Achievement sponsored by Toyota Sandyford: Dublin GAA Senior Football Team

Film sponsored by Cullen & Co: John Butler

Literature: John Connolly

Special Recognition: Paddy Armstrong
Update 6.25pm: SIPTU firefighters have renewed their demand for fire assessments in all properties following the extent of the risks in some buildings being highlighted once again in a documentary broadcast on RTE last night.

SIPTU Sector Organiser, Brendan OBrien, said SIPTU representatives have consistently called for proper robust risk assessments to be conducted nationally, particularly given the safety issues arising from the prevalent self certification culture.

"Such robust risk assessments take place in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom, where they basically ask what is behind the front door and identify particular hazards.

Mr O'Brien was speaking as the deputy chief executive with Dublin City Council said it was currently dealing with 25 cases of overcrowding and substandard conditions in private rented accommodation

SIPTU National Retained Firefighter Committee Chair, Ciaran Scallon, said that SIPTU repeatedly called for the introduction of an extensive and thorough programme of fire assessments of all properties at meetings of the Fire Services National Oversight and Implementation Group.

"However, these calls have met stiff resistance from the management side, who have recently refused to even carry out a pilot project of fire based risk assessments in Cork, Dublin and Limerick.

#RTEInvestigates 'I've no shower since before Christmas ... There's holes in the floor, yep. I think there's mice in there as well.' pic.twitter.com/ilFL5Ia85v  RTE News (@rtenews) November 2, 2017

Dublin Fire Brigade Convenor, Shane McGill, said it was clear that the fire risks in cities in particular have changed substantially and the fire service needs to respond accordingly.

"We are now dealing with multi-occupancy dwellings the likes of which have not been seen since the time of the tenements. As shown in the programme, there are many people living in these overcrowded and clearly unsafe units. Adding to the problem is the large amount of combustible material evident in these dwellings. In addition, height restrictions have also been lifted on building in the city, which will lead to more high rise.

SIPTU National Full-time Firefighters Chair, Noel Heaney, concluded by suggetsing that operational fire prevention staffing numbers have not increased since the outcome of the Stardust fire enquiry and urgently need to be increased in order to conduct fire safety inspections of buildings.

"It is time now for the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Eoghan Murphy, to directly intervene and ensure an adequate programme of fire assessments supported by proper resources and investment is introduced immediately.

Responding to the programme this evening the Social Protection Minister, Regina Doherty, said she wants increased inspection of rental properties.

The Minister Regina Doherty says it was unacceptable to have renters living in such unsafe conditions in the capital.

"People need to be able to be sure they are living in a particular standard of property that at the very least is safe"

Earlier: Dublin Mayor calls for immediate review of housing inspection policies

Dublins Lord Mayor has said he is unhappy with the failure of Dublin City Council to respond to inadequate accommodation in the Capital.

His comments comes as an RTEs Prime Time investigation highlighted dangerous overcrowding at a property in Crumlin.

RTE Investigates Nightmare to Let, which was six months in the making, showed that in some counties 100% of properties failed inspections and three

multiple occupancy buildings located in Crumlin, Kilmainham and Rathmines, with more than 120 tenants between them have since been closed after inspection by Dublin Fire Brigade.

#RTEInvestigates 'When it would rain, the rain would come in through the roof, in through the electrics in the bathroom.' pic.twitter.com/X0VX4HsAoN  RTE News (@rtenews) November 2, 2017

The programme conteined revelations that Dublin City Council was informed of the risks four times before it responded.

Micheal Mac Donncha said it was not acceptable.

"That is why I have asked for a detailed report from the Chief executive. It should never be allowed to happen ever again.

"We also have to acknowledge that the inspection regime is not sufficient because we dont have sufficient inspectors ..."

Meanwhile, reacting to the programme this afternoon Dublin City Councillor Eilis Ryan called for City Council CEO Owen Keegan to resign.

Commenting on the situation, the Workers Party councillor said there was absolute clarity that ultimate accountability lay with the CEO.

Cllr Ryan suggested, however, what was of more importance was to finally address the worsening housing crisis which was enabling exploitation of tenants and the establishment of a fund to ensure landlords paid for an expanded scheme of inspections, and to fund accommodation for tenants who are evicted due to fire safety issues in their current homes.

It is essential that regulation and inspection drives up standards in this sector. And equally, it is essential that any tenant who is forced out of their home because of a fire safety notice, has immediate access to alternative suitable accommodation.

But it must be landlords - not the state or council - who picks up the tab.
Update 5.10pm: The Government says it does not support any visit to North Korea by a parliamentary delegation.

Earlier today Minister of State John Halligan said he wants to meet with the leader of the secretive state - Kim Jong-un - in a bid to calm nuclear tensions.

The Waterford TD has written to the North Korean embassy in London requesting a visit - but has yet to hear back.

In a statement the Department of Foreign Affairs has said Minister Coveney has spoken with Minister Halligan and officials will provide him with a full briefing on North Korea next week.

Independent Alliance want to head off to North Korea to deliver world peace. World Police, anyone?  pic.twitter.com/razFN058Ne  The Labour Party (@labour) November 3, 2017

Update 4pm: 'North Korea peace mission' proves divisive

Revelations that three independent government ministers wish to lead a peace mission to North Korea have proved divisive.

On radio and social media many have lauded the attempts as a valid and worthwhile attempt to kick start dialogue in an increasingly dangerous stand off.

North Korea accuses the United States of a "nuclear strike drill" after bomber flights conduct a flyover https://t.co/F6kGWpjTsx pic.twitter.com/qZvaFZL3Wx  CNN (@CNN) November 3, 2017

Others have responded to the news with derision and described the move as self serving.

This afternoon Fianna Fail Spokesperson on Science, Technology, Research and Development, James Lawless has said that Minister Halligans pilgrimage to his former Workers Party paradise, North Korea is an embarrassing act of self-importance.

Minister Halligan may have shed his Workers Party label for that of Independent, but its abundantly clear that despite his public transformation, his heart still pines for the 1980s fundraising trips members of his former party enjoyed to the failed communist dictatorship.

The Independent Alliance Ministers have a habit of going off on tangents and ignoring their roles and duties as Ministers.

Minister Halligan should be using his office and platform to advocate for research and development funding for higher education institutions.

How is he happy with a situation where just one Irish institution ranked in the Top 200 in the world this year, when Scotland with broadly the same population had five in the Top 200?

His colleague, Minister Shane Ross is also clearly undergoing a public transformation in his own right. It wasnt that long ago when he was the most high profile cheerleader of the capitalist right in this country. Yet, he is now joining in on the pilgrimage to Halligans communist paradise.

Shane Ross should stay put in Ireland, and do his job. Only this week, Irelands Rugby World Cup bid suffered a major setback, and we have had the first in a series of Irish Rail strikes that will severely hamper Irish commuters.

The Independent Alliance has long attempted to portray itself as both a political party and as a group of independents. Now it seems its Ministers are now attempting to pretend they arent Government ministers, even though they clearly are, and must follow normal protocols.

My advice to Ministers Halligan, Ross and McGrath is: do the job the Irish people have entrusted you to do, and leave international diplomacy to the likes of the UN and the EU, concluded Lawless.

Earlier: Government Minister wants to lead a peace mission to North Korea.

John Halligan has written to the North Korean Embassy in London seeking to visit the state.

Independent Alliance ministers want to meet with Kim Jong-un in January or February, in a bid to calm nuclear tensions.

Mr Halligan has said it is not good enough that the only dialogue towards Korea from the west has been Donald Trump threatening to blow them up.

Minister Halligan told RTE Radio Ones Today with Sean ORourke about his plans to go to North Korea with Minister Shane Ross and Finian McGrath.

"This isnt new, weve had relations with North Korea in the past through Ceoltas. The greatest threat to peace at present in the world is on the Korean peninsula," he said.

He said that their trip, if successful, will be of no cost to the State and that they will pay their own way.

"Both have agreed to go if we can arrange it. Weve already contacted the North Korean embassy in London through friends of mine and were waiting for a reply," he added.

"What is there to lose by attempting to talk peace with North Korea?"
SIPTU is calling on the Government to take action to minimise differences in pay between men and women in Ireland.

The union has published a list of key recommendations - the move coincides with European Equal Pay Day.
President Donald Trump's Twitter account briefly disappeared on Thursday after it was deactivated by a Twitter customer support worker on their last day.

Shortly before 7pm last night (11pm Irish time) reports surfaced suggesting the president's personal account, @RealDonaldTrump, was unavailable, providing the error message that the user "does not exist."
A man has been arrested on suspicion of walking into a suburban Walmart in Colorado in the US and opening fire with a handgun, killing two men and a woman.

Thornton police said 47-year-old Scott Ostrem was arrested this morning, about 14 hours after he fled the Denver store in a car.

Authorities used security video to help identify him.

Police spokesman Victor Avila said on Wednesday night that the shooting appeared random and there are no indications it was an act of terror.

Two men died inside the Walmart, which is about 10 miles (16km) north of Denver in a busy shopping centre. The woman died later at a hospital.

The shooting forced customers to hide or flee and police reported "multiple parties down".

They advised people to stay away from the area as dozens of police cars and emergency vehicles raced to the scene.

Mr Avila said a man nonchalantly entered the store and fired a handgun into a group of people before fleeing in a car.

"This is a very heinous act," he said. "We don't know exactly what the motive of the person was, but it was certainly a terrible act."

Aaron Stephens, 44, was in the self-checkout line when he heard a single shot followed by two more bursts of gunfire before people started running for the exits.

"The employees started screaming. Customers were screaming. They were running like crazy, and I ran out too because I didn't want to get killed," he said.

Guadalupe Perez was inside the store with her young son when she heard what she thought was a balloon popping.

A Walmart employee told her someone was shooting, and then Ms Perez saw people running away yelling: "Let's go. Let's go. Leave the groceries."

"You see all these things in the news and you go through it, it's scary," she said. "But thank God we're OK and nothing happened to us."

Special agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were helping police in the investigation.

Ragan Dickens, a Walmart spokesman, said the company was working with investigators.

Neighbours described Ostrem as a hostile loner who often carried a shotgun in and out of his third-floor apartment.

Residents of the Samuel Park Apartments building where Ostrem lived described him as a rude man who kept to himself.

Most of the building's tenants talk to each other, but Teresa Muniz said Ostrem never returned her greetings and swore at people for sitting on exterior stairways and leaving laundry in communal machines.

"He didn't seem to have anybody," she said. "Being angry all the time. That's what he seemed like, always angry."

She said she sometimes saw Ostrem carrying a shotgun or a bow and set of arrows to and from the building.

Gerald Burnett, a 63-year-old retiree who lives in a first-floor apartment, said: "He's the type of person if you said 'good morning,' he wouldn't say nothing. If you greeted him, he wouldn't say anything back. I just learned not to even talk to the clown."
Ousted Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont has described the imprisonment of several of his former Cabinet members in a probe over the region's push for independence as "a serious mistake".

In a speech broadcast late last night by Catalan public TV3, Mr Puigdemont called on Catalans to protest against the Spanish authorities "without violence, peacefully and with respect for everybody's opinions".

Mr Puigdemont and several ousted Cabinet members remain in Brussels, where he said they are seeking "safety and freedom" while judges back in Spain investigate them for pushing Catalan secession.

The prosecutor has asked the National Court judge to issue an international arrest warrant against them.

"The fury with which the Spanish government has attacked a beautiful European nation is outrageous and is threatening us all," Mr Puigdemont said, adding that Catalonia's independence is "no longer an internal affair" of Spain.

The ousted leader reacted to the events at Spain's National Court in Madrid as thousands of protesters took to the streets to protest at the jailings.

Eight of the nine were jailed without possibility of bail while they are investigated on possible charges of sedition, rebellion and embezzlement following the regional parliament's declaration of secession from Spain last week. Bail of 50,000 euros (44,000) was set for the ninth.

Protests were called for Thursday evening, and thousands gathered in Catalan towns including Tarragona, Lleida, Girona and Barcelona.

The jailed politicians called for all protests to be peaceful and for their supporters to avoid any show of violence. Mass protests in favour of independence in Catalonia have so far been peaceful.

Under Spain's legal system, investigating judges can order the detention of suspects while a comprehensive probe, sometimes taking months, determines if charges should be brought.

Lawyers said the defendants were serene and wanted the people of Catalonia to stay calm.

Defence lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas said the decision "lacked justification" and was "disproportionate".

He is representing former regional vice president Oriol Junqueras and four other ousted members of the Catalan Cabinet.

Van den Andreu, the lawyer defending other ex-members of the regional government, said whether his clients were jailed "was already predetermined" before they appeared in court.

Both lawyers said they would appeal the judge's order.

Mr Puigdemont reacted on Twitter to the jailing of nine members of his former Cabinet, posting that "the legitimate government of Catalonia has been jailed for its ideas".

He tweeted the government's "furious clamour" had sent the officials to jail.

"The serene clamour of the Catalans is of freedom," he wrote, posting a photo of protesters in Barcelona.

AP
Financial institutions were correctly blamed for the madness that resulted in the growth and eventual implosion of the sub-prime lending market, which in turn unleashed incredible global hardship.

The legacy of the global crash will take years to work through, and the anger will not subside. Arguably, the election of Donald Trump and the bizarre Brexit vote in the UK in 2016, represent two manifestations of this anti-corporate sentiment. Be prepared for more. Here in Ireland, the burden of the post-crash fiscal adjustment fell very heavily on those who work and pay income tax and/or the dreaded Universal Social Charge (USC). Back in 2006, income taxes accounted for just over 27% of total taxes paid in the economy, but this year that will be closer to 40%.

It is worth remembering that the total in employment this year is very similar to that in 2006. The proportionate contribution made by the corporate sector barely increased over that period. This is not a value judgment; it is simply a fact that we need to ponder on.

The developed world faces many intense economic and social challenges over the coming years. Against a background of ageing populations almost everywhere in the so-called developed world, the pressure on governments to increase spending on areas such as pensions, health, education, and public infrastructure will intensify. On top of this, the cost of addressing climate change and extreme weather events will undoubtedly impose a massive burden on exchequers around the world, the magnitude of which we cannot possibly comprehend at the moment.

The big question, of course, is where the resources will come from to fund this expenditure. One obvious conclusion is the burden will continue to fall on the shoulders of the personal sector and corporations will bear as little of the burden as possible. If this turns out to be the case, then anti-corporate sentiment will just continue to grow and inevitably give rise to the emergence of strong political forces that could end up creating a much less business-friendly environment around the world. Corporate behavior may well be causing the corporate world to shoot itself in the foot.

The recent behavior and reaction of the Irish banking sector to the tracker mortgage issue is a case in point. The longer the banks fail to live up to their moral and legal obligations, the more the popular anger will intensify and the more painful it could be for the banking sector in the longer-term. It beggars belief as to why they refuse to come out with their hands up and remedy the situation.

Many peoples and governments are becoming justifiably angry and disillusioned with the manner in which many multinationals are using mostly legal means to pay as little tax as possible. In response, the EU and the OECD are driving the charge to ensure that corporations pay tax in the jurisdictions where the economic activity occurs and not allow those revenues to be diverted to very low corporation tax locations such as Ireland.

Donald Trumps plan to cut the US corporate tax rate from 35% to 20% has brought that issue to the fore in academic circles. Those who favour this approach argue the boost to corporate profitability will feed its way into wages and workers will ultimately benefit. Others argue it will just boost the wealth of already wealthy shareholders. If corporate behavior continues to drive anti-corporate sentiment, ultimately the corporate world could be the loser. Perhaps it is time for a new approach.
Yesterday, NI secretary of state James Brokenshire said that there is still time to save power-sharing in Stormont, insisting that only minor differences between Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists, mainly around Irish language rights and culture, remain unresolved.

What he did not say, what he or any other politician could not say, is that the issues are utterly contrived and represent todays expression of a deep, tribal hatred that persists despite the clearly declared wishes of the vast majority of people on this island to live in harmony. Both parties to the Stormont impasse  the latest in a litany  contribute to this near medieval stand-off.

Should the issues be resolved, and preclude direct rule, the next opportunity for mayhem is just around the corner. A power-sharing deal is conditional on an NI budget being passed by the end of this month. And Lambeg drums and/or Easter Lilies might fly.

The Catalans who wish to secede from Spain  a sizeable number do not and the vast majority of Spaniards oppose the fragmentation of their country  should try to imagine how, like Northern Ireland, an independent Catalonia might look a decade or two after a split from Spain. The cause of those who wish to remain within Spain would have lost none of its integrity and might have evolved into something less manageable than the peaceful anti-secession street protests of recent weeks. There may even be parliamentary deadlock over the Catalan language, or indeed the place of Spanish in Catalonia. Just like the minority in the North, those denied their Spanish citizenship would feel entitled, if not obliged, to agitate for their rights. It is hard to imagine that such a conflict would confine itself to a Barcelona parliament.

Ripples from the conflict have reached Dublin City Council, where the policy committee has recommended that the Catalan flag be flown over Dublin City Hall. The proposal now progresses to a vote at a full council meeting. This is a particular kind of student-bedsit, Che Guevara-inspired madness. It is certainly an affront to democratic Spain, EU solidarity, and the rule of law we all rely on. It is unimaginable that Dublin should indulge such an anti-democratic betrayal.

There is a far bigger truth in this. The conflicts in the North and in Spain are remnants of another time; they cannot exist without reference to the past. Catalan separatists, and the Norths tribalists, should look to Washington to get a glimpse of the world as it really is. There, the worlds superpower, through a Senate hearing, is trying to establish if it is still a democracy. For all of its power, America cannot be certain that its independence is not in the gift of the data tsars. And in Catalonia and in the North, they fight over the colour of the flag and lines on a map. How very convenient, how very helpful for the rapacious imperialists of Silicon Valley.
David OConnor and Jim Hamilton of BDO were appointed as joint provisional liquidators to Charleville Credit Union in the High Court last month, on foot of an application by the Central Bank which said the Cork institution was in a distressed financial position.

While the credit union had closed its doors after the appointment of the liquidators, it reopened on Wednesday with limited operations.

Charleville Credit Union is currently open and in operation for members to make repayments on their loans, the Central Bank told the Irish Examiner yesterday.

It said the Central Bank is conscious that there is a demand for the services of a credit union in the local area and is committed to ensuring that full credit union services are available in the community.

In this regard, the Central Bank is currently liaising with a number of credit unions in the locality who may be in a position to set up a sub office as an interim measure.

Further to this, the Central Bank will consider any application for a credit union to extend its common bond into the Charleville area on a case by case basis.

Local councillor Ian Doyle said he understands that talks about a potential merger with another credit union are at an advanced stage, with any such move paving the way for the restoration of full facilities in Charleville.

Last week, the Central Bank said payments totalling 39.2m were made by cheque to some 10,900 members of Charleville Credit Union, which represents over 98% of eligible deposits covered by a scheme put in place to protect customers money.

Last months decision to apply to the High Court to wind up Charleville Credit Union was made by the governor of the Central Bank.

In presenting its assessment to the court, the Central Bank outlined that it believes all feasible options available to the credit union to raise and maintain its reserves at the levels required by law have been exhausted, the Central Bank said of its decision.

The Registry of Credit Unions has been engaging with Charleville Credit Union over a number of years seeking remediation of the weaknesses in its financial position.

The Central Bank is of the view that the inability of the credit union to address its reserve position, despite previous receipt of external funding, has resulted in it being necessary to apply for the winding up of the credit union, it said.

The payment of deposits to customers is covered by the Deposit Guarantee Scheme (DGS), which is administered by the Central Bank and was activated upon the appointment of liquidators.

Deposits of up to 100,000 per person per financial institution are protected under the DGS.

Payments issued to customers are based on the amount they held in shares and/or on deposit, less any arrears that were due when the liquidators were appointed.

However, anyone with a loan that is not in arrears should get their savings back in full.

Those who have received their cheque in the post, but disagree with the amount of money they have been issued, are asked to fill out and return a DGS depositor claim form which can be found on depositguarantee.ie.
Tomas Francisty was before Cork Circuit Criminal Court for sentencing yesterday. He had pleaded guilty to making the death threat.

Judge Sean O Donnabhain sentenced Francisty, formerly of Francis St, Fermoy, to 18 months in jail, with the last nine months suspended.

A condition of the suspension of the second half of the sentence is that he must stay out of Fermoy and stay away from the injured parties in the case.

Judge O Donnabhain said that he read a victim impact report from the woman. He said it was obvious they did not want to be bumping into Francisty on the streets in Fermoy.

Garda Brian McCabe testified that he encountered Francisty in an intoxicated condition on June 22. Later that night, there was a call from a woman who was sharing a house with him.

She told gardai she and her daughter fled from the house after he came home drunk and began shouting.

When the woman was downstairs in the kitchen, he threatened to kill her and burn down the house.

Gardai arrived at the scene to find Francisty highly agitated. However, he did co-operate with the gardai.

Sian Langley, defending, said Francisty had been living in Ireland for 10 years. During most of that period, he was working and not getting into any difficulty, but in the past six months he had lost his job and began to come to the attention of gardai.

Things started to spiral out of control for him, said Ms Langley.

She said the authorities had some concern for his wellbeing as he appeared, at the time of his arrest, to be malnourished.

Judge O Donnabhain said: He is a vulnerable person, adrift in a foreign country. His prospects here are grim to hopeless. The probation report on him is very sad. On the night of the offence, this was a person well out of control.
Michelle Norris also warned against the Government allowing home and apartment standards to be lowered in order to help developers build.

In an interview with the Irish Examiner, Ms Norris outlined the work of the State agency and how significantly more social housing building is needed to help resolve the housing crisis.

The agency, mainly borrowing from EU banks, has a loanbook of some 3.6bn which it primarily lends to housing agencies at low rates for the building of social housing.

An estimated 100,000 people are waiting for homes on the social housing list.

Any attemp to resolve the crisis must first address social housing, said Ms Norris.

I think we have very significant challenges in relation to providing social housing, she said. We have some very significant short-term challenges because there are very large numbers of households in homeless accommodation, particularly in cities.

Lower-income houses are having enormous trouble securing private rental accommodation with state subsides like rent supplement. Those subsides have become very difficult to operate particularly in cities. So we have an immediate problem in trying to accommodate these households, particularly those in homelessness.

It is very difficult to see how that will be solved without increasing our rate of social house building very rapidly in the near future.

One way to boost the levels of social housing provision is to allow local authorities the funds to build them, said Ms Norris.

I cant see how we will solve the housing crisis without local authorities getting large scale delivery of social housing, she said.

I think local authorities should be given access to the Housing Finance Agency to borrow for housebuilding. It neednt necessarily accrue permanently on the local authority balance sheet.

The Government is preparing to launch an affordable housing initiative in the coming weeks.

Previous schemes, in Dublin, stopped after the crash and many buyers now cannot afford to buy.

A recent scheme in Ballymun, Dublin, saw two-bed homes being sold for 140,000, drawing praise from Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy.

However, Ms Norris said arrears on affordable local authority schemes dating back years are running at 31%, with borrowers unable to afford repayments.

The Housing Finance Agency has taken over the underwriting of these loans and arrears.

Ms Norris said: We need to be careful not to repeat the mistakes of the past. I think we need to be careful introducing supports for low-income home buyers that are actually affordable. And we need to ensure we dont end up in a situation where people are in arrears on a mortgage for an affordable home.

She also warned that, in Dublin and Cork, social or affordable homes are being sold on at huge profits. Instead, the homes should always be costed and, if sold, remain affordable for future owners.

It means the taxpayer pays the cost of providing the housing and the profits are privatised, said Ms Norris.
One of his crimes was the fracturing of a womans cheekbone. He knocked her out in front of her family.

David Ross, of 55 Mary Aikenhead Place, Gurranabraher, Cork, was yesterday sentenced at Cork Circuit Criminal Court for trespassing at the womans home, for assault causing harm to her, and for dealing in heroin.

Judge Gerard OBrien imposed a total jail term of seven years, with the last two years suspended.

The judge directed that the accused undergo an alternative-to-violence programme. He complimented senior probation officer, Deirdre Coakley, for the excellence of her report on Ross.

Ross pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to Laura ODonoghue at Glentrasna Avenue, The Glen, Cork, on January 23 last. He also admitted trespassing at her home, at Comeragh Park, The Glen, Cork, to cause criminal damage, earlier on that same date.

Thirdly, he admitted having Diamorphine, at Glentrasna Avenue, on February 14. The drugs charge referred to 56 small bags, worth 1,600, for sale or supply.

Judge OBrien referred to the gravity of the burglary offence and of the assault, which resulted in a broken cheekbone. Surgery was required.

A gravely aggravating factor was that this assault occurred in front of her family, based on an unsubstantiated incident that somebody had reported to David Ross, the judge noted. There is no justification, whatsoever, for this attack, either upon the house or the injured party.

He has served three prison sentences for assaults and spent the majority of his life in custody. There is a very high risk of re-offending.

The victim continued to fear the accused and had applied for a transfer out of the area where the crimes against her were committed.

Garda Danielle Hegarty previously told the court Ross had been coming to the attention of gardai for crimes of violence from the age of 16.

He maintains an image of himself as a man to be feared, Judge OBrien said.

Mitigating factors included the defendants difficult upbringing. The judge said he was concerned that such a young man had spent so much of his life incarcerated.

The accused pleaded guilty and accepted responsibility for his actions, although there was a lack of victim empathy.
A three-member commission, with its own staff separate from departments and advised by gardai, will be set up to replace the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement.

It is unclear if the ODCEs current director, Ian Drennan, will remain at the helm of the new agency with the existing staff.

The ODCE came in for criticism after the collapse of the trial of former Anglo banker Sean FitzPatrick earlier this year. A report by the ODCE on its handling of the case for the Government has yet to be published, despite being presented months ago.

Tanaiste and Jobs Minister Frances Fitzgerald yesterday said the attorney general was still advising on whether the report, believed to address where there were problems with the Anglo case, would be published. She said it is a complex issue that involves the rights of people.

It is unclear how exactly the new corporate probing agency will differ from the ODCE. Ms Fitzgerald said, after the Anglo trial collapse, that the ODCE was not fit for purpose.

She said the usual open advertising rules would apply for the new agency, but would not say if the same ODCE director would run it or not.

Separate Government sources say Mr Drennan is expected to remain as director of the new bureau.

Ms Fitzgerald also said the new agency would act in a similar manner to the current Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.

The Social Democrats, a party which has continuously called for an independent, anti-corruption agency to be established, welcomed the developments.

In a statement, it said: We simply cant afford to see any repeat of the bungling that led to the recent collapse of the trial of the former Anglo banker Sean FitzPatrick. Its just a pity that this reform is only now being mooted, nine years after our banks collapsed and it was already apparent that the ODCE didnt have the necessary powers and resources to cope with the fallout.

Elsewhere, the Government announced the setting up of a new Garda-led joint agency taskforce to tackle white-collar crime. This will initially focus on tackling payment fraud and credit-card fraud.

In total, 28 actions or measures were launched by four departments and ministers spearheading the reforms.

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan said his reforms would see shorter trial spans, more efficient caseloads for jurors, and more use of video-links in courts.

There will also be new corruption legislation to target wrongful trading or insider trading.

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe also said there would be stricter rules for the directors of companies reporting, while there will also be a new anti-money-laundering plan.
Aer Lingus flight EI 712 Cork to London Heathrow returned to Cork yesterday afternoon shortly after departure due to what the airline described as a technical issue with the aircraft.

The aircraft, with 151 guests and crew on board landed safely at Cork Airport at 13:28, an Aer Lingus spokesperson said.

The captain had declared an emergency landing and emergency services were in attendance at Cork Airport as a result.

Following landing at Cork a number of guests exited the aircraft via the over-wing emergency exits and slides. The majority of the guests disembarked the aircraft normally via steps.

Paul McDonagh, 28, was on the plane, and was due to connect at Heathrow for a flight to New York.

He described the experience as nerve-wracking, saying: 35 or 40 minutes into the flight out of nowhere over the intercom the pilot said we have to return to Cork due to an emergency. It was discomforting and people were anxious.

Mr McDonagh said that, upon landing in Cork, people were instructed to leave their belongings onboard and to exit the plane as quickly as possible.

He said passengers had to wait at Cork Airport for a number of hours before they could retrieve their belongings, as the plane was sealed pending an investigation by aviation authorities.

Flight tracking websites show the flight left Cork just after 12.30pm yesterday and was in the air for around half an hour over the Irish Sea before it started its turn back to Ireland.

Cork Airport remained open throughout the duration of the incident.

An airport spokesperson said: A full activation of the airports emergency plan was deployed with Cork City and Cork County Fire Services as well as HSE Ambulances turning out in support of the Cork Airport Fire and Police Service.

A full technical investigation is now under way.
Housing Finance Agency chairwoman Michelle Norris said other European countries have successfully used such special top-up saving schemes to fund private and public housing needs.

The agency, borrowing from EU banks, has a loan book of 3.6bn which it primarily lends to housing agencies at low rates for building social housing.

In the Austrian model, people save up the money, they get a government subsidy, Ms Norris told the Irish Examiner in an interview. They then take it out in the end after 10 years or whatever, and spend it on a house deposit but during the 10-year period when it is in the bank, it is lent out for social housing. So it funds both.

Low-income buyers are now struggling as prices for homes spiral out of reach. Recent figures show the average house price in Dublin is just over 354,000, rising to 559,000 in the south of the county. Home prices in Cork City are averaging 260,000 and 272,000 in Galway city.

The Government funds the help-to-buy scheme for first-time buyers, but this only helps new property purchases or self-builds and comes as a tax rebate.

However, a State-financed mortgage saving top-up scheme here could not only fund private buyers but also see money building up in institutions go into a special pot for social housing.

Ms Norris, who is also UCDs head of the school of social policy, social work and social justice, said: In Austria, people save in a credit union or a building society.

They get a little supplement from the government for the savings. They can spend it on a house deposit or education. It is limited by legislation what you can spend it on.

The Austrian scheme is run by Bausparkassen, a building society. The scheme is popular among younger households and in rural areas and small towns and 17% of all home mortgages are under Bausparen [building societies] there.

Theyre saving money and get a little subsidy from the government for the money, for their interest rate, said Ms Norris. After a period, they take it out and spend it on a house deposit. Its like a special savings scheme, for certain purposes.

That money in there, though, is then lent on to fund social housing. That money, before it is drawn out, it is used as a form of revenue for the banks. They just lend it out to housing associations. The savings has an additional social benefit, as it is also used to fund social housing.

The model is also used in France as well as Austria.

These types of schemes are generally limited to users, said Ms Norris. You can only spend for it for a deposit on a house as a first-time buyer. So it is not there to subside very wealthy people.

Ms Norris said credit unions here have been in discussions about setting up a large housing fund and lending this out for social housing. Expanding on this could facilitate the SSIA-type mortgage scheme, she suggested. The SSIA scheme saw the state provide a 25% top-up on sums deposited in banks.

And if there were proper credit assessments put in place at a central level, that model could work well I feel, she said.

Ms Norris said there needs to be ownership restrictions placed on homes that will be released under the Governments new affordable housing scheme, set to be unveiled in the coming weeks.

Where we have a system that people can make very big profits from buying council housing or affordable housing and then the state has to go back in and spend money on providing more, that is not really a sustainable system, she said.
PRESIDENT Vladimir Putins Russian Federation is the political heir to the upheavals of the November, 1917 Bolshevik revolution. But Putin is no revolutionary. As a former communist, he remembers with affection the idealistic creed of Soviet communism, but his socially conservative regime is not celebrating this years 100th anniversary of the revolution. These days, nothing causes more anxiety in the Kremlin than the prospect of a regime-changing revolution.

Putin is viewed by some commentators as a radical, seeking to overturn the western-dominated global order. But his foreign-policy ambitions are modest compared with those of his Bolshevik predecessors, who sought nothing less than to spread communism and the Soviet system worldwide. Putin is more pragmatist than ideologue, driven by the desire to secure the Russian Federations borders, to guarantee friendly neighbours, and to win recognition for Russia as a world-class political player.

When the Bolsheviks seized power, a century ago, Leon Trotsky  organiser of their insurrection in the Russian capital of Petrograd  denounced their political opponents and told them to go where you belong, into the dustbin of history.

Seventy years later, the reforming Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the USSR and set in motion the chain of events that imploded the Soviet system.

But has the Russian Revolution been consigned to the dustbin of history? The answer seemed clearer a quarter of a century ago, on the 75th anniversary of the revolution. Then, the Soviet communist system had recently collapsed and the multinational state, ruled by the Bolsheviks for more than 70 years, had disintegrated. Communism, the Soviet system, and the ideology of Marxism-Leninism were thoroughly discredited. Freedom and capitalism were on the march, not only in Russia, but throughout the world. Indeed, Francis Fukuyamas claim that the global triumph of capitalist liberal democracies represented the end of history gained widespread credibility.

Going back to the 50th anniversary of the revolution, a very different picture presented itself. In 1967, the Polish-born Marxist, Isaac Deutscher, pointed out that the Russian Revolution had lasted longer than any other modern revolution. The Bolsheviks were still in power and their socialist system persisted: What we have before us is a huge, throbbing piece of objective historic reality, an organic growth of mans social experience, a vast widening of the horizons of our age. Even those who didnt share Deutschers leftist politics had to admit the jury was out on whether socialism or capitalism would prove the superior system. In the 1960s, one-third of the world was under communism and it remained popular in many capitalist countries. In 1967, the USSR continued to lead the United States in the space race, although the Americans were first to land on the moon, two years later.

The situation faced by the Soviet Union on the 25th anniversary of the revolution  in the middle of the Second World War  was different again. Most of European Russia was under Nazi occupation. Leningrad was blockaded and German armies were encamped just 100 miles from the gates of the capital, Moscow, while Stalingrad was barely holding out against the besieging German armies. Millions of Soviet soldiers had lost their lives, following Hitlers invasion in 1941.

The late-November 1942, successful Soviet counter-offensive, at Stalingrad, marked Hitlers failure to conquer Bolshevik Russia, to destroy the communist system, and to exterminate all Soviet Jews.

So the young revolutionary power that was the Soviet Union emerged from the war victorious, its military triumph celebrated as a vindication of its socialist system and beliefs. This outcome was a personal triumph for Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, too, since his wartime leadership was admired throughout the allied world, not least by US president, Franklin D Roosevelt, and British prime minister, Winston Churchill.

In 1946, British historian, E.H. Carr, published a book called The Soviet Impact on the Western World. Carr argued that the future of the world was Soviet, in the sense that the underlying ideas of the Russian Revolution  human equality, social responsibility, popular empowerment, and participatory democracy  had become embedded across the globe.

As times change, so, too, do peoples views of the past. And, when combined, these shifts in perspective can greatly enrich our understanding of the past and help us to transcend more immediate anxieties. Views of the Russian revolution, as of 75 years ago, 50 years ago, and 25 years ago, all contribute to our present-day historical understanding of how this momentous event continues to impact on world history.

The Soviet regime collapsed because it could no longer compete economically with western capitalism. But communism had triumphs, as well as failures. In our era of growing inequality, when the worlds billionaires hold six trillion dollars of wealth, the egalitarianism of the Soviet model may have something to commend it.

From the moment the Bolsheviks seized power, questions were raised about the legitimacy of their revolution. Subsequently, much of the debate has been politically driven, often taking the form of alternative or counter-factual history.

Those who dislike the Bolsheviks imagine an alternative future for Russia: its timely evolution into a liberal democratic state. For such historians, the key issue is whether the radicalism of the Bolshevik Revolution could have been averted by moderate politicians.

Historians more sympathetic to the Bolsheviks focus not on what the communists did to Russia, but on what the rest of the world did to them. Open hostility, not least from western capitalist states, who tried to topple the regime, shaped a highly repressive, one-party state founded by an authoritarian, socialist regime.

In March, 1917 a soldiers mutiny and popular revolt in Petrograd precipitated the resignation of Tsar Nicholas II, thus bringing to an end the 300-year autocratic Romanov dynasty. Tsarism was replaced by a Provisional Government (PG), tasked to run the country until elections to a Constituent Assembly. Six months later, the PG was deposed by the Bolsheviks, who established a Soviet government. Elections to the Constituent Assembly were held, but the assembly  which contained an anti-Bolshevik majority  was shut down by the Bolsheviks. The latter insisted that the Soviets  councils of workers, peasants, and soldiers, in which they held a majority  would rule Russia.

Crucial to events was the devastation being caused by World War I. But was the war a a catalyst for revolution or did it delay it? Some historians argue that after the failed 1905 Revolution, in Russia, further upheavals were inevitable, but that popular radicalism was, for a time, subsumed by patriotic mobilisation, after the outbreak of war in 1914.

While renewed revolutionary turmoil in Russia was, in any event, highly likely, the Bolsheviks were the anti-war party in 1917. This stance secured them the support of rank-and-file soldiers and sailors, as well as of urban workers, and was crucial to the Bolshevik takeover.

The Bolshevik perspective, in 1917, was that World War I was leading to revolution, not only in Russia, but throughout the world, and it was this promise of world revolution that tempted the Bolsheviks to risk a seizure of power. After the Tsars fall, the Bolsheviks experienced a huge growth in popular support, as party membership jumped from 20,000 to 200,000. By the time they staged their coup, the Bolsheviks had won majority support in urban Russia. But Russia was overwhelmingly rural. Radicalised peasants mainly supported the Socialist Revolutionary party, which gained 38% of the vote in the Constituent Assembly elections, compared to the Bolsheviks 25%.

The Bolsheviks shut down the Constituent Assembly, based on their belief that they could best represent the interests of all oppressed classes, including those who had not voted for them. Bolshevik power in Russia was believed to be part of an incipient world revolution, so at stake was the future of all humanity, not only Russia, and the Bolsheviks were determined to fulfil their destiny as leaders of a global revolution.

Vladimir Lenin led the Bolshevik party into opposition against the Provisional Government (PG) and demanded all power to the peoples Soviets. Lenin insisted the Bolsheviks stage an insurrection against the PG, because he feared that a counter-revolutionary coup could collapse the revolutionary wave surging across Europe. There would have been a revolutionary crisis in Russia after the collapse of Tsarism, but, without Lenin, not the Bolshevik Revolution.

The Bolshevik victory in the civil war that followed the revolution changed world history. During the civil war, the Bolsheviks were besieged by counter-revolutionary forces supported by great powers, such as Britain, France, Japan, and the United States. Again, Lenins determined leadership made all the difference. He kept the Bolsheviks united, when their opponents remained divided, while his ruthless conduct of the civil war resulted in the first of many waves of Red Terror in Russia.

But the Bolsheviks were utopians and idealists whose radical project was to create socialism as a higher form of civilisation than capitalism. They sought to replace the market economy with collective economic control. They believed that human nature could be transformed and the selfishness and individualism engendered by capitalism replaced by altruism and fraternity. They identified themselves as internationalists. They thought their Marxist ideology was an omnipotent, all-encompassing science by which to understand history and transform the world.

However, the Bolsheviks soon discovered their utopian ideals were impracticable. After the civil war, Lenin, instead, adopted a New Economic Policy. It mixed capitalist and socialist components.

But the Bolsheviks kept returning to their utopian goals. When Stalin launched his modernisation revolution, at the end of the 1920s, the aim was not alone to industrialise and urbanise Russia, but to create new socialist men and women  dedicated communists, motivated by a higher form of human consciousness.

During Stalins rule, the Soviet Union was a regime of terror, violence, and mass repression. Millions of people were killed. But Stalin was an intellectual and an idealist, prepared to use violence to impose his will and achieve his utopian goals.

After Stalins death, in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev, the new Soviet leader, relaxed the repression, relaunched the Soviet project, and proclaimed that the USSR would overtake the United States economically within 20 years. There was a renewed enthusiasm for communism, including on the part of a young law student in Moscow, Mikhail Gorbachev. Khrushchev fell from power in 1964, but a good deal of idealism persisted even during the so- called years of stagnation, in the 1970s and 1980s, when Leonid Brezhnev was Soviet leader.

Gorbachev, the USSRs last leader, was nothing if not an idealist. He wanted to revitalise the Soviet system through the empowerment, participation, and involvement of citizens in economic and political life. Such had been the ostensible ambition of all Soviet leaders. But Gorbachev was different  he was prepared to risk a loss of political control to transform Soviet society. Transform it he did, but not in the way he expected.

No other event in the 20th century changed the course of world history or had such radical ramifications as the Russian Revolution. Those historical consequences are still being played out. Consider the contemporary importance of communist China, still ruled by a political party that was a child of the Russian Revolution and whose congress, last month, reaffirmed its socialist ideology with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.

In 1972, communist Chinas first prime minister, Zhou Enlai, was famously misunderstood as saying it was too early to assess the impact of the French Revolution, when he was actually referring to the May-June, 1968 students protests in France, not to the 1789 storming of the Bastille. But the impact of the French Revolution, as the harbinger of universal human rights, is well-established, and the same is true of the significance of the Russian Revolution. The 1917 revolution was a far more radical break with the status quo than occurred in France. Although the Bolshevik revolution failed to live up to its emancipatory promise, its effects remain profound and enduring.

The Russian Revolution, and the social experiment it spawned, will never be repeated.

But the Bolsheviks efforts to change the world  their hopes, the triumphs, the tragedies  remain relevant in our own time of popular disaffection with establishment politics and brutalist economics.

Geoffrey Roberts is emeritus professor of history at UCC
THE fallout from the US probe into Russian interference in the election of President Donald Trump is now threatening the might of the tech giants of social media in a showdown with Washington lawmakers who want to regulate political ads on the internet.

The face-off comes amid mounting concern in the US Congress over the lack of advertising transparency and how companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter have ended up profiting, however unwittingly, from Russias campaign to spread disinformation on their sites and meddle in the US election.

Facebook now says 126m people in the US may have seen such political posts produced by Russian-government-backed agents. To put this figure in context, the number who voted in the election a year ago this month was 139m.

The scale of the Russian advertising campaign has emerged at congressional hearings this week in connection with a new bill, called the Honest Ads Act, which aims to help prevent foreign entities from influencing US elections. The bill would extend political advertising disclosure laws that already govern radio and television to also cover ads placed on platforms such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter.

Such ads are a big and booming business. Digital advertising reached $1.4bn in the 2016 election, a more than 750% increase from 2012, and at least 85% of such spending went to Google and Facebook.

Indeed, Facebook and Google are two of the five richest corporations in the US and both hold practical monopolies in their areas of expertise in social media. Facebook alone has 5m different advertisers each month.

One of the senators shepherding the bill through congress, Democratic Senator Mark Warner, said $150,000 in Facebook ads bought in Russian rubles are the tip of the iceberg of what may have happened.

Twitter earned $1.9m (1.6m) from RT, the Russian government-funded news network, since 2011 and says it will now use this money to support external research into political uses of Twitter.

Under the Honest Ads Act that was proposed in October by Warner, along with fellow Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar and Republican senator John McCain, the companies would also have to release information on who the ads were targeted at, as well as information on the buyer and the rates charged for the ads.

The proposed regulations would bring disclosure rules more in line with how political ads are regulated in print and on television, and would apply to any platform with more than 50m monthly viewers.

The companies would be required to keep and release data on anyone spending more than $500 on political ads in a year.

The legislations future in Congress is unclear, though Mr Warner said he believed a number of Republicans would support it, as well as Democrats.

And, as the legislation continues to make its way through Congress, top lawyers for Facebook, Twitter, and Google were busy trying to convince lawmakers this week that they are already taking steps to tackle the issue, citing details of the findings of their own internal investigations. They are also indicating they may agree to work out a disclosure solution with Congress for paid political ads online.

As criticism of Facebook intensified in recent weeks, co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company would make voluntary changes to how it handles political ads, in a move that may have been an attempt to head off forced regulation by Washington.

But lawmakers concerns go beyond ads and they are also focusing on so-called organic postsstories, status updates, or other content that is published and shared on social media sites without cost.

At Facebook, for example, Russian trolls apparently created 80,000 pieces of such organic content between January 2015 and

August 2017. Americans saw those posts directly in their news feed over that two-year period.

Those users also liked, shared, and followed these posts and pages, exposing them to their friends, meaning 126m users in total would have seen at least some of this Russian-generated content.

One of biggest challenges thus facing Google, Facebook and Twitter is how they handle this

organic content, including videos uploaded by RT, Russias government-funded news network.

RT videos have millions of views on YouTube. In Googles investigation, however, the tech giant said it found no evidence of manipulation of our platform or policy

violations. As a result, Google said that RT and other state-sponsored media outlets are still subject to our standard rules. Twitter, for its part, recently banned RT from advertising on its platform, although it is still allowed to tweet there.

But even if the Honest Ads Act makes its way successfully through Congress, some are sceptical about its effectiveness in the nebulous world of social media were identities can easily and quickly be concealed, clouded and recreated by tech-savvy practitioners.

Some of the exploits of Russian trolls  people who post inflammatory material on social platforms  were recently revealed by the Russian business publication RBC in an investigation of Russias best-known troll factory, the St Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency.

The magazine, which the Kremlin has frequently tried to muzzle, reported that the Internet Research Agency ran at least 120 social network communities in the US and found the messages were frequently retweeted by Trump campaign members.

The RBC investigation also documented a history of trolls easily circumventing obstacles that were set up by the social networks.

It was the activities of the Internet Research Agency that Facebook revealed to US authorities investigating Russian meddling. Subsequently, all of the troll factorys communities and accounts on Facebook were closed in June 2015, after The New York Times first wrote about it.

However, Bloomberg reported the trolling operation was soon up and running again.

The only way to prevent the abuse of digital platforms, it said, is to make them introduce tough identification rules and cut off anonymous and semi-anonymous payment methods for advertisers.

Posts from three of these now-removed Facebook groups created by the Internet Research Agency suggest Russia sought not only to meddle in US politics but also to encourage ideologically opposed groups to act out violently against one another even after Trumps election.

The posts are part of a database compiled by Jonathan Albright, research director at Columbia Universitys Tow Center for Digital Journalism, who tracks and analyses Russian propaganda.

For example, Being Patriotic, a group that regularly posted content praising Donald Trumps candidacy, stated in an April 2016 post that Black Lives Matter activists who disrespected the American flag should be immediately shot. The account garnered about 200,000 followers before it was shut down.

IN recent days, a powerful Democratic senator from Silicon Valleys own backyard has upped the pressure on the big tech companies. Dianne Feinstein demanded on October 27 that Facebook and Twitter turn over reams of new data about Russian disinformation spread on their platforms during the US election.

She wants information about any Russian-connected user accounts, pages, organic content and ads that targeted their efforts at the US. And with Twitter in particular, she wants the company to share some direct messages sent and received by Julian Assange, the publisher of WikiIeaks.

Ms Feinstein is demanding answers by November 6. So tech companies are not likely to be off the hook in the Russia investigation for some time to come.

In the meantime, they may not find much comfort either in Mr Trumps recent observation in an interview, in which he opined: I doubt I would be here if it werent for social media.
This Week in Review

A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more.
Educator and poet Donovan Livingston lifted off Thursday night with the spoken word poem he gave in 2016 as a convocation address to the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

His Lift Off poem went viral back then, reaching more than 13 million views.

Livingston was the keynote speaker for Goodwill Industries of Northwest North Carolinas 2017 Recognition Banquet on Thursday at the Millennium Center in downtown Winston-Salem.

Toward the end of his poem, he said before a group of about 200 people:

Are we not astronomers  looking for the next shooting star?

I teach in hopes of turning content, into rocket ships 

Tribulations into telescopes,

So a child can see their potential from right where they stand.

An injustice is telling them they are stars

Without acknowledging night that surrounds them.

Livingston lives in Winston-Salem. He is a doctoral candidate at UNCG and a program manager for pre-college programs at Wake Forest University. He has been featured on CNN, NPR, BBC, Good Morning America, as well as in news outlets in Europe, Australia, India and South Africa.

During his keynote, Livingston explained that the part in his poem about injustice and stars reminds him of his grandmother, who worked various jobs  from a nurse to a school-bus driver.

Being a woman of color, born in the Depression, raising children during the twilight of Jim Crow, she had no choice but to see the world for what it was, Livingston said.

He said his grandmother knew that education was a powerful tool, but she always encouraged family members to take education a step further.

She always expected you to be more, he said.

He said he learned from her that if someone is blessed, they should bless someone else.

What are you doing to make that happen for someone else? he said.

In his opening remarks at the banquet, Art Gibel, president and chief executive of Goodwill Industries of Northwest North Carolina spoke of the agencys mission, to help people overcome their unique obstacles to employment.

Gibel said that mission is focused in two areas: assisting people who have been disrupted by the economy to obtain training so they can compete for jobs and preparing young people with education and life skills they will need for the workforce.
Safe on Seven, which has helped victims of domestic violence obtain restraining orders and other services for the past 12 years, is moving out of the Forsyth County Hall of Justice.

The program is moving to the Behavioral Health Plaza on Highland Avenue, next to the Forsyth County Department of Social Services and the Forsyth County Department of Public Health.

Safe on Seven is a collaborative effort between several agencies, including Family Services, the Forsyth County District Attorneys Office, Legal Aid of North Carolina Inc., court officials and local law enforcement. Tom Keith, who served seven terms as Forsyth County District Attorney before retiring in 2009, started Safe on Seven in 2005 to pool resources into one place for victims of domestic violence.

The program had offices inside the Forsyth County District Attorneys Office on the seventh floor of the county courthouse. But in 2012, the program moved to offices outside a partition that separates the prosecutors office from the public lobby. The move was prompted by new federal security requirements for prosecutors offices across North Carolina.

This time, the move out of the Forsyth County Hall of Justice will serve two purposes  make victims of domestic violence feel more comfortable getting services from Safe on Seven without going to the courthouse and provide more space for the Forsyth County District Attorneys Office as it prepares to hire more prosecutors, officials said.

From our standpoint, it is going to be a very good move to get Safe on Seven into a location that is less threatening for victims to come to, said Rebecca Nagaishi, acting director of clinical services for Family Services.

Nagaishi said she estimates that Safe on Seven sees about 1,000 to 1,200 people a year.

Going to the Forsyth County courthouse can be intimidating for anyone but it can be doubly intimidating for victims of domestic violence, Nagaishi said.

There is anxiety about running into an abuser or a friend, she said. Their movements are being followed closely so they dont feel safe.

Along with the move to Highland Avenue, Safe on Seven will be able to let victims electronically file their restraining orders, known as 50Bs, without going to the courthouse, she said. Video conferencing software will be installed so that judges can remotely consider approving a 10-day emergency restraining order. Victims will still have to go to court to seek a more permanent restraining order, Nagaishi said.

Kirby Johnson, the countys property manager, said Safe on Seven will move into the first-floor area of the Behavioral Health Complex.

We are preparing the space now, he said. We want to be sure we provide a clean and welcoming space.

Johnson said the plan is to get Safe on Seven moved into the Behavioral Health Plaza by mid-December. Cardinal Innovations Healthcare Solutions is building a behavioral health center across the street on Highland Avenue. It will be a 23-hour urgent care center that will open in early 2018.

Nagaishi said a firm date for move-in hasnt been set because its important that the data and Internet are installed properly to allow for the electronic filing and video conferencing.

Forsyth County District Attorney Jim ONeill said in a statement that he is happy about the move. ONeill was the countys first dedicated domestic-violence prosecutor in the years before he was elected to office.

While our move over to Highland Avenue will take an adjustment period for all involved, I am excited about the possibility that SOS will continue to evolve and develop even further and perhaps again become a statewide model designed to assist victims of domestic violence, ONeill said.

He said that while he is grateful to the county for allowing Safe on Seven in the courthouse, he hopes more people will be able to get services from the program at its new location.

ONeill said victims will have access to all the services of Safe on Seven but also other support services available through the social services department and a medical clinic with mental-health support.

My office will continue to support and partner with (Safe on Seven) and the victims of domestic violence, regardless of location, he said.
WASHINGTON  After Mondays legal shock and awe, one thing is certain: The Mueller investigation poses a serious and perhaps existential threat to the Trump administration.

Apologists for the president can yell nothing burger until theyre blue in the face. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate Richard Gates  now under home confinement and charged with offenses that carry long prison terms  would likely disagree. Campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, whom special counsel Robert Mueller has flipped into cooperating with the probe, also might attest that Mondays acts and revelations are a very big deal.

President Trump had good reason to spend that morning upstairs in the White House residence, brooding and fuming. Regarding Manafort and Gates, Trump perhaps could argue that Mueller has made no allegation  thus far  of collusion with the Russians to boost Trumps prospects in the election. But the Papadopoulos case, according to court documents, is all about Russian mischief  and what the Trump campaign may have known about it.

Perhaps the nastiest surprise for Trump and those close to him is that Papadopoulos, who was on the campaigns foreign policy team, was arrested July 27 and became a proactive cooperator with the Mueller probe. Papadopoulos pleaded guilty Oct. 5 to making false statements, in an interview with the FBI earlier this year, regarding his contacts with foreigners about obtaining Russian help for the campaign.

While there had been speculation that Mueller might go after Manafort and Gates, no one outside of Muellers team appears to have known anything about Papadopoulos.

Anyone who had a conversation with Papadopoulos since his July arrest has to wonder whether he was wearing a wire. Thats what a proactive cooperator often does. Gulp. Equally unsettling for the White House is the fact that Mueller and his all-star squad of prosecutors managed to keep their engagement with Papadopoulos secret for so long. That took real discipline and sense of purpose. It also signals to Trump and his attorneys that they dont have anything close to a full picture of what Mueller is up to.

So what, exactly, did Papadopoulos do? He had a series of meetings with a London-based professor who has connections with the Russian government, and in an April 2016 encounter this professor claimed the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton that included thousands of emails.

This was after Russian hackers had broken into the email system of the Democratic National Committee and also managed to steal the private emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. It is reasonable to assume that these are the emails that the professor was talking about to Papadopoulos, who made repeated attempts to set up meetings between the Trump campaign and Russian officials  even suggesting, at one point, a meeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin.

No such get-together took place. But in June, there was that meeting at Trump Tower at which senior figures in the Trump campaign  Manafort, Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law  met with a well-connected Russian lawyer in hopes of receiving dirt on Clinton.

We know that the Russians flooded social media with pro-Trump fake news. In many instances, this propaganda campaign targeted voters at such a granular level that one has to wonder where the Russians got such sophisticated and detailed data. Mueller will be wondering the same thing.

Trump must have noticed that one important name was not prominently mentioned Monday: that of Michael Flynn, his short-lived national security adviser. Flynn faces potential legal jeopardy for his alleged representation of foreign interests without properly registering to do so. Trump has consistently gone out of his way to protect and defend Flynn, even to the point of asking former FBI Director James Comey to go easy on him. Why such uncharacteristic compassion?

If I were Trump, Id have to wonder if Flynn could be cooperating with Mueller. Id worry about what he might say. And if I spoke with Flynn, Id choose my words very carefully.
RONALD OPPENHEIM, Winston-Salem

Profiles

In 1956, then-Sen. John F. Kennedy wrote a book (possibly with his friend and aide Ted Sorenson) titled Profiles in Courage. As he described it, This is a book about that most admirable of human virtues  courage. Grace under pressure, Ernest Hemingway defined it. And these are the stories of the pressures experienced by eight United States Senators and the grace with which they endured them.

The book was a best-seller, won the 1957 Pulitzer Prize and in 1964-65, after Kennedys assassination, was made into a TV series. Based on his own extraordinary heroism in World War II, Sen. Kennedy could have been included as one of the profiles in courage.

In todays U.S. government led by the Trump administration and run by a Republican majority in the House and Senate, it would be impossible to find eight individuals out of the hundreds in Congress and the White House whose character meets the criteria used to define courage in Kennedys book. What we have instead are hundreds of Profiles in Cowardice. To paraphrase a recent New York Times editorial, its less striking that a few in Congress have recently publicly denounced President Trumps conduct than that most of their colleagues have not.

Their fellow legislators have silently accepted his outrages in exchange for policies theyve always wanted. Courage or cowardice? You decide.

***

HENRY FANSLER, Lewisville

Inaction has a price

Having seen Congress rely on the studies made by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to evaluate pending legislation, it was interesting to read the article Climate change already costing billions, GAO says (Oct. 25). Inaction now has a price tag. Here is what I found on the GAO website: As an initial step in establishing government-wide priorities to manage climate risks, we recommended that the Executive Office of the President use information on economic effects to help identify significant climate risks and craft appropriate federal responses.

Americans can now calculate how much each of us pays for inaction. Where do we go from here?

Consider the following. In the journal Science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature, states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earths climate is being affected by human activities. Pope Francis in his On Care for Our Common Home (Laudato Si) appeals to every person living on this planet for an inclusive dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet.

As of now, only Syria and the United States are not part of the Paris Climate Accord.

We need hope-filled solutions. Often those who will be most affected by climate change will be least able to deal with its consequences. If the supporters of this executive office of the president were to lead, then this executive office of the president would follow.

Please submit letters online to Letters@wsjournal.com or mail letters to: The Readers Forum, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102. Letters are subject to editing and are limited to 250 words. For more guidelines and advice on writing letters, go to journalnow.com/opinion/submit_a_letter.
Attorneys general from Delaware, Maryland, New York and Virginia [official websites] on Wednesday joined [amended complaint, PDF] Californias federal lawsuit against the Trump administrations regulations that allow employers or health insurers with religious or moral objections to opt out of providing coverage for contraceptives in their health insurance plans.

The lawsuit, first filed by California in early October in the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website], claims that the regulations violate the equal protection and the establishment clauses of the US Constitution. It also claims that the regulations did not have the appropriate notice and comment period required by the Administrative Procedure Act and that the regulations are arbitrary and capricious.

Maryland state law [press release, PDF] still requires state-regulated health plans to provide access for contraceptives, but this state law does not apply to 50 percent of Marylanders who are insured through self-insured health plans. New York state law also protects [press release] contraceptive care for state-funded access, but 1.2 million New York women are covered by self-funded insurance plans that are affected by the new regulations. Virginias Attorney General noted [press release] that the contraceptive coverage saves women an average of $255 annually.

The states also join Pennsylvania and Washington [JURIST reports], who filed their own separate challenges to the regulations in early October.
On November 16, 1885, the Canadian government executed Metis leader Louis Riel for high treason in the wake of the "Northwest Rebellion" that had pitted the Metis (descendants of French traders and native tribes) in what is now Saskatchewan against Canadian troops.



Although Riel has lately been rehabilitated as an indigenous francophone patriot of the Canadian West, his trial and execution remain sore points between English and French Canada.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee [official website] on Wednesday announced legislation [S.Res. 279, text] proposing restrictions on senior Cambodian government officials. The legislation identifies several ways in which the Cambodian government continues to be undemocratically dominated by the Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) [party website, in Khmer] and Prime Minister Hun Sen [BBC profile], including the passage of laws allowing the government to revoke the charters of non-governmental organizations on a political basis, the jailing of prominent opposition leader Kem Sokha on treason charges [NYT report], the imposition of severe media restrictions and the assassination of a frequent Hun Sen critic, activist Kem Ley, in 2016.

The Senate committee called on the State Department and the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) [official websites] to consider placing all senior Cambodian government officials implicated in the abuses noted above on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. In general, US persons are prohibited from doing business with any person or entity designated as an SDN [official materials].

The legislation also calls on the Cambodian government to to end all harassment and intimidation of Cambodias opposition and foster an environment where democracy can thrive and flourish and support electoral reform efforts in Cambodia and free and fair elections in 2018.
Russia on Friday accused the United States of committing a "war crime" in Syria, saying its army had denied Syrian refugees access to humanitarian aid.

"The most severe humanitarian situation remains in the Al-Tanf region," the Russian defence ministry's Syria reconciliation centre said, referring to a garrison where US and other foreign troops train anti-Islamic State group fighters.

Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees from the Al-Rukban refugee camp on the Jordanian border are deprived of humanitarian aid because of the United States, which "illegally placed their military base there and forbids approach within 55 kilometres (35 miles) under the threat of death," the centre said.

"The actions of the US military and the so-called international coalition in Al-Tanf are a gross violation of international humanitarian law and could qualify as a war crime," it said in a statement quoted by Russian news agencies.

Earlier this month Moscow accused the US of supporting IS jihadists and enabling them to mount counter-offensive attacks in eastern Syria from near the Al-Tanf garrison.

Al-Tanf, on the key highway connecting Damascus with Baghdad, has been repeatedly menaced by a surge of Iran-backed troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Washington says the garrison is used by US and British special forces to train rebel Syrian groups fighting IS jihadists.

Russia has been flying a bombing campaign in Syria since 2015, when it stepped in to support the Assad regime and tipped the conflict in his favour.
US lawmakers proposed sanctions Friday against Myanmar's military, in some of the strongest efforts yet by Washington to pressure the Southeast Asian nation to end abusive treatment of its Rohingya Muslim minority.

House Republicans and Democrats introduced legislation that would curtail assistance or cooperation with Myanmar's military and require the White House to identify senior military officials who would have US visa bans imposed or reimposed against them.

A bipartisan group in the Senate, including Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain, introduced their bill Thursday.

It calls for renewal of import and trade restrictions on Myanmar, including re-imposing a ban on jade and rubies from the country also known as Burma.

"Our legislation would hold accountable the senior military officials responsible for the slaughter and displacement of innocent men, women and children in Burma, and make clear that the United States will not stand for these atrocities," McCain said in a statement.

The tough proposals came as US President Donald Trump departed for an extended trip to Asia, where he will attend a summit with Southeast Asian nations including Myanmar.

The United States, while condemning the deadly violence that has prompted more than 600,000 people to flee to neighboring Bangladesh, has been careful to say it holds the military responsible, not Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi's civilian government.

House Democrat Eliot Engel said lawmakers wanted to send a "clear message" with the targeted sanctions, both to the military and the civilian leadership, about the violence that has left hundreds of people dead.

"This violence must stop, perpetrators must be held accountable, and there must be meaningful civilian control over Burma's military and security forces," Engel said.

Lawmakers also want Myanmar's military to ensure safe return of refugees displaced from northern Rakhine State, where the military has been accused by the United Nations of a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

"There will be consequences for their crimes against humanity," said Senator Ben Cardin, a Democratic sponsor of the bill.

Myanmar officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

But dealers in the gem industry -- a lucrative sector that was under US sanctions until last October -- shrugged off the threat, saying China was still the top buyer.

"If (sanctions) are reimposed, there will be no harm to us. We used to work under sanctions in the past as well," Tun Hla Aung, secretary of Myanmar Gems and Jewellery Entrepreneurs Association, told AFP.

The fate of the legislation may rest in part with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a longtime friend and ally of embattled Suu Kyi.

The two politicians spoke by telephone in September, when she assured McConnell she was working to get aid to Rohingya Muslims.

McConnell defended the Nobel peace laureate after the call, warning that "publicly condemning Aung San Suu Kyi, the best hope for democratic reform in Burma, is not constructive".

Suu Kyi has been hammered by the international community for failing to use her moral power to speak up in defense of the Rohingya.

On Thursday she visited Rakhine for the first time.

McConnell's office said the Republican leader was reviewing the sanctions legislation. As Senate leader, McConnell determines which bills get to the floor for a vote.
KEARNEY  The passenger in a two-vehicle crash Sunday evening southeast of Gibbon has died.

Krystale Kendall, 28, of Ayr died Thursday at CHI Health Good Samaritan from the injuries she suffered in the crash, according to a news release from the Buffalo County Sheriffs Office. She had been listed in critical condition. An autopsy has been ordered by the Buffalo County Attorneys Office.

Kendall was the passenger in a 2000 Chevrolet Monte Carlo driven south by Juan Lopez, 19, of Hastings that collided at 8:30 p.m. at 56th Road and Pawnee Road, two miles southeast of Gibbon, with a 2007 GMC pickup driven east by Levi Warta, 28, of Gibbon. The intersection is unmarked.

Kendall, Lopez and Warta were all transported to the hospital following the crash. Lopez has since been released, and Warta was listed today in fair condition.

No citations or arrests have been issued in the incident, and the crash remains under investigation.

In addition to deputies, emergency personnel who responded to the scene were the Gibbon Volunteer Fire Department, CHI paramedics, the Buffalo County Highway Department and the Kearney/Buffalo County accident investigation team.
GRAND ISLAND (AP)  Current and former Nebraska law enforcement officers are trying to raise money for a memorial honoring the service dogs and horses that help fight crime.

Organizers said at an announcement ceremony at Grand Islands Law Enforcement Center that work is expected to begin in 18-24 months on the memorial, which would stand next to the Nebraska Law Enforcement Memorial. Jarret Daugherty, chairman of the Nebraska Law Enforcement Memorial Committee, said the committee hopes to raise $25,000 to $30,000 for the project.

We dont have a memorial for our law enforcement family members who are service animals, and theyre a significant part of our family and the significant part of the families that they live with on and off duty, Daugherty said.

The idea came from the Blue Knights motorcycle club and was inspired by the January 2016 death of Kobus, a K-9 who worked with the Omaha Police Department.

When we heard about K-9 Kobus losing his life protecting other officers, we noticed there really was no avenue for the community to memorialize those officers, said Blue Knight member Corey Zimmer. The Blue Knights are current and retired law enforcement personnel.

The police dog was shot and killed after he entered an Omaha home during a standoff with a man who authorities said died of medical problems while in custody more than a week after the incident.

According to the animal memorial plans, it will sit just northwest of the police memorial, which carries 144 names. The animal memorial will have a concrete patio, two benches and a pillar on which images of a dog and horse will be etched.
GERING  Staff and volunteers at the Legacy of the Plains Museum in Gering are looking for a few good men and women to help them finish their Veterans Day Wall.

For the past week, volunteers have been searching through scrapbooks, books and in the archives to find as many veterans as possible from the Panhandle to be represented on the wall. Though they have several dozen, they know they dont have them all.

Anyone who has a relative theyd like to be on the wall can bring a photo in, said Amanda Gibbs, director. We will scan it and put it up.

Finding the people is difficult enough for historians and archivists. Learning their stories often results in dead ends. Gibbs knows the story of a few of the veterans, but the story of Ronald E. Bales, of Scottsbluff, who was killed in Vietnam, is one she wishes she could learn more about. Bales was supposed to be in the Ken Burns Vietnam documentary.

Ken called two years ago, but we couldnt find anything on him (Bales), Gibbs said. No sports, no clubs, no nothing. All we could find was his picture.

According to the Vietnam Veterans Memorials Wall of Faces, Bales was born on Dec. 23, 1946, and died April 15, 1971. Gibbs said she will continue to try to learn more about his life.

While researching, Curator Olivia Garl said photos from the Korean War to the present are difficult to find.

Our news clippings arent all from the Star-Herald for Vietnam because they didnt cover it a lot, Gibbs said. After World War II, coverage gradually started dropping off.

Gibbs said she didnt know why, but thought peoples opinion of war and nationalism began to change.

Garl said war became something that resided in the back of peoples minds, but wasnt generally thought about.

There wasnt much of a tie as there was in World War I or II, Garl said. Today, we might know someone in the service. Back then, everyone knew someone else involved.

Its an issue that comes up often whenever research is done locally. World Wars I and II were covered extensively, but subsequent wars were not. Gibbs and Garl relied on other places, such as the Wall of Faces. Even there, they werent always successful. Out of 40 pages of veterans from Nebraska, five had veterans from the Panhandle and not all of those had pictures.

Gibbs found a group photograph of the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization of Union soldiers who fought in the Civil War, and Civil War photos of Thomas Van Pelt and Alson J. Shumway. Both men were influential in the early years of the Panhandle.

Gibbs said anyone who served is welcome to be on the wall, regardless of whether they saw action.

It doesnt matter, she said. If you enlist, put forth the effort and only serve one day, it matters.

When they signed up, no one knew whether they would die in combat, in a training accident or succumb to disease. Among the soldiers on the wall, one died during basic training and two brothers died of natural causes in basic training.

Thats something you cant just dismiss because they didnt serve in a war, Garl said. Their stories still matter.

Gibbs said one soldiers remains were returned home in 2010 after he was finally identified. He was buried with full honors.

That one got me teary-eyed, Gibbs said.

One veterans story made an impact on Garl. She learned that Michael Walkers daughter was born a couple of months after he died.

Reading about what people wrote about him, they were tough to get through, Garl said. It brings it all into perspective.

There are stories of honor, of Purple Hearts, of Medals of Honor and of the men and women who didnt get to come home on a wall at the Legacy of the Plains Museum. Staff and volunteers are asking the community to help them remember everyone who served.
I attended a special boys wedding last Friday in Denver. Yes, its true that all children  all people  are special, but special has more meaning when it is applied to relatives and friends weve known since they were born.

My special boy is my nephew Philip, now a grown man, who is the son of my twin sister and brother-in-law Lisa and Jim Parish of North Platte.

Philip married Lorena Barella-Tapia, a beautiful, friendly, funny girl he met in the Denver area where he lived for several years following his service with the U.S. Army, including a deployment to Afghanistan.

I first met her two years ago when Philip brought her to an Eagle Scout ceremony for his brother, Zachary, the fourth of the four Parish boys to achieve that honor.

Lorena was just the right kind of friendly. We were glad she was with Philip when he came home to North Platte for holidays and his brothers high school graduations.

As a boy, Philip seemed wise beyond his years. Maybe it was because he was an only for eight years and constantly around adults who read to him and engaged him in conversation. He was friendly, told stories and visited with almost everyone he met.

Philip had three health-related challenges that almost took him from us.

At age 14, he sustained a serious head injury in a bicycle accident the one time he didnt wear his helmet. A young doctor at the North Platte hospital had to drill a hole in Philips head  a first for the doctor  to relieve the pressure so that Philip could survive an Air Care flight to Kearney for immediate surgery to remove a large blood clot on his brain.

While at a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan, he suffered a severely broken lower leg. The surgery to repair ligaments was done two weeks later at Fort Hood, Texas.

His appendix burst soon after he settled in Denver. After surgery, Lisa knew something still was very wrong, but the surgeon could not be convinced. She finally got the attention of a second surgeon who immediately took Philip to the operating room.

While in the Denver area, Philip helped renovate and manage an indoor shooting range, and then worked for a private company that provides security for the Denver metro system.

Hes back in North Platte now as a new police officer and is completing required training at the Nebraska Law Enforcement Training Center in Grand Island. Lorena moved into their North Platte home several weeks ago and works for a title company.

In his wedding reception toast, Philips longtime friend and best man said Philip had some dark days as an Army veteran. He was less outgoing, had fewer stories to tell and seldom came home.

The best man said  and we all agreed  that the Philip we know started to return when he met Lorena.

I know nothing about matches made in heaven, but such magic seems obvious when the lives of two people are better after they find each other. Its almost a miracle when two people are at the same place at the same time and at the right time for both to take a first step toward deciding to spend their future together.

At last Fridays wedding reception, Philip told stories, laughed with friends and family, and smiled whenever Lorena was near. So, we have our special boy back.

Even better, we are blessed to have a new special girl in our family.

Lori Potter is a Hub staff writer.
Andy Dick fired from a movie over multiple sexual assaults; Kevin Spaceys pedophile-based predatory behavior referenced in Family Guy in 2005; man leaps to death after argument with wife; MSNBCs Mark Halperin fired over 12 sexual assaults; stealthing; grade school dildo parties; is school important?; Stupidity News; Wendy Williams passes out on live TV; an Israeli bar offers 25% discount for period-havers

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FILE - This July 21, 2012, file photo shows signage at the corporate headquarters of Equifax Inc. in Atlanta. Equifax says a special committee has determined that four executives did not commit insider trading prior to public disclosure of its massive data breach. The credit rating agency said Friday, Nov. 3, 2017, that committee found that none of the executives had knowledge of the breach when their trades were made and that preclearance for the trades was obtained properly. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)
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Environment Minister Catherine McKenna concludes a media availability as she makes her way to the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on May 18, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand
Traci Genereaux is seen in this undated handout photo. RCMP have identified the remains found on a Salmon Arm, B.C., property as those of 18-year-old Traci Genereaux. Police say no charges have been laid in connection with her death, which is being treated as suspicious.THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, RCMP *MANDATORY CREDIT*
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Let me post a question that neither I nor readers can answer: How much of what I do during the course of a day directly benefits patients?

Perhaps, I dont want to really know as I would be dismayed at how much of my effort benefits no one. Ask a nurse who works on a hospital ward, how much of his or her effort is directly applied to patient care. I would recommend that you have a double dose of antacid in hand: one dose for you and the other for the nurse.

Just today, I was gently reproved by a hospital physician administrator for a lapse in one of my recent progress notes, which I write after seeing every hospital patient I consult on. Which of the following transgressions do you think I was cited for? Only one answer is correct.

I did not perform an adequate physical examination.

I failed to address the results of an abnormal CT scan.

I neglected to write the time of day along with the date of the note.

I did not discuss the case with the patients family.

Just last week at our medical staff meeting, all physicians were told of the requirement to record the exact time, as well as the date, of our hospital visits. This requirement, which is not new, is not to improve patient care. It is a requirement imposed by the Joint Commission, which certifies that a hospital is complying with all rules and regulations. I would like my readers to know that in over a quarter of a century of hospital practice, the visit times were recorded in 1 to 2 percent of all hospital notes. No physician has felt that the lack of recorded visit times negatively affected patient care. Writing down the date may seem to readers to be just a minor irritant which takes only a few seconds. It is, however, a symptom of documentation requirements that have run amok.

When the Joint Commission visits a hospital, the entire medical and administrative staff are on edge. Why? Because there are hundreds of requirements of dubious value that will be assesses. I support the Commissions mission and recognize that many of the requirements are completely valid. We want clean operating rooms, safe parking lots and a culture of respecting patients privacy. But, trust me, many of the mandates from them can be trivial or absurd.

As an example, in our ambulatory surgery center where we do colonoscopies, we are required by the government to declare before every procedure if the patient is facing a fire risk. Please do not ask me to explain this, as I am incapable. Apparently, because we administer oxygen and use cautery, there is a flammability risk.

I want to reassure my current and future patients that to date our endoscopy center has been a flame free zone. Moreover, the only instance where a firefighter was in our office was when he was getting a colonoscopy performed.

The public would be shocked and outraged to learn how much of our time is spent racing on the hamster wheel, a difficult and timewasting exercise that yields no progress.

Michael Kirsch is a gastroenterologist who blogs at MD Whistleblower.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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Have you ever wondered why your computer often shows you ads that seem tailor-made for your interests? The answer is big data. By combing through extremely large datasets, analysts can reveal patterns in your behavior.

A particularly sensitive type of big data is medical big data. Medical big data can consist of electronic health records, insurance claims, information entered by patients into websites such as PatientsLikeMe and more. Health information can even be gleaned from web searches, Facebook and your recent purchases.

Such data can be used for beneficial purposes by medical researchers, public health authorities, and healthcare administrators. For example, they can use it to study medical treatments, combat epidemics and reduce costs. But others who can obtain medical big data may have more selfish agendas.

I am a professor of law and bioethics who has researched big data extensively. I have become increasingly concerned about how medical big data might be used and who could use it. Our laws currently dont do enough to prevent harm associated with big data.

What your data says about you

Personal health information could be of interest to many, including employers, financial institutions, marketers and educational institutions. Such entities may wish to exploit it for decision-making purposes.

For example, employers presumably prefer healthy employees who are productive, take few sick days and have low medical costs. However, there are laws that prohibit employers from discriminating against workers because of their health conditions. These laws are the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. So, employers are not permitted to reject qualified applicants simply because they have diabetes, depression or a genetic abnormality.

However, the same is not true for most predictive information regarding possible future ailments. Nothing prevents employers from rejecting or firing healthy workers out of the concern that they will later develop an impairment or disability, unless that concern is based on genetic information.

What non-genetic data can provide evidence regarding future health problems? Smoking status, eating preferences, exercise habits, weight and exposure to toxins are all informative. Scientists believe that biomarkers in your blood and other health details can predict cognitive decline, depression and diabetes.

Even bicycle purchases, credit scores and voting in midterm elections can be indicators of your health status.

Gathering data

How might employers obtain predictive data? An easy source is social media, where many individuals publicly post very private information. Through social media, your employer might learn that you smoke, hate to exercise or have high cholesterol.

Another potential source is wellness programs. These programs seek to improve workers health through incentives to exercise, stop smoking, manage diabetes, obtain health screenings and so on. While many wellness programs are run by third party vendors that promise confidentiality, that is not always the case.

In addition, employers may be able to purchase information from data brokers that collect, compile and sell personal information. Data brokers mine sources such as social media, personal websites, U.S. Census records, state hospital records, retailers purchasing records, real property records, insurance claims and more. Two well-known data brokers are Spokeo and Acxiom.

Some of the data employers can obtain identify individuals by name. But even information that does not provide obvious identifying details can be valuable. Wellness program vendors, for example, might provide employers with summary data about their workforce but strip away particulars such as names and birthdates. Nevertheless, de-identified information can sometimes be re-identified by experts. Data miners can match information to data that is publicly available.

For instance, in 1997, Latanya Sweeney, now a Harvard professor, famously identified Massachusetts Governor William Welds hospital records. She spent $20 to purchase anonymized state employee hospital records, then matched them to voter registration records for the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Much more sophisticated techniques now exist. Its conceivable that interested parties, including employers, will pay experts to re-identify anonymized records.

Moreover, de-identified data itself can be useful to employers. They may use it to learn about disease risks or to develop profiles of undesirable employees. For example, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website allows users to search for cancer incidence by age, sex, race, ethnicity and region. Assume employers discover that some cancers are most common among women over 50 of a particular ethnicity. They may be very tempted to avoid hiring women that fit this description.

Already, some employers refuse to hire applicants who are obese or smoke. They do so at least partly because they worry these workers will develop health problems.

Whats stopping them?

So what can be done to prevent employers from rejecting individuals based on concern about future illnesses? Currently, nothing. Our laws, including the ADA, simply do not address this scenario.

In this big data era, I would urge that the law be revised and extended. The ADA protects only those with existing health problems. Its now time to begin protecting those with future health risks as well. More specifically, the ADA should include individuals who are perceived as likely to develop physical or mental impairments in the future.

It will take time for Congress to revisit the ADA. In the meantime, be careful about what you post on the internet and to whom you reveal health-related information. You never know who will see your data and what they will do with it.

Sharona Hoffman is a professor of health law and bioethics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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During a 15-minute recess, the elementary school students trooped from the playground toward nurse Catherin Croftons office  one with a bloody nose, a second with a scraped knee and a third with a headache.

Kids quickly filled a row of chairs. Staffers brought paper towels for the bleeders and tried to comfort the crying.

Were here for first aid, emergency, counseling, said Crofton of the Mount Diablo Unified School District. There is always something to do.

Mount Diablo and other districts around the nation can use all the help they can get. Many suffer a severe shortage of nurses, and money to hire more is scarce.

Outside of California, shortages have been reported in recent years in Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Colorado, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Florida.

Last year, Crofton saw 20 to 30 children a day at Cambridge Elementary, located in eastern Contra Costa County in the San Francisco Bay Area. Some were first-timers, others her regulars  those with chronic conditions such as cystic fibrosis who need daily medication. Crofton said there are dozens of diabetic kids in the district, a huge change from 20 years ago, when they were rare.

Before taking a leave earlier this year, Crofton was on site at Cambridge Elementary three days a week and at Meadow Homes Elementary, about six blocks away, the other two weekdays.

Desperate to fill the nursing gap, the Mount Diablo district partnered with John Muir Health, a local health system of doctors and hospitals, to pay for her position. Other districts are also addressing nursing shortages creatively  and with mixed success  by opening school-based community clinics, conducting video sessions with faraway doctors and even training office staff to dress wounds or check glucose levels of diabetic children.

Beyond tending to minor scrapes, school nurses see many kids with chronic, potentially life-threatening illnesses that need medication and monitoring. Sometimes they are a childs only regular link to medical care and often are the first to spot emerging disease outbreaks.

Last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics called for a minimum of one full-time registered nurse in every school. Before that, the recommended nurse-to-student ratio had been 1-to-750.

California, the nations most populous state, is far from hitting either goal. It had one registered nurse for every 2,592 students in the 2016-17 school year, according to the latest state data. In many districts, one nurse must cover two or more schools. (Districts dont report their use of licensed vocational nurses, who are not as highly trained but are sometimes hired to fill in the gaps.)

At Mount Diablo, the ratio is 1 registered nurse to nearly 4,000 kids. Figures for the smaller, neighboring district, Antioch Unified, show 1 nurse per 17,326 students.

California, like most states, doesnt have a specific budget for school nursing, and it doesnt require schools to have a full-time nurse. Yet schools are obligated to provide certain health services to students, such as vision and hearing tests and medication monitoring.

Obviously a nurse has to be on board to do that, so we kind of come in the back door that way, said Pamela Kahn, president-elect of the California School Nurses Organization.

The organization has tried several times to get the state legislature to set minimum nurse-to-student ratios with no luck so far. When you crunch the numbers, its overwhelming what it would cost to provide that kind of service in the state, Kahn said.

In the meantime, some districts are looking beyond the traditional model of bringing health care to school kids.

Last year, the Sacramento City Unified School District experimented with telehealth, which gives school staffers electronic access to a doctor to guide them, but as of the beginning of this school year, district officials had not decided whether theyd continue.

Telehealth works well if there is a school nurse, not a school secretary, consulting with the doctor, said Nina Fekaris, the president of the National Association of School Nurses and a school nurse in Beaverton, Ore., outside Portland. It cant be viewed as a replacement of [nursing] services, she said.

In some instances, clerks and other school staff have been assigned medical duties in the absence of nurses, with disastrous results. In Washington state, a girl reportedly died of an asthma attack in 2008 under the watch of a playground supervisor when no nurse was around.

Partnerships between school districts and health care organizations are among the most promising approaches because schools dont have to bear the full costs of hiring nurses.

Besides building goodwill, nonprofit health systems like John Muir can count their contributions of nurses and free student services toward the community benefits they must provide to retain tax-exempt status. Under this model, they cannot collect reimbursement from Medicaid or private insurers for seeing the students.

Since 2008, John Muir Health has donated two nurses in schools where the need is the greatest. One of those is Cambridge Elementary, which is in a densely populated area, next to a busy corridor dotted with fast food joints and apartment complexes. Many families are first-generation immigrants and English learners who dont have an established health care provider, said Chris Grazzini, John Muirs clinical program manager.

Such partnerships, however, tend to be more popular on the East Coast. Schools in Toledo, Ohio, for example, hired 12 school nurses through a deal with a local health care system in 2015. As part of the three-year agreement, ProMedica, a local nonprofit health system, invested $1.8 million to hire nine nurses. The school district, Toledo Public Schools, pays for the others.

Ann Cipriani, the health coordinator at Toledo Public Schools, said the arrangement allowed the district to attain its goal of having one nurse in each of its 50 schools  meeting the Academy of Pediatrics recommendation. It has made an amazing difference, she said.

Schools in the Bronx partner with medical organizations to open health centers on campus. One partner is Montefiore Medical Center, which has established 25 school-based health centers, serving about 30,000 children.

Montefiore covers the cost of services by billing Medicaid or other insurance. State grants and private donations also help. The medical center is responsible for providing a doctor, nurses and a mental health provider at each center.

Similarly, Fresno Unified School District in Californias Central Valley aims to have seven health centers on campuses operated by Clinica Sierra Vista, a local group of health clinics and Valley Childrens Health Care. The first opened in 2014 and draws close to 500 visits a month. A second is scheduled to open next year.

Even with money in place for clinics and additional nurses, however, finding qualified professionals to fill the positions can be tough.

The 10-month work schedule is great, said Gail Williams, director of student health services at Fresno Unified, but its tough to compete with hospitals open year-round, 24/7. For a nurse, especially one with student loans to pay off, those jobs can be more enticing.

Ana B. Ibarra is a web reporter, Kaiser Health News, where this article originally appeared.

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SHANGHAI, Nov 3 (Reuters) - China's Ministry of Finance auctioned 15 billion yuan ($2.27 billion) of 3-month bills in the interbank market on Friday at an average yield of 3.5132 percent, traders said.

The auction yield came in above Thursday's benchmark secondary market yield of 3.5074 percent for 3-month government bonds .

For stories on Chinese debt issues, click on . ($1 = 6.6171 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by the Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Richard Borsuk)
LONDON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - British lawmakers said on Friday they were disappointed by finance minister Philip Hammond's slow progress at encouraging greater diversity at the highest levels of the Bank of England.

Parliament's Treasury Committee wrote to him last month to seek confirmation that "all efforts" were being made to boost diversity among the Bank's top brass.

Silvana Tenreyro of the Monetary Policy Committee and Sandy Boss of the Prudential Regulation Committee are the only women among the 23 people serving on the BoE's main three policy panels.

The Treasury Committee's criticism of Hammond was written before he announced on Thursday that banker Elisabeth Stheeman will join the Financial Policy Committee early next year.

Hammond had said he was content that the finance ministry's processes for hiring top BoE staff met the standards set by a government adviser on public appointments.

"The (Treasury) Committee is disappointed by the chancellor's response," said Nicky Morgan, chair of the Treasury Committee and a former minister for women and equalities.

"He did not confirm whether 'all efforts' are being made by the Treasury to encourage as diverse a range of candidates as possible," she added, saying the finance ministry only "seeks to encourage" diversity in its appointments.

Asked about diversity in a BBC news interview on Thursday, Carney said the BoE was looking to lead by example.

"The big issue is the under-representation of women and minority groups in finance has a very, very long legacy and so we have to have maximum focus on this to turn it around - but it will take time," he said.

(Reporting by Andy Bruce; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
(Adds Goldman Sachs declined to comment, MAS action against former Goldman banker)

Nov 3 (Reuters) - Singaporean prosecutors and police are looking at Goldman Sachs Group's relationship with the scandal-hit Malaysian state investment fund 1MDB, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Singapore's economic crime unit and city prosecutors have interviewed current and former Goldman Sachs executives who worked on bond offerings from 1Malaysia Development Bhd, Bloomberg reported.

1MDB, founded by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, is facing money laundering probes in at least six countries including the United States, Switzerland and Singapore.

Najib has denied any wrongdoing. A Goldman Sachs spokesman in Hong Kong declined to comment. Officials at the Singaporean police and 1MDB were not immediately available for comment.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) had earlier in the week barred two individuals involved in breaches related to Malaysia's 1MDB fund from taking part in financial services management and advisory activities. In March, the MAS issued a 10-year prohibition order against Tim Leissner, former Southeast Asia chairman at Goldman Sachs, who it said had made false statements on behalf of his bank without its knowledge or consent.

Leissner was responsible for managing the relationship with Malaysia's 1MDB fund when Goldman Sachs was engaged to arrange three bond issues from 2012 to 2013. MAS had flagged its intention to ban Leissner last December. (Reporting by Parikshit Mishra in Bengaluru and Sumeet Chatterjee in Hong Kong; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
VIENNA, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Austrian engineering group Andritz's third-quarter pre-tax profit fell 18.4 percent year-on-year to 86.2 million euros ($100.5 million), the group said on Friday, just missing market expectations. The average estimate in a Reuters poll of analysts was 86.7 million euros. Andritz confirmed its 2017 outlook for a slight decline in sales, adding it also expected its earnings before interest, tax and amortisation margin to stay stable. ($1 = 0.8576 euros)

(Reporting by Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Michael Shields)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
SINGAPORE, Nov 3 (IFR) - New Asian issues traded firmer today, reflecting minimal concerns ahead of the U.S. jobs data and shrugging off Republican plans for massive U.S. tax cuts.

"People in the region don't really care about the U.S. job data this time round," said a high-yield trader. Markets are expecting better non-farm payrolls at 310,000 for October.

Deals that priced yesterday rallied in the first day of trade. Indonesia's Indika Energy pulled in orders of US$3.5bn for its 5.875% 2024s priced at 98.594.

The notes gained to 99.625/100 as investors moved into the secondary markets to pick up the paper.

HNA Group's one-year bonds, priced yesterday at par to yield 8.875%, saw a three-quarter of a point drop in the morning but the notes bounced back and were around 100.00/100.125 by mid-afternoon.

China Vanke's first foray into the 10-year space paid off as it priced the 3.975% bonds at 165bp over Treasuries on strong demand. Appetite stayed robust with the bonds around 5bp tighter in secondary markets today.

Asian credit spreads were flat with the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan IG index at 74bp/75bp, unchanged from yesterday.

(Reporting by Kit Yin Boey; Editing by Vincent Baby)

Keywords: MARKETS ASIA DEBT/
SAO PAULO, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Brazilian Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles said on Friday that he will make a decision on whether to run for president next year at "the right time" as he is focused on his job as a minister. In an interview with a local radio station, Meirelles said he will not be a vice presidential running mate under any circumstances. He had previously said he would consider running on a ticket as a vice president, but then brushed off those comments as a joke. (Reporting by Bruno Federowski)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
BEIJING, Nov 3 (Reuters) - China Minmetals Corp said on Friday it had signed a deal with four other companies, including two of China's biggest steelmakers, to set up an international trading centre that would blend iron ore in China's northeastern province of Hebei.

China Minmetals said the hub, with a blending capacity of 41 million tonnes per year, would be located in the industrial area of Caofeidian and will include bonded warehousing and ore distribution facilities. The company did not provide a sum for the size of the investment involved.

Hebei is China's biggest steel producing province and is home to city of Tangshan, the largest steel making city.

The other companies to sign the cooperation agreement include the Port of Caofeidian Group, steelmakers HBIS Group and Shougang Group and China Ocean Shipping Group Co (Cosco) , China Minmetals said in a statement.

China Minmetals, which mostly produces copper, zinc and nickel, billed the venture as an environment-friendly move as it would centralize the ore blending process to replace "scattered" blending sites that add to China's persistent smog problems.

The Caofeidian centre will be able to cater to the individual "appetite" of steelmakers' blast furnaces, the company said, relieving them of the need to shop around among various suppliers for their ore requirements.

"The project will gradually change the channels and trade modes for Chinese steel enterprises to import ore," it said.

(Reporting by Tom Daly; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
* Gecamines copper output has plunged since 1980s

* Carter Center calls Gecamines "financial black box"

* Company chairman declined comment

By Aaron Ross

ABIDJAN, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo's state mining company failed to internally register $740 million in income between 2011-2014, much of which is now untraceable, the Carter Center said in a report on Friday.

The amount makes up two-thirds of the $1.1 billion that the copper producer was entitled to collect from international mining partners during that period and there is no evidence how half of it was spent, the U.S.-based democracy watchdog said.

Albert Yuma, the chairman of Gecamines' board, declined to comment on the report's accusations. Valery Mukasa, chief of staff to Congo's mines minister, said before the report's publication that he could not comment since he had not seen it.

Yuma, Mukasa and Gecamines' interim director-general Jacques Kamenga did not respond to additional requests for comment on Friday after the report was released publicly.

Gecamines and the mines ministry have previously rejected accusations that company funds are misused, insisting that all of the company's revenues are properly accounted for and are not used for political purposes, as its critics have alleged.

The report did not suggest that any of Gecamines' partners had acted improperly in relation to the missing funds.

"Gecamines continues to be a financial black box," said the report, which was based on 200 interviews and a review of thousands of mining contracts and other documents. "Poor governance has allowed ... Gecamines to engage in opaque mining deals that fail to serve the public interest," the report said.

Democratic Republic of Congo is Africa's biggest copper producer and also mines significant quantities of gold, diamonds and cobalt but remains one of the world's least developed countries, with an annual budget of roughly $5 billion.

It is also in the throes of a political crisis prompted by repeated delays to an election to replace President Joseph Kabila, originally scheduled for 2016. Authorities have cited the more than $1 billion price tag for the presidential and other elections as one of the main obstacles. UPHEAVAL

Gecamines was once one of Africa's largest copper producers, with annual output peaking at about 500,000 tonnes in the late 1980s. But output has since tumbled due to political upheaval, mismanagement and the sell-off of assets to private investors like Freeport McMoRan and Glencore .

Last year, it mined just 10,000 tonnes of copper despite repeated promises to dramatically scale up production.

Gecamines collects significant revenues in the form of signing bonuses, royalties and dividends from its joint ventures with private investors.

But when the Carter Center compared public disclosures of payments to Gecamines - including financial reports by partners and reports to an industry transparency group - to records obtained from an internal database maintained by Gecamines, it found a $740 million discrepancy in income between 2011-14.

The Carter Center said the database it obtained was maintained by Gecamines' partnership department, where all revenues from its more than 20 partnerships should be recorded.

The Carter Center was able to trace about half of the money to specific expenditures, including investments in new equipment and asset purchases.

However, the remaining half could not be traced and sources inside Gecamines told the Carter Center that much of the money was used on political expenditures like financing campaigns.

Gecamines has also failed to publish dozens of mining contracts, amendments and annexes, as required by the law, the report said.

Gecamines said in September that the company's partnerships with foreign investors have not been managed in the best interest of Gecamines and that it intended to implement new controls to "hold its partners accountable". (Reporting By Aaron Ross; Editing By Edward McAllister and Edmund Blair)
LAGOS, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Nigeria's Diamond Bank is quitting other West African markets to focus efforts at home and deploy its resources on personal banking business in Africa's biggest economy, it said on Friday.

The move by Diamond Bank ends the mid-tier lender's 18-year push abroad.

Several Nigerian banks expanded abroad than a decade ago, encouraged by rising commodity prices and seeking to capitalise on a growing middle class in the region. But prospects have dimmed with a sharp fall in commodity prices since mid-2014 that triggered currency crises in some markets and turned loans sour.

"After 18 years of building the Diamond Bank franchise in other markets in West Africa, the time has come to fully apply our resources to Nigeria," Diamond Bank Chief Executive Uzoma Dozie said in a statement.

It said it wanted to apply its resource to Nigeria to develop a profitable technology-driven retail banking business.

The bank said on Friday it had agreed to sell its operations in Benin, Togo, Cote d'Ivoire and Senegal to a Cote d'Ivoire-based financial services company Manzi Finances S.A. for 61 million euros. It expects the deal to close this year. Diamond Bank posted a 71.5 percent rise in nine-month pretax profit to 6.67 billion naira in September. Several Nigerian lenders have adapted their business models after low crude prices put pressure on the once lucrative oil and gas loan book. Nigeria exited recession in the second quarter but growth is fragile.

Dozie said Nigeria's unbanked population and the rise of cost-effective digital banking platforms provided it with the opportunity to reach millions of customers in a market where it already had over 15 million clients.

Diamond shares, which have risen 15 percent so far this year, climbed 5 percent on Friday to 1.06 naira. They had fallen 62 percent last year.

Last year, the bank said it was conducting a capital management plan and would ensure it met regulatory requirements, adding that it was considering raising fresh capital and selling some assets to strengthen its capital base. (Reporting by Chijioke Ohuocha; Editing by Edmund Blair)
By Olga Dzyubenko

KANT, Kyrgyzstan, Nov 3 (Reuters) - An escalating diplomatic and trade dispute between Kazakhstan and its smaller central Asian neighbour Kyrgyzstan is hurting companies as far away as London, and pressure is growing on Russia to step in and reconcile its allies.

Shares in UK-listed miner Kaz Minerals , which has Kazakh shareholders, dropped more than three percent on Thursday after the Kyrgyz government briefly suspended operations at its gold and copper mine, in apparent retaliation for what Bishkek calls a border "blockade" imposed by Astana. Truck drivers stuck on the Kyrgyz-Kazakh frontier say the bottleneck created by stringent checks on the Kazakh side is affecting companies in Russia, Belarus and Turkey.

The row erupted in September, when Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev met a Kyrgyz opposition politician running for president in an Oct. 15 election.

The government of outgoing Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev saw the meeting and comments made by Nazarbayev as meddling in its domestic affairs, and a series of angry exchanges ensued.

Kazakhstan upped the stakes in October by tightening controls at the border saying it wanted to protect its market from counterfeit goods. It also barred imports of dairy products made by several Kyrgyz firms, citing health and safety concerns.

BLOCKADE

The fight is lopsided: Kazakhstan's population is three times as large as Kyrgyzstan's and its economy 20 times bigger thanks to enormous oil and minerals wealth.

Landlocked Kyrgyzstan also does a large part of its trade through Kazakhstan.

Trucks that used to take up to a few hours to cross the border now have to wait for five to six days in queues stretching more than 10 km (six miles), drivers say.

A Reuters correspondent saw around 600 trucks in one queue at a checkpoint near the town of Kant this week.

"I have been delivering cargoes from Kyrgyzstan both to Moscow and to (Russia's eastern region) Siberia and everything used to be fine, but now something terrible is happening," said trucker Sardor Karimzhanov, who was moving Kyrgyz persimmons to the Russian city of Barnaul.

"I have been waiting in this queue for five days now and I have spent 11,000 som ($160) on fuel and 3,000 som on food."

Another driver said his cargo, pickled peppers, belonged to a Turkish company with operations in Kyrgyzstan.

Kyrgyzstan's emergencies ministry has set up a field kitchen near the checkpoint, giving drivers one meal of plov, a rice dish, a day.

MOSCOW AS ARBITER

After lashing out repeatedly at the Kazakh government, Atambayev this month said Bishkek had had "excessive expectations" of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), a post-Soviet economic bloc to which both Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan belong.

Although he stopped short of threatening to quit, Atambayev said Bishkek would have to rely more on other markets including its even bigger neighbour China.

His subordinates have said they expect Moscow to intervene.

Daniyar Imanaliyev, deputy economy minister, said Bishkek wanted the main executive body of the EEU to act urgently on the matter.

"Matters concerning the basic principles of the union's functioning must be resolved within days," he said.

At a heads-of-government meeting of ex-Soviet nations in Uzbekistan on Friday, Kyrgyz Prime Minister Sapar Isakov said in the presence of his Kazakh and Russian counterparts that Astana's actions went against both EEU and WTO rules.

After Kazakh prime minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev flatly dismissed those charges as "incorrect", Russia's Dmitry Medvedev said:

"Let us hope that opportunities arise to resolve this problem."

(Additional reporting by Mukhammadsharif Mamatkulov in Tashkent; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
* ECB says up to Group of 30 to decide on transparency

* Pledges to meet businessmen outside financial sector

By Francesco Canepa

FRANKFURT, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank said on Friday it was not up to it to publish the details of meetings President Mario Draghi holds with an exclusive club of financiers and economists, but described them as being in the public interest.

At issue is Draghi's membership of the so-called Group of 30, where policymakers meet bankers, fund managers and academics behind closed doors to discuss economic issues.

He sits alongside former and current central bankers, such as Bank of England Governor Mark Carney and the Bank of Japan's Haruhiko Kuroda, as well as Nobel laureate Paul Krugman.

Responding to a question from the European Union's ombudsman, or transparency watchdog, the ECB said it was up to the group to decide whether to start publishing the content of its meetings.

"For G30 meetings, it is primarily for the G30 to decide on the level of transparency of its discussions," it said in the response to one of 16 questions.

Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly had asked whether the ECB would "consider proactively informing the public of the content of these meetings, providing agendas and non-confidential summaries" of G30 events.

The ombudsman was responding to a complaint by activist group Corporate Europe Observatory, which said in January it was concerned about proximity at the G30 of ECB officials and bankers they are meant to supervise.

These include directors from Spain's Santander , Germany's Bayerische Landesbank and U.S. giant JPMorgan , whose Luxembourg subsidiary is supervised by the ECB.

The chairman of UBS , Axel Weber, and the chief executive of Credit Suisse , Tidjane Thiam - two Swiss banks with several subsidiaries in the euro zone - are also members of the G30.

The ECB, which publishes the text of the speeches given by Draghi and other board members at the G30, said such meetings -- which are announced in advance as taking place -- were in the public interest because they helped inform its decisions on monetary policy.

"In an environment where proper safeguards are in place and respected, such interactions positively contribute to the ECB's ability to fulfil its mandate - which, in turn, is in the public interest," the ECB said.

It said the G30 had become more transparent since the complaint, filming and publishing one of its debates and allowing the media to a recent seminar.

In its response to O'Reilly, the ECB also announced plans to hold regular meetings with entrepreneurs outside the financial sector, a concession to critics who say it is too close to the industry it is supposed to oversee.

CEO, the activist group, said in a report last month that the vast majority of seats available on the ECB's advisory groups were taken by financial sector representatives. Draghi has been a member of the G30 since 2006, when he was still the governor of the Bank of Italy.

ECB Vice President Vitor Constancio and Sabine Lautenschlaeger, who represents the ECB's supervisory arm on the board, have also spoken at G30 meetings.

ECB senior supervisor Julie Dickson contributed to a G30 paper on banking conduct, albeit only as an external observer.

(Reporting by Francesco Canepa Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
LONDON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Following are five big themes likely to dominate thinking of investors and traders in the coming week and the Reuters stories related to them.

1/TRUMP ON TOUR

U.S. President Donald Trump embarks on his first trip to Asia in the coming week, stopping in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Security concerns in the Korean peninsula and the South China Sea will grab a lot of attention, but investors will also look at trade talks, with Trump particularly keen to address his country's vast trade deficit with China that Beijing calls unintentional, but which he calls "horrible".

There is also the first deluge of data since last month's People's Party Congress in China. Import and loan growth figures will be particularly closely watched.

A weakening of the former would point to domestic demand finally flagging, while an acceleration of loan growth would show borrowers are finding ways around tighter new lending rules.

China to cut consumer product tariffs, lift financing to boost imports-vice minister EXCLUSIVE-Energy, not tech or finance, in CEO line-up for Trump's China visit 2/BALLISTIC BITCOIN

Investors' appetite for bitcoin appears to have no bounds. The digital currency climbed above $7,000 on Thursday for the first time ever, after an astronomical increase of more than 900 percent over the past 12 months. News that the world's biggest derivatives exchange operator, CME Group, was set to launch bitcoin futures was seen as a significant step in bitcoin's road to mainstream adoption, driving the latest surge in price.

But with high-profile investors such as Warren Buffett and the head of Credit Suisse saying in recent days that the bitcoin market represents a bubble, could that be set to burst in spectacular fashion? What is to stop a rival cryptocurrency - of which there is a potentially unlimited quantity - from becoming investors' digital currency of choice? With bitcoin now worth more than $120 billion, more than Citi or Goldman Sachs, the consequences of a sudden crash could be severe.

Cryptocurrency market cap hits record $200 bln as bitcoin soars CME to launch bitcoin futures in push for currency's wide adoption 3/ NEED A JOLT?

The Nov. 7 release of the September Job Opening and Labor Turnover (JOLT) survey will show whether demand for labour has held up or is in need of an - ahem - jolt.

At the moment, the ratio of job openings versus quit jobs is close to 2 to 1, hovering in a range close to the all-time peak of 2.12 hit in July 2015.

It all comes following strong recent U.S GDP data and after Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives released plans on Thursday for a tax overhaul they believe will help lift the economy.

U.S. Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLTS) U.S. Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLTS) 4/ITALIAN BANKS JOB

Italy's biggest banks, including UniCredit , Intesa and Banco BPM , report their latest earnings and they could make encouraging reading following the euro zone-wide pick-up in growth and a strong rally in Italian debt over the last month.

It certainly seems a long time since last year's bail out of problem child Monte dei Paschi di Siena . It is now back in the market, and the main Italian banks are comfortably outperforming their euro zone peers in share performance in 2017, so the results round should be telling.

Italy's UniCredit says $21 bln bad loan sale proceeding as planned Monte dei Paschi welcomed back by market but below rescue price 5/ VENEZUELA RESTRUCTURING

After what feels like years of speculation, OPEC member Venezuela's socialist leader Nicolas Maduro wants to restructure the ailing country's foreign debt.

Maduro has invited Venezuelan bondholders to a Nov. 13 meeting in Caracas to discuss the matter, although getting clearance from the compliance department could be interesting for the bankers involved.

Vice President Tareck El Aissami, who is on a U.S. blacklist for alleged drug trafficking, said the country remained committed to paying all its debt but wanted to reformulate terms with creditors, which is likely to mean some lively bouts of price discovery.

Venezuela calls creditors to debt restructuring talks Venezuelan eurobonds drop nearly 10 points in price, yields soar <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ China's trade with the United States Bitcoin boom or bubble U.S. Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLTS) Italian banks doing the job Venezuela oil exports ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Reporting by Marc Jones; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
By Karen Pierog

Nov 3 (Reuters) - Houston voters on Tuesday will determine the fate of a $1 billion pension bond issue, which is the last piece of a state-approved plan to fix the city's financially ailing retirement systems.

The bond measure is one of 370 debt issues totaling $24.5 billion on ballots in 26 U.S. states next week, according to data company Ipreo.

Passage of the bond issue is a critical part of a 30-year cost-saving plan signed into law in May by Texas Governor Greg Abbott to address Houston's $8.2 billion unfunded pension liability. Mayor Sylvester Turner on Wednesday urged voters to support the pension bonds.

"For the first time in 17 years, we now are on the verge of coming up completely with a pension solution," Turner told reporters.

Chris Brown, the city's controller, said voter rejection of the bonds would rescind $1.8 billion in savings and would force Houston to come up with an additional $150 million in its next budget to comply with mandated pension payments at required levels.

The nation's fourth-largest city is still recovering from the late August destruction from Hurricane Harvey, which left the city scrambling for every dollar it can find, Brown said.

"We like to say we've already endured a natural disaster so we sure don't want to create another financial disaster on top of the natural disaster we just experienced," he said.

Proceeds from the bonds would flow mainly to the city's police pension fund, which would receive $750 million, and to the municipal employees' fund, which would get $250 million.

The Houston Police Officers' Union agreed to reduced pension benefits and is supporting the bonds to save the police pension fund, according to Ray Hunt, its president.

"The money is going to be paid. The question is if the money is going to be paid through bonds or is it going to be paid through layoffs," he said.

Brown said he is unaware of any organized opposition to the bond measure, which faces the prospect of low voter turnout. If approved, he said the taxable debt would be priced in December through underwriting firms Barclays and Jefferies.

BONDS ON BALLOTS

Of the states holding bond elections on Tuesday, Texas has the most issues at 112 totaling $11.67 billion, including $1.05 billion of bonds for Austin's public school system, according to Ipreo.

Houston has another $495 million of bonds in four issues on the ballot for public safety, parks, library and other projects. Dallas voters will decide 10 bond issues totaling just over $1 billion for various capital improvements.

In Arizona, voters will consider more than $1 billion of bond deals to fund school and transportation projects.

Voters in the city and county of Denver will decide on more than $900 million of general obligation bonds in seven measures. The largest is $431 million of bonds for transportation projects.

"I'm assuming we would go to the market in terms of a financial transaction to draw down on these funds probably in the latter part of the first quarter, into the second quarter of next year," said Brendan Hanlon, Denver's chief financial officer.

(Reporting by Karen Pierog in Chicago, additional reporting by Robin Respaut in San Francisco and Stephanie Kelly in New York; Editing by Daniel Bases and Matthew Lewis)
* Sept exports +14.8 pct y/y vs Reuters poll +18 pct

* Sept imports +15.2 pct y/y vs poll forecast +20.0 pct

* Trade surplus 8.6 bln rgt vs poll forecast of 8.8 bln rgt

* Exports to China +27.1 pct y/y, U.S. +10.7 pct, EU +16.2 pct

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Malaysia's September exports rose 14.8 percent from a year earlier, slowing in pace for the second month in a row, despite strong demand for manufactured goods in China and Europe.

Export growth was below the 18 percent rise forecast by a Reuters poll, and sharply down from 21.5 percent in August and July's 30.9 percent. Malaysia has seen double-digit growth in exports over the past nine months, peaking at 32.5 percent in May. Shipments of manufactured goods, which accounted for more than four-fifths of Malaysia's total exports, were up 17.1 percent from a year earlier in September, data from the International Trade and Industry Ministry showed. Most of the manufactured goods were electrical and electronic products.

Shipments of agricultural goods, however, declined 1.8 percent from a year earlier, the data showed.

September's imports grew 15.2 percent from a year earlier to 69.7 billion ringgit, down from the 22.6 percent growth posted in August.

The trade surplus in September narrowed to 8.6 billion ringgit ($2.03 billion) from August's 9.9 billion ringgit.

Malaysia reports trade data in ringgit . The currency has been one of Asia's best-performing ones this year, strengthening about 6 percent this year.

Exports to China remained robust, rising 27.1 percent from a year earlier, while those to the United States grew 10.7 percent.

Shipments to the European Union rose 16.2 percent, with exports of electrical and electronic products rising 28.5 percent from a year earlier to 4.4 billion ringgit, the highest monthly export value ever recorded.

KEY DATA

(Exports and imports in percent, trade in billions of ringgit)

Sept Aug July June May Apr Mar Feb Exports 78.3 82.2 78.6 73.1 79.4 74.0 82.6 71.8 y/y% 14.8 21.5 30.9 10 32.5 20.6 24.1 26.5 Imports 69.7 72.4 70.6 63.2 73.9 65.2 77.2 63.1 y/y% 15.2 22.6 21.8 3.7 30.4 24.7 39.4 27.7 Balance 8.6 9.9 8.03 9.88 5.49 8.75 5.41 8.71 MAIN EXPORTS

Sept 2017 % of % change

(bln rgt) total vs year ago

Electrical & 30.9 39.4 17.7 Electronic Products Petroleum products 6.0 7.7 22.4 Chemicals and 5.2 6.7 2.9 chemicals products

Palm oil & Palm-based 4.5 5.7 -1.7 products

Manufactures of metal 3.3 4.2 25.4 Liquefied natural gas 3.0 3.9 8.2

Machinery 3.0 3.8 7.3 Optical and 2.7 3.4 14.5 scientific equipment Rubber products 2.1 2.7 19.4 Crude oil 1.7 2.2 -4.9

EXPORT MARKETS

Sept 2017 % of % change

(bln rgt) total vs year ago

China 11.4 14.6 27.1 Singapore 11.2 14.4 8.1 USA 7.7 9.8 10.7 Japan 5.8 7.5 6.9 Thailand 3.9 4.9 7.0 ($1 = 4.2320 ringgit)

(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Sunil Nair)
The delegation visited the Presidential Palace (Photo: doanthanhnien.vn)

The event is in the framework of the program "Follow Vietnamese and Lao leaders footsteps" in 2017.

The program, jointly held by Vietnams Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union and the Lao People's Revolutionary Youth Union, is taking place from October 30th to November 4th in Vietnam and November 5th-11th in Laos. It is an important political event of the two countries to celebrate the 55th anniversary of Vietnam-Laos diplomatic relations, and the 40th anniversary of the Amity and Cooperation Treaty.

Lao youth and students offered incense to President Ho Chi Minh - who laid the foundations for the friendship and special solidarity between the two peoples. Then they visited the Presidential Palace, where President Ho Chi Minh lived and worked from December 19th, 1954 to September 2nd, 1969; House 54; stilt house; fish pond; House H67, where the Politburo met and Uncle Ho was in convalescence; Ho Chi Minh Museum; and listened to emotional stories of Uncle Hos sentiments with his compatriots, soldiers, children and international friends.

Particularly, the delegates also watched a documentary film about last moments of beloved President Ho Chi Minh and listened about the life and career of President Ho Chi Minh, as well as his friendly relationship and special solidarity with the people and tribes of Laos. They were presented significant souvenirs of Ho Chi Minh badges.

On the same day, the delegation visited Chu Van An National School (previously known as Pomelo School) that has educated and trained generations of Vietnamese and Lao pupils. Many of them have gone on to become leaders of their respective Party and State, including President Kaysone Phomvihane, who is a first generation Lao revolutionary soldier and the successor of the Indochinese Communist Party.

On this occasion, significant gifts and summary record of the teachers and pupils writing about the special friendship and solidarity between Vietnam and Laos, were presented to visiting delegates./.
BERGEN, Norway, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The Norwegian crown has weakened more than expected over the last week, the central bank governor told Reuters on Friday.

"Since the rate meeting last week, the crown level has been weaker than we anticipated," Governor Oeystein Olsen told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Bergen.

The Norwegian crown weakened to the lowest level in three months against the euro following rate meetings with both Norges Bank and the ECB on Oct. 26, and has remained weak despite higher oil prices.

The governor also said the October drop in registered unemployment released earlier on Friday was in line with the central bank's expectations of an improved labour market going forward. (Reporting by Camilla Knudsen, editing by Gwladys Fouche)
Following are news stories, press reports and events to watch that may affect Poland's financial markets on Friday. ALL TIMES GMT (Poland: GMT + 1 hour):

WARSAW BOURSE Equity fund Enterprise Investors plans to list its Lithuanian tour operator Novaturas in Warsaw and in Vilnius, instead of selling it to Itaka as previously planned, Rzeczpospolita daily said quoting EI representative.

JSW Polish coking coal producer JSW considers taking over a company providing mining services for around 300 million zlotys ($82.58 million), Rzeczpospolita daily said quoting unnamed sources.

IDEA BANK Private equity funds could be interested in buying Polish smaller lender Idea Bank from billionaire Leszek Czarnecki if he decides to sell his stake, Parkiet daily said quoting unnamed sources.

PROVIDENT Poland plans to increase Corporate Income Tax (CIT) for foreign subprime lenders such as the British Provident Financial Plc, Puls Biznesu daily said.

BANKS

Polish antimonopoly office has launched a probe against PKO BP , Pekao and BPH as it considers some of their agreements' clauses regarding foreign exchange spreads as a prohibited, Puls Biznesu said quoting the office.

****Reuters has not verified stories reported by Polish media and does not vouch for their accuracy.****

For other related news, double click on: Polish equities E.Europe equities Polish money Polish debt Eastern Europe All emerging markets Hot stocks Stock markets Market debt news Forex news For real-time index quotes, double click on: Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX ($1 = 3.6327 zlotys)

(Reporting by Warsaw Bureau)
(Adds dropped 'a' to Asamblea in paragraph 7)

* Puigdemont says possible to run campaign from abroad

* Judge expected to issue arrest warrant for him on Friday

* Detention of Catalan leaders boosts independence camp

By Rodrigo De Miguel and Robert-Jan Bartunek

MADRID/BRUSSELS, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who left Spain for Belgium after his government was sacked following a declaration of independence, said on Friday he was ready to stand in a snap election in the region next month.

Puigdemont ignored a court order to return to Spain on Thursday to answer charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds relating to Catalonia's independence push.

Nine members of his dismissed cabinet were ordered to be held in custody on Thursday pending an investigation and potential trial.

A Madrid judge is expected to issue a European arrest warrant for Puigdemont, a senior court source said. His lawyer has said he did not trust Spanish justice though he would cooperate with the Belgian courts.

"I am ready to be a candidate... it's possible to run a campaign from anywhere," Puigdemont told Belgian state television RTBF, referring to the election called by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy following the unilateral independence declaration.

"We consider ourselves a legitimate government. There must be a continuity to tell the world what's going on in Spain... It's not with a government in jail that the elections will be neutral, independent, normal."

In protest at the jailings, Catalan civic groups Asamblea Nacional Catalana and Omnium Cultural -- whose leaders were imprisoned last month on sedition charges -- called for a general strike on Nov. 8 and a mass demonstration on Nov. 11 .

One member of the dismissed cabinet, Santi Vila, was released after paying bail of 50,000 euros ($58,300) on Friday. The other eight were not given bail and could remain in custody for up to four years.

Vila stepped down from the Catalan cabinet before Friday's independence declaration, and while he remains a supporter of an secession he has been advocating a negotiated solution with the central government.

He has said he wanted to stand as the leading candidate for Puigdemont's PdeCat (Catalan Democratic party) in the regional election.

Another six Catalan leaders are due to testify on Nov. 9 on the same charges.

Four members of the sacked regional government are with Puigdemont in Belgium and also ignored orders to testify before the High Court.

The court source said a judge would "most likely" issue a European arrest warrant for Puigdemont and his four associates on Friday.

Belgium will have a maximum of three months to decide whether to send Puigdemont back to Spain. NEW BOOST

The detention of the secessionist leaders and Puigdemont's flight to Belgium have given a new boost to the secessionist camp after cracks appeared in its ranks.

Thousands of people staged pro-independence protests on Thursday night in several Catalan towns, and parties forming the current coalition Junts Pel Si (Together For Yes) are pushing to run again on a joint ticket at the Dec. 21 election.

An opinion poll published on Tuesday showed Junts Pel Si would win the December election with 35.2 percent if the vote was held today and would likely reach a parliamentary majority if it stuck with its current pact with far-left party CUP.

Facing such a prospect, the Spanish government said on Friday it would have no option but to open talks within the law with those who held a majority.

"We could offer a new dialogue so that we can fulfill Catalans' aspirations for more autonomy and look into reforming the constitution," Foreign Affairs Minister Alfonso Dastis told French newspaper Le Figaro in an interview.

"Some even mention the idea of a federal model so that regions can have more autonomy, including financially."

(Additional reporting by Jesus Aguado and Paul Day in Madrid; Writing by Julien Toyer; Editing by John Stonestreet)
Nov 3 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Friday.

TAXES

Romania's government holds a meeting at 1200 GMT at which it could approve a fiscal overhaul.

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis urged the government on Thursday to reconsider a planned overhaul of taxes that he said could hurt the economy and risked breaching the European Union's rules on budget deficits.

A major trade union representing public and private sector employees meanwhile said it planned to call a general strike. Economists and investors have also expressed concerns about the measures. PPI

Romanian industrial producer prices ROPPIY=ECI rose 4.3 percent on the year in September and 0.3 percent on the month, data from the National Statistics Board showed on Thursday. CEE MARKETS

The Czech crown retreated from a 4-year high on Thursday on surpise that the central bank's board had agreed unanimously to a modest 25 basis point rate hike and an outlook which pointed to fewer than expected rate hikes ahead. DACIA

Roughly 8,000 employees of carmaker Dacia, owned by French Renault , are expected to protest on Nov. 7 against the government's proposed measures, the company's union said. Ziarul Financiar

For the long-term Romanian diary, click on For emerging markets economic events, click on For an index of all diaries, click on For other related news, double click on: --------------------------------------------------------------- Romanian equities RO-E E.Europe equities .CEE Romanian money RO-M Romanian debt RO-D Eastern Europe EEU All emerging markets EMRG Hot stocks HOT Stock markets STX Market debt news DBT Forex news FRX For real-time index quotes, double click on: Bucharest BETI Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX ---------------------------------------------------------------
By Devika Syamnath

Nov 3 (Reuters) - Philippine shares retreated from a record high scaled earlier on Friday to close 1.6 percent lower as investors locked in profits from three straight sessions of gains, while Vietnam reversed earlier losses to close higher.

Industrials and financial stocks led the losses on the Philippine index , reducing its weekly gain to nearly 1 percent.

Conglomerate JG Summit dropped 3.8 percent while Bank of the Philippine Islands lost 4.2 percent.

"During the biggest part of the trading session investors were quite optimistic anticipating better-than-expected third-quarter results for some of the big companies," said Lexter Azurin, an analyst with Manila-based AB Capital Securities.

Companies such as Ayala Corp , SM Investments and JG Summit are scheduled to report quarterly results later this month.

"But I guess some investors were seeing mixed reactions given that current valuations (of the index movers) are quite rich at this point so we're seeing a lot of investors starting to take profits," said Azurin.

Vietnamese shares pared earlier losses to close 1.3 percent higher.

China and Vietnam reached an agreement on Friday to diplomatically manage their dispute in the South China Sea. The countries have long been at loggerheads over China's claim to the majority of the regional sea. Industrials and financial stocks accounted for the gains on the index, with builder FLC Faros Construction and Vietcombank rising 6.9 percent and 2 percent, respectively.

Singapore ended marginally higher, with gains in telecom stocks offsetting losses in consumer stocks.

"Traders are being more cautious today, heading into the weekend... the STI may turn range-bound these few days," said Liu Jinshu, director of research at NRA Capital.

Telco Singtel was the top gainer on the city-state's index while Thai Beverage lost 1 percent and led the decliners.

The index has dropped 0.1 percent this week, its first weekly loss in five.

Indonesian shares also closed marginally higher, with the index gaining 1.1 percent on the week, its best in twelve.

Malaysian shares ended flat, resulting in the index's fifth weekly drop in seven.

For Asian Companies click; SOUTHEAST ASIAN STOCK MARKETS Change on day Market Current Previous Pct Move

close Singapore 3382.31 3380.5 0.05 Bangkok 1701.47 1701.93 -0.03 Manila 8376.13 8516.02 -1.64 Jakarta 6039.541 6031.107 0.14 Kuala Lumpur 1740.93 1741.05 -0.01 Ho Chi Minh 843.73 833.09 1.28

Change on year Market Current End 2016 Pct Move Singapore 3382.31 2880.76 17.41 Bangkok 1701.47 1542.94 10.27 Manila 8376.13 6840.64 22.45 Jakarta 6039.541 5296.711 14.02 Kuala Lumpur 1740.93 1641.73 6.04 Ho Chi Minh 843.73 664.87 26.90

(Reporting by Devika Syamnath in Bengaluru; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri)
HANOI, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Here's a snapshot of Vietnamese dong exchange rates in the official and unofficial markets, indicative SJC gold prices in Hanoi and interbank offered rates at 0403 GMT.

November 3 USD/VND mid-point 22,462 USD/VND interbank 22,712/22,713 USD/VND unofficial 22,780/22,800 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.41/36.63

Interbank offered rates Overnight 0.6-1.2

1 week 0.8-1.4

1 month 1.4-1.8

3 months 3.1-3.6

NOTES: The State Bank of Vietnam began setting the mid-point rate on daily basis as of Jan. 4, 2016, allowing dollar/dong transactions to move in a band of +/- 3 percent around the mid point.

The dong's exchange rate against other currencies is not restricted by a band. Interbank offered rates are the latest indicative bid/ask prices, quoted from market sources.

One tael is equivalent to 37.5 grams or 1.21 troy ounces. SJC gold prices are quoted by state-owned Saigon Jewelry Co.

For more interbank rate fixings released at 0400 GMT, click on .

For Vietnam market overview click on: Vietnam's bonds market auctions: Bonds auction results: (Compiled by Hanoi Newsroom)
MADRID, Nov 3 (Reuters) - A Spanish judge has issued an arrest warrant for ousted Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont and four of his former councillors, all currently in Belgium, the High Court said in a statement on Friday.

Puigdemont left for Belgium after Catalonia's regional government was sacked by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy hours after the Catalan parliament made a unilateral declaration of independence on Friday.

Puigdemont and his associates faces charges of rebellion, sedition, misuse of public funds and breach of trust. The judge rejected the former Catalan leader's request to testify via videoconference from Belgium.

(Reporting by Rodrigo de Miguel; Editing by Paul Day and Julien Toyer)
ZURICH, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The Swiss blue-chip SMI was seen opening 0.1 percent firmer at 9,288 points on Friday, according to premarket indications by bank Julius Baer .

Here are some of the main factors that may affect Swiss stocks.

NOVARTIS The Swiss drugmaker is working with Centerview to review options for its dermatology business, including a possible sale, as it trims non-core assets, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Amgen and Novartis announce expanded collaboration with Banner Alzheimer's Institute in pioneering prevention programme For more news see UBS Hedge fund Elliott Management Corp has enlisted investment bank UBS Group AG for help in its effort to secure a higher price in Qualcomm Inc.'s planned purchase of NXP Semiconductors NV or bring in a new bidder, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing people familiar with the matter. COMPANY STATEMENTS * Straumann says Turkish Competition Authority grants approval for Straumann to acquire a 70 percent stake in Batigroup, Turkey's largest distributor of dental implants; current owner to hold remaining 30 percent and join Straumann Group together with local team of 200 * Autoneum said it placed a 100 million Swiss franc 2025 bond with a coupon of 1.125 percent. * Pargesa said it had economic operating income of 348.1 million francs at September 30, up from 280.8 million francs in the year-earlier period. * Investis said it sees significantly lower income taxes for 2017, compared to the previous year, due to a 11 million franc reversal of deferred tax liabilities. Its full year operating targets are unchanged. * SGS buys Canadian group BioVision Seed Research Ltd, with 20 staff and annual sales of 3.4 million Canadian dollars

* VZ Holding increases tax provisions by 5.2 million francs amid a legal dispute over value added tax

* Wisekey increases full-year 2017 pro-forma revenue guidance to $56 million, approximately 383 percent higher than full-year 2016

* Talbot controls 99.67 percent of the shares in ImmoMomentum after a takeover offer, final results showed

ECONOMY (Reporting by Zurich newsroom)

Daily Swiss stock market report in German................ All SMI constituent stocks............................ News on major Swiss stock price moves.................. FTSE Eurotop 300 index................................ DJ STOXX index........................................ Top 10 STOXX sectors............................. Top 10 EUROSTOXX sectors........................ Top 10 Eurotop 300 sectors....................... Top 25 European pct gainers... , losers... Swiss mid-cap index SMI futures Swiss all-share index Market statistics Swiss market digest Sector overview All Swiss news Swiss research news All equity news INTERNET ADDRESSES: Swiss Exchange / Eurex STOXX Ltd SPEED GUIDES: ))

Keywords: MARKETS SWISS STOCKS/
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 3 (Reuters) - South Africa sold 3.555 billion rand ($252 million) worth of three-month Treasury bills on Friday, at an average yield of 7.53 percent compared with 7.54 percent last week, central bank data showed. The bid-to-cover ratio fell to 2.0 from 2.4. Auction date: 03/11/2017 Settlement date: 08/11/2017 Days 91 182 273 364 Amount received (R'bln) 7.24 3.644 2.633 2.62 Amount on offer (R'bln) 3.555 2.46 2.5 2.5 Amount allotted (R'bln) 3.555 2.46 2.5 2.5 Bid-to-cover ratio 2.0 1.5 1.1 1.0 Avg discount rate (pct) 7.39 7.47 7.57 7.52 Average yield (pct) 7.53 7.76 8.03 8.13 ($1 = 14.1131 rand)

(Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by James Macharia)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
* Year-on-year basis prices rose by 0.7

(Adds quote from press conference)

OSLO, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Norwegian seasonally adjusted housing prices rose by 0.4 percent in October from September and were stronger than expected, a real estate industry association said on Friday.

On a year-on-year basis prices rose by 0.7 percent in October, below 1.5 percent seen in September and down from 13 percent growth seen as late as February, Real Estate Norway said.

Tighter mortgage regulations, lower population growth and a boom in construction have all contributed to the recent market turnaround.

"It (the rise in S/A price) surprises us a bit on the upside. We should remember this comes after drops five months in a row. It can be the beginning of a trend shift but it's to early to tell," said Real Estate Norway CEO Christian Dreyer.

He added the big cities had a negative price development overall, including the capital Oslo where prices dropped 1.8 percent.

"We expect the 12 month-price growth in the Oslo market to drop further in the next months," Dreyer told a news conference.

Dreyer added that overall he expected a more negative development in prices in November and December after the surprisingly strong October.

For 2018, Dreyer said it had a cautious outlook and expected a moderate price rise compared to 2017.

"We expect a price growth in first quarter next year but weaker than normal," he said.

The first quarter is normally the period of the year where the price rise is the biggest. For the full year 2018 Dreyer predicted a "very moderate price rise".

Unadjusted prices fell by 0.2 percent in October from September.

The housing data was compiled by Real Estate Norway, FINN and Eiendomsverdi.

(Reporting by Henrik Stolen, editing by Gwladys Fouche, Editing by William Maclean)
President Tran Dai Quang and Governor of Saitama prefecture Kiyoshi Ueda (Source: VNA)



During a reception in Hanoi on November 2nd for Governor of Saitama prefecture Kiyoshi Ueda, President Quang said over the past more than two decades, Japan has always been the largest donor of Vietnam with a total official development assistance amounting to nearly USD25-27 billion, mostly for infrastructure.

Japan has been the second largest investor in Vietnam with more than 3,500 valid projects worth upwards USD46 billion. It is also the sixth largest trade partner with roughly USD30 billion in two-way trade.

He suggested providing optimal support for the two countries businesses via investment and trade, tourism and labour promotion activities.

Vietnam is improving the business climate to create a level playing field for all firms, he said, adding that the country welcomes Japanese investors, including those from Saitama prefecture, to expand investment in the country.

The host expressed his wish that apart from infrastructure, Vietnam wants to extend bilateral partnership in fields of Japans strength, including high technology, agriculture, industry, and food hygiene to meet requirements of the industrial revolution 4.0.

Kiyoshi Ueda briefed the Vietnamese President about potentials and strengths of Saitama prefecture in Japanese economy, as well as Saitamas business operations in Vietnam.

He said it is his fifth visit to Vietnam since he took office in 2012. The prefecture and the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MoPI) signed a memorandum of understanding to create favourable conditions for Saitamas firms to do business in Vietnam.

The Japanese guest said Saitama Office in the MoPIs Foreign Investment Agency specialises in providing assistance for Japanese enterprises in Vietnam. Among 47 Japanese cities and provinces, Saitama ranks fifth in economic size and gross domestic product and is home to large-scale plants in the fields of industry, technology, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.

According to him, Saitamas businesses highly value Vietnams business conditions with hard-working workers.

He wished that the prefecture would receive further support from the MPI.

At the reception, Japanese Ambassador to Vietnam Kunio Umeda conveyed a message from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as saying that he is looking forward to meeting President Tran Dai Quang during the upcoming APEC Economic Leaders Week in Da Nang city./.
* Probe targets supervisory board chairman and an executive

* Centres on stock buys ahead of announced Metro demerger

* Metro says no insider information available at that time

(Adds further details, Bafin statement)

DUESSELDORF, Germany, Nov 3 (Reuters) - German prosecutors are investigating the supervisory board chairman of retailer Metro on suspicion of insider trading before the group's announcement last year that it would split in two, the company said on Friday.

Police and prosecutors searched Metro's offices in the western German city of Duesseldorf on Friday, the spokesman said, adding the group was cooperating with the authorities.

Metro announced on March 30, 2016 that it planned to separate its wholesale and food business from its consumer electronics chain to help each focus and grow faster, sending its stock 12 percent higher.

Financial watchdog Bafin said it had filed charges of insider trading and stock market manipulation with the Duesseldorf prosecutor's office in connection with the announcement, but did not name any suspects.

German weekly Spiegel reported earlier that Metro Chairman Juergen Steinemann and a management board member, whom it did not name, bought shares in the company before demerger plans became public.

A regulatory filing shows that Steinemann bought 43,000 shares in Metro on Feb. 22, 2016, worth just over 1 million euros ($1.2 million) at the time.

Metro said that no insider information was available when Steinemann and the unnamed executive bought shares.

It also said that it published its proposal to split in a timely fashion, in accordance with German rules. The consumer electronics business is now listed on the stock exchange under the name Ceconomy .

The prosecutor's office said it would issue a statement on the matter on Monday and could not comment before then. ($1 = 0.8581 euros)

(Reporting by Matthias Inverardi; Writing by Maria Sheahan; Editing by Arno Schuetze/Keith Weir)
(Adds details, quotes, background)

MOSCOW, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Russia's En+ Group, which manages tycoon Oleg Deripaska's aluminium and hydropower businesses, priced its global depositary receipts at $14 in an initial public offering (IPO) on Friday, at the lower end of its guided range.

The IPO of En+ in Moscow and London is the first major primary equity raising by a Russian company in Britain since Western sanctions were imposed on Russia over its role in the Ukraine crisis. En+ and Deripaska are not under sanctions.

En+ said its post-money market capitalisation amounted to $8 billion and the offering would raise a total of $1.5 billion. AnAn Group, a partner of China's CEFC, invested $500 million in the company's GDRs, EN+ said in a statement.

"En+ Group's offering is the largest initial public equity offering by a Russian company since 2012 and constitutes one of the largest IPOs on the London Stock Exchange," En+ chief executive Maxim Sokov said in a statement.

The price range was set at between $14 and $17 per GDR.

It did not say why the offering was closed at the lower end of the initial guidance.

On Friday, En+ reiterated that IPO would allow it to repay a portion the debt. It has said earlier that it would repay the bulk of the debt to the state bank VTB . En+ owns assets in metals and energy, including a 48 percent stake in Hong Kong-listed aluminium producer Rusal , which is a big consumer of hydroelectricity produced by companies owned by En+.

On Friday, En+ said it had signed a non-binding deal with Glencore in which the trading firm would convert an 8.75 percent stake in Rusal to a stake in En+. The deal is due after the IPO, allowing En+ to increase its stake in Rusal to 56.88 percent.

En+ did not say who else invested into its IPO. Financial market sources told Reuters on Thursday that Qatar, Russian Direct Investment Fund along with its partners as well as U.S. Capital Group had put bids during the IPO. (Reporting by Maria Kiselyova and Katya Golubkova; Editing by Maria Kiselyova and Edmund Blair)
(Adds book value, cash stake, other financial details, insurance industry storm losses, other investments)

By Jonathan Stempel

Nov 3 (Reuters) - Bad weather hurt Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc in the third quarter, as insurance losses tied to Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria and an earthquake in Mexico contributed to a 43 percent drop in profit.

Berkshire on Friday said it lost $1.95 billion after taxes from claims tied to the disasters, leaving its Geico auto insurance, General Re reinsurance and Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance units with underwriting losses for the year.

Insurance typically accounts for about one-fourth of Berkshire's overall profit. Berkshire has roughly 90 businesses in such sectors as chemicals, energy, food and retail, and industrial products, and also owns the BNSF railroad.

Overall net income fell to $4.07 billion, or $2,473 per Class A share, from $7.2 billion, or $4,379 per share, a year earlier.

Operating profit, which excludes investment and derivative gains and losses and which Buffett says better reflects company performance, fell 29 percent to $3.44 billion, or $2,094 per Class A share, from $4.85 billion, or $2,951 per share.

That missed analysts' average operating profit forecast of $2,402.47 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate's diversification cushioned the earnings decline, and included higher profit at the BNSF and Berkshire Hathaway Energy units.

Despite the storms, book value per Class A share, measuring assets minus liabilities, rose 2.5 percent in the quarter to $187,435, and is up 8.9 percent this year.

Berkshire also ended September with $109.3 billion of cash and equivalents, more than five times the $20 billion minimum Buffett has said he prefers, and investors are waiting to see what he does with it.

Buffett, 87, has run Berkshire since 1965, and investors have remained confident in his leadership, having boosted the company's share price 15 percent this year.

The Class A shares closed Friday down $2,963.99 at $280,470.01, while Class B shares fell $1.34 to $187.27. Both were about 2 percent below their Oct. 24 record highs.

FULL-YEAR UNDERWRITING LOSS LIKELY

Berkshire lost $1.44 billion from insurance underwriting in the quarter and $1.73 billion from January to September, putting it on pace for its first full-year underwriting loss since 2002.

It had even eked out a small underwriting profit in 2005, the year of Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma, Rita and Dennis.

But investment income from insurance operations cushioned the blow, rising 23 percent to $1.04 billion.

Losses could have been even greater had Berkshire not cut back exposure in reinsurance, including for major catastrophes, after a glut of capital caused premiums to decline.

Other insurers and reinsurers such as Allstate Corp , American International Group Inc and Swiss Re AG also suffered larger quarterly storm losses, and are hoping to boost rates.

Berkshire's results also reflected an accounting charge tied to its January agreement to assume many of AIG's policies in exchange for $10.2 billion upfront.

But that and other premiums that Berkshire receives before paying claims have helped boost insurance "float" to $113 billion, giving Buffett more money to invest.

Some of its cash hoard will eventually be used to buy 80 percent of Pilot Flying J, the largest U.S. truck stop operator. Buffett announced that investment on Oct. 3. Berkshire also owns dozens of stocks such as Apple Inc , Coca-Cola Co and Wells Fargo & Co , and has a 26.7 percent stake in food company Kraft Heinz Co .

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Richard Chang and Tom Brown)
(Adds reaction, details)

By Andrew Cawthorne and Brian Ellsworth

CARACAS, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Venezuelan bonds tumbled on Friday after socialist President Nicolas Maduro announced plans to restructure the OPEC nation's external debt during an unprecedented economic crisis further complicated by U.S. sanctions.

The country's $3 billion 2026 bond and $4.2 billion 2031 paper both slumped 9.7 points, with yields surging to record levels of 39.4 percent and 37.9 percent respectively.

State oil company PDVSA's 2035 bond was down 7.1 points and its 2024 bond off 3.4 points.

Maduro, the 54-year-old successor to Hugo Chavez, said late Thursday that PDVSA would make this week's $1.1 billion payment on a maturing bond which had been the immediate point of anxiety for investors. But he then announced a new commission to study the restructuring and refinancing of all future payments on foreign debt, which include about $50 billion in bonds.

Venezuela has few avenues to restructure, however, because of President Donald Trump's sanctions. Aimed at squeezing the ruling Socialist Party whom Washington accuses of installing a dictatorship, Trump's measures bar U.S. banks from participating in or even negotiating such deals.

Venezuela's move could create a sovereign debt crisis of a scale not seen in Latin America since the massive 2001 default in Argentina that shut it out of markets for years.

Lambasting a U.S.-led global "persecution" of his government, Maduro appointed Vice President Tareck El Aissami to head the debt commission. The former state governor has no known experience handling foreign debt matters and is on a U.S. blacklist as an alleged drug kingpin, accused of facilitating trafficking and links to gangs in Mexico and Colombia.

Venezuelan Economy Minister Simon Zerpa, who also wears the hat of chief financial officer of PDVSA, is under U.S. sanctions too for alleged corruption.

Venezuela's opposition was scathing about Maduro's plans, saying his government had no credibility abroad.

"Maduro won't be able to restructure the debt because nobody in the world trusts his government," said Julio Borges, head of the opposition-led congress, who has been campaigning hard to increase global pressure on Maduro.

'NO-ONE FLUENT IN MADURO-SPEAK'

The government and PDVSA owe some $1.6 billion in debt service and delayed interest payments by the end of the year, plus another $9 billion in bond servicing throughout 2018.

The next hard payment deadline for PDVSA is an $81 million bond payment that was due on Oct. 12 but on which the company delayed payment under a 30-day grace period. Failing to pay that on time would trigger a default, investors say.

That would expose Venezuela and PDVSA to lawsuits by creditors seeking to seize assets such as refineries in the United States.

It is also likely to make companies less willing to do business with Venezuela, potentially aggravating shortages of food and medicine and creating further problems for its vital oil industry already hobbled by under-investment.

Maduro surprised many by maintaining debt service after the 2014 crash in oil prices, diverting hard currency away from imports of food and medicine toward Wall St. investors.

Traders were left scratching their heads over Maduro's statements, which neither clearly declared default nor laid out a path to easing payment burden.

"No one is fluent in Maduro-speak with everyone scrambling for what this all means," said Siobhan Morden, Latin America analyst for Nomura bank.

Venezuela's debt is the highest yielding of emerging market bonds measured by JPMorgan's EMBI Global Diversified Index , paying investors an average of 31 percentage points more than comparable U.S. Treasury notes.

That is nearly double the spread on bonds issued by Mozambique, which is already in default, and more than six times the spread on bonds from war-torn Ukraine.

Maduro narrowly won election in 2013 after Chavez died and Venezuela faces another presidential vote next year.

Though there is widespread public disquiet at economic hardship, the opposition coalition is cracking after a disastrous showing at last month's gubernatorial elections, and there is speculation Maduro may bring forward the presidential vote, which had been expected for the end of 2018.

(Reporting by Andrew Cawthorne in Caracas, Christian Plumb and Daniel Burns in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Susan Thomas)
* Bond prices plunge, yields soar to record levels

* Debt renegotiation process beginning - El Aissami

* Efforts could be limited by sanctions, skepticism

(Recasts with Nov. 13 bondholder meeting, updates prices, no oil impact, analysis)

By Andrew Cawthorne and Brian Ellsworth

CARACAS, Nov 3 (Reuters) - President Nicolas Maduro's cash-strapped socialist government invited Venezuelan bondholders to a Nov. 13 meeting in Caracas as a shock decision to restructure the OPEC nation's foreign debt sent prices plunging on Friday.

Vice President Tareck El Aissami, who is on a U.S. blacklist for alleged drug trafficking, said the country remained committed to paying all its debt, but wanted to reformulate terms with creditors.

"A sovereign process of debt renegotiation is beginning," said El Aissami, who is heading Venezuela's debt committee despite having no known prior experience on the matter.

El Aissami gave an email address for bondholders to write to and added that Economy Minister Simon Zerpa - also under U.S. sanctions on graft charges - would be on his committee too.

Venezuelan bond prices took a beating in trading on Friday after Maduro's surprise announcements the previous evening.

The $753 million 2018 bond plunged 31 points, while the $3 billion 2026 bond and $4.2 billion 2031 papers both slumped about 10 points, with yields surging to record levels.

State oil company PDVSA's 2021 bond was down 20 points while the 2022 paper dropped nearly 18 points, Reuters data showed.

Maduro, the 54-year-old successor to Hugo Chavez, said late on Thursday that PDVSA would make this week's $1.1 billion payment on a maturing bond which had been the immediate point of anxiety for investors. But he then announced a new commission to study the refinancing and restructuring of all future payments on foreign debt, which include about $50 billion in bonds.

Refinancing usually involves a voluntary operation in which investors agree to exchange one set of securities for another, whereas a restructuring implies a forced negotiation.

Venezuela has few avenues to take either because of President Donald Trump's sanctions and skepticism that Maduro is serious about overhauling a moribund economy.

ARGENTINA PRECEDENT

Aimed at squeezing the ruling Socialist Party whom Washington accuses of installing a dictatorship, Trump's measures bar U.S. banks from participating in or even negotiating new debt deals.

Venezuela's move could create a sovereign debt crisis of a scale not seen in Latin America since the massive 2001 default in Argentina that shut it out of markets for years.

Maduro said a U.S.-led global "persecution" of his government was to blame for Venezuela's debt predicament.

But opposition leaders, who have long blamed Maduro and his predecessor Chavez for destroying the economy, was scathing about his plans, saying the government had no credibility.

"Maduro won't be able to restructure the debt because nobody in the world trusts his government," said Julio Borges, head of the opposition-led congress, who has been campaigning hard to increase global pressure on Maduro.

The president said Borges should be tried for treason.

The government and PDVSA owe some $1.6 billion in debt service and delayed interest payments by the end of the year, plus another $9 billion in bond servicing throughout 2018.

The next hard payment deadline for PDVSA is an $81 million bond payment that was due on Oct. 12 but on which the company delayed payment under a 30-day grace period. Failing to pay that on time would trigger a default, investors say.

That would expose Venezuela and PDVSA to lawsuits by creditors seeking to seize assets such as refineries in the United States.

Default would also likely make companies less willing to do business with Venezuela, potentially aggravating shortages of food and medicine and creating further problems for its vital oil industry already hobbled by under-investment.

There was no immediate impact, however, on oil exports and production from Maduro's announcement.

"NO ONE FLUENT IN MADURO-SPEAK"

The president surprised many by maintaining debt service after the 2014 crash in oil prices, diverting hard currency away from imports of food and medicine toward Wall St. investors.

That has added to a crushing four-year recession, with millions skipping meals, and basics from milk to car parts scarce or impossible to buy due to soaring prices.

Traders were left scratching their heads over Maduro's statements, which neither clearly declared default nor laid out a path to easing payment burden.

"No one is fluent in Maduro-speak with everyone scrambling for what this all means," said Siobhan Morden, Latin America analyst for Nomura bank.

Venezuela's debt is the highest yielding of emerging market bonds measured by JPMorgan's EMBI Global Diversified Index , paying investors an average of 31 percentage points more than comparable U.S. Treasury notes.

That is nearly double the spread on bonds issued by Mozambique, which is already in default, and more than six times the spread on bonds from war-torn Ukraine.

Jim Barrineau, co-head of emerging market debt at Schroders, said he understood a committee of Venezuelan bondholders might be forming.

"But a restructuring has a very close to zero possibility given U.S. sanctions, time constraints given the payment schedule, and the fact that Venezuela obviously does not have the technical capacity to negotiate even if those other issues were not there," he added.

Maduro narrowly won election in 2013 after Chavez died and Venezuela faces another presidential vote next year.

Though there is widespread public disquiet at economic hardship, the opposition coalition is cracking after a disastrous showing at last month's gubernatorial elections, and there is speculation Maduro may bring forward the presidential vote, which had been expected for the end of 2018.

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ BREAKINGVIEWS-Venezuela's Maduro enters alternate reality ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Reporting by Eyanir Chinea, Corina Pons, Alexandra Ulmer, Andreina Aponte in Caracas, Christian Plumb and Daniel Burns in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Susan Thomas)
* Bond prices plunge, yields soar to record levels

* Debt renegotiation process beginning - El Aissami

* Efforts could be limited by sanctions, skepticism

(Adds government officials, reaction, price details)

By Brian Ellsworth and Andrew Cawthorne

CARACAS, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Venezuela's cash-strapped government invited creditors to a Nov. 13 meeting in Caracas on Friday, after announcing plans to potentially restructure some $60 billion in bonds that sent the OPEC nation's debt prices plunging.

President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday vowed to make a $1.2 billion bond payment but said future payments would be refinanced. Investors were unsure about what he meant, because U.S. sanctions on Venezuela mean refinancing is off the table.

Many saw the announcement as paving the way for default - despite Venezuela's promises to the contrary - because the debt burden has left the government unable to ensure citizens access to basic goods such as food and medicine.

A default could create a sovereign debt crisis of a scale not seen in Latin America since the massive 2001 default in Argentina that shut it out of markets for years.

Investors say a newly created debt negotiation commission has little chance of making progress, in part because it is headed by Vice President Tareck El Aissami - who is blacklisted by the United States for alleged drug dealing.

"This commission will lay the groundwork for true and transparent dialogue between the government and bondholders," El Aissami, who has no known experience in debt negotiations, said in a televised address.

Investors were bewildered that Maduro, who narrowly won election in 2013 after the death of Hugo Chavez, appeared to be opening the door to default immediately after authorizing more than $2 billion to bond payments.

Market wisdom had been that Venezuela would not make such payments if it expected to end up in default. It will need those funds because it will be locked out of financial markets.

"Nobody has ever paid a bond in full only to announce default the next day," said an executive from one local brokerage, who asked not to be identified.

In addition to outstanding bonds, Venezuela owes some $26 billion to bilateral and multilateral creditors and $24 billion in commercial loans, according to New York-based Torino Capital.

It put the total public sector debt at $152 billion, though Maduro's announcement appeared to be focused primarily on bonds.

The government and PDVSA owe some $1.6 billion in bond service and delayed bond interest payments by the end of the year, plus another $9 billion in bond servicing throughout 2018.

'ZERO POSSIBILITY'

U.S. President Donald Trump, accusing Maduro of dictatorship, barred U.S. banks from participating in or negotiating new Venezuelan debt deals. That rules out swap operations, which allow investors to voluntarily exchange near-term debt for new securities that mature later.

Restructuring - which generally follows a default - refers to an involuntary arrangement under which creditors agree to change payment conditions. But they usually do so only in exchange for major economic reforms, which Maduro has balked at.

"A restructuring has a very close to zero possibility given U.S. sanctions, time constraints given the payment schedule, and the fact that Venezuela obviously does not have the technical capacity to negotiate," said Jim Barrineau, co-head of emerging market debt at Schroders.

Venezuelan bond prices took a beating on Friday.

Near-term maturities were hardest hit. The PDVSA 2021 bond dropped 20 percentage points to a bid price of 27 points. Longer-dated bonds fared better, with PDVSA's 2027 bond slipping 4.83 points to bid 25.13. Venezuela's 2018 bond was down 31 points.

Investors holding longer-dated paper generally expect a default will take place well before maturity, while the profitability of short-term bets is more dependent on the bonds being paid off.

There was no immediate impact on oil exports and production from Maduro's announcement.

EMTA, a trade association that sets practices for emerging markets, recommended that Venezuelan bonds not under U.S. sanctions continue trading with accrued interest - a sign Venezuela is for now expected to keep up with its payments.

The Washington-based International Institute of Finance (IIF) held an investor call for bondholders in the event talks with the government go ahead, according to two market sources who participated in the call.

Most were not planning to go to Caracas, the sources said.

IIF declined to comment.

OPPOSITION SLAMS PLAN

Leaders of the opposition-led National Assembly said on Friday that any restructuring would be invalid without congressional approval.

"Maduro won't be able to restructure the debt because nobody in the world trusts his government," National Assembly head Julio Borges said.

Though there is widespread public disquiet at economic hardship, the opposition coalition is cracking after a disastrous showing at last month's gubernatorial elections, and there is speculation Maduro may bring forward the presidential vote, which had been expected for the end of 2018.

Vice President El Aissami said a $1.2 payment on PDVSA's 2017N bond that matured on Thursday had already been transferred.

The company spent days trying to make payment on its 2020 bond, which finance industry sources attributed to nervousness by bank officials over possible U.S. sanctions violations.

Principal payments on the two bonds were moving through the clearing system without a problem, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The next hard payment deadline for PDVSA is an $81 million bond payment that was due on Oct. 12 but on which the company delayed payment under a 30-day grace period. Failing to pay that on time would trigger a PDVSA default, investors say.

That would expose Venezuela and PDVSA to lawsuits by creditors seeking to seize assets such as refineries in the United States.

Default would also likely make companies less willing to do business with Venezuela, potentially aggravating shortages of food and medicine and creating further problems for its vital oil industry already hobbled by under-investment.

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ BREAKINGVIEWS-Venezuela's Maduro enters alternate reality ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Reporting by Eyanir Chinea, Corina Pons, Alexandra Ulmer, Andreina Aponte in Caracas, Marianna Parraga in Houston, and Dion Rabouin, Davide Scigliuzzo in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Susan Thomas)
Nov 3 (Reuters) - Following are domestic prices of Vietnam's key commodities. Unit: million dong per tonne Item Oct 30 - Nov 3 Oct 23-27 Location Robusta beans 38.7-41.7 40.8-42.3 Central Highlands Black pepper 76.0-78.0 76.0-77.0 Southern region Refined sugar 15.0-17.0 16.0-17.0 Southern region Summer-autumn paddy 5.9-6.4 5.9-6.2 Mekong Delta SJC gold 3.652-3.667 3.647-3.657 Hanoi, HCMC City NOTES: Gold prices are low/high selling prices quoted in million dong per 3.75-gram ingot during the week by top manufacturer SJC. Prices in the previous week are updated. Coffee export prices Rice export prices Historical data Central bank's gold auction ($1 = 22,712 dong)

(Reporting by Mi Nguyen)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
* Discount for Basra Light widens in Nov from Oct

* Mexican crude soaks up some U.S. demand for Basra

* 44 mln bbl Basra crude to arrive in U.S. in Oct-Nov - Eikon

* Asian buyers snap up discounted Basra crude for Dec-Jan

By Florence Tan

SINGAPORE, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Iraqi Basra crude cargoes in November have sold at the widest discounts to official prices in more than a year, with cargoes backed up after hurricanes hit the U.S. Gulf coast facing competition from Mexican crude, trade sources said on Friday.

The drop in U.S. demand for Iraqi oil may impede the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' second-largest producer's effort to increase exports from the southern port of Basra to make up for a shortfall from the north.

Basra crude shipments have been backed up after four hurricanes disrupted arrivals into the U.S. Gulf between August and October.

More than 22 million barrels of Basra crude were due to land in the United States in both October and November, trade flow data on Thomson Reuters Eikon showed, the highest monthly volumes since data tracking started in 2015.

But some of the cargoes remain unsold as crude from Mexico has filled some U.S. demand, a Singapore-based trader said.

U.S. imports of Mexican crude hit a four-month high of 21.3 million barrels in October, data showed, after earthquakes and storm damage shut Mexico's biggest refinery for most of the month. "The hurricanes caused an overhang of Basra crude while more Mexican oil was sold into the U.S. because of the refinery turnaround," the trader said.

November-loading Basra Light discounts widened to 30 cents to 70 cents a barrel to OSPs. In the previous month the price ranged from a premium of 30 cents to a discount of 10 cents, depending on the cargo's destination. Premiums for November-loading Basra Heavy slipped to 10 cents to 50 cents to official prices, they said, from premiums of 80 cents to $1 the previous month. They declined to be named as they are not authorised to talk to the media.

To cope with Basra crude surplus in the United States, traders have slowed ships and stored some cargoes off the Gulf coast, shipping data on Eikon showed.

For example, supertanker New Achievement, carrying 2 million barrels of Basra crude, has been parked in the U.S. Gulf since Oct 8.

The big discounts for Basra are attracting demand from Asian refiners, the sources said. December-loading Basra crude for Asia has been sold at a discount of about 50 cents as Iraq is likely to raise monthly official prices in line with Saudi Arabia while also increasing exports. In a further blow to Iraq, it failed to attract any bids for prompt-loading Basra crude to Europe in an auction on Tuesday. <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Iraqi Basra crude exports to U.S. hits high ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Reporting by Florence Tan; Editing by Sonali Paul)
Overview of the seminar (Photo: baoquocte.vn)

Speaking at the seminar, Vietnamese Ambassador to Romania Tran Thanh Cong emphasized that Ho Chi Minh was a genius leader, a great teacher of the working class and the people of Vietnam, and an eminent son of the nation of Vietnam.



He devoted his life to the cause of national liberation, the liberation of the working class and the liberation of mankind; the cause of struggle for the bright future of the nation of Vietnam. He is the pride of every Vietnamese person in every historical age.



Furthermore, the Nghe An province-original leader worked wholeheartedly to build the solid unity among the fraternal Communist parties on the basis of Marxist-Leninism and pure proletarian internationalism, constantly cultivated the close and friendly ties among Indochinese peoples, neighbouring countries, outstandingly contributed both in theory and practice to the communist movement and the national liberation movement in the world.



For the people of Romania, President Ho Chi Minh was a great friend, a symbol of friendship, solidarity and loyalty. He paid many visits to the beautiful and hospitable country of Romania, thus creating a solid foundation for the traditional friendship and multi-faceted cooperation between the two countries and peoples.



At the seminar, Romanian guests expressed their good impressions and feelings about the country and people of Vietnam, a nation with long history and tradition of resilience. Under the genius leadership of President Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam valiantly struggled to regain independence and freedom, reunified the country and is gradually building a stronger and prosperous nation to follow the path that President Ho Chi Minh chose and fulfil Uncle Hos divine testament.



Many delegates also provided concrete evidence of Vietnam's development in many fields such as economics, culture, science and technology, appreciating the hard work of the Vietnamese people, to achieve the miraculous achievements of today.

At the end of the seminar, the delegates watched the film "Ho Chi Minh, national liberation hero, world celebrity" and a photo exhibition "President Ho Chi Minh with Romanian people", especially photos on the occasion of the visit to Romania in August 1957 by President Ho Chi Minh./.
Visitors at Vietnam's kiosk (Photo: baoquocte.vn)

This annual event was attended by 29 regions from 19 countries and territories such as the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Iran, Italy, Kazakhstan, Syria, Mongolia and Vietnam.

The Vietnamese Embassy attended all events of the Business Days, especially introduction of its specific export products in the field of agriculture and aquaculture, such as coffee, tea, rice, rubber, cashew, peanut, shrimp and fish, as well as the tourism potential of Vietnam.

At Vietnams kiosk, representatives of producers, importers of Belarus and some countries directly tested coffee, tea, shrimp crackers and watched images of tourism destinations of Vietnam. In a land-locked country like Belarus, aquatic products and marine tourism attracted a great deal of attendees.

Mr. Nguyen Tung Lam, Counsellor of the Vietnamese Embassy in Belarus, emphasized in an interview by the Belarusian National Television the advantages of quality and price of Vietnams agricultural and aquatic products in the international market. In addition, the good relations between the two countries have also boosted the bilateral trade and economic cooperation, especially after Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang's visit to Belarus in June 2017.

Ms. Marina Philonova, Director of the branch of the Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Gomel province, highly appreciated the participation of the Vietnamese Embassy in the event and said that the cooperation between Gomel province and Vietnamese partners would be well developed in the near future. The Belarusian side always attaches great importance to trade cooperation with Asian countries, including Vietnam. At the meeting with the Director, Mr. Nguyen Tien Phuong, Vietnamese Commercial Counsellor in Belarus, highlighted the results of the economic and trade cooperation between the two countries over the past time.

The two-way trade turnover reached over USD100 million in the first eight months of 2017, an increase of over 35% over the same period last year, and is hoped to reach over USD200 million at the end of this year and USD500 million in 2018, according to the desire of the leaders of the two countries.

By the end of 2017, the inauguration of the MAZ-ASIA Factory will take place in Hung Yen province, which will specialize in producing the famous MAZ truck in Belarus, to supply for Vietnamese and ASEAN markets.

It is hoped that the active participation of the Vietnamese Embassy in economic and trade exhibitions and forums in regions of Belarus will bring positive results in this field, commensurate with the good relations between the two countries./.
It is not a bad thing for us, that the route known as the Goldene Strae or the Golden Road as we will get to know it- has escaped the attention of so many. It has been spared being overrun by hordes of tourists and as you will discover the
A foreigner talks with an official at an immigration office in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, to get her residence visa extended. / Korea Times file



By Park Si-soo



The government has refused to extend the visas of foreigners with unpaid taxes since May. And the crackdown has paid off, data shows.

Many foreigners have cleared their debt to get an extension, with voluntarily paid overdue taxes reaching 8.2 billion won ($8.26 million) between May and September, Ministry of Justice data showed Friday. It accounted for 5 percent of about 180 billion won that foreigners owe.












By Lee Hyo-sik



Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon said the government will draw up goals for the ongoing Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) renegotiations by reflecting public opinion and consulting with the National Assembly.



"The public has shown a great deal of interest in the ongoing renegotiation, so the government will hold public hearings, report to the Assembly and follow up other due processes," Kim said Friday.



On Nov. 10, the government plans to hold the first public hearing on the KORUS FTA renegotiation at COEX in southern Seoul.



Kim and other economy-related ministers met to discuss ways of dealing with growing pressure from the United States to open Korea's markets wider to American goods, ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's visit next week.



In addition to North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile development programs, trade issues are expected to dominate the summit between President Moon Jae-in and his American counterpart on Nov. 7 and 8.



The Trump administration has been taking steps to curb imports of Korean steel and other products into the U.S. while calling on Asia's fourth-largest economy to buy more U.S. goods.



Korea and the U.S. have begun renegotiation of the agreement despite the former's reluctance, as Washington is looking to get more concessions from Seoul. Both sides have held two rounds of working-level meetings but have been unable to reach a consensus on any issues.



"The government will place top priority on protecting Korea's interests when negotiating the trade pact with the U.S., in accordance with the law and due processes," Kim said during the meeting at the government complex in downtown Seoul.



Besides Kim, Trade Minister Paik Un-gyu, Land Minister Kim Hyun-mi, Foreign Minister for Trade Kim Hyun-jong and Fair Trade Commission Chairman Kim Sang-jo attended.



Kim said his economy team will work hard to produce the best possible results from the bilateral and multilateral meetings. Moon will host Trump on Nov. 7 and 8 and will then fly to Vietnam for the APEC summit, where he is scheduled to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders.



The finance minister said the government has been closely monitoring the international financial market.



"Despite the lingering geopolitical risks associated with North Korea, things have improved as Korea renewed a currency swap deal with China and maintained its sovereign credit ratings," Kim said.



"The Korean economy performed better than expected in the third quarter, with outbound shipments expanding for the 12 consecutive months. The economy has been recovering at a steady pace."



He said geopolitical risks on the Korean Peninsula peaked from August to September. "But since October, things have returned to normal. But there are still a number of market uncertainties. We will continue to remain vigilant and take all possible measures to stabilize the financial market."




Kakao Bank co-Chief Executives Yoon Ho-young, right, and Lee Yong-woo answer reporters' questions at a press conference at the company's headquarters in Yongsan, Seoul, Friday. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul



By Jhoo Dong-chan

Kakao Bank, the country's second internet-only bank, is gearing up to start new services for its mobile customers next year.

Marking the 100th day since the bank's foundation, co-Chief Executives Yoon Ho-young and Lee Yong-woo said it will offer loans for customers who need to pay security deposits before moving into apartments.

All it takes to secure the loan is a photograph of the required documents taken and submitted via the bank's smartphone application.

The service will be introduced in the first quarter of next year. A credit card service will follow.

The credit card business could start in the second half of 2019, given the time the bank needs for regulatory approval, the CEOs said.

From Tuesday, Kakao Bank's customers will be able to withdraw money from their mobile accounts via automated teller machines (ATM) at convenience and discount chain stores nationwide. They can do so with their smartphones at CU, Seven Eleven and Lotte Mart.

Lotte Cinema and Lotte Duty Free also will install ATMs to enable cash withdrawals via the Kakao Bank application. And customers will be able to pay their bills via the "Pay Info" service by next year.

Kakao Bank has grown rapidly over the past three months.

The number of customers signing up for accounts surpassed 4 million last month.

More than 3 million customers have received the Kakao Bank Check Card.

"We deeply appreciate our customers' interest during our first 100 days," said Yoon and Lee said. "We will continue innovating our services to provide differentiated experiences for our customers."

However, they said the government needs to deregulate rules governing bank ownership.

The Banking Act strictly forbids nonfinancial companies from owning more than a 4 percent share in lenders.

The law was introduced to safeguard banks from being misused by manufacturing conglomerates. But it also made it difficult for banks to raise capital in the nonfinancial sector.

Yoon said Kakao Bank's pace of innovation may "slow down" if the government does not deregulate the law.
Graphic by Cho Sang-won



By Kang Hyun-kyung

About a year ago, So Jae-pyung, managing director of the North Korean Defectors' Association in Seoul, received a letter from a U.S.-based group asking for So and his organization to join hands to form a North Korean government in exile.

In the soliciting letter, the senders introduced themselves as a group of activists striving to end dictatorship in North Korea and prepare for the Post-Kim Jong-un Era in case contingency occurs there.

So said he ignored their request. "There was no information about who they were, except their email address," he said. "No phone numbers or names of the group or any staff working there were available. They wrote they decided not to disclose their identities because they were performing such a secret mission."

So, a North Korean defector, said he was not convinced by what they said. "I don't understand why they chose to remain anonymous. If they were really doing what they said, they had no good reason to hide their identities," he said. "We didn't respond to them."

The idea to form a North Korean government in exile has emerged among some defectors amid speculation that a war may be unavoidable on the Korean Peninsula after North Korea's intensified provocation pit the country against the rest of the world.

"The latest person who initiated the government-in-exile movement was Ri Jong-ho," said a North Korean defector who asked for anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Ri is a former senior-level official of North Korea's secretive Office 39 who defected to South Korea in 2014 with $5 million. He later applied for political asylum in the United States and now lives in Virginia after his asylum was granted.

"I heard he was ambitious and tried to form the North Korean government in exile," the defector said. "He has money to finance his dream... After meeting and having discussion with North Korean defectors in South Korea about the matter, however, I heard he felt he couldn't make his dream come true here."

According to the source, Ri was also frustrated because South Korea was not enthusiastic about the unification of the two Koreas and he realized chances for high-profile defectors like him to play a central role in rebuilding North Korea after a contingency or unification are dim at best.

Many defectors sympathized with the idea of forming the North Korean government in exile in Europe or in the United States. According to them, market economy and human rights need to be the priorities of the government.

North Korea analyst Ahn Chan-il is one of the vocal activists calling for the government in exile. He mentioned the plan to form the North Korean government in exile in the metro Washington, D.C., area in 2010 but his effort has since made no progress.

Ahn said money is one reason. "We need money to finance the agenda. But I found it really difficult to raise funds and rally support from the public," he said. "There was no towering figure who could take the leadership role in the campaign, either, and a lack of an iconic figure to push for the agenda is also one of the hurdles."












Military options against North Korea will be on the table when the U.S. and South Korean leaders meet next week, a top U.S. official said Thursday.

"It would be irresponsible not to talk about the potential for military efforts within the alliance," H.R. McMaster, national security adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, said.

"The reason why that topic must be on the agenda is because of the behavior of this rogue regime and the threat that (North Korean leader) Kim Jong-un poses," he said in a roundtable interview with news outlets from the five Asian nations Trump will be visiting starting Friday.

Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in are to meet in Seoul on Tuesday.

The meeting will come at a time of heightened tension over North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles capable of delivering them to the American mainland.

"The discussion will also be about what more can we do, what more can all countries do to resolve this short of war," McMaster added. "What we think is essential is to continue the diplomatic and economic isolation of the North Korean regime so that leaders within that regime recognize that this weapon, this pursuit of this destructive capability, is not making them more secure, it's making them less secure, and to conclude that it is in their interest to begin denuclearization."

Time is running out to deal with the North Korean threat, the adviser warned.

But he also made clear that the U.S. has not given up on diplomacy.

"Diplomacy is our main effort now," he said, "but it's diplomacy with other countries who recognize the grave threat and who are working together."
Thae Yong-ho / Captured from CNN



By Chyung Eun-ju, Park Si-soo

A former high-ranking North Korean diplomat who fled to the South in 2016 described himself as "nothing more than a modern slave" while recollecting his time in the reclusive state.

Thae Yong-ho, former North Korean ambassador to Britain, made the remark during an interview with CNN in Washington, which aired on Thursday. Thae is visiting Washington to testify before Congress.

He said North Koreans were "frightened" of leader Kim Jong-un because of his "mercilessness."

"He (Kim) faced some challenges inside the leadership of North Korea," Thae said. "That's why Kim Jong-un decided to show he is a man with mercilessness -- so that everyone should be frightened of him.

"I did not want to let my sons to lead a life like me." He went on: "My sons had a long dream of freedom."

Thae defected with his wife and two children but still has family in North Korea. Defectors' relatives are usually sent to prison camps or used by the regime in propaganda.

In a May 2017 interview with CNN, his relatives in North Korea called Thae a "rotten scumbag" who was "not even an animal."

But Thae said he was "very happy" because he was still able to see their faces. "I never imagined that I could see their faces in my life," he said.

Regarding the North-driven nuclear crisis, he said the West and the U.S. should continue "the momentum of maximum pressure and sanctions" and "should even further expand the targeted sanctions."

He also emphasized that dialogue should be opened to let North Korea know it "would be destroyed if they continue the current direction."

Thae said President Donald Trump's unpredictability caused Kim to back down when the North Korean leader was threatening to launch missiles at Guam.

"The unpredictability of President Trump worked to some extent," and that "President Trump should meet Kim Jong-un at least once before taking any military actions against North Korea."

"I think the mood for the possibility of military action is very high," Thae said, elaborating on the fact "Kim Jong-un is determined to reach the goal of nuclear status as well as an ICBM tipped with a nuclear warhead."
Kim Hong-gul, chairman the Committee for National Unity at the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, speaks in front of a portrait of his farther, the late President Kim Dae-jung, during an interview with The Korea Times at a party office, Thursday. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul



War of words will only worsen the situation: Kim Hong-gul



By Choi Ha-young

A visit to South Korea will be helpful for U.S. President Donald Trump to grasp the security situation on the Korean Peninsula, according to Kim Hong-gul, the youngest son of late President Kim Dae-jung.

"I hope President Trump will realize how close Seoul is to the inter-Korean border and how dangerous it is for people when a conflict arises," Kim said in an interview with The Korea Times Thursday.

"Americans tend to underestimate the aftermath of the war on the faraway Korean Peninsula. While staying here for two days, I wish the President will study more and speak less to see how the possible military option would devastate the country."

In Seoul, all eyes are on the U.S. President's speech at the National Assembly on Nov. 8. The government and experts are worried that the tough-talking leader may reignite North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's temper, as he did by calling the young leader "rocket man" at the United Nations General Assembly last month.

"Yet another war of words' will not only worsen the situation," said Kim, chairman the Committee for National Unity in the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK). "Such explosive words will degrade the President's reputation to put him on the same level with the North Korean leader."

Kim was one of the key campaigners for President Moon Jae-in in May's presidential election, after joining the DPK in early 2016. After his father died in 2009, he has been vocal in defending the Nobel laureate's philosophy  building peace and cultivating democracy on the peninsula.

Ex-President Kim is the one who pioneered the inter-Korean relationship by meeting then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Considering the North's tradition of being favorable to those who have ties with its former leaders, Kim Hong-gul has been floated as a special envoy to Pyongyang.

Kim said he will soon reveal his role in breaking the inter-Korean deadlock through a non-governmental channel. Revitalizing communication between the two Koreas and prompting North Korea's market are his core interests.

He hopes Trump can establish trust between North Korea and the U.S. on his first Asian tour. "Unless he intends to wage a war against the North, it's better to map out a diplomatic solution and boast about it as his achievement," Kim said.

To make it, restoring trust with North Korea should be the U.S. President's priority, he said. "North Korea would hesitate to sign any agreement with the U.S. to see the Iran nuclear deal at stake," Kim said.

"I view that the Washington-Pyongyang talks behind the scenes have not made meaningful progress and the Trump administration seems not fully equipped with a firm strategy to tackle North Korea, given that he just nominated Randall Schriver as an assistant secretary of defense for Asia-Pacific security affairs."

To mediate two volatile partners  Washington and Pyongyang  Kim called for Seoul to revisit the 20-year-old Sunshine Policy. "Some people blast the policy, saying it's only devoted to showering North Korea with rice. However, the essence of the Sunshine Policy is constantly making efforts to take the helm in shaping the nation's future.

"Given the characteristics of the incumbent U.S. administration, Seoul should be more proactive in addressing its needs. For example, the U.S. has urged its allies to maximize pressure toward Pyongyang while it's maintaining unofficial contact with the North."

He cited former President George Bush's message of peace at the Dorasan train station near the inter-Korean border in 2002 as fruit from the Sunshine Policy. Only a month after the hawkish president blasted North Korea by calling it the "axis of evil," the older Kim successfully persuaded his U.S. counterpart to promise to talk with North Korea.

Following his two-day Seoul trip, Trump is scheduled to head to Beijing. There the American leader can clear away the lingering thorn between Seoul and Beijing  the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery installed in South Korea.

"The two parties can alleviate the military tension in Northeast Asia by sharing information about the THAAD system and U.S. strategic assets deployed in Seoul, like the Soviet and U.S. arms-reduction talks," Kim said. "It would be a good chance for the U.S. to resolve a misunderstanding about its military strategy."

As a son of the legendary democracy fighter, Kim has witnessed military dictators' crackdowns on his family members, including himself. Recently, he started looking into legal action against those who took power under ex-President Lee Myung-bak. The National Intelligence Service (NIS) under Lee allegedly attempted to revoke Kim Dae-jung's Nobel Peace Prize.

"The Lee administration abused the NIS for its own political gain," he said. "Fundamental reform is urgent. The nation cannot put off this any longer."
20,000 undocumented children face deportation risk



By You Soo-sun



The Korean government plans to investigate and enhance the human rights of undocumented children in Korea, estimated to exceed 20,000 according to civic organizations.



The Ministry of Justice is expected to launch a project next year to document the living conditions of the children and implement measures to address human rights concerns  127 million won ($113,983) has been allocated for the project, which is the first of its kind here.



According to Rep. Baek Hye-ryun of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), no government body has yet documented the plight of unregistered children.



"We phoned the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Court to gather information on the issue, only to find out no government body has ever obtained official records of this population," an official at Rep. Baek's office told The Korea Times.



"After making repeated complaints about this issue, the ministry agreed to look into the matter next year."



The office plans to follow up on the issue beginning with a conference with related government officials at the end of this month.



Through the investigation, the ministry is expected to come up with measures to improve the human rights of undocumented children including those born to illegal migrant workers, refugees and foreigners whose length of legal stay has expired.



These children are restricted from applying for and receiving various public benefits; at worst, they face deportation.



The ministry seeks to alter the naturalization process to consider personal conditions and human rights aspects of applicants.



It will also set up legal procedures to review pleas to live in the country, which are currently left to the discretion of the justice minister or the head of the Korean Immigration Service.



In 2016, 118 unregistered residents facing deportation filed complaints and the ministry granted only 24 of them. By August this year, 62 people filed complaints and just six of these were granted, based on the ministry data obtained by Rep. Baek.



"There is no government body in place to review the different situations of illegal immigrants and unregistered children," said Lee Chang-won, a researcher at the Migration Research and Training Centre.



"The decision is left to the justice ministry, making it impossible to predict what would happen when someone is found to be unregistered. Also the current law does not consider how an undocumented person has come to obtain illegal status here, such as their status when they first entered the country and how their status became illegal. These conditions and the human rights aspects should be taken into account."



As of September 2017 there were over 2 million foreigners living in Korea. Of them, 239,595 were undocumented according to data released by the Korea Immigration Service.








U.S. President Donald Trump is set to arrive here next week on a visit that is widely expected to highlight the strength and importance of the alliance with South Korea, an official from the South Korean presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said Friday.

The U.S. leader will begin his two-day visit to South Korea on Tuesday with a trip to the newly renovated U.S. military base, Camp Humphreys, in Pyeongtaek, 40 kilometers south of Seoul, according to Nam Gwan-pyo, deputy director from the presidential National Security Office.

There, Trump will host a lunch for South Korean and U.S. armed service members. He will then receive a joint briefing of the joint forces on current conditions surrounding the Korean Peninsula.

His meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in will be held at Cheong Wa Dae later in the day.

The meeting, the fifth of its kind since the two leaders took office, will consist of a bilateral summit and an expanded meeting, involving key government officials from both countries, according to Nam. Their previous encounters included two three-way talks involving Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.












A student is being taken into police custody after attending a sit-in protest against U.S. President Donald Trump in front of the National Assembly in Seoul, Friday. / Yonhap

A man salutes the Korean national flag during a rally to support Trump's state visit to Korea at Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul, Friday. / Yonhap



By Jung Min-ho

The Korean government will dispatch 8,000 police officers to the National Assembly to prevent demonstrators from marring U.S. President Donald Trump's state visit next week. Trump will deliver a speech at the Assembly on Wednesday.

Police have rejected most left-wing civic groups' applications for rallies near Cheong Wa Dae, in which Trump is scheduled to have a summit talk with Korea's President Moon Jae-in Tuesday.

Under Korean law, assembly plans have to be reported to police in advance, who can reject them under certain circumstances.

It is the first time the police have restricted rallies since Moon took office in May.

But some rallies will still be held a few hundred meters further from the Assembly and the presidential office. Police are considering setting up blockades around them and dispatching heavily armed squads there in case they turn violent.












Did Japanese fighter jets really participate in a military drill in Korean territory? Or were they only escorts outside Korean territory?

By Rachel Lee

U.S. President Donald Trump will be on a tight schedule during his two-day state visit to South Korea, Cheong Wa Dae said Friday.

Trump will arrive on Nov. 7 and then visit the U.S. Army garrison at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, according to National Security Office official Nam Gwan-pyo.

It will be the first visit of a U.S. president to the headquarters of the Eighth U.S. Army which relocated there in July. Trump will have lunch with South Korean and U.S. armed service members, and attend the joint forces' briefing of the current situation on the Korean Peninsula.

In the afternoon, Trump and President Moon Jae-in will hold a one-on-one summit followed by an expanded meeting. The two leaders will also hold a joint press conference after their meeting.

After the press event, Moon will host a state banquet with the presidents' wives and key government officials and representatives from the two countries. The presidential office said it is planning to prepare a concert comprising traditional music and K-pop during the dinner.

On the second day, the U.S. president will meet with U.S. Embassy staff and families. After, he will visit the National Assembly, where he will meet with Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-kyun and give a speech.

Nam said a speech at the South Korean parliament by a U.S. president, who is visiting the country for the first time in 25 years, is considered significant.












The United States flew two B-1B bombers over the Korean Peninsula on Thursday, its Air Force said, ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's planned visit to Asia.

The pair of bombers conducted sequenced bilateral missions with South Korean fighters and Japanese fighters, the U.S. Pacific Air Forces said in a statement.

"The two B-1B Lancers took off from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, and transited south of Korea and west of Japan to integrate with Koku Jieitai (Japan Air Self-Defense Force) fighters," it said. "The Lancers then transited overland to Korea to integrate with Republic of Korea fighters in the Yellow Sea. Upon completion of bilateral integration, the aircraft returned to their respective home stations."

The mission was planned in advance and not in response to any current event, it added.

Trump is set to embark on his first official visit to Asia on Friday. The White House has said the trip will largely focus on ways to counter the threat posed by North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The 12-day trip will include stops in South Korea, Japan, and China.

South Korea's military also said that the U.S. bombers conducted simulated air-to-ground bombing drills over the Pilseung shooting range in Gangwon Province. They are known to have been escorted by two South Korean F-16K fighter jets.

"B-1B bombers have flown over the Korean Peninsula once or twice per month," a military source said. "The move is part of efforts to enhance rotational deployments of U.S. strategic assets to curb North Korea's nuclear and missile threats.












By Yi Whan-woo

Hong Joon-pyo

Former President Park Geun-hye was expelled from the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP), Friday, completely losing her ties with the conservative party following a corruption scandal that led to her removal from office in March.

LKP Chairman Hong Joon-pyo exercised his authority to remove Park from the party, after its Supreme Council failed to reach a consensus over Park's fate on early Friday.

Hong, however, did not finalize a decision on two of Park's diehard loyalists  Reps. Suh Chung-won and Choi Kyung-hwan  although they were expected to be stripped of their party membership as well.

"Park's party membership is gone completely as of today," Hong announced during a press conference.

Park's removal is expected to result in eight anti-Park lawmakers from the Bareun Party, a splinter group from the LKP's predecessor Saenuri Party, joining the LKP by next week.

The eight legislators, including former Saenuri Party Chairman Kim Moo-sung and its former floor leader Yoo Seong-min, bolted from the party and created the Bareun Party in January following a power struggle with pro-Park factional members.

Hong's expulsion of Park is seen as a bid to improve the LKP's tarnished image over the corruption scandal that rocked the country last year.

Analysts said it may help unite the conservatives ahead of the local elections next year as well.

Some others, however, still warn of intra-party conflicts. They pointed out that Rep. Kim Tae-heum, an LKP Supreme Council member and also a Park loyalist, reacted angrily toward Hong's singlehanded decision to remove Park from the party.

Kim argued it was the Supreme Council, not Hong, that has the right to finalize the measure regarding the former president.

Hong's side explained his measure was in line with the LKP ethical committee's recommendation made to Park on Oct. 20 to voluntarily leave the party or raise objections accordingly by Thursday.

Under party regulations, Park was supposed to be expelled from the party automatically after she failed to meet the Thursday deadline. She is currently detained and undergoing a trial on charges related to the influence-peddling scandal involving her confidant Choi Soon-sil.

The party's Supreme Council could not reach a consensus as pro-Park faction members insisted on putting her party membership to a vote, although the majority of the party members were against it.

The soon-to-be LKP members from the Bareun Party plan to stress the importance of unity among the conservatives to better counter the Moon Jae-in administration's popularity.

Some experts raise concerns Hong and Kim Moo-sung may clash in their preparations for the local elections.

The Bareun Party remained prudent over Hong's decision on Park, saying "We'll closely monitor how the LKP will transform." Ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) downplayed the removal of Park from the LKP as a "mere politically motivated step."

"The measure was far too late considering Park was ousted almost eight months ago," DPK spokesman Kim Hyun said. "It's too apparent the LKP's decision is based on its interest in restructuring, not based on its responsibility over the corruption scandal."

Park used to be an iconic figure of the Saenuri Party and its conservative precursors after entering politics in 1997.

She had the honor to be the first registered Saenuri Party member in April 2012 when the party changed its name from the Grand National Party, for which she served as its chairwoman.
By Choi Ha-young

Paris Baguette, a bakery franchise conglomerate, filed a lawsuit against the government of President Moon Jae-in to reverse the labor ministry's order to directly hire all the company's outsourced bakers, the ministry said Friday.

The company is said to have taken the legal action on Oct. 30.

The ministry implemented a disciplinary measure against the bakery chain  if it does not directly employ the 5,300 bakers working at 3,396 stores as its employees, the government will press charges with prosecutors and seek to impose a fine by Nov. 9.

This came after it inspected the company's employment and wage records, and found the bakery chain, a part of SPG Group, violated labor laws in September.

It uncovered that the company had not paid their wages worth over 11 billion won ($ 9.9 million).

"The company had misused the workers to reduce costs," Justice Party Chairwoman Lee Jeong-mi said in September. She was the first lawmaker to expose the issue.

Since then, this has raised the alarm in the retail industry where such recruitment practices are prevalent as part of cost reduction.

The Fair Trade Commission, the country's antitrust regulator, has also tried to crack down on malpractices of franchise conglomerates against their subcontractors in line with the government's labor-friendly policy.


By Chyung Eun-ju, Park Si-soo

A driver was fined for harassing another driver with continued "revenge" honking.

The driver, surnamed Lee, 64, was accused of sounding the horn for 35 seconds when a car ahead didn't make way for him to turn right in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, July 3.

Seoul Northern District Court fined Lee 300,000 won for violating the Road Traffic Law. The law punishes drivers who distract or threaten other drivers with repeated or continued honking with up to a year in prison or a fine of up to 5 million won ($4,500).

"His act was dangerous and could lead to an accident," Judge Jang Soo-young said.
By Choe Chong-dae

The relationship between Korea and Japan is quite complicated because it is always affected by historical and territorial issues. Although political ties between the two countries are going through a turbulent time, their cultural relations remain firm. Spanning over 1,500 years, Korea and Japan's exchanges have resulted in trade, war and political engagements, all of which underlie their relations to this day.

On October 23, a unique diplomatic reception was held on board the "JS Kashima," a training ship of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, at the 2nd Fleet of Command of the Korean Navy, Pyeongtaek, to commemorate the ship's first visit to Korea.

Yasumasa Nagamine, the Japanese Ambassador to Korea, and Rear Admiral Koji Manabe, the Commander of the Japan Training Squadron, hosted the reception that allowed Koreans and Japanese to experience Japanese naval traditions while enjoying friendly exchanges with each other.

I was deeply touched by recent news that Japanese Emperor Akihito paid his first tribute at the Koma Shrine in Hidaka, Saitama Prefecture, on September 20. According to historical records, Ko Yak-gwang, the son of the last king of the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in Korea, and about 2,000 people migrated to Japan and settled in the region of Saitama Prefecture around 1,300 years ago. In 716, the Koma shrine was built to honor Ko Yak-gwang and other Goguryeo migrants.

According to an urban myth in Japan, he who pays tribute at the Koma shrine has his wishes granted. Many Japanese politicians, including prosecutors, visit the shrine frequently as they believe that their visits will lead to a promotion or career success. Interestingly, six Japanese politicians, including Makoto Saito, became prime minister after visiting the shrine.

Surprisingly, on the occasion of his 68th birthday, Emperor Akihito revealed at a press conference on Dec. 12, 2001, that he felt a personal attachment to Korea because of the blood ties of his ancestors. The close kinship with Korea is recorded in the Shoku Nihongi, or the Chronicles of Japan, compiled in 797, that the mother of Emperor Kammu (reign 781-806) had come from the family of Baekche, an ancient kingdom of Korea and she was a descendant of its King Muryong (reign 501- 523).

Although he was describing a fact documented in historical records, it was the first time that the Emperor had publicly lauded Korean blood in the imperial line.

The Emperor's sense of strong attachment to the ancient relationship between Korea and Japan recently prompted him to pay tribute to the Koma Shrine.

Due to old age and health concerns, the Emperor is likely to abdicate at the end of March 2019 and Crown Prince Naruhito is expected to take the throne.

Recently, Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon proposed that Emperor Akihito consider making a landmark visit to Korea before he abdicates. Although the Emperor wished to visit Korea several times over the decades, it was difficult because it could agitate both countries. However, if he resigns from the throne, his dream to visit Korea will come true soon. His affection for Korea would pave the way for mutual understanding between the two countries, setting aside historical tensions.

To surmount various difficulties between the two countries, what we need most is to be ready to talk about any issue without prejudice and without excessive emotion. Open dialogue will enable us to understand each other's ancient culture. We should endeavor to uncover more truths from history and rediscover our shared values.





Choe Chong-dae is a guest columnist of The Korea Times. He is President of Dae-kwang International Co., and Director of the Korean-Swedish Association. He can be reached at choecd@naver.com.
By Choi Ha-young



North Korea's cyber warfare capability has become a worldwide concern. The North has been accused of being behind numerous cyberattacks on the websites of government agencies and financial institutions. North Korea's cyber warfare capability has become a worldwide concern. The North has been accused of being behind numerous cyberattacks on the websites of government agencies and financial institutions.

We tend to regard the North as the prime suspect whenever the systems of banks and public organizations are hacked here. In many cases, however, it is difficult to find evidence supporting the North's direct involvement.

It is easy to blame North Korea for untraceable hacking incidents. What is embarrassing is that there has been little improvement in South Korea's cybersecurity technology, and many of its online networks remain vulnerable to attack.

During a recent National Assembly audit, lawmakers raised the issue of Pyongyang's cyberattacks on financial institutions and banks here, including the Bank of Korea.

A press release issued by Rep. Shim Jae-cheol of the Liberty Korea Party, Sept. 26, said the number of cyberattacks against the central bank has considerably increased  from 44 last year to 116 by August this year.

The report said 327 of the 400 attacks were conducted outside the nation, branding North Korea as the prime suspect. However, those attempts carried out from foreign countries don't necessarily mean they were done by Pyongyang.

The release didn't clarify the exact number of attacks suspected of being carried out by North Korea. Instead, an unnamed government source was cited as saying "North Korea is the suspect in multiple cases."

There was no convincing evidence of the North's involvement in the cyberattacks, but a story was published on the front page of a newspaper based on the lawmaker's claims.

Rep. Joo Ho-young of the Bareun Party also revealed on Oct. 9 that 1,808 cyberattacks against the country's transportation system were detected over five years from 2012, and it's showing a rising trend: 107 in 2012, 148 in 2013, 478 in 2014, 558 in 2015 and 517 in 2016.

Particularly, he said the main targets were the Korea Airports Corporation and Incheon International Airport, indicating North Korea was behind the attacks.

Many of the attacks on the firms originated from China and countries in the Middle East and Africa. However, it's almost impossible to conclude that such attacks are actually staged by North Korea or not.

Surely, the importance of the country's cyber security cannot be stressed enough. Unlike in the past, the impact of the "North Korea factor" in politics to exaggerate the enemy state's threats is not that influential anymore.

However, the characteristics of North Korean affairs make it difficult to fact-check such information. Journalists cannot double-check the statistics by reaching out to the North Korean authority, and citizens' access to information about North Korea is limited. Further, reports about the hermit state are easy to attract readers' interests.

Making tentative judgments that North Korea is behind an increasing number of cyber crimes may mislead the public to underestimate other risk elements in cybersecurity.

According to cybersecurity experts, domestic hackers could use a virtual private network to conceal their origins. Otherwise, hackers can imitate the attack patterns that are primarily used by North Koreans. It's impossible to rule out the possibility that foreign hackers or international terrorists are increasingly targeting South Korean authorities.

Judicious approaches are required before charging North Korea. The reality around us could be too complicated to blame the totalitarian regime.
By Hyon O'Brien

Ever since we returned home to Miami Beach after Hurricane Irma struck in mid-September, it seems that every day has consisted of ceaseless waiting as we deal with damage to our apartment.

First we waited for the company that deals with water-damaged walls to remove moisture. Industrial strength dehumidifiers worked for four full days to get the soggy drywall down to an acceptable moisture level. Then we waited for the mold tester. Because so many similarly affected people needed the same service, it was a slow process.

Next, the mold removal crew encased the kitchen with plastic covers to remove the cabinets and the drywall behind to treat the mold with chemicals. We waited another four days for the auto scrubber machines to complete the job.

Now we are waiting for the mold inspector to come and confirm that the mold is gone, and for the home insurance inspector and the public adjuster to come and assess the damage.

It's been a month. Next, we will get a contractor to come and give us an estimate on putting our kitchen back together. It will be a long time before we have a functioning kitchen. The waiting period is longer because so many households have the same problem.

Compared to the tragic devastation hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria caused in Texas, St. Martin, Puerto Rico and the Florida Keys, our situation is inconsequential and manageable, and I feel silly to complain. Still, I can't deny that we have been distressed by the upheaval and chaos.

This exercise in patience reminds me that, throughout our lives, almost every day we find ourselves waiting for something. I remember waiting anxiously for the result of my college entrance exam to see whether I had been admitted to the university that I had longed for. All mothers have experienced the long wait for the baby's arrival _ those nine months seem interminable! We wait for the results of medical tests and treatments. If it is a terminal case for a loved one, the wait for that person to pass will be mixed with sadness and pain as well as loving memories.

There are thousands of ways of waiting: waiting for a promotion or a transfer, waiting for the closing on a house, waiting for payment, waiting for a delivery, waiting in line for a concert, waiting for the rain to let up, waiting for the plane or the train or the bus, waiting for a phone call from a child traveling abroad, waiting for the sunset, waiting for the new baby's first step, waiting for the epidemic to be over, waiting for help to come, waiting for the strike to be over, waiting for economic sanctions to work, waiting for gun-control legislation to prevent senseless violence, waiting for workers' wages to go up, waiting for the election to change a horrible government, waiting for a truce, for a peace treaty, for disarmament. The list is endless.

There are other kinds of waiting: we wait for peace of mind, for joy to come back, for love to be restored, for hate and anger to subside, for sadness and pain to heal, for laughter to return, for a sense of gratitude to prevail in the midst of calamity, for calmness to flood our mind, and for hope to appear on the horizon.

There is a great danger in waiting. While waiting, we can be paralyzed by letting the situation gain power over us. We are robbed of the present moment by failing to live in the "here and now." I notice that as a big weakness in myself. I find it hard to balance the challenges I am facing with the equilibrium I need to have.

Another negative aspect of waiting is that we skip doing routine things. I find that while all the upheaval has been going on in our apartment, I have completely lost the desire to go out on my bike, to call people, to write, to attend the weekly meetings and activities that previously set the healthy tone for my days. My motivation has evaporated. What a loss! I have some work to do to regain it.

"Waiting" is a 1999 novel by Chinese-American author Ha Jin, which won the National Book Award in the same year. It is based on a true story that he heard in China before coming to the United States. In the book, Lin Kong, an army doctor, is locked in an arranged marriage with a woman chosen by his parents who lives in a remote village far from him. Meanwhile, he has fallen in love with Wu Manna, a nurse. His wife, a traditional country woman, sympathizes with him but nevertheless makes him wait nearly two decades before finally granting him a divorce. The book provides a vivid picture of China from the mid-'60s to the '80s. We witness how the prolonged wait did not diminish Lin and Manna's love, and how they never lost hope.

I take comfort from the words of Alexander Dumas: "All human wisdom is summed up in two words; wait and hope." I am learning to wait for the improvement in our situation with hope. Indeed, waiting is a period of learning.





Hyon O'Brien (hyonobrien@gmail.com) is a former reference librarian now living in the United States.


Tech giant reshuffles management to keep up innovation pace

By Lee Min-hyung

Samsung Electronics is moving to transform itself into a younger organization by promoting seven executives to presidents of the firm's major businesses.

The reshuffle is part of the company's efforts to catch up with the rapidly changing IT industry. The seven new presidents are in their 50s. The move also reflects the firm's merit-based reward system as four of the seven are from the chip unit that had record profits this year.

"This is the first time that four executives were promoted to presidents in our device solution (DS) unit," a Samsung official said. "The new presidents in their 50s generated outstanding performance in the firm's core business."

The DS division generated a record operating profit of 9.96 trillion won ($8.94 billion) in the third quarter. Sales reached 19.91 trillion won. This was the first time that the unit topped 50 percent in terms of the operating profit to sales ratio.



All about chips

Jin Gyo-young, who was promoted to the firm's memory chip unit, is at the center of the record profit this year. He is cited as one of the world's leading DRAM experts, allowing Samsung to commercialize 80-, 60-, 30- and 20-nano DRAM memory chips for the first time around the globe.

He joined Samsung Electronics in 1997, having served as a trailblazer developing state-of-the-art nano-sized memory manufacturing technologies.

"One of his noteworthy achievements as a first mover in the memory chip industry was the development of the 18-nano DRAM chips," the Samsung spokesman said. "He played a central role in maintaining Samsung's leadership in the memory semiconductor industry."

Samsung is an unmatched leader in DRAM and NAND flash memory chips. In particular, the company boasts a global DRAM market share of 48 percent last year.

"The memory chip business is one of Samsung's biggest cash-cow businesses, and the promotion is expected to help the company tighten its leadership, led by Jin's technological expertise."

Kang In-yup, the new president of the firm's System and LSI unit, has also been promoted to top management in recognition of his global presence as a leading telecom chip expert, having played a crucial role in Qualcomm. He participated in developing third-generation and fourth-generation telecom chips at the U.S.-based chipmaker before moving to Samsung Electronics in 2010.

He has since taken on major posts at Samsung's non-memory chip unit. His previous title includes chief of the DS unit's modem and system-on-chip development center.

"He is also known for his swift decision-making and securing initiatives to push for new businesses," the Samsung official said.

His achievements include development of a long-term-evolution modem chip for the Galaxy S6.

Jung Eun-seung, the former chief of the firm's semiconductor research center, was promoted to the president at its foundry business.

His promotion came in part due to the combination of his technological expertise and management mindset. While working at the firm's chip manufacturing facilities, he has also been recognized for excellent communication skills with clients here and abroad.

"For this reason, Jung has drawn a spotlight as one of our next-generation management leaders within Samsung Electronics," the company official said.

Hwang Deuk-kyu, new president at Samsung China, has experience in the DS unit's major management teams _ such as procurement, planning and inspection. His business acumen and networking skills are cited as the key reasons behind his promotion, according to Samsung.

In particular, while serving in a business planning team at the DS unit, he was in charge of establishing a chip plant in Xian, China.

"He is the best executive who understands the Chinese chip industry and has decades-long knowhow in internal and external business relations," the official said. "As a new Chinese unit chief, Hwang is expected to serve as a connecting dot to help other Samsung affiliates communicate in the Chinese market."

Tim Baxter, president and CEO at Samsung Electronics North America, was also promoted to the firm's top management.

Baxter started his career at Samsung Electronics in 2006 as a marketing expert, after securing experience in tech companies such as AT&T and Sony.

He has run Samsung Electronics' sales business in the United States for more than 12 years. In 2011, he led the local subsidiary's monthly record TV sales of 1 million. The following year, he was promoted to the firm's first foreign vice president.

His expertise comes from differentiated marketing strategies and communication with customers. Baxter has also contributed to raising Samsung's market share for premium products such as TVs and other home appliances in the U.S.

His leadership allowed Samsung to become the largest TV seller in the North American market for more than a decade.

The new chief of Samsung Electronics North America has also participated in key business decisions. Last year, Baxter led Samsung's acquisition of luxury appliance maker Dacor.

As part of the year-end reshuffle, former Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Kwon Oh-hyun, who recently stepped down as chairman of the firm's board of directors, has been promoted to chairman of the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology. Lee Sang-hoon, president of Samsung Electronics' corporate management team, has been nominated to fill Kwon's shoes.
The 2017 Mercedes-AMG E43 4MATIC sedan / Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz Korea



By Jhoo Dong-chan

Mercedes-AMG, the German premium carmaker's racing performance division, has widened its target customers by concentrating not only on performance-centered technologies but also on jack-of-all-trades models that are both luxurious and comfortable to drive.

Thanks to such efforts, its long rivalry with BMW's M division seems to have finished in a landslide victory for it in Korea at least in terms of sales. The latest Mercedes-AMG, the E43 4MATIC mid-size performance sedan symbolizes the carmaker's advancement in versatility that satisfies customer need for performance, luxury and comfort.

This reporter was offered a test drive of the Mercedes-AMG E43 4MATIC for two days, driving about 200 kilometers in the metropolitan area, including the expressway route to Incheon International Airport.

Although mounting a powerful 3.0-liter V6 bi-turbo gasoline engine that reaches 100 kilometers per hour in 4.6 seconds with its 401 horsepower, the model was extremely comfortable but fun to drive even at high speed. Mercedes-AMG's latest all-time four-wheel drive system technology delivers an ideal front-to-rear weight ration of 31:69 at acceleration.

The Mercedes-AMG E43 4MATIC sedan offers four different drive modes _ eco, comfort, sport and sport+ _ under the AMG dynamic select system along with the 9G-Tronic transmission. Based on selected drive mode, the model delivers different engine response, gear-shifting timing, exhaust and steering wheel characteristics.

The sedan's exhaust wasn't as roaring as its V8 sister models, but still attracted a drive to stomp the acceleration pedal. The Mercedes-AMG E43 4MATIC's DINAMICA D-cut steering wheel agile but stable cornering even at high speed.

The model's adaptive bucket seats supported the driver's back in accordance with the vehicle's gravity pressure to help ease fatigue. This reporter drove the vehicle for several hours at high speed, but didn't feel much.

The Mercedes-Benz's latest large-size dashboard and center fascia continuously delivered vital drive information, but its heads-up display wasn't adjustable in its display position on the windshield so this reporter couldn't properly see it.

When in the eco or comfort mode, the model's darting nature changed completely to become a perfect family car with the relaxed suspension and damper setting.

The 13-speaker Burmester super stereo system delivered clear and dynamic sound quality while the vehicle's 64 ambient color options enhanced its luxury and cozy nature.

The Mercedes-AMG E43 4MATIC can travel 8.9 kilometers per liter while producing 197-grams per-kilometer of carbon dioxide.

The model is priced at 114 million won ($101,000).

"The Mercedes-AMG's popularity has been very surprising," a Mercedes-Benz Korea official said. "Mercedes-Benz Korea will continuously expand its AMG line to satisfy its booming popularity."

Mercedes-AMG stands out

In Korea, Mercedes-AMG has enjoyed steady popularity since it first outnumbered its rival BMW M in sales in 2014. It sold 776 cars that year before reaching 1,688 cars in 2015 and 2,057 last year.

It is also certain that Mercedes-AMG will maintain its momentum this year since it sold 1,390 cars in the first half, up 18.3 percent from a year ago.

Thanks to its steady popularity, Mercedes-Benz Korea said it will open its first showroom exclusively for the Mercedes-AMG brand by the end of the year.

There are four Mercedes-AMG Performance Centers in Seoul and Busan, but they are at Mercedes-Benz dealerships. The automaker also plans to set up the world's first digital showroom as well as an exclusive one for the Mercedes-Maybach brand inside the showroom in the second half.

Mercedes-Maybach is the German carmaker's ultra-luxury edition of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, and Korea is its third largest sales market in the world.

According to the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association, Monday, Mercedes-Benz Korea sold 37,723 cars in Korea during the first half of the year, up 54 percent from 2016.
Michael Deignan, vice president of JTI Asia Pacific

By Lee Hyo-sik

Tighter regulations on cigarette products have spilled over to alcohol, soda and other consumer products, which has restricted consumer choices and made goods more expensive, Japan Tobacco International (JTI) said.

At a recent conference on intellectual property rights, Michael Deignan, vice president of JTI Asia Pacific, also argued that plain cigarette packaging and other regulatory measures have failed to improve public health. Instead, they have caused side effects, including the growth of cigarette smuggling.

Under the title "Global Regulatory Trends Undermining the Future of Brands," Deignan said countries have taken more restrictive measures, including taxation, pictorial health warnings and prohibitions on advertising and promotion, against cigarette products over the past four decades.

He highlighted the growing trend of applying restrictions first to tobacco and then to other consumer products, such as alcohol, soda and food, creating a domino effect, or what he called a "slippery slope," for other industries.

In particular, Deignan expressed concern that at the extreme end of the slippery slope is plain packaging, where all trademarks, logos and brand-specific colors are removed, resulting in unintended consequences and a severe infringement of intellectual property rights.

"In Australia, which introduced plain packaging for cigarette packs in December 2012, there is no reliable evidence to show plain packaging has achieved any public health benefits," the vice president said. "Instead, the policy has been a failure and has created many issues in the marketplace, including an increase in the availability of illegal tobacco."

Deignan argued that if plain packaging is introduced, branding will disappear and that it will extend to all trademark owners. "If one industry is deprived of its intellectual property, all trademark owners will lose," he said. "I encourage other consumer goods industries to speak out against the growing infringement of intellectual property rights."

JTI, headquartered in Geneva, employs about 26,000 people in more than 120 countries. It owns brands such as Winston, Camel and Mevius, and had $10.5 billion in sales in 2016.
The shocking car accident which led to the death of popular Korean actor Kim Joo Hyuk has shocked both Korean citizens and international fans. However, after police investigated the scene and doctors completed an autopsy, they are ultimately assuming that prescription drugs may have been the cause of the lethal accident.

On October 30th, celebrity actor Kim Joo Hyuk died while driving just minutes away from his home. While speculations occurred that he died of a heart attack, it as shown that he almost died at the scene at Samseong-dong due to a severe head injury, but he officially passed away around 6:30 pm at Konkuk Medical Hospital Monday evening. The car was shown to have flipped down the stairs of an apartment complex after crashing into the outside walls.

Fans were shocked to hear such tragic news and even more surprised to notice that his home is located in Cheongdam-dong, just a few minutes away from the scene of the accident. Although this news is already shocking enough, fans were even more surprised to discover that police believe Kim Joo Hyuk died due to drug use!

According to various media outlet reports, "An insider told DongA Ilbo that the actor had been taking medication once every day, and possessed a month's worth. It was prescribed by a dermatologist, and it is used for skin conditions. However, side effects to the medicine include drowsiness, headaches, and fatigue. In severe cases, it can cause convulsions, dyskinesia, loss of directional sense, and severe shock."

However, suspicion arose after his label denied him taking any medication daily but it was reported that Kim Joo Hyuk had called the hospital and doctor that prescribed the medication just two hours before the incident.After hearing the reports, even Kim Joo Hyuk's family investigated the matter by contacting his doctor. The doctor admitted that he was scheduled to visit the day of the incident and his skin was cared for but nothing more. Police are currently investigating the situation and the final autopsy reports will be released in one week.
Yoo Ah In has become a target for negative comments after a post of his via Instagram went viral. The popular actor paid his respects to the late Kim Joo Hyuk but netizens weren't very fond of how he presented his emotions on social media.

As seen on the post, Yoo Ah In simply wrote in English, "We send out our deepest condolences, RIP," (Rest in Peace) with a link and screenshot to the song "Condolence" by Benjamin Clementine. Oddly enough, netizens began criticizing the celebrity by saying his post showed no respect to the late actor. Some even asked, "Why can't you write something nice in our language (Korean) instead of just 'RIP' in English?"

Other comments flooded his post saying rude things such as "You are Korean... not British," and "Would you want this at your funeral?" However, some fans took to Yoo Ah In's side saying this was his method of grieving and showing support. Many fans even questioned the angry netizens by saying, "I'm lost for words~ I mean how else are you supposed to express your sorrows and not get hated on?",

Yoo Ah In has not responded to any of the hate comments he had received from fans and users on Instagram. It seems he is sticking to his form or grieving and shows no regret for expressing his emotions on social media. What do you think of the reactions towards Yoo Ah In? Was he in the wrong or are netizens being completely unnecessary again?
A sad day for Los Angeles online media. LAist, one of the very early Los Angeles city blogs, was abruptly shut down at 2 p.m. Thursday along with sister websites in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and elsewhere.

In all about 115 people lost their jobs, most of them journalists, including LAist editor Julia Wick and her staff.

In place of the sites and their archives, visitors were redirected to a note from owner Joe Ricketts announcing "the difficult decision" to close a network of news websites that, he says, drew 15 million visits a month with two million followers on social media. "Businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure," he posted. He made no mention of a newsroom union vote last month by the Gothamist and DNAInfo newsroom in New York that Ricketts fought, but the connection was made by the New York Times in its story.

When the DNAinfo and Gothamist New York newsrooms first moved to join the union in April, management warned that there might be dire consequences... DNAinfos chief operating officer sent the staff an email wondering if a union might be the final straw that caused the business to close....

In September, Mr. Ricketts, a conservative who supported President Trump in last years election, raised the ante with a post on his blog titled Why Im Against Unions At Businesses I Create, in which he argued that unions promote a corrosive us-against-them dynamic that destroys the esprit de corps businesses need to succeed.



When the sites went dark, it appeared for a few hours as if the many years of archives were being removed from the active Internet. Bloggers scrambled to scrape as much of their work as possible from sites like the Internet Wayback Machine and Google, and I ranted to interviewers for KCRW and KPCC that it would be stupid for Ricketts to remove such a valuable asset from the web. The company clarified later in the day that the online archives would be restored within a few days.

Wick, the LAist editor, at first could only reach readers and her roster of editors and bloggers on Twitter.

LAist also shut down & LA is worse off for it. We found out when you did. Thank you to everyone who wrote for us, you did great fucking work https://t.co/rHmjvYsADK  Julia Wick (@sherlyholmes) November 2, 2017





LAist writers: I'm told a backup of the site was made & hopefully will be able to get writers copies of work. So sorry I don't know more yet  Julia Wick (@sherlyholmes) November 2, 2017





Thank you so much to everyone for the kind notes and tweets. We are all still sitting here in the office, reading them aloud...  Julia Wick (@sherlyholmes) November 2, 2017





Ps LAist staff page was rarely updated, but the brilliant @EmmaSpecter, @tim_loque & @jenn_swann (who started last week!) all avail for hire  Julia Wick (@sherlyholmes) November 2, 2017



The original Gothamist blog was started in 2003 by Jake Dobkin and Jen Chung and quickly expanded to Los Angeles under editor Tom Berman. LAist covered news, culture, trends, events, media happenings and some politics  the site this year broke the news about City Council candidate Jo Bray-Ali's unsavory past, and lots of others. An incomplete list of LAist bloggers and editors through the years includes Carolyn Kellogg, the Los Angeles Times book editor; Zach Behrens, the former KCET producer now working at the U.S. Forest Service; Adrienne Crew, the former LA Observed contributor; Tony Pierce, the Busblog blogger; Lindsay William-Ross; Emma Gallegos; Jason Toney; Marleigh Riggins; and others.

Ricketts' DNAInfo acquired the Gothamist sites earlier this year. He had started DNAInfo as a network of local news sites in 2009.

Ricketts had tried to put the fear in his New York employees about the vote about joining the Writers Guild in a September message, and many see his action today as retribution. The threat followed by shutdown will certainly be an item of discussion in the Los Angeles Times newsroom, where a large segment of the staff is actively trying to organize a guild unit there for the first time over the resistance of parent company Tronc.

Some of the many LAist tributes around social media.

What other things does Joe Ricketts own so I can make sure I don't accidentally support him?  Carolyn Kellogg (@paperhaus) November 2, 2017





Shout out to @jakedobkin and @jenchung who gave me free reign to do whatever w/ @LAist. I've never experienced so much freedom.

Thank you!! pic.twitter.com/myShADR9ra  tony pierce (@busblog) November 2, 2017





100+ journos just lost their job. Editors, please look at their quals, even if their clips are locked away. They're good at what they do.  Zach Behrens (@ZachBehrens) November 2, 2017





This feels like a death. One I expected but it's awful nonetheless.  Emma Gallegos (@emmagallegos) November 2, 2017




PRESS RELEASE

China Appreciates U.S. Direct Diplomacy with North Korea

Nov. 2, 2017 (EIRNS)At a regular press briefing in Beijing on Oct. 30, Chinas Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, acknowledging that the United States has been holding quiet diplomatic talks with North Korea, said that Beijing hopes such meetings can "enhance mutual understanding and trust" between the two nations, GB Times reported today.

The GB Times article also cited a report from Huanqiu.com that said the United States has entered into clandestine diplomatic talks with North Korea despite the ongoing war of words between President Donald Trump and Pyongyang. The report also said that

"Joseph Yun, the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy, had already held classified conversations with diplomats stationed at the North Korean Permanent Mission to the United Nations, using the so-called New York channel."

Reuters, in an exclusive report on Oct. 31, had reported on the New York Channel and cited a "senior State Department official," saying Yuns interaction with the North Koreans has "not been limited at all, both [in] frequency and substance.... Among the points that Yun has made to his North Korean interlocutors is to stop testing nuclear bombs and missiles, the official said."
PRESS RELEASE

Financial Control Board Demands Blood from Puerto Rico

Nov. 2, 2017 (EIRNS)For the first time since the disaster of Hurricane Maria, the Wall Street-run financial control board overseeing Puerto Ricos finances met on Oct. 31appropriately on Halloweento tell the Rossello government that it must come up with a new fiscal plan by Dec. 22, to show how it intends to "turn around" the economy.

Gov. Rossello, meanwhile, was on Capitol Hill yesterday with his cabinet, meeting with Congressmen and administration officials to emphasize that Puerto Rico needs "billions" more in emergency funding before the end of the year.

Even with the incredible destruction wrought by Maria, the control board says, insanely, that the new plan is supposed to focus on promoting new investment through pension reform and corporate tax reformausterity, privatization, etc. As board member Jose Ramon Gonzalez put it, National Public Radio reported,

"Like it or not, the government will have to make potentially serious rightsizing decisions in accordance with the more limited resources ... that it will face."

Rightsizing?

At the same time, using the bogus issue of the now-canceled $300 million contract which the bankrupt Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) granted to the small Montana firm Whitefish Energy, the board gave itself the authority to approve all contracts the government might grant of $10 million or more. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, told El Nuevo Dia that after the Whitefish "scandal"the company is portrayed as unscrupulousany monetary allocation to Puerto Rico will be "subject to stricter controls."

Governor Rossello is challenging the control boards right to name retired U.S. Air Force Col. Noel Zamot, a privatization fanatic, as the emergency manager of PREPA, which the board did using the Whitefish contract as a pretext. Zamot has to be approved by New York-based bankruptcy judge Laura Swain, and Rossello says he will fight this in court. His liaison to the board, Christian Sobrino, said at the Oct. 31 meeting, that if this is approved, it would mean the board can replace any Puerto Rican government official, any judge, any legislature, "maybe even the Governor."
PRESS RELEASE

Ibero-America and the Caribbean Must Take Advantage of the Belt and Road, UN Agency Head Says

Nov. 2, 2017 (EIRNS)Speaking in Santiago, Chile on Oct. 30, Alicia Barcenas, Executive Secretary of the UNs Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), affirmed that the nations of the region "must take advantage of the Belt and Road Initiative, which will first connect Asia and Europe and then expand toward us."

Barcena, who attended last Mays Belt and Road Forum in Beijing and has met several times with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, was speaking on the occasion of the release of ECLACs annual report, "Perspectives for Latin American and Foreign Trade." She said, according to Xinhua, that "I think there has been a very important strengthening [of trade relations] among China, Latin America and the Caribbean," but called for diversifying Ibero-American exports to China, "so that Chinese companies will invest in our region."

Technology, she said, is one area in which cooperation should expand, to the "mutual benefit" of both sides. "China has advanced a great deal in this direction lately," she noted, adding that "our task must be to look at cooperation plans in this area." Barcena cited the proposal to build an underwater fiber-optic cable to connect Chile to China as an example of such cooperation. She also emphasized that Latin American and Caribbean foreign trade is recovering, after five years of slowdown, and will grow by 10% in 2017, attributing this to "Chinas and Asias leadership."

Xinhua points to ECLACs report that the increased trade between China and Ibero-America and the Caribbean, is eclipsing the United States and Europe as trading partners for this region. The United States is no longer the regions primary trading partner.
The one thing about hosting author interviews in public spaces is that youve got to yes, and... the hell out of them. No matter what the author throws at you, you have to make it an additive experience. If they tell an anecdote about fox hunting, youve got to find the connective tissue to tie that anecdote to the next question somehow, even if the next question is related to the stock market. Dead air in an onstage interview is...well, death.

I bring this up because onstage recently in Seattle, Armistead Maupin knocked me on my butt at least three times. I mean, he literally left me speechless. Maupin is a sweet and generous public speaker. Hes kind in his recollections, hes full of explosive anecdotes and hilarious observations. And every few minutes, hell say something so fantastically filthy that itll make you laugh until the winds knocked out of you.

Maupin is a sweet and generous public speaker. Hes kind in his recollections, hes full of explosive anecdotes and hilarious observations.

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Maupin fired off quips about sign language interpreters miming acts of masturbation, about oral sex, about orgies. A few times, those jokes were so quick and so funny that I had nothing to say in response. Maupin seemed to relish catching me flat-footed. The last time it happened, he said, I saw the color was coming back into your face, so I decided to do something about that.

Of course, it wasnt all dirty jokes. We talked about why he decided to write his memoir, Logical Family, now (Im 73, he noted wryly, asking when else he was supposed to publish his memoirs.) We discussed how he feels about his legacy (he seems rightfully proud of what he did to represent gay and trans populations in mass media.) He shared whether hes comfortable with his role in the outing of actor Rock Hudson (yes, although Maupin admitted that he does have dreams where Hudson, a former flame, appears to him and says hes happy with how things worked out.) He talked at length about Barry Manilow and what it means to be a closeted artist.

Maupin also revealed that hes working with Netflix to create a television series based on his popular Tales of the City books. The series, he says, will be set in the present day and will track the lives of his most popular characters more than four decades after the first publication of the first Tales of the City in the San Francisco Chronicle.

If youve read all of the series, youll likely want to read Logical Family. If youve never read a single word of Tales of the City, youll find Logical Family to be a concise and fascinating introduction to Maupins world. Its such a personal and specific book that it has universal appeal. I wouldnt be surprised to see it become one of his very best-loved titles.

Its the kind of book that only a man satisfied with the course of his life could write.

The book tracks his early career as a writer  from the first thing he wrote as a toddler to his time as a writer of serial fiction in newspapers to his long path to bestselling novelist. And it also follows his transformation as a human, from his youthful conservatism to his stint in the Navy during the Vietnam War to his rebirth as a gay celebrity at a time when San Francisco was the most exciting city in the world.

Maupin writes freely about the drugs he took, the orgies he attended, the enemies he made. Its the kind of book that only a man satisfied with the course of his life could write. He knows who his friends are, and he knows his enemies, and he knows what his accomplishments are, and hes at peace with that. And if he can drop a few jaw-dropping sex jokes along the way? Well, thats just a bonus.

Constant is the co-founder of the Seattle Review of Books, where this essay was original published.
To our knowledge, Rep. Lamar Smith never brought a snowball onto the House floor like Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), to prove that climate change was a hoax.

But once youve said that, youve said everything. In all other particulars, Smith has been the preeminent climate change denier in Congress. Thats a problem, because he also has been serving as chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, the last place where someone devoted to undermining scientific research belongs. From that perch, hes harassed government officials, Earth scientists and other academics whose work refutes his position that the human role in climate change is a myth.

On Thursday, Smith announced that he will be retiring when the congressional term, his 16th, ends in 2018. He didnt give much detail on his reasons, although he noted that hell be term-limited out of his chairmans post then.

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Good riddance. May we never see his like again.

I have not and will not allow anyone to manipulate the science or coerce the scientists who work for me.  NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan tells Rep. Lamar Smith to take a hike, November 2015

As chairman of the science committee, Smith waged a war on scientists, research administrators and even state officials whose offense was to establish the human role in climate change. He has used his congressional authority to try to shield big oil companies such as Exxon Mobil from accusations that they connived in undermining public understanding of the climate crisis. Smiths legacy will be long-lasting and entirely discreditable. Our generation and those that follow will be paying the price of obstructionism like his, into the limitless future.

As weve observed, Smiths credentials as a climate change denier long have been unassailable. He dismissed the 2014 report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which stated that human interference with the climate system is occurring and causes negative impacts on natural and human systems on all continents and across the oceans as nothing new and more political than scientific.

Of a White House report in May 2014 citing the urgency of taking steps to address climate change, Smith said it was designed merely to frighten Americans into believing that any abnormal weather we experience is the direct result of human CO2 emissions. In reality, there is little science to support any connection between climate change and more frequent or extreme storms.

In 2015, Smith spent months throwing a conniption fit over a report published by several government climate experts in the June 26 issue of the widely respected journal Science. He demanded emails and other correspondence from the scientists involved in the study, purportedly to ferret out evidence that they manipulated their data. In a Thanksgiving Day op-ed in the conservative Washington Times, he called the work of dedicated government researchers not good science, [but] science fiction. Strong pushbacks came from the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, the publisher of Science, among other research organizations. They upbraided Smith for implying scientific misconduct despite a lack of public evidence and all but labeled him an irresponsible ideologue.

Meanwhile Kathryn D. Sullivan, a former astronaut who headed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Smiths prime target, rejected his demand for internal emails. I have not and will not allow anyone to manipulate the science or coerce the scientists who work for me, she told Smith.

Earlier this year, Smith could be found carrying water for Exxon Mobil by trying to bully state attorneys general investigating allegations that the company fraudulently undermined public understanding of climate change while possessing scientific evidence that the problem is real. The investigations stem in part from reporting by The Times and InsideClimate News into the companys decades-long misinformation and disinformation campaign, to cast doubt on climate change science.

Playing the role of Exxon Mobils marionette, Smith issued subpoenas to Eric Schneiderman and Maura Healey, the attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts, for documents of their contacts with climate activists, scientists and legal experts  among them former Vice President Al Gore and California billionaire Tom Steyer. On the deadline day, Smiths inbox was bare, except for messages from the attorneys general crisply advising him that his request was grossly out of line and, in fact, unconstitutional, since he was out to breach state sovereignty enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

What really motivates Smith? As weve observed in the past, the attack on climate change research isnt rooted so much in science but economics. The campaign exploits the vocabulary of science, but its really designed to protect the profits of the fossil fuel industry. Surprise, surprise: If one adheres to the precept to follow the money, one discovers that pantsfuls of it flow from the oil and gas industry into Smiths campaign accounts. Oil and gas contributors have directed nearly $760,000 in Smiths direction over his three-decade career in Congress. Since 2013, when he became chairman of the science committee, the oil and gas industry has topped the roster of his campaign donors.

During his subpoena campaign against Schneiderman and Healey, we asked, How long does Lamar Smith intend to embarrass himself, his committee and Congress in this ridiculous quest to shut down investigations that could harm his patrons in the petroleum industry? Finally, we have the answer: Until to the end of next year. Then, thankfully, hell be gone.

Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.

Return to Michael Hiltziks blog.
For Jack Edwards, a 15-year-old British actor, it seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime  watching a play in Londons West End with a Hollywood agent.

In April 2010, the agent, Tyler Grasham of the Beverly Hills-based Agency for the Performing Arts, or APA, was in town with an actor client, and through a mutual friend Edwards and a couple of other theater students had snagged an invite to join them for a showing of Grease.

But the night quickly took a dark turn, according to Edwards and another friend who spoke to The Times, when the then-44-old-year-old agent bought the teenagers round after round of alcoholic drinks before and after the show.

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Edwards said that he ended up in Grashams hotel room, swallowing a pill that the agent gave him to calm his anxiety. He next awoke in a bed, he said, feeling physically unable to move while Grasham fondled his genitals. Edwards friend, who said he was in the next bed over, recalled hearing Edwards struggle.

Edwards, now 23, made these allegations in an interview and a written statement submitted to The Times. He also produced an email that he said Grasham sent him a month after the alleged assault, asking for the young actors headshot and resume. Edwards friend, who asked not to be named, independently corroborated details of the account in an interview.

The allegations of sexual assault against a minor in Britain  where there is no statute of limitations on sex crimes  are among the most serious in a string of similar allegations recently levied against the veteran agent, whom APA fired Oct. 20.

Grasham has not responded to numerous phone and internet messages seeking comment. He also did not respond to a note left at the door of his home by a Times reporter Wednesday evening.

The Times interviewed eight young male actors and film industry professionals who alleged they were sexually assaulted or harassed by Grasham. Five of the accusers said that Grasham made unwanted sexual advances toward them while they were under the influence of alcohol, though they were not of legal drinking age.

FULL COVERAGE: Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal 

The accusers describe Grasham as attempting to use his power as a Hollywood agent as a sexual enticement and to keep them from speaking out.

Two alleged victims have taken their accusations to police. The Los Angeles Police Department has confirmed that it is investigating a sexual assault complaint which film editor Lucas Ozarowski, 27, filed against Grasham on Oct. 20. The complaint alleged that Grasham reached into [Ozarowskis] pants and grabbed his genitals at the agents home, according to a copy of a police report that Ozarowski provided to The Times.

A ninth accuser  20-year-old actor Tyler Cornell  also filed a complaint with the LAPD last week, alleging that Grasham sexually assaulted him earlier this year, the actors representative said. Cornell declined to comment. An LAPD spokeswoman said last week that the agency was investigating a report of criminal sodomy against Grasham.

In a written statement, an APA spokesperson said the company takes these allegations very seriously and our hearts go out to anyone who may have been affected. The agency said it had retained an independent investigator to look into these claims the moment they came to our attention. That investigation is ongoing and we will take appropriate action based on the findings.

The statement added that the agency never made financial payouts to or settlements with anyone in this regard.

I just want to make sure he can never work with children again.  Jack Edwards

Several of Grashams accusers, including Edwards, said that they have been contacted by a Los Angeles attorney who is conducting the investigation for APA.

The allegations  which follow the widening sexual misconduct scandal surrounding disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein  have renewed attention on longstanding complaints in Hollywood about the sexual abuse of child actors. Known cases include Jason Michael Handy, a Nickelodeon production assistant forced to register as a sex offender after pleading guilty to lewd acts on a child; Marty Weiss, a talent manager whose clients included child actors for Nickelodeon and Disney, who pleaded guilty to child molestation; and Bob Villard, a child manager who was sentenced to eight years in prison for sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy.

That investigation is ongoing and we will take appropriate action based on the findings.  APA spokesperson

The issue prompted a 2014 documentary, An Open Secret, by filmmaker Amy Berg. Former child actor Corey Feldman has announced he is attempting to raise $10 million for a film exposing pedophiles in Hollywood. Additionally, actor Kevin Spacey issued an apology this week after an actor said Spacey made an unwanted sexual advance toward him in 1986 when he was a 14-year-old boy.

Were getting to where people are more willing to talk about it, but its a subject that people dont like to discuss  its very uncomfortable, said Paula Dorn, co-founder of the BizParentz Foundation, a California-based advocacy group for child actors and their parents. In an industry where theres money to be made, theres an extra layer of secrecy.

Founded in 1962 by former MCA agents, APA is known as a venerable and scrappy underdog to the towns glossier agencies. It represents a variety of mainly lesser-known clients  actors, comedians, musicians and public speakers.

The company, which also has offices in New York, London, Nashville, Toronto and Atlanta, has made at least one unconventional top hire. APAs director of operations, Ronald Rewald, was convicted on 94 felony counts in 1985 for running a Hawaiian investment firm that a judge likened to a Ponzi scheme, according to news reports at the time. The case made national headlines after Rewald contended his firm was a front for the CIA. He was released from federal custody in 1995.

APA would not comment on Rewalds background. Rewald did not respond to requests for comment.

APAs reputation as a perennial also-ran made it the butt of insider humor on HBOs Entourage, when fictional agent Ari Gold profanely asked who invited the agency to a meeting of major Hollywood firms.

But in the insular world of child representation the firm is very much in the big leagues, industry experts say.

Grashams specialty  child actors  filled a niche. Before his firing, film information site IMDb listed more than 50 clients under Grashams name, many of them under 18. His most prominent client was 14-year-old Finn Wolfhard of Stranger Things and It fame, who left the agency as the Grasham scandal unfolded last month. He did so after filmmaker Blaise Godbe Lipman alleged in a Facebook post and interview that, when he was a teenage actor a decade ago, the agent fed him alcohol and then sexually assaulted him.

Actor George Todd McLachlan told The Times that when he was an underage actor, Grasham had him stay at his home, where the agent kissed him and slept in the same bed as him. McLachlan said he was 16 or 17 at the time. Another accuser, actor Brady Lindsey, said that Grasham first contacted him via social media when he was 16 and over the next two years asked the Utah teen to be his boyfriend, go on a date with him and start a life together.

Soon after Lindsey moved to Los Angeles at age 18, he said, Grasham ordered him three glasses of wine and then made unwanted sexual advances, including kissing him and grabbing his crotch.

The habitual nature of Grashams alleged sexual conduct has raised questions about how APA could have been in the dark about the reputation of the agent who worked there for more than a decade.

In his initial statement on social media, Lipman said that he found it incredibly difficult to believe that APA did not know of the alleged misconduct.

In an interview, Lipman said he did not inform APA of his allegations at the time because the agent was already so notorious. Anybody who knew him  personally, socially, in the gay community  knew  how he surrounded himself with young actor boys, Lipman said.

APA has said it was unaware of Grashams behavior. Adam Levin, an attorney representing APA, said in a letter to the Los Angeles Times that assertions the agency knew about Grashams behavior were false and that senior management never received a complaint from parents about his conduct. If it had, APA would have taken prompt action to investigate and address such serious allegations, Levin wrote.

Michael Podraza, a business and legal affairs manager for Lionsgate, said that when he was a 27-year-old actor, Grasham texted him an offer that he would help him get roles if he had sex with him.

Grashams behavior was so well known in the industry, Podraza said, that he decided not to speak out publicly. He wasnt hiding, he said. This guy was untouchable, and I was trying to not be blacklisted.

Kellan Rhude, a 28-year-old Boston University student, said he was sexually assaulted by Grasham when he was a 19-year-old aspiring actor. He said he informed APA  albeit anonymously about Grashams inappropriate behavior with young male clients.

This guy was untouchable, and I was trying to not be blacklisted.  Michael Podraza

Rhude said that he was at a party at Grashams home when he drank too much and passed out. He said he awoke with his clothes removed and Grasham groping him. I told him to stop and he kept telling me Im gonna go get a condom ok, just a condom, Rhude said in a statement to The Times, which he provided in addition to an interview. Rhude said that he ultimately extricated himself and slept on a couch.

According to Rhude, he also witnessed Grasham discussing massages and asking to sleep in the same bed as a 17-year-old client who was staying with him.

Rhude said he emailed James Gosnell, APAs president and chief executive, to warn him about Grashams behavior. Gosnell wrote back wanting to learn more, Rhude said, but Grasham also indicated that he knew about the email, which spooked the young actor from further correspondence with APA. Rhude said he had sent the message to Gosnell with an anonymous email address because he was concerned about getting dragged into a legal fight. He said he no longer could access the email messages.

Two former employees who separately spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals from APA said Grashams allegedly inappropriate conduct with underage clients was known within the agency.

An employee who had a desk close to Grashams contended to have heard him on multiple occasions arrange for his underage clients to sleep over, with plans involving baths, massages, wine and marijuana. Another of Grashams former colleagues said that such behavior with young male clients was common knowledge in the agency.

A spokesperson for APA declined to comment specifically on the purported email sent to Gosnell. The agency has disputed assertions that it received complaints about Grashams alleged behavior.

For many of Grashams accusers, fear of being ostracized from Hollywood or otherwise embarrassed kept them from speaking out about him until others had.

Edwards, the British TV actor and theater student, said he couldnt bear for his parents to learn the details of the alleged assault.

But reading the other accusers accounts made Edwards sick, he said. I just want to make sure he can never work with children again.

Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report.

ALSO

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Warner Bros. cuts ties with Brett Ratner after sexual misconduct allegations
The New York Police Department stepped up the pressure on movie mogul Harvey Weinstein on Friday, saying it had received a credible rape allegation from an actress, had corroborated parts of her story and was gathering evidence for an arrest warrant.

Paz de la Huerta has said she told New York police that in 2010, Weinstein raped her twice. The Boardwalk Empire actress gave a detailed account to Vanity Fair, published Thursday.

NYPDs chief of detectives, Robert Boyce, told reporters Friday that investigators have found her account believable and that, in the nine days since she gave her report to them, they have corroborated portions of her statement and that subpoenas have been issued.

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Fridays public statements by Boyce  flanked by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner James P. ONeill  are the most high-profile move by law enforcement against the beleaguered film producer, who for the last month has faced a plethora of allegations from several dozen women accusing him of sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape spanning four decades.

At least 13 have filed sexual assault reports with police in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, New York and London.

She put forth a credible and detailed narrative, Boyce said. We found corroboration.... We have an actual case here. If Weinstein were in New York now and the alleged rapes were recent, Boyce said, we would go right away and make the arrest. No doubt. But we are talking about a 7-year-old case and we have to move forward gathering evidence first.

The report was credible, he said, because the woman could articulate each and every movement of the crime. Where she was. Where they met. Where this happened and what he did.

New York prosecutors ultimately will decide whether to charge Weinstein. Boyce said his detectives are working in collaboration with them.

Weinstein representative Sallie Hofmeister has repeatedly said that Weinstein unequivocally denies allegations of non-consensual sex.

De la Huerta told Vanity Fair that Weinstein raped her inside her home in November 2010. It wasnt consensual, she said. It happened very quickly.... When he was done he said hed be calling me. I kind of just laid on the bed in shock.

De la Huerta alleged that Weinstein assaulted her again in late December 2010. He showed up in her building lobby after she came home from a photo shoot, she told Vanity Fair. De la Huerta said she had been drinking and was frightened by Weinstein, who she said had been repeatedly calling her even though shed asked him to leave her alone.

He hushed me and said, Lets talk about this in your apartment,  De la Huerta said. I was in no state. I was so terrified of him.

I did say no, and when he was on top of me I said, I dont want to do this,  she said. It was disgusting. Hes like a pig.... He raped me.

De la Huerta told Vanity Fair that at the time, she told her therapist, SueAnne Piliero.

I recall you telling me that Harvey Weinstein was seeking sexual contact with you on more than one occasion with the promise of additional roles, Piliero said in a letter that De la Huerta shared with Vanity Fair and with the New York district attorneys office.

I recall you reporting to me a sexual encounter with Harvey Weinstein involving intercourse in your apartment in 2010 that resulted in you feeling victimized, the letter said. I recall you telling me that it felt coercive to you and that you didnt want to have sex with him, but felt that you had to as he was a man of power and rank and you couldnt say no to his sexual advances.

The NYPDs move Friday may increase the pressure on Weinstein, but it cuts both ways, said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School.

The message here is, they have a credible case but its a long time ago and its going to take time to put it together. Theyre basically saying, Get off our back; were going to have a case here,  said Levenson, former assistant U.S. attorney. But this kind of public statement will put pressure on the NYPD to deliver.

Since a New York Times article Oct. 5 first revealed allegations of sexual misconduct against Weinstein, accusations and condemnations have engulfed him. Weinstein Co., the studio he co-founded, fired him last month.

Actresses Asia Argento, Rose McGowan, Lucia Evans and Lysette Anthony have all publicly stated that Weinstein raped them or forced them to perform a sex act.

In Los Angeles, police are investigating an Italian model-actress allegation that Weinstein forced her to have sex with him in her hotel room in 2013. It is the first case related to Weinstein to be reported to police in Southern California.

On Thursday, the Los Angeles Police Department said it was investigating allegations made by a second woman. A department spokesman did not provide details about the claims but said the incident occurred in 2013. The LAPD described the alleged behavior as lewd conduct.

Beverly Hills police have opened at least two investigations into Weinstein. They did not provide details of the investigations but urged anyone who believes themselves to be a victim to come forward.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

richard.winton@latimes.com

ALSO

Sex assault accusations against ex-APA agent renew concerns about alleged abuse of minors in Hollywood

New complaints arise against Kevin Spacey as London police investigate alleged 2008 incident

Corey Feldman names one alleged abuser, then defends a man with a similar name

Warner Bros. cuts ties with Brett Ratner after sexual misconduct allegations

UPDATES:

3:55 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from Laurie Levenson and additional comments from Robert Boyce.

3:10 p.m.: This article was updated throughout with Times staff reporting.

This article was originally published at 1:20 p.m.
The Republican tax plan released Thursday seeks to dramatically rewrite rules that have shaped the housing market for decades, potentially dealing a blow to California, where a shortage of housing has led to some of the highest home prices in the nation.

Under current law, homeowners can deduct interest paid on as much as $1 million in mortgage debt. Republicans would allow that to remain for existing loans, but for new purchases, owners would be able to deduct only the interest paid on the first $500,000.

In much of the country, the change would have little effect, but in some corners of the state, including Orange and Los Angeles counties, prices have already surpassed levels reached during last decades housing bubble.

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Its a blow for California, said Nela Richardson, chief economist at online real estate brokerage Redfin.

The median price in September for single-family homes statewide was $555,410, according to the California Assn. of Realtors. That means half the homes that month sold for more and half for less.

The median for all homes  houses and condominiums  was well above that in corners of Southern California, hitting $575,000 in Los Angeles County and $710,000 in Orange County in September, according to a separate report from CoreLogic.

In major California cities you are not going to even find a starter home for $500,000, Richardson said.

If passed into law, the tax changes wouldnt affect mortgages already under a binding contract.

The halving of the mortgage interest deduction will not only hit some home buyers directly, but it also could create an incentive for existing homeowners to stay in their house and not move up in the market. That would potentially restrict both the supply and demand, leading to a slowdown in sales.

From 2013 to 2015, when prices were lower, 20% of mortgages taken out in California exceeded $500,000, according to a report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Though people in states with high property values could be hurt by these changes, Republicans say other aspects of their proposal will result in overall tax savings, including by doubling the standard deduction for couples to $24,000 and revising individual income brackets to help lower effective tax rates.

However, the larger proposal would also bar individuals from deducting state and local income or sales taxes, while limiting the property tax deduction to $10,000.

Given Californias high income tax, the loss of the state and local deduction would hurt, while the property tax cap would not be as big of a deal for many longtime owners, because Proposition 13 limits how high that tax can rise.

In 2014, Californians claimed $70 billion in federal deductions for state and local income taxes but only $27 billion in real estate, personal property and other taxes, according to the California Franchise Tax Board.

The real estate and building industry came out strongly Thursday against the proposals.

Doubling the standard deduction would mean fewer homeowners would itemize their deductions in the first place, a requirement to use the mortgage interest deduction.

That, along with the $500,000 limit on loans eligible for the mortgage interest deduction, would take away a major selling point from real estate agents, who often mention the deduction as a reason to become a homeowner.

The National Assn. of Realtors argues the proposal would even lead to lower housing prices overall by limiting the financial incentive to buy instead of rent. In talking points, the group says that proposals limiting tax incentives for homeownership would cause home values everywhere to plunge.

If true, that would be welcomed by many first-time buyers, especially in California, but even that scenario wasnt welcomed by some in the industry.

Even if home prices decrease, the cost of owning a home will go up, which would be a tax increase on the middle class, Lotus Lou, a spokeswoman for the California Assn. of Realtors, said in an email.

Still, some economists said it is highly unlikely the changes would cause prices to plunge.

The market is too hot, and although sales could slow, the difference in tax savings is small enough that the market isnt likely to face the drastic changes forecast by the real estate industry.

According to an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, about 489,000 tax filers in the state would have paid an average of $3,290 more in federal taxes if the $500,000 mortgage interest cap covered current loans.

Richard Green, director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, said limiting the deduction would probably make home prices in the $515,000 to $1.25 million range a couple of percentage points lower than they otherwise would be, but the effect on the overall market would be muted.

Because prices are going up anyway, maybe this would flatten prices out for a while, which wouldnt be the end of the world, he said.

Tregg Rustad, a Rodeo Realty real estate agent who works on the Westside of Los Angeles, predicted many of his clients would be paying more to own a home if the proposal passed.

But he agreed with economists who said the changes wouldnt dramatically harm sales because the deduction isnt the driving factor when deciding to buy a home.

Its something to keep an eye on, but I am not worried, he said.

andrew.khouri@latimes.com

Follow me @khouriandrew on Twitter
The tax bill unveiled by House Republicans on Thursday would not, as had been rumored, eliminate the tax penalty for failure to have health insurance. But it would eliminate a decades-old deduction for people with very high medical costs.

The controversial bill is an effort by Republicans to revamp the nations tax code and provide dramatic tax cuts for business and individuals. However, its future is not yet clear because Republicans, who control both the House and Senate, appear divided on key measures.

The medical deduction, created in World War II, is available only to taxpayers whose expenses are above 10% of their adjusted gross income.

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Because of that threshold, and because it is available only to people who itemize their deductions, the medical expense deduction is not used by many people  an estimated 8.8 million claimed it on their 2015 taxes, according to the IRS.

But those 8.8 million tax filers claimed an estimated $87 billion in deductions, meaning that those who do qualify for the deduction have very high out-of-pocket health costs.

For many people, this is a big deduction, said David Certner, legislative counsel for AARP, which opposes the change.

AARP has calculated that about three-quarters of those who claim the medical expense deduction are 50 or older, and more than 70% have incomes of $75,000 or less. Many of those expenses are for long-term care, which is typically not covered by health insurance. Long-term care can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), ranking member of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, called the bills elimination of the medical expense deduction anti-senior.

But defenders of the bill say the elimination of the deduction should not be seen in isolation.

In an FAQ posted on the House Ways and Means Committee website, the bills sponsors denied that the change would be a financial burden.

Our bill lowers the tax rates and increases the standard deduction so people can immediately keep more of their paychecks  instead of having to rely on a myriad of provisions that many will never use and others may use only once in their lifetime, the sponsors said.

Getting rid of many current deductions is being done to finance rate cuts and increase the standard deduction and child tax credit, said Nicole Kaeding, an economist with the business-backed Tax Foundation. So for many tax filers, she said, there will likely be offsetting tax cuts.

On the other hand, those offsetting cuts almost by definition will not make up the difference for people with very large medical expenses, who are the only ones who qualify for the medical deduction.

Thats why tax reform is hard, Kaeding said.

Strikingly absent from the bill  for now  is any reference to the elimination of the tax penalty for failure to have health insurance. The so-called individual mandate is one of the most unpopular provisions of the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans failed to change or repeal earlier this year.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) is continuing to push language to add to the bill that would eliminate the penalty. President Trump has added his endorsement via Twitter: Wouldnt it be great to Repeal the very unfair and unpopular Individual Mandate in ObamaCare and use those savings for further Tax Cuts, he wrote Wednesday.

But while the president is correct that there would be savings from eliminating the mandate, the Congressional Budget Office has also estimated that millions more Americans would become uninsured as a result.

Rovner is chief Washington correspondent for Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent publication of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

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The immersive theater piece Caught plays out in a downtown L.A. art gallery. IAMA Theatre's Redline and "Sinner's Laundry" feature some familiar TV faces. The Red Dress unfolds as a multimedia period piece at the Odyssey, while pay-what-you-want Coeurage Theatre mounts Mary Zimmermans The Secret in the Wings. Its a busy time for L.A.s smaller stages. Here are our weekly recommendations:

1. Caught at Think Tank Gallery

The essentials: This immersive experience is performed at a downtown art gallery: What begins as an exhibition opening and lecture by a prominent Chinese dissident artist undergoes multiple assumption-busting reversals that ultimately call into question the very nature of objective perception.

Why this? For this first environmental staging of Christopher Chens 2016 Obie award-winning brain teaser of a play, interactive theater specialist Ed Sylvanus Iskandar collaborated with local stage performers and designers, visual artists and restaurateurs. They use different parts of the gallery for the major plot twists. (And the drinks and hors d'oeuvres are real.)

Details: A Firefly Theater & Films, Vs. Theatre and Think Tank Gallery co-production at Think Tank Gallery, 939 Maple Ave., Los Angeles. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays, ends Dec. 10. $45-$80. thinktank.gallery

2. Redline and Sinners Laundry at Lounge Theatre

The essentials: Two premiering plays on the theme of penitence and redemption are running in repertory. Redline is a tense, tautly written two-hander by Christian Durso in which road rage and testosterone fuel the combustible reunion of an estranged father and son. Sinners Laundry, John Lavelles existential sci-fi comedy, is set in a womens prison after the inexplicable mass disappearance of most of its population, leaving two leftover inmates locked in a rec room trying to make sense of their crimes, predicament and possible salvation. (Picture Orange Is the New Black meets No Exit.)

Why this? Now in its 10th year, IAMA Theatre Company was founded by New York University Tisch School of the Arts graduates whove since gone on to Hollywood careers but never abandoned their commitment to professional, contemporary "theater for the streaming generation." Sinners Laundry features Christine Woods of the late HBO series Hello Ladies, and Redline stars James Eckhouse, whom nostalgic Gen-Xers will remember as dad Jim Walsh on Beverly Hills, 90210.

Details: Lounge Theatre, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. Running in repertory through Nov. 19. $30. (323) 380-8843, www.iamatheatre.com

Sinners Laundry with Christine Woods, left, and Courtney Sauls; and Redline with James Eckhouse, left, and Graham Sibley. (Dean Cechvala)

3. The Red Dress at the Odyssey

The essentials: Set against the social and political turmoil of 1930s Germany, this star-crossed love story about a prominent Jewish actress, a rising German film director and a Nazi officer draws on the experiences of playwright Tania Wisbars parents.

Why this? One of a vanishing breed of small-theater offerings produced under the Actors Equity 99-Seat contract, the staging employs extensive multimedia elements to enhance the authenticity of personal history with stills, newsreels, newspapers, speeches and archival footage.

Details: An Argyle Road Productions presentation at Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays; ends Nov. 19. $30. (323) 960-5521, www.Plays411.com/reddress.

Laura Liguori and J.B. Waterman in The Red Dress at the Odyssey. (Ed Krieger)

4. The Secret in the Wings at Lankershim

The essentials: Playwright Mary Zimmerman blurs the boundaries between nightmares and reality in this descent through a series of nested stories-within-stories. A sinister babysitter with a tail plies a captive child with four unsettling tales adapted from the more obscure annals of European folklore.

Why this? Zimmerman is known for inventively adapting mythology and fairy tales to modern sensibilities. (Her memorably stylish water-themed Metamorphoses rippled across the Mark Taper stage in 2000.) The ambitious Coeurage Theatre Company regularly exceeds the standards and expectations that its populist pay-what-you-want ticket model might suggest.

Details: Lankershim Arts Center, 5108 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from Nov. 11 to Dec. 16. Also 8 p.m. Nov. 22, dark Thanksgiving. (323) 944-2165, www.coeurage.org/sitw.

The 99-Seat Beat appears every Friday. Our team of reviewers, who have more than 50 years of combined experience tracking local theater, shortlist current offerings at 99-seat houses and other small venues. Some (but not all) recommendations are shows weve seen; others have caught our attention because of the track record of the company, playwright, director or cast. You can find more comprehensive theater listings posted every Sunday at latimes.com/arts.

SIGN UP for the free Essential Arts & Culture newsletter 

See all of our latest arts news and reviews at latimes.com/arts.

MORE THEATER:

Review: Yohen with Danny Glover

Review: 'Underneath the Lintel' with Ayre Gross

Review: A gripping Taking Sides at the Rubicon

Carrie Coon: At the top of her game

Review: A devastating revival of August Wilsons Gem of the Ocean

Review: Bright Star at the Ahmanson

Review: Immersive ghost stories in Kaidan Project

Review: Resolving Hedda at the Victory in Burbank

Last week on the 99-Seat Beat

UPDATES:

For the record

10:25 a.m.: This article was corrected to say Christine Woods, not Courtney Sauls, starred in Hello Ladies. Also, Woods current production is Sinners Laundry and James Eckhouses current production is Redline; their respective titles had been transposed.

12:30 a.m.: This article was updated to reflect new ticket pricing for Caught
At what point does acquiescence in the face of an evil regime become tantamount to complicity in its atrocities?

More than two decades have passed since Ronald Harwoods Taking Sides insightfully explored complicated questions of moral accountability raised by Nazi-era Germany, but a gripping revival at Rubicon Theatre makes them seem even more vital today.



For the record: An earlier version of this article misspelled Cylans Brown first name as Clyan. It also said Stephanie A. Coltrins middle initial as E.

Harwoods drama is loosely based on a historical postwar inquiry into accusations of collaboration leveled at Berlin Philharmonic maestro Wilhelm Furtwangler. Considered one of the 20th centurys greatest conductors, Furtwangler never joined or publicly supported the Nazi party and even helped Jewish musicians escape to safety  none of which impresses U.S. Army investigator Maj. Steve Arnold (Patrick Vest), whos obsessed with bringing a case against him.

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In the plays superbly cast high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse, the affable blue-collar vulgarity of Vests Arnold (think John Goodman in uniform) belies his steely determination to bring down the target he mockingly dismisses as the bandleader  lack of evidence notwithstanding. Simply choosing to remain in Germany with his orchestra was crime enough, Arnold maintains, because in so doing Furtwangler allowed himself to be used as a commercial for Adolf and all he stood for.

As the dignified, lofty-minded Furtwangler, Peter Van Norden embodies the noble torchbearer of civilization, passionately asserting his allegiance to music and art as a sacred realm that transcends politics and preserves the better angels of human nature.

Compared to the free passes given Furtwanglers artistic colleagues who were far more active in the Third Reich (Herbert Von Karajan was a card-carrying party member), Arnolds investigation seems a textbook case of malicious prosecution, especially when he extorts fabricated testimony from a craven violinist (Adrian Sparks, in a heartbreakingly nuanced capitulation). Fine supporting performances from Cylan Brown, Tara Donovan and Vivien Latham bolster the sense of Furtwangler as persecuted victim. Nevertheless, a potent wordless reveal, involving some photographs, telegraphs the deeper motive for Arnolds crusade.

Director Stephanie A. Coltrin hits the right emotional notes in this charged dialectic, which deftly pivots when Arnold poses the one question that cuts through all the rationalizations and excuses. Regardless of legal distinctions, artists cannot escape moral responsibility for the society that sustains them  not then, not ever, and even inaction is taking a side.

         

Taking Sides

Where: Rubicon Theatre, 1006 E. Main St., Ventura

When: 2 and 7 p.m. Wednesdays (with evening talkbacks), 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays; ends Nov. 12

Tickets: $54-$59

Info: (805) 667-2900 or rubicontheatre.org

Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes

SIGN UP for the free Essential Arts & Culture newsletter 

See all of our latest arts news and reviews at latimes.com/arts.

MORE THEATER:

Review: Yohen with Danny Glover

Review: Underneath the Lintel with Ayre Gross

The 99-Seat Beat: Art gallery as theater, Mary Zimmerman and more

Carrie Coon: At the top of her game

Review: A devastating revival of August Wilsons Gem of the Ocean

Review: Bright Star at the Ahmanson

Review: Immersive ghost stories in Kaidan Project

Review: Resolving Hedda at the Victory in Burbank

Last week on the 99-Seat Beat
Here are the 2018 SAG Awards nominees reactions to their nods

The on-camera talent recognized during the 24th Screen Actors Guild Award nominations on Wednesday shared their excitement and gratitude for the special honor bestowed upon them by the acting community.

The SAG Awards serve up laurels for actors and ensemble casts working in television and film as voted by their peers. The awards show, hosted by The Good Place star Kristen Bell, will take place on Jan. 21.

LIST: The 2018 SAG Award nominees

In statements to the Los Angeles Times, several nominees repeatedly thanked their drama families, particularly the casts and crews of their respective projects. Heres what some of them had to say about the recognition:

Alison Brie. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Alison Brie, GLOW

It is such a great honor to be recognized by my fellow actors with this nomination. I am so proud to be part of a show that celebrates the craft of acting, with all its pitfalls and glories, and to be able to work with such a diverse group of insanely talented women. GLOW has meant the world to me and Im deeply thankful for this recognition for me and the cast. Thank you SAG-AFTRA!!

Millie Bobby Brown. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Millie Bobby Brown, Stranger Things

Screen Actors Guild! Thank you SO much for recognizing me and our cast for the second year in a row! This means the world coming from you, our peers. I am so lucky and honored to have the privilege of playing Eleven  a strong, powerful, badass, strange, wonderful character! Cant wait to celebrate with my Stranger Things family!

Timothee Chalamet. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Timothee Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name

What an incredible morning! This nomination is very close to my heart because its from the actor. When we made Call Me By Your Name, we had no idea what it would turn into. The experience in making the film with Armie [Hammer] was so special, and yet, we just didnt know. Simply put, Ive been blown away by the response this film has received. And, to be included in ensemble along with my Lady Bird family (congrats, Saoirse [Ronan]!) makes this recognition that much more special.

David Harbour. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

David Harbour, Stranger Things

If it isnt wildly apparent by now, Ill say it directly  I love actors! To be recognized by my peers in such distinguished company gives me a special joy. And Millie [Bobby Brown] and the show! Beyond.

When I act, when I create, I feel alive, full to bursting, and I feel of service to the mysterious goodness that firmly exists in this world. I have been rewarded with a life that indulges in the primacy of self, but at its core and at its purest and its best, it is a life of service. A service to audiences. To prod and poke when necessary, to comfort and entertain when times seem dark, to ever expand the human experience, to offer a reason to live, to celebrate to the gods the great gift and scourge that is consciousness. Sometimes it means expressing iron intellect and rigorous truth that bonds us all in the achingly profound wisdom of no escape. Sometimes it means revealing the intimate moments of endurance, of unexpected kindness, unasked for love. And sometimes it simply means making a fierce and joyful noise, to spin, to twirl, to throw your hands up with the relentless dips and climb aboard this roller coaster of life. Ya know, to dance. *insert Hopper dancing gif*

Thank you for recognizing me, as it might mean itll be easier to get more jobs doing it.

Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water

I am beyond thrilled to have received the honor of this nomination. And to receive it from fellow colleagues is huge to me. Guillermo [del Toro], this film and the entire cast and crew hold a very special place in my heart and always will. Each and every one of them made me better. I am truly delighted more than I can really express in words but my heart is fit to burst with pride for us all. Thank you dearest SAG members. Thank you for your embrace.

Sean Hayes. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Sean Hayes, Will & Grace

I am so honored to be recognized in this category with these extraordinary actors. I love acting because I love actors. I also like to bake sometimes.

Richard Jenkins. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water

I am thrilled and humbled to be nominated by my peers for a SAG Award. This union is very close to my heart. Well, the SAG card is in my wallet, so its a little further south.

Zoe Kazan. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Zoe Kazan, The Big Sick

Thank you to SAG for honoring The Big Sick ensemble with a nomination. It means so much to us, especially from our acting peers. I am deeply proud to be a part of this film and to have brought Kumail [Nanjiani] and Emily [V. Gordon]s story into the world, especially at this time. We are particularly moved to have been recognized as an ensemble, as this was such an extraordinary collaborative experience Im excited to be reunited once more with my movie family, and to share this with Kumail, Holly [Hunter], Ray [Romano], Zenobia [Shroff], Anupam [Kher], and Adeel [Akhtar] and everyone else who helped bring The Big Sick to life.

Nicole Kidman. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Nicole Kidman, Big Little Lies

What an amazing morning! Thank you to SAG-AFTRA for recognizing Big Little Lies in such a significant way. Ive been acting since I was 14 and have dedicated an enormous amount of my life to my craft so to be acknowledged by my acting family is the most incredible honor.

Jason Bateman and Laura Linney. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Laura Linney, Ozark

I am so proud to be included in a list of such wonderful actresses who have raised the bar so high. What an amazing year for women in television. And I am especially proud to be representing Ozark with my TV spouse, the ever deserving Jason Bateman! Thank you SAG-AFTRA!

Marc Maron. (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Marc Maron, GLOW

I am stunned and excited to be recognized by other actors in this way. I really never thought this was possible in my life. It helps to be surrounded by amazing actors and to have such a defined and well written character as Sam Sylvia and to be on a show as unique as GLOW. I am just a small part. So, thanks SAG for recognizing me and the mind-blowing ensemble that is GLOW.

Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon, The Big Sick

We are so lucky to have been graced with the enormous talents of every single member of our cast. They each put a piece of themselves into our story and we are thrilled at being recognized. Thank you. And a special shout out to Holly Hunters individual nomination!

Now we have to go tell our real parents that they arent actually nominated.

Bob Odenkirk. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul

I am thrilled to get this nomination from my fellow actors! At Better Call Saul I am surrounded by an ensemble of excellence  Michael McKean, Rhea Seehorn, Jonathan Banks, everybody raises my game. Thank you to SAG-AFTRA.

Gary Oldman. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Gary Oldman, The Darkest Hour

No actor could ever deny the special satisfaction that comes from being recognized by your fellow artists  we all share the same challenges, insecurities, and uncertainties, chief among them, the question am I any good? this nomination, and in the wonderful company of the other nominees, is so very satisfying.

Margot Robbie. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Margot Robbie, I, Tonya

Im so incredibly moved and excited to be nominated by my fellow actors. I feel very fortunate to be able to have had the opportunity to bring Tonyas story to the big screen. Thank you to Steven [Rogers] for his brilliant and unique script, to Allison [Janney] and Sebastian [Stan] for being such incredible screen partners and to Craig [Gillespie] for his amazing direction and perfectly capturing the tone and essence of the film. Im so honored to be recognized among the truly powerful and wonderful women in the category. I cant wait to celebrate with everyone.

Sam Rockwell. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

It is such an honor to be nominated by your fellow actors, I have been a proud member of the Screen Actors Guild for as long as I can remember. To share it with this wonderful ensemble whom I have had the pleasure to work with over the years and others I got to collaborate with for the first time is truly special. I want to thank Martin McDonagh, our director and writer, for crafting these characters, as well as Woody [Harrelson], Fran [McDormand] and the rest of the cast who brought the town of Ebbing to life on screen. I am thrilled.

Ray Romano. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Ray Romano, The Big Sick

This is awesome but I wont believe it till the recount.
Batmans Flying Fox is like the Batcave in flight, and the Justice League crew really built it

Riddle me this, Batman: How do you transport a group of five superheroes, none of whom possess flying abilities, around the world to battle evil in the most efficient (and cool-looking) manner?

For Warner Bros. superhero mash-up Justice League the job of working that out fell largely to production designer Patrick Tatopoulos.

The result? Batmans newest vehicle, a massive transport plane with the maneuverability and firepower of a fighter jet, dubbed the Flying Fox.

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Pippi Longstocking Kiddee Matinees Its difficult to explain the bemusing childhood pleasure of watching the badly dubbed but oh-so-fun Swedish films about Pippi Longstocking, the independent, resourceful and adventurous girl with gravity-defying ginger plaits and superhuman strength. The New Beverly is devoting a Novembers worth of weekend matinees to the various iterations of the Pippi tales including two of the awkwardly dubbed Swedish originals starring Inger Nilsson beginning with Pippi Goes On Board (1969), Nov. 4-5, and continuing with Pippi in the South Seas (1970), Nov. 11-12. The more polished but less fun 1988 The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking, screens Nov. 18-19, and the 1997 animated feature Pippi Longstocking, Nov. 25-26. New Beverly Cinema, 7165 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 938-4038. Sat.-Sun. through Nov., 2 p.m. $6. thenewbev.com

Jack Gyllenhaal Double Feature The thoroughly likable actor will introduce two of his decidedly darker films starting with the cult classic, Donnie Darko (2001), a sci-fi tragi-comedy about a teen (Gyllenhaal) who may or may not be receiving apocalyptic messages from a giant demonic rabbit only he can see. Harvey this aint. Writer-director Richard Kellys feature debut also stars Jena Malone, Drew Barrymore and Gyllenhaals sibling, Maggie. In writer-director Dan Gilroys 2014 thriller Nightcrawler, Gyllenhaal was widely praised for his performance as a psychopath who works as a freelance cameraman capturing violent, late-night footage for a local TV station. Rene Russo and Bill Paxton co-star. American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 260-1528. Nov. 9, 7:30 p.m. $12; $8 for Cinematheque members. www.americancinematheque.com

Laemmle Throwback Thursdays: Film Noir L.A. private eye Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) picks up a desperate and mysterious hitchhiker (Cloris Leachman in her film debut) and finds himself at the center of both a murder case and the search for a veritable Pandoras box in director Robert Aldrichs 1955 noir classic Kiss Me Deadly. Maxine Cooper and Gaby Rodgers co-star. Other films in the series include director Robert Altmans neo-noir, The Long Goodbye (1973), starring Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe, Nov. 16; and the Neil Simon-penned murder-mystery satire Murder by Death (1976), Nov. 30. Laemmle NoHo 7, 5240 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, (310) 478-3836. Kiss Me Deadly, Nov. 9, 7:30 p.m. $12; $9 for ages 62+. www.laemmle.com

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The Gold Rush Charlie Chaplin wrote, directed and starred in this charming 1925 silent about a hapless prospector who battles blizzards, Klondike oafs, hunger, and even a bear all in the hopes of finding a little gold and winning the heart of a winsome dance hall girl (Georgia Hale). A timeless classic. With live accompaniment on the Mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ. Old Town Music Hall, 140 Richmond St., El Segundo, (310) 322-2592. Nov. 10, 8:15 p.m.; Nov. 11, 2:30 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. $10; $8 for ages 62+; no credit cards. oldtownmusichall.org

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The book Franco couldnt brook is now a 3-D, computer-animated film, and thats no bull.

The Story of Ferdinand, a gentle, slender kids tome about a Spanish bull too peaceful to fight in the ring, was written by Munro Leaf, illustrated by Robert Lawson and originally published in 1936. Spains Gen. Francisco Franco banned it during that nations Civil War as pacifist propaganda; Adolf Hitler ordered it destroyed. Meanwhile, supporters such as Ernest Hemingway lauded it. And Leaf? He called it Propaganda for laughter only.

Rio and Ice Age director Carlos Saldanha acknowledges the books nonviolent bent, but sees a different theme: If youre at home with who you are, you find peace. His version of Ferdinand, opening Dec. 15, is a colorful adventure story, as opposed to the quiet book.

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I never pictured translating the visuals of the book into the movie. I wanted to create my own vision of Ferdinand, says the director.

The feature-length expansion required new characters, including sidekick Lupe, a wacky comfort goat. Saldanha cast Saturday Night Live Emmy winner Kate McKinnon as Lupe and WWE star John Cena as Ferdinand:

Hes a massive guy! I dont want to upset this guy ever! But the way he looks you in the eye, you believe every word hes saying. And thats how I saw Ferdinand.

Kate  shes such a natural comedian, an ad-libber. [She gave us] more material than we can ever use. Maybe we can make Ferdinand 2 just her.

This story is part of The Times Holiday movie preview. See our complete coverage here.

calendar@latimes.com.
Big break. Hong Chau turns over the phrase. There have been many times the Treme, Inherent Vice and soon-to-be Downsizing star wondered if she was about to have one.

The New Orleans native has already gone from virtual unknown to budding television player to scene-stealer for directors Paul Thomas Anderson and Alexander Payne.

Your first union job is like a break because now youre in the union. Treme was big, because that was my first time getting to return to a show, said Chau, who played Linh for three seasons on the HBO series, as she sipped iced coffee in a booth in the corner of a bustling Melrose Avenue brasserie.

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As a teenager Chau went to boarding school in Natchichotes in northern Louisiana  where they filmed Steel Magnolias,  she notes emphatically  then attended film school in Boston. The former New Yorker and natural introvert who accidentally fell into acting after performing for her film school classmates currently lives in Los Angeles with her beloved Rottweiler-Australian shepherd mix, Kobe.

I didnt like it here my first two years, confessed Chau, now a nine-year Angeleno, but now that Im nice and comfy, Im thinking about leaving L.A.

Her dream escape involves an RV and the open road. She even has one in mind. I mentioned to Alexander [Payne] that I wanted to do that and he said, I still have the RV from About Schmidt  you can borrow it if you want to! I dont normally take people up on their offers, but that might be amazing.

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Her first movie role, playing a brothel employee with a heart of gold and secrets to share opposite Joaquin Phoenix in Andersons 1970s-set Los Angeles stoner noir Inherent Vice, effectively put her on the Hollywood map three years ago.

She remembers just being happy to audition for Anderson, whose films she admired. Her first day of filming left her so giddy she got pulled over for speeding on the way home from the set.

We shot this crazy car chase scene in the canyon overnight, we wrapped with the sun came up, and I remember feeling super high and happy, she said and smiled. And then I got my very first speeding ticket ever, driving back home. I had crazy green eye shadow on and my hair was insane, and the cop said, Where are you coming from? Im coming from work  Im an actor! 

A few television stints followed as Chau turned up on NBCs A to Z and, earlier this year, on HBOs Big Little Lies. Making her second film appearance, in Paramounts Dec. 22 release Downsizing, Chau steals the show again  this time from Matt Damon.

Paynes science-fiction dramedy takes place in an alternate reality in which scientists have solved overpopulation by shrinking select human volunteers to the size of a Pop-Tart. Going small, dopey everyman Paul Safranek (Damon) finds his new life in a lavish resort community for miniature people lacking, but discovers meaning and newfound purpose in his budding friendship with Ngoc Lan Tran (Chau), a Vietnamese dissident shrunk against her will by the government.

Chau could relate to Ngoc Lans trials; her own parents fled Vietnam in 1979 by boat, ending up in the Thai refugee camp where she was born. If anyone has to leave their homeland by boat, they all have difficult stories, she said. But my parents had a difficult journey and their story always seems like a movie to me. So its nice, in some way, to kind of portray some fictionalized, adjacent version of their story.

Her Ngoc Lan, a spitfire cleaning woman with a prosthetic leg and a selfless penchant for helping others, stands out among a stellar cast that includes Christoph Waltz, Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis and Udo Kier.

But the character has also faced scrutiny from critics over the heavily accented broken English she speaks in a cadence that some say veers into stereotype before the script  and Chaus layered, dimensional performance  makes her a hero.

They have a problem with my character, who is so multifaceted and complex and well-written  they have a problem with her because she has an accent.  Hong Chau

One guy after a screening said, So, that must have been a big deal for you, doing a character with an accent, said Chau. I was like, Why? Because she speaks broken English? Did she not come off as intelligent to you? Whats the problem? He didnt even know what he had a problem with.

Another guy asked me, How do you feel about your characters accent being used as a punch line? Well, its not being used as a punch line, she continued. So, your characters kind of a tiger mom How is she a tiger mom? She doesnt have kids! Shes not forcing Matt Damon to take violin lessons!

If I introduced you to my parents would you cringe? All of these people who have this vague feeling that they have a problem with this character, they have no problem going and getting a mani-pedi from some cheap nail salon, they have no problem buying mass-produced clothes from child workers in Bangladesh, they have no problem with a bunch of other stuff, but they have a problem with my character, who is so multifaceted and complex and well-written  they have a problem with her because she has an accent.

Chau speaks highly of Downsizing and of working with Payne, and voices a reluctance to sound off exhaustively on issues of representation and inclusion in the industry. She acknowledges its hard in Hollywood for Asian female performers, but being choosy in her film work has reaped particularly enriching rewards so far.

I dont want anyone to think I took this role in Downsizing because it was the only role available to me, she said. Im not a passive participant in it. I actively went after this role after I read the script, I did the role the way I want to do it, and I felt like if I had an issue I could be honest with [Alexander] about it.

She says Payne, who co-wrote Downsizing with Jim Taylor, offered to let Chau change her characters name. I said, No: Were going to keep this name, because usually when theres an Asian character they always name them something easy for Americans to pronounce. Im like, no  its gonna be Ngoc Lan. 

It sounds beautiful in Vietnamese, she said and grinned, but it sounds horrible when an American person says it.

This story is part of The Times Holiday movie preview. See our complete coverage here.

jen.yamato@latimes.com

@jenyamato
Please excuse Sam Rockwell if hes feeling a little exhausted lately.

Hes been channeling former President George W. Bush for The Big Short director Adam McKays next film, Backseat, which stars Christian Bale as former Vice President Dick Cheney and Amy Adams as his wife, Lynne. The unusual role is just the latest in a wildly varied professional career that has averaged two movies a year for the last 20 years.

Id like to slow down. I think I need to slow down a little bit. Im a little tired. But you take the work when you can get it, I guess, the New York-based Rockwell said last month at Hollywoods Chateau Marmont.

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He was briefly in L.A. as part of an ongoing tour supporting Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which won the coveted audience award at this years Toronto International Film Festival -- following a rapturous reception at the Venice Film Festival -- and is expected to be a major player in multiple categories this awards season.

Sam Rockwell (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times )

The film, which opens Nov. 10, also marks Rockwells third collaboration with writer-director Martin McDonagh after the play A Behanding in Spokane and the ensemble film Seven Psychos.

I think I probably saw him in Lawn Dogs but it didnt quite register until I saw Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, how versatile and how smart and how fun he was as an actor, McDonagh said of when he first took notice of Rockwell. I caught up [with] everything hed done up to that point. Especially Moon. 

Sipping fresh mint tea and accompanied at the Chateau by his loyal 11-year-old dog Sadie, Rockwell is nothing like his Three Billboards character, Jason Dixon, an unapologetically racist small town police officer who becomes an unexpected ally in the quest of divorced mother Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) to bring her late daughters rapist-murderer to justice. Nevertheless, McDonagh wrote Dixon with Rockwell in mind.

There is a type of American male that is very useful for me to have Sams voice in my head as Im writing, McDonagh said. Theres something loose and dangerous as a guy, maybe, quirky and unexpected. Its a testament to how great an actor he is -- how unafraid he is to go to those very dark places without sentimentalizing the character. Theres something lovable about [Rockwell] as a person but he doesnt lay anything on top of that.

FULL COVERAGE: Holiday movie preview >> 

Rockwell spoke about working with McDonagh, the unexpected relevance their film has with todays headlines and the challenge of playing a former president.

Besides Martin McDonagh writing this role for you, what drew you to Three Billboards?

It was just a great part. The journey this guy takes is just amazing, you know? Barney Fife into Travis Bickle. It was really fun, that journey. And then we kind of marked it out so it wouldnt be too comedic. We wanted to make sure it didnt get too goofy so you could follow the guy as it went along.

What did you do to prepare for the role?

I am very anal about my preparation. I just go and go. No rock unturned kind of thing. I went to southern Missouri and did some ride alongs with cops. It was intense. They were like stopping drug dealers and stuff like that. I had them tape my lines, for a good accent. There was a drug house that was pretty awful. The thing with watching Cops is you dont get that smell. Feces, drugs. It was just a horrible smell in there. Really bad.

Frances McDormand is a force of nature in this movie. What was it like working opposite her?

Shes intimidating, but shes also a real softie. Shes serious, but we had a lot of fun, we had a lot of laughs. I cant imagine anyone else putting out the fire on those billboards. I believe she would really do that -- kicking the kids in the . Im not saying Fran would do that, but theres something about it that I believe when I watch Fran. But shes also very soulful, you know? She has a lot of vulnerability and warmth, and you see that in the movie. Shes John Wayne.

Youre getting a lot of awards buzz for your performance, but you were in a similar situation for Conviction and ultimately not nominated for any top awards. What was that experience like?

We were riding the wave there for a second. It was fun. [Director] Tony [Goldwyn] and I did a little press tour with Hilary [Swank]. I think Christian [Bale] was the guy that year for The Fighter. And then [Jeremy] Renner too, who is a pal of mine, [for The Town]. It was like the three Boston toughs. And then Christian was just sweeping. We were all at the Critics Choice. We were there having fun, we all knew Christian was gonna get it so we all got drunk and just laughed. We were just there for the party.

Speaking of Christian Bale, some photos have emerged online with him in full makeup as Dick Cheney. Hes unrecognizable.

I look a little different, but [Bale and Adams] look really different. Its intense. He gained some weight and then hes got a suit on. Hes got eyebrows. He shaved his head. He gets picked up at 2 in the morning. Hes not sleeping at all. I have a prosthetic nose, that takes a couple of hours.

Have you ever met President Bush?

Ive never met him. I met his daughter briefly, she was really sweet. [Playing him] is challenging, like playing Elvis Presley or something. Im on the internet listening to him constantly. I feel like I havent slept, just watching him. I have like four more days in December, and then Im done [shooting].

Three Billboards is obviously a fictional story but touches on a lot of timely issues as well. Even at the London Film Festival you were asked questions about Harvey Weinstein. How have you been feeling about the flood of stories of sexual harassment and assault lately?

Its disgusting. It makes me embarrassed to be a white male -- I mean a male, period. Its an embarrassing time to be a white male right now. I just played a KKK guy with Taraji P. Henson [for the film The Best of Enemies]. Its about him and a civil rights activist that Taraji plays. I talked to an ex-white supremacist. He said something really interesting -- its not so much that you hate black or brown people, its that you hate yourself. I think thats what going on with Jason Dixon in Three Billboards. And a lot of these public people that were talking about, too.

All that ... -- misogyny, racism -- comes from self-hatred and not being able to go to therapy and figure ... out. You have intimacy issues. Youre some kind of sex addict. Maybe if Jason Dixon had gone to therapy, hed be a little better. I am a therapy believer. Especially if youre a crazy actor -- youve gotta go to therapy. Were neurotic. If theres a scene that I cant crack, sometimes Im like, Maybe this is too personal, so Ill talk about it with the shrink. I guess thats my spirituality. Im not really religious. I do a little yoga. I like breathing and stretching and  like that. And talking about your feelings.

Director Martin McDonagh and actor Sam Rockwell from the film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times )

This story is part of The Times Holiday movie preview. See our complete coverage here.

amy.kaufman@latimes.com

geoff.berkshire@latimes.com
Ach-Shun!

Before a take during the shooting of The Shape of Water, director and co-writer Guillermo del Toro lets loose a cannon-shot growl that erupts with gusto from somewhere deep within him.

The same could be said of the finished movie, an emotional love story, espionage thriller and monster movie all rolled into one. Its eccentric mix of tones and genres could only come from the vivid, creative imagination of Del Toro.

In the film, Sally Hawkins plays Elisa Esposito, a mute cleaning woman at a high-security government facility in early 1960s Baltimore. When agent Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon) brings in a mysterious creature (Doug Jones)  a part man, part fish captured in South America  Elisa feels an unexpected connection.

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With the aid of her co-worker Zelda Fuller (Octavia Spencer), her neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins) and scientist Dr. Robert Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg), Elisa spirits the creature away from the facility to fully realize their romantic bond.

The movie earned the top prize when it premiered this year at the Venice International Film Festival, going on to also play to rousing responses in Telluride and Toronto. This month it will play the AFI Fest in Los Angeles before opening Dec. 8 (and a week earlier in New York).

Watch the trailer for The Shape of Water.

The films heroes are a mute cleaning woman, her African American co-worker, her gay neighbor, a sympathetic scientist and the South American fish-man she falls in love with. The films villains are a military general and a square-jawed family man government agent who in many other movies would be the leading man. The films championing of outsiders and misfits is no accident.

On a certain level, Del Toro said recently, the idea is just gathering everybody up who can be represented as the other, quote unquote, all the invisible people coming together to rescue this creature that can either be a monster or a savior or a lover or a god.

It was very important for me that with the antagonist, to understand him a little but also see that for him these people dont exist, they are negated and invisible, he said. Thats for the plot aspect of the movie, but more importantly to make the love story about something more than just a couple falling in love. Its about also being able to see those other people and love the otherness, love the difference.

It is September 2016, and just a short drive from downtown Toronto is a production facility used for the FX television series The Strain. Del Toro and J. Miles Dale collaborated on that show and together are producers on The Shape of Water. Inside, through a small lobby, past a few large-scale creature models and around a series of corners that feel like entering some secret world is just that  the set for the top-secret military installation that is one of the main locations for The Shape of Water.

Its about also being able to see those other people and love the otherness, love the difference.  Guillermo del Toro

Most of the main ensemble is here  Hawkins, Spencer, Shannon, Stuhlbarg and Jones  for a number of scenes that will be shot quickly and efficiently over the course of the day. Many of them also have films playing at the Toronto International Film Festival, which is going on at the same time, and so they have been spending their evenings at premieres and parties, but always find themselves back inside Del Toros world.

For all the design and visual detail in his work, Del Toro is hyper-attentive to each actors specific way of working. Shannons brooding intensity, Hawkins withdrawn shyness, Spencers open-hearted affability and Stuhlbargs quiet stability are all given time and space to shine.

Im completely internalized in terms of makeup or effects, creatures, visual effects and camera work, its completely second nature on my sets, so I try to make it very simple for my actors, Del Toro says.

In terms of the creature, we spent three years designing and executing it, so when it presents itself to the set it is a complete creature. So [the actors] react to it. They are reacting to an actor and that goes a long way into making all those things blend together.

At one point, as the production breaks for lunch, two chairs are placed in the middle of the set where the creature is kept, amid the fantastical water tanks, old-fashioned high-tech gadgetry and machinery. Surrounded by outdated space-age equipment, Del Toro surveys the empty room around him to explain the specifics of the setting.

The year is 62 and the creature and his condition embody for me a moment which is the breaking point in the way America is perceived by itself, he says. Camelot is going to end, and the future that was being presented with the spaceship fins on cars is coming to an end.

But everybody is talking about Sputnik and the space race and automated food processors. Its a future that is pretty hollow, he says. And then all the things that are wrong start bubbling to the surface. It was an interesting moment to me.

Del Toro eventually leaves to take part in his usual lunchtime routine of checking in on the editing of footage that has already been shot. A while later, through multiple doors and around many more corners, past the soundstage that contains the set for the interior of the apartments for characters played by Hawkins and Jenkins  including a bathroom specially designed for a scene when it will be completely filled with water  actor Doug Jones is in full costume as the creature. Photos and scans are being taken of his look.

As he lifts his more than 6-foot, 3-inch frame up from a folding chair, the effect is startling. Even as certain joints and seams show on the costume, it is surprisingly realistic in its detail. Jones eyes sparkle with life even from beneath layers of make-up and mask, his own mouth somewhere underneath the creatures sculpted rubber teeth.

Jones notes that the three to four hours it takes to be transformed into the character each day actually isnt so bad  relatively speaking  as he rattles off how much longer it took to embody creatures in other collaborations with Del Toro, including Pans Labyrinth, the Hellboy movies and Crimson Peak.

Its a challenge; theres no question about it. Any role that I do under crazy makeup is a role like any other you have to play, Jones says. When youre playing otherworldly creatures, what gets added to that is layers of foam latex and rubber makeup, silicon products and whatever else. Then that emotional state has to come through those layers of makeup. Thats my challenge.

In the same building but outside the soundstage realty of the movie, producer J. Miles Dale sits in his office. Following the exponentially higher budgets for Del Toros other recent films, Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak, the budget for The Shape of Water is under $20 million. Not that you would know from the sets, costumes or makeup during production or the visual effects work on the final film.

We had a lot of frank conversations about this, Dale says. And as you can see, it does not look like a small movie at all. We had to be really smart about it and had some long talks about how we were going to do it. The thing about Guillermo, hes got high ambition and a big appetite, but hes also extremely smart in a production sense. It may be 20 [million] but its going to look like 50.

As Del Toro himself would later add, The point is whats in front of the camera should look twice the budget.

Richard Jenkins, from left, Octavia Spencer, Doug Jones, Guillermo del Toro, Sally Hawkins and Michael Shannon from the film The Shape of Water attend the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2017. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times )

It is now September 2017 and The Shape of Water is having its local premiere as part of the Toronto International Film Festival in the historic Elgin Theatre, a location seen in the movie. (Indeed, an excited cheer went up in the crowd the first time the grand interior came onscreen.) The citys mayor helped introduce the movie, and Del Toro wiped his eyes as he took the stage to a standing ovation along with much of the cast when the movie was finished.

Frankly, I am too close to everything; the movie still moves me every time I see it, Del Toro said a few weeks later. I still cry in the same places, I still chuckle at some of the same places and I still have a great love for it. Its very, very hard for me to be objective.

Having come from somewhere deep within himself, this romantic adventure story of lovelorn outsiders finding each still grabs him in unexpected ways.

I still cry at the end, he said. I still choke up when Giles comes back and says, Whatever this thing is, you need it.

This story is part of The Times Holiday movie preview. See our complete coverage here.

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Mark.Olsen@latimes.com

Follow on Twitter: @IndieFocus
Amid all the movies that distinguished themselves at this years Toronto International Film Festival, perhaps no movie did so with words more than Mollys Game. The film is a motormouth-y throwback, the kind that in the age of images and spectacle grooves to what movies once grooved to: well-crafted dialogue.

But what else would you expect from the feature directorial debut of Aaron Sorkin?

I dont think it will come as a surprise to anyone I love language. Its the only way I have of communicating creatively, Sorkin, the Emmy-winning creator of The West Wing and Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Social Network, told The Times in Toronto.

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I cant draw; I cant write music. I dont see in my head what David Lean saw with camels coming up [over the horizon]. This is how I do it.

Mollys Game, which hits theaters from STX on Christmas Day, will test more than just ears: it will gauge whether Sorkin, whose hits as a screenwriter stretch from A Few Good Men to Moneyball, can appeal to mass audiences as a director too.

 Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba star in Mollys Game.

FULL COVERAGE: Holiday movie preview 

A fact-based story about the real-life poker-game operator Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain), the drama follows the title character as she masterminds an underground game for the mega-rich and famous in Los Angeles and New York, trying to outmaneuver her enemies and avoid calling everyone out when she lands on the legal hot seat.

When Bloom speaks  in voice-over, in haggling with a composite-character super-player (Michael Cera), in conversations with her lawyer (Idris Elba), its essentially nonstop  the movie is maximum Sorkin. It offers a continuous stream of eloquent gems, all while putting its people where Sorkin most likes them: at the nexus of morality and opportunity.

We live in a time when people sell each other out and the rest of us dont seem to mind, the filmmaker said. And here was someone that it just came naturally to  not to do the wrong thing.

Chastain added that, though Bloom was ultimately running a game for her own profit and makes very, very bad choices throughout the film, shes absolutely a role model, because she didnt give away what she believed was right just for money or fame.

The actress laughed about getting her brain to work at Sorkin speed, saying it helped that she had learned to perform the work of a wide range of modern writers while studying acting in school at Juilliard.

I think Molly is a great feminist icon. She cares about the right stuff, which we kind of forget because she says a lot of things very fast.  Aaron Sorkin

Sorkin says he doesnt see himself as a stylist, though Mollys Game does have a certain directorial flair, a sort of quick-cut appeal that mirrors his dialogue. Sorkin worked with a team of three editors to achieve this effect. (My directorial style is saying yes to really talented people when they have a good idea, he said dryly at a press conference at Toronto.)

The movie also lands in the midst of an ongoing conversation about female representation in Hollywood. Sorkin has taken his lumps on the topic, absorbing criticism that his female characters arent given sufficient depth or often need to be redeemed by men. That notion would seem to be given the lie here, with Bloom the ultimate in character autonomy; even her aforementioned lawyer is someone who bows to her, not the other way around.

I think Molly is a great feminist icon. She cares about the right stuff, which we kind of forget because she says a lot of things very fast, Sorkin said. He noted the gender dynamics that Bloom must contend with often involve some powerful guy [throwing a tantrum] because he feels Molly is attracted to some other powerful guy.

Chastain believes the movie will quell skepticism about Sorkins portrayals of women.

Aaron could have directed anything and chose as his first film to direct a movie about the illustrious career of a great female protagonist, she said. In an industry that doesnt always seem to be interested in women, that tells you a lot.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 

This story is part of The Times Holiday movie preview. See our complete coverage here.

calendar@latimes.com

ALSO:

Jessica Chastain hits TIFF with a one-two punch of feminism in Woman Walks Ahead and Mollys Game
Designer Beatrice Valenzuela, co-founder of the Echo Park Craft Fair, has been championing the creative spirit of Los Angeles Echo Park neighborhood by celebrating local artists and designers for years. In 2009, the longtime Eastside resident launched her self-named line of sandals, and recently, she added a ready-to-wear womens collection of vibrantly colored dresses and bold floral prints reminiscent of her Mexican heritage.

The year she started her line, Valenzuela, 36, invited several designer friends to gather for wine and cheese and to trade their products, which included moccasins and handmade jewelry. That little gathering has blossomed into the twice-a-year Echo Park Craft Fair, which has 150 vendors and more than 6,000 attendees who shop for locally made fashion, home and beauty products.

Designer Beatrice Valenzuela at her Echo Park studio. (Mariah Tauger / For The Times)

Valenzuela embodies the free-spirited nature inherent to Los Angeles while incorporating the community directly around her as well as her upbringing in Mexico, L.A. and Paris. Her designs reflect a rawness that still coats the Echo Park area but with an ease and modern refinement that appeals to busy, creative women.

Her Sandalia is a simple slide sandal made with a sculpted foam sole and lambskin leather uppers that cover just the top portion of the foot. The silhouette is like a pool slide but made from leather. It comes in colors such as turmeric, lavender and olive green.

The Sandalia has been Valenzuelas biggest hit, selling locally at General Store and abroad at Beams in Japan. The idea came to the designer out of necessity when she was looking for an easy slip-on shoe that she could wear for any occasion.

After giving birth to her second child, Valenzuela wanted a slip-on sandal that was more presentable than an Adidas pool slide. She purchased cork soles and found some foam leather and a wrap cord and put it all together with glue and clamps.

I just made a prototype for myself that I wore all the time because it was the easiest thing for me to slide on, Valenzuela says. I started wearing them out and every girl was like, Wait, what are those?

She now manufactures her entire shoe line at a factory in downtown L.A. A newer sandal called Conder Valenzuela, a leather style with a thick band across the foot and a toe strap, is a collaboration with her longtime partner, furniture and hardware designer Ramsey Conder, who made the brass buckles on each pair sandals.

A look at designer Beatrice Valenzuelas Pacifico chandelier earrings, $330, atbeatricevalenzuela.com. According to the website, 100% of proceeds from the sale of the earrings will be given to UNICEF to assist children and families affected by the earthquake in Mexico. (Mariah Tauger / For The Times) As a Mexican American woman, Valenzuela says she largely finds inspiration for her fashion and jewelry from her culture. Her ready-to-wear collection is a showcase of bold colors and vibrant prints. (Mariah Tauger / For The Times) Designer Beatrice Valenzuelas Mariposa rings ($230-$310) come in combinations of brass and walnut wood and silver and maple wood. (Mariah Tauger / For The Times) In 2009, longtime Echo Park resident Beatrice Valenzuela, co-founder of the Echo Park Craft Fair, started her self-named line of sandals. Later she added jewelry as well as a ready-to-wear collection of colorful dresses and bold floral prints. Valenzuela says she largely finds inspiration for her fashion, footwear and jewelry from her Mexican culture.

In Valenzuelas eclectic Echo Park home, the bright blue and orange of the kitchen tile and the vivid pink of the throw pillows are directly reflected in the dresses, blouses and skirts that hang from a rack in her living room. (Valenzuelas line ranges from $240 for sandals to $1,060 for select pieces of ready-to-wear.)

I love color and I wasnt finding the colors out there, says Valenzuela about the hues found in her ready-to-wear line. Its from my Mexican heritage. Its so in me.

The collection is largely dresses that are undeniably feminine and party-ready. Many have ruffle details on the strap or cascading down the skirt. The bougainvillea dress has vertically flowing ruffles over the entirety of the garment and reminds Valenzuela of the bright, climbing plant ubiquitous in Mexico and Los Angeles.

A shoe style by designer Beatrice Valenzuela. (Mariah Tauger / For The Times)

Its just another way to add a little more flare and also bring my ethnicity and my flavor to it, Valenzuela says about the ruffle details and colorful fabrics.

She departs from bright color when it comes to more basic pieces such as a cotton jumpsuit, button-down blouses and a linen menswear-inspired suit with a high waist, full leg and short jacket reminiscent of a zoot suit. The suit is a nod to the Mexican American Pachucos, Valenzuela says. To me, I think about if I could wear my grandfathers suit, it would be this.
Editors note: In 2007, the Los Angeles Times launched the Image section. The first issue included a story about nine designers who were changing the L.A. look. To mark Images 10th anniversary, here are stories about nine L.A. designers (including one about Jenni Kayne, who was named in the 2007 story) whose work covers everything from high-end jewelry and luxury footwear to, yes, jeans, T-shirts and tracksuits, which are having a moment again.

These nine  Anita Ko, Marjan and Maryam Malakpour of Newbark, Meritt Elliott and Emily Current of the Great, Beatrice Valenzuela, Kelly Urban and Misty Zollars of Amo and Kayne  show how the West Coasts creativity has continued to help define L.A. as a major hub in the world for luxury and style brands.

 Marques Harper, Fashion Editor

You know these Los Angeles looks. The velour tracksuit (usually monogrammed), Ugg boots scrunched onto the flared hem of pants and that uniform of overworked jeans and an embellished T-shirt.

During the 1990s, those were some of the signature looks worn in  and coming out of factories from  Los Angeles. While the 90s are having a pop-culture comeback, the city, which is home to hundreds of designers, has seemingly shed that dubious sartorial identity.

Its been said L.A. is more casual and about denim and tees, Steven Kolb, the president and chief executive of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, says, but that isnt really the case anymore.

This massive wave of change has occurred not only in the aesthetics of the city and its fashion-conscious citizens, but with the clothing labels based here.

For the most part, fashion brands have evolved with the cultural renaissance of Los Angeles. They have become more sophisticated and complex and, for some, confident in their casualness and ownership of the coastal lifestyle that resonates globally as aspirational.

Jesse Goddard and freelance writer Melissa Magsaysay talk about the cover story for the 10th anniversary issue of the Image section, which celebrates Los Angeles women in fashion.

Since the 90s and 00s, the fashion industry has changed too  in a way that favors the Wild West sensibility of L.A. Think free-spirited, community-oriented, less structured and well-rounded. That translates nicely to social media content, a modern-day currency for brands. And many New York and European designers have also eschewed the traditional runway presentation in favor of making their mark in Los Angeles.

Its more about the future than the past in L.A., says Jeff Fowler, president of North America for online fashion retailer Farfetch, which has its U.S. headquarters in a 25,000-square-foot building in downtown and photo studios in Boyle Heights. According to Fowler, the e-commerce fashion site also counts about 20% of its total U.S. retail partners as being located in L.A. It has a history but not like New York or Paris. Jenni Kayne is an example of a designer taking a beautiful rendition of the most beautiful parts of L.A. but also looking forward. It feels fresh and young and forward-looking. That optimism is felt here.

In the last five years, Burberry, Dior, Tommy Hilfiger , Tom Ford, Stella McCartney, Saint Laurent and Rebecca Minkoff have all had major fashion events here.

In the last five years, Burberry, Dior, Tommy Hilfiger, Tom Ford, Stella McCartney, Saint Laurent and Rebecca Minkoff have all had major fashion events in Los Angeles with celebrity-heavy crowds, and online retailers Net-a-Porter and Farfetch have increased their media outreach and frequency of events here for fashion influencers in the last two years.

CFDAs Kolb says there are now 100 L.A. designers who are members of the organization. Thats one-fifth of the overall roster, and it includes Rodarte, Chrome Hearts, Monique Lhuillier, Jennifer Meyer, Irene Neuwirth and the Great (whose designers, Meritt Elliott and Emily Current, are part of our Fashion Forward profiles). The CFDA is also represented inside the new Fred Segal flagship store on Sunset Boulevard with a shop-in-shop that features the lines of CFDA designers from all over the world.

Jennifer Mankins, who owns four Bird boutiques in Brooklyn, opened her first location outside of New York last year. Its a 5,000-square-foot space at Culver Citys Platform shopping development. She has increased the Los Angeles-based brands she carries from one to a current roster that counts more than a dozen designers. She says beyond the more robust fashion scene coming out of L.A.  spanning from casual to red carpet  the citys manufacturing and (relatively) less cut-throat, more-collaborative attitude by the fashion industry make L.A. more attractive than ever.

Designer Jenni Kayne at her Brentwood store. Kayne has built a womens fashion and lifestyle brand around her own lifestyle and what inspires her about California. The majority of her goods are made in Los Angeles. (Mariah Tauger / For The Times)

Ive really been excited about the re-energized manufacturing in L.A., Mankins says. She mentions designer Raquel Allegra, who has all aspects of her business, including designing and manufacturing, housed under one roof in a building in downtown L.A.s garment district. Its more sustainable, and you can see it really happen in L.A., whereas in New York, its this sort of a dying battle against hotel developers. I think this has led a lot of people to start their own brand in L.A. because the entry into it is just easier.

The fashion that we see from Los Angeles beats to its own drum and doesnt follow trends; it has its own style and aesthetic.  Elizabeth von der Goltz, global buying director for Net-a-Porter

Aside from the more practical aspect of being an L.A. brand, there is a less-traditional approach to designing that often shirks trends.

This kind of individualism really speaks to a true fashion customer, says Elizabeth von der Goltz, London-based Net-a-Porters global buying director. Designers are creating from their own personal point of view and lifestyle.

Above all, Von der Goltz says, The fashion that we see from Los Angeles beats to its own drum and doesnt follow trends. It has its own style and aesthetic.

image@latimes.com
Its National Sandwich Day? The holidays do seem to be coming earlier than ever this year. It seems as if National Deviled Egg Day was just yesterday! Anyway, a few good sandwiches. Which is as it should be.

The Sandwich

At Roma Deli, there is only the Sandwich. There is always the Sandwich. So if you suggest that perhaps you would like a little turkey instead of hot coppa on yours, or that you might prefer mozzarella instead of provolone or provolone instead of mozzarella, Rosario Mazzeo will shrug. The Sandwich is whatever he says it is, and although he has been known to change his mind on what the Sandwich might be, he will not change it for you. So you watch him slash open an Italian roll, dribble a few drops of olive oil, layer his finest meats and cheeses, and wrap the Sandwich in butcher paper. Or maybe you dont  these days there are always a few stacked up by the meat slicer. Best sandwich you ever had, says Mazzeo. He just may be correct. 918 N. Lake Ave., Pasadena, (626) 797-7748.

Fried chicken sandwich

We have run across a lot of variations on the fried chicken sandwich since we first encountered one at Bakesale Betty in Oakland. And we have a lot of affection for the versions at Son of a Gun, Alimento, and Friends & Family  even for the extra-hot-fried-chicken sandwich at Howlin Rays, although that one sometimes seems like a giant chicken fillet with a vestigial bun at one end, like the fried poultry equivalent of a geoduck clam. But our hearts probably belong to the lunch-only fried chicken sandwich at Night and Market Song: crunchy, garlicky fried chicken thighs piled onto a bun with Thai papaya salad and ranch dressing. Would we be remiss here if we didnt mention that the fried chicken here used to be served with a nam prik made with Thai water bugs? No doubt. 3322 W. Sunset Blvd., Silver Lake, (323) 665-5899.

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Cuban sandwich

Unless you have been living in a sad, faraway place, you probably know that a Cuban can be about as splendid as sandwiches can get, a split length of buttered Cuban bread, stuffed with roast pork, ham, Swiss cheese, a pickle chip and a garlicky glop sometimes known as mojo, with is then toasted in a sandwich press until the crust has annealed into something crisp and shiny and thin as a dime. The best Cuban sandwiches, I insist, are made with damp, mediocre baguettes, which crisp without drying out, giving the ingredients a chance to meld and the edges of the meat to become brown and crunchy  artisanal Cubans dont stand a chance. I have my differences with Cafe Tropical, and I no longer make special trips there for their guava pasteles, but the Cuban sandwiches are still my favorite in town. 2900 Sunset Blvd., L.A., (323) 661-8391.

Banh mi

The banh mi, the emblematic Vietnamese hoagie, has been in play lately, and sometimes it seems as if half the chefs in town are playing with the tang of its pickled carrots, the crunch of the toasted French bread, the play of the cured meats and the heat of fresh raw chiles. The gamy-hot-sweet flavor profile of banh mi is as 2017 as it gets. But while I am happy to eat expense-account banh mi, drive-thru banh mi, and banh mi from restaurants whose neon flashes Hot Baguettes, my specific hunger always takes me back to the dac biet - house-special - banh mi and Buu Dien, a shabby, fragrant deli counter tucked into the back of a faded Chinatown strip mall. When you hit it right, Buu Diens version will remind you of everything you may have loved about banh mi in the first place, the crisp lightness of a fresh baguette, the interlacing of chiles and herbs, and the essential sploosh of soft liver pate, whose organy funk stays in the background but lifts the various slices of cured pork whatever into a delicate fugue of pig. 642 N. Broadway, Chinatown, (213) 617-8355.

Liverwurst sandwich

Is Joe Josts the last real bar left in Los Angeles County? Im guessing its not, but when youre there on a stolen Thursday afternoon, nursing a pickled egg and a schooner of Busch, it can sometimes seem as if youre the only man left in the world. Conventional wisdom would have you choose a Joes Special from the bars short list of sandwiches, because the steamed Polish sausage wrapped with Swiss cheese into a single slice of bread can make a certain kind of man ugly-cry like nothing this side of the last act of Death of a Salesman. Is that why I tend to get the liverwurst sandwich instead? Maybe. It wont be the best thing youve ever eaten, but it is a real bar sandwich, a solid 2 inches of pink, smoked meat with a thick slice of red onion, a jolt of strong mustard and clapped between two slices of sturdy rye. At the very least, it is an excuse to order a second schooner of beer. 2803 E. Anaheim Blvd., Long Beach, (562) 439-5446.

jonathan.gold@latimes.com

@thejgold
Two-time Indy 500 winner Arie Luyendyk believes Formula 1 should learn from the recent controversies surrounding the calls of the sport's FIA stewards.

Max Verstappen's contentious penalty at the US Grand Prix reignited a debate about the inconsistencies associated with F1's stewards' decisions, with many advocating for the presence of at least one permanent steward at every race to improve knowledge and judgment.

Luyendyk, who won the Indy 500 in 1990 and 1997, is one of three permanent members of IndyCar's panel of stewards, along with former drover Max Papis and official Dan Davis.

The trio reports directly to IndyCar race director Brian Barnhart who assumes a role similar to Charlie Whiting's function in F1.

The Dutchman believes permanent and professional stewards in F1, rather than the current rotation system, would go a long way towards improving consistency.

"You need a fixed panel," Luyendyk told GPUpdate.net.

"During a Grand Prix weekend there is no time to be creative with rules and penalties.

"The rulebook is very complicated and you aren't going to tell me that a guy like Mika Salo, who just wanders by to be a race steward for a weekend, knows the entire book of regulations.

"Just put a few guys in that spot who will be there every weekend, who will get to know the characters of the drivers better, which makes it a lot easier to judge."

Luyendyk believes what happened in Austin to Max Verstappen makes a compelling case for F1 changing its system.

"Being a race steward is a very interesting job in which you have a lot of responsibilities," he said.

"You need to be fair towards everyone, and that wasn't the case in Austin, for example.

"The punishment for Verstappen was a let-down for the fans and that's bad, because Formula 1 and the United States haven't been a match made in heaven so far."

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
If you have someone who likes to cook, bake, eat or drink on your holiday list, youre sure to find something here that will make them happy:

Nikka Coffey Gin

Nikka Coffey Gin. (Anchor Distilling Company)

For the gin fans, the Nikka Coffey Gin will make an impressive addition to any home bar. Made by the same Japanese company that makes Nikka Whisky, the production process involves a whiskey still and notes of not-so-traditional gin flavors such as yuzu citrus and Japanese pepper. $89.99. dekanta.com/store/nikka-coffey-gin

Sokolow stationary

Stationary by Aliza J. Sokolow (Aliza J. Sokolow)

Photographer and artist Aliza J Sokolow makes candy for the eyes. Her prints and stationary feature vibrant photos of repeating carrots, beets, citrus and avocados that leap off the page. $5.95 to $49.95. sokolowphoto.com/cards

Martha Stewart wine club

Martha Stewart has launched her own wine club. (Fadil Berisha)

Its like having Martha Stewart hand-pick your wine. The lifestyle maven recently launched her own wine company and club with deliveries of a half dozen or full dozen bottles every six or eight weeks. And all the wines come with Stewarts tips for serving and pairing. Prices will vary. marthastewartwine.com

Frywall

The Frywall comes in two different sizes and a variety of colors. (Frywall)

For the home cook who loves to fry but hates a mess, theres the Frywall. Its a silicone cone that creates a barrier around whatever youre frying. So your recipients can go nuts with fried chicken, doughnuts, candy bars or whatever else they decide to fry. $21.95 to $28.95 depending on the size. frywall.com

Le Creuset set

An eight-piece cast iron set from Le Creuset. (Le Creuset of America)

If you need to splurge on a gift for a home cook, look for the eight-piece set from Le Creuset, which comes in a variety of colors. $1,650. lecreuset.com

Instant Pot

The Instant pot can be used as a pressure cooker that makes broth, stews, chili, cakes and more. (Williams Sonoma)

For the ambitious home cook who wants to pretend he or she can keep up with a restaurant, theres the Instant Pot. You can use it to make soup/broth, stews, chili, cakes, yogurt, porridge, or whatever you can Google. $119.95. williams-sonoma.com.

Animals for families in need

You can gift animals to families in need via Worldvision. (Worldvision )

Did you know a dairy goat can give up to 16 cups of milk a day? If youre looking for a gift that gives back, you can gift two or more struggling families one goat and two chickens via World Vision. $110. donate.worldvision.org

Re:Find cocktail club

The Re:Find cocktail kit comes with ingredients and recipes for craft cocktails. (Anna Williams)

For the cocktail aficionado who thinks he or she has everything, Re:Find has a cocktail club that includes packages of their signature spirits plus everything you need to make great cocktails at home, including recipes and mixers. $115 plus tax & shipping and handling per box. refinddistillery. com

Pate of the month club

For the charcuterie lover, theres a pate of the month club from Olympia Provisions. (David Reamer)

If you have a friend who always orders the charcuterie board, this is the gift for them. Olympia Provisions, Oregons first USDA-approved salumeria, will send one of its six pates every month, and the first month comes with a custom cutting board and folding knife. $230. olympiaprovisions.com

Cherry Bombe subscription

The Cherry Bombe magazine celebrates women in food. (Cherry Bombe)

This biannual magazine is packed with recipes, profiles, features and photos that are all meant to celebrate women in food. $38. cherrybombe.com

Kombucha brewing kit

This kombucha kit comes with everything you need to make it at home. (Kombucha Brewing)

Its at your local Whole Foods market, on tap at all the trendy coffee shops and restaurants, and it has even made an appearance on mommy blogs. Kombucha, the fermented tea drink, is being praised for its health benefits. It also tastes pretty good. This kit comes with everything youll need to make it at home. $49. thekombuchashop.com

Copper pineapple

The Absolut Elyx copper pineapple comes in a gift box. (Absolut Elyx)

You know those tiki drinks that come in ice-cold copper pineapples? You can buy them, and help someone seriously impress at their next cocktail party. $99. elyxboutique.com

Pomodorini

Pomodorini (tomato) sauce from chef Gino Angelini. (Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times)

If you love chef Gino Angelinis glorious Italian dishes but cant get to his Beverly Boulevard restaurant often enough, he has a happy solution: Buy a jar of his sauce and do it yourself. Angelini sells four of his sauces in nice big jars: creamy Limone, spicy Arrabbiata, the classic guanciale-spiked Amatriciana and the Pomodorini, the classic tomato sauce thats our go-to on a night when you need serious comfort food. $9.99. angeliniosteria.com

Cheese paper

Rolls of coated cheese paper help preserve the life of cheeses. (Formaticum)

Formaticum founder Mark Goldman invented the perfect gift for your favorite cheesehead: rolls of coated paper that protects your wedges of Montgomerys Cheddar or disks of Epoisses way better than plastic. Proper storage can protect your cheeses and extend their lifespan, and wrapping them like presents not only makes you appreciate your chevre and Stilton even more, it also improves your wrapping skills  not a bad thing this time of year. $9. formaticum.com

Metal lunchbox

An Indian-style stacked metal lunchbox called a tiffin. (Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times)

Whether youre making lunch for your kid or yourself, having a good lunchbox vastly improves the experience. Kalyustans, the Manhattan shop thats been selling spices and other cooking products since 1944, makes a beautiful version of a tiffin, the Indian-style stacked metal lunchboxes. The compartments (of 2, 3 or 4) fit into a pyramid that you can carry like a purse  nice, if your idea of style is eating well. $15.99-$22.99. kalustyans.com

Monthly bread club

Bread, jam and cheese from Friends and Familys sourdough club. (Jules Exum)

Not everyone has time to bake their own whole grain sourdough bread  which is where baker Roxana Jullapat of Friends and Family in East Hollywood comes in. She and partner Daniel Mattern have started a monthly sourdough club, where on the first Friday of every month, members come and collect a baguette and a loaf of freshly baked bread, plus a jar of seasonal house-made jam and a wheel of cheese. And since youre already there, maybe get some fried chicken too and make a picnic. $38-$220. friendsandfamilyla.com

Thaan Thai-style charcoal

Thaan Thai-style charcoal from Pok Pok. (Jannie Huang)

If you know someone whose idea of fun is cooking from Portland, Ore.-based chef Andy Rickers Pok Pok cookbooks, you might want to get them some of the Thaan Thai-style charcoal (compressed logs made from rambutan trees, called binchotan in Japan) that Ricker likes so much that he sells it on his Pok Pok website. The stuff is super long-burning and burns quietly, without all the popping that can come with charcoal  and best of all, it doesnt have any nasty accelerants. $9. pokpokrestaurants.com

Retro wooden coasters

Vintage LA coaster set. (CheltenhamRoad)

Featuring vintage images of the Hollywood Bowl, Griffith Park, Union Station and City Hall, this set of four handmade wooden coasters from L.A.-based Cheltenham Road is the perfect gift whether you live in the City of Angels or are an Angelino at heart. $20 for a set of 4. etsy.com

Stainless steel growler

GrowlerWerks uKeg offered by Huckberry (Huckberry)

Keep your favorite craft brew on tap for whenever youre craving a fresh pint with the GrowlerWerks uKeg. This handy mini keg is the size of a half-gallon growler and is double-walled and vacuum-insulated. The dispenser tap easily pour without removing the cap, whether youre serving up brew at your home bar or on the move. Available in stainless steel or copper-plated as well as a larger 128-ounce size. $149 (copper-plated and larger sizes extra). huckberry.com

Kyocera The Everything Mill

Kyocera The Everything Mill (Kyocera)

Grind your pepper, spices, salt and, well, everything, with the Everything Mill from Kyocera. The mill has an adjustable dial for fine to coarse grinds, and the ceramic burr mill mechanism wont absorb flavors from spices and is non-reactive and will not rust. $18 to 20, depending on color. amazon.com
What to buy a kid for the holidays in 2017? Tech may be top of mind, but we kept this years gift guide as analog as possible. Were talking DIY ski-ball, a cardboard plane, and a dreamy kite to embrace and share the best of the past. That said, we also dug into the best of what technology offers as well  because what kid doesnt want a glove-controlled drone?

House Patch Pillow

Any reluctant muggle knows which Hogwarts House theyd be plopped into if the time came: Give them a pillow that proclaims it loudly (and stylishly). $40. pbteen.com

(Pbteen.com)

DIY Ski-Ball

DIY the worlds greatest arcade game  fun to build (complete with included kid-friendly tools), further fun to play, and it winds up being killer room decor. $50. lakeshorelearning.com

(Lakeshorelearning.com)

Its a drone!

The Aura starter drone comes with a glove controller, so a budding techie can control his or her new toy with their hand, superhero-style. $99. toysrus.com

(Toysrus.com)

Get cooking

A gift that will thrill parents just as much: a weekly delivery of ingredients for a family-friendly meal that kids can make themselves  think pizza balls and taco bowls. Tweens, BYO apron. Starting at $90 a week. Onepotato.com

(Onepotato.com)

My Golden Ticket

A special retelling of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, starring  the lucky kid unwrapping this gift. Its a hard-copy book that will delight even the most iPad-obsessed. $36. wonderbly.com

(wonderbly.com)

California kite

Because beach days never get old, and a nonprecious state pride kite will delight everyone from wide-eyed toddlers to surly teens. $48. sistersoflosangeles.com

(Sistersoflosangeles.com)

Wireless headphones

These Hesh 3 Wireless Headphones are noise-canceling, highly durable and boast extreme battery life. Just the thing to keep homework time sacred (or blast the Hamilton soundtrack while walking to school). $130. skullcandy.com

(Skullcandy.com)

Utter Nonsense

The best holiday traditions are the ones that land every family member doubled over in laughter. Pairing (ridiculous) accent cards with (ridiculous) phrase cards, the Utter Nonsense board game will quickly earn its place at the top of the pile. $25. target.com

(Target.com)

Reversible quilt cover

Two kid-favorites  cheetahs and spaghetti with meatballs  bundled back to back in one stylishly wacky duvet cover. 100% cotton, 100% grown-up approved. $135. kipandco.com

(Kipandco.com)

Sanrio  Sugarfina Bento Box

The holy grail of of chic sweets. Sugarfina and Hello Kittys collaboration is the stuff that sweet tween dreams are made of. Make em share an apple pie gummy with you as a thank-you. $20. sanrio.com

(Sanrio.com)

Rainbow playing cards

Sure, kids can play games on their parents phones, but a simple deck of cards is never not fun, and rainbows are never a bad idea. $12. studio-lifestyle.com

(Studio-lifestyle.com)

Bear bag

A bag-in-a-bear for kiddos to stash in their backpack to bring home stinky gym clothes or extra books. Lightweight, cheerful and earth-friendly. $19. dert-bags.myshopify.com

(dert-bags.myshopify.com)

Mermaid shimmer spray

We wouldnt ordinarily endorse grooming products for children, but these sea salt sprays are nourishing, work with all hair textures, and turn any child into a shimmer-headed mermaid. Use carefully. $28. captainblankenship.com

(Captainblankenship.com)

Big surprise

A glittering melon-sized limited edition toy chest filled with more than 50 surprises  think charms, dolls, and the like. Which means up to 50 squeals of joy from the lucky kid unwrapping this one. $70. toysrus.com

Cardigan

The ultimate throw-on-over-everything-and-look-cooler topper. Plus, locally made, affordably priced, and free of ubiquitous sports/cartoon logos. $25. yipkids.com

(Yipkids.com)

Castle playset

The next best thing to a Disney vacation: a LEGO replica of the Walt Disney World Resort Cinderella Castle. Authentic details abound from mosaic-tiled floor, to a tuxedoed Micky Mouse. $349. shopdisney.com

(Shopdisney.com)

Megazord playset

One toy that does the work of three  this Power Ranger fan favorite transforms from Megazord mode to Ultra Megazord mode, to fortress mode. Plus, dozens of sound effects accompany each iteration to further the magic. $99. toysrus.com

(Toysrus.com)

Mr. Grumpy lunchbox

Elementary school kids arent too young to appreciate nostalgia  a glossy Mr. Men-branded lunchbox will be a hit; bonus points for the appearance of especially blase Mr. Grumpy. $9. sanrio.com

(Sanrio.com)

Brownstone dollhouse

Three floors of urban sophistication for little ones to project fantastical and silly stories onto. The deluxe set comes with all accessories, so its move-in ready. $347. landofnod.com

(Landofnod.com)

Nanea doll and book

The newest American Girl doll, Nanea, arrives dressed in traditional Hawaiian clothes  cute, yes, but it also helps set the scene for the powerful story in the accompanying book. Young readers will be enthralled and inspired by Nanea's journey to help others in WWII-era Honolulu. $115. americangirl.com

(Americangirl.com)

Milton and Goose play kitchen

Forget the plastic and loud colors  this heirloom-quality play kitchen is modeled after designer versions and is sure to inspire envy among any kids playgroup  and playgroups parents. $699. miltonandgoose.com

(Miltonandgoose.com)

Cargo balance bike

Outdoorsy kids have already ridden in the back of their parents cargo bicycles, now give em their own with Yubas genius balance bicycle with a rack for saddle bag or basket and flippable frame that makes it a fit up to age 6. $120. yubabikes.com

(Yubabikes.com)

Flying high

Not the type to turn a cardboard box into a toddler wonderland? Ordinary Genius does the work for you with its pre-cut, easy-to-assemble play plane. Good for hours of flight  and coloring. $45. ordinary-genius.com

(Ordinary-genius.com)
Romantic gifts for Christmas? Do you really have to ask? Everyone knows the most romantic thing you can find under the tree is a rock. (Like the kind you find at Tiffanys!) Here are other gifts that say, I love you lots.

Pronoun glasses

Add a personal touch to sharing a drink with that special someone. The 8-ounce glasses come in hers/hers, hers/his and his/his hand-engravings. Dont see your preferred pronouns? As long as this part of your identity can be expressed in 13 characters or fewer, you can customize for a set of four. $44. loveandvictory.com

(Love & Victory)

Dated photo frame

Was 2017 one dumpster fire after another for you? No matter your answer, pick out a photo that represents a silver lining moment spent with your partner this year. Celebrate it with this monogrammed enamel frame that comes in red or white. Starting at $29.50. potterybarn.com

(Pottery Barn)

Coordinates necklace

Commemorate the location of where you met, got married or a special moment with minimalist jewelry. After selecting the necklace style, metal, finishing color and coordinates, you can engrave an optional message or date. Coordinates Collection also offers bracelets, cufflinks and rings. Necklaces start at $160. coordinatescollection.com

(Coordinates Collection)

Matching ugly sweaters

Strut around in a public display of cheesy coupledom. At least, you will be warm, in good company and easy to spot in a crowd. Dog and kid versions are available for sweater options. Adult sweaters start around $34.99 each. festified.com

(John Kaplar)

Illustrated cards

Hear us out: A card can be a great place to actually say what youre thinking and  gasp!  feeling. The wordplay and pop culture references in these are a step above most holiday cards. But if you cant find one to your liking and arent crafty enough to make it yourself, email the independent company for a custom design. $5. tayham.com

(tayham.com)

Streaming service gift cards

Worn out as the Netflix and chill phrase may be, it remains a go-to pastime. Help your significant other catch up with the fragmented media consumption landscape that is 2017 with a subscription to Netflix, Hulu , Amazon Prime or HBO Now. $15 and up. You can go straight to the source to buy or drive-by a CVS, Best Buy or Walgreens.

Streaming service gift cards - Worn out as the Netflix and chill phrase may be, it remains a go-to pastime. Help your significant other catch up with the fragmented media consumption landscape that is 2017 with a subscription to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon or HBO Now. $15-$100. netflix.com, hulu.com, amazon.com, hbonow.com (Amazon)

Luxury blanket

Cozyville  thats how Dev from Master of None describes a fur blanket during cuffing season. Give in to the melatonin in your bodies and indulge winter grogginess in this faux fur chinchilla blanket. Pairs well with streaming service gift cards. $79.95. pier1.com

(Pier 1)

Keep it all together

Help your favorite traveler keep essential items organized in this leather passport cover and luggage tag. It comes in 13 colors with an option to monogram for an additional $20. Nice, sure. But how is this romantic? Surprise them with a vacation by putting flight tickets into the passport case, of course. Starting at $50. Flight tickets not included. leatherology.com. We also like the one from Nordstrom.com, shown here, $73.

Updated Nov. 10, 5:02 p.m. An earlier version of this post failed to include the Nordstrom purchase information.

(Nordstrom)

Holiday brunch cruise

Ever wonder what yacht life is like? Hornblower cruises have seven ports along the California coastline, including San Francisco, Marina del Rey, Long Beach and San Diego. Enjoy the buffet and free-flowing champagne with holiday music and ocean views on December weekends. Plenty romantic. $67.95 per guest. hornblower.com

(Hornblower Cruises & Events)

Couples massage

When you shop for a partner, sometimes you end up buying a gift for yourself too  as is the case with a couples massage. The Tomoko Spa in Beverly Hills offers three packages with your choice of massage treatment combining Swedish and Japanese techniques. All packages come with a private suite and shower, detox foot soak, organic green tea and Japanese sweets. The most expensive package comes with a 30-minute bath treatment and sushi. To place an order, call the spa and choose a gift certificate in PDF form or a gift card package via mail. For two people, $360-$870. tomokospa.com
Cant face shopping at big box stores this holiday season? Stock up on locally sourced, one-of-a-kind goods at one of these independent holiday markets. Have a holiday sale to contribute? Share it in the comments below, and we may include it in a Saturday section.

Mercado Sagrado

The curated craft, art, and design pop-up includes music, a wellness marketplace, and an organic food fair. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 4, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 5. Paramount Ranch, 2903 Cornell Road, Malibu. $39 or $65 for a weekend pass. mercado-sagrado.com

Eastside Handmade

More than 40 artists will participate in the annual event at Amsterdam Modern, 5215 York Blvd., Highland Park. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 11. Free. eastsidehandmade.com

Handmade Makers Market

The outdoor market features handmade, sustainable goods by local artists. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 11. The Ecology Center, San Juan Capistrano. Free. theecologycenter.org

Handmade LA: Holiday Marketplace

The Craft and Folk Art Museums bi-annual marketplace showcases one-of-a-kind contemporary craft and design creations by Los Angeles makers. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Nov. 25-26. Free. www.cafamshop.org/handmade-la

Hauser & Wirth Holiday Market

The massive art gallery, Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles, hosts a holiday marketplace featuring hand-crafted products by Art + Practice, ARTBOOK, LKLY, Made Solid, Milla Chocolates, Piece by Piece, and Rio Tera dei Penssieri. A prints salon will include editioned works by Paul McCarthy, Louise Bourgeois, Martin Creed, Dieter Roth, and Pipilotti Rist. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Dec. 2-3. 901 E. 3rd St., downtown Los Angeles. Free. hauserwirthlosangeles.com

Meredith Metcalf ceramics sale

The Highland Park ceramist will sell handcrafted lamps, vessels, vases and bowls from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dec. 2. 1314 N. Ave. 51, Highland Park. mmhp.squarespace.com

Unique L.A. Holiday

More than 350 independent designers will sell home goods, clothing, gourmet food, childrens items and more at the annual holiday event. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Dec. 2-3. California Market Center, 110 E. 9th St., downtown Los Angeles. $15. uniquemarkets.com

City of Arcadia Holiday Market

Arcadias Downtown District will be lined with twinkling lights, snow and independent makers, crafters, and chefs for this holiday show sponsored by Artisanal L.A. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Dec. 3. South 1st St., Arcadia. Free. artisanalla.com

Extended Family Projects

Peruse handcrafted objects by artists from around the world in a Schindler spec house.11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 3. 433 W. Ellis Ave., Inglewood. extendedfamilyprojects.tumblr.com

French General holiday pop up

Works by Cathy Callahan, Robert Mahar, Sublime Stitching, Molly Meng, Satsuma Street and Tyn Atol. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 3. French General, 2009 Riverside Drive, Los Angeles. frenchgeneral.com

Clayhouse Pottery Showcase and Sale

Approximately 25 artists will exhibit and sell their ceramics at the Clayhouse Pottery Showcase and Sale. 4 to 9 p.m. Dec. 8, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Dec. 9. Clayhouse, 2909 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica. theclayhousesantamonica

Echo Park Craft Fair

The biannual event features work by more than 120 local artists including textiles by Block Shop and Heather Taylor Home, wooden utensils by Knotwork LA and pottery by Mt. Washington Pottery, Pax and B Zippy. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Dec. 9-10. Mack Sennett Studios, 1215 Bates Ave., Silver Lake. $10 and $16. echoparkcraftfair.com

Renegade Craft Fair

The alfresco craft fair returns to the Los Angeles State Historic Park with more than 250 vendors  ceramists, woodworkers, clothing and jewelry designers among them. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Dec. 9-10. Los Angeles State Historic Park, 1245 N. Spring St., downtown L.A. Free. renegadecraft.com

Deck the Halls

Rooms at the Ojai Rancho Inn become mini pop-up shops for the night as makers set up in hotel rooms, the pool yard and the parking lot. Noon to 7 p.m. Dec. 16. Ojai Rancho Inn, 615 W Ojai Ave, Ojai. Free. ojairanchoinn.com

Winter Solstice Night Market

Fig Earth Supplys Night Market features local makers and artists along with dancing to live music, drinks and food. Proceeds benefit GrowGood. 4 to 11 p.m. Dec. 16. Fig Earth Supply, 3577 N. Figueroa St., Mount Washington. figearthsupply.com

FOR THE RECORD

10:18 a.m.: An earlier version of this story said that three pottery stores will sell 1,000 piece of pottery at the Clayhouse show and sale. Approximately 25 artists will sell their work at the event.

Twitter: @lisaboone19

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I met Harry in church choir, when he came to his first rehearsal.

He was trim and good-looking, and his assigned seat was directly in front of mine, giving me a good view of the bald spot on the back of his head. I thought of The Falsettos, a play in which a married man falls in love with a gay man who has a similar bald spot.

There was much discussion at break that first rehearsal about whether the new guy was gay. It didnt take long for us to figure out he was. He was interested in attending meetings of our churchs gay support group. Having recently come out to people at church and in choir, I too was interested in attending those activities. So in the days and weeks ahead, whenever a meeting or potluck was announced, I would ask Harry if he were going. If he said, Yes, I would show up too.

It wasnt exactly stalking, but I was quite systematic about finding out his activities and then joining him.

Harry learned my story  that I had been married to a woman also in choir. He rightfully assumed that I was eager to make a gay friend, someone with whom to talk and do things. He seemed amenable to that idea.

But did he have any idea that I was interested in more than friendship?

Months later, our rector announced a meeting on a Sunday evening to talk about the issue of blessing same-sex unions. That morning in choir, I asked Harry if he planned to attend. When he said he was, I showed up and took a seat next to his and smiled.

The meeting went longer than planned, so I asked Harry if he wanted to join a group of us getting dinner afterward. Somehow, we ended up going to Old Town, Pasadena, just the two of us.

During the meal, I grilled him about his life. He told me about his family in South Carolina, about his breakup with his last partner. He talked about his job as a researcher

Now, I hadnt dated since college days, and most of those encounters were by mutual consent, not as a result of my asking someone out. I didnt really have experience. So when we got back to church and parked in the lot, I decided to just blurt out my intentions: Harry, I need you to help me out. I am interested in you romantically. Am I barking up the right tree?

No, he said quickly.

He said I had taken him by surprise, he thought I was just a lonely, recently out gay man who needed a friend. I was startled but not entirely crushed. Harry finally said, Well, maybe we should go on a proper date and see how it goes.

We made arrangements to go to a movie and out to dinner.

I brought a small bouquet of flowers when I went to his house to pick him up. After the movie, we ate dinner at an Italian restaurant. We ended the evening at his house. Harry told me later that I had passed a test: I could kiss well.

We got to know each other gradually. We had church and choir in common, and that was especially good because it meant we shared some common values. He liked classical music, and like me, listened to it in his car when he drove to work. I got to see how a gay man lived and spent his leisure time. Although Harry didnt want to go out to gay clubs or bars (he had run with the pack earlier in his life and was now looking for something more) he told me about what it was like when he was younger and bar-hopping. That fascinated me.

Harry would regularly come to my apartment in Altadena for dinner or I would dine with him in his house in Glassell Park. I was paying alimony and rent and I found myself with little or nothing left at the end of each month. I couldnt see how I could ever better myself, get new furniture, go on a vacation, or fix up the broken-down car I drove.

One Saturday afternoon on my return to Altadena from a gay rap group in West Hollywood, my car died on the uphill section of the 134 Freeway. I called Harry.

The death of the car provided Harry and me the opportunity to discuss finances. We agreed that since we were together almost every night, I should move in with him and use my saved rent money to help him make his mortgage payments. I was growing more and more in love with him.

When an opening in the California law allowed gay couples to marry, we proposed to each other and secured a church date, Dec. 28.

Having a wedding right after Christmas was festive and fun. The church was still decorated with colorful yuletide wreaths and poinsettias.

We exchanged our vows at the altar, and the choir sang O Come All Ye Faithful and Joy to the World. We even slipped in Deck the Halls with its line Don we now our gay apparel and then began our fully committed relationship.

Now, when the holiday season rolls around, the decorations are a constant reminder that our anniversary is just coming up.

Some friends who knew us when we had been living together asked, "Did marriage make a difference?"

Yes.

Being married made us kinder and more supportive to each other. It was the gift we didn't even know we both wanted so much.

The author is a retired high school English teacher.

L.A. Affairs chronicles love stories in and around Los Angeles. If you have comments or a true story to tell, email us at LAAffairs@latimes.com.
Whether its the culture-devouring Game of Thrones or the increasingly precious physical copies of series past (because who knows what may disappear from Netflix next), TV remains the gift that keeps on giving. Below, some gift options. Just remember that prices can and do vary, so shop around.

Almost anything Game of Thrones

HBO isnt releasing Season 7 on DVD until Dec. 12, but the networks site offers an assortment of Westeros riches. Favorites include a Tormund Giantsbane Gingers Are Beautiful shirt ($24.99) and a Tyrion Lannister I Drink, and I Know Things mug ($14.99). store.hbo.com.

Elisabeth Moss as Offred in The Handmaids Tale. (George Kraychyk / Hulu)

A streaming service gift membership

Netflix and Hulu (home of the Emmy-winning The Handmaids Tale) offer gift card subscriptions at many big box stores, and Amazon offers them online. Shopping for someone with more boutique tastes? Try the U.K.-centric Acorn TV. Prices vary.

Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series is coming to BluRay

David Lynch announced his Showtime return to this cult series would arrive on home video on Dec. 5, and the set will be loaded with bonus material, including 10 behind-the-scenes films, a three-part featurette on the twisted shows enduring legacy and video of the series panel at Comic-Con. $56.97 Blu-ray, $47.26 DVD. Amazon.com.

Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore in This is Us. (Ron Batzdorff / NBC)

This Is Us

Now you can relive the hit network dramas many three-hankie moments featuring Mandy Moore, Milo Ventimiglia and Emmy winner Sterling K. Brown. $19.99. bestbuy.com

Emmit Otters Jug-Band Christmas

Emmet Otters Jug-Band Christmas

The endearing Christmas special from Jim Henson and narrated by Kermit the Frog gets a 40th-anniversary release. Beware the Riverbottom Nightmare Band. $7.99. bestbuy.com

Claire Foy, center, and Matt Smith, right, in The Crown. (Robert Viglasky / Netflix)

The Crown: Season 1

The Netflix series about Elizabeth II (Claire Foy) and her relationship with Winston Churchill (John Lithgow) arrives with various House of Windsor memorabilia. Box sets starting at $55.99. amazon.com

Ewan McGregor as Ray Stussy in Fargo on FX. (FX / FX)

Fargo: Season 3

Noah Hawleys latest trip to the Coen Bros. universe features Ewan McGregor portraying twins and a very contentious postage stamp. $29.66. amazon.com

Samurai Jack is ready to fight. (Adult Swim)

Samurai Jack: The Complete Series

The cultishly adored animated series returned in 2017 after a 13-year absence, and this BluRay set brings together all five seasons. $104.99. amazon.com

Ian McShane, left, Corbin Bernsen and Ricky Whittle of American Gods on Starz. (Jan Thijs / Starz Entertainment)

American Gods

Produced by Bryan Fuller, the mind-bending adaptation of Neil Gaimans fantasy novel features Ian McShane of Deadwood fame. $26.79. amazon.com

Sammy Davis, Jr. and Carol Burnett on The Carol Bunett Show in 1976. (CBS Photo Archive / Getty Images)

The Best of the Carol Burnett Show

With a Netflix series due next year, Carol Burnett is enjoying a long overdue revival, which is partly commemorated with this six-DVD set celebrating the 50th anniversary of one of televisions best sketch comedy-variety shows. $47.99. amazon.com

UPDATES:

Nov. 9, 10:00 a.m.This article was updated with additional details on the Twin Peaks box set.
Given how much time his work takes him away from Los Angeles, actor Walton Goggins prioritizes getting back to feeling rooted with family and friends  especially during the holidays.

"If I invite someone to my home, the least I can do is make it special," he says.

Rest assured, he's the type to make sure everyone has a drink in his or her hand and that they're comfortable.

His house in Hollywood where he lives with his wife, writer Nadia Conners, and their 6-year-old son, Augustus, is naturally suited to the family's active social life. Goggins' affinity for hosting is immediately evident  he jokes you can't take three steps without finding somewhere to sit and talk  as is the intention he puts into the placement of each art object, furnishing and memento.

"Everything you see is personal," he explains. "I don't think you can touch something that doesn't have a story."

The kitchen in actor Walton Goggins Los Angeles house. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The result is both beautifully curated and inviting. A slightly old world vibe makes the place holiday party-ready without extensive preparation or any fussiness, save for Goggins' enviable propensities for extreme organization and cleanliness. Plus his self-described "wrong side of the tracks" Georgia-bred modesty keeps it all down to earth.

Ever since he and Conners moved in soon before Augustus was born in 2011, they have spent holidays in the house, often with visiting grandmothers around, and a separate Christmas party for friends. They usually travel abroad after the Christmas festivities have wound down at home.

As for what makes a great gathering, Goggins' recipe is fairly straightforward. He points to good people, good music, good food and drinks as the elements that matter most.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Goggins is known for his work in television shows including "The Shield," "Justified," HBO's "Vice Principals," and films such as "The Hateful Eight." This year he's been filming "Ant-Man and the Wasp" and the "Tomb Raider" reboot. So souvenirs from significant production experiences are incorporated into the decor.

Antique chairs, textiles and eclectic artifacts are collected from his global wanderings. Flea market finds keep company alongside more pedigreed pieces from Obsolete, Blend Interiors and other local design shops Goggins and Conners frequent.

Pieces by obscure and known artists, such as Kerry James Marshall, are points of pride and joy.

"Home should be a reflection of the life you've led and your journey," Goggins says.

When having friends over, Goggins tries to create "an atmosphere where people can make themselves vulnerable" for meaningful exchanges. He's a passionate conversationalist who seamlessly transitions from fun chitchat to intense real talk.

The house itself has its own unique history. The brick structure was originally built in 1927 by W.F. Montgomery, a lumber dealer who sold raw materials to early Hollywood studios. Architect Harold O. Sexsmith, originally from Seattle, designed it.

The couple made painstaking efforts to retain and restore include the original slate tile roof, interior millwork and the impressive living room fireplace. Upgrading the wide kitchen with black Farrow & Ball paints, brass fittings and marble countertops blended in with the original bones.

Out in back, they transformed what Goggins describes as "just a dirt pile" to a lush, purposefully untamed drought-tolerant landscape and pool in consultation with landscape designer Michael Fiore. Outdoor seating areas add to the property's many retreats and niches that are conducive to both lively conversation and quiet reflection.

A charcuterie board. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Goggins and Conners regularly host friends for cocktail-centric events, especially since Goggins is a co-owner of Mulholland Distilling, the spirits brand he and longtime friend Matthew Alper launched last year.

They're finishing construction on the company's hybrid private tasting room/salon/studio called the Mulholland Room in the Arts District, with Tatum Kendrick of Studio Hus overseeing design duties with a heavy assist by Goggins.

For parties, Goggins and Conners are more likely to use the rustic dining room table to offer guests casual spreads that pair well with cocktails, such as cheese and charcuterie set on reclaimed wood boards they've collected from around the world, rather than for formal sit-down meals. (Conners is an avid home cook, and the family typically eats at the kitchen table.)

They encourage friends to wander around or settle in, both indoors and out.

Reconnecting with people in a personal space  a recent gathering included actress Leslie Bibb, artist Danny Fox and musician Sturgill Simpson  is key to Goggins' creativity and overall wellbeing.

Entertaining at home allows him to nurture certain experiences and memories, particularly this time of year.

"I love moments. I love stories," he says.

Mulholland Hot Buttered Whiskey (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

We asked actor Walton Goggins and his wife, writer Nadia Conners, to share a recipe for the signature drink they like to serve during the holidays. They prefer using spirits from his Mulholland Distilling, of course, but you can sub in what you prefer.

Mulholland Hot Buttered Whiskey

1.5 ounces Mulholland Distilling American Whiskey

2 dashes Angostura Bitters

2 Tablespoons of butter batter (recipe follows)

6 ounces hot water

Whipped cream (optional)

Spice blend garnish (recipe follows)

Add whiskey and bitters to a glass suitable for hot drinks. We prefer a glass mug or favorite vintage glassware, Goggins said.

Add batter and leave spoon in the glass.

Top with hot water. While pouring the hot water in the glass, whisk with the spoon

Top with heaping spoonful of whipped cream, if designed.

Accent with a sprinkle of spice blend (recipe follows)

Butter-Batter

1 pound good quality salted butter

1 pound brown sugar

1 pound confectioner's sugar

2 pints high quality vanilla bean ice cream, such as McConnell's (softened)

Melt butter in a medium saucepan on the stove. Blend in both sugars until completely incorporated. Remove from heat and whisk in vanilla ice cream. Let cool then pour mixture into a glass container with lid and store in the freezer. Recipe yields enough batter for a large holiday gathering or to keep yourself buttered throughout the winter.

Spice blend garnish

2 parts grated nutmeg

2 parts grated cinnamon

1 part coffee grounds

home@latimes.com

For an easy way to follow the L.A. scene, bookmark L.A. at Home and join us on our Facebook page for home design, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.
Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long, photographer Walker Evans once wrote. Portraits and their ability to tell family stories provide the springboard for four museum exhibits in the West. Some look to the future, some reflect on the past. But all are worthy of a stare.

Allie Mae Burroughs, Wife of a Cotton Sharecropper, by Walker Evans was shot in 1936 in Hale County, Ala. (Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

SFMOMA

Walker Evans gives us plenty to stare at in his portraits of rural families in the South taken in the 1930s. The photos are part of a major retrospective of his work from the 1920s to the 1970s on now at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In the 300-plus prints, you see a mix of day-to-day life and portraits of individuals who agreed to share their story. The show includes paintings he did and memorabilia from his home. But its the Depression-era photos, such as that of Allie Mae Burroughs, married to a cotton sharecropper, that hit hardest.

Info, cost: Through Feb. 4; $25 per person. SFMOMA, 151 3rd St., San Francisco; (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org

Kuwait Stock Exchange I, 2007" by Andreas Gursky. (Andreas Gursky / 2017 / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, Courtesy Spruth Magers)

SITE Santa Fe

Future Shock sounds like a nod to the 1970 Alvin Toffler book, yet its anything but old school. The show features 10 artists from around the world to create a mass portrait of our globalized world. Andreas Gurskys crowded photos of the Kuwait Stock Exchange and Chicago Mercantile stock exchanges show the financial side; Rafael Lozano-Hemmer with Krzysztof Wodiczko create a room with surveillance cameras and facial-recognition technology that tracks our movements.

Info, cost: Through May 1; $10 admission (free on Fridays). SITE Santa Fe, 1606 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, N.M.; (505) 989-1199, sitesantafe.org

Untitled (Portrait of Six Women) was shot by Hebard Studio in Lincoln, Neb., around 1910. (Portland Art Museum)

Portland Art Museum

The Portland, Ore. exhibit, Representing: Vernacular Photographs of, by and for African Americans, brings together portraits from a family album, snapshots and Polaroids from the late 1800s through the 1990s. Throughout the history of photography, the representation of African Americans has been problematic and, until recently, understudied, the museums website says of the show, which provides a counterpoint to racial stereotypes of the times. The photo album of a Tuskegee Airman and his wife, the first black woman to be admitted to the Oregon state bar, joins other images to demonstrate what family life for blacks in Portland looked like in the last two centuries.

Info, cost: Through Dec. 3; $19.99 admission. Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Ave., Portland; (503) 226-2811, portlandartmuseum.org

A portrait in Lost Childhoods about foster children at Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. (Ray Bussolari / Courtesy of the Foster Youth Museum.)

Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History

Prepare to have your heart touched. Lost Childhoods: Voices of Santa Cruz County Foster Youth and the Foster Youth Museum" showcases the loss and lives that the states 60,000 foster kids face as they battle homelessness. Portraits by Ray Bussolari show some with all of their belongings, seemingly packed up and ready to go. The show includes installations created by foster kids who were paired with artists. Since the exhibit opened in July, theyve told their story to lawmakers and others. Visitors have acted too by making donations to local foster youth programs.
The Los Angeles City Council approved an amended ordinance Friday replacing Columbus Day in October with Indigenous Peoples Day as an official L.A. holiday.

The council already debated the issue in August, when it asked the city attorney to draft the ordinance, so the vote in approval of the language of the ordinance was, in essence, a formality. The council still will have to vote one more time in a week before the ordinance officially passes because only 11 members were present and at least 12 unanimous votes are required for an ordinance to pass on its first reading.

I want to thank all of the tribal members, the elders, the leaders, the advocates, the volunteers, the academics and friends  some gathered here today and some not  whose direct participation and sacrifice helped make this historic decision possible, said Councilman Mitch OFarrell, who introduced the motion.

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By voting in approval of the switch, the council sided with critics who said the Italian explorers connection to brutality and slavery makes him unworthy of celebration, and it rejected pleas from leaders of the Italian American community who argued the holiday was a day of Italian pride and a recognition of their heritage.

Councilman Joe Buscaino, who at first expressed reservations about canceling Columbus Day and then in August made a late and unsuccessful push to have Indigenous Peoples Day take place on Aug. 9 and a second new holiday celebrating the diverse cultures of Los Angeles replace Columbus Day on the second Monday of October.

Buscaino, who is an Italian American, was not present at Fridays vote.

With or without Columbus, Italians will continue to celebrate their sacrifices and contributions to this great country and our great city, Buscaino said after the August vote.
Actor Bradley Bufanda, known for his role in the television show Veronica Mars, was found dead early Wednesday of what authorities say was suicide. He was 34.

Investigators think the 34-year-old jumped from a multistory building near the Park La Brea apartments. His body was discovered by a transient just after midnight, and he was pronounced dead at 12:40 a.m. Wednesday, authorities said.

The Los Angeles County Coroners Department determined the cause of death was blunt force trauma, department spokesman Ed Winter said.

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A note mentioning Bufandas parents and thanking his friends was found near him.

Bufanda was known for his recurring role on the teen detective show Veronica Mars, in which he appeared from 2004 to 2006. He also had roles on CSI: Miami, Malcolm in the Middle and Days of Our Lives.

We are completely devastated, for he was an extremely talented young actor and wonderful, caring human being, Bufandas representative, Kirsten Solem, told the Hollywood Reporter. He was reviving his career having just completed two movies, and we are shocked and saddened by his passing, Solem said.

Rob Thomas, the creator of Veronica Mars, said on Twitter: Im heartbroken to hear of Brad Bufandas passing. He did great work on Veronica Mars. My heart goes out to his family.
Max Verstappen will channel his inner rainmaking abilities next weekend in Brazil, where the Red Bull driver is hoping for a damp race to keep the momentum going after Mexico.

The 20-year-old put in a memorable performance last year at Interlagos, making mincemeat of many of his rivals in the treacherous wet conditions in which he excels.

"We are looking for another strong performance at Interlagos following a really fun race in the wet last year," Verstappen said.

"I really enjoyed 2016, there were some great battles and overtakes which resulted in a hard earned podium.

"I also had a big moment near pit lane entry which was a close call, I managed to save it and carry on to achieve a good result.

"Im hoping for another damp race weekend as I dont think we can be as competitive there in the dry, especially with the elevation changes on the straight, it is not our strongest point."

Weather forecasts for Brazil should become more accurate early next week, but regardless of the conditions, Verstappen looks forward to a race which always brings out the fervor in the locals.

"Being such a narrow starting grid you often end up really close to the grandstand which is a pretty unique and exciting experience," he added.

"The Brazilian fans are so passionate and vocal so it is always special to feel the atmosphere from the crowd before the start.

"I think the history of F1 in Brazil means it has a massive following and this is clear to see across the race weekend.

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
The chief executive of a Los Angeles medical marketing firm was found guilty Friday of hiring a drug dealer to kill a business rival.

David Phillips, the 36-year-old former head of NKP Medical Marketing, was found guilty in Los Angeles federal court of arranging the murder-for-hire plot, according to defense attorney, Glen Jonas.

We respectfully disagree with the verdict, said Jonas. The lawyer said Phillips would appeal.

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The plot was disrupted by agents of Homeland Security Investigations in New Orleans and Los Angeles. An alleged methamphetamine trafficker, who was the target of a separate drug investigation, was heard discussing a hit on a tapped telephone line late last year, court records show.

That phone call sparked an investigation that spanned from Louisiana to Southern California to track down the person trying to organize the killing. At one point, federal agents even staged a bloody murder scene, with the help of the would-be victim, to help ensnare Phillips.

After investigators heard the wiretapped comment about the hit, an undercover federal agent contacted the alleged drug trafficker in Los Angeles in February of this year, according to a criminal complaint. The pair met several times, and the alleged trafficker provided information about Phillips to authorities after his arrest in April.

The suspect told investigators that Phillips had given him $30,000 to launch a failed marijuana venture in early 2016, but when he could not repay his debt, Phillips offered to forgive the loan in exchange for carrying out the hit.

The would-be victim, who was identified in court only by the initials S.F., once helped Phillips run NKP Medical Marketing, according to the complaint. He left the business after they had a falling out in late 2014 or early 2015.

On the day Phillips was arrested earlier this year, he met the alleged drug dealer at NKPs Los Angeles offices. Agents provided the alleged dealer with a staged photograph that showed the intended victim with what appeared to be bruises and a gunshot to the forehead, complete with phony blood splatter on the wall behind his head, according to the complaint.

Phillips appeared nervous while looking at the picture and his hands were shaking, according to the complaint. He was arrested a short time later.

Jonas, the defense attorney, has said Phillips did nothing wrong and dismissed prosecutors claims that the supposed target of the murder-for-hire plot was a business rival of his client.

The purported victim is a disgruntled former employee, Jonas told The Times earlier this year. Thats it, and frankly, his importance to my client was minimal.

Phillips ran the marketing company for nearly 10 years, according to public records. His brother took over as CEO in April, after Phillips was criminally charged.

Two other defendants, David Suiaunoa and Lucky Fua Iosua, were indicted in the murder-for-hire plot and were in custody in Louisiana.

Suiaunoa pleaded guilty to charges related to drug trafficking and the murder-for-hire plot in July, according to Anna Christman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorneys office in New Orleans. He is scheduled for sentencing next year. Iosua is scheduled to go on trial later this month, Christman said.

james.queally@latimes.com

Follow @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in California.

UPDATES:

2:45 p.m.: This article was updated with additional information about the two defendants in Louisiana.

This article was originally published at 12:25 p.m.
Nothing says fall in Southern California like cloudy skies, temperatures in the 60s and the off chance of light showers.

People across the Southland can thank a weak cold front moving south along the West Coast for the chance to break out their fall sweaters and coats.

Those seeking traditional fall weather should head to the Sierra Nevada, where one to two feet of snow is expected at some mountain passes.

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The front will bring widespread but light rainfall as it passes over the San Francisco Bay Area on Friday.

San Luis Obispo will have the best chance of rain on the Central Coast, with the National Weather Service forecasting a 50% chance of rain Friday and Saturday. Santa Barbara is less likely to get showers.

Los Angeles and Ventura counties should have some sunshine Friday into Saturday.

But by Saturday night the front will be moving into those two counties. Whatever precipitation falls will be light, said weather service meteorologist Ryan Kittell.

The best chance for rain is Saturday night into Sunday morning.

It could produce some rain, it could not, he said. It looks very weak.

If it does rain it is going to be very light with very minor impacts other than slicked roads, he said.

Drier weather is forecast in Los Angeles County for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Expected Snow totals today through Monday. Carry tire chains for mountain travel and allow extra time to reach destinations. #cawx pic.twitter.com/gtnNsgwvKS  NWS Sacramento (@NWSSacramento) November 3, 2017

A mountain pass across the Sierra Nevada that runs through Yosemite National Park was closing to traffic Thursday ahead of storms expected to dump up to 2 feet of snow on the highest peaks, park officials said.

Tioga Road, the soaring eastern entry to Yosemite, was closing to traffic shortly before nightfall Thursday. Officials also were closing Glacier Point Road, which offers sweeping views of Yosemite Valley.
Most shoppers crouched behind checkout counters or bolted toward the back exit. But as a gunman fired inside a Wal-Mart store in a Denver suburb, some patrons took a more defensive approach: They grabbed their own guns.

They were the proverbial good guys with guns that gun rights advocates say have the power to stop mass shootings.

But police in Thornton, Colo., said that in this case the well-intentioned gun carriers set the stage for chaos, stalling efforts to capture the suspect in the Wednesday night shooting that killed three people.

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None of the armed civilians fired their weapons, and the suspect managed to flee the store.

Police began combing through store security camera footage to identify him and determined whether he had an accomplice.

Once the building was safe. we started reviewing that [surveillance video] as quickly as we could, Victor Avila, a spokesman for the Thornton Police Department, told reporters.

But the videos showed several people in the store with their guns drawn. That forced detectives to watch more video, following the armed shoppers throughout the store in an effort to distinguish the good guys from the bad guy, Avila said.

Investigators went back to ground zero several times as they struggled to pinpoint the suspect, he said.

Five hours after the shooting, police identified 47-year-old Scott Ostrem as the gunman. He was arrested Thursday morning.

The assessment by police that armed civilians hampered their investigation is being embraced by gun control advocates, who argue that more guns on the scene of a shooting add up to more problems.

Especially civilians with weapons  it does nothing but possibly cause more chaos and harm, said Tom Sullivan, who became a gun control advocate after his 27-year-old son, Alex, was killed along with 11 other people by a gunman who opened fire inside a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., in 2012.

He said he resents suggestion that those deaths could have been prevented if more movie-goers had been armed.

On the other side of the debate, Dudley Brown, president of the National Assn. for Gun Rights, said the conclusions by police in the Wal-Mart shooting are misguided.

This is a part of the job of police  to investigate what happened, not highlight that patrons were legally armed, he said. In that situation, what are people supposed to do? Lay down on the floor and draw chalk marks around themselves?

Id rather be armed with a gun and not need it, than to be not armed and be in a situation where one is needed, he said.

The National Rifle Assn. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Gun rights advocates point to cases such as that of a Chicago Uber driver who in 2015 shot and wounded a gunman who opened fire on a crowd.

But studies suggest such cases are rare.

In a 2014 FBI report, researchers examined more than 100 shootings between 2000 and 2012 and found that civilians stopped about 1 in 6 active shooters  usually by tackling the gunman, not shooting him.

Maria Haberfeld, a professor of police science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said using a gun for self-defense should be a last resort.

If their life is in immediate danger and they cannot run or hide, then they can move into the fighting mode and use their weapons, she said.

Bystanders shouldnt pull their weapons unless theyre members of law enforcement, or used to be, she said, because without training they cant properly assess the situation and could end up causing more deaths.

kurtis.lee@latimes.com

Twitter: @kurtisalee

ALSO

For the second straight year, the rate of gun deaths has risen in the U.S.

The NRA, steadfastly against expanded gun regulation, now is ready to compromise on bump stock devices. What happened?

Nevada was warming to gun restrictions before this weeks mass killing. What now?
The eight people killed in a truck drivers rampage were honored by friends and strangers Thursday with a nighttime walk down the riverfront esplanade where the victims died as investigators and terror-weary New Yorkers tried to make sense of the crime.

Some of the marchers carried candles as city lights twinkled on the water. Others pushed bicycles in solidarity with the victims, who were cut down on the long bike path that runs the length of Manhattans Hudson River waterfront.

The mourners included Harry Kassen, a student at the Manhattan school where one of the victims, Nicholas Cleves, 23, worked part-time.

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You never think it is going to be someone you know, said Kassen, 17. He said hed just recently worked with Cleves on lighting and sound for a school performance.

We were up in the tech booth, chatting. Then, two weeks later, here we are. And hes gone, Kassen said.

The march began near the spot where authorities say Sayfullo Saipov, 29, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, steered a rented truck onto a bike path and sped south toward the World Trade Center, striking cyclists and pedestrians in his path. He was shot by a police officer after crashing the truck into a school bus and arraigned Wednesday on terrorism charges.

Two women carried the flag of Argentina, in remembrance of the five people from that country who were killed when Saipovs truck plowed into a group of friends who had come to New York together to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their high school graduation.

The memorial walk and vigil took place hours after several of the Argentine survivors of the attack visited a severely injured and hospitalized member of their group, Martin Marro, of Newton, Mass., to tell him for the first time which of his friends had died.

I think Martin had to know the truth. Maybe he already imagined that but now he knows and is a step that his friends wanted to take before returning to Argentina, Argentinas consul in New York, Mateo Estreme, told reporters in Spanish. It was something very emotional for all of them.

New York officials on Thursday began to put up temporary concrete barriers at 57 locations where it is possible for vehicles to turn onto the bike path where the attack took place.

Long stretches of the path are shielded from traffic by berms planted with trees and shrubs, but vehicles have gotten onto it before. A cyclist was killed in 2006 at nearly the same spot where some of the victims were struck when a drunk driver entered the path by mistake.

For years, the city and private property owners concerned about truck bombs and other attacks have been gradually installing thousands of metal posts to block vehicles from getting onto sidewalks and public plazas. In May, one of those bollards halted a car speeding down a crowded sidewalk in Times Square, but not until it had killed one person and injured more than 20.

The New York Police Departments top counterterrorism official, John Miller, said investigators still hadnt uncovered evidence that Saipov had any accomplices in the attack, but said information was still being gathered.

A propaganda arm of the Islamic State group called Saipov a soldier of the caliphate. A message in an Islamic State weekly newspaper used the term in an item published late Thursday. That item then was translated by the SITE Intelligence Group. The Islamic State group has an interest in taking credit for attacks carried out by individuals who are self-radicalized.

In their search for clues, FBI investigators have questioned Saipovs wife and some of his acquaintances, including a fellow immigrant from Uzbekistan, Mukhammadzoir Kadirov, who said he had gotten to know him when they were both Uber drivers.

On Thursday, Kadirov released a statement to the Associated Press through a person in touch with his family condemning the plot.

It is so sad and unbelievable. This not from our religion. It is not acceptable. We as Muslims completely reject this kind of actions. No human being who has a heart can do this, the statement said.

Two mosques in Paterson, N.J., where Saipov lived, said they have been receiving threats since the attack. The Islamic Center of Passaic County said it has gotten eight telephone threats to burn the center down and kill its occupants, prompting extra police patrols.

President Trump tweeted out messages early Thursday calling for Saipovs execution.

In a highly unusual instance of a president weighing in on the fate of a defendant awaiting trial, Trump wrote that prosecutors Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!

The comments could give defense attorneys grounds to argue that Trump has poisoned the minds of potential jurors, but some legal experts said they doubted judges in Manhattans federal courts would let the presidents remarks derail the case in a courthouse with a quarter-century record of swift terrorism prosecutions with mostly airtight outcomes.

Lawyers differed over whether Trump was ethically out of bounds.

Even presidents are entitled to 1st Amendment rights, said Michael Wildes, a former federal prosecutor.

Joshua Dratel, a veteran defense attorney in terrorism cases, said the tweets should disqualify prosecutors from seeking the death penalty.

Its inconceivable that it would be fair to seek the death penalty when the president has expressed it twice in a tweet, he said. It poisons the jurors, all the prospective jurors.

Meanwhile, Saipovs court-appointed lawyer, David Patton, said he hopes everyone lets the judicial process play out.
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Its Friday, Nov. 3, and heres whats happening across California:

TOP STORIES

Sex assault accusations against a former Hollywood agent

The Los Angeles Times interviewed eight young male actors and film industry professionals who alleged that they were sexually assaulted or harassed by Tyler Grasham, a veteran agent who was recently fired by the Beverly Hills-based Agency for the Performing Arts. Two of alleged victims have taken their accusations to police. The allegations have renewed attention on longstanding complaints in Hollywood about the sexual abuse of child actors. Grasham did not respond to requests for comment. Los Angeles Times

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Plus: Melanie Kohler accused director Brett Ratner of rape in a Facebook post. Then he sued her for defamation. Los Angeles Times

Tax plan revealed

The Republican tax overhaul plan, which was released this week, could deliver a huge blow to California homeowners. The plan would dramatically lower the cap on widely used mortgage interest deductions to newly issued loans totaling no more than $500,000, down from the current $1 million. It also would immediately slash the corporate tax rate to 20% from 35%, eliminate deductions for state and local income taxes, cap property tax deductions at $10,000 and leave unchanged the popular 401(k) retirement savings plans used by many Americans. Los Angeles Times

Plus: The reactions from Californias 14 House Republicans ranged from skeptical to enthusiastic, even as some Republicans from states that would also lose out under the plan threatened to vote no. Los Angeles Times

Big changes at the port

The nations largest port complex has approved a sweeping plan to slash air pollution by encouraging the phase-out of diesel trucks in favor of natural gas and, ultimately, zero-emissions trucks and cargo-handling equipment over the next two decades. Los Angeles Times

L.A. STORIES

One year later: Of the 462 people arrested during marches after President Trumps election victory last year, the LAPD has sought formal charges in only 10 cases, and prosecutors have filed charges against just three people. Los Angeles Times

Interesting analysis: Despite a record number of strikeouts during this years World Series, Dodgers pitchers fell short. Los Angeles Times

Tales from the jungle: A California family on a South American journey went missing in the Amazon rain forest, and questions were raised when the familys large and loyal social media following noticed a comment on their last post from a police officer in the northern Brazilian state of Para. Los Angeles Times

IMMIGRATION AND THE BORDER

More targeting: ICE raids are targeting Cambodian Americans caught between two countries, advocates say. Los Angeles Times

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

The fallout: A group led by San Fernando Valley-area activists is calling for California Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra to resign after revelations that, as a top legislative aide eight years ago, he was disciplined after being accused of groping another staffer. Los Angeles Times

Plus: The California Legislature paid at least $580,000 in the last five years to settle harassment, racism and other claims. Associated Press

DiFi has a new challenger: Alison Hartson, 37, of Fountain Valley announced on the Young Turks media network that she plans to challenge long-serving California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Los Angeles Times

Far-flung charters: Several small, cash-strapped California school districts are using a loophole in state law to boost their revenue by overseeing a raft of far-flung charter schools, according to a recent report published by the state auditor. The result, the report says: dismal academic results for thousands of students and a lot of extra money for the districts, one of which increased its revenue more than 10-fold. CalMatters

CRIME AND COURTS

Adding insult to injury: Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puigs Encino home was broken into about an hour after the Dodgers lost Game 7 of the World Series, according to published media reports and police. Los Angeles Times

A decision is reached: An Anaheim police officer used excessive force when he gunned down a 25-year-old man who was running away from him in an apartment building courtyard in 2012, a federal jury decided Thursday in the trial of a lawsuit filed against the city and the officer by the mans family. Los Angeles Times

Still searching: State investigators are trying to determine whether PG&Es power lines played a role in triggering the wildfires that swept across wine country, destroying whole neighborhoods and killing at least 43 people. No cause has been determined. San Francisco Chronicle

THE ENVIRONMENT

Feeling queasy: More than 300 recruits at the Marines boot camp in San Diego are suffering from diarrheal symptoms from an bacterial outbreak, officials disclosed this week. San Diego Union-Tribune

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

More Spacey allegations: Another man, who is remaining anonymous, has come forward and accused Kevin Spacey of sexual harassment. At the age of 14, he says, he began a sexual relationship with the actor, who was then 24, that ended with what he describes as an attempted rape. Vulture

Plus: As Spacey seeks evaluation and treatment, another accuser says the damage has been done. Los Angeles Times

Another allegation: A day after Dustin Hoffman apologized for anything he might have done that caused a former intern to accuse him of sexual harassment dating back to 1985, a second woman has come forward with new allegations of harassment against the actor. Los Angeles Times

El Camino Not-So-Real: The true story of the Ancient Road. KQED

Disney news: As part of a makeover at Disney California Adventure, the popular California Screamin roller coaster will be remade into the Incredicoaster, inspired by the Pixar Animation Studios movie The Incredibles. Los Angeles Times

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Los Angeles area: partly cloudy, 69, Friday; partly cloudy, 68, Saturday. San Diego: partly cloudy, 68, Friday; partly cloudy, 69, Saturday. San Francisco area: rainy, 61, Friday; rainy, 57, Saturday. Sacramento: rainy, 60, Friday and Saturday. More weather is here.

AND FINALLY

Todays California memory comes from Ado Matters:

We moved to Pasadena in 1965, and I knew no English when I was 15 years old. One time on my way home from school, I stopped at an ice cream parlor advertising an ice cream cone for 10 cents, and 10 cents was all I had in my pocket. A girl took my order, and when she spoke to me, I just responded, yes, yes, yes. So when she handed me the ice cream cone, it was way more than 10 cents. LOL! Then I said, no, no, no. Thats all I had then, in English and money....

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Benjamin Oreskes and Shelby Grad. Also follow them on Twitter @boreskes and @shelbygrad.
After some delays, House Republicans finally released their tax cut plan Thursday. The Republicans had trouble coming up with a proposal for the same reason they had trouble coming up with a replacement for the Affordable Care Act: Outside of the Republican donor class, their goals are deeply unpopular. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reveals that President Trump and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan are, in different ways, utter frauds.

Despite a few sops to middle-class families with children, the bill redistributes wealth upward. The big cut in the corporate tax rate and the elimination of the alternative minimum tax overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy. The 4.6% cut for marginal income between $470,700 and $1 million for married couples benefits only the affluent. The gradual elimination of the estate tax will exclusively benefit extremely wealthy heirs.

Another important giveaway to the rich is the reduction of the tax on pass-through income for businesses owned by individuals or small groups of individuals like, say, Donald Trumps. Because Trump has not released his tax returns, we dont know exactly how much he would gain from this shift, but we know it would be yooge.

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Meanwhile, the lowest marginal rate will go up to 12%, although the basic deduction available to individuals and families who dont itemize will also increase.

Isnt Paul Ryan a green eye-shaded deficit hawk? Er, no. His only true priority is to reduce taxes on the rich as much as he can.

The bill is a declaration of war on states with the temerity not to vote for Trump. It eliminates the deductibility of state income taxes while limiting the property tax deduction to $10,000, which effectively punishes residents of blue states (like California and New York) with relatively progressive tax codes. Republicans, in other words, want to use the federal tax code to incentivize states to make their tax codes more regressive.

Some parts of the House bill are defensible in the abstract. The mortgage interest deduction is a regressive tax break that contributes to the lack of affordable housing in popular urban areas, and reducing it to $500,000 from the current $1 million isnt a bad idea. If the money were being used to, say, help fund healthcare, this would be a good trade-off. But using the money to fund tax breaks for the rich? Not so much.

The House proposal, then, is classic modern Republicanism: distributing wealth upward at a time of increasing inequality. And lets not ignore the fact that the resulting loss in overall tax revenue to the federal government will inevitably lead, in time, to calls for reductions in spendingi.e., to government programs that help the poor.

As if that werent all bad enough, this bill is also a bait-and-switch on the part of the president.

Trump was able to capture the Republican nomination in part because he shrewdly recognized the unpopularity of the partys economic agenda, even among the partys base. Running as a protector of the welfare state and scourge of Wall Street, he appealed to cultural conservatives who cherish Social Security and dont support upper-class tax cuts. The most relevant parts of the Republican establishment have nevertheless gone all-in on Trump for a simple reason: He apparently didnt mean a word he said.

And this was obvious during the campaign  at least if you paid attention to Trumps proposals rather than his rhetoric. During the first presidential debate of 2016, Hillary Clinton described her opponents tax plan as Trumped-up trickle down. Perhaps realizing that the intended catchphrase wouldnt be included in any future compilation of great political wit, Clinton delivered the line awkwardly, and it went over poorly. But she wasnt wrong. Trumps campaign tax plan was very regressive, and represented the same basic priorities as the new House plan. Trump told voters he was a more populist Republican, but his governing agenda lines up with that of George W. Bush.

Speaking of Bush, another important element of the Republican plan is thatlike the Bush tax cuts it will massively increase the deficit. The House bill would cost roughly $1.5 trillion in its first decade alone.

But wait, you might ask, isnt Ryan a green eye-shaded deficit hawk? Er, no. His only true priority is to reduce taxes on the rich as much as he can. And in this respect, Ryan is representative of his party as a whole. Virtually no congressional Republicans care about deficits, although they might pretend to care about deficits when Democrats are in charge.

Passing this bill wont be easy. The attack on blue states might be too clever by half, as Ryan will need the votes of some Republicans in these states who are already facing tough re-election fights. But at least its clarifying. The bill shows that the goal of the new Republican boss is the same as the last one: Get as many tax breaks to the rich as possible.

Scott Lemieux is a lecturer in political science at the University of Washington.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook
Donald Trump is reinventing the kowtow for the Twitter age. Last week, in fawning tweets, he celebrated Chinese President Xi Jinpings extraordinary elevation at the 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress, and in a TV interview he bragged that he and Xi had the best president-president relationship ever. It was over the top  especially in light of the fact that Xi is an authoritarian leader.

Clearly, Trump, a man not known for his humility, wants something. China is the most important stop on his 12-day, five nation Asia tour, which begins Friday. In Beijing, Trump will be hoping for not only progress on North Korea and trade issues, but for a little of Xis momentum, power and prestige to rub off on him.

At the close of the party congress last month, Xi was affirmed as a Chinese leader unequaled in stature by any since Mao Tse-tung. At the same time, at Xis urging, the countrys ruling body agreed to break with its long-standing policy of denying Chinas designs on a global leadership role. Instead, in a 203-minute address to the forum, Xi asserted that the Peoples Republic was ready to become a mighty force on the world stage.

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In Xis party address, he proclaimed a new era for China. To put it in terms the president might better understand, it may be the era of America Second.

Xis ascendance and Chinas aggressiveness stand in stark contrast to Trumps struggles, Washingtons paralysis and Americas retreat from the preeminent international role it has played since the end of World War II.

Despite the role reversal, the Chinese will appear to stroke American egos, especially Trumps. Expect them to ply him with pomp and ceremony, setting up colorful photo ops that will play well on social media, and giving the president the quasi-royal treatment he craves. They may even offer up some business deals and the promise of unspecified cooperation with U.S. attempts to combat the nuclear threat of North Korea. But if you read deference into the show, you will be wrong.

China is still a poor country in many respects, but this year has seen it open its first overseas military base, increase its blue-water naval capability and expand Xis trademark One Belt, One Road infrastructure initiative (which extends Chinas influence from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea). The Peoples Republic has been asserting its will on a wide range of issues, including trade and the question of who can claim the islands off its coast.

Xi and company know that Trump leads a country with greater military and economic resources than China, but they also know he has been able to get precious little accomplished as president. They understand the challenges he faces: special counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation, the threat of a stock market downturn and deep divisions within the Republican Party.

The Chinese have also discovered that Trump is as inconsistent as he is susceptible to flattery. Only a few months before his valentines to Xi, he was tweeting his displeasure at China  They do NOTHING for us with North Korea  and attacking past U.S. presidents as foolish for deals they did with Beijing. Xinhua, Chinas national news agency, responded to the outburst by urging Trump to stop his emotional venting.

However grand the welcome for Trump may be, the Chinese will be serving their own goals. Behind the scenes, they will flex their muscles in tough negotiations because they can, and they now believe they should. In the end, Trump is likely to make very little in the way of meaningful gains on any major issues during his stay.

As former Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and veteran China expert Robert Hormats said to me, Xi sees China as leading the next phase of globalization and of the evolution of the global economic order. [He] believes the direction should be and will be guided more by Beijing than Washington. This, Hormats believes, will change the dynamic in the U.S.-China relationship. In Xis party address, he proclaimed a new era for China. To put it in terms the president might better understand, it may be the era of America Second.

The lasting message of Trumps trip could well be the one foretold by the obsequiousness of his tweets last week. If his visit is historic, as he predicted on social media, it will be because it is the first in which an American president discovers he has traveled all the way to Beijing to meet with the most powerful man in the world.

David Rothkopf is a senior fellow at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His latest book is The Great Questions of Tomorrow.

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Petition drive to repeal California gas tax increase temporarily slows down By Patrick McGreevy A motorist prepares to gas up her vehicle in San Rafael, Calif., in 2015. ( (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)) Paid signature-gatherers for a ballot measure that would repeal gas tax increases may be hard to find on the streets of California this week. Organizers say its not a money issue, adding that they needed to briefly halt paid signature-gathering to catch up on collecting petitions from volunteers. The petition drive has so far collected more than 327,800 verified signatures of the 587,407 needed to qualify the measure for the November ballot, according to Dave Gilliard, the political strategist behind the drive. We knew it was popular but the incredible pace is even faster than we expected so we outran the capacity of our verification operation over the Christmas holiday and told our crew managers to slow down so we could catch up, Gilliard said. We will be back up to speed by the end of this week. The gas tax and vehicle fee increases signed by Gov. Jerry Brown are expected to raise $5.2 billion annually for road and bridge repairs and expanded mass transit. The gas tax jumped from 18 cents to 30 cents per gallon on Nov. 1, and vehicle fees of at least $25 kicked in Jan. 1. The gas tax repeal petition is breaking records for both paid and volunteer signatures and were using the next two weeks to catch up on validation of signatures already received, said Carl DeMaio, a former San Diego City Councilman and conservative radio talk-show host. As a grass-roots-funded effort we are also continuously raising funds and volunteer support. We are highly confident well qualify this Initiative for the November 2018 ballot. Facebook

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State pot bureau ready to enforce Californias new marijuana laws as license applications flood in By Patrick McGreevy The state has issued 104 licenses for retail stores to sell marijuana for recreational use in California and 239 other applications for those permits are pending, officials said Tuesday. An official with the state Bureau of Cannabis Control added that the agency is prepared to begin taking enforcement action against pot shops that are not properly licensed. The bureaus enforcement team is ready to respond to any complaints it receives and start doing compliance checks and site visits at any time, said Alex Traverso, a spokesman for the bureau. Selling marijuana without a license is a crime punishable by up to six months in county jail and a fine of up to $500. Those convicted of engaging in any marijuana business activity without a license will also be subject to a civil penalty of up to three times the amount of the license fee for each violation. A new report issued Tuesday indicated the bureau has issued 478 temporary licenses to firms to test, distribute and sell medical and recreational marijuana, which began Jan. 1 after voters approved a legalization initiative, Proposition 64, in 2016. Businesses have received 153 licenses to sell marijuana for medical use. Another 1,458 firms have applied for licenses that are still being processed. The state Department of Food and Agriculture has separately issued 207 licenses to marijuana growers. Facebook

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Two possible instances of discrimination reported after California issues drivers licenses to immigrants here illegally By Jazmine Ulloa The California Research Bureau on Tuesday released its first report on incidents of discrimination under a 2015 state law that has provided drivers licenses for hundreds of thousands of immigrants here illegally. Researchers found no complaints have been made against government agencies tasked with enforcing anti-discrimination laws. But two possible instances of discrimination were reported in focus group interviews conducted by Drive California, a coalition of advocates studying the impact of the new law. In one case, a woman in Fresno was told her license was not a valid form of identification at a retail store, though it was unclear whether the incident reflected intentional discrimination or simple ignorance of the license marking, the report states. A MoneyGram clerk in another case denied a license holder the ability to cash a check. The same person was later rejected again at a bank. The state Department of Motor Vehicles has issued 960,000 AB 60 drivers licenses as of Nov. 30. The state research bureau produced the report for the Legislature as part of the new law, which declares discrimination against an AB 60 license holder a violation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act. Facebook

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California lawmaker proposes requiring panic buttons for hotel workers in response to widespread sexual harassment By Patrick McGreevy More than half of hotel workers surveyed report being sexually harassed at some point. (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times) Alarmed by a survey indicating sexual harassment of hotel housekeepers is widespread, a California state lawmaker on Tuesday proposed requiring employers to provide panic button devices to their employees so they can summon help if abused by a guest. The bill to be introduced Wednesday by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) would also require individual hotels to impose a three-year ban on guests who engage in harassment on the property. We want to protect our most vulnerable women workers, hotel maids who are going into rooms alone, from sexual harassment, said Muratsuchi, who co-authored the bill with Assemblyman Bill Quirk (D-Hayward). The legislation signals that concerns over sexual harassment that dominated the state Legislature last year will continue to be an issue for lawmakers as they begin the new legislative year Wednesday. Harassment allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, comedian Louis C.K. and other high-profile men have involved sexual misconduct in hotel rooms. A survey in July by Unite Here Local 1 found that 49% of female hotel workers in Chicago had experienced a guest answering the door naked or exposing himself. The report titled Hands Off, Pants On, found 58% of hotel workers said they had been sexually harassed by a guest. Californias Unite Here Local 11 has been calling for the action proposed in the legislation. It is the intent of this measure to protect hotel employees from violent assault, including sexual assault, and sexual harassment, and to enable those employees to speak out when they experience harassment on the job, said the introduction to the legislation introduced by Muratsuchi. In addition to requiring hotels to provide panic buttons to employees who work alone in rooms, the bill requires hotels to take written complaints from employees and keep them for five years. Any complaint backed by evidence including a statement given under penalty of perjury would result in a guest being banned from a hotel for three years. Hotels would also be required to post a notice on the inside of hotel room doors warning guests about the consequences of sexual harassment. Updated at 4:10 pm to include comment from Assemblyman Muratsuchi. Facebook

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Money, Republican malaise and Tom Steyer: These are the things to watch for in Californias 2018 statewide elections By Seema Mehta Get ready, California. What had been a behind-the-scenes dash for cash closely watched by few other than political observers is about to burst into public view. Voters this year will decide who will succeed Democrat Jerry Brown as the next governor and whether they will send Sen. Dianne Feinstein back to Washington. Before the June 5 primary, candidates will ramp up their campaigns with messages on television and stuffed into mailboxes. Heres a primer on the states two marquee races. Read More Facebook

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Fickle L.A. County is pivotal in the race for California governor By Phil Willon Home to a quarter of Californias 5.2 million registered voters, Los Angeles County is the biggest prize in Californias 2018 race for governor. For two hometown Democratic candidates especially  former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Treasurer John Chiang of Torrance  doing well in L.A. County is essential if they hope to best the front-runner, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. Yet this overwhelmingly Democratic stronghold continually bedevils even the most adept campaigns. Read More Facebook

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A renewed brawl over single-payer healthcare in California is on deck for 2018 By Melanie Mason Carolyn Angela Chen, a registered nurse, gives a free hepatitis A vaccination to Glenn Gardner, 52, at Joshua House Clinic (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) California officials are bracing for healthcare battles in Washington to have a major impact on the states budget and programs. Activists and politicians are planning a showdown over whether or not to establish a single-payer healthcare system in the state. And prescription drug manufacturers are the target of a number of bills meant to target the rising costs of medication. Sound familiar? Turns out the brewing healthcare battles in California in 2018 arent all that different from those from 2017. Heres a primer on the upcoming healthcare agenda in California: Read More Facebook

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How California lawmakers plan to protect the online privacy of consumers in 2018 By Jazmine Ulloa (Elise Amendola / Associated Press) With federal regulation rollbacks and a rise in data breaches, California lawmakers this year are looking for ways to protect consumers and their personal information. Some legislation under consideration could give people more notice and control over what data is collected, without having to pay for privacy or better services. Other bills could provide free credit freezes for consumers and require new privacy features for products that connect to the internet. Read More Facebook

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2018 will see California motorists pay more to the state to repair roads and bridges By Patrick McGreevy The new year brings with it new vehicle fees in California ranging from $25 to $175 depending on the value of your car, but Republican lawmakers are hoping to qualify a ballot measure in November to repeal the higher charges. The fees and a 12-cent increase in Californias gas tax last year are part of a plan by Democrats to raise more than $5.2 billion annually to deal with a backlog of road and bridge repairs. Petitions to qualify a repeal initiative are circulating now. Read More Facebook

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A rent control battle tops the list of California housing issues to watch in 2018 By Liam Dillon A new-home community in Anaheim in 2016 (Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times) California lawmakers arent wasting any time in tackling one of the most contentious issues in state housing politics this year. On Jan. 11, the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee is set to hold a hearing on legislation that could lead to a dramatic expansion of rent control policies across the state. The debate over rent control could spill over onto the 2018 ballot, where Californians also could see proposals to expand or curtail the property tax restrictions ushered in 40 years ago by Proposition 13. Lawmakers will have to wrestle with how to follow up a package of housing bills that passed last year. The measures provided new funding and regulations designed to encourage homebuilding, but are unlikely to make an appreciable difference in housing costs. Read More Facebook

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Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas is resigning By John Myers Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles) (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas abruptly announced his resignation from the California Legislature on Wednesday, citing health reasons. Ridley-Thomas, a Democrat from Los Angeles, informed Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) Tuesday night. The reason for this difficult decision is that I am facing persistent health issues, Ridley-Thomas, 30, said in a written statement on Wednesday. On December 18th, I underwent surgery for the fifth time this year. Although I expect a full recovery, my physicians advise that I will need an extended period of time to recuperate. Earlier this year, Ridley-Thomas was absent from work for more than two weeks. Staff members initially said the absence was a personal leave, then said the time off was due to unspecified medical reasons. His resignation letter on Wednesday offered no additional details. When I resume public life, I intend to remain active in civic affairs, where my passion lies, he said in the statement released by his office. Ridley-Thomas was first elected to the Assembly in a 2013 special election. He is the son of Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. Before winning elected office at age 26, the younger Ridley-Thomas worked as an aide for Los Angeles City Councilman Curren Price and managed a 2012 Assembly campaign in San Bernardino County. In a statement about his sons decision, Mark Ridley-Thomas said he and his wife more than anyone, have seen him struggle with health challenges this year, and we fully support his decision to step down from the state Legislature so that he can recuperate with complete rest, in accordance with his doctors orders. His solidly Democratic district includes the west Los Angeles neighborhoods of Westwood, Culver City, Crenshaw and Baldwin Hills. He is chairman of the influential Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee, which oversees all tax-related legislation. Ridley-Thomas is a proponent of changes in the operation of the state Board of Equalization, though his plan would have allowed the agency to ultimately retain many of its duties. A more substantial shake-up was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown in June. Ridley-Thomas was the author of a bill signed into law in October giving the Los Angeles Unified School District the power to preserve some of its existing single-gender schools. He was unsuccessful, though, in an effort to stop local governments from imposing taxes on streaming video services like Netflix and Hulu. Ridley-Thomas departure will require a special election in 2018. He is the fourth Southern California legislator to leave office this year. The election of Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles) to Congress also required a special election. The other two lawmakers Assemblymen Raul Bocanegra (D-Pacoima) and Matt Dababneh (D-Woodland Hills)  stepped down in the wake of allegations of sexual misconduct, which both men have denied. A special election to fill Bocanegras seat will be held on April 3, with a potential runoff on June 5. A special election date has not yet been set for Dababnehs seat. My colleagues and I wish Assemblymember Sebastian Ridley-Thomas all the best going forward as he deals with his health challenges, Rendon said in a statement. The Assembly will continue to assist the residents of the 54th Assembly District until a new assemblymember is seated. This post was updated with comment from Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, as well as more information about special elections. It was originally published at 11:10 a.m. Facebook

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California Senate Democrats are considering some ideas to counter the GOP tax plan By Liam Dillon Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Democrats in the California Senate are planning to write legislation to lessen the effects of the elimination of popular tax breaks in the GOPs overhaul of the federal tax system. To finance broad-based corporate tax cuts and reductions in individual tax rates, the GOP plan caps the deductibility of state and local income and property taxes  a benefit used often in suburban areas of California. The Republican tax scam disproportionately harms California taxpayers, Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) said in a statement. Our hard-earned tax dollars should not be subject to double-taxation, especially not to line the pockets of the Trump family, hedge fund managers and private jet owners. De Leon, who also is running for U.S. Senate, said the state Senate is working with law professors at UCLA, UC Davis and the University of Chicago to develop the legislation. Ideas being considered, according to a de Leon spokesman, include: Reducing state personal income taxes through a tax credit program and offsetting that amount through payroll taxes.

Allowing individuals to make voluntary gifts to the state of California, which would be deductible as a charitable donation under federal law. The deduction for the donated amount would replace the state and local tax deduction. Lawmakers return to Sacramento in January.

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L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti admits considering a 2020 bid: I am thinking about this By Seema Mehta Eric Garcetti (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Its no secret Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is interested in running for president. When reporters ask about his intentions, he has used all sorts of ways to deflect, typically by saying hes focused on his day job  for the moment. But speaking in Spanish to a Univision reporter this week, Garcetti edged ever closer to the telltale admission hes actually considering it. I am thinking about this, said Garcetti, who is partly of Mexican heritage but learned Spanish attending private school. The majority of time goes to my work as mayor of Los Angeles, but every [citizen] should think about what our role is in these difficult times, in these dangerous times. Garcetti added that he expects many mayors to run for president, and noted New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently visited Iowa, which holds the first presidential nominating contest. Garcetti has long been rumored to be flirting with a White House bid, and he has fueled such speculation by traveling out of state to places such as the early presidential primary state of New Hampshire to campaign for a mayoral candidate. Facebook

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Gov. Brown makes judicial appointments, including attorney who helps train Legislature on anti-sexual-harassment policies .@JerryBrownGov makes two court of appeal and 33 superior court appointments including Lauri Damrell in Sacramento. Damrell, an attorney at Orrick, testified at the Assemblys recent hearing on sexual harassment, outlining the assemblys current prevention efforts.  Liam Dillon (@dillonliam) December 22, 2017 Facebook

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Californias former top cop forms marijuana distribution firm in new age of legalization By Patrick McGreevy Former California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer is going from enforcing laws against marijuana to legally distributing the drug under the states new rules that allow the sale and possession of pot for recreational use. With state-licensed sales of marijuana starting Jan. 1, Lockyer has co-founded a firm, C4 Distro, that will distribute packaged marijuana concentrates and edibles to stores in Los Angeles. He says Californias new regulated system has a chance to be a model for the rest of the country. For me as somebody who was on the law enforcement side for so many years, I saw the inadequacies of the effort to regulate something just by calling it illegal, Lockyer said. I think legalizing will help stabilize and help legitimize this industry and result in better consumer protection and other public benefits. Lockyer, a Democrat who served in the state Assembly and was leader of the state Senate, has co-founded the firm with Eric Spitz, who was chairman and president of the former parent company of the Orange County Register. The businessmen aim to get their products to pot shops in L.A. in late January or early February, Spitz said. Asked if he uses marijuana himself, Lockyer, 76, said, Not in any recent times, but there were college years. He said he sees his involvement in the marijuana industry as a mixture of helping to pay for his kids college tuition and public service to help the new regulations work. This whole industry has to come from the dark side to the light, he said. By focusing on delivery to as many as 700 stores that might open in Los Angeles, C4 Distro hopes to capture a targeted market while other firms distribute statewide. The business has a warehouse in southeast Los Angeles County and is close to applying for a distributors license from the state, Lockyer said. Lockyer served a quarter century in the state Legislature before he was elected as state attorney general in 1999. He left that office in 2007 when he was elected as state treasurer, serving until his retirement from politics in 2015. Before co-leading a group that bought the Register newspaper in 2012, Spitz served as chief financial officer at Narragansett Brewing Company. Spitz left the Registers Freedom Communications in 2016. 2 p.m.: An earlier version of this article mistakenly said Spitz left Freedom Communications in 2015. Facebook

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House passes disaster aid bill with wildfire funding, 18 Californians vote no By Sarah D. Wire (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) Eighteen of Californias 53 House members voted no on an $81-billion disaster aid package Thursday, which includes funds for Californias recent wildfires. The 17 Democrats and one Republican voted no on the bill, which passed the House by a 251 to 169 vote. The Senate is not expected to take up the bill until January, when Congress returns from its holiday break. The entire California delegation had recently signed onto a letter asking for the disaster aid. In a speech on the House floor before the vote, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) pleaded with colleagues not to take a political stance on a disaster aid bill. Dont play politics on a vote to give aid to the people of Texas, to the people of Puerto Rico and to the Virgin Islands, to the people of Florida, and to the people of California that are still fighting the fires. Dont play politics on a bill where you hope to maybe stop another. That would be the worst of any politics Ive seen played here, McCarthy said. Here and now, right before Christmas, dont vote against aid for Americans who just lost everything. Several of the Democrats who voted no also voted against the spending bill Thursday, and said that they felt they could not support either because the bills did not include Democratic priorities for the end of the year, including protections for people brought to the country illegally as children. Others said the aid bill doesnt provide enough money for California and doesnt treat Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands fairly in terms of competing for the funds. The 18 representatives voting no were: Nanette Barragan (D-San Pedro)

Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles)

Tony Cardenas (D-Los Angeles)

Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park)

Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana)

Anna Eshoo (D-Menlo Park)

Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles)

Ro Khanna (D-Fremont)

Barbara Lee (D-Oakland)

Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose)

Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove)

Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco)

Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Downey)

Linda Sanchez (D-Whittier)

Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough)

Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin)

Norma Torres (D-Pomona)

Juan Vargas (D-San Diego) Facebook

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Three California House members cross party lines on spending bill to keep government open By Sarah D. Wire Three California House members crossed party lines Thursday on a vote to pass a spending bill that will keep the government open until mid-January. Democratic Reps. Jim Costa of Fresno and Raul Ruiz of Palm Desert joined the majority of Republicans to vote for the bill. Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter of Alpine joined Democrats to vote against it. The bill, which funds the government through Jan. 19, passed the House 231 to 188, right before representatives left for the holidays. Costa said in a statement that he voted yes because keeping the government open is Congress job, but he called the vote a continuation of the dysfunction in Washington. It further illustrates the damage that results from partisan politics and irresponsible leadership. It is unacceptable that we have to resort to funding the government for weeks at a time because we cannot sit down together  Democrats and Republicans  and negotiate a real budget bill, Costa said. Hunters staff said the congressman was concerned that military spending in the bill was extended for only a short period. He had wanted the spending to be extended until September. Facebook

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Poll points to all-Democrat runoffs in California races for governor and senator By Seema Mehta Californians could see two Democrat-on-Democrat contests in the states premier races in 2018, according to a new poll released Thursday. In the gubernatorial race, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom remains the front-runner with the support of 26% of likely voters in a Berkeley IGS poll. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa came in second with the backing of 17%. The poll found notable demographic differences in the two mens bases of support. Newsom had strong leads in the Bay Area, where he once served as the mayor of San Francisco, as well as among white voters, liberals and the wealthy. Villaraigosa saw strong backing in Los Angeles County, among Latino voters and among those who earned less than $40,000. Republicans splintered in the race, placing businessman John Cox and Assemblyman Travis Allen in a tie for third place with 9% each. Two other Democrats, state Treasurer John Chiang and former state schools chief Delaine Eastin, each won the support of 5% of likely voters. If Republicans fail to consolidate behind a candidate in the June primary, voters will for the first time see no GOP candidate on the November ballot for governor. Its a repeat of what occurred in the 2016 U.S. Senate race, and what is likely to occur again in the 2018 U.S. Senate race if the field does not grow. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has the support of 41% of likely voters in her reelection bid, but her rival, fellow Democrat Kevin de Leon, won the support of 27%, according to the poll. There is no GOP candidate in the race. Feinstein, who has served in the Senate for a quarter-century, has enormous advantages in fundraising, name recognition and support among powerful political groups. However, the poll found that nearly one-third of likely voters said they are undecided or would like to support another candidate. Facebook

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California legislator wants to curb sexual harassment in Hollywood and eating disorders for models By Melanie Mason Fashion models show off the BCBG MAX AZRIA Spring 2016 collection during New York Fashion Week. (Richard Drew / AP) A new proposal by a California assemblyman is taking aim at two of the more criticized phenomena in the entertainment industry: sexual harassment and unhealthy body standards for fashion models. The legislation, by Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-San Rafael), would require the states Occupational Safety and Health Standards to adopt guidelines for fashion models in an attempt to combat the prevalence of eating disorders and excessive thinness in the industry. This is the second time Levine has tried to take on the fashion industry. His similar bill to impose standards on models sputtered in 2016. This time, Levine also is trying to address the prevalence of sexual harassment in the entertainment industry by requiring that talent agencies  which represent actors, performers and other artists  provide training on sexual harassment and how to identify and prevent inappropriate behavior. I believed women who told me their stories of abuse when I introduced legislation to provide workplace protections in the fashion industry in 2016 just like I believe them now, Levine said in a statement. Its time that law reflects societys rejection of sexual harassment in all workplaces, including Hollywood. My bill aims to address the problem before it starts, but also empowers survivors with the tools to report these cases. Facebook

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Local Indivisible group picks Democrat to endorse against Rep. Duncan Hunter By Christine Mai-Duc Ammar Campa-Najjar, 28, is running against Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine). (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune) With an already crowded field of contenders hoping to unseat Rep. Duncan Hunter and months to go before the candidate filing deadline, one local activist group has made an early endorsement in the race. Indivisible CA50, made up of activists mostly in San Diego County, announced Thursday that its endorsing Ammar Campa-Najjar, a Democrat and public affairs consultant whos challenging Hunter. The endorsement comes as liberal activists and interest groups all over the state are grappling with whether  and how  to winnow down the dozens of candidates vying for 10 GOP-held seats in California. The group held more than half a dozen endorsement meetings to allow members throughout Hunters district to vote on their preferred candidate. One of the candidates, Pierre Beauregard, dropped out of the race recently and endorsed Campa-Najjar. In a statement Campa-Najjar said in a statement that the nod represents the enthusiasm of hundreds of progressive grassroots activists. Indivisibles national political director Maria Urbina said the endorsement was the first made by any California chapter in the 2018 midterms. Aside from Campa-Najjar, two other Democrats are running for Hunters seat: Josh Butner, a school board trustee and former Navy SEAL, and realtor Patrick Malloy, who ran last year and lost to Hunter by nearly 27 percentage points. Hunter will also face at least two GOP challengers: Shamus Sayed and Andrew Zelt. Hunter is not considered to be particularly vulnerable in next years election, but an investigation into his alleged misuse of campaign funds has caused at least one election handicapper to move his race from solid Republican to the likely Republican column. Facebook

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San Francisco is getting a new mayor and creating a political star. Who will it be? By Mark Z. Barabak San Francisco is the city everyone loves, even if they hate it. The stately Victorians, like a gingerbread dream come to life. The majestic Golden Gate Bridge, standing like heavens portal above the fog. The plucky cable cars, scrabbling up its impossible hillsides. It can almost make you forget the bands of ravaged homeless, the paralyzing traffic, the scent of human waste wafting from sidewalks outside the citys posh eateries and palatial tech headquarters. San Francisco is getting a new mayor, owing to the sudden death of incumbent Ed Lee. All of the grandeur, and all of the grit, accompany the position. To say the race is wide open  Lee having died just about a week ago  is an understatement. Read More Facebook

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein is under pressure over a fix for Dreamers By Sarah D. Wire California Sen. Dianne Feinstein is under pressure from activists and fellow Democrats to withhold support for a spending bill that would avert a government shutdown in exchange for protections for people brought to the country illegally as children. Feinstein said in October that protections for so-called Dreamers are the most important thing we can get done, but the senator known for her moderate bent said this week that she wont try to block the end-of-the-year spending bill over it, and has not offered an explanation. Dreamers this week flooded Feinsteins five California offices and her office on Capitol Hill. Two UCLA students refused to leave her Capitol Hill office after three hours Tuesday and were briefly detained by police. On Wednesday, about a dozen students and parents returned and were asked to leave after about 30 minutes of shouting in her office lobby. Read More Facebook

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The GOP tax plan passed. Now Democrats have another big issue to use in the midterms By Sarah D. Wire As GOP leaders in Congress met behind closed doors to hash out the details of their massive tax overhaul, a group of UC Irvine graduate students met in Rep. Mimi Walters district, fretting about how the plan could cost them money. About 20 miles north, dozens of activists in top hats stood outside Rep. Ed Royces Brea office as they chanted, Shame on you! And up in the Central Valley, protesters gathered outside Rep. Jeff Denhams Modesto office to sing Protest ye dreary congressman  Remember that he voted to take healthcare away. To save himself from taxes now, so you will have to pay. Read More Facebook

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Kevin de Leon to Feinstein: Dont come back to California without forcing a government shutdown over Dream Act By Jazmine Ulloa State Senate leader Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles), left, and Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles), right. (Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press) Taking direct criticism to the woman he is attempting to unseat in next years U.S. Senate race, California Senate leader Kevin de Leon on Wednesday urged Democrats to block a year-end spending bill as leverage to pass a Dream Act  clean of GOP demands for increased border security. At a news conference in downtown Los Angeles, De Leon commended Sen. Kamala Harris for pledging to block the measure, saying he could not understand why her colleague Sen. Dianne Feinstein had failed to take a similar stance in pushing for legislation to protect the so-called Dreamers, immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. Dreamers make up hundreds of thousands of Sen. Feinsteins constituents, and while talking a good game on Dreamers, when it comes to standing up and supporting them, she is AWOL, said De Leon (D-Los Angeles), who has attempted to position himself to Feinsteins left as he campaigns for her seat. His statements follow days of demonstrations by young protesters at legislators offices in Washington and California. The coalitions of activists have been calling on Democrats to hold up the spending bill, a move that could force a government shutdown. They want to pass Dream Act legislation that would provide protections and a path to citizenship to young people without legal residency in the U.S. At least two young protesters were arrested Tuesday outside of Feinsteins Capitol Hill office, and more demonstrations took place at her offices in Washington and San Francisco on Wednesday. Feinstein, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) have sponsored Dream Act legislation but have not pledged to hold up the spending deal. A separate bipartisan group of senators is advocating punting the issue to January. President Trump has asked Congress to come up with a solution by March. Standing next to De Leon and immigrant rights advocates on Wednesday, state Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles) said advocates had to double down the shame on any Democrat who thinks its time to wait on the issue. De Leon said they had made that message clear to Schumer, saying, It is time to find your spine, sir. To Pelosi and Feinstein, he said: Dont come back to California if you havent demonstrated your leadership and your courage to stand up for these young men and women. I can tell you this, De Leon said. If the Republicans were on the other side, they wouldnt hesitate for a nanosecond to shut down the government to move forward what they believe in. Facebook

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12 California Republicans vote to support tax overhaul for a second time; Rohrabacher and Issa say no By Sarah D. Wire The House gave final approval for the GOP tax bill Wednesday, with 12 Republicans in the state delegation again voting in favor of the bill. Reps. Dana Rohrabacher of Costa Mesa and Darrell Issa of Vista voted no. The House and Senate both passed the bill Tuesday, but, because Democrats raised procedural objections that forced the bill to be changed in the Senate, the House had to vote on the bill again Wednesday before sending it to President Trump for his signature. Though many California taxpayers are expected to see an initial income tax cut under the plan, a significant number probably will have higher taxes because of the lost deductions. Analysts also expect the biggest cuts to flow to corporations and the states wealthiest residents. Republicans are expected to head to the White House later Wednesday for a celebration with Trump. No House Democrats, including the 39 from California, supported the bill. Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Norwalk) was not present for the second vote, but she voted no on Tuesday. See the Republican votes here: Facebook

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Californias Democratic senators vote no on GOP tax bill Californias @SenKamalaHarris and @SenFeinstein join rest of Democrats in the Senate in voting no on the GOP tax bill, which passed 51-48 along party lines. Sanders, who is an Independent, voted with Democrats.  Sarah D. Wire (@sarahdwire) December 20, 2017 "At a time when wages have stagnated and working Americans are trying to do more with less, this tax plan pulls the rug out from the middle class to give billions to those who already have so much. This is an attack on our values, and Americans deserve better," Harris said.  Sarah D. Wire (@sarahdwire) December 20, 2017 "Californians will be hit especially hard by the cap on the state and local tax deduction, making it more difficult for communities to pay for services that our families rely on, Its no wonder a bill that primarily benefits the wealthy is so unpopular..." Feinstein said  Sarah D. Wire (@sarahdwire) December 20, 2017 Facebook

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GOP tax overhaul passes House with help from a dozen California Republicans By Sarah D. Wire Despite weeks of consternation from some California House Republicans, a dozen of them joined their colleagues to pass an overhaul of the U.S. tax code Tuesday. Two  Reps. Darrell Issa and Dana Rohrabacher  voted against the plan. In the weeks before the vote, Republican Reps. Mimi Walters of Irvine and Steve Knight of Palmdale cited new caps on popular deductions as reasons they were uncertain about whether to vote for the bill. Both worked behind the scenes on changes and ultimately supported the bill, which passed the House on a near party line vote 227-203. Knight said hes satisfied the changes are enough to to turn what would have been a tax increase into a tax cut for his constituents. Read More Facebook

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More than half of Californians oppose GOP tax bill, according to new poll By Sarah D. Wire House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) arrives for a news conference about the tax plan. (Win McNamee / Getty Images) More than half of Californians oppose the GOP tax bill expected to be approved by Congress today, and just 20% believe it will have a positive affect on their families, according to a poll released Monday. Just over half of California voters, 51%, oppose the tax bill, and 30% support it, according to the newest IGS Poll, a survey by the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. And the belief falls largely along party lines, with Democrats opposing the bill by a more than 4-to-1 (67% to 15%) margin and Republicans supporting it 3 to 1 (60% to 21%). The House and Senate are expected to vote on the tax bill Tuesday. Californias Republican members of Congress largely support the bill despite some concerns about how cuts to the state and local tax deduction and mortgage interest deduction might affect Californians. Democrats in the delegation oppose it and have said they will use the vote against vulnerable Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections. When asked about the impact they think the bill will have on themselves and their families, just 20% of the polls respondents said they think it will benefit them directly, while 40% foresee a negative impact. About 27% do not expect much of an impact, and 13% said they dont know if theyll be affected. The poll of a random sample of 1,000 registered voters was completed by telephone in English and Spanish from Dec. 7 to 16. Facebook

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A quick look at some of the biggest tax changes for Californians By Sarah D. Wire (Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press) Congressional Republicans are framing their tax cut bill as a Christmas gift that will give Americans an average tax cut of $2,059. For Californians, especially in the wealthier areas along the coast, the situation isnt as clear-cut. When the measure comes up for a vote in the House on Tuesday morning, its expected to pass along party lines. At least two Republicans say they will join Democrats in the California delegation to oppose the plan because they fear it will hurt their constituents bottom line. Take a quick look at what some of the biggest changes in the tax bill might mean for average Californians. Read More Facebook

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Lawmakers, pot growers say Californias marijuana cultivation rules favor big corporate farms By Patrick McGreevy Californias new rules allowing marijuana cultivation favor large corporate farms despite a promise in Proposition 64 that small growers would be protected, according to a group of state lawmakers and marijuana industry leaders who called Monday for the policy to be changed. The California Department of Food and Agriculture issued emergency rules last month that allow for small and medium-sized farms of up to a quarter acre and one acre, respectively, to get licenses for the first five years. That five-year head start for small farms was promised in Proposition 64, the initiative approved last year by voters that legalized growing and selling marijuana for recreational use. Individuals and businesses can get only one license for a medium-sized farm, but the new rules do not set a limit on how many small-farm licenses can be obtained by one person or business. That could allow a corporation to assemble a 20-acre farm by obtaining 80 licenses for a quarter-acre each, opponents worry. Democratic state Sens. Scott Wiener of San Francisco and Mike McGuire of Healdsburg, Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg) and the California Growers Assn. asked for swift action by the state agricultural department to change the rule. This is clearly a broken promise, McGuire said. For two years, every discussion has included a cap on cannabis grows and the Department of Food and Agriculture needs to fix this massive loophole they have created. This last-minute revision rolls out the red carpet for large corporations to crush the livelihood of small family farmers. With cultivation licenses set to take effect next month, the lawmakers also promised legislative hearings on why the rules were drafted to disadvantage small, mom-and-pop farms. California only has one chance to get this right, and it is already on the wrong path with this last-minute change that flies in the face of what the backers of Prop. 64 promised, said Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers Assn. This single decision will hand over the California marketplace to multinational corporations and a wealthy few at the expense of thousands of growers who are ready to play by the rules and provide economic opportunity in communities that until recently were criminalized or  at the very least  marginalized. The industry estimates there are about 3,500 independent growers on track to get a state license in the first half of 2018. Allens group estimates that number could grow to as many as 10,000 or 15,000 by the end of 2020, but not if large corporate farms are allowed in early. The agricultural agency issued a response later: A one-acre canopy limit has not been in proposed regulations at any point and was not included in the emergency regulations due to the fact that Proposition 64, the law guiding the process, did not provide authority to include it. However, local jurisdictions may impose that limitation on their own if it meets the needs of their constituents. Updated at 5:10 pm to include comment from agricultural agency. Facebook

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Final tax bill dramatically softens blow to mortgage interest deductions in California By Christine Mai-Duc Last-minute changes to the Republican-led tax overhaul seem to be tailor-made to entice support from California GOP lawmakers, several of whom voted against a previous version passed in the House last month. The House version, passed with the support of all but three California Republicans, had proposed capping the mortgage interest deduction at loans of $500,000 or less. Republicans in high-tax, expensive states had voiced concerns the bill would have major effects in their districts. But the final version of the bill dramatically slashed the percentage of new mortgages that would be affected if the package becomes law. *New mortgages over $500,000 include data through Sept. 2017. New mortgages over $750,000 include data through Oct. 2017. Source: Times analysis of data provided by CoreLogic The particulars of the mortgage interest provision and other popular deductions were major sticking points as House and Senate negotiators hammered out a compromise between the two versions. A previous Times analysis showed that more than half of new mortgages this year in Rep. Dana Rohrabachers coastal Orange County district exceeded the $500,000 cap laid out in the House version. Text of the new bill released Friday outlined a cap of $750,000, which would apply to just under a quarter of new mortgages there through October 2017. Rohrabacher was one of three California Republicans, along with Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) and Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove) who previously voted against the measure. Rep. Mimi Walters (R-Irvine) said she supported the House version after receiving assurances from leaders that the bill would be changed to account for the loss of deductions, The percentage of new mortgages over the cap dropped from 48% to 14%. Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford), whose district had 1% of mortgages exceeding the $500,000 cap proposed previously, saw that share drop almost to zero; 27 of 7,515 mortgages in his congressional district this year have been for more than $750,000. The House is expected to vote on the final tax bill Tuesday. Facebook

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A major change to Proposition 13 takes its first step toward the 2018 ballot By Liam Dillon A commercial property in San Bernardino County that could face higher property taxes under a proposed ballot measure (Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times) Proponents of making a dramatic change to Californias landmark Proposition 13 property tax restrictions took their first step to getting a measure on the November 2018 statewide ballot Friday. The change would allow the state to receive more tax dollars from commercial and industrial properties by assessing them at their current market value, an effort known as split roll because existing tax protections on homes would remain in place. Advocates of the measure, including the League of Women Voters of California and community organizing nonprofits California Calls and PICO Network said the change could raise billions of dollars that could be spent on public schools and community colleges. I think the cumulative effects of the unfair tax system have gotten to the point where its created crippling economic impacts on the state, said Melissa Breach, executive director of the League of Women Voters of California. Backers filed their proposed initiative Friday. The attorney generals office will prepare an official title and summary for the measure and it will receive a financial analysis. From there, advocates will decide if they will collect signatures to put the measure on the ballot. Proposition 13 passed in 1978 amid concerns that rising property taxes could force people out of their homes. The ballot measure limited property taxes to 1% of a propertys value at the time of purchase and ensures that the assessed value on which taxes are based can only increase by a maximum of 2% a year  no matter how much a propertys market value goes up. Split-roll measures have been long debated in state politics, but business groups and anti-tax groups have expressed substantial opposition to the idea, arguing that it would cause major harm to the states business climate. Breach said she expected an avalanche of big money against the measure should it go forward, but said that her organization wouldnt get involved without believing it could raise sufficient funding.S For the record 1 p.m., Dec. 18: An earlier version of this post said the split roll ballot measure would allow California to charge higher tax rates on commercial and industrial properties. It would allow the state to assess those properties at current market value, not charge higher rates. Facebook

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Three more women accuse California assemblyman of sexual misconduct By Melanie Mason Assemblyman Matt Dababneh (D-Woodland Hills) (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times) A Los Angeles woman has filed a police report alleging Democratic Assemblyman Matt Dababneh had sex with her without consent four years ago, adding new allegations of sexual misconduct to those that led the politician to announce his resignation last week. He says her claims are false. Nancy Miret, 26, told The Times that when she was 22 and a recent college graduate, she spent time with Dababneh over two months in late 2013, primarily at his Encino apartment. At the time, Dababneh was running for Assembly to represent the western San Fernando Valley. They had consensual sex on one occasion, but after that, Miret said she had multiple nonconsensual sexual encounters with Dababneh that left her traumatized. Miret, who now works in commercial real estate, is one of three women interviewed by The Times who have made new allegations concerning Dababnehs behavior. These allegations are false and Im confident that when all the facts are in, it will clearly show that these claims are not true, Dababneh told The Times. Read More Facebook

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San Diego business is first in California to be issued license to sell marijuana for recreational use By Patrick McGreevy A San Diego medical marijuana business is the first firm to be issued a license by the state of California to sell marijuana for recreational use, officials said Thursday. Torrey Holistics received two of the first 20 licenses granted by the state Bureau of Cannabis Control this week to sell or distribute marijuana, although the licenses do not take effect until Jan. 1, according to bureau chief Lori Ajax. An additional 180 firms have applied for licenses but they are being processed. Last week, we officially launched our online licensing system, and today were pleased to issue the first group of temporary licenses to cannabis businesses that fall under the Bureaus jurisdiction, Ajax said in a statement. We plan to issue many more before January 1. The bureau is issuing temporary, four-month licenses to firms initially, but will eventually require firms to undergo background checks and pay a $1,000 application fee for yearlong permits. Tony Hall left a chemical distribution business two years ago to start Torrey Holistics with a friend and classmate at San Diego State. He said he was ecstatic to have the first recreational permit in California. He also obtained a new license to continue selling marijuana for medical uses. We feel fricking great about it, he said Thursday. Its just exciting. This is a once in a multi-generational event, he added, likening it to the end of prohibition. Added Ruthie Edelson, the firms marketing director, We will be open at 7 a.m. on Jan. 1. Last year, voters approved Proposition 64, which makes California one of eight states that allow the growing and sale of marijuana for recreational uses. Facebook

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Conservative activist group files a lawsuit over Los Angeles County inactive voter list By John Myers A Washington-based conservative-leaning activist group filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday alleging Los Angeles County officials are refusing to cancel the registrations of voters who are ineligible to cast a ballot. The legal action by Judicial Watch comes four months after the organization first accused elections officials across the state of maintaining registration lists that are larger than their voting-age population. The lawsuit also names Secretary of State Alex Padilla as a defendant and alleges the voter lists violate the National Voter Registration Act, or NVRA. They dont care about removing ineligible registration, said Robert Popper of Judicial Watch. I think we have a very strong lawsuit. The lawsuit names four Los Angeles County voters as co-plaintiffs and asserts that a countys two lists of voters  the file of active voters and those whose registration has been placed on inactive status  should be combined into a single total. The inactive list includes people who havent cast ballots in recent elections and havent responded to inquiries from elections officials. Though the names on that list are considered voters, they are not counted in official registration reports and are not mailed election material. Popper led an effort earlier this year to estimate the size of each countys voting-age population using the Census Bureaus American Community Survey. He said the surveys five-year average of county populations was then adjusted by focusing just on the estimate of those over the age of 18, and then comparing that with the combined active and inactive voter lists. Popper dismissed any concern that the resulting number might be skewed by the different standards used by counties for the inactive list, which could include names of voters who moved or died and thus be an imperfect guide. I believe that a court is going to accept our numbers, he said. Dean Logan, the registrar of voters in Los Angeles County, said his staffs practices are consistent with federal law. This lawsuit appears to fundamentally interpret the requirements of the NVRA in a manner inconsistent with ensuring voter enfranchisement and appropriate list maintenance, he said. The lawsuit also alleges that Los Angeles elections officials failed to provide Judicial Watch with requested data about the size of the inactive list, and accuses Padilla of failing to address the groups concerns about California not following NVRA rules. In a statement on Thursday, Padilla said county inactive-voter files are not out of compliance with the law. He criticized Judicial Watch for its baseless assertions, bad math, and flawed methodology. Local elections officials have said very few inactive voters show up on election day, and that any who do would be asked to cast a provisional ballot  one that isnt counted unless the voters eligibility is confirmed through additional review. Popper insisted that if the list is never used, theres no reason to keep it. Judicial Watch, which sued for access to Hillary Clintons emails in 2016, alleged that its calculations show 11 California counties with questionable voter registration totals. Facebook

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Voters in California GOP districts may get calls asking them to thank their member of Congress for tax plan By Sarah D. Wire Voters in four key Republican-held congressional districts could get a robocall starting Friday urging them to call and thank their member of Congress for supporting the tax bill. Its a last minute effort by American Action Network, a politically active nonprofit connected with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) that has spent millions to shore up Republican support for the bill. The robocalls include the members office number. The four California members being targeted are Reps. Jeff Denham of Turlock, David Valadao of Hanford, Steve Knight of Palmdale and Mimi Walters of Irvine. All four represent districts that backed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and are Democratic targets in 2018. Knight and Walters had been particularly vocal about their concerns with the plan, saying it might raise taxes for their constituents. The final text of the bill is set to be released Friday, with a vote expected early next week. In total, American Action Network plans to place 1 million robocalls in 29 districts nationwide. Facebook

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Merry Christmas Republicans in Congress: Funny or Die video goes after California lawmakers over DACA By Christine Mai-Duc As members of Congress try to pass a controversial tax bill and a measure to keep the federal government funded, the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is hitting Republicans hard over another unresolved issue: the legal status of hundreds of thousands of people brought to the country illegally as children who could face deportation if lawmakers dont act. Amid negotiations over a long-term spending bill, Democratic leaders have been pushing their GOP colleagues to include a fix for those who were granted temporary protection under President Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA. President Trump announced an end to the program earlier this year and gave Congress a March deadline to address it. Funny or Die and BOLD PAC released a video Friday featuring comedians skewering GOP members, including two in California, for their inaction. In the video, Oscar Nunez, best known for his role on The Office, calls out Reps. Steve Knight (Palmdale), Ed Royce (Fullerton), Carlos Curbelo (Florida) and John Culberson (Texas), who get to go ahead and celebrate as thousands of Dreamers are banished from the only country theyve ever called home. How many broken promises can fit in a stocking? Nunez asks later. Im asking for a congressman. The political action committee says its spending six figures on the weeklong buy, which will go out nationwide across Funny Or Dies social media channels. They are known for blasting out irreverent, often viral parodies that play to young audiences. The video will also be targeted to constituents in each of the four congressional districts. A separate video released by the ACLU last week also urged members of Congress to strike a deal on DACA. Many California Republicans have remained mum on the issue, particularly those facing tough races in 2018. So far, only Reps. David Valadao (Hanford), Jeff Denham (Turlock) and Mimi Walters (Irvine) have pressured fellow Republicans to come up with a solution before Congress breaks for Christmas. Following Trumps decision, Knight said the issue should receive attention by Congress. Royce, who has taken hard-line stances on immigration in the past, urged his colleagues to provide a permanent, legislative solution that gives certainty to these kids. Neither elaborated on what that solution should be. Facebook

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For a prominent California consumer group and savvy political consultants, documents reveal a close financial relationship By John Myers If theres a clear mantra for Consumer Watchdog, one of Californias most visible and vocal advocacy groups, its that hidden financial relationships shouldnt shape politics and public policy. The Santa Monica-based nonprofit has spent more than three decades reprimanding politicians and interest groups for doing the bidding of those who give them money. Its official motto is expose, confront, change. We are loud, and we speak more of a populist truth than the way people usually talk to each other in Sacramento, said Jamie Court, Consumer Watchdogs president. Read More Facebook

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Regional director resigns from California Democratic Party amid sexual misconduct claims By Jazmine Ulloa A regional director with the California Democratic Party submitted his resignation on Thursday, nearly two weeks after a 23-year-old woman reported that he sexually assaulted her last year, spurring party leaders to seek his ouster. Craig Cheslog served as Region 2 director spanning the East Bay, Napa, Sonoma and the Clearlake areas. In a statement, his lawyer, Mary P. Carey, said she and her client were confident that a full and fair exploration of this matter, undertaken in an appropriate, fact-governed venue, would exonerate Mr. Cheslog. We are prepared, if necessary, to put forward the facts of this matter in just such a venue, she said. Democratic Party Chairman Eric Bauman and other officials initially called for Cheslogs removal in a Nov. 29 letter to state party secretary Jenny Bach. They said he was seen acting in an inappropriate and sexually aggressive manner toward a member of the party in a public area of the Westin San Francisco Airport Hotel, following a Nov. 18 executive board meeting. The level to which this activity advanced made a number of those in attendance uncomfortable, the letter stated. It added that another member reported that Mr. Cheslog raped her at a CDP executive board meeting the previous year. Party officers said the incident occurred during a weekend where the prevention of sexual harassment of women in politics was a dominant theme in the wake of the #metoo movement. Before the meetings conclusion on Sunday, the California Womens Caucus approved a resolution making clear that sexual harassment, bullying and other forms of abuse are grounds to lose endorsements and be stripped of party membership. Maddy Dean, who was not named in the letter, spoke at the meeting about her experiences of sexual harassment in the movie industry, and told the Times that she reported Cheslog. She said she could not provide further details about her allegation as she explores possible legal paths moving forward. This was about protecting other women and in particular other young women, she said of reporting the assault. In his own letter to Bach on Thursday, Cheslog did not acknowledge any wrongdoing. He said he was stepping down to prevent any personal misconduct allegations from creating a distraction with the party at a critical moment in national and state politics. I am confident of the results that would be forthcoming in a fair, fact-based exploration of this matter, he said. Since the report, Cheslog has been fired from his job at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that helps families navigate media and technology. He also has stepped down from his position on the Acalanes Union High School District Board of Trustees. The conduct represented a serious violation of both company policy and the way in which our employees are expected to conduct themselves in the community at large, Common Sense spokeswoman Corbie Kiernan said in a statement. We immediately suspended Mr. Cheslog and conducted an investigation. As a result of the investigation, Mr. Cheslogs employment with Common Sense was terminated. 4:05 p.m.: This post was updated with Cheslogs resignation from the school board. Facebook

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Sen. Bob Hertzberg will cooperate with investigation into unwanted hugs By Patrick McGreevy State Sen. Bob Hertzberg works at his Senate Chambers desk. He faces an investigation into unwanted hugging (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) State Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Los Angeles) said Thursday he will cooperate with a state investigation into complaints from a former legislator that she was uncomfortable with his repeated hugs after she asked him not to touch her. Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon said Thursday that a team of outside attorneys will investigate a complaint by former Assemblywoman Linda Halderman that Hertzberg has made her uncomfortable with hugs that were too close and lasted too long. Hertzberg, well-known for hugging other lawmakers, said he supports having any allegations investigated by the two outside law firms. I just learned of the investigation, and will fully cooperate, he said. The use of an independent third party investigator is essential to improving transparency and trust in the system. Halderman said Thursday she was encouraged that her concerns will be investigated, but said it was disturbing  that attorneys for one of the law firms selected, Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, contributed more than $90,000 in campaign funds to sitting legislators including Hertzberg. Halderman, a surgeon, served in the state Assembly from 2010 through 2012 and said Hertzberg hugged her multiple times even after she asked him to stop because she was uncomfortable. The last incident occurred in a hallway of the Capitol, she claimed. I told him I dont care to be hugged. Dont touch me,  Halderman recalled. He then grabbed me and pinned my arms to my side and used his hands to press my lower back into his groin and he essentially pinned me so I couldnt push off of him to get away the way I ended previous hugs. It was certainly so over the line, she added. Halderman said a current female senator and assemblywoman also have complained about inappropriate hugs from Hertzberg. However, Sen. Cathleen Galgiani (D-Stockton) defended Hertzberg, saying she has known him for many years and he has always acted as a gentleman. I have never felt uncomfortable with him, and have always felt his hugs were a display of affection - which I appreciate, she said. I consider him a dear friend. Updated at 5:30 pm to include comment from Sen. Galgiani. Facebook

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Rep. Maxine Waters asks Justice Department to investigate fake letter tweeted by Republican opponent By Sarah D. Wire (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) Rep. Maxine Waters is asking the Justice Department to look into a fake letter posted to Twitter by her Republican challenger that falsely indicated the congresswoman wants to resettle tens of thousand of refugees in her Los Angeles district. The GOP candidate, Omar Navarro, posted the letter on what looks like official House of Representatives letterhead to Twitter on Monday. The letter, which purports to be from the congresswoman, says the congresswoman wants to bring refugees to her congressional district after the 2018 election and perhaps even once I have secured the Speaker of the House position. Navarro accompanied the tweeted letter with a message: According to this document, Maxine Waters wants more terrorists, like the one who bombed NYC, in Californias 43rd District. As Congressman of CAs 43rd District, I will oppose such policies. Its been retweeted more than 680 times. But the letter is a forgery and a fake, her chief of staff, Twaun Samuel, said in a news release. The letter, dated June of this year, also contains several inaccuracies. It references multiple committees and subcommittees Waters does not serve on, and lists an address for a district office that has been closed for nearly a decade. Waters filed a complaint about the tweeted letter with the House general counsel, who forwarded the complaint to the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California and the fraud section of the Criminal Division for the United States Department of Justice. The complaint states that Waters has not communicated with the letters purported addressee  Teri Williams, who is president and chief operating officer of the Los Angeles-based OneUnited Bank, about any refugee resettlement program. Impersonating a federal official and misusing a federal seal are federal crimes. Navarro, who is backed by big name far-right conservatives, said Thursday that the letter was sent to his campaign through Facebook by a person he didnt know. He said neither the Justice Department or Waters staff has asked him about the letter. I dont know if its real or not, so I put it out there, Navarro said, adding that he believed his followers would help him determine if it is real. It doesnt say that I know. Its according to this document  what, am I supposed to send it to her and get an email back from Maxine? According to this document, Maxine Waters wants more terrorists, like the one who bombed NYC, in Californias 43rd District.

As Congressman of CAs 43rd District, I will oppose such policies. #VoteNavarro2018https://t.co/vO8YUsyPp3 pic.twitter.com/k7ef0H20if  Omar Navarro (@RealOmarNavarro) December 11, 2017 Facebook

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Sen. Tony Mendoza refuses to take a leave of absence amid harassment probe By Patrick McGreevy Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia), left, talks earlier this year about a pending bill with Sen. Ted Gaines (R-El Dorado Hills). (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Defying pressure from legislative leadership, state Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) refused Thursday to take a leave of absence until an investigation into sexual harassment allegations against him is concluded early next year. Mendoza has denied allegations by former employees that he treated three female aides inappropriately, inviting them to hotel stays and asking one to visit his home to work on her resume. I am very disappointed that certain Senate Rules Committee members are apparently asking me to take a leave of absence or resign before any investigation has even begun and without giving me an opportunity to defend myself, Mendoza said in a statement. This is contrary to the very concept of due process, which is a pillar of our American system of fairness and judicial prudence. These actions bypass any process in a rush to judgment. Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) earlier Thursday called on Mendoza to take a leave of absence. Mendoza had previously been stripped of his leadership positions, including chairmanship of the Senates committee on banking and insurance. Mendoza questioned statements urging him to step down, saying they leave him concerned about the fairness of the investigation. He also said he has been disappointed that he has been told he cannot publicly address allegations. I was not appointed to the position I hold, but was elected by the voters in my district, he said. I am grateful to the voters in my district and thank them for their trust and their continued support. The Senate owes them an opportunity to hear the truth. I assure them that I will vigorously defend myself to clear my name. Facebook

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State Senate leader asks Sen. Tony Mendoza to take leave of absence amid sexual harassment investigation By Patrick McGreevy (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) State Senate leader Kevin de Leon said Thursday he has strongly suggested that Sen. Tony Mendoza take a leave of absence until the completion of an investigation by outside attorneys into allegations that Mendoza sexually harassed three former aides. Given the severity of the allegations against Senator Mendoza I do not believe he can perform the duties in Sacramento right now while the investigation is being conducted, De Leon told a packed news conference in his Capitol office. I believe Its the right thing to do, its the fair thing to do, to take a leave, he said. The Senate leader also said the outside attorneys have been asked to investigate complaints by former Assemblywoman Linda Halderman that Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Los Angeles) inappropriately hugged her on multiple occasions in a way that made her uncomfortable, even after she asked him to stop. De Leon also announced the hiring of two law firms to handle the Mendoza and Hertzberg investigations, and all future probes of harassment and abuse involving Senate employees. Mendoza, a Democrat from Artesia, did not immediately respond to the request to step aside. De Leon, a Democrat from Los Angeles who had been Mendozas roommate before the allegations were made public, said he made the suggestion to Mendoza in a meeting Thursday morning. If Mendoza refuses to take a leave, the Senate has the power to suspend him without pay, but De Leon said that is not currently under discussion. There is an effort underway to force his expulsion in January when the Legislature returns to Sacramento. Former Mendoza employees have claimed that he gave inappropriate attention to a female fellow and intern, inviting one to his home and hotel and giving the other alcohol in a hotel even though she was underage. Another former female aide told the Sacramento Bee that Mendoza invited her to one-on-one dinners and a weekend at Pebble Beach. Mendoza has denied the allegations. The Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher and Van Dermyden Maddux law firms have been retained for two years, according to Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles), who participated in their selection. Have you experienced sexual harassment in government or politics? Tell us your story   In addition, the state is contracting with Weave, a Sacramento crisis-intervention organization for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, to provide counseling and to establish a hotline for Senate employees who are victims of sexual assault. The hotline number is 1-800-729-1443. America is finally reckoning with entrenched inequities in our personal and professional relationships and in workplaces of every type, De Leon said. Nowhere is this reckoning more important than in the halls of power  our political institutions. Facebook

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Watch live: California Senate leader addresses sexual misconduct at state Capitol Facebook

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California state senator pledges to bring back net neutrality rules just as FCC votes to repeal them By Jazmine Ulloa Demonstrators rally in support of net neutrality outside a Verizon store in New York on Dec. 7. (Mary Altaffer / Associated Press) Moments after the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted to roll back net neutrality regulations, a state senator pledged to introduce legislation that would preserve open internet protections for consumers in California. Net neutrality is essential to our 21st century democracy, and we need to be sure that people can access websites and information freely and fairly, Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) said in a statement. If the FCC is going to destroy net neutrality and create a system that favors certain websites just because they can pay more money, California must step in and ensure open internet access. The announcement of the proposal came shortly after the FCC voted to repeal net neutrality in an expected 3-2 party-line vote, with Republicans calling for an end to the utility-like oversight of internet service providers. The Obama-era rules put in February 2015 barred broadband and wireless companies, such at AT&T Inc., Charter Communications Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. from selling faster delivery of certain data, slowing speeds for certain video streams and other content, and discriminating against legal material online. Before the vote, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai argued loosening the regulations would allow the online economy to flourish. FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, one of the the two Democrats on the commission, said the rollback would inhibit the openness that has made the U.S. internet the envy of the world. Supporters of net neutrality are expected to file suit to try to halt the repeal plan. Weiners attempt to institute net neutrality rules in California could have challenges. The FCC order states that allowing state and local governments to adopt their own separate requirements, which could impose a heavier burden on companies, could disrupt the balance between state and federal regulations. The preemption of state and local net neutrality measures is something that could be challenged in court. Amid such legal battles state legislation could face heavy lobbying efforts from internet providers arguing against uneven regulations. A bill by Assemblyman Ed Chau (D-Monterey Park) was shelved last legislative session over similar disputes. It would have enshrined in state law other FCC regulations that were rolled back this year by President Trump and Congress. The Internet privacy rules limited what broadband providers can do with their customers data. The bills defeat capped a behind-the-scenes battle that pitted telecom companies against state internet service providers and brought other bills to a halt in the state Senate as negotiations unfolded over legislation that would have had national significance. UPDATES 7:57 a.m.: This post was updated with additional information about the potential legal case. LA Times reporter Jim Puzzanghera contributed to this report. Facebook

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L.A. County sheriffs office failed to follow policy for issuing concealed weapon permits, audit says By Patrick McGreevy Handguns are displayed at the Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show in Las Vegas in 2016. ( (John Locher / Associated Press)) The Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department has repeatedly failed to follow its own rules for issuing concealed weapon permits, the state auditor concluded in a report released Thursday. L.A. County Sheriff Jim McDonnell disputed some of the key findings of the audit, saying state officials misinterpreted the policy. The department policy requires applicants to provide convincing evidence of a clear and present danger to life or of great bodily harm to get a license, but the audit found the department issued 24 licenses during the last few years without sufficient evidence. Most of the 197 active licenses in L.A. County as of August went to current or former law enforcement officers, judges and prosecutors, the audit found. The lieutenant in charge of reviewing applications told auditors that people in law enforcement satisfy the departments requirements by the nature of their jobs. However, making that decision based solely on the applicants profession both directly contradicts Los Angeless written policy  which specifically states that no position or job classification in itself shall constitute good cause for issuance  and has led the department to treat applicants inequitably based on their occupations, the audit says. McDonnell said the audit identified some legitimate issues, and the department has added a checklist to the application process in order to show requirements have been met. But he disagreed on the reports sweeping conclusion that the department consistently failed to follow its own policies. The LASD policy simply requires that the applicant provide convincing evidence that his or her life or physical safety is threatened, the sheriff said. He said the policy does not require additional documentation of that evidence if sufficient information is provided in the application. Auditors also concluded that Sacramento County issued some licenses without proper documentation and that San Diego Countys renewal process led it to inappropriately renew some licenses. Facebook

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Anti-Issa effort discloses donors: Leo DiCaprio, Jane Fonda, Ted Danson and more By Joshua Stewart A political group that has brought professional political organizers into the campaign against Rep. Darrell Issa has received its most significant contributions to date  from actress Jane Fonda and other celebrities. Fonda gave $100,000 to Flip the 49th! Neighbors in Action, which recently registered as a political committee to get Issa, R-Vista, out of office. Comedian Bill Maher gave $15,000 to the group, a rebuke of a politician who has twice appeared on his talk show. Former California Sen. Barbara Boxer gave $2,500, as did Academy Award recipient Leonardo DiCaprio. Actor Ted Danson gave $1,500. Flip the 49th gave the The San Diego Union-Tribune a list of donors more than a month before its required to disclose them to the Federal Election Commission. Read More Facebook

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California Senate GOP leader: Release Capitol whistleblowers from non-disclosure agreements By Melanie Mason California Senate Republican leader Patricia Bates is wading into the sexual harassment debate that has swept up the Capitol and is calling on her Democratic colleagues to allow whistleblowers to speak out by releasing them from non-disclosure agreements. Bates (R-Laguna Niguel) wrote in a letter to the Democratic legislative leaders  Senate Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount)  that Senate Republicans are calling for the Legislature to allow victims or witnesses who may have signed such agreements to share their experiences publicly. This release from NDAs would empower victims of sexual harassment, create a new atmosphere for resolving sexual harassment or discrimination concerns, increase public awareness and transparency, and ensure that both the Senate and the Assembly fulfill their obligations to the public and their employees for providing a safe and welcoming workplace environment, Bates wrote in the letter, dated Dec. 12. The Republican senator also laid out suggestions to improve the Legislatures handling of sexual harassment complaints, such as jointly convening both houses rules committees  which act as the chambers human resources departments  to have a comprehensive, bicameral and bipartisan review. Bates wrote that the Joint Rules Committee should consider the assigning of an outside entity for assuming responsibility for all issues regarding sexual harassment. She said the California Highway Patrol or an inspector general could serve that function. Bates is currently serving on a panel designated by the Senate Rules Committee to select an outside law firm to investigate sexual harassment complaints. De Leon, in a statement, said he agreed with Bates that sexual harassment is a bipartisan, bicameral problem that requires bipartisan, bicameral solutions. Many of these recommendations we are already pursuing and evaluating in some form and we look forward to working in collaboration with Senator Bates  as we did with the independent selection panel  on additional reforms in the weeks to come, De Leon said. With regard to non-disclosure agreements, De Leon spokesman Jonathan Underland said the Senate is discussing with attorneys and anti-harassment experts about what options are available without violating the privacy rights of past victims. John Casey, a spokesman for Rendon, said the Assembly does not ask for NDAs in settlement agreements. The Speaker agrees with both the Legislative Womens Caucus and the Rules Committee chair that any sexual harassment policy should be both bicameral and bipartisan, Casey said. Facebook

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California plans to send out licenses for pot sales this month  but they wont be effective until Jan. 1 By Patrick McGreevy Patrons shop at Bud and Bloom, a Santa Ana marijuana dispensary, last year. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) California officials said Wednesday they plan to use email before the new year to send out some licenses to sell marijuana to speed up the transition to a regulated market. The licenses will not go into effect until Jan. 1. Proposition 64, which legalized the sale of marijuana for recreational use, required the state to begin issuing licenses by Jan. 1. Because that date is a state holiday, the bureau originally planned to begin sending them out on Jan. 2. That has changed. Much of the date discussion  Jan. 1 versus Jan. 2  was based on whether or not wed be able to be open on a state holiday, said Alex Traverso, a bureau spokesman. The solution to that issue was to issue licenses with an effective date of Jan. 1 since licenses will be issued electronically. That eliminates the need to have the office open on Jan. 1. He said that, as of Wednesday, the bureau has not yet sent out any emails with licenses approved to begin operating Jan. 1. Facebook

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Californias budget director makes last ditch effort to urge GOP members to vote against tax plan By Sarah D. Wire House Republicans hold a news conference after the House passed the GOP tax bill. (Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press) As closed-door negotiations over the final tax bill come to an end, the head of the California Department of Finance is making a last-ditch effort to convince Republicans in the states congressional delegation to vote against the plan. In a letter to the entire delegation Wednesday, Finance Department Director Michael Cohen detailed 10 issues in the current tax proposals about which the state is worried. Some of Cohens concerns may be addressed in the deal that House and Senate leaders said they reached Wednesday morning. Details of the agreement are not yet public. Cohens concerns range from potentially billions less in federal funding available to California to offset the $1.4 trillion the plan is expected to add to the federal deficit, to the environmental effect of ending green energy tax credits. Californias 39 Democratic representatives are expected to oppose the final tax bill, which could come before both chambers of Congress by early next week. Three California Republicans  Reps. Darrell Issa of Vista, Dana Rohrabacher of Costa Mesa and Tom McClintock of Elk Grove  voted against the original House version, and several other California Republicans have indicated they might be willing to vote against the final plan. Cohen specifically pointed to issues that have been raised by the uncertain House members, including the proposal to lower the cap on the mortgage interest deduction, the plan to limit state and local tax deductions and the elimination of a deduction for uninsured personal property damaged in natural disasters such as fires. Facebook

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California lawmakers have fought sexual misconduct on military bases, farms and college campuses. Will they police their own house? By Jazmine Ulloa Over the past decade, California lawmakers have worked to help curb sexual violence in the workplace and other spheres of public life. They have pushed college campuses to keep better track of incident reports, created whistleblower protections for military officers who file claims and established sexual harassment training for farmworkers and janitors. Now, as more than 140 women have come forward in an open letter to denounce a pervasive culture of sexual harassment in the California Legislature, activists and employment lawyers say lawmakers have not held colleagues and staffers to the same standards demanded of those in other fields. Members [of the state Assembly and Senate] are quick at pointing the finger at other folks, said Fiona Ma, a former Democratic assemblywoman from San Francisco who is now running for state treasurer. But they dont want to look inside and fix their own house, air their own dark, dirty laundry. Read More Facebook

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Californias cap-and-trade climate program could generate more than $8 billion by 2027, report says By John Myers Gov. Jerry Brown signs an extension of Californias cap-and-trade program in July. (Eric Risberg / Associated Press) Although Californias cap-and-trade program was designed to combat climate change, a new analysis predicts it could also provide significant cash  as much as $8 billion in a decades time  for state and regional programs. The report issued Tuesday by the independent Legislative Analysts Office projects a wide range of revenue generated by the sale of permits for companies to emit greenhouse gases beyond a state-ordered emissions cap. The most recent auction of those emission permits brought in more than $800 million. The analysis warns that annual cap-and-trade revenue beyond 2020 is highly uncertain, and offers a possible range from $2 billion in 2018 to almost $7 billion in 2030  the final year of the program under legislation Gov. Jerry Brown signed in July. The estimate of $8.3 billion in 2027 is the high-water mark for any year in the report. Researchers cite a number of factors that make a specific prediction impossible, including future technology that allows industries to cut greenhouse gas emissions easily and thus pass on purchasing emission allowances. While it is clear that there will be additional revenues to the state beyond 2020, the amount that will be generated annually is highly uncertain, the report reads. Money collected from the sale of pollution permits is required to be spent on programs combating climate change. A portion of the money also is earmarked for the states high-speed rail program. The report urges lawmakers to provide oversight for future decisions made by the California Air Resources Board, the agency that has taken the lead on climate change efforts. In particular, the analysts warn that allowing businesses to stockpile too many permits  ones bought at current low prices  could lead to excessive greenhouse gas emissions in future years, potentially even causing the state to miss its annual benchmark as soon as 2024. Facebook

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Vice President Pence meets with California lawmakers about massive fires By Sarah D. Wire Briefed bipartisan group of California reps on the fed response to #CAwildfires. @POTUS approved an emergency declaration last Friday & @forestservice is providing air & ground assets including 1,000 personnel. Together, we will help the people of CA restore, rebuild & recover. pic.twitter.com/zn7QdbCZOQ  Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) December 12, 2017 A handful of California representatives discussed the federal response to their states wildfires Tuesday with Vice President Mike Pence. Attending the West Wing meeting were House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) and Reps. Ken Calvert (R-Corona), Darrell Issa (R-Vista), Julia Brownley (D-Westlake Village), Steve Knight (R-Palmdale) and Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara). It was a very bipartisan-spirited meeting. He clearly understood the significance of the fires and the impacts, Brownley said after the meeting. She said Pence offered federal assistance and recognized that recovery was going to be very important and that we want to work together to make sure that we can get the resources needed. President Trump signed an emergency declaration for the Southern California fires last week. Pence visited California this fall to view fire damage in Northern California. He stayed engaged and specifically wanted to make sure that FEMA and the other organizations were continuing to meet or exceed all expectations, Issa said after the meeting. We mostly thanked him for the fact that hes taken a personal interest and his team has been at the heart of the domestic coordination. There was no discussion about reinstating a federal tax deduction for uninsured damage repairs that would end up in the House and Senate tax bills, Brownley said. If you cant deduct uninsured property loss, its devastating. It would be devastating, Brownley said. Facebook

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We must talk about the health aspects of climate change, Schwarzenegger says in Paris By Kim Willsher (Thibault Camus / Associated Press) He showed up at Paris City Hall on Monday on a green bicycle and wearing a green tie to talk climate change with the mayor. But Arnold Schwarzenegger almost didnt make the trip from Los Angeles. One of the wildfires scorching Southern California was threatening his home. Luckily we have extraordinary firefighters, he told a group of officials and journalists. The actor and former governor of California was speaking in Paris as the founder of R20, a nonprofit based in Geneva that aims to help regional, state and local governments reduce their carbon emissions by developing clean energy sources. Read More Facebook

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A special recall election for state Sen. Josh Newman would cost a lot more than waiting for the June primary, state says By Patrick McGreevy State Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) faces a recall campaign (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)) State finance officials said Monday it would cost about $2.67 million for a special election on the recall of state Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton), but only $931,000 to put his potential recall on the regular June primary ballot, which will also feature races for governor and congressional seats. The savings  and the time it took to complete the financial assessment  could give ammunition to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown to put the recall measure on the primary ballot, possibly improving Newmans chance of staying in office. The higher turnout expected in the primary might benefit Newman as he tries to fend off the Republican recall drive. The financial analysis was a new requirement of a law approved this year by the Democrat-controlled Legislature that has slowed the Newman recall. Brown and legislators now have 30 days to review the election cost report. The deadline for calling a special election was last week, 180 days before the June 5 primary, although state officials have been known to extend such deadlines. In this case, that is unlikely. Carl Demaio, a former San Diego City councilman who is leading the Republican-funded recall, denounced the lengthy new process Monday, but said it will not save Newmans political career. This is about a shameful tactic by Sacramento politicians to keep politicians who break public trust and engage in misconduct in office for as long as possible, he said. Republicans launched the recall after Newman voted with the majority of le
In a highly unusual move, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court on Friday to discipline lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union because they helped a 17-year old migrant obtain an abortion two weeks ago.

The move escalates a legal battle over abortion that arose when Trump administration officials refused to allow the young woman to leave a refugee center with a guardian to see an abortion provider. Administration officials insisted the government need not facilitate abortion by allowing her to leave their custody in South Texas.

But the ACLU sued on her behalf and a federal judge ruled the federal government must promptly and without delay allow the teenager  who has not been publicly identified and is referred to as Jane Doe in court documents  to see a doctor to have the abortion she sought.

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A U.S. appeals court upheld that ruling on Oct. 24, and she had the abortion  paid for with private funds  early the next day, before the administration could lodge an emergency appeal in the high court.

Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and other Trump administration lawyers reacted angrily.

This was a total surprise. And were disturbed about it, Sessions said in a Fox News interview last weekend.

On Friday, new Solicitor Gen. Noel Francisco filed an appeal that asks the Supreme Court to set aside the lower courts rulings and to consider disciplinary action against the ACLU.

They kept the government in the dark about when Ms. Doe was scheduled to have an abortion, he told the justices in the case of Hargan vs. Garza. Given the extraordinary circumstances of the case, the court should consider sanctions against one or more of the ACLU lawyers, he said.

The ACLU fired back, saying the blame, if anything, lies with administration lawyers who failed to act quickly to file their emergency appeal.

This administration has gone to astounding lengths to block this young woman from getting an abortion, said ACLU legal director David Cole. After the courts cleared the way for her to get her abortion, it was the ACLUs job as her lawyers to see that she wasnt delayed any further  not give the government another chance to stand in her way.

Our lawyers acted in the best interest of our client and in full compliance with court orders and federal and Texas law, Cole said. That government lawyers failed to seek judicial review quickly enough is their fault, not ours.

Justice Department spokesman Devin OMalley said the ACLU misled the United States as to the timing of Jane Does abortion. After informing Justice Department attorney the procedure would occur on October 26th, Jane Does attorneys scheduled the abortion for the early morning hours of October 25th, thereby thwarting Supreme Court review.

Cole disagreed. He said the ACLU initially assumed the process would take two days, but made no promises or commitments. He said a doctor who had earlier counseled the young woman was available to do the procedure on Oct. 25.

Francisco, a former clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, represented Catholic bishops and charities two years ago in a challenge to the Obama administration rule requiring employers to provide a full range of contraceptives for female employees.

The administration said the religious employers did not have to pay for the coverage, but put that responsibility on their insurers. Francisco argued that this arrangement would still make the religious employers complicit in sin.

The solicitor general represents the government before the high court. The Senate confirmed Francisco in September on a party-line vote of 50-47.

In Fridays appeal, Francisco said a young woman who crosses the border illegally has no right to obtain an abortion. Under the courts rules, the ACLU will have 30 days to file a response.

david.savage@latimes.com

On Twitter: DavidGSavage

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UPDATES:

1:45 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details about the arguments in the case and background information about Solicitor Gen. Noel Francisco.

This article was originally published at 9:35 a.m.
The GOP tax plan unveiled Thursday would be a blow to many California taxpayers. Thats not a deal breaker for Californias Republicans, who so far seem optimistic the bill is the best deal for their constituents.

Even as some Republicans from states that would also lose out under the plan threatened to vote no, Californians reactions ranged from merely skeptical to enthusiastic.

Rep. Steve Knight of Palmdale was one of the few California GOP members who said he had concerns about the plan before the bill was released. Knight on Thursday said the bill has gotten better, but hes still looking at it.

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Were still trying to work through the numbers  and until I do that I cant say whats good and whats not good, said Knight, who is among the nine California Republicans considered vulnerable in 2018. A week and a half ago I think you had 10 problems, now youve got a couple.

A big issue is that California has the highest state income tax rate in the nation but among the lowest property tax rates. The bill dramatically scales back a deduction for state and local taxes, limiting the deduction to just property taxes and capping it at $10,000. About a third of California taxpayers took the deduction in 2015.

But Republicans are desperate for a major legislative win before the year is up, and Californias Republicans are acutely aware of that ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. They seem to want to balance keeping a promise about tax reform against doubts raised by people like Gov. Jerry Brown.

Eight of the 14 Republicans commented Thursday, with four saying they are on board with the bill and four saying they are still reviewing the details.

Rep. Ken Calvert of Corona, who is in a seat considered safe for the GOP next fall, responded positively to the plan: I think its moving in the right direction and Im sure looking forward to supporting the final package when it comes to the floor.

Rep. Tom McClintock of Elk Grove, who represents a strong Republican Northern California district, said hed rather see the state and local tax deduction stay in place, but we have to look at it as a total package, and as a total package Californians end up much better off than under the status quo.

One of the states most vulnerable Republicans, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of Costa Mesa, said he hasnt looked through the bill yet, but wont make a decision based on the elimination of one deduction.

Whats a concern to me is that when all is said and done my constituents are not paying more in taxes because of the effect of the overall bill, he said. I have to take the overall bill rather than just parts of it.

California Democrats lined up at a news conference Thursday to castigate their Republican colleagues for supporting the bill and pointing out how many constituents in each of their districts take the deduction  a message that seemed aimed at the 2018 campaign.

The Republicans from California have gone straight down the line like lemmings to the sea to vote against the interest of their constituents, against the interest of our state, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said.

House Republicans plan to begin debating the tax bill in the Ways and Means Committee next week, with amendments and changes expected before it is sent to the House floor. President Trump wants the House to pass it by Thanksgiving, with Senate approval by the end of the year.

sarah.wire@latimes.com

Follow @sarahdwire on Twitter

Read more about the 55 members of Californias delegation at latimes.com/politics

ALSO:

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Updates on California politics
For more than a year and a half, ever since they realized that Donald Trump had succeeded in taking control of their party, Republicans have confronted a dilemma: They fear his erratic behavior and judgment could ruin them, but fret that they cannot achieve their goals without him.

This week encapsulated that problem. On Monday, the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, indicted two former top aides to Trumps campaign and revealed a plea bargain with a third. Muellers prosecutors made clear those were just opening volleys of a long investigation that almost certainly will yield more criminal charges.

For the record: In an earlier version of this article, Paul Manaforts business partner, who was also indicted, was misidentified as Robert Gates. His name is Richard Gates.

GOP leaders spent the day insistently fending off questions. I havent even read it, so Im not going to speculate on something I havent read, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan said when reporters asked about the indictments. What he really wanted to focus on, Ryan said, was cutting taxes  a long-sought GOP goal that Trump has promised to sign into law.

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Thursday, after repeated delays, the tax bill finally emerged, only to be hit by complaints from both left and right. Whether it can avoid the fate of the Republican healthcare bill remains very much an open question, in part because a weakened president cant give the bill much help.

Im David Lauter, Washington bureau chief. Welcome to the Friday edition of our Essential Politics newsletter, in which we look at the events of the week in Washington and elsewhere in national politics and highlight some particularly insightful stories.

MUELLERS FIRST SHOT

We learned several things about Mueller and his investigation this week: He runs a tight ship with few leaks, hes aggressive in his tactics and the legal theories hell pursue, as Joe Tanfani wrote, he has a flair for drama, and his investigation still has a long way to run.

Until Monday morning, when the indictments were revealed against Paul Manafort, Trumps former campaign manager, and Richard Gates, another top Trump campaign aide and longtime Manafort business partner, no one knew for sure who was being charged. Prosecutors waited until the last minute before telling defense lawyers to arrange for their clients to turn themselves in  a rare move in a white-collar case.

The indictments revealed a lot about Manaforts lavish lifestyle and questionable financial dealings, as David Willman and David Cloud wrote. (And including where he spent more than $500,000 on suits in Beverly Hills.)

But the most revealing moment  at least as far as Muellers tactics go  came a couple of hours later. Muellers team released the indictments of Manafort and Gates first thing in the morning, dominating the morning news. The White House quickly reacted by distancing itself from Manafort, insisting that his alleged financial crimes began long before he went to work for the campaign and had nothing to do with Trump. The president tweeted that the indictments focus on Manaforts finances, not Russia, showed NO COLLUSION.

Only then did Mueller release the second part of the days news  a plea bargain with George Papadopoulos, a 30-year-old whom Trump had once touted as a foreign policy advisor. Unlike the Manafort charges, the case against Papadopoulos was all about collusion, although the specific charge was lying to the FBI. As Cloud wrote, Papadopoulos spent much of 2016 seeking a major role in Trumps campaign by trying to become a go-between with Russia.

Trump backers dismissed Papadopoulos as a low-level climber  the coffee boy one Trump advisor called him. But the evidence in the plea agreement showed at minimum that he had repeated contact with more senior campaign officials. And the court documents unsealed Monday, especially the reference to Papadopoulos as a proactive cooperator with the investigation, were clearly designed to send a signal that prosecutors know more than theyve revealed.

Even a coffee boy, after all, can overhear things.

By mid-week, the investigation had already claimed one more head: Sam Clovis, one of Trumps earliest campaign backers, who had brought Papadopoulos into the campaign, withdrew his nomination for a senior post at the Agriculture Department. He likely would have faced a confirmation hearing dominated by what did you know and when did you know it questions.

Having trouble keeping track of the players? Heres a summary of the charges so far.

Meantime, on Capitol Hill, another aspect of the investigation unfolded as executives from Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies testified about how Russian agents used their platforms in efforts to sow dissension in the U.S. As Cloud reported, lawmakers slammed the social media giants for failing to take the issue seriously enough.

A TAXING WEEK

Perhaps it was just as well for Republicans that Muellers announcements dominated the news in the early part of the week. Otherwise, the focus would have been on their struggles to reach agreement on a tax plan.

Lawmakers had promised to reveal a bill on Wednesday, but the day came and went with no agreement. Thursday, they finally released a text, but House Ways & Means chairman Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) made clear it wasnt final.

As Lisa Mascaro and Jim Puzzanghera reported, the bill, which would set new limits on the mortgage interest deduction, could deliver bigger tax bills to living in places with high real estate costs, notably coastal California and northeastern cities.

Californias GOP House members looked for the bright side, Sarah Wire reported. Their counterparts from New York and New Jersey, however, were more negative, as were some powerful business lobbies.

Republican leaders can probably get the bill through the House, where the leadership almost always prevails. But the compromises needed to accomplish that could endanger the bills chances in the Senate.

Already on Thursday, two GOP senators who have been critical of Trump, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee, said they were concerned that the proposed tax cuts would increase the deficit too much. As Republican leaders found on healthcare, they have very little margin to maneuver.

As Puzzanghera and Mascaro wrote, the bill, despite tweaks, still delivers big benefits to the most affluent. Thats a selling point for GOP donors, but a liability among most voters.

GOING TO THE OTHER END OF THE EARTH

Trump was no help to the GOP in the healthcare debate  lawmakers said he clearly didnt understand the policy and couldnt make a public case for it.

When the tax bill heads to committee next week, hell be far away, on a 12-day trip to Asia.

The president can still send messages on Twitter, of course  despite an 11-minute outage Thursday night, which the company blamed on an employee who was leaving the job and deactivated Trumps feed on the way out. But his feuds with Corker, Flake and other lawmakers have left him with little influence over the people who have the key votes.

The trip begins in Hawaii. As Jaweed Kaleem reports, the sentiment in the heavily Democratic state leans heavily toward Wish you werent here. Trump is scheduled to visit the headquarters of the Pacific military command, which is embroiled in controversy involving repeated accidents on Navy ships.

From there, hes scheduled to head to Japan, South Korea and China in a series of stops that, Noah Bierman wrote, likely will be dominated by tensions over North Korea and trade. Trump needs other countries help on the first and wants concessions from them on the second. Its a tough combination to sell.

OTHER NOTABLE STORIES

After the mass shooting in Las Vegas, the Trump administration said the focus should be on the victims, not politics. After the terror attack in New York, by contrast, Trump moved quickly to call for immigration restrictions and denounce the criminal justice system as a joke, Cathy Decker wrote.

Decker also previewed next weeks election for governor in Virginia, where both sides are testing likely 2018 election strategies, including racially fraught appeals from the Republicans.

Jerome Powell, Trumps pick to head the Federal Reserve, is likely to be tested early on interest rate policy, Don Lee wrote.

SEXUAL MISCONDUCT IN CALIFORNIAS CAPITAL

The wave of allegations of once-hidden sexual harassmentand assaults by prominent men has hit Sacramento, and after years of whispers, women are speaking out, Melanie Mason, Chris Megerian and Jack Dolan reported. Read some of the womens first-hand accounts.

This is far from the first time that sexual misconduct in Sacramento has come to light. But George Skelton, who has watched the state Capitol longer than anyone, says this time, empowered women could change things.

ALL THE PRESIDENTS TWEETS

Twitter has long been Trumps favored means of pushing his message. Were compiling all of Trumps tweets. Its a great resource. Take a look.

LOGISTICS

That wraps up this week. My colleague Christina Bellantoni will be back Monday with the weekday edition of Essential Politics. Until then, keep track of all the developments in national politics and the Trump administration with our Essential Washington blog, at our Politics page and on Twitter @latimespolitics.

Send your comments, suggestions and news tips to politics@latimes.com.

If you like this newsletter, tell your friends to sign up.

David.lauter@latimes.com

@davidlauter
Wait  did the president really say, Mission Accomplished? By Marc Olson Some are recalling the last time a president declared Mission accomplished, in May 2003 when George W. Bush was talking about Iraq. (Stephen Jaffe / AFP/Getty Images) President Trump on Saturday morning thanked his allies in a tweet that declared the airstrikes on Syria perfectly executed, but he might have wished hed stopped there. Instead, he ended his message with the phrase, Mission Accomplished! Thats a line that might have a previous president shaking his head. On May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq under a Mission Accomplished banner aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. That war, which began in March 2003, grew into a prolonged conflict that didnt end until 2011. In 2008, the White House said it had paid a price for the backdrop. A perfectly executed strike last night. Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military. Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 14, 2018 Facebook

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Auditor says Pentagon is censoring key data on the war in Afghanistan By Shashank Bengali The Pentagon is blocking the release of data showing how much of Afghanistans territory lies outside government control, censoring a key metric used to gauge progress in the 16-year war, a watchdog agency said Tuesday. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, an auditing agency established by Congress, said in its latest report that the Pentagon instructed it not to release unclassified data on how many districts and people are controlled or influenced by insurgent groups. This is the first time SIGAR has been specifically instructed not to release information marked unclassified to the American taxpayer, the head of the agency, John F. Sopko, wrote in a letter. Sopko also said the U.S.-led military coalition, for the first time since 2009, classified information about the size and attrition rates of the Afghan security forces, important indicators of progress in building up army and police forces on which the U.S. already has spent $70 billion since 2002. The decision to withhold more information from congressional oversight and the public comes amid growing violence in Afghanistan and an intensifying combat mission involving a greater number of American troops. Following a series of bombings in Kabul that left at least 136 people dead in 10 days, President Trump signaled on Monday that he was focused on trying to win the conflict militarily, saying, We dont want to talk with the Taliban. But data released by SIGAR since 2015 have shown how the insurgents have gained ground against Afghan security forces. In its previous quarterly report, the watchdog said that only 57% of Afghanistans 407 districts were under Afghan government control or influence as of August 2017, the lowest level of control since it began tracking the statistic in December 2015. The steady decline in government control should cause even more concern about its disappearance from public disclosure and discussion, Sopko wrote. The watchdog also accused the Pentagon of overstating the impact of its efforts to combat drug cultivation and trafficking, among the Talibans main sources of revenue. The Pentagon touted airstrikes that destroyed 25 drug labs in November and December, saying it eliminated nearly $100 million of Taliban revenue. The labs being destroyed are cheap and easy to replace, SIGAR said. According to some estimates, they only take three or four days to replace. Facebook

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Women journalists shunted to rear for Pences visit to Western Wall By Noga Tarnopolsky The view from the womens section. (Noga Tarnopolsky / Los Angeles Times) Vice-President Mike Pences 48-hour visit to Israel stumbled into a public storm Tuesday when female reporters covering his final stop at Jerusalems Western Wall were penned behind four rows of their male colleagues. White House officials told stunned journalists that the arrangement emanated from a request made by the Western Wall rabbi, Shmuel Rabinowitz, and followed Western Wall rules. Some women journalists said they could not recall such treatment in the past. In a statement to Israels Channel 10 news, the Western Wall Heritage Foundation said it was exactly as it was during the visit of the U.S. president to the Western Wall last May. Later in the day, in a statement to the newspaper Haaretz, the foundation blamed the United States embassy in Tel Aviv and Israeli security officials for the segregation, and announced they would reexamine the way they handle such events. Women who covered previous VIP visits said the Pence arrangements were significantly more onerous than previous visits, when male and female journalists were separated but not offered substantially different work conditions. LIVE coverage of our male colleagues granted access to cover VP at Western Wall as we are penned into #PenceFence pic.twitter.com/k3svkxfQsa  Noga Tarnopolsky (@NTarnopolsky) January 23, 2018 The arrangement reflected procedures at the Western Wall, Judaisms holiest site, where on regular days, men have access to two thirds of the area available for prayer. Tal Schneider, the diplomatic analyst for Globes, a financial newspaper, protested that the separation of men and women may be valid for the requirements of Orthodox prayer, but no one is praying here. We are here to work. I dont appreciate being restricted in my ability to work because I am a woman, she said. The discriminatory attitude towards women is infuriating and is unbefitting of a modern country. Yael Freidson, the Jerusalem affairs correspondent for Yediot Ahronot, Israels widest circulation newspaper, said she worried that her editors could choose male colleagues for the next assignment, knowing they would have better access. Before Pence arrived, journalists were herded onto a specially constructed platform in the middle of the Western Walls esplanade, with women guided to the right behind a white fence, and men, many carrying cameras, directed to the left, where they had more than double the space. Towards the end of the vice presidents 10-minute visit, male journalists were permitted into the VIP tent where he received a gift from Rabinowitz, while the women remained in their enclosure. None of the men publicly protested the treatment of their female colleagues. Israels Association of Women Journalists filed a formal complaint with Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, herself a woman. Facebook

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Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, after his pardon from Trump, says hell run for Senate in Arizona By Kurtis Lee (Mary Altaffer / Associated Press) (Mary Altaffer / Associated Press) Former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who last year was pardoned by President Trump in a case stemming from his enforcement tactics aimed at immigrants, announced Tuesday he will run for the open Senate seat in his home state. I am running for the U.S. Senate from the Great State of Arizona, for one unwavering reason: to support the agenda and policies of President Donald Trump in his mission to Make America Great Again, Arpaio, 85, said on Twitter. Hell enter a Republican primary for the seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Jeff Flake. Last summer, Trump pardoned Arpaio, who was convicted in July of criminal contempt for violating a federal court order to stop racially profiling Latinos. It was Arpaios roughly quarter-century as sheriff that gave him a national reputation for his tough treatment of people suspected of being in the country illegally. Repeated court rulings against his office for civil rights violations cost local taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. In the early 1990s, Arpaio directed construction of a tent city for immigration detainees, a measure he said was intended both to alleviate overcrowding and to underscore his aggressive enforcement measures. But it was open to the burning Arizona sun, and drew widespread criticism. After Trump entered the presidential race in July 2015, Arpaio invited him to Phoenix to talk about a crackdown on illegal immigration. He endorsed Trump just before the first votes in the Iowa caucuses in 2016 and frequently spoke out on behalf of Trumps campaign. Facebook

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President Trump ends controversial voter fraud commission By Kurtis Lee President Trump signed an executive order late Wednesday ending the voter fraud commission he launched last year as the panel faces a flurry of lawsuits and criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike. Trump signed the order disbanding the commission rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, created by executive order in May with the stated goal of restoring confidence and integrity in the electoral process, has faced a barrage of lawsuits in recent months over privacy concerns, as the commission sought personal data on voters across the country. Read More Facebook

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Congress returns to work with slimmer GOP majority to accomplish Trumps agenda By Lisa Mascaro Congress returns to work this week with unfinished business on spending, immigration and other crucial issues, but with an even narrower GOP majority that will make it tougher to move on President Trumps agenda. The House and Senate will convene Wednesday, swearing in the newly elected Democratic senator from Alabama, Doug Jones, and Minnesotas Tina Smith to replace a fellow Democrat, Sen. Al Franken, who is resigning as the latest high-profile public figure sidelined by allegations of sexual misconduct. The change gives Republicans only a one-seat margin in the Senate. Trump, fresh off passage of the GOP tax cuts bill, is pushing lawmakers to pivot quickly on his new year priorities of infrastructure investment and immigration, as well as his foreign policy agenda. But another legislative victory seems far off. Republicans have struggled to hold their majority together and Congress first must tackle critical stalled agenda items that leaders punted to 2018. Read More Facebook

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Trump threatens to cut off U.S. aid to Palestinians By Tracy Wilkinson President Trump on Tuesday angrily threatened to cut off U.S. aid to Palestinians as punishment for what he called their failure to show appreciation or respect to the United States. Writing on Twitter, the president compared the Palestinians to Pakistan, a nuclear-armed ally that abruptly drew his ire this week and a similar threat to drastically curtail aid. He accused the Palestinians of recalcitrance in what he described as their refusal to negotiate a peace deal with Israel. Palestinian officials have said they can no longer use Washington as a broker to restart peace talks with Israel following Trumps Dec. 6 decision to overturn decades of U.S. policy and recognize the disputed city of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and ultimately to move the U.S. Embassy there. The Palestinians also claim part of Jerusalem as the capital of an eventual independent state. Until now, the United States and most of the world agreed the citys political status was a matter to settle in final peace talks. The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly condemned any effort to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, and the Palestinian leadership said it would not meet with Vice President Mike Pence, who had planned a trip to the region. That trip is on hold. [W]e pay the Palestinians HUNDRED [sic] OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect, Trump wrote on Twitter. [W]ith the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them? In response to Trumps tweet, Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian official, issued a statement saying: Palestinian rights are not for sale. By recognizing Occupied Jerusalem as Israels capital Donald Trump has not only violated international law, but he has also singlehandedly destroyed the very foundations of peace and condoned Israels illegal annexation of the city. We will not be blackmailed, she said. President Trump has sabotaged our search for peace, freedom and justice. Now he dares to blame the Palestinians for the consequences of his own irresponsible actions! The United States does not pay large amounts of money directly to the Palestinian Authority, the government that rules over parts of the Palestinian West Bank. Instead, most money goes to the U.N., refugee or aid agencies and even Israel to pay for roads, welfare, schools, security and other Palestinian projects. The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, said Tuesday that the administration was planning to cut off one of those organizations, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, until the Palestinians return to the negotiating table. UNRWA, which receives around $300 million annually from the U.S., for years has been the lifeline to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It was not clear if Haley was threatening to cut all U.S. support for the agency. Special correspondent Noga Tarnopolsky in Jerusalem contributed to this report. Facebook

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The White House stops short of calling for government overthrow in Iran By Brian Bennett President Trump wants Iran to give its citizens basic human rights and stop being a state sponsor of terror, his top spokeswoman said, but the White House stopped short of calling for a change of government in Tehran. If they want to do that through current leadership, if thats possible, OK, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters. Sanders praised the organic popular uprising, which she said the widespread protests in Iran represented. The protests grew out of years of years of mismanagement, corruption, and foreign adventurism have eroded the Iranian peoples trust in their leaders, she said. Earlier Tuesday, Trump called Irans government brutal and corrupt and wrote in a tweet: The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching! Trump also blamed President Obama for foolishly giving Iran money that he said went to fund terrorism. The money he referred to were funds belonging to Iran that had been frozen by the U.S. and were released as part of the deal in 2015, which blocked Irans development of nuclear weapons. The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their pockets. The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Facebook

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Retirement of Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch clears the way for a Mitt Romney revival By David Lauter The retirement of Utahs senior senator, Orrin G. Hatch, opens the way for a widely expected Senate bid by Mitt Romney, the Republicans 2012 presidential nominee and a frequent critic of President Trump. Although Romney previously served for two terms as governor of Massachusetts (and was raised in Michigan, where his father was governor and his mother ran for the Senate), he comes from a prominent Mormon family with strong ties to Utah. He also served as chief executive of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. Hes viewed as a strong candidate for the Senate seat. Romneys criticisms of Trump, however, could prompt a challenge in a Republican primary. Trump was widely reported to have tried to convince Hatch to run for a seventh term, in part to head off a Romney candidacy. Last month, Romney and Trump were on opposite sides of one of the biggest political fights of the fall  the battle over the Senate seat from Alabama. The president strongly supported Roy Moore, the Republican candidate who had been accused of sexual misconduct by several women. Romney called Moore a stain on the GOP. Roy Moore in the US Senate would be a stain on the GOP and on the nation. Leigh Corfman and other victims are courageous heroes. No vote, no majority is worth losing our honor, our integrity.  Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) December 4, 2017 On Tuesday, Romney tweeted praise for Hatch, but did not immediately reveal his own plans. I join the people of Utah in thanking my friend, Senator Orrin Hatch for his more than forty years of service to our great state and nation. Read my full statement: https://t.co/YwjUpjez5y  Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) January 2, 2018 Facebook

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U.S. calls on Iran to unblock social media sites amid protests By The Associated Press The Trump administration is calling on Irans government to stop blocking Instagram and other popular social media sites as Iranians are demonstrating in the streets. Undersecretary of State Steve Goldstein says the U.S. wants Iran to open these sites. He says Instagram, Telegram and other platforms are legitimate avenues for communication. The United States is encouraging Iranians to use virtual private networks, known as VPNs. Those services create encrypted links between computers and can be used to access blocked websites. Goldstein says the U.S. is still communicating with Iranians in Persian through State Department accounts on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. He says the U.S. wants to encourage the protesters to continue to fight for whats right. Goldstein says the U.S. has an obligation not to stand by. Read More Facebook

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Trump blasts Democrats in advance of immigration meeting By Brian Bennett The day before a meeting of administration officials and congressional leaders on outstanding legislative business, President Trump accused Democrats of doing nothing to hammer out an immigration deal to protect from deportation people brought to the country illegally as children. Democrats are doing nothing for DACA  just interested in politics, Trump wrote in a Tweet on Tuesday morning, referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program by its acronym. Democrats are doing nothing for DACA - just interested in politics. DACA activists and Hispanics will go hard against Dems, will start falling in love with Republicans and their President! We are about RESULTS.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer along with the Republican leaders, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, are scheduled to meet on Wednesday at the Capitol with Trumps legislative director, Marc Short, and budget director, Mick Mulvaney. The White House on Tuesday said the meeting is to discuss separate spending caps on military and domestic programs. Yet the Democrats insist the discussion also must include a variety of legislative issues that Trump and Congress punted into the new year  on immigration, the budget, healthcare and more. That stance reflects Democrats leverage: Republicans need Democratic votes to pass a government-funding bill and avert a federal shutdown when the current funding expires Jan. 19. Democrats especially want separate legislation replacing the Obama-era DACA program; Trump in September ordered a phase-out of the program, beginning March 6, and called on Congress to act before then on an alternative way to address the plight of the group. However, Trump has demanded that any alternative must be part of a package including both money for a border wall and immigration limits. Democrats are opposed. Facebook

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Pakistan hits back after Trump accuses its leaders of lies and deceit By Aoun Sahi Pakistan lashed out Monday after President Trump accused its leaders of lies and deceit and suggested the United States would withdraw financial assistance to the nuclear-armed nation it once saw as a key ally against terrorism. U.S. Ambassador David Hale was summoned to the Foreign Ministry to discuss the presidents statement, U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Snelsire said. Pakistan lodged a strongly worded protest, according to two foreign office officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Pakistans prime minister, Shahid Abbasi, called a Cabinet meeting for Tuesday and a meeting of the National Security Committee on Wednesday to discuss Trumps New Years Day tweet. It was the presidents latest broadside against Pakistan after a speech in August in which he demanded its leaders crack down on the safe havens enjoyed by Taliban militants fighting U.S.-backed forces in neighboring Afghanistan. Read More Facebook

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Trump again cheers on Iran protests By Laura King President Trump expressed renewed support Sunday for protesters in Iran, declaring that people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. In a tweet from his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, the president said the nationwide economic protests that began on Thursday  and have taken on wider political overtones as they have grown in size --- were a signal that Iranians will not take it any longer. Big protests in Iran. The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. Looks like they will not take it any longer. The USA is watching very closely for human rights violations!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017 The presidents earlier hailing of the protests drew condemnation from Irans government. A Foreign Ministry spokesman called his comments deceitful and opportunistic. Following an overnight report of the first two fatalities stemming from the protests, Trump raised some eyebrows by expressing concern over human rights violations as authorities move to crack down on the demonstrations. During his first year in office, the president has shown scant inclination to press foreign governments to respect the fundamental rights of their citizens. The USA is watching closely for human rights violations! Trump said in his tweet Sunday. Some domestic critics have pointed to the presidents inclusion of Iranian nationals in his travel ban, suggesting he was more interested in bashing the Tehran government than in supporting freedom of speech in Iran. Even some of the presidents allies said that supporting the protesters on social media did not amount to making policy. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he had urged Trump to give a national address laying out his Iran strategy. President Trump is tweeting very sympathetically to the Iranian people, Graham said on CBS Face the Nation. But you just cant tweet here. You have to lay out a plan. Facebook

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Australian diplomats tip a factor in FBIs Russia inquiry By Associated Press Australian High Commissioner Alexander Downer. (Alastair Grant / Associated Press) An Australian diplomats tip appears to have helped persuade the FBI to investigate Russian meddling in the U.S. election and possible coordination with the Trump campaign, the New York Times reported Saturday. Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos told the diplomat, Alexander Downer, during a meeting in London in May 2016 that Russia had thousands of emails that would embarrass Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, the report said. Downer, a former foreign minister, is Australias top diplomat in Britain. Australia passed the information on to the FBI after the Democratic emails were leaked, according to the Times, which cited four current and former U.S. and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians role. The hacking and the revelation that a member of the Trump campaign may have had inside information about it were driving factors that led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016, the newspaper said. White House lawyer Ty Cobb declined to comment, saying in a statement that the administration is continuing to cooperate with the investigation now led by special counsel Robert Mueller to help complete their inquiry expeditiously. Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is a cooperating witness. Court documents unsealed two months ago show he met in April 2016 with Joseph Mifsud, a professor in London who told him about Russias cache of emails. This was before the Democratic National Committee became aware of the scope of the intrusion into its email systems by hackers later linked to the Russian government. The Times said Papadopoulos shared this information with Downer, but it was unclear whether he also shared it with anyone in the Trump campaign. Facebook

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Trump offers fresh support for protesters in Iran as demonstrations continue By Lisa Mascaro Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever, and the day will come when the Iranian people will face a choice. The world is watching! pic.twitter.com/kvv1uAqcZ9  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2017 President Trump again offered support Saturday for anti-government protesters in Iran, where a third day of demonstrations, the largest in years, spilled across the country amid fears of a crackdown. Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever, and the day will come when the Iranian people will face a choice. The world is watching! Trump wrote on Twitter. Trump took a break from playing golf near his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to tweet clips from his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September when he called for Iranian democratic reforms. Iranian authorities warned of potential violence as the street demonstrations, which began over economic conditions, swelled into frustrations with the theocratic rule of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Trump has maintained a hawkish stance toward Iran, sharply criticizing the landmark nuclear disarmament accord that Tehran reached with then-President Obama and five other nations in 2015. In October, Trump declined to certify the accord to Congress although the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency says Iran is complying with it. Several conservative GOP senators signaled their support for Trumps position and backed the protesters in Iran. Others in Congress did not immediately respond, however, amid conflicting reports over who had organized the demonstrations. Even after the billions in sanctions relief they secured through the nuclear deal, the ayatollahs still cant provide for the basic needs of their own people, said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a Trump ally and opponent of the nuclear deal. We should support the Iranian people who are willing to risk their lives to speak out against it, he added. Trump initially tweeted his support on Friday night. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a statement at that time as protests spread. There are many reports of peaceful protests by Iranian citizens fed up with the regimes corruption and its squandering of the nations wealth to fund terrorism abroad, Sanders said. The Iranian government should respect their peoples rights, including their right to express themselves. The world is watching. Facebook

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When it comes to U.S.-Russia relations, it takes two to tango, Kremlin says By Sabra Ayres The deteriorating relationship between the United States and Russia is one of the biggest disappointments of 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putins spokesman told reporters today. Russia would like to rebuild relations between the two adversaries, but it takes two to tango, Dmitry Peskov said today during a conference call with the press. We want and are looking for good mutually beneficial relations based on mutual respect, mutual trust with all countries, primarily with European ones, including the United States, but it is necessary to dance tango, as they say. Peskov blamed the ongoing anti-Russian Russophobia in Washington for playing a major role in blocking the two countries from moving forward in their relationship. U.S. investigations into the Trump presidential campaigns alleged collusion with the Kremlin during the 2016 U.S. election and accusations that the Kremlin tried to interfere with the electoral process continue to cast a dark shadow over the relationship, he said. Peskov told reporters that Moscow was perplexed by the investigations. The Kremlin has continued to deny having any involvement with the Trump campaign or doing anything to interfere with the American election. This is definitely a U.S. domestic affair, but in this case it naturally hurts our bilateral relations, which is regrettable, Peskov said. Relations between the U.S. and Russia have been categorized as the worst theyve been since the end of the Cold War. This year, Washington and Moscow have engaged in a diplomatic tit-for-tat in which both sides have been forced to reduce diplomatic staff, embassy properties have been repossessed by the hosting countries and visa services have been interrupted. The U.S. diplomatic mission to Russia shrank from 1,200 personnel, including some Russian local staff, to just over 450 across all its three consulates and embassy in Moscow. In the U.S., Russia was forced to vacate its San Francisco consulate. Moscow has also blamed anti-Russian sentiments on the recent decision by the International Olympic Committee to ban Russian teams from wearing their tricolor uniforms or flags during the upcoming games in South Korea. The international body accused some of the Russian national teams of doping. Facebook

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U.S. and Turkey resume reciprocal issuing of visas but frictions remain By Tracy Wilkinson The United States and Turkey began issuing reciprocal visas again on Thursday, more than two months after normal visa service was suspended in a dispute over the arrest of two U.S. diplomatic staffers in Istanbul  the latest friction between the two nominal allies. The State Department said it was lifting the visa restrictions after it was assured by the Turkish government that U.S. Embassy employees would not be arrested when performing their official duties. But the Turkish Embassy in Washington denied assurances were offered concerning the ongoing judicial processes, and suggested that the arrests were legal and justified. It is inappropriate to misinform the Turkish and American public that such assurances were provided, the embassy said in a statement. The dispute has aggravated the already tense relationship between the United States and Turkey, which is a member of the NATO military alliance. The two countries have clashed over U.S. support for Kurdish rebels in Syria and over Turkeys demands that the U.S. extradite a Turkish cleric who lives in rural Pennsylvania. After a failed coup attempt killed more than 250 people in July 2016, Turkeys autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, launched a harsh crackdown on his political opponents, arresting or firing tens of thousands of teachers, police, journalists, military officers and others. Erdogan accused Fethullah Gulen, an Islamic educator and former political ally, of orchestrating the coup. Gulen, who has lived in a compound in the Pocono Mountains, has denied any involvement. The Justice Department has so far denied Turkeys repeated demands to extradite Gulen. Erdogan raised the issue again at the White House in May, but his visit ended in a public relations disaster when his security guards brutally beat peaceful protesters outside the Turkish ambassadors residence. Two Turkish employees of the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul were arrested this fall for alleged ties to the 2016 coup attempt. The U.S. responded by suspending most visa services at its missions in Turkey in October. The Turkish government reciprocated in November. State Department officials said they have repeatedly demanded more information about any formal charges against the two employees. They reiterated on Thursday that serious concerns about the allegations remained. Facebook

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Trump: China caught RED HANDED allowing oil to reach North Korea By Brian Bennett (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press) President Trump isnt taking a holiday vacation from Twitter. In one of three tweets early on Thursday from his West Palm Beach golf club, he charged that China was caught RED HANDED allowing oil shipments to reach North Korean ports. Pronouncing himself very disappointed, Trump in effect was acknowledging the failure of his months-long effort to convince China to clamp down further on energy shipments going to the isolated country, which relies heavily on Beijing, as a way to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program. Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea. There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2017 Trumps tweet came after a South Korean newspaper published what it said were U.S. spy satellite images of Chinese ships selling oil to North Korean ships. The United Nations Security Council, which includes China, has voted repeatedly to restrict fuel shipments to North Korea. Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping in November to cut off North Koreas oil supply entirely, the American ambassador to the U.N., Nikki R. Haley, said at the time. It is unclear if Trumps admonishment of China was based on news reports or classified information he received from U.S. intelligence officials. There was no daily intelligence briefing on Trumps public schedule Thursday. He is expected to return to Washington next week after spending the Christmas holiday and New Years Eve at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. Facebook

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President Trump again falsely claims hes signed more bills than any president By Brian Bennett President Trump visits a firehouse in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Wednesday. (Nicholas Kamm / AFP) After another morning at his Florida golf club, President Trump visited firefighters and paramedics at a West Palm Beach firehouse and praised his own performance as president, including with a false boast. Trump touted his administrations work to roll back government regulations and cut taxes and claimed credit for the stock market hitting record highs. He also said hes signed more bills into law than any other president, which isnt true. We have signed more legislation than anybody, Trump said, standing in front of a rescue vehicle inside the fire station. We have more legislation passed, including  the record was Harry Truman a long time ago, and we broke that record, so we got a lot done, Trump said. An analysis by GovTrack, a website that tracks bills in Congress, shows that Trump has signed the fewest bills into law at this point than any president in more than 60 years, back to Dwight D. Eisenhower. Facebook

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Trump administration urges Russia to reinstate monitors in Ukraine, lower violence By Tracy Wilkinson Sergei Lavrov (AFP/Getty Images) Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asked Russia on Wednesday to reinstate its military personnel at a monitoring station in eastern Ukraine intended to quell escalating bloodshed. In a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, Tillerson also urged Russia to lower the level of violence and underscored the Trump administrations concern over increased fighting in Ukraine, the State Department said in a statement. Russia last week withdrew its monitors from the Joint Center on Coordination and Control, which is tasked with verifying a much-violated ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists. Moscow cited what it called restrictions and provocations from Ukrainian authorities that made it impossible for the observers to do their jobs. Washington has accused the pro-Russia forces of being responsible for many of the truce violations. Late last week, the State Department also announced plans to provide Ukraine with lethal defensive weapons, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, a decision that angered Moscow. The State Department statement did not say whether the weapons deal came up in Tillersons conversation with Lavrov. The two also discussed North Korea, its destabilizing nuclear program and the need for a diplomatic solution to achieve a denuclearized Korean peninsula, the statement said. Russia has offered to serve as a mediator between Washington and Pyongyang, but direct talks do not seem likely at this point. Facebook

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U.S. sanctions two more North Korean officials for ballistic missile program By Tracy Wilkinson The Trump administration announced sanctions Tuesday against two more North Korean officials for their alleged role in Pyongyangs expanding ballistic missiles program. The Treasury Department is targeting leaders of North Koreas ballistic missile programs, as part of our maximum pressure campaign to isolate [North Korea] and achieve a fully denuclearized Korean Peninsula, Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said in a statement. The nuclear-armed country tested an intercontinental ballistic missile last month that U.S. officials said appeared capable of reaching New York or Washington, a significant milestone in the countrys growing arsenal. The Treasury Department identified the two North Korean officials as Kim Jong Sik, who reportedly is a key figure in the ballistic missile program and led efforts to switch missiles from liquid to solid fuel (which makes them easier to hide before launch), and Ri Pyong Chol, who was reported to be a key official in the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles. The sanctions block banks, companies and individuals from doing any business with the targeted officials. It also allows the U.S. government to freeze any American assets owned by the officials. On Friday, the United Nations Security Council unanimously voted to add more sanctions on North Korea, its third round this year. The new measures order North Koreans working abroad to return home within two years, and ban nearly 90% of refined petroleum exports to the country. In a statement published Sunday by North Koreas state-run KCNA news agency, the foreign ministry denounced the new U.N. sanctions as an act of war. We define this sanctions resolution rigged up by the US and its followers as a grave infringement upon the sovereignty of our Republic, as an act of war violating peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula and the region and categorically reject the resolution, it said. Facebook

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Salt Lake Tribune calls on Sen. Orrin Hatch to not seek reelection in scathing editorial Perhaps the most significant move of Hatchs career is the one that should, if there is any justice, end it. The last time the senator was up for reelection, in 2012, he promised that it would be his last campaign. That was enough for many likely successors, of both parties, to stand down, to let the elder statesman have his victory tour and to prepare to run for an open seat in 2018. Clearly, it was a lie. Read the editorial>> Facebook

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Christmas Eve, Trump on Twitter: New attacks on FBI official, decrying Fake News By Laura King President Trump launched a Christmas Eve attack on FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whom he accuses of favoritism toward his former opponent, Hillary Clinton, and also returned to a longtime favored theme, excoriating the news media for failing to sufficiently extol his accomplishments. .@FoxNews-FBIs Andrew McCabe, in addition to his wife getting all of this money from M (Clinton Puppet), he was using, allegedly, his FBI Official Email Account to promote her campaign. You obviously cannot do this. These were the people who were investigating Hillary Clinton.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 24, 2017 Thank you President TRUMP!! pic.twitter.com/LKdkT0FL99  oregon4TRUMP (@shawgerald4) December 23, 2017 The Fake News refuses to talk about how Big and how Strong our BASE is. They show Fake Polls just like they report Fake News. Despite only negative reporting, we are doing well - nobody is going to beat us. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 24, 2017 Trump, who is spending the holidays at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, also sent Christmas greetings to deployed military personnel, praising them for success in the fight against terrorism. The early-morning swipe at McCabe followed a flurry of tweets attacking the deputy FBI chief on Saturday. McCabe, who has been a lightning rod for Republican attacks on the FBI, is expected to retire early in the new year. How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wifes campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2017 FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2017 Critics say the president and his allies are in the midst of a systematic campaign to denigrate the FBI and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is looking into potential collusion by the Trump campaign in Russias attempts to sway the 2016 presidential election. In a pair of statements on Twitter, Trump again expressed scorn regarding news coverage of his administration. For months, the president has been particularly critical of reports regarding the Russia investigation and more recently has repeatedly complained he does not receive enough credit for a booming stock market. In his video conference message to troops overseas, the president made apparent reference to the fight against the militants of Islamic State, who over the last year have lost most of the territory they previously controlled in Iraq and Syria, including former strongholds in Mosul and Raqqah. Were winning, Trump told military personnel deployed in Qatar, Kuwait, Guantanamo Bay and aboard the guided missile destroyer Sampson. Reporters traveling with the president heard his address, but were ushered from the room before he took questions from the troops. The president often breaks with longtime custom and makes politically charged statements at events in which he addresses military personnel. Facebook

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Trumps Wells Fargo tweet cited in court hearing as reason to remove Mulvaney as CFPB acting chief By Jim Puzzanghera A recent tweet by President Trump about possible penalties against Wells Fargo & Co. was cited during a court hearing Friday as a reason for removing White House official Mick Mulvaney as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The attorney for Leandra English  the bureaus deputy director who has said she is the rightful acting head  said Trumps tweet showed he was trying to exercise improper influence over the independent consumer watchdog. I think that [tweet] shows you this isnt just some hypothetical concern, the attorney, Deepak Gupta, told Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia during a nearly two-hour hearing. Read More Facebook

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Trump administration recognizes Honduran presidents reelection By Tracy Wilkinson The Trump administration on Friday formally recognized the incumbent president of Honduras, conservative Juan Orlando Hernandez, as the winner of a bitterly contested presidential election held last month. In a statement, the State Department congratulated Hernandez while also acknowledging widespread irregularities in the Nov. 26 vote and calling for a robust national dialogue to overcome political discord in the Central American country, a close ally of the administration. The Organization of American States, which monitored the election, said it was so flawed that only a new round of voting could establish a fair and transparent outcome. But the U.S. rejected that determination. Uproar over the contest led to demonstrations in Honduras that left numerous civilians dead after state security forces opened fire on the protests. Activists and others voiced criticism Friday of the administrations decision. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), a leading Democratic voice on Central American issues, said he was angry and deeply disturbed by the State Department decision. The recent elections in Honduras were deeply flawed, chaotic and marred by numerous irregularities, McGovern said. U.S.-Honduran cooperation on matters such as drug-trafficking, violence and immigration requires a credible, legitimate government that has the support of its people, in Honduras, McGovern said. Hernandezs victory also was controversial because it was the first time a sitting president was allowed to run for re-election, barred until now by the Honduran Constitution. Facebook

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Senate Leader Mitch McConnell says fixing DACA is no emergency until March By Lisa Mascaro Amanda Bayer, left with banner, and Marisol Maqueda, right, join a rally in support of so-called Dreamers outside the White House. (Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday hes committed to allowing a vote on a bill for so-called Dreamers in January, but sees no rush to resolve the deportation threat posed by President Trumps decision to end a program protecting immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. There isnt that much of an emergency there, he said. There is no emergency until March. Well keep talking about it. Trump called for phasing out by March the Obama-era program that allows the young immigrants, many of them longtime residents, to get two-year deferrals of any deportation threat so they can legally attend school or work. Beneficiaries must be vetted for security purposes. Trump told Congress to come up with a legislative alternative for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which President Obama created by executive order, to protect those currently eligible. A bipartisan Senate group has been working with the White House, but talks stalled this week amid administration demands for curbs on legal immigration flows in exchange for protecting the DACA recipients. Meanwhile, Dreamers and immigrant advocates stormed the Capitol in recent days pressing for the help promised by Trump and Democratic congressional leaders that failed to materialize in the years final legislation. Advocacy groups say more than 120 immigrants each day are falling out of compliance without DACA renewals, putting them at risk of deportation. The number that is projected to swell to more than 1,000 a day in March. Weve been gridlocked on this issue for years, McConnell said. We want to have a signature. We dont just want to spin our wheels and have nothing to show for it. Facebook

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President Trump signs tax bill By Noah Bierman (Alex Brandon / Associated Press) President Trump on Friday morning signed a sweeping tax-cut measure  his first major legislative achievement  before heading off for a Christmas vacation at his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Fla. The president also privately signed a short-term spending bill to fund government operations through Jan. 19. Congress approved it Thursday, after Republican leaders were unable to bridge differences in their own party as well as with Democrats to get agreement on funding for the full fiscal year. The stopgap bill punts fights on immigration and other issues to January. The tax bill, approved earlier this week in Congress in largely party-line votes, slashes corporate tax rates from 35% to 21% and also includes a host of other provisions for individuals, all intended to boost the economy. Critics point to nonpartisan analyses showing that the package, including changes greatly reducing the number of estates subject to taxes, steers the bulk of tax benefits to top earners and the wealthy, including Trump, despite his repeated claims that hell take a hit. Trump signed the bill quietly Friday, but held a public ceremony with Republican lawmakers on Wednesday after the bills passage; he also tweeted about the measure extensively. He is expected to hold another public ceremony after the New Years holiday. Facebook

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Pelosi urges Ryan to prevent Republicans from curtailing Houses Russia probe By Chris Megerian House Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin greets House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to Speaker Paul D. Ryan on Friday urging him to ensure the Houses investigation into Russian interference with last years presidential campaign is not cut short. The American people deserve a comprehensive and fair investigation into Russias attacks, wrote Pelosi, of San Francisco, in her letter. Political haste must not cut short valid investigatory threads. The House Intelligence Committee has been probing the issue since March 1, and Democrats have repeatedly warned that Republicans are trying to wrap up its work prematurely. Pelosi said Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, should take urgent action to ensure this investigation can continue. AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Ryan, said Pelosi simply wants to see this investigation go on forever in order to suit her political agenda. Whether it concludes next month, next year, or in three years, she will say it is too soon, Strong said in a statement. She added, The investigation will conclude when the committee has reached a conclusion. The committees work is led by Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Texas). His spokeswoman, Emily Hytha, said he remains committed to conducting this investigation as thoroughly and expeditiously as possible. With more interviews scheduled, the investigation shows signs of extending into next year, Bloomberg reported Friday. BREAKING: Steve Bannon and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski have been sent letters requesting they testify to House Intel panel in early January, per @HouseInSession  Laura Litvan (@LauraLitvan) December 22, 2017 Facebook

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Congress votes to avert government shutdown, but Senate fails to pass disaster aid package By Lisa Mascaro ( (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)) Congress approved a temporary spending bill to prevent a government shutdown, but failed to complete work on an $81-billion disaster aid package to help California, Gulf Coast states and Puerto Rico recover from wildfires and hurricanes, as lawmakers scrambled Thursday to wrap up business before a Christmas break. The stopgap measure continues federal operations for a few more weeks, setting up another deadline for Jan. 19. But it left undone a long list of priorities that members of both parties had hoped to finish this year. Read More Facebook

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Wells Fargo says raises were not linked to tax bill passage  then backtracks By James Rufus Koren Wells Fargo & Co.s move to raise its minimum pay to $15 an hour was part of a long-term plan and not related to the passage of the Republican tax overhaul as the company implied, said a bank spokesman, who later backtracked and stated the hikes were a result of the bills approval. The bank was among several large corporations to publicly announce pay raises or new investments immediately following the final House vote in an apparent public relations offensive to boost the popularity of the tax bill The San Francisco bank had implied the direct linkage to the tax legislation in a news release Wednesday, shortly after Congress passed the tax overhaul, which slashes the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35% starting Jan. 1. Read More Facebook

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Obamacare signups beat expectations, despite Trump administrations opposition By Noam N. Levey President Trump with Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) Despite Trump administration efforts to discourage people from signing up, the number of people enrolling for Affordable Care Act coverage nearly hit last years level, the government revealed Thursday. Exchange open enrollment for 2018 coverage ended w/ approx 8.8M people enrolling in coverage. Great job to the @CMSGov team for the work you did to make this the smoothest experience for consumers to date. We take pride in providing great customer service.  Administrator Seema Verma (@SeemaCMS) December 21, 2017 The 8.8 million people who enrolled in the 36 states that use the federal governments healthcare.gov system significantly exceeded most forecasts. The Trump administration stopped most outreach and other efforts this year aimed at getting people to sign up. The president also repeatedly said publicly that Obamacare was dead. Open enrollment continues in California and several other states that run their own healthcare marketplaces. The figures from the federal government indicate that when those states wrap up for the year, the number of people covered by Obamacare will be nearly the same as in 2017. Read More Facebook

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U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly condemns U.S. policy change on Jerusalem despite Trumps threats By Tracy Wilkinson The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly voted Thursday to condemn President Trumps decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, despite Trumps threats to punish countries that voted against the U.S. position. The resolution passed in an emergency session at U.N. headquarters in New York with 128 in favor, nine opposed and 35 abstentions. The nonbinding resolution demands that Washington rescind its declaration, which included a plan to transfer the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in coming years. The resolution value is mostly symbolic, showing how isolated the U.S. is in the move. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., warned this week that she would be taking names of countries that opposed the U.S., and Trump on Wednesday suggested he might cut U.S. aid to governments that voted in favor of the resolution. Let them vote against us, Trump said. Well save a lot. We dont care. The U.S. recognition of Jerusalem reversed decades of international consensus on the political status of the divided city. Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as their capital in a future independent state. Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said the U.N. was facing an unprecedented test and that history would remember those who stand by what is right. Facebook

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Democrats defend Robert Mueller, saying Russia investigation must be allowed to continue By Chris Megerian Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) speaking during a committee hearing earlier this year. (Molly Riley / Associated Press) House Democrats said they will fight Republican attempts to discredit and undermine the work of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating whether President Trumps associates helped Russian meddling in last years election. There is an organized effort by Republicans, in concert with Fox News, to spin a false narrative and conjure up outrageous scenarios to accuse special counsel Mueller of being biased, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) said. Trump has said he has no plan to fire Mueller, but Democrats are alarmed by escalating criticism of the special counsels work. Why is the president afraid of the facts and the truth? Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) said. He added, No matter what the facts are, were satisfied if the investigation is complete. A letter of support signed by 171 Democratic members of Congress will be sent to Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller, a former FBI director, and oversees his investigation. Rosenstein has defended Mueller in the face of Republican criticisms. Facebook

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U.S. blacklists Myanmar army general who it says oversaw atrocities against Rohingya Muslims By Shashank Bengali The Trump administration on Thursday blacklisted a Myanmar army general who it said oversaw human rights abuses committed by security forces against Rohingya Muslims. Imposing economic sanctions against the general, Maung Maung Soe, was the toughest action the United States has taken in response to a brutal army offensive that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has described as ethnic cleansing. In a statement, the Treasury Department said it had examined credible evidence of Maung Maung Soes activities, including allegations against Burmese security forces of extrajudicial killings, sexual violence and arbitrary arrest as well as the widespread burning of villages. The Rohingya are an ethnic and religious minority of about 1 million people in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, also known as Burma. The United Nations says that more than 640,000 Rohingya have fled the country since August, after the army launched clearance operations in response to attacks carried out by a Rohingya insurgent group against security forces. Rohingya refugees in crowded camps in neighboring Bangladesh have described horrific violence by Myanmar forces, including mass rapes, summary executions and children being burned alive. The aid group Doctors Without Borders estimates that 6,700 people were killed in the first month of the operation. Myanmar authorities deny committing atrocities and say that only a few hundred fighters were killed. Maung Maung Soe was chief of the armys Western Command, which carried out the offensive. He was transferred from his position last month, according to news reports. He was one of 13 individuals worldwide who were blacklisted Thursday under a new U.S. law that gives the Treasury Department authority to target officials for human rights abuses and corruption. Others included former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh; Gulnara Karimova, daughter of the late Uzbekistan dictator Islam Karimov; and Artem Chaika, son of Russias prosecutor-general. Today, the United States is taking a strong stand against human rights abuse and corruption globally by shutting these bad actors out of the U.S. financial system, said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. The sanctions freeze any assets Maung Maung Soe holds in the United States and bars Americans from doing business with him. It is also a sign of how quickly U.S. relations with Myanmar have soured. Under the Obama administration, the United States forged closer ties with the former military dictatorship and eased economic and political sanctions as the country began implementing democratic reforms. But Myanmar, which does not regard the Rohingya as citizens, has lashed out at the international community over the current crisis. It has jailed journalists, blocked access to affected areas in the western state of Rakhine and this week barred a U.N. human rights investigator from entering the country. Rohingya activists said the U.S. action would not have much effect on a country that survived under economic sanctions for years. It is the whole military institution that has a policy to persecute these people, said Nay San Lwin, a Rohingya activist and blogger in Germany. According to the U.S.s own definition, the army is carrying out ethnic cleansing. They have a responsibility to protect these people. Sanctions on one person are really not enough. Facebook

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Dreamers will have to wait until next year for Congress long-promised protections By Lisa Mascaro Amanda Bayer, left with banner, and Marisol Maqueda, right, join a rally in support of so-called Dreamers outside the White House. (Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press)) A promised year-end deal to protect the young immigrants known as Dreamers from deportation collapsed Wednesday as Republicans in Congress  fresh off passage of their tax plan  prepared to punt nearly all remaining must-do agenda items into the new year. Congressional leaders still hope that before leaving town this week they can pass an $81-billion disaster relief package with recovery funds for California wildfires and Gulf Coast states hit during the devastating hurricane season. But passage even of that relatively popular measure remained in doubt as conservatives balked at the price tag. Rather than finish the year wrapping up the legislative agenda, the GOP majorities in the House and Senate struggled over their next steps. Read More Facebook

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Chants of protest drown out any caroling this holiday season at the Capitol By Lisa Mascaro U.S. Capitol Police arrest a man wearing a Santa Claus hat during a protest against the Republican tax bill. (Alex Edelman / AFP/Getty Image) Outside the U.S. Capitol, the lights on a towering Christmas tree are flipped on each evening, giving the Engelmann spruce a festive twinkle; inside the marble halls, wreaths and garlands decorate doorways and alcoves ahead of the holidays. But the spirit of the season has been punctuated by other sights: a Jumbotron parked across from the Capitol reflecting pool broadcasts images of young immigrants who face deportation; Little Lobbyists, children with complex medical needs, were featured in a recent news conference; protesters filed into the visitor galleries to shout against the Republican tax plan. While its beginning to look a lot like Christmas at the Capitol, its also shaping up to be a holiday season of protest. Read More Facebook

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Tax bill simplifies filing for some but complicates it for others  and dont count on that postcard By Jim Puzzanghera A priority of the Republicans tax overhaul was simplification, and they drove home the point this fall with an omnipresent prop: a red-white-and-blue postcard. Were making things so simple that you can do your taxes on a form the size of a postcard, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said last month, pulling one from his jacket pocket as he and Republican leaders unveiled their bill. They gave a couple of the cards to President Trump at a White House meeting a few hours later and flashed them often during news conferences and TV interviews in the coming days. Read More Facebook

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Top U.N. human rights official reportedly wont seek reelection The top United Nations official for human rights, who has frequently criticized the Trump administration, has reportedly decided not to seek a second term, saying his work had become untenable. Zeid Raad Hussein, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, notified his staff in an email that was obtained by several news outlets, including Agence France-Presse. Staying when his four-year term is up for renewal at the end of August might involve bending a knee in supplication, AFP quoted Husseins email as saying. Hussein is a Jordanian prince who has criticized, among other things, President Trumps attempts to ban visitors or refugees from six predominantly Muslim countries. The news comes a day before the U.N. General Assembly is expected to vote on a nonbinding resolution condemning the Trump administrations formal declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a decision that went against international consensus. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., has warned she will be taking names of those who vote against the United States on Thursday. Trump echoed that sentiment Wednesday, voiced support for Haley and implying to reporters that he would consider cutting off U.S. aid to countries that vote against the U.S. Well, were watching those votes, Trump said. Let them vote against us. Well save a lot. We dont care. On Monday, the United States lost a Security Council vote 14-1 on a binding resolution that would have required Washington to rescind its declaration. Haley then vetoed the resolution. Facebook

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Top Democrat warns Trump not to fire Mueller or interfere with his investigation By Chris Megerian Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, one of the top Democrats involved in the congressional inquiries into Russian interference in last years election, said Wednesday that any attempt by President Trump to interfere with the separate criminal investigation would be a gross abuse of power. Warner, who is vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, delivered his warning from the Senate floor as Republicans escalate their criticism of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his team of prosecutors and FBI agents. Some Democrats believe Trump is laying the groundwork to fire Mueller even though the president has publicly denied it. Mueller was appointed in May after Trump fired FBI Director James B. Comey. In the United States of America, no one, no one is above the law, not even the president, Warner said. Congress must make clear to the president that firing the special counsel or interfering with his investigation by issuing pardons of essential witnesses is unacceptable and would have immediate and significant consequences. Some Democrats say the White House may try to in effect short-circuit the Mueller investigation by replacing Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein, who is the only official empowered to fire Mueller. Rosenstein recently told Congress that the special counsel is acting appropriately and that he would not dismiss Mueller without just cause. Facebook

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We have essentially repealed Obamacare, Trump says after tax bill passes By Brian Bennett President Trump at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday at the White House. (Chris Kleponis / Getty Images) President Trump is celebrating Republicans passage of the tax overhaul bill as a two-fer: On Wednesday, in addition to tax cuts, he checked off his promise to repeal Obamacare, pointing to a provision in the bill to end the penalty on Americans who dont get health insurance. We have essentially repealed Obamacare, Trump told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. Other provisions of the 2010 Affordable Care Act are still in place, and Trump and congressional Republicans failed completely on the replace half of their vow to repeal and replace the program. In Trumps view, however, stripping away the laws individual mandate to get insurance or else pay a tax penalty amounts to repeal of the whole law. Congressional analysts have said that millions of people would lose insurance as a result, either by choice or because they cannot afford it without subsidies, and that premiums would increase for others as younger, healthy people drop coverage. We will come up with something much better, Trump said, adding that block grants to states could be one approach. By his comments, Trump tacitly acknowledged that repeal of the mandate is likely the best he can do following Republicans failure this year to agree on a repeal-and-replace bill. Looking back on his first year, Trump also boasted of his administrations efforts against the Islamic State and increased immigration enforcement. He said he had not given up on funding a border wall or tightening immigration law to limit citizens ability to resettle foreign relatives in the country. He said he would very shortly visit the border with Mexico near San Diego to see wall prototypes that have been built. He didnt answer a reporters shouted question about how he would personally benefit from the tax bill. Facebook

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House gives final OK to GOP tax plan, sending it to Trump By Lisa Mascaro Congress gave final approval to the GOP tax plan Wednesday, 224-201, after the House took an unusual do-over vote to clear up differences with the Senate-passed bill. The $1.5-trillion package now heads to President Trump, who plans to sign it into law. The House had approved the tax bill on Tuesday but was forced to take another vote Wednesday because a couple of provisions in the version it approved were found to be in violation of Senate procedures. Those provisions were dropped before the Senate gave its approval early Wednesday. Critics complained the Republicans rushed to pass the sweeping tax plan to deliver Trump a year-end legislative victory, but supporters shrugged off the problems as minor. The tax plan dramatically cuts corporate rates and provides some individual rate reductions, overhauling the tax code for the first time in 30 years. Facebook

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Trump administration effort to block immigrant from having an abortion fails By David Savage Scott Lloyd is director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images) President Trumps lawyers rushed to the Supreme Court and U.S. appeals court in Washington on Monday evening to file emergency appeals seeking to prevent an immigrant in detention, dubbed Jane Roe in court, from having an abortion. That set the stage for a legal showdown on whether the administration can block pregnant minors in custody from choosing to have an abortion. But the legal clash, which the administration has seemed eager to have, fizzled out Tuesday when the governments lawyers admitted the 17-year-old unaccompanied minor in their custody was actually 19. They said they had obtained her birth certificate and realized she was not a minor after all. As a result, Roe, who is 10 weeks pregnant, will no longer be held in a detention center for immigrant minors, and will not be subject to an administration policy that tries to prevent minors in immigration detention from having abortions. Administration lawyers told appeals court judges Tuesday night that Roe was being sent to a facility for adults and likely would be released until her immigration status can be resolved. In a brief order, the D.C. Circuit Court agreed to put the case on hold, but told government attorneys to confirm that she will be permitted to obtain an abortion. The administration had earlier tried to delay another young woman, referred to in court as Jane Poe, from having an abortion, but officials relented on Monday because she was 22 weeks pregnant and nearing the time limit for a legal abortion. Facebook

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Senate panel rejects Trumps pick to lead Export-Import Bank, a leader in the effort to shut it down By Jim Puzzanghera A Senate committee on Tuesday rejected President Trumps nominee to lead the Export-Import Bank, extending the chaos at the embattled agency whose job is to help U.S. companies sell their goods abroad. Two Republicans joined all Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee in voting against former Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) to be the banks president. Garrett had been a vocal critic of the Ex-Im Bank and a leader of a conservative effort that shut the bank down for five months in 2015 by blocking its congressional authorization. He and other bank opponents branded the banks aid as crony capitalism. Read More Facebook

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Congress proposes $81-billion disaster aid package, including funds for California wildfires By Lisa Mascaro Congress is set to consider an $81-billion disaster aid package that includes wildfire recovery money for California and other Western states as well as hurricane relief with a price tag reflecting a year of record-setting natural calamities. The legislation, the text of which was released late Monday, would provide almost twice as much as the $44 billion the White House sought last month to cover relief efforts along the Gulf Coast and in the Caribbean. Republican congressional leaders added more money after California lawmakers objected that the administration had failed to include help for areas damaged by wildfires and Democrats protested that the overall amount President Trump asked for was insufficient. Read More Facebook

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White House blames North Korea for worldwide WannaCry cyber attack By Noah Bierman The Royal London Hospital, a victim of the unprecedented global cyberattack in May. (Niklas Hallen / AFP/Getty Images) The White House officially blamed North Korea on Tuesday for the cyberattack in May known as WannaCry that infected hundreds of thousands of computers in 150 countries, affecting healthcare, financial services and vital infrastructure. Thomas P. Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counter-terrorism, noted in a briefing with reporters that the consequences were beyond economic. He warned that North Koreas malicious behavior is growing more egregious. Bossert did not specify what evidence American officials have to blame North Korea, citing security issues, but he cited the countrys prior attacks as revealing hallmarks of how Pyongyang and its network of hackers operates. He said other allied countries had joined the United States in making the determination. The administration did not announce any penalties on the regime, which is already subject to severe sanctions over its nuclear program. They want to hold the entire world at risk, Bossert said of North Koreas rulers, referring to the nations nuclear and missile provocations as well as its alleged cyberattack. Given its isolation and international sanctions, North Korea is desperate for funds. Bossert said the country did not appear to make much money on the ransom attack, as word spread that paying a ransom did not result in getting computers unlocked. Its primary goal, he said, was spreading chaos. Bossert and Jeanette Manfra, assistant secretary of homeland security for cybersecurity and communication, said the United States, through a combination of preparation and luck, escaped the worst of the attack, as a patch to the malware was found before U.S. companies and other interests were severely crippled. However, Manfra said, We cannot be complacent. Bossert added, Next time were not going to get so lucky. Manfra praised Microsoft and Facebook for their efforts to combat WannaCry and to block more recent attempts to hack U.S. systems. She and Bossert urged more cooperation and information-sharing from American and multinational companies, arguing a united front is vital to protecting against bad actors who do not differentiate between government and business. Bossert rejected criticism that the the Trump administration has more aggressively called out North Korean cyberattacks than it has Russias meddling in the 2016 election. He said the administration has continued the national emergency initiated by President Obama. Facebook

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GOP lures some mountain bike groups in its push to roll back protections for public land By Evan Halper When their vision of creating a scenic cycling trail through a protected alpine backcountry hit a snag, San Diego area mountain bikers turned to an unlikely ally: congressional Republicans aiming to dilute conservation laws. The frustrations of the San Diego cycling group and a handful of similar organizations are providing tailwind to the GOP movement to lift restrictions on the countrys most ecologically fragile and pristine landscapes, officially designated wilderness. Resentment of these cyclists over the longstanding ban on mechanized transportation in that fraction of the nations public lands presents a political opportunity for Republicans eager to drill fissures in the broad coalition of conservation-minded groups united against the GOP environmental agenda. Read More Facebook

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Vice president postpones Israel trip a second time in case his vote is needed to pass tax cut bill By Noah Bierman (Ethan Miller / Getty Images) Vice President Mike Pence is delaying his trip to Egypt and Israel for a second time in case he is needed to break a tie in the Senate for the tax bill that is expected to pass narrowly this week. Two White House officials confirmed the changed schedule, which they say is unrelated to to protests in the region over the administrations decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital. Pence had initially been scheduled to leave last Saturday. Late last week, the White House moved the trip back a few days to Tuesday night, in case Pence was needed to break a Senate tie. But Monday, they decided to postpone the trip further, to January, given the possibility of a late Senate vote and the coming holidays. He wants to see it through the finish line, said a White House official, referring to the tax measure that is a centerpiece of the Republican legislative agenda. We dont want to leave anything to chance. The mid-January dates will allow Pence more breathing room to merge schedules with embassies and hotels, the official said. Trump still plans to address the Israeli Knesset, a high-profile venue to discuss the Jerusalem decision where it is most popular. Facebook

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Trump judicial pick who drew ridicule at hearing withdraws By Associated Press A White House official says the Trump judicial nominee whose qualifications were questioned by a Republican senator has withdrawn his nomination. Matthew Petersen, who was nominated by President Trump to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, has been the subject of widespread ridicule since he was unable to define basic legal terms during his confirmation hearing Wednesday. A White House official says Petersen has withdrawn his nomination and that Trump has accepted the withdrawal. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the development publicly. Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy pressed Petersen, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, who testified he had never tried a case, on his qualifications to the bench. Facebook

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Trump says McCain will return to Washington if needed for tax vote By Laura King President Trump said Sunday that Sen. John McCain, who is battling an aggressive form of brain cancer, was returning home to Arizona for the holidays but would come back to Washington if needed to cast a vote on the Republicans tax overhaul bill. The Arizona Republicans office announced last week that McCain was receiving treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington for complications from his cancer treatment. McCains daughter Meghan tweeted earlier Sunday that her 81-year-old father would be spending Christmas in Arizona. The Senate is expected to vote early this week on the tax cut legislation, but the GOP appeared to have secured sufficient support without McCains vote. John will come back if we need his vote, Trump told reporters as he returned from a weekend at the presidential retreat at Camp David. Hes going through a very tough time. Facebook

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Putin calls Trump to thank him for U.S. help foiling terrorist strike By Laura King Vladimir Putin phoned President Trump to thank him for what the Russian president said was CIA help in foiling a terrorist attack, the Kremlin said on Sunday. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed the two leaders conversation to reporters. It was the second time that the two leaders had talked in four days; Trump called Putin on Thursday to thank the Russian leader for lauding the U.S. economy. Putin, in his annual year-end news conference, had praised Trump for a strong performance by the U.S. stock market. Perhaps ironically, given his credit to the CIAs recent help, Putin at that news event dismissed as hysteria the consensus among American intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential campaign. In reporting Putins call to Trump on Sunday, the official Russian news agency Tass said Putin thanked his American counterpart for information shared by the US Central Intelligence Agency that had helped break up a plot to set off explosives in St. Petersburgs landmark Kazan Cathedral and elsewhere in the city, which is Russias second-largest. Russian authorities last week had credited their countrys counter-intelligence service, the FSB, for foiling the attacks. They reported that seven people affiliated with Islamic State had been detained in St. Petersburg in connection with the plot. The FSB, the successor organization to the KGB, announced Friday that the group had planned to carry out the attacks on Saturday, and that one of those in custody had confessed to the cathedral bomb plot. Facebook

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Mnuchin: Government shutdown unlikely but could happen By Laura King Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said on Sunday that a government shutdown this week was unlikely but possible. A two-week stopgap spending bill passed by Congress earlier this month provided enough funding to keep the government running through Friday. A deadlock on another temporary funding measure would open the door to a possible shutdown. I cant rule it out, but I cant imagine it occurring, Mnuchin said on Fox News Sunday, suggesting everyone had an interest in avoiding the government grinding to a halt and federal workers going unpaid, especially in the holiday season. I would expect that both the House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats, understand if they cant agree on this, they need to have another short-term extension to move this to January, the Treasury secretary said. We cant have a government shutdown in front of Christmas. In May, irate over concessions made to Democrats in hammering out a spending measure, President Trump tweeted that a good shutdown might help matters. While both parties agree that a government shutdown involves a degree of disruption that is not beneficial to either side, shutdowns in 1995-96 and in 2013 mainly caused a backlash against Republicans. The latest funding measure is to be taken up after a vote on a massive GOP tax overhaul, expected by midweek. Facebook

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Trump transition team says sensitive emails should not have been shared with Robert Mueller By Chris Megerian (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) President Trumps transition team is crying foul over how special counsel Robert S. Mueller III obtained emails for his investigation into Russian meddling in last years campaign and possible Trump campaign complicity. Kory Langhofer, a lawyer for the transition team, sent a letter to Congress on Saturday saying there was an unauthorized disclosure of emails. While the Trump transition is long over, the transition team remains a nonprofit organization. Its emails were hosted by the General Services Administration, a federal agency. Mueller reportedly obtained the emails directly from the agency. There are attorney-client communications, Langhofer said in an interview. There are executive-privileged communications. He added, What were asking Congress to do is to take some legislative action to make sure this never happens again. Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsels office, defended the process for obtaining emails. When we have obtained emails in the course of our ongoing criminal investigation, we have secured either the account owners consent or appropriate criminal process, he said. The letter was first reported by Fox News. A request for comment from the General Services Administration was not immediately answered. This story has been updated with a comment from the special counsels office. Facebook

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Virginia house arrest is ending for Paul Manafort By Chris Megerian (Mark Wilson / Getty Images) A federal judge agreed Friday to end Paul Manaforts house arrest in Virginia, allowing President Trumps former campaign manager to return to Florida while awaiting trial. The decision followed a dispute between Manaforts legal team and prosecutors working for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who accused Manafort of violating a court order restricting public statements about the case. Under the terms of the judges order, Manafort will be allowed to live at his home in Florida as long as he stays within Palm Beach and Broward counties and obeys a curfew from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. If he misses a court appearance, he would forfeit four properties valued at $10 million total. The deal, which includes GPS monitoring, is not as permissive as Manafort originally sought. He had asked to be able to travel freely among Florida, New York, Virginia and Washington. Manafort faces criminal charges of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. He has pleaded not guilty. Facebook

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GOP negotiators enhance child tax credit to win over Sen. Rubio By Lisa Mascaro Republican negotiators slightly increased the refundable portion of the expanded child tax credit in their tax plan, raising it to $1,400 in hopes of winning back Sen. Marco Rubios (R-Fla.) support ahead of next weeks vote. Rubio announced Thursday he was withholding support after negotiators ignored his push to make the expanded tax credit, which increases from the current $1,000 to $2,000 in the proposed bill, fully refundable for lower- and moderate-income filers. The refundable portion in the original bill was $1,100. The Florida senator argued that was not enough to help working-class Americans, many of whom already view the GOP plan as tilted toward the wealthy. Rubios office was waiting to see the final text before commenting on whether the change was enough to win him over. We have not seen the bill text, and until we see if the percentage of the refundable credit is significantly higher, then our position remains the same, Rubios spokeswoman said. Negotiators meeting Friday before unveiling the bill said they thought they had the support they needed from Rubio and other holdouts. Im confident both chambers will pass it next week, said Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). Facebook

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Sen. Marco Rubio opposes GOP tax bill, depriving leaders of crucial support By Lisa Mascaro 20.94% Corp. rate to pay for tax cut for working family making $40k was anti-growth but 21% to cut tax for couples making $1million is fine?  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) December 12, 2017 Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) says he is currently opposed to the GOP tax plan because it fails to include his proposed enhancements to the child tax credit, leaving leaders without crucial support ahead of next weeks expected vote. Republicans can only lose two GOP senators from their slim 52-48 majority as they push the plan forward under special budget rules to prevent a Democratic filibuster. Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday altered his planned Israel trip so he could be on hand, if needed, to cast a tie-breaking vote. Rubio, and GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, have fought to increase the child tax credit, doubling it to $2,000 in the GOP plan, but they also want to increase its refundability. They argue it will lower taxes on middle-income families at a time when the tax plan is being criticized as tilted to the wealthy. Sen. Rubio has consistently communicated to the Senate tax negotiators that his vote on final passage would depend on whether the refundability of the Child Tax Credit was increased in a meaningful way, Rubios spokeswoman said. Lee stopped short of opposing the bill, but his spokesman said Wednesday he is undecided. GOP leaders, though, have said they believe they have the support for passage. Facebook

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White House gives Roy Moore a unsubtle shove: Time to concede By David Lauter (Alex Wong / Getty Images) The White House sent a clear signal Thursday to the defeated Republican candidate for Senate in Alabama: Its time to concede. Roy Moore refused to concede the race on Tuesday night when Doug Jones, the Democrat, was declared the winner. Election night results show Jones winning by about 1.5 percentage points, three times more than the states standard for a recount. Although a few absentee and provisional ballots remain to be counted, theres no indication they would change the result. On Wednesday, Moore notably did not call to congratulate Jones  even as President Trump and other leading Republicans did. Instead, he released a video declaring the battle rages on. Asked at the daily news briefing whether the White House thinks Moore should concede today, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, It probably sounds like it maybe should have already taken place. Sanders also dismissed the idea, pushed by some Moore supporters, that Jones victory was tainted in some fashion. Asked if the Democrat had won fair and square, she said, I think the numbers reflect that. The states Republican senator, Richard Shelby, offered a similar comment in an interview with MSNBC in which he said he was willing to work with Jones. If I was 25,000 votes behind, its not going to change much, Shelby said. Facebook

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House Speaker Paul Ryan says hes not leaving anytime soon By Lisa Mascaro House Speaker Paul D. Ryan shot down suggestions Thursday that he might soon be retiring. Stories often circulate that party leaders, especially the House speaker, are stepping aside. Ryans tenure has been as rocky as that of his predecessor, Rep. John Boehner, who abruptly resigned in 2015 amid GOP infighting. Asked Thursday if he would be leaving, Ryan answered a simple no, as he left his weekly press conference in the Capitol. Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who reluctantly took over the speakers gavel after Boehners departure, had just finished talking up the GOP tax plan, which leaders hope to pass next week. He also outlined his sweeping agenda for his longtime goal of entitlement reform of welfare benefits next year. Two stories published Thursday suggested Ryan may soon be out. This is pure speculation, said spokeswoman AshLee Strong. As the speaker himself said today, hes not going anywhere anytime soon. Facebook

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GOP leaders reach tax deal, cutting corporate rate to 21% and top individual rate to 37% By Lisa Mascaro Republican leaders on Wednesday agreed on a revised plan to cut taxes that would lower the corporate rate from 35% to 21% and drop the top individual rate for the richest Americans to 37%, according to GOP senators and others briefed on the deal. The tentative accord marked a significant step in the Republican push to have a tax bill on President Trumps desk by Christmas. Leaders did not release details of the compromise or the text of a final bill as negotiations continued. Its critically important for Congress to quickly pass these historic tax cuts, Trump said Wednesday, promising that Americans could begin to reap the benefits of the plan as early as February, if passed. Critics, however, said the latest changes  particularly the lowering of the top individual rate from the current 39.6%  only reaffirmed several independent analyses that show the bulk of the savings from the Republican plan would go to businesses and the wealthy. Read More Facebook

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Farenthold to retire from House amid harassment accusations By Associated Press Texas Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold wont seek reelection next year, two Republicans said Thursday, adding his name to the list of lawmakers leaving Congress amid sexual harassment allegations that have cost powerful men their jobs in politics, the arts and other fields. The accusations against Farenthold surfaced in 2014, when a former aide sued him alleging sexually suggestive comments and behavior and said shed been fired after she complained. The lawmaker said he engaged in no wrongdoing and the case was settled in 2015. But the House Ethics Committee said last week that it would investigate Farenthold after congressional sources said hed paid an $84,000 settlement using taxpayers money. Though Farenthold said hed reimburse the Treasury Department, such payments have drawn public criticism from people saying lawmakers should use their own money for such settlements. A House official said Farenthold spoke twice Wednesday to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), while another official said the congressman spoke once with Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) who heads the GOPs House campaign committee. Those discussions suggested that Farenthold may have come under pressure from leaders to step aside. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Last week, three lawmakers facing accusations of sexual harassment announced their resignations. Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) have already left Congress while Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) has said he will step aside soon. Mike Bergsma, Republican county chairman in Farentholds home county of Nueces, Texas, said Fare
An international team of scientists has discovered a large hidden cavity within Egypts Great Pyramid of Giza, and they did it by looking for muons  particles sent to Earth by cosmic rays from space.

The mysterious cavity, described Thursday in the journal Nature, is at least 30 meters long. And though the researchers arent sure whether its straight or inclined, whether its one large space or a series of smaller ones, the discovery has already triggered interest among archaeologists as to the purpose of the void.

What we are sure about is that this big void is there, said Mehdi Tayoubi, president of the nonprofit Heritage Innovation Preservation Institute in Paris, which led the effort. But we need to understand [it] better.

How scientists used particle physics to see inside the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The Great Pyramid of Giza was built during the rule of the Pharaoh Khufu, also known as Cheops, whose reign lasted from 2509 to 2483 BC. The largest of the pyramids, it stands some 139 meters high and 230 meters wide. Tourists enter the pyramid from a tunnel that was dug at the behest of Caliph al-Mamun around AD 820.

Three known chambers sit within this enormous structure at different heights: an underground chamber, the Queens chamber, and finally the Kings chamber. All three are connected by corridors, the largest of which is the Grand Gallery, which measures 8.6 meters high, 46.7 meters long and up to 2.1 meters wide. The Kings and Queens chambers each have two air shafts that were mapped by robots between 1990 and 2010.

But much of the pyramids interior structure has remained a mystery, in part because there are very few documents from Khufus time describing the buildings design and construction.

Other research teams have searched for hidden chambers by measuring tiny variations in the pyramids gravity or by using ground-penetrating radar. The results of those efforts have been inconclusive.

An aerial view of the pyramids at Giza. Khufus Pyramid is in the foreground. (ScanPyramids mission)

For this project, a team of researchers attempted to boost their odds of success by adding muons to their scientific toolkit.

Muons are subatomic particles that are produced when cosmic rays  high-speed atom fragments that hurtle through space  smash into the atmosphere. They carpet-bomb Earth at a rate of 10,000 per square meter per minute.

These tiny particles can pass through hundreds of meters of rock before decaying or being absorbed. This turns out to be very handy for scientists who want to probe a pyramid somewhat in the way that doctors use X-rays to examine a bone inside your body.

This technique had been pioneered decades ago by Nobel laureate Luis Alvarez of UC Berkeley, who used muon tomography to probe the smaller Khafre pyramid nearby. He concluded that there were no large hidden voids within the structure.

Scientists with the ScanPyramids project who are studying the Great Pyramid had already found hints of what appeared to be a corridor behind the chevrons on the structures north face.

Equipment is placed inside Khufus Pyramid. (Philippe Bourseiller / ScanPyramids mission) Researchers from Nagoya University prepare to inspect an interior chamber of the Great Pyramid of Giza using muon radiography imaging. (Philippe Bourseiller / ScanPyramids mission) A previously known grand gallery inside the pyramid. (ScanPyramids mission)

In their latest work, they placed detectors in the Queens chamber and discovered an enormous space that stretches at least 30 meters long and lies about 21 meters above ground level. The muon levels in that space show that it must hold roughly as much volume as the Grand Gallery, which lies below it.

The muon signal was so strong that the scientists could detect it from outside the pyramid entirely.

The discovery is a vindication of Alvarezs technique, said Jerry Anderson, a retired physicist who worked with Alvarez back in the 1960s.

I am very excited and very pleased, Anderson said.

Alvarez had looked at Khafres pyramid instead of Khufus because so little was known about the smaller pyramid, Anderson said.

I wish we had worked in the Great Pyramid, now that I look back on it, he said with a laugh.

Members of the research team use augmented reality to visualize the pyramids void. (ScanPyramids mission) An artists impression of the mysterious void discovered inside the pyramid. (ScanPyramids mission)

Peter Der Manuelian, an Egyptologist and director of the Giza Project at Harvard University , praised the work of the ScanPyramids team.

I think its a big discovery and an important one, said Manuelian, who was not involved in the research.

But he was quick to note that it was too early to say what this space was for  or whether it was intentionally made at all.

The Great Pyramid is a magnet for speculation, both reasonable and unreasonable, Manuelian said. So whenever anything new pops up, the imagination tends to fly.

The study authors said they avoided calling the space a chamber because they do not yet know its purpose. They invited Egyptologists to begin to probe the nature of this strange space.

There are still many architectural hypotheses to consider, they wrote in Nature.

Christopher Morris, a nuclear physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who was not involved in the work, pointed out that there are limits to what muons can reveal. He said he hoped the researchers would soon be able to get a bots eye view of the space.

amina.khan@latimes.com

Follow @aminawrite on Twitter for more science news and "like" Los Angeles Times Science & Health on Facebook.

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UPDATES:

This story has been updated throughout.

This story was originally published at 5:20 a.m.
Nearly 40% of American adults and 20% of children carry enough extra weight to warrant a diagnosis of obesity. Thats the highest obesity rate among the worlds affluent nations, and its already shortening Americans lifespans by driving up rates of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancers, arthritis and dementia.

If that constitutes an urgent threat to the nations health, youd scarcely know it from reading the results of a newly published survey called ACTION.

The new poll paints a picture of obese adults who are clueless and feel utterly on their own when it comes to losing weight and of physicians who are often too busy, too embarrassed or too ill-equipped to help them.

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The nations obesity crisis has been roughly four decades in the making. The ACTION report is a humbling reminder that, at this rate, it will not be quickly reversed.

ACTION stands for Awareness, Care and Treatment in Obesity Management. During two weeks in the fall of 2015, survey-takers assessed how obesity was viewed, experienced and treated by 3,008 obese adults and 606 doctors who provide medical care to such patients.

What they found is a medical establishment still navigating its role in addressing obesity, and a population of patients not yet sure they need  or have a right to demand  help in shedding extra pounds. The results were presented at this weeks meeting of the Obesity Society and published in the journal Obesity.

The American Medical Assn. formally recognized obesity as a disease in June 2013. That medical consensus has not fully penetrated the ranks of doctors: Only 80% stated they believe obesity is a disease, and only 72% said they have a responsibility to actively contribute to their patients weight loss.

Awareness among patients with obesity was even worse. Some 65% of obese patients said they believed obesity was a disease that warranted compassionate treatment. But only 54% said a persons weight would affect his or her future health a lot or an extreme amount.

Strikingly, only half of those with obesity actually perceived themselves as obese or extremely obese. Among the rest, 48% considered themselves overweight and 2% believed they were normal weight.

Small wonder perhaps, since only 71% said they had discussed their weight with their doctor in the last five years, and only 55% reported they had been diagnosed with obesity. Just 24% were offered follow-up care meant to treat their obesity, and 18% had committed to a weight-loss plan.

Even among those who had spoken with their doctors about their weight in the last six months, just 26% said they had committed to a weight-loss plan.

If patients felt they deserved more help from their doctors, they didnt say so. Fully 82% believed that managing their weight was completely their own responsibility. And among obese respondents who had not sought weight-loss help from their doctor, this its on me belief was among the top two reasons cited.

Most doctors, meanwhile, know the stakes. More than half said they considered obesity at least as serious a health condition as high blood pressure, diabetes and congestive heart failure.

But 1 in 3 doctors who treat obese patients said they wait for the patients to broach the subject. Only 1 in 3 reported being somewhat comfortable or a little comfortable raising the issue.

Asked why patients dont always seek their help, 65% of doctors posited that they were too embarrassed to bring it up. Only 15% of patients shared this view.

For their part, doctors frequently blamed time limitations for their failure to diagnose or treat obesity. Asked why they might not initiate discussions about weight loss, 52% cited lack of time/the appointment was not long enough, and 45% pleaded that they had to deal with more important issues and concerns.

The situation may sound bad, but Harvard endocrinologist Dr. Lee Kaplan said he sees signs of progress.

Theres evidence in here that the healthcare community and employer community recognize the seriousness of obesity, said Kaplan, a coauthor of the study.

Still, he added, doctors commitment to treating obesity as you would any other disease is not where it should be.

Many doctors are discouraged by the limited availability of effective treatments and wonder why they should bother, Kaplan said. He added that obesity has become so common that they fear if they open up their practice to obesity treatment, theyll be overwhelmed.

Finally, he said, theres no imperative  moral, financial or otherwise  to treat obesity. As a result, Kaplan said, some doctors are taking the opportunity to overlook it.

melissa.healy@latimes.com

@LATMelissaHealy

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The Council of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) recommends the government to avoid passive debt financing of the deficit of the national budget and switch to active influence on the implementation of strategic benchmarks for development and structural modernization of the national economy.

The NBU reported on its website that the NBU Council approved the recommendation at a meeting held on October 31, 2017 after discussing the influence of the state borrowing and tax policy on the state of the monetary and credit sphere in Ukraine.

"Large volumes of state borrowing tangibly impact the situation in various economic spheres of Ukraine, including the monetary and credit sphere. The drawing up of a strategy for managing internal and external state and government-guaranteed debt is important now. The government should start switching from passive debt financing of the deficit of the budget to the active influence on the implementation of strategic benchmarks for development and structural modernization of the national economy. This would help to transforming the policy of state borrowing from a technical fiscal tool to a full-featured element of the macroeconomic policy," the press service of the regulator said, citing NBU Council Chairman Bohdan Danylyshyn.

Danylyshyn said that only with providing for a stable pace of economic growth one can restore public finances, including cut debt burden.

"I think that Ukraine is creating favorable financial and economic conditions for stirring up the economic development on the basis of an innovative model. In particular, economic growth is restoring, the banking system has accumulated large liquidity, enterprises see profits and we have a surplus of the national budget," he said.
Laguna Art Museum officials on Thursday postponed installation of a streetlight, made of fiberglass and foam, on the ocean 200 yards off Main Beach for the second time in as many days.

Engineers from the Newport Beach firm Morrelli & Melvin Design and Engineering, Inc., determined it would be unsafe to lift the streetlight into a vertical position without help from a crane stationed on an accompanying barge, museum communications director Cody Lee said.

The plan was for a boat to haul the streetlight from a Newport Beach boatyard and crews to lift it into position off the Laguna coast, but engineers called off the task Thursday before leaving Newport, Lee said.

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The temporary installation, titled Seascape from artist Pablo Vargas Lugo, will be one of the main attractions of the museums fifth Art & Nature festival, which includes special exhibitions, lectures, panel discussions, films and family activities on the theme of arts engagement with the natural world.

The festival begins Friday and runs through Sunday. Officials were trying to reserve a crane Thursday afternoon, Lee said.

The streetlight is attached to a buoy, which contains a 400-pound ballast. The buoy will be anchored by chains that descend to the ocean floor.

Were learning a lot this week, Lee said. There is no manual for installing a streetlight on the ocean.

Lugo developed the idea based on Lagunas artistic reputation and its place in the modern world.

The piece acknowledges the origins of Laguna Beach as a haven for plein air painters and its character as a city whose imagination remains firmly set on the seas in spite of the vast urban sprawl of Southern California, Lugo said in a statement. The ever-changing seascape and a familiar element of urban infrastructure and growth, the streetlight, will come together, pinpointing a small section of the ocean as a seascape under observation and reminding viewers of the shifting conditions under which development and our future are taking form.

Once in position, the streetlight will rise 40 feet above the oceans surface, contain two solar panels and a 120-watt LED light, according to a city staff report.

Sunlight powers a battery, which fuels the light. The light comes on by a timer and turns off when the power runs out, Lee said. The light is expected to stay on until 9:30 p.m. most nights.

The streetlight was supposed to be installed Wednesday, but Art & Nature officials postponed it in anticipation of calmer ocean conditions, Lee said.

Museum officials contacted the U.S. Coast Guard and California Department of Fish and Wildlife about the installation and learned they did not need permits from those agencies, city planner Anthony Viera told Laguna Beach planning commissioners during their Oct. 18 meeting.

Commissioners unanimously granted the museum a temporary use permit for the installation.

I never thought Id see a streetlight where it should not be, but Im looking forward to seeing it, Commissioner Roger McErlane said.

Organizers also received the OK from the California Coastal Commission for the streetlight to be on display through Nov. 16, which satisfies criteria for a temporary event permit, Laguna Community Development Director Greg Pfost said Wednesday.

In prior years the museum did not need Coastal Commission approval for the installations because they were placed on the sand, which falls within the citys jurisdiction, Pfost confirmed.

People may try to swim out to the streetlight, Marine Safety Chief Kevin Snow told planning commissioners, adding that members of his staff will monitor the area around the streetlight.

The installation is one of several aspects of the festival, which remains on schedule, Lee said.

This years event connects with the museums current exhibition, California Mexicana: Missions To Murals, 1820-1930.

Lugos artwork has been shown throughout the U.S., Europe, South America and Mexico, according to the art museums website.

His solo exhibitions include micromegas, at the Museo Amparo, Puebla and the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City; Intemperie at the Museo Experimental El Eco in Mexico City; Eclipses for Austin at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas; and Contemporary Projects at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

For more information and updates on the Seascape installation, visit lagunaartmuseum.org.

If You Go

What: Laguna Art Museums fifth Art & Nature festival

When: Friday through Sunday (Seascape will be on display through Nov. 16)

Where: Laguna Art Museum, 307 Cliff Drive, and Main Beach

Cost: Varies, depending on the event. Check lagunaartmuseum.org for details, or call (949) 494-8971. Viewing of Seascape is free.

Art & Nature festival events

In Person: Pablo Vargas Lugo  7 p.m. Friday. Lugo discusses his work, including creation of his commissioned piece Seascape for Art & Nature.

California Mexicana: Land Into Landscape  2 p.m. Saturday. Panel discussion with California Mexicana curators Katherine Manthorne and Alberto Nulman, Seascape artist Pablo Vargas Lugo, and historian Steven Hackel. Moderated by Malcolm Warner.

Film: Through the Repellent Fence  4 p.m. Saturday. The documentary follows art collective Postcommodity as it constructs Repellent Fence, a 2-mile-long outdoor artwork that straddled the U.S.-Mexico border.

Art & Nature Keynote: William Deverell  7 p.m. Saturday. Renowned California historian and author of Whitewashed Adobe delivers the Art & Nature 2017 keynote lecture.

Art & Nature Family Festival  2 p.m. Sunday. Art, nature and science activities for all ages.

bryce.alderton@latimes.com

Twitter: @AldertonBryce
Chess, the 1980s rock opera that infused international chessboard showdowns with Cold War espionage and love-triangle intrigue, will come to the Irvine Barclay Theatre Nov. 11-18.

The six performances launch the 2017-18 season of UC Irvines Claire Trevor School of the Arts Department of Drama and its theme The Business of Politics/The Politics of Business.

Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, the composer-performers behind the phenomenally successful ABBA, and Tim Rice, Jesus Christ Superstar and The Lion King lyricist, worked five years to ready Chess for its triumphant 1986 premiere in London.

Two years later, it came ashore in America only to be beached on Broadway and eviscerated by New York Times critic Frank Rich.

Understandably so, said Robin Buck, who directs the cast of UCI graduate and undergraduate students. It was over-produced and bloated with extra music and convoluted storylines.

To return Chess to its initial impact, Buck and Daniel Gary Busby, the shows musical director and the Drama Departments chair, went back to the original London version, tweaking lyrics and dialogue to give the story 2017 resonance and its characters greater depth.

Every version that has come out since the original concept album and since the original stage version has been different, said Buck, a 35-year veteran of both performing and professing opera and musical theater. Rice encouraged adapters to rearrange things in hopes of helping it land better. I chose to end it one way that he suggested and then add an epilogue.

Whats going on now, with the intrusion into our democracy by a foreign power, is actually much more concrete than some of the fears during the Cold War, he continued. We thought it would be appropriate to go beyond the original as a metaphor and actually address the fact that it seems politics are in bed with business, and vice versa.

When he began researching how to plot their revisions, Buck started collecting articles about how business and politics were tied between Russia and the U.S.

Almost every day something came out regarding business ties to Russia, he said, coincidentally a day after a special prosecutor investigating Russian influence handed down a first indictment.

In addition to contemporizing the conflict, Buck and Busby decided a concert staging would help flesh out the two competitors and the other characters.

The concert staging is not a compromise, Buck said. The minimalist staging seems to better capture its intimacy. There is always the feeling of characters in an intensely private moment together, while at the same time the whole world is watching. In this production, the four main characters have these moments of self-reflection and realization that are really existing in their minds.

They also have given women a stronger presence by switching the gender of the Russian agent Molokova and the arbiter, the competition official who controls the chess match and whose song, One Night in Bangkok, was the shows breakout hit.

This brings a really interesting dynamic to the show as well as giving these actors [Kayla Kearney and Jennifer Holcombe] a lot of material to work with, Buck said. In a sport so male-dominated, we find there are some female grand masters  comparatively few  so the pressure on the arbiter to succeed at controlling everything is greater than it might be on a male arbiter.

The Irvine Barclay, an independent nonprofit professional theater that receives some support from the city of Irvine and UCI, is dedicated to providing a professional theater experience for UCI students as well as entertaining its audiences.

For that reason, Chess will employ a 25-piece professional orchestra.

Whether its students or pros,we always have that level of support, Buck said. Its expensive, but its crucial that they be supported by something that is really working at their level.

If You Go

What: Chess

When: 8 p.m. Nov. 11, 16, 17 and 18; 2 p.m. Nov. 12 and 18

Where: Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive

Cost: $12 to $25

Information: (949) 824-2787 or arts.uci.edu/tickets

Cris Gross is a contributor to Times Community News.
Ralph Freeman is right where he wants to be.

Hes sitting in a chair in the family room of his apartment within an assisted living community in Rancho Santa Margarita, looking at a set of five-pound dumbbells on a coffee table.

At 100 years old, Freeman practices a daily routine of lifting weights, working his core balance with leg and arm exercises and adding movement to his usual activities around the home.

The World War II and Korean War veteran is smiling, joking and reflecting on his good health.

I attribute that to selecting the perfect mother, he says with a laugh.

Freeman, who became a centenarian June 14  fittingly on Flag Day  has no plans to slow down.

He starts his mornings as early as 7 a.m., pouring himself a bowl of grain cereal and heading to his favorite reading chair near the window to read a copy of the Los Angeles Times.

After breakfast, he hits the community centers exercise room where he practices drops and rolls so if he falls, he knows how to pick himself up.

He returns to his apartment to read for an hour, thumbing through pages of W.E.B. Griffin books of military fiction or selecting works on the space program, universe and physics-related subjects.

Twice a week, hell play a game of blackjack in the community centers gathering hall.

Freeman was married to wife Marjorie for 70 years before she died in 2016 at age 93.

The couple met at an officers club dance when Freeman was a 28-year-old U.S. Army major in England. A 23-year-old English beauty, Marjorie wore glasses and was very photogenic, he says as he holds a black-and-white photograph of their wedding day, Nov. 11, 1945.

After completing his duty in Europe, Freeman returned to the U.S. on the Queen Mary ocean liner with troops. She came to America a year later on a ship filled with war brides. The two settled in his hometown of Chicago.

Freeman worked at the Pentagon during the Korean War and later became an engineering professor at Iowa State University for a decade.

In 1961, Freeman was recruited by the booming aerospace industry and moved his young family, now with three children, to Southern California, where he worked as a metallurgical engineer at TRW Inc., a pioneer in aerospace and automotive engineering that was recruited to lead the development of the United States first ICBM.

Freeman would work on special mission projects including the companys contract with the Apollo program where he had to ensure the spacecraft was throttleable, meaning its thrust could be varied.

The Freemans raised their children in Palos Verdes and Newport Beach and retired in Mission Viejo.

For 15 years, Freeman regularly walked three miles around Lake Mission Viejo, a routine he credits for his longevity.

Though he stopped driving in 2012, he began learning to use a computer in his 90s.

Freeman sends daily group emails of jokes and photos to his friends, three children and three grandsons who often visit him from Laguna Niguel, San Clemente and Carlsbad.

Dad has always had a positive attitude and he doesnt fear anything, said daughter Janet Bollman. You roll with the punches, she said, smiling at her father.

Freeman acknowledges that he always has eaten healthy foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Though he says he doesnt have much of a sweet tooth, he wont miss dessert.

I dont like cookies, Freeman says, eyeing the community center menus options. Id much rather have ice cream with chocolate syrup.
One event on the Orange County fashion calendar is so highly anticipated that its always sold out, prompting organizers to encourage would-be guests to add their names to a waiting list.

Its the Harvesters Fashion Show and Luncheon, featuring luxury fashion houses.

At the 23rd annual festivities on Oct. 7  held, as always, at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa  the Harvesters, a womens auxiliary group, raised funds and awareness for Irvine-based Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County.

The runway showcased curated looks from the 2015 fall and winter collections of 12 designer brands, including Salvatore Ferragamo, Versace, Ralph Lauren and Valentino.

Though luxury fashion is the topic of most of the party talk, the event is serious business. The Harvesters largest fundraiser of the year drew more than 500 guests, with 100% of the proceeds going to Second Harvest Food Bank. The money raised is still being totaled, organizers said Tuesday.

To date, Harvesters annual campaigns have generated more than $5.5 million for the food bank.

Harvesters member Alex Parker said she has been involved in a half-dozen fundraising boards but felt she was not making a significant difference.

When she learned that Harvesters helps Second Harvest feed more than 200,000 people in Orange County every month, and that the food bank uses more than 90 cents of every dollar donated toward hunger-relief programs, she wanted to help, she said.

The womens dedication, drive and commitment make this group so dynamic, said Parker, who has been a Harvester for 14 years. Not only is it such a beautiful and gorgeous event, but theres such a feeling of compassion, and you know its directly feeding the hungry.

Melissa Knode, Harvesters co-chairwoman, agreed.

The women are very hands-on, Knode said, noting that Harvesters members have gone to local farming fields to help put produce on trucks for meals for hungry individuals and families.

We get to see firsthand how the food bank operates, and it always makes us want to do more, Knode said.

But back to the fashion.

A silent auction sponsored by Swiss watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre featured items like custom-made earrings by Robert Procop, who has designed jewelry for actress Angelina Jolie.

The jeweler learned of the auxiliarys mission and donated the earrings, Knode said.

After guests perused items including Giorgio Armani handbags and trips to Turkey and London, they headed to the Samueli Theater to watch the runway presentation.

The show was followed by lunch in the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, where tables were adorned with hydrangeas, white roses and Diptyque and Jaeger-LeCoultre gift bags.

The luncheon was made possible by benefactors including South Coast Plaza, Roger Vivier and Saks Fifth Avenue, organizers said.

Second Harvest Chief Executive Nicole Sudyam thanked the guests and noted the fundraisers far-reaching effects.

This event raises about 10% of Second Harvests private fundraising, Sudyam said. The highlight of this event is knowing that it will provide meals for nearly 1.5 million people. It makes a huge impact.
For years, Pamela Tansey has referred to her Fountain Valley condominium as the condo on the prairie.

She used to sit on her patio at the New Chase condo complex and watch people bike and jog along the Santa Ana River trail a few feet away. It was peaceful, she said  until the tents began to go up.

Homeless people started trickling into the area, near Harbor Boulevard and Edinger Avenue, about a year ago, setting up tents roughly 12 feet from her front door. In the past year, the number of homeless there has grown exponentially, she said.

People clean themselves in view of her windows, defecate into bags and pile trash along the trail, she said. Shes heard arguments in the tents and seen people wrapped in blankets shooting drugs, she added.

In June, she said, a homeless man threw a can of soda and urine onto her patio. She spent three hours cleaning it up.

Its horrific that the county has allowed this to happen, Tansey said. They need to realize that unless they get their arms around this, its only going to get worse.

Tansey and her neighbors have complained to Orange County officials about the issue, but they say not much had been done until this week, when officials announced they will begin enforcing public access hours on the stretch of the Santa Ana River trail between Huntington Beach and Anaheim.

Beginning Friday, people who are on the trail outside the posted hours of 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. will be considered in violation of state trespassing laws and will be cited, officials said.

The plan also calls for permanently closing the west side of the flood control channel between 17th Street in Santa Ana and Adams Avenue in Huntington Beach beginning Nov. 10, a move that is expected to displace a large population of homeless people who have set up camp along the river. Neighbors and people living in the camps estimate the number at at least 150.

The question of where they will move remains unanswered, but some people have already started leaving.

Homeless people and their advocates say the county is simply pushing the issue down the road instead of solving it.

Lou Noble, an Anaheim resident who has visited the homeless people in the New Chase area, said the county hasnt opened enough shelters to accommodate everyone who needs help.

Armories might provide temporary shelter for those displaced from the river trail. The National Guard armory in Santa Ana is open as a nightly sleeping area for the homeless during the winter. The Fullerton armory is expected to begin operating as a nighttime shelter Nov. 16.

Some homeless people say they are resistant to shelters because they would have to get rid of their pets and stay in cramped conditions with little or no privacy.

Noble said county officials and homeless advocates need to work together to come up with a solution to get people off the streets permanently instead of shifting them around.

People dont really have a concept of whos out there, Noble said. They think theyre all drug addicts and criminals. But we had a recession and a lot of people lost their homes. Where are these people supposed to go?

But Supervisor Todd Spitzer called the countys action a progressive next step in combating homelessness compassionately while ensuring the safety of nearby residents.

I will not allow the Santa Ana River trail to become Orange Countys skid row, Spitzer said in a statement this week.

Scores of tents, tarps and umbrellas line the river trail near New Chase. Many people have tried to make the area feel like home by laying down carpets and placing chairs and lamps in makeshift living rooms.

Ron Hernandez, 55, stood in the drizzle Thursday along the river gathering his few possessions in preparation to move. He had already taken down his tent.

Friday will come fast for people who have settled in here, Hernandez said.

Hes been through this before, he said.

Hernandez was living at the Costa Mesa Motor Inn for five years before he lost his construction job and could no longer afford the rent. He remembers the date he began living on the streets: Jan. 22, 2015.

At first, he slept on Newport Boulevard near The Crossing Church in Costa Mesa, but it was hard to get a restful nights sleep with traffic zooming past and constant worries about his belongings being taken.

He and a few other homeless people began camping on the river trail off Talbert Avenue in Fountain Valley, but county officials told them they had to move. So they made their way up the river and set up camp near the New Chase condominiums, across from Centennial Regional Park near the Fountain Valley-Santa Ana border.

Hernandez said the spot became an oasis where they werent constantly bothered by law enforcement and could build a community where people kept an eye out for one another.

Its peaceful, he said. Out here you dont get harassed. Its a lot rougher in the city.

Now, Hernandez said, hes likely headed back to the streets of Costa Mesa to find a place to sleep, but he hopes something better will come along.

Weve been down this road before, he said, referring to his neighbors on the river trail. These people are survivors. This is their life.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @HannahFryTCN
Detractors of Newport Beach City Councilman Scott Peotter have raised close to $80,000 toward their effort to recall him, while the pro-Peotter camp has countered with more than $40,000.

Since the Committee to Recall Scott Peotter formed in April, it has collected $78,672, mostly in cash donations from individuals but some in the form of loans and in-kind gifts, according to the most recent campaign statements filed last week detailing activity through September. It has spent $81,603.

Contributors to the cause include three former Newport Beach mayors and two residents who plan to challenge for Peotters District 6 seat should enough petition signatures be validated to prompt a special recall election next spring.

Peotter is scheduled to be up for reelection in the regular vote in November 2018.

Recall organizers dropped off 10,688 signatures to the Newport Beach city clerks office on Oct. 27  more than enough to qualify for an election if the Orange County registrar of voters office verifies that at least 8,445 are from registered Newport Beach voters. That number represents 15% of the citys registered voters.

Here are the top five recall donors so far:

Petros for City Council, the campaign committee for former Newport Beach councilman Tony Petros: $9,500

Paul Blank, Newport Beach harbor commissioner and a vice president of Urban Decay cosmetics: $8,179

Marilyn Brewer, former California assemblywoman: $7,125

Fred Ameri, former Newport Beach planning commissioner, 2016 council candidate and retired civil engineering consultant: $3,460 ($2,000 cash and underwriting a reception that cost $1,460)

Sharon Wohl, homemaker: $3,000

Additionally, Mike Toerge, a former planning commissioner and a potential recall election candidate, has given $5,000 (a $1,000 contribution and a $4,000 loan). Peotter defeated Toerge in the 2014 race for the District 6 seat.

Another potential recall race entrant, Corona del Mar resident Joy Brenner, has given $300.

Former mayors who have donated include Mike Henn ($2,000), Keith Curry ($1,000) and Rush Hill ($500).

The majority of the fundraising was in the third quarter, covering July 1 to Sept. 30. In that time, the committee gathered $43,409.

More than half the recall committees expenses have been for services for petition circulation. Records show the committee has made nine payments to Calabasas-based PCI Consultants Inc. totaling $42,727. As of the time of filing, the committee owed the petition-management firm an additional $7,699.

The next-largest expense is for newspaper ads. Records show $6,834 was paid to the Daily Pilot and its parent, the Los Angeles Times.

Pro-Peotter funding

Two Peotter support committees are actively pushing back.

Newport Beach Residents Against Recalling Councilman Peotter raised $27,000 through September. Of that, $17,000 was from Fieldstead & Co., an Irvine-based philanthropy run by savings and loan heir Howard Ahmanson Jr. and his wife, Roberta. Fieldstead contributed $15,000 in cash and $2,000 worth of campaign consulting, records show.

An additional $8,000 came from Larry D. Smith, president of Newport Beach-based MHI Real Co.

The committee has spent $29,099, almost entirely on campaign literature, mailers and automated phone calls.

The Committee to Oppose the Recall of Scott Peotter is run by Peotter himself. With $14,148 in contributions and $14,125 in expenses, it has focused on a counter-petition for people to withdraw their signatures from the recall petition.

Only $2,500 of the committees contributions were in cash. The rest were earmarked for petition services funded by the Scott Peotter for City Council 2018 committee.

A third committee, called Save Free Speech in Newport, A Committee Opposed to the Recall of Councilman Peotter, has filed a statement of organization with the city but has not reported any fundraising or expenses.

hillary.davis@latimes.com

Twitter: @Daily_PilotHD
Victor de los Santos is more than just a teacher to his students.

As a music educator at Santa Ana High School for a decade, Santos knows that many of his students occupy a lower portion of the socioeconomic strata. Many are tasked with overcoming considerable obstacles, like broken families or balancing schoolwork while caring for siblings.

During his first year at the school, one of his students, a young girl, began to call him father.

I was taken aback and said you cant call me that, said Santos, 33, of Santa Ana. Then she called me it again. I said, I am Mr. Santos.

She said to me that youre the first male figure to actually care about me. So I said all right, call me father.

Many of his students over the years have called him by the same moniker, exemplifying Santos pivotal role in their lives.

This caring nature extended to his students, coupled with his crucial role in the expansion of the music program at the school, led to Santos being recently named a semifinalist for the Grammy Music Educator Award.

He was chosen along with 24 other music teachers from around the country. The winner, to be named at the beginning of next year, will be flown to New York to attend the 60th annual Grammy Awards show and take part in various events associated with the show.

When Santos was hired to be the band director at the school in 2007, the music program was considerable but had areas that could be improved. Over the years, hes worked to expand the program, including adding a mariachi instructor. It also was recently decided to make the school a conservatory.

Santos said the school has greatly improved, despite an undeserving poor reputation due to the heightened violence around the school in the past.

Santos program has grown from 80 to 170 students and he envisions his lifes work as ensuring the success of each student through encouraging music literacy and acting as a paternal mentor.

There are some people who just do their job, Santa Ana High Principal Jeff Bishop said. Victor is more than that. He develops positive relationships with kids. Hes a father figure to them.

Bishop said Santos maintains a deep dedication to his job and his students know the music classroom is a safe harbor in a city known for gang violence.

Many times I will be leaving work around 8 and kids are still there practicing, Bishop said.

Santos believes music is cathartic, providing a platform for kids to journal their emotions. It has particular utility for lower socioeconomic students who have to contend with more obstacles in life.

Everyone needs an avenue to reflect their emotions, he said.

Santos has also worked tirelessly to instill a sense of community in his classroom, letting each student know that they can come to him with their struggles.

My students face a lot of problems, Santos said. And they a lot of times dont believe that people care for them.

I think its really hard for people in an area like this to open up. I have parents that are working four to five jobs to make ends meet. The kids go home and they have to cook dinner or babysit. They have to be more adult sometimes than their own parents. So what happens when they need someone to go to? he said.

Santos made one of his students his foster son when he found the child devoid of a home.

A social worker told Santos about two years ago that Isaiah Benitez, now 18, would have to be placed in a group home similar to a halfway house. So Santos stepped in and theyve been a family since.

Benitez had been flunking the majority of his classes in his early high school years but managed to achieve As and Bs since moving in with Santos. He graduated this year and is attending Santa Ana College with the goal of becoming an elementary school teacher, following in the footsteps of his foster father.

Santos said he doesnt know if he will make it to the next round of the Grammy competition, but hes content with whatever comes next.

I told the kids what brings me more pride is not that my name is there but that its associated with Santa Ana High School, Santos said. The school gets a bad rap and its sad  theres so many great things happening here.

We are fighting to build something stronger every year. If this is the end, to only make the top 25, then I am happy, Santos said. If I can make it to the final, I will be even more ecstatic because its bringing a positive light to Santa Ana High. Thats enough winning for me.

benjamin.brazil@latimes.com

Twitter:@benbrazilpilot
Once again, only one hospital in the Glendale area earned the highest marks in a study conducted by a national hospital-safety organization.

The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., awarded its sixth straight A grade to Adventist Health Glendale, according to results released Tuesday. Leapfrog awards hospital safety grades twice a year based on a number of criteria that measure the quality of patient safety.

Of the 2,632 hospitals graded in the latest results, 832 earned an A, 662 received a B, 964 got a C, 159 were given a D and 15 received an F. According to a report on Leapfrogs methodology, the data pulled from Medicare and other agencies to generate a composite score can be several years old.

Adventist excelled in the categories for practices to prevent errors and problems with surgery, but scored mostly below average when it came to infections, according to the report.

In a statement, the hospital said it is proud of its scores.

It is evident that our physicians, nurses and associates are committed to providing excellent care, while maintaining good communication and transparency in all processes, said Despina Kayichian, vice president of Medical Affairs and Quality at Adventist Glendale. We want our community members to feel confident that  we put patient safety first so they can have peace of mind when their loved ones are being treated at our hospital.

Adventist Health Glendale was also ranked No. 16 in the Los Angeles metro area and No. 28 in California in U.S. News & World Reports Best Hospitals list for 2017-18 in August.

Both Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital and USC Verdugo Hills Hospital received C grades.

Glendale Memorial officials said in a statement that patient care and safety is a top priority at the facility.

The hospital also expressed concerns about Leapfrogs approach, stating it oversimplifies in measuring hospital quality.

The 30 measures identified by the Leapfrog Group for improving quality and patient safety may help improve patient-safety outcomes, but they are neither the best nor the only indicators of an institutions quality, said Jason Black, chief nurse executive at Glendale Memorial.

Glendale Memorial scored above average in the safety problems and problems with surgery categories, but performed mostly below average in measuring doctors, nurses and hospital staff, according to the report.

Also recently, HealthGrades, an online resource for information about physicians and hospitals, released results for its evaluations, and Glendale Memorial received recognition for its knee surgeries and cardiac-valve surgeries.

For USC Verdugo Hills Hospital, there were shortcomings in the rate of infections during stays in its intensive-care unit as well as communication with and responsiveness with hospital staff, according to the Leapfrog study.

The USC hospital, however, scored above average in safety categories that measured the reduction of risks for patients.

Verdugo Hills officials said in a statement that the facility is committed to the highest standards of patient safety and delivery of care, and it continues to look at ways to maximize the quality of care the hospital provides.

As a result, we have improved our scores across multiple patient safety indicators, which are not reflected in the most recent hospital safety grade from the Leapfrog Group, according to the statement. Our quality improvements have been noted through other rating systems, and we recently implemented a hospital list program to provide patients with 24-hour hospital-based medical expertise.

jeff.landa@latimes.com

Twitter: @JeffLanda
Glendale is one step closer to its vision of installing a regional streetcar that may connect to Burbank after the Glendale City Council agreed Tuesday to award a contract to a consultant to begin a feasibility study on the project.

The city wants to study the impacts of reestablishing a streetcar route connecting the Glendale Transportation Center in the south to the Hollywood Burbank Airport with routes along Brand and Glenoaks boulevards.



For the record: A previous version of this article stated that the city may amend its contract to study the Burbank portion of the streetcar route. Only the Glendale portion will be studied.

The Glendale-Burbank Feasibility Study is now in the hands of the HNTB Corp., an engineering firm out of Kansas City that has worked on the Metro Crenshaw Light Rail and the Metro Purple Line Subway Extension in Los Angeles.

The company should also be familiar to some Glendale residents, especially those living in the Pelanconi Estates neighborhood, because HNTB has contributed planning and designs for the ongoing grade-separation project to improve safety at two troublesome railroad crossings along San Fernando Road.

According to city documents, the budget for the study is $450,000, with $250,000 coming from the Community Development Departments urban design and mobility budget.

The additional $200,000 will come from the Southern California Assn. of Governments, or SCAG, which in February awarded funds to the city of Glendale as part of $4.5 million in grants for transit and green initiatives in L.A. County.

During the council meeting, Justin Robertson, a planning associate with the city, said a transit gap exists in the region, and city officials would like to better connect major resources in the Glendale area.

[The study] will look at what it will take to get a streetcar up and running in Glendale, he said.

Analysis of potential streetcar routes as well as traffic and parking impacts is expected to take about 12 months and should begin as soon as next month. The study will also look at funding resources.

Currently, only the Glendale portion of the possible streetcar route will be studied by HNTB, according to Robertson.

Councilman Ara Najarian, who also serves as vice-chair of Metrolink, asked that the study look at running the streetcar using off-wire technology, which eliminates the need for overhead wires and expands the possibilities of where it can operate.

The estimated cost for the streetcar project is between $97 million and $243 million for about 9.5 miles, or about $10 million to $25 million per mile. The high-end estimate takes into account the possible three miles through Burbank that would lead to the Hollywood Burbank Airport.

jeff.landa@latimes.com

Twitter: @JeffLanda
In the 1930s, Charles Richter, in collaboration with fellow Caltech seismologist Beno Gutenberg, devised the Richter scale to measure earthquake intensity. As pointed out in Richters 1985, Los Angeles Times obituary:

 Richter, who was so involved in his lifes work that he kept a seismograph in his living room and welcomed and answered earthquake queries day or night, was a young research assistant in Caltechs seismology laboratory in the early 1930s when he and the late Beno Gutenberg, then the director of the laboratory, worked out a way to grade the relative sizes of earthquakes.

Some sort of standard yardstick against which seismic shocks could be measured and compared had long been needed by the geological and seismological community. 

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The seismological laboratory was about to issue regular reports cataloguing the quakes we were finding monthly in Southern California, Richter told The Times in an interview in 1980. Because we were going to be tabulating between 200 and 300 quakes a year, we needed some means of grading them on a non-arbitrary basis....

This portrait, by Gil Cooper, appeared in the Oct. 25, 1964, Los Angeles Times. This image as part of a profile of the staff at the Caltech Reuben H. Donnelley Seismological Laboratory in Pasadena.

Richter passed away on Sep. 30, 1985. Read his Los Angeles Times obituary.

See more from the Los Angeles Times archives here
Zimbabwean police on Friday jailed and charged U.S. human rights activist and television producer Martha ODonovan for attempting to overthrow the government of President Robert Mugabe by allegedly sending out a tweet deemed to be offensive, according to lawyers.

Police raided her apartment in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, around 5 a.m. and took her to the Harare Central Police Station. She was charged in the late afternoon.

Police claimed ODonovan had tweeted, We are being led by a selfish man and a sick man, and charged her under the countrys repressive laws.

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The charge was much more serious than the charge initially anticipated by her lawyers, a charge of insulting the dignity of the president, which is illegal in Zimbabwe.

It was the first arrest in Zimbabwe since Mugabe recently established a Cyber Security Ministry, in an ominous sign of the countrys intensifying crackdown on activism and freedom of speech. The arrest suggested that Zimbabwes vibrant social media, one arena in which activists and citizens freely express dissent, is being targeted.

Mugabe, 92, is in frail health, frequently seen sleeping in international meetings and often traveling overseas for medical treatment. Despite his frailty, the president intends to seek re-election in the 2018 elections.

As his condition weakens, senior members of the ruling ZANU-PF party have been jockeying to succeed Mugabe, with a faction associated with his wife, Grace, struggling against another faction aligned with Deputy President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former security minister with close ties to the countrys security operations.

ODonovan works as a producer and project officer with local television network Magamba, which produces satirical content for distribution by Facebook and YouTube, designed to provoke activism and open up Zimbabwes democratic space.

The producer has been working with Magamba for about a year, according to network co-founder Tongai Makawa. She has also worked with the Childrens Radio Foundation, an organization that trains children in Africa to create their own radio programs.

ODonovan was represented by Obey Shava, of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, an organization that often represents activists who are arrested in Zimbabwe. The organization tweeted a photograph of ODonovan and her lawyer at the police station Friday.

Makawa said lawyers have told them that ODonovan would likely have to spend the night in the police cells at Harare Central Police Station and may appear in court Saturday.

ODonovans sister, Caroline ODonovan, said the family did not wish to make a comment at this time.

Lawyers said the police decision to opt for the more serious charge of attempting to overthrow the government was dramatic.

High drama in Zim as police currently preferring a charge of attempting to overthrow Mugabe govt against @Martha_ODonovan, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said in a tweet.

Human rights and pro-democracy activists face arrest or being jailed in Zimbabwe. Some dissidents have simply disappeared.

The human rights organization Freedom House describes Zimbabwe as a nation that is only partly free. The organization says while social media remain partially free, the countrys media are far from free.

2017 report on world freedom. The protests, combined with factional rivalries in the ruling Zimbabwe African National UnionPatriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and a self-inflicted economic crisis, have further weakened the regime of 92-year-old president Robert Mugabe.

In March 2015, pro-democracy activist Itai Dzamara was abducted by armed men from a barbershop and has not been seen since.

A pastor, Evan Mawarire, who founded a movement called #ThisFlag has been charged twice with attempting to overthrow the government. He was acquitted in September. Mawarire used social media to air his criticisms of Mugabes government.

In 2013, human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa was arrested and jailed for a week without charges being filed.

ODonovans laptop and cellphone were confiscated by police when she was arrested Friday. Her colleagues at Magamba said they were puzzled why she was targeted and saw her arrest as an effort to muzzle free speech and intimidate activists.

Its one more violation of our already shrunken human rights space, said Magambas co-founder Makawa. Its terrible, and unfortunate.

Makawa said he believed ODonovan was targeted because of the work she did for Magamba.

We produce satirical content that speak the truth to power, he said. I think the nature of the work that we do at Magamba TV would be like low hanging fruit, he said, referring to harassment of activists by the authorities. He said he was puzzled she was arrested but not himself or others.

It could be a message to send to foreign nationals who are involved in the media, he said. Its definitely designed to instill fear, because there was a resumption of activism and online conversations that were transforming into offline activism and engagement.

Its designed to whip people into line before the upcoming election, he said, referring to elections due next year.

Another colleague from Magamba, Samm Farai Monro, who calls himself Comrade Fatso, tweeted the hashtags #FreeMartha and #ArrestUsAll.

A Zimbabwe media account tweeted a copy of the police warning issued to ODonovan.

Zimbabwes economy is under severe pressure because of a shortage of hard currency. After a period of rampant hyperinflation, Zimbabwe had to abandon its currency and adopt the U.S. dollar in 2009. But the country recently started printing a new currency, the bond note, because of a shortage of dollars. The bond note is weakening rapidly on the foreign currency black market, prompting fears of a new round of skyrocketing inflation.

robyn.dixon@latimes.com

Twitter: @RobynDixon_LAT

UPDATES:

11:15 a.m.: This article was updated with background information on Mugabes health as well as comment from ODonovans sister and lawyers, and background on activism in the country.

This article was originally published at 9:30 a.m.
Liberal Cambodians have never had it easy, but this year has robbed many of hope.

Prime Minister Hun Sen, in power since the 1980s, has jailed an opposition leader, expelled nonprofit workers and shuttered an independent newspaper. Descent Into Outright Dictatorship, screamed a headline on its final front page.

For years, these Cambodians have looked to the U.S. both as an example of the virtues of democracy, and  as a major source of aid  a check on their own governments authoritarian impulses. But they say President Trumps tirades against the press and apparent fondness for strongmen have left them rudderless.

Activists in autocratic regimes usually point to the U.S. as a model, said Virak Ou, a prominent Cambodian human rights activist. But Trump has almost destroyed that, in a way.

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President Trump set off Friday for a 12-day, five-country visit to Asia, the longest of his presidency. After an initial stop Friday in Hawaii, Trump is traveling to Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, South Korea and China  and while hell focus mainly on North Koreas nuclear weapons program and U.S. trade imbalances, hell also find a region sliding ever further from liberal democracy, with repression, censorship and one-man rule on the rise.

Myanmar has driven more than 600,000 ethnic Rohingya into neighboring Bangladesh in a campaign of killing and arson that the United Nations has called a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. Philippine President Rodrigo Dutertes war on drugs has killed thousands of people without due process. And the Chinese Communist Party last week added President Xi Jinpings ideology  which harbors tacit disdain for Western-style democracy  to the partys constitution, granting him powers unseen in the country since Mao Tse-tung.

Although much of the regions authoritarian swerve began before Trump took office, experts say his administration has done little to prevent its acceleration.

Trump, in his dealings with Asian leaders, has kept democracy and human rights issues largely off the table. Last month, he hosted Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha  a retired army general who has used draconian lese-majeste laws to suppress dissent  at the White House. He once called Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, whom the Justice Department is investigating over a corruption scandal, my favorite prime minister. (Najib has dismissed reporting on the scandal as fake news.)

In his first month in office, Trump scrapped the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which President Obama negotiated in part to counter Chinas rising regional influence. Countries including Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar are growing ever closer with Beijing  which unlike the U.S. does not tie its aid and loans to human rights concerns.

Trump has created a moral vacuum which China has moved to exploit, and to fill, said Isaac Stone Fish, a senior fellow at the Asia Society. And theyre just much more sophisticated, and much more coordinated, about their foreign policy messaging than Trump is.

Publicly, Chinas able to say, We dont care about your domestic issues, we just want to bring trade and prosperity  a Pax Sinica, with Beijing at the center, he continued. People who understand China know that its a lot more complicated  and one would say devious  than that. But we are losing the ability to say that this comes with a lot of human rights abuses, or moral externalities, so to speak.

Critics say Obamas Asia strategy did little to advance the spread of democracy region-wide. They say the former president was premature in lifting sanctions on Myanmar, and they have condemned his decision to lift a five-decade-old arms embargo on Vietnam. (During an Obama state visit, authorities there detained several activists who were on their way to meet him.)

Trumps populist streak  his bellicose tweets, his tirades against fake news  have in some ways been as influential in Asia as his administrations explicit policies. Several heads of state have, echoing Trump, turned on their own news media and denounced critical reporting as fake news.

Myanmars de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in her first comments on the Rohingya crisis in early September, called allegations of ethnic cleansing fake news and a huge iceberg of misinformation. (The government has barred journalists and aid workers from areas where the alleged atrocities occurred.)

In February, Cambodian leader Hun Sen expressed sympathy for Trumps stance toward the press, calling journalists an anarchic group. (In 2016, he said he hoped Trump would win the election, claiming it would be good for world peace.) In September, his authorities shuttered the English-language Cambodia Daily newspaper, which had been publishing since 1993.

This fake news thing, its being used as an excuse for governments to shut down some of the news and pile on a lot more pressure, said Virak Ou, the activist. And pressure, in this context, is fear  its creating a lot of fear and self-censorship.

Last year, Obama canceled a meeting with Philippine President Duterte over his brutal drug war, and the leader shot back by calling him a son of a whore. Trump has taken more kindly to the anti-drug campaign. I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem, he told Duterte in an April phone call, according to leaked transcripts. The White House said this week that the two leaders have a warm rapport.

Over the past two or three months, at the very least since August, weve seen a significant shift in terms of how Western powers, especially the U.S. and Australia, have been approaching Duterte, said Richard Heydarian, the Manila-based author of the forthcoming book The Rise of Duterte.

Theyve been raising issues of strategic counter-terror operations, with the rise of ISIS in mind, he continued, referencing a battle between Philippine forces and Islamic State-affiliated fighters on the southern island Mindanao. Duterte has made a big point out of this  when he meets major Western officials, from [Secretary of State] Rex Tillerson to [Australias Foreign Affairs Minister] Julie Bishop, issues of human rights and democracy are barely at the center of the discussion, if raised at all.

Chinese authorities have framed Trumps rise  and, by extension, the growing divisions in American society  as a symptom of democracys inherent flaws. A commentary in the state-run New China News Agency last month decried the crises and chaos of democratic systems.

Endless political backbiting, bickering and policy reversals, which make the hallmarks of liberal democracy, have retarded economic and social progress and ignore the interests of most citizens, it said.

Xi has cast himself as a champion of globalization and free trade  sort of an anti-Trump figure  while deepening repression at home. No country can retreat to their own island. We live in a shared world and face a shared destiny, he said in a three-and-a-half hour speech last month to open the 19th Party Congress, a top-level meeting at which he amassed extraordinary power. He also called for deepening Communist Party control. Government, the military, society and schools, north, south, east and west  the party leads them all, he said.

After the meeting, Trump praised Xis extraordinary elevation, and likened the Chinese leader to a king.

jonathan.kaiman@latimes.com

For more news from Asia, follow @JRKaiman on Twitter
The U.S. military for the first time has conducted two airstrikes against Islamic State fighters in Somalia, where the extremists are a growing presence in a country long threatened by the Al Qaeda-linked Shabab.

The U.S. Africa Command said the two drone strikes killed several terrorists in northeastern Somalia, the first around midnight local time and the second Friday morning. The strikes were carried out in coordination with Somalias government, the statement said.

Local officials confirmed the airstrikes. At least six missiles struck Buqa, a mountainous village roughly 37 miles north of Qandala town in the northern state of Puntland, a Somali security official told the Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

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The strikes sent terrified villagers and their animals fleeing, said Qandalas mayor, Jama Mohamed.

The U.S. has carried out well over a dozen drone strikes against the Shabab this year after the Trump administration approved expanded efforts against the group. The Shabab was blamed for carrying out Somalias deadliest attack last month, a massive truck bombing in the capital, Mogadishu, that killed more than 350 people. Somalias president has vowed a state of war, with neighbors sending thousands of troops to help the local military and an African Union force.

But Islamic State-linked fighters who have split from the Somalia-based Shabab in the past couple of years pose a growing threat, notably in a part of the country far from the Shababs strongholds in the south.

In May, Islamic State claimed responsibility for a deadly bombing in Puntland  said to be the first time the extremist group had claimed an attack in the Horn of Africa nation. Police said a suicide bomber detonated at a military checkpoint in the commercial hub of Bossaso, killing at least four people.

The Islamic State in Somalia group was formed in late 2015 when Shabab fighters in Puntland broke away, perhaps influenced by an Islamic State social media campaign urging them to defect, and their leader Abdulqadir Mumin pledged allegiance, according to a report in January by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

It is now believed that the group has between 100 and 200 fighters, the report says. Importantly, the Islamic State has not officially acknowledged Mumins pledge. ... Nevertheless, operationally, ISS has arguably been the most powerful of the new Islamic State affiliates in sub-Saharan Africa.

The group briefly seized Qandala late last year, making the town the first territory the Islamic State has held inside Somalia, the report says.

A report by United Nations experts monitoring sanctions against Islamic State noted in an August report the terrorist threat posed by its affiliates in Puntland.
The Syrian military announced Friday that its forces recaptured the eastern city of Dair Alzour, Islamic States last major urban stronghold in the country, as their Iraqi counterparts wrested control of a key border town from the extremist group.

The simultaneous assaults have squeezed the militants, who once controlled vast stretches of Syria and Iraq, into a dwindling pocket of territory straddling the border between the two countries.

Syrian state media reports said government troops, backed by Russian warplanes and Iranian-supported militias, drove the militants from their remaining footholds in Dair Alzour and were sweeping the city to remove any explosive devices left behind.

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Hours later, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi said his forces had taken control of the town of Qaim after seizing a key border post. In a statement issued by his office, Abadi congratulated the countrys military, federal police and allied militias for the operation launched just over a week ago, which he said was completed in record time.

The advances marked the latest in a string of military defeats for Islamic State, which has seen its self-declared caliphate crumble in the face of multiple offensives in Syria and Iraq.

A U.S.-backed alliance of Syrian militias took control of Islamic States de facto capital, Raqqah, last month, and Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul, the largest city held by the militants, in July.

But as Islamic State loses territory, concern is mounting that the myriad forces arrayed against the militants could turn on each other. Clashes have already erupted in Iraq as Abadis troops have moved into contested areas that had been under the control of Kurdish fighters known as the peshmerga.

Syrian officials say they are determined to take back all territory that has fallen from government control since the start of an uprising in March 2011. They may soon focus their attention on oil fields seized by the U.S.- backed fighters known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, in a race for control over Islamic States remaining territory in Dair Alzour province.

Lelwa Abdullah, a spokeswoman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, accused the government of shelling their positions at the Jafra oil field over the weekend. The Kurdish-led troops have also been contending with periodic attacks by suicide car and truck bombers unleashed by Islamic State, she said.

The city of Dair Alzour, which sits on the west bank of the Euphrates River, was considered a key asset by Islamic State because of its proximity to the Iraqi border and to oil and gas fields that were an important source of revenue for the militants.

Assads forces and their allies punched their way into the city in September, breaking a nearly three-year siege on the handful of neighborhoods that had remained under government control since the militants lightning sweep across Syria and Iraq in 2014.

Brig. Gen. Ali Mayhoub, a Syrian military spokesman, described the citys recapture Friday as a strategic victory, citing its economic importance as well as its location at a crossroads linking the countrys eastern, northern and central regions.

The liberation of Dair Alzour constitutes the final phase in the complete elimination of the Daesh organization in Syria, he said in a statement read on state television, using an Arabic acronym for the militants.

Pro-government forces and their U.S.-backed rivals are now charging south toward the border town of Bukamal, the last urban area under the full control of Islamic State, from opposite sides of the Euphrates river as Iraqi forces close in from the east.

The fighting has displaced tens of thousands of civilians, who have poured into overcrowded camps where food and medicine are in short supply and there arent enough tents to go around.

Many will be eager to return to Dair Alzour and surrounding villages, although it is not clear how many have a home still standing.

The area has been pounded with artillery and air strikes for months. Video posted on the website of the official Syrian Arab News Agency showed government troops rolling through a devastated cityscape, past collapsed buildings and ones with their facades blown off. Plumes of smoke rose from the skyline.

Resol is a special correspondent.

alexandra.zavis@latimes.com

Twitter: @alexzavis

ALSO

A century later, the Balfour Declaration still haunts the Middle East

One familys tale of life under Islamic State: We were living in a big prison

Israel blows up Gaza tunnel, killing 8 militants, including an Islamic Jihad commander

UPDATES:

2:40 p.m.: This article was updated with comment from the Syrian military and the rival Syrian Democratic Forces.

8:30 a.m.: This article was updated throughout with Times staff reporting.

This article was originally published at 1:40 a.m.
The region's equity market has soared this year and after a ripping October where at least eight transactions crossed the tape, bankers expect another wave of offerings through the year-end
Accounts of state-owned enterprise Artyomsol in the evening on November 2, 2017 were arrested, and operations of the enterprise could be paralyzed, the enterprise has said in a press release.

According to the report, the accounts were arrested as part of the enforcement procedure to collect UAH 70.5 million of fine from Artyomsol, as the company violated the conditions of a contract with collective enterprise of peacekeeping soldiers Memory in the period of 2013-2015.

"At present, the enforcement service did not notify Artyomsol in a proper way that the enforcement procedure was launched, which is violation of Article 28 of the Ukrainian law and Article 19 of the Constitution of Ukraine. According to information received yesterday from banks that service accounts of the enterprise, the enforcement procedure was launched and an order to arrest assets of Artyomsol was issued," the enterprise said in a press release.

Thus, after litigation in courts between Memory and Artyomsol, the state-owned enterprise is to pay a fine of UAH 63.95 million, a court fee of UAH 172,500 and the enforcement fee of UAH 6.4 million. In turn, Artyomsol filed a counterclaim to the higher business court of Ukraine.

"In the course of protracted litigation, Artyomsol defended the position of recognizing the agreement with Memory as invalid because of the violation of anti-corruption legislation. In 2017, Head of the enterprise Viktoria Lutsenko appealed to the Verkhovna Rada committee on anti-corruption policy with a request to assist in resolving this issue," the enterprise said.

The controversial agreement on startup works between Memory and Artyomsol was signed on October 28, 2005 for a period of more than 11 years. At the time of the conclusion, an estimated amount of UAH 16.06 million was set in the contract, which on June 20, 2014 was increased to UAH 63.95 million. According to the terms of the contract, as a result of failure to meet its obligations by the state-owned enterprise in 2014-2015 it became possible to recover UAH 63.95 million from the enterprise.

Artyomsol tried to prove in court that the said agreement contradicts the interests of the state, it does not correspond to the economic goal of the state enterprise, and it is concluded with a conflict of interests (in order to create an artificial debt of the state enterprise before Memory), in violation of anti-corruption legislation. The contract, supplementary agreements and protocols to it were signed by persons who are affiliated with each other in corporate interests and kinship ties, which may indicate their personal interest.

"To date, Head of the enterprise Lutsenko is taking all possible measures to prevent write-offs of the funds. Appeals to the Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry of Ukraine, the Ministry of Justice, the Prosecutor's Office of Donetsk region, NABU [National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine], again to the Verkhovna Rada committee on anti-corruption policy and the head of Donetsk Regional Administration with a request to assist in resolving this issue have been sent," Artyomsol said.

The state-owned company said that if the above penalties are written off from its accounts, social obligations may be jeopardized. Nevertheless, the management of the enterprise is taking measures aimed at timely payment of salaries to employees of Artyomsol and meeting all the financial obligations.

Artyomsol is the largest enterprise for production and sale of table salt (NaCl) in Central and Eastern Europe. Its production facilities are located in Soledar (Donetsk region). The company exports its products to 19 countries. About 35% of the company's products are sold in Ukraine, and the rest are supplied abroad (data for 2016).
(NEW YORK) -- Sara D. Davis/Getty ImagesSgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier turned captive who pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, will not receive prison time.

A military judge sentenced Bergdahl on Friday to a reduction in rank to private (the lowest level), forfeiture of $1,000 a month for 10 months and a dishonorable discharge.

Bergdahl, 31, abandoned his Army post in Afghanistan in June 2009. He was captured by the Taliban and held for five years. The Obama administration secured his release in a prisoner exchange with the militant group in May 2014.

Bergdahl and his attorneys were visibly nervous when they entered the courtroom to hear the sentence Friday morning. One of the attorneys had her hand on his back.

Army Col. Jeffery Nance came in immediately and read the sentence. Upon hearing the decision, Bergdahl's attorneys cried.

The prosecution recommended 14 years of prison time on Thursday, as well as the reduction in rank and dishonorable discharge. Bergdahl's defense recommended only a dishonorable discharge.

The sentencing caps an emotional few days of testimony.

"He relives that torture he experienced for five years," Cpt. Nina Banks, one of Bergdahls defense attorneys, said at the courthouse on Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, during closing arguments. "He will forever carry those scars with him."

But the prosecution focused on the men who searched for Bergdahl after his disappearance, risking injury and death.

"[Bergdahl] described that choice as a huge mistake. But your honor, words have meaning," Maj. Justin C. Oshana, a prosecuting attorney, told Nance. "It wasnt a mistake. It was a crime."

Since both sides recommended the dishonorable discharge, Nance asked Bergdahl on Thursday, "Do you consent to a dishonorable discharge if it will preclude you from going to confinement?" Bergdahl replied, "Yes, sir."

One of the mitigating factors in his sentencing were disparaging comments by President Trump as a candidate and while in office. Nance ruled Monday that while Bergdahl can get a fair trial despite the remarks, he would consider them in his sentencing.

As a candidate, Trump denounced Bergdahl and the Obama administration's agreement to get him back from the Taliban. On Oct. 16, 2015, for example, Trump called him "a rotten traitor" and suggested he should be shot or dropped from an airplane.

"In the old days he'd get shot for treason," the president told a crowd of supporters. "If I win, I might just have him floating right in the middle of that place and drop him, boom. Let 'em have him. ... I mean, that's cheaper than a bullet."

More recently, Trump declined to comment on Bergdahl's case, telling reporters, "I think people have heard my comments in the past."

Even those comments were seen by Nance as "unlawful command influence," writing in his ruling, "The plain meaning of the presidents words to any reasonable hearer could be that in spite of knowing that he should not comment on the pending sentencing in this case, he wanted to make sure that everyone remembered what he really thinks should happen to the accused."

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved
Recovery of $12 mln from Ukraine in favor of JKX due to NBU decision on capital withdrawal

The decision of the London arbitration to recover $12 million from Ukraine in favor of JKX Oil & Gas Plc is connected with the decision of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) on capital withdrawal and that of the Cabinet of Ministers on gas purchases by industrial consumers, Ukraine's Ministry of Justice has reported.

"Some $12 million that Ukraine must pay relate to the investment arbitration's recognizing the NBU decision on withdrawal of foreign exchange funds abroad and the government resolution on the procedure of natural gas purchases by industrial, energy generating and heat generating (in terms of industrial gas volumes) enterprises inappropriate," the report says.

As reported, previously the High Court of Justice of England and Wales rejected Ukraine's appeal against the decision of London arbitration, which obliged the country to pay about $12 million to JKX Oil & Gas Plc oil and gas company.
Kyiv's Podilsky District Court has extended until January 6, 2018 a measure of restraint in the form of detention for former Ukrainian Armed Forces serviceman Alexander Baranov, who is charged with high treason for crossing over to serve in the Russian army.

The defendant's lawyer, Valentyn Rybin, told Interfax-Ukraine that the next court hearing on this case would be held at 16.00 on November 29.

At a meeting on Thursday, November 2, the court has already begun to consider this case in essence. Representatives of the prosecutor's office read out the indictment, and then the court determined the procedure for investigating the evidence and further consideration of the case.

Rybin said that a meeting of Kyiv's Darnytsky District Court on the case of Maxim Odintsov, who was detained together with Baranov, would be held on November 13. Earlier, the court extended his term of detention until November 24. In this process, prosecutors have already submitted its evidence for consideration by the court.

As reported, two servicemen, Alexander Baranov and Maxim Odintsov, had crossed over to serve in the Russian army in 2014. On November 20, 2016, they were detained by officers of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) near the Chonhar crossing point at the border with Crimea.

On November 22, 2016, Mykolaiv's Central District Court ordered that the two servicemen accused of desertion (Ukrainian Criminal Code Article 408, Part 1) be taken into custody as a pretrial restrictive measure. The two were also charged with high treason (Article 111, Part 1) the same day.
The San Francisco-based architect working about two months now on the proposed Da Vinci Science City in Easton has come up with what are being called "iconic experiences" at the attraction.

Take the 100-foot-tall, walk-through human body patterned after Leonardo Da Vinci's iconic Vitruvian Man drawing from around 1490. It's designed as a centerpiece of a major health exhibit. Multi-story aquatic exhibits feed off the facility's location at the confluence of the Delaware and Lehigh rivers, said Duncan Ballash, from the architecture firm EHDD.

Lin Erickson, executive director of the parent Da Vinci Science Center in Allentown, shared details and renderings of some of the exhibits Thursday night with Northampton County Council, as she made her pitch for millions of dollars in county hotel tax money.

"There's no doubt about it, it's exciting," said Councilwoman Peg Ferraro, chairwoman of council's Economic Development Committee that heard Thursday's presentation.

Council did not commit to putting county hotel tax money toward the project, but Ferraro is pushing for a decision before year's end to stay in line with the proposal's aggressive timetable.

Opening day is envisioned in 2021 for the $130 million attraction at South Third Street and Larry Holmes Drive in Easton. The Days Inn stands there now and is being purchased by the city in January to be torn down, making way for Da Vinci.

A master plan is on schedule to wrap up in June 2018, when Da Vinci expects to have raised $85 million, or 65 percent of the project cost -- pending the support from the county, Erickson said.

Science City is projected to draw 600,000 annual visitors, appealing to a larger draw from in and around the Lehigh Valley than the Crayola Experience that draws about 450,000 visitors to Easton each year, Erickson said by way of comparison.

It's projected to create 200 full-time-equivalent jobs on top of 650 construction positions. The total direct economic impact is projected at $45 million a year, with collateral investment in real estate in the county seen at $300 million over 20 years, Erickson told council.

Thursday's discussion also sought to clear up concerns about the project's location in a floodplain and about the use of $20 million in casino revenue approved last week by the Legislature and signed into law Monday by Gov. Tom Wolf.

Jennifer Devlin-Herbert, also with EHDD, said the "four-story educational experience" is being designed to be built above the rivers' 500-year floodplain by using selective siting and elevating the structure where necessary. Low-lying areas most vulnerable to flooding are proposed to become outdoor exhibits.

The newly approved state funding is broken down into $2 million a year for 10 years, starting in 2019, from a gambling-supported tourism fund.

A pie chart released Thursday shows 45 percent of the Da Vinci Science City funding coming from state and federal tax dollars.

County Councilman Hayden Phillips aired concerns voiced by state Sen. Mario Scavello, a Republican who voted against the gambling expansion that included the state money for Da Vinci. At issue is a Ripley's Aquarium said to be in the works that would be privately financed in Scavello's district in Monroe County. He opposes Da Vinci tapping public funding and its proposed 500,000-gallon saltwater aquarium competing with Ripley's, Phillips said.

The language in the state law allocating the $20 million only says it's for a science and education center in a city, which as described can only mean Easton. The money could easily go toward non-aquarium amenities totaling an investment of about $70 million, Erickson said.

She previously said the Da Vinci project, with its focus on education, is so different from the commercial Ripley's proposal that the two could co-exist about 40 miles apart.

From the county, Da Vinci is requesting $1 million in hotel tax money spread over four years before Science City opens, followed by a commitment of up to $15 million based on percentages of existing hotel tax revenue and new revenue resulting, in part, from the attraction's opening, according to Erickson.

The county already committed $50,000 in hotel tax money to the project's ongoing feasibility and marketing study. Ponying up more would help Da Vinci secure even more public and private money, backers said Thursday in council chambers less than a half-mile west of the proposed Science City site.

"Your commitment helps to bring the money in," said Da Vinci board member Jane Ervin, a former Lehigh County executive. "This is a golden opportunity and I would encourage you not to let this pass by. There's nothing like this in the United Sates. This is unique. It can happen right down the street."

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Kwamane Bryant had already been reminded of his right to remain silent.

But after Easton police Inspector Anthony Arredondo told District Judge Jacqueline Taschner that he didn't have a bail recommendation for the 28-year-old arrested Friday morning in a drug raid in Forks Township on charges tied to gang-related heroin sales in Easton, Bryant didn't hold his tongue.

Asked by the judge if he had anything to say about bail on charges of delivery of heroin and criminal use of a cellphone, Bryant said, "I know what I did was wrong." He then explained that he had been "nothing but cooperative" with police since his arrest just after 6 a.m. in a town house at 2614 Penn's Ridge Blvd.

"I know what I did," he said. "I messed up, your honor."

After saying he had no drug or alcohol issues, Bryant, wearing a sleeveless white T-shirt, gray shorts and flip flops, looked toward the judge.

"$150,000 straight," Taschner said. She explained conditions of bail, then added, "In all honesty, Mr. Bryant," with three detainers for his arrest out of New Jersey, "it doesn't make a difference if I set bail at $1 or $100 million. ... I consider you a flight risk."

Bryant has probation/parole issues surrounding cases in Warren, Hunterdon and Union counties in New Jersey, including charges of unlawful possession of a weapon, hindering and theft, he told the judge earlier in the hearing.

He also had robbery and drug convictions as a juvenile, he said. But he did complete two years of college, he added.

He has no pending new charges in New Jersey, he said.

After Taschner set bail, Bryant said the amount did make a difference because if he were freed, he and his attorneys in New Jersey could deal with the other cases. He said there was a specific cause for the violations.

"I was incarcerated," he said. "It's the reason the warrants were put out."

Earlier in the proceeding, he asked the judge if Pennsylvania would allow him to return to New Jersey to address the cases where he was wanted, but Taschner said she couldn't give him a definitive answer, that it would be better if he asked his attorney.

He asked if he could call "my lawyers" so "they can come and get me."

Bryant moved in March from Plainfield, New Jersey, to Forks Township, he said. His girlfriend is on the lease but he isn't, he said. He was doing warehouse work for the previous three years in Branchburg, New Jersey, but he hasn't worked since arriving in the Lehigh Valley, he said.

His girlfriend was helping support him, he said. He has a 13-month-old daughter living on Butler Street, he said, but he didn't remember the apartment number. He also has a brother in Phillipsburg, he said. When asked about family in New Jersey, he said he has relatives there, but his mother was incarcerated.

Suspected members of the Bloods street gang were living in the Forks Township home and selling heroin in Easton, city police charge. Prior to Friday, police only knew Bryant by his street name, Abu, Lt. Matthew Gerould said. So the arrest warrant that was served Friday morning was for a John Doe. Court papers were amended after the hearing.

The Northampton County Drug Task Force was involved in the raid and Forks police assisted, city police said.

The raid on Friday morning was one of three simultaneously involving Easton police.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Easton City Council won't decide when to address Lafayette College's dorm plan until January.

A special meeting to address the plan had been set for Nov. 9, but the college asked for more time.

The college wants to build dormitories for 400 students in the area of McCartney, Cattell and High streets. The proposal includes a diner, bookstore and wellness center.

The Easton Planning Commission in September rejected a special exception request the college needed to move ahead with the plans. The college appealed that decision and wants city council to override the planning commission decision.

City council agreed to set a new date to address the Lafayette appeal at its second meeting in January. Since council typically meets on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month, that would likely put the decision on Jan. 24.

College Hill resident Joshua Gaffney claims the resolution council passed to set up the Nov. 9 meeting wasn't done according to proper procedure and violates the due process rights of residents.

He is among neighbors who oppose the expansion. They say the college is encroaching on them, failing to preserve historic buildings and taking up too much on-street parking. They're also removing the neighborhood's affordable housing stock, they say.

City solicitor William Murphy said postponing the Nov. 9 meeting will give him more time to review Gaffney's argument and see whether it has merit and will require a different approach to set up the appeal hearing.

The dormitories are part Lafayette's master plan to increase enrollment and make the admissions process "need blind." Adding students will allow Lafayette to raise revenue and boost its financial aid budget to $60 million.

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
A man accused of killing a Lehigh County woman claims he did so after she refused his marriage proposal.

Christopher Tucker reportedly told police after he asked Tara Marie Serino to marry him, she refused and said she was seeing other men.

The 34-year-old Tucker said Serino made a comment that he should just kill her and he did, according to police.

Tucker admitted strangling the 19-year-old, poking her eyes out, snapping her neck and beating her with a hatchet, police said. Tucker wrapped the body in a rug, left it in his house and drove to Illinois.

Tucker was arrested in Illinois and is awaiting extradition to Pennsylvania to face murder and related charges.

Police said Tucker was arrested Tuesday night near a truck stop in Buckley, Illinois. Tucker allegedly tried to break into a farm combine machine while the farmer was inside; the Iriqouis County Sheriff's Department said Tucker was acting strangely and not making sense.

Tucker was taken to Presence Urbana Medical Center. On Wednesday afternoon, Serino's father reported her missing.

Fred Serino said his daughter left with Tucker at 12:38 a.m. Monday, and she told her parents she would call later to let them know she was okay, according to court records.

"Fred Serino never did receive a phone call," court records state.

Tuesday night, Serino called Pennsylvania State Police at the Hamburg barracks to check Tucker's home at 282 Roth Road in Albany Township, Berks County. Troopers said no one was home when they went to the residence.

Serino told police that the next day, Tucker's father came to his Upper Macungie home with Tara Serino's phone and purse.

John Tucker told police he was called by the Illinois hospital about his son's hospitalization. John Tucker drove to his son's home, found the front door closed but unlocked and a front window broken, authorities said.

John Tucker went inside, saw the purse and phone, and discovered they were Tara Serino's, investigators said. John Tucker took the phone and purse, and brought them to her home, police said.

Troopers then went to Tucker's home, and found Tara Serino's body, wrapped in a blanket, in a bedroom.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Northampton County Coroner Zachary Lysek on Thursday night identified two children who died Wednesday.

Mason Blum, 2, of 410 W. Pennsylvania Ave. in Pen Argyl, was pronounced dead Wednesday night at St. Luke's Hospital in Bethlehem Township, Lysek said. The cause and manner of the child's death are pending an autopsy, Lysek said.

Blum was found Wednesday night unresponsive in a bathtub after his mother Michelle Wallace, 34, of an apartment at that address, was awakened in a stupor by Slate Belt Regional police officers checking on her welfare, police said.

A 2-year-old boy died the night of Nov. 1, 2017, after being found unresponsive in Michelle Wallace's apartment at 410 W. Pennsylvania Ave. in Pen Argyl, authorities say. (Sarah Cassi | For lehighvalleylive.com)

The child was disabled and could only ambulate on his knees, Wallace told police. The tub was overflowing when Wallace pulled him out, police said.

Wallace was charged with involuntary manslaughter and related offenses and is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail at Northampton County Prison.

Qiydaar Simmons Jr., 19 months old, of Jackson Street in Easton, was pronounced dead Wednesday morning at Easton Hospital, Lysek said.

Following an autopsy, the cause and manner of the child's death are pending further testing, Lysek said.

The boy was taken from 1004 W. Nesquehoning St. to the hospital. City police have provided scant details awaiting the coroner's ruling.

City police, the coroner's office and the district attorney's office are probing the death because it couldn't immediately be explained, an official said.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A former employee of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) office in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and now an employee of the Russian FSB, who was involved in the torture of Crimean Tatar Renat Paralamov in September 2017, has been notified by Ukrainian law enforcers of suspicion in committing a number of crimes, the press service of the Crimean Prosecutor's Office has reported.

"On November 1, 2017, investigators of the main office of the National Police in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, in accordance with the procedure established by law, notified the former senior detective for particularly important cases of the main department for combating corruption and organized crime of the SBU's main office in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea of the suspicion," the Crimean Prosecutor's Office reported on Thursday, November 3.

The prosecutor's office recalled that on September 13, 2017, FSB officers illegally penetrated into Paralamov's house to conduct the searches. After the searches, law enforcers took him to an unknown direction, where the man was physically and psychologically pressured, and also tortured with electric shock. The purpose of these actions by representatives of the Russian special service was to receive evidence from Paralamov about the shelter of explosives and ammunition, the dissemination of extremist materials on the Internet and giving false testimony with respect to his friends and strangers.

In this regard, the Crimean Prosecutor's Office is in charge of procedural management of the pre-trial investigation in criminal proceedings on the grounds of criminal offenses envisaged by Article 127 (torture), Article 146 (illegal deprivation of liberty or abduction) and Article 162 (violation of the inviolability of the home) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
A drug counselor who started a romantic relationship with a client is accused of providing the client with her urine for drug testing while he was on parole, the Lehigh County District Attorney's Office announced Thursday evening.

Now, the client is dead of an apparent drug overdose and the counselor is facing criminal charges for helping him conceal his drug use prior to his death.

Kristianna Belotto, 25, of the 700 block of Saucon View Drive in Lower Saucon Township, is charged with tampering with or fabricating physical evidence, obstruction, hindering apprehension or prosecution and furnishing drug-free urine. All are misdemeanors.

District Attorney Jim Martin said in a news release that she surrendered on Thursday and was expected to be arraigned on the charges. It was not immediately clear if she's been incarcerated.

Allentown police early Saturday morning responded to a report of a suspected drug overdose in the first block of South Hazel Street. They found Michael Rubery, 29, dead at the address.

"The officers observed bags of heroin and needles near his body," Martin said, adding a cell phone was also found nearby. "His mother, who was present at the scene, confirmed that the cell phone belonged to her son and consented to police seizing it."

Police said they used forensics to find more than 23,000 text messages on the phone between Rubery and a contact named "Tianna Maria." The messaging started on Feb. 8 and indicated the two were in a romantic relationship. The investigation later determined that the contact was Belotto, the district attorney said.

Rubery was paroled on charges of unauthorized use of a vehicle and escape on Dec. 16, 2016. As a condition of his parole, he was required to have addiction counseling and submit urine samples for drug testing.

The counseling was to be provided through Pyramid Healthcare, 1605 N. Cedar Crest Blvd. in Allentown, a drug and alcohol treatment facility under contract with the Lehigh County Probation Office, Martin said. Pyramid assigned Belotto to be his drug counselor, he said.

Some of the text messages between Rubery and Belotto allegedly related to his urine testing and an arrest warrant issued for him on Oct. 20.

Martin said the investigation into these messages revealed that Belotto aided Rubery by supplying her own "clean" urine and submitting incorrect testing results to his parole officer. She also allegedly failed to reveal his whereabouts to authorities after the issuance of the arrest warrant.

Information about Belotto's employment at Pyramid was not available on Thursday night. A phone message left at the facility seeking information about her case was not immediately returned.

It was also unclear whether Belotto has an attorney, and efforts to reach her on Thursday night were unsuccessful. She has no listed telephone number.

Nick Falsone may be reached at nfalsone@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickfalsone. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Republican lawmakers from Pennsylvania and New Jersey like some of what they see in the tax cut plan unveiled Thursday by the House of Representatives.

"The House unveiled really a great package and a bill that will directly lower the tax burden for working families, middle class families," U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said Friday. "It's a pay raise for ordinary Americans" that also "would allow businesses to compete and win."

Toomey is working on the Senate's proposal as a member of the Finance Committee and said it is on track to be presented by the end of next week, with a goal of getting a bill to President Donald Trump by year's end.

"Many of the big headline features in the House bill will be similar in the Senate bill, but there will also be quite a number of significant differences," Toomey said in a conference call with reporters.

U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent said Friday he was still reviewing the proposal and what it means for tax breaks, loopholes and other changes.

"I'd say the direction is generally one that's appropriate," said Dent, a Republican whose 15th Congressional District covers Lehigh and part of Northampton counties. "The goal of this tax reform is to provide simplicity and fairness and it's clear to me that with a tax code over 70,000 pages long, we need greater simplicity."

Dent said he likes the proposal to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, a move that Toomey said aims to promote economic growth. It also encourages repatriation of American money overseas, Dent said.

"Also I'm very happy to see great reductions for middle class taxpayers," he told lehighvalleylive.com. "The rates are going to be lower for them.

"That's important. There's a lot to like and we're trying to understand some of the tax preferences that are being limited or eliminated."

The broad tax-overhaul plan would touch virtually all Americans and the economy's every corner, mingling sharply lower rates for corporations and reduced personal taxes for many with fewer deductions for home-buyers and families with steep medical bills, The Associated Press reports.

"We are working to give the American people a giant tax cut for Christmas," President Donald Trump said in an Oval Office kickoff for the plan. The measure, he said, "will also be tax reform, and it will create jobs."

It would also increase the national debt, a problem for some Republicans. And Democrats attacked the proposal as the GOP's latest bonanza for the rich, with a phase-out of the inheritance tax and repeal of the alternative minimum tax on the highest earners -- certain to help Trump and members of his family and Cabinet, among others.

"If you're the wealthiest 1 percent, Republicans will give you the sun, the moon and the stars, all of that at the expense of the great middle class," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

The Republican-controlled Senate can pass the $1.5 trillion tax cut with a simple majority under a process known as reconciliation. Spilling over that line means the proposal loses its protection against Democratic Senate filibusters, bill-killing delays that take 60 votes to overcome.

That means constraints on what the overhaul can do, Toomey said, and may require making some provisions temporary.

"One is there cannot be an increase in the deficit at the end of the budget window," he said. "That's problematic.

"So we're going to have to make some tough decisions on what can be permanent and what has to expire not because we want to. These are just the budget rules that we have to live with."

U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey takes part July 5, 2017, in a televised town hall in Harrisburg. He said Nov. 3, 2017, he views the House tax cut plan as a win for "ordinary Americans," saying, "The ultimate goal is to get middle income, lower working class families tax relief ... ." (Pennlive.com file photo | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Underscoring problems ahead, some Republicans from high-tax Northeastern states expressed opposition to the measure's elimination of the deduction for state and local income taxes. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah called the House measure "a great starting point" but said it would be "somewhat miraculous" if its corporate tax rate reduction to 20 percent -- a major Trump goal -- survived. His panel plans to produce its own tax package in the coming days.

The bill would condense today's seven personal income tax brackets into just four: 12 percent, 25 percent, 35 percent and 39.6 percent.

The 25 percent rate

The 35 percent rate

The top rate threshold

The standard deduction -- used by people who don't itemize, around two-thirds of taxpayers -- would nearly double to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for couples. That's expected to encourage even more people to use the standard deduction with a simplified tax form Republicans say will be postcard-sized.

Many middle-income families would pay less, thanks to the bigger standard deduction and an increased child tax credit. Republicans said their plan would save $1,182 in taxes for a family of four earning $59,000, but features like phase-outs of some benefits suggest their taxes could grow in the future.

"The plan clearly chooses corporate CEOs and hedge fund managers over teachers and police officers," said Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J.

One trade-off for the plan's reductions was its elimination of breaks that millions have long treasured. Gone would be deductions for people's medical expenses -- especially important for families facing nursing home bills or lacking insurance -- and their ability to write off state and local income taxes. The mortgage interest deduction would be limited to the first $500,000 of the loan, down from the current $1 million ceiling.

Led by Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the authors retained the deductibility of up to $10,000 in local property taxes in a bid to line up votes from Republicans from the Northeast. The panel planned to begin votes on the proposal next Monday.

"It's progress, but I want more," said Rep. Leonard Lance, R-N.J., who represents one of his state's wealthier, higher-cost districts and wants the entire property tax deduction restored.

On the business side, the House would drop the top rate for corporations from 35 percent to 20 percent. American companies operating abroad would pay a 10 percent tax on their overseas subsidiaries' profits. Cash that those firms have amassed abroad but now return home would face a one-time 12 percent tax.

Also reduced to 25 percent would be the rate for many "pass-through" businesses, whose profits are taxed at the owners' individual rate.

But some of those companies would face higher rates. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said that disparity was "just not acceptable," and the National Federation of Independent Business said it opposed the bill because it "does not help most small businesses."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce praised the measure but said "a lot of work remains to be done." The group's chief policy officer, Neil Bradley, said pass-throughs were one concern.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Keith O'Callaghan - Portlaoise

The death took place on Friday, November 3 of Keith O'Callaghan of 52 Higgins Park, Portlaoise.



Died peacefully surrounded by his loving family at the Midlands Regional Hospital Portlaoise. Predeceased by his loving mother Mary Glynn. Sadly missed by his father James, brother James and sister Fiona, nieces, nephews, relatives neighbours and a large circle of family and friends.

Reposing on Saturday in The Chapel of Rest at The Midlands Regional Hospital, Portlaoise from 5pm with Rosary at 8pm. Removal on Sunday at 12 noon to St. Peter & Paul's Church, Portlaoise arriving for 12.30 Requiem Mass. Burial afterwards in St. Peter & Paul's Cemetery, Portlaoise.

Michael Bergin - Ballybrophy

The death took place on Thursday, November 2 of Michael (Mick) Bergin of Ballymeelish, Ballybrophy.



Peacefully at home in the presence of his family. Michael (Mick), deeply regretted by his wife Mary and his family, Liam, Michelle, Evelyn and Michael, daughters-in-law Grace and Amandine, sons-in-law Andy and Darren, grandchildren, his sisters Margaret (Ryan) and Mary (Dowling), sister-in-law Agnes, nephews, nieces, relatives, neighbours and friends.

Reposing at his home at Ballymeelish on Friday from 3pm with rosary at 8pm. Funeral Mass on Saturday at 12 noon in Killasmeestia Church followed by burial in the adjoining cemetery.

Gordon Bradley - Stradbally

The death took place on Thursday, November 2 of Gordon Bradley of Ballycoolan, Stradbally.



He will be sadly missed by his wife Vivienne, sons, daughters, family circle and many friends.

Reposing at his home on Saturday until prayers at 8pm. Funeral Service in Timogue Church on Sunday at 2.30pm followed by burial in adjoining cemetery.

Peggy Carroll - Camross

The death took place on Wednesday, November 1 of Peggy Carroll (Mortimer) of Garrafin, Camross, Mountrath.



Peacefully, at home, with her loving family, after a long illness. She will be sadly missed by her husband Donal, children Carl and Eve, brothers John and Michael, and sister Nora (McCormack), extended family and friends.

Reposing at her home on Friday from 3pm to 8pm, followed by Rosary at 8pm. Removal to St. Fergal's Church, Camross on Saturday for 2pm Funeral Mass followed by private cremation.

William Dunphy - Castletown

The death took place on Wednesday, November 1 of William (Billy) Dunphy of Churchfield, Castletown.

Peacefully, at Droimnin Nursing Home, Stradbally, in his 90th year. Deeply regretted and will be sadly missed by his loving sister, Colette, brother Sean, sisters-in-law, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces, extended family, relatives, neighbours and friends.

Reposing at his brother Sean's residence, Gash, Castletown this Friday November from 2pm with rosary in the house at 8.30pm. Removal on Saturday morning to St. Edmund's Church, Castletown for Requiem Mass at 11am, with burial immediately afterwards in St. Fergal's Cemetery, Camross.

May Byrne - Portarlington

The death took place on Wednesday, November 1 of of May Byrne (nee Bergin) of Newtownpark House Nursing Home, Blackrock, Dublin and late of Kilashee Naas, Portarlington and Athy.

Peacefully after a long illness bravely borne with great dignity. Loving wife of the late Des. Beloved mother of Peter and Myles. Sadly missed by her daughters-in-law Aisling and Melissa, her grandchildren Rachel, Kelsey, Ciara and Andrew, her sisters-in-law, nieces, nephews, relatives and friends. Special and heartfelt thanks to the wonderful staff at Newtownpark House who showed great care, compassion and kindness throughout May's stay.

Requiem Mass on Friday at 11.30am in St John's The Baptist Church Blackrock, Dublin. Funeral afterwards to St Michael's cemetery Portarlington arriving at 3.45pm.

Jack Delaney - Crettyard

The death took place on Wednesday, November 1 of Jack Delaney of Hollypark, Crettyard.

Pre-deceased by his wife Nancy. Sadly missed by his daughters Christine, Margaret, Ann-Marie, Breeda and Claire, sons Bill and John-Joe, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, sons-in-law, daughter-in-law, sister Ann, brother Joe, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, nieces, nephews, relatives and friends.

Reposing at his residence from 4pm on Thursday with Rosary at 8pm. Arriving at St. Abban's Church, Doonane for Requiem Mass at 2pm on Friday afternoon. Burial afterwards in the adjoining Cemetery.
Portlaoise PP Monsignor John Byrne has said that the closure of Portlaoise Hospital A&E would present opportunities for those that would like to organise an ambush coming out of the high security Portlaoise Prison on the long journey to Tullamore Hospital.

The strategic plan, which was leaked to the Leinster Express revealed plans to downgrade Portlaoise Hospital and upgrade Tullamore and Tallaght A&E department.

Msgr. Byrne emphasised the huge effect the closure of Porlaoise A&E would have on the staff dealing with the high security prisoners in Portlaoise Prison.

One issue that hasnt been mentioned that I would like to mention is the proximity of the biggest prison population in Ireland now, and one of those prisons, Portlaoise Prison, is the high security prison of the country.

Can you imagine the risk to the security of our ambulance personnel and our prison personnel heading to Tullamore on a winter's night with a prisoner out of high security prison. It surely presents opportunities for those that would like to organise an ambush.

That is something that is going to happen in the future if we do not have a 24/7 emergency department in Portlaoise, he said.

Portlaoise Hospital Action Committee membership confirmed.

In his work providing chaplaincy services at the hospital, Msgr. Byrne has seen first hand the number of people that depend on the nearby A&E.

In a town of 23,000 and a county of treble that, we meet people from Birr, we meet people from Graiguecullen, Killeshin, the road from there to Tullamore for any type of a serious emergency does present an unacceptable risk to life and wellbeing of people from not only Portlaoise.

We are not parochial about this, this is genuine concern, it is not a question of keeping jobs, it is not a question of keeping the reputation of Portlaoise, it is a question really of the well being and the life of the population that it serves.

It is not just a stay of execution we are demanding, we are demanding a commitment for the health and wellbeing of the people of county Laois and beyond that this hospital serves. It is vital. I am glad to hear the fact that it is on paper doesnt mean it is going to happen, he said.

Read more: Six-year-old in intensive care after an accident on a Laois farm.

Read more: Portlaoise hospital: Laois public call on politicians to 'forget about politics, fight for hospital'.
Newbridge student, Amy Walsh has designed the Jack & Jill Find a Diamond candle, which has been launched for Christmas to make much needed funds for the charity.

There is a sparkling pendant inside every candle and two lucky purchasers will find real diamonds. On sale this month at Avoca Stores nationwide for 19.95, they are made by Celtic Candles and available in two scents  Red Dahlia and Coconut, Water and Lime.

The two real diamonds were donated to the childrens charity by Loyes Diamonds of Baggot Street, Dublin.

Jack & Jill has supported over 2,000 children nationwide with home nursing care and respite hours, including 119 children in Co. Kildare.

It was 20 year old Jack & Jill volunteer and DIT marketing student Amy Walsh from Newbridge who came up with the idea of a diamond in a candle for Jack & Jill.

I saw something similar online a few years ago, but it wasnt available in Ireland. So I discussed it with my Mum Deirdre who is fundraising director with Jack & Jill and we developed and localised this idea together for the charity, she said.

The first candle we launched in 2015 contained diamond rings which sold out and this year weve switched to lovely pendants in each candle which have more appeal to teenagers too.

The key selling point is that this is a three way gift for less than 20  in the form of a quality, Irish made candle, each one with a sparkling pendant inside and, most importantly, it is a charity candle that supports home nursing care hours for sick children. If that wasnt enough, the extra lottery dimension to the candle in that two of them contain REAL diamonds hopefully gives us the winning formula and we will be sold out in no time. This exciting initiative allows me to put my marketing theory into practice and for a really good cause in Jack & Jill, with every 16 raised through the candles funding 1 hour of home nursing care for a sick child. I am so proud to be involved.

The Jack & Jill Childrens Foundation must raise 3.5 million every year to fund its unique home nursing care and respite service which is provided to sick children, from birth to 4 years of age, around the country.

Typically, these are sick children who suffer from severe development delay as a result of brain damage, who may not be able to walk or talk, are tube fed, oxygen dependent and in need of around the clock care. The Jack & Jill service operates 365 days a year, has no waiting list and mobilizes an army of 1,000 nurses and carers around the country and has done so for 20 years.
The Shed Distillery of Pj Rigney in Drumshanbo has been shortlisted for yet another prestigious award.

It is one of 24 companies who have been shortlisted for Bord Bia's biannual Food and Drink Industry Awards which seek to recognise the most progressive, ambitious and forward-looking companies in Ireland's thriving food and drink industry.

More than 350 Irish food and drink industry leaders will gather for Bord Bias biannual Food and Drink Industry Awards, hosted by Broadcaster Miriam OCallaghan, on Wednesday, November 29 in the RDS Concert Hall.

The Shed Distillery of PJ Rigney will compete for a Branding Award which recognises businesses who have demonstrated that they have differentiated themselves from competitors by using creative marketing communications, consumer insight and understanding to develop brand strategies ensuring long term success. The Shed Distillery is up against competition from Britvic Ireland (Club); Diageo (Baileys); and The Happy Pear.

The distillerys first gin, Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin, is currently on sale in 15 countries and the company projects the addition of 8 new markets. From brand creation in 2015, brand awareness has quickly grown with 85% per cent of people sampled at events in Ireland saying they have heard of the brand.
Russia's hybrid military forces have attacked Ukrainian army positions in Donbas 16 times in the past 24 hours, with one Ukrainian soldier reported as wounded in action, the press service of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) headquarters has reported.

"At the end of the past day, the situation remained unsettled in the area of hostilities. Illegal armed groups continued shelling the positions of the Ukrainian army in all directions, using mainly infantry weapons," the ATO staff said on Facebook page on Friday morning.

After 18:00 Kyiv time, the enemy used grenade launchers and heavy machine guns three times against the defenders of the village of Krymske in the Luhansk sector.

Our fortified position near the village of Lebedynske, which is in the Mariupol sector, came under fire from the same types of weapons.

In the Donetsk sector, the enemy fired grenade launchers of various types and small arms near the villages of Luhanske and Kamianka, and Butovka coal mine at the end of the day. In addition, the invaders opened fire from machine guns near the town of Avdiyivka and the village of Zaitseve.
ALMOST four years ago I received a phone call from then editor of the Limerick Leader Alan English. Over the course of the conversation he asked me if I would be interested in taking on the role of writing this column every Wednesday.

I embraced the opportunity with open arms. I must thank Alan and the team at the Leader for giving me a platform to put across some of my own thoughts and opinions on the Limerick of today.

During the last four years this column has focussed on the positive aspects of the new Limerick. It has covered the development and progress of the Limerick 2030 plans.

This column was an advocate for Limericks year as National City of Culture, particularly at a time when many were critical of how it was being managed.

It has covered the many welcome jobs announcements we have seen. This week we saw a report from Irishjobs.ie which highlighted how Limerick is leading the way in terms of job creation.

There have been some who have criticised me for my blind positivity, somehow suggesting that I was an unofficial spokesperson for the local authority or other official entities.

This was never the case.

I believe in Limerick. I think the opportunities our city and the region have in terms of moulding a new city and shaping a prosperous and forward-thinking new future are palpable.

Our recent history will show a time when Limericks reputation was in tatters. Recent years have seen tremendous moves being made to rethink how Limerick tells its story. The results are there for all to see.

As we now face into a period of what is hoped will be strong economic growth both nationally and locally we find Limerick in a place where we really can use the new-found self-belief to develop a city and county that really does rival any of our other neighbours.

We do need to be careful, however. We need to question the decision-makers. We need to engage constructively and always ask if the direction the new Limerick is headed is the right one.

I took on this column with no track record as an economist, as a city planner, as a cultural expert or as a journalist for that matter.

The opportunity the team at the Limerick Leader gave me has allowed me to develop a deep interest in how our city is run. I have never been stuck for something to comment on and the process has been a deeply rewarding one.

As with any role there does come a time when you must move on. This will be my final City View.

Many thanks to @nigeldugdale, signing off as a @Limerick_Leader columnist today after four years of passionate advocacy on the city's behalf pic.twitter.com/jyxM8BgOny  Alan English (@AlanEnglish9) November 1, 2017

I want to thank all those who have read this column over the past four years and hope that in some way it has managed to stimulate some form of conversation about Limerick and the opportunity its future presents.

As Limerick starts to reap the rewards of years of planning and stakeholder collaboration it could be easy to forget that every one has a role to play in ensuring our citys future is a good one. It is therefore crucial we continue to engage, ask questions and demand that direction our city is taking is in the best interest of all its citizens.

Very much enjoyed being small part in this process for @Limerick_Leader - @nigeldugdale will be missed https://t.co/eMgyF7WKbI  Alan Owens (@alanowens_limk) November 1, 2017

Pity. Great insight into Limerick's potential and always asked the difficult questions.  David Byrne (@byrne_david) November 1, 2017

Columns by @nigeldugdale have been a lesson in engaged citizenship. His City Views will be missed! https://t.co/H66BkQE6Sl  Maria Flannery (@mariaflan) November 1, 2017

thanking @nigeldugdale for always holding Limerick in positive light & always doing a great job of delivering our news. best of luck!  paddy mulcahy (@paddy_mulcahy) November 1, 2017

Kudos to @nigeldugdale for years of his work, his writing and his positivity. The pure graft has always been evident to all. https://t.co/SAiBDYlPrc  Liam O'Brien (@liamobrienactor) November 1, 2017

Thanks @nigeldugdale your unrelenting positivity and proactive "nudging" kept the city moving through some dark times.  Paul Sweeney (@PaulSweeney) November 1, 2017

Best of luck with future projects @nigeldugdale I don't doubt you will continue to fight the good fight for the future of Limerick.  Ailish Drake (@AilishDrake) November 1, 2017

Best of luck in what you do next Nigel  Paul (@PaulEyezOnMe) November 1, 2017

Best of Luck in your new ventures, and many thanks for your contribution to Limerick City  LimerickJazzFestival (@LimerickJazz) November 1, 2017
NEWCASTLE West is reaching out to one of its own, Leeanne Bennett, who is facing very serious illness 5,000 miles from home.

Leeanne, who is just 27, is a childcare worker who took up the opportunity to travel and work in Canada on a two-year visa. But now she has been diagnosed with advanced lung disease and is receiving treatment at a Toronto hospital.

She is in one of the best hospitals and cancer units in North America and while most of the treatment is covered by the Canadian healthcare system some of the more specific types of radiation, chemotherapy, and medication she needs to treat the lung cancer are not and are very expensive. To ensure that she gets the treatment she needs she will need your help, says her friend Niall Walsh in a crowd-funding appeal on Facebook.

She will now be out of work for the foreseeable future while receiving treatment and we hope to raise enough to cover her rent and bills until such time as she gets back on her feet, he continues.

Leeannes friends also want to be able to help Leannes sisters who are travelling to Toronto to support her as she undergoes treatment.

Leeannes situation is particularly poignant as she lost her parents, Patrick and Eileen, at a young age when the family lived in Ardagh. Afterwards, Leeanne lived with her sister Karen in Castleview, Newcastle West.

Already, the crowd funding appeal has received almost 30,000 in pledges in less than a fortnight. But to succeed, the 50,000 target needs to be reached.

Meanwhile, in Newcastle West itself, two fund-raising events are being organised: a table quiz in the Ballintemple Inn this Friday night and a 3k Family Fun Run/Walk on Sunday, November 12 in the Demesne.

We are hoping for a good turn-out, says Vanessa Danaher, who is organising the table-quiz along with Lisa Brouder, Sandra Conway and Katie Upton.

She is one of the nicest people I've ever met and would do anything for anyone, Vanessa said in tribute to their ill friend this week.

She lost both her parents when she was very young so she has always been so independent. She loves to travel. She did a year in Australia then went to Toronto. Shes funny, outgoing and just one of the nicest people you could meet. Shes a great auntie always bragging about her nieces and nephews.

"She comes from a lovely family and they are all so close. Shes the baby so is always well looked after.

The table quiz starts at 8pm in the Ballintemple Inn, and costs 50 per table of four.

Registration for the 3km family run/walk in the Demesne starts at 10.30am on Sunday, November 12.

Leeanne was a former member of Limerick AC, the organisers point out and they urge individuals and families to come out and show solidarity with the young woman who has had to hang up her running shoes, for the time being.

See https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/help-leeanne.
The fifth suspect in the case of the murder of a Ukrainian citizen in Poland is hiding from the police; the investigative actions are continuing, the Consul of Ukraine in Gdansk, Lev Zakharchyshin said.

"Now the operation is underway to find the fifth suspect who escaped. So, we do not have any final information from the police at the moment," he said on 112.Ukraine TV channel on Thursday.

The consul also clarified that investigative and operational actions are still continuing. "We do not have official information from the Polish police, which we could publish," he added.

As reported, a Ukrainian citizen died in Gdansk (Poland) of stab wounds. Four suspects have been detained, as well as citizens of Ukraine, local media reported.

"The police confirmed the nationality of the victim - this is a 49-year-old citizen of Ukraine. In connection with this murder, the police of Gdansk detained four men aged 25-49 years. All of them are citizens of Ukraine. All were drunk at the time of detention," the report says.

KYIV. Nov 3 (Interfax-Ukraine)  The fifth suspect in the case of the murder of a Ukrainian citizen in Poland is hiding from the police; the investigative actions are continuing, the Consul of Ukraine in Gdansk, Lev Zakharchyshin said.

"Now the operation is underway to find the fifth suspect who escaped. So, we do not have any final information from the police at the moment," he said on 112.Ukraine TV channel on Thursday.

The consul also clarified that investigative and operational actions are still continuing. "We do not have official information from the Polish police, which we could publish," he added.

As reported, a Ukrainian citizen died in Gdansk (Poland) of stab wounds. Four suspects have been detained, as well as citizens of Ukraine, local media reported.

"The police confirmed the nationality of the victim - this is a 49-year-old citizen of Ukraine. In connection with this murder, the police of Gdansk detained four men aged 25-49 years. All of them are citizens of Ukraine. All were drunk at the time of detention," the report says.
CONCERN has been expressed over the use of hard drugs after 27 syringes were discovered across Limerick city in one week - including some near schools.

According to a member of a prominent city centre project, this is not the only time they have come across a significant amount of used syringes and it is something that we come across regularly.

One week you wouldnt see anything and the next week you could come across 10, said the man, who did not want to be identified.

When the Limerick Leader visited the centre, the syringes, both capped and uncapped, were being stored in a large sharps box, a disposable plastic container which is used to store sharp objects including needles. When the box is full, it is handed over to the local authority.

My biggest fear would be a child picking up something like that because the majority of them would be uncapped, said the project leader who collects the syringes.

There were some of them found near a school, he added.

While the amount of syringes collected has gone down compared to last year the sight of any syringes on the city streets is worrying he said.

I havent fully filled a box in a long time. We had some serious problems in our area between prostitution and people excreting in lanes. The reason I became involved in the project is I saw with my own eyes a child blowing up a condom. The antisocial behaviour has kind of moved away and we do come out with a friendly attitude, so we can avoid confrontation, he added.

INTO spokesperson for Limerick and principal of Ballybrown National School, Joe Lyons, has described the issue of syringes being found near schools as very worrying.

Its a huge worry for schools and it's just an extra onus on people working in schools to be extra vigilant. I do know that lots of principals and caretakers come in early in the morning to check the grounds for issues like this, he explained.

The principal, who has heard of this issue arising from time to time and not just in Limerick, said: Schools need auxiliary staff like caretakers to be aware of issues like this.

Deputy Maurice Quinlivan has described the finding of such an amount of used and discarded syringes across the city as distressing.

Unfortunately I wouldn't be shocked to hear this, what people need to do is ring the council and to be fair they do. People need to be safe around needles, it's very distressing to see needles," he explained.

The Limerick TD said it was not only needles that are being discarded and pointed out an ongoing issue in relation to discarded paraphernalia across the city.

You would see other paraphernalia at times as well like burned tinfoil, which would suggest it was used to smoke heroin, he said.

The Sinn Fein deputy believes that more funding is needed in the area of drug awareness which would result in more training for community staff so that they know how to collect the materials correctly.

There is a few areas where we should be putting extra boxes in certain parts of the city, which can be collected regularly by the council and then be discarded, added Deputy Quinlivan.

A spokesperson from the HSE said: We would share the concerns of Deputy Quinlivan regarding the number of syringes stated to have been found locally.

In order to enable further investigation, the HSE would encourage both Deputy Quinlivan and the public to provide further details of such sightings to ensure the appropriate action is taken.

The HSE has been to the fore in terms of Needle Exchange and other proactive measures to ensure safe disposal of syringes, and would be very concerned about any practices as outlined by Deputy Quinlivan.

When a spokesperson for Limerick City and County Council was contacted they stated: When sharps are encountered by cleansing staff, the sharps are placed into a sharps box that is available or they contact their supervisor, advising them of the location, this is so they can attend to and remove the sharps.

"At no time are the sharps handled directly but are picked via a litter picker. The sharps boxes are stored in a secure location, and disposed of via an approved medical waste disposal company.

Training has been provided to cleansing staff on identification and safe handling of sharps.

Sharps also form part of our risk assessments included in our Health and Safety plans that are reviewed on an annual basis with all our outdoor staff, added the Council spokesperson.
LIMERICK City and County Council has said the refurbishment of the Hyde Road flats will be complete by the end of this year.

The authority added that the first residents in the long-closed apartment complex will move in March next year, with allocation of these flats starting in January.

The disclosure, from Seamus Hanrahan, senior architecht in the social directorate at City Hall, followed a question by Sinn Feins City East councillor Seighin O Ceallaigh.

He has criticised what he claims is a third delay on the project, which is being carried out jointly by the council and the voluntary housing group Cluid.

He said: It's frustrating for all of the people currently in emergency accommodation and those who have been waiting countless years to be housed. I first highlighted the delays two years ago when work hadn't commenced on the site, this development was originally meant to be finished this time last year."

Earlier in the year, Cllr O' Ceallaigh put a question to council officials on he same subject, and was advised residents would be in place at Christmas.

Now we have found out that families will be spending Christmas in hotels and bed and breakfasts as the units won't be allocated until next year, he said, It is simply not good enough that in the middle of a housing crisis we are seeing delays such as this.

The 3m development will see 20 new apartments built on the Hyde Road.

Cllr Frankie Daly said while the delay to their completion is frustrating, it is better than having abject flats in the city.

Id be a glass half-full kind of a person. It takes time to get things right. We have seen before when we brushed things aside in the past, they went pear shaped. If it takes an extra few weeks, then so be it, he said.

Separately, Cllr OCeallaigh was also told by Mr Hanrahan that the completion date of the Churchfield site in Southill is expected to be completed by March, with the allocation of tenancies kicking off the same month.
THE OVERCROWDING crisis at University Hospital Limerick has been described as spiralling out of control after a nursing home resident spent three days on a trolley this week.

In one of the busiest weeks in years, there were 292 patients being treated in the emergency department, on trolleys and additional trolleys or beds in the wards at the Dooradoyle hospital.

This is significantly higher than the average weekly overcrowding rate at the only emergency department in the Mid-West, serving 400,000 people.

The average overcrowding in any given week tends to fluctuate between 150 and 200.

However, UHL had to endure severe overcrowding following a busy Bank Holiday weekend. At 8am on Monday, there were 73 patients on trolleys  the highest overcrowding rate since March 2013.

Deputy Niall Collins told the Limerick Leader this Friday morning that the situation at UHL is spiralling out of control and is very, very concerning.

Deputy Collins said that there is fear of being abandoned on a trolley indefinitely.

He said that he received a text message from a constituent, whose aunt, who resides in a nursing home, has been on a trolley for three days.

The hospital senior management needs to engage with the public as to why people are languishing on trolleys for such long periods of time.

People are avoiding taking themselves to the hospital because of the ongoing reportage of the hospital crisis, he said.

There were 73 patients on Monday, 57 on Tuesday, 56 on Wednesday, 51 on Thursday, and 55 this Friday.

Sinn Fein TD Maurice Quinlivan said that the situation is obviously very shocking to hear. He called for an increase in the bed capacity at UHL.

Emergency consultants have argued that unless bed capacity increases at UHL, overcrowding will persist. UHL turned the former emergency department into a 17-bed short stay unit, but these are fully-occupied.

In relation to the Bank Holiday overcrowding, a spokesperson for UL Hospitals Group stated:

Traditionally, average attendances at the ED have been approximately 150 over a 24-hour period from Monday to Friday and 120 per 24 hours at weekends. Attendances have been significantly above these levels in recent weeks with our average increasing to 190-plus over a 24-hour period on weekdays.

"There were above average attendances late last week and though the weekend including high numbers of seriously unwell patients requiring admission.

In the 24-hour period until midnight on bank holiday Monday, October 30, there were 166 attendances at the ED. On the same date, five patients were waiting in the ED for in excess of 24 hours.

At 8am on Monday, October 30th, there were a total of 73 patients present in the department. This included 35 admitted patients waiting for a bed. Please note this figure (73) also included ambulatory patients at that time being assessed and treated before discharge."

There are in total 49 single rooms or designated bays for various categories of patients in the ED. UL Hospitals Group regrets that any patient has to face long waits in our ED during busy periods and a number of measures are taken to relieve pressure on the ED in line with our escalation plan, he stated.

The UL Hospitals Group has been contacted in relation to the overcrowding this week.
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Investigators are considering all scenarios behind the murder of the head of the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko's Solidarity Party faction in Severodonetsk Town Council, Serhiy Samarsky, and his political activity is a priority scenario, according to Tetiana Pohukai, head of the media liaisons department of the National Police's main office in Luhansk region.

"Several scenarios are considered, and none of them is ruled out. The scenario of the murder due to political activities is also considered... He defended the interests of citizens of the town, and this scenario is a major one," she said on the 112 Ukraine TV channel early on Friday.

In addition, according to her, the scenario related to robbery and business interests before his deputy work is also being worked out.

Pohukai also said that Samarsky's body with signs of violent death had been found at about 00.20.

Criminal proceedings were launched under Article 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (premeditated murder).

Deputy Minister for Temporary Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons Heorhiy Tuka, in turn, said that business and political activity were probable scenarios behind Samarsky's murder.

"I do not want to influence the investigative actions in any way. I hope that there will be enough professionals. From my point of view, it can be connected either with political activity or with business," he said on 112 Ukraine on Friday.

As reported, Samarsky was killed on November 2.
Buds no more While sales of Budweiser are on the upswing in India, with plans to reach smaller towns and cities, they are on the decline in the US /news/talking-point/buds-no-more-111646920535128.html 111646920535128 story

It is ironic that Budweiser, the lager that represents Americana down to the packaging of its cans in red, white and blue, is losing popularity in the US, at a time when its charting a new growth story in India.

According to a Bloomberg story published in October, Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev), the worlds largest brewer, sold 14.4 million barrels of Budweiser in the US last year. This figure was less than one-third of the volume that it sold in 1988, when sales peaked. The report also mentioned that Bud Light continues to be the more popular variant, with 35.2 million barrels being sold in 2016, but even this is a dip from the brands 2008 numbers. As experts point out, this decline has been in the making for some time now and an increasing propensity towards craft beers is only one of the reasons.

A Mint article published in July mentions that AB InBev, which operates as Crown Beers India Ltd here, introduced Budweiser in India in 2007 and positioned it as a premium and aspirational beer. Within a decade here, the company has acquired SABMiller (the name behind many beer brands, including Haywards 5000) and gained their market share. Budweiser has also established its presence in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. In the next phase, AB InBevs plan is to roll out the beer to secondary urban centres such as Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Puducherry".
Piero Lissoni: I ask recruits if they know Dante and Gandhi Italian designer Piero Lissoni on Milan's design essence as his B&B Italia and Flos creations are launched in India /news/talking-point/piero-lissoni-i-ask-recruits-if-they-know-dante-and-gandhi-111646920663384.html 111646920663384 story

Piero Lissoni is the archetypal Italian designer: cosmopolitan, creative, collaborative and extremely versatile. His portfolio straddles multiple design disciplines, including architecture, interior design, furniture and lighting design for clients across the world. From Jerusalem to Miami, Shanghai to Istanbul, Lissonis projectshospitality, homes and storesepitomize contemporary luxury.

His extensive product portfolioeverything from kitchens to lights and sofasis equally emblematic; the outcome of long-standing creative partnerships, over more than three decades, with iconic Italian brands. The Milan-born designer visited Delhi on 27 October to launch new product collections for two high-end brands: the SAKe seating system and Formiche small tables for furniture maker B&B Italia, and a new collection of outdoor lights, including the Camouflage LED fitting for lighting manufacturer Flos.

With slender legs and clean lines, the SAKe seating system and Formiche nesting tables combine the two opposites of solidity and lightness, in an elegant and understated fashion. The Camouflage LED light also represents a marriage of oppositesluminosity with invisibility. The flat, disc-shaped fitting can be finished in a range of materials, and merges into its given surface, to remain invisible when not in use.

Soft-spoken and humorous, Lissoni spoke to Lounge about why Italian design is so coveted the world over. Edited excerpts:

The Camouflage range of lights. Photo: Priyanka Parashar/Mint

Could you tell us more about how Italian manufacturers and designers have such symbiotic relationships, ones that result in what I call industrial craftsmanship"products that have the beauty of being crafted by hand, yet are made in a factory?

I grew up in Milan. Strategically speaking, if you want to be a designer, you have to move to Milan, because the real secret is not the Italian designers, its the Italian factories. The difference between us and the Germans is only one: The Italian entrepreneur likes to take a lot of risks with materials, innovation, technologies, robotics, handmadeits in their blood. Families own the factories. Traditionally, the new generation takes care of their factories. If they are not good, they crash. This kind of setting is quite different from the rest of the world. Without the factories, without the vision, without the capacity to take a lot of risks, the words Italian design" are completely empty.

Do you think it is possible for Indian entrepreneurs to do this?

They need tradition. In Italy, we started making furniture 2,000 years ago, but we started to be different by the end of the 19th century. We started to think differently, to be contemporary, a hundred years before the rest of the world. After that, we grew a lot. Many factories and small producers disappeared, because they were not good enough to stay on the market, in terms of quality, creativity. Some took big risks and lost.

But we have an incredible category of producers and factories. They can adjust, they can adapt, change direction. For example, the capacity is not just to work with robots or to design everything by computers, the capacity is not only to make by hand, but to combine three different stories. Im talking about 2017. Forty or 50 years ago, people had the same viewpointcombining technologies with incredible hands.

In India, you are well known for mathematics and theoretical physics. You probably have produced the best generations, in the last hundred years, of mathematics and theoretical physics creativity. The result is now that a lot of Indians are settled in Palo Alto or California, or they are in the most incredible places in Austin, Texas or the new generation of electronics. That is a tradition.

You have been quoted as saying: If you work for me, you must be humanistic. You better know Faulkner, Dante and Shakespeare, you must connect with cultures." Tell us more about how you continue to grow.

I continue to grow because Im super-curious. I like to constantly put gasoline inside a curiosity engine. Every day is a new day with a new thoughtthe colour of fabric, beautiful eyes in a girls face. You start to read a book and discover something that reminds you of another book.

How did you learn to be curious?

My family raised me to be curious and independent. One simple detail: In our family, after I was 12 years old, it was forbidden for our nannies to cook for us. Which means, after school, it was usual for me to move inside the kitchen and to try and cook something for myself. You start to learn by yourself what is possible to do, because I grew to be respectful of many different rules, but at the same time, to be a little anarchist, to try and cook something good, and to make it by myself.

And humanistic?

To be humanistic, you have to be open-minded. Hundreds of years ago, Vitruvius wrote The Ten Books On Architecture, which details how it is possible to be a very good architect. The main chapter said that to be an architect, you have to be an artist, painter, engineer, mathematician, worker, carpenter, magician. You have to open your mind.

If you are a mathematical guy, its not enough to be specialized in your mathematical life, you have to know music, in which way the harmony and the rhythm connects different notes, in which way the painter starts using colour, why one photographer does black and white, and another one not. Without these kinds of sophisticated connections, its not a culture. Its only information; to digest it and to make it culture, you have to know whats happening around you.

Thats why I ask (potential recruits) if they know Dante, or they know Mahatma Gandhi or they know in which way its possible to use silk. If they dont know, unfortunately, they are not able to work with me.

And its not enough to just make connections. I like to use another word, it is contamination". Connections in one way are from the same field. I like that, but I like contamination more. Not in a negative way, a lot of people dont see contamination in a positive way. For me, its an incredible compliment to be contaminated. Its not poison or a virus. Its a virtuous contamination. Think about your culture. Born more than thousands of years ago, its contamination is so sophisticated.

A SAKe modular sofa.

How does this humanistic thinking reflect in the product range you have designed for B&B Italia and Flos?

For me, SAKe is a platform on which to float in peace, but it is also a sofa. And for me, lights are emotional, but for Flos they are machines, they work to give light. One has to respect the purity of their technology. For my collection of professional indoor and outdoor lights for Flos, I like to design something that is silent. When you put one lamp on the wall, its design should be architecturally beautiful, but invisible.

The B&B Italia and Flos pieces by Lissoni are on display (and available for sale) at vis a vis Experience Centres in New Delhi and Mumbai.
NEW DELHI :

An Olympic-inspired mural in Rio De Janeiro, painted last year, runs the 15m length of an abandoned warehouse wall that stands 170m high. It holds the Guinness World Records title for the largest spray-painted mural. Titled Etnias, the colourful mural depicts the faces of five indigenous tribesthe Hulis from New Guinea, Kayin from Thailand, Mursi from Ethiopia, Supi from Europe and Tapajos from the Americas. The piercing gazes and aged faces overlook a street filled with bars, restaurants, live music and food trucks. In Los Angeles, California, a 9x36m wall has painted images of Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Saint Teresa, the life in their eyes captured exquisitely.

This week, on the facade of Churchgate station in Mumbai, a larger-than-life Mahatma Gandhi is stepping out of a train. At 54x81ft, the backdrop to the busy junction of Churchgate is suddenly bursting with colour.

The man behind all this street art is Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra, 42, who was commissioned to do the mural by the St+art India Foundation, in collaboration with the firm Asian Paints. Since 2014, the Delhi-based foundation has been holding street art festivals in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, and collaborating with local and international artists, with the aim of making art accessible to a wider audience.

Sitting across the station building, and looking at the mural from a distance, Kobra looks cool and casual in his fedora and paint-smeared clothes. Speaking in Portuguese, communicating through a translator, the artist recalls the days when he first began to paint the streets of suburban Sao Paulo, in 1988. I was about 12 years old. I had no inspiration from any specific artist, no precedence, no government or organization promoting me. But I had a strong instinct that this is what I want to do, he says.

What he did have were history books. Kobras workin cities such as Sao Paulo, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Rome, Tokyo, Moscow and Dubaioften lies at the intersection of history and modernity. I love old stories of the world. My work has connection to memory, to the past. Its about people who have fought with their lives, for freedom, for civil rights, for equality, people who stand for a cause, icons who have brought about change, says Kobra.

Etnias, a mural in Rio De Janeiro that holds the Guinness World Records title as the largest spray-painted mural. Photo: Getty Images

So the idea of making Mahatma Gandhi the subject of the Mumbai mural was natural. Kobra references the incident in South Africa when Gandhi was asked to deboard a first-class train. Taking off from there, he portrays Gandhi using the transport of the masses. Its only fitting that the site of the artwork is also a railway station, a city lifeline. It is my intent to connect with the people of this country. Gandhi was a person of the masses.

Street art is by default art for the public, and Kobras perspective aligns completely with its democratic aspect. I started (work) from the streets.I believe people shouldnt have to pay for art. Its for everyone, regardless of money, caste, community, religion.

The self-taught artist has developed a distinct style and technique. A profusion of colour caught in grids, monumental in scale, three-dimensional in effect, and near photo-realistic in its portraiture. When a project site comes to me, I take its exact measurements and then prepare a small-scale artwork on paper. I do several alternatives, sometimes almost 20. I choose one finally, which then goes from paper to wall. Sometimes it changes in the process of being made, he says.

On this first trip to India, Kobra is excited to have been given a landmark space. This year Ive visited 12 countries and I had thought, thats it for now, no more. Until the invite to come to India. I packed my bags and left without a second thought. Its also the space that is given to me; in the heart of the financial capital of the country. Its difficult to get a spot like that, its prestigious, says Kobra. As he adds the finishing touches to his artistic interpretation of Gandhi, we ask him if he knows the real identity of Banksy, the famous street artist? I have no idea, says Kobra, with a hearty laugh, but I certainly love his art.
Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) is preparing new requests to the United States for interviewing American political advisor Paul Manafort, who was a consultant to disgraced ex-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and whose surname appears in the so-called "black books" of Yanukovych's Party of Regions, Radio Free Liberty/Radio Europe said on Thursday.

"Yes, of course, we are preparing requests for assistance, for documents," head of the PGO's special investigations department Serhiy Horbatiuk told RFE/RL. He added that charges in the U.S. against Manafort for laundering money overlap with PGO investigations are underway.

According to Horbatiuk, Ukraine sent the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations requests for assistance in December 2014. They pertained to ex-Ukrainian Justice Minister Oleksandr Lavrynovych's, his assistant's and then head bookkeeper's dealings with the U.S. Skadden law firm, which was retained by Ukraine during 2011 for $1 million to investigate decisions taken by ex-Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

"We asked for permission then to question employees of Paul Manafort's firm," Horbatiuk said.

Manafort and his colleague Ricky Gates on October 30, 2017 were accused by U.S. Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller of money laundering, tax evasion and other charges. The "conspiracy against the U.S." was allegedly carried out with the cooperation of Yanukovych and his Party of Regions.

Manafort and Gates became the first persons charged in Mueller's investigation of possible cooperation between Trump's election campaign and Russia during 2016. Both men surrendered to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Manafort and Gates are accused of laundering more than $18 million through offshore accounts.
Delhi Walk Festival: A rendezvous with Delhi With over 170 experiences to choose from, the Delhi Walk Festival allows you to rediscover the city /news/talking-point/delhi-walk-festival-a-rendezvous-with-delhi-111646920844017.html 111646920844017 story

The Capital is alive, iridescent and ever-evolving. Its contours, landscape and soul have been sculpted by a compelling historical and cultural narrative that is centuries old. Its what makes this city a breathing, thriving being. Many of its inhabitants, however, are unaware of its heritage, its multiple avatars, or the palette of experiences it offers.

The third edition of the 11-day Delhi Walk Festival, hosted by the Delhi, I Love You team, a sociocultural platform that aims to celebrate the spirit of the city, began on 2 November. It offers an intimate, affectionate view of the city through the lens of its expert insidershistorians, anthropologists, photographers, heritage enthusiasts, environmentalists, gastronomeswho chaperone, guide and inform locals and visitors about the citys cultural anatomy. Author William Dalrymple, photographer and artist Samar Singh Jodha, and environmentalist Pradip Krishen are some of the walk leaders this year.

From learning about the tradition of meticulously hand-painted signage and scripts in the crowded arteries of Paharganj, to time-travelling to the 16th century by exploring the architectural remains of Sher Shah Suris fortress, Purana Qilathe festival leads you into the heart of the burgeoning metropolis. We offer multiple ways of reading/understanding the city," says Aastha Chauhan, the festival director.

While the first two editions were held in collaboration with Delhi Dallying, an organization that curates walks in the city, this time the programme has been designed by Delhi-based researcher and photographer Abhinandita Mathur. Apart from a gamut of walks, the festival features handpicked experiences that celebrate the flaneuse. There are night walks in Mehrauli and Paharganj specifically for women, led by Pallavi, author of the blog Delhi Galiyara. For women to negotiate roaming around in a city is not always easy. To be out and about just to loiter, explore places in the city or just walk around is something not usually expected out of women," says Chauhan. Yet there are many women who still do it. We want to celebrate that spirit of the awesome women of Delhi who enjoy being out, while encouraging others to do the same."

The festival also has walks that acknowledge the differently-abled. One of them is with Baldev Gulati, who is visually impaired. Attendees have to wander the streets and cross roads with Gulati, blindfolded, relying solely on their sense of sound, smell and touch. Its an attempt to simulate the overwhelming feeling of being visionless.

With over 170 walks to choose from, the festival offers a good mix of unconventional experiences. In the past two editions, weve had a walk for dogs by Woof Woof Walkers (a company that tailor-makes experiences for your pet); a walk through Kathputli colony with street magician Ishamuddin Khan and a science fiction tour of the National Science Centre with Poornima Sardana (a trained museum educator)," says Chauhan. The festival also offers sought after culinary and food-tasting experiences.

Attended by children and adults alike (the youngest participant has been three years old, and the oldest, 80), this thoughtfully designed festival reintroduces you to the city like never before.

The Delhi Walk Festival is on till 12 November; each walk costs Rs472. This festival is in collaboration with Salt Experiential Marketing. Click here for details.
Film Review: Thor: Ragnarok Taika Waititi lights up the Thor franchise with his eccentric sense of humour /how-to-lounge/movies-tv/film-review-thor-ragnarok-111646833494693.html 111646833494693 story

For a Hollywood franchise film, Thor: Ragnarok has a welcome amount of diversity in the accent department. Headlining for the third time as the hammer-wielding Thor (not counting his appearances in the Avengers movies), Chris Hemsworths Aussie twang is more pronounced. Cate Blanchett, master of dialects from German to Kate Hepburn, plays Thors evil sister, Hela, and also allows her Australian roots to inform her speech. Theres Jeff Goldblum doing his Jeff Goldblum thing. Anthony Hopkins (as Odin) and Tom Hiddleston (as Loki) sound like the Brits they are; so does Tessa Thompson, though shes American. Best of all, theres the light, bouncing Kiwi tones of director Taika Waititi, who supplies the voice for Korg, a surprisingly endearing walking pile of rocks.

Marvel makes good films and bad, but even the good ones give the feeling of having been designed by committee. Intriguinglyespecially for one who hasnt read the comics and is looking for signs of filmic personality in MCU filmsThor: Ragnarok carries the unmistakable stamp of its director. The New Zealand-born Waititi became famous after the release of his mockumentary-style vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows (2014). His Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) was similarly distinctive and warm. Now, hes brought his eccentric sense of humour to enliven the Avenger franchise most in need of it.

Already saddled with one supervillain sibling (semi-villain now because of Lokis popularity with MCU fans), Thor gains another with the appearance of the antler-sporting Hela (Blanchett), whos been Norsing a grudge ever since Odin banished her years ago. Turns out shes powerful enough to defeat Thor and Loki without stretching herself; they tumble off the grid into space, landing on the planet Sakaar. There, Thor is captured by Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson, thrilling), a former defender of Asgard, now a hard-drinking mercenary. Hes brought to The Grandmaster (Goldblum, in all his glorious weirdness), ruler of Sakaar, who orders him to fight his champion in a gladiator death match. This opponent turns out to be but youve probably seen the trailers.

Theres a recognisably Waititi sense of humour that shines through on Thor: Ragnarok. This is true not just of the writing, but also of the whacky, day-glo look of the film. This might be the first comic book film in a long time that actually looks like a comic book. As I left the hall I heard a fan complain about how much theyd deviated from the general tone of the source material. But Waititi has achieved something special: hes given hope that bright indie film directors snapped up by giant franchises might yet be able to inject their personality into tentpole studio releases.

Hemsworth has become looser with each successive film hes played Thor in, and hes never been more appealing than he is here, his long hair shorn, carrying on a lovers tiff with Hulk/Banner (Mark Ruffalo). Blanchett has a blast as the melodramatic Hela and Hiddlestons always a delight, though I must admit that after a point I had eyes only for Thompson, who has a most un-Marvel-like (that is to say, palpable) chemistry with both Banner and Thor. I know better than to ask for more comic book films than are already being slated, but Id queue up for an intergalactic mercenary buddy flick with Valkyrie and Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy.

As with the non-MCU Deadpool and the second Guardians film, theres a tendency here to use humour to undercut every emotional scene or big speecha tactic the audience will eventually become wise to, like a horror film that uses a jump scare one time too many. There is one detail, though, that isnt overwhelmed by the overall good cheer. Thor: Ragnarok is full of individuals stranded in foreign lands Thor, Loki and Banner on Sakaar, Hela in a prison somewhere, and, eventually, an entire population without a home. You dont expect a nod to the global refugee crisis in a film this entertaining, but there it is.
Ayaz Basrai: Mapping the future allows us to choose a preferable future At the INDI Design conference in Pune, Ayaz Basrai of The Busride Design Studio introduces the emerging field of speculative design /news/talking-point/ayaz-basrai-mapping-the-future-allows-us-to-choose-a-preferable-future-111646920565822.html 111646920565822 story

Last week, INDI Design, a Pune-based studio led by Sudhir Sharma, organized the third edition of Indias Best Design Awards . Held at the Hilton Conrad hotel in Pune, it was a day-long conference, and hosted presentations and conversations among people from diverse design practices, including educationists, designers, architects and advertising professionals.

The day ended with the ceremony that felicitated the best design studios; a jury-led process considers studios from across the country and arrives at a winning list based on several criteria.

Among the many speakers at the event was Ayaz Basrai, founder of The Busride Design Studio, which he runs with his brother Zameer Basrai. The Basrais have designed interiors for some of Mumbais most iconic restaurants: Cafe Zoe, with its expansive skylight, Bombay Canteen, with its reinvention of heritage, classics like Smoke House Deli, and, most recently, O Pedro, a Goan restaurant in Mumbais Bandra-Kurla Complex area.

That, however, is only a part of their portfolio. After working for 10 years from their office in Mumbai, they moved to Goa in October last year. At the design conference, Basrai took the stage to talk about the new direction in which the studio is headed: speculative design.

This growing field involves imagining possible contexts set in the future, is led by data and technology, and rooted in ethical and social considerations. The term is often used interchangeably with critical design" and design fiction", and an adventurous community of technologists, computational architects, and digital craftspeople the world over are dabbling in it.

At the risk of offending designers working in this field, its tempting to liken them to science and fantasy fiction writers. But as Basrai presentsnot projectsinquiries" that their studio is now pursuing, he brings the conversation back to why its critical for designers to consider future contexts in more progressive ways. Edited excerpts from an interview:

When did the change of location as well as design direction occur?

In the process of working on our F&B (food and beverage) projects, and other urban interventions like the Bandra Project (ongoing interventions for the betterment of the Mumbai neighbourhood), a lot of the inquiries that emerged couldnt be sustained simply because we never had the time to take them further. About a year and a half ago, we decided to free our mind space to explore other tangents.

As for the move to Goa, were in start-up mode again, feeling our way around this new territory. I have a two-year-old son. Seeing him running around on the beach, all our doubts about the move are put to rest.

Digital Grotesque II, an architectural grotto by Michael Hansmeyer at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Photo: Michael Hansmeyer / Benjamin Dillenburger

Tell us about some of the projects youre working on now in the field of speculative design.

Were currently keeping it outside the client domain because that tends to take the inquiry away. Were self-funding till we know where its going, till we have a manifesto. Were referencing a lot of Dunne and Raby, Rem Koolhaas, Archigram from the 1960s, but considering how to contextualize it and bring it into the public domain with smaller, more relevant projects.

Were working with the St+art Foundation and doing an intervention in Dharavi (Mumbai), to create floating architecture which is tethered to the ground. Its like pieces of art that are lying on the ground and they float up if the area floods, and become an impromptu gangway. As a group weve decided to pick two areas to focus on: the future of cities and the future of craft.

One of the inquires were following seriously is to map the year 2035. Selected primarily because its not too far into the future and can be visualized with a lot of data that already exists (on climate change). Imagine it to be a framework that were trying to populate, to put it up online and make it open source for people from different backgrounds to add to: whats happening in fashion, in medicine, in culture, in art. The idea is to be able to map that future now. It is to consider what kind of future we want to inhabit. And I say this with enough self-doubt because the idea of future speculation is tricky. None of us can confidently say what the future would be like.

To define it simply, youre not creating or designing an object, but thinking of the possible context that you might have to design for in the future?

Most definitely. Today sugar kills more people than road accidents or terrorism. In 2012, about 1.5 million people died of diabetes (according to Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow). Thats crazy. So youre eating your way to extinction. Where are we putting our resources? We are data worshippers in a way. If one is able to leverage data and to see where trends are going, then one can shape public imagination. Like what has Elon Musk done? He has single-handedly created a fascination for the exploration of space.

Why map the future or speculate about it when it is so unpredictable?

The idea of mapping the future is to be able to choose a preferable future, not just a techno-deterministic future where technology is everything. It allows us to be better prepared. If we were to learn from the flooding disasters in Bombay, how does it change our design of public spaces?

If nothing else, it has left us with a sense of cautious optimism. Its easy to be cynical with the current political climate. As designers, we cant lapse into that. Were not crazy sci-fi writers visualizing utopias and dystopias. Were people who are creating these utopias and dystopias. To be cautiously optimistic, we feel, is a good place to be.
Bireswar Sen and Nicholas Roerich: A friendship to remember Bireswar Sen's friendship with Nicholas Roerich, the Russian artist, mystic and writer, forever transformed Sen's artistic journey /news/talking-point/bireswar-sen-and-nicholas-roerich-a-friendship-to-remember-111646920869923.html 111646920869923 story

Barely larger than a visiting card, Bireswar Sens paintings have the majesty and power to inspire awe the way a large canvas can. The sweeping panoramas of mountains and landscapes are confined within such a small space that for a moment one forgets its a painting. Ignore the surrounding frame and it feels like youre peering down another world through a keyhole, with overwhelming vistas stretching into the distance.

The breathtaking watercolours form part of an ongoing exhibition, Reflections: Man And Nature In The Paintings Of Bireswar Sen, at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi, running till 30 November. Born in 1897 in Kolkata, Sen trained for six years under two towering Indian modernists, Abanindranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose. Tagores ideology emphasizing indigenous techniques in painting over Western influences, formed the bedrock of the Bengal School art movement and influenced Sens own work. According to Sens grandson Prithviswar Sen, a trustee of the Bireswar Sen Family Trust, he also got the chance to learn the wash technique from a visiting Japanese artist, Kampo Arai."

But a turning point in Sens life was his encounter with Nicholas Roerich, a Russian painter and writer whose interests ranged from mysticism, theosophy and archaeology to pacifism and Hindu philosophy. It was in 1932 that Sen first met Roerich in Naggar, a small village in Himachal Pradesh that Roerich had made his final home. The Russian artists works depicting nature and the Himalayas, informed by his mystical sensibility and spiritual approach, made a deep impact on the young Indian artist. While Roerichs work was mostly executed on larger canvases, Sen decided to paint the Himalayas in a highly original way: through miniatures small enough to be held in the palm of ones hand.

The Indian artist made countless mountain journeys, but the nature-inspired miniatures were produced in his mundane Lucknow studio, entirely from memory and imagination", recalls Prithviswar. The arresting quality of his miniatures echoed what Roerich himself achieved in hypnotic works like Star Of The Hero (pictured). Both zealously communed with nature through their lone, monkish figures set against unforgiving wintry landscapes; human figures dwarfed by desolate rocks or a distant fire flickering in the vastness of the night.

Great is Roerich and greater still are his works," Sen wrote in his diary. But once he devoted himself to miniatures after their meeting, the flow of inspiration was probably two-way. Roerich came to cherish Sens work, writing in a 1935 letter, I feel sure that you will carry high the Torch of Artonly devotion to the Highest, to Art and Creativeness can carry us to the Blessed Shore". Sensing the changing winds a mere four years before World War II, Roerich felt such torches" were much needed in a world mired in turmoil, having heard many sad stories of misery and unhappiness" during his travels.

In The Saints Blessing (pictured), Sen poignantly captures this redemptive sentiment. He plants the viewer at the deep end of an icy cave looking out towards a vast landscape. At the cave opening, a saintin actual size, no larger than a grain of riceextends his arm to bless a seated figure. The harshness of the environment is softened somewhat by the human company of a holy saint, his comforting gesture exuding warmth. We might be distant observers of the unfolding scene, but salvation seems just around the corner.

Roerich, whose 70th death anniversary falls next month, believed that only in the boundless art, the state of human consciousness can best be observed", while for Sen the purpose of art was not to imitate nature, but capture the quintessence of the scene" by recording ones innermost response. They were kindred spirits, attuned more to the numinous than the earthly, for whom transcendent peace lay only in the creative realm. In a fleeting world marked by grief and suffering, art held for them the promise of eternity.
Budhaditya Mukherjee: Stradivari of the sitar The Indian sitar player who made history, twice, but has received little recognition in India /news/talking-point/budhaditya-mukherjee-stradivari-of-the-sitar-111646920830197.html 111646920830197 story

On 30 June 1990, while history was being made in the world of Indian classical music, India remained completely oblivious. For the first time in the British parliament, an Indian musician had been invited to perform. That it was a classical sitar maestro should have been a matter of great pride for us. However, Kuldip Nayar, the high commissioner to Great Britain in 1990, who wrote for news agencies that several papers in India would source from, decided not to write about the performance. Precious cultural history was lost.

The only trace of this event was preserved in a few images and a letter written by the British member of parliament Keith Vaz to the sitar player: As you may well know, this is the first performance of its kind in the House of Commons and undoubtedly a historic moment in British Parliament. I am exceptionally pleased that this historic moment was met with such a masterful and exquisite performance by you."

The instrumentalist was none other than Budhaditya Mukherjee, the unparalleled sitar genius.

Budhaditya, 62, belongs to a family of musicians. His father Pandit Bimalendu Mukherjee, who held a full-time job as a general manager with the Bhilai Steel Plant, was a versatile musical genius. Growing up in an industrial township, Budhaditya began taking lessons at an early age, and first performed when he was barely five years old. The music fraternity recognized him as a child prodigy. Among the dozen-odd instruments Bimalendu could play effortlessly, he was the best on sitar. And it was the melody of the Sitar that Budhaditya took to from an early age. His father found a mentor and a guru in the great Ustad Vilayat Khan (1928-2004) of the Imdadkhani gharana. The ustad is credited with having promoted his gharana, not just through technical innovations on the sitar, but also by passing down his learning to a number of students who continue to spread his music.

Budhadityas early introduction to the ustads music (through his father) changed his life. And the consistency with which he pursued his music that held everyone in awe. As a teenager, Budhaditya was billed alongside great music veterans, while he participated in prestigious national and international festivals. In 1977, after graduating with a first class in engineering, with a specialization in metallurgy from Ravishankar University in Raipur, he gave up a lucrative career for music.

It is not often that child prodigies retain and enhance their musical brilliance. Many of them burn out at an early age. Many more end up changing careers. Budhaditya, however, belongs to the rare league of prodigies whose music has matured with age and time.

His relentless ambition for aesthetic musical brilliance has seen him create some of the finest sitar music of modern times. He is also a master of the surbahar. Often, Budhadityas concerts have seen him performing with both instruments, back to back. If he explores the aalap through his surbahar, he delves into the depths of a raga with his sitar.

The Imdadkhani gharana technique of playing is acknowledged for its technical brilliance. While that is an aspect many performers in this style are capable of, very few bring in the balance of aesthetics that Budhaditya does. In fact, in 1985, The Times Of India reviewed his performance, recognizing him as perhaps the best and most imaginative sitar player". And it is in this middle ground of consistent equilibrium that he is hailed as the greatest living maestro of our times, not just by fellow instrumentalists, but even by members of his own gharana.

It is said that Antonio Stradivari, the 17th century genius who created the modern Western violin, worked hard on the quality of music his instruments could deliver. Today, the Stradivarius violin is considered to be the best in the world. Budhadityas work on the sitar can be compared to the brilliance of the Stradivarius. For instance, his sense of engineering and highly innovative mind have seen him attempt several modifications to improve the existing sound of the sitar. From changing the quality of the metal strings to rearranging the fret-board to enable smoother playing flexibility, minute technical changes have made a huge impact on the quality of the music his sitar produces.

So far, however, whenever Budhaditya has performed at an event that should go down in history, it has gone unnoticed.

For instance, 1988 was the bicentennial year for Australia. The great sitar maestro Vilayat Khan was scheduled to perform. However, he was unable to make it and a quick replacement was needed. George Lascelles, the earl of Harewood, was flown from London to India to personally pick this replacement.

The earl, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, was known to be a patron of music, instrumental in presenting some of the finest Indian classical musicians to the Westhe also presented M.S. Subbulakshmi at the Edinburgh festival in 1963. The young Budhaditya was auditioned at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai. The earl heard him perform for a few minutes and selected him. His performance at Adelaide won him rave reviews in the world press, but found no mention in the mainstream Indian press.

Today, the soft-spoken genius of the sitar stays clear of the limelight. He hasnt received much recognition, and prefers living the life of a recluse and dedicating his time solely to the service of his sitar.
March of the Naga women Despite a high female literacy rate and an active women's rights movement, the struggle for political empowerment in Nagaland is only just beginning /news/talking-point/march-of-the-naga-women-111646920715529.html 111646920715529 story

In 2005, when Tokheli Kikon contested the village council election, she was the only woman candidate against three male candidates in the Naharbari village of Nagalands Dimapur district. She got 13 of the 21 votes, and became the states first woman village council chairperson. Twelve years later, she continues to be the only woman village council head in Nagaland.

Men kept discouraging me from contesting.... They said, How will you negotiate in a system that runs on muscle and money power? How will you, being a woman, go to jails, to army camps, to underground factions? They keep forgetting, or maybe deliberately ignore, that I did it all even before I was elected," says Kikon, 58, who is into her third term.

Tokheli Kikon, Nagalands first and only woman village council chairperson.

In her initial years as an administrator, people kept reminding Kikon of her gender. For instance, when, a few months after taking over, she started a campaign to protect a historical pond in her village, angering those who were trying to encroach the land around it, men attacked her; some even tried to pull out her mekhela (a traditional wraparound skirt). All this because women members are still a rarity in village councils, and among some tribes, they are not even allowed to sit through a decision-making meeting. Since 1963, when Nagaland attained statehood, it has not elected a single woman to the assembly. The late Rano M. Shaiza is still the only woman to ever be elected to the Lok Sabha (in 1977) from the state.

Men kept discouraging me from contesting.... They said, How will you negotiate in a system that runs on muscle and money power? How will you, being a woman, go to jails, to army camps, to underground factions?- Tokheli Kikon

How deep the gender crisis in the state is, became evident when in January-February, large-scale protests were held to oppose womens demand for 33% reservation in urban local body elections. Two people died, several government offices were set on fire, and the chief minister had to step down. The all-male apex tribal body, Naga Hoho, said it wouldnt give up its customary laws, and eventually, in late January, the Naga Mothers Association (NMA), an apex womens body that was at the forefront of this battle in court, decided to withdraw its petition.

Women from different tribes, who were part of the NMA, started receiving threats asking them to either dissociate from the joint action committee on womens reservation (a conglomeration of several womens rights organizations, including the NMA and Watsu Mungdang), or else stop being the citizens of their tribes. These are all married women, living in a society like ours where family and tribe play such an important role. Some of them had to go underground. With all this in mind, and the assurance from the government that it will hold elections, we decided to dissolve the JACWR (Joint Action Committee for Women Reservation) and withdraw the petition," says Rosemary Dzuvichu, lecturer at Nagaland University, and chief adviser of the NMA.

The states gender story is no different from that of the other North-Eastern states where traditional governance models are followed, but as N. Vijaylakshmi Brara, associate professor at the Centre for Manipur Studies, Manipur University, says, There is discontent among women even in matrilineal states like Meghalaya, but it hasnt reached the level it has in the case of Nagaland where educated women have started asking for their rights within democracy."

Depending on whom you ask, there are different versions on why both men and women were out on the streets. Locals say the violence in Dimapur and Kohima, among other districts, was not just about Nagaland not being prepared for gender equality in politics. It was a cocktail of simmering anger stoked by slow development, a feeling of alienation, and the belief that attempts are being made by the Centre to infringe upon the states special status under Article 371(A) of the Constitution. Most of those who formed the official opposition said reservation would tamper with Article 371(A), and would mean that people would be forced to pay tax even for their livestockthis didnt go down well with anyone. Under the Article, the Union government cannot intervene on matters related to Naga religion or social practices, customary law, ownership and transfer of land and the states resources, without the concurrence of the state legislative assembly.

Our only fear was that Article 371(A) and womens reservation contradict each other. Everyone was interpreting it in their own way. We need to educate the common masses because, as Nagas, our identity is dear to us, and we dont think a law that is applicable in, say, the north or south can be used here, in our context," says P. Chuba Ozukum, president, Naga Hoho. Times have changed, but politics is still about money and muscle power. Under this corrupt system, no refined woman would be able to participate. Women here are free, independent, so if they are good enough in politics, they should also find their way like the other women politicians in India have. Why reservation?"

The period of unrest brought in political and social crisis, but what it also did was, as activists say, burst the bubble of an empowered Naga woman", bringing to the fore the gender battles that were being fought by several womens rights groups within the state.

When you look at it from a distance, the status of Naga women is good, but a closer view shows that it is far from good. Right from the grass-roots level to the highest decision-making bodies, where are the women? First, as a woman, second, as a government servant, I wish I could say everything is in place for women. But I cant because there is no rosy picture to present," says Daisy Mezhur, mission director of the State Resource Centre for Women, Nagaland.

Gender can wait

For the greater part of the states early history, womens rights organizations were not vocal, or as aware of discrimination as they are nowmostly because they started as branches of churches, with general social reform as their main mandate. For example, this was the first time that the NMA, a 33-year-old organization, took up the issue of womens rights on such a scale. Initially, the organization concentrated on issues such as alcohol and drug abuse, which were big problems in Naga society till the 1980s. They then initiated campaigns for peace. In fact, it was the mothers, as they call themselves, who intervened on several occasions between the Armed Forces and the militants, or even the different factions.

We shifted from social issues to peace politics, from motherhood politics to exploring the issues of political discrimination of women, and the need for emancipation. And for all our fights against social issues and for peace politics, men were always on our side, fighting along with us," says Abieu Meru, president, NMA. But when it came to womens rights, support started dwindling.

The reservation for women in town councils, as enacted by the Nagaland Municipal (First Amendment) Act, 2006, was actually a watershed moment for the gender rights movement in the state. The NMA only decided to step in that year. But as Dzuvichu says: Naga women started articulating their rights so late because of militarization, because of the conflict. Women didnt have time to think about themselves. It was only after the ceasefire was signed, when there was a semblance of peace, that women looked at their reproductive health rights, then social rights, and womens roles in decision-making bodies, village judiciary, and the village council." Dzuvichu has several public interest litigations (PILs) pending in courts on issues such as reproductive health and maternity deaths.

Women running small businesses is a common sight in Kohima.

Tribal identity

Understanding gender in Naga culture needs an understanding of social stratifications, tribal loyalties, and womens roles. For its not as if women cant be seen on the streetsas vendors, or running small businesses. They can wear what they want, without inviting judgement. They are educated, and can generally decide whom to marry. But they are not encouraged to participate in politics, take part in battles or hunt, and there are some religious functions, such as the Sekrenyi festival, where, as the NMAs Angela Yhome points out, women are excluded from some rituals because they are not considered pure enough. A Naga woman is not entitled to inherit her clans ancestral or landed properties, and this is true for all tribes. She may construct a house or buy some land, but, on her marriage, it will belong to her parents or brothers. Once a married couple decides to separate or divorce, the children and property belong to the husband. A woman does not have any rights over her biological children or her property.

While they all identify with the exonym Naga outside the state, within it their tribal identity is dominant.

Verrier Elwin, in his book Nagaland (1961), writes: The basic interest of every Naga is his family, the clan, the Khel, the village. This is what he regards as his culture, which must not be interfered with. He is passionately attached to his land, his system of land tenure, the arrangements for the government of his village, the organization of cultivation, the administration of tribal justice through the village and tribal courts."

Some customary laws, like those among the Konyak tribe nudging a rapist and the survivor to reach a consensus on marriage, arent as commonly followed. Others, regarding inheritance and marriage, hold good even among the educated class. Nagaland has 16 tribes and the amount of freedom a woman gets depends on how liberal her tribe is. For instance, according to last years Enquiry Into The Status Of Women In Nagaland", a 192-page report brought out by the Nagaland chapter of the well-known grass-roots organization North East Network, an Ao Naga woman cant become a member of the Putu Menden, the traditional village council. In the Chakhesang tribe, if a woman commits adultery, she is forced to leave her husbands house with only the clothes she is wearing. But if a married man brings his lover home, he doesnt need to leave, but will have to give his wife half the property acquired during his married life.

A vegetable market en route to Dimapur from Kohima, predominantly run by women.

Invisible fights

Watsu Mungdang, the apex womens organization of the Ao tribe, was formed in 1983 in Mokokchung, after a series of sexual assaults and human rights violations.

The organization has also been fighting for property rights, but even these activists believe the sanctity of ancestral land needs to be maintained. They believe it is only acquired land that is unjustly denied to women. Because we are a patriarchal society, if I have to marry in a different clan, I will become their family, and if I inherit my ancestral property, that will go to a different family, a different clan. Inheritance among tribes is a big issue. How can we give the land of our ancestors, a part of our land, to the other clan? But acquired (property), we should have a right on," says Amenla Sashi from Watsu Mungdang.

In the last two-three years, the organization has shifted its focus to economic empowerment. In so many aspects, we are working on an equal footing with men. When we look at the family structures, we are not deprived of any right, we are liberated, but when it comes to political representation or economic empowerment, we are far behind. Economic independence of a woman will pave the way for her empowerment in many other aspects of her life, so thats our focus now," says Chubasangla Longkumep, president, Watsu Mungdangs Kohima branch.

The organization is holding seminars, helping women farmers find ways to enhance their farm produce, and introducing them to different ways of marketing. A committee was set up this April to pull in trainers and experts to convert womens agricultural work into income.

The economy of the state depends largely on agriculture, with the majority of the population living in rural areas. A large number of women in Nagaland are cultivatorsa substantial number are engaged in informal trade, and make for a majority of the market-stall holders and vendors selling vegetables and indigenous produce. Even though these women are the major source of support for their families, few of them have access to government schemes, economic credits and opportunities to improve their economic status.

Economically, women dont have the strength men do. If she is economically empowered, she can do what she wants with her assets. At the moment, she has to depend on the menfolk," says Longkumep.

According to the 2011 census, female literacy in the state is 76.11%, and male literacy, 82.75%. Longkumep says there was a time when educating girls was not the norm. There are still instances in the interiors where girls are denied education, but things have changed.

In eastern Nagaland, where the Eastern Nagaland Womens Organization (Enwo) has been working since 2008, education and trafficking are two big concerns. Eastern Nagaland is still dealing with extreme poverty and when you dont have even one meal a day, families choose which ward to educate based on gender, rather than capabilities, because the woman will ultimately go to a different house. So, as an organization, Enwo works towards finding ways to educate as many girls as possible, without putting all the burden on the parents," says Birila Tokiu, a former president of Enwo. Families in the eastern region send their girls to places like Kohimathey are promised a better life, education and money, but many of them are trapped into becoming domestic helps. Tokiu says several cases of sexual harassment and rape have emerged from such trafficking".

From violence against women to trafficking and discrimination in politics, the story is the same as in the rest of the country. But in Nagaland, says Juliana Medom, assistant state coordinator, State Resource Centre for Women: The womens movement hasnt really taken a healthy growth. Womens movements in other states, or even globally, always started with women who were enlightened, but slowly went to the grass-roots leveleducating and involving them in the fight. What we saw recently was not a mass movement. So many women were completely unaware of what was happening."

Given its history of violence and identity issues, the state buried the gender question for a long time. At least the conversation around Nagalands gender story has begun.
Six new feminist books you must read The publishing world is seeing a proliferation of essays on women's empowerment. We shortlist six fiercely feminist non-fiction books /how-to-lounge/books/six-new-feminist-books-you-must-read-111646832761193.html 111646832761193 story

One Day Well All be Dead and None of This Will Matter: By Scaachi Koul

One Day Well All be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul

This debut essay collection by Koul, a writer on culture for Buzzfeed Canada, points its compass to Canada and India. It details her Indian immigrant experience and the combination of racist and sexist experiences she encountered while growing up. Her book is sure to tickle your funny bone and teach you lessons in positive thinking, and perceiving covert shades of racism.

Dear Ijeawele, Or A Feminist Manifesto In Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Dear Ijeawele, Or A Feminist Manifesto In Fifteen Suggestions: By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

From the self-proclaimed Happy African Feminist Who Does Not Hate Men And Who Likes To Wear Lip Gloss And High Heels For Herself And Not For Men" comes this slim 61-page pocketbook, where Adichie advises a childhood friend on how to raise her baby girl as a feministthrough 15 suggestions in a helpful tone packed with light-hearted one-liners. When paired with We Should All Be Feminists, it attests to Adichies status as a spokesperson for 21st century feminism.

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body: By Roxane Gay

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

For her second release of the yearfollowing Difficult Women, a collection of short storiesGay falls back on the memoir form. In this candid and courageous book, what The Guardian has called one bodys lessons for everybody", she confronts issues about self-image and self-care, body and weight. Overeating, and being overweight, were responses to being gang-raped when 12, she admits: I ate and ate and ate in the hope that if I made myself big, my body would be safe."

The Mother of All Questions: By Rebecca Solnit

The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit

Although she didnt coin the term mansplaining", Solnits explosive collection of seven essays released in 2014, Men Explain Things To Me, described it, and opened the door to internet stardom. Now, in her new book, the writer, historian and activist tackles a range of topics relevant to the feminism of our timesDonald Trumps win, Hillary Clintons lossand threads them together with the theme of silence, the universal condition of oppression".

Bitch Doctrine: Essays for Dissenting Adults: By Laurie Penny

Bitch Doctrine: Essays for Dissenting Adults by Laurie Penny

Penny, a columnist and journalist with a Twitter following of over 171,000, is no stranger to online harassment. She is the youngest person to be shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for political writing on her blog Penny Red, and this book curates her essays on the latest American election and the transgender communitys rights movement, among other contemporary conversations, in sections such as Gender", Agency" and Future", in a style that is provocative and pertinent.

The H Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness: By Jill Filipovic

The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness by Jill Filipovic

A lawyer before a journalist, Filipovic argues for womens right to happiness, and aims to erase the happiness gap" between American men and women: Success is not about having it all, its about finding happiness. Switching between history and policy, memoir and reportage, she features the voices of varied American women, their wants and needs, in a refreshing and revolutionary feminist discourse, which focuses on finding contentment.
Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said that his country is beginning to implement procedures aimed at preventing people from Ukraine, possessing extremely anti-Polish views, enter Poland, Radio Liberty reported.

"People who demonstratively wear uniforms of SS Galicia (Halychyna) will not enter Poland," Waszczykowski said on the air of the Polish TVP1 TV channel on Thursday morning.

According to him, in the near future a list of people will be made public, which will be banned to enter Poland. They will include, in particular, persons who, in his opinion, poorly affect bilateral relations, prevent the exhumation of bodies of probable Polish victims on the territory of Ukraine or restore "places of Polish worship services." "Those who demonstrate and apply administrative tools towards Poland will also experience the consequences," the head of the Polish foreign ministry said.

According to him, Poland and Ukraine have "different concepts of reconciliation." "We realize how important Ukraine is to us from the geopolitical point of view ... but Ukrainians, knowing about such importance of their state for our security, believe that in this case the issues that separate us, especially the historical ones, should pale into insignificance ... We can not agree with the Ukrainian version that historical issues have a symmetry. We can not agree to equate the activities of the UPA (Ukrainian Rebel Army) and the Home Army (Armia Krajowa)," the minister said.

At the same time he promised to observe the principle of symmetry in relations with Ukraine.

"I will still think whether to recommend the Polish president to go on a visit to Ukraine," Waszczykowski said.
Crimean Tatar Renat Paralamov, who became the victim of Russian special services in Crimea in September 2017, described how he, with the use of torture, was forced to sign and voice the confessions about crimes he allegedly committed.

He said at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine news agency on November 2 that on September 13, Russian security officials searched his house in the village of Nyzhniohirsk in Crimea. After the search, FSB officers (as it later became known) kidnapped Paralamov, held him in the "FSB directorate" in Simferopol, and used torture against him for the purpose of cooperation with the Russian special services.

"I was forced to sign two protocols, in one of which I confess that I found trotyl, cartridges and fuses in a forest in 2014, that I hid them in my home in the village of Nyzhniohirsk, and then near the Simferopol water reservoir. In another [protocol] I confess that I am allegedly a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, that I allegedly organized the dissemination of information on the Internet, in the social network VKontakte. I was forced to slander my friends and people who I don't know. They also forced me to voice the text on camera," Paralamov said.

According to him, he had a sack put on his head, he was beaten, tortured, including by electric shock, and threatened with rape.

After Paralamov was released, on September 14, he was found at a bus station in Simferopol in extremely grave condition. Subsequently, the victim of torture left Crimea together with his family.

The head of the board of NGO Human Rights Movement of Crimea Enver Kadyrov noted that such things happened not only in Crimea, but were a common practice in Russia and that this was indicated by those human rights organizations that are still working in Russia. He pointed out that the current head of the "FSB directorate" in Crimea, Viktor Palagin, had previously worked in Bashkortostan and there was information about similar stories there with beatings, electric shocks and threats of rape with respect to detainees.
Investigators of the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) jointly with officers of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on Thursday raided the premises of the State Aviation Service of Ukraine. The raid is related to disclosing a head of one of the authority's departments who demanded a $7,000 bribe.

"The head of the department was detained red handed at once after he received the second part of the sum in the amount of $3,000 At present, the premises of the State Aviation Service of Ukraine and the place where the head of the department lives are raided," the press service of Kyiv Prosecutor Office reported on Thursday.

The official promised to approve a candidate to the post of a manager of an airline and help to certify the airline for the bribe.

Earlier the investigators recorded a fact of receiving $1,000 of bribe by the official.

The press service of the State Aviation Service told Interfax-Ukraine that the authority is ready to help to investigators and provides all the required information.
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The seven wildfires that swept across Northern California last month destroyed 8,889 structures, officials for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said Thursday.

The new preliminary total for the destruction was determined by teams sent to the fire areas to do an accounting of each structure that had been burned, said Scott McLean, a deputy fire chief at Cal Fire.

The Northern California fires erupted on Oct. 8, the same day wildfires also were sparked in Butte County and Anaheim. Combined, those fires destroyed 8,920 buildings  including homes, commercial and outbuildings.

The Tubbs Fire, which started in Calistoga and destroyed portions of Santa Rosa, became the most destructive wildfire in modern California history, flattening 4,655 homes, 94 commercial buildings and 894 outbuildings  barns and sheds  for a total of 5,643 structures. Additionally, 310 buildings were damaged.

By comparison, the Oakland hills fire in 1991, previously designated the most destructive conflagration in California history, wiped out nearly 3,500 homes.

The Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa charred 36,807 acres, including the Coffey Park and Fountaingrove neighborhoods, and mobile home parks, and killed 22 people.

Now Playing: Wineries, schools, hotels and neighborhoods have been destroyed in the recent Bay Area fires. Video: Ted Andersen, SFGATE

The Nuns Fire incinerated 639 homes, 32 commercial buildings and 684 outbuildings  totaling 1,355 buildings throughout neighborhoods in Kenwood and Glen Ellen in Napa and Sonoma counties.

The blaze merged with several other fires, including the Partrick and Adobe, and killed two people while scorching 54,382 acres and damaging 172 structures.

Three homes and three outbuildings were wrecked in the Pocket Fire, which tore through 17,357 acres north of Geyserville in Sonoma County. One home and one outbuilding were damaged.

The Cascade Fire in Yuba County demolished 203 homes, one commercial site and 194 outbuildings for a total of 398 structures. The deadly fire burned 9,989 acres, damaged one home and one outbuilding, and killed four people.

In Napa and Solano counties, the Atlas Fire demolished 781 structures including 445 homes, 17 commercial and 319 outbuildings. One hundred and twenty buildings were damaged  69 residences, 12 commercial structures and 39 outbuildings.

The Redwood Valley fire in Mendocino County destroyed 544 structures  314 residences, five commercial buildings and 224 outbuildings, and one building whose purpose could not be determined. It damaged 16 homes, two commercial buildings, 23 outbuildings and one unknown building.

The Sulphur Fire in Lake County ruined 162 buildings  134 residences, two commercial and 26 outbuildings. It damaged five homes and three outbuildings.

The California Department of Insurance announced Tuesday that 15 major insurers reported that the total of insured losses from the October wildfires topped $3 billion. And that number is expected to increase.

Insurers reported that 10,016 residential properties are partial losses, 4,712 residential properties are total losses and 728 are commercial property losses. Commercial property includes businesses and apartments with four or more units.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
DEA agents in Bexar County arrested a Border Patrol agent Tuesday on a drug possession charge, according to county officials.

Gregory Dylan Sessions was charged with possession of between four and 400 grams of a controlled substance. He was booked into the Bexar County Jail on a $20,000 bond and has since been released.

RELATED: Municipal court detention officer arrested for allegedly selling classified law enforcement info

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Sessions is a border patrol agent assigned to the Carrizo Springs Station, which is about 80 miles north of Laredo. He's been employed with the agency for six years.

"U.S. Customs and Border Protection stresses honor and integrity in every aspect of our mission, and the overwhelming majority of CBP employees perform their duties with honor and distinction, working tirelessly every day to keep our country safe," read a statement from Customs and Border Protection Spokesman Dennis Smith. "We do not tolerate corruption within our ranks, nor acts which tarnish our agency's reputation. We fully cooperate with any criminal or administrative investigations of alleged misconduct by any of our personnel, on or off duty."

RELATED: Municipal court detention officer arrested for allegedly selling classified law enforcement info

The details surrounding Sessions's arrest and the charges against him were not immediately available. It's also unclear what kind of drugs Sessions had, but they were categorized as Penalty Group 2 drugs, according to Bexar County officials. According to the Texas State Code that designation applies to dozens of chemical compositions of hallucinogenics.

The Bexar County District Attorney's Office is now handling the case, according to Dante Sorianello, the DEA assistant special agent in charge in San Antonio. Leslie Garza, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office, said the office will not comment on Sessions's arrest at this time.

Caleb Downs is a crime reporter for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here.| cdowns@mysa.com | Twitter: @calebjdowns
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Friday his office has served Equifax Inc. an investigative subpoena known as a civil investigative demand, continuing his formal investigation of the companys massive data breach impacting as many as 145.5 million Americans.

My office seeks documents and other information from Equifax that will allow us to thoroughly examine all the facts and circumstances surrounding the massive data breach, Paxton said in the news release. Our primary responsibility is to protect Texas consumers, who, through no fault of their own, had their personal and financial information compromised and are now vulnerable to identity theft.
The San Francisco Police Commission approved the use of Taser electroshock weapons late Friday for the Police Department, an issue that has been debated and rejected in the city for 13 years.

Following an almost seven-hour meeting interrupted by a protest that led to a lockdown of City Hall, commissioners narrowly passed a measure that the police officers union and several past city chiefs have long called for but activists and police critics have strongly opposed.

While members of the departments top brass remained straight-faced during the hard-fought, 4-3 vote in favor of the plan, activists outside the chamber began chanting, Shame! Shame!

The San Francisco Police Department is one of the last major city forces in the country without the devices, in part because of the opposition from community members concerned about the weapons lethality and the potential for abuse.

But those in favor of Tasers, including police Chief Bill Scott, who took command in January amid controversy over a series of officer-involved shootings, say officers need less-lethal alternatives to firearms and Tasers provide such an option.

More for you SF police chief seeks Taser training for all officers

On Friday, Commissioner Thomas Mazzucco echoed Scotts sentiments on the weapons, citing the findings of the U.S. Department of Justices community-policing division for why he voted to allow Tasers. In a report last year, the Justice Department said San Francisco should strongly consider giving officers stun guns.

They could not believe we did not have these, Mazzucco said. They believe it will save lives.

The report was the result of a six-month review of the San Francisco force after officers fatally shot Mario Woods in December 2015. Woods, a stabbing suspect who was still carrying a knife, was shot while shuffling slowly along a Bayview neighborhood street, after efforts to subdue him with beanbags rounds and pepper spray failed.

The killing is still under investigation, but following the shooting, the Police Commission revised the departments use-of-force policy to put more of an emphasis on the sanctity of life, deploying de-escalation tactics and using force as a last resort.

De-escalation has been a topic that the San Francisco Police Department has taken very seriously, Scott said Friday, as he made his case for Tasers. The reality is there are times when de-escalation does not work and officers have to use force as safely as possible. We have a duty to reduce injuries to residents and officers when these type of incidents occur.

But Commission President L. Julius Turman, who voted against the measure, said he felt that equipping officers with Tasers will derail the progress we have made.

Commissioner Petra DeJesus, who has long opposed Tasers, had harsher words.

Shame on this commission for even thinking to vote on this, she said. We should give our (policies) a chance to work.

While Fridays vote did not delve into policy for Taser use nor into the implementation, Chief Scott has said he wants all sworn officers to be equipped with the weapon. As part of the vote, commissioners said officers could not begin using the weapons until December 2018, after the new use-of-force policy has been in place for two years.

Commissioner Sonia Melara said she received about 100 letters in support of Tasers from community members, and a handful spoke at the meeting. But dozens more spoke in opposition. Activists speaking out against Tasers shut down the meeting for about an hour and prompted deputies to lock down City Hall.

Please try (a Taser) on yourself before you make the decision, activist Maria Cristina Gutierrez said just before she went beyond the two-minute allotment allowed for each speaker during public comment and Turman called the meeting into recess.

The activists remained in the room, chanting and making speeches against the weapons, as the commissioners filed out and reconvened in another room.

Turman called the meeting back into session without informing the community members still in the original room  a move that was widely criticized  and reopened public comment by bringing in five people at a time who were not involved in the disruptive behavior.

In this years discussion, opponents have shifted their focus from past deaths linked to the devices to their effectiveness. Critics have brought in experts to speak to commissioners about the failure rate of Tasers  and what that means for an officer and a subject in an escalating, perilous encounter.

Many balked at the city budget and legislative analysts estimate for the overall cost. The low estimate for obtaining Tasers  in a scenario in which some but not all officers get them  was $2.8 million, which includes the cost of the devices as well as officer training, instructor training, testing and defibrillators. Ongoing, annual costs for the low estimate came out to just over $400,000.

The high estimate, which is based on equipping and training all sworn officers, was $8 million in one-time costs and annual costs of about $750,000.

The analysis did not include the cost of litigation that could come as a result of injuries or deaths because of Taser use by a city officer.

Commissioner Joe Marshall, the longest serving member on the panel, commented that he has served on the commission through all 13 years of proposals regarding Tasers.

He said he supported the chief in what he wanted, in part because from his experience, he learned there was no right time to equip officers with Tasers and that after 13 years, it was time for a decision.

People just dont like Tasers, Marshall said. I heard the statement that it will never be the time to have them. Time does not matter to me. There is no the time. You have to decide whether to have them or not.

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo
It's not obvious that both the Hulu hit "The Handmaid's Tale" and Netflix's new miniseries "Alias Grace" are based on books by the same author, Margaret Atwood.

Rather than a stylized dystopian horror set in some near future, the gothic plot of "Alias" is rooted in history - the true story of Grace Marks, an Irish immigrant living in Canada who was convicted in 1843 of murder and sentenced to hang. Both she and her alleged accomplice, James McDermott, were found guilty of killing their employer, Thomas Kinnear, and his housekeeper (and mistress), Nancy Montgomery, but only McDermott ended up at the gallows. Grace, perhaps because she was both young and beautiful, was ultimately given a lighter sentence; after 30 years behind bars, she was released.

In both Atwood's meticulously researched but fictionalized retelling and the new miniseries, Grace (Sarah Gadon), who's already incarcerated, ends up describing her life story to a young psychiatrist, Simon Jordan (Edward Holcroft). The good doctor becomes taken with this enigmatic yet exceedingly proper woman, who claims she remembers nothing of the murders and pleaded guilty only at her lawyers' insistence.

Despite their differences, "Alias Grace" has the same timeliness that helped win "The Handmaid's Tale" the Emmy for best drama. And it likely won't be the last Atwood adaptation we get. Darren Aronofsky has announced plans to make a series from the MaddAddam trilogy, which looked like it might land at HBO. That deal fell through, but Aronofsky said he wasn't giving up. And last year, MGM Television bought the rights to Atwood's novel "The Heart Goes Last," according to Deadline.

That book, about desperation during an economic depression, was published in 2015, but the others have been around for much longer. "The Handmaid's Tale" came out in 1985, and "Alias Grace" about a decade later. "Oryx and Crake," the first of the MaddAddam books, is 14 years old.

So why is it that, all of a sudden, there's a resurgence of interest in Atwood's work?

"I think it's a scary time," said Sarah Polley, the actor, director and Oscar-nominated writer who adapted "Alias Grace" for television. "She has such insight and such a detailed curiosity about the past and where we've come from, and I think because this is such an unstable time in the world politically - and for women - it's a moment where having context is helpful in terms of analyzing and figuring out our situation right now."

Even Atwood's futuristic stories are based on history. In "The Handmaid's Tale" - a book about women forced to bear children for rich couples in a draconian religious society where the population is dwindling - the horrors are real.

"One of my rules was that I would not put any events into the book that had not already happened in what James Joyce called the 'nightmare' of history, nor any technology not already available," Atwood wrote in the New York Times, citing the Nazis' secret Lebensborn breeding program, among other nightmares. "No imaginary gizmos, no imaginary laws, no imaginary atrocities."

The echoes between the premise for "The Handmaid's Tale" - which seemed outrageous even to Atwood in 1984 - and our current moment is obvious to many fans of the show, especially the way the fictional government of Gilead began slowly revoking hard-won civil liberties.

"Alias Grace" resonates especially with the resurgence of the #MeToo campaign on social media, in which women and some men have gone public with stories of sexual harassment and abuse.

That's because the book is really about storytelling - about how a woman with very little power in society seizes some by telling her own tale. No one else who was there the day of the murders is still alive, so Grace is Dr. Jordan's only chance of getting to the truth. A quick study, Grace is aware of her newfound influence, so she stretches out her yarn, like a Victorian-era Scheherazade.

The scripts immediately spoke to director Mary Harron, whom Polley handpicked to spearhead all six episodes of the miniseries.

"Usually when people send me stuff, it feels a bit alien to me," Harron said. "But it felt as if it could have been written for me."

Harron, who also directed "American Psycho" and "The Moth Diaries," has plenty of experience with period films, not to mention female-centric stories, and her movies are remarkably comfortable with ambiguity, especially when it comes to characters who may or may not be insane.

One thing that shocked Harron about the story was how brutal the class system was in Canada in 1843.

"The Irish were looked down on the way that people look down on immigrants here," she said.

Polley initially wanted to turn the book into a film but quickly realized the only way she could include threads such as the immigration story was to make it into a miniseries. That component was important to her, especially for today's audience. In the show, the process of Grace and her family traveling by boat from Ireland to Canada isn't a hopeful journey so much as a nightmarish fantasia of death and disease echoing recent stories about despondent refugees - including young children - fleeing Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia.

"I think we forget why people immigrate and how hard it is and what it looks like," Polley said. "I feel like, in the current climate, it's important to remind ourselves that people don't usually immigrate for fun."

The series is equally unflinching when it comes to portraying the monstrous way women were treated at the time. In one episode, Grace's good friend - another domestic servant - realizes she's pregnant. Her options are few after her high-society paramour falsely insists the child isn't his: She can continue the pregnancy, which means her boss will certainly kick her out to live on the streets, or she can use all of her savings to pay for a dangerous, primitive procedure to abort the fetus.

Harron says Atwood's "very incisive, clear-eyed, unsentimental look at how society works" gives readers and viewers some sense of how stuck these women felt.

In "Alias" as in "Handmaid's Tale," Atwood also shows how a patriarchal society turns women against one another. In the latter, "aunts" physically and emotionally abuse the fertile women being groomed for ritual rape; in "Alias," it's most obvious in the relationship between Grace and Nancy, the murder victim.

"Both of them, they're so powerless, really, and their situation is so desperate," Harron said. "They have so little - they could be kicked out to die in the street."

The squabbling at the bottom keeps the powerful in charge. Obviously, much has changed since those days. But, as we've seen with so many influential men finally being called out for their bad, sometimes criminal behavior, a lot has also remained the same.

"The sexual exploitation of young women, as we know, is still a problem," Harron said. "I'm shocked by the stuff we're hearing. You think you know how things work, but you don't."
NEW YORK - As the final light cues are executed for "Junk," a moment of real and bitterly funny consequence shakes you out of your torpor. The 1980s junk bond king played by Steven Pasquale, serving a federal jail sentence for financial wrongdoing, has a prison yard brainstorm for future moneymaking shenanigans: People with meager incomes should be able to buy homes! Let's sell them mortgages - at subprime rates!

To arrive at this moment of supreme irony in playwright Ayad Akhtar's white-collar-crime procedural, which had its official Broadway opening Thursday night at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, you have to sit through a whole heck of a lot of by-the-book exposition. It is 1985, and Pasquale's Robert Merkin is a specialist in strangling struggling companies to death - in this case, a Pennsylvania steel conglomerate - by driving up the stock prices and borrowing money to buy them using the company's own cash flow as collateral. His lackeys then sell off the healthiest parts of the company at a profit, leaving workers in the other units that need the most financial help high and dry.

It's sad, it's infuriating, it's shameful. Unfortunately, director Doug Hughes evinces no winning strategy here for provoking our outrage, or even finding much drama, in the carefully constructed plot by Akhtar, a Pulitzer winner for the superb "Disgraced," his examination of an American corporate lawyer's struggle with his Muslim heritage. Rather than being revelatory about the way "job killers" like the fictional Merkin - inspired apparently by the onetime real-life junk bond king, Michael Milken - game the system, "Junk" feels merely explanatory. The play comes across less as a text emerging thrillingly to life than as a talking textbook.

Its impact is further blunted by some odd casting choices, starting with Pasquale, whose robotic presence seems to disinvite one's curiosity about Merkin. Akhtar wants us to see Merkin as at once visionary and soullessly driven, a Jewish outsider in the patrician world of high finance who is oblivious to the fact that he's crushing little guys in the process of taking down the big ones.

The all-business Pasquale doesn't convince us of Merkin's neediness, or rapaciousness, and so "Junk" acquires none of the morality-tale momentum Akhtar seems to be after. The other Iagos who fill out the story, the "What's-in-it-for-me" collaborators whose only real allegiances are to themselves, don't feel any more three-dimensional. And that goes, too, for the morally ambiguous good guys, like the steel-company executive (Rick Holmes), the white knight mogul (Michael Siberry) and the federal prosecutor (Charlie Semine), all of whom appear to be outlines of more vitally drawn supporting players.

Possibly, "Junk" would make a stronger case for itself in a more intimate setting. Hughes doesn't use Lincoln Center Theater's sprawling main stage to much advantage. The play is stolidly staged on a generic modern set by the ordinarily meticulous John Lee Beatty: It's a box divided into 10 smaller boxes, outlined in what look like gilt-edged picture frames. (The multiple-Tony-winning costume designer Catherine Zuber, for once, seems out of her element, working with conservative Wall Street and moneyed Beverly Hills motifs.) Actors materialize in the boxes to answer phone calls, or in groups for business-meeting scenes, on the high-gloss stage floor, and then march forward, down a flight of steps at the lip of the stage, to make room for the next scene.

This contributes to the assembly-line sensation that permeates "Junk." So much has been invested in keeping things moving and making the story clear, that there doesn't seem to have been much energy left to make it exhilarating.

---

"Junk," by Ayad Akhtar. Directed by Doug Hughes. Set, John Lee Beatty; costumes, Catherine Zuber; lighting, Ben Stanton; original music, Mark Bennett; projections, 59 Productions; stage manager, Charles Means. With Ito Aghayere, Matthew Rauch, Miriam Silverman, Joey Slotnick, Henry Stram, Ted Koch, Ethan Phillips, Matthew Saldivar. About 2 hours 30 minutes. $87-$199. At Vivian Beaumont Theater, 150 W. 65th St., New York. Visit telecharge.com or call 212-239-6200.
Endurance: A Year in Space, a Lifetime of Discovery

By Scott Kelly

Knopf. 387 pp. $29.95

---

For many of us, the childhood fantasy never went away. We grew up glued to our grainy black-and-white TVs, watching with awe as Alan Shepard and John Glenn rocketed into space in blazing glory. It was easy to imagine that, someday in the future, we'd have the same chance to be free from the confines of gravity. Few have gotten that opportunity, but "Endurance," astronaut Scott Kelly's memoir (written with Margaret Lazarus Dean) of his record-setting year on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2015, offers Earthlings an informative and gripping look at both the adventures and day-by-day experiences of living in a metal container that is orbiting Earth at 17,500 mph.

Yet at the same time, Kelly brings our dreams crashing down to Earth, vividly reminding us of the many challenges - some mundane, others quite scary - of that cosmic frontier. It's not all beautiful views of our planet and restful floats in zero-g. There's the burned-out lightbulbs, the mold and dust, the never-ending hum of equipment, the occasional flashes in your vision when a cosmic ray passes through your eyes, the lost bone mass, and the build-up of carbon dioxide when the scrubbers sporadically malfunction. "If we are going to get to Mars," Kelly writes, "we are going to need a much better way to deal with CO2. Using our current finicky system, a Mars crew would be in significant danger," and if "the toilet broke and we couldn't fix it, we would be dead." He and his colleague, Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, were human guinea pigs, hoping to learn the long-term effects of space isolation on mind and body.

Given Kelly's history growing up, the book's biggest surprise is that he even made it into space. A terrible student, he was more interested in partying and hurtling down a hill on a bike than sitting quietly in a classroom. Graduating from a New Jersey high school in the bottom half of his class, he was about to flunk out of college - until he came upon Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" in the campus bookstore. He was immediately drawn to the book's "young hotshots catapulting off aircraft carriers, testing unstable airplanes, drinking hard, and generally moving through the world like badasses." Almost overnight, he knew he wanted to join them. Inspired, he gradually learned how to focus on his courses, changed to a military-oriented school and told his new roommate that he was going to be an astronaut. His friend replied, "Well, I'm going to be an Indian chief."

But Kelly proved all such doubters wrong. Within years, he was flying off aircraft carriers as a naval aviator (some of the most exhilarating sections of the book) and then became a test pilot. He at last filled out his NASA application in 1995 and was accepted into the largest astronaut class in NASA's history: 44 in all, including his twin brother, Mark. Within four years, Kelly was in space, aboard the space shuttle Discovery sent out to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. He compared his training for that moment to "getting a Ph.D."

Piloting the space shuttle had been Kelly's sole ambition. "I didn't want to get that space station stink on me ... resulting in fewer shuttle flights." But when asked, he served. He reluctantly agreed to stay on the station for six months in 2010-11, by then rocketing up on a Russian Soyuz after the shuttles were decommissioned. That experience made him especially qualified for a repeat performance, but this time for an entire year, with his personal quarters on the station no bigger than an old-fashioned phone booth.

"Endurance" is filled with minutiae on the ISS' modules and equipment, which space aficionados will probably lap up, yet it remains a fascinating read. Upon opening the Soyuz hatch to enter the ISS, for example, Kelly senses something familiar: "A strong burned metal smell, like the smell of sparklers on the Fourth of July. Objects that have been exposed to the vacuum of space have this unique smell on them, like the smell of welding - the smell of space."

His language is earnest and straightforward, just the style one expects from an astronaut. At the same time he frankly reflects on how his career upended his family and marriage. And then there is the boisterous camaraderie with his colleagues and stationmates, not to mention the astronaut rituals. Because the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human to journey into space, in 1961, peed on the right rear tire of his launchpad bus before entering his capsule, every astronaut and cosmonaut launching from Russia has done the same for good luck ever since (women bring a bottle of urine to splash on the tire).

The year does not go quickly for Kelly. Thirteen other astronauts and cosmonauts would come and go as he and Kornienko stayed put, each dealing with separate duties in their respective Russian and U.S. modules. Kelly completed a few spacewalks for repairs (which are far more arduous than the traditional publicity suggests), dissected rodents to study the effects of spaceflight on mammal physiology and took a stab at playing botanist Mark Watney in the movie "The Martian." He grew lettuce and zinnias, to test whether fresh food would be possible for Mars travelers. In this endeavor he learned that there is also an emotional need for such spaceborne farming, confessing that he had "been missing the beauty and fragility of living things" over his sequestered year.

What no one misses are the inherent dangers. During his year in space, three non-manned supply ships exploded after launch, forcing the station inhabitants to ration for a while. More horrific is the space junk, the myriad debris and old satellites that buzz around the Earth at thousands of miles per hour. Most are tracked, and the ISS' engines are fired up routinely to move the station out of the way. But sometimes a new bit of junk is sighted with too little time for such a maneuver, which happened during Kelly's year on the ISS. All aboard took shelter in the Soyuz capsule for 10 excruciating minutes. "I realize that if the satellite had in fact hit us," Kelly writes, "we probably wouldn't even have known it. ... [We] would have gone from grumbling to one another in our cold Soyuz to being blasted in a million directions as diffused atoms, all in the space of a millisecond."

But every astronaut and cosmonaut willingly accepts such challenges for a reason: to secure the future of spaceflight. "It will be very, very difficult, it will cost a great deal of money, and it may cost human lives," stresses Kelly. "But I know now that if we decide to do it, we can."

Just make sure European Space Agency astronauts are included in that first trip to Mars. According to Kelly, they bring the best food.

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Bartusiak is a professor in the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing. She is the author of six books on the frontiers of astrophysics and its history, including "Black Hole" and "Einstein's Unfinished Symphony."
The artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine should be ready, if necessary, to return to the disengagement line in the Anti-Terrorist operation (ATO) area in the east of the country, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said.

"Today, we need to sharpen the skills, sharpen the rapid reaction, the movement and the deployment of artillery and missile systems. You were taken from the disengagement line, but you must be ready to return there at any moment and get into action if this is dictated by the requirements of the defense," the president said in the village of Divychky of Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky district of Kyiv region on Friday on the occasion of the Day of Missile Forces and Artillery.
An American Family: A Memoir of Hope and Sacrifice

By Khizr Khan

Random House. 271 pp. $27

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It took about two minutes in 2016 for Khizr Khan to become a celebrity and a national symbol. He was a grieving Gold Star father whose son died for his country in Iraq. He was an unstintingly patriotic Muslim American immigrant. He was a Hillary Clinton supporter who managed a live-TV beatdown of Donald Trump by whipping out a pocket-size U.S. Constitution and defiantly inviting Trump to read it.

The past is prologue: Khan was back in the news recently when Trump became involved in yet another imbroglio with a Gold Star family. This time, an African-American widow accused the president of insensitivity because he did not seem to know her husband's name during a condolence call.

Khan, a Harvard-trained lawyer, was simply another Gold Star father before delivering a short but electrifying speech during the Democratic National Convention. With his wife, Ghazala Khan, standing silently by his side, he spoke of losing his middle son, Humayun Khan, 27, in 2004. The younger Khan was an Army captain killed by a car bomb as he tried to save others.

"You have sacrificed nothing and no one," Khizr Khan told the man who would become president and go on to impose a travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries. Khan's acclaim only intensified after Trump seemed to bully his family, suggesting, for instance, that Ghazala Khan had not been allowed to speak at the convention and that Clinton's staff had written Khan's speech.

Now, in his book "An American Family: A Memoir of Hope and Sacrifice," Khan gets the chance to quietly tell his story, away from the klieg lights and easy (if sometimes misguided) symbolism.

If the Khan depicted in his memoir is as guileless as he seems, then he is far from the hero of partisan politics some want him to be. Nor does he offer a prescription for what ails us here across the fruited plains. Rather, appalled by Trump's divisive rhetoric, Khan asked himself, "What would Humayun do?" as he and Ghazala and friends carefully weighed the possible downsides of speaking at the convention. The deal was sealed after Khan received a letter asking for his help in stopping the deportation of a fifth-grader named Maria; the letter was written in a child's hand by a friend of Maria's.

One wishes that Khan drilled deeper to help us understand how a brown-skinned Muslim son of Pakistani parents could remain so ardently idealistic in the face of the searing contradictions in the American experiment. Still, his story is moving, and his voice is needed in these fractious times.

As the Atlantic reported this summer, American Muslims see themselves as widespread objects of hostility, based on polling data from the Pew Research Center. Seventy percent said there is "a lot" of discrimination against Muslims in the United States. The article notes that half the U.S. population says Islam is not part of "mainstream American society." Researchers found that 65 percent of Republicans and 72 percent of white evangelicals perceived a natural conflict between Islam and democracy.

Khan, born in 1950, came to the United States in 1979, before 9/11 and the national debate over Islam. The forces that shaped his attitudes about this country began long before he set foot on U.S. soil. At the beginning of his memoir he recalls a night with his grandfather, a wise and kind man who gave him words and a philosophy to live by.

Khan grew up poor on a farm in Pakistan. "One sweltering summer night when I was eight or nine years old, he sat on the edge of my cot and paraphrased some Rumi: 'So what if you are thirsty? Always be a river for everyone.'"

By his telling, that is pretty much what Khan did with his life.

He became the first in his family in many generations to go to college, navigating law school at home and then a master of laws program at Harvard. He writes of taking into his family home lost souls from various backgrounds. His family life with his stay-at-home wife and three sons is placid and uneventful, focused on hard work and good deeds.

The United States, though, is the real star of this memoir. The first American Khan ever met, in his first professional job (as a legal director for an offshore drilling company in Dubai), set him up in an apartment with three pillows on the bed ("more than I'd ever slept with") and a tub in the bathroom, which he had never had before.

"Were all Americans like this? Is this what that country, with its freedoms wrought from rebellion, produced? Did a nation of laws, of equal dignity for all, instill in its people a basic goodness?" Khan writes.

"The American experiment is the ideal to which all people aspire," he writes near the end of his tale. He adds later: "Perhaps not in the particulars of policy or politics, but ... in the elegance of the original ideals."

Khan's love affair with America and the Constitution began when he was a student in Pakistan. His description of the phrase "Declaration of Independence" is almost erotic: "Those were curious words, the way they were arranged into an aggressive noun," he writes. "I rolled them around in my head. To declare your independence. (BEGIN ITAL)I declare my independence.(END ITAL) My spine tingled, straightened, a quick involuntary spasm. I'd grasped, in that moment, a remarkable insight, a great and improbable truth I'd never conceived to be possible."

The very idea that Americans possessed "unalienable rights" - life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - was likewise astonishing to the young Khan.

"The thing is, those truths were not remotely self-evident," he writes. "Not to a young man in Pakistan and not to most people in the whole of human existence. It did not matter if men were (BEGIN ITAL)created(END ITAL) equal."

Khan writes with economic grace and clarity. The story of his courtship of Ghazala, who is several notches above him on the social ladder, is sweet; it offers a peek into the constraints of Pakistani society that existed without the benefit of the sexual revolution.

Later in the memoir, the family's loss of Humayun is starkly rendered and gripping. Ghazala was swallowed by grief, while Khan spent days convincing himself that the Army had made a mistake about their child's death.

Then: "My son was in a coffin. I saw him, looked at him, stared at him. He was my son. My beautiful boy."

As is their way, Khan and Ghazala ended up attending the services of other fallen soldiers and began inviting service men and women into their home for meals.

Certainly, Khan will unfortunately serve as an example of a kind of "model minority" that too many Americans require. That is not his problem. The term "model minority" is the majority's finger-wagging way of saying how minority-group members need to behave to win majority approval. The condescending term is often used to beat up on minority groups that fall short.

Khan's story matters because Americans need to listen hard to one another, especially as questions of inequality have gained renewed visibility. Stereotypes and worn tropes (about every group) resonate for too many and bounce too easily across biased social media. Khan offers a valuable perspective as we continue to debate what kind of country we want to be.

---

Lee is a former New York Times reporter.
Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine

By Anne Applebaum

Doubleday. 461 pp. $35

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In the spring of 1933, the Soviet Union was in the depths of a class war. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had sent workers and communists from the cities to extract grain from the countryside. "We realized," as one of them put it, "that it was impossible for us to live on the same earth as these bloodsuckers." The suppression of private agriculture, combined with unreasonable requisitions, caused millions to die that year in the Soviet Union. As Anne Applebaum reveals in "Red Famine," Stalin and the Soviet leadership enforced policies that ensured that the disaster was worst in Ukraine. According to the latest work of demographers, some 3.9 million people died by starvation in that Soviet republic.

Until the Holocaust, the great famine in Soviet Ukraine was the largest policy of mass killing in Europe in the 20th century. As Applebaum notes, the crimes of Stalin and Hitler shared a similar impulse: the desire to control the fertile black earth of Ukraine. For Stalin, Ukraine was a source of capital that could be used to create a modern industrial Soviet Union. Under his first Five-Year Plan of 1928-1933, millions of peasants were to be moved to urban areas (and to the concentration camps known as the gulag), and their farmland was to be brought under state control; its product was to be sold abroad or used to feed the growing cities. Adolf Hitler, in his time, wanted to strip Ukraine from the Soviet Union so that Germans could exploit its fertile lands, gain agricultural self-sufficiency and become a world power. Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 to take the Ukrainian breadbasket. It was with that invasion that the mass murder of European Jews began.

So Ukraine suffered for reasons of economics and geography. Applebaum demonstrates that the causes of the great famine of 1933 were also national and political. Using her prodigious original research, she develops an interpretation that was first offered by the historian Terry Martin some 20 years ago. Her account will surely become the standard treatment of one of history's great political atrocities.

The Soviet Union was founded in 1922 after a series of civil wars fought largely in Ukraine. The major Bolsheviks, Stalin included, were forced to accept the reality of a Ukrainian nation, and they designed the Soviet Union as a federation in order to co-opt Ukrainian national aspirations into the larger Soviet project. During the 1920s, when private agriculture was tolerated, the Soviets also educated young Ukrainian teachers, writers and artists. The expectation was that an elite educated in the Soviet spirit would one day lead its people toward a broader Soviet identity. This project, as Applebaum deftly shows, had its opponents from the beginning, chiefly among the Soviet secret police.

Yet these policies of the 1920s were a kind of holding action. A political revolution created the Soviet Union, but the ideology of its founders demanded that the revolution be economic. Stalin wended his way toward power during arguments among peers about how a country of peasants and nomads was to become a utopia of workers and engineers. His signature policy, associated with his name, was the collectivization of agriculture, which coincided with his consolidation of personal power. As in all tyrannical systems, the errors of the leader had to be ascribed elsewhere. Thus the massive resistance to collectivization in Ukraine in early 1930 was seen as a result not of the entirely justified fears of peasants that they would lose their livelihoods and ways of life, but rather of corrupt local communists and distant capitalists plotting against the regime. Stalin, in other words, chose a national and a political explanation over the truth.

The harvest of 1932 was worse than expected, and requisition targets were high. Ukrainian communists tried to explain to central authorities in Moscow that fulfilling the targets would mean mass starvation. Their simple observation was rejected categorically, and they were classified as enemies and punished. Requisitions proceeded at an entirely unrealistic level, absorbing what the peasants needed to survive the winter and even their seed corn for the next year.

As Applebaum recounts, the Soviet secret police provided Stalin with what they knew he wanted to hear. They passed along complaints they overheard from Ukrainian communists about the grotesque results of collectivization. Stalin, in turn, deemed the Ukrainian communists to be nationalists and corrupt agents of a foreign power. In late 1932, as hundreds of thousands were dying of starvation, Stalin and his closest comrades devised and enforced policies that guaranteed that death tolls in the Ukrainian republic would reach the millions.

Our modern sensibilities expect a modern kind of mass killing. We can imagine industrial extermination by gas. But as most of us are now distant from the countryside, and accustomed to ample and cheap food, we have trouble imagining deliberate starvation as a policy. However, as Harvard economist Amartya Sen long ago demonstrated, famine is usually political. In the case of the Soviet Union, the politics was driven by coercive development, which made peasants landless and helpless before it made them starve. In August 1932, Stalin formulated a law that criminalized taking even a single grain of wheat from a collective farm. In the ensuing months Ukrainian peasants were banned from leaving their republic and from traveling to cities to beg. Areas that did not meet requisition targets were blacklisted, separated entirely from the Soviet economy, guaranteeing death. A meat tax was imposed on peasants, forcing them to slaughter their livestock; the milk or meat from a cow had been the last protection from starvation.

Applebaum re-creates a pastoral world so we can view its destruction. And she rightly insists that the deliberate starvation of the Ukrainian peasants was part of a larger policy against the Ukrainian nation. The cities fared better than the countryside in 1933, but the new generation of educated Ukrainians did not. The first show trial directed against Ukrainian culture was organized in 1930. Applebaum counts 200,000 arrests in the Ukrainian republic at the time of the famine, directed disproportionately at the new Ukrainian schools, publishing houses, newspapers and museums. Important backers of Ukrainian culture committed suicide; the great writers and artists who survived were murdered in the Great Terror a few years later.

Applebaum began this project long ago and is keen to disassociate her work from the current Russian occupation of southern and southeastern Ukraine. Yet knowledge of the famine does help to explain the attitudes of Russian leaders. The Kremlin justified the Russian invasion with the claim that the Ukrainian nation did not exist. That is the kind of thing people say when they align themselves with a history of imperialist mass murder. A past policy of destroying a nation has become a present claim that the nation never existed.

To be sure, Russia is not the Soviet Union, and Russians of today can decide whether they wish to accept a Stalinist version of the past. But to have that choice, they need a sense of the history. This is one more reason to be grateful for this remarkable book.

---

Snyder is the Levin professor of history at Yale University and the author, most recently, of "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century."
Making Sense of the Alt-R ight

By George Hawley

Columbia University Press. 218 pp. $28

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Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right

By Angle Nagle

Zero Books. 120 pp. $16.95

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Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump

By David Neiwert

Verso. 456 pp. $29.95

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If Donald Trump did not exist, it would be necessary to prevent him.

Trump's electoral victory one year ago this week was not merely his own, nor that of the befuddled party that relinquished its nomination to him. It was also a triumph for the dark tangle of forces we've come to know as the alt-right. Long before the 2016 campaign, the alt-right was already gathering strength and allies; it simply needed a standard-bearer. Then there was Trump, a leader with enough star power and authoritarian charisma to grant his alt-right supporters visibility and stature, to lower the social costs of open bigotry, to give energy to the movement's underlying vision.

Several people have sought to interpret that vision - Hillary Clinton gave it a go with a harsh campaign speech, while Breitbart offered a sanitized taxonomy of the group - and now books on the subject are starting to pour forth. Although it's hard to pin down a shifting collection of meme-crazed commenters, hard-core conspiracists and race-obsessed marchers long enough to bind them in hardcover, three new works make that effort from different vantage points. In "Making Sense of the Alt-Right," University of Alabama political scientist George Hawley attempts to clarify first principles. In "Kill All Normies," journalist Angela Nagle dives into online communities to grasp the alt-right's subculture. And in "Alt-America," researcher David Neiwert goes back decades to assemble the players and turning points that pushed the fringe toward the mainstream.

Together, these books suggest a movement with more staying power than may seem evident, and one that, for all its attacks on left-wing identity politics, is particularly focused on supplanting traditional conservatism with a white identity politics of the right. And although alt-right supporters are energized by Trump, they are not beholden to him. Indeed, the president's alt-right credentials may be more about aping its brutal sensibility than fully embracing its substance. Trump's self-interest helped pull the alt-right out from the digital swamps, but he may be simply marking the beginning of its rapid ascent, with some truer and more skilled political patron yet to come.

The name is confusing and misleading, yet somehow spot on.

"Alt-right" suggests a new mutation of right-wing politics, but it is in fact "totally distinct from conservatism as we know it," Hawley explains early in his book, which draws on writings, speeches and interviews of alt-right figures. Proponents of the movement, he notes, are largely uninterested in moral traditionalism, economic liberty, a strong national defense - all the premises of 20th-century American conservatism. Tax cuts do not energize their ranks, and even abortion is fine if it serves eugenic purposes. They are driven, more than anything, by identity politics, which in their case is a more elevated description for unadulterated racism.

Hawley traces the origins of the "alt-right" term to the late 2000s, when it was initially a catchall for right-wingers opposed to traditional conservatism. Over time, however, its racial connotations came to dominate. Today, Hawley writes, "the most energetic and significant figures of the movement want to see the creation of a white ethnostate in North America."

White supremacists want to dominate other racial or ethnic groups; white nationalists want to see those competing groups gone altogether. Alt-right advocates fall in the latter category, Hawley argues, their minds inspired by pseudo-academic racist tracts and their rage stoked by Black Lives Matter or the latest fight over campus dogma. Alt-right animosity toward the GOP flows from the belief that even though they depend on white votes, "conservatives in power rarely promote white interests."

It's a highly debatable point, certainly; Hawley himself believes that the United States has operated as a de facto white supremacist nation for much of its history. But the alt-right wants de facto to become de jure, too - to explicitly wage battle against the growth of non-white communities, including immigrants, in the United States, and to "push transparent white-identity politics, with the ultimate goal of stopping and even reversing these demographic trends," the author writes.

Given this objective, "alt-right" might sounds too vague and innocuous. (The Associated Press, for instance, avoids the term because the editors think it masks racist aims.) Richard Spencer, the most recognizable alt-right voice in America, hasn't always been so crazy about it, either. "It never struck me as satisfying at all," he explained after leaving Alternative Right, an online magazine he founded. "It really is kind of a negative conception of who we are. You're alternative to what?"

But the name has stuck, more by default than design. And it fits in a fundamental way, because the movement is based on its opposition - an alternative - to conventional conservatism. "Trump could not have captured the GOP nomination if the mainstream right was not already in a weakened state," Hawley writes. "And the Alt-Right would similarly not be growing if more people continued to find traditional conservatism appealing."

What the alt-right aims for, then, is to lose the "alt" and become the right. Despite its newfound infamy and White House sympathizers, Hawley isn't sure it's quite ready. "To move beyond being a nuisance on social media and actually to change the politics and culture of the United States, the Alt-Right will require a level of seriousness and organization it has not yet displayed."

That lack of seriousness is not incidental to the alt-right, but central to its origins and self-perception. In "Kill All Normies," Nagle describes a world, found in sites such as 4chan and Reddit, where nihilism, cynicism, irony and absurd in-joke humor have mingled with pornography, racism and misogyny to produce a "taboo-breaking anti-PC style" that characterized the early alt-right. This sensibility infected the public conversation via social media, and in particular through the alt-right's penchant for Internet memes.

That is why Pepe the Frog molted from a comic-book figure into an online symbol of white nationalism; why three parentheses around a name came to signify the subject's Jewishness and signal a target for anti-Semitic digital abuse; why "red pill" went from a device in the 1999 sci-fi film "The Matrix" to a verb - being "redpilled" - that marks the moment when someone grasps the truth and embraces a new way of thinking. (The "normies" of Nagle's book title is alt-slang for whites who have not achieved racial consciousness and militancy.)

The "Gamergate" controversy starting in 2014 - when female video-game creators and their supporters suffered harassment and death threats emanating from the digital cesspools - was the moment that brought "rightist chan culture, anti-feminism and the online far right closer to mainstream discussion and ... politicized a broad group of young people, mostly boys, who organized tactics around the idea of fighting back against the culture war being waged by the cultural left," Nagle writes. In this view, the alt-right is about more than race; it is an indiscriminate and brutal aesthetic that also targets women, religious and cultural minorities, and virtually anyone promoting notions of egalitarianism - all for the sake of forestalling a supposed civilizational and demographic decline.

So while Nagle worries about the substance of the alt-right, it is a substance she deems inextricable from its style. The rise of Trump and of the alt-right, embodied in popular culture by figures such as Spencer and Milo Yiannopoulos, "are not evidence of the return of the conservatism," she writes, "but instead of the absolute hegemony of the culture of non-conformism, self-expression, transgression and irreverence for its own sake." It is a co-opting of 1960s-style liberalism, she argues, and a dramatic departure from "church-going, upstanding, button-down, family-values conservatism."

The counterculture never died. It just switched sides. Transgression now lives on the right; dogmatism on the left.

Nagle worries that the left - enmeshed in what she calls the "Tumblr liberalism" of gender fluidity, consumerist posturing and "performative vulnerability" - is ill-equipped to beat back the alt-right assault. She laments that even an intellectual lightweight such as Yiannopoulos can travel the country and expose the "deep intellectual rot in contemporary cultural progressivism," which has become skilled only in purging internal dissent and reciting jargon. In its eagerness to take offense, she contends, the left has forgotten how to formulate arguments.

Neiwert looks beyond conservative schisms, left-wing failings and online subcultures to pinpoint the experiences and beliefs that bind the alt-right together, and he calls the world he finds "Alt-America" - "an alternative dimension, a mental space beyond fact or logic, where the rules of evidence are replaced by paranoia." It is a world of Patriots and Three Percenters, a world where Ruby Ridge and Waco loom as eternal warning signs of encroaching fascism, where the federal Bureau of Land Management is more hated than the IRS. It is an environment suffused with conspiracy and grievance, where Barack Obama is a secret Muslim, climate change is a hoax, Hillary Clinton is an agent of the New World Order (always in acronym form, NWO), and where white men are the truly downtrodden - because white identity politics remains, Neiwert explains, "the beating heart of Alt-America."

His analysis can be too broad, as though Alt-America encompasses everything the author dislikes. (Sure, Rex Tillerson is a questionable secretary of state, but does his thinking really reveal the same degree of "extremism" as Attorney General Jeff Sessions or former national security adviser Michael Flynn?) Still, Neiwert draws some intriguing connections.

Where Hawley saw few links between the tea party movement and the alt-right, for instance, Neiwert argues that the tea party laundered the nuttiest ideas of Alt-America into the mainstream of U.S. politics. He points out that the Gadsen flag and its "Don't tread on me" rattlesnake, a fixture at tea party rallies during Obama's first term, was a popular symbol for militiamen out west in the 1990s. He chronicles how ranchers who took stands against federal agencies became Fox News heroes, one more way to smuggle Alt-American notions into popular circulation.

Neiwert considers the GOP and traditional conservatives complicit in the degrading of discourse and truth on the far right, whereby "rational anger and discontent with the federal government was being transformed into an irrational, visceral, and paranoid hatred of it." Conspiracy theories and white-nationalist narratives coalesced in response to the nation's first black president, giving Trump his opening. Birtherism became his calling card to Alt-America; the border wall and travel ban his sales pitch.

Trump has been described America's first white president for his explicit race-baiting and reflexive impulse to undo the legacy of his black predecessor. He may also be America's first troll president, one who treats governance as a culture war, the Oval Office as a subreddit, and the bully pulpit as a means to cyberbully his foes.

Trump fits with the alt-right's abusive culture, and studies of the psychology of online trolls highlight their deception, narcissism and manipulativeness - traits not inconsistent with what psychiatrists observe in our 45th commander in chief. "Why We Need a Troll as President" was even the headline of a bizarrely foreshadowing argument by a contributor to Spencer's alt-right website during the 2016 campaign. "Trump is worth supporting," the writer argued, "because we need a troll. ... We need someone who can break open public debate. ... The fact that Trump himself is part of this same farce is utterly irrelevant."

Yet though alt-righters become gleeful when Trump shares racially misleading crime statistics or offers a both-sides take to neo-Nazis marching and engaging in deadly violence, "saying that Trump and the Alt-Right are simpatico amounts to whitewashing the Alt-Right," Hawley contends. The core alt-right wants more than greater immigration restrictions and temporary travel bans against a handful of Muslim-majority countries. It wants nonwhites out of the country altogether. Trump and his aides have called for measures that, however extreme, fall short. White-nationalist writer Matthew Heimbach, for example, endorsed Trump's candidacy with the caveat that Trump "is not the savior of Whites in America." And even former White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon - who has bragged of giving the alt-right a platform as head of Breitbart - is more a populist and economic nationalist, Hawley argues.

Over time, however, that the administration's loyalty to the movement may prove less consequential. Trump's jumble of beliefs - and really, does he have any guiding ideology beyond self-aggrandizement? - matters less than where a newly empowered and overtly racist political force attempts to take the country.

"What Trump has succeeded in doing, by exploiting the strands of right-wing populism in the country, has been to make the large and growing number of proto-fascist groups in America larger and more vicious," Neiwert concludes. These groups won't be deterred by a confused left or craven right. The conservative movement can't purge them the way William F. Buckley cast out the Birchers, even if it wanted to do so - alt-right supporters "do not care what Ross Douthat thinks of them," Hawley notes wryly. Nor will they be limited by the fumblings of the president they helped bring to power.

The alt-right is on the move, the distance from 4chan to Charlottesville just part of a longer march. I wonder if even Trump fully understands - or cares - what he has let slip.
Whenever asked what prompted my interest in either of my careers - fighting crime or writing crime - I have always credited my passion for both to my preadolescent devotion to the teenage sleuth who inspired me twice over: Nancy Drew.

I had been a voracious reader as a child, but my memories of discovering a charismatic teenager and her posse of friends who returned in book after book to take on the evil forces in River Heights marked my initial awareness of continuing characters in a series of novels. I admired everything about Nancy - how intrepid she was in her efforts to set things right, her loyalty to her father and her pals, and her bold manner of taking on mysterious situations to right wrongs, even when adults scoffed at her plans.

I loved the storytelling, too. As I grew older, I dreamed of writing tales about a protagonist - a strong woman in a nontraditional role - who might capture a reader's imagination the way Nancy had captured mine. I wanted, also, to do justice.

I was a member of the last all-women's class at Vassar College, where I had gone to study literature, clinging to that idea of becoming a writer. Upon my graduation in 1969, I started law school at the great University of Virginia - one of about 15 women in a class of 340 students. There were few women role models at the bar and on the bench anywhere in the country when I started practicing law in 1972, the seventh woman on the legal staff of Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had recently been created, but that didn't stop the legendary D.A. from telling me that the prosecutorial job he reluctantly hired me to do was "too tawdry" for a woman of my educational background. He said that I could expect to spend a good deal of my time in the law library rather than the courtroom. Fortunately, that didn't prove to be the case.

Nancy Drew was my fictional role model throughout most of my youth. I was more fortunate than she in some ways. Nancy had lost her mother when she was 3 years old. She was devoted to her single dad, but they were living in a town rife with crime. I had both loving parents - it was my mother who read to me every night before I went to sleep - and Mount Vernon, N.Y., seemed a much safer place than River Heights. But I did envy Nancy the blue roadster and the steady partnership of Ned Nickerson. That was true until I found my real-life colleagues - mostly guys in the early days - in the D.A.'s office, and we started to solve cases with the great men and women of the NYPD, riding in unmarked black cars on our way to crime scenes. I didn't leave home with Nancy's trusty flashlight, but there was plenty of her moxie driving my desire to do the right thing.

I smile whenever I hear an accomplished woman mention Nancy Drew - who made her first appearance in 1930 - as an inspirational figure. Former justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote about being pulled away from Nancy's exploits to do more serious work on the family ranch; Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg responded to the young woman's adventurous nature and her daring; and Justice Sonia Sotomayor - who has described reading as her "rocket ship out of the second floor apartment" in a South Bronx housing project - admired Nancy's character and her courage. Hillary Clinton, too, is a fan, respecting how smart and brave Nancy was, also her ability to multitask: taking care of her dad's house, keeping up with her schoolwork and solving capers on top of it all. Laura Bush also loved reading Nancy Drew mysteries.

Though the Nancy Drew books have been updated to eliminate racist stereotypes, they suffer from a striking lack of diversity. The folks in River Heights were all white, and the bad guys were always foreign and usually dark-skinned or swarthy. And yet the appeal of the girl detective - she was originally penned as an 18-year-old and later adjusted to 16 - remained widespread. My friend Faye Wattleton spent her preadolescent years in Nebraska, an African-American child whose mother pastored an all-white church. Wattleton told me that Nancy's "indomitable independence, fearless inquisitiveness and determination to get the job done - never forgetting to 'freshen up' her appearance - was a bridge, from multiple layers of isolation to imagining the power of challenging the conventional in order for good to triumph over evil."

For me, both dreams that emerged from the pages of Nancy's adventure have come true. I have spent 45 years as a lawyer, fighting for justice for women and children who have been victims of violence. And I have written 21 mysteries - two of them for young readers - in which my protagonists, one a prosecutor and the other a 12-year-old sleuth, channel the character and courage of a fictional heroine. I never wanted to imitate Nancy Drew in either career. But I ached to run along beside her, and that has been a run well worth taking.

---

bookworld@washpost.com

Fairstein is a former sex-crimes prosecutor and author of the Alexandra Cooper crime novels and the Devlin Quick middle-grade mystery series. Her new book is "The Devlin Quick Mysteries: Digging for Trouble."
The headline looks like a spoof: "There's a good reason there are no great female composers." The article beneath it eviscerates the outputs of Clara Schumann ("a dud"), Fanny Mendelssohn, Amy Beach and Dame Ethyl Smyth - wondering, basically, who could be bothered to listen to such inferior talents.

I wish this were a relic of the past, something to be chuckled over to demonstrate how far we've come, but I can't. It ran in the well-known British conservative weekly Spectator in 2015.

Even today, men still laugh at the idea of women composing classical music.

We should be beyond this by now. Indeed, we should have been beyond it a generation ago. "The social culture of the composition scene was quite shocking to me," composer Sarah Kirkland Snider wrote earlier this year on NewMusicBox.com, the leading contemporary-music webzine. "In many ways it felt like stepping back in time."

Classical music institutions cling to the past in more ways than one. While American orchestras have managed to significantly increase their proportions of female players, female composers remain almost nonexistent. In the 2014-2015 season, according to statistics published by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, music by women represented 1.8 percent of the music played by America's 22 leading orchestras. As for conservatories, "when I get the applicant pool," says composer Laura Kaminsky, head of composition at the conservatory at the State University of New York at Purchase, "and see three-quarters of the applications are male, I get depressed."

And yet there are hundreds of active female composers. A list I compiled this summer of the top 35 barely scratched the surface. So why don't the institutions present them?

Some are trying. Four of the past eight music Pulitzers have gone to female composers. Both Opera America and the League of American Orchestras have established recent initiatives providing grants to female composers. The performance space National Sawdust in Brooklyn announced a competition for emerging female composers. And individual chamber groups have been staging all-women concerts for many years - although you can debate whether this kind of segregation is a good thing.

When the chamber music collective A Far Cry decided to commission a song cycle, "The Blue Hour," as a collaborative project by five female composers, at least one woman turned them down. "We didn't choose that idea," said composer Rachel Grimes, a member of the former indie rock/chamber music group Rachel's who served as the point person on the project. "I am sort of weary of it (female composers) being a focal point," she added.

For some of the women involved in "The Blue Hour," classical music's conventional institutions smack of an old-boys network. "I only have a bachelor's degree," Grimes said. "I didn't see the feasibility of succeeding in the patriarchal academic system. My music didn't correlate with what I perceived to be the accepted academic language. I'm not enough of a rebel that I wanted to swim against that current constantly. Western classical tradition ... necessitates an understanding of that hierarchical mentality: the best, or most virtuosic, or most complicated. My technique and personality don't work with that. So I took a soft left and took my own direction." Grimes's career has involved playing with bands, solo piano concerts and recordings of her own work.

Shara Nova (formerly Shara Worden), a vocalist and composer (of My Brightest Diamond) who also contributed to "The Blue Hour," has a similar view of the classical world. "I refused to use the word ("composer") for a really long time," she said. "The question that I'm concerned with is not being a woman, because I don't have aspirations to write for the Met(ropolitan Opera). I'm at BAM (the Brooklyn Academy of Music), I'm good." In other words, being a woman would interfere with her ability to write for the Met - and she has a point, since the Met has to date produced only two operas by women, more than a century apart.

But these august institutions are no longer a necessary avenue to success. Nova's opera "You Us We All" has been performed in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and at BAM - a more substantial performance history than many new works from conventional opera houses. The more classical music's institutions show themselves to be out of step with the times, the more it seems that classical music's future lies outside them. And you could argue that outside orchestras and opera houses, female composers are doing just fine.

Still, the institutions are trying to play catch-up - in part through the above-mentioned initiatives by the League of American Orchestras (its Women Composers Readings and Commissions program awards $15,000 grants) and Opera America, which offers discovery and commissioning grants to female composers of up to $15,000 and $50,000, respectively.

Such grants can make a big difference. An Opera America discovery grant led to the creation of Kaminsky's chamber opera "As One," which had its premiere in 2014 and came to Washington's UrbanArias the following year. The moving story of a woman transitioning from her life as a biological male, "As One" has had 24 productions to date. Because of its success, Kaminsky has gotten two more significant opera commissions, one of them from a consortium that includes the Santa Fe and San Francisco operas.

"It's been life-changing," said Kaminsky, who was for a time the artistic director of New York's Symphony Space. "I no longer need to have an administrative job. All of a sudden, I'm sitting in my studio writing music instead of writing grants to put other people's music onstage."

What's notable about these initiatives is that they are all supported by a single source: the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, which started giving grants to the arts in 2013. The foundation gives away $7 million a year: half to programs supporting women's health and disadvantaged children, and half to the performing arts.

Alexander Sanger, a trustee of the foundation, is also chair of the International Planned Parenthood Council and a grandson of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. "I like to think I have the right instincts" about equal opportunities for women, he said. "I and my fellow trustees realized there was a problem in the performing arts. If this were any other business, they'd be indicted for sex discrimination. It's disgraceful."

It's also a little shocking that a single funding body with a strong vision can bring about so much change in a short time. In addition to grants and competitions, the Toulmin Foundation helps support the Luna Competition Lab, which targets high-schoolers, and funding for female composition students at the Juilliard School.

The foundation has also helped establish an initiative for female choreographers at the School of American Ballet and fund a major study on gender equity in the theater world in 2013.

The foundation's success points out how entrenched the field must have been, if one energetic funder can change it. And its good effects can take hold only if others jump in to carry the torch, including the institutions themselves.

Sanger said he was sobered by offering seven leading American orchestras a chance at a $50,000 grant for a new work by an emerging female composer: Only three of the orchestras bothered to apply.

It's easier to make room for women when there are women in leadership positions. The Washington National Opera's current production of Handel's "Alcina," which runs through Nov. 19, is a rare event: a production directed by a woman (Anne Bogart) and conducted by a woman (Jane Glover), with women singing all four principal characters (including Angela Meade in the title role). WNO is a national leader when it comes to hiring women and artists of color - because this has been a priority of the company's artistic director, Francesca Zambello. (In January, WNO will be presenting an opera by another beneficiary of the Opera America grants: "Proving Up" by Missy Mazzoli.)

The boundaries between major classical institutions and smaller upstart organizations have grown more porous. The indie Prototype Festival generates work that is picked up by the Los Angeles Philharmonic or the Fort Worth Opera; National Sawdust has become a major player on the new-music scene. Real change is most likely to come from outside, from new organizations led by women working together with the old ones.

But in the old institutions, there are still people who think yukking it up about Clara Schumann is funny. And there are still women toiling away to make change happen, one bigot at a time. "The orchestra is what a lot of people think of when they think of classical music," Snider says. "Those stats do matter, in terms of the optics."
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including artillery, must pass to NATO standards in the near future.

"I think that right now we need to move to the principles that dominate among our partner countries and NATO members ... NATO's key feature is accuracy. Today Ukrainian artillery fully meets these requirements. We are confidently moving forward this way," Poroshenko said in the village of Divychky of Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky district of Kyiv region on Friday on the occasion of the Day of Missile Forces and Artillery.

He said that this year the Armed Forces of Ukraine received more than 600 units of missile and artillery armament, more than 250 units of night vision devices and other modern weapons.

"For this period, the portable complex Korsar, the unmanned aerial complexes Furia, Fly Eye were adopted or admitted for operation. In the framework of assistance from international partners, we additionally received over 100 night vision devices, protected laptops," Poroshenko said.

The president also noted a large number of problems in the Armed Forces. "This concerns both the problems of the restoration and modernization of weapons, the provision of ammunition, the establishment of training centers for the training of artillery specialists and the process of their training in full accordance with the real needs of the Ukrainian troops and NATO standards," the president said.

In this regard, Poroshenko ordered to increase the intensity and quality of training of Ukrainian artillerymen.

He called on the Defense Ministry of Ukraine, the Armed Forces of Ukraine to continue increasing the intensity of training of artillerymen-rocket men.
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An influence-peddling charge filed against former Webb County Court at Law II Judge Jesus "Chuy" Garza has been dismissed in exchange for his resignation from the State Bar of Texas.

Visiting Judge Sid L. Harle granted the state's motion to dismiss on Thursday. He was presiding over the case in the 111th District Court.

"Jesus Garza is happy that this matter is behind him. He is also very grateful to the many people who have shown him love and support during this difficult chapter of his life," Garza's attorney, Oscar O. Pena, said in a statement.

Documents show that Garza's voluntary resignation was confirmed by the State Bar on Oct. 20 and became effective that day. The state's motion to dismiss the case was filed Tuesday.

READ MORE: Laredo dad: Ex-judge 'Chuy' Garza's negligence led to 3-year-old daughter's abuse

The Texas Attorney General's Office and the prosecutor on the case, Julie Stone, assistant attorney general, declined to comment.

On Feb. 16, Garza pleaded not guilty to one count of gift to a public servant by a person subject to his jurisdiction, a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a $4,000 fine.

An indictment alleges that in January 2015, Garza asked local attorney Shirley Mathis for a $3,000 loan in exchange for appointing her to represent the wealthy Carlos Y. Benavides Jr. estate in a civil dispute. The loan was intended for Christopher Casarez, one of Garza's court coordinators, the indictment states.

Casarez died by suicide in mid-December, a day before he was set to meet with authorities about the investigation into Garza.

The former judge also allegedly received kickbacks from attorneys and offered to give a defendant "minimal sentencing" in exchange for $32,000, according to a document filed by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.

RELATED: A timeline of events for former Webb County judge 'Chuy' Garza

On Jan. 25, Garza reached an agreement with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct to resign from his office in lieu of disciplinary action on these findings. In signing the agreement, Garza denied the allegations.

This case first made headlines when Garza was arrested on the influence-peddling charge Jan. 12. He was suspended from the bench the next day by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct following the indictment.

Texas Sen. Judith Zaffirini has been an outspoken of Garza and his court, which he had presided over since 1993. In an email sent to Webb County Commissioners Court, she called his court "the absolute worst in the state" and a "textbook on cronyism." Zaffirini could not be reached for comment Thursday.

On March 27, Commissioners Court voted unanimously to appoint Victor Villarreal to serve as judge for County Court at Law II. To keep the seat, he will need voters to elect him. Attorney Melissa Joy Garcia is also running for the position.

Julia Wallace may be reached at 956-728-2543 or jwallace@lmtonline.com
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Texas Border Coalition held its annual meeting on Thursday in Laredo to discuss Senate Bill 4, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, border security and NAFTA.

Texas Border Coalition is the collective voice of border mayors, county judges and communities on issues that affect the quality of life along the border region. TBC represents more than 2.5 million people from Brownsville to El Paso.

Panelists at this meeting included Consul General Phillip Linderman, Consul Carolina Zaragoza, El Cenizo Mayor Raul Reyes, National LULAC President Roger Rocha and Sister Rosemary Welsh with Mercy Ministries of Laredo. Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos was the keynote speaker.

In his 13 years as mayor of the city of El Cenizo, Reyes said he has seen his community transition from a colonia to a small border community. Reyes said the community understands that small towns have numerous challenges. They don't have the economic resources or incentives that other municipalities have to improve infrastructure and for community development.

READ MORE: Astros shortstop Carlos Correa and fiancee appear on Today Show to discuss engagement

"This whole notion that undocumented immigrants are taking jobs, are not contributing to society or to the economic activity at the local, state and federal level is just false narrative," Reyes said.

Rocha said that one of the biggest myths he's heard is about taxes. He said that a 2014 report showed that immigrant households paid $20.4 billion in federal taxes and $8.7 billion in state taxes. Undocumented immigrants in Texas alone paid $1.6 billion in state and local taxes in 2014 and if they were to become citizens that number would rise to $1.7 billion.

Rocha also gave updates on the lawsuit against Senate Bill 4, which permits local peace officers to ask the people they detain or arrest about their immigration status, and furthermore punishes local officeholders who stop police from asking these questions. Those against SB 4 are asking the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to strike down key provisions of the bill.

"The initial judge blocked some of SB 4 but left it the way it was," Rocha said. "At the end of the day it is still left to the discretion of the authority to determine if they are going to ask for citizenship papers or not. It wasn't really a victory for us.

"We knew going into this that Texas was ground zero for this law. And if it passed, other states were going to go ahead and do this. And Wisconsin is already moving in that direction to implement a similar law. That's why it is very important for us to stop it here and for all of the communities to come together and take the lead and say that this is unAmerican."

Reyes said it has been hard for him to hear stories from people who go to his office and beg him to help them find a way to bring back their loved ones.

"SB 4 is a very dangerous law and we need to make sure we do what we can to stop SB 4 here in Texas. In the greatest country on earth, we shouldn't allow laws that violate our constitutional rights," Reyes said.

The panelists also agreed that people need to keep putting pressure on members of Congress to turn the DACA policy into law.

RELATED: Unseen police photos show deterioration of long-abandoned Old Mercy Hospital in Laredo

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals was an immigration policy that allowed undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children to receive deferred action from deportation and be eligible for a work permit.

An estimated 6,000 DACA recipients are in Laredo.

"Ninety-nine percent of DACA recipients don't have a criminal history," Reyes said. "Ninety-six percent of them are employed and have a profession. There are a lot of teachers, nurses, firefighters, police officers who are on DACA.

"This is their livelihood. And I think one of the scariest things that people don't realize is that the federal government knows exactly where each and everyone of these recipients are."

Pablos' keynote address

The theme of Pablos' keynote address was Bordervision: Empowering Border Communities Through Trade and Capacity Building.

Pablos said his focus is on building prosperity and making the border region better so that when greater things come, the region is ready for it.

"My hope for empowering the border is to help bring prosperity to our border region by attracting investment, which will in turn create wealth," he said. "That's the formula. And the way we do that is by bringing opportunities to our border region for attracting investment. In order to attract investment, you have to have qualified labor.

"We are working with agencies like the Texas Workforce Commission to train the local workforce establishments for that. I think it's incumbent upon the communities to also develop that capacity. And it's the (Texas) governor's vision as well. He wants to make sure that our communities flourish. So we want to bring in those opportunities to help the communities flourish."

According to its website, Texas Border Coalition is "committed to working to develop innovative policies and legislation at the national, state, and local levels that will help border communities grow and prosper."

Maria Salas may be reached at 956-728-2580 or msalas@lmtonline.com
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The road to recovery from the damages of Hurricane Harvey is a long one as explained by Small Business Association Public Information Officer Michael Flores during the Greater East Montgomery County Chamber Luncheon on Nov. 1.

Flores has experience in dealing with over 50 disaster areas and brings this with him to help small businesses and homeowners in Texas recover from the aftermath of Harvey.

"I know that Texas will be able to turn the corner," he said. "I don't know how fast. This is going to be a long recovery."

SBA has partnered with FEMA to assist homeowners and businesses in what can be a confusing process of applications, approvals and denials.

"Where FEMA will help individuals, we help individuals and businesses as well," said Flores.

The SBA currently has $1.8 billion in approved disaster loans.

"That's a tremendous amount," said Flores. "It's showing that people are reaching in. They're getting the assistance that they need. Both homeowners and businesses alike, so we're moving in the right direction."

Flores says he and his team are expected to be in Texas for many months.

"We have disaster recovery centers that are open all around the state," he said. "Both FEMA and SBA are at these recovery centers."

Flores encourages homeowners and citizens to call the SBA for assistance or fill out an application online. He also encourages members of the Chamber to get the word out for those in need of assistance.

"It will help all of us recover from this disaster," he said.

Businesses can be eligible for up to $2 million for physical damage and $2 million for economic injury, which Flores describes as a working capital loan.

"As debris moves, businesses are now starting to move ahead," said Flores. "That's a good thing because businesses provide normalcy in every community."

Homeowners can receive up to $200,000 on physical loss or $40,000 on content coverage.

"It's about all of us coming together to try and recover," said Flores. "Seek all the assistance that's available and let the process work."

Despite the damage inflicted upon the Houston area by Hurricane Harvey, Flores says one positive aspect is that companies and communities are coming back better and stronger.

"Businesses are the lifeblood of every community, the driver of how a community sees itself," he said.

For more information on the SBA and its disaster recovery programs, visit https://www.sba.gov/disaster-assistance/hurricane-harvey or call 1-800-659-2955.

Disaster recovery centers are in Montgomery County and include the Friendship Center located at 31355 Friendship Drive Magnolia, TX 77355 and the old police department located at 700 Old Montgomery Road Conroe, TX 77301. Both are open from Monday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. The center located in Conroe is also open from 12 to 5 p.m. on Sundays.

The Montgomery County Library also has a disaster recovery center open until Nov. 8 in its parking lot located at 21569 US Highway 59 New Caney, which is open Monday through Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The deadline for loan applications is Nov. 24.
Zhang Wei, a popular Chinese writer, took his grandmother on vacation to St. Mortiz, Switzerland, where the two decided to splurge a bit.

The pair sauntered into the luxurious Hotel Waldhaus am See and plopped down at the bar. Called The Devil's Place, it's known for its vast collection of rare whiskies, self-described as the largest in the world. They eyed the more than 2,500 bottles lined up behind the bar in perfect rows like soldiers in formation.

One immediately stood out: an unopened bottle labeled as an 1878 Macallan single malt.

It was more than Scotch; it was a piece of history. The Scottish distillery opened in 1824, and its extremely small stills grew so famous that they ended up on a Bank of Scotland 10-pound bank note, as the company stated.

Zhang Wei knew it would be expensive, but his martial art fantasy novels made him a multimillionaire, according to China Daily. And he felt a special connection with the bottle. It was 139 years old, the same age his great-great-grandmother would have been.

"When I came across a fine spirit from over 100 years ago, there wasn't much struggle inside," Zhang later wrote. "My grandma who accompanied me on this trip was only 82, yet the alcohol was 139 years old - same age as my grandma's grandma."

So he ordered it. But the hotel manager Sandro Bernasconi was afraid the cork would disintegrate if he attempted to open the bottle and said it wasn't for sale. Wei pushed back, saying it was important.

"My father bought the bottle of Macallan 25 years ago, when he was manager of this hotel, and it had not been opened," Bernasconi told the BBC. "When Mr. Zhang asked if he could try some, we told him it wasn't for sale. When he said he really wanted to try it, I called my father who told me we could wait another 20 years for a customer like that so we should sell it."

Zhang bought a single glass for more than $10,000.

"Mr. Zhang and I then opened the bottle together and drank some of it," Bernasconi said.

The taste was fairly disappointing.

Zhang later described the experience on Weibo, a Chinese microblogging platform similar to Twitter, merely saying the whisky "had a good taste." He stressed, though, that, "It's not just the taste, but also history."

Unfortunately, that history was hogwash - and so was the Scotch.

Readers of Zhang's blog pored over the photos he posted and began to notice some discrepancies in the bottle's label and cork. Something didn't seem right, so a few experts reached out to the hotel.

After hearing their concerns, Bernasconi hired Rare Whisky 101, a company that performs valuations on whiskies. Andy Simpson, the company's co-founder, organized a test that found the bottle was filled with a blended whisky, most likely distilled between 1970 and 1972 - about a century from the dram of history Zhang Wei thought he had purchased.

Researchers at the University of Oxford then performed carbon dating on the label and the cork, finding it was also likely from the 1970s.

"The bottle, the label, the cork and the whisky were all counterfeit. There are three kinds of fakes we see - refills, replicas and relics - and this falls in the relics category of pretending to be an exceptionally old bottle," Simpson told the Times of London.

The bottle, which Bernasconi thought was worth around $350,000 turned out to be "almost worthless as a collector's item."

He quickly flew to China to reimburse Zhang.

"He thanked me very much for the hotel's honesty and said his experience in Switzerland had been good," Bernasconi told Atlas Obscura. "The result has been a big shock to the system."

David Robertson, the other co-founder of Rare Whisky 101, said it's not uncommon for counterfeiters to try passing off cheap whisky as a rare relic, especially since these bottles are often sold on the secondary market and generally don't undergo much testing. For one thing, the bottle needs to be open to test the liquid itself.

"We would implore that others in the market do what they can to identify any rogue bottles," Robertson told the BBC. "The more intelligence we can provide, the greater the chance we have to defeat the fakers and fraudsters who seek to dupe the unsuspecting rare whisky consumer."

As Simpson pointed out to the Times of London, "a bottle that has been opened and proven to be genuine is worth an awful lot more than one that looks authentic but has never been opened."
NIAMEY, Niger - Less than a year ago, the Islamic State's ambitions in Africa seemed all but shattered. In Libya, militias assisted by U.S. Special Operations soldiers and airstrikes drove the militants from their stronghold in the city of Sirte. Hundreds of Islamic State fighters died. Others fled south toward desert hideouts.

"There were no more black flags," recalled Claudia Gazzini, a senior Libya analyst for the International Crisis Group, describing the situation when she visited southern Libya after the militant group's defeat in December.

But many highly trained Islamic State fighters crossed into the vast ungoverned areas of impoverished Niger, according to regional security officials and analysts. Some then flowed to zones where militants were active in Mali, Nigeria and other countries.

The fighters have helped inject new energy into a spreading Islamist militancy, creating new challenges for U.S. forces in the region. Few Americans knew their troops were engaged in one of the world's most complex battlegrounds until four U.S. soldiers were killed by militants last month in a remote corner of Niger.

Instead of celebrating the defeat of the Islamic State in Africa, the Pentagon and its allies are confronting an increasingly potent constellation of militant groups and a deepening rivalry between al-Qaida and the Islamic State for influence and recruits.

"The big challenge is the instability in Libya," Kalla Moutari, Niger's minister of defense, said in an interview Wednesday. "Fighters and weapons from Libya continue to come to this part of the world because there are no controls over there."

Islamist militants have managed to exploit ethnic and communal tensions as well as resentment over poverty and unemployment to gain support. Complicating the efforts to defeat the militants are the weakness or repressive actions of the region's armies, poor governance and porous borders.

The killing of the four U.S. soldiers has set off questions in Washington about the U.S. military's role in the Sahel, a barren belt stretching from western Africa to its north-central region.

The Trump administration suspects a relatively new Islamic State ally was responsible for the American soldiers' deaths. The U.S. government has doubled down on its military commitment in the region, the latest sign being a $60 million pledge this week to build a new counterterrorism force there.

U.S. authorities are concerned that with the Islamic State losing territory in Iraq and Syria, it is shifting more of its focus to North Africa and West Africa. Thousands of Islamic State militants who fought in Iraq, Syria and Libya are originally from this region, particularly Tunisia and Morocco.

"As they are pressed, it becomes all the more important that they seem to be visible and active elsewhere and thus still relevant to the overall cause," said Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. "In their view, they want to show that they are still able to position themselves ahead of al-Qaida in their competition and rivalry."

- - -

In recent months, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has sought to make a comeback in Libya, orchestrating suicide bombings and other violence. An Islamic State affiliate based in Egypt's northern Sinai has killed several hundred policemen and soldiers this year. Islamic State-linked groups and cells have emerged in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.

Nigeria's Boko Haram - which in 2015 pledged loyalty to the Islamic State - has expanded its reach, staging attacks in Cameroon, southern Niger and Chad. Libyan militia commanders and officials have said many West Africans fought with the Islamic State in Libya before its defeat there.

U.S. military officials believe the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, or ISGS, targeted the U.S. soldiers and several of their Nigerien counterparts in last month's ambush, even though no group has claimed responsibility. The militia, led by former al-Qaida militants, was formed in 2015. It was recognized by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi only in October 2016, around the time the group was on the verge of defeat in Sirte.

This year, the ISGS has claimed several attacks in Burkina Faso as well as an attempt to free Islamist militants from a prison in Niger.

"There's a greater environment . . . for jihadist groups to be active and operational and attempt to build up their capacities," said Aaron Zelin, an expert on such groups at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

When U.S. soldiers began arriving in North and West Africa to train local armies in 2007, their main terrorist threat was al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, a fledgling affiliate with roots in the Algerian civil war.

Four years later, Libya's Arab Spring revolution brought down dictator Moammar Gaddafi. His regime's destruction - brought about with the aid of NATO airstrikes - had an unexpected consequence: invigorating Islamist militants in the region.

Gaddafi's arms depots were looted and many weapons smuggled to other countries. The arms helped fuel a 2012 rebellion by Tuareg nomads in northern Mali that was subsequently hijacked by AQIM and other militant groups. For nearly a year, the rebels controlled large portions of the area, until French forces drove them out.

AQIM and its splinter groups continued to operate in the region, attacking security forces and claiming responsibility for deadly attacks on hotels and cafes in Mali, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso.

The al-Qaida affiliate is now one of the best-armed and best-financed terrorist groups in the world, deriving tens of millions of dollars from kidnapping Westerners.

This year, it has expanded into new areas and bolstered its operational capacities, and several other militias in the region have united and pledged allegiance to al-Qaida.

AQIM is also deepening its presence in Libya, seeking to take advantage of the Islamic State's setbacks there and trying to attract departing Islamic State fighters, regional analysts said.

- - -

Unlike in Syria, militants from al-Qaida and the Islamic State seldom if ever fight each other here. There's plenty of crossover between the two groups, and many rival fighters have known each other for years. They often operate in the same terrain.

Their differences are based less on religion or philosophy and more on the agendas of individual commanders or communities the groups represent.

"It doesn't mean there's not tension," said Andrew Lebovich, a regional political and security researcher and visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. "But it's not just this kind of ideological divide that people often apply to ISIS versus al-Qaida."

The trajectory of Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi illustrates the complex relationships among militant groups in the region. Believed to be in his mid-40s, the leader of ISGS was raised in Algerian refugee camps. He became a leader in the Polisario Front, a movement seeking to end Morocco's presence in the Western Sahara. Sometime in the 1990s, he settled in Mali.

He eventually joined al-Mourabitoun, an al-Qaida offshoot led by an Algerian, Mokhtar Belmokhtar. In 2015, Sahrawi had a falling out with him and launched the ISGS.

Its main base of operations straddles the Niger-Mali border, where the U.S. soldiers were killed.

Moutari, the Niger defense minister, said Sahwari is believed to be using weapons from Libya and fighters who were part of the Islamic State when it ruled Sirte. "There are many fighters from Libya, as well as those who fought in Syria and Iraq and later came to Libya, who have joined this group," Moutari said.

- - -

In Niger, one of the world's poorest countries, there are about 800 U.S. service members - part of a contingent of 6,000 American troops on the continent. They include Special Forces soldiers who began arriving here in 2012 to provide counterterrorism training, as well as others who work on a drone base. There are also some 4,000 French troops based in the region.

Yet the attacks keep happening.

Along the long and lawless border where the U.S. soldiers died, the United Nations has documented at least 46 attacks since February 2016, mostly targeting local security forces.

The extremists have established ties in communities long neglected by the region's weak central governments. The vacuum of authority has allowed militant groups to exploit grievances over government corruption, rampant crime and a lack of opportunities.

In many villages, the Islamist militants have caught thieves and adjudicated marital and family disputes, in effect replacing the government.

In Mali, AQIM and other Islamist militants have exploited ethnic and tribal tensions between the mostly Tuareg and Arab north and the ruling southern ethnic groups. They have also taken advantage of tensions between pastoralists and farmers over land and access to grazing.

"For these communities, a political movement, especially one promising instant answers through violence, is enormously appealing," Georgetown's Hoffman said.

"What we've learned is that these groups established a toehold in this region that they've turned into a foothold," he added. "They are able to recruit fighters faster than we can train up the local host-nation security forces."
Luhansk Regional Prosecutor's Office is overseeing a pre-trial investigation into the deliberate murder of Severodonetsk Town Council deputy Serhiy Samarsky, who headed the faction of the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko's Solidarity Party in the council.

According to the press service of the regional prosecutor's office, the necessary investigative actions are being conducted to establish the circumstances of the crime. All possible scenarios behind the murder are being considered, in particular, political and journalistic activities of the deputy, personal hostility, hooliganism, and the activities of his own law firm.

The prosecutor's office said that late on November 2, the Severodonetsk police station of the National Police's main office in Luhansk region received a message from Samarsky's wife that her husband was missing. The body of the man with signs of violent death was found in the early hours of November 3.

The investigative department of the National Police's main office in Luhansk region was tasked with conducting the pre-trial investigation.

As reported, Samarsky was killed late on November 2. Samarsky's body with signs of violent death was found at about 00.20 on November 3. Criminal proceedings were launched under Article 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (premeditated murder).

Investigators are considering all scenarios behind the deputy's murder, and his political activity is a priority scenario. The scenario related to robbery and business interests before his deputy work is also being worked out.
WASHINGTON - The Department of Justice said Friday it is aiming to slash the massive immigration court backlog in half by 2020 by adding judges, upgrading technology and refusing to tolerate repeated delays in deportation cases.

Officials, who briefed reporters on condition that they not be identified by name, said the effort is part of the Trump administration's broad plan to more efficiently handle cases of undocumented immigrants, who number 11 million nationwide.

The administration has reversed Obama-era policies that allowed prosecutors to indefinitely postpone low-priority cases, which the Justice Department officials said allowed some immigrants to delay "inevitable" deportations. In other cases, they said, immigrants who deserved to win their cases were delayed for years because of the backlog.

The immigration court backlog has tripled since 2009, the year former president Obama took office, to more than 630,000 cases in October.

"That is what this administration is committed to, getting this done right, ensuring that we're never in this place again," a Justice Department official said. "Really and truly, when you look at the numbers . . . it reflects the fact that the last administration likely wasn't as committed to ensuring that the system worked the way that Congress intended it to."

The agency, which oversees the administrative immigration courts, said it plans to hire new immigration judges, use technology such as videoconferencing, and increase judges' productivity by setting case-completion guidelines, though officials would not give details.

The department also will have a "no dark courtrooms" policy, the officials said, explaining that there are at least 100 courtrooms nationwide that are empty every Friday because of judges' alternate work schedules. The Justice Department is tapping retired judges to fill those courts.

The immigration court overhaul comes as the Trump administration is carrying out policies that could generate even more cases in coming months. Arrests and deportations from the interior of the United States are rising sharply, and the Trump administration has ended Obama-era protections for some undocumented immigrants, including 690,000 undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children.

By Monday, the Trump administration is also expected to say if it will renew temporary protected status for thousands of longtime immigrants from Honduras and Nicaragua whose permits expire next year.

The Justice Department officials said they are no longer widely using certain protections for undocumented immigrants, including a tool known as prosecutorial discretion that allowed the government to set aside low-priority deportation cases.

DOJ officials criticized immigration lawyers, saying they "have purposely used tactics designed to delay" immigration cases. As of 2012, the officials said, there were an average of four continuances for each case before the court.

Gregory Chen, director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the administration's plan to cut the backlog would "undermine judicial independence" in the immigration courts.

"This administration has been extremely hostile toward the judiciary and the independence of immigration judges, as well as other judges," Chen said.

Speeding up cases depends partly on congressional funding. It also rests partly on the actions of immigration judges, who have expressed concerns about due process for immigrants, many of whom are facing deportation to some of the world's most violent countries. Immigrants are not entitled to a government-appointed lawyer in these courts and often handle cases on their own.

The Justice officials would not comment on reports that they will impose case-completion quotas on judges, which raised an outcry from the judges' union. But the officials said they would give judges clear standards to complete cases and add more supervisors.

Officials say they are already seeing results from efforts this year to improve efficiency. From February to September, judges ordered 78,767 people to leave the country, a 33 percent jump over the same period in 2016. The total number of final decisions, which includes some immigrants who won their cases, is 100,921.
Well, so much for a fair trial for Sayfullo Saipov in this country when the president of the United States has already recommended the death penalty having abrogated the presumption of innocence principle referenced in the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. As heinous as Saipovs alleged crimes were, he is nonetheless entitled to due process.

Perhaps the victims of his alleged crimes and their families would be better served if he were tried in a military court as an enemy combatant where the rule of law might be less likely to be compromised.

Antoinette Doyle, San Rafael

Marijuana sales

Regarding Pot proposal aims to help victims of failed drug war (Nov. 2): I read the article with my mouth hanging open in total disbelief.

My conclusion is that between the plan being developed by the Board of Supervisors and the exceedingly high taxes proposed on the sale of pot, that only in San Francisco could they manage to screw up something like selling marijuana. I predict it will be more difficult, expensive, unfair and crooked to sell marijuana legally than it ever was to sell it on the street.

Allan Horn, Orinda

Leash up dogs

Regarding Dog walkers celebrate win, but despair over ugly process (Open Forum, Nov. 2): Off-leash absolutists are sore winners. Laura Pandapas describes the Audubon Society, the Sierra Club and the National Parks Conservation Association as powerful groups.

But not only did they fail to make their point of view prevail (namely, that the National Park Service does have a responsibility to manage its properties for wildlife and public safety as well as recreational freedom), they failed even to get it heard in local media. What happens next? Well, the remaining wildlife foolish enough to require habitat within a recreation area will continue to be at risk, along with human visitors and their own pets, at the rate of 300-plus documented incidents per year.

Unfortunately, Pandapas probably speaks for most of her community in considering those claims baseless. They are not baseless. Dog-bite statistics are compiled from police records. Your freedom, off-leashers, comes at the expense of endangered species and public safety. Whenever possible, please leash up or use alternative sites that dont put you in conflict with other people or with wildlife.

James Compton, Walnut Creek

Trumps good points

President Trump was not my first choice, nor my second, third or fourth, but he won the nomination and the election, and I am supporting and respecting him.

The press and liberals are doing everything they can to destroy and defame him. So, let me point out his good points: Hes not a professional politician. Hes a successful businessman. Hes very intelligent, truly loves his country, hes not in it for the money (hes not taking a salary), and hes a good family man.

Trump has the welfare of the American people foremost at hand. Hes trying to protect us against future terrorist attacks, he stands up against our would-be enemies. He doesnt drink or smoke, hes anti-drugs. One thing I especially like, he has a beautiful wife. A local radio talk show host said President Trump would be a positive role model for our younger generation if the liberals would stop tainting our kids against him, and I agree.

John Mullany, Point Richmond

Odd situation

Regarding Feinstein urges supes to undo sale of street (Nov. 1): Money wins again, or so it seems. The article about Sen. Dianne Feinstein urging San Francisco supervisors to undo a tax sale of Presidio Terrace made me angry. It appears to be yet another disappointing abuse of power on Feinsteins part.

The week started with the first indictments and guilty plea in the Russia investigation, a discovery that three San Francisco Unified School District schools have lead in the water and sadly, we saw more gun violence. All of this and recently suffering through the most destructive fires in Northern California history that left so many homeless.

This feels like an odd situation to advocate for when so much else needs her attention. Why is a California senator, elected to represent the people of California and not her former neighborhood, personally advocating for a group of people able to pay their own legal bills and taxes for that matter?

Of course, it makes me wonder if she depends on these people to be the donors that will bankroll her next election. Many issues need a senators voice. This is not one of them.

Nettie Atkisson, San Francisco

Coffee controversy

Regarding Starbucks cups writeth over (Daily Briefing, Nov. 3): With all that is going on, it seems to be a First World problem  just drink your coffee.

Mary Piowaty, Susanville
An issue advocacy group aligned with Donald Trump plans to spend about $1 million on ads promoting the Republican tax proposal and will feature the president's first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, as its pitchman.

The television and online campaign is the biggest yet financed by the White House-sanctioned America First Policies political organization.

The spending is an initial down payment on what the group says will be a multimillion-dollar effort it hopes will help the president and Republicans score their first major legislative win.

"The vast majority of Americans are deeply dissatisfied with our current tax system, and they support President Trump's commitment to cutting taxes for the middle class," said the group's spokeswoman, Erin Montgomery. "We at America First want to do our part to mobilize these voters to call their leaders in Congress and encourage them to seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to pass tax reform."

Lewandowski, who ran Trump's 2016 campaign before being pushed out by Paul Manafort, tells "fellow patriots and friends" watching the 30-second spot that they need to rally behind the tax plan and confront special interests that will try to stop the legislation.

The Lewandowski ad blitz is being rolled out as a shadow looms over the White House following Special Counsel Robert Mueller's indictment of Manafort and his business partner Monday on money-laundering and tax charges in the ongoing investigation into links between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Since its creation in January, America First has served as a landing stop for several former Trump aides, including Lewandowski as a chief strategist. Rick Gates, a Manafort deputy at the campaign who was also indicted, joined and then departed the group earlier this year. Lewandowski continues to have access to the president, including flying to a rally in Ohio aboard Air Force One in July.

The advertising support from America First Policies comes after it and other pro-Trump groups were criticized earlier this year by some supporters for not playing a more active role in pushing the president's agenda.

America First Policies and its allied super-political action committee, America First Action, have raised about $25 million this year and have set a goal of raising an additional $75 million over the next year, Montgomery said.

Late last month, America First Action donors met at a Texas ranch owned by billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens to discuss future actions. The president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and Brian Walsh, America First Action's president, gave presentations to the group about the tax debate and the role the group plans to play in the 2018 midterm elections. The group recently added energy executive Harold Hamm to its list of donors.

The new ads, scheduled to start Friday and run for about a week, are set to appear on Fox News Channel and on local cable in five congressional districts represented by lawmakers who opposed a budget resolution that was a precursor to the tax legislation.Those targeted districts are represented by Republicans Leonard Lance of New Jersey, Ken Buck of Colorado, Peter King of New York, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democrat Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania.

Several of them opposed the budget resolution because there was no agreement in place for the tax proposal to protect the state and local tax deduction that is relied upon in areas with high local taxes. The legislation released Thursday allows deductions of state and local property taxes, up to $10,000, and lawmakers from high tax areas have continued to express concerns.

Besides the TV advertising, America First Policies plans to also target digital advertising -- on Facebook and Twitter -- in 30 congressional districts with members who voted against the budget resolution.

Separately, the American Action Network, another conservative advocacy group, said Friday it plans to launch a $1 million radio campaign promoting the tax legislation.
A militant group in Nigeria's southern Niger River delta, whose attacks on oil installations in 2016 cut output to the lowest in three decades, said it ended a self-imposed cease-fire and will resume its violent campaign.

"Our operatives are intact and focused, ready to implement instructions," the Niger Delta Avengers said in a statement on its website on Friday by a spokesman identified as Mudoch Agbinibo. "We can assure you that every oil installation in our region will feel warmth of the wrath."

The group threatened to disrupt Total's Egina offshore oil field, which is set to start production in the first quarter of 2018. A spokesman for Total did not immediately respond to calls and an email requesting comment.

Nigeria suffered its worst economic downturn in a quarter century after oil prices and output fell in 2016 amid militant attacks estimated by the government to have caused the loss of $7 billion in revenue.

"Unlike many other militant groups that issue threats online, the Avengers' announcement needs to be taken very seriously," Malte Liewerscheidt, senior Africa analyst at Bath, U.K.-based Verisk Maplecroft, said by email. "The Avengers' area of operations in 2016 was confined to the areas west of Warri between the Benin and Forcados Rivers. It is highly likely that any potential future assaults will take place within the same area."

The Avengers' attacks subsided after a truce with the group in August last year to allow for peaceful negotiations. The militants have accused President Muhammadu Buhari's government of being slow to meet their expectations of more local control over the region's oil resources. The authenticity of the website, which has proved reliable before, couldn't be verified.

A spokesman for the Oil Ministry didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

"The Avengers have always shown a willingness and ability to back up their threats with action," Cheta Nwanze, an analyst at Lagos-based advisory SBM Intelligence, said by phone. "While it is unlikely that they have the capacity to attack all oil installations in the region, they can hit where it will have the most impact."
OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Harlem Desir has expressed his desire to visit Crimea to study the work of the media, the press service of the Ukrainian president's office in Crimea reported on Friday.

"Harlem Desir expressed his desire to visit Crimea when there are relevant circumstances. He declared his readiness to study the issue of the distribution of Russian broadcasting to the mainland territory of Ukraine, aspects of the language of hatred in the print media controlled by the occupation authorities, especially at the district and departmental level, and to consider the possibility of assistance to representatives of the Crimean Tatar media in organizing independent and impartial broadcasts," reads the statement.

Desir also said that repressions against some live streamers were continuing in the occupied Crimea, a ban on independent coverage of events was in force and that all major Crimean Tatar media were being squeezed out.

The president's representative in Crimea, Borys Babin, in turn, said that the Crimean occupation authorities had built a new relay tower near the town of Dzhankoi, with the aim of spreading broadcasting from the occupied Crimea to a significant part of the mainland Ukraine, which is regarded by the Ukrainian side as a threat to information security.
A half-dozen members of President Donald Trump's evangelical advisory board met this week in Cairo with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, part of what participants said was a first-ever meeting between Sissi and a group of American evangelicals.

The meeting is an extension of the shift in U.S. policy under Trump. Trump has hosted and praised Sissi - his April visit to the White House was the first of an Egyptian leader in eight years - while President Barack Obama refused to invite him because of concerns about human rights violations. Sissi is seen as more sympathetic to his country's Christian minority than his predecessors.

About 12 American evangelical leaders in total attended the meeting Wednesday at Egypt's presidential palace. The gathering went on for three hours and touched on everything from terrorism and education to pluralism and human rights, said Johnnie Moore, a California pastor and public affairs executive who participated and serves as a spokesman for Trump's ad hoc board.

The gathering was covered by Israeli media and was on front pages in Cairo on Thursday. A Thursday news release by the government framed the meeting as reflecting "Egypt's keenness to strengthen bridges of communication and understanding with various sectors of American society."

Egypt has ancient Christian communities, including the Copts, who make up the vast majority of the country's Christians. Protestants are, comparatively, relatively new to the area, with the first major presence coming in the 1800s. Egypt is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, and religious minorities - including Baha'i, Shiites, Jews and atheists - report discrimination from the public and private sectors, according to recent international religious freedom reports by the U.S. State Department.

American evangelical attendees, according to a photo of the event, were Joel Rosenberg, an American writer who lives in Jerusalem; retired U.S. Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence in the second Bush administration; Family Research Council President Tony Perkins; San Diego pastor Jim Garlow; Florida pastor Mario Bramnick; Middle East commentator Michael Evans; communications executive Larry Ross; political activist Robert Vander Plaats; Campus Crusade for Christ Global Leadership Vice President Dela Adadevoh; former representative Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.; Egyptian-American Atlanta pastor Michael Youssef; and Moore.

All are conservatives and many work with advocacy groups. Bachmann, Evans, Perkins, Bramnick, Garlow and Moore serve as informal advisers to Trump.

Meeting with them were Sissi and Andrea Zaki, who leads the Protestant Community of Egypt. There are a few hundred thousand Protestants in Egypt, a country with a population of 95 million.

Sissi is considered more friendly to Christian Egyptians than his predecessor, and was the first president to attend a Christmas Mass of Egypt's Coptic Christians in 2015. That was two years after he led the bloody military ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, the country's first democratically elected leader. He has ordered his government to help resettle Christians who fled the Sinai in fear of the Islamic State. But private and public discrimination against Christians continues in Egypt, as does the threat of violence from extremists.

While some praise Sissi as a U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism, human rights groups say he's a repressive dictator whose jails are filled with political prisoners including dozens of journalists held without trial.

Trump has praised Sissi many times, and said during Sissi's visit this spring that the general "has done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation."

Moore said the meeting this week was put together by Rosenberg, who lives in Israel and writes about biblical prophecies and how he believes they relate to politics and terrorism.

Last week Vice President Mike Pence announced at a gathering of Christians in D.C. that he would be traveling at the president's request to Egypt and Israel next month. The trip will highlight the persecutions of Christians and other religious minorities, Pence told the annual gala of the group In Defense of Christians.

Moore said the group visited in Cairo with Jehan Sadat, the widow of Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated in 1981, a few years after signing a peace accord with Israel. They also visited with Muslim scholars, he said.

Moore said there are some 60 evangelical groups in Egypt.

The first thing Sissi said to the group was a condolence for the deadly attack this week in Lower Manhattan, Moore said. He also vowed to protect churches.

"When terrorists destroyed churches, his government rebuilt them. He said this [destruction] will never happen again," Moore said.

Asked if group raised the issue of human rights violations, Moore said they did, and "were very satisfied" with Sissi's answer.

"He said, 'This country isn't perfect, we have lots and lots of challenges, please help us with our challenges,'" Moore recalled. Some in the group praised Sissi on the topic - noting his support of religious minorities.

"The right to live free and believe freely, it's incredible," Moore said one pastor told the president. Their conversation on the topic "was collegial."
WASHINGTON - House Republicans on Thursday proposed the biggest overhaul of the U.S. tax code in three decades, a plan that would sharply cut tax rates for corporations and individuals while eliminating many popular deductions that Americans have long enjoyed.

At its core, the legislation would deliver the kind of tax relief to companies - $1 trillion over 10 years - that Republicans say will spark economic growth and encourage businesses to create more jobs and invest heavily in the United States.

Far less clear is the bill's impact on middle- and working-class households. The trade-off between reducing tax rates but curtailing deductions - such as the amount that homeowners can write off for their mortgage interest payments - means the impact will vary widely from one family to another.

Many Americans who need to take out big loans to buy homes in expensive areas such as New York, Boston and San Francisco could see their taxes go up. The Washington region would be a prime example of the trade-offs. High salaries here at lower tax rates would deliver savings off Internal Revenue Service bills. But high home prices mean home buyers take out big loans. The District of Columbia region is home to six of the 10 counties where residents take the highest average mortgage deduction.

The GOP bill would also scale back the amount Americans can deduct from their federal bill because of taxes paid to state and local governments. That could punish those who live in states with high income taxes - states that generally are governed by Democrats.

The uneven effects of the legislation - and the possibility that some middle-class Americans could see their tax bills increase - promise to complicate the Republican effort to unify behind the bill. Several powerful lobbying organizations, some long aligned with the GOP, vowed Thursday to fight the proposal.

But for Republicans, the tax push represents possibly their last opportunity to pass a major piece of legislation before campaign season begins for next November's elections, when their majorities in the House and Senate will be challenged.

President Donald Trump has put changing the tax code at the top of his domestic agenda, and the party holds enough seats in the House and Senate to pass the bill into law without support from a single Democratic lawmaker. But to succeed, GOP lawmakers will have to avoid the internal divisions that have undermined other major legislative efforts, including multiple failed attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Trump praised House lawmakers for introducing the bill and predicted that some iteration of the tax cut plan will be signed into law by year's end.

"We are giving them a big, beautiful Christmas present in the form of a tremendous tax cut," he said in brief remarks from the White House.

The bill, unveiled by GOP leaders Thursday morning at an elaborate news conference in the Capitol, would slash the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent, the most significant in a series of benefits the bill contains for businesses. In addition to the $1 trillion in total tax cuts over 10 years for businesses, the proposal would mean $300 billion in tax cuts for households and families, as well as $200 billion in tax cuts - almost all of which will benefit the wealthiest families - by repealing the estate tax, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

The legislation is the result of months of negotiation among Trump administration officials and many Republican lawmakers, discussions that continued right up to the hours before the bill's release.

On Wednesday evening, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, suggested the party might wobble on Trump's promise to permanently cut the business tax rate, instead having the rate expire after eight years as part of an effort to facilitate the bill's passage in the Senate. But in a late change, Republicans extended the cut in the business tax rate, in part by scaling back the scope of a new "Family Flexibility Credit" for parents and non-child dependents that the bill would create, said several people involved in the discussions who were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

In the version of the bill introduced Thursday, the credit would be worth $300 annually and would be eliminated in five years.

For individuals and families, income-tax rates would go down. Currently, families have to pay a tax rate of 39.6 percent on income above $470,700. The House Republican bill would apply that tax rate only to income above $1 million for families. Rates further down the income spectrum would be cut as well.

"It's an awesome tax cut," said Rep. Bill Flores, R-Texas. "I mean, it rebuilds working-class America - great for jobs, great for the economy. It's going to be huge."

The bill would seek to balance revenue lost to the rate cuts, however, by scrapping numerous tax breaks, some of which are used by tens of millions of Americans and have large-scale support.

The change to the mortgage interest deduction drew immediate attention Thursday. Under current tax law, Americans can deduct interest payments made on their first $1 million worth of home loans. The bill would allow existing mortgages to keep the current rules, but for new mortgages, home buyers would be able to deduct interest payments made only on their first $500,000 worth of loans.

The proposal to scale back allowing Americans to deduct state and local tax payments from their federal bill was particularly contentious during negotiations.

Republicans initially proposed eliminating that deduction entirely, but after a revolt from GOP lawmakers from New York, New Jersey and other high-tax states, the bill introduced Thursday contained a compromise. The bill would allow people to deduct their local property taxes from their taxable income, but only up to the first $10,000.

And Americans would no longer be able to deduct their medical expenses or property and casualty losses, according to a document outlining the plan. Tax credits for electric cars would be eliminated. Americans would no longer be able to deduct moving expenses or alimony payments. Large college endowments would pay taxes on their income in a way that treats them more like private foundations.

Some deductions would be expanded. The bill would nearly double the standard deduction that many Americans claim on their taxes, raising it from $12,700 to $24,000 per family. But this benefit would be partially offset by the elimination of the personal exemption many Americans can claim, which can be large for families with multiple children.

The bill would also increase the child tax credit from $1,000 per child to $1,600. That credit would phase out once a family earns more than $230,000 a year, more than double the current $110,000 threshold.

The bill would add up to $1.5 trillion over 10 years to the national deficit, a move that contrasts with Republicans' efforts under President Barack Obama to block legislation that could have expanded the deficit.

With legislation introduced, the GOP tax effort moves into a new and perilous phase, with party leaders working to unify their caucus behind the measure while individual lawmakers seek changes that match their ideologies or the preferences of their constituents and donors - all while Democrats pound the measure and attempt to rally the public against it.

Party leaders are setting an ambitious timeline, with the House and Senate hoping to pass legislation before Thanksgiving. A Senate bill has not yet been introduced.

The GOP effort will also be tested by what House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., warned would be an "army of lobbyists" that would push Congress to make changes on behalf of their client industries and interest groups.

At least one major industry group, the National Association of Home Builders, announced days before the bill was released that the group would not support it, and others joined the attack within minutes of the measure's unveiling. The National Federation of Independent Businesses said it was also not backing the effort, saying the legislation "leaves too many small businesses behind."

Other business groups lauded the bill and are expected to try to help it win passage.

"In terms of a legislative text that addresses the core issues that must be addressed if we are going to grow our economy faster and raise wages for families, this is a home run," said Neil Bradley, chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Among lobbying groups, the change to the mortgage interest deduction has proved particularly contentious.

Some budget experts have said this change is necessary because otherwise the tax code essentially subsidizes the purchase of large homes in the wealthiest parts of the country. But housing groups have long fought off such a change, as the median home price in numerous parts of the country can be very high.

Jerry Howard, chief executive of the National Association of Home Builders, said his group would fight the bill "tooth and nail," claiming that it could lead to a decline in home prices and a housing recession.

"This now is a direct assault on the American dream of homeownership," he said in an interview.

Republicans said these changes are necessary to allow them to lower tax rates for all taxpayers. But many Democrats signaled opposition, vowing to fight its passage even while in the political minority.

"This bill is like a dead fish," said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "The more it's in sunlight, the more it stinks, and that's what's going to happen."

The bill would not make changes to popular retirement plans such as 401(k)s, though. It also would not attempt to repeal provisions of the Affordable Care Act, though Republicans have said they might try to change the bill later for these purposes.

The legislative fight over the tax bill has become the Trump administration's biggest political goal after failed attempts to repeal the ACA. Trump wants the legislation to pass the House and the Senate by the end of the year, though they must resolve numerous differences.

Other changes in the bill would be far-reaching. It would, for example, make changes to college savings programs and have new requirements for tax-exempt organizations such as churches and charities.

Republican supporters of the measure said Americans will see a number of changes if the tax plan is signed into law, but they argued that the final result would be a major tax cut.

"They're interested in tax relief," said Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill. "They're not particularly interested in the formula by which that relief gets to them."

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The Washington Post's Kathy Orton contributed to the report.

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Video: What's in the House GOP tax plan?

House Republican leaders on Thursday, Nov. 2 proposed legislation that would overhaul the U.S. tax code. Here's what you need to know about it.

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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump departed Washington on Friday for his first visit to Asia, a 12-day swing through five countries that comes as the once unthinkable has become a palpable concern from Tokyo to Seoul to Beijing - a war with a nuclear-armed North Korea.

Trump's escalating rhetoric and Pyongyang's accelerating weapons programs have set the region on edge and prompted national security adviser H.R. McMaster to declare this week that the world is "running out of time" to stop the North.

"North Korea is a threat to the entire world," McMaster told reporters at the White House.

Trump's trip - with bilateral visits to Japan, South Korea and China and stops at regional summits in Vietnam and the Philippines - could go a long way toward determining the success of his administration's policy. Aides said they are committed to applying "maximum pressure"on Pyongyang to head off its nuclear threat and resolve the situation peacefully.

Senior White House aides said Trump's top priority on the longest overseas trip of any president since George H.W. Bush in 1991 will be to build on the initial success his administration has had in rallying international support for isolating North Korea. Responding to pressure from the United States, the United Nations Security Council approved two rounds of stiffer economic sanctions and a growing number of countries have severed diplomatic ties with Pyongyang and banished North Korean guest workers.

But beyond the sanctions and the silent treatment looms the very real prospect that none of these tactics - employed to varying degrees by previous administrations - will convince North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to veer from his pursuit of a nuclear weapon that can reliably reach the U.S. mainland - a goal analysts said would sharply tilt the leverage in his favor in any future negotiations.

That raises the question being privately assessed and publicly debated across Northeast Asia: How real are Trump's threats of using military options to prevent Kim from succeeding?

"I think the Chinese are divided on the seriousness of President Trump about the potential of a U.S. military strike," said Bonnie Glaser, a China analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who visited Beijing last week. "Some say President Trump is unpredictable and that he could launch a preventative or a preemptive attack. They worry the situation is getting out of control. Other experts think Trump is bluffing to scare Beijing into greater pressure on Kim."

Glaser added: "I sensed more of the former view. There's more seriousness about the considerations being taken by the Trump administration."

In Tokyo, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe raised eyebrows during a gathering of international foreign policy experts last week when he acknowledged there is "some worry about applying that much pressure on North Korea and whether this will lead to war."

The Japanese leader, whose governing Liberal Democratic Party emerged stronger last month after winning more parliament seats in a snap election, emphasized that his administration fully supports Trump's position that direct diplomatic talks with the Pyongyang are not worthwhile given Kim's consistent provocations.

"Of course, I do not wish for a conflict," Abe said at the Mount Fuji dialogue. "However, dialogue with North Korea for the sake of dialogue is meaningless."

In Seoul, Trump's handling of the North Korea crisis has led to a number of angry public protests ahead of his arrival - and widespread confusion and apprehension over his intentions. President Moon Jae-in's administration, which came to power this year advocating for a more open policy toward the North that favored talks, has sought to align more closely with the United States in the wake of Kim's increased nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

But Moon's aides objected to White House proposals that Trump visit the heavily guarded demilitarized zone that divides North and South Korea over fears that his rhetoric would further inflame tensions at a time when the South is preparing to play host to the Winter Olympics early next year. Trump has threatened that Pyongyang would feel the "fire and fury" of the U.S. military if it continued its threats and the president pledged to "totally destroy" the North if necessary during a speech at the United Nations in September.

The White House agreed to have Trump instead visit Camp Humphreys, a joint U.S.-South Korea military base south of Seoul. But at recent protests, South Koreans waved signs that superimposed the American leader over nuclear explosions.

"President Trump is frequently making ludicrous comments implying war," said Han Sun-bum, a representative of one of the largest protest groups, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. "His comments, coupled with large scale joint military exercise, have created a very precarious situation in the Korean Peninsula."

Trump's trip includes heavy messaging on the U.S. commitment to strong defense cooperation with allies in East Asia. The president will stop first at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, where he plans to tour the USS Arizona Memorial, the site of a battleship sunk during the Japanese surprise attack in 1941 that drew the United States into the Pacific theater in World War II.

In Tokyo, Trump is scheduled to speak with U.S. troops at Yokota Air Base and meet with the families of Japanese citizens who were abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s. In Seoul, he will address the South Korean National Assembly emphasizing that all nations must act with increased urgency.

Asked if Trump plans to use same type of inflamed rhetoric he often has when discussing Pyongyang, McMaster said: "I don't think the president really modulates his language." He added: "I've been aware of the discussions about, 'Hey, is this inflammatory?' And what's inflammatory is the North Korean regime and what they're doing to threaten the world."

Foreign policy experts called Trump's public threats and belittling of Kim - the president has dubbed him "Little Rocket Man" - a misguided attempt to apply psychological pressure. In fact, they said, such tactics allow Kim to further demonize the United States.

One former Obama administration official called Trump's rhetoric "sophomoric" and said it was "a primitive misreading about how they operate."

This former official, who asked for anonymity to speak bluntly, said if Trump "veers off the teleprompter into belittling insult-land" that could "significantly increase the distress felt throughout South Korea," where some hard-liners in parliament have suggested the nation should consider developing its own nuclear arsenal.

Meantime, China, where Trump will have a three-day state visit, has announced a crackdown on banks that do business with the North, although experts said it is hard to gauge how seriously Beijing will implement the new controls. Chinese President Xi Jinping emerged more powerful after the Communist Party Congress last month, and Cui Tiankai, China's ambassador to Washington, told reporters this week that the United States and its allies could do more to resolve the standoff peacefully.

"If only China is making its best efforts and others are doing things that lead to an escalation of tensions, this issue will not be solved," Cui said.

The Trump administration, following the policies of past administrations, has refused to entertain the Chinese proposal of freezing U.S. and South Korean military cooperation in exchange for a freeze on North Korea's weapons testing. McMaster ruled out the idea again this week, saying Pyongyang cannot be trusted to abide by any such agreements.

"We're out of time," McMaster said. "In terms of scenarios, the president's always very clear: You know he doesn't draw red lines, he doesn't forecast directly or say directly what he's going to do. But he'll do whatever it takes to protect the American people and our allies."

- - -

Taylor reported from Seoul. The Washington Post's Yoonjung Seo in Seoul contributed to this report.
On Tuesday, the White House proclaimed November as Native American Heritage Month. On Friday, President Donald Trump took jab at a political foe using a name that many Native Americans consider a slur.

"Pocahontas just stated that the Democrats, lead by the legendary Crooked Hillary Clinton, rigged the Primaries! Lets go FBI & Justice Dept.

- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017"

He's invoked Pocahontas before in jabbing Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

Warren's claims of Cherokee and Delaware Indian heritage first attracted national attention during her 2012 Senate run. While she had family stories, she did not have any documentation of her Native American ancestry to prove it, even though Cherokee groups demanded it. Her opponent, the Republican incumbent Scott Brown, claimed Warren used family lore to get an unfair advantage in getting hired to coveted faculty jobs at Harvard Law School and University of Pennsylvania Law School.

The Washington Post Fact Checker found no support for Brown's claims:

"We found no proof that she ever marked a form to tell the schools about her heritage, nor any public evidence that the universities knew about her lineage before hiring her. Still, we found that Warren's relying on family lore rather than official documentation to make an ethnic claim raised serious concerns about Warren's judgment."

Trump capitalized on Warren's inability to verify her story with documentation, particularly after Warren questioned his honesty.

"Goofy Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to as Pocahontas, pretended to be a Native American in order to advance her career. Very racist!

- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 11, 2016"

Then and again this week, Trump found himself on the receiving end of criticism for his apparent inability to push back on Warren without causing offense.

Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., said the president's words suggest that he is out of touch with Native Americans.

"Trump calling @SenWarren "Pocahontas" one the 3rd day of #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth proves again how crass & out-of-touch he is w/ Natives

- Raul M. Grijalva (@RepRaulGrijalva) November 3, 2017"

Indian Country columnist Ruth Hopkins said Trump is mocking Native American women by invoking Pocahontas, a member of an Algonquian tribe encountered by English captain John Smith on an expedition in Virginia.

"Pocahontas was prepubescent girl held hostage & raped by European invaders. Stop mocking her & Native women. https://t.co/FDcZMz8Bth

- Ruth H. Hopkins (@RuthHHopkins) November 3, 2017"

And the chief ethics lawyer for former president George W. Bush called out President Trump for his words.

" 'Pocahontas'? Another jab at Sen. Warren because she has Native American ancestors? Whoever sent this Tweet is a bigot. https://t.co/i6zG5MhOMv

- Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) November 3, 2017"

Author and radio host Roben Farzad said someone in the business community would be fired for Trump's actions.

" 'Pocahontas' as a racist jab by the President of America against Native Americans. In 2017. Appaling. Any CEO would lose job over that

- Roben Farzad (@robenfarzad) November 3, 2017"

Trump's comment is the latest in a series of recent slights some Native Americans have felt from the Trump administration.

Trump did not mention Native Americans in his Columbus Day proclamation and instead had a Columbus Day 2020 campaign sale to allow customers supportive of the navigator's voyage to purchase the "Make America Great Again" merchandise of their choice for a discounted price.

Native Americans protested his administration's approval of the Dakota Access pipeline, which some argue violates treaties that indigenous groups living on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation signed with the federal government in the 1800s.

And despite all the proclamations to tackle the opioid epidemic, Native American activists say there seems to be no real attempt to target efforts in Native American communities despite their faring the worst of all minority groups, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Trump is not known to back down from criticism that he believes is rooted in political correctness, but maybe he will consider the previous words of a fellow Republican, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla.

"He needs to quit using language like that," Cole said inJune 2016, after a previous attack. "It's pejorative , and you know, there's plenty of things that he can disagree with Elizabeth Warren over, this is not something that should, in my opinion, ever enter the conversation. . . . It's neither appropriate personally toward her, and frankly, it offends a much larger group of people. So, I wish he would avoid that."
More than 400 civilians killed or injured in the combat zone in Donbas in 2017, Alexander Hug, the principal deputy chief monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine, said.

"Last week the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine recorded 5,892 ceasefire violations. That brings the total so far this year to over 325,000 ceasefire violations. Almost 27,000 of those ceasefire violations were caused by proscribed weapons - weapons that should have been withdrawn beyond the lines agreed by the sides in Minsk a long time ago," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Friday.

Observers recorded 48 pieces of such weapons, 31 in areas controlled by the Ukrainian government and 17 in areas outside its control, in the past week, he said. Over 3,800 pieces of heavy weapons deployed in violation of separation lines, with more than two thirds of them being in territories beyond Ukraine's control, were recorded this year, Hug said.

Instead of implementing the Minsk agreements, the parties pretend to do that and focus on arguments regarding what should be implemented in the first place, Hug said.

A total of 2,000 instances of restriction of the OSCE SMM's movement have been recorded this year, Hug said. Mostly they are related to failure in demining of territories or restrictions imposed by servicemen or "armed persons," totaling over 700 times, with the majority of them by the latter.

Observers have faced this most often in areas outside Ukraine's control, near the uncontrolled sections of the border with the Russian Federation, he said.
Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

A former Army sergeant has been sentenced to nearly 17 years in federal prison for funneling numerous assault rifles to operatives of Mexicos Gulf Cartel last year by organizing other soldiers to help him buy the weapons.

At a hearing Thursday, Chief U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia sentenced Julian Prezas, a former Army recruiter in San Antonio, to 200 months of prison. Prezas, 37, pleaded guilty in December to five counts of lying on federal firearms forms and one count of attempting to export defense articles to Mexico.
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After San Antonio Police Officer Julio Cavazos' partner was shot and killed earlier this year, Cavazos decided he wanted to get into precision shooting and build a commemorative rifle in memory of his partner, Officer Miguel Moreno.

Cavazos, a nine-year-veteran of the department, purchased all the parts online, and at a friends suggestion, went to Sons of Liberty Gun Works on Pleasanton Road on the South Side to have the gun assembled.

I walked in and I was treated immediately like a million dollars, Cavazos said Thursday. I was treated like their best customer, and they didn't even know who I was.

After owners Michael Mihalski and Kyle Grothues realized who Cavazos was  and who he was building the gun in memory of  they suggested he use their parts.

Cavazos, who was also injured in the shooting, called his wife to tell her the bad news: He'd be spending even more money, but she said it was OK, because it was for Mo.

A few weeks later, once the gun was assembled, Cavazos went to the shop, which builds and sells custom rifles for gun enthusiasts and law enforcement agencies. Mihalski and Grothues told Cavazos they would be donating the parts and labor.

Words can't begin to explain how thankful I am for ... the generally good people of San Antonio and a small shop like this, that do things like this for us, Cavazos said, during his first public remarks since the shooting on June 29. So thank you. Thank you for this beautiful gift, and thank you everyone in San Antonio for being so supportive of us.

The rifle, a semi-automatic Mk12, is engraved with Morenos badge number, #1603, and his end of watch date, June 30, 2017. The shop employees gave the weapon to Cavazos on Thursday during a public ceremony.

Cavazos, who appeared emotional throughout, said the rifle was such a beautiful weapon.

The presentation Thursday comes about four months after the shooting, which killed Moreno and left Cavazos critically injured.

About 3:30 p.m. June 29, Moreno and Cavazos were investigating a car that appeared to have been broken into in the 200 block of West Evergreen Street near San Antonio College, officials previously said. They saw two suspicious men walking on the sidewalk, so they parked their vehicle.

Moreno and Cavazos had just exited their cruiser when one of the men, later identified as Andrew C. Bice, pulled out a handgun and shot Moreno in the head and Cavazos in the chin, though the bullet eventually lodged itself in his chest cavity.

Bice, 34, was wounded in the buttocks when Cavazos returned fire as he was moving his partner to safety. Bice fled down Evergreen and shot himself in the head yards away from the attack, dying shortly afterward.

At the time, McManus said it was unclear what motivated the attack. Bice was a career criminal whose past arrests included charges of kidnapping, drugs and evading arrest. A subsequent autopsy revealed that Bice had a RIP COPS tattoo on his wrist.

Moreno, 32, died the next day. Moreno had served the city for nine years, most recently on the Central B shift.

His friends have said he was a proud police officer who also had an adventurous side. He loved to fish, ride his Harley-Davidson motorcycle and travel.

Read more about Cavazos recovery at ExpressNews.com.

eeaton@express-news.net |Twitter: @emilieeaton
AUSTIN  Attorneys defending a state law restricting the most common second-trimester abortion procedure accused a Dallas abortion provider of altering medical consent forms days before filing a lawsuit to block the law.

In the second day of the trial before U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel, Andrew Stephens, an attorney for the state, pressed the medical director of Southwestern Women's Surgery Center, a clinic in Dallas, to explain why the clinic had altered a form explaining the risks and benefits of an injection used to cause fetal demise.

Earlier this year the Republican-led Legislature passed Senate Bill 8, a set of comprehensive abortion regulations that banned dilation and evacuation  a medical procedure used to remove a fetus using surgical tools  unless the fetus is deceased. It is the most common method used to perform an abortion in the second trimester.

During a dilation and evacuation procedure, doctors use surgical instruments to remove fetal issue. Proponents of the law have called this method inhumane and refer to it as "dismemberment abortion."

Whole Woman's Health, Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers sued the state because they believe it will further limit access to abortions.

But the state argues there are several safe and straightforward methods that doctors can use to demise the fetus prior to the abortion.

Administering an injection of digoxin, a drug used to treat heart disease in adults, is one method. Dr. Robin Wallace, the medical director at Southwestern Women's, routinely uses the injection for patients seeking an abortion who are at least 20 weeks pregnant.

In 2014, the form read that the abortion process after 20 weeks was made "easier and safer" by injecting the digoxin. In July, the same month the lawsuit was filed, that language was removed. The updated form also listed "toxicity" as a potential complication. The original form did not use that word.

Wallace denied the change was related to the lawsuit, and said the clinic was in the process of changing all the consent forms so that they were concise and easier to read.

"That's just one of them that was changed at the time, and it was not at all prompted by this lawsuit," she said.

The state contends this is a significant point because the injection's safety and efficacy are a key issue in the lawsuit.

But Wallace only administers the injection to patients who are at least 20 weeks pregnant. SB8 requires a fetal demise for all abortions using dilation and evacuation.

Several doctors, including Wallace, testified that using digoxin in earlier stages of a pregnancy is uncommon, has not been thoroughly studied and is not always effective.

The abortion providers say causing fetal demise is not medically necessary, and adding the requirement will only further limit abortion access in the state.

Under SB8, doctors would face criminal charges for violating the ban, except in a case of a medical emergency. The law was set to go into effect Sept. 1, but Yeakel blocked its implementation with a temporary restraining order which remains in effect.

A ruling in the trial is expected by the end of the month.
Ukrainian tour operators in November increased the number of charter flights from Ukraine to Egypt, the Center for Tourism Development of Ukraine has said.

"In November about 80 charter flights will depart to the resorts of Sharm el-Sheikh, Hurghada and Marsa Alam from Ukraine to Egypt every week, which is 10-15% more than in the same period last year," director of the center Volodymyr Tsaruk said.

According to him, despite the warnings of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine about the undesirability of travelling to Egypt, the demand for rest in this country in the 2017-2018 winter season is not decreasing.

CEO of the European tour operator TUI Ukraine Nurhan Chaly, in turn, noted that "the situation in the popular resorts of Egypt is calm."

"Every day more and more tourists come here from Europe, which once again speaks about the safety of recreation in local resorts. We do not see any threat in tourist areas that are well protected," he said.
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Microsoft Corp. purchased an $80 million data center on the far West Side this week, continuing its 12-year effort to cluster data centers in San Antonio.

The corporation bought the 34-acre, 202,000 square-foot center at 5200 Rogers Road for an undisclosed price on Tuesday from Chevron, the California-based energy company, property records show.

The data center appears to be the fourth that Microsoft either owns or is building in San Antonio, all on the far West Side, according to property records. The corporation also owns nearly $100 million worth of equipment in two data centers operated by CyrusOne in that area.

A spokesperson for Microsoft didnt respond to a request for comment.

In December 2015, Microsoft bought 158 acres of land in the Texas Research Park, about five miles west of Loop 1604, in order to build a $1 billion, 1 million-square-foot data center. Construction is slated to be completed in the early 2020s. The corporations first data center in San Antonio, a 427,000 square-foot facility in Westover Hills, was completed in 2005.

When the Texas Research Park facility is complete, Microsofts data centers will include about 2 million square feet of space, according to the Bexar Appraisal District and news reports. The district assessed the properties, and Microsofts equipment in the CyrusOne centers, at a total of $844 million this year.

The far West Sides cheap and plentiful electricity, thanks to the numerous substations that CPS Energy has there, makes it a desirable location for data centers, said Marty Wender, a developer who was instrumental in building Westover Hills. The area has become a hub for data centers, with 10 facilities, he said.

San Antonios low probability of natural disasters such as hurricanes and ice storms makes it well-suited for data centers, Wender said. The city of San Antonio and the state of Texas have also offered incentives for Microsoft to build some of its facilities.

The city of San Antonio profits from the data centers by selling power to them, Wender said. Nearly 30 percent of the citys fiscal year 2018 budget, or $352.5 million, is expected to come from CPS Energy, according to the citys website.

The city of San Antonio is in the electrical selling business and we profit from that, Wender said. Its a huge asset to the city of San Antonio to be selling such large amounts of electricity for these data centers.

The data centers have few workers relative to their size  Microsofts $1 billion center in Texas Research Park is expected to employ about 150 people when its finished. But Wender said that the centers create work for contractors and other local workers.

rwebner@express-news.net | Twitter: RWebner
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AUSTIN  The reward for Carlos Alberto Gonzalez-Barahona, 26, a Texas 10 Most Wanted Fugitive and this month's featured fugitive, has been increased to $10,000 for information leading to his capture if the tip comes in during the month of November.

Gonzalez-Barahona, affiliated with the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang, is wanted for murder and aggravated kidnapping. All tips are guaranteed to be anonymous.

Gonzalez-Barahona is an El Salvadorian national and has been deported multiple times.

On June 18, 2017, he allegedly shot and killed his estranged girlfriend at their apartment located in northwest Houston. He also allegedly kidnapped the driver of a pickup at gunpoint in Brazoria County, and abandoned the truck on June 20, off of Highway 59 in Wharton County. Since then, Gonzalez-Barahona may have fled into Mexico.

Harris County has filed a murder warrant and Brazoria County has issued an aggravated kidnapping warrant. Crime Stoppers of Houston is also offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to the suspect's charging and/or arrest.

READ MORE: Police identify 24-year-old victim in fatal shooting, Laredo's 8th homicide of the year

Gonzalez-Barahona is 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs approximately 170 pounds. He has a tattoo of a star on his left elbow; "Houston" on the back of his left arm; "Texas" on the back of his right arm; "Gonzalez" on his upper back; "281" on his left arm; "713" on his right arm; and other tattoos on his abdomen, back, chest, legs, arms, both wrists and right ear.

One offender from the Texas 10 Most Wanted Program is featured each month in hopes the higher reward money from the Governor's Criminal Justice Division will generate additional tips.

The higher reward amount will only be paid if the tip comes in the same month the fugitive is featured. So far in 2017, Texas Crime Stoppers has paid $56,000 in total rewards for anonymous tips that resulted in arrests.

RELATED: Alleged MS-13 gang member arrested in Laredo

To be eligible for the cash rewards, tipsters MUST provide information to authorities using one of the five following methods:

Call the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-252-TIPS (8477).

Text the letters "DPS"  followed by your tip  to 274637 (CRIMES) from your cell phone.

Submit a web tip through the DPS website by selecting the fugitive you have information about, and then clicking on the link under their picture.

Submit a Facebook tip at http://www.facebook.com/texas10mostwanted by clicking the "Submit a tip" link (under the "About" section).

Submit a tip through the DPS Mobile App. The app is currently available for iPhone users on the Apple App Store:and for Android users on Google Play.

All tips are anonymous  regardless of how they are submitted, and tipsters will be provided a tip number instead of using a name.

DPS investigators work with local law enforcement agencies to select fugitives for the Texas 10 Most Wanted Fugitive and Sex Offender lists.

Do not attempt to apprehend these fugitives; they are considered armed and dangerous.
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KYIV. Nov 3 (Interfax-Ukraine) - Crimean Tatar Renat Paralamov, who became the victim of Russian special services in Crimea in September 2017, described how he, with the use of torture, was forced to sign and voice the confessions about crimes he allegedly committed.

He said at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine news agency on November 2 that on September 13, Russian security officials searched his house in the village of Nyzhniohirsk in Crimea. After the search, FSB officers (as it later became known) kidnapped Paralamov, held him in the "FSB directorate" in Simferopol, and used torture against him for the purpose of cooperation with the Russian special services.

"I was forced to sign two protocols, in one of which I confess that I found trotyl, cartridges and fuses in a forest in 2014, that I hid them in my home in the village of Nyzhniohirsk, and then near the Simferopol water reservoir. In another [protocol] I confess that I am allegedly a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, that I allegedly organized the dissemination of information on the Internet, in the social network VKontakte. I was forced to slander my friends and people who I don't know. They also forced me to voice the text on camera," Paralamov said.

According to him, he had a sack put on his head, he was beaten, tortured, including by electric shock, and threatened with rape.

After Paralamov was released, on September 14, he was found at a bus station in Simferopol in extremely grave condition. Subsequently, the victim of torture left Crimea together with his family.

The head of the board of NGO Human Rights Movement of Crimea Enver Kadyrov noted that such things happened not only in Crimea, but were a common practice in Russia and that this was indicated by those human rights organizations that are still working in Russia. He pointed out that the current head of the "FSB directorate" in Crimea, Viktor Palagin, had previously worked in Bashkortostan and there was information about similar stories there with beatings, electric shocks and threats of rape with respect to detainees.
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Malaria Consortium at ASTMH 2017

3 November 2017



Malaria Consortium will be giving a number of presentations at the 66th Annual American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene meeting in Baltimore.

We hope that you will be able to join us to learn more about our projects and research findings. Please see below for the full schedule of presentations.

You can also follow along on Twitter using the hashtag #TropMed17 and via Malaria Consortiums Twitter feed, @FightingMalaria.

This page will also be updated with extra information, including links to download individual presentations, throughout the conference.

Symposiums at the ASTMH 66th Annual Meeting

Monday, 6th November

Arantxa Roca-Feltrer

11:15-12:00, Convention Center  Room 318/319/320 (Level 300)

As a part of a wider symposium on strengthening malaria surveillance systems as a Pillar of the Global Technical Strategy starting at 10:15, join Arantxa Roca-Feltrer for a discussion on the remaining gaps and opportunities for malaria surveillance systems in sub-Saharan Africa in the future.

Tuesday, 7th November

James Tibenderana

10:15  12:00, Convention Centre  Ballroom III (Level 400)

Co-chaired by Malaria Consortium Technical Director, James Tibenderana; join us for an engaging presentation and discussion on seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) encompassing an assessment of the cost effectiveness of SMC in West and Central Africa. In addition, this symposium will model predictions of how the impact of SMC could be further increased by adapting the strategy to local epidemiological contexts.

Poster Presentations

Monday, 6th November

Madeleine Marascuilo (on the behalf Wasif Khan)

12:00-13:45, Convention Centre  Hall F and G (Level 100), Session 28

Download presentation: A pilot study to determine the feasibility of family planning workers Bandarban, Bangladesh delivering malaria case management in their communities.

Charlotte Ward

12:00-13:45, Convention Centre  Hall F and G (Level 100), Session 28

Download presentation: Selecting a Reference Standard for Evaluating Respiratory Rate Devices to Diagnose Symptoms of Pneumonia in Children under 5: Lessons Learned from Resource-Poor Settings in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

Tuesday, 7th November

Olusola Oresanya

12:00-13:45, Convention Centre  Hall F and G (Level 100), Session 86

Download presentation: Effect of a community-based intervention on improving care-seeking behaviour for sick children under five years in hard-to-reach communities in Niger State, Nigeria.

Dawit Getachew

12:00-13:45, Convention Centre  Hall F and G (Level 100), Session 86

Download presentation: Health worker and policy maker perspectives on use of intramuscular artesunate for treatment of severe malaria at health posts in Ethiopia.

Wednesday, 8th November

Karin Kallander

12:00-13:45, Convention Centre  Hall F and G (Level 100), Session 145

Download presentation: Hot or not? Management of unclassified fever in children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Tarekegn Abeku

12:00-13:45, Convention Centre  Hall F and G (Level 100), Session 145

Download presentation: Malaria infection risk and use of bed nets in the context of insecticide resistance in Uganda.
President Xi Jinping greets visiting Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on Wednesday. Medvedev is on a three-day official visit.XIE HUANCHI / XINHUA

President supports nation's joint development of Arctic with Russia

China and Russia should jointly develop and cooperate on the use of the North Polar sea route and build a Silk Road on the ice, President Xi Jinping told visiting Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday.

Close to 20 bilateral cooperative documents were signed on Wednesday in fields such as investment, energy, aerospace and finance.

Russia is China's largest neighbor, and China's clear goals and firm determination to develop and deepen China-Russia relations will not change, Xi said.

Medvedev is on an official visit to China from Tuesday to Thursday and co-chaired with Premier Li Keqiang the 22nd China-Russia Prime Ministers' Regular Meeting on Wednesday.

He arrived in Beijing only a week after the conclusion of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which saw the election of the Party's new leadership.

Medvedev gave his congratulations on the successful conclusion of the Party congress as well as Xi's re-election as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

Russia is satisfied with the bilateral cooperation carried out since Xi's visit to Russia in July and is ready to reinforce the exchange of views and cooperation regarding international and regional affairs, he said.

Xi said the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, which is at a new starting point, will grasp new opportunities and achieve new results.

Both countries should ensure the good synergy of the Belt and Road Initiative with the Eurasian Economic Union, and better implement projects such as a coastal international transport corridor, Xi said.

On Wednesday, Premier Li Keqiang said at a joint news conference after meeting with Medvedev that Russia's Far East, like central and western China, has huge potential for development and growth.

China and Russia's strengthening cooperation in developing the Far East will introduce new opportunities for cooperation and prove mutually beneficial, Li said.

Feng Yujun, a professor of Russian studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, noted that the recent frequency of high-level contacts between the two countries, including Xi's phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, shows Russia's lasting focus and need for China and its market and capital.

Since the world's efforts in developing Arctic shipping routes are at an initial stage, China and Russia are showing long-term vision in developing the Silk Road on the ice, Feng said.

Both countries share the need to diversify routes for shipping globally, and Russia, next to the Arctic Ocean, has some natural advantages in exploring the polar region, Feng said.

Contact the writers at [email protected]
Thiruvananthapuram: Industries Minister AC Moideen has called upon the people not to get bogged down by the protest against the prestigious GAIL project.

He also added that those who oppose the project are people who are destroying Kerala's development while some are out there to reap political mileage out of the issue.

The minister said that the government aims to complete the project in a time bound manner with the co-operation of the public.
I love island life. The sheer thought of extraordinary dives and surfs in warm tropical waters, sinking my toes in white sandy beaches and feasting my eyes on stunning azure bays is my prime idea of paradise. After a hectic few weeks at work, I was itching again for a taste of adventure. Having travelled to some of the best island destinations in the world however, my eyes were set much closer to home this time: Indonesia.

As it turns out, Indonesia is home to an astounding 17,000 islands. While most people typically flock to the more familiar shores of Bali, I was drawn to her lesser-known islands. Ive heard phenomenal stories from fellow island lovers and water sport enthusiasts about the paradisiacal beauty of its islands like Lombok and Flores that were apparently far more beautiful than Bali. It was with this in mind that I packed my bags and set off, kicking off my island-hopping adventure in Indonesia in Lombok.

Lombok, often nicknamed an unspoiled Bali, turned out to be a tropical haven of beaches, magnificent waterfalls and of course, the imposing Mount Rinjani. Located just east of Bali, it is the perfect gateway for tourists traveling to the famous Gili Islands and (more elusive) Flores. After a direct AirAsia flight from Kuala Lumpur, I finally landed in Lombok International Airport in Praya, Lombok.

Kuta, a sleepy coastal town just 20 minutes from the airport, was my first destination in Lombok. Not to be confused with its Balinese namesake, this world-class surfers paradise boasts of remote pristine beaches surrounded by unbelievably blue waters and awe-inspiring jagged mountainous landscapes. My brief stint in Kuta saw me frolicking on its beaches (Kuta Beach and Pantai Seger) and braving strong currents at its best surf breaks (Seger Reef, Air Guling and Gerupuk) before making my way to my next destination, the Gili Islands.

Arguably Lomboks most popular destination, Gili Trawangan, also known as Gili T, is the largest island of the three Gili Islands. It took me a two hour-long chartered boat ride from Senggigi in Lombok (the easiest way to get there) before I arrived. Despite being reputed as a hippie party island, Gili T is also a thriving diving hotspot. Its emerald-green waters are home to an arresting array of marine life; I came nose-to-nose with green and hawksbill turtles, black-tip and white-tip reef sharks, and more. The currents here were strong though, and I found myself retreating to my eco-friendly lodge every night worn-out but buzzing with adrenaline.

From Gili T, I made my way to Flores (Portuguese for flowers). After seeing the most spectacular pictures of this former Portuguese colony, this was the island I had been most anticipating to visit. I was absolutely thrilled to find a four-day sailing trip from Gili to Komodo, an island along the northern coast of Flores. If I thought Gili and Lombok were absolutely magical, words fail me in describing the beauty that was Komodo, Flores.

Over the next four days, the boat ride took us on an unforgettable island adventure through the Komodo National Park: Satonda Island (where we got to hop off for a quick snorkel); Gili Laba (a beautiful island surrounded by waters in seemingly every imaginable shade of blue with fantastic views); Manta Point (aptly named for the huge manta rays abound); Pink Beach (a phenomenal snorkeling spot with over 60 types of coral reef and thousands species of fish, with sand that glows pink at sunrise!) before arriving on Komodo Island, named after the massive and lethal Komodo Dragons that prowl the island.

My Indonesian island-hopping travels also saw me in Padang, the capital city of West Sumatra, a popular access point among tourists headed to the surfing sites of Mentawai Islands. Reputed as having some of the most perfect surfing breaks in the world, I was intrigued to pay a visit. Upon arriving at their popular surf spots such like Pagai and South Sipora, I understood why this was the surf mecca for experienced surfers: the shallow waters pack plenty of punch and you could see coral reefs peeking through the clear waters.

Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province, was my last destination on my travel itinerary. It came recommended to me by a fellow diver I had met at Gili as another diving haven. Thinking it would be a challenge to get to, I almost didnt include it in my travel, before discovering a direct flight to and from Kuala Lumpur daily. From the citys Fort Rotterdam, I hopped on a short day trip via boat to Pulau Samalona. Adi, my boat guide, explained to me that the island is shrinking every year, hence its active preservation efforts. It was a shame, I thought in dismay, as I took in the pristine white sands and waters so clear I could see the beautiful coral reefs from the boat.

Before I knew it, I had finally concluded my Indonesian island adventure in Makassar. After the island adventure of a lifetime, I felt completely reinvigorated, energised and with a buzzing zest for life. Theres something magical in the beautiful islands and waters of Indonesia that does that to you. Over my trip, I was glad to have crossed off so many island destinations on my travel bucket list. Despite this, I still felt like there was still so much more the Indonesian archipelago had to offer. Ill be back soon, I thought to myself as I stepped on the AirAsia aircraft in Makassar finally bounded back for home.

This post was written with the collaboration & support of the Ministry of Tourism Indonesia. Air Asia offers the best connectivity to Indonesia, check out their 15 destinations here!
MARTINSVILLE  Both candidates for Martinsville commonwealths attorney in Tuesdays election pledge to be aggressive in prosecuting crimes that hurt local businesses.

I take it very seriously, Clay Gravely, the citys current top prosecutor, declared during a candidate forum Wednesday night. The more that crime affects businesses, the more that people become afraid to open a business in Martinsville, and thats a detriment to the city, he said.

His challenger, Joan Ziglar, noted that while working as an assistant commonwealths attorney in Danville recently, she oversaw the prosecution of so-called white collar crimes  those that effect businesses financially, such as thefts and embezzlements by employees. She was as tenacious, she said, in prosecuting those crimes as she was in seeking convictions for violent crimes during her 16 years as Martinsvilles commonwealths attorney.

Business people praised her to Danvilles chief prosecutor, she said, for her aggressiveness in helping them fight crime, prosecuting criminals and helping the businesses recover from their losses, she said.

The candidates agreed that restitution, or making those who commit crimes against businesses recompense those firms for their losses, is important.

Convictions can include a court order for restitution and we track that, Gravely said of himself and his staff. If criminals do not compensate businesses, they can be held in contempt of court and possibly jailed, he said.

Businesses can contact the commonwealths attorneys office if an offender is not complying with a restitution order, Ziglar said.

The Martinsville-Henry County Chamber of Commerce organized the forum, held at the historic former county courthouse uptown, to help business people and the general public alike find out the candidates stances on local issues. About 60 people attended.

Because they were permitted only three or four minutes to answer a question, they were not always able to detail their answers.

Local lawyer Phil Gardner, the forums moderator, asked the candidates their views on prosecutors going after the average person who buys and/or sells illegal drugs versus the big fish making the drugs available, as well as using confidential informants  loosely translated: snitches  in trying to prosecute drug cases.

I love snitches, Ziglar said. Without them, we wouldnt have corrections.

Informants are important to snaring drug dealers, she said, because they know the language that the dealers use and understand how deals are done, whereas prosecutors may not.

Also, it helps to have a familiar face meet them (the dealers) at the door, Gravely said, because it makes them more comfortable doing a deal.

The big fish insulates himself, Ziglar said, by placing layers and layers of little fish, so to speak, under him to actually do drug deals.

Informants must be careful when they get involved. They know their lives could be threatened if a major-league dealer finds out they snitched, Ziglar continued.

Why do informants take the risk?

Believe it or not, Gravely said, some admit they are tired of being involved with drugs and become informants out of their kindness of heart to help authorities curb the problem.

They know that by working with authorities, their punishments for selling or using drugs could be lessened in return for their efforts, according to the attorneys.

If a snitch decides to buy or sell drugs again, though, well remove them from being an informant and, like other repeat offenders, their punishments should be more severe, Ziglar said.

The candidates took turns answering questions. Therefore, Wednesday nights event was a forum rather than a debate, Gardner said, because they could speak sensibly in presenting their viewpoints instead of quibbling back and forth, simply responding to accusations.

Nobody finds out any real information during debates, Gardner asserted.

Gravely is in his first four-year term as commonwealths attorney. In 2013, he defeated Ziglar, who had held the constitutional office since 1998, having been elected four times. Most recently, Ziglar has been an assistant commonwealths attorney in Danville and Pittsylvania County.

As it was during their 2013 contest and has been during previous forums and debates this year, the use of plea agreements in sentencing criminals was a topic of discussion. Such agreements, sometimes referred to as plea bargains, are negotiated between defendants and prosecutors in exchange for the latter agreeing to reduce or drop one or more charges.

Gravely recalled that during his previous campaign, I said I would use every tool in a prosecutors toolbox to ensure that justice is served in criminal cases, and a plea agreement is one of those tools.

He said he uses them in instances such as trying to keep victims of horrendous assaults from having to detail them in court when it could traumatize them, whenever children are victims of crime and may not understand legal processes and when witnesses do not show up for court.

I use them. Im proud of it, Gravely said, adding that a plea agreement basically is a guaranteed conviction.

Four years ago, Ziglar recalled, she stated during her campaign that she used pleas agreements in less than 20 percent of cases that she prosecuted.

Like Gravely, she believes the agreements can be appropriately used in extreme situations such as trying to keep a victim from being traumatized.

Ziglar said there is no type of criminal case in which she would not consider using a plea agreement.

But plea agreements can go wrong, she said. They can cause a lot of problems when they are not done properly.

And, sometimes prosecutors have entered into the agreements when they were not fully prepared to handle their cases, or they were just lazy, she said.

In considering whether to pursue plea agreements, Ziglar added, prosecutors must take into account factors such as how strong their defenses are and how strong witnesses observations are.

Gardner also asked the candidates their opinions on trials by judges versus trials by juries.

I love jury trials, Ziglar said, because they often lead to harsh punishments for criminals with repeat offenses.

She also favors them, she said, when compassion for victims is needed, such as when a grown man says an eight-year-old girl was asking for it (a sexual assault).

The (judicial) system is set up in favor of the defendant, Ziglar maintained. Frequently for victims, there is nobody to protect them except for the commonwealths attorney.

Ziglar said she would waive the opportunity for a jury trial when she believes one would not be appropriate, such as when a case involves complicated legal matters that the average juror may not understand.

Youre not going to have anyone on a jury who understands the law without help from a lawyer, Gravely countered. If a lawyer or someone else with deep knowledge of the law is called for jury duty, more than likely that person is going to be struck from serving, he said.

Although it is possible for average people who serve on juries to gain understanding of legal concepts, a judge is able to understand and interpret the law with a little more ease, he said.

Gravely said he would ask for a jury trial when he thinks community input is needed in deciding a case.

Yet as a prosecutor, in deciding what type of a trial to seek, you have to know the case first in terms of understanding the issues involved, he said.
The decision to jail eight members of the Catalan government, and to issue an arrest warrant for the Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, along with a further four members of his government, is an unprecedented and very serious violation of basic democratic rights that has revived the Catalan independence movement.

It has led to justified anger in Catalonia and protests in the streets. What we are up against is the whole of the 1978 regime, which can only be defeated through sustained mass action, the strengthening and coordinating of the Committees for the Defence of the Republic, and a general strike.

On Thursday morning, all members of the Catalan government and all members of the presidency of the Catalan Parliament were summoned by Spanish tribunals on charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds for their part in the 1 October independence referendum and the declaration of the Catalan Republic on 27 October.

Members of the Catalan government and Parliament speakers were harassed on their arrival in Madrid on Wednesday night by a mob waving Spanish flags, which included the openly-Nazi Hogar Social, as well as other far-right organisations. The last few months have seen a marked increase in the activity of fascist gangs, which act like fish in the water in the midst of the state sponsored campaign of reactionary Spanish nationalism.

Jose Maza / Wikimedia Commons

Members of Catalan government have been sacked by the Spanish government under the Article 155 coup and so have no immunity. Their case will be heard at the National Court (Audiencia Nacional). The state prosecutor, Jose Manuel Maza asked for detention without bail for all of them. In court, eight members of the Catalan government, including Vice-President Oriol Junqueras, refused to answer any questions from the prosecutor, and only dealt with those from their own lawyers.

The exception was that of Santi Vila, who resigned from Catalan government in protest against the declaration of independence and has his own defence team (the same lawyers who defended the Spanish princess from charges of corruption). Santi Vila is the only one who agreed to answer questions from the prosecutor yesterday.

In a radio interview the day before he had openly declared that he had knowingly sabotaged the process towards a Catalan Republic for months. It is also public record that he always argued against breaking the law in any way (in effect attempting to prevent any steps forward. He is considered as a traitor by many, and the state prosecutor recommended he should be released on bail, which the judge set at 50,000 Euros. Vila is standing to be the candidate of Puigdemonts PDECAT party in the forthcoming Catalan elections on 21 December. He presents himself as the reasonable voice of moderation.

Dinar Santi Vila / Image: Wikimedia Commons

Catalan President Puigdemont and four other members of his government remain in Brussels, where they went on Monday, and did not turn up. Instead they requested to be interviewed by video-link. The state prosecutor asked the judge for an arrest warrant. Spanish papers reported last night that National Court judge Lamela, dealing with this case, had agreed to it and was preparing the warrant. The decision of judge Lamela to remand eight members of the government in custody pending trial vindicates Puigdemonts decision not to turn up.

After the decision of the judge, Maza argued that they could have avoided jail, had they declared that they would abide by the Constitution and abandoned the criminal line of the Catalan Republic. There you have it in black and white. Their crime according to the Spanish state is having dared to declare a Republic and actively worked for that purpose. The reason they are going to jail now, pending trial, is that they do not renounce their views. You cannot described them in any other way than political prisoners.

Carles Puigdemont / Image: Wikimedia Commons

Members of the Catalan parliament presidency (including Communist deputy Joan Josep Nuet) appeared in front of the Supreme Court, as they retain parliamentary immunity. The judge agreed to a request of another week to prepare their defence and allowed them to go without fixing any bail, though they will be under police protection. Their crime is having allowed the discussion in Parliament of motions regarding the declaration of an independent Catalan Republic. For the Spanish state the free discussion of political matters in a democratically elected parliament is a crime.

The charges

Crimes of rebellion and sedition, of which members of the government are indicted, were inherited without any modification from the 1944 Franco-era penal code. This fact tells you a lot about the real nature of the 1978 regime in Spain. The pact between the Franco regime and the leaders of the workers parties PCE and PSOE, included the wholesale adoption of the state apparatus and its many of its legal structures, which remain to this day. The National Court itself is the continuation of the old Public Order Tribunal of the Franco regime, which in turn had inherited functions from the Special Tribunal for the Repression of Masonry and Communism.

Judge Carmen Lamela is also in charge of the case against the Alsasua youth. A year ago there was a confrontation between off duty civil guards and a group of local youth in the town of Alsasua, Navarre. What was in effect a low key incident in which no-one was seriously injured was turned by judge Lamela and the state prosecutor into a case of terrorism! This despite the fact that ETA already announced it renounced armed struggle five years earlier, that the youth were not accused of belonging to ETA and that none of them were armed! No crime is too small for judge Lamela and the National Court. If the actions of unarmed youth in a bar can be turned into terrorism, imagine what she can do with people who have dared to challenge one of the principles of the 1978 regime: the sacred unity of the Spanish nation.

Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart / Image: Wikimedia Commons

Sedition implies a tumultuous mob preventing the action of the authorities or the implementation of the law. It carries a maximum jail sentence of 15 years. The leaders of the two largest pro-independence organisations, Jordi Sanchez from the Catalan National Assembly and Jordi Cuixart from the Omnium Cultural, have been charged with sedition in relation to the 20 September demonstrations. Then, tens of thousands attempted to prevent the arrest of 14 high ranking Catalan officials by the Spanish police and searches by the Civil Guard in a number of Catalan government buildings.

The crowds were peaceful and there were no clashes. Furthermore, the two Jordis acted to calm the crowds and attempted to guarantee the Civil Guards and court officials safe passage out of the building of the Economy Department. Far from encouraging a riotous mob, they attempted to calm it down! None of that matters to the Spanish state prosecutor and the National Court. They want to mete exemplary punishment so that no-one can get the impression that mass civil disobedience carries no consequence. The same National Court judge Lamela ruled they should be remanded in custody and they have now spent over a fortnight in jail.

Rebellion carries a maximum jail sentence of 30 years. The crime of rebellion implies "rising up in a violent and public manner". The fact that there has been no violent uprising in Catalonia did not deter the state prosecutor, nor judge Lamela who accepted these charges. State prosecutor Maza argued that the 1 October referendum on independence (called by the Catalan Parliament and outlawed by the Spanish state) constituted an uprising, and that rebellion does not necessarily imply "physical violence" if "the uprising is of such a scale that it has a sufficient capacity of intimidation to discourage action by security forces".

In other words what is on trial here is the exercise of the right of self-determination. In a sign of its vindictive character, it was revealed that the prosecutor had named the file with the indictment against the Catalan government "the harder they'll fall".

Also today, the National Court had summonsed the 12 members of rap collective La Insurgencia, for "glorifying terrorism" in their lyrics. This in a country where there are no active terrorist groups!

A massive response in the streets of Catalonia

At noon there have been rallies in town squares against these prosecutions. Hundreds have also welcomed members of the Catalan parliament back on their arrival in Barcelona in the afternoon. The Barcelona council has passed a motion recognising the legitimacy of the Catalan government and rejecting Article 155, though it has rejected another one recognising the Catalan republic.

When news of the judges decision to jail the 8 Catalan government members were announced there was an uproar of rage. Immediately people started to gather in the town squares. In Barcelona there were road blockades and thousands marched to the Parliament building where there was an impromptu rally. The leaders of the ANC and Omnium spoke as well as leaders of the CUP, Podem and other organisations. The idea of a the need for a general strike emerged from the rally.

One of the CUP members of Parliament, Albert Botran received a massive ovation when he spoke of the need to repeat the 3 October strike, one, two, three, four, many times. People remember the impressive general strike and civic stoppage of 3 October against repression and the power that was revealed on that day.

Albert Botran / Image: Wikimedia Commons

Tens of thousands gathered in other towns and cities, in Rubi, Cornella, Olot, Vic, Reus, Tarragona, Lleida, Girona, Sabadell and many more. In Torredembarra 300 people cut off the main roads leading to the town. The movement was semi-spontaneous and was followed by a very loud session of banging of pots and pans at 10pm.

A press conference has been called for today, Friday 3 November, to call for a general strike next week. Universities for the Republic has called for a student strike and rallies in all campus at noon. More mobilisations will certainly follow. The original call from the ANC for a mass demonstration on Sunday 12 November will prove to be too little too late.

After the way in which the Catalan government did nothing after the Republic was proclaimed a week ago, now people want to go out into the streets and fight for it, not just for the release of the political prisoners, which is what has sparked this new wave of the movement.

The 21 December election

In a certain way, the decision of the prosecutor and the judge has thrown the plans of the ruling class into disarray. They hoped to smash the movement through judicial repression and the application of Article 155 and then quickly move to the 21 December election where they thought they would get a substantial unionist majority. Opinion polls so far show that would not be the case. The polls predict a renewed majority for the pro-independence parties and a substantial majority for independence.

What is clear is that the jailing of the Catalan government members has strengthened the camp of those who want a Catalan Republic, not the other way round. The decision has also increased the contradictions within the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), where a number of prominent local mayors had already issued a statement rejecting Article 155 (which the party fully backs). Now the mayor of Terrassa (the second largest Catalan city the party rules) has resigned as a mayor and torn the party card. It is not ruled out that further down the line, if the Spanish state is facing a defeat, they might take further measures to illegalise some parties or lists, or prevent them from standing on a program, which is against the Constitution.

These polls should be taken with caution as it is not even clear which parties will be standing and what coalitions or fronts will be formed. There has been a call from the ANC and Omnium for a joint pro-independence list, which could turn the elections into a de facto referendum on independence. Others have called for a broad front for democracy and against Article 155. There are also talks about the possibility of a joint slate involving the anti-capitalist CUP, the centre left ERC (which would break from its current partners, the bourgeois nationalist PDECAT) and Podem.

This has already led to a major rift within Podemos. The national leadership has been at loggerheads with the Catalan leadership of Podem for many months. First, members in Catalonia rejected a botched attempt at forcing them into a coalition with ICV-EUIA and Ada Colaus BEC to form the new Catalunya en Comu formation.

While opposing independence, the secretary of Podem, Albano Dante-Fachin, has been very principled in defending the right of self-determination through participation in the referendum and has build close, comradely links with the ranks of the left-wing independence organisations. The leadership of Podemos resents his independence. Their position is extremely opportunistic and their organisational methods very bureaucratic. While formally in favour of self-determination, they opposed the 1 October referendum (as it had no guarantees) and Pablo Iglesias said that if he were Catalan he would not participate. When they forced an electronic ballot of Podem members, they were rebuffed when over 7,000 turned out and voted by a wide margin to participate in the referendum.

Albano Dante Fachin / Image: Wikimedia Commons

Now they are in a hurry to back Catalunya en Comu and want to force Podem into it. The Podem leadership has argued, correctly, that these are not normal elections, taking place as a result of the Article 155 coup against Catalan institutions, and that they would open talks with all the formations, which defended the protest strike against repression on 3 October.

For the Pablo Iglesias leadership, even talking to pro-independence parties is anathema, as they think that would be a vote loser in the rest of Spain. Albano has replied that one has to stand for principles and then attempt to convince the public, rather than change ones principles according to suit opinion polls. Podemos has now by-passed the Catalan leadership and started an online consultation of its members with a loaded question, which gives no other option than joining Catalunya en Comu. It can still backfire.

A common front of all those who want a Catalan Republic, which breaks not only with the 1978 regime but also with capitalist austerity and cuts, would certainly get massive support. PDECAT is now extremely discredited even in the pro-independence camp. Many have realised, through practical experience, that its leaders either did not want to go all the way or their strategy (appeals to the EU) was completely hopeless.

Pablo Iglesias / Image: Wikimedia Commons

Marxists have the duty of standing in solidarity with all those jailed today by Spanish courts on charges, which amount to an assault on democratic rights and, which reveal the very limited nature of the 1978 regimes bourgeois democracy. It doesn't really matter that many of them are bourgeois politicians whose policies we fundamentally oppose. They are not charged for those, but rather for standing for the basic democratic right of self-determination. This does not mean we support them at all. We defend them from repression by the Spanish regime, but we reserve the right to criticise them (sharply) for their anti-working class policies and their inconsistency in defending national rights.

The Spanish left fails the test

The position taken by the Spanish left (Podemos and United Left alike) on this question has been scandalous. Both organisations start from the point of view of Spanish unity. Not even the unity of the working-class, but the unity of Spain as such, which is basically the same position as that of the Spanish ruling class. Of course, they oppose the implementation of Article 155, but in most of their statements they put Article 155 on par with the Catalan unilateral declaration of independence: both are irresponsible decisions, which should be reversed, so dialogue and talks can take place. One cannot equate the actions of an oppressed nation attempting to exercise its right to self-determination and the actions of an oppressor nation using the courts, parliament and the police to prevent it by force!

The duty of the Spanish left is to attack their own ruling class, the corrupt, undemocratic and anti-working class 1978 regime. They should also unconditionally defend the right of Catalonia to freely decide her own future and if the Catalan parliament declares a Catalan Republic they should defend it. If they want to convince the people of Catalonia to keep their links with the rest of the working people of Spain, they should energetically defend a Federal Republic and fight, in the streets, to bring down the monarchy and the whole rotten regime (not limit themselves to once a year statements on 14 April, Republic day).

The bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalists in the Catalan government should and must be criticised, but not for being irresponsible in proposing a Catalan Republic, but rather for not being serious enough about it and having a strategy that cannot achieve their stated aims.

When faced with the jailing of eight Catalan government ministers, Alberto Garzon said the decision was regrettable, disproportionate and not democracy. That is all well and good, but it is not enough. The decision is not regrettable, but rather a scandalous assault on democratic rights. He should have said these people were political prisoners and immediately call for mass mobilisations throughout the Spanish state, explaining that this attack is an attack on democracy in general.

Alberto Garzon / Image: Wikimedia Commons

Pablo Iglesias for his part said he was ashamed that in my country oppositionists are jailed and added we say free political prisoners. This is better, but then it was marred by an official statement by Podemos, in which the organisation said that all of this worsens the conflict and the guilty party are irresponsible arsonists, which only achieve the breakup of Spain. Basically they put themselves in the camp of Spanish nationalism but they disagree with the methods of the regime.

Worse than that, the statement laments the breakup of the consensus reached in 1978 and the constitutional pacts reached by all Spaniards. This is scandalous for a party, which was born out of the idea of breaking with the padlock of the 1978 regime! The 1978 Constitution was based precisely on the denial of the right of self-determination. It was the old regime, the King and the army, who wrote Article 2 of the Spanish constitution for that very purpose. This is the reason why the struggle of a Catalan Republic is progressive inasmuch as it questions the whole edifice built in 1978 as a result of the betrayal of the leaders of the Communist and Socialist parties.

How to take the movement forward

It is clear that there is now a very angry mood in Catalonia, which will be revealed in the next few days and into next week in a yet another eruption of the mass movement. The comrades of Revolucio (the IMT in Catalonia) issued a leaflet last night calling for a mass movement for the release of political prisoners and to defeat Article 155. They argue for a general strike and above all for the strengthening of the Committees for the Defence of the Republic (which keep growing and now number 172).

3 October mobilisation in Barcelona / Image: Wikimedia Commons

The only way to achieve a Catalan Republic is by revolutionary means. Institutional combinations, appeals to the international community and back door talks with the Spanish state have failed. In his speech on Tuesday from Brussels, Puigdemont made it clear that the Catalan government had ruled out open resistance against the application of Article 155 because that would have led to a renewed wave of repression by the state. In fact, people were prepared to fight. Workers in education, civil servants, journalists in Catalan state media, all had issued clear statements rejecting Article 155. People were waiting for a lead and none came.

The leaders of the government want the 21 December elections to become the main battle ground. In reality, the main advances of the movement have taken place through mass action in the streets and direct defiance of the state (on 20 September, the 1 October referendum and the 3 October strike). That is the only way forward. For that to be possible the bourgeois politicians of PDECAT (who would come fourth if there were elections today, with only 10 percent of the vote) must be overtaken by a more radical leadership based on the workers, the youth and the petty bourgeois masses, those who put their bodies on the line on 1 October to make sure the referendum would go ahead.
On 30 October we reported that the Spanish daily El Pais had published a review of the new edition of Trotsky's biography of Stalin (available at WellRed Books). The review appeared prominently in the popular Sunday supplement of El Pais, which is read by millions of people worldwide. Today we are pleased to present an English-language translation.

The author of the article, Bernardo Marin, deputy editor of El Pais, interviewed the editor of www.marxist.com, Alan Woods, who reassembled and edited the new edition  as well as Esteban Volkov, the grandson of Leon Trotsky. El Pais is the largest-circulation printed paper in Spain and the first online newspaper in Spanish in the world with over 11 million unique readers every month.

The article was also printed in the Portuguese language edition of the paper. It has aroused a lot of interest, which is shown by the fact that it was the article in that edition of the paper that people took most time to read. Since its publication there has been a noticeable increase in orders for the book from people in Spain and other countries.

The Spanish edition of this important work, containing a large amount of material that has never been published before, is approaching completion and is due to be launched in meetings in Madrid, Barcelona and Vitoria in the last week of November, when it will be presented to the public by Alan Woods. It can be obtained from the publishers, Editorial Lucha de Clases.

Next week Alan will be in Mexico where he will launch the Mexican edition of Stalin (by Fontamara) as part of a series of meetings organized by Esteban Volkov and the Trotsky Museum to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the October Revolution.

The original Spanish-language article can be found here. We would like to thank Bernardo Marin and El Pais for granting permission for the republication of this article.

In Defence of Marxism

Portrait of my killer

Stalin's  largely unpublished  biography was being written by Trotsky when he was assassinated at the behest of the subject of the biography.

Stalin had fun in his country house, slaughtering sheep or pouring kerosene in the anthills and setting them on fire. Kamenev told me that in his Saturday leisure visits to Zubalovka, Stalin walked through the woods and continually amused himself by shooting wild animals and scaring the local population. Such stories about him, coming from independent observers, are numerous. And yet, there is no shortage of people with these kinds of sadistic tendencies in the world. Special historical conditions were necessary before these dark instincts found such a monstrous expression.

These words are part of a unique biography. Unique because of the significance of its protagonists: two of the most prominent figures of the Russian Revolution, facing each other in one of the most bitter rivalries of the twentieth century. And because the profile remained unfinished after the portrayed ordered the death of his biographer. Stalin, the work that Leon Trotsky was writing when he was murdered by Ramon Mercader in Mexico in August 1940, has remained dormant for more than seven decades. And after many vicissitudes, mutilations and additions, it again sees the light in a volume of almost a thousand pages  largely never-before published  coinciding with the centenary of the Bolsheviks' rise to power.

The history of this book deserves the publication of another to tell it. Trotsky, exiled in Mexico after being denied asylum in several countries, knew he had been placed under sentence of death by the leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin. But he had no particular interest in writing about the life of his old comrade. "It was not out of revenge. Writing this biography did not fit into grandpa's plans. He was focused on finishing another [biography] of Lenin," explains Esteban Volkov, grandson of the revolutionary, in a telephone conversation from Mexico City, where he resides. "But he needed money and Harper & Brothers in New York made him a generous offer."

Bulletholes from assassination attempt at Trotsky's Mexican home / Image: Wikimedia Commons

Volkov, about to turn 92, has been the guardian of his grandfather's memory for decades. He is also director of the Leon Trotsky House Museum, within whose walls the revolutionary was assassinated in August 1940 by a piolet [ice-pick] blow, delivered by the Stalinist agent, Ramon Mercader. The Spanish version of the book, published by the Mexican publisher Fontamara, will be launched in this same setting on the 11th; coinciding with the anniversary of the October Revolution that, due to differences between the Gregorian and Julian calendars, happened in November for the rest of the world. The work was published a year ago in English by a Marxist publishing house in London and was later translated into Italian and Portuguese, but the news of the publication had no impact on the mainstream media.

Harper & Brothers published an incomplete version of the book in English in 1946. Prior to this, publication was impossible, because the US and the Soviet Union were allies against Germany. But Trotsky's widow, Natalia Sedova, sued the publisher in court, without success, in an attempt to have the book withdrawn. Her objections were addressed, above all, against the editor and translator of the work. "He produced a deficient edition of the book, with mutilations and multiple additions of his own far removed from my grandfather's political thought," explains Volkov. Trotsky himself never had much confidence in his translator, and had a fit of rage when he learned that he had shown some originals to third parties. "He seems to have at least three qualities: that he does not know Russian, that he does not know English and that he is tremendously pretentious," he wrote in a letter to US journalist Joseph Hansen.

But part of the work never reached the publisher's hands. When he realised he was sentenced to death, Trotsky sent many of his documents to Harvard University in the United States for safekeeping. "The archives leave this morning by train," the revolutionary wrote on 17 July 1940, one month and three days before his murder. And there, 20,000 documents were accumulated, comprising of 172 boxes of articles, photographs and manuscript papers  typed, translated and untranslated  with a large number of corrections that showed how extraordinarily meticulous he was with his work.

Entire chapters of the book thus remained dormant until in 2003, when the Welsh historian Alan Woods began to dig into the mountain of documents to rescue the broadest and fullest possible version of the book [small correction: it was Rob Sewell, editor of Socialist Appeal (UK paper of the IMT), who obtained these documents from Harvard. Both he and Woods worked together on the book, with Woods serving as the main translator]. And after more than ten years of labour, the result was a work a third longer than the book published in the 40s, without the additions of the first translator and, now, with the blessings of Trotsky's family.

Woods agrees with Volkov that Trotsky did not want to write this book. "But once he got to it, he did it conscientiously, with a lot of documentation and details of even the most unknown period of Stalin's life, his childhood. For any reader it is a fascinating psychological study, " he explains from London, where he resides. The historian is an active member of the International Marxist Tendency. He participated in the struggle against the Franco regime in Spain and was a strong supporter of the Bolivarian revolution and a personal friend of Hugo Chavez, although in recent times he has distanced himself from the drift of the Venezuelan government.

Alan Woods with Stalin biography / Image: Marxist.com

The leaders of the Bolshevik Party were generally very capable people, and among them shone Trotsky, who mastered five languages and wrote several books at once. Stalin appears instead portrayed by his great political rival as a man of limited horizons. This mediocre profile coincides with that of other observers, such as the American journalist John Reed, who in his chronicle Ten Days that Shook the World mentions The Man of Steel only twice and Trotsky no less than 67 times.

But, from what is told in the book now presented, Stalin did possess qualities of cunning and the art of manipulation:

"Stalin's technique consisted in gradually advancing step by step towards the position of dictator, while representing the role of a modest defender of the Central Committee and collective leadership. He thoroughly used Lenin's period of illness to promote individuals who were devoted to him. He took advantage of every situation, of every political circumstance, of any combination of people to promote his own advancement that would help him in his struggle for power and achieve his desire to dominate others. If he could not rise to their intellectual height, he could provoke a conflict between two stronger competitors. He elevated the art of manipulating personal or group antagonisms to new heights. In this field he developed an almost infallible instinct."

However, Woods does not attribute Stalin's rise to power to his character. "He was a child abused by his father, spiteful and with sadistic tendencies. But not all the abused become monsters. As not all unsuccessful artists become Hitler." And he proposes a Marxist argument to explain his rise. "In all revolutions there is a period that needs heroes, giants. When you reach a period of decline, you need the mediocre. The bureaucratic degeneration would have taken place with or without Stalin, because Russia was an isolated and backward country. But in this case the bureaucracy was embodied in a bloodthirsty character."

Could the book have accelerated the murder? Stalin was very well informed of what his rival was doing. Every morning he had Trotsky's latest articles on his desk. And Volkov recalls how Robert Sheldon Harte, bodyguard of his grandfather to whom is attributed the betrayal that facilitated a first attack against him in May 1940, was always asking him about the progress of the work. "Like any criminal, he had to eliminate witnesses," Woods agrees.

BLOOD ON PAPER

by Jorge F. Hernandez

The most transcendental biography of Joseph Vissarionovich, sadly still celebrated by some by his nickname, Stalin, is a meticulous portrait of the diabolical Russian dictator in 890 pages, written by no other than Leon Davidovich Bronstein, who we know as Trotsky. It seems incredible that the publication in English a year ago has not produced headlines, a stir in the networks or a series of reviews. We live in a state of amnesia, which some seem to believe can be quenched in the space of 140 characters. At least two generations only know of Leon Trotsky from films, postcards and coffee mugs and other products circulating since Frida Kahlo became a registered trademark.

The immense biography, signed by one of the main leaders of the Russian Revolution, surgically deconstructs the incredible dementia of a bloodthirsty traitor of that same revolution: an animal who would seem inconceivable were it not for thousands of documents, photographs (even those altered for the sake of History ), testimonies, survivors of the purges, castaways of the Gulag, redeemed outlaws and repentant followers who even from the first Bolshevik triumph left a record of their trail of misfortunes and constant compendium of crimes. Among the paragraphs that Trotsky outlined during his tireless exile in his fragile fortress of Coyoacan, the papers that would be his gravestone were on the table, whose writing was interrupted as soon as Ramon Mercader buried his mountaineers piolet in the authors skull.

Trotsky struggled with the assassin, knowing that his executioner was smiling in the Kremlin and perhaps during his agony he thought that at least a large part of the scrupulous biography of his executioner  and that of most of his family, of millions of human beings and of not a few utopian illusions  were almost finished. He had agreed to write it for the sizable payment promised by an American publisher, whose translator went on to mis-translate, edit and even amend and add paragraphs of his own. That has been corrected and we now have the publication of a portrait of the Devil made in prose on papers...stained with blood.

ESTEBAN VOLKOV: "ONE OF STALIN'S MAJOR CRIMES WAS TO MUTILATE HISTORICAL MEMORY"

B.M

Esteban Volkov (Yalta, then Soviet Union, 1926), grandson of Leon Trotsky and heir to his legacy, is preparing in these days events to commemorate the centenary of the Russian Revolution in Mexico City, where he presides over the House Museum in which his grandfather was killed. There he arrived in 1939 to accompany Trotsky in his exile when he was just a teenager, after his father disappeared in the Gulag and his mother died following harassment by Stalin's assassins. He was wounded in the foot in an attack organised by the painter David Alfaro Siqueiros, to end the life of the revolutionary in May 1940 and a few months later he witnessed the agony of his grandfather after being attacked by Ramon Mercader. Despite the terrible events that he has witnessed, he maintains a serene spirit and an enviable mood, and at 91 years of age he says he hopes to live many more years "to compensate for all the years that Stalin stole from his family".

Esteban Volkov / Image: fair use

You have devoted a large part of your life and energy to defend the memory of your grandfather. What has moved you to do it?

I witnessed his murder and the slander and defamation campaign against him from the Stalinist press. Lies that were repeated a thousand and one times, to try to turn them into truths. One of Stalin's greatest crimes has been to mutilate historical memory. If it is a crime to give a false map to an explorer who is going to enter the Amazon, giving false maps to humanity is an even more serious crime. Leaving the human race with a blindfold over its eyes, while travelling amongst deep chasms, is one of the worst crimes that can be committed.

What is the value of publishing Trotskys biography of Stalin so many years later?

It was not the book that my grandfather wanted to write, and he did it because of the economic difficulties. But it is very interesting, because it was written at a time of Trotskys great political maturity and relates the environment in which a man with the characteristics of Stalin, who falls below the ethical standards of anyone, can come to power. There is no doubt that he was a sui generis individual, possessing a cruelty that has seldom been seen in history. Characters like Nero or Attila look small by comparison. And that's why he possibly accelerated the death sentence he had issued against my grandfather when he learned that his biography was being written.

What remains of Trotsky's thought one hundred years after the Russian Revolution?

My grandfather left an arsenal of political ideas to change society. To build a world that cares about human beings and not greed. He studied thoroughly the Stalinist regime and the counterrevolution. And he predicted 70 years in advance the fall of bureaucratic totalitarianism in the Soviet Union.
CHICAGO, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- U.S. federal agents have expanded a corruption investigation first targeted at labor leaders in Fiat Chrysler to General Motors and Ford, the Detroit News revealed on Thursday.

After filing corruption charges against a former Fiat Chrysler labor executive and the wife of a late union vice president, FBI investigators have issued subpoenas in recent weeks for information about training centers financed by GM and Ford.

Several representatives of the United Automobile Workers (UAW), the biggest trade union in automobile sector in North America, are accused of participating in a 4.5-million-U.S.-dollar scheme that siphoned corporate training funds earmarked for blue-collar workers.

The training programs are operated jointly with the union, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

In an exclusive report, the Detroit News said the ongoing investigation is focused on whether training funds were misappropriated and if labor leaders at GM and Ford also received illegal benefits.

A similar scandal was first exposed when a former Fiat Chrysler labor executive and the wife of a deceased union leader were accused and formally indicted this summer for conspiring in a scheme that drained large amount of money from union training center funds.

It led to concerns in the U.S. society that big automakers might try to buy labor peace by corrupting union leaders.
Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

Best Of Mass Grinders contest results

Today we announce the results of the Best Of Mass Grinders contest! Food editor Sarah Platanitis traveled to eight much-loved places, nominated by readers. We found some great places to get a hearty meal and get provisions for your own kitchen. All the places were so different and we could see why they were favorites. Dont forget to visit the places and see for yourself!

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

Western Mass. contest results

There were four finalists in the the Best Of Mass Grinders Western Mass. contest (in alphabetical order): Frigo's Gourmet Foods in Springfield, Red Rose Pizzeria in Springfield, Richard's Grinders in West Springfield and Pajer's Superette in Agawam.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

Fourth place: Richard's Grinders

Richards Grinders & Catering is located at 420 Union Street in West Springfield

Richards Grinders in West Springfield is located right near Gate 9 of The Big E fairgrounds. Bread has come from Venetian Bakery for the past 47 years and local providers are Performance Food Group and Restaurant Depot in Chicopee. The most popular grinders here are the Boston Special Italian Cold Cut and a spicy Super Deluxe Cold Cut. The Deluxe Club also comes with roast beef or turkey with bacon.

The menu is budget friendly and has good value for portion sizes (8-inch, 12-inch and 16-inch). You can get a combo of an 8-inch grinder, chips and soda for around $8. Theres even a 4-inch grinder option with soup or salad for under $6. Still hungry? There are take-away pasta dinners with house meat sauce, lasagna, salads, daily soup specials plus a variety of drinks, chips, brownies, cookies, cheesecake.

We tried and liked the Boston Special Italian Cold Cut the best. Tomatoes were good and lettuce was crisp. It probably would have been best to skip the pickles and go for more bacon. Meat is hearty and bread is standard. Its a good grinder for a fast meal at a quick lunch place.

Theres a dining area to sit and eat. West Springfield staff friendly and the deli takes all credit cards at the counter. Plenty of parking and public bathrooms are available.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

History of Richard's Grinders (video)

Richard's Grinders owner Chris Cleland tells the story of his family's grinder shop.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

Third place: Red Rose Pizzeria

Red Rose Pizzeria is located at 1060 Main Street in Springfield.

Red Rose Pizzeria is known for, well, its pizza. There are grinders on the menu and theyre usually raved about by MassLive staffers.

Ingredients are a collaboration of house and local. Bread is from Tougias Baking Company and sausages are made by Milanos Importing down the street. Veal, eggplant and meatballs are prepared fresh daily. In fact, meatballs are baked throughout the day to keep up with demand. Sauce is made with Italian peeled whole tomatoes with puree and a mix of spices. Veggies are sliced fresh each morning and cold cuts are imported from Cara Donna Provision in Boston.

You can order a grinder and eat heartily for under $9. Kitchen manager Nicholas Malafronte said a 12-inch grinder can feed a hungry person or be enough to take home for lunch the next day.

We tried the meatball grinder, which was toasted to perfection with fresh mozzarella and the right amount of sauce. The cold cut grinder added flavorful house peppers and the veg was crunchy. Just enough mayo but wished the bread was toasted. (Which, as we learned later, you can ask for when you are placing your order.)

Customers are regulars from all walks of life, especially families who have visited for years and are on a first name basis with the staff. Reservations are recommended on weekends. Plenty of places to sit, including tables that can seat up to 12 people. All credit cards are taken except Discover. Dont let construction scare you away, theres parking in the back and across the street in lots guarded by attendants.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

Making a meatball grinder at Red Rose Pizzeria (video)

Red Rose Pizzeria Kitchen Manager Nicholas Malafonte shows how they prepare their meatball grinder.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

Second place: Frigo's Gourmet Foods

Frigo's Gourmet Foods is located at 90 William Street in Springfield.

Frigo's Gourmet Foods is a South End mainstay. The William Street shop has been open since 1955.

The bread comes from a combinations of Mercolinos Bakery on East Columbus Avenue and a bakery in Staten Island, New York. They make their own meatballs and sausage, and use importers in Boston and NYC to get the best quality prosciutto, speck hams and soppressata.

Theres plenty of food for all tastes and time needs: grab-and-go options, quick paninos with prosciutto, basil, mozzarella and olive oil on artisan breads, carved prime rib, a deli case filled to the brim with sides, cheeses and sweets. There are many beverage choices and, of course, the homemade potato chips. Need something specific for a rustic Italian recipe? Check out the stores market of imported groceries, olive oils, wine and more.

You can get a decent lunch for $10. Grinders can be adjusted to fit sub rolls, large half Vienna loaves and smaller water rolls.

We tried the Italian Cold Cut grinder, with mortadella, Genoa salami, imported ham, capicola and provolone cheese. The bread had a nice crust and the ample serving of meats and cheese tasted fresh and werent overly heavy. Joe Frigo also made the popular Dirty Italian, which had a hot kick to it and was quite flavorsome.

There are places to sit inside and outside on the sidewalk. They take all credit cards, have a parking lot and an attentive staff.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

Making a 'Dirty Italian' grinder at Frigo's (video)

Making a "Dirty Italian" grinder at Frigo's Gourmet Foods, located at 90 William Street in Springfield.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

First place: Pajer's Superette

Pajers Superette is located at 400 Cooper Street in Agawam.

Pajers Superette in Agawam opened in 1955 and not much has changed since. Its old school in its approach to business: great food, good value and happy customers that span generations.

Their bread is from Mercolinos Bakery in Springfield. Meats, cheeses and oils are ordered from Carando Gourmet with other ingredients trucked in by Napoli Foods.

The cold cut grinder is their most popular, and comes with with ham, salami, mortadella, Genoa salami and a secret ingredient. The homemade meatballs made daily are a mix of beef and pork from Chicopee Provision plus a family blend of spices. Aside from the deli, with many Italian specialties, there are coolers with house-made take-away items like soups, pasta, lasagna, and Ziti Ferruccio, the shops signature pasta dish.

You can get a hearty lunch for less than $10 here. There is easily one-pound of meat in each grinder plus fresh lettuce and tomato. Owner Fred Pajer shared that they dont put extra add-ons because they want customers to taste the layers of meats and cheeses. Portion sizes cant be beat. A large grinder measures around 18 inches and a small is half that.

We had the meatball grinder, which had a great texture and the sauce was excellent. The cold cut grinder had fresh vegetables and a hearty amount of meats. The rolls were plush.

Theres a lunch crowd with a fast line and customers have been known to drive an hour to the tiny shop just to buy cheese and sausages. There is parking in the front and back of store but no places to sit and eat (unless youre up for a tailgate picnic, for which these grinders are perfectly suited). Cash only and no ATM. Friendly staff that will greet you by name once they know it.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

A tour of Pajer's Superette in Agawam (video)

Pajer's Superette owner Fred Pajer gives a tour of the tiny market deli that has been located in Agawam since 1955. The market originally opened in Springfield's South End in 1931. It had to move because it was in the path of the I-91 Highway.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

Western Mass. People's Choice: Frigo's

Frigo Gourmet Foods, located at 90 William Street in Springfield, was a finalist in the Best Of Mass Grinders contest.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

Worcester contest results

There were four finalists in the Best Of Mass Grinders Worcester contest (in alphabetical order): Belsito's Deli in Worcester, Bushel N Peck in Worcester, Regatta Deli in Worcester, Steve's Pizzeria in West Boylston,

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

Fourth place: Steve's Pizzeria

Steves Pizzeria is located at 337 West Boylston Street in West Boylston.

Steves Pizzeria is a family-owned pizza shop that is also known for its grinders.

The shop's bread currently comes from Mazzarellis Bakery in Milford. Before that, they used only Widoffs until the bakery closed last year. Ingredients come from a few different distributers, like Costas Provisions, Midtown Meats, Reinhart in New Bedford and Larues in Holden.

Italian cold cut and meatball are the most popular grinders here. Theres an oven roast beef grinder that is prized for the hours it takes to get the tenderness just right. Owner Steve Paskalis says about 80 percent of what is one the menu is made in house. Thirsty customers can get soda and water or take their pick of beer and wine selections.

You can get a small cold cut grinder with with chips and a drink for around $10. They offer 9-inch and 12-inch rolls plus tortilla wraps, Syrian wraps and bulkie rolls. Paskalis said most of what they sell are grinders.

We tried the Italian cold cut grinder. The sandwich was thick and filled with lots of meat. It was a bit salty but the vegetables were crisp and the tomato was good. The bread had a soft texture.

This place is cash-only but theres an ATM on site. Many places to sit, ample parking and an efficient staff.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

On Customers and family at Steve's Pizzeria (video)

Steve Paskalis, second generation owner of Steve's Pizzeria in West Boylston, talks about customers through the years and what it's like to work with his father.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

Third place: Bushel N Peck

Bushel N Peck is located at 643 Chandler Street in Worcester.

Bushel N Peck on Chandler Street has been open for over 30 years. The small chain now has four locations but began as a spot for college kids at Worcester State and workers from all walks of life.

The company's bread is from Cohens Bakery in Worcester. Other ingredients come from Midtown Meats, Sysco and farmers markets during the summer. Bushel N Peck partners with local vendors for spices and Polar Beverages for drinks. They are collaborating with Bean Counter Bakery for an exclusively made creme brulee cheesecake and gluten-free products.

You can get a grinder, soda and chips for around $7. The Italian cold cut grinder is most popular, in addition to other creative and classic sandwiches. The deli case is filled with many prepared items, from meatloaf and shepherds pie to pasta dishes and chicken kebabs.

We tried the Italian cold cut. The lettuce and tomato were OK. Bread was dense. People really like this place and lines may seem daunting. Rest assured, they go fast and youll get an affordable, quick and homemade meal.

The Bushel N Peck location we visited has a narrow dining area and counters for dining in options. The parking lot is small and busy with cars. The shop takes all credit cards.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

Second place: Regatta Deli

Regatta Deli is located at 28 Lake Avenue in Worcester.

Joanne Prizio, owner of Regatta Deli, didnt expect her idea to serve everybody would take off. The deli that opened in 1981 on Lake Street grew as the years did. Theyve served city workers, UMass doctors, research engineers at Biotech Park and many athletes. Tennis champion Martina Navatrilova and Red Sox right fielder Dwight Evans have gotten grinders here.

The deli gets their bread from a commercial bakery in Worcester and handpicks ingredients for labor-intensive food prep. Nothing from a bag here, said manager Angela Prizio Demake. They purchase from Gibsons Dairy, Midtown Meats and get their Albanian leeks special from Berberian Farm.

The Regatta Club is the most popular sandwich, filled with Genoa salami, imported ham, provolone, lettuce, tomato and onion plus oil and a special blend of seasoning on a half loaf. Grab-and-go foods are available, like salads, pasta, lasagna, grape leaves, kibbeh, spinach and leek pies and homemade soups. Meatballs are made daily and they roll their own phyllo dough.

We tried the Steak and Cheese Bomb, filled with shaved steak, peppers, onions and mushrooms. It was incredibly good. The Chicken Caesar Wrap was okay. It made us wish we had gotten the Regatta Club instead. Well definitely go back for one, though.

For $8.50 plus tax, you'll get a grinder, chips and 20 oz. Snapple. They take all credit cards except American Express. Theres outside seating at Lake Ave. location and on street parking and a small parking lot. The Westboro location has more seating options and a private parking lot. Staff is very friendly but be prepared to know what you want when the lines are long.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

Making a Steak and Cheese Bomb at Regatta Deli (video)

Want to know how to make Regatta Deli's Steak & Cheese Bomb Grinder? Take a look then try to make one at home.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

First place: Belsito's Deli

Belsitos Deli is located at 305 Plantation Street in Worcester.

Owner Ken Belsito arrives at his diminutive deli at 7 a.m. to prep for the day ahead. This is the place that uses grandmas tried and true recipes and family grows up working here.

Belsito's bread is brought in from a Northborough Bakery each morning. Cold cuts are imported and whole wheels of cheese are cut down each day. Meatballs are made daily. Eggplant is breaded each morning. Theres no freezer, so all items are fresh. Homemade soup is available in the colder months, they have Polar products to support their fellow local business and theres a pantry of imported Italian goods.

The signature grinder here is meatball. Italian cold cut is the most popular because its quick, easy and made to order. Regulars know the days of the week when Uncle Lous Steak Bomb is available and that, every Wednesday, the lines are longer because its Chicken Parmesan day. People drive hours on Saturdays to pick up pre-ordered sausages in medium, sweet and hot flavors. Meatballs and sauce can also be order ahead.

We tried the Italian cold cut grinder with imported ham, Genoa salami, capicola, provolone, lettuce, tomatoes and onions. The bread was perfectly crusty. Veggies were crisp and the tomatoes were very good. We can vouch that the meatball grinder is killer.

A cold cut grinder, drink and chips will run you about $8. Its good-sized and shareable. This deli is cash only but an ATM is available on site. Enough places to park and a few tables and chairs inside to eat or play a game of Keno. Ask the approachable staff about the history of the location.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

Worcester's People's Choice: Regatta Deli

Regatta Deli, located at 28 Lake Avenue in Worcester, was a finalist for the Best Of Mass Grinders Worcester contest.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

Who had the best meatball grinder in Western Mass.?

A Red Rose meatball grinder hot from the oven. Red Rose, located at 1060 Main Street in Springfield, was a finalist in the Best Of Mass Grinders contest.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

Who had the best meatball grinder in Worcester?

A meatball grinder from Belsito's Deli, located at 305 Plantation Street in Worcester. The deli was a finalist for the Best Of Mass Grinders contest in Worcester.

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Sarah Platanitis | splatani@masslive.com

Best Of Mass for 2016!

Keep up with the latest Best Of Mass contests at masslive.com/bestofmass. What contests would you like to see in 2016? Tell us in the comments below.
HOLYOKE -- At her inauguration Friday as the fourth person, and the first woman, to serve as president of Holyoke Community College, Christina Royal recalled arriving for her first semester in college.

From a family of modest means, she thought she was all set for her first two semesters at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, between a scholarship, grants, student loans and a job. Then she found out she needed $400 worth of books.

"We just didn't have it," Royal told the audience of more than 200 who attended the ceremony Friday morning at the college. "We didn't realize that we would have to pay separately for textbooks, every semester, or how costly they would be."

Improving college affordability and access, helping more students complete their degrees and closing achievement gaps separating demographic groups are the goals of the state's public colleges, said Carlos E. Santiago, state commissioner of higher education. The same is true for Royal, who came to Holyoke Community College in January from Inver Hills Community College in Minnesota.

William Messner, the college's third president, retired in August 2016 after serving 12 years. Messner succeeded David Bartley, who served from 1975-2003, and George Frost, who served from 1946-75 and was the school's founding president.

Royal singled out Bartley, also a former speaker of the state House of Representatives, in her remarks. She recalled meeting with Bartley soon after getting the job. The meeting felt to her like another intense interview, despite her already having been hired, Royal said.

At the end Bartley, who was in attendance Friday, told her: "You will do good work here."

She asked: "How do you know?"

She said Bartley replied: "Because you said you listen and you care about students."

State Rep. Aaron Vega, D-Holyoke, told of seeing Royal at scores of community events from gatherings of business leaders to a friendly competition at a farmers market cook-off.

"And you aren't even running for office," Vega said. "You already have the job."

Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse said Royal could have sought jobs elsewhere in the country, but she chose Holyoke because of the challenges and the opportunities present here.

With about 8,200 students, Holyoke Community College is either in the midst of or has recently completed a number of improvements and expansions.

The Holyoke Community College Center of Health Education opened on Jarvis Avenue in 2014. A new culinary center in the Cubit building downtown opens next month, as does a gaming school for training casino workers run in cooperation with Springfield Technical Community College and MGM Springfield.

Workers are also renovating the student center and life sciences building as part of a $43.5 million renovation project.

Royal has a doctorate in education from Capella University and a master's degree in educational psychology and a bachelor's degree in math from Marist. She joined Inver Hills Community College in 2013. Prior to that she served as associate vice president for e-learning and innovation at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland and director of technology-assisted learning for the School of Graduate and Continuing Education for Marist College, according to her offical biography.

She has also worked as the director of curriculum for The Beacon Institute of Learning and was the manager of research and development at CompUSA.

She grew up near Albany, New York.
Harvey Weinstein, who has been accused of sexual harassment or assault by more than 60 women, is being investigated by New York police for the alleged rapes of "Boardwalk Empire" actress Paz de la Huerta.

"We are aware of the sexual assault complaints. We are actively investigating them. The NYPD continues to work with the Manhattan District Attorney's office on the case. The investigation is ongoing," the NYPD said in a statement to NBC News.

On Thursday, the 33-year-old actress told Vanity Fair that Weinstein raped her twice in 2010. She said that both encounters happened in her apartment, about a month apart: The first after Weinstein offered her a ride home and then another time after he showed up unannounced in her building lobby.

"He's like a pig," de la Huerta told the magazine. "He raped me."

De la Huerta's attorney confirmed to NBC News that a New York police detective had interviewed his client and said he provided material to the Manhattan district attorney, who he says is considering charges.

Weinstein, who was ousted from his own company amid the scandal, has repeatedly stated through a spokesman that "allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied."

He faces criminal investigations in New York, Los Angeles and London.
"House of Cards" producer Media Rights Capital and Netflix revealed that series star Kevin Spacey was the subject of a sexual harassment allegation five years ago as they respond to new accusations from crew members.

CNN reported on Thursday that multiple employees of the Netflix series accused the star of inappropriate behavior. One production assistant claimed that Spacey put his hands down the assistant's pants without consent with he was driving Spacey to the set. He then alleged that Spacey cornered him and touched him inappropriately.

Another crew member claimed Spacey "would put his hands on me in weird ways," including massaging his shoulders and touching his stomach. Six other employees from the show talked with CNN about their experiences with Spacey.

Earlier this week, Netflix and Media Rights Capital halted production on the sixth and final season of Spacey's hit series "House of Cards" because of the scandal.

In response to the CNN report, Media Rights Capital issued a statement saying it was "deeply troubled to learn about these new allegations that are being made to the press concerning Kevin Spacey's interaction with members of the crew of 'House of Cards'."

"As the producer of the show, creating and maintaining a safe working environment for our cast and crew has always been our top priority," the company said. "We have consistently reinforced the importance of employees reporting any incident without fear of retaliation and we have investigated and taken appropriate actions following any complaints. For example, during our first year of production in 2012, someone on the crew shared a complaint about a specific remark and gesture made by Kevin Spacey. Immediate action was taken following our review of the situation and we are confident the issue was resolved promptly to the satisfaction of all involved. Mr. Spacey willingly participated in a training process and since that time MRC has not been made aware of any other complaints involving Mr. Spacey."

Spacey is reportedly seeking professional helpin the wake of the recent allegations.

"Kevin Spacey is taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment," his spokesman told Variety. "No other information is available at this time."

Mexican actor Roberto Cavazos and American documentary filmmaker Tony Montana have come forward in recent days with accounts of how Spacey allegedly made unwanted advances.

Those accusations follow the allegation on Sunday by "Star Trek: Discovery" actor Anthony Rapp that Spacey made an unwanted advance on him in 1986 when he was just 14 and Spacey was 26.
BOSTON - A Pakistani national, living in New York state, was sentenced Thursday in Boston federal court to serve 30 months in federal prison after he was convicted in April of this year of conspiring to defraud the IRS, failing to collect and pay over taxes, committing mail fraud, making false statements on a naturalization application and committing visa fraud.

Hazrat Khalid Khan, 58, of Middletown, N.Y., was also ordered to pay $2,343,155 in back taxes and $27,863 in restitution to insurance companies he defrauded.

Khan was a partner in an 11-store chain of take-out fried chicken restaurants in the Boston area. He and his partners, usually store managers, paid employees in cash to avoid paying payroll and income taxes, then gave tax preparers false information causing fraudulent tax returns to be filed.

Khan and his co-conspirators also falsely reported the number of employees at some of the stores, employing undocumented workers, and failing to file W-2 forms to report wages.

In all, prosecutors said by using various schemes, Khan was able to defraud the IRS out of more than $2.3 million over a five-year period. Insurance companies providing workers compensation to Khan's restaurants were defrauded out of premiums as Khan underreported payroll. The government charged that Khan made false statements on his applications for a permanent residency permit and on an application for naturalization. Khan told immigration authorities he had no criminal record when he had earlier been convicted of alien smuggling..
Move bolsters market access modernization

The enactment of China's new foreign investment law is progressing well, as the draft has been submitted for further discussion by the central government, the Ministry of Commerce announced on Thursday.

The move illustrated the country's desire to accelerate the modernization of its market access system, as well as strengthen the use of fair and transparent market principles.

Gao Feng, spokesman for the ministry, said the law is expected to serve as a basic guideline for the reform of regulations on foreign direct investment.

"The government will protect the legitimate rights of foreign investors and foster a stable, transparent and law-based business environment," Gao said at a regular news conference in Beijing.

The ministry will collaborate with the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council to speed up the lawmaking pace in the next stage, he added.

For the past several years, China has been ramping up efforts to expand investment access and unify laws and regulations while applying stable, transparent and predictable policies to foreign investment.

The government has already introduced a negative-list approach in 11 pilot free trade zones to simplify the process for foreign investors in setting up their business presence in China.

The negative list specifies investment sectors that are off-limits to foreign investors and opens industries not on the list, providing equal treating to overseas and Chinese companies.

Gao said the ministry will replicate nationwide the negative-list approach used in its free trade zones.

The negative list covers 15 sectors such as mining, leasing and financing. Among the sectors, 40 categories and 95 special management measures are included.

Wei Jianguo, vice-president of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said the move provides a consistent national treatment for market entrance and reflects a major step forward in liberalizing the Chinese market for overseas investors.

Researchers at accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers said in a report that the adoption of a negative list in the market access system apparently makes it easy for companies to invest in businesses that are neither prohibited nor have limited access.

"The approach also strengthens post-investment supervision and enables sharing and publication of information.... Not only those businesses in FTZs will be affected, companies from outside of FTZs will sooner or later be affected," said the report.

In the first nine months, China's FDI inflows grew by 1.6 percent year-on-year, compared with a 0.2 percent drop between January and August, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

Zhang Jianping, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce, said while there were concerns about withdrawal of foreign investment in the past, the FDI structure has improved.

"The FDI inflow is still growing, which can offset the outflows."

Liu Yukun contributed to this story.
Women in Hong Kong are facing months of delay in getting vaccinated against human papilloma virus, or HPV, because of a drug shortage, and authorities are receiving a flood of complaints. The virus has been linked to cervical cancer.

Private clinics in the city have been canceling appointments and blocking new patients looking to get vaccinated, some since April.

The shortage has triggered a raft of complaints to the Hong Kong Department of Health and the Consumer Council, the city's consumer rights watchdog, mostly from residents of the Chinese mainland who have traveled to the city only to find they can no longer get an injection.

As of Oct 18, the Consumer Council had recorded 281 complaints about vaccine services, 11 times more than last year. Most were related to the HPV vaccines.

The vaccines - Cervarix and Gardasil - are administered in a series of three shots, and manufacturers recommend that a full course be completed within six months. However, the shortage means many women will have to wait much longer.

Xu Cen, 30, from Shenzhen, Guangdong province, got her first injection in Hong Kong in May, but when she returned for her second in July she was told it had been postponed until mid-October.

"Many people are waiting to get vaccinated," she said. "It's impossible to get fully vaccinated within the time frame suggested by the pharmaceutical companies."

She has been told she will not be able to receive her third and final shot until March, about 10 months after her first injection.

Although HPV vaccines are available on the mainland, some women prefer to travel to Hong Kong to receive Gardasil-9, a second-generation product from Merck Sharp & Dohme that protects against nine strains of HPV, which combined are responsible for an estimated 90 percent of cervical cancer cases. Gardasil-9 is not approved for the mainland market.

Xu booked her appointment via WeChat with MJ Life, a private clinic, and was asked to pay in full after her first shot. However, she received a notice on Oct 10 saying the clinic would be unable to administer any more Gardasil-9 vaccines until Dec 1.

Patients were advised to either delay their bookings, fly to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia at extra expense to get the shot or switch to Gardasil, the first-generation product that protects against only two major HPV strains.

According to media reports, the shortage of Gardasil-9 was caused by a cyberattack on the pharmaceutical company that affected production. The company has not responded to those reports.

Kun Ka-Yan, a doctor specializing in obstetrics, said delaying the second or third shots for more than a month could lower the effectiveness of the vaccine. However, he added, no HPV vaccine offers 100 percent protection against cancer, so women should ensure they receive regular cervical screenings.

According to the Hong Kong Hospital Authority, cervical cancer was the city's eighth-deadliest cancer in 2015, causing 169 deaths.
When the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future come knocking, where will you be? Those ghosts will be visiting Ebenezer Scrooge Nov. 30- Dec. 17 when the Missoula Community Theatre presents A Christmas Carol: The Musical. The Charles Dickens classic story, accompanied by the glorious music of composer Alan Menken (Disneys Beauty and the Beast), has become a new holiday favorite. "Its that music," says director Joe Martinez, and "the beauty of the telling of this version" that draw him to the show. Martinez has directed this show five times, but he still loves the story. "This script and production have elements of surprise that you dont see in other versions," he notes. While this is definitely a Christmas show, Martinez feels this version has a Halloween feel to it because of Ebenezers journey with the ghosts. Those ghosts may provide some scary moments for younger children, but this family-friendly production is also full of humor, sentiment, and classic holiday moments.

Get your tickets today

http://mailchi.mp/9b874e8fde40/the-evolution-of-a-cackle-926893?e=dec83255d7
It is "extremely likely" that human activities are the "dominant cause" of global warming, according to the most comprehensive study ever of climate science by U.S. government researchers.

The climate report, obtained by NPR, notes that the past 115 years are "the warmest in the history of modern civilization." The global average temperature has increased by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit over that period. Greenhouse gases from industry and agriculture are by far the biggest contributor to warming.

The findings contradict statements by President Trump and many of his Cabinet members, who have openly questioned the role humans play in changing the climate.

CHRISTOPHER JOYCE

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/02/561608576/massive-government-report-says-climate-is-warming-and-humans-are-the-cause?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20171102&utm_campaign=breakingnews&utm_term=nprnews
Whooper swans fly at the wetland of Yellow River in Pinglu County, north China's Shanxi Province, Nov. 2, 2017. Many whooper swans came to spend the winter time in the wetland every year. (Xinhua/Xue Jun)
Dengue virus type 1 (DENV-1),

Dengue virus type 2 (DENV-2),

Dengue virus type 3 (DENV-3), and

Dengue virus type 4 (DENV-4)

Advertisement

In India, there are about four distinct types that are circulating:In southern India, the Asian genotype of DENV-1 was found in virus isolates drawn from the blood sample of dengue-infected patients.The American-African genotype of DENV-1 has been in circulation since the 1940s in India, and these findings do not suggest that Asian genotype has become more prevalent than the other.revealed scientists.Experts have studied samples from Maharashtra and Delhi and found no change in the genotypes of the four dengue virus types.Devendra Mourya, senior scientist, director of NIV, told TOI.DENV-1 was the predominant virus in the 2012 outbreak in TN said, "The Asian genotype was responsible for epidemics in Singapore during 2005 and in Sri Lanka during 2009. This genotype was not found earlier in India. It is a new entrant to India."The Asian genotype was seen only in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.Mourya said, "All the dengue virus one that was genetically studied or sequenced by NIV scientists belonged to the Asian genotype. However, we have not tested all the samples so we cannot say that the Asian genotype has completely replaced the earlier genotype of dengue virus 1."Scientists at the same time, studied the genetic makeup of the virus in Maharashtra and Delhi and found no change in the genotypes of the four dengue virus types.Scientists are also studying some other states to find out if the Asian genotype of DENV-1 is present in these regions.Dengue fever, a disease caused by mosquitoes infected by the dengue virus. It is prevalent in the tropical regions of the world.Dengue is a painful, disabling disease, where the pain is similar to that of bones breaking, so it is also known as 'Breakbone' fever.Every year, it affects nearly 400 million people worldwide, and 40 percent of the world's population is at risk of exposure and infection.There are no antiviral drugs or injections available to cure the disease. Dengue fever treatment or management involves plenty of supportive care, which could eventually help save the patient's life.Source: Medindia
Watch the ceremony live! Watch the ceremony live!

Tune in to the 2022 GPHG ceremony, which will be digitally hosted on WorldTempus today at 6:30PM (Swiss time)

Tune in to the 2022 GPHG ceremony, which...
The 1st Greece-Mozambique Business Forum was held today in Maputo, with the assistance of the Mozambique Chamber of Commerce and Industry and in cooperation with the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises and the Greek-African Chamber. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Terens Quick made the following remarks:



The very good diplomatic and political relations with Mozambique are being enhanced as of today, through the two countries cooperation in the business sector.



It is impressive that some 70 B2B meetings have been scheduled between the representatives of Greek companies who have come to the Forum and local enterprises in important sectors such as solar energy, standardization of agricultural and stock-farming products, water resources, construction, pharmaceuticals, and the transfer of know-how in the very important sector of tourism.



For the record, I should say that todays business mission, which was organized in record time through the tireless efforts of our diplomatic services, began during my first visit here, last March, and following the meeting I had with Mozambiques Minister of Foreign Affairs (who isnt here today, unfortunately) and my meeting with the President of the Agency for the Promotion of Investments and Exports (APIEX). We promised them we would carry out a business mission at the soonest possible time, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs kept its word.



I would also like to thank our honorary Consul, Gerasimos Marketos, one of the most important Greek entrepreneurs in Mozambique, who, despite the three-hour delay in our arrival from Maputo, managed to rearrange the whole programme, so that all the B2B meetings took place as scheduled.



Following the opening of the Business Forum in Maputo, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs T. Quick met with the President of the Agency for Promotion of Investments and Exports (APIEX), Lourenco Sambo.

The high-ranking Mozambican government official asked Mr. Quick to convey to the Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nikos Kotzias, Mozambican governments gratitude for the immediate response to the request to initiate joint business ventures. He also said he believes Greece will play an important role, through these business activities, as Mozambiques bridge to the European Union, adding that Mozambiques Economy Minister is scheduling Greece as a stop on his spring-2018 tour of Southern European countries.
Greek enterprises, wherever they are active abroad, have shown that they are among the top enterprises in the world in terms of dependability, know-how, quality and reliable fulfilment of their contractual obligations. They create jobs for Greeks and locals.



They have deservingly been awarded medium and large business contracts abroad and continue to be sought-after partners in all business sectors.



Todays business mission to Johannesburg is being carried out in this spirit and, judging from the B2B meetings that began yesterday, will be extremely productive, benefiting Greek businesses and bolstering the internationalization of the Greek economy, which the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working for and supporting.



I convey to you the greetings of Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikos Kotzias, and I want to thank our diplomatic services here for their tireless efforts towards the success of this mission, which was co-organized by the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Greek-African Chamber, and the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV).



Todays meeting of entrepreneurs in the two countries major sectors is the outcome of a visit I carried out to South Africa last February, when, in parallel to my schedule with respect to the Greek community, I had crucial meetings with South African government officials.



Once again I will highlight the important role of diaspora entrepreneurs in the promising ventures being launched today.



Also significant is the presence of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Director.



Even the difficult members of the quartet of institutions, the IMF and the ECB, now admit in their public statements that Greece is moving ahead courageously with reforms and is now clearly on the path of economic recovery, after many years of austerity.



The inauguration of the Greek-African Business Forum was attended by the Greek Ambassador to South Africa, Eleftherios Kouvaritakis, the High Commissioner of Cyprus, Yannis Iacovou, Greeces Consul General, Ioannis Hatzantonakis, and the President of the Federation of Greek Communities of South Africa, Ioannis Filippou.



Speakers included the President of the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), Herman Breedt, SEV Executive Vice President Konstantinos Bitsios, and Christos Christodoulou, a Greek South African lawyer specializing in South African Trade and Aviation Law.
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Raymond Weil has demonstrated a knack for teaming up with British music legends who have succeeded in spanning numerous generations. After the latest Abbey Road Beatles limited edition presented earlier this year comes the Freelancer David Bowie limited edition, which distils five decades of an eclectic career into a relatively understated timepiece that nevertheless captures the essence of Bowies genius.

He was an artist who left few musical genres untouched and adapted to the decades of rock, glam rock, the New Romantics and electronic music as easily as he changed his persona from David Bowie to Ziggy Stardust and back. He also had an accomplished career as an actor. Producing a timepiece that represented all this was therefore a huge challenge for Raymond Weil.

Luckily the brand has prior experience, notably with its highly successful Beatles limited edition and has demonstrated its expertise by mimicking Bowies ability to produce music for the masses without losing any of his identity. The result is a classic watch in the Freelancer case with some overt Bowie touches, such as the lightning bolt at 12 oclock, which he famously had painted across his face on the cover of his 1973 album Aladdin Sane, and the Bowie logo from the 1974 album Diamond Dogs, which was designed by Andy Warhol.

Freelancer David Bowie  Raymond Weil

The vinyl record effect on the black dial is a more discreet musical reference on this watch, which was developed in collaboration with the David Bowie Estate to celebrate what would have been Bowies 70th anniversary this year. Turn the watch over and a photograph of Bowie by star photographer Terry ONeill, which also dates from 1974, is etched on to the transparent sapphire crystal case back. Behind this you can see the self-winding RW4200 mechanical movement power the watch, which offers a 38-hour power reserve.

Case back view  Raymond Weil

This limited edition of 3,000 comes with a black calf-leather strap with red stitching and, in its primary market of the United Kingdom, retails for 1,395.
Iraq wants the Kurdistan region to stop independent crude exports and to hand over sales operations to the Iraqi state-oil marketer SOMO, the company's director said on Thursday.

Iraq is talking to Turkey to allow SOMO to sell the Kurdish crude that arrives by pipeline in Ceyhan, the Turkish terminal on the Mediterranean, acting SOMO director general Alaa al-Yasiri told reporters in Baghdad.

About 530,000 barrels per day (bpd) used to arrive in Ceyhan via the pipeline until mid-October, of which about half came from the Kurdistan Regional Government's oilfields and the rest from Kirkuk, a disputed province claimed by both the Kurdish region and Iraqi authorities in Baghdad.

Output from Kirkuk fell in mid-October, when Iraqi forces took back control of the northern region's oilfields from Kurdish fighters who had been there since 2014.

Kurdish Peshmerga forces deployed in Kirkuk in 2014, when the Iraqi army fled in the face of an advance by Islamic State (IS) militants. The Kurdish move prevented the militants taking control of the oilfields.

The pipeline carried on average 419,000 bpd in October, down from 600,000 bpd in September, said Farid al-Jadir, the director general of North Oil Company, which operates Kirkuk.

NOC should resume exports from Kirkuk through the Kurdish pipeline this month, after the two sides agree on terms of use, Yasiri said. Kirkuk would also export by tanker trucks about 15,000 bpd to the refinery of Kermanshah in Iran, he added.

Yasiri expected an old pipeline that bypasses most of the Kurdistan region to resume operation in three months.

The pipeline was severely damaged by Islamic State (IS) after it took over Mosul's Nineveh province in 2014. U.S.-backed Iraqi forces ousted the group from Mosul in July, after a nine-month campaign supported by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters.

Iraq, the second-largest producer of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries after Saudi Arabia, supported any future decision by the group to support oil prices, Yasiri said.

OPEC is expected to extend curbs on oil output when it meets in Vienna at the end of month.

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A Palestinian militant group announced Friday another five fighters had been killed when Israel blew up a tunnel from the Gaza Strip, bringing the total number of dead to 12.

Islamic Jihad said five more men trapped in the tunnel were dead, naming them. Israel had on Monday carried out a "controlled" explosion on the tunnel crossing the border.

"We announce the death of five new heroes of the Jerusalem Brigades in Zionist bombing," Islamic Jihad said in a statement, referring to its military wing.

Two of the 12 dead belonged to the militant wing of Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, with the other 10 from Islamic Jihad.

Since Monday's explosion, Israel has refused to allow the Palestinian Civil Defence Authority access to the site to search for survivors.

The International Committee of the Red Cross had asked Israel to enable searches in the tunnel, according to a statement Thursday from COGAT, the defence ministry unit which liaises with the Palestinian territories.

COGAT commander Yoav Mordechai told the head of ICRC in Israel that the Israeli authorities would "not enable searches in the security perimeter in the Gaza Strip, without progress on the issue of the Israeli captives and missing soldiers."

Tunnels dug by Hamas were a key issue in the last war with Israel in 2014, but discoveries of those stretching into the Jewish state have since been rare.

The Jewish state maintains a crippling blockade of Gaza which it says is necessary to constrain Hamas.

*The story was edited by Ahram Online

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BAD AXE  The total number of wind turbines in Huron County has climbed to 472  with the county still possessing more than any county in Michigan.

The Apple Blossom wind park is expected to be in full operation mode in a few weeks, said Christian Anguis, project manager for Apple Blossom at Wednesdays Huron County Planning Commission meeting.

All 29 turbines have been constructed, and about half have been commissioned in the 100-megawatt wind park spanning Winsor and McKinley townships.

Andrew Johnson will take the lead on the project next month, Anguis said.

A the height of its construction, between 250 and 270 workers were employed  90 percent of which were from Michigan, he added.

In other business, Huron County Emergency Services Director Randy Miller updated the planners on the $36,000 Hazard Mitigation Plan update.

The county could save thousands through a grant from FEMA, Miller said. He will know whether the funds are coming by Jan. 1.

Some aspects of the Huron County Master Plan and Hazard Mitigation Plan can be done together, Miller said.

Theres no reason we cant get them both done in kind of a reasonable manner, he added.

He noted that the process is moving at the speed of government, and will take some time.

Planning officials said by the end of the year, the Huron County Board of Commissioners would have to pass a resolution funding the Master Plan update into 2018, since the original budget is close to being expended.

The planners also reviewed a resolution recently passed by the board of commissioners giving the board the power of final approval over the Master Plan.

We have the final say so in adopting it or not, said Sami Khoury, chairman of the county board and liaison to the planning commission.

Its to make sure that the master plan is inclusive for everyone in the county, said Commissioner Steve Vaughan, who was at the planners' meeting.

Khoury added the final master plan should be available for public review prior to adoption.

If the county commissioners do not approve it, the board must send it back to the planning commission for review and further development.

In other planning commission business this week, the board reviewed PA 116 enrollment applications for Steve and Mitzi Koroleski of Lincoln Township and Donald and Kathy Fiebig of Sebewaing Township. The board of commissioners will determine the next stage of approval of the acreage to be included in the state's farmland preservation program.
Al-Ahram Weekly chronicles events leading to the Balfour declaration in 1917 and its catastrophic consequences for Palestinians and the region





1516

The Ottomans seize Palestine from the Mamelukes and incorporate it within the Empire

1596

The Ottomans begin compiling detailed taxation records and conduct a census in Palestine. The latter reveals a Muslim majority, a Christian minority and a tiny Jewish minority.

1871

The Palestine Exploration Fund, a British society based in London which undertakes topographical and ethnographic surveys of Ottoman Palestine, begins producing detailed documentation of Palestines Arab, mainly Muslim population, and its majority Arab villages.

1882

Russia issues laws prohibiting Jews from living or owning property outside specific areas. In response Lovers of Zion organisations are formed to organise emigration to Palestine.

1896

Austro-Hungarian writer Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, publishes Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews), in which he argues that Jews who want to leave Europe should head either to Argentina or, preferably, Palestine. Jews already had a nationality, he wrote, but they needed a homeland. Only the latter, he argued, would allow them to escape anti-Semitism and practice their faith freely.

1897

At Herzls initiative the World Zionist Organisation is founded in Basle Switzerland. Its mandate, to establish a legal home for Jews in Palestine, sets the stage for the occupation of Palestine and the ensuing conflict.

1901

The Jewish National Fund is founded. Focused on buying Palestinian land on which to build Jewish colonies, it becomes one of the principal conduits of colonization.

1903

The Zionist movement begins approaching European governments asking them to allocate territory for a Jewish state. Herzl asks King Victor Emmanuel of Italy about territory in North Africa (present-day Libya), an approach the king flatly rejects.

The British government offers the World Zionist Organisationland from itscolonies in east Africa to establish a homeland for Jews. The offer is rejected by a group led by Russian-British chemist Chaim Weizmann who insists on Palestine.

1914

Ottoman Turkey enters World War I, siding with Germany, Austro-Hungary and Bulgariaagainst the Allies, Britain, France, Russia, Italy and the United States.

The Jewish population in Palestine is 38,754 (5 per cent of the total) of which 12,332 are Ottoman subjects and the remainder new immigrants from Europe.

1915

Henry McMahon, Britains High Commissioner in Egypt, begins exchanging letters with Emir Hussein bin Ali,the Sharif of Mecca, encouraging him to revolt against Ottoman Turkey. McMahon promises Hussein London will recognise an independent Arab state which includes the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, El-Sham (Syria, Lebanon and Palestine) if the Arabs help the Allies in the war against Turkey.

Home Secretary Herbert Samuel, the first British government figure to espouse Zionism, puts forward a proposal for a British protectorate over Palestine to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish state there.

1916

19 May: Mark Sykes and Francois Georges Picot, representing the British and French foreign ministries, secretly reach an agreement dividing Arab lands under Ottoman rule into French and British spheres of influence.

They decide Iraq will go to Britain and France will take Syria and Lebanon. It is decided that Palestine will be placed under international administration since other Christian powers, most notably Russia, maintain an interest in the area.

10 June: Sharif Hussein officially proclaims his revolt against the Ottomans with the help of his two sons Ali and Faisal. By October they have Hijaz under their control, with eventual help from British forced who are keen to keep 12,000 Ottoman troops tied down in Medina ahead of the British invasion of Palestine.

1917

2 November:The British government issues the Balfour Declaration announcing: His Majestys Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object.

The document neglects to mention Palestines indigenous Arab inhabitants by name. It refers to them instead as non-Jewish communities.

The declaration is addressed to Lord Walter Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community,for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. The text of the declaration is published in the press on 9 November 1917.

23 November: Revolution erupts in Russia and the Bolsheviks take power. They discover the Sykes-Picot agreement and make it public by publishing it in the press 556 days after it was signed.

9 December: Jerusalem falls to British troops under general Edmund Allenbys command who proclaims: the wars of the crusades are now complete"

1918

Balfour and other British officials give Sharif Hassan vague replies when he expresses concernover the Balfour declaration. They claim the Sykes-Picot has not been signed and reassure Sharif of their previous promisesto recognise an independent Arab state.

September: Britain occupies east Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.It persuades France to abandon the idea of internationalising Palestine as stipulated in Sykes-Picot. France agrees in exchangefor Britain ending its support for the Arab government established in Damascus under the leadership of El-Sharif Husseins son, Emir Faisal,thus enabling France to occupy Syria.

October: Exhausted Ottoman Turkey agrees to an armistice.

1919

After WW1 ends with the Allies victory the Paris Peace Conference is held to set peace terms. The French and Americans come out in support of the Balfour declaration.

US President Woodrow Wilson appoints the King-Crane commission to report on the situation in former Ottoman territory. The commission submits its findings in August. It concludes that the region, while not ready for independence, opposes the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine because it conflicts with the Balfour Declarationspromises to respect of the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities in Palestine.

The commission reports that "Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase. Nearly 90 per cent of the Palestinian population isemphatically against the entire Zionist program.



The argumentmade by Zionist representatives that they have a "right" to Palestine based on an occupation of 2,000 years ago can hardly be seriously considered says the report.

The report is not made public until 1922.

1920

The Allies meet in San Remo and decide that Iraq and Palestine will be placed under British mandate, Syria and Lebanon under French.

1921

The terrorist militia Haganah is formed to defend Zionist settlement in Palestine.

1922

After WWI, Jews make upjust three per cent of the population of Palestine.

The Jewish Agency is founded in Jerusalem and encouraged by the British mandate authorities to seize Palestinian land, take part in administering Palestine, build settlements and smuggle Jewish immigrants who beginmilitary training.

1923

The British mandate over Palestine is recognised by the League of Nations.

1924

March 5: Sharif Hussein of Mecca declares himself King of the Hijaz and the Arab lands, which is rejected by the powerful rival Arab clan of Saud who oust him from power in October.

1929

The Jewish Agency is officially founded. Its mission is to "inspire Jews throughout the world to connect with their people, heritage, and land, and empower them to build a thriving Jewish future and a strong Israel.

Palestinians begin resisting Zionist efforts to grab Islamic sites in Jerusalem. The Al-Buraq Revolution is triggered after Zionist gangs raise flags on the Al-Buraq Wall - the southern section of the western wall of Al-Haram Al-Sharif mosque in the old city of Jerusalem- declaring it theirs.

Palestinians across the country rise up against the British occupation and plans to colonise Palestine as a Jewish state. The British round up hundreds of Palestinians and sentence 29 to death. This is later reduced. Three are executed, the remainder are sentenced to life in prison.

1931-1935

Jewish immigration to Palestine jumps from 4,075 to 61,854.

The more radical elements in the Haganah split from the militia and form Irgun.

1933

The Nazi party led by Adolf Hitler seizes power in Germany and begins persecuting Jews, leading to a surge in Jewish immigration to Palestine.

1936

The Arab Revolt: Palestinians rise against British colonial rule and mass Jewish immigration. They demand the nullification of the Balfour declaration and autonomy. The revolt lasts for three years before it is crushed by British forces and Zionist militias.

1939

The British government issues white papers restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine and vowing to end its mandate in 10 years. Zionist settlers declare war on Britain.

The United States allies with the World Zionist Organisation.

1940

The Jewish National Fund begins to compile a registry of Arab villages in Palestine. Known as the village files, the registry of 1,200 population centres becomes useful a few years later when Zionist militias begin their ethnic cleansing, occupyingvillages and expelling their inhabitants on the eve of the creation of Israel in 1948.

1944

9 November: The terrorist Zionist group, Stern Gang, assassinates Lord Moyne British Secretary of State for the Colonies near his home in Cairo.

1946

The Zionist group Stern Gang assassinates the British Minister of State in the Middle East, Lord Moyne, and tries on several occasions to assassinate the British High Commissioner for Palestine, Sir Harold MacMichael.

Jewish terrorist militiasHaganah, Palmach, Irgun and Lehi,growing since 1945 in Palestine,are directed by the Jewish Agency to weaken or destroy the British mandate.

1946

Zionist terrorist groups Stern Gang and Irgun attack British forces and bomb the Kind David Hotel, the British military headquarters in Palestine, killing 91 people of different nationalities.

October: the Irgun bomb the British Embassy in Rome and conducts several sabotage operations against British military transportation routes in occupied Germany.

Menachem Begin, Irguns leader, would later become Israels seventhprime minister.

Illegal immigration sees the number of Jews increase to 608,225 (32.96 per cent of the population).Palestinian Muslims and Christians number1,237,334.

1947

Bowing to American pressure the League of Nations General Assembly issues a resolution dividing Palestine between Arabs and Jews. It is rejected by the Arabs.

David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agencys executive committee,secretly begins mobilising terrorist Zionist militias inside and outside Palestine. Plan Dalet, employing massacres, ethnic cleansing and terror to conquer Palestine, is implemented.





December: Zionist militias massacre Palestinian villagers in Haifa, Al-Tira, Balad el-Sheikh, Yehiday, Khisas and Qazaza.

1948

The forced depopulation of Palestinians is underway.

4 January: Jews in British Army uniforms enter Jaffa and blow up the Serai (the old Turkish Government House), killing more than 40 and wounding 98.

5 January:Haganah terrorists bomb the SemiramisHotel in the Katamon killing 24 Muslims, Christians, foreigners, women and children.

March: Zionist terrorists sabotage and mine the Cairo-Haifa express for the second time in a month, killing 40 pand wounding 60.





9 April: Zionist gangs implementing Plan Daletsurround the Palestinian village of DeirYassin from three sides and kill at least 254 Palestinians. They leave a corridor open to allow a number of villagers to escape and recount the horror.

Massacres in Palestinian villages and towns continue for months. They include Al-Lajjun, Qaluniya, Ayn el-Zaytoun, Abu Shusha, Al-Tantura ,BeitDaras, Lydda, Al-Dawayima , Saliha and Hula.

Estimates put the death toll at 15,000.Thousands of Palestinians are rounded up in labour camps.

14 May: Britain declares the end of its mandate over Palestine after completing its mission by issuing the Balfour declaration. Despite decades of incessant efforts to acquire land, by the end of the mandate Jews control just 5.8% of the land in Palestine.

AL-NAKBA: The Catastrophe 15 May: Ben Gurion announces the creation of Israel. Throughout 1948 and 1949 the Palestinian population of over 600 townsand villages are forced from their homes. There are 35 reported massacres.

800,000 Palestinians are ethnically cleansed between 1947 and 1949.

The Atlas of Palestine documents 232 incidents of atrocities, including massacres, destruction of homes, plunder and looting by Zionist forces,between 1947 and 1956.



From the archives: Al-Ahram Weekly's special pages commemorating 50 years of Arab dispossession since the creation of Israel

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Cass City -- The Thumb Area MEA Retired group is scheduled to meet later next month.

The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 14 at the Charmont Restaurant in Cass City.

There is a social hour at noon, where members may purchase their lunch. At 1 p.m., Heidi Stark, a Tuscola County historian and curator of the Wastrousville Area Historical Museum, will speak about the historic fires of the Thumb.

Membership in Thumb Area Retired is open to all Michigan retired public school employees. For more information, call 989-479-6988.
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WASHINGTON  House Republicans took the wrapping off their long-anticipated tax bill, revealing a few attempts to appease lawmakers from states like Connecticut concerned about the proposed elimination of state and local tax deductions.

The GOP bill stopped short of total repeal of the so-called SALT deduction, which actually dates back to the Civil War. Instead, it proposed capping state and local property taxes at $10,000.

But it gets rid of deductions for payment of state income taxes, a blow to Connecticut residents who pay between 3 percent and 6.99 percent of annual income to Hartford. It also eliminates deductions for sales taxes.

``Middle class families are at grave risk in Connecticut, said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. ``This is not tax reform; its just tax cuts for the wealthiest one-tenth of one percent. The loss of the SALT deduction will fall squarely on middle class families.

In a high-cost state like Connecticut where even middle-class homes can be pricey, the loss of the state and local deductions could prove to be a hardship.

According to IRS data extrapolated by the non-partisan Tax Policy Center in Washington, the average for Connecticut tax returns claiming the deduction is $19,665. And according to Zillow, the average price of homes listed in Fairfield County is $549,000.

President Trump and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill extolled the plan as a boon for the middle class.

``We are giving them a big beautiful Christmas present in the form of a tremendous tax cut, President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House. ``It will be the biggest cut in the history of our country. It will also be tax reform, and it will create jobs.

If approved, the Republican plan would be the most ambitious overhaul of the federal income tax system in decades.

A Republican document detailing the plan said it would give a typical family of four with an annual income of $59,000 a $1,182 tax cut.

But much of the back-and-forth on taxes Wednesday ranged over familiar terrain: Whether cutting taxes would spur growth, investment and jobs (and thereby more tax revenue), or would it blow a hole in the deficit and simply line the pockets of CEOs, investors and Wall Street high-rollers with no trickle-down to average workers?

Apart from the SALT issue, the plans basic elements include reduction of the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, collapsing the income brackets from seven to four, doubling the standard deduction to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for married couples, repealing the alternative minimum tax that guarantees the wealthy pay some taxes, child-care credits, and ``pass-through deductions for taxpayers that enable them to pay 25 percent on business income declared on personal taxes instead of a higher individual income rate.

Some of the plans highlights are aimed at mollifying the critics. Among them:

_ No changes to pretax treatment of popular 401(k) retirement plans, which had been the source of much anxiety for lawmakers fearful of negative voter reaction.

_ Restoration of a 39.6 percent top rate for married couples earning over $1 million.

_ Extending the repeal date of the estate tax. Instead of immediate repeal, GOP plan doubles the level where the tax kicks in to $11 million and phases it out in six years.

But the plan also includes some changes that might ultimately prove problematic:

_ Elimination of deductions for taxpayers with high medical expenses, as well as a tax credit aimed at those over 65 on disability.

_ The mortgage interest deduction would be capped at $500,000 for new loans. Previous outlines of the plan had suggested this popular deduction would remain unchanged. It hits hard in states such as Connecticut where home prices are relatively higher.

_ Charities might suffer if fewer people itemize because of the doubling of the standard deduction. Charitable organizations are sending up warning flags.

_ Interest deductions on student loans would be eliminated, a potential financial blow for those attending colleges or universities.

National real estate and small-business groups Wednesday came out against the plan. Among them were the National Association of Home Builders and the National Federation of Independent Business.

Gov. Dannel Malloy cited a non-partisan study that showed elimination of the personal income and sales tax deductions would increase taxes on Connecticut taxpayers by 13.5 percent, or more than $800 on average.

``The fact is, this proposal will raise taxes for a significant portion of Connecticut residents, likely leading to cuts in state and local services, he said in a statement. ``It is a prime example of what it means to be penny-wise and pound foolish and should be rejected by reasonable members of Congress.

Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-Conn., said even partial elimination of the SALT deduction would amount to ``double taxation.

She cited a study that shows Connecticut gets back 83 cents for every tax dollar it sends to Washington. Without the SALT deduction, the rate would be even more unfavorable, she said.

``Thats just unfair, she said. ``It breaks a contract between states and the federal government thats been in place for more than a century.

Trump told Republican lawmakers he wanted the bill on his desk before Thanksgiving. If approved, it would represent a significant win for Republicans in a year that has brought them little to cheer about legislatively.

But GOP lawmakers faces a steep climb to offset the $1.5 trillion over a decade that this measure would cost. Without enough offsets to cover the gap, Republicans could face a maneuver by Democrats in the Senate to require 60 votes for passage  which would doom it because Republicans have only 52 votes and virtually all Democrats are opposed.

But a vote based on ``reconciliation rules would require only 51 votes to pass  a tall but achievable order if all Republicans stick together.

Such a battle would pit the Senates two masterful tacticians, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in a chess game of wits. The outcome at this point would be uncertain.

``Republicans have proved proven endlessly ingenious in their maneuvering, said Sen. Richard Blumenthal. ``We will see if theyre able to engineer enough excuses for a vote of 50 senators.

==========

dan@hearstdc.com

e
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NEW HAVEN  At least eight new faces will be present in Aldermanic Chambers at City Hall when January rolls around, though that number could increase to as many as 14 if challengers were to pull David-and-Goliath-type upsets in the Nov. 7 election.

Once again, however, theres no threat to the Democratic supermajority on the board.

Twenty-one aldermanic candidates, all Democrats, are running unopposed, including 17 incumbent representatives and four new candidates who face no competition. Ward 1 candidate Hacibey Catalbasoglu is running unopposed as an unaffiliated, petitioning candidate.

Only five incumbent alders face challengers; there are 30 alders in total representing the citys legislative branch.

Among the eight Democratic candidates facing opposition are Alder Evelyn Rodriguez, D-4, facing petitioning candidate Mayce V. Torres; Ward 11 candidate Renee Haywood, who faces petitioning candidate Robert Lee; Ward 12 candidate Rodney Williams will face competition from petitioning candidate Steven Winter.

A three-way race between Democratic primary winner and appointed Alder Michelle Edmonds-Sepulveda, D-30, and petitioning candidates Charlie E. Delgado and Tosha James-Goldson will determine the next West Rock alder. Edmonds-Sepulveda was appointed following Carlton Staggers resignation this summer.

Additionally, Alder Delphine Clyburn, D-20, faces a challenge from two registered write-in candidates in Kenneth Cousar and Yancey D. Horton. Ward 7 candidate and Democratic Party nominee Abigail Roth will face registered write-in candidate Robert Kiley in that wards election.

Sitting alders who are not seeking re-election include Sarah Eidelson, D-1; Latrice E. James, D-3; Lukas Moe, D-7; Jessica Holmes, D-9; Barbara Constantinople, D-11; Al Paolillo Jr., D-17; Alfreda Edwards, D-18; and Brenda Foskey-Hill, D-21. Paolillo also serves as a state representative representing New Haven.

Candidates running unopposed include Catalbasoglu; Alder Frank Douglas, D-2; Ron C. Hurt in Ward 3; Alder Dave Reyes, D-5; Alder Aaron Greenberg, D-8; Charles Decker in Ward 9; Alder Anna Festa, D-10; Alder Gerald M. Antunes, D-12; Alder Rosa Santana, D-13; Alder Kenneth Reveiz, D-14; Alder Ernie Santiago, D-15; Alder Jose Crespo, D-16; Jody Ortiz in Ward 17; Kimberly Edwards in Ward 19; Jeanette Morrison, D-22; Alder Tyisha Walker, D-23; Alder Evette Hamilton, D-24; Alder Adam Marchand, D-25; Alder Daryl Brackeen Jr., D-26; Alder Richard Furlow, D-27; Alder Jill Marks, D-28; and Alder Wingate, D-29.

Alders Dolores Colon, D-6, and Sal E. DeCola, D-18, are the only two incumbents facing opposition from a major party candidate. Their Republican foes, John Carlson in Ward 6 and Joshua Van Hoesen in Ward 18, face stiff odds against the heavily Democratic voter pool in the city.

DeCola, a retired U.S. Postal Service worker who now volunteers regularly with FISH of Greater New Haven, was first elected in 2011. He said residents in the Morris Cove neighborhood have raised concerns over taxes, hoping to keep them down and keep the citys tax rate unchanged.

DeCola said his retirement makes it easier to serve the city. Yet providing city services is a concern for residents; its an issue his challenger, Van Hoesen, has raised during his campaigning. DeCola said issues over trees can be resolved with a call, but others, such as sidewalk issues, can take more time.

You cant get to everybody. Everybody wants it done, DeCola said. You cant just get a sidewalk or street done. (Money) has to be allocated, bonded. Damage by trees, sidewalk repairs ... its not that easy. But were getting it done.

Nothing is done overnight, DeCola added. He said speed bumps, for example, are a concern but arent something that can be popped in anywhere. DeCola said there are federal restrictions that must be observed.

DeCola said his competitor has raised concerns over his transparency, which DeCola balks at due to what he said is his 24/7 availability. He said he feels confident about winning next weeks election.

They think the ward is Republican, DeCola said. My ward and everyones ward in the city votes for the person, not the party. It has nothing to do with the party.

Colon is the longest continually serving alder on the board. She was first elected in 2001. Colon faces a Republican challenger for the second time in four years. She defeated Republican Francis M. Lobo in 2013.

Carlson, her latest opponent, is a former registered Democrat who assisted in one of Colons campaign .

Its always a possibility. Its a democracy, so its OK, Colon said. This particular candidate worked on my campaign when Norma (Rodriguez-Reyes) ran against me. Its a little unusual; he switched parties. It was interesting.

Colon joined Rodriguez, Alder Dave Reyes Jr., D-5, and Hurt to run collectively as the Hills Alders United slate. The four candidates worked together to share expenses, release campaign literature and identify issues concerning residents, Colon said.

Crime remains a major point of concern for residents in Colons ward.

Of course, crime is always an issue. People want their streets to be crime- and conflict-free, Colon said.

There are increasing concerns over individuals who frequent parks in the ward while intoxicated. However, it can be challenging when residents conflate her position as alder with being a law enforcement agent.

Every citizen has a responsibility to call the authorities, to have that behavior checked (out), Colon said.

A fatal stabbing in front of the APT Foundation, a substance use and mental health clinic, last month brought to light uneasiness from residents alarmed by loitering near the facility. Clients and others usually congregate in the area and smoke and drink, Colon said, which has been an issue for the area going on for years.

Clients, they hang out there and they dont go home, Colon said.

The clinic is located blocks from John C. Daniels School.

We want to make it clear that its OK to have a treatment center there, but we want to have it (be peaceful), Colon said. We need to address that negative behavior in a residential neighborhoods.

Catalbasoglu, Democrat or unaffiliated?

Of the candidates running this fall, Catalbasoglu is a unique position among his peers. Hes a registered Democrat running as a petitioning candidate. Facing no competition, the Yale University junior will be Yales next public representative.

Yet, despite being a registered Democrat, Catalbasoglu said he would want to serve as an unaffiliated candidate, hoping that by joining the alders as an unaffiliated member, he will earn minority leadership. This strategy will only work if neither Republican  or perhaps even write-in candidates  win an election.

Being a minority leader would give him an edge, Catalbasoglu said, and allow him more access to Mayor Toni Harp. He said this would also mean he would likely get first pick of committee membership as minority leader.

The Office of the Legislative Services said its not quite that simple, however, since committee assignments are made by the president. Since hes still a registered Democrat, its unclear how Catalbasoglus situation would play out come January. A minority leader would be voted upon by other minority party candidates.

Catalbasoglu said he prefers the unaffiliated distinction, since he said he doesnt want the letter next to his name to prohibit residents and students from coming to him. Catalbasoglu has earned the Yale College Republicans endorsement and a statewide endorsement from the Connecticut Young Democrats. He met with the Yale College Democrats last week about a possible endorsement.

I was able to speak to Republicans and thats exactly what I want to do, Catalbasoglu said. I want to be able to talk to a variety of different people, from a variety of backgrounds, and hear their ideas.

Catalbasoglu said as alder he would focus on several issues, though his primary concern will be improving Yales and New Havens relationship. He said it was too much of a one-way road at the moment.

At the moment, I think the relationship is not where it should be, Catalbasoglu said. It should be a two-way road. Before Im a Yalie, Im a New Havener. I want to work with the city and university, not just the students

Other focal points of Catalbasoglus platform include assisting the homeless, working on helping small-businesses and improving education. He is the son of Turkish immigrants whose family owns and operates Pizza at the Brick Oven, which he said provides added motivation to assist the immigrant community in New Haven.

I want to fight for the rights of immigrants, Catalbasoglu said. We need somebody to advocate on behalf of the immigrants and as the son of immigrants that what Ill be doing.

Fresh faces with local ties headed to the Chambers

Hurt, who is running uncontested in Ward 3, works part-time at Big Lots in North Haven and Compass Consulting, based in Massachusetts. Hes lived in New Haven for 23 years.

His motivation is seeking a better lifestyle for residents in his ward, perhaps none more important than children. Hurt said food insecurity is a major factor in his ward.

I know that our ward is one of the hardest things wards as far as hunger, Hurt said. Kids in the Hill, who to sleep without dinner...my heart goes out to that. I want to see people prosper.

As vice-chairman for the Hill North Management Team, Hurt has been involved with local organizations providing coat drives during winter months, turkey drives in November and toy drives during Christmas time. Hes a member of Deliverance Temple Church and has worked with the ministry outreach there for several years.

I feel that Im prepared, to the point where I believe that I am ready to step-up into the role as alder and fulfill the shoes as alder that we can work toward a better community, pull up, help people, Hurt said.

Out in Ward 17, Jody Ortiz has some big shoes to fill. Unopposed, she will replace Paolillo, the majority leader and a 15-year veteran alder who will shift his focus to his position as state legislator. Ortiz is a tutor at Nathan Hale School and a part-time after-school teacher specializing in art.

Like Hurt, Ortiz earned the partys nomination in July. Since then, Ortiz has remained active in the community by helping organize neighborhood events such as a color run in September and a school picnic.

Ive been going to meetings at East Shore Management Team, meeting the other alders, trying to hear what the issues are in the other communities, as well as mine, Ortiz said, adding, I enjoy being a worker bee. I enjoy working on projects. I enjoy working with the youth. Thats what my family is about, helping the community.

Her overall message is spreading positivity. She wants to encourage more community involvement including in youth and recreation.

Im going to try and do the best I can, Ortiz said. Im very excited about the position.

Williams, the Democratic nominee for Ward 21, faces opposition from petitioning candidate Winter, who said hes been knocking on doors since early August. Among the biggest issues affecting the ward is lack of communication, Winter said. Winter said would like to improve communications and stay in regular contact with his neighbors.

Winter said he wants a network providing more information for local meetings. He said people need to be well connected to work together on working on addressing concerns, such as access to affordable after-school programs and increasing community oversight for police.

Theres a lot of real issues facing our ward, Winter said. I thought the best way to reach people directly and hopefully represent them directly is to run as an independent candidate.

Last week, Williams said he wasnt interested in speaking to the New Haven Register so close to Election Day. He declined further comment after adding he was the kind of guy who passes on last-minute opportunities.

Being from this community, I am looking for the community to elect me, not the Register, Williams said.

Reach Esteban L. Hernandez at 203-680-9901 or esteban.hernandez@hearstmediact.com.
Six months ago Sao Paulo Mayor Joao Doria revealed unbridled presidential ambitions, traveling the country and the world professing an aggressive pro-market agenda and an management style with the slogan "Speed It Up."

In an interview in his Sao Paulo office this week he struck a more humble, down-to-earth tone, talking about the need to do more in his home town, forge alliances with other centrist parties, and focus on a welfare and job-growth agenda as a means to meet his national objectives.

Why the change in attitude? Candidates from the far left and far right have risen in the polls ahead of next October's general election, threatening Brazil's recovery and possibly surprising overly optimistic investors, says Doria.

"If we continue divided, the election will be lost to one of the two extremist candidates," the 59-year-old former host of the Brazilian version of "The Apprentice" said in a fifth-floor conference room at City Hall. "Brazil needs alternatives so this risk doesn't last until October."

Brazil's political class is reeling after the worst recession on record and a three-year corruption scandal that has put dozens of executives, legislators and party leaders behind bars. Trust in politicians has been shattered. What Brazilians are looking for in next year's election is a clean and experienced candidate, according to Datafolha opinion poll.

Enter Doria, who had never held elected office before becoming the first candidate in over two decades to win Sao Paulo's mayoralty election in the first round last October.

Yet national politics in this continent-sized country are something altogether different. There former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the leftist Workers' Party has extended his lead in opinion polls to around 36 percent of voter intentions, despite having been convicted of corruption charges. If the verdict is upheld by an appeals court, he would be barred from running next year.

On the opposite end of the political spectrum is a former army captain, Jair Bolsonaro, who has roughly 16 percent of voter intentions. As a legislator in the lower house of Congress for 26 years only two of his bills have been approved, and his understanding of economics, he says, is superficial.

To Doria, unrealistic expectations make the situation ripe for disappointment: Lula may not be barred from running and Bolsonaro may manage to overcome the high rejection rates in his opinion poll numbers. "There's excess optimism. Brazil can't handle another populist government, it'll be the new Venezuela of Latin America," he said.

Even if Lula were to be banned from running, the former metalworker still needs to be reckoned with, Doria said. "Candidate or not, Lula will be an electoral force."

While Lula presided over considerable growth and income distribution, critics say that by creating an over-sized welfare state he and his impeached successor, Dilma Rousseff, played a key role in undercutting the government's finances. Brazil lost its investment grade rating in 2015.

Doria has notched some successes since taking office. He has cut wait times at the city's public hospitals while also attracting federal funding and private donations to overcome budget shortfalls.

Yet critics say his haste has seen him launch several half-baked ideas, such as feeding school children with processed, surplus foods, a proposal he later withdrew. He also drew flak for traveling frequently and challenging his political mentor, Sao Paulo state Governor Geraldo Alckmin, who belongs to the same Brazilian Social Democracy Party, or PSDB. After months of on-and-off rivalry, the two have sought to portray an image of unity in recent weeks.

Doria's approval ratings have steadily declined this year, from 44 percent in February to 32 percent last month, according to Datafolha polling firm. "The decline means little for Doria's potential to be competitive in a national election, but it does make it harder for him to secure the PSDB's nomination," Eurasia Group political risk consultancy said in an October research note.

His decision to cut down on travel and focus on Sao Paulo doesn't mean he's abandoned his bid for Brazil's top job. In order to promote those national ambitions, he needs to first deliver in Sao Paulo, he said.

About the apparent shift in strategy and rhetoric 11 months into his tenure with the national elections up ahead, he says it's the hallmark of a good leader to recognize change and react to it quickly.

"You need to grab the board and surf the wave before it swallows you," says Doria, who doesn't surf, sleeps little but works out every day.
When a friend says, "I'll hit you up later dog," he is stating that he will call again sometime. He is not calling the person a "later dog."

But that's not how the courts in Louisiana see it. And when a suspect in an interrogation told detectives to "just give me a lawyer dog," the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that the suspect was, in fact, asking for a "lawyer dog," and not invoking his constitutional right to counsel. It's not clear how many lawyer dogs there are in Louisiana, and whether any would have been available to represent the human suspect in this case, other than to give the standard admonition in such circumstances to simply stop talking.

The ruling by Louisiana's high court could have serious implications for a suspect charged with raping a juvenile, because it will allow his subsequent incriminating statements into evidence at his trial, which is pending. And it clarified that requesting a canine attorney need not cause the police to stop questioning someone.

Warren Demesme, then 22, was being interrogated by New Orleans police in October 2015 after two young girls claimed he had sexually assaulted them. It was the second time he'd been brought in, and he was getting a little frustrated, court records show. He had repeatedly denied the crime. Finally, Demesme told the detectives:

"This is how I feel, if y'all think I did it, I know that I didn't do it so why don't you just give me a lawyer dog 'cause this is not what's up." The punctuation, arguably critical to Demesme's use of the sobriquet "dog," was provided by the Orleans Parish District Attorney's office in a brief, and then adopted by Louisiana Associate Supreme Court Justice Scott J. Crichton.

Demesme subsequently made admissions to the crime, prosecutors said, and was charged with aggravated rape and indecent behavior with a juvenile. He is being held in the Orleans Parish jail awaiting trial.

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The public defender for Orleans Parish, Derwyn D. Bunton, took on Demesme's case and filed a motion to suppress Demesme's statement. In a court brief, Bunton noted that police are legally bound to stop questioning anyone who asks for a lawyer. "Under increased interrogation pressure," Bunton wrote, "Mr. Demesme invokes his right to an attorney, stating with emotion and frustration, 'Just give me a lawyer.' " The police did not stop their questioning, Bunton argued, "when Mr. Demesme unequivocally and unambiguously asserted his right to counsel."

Orleans Parish Assistant District Attorney Kyle Daly responded in his brief that Demesme's "reference to a lawyer did not constitute an unambiguous invocation of his right to counsel, because the defendant communicated that whether he actually wanted a lawyer was dependent on the subjective beliefs of the officers." Daly added, "A reasonable officer under the circumstances would have understood, as [the detectives] did, that the defendant only might be invoking his right to counsel."

Bunton's motion to throw out Demesme's statement was rejected by the trial court and the appeals court, so he took it to the state Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, in a ruling issued last Friday and first reported by Reason, could have denied the appeal without issuing a written ruling, which it does in most cases. But Justice Crichton decided to write a brief concurrence "to spotlight the very important constitutional issue regarding the invocation of counsel during a law enforcement interview."

Crichton noted that Louisiana case law has ruled that "if a suspect makes a reference to an attorney that is ambiguous or equivocal. . .the cessation of questioning is not required." Crichton then concluded: "In my view, the defendant's ambiguous and equivocal reference to a 'lawyer dog' does not constitute an invocation of counsel that warrants termination of the interview."

Bunton said, "We're obviously disappointed we didn't win," but declined to discuss the case, or the finer points of punctuation when using the term "dog."
HARTFORD  The executive order would have left the state with a $93.9 million deficit for 2018, but state Comptroller Kevin Lembo said its too soon to tell what will happen with the recently signed two-year state budget.

The budget was signed one day before Lembo was expected to file his monthly report with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

Lembo said year-to-date expenditures have been basically flat through the first quarter of the fiscal years. Spending decelerated significantly in September when two large municipal grant programs were delayed as a result of the budget stalemate.

However, fixed costs grew substantially for fiscal year 2018. Debt service payments, pension contributions for state employees and teachers, and retiree health insurance costs have all gone up. Spending related to the legal settlement regarding former Gov. John G. Rowlands decision to fire union employees back in 2002 has also increased, Lembo pointed out in his monthly letter.

On the revenue side there is a concern that some of Connecticuts taxes arent doing as well as expected.

For example, the sales and use tax is running about $45 million below projections, according to the Office of Policy and Management. Lembo said he agrees with that assessment.

Lembo said hes also concerned about the estimated portion of the personal income tax. He said receipts for individuals who pay quarterly taxes was 5.1 percent below where it was last year at the end of September.

Despite Connecticuts historical budget relationship with the stock market, shifts in equity portfolio allocations following the presidential election and a run-up in equity values has not delivered capital gains revenue increases to the state, Lembo said. The estimated and final payments portion of the personal income tax accounts for about 35 to 40 percent of total state income tax receipts, and yet first-quarter estimated payment receipts came in 5.1 percent lower this year.

State officials have speculated that many of Connecticuts wealthier residents are keeping their money where it is at the moment waiting to find out what happens with tax reform at the federal level.

Read more at CTNewsJunkie.com.
The United States carried out two airstrikes targeting Islamic State (IS) militants in Somalia, a U.S. official said on Friday, believed to be the first such strikes against the militant group in the country.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the strikes were conducted in northeastern Somalia and an assessment was underway to see how many militants had been hit.

IS has been gathering recruits in the region, although experts say the scale of its force is unclear and it remains a small player compared to al Shabaab.

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An Indigenous airman, who had to cut his braids when first joining the Air Force two years ago, is now one of the first in...
President Donald Trump denounced Friday the decision to spare Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl jail time as a "complete and total disgrace."

"The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military," Trump said in a Tweet from Air Force One en route to Hawaii at the start of an Asian trip that will take him to China, Japan and South Korea.

Earlier Friday, Army Col. Jeffery R. Nance, the military judge at Bergdahl's court-martial at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, sentenced the 31-year-old defendant to a dishonorable discharge, a reduction in rank to E-1 and a monthly reduction in pay of $1,000 for the next 10 months.

Nance made no other comments in imposing the sentence but earlier this week said in court that he was taking into consideration Trump's previous comments on the case in deciding on punishment.

"I will consider the president's comments as mitigation evidence as I arrive at an appropriate sentence," he said.

As a candidate last year, Trump called Bergdahl a "dirty rotten traitor" and said he should be executed for leaving his post in Afghanistan.

Last month, Trump did not back off his previous remarks. "I think people have heard my comments in the past," he said.

The sentence will be reviewed by Army Gen. Robert B. Abrams, the convening authority in the case and commander of U.S. Forces Command. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Abrams can reduce the sentence or approve it but cannot increase it.

If the final sentence still includes a dishonorable discharge, it will then automatically be reviewed by the United States Army Court of Criminal Appeals.

One of the soldiers who was wounded while searching for Bergdahl bitterly criticized the sentence that spared him jail time.

Asked by phone about his reaction to Bergdahl's sentence, former Army Sgt. Jonathan Morita, of California, told ABC News, "I've had better days.

"The dishonorable discharge means he can't receive any of these services like I can" from the Department of Veterans Affairs, Morita said. "He'll pay the fine like people get fined for illegal fishing. OK, whoop-de-doo."

Morita said Bergdahl deserved to spend time in jail. "That's the one that's completely unacceptable," he said. "It should have maybe not been the life sentence, but it should have been something."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was "incredibly disappointed" by the sentence.

Graham, who served as an Air Force lawyer for more than 30 years, said, "This sentence in my view falls short of the gravity of the offense."

During the sentencing proceedings, Army Capt. Nina Banks, one of Bergdahl's military defense lawyers, argued for leniency, citing his five years in captivity with insurgents believed to be part of the Haqqani network affiliated with the Taliban.

"Sergeant Bergdahl has been punished enough," Banks told the military judge, and Eugene Fidell, Bergdahl's chief civilian lawyer, echoed her argument at a news conference after the sentence was announced.

"As everyone knows, he was a captive of the Taliban for nearly five years, and three more years have elapsed while the legal process unfolded,' Fidell said. "He has lost nearly a decade of his life."

Fidell also charged that Trump's comments on Bergdahl created a "lynch mob atmosphere" around the case. "Every American should be offended by his assault on the fair administration of justice and disdain for basic constitutional rights," he said.

Fidell said that the dishonorable discharge, which would deprive Bergdahl for life of VA benefits, will be appealed.

In pleading guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, which could have resulted in a life sentence, "I'm admitting I made a horrible mistake," Bergdahl told the court.

The lead prosecutor, Army Maj. Justin Oshana, cited the troops who were wounded while searching for Bergdahl.

"It wasn't a mistake," Oshana said of Bergdahl's decision to walk off his base. "It was a crime."

Despite the dishonorable discharge sentence, the defense team indicated they will still seek the "Prisoner of War" medal for Bergdahl. The award was authorized by Congress and signed into law in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan.

The award generally goes to those "taken prisoner and held captive while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States."

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
Ousted Catalan president Carles Puigdemont said he stood ready to cooperate with Belgian justice authorities, adding he believed Spanish authorities had become politicised.

"I will not run from justice. I will go to the justice authorities, but the real justice authorities," Puigdemont told Belgian state broadcaster RTBF in an interview aired on Friday.

"I have told my lawyer to tell Belgian justice authorities that I am completely ready to cooperate," he said.

Puigdemont added that it was "very clear that the Spanish justice authorities had become politicised".

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Sixty-three more Sears and Kmart stores across the U.S. will close as the retailers' parent company continues to shutter unprofitable locations.

The closings across the U.S. affect 45 Kmart stores -including three in Michigan - and 18 Sears, all of which will close in January.

"(W)e will continue to close some unprofitable stores as we transform our business model so that our physical store footprint and our digital capabilities match the needs and preferences of our members," according to the note from Sears Holdings Company [NASDAQ: SHLD] on Friday, November 3.

Store employees were notified on November 2, and liquidation sales will begin on "as early as" Thursday, November 9.

With those sales taking place two weeks before Thanksgiving and the traditional launch of the holiday shopping season, questions emerge about the role of the liquidation effort in the company's cash position. The stock was trading at $5.21 per share this afternoon, down 4 percent and 17 cents above its 52-week low.

The chain also started a "Holiday Blowout" promotion at Sears stores, discounting merchandise up to 50 percent to generate cash through Black Friday. The strategy, experts said, is intended to generate cash so that vendors get paid - and keep shipping merchandise.

Michigan Sears stores are unaffected by the latest closings.

However, Kmart now has announced more store closings this year than it operates. Closings affect 22 stores, leaving 17 unscathed so far.

Battle Creek, 200 Capital Ave Sw

Clinton Township, 41601 Garfield Road

Mount Pleasant, 2125 S Mission Street

The new list of closings follows news from mid-October that the St. Clair Shores Kmart store in Michigan would close.

That 122,000-square-foot store had been listed for release by the real estate spinoff of Sears Holdings Co., Seritage Growth Properties, as it tries to maximize real estate value of the store portfolio.

So far this year, Seritage has reported a net loss of $30.5 million. However, it also re-leased 600,000 square feet of former Kmart or Sears space for four times the rate, it reported this week.

New rents average $17.97 per square foot, compared to $3.90 paid by Sears Holdings.

The St. Clair Shores closing will leave about 127 employees out of work, according to a filing with the state.

Previously announced Kmart closings in Michigan in 2017:

Three closings
Cocktail Week Grand Rapids, which kicks off on November 8, gives you the chance to explore the exciting and expanding world of craft cocktails in Michigan's second largest city.

This is the third year for this week long event, created by Experience GR as a way to bring attention to the art of mixology in Beer City, USA. The week culminates in the 10th annual Grand Rapids International Wine, Beer and Food Festival held at DeVos Place November 16-18 2017.

"The craft of bartending has really become an elevated status in the world and Grand Rapids is starting to embrace it. You can't go to a restaurant and not find a craft cocktail menu these days" Rob Hanks, president of the Grand Rapids Bartenders Guild explained.

You can enjoy special pairings of food and cocktails at over 40 different participating restaurants located all over the Grand Rapids metro area. For $25, you get two cocktails and an appetizer. Each menu is unique, and several places are featuring locally distilled spirits in their cocktails.

In addition to the pairings, there are several other events happening during the week. On November 8, you can attend the Dealer's Choice Cocktail Charity Event, which will be held at Stella's Lounge from 7 to 9pm. The Grand Rapids Bartender's Guild in partnership with Barfly Ventures and Gray Skies Distilling will host the top bartenders from across the city in a "Chopped" style competition, with proceeds to benefit the American Black Cross relief effort in Puerto Rico.

On November 12, enjoy a ride on the Sunday Funday Trolley Tour, which will take you around downtown to visit 6 different places to try cocktails. Sponsored by the Grand Rapids Beer Trolley, you'll stop at:

616 in the J.W Marriot

Gray Skies Distilling

Long road Distilling

The Lumber Baron

Stella's Lounge

The Zeppelin Lounge at the Knickerbocker

Tickets are $35 in advance and $45 the day of the event.

"I'm excited for what we have planned with the cocktail competition and the trolley bar crawl" Hanks said.

Want to learn more about the art of distilling? There will be free tours and cocktail tastings at both Grey Skies Distilling and Long Road Distillers throughout the week.

There is a lecture at Long Road on November 14 at 7pm on our colonial spirits history, our first "American" cocktails, and how the legacy of barrels, shipping and a budding agricultural society, shaped the world's liquor production. You'll even get to taste a few historical cocktail recipes.

Want to learn a new skill? Cocktail week has got you covered. Head on over to The Knickerbocker on November 13 for a "Sip and Stitch", where you not only can taste some great cocktails, you will also leave with all the materials and skills necessary to create your own hand made cowl scarf. This event is $32, and seating is limited.

Cocktail Week GR is a great chance to explore the world of artisan craft spirits, and see what the talented bartenders and chefs are creating. Explore somewhere new, or try something different. Sip local, and cheers to the art of craft.

Always sip responsibly and never drink and drive.

You can get the full listing of events that will be held during Cocktail Week GR at Experience GR.

Learn more about Michigan craft spirits:
PITTSFIELD TOWNSHIP, MI - Michigan Democratic gubernatorial candidate Shri Thanedar is opening a campaign office in Ann Arbor and inviting the public to visit this weekend.

The grand opening meet-and-greet is planned for 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 4 at 3676 S. State St. in Pittsfield Township. Residents can drop in and sign up to volunteer with Thanedar's campaign, pick up campaign literature and learn about his mission to "create an inclusive Michigan," a press release said.

The Ann Arbor entrepreneur, who was born in India, filed the paperwork in April 2017 to seek the Democratic nomination for governor in 2018.

Thanedar, 53, is CEO of Avomeen Analytical Services, a chemical testing, development and analysis company in Ann Arbor.

He made headlines in December when he distributed $1.5 million in bonuses to 50 employees. Thanedar recently sold a majority share of Avomeen to a private equity firm and said he wanted to reward his employees for the firm's success.

Thanedar maintains a 40 percent share in the company.

He plans to speak about the opening of the Ann Arbor campaign office Saturday and cover topics including single-payer healthcare, dark money, the environment and public education.

Thanedar will also answer questions from those in attendance, who will receive a complimentary copy of his memoir titled, "The Blue Suitcase: Trial and Triumph in an Immigrant's Life."

Unable to make it to our grand opening in Ann Arbor, Michigan this Saturday? We've got you covered! We'll be... Posted by Shri Thanedar on Thursday, November 2, 2017

Coffee and light refreshments will be provided.

Regular office hours are from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The gubernatorial election will take place Nov. 6 in 2018.

Other Democratic candidates include former Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer; Detroit businessman Bill Cobbs; former Detroit health official Abdul El-Sayed; Justin Giroux and Kentiel White.
ANN ARBOR, MI - The Washtenaw County Democratic Party is officially endorsing a countywide tax proposal for mental health and public safety on the Tuesday, Nov. 7, ballot.



The 1-mill, eight-year tax also would raise new revenue for seven municipalities in the county if approved by voters.



"Given that over half of the people being held in the county jail are on medication for their mental illness, it's clear that we have an urgent need to provide additional resources for both the Sheriff's Office and Community Mental Health," Democratic Party Chairman Chris Savage said. "Whenever a tragedy occurs, everyone clamors that we need to do more to help people with mental illness. Whenever the opioid epidemic is discussed, the need for more government services is a focus for helping resolve this calamity. This is an opportunity for our community to prove we are serious about these things."



Savage said the Democratic Party overwhelmingly approved a resolution supporting the proposal at its October meeting.



The Washtenaw County Republican Party is opposing the proposal, arguing it's misleading and illegal.



The proposed tax, which would be levied for the first time in December 2018, is estimated to raise $15.4 million in the first year.



It would cost about $100 per year for the owner of a home with a $100,000 taxable value and a $200,000 market value.



The funds would be split multiple ways, with 38 percent going to Washtenaw County Community Mental Health, which has seen its state general fund allocation cut by millions of dollars, and 38 percent going to the Sheriff's Office to ensure continued operations and increased collaboration with the mental health community.



The remaining 24 percent -- an estimated $3.7 million in the first year -- would go to municipalities with their own police forces, including Ann Arbor, Chelsea, Milan, Saline, Ypsilanti, Pittsfield Township and Northfield Township, in proportion to 2016 population levels. They could use their shares as they see fit.



Ann Arbor plans to spend its portion of the money -- an estimated $2.1 million-plus per year -- on addressing issues such as pedestrian safety, affordable housing and climate change.



WCCMH and the Sheriff's Office each would receive nearly $6 million per year in revenue from the tax.



Counties across Michigan are considering tax increases to pay for mental health services following state cuts, and voters in some counties already have approved new mental health millages.



"At a time when opioid addiction is skyrocketing, Community Mental Health has seen their funding slashed by 60% since 2013 by the Republican-led state Legislature. Meanwhile, the Sheriff's Office has seen their costs for providing public safety services to county municipalities rise by 40% while the payments from those municipalities have increased by less than 10%," the Democratic Party stated in a news release announcing its endorsement of the tax proposal.



The party is encouraging a yes vote on Nov. 7 to enable WCCMH and the Sheriff's Office to expand programs to treat patients in crisis, provide services to those who are otherwise ineligible, offer preventative services, increase training for public safety officials, and expand treatment in the jail system by CMH professionals.



William Gordon, a Republican from Scio Township who formed an opposition group called "No to Illegal Millage," said the campaign to defeat the proposal is a bipartisan effort. He said many Democrats, including three Democratic county commissioners, have expressed misgivings or opposition to the proposal.



"Our group believes it is illegal and it is fruitless to discuss any merits or faults of an otherwise illegal proposal," he said in an email. "We hope that voters will turn this proposal down and avoid a legal challenge which will waste county funds that could be used to solve the problems we face."



Gordon was one of three individual plaintiffs who last year joined Taxpayers United in suing the county over what they claimed were illegal taxes for roads, veterans relief and economic development. The Michigan Court of Appeals threw out the case last year, determining the county had legal authority to levy the taxes.



The plaintiffs filed an application for leave to appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court, but it was denied, ending the case.



In addition to the Washtenaw County Democratic Party, groups supporting the Nov. 7 ballot proposal include the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill-Michigan, Friends of Restorative Justice, Police Officers Association of Michigan, Washtenaw County Command Officers Association, Washtenaw County Police Officers Association, Huron Valley Area Labor Federation, Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice and the Ann Arbor-based Ecology Center.



The YesOnWashtenawMentalHealth.com website also lists individual endorsements from several local officials and community members, including County Sheriff Jerry Clayton, County Board Chairman Andy LaBarre, County Commissioner Conan Smith, Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor, County Prosecutor Brian Mackie, state Rep. Adam Zemke, Manchester Village Council President Patricia Vailliencourt, Ann Arbor Public Schools Educational Foundation Executive Director Linh Song, Duo Security CEO Dug Song, Washtenaw Intermediate School District Superintendent Scott Menzel, and Marianne Udow-Phillips, executive director of the Center for Healthcare Research and Transformation at the University of Michigan.

Udow-Phillips and Clayton described "the compelling need" for the tax in a writeup published on the campaign's website.

The county board was split 5-4 on whether to put the proposal on the ballot for voters to consider. The five who supported it were the three Ann Arbor commissioners-- Democrats Andy LaBarre, Conan Smith and Jason Morgan -- as well as Felicia Brabec, D-Pittsfield Township; and Michelle Deatrick, D-Superior Township.



Voting against it were commissioners Alicia Ping, R-Saline; Ricky Jefferson, D-Ypsilanti; Ruth Ann Jamnick, D-Ypsilanti Township; and Kent Martinez-Kratz, D-Chelsea.



Ann Arbor City Council Member Jack Eaton, a Democrat, and Dan Smith, a Republican former county commissioner from Northfield Township, also are opposing the proposal.



Eaton argues the proposal is well intended but fundamentally flawed in design and he thinks it's inappropriate to provide unrestricted funds to municipalities with their own police forces. He said he wants to see the 1-mill proposal defeated so a better proposal can go to voters in 2018. He said he would support a 0.4-mill tax for mental health.
BAY CITY, MI -- The second of two men accused of beating and robbing a friend in his own home, only to be nabbed by police minutes later, has accepted a plea offer. His codefendant, though, is in the wind as he opted against showing up for his sentencing.

Andrew T. Ramos Jr., 30, on Wednesday, Oct. 25, appeared before Bay County Circuit Judge Harry P. Gill and pleaded guilty to one count of larceny from a person, a four-year felony. In exchange, the prosecution agreed to dismiss charges of unarmed robbery and conspiracy to commit that crime, both of which are 15-year felonies.

Ramos' trial was to begin the following week on Tuesday, Oct. 31.

Ramos' codefendant, 28-year-old Jordan A. McCure, accepted the same deal on Sept. 14. At that time, Gill released McCure on a personal recognizance bond. McCure was scheduled to appear before the judge for sentencing on Monday, Oct. 30, but pulled a no-show.

McCure's absence prompted Gill to forfeit his bond. The judge had issued a warrant for McCure on Sept. 27 due to the defendant failing to comply with bond conditions.

The pair's charges stem from an incident that occurred in the early morning hours of July 28 at the home of Carl King in the 200 block of State Park Drive in Bangor Township. King testified in an August preliminary examination that he had spoken with Ramos over the phone and told him he was going to cash a check for Walmart for $364, then would be home.

When he arrived home, Ramos was already present, sitting his blue 2010 Dodge Charger with McCure, King testified. King said he was friends with Ramos, having previously worked with him, and knew McCure, but not well.

King invited Ramos and McCure inside, but the guests asked him to remove his four dogs from the house first. King did as they asked, he said. The three men then headed to King's basement bedroom.

"We just started talking, catching up, reminiscing," King said. "After it all had unfolded, I went to put my cigarettes on the table. I turned around and I got struck by Jordan ... directly, square above the nose. I stumbled back just a tad, caught myself. I got hit one more time and fell back onto the couch. I put my hands up, got hit on the side of the head a few more times, two or three. I made a last-ditch effort with my hands up to get to my feet, square up. He had grabbed me by my neck from behind."

As the assault went on, McCure told Ramos to go through King's pockets, which Ramos did. Ramos took King's wallet from his pocket, took the $364 in cash from it, then he and McCure bolted out the door, King testified.

King called 911 and gave a description of Ramos' car. Police soon spotted the Charger and pulled it over. On searching the car, they found $364 on the passenger floorboard.

Judge Gill is to sentence Ramos at 1:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 4.
SOUTH LYON, MI - Residents of this southeastern Michigan city will have to write in a name for their mayor of choice on Nov. 7 ballots after no one filed to run for the office.

There are plenty of write-in options to choose from.

Once without any mayoral candidates, South Lyon now has seven residents vying for the role despite what one city council member described as a contentious and stressful atmosphere at regular meetings.

The mayoral candidates are listed on the City of South Lyon website and eligible to receive votes as part of Tuesday's election.

The Oakland County community of 11,700 people, about 15 miles northeast of Ann Arbor, is governed by a seven-member city council, including the mayor.

The mayoral candidates include:

Kenyson Borkowski

Bryan Joseph Capen

Ashley Enstad

Jamie Nelson

Daniel L. Pelchat

William Gregg Powell

Brandon Trent Yopp

The person elected mayor will have a two-year term that comes with an hourly wage of $5 for attending regular and special meetings of city council.

South Lyon's lack of mayoral candidates made headlines earlier this year, and prompted at least two candidates to file as a write-in within three weeks of the announcement.

It also spurred Council Member Mary Parisien to speak out in support of Mayor John Galeas and discuss what she has been as contentious and tense city council meetings.

Parisien told The Ann Arbor News she has served on the South Lyon City Council for two years, after being elected in November 2015, along with councilmembers Margaret Kurtzweil and Joe Ryzyi.

"In 2016, it got pretty ugly, and in 2017, it got that much worse. A matter that should take an hour to discuss will take four hours to discuss, with council members fighting tooth and nail," Parisien said.

The drama and squabbles that often derail monthly public meetings are captured and published on the City of South Lyon's YouTube channel, where council members can be seen clashing verbally over topics like the city budget and employment policies.

Parisien said in July she was not surprised to learn no one is interested in the mayoral position, and warned whoever is elected as mayor to not expect a smooth transition.

"There's a dynamic that is toxic," Parisien said. "I hope someone, of course, steps up to take the place of mayor but forewarning, it's not an easy job."

Three people have filed and met the deadline to be put on the ballot for council positions - Joyce Clohosey, Rose Walton and Carl Richards - along with incumbent Glen Kivell, who is seeking another term.
A woman's tire fell off her SUV on a Detroit highway Thursday, crossed the median and caused a collision between an ambulance and state police cruiser, Michigan state police say.

The emergency vehicles were westbound on Interstate 94 in Detroit about 9 p.m. when the incident occurred.

"The at-fault driver called a tow company to retrieve (her) vehicle," police say. "She could see a ... commotion across the median but did not think anything of it.

"She later realized via media that the tire that flew off her vehicle had caused the crash with the ambulance and police car."

The woman called her boyfriend for advice on what to do once she made the realization, police say. An anonymous tip was then called into the state police 911 center and investigators tracked down the driver and the boyfriend, who is the registered owner of the 2004 Dodge Durango that lost its wheel.

Police are still investigating and plan to submit findings to the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office upon completion.
The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) announced on Thursday that remittances from Egyptian abroad increased 24.4% in September, compared to the same month last year.

According to the CBEs statement, Egyptians abroad transferred about $1.166 billion home compared to $937.3 million in September 2016.

The CBE added that in the period following the 3 November 2016 decision to float the Egyptian pound, the total remittances from Egyptians abroad registered $17.4 billion from November 2016 to September 2017 compared to $14.8 billion in the same period of the previous year.

In November 2016, the central bank floated the currency as part of securing a $12 billion loan with the International Monetary Fund to support its reform program.

Egypt's foreign reserves registered $36.535 billion at the end of September 2017.

Around 9.4 million Egyptians live abroad, of a total Egyptian population of 104.2 million.

Egyptians working abroad send back billions of dollars a year in remittances, an important source of hard currency.

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German state development bank KFW has provided financing for projects currently in the country that is worth 1.8 billion euros, state agency MENA reported the head of the banks Egyptian office as saying on Friday.

Burkhard Hinz told journalists during the festival Germany in the Nile Delta that the bank was focusing key current fields in Egypt, including water, solid garbage, new and renewable energy, technical education, and supporting primary education.

He also said that KFW has financed projects worth 5.5 billion euros since it began its operations in Egypt in the 1960s.

Hinz stated the bank has financed the construction of 900 primary education schools across Egypt, water projects that have benefited at least 4 million people in the Nile Delta, and irrigation projects helping 7 million people.

He also revealed that the bank is planning to finance new projects in Qena, Sohag, Assiut and Minya in the future.

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Bharat Gears has informed about the outcome of board meeting

At 14:10 hrs Bharat Gears was quoting at Rs 169.00, up Rs 14.05, or 9.07 percent.

The share touched its 52-week high Rs 192.45 and 52-week low Rs 83.45 on 18 July, 2017 and 22 November, 2016, respectively.Currently, it is trading 12.18 percent below its 52-week high and 102.52 percent above its 52-week low.Market capitalisation stands at Rs 132.12 crore. Source : BSE

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Hindustan Construction Company, as a lead partner in JV with AL FARAA, has been awarded Rs 497.07 crore contract by the Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation for Pune Metro Rail project.

At 10:16 hrs Hindustan Construction Company was quoting at Rs 38.30, down Rs 1.10, or 2.79 percent.

The share touched its 52-week high Rs 48.00 and 52-week low Rs 29.00 on 25 April, 2017 and 09 November, 2016, respectively.Currently, it is trading 20.21 percent below its 52-week high and 32.07 percent above its 52-week low.Market capitalisation stands at Rs 3,889.22 crore. Source : BSE

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Pursuant to Regulation 29 of SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015, Notice is hereby given that the Meeting of the Board of Directors of KJMC Corporate Advisors (India) Limited is scheduled to be held on Tuesday, November 14, 2017, inter alia, to consider the following business:1.Approval of Un-audited Standalone Financial Results of the Company for the quarter and half year ended September 30, 2017 and limited review report of the auditor for the period ended September 30, 2017.2.Any other item with the permission of chair.Further, Trading Window for dealing in the securities of the Company shall remain close for Directors, Officers and Designated Persons from November 03, 2017 up to Forty Eight hours after announcement of financial results.Source : BSE

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The meeting of the Board of Directors of the company will be held on Tuesday, 14th November, 2017 at 2 pm at Corporate office of the company inter alia, to consider the following:1. To take on record the Un-audited Financial Results and Limited Review Report of the company for the quarter ended 30th September, 2017.2. To review the recommendation of Audit committee.3. Any other matter with the permission of chair.Source : BSE

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This is to inform you that CS Ritu Lamba has resigned. Mr. Neemish Jha (ACS: 52466) has been appointed as Company Secretary and Compliance officer of the company with effect from 1st September, 2017 pursuant to Section 203 of the Companies Act, 2013 and Regulation 6(1) of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015. A copy of Board of Directors resolution is attached.Source : BSE

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Prakash Gaba of prakashgaba.com told CNBC-TV18, "I have two stocks, both on the long side, Nifty looks out to be still up. Bharat Financial Inclusion certainly is looking good, the stock has seen some kind of a correction. That correction is over and upmove is starting here. Target on the upside is Rs 1,010 and stop loss is below Rs 975."

"In IndusInd Bank , the correction got over and upmove seems to have started after a consolidation. Target on the upside is around Rs 1,700 zone. Keep stop loss below Rs 1,640," he added.
Krish Subramanyam of Altamount Capital told CNBC-TV18, "The financial space has been buzzing the entire week. We have two calls, couple of stocks which have actually gone into some sort of a correction."

"First one is Federal Bank. From the long term charts, it still looks extremely promising, but the stock has seen some correction this week. So one might be better off buying 130 strike Call that is quoting at around Re 1 and keep a target of Rs 2, and one could keep a stop loss of Re 0.50."

"Second one is Karnataka Bank . The stock is showing a lot of promise, it needs a breakout past Rs 165 to really head higher. Today also it is showing some strength. So, one could possibly resort to buying of 170 strike Call that is quoting at around Rs 3.5-3.75, keeping a target of around Rs 6 and one could keep a stop loss of Rs 2.25," he said.
Sandeep Wagle of powermywealth.com told CNBC-TV18, "I would go with a buy in Jain Irrigation Systems, stop loss of Rs 106 and target of Rs 120."

"A buy in Jet Airways, stop loss of Rs 597 and target of Rs 632."

At 11:17 hrs Jet Airways was quoting at Rs 608.60, up Rs 19.25, or 3.27 percent. It has touched an intraday high of Rs 613.00 and an intraday low of Rs 586.75.

Jain Irrigation Systems was quoting at Rs 110.00, up Rs 2.60, or 2.42 percent. It has touched an intraday high of Rs 111.60 and an intraday low of Rs 108.30.
Ashwani Gujral of ashwanigujral.com told CNBC-TV18, "Motilal Oswal has a fresh breakout coming out of correction. It is a buy with a stop loss of Rs 1,420 and target of Rs 1,500."

"Hindustan Copper is a buy with a stop loss of Rs 84 and target of Rs 97. Escorts is a sell with a stop loss of Rs 730 and target of Rs 705. Engineers India is a buy with a stop loss of Rs 186 and target of Rs 200."
Ashwani Gujral of ashwanigujral.com told CNBC-TV18, "Bhushan Steel is a buy with a stop loss of Rs 63, target of Rs 77."

"State Bank of India is also a buy with a stop loss of Rs 315, target of Rs 332 and a buy on Karnataka Bank with a stop loss of Rs 163, target of Rs 177."

"DLF is also a buy with a stop loss of Rs 210, target of Rs 225 and SAIL with a stop loss of Rs 82, target of Rs 94."
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Abu Dhabi's National Marine Dredging Corporation (NMDC) is planning to pick-up stake in the government-owned Dredging Corporation, reports the Hindu BusinessLine.

On Wednesday, the Cabinet approved sale of the governments entire 73.47 percent stake in Dredging Corporation of India (DCI), according to official sources.

DCI would be a most suitable and best fit for us, Mahesh Zagade, director at National Marine and Infrastructure India Pvt Ltd, told the newspaper.

We are weighing plans to submit a bid, he added.

National Marine and Infrastructure India Pvt Ltd is the Indian unit of the Abu Dhabi stock exchange-listed company in which the Abu Dhabi government has a 32 percent stake.

The move will help create a global giant to fight competition from Dutch and Belgian majors that are market dominants in the sector. The UAE-based NMDC is the sixth biggest dredging contractor in the world and joining hands with DCI will bring it a notch up to spot 5.

According to the report, there were talks between the two companies to bring DIC's dredgers in the global market. However, that deal did not work out.

Currently, NMDC has a USD 316 million EPC contract with Swan Energy's floating storage unit-based LNG port near Jafrabad in Gujarat. It had also worked on the expansion of the Suez Cana in 2015.

As for DCI, the company is involved in maintenance dredging, capital dredging, beach nourishment, land reclamation, shallow water dredging, project management consultancy and marine construction. It is under the administrative control of the shipping ministry.

A Moneycontrol report says that Dredging Corporation has enough potential for growth as a number of ports are coming up around the country and government is planning to increase use of waterways.

The report further says that a management with a strong focus on growth rather than survival can take the company to a different level given the experience and expertise that DCI has.
Ashok Vemuri, CEO of Conduent Incorporated, speaks on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) shortly after the opening bell in New York, U.S., January 3, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson - RTX2XDX0

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IT bellwether Infosys' hunt for a new Chief Executive has picked pace with the company reaching out to Ashok Vemuri over the past few weeks. Following the exit of CEO Vishal Sikka, Infosys is understood to have reached out to Vemuri, to take over the reins of the company, according to a report in BusinessLine.

Infosys Nominations Committee and global executive search firm Egon Zehnder -- tasked with finding a new CEO for the tech giant -- have been actively pursuing Vemuri over the last two weeks, the report suggests.

Vemuri is the current CEO of Xerox Business Services and has previously headed iGATE Corp, which was acquired by Capgemini.

Prior to joing iGATE, Vemuri served as the global head of manufacturing and the Americas at Infosys. His understanding of the Infosys culture and leadership roles in American offices are some of the factors that will be crucial to his appointment as next Infosys CEO.

While Infosys has reached out to Vemuri, "we are still not sure whether he has made up his mind," the report states citing sources, adding that negotiations are still at an early stage.

Sikka had resigned earlier this year after a lengthy boardroom battle him and Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy over alleged corporate governance issues. Following Sikka's exit, Nandan Nilekani returned to Infosys as the non-executive chairman.

Meanwhile, as the CEO hunt intensifies, the company is battling a war on another front -- GST portal. The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has demanded a CBI inquiry against Infosys and other companies for the failure of the goods and services tax (GST) portal in spite of the large amount of investment and time that has gone into the system.

Traders are frustrated with the GST portal. A good taxation system like GST is earning a bad image, not only among the trading community but all stakeholders, said Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary General of the CAIT.

He said that when the new tax regime was rolled out, people expected a functioning portal, but traders are facing problems in filing returns.

Infosys has failed to delivereven the maintenance of the portal is under Infosys, there is a need to fix responsibility, Khandelwal told Moneycontrol. Appointing a new CEO may, perhaps, expedite the resolution process for the GST portal.
A bird flies by the Vedanta office building in Mumbai August 16, 2010. India-focused miner Vedanta Resources said it will buy 51-60 percent of Cairn India for about $8.5-9.6 billion in cash to be funded via debt and cash resources, a move that would represent Vedanta's first foray into oil and gas, and help Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy fund an expensive drilling programme in Greenland. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui (INDIA - Tags: BUSINESS ENERGY) - RTXSAAV

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Analysts maintained their positive stance on Vedanta and also increased target price after second quarter earnings.

While retaining a buy call with increased target price at Rs 405 (from Rs 380 per share), CLSA said earnings outlook is strong given ramp-up of new aluminium smelters and zinc expansion.

The research house sees robust 18 percent EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) and 44 percent EPS CAGR over FY17-20 and expects return on equity to double and net debt to fall to near-zero by FY20.

Rise in Q2 EBITDA was driven by higher commodity prices and low base for Hindustan Zinc volume, it said.

Macquarie also maintain its outperform rating on the stock with increased target price at Rs 372 (from Rs 345 per share) as it sees a case for multiple re-rating and raised India business EV/EBITDA to 6x from 5.5x.

Higher costs & short alumina position drove 5-6 percent cut in FY18-19 EPS estimates, the research house said, adding Q2 EBITDA was 5 percent below its estimates due to higher costs in the aluminium division.

Macquarie expects lower risk of aluminium oversupply.

Vedantas second quarter consolidated profit grew by a higher-than-expected 20 percent YoY at Rs 2,986 crore on higher sales and operating income across segments barring power.

EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) grew by 21.3 percent to Rs 5,669 crore, but margin contracted by 159 basis points to 26.26 percent compared with corresponding quarter.

"PAT and EBITDA growth was on the back of solid operational performance in zinc and copper businesses, supported by strong commodity prices," Kuldip Kaura, Chief Executive Officer, Vedanta said.

"We expect second half of FY18 of this fiscal year to be more robust with the continuing production ramp up and we continue to maintain a strong balance sheet and remain focused on creating long term shareholder value," he added.

Motilal Oswal feels Vedanta has a portfolio of high-quality base metals and oil & gas assets, and is well poised to benefit from the bullish price outlook for zinc.

While maintaining buy call on the stock, it raised target price to Rs 394 (from Rs 358 per share), led by increasing zinc price assumption.

Morgan Stanley, too, has maintained its overweight call on the stock with a target price of Rs 391 per share as Q2FY18 was in-line quarter with positive surprise from zinc segment.

The brokerage house feels cost for aluminium will remain elevated in Q3 owing to higher coal and alumina prices, before potentially easing in Q4.

Gross and net debt of the company continued to decline with loan repayment.
CCL Products India posted strong revenue growth on a low base in Q2 but margins were hit due to higher raw material costs. In an interview to CNBC-TV18, C Srishant, MD of CCL Products discussed the company's Q2 performance.

He said we had given a guidance of 20 percent volume growth for FY18.

Our primary focus is to fill current capacity and add new customers, said Srishant.

We saw lower revenue last year due to plant shutdown, he added.

Expect margin to improve as the company plans to improve the mix, he addd.
Vedanta reported a mixed set of Q2 earnings. In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Kuldeep Kaura, Interim CEO of the company discussed their Q2 performance.

On the aluminium side, market has been developing very well and there have been some constraints in supply. Mainly in China, there might be some restrictions because of the environment factors and winter coming in. So market will remain stable to my mind, he said.

On zinc, he believes the demand is going up and possibly supplies will catch up over a period of time. Outlook for zinc prices is stable, plus or minus something, he added.

Coal supplies and prices have gone up. Our materialisation percentages from linkages have been a bit lower than expected. That leads to this cost increase, said Kaura.

He expects coal availability to improve in q4 as domestic coal supply improves.

We have a very strong balance sheet. It gives us immense opportunities to grow and assuming Indian growth at plus or minus 8 percent, in ten years time, the demand for metals will grow to about three times the current size of the market, he further mentioned.

Believe there is a huge opportunity in steel business, he said.

It is a huge opportunity for us to look at oil and gas sector and also invest in further enhancing our crude production capabilities, Kaura added.
Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar

While some political parties in Goa, including the Shiv Sena, have expressed concerns over the imposition of GST on 'tiatr', a traditional form of theatre in the state, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said the government has not received any representation from any tiatrist or drama producers in this connection so far.

Parrikar, in a letter written on October 30 in reply to Shiv Sena's demand to look into the issue, also said that if his government gets any representation from a tiatrist or drama producer, then it would be taken up with the GST Council for consideration.

Shiv Sena, however, said as the chief minister of the state it was his duty to reach out to the tiatr fraternity to inquire about their concerns. The Uddhav Thackeray-led party has raised concerns that the imposition of GST on tiatr would eliminate this traditional form of theatre.

In the letter, Parrikar said, "In this regard, this is to inform you that so far no representation is received from any tiatrist or drama producer as almost all of them are not covered under GST."

Stating that GST falls under the Centre's domain, the chief minister said, "However, if any representation is received from a tiatrist or drama producer, then the issue will be taken up with the GST Council for consideration and appropriate solutions."

Shiv Sena's Goa unit spokesman Rakhi Naik told reporters in a press conference last evening that they don't buy Parrikar's argument that the state government has not acted as none of the tiatrist or drama producer has approached them with a representation.

"As a chief minister of the State it was his duty to reach to the tiatr fraternity to inquire about their concern. Moreover, it was also the duty of the state government to examine the impact of GST on tiatr and drama," she said.

Parrikar's reply clearly indicates that the state government has not applied its mind over the crucial subject, Naik alleged.

The Sena also demanded that Parrikar should take up the issue of GST on tiatr and drama immediately with the GST Council.
Yogi Adityanath, Chief Minister of India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, addresses the audience after inaugurating power projects in Allahabad

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanth has said that Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) card facility for Indian origin people in Mauritius will further strengthen bilateral ties and will give them chance to know the land of their ancestors closely.

"OCI card facility to the people of Indian origin living in Mauritius will further strengthen ties between the two countries," the chief minister, who is on an official visit to Mauritius, said. OCI is a scheme that was introduced in response to demands for dual citizenship by the Indian diaspora.

Addressing a function at Port Louis organised by the Indian High Commission yesterday, the chief minister said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Mauritius in 2015 brought a new high in relations between the two countries and hoped Modi's initiative will open new doors of development in Mauritius.

A senior state government official, quoting the chief minister, said the OCI card facility will help them know the land of their ancestors closely. The chief minister, who also issued OCI cards to some of the NRIs on the occasion, highlighted in detail facilities like lifetime visa and exemption from taking work permit that the card holders will be entitled to.

Referring to the "discover your roots" scheme of the UP tourism department, the chief minister said it can help anyone of Indian origin to contact the department for getting information about the village of their forefathers.

The tourism department will contact the district officials of the area and gather information for them, he said. Highlighting the tourism potential of the state, the chief minister mentioned Ram Janmbhoomi and Krishna Janmbhoomi besides other historical monuments and places of natural beauty and stressed that Uttar Pradesh has places of interests for all types of tourists.
Hurricane Irma (L) and Hurricane Jose are pictured in the Atlantic Ocean in this NOAA satellite handout photo

Global reinsurance major Swiss Re reported a group net loss of USD 468 million for the first nine months of 2017, reflecting the expected USD 3.6 billion insurance claims in the wake of hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, and the Mexico earthquakes.

Swiss Re also has a reinsurance business in India and has a reinsurance branch in Mumbai.

As per company filings, Swiss Re expects its insurance claims from natural catastrophes for the first nine months of 2017 to amount to approximately USD 4 billion at a group level, with around USD 3 billion being incurred by P&C Re and approximately USD 1 billion by Corporate Solutions.

Swiss Re's Group Chief Executive Officer, Christian Mumenthaler, said: The severe natural catastrophes we have experienced so far this year have clearly impacted our results. At the same time, we are able to absorb these losses and join forces with our clients to help affected people and businesses in getting back on their feet.

Mumenthaler said that the company believes it has the financial strength to respond to potential market developments and continues to stay committed to creating long-term shareholder value.

P&C (Property and Corporate) Re's and Corporate Solutions' results were both affected by these severe events, with P&C Re reporting a USD 652 million net loss and Corporate Solutions a USD 762 million net loss. L&H (Life & Health) Re continued to generate strong results and life capital delivered a strong gross cash generation.

In a statement, Swiss Re said that they maintained a very strong capital position and high financial flexibility.

Swiss Re generated an annualised return on equity (ROE) of -1.9 percent in the first nine months while it continued to invest into its business. The Group's annualised return on investments (ROI) was strong at 3.5 percent and the fixed income running yield was stable at 2.9 percent.

Gross premiums written for the first nine months declined 5.1 percent to USD 26.7 billion, as Swiss Re applied its disciplined underwriting approach in challenging market conditions. Measured at constant foreign exchange rates, the decline would have been 4.2 percent.

As a result of the large natural catastrophe losses, the Group has strengthened Corporate Solutions' capital position with a USD 1 billion capital injection.

The combined ratio for the first nine months of 2017 was 142.6 percent and the annualised ROE was -56.0 percent. Gross premiums written increased by 1.9 percent to USD 2.9 billion in the first nine months.

The most recent hurricanes and earthquakes are a reminder that large natural catastrophes can have a significant short-term financial impact and create earnings volatility, said a company statement.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and Indian airline companies are in a last-minute rush to prepare for the 11-day safety audit by International Civil Aviation Organization.

The exercise starts Monday with the audit of the Indian aviation regulator. This will last till November 10.

After that, the United Nations aviation watchdog will randomly pick up any of the seven scheduled airlines and subject them to its audit till the process ends on November 16.

The audit is conducted to check DGCAs compliance with norms and procedures related to airworthiness of planes, pilot training, legislation, licensing, safety procedures at the airports and air traffic control, operations, cabin safety, cockpit sanctity, accident investigation, air navigation and aerodromes. Aviation safety is at the core of ICAOs fundamental objectives.

DGCAs last audit by ICAO  done in 2012  didnt go very well for it. The UN body had placed India in its list of 13 nations with worst aviation safety standards. That ignominy led to the US Federal Aviation Authority downgrading India in 2014. This meant that Indian airline companies could not add any more routes to their network in the US or enter into new codeshare agreements with airlines flying to that country.

FAA restored the grade in 2015 but the history has left its impressions which can only go away after a good long track record.

The DGCA has hired 75 flight operation inspectors for various airlines on a contractual basis to meet the ICAO norms. The DGCA has aligned most of its rules -- called civil aviation requirements  as per ICAO norms, an official with an airline said.

This is the first time ICAO will audit Indian airline companies in a random manner. Quite naturally, officials at DGCA and the airline companies are praying for the entire exercise to pass smoothly to prevent any repeat of 2012.

Questions over safety standards do not sit well with a nation that is the third-largest market by the number of local passengers flying annually. The country is among the fastest growing aviation market in the world with the local traffic expected to touch 126 million in 2017-18 on a growth rate of 22 percent.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has terminated 20 road development contracts citing default. NHAI has also barred some major infra players from bidding for highway projects in the next 2-3 years for public-private partnership (PPP) projects and engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) projects, which received major funding from the government.

The companies that are barred include L&T, Hindustan Construction Company (HCC), Essel Infra Projects, MBL Infra, JKM Infra, Madhucon Toll Highways, Supreme Infra, Transtroy India and others. These firms have been given time till November 6 to make representation before NHAI.

The regulator said that these companies have failed to fulfil the criteria and were unable to execute the projects awarded to them between 2015 and 2017. These companies wont be able to compete for PPP, EPC, tolls and road ministrys projects till 2019.

L&T's joint venture with Ashoka Concessions has failed to execute the six-lane project in Maharashtra. HCC West Bengal project has been terminated and NHAI said that the company wont be allowed to bid again. NHAI has terminated 20 contracts in total.

The news has come as a big setback for these infra companies which have been looking to bid for the governments ambitious Bharatmala project.

NHAI officials told CNBC-TV18, the list came out as a result of government looking at big steps to revive the stalled projects.

NHAI Chairman Deepak Kumar told Moneycontrol: "This news is false. These are the list of companies whose projects were terminated in the past. Not today. These were terminated in 2014, 2015 and 2016. Our tender document says that the projects which get terminated due to the fault of the company, then such companies are debarred from participating in any other tender."

NHAI has only "asked" these companies to make presentation as to whether they have received any judicial nod. That is, in case the companies took any legal action to come clean against the NHAI's list, then the company should produce the legal papers in front of the regulator.

"We have only asked them to show us their papers, if they have anything to prove the termination wrong. We have given them time till 6th November. NHAI will take decision on 7th, whether to continue with these companies or not. If they have nothing to say, we will then debar them. We will take decision only after their presentation," he said.

"As per RFP or MCA, if a project gets terminated, the concessionaire is liable to be debarred

Thus the list was put up only to ask them to give representations," he added.

L&T official spokesperson told Moneycontrol, L&T IDPL, a subsidiary of L&T, terminated a concession for the Pimpalgaon Nashik Gonde project due to force majeure events arising from law and order issues as per provisions of the Concession Agreement, after completing the Project.

In our opinion, the termination cannot be treated as a Concessionaire event of Default.

The matter is sub-judice as it is under Arbitration / Conciliation.

As per NHAI directions, the matter has been represented and a decision is awaited from them shortly."

HCC official spokesperson told Moneycontrol, "The NHAI had uploaded the list of 20 projects on October 30, 2017 on its website and it stands withdrawn from NHAI portal today after representation from concerned companies and industry bodies.

The HCC BOT project concerned, namely Raiganj Dalkhola Highways Ltd, has been delayed for 6 years due to land acquisition delays on account of NHAI. We feel that the action by NHAI is premature, especially considering since the alleged termination is undergoing an adjudication or conciliation process.

We are glad that overall list and thereby HCCs name has been withdrawn.

Jagannarayan Padmanabhan of Crisil Infrastructure Advisory told CNBC-TV18, such a strong step by NHAI will stop aggressive bidding by companies.

There are genuine cases too of projects not completed due to external factors, says Padmanabhan.
Infosys

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Facing criticism over glitches in the software it developed for the GST Network, Infosys Ltd has deployed more IT experts and engineers in states to steady the Goods and Services Tax return filing portal, a government official said today.

Infosys, which had won the Rs 1,380 crore deal in 2015 for developing and running GST's back-end, has stepped up efforts to remove outages the system faced during peak tax and return filing period, he said.

"Infosys has started deploying more engineers and IT experts for the GSTN project. They are being sent to major states to address issues and help states better understand the system," the official said.

Businesses and traders have complained of problems faced in filing of return on the GST-Network portal on the last days, forcing the government to extend deadlines.

While it had extended the date for maiden GSTR-3B return filing in August, the due date for final returns GSTR-1, 2 and 3 has also been extended.

Glitches in invoice matching while filing GSTR-2 was flagged at the meeting of Group Of Ministers (GoM) on October 28 following which it directed Infosys to deploy more software engineers in every state to assist state tax officers with the new IT system.

The official said Infosys has already deployed more than 100 IT people in their team for GSTN functioning.

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and head of GoM on GSTN Sushil Modi had last week said that Infosys was earlier asked to deploy engineers in major states by October 30.

"They have done so in 9 states and sought time till November end to deploy in other states," Modi had said.

Infosys won a 5-year government contract worth Rs 1,380 crore in 2015 to develop the IT system for the biggest indirect tax reform GST.

While some believe that the onus was on Infosys to ensure a glitch free system, others say that the last moment finalisation of rules relating to returns took toll on the system's performance.

The GST Council, comprising Centre and states, had in June finalised rules for return filing and transition credit claims.

GST was rolled out from July 1. GST Network has since then been working very closely with Infosys to ensure timely availability of software and utilities on the portal.

Replying to questions emailed by PTI, Infosys said: "Given the complex nature of the project and rapid change management, there have been several stakeholder concerns that have also been raised.

"Some of our finest engineers are supporting the GSTN team as they work towards resolving these and serving all stakeholders".

The GoM on GSTN chaired by Modi was set up in September to streamline the issues faced by businesses while transacting on the portal and also to make it more user friendly.

After the third meeting of the GoM on October 28, he had said: "27 functionalities had to be launched or issues had to be resolved by Infosys, out of which 18 of them have been operationalised. This is about 66.7 per cent success. Infosys is doing their best...
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Diversified conglomerate ITC today said it plans to invest Rs 10,000 crore to set up food processing facilities across the country.

The Kolkata-based company is looking to have around 20 such units pan India.

"I am happy to say we are going to invest over Rs 10,000 crore in setting up food processing facilities on a pan India basis," ITC CEO Sanjiv Puri said here.

He was speaking at World Food India event. He said ITC over the past 2-3 years has already set up few such facilities.

"Several such facilities have already been set up over the past 2-3 years and we hope to have pan India presence with about 20 more," Puri said.

Besides, the company would invest in agriculture sector to empower around four million farmers.

"Our aspiration is to take this number to 10 million farmers by 2019," Puri said.

ITC is investing heavily in both agriculture and food segments as it sees huge potential in these two sectors.

The company had earlier announced investment of Rs 25,000 crore to enhance physical infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities.

"It (Rs 10,000 cr) is a part of Rs 25,000 crore capex. This amount would be spent on more than 20 integrated manufacturing units for food processing," said an ITC spokesman.

He further said it is a fast-track investment and around three factories would be ready by January.
Lemon Tree Hotels, a leading hospitality chain, forayed into the city today, opening a property here. There were plans to increase it to 100 hotels across the country by 2022, a top company official said.

Built at a cost of Rs 35 crore, the hotel has 61 rooms and suites and offers facilities including 24X7 multi-cuisine coffee shop, a recreation bar, a gymnasium and an outdoor swimming pool, R Vijayakumar, director, Lakshna Consultants and Hoteliers, which manages the property, told reporters here.

On the future plans, Lemon Tree Hotels Deputy Managing Director Rattan Keswani said that with the present 44 hotels, both own and managed under three brands, the company plans to touch the 100-mark by 2022.

Stating that the facilities in Udaipur, Kolkata, Pune and Mumbai would be opened next year, Keswani said it would also be opening five new hotels in the Eastern part of the country in another six months.

On the growth prospects, he said the hospitality industry which witnessed a low from 2009 to 2017, was expected to pick up next year, with the increasing trend of domestic leisure travellers.

Lemon Tree Hotels had filed a Draft Red Herring prospectus two months ago with the Securities and Exchange Board of India to make an initial public offering of its equity shares, Keswani said. However, he refused to elaborate.

On the business and marketing strategy, Vijayakumar said that the new hotel, strategically located near the airport, prominent IT parks and Codissia Grounds, would bring great value to guests travelling to the city.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has expressed unhappiness to Deutsche Bank over the leaking of information from a closed-door meeting held between RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya with senior fund managers and bankers, reports The Economic Times.

According to the report, a search has been initiated to catch the culprits suspected to have leaked the information to media that resulted in a drop in bond prices on Monday with securities yields hardening further.

The central bank was not pleased with the media leak and trade conducted by few institutions, who might have been aware of the information at the meeting. Deutsche Bank had organised the meet between the deputy governor and its top clients.

The German bank was forced to send an email to all the participants of the meeting informing them that the view expressed by the deputy governor were his personal and could not be ascribed to the central bank. The bank would share the list of participants who attended the meeting to the RBI.

Small fund managers and traders complained that they never get an opportunity to interact with the government official and central bankers who regularly meet with the big clients, which gives the big players an advantage of understanding the tone and body language of the officials.
Taking Stock is the show in which market experts take stock of the week gone by and prepare you for the next trading week.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Manishi Raychaudhuri, Asian Equity Strategist at BNP Paribas and Ashwani Gujral of ashwanigujral.com shared their readings and outlook of the market as well as specific stocks and sectors.

Below are Ashwani Gujrals stock ideas.

On Bharti Airtel:

There is more upside to Bharti Airtel, but you will probably see some consolidation, some correction before that upside plays out. So given that 20 percent move in two weeks has happened on Bharti, similar move on Idea Cellular, you need things to consolidate a little bit. Obviously, the market is pricing something that people cannot see today. So, you would expect possibly a 5-7 percent correction before they move on forward.

On Aban Offshore:

Several stocks have shown bottoms which have been formed and they are longer-term bottoms. Oil and oil related plays are moving up fairly strongly. So, oil above USD 60 per barrel will lead to all of these offshore companies moving up. So Aban Offshore is a buy with a stop loss of Rs 200, target of Rs 225.

On Dewan Housing Finance Corporation:

DHFL like I have mentioned that this is the only housing finance stock which is going up, this is doing something extraordinarily right. So that way, this is a buy with a stop loss of Rs 665 and look for targets of Rs 700.

On IndusInd Bank:

IndusInd Bank, it is coming back from its blues of merging with Bharat Financial Inclusion. So, there a bottom has been created. That is a buy with a stop loss of Rs 1,650, target of Rs 1,700.

On Natco Pharma:

He should stay invested. Natco Pharma again, one of the pharma stocks that did not really go through a bear market. So chances are it is doing something right. Once we can get past this Rs 1,050 type of zone, probably Natco will become a Rs 1,500 stock. The day it starts to cross Rs 1,100 maybe you can even add on. But right now, you have a good price and I think you should hold on to it. Possibly have a stop loss around Rs 850-870 and the stock should hold on to those levels.

On Dredging Corporation India:

Something seems to be happening on this divestment thing where government is probably now becoming keen to sell strategic stakes. That is real divestment, not selling to LIC. So if that is the case and that happens for a lot of companies, even on Dredging Corporation, above Rs 700, there is still scope for it to even go to Rs 900. So given that river linking etc. has been taken very seriously, I think he should hold on. There will come a time when these stocks will reward people a lot. This is the only segment which has not really done well in this bull market. So now that they have started moving, I think it is time to hold on. Your price is low, so maybe keep a Rs 650 type of a stock and expect higher levels.

On Yes Bank:

People have seen that if they buy Yes Bank on a 20 percent decline, it generally tends to reward. Whatever has happened is in the price and from here, keep a Rs 300 type of a stop loss and at some point, it will get back to Rs 380-385. If Punjab National Bank can sort out its issues, I think Yes Bank can.
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Billionaire investor Warren Buffett once said that be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful. You might not see merit in this statement but most seasoned investors which manage multi-crore worth of portfolio do exactly the same.

A close look at the portfolio changes of Vijay Kedia, who is known on Dalal Street for spotting multibaggers, pared his holding in almost 40 percent of the stocks in his portfolio for the quarter ended September 2017, and added 1 stock to his portfolio.

The market has been hitting record highs since September. The S&P BSE Sensex rallied over 26 percent so far in the year 2017 to hit Mount 33K.

Almost 11 out of 12 stocks in his portfolio where shareholding exceeds 1 percent in the companies for the September quarter gave positive returns.

ABC Bearings rose up to 183 percent, followed by Everest Industries which gained 147 percent, Repro India gained 101 percent, and Vaibhav Global rose 137 percent so far in the year 2017.

My cost price for Vaibhav Global is much lower than the currently quoted price. As on today, I intend to hold for another 5 to 10 years and expect handsome returns, said Kedia.

He further added that ABC is merging with Timken which is a multinational and a conglomerate, although it is a bit expensive.

Vijay Kedia, MD, Kedia Securities who has been part of D-Street for the last 28 years, added one stock to his portfolio in the September quarter while increased his stake marginally in another.

Kedia added Everest Industries to his portfolio and increased his stake in Cheviot Company. He reduced his stake in 5 out of 12 companies in which he holds more than 1 percent which include names like ABC Bearings, Sudarshan Chemicals, TCPL Packaging, Repro India, and Cera Sanitary.

Everest was added 3-month ago. The main reason for adding Everest was the product which the company produces, said Kedia. It is used in villages, towns and metropolitan cities. It touches the lives of lower, middle and upper classes of the society, he said.

Kedia maintained his stake in 5 out of 12 companies which include names like Panasonic Energy, Apcotex Industries, Karnataka Bank, Aries Agro, and Vaibhav Global.

Commenting on the future outlook for his portfolio, Kedia said that he is an optimist. I think all my stocks would multiply manifold in the next few years. Because, a majority of them are from the consumption theme. And, in my view, this theme, in general, will keep on flourishing for many decades to come, he said.

The stocks listed above are not recommendations. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
Torrent Pharmaceuticals on Friday said that it has entered into a definitive binding agreement with Unichem to acquire its branded business of India and Nepal for a consideration of Rs 3,600 crore.

Unichem's India business comprises a portfolio of more than 120 brands in India and Nepal, a manufacturing plant at Sikkim catering to these markets and all the employees engaged in the said business.

The deal values Unichem domestic formulation business at little over four times of its turnover in FY17.

Unichem India business clocked sales of Rs.841.5 crore representing 59.5 percent of the company revenues in the year ended March 2017

Torrent will fund the acquisition through a mix of internal accruals and bank borrowings.

The deal expected to close by end Of 2017. More than 3,000 employees will get added to Torrent's employee pool.

The acquisition helps Torrent to consolidate its market share in terms of sales which will increase from current 2.4 percent to 3.4 percent in the IPM - making it the fifth largest drug maker in India.

As per the SMSRC prescription audit database, Torrent rank in terms of overall prescription in the Indian Pharma market will move from 14 to 7.

The acquisition will add a brand of Rs 200 crores and three brands of more than Rs 50 crore, to tis existing portfolio. The top brands include Losar, Unienzyme, Ampoxin, Telsar and Vizylac.

In its existing key therapies, the market share in cardiology, central nervous system, gastro-intestinal therapies will increase from 5.6 percent to 8.6 percent; 6.4 percent to 8.4 percent; and 3.1 percent and 3.9 percent respectively.

This will be Torrent's fifth acquisition in India after acquiring the selected brands of Elder and Novartis, as well as manufacturing plants from ZygPharma and Glochem Industries Ltd in the last four years.

"The transaction is strategic fit for Torrent and will strengthen its position in the key segments of cardiology, diabetology, gastro-intestinals and CNS therapies," said Samir Mehta, Chairman of Torrent Pharmaceuticals.

It is also expected to realise cost and revenue synergies in Torrent's branded business in India," Mehta said.

Post the sale Unichem said it will continue to have greater focus on international business comprising of manufacturing, selling and marketing of fixed dosage formulation and API, in addition to investing on complex generics and biosimilars.

"The deal will enable the organisation to deliver superior results in areas of innovative research, new chemical and biological entities and move into next orbit of growth," said Prakash Modi, Chairman of Unichem Laboratories.

Modi in an interview to CNBC-TV18 said that he is looking at the "best method to reward shareholders" through either a buyback or a dividend.

Modi didn't specify how much of the sale proceeds will go towards rewarding shareholders and added that his board will take a decision on it.

Analysts said the deal was overvalued as Unichem products are old molecules, growing at slower pace possibly extending the payback period for Torrent.

On positive said expect the deal to help Torrent expand its market share - by broadening its portfolio in key chronic segments like cardiovascular (CVS) and central nervous system (CNS).

"In terms of overlap there is not much, so it is a good deal in that sense, but from financial perspective I think it's at higher side for Torrent, they have bought these products at a very expensive valuation," said Amey Chalke, Research Analyst at HDFC Securities.

Chalke said the acquisition will add new debt to the tune of Rs 2000 - 2500 crore for Torrent, in addition to the existing Rs 2000 crore debt on books.

They can fund up to Rs 800 - Rs 1000 crore with existing cash flows but the remainder will have to come from borrowings, Chalke added.

The acquisition was announced after market hours.

Shares of Torrent Pharma declined 0.76 percent to close at Rs 1315.30 on BSE, while Unichem shares gained 0.59 percent to close at 313.30.

Ahmedabad-based Torrent Pharma announced its September quarter results on Friday. The net profit came in at RS 204 crore, down by about 1 percent against RS 207 crore year on year. The revenue was unchanged at Rs 1,429 crore year on year.

At the operating level, the EBITDA was reported at Rs 329 crore against Rs 330 crore year on year, while the operating margin was reported at 23.02 percent against 23.09 percent during the same period last year.

Unichem Labs too reported its quarterly results and the net profit came in at Rs 45.8 crore against Rs 20.5 crore year on year. The revenue, in this case, was higher by 18 percent at Rs 428.1 crore against RS 364.2 crore year on year.

The EBITDA was 82.8 percent higher at Rs 72.3 crore against RS 39.6 crore, while the margin was reported at 16.9 percent against 10.9 percent.
Representative Image: mc pro markets quiz

(The Moneycontrol Ultimate Business Quiz is a weekly feature comprising 25 questions that we will put out on Fridays.)

Network18 Digital

Test yourself with Moneycontrol's Ultimate Business Quiz, and see if you know how the logo of an iconic automaker evolved and why a much-loved cartoon character came to be painted on an airplane. (Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons)

Click here to find out the answers: Answers to Moneycontrol Ultimate Business Quiz #1

Q1. Found at the Museum of Flight, this seaplane is the replica of the first ever product made by this company in 1916. Which company?

Q2. Which airlines came up with these special edition planes?

Q3. Identify this famous Soviet aerospace engineer.

Q4. These structures mark locations where cars can be charged for long distance journeys. There are over 200 of them in America, over 100 in Europe, and close 70 of them in the Asia Pacific. Which company runs these stations?

Q5. New look of which much-loved mascot?

Q6. Connect.

Q7. The logo of which planned private city is inspired by the works of MC Escher?

Q8. Which famous non-profit educational organization gives out these badges categorized after various elements in space?

Q9. What is the nationalized bank, founded in 1938, named after the man shown in this picture?

Q10. This message is displayed outside the branches of which Indian bank?

Q11. Identify this duo.

Q12. What is this coat of arms and what did it inspire?

Q13. What is the nickname of these towers?

Q14. Which popular quick-service restaurant (QSR) chain entered into selling pizzas with the below campaign but failed?

Q15. In the headquarters of which company would one find streetlamps shaped like this?

Q16. Where are we and which Indian industry is this considered the birthplace of?

Q17. He started his company with a few thousand rupees in Vapi in the 1980s. In 2015, he was ranked the second-richest man in India by Forbes. Which company did he start?

Q18. A special edition HMT watch. What was it called?

Q19. Which word from the world of business would be used to describe these men in Spanish?

Q20. Who is the co-author of this book?

Q21. Who is this actor dressed as?

Q22. After over 90 years of being a well-read publication, they have decided to start a web-based travel centre. Which publication?

Q23. Which Indian airport became the first ever airport to be fully operated on solar power?

Q24. Fill the missing piece.

Q25. This fast food restaurant is originally from where?
New cars will cost a lot more than today when the industry adopts more than half a dozen changes such as mandatory fitment of passive and active safety features and emission related costs in the vehicle.

The automobile industry expects such safety features and upgradation to new emission norms will push up vehicle costs by at least Rs 40,000 on petrol cars and Rs 80,000 on diesel cars by April 1, 2020.

Raw material prices and forex-related cost escalations are likely to make cars dearer by another Rs 20,000 -- considering an annual average car price rise of about 1.5 percent. Hence, in the three years to 2020, the effective price rise may be as high as Rs 50,000 considering this parameter alone.

Carmakers will have been mandated to fit in air bags, anti-lock braking system, high speed alert mechanism, reverse parking assist and seat belt reminder in all cars produced after July 1, 2019. The move is part of the government's aim to curb fatalities caused in road accidents.

As per government data more than 140,000 people die on Indian roads every year in cases of vehicular accidents which is 400 times the number of deaths the country witnessed in terrorism-related cases in 2016. In about 78 percent of such cases, the accident was caused due to drivers fault.

Airbag Protection

While some carmakers offer dual front airbags (for driver and passenger) as standard across all variants on some models, airbag protection will become mandatory for all variants of every model sold in India less than two years later. Each airbag fitment, along with wiring harness, costs around Rs 10,000.

While Bharat NCAP (New Car Assessment Program), the India equivalent of Europe's Global NCAP of Europe, will lay guidelines for crash testing of vehicles, the government has formed instructions for passive safety such as reverse parking sensors. Such fitments will cost a minimum of Rs 1,000, whereas a unit equipped with camera and display will cost around Rs 8,000.

Speed Check

To curb overspeeding, carmakers will have to install speed alert system warn the driver once the car travels faster than 80 kmph. This system won't limit speed of the vehicle.

The speed alert system shall be designed in such a way that the warning signal cannot be stopped by means other than control of the speed by the driver, a notification from the government stated.

BS VI Blitz

Perhaps the biggest increase in costs will come in 2020 when the industry switches to Bharat Stage VI. Research and rating agency ICRA expects prices of petrol cars to go up by Rs 20,000-30,000 and that of diesel by Rs 80,000-100,000.

The pricing gap between petrol and diesel cars will rise with the onset of BS-VI as upgrading a compact diesel-powered car will be much more expensive than upgrading a petrol-powered small car. At present the difference between the two options is Rs 80,000-100,000.
bid auction sale

Piramal Group could buy stake in the debt-laden Binani Cement and Electrosteel Steels, as per a report in the Business Standard. The news comes after creditors of these companies asked top companies to bid for stressed assets under the insolvency process.

The distressed asset fund of the Piramal Group has asked for data from the banks on the two companies, a source told the newspaper.

While Binani Cement owes Bank of Baroda Rs 97 crore and is also to a group of Indian lenders headed by Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company for Rs 3,700 crore as of March 2016.

Electrosteel Steels has a debt of Rs 10,288 crore. It is one of the 12 companies identified by RBI for resolution under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

The distressed assets of both companies were referred to the National Company law Tribunal (NCLT) after the companies defaulted on the bank loans.

Six companies such as Srei Infrastructure, Tata Steel, Mesco Steel, and Edelweiss are officially interested in buying stake in Electrosteel.

The loss-making Binani Cement has 11.25 million tonnes of global capacity and 6.25 million tonnes of domestic capacity, and hence, has attracted several cement makers other than Piramal, a lender said.

Lenders told BS that they had asked Piramal Group to join one of the companies that had already submitted the official expression of interest for Electrosteel Steels.

Piramal Group joins JSW, Vedanta and Tata Group who are currently belligerent in bidding for distressed assets with a special focus on infrastructure and steel sectors.

Lenders also said that the Piramal Group have formed an in-house distressed asset fund along with Bain Capital Credit. They are considering investment in distressed assets to the tune of USD 1 billion in coming years.
The State Bank of India logo is seen on an ATM in Singapore December 26, 2015. REUTERS/Thomas White - RTX21HPI

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Country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) is expecting to get a substantial chunk of the government's latest announcement to recapitalise all the public sector banks amounting to Rs 2.11 lakh crore.

"The government had announced the recapitalise the public sector banks to the tune of Rs 2.11 lakh crore. SBI, being the biggest among them, expects to get a substantial portion of that", a senior official of the bank said.

He said that although the bank was sufficiently capitalised, the additional capital which would flow in due to recapitalisation would help the bank in dealing in stressed assets as well as to fund future credit growth which was expected to pick up from 2018-19.

Besides this, the internal accruals through generation of profits would also help in building up the capital base of the base of the bank, which was now well above the RBI stipulated requirement. The official said that lots of assets were under stress which SBI would have to address.

"Now we have avenues like the NCLT and IBC. The issue is whether we have enough capital", he said. For the public sector banking system as a whole, there would be restrictions in terms of getting money. Now it required to be seen how the government treated the weak and healthy banks in terms of giving capital, he said.

"SBI is a very healthy bank. How much money we will get will depend whether the government decided to fund more the weak ones to make them healthy or otherwise", he said.
A logo of Sharp Corp is pictured at CEATEC (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies) JAPAN 2016 at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan, October 3, 2016. Picture taken October 3, 2016. REUTERS/Toru Hanai - RTX2ZFX9

Sharp India is eyeing Rs 500 crore turnover from its air purification business segment by 2023 as it expects the niche product category to grow exponentially in the coming years.

The company also called for creation of standards and regulations for air purifier with respect to effectiveness and safety of the products.

"We are aiming for Rs 500 crore turnover from our air purifier business by year 2023. Air purifier business in India is growing at an exponential growth with the increase in the awareness about poor air quality in the country," Sharp Business Systems (India) President-CE Business Kishalay Ray told reporters.

At present, air purifiers account for 25 per cent of Sharp India's total sales. The company reported sales of Rs 30 crore in the previous fiscal from air purifiers and is expected to double it in the current fiscal.

Elaborating on the need for regulations, Ray said: "At present, there are no standards or regulations for air purifiers being sold in the country. The government should frame regulations which will help customer make decisions to purchase the product".

There are about 40 companies offering air purifiers in the Indian market.
Trucks wait in a queue for the border customs control to cross into U.S. at the World Trade Bridge in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, November 2, 2016. Picture taken November 2, 2016. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril - RTX2T319

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Bharat Forge share price touched a fresh record high of Rs 722, rising 3.75 percent intraday Friday, following sharp improvement in North American class 8 truck orders.

The improvement in truck orders has been continued for the fifth consecutive month in September.

At 10:19 hours IST, the stock price was quoting at Rs 710.90, up Rs 15.05, or 2.16 percent on the BSE.

FTR in its release said preliminary North American Class 8 net orders for October stood at 35,700 units, continuing month-on-month increase of 62 percent versus September and 167 percent above a year ago.

FTR further said orders are set to rise due to strong freight demand & jump in US economy. Digitisation in the transportation sector in US is aiding Class 8 trucks, it added.

US business contributed 23 percent and commercial vehicle business constituted more than 50 percent to Bharat Forge's FY17 total revenue. Passenger vehicle segment contribution was 19 percent.

The flagship company of USD 2.5 billion Kalyani Group is going to announce its September quarter earnings on November 8, 2017.

Share prices MM Forgings, GNA Axles and Ramkrishna Forgings, which are other suppliers to the US market, also gained 3-4 percent.
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Edelweiss' research report on Godrej Consumer Products

Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL) 6.2%, 14.2% and 15.0% YoY revenue, EBITDA and adjusted PAT growth was in line with our estimates. Domestic volumes grew 10% YoY (on a base of 9%) not fueled by restocking but more on the back of sustainable demand (restocking led volume growth would be 1% YoY). Strong volume growth was led by the doubledigit volume growth in soaps and hair colour creme segments.

Outlook

We like GCPLs sharp focus on innovation and cost efficiency. Africa growth is encouraging and likely to be enhanced by entry into HI and wet hair care segments through SON, which would be EPS accretive. On the back of strong recovery and market share gains, we upgrade target multiple to 42x (earlier 40x) and arrive at TP of INR 1,111 (earlier INR 1,084). At CMP, the stock is trading at 36.6x FY19E EPS.

For all recommendations report, click here

Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts/broking houses/rating agencies on moneycontrol.com are their own, and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.

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Vedanta

Brokerage: CLSA | Rating: Buy | Target: Raised to Rs 405

CLSA said that a rise in Q2 EBITDA was driven by higher commodity prices, low base for HZL volume. Meanwhile, earnings outlook was strong given the ramp up of new aluminium smelters and zinc expansion.

Brokerage: Macquarie | Rating: Outperform | Target: Rs 372

Macquarie said that the companys Q2 EBITDA was 5% below estimate due to higher costs in the aluminium division. Further, higher costs and short alumina position drove 5-6 percent cut in FY18-19 EPS. The firm also sees a case for multiple re-rating, raise India business EV/EBITDA To 6x from 5.5x.

Power Grid

Brokerage: Axis Capital | Rating: Hold | Target: Rs 215

Axis Capital said that the company Q2 growth was largely in-line with pickup in capitalization. Further, an expectation of further capitalisation gives visibility of 15% earnings CAGR over 5-7 Years.

Brokerage: CLSA | Rating: Buy | Target: Rs 260

CLSA said that the firms Q2 capitalisation was up 50%, HVDC lines drive catch-up. In fact, a strong Q2 supported the thesis of strong PAT growth led by high-margin telecom business. Further, it believes that the best is yet to come in terms of capitalization. It is also forecasting 40% rise in regulated equity in FY17-20, which should drive EPS CAGR of 15%.

Glenmark

Brokerage: Macquarie | Rating: Outperform | Target: Rs 728

The research firm said that Q2FY18 EBITDA handsomely beat our estimate led by lower other expenses. Further, it said that the stock was trading at an attractive valuation of over 14x FY19e EPS. A reduction in net debt and US sales acceleration remains a key.

Hindalco

Brokerage: Macquarie | Rating: Outperform | Target: Rs 330

The brokerage said that Novelis Q2 EBITDA beat its estimates by 6%, led by strong volume growth. Meanwhile, commodity price upgrades & guidance drove 9-15% EPS upgrades for FY18-20. It also sees a case for multiple re-rating and increase the India business EV/EBITDA from 6.5 times to 7 times.

Brokerage: UBS

UBS expects positive reaction to strong Novelis results & upward revision to FY18 consensus. The biggest risk in India is to import competition and the execution at its units.

Brokerage: Credit Suisse | Rating: Outperform | Target: Rs 270

JV completion between Kobe & Novelis should help efficiently monetise rolling Korean capacity. Further, it remains positive on the firm with some upside at Novelis, relative strength in aluminium prices.

Divis Labs

Brokerage: Edelweiss Fin | Rating: Reduce | Target: Rs 920

Edelweiss said that it revised FY19 EPS by 10% post current clearance of regulatory issues. It rules out growth for next 2 years as the firm is unable to initiate fresh capex for Kakinada.

AU Small Fin

Brokerage: Morgan Stanley | Rating: Initiate coverage with overweight | Target: Rs 725

The brokerage expects strong growth/high profitability going ahead. While the stock is not cheap w.r.t to Sensex multiples, expect premium valuation to persist.

Berger Paints

Brokerage: Macquarie | Rating: Neutral

Macquarie said that Q2 results in-line with estimates & indicate 8-9% volume growth, while volume growth appears to be similar to Asian Paints. It also said that the gross margin improved QoQ but still trending down YoY.
Courtesy: Lahore- The city of Gardens on Facebook

The seafront bungalow on Malabar Hill built by Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah was at the centre of a prolonged battle between his daughter Dina Wadia and the Indian government.

Wadia died in New York yesterday at the age of 98. Her petition to regain control of her childhood home is still pending for a final hearing the before a division bench of the Bombay High Court.

The palatial 'Jinnah House', originally known as South Court, was witness to meetings of the Muslim League and a crucial meeting between Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Jinnah before partition.

Wadia, born to Jinnah's Parsi wife, Rattanbai Petit, in London in August 1919, had insisted that the stately house, designed in European-style architecture, be called South Court.

In 2007, Pakistan's then president Pervez Musharraf had expressed his desire to acquire the house as Pakistan's property to convert it into a consulate.

The same year (in August 2007), Wadia (then 88), knocked the doors of the Bombay High Court with a petition claiming that the title of the mansion be handed over to her as she was the only heir to Jinnah.

Wadia spent many years in Mumbai but had been living in the US for the past few decades. In her petition, she said she wished to spend her remaining years in the house in Mumbai where she had spent her childhood years.

Wadia, in the petition, had claimed that the bungalow could not be classified as "evacuee property" as her father had died without leaving behind a will.

The petition last came up for hearing before a division bench of Justices S V Gangapurwala and A M Badar on July 28 this year which adjourned it simply to September 7. It has not come up for hearing since then.

Soon after her petition was filed, the high court had directed the Union government to file their affidavit in response.

In October 2007, the government filed its affidavit stating that the Jinnah House belongs to the government and that only Jinnah's sister Fatima or her legal heir can claim right over the property.

Wadia had, however, claimed that she was the only heir of Jinnah and hence the title of the house should be handed over to her.

According to Wadia, the (then) state of Bombay took over the property, because Fatima was the trustee of Jinnah's will, and had been declared an evacuee (those who migrated to Pakistan post-partition) in 1949.

Wadia, in her petition, claimed that her father's will was not probated by the Bombay High Court and therefore had no effect on any operation of law.

Fatima, therefore, could not be the legal owner and so the house should be handed over to his (Jinnah) legal heir.

Also, she (Wadia) is the sole legal heir of Jinnah's property, both under Hindu Law (applicable to Khoja community, to which Jinnah belonged--before Independence) or the Shia Muslim law, her petition claims.

In its reply, the Union government had claimed that her petition is not maintainable and is barred by prolonged and unexplained delay.

The reply filed by G Balasubramanian, deputy secretary to the Ministry of External Affairs, had stated that Government of India had issued a notification on June 27, 1949 under the Bombay Evacuee Property Act, by which the possession of Jinnah House was vested with the Custodian.

On June 10, 1955, another notification was issued under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, by which the right, title and interest was vested in Government of India.

Jinnah had bequeathed the Jinnah House to his unmarried sister Fatima by his will dated May 30, 1939. Fatima migrated to Pakistan at the time of partition and was declared an evacuee and hence the property was taken over by the Indian government under the Bombay Evacuee Property Act, the affidavit filed by the government had said.

In August 2010, the high court had ordered for status quo to be maintained in the matter, but had permitted the Centre to complete the renovation work of the bungalow without making any structural changes.

Wadia wanted the mansion, built by her father in 1936 at a cost of Rs 2 lakh, be called South Court.

In a newspaper interview during a visit to Mumbai in 2008, she had said, when asked about the Jinnah House bungalow in south Mumbai, "Why do you keep calling it Jinnah House? That's the name the British gave it. Its real name is South Court. Why don't you refer to it by its original name?"

In 2004, she visited Jinnah's tomb in Karachi, along with Nusli and his two sons. In the visitors' book, she then wrote, "May his dream for Pakistan come true.
Tejashwi Yadav and Lalu Prasad Yadav

The ED has issued fresh summons asking Tejashwi Yadav, son of RJD leader Lalu Prasad, to appear before it on November 13 in connection with its money laundering probe in the railway hotels allotment corruption case, officials sources today said.

The fresh date has been issued after the former Bihar deputy chief minister skipped similar summons of appearance for October 31, they said.

The fresh date for his appearance is November 13 now, they added.

The agency had registered a case against Lalu Prasad, his family members and others under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) sometime back.

Tejashwi's mother and former Bihar chief minister Rabri has already been asked by the ED to appear before it on November 7, for questioning in the case.

Tejashwi has been once grilled by the ED for over nine hours in connection with the case but he later skipped four summonses to appear again.

Rabri Devi too has skipped the ED summonses at least five times.

In July, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had registered an FIR and conducted multiple searches on the properties of Lalu Prasad, who is also a former Bihar chief minister, and others.

The CBI FIR has alleged that Lalu Prasad during his tenure as the railway minister handed over the maintenance of two Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) hotels to a company in 2004 after receiving a bribe in the form of a prime land in Patna through a 'benami' company owned by Sarla Gupta, wife of Prem Chand Gupta, a former Union minister.

The ED had registered a criminal case against his family members and others under the PMLA, based on the CBI FIR.

The CBI also recently recorded the statements of Tejashwi and Lalu Prasad in this case.

The ED is investigating the alleged "proceeds of crime" generated by the accused, purportedly through shell companies, according to officials.

Others named in the CBI FIR include Vijay Kochhar, Vinay Kochhar (both directors of Sujata Hotels), Delight Marketing company, now known as Lara Projects, and the then IRCTC managing director P K Goel.

The CBI FIR was registered on July 5 in connection with favours allegedly extended to Sujata Hotels in awarding a contract for the upkeep of the hotels in Ranchi and Puri and receiving premium land as 'quid pro quo'.
Developing countries like India can meet the climate targets under the Paris Agreement by catalysing trillions of dollars in private investment through policy reforms and innovative business practices, World Bank arm IFC said in a report today.

The report said renewable energy, off-grid solar and energy storage, agribusiness, green buildings, urban transportation, water, and urban waste management as the sectors that can bring about a crucial difference to catalyse private investment.

Already, over USD 1 trillion investments are flowing into climate-related projects in these areas, but trillions more could be triggered by creating the right business conditions in emerging markets, the report added.

"In India, ambitious targets and multiple reforms across sectors by the Government have steered the country towards exceeding its Nationally Determined Contributions target."

As part of the Paris Climate Agreement, India has targeted to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions up to 35 per cent by 2030.

This, the report said, presents India an attractive and emerging market for climate business that will accelerate the market for climate-friendly solutions.

"India is in the midst of a climate change revolution. It is making significant accomplishments in achieving its pledge to the Paris Agreement," said Jun Zhang, IFC Country Head for India.

IFC will continue working closely with businesses, investors, and governments to further support the goals set by the country, he said.

The Indian government has expanded its National Solar Mission because of a successful 13 GW capacity creation for solar power markets in 2017.

The new target of 175 GW of installed solar energy by 2022 is five times the original target. And it has now become the world's 4th largest wind power generator, with a target to install 60GW of by 2022.

The government also recently announced a commitment to end the sale of gasoline-powered cars by 2030.

"The private sector holds the key to fighting climate change," said IFC CEO Philippe Le Houerou.

The private sector has the innovation, the financing, and the tools.

"We can help unlock more private sector investment, but this also requires government reforms as well as innovative business modelswhich together will create new markets and attract the necessary investment. This can fulfil the promise of Paris," Houerou said.
Indo-China relations are not going to be a walk in the park, but the two nations need to have the confidence to make things work, Chinese Consul General in Kolkata, Ma Zhanwu said today.

Speaking at the inaugural session to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Cheena Bhavana here, he said the "differences" between the two countries were outweighed by their shared interest and trust.

Calling for a new impetus in the bilateral relations, Ma said, "China-India relationship is not going to be a walk in the park. It is going to be difficult with ups and downs. However, we need to have confidence that we can do it".

Quoting a recent statement of Chinese President Xi Jinping, he said his country did not pose a threat to any other nation, and "certainly not India".

"Our president had said China will never seek hegemony or engage in expansion, and will not pose any threat to anybody," he said.

Describing China as a "modern, prosperous, socialist and democratic" country, Ma said it wants to make its relationship with India most vibrant one.

"We need to aim high. We need to have mutual trust. We need to hear from the other side as well," the Chinese diplomat said.

Ma also asked the media to play a key role in bolstering ties between the two nations.

"Talk more of great nations and less of conflicts," he said. Hailing the two-day conference to mark the 80th anniversary of Cheena Bhavana, he said over 70 scholars from China were attending the meet for which preparations had begun one-and-a-half years back.

The Cheena Bhavana (Institute of Chinese Language and Culture) at Visva Bharati University was founded by Rabindranath Tagore in April, 1937.

Stressing the need to realise Tagore's vision for the institute, he said, "There should be more interaction in boosting Sino-India relations. We need to focus on economic development and political relations as part of our study".

The Consul General lamented that there were many interpreters of Chinese language from countries like Canada, but very few from India.

"We need to look at our immediate neighbours. This is true for both nations," he said.

Ma also advocated the introduction of Chinese learning course from junior level in India, and Hindi and other Indian language courses in China.

Talking about Cheena Bhavana retaining its heritage, acting Vice Chancellor of the varsity, Swapan Dutta, said, "We have kept the building design intact, and will never tinker with these things. However, we are modernising the lab with interactive audio and video.
Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping

China today said it was ready to work with India to promote "constant progress" of bilateral relations, amid fresh strains in ties after Beijing again blocked Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhar's designation as a global terrorist by the UN.

China yesterday for the fourth time blocked India, the US and other nations' bid to list Pathankot terror attack mastermind Azhar as a global terrorist, saying "there is no consensus" within the members of the sanctions committee.

India reacted sharply to China's move, saying "accommodating with terrorism" for narrow objectives was both short-sighted and counterproductive.

China's Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong today told the media that China attached great importance to its relations with India.

"India is an important neighbour of China," Chen said, adding China plans to step up ties with neighbours under the "neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in the new era" enunciated by President Xi Jinping during the recently concluded key Congress of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

"We are ready to work with India to promote constant progress of bilateral relations guided by this diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for the new era," Chen said without elaborating.

He said China has been following this concept and vision over the past few years in its cooperation with the neighbours and deepening mutual political trust promoting practical cooperation with them.

In the last two years, China has stonewalled efforts by India to declare Azhar as a global terrorist.

Last year in March, China was the only member in the 15- nation UN organ to put a hold on India's application with all other 14 members of the Council supporting New Delhi's bid to place Azhar on the 1267 sanctions list that would subject him to an assets freeze and travel ban. The relations between the two neighbours are also strained by a 73-day standoff at Dokalam over Chinese armys plans to build a strategic road in the area also claimed by Bhutan.

Officials here said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to India next month to New Delhi to attend the Russia, India, China (RIC) Foreign Ministers meeting during which he would also hold talks with the Indian leadership on the bilateral relations during the second term of Xi.
The Supreme Court today disposed of 14 petitions seeking its nod to deposit demonetised notes and said that a five-judge Constitution Bench would deal with this aspect besides deciding the validity of Centre's decision to demonetise currency notes.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said the Constitution Bench would also deal with the individual plea of those who could not deposit their currency notes during the window period provided by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Some petitioners claim that they have not challenged the constitutional validity of either certain provisions of the RBI Act and Centre's November 8, 2016, notification, rather they want to deposit their demonetised currency notes.

"Our hard-earned money has been confiscated without due process of law and without granting fair opportunity," lawyer Pranav Sachdeva, appering for one of the petitioners said adding the Constitution bench be constituted as expeditiously as possible.

The bench asked the petitioners to file two to three page-long interlocutory applications in the pending petitions which would be dealt by the constitution bench later.

It then disposed of individual petitions filed by 14 persons seeking permission to deposit currency notes on the ground that they could not deposit the notes with banks due to some unavoidable and compelling reasons.

The apex court had on December 16, last year referred to a Constitution Bench, the issue of validity of government's decision to demonetise currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500.

While holding that the challenge to November 8 notification was in the arena of "public importance" as complaints of inconvenience have been brought, it said there was a need for a direction for referring it to a larger bench for "authoritative pronouncement by five judges".
Seeking to court dynamic young leaders representing different caste interests ahead of the Gujarat polls, Rahul Gandhi on Friday met Dalit leader Jignesh Mewani, who stopped short of pledging support to the Congress but declared he would ask his followers not to vote for BJP.

The 36-year-old 'Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch' leader, who shot to prominence after the Dalit flogging incident in Gujarat's Una some time back, met Gandhi and claimed the Congress vice president assured him that more than 90 percent of his demands will be incorporated in the party's poll manifesto.

Gandhi and Mevani had half-an-hour closed-door meeting at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Navsari.

"Since Una (incident), we launched numerous agitations and submitted memorandums. Despite this, the thick-skinned BJP government, which is not only anti-Dalit but also anti-people, has not considered even one demand of our community. They have not even bothered to even to talk to us," Mevani told reporters after the meeting.

On the other hand, the Congress was receptive to the demands of the Dalit community, Mevani added.

Several Dalit youths were flogged in Una on suspicion of cow slaughter when they were skinning a dead animal.

"We had a detailed discussion with Rahulji on our 17 demands. Rahulji not only listened to us, but said over 90 per cent of them were our constitutional rights. He assured us that most of the legitimate demands would be included in the Congress manifesto," he said.

Asked if he would advise Dalits to vote for the Congress in the upcoming polls, Mevani said, "I will ask my community not to vote for the BJP."

The demands include five acres of farmland to each Dalit family, alternative employment for those involved in cattle- skinning and manual scavenging, and the release of a probe report on the incident of firing on the community members at Thangadh in Surendranagar district in 2012.

"We listen to everyone and work after hearing their problems -- be it Jignesh, Hardik (Patidar quota stir leader Hardik Patel) or Alpesh (OBC leader Alpesh Thakor)," Gandhi said after the meeting.

On the other hand, the BJP is only interested in making the people listen to its "Mann Ki Baat", the Congress vice president said, taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's monthly radio programme.

The Congress, out of power in the key western state for over 22 years now, has been trying to woo three young leaders who have emerged on Gujarat's political firmament in recent times through various agitations.

Alpesh Thakor, an OBC leader, has already joined the party.

Hardik Patel, the patidar quota stir leader, the most prominent among the three, has so far not declared support to the Congress, but has been critical of the BJP.

The 24-year-old recently met the Congress's incharge for Gujarat Ashok Gehlot and put forth a set of demands, including reservation for the influential Patel community in government jobs and educational institutions in the Other Backward Classes category.

The Congress, however, has promised it would provide quotas to the community under the Economically Backward Classes (EBC) category.

The first round of talks between Gujarat Congress leaders took place on October 30 but the quota issue remained unresolved. However, it accepted the four other demands put forward by Patel, who did not attend the talks.

Congress agreed to the demand for formation of a special investigation team (SIT), if voted to power, to investigate alleged atrocities against the members of the community during the PAAS rally in Ahmedabad on August 25-26, 2015, senior Congress leader Siddharth Patel said after. He said legal action will be taken against those held guilty.

It also promised withdrawal of all police cases against Hardik's Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) members, including on the serious charge of sedition. If voted to power, the Congress government will make an ex-gratia payment of Rs 35 lakh to the kin of those killed during the quota agitation and a government job to one member of their families, Patel said.

The Congress will form a commission for general category communities and provide it with a corpus of Rs 2,000 crore for education, skill development and self-employment, he said.

The reservation issue, however, can prove a major hurdle in Hardik Patel extending support to the Congress as Alpesh Thakor, who heads the Kshatriya Thakor Sena, has been opposed to reservation to the Patels within the quota meant for the backward classes.

In fact, Thakor had launched an agitation to counter the one led by Hardik Patel for reservation for his community.
After weeks of speculation, former Trinamool Congress party (TMC) leader Mukul Roy officially joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday evening.



Today I have Joined BJP and it's my proud privilege to work under PM @narendramodi : Shri Mukul Roy Watch LIVE at https://t.co/0oKmQagw9b pic.twitter.com/Q3hoUyQIoa

 BJP LIVE (@BJPLive) November 3, 2017

The announcement was made at BJP press meet by Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.Happy to inform that Mukul Roy is joining BJP, we welcome him, said Prasad, with Roy by his side.

On September 17, Mukul Roy was removed from the position of the national vice-president of the Trinamool Congress party when the party restructured its internal committee. Earlier, he was also removed from the parliamentary standing committee on transport, tourism and culture.

Media reports of a strained relationship between Mukul Roy and the party were doing the rounds as he was reported to have contacts with central BJP leaders. Roy, who was considered second in chief after Mamata Banerjee in the party was stripped of all vital posts in the last few months.

The 63-year-old political leader had been associated with the TMC since its inception. He accused the party chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee of playing dynasty politics.

Roy, who was once the second-in-command in the TMC, said he was compelled to take the decision as one-person parties were not good for the country.

In 2006, he became the Rajya Sabha member from West Bengal. He has also served as a member of the Committee on Urban Development and Consultative Committee for the Ministry of Home Affairs. Roy also was TMC All India General Secretary in 2008 and became the Shipping Minister in May 2009.

In 2011, when Mamata Banerjee became the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Roy took her place as the Railway Minister. However, he defied the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when was asked to visit a site of the Guwahati-Puri Express derailment. The defiance led to his dismissal as Railway Minister.

He returned to lead the rail ministry after Dinesh Trivedi resigned in 2012, but had to step down as TMC exited the UPA government in the Centre.

Roy was one of the forerunners in the anti-land-acquisition movements in Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal led by Mamata Banerjee. Political analysts view this movement played a prominent part in TMC's rise to power. Thus, Roy was held high in regard by Banerjee.

However, reports of a strained relationship between Mukul Roy and the party did the rounds after he faced a grilling in the Saradha chit fund scam which shook West Bengal. He was stripped of all vital posts in the past few months. On September 17, Mukul Roy was removed from the position of the national vice-president of the TMC party when it restructured its internal committee.
Nagpur: Congress Party Vice President Rahul Gandhi addressing at a public meeting to mark culmination of 125th birth anniversary celebrations of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, at Kasturchand Park in Nagpur on Monday. PTI Photo (PTI4_11_2016_000433B)

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi would meet Gujarat Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani today at Navsari, a spokesperson of the party said.

Mevani, who has been critical of the ruling BJP in the state, is expected to discuss the demands of his community when he meets the Congress vice-president, who is currently on an election campaign tour of south Gujarat.

"Jignesh Mevani and other Dalit leaders had met Ashok Gehlot (Congress' Gujarat affairs in-charge) earlier and presented a set of demands to him," Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said.

"We have extended an invitation to Mevani to meet our vice-president Rahul Gandhi today. The two will meet at Navsari later in the day," he added.

Congress Scheduled Castes (SC) cell national president K Raju also said a meeting had been arranged between Rahul Gandhi and Mevani.

Mevani had earlier said he would meet Rahul Gandhi only when he was called to discuss the opposition party's stand on various demands of the Dalit community.

The Dalit rights campaigner, who has dubbed the BJP "anti-Dalit", had also said he had no plans to join any political party.

"I want to make it clear that neither have I joined the Congress nor am I going to join the party in the future. Not just the Congress, I have no plans of joining any other party as of now," he had told reporters in Ahmedabad yesterday.

However, the young leader, who shot to fame after the Una Dalit flogging incident last year, had added that he was ready to meet Rahul Gandhi to know about the Congress' stand on 17 demands related to his community.

The demands include an allotment of five acres of farmland to the Dalits, alternative employment for those involved in cattle-skinning and manual scavenging and the release of a probe report into an incident of firing on the community members at Thangadh in Surendranagar district in 2012.

"Since the BJP government is not even ready to hold talks with us on these demands, it is very clear that it is anti Dalit. And, that is why we are also anti-BJP. But, that does not mean we are joining another party," Mevani had said.

"However, I am ready to meet Rahul Gandhi to know about his party's stand on these demands. I want to know what can they do for our community if they come to power (in Gujarat)," he had added.
One of the greatest challenges for any business is to raise capital. Finance is the blood of every company and it becomes even more critical when you are just starting up.

It is important to keep the finance supply uninterrupted, especially for the MSME sector as they are the backbone of the Indian economy and the largest employers in the country.

In this backdrop, the State Bank of India (SBI), countrys largest lender, decided to back these small and micro businesses and launched its MSME Loan Finance Umbrella in 2016.

Under its umbrella, SBI launched two unique schemes- the SBI Fleet Finance Scheme and the SBI Import and Export Finance Scheme.

The SBI Fleet Finance Scheme has benefitted many in the transport business. For instance, it helped Umed Jain immensely when he needed to expand his fleet of buses and trucks. SBI sanctioned a loan of Rs 9.60 crore and helped him complete his tender.

Umed Jain, Partner, Shri Maruti Travels, said, In 2005, I took finance from seven financers for 55 buses. In 2006, we got a contract for 25 local buses and SBI helped us. In 2017, we bagged a contract for running 45 more buses and SBI sanctioned a loan of Rs 9.60 crore.

Jain now has a fleet of 105 buses plying in Gujarat and is continuing to strengthen the local transport in many cities. He is not only growing his business but providing employment to hundreds.

The Fleet Finance Scheme provides term loan of up to Rs 10 crore to existing transport operators owning a minimum of 10 commercial vehicles like trucks, trailors, tankers, buses, etc.

The loan amount includes cost of body and insurance and registration and road tax. An optional collateral free security is also available in select cases.

Jain has huge expansion plans and said he wants to continue his relationship with SBI.

Meanwhile, another business that took a big leap with the help of SBI and has even opened up in East Africa is Mercury Industries.

Kanpur-based Mercury Industries has grown into one of Indias best general line can manufacturers. It received funding under SBIs Import/Export Finance Scheme.

They extend pre-shipment finance both in Indian and foreign currency. When they give loan in foreign currency, it is linked with LIBOR, which is cost competitive for the customer. And the Indian rupee loan is also very cost competitive and some of the segment of these customers are eligible for interest equalisation, which is subsidy which they get back from the government so the cost to the customer comes below or around 7%. Post shipment finance can also be done is foreign currency which is very cost competitive for the customer.

Mercury Industries is associated with some top brands and its exports have grown multi-fold.

Niharika Malik, Executive Director, Mercury Industries, said, We have grown over a period of time. Turnover has increased. We may be an MSME in business but in thought process and quality, we would like to compare ourselves with the best of the world.

Mercury Industries now employs 400 people across half a dozen location in India and Africa.

Mercury Industries faced financial crisis in 2008 and after contacting SBI, they got financing for machines, investments, etc.

SBI continues to provide a big leap to the MSME sector. Watch the episode here to get inspired.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euLVF_uxK3A
Donald Trump's maiden Asia trip as the US President is to "strengthen longstanding" alliances and "expand new partnerships", his national security adviser has said.

Trump leaves the White House today on a 12-day trip during which he will visit Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and Philippines. This trip is not only Trump's longest foreign trip till date but also the longest Asia trip by a US president in more than a quarter century.

National security adviser Lt gen H R McMaster sees Trump's Asia sojourn as part of efforts to strengthen longstanding American alliances while expanding the new partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region.

"This trip is a great opportunity to demonstrate America's and the Trump administration's commitment to the Indo-Pacific and our efforts to strengthen longstanding American alliances and expand new partnerships," McMaster told reporters at a White House news conference on the eve of Trump's departure to the region.

McMaster said in the last 10 months, Trump has actively engaged leaders in the Indo-Pacific to address a range of strategic issues, prominently the North Korean nuclear threat.

"Since taking office, Trump has placed 43 calls to Indo- Pacific leaders and conducted bilateral meetings with Japan, South Korea, China, India, Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand," he said.

In line with his presidential diplomacy, Trump's trip will focus on three goals: strengthening international resolve to denuclearise North Korea; promote a free and open Indo- Pacific region; and advance American prosperity through fair and reciprocal trade and economic practices, McMaster said.

The United States remains committed to the complete, verifiable and permanent denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, he said.

The top presidential adviser asserted that Trump will reiterate the fact that North Korea threatens not just its allies, but also the entire world.

"That is happening. But the president recognises that we're running out of time and will ask all nations to do more," McMaster said.

During his meetings with world leaders, Trump will remind friend and foe alike that the US stands ready to defend itself and its allies using the full range of its capabilities, he said.

"In particular, he will continue to call on all responsible nations, especially those with the most influence over North Korea, to isolate its regime economically and politically; to convince its leaders that the pursuit of nuclear weapons is a dead end and that it is past time to denuclearise," he added.

McMaster said Trump will also use the trip to promote his vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

"He will make the case that respect for freedom of navigation and overflight, the rule of law, sovereignty, freedom from coercion, and private enterprise and open markets is the best model to increase prosperity throughout the region, and to secure the freedom and independence of all nations," he said, adding the president will focus on his commitment to free, fair and reciprocal trade during his trip.

"He looks forward to working with partners across the Indo-Pacific region to ensure that governments do not unfairly subsidise their industries, discriminate against foreign business or restrict foreign investment. This will help increase trade, reduce unsustainable deficits, and promote prosperity for the American people and the people of the Indo-Pacific region," McMaster said.
15:49 South Korea President Moon Jae-in said he hoped a visit by US President Donald Trump would be a turning point in efforts to defuse tensions over North Korea's nuclear program as the two leaders met in Seoul on Tuesday.

The state visit in the South Korean capital was billed as an opportunity for Trump and Moon to present a united front, despite differences over how to confront North Korea's nuclear threat, as well as Trump's complaints over the two countries' trade

agreements.

14:58 Chinese President Xi Jinping has been "very helpful" in dealing with the threat posed by nuclear- armed North Korea, US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, a day before he heads to Beijing.

Pyongyang was "a worldwide threat that requires a worldwide action", according to Trump, but he said that Xi "really has been very, very helpful" and added: "We hope that Russia likewise will be helpful."

14:11 China is pulling out all the stops to give a "state visit-plus" welcome to US President Donald Trump when he arrives in the country on Wednesday on his maiden trip as Beijing seeks to avert any semblance of friction with America.

Projected by officials as a defining moment in China-US ties, Trump's visit is taking place in the "new era" of Xi Jinping, who commenced his second tenure less than a fortnight ago as the most powerful leader of the country after Mao Zedong.

Trump is also putting pressure on Xi to press China's close ally North Korea to give up the nuclear and missile programme which has become a major threat to US.

13:22 Reviewing American forces along the Korean peninsula, President Donald Trump met with US and South Korean military leaders on Tuesday at the start of a two-day visit centred on pressuring the north to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.

Trump has repeatedly struck a hard line against Pyongyang and South Korea was warily watching Trump as he was poised to deliver bellicose warnings in the shadow of the North Korea.

Shortly after arriving in South Korea, Trump travelled by helicopter to Camp Humphreys, a military base about 40 miles south of Seoul, where he briefly addressed the interlocking issues of security and trade at the heart of his visit.

Speaking before an operational briefing at the base, Trump said he would be meeting with generals about North Korea, declaring: "Ultimately it will all work out. Because it always works out. It has to work out."

12:24 US President Donald Trump is seeking an additional USD 4 billion in defence budget for urgent missile defence improvements citing increasing threat posed by North Korea.

In a communication to the Congress on Tuesday, Trump also sought USD 1.2 billion to support sending additional 3,500 troops to Afghanistan as part of his new South Asia strategy and a further USD 0.7 billion to repair damage to US Navy ships.

Trump is currently on a nearly two week-long trip to Indo-Pacific region with North Korea being one of the focus areas during his entire trip.

Trump said his request for an additional USD 4 billion is to support urgent missile defeat and defence enhancements to counter the threat from North Korea.

11:26 The US Navy carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, conducted three days of drills with a Japanese destroyer and two Indian warships in the Sea of Japan, Japans navy said on Tuesday.

The exercise involving five ships, which ended Monday, came amid heightened tension in the region over North Koreas ballistic missile and nuclear tests and as US President Donald Trump began a 12-day tour of Asia beginning in Japan on Sunday.

The exercise helped improve fighting skills and deepened cooperation with India, Japans Maritime Self Defence Force said in a press release.

10:45 US President Donald Trump arrived in Seoul on Tuesday vowing to "figure it all out" with his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-In, despite the two allies' differences on how to deal with the nuclear-armed North.

As tensions over Pyongyang's weapons programme have soared, the US president has traded personal insults and threats of war with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, but the South's capital and its 10 million inhabitants would be on the front line of any conflict.

"Getting ready to leave for South Korea and meetings with President Moon, a fine gentleman," Trump tweeted early on Tuesday from Japan, the first stop on his Asian tour, adding: "We will figure it all out!"

10:30 Japan will impose additional sanctions on North Korea in response to the continuing threat posed by the reclusive nations missile and nuclear programmes, Japans top government spokesman said on Tuesday.

The sanctions, mentioned by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in a joint news conference with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday, will freeze the assets of nine organizations and 26 individuals, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference.

The North Korean missile and nuclear issue is a pressing threat unseen before. Its provocative actions, in which it has ignored the severe warnings of international society, are totally unacceptable, he said.

The organizations are North Korean banks, several of them based in China, while the individuals are based in a number of nations, including China, Russia and Libya.

NOVEMBER 7

16:14 Namibia dismisses UN expert's claims on North Korea ties

Namibia's government on Tuesday rejected accusations by the coordinator of the UN Panel of Experts on North Korea who accused the southern African nation of not complying with UN Security Council sanctions against Pyongyang, according to Reuters.

Namibia said that it rejected allegations that it had not submitted a report for more than a year to the Security Council's sanctions committee on North Korea.

15:56 Tunnel collapse may have killed 200 after North Korea nuclear test: Japanese broadcaster

A tunnel at North Korea's nuclear test site collapsed after Pyongyang's sixth atomic test in September, possibly killing more than 200 people, Japanese broadcaster TV Asahi said on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the situation, Reuters has reported.

About 100 workers at the Punggye-ri nuclear site were affected by the initial collapse, which took place around Sept. 10, the broadcaster said.

A second collapse during a rescue operation meant it was possible the death toll could have exceeded 200, it added.

Reuters has not been able to verify the report.

14:07 Considering to designate North Korea as terrorism sponsor: White House

The US is mulling to designate North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, the White House has said, as President Donald Trump embarks on his five-nation Asia trip today during which the issue of the reclusive nation will be taken up prominently.

"That is an option that's under consideration," the National Security Adviser H R McMaster told reporters at a White House news conference when asked if designating North Korea a State Sponsor of terrorism is an option for the United States.

Considering to designate North Korea as terrorism sponsor: White House The US is mulling to designate North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, the White House has said, as President Donald Trump embarks on his five-nation Asia trip today during which the issue of the reclusive nation will be taken up prominently. "That is an option that's under consideration," the National Security Adviser H R McMaster told reporters at a White House news conference when asked if designating North Korea a State Sponsor of terrorism is an option for the United States.

13:22 China says has made best effort on North Korea ahead of Trump visit

A senior Chinese diplomat said on Friday China has made its best efforts to resolve issues on the Korean peninsula, ahead of US President Donald Trump's state visit to Beijing next week when he is expected to press China to do more on North Korea, Reuters has reported.

Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang said the North Korean nuclear issue would be an important topic up for discussion at the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump.

China firmly opposes conflict on the Korean peninsula and believes using force is not the correct way to resolve the issue, Zheng told reporters at a briefing in Beijing. China and the United States have a shared interest in peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, Zheng said.

12:43 In meeting, Trump to push a reluctant Xi to rein in North Korea

President Donald Trump will further pressure Chinese President Xi Jinping in talks next week to take tougher measures against North Korea, as the United States compiles information for possible new sanctions on Chinese banks working with Pyongyang, according to Reuters.

Senior administration officials say Trump will try to convince Xi when they meet in Beijing to squeeze North Korea with steps such as limits on oil exports, coal imports and financial transactions.

It is the latest attempt by Trump to have China, North Korea's only major ally, rein in Pyongyang's nuclear weapons ambitions but it is far from clear if Xi, who has just consolidated his power at a Communist Party congress, will agree.

11:56 Trump, dogged at home, heads on longest presidential Asia trip in years

Beset by challenges at home, President Donald Trump on Friday embarks on the longest trip to Asia by an American president in more than a quarter century, looking for help to pressure North Korea to stand down from a nuclear crisis, according to Reuters.

Trump's tour of Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines from Friday to November 14 will take him out of Washington as is preoccupied with several issues.

These include an intensifying federal investigation into Russian meddling in last year's election, New York's recovery from an attack that killed eight people and debate over a tax-cut plan that if approved by Congress would be his first major legislative victory.

11:20 Treasury Blocks Chinese Bank From U.S. Financial System Over North Korea Ties: WSJ

The Trump administration has officially cut off a small Chinese bank from the US financial system on Thursday, accusing it of helping North Korea develop its illegal ballistic missile program, according to a report by Wall Street Journal.

The White House had in June said that it planned to sever the Chinese Bank of Dandong from the worlds most important financial system.

The move marked a new phase in an escalating sanctions regime against North Korea as the White House sought to choke off illicit financial networks.

10:50 US bomber drills aggravate North Korea ahead of Trump's Asia visit

Two US strategic bombers conducted drills over South Korea on Thursday, the US Air Force said, raising tensions with North Korea just days before President Donald Trump visits the region seeking to shut down Pyongyang's nuclear programme, according to Reuters.

News of the drills was first reported by North Korean state news agency KCNA on Friday, which said the exercises involving South Korean and Japanese fighter jets were a "surprise nuclear strike drill".

"The reality clearly shows that the gangster-like US imperialists are the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war," KCNA said.

10:32 China's Xi says hopes to promote relations with North Korea: North Korean news agency

Chinese President Xi Jinping replied to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's congratulatory message on China's Communist Party Congress, saying he hopes to promote ties between the two countries, North Korea's state news agency said on Thursday.

The friendly exchange is relatively routine, but it comes as China has come under intense pressure from the United States to do more to rein in the North's missile and nuclear tests, which have raised tensions globally, according to Reuters.

China has been increasingly frustrated over ally North Korea's weapons tests in defiance of U.N. resolutions, repeatedly calling for restraint and urging all sides to speak and act carefully.

10:23 South Korea spy agency sees signs of planned new missile test by North

With just a few days before US President Donald Trump visits Seoul , South Korea's spy agency told lawmakers on Thursday that North Korea may be planning a new missile test, after brisk activity was spotted at its research facilities, Reuters has reported.

North Korea has carried out a series of nuclear and missile tests in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions, but has not launched any missiles since firing one over Japan on September 15, the longest such gap this year.

10:05 Trump will not visit DMZ during Asia trip

A senior administration officials have said that US President Donald Trump will not go be visiting the heavily fortified demilitarized zone (DMZ) on the border of North Korea and South Korea during his upcoming Asia trip, Reuters has reported.

"The president is not going to visit the DMZ. There is not enough time in the schedule," the official told reporters in a background briefing.

However, Trump will be the first American president to visit Camp Humphreys, a military installation south of Seoul, the capital of South Korea.

"We thought that would make more sense in terms of its messaging, in terms of the chance to address families and troops there," the official said.

09:51 World 'running out of time' on North Korea, Trump to tell Asia: White House

US President Donald Trump will tell leaders on a five-nation Asia tour the world is "running out of time" on North Korea's nuclear crisis and that he will give his strategy to isolate Pyongyang a few months before making adjustments, a top aide said on Thursday.

Trump will be heading to for Hawaii on Friday. He will then undertake an Asia tour where he will visit Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. It will be the longest Asia visit undertaken by an American president in more than 25 years.

Trump's goal will be to increase international support for an effort to deprive North Korea of resources as leverage to coerce it to give up nuclear weapons, according to Reuters.

09:46 US bombers train over South Korea ahead of Trump visit

Two US strategic B-1B bombers conducted drills over South Korea on Thursday, the US Air Force said, days before President Donald Trump arrives in the country amid high tensions with North Korea over its nuclear weapon programme, according to Reuters.

News of the drills was first reported by North Korean state news agency KCNA on Friday, which said the exercises involving South Korean and Japanese fighter jets were a "surprise nuclear strike drill".

"The reality clearly shows that the gangster-like U.S. imperialists are the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war," KCNA said.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin talks to U.S. President Donald Trump during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria - RC1C662BA130

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump may meet next week at an APEC summit in Vietnam, the Kremlin said on Friday, saying talks were underway about setting up such an encounter.

Putin and Trump first met at a G20 summit in Hamburg in July when they discussed allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election, but agreed to focus on better ties rather than litigating the past.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have soured further since, however.

Trump in August grudgingly signed off on new sanctions against Russia, a move Moscow said ended hopes for better ties. Putin, dismayed by the sanctions, ordered Washington to more than halve its embassy and consular staff in Russia.

But when asked if Putin and Trump might meet at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit taking place next week in Vietnam, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow did not rule out such a meeting.

"It (the meeting) is indeed being discussed," Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

"It's hard to overestimate the importance and significance for all international matters of any contact between the presidents of Russia and the United States," said Peskov.

The APEC summit is taking place in the Vietnamese city of Danang from November 8-10.
Just days after the killing of a prominent Cambodian government critic last year during a crackdown by the country's longtime leader, President Barack Obama dispatched Washington's chief human rights envoy to Phnom Penh to attend the activist's funeral.

In meetings with Cambodian authorities, then-Assistant Secretary of State Tom Malinowski warned the military not to intervene in the political turmoil or else crucial U.S. ties would suffer, sending a clear message that America stood behind the opposition.

It was one example of the kind of high-level, rapid-response U.S. diplomacy that President Donald Trump has so far avoided in Cambodia even as the Southeast Asian nation  together with many of its neighbors - has lurched increasingly away from the democratic path.

As Trump prepares to depart on his first Asia tour, which will bring him face-to-face with a number of leaders with poor human rights records, his administration has been taking a more muted approach than his predecessor to such concerns, said current and former U.S. officials, rights activists and diplomats.

In addition to the situation in Cambodia, they cite what they see as a slow, overly cautious response to Myanmar's Rohingya crisis, Trump's failure to publicly call out autocratic leaders he meets over rights abuses, an eagerness to engage with the Philippines' controversial president, Rodrigo Duterte, and a less vocal approach to human rights in China.

National security adviser H.R. McMaster pushed back against the notion that Trump would downplay human rights on his Nov. 3-14 trip, saying he would speak out "about the importance of promoting freedom and individual rights."

When asked why Trump condemns U.S. adversaries such as Syria and Venezuela on human rights grounds but not the Philippines, Turkey and Russia, McMaster told reporters on Thursday: "How much does it help to yell about these problems? It hasn't really delivered in recent history anyway."

AMERICA FIRST

The dominant view within Trump's White House is that under his America First world-view human rights concerns related to allies and strategically important countries should be managed gently to avoid impeding job-creating business deals or undercutting security efforts such as isolating North Korea, several Trump aides said.

Soft-pedaling human rights may also help Washington avoid alienating countries in Southeast Asia that it wants to keep from moving further into China's orbit, those aides said. Beijing puts little pressure on its neighbors over such issues.

This approach, however, has sown frustration among some U.S. diplomats who deal with human rights and disappointed dissidents in several countries, according to Reuters interviews with moreA than a dozen people involved in these matters in Washington and Asian capitals. The failure so far to fill several senior Asia and human rights posts at the State Department is a further handicap, they say.

Obama's former top Asia adviser, Evan Medeiros, is one of those critical of what he sees as the Trump administration's lower-key approach to human rights. It's a false dichotomy to say that somehow a focus on human rights detracts from American security or economic well-being, he said.

Even under Obama, however, there were some in the human rights community who at times found fault with U.S. actions.

While the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was praised for stressing human rights in Asia-Pacific trade negotiations, he faced criticism that he suspended sanctions on Myanmar prematurely and lifted a ban on the sale of lethal arms to Vietnam.

He spoke eloquently and sometimes delivered, said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. But he also didn't fully use the carrots and sticks of American power.

Though Trump has said little on human rights beyond condemning adversaries such as North Korea and Venezuela, United Nations envoy Nikki Haley has been one of the few top aides who have spoken out more broadly. She visited sub-Saharan Africa and pressed leaders to tackle political and humanitarian problems.

'WE ARE NOT HERE TO LECTURE'

Trump set the tone in Saudi Arabia in May when he told an audience that included monarchs and strongmen from the Muslim world: We are not here to lecture.

He has hosted several autocratic leaders - including Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who had been frozen out of White House visits since leading a 2014 military coup - but has steered clear of publicly criticizing their records on human rights.

Such visits under Obama usually included addressing rights concerns, the Democratic president's former aides said.

McMaster insisted that Trump preferred to deal with such issues "quietly in every relationship."

One closely watched meeting will be with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte. Trump praised him in a phone call in April for a bloody anti-drugs campaign. An administration official told reporters human rights would be part of their "frank and friendly discussions."

But the government in Manila has been feeling less heat from the Trump administration about extrajudicial killings linked to drugs crackdown, according to a foreign ministry official.

It's a very different White House under President Donald Trump, not like under President Barack Obama, who pushed human rights hard during his term, the official told Reuters. We are not hearing this from the White House.

Another issue expected to be front and center is Myanmar's Rohingya crisis.

Trump's critics, including Democratic lawmakers, have chided the administration for what they have seen as a halting response. U.S. officials have been reluctant to label the situation as ethnic cleansing even though the United Nations has used the term. Myanmar rejects that accusation, saying action was needed to combat terrorism.

Two months after an outbreak of violence that sent more than half a million Rohingya Muslims fleeing into Bangladesh, Washington has now sent a senior delegation, announced a planned visit by Tillerson on Nov. 15, and is threatening modest sanctions.

CAMBODIA CRACKDOWN

When Kem Ley, a popular Cambodian political commentator, was killed by a gunman in July 2016, Malinowski, the State Department official, flew to Phnom Penh just days later and met top aides to Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has ruled for more than three decades.

Malinowski's stern words helped give local diplomats leverage to press rights concerns behind the scenes, said one U.S. official involved in Southeast Asia diplomacy.

This year Hun Sen has intensified his crackdown, including the arrest of opposition leader Kem Sokha, while also stepping up rhetoric against Washington.

The State Department has largely limited its response to statements of deep concern.

Cambodian government spokesman Phay Siphan said Cambodia had not felt pressure from Washington and Trump was clearly taking a different approach than Obama.

"Their tone is lighter. Before, they would bully," said ruling party parliamentarian Sok Eysan. The change under Trump, he added, "means we are on the right path towards democracy," an assertion that contradicts human rights advocates who say the political climate has deteriorated.

In Vietnam, dissident Nguyen Quang A expressed pessimism about Trump visit.

Nguyen, who was detained by authorities on his way to meet Obama during a visit last year, said: I don't think Trump will talk about human rights. Just look at his words and actions.

The White House has not signaled that Trump plans to meet any dissidents during his Asia trip, something Obama frequently did in his foreign travels.

There has been frustration among some U.S. diplomats in Beijing over perceptions that botched messaging from the United States signaled a retreat on human rights. But some U.S. officials said that behind the scenes the administration has been supportive of work in China on behalf of Chinese dissidents.

A Beijing-based diplomat from another Western country said, however, that U.S. participation in meetings between Western allies to coordinate strategy on human rights was much reduced, for example, when it came to putting out joint statements on issues of concern.

China has been relieved to see Trump giving human rights less weight, according to a Chinese diplomat in Washington.

But Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said: As for human rights, we are always willing to have constructive dialogue with countries of the world on the basis of mutual respect.
The chronicle of a life split between urban Manhattan and rural Montana.
"The thought is that parents, grandparents, will bring their kids there to have fun, to use the trails, but also to understand the history of veterans' service in Towamencin," land planner Peter Simone
Community Life  as seen on social media
November 03, 2017

Syria Summary - ISIS Loses Control Of Its Last Urban Refuge



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Today the Syrian Arab Army liberated the city of Deir Ezzor from ISIS. The last resistance ended over night. The remaining ISIS fighters tried to flee north across the Euphrates towards the area held by U.S. proxy forces. Most of them were not successful in their attempts. It will take another few days to remove the remaining improvised mines in the city and to secure the ammunition and weapons ISIS abandoned.

For five years a contingent of some 5-7,000 Syrian soldiers and policemen had held a part of Deir Ezzor city first against Jabhat al-Nusra and then against ISIS. They secured the life of some 100,000 civilian inhabitants. Many soldiers and civilians died. Despite intense attempts and U.S. air support ISIS did not manage to dislodge the Syrian government forces. Only two month ago a serious SAA attempt to relief the city from the outside was launched. It went remarkably well. The defense of Deir Ezzor and its relief deserve an epic novel.

With Deir Ezzor cleared the supply lines of the Syrian army are secured and the push along the Euphrates towards the last urban area held by ISIS can proceed.



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The twin-cities of Abu Kamal (al-Bukamal) in Syria and al-Qaim in Iraq are ISIS' last urban refuge. The cities are on the south site of the Euphrates with the important border crossing between them. Coming from the east Iraqi government troops retook the al-Qaim crossing today. They now control the border and are breaking into the city proper. Syrian government forces approach Abu Kamal from the north-west and from south-east. These forces still have to cross some 30 kilometers of desert area. ISIS had prepared strong defense lines and the SAA progress was slower than hoped. During the last three days the Russian air force has flown a strong bombing campaign against those ISIS lines. The Lebanese Hizbullah has re-injected several thousand fighters into Syria to push the campaign. The Iraqi and Syrian forces are tightly coordinating and will move together to take Abu Kamal during the next two or three days.

The U.S. proxy forces north of the Euphrates announced that they had taken several oil-fields north of the river and were also progressing towards Abu Kamal. But there was little if any fighting. Instead the U.S. is bribing the local tribes in the area with Saudi money. These tribes had earlier sworn allegiance to ISIS and were part of its forces. When they switch sides the U.S. claims to be in control of the land they hold. The Syrian government and its allies fear that the U.S. is currently trying a similar stunt with the whole city of Bukamal itself. It could then claim to have control over the border crossing towards Iraq and severe that important line of communication. A race is on to prevent that.

Two reliable journalists, Ibrahim Al Amin of Al-Akhbar and Elijam Magnier of Al-Rai report (auto-translated) that a high level CIA official recently visited Damascus to inquire about missing U.S. intelligence agents. The official asserted the U.S. has no design for permanent bases in Syria and is only there to defeat ISIS. The official did not say how many additional years "defeating ISIS" would take.

Damascus is extremely suspicious of any U.S. design on Syria and will not let down its guard. The senior U.S. intelligence official was not received by higher Syrian government officials. Damascus demands an open diplomatic exchange with Washington.

The Iraqi government has reestablished its rule over the country. It insists on its national sovereignty and central control of the country. The Kurdish region in the north will have to agree with Baghdad's central control over the borders and foreign relations. If it does not submit the Iraqi Kurds will find themselves in a war with the Iraqi army which they are sure to lose. Baghdad will not be open to Iranian or U.S. control.

The Syrian government is likewise determined to regain control over the whole country. There will be no Turkish, Kurdish, Jordanian or Israeli zones but one Syria. The war will continue until that is achieved. Russian suggestions of a federation of the country have been rejected. Moscow reportedly accepted that position.

The situation in other parts of Syria has changed little over the last few weeks. The Turkish forces in Idleb have hunkered down in defensive position around the Kurdish area of Efrin. Syrian government forces prepare for, but have not yet launched, a wider Idleb campaign to dislodge the al-Qaeda forces currently controlling the governate. The Kurdish forces in the north-east have been told to peacefully move back to their original areas. Should they not do so, in futile hope of continued U.S. support, they will be attacked and defeated by the Syrian state and its allies.

2017 has seen the end of ISIS in Syria and Iraq. 2018 will see the end of al-Qaeda in Syria. 2019 will hopefully be the year that the Kurdish expansion and all foreign designs on Syria will have been defeated.

PS:

A small anecdote reflects the end of the "moderate rebels" propaganda scheme. A U.S. trained Syrian opposition movie director recently faked an assassination attempt on himself. He wanted to blame the Syrian regime and to gain more money for future propaganda fake productions. The Guardian and other #fakenews outlets had fallen for it: Syrian film-maker making prison torture movie survives 'assassination attempt'. It was all a stunt like most of the stuff the "rebels" produced. It seems that such work, which for years was sold as unassailable "truth" to western audiences, has finally found a proper end.

Posted by b on November 3, 2017 at 9:57 UTC | Permalink

Comments
The History Museum of Burke County will get its bling on this Saturday.

The museum will debut its new permanent exhibit documenting the gold rush in Burke County, which took place between 1828-33, with a special Gold Day bash Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The highlight of the event will be a large display of gold coins and nuggets on loan for the day from Pete Nelson of Smokefoot Trade and Loan in Morganton. The collection is valued at about $50,000, according to Judge Claude Sitton, the museums executive director. He said the display will include other gold items on loan from local residents who wish to remain anonymous.

Sitton has arranged for security from the Morganton Department of Public Safety to accompany and guard the exhibit.

We will have a police escort to and from the brokerage and the museum, he said.

Ed Phillips, the director of the Burke County Tourism Department, will give a presentation at 11:30 a.m. at the museum called, Gold Mining in Burke County.

The permanent gold exhibit will feature many historic items relevant to Burke Countys gold rush, including old receipts and maps, gold-mining tools, stock certificates from the now-defunct Burke County Gold Mining Company dated 1867 and a rare dollar gold coin from the Bechtler Mint near Rutherfordton, believed to be the only successful private mint in the U.S.

From 1804 until 1828, all domestic gold coined by the United States government came from North Carolina, the display notes for the coin report.

The exhibit also includes a tribute to Lee Roy Franklin, a local rock and mineral collector from Flat Gap. A pair of his pickaxes hangs on the wall over his photo.

He gave us all of these rocks and minerals, Sitton said of the original gem/mineral display at the museum, which curators have incorporated into the new exhibit.

The inception of the Burke County gold rush occurred in 1828 at Brindle Creek in what is now known as the Brendletown community in Morganton, according to the exhibit notes. The ground in Burke County was discovered to be loaded with gold, attracting thousands of gold miners to the area by the spring of 1829.

If youve seen movies about the California gold rush with the drunken brawls, the dance-hall girls, the murders and the claim-jumping, well, we had it first, said Wayne Hitt, a curator at the museum. This was a wild place for a while.

Over the ensuing five years, mining companies formed and dug down into Burke Countys golden veins until most of the gold supply became depleted. They moved on to more lucrative sites in Georgia, leaving this area scarred and barren.

They devastated the landscape, Hitt said. You can see in the Brendletown area out in Hartland, there are tunnels and all sorts of odd places excavated. There are signs everywhere.

Hitt shared other pertinent facts about Burke Countys gold rush, including:

 The first gold mine in the U.S. was founded in North Carolina.

 Plantation owners in Burke County would rent their slaves out to work in the gold mines.

 The original Burke County, which encompasses the current county plus land from surrounding counties, had nearly 100 gold mines in operation during the height of the gold rush.

To learn more about Burke Countys gold rush, visit the History Museum of Burke County or contact the museum at 828-437-1777.

Tammie Gercken can be reached at tgercken@morganton.com.
Emma Wall: Hello and welcome to Morningstar. I'm Emma Wall and here with me today to give his three stock picks is Ali Unwin, Manager of the Neptune Global Technology Fund.

Hi, Ali.

Ali Unwin: Good morning.

Wall: And what's the first stock that you'd like to highlight today?

Unwin: The first stock I'd like to highlight is TSMC, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM). So, this company had its 30th birthday last week and they really pioneered the what we call, the foundry model in semiconductors. So, traditionally you would design and make semiconductors within the same the company because it's a hugely complex, a very capital intensive activity.

What TSMC pioneered and the model they've really built out was that they would make it on other people's behalf, a bit like an outsourcer, but that's probably the wrong term, given the complexity and the degree of integration they need with their designers.

The reason I really like the company is that they have a huge degree of diversification, so if you are buying a semiconductor company, you are taking on some risk with how well that company performs. TSMC are making semiconductors for 500 different customers. There are 10,000 products coming out of it. You're essentially buying, if you're like an arms dealer for the digital future.

The stock has done quite well this year, but the founder Morris Chang, he's one of the sort of godfathers of the digital age is stepping down and passing on to next generation. And we think that competition is going to find incredibly hard to do what TSMC does.

Wall: And what's the second stock today?

Unwin: The second stock is a mid-cap stock called Pegasystems (PEGA). They do customer relationship management software, so they compete with salesforce.com. Here is really a story of a company that has been probably under-investing on sales and marketing. They tended to focus on the big  the 50 biggest companies in the world, they're now moving downscale a little bit and we think that they're starting to see some real success there.

Wall: And where are they moving into  is this a global stock, is this very much a kind of U.S.-centric company?

Unwin: So, this is a U.S. company, founded 33 years ago and the founder Alan Trefler still is CEO. And they are moving more in terms of size, actually. They're traditional with such a big installation for people like big insurers  Toyota is a big customer and they're now moving into the sort of second tier companies. And we think that there is actually a lot to go for there. Not everyone wants to be on salesforce, not everyone wants to be in the cloud. And we think Pegasystem has got a really, really strong solution.

Wall: And what's the third stock today?

Unwin: The third stock is at the small cap end of the spectrum. This is a $1.2 billion company called 8x8 (EGHT). And they do something called unified communication as a service, which is a bit of a mouthful. But all it really is if you are in an office and you can dial 123 to connect to someone else in the office, that's called a private branch exchange. They do that bit effectively in the cloud.

This company has actually not done as well. They've actually been out-executed by two good peers; one of him was just bought by Cisco for $1.5 billion; and the other one has doubled this year. So, this is really the laggard in the space.

They've changed over the sales leadership and some of the marketing functions and we are giving management the benefit of doubt given that this trades on virtually half the multiple of that peers. So, we think there is a bit of catchup trade here.

Wall: Is that a risky bet for you given that there seems to be two more dominant players within the market. Taking a bet on a stock that hasn't done so well, what do you look for in order to believe that management whether they can achieve what they've set out to?

Unwin: So there is obviously execution risk and company is not always just profitable. We've spoken to some customers who actually really like the product. And one of the big uses of the  and you may not think of it as a tech leader is that Lewisham Council has taken 10,000 seats of this product. And apparently are extremely happy with it.

So, yes, there is obviously execution risk and there are other players. But don't forget this market is a $25 billion market and that the company's turnover is currently only $300 million. So, we think there is an awful lot to go for here.

Wall: Ali, thank you very much.

Unwin: Thank you.

Wall: This is Emma Wall for Morningstar. Thank you for watching.
Foreign buyers are back in Vancouvers residential real estate market, accepting the foreign buyer tax as the cost of doing business.However, they have also been quietly buying commercial real estate throughout the Greater Vancouver Area for the last year because those purchases arent subject to the foreign buyer tax.As a Pacific Rim city, Vancouver is an especially attractive locale to Asian investors. In addition to proximity, its also a financial safe haven.We know that a lot of investors from China are interested in purchasing Canadian real estate, and they do that on small and large scales, so theyve bought significant properties on the commercial side as well, said Colin Dreyer , CEO of Verico Financial Group. A lot of the money has moved from residential to commercial. A lot of people look at Canada as a safe haven for money, and now theyre accepting theres a cost of doing business. Commercial properties have been very active in Vancouver because theres no foreign buyer tax. It only applies to residential.While it is difficult to ascertain whether or not Chinese activity in commercial sector is a direct result of the residential foreign buyer tax, they were not active buyers prior to its implementation.Thats been going for a year, added Dreyer. I dont know if you can coincide it with the foreign buyer tax, but I would suggest it had an impact in terms of people diversifying. TheyveDreyer says theres been a spike in real estate activity in in British Columbia, and it could have to do with forthcoming government policy changes the provincial NDPs is slated to enact early next year. But the tax has influenced foreign buying habits.It had an impact in terms of people diversifying, continued Dreyer. Theyve diversified the locations, theyve diversified the type properties theyre buying based on affordability and taxation. I do think people are spurred in B.C. at the moment with more activity because of the new housing policy coming in February 2018 with the NDP government.Non-residents comprised 5% of Metro Vancouver home purchases in September, according to data released by B.C.s provincial government, however, the numbers were considerably higher in Richmond and Burnaby, where foreign buyers accounted for 10.8% and 9.6% of purchases, respectively.Suyan Ge, a mortgage planner with Citywide Mortgage Services, says that the foreign buyer tax has become an accepted reality for foreign investors, so theyre more discerning about where theyll purchase.[Purchases by foreign buyers[ started picking up since April, she said, especially in Richmond. The reason is it has the largest Chinese community in the Lower Mainland. In Metropolitan Burnaby, it has the largest shopping mall in Lower Mainland called Metropolis at Metrotown. Its convenient and also has Crystal Mall, a Chinese Mall, and a lot of new apartments and lots international students living in that area. The transportation is also very convenient.Ge added that many foreign buyers dont leave their purchases vacant, but house their children in them  who are most often students or have work permits.Additionally, Surrey has seen its number of foreign buyers increase threefold.They like living by the ocean, said Ge. The property prices are way lower than the west side of Vancouver. The west side has the most expensive properties in Lower Mainland. In White Rock, you can get a nice view and only pay half the price. South Surrey and White Rock also have some properties with really big lots.
The real estate industry has reacted to the reforms to the US federal tax code announced Thursday and its not positive.



"This legislation closely tracks with the House Republican Blueprint for tax reform, which threatens home values and takes money straight from the pockets of homeowners," said William E. Brown, president of the National Association of Realtors.



By undermining the nations longstanding support for homeownership and threatening to lower the value of the largest asset held by most American families, this tax reform plan will put millions of home owners at risk, added Granger MacDonald, chair of the National Association of Home Builders.



"Any change that would make homebuying less attractive will be detrimental to the housing industry and the nation's economy because of the 2.5 million private-sector jobs created by the industry in an average year," commented Geoff MacIntosh, president of the California Association of Realtors.



Our initial read of the House tax proposal released today is that it will harm many New York homeowners. It will lessen the value of the property tax deduction and it cuts a host of other key housing-related tax incentives, said New York State Association of Realtors CEO Duncan R. MacKenzie.



Key measures opposed by the industry is the capping of the mortgage interest deduction to $500,000 for newly purchased homes, scrapping state income tax deductions, and restricting capital gains exemption for when homeowners sell and release equity.



"The nation's 1.3 million Realtors cannot support a bill that takes homeownership off the table for millions of middle-class families," NARs Brown said. "We know this legislation is just the beginning of a much longer discussion. Our members will continue to make their voices heard as we push towards tax reform that responsibly lowers rate while protecting the dream of homeownership."



Granger MacDonald of the NAHB also highlighted the impact that tax reforms will have on the many builders, real estate agents and mortgage brokers who operate as small businesses.



As corporations receive a major tax cut, small businesses, which generate the lions share of job growth, get limited relief, he said.



One piece of the proposed legislation has been welcomed by Zillows chief economist.



"The proposal to double the standard tax deduction is one piece of the Congressional Republicans' tax plan that could put more money in middle-income Americans' pockets," said Svenja Gudell, adding that it could be something of a reprieve for those struggling to become first time buyers.
The Woodlands' water company Layne Christensen is partnering with the state to drill more than 100 wells in West Texas to sell water to oil companies in the booming Permian Basin.

The new deal with the Texas General Land Office headed by George P. Bush is the first known partnership with a public company to sell state-owned water across multiple counties to the energy sector. The agreement is for Layne to develop 88,000 acres in Reeves and Culberson counties in the active Delaware Basin portion of the Permian Basin.

Layne will drill the wells, build the pipelines, construct the storage ponds and sell the water to the oil companies to use in the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, process that shoots water, sand and chemicals in underground shale rock formations to release the oil and gas. Layne and the state General Land Office will split the revenues.

"This is kind of a gold mine in the making," said Layne Chief Financial Officer Michael Anderson, referencing both the state and the company. Layne isn't releasing the profit-sharing details for now. "We think it's a very fair split. I think both parties are going to be really happy."

RELATED: Woodlands company sees profit in mixing water and oil

Layne often does water projects to serve municipalities and government agencies, but not typically when the water is intended for the oil sector. This is the largest agreement of its kind, according to Layne. That's why Anderson emphasized that only brackish, non-potable water will be produced. They're not stealing anyone's drinking water, he said, and they're not going to Balmorhea State Park acreage.

Layne already is building pipelines and wells to directly serve oil companies, and now its partnering with the state to tap into much larger swaths of acreage.

The company counts oil companies actively working 58 drilling rigs in the two counties, and they could need about 500 million barrels of water a year for all of their fracking needs. Modern oil wells are being drilled deeper with much longer horizontal laterals. The different fracking stages are being spaced closer together, requiring more water and sand.

The best water wells might produce 12 million barrels or so of water a year, said Byron Bevers, Layne's business development engineer, so upwards of 100 wells likely will be needed. And these are wells that might cost more to drill, but they will produce water for years or even decades, he said.

Layne's new deal with the state is for five years with renewal options, and Layne plans to quickly get to work this month. The goal is to start turning a profit in the spring.

Layne is currently working with hydrogeologists from Austin-based Wet Rock Groundwater Services to identify they best well locations.
The Reporter-Telegram and Hearst are continuing its tradition of honoring the regions energy industry by presenting the Hearst Energy Awards.

The awards, begun in 1996, recognize how the industrys contributions impact all facets of Permian Basin life. This years awards will be presented at a dinner Nov. 6 at Midland Country Club in advance of the Executive Oil Conference, which is Nov. 7.

And as in years past, this years honorees cover a breadth of experience.

Noble Energy, recipient of the Company Performance award, arrived in the Delaware Basin just a couple of years ago. The region is a top focus for Noble, alongside the Denver-Julesburg Basin and the Eagle Ford.

Early this year, the company took a huge leap forward with its $2.7 billion acquisition of Clayton Williams Energy, with its thousands of drilling locations in Reeves County alone. Company officials expect its Delaware assets to fuel a 30 percent growth in its onshore production by 2020 as it lifts Delaware production to 145,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Paul Morris, Lifetime Achievement honoree, spent almost 20 years as chief executive officer and president of Wagner & Brown Ltd. before co-founding Elk River Resources LLC, where he serves as chief executive officer.

He has also served as president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association and as a director of GulfSlope Energy, and Axtive Corp.

Beyond the oil patch, Morris has long been active in the community. He has served on the boards of the Midland Chamber of Commerce, United Way, Midland Memorial Hospital and the Petroleum Museum. He is currently secretary of the Midland College Board of Trustees.

Receiving the Industry Advocacy award is State Rep. Drew Darby, a Republican from San Angelo, who chairs the House Energy Resources Committee.

Working hard at designing a better pumping system, whether its a rodless pump that could render the pumping unit obsolete, or a more efficient water pumping system, has earned Henry Pump the Technology award.

Having grown up surrounded by all aspects of the oil and gas industry, my interest in how technology could streamline some of the standard industry processes began as a teenager, said David Henry, owner of Henry Pump. The outdated pumpjack was the catalyst for the idea of a rodless pump, and through the years of research and development for it, we saw additional opportunities to eliminate inefficiencies through technological innovation. From that point, our vision became to modernize and improve the industry using the most advanced technology possible. The industry has been good to us and we want to give back by providing streamlined, efficient and cost savings solutions that will have a lasting impact.

A lifetime of environmental stewardship from his parents led James Ward to develop conservation techniques that he took with him to Angelo State University, where he serves as associate professor of geology. At ASU, he oversees projects conducted by several of his students designed to restore rangelands impacted by brine. Shell Oil heard about the work and has contributed close to $200,000 to support the research. These efforts have earned Angelo State, the Wards and Shell Oil the Bruno Hanson/Midland College Environmental Excellence Award. 






Attention, TV viewers of Military City, USA: So what if none of the soldier stories that have saturated the small screen this fall have made much of an impression. The very best, as it turns out, has been saved for last.

The Long Road Home, debuting Tuesday on National Geographic Channel, not only delivers harrowing depictions of real-life people battling valiantly and selflessly in deadly combat, but also takes us on an intimate  at times, poetic  journey that involves quieter moments with the men in the field and their families back home.

Making it all the more compelling? That home is just a ways up the road from San Antonio  Fort Hood.

Whats even more unusual, considering the few television series and movies filmed in Texas in recent years, The Long Road Home, all eight parts of it, was shot on and around the Army post in Killeen where the real soldiers and their wives and children lived.

Based on journalist Martha Raddatzs bestselling book, the limited series stars Jeremy Sisto, Kate Bosworth, Jason Ritter, Michael Kelly, Sarah Wayne Callies and many other lesser-known faces that, thanks to powerful and engaging performances, should stick with you long after the final credits roll.

The Long Road Home dramatizes the heroic fight for survival during the Iraq War when the 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood was ambushed on April 4, 2004, in Sadr City, Baghdad, leaving eight dead and more than 50 wounded, a day that came to be known as Black Sunday.

The series cuts between the explosive action on the ground in Iraq and the homefront back in Central Texas, where worried wives and families await the news for 48 hellish hours, expecting the worst.

The first two hours premiere at 8 p.m. Tuesday on National Geographic, followed by subsequent episodes at 9 p.m. Tuesdays through Dec. 19. Here are five reasons why you shouldnt miss a single, heartfelt, chilling minute:

Vivid characters

Thanks to author Raddatzs detail and the devotion to realism by screenwriter and showrunner Mikko Alanne, we really get to know these people inside and out. Among the most memorable are moody Staff Sgt. Robert Miltenberger (Sisto, Six Feet Under), a career soldier on the cusp of retirement whose premonition of death before the fateful Sadr City mission is as moving as it is eerie; Capt. Troy Denomy (Ritter, Parenthood), a dedicated family man who adores his wife (Kate Bosworth, Blue Crush) and new baby, but also is fiercely determined to do right by his men and not doubt his decisions  even though he often does; and the even-tempered Lt. Shane Guerrero (E. J. Bonilla, Unforgettable), who tries his best to keep the peace in a situation rife with tension and suspicion.

Painstaking authenticity

We received unprecedented support from the Army, in part because were telling the story of people who are around today, and in part because of the people that lost their lives in the battle, executive producer Jason Clark told TV critics at a recent press session. Most importantly, the support made this possible to actually film on the location where the soldiers trained before they deployed on this mission.

Iraq street scenes were filmed at Fort Hood, too.

Over 100 buildings were constructed to re-create Sadr City, Alane said. Great care was taken to replicate every detail, using photographs and video taken by soldiers  to re-create the architecture exactly.

Two veterans of the battle, Aaron Fowler and Eric Bourquin, worked on the show as technical advisers, and soldiers and family members stayed in contact with the production team throughout the project, offering insights and memories.

Mike Medavoy

No one does war better than this film giant, who was involved in the making of Coming Home, Platoon and Apocalypse Now, and served as executive producer of The Long Road Home. I thought it was time that I tell a story set in Iraq, Medavoy said.

Families that ring true

Its refreshing to see children acting like children  loving, yes, but also stubborn, temperamental, even hateful at times. Spouses at home also react honestly to worrisome news, becoming angry or sobbing profusely, instead of keeping it together as they might in a typical Hollywood script.

Inspirational dialogue

Beautiful Biblical verses and lines of poetry help some of the men cope with their scary plight, while others such as Sgt. Eric Bourquin (Jon Beavers) spout nuts-and-bolts truths that have a certain zing to them: Way I see it, dont matter who you are or where, one day death comes. At least if we die here, tonight, for each other, we die for something. Aint no better way to go. Spouses at home also crack wise to stay sane. After learning of the ambush, Gina, wife of Capt. Denomy, tells a fellow military spouse: In ancient times, wives went to war with their husbands. I guess we still do that.

Jeanne Jakles column appears Thursdays and Sundays in mySA. jjakle@express-news.net
E! News: In the finale, Lestat isn't burned and instead left in the dump, meaning he's still alive. Can you definitely say if we will see Lestat in season two? Jacob Anderson: Yes, I can definitely say that you will see Lestat in season
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Some people believe its in a greyhounds blood to race. Others argue the dogs are dying on Florida's race tracks, and it's long past time the races were stopped.

If passed, amendment would end racing over 3-year-period

Derby Lane had no comment on proposed legislation

Since 2013, 65 greyhounds have died at Derby Lane



Florida state senator Tom Lee (R-Brandon) recently filed a constitutional amendment that would phase out greyhound racing over a three-year time period.

"Theres a lot of inhumanity and cruelty going on in that industry, not all breeders and tracks are responsible for that," Lee said. "But a lot of states in America have banned dog racing. It also has the added benefit of saving Florida several million dollars -- we actually lose money, net to tax revenue, from dog racing here in our state."



Carey Theil, Executive Director of greyhound advocate organization Grey2K USA calls the proposal historic.

"All across the state, greyhounds are enduring lives of confinement," Theil said. "Theyre suffering serious injuries and theyre dying on the track and its time that this industry is phased out."



Since 2013, 65 greyhounds have died at Derby Lane and 38 greyhounds have died at Sanford Orlando Kennel Club, Theil continued. This is an industry that causes the death of young dogs. Derby Lane is, in fact, the state leader when it comes to greyhound deaths.

Derby Lane had no comment on Senator Lee's proposal. However, in a 2016 story about greyhound deaths, they issued the following statement.

Only a very small percentage of greyhounds are injured. An even smaller percentage are actually lost due to injuries that cut short the career of these beautiful athletes.

Greyhounds are not forced to run, they love to run. Derby Lane is one of the safest tracks in the country, and we strive to maintain it so these athletes can do what they love.

Sanford Orlando Kennel Club released the following statement in response to Lees proposal.

"Were still in the process of reviewing, but jeopardizing an industry that generates 3,000 jobs, $11 million in tax revenues and is responsible for 8,000 greyhounds in Florida needs to be examined closely without input from individuals that have no involvement for the care of greyhounds in Florida." - Mitch Cohen, General Manager

To read the full text of the proposed amendment, visit www.flcrc.gov.
Police say a robbery suspect was shot in the parking lot of an Orlando Wawa.

Suspect tried to rob armored vehicle worker at Wawa

Worker said the suspect sprayed pepper spray in his face

The worker shot the suspect in response

The shooting happened at the Wawa on Hoffner Avenue and Goldenrod Road Thursday afternoon.

Police say a Loomis armored vehicle technician was taking care of an ATM when he said the suspect approached him from behind.

They say the suspect tried to rob the Loomis worker by spraying pepper spray in his face. But the Loomis worker was able to pull out his gun and fire at the suspect, who was hit in the chest.

The suspect was taken to ORMC. Police say he is expected to survive and will be charged with robbery with a weapon.

Orlando police are investigating.
Dogs at a Brevard County animal shelter won't have to worry about empty tummies after a massive donation.

Brevard Humane Society gets dog food donation

Business owners donated truckload of food

Shelter still needs cat food, canned dog food

Last month we told you Brevard Humane Society, which had donated tons of dog and cat food to shelters struggling after Hurricane Irma, were running short of food as well.

Port Canaveral business owners Michelle Nicholas and Christopher McDonald heard about the shelter's plight and with the help of a wholesale trucking company, donated a truckload of 80-pound bags of dry dog food to the humane society's Intake and Adoption Center in Cocoa.

All told -- that's 40,000 pounds of food.

Brevard Humane Society says the food will go a long way toward keeping its no-kill shelter going.

The shelter also thanks the huge outpouring of support from the community overall -- but they still need wet and dry cat food and canned dog food.

If you can help, visit the Brevard Humane Society website.
MERIDEN  For the first time at St. Rose of Lima Church, La Conmemoracion de los Fieles Difuntos  The Commemoration of those Faithfully Departed  was celebrated together in public.

Normally, parishioners at the Center Street church honor their loved ones through celebrations at home, but on Thursday, the church held mass and set up a traditional altar with special pieces from from Mexico. The Rev. James Manship took over as pastor of the church earlier this year as part of the Hartford Archdioceses reorganization, and initiated the change. La Conmemoracion de los Fieles Difuntos, also known as All Souls Day, is celebrated all across Mexico, but every state and every family celebrates in their own distinct way.

Some variation of a seven tier altar, representing the seven capital sins, is normally set up to honor those beloved lost. Although seven tiers is traditional, often the lack of space at home limits the altar to one or only a few tiers. On Thursday at St. Rose of Lima, they were able to fit three.

Traditionally on the altar, families place a picture of the person that died, food that the person liked when they were living, candles and the saint that the family or the person was devoted l to. Sugar skulls, called calaveritas, decorate the altar, along with a type of marigold called cempasuchil, which has a strong aroma, and incense called copal. Pan de muerto, a sweet bread, is made and also laid out on the altar.

The items on the altar are a reminder for the people that are living that its through prayer they get liberated from these sins, said Daisy Leon, a city resident and a member of the church choir. Its through the constant devotion.

The altar is never only donned in black and white and is always full of color because yes, the passing of a loved one is a sad event, but our faith believes that they will be resurrected, Leon said.

The tradition might be familiar to some as The Day of the Dead, but Leon said that misconstrues the point of the celebration. It is not a celebration of the act of dying or the bones, as it may seem through commercialized skeleton images, but a way to honor those departed that have been resurrected by Christ.

In Mexico, the day is also called Dia Los de Muertos.

When you translate it and put the The Day of the Dead it denies the fact that they will be resurrected in Jesus Christ, Leon said. The day is more accurately translated to The Day of Those Departed, she said. Thus, the focus is on the person and not the death itself.

Theres a misinterpretation that the skull is something morbid, Leon said.

They have color. Its not making fun of death, its saying that even when you die, you get resurrected, Leon added. And even when you die, it should be something colorful, it should be something lively.

bwright@record-journal.com

203-317-2316

Twitter: @baileyfaywright
MERIDEN  In his 13 years as probate judge, Brian T. Mahons role has been to guide individuals and families through some of the most difficult times of their lives.

Probate is not easy, Mahon said. Dealing with people who are in emotional times, children, elderly. Its rewarding that Ive been able to help those people, make it less traumatic.

Mahon, who turns 70 next year, is retiring from Meriden Probate Court. State law mandates that probate judges retire when they reach age 70, meaning a new judge will be elected on Tuesday.

Mahon plans to travel, spend more time at his law firm Mahon, Quinn & Mahon on Broad Street, and represent people in probate court instead of serving as the final arbiter. Mahon is a fourth-generation city native whose ancestors came to the country from Ireland in the 1850s. He attended law school in Nashville, Tennessee and worked at a law firm in Hartford for a year before moving back to the Silver City to practice in 1974.

Coming back to my hometown is whats really been important, Mahon told the Record-Journal in 2015.

Mahon and his son Colin were honored that year with statewide awards recognizing achievment in the legal field. Mahon was honored with the Connecticut Law Tribunes Lifetime Achievement Award in August 2015, while his son was recognized by the magazine as one of the years New Leaders in Law.

Paul Sussman, editor in chief of Connecticut Law Tribute, wrote at the time: This year, for the first time, we are honoring lawyers who, over the course of their outstanding careers, have left an indelible mark on the Connecticut legal communities.

Mahon was unaware his son had nominated him.

Its a real honor, Mahon said at the time.  A lot of the other winners were nationally known, federal lawyers and judges.

The Connecticut Law Tribune noted Mahons work on a 1987 case that stemmed from the collapse of the framework for a residential building in Bridgeport. The collapse killed 28 workers and Mahon represented the family of one of the victims. The plaintiffs settled their lawsuits for $41 million.

Local attorney Ariana Ceneviva has been endorsed by both Democrats and Republicans to fill Mahons seat in Tuesdays election. Ceneviva practices with her father, Dennis A. Ceneviva, at Ceneviva Law Firm, LLC on Broad Street. Her focus is primarily on probate and real estate work. Since being admitted to the Connecticut Bar in 2010, Ariana Ceneviva has handled over 166 probate cases including decedents estates, conservatorships and removal of guardianship cases in several probate districts including Meriden, Wallingford, Middletown, Cheshire-Southington and the Central Connecticut Regional Childrens Court.

Im ready for the job but its really big shoes to fill, Ceneviva said. Hes very warm, comforting and has a calming effect on people.

Ceneviva has been handling probate files for the past seven years and has worked closely with Mahon on elderly and child cases. She shares the same affinity for the elderly and children as Mahon.

I thought it was a great opportunity, she said of the position.

Ceneviva graduated magna cum laude from Villanova University with a bachelors degree in biology in 2007. She graduated cum laude from Villanova School of Law in 2010. She is also the president of the Midstate Arc board of directors.

Mahon said his position does not allow him to endorse a candidate. He added, however, that Ariana has appeared in my court on many occasions. Shes a very competent attorney.

mgodin@record-journal.com

203-317-2255

Twitter: @Cconnbiz
MERIDEN  A New York man faces a sexual assault charge after police say he raped a woman in July.

Theodore Parker, 36, of 259 South 11th St., Mount Vernon, New York, was charged by warrant Thursday with first-degree sexual assault. He was arraigned in Meriden Superior Court on Friday. The judge entered a protective order barring Parker from any contact with the complainant. The judge set bond at $200,000 and transferred the case to New Haven Superior Court. He is scheduled to appear on Nov. 14.

On July 5, police received a report of a sexual assault. A woman reported that Parker raped her the night before, according to the arrest warrant. Parker is known to the woman, the warrant indicated. Police interviewed three people and issued a warrant for Parker on Sept. 6, according to court records.

 Lauren Sievert
WALLINGFORD  Service out of the towns new train station on North Cherry Street will officially begin Monday.

The state Department of Transportation will hold a grand opening on Monday at 12:30 p.m. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is expected to attend.

The station, 343 N. Cherry St., is opening in advance of the May 2018 launch of the CTrail Hartford Line rail service, meant to increase commuter rail service between New Haven and Springfield. DOT said the Wallingford station will be the first station to open as part of the new rail service.

Amtrak trains that currently stop at the existing train station, 37 Hall Ave., will begin stopping at the new train station Monday morning. The new train station is located about a mile north of the old station.

There are currently six round trips going through Wallingford daily. That will increase to 17 once the new rail line launches in May, said John Bernick, DOTs assistant rail administrator. The Wallingford station will serve both Amtrak and CTrail Hartord Line trains. Amtrak will make nine round trips between New Haven and Hartford on weekdays, while CTrail will make eight round trips.

While the Wallingford station wont have bathrooms, it features amenities aimed at providing a high-quality passenger experience, including high-level platforms, an overhead pedestrian bridge, overhead canopies, automatic snow melting systems, a passenger information display system, electric vehicle charging and bicycle racks, according to a DOT statement.

Construction of the Wallingford station began in December 2014 and cost about $21 million, Bernick said.

The station includes two parking areas with a total of 221 spots. Bernick said when the station first opens, parking will be free, but added that a paid parking system will be phased in.

Commuters will pay for parking by entering their parking space number into a centralized meter. Parking fees at each station will be $2 per day or $20 per month. Parking will be free on weekends and federal holidays, according to DOT. Bernick said someone who isnt using the train can also pay to use the parking lots.

DOT released proposed fares for the CTrail Hartford Line last month and is now going through a 35-day public comment period to receive feedback.

A one-way trip from Wallingford to New Haven would cost $3.50 under the proposed fare schedule. A trip from Meriden to New Haven would cost $4.75, while a trip from Meriden to Wallingford would cost $3. From Berlin, a trip to New Haven would cost $6. Trips from Berlin to Wallingford and Meriden would cost $3.50 and $3, respectively. Hartford to New Haven one-way would cost $8. Springfield to New Haven would cost $12.75.

Bernick said the proposed fares dont apply to Amtrak trains and are only applicable to the new CT rail trains.

We are working with Amtrak to institute a uniform fare structure for trips between Springfield and New Haven on all trains, Bernick said.

DOT also laid out proposed fares for discount one-way, onboard one-way, weekly, 10-trip, discount 10-trip, monthly, school monthly and UniRail fares.

DOT will hold three public hearings during the public comment period. The hearings will be held on Nov. 13 in New Haven, Nov. 14 in Hartford and Nov. 15 in Springfield.

"We welcome public participation, invite the public to learn more and to provide their thoughts on the upcoming Hartford Line service and fares, state Department of Transportation Commissioner James F. Redeker said in a statement.

mzabierek@record-journal.com

203-317-2279

Twitter: @MatthewZabierek
A Santa Clara police officer lawfully shot and killed an unarmed 24-year-old mentally ill and suicidal man in March, suspecting the man had a handgun and would use it, the Santa Clara County district attorneys office said Thursday.

The shooting occurred March 9 after Jesus Alberto Geney-Montes parents called 911 four times during the day to report that their son was behaving erratically, was armed and threatening his stepfather.

Each time, officers arrived at the home and left after determining there was no cause to make an arrest, although at one point, police said, he threatened to shoot the officers if they came into his bedroom. The officers were leaving the fourth time, when Geney-Montes mother stopped them to say her son had stabbed himself.

They returned and confronted Geney-Montes, who by then was in the yard and told the officers once again he had a gun. Police said he kept his hand in his pants pocket, despite orders to show his hands.

Show me your hands. Get down. Youre not going to die today. Youre not going to die, an officer was heard saying on body-camera video.

After a period of negotiation, Geney-Montes threatened to shoot himself in the head and began counting down, according to police accounts. At that point, a video taken by Officer Colin Stewarts body camera shows the officer jumping a wall behind the house and running toward Geney-Montes.

Police say Geney-Montes charged at Stewart, although the video does not make that apparent.

Seeing Geney-Montes charging towards him and believing his life was in danger, Officer Stewart chose to defend himself by discharging his weapon, Prosecutor Carolyn Powell wrote in a 53-page report released Thursday. Under the facts, circumstances and applicable law in this matter, Officer Colin Stewarts use of force was in response to an objectively reasonable belief that he was facing an immediate threat of great bodily injury or death.

During the investigation, Stewart was put on administrative leave, but returned to work about two to three months ago, said Lt. Dan Moreno, a Santa Clara Police Department spokesman.

We agree with the D.A.s findings, he said, declining to comment further.

Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno
Jon Shapley /Houston Chronicle

Colorado-based Startek Inc. is hiring immediately for 400 temporary bilingual customer service positions at its new San Antonio facility to assist families affected by the recent U.S. hurricanes, the company announced Friday.

Two hundred and twenty-seven of the positions already have been filled as of Friday morning, company spokesman Kelly Hilton said. The positions are expected to last six to 12 months. Pay is $19.41 an hour, the company said. Of the base pay, $4.41 an hour is in lieu of benefits, Hilton said.
Texas power giant Vistra Energy posted a strong $273 million quarterly profit with revenues of $1.83 billion as it heads into its $10 billion merger with Houston's Dynegy.

On the other hand, struggling Dynegy lost $137 million, which is less than its $254 million loss during the same time last year.

The $1.74 billion deal for Vistra to acquire Dynegy and create a $10 billion company would turn Irving-based Vistra, which is Texas' largest power producer, into a major national player. Although it's Houston based, Dynegy didn't even have any Texas power plants until it acquired most of Paris-based Engie's power portfolio last year.

"Vistra Energy's third quarter results were strong, despite disappointing summer weather," said Vistra CEO Curt Morgan, citing hot summer weather that still failed to produce a lot of peak days when power prices soar.

Consistently low natural gas prices - with little expectation of prices rising much any time soon - have driven power costs down in recent years because of the nation's shale energy boom.

Those low gas prices, coupled with growing wind and solar power, have made most coal plants uneconomic. That's why Vistra announced last month it plans to shutter three of its largest Texas coal plants, eliminating about 800 jobs in the process.

"Despite this great result, certain of our coal assets no longer support continued investment in this existing oversupplied generation market, which includes the proliferation of subsidized renewables, that when combined with low natural gas prices has created a period of historically low wholesale power prices," Morgan added.

RELATED: Vistra, Dynegy merging to form $10B Texas power giant

Dynegy has grown rapidly in recent years, including its strong presence in the Midwest and Northeast. However, it grew along with shrinking or nonexistent profits, creating a larger debt load. Those struggles, in part, made it easier for Vistra to make the acquisition.

However, the merger may mean hundreds of layoffs at Dynegy's downtown Houston headquarters, which will shutter after the deal closes. Vistra will maintain its Irving headquarters. Vistra would only keep a retail electricity office in Houston.

Vistra is the successor company to Energy Future Holdings, which declared bankruptcy in 2014. Vistra owns retail electricity giant TXU Energy and Luminant, the company's merchant power generation arm.

The merger must still pass regulatory scrutiny with the Public Utility Commission of Texas about Vistra potentially controlling too much of the state's power.

Natural gas plants would account for about two-thirds of the combined company's power generation, with the balance produced from coal, nuclear and solar powers. Together, Vistra and Dynegy, worth a combined $10 billion on the stock market, could produce 40,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 8 million homes on a hot Texas day.
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Becky DeLeon checks the security tape covering the lock and access door to the gas pumps at Molinas San Antonio Country Store every day.

DeLeon, a former police officer, is looking for evidence of credit card skimmers. If the tapes broken, she immediately calls an outside company to inspect the pumps.

We have a lot of customers that are real good at coming in and telling us Hey, that strip is broken, and we immediately shut (the pump) off, she said.

Skimming devices, which allow criminals to steal credit card information, are a growing problem in Travis and Bexar counties, both which have stepped up their enforcement, according to local police.

The San Antonio Police Department seized three skimmers from ATMs and four from pumps in 2016. So far this year, theyve found 13 skimmers at ATMs and 70 at gas stations across San Antonio.

We werent looking as hard as we probably should have been last year, said Lt. Marcus Booth, the departments financial crime director. Weve pushed quite a bit harder now.

ATM skimming cases are easier to investigate since most of the machines are equipped with cameras, but gas stations and drivers are more vulnerable to being scammed. Skimmers target outdated pumps, pumps along highways and pumps that are farthest from the cash register, Booth said. Finding suspects also poses a challenge.

Theyre moving from town to town, and they dont live here, Booth said. It makes it difficult from an investigative standpoint.

Booth said theyve been working with banks and encouraging gas station owners to update their pumps to encrypt credit card data.

State Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said credit card skimming scams are growing in Texas. And the Travis County Sheriffs Office on Monday warned consumers about a surge in credit cards skimming around Austin, urging drivers to pay inside for gas.

I know that takes away from the convenience of pay at the pump 100 percent, but right now that is the only way to be sure youre avoiding your card being skimmed, Capt. Craig Smith said.

He said deputies recently found three skimming devices at a pump in Wells Branch, the northern portion of Travis County. Two arrests have already been made, Smith said, and deputies are still investigating those cases. Deputies have also staked out gas stations in the county in hopes of catching someone installing a skimmer but have not been successful.

Authorities often dont learn about a skimming device until its too late, according to Deputy Victor Perez, a financial crime investigator with the Bexar County Sheriffs Office.

Its probably a larger problem than we realize, Perez said. We normally find out about it through banks after they get fraud alerts from their customers.

Buddy Reinhart, the general manager at San Antonio-based A&A Pump Co., said he gets two to three calls a month from customers about credit card skimmers. The company services gas pumps across South Texas.

Theyre out there. It seems like they come in spurts, and youll see one area that gets infected more than others, Reinhart said.

Skimming equipment is easy to obtain, Perez said, and so are machines to help thieves clone credit cards.

Once they get your info, they can slap it on a card that looks virtually legit. It includes a chip and everything, Perez said. Ive seen counterfeit cards so accurate theres no way youd be able to tell without actually running the card.

Texas Food & Fuel Association President Paul Hardin said credit card skimmers are a statewide issue but not an epidemic.

Members of his organization are urged to check their pumps daily, and consumers should also look to see if the security tape on gas pumps or access doors have been tampered with. Consumers can also check the credit card reader and keypad on the outside for devices before putting their credit card into the slot to see if anything looks off, he said.

Booth additionally suggests examining and tugging at the card slot to ensure its firmly attached to the machine. Even if the keypad is covered to protect privacy, Booth said, customers should still cover the pad with their free hand to make sure skimmers cameras dont catch it.

Jeff Lenard, a spokesman with the National Association of Convenience Stores, said one customer falling victim to a skimmer is one too many, but he doesnt believe the use of skimmers are prevalent.

It is a problem when it is a problem for a customer, but  there are 40 million fill-ups every day in America and the incidence of skimming is a minuscule percentage of those transactions, Lenard said.

The easiest prevention method is to pay with cash, Perez said. Besides that, Perez said customers should be proactive about guarding their information, regularly reviewing bank statements and keeping anti-virus software updated.

While DeLeon said shes never found a skimmer at her store, even a rumor of one can hurt business.

Would you go to a gas pump and stick your card in there if you felt like there were problems? I wouldnt, DeLeon said.

Relief may be coming in the future. Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. have set a deadline of October 2020 for U.S. gasoline pumps to install chip card readers in upgrades that may cost the industry upward of $4 billion but are more difficult for thieves to crack.
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Stan Bates, who was indicted earlier this year with state Sen. Carlos Uresti for allegedly defrauding investors, was a no-show this week for a Kansas court hearing in an unrelated case.

State District Judge Rhonda K. Mason entered an almost $650,000 judgment against Bates Energy Oil & Gas Wednesday, saying the company breached a lease with Caldwell-Baker.

CEO Bates and the company were sued in May for allegedly backing out of a deal to lease 170 rail cars to transport frac sand  used in hydraulic fracturing to extract oil and gas. The lawsuit by Caldwell-Baker Co. of Gardner, Kansas, came just days after Bates and Urestis arrest.

Caldwell-Baker Co. sought a court judgment against Bates and Bates Energy during a court proceeding Monday. David Bravo, who has worked with Bates Energy, also was named in the action. Bates and Uresti were indicted in May for allegedly defrauding investors in Bates former company FourWinds Logistics, which ran a similar business dealing frac sand.

Bates couldnt immediately be reached for comment Friday.

Bravo attended this weeks hearing without a lawyer, but Mason gave him three weeks to respond. Bravo had no comment on the Kansas case. He was identified in unrelated court hearing in San Antonio in August by Bates Energys then-lawyer as an owner and officer of the company. Bravo disputed that Friday, saying he was a company consultant who was given the title of chief operating officer.

Linus Baker, a lawyer for Caldwell-Baker, said he can register the judgment in Texas and then try to determine if Bates Energy has any assets to pursue.

Debt collection isnt easy; sometimes its easier than others, Baker said. But in this case its probably going to be fairly difficult. Thats why we got Stan Bates and David Bravo to sign off personally. Both made guarantees to pay Bates Energys debts, Baker said.

Bates is scheduled to stand trial in San Antonio federal court in January with Uresti over their involvement in defunct frac sand company FourWinds. Bates and Uresti, along with company consultant Gary Cain, are accused of running a Ponzi scheme in the purchase and sale of sand. They have each denied the charges. Uresti and Cain have no involvement with Bates Energy.

Bates, Bates Energy and Bravo had been represented by Shook, Hardy & Bacon lawyer Justin Johl of Kansas City, Missouri, in the Kansas litigation, but he withdrew from the case.

In a court motion asking to withdraw, Johl said had not been able to obtain the necessary and required cooperation from the defendants.

Bates Energy also is embroiled in separate litigation in San Antonio. In a July lawsuit, Bates Energy accused Utah-based Complete Oil Field Services of rejecting deliveries of 40,000 tons of sand and refusing to approve the disbursement of escrow funds. Complete Oil countered with its own suit alleging Bates Energy failed on numerous occasions to deliver sand.

Two weeks ago, U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez granted a request by Bates Energys lawyers to withdraw from that case. Attorneys Tiffanie Clausewitz and Shellie Reyes said in a court filing that Bates Energy has failed to effectively communicate with them and had not fulfilled the compensation terms of the representation agreement.

Rodriguez gave Bates Energy until Nov. 13 to hire new counsel, though the judge left the door open for it to request an extension.

Bates and Bravo are both working with a new company called Gator Disaster Recovery, which, according to its Facebook page, has performed hurricane clean-up work in the Houston area.

pdanner@express-news.net
Four Equifax Inc. executives who sold stock in the days after the company discovered a security breach had no knowledge of the incident when they made the trades, the company said.

A special committee of the firms board that investigated the sales also determined the executives obtained appropriate clearance from Equifaxs legal department and that the transactions complied with company policy, Atlanta-based Equifax said Friday in a statement.

The computer hack that exposed the personal data of 145 million U.S. consumers was discovered by the credit-reporting company on July 29. Filings show that between Aug. 1 and Aug. 2, Chief Financial Officer John Gamble, Joseph Loughran, president of U.S. information solutions, and Rodolfo Ploder, president of workforce solutions, sold stock valued about $1.8 million.

Fridays statement also said that Douglas Brandberg, a senior vice president of investor relations at Equifax, sold 1,724 shares on Aug. 2. His trade  which totaled about $251,000  hasnt been previously reported since he isnt considered a named executive officer and not required to publicly disclose stock trades.

The conclusion that the company executives in question traded appropriately is an extremely important finding and very reassuring, Chairman Mark L. Feidler said in the statement. We will not tolerate any violation of company policy or the law regarding the trading of securities.

The U.S. Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into whether the Equifax executives violated insider trading laws with the sales, people familiar with the matter said Sept. 18. The Securities and Exchange Commission was also working with prosecutors on the probe, according to the people.

Spokesman for the DOJ and SEC didnt immediately respond Friday to requests for comment on the boards statement and the status of any agency investigations.

The committee appointed by Equifaxs board found that Gamble was the first of the four executives to learn of the breach during an offsite management meeting on Aug. 10, according to the statement. He was on vacation with his wife in Utah when the incident was uncovered, the company said. Loughran and Brandberg were made aware of the hack between Aug. 13 and Aug. 15, while Ploder wasnt briefed on the matter until a senior leadership meeting on Aug. 22.

The special committee was comprised of independent directors and advised by outside counsel, the firm said in the statement. As part of its investigation, the group reviewed 55,000 documents and conducted 62 interviews, including with the executives who sold the shares and employees in the legal department who approved the trades.

Equifax said the legal team imposed a trading moratorium on Aug. 15 for all employees that the company identified were aware of the breach. The special committee used the recipient list for the blackout notice to determine which employees should be reviewed, the company said in the statement.

Equifax shares have dropped 23 percent since it disclosed the breach on Sept. 7, compared with the 4.7 percent advance of the S&P 500 Index.
The Hershey Company

PHILADELPHIA  The first new candy bar to carry the Hersheys name in more than two decades is set to hit shelves next month.

The Hershey, Pennsylvania-based candy maker says Hersheys Gold will go on sale Dec. 1. Its described as a caramelized cream bar embedded with salty peanut and pretzel bits. Hersheys says the bar is a response to trends that it says show the rising popularity of crunchy multi-textured candy.
The dramatic and unique "L'Artesania de Vivir" exhibit of artistic chairs will stop in Houston Nov. 8 for its first showing outside of Mexico.

Some 32 chairs  from four iconic Roche Bobois designs  decorated by traditional Mexican craftsmen will be on display at the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern. So far the chairs have been in museums in Mexico City, Chiapas, Zacatecas and Oaxaca.
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BRIDGEPORT  Mayor Joe Ganim is urging voters to reject a proposal on the Nov. 7 ballot that would force him to provide an extra $2 million next year to the library system, arguing it will result in a tax hike.

Two million dollars would impact substantially residential property taxpayers in the city, Ganim told reporters and his assorted aides at a press conference Friday afternoon at the downtown government center.

The event was scheduled for the mayor and his staff to talk about the estimated $11 million to $15 million hole that the just-passed, bipartisan state budget has left in Bridgeports finances. But he portrayed the libraries as adding to that problem.

Im glad we got a budget, Ganim said of the protracted battle in Hartford that made Connecticut the last state in the nation without a budget. But I have to tell you, it hurts.

Noticeably absent were the mayors fellow Democrats from the citys legislative delegation, all of whom voted for the fiscal deal.

State Rep. Steven Stafstrom in a statement last week said the state budget protects Bridgeports share of state aid and funding for critical services.

But the Ganim administration complained of a $6 million loss of Municipal Revenue Sharing monies, and a few million dollars worth of shifts in normally state-funded tax relief programs for seniors and renters to the city.

So if we want to continue these programs, its on the citys dime, said Av Harris, Ganims liaison with state lawmakers.

Stafstrom in an interview afterward emphasized that the state budget provides at or about the same amount of municipal aide as last year.

The problem, he said, is that the mayor and City Council had to pass a local budget in the spring, when Connecticuts fiscal outlook was a little rosier and the governor had proposed an infusion of new cash for Bridgeport.

The bulk of this issue is (new) money they built in (to Bridgeports budget) that just didnt materialize, Stafstrom said.

Hitting the books

The fight over giving more taxpayer dollars for the libraries is a separate issue that, technically, would impact the 2018/19 budget city officials would craft next spring for July 1. But it is another budget complication Ganim would like off of the table.

The library board in 2009 successfully convinced voters to pass a referendum requiring the city set aside a certain amount of money in each budget for the libraries. That amount has been based on a formula that involves the tax or mill rate and the grand list  the list of total taxable properties.

On average it has meant around $6 million for the libraries each year.

But last years $1 billion dollar drop in the grand list cost the libraries about $1 million. So the board over the summer collected the signatures to force another referendum to alter the funding formula, giving the libraries an estimated $2 million more.

Board members have said the money is crucial to build three libraries in the East End and East Side and to keep other branches running.

Although the referendum was discussed publicly at library board meetings and paperwork filed with the city, the board only recently publicized the effort, catching City Hall off guard. Ganim Friday said there was no communication with his office or his staff: This was something done, apparently, last minute.

The City Council has a liaison to the board, but that individual  Councilman Richard Salter  rarely attends meetings.

The library referendum this week was endorsed by Bridgeport state Senators Ed Gomes and Marilyn Moore.

Define Non-Essential

Ganim and his financial gurus  Finance Director Kenneth Flatto and Nestor Nkwo, the budget chief  offered few specifics about how his administration plans to deal with the shortfall from the state budget.

Nestor and I are doing everything we can to make sure this gets reduced, Flatto said.

There is a $3 million windfall on the horizon from Bridgeports successful efforts to pass legislation cutting annual pension costs.

The mayor said a hiring freeze for non-essential personnel and a spending freeze will remain in place, and suggested he may ask municipal unions for help. Some of those agreed to concessions in 2016 when Ganim, elected the prior November, was dealing with a $20 million deficit.

But the mayor and council that year got less than half of the $4 million they had sought in concessions.

We want everyone to be a part of closing this, the mayor said. Were going to finish the (fiscal year) in the black.

One obvious area where Ganim will seek savings is the police department. The city and cop union, which endorsed the mayor during his 2015 campaign, are in the midst of a contentious, state-run contract arbitration after failing to reach a settlement.

Asked if there might be mayoral-appointments in city government that could be trimmed  like his predecessors, Ganim found work for political allies  the mayor said, Its a nice thing for a soundbite (but) at the end of the day, this administration is lean.

Ganim in a brief interview afterward admitted that he is still moving forward with replacing Louis Reed, who was in charge of outreach to ex-offenders. He successfully campaigned for a second chance in 2015 and wanted to use City Hall to provide support for other former felons.

Reed, who had a criminal record, was the face of that effort until his arrest in September on larceny and forgery charges unrelated to his municipal job. Ganim terminated Reed.
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BRIDGEPORT  Housatonic Community College has been named one of eight Dream Leader colleges nationwide by the Achieving the Dream network.

The network is a consortium of 220 community colleges that provides advisory resources to some four million community college students nationwide.

Housatonic is one of just two colleges in the Northeast and the only New England institution to get the title which was announced by the Silver Spring, Maryland-based organization.

Evelyn Gard, a spokeswoman for the college said the designation will not be impacted by the proposed merger of the states 12 community college into a single accredited body.

Each of the campuses will retain their unique identities even when the administration structure is merged. Gard said.

Gard said the whole system stands to benefit because they can share best practices and look for ways to improve the entire system.

The distinction comes with no cash but the ability to apply for specific grant-funded initiatives.

To qualify, Housatonic needed three consecutive years of measurable improvement in outcomes that measure student success: graduation rates, increased enrollment in math courses and better outcomes in reading and writing courses.

Housatonic President Paul Broadie II said Housatonics three-year journey toward the designation has been demanding but rewarding as well for all involved.
1 Abortion case: In a highly unusual move, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court on Friday to discipline lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union because they helped a 17-year-old migrant obtain an abortion two weeks ago. The move escalates a legal battle over abortion that arose when Trump administration officials refused to allow the young woman to leave a refugee center in Texas with a guardian to see an abortion provider. The ACLU sued on her behalf, and a federal judge ruled the federal government must promptly and without delay allow the teenager to see a doctor to have the abortion she sought. A U.S. appeals court upheld that ruling on Oct. 24, and she had the abortion  paid for with private funds  early the next day, before the administration could lodge an emergency appeal in the high court. On Friday, Solicitor General Noel Francisco filed an appeal that asks the Supreme Court to set aside the lower courts rulings and to consider disciplinary action against the ACLU. The ACLU fired back, saying the blame, if anything, lies with administration lawyers who failed to act quickly to file their emergency appeal.

2 Alligators removed: Wildlife officials in Florida say the number of alligators removed from Walt Disney World property in Orlando more than doubled in the six months after a Nebraska toddler was killed when a gator pulled him into the water. An alligator grabbed 2-year-old Lane Graves of Omaha outside Disneys Grand Floridian Resort on June 14, 2016. Prior to the childs death that year, 24 alligators had been removed from Disney properties. The number more than doubled to 53 from the day of his death to the end of that year. Disney said the company is working with wildlife officials.
A 36-year-old man who rented a room through Airbnb was allegedly murdered by three men who lived in the home, police in Australia say.

Local media reported the victim was Ramis Jonuzi, a Melbourne man who was using Airbnb to find temporary accommodations while seeking more permanent housing. The Airbnb he found, located in Brighton East, was reportedly $30 a night.

But the "energy" in the house didn't feel right, Jonuzi told a friend, and he planned to cut his stay short. He packed up to leave on Oct. 25 but, according to Australian newspaper The Age, he was attacked on the front lawn by the home's three occupants, raped and murdered.

According to BBC News, paramedics responding to the scene found Jonuzi suffering from heart failure. He was rushed to the hospital, where he later died.

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Jonuzi's cause of death was not released.

MORE: California family missing in Brazilian jungle found safe

Victoria police announced they arrested three men in connection with the crime; they were identified by local media as Craig Levy, 36, Ryan Smart, 37, and Jason Colton, 41.

"We have removed this listing from our platform and will fully cooperate with law enforcement on their investigation," Airbnb said in a statement issued to the Washington Post. "There is no place on Airbnb for such an abhorrent act, which violates everything our global community stands for."

Levy, Smart and Colton are expected to appear in court on March 22.
NORWALK  The Veteran of the Month ceremony for Sunday, Nov. 5 at the American Legion Post 12 meeting hall will honor World War I U.S. Army veteran Corporal Edwin T. Smith. Smith, who was one of the first African-Americans to serve during WWI, served with the U.S. Army American Expeditionary Forces in France in 1918 and 1919.

The Veteran of the Month program is held the first Sunday of the month at 11 a.m. in front of the meeting hall at 60 County St., Norwalk. If you know someone to be honored, contact the Legion at 203-866-8249, or Leo Motyka at 203-853-8076.
WASHINGTON - U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein on Wednesday cautioned current and former federal judges and prosecutors in Washington against allowing political passions to shape overzealous prosecutions.

The comments came in a speech extolling the rule of law as Rosenstein, who holds the No. 2 position in the Justice Department, spoke at the federal courthouse overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller's grand jury probe into whether President Donald Trump's campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

The appearance by Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller in May and has authority over the investigation, was planned months ago. He gave a substantially similar speech six weeks ago at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

But his timing, two days after the investigation's first criminal charges were unsealed, and his audience - lawyers and the judges predominantly appointed by Democratic presidents, including those handling cases brought by Mueller's prosecutors - lent a political subtext, whether intended or not.

Rosenstein took questions, but the audience was told not to ask about the Russia investigation because he could not discuss it.

Rosenstein said one of his most important duties was to "safeguard the integrity of the Department of Justice and to uphold the rule of law," and noted the president's constitutional responsibility to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

He reminded the public of its responsibility to uphold democratic institutions, recalling Benjamin Franklin's purported answer to a woman who asked what kind of government the Continental Congress had chosen: "A republic - if you can keep it."

But he mostly emphasized prosecutors' duty not to rush to judgment, citing former Franklin D. Roosevelt attorney general and Supreme Court justice Robert Jackson's admonition that although violations of the law abound, prosecutors ought to charge only those "in which the offense is the most flagrant, the public harm the greatest, and the proof the most certain."

Repeating Abraham Lincoln's warning in 1838 after a mob in Illinois lynched an African American man suspected of murder, Rosenstein said, "When men take it in their heads today to hang gamblers or burn murderers, they should recollect that in the confusion usually attending such transactions they will be as likely to hang or burn someone who is neither a gambler nor a murderer as one who is."

He concluded, "And that acting upon the example they set, the mob of tomorrow may, and probably will, hang or burn some of them by the very same mistake."

Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Trump-Russia case because of his role in the Trump campaign, leaving Rosenstein with the authority to approve Mueller's budget, remove him from his post or veto any investigative step with congressional notification.

Mueller's team interviewed Rosenstein this year about Trump's removal of James B. Comey as FBI director, investigating whether the president might have attempted to obstruct justice leading up to Comey's firing.

Rosenstein wrote a memo highly critical of the FBI director, which the White House used initially to explain the firing, before Trump later tweeted that he was going to fire Comey regardless.

It was not clear whether Rosenstein had the episode in mind when he reminded the Wednesday audience of a saying by author Richard Bach, "Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published around the world - even if what is published is not true." After a pause, Rosenstein added, "And I have some recent experience with that riddle."

Rosenstein spoke in the federal courthouse's Ceremonial Courtroom at the annual Judge Thomas A. Flannery Lecture Series, named after the late judge and former U.S. attorney for the District who served 30 years at the federal courthouse.

Rosenstein has deep ties to the courthouse. Rosenstein, who was U.S. attorney for Maryland from 2005 to 2012, joined the Justice Department in 1990 after clerking for Judge Douglas H. Ginsberg at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
A proposed 2018 budget was approved earlier this week by the Madison County Finance and Government Operations Committee. It is balanced while increasing public safety spending and reducing the property tax levy slightly, according to a news release from Madison County Chairman Kurt Prenzler.

A half dozen speakers at Mondays meeting voiced concern that cuts that had been proposed to the County Clerks office would seriously hamper the early voting process. But the budget approved at the meeting restores many of those cuts, allowing for four election judges at each polling place for the primary and five for the general election.

A program that had proposed to spend $500,000 to combat opioid abuse was pulled from the final budget. In September, Prenzler had proposed using part of the Mental Health Boards budget to bring in a medication assisted treatment provider to help those with heroin and opioid addiction.

Despite the setback, Prenzler, on Monday, said he will continue to view the opioid epidemic as a serious problem and a top priority, and will work with States Attorney Tom Gibbons and Coroner Steve Nonn to address the issue.

Were going to continue look at it and maybe mid-year we will make emergency appropriations, Prenzler said.

The Madison County Board is expected to approve the budget at its monthly meeting on Nov. 15.

The proposed budget includes a tax levy of $30.7 million, down $1.8 million from last years levy.

The Finance Committee has worked hard to balance the budget, Prenzler said in a press release. Madison County will levy less in property taxes for the upcoming year. It is my priority, along with County Board members, to reduce the countys reliance on property taxes.

The general fund rate will remain the same. A referendum passed in 2016 reduced the maximum general fund rate from .25 to .20.

The general fund makes up about one-third of the countys total tax levy. The tax levy is set after the countys equalized assessed value is completed in the spring.

The proposed budget came after hours of meetings in which department heads whose departments were scheduled for cuts pleaded their case to have them restored, either fully or in part.

One of the big budget winners, Prenzler said, was public safety. The budget adds a sheriffs deputy, a probation officer in pre-trial release, and full-time/part-time assistant states attorneys, which includes a grant-funded position.

Other positions were added in Facilities Management for maintenance, which includes the jail renovation project, according to a press release from the county.

The tax levy for the Veterans Assistance Commission was increased as well as additional funding for the Child Advocacy Center.

The Finance Committee spent more than 30 hours working together on the budget, including six budget review meetings.

If passed by the County Board, the 2018 budget will take effect Dec. 1.
WASHINGTON - Many Democrats expressed outrage Thursday at allegations from a former party chairwoman that an agreement with the Democratic National Committee gave the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton some day-to-day control over the party early in the 2016 campaign.

Donna Brazile, a former interim chairwoman of the party, says in a forthcoming book that an August 2015 agreement gave the Clinton campaign a measure of direct influence over the party's finances and strategy, along with a say over staff decisions and consultation rights over issues like mailings, budgets and analytics.

The control was given in exchange for a joint fundraising pledge by the Clinton campaign that helped fund the DNC through the election year, Brazile says.

"This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party's integrity," she wrote in a book scheduled for publication next week, a portion of which was excerpted Thursday in Politico.

Throughout the campaign, the DNC and its then-chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, fiercely denied any suggestion that the party was helping Clinton over other candidates. The presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had criticized Wasserman Schultz for limiting the early primary debate schedule, allowing party money to be used for Clinton fundraising, and briefly cutting off Sanders's access to the party voter file shortly before the New Hampshire primary after a Sanders staffer inappropriately accessed information.

Some Democrats now say the arrangement is evidence that the concerns were valid. Ray Buckley, the chairman of New Hampshire's Democratic Party, said that he first learned of the agreement while serving as DNC vice chair in 2016. "The day that Donna discovered this, she called me and I almost passed out," Buckley said. "We were blatantly misled."

In response to the report Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said in a CNN interview that she believed the primary contest between Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders had been rigged. "This is a real problem," she said. "We have to hold this party accountable."

President Donald Trump also jumped on the controversy with a tweet on Thursday night that suggested the Justice Department should investigate the "real collusion and dishonesty," even though Brazile and the Sanders campaign have not alleged criminal activity.

"Donna Brazile just stated the DNC RIGGED the system to illegally steal the Primary from Bernie Sanders," he wrote.

The current leadership of the party said it would address the problem.

"One of my goals here, as DNC chair, is to make sure that the nominating process for 2020 is a process that's fair and transparent for everybody," DNC Chairman Tom Perez said in an interview with CNBC. "We're going to set the primary debate schedule well in advance of when we know which candidates will be there."

Charlie Baker, the chief operating officer of the Clinton campaign, said that in 2015 the campaign agreed to raise money for the parts of the DNC that were going to be most crucial to the general election, including data, research, communications and the like. The agreement also gave the Clinton campaign some say over personnel. If there was a vacancy for a position in one of these departments, the DNC had to consult the campaign on the three finalists but could make the final decision itself.

"We never tried to be presumptuous," Baker said. "We were literally trying to make sure the DNC had the resources it needed, whoever was the nominee."

The joint fundraising agreement allowed Clinton to raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from individual donors - money that was spread across state parties under federal campaign guidelines. Sanders had a different fundraising model, relying more on small-dollar donations directly to his campaign, and he told the DNC that his campaign was not interested in following the same program.

"The idea that the DNC was willing to take a position that helped a candidate in the midst of a primary is outrageous and there is no justification for it," said Mark Longabaugh, a senior adviser to the Sanders campaign. "It gets back to the fundamental way that Bernie Sanders was running his campaign, which was to break the stranglehold of big money on politics."

Jeff Weaver, Sanders's campaign manager, said in an interview that their campaign was led to believe it had the same joint fundraising agreement as Clinton.

"We were not offered veto power on staff at the DNC, I can tell you that," said Weaver. "This was a laundering operation. They'd go to fundraisers, they'd get a $350,000 check from donors which was supposed to be divvied up. Instead of disbursing that money, they'd turn around and run a small-dollar fundraising to generate small contributions that went to the Clinton campaign."

In a September 2015 email obtained by The Washington Post, a lawyer from Perkins Coie, a law firm representing both the DNC and the Clinton campaign, wrote the Sanders campaign with a copy of what was presented as a "standard joint fundraising agreement."

"This is the same one we have used with other campaigns," wrote Perkins Coie's Graham Wilson.

At the end of the same email, Wilson suggested that should the Sanders campaign raise "significantly more" money than was required to pay for the party voter file, then Sanders could have a say in how those funds would be used "to prepare for the general election."

"The DNC has had discussions like this with the Clinton campaign and is of course willing to do so with all committees raising funds for the Committee," Wilson wrote.

Weaver said the Sanders campaign decided early on to ignore the joint fundraising program and raise small dollars on its own to pay for access to the voter file. "Who are the wealthy people Bernie was going to bring to a fundraiser?" Weaver asked. "We had to buy the voter file right before the primaries."

After the election, the effects of the Clinton fundraising effort hit some state parties hard. Jane Kleeb, who took over Nebraska's Democratic Party in late 2016, discovered that the party had accrued $35,000 in debt for the Clinton campaign.

"Nebraska never even signed the JFA because we . . . didn't want to be a funnel for, essentially, money-laundering," Kleeb said. "And now we learn that a small group of establishment Democrats got to determine who our nominee was. That goes against everything that Democratic values are built on."

Kleeb, who along with Weaver is a member of the Democrats' post-primary "unity commission," said the party had made some amends under Perez's leadership. In his campaign to run the DNC and since, Perez has chastised Wasserman Schultz for turning the party into a vehicle for the presidential campaign.

After Brazile's book excerpt surfaced, state chairs began calling and emailing each other about a change to the DNC's rules and bylaws that would forbid any arrangement like the one Clinton got.

"I will co-sponsor that amendment and vote for it," Buckley said. "There's so much reform that has to happen."

Buckley and other DNC members suggested that the party should also give DNC members access to its budget, which would have made it clear much earlier how the joint fundraising agreement was affecting the flow of money.

The financial arrangement between the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party was a key part of the party's effort to remain financially solvent in 2015 after years of low fundraising, high expenses and significant debt.

"The Clinton campaign had effectively taken control of the Democratic National Committee in the year before the nominating process began," said Tad Devine, the top strategist for the Sanders campaign. "They exercised their control through the use of the joint fundraising agreement."
Edwardsville High Schools Drama Club is excited to present its fall production, You Cant Take It With You, at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 10 and Nov. 11 in the EHS auditorium.

EHS Drama Director Ashley Melton, who is in her first year leading EHS drama, explained why she selected this particular play for the students. I chose the show because I was looking for something that would kind of captivate the students, and it is just such a hilarious script, she said.

Melton knew she had made a good choice after seeing the students reaction to the announcement of the selection. I think it kind of is a testament to the script whenever I introduced the title to kids and they did a little research and were like, I fell in love with it, and now I want to audition, she said. We had kids come out that I think usually would not  those that considered themselves technicians or others- and we have some of them in our cast now because they were excellent. So some unexpected things happened, and it really fits the theme of the play.

Melton explained that You Cant Take It With You is basically about eccentric characters who live by the philosophy of doing what you love because you cant take money with you when you leave the Earth.

The play revolves around the Sycamore household that is loaded with interesting characters. The grandfather of the house has all these really crazy hobbies. He collects snakes. He collects stamps. He goes to commencement ceremonies, Melton noted.

And then we have the granddaughter who is a ballerina and dances around the house, and her husband who plays the xylophone and makes print for the printing press. The mother of the home writes plays and does painting. The father of the home and his best friend, who also stays with them, they make fireworks in the basement. So theres all these hobbies going on, and I thought it was just so different and crazy that the kids would all fall in love with it. I thought that it was something that theyd really enjoy.

EHS Senior Grace Pellock will be playing the supporting role of Gay Wellington, which was a bit of a departure from the roles Pellock has played in past EHS productions. In the past, I usually have been in ensemble... last year I was a showgirl in Crazy For You. The year before that in Oliver, I was a Fagins boy, which was also really fun and different being a boy because Im not a boy, Pellock said. Ive never really had any big roles. This is my biggest one at the high school.

The role has been fun and offered new challenges for Pellock to grow in her acting ability, but also is an odd role because Gay Wellington is a drunk. Im there and Im drinking alcohol, Pellock explained about her opening scene. When act two opens Im telling them a story, and shortly after that I pass out on the ground (drunk). Im just kind of a comedic effect through the rest of act two.

She noted that it was a role that offered a lot of flexibility to broaden her acting skills in a direction shes never experienced. Even when I pass out on the floor, theres cues where I mumble and I can play around with that. Some times I snore to be more funny...I have a lot more freedom with it which is kind of fun, Pellock said.

The play is packed with comedic moments, but Pellock pointed out its a play that is suitable for all ages. Its very funny. Theres some adult humor that kids wont understand, but it is family friendly. Theres also some funny parts and actions that I think kids would find hilarious, she said.

Luke Goeckner, a senior, will be playing the lead role of Martin Vanderhof, the grandfather of the Sycamore clan and the character that is the patriarch of sorts to the crazy bunch. I welcome any personalities, any weird things that people do...I kind of keep people in order. I welcome in all these different characters and people, and Im the person that tries to make sure that everything is OK and everyone is happy in their own sort of way, he said.

Goeckner found his role to be challenging in respect to playing a much older character, but he also gained some experience playing a more senior character with the 2015-16 EHS production of Theophilus North. A lot of the emotions I have to feel are very much different and like emotions Ive not felt yet because this is a character thats lived out his whole life and has found specifically what he wants to do which is funny because Im a high schooler who is still trying to find out where I want to go to college and all that other stuff. So thats been the big challenge, Goeckner said.

Hes a very sound person. In each situation that comes to him whenever the wacky stuff happens in the show, he knows what to say. Thats the big thing, Goeckner added about the challenges to playing his character. Its really hard to try to do in real life, and its really interesting to do as a character.

Every EHS production involves around 100 students. Theres some like Pellock and Goeckner who have on-stage roles, but then theres numerous students in the background providing costuming, marketing and technical assistance like Zak Francis, a senior. Francis has been working on the sets, setting up the sound and lights, and is the plays student technical director during the show.

Hes the person that the students will turn to if any problems arise. Ive had experience with all the other spots, so Ill be able to go around and help somebody if they are having problems with sound or a microphone stops working, Francis explained. If one of the lights start flashing, well hopefully know how to fix it. Im there for when things go wrong.

Francis said that his biggest challenge so far had been making sure that the main set  the interior of a house  was structurally safe. Its hard to make something fast and cheap but still have it look good and not collapse when people go up a set of stairs. So I would say the attention to detail for it has been the most difficult part, Francis said.

Tickets for the Nov. 10 and Nov. 11 performances of You Cant Take It With You are now on sale through the EHS office weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tickets will also be available for purchase an hour before each performance at the ticket table in the EHS lobby.
This year marks the 19th anniversary that Faith In Action Edwardsville/Glen Carbon (FIAEGC) has served the local area to support the independence and well-being of seniors.

In 2016 alone, FIAEGC filled over 1,200 service requests to transport and assist individuals aged 60 and older who needed help with daily living activities including transportation, shopping assistance, occasional respite care, companion visits, light seasonal yard work and minor home repairs.

The organization relies completely on the generosity of local volunteers, referred to as driving angels who donate their time and driving abilities to take local seniors primarily to medical appointments, grocery stores or on errands required for basic living.

FIA Edwardsville/Glen Carbon Director Marcia Golden explained that the population of those 60 years of age and older in Edwardsville/Glen Carbon is growing, and FIAEGC is feeling that growth. We used to do about 20 to 25 trips per week. Id say that this year, were at 40 trips per week, she emphasized.

During 2016, the organizations volunteers drove 30,000 miles and served over 100 different local area seniors. As of the end of September, FIAEGC had already served 115 different seniors for the 2017 year.

FIAEGCs gala dinner-dance benefit is the organizations major biennial fundraising event. This important funding resource takes place Nov. 10 in the Leclaire room on the Nelson Campus in Edwardsville and the public is invited to attend.

The 2017 FIAEGC Community of Angels Gala begins at 5:30 p.m. with a silent auction followed by a sit-down dinner catered by Bella Milano. An oral auction will take place at 7:30 p.m. and The Robert Perry Band will perform from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Cost is $60 per person and tickets can be purchased by contacting FIAEGC at 618-692-0480 or email fiaegc@yahoo.com.

Edwardsville Mayor Hal Patton will be serving as the Master of Ceremonies. Mayor Patton has always been very supportive of Faith in Action, and we also provide rides for several of his patients to his dental office, Golden pointed out.

The gala is our biggest fundraiser that we organize every other year. The money goes towards the program - the office help in keeping the program running, gas cards for the volunteer hours/miles that they drive, insurance for the organization and the marketing costs, postage costs - and our new Ride Scheduler program that we use to schedule rides for our seniors. Golden explained.

Its an organization that serves those that reside in the Edwardsville Community Unit School District, and it operates as efficiently as possible with a staff of just three part-time employees who take care of the 270 care receivers and coordination of the organizations approximately 90 volunteers.

In addition, its an organization whose staff, volunteers and board members are actively involved in other community organizations, churches and non-profits as well. Just this last year volunteers and board members were out in the community assisting other organizations like Restore Decor, participating in Free Lunch Friday at Immanuel United Methodist Church and making Thanksgiving baskets for the Glen Ed Pantry.

To learn more about FIAEGC or volunteering to be a driving angel, visit www.fiaegc.org.
Mustafa al-Imam, the second Libyan militant charged with involvement in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, was flown to the United States after his capture Sunday by U.S. Special Operations forces and made his first appearance at a federal courthouse in Washington on Friday.

Al-Imam was not required to enter a plea and was ordered to remain in custody pending his next appearance on charges unsealed Monday. He is charged with conspiracy and murder while attacking a federal facility, material support of terrorism and a firearms violation for the Sept. 11-12, 2012, attacks on a U.S. diplomatic mission and CIA station that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
LONDON - The Syrian government declared Friday that it had recaptured one of the Islamic State's last remaining strongholds in the country, as the militant group mounted a final stand across the border in Iraq.

Syrian Brig. Gen. Ali Mayhoub, a military spokesman, described victory in the eastern city of Deir al-Zour as the "last phase" in the army's campaign to defeat the Islamic State in Syria, three years after the group declared a "caliphate" stretching from the country's northeast to territory deep inside Iraq.

Deir al-Zour had been divided into zones controlled by the Syrian government and the Islamic State for nearly three years. It is the largest city in eastern Syria and the largest to be recaptured by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"With the loss of Deir al-Zour, Daesh loses its ability to lead terrorist operations by its militants who are now isolated and encircled" east of the city, said Mayhoub, using the Arabic name for the Islamic State.

At its height, the Islamic State's caliphate was the size of Belgium. The fighters now hold just a small stretch of towns running south along the Euphrates River and into Iraq. They are bombarded daily by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes as they battle a broad array of forces closing in on the ground.

In Syria, that means rival U.S.- and Syrian-backed offensives. Across the border, it is the Iraqi army and Iranian-backed militias that are beating back the Islamic State.

Iraq's military said Friday that its forces have taken control of Qaim, a western border town and the last in the country to be nominally controlled by the militants.

Qaim has been a strategic location for the group, providing a link to Bukamal - one of its few remaining strongholds in Syria.

Yehya Rasool, a spokesman for Iraq's joint operations command, said small pockets of Islamic State resistance persist around Qaim and that he expected them to be cleared by Saturday. A neighboring town, Rawa, is also not yet fully controlled by government forces, he said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi issued two statements late Friday congratulating the combined military, police and militia forces for securing the strategic border and Qaim. He said the battle for Qaim, launched last Thursday, was won in "record time."

In addition, the military said government forces have seized the border crossing between Syria and Iraq in Qaim. The capture deprives the militants of a critical juncture they had used to move fighters and equipment between their shrinking territory straddling both countries. The area had been under Islamic State control since 2014.

Earlier this week, Abadi said Iraq would soon be able to claim total victory over the Islamic State in Iraq.

Though small, Qaim has been an important town for the Islamic State. U.S. and Iraqi intelligence officials have said the militants used Qaim as a safe destination for their top commanders and leaders as battles raged in larger cities such as Mosul earlier this year.

Army Maj. Gen. James B. Jarrard, commander of the U.S.-led Special Operations joint task force fighting the Islamic State, said in a news briefing Tuesday that there are probably between 3,000 and 7,000 Islamic State fighters left throughout the Euphrates River valley, from Deir al-Zour to Qaim in Iraq.

In late August, Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, the outgoing overall commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, said he believed that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was hiding in the vast desert region that includes Qaim.

- - -

El-Ghobashy reported from Cairo.
Stephen Bannon, President Donald Trump's former chief strategist, secretly met with American Federation of Teachers leader Randi Weingarten in April to talk about education issues because Trump "likes her" and supported opening a conversation to see whether there was common ground, according to the man who arranged the meeting.

Chris Ruddy, chief executive of Newsmax Media Inc., set up the April 19 meeting in a closed restaurant near the White House, according to both Ruddy and Weingarten.

Ruddy said that Bannon, who was ousted from the White House in August but still talks routinely to Trump, is not "as doctrinaire and conservative as people might think" on education issues and wanted to open a conversation with Weingarten. Many critics of Bannon see him as a racially divisive figure who fuels Trump's nativist instincts.

Bannon could not be reached for comment, and the White House did not respond to queries about the meeting. Weingarten, who was an active supporter of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential campaign and whose union gave Clinton an early endorsement, responded to Ruddy's comments about Trump's support for talks with her, saying in an email:

"I knew these were surreal times right now, but really? Appointing anti-public education lobbyist Betsy DeVos as secretary of education, releasing a budget to defund and destabilize public schools, and paying for tax breaks for the rich and corporations by eliminating the state and local tax deduction, which would take money away from public schools, police and fire services, is a very bizarre way of saying you like someone or care about public schools."

Ruddy is a friend of both Trump and Weingarten. Before entering journalism, Ruddy was a public school teacher in New York City who was active in the United Federation of Teachers, which represents most teachers in New York City and which was led by Weingarten for more than a decade. "I've always had a strong belief in public education," Ruddy said in an interview.

The idea for a conversation between the White House and Weingarten developed, Ruddy said, when he was talking to the president about education and mentioned he knew Weingarten. Trump also knew her - both were prominent figures in New York in their own fields.

"The president knows her and likes her," Ruddy said. "He obviously knows her from the New York world. . . . So I mentioned this to the president as an opening to communications with her. Steve [Bannon] was excited about that. I set up a meeting and they had a private meeting outside the White House."

Weingarten said Wednesday she thought Bannon sought the meeting - initially reported by the Intercept - because he believed there was common ground; she and her union have been critical of the power of hedge fund managers and "crony capitalists," as has Bannon. But she said his "theory of the case" is "laced with a white-supremacist nationalism that is abhorrent."

Ruddy said he, too, disagreed with Bannon on many things, including immigration and tariffs. But, he said, "On education issues, I believe when you find an overlap you work together."

Ruddy said that in conversations with Trump about education, the president "told me a couple of times that he believes strongly both in public schools and charter schools and we can support both." Charter schools are publicly funded but privately operated. Trump also supports vouchers and similar programs that use public funds for private and public school tuition. The president has proposed slashing the Education Department budget, and characterized public schools as part of "American carnage" in his inaugural address.

"The president once said that education was infrastructure," Ruddy said. "He doesn't downplay it, the importance of teachers and education."

Trump has been blasted by public school advocates for selecting DeVos, a Michigan billionaire, as education secretary because, for decades, she has been a leader in a movement that pushes alternatives to traditional public education. DeVos has said she views traditional public schools as "a dead end," though she has also denied that she wants to privatize all of them, as her critics charge. She and her husband, Dick DeVos, have spent money and time pushing charter schools as well as vouchers and similar programs.

The first visit Trump made to a school as president was to a Catholic school in Florida that accepts hundreds of students who attend with help from the controversial Florida Tax Credit Scholarships. That program offers tax incentives for individuals and corporations to donate to organizations that provide "scholarships" for private and religious school tuition and other educational expenses.

Weingarten, now head of the 1.7 million-member national union, worked for more than 25 years in New York as a lawyer, teacher, union activist and United Federation of Teachers president as well as the head of the Municipal Labor Committee, the confederation representing all of the municipal New York City unions, including police and fire.

"Of course I knew Donald Trump," she wrote in the email. But, she added, "as I said over and over during the 2016 campaign, I never saw Donald Trump at any of the events or any of the groups that devoted themselves to children or to public schools."

Weingarten said she agreed to meet with Bannon because she will talk to anybody - especially those in a position to influence public policy - to advocate for public schools and that she spent much of the 1 -hour conversation challenging Bannon's views on race and other issues while also advocating for public education.

Weingarten and Bannon did not meet again, though they did talk briefly on the phone a few times, she said.

Now that Bannon is gone from the White House, Ruddy said he hopes the president will become more engaged in education issues.
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Sarah Panzau Evans presentation started without her.

There was a slideshow, with photos of a teenager playing varsity volleyball to light, bright music. Then the scene changed, and so did the music. The presentation settled on a photo of Evans at a bar, the camera zooming in and the image flickering to other, blurrier scenes.

Slowly those photos sharpened and the McCollum High School students Thursday could see a body. On a stretcher. Covered in red. The music stopped and Evans walked out to describe her injuries: a crushed vertebra, a severed arm, a jaw that was so fractured it was completely unhinged from her face.

I get goosebumps every time I see it, she told the Harlandale Independent School District students in the auditorium. I was pretty much dead.

Since Tuesday, Evans had been visiting high schools and middle schools in San Antonio to talk about it. She was 21 when she drove while drunk in her hometown of Belleville, Illinois, and got into the crash that nearly killed her. Nobody else was injured.

Her blood-alcohol level was 0.308, almost four times the legal limit for driving in Texas, she told the McCollum assembly.

Now, 14 years later, shes a speaker for beer giant Anheuser-Busch, traveling the country to speak at public schools about the dangers of drinking and driving.

Shes missing her left arm, and her face has gone through two reconstructive surgeries, but Evans, 36, is as mobile as anyone and even more vibrant. She has tattoos and face piercings. She has short, spunky red hair and was wearing a tank top and Nike shorts.

She starts with underage drinking. Does anyone even know why they set the drinking age at 21? she asked the McCollum students, to a smattering of tentative answers.

Your brains arent even fully developed yet, she said before putting a hand on a smiling boys hair. Like this thing  you know, you have great hair.

The auditorium roared with laughter. Evans explained what alcohol does to the brain, but beyond that, she emphasized that if her listeners did make the mistake of drinking so young, they better not make the second mistake: getting behind a wheel.

When Evans mother was told about the crash, officers mistakenly said it was fatal, and she drove 30 minutes to St. Louis to identify her daughters body, Evans said.

Madeline Jimenez, 18, teared up during that part. Her friend patted her back while she wiped her eyes.

Hearing about what her mother went through was so sad, Jimenez said later. I was very emotional. It was so good.

Evans said she still looks at herself in the mirror every day and picks herself apart  all of her flaws, from all of her injuries. In every state shes traveled to, shes seen stares and heard whispers of people reacting to her appearance.

If you think Ive accepted this body, I havent. But Im so glad I did this to me and not somebody else, Evans said.

But despite all that, she said, she put her body on display for the shock factor, hoping it will deter students from getting behind the wheel drunk.

Shes so brave, Jimenez said, shaking her head in awe.

Evans started speaking at schools less than two years after the Aug. 23, 2003, crash. By 2006, she had signed with Anheuser-Busch. When Evans was recovering from her nearly 40 surgeries, she began writing down plans in her notebook.

She would talk to students about the consequences of drinking and driving. She would change her life. She would never put others in danger that way again.

And, Evans recalled thinking, she would walk out of the hospital proudly, without shame, in a tank top and Nike shorts.

sfosterfrau@express-news.net | @SilviaElenaFF
The 10-year-old girl who was taken into Border Patrol custody after surgery last week has been released to her parents.

Rosa Maria Hernandez, 10, was released Friday from the custody of the Health and Human Services Department and will be reunited with her parents, Congressman Joaquin Casto, D-San Antonio, said in a statement.
AUSTIN  Scott Milder, a former two-term city councilman from the Dallas area, is mounting a primary run against Republican Lt. Gov Dan Patrick, who he calls a  big bully and polarizing figure.

Somebodys got to step up and give voters a choice, said Milder, who officially announced his campaign Thursday. Hes offended, hes insulted, hes alienated just about everybody across the state of Texas  If we dont confront the bully, he is never going to stop.

A senior political adviser for Patrick, who was first elected to the statewide office in 2014, dismissed the critique.

Dan Patrick is unequivocally the hardest-working, most effective conservative leader in the history of the Texas Senate, said Allen Blakemore, who added Patrick has overwhelming support among Texas Republicans, including endorsements from Gov. Greg Abbott and U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.

With less than four months until the March 6 primary, Milder is casting himself as a pro-business Republican who will preserve local control and invest in public education and infrastructure. An executive with Stantec Architecture, Milder and his wife also founded Friends of Texas Public Schools, a nonprofit that aims to celebrate whats right with public schools, according to its website.

Milder opposes efforts to subsidize private-school tuition with state funding, an initiative Patrick championed in the recent legislative session. And he called the so-called bathroom bill, which would have restricted the public restrooms that transgender people can use, a solution in search of a problem. Patrick has said the bill was not discriminatory and was needed to protect womens safety.

Milder has no experience in the state Legislature, but he recently served two terms on the Rockwall City Council before losing re-election earlier this year.

I am well aware that its not a logical, natural next step from city council to lieutenant governor, he said. But nobody else is stepping up to challenge Dan Patrick; and if we let him go unopposed, that is sending a message that Texans are happy with what he is doing, and I just dont think thats the case.

Milder declined to reveal how much money his campaign has pulled in so far or outline any fundraising goals, simply saying he wont be able to compete with Patricks war chest. As of the latest filing report in July, Patricks campaign had more than $16 million cash on hand.

But he said the campaign will rely on grass-roots networking to get his message out, as opposed to running a big series of television ads.

One of the things our campaign is banking on is that theres a big anti-Patrick sentiment out there, he said.

amorris@express-news.net
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Shortly after midnight Friday, police in North Texas responded to a call for a suspicious vehicle.

Parker County deputies arrived at the intersection of Hutcheson Hill and Carter roads in Weatherford, a town northwest of Fort Worth, to find Scott Alan Bradley, 32, sitting atop a lawn mower.

RELATED: Texas Rangers investigating death of Trinity University cheerleader

Police said in an incident report obtained by mySA.com, that Bradley - on his lawn mower - was headed west on Carter Road. Bradley was sitting on top of the mower at the end of a driveway in the 2000 block of Carter Road.

Police said Bradley was intoxicated. He was arrested for public intoxication and taken to the Parker County Jail where he was charged with a $368 fine, according to jail records.

Kelsey Bradshaw is a digital reporter for mySA.com. Read more of her stories here.| kbradshaw@express-news.net | Twitter: @kbrad5
A man who was previously convicted for impersonating a public servant allegedly did it again in an attempt to scam Central Texas residents, according to the Travis County Sheriff's Office.

The sheriff's office first became aware of the issue in July when a resident called them about a fake deputy who paid him a visit, officials said.

The resident told deputies the man identified himself as Robert Rodriguez, an investigator with the office's hot checks division. The deputy showed the man two insufficient checks he wrote and told the man he needed to make a payment. They agreed to meet up later in the day near Highway 183, authorities said.

RELATED: Owner says burglars snagged $50,000 in items during daring rooftop heist at S.A. phone store

Before that meetup happened, the resident called the Travis County Sheriff's Office, where an official said they did not employ someone named Robert Rodriguez, authorities said.

The resident reached the fake deputy over the phone and told him about the police report. "What the f**k did you do that for," the man told the resident, according to an arrest affidavit.

Similar incidents were later reported in Hays County and Leander, according to the affidavit.

Further investigation led deputies to identify the suspect as Ricky Cortez, 39, of Houston. Court records show he was previously convicted of impersonating a public servant in Fort Bend County.

Cortez was arrested on that charge again Thursday, according to a news release from the sheriff's office.

Fares Sabawi covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here. | fsabawi@mysa.com | Twitter: @FaresInSA
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Two San Antonio firefighters were suspended after being arrested on suspicion of drunk driving in unrelated incidents, according to records obtained by mySA.com.

Eric Fraser, 32, and Monico Vasquez, 46, were both suspended in June for 60 days without pay, according to the records.

Fraser was pulled over on Jan. 5 in the 1000 block of NE Loop 410, after an officer caught him swerving, authorities said.

Fraser kept calling the female officer "sir," according to the report. When the officer asked him if he noticed she was a female he allegedly said he preferred not to address her by gender.

RELATED: Actor Lou Diamond Phillips charged with DWI near Corpus Christi after asking cop for directions

Fraser told the officer he was swerving because he was cold. He also told the officer he was on "a lot" of blood pressure medication, according to the records.

Fraser allegedly had a strong odor of alcohol on his breath and failed a field sobriety test. Court records show Fraser has another hearing scheduled in the case on Nov. 13.

Vasquez was pulled over on I-10 West and UTSA Boulevard on February 16, according to the police report.

An officer pulled Vasquez over after he drifted toward a highway sign, before narrowly avoiding colliding with it, authorities said.

Vasquez allegedly had bloodshot eyes and also failed a sobriety test, according to the report. Vasquez has a plea hearing on his case on Tuesday, court records show.

Fares Sabawi covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here. | fsabawi@mysa.com | Twitter: @FaresInSA
Police on Thursday arrested a gunman who shot a man twice in the leg on the Northeast Side.

The suspect opened fire on the 35-year-old victim around 10:45 p.m. near Guadalajara Drive and El Sendero Street, police said.
Lets assume, just for a moment, that the great political leaders of the past were not cynical, deluded or deceptive when they talked about morality and religion. Lets posit that, at least in some instances, they were not just striking poses but making arguments.

Early in 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt delivered his State of the Union address in an atmosphere charged with menace. Germany had just occupied the Sudetenland. Kristallnacht was recent news. Roosevelt was beginning to prepare Americans for the exertions of a global war.

Yet FDR did not begin his address by talking about rearmament. There comes a time in the affairs of men, he said, when they must prepare to defend not their homes alone but the tenets of faith and humanity on which their churches, their governments, and their very civilization are founded. At that moment of national testing, Roosevelt felt it necessary to clarify and reaffirm the transcendent commitments that undergird self-government.

He identified three of them: Religion, which gives the individual a sense of his own dignity and teaches him to respect himself by respecting his neighbors. Democracy, which is the covenant among free men to respect the rights and liberties of their fellows. And international good faith, which springs from the will of civilized nations of men to respect the rights and liberties of other nations of men.

Our public and political life, Roosevelt assumed, is ultimately a reflection or echo of our spiritual life. Here I use spiritual broadly to mean a set of beliefs that challenge our natural egotism and cause us to respect the rights and dignity of others. Democracys idealism is inherent.

A few years later, as World War II raged, the Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain took up this argument. Right political experience, he said, cannot develop in people unless passions and reason are oriented by a solid basis of collective virtues, by faith and honor and thirst for justice. In particular, it is the urge of love which allows us to surmount the closed borders of the natural social groups  family group and national group  and extended it to the entire human race.

In the absence of a democratic state of mind, warned Maritain, nothing is easier for political counterfeiters than to exploit good principles for purposes of deception.

Moreover, he said, nothing is easier for human weakness than to merge religion with prejudices of race, family or class, collective hatred, passions of a clan.

For many secular liberals, such language is inherently suspect. On what basis can any set of beliefs be preferred above another? Democracy requires, in this view, not just a political pluralism but a pluralism of values. Such a position is absurdly lacking in self-awareness. A commitment to pluralism is itself a value, which must be preferred above other values such as, say, the interests of a master race or the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The democratic faith now emerges from more diverse sources  both religious and nonreligious  than Roosevelt might have imagined. But it is still a moral and spiritual commitment that must be taught for any democracy worthy of the name to survive.

Yet also try to imagine Maritain  who helped draft the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights  trying to speak to a Republican Lincoln Day dinner about the urge to love extending to the entire human race. Conservative religious leaders regularly and shamelessly merge their faith with collective hatreds and the passions of a clan.

Our political renewal must somehow begin here, in recovering the democratic spirit  in confidently encouraging the decency, compassion and spirit of sacrifice that can alone overcome egotism and tribalism. That is a task for both individuals and institutions  the essential preparation for all other democratic tasks. The largest obstacle is individual  the high barrier of our own doubt.

In his poem September 1, 1939, W.H. Auden felt the hopes of a low dishonest decade expiring and compared his generation to children lost in a haunted wood. His conclusion? We must love one another or die.

michaelgerson@washpost.com
The deadly attack in which an alleged ISIS supporter rented a truck and plowed into pedestrians and bicyclists in New York City is many things, including, most definitely, a terrorist act.

But what it isnt is cause  as the president suggested  for the nation to dismantle its diversity visa lottery program, in which people from countries with low immigration rates to the U.S. are admitted. Nor is it vindication for the presidents ban on immigrants from majority-Muslim countries. Nor is it even proof that the presidents call for extreme vetting has any more saliency.

Heres why. As a Department of Homeland Security analysis  leaked this year  determined: We assess that most foreign-born, U.S.-based violent extremists likely radicalized several years after their entry to the United States, limiting the ability of screening and vetting officials to prevent their entry because of national security concerns.

Moreover, the alleged terrorist, Sayfullo Saipov, is from Uzbekistan, not one of the countries included in the presidents thinly veiled Muslim ban. In fact, the odds of any refugee carrying out a terrorist attack here is roughly 1 in 3.6 billion, according to an often-cited report by the libertarian Cato Institute.

Make no mistake: Terrorism inflicted by a twisted reading of Islam is a problem, just not one that dictates a response that blames all Muslims.

Yes, this attack is more cause for the United States to be on its guard. Its clear, from this attack and from such attacks in Europe, our enemies are now seeking soft targets with the goal to instill fear and dread.

As always, our reaction should be the opposite  grief, yes, but also vigilance, examination to see if there is something authorities might have done to prevent such events, acting on such knowledge and living lives as normally as possible. But definitely not jettisoning core American values.

U.S. immigration policy can be an expression of the nations values of openness and inclusiveness  or it can be, as the president is proposing, its antithesis.

In times of tragedy, the nation looks to the president for assurance and inspiration. President Donald Trump provided none of that in this instance, the first terrorist attack on U.S. soil on his watch that was apparently inspired by ISIS.

He did as he has done for a while now  take a problem and immediately look for people and policies to wrongly bash and blame, including a federal justice system that has convicted hundreds of terrorists.

Thats not leadership.
1 Somalia air strikes: The U.S. military for the first time conducted two air strikes against Islamic State fighters in Somalia, where the group is a growing presence in a country long threatened by the al Qaeda-linked extremist group al-Shabab. The U.S. Africa Command said the drone strikes killed several terrorists in northeastern Somalia. A Somali security official said at least six missiles struck Buqa, a remote village 37 miles north of Qandala in the northern state of Puntland. The U.S. military this year has carried out well over a dozen drone strikes against al-Shabab after the Trump administration approved expanded efforts against the group.

2 Climate talks: Diplomats from around the world are converging in Germany next week to thrash out how to implement the Paris climate agreement, despite uncertainty over the role the United States will play in those efforts. While President Trump has threatened to pull out of the accord fighting global warming, other countries have pledged to press on at the Nov. 6-17 meeting in the western city of Bonn. Negotiators will try to agree on ways to measure each countrys greenhouse gas emissions and make sure everyone is playing by the same rules. Experts say a key issue will be the transparency of nations emissions reports. Environmentalists, meanwhile, are planning to protest host Germanys continued use of coal-fired power plants.
The company will add two new full-sugar flavors to its core soda category next year.

ATLANTA  While bolstering its low-sugar and non-sugar options, such as sparkling waters, The Coca-Cola Co. is also keeping its full-sugar line robust and has plans to add two new flavors next year, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reports. In addition, Coke will debut Green Apple Fanta as part of its fruit-flavored soda line in 2018 too.

Called a local twist on the original Coke formula, Georgia Peach and California Raspberry are made with cane sugar and will be sold in 12-ounce glass bottles starting in March. Testings of these flavors triggered exceptionally high purchase intent scores, according to a Coke spokesperson.

Specialty soda has boosted Cokes growth, with that category increasing 8% last year. Coke has marketed the line to millennials because of that demographics desire to try new food and beverage experiences, the spokesperson indicated.

Soda consumption dropped to a 30-year low in 2016, pushed down by a decrease in Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi sales. Also, Americans purchased more bottled water than carbonated drinks for the first time in 2016.

Coke has addressed concerns by tweaking its lineup and acquiring new lines. In July, the company introduced its redesigned Coca-Cola Zero Sugar brand, and last month, Coke bought Topo Chico, a popular Mexican sparkling water company. During last months NACS Show, Coke introduced another new low-cal soda called Barrilitos, a Mexican agua fresca line in seven flavors only available in frozen concentrates and bag-in-box formats.
Find the newest releases to watch from National Geographic on Disney+, including acclaimed documentary series and films Fire of Love, The Rescue, Limitless with Chris Hemsworth and We Feed People.
A former Tipperary hurler and Irish Defence Forces soldier who followed his heart and moved to London is loving the best job in the world.

Carrick-on-Suirs Bill Walsh has been making a name for himself in fitness and modelling, along with starring in popular Reeses chocolate and peanut butter promotional videos.

Bill, who turns 25 this month, had become disillusioned with life in the Defence Forces and opted for a move abroad.

I loved the army for the first ten months of it. We trained, ate and slept and we done it day in day out. We were in a bubble and you learn to grow up very fast. I was a kid, just barely 18 when I joined, and you adapt or you die.

Things went south for me in the army after I was removed from an overseas trip to Lebanon but in hindsight it was the best thing that ever happened.

"Life in the army today is very poor - working conditions are very poor, facilities are very poor and the wage is worse. I saw no future in it, so I put myself through night school and got out on my terms. Best decision I've ever made. It didn't excite me, I got no stimulation from it anymore and it was a dead end for me. But not everyone is like me - some people love it and that's great for them and I'm happy for them but for me I had no future in it, an honest Bill admits.

Bill has built a personal training business from the ashes. He loves new challenges and is excited by the many modeling opportunities that have come his way in London. I started with nothing, literally zero, Bill explains.

Some time back I just said yes to everything. I was asked to do some shoots for some agencies here in London. I run with everything - the modelling side of life gives me a break from the full-time job. It's great, it's fun and it interests me. I love fashion, style and image. I love everything about the modelling industry. But my main job is personal training - it's hard but it fills me with pride and passion every day, Bill smiles.

Read Bills full interview in this weeks South Tipp Today.
The Consulate General of Israel in Miami said Thursday's Balfour Declaration event in Miami Beach was canceled due to threats.

"Due to threats and pursuant to local law enforcement instructions the event planned for tonight commemorating the 100 years of the Balfour Declaration has been canceled," the agency said in a statement.

The Balfour Declaration was the British government's formal endorsement of the establishment of a Jewish state.

The canceled "Balfour Declaration and the Making of the Modern Middle East" event was organized by Consulate General of the United Kingdom, the Consulate General of Israel, Florida International University, the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Museum of Florida.

FIU later revealed the event was canceled due to a threat made by a student.
What to Know Sayfullo Saipov is accused of driving a truck down a Manhattan bike path, killing 8 and injuring 12

Two neighbors say they saw Saipov and two men driving around in a Home Depot rental truck similar to the one used in the attack for weeks

One neighbor called it "a little suspicious," since it didn't appear the men were doing any work

The man accused of plowing a rental truck into people on a riverfront bike path in Lower Manhattan had been renting the truck, or a similar truck, for weeks before the rampage and was frequently seen driving off in it with two friends, neighbors say.

The two neighbors said they had little interaction with the 29-year-old suspect, Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, or the two other men, but that theyd seen them in front of Saipovs home on their phones or in gym clothes stretching and flexing in front of the house.

Neighbor Carlos Batista, 23, says he saw Saipov cruising around in the Home Depot rental truck with the two friends every day, every other day for the past three weeks. He estimates they rode in it four or five times in that time period, usually in the afternoon.

I did find it a little suspicious. You know, you got a truck box vehicle and youre not doing anything with it, Batista said. You come back, same clothes, not even dirty or anything  its a little weird.

Batista's brother, Angel Batista, said the number of men with Saipov would fluctuate between two and four. The brothers say they sometimes saw Saipov and the men in a minivan Saipov apparently owned.

On a night about six months ago, Carlos Batista had an altercation with Saipovs friends over noise from a dirt bike Batista was riding. It was Saipov, he says, who came out and broke up the fight.

He was the peacemaker, Batista said.

The last time Batista says he thinks the last time he saw the two men was on Monday.

It's unclear if authorities have spoken with the two friends. Federal agents have been interviewing Saipov's wife and an acquaintance of Saipov's, Mukhammadzoir Kadirov. The two of them have not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Batista said Saipov told him he had a wife, but that he never saw her. "He was with the two guys most of the time," Batista said.



Authorities say Saipov rented the truck used in Tuesday's attack from a Home Depot in Passaic about an hour before the rampage. Although he was to rent it for 75 minutes, authorities say he had no intention of returning it  instead, they say, he sped to Manhattan and barreled through the busy bike path for about 14 blocks, killing eight people and injuring a dozen more.

Saipov, who was shot by police, entered court in a wheelchair Wednesday to face terrorism charges. He did not enter a plea. His attorney David Patton said they were not seeking bail.
Fear: thats the word Anthony Motta Jr. uses to describe most of his time at Eldred Junior Senior High school in Sullivan County, New York.

"You're always watching over your shoulder," he said. "Wondering what's going to happen.

For roughly five years, Motta Jr. says he was bullied relentlessly by a group of students. They called him names. They mocked his speech impediment. He said they even urinated on his hat. And when he fought a student in an attempt to stand up for himself -- he was suspended by the district for a month.

Motta's parents filed a suit against the district after that suspension and just last week, jurors awarded the family $1 million in a unanimous verdict, finding the district failed to enforce its own anti-bullying policies. Jury foreman Jodi Taylor told the I-Team that the amount -- the largest in a bullying case in county history -- should send a message to other districts.

The whole thing was very sad, said Taylor. It was evident that they just dropped the ball.

Motta, who had graduated since the suit was filed and is now 20 years old, said that the bullying started in seventh grade with vulgar, sexually charged and ethnic name calling. They also mocked the way he spoke because he had a speech impediment. He said he still feels the effects.

Migraines, stomach aches, nightmares, he said. I still have nightmares.

At points, the bullying turned physical. Motta said at one point, a classmate bet another kid a quarter, that he could choke out Anthony in the school library.

"He pulled me up from behind and choked me out almost completely, Motta. recounted. I almost felt like i was going to blackout

Court records and emails show the abuse only escalated. Between 2010 and 2013, his bullies tossed his backpack as they stood around Motta in a circle, spilled milk on him by flipping over his lunch tray, urinated on his hat, and struck him in the chest with an orange.

Every day I was waiting, said Mottas mother. I was afraid of getting a phone call that something had happened at school.

The Mottas said they reported the bullying, but they didnt believe the principal or the school district protected their son. In a court deposition, the principal said he tried to help Anthony  but he was not opening up to me about anything.

As Motta faced failing grades and mounting absences because he was afraid to go to school, his father, Anthony Motta Sr., told him to defend himself.

I explained to him that the school wasnt doing anything, said the father. I told him, You need to now stand up for yourself.

Motta did just that. One day in computer class, Motta said another student came up to him, poked him, called him names, and told him his work was terrible. Thats when Motta said he walked over to ask him to stop. The student in turn placed a hand on his chest as if to push him away.

I had a flashback of everything that happened,  said Motta. I ended up punching him, threw him to the floor and I ended up hitting him a couple more times.

That boy suffered a concussion and Motta was suspended for more than a month.

That was when the Mottas filed a lawsuit against the school district.

We hope this case sends a message to the parents of children, said attorney JenniElena Rubino. That bullyings not okay.

In a statement, the school district said, We are very disappointed in the decision. Our legal team and insurance company are evaluating the outcome to determine if an appeal will be filed. All of Eldred Central School Districts faculty and staff have always been and will continue to be committed to providing a safe environment for students, protecting students' rights, and complying with state laws.

Our staff are attentive, watchful, and supportive, and I can assure you that any report of bullying is taken very seriously and is thoroughly investigated. The District provides training to staff, and students participate in numerous programs designed to prevent bullying and promote civility and acceptance. Many supports are also in place for students experiencing any difficulties, including the availability of guidance counselors, school psychologists, and a social worker.

We will continue our efforts to teach children compassion, kindness, and responsibility, and to raise awareness of the negative consequences of bullying. We will continue to be vigilant and address instances of bullying when witnessed or reported, and we will continue to do our best to ensure our schools are safe and welcoming places for all students.

To this end, Dr. John Morgano, our Interim Superintendent of Schools, will conduct a comprehensive review of policy and procedures for reporting of bullying incidents, as well as complete a thorough evaluation of current training provided to faculty, staff, and student and will offer recommendations for improvements, as necessary.
Cash is already rolling into Pennsylvania's coffers as a result of a sprawling, two-day-old gambling expansion law thanks a a $1-million payment from a Montgomery County resort.

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board said Wednesday that Valley Forge Casino Resort paid a $1 million fee to allow gambling by people who aren't taking part in other amenities there.

The provision allowed the payment by the state's two licensed resort casinos to be relieved of requirements in the original 2004 casino law that gamblers also must take part in other amenities at an establishment or be guests there. You could also have paid to play, using an access card.

"A few other elements of the law, one is our ability to potentially expand our slot floor  an additional 250 machines  and potentially add a poker room," Valley Forge Casino Resort president and CEO Eric Pearson told NBC10.



Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf signed the bill on Monday, and the effect is immediate.

Valley Forge Casino says on its website it's open to the public at no cost.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney drew applause from a packed room of local residents and lawmakers Thursday morning when he announced plans to dissolve the School Reform Commission.

His plan puts into motion the beginning of the end for the governing body, which oversees Philadelphias school district. The SRC will vote on whether to disband at its next meeting on Nov. 16. From there, the floodgates will open for local control of schools to be returned to the mayors office.

So what does this mean for you?

Majority control of the SRC rests in the hands of Pennsylvanias governor, who appoints three of the five seats. Philadelphias mayor appoints the remaining two. By turning the reins back to the city, local officials can now be held accountable for the local school district.

In short, if the city wants to make any changes to the school curriculum or code, it doesnt need to lobby so-described outsiders. More importantly, residents will now have more control over the school district by exercising their right to vote a mayor in and out of office.

What does Kenneys plan look like?

Assuming everything goes according to plan, the SRC will vote to disband on Nov. 16. The Pennsylvania Secretary of Education must then certify the vote by issuing a declaration dissolving the SRC by Dec. 31.

Even if the dissolution is granted, it won't go into effect until June 30, 2018  the end of the fiscal year. During the six-month period, the SRC will continue to oversee the district while the new school board is appointed.

The new school board will be composed of nine people appointed by Kenney. Before that happens, however, there will be a 13-member committee who will receive nominations and make a short list of 27 names for Kenney to consider.

Kenney is expected to announce the nominating committee at the end of this year.

Why so much power in the mayors hands?

Prior to the creation of the SRC, a charter amendment introduced by then-Councilman Michael Nutter in 1999 gave the mayor power to appoint a local school board.

Thats the way its always been, Kenney told NBC10 in an interview Thursday. Whats good about that is that the mayor is accountable, I will be accountable and future mayors will be accountable. Its none of this finger-pointing.

In 2016, a Pew Charitable Trust report found that school districts under mayoral control - Boston, New York City and D.C. - saw substantial improvement in student performance.



What is the SRC anyway?

Created in 2001, the SRC oversees the citys public and charter schools, makes major policy and budgetary decisions for the school district and appoints the superintendent.

A similar body was originally proposed in 1998 by former Gov. Tom Ridge. It was founded three years later when the school district faced teacher strikes and a crumbling infrastructure. City leaders hoped for a state bailout, and the state demanded more oversight in exchange.

The current SRC has three members appointed by the governor who serve five years each and two members appointed by the mayor who serve four years each. There is no limit to the number of terms a member can serve.

What does the city propose to do once it regains control of the school district?

Philadelphia aims to create 25 community schools by 2020. These institutions are public schools with a full-time coordinator who works with students, parents, teachers, administrators and service providers to identify a neighborhoods most pressing needs.

Improve school facilities, plan safer transportation

Offering college prep classes and training

A capital improvement program that will begin to address our schools many physical building needs

A 9th grade academy which provides academic supports and counseling to new students in order to decrease the dropout rate

Modernizing our CTE programs and expanding access to them so that our students are prepared to compete

Expanding college access through continued free PSAT and SAT testing for all students, more AP classes, and the first middle-college program in Pennsylvania, where high-school students can earn an associate's degree

Hiring specialized reading coaches for every school and improving training and instructional support for K-3 teachers

Equipping every K-3 classroom with new libraries full of books, and remodeling K-3 classrooms in schools with the lowest literacy rates

Increasing the number of bilingual counseling assistants, filling all teacher vacancies and continuing to increase the diversity of our teaching workforce, so our teachers look like the City they serve

How will the city raise money to cover the projected $1 billion deficit?

Taxes, most likely. In his statement, Kenney said the city cannot rely on the state and budget cuts to close the gap.

The final plan we will propose to meet the districts needs will be difficult, and it will require everyone to pitch in - but the alternative is far worse, he said.
A white former University of Hartford student is accused of spitting in her black roommate's coconut oil, putting moldy clam dip in her lotion and rubbing used tampons on her backpack.

Police have arrested Brianna Brochu and said they are asking the court to add a hate crime charge to the list of charges filed against her after further reviewing the case.

In a statement on Tuesday, the University of Hartford president Greg Woodward called the incident "deeply upsetting" and said it has brought about "accusations of racism."

On Wednesday, he said 18-year-old Brochu is no longer a student at the university as of this morning and will not be returning.

West Hartford police said the victim reported she was suffering from "severe throat pain" and suspected it was from her roommate tampering with her personal items.

As police investigated, they learned that Brochu posted on Instagram that she tampered with her roommates property and deposited bodily fluids on other property and had posted photos as well, police said.

The victim, Chennel "Jazzy" Rowe, used Facebook to share her story. During a Facebook live posted on October 30, Rowe said Brochu went into detail about the accusations and claimed to have put her toothbrush in a place "the sun doesn't shine." She also posted photos of the backpack and the dip.

The Facebook video posted has been watched more than 636,000 times. NBC Connecticut has tried to reach Rowe, but we have not heard back.



"There has been an outpouring of concern for the victim of these acts from across the University and the country. In my meeting with her yesterday, I reiterated my personal commitment to ensuring she has all available personal and academic resources the University can provide," Woodward wrote in a statement to the university community.

Brochu was initially charged with third-degree criminal mischief and second-degree breach of peace, but police now say they are asking the court to add an intimidation based on bigotry or bias charge.

"One of our students was the alleged victim of bullying and her story was shared across social media. Let me be clear: the accused students behavior was reprehensible and does not reflect the values of our institution. Let me also be clear that I am confident the University has taken all steps to pursue this matter seriously, and will continue to do so," Woodward said in a statement.

He said Rowe was relocated to "a safe location," authorities were notified and the school "strictly and swiftly followed all procedural and legal processes related to this alleged event."

According to Woodward, Hartford University Public Safety learned about the incidents at 11:48 p.m. on Oct. 17, when the victim became aware. West Hartford police were notified by 1:12 a.m. By 2:16 a.m., a no-contact order was in place and the case was turned over to local authorities.



"The incident has brought about accusations of racism, and I want you to know that I hear and share your anger and frustration. Acts of racism, bias, bullying, or other abusive behaviors will not be tolerated on this campus. I pledge to do everything in my power to work with our community to address related concerns together," Woodward wrote.

Brochu appeared in court Tuesday with her parents, spoke only a few words and had a solemn expression soon after facing a judge.

The incident is getting nationwide attention, including from television producer Shonda Rhimes.

That this type of ignorant hate can flourish in 2017 tests my faith in humanity. Who raised this inhumane ignorant waste of space? Who chose to be her friend and look the other way? https://t.co/JyeFqOKWX3  shonda rhimes (@shondarhimes) November 1, 2017

State Rep. Brandon McGee, who represents Windsor and Hartford, said he and other community leaders would be at the school Wednesday night for a peaceful rally at Hawk Hall on the University of Hartford campus.

"This is another example of the racially charged political and social climate and sentiment that as of late pervades American personal interactions throughout the country," McGee said in a statement. "This emboldened behavior is the result of the general discourse on diversity and racial relations from the top levels of leadership. What allegedly occurred on this campus amounts to multiple crimes. Not denouncing this behavior is akin to condoning it and I join with the many in opposition to this abhorrent treatment of each other."

The Brothers and Sisters United Group hosted the meeting.
By Online Desk

CHENNAI: After a day of sunshine on Friday, the 4th of November, the skies opened up yet again late in the evening, with 55 mm rain recorded around 10 pm at Nungambakkam here. Within three days, Chennai received a whopping 36 cm rain. Steps have been taken to clear the stagnating water immediately, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said after visiting a few places in the city.

Media reports say that at least twelve people have died in rain-related incidents in the state since October 27, when the northeast monsoon set in. A farmer was electrocuted in Thiruvarur in southern Tamil Nadu on Friday.

The Met office on Friday predicted that rain would continue for at least the next two days. School holiday has been extended by one more day.

Hours after Chennai received its heaviest rainfall for November in 41 years on Thursday night, the city was up on its feet because of overnight mitigation by an army of Corporation officials. The government pulled out all stops with the CM leading from the front and ministers joining the task force.

IN PICS | Waterlogged Chennai braces for more rain in the next few days

Click below to watch video

HELPLINE NOS: Chennai Corporation, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM DAY 5 OF CHENNAI RAINS:

10 PM: 55 mm rain was recorded around 10 pm at Nungambakkam.

8:30 PM:

Maximum rainfall from October 1 to November 3

District Actual(mm) Normal(mm)

Department(%)

Chennai 83% 554.2 302.9

Kancheepuram 61 % 422.1 261.8

Nagapattinam 47% 406.6 277.3

8:00 PM: Water levels in Chennai's major reservoirs today

Capacity of four reservoirs: 11057 million cubic feet

Last year level on same date: 1,276 mcft

Current level: 2,114 mcft

Poondi:

Full Capacity: 3231 million cubic feet

Storage last year on same date: 243 mcft

Current level: 368mcft

Cholavaram:

Full Capacity: 881 million cubic feet

Storage last year on same date: 75mcft

Current level: 250 mcft

Red Hills:

Full Capacity: 3300 million cubic feet

Storage last year on same date: 415mcft

Current level: 747 mcft

Chembarambakkam:

Full Capacity: 3645 million cubic feet

Storage last year on same date: 543mcft

Current level: 749mcft

6:30 PM: While entertaining a PIL, the Madras High court directed the Greater Chennai Corporation to remove the encroachments on ways to water-bodies.

7:00 PM: Madras HC enhances compensation to the families of the two girls, who were electrocuted on November 1, to Rs. 10 lakh.

6:45 PM: Chief Minister Palaniswami visits rain-hit areas; inspects shelters and medical camps for people.

6:00 PM: Marina beach turns into a sea as rain waters remain stagnant after Thursday night rains. Beach vendors lose business. Meanwhile, stagnated water on the sands attracted families with kids to the beach.

Kids at the Marina on Friday. (PTI Photo)

5:40 PM: The water crisis faced by the city has been resolved partially as the combined water level in the four reservoirs rose to two thousand million cubic feet (2TMC ft).

5:00 PM: Power supply was crippled in low lying areas as 128 feeder services of Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) were switched off to ensure safety of residents due to heavy rain that lashed the city on Thursday night.

4:30 PM: Operations of southbound Express trains and suburban trains in Chennai Egmore Chengalpattu section were severely affected on Thursday and Friday as rain water inundated railway tracks at several places between Chengalpattu and Guindy station.

4:15 PM: Sea at the Marina has turned black since this morning; Experts say its due to the sewage water from the Cooum and Adyar Rivers.

3:45 PM: According to a Skymet report, a low-pressure area which is over Sri Lanka and adjoining Coast has triggered the non-stop rainfall over Chennai.

3:35 PM: Jet Airways airlines has issued a waiver for penalties for flight or date change due to the rains.

#9Wupdate: Due to rains in #Chennai, weve issued waiver on penalties for date/flight change, refund & no-show on confirmed tickets (1/2)  Jet Airways (@jetairways) November 3, 2017

3:15 PM: Tamil Nadu Weatherman on his official Facebook post has informed that Chennai will see breaks in the rains which will return in the night. He further says that the DGP Office on Marina-Mylapore route has recorded 300 mm of rainfall.

3:00 PM: Rain has come all of a sudden. This is nature's fury, you must understand. We're working on a war footing to clear water. Now we have worked out Rs 600 crore master plan which will work in various ways to drain out the water: Tamil Nadu minister KP Anbalagan to ANI.

2:45 PM

2:10 PM: Massive waterlogging has been reported in parts of Tamil Nadu followed by heavy rainfall. A local from Chennai's Sunnambu Kolathur area told ANI, "We're facing a tough situation; moreover this happens every year. The government has to take steps towards betterment."

1:30 PM: Here is a list of numbers released by Tamil Nadu National Disaster Management authority may contact for relief measures:

Tamil Nadu State emergency: 044-1070

Water Logging: 044-1913

Sewage Overflow: 044-45674567, 22200335

1:10 PM: Residents are advised to follow precautionary measures and be prepared for the next spell of rains that is likely to hit the city and the other parts of the state in the next few hours.

READ HERE: Brace yourself with these safety measures during Chennai rains

12:50 PM: Incessant heavy rains lashed Nagapattinam district for the fifth consecutive day today, inundating hundreds of houses and submerging paddy crops in thousands of hectares. According to reports, people have been evacuated to safety in Tarangambadi and Sirkazhi Taluks in the district where hundreds of houses have been flooded. [READ FULL REPORT]

12:15 PM: Meanwhile, some of the residents took to social media to help the locals:

People stranded around Nungambakkam area can use the Big FM office to stay for the night. Have informed ppl thre. Address in next tweet.  RJ Balaji (@RJ_Balaji) November 2, 2017

12:00 PM: While heavy waterlogging hindered free movement of vehicles, a "signalling snag," hit train services between the St Thomas Mount and Kodambakkam suburban section since 9.30 pm. Services were restored at 3.20 am today, Railway officials said.

11:45 AM

Incessant rains continue to disrupt normal life in Chennai, visuals of water-logged streets from Boat Club area. #ChennaiRains pic.twitter.com/pnhDw3oDZs  ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017

10:45 AM: No major disruption in train services. All flight services are normal, according to reports.

10:15 AM: According to news reports, Anna University has indefinitely postponed its semester exams.

The exams for the University of Madras and its constituent colleges are postponed to due to rain. Ethiraj College for Women and Loyola College has also postponed its semester exam for the day, reports The Hindu.

ALSO READ: Tale of two contrasting emotions at Selaiyur street as monsoon makes life miserable

10:00 AM: The TN chief Minister has informed that in case of flooding in the coastal districts, there are about 115 rescue camps are set up with provisions for food, water and other necessary articles.

Ministers have been appointed to oversee the relief work.

An impromptu waterfall after a compound wall collapsed in neighbouring Redhills following heavy rainfall in Chennai on Thursday. (PTI)

READ: Two girls electrocuted by unattended live wire on a Chennai street

9:15 AM: According to the IMD bulletin released at 8 am this morning, heavy to very rain is expected at isolated places in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. The bulletin further informs that the region is very likely to receive thunderstorm accompanied with lightning.

9:00 AM: Severe waterlogging has been witnessed in several areas across the city. Kovilambakkam, Valluvar Kotam to name a few.

#Chennai Severe water-logging in Kovilambakkam area due to heavy rain the region pic.twitter.com/Vle7dhGARk  ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017

8:20 AM: There's no traffic from Koyambedu to Ethiraj Salai all through Nelson Manickam Road, Sterling Road and College road.

Click below to watch video

8:15 AM: According to some of the commuters, traffic was moving via Nelson Manickam road subway near Loyola College in city's Nungambakkam area. The Sterling Road to ahead of College Road, however, is flooded.

8:00 AM: Around six subways across the city have been shut down because of inundated roads.

7:45 AM:

#TamilNadu Severe water-logging in various parts of #Chennai due to heavy rainfall in the region ; Visuals from Korattur area pic.twitter.com/yQ3OYEpvKA  ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017

7:30 AM: The state govt around midnight requested all private institutions in Chennai and Kancheepuram to announce leave on Friday. Even the private companies have been asked to declare a holiday today.

Experts say rains last night were the heaviest spell since December 1, 2015. Though a major part of the day remained sunny and dry, rainfall activity picked up from 6 pm and shifted gears, and by 10 pm, the Nungambakkam weather station has recorded a whopping 120 mm of rainfall.

The Met office has attributed the spike in rainfall to a low-pressure area in the Bay of Bengal.

CHENNAI: After a day of sunshine on Friday, the 4th of November, the skies opened up yet again late in the evening, with 55 mm rain recorded around 10 pm at Nungambakkam here. Within three days, Chennai received a whopping 36 cm rain. Steps have been taken to clear the stagnating water immediately, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said after visiting a few places in the city. Media reports say that at least twelve people have died in rain-related incidents in the state since October 27, when the northeast monsoon set in. A farmer was electrocuted in Thiruvarur in southern Tamil Nadu on Friday. The Met office on Friday predicted that rain would continue for at least the next two days. School holiday has been extended by one more day. READ FULL REPORT HERE | A night of rains after a day of sunshine Hours after Chennai received its heaviest rainfall for November in 41 years on Thursday night, the city was up on its feet because of overnight mitigation by an army of Corporation officials. The government pulled out all stops with the CM leading from the front and ministers joining the task force. IN PICS | Waterlogged Chennai braces for more rain in the next few days Click below to watch video HELPLINE NOS: Chennai Corporation, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts. HIGHLIGHTS FROM DAY 5 OF CHENNAI RAINS: 10 PM: 55 mm rain was recorded around 10 pm at Nungambakkam. 8:30 PM: Maximum rainfall from October 1 to November 3 District Actual(mm) Normal(mm) Department(%) Chennai 83% 554.2 302.9 Kancheepuram 61 % 422.1 261.8 Nagapattinam 47% 406.6 277.3 8:00 PM: Water levels in Chennai's major reservoirs today Capacity of four reservoirs: 11057 million cubic feet Last year level on same date: 1,276 mcft Current level: 2,114 mcft Poondi: Full Capacity: 3231 million cubic feet Storage last year on same date: 243 mcft Current level: 368mcft Cholavaram: Full Capacity: 881 million cubic feet Storage last year on same date: 75mcft Current level: 250 mcft Red Hills: Full Capacity: 3300 million cubic feet Storage last year on same date: 415mcft Current level: 747 mcft Chembarambakkam: Full Capacity: 3645 million cubic feet Storage last year on same date: 543mcft Current level: 749mcft 6:30 PM: While entertaining a PIL, the Madras High court directed the Greater Chennai Corporation to remove the encroachments on ways to water-bodies. 7:00 PM: Madras HC enhances compensation to the families of the two girls, who were electrocuted on November 1, to Rs. 10 lakh. 6:45 PM: Chief Minister Palaniswami visits rain-hit areas; inspects shelters and medical camps for people. 6:00 PM: Marina beach turns into a sea as rain waters remain stagnant after Thursday night rains. Beach vendors lose business. Meanwhile, stagnated water on the sands attracted families with kids to the beach. Kids at the Marina on Friday. (PTI Photo)5:40 PM: The water crisis faced by the city has been resolved partially as the combined water level in the four reservoirs rose to two thousand million cubic feet (2TMC ft). 5:00 PM: Power supply was crippled in low lying areas as 128 feeder services of Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) were switched off to ensure safety of residents due to heavy rain that lashed the city on Thursday night. 4:30 PM: Operations of southbound Express trains and suburban trains in Chennai Egmore Chengalpattu section were severely affected on Thursday and Friday as rain water inundated railway tracks at several places between Chengalpattu and Guindy station. 4:15 PM: Sea at the Marina has turned black since this morning; Experts say its due to the sewage water from the Cooum and Adyar Rivers. 3:45 PM: According to a Skymet report, a low-pressure area which is over Sri Lanka and adjoining Coast has triggered the non-stop rainfall over Chennai. 3:35 PM: Jet Airways airlines has issued a waiver for penalties for flight or date change due to the rains. #9Wupdate: Due to rains in #Chennai, weve issued waiver on penalties for date/flight change, refund & no-show on confirmed tickets (1/2)  Jet Airways (@jetairways) November 3, 2017 3:15 PM: Tamil Nadu Weatherman on his official Facebook post has informed that Chennai will see breaks in the rains which will return in the night. He further says that the DGP Office on Marina-Mylapore route has recorded 300 mm of rainfall. 3:00 PM: Rain has come all of a sudden. This is nature's fury, you must understand. We're working on a war footing to clear water. Now we have worked out Rs 600 crore master plan which will work in various ways to drain out the water: Tamil Nadu minister KP Anbalagan to ANI. 2:45 PM #TamilNadu Minister KP Anbalagan visited water-logged areas in #Chennai's Kovilambakkam pic.twitter.com/TolPLexhNs  ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017 2:10 PM: Massive waterlogging has been reported in parts of Tamil Nadu followed by heavy rainfall. A local from Chennai's Sunnambu Kolathur area told ANI, "We're facing a tough situation; moreover this happens every year. The government has to take steps towards betterment." 1:30 PM: Here is a list of numbers released by Tamil Nadu National Disaster Management authority may contact for relief measures: Tamil Nadu State emergency: 044-1070 Water Logging: 044-1913 Sewage Overflow: 044-45674567, 22200335 1:10 PM: Residents are advised to follow precautionary measures and be prepared for the next spell of rains that is likely to hit the city and the other parts of the state in the next few hours. READ HERE: Brace yourself with these safety measures during Chennai rains 12:50 PM: Incessant heavy rains lashed Nagapattinam district for the fifth consecutive day today, inundating hundreds of houses and submerging paddy crops in thousands of hectares. According to reports, people have been evacuated to safety in Tarangambadi and Sirkazhi Taluks in the district where hundreds of houses have been flooded. [READ FULL REPORT] 12:15 PM: Meanwhile, some of the residents took to social media to help the locals: People stranded around Nungambakkam area can use the Big FM office to stay for the night. Have informed ppl thre. Address in next tweet.  RJ Balaji (@RJ_Balaji) November 2, 2017 12:00 PM: While heavy waterlogging hindered free movement of vehicles, a "signalling snag," hit train services between the St Thomas Mount and Kodambakkam suburban section since 9.30 pm. Services were restored at 3.20 am today, Railway officials said. 11:45 AM Incessant rains continue to disrupt normal life in Chennai, visuals of water-logged streets from Boat Club area. #ChennaiRains pic.twitter.com/pnhDw3oDZs  ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017 10:45 AM: No major disruption in train services. All flight services are normal, according to reports. 10:15 AM: According to news reports, Anna University has indefinitely postponed its semester exams. The exams for the University of Madras and its constituent colleges are postponed to due to rain. Ethiraj College for Women and Loyola College has also postponed its semester exam for the day, reports The Hindu. ALSO READ: Tale of two contrasting emotions at Selaiyur street as monsoon makes life miserable 10:00 AM: The TN chief Minister has informed that in case of flooding in the coastal districts, there are about 115 rescue camps are set up with provisions for food, water and other necessary articles. Ministers have been appointed to oversee the relief work. An impromptu waterfall after a compound wall collapsed in neighbouring Redhills following heavy rainfall in Chennai on Thursday. (PTI) READ: Two girls electrocuted by unattended live wire on a Chennai street 9:15 AM: According to the IMD bulletin released at 8 am this morning, heavy to very rain is expected at isolated places in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. The bulletin further informs that the region is very likely to receive thunderstorm accompanied with lightning. 9:00 AM: Severe waterlogging has been witnessed in several areas across the city. Kovilambakkam, Valluvar Kotam to name a few. #Chennai Severe water-logging in Kovilambakkam area due to heavy rain the region pic.twitter.com/Vle7dhGARk  ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017 8:20 AM: There's no traffic from Koyambedu to Ethiraj Salai all through Nelson Manickam Road, Sterling Road and College road. Click below to watch video 8:15 AM: According to some of the commuters, traffic was moving via Nelson Manickam road subway near Loyola College in city's Nungambakkam area. The Sterling Road to ahead of College Road, however, is flooded. 8:00 AM: Around six subways across the city have been shut down because of inundated roads. 7:45 AM: #TamilNadu Severe water-logging in various parts of #Chennai due to heavy rainfall in the region ; Visuals from Korattur area pic.twitter.com/yQ3OYEpvKA  ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017 7:30 AM: The state govt around midnight requested all private institutions in Chennai and Kancheepuram to announce leave on Friday. Even the private companies have been asked to declare a holiday today. Experts say rains last night were the heaviest spell since December 1, 2015. Though a major part of the day remained sunny and dry, rainfall activity picked up from 6 pm and shifted gears, and by 10 pm, the Nungambakkam weather station has recorded a whopping 120 mm of rainfall. The Met office has attributed the spike in rainfall to a low-pressure area in the Bay of Bengal.
By PTI

BEIJING: China today said it was ready to work with India to promote "constant progress" of bilateral relations, amid fresh strains in ties after Beijing again blocked Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhar's designation as a global terrorist by the UN.

China yesterday for the fourth time blocked India, the US and other nations' bid to list Pathankot terror attack mastermind Azhar as a global terrorist, saying "there is no consensus" within the members of the sanctions committee.

India reacted sharply to China's move, saying "accommodating with terrorism" for narrow objectives was both short-sighted and counterproductive.

China's Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong today told the media that China attached great importance to its relations with India.

"India is an important neighbour of China," Chen said, adding China plans to step up ties with neighbours under the "neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in the new era" enunciated by President Xi Jinping during the recently concluded key Congress of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

"We are ready to work with India to promote constant progress of bilateral relations guided by this diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for the new era," Chen said without elaborating.

He said China has been following this concept and vision over the past few years in its cooperation with the neighbours and deepening mutual political trust promoting practical cooperation with them.

In the last two years, China has stonewalled efforts by India to declare Azhar as a global terrorist.

Last year in March, China was the only member in the 15- nation UN organ to put a hold on India's application with all other 14 members of the Council supporting New Delhi's bid to place Azhar on the 1267 sanctions list that would subject him to an assets freeze and travel ban.

The relations between the two neighbours are also strained by a 73-day standoff at Dokalam over Chinese armys plans to build a strategic road in the area also claimed by Bhutan.

Officials here said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to India next month to New Delhi to attend the Russia, India, China (RIC) Foreign Ministers meeting during which he would also hold talks with the Indian leadership on the bilateral relations during the second term of Xi.

BEIJING: China today said it was ready to work with India to promote "constant progress" of bilateral relations, amid fresh strains in ties after Beijing again blocked Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhar's designation as a global terrorist by the UN. China yesterday for the fourth time blocked India, the US and other nations' bid to list Pathankot terror attack mastermind Azhar as a global terrorist, saying "there is no consensus" within the members of the sanctions committee. India reacted sharply to China's move, saying "accommodating with terrorism" for narrow objectives was both short-sighted and counterproductive. China's Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong today told the media that China attached great importance to its relations with India. "India is an important neighbour of China," Chen said, adding China plans to step up ties with neighbours under the "neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in the new era" enunciated by President Xi Jinping during the recently concluded key Congress of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC). "We are ready to work with India to promote constant progress of bilateral relations guided by this diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for the new era," Chen said without elaborating. He said China has been following this concept and vision over the past few years in its cooperation with the neighbours and deepening mutual political trust promoting practical cooperation with them. In the last two years, China has stonewalled efforts by India to declare Azhar as a global terrorist. Last year in March, China was the only member in the 15- nation UN organ to put a hold on India's application with all other 14 members of the Council supporting New Delhi's bid to place Azhar on the 1267 sanctions list that would subject him to an assets freeze and travel ban. The relations between the two neighbours are also strained by a 73-day standoff at Dokalam over Chinese armys plans to build a strategic road in the area also claimed by Bhutan. Officials here said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to India next month to New Delhi to attend the Russia, India, China (RIC) Foreign Ministers meeting during which he would also hold talks with the Indian leadership on the bilateral relations during the second term of Xi.
Trump announces his 2024 presidential run as GOP debates future

Donald Trump announced he will run for the White House, even as weak midterm showings prompt debate about whether the GOP should move past him.
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Cloudy skies early. A few snow showers developing later in the day. High 33F. Winds W at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of snow 30%..

Tonight

Cloudy. Low near 25F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph.
Mumbai: The Cyrus Mistry group on Friday moved the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), seeking to amend its petition demanding action against Tata Sons for "oppression" of minority shareholders and "mismanagement" of Tata Group companies.

Cyrus Investments and Sterling Investments filed the amendment pleas on Friday, after the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on September 21 asked it to approach the Mumbai NCLT.

The NCLT is likely to hear the main petition of the Mistry firms as well as the amendment plea November 20 onwards.

The NCLAT had in September allowed Mistry firms' plea seeking a waiver of the 10 per cent minimum shareholding eligibility criterion, to be able to move the tribunal against Tata Sons.

A release from Mistry's office said today the two firms have now sought to bring on record facts about the business conducted at the 99th AGM of Tata Sons on September 21. The 99th AGM of Tata Sons converted Tata Sons Ltd from a public company to a private company.

"It is the case of the companies that the facts which are now sought to be brought on record are oppressive in nature and are relevant to the ongoing proceedings," the statement said.

The Mistry family owns 18.4 percent stake in Tata Sons. But the holding is under 3 percent if the preferential shares are excluded (a point the Tatas stressed), thus not meeting the criterion of having at least 10 per cent ownership in a company for filing a case of oppression of minority shareholders under the Companies Act.

Mistry is locked in a legal battle with the Tatas since his sacking as chairman of Tata Sons on October 24, 2016, and removal as a director on February 6, 2017.

The appellate tribunal had said although the Mistry companies did not meet the minimum shareholding norm, under exceptional circumstances this statutory requirement can be waived.

It thus directed the NCLT, which had dismissed Mistry's petition against Tata Sons on the ground of not meeting the minimum shareholding criterion, to decide the case in three months.
Bhopal: The complaint of the 19-year-old girl, who was allegedly gang-raped by four men for three hours and left to die in Habibganj on Tuesday, was dismissed as a filmy story by a sub-inspector, the survivors mother said on Friday.

The girls parents  her father is with para-military and mother with the state CID  said their complaint was initially turned down by the police. A complaint was only filed after the girl spotted two of the accused outside the second police station they were going to and her parents managed to grab them after a dramatic scuffle.

Explaining the ordeal, the mother said that they had first gone to the MP Nagar police station, where SI RN Tekam jotted down the complaint, visited the crime scene but later claimed that it does not fall in his jurisdiction and told them to go to Habibganj police station.

The traumatised family then headed to Habibganj police station, where senior officers directed cops to register a preliminary complaint after they handed over the two accused. The parents were then directed to go to Government Railway Police (GRP), as the incident was said to have happened in its jurisdiction.

At the GRP station, an officer accused them of cooking up the story. SHO GRP Mohit Saxena and SI Uikey misbehaved with us and said they wouldn't file any case. SI Uikey alleged that we were making a false filmy complaint, she told TOI.

Calling it one of the worst experiences of her life, she wondered if she, as a policewoman, has to face such problems in filing a complaint, what a common man must go through.

An embarrassed police force has suspended SI RN Tekam for dereliction of duty. The state women commission has also sought a report from police with Chairperson Lata Wankhede terming the incident of grave concern. Home minister Bhupendra Singh has ordered a probe in the delay in filing a police complaint.

Later in the day, three more police officials in Madhya Pradesh were suspended and the city Superintendent of Police (SP) was transferred over a delay in lodging a complaint of a 19-year-old woman.

DIG (Anti-Harassment Cell) Sudhir Laad, who has been handed over the inquiry regarding police laxity admitted that prima facie slackness was reported on the part of MP Nagar police and GRPs attitude was also found to be negligent.

DIG Bhopal, Naval Singh, also said that there should have been no question of jurisdiction in the case and a zero FIR should have been registered promptly.

CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan has also taken cognizance and has ordered that the trial in the case be held in a fast-track court. He also directed that strict action is taken against the lax policemen.

One of the accused, Golu Chadhar, was produced in the court on Friday while two others are in police custody. The fourth accused is still at large.
Bhopal: As the outrage over gang rape of a 19-year-old girl and subsequent police inaction grew, the Madhya Pradesh government on Friday suspended five police officials while removed a City SP over botched-up handling of the case.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan summoned senior police officers and reportedly expressed strong displeasure over the handling of the case.

Soon after the meeting, police headquarters issued suspension orders against Thana In-charge of MP Nagar Sanjay Singh Bais; Habibganj TI Ravindra Yadav and GRP station Habibganj TI Mohit Saxena. SP, MP Nagar, Kulwant Singh was attached to police headquarters as punitive measure, IG (Law and Order) Makrand Deuskar told the media.

Two sub-inspectors of MP Nagar police station and GRP station have also been suspended, said Deuskar, claiming that the two police officers were found guilty of not registering the FIR on the complaint of the victim.

A Special Investigation Team led by DIG (Crimes against Women) has been established for probing into the incident, added the IG accepting that there has been a remiss on part of the police in this case.

Meanwhile, GRP stations slackness was once again exposed on Friday as a suspect arrested by turned out to not be the accused named by the survivor. The arrested man said that he worked as driver and was out of city on the day of the incident, a claim supported by his family and friends.

Six teams have been formed for nabbing the fourth accused, the IG said.

The prime accused in the case, Golu Chadha, was produced in the court on Friday. He claimed that he and his friends only beat up and looted the survivor but did not rape her.

The incident occurred on October 31 while the girl was crossing a road close to Habibganj railway station on Oct 31 was intercepted by the four accused who dragged her to bushes and raped her for three hours.

Subsequently, the girls family was made to run among three police stations and senior officer at GRP station even termed the complaint filmy. The first accused was nabbed by girls parents.

On Friday, the outrage continued with various political parties including Congress and AAP besides several social organisations protesting against the gang rape and subsequent police inaction.
Heavy overnight downpour has brought Chennai and neighbouring districts of Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur to a grinding halt with schools and colleges shut. With the city submerged, IT firms have allowed their employees to work from home. No immediate respite is expected with the Met department predicting heavy to very heavy showers over the weekend.

Will the city suffer a redux of the 2015 deluge? Stay tuned for LIVE updates:

Read all the Latest News , Breaking News , watch Top Videos and Live TV here.
Chandigarh: There is a clear bid to revive terrorism in Punjab, senior police and intelligence officials told Chief Minister Amarinder Singh who on Thursday reviewed the law and order situation in the state, according to an official statement.

The officials also told Singh that in several cases handlers of those carrying out terror activities were found to be operating from abroad.

"There is a clear bid to revive terrorism in the state, which could be traced to foreign handlers not just in Pakistan but also in other countries such as Canada, Germany, UAE, Belgium, South Africa, Portugal and Saudi Arabia," the chief minister was informed at the meeting according to the official release.

The meeting was called to take stock of steps being taken to curb the spread of divisive and communal forces.

Punjab DGP Suresh Arora told the chief minister that since March this year, seven terror modules had been busted and 43 terrorists, radical operatives arrested by the state police.

The police had identified 16 foreign handlers affiliated to various militant outfits so far, and as many as 38 weapons, including those pushed into India by Pakistans ISI, have been seized, he said, according to the release.

The chief minister gave the security forces a free hand to tackle any threat to the peace and harmony of the state, it said.

The chief minister issued strict directions to the state police and intelligence agencies to go all out to counter the increasing misuse of social media to spread hate campaigns.

He also ordered stern steps to break the nexus between terrorists and gangsters, as well as between gangsters and jail staff, to prevent use of prisons by gangsters to carry out their nefarious operations, the statement said.

Taking serious note of reports about gangsters operating from prisons, as evident from the recovery of mobile phones and sim cards from jails, the chief minister ordered strict monitoring and directed the home department to take immediate steps to fill vacancies.

There was a need to instil in these gangsters, a fear of the law, to ensure that the states peace and harmony is maintained at all costs, he said.

Punjab ministers Manpreet Badal, Navjot Sidhu and Tripat Bajwa were also present at the meeting.

Expressing concern over the recent killing of a Hindu outfit leader in Amritsar, the chief minister ordered the police to expedite the investigations in the case, which the security agencies said was not linked to the spate of the recent targeted killings in the state.

The police officials assured the chief minister that the culprits, who had already been identified, would be caught soon, the statement said.

The chief minister also instructed the security agencies to adopt overt and covert measures to effectively counter the online hate campaign by Pakistans ISI and the communal tirade being launched by a section of hardliners belonging to different communities.

According to the release, the officials told Amarinder Singh that most of the gangsters, who had a free run under the previous regime, had either fled or were behind bars.

Investigations showed that some of them were trying to disrupt the law and order either from outside Punjab borders or from behind the bars, top police officials told the chief minister.

The chief minister said that while the law and order situation in Punjab had seen a marked improvement in the past eight months, there was a need to tighten the belt further to ensure that people in the state live in an atmosphere of peace, with fear of any kind.
Beijing: China on Friday said it was ready to work with India to promote "constant progress" of bilateral relations, a day after Beijing again blocked Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhar's designation as a global terrorist by the UN.

China for the fourth time blocked India, the US and other nations' bid to list the Pathankot terror attack mastermind Azhar as a global terrorist, saying "there is no consensus" within the members of the sanctions committee.

India reacted sharply to China's move, saying "accommodating with terrorism" for narrow objectives was both short-sighted and counterproductive.

China's Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong on Friday told the media that China attached great importance to its relations with India.

"India is an important neighbour of China," Chen said, adding China plans to step up ties with neighbours under the "neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in the new era" enunciated by President Xi Jinping during the recently concluded key Congress of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

"We are ready to work with India to promote the constant progress of bilateral relations guided by this diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for the new era," Chen said without elaborating.

He said China has been following this concept and vision over the past few years in its cooperation with the neighbours and deepening mutual political trust promoting practical cooperation with them.

In the last two years, China has stonewalled efforts by India to declare Azhar as a global terrorist.

Last year in March, China was the only member in the 15-nation UN organ to put a hold on India's application with all other 14 members of the Council supporting New Delhi's bid to place Azhar on the 1267 sanctions list that would subject him to an assets freeze and travel ban.

The relations between the two neighbours are also strained by a 73-day standoff at Doklam over Chinese armys plans to build a strategic road in the area also claimed by Bhutan.

Officials said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to India next month to New Delhi to attend the Russia, India, China (RIC) Foreign Ministers meeting during which he would also hold talks with the Indian leadership on the bilateral relations during the second term of Xi.
Nearly six months after China showcased its One Belt One Road (OBOR) program to the world through an international presentation, aimed at propelling China to the centre of international economy and diplomacy, four countries including India are coming together to provide a counterweight.

After months of speculation, India, US, Japan and Australia are looking to come together to form a 'Quadrilateral' against OBOR. After being proposed publicly by US, Japan, India and now Australia have responded to stitching up a 10-year-old and dormant diplomatic alliance.

It was US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, who for the first time alluded to such a diplomatic partnership shaping up a few months ago.

In a question and answer session following his speech, Tillerson mentioned China specifically and talked about how it had devised plans for the host countries, where construction works were to take place, which "oftentimes has very subtle triggers in the financing that results in financing default and the conversion of debt to equity."

While issuing this warning, Tillerson went on to say, "We think its important that we begin to develop some means of countering that with alternative financing measures, financing structures. And during the East Asia Summit  Ministerial Summit in August, we began a quiet conversation with others about what they were experiencing, what they need, and were starting a quiet conversation in a multilateral way with: How can we create alternative financing mechanisms? We will not be able to compete with the kind of terms that China offers, and  but countries have to decide: What are they willing to pay to secure their sovereignty and their future control of their economies? And weve had those discussions with them, as well."

This is was a direct allusion to the Quadrilateral which, following Tillerson, Japanese foreign minister Tara Kono, while being interviewed by Nikkei Asian Review, spelt out clearly.

He said that Japan will propose a "top-level dialogue with the US, India and Australia to promote "free trade and defence cooperation" across the Indian Ocean.

'The proposition would be aimed at counteracting China's aggressive maritime expansion under its Belt and Road initiative. China's plans would cement a sphere of influence for Beijing well beyond Asia, the website went on to state.

India has so far not given any hype to the significance of the budding diplomatic conclave. A day after Japanese foreign minister spoke about building the alliance, Indias External Affairs spokesperson, Raveesh Kumar, speaking to the press, said, India is open to working with like-minded countries on issues that advance our interests and promote our viewpoint. We are not rigid in this regard.

He went on to state that India was already a part of several trilateral alliances and talks. We have been doing India-US-Japan (talks) for many years and recently India-Japan-Australia. We also have India-Afghanistan-Iran and we are looking to hold the India-US-Afghanistan meeting. All these meetings are conducted at various levels.

However, the fact is that India, apart from Bhutan, which doesnt have a diplomatic engagement with China, is the only South Asian country not to have allied with China on its OBOR program, and has in this regard isolated itself.

All of Indias neighbours  Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives and Myanmar  have entered into agreements or negotiations with China on its OBOR program.

This has put India in a position in which it would need to ally with the only other South Asian power that also hasnt joined OBOR, and that is Japan, which has launched its own version of OBOR, called Partnership for Quality Infrastructure.

Which is why, to counter OBOR - a translational development program bigger than the one undertaken by 19th century British empire, joining the diplomatic initiative launched by its natural ally  Japan, in coordination with US and Australia makes quite a lot of sense for India.
Chennai: It took torrential rain to paralyse normal life in Chennai for officials to wake up to the threat of a repeat of the 2015 deluge. Documents accessed by CNN-News18 show that the Public Works Department of Chennai sanctioned funds for pre-monsoon work only on October 30, the day that most parts of the city started flooding.

Government sanctions Rs 853.15 lakh for executing 189 pre-monsoon preparedness work, reads the government order issued on Monday.

The tasks listed in the order include desilting of debris, waste materials and aquatic weed in the major waterways and various tanks in Chennai, Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur and Cuddalore districts before onset of the North East Monsoon. However, the order itself was issued three days after monsoon arrived.

The G.O. revealed that the chief engineer had sent a letter to the PWD in the last week of September urging it to start work and also sent two reminders but the body delayed its administrative approval. It added that monsoon preparedness should be planned well in advance to be effective and details should be ready at least 3-4 months earlier.

This comes even as the Tamil Nadu ministers claimed that the state was better prepared to handle floods than United States and United Kingdom. Local Administration Minister S.P. Velumani pegged the citys readiness at 98%.

After facing flak for his claims, he said, When cities in the US were flooded recently, they struggled to solve it. We are handling our states problem the best we can.

But a reality check done by this correspondent showed that no preparedness work was done by the government and no lessons were learnt even after the floods devastated the city two years ago. Bad infrastructure, poor drainage system, lakes and dams filled with garbage are still a reality.

On Thursday, the state government conducted a review meeting. In a press statement, the government said 115 multipurpose shelters have been constructed in coastal districts.

It added that local ministers and three senior bureaucrats have been designated for each district to co-ordinate rescue and expedite relief. In Chennai, two ministers have been designated for each zone. Authorities also said that more suction pumps will be deployed to clear waterlogging in the city.

The government, however, has swung into action only after the heavy rain inundated the city. The Met department has forecast more heavy showers in north coastal Tamil Nadu on Friday and it will test the citys infrastructure.

Anticipating difficulty, the chief secretary confirmed that IT firms have been advised to declare a holiday or enable work from home for their employees to cut traffic congestion. Schools and colleges have also been shut in Chennai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts.
Navsari: Jignesh Mevani, the Gujarat Dalit leader, met Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday and claimed that the party had assured him of including "more than 90 percent" of his demands in its Assembly election manifesto.

Mevani all but declared open support for the Congress after his meeting with Rahul. He said he would urge his community to defeat the ruling BJP in the forthcoming election to the Gujarat assembly.

The 182-member Gujarat Assembly is scheduled to go to the polls in two phases -- on December 9 and December 14.

"We listen to everyone and work after hearing their problems -- be it Jignesh, Hardik (Patidar quota stir leader Hardik Patel) or Alpesh (OBC leader Alpesh Thakor)," Rahul Gandhi said after the meeting.

On the other hand, the BJP was only interested in making the people listen to its "Mann Ki Baat", the Congress MP said, taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's radio programme.

Gandhi and Mevani had a half-an-hour long closed-door meeting at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Navsari. Mevani, a Dalit rights campaigner who shot to fame after the Una Dalit flogging incident last year, dubbed the BJP government in Gujarat as "anti-Dalit".

"Since Una (the flogging incident), we have launched numerous agitations and submitted memorandums. Despite this, the thick-skinned BJP government, which is not only anti-Dalit but also anti-people, has not considered even one demand of our community. They have not even bothered to talk to us (about the demands)," Mevani told reporters after the meeting.

"The people of the state will put an end to this arrogance of the BJP," he said. On the other hand, the Congress was receptive to the demands of the Dalit community, Mevani added.

"We (him and other Dalit leaders) had a detailed discussion with Rahulji on our 17 demands. Rahulji not only listened to us, but said over 90 per cent of our demands were our constitutional rights. He assured us that most of the legitimate demands would be included in the Congress' manifesto (for the Gujarat polls)," he said.

Asked if he would advise his community members to vote for the Congress in the upcoming Assembly polls, Mevani said,

"I will ask my community not to vote for the BJP." Mevani, who has been critical of the BJP government in the state, discussed the 17 demands of his community with the Congress vice-president, who is currently on an election campaign tour of south Gujarat.

The demands include an allotment of five acres of farmland to the Dalits, alternative employment for those involved in cattle-skinning and manual scavenging and the release of a probe report into an incident of firing on the community members at Thangadh in Surendranagar district in 2012.

Mevani had earlier said he had no plans to join any political party.

Of the three young and prominent caste or community leaders in Gujarat, Thakor has already joined the Congress, while Patel is in negotiations with the party regarding his community's demand for reservations in jobs and education.

The third one, Mevani, too appears to be supportive of the opposition party, which has been out of power in Gujarat, Modi's home state, for over two decades.

(with PTI inputs)
New Delhi: A day after Tamil superstar Kamal Haasan raised the issue of "saffron terror", another actor Prakash Raj on Friday furthered the debate, asking "if instilling fear in the name of religion, culture, and morality was not terrorising, then what it was."

The National Award-winning actor took to Twitter, and posted a note, addressed "to whomsoever it may concern." The note appeared to be targetting the right-wing fringe elements who have indulged in "lynching, abusing and manhandling couples on the streets".

Raj asked: "If abusing and manhandling young couples on the streets of my country in the name of morality is not terrorising," then what is, alluding to anti-Romeo squads that attacked couples in Uttar Pradesh.

If instilling fear in the name of religion..culture..morality is not terrorizing..than what is it ..#justasking pic.twitter.com/hs8Y3H700L Prakash Raj (@prakashraaj) November 3, 2017

Referring to a string of lynching incidents that have battered the country over the last two years, Raj asked: "If lynching on the slightest doubt of cow slaughter is not terrorising," then what is.

The actor also took to task the online trolls, chastising them for abusing and threatening anybody and everybody with a dissenting viewpoint. "If silencing even the slightest voice of dissent is not terrorising, then what is terrorising," he asked, adding, "#Justasking".

On Thursday, superstar Kamal Haasan had reignited the "saffron terror" discussion in a column, saying, In the past Hindu right-wing groups would not indulge in violence, but they would hold a dialogue with the opposite parties on their arguments. But this old tactic was defeated and what they stated to do is use muscle power. They started indulging in violence.

BJP, the ruling party at the centre, had taken an exception to Haasan's remarks, demanding the actor apologise for his comments.
New Delhi: In a shocking incident, a one-and-a-half-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a 33-year-old man in the presence of his two children.

The incident took place on Wednesday and the accused was arrested on Thursday, police said.

The girl had gone to her neighbour's house to play with their two children -- a four-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter.

While his wife was on the terrace for some work, the accused raped the girl in presence of his two children inside his one-room accommodation, a senior police official said.

After the girl returned home, her mother found her bleeding from the private parts and took her to a hospital where it was found that she had been sexually assaulted, he said.

Subsequently, the police were informed about the incident. A case under section 6 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault, punishable with a maximum term of life imprisonment), was registered against the accused.

The girl's mother is a divorcee and stays at her parental home in an outer Delhi colony. The girl's maternal grandfather works as a construction labourer while her mother is a homemaker, said the official.

Delhi Commission For Women chief Swati Maliwal tweeted that she was going to meet the victim at the Sanjay Gandhi Hospital where she is admitted.

"1.5-year-old baby brutally raped...Operated for 1.5 hrs. Pl @rajnathsingh Ji, call hi level meet of CM, LG, Police Comm & DCW! (sic)," she tweeted.
Thiruvananthapuram: Malayalam actor Dileep has sought a CBI probe into the kidnapping and sexual assault of an actress, a case in which he was granted bail last month.

In a 12-page letter to the state Home Secretary, Dileep said the charges against him were part of a conspiracy and sought an investigation without the officers currently involved in the case. The letter was given to the Home Secretary on October 18.

The abduction of the popular actress took place in February when she was on way from Thrissur to Kochi.

She was taken around in her vehicle forcefully and allegedly molested for about two hours before being dumped near an actor-director's home.

The key accused  Pulsar Suni and his accomplices involved in the actual abduction  were arrested a week later. After detailed questioning, police unearthed a conspiracy angle in the abduction and arrested Dileep.
New Delhi: Filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansalis period drama Padmavati, slated for December 1 release, is one of the most-awaited films in the winter of 2017.

However, the movie, based on a 16th century poem about a 14th century Rajput queen, has ruffled political feathers, particularly in the poll-bound state of Gujarat.

Former Gujarat chief minister Shanarsinh Vaghela, a Rajput, may have been among the first to raise objections to the film, but he is certainly not alone.

The BJP, too, has written to the Election Commission of India and the Gujarat state election commission, seeking a ban on the films release before the two-phased Gujarat assembly polls on December 9 and 14.

The BJPs demand is that the film first be screened for representatives of Gujarats Rajput community before being cleared for release. This would, the BJP says, calm tempers and prevent any flare up of tensions before the elections.

Last month, multiplex owners in Gujarat received a letter from the Rashtriya Rajput Karni Sena, claiming that Bhansalis Padmavati distorts Hindu and Rajput history.

The letter warned that if the film releases in Gujarat, multiplex owners would have to face massive protests and possibly even have to suffer loss of property. Multiplex owners say there is a full month before the release of the film and they take solace in the fact that such controversies often get resolved. However, the fact that Gujarat is headed to polls means that the issue may continue to remain hot till December.

Leading the charge for the BJP is Rajput leader IK Jadeja. The BJP has demanded, Jadeja said, that the films release should either be stalled till after the election or be banned completely.

After having met representatives of the community, we have decided to oppose any distortion of history in the film. The Rajput community has said that according to history Rani Padmini never met Alauddin Khilji. Gujarat is headed to polls. That is why, this film should not distort history in a way that hurts the sentiments of Rajputs, Jadeja said.

The Congress, on the other hand, has said that the BJPs attempts to get the film banned are nothing but drama. Lashing out at the BJP, Congress MLA Shaktisinh Gohil said, I have already written to the Prime Minister on the matter, but I have received no reply. The BJP is in power in both the Centre and the state. If they want, they can easily ban the film. They (BJP) only want to use the Rajput community as a vote bank.
Bengaluru: As the debate over Tipu Jayanti heats up in the state, a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Karnataka High Court questioning the celebration.

The PIL, filed by a resident of Kodagu, questioned the need to celebrate a warrior when it will hurt the feelings of a section of people.

It could lead to communal disharmony too, Pavan Chandra, advocate for the litigant, argued.

The HC, however, asked why it must interfere in an administrative decision and said that it would stick to points of law.

The litigant then questioned under what grant funds for this celebration are being spent, as there is no approval from the legislature for this.

The court then posted the case for November 7th, when the State government has been asked to furnish details of under what head money is being spent.

Tipu Jayanti  to celebrate the birth of Tipu Sultan who ruled over the Mysore region 200 years ago has been celebrated for the last 2 years by the state government, which felt it is fit to honour a warrior who was known for fighting the British and is known as the first maker of rockets in India.

With the Bharatiya Janata Party has been vehemently opposing the celebration -- saying that he was a tyrant who also killed a number of Hindu Kodavas -- the issue has become much politicised. Right-wing groups are holding a series of protests in the run-up to the celebrations on November 10th.

The Congress-led State Government has accused the BJP of communal politics. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah took to Twitter, saying, We celebrate birthdays of 26 leaders & builders of #NavaKarnataka. @AmitShah in a desperate attempt to communalize, picks on Tipu Jayanthi. (sic)

The Congress' stand got a further boost last week when President Ram Nath Kovind praised Tipu Sultan in an address to the Karnataka Assembly last week. He said that Tipu Sultan died a heroic death fighting the British, he was also a pioneer in the development and use of Mysore rockets in warfare which was later adopted by Europeans.

Notwithstanding, the BJP has said it will continue its protests against Tipu Jayanti.
New Delhi: Even as it laid down a standardised formula to compensate victims of motor accidents, the Supreme Court reduced monetary relief towards funeral expenses, loss of consortium and loss of care and guidance for minor children.

A five-judge Constitution Bench, presided over by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, brought down the amount fixed by a SC judgment in 2013 (Rajesh & Others Vs Rajbir Singh & Others). Other judges on the bench included Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan.

The 2013 judgment granted Rs 25,000 towards funeral expenses, Rs 1 lakh as loss of consortium and another Rs 1 lakh towards loss of care and guidance for minor children.

The three-judge bench judgment had held that the courts, by loss of consortium, "make an attempt to compensate the loss of spouses affection, comfort, solace, companionship, society, assistance, protection, care and sexual relations during the future years."

But the five-judge Constitution Bench overruled it.

It reduced damages under all the three heads: funeral expenses is brought down from Rs 25,000 to Rs 15,000; loss of consortium from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 40,000 and loss of estate from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 15,000.

Cumulatively, the larger bench has now reduced the compensation by Rs 1.55 lakh that could be paid to the family of a person killed in a road mishap.

According to the Constitution Bench, what they have fixed now are "reasonable sums" under the conventional heads and that the previous numbers had to be revised on certain "acceptable principle".

The judgment, however, does not mention in details which principles were being applied to reduce the compensation under these three heads, four years after the top court had leaned towards the interest of the family left behind by a victim.

The larger bench has instead provided for enhancing the amount under these heads by a meager 10 per cent after every three years on the reduced sums.

Interestingly, the question referred to the Constitution Bench was not about provisions under these heads but to examine if the courts need to account for future prospects of a deceased person who did not have a permanent job.

On this aspect, the Bench has ruled that compensation will have to be paid to the family of the deceased after accounting for his future prospects irrespective of the fact whether he had a permanent job or he was self-employed. A higher rate of compensation has been provided in cases where the deceased had a permanent job.
U.S. President Donald Trump is calling for swift justice in the case of accused New York City truck terrorist Sayfullo Saipov, including the death penalty. In response to questions from reporters Wednesday, Trump said he would be open to transferring the 29-year-old Uzbek immigrant from the civilian justice system to the military system at Guantanamo. "Send him to Gitmo, I would certainly consider that, yes," he said. The president said Thursday on Twitter that he "would love to send the NYC terrorist to Guantanamo but statistically that process takes much longer" than handling his trial through the U.S. court system. The president said he would prefer that Saipov be tried in the U.S. court system because, if convicted, the defendant could be sentenced to death. Other senior Republicans, including Trump's attorney general, appeared to differ with the president on handling the Saipov case.

 All Lawful Tools In a speech Thursday to a conference in New York City on defending national security, Attorney General Jeff Sessions did not rule out the option of declaring Saipov an enemy combatant. "Terrorists should know: This administration will use all lawful tools at our disposal, including prosecution in Article III [federal] courts and at Guantanamo Bay," Sessions said. "If anyone has any doubt about that, they can ask the more than 500 criminals whom the Department of Justice has convicted of terrorism-related offenses since 9/11. And they can ask the dozens of enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay."

Sayfullo Saipov, the suspect in the New York City truck attack, is seen in this handout photo released by St. Charles County Department of Corrections on Nov. 1, 2017. /Reuters

A leading Republican senator, Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, issued a statement ridiculing the idea of prosecuting the case in federal court. "It appears the Trump administration is continuing the Obama policy of criminalizing the War on Terror by not declaring Sayfullo Saipov an enemy combatant," Graham said. The senator argued that trying Saipov in federal courts would severely limit the ability of investigators to glean valuable intelligence that could "help win the war." He added, "The Trump administration missed an important opportunity to send a strong message to terrorists and make America safer." Appearing to mimic Trump's Twitter style, Graham ended his statement by saying, "This is a huge mistake. Very sad."

 Entitled to Due Process George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley says declaring Saipov an enemy combatant is fraught with legal problems. "[It] would be a wrong as a matter of law and as a matter of principle," Turley wrote in response to a VOA question. "Saipov is a legal green card holder living in the United States. He is accorded the protections of due process under the Constitution. The legal status of the proceedings at Guantanamo Bay has always been somewhat uncertain and undefined. This would be a particularly bad case to test that status for the Administration," Turley wrote. The expert on Constitutional law, told VOA, "We are defined by our values as embodied by the Constitution. Saipov will receive due process not because of who he is but who we are as a people. He will receive all of the due process that he denied to his victims. He will then be punished according to the laws of this nation." Saipov, who came to the United States legally through the diversity lottery visa program, faces numerous terrorism-related charges in connection with Tuesday's rampage down a New York City bicycle path in a rented truck, which left at least eight people dead and a dozen more seriously injured. He was wounded after the attack, and taken to a hospital where authorities say he stated his allegiance to the Islamic State and asked that he be allowed to have an IS flag in his hospital room, a request that was denied.
New Delhi: In a crackdown on commercialisation of education, the Supreme Court on Friday ordered a CBI probe into approval of technical courses in four deemed-to-be universities.

In its order, the apex court said the an approval by All India Council for Technical Education is mandatory for starting any new technical course in an institution even if it is a deemed-to-be university by the Universities Grants Commission (UGC).

The court order effectively suspends engineering degrees granted to thousands of students by these institutions from 2001 to 2005.

The court, however, ruled that the affected students will have to clear fresh test to get their degrees back.

The four institutions under the scanner are JRN University, IASE University, VMRF University and Allahabad Agricultural Institute. Degrees awarded by these universities for through study centres have been held illegal.

Degrees awarded by these institutions after academic year 2005 have been cancelled.

The deemed-to-be universities have also been asked to refund fees to students. The court has also asked the government to set up panel for appropriate oversight and regulatory mechanism in these institutions.
New Delhi: The Gupta brothers, also popularly referred to as Zuptas for their alleged proximity to South African President Jacob Zuma, have run themselves into a tight spot with the UK daily Financial Times reporting about a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probe into their business.

Atul, Ajay and Rajesh Gupta, once residents of Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, are now businessmen, operating in South Africa in close quarters with Zuma and his family.

Atul travelled to South Africa in 1993 where he sold shoes and computers from the trunk of his car. Rajesh and Ajay followed suit in 1997, and the brothers set up a computer business named Sahara Computers. All of this before acquiring large stakes in uranium, gold and coal mines, a luxury game lodge, an engineering company, a newspaper and a 24-hour TV news station.

As it stands today, the three Gupta brothers are reported to be billionaires in the country's rand currency.

However, the brothers made news in the recent past when Bank of Baroda decided to shut accounts of the companies controlled by them to ensure compliance with banking rules, according to a Bloomberg report.

The Guptas have also found themselves under the radar for influencing cabinet appointments and government contracts by using their proximity to Zuma.

South Africas four biggest banks closed accounts linked to the Gupta family in 2016. The banks cited the need for compliance with international banking rules.

The Gupta's also found themselves in a major soup later this year when according to news reports the FBI started its probe against suspicious cash flows between South Africa, Dubai and the US and the 'Gupta' relation with the same.

In an exclusive interview with CNN-News18's Bhupendra Chaubey, Ajay Gupta talks about corruption allegations against his family, their rise in the business fraternity, and the supposed FBI probe into their business dealings.

Bhupen Chaubey: Mr. Gupta, your association with South African establishment has been described as the most corrupt equation, to the extent that you are supposedly in connivance with the South African President (Jacob Zuma) himself, how do you respond to these claims made by international agencies?

Gupta: You are absolutely right in the sense that media are talking in this country, but least understand any corruption or any corrupt activity.

There are so many organisations and establishments run by the government here. I can only say one thing in reply. The Gupta family arrived in 1993 or 1994 in this country, and since then until today, I don't remember a single authority that ever questioned us.

So, I don't know from where this narrative of corruption came from. If you are in some activity, you must be asked questions by someone, at least one person. So, I can proudly say that this is only a media perception, creating and attacking a family that came from India and is supporting this country (South Africa) as citizens.

Bhupen: Let me quote for you, Sir. And, I am looking at a report filed by dw.com. It quotes the FBI. It says that there is an FBI probe currently on against you, something reported by Financial Times UK as well. And it comes at a time when South African Special Crime Investigation unit is suggesting that the Guptas are a part of its investigation into state capture, raiding of taxpay outside interest. This is the claim against you by the FBI. Do you deny this claim as well, Mr. Gupta?

Ajay Gupta: We don't know anything at all of the FBI. This again is a media creation. They write an article in such a way that it looks as though FBI is investigating, but as far as we are concerned, we know that this is nothing. We don't deal at all in the US. So I don't know where this narrative is coming from. About the Hawks, you asked something? I did not hear it completely, but let me say this thing, not a single agency until today in the last 23 years ever asked any question of us. We even went to them.

Bhupen: But how is it possible? You are saying that no agency has ever contacted you here in India. Your name is being spoken about as if you are some corruption kingpin. How do you explain the corruption scandal by global firms like KPMG to McKinsey to Bell Pottinger? All because of some supposed business links with your, sir?

Gupta: You have to go in details of this thing. You are absolutely right in asking that how it is possible. That's the only point today, how is it possible when we are saying that of the business we are involved in, only 1.5%, or something like that, is related to the government. So, where is the corruption then? It's a narrative created by the media and some of the people in the opposition. Otherwise, there is nothing.

Bhupen: So, you are saying, Mr. Gupta, you are absolutely clear that you have no business link whatsoever with the South African president. You have no business link with the son of the South African President?

Gupta: I am again not able to hear, but let me explain that KPMG and I don't know which other company you talked about, McKinsey? KPMG was an auditor with us for the last 16 years, from 2001 or 2002. In 2016, they decided to opt out of this relation because of tremendous pressure on them. The people putting pressure on them, they have to explain. I can fax you, I can send letters to you that KPMG always said that they never found anything against the Guptas.

Bhupen: Can you explain to us, Sanjay Ji? You know, your brother Atul Gupta is being accounted for being the richest non-white South African with net worth as of last year estimated over 750 million dollars. The spike of your business, the parent company Sahara Estate is 2.2 billion dollars? Can you tell me where this money is coming from for a family which moved from Saharanpur to Africa only in 1995 as you point out?

Gupta: I can only give you a single reply, which is hard work and we have family values. Our entire family of brothers works extremely hard. We run an ethical business. No one can say we are doing something wrong. No one can put their finger on a particular thing. If you are saying corruption, then you have to prove it and point it out. Since the last sixteen years, KPMG is doing the audit and they haven't found anything.

Let me talk about the richest person article. There is no doubt that Sunday Times published that article in which Mr. Atul Gupta is the 7th richest man in the country and that is only on the basis of one of their organisations which is listed. The company is listed, and the worth of the company at that time was something like a billion dollars. Actually, one time, the market cap of this company reached 2 million dollars. Now when they counted at that time, it was a billion dollars. Mr. Atul Gupta and his team are always interested in buying sick units.

Bhupen: Can you, then, tell me, Mr. Gupta, that here in India, I understand that you have very close links with Indian politicians as well, and your links are across political parties. Is it true that like South Africa you have space in the Indian political space as well?

Gupta: No, please, I don't feel bad about this relationship anywhere. Any political relationship has got nothing to do with business. Main concern - whether we are doing any business in India, politically? No. Are we doing any business with the government of India? No, so this is the point that we do not have any government influence in our business. We don't do any major business with the government at all. I told you that our total turnover, very few percentage is with the government business. So, I don't understand where this conflict is coming from.

Bhupen: So, therefore, Mr. Gupta, if I hear you clearly, you are saying that you are just being targeted, are you a subject of a witch-hunt? Maybe because you have made your success through legitimate means which some people believe are illegitimate. Are you just being targeted because of the money that you have, Sir?

Gupta: Let me explain to you. You have to understand the South African economic position. South Africa got political independence in 1994, but it is still awakening in terms of economic freedom. I must say that maybe that's the reason that we're being targeted because there is a particular establishment there which doesn't allow you to be economically free, and there is another reason behind it. I believe, I don't know whether the matter is still under investigation, maybe because this family comes from India. Even in South Africa, if you are not part of an establishment, which is an elite group, only they are controlling the economy of this country and that makes a big difference. I think that's the major reason why they targeting, and India is, maybe, adding fuel to the fire.

Bhupen: Thank you.

Gupta: Thank you.
After conquering Mount Everest, Philippine adventurer Carina Dayondon is set to sail to China aboard a wooden replica of an ancient boat in the hopes of boosting national pride in a forgotten maritime prowess.

Dayondon is planning to sail from Manila to southern China early next year, recreating trade and migration voyages made before Spaniards colonised the Philippines in the 1500s.

"People tell me I am crazy. They ask: 'Wow, why climb Mount Everest? Why go to China on this tiny thing,'" Dayondon said in Manila Bay aboard one of the two boats that will make the expected six-day sailing journey.

"I'm excited because our team will be more inspired realising how good our forefathers were. We have to let people know we should be proud of being Filipino," the 39-year-old added.

Dayondon, a petite but muscular coast guard officer, created history in 2007 when she and two other countrywomen became the first Filipinas to summit the world's highest mountain.

Arturo Valdez, who led their Everest support team, is also heading the sailing mission and similarly sees the journey to China as a chance to inspire Filipinos.

"Like Mount Everest, I want this to be symbolic of what our people can accomplish, of what can be possible out of the so-called impossible," the 69-year-old said.

The vessels are a copy of a "balangay", which date back as far as 320 AD.

"Early trade with China and Southeast Asia was made possible by watercraft," Ligaya Lacsina, researcher at the National Museum's maritime division, told AFP.

"Europeans during the colonial period were effusive in their praise of Southeast Asian boat-building skill. But somehow we've paid very little attention to this."

Tribal boat-builders from the southern Philippines, where the boats originated, have made the replicas of the balangay using skills passed on down the generations.

The boats, 18 metres (60 feet) long by three metres (10 feet) wide, are made of hardwood planks, include two sails, two rudders and a roofed area.

Their journey to the southeastern Chinese city of Quanzhou will be about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles), and the crew members are aiming to do it with as little modern technical help as possible.

"We have no night-sailing capability so we can be run over by a super tanker. That's my fear. The greatest difficulty of replicating an ancient voyage is modernity because there are new port protocols," Valdez said.

"This kind of boat is being treated as a maritime hazard."

'Spirit of a nation'

Daily life aboard the boat is a struggle, according to Dayondon.

"We sleep anywhere because we don't have quarters. We have no toilet. We just hold the rope and use a harness and do the proper position so we don't fall," she said.

Nevertheless, a third boat with a motor will accompany the balangays otherwise they will not be allowed into Chinese ports.

Their trip is planned to commemorate a journey made about 600 years ago by a sultan from the southern island of Sulu who went to China to pay tribute to Ming Dynasty rulers there but who but died of an illness on his way home.

The voyage to China will be the team's second maritime quest following a 17-month journey that began in 2009 around Southeast Asia.

One of the group's biggest challenges is off the water -- finding enough money to fund the adventure.

The team members plan to open the vessels to the public for educational tours and even wedding shoots to raise money for their upkeep in Manila Bay.

Valdez, who also shepherded the first Philippine men up Mount Everest in 2006, said he hoped the government would financially back such feats but they had not.

"Filipinos love us when we climb Mount Everest, love us with our exploits but they are not willing to pay for that. And that makes us a poorer nation," he said.

"Blazing a trail and going beyond what is normal, that is the spirit of a nation. That is how you build a nation, out of a dream."
The first look of southern superstar Dhanush, from his debut Hollywood project, is out and it has got all his fans excited. Dhanush is all set to make his first Hollywood appearance with The Extraordinary Journey of a Fakir with his co-star, Berenice Bejo - the Oscar-nominated actress of The Artist. Trade Analyst Ramesh Bala took to Twitter to share the look.

Here is the Exclusive First Look Poster of @dhanushkraja 's International Film - #TheExtraOrdinaryJourneyOftheFakir pic.twitter.com/79B7oPZfd4 Ramesh Bala (@rameshlaus) November 1, 2017

One shot from the film sees the actor looking dapper in a blue suit with Bejo showing her something.

The Extraordinary Journey Of The Fakir Who Got Trapped In An Ikea Cupboard is a comedy adventure tale based on Romain Puertolas's bestselling debut novel with the same name, which came out in 2014 and has been translated into 35 languages. The novel relates the pilgrimage of a con man from India to an IKEA in Paris which turns into a philosophical odyssey.

Directed by Kenn Scott, The film will follow his journey from New Delhi to Paris where he falls in love with a woman and accidentally gets deported along with a band of African refugees to the far corners of Europe against his will. Along with foreign locales like Paris, Rome, and Casablanca, the film will be shot in Jodhpur.

A great jump for Dhanush, the year 2017 saw the actor make his directorial debut with Power Paandi, which was highly appreciated. The actor was also seen in VIP 2, the sequel to 2014 hit film Velaiilla Pattadhari 2.
Mumbai: Filmmaker Karan Johar will judge acting and singing skills of contestants on a reality television show tentatively titled Ticket To Bollywood.

To be produced by Endemol, the show -- previously known as India's Next Superstar -- will go on air on Star Plus in a few months, read a statement issued on behalf of the channel.

The show will also give a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work in a film under Karan's banner Dharma Productions. The auditions for the reality show are said to be on.

Casting director Mukesh Chhabra will be hunting for talent along with other actors from the television industry.
Los Angeles: New allegations of sexual misconduct from a number of men have emerged against actor Kevin Spacey.

Mexican actor Roberto Cavazos and American documentary filmmaker Tony Montana have shared their stories of how Spacey allegedly made unwanted advances towards them.

While Montana said he was left with PTSD for six months after he claims Spacey "forcefully" groped him, Cavazo, in a Facebook post, alleged that the actor made two advances on him, bordering on harassment, in London, where Cavazos appeared in various productions at The Old Vic theatre.

Spacey served as the theatre's artistic director from 2004 to 2015.

Cavazos added that Spacey frequently targeted young actors, particularly those under 30. "It was so common that it became a local joke (in poor taste)," Cavazos wrote.

The Old Vic has said no formal complaints were ever made against Spacey during his tenure, but the theatre said it was setting up a confidential email address for people to report experiences of harassment.

The new accusations follow the explosive allegation by actor Anthony Rapp, who revealed that Spacey sexually assaulted him in the 1980s when he was just 14-year-old.

Production on the sixth and last season of Netflix's House of Cards, in which Spacey plays the lead role of Frank Underwood, has since been suspended. The streaming service, which said it was "deeply troubled" by Rapp's allegation, is also behind Gore, an upcoming biopic starring Spacey as the American writer Gore Vidal. Shooting on the project wrapped last month in Italy.
Shah Rukh Khan and his youngest son AbRam never fail to charm us. The father-son duo has once again succeeded in melting our hearts as they continued the ritual of greeting the superstar's fans on his birthday from Mannat.

The actor, who threw a lavish birthday party at his Alibaug farmhouse, took to Twitter to thanks his fans for all their love and support throughout his journey.

"A ray of sunshine... A sea of love... Thank you all for the happiness you bring every year," he wrote alongside a picture of him and AbRam.

Image: Twitter/@iamsrk

A ray of sunshine... A sea of love...Thank you all for the happiness you bring every year! pic.twitter.com/teTr4FRGC7 Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) November 2, 2017

Alia Bhatt, Katrina Kaif, Karan Johar, Shweta Bachchan, Sussanne Khan, Sidharth Malhotra and Farah Khan were just some of the celebrity guests who joined SRK, wife Gauri, daughter Suhana and son AbRam at the festivities.

Check out the pictures:

#alibaugdiaries @shwetabachchan A post shared by Karan Johar (@karanjohar) on Nov 1, 2017 at 4:26am PDT

My fave @malaikaarorakhanofficial A post shared by Karan Johar (@karanjohar) on Nov 1, 2017 at 10:02am PDT

Happy campers! #alibaugdiaries A post shared by Karan Johar (@karanjohar) on Nov 1, 2017 at 11:09pm PDT

When I was the one posing instead of @iamsrk ! FYI he can put any photographer out of business! A post shared by Karan Johar (@karanjohar) on Nov 1, 2017 at 5:05am PDT
After receiving praise for his performance in the 2016 movie Baaghi, Tiger Shroff is once again back with the sequel to the hit action film.

The actor, who has been shooting rigorously for Baaghi 2 since September, was recently spotted sporting the film's look.

The actor was photographed while he was walking to set for shooting an action sequence from his vanity. He looked extremely intense and gritty in short hair and stubble. With blood stains on his T-shirt, the sequence seems to be high on action.

Baaghi 2 will feature Disha Patani alongside Tiger Shroff after being paired up for a music video.

The pairing has already created immense buzz among the audience, who are waiting to see the duo share the screen space once again.

Baaghi 2 kicked off their first schedule in Pune on September 18 and after wrapping up the shoot in the city, the film's team moved on to Mumbai and continued shooting. Actors like Manoj Bajpayee and Prateik Babbar play a significant role in the sequel.

It is slated for release on April 27 2018.
New Delhi: She is a noted musician and is taking forward the legacy of her father sitarist Pandit Ravi Shankar but Anoushka Shankar says one does not have to hold fast to traditions as culture is inherent.

The 36-year-old musician says one has to learn to be secure about it.

In an interview with PTI, Anoushka says, "In the last few years in particular, I've found that it's okay to let go of culture rather than hold on to it. And by letting go, you kind of realise that it's there anyway.

"It is kind of in you - you've been brought up a certain way so it's there. You have to have a little confidence in your culture."

The sitarist believes if traditions are forced upon people, the greater idea of moving forward together fails.

"I think we are all individuals at the end of the day.

There's nothing about culture that can prescribe who you're meant to be.

"But when culture becomes a baggage, things don't work.

What is good about anything that feels like a baggage? I think we should let go when it feels like a burden. Hold on to the things you love. Then it will be a natural process."

Anoushka has given the background score for the 1928 silent film, "Shiraz: a Romance of India", which was resurrected by BFI London.

The Franz Osten-directed movie, with Himanshu Rai and Seeta Devi, is the first film for which she has composed music.

Anoushka says, "It is a huge honour for me. 'Shiraz' is an important part of our filmmaking and cultural history.

I figured that they asked me to do this because I work with the kind of music that is simultaneously of an older era and equally modern... And also music that very much belongs to Indian culture and is also multicultural.

"From the beginning, I wanted to work in a soundscape that is both old and new. That gave me a broad canvas to paint with."

Anoushka says she was conscious about her role as a composer and often kept the instrumentalist in her in control.

But that affected the background score of "Shiraz" initially.

"I was so aware that the music should not just be about the sitar, so I ended up putting really little portions of it.

When my husband (filmmaker Joe Wright) heard the score, he said he could barely hear the sitar. So I went back and added some sitar to it.

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Indore: Taking a swipe at the CBI for its "clean chit" to Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the Vyapam scam, senior Congress leader Kamal Nath on Friday said the investigation agency has turned into a "shakha of the RSS".

"Has any court given him (Chouhan) a clean chit? The CBI, which gave him a clean chit, has reduced itself to a department (shakha) of the RSS," Kamal Nath told reporters in Indore.

The Congress veteran leader said the CBI was asked to investigate the scam but the agency has started delivering the verdict. "This proves that this investigating agency has turned into a 'Shakha' of the RSS."

The CBI, in the charge sheet filed in a special court on October 31, said the forensic analysis of the hard disk drive, recovered from Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (also known by its Hindi acronym Vyapam) officer Nitin Mohindra, showed that the discs carrying reference to the letters 'CM' had been tampered with.

Kamal Nath termed the state government the "most corrupt" in the entire country, and claimed that 160 scams had surfaced during the last 14 years of BJP rule.
Thae Yong-ho, the highest-ranking North Korean official to defect in two decades, on Wednesday told U.S. lawmakers that changes are taking place in his home country that the regime may soon be unable to contain.

"There are great and unexpected changes taking place within North Korea. Contrary to the official policy and wish of the regime, the free markets are flourishing," Thae told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill. North Koreans "do not care about state propaganda but increasingly watch illegally imported South Korean movies and dramas."

He called on the U.S. to exert more "soft power" supporting these changes. "We can educate the North Korean population to stand up by disseminating outside information," he added.

"However, is the United States really doing enough in this regard? The U.S. is spending billions of dollars to cope with the military threat. Yet how much does the U.S. spend each year on information activities involving North Korea in a year? Unfortunately, it may be a tiny fraction."
Ahmedabad: Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani has ended speculation over his entry into the Congress, saying he would not be joining any political party but remains open to meeting Rahul Gandhi to discuss demands of the community.

"I am clarifying once and for all. I will not join any political party. But I am a political animal and hence it is natural that I meet several political leaders. Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) has invited me to join the Congress. I don't mind meeting Rahul Gandhi, but Congress should address our demands," Mevani told reporters in Ahmedabad on Thursday.

Mevani also ruled out contesting the upcoming Assembly election in Gujarat. As of now, no. Lets see how the Congress responds to our list of demands. For the community, I am open to meeting Rahul Gandhi, he said. Mevani and his associates have handed over a list of 17 demands to the Congress.

The young leader expressed disappointed over the BJP-led Gujarat government holding talks with leaders of the Patidar community, but not Dalits. "This is political untouchability. Anti-Dalit mindset of this government is evident. It is not concerned about issues we are facing," Mevani said.

Apart from Mevani, the Congress had offered election tickets to two other young leaders from Gujarat  Patidar leader Hardik Patel and OBC leader Alpesh Thakore. The latter has already joined the Congress.

The 182-seat Gujarat Assembly will go to the polls on December 9 and 14. The counting will be held on December 18.
Lucknow: The National Security Act (NSA) was slapped against Bhim Army Chief Chandrashekhar Ravan on Friday at the behest of District Magistrate of Saharanpur, just a day after the Allahabad High Court granted him bail in the Saharanpur riots case.

The High court had observed that the charges against the Dalit leader were politically motivated.

The NSA empowers the government to detain a person to prevent him from acting in any manner that can lead to compromising the security of the country.

SSP Saharanpur Babloo Kumar said, Chandrashekhar, who is already in detention after his alleged involvement in the Saharanpur caste-based violence, has been booked under NSA as per the order of the District Magistrate."

"The family and the administration have been informed in this regard so that further action could be initiated in this case. Chandrashekhar and other accused were trying to get bail, and they even succeeded in some of the cases, hence this action was taken.

Chandrashekhar has already got bail from Sessions Court in Saharanpur in one case, while the hearing is due in a case registered under IT Act.

Born in Dhadkuli village near Chatmalpur in Saharanpur, Chandrashekhar alias Ravan was arrested by a team of Saharanpur police on June 8 from Dalhousie in Himachal Pradesh for his alleged involvement in the recent Saharanpur riots. A law graduate from a local college in the district, he first courted controversy in 2015, putting up a board at his native place that read 'The Great Chamars of Dhadkauli Welcome You'. The move led to tensions between the Dalits and the Thakurs in the village.
Kolkata: For most news observers, it was a political coup of sorts.

A meeting that lasted for nearly three hours at a five-star property in south Mumbais Nariman Point, where Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had set up camp since October 31, hogged the attention of national media more than any of the meeting that the leader had attended over the past two days in her efforts to attract investments for Bengal.

Thats because Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray spent that much time discussing politics, policies and administrative collaboration with Mamata Banerjee and came out calling the meet fruitful. The Sena chief was accompanied by his son, Aditya Thackeray.

The meeting has already fuelled speculation in political circles. Mamatas agenda of forging an anti-BJP front ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections is well-known. She had reiterated her ambition in the extended core committee meeting held in Kolkata on October 25.

I am not interested in the Prime Ministers chair or in even leading the Opposition. My goal is to see the Modi government out of power. For that, I am ready to play the role that squirrels played in helping Lord Ram build the bridge to Lanka, she had said.

Whats interesting is the extent to which Mamata Banerjee is willing to travel to get the job done.

Working on the principle of enemys enemy is friend, Mamata has already extended an olive branch to opposition parties across the country for the anti-BJP front, which is nowhere close to seeing the light of the day. One can, in this context, recall Mamata sharing the dais with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav at RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadavs mega rally at Patna in August last year.

But the surprise break in that effort was perhaps first observed when Mamata Banerjees call for a united opposition march to the Rashtrapati Bhavan last year to protest demonetisation received positive response from the Shiv Sena, the oldest NDA constituent.

Two Sena leaders, Chandrakant Khaire and Gajanan Kirtikar, walked alongside Mamata that afternoon, although they submitted a separate memorandum to the President.

The Trinamool chiefs clarion call, whoever, fell on deaf ears within the Congress, Left, SP and BSP. Besides Shiv Sena, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah and AAPs Bhagwant Mann joined the protest.

It is the new-found friendship which the Bengal Chief Minister seems to have taken forward at her Mumbai meeting on Thursday. Mamata seems willing to set aside the fact that the Shiv Sena is a Hindu nationalist party which barely conforms to the political ideology the Trinamool Congress swears by  that of accommodating plurality in political discourse.

What seems to matter to her now is the perception that the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance is presently on the brink and she is willing to do whatever it takes to widen that crack.

The Shiv Sena is doing the right thing by criticising the BJP despite being an ally. That is giving us hope, she told reporters after the meet.

Both sides confessed to having discussed the nationwide fallout of Centres demonetisation and GST decisions.

Mamata, reportedly, also proposed a collaboration between the municipal bodies of Mumbai and Kolkata. But no prizes for guessing that its the mega show of democracy in 2019 that both leaders are eyeing, with Thackeray having the additional burden of fighting the state elections, besides the Lok Sabha polls.

With just 23 seats short of absolute majority in the Maharashtra assembly, the BJP has remarkably improved its political footprint in the state over the years, much to the chagrin of the Shiv Sena. The latters sharp criticism of the Devendra Fadnavis government over contentious issues of farm loan waiver, urban development and, of late, corruption has drawn the allies farthest from each other in recent times. Thats a fact that Mamata Banerjee is more than aware of and is hoping to cash in on.

But question remains that if the BJP-Shiv Sena combine is a marriage of convenience thats falling apart, how different would the so-called new equation be if it isnt built on common political agenda that certainly isnt common enemy?

But as they say, alls fair in love, war and politics.
New Delhi: Deep in the heart of Gujarats Saurashtra region is an assembly segment that holds the unique distinction of being represented by two Chief Ministers, a state finance minister, the current Governor of Karnataka and the Prime Minister of India.

Gujarat Assembly Constituency number 69  Rajkot West  has been a prestige seat for the BJP. In 2002, Narendra Modi contested the first-ever election of his life from Rajkot West and won, before being anointed CM. This time, the BJP candidate is Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani.

Rajkot had been a Congress stronghold. But in 1985, the newly-formed BJP wrested this seat from the Grand Old Party. Since then, the BJP has not lost here. However, this time, the Congress may well be able to put up a fight on this seat owing to the Patidar agitation. Around 75,000 voters in Rajkot West are Patidars and there is uncertainty over which way they will swing.

Rajkot district, the financial hub of the Saurashtra region, is said to hold the key to the entire state. The district alone has eight assembly constituencies within it. Of these eight seats, Rajkot West is perhaps the most high-profile seat.

The last time Congress won this seat was back in the year 1980, when Manibhai Ranpara won after polling 19,755 votes. BJP leader Vajubhai Vala was not so far behind with 17,762 votes. In the 1984 elections, Vala finally won the seat by beating Congress candidate Harshdaba Chudasa. Vala remained the MLA from Rajkot West till 2002, when he vacated the seat for BJPs CM-designate Narendra Modi. The future Prime Minister won the election from Rajkot West after polling 45,298 votes. His opponent, Congress leader Ashwini Maheta polled 30,570 votes in the bypoll.

For the 2002 Assembly polls, Modi moved to contest from the Maninagar seat and Vajubhai Vala was back to contesting from Rajkot West. He won the seat three more times in 2002, 2007 and 2012 and even served as the Finance Minister of Gujarat under Modi.

When the BJP formed the government at the Centre in 2014 and Modi finally ascended the high seat in Delhi, Vala was rewarded for keeping the BJP fortress intact and was made the Governor of Karnataka. In the 2014 bypoll, the seat then passed on to Vijay Rupani, who won with 81,092 votes. He beat his Congress opponent Jayanti Kalriya, a Patidar, by over 23,000 votes. In August 2016, when Chief Minister Anandiben Patel resigned, Rupani was elevated to CM.

There are around 3 lakh registered voters in Rajkot West. There are around 42,000 Kadwa Patels, 33,000 Leuva Patels, 25,000 Brahmins, 25,000 Lohanas, 22,000 minority voters, 20,000 Baniyas and 10,000 Kshatriyas in the electorate.

The Congress has fielded Indraneel Rajyaguru, a Brahmin, to topple Rupani, a Jain. However, the deciding factor in this election will be the 75,000 Patidar votes in the constituency.
In September 2017 when we attended the Apple keynote in Cupertino and the company showcase the iPhone X and we were a little sceptical listening to the keynote about the iPhone X. But as we moved on to the hands-on area and held the iPhone X in our hands for the first time there was little doubt left that this would be the phone that we will be really looking forward to in 2017. India is among the first countries get the iPhone X on November 3 and we were using it for a week now and loving the iPhone X experience. Yes, it is highly priced at Rs 89,000 64GB version And the 256 6GB version will make your pocket lighter by Rs 1,02,000 but good things in life are never that affordable. So, is the all-new iPhone X worth the money and also an upgrade? We find out in this review.

Watch: Apple iPhone X Review

Design

Apple says that it always wanted to have an uninterrupted single big display on an iPhone. Come 2017 they have managed to do exactly that your new iPhone X. The new iPhone X features a super Retina display which Apple says is made up of the most beautiful and toughest glass ever on a smartphone. They also use surgical grade stainless steel band for strength that seamlessly integrates on the sides of this smartphone. The placement of the camera on the back is now vertical to basically assist with the augmented reality features that the new iPhone X supports. The home button is also gone and so is the touch ID. This is a phone that just has a single big display up front and a small little notch on top to support the cameras and the speaker. The back panel of the iPhone X is also all glass and there are two new colours that are both really cool.

Initially, we thought that the iOS 11 was made for the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, but once we started using the iPhone X, the experience was a notch up. The new iPhone X is also water and dust resistant. Removal of the home button means that gestures are all that you have in your arsenal now to navigate within this device. Apple has also redesigned speakers that are up to 35 percent louder and deliver deeper bass and it was quite evident when we placed the iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X beside each other and played some music on them. Apple had always intended for iPhone to be a truly wireless device and finally, the new iPhones including the iPhone X now comes with wireless charging support. With a glass back and an embedded wireless charging system, iPhone X is designed for a wireless future by Apple. In terms of the overall size the iPhone X has a bigger display size than the iPhone 8 Plus, but as its a nearly bezel-less design the overall proportions of the iPhone X is smaller than the iPhone 8 Plus and slightly bigger than the iPhone 8. The device fits perfectly in ones hand, but to reach to the corners youll still have to use your other hand for support.

Display

The display on the iPhone X is Apples first attempt at an OLED panel and once you look at it you wonder why was this never done before. The iPhone X comes with a bezel-less 5.8-inch Super Retina HD display. This is an HDR display with a 1,000,000 to 1 contrast ratio. It also offers a high resolution and brightness, wide colour support, and the colour accuracy is as close as it can get to reality. We have seen plenty of new smartphones from the Android eco-system this year that have beautiful displays and the new iPhone X might make them think about making phones with a true High Dynamic Range (HDR) display. The display also supports Dolby Vision and HDR10. We watched the entire new season of Stranger Things 2 on Netflix using the iPhone X and the HDR was quite visible on the iPhone X. Even the images that we captured just looked lifelike on the new iPhone X.

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Just like the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus the iPhone X comes with a True Tone display. The True Tone technology uses an advanced six-channel ambient light sensor to subtly adjust the white balance onscreen to match the colour temperature of the light around you. So images on the display look as natural as on a printed page, reducing eye strain. Apple has also used an innovative folding and circuit stacking technology, the OLED panel follows the curves of the device into the farthest reaches of the corners. Then it uses a process called subpixel anti-aliasing to tune individual pixels for smooth, distortion-free edges. So from edge to edge, this display is as crisp and beautiful as it can get.

Processor

Apple iPhone X runs on Apples latest The A11 Bionic chip thats also present in the years iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. The A11 Bionic chip comes with a neural engine thats capable of up to 600 billion operations per second, and yes it is quite fast. It has a six-core CPU design with 4.3 billion transistors. There are two performance cores and four high-efficiency cores on this processor. If you are a power user this device can also harness all six cores simultaneously. The iPhone X according to Apple is the phone of the future and thats the reason the processor comes with a Neural engine. A neural engine is a hardware thats purpose-built for machine learning.

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It is a type of artificial intelligence that enables computers to learn from observation and user patterns. This increases the efficiency of users to harness the full potential of a phone. And we are yet to harness that on the iPhone X. We would say that we are still just able to come to 60% of what this phone can do for now. The neural engine in the A11 Bionic chip is a dual-core design that recognises people, places, and objects. It is also the driving force behind features like Face ID and Animoji thats available only on the iPhone X.

Rear Camera

iPhone X also features a redesigned dual 12-megapixel back camera system with dual optical image stabilization and all-new sensor. The /1.8 aperture on the wide-angle camera is similar to the iPhone 8 Plus but on the iPhone X now you get an improved /2.4 aperture on the telephoto camera. The sensor on the iPhone X loaded with an improved Apple-designed image signal processor (ISP) deliver advanced pixel processing, wide colour capture, faster autofocus in low light, and better HDR photos. The images clicked on the iPhone X are also slightly better than what you get on the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. Low light images are also improved and the large sensor also helps in better video stabilization and higher video frame rates. On the telephoto camera front, the device uses a seven-magnet solution, that includes a second OIS system in the telephoto camera. Together. Both the cameras now enable optical zoom and also amazing portrait photos.

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Just like the iPhone 8 Plus the iPhone X also comes with Portrait Lighting mode (Beta) that just lets you play around with different lighting conditions while clicking the subject in portrait mode. Dual OIS also helps in making the shake almost negligible while shooting action shots on the iPhone X. The A11 Bionic chip also comes with an Apple-designed image signal processor thats also able to detect elements like people, motion, and lighting conditions to optimise your photos before you even take them. The camera in a way is always on standby and ready to go on the new iPhone X. Along with the ISP, the video encoder also enables faster frame rates and high-quality 4K video up to 60 fps. It is also now able to shoot exceptionally good slow-motion video recording in 1080p at 240 fps. On the Augmented reality front the iPhone X is made with carefully calibrated cameras, new sensors including the gyroscope and accelerometer to allow for a realistic AR experience on this device. We tried out apps like Insight Heart and NightSky and were left impressed with these initial efforts of AR app developers.

Augmented Reality

The iOS 11 introduces ARKit which is a new framework that brings augmented reality to hundreds of millions of iOS devices by allowing developers to easily build unparalleled AR experiences. This is something that is enabled on the iPhone X also. Now augmented reality is something thats like a natural progression of how we will be using smartphones in the next five years and this device is already ready to take on this new challenge. The rear camera module on the iPhone X is also a dual-camera setup thats vertically placed also to enable efficient augmented reality applications.

TrueDepth Camera & Face ID

This camera module is placed up front on the iPhone X. The device houses this entire module in that notch on top of the display. The TrueDepth camera system is capable of accurately mapping the geometry of your face and enables Portrait mode selfies, Portrait Lighting on the front camera, and Animoji. Animoji is an animated emoji message that one can now send on iMessages to other iPhone users. This is also responsible now for the Face ID feature on the iPhone X. Face ID is the user authentication system on iPhone X that begins with data captured by the TrueDepth camera. The sensors read the unique geometry of your face and compare it to information protected by the Secure Enclave of the A11 Bionic chip. If theres a match, iPhone X unlocks.

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Now many have been sceptic about the Face ID but we found it way more convenient than the Touch ID on the older iPhones. Apple also assures that the facial data is locally stored on the device and not on iCloud. So it is a safe and secure way to block access to your phone for security. It also keeps the notifications hidden until the time it detects the owner of the phone. Also, there have been reports that identical twins can unlock this device, but we are yet to test that theory out. The TrueDepth Camera now also enables Portrait mode selfies on the iPhone X. The device lets you shoot selfies with a depth-of-field effect that puts your face in sharp focus against an artfully blurred background. The front camera Portrait mode selfies also get the Portrait lighting mode thats still in Beta just like the portrait mode on the rear camera.

iOS 11 Experience and Siri

Apple iPhone X comes with a large power button that also doubles up as the button for Siri. Siri along with iOS 11 on the iPhone X now offers support for 11 Indian language keyboards the latest additions being Kannada, Malayalam, and Odiya. Users can also use their voice to dictate in Hindi and have those words automatically appear as text in Apps like Mail, Messages, and other 3rd party apps like WhatsApp. This will only work when any of 3 Hindi Keyboards are being used - Hindi, Hinglish, or Hindi transliteration. To get Siri users will have to press and hold the side button to ask Siri a question. To wake the device one just has to tap anywhere on the Super Retina display of the iPhone X. To exit any app you have to swipe up from the bottom edge at any time to return home. If you hold the bottom edge with a press the multitasking window opens up.

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To access lock screen notifications one has to swipe down from the top-centre of the display and to open the control centre swipe down from the top-right edge. To take a screenshot on the iPhone X, one has to simultaneously press and quickly release the side button and the Volume Up button. And for those who were concerned as to how they will be able to force restart the iPhone X, all youll have to do is press and quickly release the Volume Up button, then press and quickly release the Volume Down button and finally, press and hold the side button until you see the Apple logo. The iPhone X is a device that is truly a full gesture functionality device. And the problem that we had with this gesture experience combined with iOS 11 was that once you get used to it, its really hard to use the older iPhone devices and even the newer iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. Its like Jack Reacher, once you are on an iPhone X you just cannot go back.

Battery

Apple, as usual, does not say what the mAh on the battery of their devices is. Usually one gets ambiguous figures. Its usually a guess and we believe that it uses a battery that has anywhere between 2500 mAh to 2800 mAh capacity. According to some websites, the iPhone X comes with a 2,716mAh battery. Now those are just figures and specifications that only matter of your device is badly optimized. When it comes to our usage of the iPhone X the battery was a bit of a concern. The device struggles to last an entire day and will remind you of the older iPhone days when you had to carry a charger with you. Thats also because of the big display that the iPhone X comes with and that OLED panel. The iPhone 8 Plus running on iOS 11 lasts longer than the iPhone X and we think that is a bit of a concern. The iPhone X is designed for a wireless world. And that includes a wireless charging experience. All glass back helps it in achieving that. The iPhone X works with Qi-certified chargers.

Watch: Apple iPhone X | First Look

Verdict

The iPhone X is a smartphone that in every sense the future of smartphones that will come in the next five years. This is the first attempt by Apple to redesign the stagnant smartphone space. They have done a really good job of that and its a shame that modern phones even like the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus just fall flat against the iPhone X. If you have the money to splurge for a new smartphone and you are on an iOS ecosystem, then getting yourself the iPhone X is a no-brainer. Indian consumer being price sensitive might just not be happy with the pricing of the iPhone X, but buying the iPhone in India has never been just about the necessity. Its always been a device that has its novelty factor. The iPhone X is an exceptional device from Apple and reminds us of an old Apple Ad punch-line thats just fitting in the context of the iPhone X.  If you dont have an iPhone (X), well you dont have an iPhone!
The State Bank of India (SBI) has deployed Microsoft Office 365 to improve communication and collaboration among its workforce. This is one of the largest deployments of Office 365 in India, spanning SBI's countrywide network of 23,423 branches, enabling 263,000 employees and servicing more than 500 million customer accounts. "We are excited about our partnership with Microsoft. Microsoft's cutting-edge technology is helping us lead the digital transformation by making it part of our DNA," Rajnish Kumar, Chairman, SBI, said in a statement.

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SBI employees will now be able to use easy-to-use tools naturally in everyday work, while addressing key aspects of data security and sovereignty. Microsoft has also consolidated SBI's messaging and collaboration server infrastructure in 17 countries, helping it save more than $200,000 annually. "We are thrilled to partner with SBI on their digital transformation as they harness the intelligent cloud and build new digital capability to empower their employees; engage customers in new ways and transform their products and services, while maintaining security, trust and compliance with industry regulations," added Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft.

With this deployment, SBI will upgrade to Cloud-based technology, focusing on user adoption by identifying use cases based on work profiles.

Watch: Nokia 2 First Look: The New Budget Nokia Android Phone
Washington: US President Donald Trump said he was unsure whether his top diplomat, Rex Tillerson, would remain in his post for the rest of Trump's term in the White House and was "not happy" that some State Department staff were not supporting his agenda.

In an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News late Thursday, Trump attacked the department under Tillerson, the secretary of state, and said he alone determines U.S. foreign policy.

"The one that matters is me," Trump said. "I'm the only one that matters because, when it comes to it, that's what the policy is going to be."

Asked if he planned to keep Tillerson on board for the rest of his term, Trump told Fox, "Well, well see. I dont know."

Trump is heading to Asia on a 11-day trip with Tillerson following months of conflict between the two.

Tensions between Trump, a real estate developer and reality television star who took office in January, and Tillerson, the former chief executive officer at energy major Exxon Mobil Corp, resurfaced last month amid reports that Tillerson had called Trump a "moron" and had considered resigning over the summer.

Tillerson, in an unusual news conference at the time, said he never considered leaving. Trump later said they had a good relationship but criticized Tillerson for being weak.

Tillerson's State Department has also been at odds with the White House over various global issues, including rising tensions over North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

Richard Haas, president of the Council of Foreign Relations, said Trump's comments spelled trouble not just for the current secretary but for overall American foreign policy.

"It's not just about Rex Tillerson, it's about who comes after Rex Tillerson. If the president is not determined to make sure his secretary of state will succeed, the secretary of state can't succeed," Haass told CBS News on Friday.

Tillerson has made overhauling the department a top priority and tightened control by consolidating his authority. Critics have decried the reorganization and unfilled key jobs at a time when international crises continue around the world with Syria, Iran, and elsewhere.

At a meeting of former national security advisers last month in Washington, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told H.R. McMaster, Trumps national security advisor, that the administration was gutting the state department. McMaster replied that there were people who did not support the presidents agenda, two people present told Reuters.

On Thursday, Trump said many of the posts were not needed and that he is "not happy" with others already there.

"I want my vision, but my vision is my vision," he said. "Rex is in there working hard ... hes doing the best he can."
New York: The Islamic State militant group has claimed responsibility, without giving evidence, for a truck attack in New York City earlier this week that killed eight people, the deadliest act of suspected terrorism to strike the city since September 11, 2001.

The accused attacker Sayfullo Saipov, 29, "is one of the caliphate soldiers," the militant group said on Thursday in a weekly issue of its Al-Naba newspaper.

Saipov was charged in federal court on Wednesday with acting in support of Islamic State by plowing the truck down a popular riverside bike trail, injuring a dozen people in addition to those killed.

According to the complaint filed against him, Saipov told investigators he was inspired by watching Islamic State propaganda videos on his cellphone, felt good about what he had done, and asked for permission to display the militant group's flag in his room at Bellevue Hospital.

Saipov was taken to Bellevue after he was shot in the abdomen by a police officer at the time of his arrest.

US President Donald Trump reiterated his call on Thursday for the death penalty against the Uzbek immigrant.

Trump had on Wednesday suggested sending Saipov to the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba, where terrorism suspects apprehended overseas are incarcerated, but he said on Thursday doing so would be too complicated.
Washington: The US is mulling to designate North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, the White House has said, as President Donald Trump embarks on his five-nation Asia trip on Friday during which the issue of the reclusive nation will be taken up prominently.

"That is an option that's under consideration," the National Security Adviser H R McMaster told reporters at a White House news conference when asked if designating North Korea a State Sponsor of terrorism is an option for the United States.

"The president's cabinet is looking at this as part of the overall strategy on North Korea," he said.

McMaster lashed out at the North Korean regime for the "murder" of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged brother of its dictator Kim Jong-Un.

"A regime who murders someone in a public airport using nerve agent, and a despotic leader who murders his brother in that manner, that's clearly an act of terrorism that fits with a range of other actions. So this is something that's under consideration. And you'll hear more about that soon, I think," McMaster said.

McMaster said there is a concerted effort to isolate North Korea economically. And that has been combined with a major diplomatic effort that asks all countries to do more, he said adding that there's tremendous momentum behind that now.

"We have seen countries across the Indo-Pacific region, but globally, doing more to expel these really, in effect, North Korea slave labourers who are a big source of income for the regime, to shut down a lot of illicit trafficking that was aimed to circumvent the UN sanctions; to shut down a lot of the money-making enterprises of this regime, often times run out of their embassies," he said.

There have been a lot of expulsion of ambassadors, elements of the diplomatic corps, a restriction on this kind of activity, he said, noting that the president welcomes that and appreciates it.

China, he said, is definitely doing more, but obviously, it's not enough.

"What's really essential to remember about China's approach to this is, China recognises this isn't the United States or anyone else asking China to do us a favour. China recognises it is clearly in the interest of China and all nations to denuclearise the peninsula," he said.

McMaster rued that approaches in the past have not delivered on halting and then reversing North Korea's "very dangerous" nuclear and missile programs.

"We are out of time to do that because of how these programs have advanced over time. It's time for a really concerted effort to do everything of us to resolve this sort of military action," he said.

Responding to another question, he highlighted three elements of foundation for the multinational approach to North Korea.

"The first of these is a recognition that North Korea is not just a threat to the United States. Everyone acknowledges, China especially, that this is a problem between North Korea and the world," he said.

The second thing, he said, is the universal acknowledgement that denuclearisation of the peninsula is the only acceptable outcome.

"No more freeze for freeze, suspension for suspension," he said.

In addition, McMaster said, "China's acknowledgement that it's acting in its interest obviously, but that China has a great deal of coercive economic power."
Washington: The Senate on Friday confirmed by a voice vote the nomination of Kenneth Juster as the next US Ambassador to India.

Juster, 62, is an old India hand who played a key role in the landmark Indo-US civil nuclear deal.

He would replace Richard Verma as the top American diplomat to India. The position has been lying vacant since January 20 after Verma resigned from the post with the swearing in of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States.

The latest development follows Juster's nomination confirmation which was on last Friday agreed by the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee by a voice vote, reflecting the bipartisan support his nomination has in the Congress.

Juster is soon expected to be headed to India for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Hyderabad later this month. The annual summit is being co-hosted by India and the United States.

Trumps senior adviser and daughter Ivanka Trump will be leading a high-powered American delegation of entrepreneurs to the GES, which will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Powerful Democratic Senator Mark Warner welcomed the Senate confirmation of Juster.

"I was proud to support Ken's nomination to be our country's representative in India, one of our most important defence partners in the region," he said.

"I have known Ken since we were in law school in the 1970s. As Ambassador, I trust his decades of work on critical issues like trade, cybersecurity and defence will help advance the US-India relationship in a positive direction," Warner said.

Juster was nominated to be the Ambassador to India on September 5. He has over 35 years of experience as a senior business executive, senior law partner, and senior government official, including serving as the US Under Secretary of Commerce from 2001 to 2005.

Juster founded and served as the US Chair of the US-India High Technology Cooperation Group, and was one of the key architects of the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership initiative between the United States and India.

His work related to India played an important role in the transformation of the US-India relationship and helped provide the foundation for the historic civil nuclear agreement between the two countries.

Most recently, Juster had served as the Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council.

Juster played a key role in enhancing the Indo-US ties under the Bush administration.

Juster has also served as the Counsellor (acting) of the State Department from 1992-1993, and deputy and senior adviser to the Deputy Secretary of State from 1989-1992.

In the private sector, he has been a partner at the investment firm Warburg Pincus LLC, Executive Vice President at Salesforce.com, and senior partner at the law firm Arnold & Porter.

He has also served as Chairman of Harvard University's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and as Vice Chairman of The Asia Foundation.

Juster holds a law degree from the Harvard Law School, a masters degree in Public Policy from the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and a bachelors degree in Government from Harvard College.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday responded to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's congratulatory message by expressing his hope for development in China-North Korea relations.

"I wish that under the new situation, the Chinese side would make efforts with the [North Korean] side to promote relations between the two parties and the two countries to sustainable soundness and stable development and thus make a positive contribution to... defending regional peace and stability and common prosperity," Xi wrote in the message, according to the official [North] Korean Central News Agency.

No stories about the message appeared in the Chinese state media.

According to KCNA, Xi thanked Kim for his message and referred him as "comrade." The word "friendship" was conspicuously absent.
Washington: US bombers accompanied by Japanese and South Korean warplanes flew a mission in the South Korea region amid high regional tensions, the US Air Force said.

Two supersonic B-1B Lancer bombers on Thursday took off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, then flew south of South Korea and west of Japan where they were joined by Japan Air Self-Defence Force fighters, the US Pacific Air Force said in a statement.

"The Lancers then transited overland to Korea to integrate with Republic of Korea fighters in the Yellow Sea," the statement read, adding that the aircraft later returned "to their respective home stations."

The statement noted that the exercise was part of the "continuous bomber presence" mission in the Pacific and was planned in advance.

It "was not in response to any current event," the statement said.

Still, the operation follows an October 10 "show of force" in which two Lancers staged the first night-time joint aviation exercises with Japan and South Korea.

Regional tensions on the Korean Peninsula remain high and Pyongyang may be preparing for another missile test, South Korea's spy agency reportedly said Thursday.

North Korea in July launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles apparently capable of reaching the US mainland -- described by leader Kim Jong-Un as a gift to "American bastards."

It followed up with two missiles that passed over Japan, and its sixth nuclear test.

US President Donald Trump, who has warned of "fire and fury" in response to North Korean threats, begins on Friday an Asian tour that will include a visit to South Korea. The trip is set to be dominated by the North Korea nuclear issue.
A Faber man pleaded guilty to six felony charges Tuesday in connection with an April shooting and high-speed car chase in Nelson County.

James Jeffrey Harris, 21, appeared before Nelson County Circuit Court Judge Michael Garrett and was found guilty of one count each of malicious wounding, use of a firearm in commission of a felony, possession or use of a sawed-off shotgun, eluding police, shooting from a vehicle so as to endanger persons and receiving or buying from another person stolen property valued at more than $200.

Harris was driving a black 1998 Honda Civic and his ex-girlfriend Caylin Craig said she was driving a black SUV on April 27, according to prosecutors evidence.

Craig said she and her cousin were driving on Rockfish River Road when she saw Harris, who turned around and began to follow them, according to court documents. Harris began to shoot at the SUV, which Craig estimated to be about eight rounds or so, said Nelson County Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Erik Laub.

Former Deputy D. Jones of the Nelson County Sheriffs Office was dispatched to a shots fired call and observed the two vehicles at Davis Creek Lane going around 90 miles per hour, Laub said.

During the high-speed chase, Harris proceeded south on U.S. 29 headed toward Lovingston. Members of the Nelson County Sheriffs Office and Virginia State Police followed Harris reaching speeds in the mid-90s. Capt. Robert New of the Nelson County Sheriffs Office saw the Honda Civic attempting to run the SUV off the road several times, Laub said.

As the chase continued down U.S. 29, Harris attempted to maneuver around a box truck, passing it on the right shoulder, when New ordered him to stop the vehicle. Harris lost control, spun out in the lane and hit the guardrail on the left side and was able to recover. He gained speeds in excess of 110 miles per hour, Laub said.

As he approached Rockfish River Road, he attempted a right turn, lost control, drove through an intersection and wrecked into a nearby hill, where New removed Harris from the vehicle at gunpoint, according to court records.

Harris said he shot at the SUV three times because his ex-girlfriend was seeing another man, who he thought was in the vehicle, according to prosecutors evidence. Harris also said he had used methamphetamine earlier in the day and was coming down, Laub said.

Harris said the car might be stolen because his friend said Harris could use the car but dont get stopped, Laub said. Jeanette Hallman owned the car and valued the vehicle at approximately $1,500, according to prosecutors evidence. She said she didnt give anyone permission or authority to take or use the vehicle. The vehicle was stolen from Augusta County, Laub said.

Harris could face up to 58 years and must serve a minimum of three years for the malicious wounding charge.

As part of a plea agreement, Laub agreed to drop one firearm-related charge if Harris agreed to plead guilty on the other six charges.

If Harris provides information regarding the stolen Honda Civic before his sentencing, the one count charge of buying or receiving from another person stolen property valued at more than $200 could be dropped, Laub said.

Harris will be sentenced at 10:30 a.m. Feb. 27.
Two former Cheong Wa Dae secretaries have testified that ex-president Park Geun-hye ordered them to take regular delivery of illicit cash from the National Intelligence Service.

Prosecutors questioned Lee Jae-man and Ahn Bong-geun in the course of a probe into corruption in the NIS. They plan to question Park soon and bring additional bribery charges against her if the evidence holds water.

According to prosecutors, Lee and Ahn said they received around W4 billion from the NIS at Park's orders over three years starting in March 2013 (US$1=W1,115). They were given about W50-100 million a month in bags that were handed over near the presidential office.

Earlier, prosecutors sought arrest warrants for Lee and Ahn on charges of taking bribes and causing losses to state funds, but the two passed the blame to Park and claimed the money was used to "govern" the nation. They were unable or unwilling to say what exactly the money was used for.
Thae Yong-ho, the senior-most North Korean official to defect to South Korea in decades, testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill on Thursday. He told U.S. lawmakers that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is developing nuclear weapons to gain leverage for direct talks with the U.S. and get American troops to withdraw from South Korea. Kim believes that would in turn cause all foreign investors to pull out of South Korea, triggering a South Vietnam-style collapse. This preposterous scenario seems to be Kim's "roadmap."

Just a year ago, Thae was the No. 2 in the North Korean Embassy in London, so his comments on the workings of the North Korean leader's mind should not be taken lightly. And there is a modicum of truth in the fantasy. If the U.S. concludes that North Korea has a workable nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile, it could choose either to strike North Korean targets or hold direct talks. And if direct talks take place, Kim will certainly demand the pullout of U.S. troops from South Korea.

Just a couple of years ago, it was widely thought that North Korea's nuclear weapons programs aimed only to ensure the survival of the regime. This led to the misconception that guaranteeing the regime security would prompt Kim to abandon nuclear weapons and missile development. But no country can guarantee the survival of another regime, and Kim knows this very well -- he saw what happened to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi when he gave up his nuclear ambitions.

The biggest threat to Kim's hold on power is the thriving South Korean economy just south of the border. To his mind, he must destroy or defeat the South to guarantee his grip on power, and he will use his nukes for that purpose.

A nation's security entails preparing for the worst-case scenario. What is South Korea's strategy for such a situation? One White House official recently claimed he is being kept awake by fears of North Korean nuclear weapons, which highlights how much importance the U.S. attaches to the matter. But which South Korean government official is having any problems sleeping? North Korea is only waiting to launch its next provocation.


MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai  who was flown to South Africa last week after his condition had deteriorated  is said to be in high spirits, and looking forward to contest in the 2018 polls.



His spokesperson, Luke Tamborinyoka, told the Daily News yesterday that Tsvangirai was more concerned about progress on the Biometric Voter Registration exercise, currently being conducted by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission throughout the country.

Tamborinyoka said to fall sick was testimony to the mortality of human life, adding his boss will be home soon.



President Tsvangirai is still winding up is health issues. He is still on medical review in South Africa but there is no reason for the nation to panic. The peoples leader is well out of danger, he said.



He is fine and despite his temporary indisposition, he continues to attend to those issues that require his personal attention, such as the platform of the MDC Alliance principals, where he continues to provide leadership and direction, added Tamborinyoka.

Tsvangirai was airlifted to the neighbouring country mid last week in the company of his wife, Elizabeth.



He has been to South Africa on more than a dozen times since he publicly revealed that he was fighting cancer of the colon in June last year.



The MDC leader was last flown to South Africa mid September, where he spent close to a month holed in a top-notch hospital.



Since then, he has taken a backseat from the gruelling political duties on the advice of his doctors who have asked him to take a sabbatical from politics.



Tamborinyoka said while there were some who have expressed concern whether he is fit enough to stand the rigors of a grueling election campaign, for now there are no such fears as Tsvangirai is well out of any danger.



There are no such fears for now because we are talking of a man who takes seriously the values of transparency, integrity and honesty. That is why he went public about his health.

He has an unstinting faith in the values of honesty and transparency, particularly in national leadership and that is why, on 27 June last year, he went public about his affliction.



If, and when, he feels he cannot withstand the election, which is not the case for now, he will not last a minute longer than his health can allow him.



He is a man I have worked closely with for more than a decade; a man who puts a premium on the interests of the people of Zimbabwe, said Tamborinyoka.

He said Tsvangirai will not allow his health to become an impediment to the realisation of the national dream.



Like every one of us, Tamborinyoka said his boss was mortal.

We all fall sick sometimes but that is no reason for morbid speculations not grounded on objective facts, he said.



And we cannot punish or crucify him for that honesty by concocting all sorts of innuendos and unlikely scenarios. He has already shown his qualitative difference from the familiar cultivar of unfaithful and dishonest leadership that occupies the station of our government today. MT is not one to force things.



I speak to him every day and there is no reason for anyone to panic or express any misgivings about his candidature next year. For now he remains our best (foot) forward and for now there is absolutely no reason for the nation to be in any state of apprehension. The peoples hope is still capable to run, he added.



His mounting health woes have also thrown the partys preparations for the crucial 2018 elections in shambles with the coalition he leads now lacking direction while his partys 18th anniversary has been on ice for a couple of months now due to his absence.

The MDC currently has three vice presidents namely Nelson Chamisa, Thokozani Khupe and Elias Mudzuri.









MDC insiders told the Daily News that there is a silent war brewing between factions in the countrys largest opposition party as Tsvangirai continues to excuse himself from critical party businesses due to his heath woes. Daily News
No Charges for Cops

in Killing of Man Who

Was 'Biking While Black'
Rick Perry said Thursday that fossil fuels, far from harming people in third-world countries via climate change, can actually prevent sexual assaults, Politico reports. According to the Hill, the Energy secretary was speaking at an event with Meet the Press host Chuck Todd and the CEO of Axios. Perry, who had been in South Africa last week, said a young girl told him she wanted electricity so she didn't have to read by the light of a fire. "But also from the standpoint of sexual assault," Perry said. When the lights are on, when you have light that shinesthe righteousness, if you willon those types of acts."

President Trump has called for expanding exports of fossil fuels, and Perry was responding to a protester who yelled that fossil fuels are killing people in poor countries via climate change. The Los Angeles Times reports the Sierra Club has called for Perry to resign over the comments. "To suggest that fossil fuel development will decrease sexual assault is not only blatantly untrue, it is an inexcusable attempt to minimize a serious and pervasive issue," the environmental organization states. (Read more Rick Perry stories.)
One week after 27 New York employees of local news sites DNAinfo and Gothamist voted to unionize, they were out of a job, the New York Daily News reports. But they weren't alone. The 89 employees at DNAinfo and Gothamist-affiliated sites in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, DC, also found themselves suddenly out of work Thursday, according to the Los Angeles Times. "I yelled a lot and somebody told me to stop," Gothamist reporter David Colon tells the New York Times. "Now we're all trying to figure out what to do." Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of Ameritrade TD who started DNAinfo in 2009 and acquired Gothamist in March, said in a statement posted online that "progress toward building DNAinfo into a successful business ... hasn't been sufficient."

A spokesperson for DNAinfo says the unionization of employees was "simply another competitive obstacle making it harder for the business to be financially successful." Employees had voted to unionize for better pay. After the vote, DNAinfo reporter Katie Honan said journalism "should be a career for people, not a postcollege hobby." But Ricketts, a Trump donor, has expressed anti-union views in the past, saying in September that a union "destroys the esprit de corps businesses need to succeed." A DNAinfo executive also warned employees that unionization could cause the sites to close. "I'm very adamant that the union didn't kill DNAinfo and Gothamist, Joe Ricketts made the decision to kill Gothamist and DNAinfo," Gothamist reporter Scott Heins says. All stories on the closed sites disappeared Thursday, but a DNAinfo official says they will be archived. (Read more labor unions stories.)
A man will remain on life support in Canada for the time being, despite the fact that his death certificate has already been issued. Toronto's Shalom Ouanounou, 25, was declared brain dead three days after suffering an asthma attack on Sept. 27, reports the Canadian Press. But while Canadian guidelines define death as the irreversible end of brain function and breathing ability, Ouanounou's Orthodox Jewish family is fighting to keep Ouanounou on life support based on their religion's assertion that death occurs only when the heart stops beating. Though the case has yet to be decided, a judge granted a temporary injunction Wednesday to keep Ouanounou on a ventilator and feeding tube at Humber River Hospital. The family's lawyer says the move came just in time.

"They were going to pull the plug tomorrow," Hugh Scher told the Canadian Press on Wednesday. Had that happened, Ouanounou would've suffered "the ultimate irreparable harm," his father wrote in a court affidavit. The BBC quotes it as explaining that "Shalom's belief is that discontinuing life support in these circumstances is murder and therefore contrary to his fundamental belief in the sanctity of human life." "Both the family and the community are committed to having this question addressed," Scher says, while acknowledging Ouanounou could meet his religion's definition of death before that happens. He adds "the definition of death in Canada must reflect the accommodation of religious difference," per the New York Daily News. Hospital officials haven't commented. (Read the latest development in the somewhat similar case of Jahi McMath.)
The man accused of killing three people at a Walmart in suburban Denver Wednesday night abruptly walked off his job hours earlier, his employer says. David Heidt at B&M Roofing tells the AP that he's "bewildered." He says Scott Ostrem, 47, was a good worker who never caused any problems during his three years as a metal fabricator for the company. Neighbors, however, describe Ostrem as angry, rude, and apparently friendless. "Dude had an attitude, big time," one neighbor says. "He's the type of person if you said, 'Good morning,' he wouldn't say nothing." Records show that Ostrem, who filed for bankruptcy in 2015, has had at least 11 Denver-area addresses since 1991.

The investigation was slowed down by the fact that several shoppers in the Thornton store pulled out their own guns when the suspect started firing, police say. Thornton police spokesman Victor Avila tells the Denver Post that the armed shoppers made it difficult to single out the real shooter from surveillance footage. Avila says it ended up taking more than five hours to identify Ostrem, who was arrested after a brief car chase Thursday. CBS Denver reports that the victims, who were apparently killed at random, have been identified as 66-year-old grandfather Carlos Moreno, 52-year-old grandmother Pamela Marques, and Victor Vasquez, 26. According to a GoFundMe page, Vasquez was the father of two little girls and had a third child on the way. (Read more mass shootings stories.)
The North Korea situation is heating up againjust in time for President Trump's visit to the region. On Thursday, two Guam-based American B-1B Lancer strategic bombers joined Japanese and South Korean jets for drills near the Korean Peninsula, Reuters reports. American authorities describe the exercises as a routine mission, but Pyongyang called it a "surprise nuclear strike drill." The move "clearly shows that the gangster-like US imperialists are the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean Peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war," North Korea said in a statement, per NBC News. The US military says the bombers were reconfigured decades ago to carry conventional weapons, not nuclear ones.

According to South Korea's spy agency, there has been "active movement of vehicles around a missile research institute in Pyongyang," suggesting more missile or nuclear tests could be imminent, CNN reports. North Korean authorities said Thursday that a report hundreds of people died in a tunnel collapse at a nuclear site was "fake news." The AP reports that later Thursday, National Security Adviser HR McMaster told reporters that North Korea will be a main focus of talks with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines during Trump's 12-day trip to Asia, which begins Friday. He added that the president "will use whatever language he wants to use" when discussing North Korea. (White House officials say Trump will not be visiting the DMZ.)
The latest accusations against Kevin Spacey bring the timeline of alleged sexual assault and harassment up to the present: No fewer than eight current and former House of Cards employees tell CNN that the star's behavior, including groping and crude comments, made the set of the Netflix show a "toxic" working environment. The show halted production earlier this week. The workerswho asked to stay anonymous out of fear of ruining their careerssay Spacey targeted young male staffers in a "predatory" manner. One former production assistant says he was in a car on the way to the set with Spacey when the actor suddenly put his hands down his pants. The worker says the nonconsensual touching from someone in a "very powerful position on the show" left him "in a state of shock."

The production assistant says after arriving on set, Spacey cornered him in his trailer and made "inappropriate contact." He says after he told Spacey what he was doing wasn't OK, Spacey became "flustered" and left for the rest of the day. House of Cards producer Media Rights Capital says Spacey was reported for sexual harassment in 2012 and it is "deeply troubled" by the new allegations, per the Hollywood Reporter. MRC says it has set up a complaint hotline and legal assistance for workers. In a separate allegation, a man who is now 48 tells Vulture that he had a sexual relationship with Spacey when he was 14 and the actor was 24. He says they met around five times and there was a lot of "physical activity"but Spacey then tried to rape him. He says he fought the actor off and fled, and Spacey later broke off contact with him. (Read more Kevin Spacey stories.)
A leader of a Mexican fuel-theft gang was shot to death at a hospital where he was undergoing plastic surgery to change his appearance, authorities say. Puebla state prosecutors say Jesus Martin, a woman, and two other men were killed at the hospital Monday, apparently by members of his own gang, the AP reports. The killing comes amid an upsurge in bloodshed involving pipeline thieves in the state, where at least 16 people have been slain this week in apparent disputes between gangs. The most recent killings claimed four victims on a rural road Tuesday in Palmar de Bravo, a township known as a center for fuel thieves.

Fuel thieves drill an average of 28 illegal pipeline taps every day in Mexico. State authorities have said the gang fighting has occurred in part because a police crackdown that has made it harder to steal fuel. The main suspect in Martin's killing has also been implicated in the slayings of five people in the town of Tlaltenango, in a vacant lot that apparently served as a base for fuel thieves, officials say. Prosecutors say Martin had also tried to have his fingerprints removed, and doctors at the hospital in the state capital are being investigated for possible complicity.

(Read more Mexico stories.)
Educational development, prioritized in the report to the 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress, received a 3.14 trillion yuan ($475.48 billion) investment last year, a 7.44-percent year-on-year growth. The big financial boost has greatly supported key educational fields and helped lead to a more equitable distribution of educational funds in many regions.

Funding was focused on compulsory education, central and west regions, teaching staff wages, and financial aid to students.

Under the principles of preserving educational foundations, ensuring that no basic educational needs go unmet, strengthening areas of weakness, and promoting educational equity, the central and regional authorities exerted efforts to extend financial educational funds far and wide.

Beijings enforcement of last years financial budgets ensured subsidies for increasing enrollment in preschool education and funds for tuition. Meanwhile, coverage of premium educational resources was extended to more primary and middle schools.

Increasing premium educational supplies, optimizing allocation of education funds, and expanding fundamental subsidies are high on the agenda for some regional authorities. Related statistics showed that Beijing increased resource supplies for compulsory education; Sichuan province pushed forward improvements in vocational schools operation conditions, and Hunan province fully funded the implementation of a robust nutrition improvement project for rural compulsory education students in 51 impoverished counties.

The 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) for education development issued by the State Council ensured that fiscal expenditures on education is no less than 4 percent of GDP, and demanded a more rational distribution in the utilization of educational funds.

Aside from a steady growth in fiscal expenditures on education and an investment in educational facilities, there should be a considerable reduction in administrative costs and a further investment in faculty resources, curriculum, and campus culture, said Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the National Institute of Education Sciences. He also proposed financial support for nongovernmental compulsory schools.
Teachers and staff of an Oregon public school district are disturbed at a district rule requiring them to report any student sexual activitywhether they know about it for a fact or just suspect it, and even if it involves their own childrento law enforcement or state officials. According to the Salem-Keizer district, the requirement is necessary under the state's mandatory reporting and child abuse lawsall district employees are mandatory reporters and as such are required to report when they have "reasonable cause" to suspect a child is being abusedbut the Statesman Journal reports that most other school districts in the state don't consider consensual sexual activity between teens to be something teachers are required to report. More than 1,300 people have signed an online petition asking the school board chairman to put an end to the requirement.

The superintendent explains the policy is not new, but the district recently added a training session dealing with situations employees would be required to report. Some of those situations included things like a 15-year-old confiding that she's having sex with her boyfriend and needs birth control, a 14-year-old telling a teacher his parents kicked him out over a same-sex relationship that has turned sexual, or a teacher's own 17-year-old son confessing his 16-year-old girlfriend is pregnant. Employees and students alike say they're concerned that under this requirement, students will lose trusted confidantes at school and will have a harder time getting access to information about safe sex. A district spokesperson tells KATU she has been in touch with a legislator about the law's interpretation, and adds to Newsweek that the district is "erring on the side of caution." (Read more sex stories.)
President Trump sat down with Laura Ingraham Thursday night, and when the Fox News host pressed him on why there are still so many vacancies for top posts in the State Department, he seemed nonplussed. "Let me tell you, the one that matters is me," Trump said, per the Hill. "I'm the only one that matters because when it comes to it that's what the policy is going to be." He also reminded Ingraham that he comes from the business world and that he often tells his own teams, "When you don't need to fill slots, don't fill them." He also put some of the blame on "[Chuck] Schumer and the Democrats" for "obstructing" nominees he's made for these positions, though a Washington Post/Partnership for Public Service tracker points out he's made far fewer nominations than the four presidents before him by this time in their tenure.

Trump did touch upon one slot that's filled at State: Rex Tillerson's post. Per Politico, the president was asked if the secretary of state would remain with his administration "for the duration," to which Trump replied: "We'll see. I don't know who's going to be [here for the] duration." He did add that Tillerson was "working hard" and "doing his best." Also receiving mentions from Trump: Pyongyang and Putin. Trump called North Korea a "thing that I think we will solve," per Fox News. "If we don't solve it, it's not going to be very pleasant for them. It's not going to be very pleasant, I guess, for anybody," he said, without giving further details. As for the Russian president, Trump noted he wouldn't be against meeting with him during his upcoming trip to Asia. "Putin is very important because they can help us with North Korea," he said. RealClearPolitics has clips from the interview. (Read more President Trump stories.)
What pushed Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock to kill 58 people and wound more than 500 others last month? It's still not clear, but in a new interview with Vegas' 8 News Now, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo says that while the 64-year-old was "status-driven based on how he liked to be recognized in the casino environment and how he liked to be recognized by his friends and family," he had "lost a significant amount of wealth" since September 2015 and was showing signs of depression, the Los Angeles Times reports. Lombardo also said Paddock's girlfriend Marilou Danley remains a "person of interest." "For this individual to do it at a certain point in time and to do it all with such robust action, you would think that Ms. Danley would have some information associated with that," he said, per the New York Post.

Lombardo also attempted to further clarify the shooting timeline, noting that the security guard who was shot, Jesus Campos, called in to report a barricaded door to the Mandalay Bay's 32nd floor at 9:59pm. He made it to the 32nd floor a few minutes later by walking to the 33rd floor and taking the elevator back down, was shot outside Paddock's door, and called in to report that. Lombardo didn't give specific times for those developments, but said Paddock started shooting on the crowd at 10:05pm and that two Las Vegas Metropolitan PD officers were able to make it to the 32nd floor about 10 minutes after that; they had been on the scene already for another call. He called it a "pretty amazing" response time and noted that Paddock had stopped firing by the time they arrived, per the Washington Post, so their response then became "slow and methodical." (Read more Las Vegas shooting stories.)
A 911 caller in Ohio who told the dispatcher "there's a lot of blood" after he came across the body of his future mother-in-law is now being accused of her murder. "Jeffery William Scullin Jr. has been charged with aggravated murder," Strongsville Police Chief Mark Fender told reporters at a Tuesday press conference, which WOIO notes took place eight days after the killing of 49-year-old Melinda Pleskovic. Scullin, 20, was engaged to Pleskovic's daughter and lived in the Pleskovic home. People reports he arrived at the home with Pleskovic's husband, Bruce, on Oct. 23 to find the sixth-grade teacher's body on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood. She'd been shot and stabbed several times.

Bruce Pleskovic told a 911 dispatcher there'd been recent break-ins at their home, but cops say he may have thought that based on info fed to him by Scullin. Scullin, who made a separate 911 call, told the dispatcher it didn't look like anyone had broken in. He says he grabbed his own daughter and Pleskovic's sonWKYC notes the 18-year-old has Down syndromeand went outside without surveying the scene more carefully. Scullin was set to marry Pleskovic's daughter on the Saturday after the slaying, but instead he was said to have served as a pallbearer at her funeral. Per court records cited by WKYC, a knife with Pleskovic's blood was found in Scullin's pickup truck, among other evidence. Scullin is being held on a $1 million bond. (This man killed his mom and two brothers weeks before his planned wedding.)
New York City terror suspect Sayfullo Saipov was allegedly quick to reference ISIS, while the militant group stayed mum. That's changed. Reuters reports the Islamic State claimed responsibility Thursday in its own Al-Naba paper for the attack, saying that the 29-year-old is "one of the caliphate soldiers." Although investigators are still looking into Saipov's background, the criminal complaint against him says he told officials he was glad he'd carried out the attack, gained inspiration for it by viewing ISIS propaganda clips on his phone, and wanted to put up an ISIS flag in his room at Bellevue Hospital, where he's recovering after being shot in the abdomen by NYPD officer Ryan Nash.

CNN reports that ISIS didn't use Saipov's name in its claim and offers no evidence to back that claim up, including any showing that ISIS helped plan the attack or even knew about it beforehand. The site notes the wording is similar what it used after the Pulse Orlando shooting and a 2016 attack in Nice, France. CNN adds this is the first time ISIS has posted such a claim first in its newspaper rather than via its Amaq News Agency. Per ABC News, the ISIS statement also mentioned that the attack took place "close to the monument for the 9/11 raid" and, oddly, claimed that "60 crusaders" were killed or injured in the Halloween attack; the official count so far is eight dead, around a dozen wounded. (Read more Sayfullo Saipov stories.)
Russian authorities are investigating whether 141 Baikal earless seals starved to death after their carcasses washed up in Siberia on the shoreline of the world's deepest lake, officials said Friday. The dead seals started appearing along Lake Baikal last weekend, the Irkutsk region's government said in a statement. Most of the seals were pregnant females, reports the AP. The population of the Baikal earless seals, or nerpa, is estimated to be around 130,000. The lake near the Mongolian border, 2,600 miles east of Moscow, contains 20% of the world's non-frozen freshwater and is home to 1,500 species of plants and animals that exist nowhere else in the world; it's more than 5,500 feet deep.

Alexei Kalinin, environment prosecutor for the West Baikal, told the Interfax news agency earlier this week that one of the likeliest causes of the deaths could be the scarcity of food because of the growing nerpa population. "The dead animals were all hungry. There was no food in their stomachs," Kalinin said. Authorities have ruled out a disease outbreak and say lab samples haven't shown what could have killed the animals.The population of the nerpas, Baikal's only mammal, shot up after hunting them was outlawed in 2009. A number of scientists and local leaders, however, have called for allowing limited hunting to control the growing population. (Scientists say the lake is in trouble.)
Head to the Trump Twitter archive, type in "Rosie," and you can see in scathing detail the online manifestation of the longtime feud between the president and Rosie O'Donnell. But did we ever really know what started it? O'Donnell offered her take Thursday night on Late Night With Seth Meyers, after the host pointed out that Trump had been going after O'Donnell for what seems like forever, per the Daily Beast. "Over a decade," O'Donnell confirmed, before revealing that she believed the brouhaha all started after something she said on TV when she was co-hosting The View. O'Donnell notes that after Tara Conner, Miss USA 2006, was caught engaging in underage drinking and tested positive for cocaine use that year, Trump announced at a presser he would forgive her.

Rosie remembers thinking, "What is he, the pimp and she's the prostitute? He's the moral arbiter of 20-year-old behavior now, right?" And so she scoured the internet (she says she went on Wikipedia) and found some "easily accessible" nuggetsincluding that Trump went "bankrupt four times, that he got all his money from his father, and that he notoriously cheats private contractors out of their money"and then shared them on The View. And that, she says, is when Trump went "bats--- crazy." O'Donnell and Meyers also dished on the Robert Mueller Russia investigation, with Meyers noting, "I will say that if Trump gets indicted, it would be really great if Mueller let you serve the papers." O'Donnell replied, "I have put in that request by tweet. I'm waiting to hear." (Read more Rosie O'Donnell stories.)
It was either a candid admission or a novel way of getting out of jury duty. A woman in Florida was ultimately rejected after she said she found the defendant in a murder trial so attractive that it might affect her judgment, reports LawNewz. Her admission came despite the grisly nature of the case: Adam Matos is accused of killing four people in Hudson three years ago: his ex-girlfriend, her new boyfriend, and her parents, reports Fox 13.

During a discussion about the jury panel, the judge raised the issue about the potential juror. "I'm more concerned about what she said yesterday about the defendant being 'attractive' and that causing her to be 'distracted' and that might cause bias," said Judge Mary Handsel. "Those statements are more concerning to me. The woman didn't make the final cut. Jury selection was especially important because the prosecution plans to ask for the death penalty if Matos is convicted, notes the Tampa Bay Times, which has background on the case. (Read more juror stories.)
Lou Diamond Phillips spent a night behind bars after asking a cop for directions while allegedly drunk behind the wheel. Phillips was driving in Portland, Texas, around 1:35am Friday when he pulled up behind a police vehicle at a traffic stop, reports KRIS 6. Phillips reportedly told the officer who approached his vehicle that he was lost, then asked for directions. The officer immediately suspected the actor was intoxicated, however, and asked him to take a field sobriety test, reports TMZ.

Best known for roles in La Bamba and Stand and Deliver, Phillipswho was scheduled to speak at an event in Corpus Christi later Friday, per USA Todayfailed the test. TMZ reports he was then taken to a police station for a breath test and blew 0.20, or more than two times the legal limit. The 55-year-old actor remained in San Patricio County Jail as of 8am Friday. He is expected to attend a bail hearing later in the day, reports the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. (Read more Lou Diamond Phillips stories.)
He faced life in prison, but Bowe Bergdahl will serve no jail time at all for abandoning his military post in Afghanistan and endangering the troops sent to search for him. Instead, he will receive a dishonorable discharge, the New York Times reports. The military judge in the case also reduced his rank from sergeant to private and ordered him to forfeit $1,000 a month in pay for 10 months. Judge Col. Jeffery Nance, who CNN notes Bergdahl picked over a jury, didn't provide reasoning for the sentencing. "Sgt. Bergdahl has looked forward to today for a long time," his civilian attorney says. "He has lost nearly a decade of his life." Bergdahl, who pleaded guilty last month, has a job offer from an animal sanctuary and may get a gig helping a military official design survival training, the AP reports.

While a life sentence was on the table and prosecutors were asking for 14 years in military prison, Bergdahl's defense argued he had been punished enough during five years of tortuous captivity at the hands of the Taliban and "probably should not have been in the Army" due to an undiagnosed severe personality disorder. President Trump had called for the "dirty rotten traitor" to be executed in comments Nance called "disturbing." (The judge rejected a request to dismiss the trial over Trump's comments, but said he would factor them into sentencing.) Following Friday's sentencing, the president tweeted: "The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military." Bergdahl is appealing his dishonorable discharge, which must be upheld by a general and the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals. If it stands, Bergdahl will lose most or all of his veterans' benefits. (Read more Bowe Bergdahl stories.)
The State Council executive meeting on Oct 30 decided to abolish the business tax, which has been in force for over 60 years.

The meeting decided to put an end to the provisional regulations on business tax and revise the provisional regulations on value-added tax (VAT).

Premier Li Keqiang said as the overall promotion of the VAT reform was consolidated by legislation, the business tax comes to an end.

In order to consolidate and expand the achievement of the VAT reform in tax reduction, relevant laws and regulations should be amended accordingly, the Premier said.

In 2012, the VAT reform was first carried out in Shanghais transportation industry and part of its service industry. That was another move of the government to cut taxes, a major step at the time as it was facing declining fiscal revenue in an economic downturn caused by the international financial crisis and unbalanced domestic growth structure.

It seemed a risky move, but we have made it, the Premier said.

In order to carry out the reform in a safe and orderly way, a pilot program was carried out in some industries and regions before the VAT was expanded nationwide, he said.

Rintaro Tamaki, deputy secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), said that despite various difficulties, China has effectively guarded against possible risks and made remarkable achievements in its VAT reform.

The Wall Street Journal said that the overall implementation of Chinas VAT reform has a pioneering significance for the VAT reform in the world.

Statistics revealed that the VAT reform has not only released tax burden in all sectors but also effectively expanded the tax base. By now 1.7 trillion yuan ($257 billion) accumulated tax has been reduced for enterprises and the monthly increase of the number of tax payers in four major industries  construction, real estate, finance and services  reached 140,000 in 2017.

Premier Li said the smooth implementation of VAT reform has further injected vitality in the market and economy which laid solid foundation for positive economic growth.

The Premier urged further consolidation and expansion of the valuable results achieved by VAT reform and continued efforts to improve related polices. For now, transitional and supportive policies in some industries should remain unchanged and appropriate policy adjustments should be made to push the reform, he added.

The meeting on Oct 30 passed a draft that puts an end to the regulation on business tax collection and rectified that of the value-added tax to reinforce VAT reform.

With no more business tax being collected, the scale of VAT taxpayers has been adjusted, including groups and individuals engaging in sales service, intangible asset, property. Tax rate for selling or importing goods such as grain, books and feed should be lowered from 13 percent to 11 percent, according to the meeting.

Premier Li stressed that efforts should be made to deepen the VAT reform and strive to push Chinas economy to reach middle and high level ends.
The person who shut down President Trump's Twitter account for 11 minutes was not a Twitter employee, as was initially reported, but a contractor for the company, two sources tell the New York Times. Asked about the new information, a Twitter spokesperson simply pointed to the company's initial statement (which blamed a "customer support employee" on his or her last day at work) and said a full internal investigation is underway. The Times notes that the issue highlights a potential problem for Twitter and other social media companies, which often outsource "sensitive work" to third-party contract workers; Twitter employees have expressed concerns that these workers can do things like disable accounts, though the employees say contractors cannot tweet from a user's account or access a person's direct messages.

In fact, employees tell the Verge this isn't the first time a departing worker has pulled a stunt like this. "People have dropped the mic in the past and deleted accounts, verified users, and otherwise abused their power on the last day," says one employee, noting that none of those incidents became public. Multiple news outlets are expressing concern over Twitter security after the Trump incident, and security experts echo those concerns to the Guardian. One expert says the only surefire way to keep something like this from happening again is to always have two social media employees monitoring each other's actions. According to Twitter, though, steps have already been taken, Fox News reports. "We have implemented safeguards to prevent this from happening again," the company tweeted. "We wont be able to share all details about our internal investigation or updates to our security measures, but we take this seriously and our teams are on it." (Read more Twitter stories.)
The US military for the first time has conducted two airstrikes against Islamic State group fighters in Somalia, where the extremists are a growing presence in a country long threatened by the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab. The US Africa Command said the two drone strikes killed "several terrorists" in northeastern Somalia, the first around midnight local time and the second later Friday morning, the AP reports. The strikes were carried out in coordination with Somalia's government, the statement said. Local officials confirmed the airstrikes. At least six missiles struck in Buqa, a remote mountainous village roughly 37 miles north of Qandala town in the northern state of Puntland, a Somali security official told the AP.

The US has carried out well over a dozen drone strikes against al-Shabab this year after the Trump administration approved expanded efforts against the group. Al-Shabab was blamed for carrying out Somalia's deadliest attack last month, a massive truck bombing in the capital, Mogadishu, that killed more than 350 people. Somalia's president has vowed a "state of war," with neighbors sending thousands of troops to help the local military and an African Union force. But ISIS-linked fighters who have split from the Somalia-based al-Shabab in the past couple of years pose a growing threat, notably in a part of the country far from al-Shabab's strongholds in the south.

(Read more Somalia stories.)
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Ahmedabad:

The BJP in poll-bound Gujarat on Friday asked Patidar leader Hardik Patel and the Congress to clarify their positions after senior Congress leader Mohansinh Rathwa said it is not possible to carve out a quota for the Patidar community in the existing 49 per cent reservations.

Rathwa, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, made the statement at a rally before party vice president Rahul Gandhis arrival at the tribal-dominated Nana Pondha village in Valsad district on Thursday.

Patidars will be given reservation without interfering with the current quota of 49 per cent. There will not be any change in the current quota. If we give reservation, it has to be outside that quota, said Rathwa, a tribal leader and the senior-most Congress MLA in the state.

BJP leader and Union minister Parshottam Rupala said on Friday that Rathwas remarks put both Hardik Patel and the Congress in the dock. Rathwa spoke his mind. Now both Hardik and Congress need to clarify their stands, as Hardik only wanted reservation under the OBC quota, not under EBC (economically backward classes) category which was offered by the Congress. But opposition leaders are mum about granting the OBC status to Patels, Rupala said.

As soon as Hardik slided towards Congress, some Congress leaders began suspecting whether there was any secret deal (to include Patels in the OBC category). After Rathwas remarks, the Congress should clarify how it would grant reservation to Patidars under the existing OBC quota, he said.

Earlier this week, members of Hardik Patel-led Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) and the Congress held a meeting and announced that an agreement has been reached on four main demands of the community. But there wasnt a final agreement on the key demand of the reservation yet, they said. PAAS leaders said they will hold another round of discussions with the Congress by November 7.

Earlier, the Gujarat Congress had promised a 20 per cent reservation under the EBC quota to non-reserved communities including Patels if the party came to power.

The fact is, the Congress never said anything about OBC reservations. They only talk about EBC quota. The Gujarat government has already given a 10 per cent quota in EBC. It is now quite clear that the Congress is trying to mislead Patidars with such vague promises, said Rupala.

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New Delhi:

At stones throw away distance from Chinese border, India has constructed worlds highest motorable road in Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir.

At the height of over 19,300 feet, the Border Roads Organisation or BRO has constructed the 86 km long strategic road under the Project Himank.

Building the road at an altitude of over 19,300 feet was a herculean task and BRO personnel had to face life-threatening challenges while building the highest motorbike road.

"During peak summers, temperature hovers around minus 10-20 degrees Celsius, and in winters, it dips to minus 40 degrees. Oxygen level at the altitude is 50 per cent less than at normal places," Brigadier DM Purvimath, chief engineer, Project Himank said.

"Efficiency of machines and manpower declines by 50 per cent due to harsh climate and less oxygen level. Also, machine operators have to come down every 10 minutes for oxygen," he said.

Purvimath said, BRO personnel involved in the project had to face serious health problems including loss of memory, eyesight and high blood pressure.

"Such a construction does not come without a cost, but given the national and strategic importance of the road, our men and machinery worked overnight to meet the targets set out by Director General, Border Roads," he said.

Passing through Umlingla Top, the road connects Chisumle and Demchok villages, located 230 km from Leh. These villages are located in close proximity from the India-China border in eastern sector, a spokesman of BRO said.

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New Delhi:

The ED has issued fresh summons asking Tejashwi Yadav, son of RJD leader Lalu Prasad, to appear before it on November 13 in connection with its money laundering probe in the railway hotels allotment corruption case, officials sources said on Friday.

The fresh date has been issued after the former Bihar deputy chief minister skipped similar summons of appearance for October 31, they said.

The fresh date for his appearance is November 13 now, they added.

The agency had registered a case against Lalu Prasad, his family members and others under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) sometime back.

Tejashwi's mother and former Bihar chief minister Rabri has already been asked by the ED to appear before it on November 7, for questioning in the case.

Tejashwi has been once grilled by the ED for over nine hours in connection with the case but he later skipped four summonses to appear again.

Rabri Devi too has skipped the ED summonses at least five times.

In July, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had registered an FIR and conducted multiple searches on the properties of Lalu Prasad, who is also a former Bihar chief minister, and others.

Read more: SC rules technical education cant be imparted through correspondence

The CBI FIR has alleged that Lalu Prasad during his tenure as the railway minister handed over the maintenance of two Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) hotels to a company in 2004 after receiving a bribe in the form of a prime land in Patna through a 'benami' company owned by Sarla Gupta, wife of Prem Chand Gupta, a former Union minister.

The ED had registered a criminal case against his family members and others under the PMLA, based on the CBI FIR.

The CBI also recently recorded the statements of Tejashwi and Lalu Prasad in this case.

The ED is investigating the alleged "proceeds of crime" generated by the accused, purportedly through shell companies, according to officials.

Others named in the CBI FIR include Vijay Kochhar, Vinay Kochhar (both directors of Sujata Hotels), Delight Marketing company, now known as Lara Projects, and the then IRCTC managing director P K Goel.

The CBI FIR was registered on July 5 in connection with favours allegedly extended to Sujata Hotels in awarding a contract for the upkeep of the hotels in Ranchi and Puri and receiving premium land as 'quid pro quo'.

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New Delhi:

With extensive campaigning by Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, the political temperature in PM Modis home state is heating up day by day ahead of next months assembly elections.

Rahul who is on a three day visit to Gujarat has made several visits to the poll bound state as part of Congress partys Gujarat Navsarjan Yatra.

On Friday, at a rally in Nana Pondha town in the tribal-dominated Valsad district, Rahul Gandhi attacked PM Modi for his false promises and termed the Gujarat elections a fight between truths of Congress and lies of BJP.

Drawing an analogy with the Pandava-Kaurava tussle in the epic Mahabharata, Rahul said, The fight is between truths and lies. Kauravas had a huge army, weapons, and Pandavas only had truth and nothing else. I would like to tell you that we only have truth and nothing else.

Gandhi resumed campaigning in the poll-bound state after returning from Rae Bareli where he had flown to meet the victims of yesterdays blast at an NTPC power plant.

He accused Modi of lying over the promise of depositing Rs 15 lakh in every persons account by bringing back black money stashed abroad.

He also attacked PM Modi for not fulfilling his promise of creating 2 crore jobs every year and said only one lakh jobs are being generated a year.

The truth of Gujarat has nothing to do with the truth of BJP. And the truth of BJP has nothing to do with the truth of Gujarat, he said, alleging that farmers, tribals, the poor, Patidars, Dalits were all aggrieved due the BJP governments policies.

Ask Modiji when he comes here, you had promised to create jobs for two crore youths, today only 450 youths get job. Also ask why did you snatch away the land of farmers. And also whether you are giving the Narmada water to tribals, farmers, or only your corporate friends, he said.

Only Congress can offer you jobs, education, health care. We will not make false promises like giving Rs 15 lakh.

Sometimes you may not like the truth. But this state cannot go ahead without truth. No one better than Gujarat understands truth... Two sons of Gujarat, Gandhiji and Sardar Patel fought against a superpower and let it know the power of truth, Rahul Gandhi said.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

To study the successful implementation of liquor ban in Bihar, representatives of Karnataka Temperance Board visited Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. As per reports, Karnataka may also implement liquor ban in state.

Seeing its success, a 31-member team of Karnataka has visited Bihar. They want to study its model.

Members of Karnataka Temperance Board said that it was a bold step by Bihar government. They said that it is not an easy task to implement liquor ban.

CM Nitish Kumar said that even though Bihar government has lost Rs 5000 crore but Rs 10,000 crore, which people had been spending on liquor, has been saved. He said that there is a difference in peoples lifestyle and society.

The team will also visit two panchayats in the state.

The liquor ban was implemented in Bihar in April 2016. Earlier, it was implemented in rural areas. But, after seeing its success, it was implemented in urban areas as well.

Since then, selling, keeping and consuming alcohol is a crime in the state. A special law was also formed to ban liquor consumption in the state.

As per report, a total of 41,314 cases has been registered pertaining to liquor ban so far. A total of 7,29,494 litre of country liquor has been ceased. 8,69,351 litre of foreign liquor has also been ceased. 5,35,746 litre of alcohol has been crushed.

Out of the 4433 two-wheelers which have been ceased, 815 will be auctioned. 2672 four-wheelers have also been ceased and 438 will be auctioned soon.

A total of 58,379 people have been arrested.

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New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a gathering at inauguration of World Food India 2017 in Delhi. He said that India is one of the fastest growing economies of the world.

PM Modi backed Goods and Services Tax by saying that it has eliminated multiplicity of taxes. He reiterated that India has jumped 30 ranks this year in World Bank's ease of doing business rankings.

"Simple, home-based techniques, like fermentation, have resulted in creation of our famous pickles, papads, chutneys and murabbas that excite both the elite and the masses across the world," said PM Modi.

"Over a million passengers consume food on trains in India in a single day, they are potential customers for food processing industry," said PM Modi.

"Our farmers, whom we respectfully call as 'annadatas' are central to our efforts in food processing," he said.

More than 40 countries and 27 states governments are participating in the exhibition, being organised in association with industry body CII.

Earlier, addressing a curtain raiser event, Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said private investments worth Rs 65,000 crore have already been committed in the food processing sector and more is expected during the event.

Badal has said that Khichdi is queen of all foods. The event will see many top chefs cooking 800 kg of Khichdi in the biggest-ever global food expo.

Well-known chef Sanjeev Kapoor wil also be present as brand ambassador of the Great India Food Street for the three-day event starting November 3.

Khichdi will also be distributed to 60,000 orphan children in national capital.

Union minister Smriti Zubin Irani said on Thursday that the mega global food festival was in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of "transforming" food economy and doubling farmers' income.

The information and broadcasting minister said the World Food India, 2017, will enhance business opportunities for women entrepreneurs, among others, and establish India as a preferred destination in food processing sector.

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New Delhi:

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Monday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he had destroyed the countryas economy with two atorpedoesaa note ban and GST. The prime minister had failed to understand the pain of the people, Gandhi said.

Wondering why the government was "celebrating" the first anniversary of note ban on November 8, Gandhi said, "I donat know what is there to celebrate."

Gandhi said while the economy was able to withstand the "torpedo" of note ban, it could not withstand the one of GST.

The economy, he said, awas in tatters nowa. aThe prime minster is not able to understand the feeling of the people and the hurt and sadness these two decisions have caused,a he told reporters after holding two meetings here of top Congress leaders on demonetisation and GST.

The Congress leader said the GST is a agood ideaa which has been adestroyeda by the Modi government.

8 Nov is a sad day for India. PM Modi has not been able to understand the feeling of the nation. #Demonetisation was a disaster:Rahul Gandhi pic.twitter.com/dwEsSMBYdg a ANI (@ANI) October 30, 2017

While the first meeting discussed the plans of the party, along with other opposition parties, to observe November 8 as ablack daya, the second deliberated upon GST implementation.

The second meet was attended by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and ex-finance minister P Chidambaram.A

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Chennai:

Torrential downpour threw normal life out of gear in several parts of the metropolis and neighbouring districts on Friday even as the death toll in rain-related incidents mounted to eight in the state.

Rains lashed the city overnight. Though there was some respite during the day, but it started raining heavily towards the evening.

Sharp showers battered parts of Chennai such as Mylapore, Foreshore Estate, southern suburbs of Tambaram, Chrompet and Pallavaram.

A government release said 105 relief camps have been set up in chennai.

Facing criticism over the handling of rains in Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister K Palaniswami visited several water-logged parts of the city and its suburbs, insisting that his government was working on a awar-footinga.

Massive water-logging in parts of #TamilNadu followed by heavy rainfall: Visuals from #Chennai's Sunnambu Kolathur area pic.twitter.com/9C8UWGWC38 a ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017

He was accompanied by his deputy O Panneerslevam and senior officials.

Schools and colleges, closed since October 31, remained shut in Chennai, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts, as the Tamil Nadu government appealed to private firms to allow their employees to work from home.

The Marina Beach area recorded a whopping 30 cm of precipitation.

A middle-aged farmer was electrocuted at Manal Agaram near Tiruvarur when he stepped on a snapped live wire lying under water in his field, police said, raising the death toll in rain-related incidents to eight since October 27, when the northeast monsoon arrived.

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New Delhi:

A Varanasi local court will take up a complaint against actor Kamal Haasan for allegedly hurting religious sentiments of Hindus after he recently made the remark that aright-wing groups canat deny the existence of Hindu terrorisma.

Lawyer Kamlesh Chandra Tripathi, who filed the plea, informed that the decision to hear the complaint was taken by the court of the additional chief judicial magistrate (sixth). The court will hear the complaint on November 4, he said.

The complainant has accused Haasan of hurting religious sentiments of the Hindus by making the "inflamatory and derogatory remark of Hindu terrorism."

It has sought a directive asking the actor to refrain from making such a remark given the public following he has.

This remark has adeeply hurta the sentiments of scores of people following Hindu religion, it added. (With PTI Inputs)

A

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New Delhi:

The Ministry of External Affairs on Friday said India will make an official request to Malaysian government very soon once the legal internal process gets completed in connection with controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naikas extradition.

As per media reports, Naik was given permanent residency in Malaysia.

aMaybe in the next couple of weeks, it will clear what will be the nature of the request,a MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.

When he asked about Pakistanas claim of US mediation between India and Pakistan, Kumar said no truth in such claims as Rex Tillerson had recently concluded Indiaas visit and there was joint statement which didn't mention US to mediate between the two nations.

Our legal internal process is nearing completion. Once it is complete,will then make offl request to Malaysian Govt very soon:MEA #ZakirNaik pic.twitter.com/E0NYbkxYzP a ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017

aWhen Rex Tillerson was here there was joint statement which didn't mention US to mediate between India and Pakistan. No truth in Pak's claims,a Kumar said.A

When Rex Tillerson was here there was joint statement which didn't mention US to mediate b/w India & Pak. No truth in Pak's claims: MEA Spox pic.twitter.com/Abosm5juNd a ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017

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New Delhi:

Through a particle physics technique, an international team of researchers has used cosmic-ray collisions to peek inside and unearth a hidden "void" in The Great Pyramid Of Gaza which is roughly 100 feet long, identical to the Statue of Liberty.

We dont know if its a chamber, a tunnel, a big gallery or things like that, said Mehdi Tayoubi, co-director of the ScanPyramids project, which published the finding Thursday in the journal Nature. We have chosen the word void and nothing else because we dont know what this void is.

Many archaeologists asked whether this recent research is able to find any new information about the ancient Egyptians. They also noticed that international team of researchers is unable to find a hidden room filled with the pharaoh's riches.

They also revealed that this void was probably empty space formed by the pyramid's architects to lessen the weight on its chambers and prevent them from collapsing, an example of features that were already documented in the construction of the ancient monuments.

Due to an advancement in a technological field, understanding of wonders of the ancient world that have long fascinated the human imagination could become richer.

Khufu, also known by his Greek name Cheops, is thought to have ruled from 2509 B.C. to 2483 B.C., during Egypts fourth dynasty. Though he constructed the largest pyramid Egypt has ever seen, the only intact three-dimensional figure of him that archaeologists have found measures a mere three inches tall. Very little is known about him, so his pyramid offers one of the few looks into his life and reign. The site at Giza where his pyramid was built also contains two other major pyramids and the Sphinx.

To see through its core, Dr. Tayoubi and his colleagues which consisted of three separate teams of physicists and engineers have revealed the pyramid using a particle physics technique known as muon tomography.

We tried to do for the pyramid what a doctor can do with X-rays, Dr. Tayoubi said.

What is Muons?

This team researchers despite X-rays, they used muons. The muons are heavy cousins of electrons that form when cosmic rays from outer space collide with particles in Earths atmosphere. The fallout from the collisions creates a constant bombardment of harmless particles that can penetrate deep into the planet.

As the muons pass through matter they lose energy and decay, so if the team detected a small number of muons, that means they were passing through matter. But if they detected more muons, it suggests the particles were passing through empty space or less dense material.

This is not the first time this technology is used, Luis Alvarez, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist previously used this technology to investigate whether there were hidden chambers in the Pyramid of Khafre in the 1960s.

And over the decades, muon detector resolution has greatly improved and it has since been used to see the inner structures of volcanoes as well as irradiated Fukushima nuclear reactor.

The first measurements were made by researchers from Nagoya University in Japan who were a part of the project. Then two more teams associated with ScanPyramids, one from France and another from Japan, also confirmed the anomaly with muon tomography, even from outside the pyramid.

The discovery comes on the footsteps of the teams previous work, which detected a small void behind the north face of the pyramid in 2016.

Christopher Morris, a physicist who conducts research using muon tomography at Los Alamos National Laboratory and was not involved in the study, called the findings pretty amazing, adding that all the team needed to do was set up their muon detectors and reap the rewards.

All the other physicists who could have done it, and didnt, are jealous, he said.

Arturo Menchaca-Rocha, a physicist from the National Autonomous University of Mexico who has used muon detection to investigate the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico, echoed Dr. Morriss sentiments and said the projects physics supported its claims. But archaeologists were more critical of the work and they observed a single point meticulously.

Mark Lehner, an Egyptologist from Ancient Egypt Research Associates, said that the revelation is not out of the box and previous work had shown that the ancient Egyptians most likely constructed gaps in their pyramids.

The great pyramid of Khufu is more Swiss cheese than cheddar, he said. He added that the steep incline of the void also casts doubts on whether it was some sort of room.

At that angle, it doesnt make much sense for it to be a chamber that would contain artifacts, burials and objects and that sort of thing.

Zahi Hawass, an Egyptologist, former Egyptian government minister and head of the scientific committee appointed by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities to review the work, was more critical of the finding.

They found nothing, said Dr. Hawass, noting that such construction gaps had been known of for at least two decades. This paper offers nothing to Egyptology. Zero.

Both Dr. Lehner and Dr. Hawass agreed that the scanning work should continue in hopes that the teams can retrieve higher resolution data about the inner workings of the pyramid, specifically the shape and size of the anomaly.

Hany Helal, who is also a co-director of the ScanPyramids project, responded to the criticism, saying that from an engineering perspective, it would not make sense to have such a big void above the Gallery if its purpose was to relieve pressure.

He said the next steps are to have an international discussion with archaeologists to figure out the structures purpose. In the future, he added that scientists may use drones to explore the void once they have more information about it.

We are sure there is a void, he said. Now let us continue our research.

For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Islam:

Pakistan summoned the British High Commissioner in Islamabad on Friday to protest the aFree Balochistana slogans being displayed on London cabs that it said attacked the countryas territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua summoned the British High Commissioner in Pakistan Thomas Drew over slogans being displayed on London taxis.

According to a statement released by the Foreign Office, athe high commissioner was informed that Pakistan, in line with the UN Charter, rejects actions and advertisements with malicious content that impinge on our sovereignty and territorial integrity.

aThe issue is also being raised with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by the Pakistan High Commissioner in London, the Foreign Office said in a statement.

aPakistan is aware of the intentions of such sinister and malicious campaigns, which should not be allowed on the soil of a friendly country,a the statement said.

According to media reports, aFree Balochistana slogans appeared on taxis in London. In September 2017, Pakistan had summoned the Swiss ambassador over the public display of anti-Pakistan posters by a group in Switzerland.

Balochistan is the largest of Pakistanas four provinces,but people in the restive region have long complained thatthey do not get a fair share of its natural resources.A

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New Delhi:

US President Donald Trump's Twitter account was deliberately deactivated by a Twitter employee on their last day of work for a short period of time.

According to the company, a Twitter employee deliberately deactivated Donald Trump's personal account on their last day of work. However, the name of an employee has not revealed. Presidents @realdonaldtrump account was down for 11 minutes.

During the brief time of downtime, Donald Trump twitter page would see the message Sorry, that page doesnt exist!

Initially, Twitter said that the account had been unwittingly deactivated "due to human error by a Twitter employee.

The account was down for 11 minutes and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again, the company said in a statement.

But after that companys @Twittergov account posted another statement which said that employee deliberately damages the account.

Through our investigation, we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employees last day. We are conducting a full internal review, the new statement said.

There have been continuing calls for Twitter to suspend Trumps account, particularly when he made threats to North Korea. However, when Twitter does this it typically marks the profile with the message account suspended.

Even there was a speculation that Trump himself deactivated his account or he may have been hacked. He has been denounced in the past for having poor security standards.

The company in the past has also suspended high profile individuals including the rightwing Milo Yiannopoulos, after his sustained hate campaign against the actor Leslie Jones, and the rapper Azealia Banks.

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London:

The Glasgow City Council on Friday became the latest UK institution to withdraw an honour bestowed upon Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi in the wake of the Rohingya crisis.



The council had offered Suu Kyi the Freedom of Glasgow in 2009 when she was still under house arrest as Myanmars pro-democracy leader.



"I and the Leader, Councillor Susan Aitken, recently wrote to Aung San Suu Kyi voicing the city's concerns about the human rights atrocities occurring under her watch and urging her to intervene. The response we received was disappointing and saddening, said Glasgow's Lord Provost Eva Bolander.



The Scottish council said that withdrawing such an honour was "unprecedented" and its decision had not been taken lightly.



Glasgow's decision follows a similar decision by the city of Sheffield, which stripped Suu Kyi of the Freedom of Sheffield earlier this week, saying she had shown "willful ignorance" of the crisis.



"In response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Myanmar of the Rohingya people, various UK cities have revoked the Freedom of the City from Aung San Suu Kyi. I'm delighted there was cross-party support for my motion," said Councillor Soryia Siddique from Sheffield Council.



Meanwhile, the London School of Economics (LSE) has taken the first step towards withdrawing an honorary presidency bestowed upon Myanmars de-facto leader.



The Students Union has moved a motion to withdraw the honour, which will come up for debate next week.



A spokesperson for the LSE Students Union said: "Suu Kyi's choice to prioritise her tenure in office over anything else has come at too significant a cost, her complicity in the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people.



"We condemn the Muslim genocide in Myanmar, we condemn all Islamophobia, and we will actively work against any system which is complicit in supporting the violence."



A series of UK institutions have been distancing themselves from the Nobel Peace laureate in the wake of Myanmar Armys repression of the Rohingya minority, nearly 1 million of whom have fled their homes to refugee camps in Bangladesh.

Also read: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to visit Myanmar to discuss Rohingya crisis



Also read: UNICEF report suggests nearly 600,000 Rohingya children facing 'hell on earth' in overcrowded camps in Bangladesh

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Doua rachete au cazut in Polonia la granita cu Ucraina/ Polonia afirma ca o racheta de fabricatie ruseasca a provocat explozia / Moscova neaga atacul / Biden: Este putin probabil ca racheta sa fi fost lansata din Rusia
Washington:

US bombers overflew the Korean peninsula as part of an exercise with Japanese and South Korean warplanes, the US Air Force said, days before President Donald Trump arrives in the region for a trip set to be dominated by the nuclear-armed North.

Tensions are high over Pyongyangs ballistic missile and atomic programmes, which in recent months have seen it test ICBMs and carry out its sixth nuclear blast.

Trumps visit will throw a spotlight on the issue, after the US President and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un traded insults and threats of war.

Flights by supersonic B-1B Lancer bombers in the area always infuriate North Korea, which condemned the drill as blackmail early Friday.

Two B-1B aircraft took off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, and were joined west of Japan by Japan Air Self-Defense Force fighters, the US Pacific Air Force said in a statement.

The Lancers then transited overland to Korea to integrate with Republic of Korea fighters in the Yellow Sea, the statement read, adding that the aircraft later returned to their respective home stations.

The exercise was part of the continuous bomber presence mission in the Pacific and was not in response to any current event, the statement said.

The operation follows an October 10 show of force in which two Lancers staged the first night-time joint aviation exercises with Japan and South Korea.

North Korea in July launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles apparently capable of reaching the US mainlanddescribed by Kim as a gift to American bastards.

It followed up with two missiles that passed over Japan, and its sixth nuclear test, by far its most powerful yet.

Trump has warned of fire and fury in response to Pyongyangs threats, and derisively dubbed Kim Rocket Man, who responded by calling him a dotard.

This week the Norths KCNA news agency described the US president as incurably mentally deranged.

Trump will on Friday set off for his Asian tour, which will include Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

But his message risks being undermined if the North stages some kind of provocation, such as a missile test.

It could be preparing for another launch, Seouls spy agency reportedly said Thursday.

Active movements of vehicles have been detected at a missile research facility in Pyongyang, the National Intelligence Service told a closed-door parliamentary audit, according to the Yonhap news agency.

The North habitually condemns B1-B flights as rehearsals for an attack, and KCNA said Friday: The reality clearly shows that the gangster-like US imperialists are the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war.

Any military strike in Korea could see retaliation and rapid escalation, and much of Seoula city of 10 million peopleis within range of the Norths artillery.

The Souths President Moon Jae-In has insisted that no military action on the peninsula can be taken without Seouls approval.

In an interview with Yonhap, Trumps National Security Advisor H R McMaster said diplomacy was Washingtons main effort now.

The discussion will also be about what more can we do, what more can all countries do to resolve this short of war, he said.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Days before US President Donald Trump tour to Asia that will include South Korea and is set to be dominated by the North Korean nuclear issue, US bombers overflew the Korean peninsula on Thursday as part of an exercise with Japanese and South Korean warplanes.

Flights by supersonic B-1B Lancer bombers in the area always enrage North Korea, which condemned the drill as "blackmail" early Friday. In recent months, Pyongyang's tested ballistic missiles and atomic programmes which raises tensions in the region.

According to the US Pacific Air Force statement, two B-1B aircraft took off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam and were joined west of Japan by Japan Air Self-Defense Force fighters.

"The Lancers then transited overland to Korea to integrate with Republic of Korea fighters in the Yellow Sea," the statement read, adding that the aircraft later returned "to their respective home stations."

The operation follows an October 10 "show of force" in which two Lancers staged the first night-time joint aviation exercises with Japan and South Korea.

Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un have exchanged threats and personal insults in recent months -- the US president has warned of "fire and fury" in response to Pyongyang's threats, and the North's KCNA news agency this week called him "incurably mentally deranged".

North Korea in July launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles apparently capable of reaching the US mainland -- described by Kim as a gift to "American bastards".

It followed up with two missiles that passed over Japan, and its sixth nuclear test, by far its most powerful yet.Pyongyang may be preparing for another missile test, Seoul's spy agency report said Thursday.

The North habitually condemns B1-B flights as rehearsals for an attack, and KCNA said Friday: "The reality clearly shows that the gangster-like US imperialists are the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war."

Trump will start Asian tour on Friday.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
The controversial letter, whose veracity is yet to be proved, contained the details of vacancies in the Corporation and had requested the CPM district secretary to provide the candidates.
Successful retirement planning requires a good understanding of what you want to do in retirement and a reasonable estimate of your expected expenses. Once you have a grasp of your likely retirement costs, you know approximately how much money you will need to salt away. However, one retirement expense is notoriously difficult to predict  healthcare expenses.

Fidelity recently estimated that an average healthy 65-year old couple retiring in 2017 will spend $275,000 on healthcare costs during their retirement, representing a 6% increase over last year's estimates. That estimate assumes no drastic changes in medical costs and insurance coverage  a less likely scenario given President Trump's executive actions to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and the growing momentum on the left for a "Medicare for All" single-payer system.

For the moment, let's assume that a single-payer system as proposed by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is in place by the time you retire. How would that affect your retirement costs and the savings you need to prepare for retirement?

Single-payer simply means that a single payer  in this case, the government  handles all payments for covered health expenses. That would replace the network of insurance companies and other entities that currently provide healthcare payments.

As proposed by Sen. Sanders, the single-payer system goes beyond the current Medicare program by expanding the types of coverage and eliminating most co-pays, premiums, and deductibles (a $200 annual deductible for prescription drugs would remain). The enormous cost, estimated at $32 trillion over 10 years by the Urban Institute, would require massive increases in taxes.

For reference, consider that the projected total revenue of the U.S. government for fiscal 2018 is $3.654 trillion. If Sen. Sanders' proposed single-payer system appeared overnight for 2018, it would likely consume almost the entire current U.S. income just to fund it.

Any single-payer system that the U.S. is likely to adopt will probably be a compromise from the Sanders plan, with fewer items covered and some higher amount of deductible or co-pay. Nevertheless, your costs as a retiree are still likely to be far less than the estimated annual $7,620 in medical costs that the average 2017 Medicare A and B recipient will pay (as estimated by The Motley Fool). Compared to the current market, it appears you'll need less money in retirement in a single-payer system.

The flip side is that your costs prior to retirement are likely to go up  way up. Regardless of who gets taxed directly, a portion of those taxes will trickle down to you as higher prices for the goods and services that you buy, lower wages through increased payroll taxes paid by your employer, and other pass-through mechanisms. Higher-income Americans can expect to pay considerably more as well.

You may need less to retire under a single-payer system, but you are probably going to have a harder time saving those funds. Under those circumstances, it's even more important to have a solid budget that allows you to apply a percentage of your income toward retirement. Keep spending and debt under control to give you extra breathing room to handle the increased tax burden while maintaining a retirement fund.

Employer-matching 401(k) programs may not survive such a move, but if they do, contribute up to the limit. It's effectively free money.

The next few years may be a turbulent time for healthcare, as our badly divided country attempts to attain a healthcare system that provides the best care at a sustainable cost. In the meantime, your best strategy for incorporating healthcare costs into your retirement is to fully fund your retirement accounts assuming the worst  and maintain a healthy lifestyle heading into retirement to decrease your dealings with the healthcare system.

Let the free Retirement Planner by MoneyTips help you calculate when you can retire without jeopardizing your lifestyle.
I see myself as a strong, empowered young Muslim-American woman who has overcome bigotry, ignorance, and racism that attempted to make me feel ashamed of my Islamic beliefs and values.

Its common for people to see my hijab (headscarf) and assume that I live a life of oppression, where only extrication from my religion can liberate me. Im consistently baffled by this.

In accordance with the Islamic principle there is no compulsion in religion, I choose to wear my hijab as an act of worship for God alone, not for my father, brother, or a civil law. Islam has taught me how to value myself as a Muslim woman, and demand respect through my character and intellect, not through societys distorted standard of beauty.

Islam came with a revolutionary message that uplifts womens status to claim equality in stature and worship.

Islamic principles are derived from the Quran (the words of God), as well as the teachings, actions and advice of Prophet Muhammad. The distorted narrative that injustice and oppression are the foundation of Islam originates from many places, e.g. the misrepresentation and misbehavior of some Muslims, cultural traditions of patriarchal leadership, political ambitions, and economic and political instability.

Prophet Muhammad would be appalled and disheartened to find that some Muslim-majority countries largely circumvent Islamic principles, causing injustice in numerous areas along with denying women their God-given rights. Muslim women worldwide are now invoking the authentic rulings of Islamic Shariah (law) to reestablish these liberties.

During what was known as the time of ignorance prior to the revelation of the Quran, women had very little control over their lives, including their marriages. Women had no say in choosing their spouse or in taking possession of their dowry (the gift from the husband to the wife at the wedding).

Islamic Shariah decreed that my approval and consent is a prerequisite for the validity of a marriage. I am empowered to keep my last name to further establish that I retain my identity and I am not my husbands property. Islam even gave me the right to call for a divorce, which would require child support.

Financial empowerment is key to maintaining independence and equality. Islamically, one of mens main responsibilities is to financially provide for their family. However, this does not limit my ability to acquire and manage my own assets. I have the right to excel in a socially beneficial career, work in a safe environment and earn a salary with fair pay. Any property, wealth, or inheritance that I attain remains under my control without any obligation to contribute to the household. This provides flexibility for women in terms of family planning and management.

Islam considers pursuing education as a momentous act of worship, and an obligation for every male and female. Growing up, my brothers and I were all raised with the same expectations: to get good grades, acquire higher education, build a career, and support and raise our families. None of these ambitions are gender-related. Prophet Muhammad challenged misogyny by being very attentive to his family and doing household chores.

Not only did Islam empower me to play an active role in my own well-being, I also have the right to political participation and to vote. Historically, Muslim women were provided several political and societal responsibilities, and even held legislative debates with the Prophet himself. One of many examples of this is a woman named Shifa bint Abdullah who held the position as the markets financial controller in a male-dominated career.

These rights came at a time when no one was protesting or rallying about the mistreatment of women. It was only after fierce fighting from determined women in the Suffrage movement that the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified to grant American women the right to vote, only a century ago. In fact, many of the rights that Islam honored women with over 1400 years ago were not granted to women in the West until the late 18th and 19th centuries.

The Quran put an end to inequality by granting women spiritual, intellectual, economic, and social rights equal to, if not more than men. Prophet Muhammad both explicitly taught equality of the genders and took numerous concrete measures to profoundly improve the status and role of women.

I am not anyones maid, slave, or property. I am a tenacious, strong-willed individual who has control over my life due to Islams revolution of the way society should view women, and the way I view myself.

Mariam Khan is an Islamic Studies teacher and youth mentor at Baitul Mukarram Masjid of Greater Danbury, and is employed at The Mount Sinai Hospital.
Connecticut Health Care Associates has reached a tentative contract agreement with Danbury and New Milford hospitals, just over a year after welcoming the hospitals employees into the union.

This is the furthest weve gotten in the process, said Jason Riccio, the staff representative at CHCA and the lead negotiator.

The agreement was reached just days before a rally the union had staged for Saturday, in which they planned to demand a final contract and respect on the job. That rally, to be held at 1 p.m. in Broadview Middle School, will now become a celebration.

Workers at the hospitals voted to join the Connecticut Health Care Associates in September 2016. It was the workers fourth attempt to unionize in 10 years, Riccio said.

About 900 workers make up the Hospital Workers at Danbury and New Milford Hospitals unit, including environmental service workers, certified nursing assistants, patient care technicians and office workers.

The agreement reached Thursday still has to be ratified by union members. Riccio said they are hoping for a vote the week of Nov. 16. Once approved, he said the contract could go into effect later this month.

This process was a true win-win for both sides of the negotiation table and we look forward to continuing the positive, good-faith working relationship between the union and Hospital Network created during these negotiations, Riccio said.

Andrea Rynn, spokesperson for the hospitals, said the parties continued their collaborative relationship throughout the process.

Under the tentative agreement, workers will earn a 1.75 percent raise in the first year, a 2 percent raise in the second year and a 2 percent raise in the third year. There are also ratification bonuses of $250 for full-time employees and $150 for part-time employees in both the first and third years.

The contract would also offer chances for the employees to participate on committees on issues like health and safety and labor disputes. Employees also earned the rights to a grievance and arbitration process, Riccio said.

Another highlight of the bargaining unit is the employees right to just cause for discipline, he said.

The employees felt very strongly about having just cause, which is defined as discipline based on reasonableness, fairness, honesty, and good faith on behalf of the hospital, Riccio said. The hospital made the employees feel safe and appreciated with the admission of such a clause.
With an off-the-cuff remark to reporters, President Donald Trump seemed to throw into doubt the federal prosecution of the suspect accused of killing eight people this week with a rental truck - the most lethal terrorist attack in New York City since 2001. Then, nearly as quickly, he reversed course about sending Sayfullo Saipov to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and heartily endorsed putting him on trial in New York federal court, followed by his execution.

The whipsaw declarations in less than 24 hours suggested major policy swings on national security matters of life and death, but the Justice Department appears to increasingly be doing the once-unthinkable: tuning out the president of the United States.

And in some proceedings, including over Trump's travel ban orders, government lawyers have argued that informal statements, including by the president, "may not accurately reflect the government's position."

Others, however, may be tuning in. Defense attorneys could well seize on the president's comments to either try to avoid capital punishment for their client or have the case moved to a different jurisdiction because of pretrial publicity.

Authorities say Saipov drove a rental truck down a bike path on the west side of Manhattan on Tuesday, killing eight people and injuring 12. When questioned by investigators, Saipov confessed and said he was inspired by the Islamic State to carry out the attack, according to a criminal complaint filed against him.

The day after the attack, Trump called the criminal justice system a "joke'' and "a laughingstock.'' He said that the United States needs a system of punishment "that's far quicker and far greater than the punishment these animals are getting right now. They'll go through court for years. . . . We need quick justice, and we need strong justice."

When a reporter asked the president Wednesday at about noon whether Saipov should be sent to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Trump replied, "I would certainly consider that, yes. Send him to Gitmo. I would certainly consider that."

A few hours later, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders seemed to buttress that argument, referring to Saipov as an "enemy combatant'' - a term freighted with potential legal consequences, including possible imprisonment at Guantanamo or some other military facility.

Trump's public statements intensified concerns among federal law enforcement officials, civil rights advocates and some lawmakers that the Trump administration might try to short-circuit the prosecution of Saipov and have him transferred into military custody.

As the president was talking, FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors were preparing criminal charges based in large part on what was said to be the suspect's lengthy hospital room confession.

Hours after Trump's statements, U.S. Attorney Joon Kim in New York announced the charges against the suspect. While Kim made no explicit reference to the president's comment, he did mention a number of recent terrorism cases successfully prosecuted by his office.

On Thursday morning, Trump swung back hard in the opposite direction - supporting a federal trial in New York for Saipov - by tweeting that he would "love to send the NYC terrorist to Guantanamo but statistically that process takes much longer than going through the Federal system . ... There is also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed. Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!''

Prosecutors have not indicated whether they will seek the death penalty against Saipov. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the president's remarks.

In the federal system, deciding whether to seek capital punishment against a defendant is a complex process that takes months. It begins with a recommendation from the U.S. attorney's office, which is then reviewed by the attorney general before a final decision is made.

An attorney for Saipov declined to comment Thursday on Trump's statements.

Mary McCord, a former senior national security official at the Justice Department, said that "tweets and off-the-cuff statements make the jobs of career Justice Department people challenging. . . . Obviously, prosecutors don't like to see people in positions of authority - including the president - commenting on possible penalties.''

But, she said, prosecutors "during this administration, or previous administrations, are used to blocking out statements and just doing their jobs.''

In multiple cases, Trump's Justice Department has taken the position that Trump's own utterances are irrelevant to government policy.

In a number of instances, Justice Department lawyers have tried to distance themselves from Trump's pronouncements. In arguments over the administration's various travel bans, they gave argued that comments by the president and his advisers should not be considered because, in the department's view, the courts should not look beyond official statements and the order itself to determine its purpose.

And in one case, Justice Department lawyers contended that even official pronouncements from the White House were not, in fact, official.

In a lawsuit over the administration's attempt to yank funding from "sanctuary cities,'' Justice Department lawyers argued that even the president's executive order isn't a new policy but rather a type of "bully pulpit'' exhortation meant to highlight a new approach to immigration enforcement.

As much as government lawyers try to ignore the president's more problematic remarks, they could already be affecting the outcome of one high-profile case: that of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who has pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. He is awaiting sentencing for leaving his post in Afghanistan in 2009. Bergdahl was captured and held by the Taliban for years before being returned to the United States as part of a prisoner exchange.

Earlier this week, the military judge overseeing his case, Col. Jeffrey Nance, said he may lighten Bergdahl's sentence because of harsh comments made about the soldier by Trump. "I will consider the president's comments as mitigation evidence as I arrive at an appropriate sentence,'' Nance said.
The holiday season is just around the corner, which means a mad end-of-year-dash for many small business owners and entrepreneurs. And no, Im not just talking about braving the Black Friday crowds for the best shopping deals. Right now is the time of year when our businesses often need the most attention for tax preparation, government compliance and end-of-year administrative housekeeping.

Related: Follow These 3 Savvy End-of-Year Tax Tips

Unfortunately its also the time of year when we have our hands full with holiday commitments.

While its tempting to push to-do list items into January, doing so could cause your business to miss out on benefits like tax savings. Worse, delaying essential administrative tasks like account reconciliation or data backups could leave your business vulnerable to external threats. From accounting to HR compliance, the following end-of-year essentials are not to be missed.

1. Get organized.

Lets be honest: Many of us have a drawer or filing folder stuffed with notices from local and state government entities. With the day-to-day stress we experience managing clients and growing a business, its easy to miss business-license and registration deadlines, local tax due dates and even personal tax liabilities, like property assessments or vehicle registration renewals.

But help is out there: The app Gov2Go from the technology company NIC makes it easy to get organized, by tracking all your government interactions from a single platform so you never miss another deadline or payment.

The app will ask a few questions and then set up your profile based on your current government interactions. Gov2Go will then notify you when renewals or payments are due. You can complete the transactions entirely on the Gov2Go platform. The app covers federal government interactions as well as offering an expanded library of state and local services for residents, in particular those in Arkansas, Colorado, and Nebraska, with more states to be added in the future.

Gov2Go is a device-neutral platform, so the personal assistant will work from your desktop, mobile device and even voice-command devices like Amazon Echo. Thats right: Paying your taxes could one day be as simple as saying, Alexa, schedule my estimated quarterly tax payment.

2. Reduce your tax burden.

Speaking of taxes, does your business follow the cash accounting method? If it does, you dont pay income on taxes until you receive the payment and you wont be able to deduct expenses until a payment is made.

That's why a little strategic planning now could save you some extra cash on next years taxes. For example, if you plan on purchasing a new computer for your business in the next six months, buying one before the end of the year would allow you to take a tax deduction sooner. You could also reduce your income tax liability by letting clients know they can wait until January to make payments. Alternatively, if you anticipate your business being more profitable in the coming year, you may wish to follow the opposite approach: Defer deductible expenses until next year and accelerate revenues.

Related: 7 Must-Dos Before the End of the Year

3. Give back to your community with charitable contributions.

The holidays are a time to give thanks for lifes many blessings and pay these blessings forward. In addition to any personal donations you and your family make, consider how your small business can make a charitable contribution. Contributions made before December 31 can be used to reduce your current years tax burden.

Your donation does not have to be monetary to make an impact. For example, you could reach out to local nonprofits and see if they have a need for gently used office equipment, technology or office supplies you may already have on hand. Youll help support valuable community organizations by reducing their operating expenses and your business will also benefit from a tax deduction.

4. Reconcile accounts receivable.

Before you can plan for next year, you need to know where your business stands financially this year. Now is the time to run standard reports like a profit/loss statement, balance sheet and cash-flow statement.

You should also take a closer look at your accounts receivable. Consider which clients still owe your business money. If youre looking to reduce your tax burden, you might allow these clients to delay payment until January, as previously noted. If youre short on funds for needed purchases or employee bonuses, however, now is the time to remind clients about payment deadlines and any associated late payment fees.

5. Back up your data.

Ive written before about the rise in ransomware and malware attacks on small businesses. Unfortunately, many small business owners continue to take a lackadaisical approach to cybersecurity that leaves them vulnerable to attack.

With bring-your-own-device culture in full swing, the risk of cyber attacks is rising. Are your systems protected? At the very least, ensure that all of your files, including accounting, client information and projects, service documentation and personnel files are backed up in a secondary location. This could be a cloud storage account thats separate from your companys primary cloud service.

Related: 8 Accounting To-Dos for Your End-of-the-Year Checklist

You may also wish to provide employees with access to external hard drives so they can have an alternative back-up source for their work computers. I recommend following the 2:1 rule: two digital back-ups in separate locations and one offline copy stored elsewhere.

Bottom line:

Before the holiday rush gets into full swing, take time now to position your business for success in the coming year. Whether that means getting organized with an app like Gov2Go or finally backing up those client files, these critical steps can have a major impact on your company's future performance.

Related:

Yes, It's Not Even Thanksgiving Yet, But It's Not Too Early for Your Company to Sing 'Auld Lang Syne'

6 Smart Tax Moves to Take Before the End of the Year



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


WHITE CREEK, N.Y. (AP) -- New York State Police say they've charged a 48-year-old woman with stealing $250 worth of baked goods from an order of nuns known for their cheesecake.

Troopers say the theft occurred last month at the Nuns of New Skete (SKEET) monastery in the rural town of White Creek, on the Vermont border, 35 miles (56 kilometers) northeast of Albany.

The nuns sell their cheesecakes and pastries on the honor system at the monastery's unstaffed gift shop. Police say surveillance cameras caught two women taking merchandise without leaving money in the drop box.

#CHEESECAKE BANDIT ARRESTED: New York State Police arrest woman for stealing famed cheesecakes from New Skete Monks &... Posted by Lauren Linder on Thursday, November 2, 2017

Troopers say surveillance photos released earlier this week and social media postings of the images led to the arrest of a woman from Vermont. The other woman was identified as her 21-year-old daughter, who wasn't charged.

Angelique E. Smith of North Arlington, Vermont, was arrested for petit larceny, a misdemeanor.

The cheesecakes sell for $49 and up.
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DERBY  There were no harsh words, angry threats or even vows to move out of the city.

Thursday nights neighborhood meeting on the proposed conversion of Marshall Lane Manor, a shuttered convalescent home, into a dormitory for teenage students from China attending private high schools was church-like quiet.

For two hours the nearly 40 residents including Mayor Anita Dugatto and Richard Dziekan, her Republican challenger, listened quietly as David Guerrera, a co-owner of APEX International Educational Partners in Watertown explained his plans. They then politely questioned him and his lawyer, Dominick Thomas, of Derby.

This was a sharp contrast to Octobers two Planning and Zoning Commission meetings at which angry residents packed City Hall, verbally attacked commission members and accused them of not listening as members worked on a zone text change permitting a dormitory use for Marshall Lane Manor. A public hearing on APEXs proposal is scheduled for Nov. 21 at 7 p.m. in City Hall.

Just days after the last angry meeting a truck slammed its split plow into the manor, breaking through the outside brick and inside sheet rock while shattering a window and damaging a bathroom door frame.

We got the call around midnight on Oct. 20, said Anthony Simonetti, whose family owns the building and is hoping to sell it to APEX. It caused $14,000 of damage.

Simonetti, who serves as Sheltons Republican town chairman as well as a first ward aldermen there, said he believes this was not an accident, but done on purpose.

Guerrera attempted to address some concerns the high school students would roaming the streets after school causing havoc.

These are kids whose parents are spending $40,000 to $70,000 a year for them to come and study in the United States, said Guerrera, a Fairfield Prep and Fairfield University graduate. These are kids who want to be here. They want to go on to college. When they come home from school, they study three hours a night. By the time they get done, they just want to go to sleep.

He said for now all of the students would come from China and attend schools like Fairfield Prep; Notre Dame in Fairfield and West Haven; Laurelton Hall in Milford; Sacred Heart Academy in Hamden and Holy Cross in Waterbury.

Guerrera said there will be a resident adviser for every 25 students.

These wont be college students, he said. Id love to have adult couples. So if someone is interested to live and eat here for free as well as get a paid salary, come see me.

He said the students will be separated by gender into two areas opened only by card keys. Visiting in the other genders area is prohibited, Guerrera said.

Curfew will be 7 p.m. and lights out at 10:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday while Friday and Saturday having a 9:30 p.m. curfew and 11 p.m. lights out. He said students will not be allowed cars, visitors or pets. They must speak English at all times, participate in at least two community volunteer events and return to China during summer vacation.

Weekend events will be scheduled for the students, Guerrera told the audience.

Kathy Kiley, who with her husband, Chris spent the past four years as a host family for two of APEXs male students, said these kids are going to be the future leaders of China.

And grassroots diplomacy like this would build a relationship with them.

If you went out into your neighborhood and picked out the model students, these would be those kids, she said.

In response to a question from Keith McLiverty, the citys treasurer, Thomas, APEXs lawyer said Guerrera and his partner, Feng Chen, of Norwalk are prepared to invest a couple million in refurbishing the site.

The lawyer informed the audience that Marshall Lane Manor as an active nursing home paid $66,000 in annual taxes. Because the site is vacant, he convinced the city to reduce the taxes to $22,000.

Should APEXs proposal be approved, Thomas said it could be taxed at $70,000 or $80,000 depending on the valuation the assessor puts on it.

Dziekan, whose cousin is suing the Planning and Zoning Commission over the zone text change that permits this conversion, said the neighborhood meeting should have taken place months ago.

Its all about communication, he said. Its information that the neighbors want.

Still Tom Lionetti, one of the residents who demanded answers during last months Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, kept his cool Thursday.

He asked if a second floor could be added to double the proposed 110 student population.

There is a height limit in this zone, Thomas said, explaining that could not happen.

Still Lionetti, a former Planning and Zoning Commission member, was not sold on Guerreras claim the students would spend most of their time studying.

There are too many things I dont like about it, he said. Kids are kids.

But Lionetti said this was not the meeting to be heard.

Youll hear me on Nov. 21, he vowed.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 Hamden Fire Department / Submitted photo Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Hamden Fire Department / Submitted photo Show More Show Less 3 of 3





HAMDEN  Around 3:47 p.m. Thursday the Hamden Fire Department was dispatched to the area of Valley Road near Gilbert with flames and smoke visible.

The department arrived at 109 Valley Road where a 19-year-old woman had just exited the home after waking up from a nap to the house filling with smoke. Hamden firefighters determined no one else was inside the home.
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HAMDEN  In the upcoming election, two candidates are vying for the mayoral seat.

Republican candidate Salman Hamid is challenging incumbent Mayor Curt B. Leng for the next two-year term to lead the town. Leng took the reins in May 2015 to finish out the term left open when former Mayor Scott Jackson left for a position with the state. Leng was elected to a full two-year term in in Novermeber 2015.

Born and bred in Hamden, Leng got involved with local government at a young age. He was elected mayor in 2015 and during his two-year term has worked on improving town infrastructure, including repairing sidewalks and repaving roads; increasing police presence, adding officer walking beats and the towns first bike patrols; and working on maintaining the towns financial rating and bringing businesses to the town.

During his time in office, the town has repaved 30 miles of roads, recently launched SeeClickFix as their work order system and expanded their community policing efforts, which has helped residents and officers build more comfortable relationships, he said.

Theres a two-year body of record to look at and people can take a look at whats happened over the last two years and say is this a direction that I like the town going in, Leng said.

Hamids family immigrated from Pakistan in 1988, when he was 3-years-old . He has been a Hamden resident for more than two decades, attending Hamden Middle School and Hamden High School where he hastaught for years. He currently serves as the K-12 District-wide Social Studies Curriculum Coordinator and educator at ACES Wintergreen Magnet School. Hamid has also serves on the Clean and Green Commission.

Hamden is in dire need of change, he said. Current and past administrations have piled on the debt, provided health care benefits far better than the average American, negotiated contracts with work rules that make it nearly impossible to make any substantive changes, he said, adding that the current administration has disregarded items and funding needed for traffic calming, paving and sidewalk repairs.

Hamid plans on scrutinizing spending in every department and building the town budget using zero-based budgeting techniques and what if analysis, he said. He also plans on forming a citizens advisory committee and a business consortium to help facilitate communication between citizens and the mayors office.

As mayor, I will show up for work every day bright and early, listen to the concerns of our residents and do my utmost to open up government to citizen participation and eliminate cronyism and partisan politics, Hamid said.

While Hamid comes from a minority community in Hamden as a Muslim-American, he hopes voters will look beyond these difference and focus on our similarities.

I love Hamden and the people who live here, he said.

Even though the delayed state budget has caused numerous problems for towns, Leng said Hamden will be fine. And while the town was put on a credit watch list along with other municipalities, he said Hamden has been delivering on its financial promises, such as working on pension agreements and balanced budgets.

Leng noted the town has had much less violent crime over the year andcrime rates have decreased or remained constant while hes been mayor.

Theres also been a refocus on constituent services, he said, by putting money into neighborhoods, replacing sidewalks and planting trees. He said his work has been about making Hamdens government and himself very approachable.

Weve accomplished a lot but we still have a lot of plans and things we want to accomplish, he said. Its been an honor to serve as this great towns mayor. Im running for re-election because I care deeply about our residents. Weve made real progress in two years and I know we can accomplish so much in the next two toward making our town and even better place to live.

The election is Tuesday Nov. 7.

mdignan@hearstmediact.com
NEW HAVEN  A reluctant states witness in the Jamal Sumler slaying trial Thursday testified he made up details he gave to police detectives that implicated Sumler in the robbery and fatal shooting of convenience store clerk Sanjay Patel.

The witness, Jeremiah Samuel, admitted under questioning by Senior Assistant States Attorney Seth Garbarsky that he has known Sumler for about 10 years. He identified him in the courtroom.

But when Garbarsky began asking Samuel about the detailed statement he gave to police detectives two years ago while he was in lock-up on a pending charge, Samuel testified, I just made it up.

Garbarsky introduced into evidence letters Samuel wrote to Sumler and the New Haven States Attorneys office, asserting he was under the influence of Xanax when the detectives interviewed him and wants to recant virtually everything he said to them.

Sumler, 26, of Howard Avenue, is charged with murder, felony murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery and carrying a pistol without a permit.

Patel, 39, was shot to death during the robbery at Pay Rite Food/Citgo Station on Forbes Avenue on the night of April 6, 2015.

Police have alleged Sumler and Dwayne Sayles, 24, carried guns into the store and that both of them shot Patel. Sayles is awaiting trial on charges of murder, felony murder, first-degree robbery, conspiracy and a weapons count.

When he was interviewed by detectives, Samuel also said he has known Sayles for about 10 years. He told Garbarsky he knows Sumler as Mal and Sayles as Black or Blackhead.

Samuel, 24, who was dressed in prison garb as he sat on the witness stand, conceded he is serving a prison sentence for first-degree robbery.

Garbarsky reminded Samuel that the transcript and videotape of his approximately two-hour interview with the detectives, Michael Wuchek and Christopher Perrone, shows him telling them that he recognized Sumler and Sayles in a videotape he watched on a TV newscast. Although the perpetrators wore black ski masks, Samuel told the detectives he recognized them from their clothing.

During his session with the detectives, Samuel said he spoke with Sumler and Sayles the next day and that they told him they were involved with the crime. But he told Garbarsky Thursday, I made up that part about the gas station.

Samuel told Garbarsky he also made up his statement to the detectives that Leighton Vanderberg was involved with the Forbes Avenue robbery and shooting. Vanderberg is charged with aiding and abetting first-degree robbery. He testified Wednesday that he drove Sumler and Sayles to a side street near Forbes Avenue, then drove them out of the area after they returned to the car.

Garbarsky read out loud in court the letter Samuel wrote to the New Haven States Attorneys office in November 2015. Referring to his talk with detectives, he said, During that interview I was under the influence of Xanax. I dont remember giving that interview. I was just high, talking. I dont want to be involved with this case. I want to take it back.

But Samuel acknowledged under Garbarkys questioning that he had not told the detectives he was high on anything. Garbarsky asked him how he could have taken the drug when he had been held overnight. Samuel replied, When I was in the police car, I popped a Xanax. He said he was able to do this despite being hand-cuffed.

Earlier Thursday, Garbarsky elicited testimony from Wuchek that Samuel had not appeared to be under the influence of any drug during that interview. Wuchek said he seemed normal.

Wuchek also testified that during the interview Samuel had expressed concern over snitching and was fearful about the consequences to him and his family.

While Samuel was on the witness stand, Garbarsky also read aloud a letter Samuel wrote to Sumler in which he apologized for giving detectives the statement. I dont remember giving that interview. I was on Xanax...I want to recant what I said...It was a wild mistake and Im sorry. Word is bond.

With the jury absent, Garbarsky played part of the videotape of Samuels interview. He stated the first perpetrator seen walking into the convenience store on the videotape shown on TV was Mal and the second was Blackhead.

Samuel quoted Mal telling him the clerk was shot because he went for the gun.

After defense attorney Wade Luckett objected to Garbarskys request that the jurors see part of that videotape of the Samuel interview, Superior Court Judge Elpedio N. Vitale said he would study the material and announce his ruling today. Vitale also will rule on Garbarskys request to show to the jurors a videotape of Sumlers interview with detectives.

In other testimony Thursday, jurors heard West Haven Police Officer Jason Aklin testify that while he was working with the U.S. Marshals task force, he helped apprehend Sumler and rode with him to the New Haven police station. He recalled Sumler asking him during the ride what kind of gun he was carrying, then saying, Im infatuated with guns. I love them.

Aklin said he tried to change the subject by asking Sumler what he wanted to be when he grew up. He testified Sumler replied: Ive always wanted to be a bank robber.

Probation Officer Jayme DeNardis then testified she knew Sumler from 59 meetings with him and was able to identify him in a still photo police showed her from a videotape at Eddys Food Center the night of Patels slaying. Police have asserted Sumler went to Eddys to buy gloves, which he and Sayles allegedly wore to the Forbes Avenue store.

randall.beach@hearstmediact.com
The fragile economy of Nigeria might be heading back to recession following the planned resumption of hostilities in the Niger Delta region. The Niger Delta Avengers, a group of militants that struck oil installations in Niger Delta region last year, has announced an immediate end to its ceasefire with the Nigerian government.

In a statement posted on its website Friday afternoon, the group said it would resume hostilities any day from now, saying the Buhari administration has not been sincere with its peace talks and promises for the Niger Delta.

The group also condemned a former top militant in the region, Government Ekpemupolo, a.k.a. Tompolo, saying he had failed to live up to his leadership roles for those who seek absolute emancipation for the region.

The statement was signed by the groups spokesperson, named Mudoch Agbinibo, who also announced a string of successful attacks on oil and gas facilities that sent major international oil firms like Shell and Chevron deferring activities last year.

The group also named the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, as one of Nigerian governments loyalists sabotaging its cause. The militants have not carried out any major attack since the beginning of this year.

The group in a statement by the spokesman, self-styled General Mudoch Agbinibo, renounced PANDEF, led by former Federal Commissioner for Information, Chief Edwin Clark, ex-militant leader, Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, and the Reformed Niger Delta Avengers, RNDA.

The Niger Delta Avengers are back and will not spare anything or anyone on our path to actualize a united and free Niger Delta.

Our next line of operation will not be like the 2016 campaign, which we operated successfully without any casualties. This outing will be brutish, brutal and bloody, as we shall crush everything we meet on our path to completely put off the fires that burn to flair gas in our communities and cut every pipe that moves crude away from our region.





We can assure you that every oil installation in our region will feel warmth of the wrath of the Niger Delta Avengers, He said.
Former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) Chief Bode George yesterday picked nomination form for the office of national chairman of the party ahead of its national convention fixed for August 17 in Port Harcourt.Saturday Sun gathered that chieftains of the party from the South met on Thursday night in Port Harcourt, where they resolved to concede the office of the national chairman to the South-west.By the zoning arrangement presented to the party caretaker committee by the Ebonyi State governor, Dave Umahi, the position of national chairman was zoned to the entire south.Saturday Sun further gathered that other contenders for the exalted office from the South west include, former Minister for Special Duties, Professor Taoheed Adedoja, former Lagos State governorship candidate, Jimi Agbaje and former Education Minister, Professor Tunde Adeniran.But speaking while inaugurating the Convention Planning Committee yesterday, Chairman of the Caretaker Committee, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, declared that the agreement by the Southern leaders to concede the office of national chairman to South-west did not preclude aspirants from South-south or South-east from buying nomination form for same position.He said: The convention must be an all inclusive one. But that doesnt mean that people cant come together as like minds to zone offices.It doesnt also mean others who feel strongly against certain arrangement have been excluded.So, I dont want people to have the impression that they have been excluded. After all, in a democracy, majority will have their way and minority have their say.Speaking with newsmen after picking his nomination form, Chief Bode George promised to revive and stabilise the party ahead of 2019 general elections, if given the mandate at the forthcoming convention.It takes an experienced captain to stabilise a ship hit by tornado. And if you know the crisis in PDP, that is, the position the party is facing right now. But I am happy that all is not lost, and the condition has been enhanced, zoning has gone extremely well.I have paid my dues in this party and I shouldnt be afraid of anybody. Since 1999, I never left the party to anyone. I met crisis and problem; I have been able to resolve that. I have risen meritoriously, from vice chairman South west to deputy chairman south and deputy chairman overall.I have been able to resolve problems.If people vote for me, I look forward to stabilise the party and put it in right position. The ruling party should get ready for serious engagement because we have started a cohesive battle ahead 2019.Everybody will have to come on board even those of our friends who were angry and left for APC they are tenants there, but are landlords in PDP. If we are lucky and we get the right leadership who is fair and just and committed to the party, they will come back.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday ordered that ailing former Vice President Alex Ekwueme be flown abroad for medical treatment.

President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday ordered that ailing former Vice President Alex Ekwueme be flown abroad for medical treatment.According to a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, the President gave the order after he received a brief on the medical condition of the former Vice President.Shehu explained that the approval given by Buhari would cover the cost of chartering an air ambulance for the journey and the cost of his treatment.The statement read, President Muhammadu Bubari has approved the immediate medical treatment of former Vice-President, Dr Alex Ekwueme, outside the country.The approval followed a brief the President received Friday on the medical condition of the former Vice-President.The approval covers the immediate charter of an Air Ambulance for the emergency movement and the cost of treatment.President Buhari prays that God will grant the elder statesman speedy recovery.
Owing to alleged unfulfilled promises and insincerity on the part of the federal government, the dreaded Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) h...

Owing to alleged unfulfilled promises and insincerity on the part of the federal government, the dreaded Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) has called off its unilateral ceasefire.The group, in a statement posted on its website on Friday also lashed out at fugitive former warlord, Chief Government Ekpemupolo, also known as Tompolo, and the elders of the Niger Delta region, represented by the Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), for allegedly working against the interest of its struggle.It warned that its operations, which it said would commence soon, would not be without casualties as it was in 2016, sending strong warnings to the oil multinationals operating in the region, it said it would bring down anything and anyone in sight.In the statement signed by its spokesperson, Murdoch Agbinibo, NDA also debunked the existence of any militant group known as the Reformed Niger Delta Avengers (RNDA), describing it as a money-making tool, put together by Niger Delta political jobbers.It blamed the current state of things in the Niger Delta and the failure of the Nigerian government to have taken serious and practical steps towards addressing the regions woes on the PANDEF and Tompolo.It, however, said it had lost faith in Tompolo and the PANDEF, vowing not to listen to any call or advise from them from now onwards.To the elders of the Niger Delta, PANDEF, we warned you against the antics of the Nigerian Government yet you requested a chance to broker a new vision for our people; we told you and the rest of the world that the Nigerian Government is only interested in our oil wells and not our well being yet you told us the signs are different this time around.Instead of allowing us to continue our quest to bring the Nigerian economy to our targeted zero daily production, which recorded huge success; you threatened us with Tompolo to stop the struggle; out of respect for elders and not to the threat of Tompolo we adhered the call and halted our strike actions hoping you (PANDEF) would keep your own side of the bargain.The question to Tompolo and the PANDEF is to tell us what progress they achieved since we heeded your retrogressive call, to whose benefit is the move by Tompolo and the Niger Delta elders to impede a mission sanctioned by our ancestors and the Almighty?Tompolo, we want you to know that we never started this struggle with the intent of living forever but with our lives already offered for a sacrifice for a better Niger Delta. We invite you to come after us with your total force as we are no longer ready to heed uninspiring advise from you or anyone else in the Niger Delta Region.To the Nigerian Government, we are aware of Egina FPSO built in South Korea by Samsung to be operated by Total Nigeria is one of the biggest FPSO built in South Korea has started its voyage to the oil fields of the Niger Delta to further exploit us while our concerns are left unattended. We are presently tracking and monitoring its movement and God willing it shall not operate successfully in amidst the return of the fury of the Niger Delta Avengers.Message to the Oil Companies; Our next line of operation will not be like the 2016 campaign which we operated successfully without any casualties; this outing will be brutish, brutal and bloody, as we are shall crush everything we meet on our path to completely put off the fires that burn to flair gas in our communities and cut every pipe that moves crude away from our region. We can assure you that every oil installation in our region will feel the warmth of the wrath of the Niger Delta Avengers, the statement said.
The Lagos State Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps has secured the conviction of three persons for illegal oil bunkering.The convicts Francis Awhandijnou, Anato Mathew, Padonu Jacques and Jean Honfo  were each sentenced to 12 years imprisonment by the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, Lagos.They were said to have been arrested on May 10, 2016, at Sakpo village in Badagry.About 118 25-litre jerricans containing fuel were reportedly recovered from them.They were subsequently handed over to the NSCDC by the Nigeria Navy Ship Beecroft, Apapa, for prosecution.The Lagos State Commandant of the NSCDC, Tajudeen Balogun, in a statement on Thursday said the convicts were arraigned on two counts before Justice M.D. Idris of the Federal High Court.He said they were jailed for six years on each of the counts with suit number, FHC/L/271C/16.Balogun said, The convicts were found guilty of conspiracy and dealing in petroleum products without lawful authority. They were convicted and sentenced to six years imprisonment on count one and six years on count two. The prison terms are to run concurrently.
The presidency has stated that President Muhammadu Buhari never made a promise to Nigerians in 2015 that he would not seek medical treatmen...

The presidency has stated that President Muhammadu Buhari never made a promise to Nigerians in 2015 that he would not seek medical treatment abroad if elected.

His Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, yesterday disclosed this while appearing as a guest on Focus Nigeria, a programme on Africa Independent Television (AIT).





The spokesman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bolaji Abdullahi, who appeared alongside Adesina, also said the much talked about promise the president allegedly made was false.





Abdullahi said: I was the Deputy Director of the policy directorate of the campaign, I was there from the beginning to the end.





So many people came to join the group, some from even outside the country. Then one day, we were in a meeting, then one gentleman who heads one of the international NGOs in the country brought this list of 100 items that he was proposing that we should push out as the promise of Mr President to Nigerians.





We circulated and asked everyone to study it and come back the following day so that we look at which ones we can own and which ones we need to reject.





I remember that Number 1 on that list was to make the President say that When I become President, I will not travel abroad for medical treatment.





And I remember we rejected that immediately, because we said we didnt know what this man was dealing with; we didnt know who his doctors had been, how could we say this for him?





But you know what happened? One of us in the group just released the document.





Adesina backed Abdullahis claim, confirming that the president was never aware of any such promise, let alone agree to it.





He said, I can confirm that even the President himself, who was a candidate then, was not aware. The very week I resumed this assignment, I raised some things with the President. I said, this and this and this were promised, and the President said When did I promise these things?





I said there is a document titled 100 things Buhari will do in 100 days. He never knew about that document. He had to ask people to fetch that document for him, and it was the first time he was seeing it.





So there were promises that people made during the campaign on his behalf.





Adesina went further to blame the past administrations of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the poor state of healthcare in the country.





He said the situation was a major reason for the presidents medical trips abroad.





He said, There was a time we could have afforded it, but the money was not properly spent. Thats why the President keeps lamenting that for a certain number of years consistently, oil prices stood at $100 per barrel, going as high as $120 per barrel at a time, and we were producing about 2.1 million barrels daily.





Then when he (Buhari) came, oil prices plunged to $37 per barrel, so he called the Central Bank Governor and said, Do we have savings? and the Governor said No savings.





The question is, What did they do with that money? Why didnt they fix our hospitals in all those years that we had boom?





And you know that since 2015, things have been down and they are just looking up now. As things look up, if they ever ever get back to where we were, if we ever get back to $100 per barrel for oil under the Buhari administration, its doubtful.





But if we ever get there, you can be sure that a lot will get done, because this is a prudent administration and the money of Nigerians will be used to serve Nigerians.





Recall that the president has made two trips to London this year alone to seek treatment for an undisclosed illness.




A former Niger Delta militant leader, Asari Dokubo has given reasons he said Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike and President Muhammadu ...

A former Niger Delta militant leader, Asari Dokubo has given reasons he said Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike and President Muhammadu Buhari are conjoined twins.

According to him, just as president Buhari is running a sectional government, Wike is also doing the same in Rivers.





Asari, who pointed out that Biafra and the Ijaw nation was more important to him than his own life, accused the governor of abandoning the roads and schools in the riverine areas of the state.





Asari said this in a video he shared on social media on Thursday, where he declared that he was not afraid of talking about the evil of the Wikes administration, adding the people appointed by Wike from the riverine areas were resigning on a daily basis due to neglect of the areas.





He said, A couple of days I had video that I posted where I compared Wike and Buhari that they are conjoined twins. And I had flood of calls, so many people calling me. While some of them commended me, some were not happy with it.





Also, some of them feel Im endangering the political career of my younger sister Boma of the Asari-Toru Constituency of the National Assembly. That Wike was the person who gave her a ticket and I asked them this question: Is Wike the owner of PDP? I dont think so. Hes only one of the members of PDP.





That is not the issue. I have nothing personal against Wike as I have never had anything personal with any Governor of Rivers State. The closest Governor of Rivers State to me was Peter Odili.





If it was personal, I would have been closer to Odili because he gave me a lot of favour even though he didnt give me any contract. And some times when I had problem Odili stood by me. But the Ijaw Nation and Biafra are more important to me than any other thing. Even more important to me than by life and I can take any stand on these issues.





These are very fundamental issues that one cannot just throw away. Now, the issues I raised against Wike are they true? Is there Ogbama Community Secondary School that looks like a forest? More horrific; more fearful like the mythical Sambisa forest?





Yes there is. Is there a school in Ogbama that even kids are even ashamed to attend classes there? Yes there is. Is it true that the Deputy Governor of Rivers State is from Ogbama? Yes. Is is true that Ogbama has no good road?





Yes it is. Mr. Project is busy doing roads in his place in Rumuorumini; Obio/Akpo and Port Harcourt. But Degema LGA, Ogbama, Akuku Toru they are not part of Rivers state so he cannot fix any road there.



Is it not shameful that there are so many high profile resignation in Wikes government and all of them are from the Riverine area. They are all Ijaw people.





That shows the kind of people Wike is. It shows that his government is not an all inclusive government. He is running a sectional government. Its so dangerous for him to run that kind of government.




NEW MILFORD -- A wake will be held Saturday for a borough man killed Tuesday when he was hit by a Home Depot truck driven on a New York City bike path by alleged terrorist Sayfullo Saipov.

Visitation will be held Saturday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Boulevard Funeral Home on River Road in New Milford. A funeral service will be held Monday at 9:30 a.m. at Church of the Ascension on Azalea Drive in New Milford.

Darren S. Drake will be buried alongside his grandparents, his father Jimmy Drake said.

Darren Drake

Drake, a former school board president, was riding a bicycle on a break from his job at Moody's when he and 8 others were struck and killed.

The 32-year-old's father described him as the 'perfect son'.

His parents grew concerned Tuesday when they hadn't heard from him by 7 p.m.

Darren Drake graduated from Rutgers in 2007 with a degree in political science. He earned a masters from Fairleigh Dickinson University and was working toward a second master's degree at Stevens Institute of Technology.

Allison Pries may be reached at apries@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AllisonPries. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
MAHWAH - The Superior Court judge overseeing a trial pitting the township of Mahwah against a Native American tribe spent part of Friday touring the prayer ground at the center of the bitter dispute.

Superior Court Judge Roy F. McGeady, who is presiding over the trial, was led around the property by Dwaine Perry, chief of the Rampaough Lenape tribe. McGeady stepped inside a yurt, peaked inside the chief's tent and was smudged in a traditional custom using smoke before entering a prayer circle.

The township has issued 40 to 50 complaints, at $1,250 each, for teepees, tents and other structures that have been erected at Split Rock Sweet Water, the parcel of land at the edge of the Ramapo River. The structures violate zoning ordinances, the town says.

McGeady heard testimony during a month-long, one-day-a-week trial that closed Tuesday. He is expected to render a decision on Nov. 17.

McGeady also examined a makeshift kitchen that's used for food storage but not cooking, viewed a frame for a sweat lodge, asked about teepee poles that were leaning against two trees, checked out a riverside altar, saw a 20-foot shipping crate that provides the tribe with renewable energy and peeked inside a pop-up shed where equipment is stored.

The Ramapoughs have been at odds with town officials and neighbors over the tribe's use of the site, which is located at the entrance to a housing development comprised of million-dollar homes, known as the Polo Club.

About two dozen residents turned out Friday for the hour-long walking tour of the property. They trailed McGeady, attorneys for the Ramapoughs and the township, and tribe supporters.

John Lamb, an attorney who represents the neighboring homeowners, says the Ramapoughs are ignoring zoning and other township ordinances by setting up a tent 20 feet from the road (when there is a 70-foot setback requirement), and creating a driveway, a makeshift parking lot and a camp when the zoning doesn't allow it.

"There's a process and they just do whatever they want," Lamb said.

The residents are not involved in the proceeding before McGeady. They have filed their own civil lawsuit that is being heard in Superior Court by Judge Charles Powers.

Powers, Lamb said, is "waiting to see what happens here" before that case proceeds.

A tribe member who identified himself as Owl said the Ramapoughs have tried to sit down with neighbors to come to an understanding.

"Their position is we don't want you here and they're going to try everything legally and otherwise to push us out," he said.

Allison Pries may be reached at apries@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AllisonPries. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
BELLEVILLE -- The Orange man who was killed after breaking into a Belleville home was shot with his own gun after the resident wrestled it from his hands, authorities said Friday.

Michael Ridley, 42, was shot after breaking into a Belleville home at about 10 p.m. on Oct. 31, acting Essex County Prosecutor Robert Laurino and Belleville Police Chief Mark Minichini announced in a joint press release Friday.

Ridley broke into the Berton Place home and shot a resident. During a subsequent altercation, the resident "gained control of the weapon" and shot Ridley, the prosecutor's office said.

Ridley ran from the home and collapsed at the nearby Nutley border, where he was later pronounced dead, officials said.

The 32-year-old resident was treated for his injuries and has since been released from the hospital, authorities said.

A prosecutor's office spokeswoman previously confirmed to NJ Advance Media there was another suspect in the home invasion, but did not release more details.

Officials said Friday the investigation into the incident is "active and ongoing." Anyone with information is asked to call the office's tip line at 877-847-7432.

Jessica Mazzola may be reached at jmazzola@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @JessMazzola. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Two New Jersey men were arrested separately Wednesday after police say they put tape over the vehicle license plates as they attempted to drive through the Holland Tunnel.

At around 7 a.m., Port Authority police on duty near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel in Jersey City spotted a black 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee that matched the description of a vehicle that drove through the tunnel Tuesday with an obscured license plate, Port Authority police spokesman Joe Pentangelo said.

The driver -- James Schweizer, 28, of Hoboken -- was placed under arrest and charged with falsifying public records and driving with a revoked license.

During the traffic stop, police found in the vehicle an EZ Pass that was reported lost on Dec. 29, 2014 by a member of Schweizer's family, Pentangelo said, adding that the Jeep itself was registered to Schweizer.

Furthermore, police determined that Schweizer removed the vehicle from the account on Oct. 25 and requested a refund from EZ Pass prior to his arrest, Pentangelo added.

About seven hours later, police arrested Jonathan Iglesia, 26, of Newark, after he attempted to enter a marked EZ Pass only lane heading east into the tunnel, Pentangelo said.

The officer who initiated the traffic stop noted both the front and rear license plates on Iglesia's vehicle were marked with black tape, so the EZ Pass camera could not identify the vehicle, Pentangelo said.

Iglesia did not have an EZ Pass in the vehicle and was found to owe more than $3,000 in unpaid tolls and fees, the spokesman added.

He was placed under arrest and charged with tampering with public records and theft of services.
JERSEY CITY - Four police officers have been indicted by a grand jury on charges ranging from attempted murder to official misconduct for their roles in a high-speed chase that left an innocent man critically injured.

The aftermath of the June 4 crash was caught on video and showed at least one Jersey City police officer apparently kicking 28-year-old Miguel Feliz when he emerged from his burning vehicle.

Four of the officers involved - MD Khan, Eric Kosinski, Francisco Rodriguez, and Lt. Keith Ludwig - have been suspended without pay pending the outcome of the indictments, officials said.

Officials say Leo Pinkston, 48, was sitting in a double-parked car near Ocean and Cator avenues that matched the description of a vehicle used in a recent shooting on the night of the pursuit. Pinkston fled when police attempted to pull him over and the high-speed chase ended six miles away when both his and Feliz's vehicles struck a utility pole.

Khan, who is not listed as a police officer in the indictment, and Kosinski, face the most serious charges of attempted murder. During a court proceeding for Pinkston, it was revealed they had shot at Pinkston's moving vehicle on Tonnelle Avenue near Carlton Avenue. Khan faces 13 counts in the indictment and Kosinski five charges.

Those two officers and Rodriguez - who allegedly shot at Pinkston's car near Manhattan Avenue - are additionally charged with multiple counts of aggravated assault and weapons offenses.

Ludwig is charged with two counts of aggravated assault. All four are charged with official misconduct.

Anthony Iacullo, the attorney representing Ludwig, said he is confident his client will be exonerated.

"His actions that night were appropriate and in accord with his training and experience of over 24 years as a Jersey City police officer," Iacullo said in a statement. "Lt. Ludwig and his family, friends and supporters stand beside him as the process now begins."

The pursuit, which made national headlines, caused a shakeup in the city's police department. Mayor Steve Fulop pushed to fire the four officers named in Thursday's indictment and quickly suspended them. They were later returned to modified duty.

"As we stated at the outset, the actions taken that night required serious investigation. We took immediate and appropriate action and will now abide the judicial process," Fulop said. "Our internal investigation will now begin into all the actions or inactions of department members that night. We want the community to continue to have full confidence in the Jersey City Police Department and its officers."

Carmine Disbrow, president of the Jersey City Police Officers Benevolent Association, said the union will continue to stand behind the officers.

"The JCPOBA has stood strong since day one that our members, and every American citizen, deserve to avail of their right to a day in court," Disbrow said in a statement.

The superior officers' union release a similar statement defending Ludwig.

"Lt. Ludwig has spent an entire career serving the people of Jersey City honorably," president Robert Kearns said. "We ask that he be given the same rights as every citizen and be afforded a presumption of innocence. We are confident that in the end justice will prevail and we support Keith, his family and friends during this time."

Pinkston, the driver of the pursuit, has been held at the Hudson County jail since his arrest. His wife told The Jersey Journal Pinkston was struggling with drugs at the time of the crash.

Alexander Locatelli, the attorney representing Feliz, had just learned of the indictment against the police officers when contacted by The Jersey Journal today and said he would comment when he learns more of the case.

Feliz has "adjusted quite well" both physically and mentally since the crash that left much of his body burned, the attorney said.

Caitlin Mota may be reached at cmota@jjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitlin_mota. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
Former FBI New Orleans' special-agent-in-charge Jeffrey Sallet left his post as leader of the office that covers all of Louisiana on Friday, Nov. 3, 217, after he was transferred to lead the division in Chicago. (NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune archive)
AVOCA  The verdict for the second-degree murder bench trial of Robert Reynolds is expected Friday afternoon after the prosecution and defense argued Thursday whether Reynolds had drunkenly hallucinated that the woman he shot was possessed by a demon.

Reynolds is accused of murdering Patricia Kinkade-Dorsey on April 8, 2014. This is the second trial regarding the case, as Reynolds first-degree murder conviction in 2014 was reversed by the Iowa Court of Appeals a year later.

Witnesses to the shooting, including Reynolds wife and step-daughter, testified he shot the woman in the kitchen after a night of drinking at their Oakland home.

In his appeal, Reynolds objected to the venue of the trial and the makeup of the jury pool due to an 1884 law that once divided Pottawattamie County into two for judicial purposes. His retrial was ordered to take place in Avoca, but the East Pottawattamie County Courthouse was incapable of hosting the trial, so the Fire Hall on Main Street was used instead.

Reynolds defense, comprised of attorneys Kyle and Bill McGinn, called their first of three witnesses to the stand.

Bruce Gutnik, an Omaha doctor specializing in psychiatry and forensic psychiatry, testified his review of Reynolds condition found the defendant to be of above-average intelligence with no history of psychological problems.

He said he never suffered hallucinations before and that he was in an alcoholic blackout that night, Gutnik said.

Gutnik went on to testify that Reynolds may have suffered an alcohol-induced psychotic disorder where hallucinations could have occurred. Reynolds has claimed since the shooting he believed he was threatened by Kinkade-Dorsey and thought she was possessed by a demon.

Bill McGinn asked if such a hallucination of a demon could be perceived as real for one suffering from the disorder. Gutnik said yes. He added having a lack of memory of the event is also a sign of the disorder.

It is common with people with this disorder to not remember what happens, Gutnik said.

Two of Reynolds neighbors also testified as to the defendants character. Both described Reynolds as a peaceful, friendly guy who was easy-going.

In closing statements, Assistant Pottawattamie County Attorney James Burger argued it was beyond a reasonable doubt that Reynolds had committed second-degree murder  not manslaughter  after he came back from the bedroom that night with a pistol and shot Kinkaid-Dorsey three times.

He had an opportunity to think about what he was doing. He had malice and forethought based on the use of a dangerous weapon, Burger said. Intoxication does not negate malice.

Bill McGinn disputed Burgers claim. He said Reynolds had responded to what at the time he perceived to be a threat against himself and his family.

He faced provocation. He felt threatened and did what he had to do for his family. Its a hard decision to make  a killing, Bill McGinn said.

Burger replied that even if Reynolds had hallucinated a threat, the lack of provocation was apparent.

Conduct by the victim has to cause a reasonable person to believe they needed to act with sudden violence, Burger said. This woman was lying on the ground when she was shot, not saying anything.

The prosecution and defense rested. Judge Susan Christensen said she would have the verdict read Friday at 1:30 p.m. in Avoca.
Once again this year, three area families are going to have a brighter holiday season thanks the Availa Banks Its a Wonderful Christmas giveaway.

The contest, which is now underway, will provide three deserving families with a holiday package that will include a gift card to an area grocer, a Visa gift card for securing presents and a Christmas tree. Each package will have a value of $500.

This is the second year that Availa is sponsoring this heart-warming contest. Matt Gronstal, president of Availa Bank in Council Bluffs, said the bank is thrilled to be able to participate in this contest again in 2017.

Gronstal stated that Availa is committed to giving back to the community and that the Its a Wonderful Christmas giveaway is one great way for the bank to achieve that goal.

Registration for the contest is now open, and nominating a deserving family is easy to do. Simply visit The Nonpareils website at nonpareilonline.com and click on the contest button in the informational bar at the top of the page, then click on Its a Wonderful Christmas and follow the instructions.

Registration closes on Tuesday, Nov. 14.
A lot of fellows tried to drive the bull into the wires with him on it, J.H. Harrington said as he described an incident that had occurred at the Delaware County fair at Delhi in 1859.

When a somewhat intoxicated fairgoer hopped on a bulls back and rode around a track enclosed by a strange-looking fence, Harrington took notice. That fence, made of barbs twisted around strands of wire, was unlike anything hed seen. It was the first time he had seen what became known as a barbed wire fence.

Harrington testified in 1888 in a north Iowa courtroom, presided over by Judge Oliver Shiras. The Washburn & Moen Co. of Worcester, Massachusetts, had brought suit against the Beat Em-all Barbed Wire Co. of Cedar Falls for patent infringement. Harrington, a defendant for the Iowa company, helped make the case that barbed wire had been invented by an Iowa farmer named Alvin Morley. Morley, described by The New York Times as an eccentric old bachelor, had spent time in a Pennsylvania insane asylum before moving to Iowa.

The Iowa company manufactured their fencing using the designs of Morley, while the Massachusetts company manufactured their fencing based on a design and patent of a man named Joseph Glidden.

Lawyers for Washburn & Moen argued that an insane man couldnt have invented barbed wire. In support of their argument, the company lawyers described the travelling cow pen that Morley had patented in 1866.

The triangular pen with wheels attached to each corner allowed a cow to push the pen along with her as she walked around the pasture, yet prevented her from wandering too far. They claimed it was a hare-brained, ridiculous inventionproof that Morley was incapable of inventing useful objects.

Lawyers for the Beat Em-all Barbed Wire Co. claimed Morley had invented barbed wire long before Joseph Glidden. Though Morley had died in 1867, there were plenty of witnesses who testified they had seen his barbed wire in an exhibit at the Delaware County fair in 1859.

A 40-year-old witness at the trial was only 9 at the time of the fair, but he recalled vividly scuffling with some boys near Morleys display. He had cut his face quite badly as he fell into the fence, and he still had the scars to prove it.

After sifting through nearly a wagon-load of evidence and hearing from about 180 men who had provided depositions, Judge Shiras issued a decision.

Alvin Morley was the inventor of barbed wire fencing, and the Washburn & Moen Co. no longer had a monopoly on the sale of the product. No one believed for a minute that Washburn and Moen wouldnt appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. And they did.

In 1892, the Supreme Court overturned the lower court decision, and Joseph Gliddens patent was upheld.
SCOTTSBLUFF  The state patrol is asking for the publics help in the search for Elijah Mason Dunning, 21, who is wanted in connection to two high-speed pursuits.

Dunning is 5-foot-7, and weighs approximately 130 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes.

According to a press release from the state patrol, Dunning is wanted in connection to a traffic stop drive-off after troopers stopped a 2014 Dodge Ram pickup on Tuesday. The suspect led law enforcement on two separate high-speed chases before fleeing on foot.
A man was arrested Wednesday afternoon on suspicion of theft and forgery.

North Platte police were called to Daves Place, 1510 E. Fourth St., just before 11 a.m. A local bank had reported that it had received a check from the Daves business account that looked forged. The handwriting was poor and there were several errors, so bank officials called Daves to ask about it, said Investigator John Deal.

The check was made out to Daniel Navarrette, police say, and was for approximately $300. It was cashed at a local business, then was taken to the bank where the errors were noted.

Navarrette, 28, is an employee of Daves, but he had already received his paycheck on Monday, Deal said.

Daves management found that the check was missing from the store checkbook and had not been written by anyone authorized by the business.

An officer went to the business where the check was cashed and viewed surveillance footage that showed a person passing the check, according to police reports. The business also had obtained the drivers license number of the person, which was Navarrettes, reports say.

Navarrette was arrested Wednesday afternoon at a residence in the 600 block of North Willow Street. He is charged with theft by deception up to $500, third offense, and second-degree forgery, up to $500. Because of prior misdemeanor theft convictions, Deal said, Navarrettes theft charge is a felony.

His bail was set at 10 percent of $5,000.
JOIN A WINNING TEAM right here in northwest indiana We have been covering Northwest Indiana for over 100 years and were still growing. We are, by far, the main source of news, information and advertising in the Region and are looking for great people to join out team. Whether youre just starting out or looking for a place to step up,TheTimes has opportunities you need to explore. PAGE DESIGNER TheTimes Media Co., located 20 miles from downtown Chicago, is looking for highly motivated, creative page designers who can bring a new dimension to our brand of local newspapers and magazines. As our design center has expanded, so has our drive to find designers with innovative newspaper and magazine design and illustration skills. Our energetic design staff is working hard to change the perception of designers as merely visual people. We work with the belief that good content drives readership, and we push our staff to be content editors. If you possess the heart of a journalist and an innovative mind, we want you to join our close-knit, talented design team. Our ideal candidates will have experience in design at a newspaper or magazine, understand the fast-paced, newsroom environment, have the ability to manage several tasks simultaneously, and are experienced in information and content design. Candidates also must display a strong instinct for problem solving, a sense of urgency, and a passion for news. Experience with InDesign and Photoshop is preferred. In this position you must be willing to work a varied schedule with night hours. TheTimes Media Co. is one of Lee Enterprises 46 daily newspapers. Lee also publishes 300 weekly newspapers, shoppers and classified and specialty publications. In addition, Lee provides a wide variety of associated online services. EOE Call Center Representative (Part-time 30-39 hrs/wk) We have immediate openings for experienced Customer Service Representatives (CSRs), for our call center operations atTheTimes in our Munster & Crown Point, Indiana locations.TheTimes of Northwest Indiana is part of Lee Enterprises which is a leading provider of local newspapers, information and advertising in primarily midsize markets, with 46 daily newspapers and a joint interest in two others, along with rapidly growing digital products and nearly 300 specialty publications in 21 states which includesTheTimes of Northwest Indiana. Our call center agents are the backbone of our business. When customers call us, our CSRs answer the phone, make connections, answer questions, solve problems, and get people happily on their way as quickly as possible. As a Lee Enterprise Call Center Customer Service Representative, youll handle heavy call volumes daily in our fast paced call center, while maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction. When you join Lee Enterprises, you will enjoy:  Instantly becoming part of our family of diverse people focused on making really good customer experiences happen.  Ways to earn more every single month through bonus and incentives.  A clear path and the tools you need to progress with more responsibilities and promotions  Earning paid time off which includes vacation, sick and personal days, along with paid holidays  Eligibility for Medical, Dental, Vision, & Life Insurance, along with a 401K Match! Bring it.Youre qualified if you:  Love to help people  Have experience performing comfortably in a fast paced, deadline oriented environment.  Are proficient with MS Excel, Word & Outlook & have the ability to navigate thru various software programs efficiently  Above average typing skills (50+wpm)  Have sales ability and experience with inbound/ outbound customer service Learn more or apply online at www.nwi.com/timesjobs. EOE Distribution Assistant  Temporary/Seasonal TheTimes is currently looking for part-time Distribution Assistants to work in one of our Distribution Centers, working an average of 35 hours per week.These positions are temporary, seasonal positions that may continue through January 2018. Our centers are located in Valparaiso, Merrillville, and Hammond, IN. Work hours are in the early morning and include holidays and weekends. The work consists of:  opening and closing the distribution center  stacking bundles on tables  assisting with the delivery of newspaper routes  other duties assigned by the District Manager Candidates must have a valid drivers license and good driving record, as well as a reliable vehicle and proof of auto insurance. Mileage reimbursement is available if asked to use your vehicle for work purposes. Other requirements include basic computer skills and the ability to lift up to 40 pounds. The starting hourly wage for this position is $12.00/hour. This is an excellent entry level position for a company with a history of promoting from within. TheTimes is a drug-free workplace and all candidates offered a position will be asked to complete a pre-employment drug screen. Interested candidates should apply online at www.nwi.com/timesjobs. Equal Opportunity Employer Multi-Media Sales Executive  Outside Sales Base Salary PLUS Un-capped Commissions Join a winning team! We reach more consumers than we ever have before through NWI.com and our award winning print products. Consumer in NW Indiana rely onTheTimes and NWI.com for local news and information that no one else can deliver. Over 75% of all adults in NW Indiana connect with us through our on-line and print products on a weekly basis. We deliver 1.6M unique visitors per month with over 12.6M page views and 8.2M mobile sessions per month! We are looking for Multi-Media Sales professionals who possess the drive and passion to help local business owners increase market share through real time solutions and products that deliver superior results! We offer:  Competitive base salary  Un-capped commissions  On-going incentives and spiffs  Mobile phone  Mileage reimbursement  Benefits including: 401K (matching too), medical, dental, vision, paid vacation and personal time, life insurance, flexible spending accounts  Laptop and tools to be successful Our Multi-Media Sales professional manage an existing base of wellestablished accounts along with the responsibility and ability to hunt and develop new accounts... we want HUNTERS. Plus work alongside a team of sales professionals in a competitive market serving 6 counties! You Are:  Competitive  Driven to be the best  Results and goals oriented  Mentally tough  Possess a strong work ethic  Tech savvy  High character  Want to grow a great career  Willing to have fun! Ideal candidates possess:  3 + years of sales experience with a demonstrated track record of success  Prospecting & cold calling experience in successfully opening new accounts  Excellent communication skills  Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high transactional sales environment  College degree preferred  Valid drivers license, good driving record and access to a reliable vehicle Were willing to train the right candidate! If you bring the heart and desire to succeed we will equip you with the tools and knowledge to be successful! Drug Free Workplace Equal Opportunity Employer APPLY AT NWI.COM/TIMESJOBS
The leader of the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority said a recent trip to Washington, D.C., to promote the South Shore Line's expansion projects generated positive reactions regarding state and local commitments to the projects' financing and to promotion of private development.

"We were able to go in and say we're 100 percent funded from a state and local perspective," RDA President and CEO Bill Hanna said.

And legislation signed by Gov. Eric Holcomb at the conclusion of this year's General Assembly created the opportunity for establishment of transit development districts around train stations, with future growth in income and property tax revenue allocated to promoting growth in them.

"I got a lot of raised eyebrows in Washington about that, in a very positive way," Hanna said.

Hanna said the TDDs will allow the RDA to absorb some of the risks of private development, allowing both for more desirable projects and to encourage investment across the South Shore communities "to make sure the rising tide lifts all boats."

Region officials hope the prospect of significant private investment will encourage federal officials to favor the projects.

"We were able to say, we have an opportunity to partner with you, just like we did with the General Assembly," Hanna said.

'Elevating the discussion'

The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District and RDA hope to win grants that would pay half the costs of the $665 million West Lake Corridor and $312 million Double Track projects.

Hanna said the meetings  with officials from the Office of Management and Budget, Federal Transit Administration and Vice President Mike Pence's office, among others  were geared toward "elevating the discussion" regarding the rail projects. The goal is to get the necessary federal grants in the fiscal 2019 budget cycle.

"The way the budget process works, in order to get in fiscal '19, we have to be in the budget discussions now," Hanna said.

Funding recommendations for the Department of Transportation's competitive New Starts and Core Capacity grants are made early in the budget development process. February is the key month, Hanna said.

And with uncertainty brought by the Trump administration's proposal to phase out the transit grant programs, and considering the general complexity of federal budget writing, "you can see how easily something can get lost in the process there," Hanna said.

The projects were presented to federal officials as an opportunity to achieve four goals: population growth, urban renewal, talent attraction and a rebuilding of middle class wealth.

"We have to be very vigilant about keeping this message out there, speaking to the right folks at the right time about what's different about this," Hanna said.

'Transforming our economy'

Before a 2019 budget starts its way through Congress, members must finish work on the fiscal 2018 budget. U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Merrillville, a member of the Committee on Appropriations in the House of Representatives, said the House has sent its 2018 appropriations bills to the Senate. Once that chamber completes its versions, House and Senate appropriators will meet in conference to finalize the 2018 appropriations.

"I will continue to do everything possible to ensure that the Capital Investment Grants program, which supports these South Shore Rail Line projects, receives a robust final funding level for fiscal year 2018, Visclosky said. I remain optimistic that we will be successful in moving forward with these projects and transforming our regional economy."

The state's U.S. senators have offered bipartisan support for the projects.

Republican U.S. Sen. Todd Young convened a meeting of state and local leaders with Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao in August in support of the projects, where he referred to "the tremendous bipartisan support at the local level, at the state level and at the federal level that we Hoosiers have put forward in order to ensure we take this project all the way to completion."

U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., noted that the Senate subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development included $2.1 billion for the grants in its proposed 2018 budget, near the $2.3 billion authorized in the most recent long-term transportation bill.

"I have strongly supported double-tracking and development of the West Lake Corridor to ensure that Hoosiers have safe and efficient transportation options, which in turn will help drive economic growth in the Region," Donnelly said.
Purdue University Northwest history professor James Pula will sign copies of his book "Under the Crescent Moon with the XI Corps, 1862-63" next week.

Pula will meet and greet readers from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Nov. 11 at Miles Books at 2819 Jewett Ave. in Highland. He's the editor of Gettysburg Magazine and has written extensively about the Civil War.

His new book concerns the 11th Corps of the Army of the Potomac, which fought in the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg during the Civil War. The two-volume study chronicles how the corps marched through harsh December conditions to rescue another Northern Army unit under siege in Knoxville, Tennessee, and other battles.

Pula hoped to set the record straight about the unit's bad reputation of cowardice and failure according to a news release.

"'Under the Crescent Moon' is the first study of this misunderstood organization," according to the news release. "The first volume, 'From the Defenses of Washington to Chancellorsville,' opens with the organization of the corps and a lively description of the men in the ranks, the officers who led them, the regiments forming it, and the German immigrants who comprised a sizable portion of the corps. Once this foundation is set, the narrative flows briskly through the winter of 1862-63 on the way to the first major campaign at Chancellorsville. Although the brunt of Stonewall Jackson's flank attack fell upon the men of the 11th Corps, the manner in which they fought and many other details of that misunderstood struggle are fully examined here for the first time, and at a depth no other study has attempted."

The second volume concerns the unit's exploits in Gettyburg and Tennessee before the corp's two divisions were broken up in 1864.

"'Under the Crescent Moon' draws extensively on primary sources and allows the participants to speak directly to readers," according to the news release. "The result is a comprehensive personalized portrait of the men who fought in the 'unlucky' 11th Corps, from the difficulties they faced to the accomplishments they earned. As the author demonstrates time and again, the men of the 11th Corps were good soldiers unworthy of the stigma that has haunted them to this day. This long overdue study will stand as the definitive history of the 11th Corps."
The U.S. steel industry is heralding the U.S. Commerce Department's decision to keep China designated as a non-market economy.

China has sought to lift that designation, which domestic manufacturers say is necessary to maintain the tariffs they've secured in trade cases. The U.S. government currently enforces several anti-dumping tariffs.

Fair international competition and a level playing field are essential for the global competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers," American Iron and Steel Institute President and CEO Thomas Gibson said. "China has not met the statutory criteria to be treated as a market economy, and we applaud our governments commitment to ensuring China is not prematurely awarded market economy status."

China produces 10 times as much steel as the United States, according to the World Trade Association. U.S. steelmakers long have complained Chinese rivals have unfair advantages, such as heavy government subsidies that allow them to sell products abroad for less than fair market value with an eye toward gaining long-term market share.

"Substantial state intervention in the Chinese economy has resulted in significant overcapacity in many manufacturing sectors in China while also distorting global markets and hurting American manufacturers," Gibson said. "Jobs have been lost in all of our industries. China should not be afforded market economy status while still maintaining a state-controlled economic system that encourages unfair trade practices that injure multiple U.S. industries.
A high-speed chase that started on U.S. 41 near Kentland, with speeds in excess of 100 miles, ended miles away on U.S. 41 near Cabela Drive in Hammond.

Kentland Police Department officials issued a news release saying around 1 a.m. Wednesday, Officer J. Elson of the Kentland Police Department was conducting stationary radar patrol on U.S. 41 near Kentland. The officer reportedly observed a vehicle southbound on U.S. 41 that appeared to be traveling at a high speed.

The radar unit indicated the vehicle going 106 in a 60 mph zone. Elson turned on his emergency lights and siren and attempted to initiate a traffic stop.

The release said the driver refused to stop and led Kentland police and the Newton County Sheriffs Office on a four-county pursuit that lasted about an hour and a half. The chase ended in a crash on U.S. 41 near Cabela Drive in Hammond, police said.

Authorities said two people fled on foot after the crash. A K-9 located the driver who was identified as Tyree D. Johnston, 25, from Chicago.

Johnston was treated at a local hospital for injuries he suffered from a K-9 bite before being transported to the Newton County Jail for booking. Police said the passenger was located and released with no charges pending at this time.

Several sheriff and police departments assisted, including Newton, Benton, Warren, Fountain and Lake counties; Goodland, Highland, Hammond, Cedar Lake and Schereville police; and the Indiana State Police departments.
FRENCH DRAINS

Hammond officials are looking at installing French drains at various alleys around the city as a way to get rid of standing water that can freeze up during the winter months.

The drains, which will be installed in areas where there are not existing storm sewers, involve the use of gravel trenches to funnel water below the frost line in the ground. According to city officials, the drains that can cost $5,000 to $6,000 will get rid of standing water that may have otherwise sat for days in a matter of hours.

The Hammond Board of Public Works & Safety Thursday authorized council members to use $48,000 in gaming money to install the drains in the 1st, 2nd and 4th districts of the city.

ENTRANCE TO HESSVILLE

Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. and Councilman Scott Rakos, D-6th, are investigating whether a small parcel of land by the intersection of 169th Street and Kennedy Avenue, formerly home to a car wash, can be acquired and used to mark the entrance to the Hessville community.

Rakos said some of the ideas floated for the site include a fountain, benches, or perhaps even relocation of an existing veterans memorial if there is room.

CHICKENS IN THE CITY

At Monday's Mayor's Night event, McDermott also said he is open-minded when it came to a resident's proposal to allow chickens to be kept in the city.

While he said he would sign resident Chris Mordus' petition supporting the proposal, McDermott said he thought it might be a tougher sell to get an ordinance allowing chickens than an earlier one allowing bee-keeping in the city. Still, he applauded Mordus for gathering some 200 names for the petition and said it was a solid number of signatures.

It will ultimately be up to the city council on whether to go forward with such an ordinance. McDermott also indicated that if neighbors are not squawking currently about a person keeping chickens in the backyard those currently keeping chickens won't have a problem with the city.

HESSVILLE LIBRARY

Hammond Chief of Staff Phil Taillon also said during the recent Mayor's Night event that request for proposals are being sought by the library for the former Hammond Hansen branch building at the corner of Alabama Avenue and Martha Street.

The cottage-like structure that dates back to 1931 would need an estimated $110,000 to repair and bring up to current code requirements, according to Taillon, who used to go to the library as a child.

Taillon said they have had phone calls in the past, but when those making the inquiries find out how much it would cost to repair they tend to disappear.

Rakos said the Hessville Commerce and Community Creative Inc. neighborhood group is interested in the facility and a representative spoke to Taillon following the Mayor's Night Out event. Taillon said "in the end, it will come down to reviewing all submissions and choosing which one makes the most sense."
More school corporations across the state of Indiana were rated an A in 2017 compared to the number of schools last year, with several local school districts improving their rating.

The Indiana State Board of Education approved school corporation grades Wednesday at its meeting in Indianapolis.

According to the statistics, 48 school corporations, or 16.6 percent, were rated an A this year, more than double the number of A-rated school corporations last year of 23, or 8 percent.

The majority of school corporations in the state were graded a B at 149, or 51.6 percent, compared to last year's number of 175 school corporations, or 60.6 percent.

There were 63 school corporations, or 21.8 percent, rated a C compared with 85 school corporations, or 29.4 percent, rated a C last year.

There is only one school corporation in the state graded an F this year and last year. Approximately 22 percent of the school corporations, or 7.6 percent, are appealing their school corporation grade.

The Gary Community School Corp., which was taken over by the state due to its financial problems and poor academics, earned an F last year. It is appealing its grade this year.

The School City of East Chicago and the School City of Hammond also are both appealing their school corporation grade. According to the report, East Chicago received a D last year and Hammond received a C.

The Crown Point Community School Corp. moved up to an A from a B. Lake Ridge New Tech Schools remained a C. The Tri-Creek School Corp. moved up to an A from a B.

The Valparaiso Community School Corp., the Duneland School Corp., the Union Township School Corp. and East Porter County School Corp. moved to an A from a B. The Porter Township School Corp. maintained its B, and the Portage Township schools remained a B.

The River Forest Community School Corp. moved up to a C from a D. The Merrillville Community School Corp. moved up to a B from a C.
LAPORTE  I sat, bareback, atop an 1,100-pound horse, performing a yoga pose.

I was, oddly ... relaxed.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, let the sun gently warm my face, listened to the breeze rustling the leaves.

I forgot for a second the precariousness of my situation. The horse was calm, and so was I.

This is so peaceful, I thought, not wanting the moment to end.

I tried Horse & Yoga recently in LaPorte, fully intending to write a wacky article about a seemingly wacky idea. But the session actually taught me a lot about horses  and myself in the process.

"Horses mirror you," Deauke Robbens, owner of Barn Sante and Horse & Yoga instructor, told me before the class. "They feel your vibes big time. If you are calm, you will calm them down. If you are nervous, they will get a little bit nervous. It's like self-reflection of what state of mind you're in."

This had me worried. I'm normally an anxious person. And I'd been a little more stressed than usual in the weeks leading up to this day. Was the horse really going to pick that up?

He did.

Robbens led me out from the barn to meet Luke ('luka), a 16-year-old Friesian horse the color of dark chocolate. She told me to take off my shoes. I did, keeping an eye out for horse poop.

She had me do a tree pose with my right hand on Luke's shoulder. She said that if he was nervous, he would move in the opposite direction. Almost as soon as I touched him, he slowly backed away, like a person who walked into a room where people were fighting.

She told me to do the poses next to him until he calmed down.

"Watch your feet," Robbens said. "He will just think they are rocks." Oh, great, I thought, another thing to make me nervous.

As I did the poses, the horse started sniffing me. At one point, he nibbled on my arm, causing me to jerk back and increase the tension level.

The horse and I weren't jiving, so Robbens had me go on the other side of his stand to continue my poses.

Eventually, I relaxed, and the horse did, too. He kept his head down, eating hay, a sign he was comfortable. He started licking my hand, making me laugh.

"Being around horses is also about letting go of ego," she said. "I don't know if I heard the quote or if I invented it. I think I heard it and stole it: 'If you have no expectations, everything is a gift.'"

I had stopped worrying about the horse and trying to impress him. I got out of my head. He felt it.

I returned to the side of the stand Luke was on. I did a few warrior poses next to him. He ignored me, tending to his hay.

Eventually, it was time to mount him. Robbens and I weren't sure I was ready at first, but we both acknowledged how much he and I had calmed down.

Robbens, who emigrated to LaPorte from Belgium three years back after her husband's job was relocated here, calls the class Dances with Horses. "Because you actually dance with the horse, and the horse moves," she said. She had to travel to Florida to get certified in Horse & Yoga.

Before me, no man had tried horse yoga at Barn Sante.

"I make the joke that they're just scared," Robbens said.

As The Times' fitness-experimenter-in-chief, aka the paper's exercise guinea pig, I am decidedly not scared nor ashamed.

She said Horse & Yoga also teaches people compassion for animals. Horses, like humans, don't necessarily want you in their space.

"People have their bubbles. If you don't know me and I come talk close to you, you would feel uncomfortable and so then you would kind of step away," she explained. "Horses have a bubble as well. We as humans don't often respect the bubbles of animals. We think we own them and control them.

"If you want to respect them, tune into them and maybe see if they don't want to be touched. We always touch, touch, touch. Because we want that. They're maybe not asking for it."

Most people's experiences with horses  like mine, before this  came with horseback riding. But that was an artificial experience, Robbens said, with a horse that had likely grown immune to human touch. Luke, she said, is more along the lines of what a normal horse is like.

By the end of the session, I was doing eagle stretch and arch stretch poses atop the gentle beast of an animal. He and I really were "dancing." We were in unison. I didn't want to get off.
About one in 10 police calls involves a person with mental illness, making police the nations de facto first responders to mental health crises. Although police are on the front lines, they often do not have the training to recognize and appropriately respond when an emergency involves a mental health crisis.

When police officers in Providence, Rhode Island, encountered a distressed young man brandishing a knife, the situation could have gone horribly wrong. The youth ignored officers commands to drop the knife and began advancing on them.

But the officers didnt draw their weapons. Instead, Lt. Daniel Gannon drew on his training in Mental Health First Aid for Public Safety. He spoke to the young man in a reassuring voice about his desire to help.

Eventually, the young man dropped the knife. Instead of being charged with a crime, he agreed to be evaluated at a local hospital. Lt. Gannons Mental Health First Aid training gave him the skills needed to identify, understand and respond to the signs of an emerging mental health crisis. His reaction may well have saved both their lives that day.

One in four people killed by police in 2017 were mentally ill. Police officers join law enforcement to help people and support their communities, but when officers arent prepared to respond effectively to a behavioral health crisis, they put at risk themselves and the individual who is mentally ill. They need training to help respond to those affected by mental illnesses and addictions.

The National Council for Behavioral Health offers Mental Health First Aid, an actionable public safety training program to help officers better understand mental illnesses so they can safely de-escalate crises without compromising safety. The program also focuses on early intervention, diversion and referral to clinical support.

Recognizing the effectiveness of this training, the International Association of Chiefs of Police instituted the One Mind Campaign, which includes a commitment to train and certify 100 percent of their agencys sworn officers in Mental Health First Aid for Public Safety. To date, 246 law enforcement agencies around the country have taken the One Mind Pledge. Agencies from Alpharetta, Georgia, to Yarmouth, Massachusetts are working with Mental Health First Aid to make this groundbreaking training part of their commitment to protect and serve.

Mental Health First Aid for Public Safety ensures every officer in the field  even those without specialized Crisis Intervention Team training  has tools to de-escalate potentially dangerous situations. Mental Health First Aid training also has helped many officers in their personal lives by providing strategies to help themselves, their families and their partners.

For the last four years, federal funding has supported Mental Health First Aid training for individuals who work with youth. The National Council for Behavioral Health joins with the Major Cities Chiefs Association in thanking Congress for extending their support to the training of police and first responders.

Mental Health First Aid for Public Safety gives police additional tools to de-escalate an incident and to connect the person to needed care.
Record Number of Black Candidates Seeking History During Midterm Elections

While some already are household names like Stacey Abrams in Georgia, Val Demings in Florida, and Anthony Brown in Maryland, others like Natalie James in Arkansas, Will Boyd in Alabama,...

Tell the Supreme Court: We Still Need Affirmative Action

One of the great joys of my life is teaching. Im fortunate to teach classes on social justice at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the most respected schools in...
To honor the devotion and sacrifices of U.S. soldiers, the congregation of the Greater Peace Missionary Baptist Church in Opelika will be hosting free pre-Veterans Day events this weekend.

Veterans Day is an important holiday for the recognition of those who have devoted their time for our freedom and given so much that we may be able to enjoy the freedoms that we have now, said pastor Clifford Jones. So, as a result of that, we want to recognize and honor them.

Weekend events

The Greater Peace Veteran Ministry will be holding a Lunch and Learn inside the churchs Family Life Center on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Jones said. Veterans and their families will be given opportunities to receive helpful information about veteran benefits, vocational skills and resume preparation, and suicide prevention.

A 6 p.m. Sunday program in the churchs sanctuary will feature guest speaker Dr. Linda Boyle, director of the Medical Center for Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System, whose discussion will focus on Celebrating Americas Freedom. A session for questions and answers will be included as well.

Additionally, a veteran memorial composed of a flagpole flying the American, state and all military branch flags, as well as branch markers bearing the names of late church members who have served, will be available to the public in an area with two benches.

We identified members who have served and passed on, Jones said, referring to the markers. At some point in the future, other names will be added from the larger community.

We are a resource

Members of Jones church are looking forward to meeting and speaking with local veterans.

This particular event is an outreach to veterans so we can see what types of problems they may be having in the area, said Kate Jackson, who retired as a lieutenant colonel from the U.S. Army and now serves as a co-chairperson of the Greater Peace Veteran Ministry. We want veterans to know that Greater Peace as a church, as a ministry, were reaching out to them to let them know that we are a resource in the community.

Fellow Army veteran and ministry co-chairperson Charlie Burton remarked about how he would like to see more veterans receive assistance as they are discharged from service.

Hopefully this will be an opportunity for people to come out and support veterans who are no longer in the military, Burton said. Because the way I see it  once a soldier, always a soldier. One of the biggest things that a veteran has to deal with is transitioning back to civilian life. And just the fact that if veterans were more aware of information out there for them and their families, it would help them transition better and even save lives.
The Anglican Church, Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Church of Uganda, the member churches of the Uganda Joint Christian Council (UJCC) routinely conduct joint ecumenical prayers where priests from the three churches take turns to preach on the same pulpit.

This has not been possible for members of the other churches such as the Seventh Day Adventists (SDA) that dont share the same history as the Roman Catholics, Orthodox Catholics and Anglicans.

The three churches were united under the same communion until the great schism of 1054 that split the Church into the Eastern rite (Orthodox Catholicism) and the Western rite (Roman Catholicism).

The Western church was further split in 1534 when King Henry VIII declared himself the supreme head of the Church of England, giving birth to the Anglican communion.

Rose Namayanja joined by Jacob Oulanyah to cut cake

They are, however, still united by the same creed or proclamation of faith popularly known as the Nicene Creed. While much of its theology corresponds with the common Christian teachings, it is rare for the SDA church with its observance of Saturday as the day of the Sabbath, and non-observance of Christmas and Easter festivities, to share the same pulpit with the traditional churches.

However, during a thanksgiving for NRM treasurer Rose Namayanja Nsereko and her mother Catherine Namirembe Ssebowa at Kalagi in Nakaseke district on October 29, the Adventists stood at the same pulpit with Anglicans to lead prayers.

Namayanja was born and raised Anglican, but converted to the Adventist church during her high school days at Katikamu SDA Secondary School, while her mother remains a committed member of the Anglican church.

Choirs from both churches took turns to sing during the service led by Pastor Samuel Kajoba, the bishop of Central Uganda Conference.

Once he was done with his sermon, Kajoba invited Rev Canon Henry Ampujja Tebagaliza of the Church of Uganda to preach to the congregation.

Being the only family member who subscribed to the SDA church, Namayanja had to allow her mothers church to participate in the prayers.

Mum has always been a member of Mayirikiti Church of Uganda and when we moved her nearer to Kampala for better medical care, she became a member of Migadde Church of Uganda; for this thanksgiving, she chose to give back to her church, Namayanja said as she handed over 50 iron sheets to re-roof Mayirikiti Church of Uganda.

To her own church, Namayanja offered Shs 6m for rehabilitation of the baptism pond at Najjanankumbi SDA church. Sundays thanksgiving was to mark two years since they were involved in a nasty road accident at Kigoogwa along the Kampala - Bombo highway on October 20, 2015.

Namayanja was rushing to her home village to preside over the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of Biddabuggya health centre.

The health centre has since been taken on by her charity organisation, Rose Namayanja Foundation.

I am a product of good Samaritans and because of their contribution to my success, I have a responsibility to help others to improve their livelihoods, Namayanja said.

The former Information and National Guidance minister spoke about their time in hospital, especially the trauma they suffered when news went out that she had passed on.

While the function threatened to take a political turn, the chief guest, Deputy Speaker of Parliament Jacob Oulanyah ensured that it remained within the ambit of the Church.

Using the accident that Namayanja survived, Oulanyah preached about the mysteries of God.

Accident is a human definition, not for God. For God, there is no accident but everything is planned. There are very many things that we will never know, which means that we have to commit everything in our lives to God, Oulanyah said.

Besides the material possessions, the Omoro MP told the congregation, man also needs to commit his life to God instead of remembering God after an event has happened.

When news of Namayanjas death came, we prayed that she rests in eternal peace; then it emerged that she hadnt died, the prayer changed to her quick recovery and when we heard that she was recovering, the prayer again changed, Oulanyah said. This shows that our prayer is event-based.

He later joined Namayanja and her mother to cut a cake made in the image of the wreckage of the car they were traveling in when they got involved in the accident.
This weekend, Roundbob, in partnership with Uganda Waragi, is hosting Ugandans to an awesome weekend of fun and activity in Fort Portal.

It is a fusion of cocktails and domestic tourism, dubbed Cocktails in the Wild. Tomorrow, the road trip to Kibaale National Park gets underway from Lugogo mall with stopovers planned along the way at Mityana, Mubende and Kyenjojo.

Its not just about the destination, but the whole trip; so, the entire journey and stopovers will be spiced up to create lasting memories.

Partygoers enjoying their cocktails

The final destination, called Top Of The World, overlooks three crater lakes, giving a fantastic view from the top. There will be hikes, water sports, nature walks in Kibaale national park and a tour of Fort Portal town, including the kings palace with events spread across the weekend.

Saturday night will feature an urban nightlife experience with master mixologists trained under the Diageo Bar Academy, mixing cocktails with a full cocktail bar at their disposal.

DJs Bush Baby, Dibo, RPM and BK will be on the decks doing what they do best. According to David Gonahasa, the managing director of Roundbob, this trip, like the previous ones, has been organized to encourage the ordinary Ugandan to go out, explore and appreciate Uganda.

We want Ugandans to go and see Uganda, and to appreciate the beauty that lies in our backyard before venturing to outside countries to appreciate the beauty there, he said.

The full package costs Shs 250,000 including accommodation, meals, transport and access to all activities. Alternatively, one can cater for their own transportation and join the party at Shs 100,000.



barangasam@gmail.com
Malawi marked an important milestone in its transportation sector recently when it inaugurated the Malawi section of the Nacala Corridor railway line, which stretches from Moatize in western Mozambique to the Indian Ocean port of Nacala to the east.

Malawi marked an important milestone in its transportation sector recently when it inaugurated the Malawi section of the Nacala Corridor railway line, which stretches from Moatize in western Mozambique to the Indian Ocean port of Nacala to the east.

Jappie Mtuwa Mhango, Malawi's minister of transportation and public works, officially launched the US$4.9 billion railway line section, which was financed by Vale Logistics of Brazil.

The purpose of constructing the railway section is to accommodate the passage of coal from Moatize in Mozambique, passing through Malawi to the port of Nacala-a-Velha in Mozambique.

The agreement for construction of the new railway was signed by the government of Malawi and Vale Logistics in 2011 through a 30-year public-private partnership arrangement, the minister says.

Through this infrastructure, on the import side, the Nacala Corridor will enhance the transportation of fertilizer, diesel, grain and general containerized cargo, with an average of 350,000 tons per year.

On the export side, the corridor will facilitate the movement of a total of 100,000 tons on average of Malawian sugar, pigeon peas, tobacco and tea, with the capacity to increase this number threefold, says Renato Torres, chairman of Nacala Corridor Logistics Cos.

The corridor will serve the southern African region, particularly Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, linking these countries to the natural deep-water port in Nacala.

The development comes as the China-led Belt and Road Initiative gains momentum.

China's ambassador to Malawi welcomed the development and encouraged Africa to emulate the example of the Belt and Road Initiative.

The essence of Belt and Road includes cooperation, common development, mutual benefits, openness and sharing, says the ambassador, Wang Shiting.

Africa is a historically important component of the ancient Silk Road and is still an indispensable part today, the ambassador says.

"Africa is in desperate need of development and, of course, the development of the continent cannot be realized without assistance from the international community," Wang says.

"The core of the Belt and Road Initiative is focusing on common development. We hope that African countries can get investment, trade, infrastructure and industrialization, which are key to their development through their active participation in the initiative."

Wang says he believes Africa will benefit a lot in poverty reduction, development and regional integration through participation.

"On the other hand, the active participation of Africa in the Belt and Road Initiative will also strengthen its connection with the international community, especially its connectivity with Asian and European countries," Wang says.

The railway network in Malawi is 797 kilometers long. Of this, 101 km between Nkaya and Nayuchi is being upgraded by the private sector as part of the route from the coal mines at Moatize to Nacala.

The remainder of the rail line, from Mchinji through Salima in central Malawi to Marka on the border with Mozambique in southern Malawi, is in poor condition, with 80 km of track that is unusable because of bridge and track washouts following natural disasters.

Locomotive equipment and rolling stock are old and unreliable. Construction of the new link from Nkaya to the coal mines at Moatize began in 2012 to provide mainly for coal transportation on the corridor to Nacala.
A village in Abim. Councillors support the age limit bill

Abim district council has assented to the removal of the presidential age limit cap from the constitution amid protests from sections of community members.



In a decision arrived at during the consultation meetings with the members of parliament from the district, majority of the councillors said they were comfortable with the proposed amendment of Article 102(b) of the constitution which bars anyone above 75 years or below 35 years from becoming president of Uganda.



Out of eleven councillors in the district, only Abraham Kitacho, the Abim town council councillor and the district speaker, Godfrey Omara, rejected the proposed amendment. The position of the district chairperson Jimmy Ochero is, however, yet to be revealed since he has reportedly been out of the country since the consultations commenced.

According to reports in the district, the position of the councillors has triggered mixed reactions with sections of youths threatening to beat up some of them. The youth claim the decision was arrived at after the councillors received bribes.



Akeno Akendo, one of the youth in the district blames the MPs for campaigning and coercing people to assent to the amendment.



"Today our two MPs were at a consultative meeting in Nyakwae for the controversial age limit bill. It was rather a campaign not consultation since the MPs talked about the achievements of the NRM government other than telling the truth to the community," Akeno wrote on his Facebook page.



But Michael Ayepa, the Labwor county MP says the consultations were done according to the guidelines given in parliament. He notes that the councillors and other people are willing in support of the amendment.



Simon Peter Olum, a member of the opposition in the district, urged MPs to be objective while consulting with the electorate. He notes that consultations are different from campaigns, appealing to MPs to stop what he described as lies to popularise the bill.



Several MPs in Karamoja sub-region have finally started the consultations in the villages, leaving most of urban areas for later dates.
Her name is Santa Muerte, the folk Saint of Death, and she is the skeletal figurehead of one of the fastest growing religions in Mexico and Central America with an estimated 10-12 million followers. Devotees have begun incorporating the controversial saint into Day of the Dead celebrations in recent years, as both are thought to originate from the Aztec goddess Mictecacihuat, or Lady of the Dead, who reigned over a festival of death every year in August.

Santa Muerte, the personification of death, is typically portrayed as a skeletal figure draped in robes and veils similar to those of the Virgin Mary. She is often depicted carrying a scythe. Her appeal, according to devotees, lies in her non-judgemental nature, as death brings a fundamental equality to all people. It is also widely believed that she will grant favors and wishes in return for vows or offerings. She is most often associated with protection, healing, and financial well being, and is the only female saint of death in the Americas.

Photo: Francis Mckee

Santa Muerte followers say that death plays no favorites. Rich or poor, powerful or peasant, death comes for everyone, religion expert Reza Aslan wrote in an editorial for CNN. To outsiders it may seem as though Santa Muerte devotees are worshipping death. But by embracing death, Santa Muerte believers say they are free to live their lives without fear or anxiety.

After Spain colonized Mexico in the 16th century, they encouraged the indigenous people to honor their deceased relatives on All Souls Day, a Christian holiday, which lead to the eventual merging of Christian and indigenous beliefs. Santa Muerte is considered by many as the reincarnation of Mictecacihuatl, and her devotees are beginning to reclaim the Day of the Dead as her feast day. Despite Santa Muertes rising popularity, the saint is considered blasphemous by the Catholic Church, and in 2013 she was officially denounced by the Vatican. The Catholic News Agency claims that Santa Muerte is a saint of criminals and the unholy, going so far as to call her demonic.

Photo: Thelmadatter

If somebody is going to be doing something illegal, and they want to be protected from the law enforcement, they feel awkward asking God to protect them, so they promise something to Santa Muerte in exchange for being protected from the law, Fr. Andres Gutierrez, the pastor of St. Helen parish in Rio Hondo, Texas, said. Santa Muerte is literally a demon with another name, thats what it is.

Despite the harsh condemnation, Santa Muertes popularity only increases, particularly among the most marginalized sectors of society, such as migrants and the LGBTQ community. Santa Muerte is believed to be a protector of the LGBTQ communities in Mexico, and prayers to the saint are commonly a part of same-sex marriage ceremonies. The Iglesia Catolica Tradicional Mexico-Estados Unidos, also known as the Church of Santa Muerte, recognizes same-sex marriage and performs religious wedding ceremonies for couples.***The traditional Catholic Church condemns same-sex unions, as homosexuality is considered by the Vatican to be a disorder and an intrinsic moral evil. Given the Catholic Churchs similar stances on Santa Muerte and the LGBTQ community, it is almost inevitable that the former would come to serve as a symbol for the latter.

According to followers, the condemnation of the Saint by the Catholic Church shows a fundamental lack of understanding for what she truly symbolizes.

Its a widely misunderstood faith. Its not a satanic Mass, Daniel Santana, a lifelong believer who has officiated at Santa Muerte temples across Mexico since 2010, told the BBC. She gives people what they want and when they finish their cycle of life here on earth she comes for their souls. Shes just fulfilling Gods orders.

With so many social categories ignored by both the state and the church, its really no wonder that more and more people are turning to Santa Muerte, a pariah, just like them, for protection. Even though she stared out as a mere folk figure in Mexico, the popularity of Santa Muerte has been soaring over the last two decades, and she now has followers all over Central America and even in the United States.
Senator Lindsey Graham wants a 9/11-type commission to explore ways to curb the influence of foreign government/entities on US social media sites.

His call comes as the House intelligence panel released thousands of social media accounts placed by Russian accounts to influence the US election and its aftermath.

The South Carolina Republican said "manipulation of social media sites by terrorist organizations and foreign governments is one of the greatest threats to American democracy and a significant threat to our national security."

Graham said the problem is to determine whether any legislation can be constructed that is consistent with our Constitution and values.

A Commission would include experts in technology and national security.


Jim Cullinan



Polycom appointed Jim Cullinan to the newly created role of VP-buzz and brand. Prior to joining Polycom, Cullinan was principal at Cullinan Brand Consulting and has held senior communications roles at Microsoft, Yahoo!, LeapFrog and Clear Channel. He led communications for Microsofts legal and policy issues before taking the helm of Windows PR during the launch of Windows XP. Cullinans job is to develop an integrated approach to connecting Polycom's brand, products and people to customers, partners, industry influencers and employees. Throughout his career, Jim has built powerful narratives and campaigns that reach and influence national and global audiences, said Polycom CMO Amy Barzdukas.



Kelly Heritage

Jimithy Hawkins

Crosby Marketing Communications hired Kelly Heritage and Jimithy Hawkins to support the healthcare, government, and nonprofits & causes practices. Heritage joins Crosby as an integration director and will manage communications and outreach programs for Military OneSource, which serves enlisted personnel across the globe. She has more than 15 years of agency experience leading strategic campaigns for consumer-packaged goods, government and corporate clients. Hawkins will serve as a communications clearance manager on Crosbys contract with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. He has managed communications and outreach programs for the Pennsylvania and DC Depts. of Health.



Erin Levzow

Marcus Hotels & Resorts named Erin Levzow VP-marketing. Levzow comes to Marcus from Austin, TX customer service experience company Hathway, where she was VP-customer relationship marketing, loyalty and marketing. She has also served as senior director of digital, social, CRM and e-commerce for Wingstop Restaurants in Dallas. In her new position, Levzow will oversee marketing, e-commerce, customer insight, loyalty and PR activities.
A vehicle testing firm found guilty of breaching health and safety laws in the testing of a school bus subsequently involved in a fatal crash has brought an appeal against conviction.

The bus went out of control near Clara, Co Offaly, on April 4, 2006. Michael White, 15, died as a result of injuries sustained.

OReilly Commercials Limited, of Ballinalack, Mullingar, Co Westmeath, had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to four charges of breaching health and safety laws when carrying out an official test on the bus between August 5 and 6, 2005.

The charges, brought under the Safety Health and Welfare at Work Act 1989, had alleged the firm failed to ensure persons were not exposed to risks to their safety or health as a result of the way the test was carried out.

A Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury deliberated for just under eight hours following a 23-day trial before returning a verdict of guilty on the first count which outlined a failure to note the modified rear suspension system. Verdicts of not guilty were returned on three other counts.

The company was fined 25,000 by Ms Justice Margaret Heneghan on July 29, 2013.

Opening an appeal against conviction today, counsel for O'Reilly Commercials, Sean Gillane SC, said the background to the case involved a tragic accident and the the death of a young school boy. That fact was not lost on the company, he said.

The court heard that the bus was carrying more than 30 students on a school run. It was a Mercedes vehicle originally registered in the UK. It had what was called leaf spring suspension on the rear axel but in or around 1991, this was modified or converted in the UK in the knowledge of British regulatory authorities.

Thereafter, the bus was registered in Ireland in 2001.

Mr Gillane said O'Reilly Commercials, who was the authorised tester, had a very good reputation in the testing business.

Central to the defence's case, Mr Gillane said, was that no pass was issued in August 2005.

He said the test was carried out on September 1, 2005 not in August and as a consequence, the 1989 Act did not apply. By the time the test had been carried out, that Act had been repealed, he submitted.

As such, no offence known to law was contained on the indictment, he submitted.

On the defence's case, Mr Gillane said a visual inspection was carried out in August. In the course of that, an internal document or checklist was generated of things that needed to be looked at ahead of the actual test.

Mr Gillane said it was akin to presenting your car for a pre-test at the same centre you get the test.

He said a witness from the Department of Environment indicated that this sort of thing shouldn't happen but it was a feature of life that it did.

Mr Gillane submitted a number of other grounds related to rulings by the trial judge and the proffering of an opinion by a witness which went further than ought to have been allowed.

Counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Caroline Biggs SC, said the test took place on August 6 and the retest was on September 1.

Ms Biggs said that statement was made by the principle of O'Reilly Commercials to an inspector. It came from the horse's mouth, she said, and was evidence on the face of it that the first stage of the test was carried out in August.

She said the date on which the test was carried out was a question of fact for resolution by the jury.

The jury knew the significance of the date, Ms Biggs said. It had been explained to the jury throughout.

It must be inferred from the verdict of the jury that the test was performed before September 1st, Ms Biggs submitted.

Mr Justice George Birmingham, who sat with Mr Justice John Edwards and Mr Justice John Hedigan, said the court would reserve judgment.
Six Miami Firefighters Fired For Placing Noose Over Black Lieutenants Family Photo Elijah C. Watson Elijah Watson serves as Okayplayer's News & Culture Editor. When

Six Miami firefighters have been fired after allegedly placing a noose over a black lieutenants family photo.

The noose was created out of twine and hung over the lieutenants family photo, according to a report from the Miami Herald. Several firefighters also drew sexually suggestive pictures over additional family photos. However, it is still unknown who actually made the noose.

READ: White Terrorists Attack And Attempt To Hang An 8-Year-Old Biracial Boy

Ultimately, 11 firefighters were relieved from duty including William W. Bryson, Kevin Meizoso, David Rivera, Justin Rumbaugh, Harold Santana, and Alejandro Sese. According to termination letters sent to the firefighters, Sese came up with the idea to deface the photos. Meizoso, Rumbaugh, and Santana were the ones who drew the sexually suggestive images over the family photos.

Miami City Manager Daniel Alfonso condemned the sexually explicit and racially offensive conduct.

It is the policy of the City of Miami to provide a workplace for all employees that is free from intimidation, threats or violent acts, Alfonso said.

In addition, an investigation continues into lesser involvement by others who were at the station, he added. Findings could result in disciplinary actions ranging from suspensions to demotions.

Two months ago came news that a group of white teens attacked and attempted to hang a biracial 8-year-old boy in Claremont, New Hampshire.

The child was flown by medevac to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center where his mother, Cassandra Merlin, posted the aftermath image of the attack to her Facebook page. My son is being flown to Dartmouth after a 14-year-old kid decided to hang him from a tree. I dont care if this was a so-called accident or not, she wrote. My son almost died because of some little s**t teenage kids.

Source: miamiherald.com
Agricultural News

4-H Member Avery Fisher of Okeene Named Grand Champion at 2017 Oklahoma Junior Wheat Show







Avery Fisher, daughter of Clayton and Tara Fisher, was recently awarded the overall grand champion award showing her Bentley variety in the 2017 Oklahoma 4-H/FFA Junior Wheat Show. Fisher placed 1st in production and milling and 6th in baking, earning her the title of 1st place as the 4-H champion, and overall grand champion of the 4-H and FFA Junior Wheat Show. Fisher is from the Okeene 4-H Club in Blaine County. Fisher also placed 3rd placed with her Gallagher variety.







Dylan Chaney, son of Scott and Jennifer Chaney and Harold and Barbara Chandler, recently placed 1st overall in the FFA division while showing his Doublestop CL Plus variety in the 2017 Oklahoma 4-H/FFA Junior Wheat Show. Chaney placed 1st in production and milling and 4th in baking, earning him the title of 1st place and the FFA champion. Chaney is from the Medford FFA chapter.







Fisher, a member of the Okeene 4-H in Blaine County received $2,000 in scholarship money for her accomplishments with her Bentley variety. Oklahoma Genetics Incorporated (OGI) presented a $750 premium on top of those awards to Fisher for winning 1st place and then Grand Champion overall in the 4-H competition with the Bentley variety since it was an OGI Inc., release. Fisher also received a $500 premium for being 4-H champion and grand champion from WestBred. Fisher received a $350 premium from the Oklahoma Wheat Research Foundation, along with a $40.00 premium for production, milling, bake contest and trophy. For 3rd place, Fisher will receive an additional $1000 in scholarship monies, $300 from Oklahoma Genetics Inc. and $50 in premiums for production, milling and baking contest.







Chaney, a member of the Medford FFA in Grant County, has maxed out his scholarship money in previous years but won a $500 premium from Oklahoma Genetics for his Doublestop CL Plus variety since it was an OGI release. Chaney won $250 for being FFA Champion from WestBred, $100 premium from Oklahoma Wheat Research Foundation, along with a $40 premium for production, milling, bake contest and trophy. Dylan also won 10th place with his WB Grainfield variety and an additional $17.50 in milling and baking premiums. Scholarships are funded by Check off dollars and awarded to the top five 4-H and top five FFA entries. The contest is sponsored by the Oklahoma Wheat Commission, Oklahoma Wheat Research Foundation, Oklahoma Genetics Incorporated, Westbred, Oklahoma State University and Oklahoma Department of Career Technology and Education.







Source - Oklahoma Wheat Commission













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Businesses commit trade fraud because Chinese products don't sell well in Vietnam. Vietnamese consumers tend to turn their back on products sourced from China because they assume they are low-quality and toxic.

A trade expert said that Chinese products have been sold among Vietnamese products as made-in-Vietnam products in Vietnam for a long time.For example, Chinese ceramics are sold at Bat Trang, a traditional ceramics craft village. Chinese silk is sold at Van Phuc, a traditional silk craft village, and Chinese fruits are often sold as Vietnamese fruits.A report released by the Business Association of High Quality Vietnamese Products in 2016 also said many Vietnamese enterprises do not make products, but they buy products from China and sell under their brands.Businesses commit trade fraud because Chinese products don't sell well in Vietnam. Vietnamese consumers tend to turn their back on products sourced from China because they assume they are low-quality and toxic.Luu Duy Dan, deputy chair of the Vietnam Craft Village Association, said Vietnamese traders want to sell Chinese products because they bring higher profits.

Chinese goods are diverse and are cheaper than Vietnamese items, he explained. A Vietnamese bamboo-made lantern, very beautiful and durable, is priced at VND150,000, while the Chinese sell a product like this at VND15,000 only, though it is less beautiful and durable.



According to Dang Vinh Tho, chair of the Silkworm Association of Vietnam, many households in the silk village of Van Phuc no longer make silk, but import Chinese silk to sell domestically.



Merchants prefer made-in-Vietnam silk, but they still sell made-in-China products. Vietnam, which can make high-quality silk with large growing areas and high technology, still has to import Chinese silk.



Ironically, while Chinese merchants come to Vietnam to collect Vietnam-made silk, Vietnamese merchants flock to China to buy China-made silk to sell in Vietnam and swindle customers, Lao Dong said.



Experts pointed out that merchants continue committing fraud because consumers dont protest the fraud.



Forty-four percent of consumers, when asked what they will do if they are not satisfied with the quality of products and services, said they would keep silent and ignore the cases. At least 38.6 percent of them explained that the value of the disputed products is small, while 22 percent said they do not complain to competent agencies because the procedures are too complicated.



Nguyen Minh Duc from VCCIs (Vietnam Chamber of Commerce & Industry) legal department has urged heavy sanctions on people who commit fraud. If the fraudulent actions do not bear sanctions, consumers will have no confidence in labeling, he said.





RELATED NEWS

Khaisilk set to face criminal probe

Khaisilk closes all outlets following trade fraud





M. Ha
iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Mourners gathered in lower Manhattan Thursday evening to honor the eight killed and 12 wounded in a terror attack on Tuesday.



Attendees converged on Pier 40 at West Houston Street, which is where the Tuesday afternoon attack began when a truck driver mowed down cyclists and pedestrians on a bike path. The suspect drove south for about a mile, leaving a trail of bodies and mangled bicycles in his wake.



Participants marched south along the esplanade to Pier 25, "paying respects at designated points along the path," Connie Fishman, executive director of Hudson River Park Friends, said in a statement ahead of the vigil. Remarks were then made Pier 25, just north of where the attack ended, when the suspect crashed into a school bus and was shot by a police officer.



Two Americans were among those killed in the attack: Darren Drake and Nicholas Cleves.



Darren Drake, 32, of New Milford, New Jersey would have turned 33 on Nov. 18, according to his father. Darren Drake was his only child.



"I'm not angry at all," Darren Drake's father, Jimmy Drake, told reporters Wednesday. "I'm absolutely hurt."



Alex Silverstein, president of Unified Digital Group, where Cleves, 23, of New York City, worked, described him in a statement as "a brilliant, humble, compassionate young professional."



"Nicholas was wonderful with people. He was polite, funny, and, above all, considerate in action. ... He was composed, accepting, and open to all. It pains me greatly to reflect that we can no longer experience his unique gifts. A growing light has been senselessly extinguished," Silverstein said. "I was truly blessed to call Nicholas Cleves my colleague and friend."



Five Argentines were killed, identified as Hernan Diego Mendoza, Diego Enrique Angelini, Alejandro Damian Pagnucco, Ariel Erlij and Hernan Ferruchi, the country's consulate in New York City said.



The victims were from the city of Rosario, Argentinas president, Mauricio Macri, said.



"They were five young entrepreneurs, model citizens in Rosario society and I can only imagine with beautiful families, Macri said in Spanish.



The eighth victim was Ann-Laure Decadt, 31, of Belgium. She left behind two sons -- a 3-year-old and a 3-month-old.



Decadts husband, Alexander Naessens, called her death unbearable. She was on a trip with her mother and two sisters at the time of the attack, Naessens said in a statement today translated from his native Flemish.



New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said of the victims, "Six of them came from other nations here because they saw New York as a special place to be. And we now, and forever, will consider them New Yorkers."



Besides the eight deaths, 12 people, including two children and two school staff members, were injured.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
AVOCA, Iowa  Robert Reynolds was found guilty of second-degree murder Friday in the April 8, 2014, shooting death of Patricia Kinkade-Dorsey.

He faces up to 50 years in prison and must complete 70 percent of his sentence before he is eligible for parole.

Fridays conviction marks the second time he has been convicted of her death. His previous conviction for first-degree murder following a jury trial in Council Bluffs was overturned by the Iowa Court of Appeals based on an 1884 law that called for the trial to be held in Avoca instead of Council Bluffs.

The law once divided Pottawattamie County into two for judicial purposes. Reynolds retrial was ordered to take place in Avoca, but the East Pottawattamie County Courthouse was deemed incapable of hosting the trial. The Fire Hall on Main Street was used instead.

Judge Susan Christensen handed down the verdict after a bench trial that included a 911 audio recording after the shooting.

Reynolds testified that he had hallucinated while intoxicated and thought Kinkade-Dorsey, a guest who was staying overnight at the home, was a demon threatening him and his family.

While being booked at the Sheriffs Office, Reynolds told law enforcement that you dont kill someone unless its a righteous kill. Seven hours after the shooting, Reynolds tried to call his mother from jail.

I killed a woman last night, the audio recording from the jail said, the voice identified as Reynolds.

Reynolds had several opportunities before the shooting to make another choice, Christensen said.

Instead, he went to the bedroom after arguing with Kinkade-Dorsey in the kitchen, grabbed a pistol, returned to the kitchen and pushed his wife out of the way before shooting Kinkade-Dorsey three times at close range.

It is beyond a reasonable doubt that Reynolds shot Patricia, she died as a result of his actions and that he acted with malice, Christensen said.
LINCOLN  Nebraska and Iowa joined 33 other states and the District of Columbia this week in supporting South Dakotas legal bid to collect sales taxes from out-of-state Internet retailers.

South Dakota is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review whether retailers can be required to collect sales taxes in states where they lack a physical presence. The case could have national implications for e-commerce.

Nebraska lawmakers this year considered a bill that would have required large online retailers to collect sales taxes from Nebraska buyers. Legislative Bill 44, introduced by State Sen. Dan Watermeier of Syracuse, stalled in the face of opposition from Gov. Pete Ricketts and others.

On Friday, the governor supported Attorney General Doug Petersons decision to join the South Dakota case. Ricketts said the issue should be handled by Congress or the Supreme Court rather than by state legislation that could be unconstitutional.

Sen. Burke Harr of Omaha, who serves on the Revenue Committee, disagreed, arguing that the Legislature, not the courts, should set policy. He said the Attorney Generals Office concluded that LB 44 could be constitutional if amended.

The Nebraska state income tax form includes a line that allows taxpayers to self-report online purchases and to compute how much sales taxes they owe, but almost no one does that, state officials have said.
LINCOLN  Climate change likely wont affect Nebraska as dramatically as some parts of the country, given the states already large variations in weather, a panel of lawmakers was told Friday.

But Tyler Williams, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension educator, said it could result in warmer winters, heavier rains, longer growing seasons and a greater risk of drought.

Those changes could affect crop yields and livestock production, which in turn could affect the states economy and the amount of tax revenue available to pay for schools, roads and other government services.

Williams typically talks with agriculture groups about climate resiliency and dealing with extreme weather and climate.

On Friday he talked with members of the Legislatures Planning Committee about what climate change might mean for the states largest industry.

Since 1895, Williams said, Nebraska has seen temperatures rise by 1 degree overall. The biggest change has been in minimum winter temperatures, which have increased by 2 to 4.5 degrees.

Meanwhile, the frost-free season has lengthened by five to 25 days, he said. The biggest increase has been in western Nebraska.

Williams said projections for the next century call for Nebraska temperatures to rise an additional 4 to 5 degrees, even if the levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are reduced.

That likely means higher temperatures in the winter, which could translate into more problems with crop and livestock pests surviving the winter or new pests arriving in the state.

On the other hand, it could reduce cold stress on livestock during the winter and lengthen the growing season. During the summer, less cooling at night could add to heat stress on animals and increase water needs for crops, he said.

Williams said the frost-free season in Nebraska is projected to increase another two weeks by 2100. However, freeze dates have not changed, meaning some of those warmer days would fall outside of the growing season.

Precipitation has not changed statewide since 1895, he said. However, there have been more heavy rains in parts of the state, causing more flooding.

The spring months, especially April and May, are seeing more days of rain, which can affect farmers ability to work in the fields during planting season.

Williams said projections generally call for dry areas to get drier and wet areas to get wetter. But higher temperatures mean less soil moisture overall.

Nebraska would be affected by precipitation trends in the Rocky Mountains, particularly what happens with snowpack.

He said climate projections call for reduced snowpack, which means less runoff in the Platte and Missouri Rivers and less to recharge Nebraskas groundwater stores.

Meanwhile, rapid snowmelt from higher temperatures can contribute to floods.

Flash droughts, like those that occurred in 2012, also are likely, Williams said. But he said he doesnt know the likelihood of Nebraska suffering a multiyear drought, as occurred in the 1930s.

Developments in agriculture, such as drought-resistant corn hybrids and water-sparing irrigation methods, could help Nebraska agriculture get through droughts better, he said.

Williams recommends no-till practices, diversification, converting marginal acres to grass or forage and tree-planting as ways to prepare for climate change.

He noted that the effects of climate change around the world could affect Nebraskas agricultural exports, but he said he couldnt predict who might be the winners and losers in that arena.
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During the mid-nineteenth century at least 110 people were transported from New Zealand to serve time as convict labourers in the penal colony of Van Diemens Land (Tasmania). Even more were sentenced by colonial judges to the harsh punishment of transportation, but somehow managed to avoid being sent across the Tasman Sea.

In this talk, Kristyn Harman explores the remarkable experiences of unremarkable people like William Phelps Pickering, a self-made entrepreneur turned criminal; Margaret Reardon, a potential accomplice to murder and convicted perjurer; and Te Kumete, transported as a rebel. Their stories, and others like them, reveal a complex colonial society overseen by a governing class intent on cleansing the colony of what was considered to be a burgeoning criminal underclass.

This talk will explore the way in which the British Empire sought to discipline, punish and reform those who trespassed against it.

Date Tuesday, 14 November 2017 Time 10:00am - 11:00am Audience Public Event Category Humanities Event Type Lecture

Location Auditorium, Toitu Otago Settlers Museum

Save this event
The M-STEP results are in and the Bullock Creek School District continues to master and surpass state educational standards.

"With this most recent assessment, Bullock Creek has seen some really positive growth," said Bullock Creek School District Superintendent Shawn Hale at a school board meeting.

Enacted in the spring of 2015, the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress annually measures student achievement, mastery of standards and individual student growth.

Students in grades 3-8 were assessed on English language arts (ELA) and math. Those in grades 5 and 8 were also tested in social studies while those in grades 4 and 7 were evaluated in science. The Michigan Merit Exam (MME) is a high school exam, taken by 11th graders, that for the second year in a row includes the SAT as well as state-created tests in science and social studies.

Bullock Creek students improved upon 61.5 percent of their assessments from the 2016 M-STEP. The most significant growth occurred in grades 3-5. Students outperformed the state average on 100 percent of the assessments.

"We need to continue our upward trend and do the very best we can to help students be successful," Hale said.

Bullock Creek fourth-graders showed improvement in all three subject areas with the largest gain in math, where they saw a 38 percent increase over 2016. The 2016 rate of 50 percent increased to 69 percent in 2017. ELA saw the students improve from 62 percent to 70 percent while science showed a slight gain from 27 percent to 28 percent. All three subjects were also well above the state average of: ELA-44 percent; science-15 percent; and math-42 percent.

Fifth graders showed a 1 percent increase for all three subjects in 2017: ELA - 72 percent; social studies - 31 percent; and math - 47 percent. The 2017 state averages stood at: ELA-51 percent; social studies-22 percent; and math-35 percent.

"Our staff and students have been working really hard to place focus on closing instruction gaps and improve learning. We have placed significant focus on our curriculum and instruction across the district and in our alignment of curriculum in grades K-5," Hale said.

Five areas saw decreases -- third-grade ELA, sixth-grade math, eighth-grade math and 11th-grade social studies and science. In 2016, 78 percent of Bullock Creek students passed the ELA at the third-grade level. But, that number dropped to 58 percent in 2017, which is still considerably above the state average of 44 percent.

Sixth-graders saw 36 percent pass the math portion in 2017, down from 43 percent in 2016. The 2017 state average came in at 34 percent. The percent for eighth-grade math dropped from 39 percent in 2016 to 35 percent in 2017. The 2017 state average was 33 percent.

Although Creek 11th-graders' performance decreased in both social studies and science, the 2017 numbers were well above the state level. The social studies rating fell from 58 percent to 56 percent in 2017 while science decreased from 48 percent to 46 percent over the same time. State averages were 46 percent and 34 percent, respectively.

"There is always room for improvement. We have some areas that have room for growth," Hale said. "We want to do everything for kids to help give them every opportunity to be successful on the assessment and in life."

Third-grade math remained identical at 63 percent, significantly above the state average of 47 percent. Sixth-grade ELA also duplicated the 2016 number of 47 percent, just above the state average of 43 percent.

Seventh-graders performed well on the ELA portion, increasing from 47 percent in 2016 to 58 percent this year, a 23.4 percent gain. The math portion saw a 34 percent upswing, from 38 percent in 2016 to 51 percent in 2017. Science showed a slight gain from 30 percent to 31 percent.

State averages for seventh-graders came in at: ELA-45 percent; science-23 percent; and math-36 percent.

Social studies performance by eighth graders was 33 percent in 2017, up from 32 percent in 2016 while the 2017 state average was 31 percent. ELA performance took a 17 percent leap from 46 percent in 2016 to 54 percent. The state average in 2017 stood at 48 percent.

At the high school level, students continue to perform well on the MME and have outperformed the state on all of the MME assessments for the 2016-17 school year.

"Students at Bullock Creek High School continue to score well above the state and regional averages," said Debbie Bradford, director of Instructional Services for the school district. "In all four core areas we continue to see our students perform well."
The following list includes recent reports from the Midland County Sheriffs Office and the Midland Police Department. Compiled by reporter Kelly Dame.

Wednesday, Nov. 1

1:28 a.m.  A motorist was arrested at Isabella Street and Albee Lane for driving while license suspended.

12:07 a.m.  A Midland woman, 26, was arrested in Porter Township for domestic assault.

12:22 a.m.  A Midland man, 42, was arrested in Porter Township for violating his probation conditions.

8:46 p.m.  A Larkin Township woman, 49, was arrested for driving with a high blood alcohol content, hit and run traffic crash and driving while her license was suspended after an incident at a Larkin Township convenience store.

10:10 p.m.  Deputies assisted Gratiot County sheriffs deputies with an order from that county to place a 12-year-old boy in the Midland County Juvenile Care Center.

Tuesday, Oct. 31

1:35 a.m.  Police were asked to conduct a well-being check in the 600 block of East Carpenter Street.

1:41 a.m.  Officers were sent to a report of a loud party in the 400 block of East Grove Street.

1:41 a.m.  A Midland man, 34, was caught bringing marijuana into the Midland County Jail. A report is being sent to the prosecutor.

10 a.m.  A deputy investigated a report of a school bus violation in Lee Township.

4 p.m.  A deputy responded to a report of a speeding pickup truck in Jerome Township. The driver was stopped and cited for the offense.

4:05 p.m.  Officers assisted probation agents in the 200 block of West Ellsworth Street.

8:07 p.m.  A deputy was sent to Greendale Township to assist Child Protective Service worker.

8:13 p.m.  A Midland Township woman, 62, reported someone used her credit card number without her permission to purchase three televisions in Alabama. The total amount charged is $1,693.98.
BLOOMINGTON  Two men reported being robbed at knifepoint Wednesday in separate incidents, and one victim suffered a wound to his hand.

Bloomington police officers were dispatched at 11:05 p.m. to Advocate BroMenn Medical Center, Normal, for a man claiming to have been stabbed.

The victim told police he was walking in the 800 block of West Monroe Street when he felt a sharp object strike his back and someone then demanded his wallet. The victim said he turned around and attempted to defend himself.

He was stabbed in the hand before the robber fled west on foot, police said, adding the injury was not life-threatening.

The suspect is described as a black male who is about 6 feet 4 inches tall, weighs about 180 pounds and has a long, dark beard.

At 8:42 p.m., police were called to the 1300 block of North Main Street. The victim in that case told police he was making a delivery on Ginger Trail earlier in the day when two male suspects displayed knives and demanded money from him. The suspects took an undisclosed amount of cash and fled south on foot.

No injuries were reported in that incident.

The suspects were described as black men, 18 to 22 years of age. Further details were not released.

The investigations are ongoing, anyone with information is asked to contact BPD Detective Jared Roth at (309) 434-2379 or jroth@cityblm.org or Detective Matt Dick at (309) 434-2475 or mdick@cityblm.org.
BLOOMINGTON  Three years after Pam Zimmerman's death, a trial date has not been set for her accused killer.

The work of sorting evidence to be presented to the jury continues as the potential trial date slips into 2018 against Kirk Zimmerman.

He has been to court more than 30 times since his arrest in July 2015 on charges that he killed his former wife, Pam Zimmerman, on Nov. 4, 2014.

Confined to his home, wearing an ankle bracelet that ensures he leaves only for medical- and lawyer-related appointments, Zimmerman, who has retired from State Farm, has put his Bloomington home on the market to raise money for his defense. The money is needed to hire experts to challenge evidence the state intends to introduce at trial, defense lawyer John Rogers said at previous court hearings.

Zimmerman was ordered to home confinement as part of his release on $200,000 bond in November 2015.

A protracted calendar is not uncommon in a murder case, said McLean County State's Attorney Jason Chambers.

"There have been a lot of motions and those have to be resolved before we can go to trial. Obviously everyone would like to see things move faster," said Chambers.

Zimmerman is anxious for the case to move forward. "Mr. Zimmerman eagerly awaits his trial date," Rogers said.

The case involves complex issues about the couple's finances, and the reliability of gunshot residue evidence and automotive tracking devices.

So far, the defense has filed 10 motions related to potential evidence that Zimmerman hopes will be limited or eliminated from a trial. The state has filed three motions, including one that took four days to resolve.

The state also has appealed two rulings by Judge Scott Drazewski: one barring the use of a photo line-up and the other severely limiting statements by witnesses who allegedly heard complaints from Pam Zimmerman about Kirk Zimmerman.

Rogers has asked the Illinois Supreme Court to review an appellate ruling that reversed Drazewski's decision to seal two defense motions despite media objections.

The lengthy pretrial process is necessary, said Rogers, noting the defense has been "both successful and diligent in highlighting the evidence that needs to be excluded so as to set this matter for trial as soon as possible."

Central Illinois has seen lengthy proceedings in other homicide cases.

The 2009 murder cases against brothers Chris and Jason Harris in the deaths of the five members of the Rick Gee family in Logan County concluded 3 years later with a life sentence for Chris Harris on murder charges and 10 years for Jason Harris for concealment of a homicide.

The four-week trial of Chris Harris was moved to Peoria County after a defense motion that cited extensive media coverage. No such motion has been filed in the Zimmerman case.
Residents from the city of Kherson took to the streets to celebrate Russia's retreat, scientists may have discovered why they keep finding mum
It could have gone to help the people of Puerto Rico Trump has spat on and ridiculed.

But no, instead he blew it on sending Mike Pence to a ball game and ordering him to stage a walkout in order to gin up his white jingo base. You know, the ones who really care about small government and not wasting our tax dollars. Best part: the back to back phony tweets where Pence tries to make it look like this was a spontaneous act of conscience for the troops

followed by Trump making clear he ordered the whole thing

I asked @VP Pence to leave stadium if any players kneeled, disrespecting our country. I am proud of him and @SecondLady Karen.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2017

In short, a stunt to please his base of white racistsand all for the low, low cost to the taxpayer of quarter of a million bucks when Pence could have just stayed home and laid on the couch during the anthem like the rest of his phony patriot base.

And all this fakeriotic respect the troops shinola to gin up poll numbers for a draft-dodger with phony bone spurs who called his years of fearing venereal disease his personal Vietnam and who took a dump on POWs and Gold Star families.
The world turned upside down for Lee Strobel when he witnessed what he considered the brainwashing of his young wife by a cult. As her loving husband and award-winning journalist for the Chicago Tribune, he felt obligated to launch an information crusade, disproving the claims of Christianity. The results of his quest for truth was first revealed in the bestseller The Case for Christ and are now releasing as a motion picture starring Mike Vogel (Strobel), Erika Christensen (Leslie Strobel), Faye Dunaway, Robert Forster and Frankie Faison.

In standout performances, Vogel and Christensen capture the energy, tension and chemistry of the young marrieds, trying to hold their family together while moving farther apart ideologically. The real life couple has been moved by the performances and bracing themselves for what they believe will be an emotional trip down memory lane when the film releases April 7.

In this exclusive interview on the set of the film, Lee Strobel and his wife Leslie shared their thoughts about the books transformation to motion picture and the actors portraying them.

What was your first response when someone said they wanted to turn this book into a movie?

Lee Strobel: I was shocked initially because the book came out in 1998, so its been around a long time. Yet a year ago, in about the same week, I got phone calls from two studios, Pure Flix and another one, saying we would like to do this film on your life, on your story, which really struck me as odd coming out of the blue after all these years. Its not something I pursued, but as soon as I brought it up, I thought, Duh! Thats a great idea, because there are a lot of people who wont read a book but they will go to a film, especially young people. So if you want to speak their language, the language of film, is the language of the millennial generation and a lot of my generation. So I thought heres a great opportunity to bring this message of hope and redemption and evidence and faith to a new audience and hopefully people who wouldnt be exposed to the book because they wouldnt pick up a 300-page tome.

You were first in Gods Not Dead 2, how did that come to be?

Lee: That was a last minute thing. There was an initial problem with some of the way the film had been shot. All of a sudden at the end, they needed someone to do this role of an expert witness on whether Jesus actually lived, which is disputed by some of these new atheists. They called and asked me if Id do it and I said Yeah, thats fun. Id never done anything like that before. We worked on them on the script and went to Little Rock and filmed it in a courthouse with a green screen. The funny thing is, when you see the movie, it looks like Im interacting with the actors. They werent there. It was all green screen. They had one guy as the judge so his elbow could be seen. The person questioning in the film, Id never met him. There was a guy in shorts with a clipboard doing the lines and this other guy. It was truly movie magic. Its kinda scary what they can do. It was a great experience. I knew Russell Wolfe, who is the guy who had founded Pure Flix before he died. We had met and talked about GND before it was filmed. So I had some connection with this organization and respected them and what they were trying to do. And theyre mission-oriented and thats why I went with them.. It wasnt just Lets make a movie for the sake of making a movie. Lets make a movie to accomplish something, to help people.

Was there any time in the filming of The Case for Christ where you gave gentle corrections?

Lee: One of the things we got to do was Leslie and I went and met with Brian Bird, who was writing the film, and spent several days doing a mind dump with him, storyboarding it and working on it. Part of my arrangement with Pure Flix was I insisted in my contract was that it must say that Brian Bird has to be the author. Brian is a friend of mine and I knew he would treat the story with respect and be honest and be accurate. So they agreed to that. Brian was very accommodating in terms of milking us for all the background and nuances and even things that he pulled out of us that I had forgotten about and had never written about. For instance, theres a scene in the film where I come face to face with a reproduction of the Shroud of Turin. That actually happened but the one I came face to face with was one of only eight in existence of an actual first generation print from the Shroud. I looked at it and when you look at it close up and youre looking straight in the eyes, and thinking Is this really the face of Jesus? Could it be? and I think theres about a 70% chance it is. Id never written about that, but in our conversations I recalled it. He said, Oh man, we gotta put that in the movie. So they got a reproduction of the Shroud. Actually the one that I had encountered was right here in Georgia. They were going to use that one but it didnt work out so they got another reproduction and put that in the film. The fact that Brian would spend the time to get to know our story intimately meant a lot.

RELATED ARTICLE: Interview: Mike Vogel on The Case for Christ and playing Lee Strobel

How was it meeting and working with the actors? Some actors really want to mirror the subject and some of them want to be disconnected. There are two trains of thought on that. Seems like Erika and Mike were more familiar with you and how did that go?

Leslie: Erika called once they brought her on. She said, Id like to talk to Leslie and get to know her. She did that and she was just great. Based on what weve seen, I cant imagine anyone else playing me. She was phenomenal. She caught the essence of our relationship and our interactions with Mike as Lee were very genuine and similar to how we interact. For as little time as we did spend, I believe it was God orchestrating the right people for this film. Weve just seen his hand on it in so many ways.

Lee: And Mike and Erica had acted before together, so that was a real plus that they already knew each other and worked together before. I talked to Mike quite a bit before the filming and of course, hes a strong follower of Christ. We actually have a friend whos a family connection. One of my friends knows his dad real well. So youre righttheres a real issue for an actor. Do you try to mimic the person youre playing? No, they didnt, but what they wanted was the essence of who we are and I think thats probably the best way to go.

What was it like seeing the first footage? The conversion scene, where Lee finally accepts that Christianity is true, is especially memorable.

Lee: That was a very moving scene. We were then on set when they filmed it. We had seen it filmed. It was so moving that after it happened that Mike came out after the scene was filmed and I went up to him to say thank you for being honest and authentic in the scene which can be so hokey if its not done right, if its not done authentically. I went up to thank him and I just burst into tear. I said, Thanks, Mike, for being honest and getting it right. It was very moving to see and other scenes are hard to see. The arguing, the conflict, the drinking and so forth. Those were hard to relive, but theyre honest, theyre true. In fact, one scene in particular with my dad . . .

Leslie: Robert Forrester played his dad, who by the way, looked like Lees dad, so that was shocking. We arrived, the week prior to this week. They were filming where his dad finds the motorcycle. They stopped filming, it was at night, we had just arrived. John Gunn wanted to introduce us. Robert Forrester was still in character and he came up to Lee and just put his hand on him and said, Im really sorry. And Lee never got Sorry from his dad. There was never any reconciliation.

Did that help?

Lee: It did help. It was cathartic. It was totally unexpected, because I didnt realize he was still in character. To get that from him, it was heartfelt. Hes a very tender man. He plays bad guys a lot in films, but hes great. He gave everybody a gift of a letter opener on the set, just a sweet, sweet man. But it seemed just unplanned on his part.

Leslie: He said later, I just felt that you needed that. It was like Yeah, didnt realize it but yeah. Its just been an amazing experience.

Lee: To see it on the screen for the first time, it was just amazing.

Leslie: I dont know how Im going to get through the premiere. Ill need a box of tissues.

For more information visit the films website.
News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism.
Iran, Russia military chiefs meet in Tehran

11/02/17

Source: Tehran Times

Major General Mohammad Baqeri, chief of the Iranian armed forces, met with his Russian counterpart Valery Gerasimov on Wednesday to exchange views on various issues including the latest developments regarding the Syrian conflict and the war on terrorism. The two generals met in Tehran as part of efforts for expansion of military cooperation between the two countries.



Russia & Iran's Military Chiefs Valery Gerasimov (L) and Mohammad Baqeri



During the meeting, Baqeri hailed the growing cooperation between the two counties' armed forces over the last two years, pointing to the opportunities for further expansion of such cooperation.



He also expressed the hope to have a meeting with his Russian counterpart in Moscow in the near future.



The Russian commander, for his part, voiced satisfaction over the current level of defense and military cooperation between Iran and Russia.



"During my stay in Tehran, I would like to discuss the current situation in Syria, as well as the areas for further military and technical cooperation between Iran and Russia," Gerasimov said.



The two sides also discussed a new defense diplomacy between Iran and Russia and conferred on ways to combat terrorism.



The meeting came hours before a Tehran-hosted summit between presidents of Iran, Russia and Azerbaijan to discuss trilateral and regional issues, including the Syrian crisis.
Leading members of the private sector in Ghana and Kenya have acknowledged that both countries, considered to be regional economic gateways, have the capacity, economic and investment credentials to transform and expand trade between their respective regional markets.



Intra-Africa investments and trade are prerequisites for regional and national economic development and growthIn a couple of years, Africa will have more people than India and China combined, Ghanas deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr. Robert Ahomka-Linsdey, told participants from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Cote DIvoire, South Africa, Namibia, Sudan, Europe and North America attending the Kenya Trade Expo Ghana 2017 event in Accra this week.



Experts from government agencies and the business community have converged to examine the challenges and looming opportunities for intra- and inter-regional cooperation around Africa.



Trade analysts at the African Development Bank (AfDB) note that trade between African nations stands at around 16%, the lowest amongst other regions of the world.



According to Ghanas ministry of foreign affairs and integration, trade flows from Kenya to Ghana was worth about US$5.3 million in 2016, while Ghanas exports to Kenya stood at US$2 million.



The African Union (AU) is hoping to boost intra-African trade through the creation of a Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) by the end of 2017. This should hopefully be the prelude to a Common Trade Market.



With 25 Kenyan projects registered by the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) in Ghana between 1994 and September 2017, mostly in the manufacturing sector, there is no reason why we cannot begin to deepen the trade ties between our respective nations. The political will exists, and manpower and technical know-how are no longer issues, Ahomka-Linsdey said, explaining that Africa is richly endowed and brimming with untapped wealth.



Even as we continue to trade with Asia and the matured economies, we must now seriously begin to explore and exploit the latent opportunities around the human and material resources within our vast continent.



Convened by Nana Yao Lee and Leah Nduati Lee, this years Kenya Trade Expo Ghana 2017 had as its theme: Breaking New Frontiers in Intra-African Trade.



The four-day event was held in partnership with the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Business Development, the Export Promotion Council in Kenya, and the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Corporation in Kenya.



This trade expo is a journey of learning and building relationships towards the vision of uniting Africa through trade starting with the Eastern Gateway (Kenya) and the Western Gateway (Ghana), Mrs. Leah Nduati Lee said.



A Kenya-Ghana Joint Business Council being proposed by her firm will explore pragmatic trade and investment solutions between both countries. Our model for the Kenya Trade Expo Ghana is to let every stakeholder in the private and public sector and even social enterprises in the civil society do their part in facilitating investment into Africa.

Source: today









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Minister for Business Development, Awal Ibrahim has stated that government is collaborating with academia to improve the business environment in the country.



He said government was committed to developing businesses and making the business environment competitive by making sure there is evidence and information on the various businesses.



The Minister made this known at the opening of the 2017 executive doctoral research conference held in Accra yesterday.



He said: Government cannot take decisions on whims but any decision must be based on evidence; therefore we think academia collaborating with industry and businesses would give them the facts and figures.



He said SMEs face lots of problems, and some of these problems are lack of credible information that would help them grow, and as a ministry, they are working towards assisting them.



The conference was aimed at bringing together leading academic scientists, researchers and doctoral students to exchange and share their experiences and research results on all aspects of business and management.



It also provided a premier interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners and educators to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns, as well as practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the field.



The theme for this years event was Applying Evidence-based Research to effective management.



According to Prof Kwaku Atuahene-Gima, from Nobel International Business School (NiBS), said one key factor hampering gains being made by todays managers is the lack of evidence for proper decision making.



He said: The starting point for evidence-based management is that management decisions should be based on a combination of critical thinking and the best available evidence.



And by evidence, we mean information, facts or data supporting (or contradicting) a claim, assumption or hypothesis. Evidence may come from scientific research, but internal business information and even professional experience can count as evidence.



The event also saw persons who are heads of public or private institutions of higher learning in research positions, current doctoral candidates (PhD/DBA) from accredited universities in the area of business, management, economics, finance and/or related fields, doctoral students from NiBS, scholars who are actively involved in business & management research, executives in leadership positions interested in using theory to solve practical issues, research fellows and assistants, and accredited not-for-profit organisations that require research for their work attending.

Source: The Finder









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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MTN Ghana has announced the reintroduction of the Allow Cash-Out feature on its Mobile Money Platform to enhance customer security for withdrawal transactions.



Starting November 4, 2017, customers will see the Allow Cash-Out feature on their Mobile Money Menu and this will enable only the customer to initiate and authorize cash out before an agent can process the transaction.



In addition to the Allow Cash-Out Feature, MTN has put in place another measure where agents will no longer have to write down customer numbers in their transaction book before any transaction is made. Agents have now been issued with new transaction booklets in order not to disclose customer numbers.



Commenting on the service, the General Manager for Mobile Financial Services, Mr. Eli Hini said there is the need to reintroduce the allow cash-out feature because this will enhance customer security and help eliminate Mobile Money Fraud. Apart from the customers authorization, nobody can initiate cash withdrawal on behalf of the customer.



In the past, the Allow Cash-Out Feature was part of the Mobile Money menu, however, in responding to customer feedback regarding the process, the service was taken out. To enhance customer security however, we have decided to reintroduce the feature he added.



While putting in measures to curb Mobile Money Fraud, MTN would like to remind customers to support in the fraud campaign by adhering to the following:



1. Do not disclose your PIN. It is your secret;



2. Do not entertain calls or messages concerning your mobile money account;



3. Do not give out your phones for mobile money transactions to be performed on your behalf.



MTN Ghana launched the Mobile Money Service in 2009 to enable Ghanaians access basic financial services, make and receive payments, pay bills and buy airtime among others using the Mobile phone.



The service has evolved and currently, MTN has over 8 million active users with over 86,000 agent points across the country. Additionally, MTN Mobile Money is ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certified which makes the service safe, secure and reliable.

Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.
Audio Attachment: Listen to the family spokesperson, Sarah Ofei, confirming his death to Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's 'kokrokoo' morning show

Peacefmonline.com can confirm that renowned Scientist cum Mathematician, Professor Francis Kofi Ampenyin Allotey has passed away.



He died on Thursday, November 2, around 10 pm.



The late Prof Allotey was the President of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS Ghana).



Speaking in an interview with host Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo' programme, the External Relations Manager of AIMS Ghana, Sarah Ofei, disclosed that Professor Francis Allotey, who was slightly unwell Thursday morning; had made several complaints of ill health the same day and was rushed to the hospital.



He was later discharged but passed on to eternal glory at the age of 85.



According to her, UNESCO recently approved his centre, 'Professor Francis Kofi Ampenyin Allotey' as a centre of Excellence and had to attend a General conference coming Saturday, but unfortunately death couldn't allow him to make it.



Biography



Professor Francis Kofi Ampenyin Allotey was a Professor of Mathematics, Scholar, Nuclear Physicist and a Consultant in Informatics for Development.



He was born in August 1932 at Saltpond in the Central Region of Ghana and received his early education at the Ghana National College.



He pursued further studies at the University Tutorial College, London Borough Polytechnic and London Imperial College of Science and Technology where he obtained the then coveted Diploma of Imperial College (London) in 1960.



At the national level he has held the positions of Chairman, Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, Chairman, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Chairman of the Management Board, Soil Research Institute, Chairman, Ghana Technical Committee on Nuclear Energy, President, Ghana Institute of Physics among others.



He was also a Consultant to several International Institutions, including United Nations Organization, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), International Atomic Energy Agency, Intergovernmental Bureau for Information, and United Nations Industrial and Development Organization.



He is known for the Allotey Formalism which arose from his work on soft X-ray spectroscopy. A founding fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, in 1974 he became the first Ghanaian full professor of mathematics and head of the Department of Mathematics at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.



He was the Chairman of Board of Trustees of the Accra Institute of Technology (AIT), and the President of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS).



He is holder of masters and doctorate degrees from Princeton University and the diploma of Imperial College (1960).



He is an honorary fellow of the IOP Institute of Physics.



The Professor Francis Allotey Graduate School was established in 2009 at the Accra Institute of Technology.



Professor Francis Kofi Ampenyin Allotey was recently inducted as Fellow of the Nigerian Mathematical Society (NMS).



The award was in recognition of Prof. Alloteys outstanding contributions towards the advancement of mathematics, science and technology in Africa and across the globe.

Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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Featured Video
The 17-year-old boy, who was said to have defiled a four-year-old girl at Assin Addientem in the Central Region, is reportedly at large.





The Central Regional Police Command has launched a massive search for the boy identified only as Kwabena.

Kwabena, earlier reports suggested, was declared innocent of any wrongdoing by the chief of the area after their gods were supposedly consulted in connection with the crime.

The purportedly defiled the toddler, according to reports, is currently battling for her life at the St Francis Xavier Hospital in the Central Region.

Central Regional Police Commander COP Reverend Ampah Benin, said efforts were being made to get the suspect apprehended to aid in investigation.

A massive search is currently ongoing in the community and its surroundings to get the suspect arrested.

Reports gathered have indicated that Kwabena absconded after his alleged heinous crime became public.

Reports from the police have also revealed that medical examination conducted on the girl at the hospital testified to the defilement.

The manhunt for the teen came after the Regional Police Commander had summoned the Assin Fosu Divisional Police Commander, DOVSU Coordinator and the head of the Department of Gender, for a meeting on Thursday.

The parents of the victim had expressed frustration in their fight for justice after the chief was reported to have said that the gods had declared the suspect innocent.

DSP Sheilla Kessie Abayie-Buckman, Director in-charge of Public Affairs Department, on Thursday, said the Inspector General of Police (IGP) had directed the regional command to take over the investigation after it was allegedly reported that the chief of the area and the district police command had refused to take action.

DSP Abayie-Buckman hinted that the investigation would focus firstly on how to save the life of the child  whether police procedures were duly followed and generally ensuring that justice is done.

A police clinical psychologist, who is attached to the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit in Accra, has been assigned to assist the process, a statement authored by the police officer indicated.

She therefore assured the public that any person, who is culpable of wrongdoing, including the police officers, would be dealt with according to the law.

Source: Daily Guide









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A blood test in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy could indicate a risk of miscarriage or premature birth, early research suggests.



US doctors believe they have found molecules in the blood that can be linked to serious birth complications, months before symptoms are apparent.



The findings could help doctors take steps to avoid premature birth.



But experts warned against overstating the findings, citing the "small and preliminary" nature of the research.



In the UK, one in five pregnancies ends in miscarriage, while Britain has one of the highest rates of premature birth in Europe.

The proposed blood test screens for molecules called microRNA, which are found in blood cells in the placental bed - a thick membrane that lines the uterus during pregnancy.



Predicting problems

The team, from the Laboratory for Reproductive Medicine and Immunology in San Francisco, assessed the microRNA cells' ability to predict premature birth, pre-eclampsia, and miscarriage during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.



In total, they looked at 160 births - over a series of four published studies.



The results predicted miscarriage and late pre-eclampsia with about 90% accuracy and premature birth before 34 weeks with about 89% accuracy.



Pre-eclampsia is a serious condition where abnormally high blood pressure and other problems develop during pregnancy.

It affects up to 10% of all first-time pregnancies and often leads to premature birth.



Unlike that of miscarriage, the risk of pre-eclampsia and premature birth can be managed by medical intervention.

The study authors said the test could possibly be used in combination with other established screening tests.



'Root cause'

Daniel Brison, honorary professor of clinical embryology and stem cell biology at the University of Manchester, said the study was "exciting looking" in a much needed area.



But he added: "Although the results might seem exciting and cutting edge, there is unfortunately a high risk of them being wrong.



"We'd need larger follow-up studies to be sure whether these results are valid."



Tim Child, associate professor at the University of Oxford and medical director of Oxford Fertility, echoed his concerns but described the research as important.



"Pre-eclampsia, premature birth and miscarriage are significant issues all around the world, so any research is important," he told BBC News, stressing that "while the number [of cases studies] is very limited, the statistical relationship between the test and the complication is very high."



He added that he hoped ongoing research would help doctors understand "the root cause" of placental disease.

Source: bbc









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
Former Deputy Finance Minister, Casiel Ato Forson has described the current COCOBOD CEO as a serial caller after he levelled some allegations against the past administration.



The lawmaker said Joseph Boahen Aidoo has turned the Ghana Cocoa Board into a propaganda breeding machine, instead of addressing the needs of farmers.



Mr Forson told Joy FM Thursday he was surprised at some claims made against Ex-President John Mahama by the COCOBOD CEO.



Mr Aidoo has accused the former President of misapplying COCOBOD funds meant for cocoa-related projects.



He said Mr Mahama particularly influenced the construction of a CRIG Guest House in Bole in the Northern Region for his personal comfort.



The former President has dismissed the claim, saying the facility was only refurbished during his tenure.



But Mr Forson who served as a deputy Minister under Mr Mahama said the COCOBOD CEO spoke like a serial caller.



He said there are critical issues the Board has to address instead of disparaging the image of the former President.



It is important as a nation to maintain assets [so] don't put COCOBODs image in disrepute, he cautioned Mr Aidoo.



The Minority Spokesperson on Finance questioned why the Board did not notify Parliament about the alleged questionable transactions.



But Aide to the COCOBOD CEO, Fiifi Boafo said the Board chose to handle the matter.



By the time they [past administration] were leaving there was not even 1 in the account, he said of a depleted account.



He said the 1.8 billion syndicated loan procured for the 2016/2017 Crop Season was gone after the new government took over.



But Mr Forson said he will file an urgent question in Parliament to have the COCOBOD CEO summoned for deception.



"The document they sent to the House is different," he said.

Source: myjoyonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Former Deputy Chief-of-Staff under the Mahama administration, Dr. Valerie Sawyerr, has accused President Akufo-Addo of taking credit for some projects which were originally masterminded and executed by former President, John Mahama.



In her latest epistle, Dr. Sawyerr dared the President to admit to having borrowed the project ideas of his predecessor (Mahama) and give him the due acknowledgement.



Mr. President, what stops you from graciously acknowledging what the NDC has accomplished? Is it a narcissistic tendency that prevents you from acknowledging the good in others? Or is it your speech-writers who have decided as a policy that nothing good of the NDC should be acknowledged? Please listen to the humble advise of an Opposition Chiller - you are the one who will be held responsible for the fumbling of your Government. Your writers can write for you but you are the one who must determine in the end what you actually say. Apart from the Wa Water Project, that you attempted to take credit for (naughty naughty), may I remind you of some other water projects executed under President Mahama - Essakyir Water Supply Project; Kpong Water Expansion Project; Nsawam Water Expansion Projects; Teshie Water Desalination Plant; Kumasi (Barekese) Water Supply Project; Five Towns Water Supply Project (Kyebi, Osenase, Anyinam, Apedwa & Kwabeng); Kpong Intake Rehabilitation Project; Accra-Tema Metropolitan Area Supply Project; Asante Mampong Water Project; Akim-Oda-Akwatia-Winneba Water Project; Konongo-Kumawu-Kwahu Water Project; Navrongo Water Project & Small Town Water Systems across all regions.



She further wrote ,I understand the Akim Oda-Akwatia-Winneba Water Supply Project is being prepared for commissioning. Please put the devil to shame and give JM the credit when you commission it. Dont believe your Minister for Water Resources & Sanitation if he tells you that the funding was sourced in H.E. Busias time, and H.E. Kufour planted a tree at the spot to signify sod-cutting, and you built the whole system in ten months. If in doubt, just conduct a search on Google. Your Excellency, I dont mean the Jack Where Are You system please  ha ha ha!





Read the full article below:



Dr. Valerie Sawyerr writes:



Mr. President!

Mr. President!!

Mr. President!!!



How many times did I call you? Why will you not let me enjoy a peaceful Opposition? Stretching my legs in an easy chair on my patio, I heard your Vice-President say: We are introducing Ghanas digital address system with unique post-codes within every location within Ghana The digital addressing system is going to provide us the most advanced addressing system in the world. Period! This is what we are about to roll out. And it is more advanced, off course, than the United States or the United Kingdom or Sweden or Germany because they are stuck with old technology. We are leap-frogging and we are going to new technology. We are going to GPS-based technology, so even if you are standing in the middle of the River Oti and you want your address when we roll it out you will know your address in the middle of the River Oti.



I said to myself  Who is deceiving these people? In ten months, they have devised and implemented a digital addressing system that is more advanced than that of the U.S., the U.K., Sweden and Germany? Wow! Not surprisingly, I soon found out it was simply an app that uses Googles free geographical coordinates. Dont ask me what that means. I cannot claim to be an expert of any sort in the world of digitalization but I have access to young knowledgeable professionals who I call when I do not understand such matters. So, Mr. President, what is the Vice-Presidents excuse please? But Sir, why should I begrudge your Vice-President his exaggerated manipulative style. Barely a month ago, I was stretching my legs in that same easy chair when I heard you say: This project was began in the time of the great Ghanaian leader John Agyekum Kufour. It was in his time that the financing for this project was secured as far back as 2008. Unfortunately, after he left, it took five years under the NDC successor government before the construction of the project. God has his own way of doing these things  a project that was begun by Kufour is going to be commissioned by Akufo-Addo. That is the way the Almighty works.



I asked myself - what project is he talking about and is this not a gross display of mathematical deficiency? We all know that the NDC was in power for eight years - so even if it is true that for five years construction of the project was not begun, what happened to the extra three years? After sleeping for five years, did the NDC government use three years to get out of bed in stretching mode? Did the NPP government then use nine months to execute the project? I wondered whether you were cutting sod for the project or commissioning the completed project. So, I cross-checked! Lo and behold, it was the Wa Water Project. Eeeeishh! I am sure there is a word or phrase that describes a consistent and deeply ingrained tendency for manipulating the truth before audiences that the manipulator persistently deems ignorant and/or gullible, when indeed this is not the case. Especially when they attach phrases like God has his own way of doing these things and that is the way the Almighty works. Blasphemy of the highest order! With all due respect Mr. President, do you see how you were fumbling when you got to that part and feverishly wiping your mouth? Ahaaa! As we say in our local parlance if you will not allow your mother to sleep you will also not sleep!



Your Excellency, let me go back to your Vice-President. Lets try this quiz Sir:  Is Google Maps Navigation a mobile application developed by Google, which normally uses a GPS satellite connection to determine its location?  Did the Ghanaian Government pay US$2.5m to Vokacom, aka Afrifa, to develop a digital addressing system for the country?  Did Vokacom develop a digital addressing system based on the GPS technology?  Is the GPS technology new or was it invented in the 1960s in the U.S.?  Does the new app developed by Vokacom use Googles free geographical coordinates to function?  Will Ghana pay a US$400,000.00 annual fee to Google for embedding their online map into Ghanas new digital addressing system?  Does the Ghanaian government have physical access to the server?  Does another country have access to our personal information fed into the server?  Did a similar Facebook App integration with Google maps cost US$500,000?  Why are there so many complaints that the Ghana Post GPS App is not working efficiently?  Did the Government really spend GH3.5million on publicizing the system as declared by the MD of Ghana Post, James Kwofie?



#Jack Where Are You  that is the slogan for the digital addressing system! Mr. President, in case you are wondering, we are talking about value for money. This Jack Where Are You goof will not varnish into thin air. An urgent question has been filed in Parliament for the Minister of State in charge of Public Procurement to provide details of the procurement process for the system. We are waiting patiently please. Your Excellency, do you need more than ten months in Government to realize that you cannot get away with what you used to get away with in Opposition? You cannot hoodwink the people with half-truths and untruths all the time. You cannot get them to accept hook, line and sinker unrealistic dreams and expectations. You cannot twist and turn untruths into truths.



You cannot dig a big hole at a spot and get your information gurus to say you actually built a mountain at that spot when the spot is accessible to all for verification. Your Minister for Information is somersaulting all over the place, struggling to present coverups for your mess-ups. With all due respect Sir, you are over-pressurising the young man. Your Excellency, if you think we have forgotten the Bond saga, the MacDan saga, the BOST saga, the AMERI saga, the missing cocaine saga, the GH 5million [email protected] saga, the illegal deportation saga, then you have another thought coming.  Your incompetent Minister for Agriculture now says the army worms have come to stay, after he said he had eradicated them;  Your implementation of the First Year Free SHS programme has been woefully inadequate;  You moved a whole community of Ghanaians to the United States for the 72nd Session of the UN General Assembly when public officers had not been paid;  Your MASLOC CEO, Stephen Amoah purchases 1,800 second-hand cars with no MASLOC board in place and no PPA (Public Procurement Authority) approval;  Your Invisible Forces, Delta Forces, Kandahar boys, Bolgatanga Bulldogs  just heard about the Elmina Sharks and Paga Crocodiles  and other rebel groups are still terrorizing the nation  Sissala West DCE flees irate youth  NPP Youth lock up School Feeding Office in Tamale  NPP youth storm police station in Karaga  NPP youth group beats Assembly members at Adeiso



Mr. President, what happened to your democratic credentials please?  Your operatives imprison Appiah Stadium in a room and force him to produce an audio recording for public consumption. They handcuff him from Kumasi to the Police Headquarters in Accra where it takes almost four hours to get the police to agree to grant him bail around 9.30pm, and thereafter you issue a statement saying you are no longer interested in pursuing the case. Of course, I cannot defend the words he used on you although, Sir, I cannot remember you defending yourself when the WikiLeaks reports were released. I also remember the horrible words you and your team used on Ex President Mahama while he was in office. It is not too late to apologise to him Sir.  You impose penalties amounting to over GH1billion on radio stations and shut some down in the name of administrative streamlining. Mr. President, it is important that our institutions obey and adhere to laid down rules and procedures, but I am sure you realize that by imposing unrealistic sanctions on them the message that rings clear is that you have a sinister agenda. To cut down some of the fines to 50% is still unconscionable, especially when the Schedule used for the calculation of fines had not yet been approved by Parliament.



May I humbly suggest that the first review of the draconian decision should have seen a reduction of fines to the level of the applicable law, while insisting that the Radio Stations present the requisite paperwork. As things are, it may be advisable to simply declare an amnesty, give them a time frame to present the relevant paperwork and pay the fees of the years unpaid at the current rate. This would spare the nation a further loss of democratic credentials as well as imminent court cases. As for my sister Ursula, I have confidence in her that she will do the right thing and I hope my confidence is not misplaced. As I pondered over your actions this morning, I found myself singing a popular tune - kro kro kro kro, hi hi hi hi krohi krohi kro kro kro, hi hi kro kro kro  Your Excellency, do you remember that tune? The rhythm of the reverberating shuttle of the loom as our kente weavers produce our resplendent kente cloths.



Sir, I can see you slowly weaving your way into the hole that you yourself are digging. It is so deep that if you fall in it, Mr. President you know we will not be able to find you even if all fire service and military operatives and equipment are dispatched to the scene



Mr. President, what stops you from graciously acknowledging what the NDC has accomplished? Is it a narcissistic tendency that prevents you from acknowledging the good in others? Or is it your speech-writers who have decided as a policy that nothing good of the NDC should be acknowledged? Please listen to the humble advise of an Opposition Chiller - you are the one who will be held responsible for the fumbling of your Government. Your writers can write for you but you are the one who must determine in the end what you actually say. Apart from the Wa Water Project, that you attempted to take credit for (naughty naughty), may I remind you of some other water projects executed under President Mahama - Essakyir Water Supply Project; Kpong Water Expansion Project; Nsawam Water Expansion Projects; Teshie Water Desalination Plant; Kumasi (Barekese) Water Supply Project; Five Towns Water Supply Project (Kyebi, Osenase, Anyinam, Apedwa & Kwabeng); Kpong Intake Rehabilitation Project; Accra-Tema Metropolitan Area Supply Project; Asante Mampong Water Project; Akim-Oda-Akwatia-Winneba Water Project; Konongo-Kumawu-Kwahu Water Project; Navrongo Water Project & Small Town Water Systems across all regions. I understand the Akim Oda-Akwatia-Winneba Water Supply Project is being prepared for commissioning. Please put the devil to shame and give JM the credit when you commission it. Dont believe your Minister for Water Resources & Sanitation if he tells you that the funding was sourced in H.E. Busias time, and H.E. Kufour planted a tree at the spot to signify sodcutting, and you built the whole system in ten months. If in doubt, just conduct a search on Google.



Your Excellency, I dont mean the Jack Where Are You system please  ha ha ha! While we are at it, may I take the opportunity to point out that the following projects commissioned or inaugurated in the ten months you have been in office were all commenced and/or executed under President Mahama:  On April 27, 2017, you cut the sod for the worlds largest LPG-fired Power Plant;  On April 26, 2017, you commissioned an ICT Centre at Soabe in Denkyembour District of the Eastern Region;  On May 10, 2017, you commissioned the Kumasi City Mall;  On May 17, 2017, your Minister for Health commissioned the Greater Accra Regional Hospital (former Ridge Hospital



 On May 24, 2017, your Minister for Fisheries commissioned the Elmina Fish Processing Plant;  On July 6, 2017, you commissioned the FPSO John Agyekum Kufour;  On September 15, 2017, you launched the New National ID Card. Kro kro kro kro, hi hi hi hi Krohi krohi kro kro kro, hi hi, kro kro kro   and Mr. President what is this new thing that anytime you goof and attention is drawn to it, you throw a fake Kwesi Botchwey report at the NDC, as though that will solve the problems of the nation? Please concentrate on easing the burden of the average Ghanaian Sir, and leave the Kwesi Botchway report alone, especially the fake ones. Who are those NPP birds twittering about the Kwesi Botchwey report? The good professor says the version being bandied around is fake and is not the final version of his Committees report. Our General Secretary Asiedu Nketia and our National Organiser Kofi Adams have said on air that it is a fake report. When the denkyems (crocodiles) have come out of the river to declare that the report on the water-bed is fake, the bird perched on a tree in the hinterland says the report is true. Aaba! Did the bird use the Vice-Presidents leap-frogging Ghana Post GPS to locate the address of the Kwesi Botchwey Report in the Oti River?  and who are those NDC birds chirping all over the place about the NPP KB Report - chirp, chirp, chirp?



Kindly varnish from my sight as I daydream in peace, recalling the story of Taka, Tika and Gangali on that beautiful day in July 2011 in Sunyani. Yes, the story JM shared with us at the Sunyani Congress. I guess a number of you have forgotten. Let me jog your memory  the Congress that gave Nana Konadu (NDP) 3.1% of the votes. Ahaaa  I knew you would remember that. We are indeed the great NDC and we fear no foe!!! Stop chirping and get with the programme  organize dont agonise!!! Kro kro kro kro, hi hi hi hi  Mr. President, you are weaving your way towards the big black hole. Your Vice President will not be able to help you Sir because he is already going over the brink. You positioned him during the campaign to sell empty stories, you positioned him to insult the sitting President and to label government corrupt and incompetent, you positioned him as an economic guru when you knew he had no guruism in him  now he does not know what to do in Government



He is lost, sidelined by the monsters you have created  and when he has a chance, he squeals out of context still using your opposition campaign tactics that you taught him and coming across as incongruous and totally out of his depth.



Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President!!!



I called you three times please!!!



I am for peace  Shalom!!!



October 30, 2017

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Audio Attachment: Listen to the Builsa South Mp, Hon. Clement Apaak.

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Builsa South Constituency in the Upper East Region, and a member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, Hon Clement Apaak has disclosed that some MPs from the Minority side of the House, visited the office of the former President John Dramani Mahama on Wednesday.



According to him, 80 Members of Parliament including himself who believe in John Mahama, decided to visit him and make their intentions known to him that as a matter of necessity, he must lead the NDC in the next general elections in 2020.



He said that though the Parliamentarians met his absence, they were able to relay their message through his Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah.



He made this known on Akomadan based Cruz FM's Morning Show.



"Only yesterday 80 NDC MPs including myself went to the office of the former president, he wasn't present, his Chief of Staff was there, Julius Deborah, and our interest is simple. He's the only person capable of leading the NDC back to victory," Clement Apaak said.



" . . We told him it was not negotiable and whether he likes it or not he will contest," he added.



He however said that the rest of the MPs who were not part were not happy that they were not informed.



" . . That is because others didn't know and they're mad at us . . . those of us who went believe that Mahama is the best person to lead us back into winning power . . . everyone is saying what they like and for us we say Mahama is the one we like . . . it was a private decision by those of us who believe in John Mahama and the fact that we expect him to come back and finish what he has started," he told Cruz FM



He added that the longest serving legislator on the NDC side was not part of the 80 MPs who visited the office of the former President.



The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has 106 members of Parliament after the polls on December 7, 2016 to elect the 5th President and the 7th Members of Parliament of the 4th republic.

Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
The Deputy Executive Director of National Service Scheme, Lawyer Henry Nana Boakye (Nana B) leads Ghana's delegation to the Commonwealth Youth Summit which begins on November 3rd-5th 2017 in Malaysia under the partnership of Commonwealth Secretariat, and the Malaysian government.



This year's summit is under the theme; 'An Intergenerational convergence'.



The summit is expected to focus on essential areas like climate change and Finance, Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship, Peace building and Global Inequality and Social cohesion.



The Commonwealth Youth council who are the organizers of the Youth Summit is the official voice of the more than 1.2 billion young people in the Commonwealth. It is the largest and most diverse Youth led organization in the world.



The Commonwealth Youth council plays an integral role in advancing the youth development agenda and coordination of activities and policies of the Commonwealth in the field of the youth. The council works for and represent the voice of all young people within the 52 Commonwealth nations.



The goal of the summit is to bring together passionate youth leaders to share experiences, foster learning and as well inspire and expand capacity.

Source: Josephine Acheampomaa/Peacefmonline









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
The Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council has condemned in no uncertain terms, the divisive and discriminatory statement by Ghanas Ambassador to South Africa, George Ayisi Boateng, to prioritize needs of New Patriotic Party members over the rest of Ghanaians.



The Council says it views the damnable concession as very disappointing and want President Akufo-Addo to take serious disciplinary action against him to serve as a deterrent to him and other appointees contemplating similar behaviours in the near future.



While in a meeting last weekend with members of the NPPs students wing, the Tertiary Students Confederacy (TESCON), Ayisi Boateng professed to attend to the needs of his party members first since for him, they were more Ghanaian than the rest. It has since been condemned roundly.



A statement issued by the Council and signed by its president, Apostle Prof. Opoku Onyinah, said ordinarily, the comment would have passed as yet another political talk from a zealous party executive wanting to impress his partisan audience without any comments, but to the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC), the personality of our High Commissioner and Representative of the People of Ghana to no mean a Country like South Africa demands a strong statement of condemnation.



As A Council, we do not and would never believe that the current thoughts and posture of the High Commissioner represents the position of H.E. the President of the Republic, who has sworn by our Constitution to protect and to do good to all manner of persons irrespective of their political, religious, ethnic and social orientation. We are highly disappointed in him in this instance because aside from being a politician of high repute and an elderly statesman, the diplomatic honour and courtesies bestowed upon him by ALL the people of Ghana have been betrayed.



For the avoidance of doubt, H.E George Ayisi Boateng should understand that the title of His Excellency bestowed upon the President of the Republic and by extension to his appointed Ambassadors/High Commissioners is a title of privilege and honour from ALL of the people of Ghana for excellent services, and so it behoves on him to render those services equitably without elevating the needs of one group of Ghanaians above others as his divisive and discriminatory statement sought to portray.



The GPCC also reiterated calls for the Civil and Public Services, including diplomatic representations to be rid of all forms of partisanship so as to sanitize Public Services to avoid some of the very embarrassing situations as presented by this and many other similar cases in the past.



To this end, the Council believes that the urgent need for a truly professional and accountable Public and Civil Service that would serve the interest of all Ghanaians and not a few privileged politicians is no longer an option but a necessity, which we must begin the debate now.

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.

Featured Video
The commencement date for the refurbishment and construction of the new facilities was on 18th January, 2016 and expected completion was 30th September, 2016 but was extended to 30th November,2016 pending handover of the project.



A. NEW EXECUTIVE GUEST HOUSE WING



The scope of work for the new executive wing included the construction of the following buildings with the following accommodations:



1. NEW 5- BEDROOM EXECUTIVE BUILDING



1. 5 Bedroom building with each room ensuite

2. 2 ensuite bedrooms on the ground floor and 3 other rooms on the first floor

3. Main reception

4. Living Area

5. Bar

6. Dining Area

7. Kitchen with store and pantry

8. Kitchen yard

9. The floors were finished with porcelain tiles

10. Bathroom and kitchen walls were tiled

11. Ground floor Ceiling is plastered and painted with P.O.P. ceiling cornices

12. First Floor Ceiling is painted plaster board with P.O.P. ceiling cornices



B. DRIVERS QUARTERS



1. 4 Bedroom building with each room ensuite

2. Laundry with store

3. Kitchen with store

4. Lounge/ Living Area

5. The floors were finished with porcelain tiles

6. Bathroom and kitchen walls were tiled

7 Ground floor Ceiling is fibre plastic P.V.C. T&G



C. EXTERNAL WORKS



1. Construction of 2 No. Security Posts

2. Construction of 3 No. Vehicular and Pedestrian access gates

3. Construction of 4 No. Summer huts

4. Paving of driveways and walkways

5. Grassing of lawn areas

6. Provision of 5 No. Covered car parking areas

7. Fencing of New Executive Wing













COCOBOD Guest House at Bole





COCOBOD Guest House at Bole





COCOBOD Guest House at Bole





COCOBOD Guest House at Bole





COCOBOD Guest House at Bole





COCOBOD Guest House at Bole





COCOBOD Guest House at Bole





COCOBOD Guest House at Bole





COCOBOD Guest House at Bole





COCOBOD Guest House at Bole





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Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has reassured the Paramount Chief of the Bawku Traditional Area, Naba Asigri Abuagrago Azoka II, he does not have an interest in any chieftaincy issue across the country, especially in the Bawku area.



According to President Akufo-Addo, his government remains committed to ensuring peace and stability in the country, and not to engage in matters related to chieftaincy.



In the run up to the 2016 general elections, President Akufo-Addo, then the presidential candidate for the New Patriotic Party, appealed to Naba Abugragu Azoka II, and the people of Bawku, to vote massively for him and the NPP, assuring that if voted for, he will help find a permanent solution to the chieftaincy disputes in Bawku.



When I said that I have no interest in chieftaincy matters, I meant it. It wasnt an idle statement. I am not a chief, I am not a royal of Bawku, I dont have any interest in meddling in Bawku chieftaincy matters, and that is what I meant by saying that my government has not come here to deal in chieftaincy matters, President Akufo-Addo said.



The President made this known on Thursday, 2nd November, 2017, when Naba Asigri Abuagrago Azoka II, and some eminent Chiefs from the Bawku Traditional Area paid a reciprocal courtesy call on him at the Presidency.



President Nana Akufo-Addo commended the Bawku Naba and the other Chiefs for the role they have played in ensuring that peace prevails in Bawku, an action, he said, has brought a warm glow of joy and gratitude to his heart.



He told the Chiefs that the decision to create a new district out of the Tempane constituency was on-going, and anytime from now, the Minister for Local Government would announce the creation of the Tempane district.



With Bawku being, predominantly, a farming community, President Akufo-Addo stated that Bawku, would immensely benefit from his governments Planting for Food and Jobs Programme, which is tailored to help farmers by providing them with improved seedlings, fertilizers at subsidized prices, and extension officers, amongst others.



He, however, urged the Traditional Rulers to assist the security agencies in ensuring that the smuggling of fertilizer from Ghana to other countries becomes an unattractive venture.



We are supplying fertilizers at subsidized prices. But you know that when something good is happening, there are always a few mischievous people, criminal minds, who want to use the good things just for their own selfish interest. The people who are doing that are enriching themselves at our expense, your expense and my expense, he said.



The President continued, So I am asking you, the traditional rulers, in the area to be part of the law enforcement agencies in the area, and make sure that smuggling doesnt take place of these important items.



On another of governments flagship projects, the free Senior High School Policy, President Akufo-Addo explained that the policy would ensure that all of Ghanas children would have the opportunity to go to school.



We have to speak the truth to each other as Ghanaians. In todays world, Junior High School education is not enough we have to make sure that everybody gets at least to Secondary School, and that is why I am determined that the policy of free Senior High School would continue and continue so that all our children would have the opportunity to go to school. It has not been done for politics, and it has not been done for votes, its been done for the development of our country, President Akufo-Addo said.

Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Compiled by Janet Krajcsik | jkrajcsik@pennlive.com

With Halloween out of the way, there's plenty to do for free in central Pennsylvania to start November -- whether you're into outdoor hikes, free music, holiday craftmaking, chess, puppies, food, eco-friendly home products or owls.

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"The Evolution of Indigenous Food Systems of North America"

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Sean Sherman, who is Oglala Lakota from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, will discuss the foundations of Native American food systems, including farming and harvesting techniques, wild food usage, hunting, fishing and preservation. Sherman founded catering and food education company The Sioux Chef in 2014 to make Native American foods more accessible to the public. The event will include Native American food tasting and a book sale and signing.

4:30 p.m. Nov. 3 at Dickinson College, Stern Center, 208 W. Louther St., Carlisle.

www.clarkeforum.org, 717-245-1875.

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23rd annual Craft Show at Northeastern High School

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Held by the Northeastern Cheerleaders, the 23rd annual Craft Show will include more than 100 spaces. Food will be available during the event.

Admission is free however the cheerleaders will be accepting nonperishable food donations for the Northeastern Food Pantry.

In addition, the cheerleaders will also be accepting gift cards and monetary donations to help the families affected in the house fire in the Northeastern School District (that occurred Oct. 23). Anyone who donates to the food pantry or to the victims of the fire will receive a raffle ticket for a special raffle.

6-9 p.m. Nov. 3; 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Nov. 4 at Northeastern High School, 300 High St., Manchester.

Free - accepting donations for local food pantry.

717-266-3644, www.nesd.k12.pa.us.

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Free First Fridays for Families

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Visitors during Free First Fridays receive free access to more than 60 interactive exhibits relating to science, technology, engineering and math, as well as demonstrations and activities in LSF's "Science Cafe," thanks to donations from PPL Electric Utilities.

5-8 p.m. Nov. 3 at Lancaster Science Factory, 454 New Holland Ave.

717-509-6363, www.lancastersciencefactory.org.

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Spruce Up Your Cookies with Flooded Icing

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Learn a unique cookie decorating technique in time for the holiday baking season -- how to flood cookies using piping bags, royal icing and patience. The Library provides the cookies to practice on.

Two locations:

1-2 p.m. Nov. 3 at Madeline L. Olewine Memorial Library, 2410 N. Third St., Harrisburg, www.dcls.org/adultevents, 717-232-7286.

3 p.m. Nov. 5 at East Shore Area Library, 4501 Ethel St., Lower Paxton Twp., www.dcls.org/adultevents, 717-232-7286.

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Exhibit Reception: Rachel Eng's "Irreversible Results"

Dickinson will host an exhibit of ceramic art that investigates the phenomenal aspects of the natural world and also responds to the current climate situation.

5 p.m. Nov. 3 at Dickinson College, Weiss Center for the Arts, 240 W. High St., Carlisle.

www.dickinson.edu/arts, 717-254-8159.

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Lecture: "Symbolism in J.S. Bach' Solo Violin Works: A Hypothesis Re-examined"

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Presented by The Highlands Duo of Benjamin Shute, baroque violin, and Anastasia Abu Baker, harpsichord.

5 p.m. Nov. 3 at Dickinson College, Weiss Center for the Arts, 240 W. High St., Carlisle.

www.dickinson.edu/arts, 717-245-1568.

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Giovanni Traino

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This Friends of the Arts program features a concert by pianist Giovanni Traino.

7 p.m. Nov. 3 in the chapel of Frey Village, 1020 N. Union St., Middletown.

www.freyvillageseniorliving.org, 717-930-1228.

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A Chance to Dance

Is your little one dancing around the house? Boys and girls, ages 3-6, are invited to experience activities that explore elements of movement, music and creativity all in a fun, encouraging environment with Children's Division coordinator, Rose Taylor. No dance experience necessary. Wear comfortable clothing

3 p.m. Nov. 4 at CPYB Warehouse Studios, 5 N. Orange St., Carlisle.

Free, although registration is required.

www.CPYB.org/achancetodance , 717-245-1190.

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File photo/Pennlive

Massing of the Colors

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The Massing of the Colors is a memorial to each military service member who has died in combat since 9/11. Displayed in Masonic Village's Veterans Grove, the memorial will be lit for nighttime viewing. The public is invited to walk through and view the flag display at their leisure. Created and sponsored by The National Sojourners - Harrisburg Chapter No. 76.

Nov. 4 through 13 at Masonic Village, 1 Masonic Drive, Elizabethtown.

www.masonicvillages.org, 717-367-1121.

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Carlisle Christmas Craft Show

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More than 200 vendors, craftspeople and artists will offer their wares. The Carlisle High School culinary students will have a cafe open with breakfast and lunch items available for purchase. There also will be a raffle drawing featuring more than 100 different donated items from the artists and craftspeople. All proceeds benefit the Carlisle High School Model UN team.

9 a.m. Nov. 4 at Carlisle High School, 623 W. Penn St.

Free admission.

www.carlisleschools.org, 717-240-6800.

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"Getting Started with Digital Photography"

This introductory program is designed for adults who would like to get more serious about photography. The program will introduce the creative triangle elements; help with choosing equipment, and address different photography styles. There will be an overview and tips on opportunities for photographing at Wildwood. Bring a notebook and pen, and current camera gear.

9 a.m. Nov. 4 at Olewine Nature Center at Wildwood Park, 100 Wildwood Way, Harrisburg.

Free, although registration is required.

www.wildwoodlake.org, 717-221-0292.

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Christmas In Dallastown 2017

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Join the Dallastown community in York County for a day of fun, food, entertainment and shopping.

Christ Lutheran Church, Bethlehem United Methodist Church, Dallastown Fire Hall, St. Joseph Catholic Church, St. Paul's UCC and the Yoe Fire Hall will be hosting craftsman and vendors. Many local businesses will be having specials, inviting you in to look around, maybe have a cookie.

This year the map stamping game will be held again. A grand prize will be awarded from a randomly pulled completed map. The winner must be over 18 years of age to play. Instructions for the game will be written on the map.

9 a.m.-3 p.m. Nov. 4 in downtown Dallastown.

All metered parking will be free and parking is available at the craft and vendor sites.

www.dallastownboro.com, 717-244-6626.

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Diabetes Fair

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Marina Tsaplina, artist, patient advocate, and Kienle Scholar in Medical Humanities at Penn State College of Medicine, will present "The Invisible Elephant Project," a 90-minute, adult theater program illuminating challenges of living with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Also offered will be information on insulin pumps, stroke, continuous glucose monitor systems, smoking cessation, a Spanish language table, nutrition, neurology and surgical weight loss.

9 a.m. Nov. 4 at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center University Fitness and Conference Center, 500 University Drive.

717-531-8395.

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Peoples' Choice Photo Show

The Hershey Camera Club members will display their photographic works. The public is encouraged to stop by and vote for their favorite photographs. All photos will be available for sale, matted, framed and ready to be hung.

9 a.m.-8 p.m. daily, from Nov. 4-25 at Country Meadows of Hershey, 451 Sandhill Road.

www.hersheycameraclub.org, 717-838-7843.

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Hershey Arts & Craft Show

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There will be more than 150 vendors from all over Pennsylvania and the surrounding states. All work is 100% handmade and original. Items for sale include: jewelry, folk art, candles, framed prints, stained glass, seasonal items, wooden crafts and toys, lotions, candy, handmade plush, pet items and ceramics.

9 a.m.-3 p.m. Nov. 4 at Hershey High School, 550 Homestead Road.

Free admission.

717-533-7138.

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Hobby Greenhouse Club Meeting

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Master gardener, Kathleen Johnson will provide an introduction to mycorrhizae. A brief business meeting will follow.

9 a.m. Nov. 4 at Lower Allen Township Building, 2233 Gettysburg Road.

Free and open to the public.

June Eckert at 717-766-3492.

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Furever Home Adoption Center Holiday Vendor Fair

The fifth annual event will include more than 100 businesses, craft and food vendors. There will be raffles and door prizes, plus the first 100 guests receive a free goodie bag.

Receive a free raffle ticket for each donation of a cat item from Furever Home's wish list: bleach, paper towels, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, KMR Liquid or Powder Kitten Formula, canned kitten food or any dry cat food.

10 a.m.-3 p.m. Nov. 4 at Four Seasons Golf Course, 949 Church St., Landisville.

Free admission.

www.FureverHomeAdoptionCenter.com, Tina at flippers1@aol.com or 717-808-8108.

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19th annual Lebanon Valley Art Studio Tour

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Select which of the 15 artists to visit in this free driving tour and in what order, at your own pace. This year's artists are located in Elizabethtown, Hershey, Hummelstown, Schaefferstown, Lebanon, Cornwall and Mount Gretna.

Pick up a tour passport at any stop and have it punched at each location. Complete requested information and leave passport at final stop to be entered in a door prize drawing (even if you only visit one artist).

10 a.m.-5 p.m. Nov. 4-5 in the Lebanon Valley area.

www.lvartstour.com, 717-507-2667.

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eBook Help

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Need help using Overdrive to download books onto your own phone or device? Stop in at the Library and a staff member will answer questions or get you started on enjoying eBooks and eAudiobooks from the library. Please bring your own device. A library card is required.

11 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays, from Nov. 4 through Dec. 30 at New Cumberland Public Library, 1 Benjamin Plaza.

www.newcumberlandlibrary.org, 717-774-7820.

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Squeekie the Bookstore Cat Book Release

Squeekie, the bookstore cat of Cupboard Maker Books, returns with his second book The Second and Third Nine Lives of Squeekie the Bookstore Cat. This collection of stories was written by 18 local authors, ranging in age from 10 to 50, and stars Squeekie, whether he is plotting to steal a tray of bacon or defending the store. Squeekie and many of the authors will be attending the book release to sign the books.

1-3 p.m. Nov. 4 at Cupboard Maker Books, 157 North Enola Road, Enola.

717-732-7288 or www.cupboardmaker.com.

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Music by the River

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The world premiere performance of "And did the world with devils swarm, all gaping to devour us..." will be presented. It is a one act opera commemorating the 500th anniversary of the nailing of the 95 theses by Martin Luther. Jason Thoms will be featured as Martin Luther, and Sarah Bleasdale as his wife, Katie. Along with the accompanying chamber ensemble of Sonja Winkler, Jonas Thoms, Timothy Koch, Barry Dove and Ronald Mutchnik, they will perform works of Bach and Rondo 2 (2015) for horn and marimba by Hollis Thoms. The concert will conclude with the audience singing the Martin Luther hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."

7 p.m. Nov. 4 at St. Stephen's Episcopal Cathedral,221 N. Front St., Harrisburg.

www.musicbytheriver.org, 717-236-4059.

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Free Drop-in Art for Kids

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Make a pine cone turkey, pumpkin zipper pull and "stained glass" leaf by stopping by either the Landis House, 67 N. Fourth St., Newport, or Roseglen United Methodist Church, 722 New Bloomfield Road, Duncannon.

1-4 p.m. Nov. 4.

www.perrycountyarts.org, 717-567-7023.

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Holiday Literary Art at The Library

Get in touch with your creative muse. At Literary Art, youll upcycle old or discarded books, turning them into holiday art. There will be several designs and projects to guide you on your creative journey. This program for adults is supported by the Friends of the Elizabethville Area Library. Registration is limited.

1 p.m. Nov. 4 at Elizabethville Area Library, 80 N. Market St.

717-362-9825 or www.dcls.org/events_calendar.

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Chess Club

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Join members of the Hershey Middle School Chess Club for a fun afternoon of chess. Location in the library will vary.

1:30 p.m. Nov. 4 at Hershey Public Library, 701 Cocoa Ave.

717-533-6555 or www.hersheylibrary.org.

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Central PA Writer's Workshop Meetup

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The group meets twice a month to critique each other's work and to engage in discussions about writing and publishing. If you write, desire to polish your work, and enjoy working with others seeking to improve their craft, come check the group out. Suggested topic this week is editing.

3 p.m. Nov. 4 at Noonans Tavern at Range End Golf Club, 303 Golf Club Ave., Dillsburg.

www.meetup.com/The-Central-PA-Writers-Workshop/events/243515436.

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The Highlands Duo

The duo, Benjamin Shute, baroque violin, and Anastasia Abu Baker, harpsichord, use historical instruments and performance practices. Shute and Abu Baker will perform music from the 17th and 18th centuries.

7 p.m. Nov. 4 at St. John's Episcopal Church, on the square, 1 N. Hanover St., Carlisle.

717-245-1568, www.stjohnscarlisle.org.

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Owls of Pennsylvania

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In this free program, ages 6 and older can learn about owls found in Pennsylvania. Saw-whet owls will be particularly featured. Weather permitting, licensed banders from the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art will monitor capture nets throughout the evening as part of a 20+ year research project. If owls are netted, the banding and data collection process will be demonstrated indoors on a live bird.

8 p.m. Nov. 4 at Kings Gap Environmental Education and Training Center, 500 Kings Gap Road, Carlisle.

http://events.dcnr.pa.gov/event/owls_of_pennsylvania_6795#.We9UaY9Sypo.

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Rizzetta's Tones

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Based in Lancaster, Rizzetta's Tones performs Celtic and folk music on twin hammer dulcimers, silver flute, high and low whistles, guitars, button accordion, Greek bouzouki, mandolin, auto-harp, ukulele and a variety of percussion instruments, in addition to four-part harmony.

3 p.m. Nov. 5 at First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 21 S. Bedford St., Carlisle.

Free, although donations are appreciated.

717-249-3310, www.firstlutherancarlisle.org.

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Adult Mental Health First Aid Training

Appropriate for anyone 18 years and older who wants to learn how to help a person who may be experiencing a mental health-related crisis or problem. Topics include anxiety, depression, psychosis and addictions. Lunch and materials provided.

8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Nov. 5 at Giant Food Store Community Center, 3301 Trindle Road, Camp Hill.

Free.

www.afsp.org/event/free-mental-health-first-aid-training-mhfa

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Beginner's Yoga and Walk

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Join yoga instructor Traci Wolfe for a guided 3.1-mile walk around Wildwood at a pace that will warm the body with stops along the way for simple yoga exercises. Assume cancelled if raining. Dress for the weather. Appropriate for ages 12 through adults.

10 a.m. Nov. 5 at Olewine Nature Center at Wildwood Park, 100 Wildwood Way, Harrisburg.

717-221-0292, www.wildwoodlake.org.

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Gravel Hill UMC's annual Veterans Luncheon

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Join local veterans and active military service personnel for the annual Veteran's Day Luncheon.

The event is filled with many highlights to recognize and honor the service and sacrifice of our country's veterans and active military personnel. This year's guest speaker is Major General Eric G. Weller (ret). Gifts to all past and present military personnel, commemorative slide shows and a special flag folding ceremony are just some of the features for the day.

The free luncheon is provided by Texas Roadhouse and Lisa's Cafe.

Noon-3 p.m. Nov. 5 at Gravel Hill United Methodist Church, 131 Gravel Hill Road, Palmyra.

Info: www.gravelhillumc.org/events/veterans-day-luncheon or by calling Tony at 717-838-4721, ext. 122.

Reservations: Gravel Hill Church office at 717-838-4721, ext. 100.

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Irish Gap Hike

Explore the park's newest trail -- the Irish Gap Access Area -- on this scenic 2 to 3-mile hike over uneven terrain. Bring sturdy shoes, water, and dress for the weather.

1-3 p.m. Nov. 5. Kings Gap Environmental Education and Training Center, 500 Kings Gap Road, Carlisle.

Starts at the Irish Gap Access Area and will depart promptly at 1 p.m. See park map on the website for location.

www.events.dcnr.pa.gov, 717-486-3799.

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"Stories from Air Force One"

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Western Pennsylvania resident and author, John Haigh Sr. will discuss his book "Air Force One: An Honor, Privilege, and Pleasure to Serve," that highlights his career as Chief Steward Air Force One serving Presidents Carter, Reagan and George H.W. Bush. View photos, hear personal stories, and learn about the many dignitaries Haigh met aboard Air Force One.

2 p.m. Nov. 5 at Hershey Public Library, 701 Cocoa Ave.

Free, although registration is required.

www.hersheylibrary.org, 717-533-6555.

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Green Your Home

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Ditch harmful chemicals and toxins from your home. Adele Cole, wellness educator, will discuss easy ways to use non-toxic cleaning and personal products in your home, taking the stress out of making the switch. Plan to leave with a make and take oily household cleaner. This program is designed for adults. Registration required.

1 p.m. Nov. 5 at East Shore Area Library, 4501 Ethel St., Lower Paxton Twp.

dcls.org/adultevents, 717-652-9380.

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Looking for more things to do?
Veterans Day, held on the anniversary of the end of World War I, previously called Armistice Day, is a federal holiday to honor all veterans. Veterans Day 2017 is Saturday, Nov. 11.

Local events include:

ADAMS COUNTY

Adams County residents can attend a community appreciation day sponsored by the Gettysburg Foundation and Gettysburg National Military Park that grants free admission on Nov. 11 to the Cyclorama, Film and Museum Experience at Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitor Center and at the David Wills House. Military veterans also will be admitted free of charge (active duty military receive free admission year-round.) In conjunction with Community Appreciation Day, the Rupp House History Center will be open noon-5 p.m. (admission is free/tickets are not required). For more information, go to www.gettysburgfoundation.org.

CUMBERLAND COUNTY

The Joint Veterans Council of Shippensburg (American Legion Post No. 223 and VFW Post No. 6168) will host a Veterans Day parade at 2 p.m. Nov. 5. The parade will form at Queen and King streets at 1:30 p.m. Information: Lana Varner at 717-816-1944.

Cumberland Valley High School's Patriot's Club will host a veterans appreciation ceremony at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 9. Students and local elected officials will participate. A reception will be held afterward for military and active duty service members.

The Carlisle Vietnam Veterans will hold their annual all-night vigil from 10:30 p.m. Nov. 10 to 11 a.m. Nov. 11 on the steps of the old courthouse in Carlisle to honor and remember all POW-MIAs. Information: Bob Hinkle at 717-776-4777.

The Silver Spring Township Veterans Memorial Committee will hold its seventh annual Veterans Day ceremony at 11 a.m. Nov. 11 in Willow Mill Park, 80 Willow Mill Park Road. The 45-minute ceremony will include speeches by two students on the theme, "How Does the Veteran Inspire Selfless Service.?" Inscribed bricks and plaques will be dedicated and guided tours of the memorial will be available after the service. A blood drive also will be held 11 a.m.-3 p.m. at the township building, 8 Flowers Road. If it rains, the Veterans Day service will be held under a pavilion in the park. Information: www.sstveteransmemorial.com.

The Joint Veterans Council of Carlisle will hold its program at 10:30 a.m. Nov. 11 in the second-floor courtroom of the old courthouse. The Cumberland County Honor Guard will provide the firing squad and bugler. Speaker will be Maj. Gen. John S. Kem, commandant, U.S. Army War College. Information: Neil J. Delisanti at 717-240-6178.

American Legion Post No. 751, Enola, will hold a ceremony at 11 a.m. Nov. 11 in front of the legion on Shady Lane. A meal will be provided for veterans with proof of service. If the weather is bad, the event will be held inside. Information: T.S. Balko, commander, 717-329-1522.

Lower Allen VFW Post No. 7530 will hold a ceremony at 11 a.m. Nov. 11 at the post, 4545 Westport Drive. Guest speaker is Col. Oren "Hank" McKnelly. Information: Scott Henry at 717-364-5871.

The Newville Joint Veterans Council will hold a service at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11 at the memorial at the fountain. The service includes placing flowers, playing taps and giving hometown heroes banners to family members. Guest speaker will be Robert Gilbert, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps during Vietnam and is a member of American Legion Post No. 421 in Newville and the Marine Corps League. If the weather is bad, the service will be held inside the VFW on West Main Street. Information: Patricia Reed at 717-776-7825.

Cumberland Crossings, 1 Longsdorf Way, South Middleton Township, will hold a Veterans Day celebration at 11 a.m. Nov. 11. The celebration includes a flagpole ceremony, a presentation from the U.S. Army War College and lunch. For reservations, call Stanton at 717-240-6027.

The U.S. Army Heritage & Education Center at 950 Soldiers Drive in Middlesex Township will host a living history event called "Remembering Armistice Day" 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Nov. 11-12 at the World War I Allied and German trenches on the Army Heritage Trail. Among the day's highlights include reenactors who will illustrate the events as they unfolded for the 316th Infantry Regiment, AEF in the hours leading up to and the day following the Compiegne Armistice. Visitors are invited to come witness the life of an American Doughboy in the trenches and the end of the war for the 316th. The event will follow the unit's daily wartime routine - patrolling, caring for those in the Aid Station, cooking for the troops, and maintaining the supply line to the front - and will then recognize the end of the war at 11 a.m. on Saturday. Exhibits, including Soldier Experience Gallery and the new World War I exhibit, "'Good-Bye Broadway, Hello France' - America in the Era of World War I," in the Visitor and Education Center, are open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. For more information, go to www.usahec.org or call 717-245-3972.

Just For Today Recovery and Veterans Support Services will hold a Veterans Day appreciation celebration at FT, 300 Market St., Lemoyne, noon-7 p.m. Nov. 11. Veterans can receive free coffee and pastries and learn about programs available to them.

Shippensburg University's Army ROTC Raider Battalion will host its annual Veterans Day ceremony at 11 a.m. Nov. 10 in the Ceddia Union Building. Speaker will be Lt. Col. Christopher Morton, professor and chair of the Department of Military Science. From Nov. 6 to 9, the ROTC battalion will staff a table in the CUB where members of the Ship community can write notes of appreciation for veterans. The notes will be shared with veterans at the Boulder Crest Retreat, a nonprofit organization supporting veteran health and wellness. ROTC will participate in the Shippensburg Veterans Day Parade on Nov. 5. Information: www.ship.edu/rotc.

Mechanicsburg Area Veterans Council's program is at 11 a.m. Nov. 11 at the GAR monument in Mechanicsburg Cemetery. Guest speaker is David Bennett, U.S. Army War College.

AMES True Temper will give away free car snow shovels to the first 250 veterans and active duty military 9-11 a.m. Nov. 11 at the distribution center, 1 True Temper Drive, Carlisle. Discounted prices also are available on some tools for veterans.

DAUPHIN COUNTY

Parking will be free on Nov. 11 in Harrisburg.

The AACA Museum in Hershey will offer free admission to all veterans on Nov. 11. The automobile museum is at 161 Museum Drive in South Hanover Township.

Widener Law Commonwealth will hold a ceremony at 10:15 a.m. Nov. 10 in Room A180 of the administration building, 3737 Vartan Way, Susquehanna Township. The topic will be, "The Evolving Role of Veterans in American History." Speakers are Mike Perry, executive director of the Army Heritage Center Foundation, and Col. Robert J. DeSousa, state judge advocate, Pennsylvania National Guard and state director for U.S. Senator Pat Toomey. RSVP: cwrsvp@widener.edu or 717-541-3955.

LANCASTER COUNTY

Lancaster County Commissioners will unveil a plaque at 10 a.m. Nov. 11 in honor of Lancaster County veterans who served during the Vietnam War. The ceremony will be held at Veteran's Plaza, 150 N. Queen St.

Masonic Village, 1 Masonic Drive, Elizabethtown, will host a Massing of the Colors memorial to service members who have died in combat since 9/11. The memorial is in the village's Veterans Grove and is lit for nighttime viewing. The public can walk through the flag display free of charge. The memorial was created by the National Sojourners Harrisburg Chapter No. 76. Information: 717-367-1121.

LEBANON COUNTY

The Indiantown Gap National Cemetery Memorial Council 35th annual Veterans Day program will be held at 2 p.m. Nov. 5 at the Pennsylvania Veterans Memorial, rain or shine. Speaker will be Maj. Gen. Walter T. Lord, military executive to the Reserve Forces Policy Board, Office of the Secretary of Defense. The Washington Band will provide music. Shuttle bus transportation to and from designated parking areas will be provided. Those attending should bring lawn chairs. Information: 717-865-5254.

PERRY COUNTY

Carson Long Military Academy in New Bloomfield will celebrate Veterans Day on Nov. 11 with a parade followed by a reception. The parade begins at 10:30 a.m. on Alumni Field. The school will recognize its "Gold Star Platoon," which is 44 Carson Long who have died in military service. There also will be a 21-gun salute followed by a reception in The Maples.

The 57th annual Perry County Veterans Day parade will be held at 11 a.m. Nov. 4 in Marysville by the Perry County Council of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The parade starts at Sylvan Street and Maple Avenue and finishes at the Marysville swimming pool. There is no rain date.

MULTIPLE LOCATIONS

Royer's Flowers & Gifts will give a free red, white and blue bouquet to veterans on Veterans Day, Nov. 11. The offer is available in person only at all of Royer's 16 stores in Berks, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Lancaster, Lebanon and York counties, including Stephenson's Flowers & Gifts in Lower Paxton Township, Dauphin County.
Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Compiled by Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Waterfalls to visit in Ithaca, New York

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Located only an hour north of the Pennsylvania border, Ithaca, New York, is a fantastic destination in the Finger Lakes. The area is rightly known for its many great wineries and breweries, as well as the beautiful Cayuga Lake. However, the area is also a fantastic destination for those that love waterfalls. That's because there are more than 150 falls within 10 miles of the city, including some of the most impressive waterfalls in the eastern United States. Here are a few that you shouldn't miss when visiting the area.

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Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

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Taughannock Falls

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Taughannock Falls is located in the middle of Taughannock State Park on the western shores of Cayuga Lake. At 215 feet in height, this is the tallest single-drop waterfall east of the Rocky Mountains. Visitors to the park can see the waterfall from an upper viewing platform near a parking area or hike the 3/4 mile trail to the base of this impressive waterfall.

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Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Ithaca Falls

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Ithaca Falls is located in the heart of the city mere steps from the parking area. This impressive waterfall is said to reach heights over 100 feet and is even wider than it is tall. While it might not be the tallest waterfall in the region, the easy access to this waterfall make it a must-visit site in the region. The waterfall is not just popular with hikers and photographers, but is also a great fishing spot.

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Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

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Lucifer Falls

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Located southwest of Ithaca in Robert H. Treman State Park, Lucifer Falls is another waterfall that is more than 100 feet in height. This waterfall features multiple drops that twist down the cliff, giving Lucifer Falls a unique look. Visitors can see it from an above overlook or by walking the stone trail that's been cut into the cliff face alongside the falls.

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Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Lower Falls

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Lower Falls is also located in Robert H. Treman State Park a short distance downstream of Lucifer Falls. While a trail goes between both falls, it is also possible to drive near the base of this waterfall. Lower Falls is an impressive waterfall that drops over orange-colored rocks into a large pool. During the summer months, this area is opened for those wanting to swim beneath a beautiful waterfall.

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Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

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Cascadilla Gorge

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Part of the Cornell Botanical Gardens, Cascadilla Gorge follows Cascadilla Creek as it drops hundreds of feet between Cornell University's campus and downtown Ithaca. A stone path, complete with stairs, has been built along the creek, and many use the trail simply as a path between the two areas of town. However, this gorge and its nine waterfalls shouldn't be missed by those exploring the natural beauty of Ithaca.

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Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Well's Falls

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Well's Falls is one of the Ithaca's lesser-known waterfalls, but it's also one of the most unique in the region. Also known as Businessman's Lunch Falls for the many officer workers that would come here on their lunch break, this waterfall is located a short distance outside of downtown Ithaca. Adjacent to this 65-foot waterfall is an abandoned mill.

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Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

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Horseshoe Falls

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Horseshoe Falls is a short distance upstream of Ithaca Falls on the campus of Cornell University. Access to this waterfall is along a steep stone trail, but it can also be seen from above via a suspension bridge built 100 feet over the gorge. While not the tallest waterfall in the area, a still-functioning, stone power plant behind the falls creates a unique look for this natural site.

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Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Triphammer Falls

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Triphammer Falls is the uppermost waterfall on Falls Creek, a short distance upstream of Ithaca Falls and Horseshoe Falls. It can be see from the Thurston Avenue Bridge that connects areas of Cornell's campus. Behind the falls is a dam and Beebe Lake, which features a great walking trail for those looking to soak in as much natural beauty as possible.

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Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

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Buttermilk Falls

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Buttermilk Falls is a 165-foot slide waterfall located in Buttermilk Falls State Park. This waterfall is visible from the parking area and is a popular spot for swimming in the summer months. Those wanting to go for a hike can climb through the gorge above the falls and see the park's 10 waterfalls.

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Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

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Ludlowville Falls

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Ludlowville Falls is a little-known waterfall on the eastern site of Cayuga Lake, a few minutes north of downtown Ithaca. Located in a local park, this 35-foot waterfall is an easy-to-reach and beautiful destination for those looking to get off of the beaten path.

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Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Want more cool places?

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Jim Cheney is the writer behind UncoveringPA, Pennsylvania's most read travel blog. He has traveled and written about every county in Pennsylvania, as well as to many countries in North America, Europe, and Asia. He lives in Harrisburg, Pa.

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Looking for more trip ideas?
Some historic moments pass in one fell swoop.

President Abraham Lincoln's reading of the Gettysburg Address lasted only two or three minutes. Last year, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps smashed an ancient record when he swam the 200-meter individual medley in 1 minute and 54.66 seconds.

And then for a brief window on Thursday evening, 330 million Twitter users slid into a world without @realDonaldTrump .

President Donald Trump's Twitter account - from which he aggressively confronts those who displease him, suggests North Korea "may not be around much longer!" and promotes Trump Tower taco bowls- disappeared.

Twitter initially posted a statement Thursday night saying Trump's "account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee."

For those few minutes, visitors to Trump's account were simply met with the message, "Sorry, that page doesn't exist!"

"The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored," the statement read. "We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again."

But then two hours later, Twitter updated its statement saying that an investigation showed the deactivation "was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee's last day." Twitter said it would be conducting a full internal review.

Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employees last day. We are conducting a full internal review. https://t.co/mlarOgiaRF  Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017

The company's tweet: Earlier today @realdonaldtrump's account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee. The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again.

Trump has used the account since March 2009. He has tweeted more than 36,000 times and has 41.7 million followers.

Trump has spoken publicly about his reliance on Twitter before. In an interview with Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business Network last month, Trump credited his use of social media as among the reasons he was elected.

"You have to keep people interested also," he said. "You know, you have to keep people interested."

Twitter also serves as among Trump's main tools for deflecting criticisms and attacks. In the same interview, Trump said that "When somebody says something about me, I am able to go bing, bing, bing and I take care of it."

Trump conceded that those close to him try to steer him away from social media. But he insists on tweeting - spelling errors included - as a weapon against "fake news."

Trump's account may have been "inadvertently" deactivated Thursday, but Twitter has also had to defend its decision not to take down particular presidential tweets.

In a six-tweet thread in September, Trump issues what some took as a threat directed at North Korea.

"Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer!" Trump wrote.

As The Post has reported, Twitter prohibits tweets that include violent threats, which some argued was Trump's intention.

Twitter responded saying a number of factors go into account when evaluating controversial content, including its "newsworthiness" and whether it has "public interest."

Those tweets confronting North Korea followed other instances where critics called for Trump's account to be more closely controlled, such as when he tweeted an edited video of himself beating somebody up, the victim's face replaced by a CNN logo.

And then there are the accounts that Twitter has chosen to suspend. Last month, the actress Rose McGowan took to Twitter to challenge Ben Affleck on his claim that he knew nothing of Harvey Weinstein's decades-long history of sexual assault and violence towards women.

"You lie," McGowan wrote in one tweet.

But another tweet led to the temporarily suspension of her account. Despite initially declining to comment on the content of that specific tweet, Twitter later explained that McGowan's "account was temporarily locked because one of her Tweets included a private phone number, which violates our Terms of Service."

On Thursday alone, Trump used his account to congratulate the Houston Astros for winning the World Series, call on Congress to "TERMINATE" the diversity visa lottery and announce the nomination of Jerome Powell as the next chair of the Federal Reserve.

Trump was back tweeting at 8:05 p.m., praising the day's "Great Tax Cut rollout."

"The lobbyists are storming Capital Hill, but the Republicans will hold strong and do what is right for America!"

It was as if he never left.

(c) 2017, The Washington Post. Rachel Siegel wrote this story.
TJX, the parent company of T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods, is still paying its workers in Puerto Rico, even though stores are still closed there after Hurricane Maria.

"We believe it is the right thing for us to do under these circumstances," a spokeswoman told the Boston Globe.

Nearly two-thirds of utility customers are still without electricity in Puerto Rico since Maria hit nearly seven weeks ago.

The Globe reported Facebook user Ivan Melendez praised Marshalls for continuing to pay his son, who works at a store in San Juan.

"Thank you to all Marshalls stores for such an honorable gesture," Melendez wrote in Spanish in a post shared more than 41,000 times. TJX has supplied employees with food and water since the hurricane made landfall Sept. 20, he said.
A 57-year-old man from Hershey has pled guilty to federal bankruptcy fraud and other charges, the United States Department of Justice said Friday.

According to the department, Michael Jackson, admitted to defrauding his creditors, bankruptcy court and his wife by filing seven bankruptcy petitions -- two of them under his wife's name without her knowledge -- containing false information regarding his assets, income and employment.

The U.S. Attorney's office said Jackson filed the peititions in order to postpone sheriff's sales of his home. The office further said Jackson could be facing up to 32 years in prison.
Several less scrutinized elements of the U.S. House GOP tax reform plan could seriously impact those paying for college or still paying down college loans, including the elimination of a popular student loan interest deduction.

That's a particular concern for Pennsylvanians, considering that students here have the second-highest amount of per student debt of any state in the nation.

Here's a look at the proposed tax changes and what they mean for you.

Student loans and tuition assistance

One of the most popular tax deductions in the crosshairs is one that allows people paying off student loans to deduct up to $2,500 in interest from their tax burden. According to the IRS, some 12.4 million people claimed the deduction in 2015, although in practice most taxpayers are able to claim far less than the full $2,500.

People whose employers contribute a portion of their higher education costs would see that money become taxable income under the GOP plan. A similar tax break for university employees and their families would also be jettisoned.

Republicans estimate that these measures would raise $47.5 billion over the next 10 years.

Two other lesser used tax credits, the Lifetime Learning Credit and Hope Scholarship Credit, that apply education expenses against the taxpayer's burden would be replaced with an third expanded tax credit.

The American Opportunity Tax Credit, which is currently only good for four years, would now be available for five years. Of course, that would only be useful for five-year seniors or those pursuing graduate degrees.

Those cuts are estimated to generate $17.3 billion.

The American Council on Education, which represents 1,800 college and university presidents and executives, estimated that the GOP proposal, in its entirety, would cost students a combined $65 billion more between 2018 and 2027, based on the House Committee on Ways and Means' calculations.

"Taken in its entirety, the House tax reform proposal released today would discourage participation in postsecondary education, make college more expensive for those who do enroll, and undermine the financial stability of public and private, two-year and four-year colleges and universities," said ACE President Ted Mitchell, in a written statement.

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey said the bill cuts taxes for the wealthy at the expense of families saving for college.

"The super-rich and the big corporations don't need another tax giveaway, but that's exactly what this scheme does," he said, in a written statement.

Republicans, however, point to the proposal's increase to the standard deduction as a means of offsetting the elimination of others, including the student loan interest deduction. The standard deduction would increase from $6,350 to $12,000 for a single person with no children and from $12,700 to $24,000 for a married couple.

"Individuals and families will be keeping more of their hard-earned income with a significantly smaller tax burden allowing Pennsylvanians to save more for college and student loans," said David Jackson, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-11th, who's challenging Casey in the 2018 election.

Tax on college endowments

Private schools and universities with at least 500 students and endowments greater than $100,000 per student would face a 1.4 percent excise tax on their investment income. That would mean, for example, that a university with a $100 million endowment and a 5 percent annual return would pay $70,000.

An estimated 150 colleges would be affected by the change, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Based on data from the 2013-14 school year, the new tax could affect 17 Pennsylvania schools, although the calculations would obviously change from year to year. That list included places like Franklin and Marshall College, Lehigh University and the University of Pennsylvania. Swarthmore, which has an endowment nearing $2 billion reported a per student average of more than $1.1 million in 2013-14.

"Imposing an excise tax on nonprofit private university endowments is a short-sighted move that will only harm students and their families," said Mary Sue Coleman, president of the Association of American Universities, which represents 60 research universities including Penn State and the University of Pennsylvania.

(Penn State probably would not fall into this category. For one, it is a state-related school. Also, its main campus had a $49,000-per-student endowment in 2013-14.)

Jackson, the Barletta spokesman, said the tax on endowments would bring them into alignment with the taxes currently levied against private foundations.

The argument for large endowments is that they support student financial aid and long-term investments into research and classroom facilities. They have long been scrutinized, however, by lawmakers who demand universities spend more of their massive endowments on students in lieu of increasing tuition.

Republicans believe the new excise tax would bring in $3 billion over the next 10 years.

Shifting from Coverdell savings accounts

The GOP plan would phase out Coverdell Education Savings Accounts, which allow families to invest money into savings accounts to pay for private school and college. The money is tax-free as long as it's used for that purpose.

Coverdell accounts were generally far less utilized than their cousin, 529 savings plans. In 2014, investments in 529s totaled $224 billion, according to the Investment Company Institute, compared to $7 billion in Coverdell accounts.

One advantage to the Coverdell accounts was that they could be used for elementary and secondary private schools, as well as colleges, where as the 529s were strictly for higher education.

However, the GOP plan would eventually allow 529s to cover up to $10,000 per year in elementary and secondary private school funding. That reflects Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' push for more investment in private and charter schools.

According to the bill, eliminating the Coverdell accounts would generate $600 million in revenue over the next decade.

Will we see these come to fruition?

Lobbying efforts for and against these proposals have already begun. As with any change to the tax code, there will be winners and losers, and a lot of jockeying to avoid being part of the latter group. That means the final bill is likely a work in progress subject to possible amendment.

Furthermore, it's not clear what could happen to these proposals in the Senate, which obviously has its own priorities.

Wallace McKelvey may be reached at wmckelvey@pennlive.com. Follow him on Twitter @wjmckelvey. Find PennLive on Facebook and YouTube.
A medical malpractice trial that alleged two doctors and a nurse were negligent in their care of a pregnant teen who suffered a catastrophic brain bleed during emergency surgery ended suddenly Thursday with a confidential settlement.

No details of the settlement from the Lancaster County case can be revealed, said Thomas Kline, attorney for Analisa Ramos, 22, who has remained quadriplegic since the 2010 emergency C-section.

Defense attorneys for the medical team and Lancaster General Hospital could not be reached for comment or did not respond to phone calls or emails from PennLive. But they previously denied the claims of the civil lawsuit in opening statements and said the tragic outcome could not have been prevented.

The settlement came on the morning of what would have been the ninth day of trial, ending proceedings that originally were projected to last at least two weeks.

The trial started Monday Oct. 23 with jury selection and attorneys gave opening statements Tuesday Oct. 24. The rest of the week, Kline put on his witnesses, including Ramos herself, who cannot talk but can communicate through blinking or typing individual letters on an electronic tablet.

Defense attorneys brought in their witnesses and experts this week and had not yet finished their case when the settlement was agreed upon.

Analisa Ramos as a younger teen

At issue in the case was whether Analisa's massive brain bleed was triggered by the girl's medical care or whether it could have been prevented or detected earlier. She was 35 weeks pregnant when her doctor diagnosed a problem with her placenta and umbilical cord that prompted her trip to the hospital.

Kline alleged the doctors and nurse should have recognized emerging signs of preeclampsia, a dangerous pregnancy complication, and better monitored Analisa, who was 15 at the time.

Kline maintains the doctors should have checked for protein in her urine and should have delayed the surgery when Analisa complained of headache and nausea.

But defense attorneys deny that Analisa had preeclampsia and said their treatment was within the standard of care.

They say only six of her 28 blood pressure readings during her pregnancy were elevated, and they were the ones taken after she learned she was going to have emergency surgery and that her baby was in danger.

The defense attorneys - Chris Stump, James Kilcoyne and Lauralee Baker - also argued that nausea and headache are common side-effects from a spinal anesthesia.

Kline did not ask for a specific dollar amount when he filed the lawsuit but he brought in an expert economist who testified last week about Ramos' ongoing and future medical costs.

According to Kline's pretrial report, the cost of her future care is projected to be between $427,000 and $477,000 each year. At the high end, that could extrapolate into more than $19 million over 40 years.

She also suffered the loss of future earning potential projected between $760,000 and $1.9 million, according to Kline's pretrial report.

Ramos has a near normal life expectancy, according to the lawsuit, but she is stuck in a "locked-in" syndrome where she is aware of everything going on around her yet unable to talk, move or participate in any of it.

She is incontinent, eats mostly through a tube and never has been able to hug her son, who is now 7. She lives with her mother in Lancaster with in-home skilled nursing care.

Kline is known as one of the top medical malpractice attorneys in the Commonwealth, regularly winning multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements.

According to Kline's website, he won one of the largest medical malpractice verdicts in Pennsylvania history in 2013- for a child born with cerebral palsy after she received substandard medical treatment at a Philadelphia hospital. His client won $42.9 million.

That year, he also won an $11.6 million settlement for a former University of Pennsylvania student who fell through a raised skylight at an off-campus residence and was rendered a paraplegic.

He is currently representing the parents of Timothy Piazza, who died after a series of falls inside a Penn State fraternity house during a pledge party.
By Wesley Robinson

Pennsylvania's most wanted

Of those wanted across Pennsylvania, here is a snapshot of a few of the suspects wanted, as well as some of the arrests authorities have made this week.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Mark Ellis (Arrested)

York police have charged a 29-year-old Baltimore man in connection to the October homicide of Aditya "Sunny" Anand, a store clerk at an Exxon in the city.

Mark Anthony Ellis is charged with criminal homicide following his Oct. 30 arrest for parole violations. Police said Ellis specifically targeted Anand as a result of an ongoing domestic situation.

Investigators had previously said Anand was shot during a botched robbery attempt for "no good reason." Ellis' prior record includes a convictions for retail theft and robbery.

Anand, 44, was shot at around 5:45 a.m. Oct. 17 at the Exxon at Richland Avenue and West Market Street. The injuries to his left arm and chest proved fatal and Anand died at York Hospital less than half an hour later.

Anand was remembered as a congenial staple of the store who worked at the location for more than a decade. He was an only child who emigrated to the U.S. about 12 years ago.

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submitted

Arson suspect

Police in Susquehanna Township are asking for the public's help in finding a man accused of setting fire to a car and trailer Oct. 19.

Police say the suspect set fire to a car at the rear of a property in the 3400 block of Walnut Street around 2:30 a.m. Oct. 19. The man then damaged several cars in the 3500 block of Walnut Street before setting fire to a trailer in the 3600 block.

Anyone with information is asked to call Det. Meier at 717-909-9246 or by email at smeier@susquehannatwp.com.

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York police

Tobias Bethune-Banks (charged)

York police have charged a 21-year-old man with a homicide in the shooting death of a 36-year-old York man four years ago.

Tobias Bethune-Banks is accused of fatally shooting Danny Steele just before 3 a.m. on Dec 7, 2013, as Steele sat in his vehicle at the intersection of North George and North streets in York. Charges were filed Thursday.

Bethune-Banks is currently incarcerated in state prison and has not been scheduled for a preliminary hearing.

The York Dispatch is reporting that Steele, also known by the nickname "Gamble," was fatally shot for snitching on childhood friends at their trial for a 1997 murder. He also refused to recant his testimony, which led to Bethune-Banks shooting him.

The friends, Melvin "Fatback" Bethune and Tysheem "Ty Boogie" Crocker, were convicted of killing Raymond "Skip" Clark and sentenced to life in prison. Steeler was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for conspiracy to commit murder.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Skimming suspects

Two men and a woman are wanted for skimming a victim's credit card number in Lancaster County and using the information to purchase money orders and other items at a Walmart in York County.

Susquehanna Regional police said the suspects stole the credit card information from a woman who lives in Marietta. In addition to using the stolen information at Walmart in East York, the woman is also accused of withdrawing funds from an ATM nearby.

The suspects were seen driving a 2015 or 2016 Ford Expedition Limited, police said. Anyone with information about the incidents or the identity of the suspects is asked to contact police at 717-426-1126 or to email Susquehanna Regional police Det. Wilfredo Rivera at RiveraW@police.co.lancaster.pa.us.

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Susquehanna Regional police

Brian Smith

Susquehanna Regional police are looking for a 31-year-old man accused of fraud and stealing credit cards.

Brian Allen Smith is accused of advertising services as a disc jockey for hire on Facebook and other social media sites, but never showing up to perform at the weddings or other events as promised. Police said Smith would get half of the money for the appearance up front.

Police said Smith also stole credit cards and used them at convenience stores in the area. The fraud and thefts occurred between May and October in the Marietta area, officials said.

Police ask anyone with information as to Smith's whereabouts to call 717-426-1164 or email Det. Michael Kimes at kimesm@police.co.lancaster.pa.us.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Sarah Delaney

East Earl Township police are looking for an Oxford woman wanted for felony forgery, theft by deception and criminal conspiracy.

Delaney is accused of cashing a forged check stolen from an East Earl Township business.



Anyone with information as to Delaney's whereabouts is asked to contact police at 717-355-5302.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Criston Littlejohn

Criston Littlejohn is wanted on multiple charges related to drug dealing after police learned he was picking up packages containing controlled substances in Newtown Township.

Newtown Township police stopped Littlejohn in his black Dodge Charger on May 12, 2015 and found on the of the packages in the trunk containing 15 pounds of marijuana. Littlejohn gave police fraudulent temporary registration from Delaware and was unable to provide proof of insurance.

Littlejohn is wanted in Bucks County and in Philadelphia in separate cases.



Anyone with information as to Littlejohn's whereabouts is asked submit a tip via the Crimewatch website.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Shanice Stump

Shanice Nicole Stump sought on multiple bench warrants in Dauphin County.



Stump is wanted for failure to appear in court on numerous charges including receiving stolen property, theft of leased property, accidents involving damage to property, simple assault, theft by unlawful taking, and disorderly conduct.

Anyone with information as to Stumps whereabouts is asked to contact Dauphin County Crime Stoppers at 1-800-262-3080 or call Dauphin County dispatches at 717-558-6900.

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Eric Veronikis | everonikis@pennlive.com

Mark Kutnyak

Mark Kutnyak, among the state police's 10 most wanted suspects, is charged with absconding Megan's Law since 2013.

Kutnyak, whose last known address was in Pipersville, Bucks county, was convicted of aggravated indecent assault.

He is 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighs 190 pounds and has gray hair and brown eyes. Kutnyak has a surgical scar on his chest and an eagle tattoo on his right arm.

Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to contact the state police fugitive tip line at 1-888-292-1919 or email tips@pa.gov.

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Oneximo Mendez

Oneximo Mendez, 42, failed to appear in Lancaster County Court for his rape trial in 2014 and has not been seen since. He had been out on bail.

Anyone with information regarding Mendez's whereabouts are asked to contact Lancaster County Sheriff's department at (717) 735-299-8200 or the Lancaster City Police Department at (717) 735-3322.

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Anna Troitsky

Anna Troitsky is wanted on felony charges for interference with custody of children.



Troitsky is accused of taking her daughter to Russia against the orders of a Bucks County Judge.



Anyone with information as to Troitsky's whereabouts is asked to submit a tip via the Crimewatch website.

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Scrapyard thief

State police in Jonestown are looking for a man in a raincoat who broke into a Lebanon County scrap yard and took cash and damaged a soda machine.

The suspect broke into Greble scrapyard office in the 900 block of Houtztown Road in Bethel Township between 12:30 and 1 a.m. Tuesday after smashing a window.

He took $60 and then went outside and broke into a Pepsi vending machine, taking $300 and causing $1,000 in damage.

Anyone with information is asked to call state police at 717-865-2194.

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James Watts

James Garland Watts is wanted for a 2008 homicide and attempted homicide.

Watts is accused of shooting David and Shawnta Lee during what police described as a home invasion and burglary March 23, 2008. Police said Watts shot the couple, but David Lee survived the attack.

Watts has been on the run since. He is described as 5 feet 6 inches tall and weights 195 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes.



Anyone with information as to Watts' whereabouts is asked to contact Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers at 1-800-472-8477 or submit a tip via the Crimewatch website.

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West Shore Regional Police Department

William Sharp

Police said they are searching for William Thomas Sharp, 34, who has a last known address in Palmyra.

Sharp is believed to be the man who grabbed cash out of the register at the Turkey Hill the 400 block of South Third Street just after 10:30 p.m., police said.

Anyone with information about Sharp is asked to contact police at 717-238-9676.

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Lenin Valentin

Authorities are looking for Lenin Valentin who has been wanted on drug charges since he failed to appear in court in 2004.

Valentin is described as 5 feet 10 inches tall and 185 pounds. He has ties to the Bronx, New York, Killeen and Fort Hood, Texas, and Lancaster Pennsylvania.



He remains one of the most wanted persons in the state. Anyone with information as to Valentin's whereabouts is asked to contact Lancaster police at 717-735-3400 or to call U.S. Marshals at 1-877-WANTED-2.

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Sandy Rivera

Sandy Rivera is wanted on drug charges stemming from a search warrant executed on March 16, 2011.



Rivera is wanted on a felony count of possession with the intent to deliver and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Anyone with information as to River's whereabouts is asked to contact Chambersburg police through the Crimewatch website.

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Shuron Poole

Shuron Lauren Poole is wanted in connection with a violent assault and strangulation of a female victim. He is charged with strangulation, aggravated assault, flight, possession a firearm without a license and person not to posses firearms.

Anyone with information as to Poole's whereabouts is asked to submit a tip via the Crimewatch website.

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Buddy Gilliland

Buddy Ryan Gilliland is wanted for theft, theft by deception and endangering the welfare of children. He is sought on multiple warrants, police said.



Anyone with information as to Gilliland's whereabouts is asked to contact Manheim Township police at 717-569-6401.

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Northern Lancaster County Regional Police

Kione White

Police in Lancaster County have an arrest warrant out for a man whom they say fled a DUI checkpoint and almost struck an officer.

The Northern Lancaster County Regional Police Department issued the warrant on Friday for 19-year-old Kione W. White, of Lititz.

Police say around 1:30 a.m. Aug. 26, police were conducting a DUI checkpoint in Lititz. That's when they say White fled from the checkpoint and almost struck one of the police officers.

He has been charged with aggravated assault, fleeing or attempting to elude police, and recklessly endangering another person.

Anyone with information about him is asked to call the police, 717-733-0965, or contact the department through its website.

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Kylie Addis

The Adams County Sheriff is looking to find Kylie Addis, who is wanted for escape.

Addis was on work release when she failed to return to Adams County Prison. A warrant for her arrest was issued Sept. 22.

Anyone with information as to Addis' whereabouts is asked to submit a tip via the Crimewatch website.

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Tyler Wike

Lancaster police have issued a warrant for the arrest of a man accused in a July stabbing.

Taylor Mcoy Wike, 26, of the 400 block of Howard Avenue, Lancaster, is wanted on an aggravated assault charge.

Wike is described as 6 feet 2 inches tall, 170 pounds, with hazel eyes and brown hair. He has these tattoos: Lips on the left side of his neck and "Samantha" on the right side.

He is accused of stabbing a 35-year-old man July 10 at East End Avenue and South Plum Street. The victim was stabbed on his right arm, now and behind his right ear, and was taken to the hospital for treatment.

Police said they believe the stabbing stemmed from a dispute between the victim, his friend and another group of males at Prince of Subs bar on South Prince Street earlier that evening.

Police also said six shots had been fired in the area of South Plum and East Mifflin streets that evening. The victim ran from the scene, and his vehicle was found crashed into a parked car. The victim told police he believes someone from his group of attackers took it after he ran had had been shot at.

Anyone with information is asked to call Sgt. Miller at 717-735-3347, email him at millerk@lancasterpolice.com, call Lancaster Crime Stoppers at 800-322-1913, or text a tip to Crime Stoppers by texting LANCS plus your message to 847411. Tips can also be left on the Lancaster Crimewatch site.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Angel Colon

State police are looking for a 58-year-old man in connection to reported rape and sexual assault more than 15 years ago.

Angel E. Colon is wanted on charges he raped and abused a 10-year-old girl between January 1, 2001, and August 19, 2002, in Hazelton. Colon has ties to New York City and the Dominican Republic.

Anyone with information as to Colon's whereabouts is asked to contact Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers at 1-800-4PA-TIPS or submit a tip via the Crimewatch website.

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Marcus Taylor

A 20-year-old man is wanted for failing to return to the Dauphin County Work release center Sept. 28.

Marcus Taylor clocked out of the work release center to go to work and never returned. The GPS monitor attached to Taylor was located near Maclay Street, but authorities have been unable to find Taylor.

Anyone with information as to Taylor's whereabouts is asked to call police at 717-558-6900 or submit a tip through the Crimewatch website.

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Randy Howard

One man is in custody and another is sought for what police described as a violent assault in Columbia.

Randy Cornell Howard is wanted in connection to the attack Sept. 3 attack near the intersection of Sixth and Walnut Street in the borough. Police said Howard and Shakim McIlwain were the primary participants in an assault on a 62-year-old man at around 3 a.m.

A group of people, including Howard and McIlwain, were gathered at the intersection when the victim approached the group and asked them to keep the noise down. Police said several men in the group then "violently assaulted" the man and fled the scene.



The man's wife confronted two males who had returned to the scene to look for a lost cellphone, police said. The two males who returned to the scene were able to flee before officers arrived, but one of them -- later identified as McIlwain -- was found in a vehicle on the 600 block of Plane Street.



McIlwain was arrested for driving under the influence and released pending further investigation of the assault. He was taken into custody Wednesday on felony aggravated assault, criminal conspiracy, and DUI charges. McIlwain is being held at Lancaster County Prison on $30,000 bail and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing at 1:30 p.m. Sept. 18 before District Judge Miles Bixler.

A warrant was issued for Howard's arrest on aggravated assault and conspiracy charges. Howard is also wanted for technology and curfew violations. His roommate told parole officers he fled to Connecticut.

The assault victim was taken to a local hospital and treated for multiple facial fractures, injured spleen and lesser injuries, police said. He was released from the hospital and is recovering at home.

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Mariah McCarty

Catawissa police say Mariah McCarty abandoned several pets. She is wanted on several animal cruelty charges.



Anyone with information as to McCarty's whereabouts is asked to contact Catawissa police at 570-356-7102 or submit a tip using the Crimewatch website.

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Cumberland County sheriff's office

Travis Longacre

A 27-year-old man failed to report back to the Cumberland County Work Release Center.

Travis Tyler Longacre was last seen working at Rustic Tavern in Carlisle Sept. 23. He is believed to still be in the Carlisle area, the Cumberland County sheriff said in a news release.

Longacre is 6 feet on inch tall and weighs about 210 pounds.



Anyone with information as to Longacre's whereabouts is asked to contact sheriff's office at 717-240-6522 or to call Cumberland County dispatches at 717-243-4121.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Juan Lopez

Juan Lopez is charged with felony counts of forgery and theft stemming from an incident Feb. 17, 2017 in Newtown.

Lopez is accused of trying to cash a check at Provident Bank in the borough, which had his name on it, but a different amount than what was denoted on the check. Police contacted the business that had issued the check and learned that the company never issued a check to Lopez.

Lopez was subsequently charged and a warrant for his arrest was issued.

Anyone with information as to Lopez's whereabouts is asked to submit a tip via the Crimewatch website.

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Eric Veronikis | everonikis@pennlive.com

Quincy Berry

The U.S. Marshals Service Western Fugitive Task Force continues its search for convicted sex offender Quincy Kenyatta Berry.

Berry, 40, who was convicted of rape, is wanted for failure to register as a sex offender.

His last known address was 446 E. Seventh Street, Erie. He is also known to frequent Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

Berry is 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 170 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Berry is asked to contact Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers at 1-800-4PA-TIPS. Calls are anonymous and tipsters could be eligible for a cash reward.

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Darnell Crawford

Lower Paxton Township police are looking for a man accused of stealing a vehicle.

Darnell Crawford is accused of taking the vehicle from the 600 block of Lopax Road, the victim told police Aug. 24.

A warrant was issued for Crawford's arrest on a charge of theft of a motor vehicle.

While Harrisburg police stopped the stolen vehicle at 3 a.m. Aug. 29 and arrested the driver on unrelated charges, they were unable to find Crawford.

Anyone with information is asked to call Lower Paxton Police at 717-657-5656 or leave a tip on the Crime Watch website.

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Shawn Wagner

The Dauphin County Criminal Investigation Division is searching for a man who has not been seen since his house arrest monitor's battery died.

Police said Shawn Michael Wagner, 36, of the 4600 block of Hikey Street in Dover, is wanted on escape charges.

Wagner was sentenced to house arrest on charges of accidents involving death or personal injury.

On May 30, Wagner's electronic monitor went dead after the battery was not charged, and police said he cannot be found.

Police are asking anyone with information on Wagner's whereabouts to submit a tip through the Crimewatch website, or by calling police at 717-558-6900.

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Eric Veronikis | everonikis@pennlive.com

Eleuterio Urrutia Catalan

State police continue their search for Eleuterio Urrutia Catalan.

Catalan, 38, sexually assaulted two juveniles numerous times in West Nottingham Township, Chester County, between April and July of 2009, police said. Eleuterio Catalan, whose last known address was in Nottingham, fled the area, according to police.

Catalan, also known as "Tello," is known to frequent La Palma and Guerrero, Mexico, police said.

He is described as a Hispanic male who is 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 155 pounds. Catalan has black hair and brown eyes.

Anyone with information on Catalan's whereabouts is asked to contact Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers at 1-800-4PA-TIPS. All callers remain anonymous and could be eligible for a cash reward.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Lorrie John Trites

The FBI is offering an award for information that will lead them to a former Franklin & Marshall College swim coach who has been on the run since 1998.

Lorrie John Trites, 53, is accused of secretly videotaping young women undressing in a locker room between December of 1997 and February of 1998 while he was the head swimming coach at the college. He was placed on the FBI's Most Wanted List after he disappeared following the allegations.

Trites allegedly took video and voice recordings of several young women as they changed their clothing in the ladies locker room of the college's aquatic center.

An arrest warrant was issued on March 10, 1998 that charged Trites with six counts of violating the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act. He was then additionally charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution in a federal arrest warrant, which was issued in April of 1999, the FBI said.

Officials warned that Trites should be considered armed and dangerous and may be using the names L. John Trites, John Trites, John Morgan or "Buddy."

Trites is an avid swimmer and may be involved in some way with the swimming community, according to the FBI. He is reported to have ties to New Mexico, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Florida, Canada, Trinidad and the Bahamas.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Anatoliy Venskyy

Anatoliy A. Venskyy is wanted after failing to appear in court in September 2016.

Venskyy was found guilty of aggravated indecent assault and other child abuse charges, but failed to appear in court for sentencing. He has ties to Millville and Buena, New Jersey, as well as New Cumberland Mechanicsburg, Boiling Springs, Harrisburg and Carlisle.

Anyone with information as to Venskyys whereabouts is asked to contact Cumberland County Crime Stoppers at 1-855-628-8477.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Kurt Tasker

Harrisburg police still seek a second suspect in connection with the July 16, 2016, shooting death of Frank Whitlock in an alley.

Kurt D. Tasker, is charged with him include criminal homicide, conspiracy and possession of a firearm. Vernon King was arrested in connection to Whitlock's homicide in mid July 2017.

Both men worked at Midtown Scholar, a bookstore owned by Mayor Eric Papenfuse located in midtown Harrisburg.

Whitlock was found on a sidewalk in an alley, while bullets damaged homes and vehicles in the alley and along both sides of the 400 block of Crescent Street, which intersects the alley.

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Aimee Dearment

Aimee Michelle Dearment is charged with stealing a vehicle Aug. 28 in Lemoyne.

Police believe Dearment is in the Harrisburg area.

Anyone with information as to Dearments whereabouts is asked to contact West Shore Regional police at 717-238-9676.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Mark Diouf

Mark Diouf is wanted in connection to a Nov. 5, 2013 burglary on Circle Drive in New Britain Township.

Police said an investigation determined Diouf was the perpetrator in numerous burglaries in multiple jurisdictions. Diouf fled the country before being arrested and was last known to be in Portugal. His whereabouts are unknown.



Anyone with information as to Diouf's location is asked to contact New Britain Township police at 215-8221910 or submit a tip through the Crimewatch website.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Dylan Wagner

Easter Earl Township police are looking for a man wanted for felony forgery, theft by deception and criminal conspiracy.

Wagner is accused of cashing a forged check stolen from an East Earl Township business.



Anyone with information as to Wagner's whereabouts is asked to contact police at 717-355-5302.

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Solenid Rivera

Solenid Rivera is wanted for her role in a theft on June 19.

Rivera is charged with a felony count of forgery, theft by deception, theft from a motor vehicle and receiving stolen property.



Anyone with information as to her whereabouts is asked to contact Manheim Township police at 717-569-6401.

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Nidira Criswell

Newtown police are looking for Nidira Cintir Criswell in connection to an incident of fraud Dec. 29, 2016, at First National Bank of Newtown.

Criswell is accused of cashing several checks that came back unable to locate the account, when bank employees entered the information into their system. Police tried to located the business on the checks, but were unable to find the business by an address or name.

The bank provided a copy of a fake check and a copy of the photo identification card used to cash the checks. Criswell is wanted for two counts of access device fraud, receiving stolen property and theft by deception.

Anyone with information as to Criswell's whereabouts can submit a tip to police via the Crimewatch website.

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Felix Arias-Cruz

Felix M. Arias-Cruz is wanted on a bench warrant for failure to appear in federal court on drug felony charges. U.S. Marshals say Arias-Cruz has ties to the Erie area. He is considered armed and dangerous.

Anyone with information as to Arias-Cruzs whereabouts is asked to contact U.S. Marshals at 412-422-4722. A reward may be available.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

James Miller

James Aaron Miller is accused of stealing a large amount of cash from a Giant on the 900 block of Norland Avenue in Waynesboro in December 2015.

Miller was the night manager of the store when he took the cash from a safe, Chambersburg police said. He deactivated the alarm to the stores emergency door and fled.

Anyone with information regarding Miller's whereabouts is asked to contact Chambersburg Police Department at 717-264-4131 or Franklin County Crime Solvers at 717-263-3000.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Tayvaughn Chandler-Hope

West Manchester Township Police are seeking Tayyaughn Chandler-Hope in connection to a road rage shooting in June.

Police further said Chandler-Hope is considered to be armed and dangerous. If seen, do not approach him and contact 911 immediately.

Police said Friday that Chandler-Hope has been charged with attempted homicide. Anyone with information of Chandler-Hope's whereabouts is asked to call the West Manchester Township Police Department at 717-792-9514.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Michelle Blackburn

Michelle Blackburn is wanted for escape and probation violations.

A warrant was issued for her arrest May 14, 2015, about a week after she was charged with escape.

Anyone with information as to Blackburn's whereabouts is asked to contact the Adams County sheriff's office at 717-337-9828 or submit a tip through the Crimewatch website.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Isidro Valencia

Isidro Jose Valencia is wanted in connection to an incident on Nov. 18, 2015.

Valencia charged with misdemeanor counts of corruption of minors, defiant trespass and other counts. Anyone with information as to Valencia's whereabouts is asked to submit a tip via the Crimewatch website.

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Burglary suspects

Harrisburg police are asking for help catching two men who burglarized a local convenience store early Thursday morning.

At around 1:20 a.m., police say a burglary occurred at Murry's Shop 'n Drive on the 1700 block of Paxton Street. A passerby reported the incident after seeing a man leaving the store and noticing that the business was closed.

Officers arrived and found a broken window in the front of the business, which one of the suspects used to enter the building, police said.

One of the suspects was seen wearing jeans, a black zip-up hooded sweatshirt, white sneakers and a backpack. A second man served as a lookout for the crime. He was wearing a jacket that was black at the top and white from the shoulders down, police said.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact police at 717-255-3170 or to submit a tip through the Crimewatch website.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Dean Barnes Jr.

Dean Allen Barnes Jr. is wanted for delivery of a controlled substance stemming from a 2015 incident where he sold methamphetamine to a confidential informant.

Anyone with information as to Barnes' whereabouts is asked to submit a tip to Dauphin County Crime Stoppers at 1-800-262-3080 or submit at tip through the Crimewatch website.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Steven Bready, Samantha Weeks, Kayla Shaw

Chambersburg police have charged Steven Bready, Samantha Weeks and Kayla Shaw with theft by deception.

Each of the three are accused of depositing multiple checks into an online banking system and then withdrawing the money prior to the bank being able to flagged for insufficient funds.



Anyone with information as to the whereabouts of Bready, McCarty and Shaw are asked to contact Chambersburg police at 717-264-4131.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Erbert Jackson

Erbert Lee Jackson is wanted in connection an overdose death in May.



An 18-year-old man was found May 16 after he overdosed at a home on Old Forge Road in New Cumberland. The man died of fentanyl toxicity, police said.

An investigation determined that Jackson sold the man heroin prior to his death.



Jackson, also known as June, is facing felony counts of drug delivery resulting in death, delivery of a controlled substance, conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance and involuntary manslaughter.



Fairview Township police said Jackson is known to travel between Harrisburg and Philadelphia. Anyone with information as to his whereabouts is asked to contact police at 717-9015267 or call York County Crime Stoppers at 717-755-8477.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Eduardo Salazar-Carransa

Accused of pushing a woman away from his car into a traffic lane, Eduardo Salazar-Carransa is wanted for simple assault and recklessly endangering another person.



Chambersburg police ask anyone with information as to Salazar-Carransa's whereabouts to call 717-264-4131 or to submit a tip using the Crimewatch website.

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Kevin Purnell

Kevin Jay Purnell is one of the 10 most wanted people by state police.



Purnell, also known as "Big Kev," is considered armed and dangerous. His last known address was in New Castle Delaware, but he is wanted on charges in Coatesville.

Purnell is charged with rape of a minor, indecent assault and corruption of minors.

Anyone with information as to Purnell's whereabouts is asked to submit at tip here.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Gabrielle Jaslow

Gabrielle L. Jaslow is accused of trying to pass fraudulent prescriptions at a pharmacy in West Reading.

Township police said she was trying to obtain pain killers. Another male was with Jaslow on Nov. 11, 2016, and was taken into custody. Jaslow remains at large.

Anyone with information as to Jaslow's whereabouts is asked to contact West Reading police at 610-373-0111 or submit a tip through the Crimewatch website.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Michael Akerly

U.S. Marshals are looking for an Erie County man wanted in a 1998 rape.

Michael Edward Pip Akerly, 57, is accused of raping and beating a woman in his former home in an old warehouse in Erie on Feb. 4, 1998.

He was arrested and charged, but failed to appear in court, and is now also wanted on a charge of unlawful flight to avoid apprehension.

His last known address was in the 1900 block of Plum Street, Erie, but he is known to frequent Wattsburg, Erie County; Chautauqua, N.Y. (possibly hiding in the Amish community); and North Carolina. He may also frequent music stores and recording studios.

Akerly is described as 6 feet 4 inches tall, 190 pounds, with blue eyes and brown hair, and a scar on his right leg.

Anyone with information is asked to call Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers at 1-800-472-8477. All callers remain anonymous and could be eligible for a cash reward.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Dontarius Waddell

Dontarius Yaeto Waddell wanted in connection to a crash Oct 18. 2016, on North Harrisburg Street at Orchard Drive in Swatara Township.

Swatara Township police said the vehicle Waddell was driving rolled over in the crash. He and a 24-year-old female passenger were treated at a local hospital. A blood teste revealed Waddell was under the influence and he was subsequently charged.



Anyone with information about the crash is asked to contact Swatara Township police at 717-564-2550 or submit a tip on the Crimewatch website.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Richard McNally

Accused of cashing a forged check stolen from an East Earl Township business, Richard H. McNally is wanted by East Earl Township police.

Anyone with information as to McNallys whereabouts is asked to contact police at 717-355-5302.

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Ashley Davis

Ashley Davis is for writing bad checks and theft by deception.

Upper Southampton Township police said Davis wrote a friend a check for $1950 and gave her cash. The mans bank later returned Davis check and found it was fraudulent.

Anyone with information as to Davis whereabouts is asked to submit a tip here.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Hakim Mustafa

A suspect in a stabbing homicide in Philadelphia last month may have fled to Lancaster, according to police.

A criminal homicide warrant was issued for Hakim Mustafa, 34, of Philadelphia, after a 57-year-old woman was stabbed to death in early July, police said.

Mustafa has not been seen in Lancaster, but Philadelphia detectives think he may have fled to the area and want to get his name and face out to the public, according to Lancaster police Lt. Bill Hickey.

Mustafa may have injured his hands during the incident, police said.

Anyone with information about Mustafa can contact Philadelphia police at 212-686-3068 or on the Philly's most wanted website. Information can also be submitted to Lancaster Crime Stoppers at 800-322-1913 or by anonymously texting a tip to 847411.

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Chambersburg Police Department

Salvador Castillo-Tobar

Police in Chambersburg said an arrest warrant has been issued for Salvador Castillo-Tobar, no age or address given, on charges of rape, indecent assault, simple assault, sexual assault and unlawful restraint.

Castillo-Tobar is accused of attacking the 16-year-old victim on Aug. 13, 2008, police said.

Anyone with information about Castillo-Tobar is asked to contact police at 717-264-4131 or submit an anonymous tip here.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Peter Rousselle

A 47-year-old Lebanon man is wanted for escape and theft by unlawful taking.

Peter John Rousselle has not been seen since Aug. 16. He was on House arrest for a DUI controlled substance charge. Authorities said the electronic monitoring device lost contact with the Dauphin County Probation office before Rousselle disappeared.

Dauphin County Crime Stoppers is offering a reward up to $2,000 for information leading to Rousselle's arrest. Anyone with information as to Rousselle's whereabouts is asked to contact Dauphin County dispatches at 717-558-6999 or to submit a tip via the Crimewatch website.

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West Hempfield Township police

Nicole Fritchlee

Authorities are still looking for a woman accused of sexually abusing a pre-teen, after she skipped several court proceedings in Lancaster County.

Nicole Fritchlee, 40, skipped her April 22, 2015 arraignment in Lancaster County Court on the sex abuse charges. She has been wanted since last fall, when authorities said she may have taken a train to the Scranton area on Sept. 26.

Fritchlee is accused of sexually abusing a girl beginning when the child was 7 years old. The abuse occurred between 2006 and 2008 at a home in West Hempfield Township, according to a news release from the Lancaster County district attorney's office.

Fritchlee is charged with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, indecent assault of a person less than 13, sexual contact with a minor and corruption of a minor. Fritchlee, also known as Nicole Padulese, last resided in Dallastown in York County, police said.

Officials believe Fritchlee is with her 5-year-old daughter. The girl is considered a missing person.

Fritchlee is 5 feet 4-inches tall and weighs 190 pounds. Police said she has been known to stay with friends in York County in Spring Garden Township and Landisville.

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Tyron Mosley

Tyron Mosley is wanted for escape.

Mosley walked away from the Dauphin County Work Release Center May 26, 2016, and has not been seen since.

He may have been spotted July 26, 2017, at the Hall Manor complex.

Anyone with information as to Mosleys whereabouts is asked to contact Dauphin County dispatches at 711-558-6900.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Shakur Tennant

Shakur Aziz Tennant is wanted by the Cumberland County drug task force for delivery of controlled substances.

Tennants last known address was on the 500 block of Geneva Drive in Mechanicsburg.

Anyone with information as to Tennants whereabouts is asked to contact 911.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Noel Del Cid

The Philadelphia Police Department is seeking the publics assistance in locating the person(s) responsible for the murder of 54-year-old Thoung Nguyen on March 3, 2016.

Homicide investigators are seeking the male depicted in the attached photos for a homicide which happened at approximately 9:10 PM.

Officers were in the area of 500 Washington Avenue when the owners of Lees Cafe & Bistro flagged them down concerning one of their employees. The officers were directed to the basement of the business, which is the food prep./kitchen area.

Upon entering the basement, officers found Nguyen lying on the floor, suffering from a large cut across her throat.

EMS responded to the scene and pronounced Nguyen, of the 2000 block of Emily Street, dead at 9:15 PM.

Nguyen was a cook at the restaurant and was in the basement preparing food with another employee, Noel Ortea Lemus Del Cid, who goes by "Noel," just before she was found dead, police said.

The owner of the business sent an order to the kitchen, and after 10 minutes he did not receive any food, police said. He went to the basement and found Nguyen alone lying on the floor with her throat slashed, police said.

A warrant was issued for Del Cid, who remains at large.

Del Cid is believed to be a 27-year-old Honduran national with the last known address of 1331 South 9th St.

He is 5 feet 6 inches tall with a thin-to-medium works as as a kitchen helper in restaurants. He may have had a cut to one of his hands drives a white SUV.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of "Noel" is asked to contact:

The Philadelphia Police Department's homicide unit at 215-686-3334, or call 911.

Information also can be shared via the Philadelphia Police Tip Line at 215-686-TIPS (8477), or email tips to tips@phillypolice.com

A $20,000 reward is offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction in all homicide investigations.

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PA Crime Stoppers

Randall McFadden

The U.S. Marshals Service is searching for a convicted bomb maker who left his federal parole residence in Pittsburgh and didn't return.

Randall McFadden, 62, is charged with violating parole conditions by recently absconding from his residence at the Salvation Army, 44 S. Ninth St., Pittsburgh. He was charged March 3.

McFadden completed a 30-year federal prison sentence after he was convicted on charges of mailing a destructive device with the intent to kill or injure, possession of a firearm and damaging and destroying by explosive a building owned by the U.S. Post Office.

He also was charged with possession of an explosive device while in custody in federal prison.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of McFadden is asked to contact Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers at 1-800-4PA-TIPS. All callers remain anonymous and could be eligible for a cash reward.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Kristen Risko

Kristen Risko is wanted for armed robbery and a probation violation. U.S. Marshals say she has ties to the Pitcairn area.



Anyone with information as to Risko's whereabouts is asked to contact U.S. Marshals at 412-422-4722.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Richard Brown

Richard Owen Brown is wanted in connection to a 2011 home invasion robbery in Willistown Township.

Brown is wanted on 21 counts, including numerous felonies, stemming from the incident.

Anyone with information as to Browns whereabouts is asked to contact Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers at 1-800-4PA-TIPS.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Lina Nilan

Lina Louise Nilan is wanted for failing to appear in court.

Nilan was to appear in court for a case in which she stole checks from her employer, writing several to her family members without permission in 2014, officials said. She has been charged with 13 counts of forgery, receiving stolen property and theft by unlawful taking.

Anyone with information as to Nilans whereabouts is asked to contact West Chester police at 610-436-1337.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Hit-and-run driver

Hanover police have released surveillance photos of a van believed to have been involved in a hit-and-run crash last year that killed a 4-year-old girl.



The van struck Dakota Wright as she was crossing the street at around 7:10 p.m. November 22 on the 200 block of Princess Street in Hanover. Dakota was taken to Hanover Hospital where she died of her injuries.

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submitted

Jonah Germany

Lower Paxton Township police are looking for a man accused of pinning a woman against a bed with a gun against her face, trying to rob her.

Jonah Germany, 26, of the 4800 block of Lancer Street, is accused in the July 5 incident the 4400 block of Augusta Drive, police said.

Germany was driven to the victim's residence by a mutual friend after saying he had left a phone charger there that he wanted to retrieve.

Once inside, he followed the upstairs, displayed a firearm and demanded money. A struggle ensued and the woman accused Germany of pinning her against a bed and placing a gun in her face.

The woman was able to free herself and locked herself in an adjacent bedroom, and Germany fled.

Anyone with information on Germany's whereabouts is asked to call Lower Paxton Township police at 717-657-5656 or submit a tip on the Dauphin County Crimewatch site.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Whitney Childs

Whitney Childs is sought in connection to several outstanding warrants on theft charges.

Childs is wanted on numerous felony and misdemeanor counts in multiple cases, which include forgery, criminal conspiracy, access device fraud, theft by deception and theft.

Anyone with information as to Childs whereabouts is asked to contact Manheim Township police at 717-569-6401.

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submitted

George Oliveras

East Lampeter Township police are looking for a man wanted for threatening arson against a woman.

A warrant was issued Oct. 5 for George Anthony Oliveras, 43, originally of Lykens, from an Oct. 2 incident.

Anyone with information is asked to call Officer Westerman at East Lampeter Township police at 717-291-4676.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Haider Jamiel

Haider Abdul Jamiel is wanted for failure to appear at in court.

Jamiel has been missing since he skipped a sentencing hearing for federal drug charges in 2008. Jamiel is considered armed and dangerous. He has ties to Erie, Detroit and Iraq officials said.

Anyone with information as to Jamiels whereabouts is asked to contact U.S. Marshals at 814-464-9683, 412-422-4722 or 412-644-6628.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Bobbie Jo Freshwater

Bobbie Jo Freshwater is wanted for escape, resisting arrest and institutional vandalism stemming from an incident March 21, 2014.

Anyone with information as to Freshwaters whereabouts is asked to contact Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers at 1-800-4PA-TIPS.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Ashley Evans

Police in Harrisburg are searching for a woman they say fired several gunshots at a man in September.

An arrest warrant has been issued for Ashley Marie Evans, 23, of the 300 block of South 14th Street in Harrisburg on charges of attempted homicide, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm, reckless endangerment and several other charges, police said.

Officers were called to the 100 block of Evergreen Street just before 7 p.m. on Sept 20 for a reported shooting, police said.

"Officers arrived on scene and determined that Evans fired several rounds at a male victim," according to a news release.

Police did not say if the victim was injured.

Evans fled the scene in a silver Chevy Equinox that was later found near her home. The vehicle had been reported stolen in East Pennsboro Township, police said.

Anyone with information about Evans is asked to contact police at 717-558-6900.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Julio Maldonado

Lancaster County Crime Stoppers released a photo of a man wanted for sexually assaulting a minor.

Julio Maldonado, 43, of Manor Township, is accused of sexually assaulting a child between September and December 2015 at a residence in Manor Township, according to a news release. Maldonado reportedly committed the assault against a 6-year-old girl, according to a LancasterOnline.com report.

Maldonado is charged with felony counts of aggravated indecent assault of a person less than 13, indecent assault of a person less than 13, unlawful sexual contact with a minor and corruption of minors. Manor Township police obtained the arrest warrant June 28, but have not apprehended Maldonado.

Anyone with information related to the case or as to Maldonado's whereabouts is asked to contact Manor Township police at 717-299-5231; call Lancaster City-County Crime Stoppers at 1-800-322-1913; submit a tip button on the Lancaster police website; or text a tip to Crime Stoppers by texting LANCS plus your message to 847411.

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Wesley Robinson | wrobinson@pennlive.com

Other crime stories across the region:

'The boy on the wall': Family still grieves child's 1981 murder as killer could be set free

Jury finds man guilty of third-degree murder in fatal shooting of a bystander

Doctor charged with overprescribing 17,000 Oxycodone pills: AG

Owner of check-cashing business gets federal prison time for tax fraud scheme

Driver convicted in texting-while-driving crash that killed young mother

Man gets 30-62 years for shooting at police, tells judge 'I wasn't trying to kill anybody'

Suspect arrested in shooting death of convenience store clerk police say was targeted

Inmate charged with raping cellmate at Lancaster County Prison

Man jailed for shooting taxi driver during robbery

'Are you ready to die?': Police search for assailant who threatened mother walking with 2 children

Man Tased by cops is accused of beating man with bat in cow pasture
Bill Beck didn't know if he was going to live or die. All he knew for certain was that his fellow soldiers were dying all around him.

It was November 1965, and Beck, a Steelton native and 22-year-old Army machine-gunner, was caught in a hornet's nest of zipping bullets and bursting grenades in the Ia Drang Valley in what was then South Vietnam.

Ia Drang was the first major battle between U.S. Army troops and the North Vietnamese Army. From Beck's perspective, it didn't seem to be going well, at least not at first.

"In the first 30 seconds, I saw five guys shot," he recalled this week during an interview at his Hampden Township home. "Three of them were killed. ... The radio operator was shot right beside me."

When his fellow gunner Russell Adams was shot in the head, Beck took over their M60 machine-gun. Alone, he held off the charging enemy soldiers who were trying to turn the tenuous flank of his unit, the 1st Battalion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment.

For a while it seemed like it was going to be his own private Alamo. The Americans were fighting a foe that outnumbered them by as much as 10 to 1. The North Vietnamese just kept coming.

"At one point," Beck said, "I thought, 'I'm the only one alive'."

Bill Beck received Silver Star and Bronze Star medals for his valor at Ia Drang.

Beck was awarded Silver Star and Bronze Star medals for his valor at Ia Drang. His heroism also is highlighted in the book, "We Were Soldiers Once...And Young," and in the 2002 movie based on that book.

On Saturday, another honor is coming his way. He'll receive the Living Legend Award from the Army Heritage Center Foundation, a recognition that puts him in some very august company.

Beck, now 74 and retired, had just begun his career as a professional artist when he was drafted in the early 1960s. He'd been in Vietnam for a few months before his unit was airlifted into Ia Drang.

Nothing prepared him for what he experienced after he got off that helicopter.

His lieutenant, a man named Taft, ordered his platoon to advance toward a tree line. It was the last order that officer ever gave. "Right away, everything broke loose, all the firepower in the world," Beck said. "The place was a real hell zone."

Beck's lieutenant and men on either side of him were cut down. As the battle went on, Beck said he remembers using his pistol to kill an enemy soldier who had thrown a grenade at him. He saw a buddy bayonet another North Vietnamese soldier in the chest.

"That's how close they were," Beck said "The North Vietnamese were a real adversary. I had a lot of respect for them. They knew what they were doing. They were all camouflaged up. You could step on them without really seeing them."

Bill Beck was a 22-year-old soldier with the Army's 7th Cavalry Regiment during the Ia Drang battle in November 1965.

While Beck survived the ultimately victorious 2-1/2-day fight at Ia Drang, 305 other American soldiers did not. Surprisingly, Adams, Beck's buddy who was shot in the head, was among the survivors, although he was left partially paralyzed. Adams, now 76, is a retired farmer who lives in Shoemakersville. He and Beck stay in touch.

Combat is not only frightening. It's fickle, Beck said. "It comes down to your skill and luck," he said. "I guess a lot of guys had the skill, but they weren't lucky. I was lucky."

"It's a nightmare. Your hair stands up...But you had to keep going. You had to persevere," he added. "War is a terrible waste of good talent, of good people."

He has used his artistic talent to create a series of sketches, reminders of the horror and heroism he witnessed so long ago.

Beck said his memories of Ia Drang, and of his fellow soldiers, haven't faded in the intervening 52 years. Not one bit.

"You can't forget it," he said. "I guess we don't want to forget it. I had the best friends in the world over there."

Beck has been back to Vietnam, and in 1993 was easily able to find and photograph the spot where he made his death-defying stand. Since then, the battleground has been bulldozed and turned into a rubber tree plantation.

Asked how he feels about his designation as a Living Legend, Beck replied, "I'm flabbergasted."

The foundation's previous Living Legend inductees include Joseph Lesniewski, a World War II paratrooper and a member of the famed "Band of Brothers;" Battle of the Bulge hero Stanley Wojtusik; Col. Robert Black, an Army Ranger and author who served in the Korean and Vietnam wars; and Col. Walter J. Marm Jr., who received the Medal of Honor for his bravery at Ia Drang.

"I certainly don't think I belong with them," Beck said. He said that in accepting the foundation honor, "I'm going to represent the Vietnam veterans and all of the guys who fought at Ia Drang."

He doesn't know yet what he'll say when he steps to the podium.

"I'll just do my best," Beck said. "That's all I can tell you."
In announcing $2 billion worth of projects he predicted will transform not only UPMC but the world of medicine, UPMC CEO Jeffrey A. Romoff said Friday the Pittsburgh-based health care giant "desires to become the Amazon of health care."

And that's not necessarily the boldest proclamation

by the Pittsburgh mayor and assorted state lawmakers. Romoff said Gov. Tom Wolf had planned to attend, but had to cancel because of a family matter.

Various UPMC officials made it clear Friday the system sees itself as a world leader in health care and is backing it up with action, including three new hospitals, with construction beginning shortly. UPMC is partnering with software giant Microsoft on the design of the new hospitals, which will involve no new beds, but will use digital and other technology to transform and advance the offerings of existing UPMC hospitals devoted to areas including cancer care and physical and neurological rehabilitation.

UMPC was already in major expansion mode, having recently acquired seven hospitals in the Harrisburg region and bringing its total to 39. It has $17 billion in annual revenues and, with 80,000 employees, is the largest non-government employer in Pennsylvania, Romoff pointed out Friday.

Yet even with that, Romoff said "a long queue of major health providers would like to join us," and "UPMC can double in size over the next five years."

Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto, present at the announcement, went so far as to say UPMC's stature marks the city's full return from the economic stagnation that followed the demise of the steel industry. "We finally got to that point we knew we could get to ... Pittsburgh is back on the global stage," he said.
Pittsburgh-based health care giant UPMC left no doubts about its vast ambitions on Friday.

In announcing a $2 billion investment it said will usher in a new digitally- and technology-driven age in health care and solidify UPMC's place among the world's very best hospitals, its CEO said the system hopes to become the "Amazon of health care."

UPMC, which this year established a strong Harrisburg region presence, said the effort announced Friday will center on three new hospitals providing "next-generation treatments in patient-focused, technology-enhanced settings unique to health care."



Microsoft, the software giant, will be involved in designing the three facilities, which UPMC described as "digitally based specialty hospitals."



The new hospitals will be located in Pittsburgh and be called: UPMC Heart and Transplant Hospital; UPMC Hillman Cancer Hospital and UPMC Vision and Rehabilitation Hospital.

UPMC was far from reserved in its own assessment of its present and future, with various officials calling it "the global destination for outstanding health care," and saying, as a result of the things announced Friday, "we will have our own class serving the region and the world for decades to come."



CEO Jeffrey A. Romoff, said UPMC "desires to be the Amazon of health care." He said "a long cue of major health providers would like to join us," and "UPMC can double in size over the next five years."



Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto, among the many state and local government officials at Friday's announcement, went so far as to say UPMC's stature has brought Pittsburgh fully back from the economic desolation that followed the demise of the steel industry. "We finally got to that point we knew we could get to ... Pittsburgh is back on the global stage," he said.

Officials said much of the overall effort centers on harnessing research carried out at UPMC and turning it into newer, better treatments for patients, including patients at the seven hospitals UPMC recently acquired in Dauphin, Cumberland, York and Lancaster counties.



Romoff said, "Our transformative vision will make available the most innovative treatments for cancer, heart disease, transplantation, diseases of aging, vision restoration and rehabilitation, among many others. Working in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences, we will radically change health care as we know it to provide personalized, effective and compassionate care. At core, these digitally based specialty hospitals are the expression of our cutting-edge translational science creating treatments and cures for the most devastating diseases."



Regarding the collaboration with Microsoft, Romoff said "we will apply technology in ways that will transform what today is often a disjointed and needlessly complex experience for patients and clinicians."



The new hospitals will be located at UPMC's Mercy, Presbyterian and Shadyside hospitals.



"Tomorrow's UPMC, we are confident, will not only be best-in-class," G. Nicholas Beckwith, III, the chairperson of the UPMC Board of Directors, said. "It will, in fact, have created a class virtually unto itself."



Asked about the impact of Friday's announcement on hospitals in the Harrisburg region, UPMC spokesman Susan Manko said, "They now have access to UPMC's vast resources and specialty expertise close to home for their patients. With the major investment we are announcing today in Pittsburgh, we will be able to further extend and share our innovative care, advanced specialty services and expertise to all of the many diverse communities served by Pinnacle and [UPMC Susquehanna].





All three of the new Pittsburgh hospitals are expected to be open by 2022, with one expected to open in 2020.



UPMC noted that the $2 billion it will invest in the projects announced Friday is in addition to the $1 billion it previously said it will spend in 2018 on upgrades including improvements to hospitals it has recently acquired.



UPMC is consistently ranked among the best hospital systems in the United State, and it also has hospitals in Europe. Its ambitions were on full display this year in the Harrisburg region, where UPMC absorbed the former PinnacleHealth System, which operated hospitals including Harrisburg Hospital, and which had recently acquired four hospitals in Cumberland, York and Lancaster counties. All seven of those are now part of UPMC.



A hospital acquisition spree that has been moving eastward also included the acquisition of Lock Haven and Sunbury Community hospitals this year, and the former Susquehanna Health System, based in Williamsport, last. UPMC now has about 40 hospitals in Pennsylvania.



It's financial strength seems to be growing as well, with UPMC reporting income of $901 million in the most recent quarter, with $747 million of that coming from PinnacleHealth.



UPMC is also unusual in having its own health insurance arm, which has shown major growth, with UPMC Health Plan gaining 200,000 members during the past year, bringing membership to 3.2 million. UPMC now touts itself as having the highest membership in western Pennsylvania, a health insurance market long dominated by Pittsburgh-based Highmark.
The White House on Friday released details on Vice President Mike Pence's visit to central Pennsylvania.

Pence will arrive in Harrisburg on Air Force Two on Saturday, and then travel to York where he will talk about the tax plan.

Air Force Two is expected to arrive at 11:15 a.m. at Harrisburg International Airport.

Pence will participate in a tax reform roundtable discussion at Military and Commercial Fasteners Corporation on Grumbacher Road at 12:25 p.m.

He will also tour the facility before the roundtable discussion, and deliver remarks afterward.
Gov. Tom Wolf is allowing a multi-faceted education bill to become law that contains a controversial teacher furlough reform, a ban on "lunch shaming," and provides $10 million more for tax credits for companies that donate to private school scholarship funds.

Wolf announced his decision on Friday afternoon that he will neither sign nor veto this bill and instead will let the 10-day clock run out on Monday, which automatically allows it to become law.

"Governor Wolf believes components of this bill are important: delaying the Keystone Exams, expanding opioid education in schools, curbing 'lunch shaming', and providing additional funding to help distressed school districts," said his spokesman J.J. Abbott.

"Though there are components of the bill that he has concerns about, particularly Republican plans around teacher evaluation and termination, he will allow it to become law but withhold his signature. Despite those who prioritize putting pressure on public schools and making the jobs of teachers harder, Governor Wolf will continue to protect and invest in education."

The so-called school code bill is the final piece of the 2017-18 budget package that the General Assembly sent to Wolf for enactment last week. He signed most of the other bills related to the budget but did veto the human services code mostly over a requirement it included that would force some Medicaid recipients to look for work while they're receiving assistance.

His decision to allow the education bill to become law was cheered by Rep. Stephen Bloom, R-Cumberland County. Bloom had sponsored the legislation that was folded into the code bill that allows school districts to furlough teachers for economic reasons and requires those determinations as to who gets furloughed based mostly on performance ratings.

Seniority would only come into play if two teachers had the same performance rating. Reinstatement of furloughed teachers would be done in reverse order in which they were suspended.

Wolf had vetoed a similar bill last year when it was sent to him as a standalone piece of legislation. Bloom said he was pleased the governor chose not to veto the entire school code bill over his objections to that particular part of it.

"For the sake of Pennsylvania students, I'm very pleased," Bloom said. "It's a very positive step for making sure the best teachers remain in the classroom for our kids where they belong."

Bloom commented that there are enough goodies in this bill that folks on all sides of the school reform debate can find something positive to say about it. And he's right.

Even Susan Spicka, executive director of Education Voters of PA, who disliked its inclusion of $10 million more for the private school scholarship portion of the popular Educational Improvement Tax found other parts to be appealing.

While she thinks it's atrocious the Legislature would give money to benefit private schools when so many public schools are barely able to provide students with the educational opportunity they need to be successful, Spicka likes that it pushes back the use of the Keystone Exams as a graduation requirement for another year until 2019-20.

She also was pleased with the measure's inclusion of a provision that requires school districts to provide meals to students regardless of the ability to pay and prohibits them from publicly identifying, stigmatizing, or assigning work chores to students who cannot pay or owe money for school meals. Spicka said she was unconvinced the Legislature would have passed that if it was a standalone bill.

Further, she said,"Language in the school code ensures that $63.5 million in reimbursements for students with high cost disabilities will be made to school districts. Without the school code, school districts could have been left high and dry and may have had to make up for this lost funding either through cuts or higher property taxes."

So overall, she said despite her misgivings about it, "not allowing it to become law would have been worse."
A state lawmaker from the Pittsburgh area is stepping down next week, on the day he's scheduled to be sentenced for his role in an illegal gambling machine operation.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Friday that seven-term Rep. Marc Gergely submitted a resignation letter to the House speaker. It takes effect Monday.

The 48-year-old Democrat's letter didn't elaborate on his plan to quit the chamber.

His resignation is a condition of the guilty plea he entered in August to misdemeanors for conspiracy and campaign finance violations.

House Speaker Mike Turzai has until Nov. 16 to schedule a special election to fill Gergely's unexpired term. Gergely's last vote in the House was Oct. 26 on the massive gambling expansion bill that Gov. Tom Wolf signed Monday. Gergely voted for it.
The House GOP tax reform plan is supposed to make filling out a federal income tax return simpler. Backers say it will let middle-income families and those living paycheck to paycheck keep more of their earnings. And it's supposed to lead to higher wages and more job opportunities.

For the average American, those claims might sound like the House Republicans' plan, called the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act," is a dream come true.

But as is often the case with any new piece of major legislation coming out of Washington, D.C., not everyone agrees the sacrifices contained in the House Republicans' redesign of the tax code - the first since 1986 - are worth the benefit of allowing most Americans to file tax returns on a postcard-sized form.

Whether you come out ahead or end up paying more in taxes under this proposal depends on your individual situation in terms of income, children, and even where you live, according to several experts interviewed for this story.

Here is a quick look at some of the items in this tax proposal that can help you decide how it may affect you.

Tax brackets: The number of tax brackets shrinks from seven to three or four, with respective tax rates of 12 percent, 25 percent, 35 percent and the top bracket will remain at 39.6 percent, according to a Wall Street Journal story. If simpler is your thing, you will like this. Here is how the brackets break down:

Individuals with taxable income of up to $45,000 and married couples up to $90,000 would fall into the 12 percent tax bracket.

Individuals with taxable incomes up to above $200,000 and married couples up to $260,000 would fall into the 25 percent tax bracket.

Individuals with taxable incomes up to $500,000 and married couples up to $1 million would be in the 35 percent bracket.

Individuals with taxable incomes over $500,000 and married couples over $1 million would be in the 39.6 percent bracket.

Because of the increase in the standard deduction amounts contained in the proposal, individuals with incomes of up to $12,000 and married couples with income up to $24,000 would pay no federal income tax.

State income tax deductions: This is a part of the plan that might hurt. It would eliminate the ability to deduct state income taxes from federal taxable income. So taking away this deduction could increase your taxable income, which in turn, potentially could push you into a higher tax bracket, leaving you with a bigger federal tax bill to pay.

Property tax deductions: This was an area that had some homeowners worried early on when they heard about the tax reform proposals being kicked around in the nation's capital. There was talk of eliminating this deduction entirely. But t the plan's designers compromised, settling on retaining the deduction for local property taxes but capping it at $10,000.

Chris Humes, a certified public accountant for Baker Tilly in Wormleysburg, said for most people whose income tax forms he prepares, this means no change. "You have to have a substantial home before you would run up against that cap," he said.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, joined by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., right, holds a proposed "postcard tax filing form" as they unveil the GOP's far-reaching tax overhaul, the first major revamp of the tax system in three decades, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

But in areas of the state where property tax bills can top $10,000, this could put a bite in the household budget and make buying or building a home in those places simply out of reach.

Mortgage interest payments: Mortgage interest payments would be deductible on new home loans of $500,000 or less. That is a change from the current $1 million cap.

While Humes said this proposed change likely doesn't impact 98 to 99 percent of homeowners in the midstate. But those who live in high-cost areas of the state might feel the pinch from losing this housing tax benefit.

Kathy McQuilkin, president of the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors, said the combination of tax changes affecting homeowners and potential homeowners are very concerning in a state like Pennsylvania, where residents pay a state income tax and some hefty property taxes too.

"Removing these tax incentives and having perhaps fewer homebuyers, we could be looking at an immediate drop in home values, and that's a large concern," she said.

That, in turn, would interrupt investment plans for the millions of middle-class homeowners who look to their home's value as a long-term savings plan, said Ranger MacDonald, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders.

"By undermining the nation's longstanding support for homeownership and threatening to lower the value of the largest asset held by most American families," he said, "this tax reform plan will put millions of home owners at risk."

Child tax credit: The proposed tax credit for children would increase to $1,600 per child, but the $4,050 per child deduction would be repealed. Currently, parents get a $1,000 per child credit, provided their income doesn't exceed around $130,000, Humes said. Under the proposal, the income limit goes away to qualify for this tax credit.

Mike Helveston, director of adviser services of Rodgers & Associates in Lancaster, said taking away the deduction and providing this credit may simplify things but he doesn't believe it will end up making much difference to middle-class families.

Student loan interest: The proposal to eliminate the student loan interest deduction hurts Pennsylvanians more than any other state, according to state Treasury officials. With Pennsylvania college students graduating, on average, owing $35,000 for their education, this proposed change hits this state harder than any other.

"We are already saddling graduates with way too much debt as it is. Increasing taxes on those graduates to pay for new tax breaks is simply wrong," said state Treasurer Joe Torsella.

401(k) contributions: The plan keeps intact the existing rules on 401(k) retirement accounts and the ability of Americans under the age of 50 to contribute up to $18,000 and those over 50, up to $24,000 into the accounts tax-free.

There was talk of eliminating this retirement savings incentive, which raised concern among financial planners that people might lose the incentive to save for their golden years or, as Helveston said, consider trying to shelter their income in other places such as real estate. It wouldn't be good for financial firms if people's money goes into a different type of investment.

Charitable contributions: No change is proposed for the charitable contribution deductions. People would still be able to take a deduction for charitable contributions of up to 50 percent of their adjusted gross income. Humes said almost nobody comes close to hitting that cap.

But despite the fact that there is no change to this particular deduction, United Way of Pennsylvania President Kristen Rotz is concerned about the affect the plan could have on charitable giving.

"As proposed, people who take the increased standard deduction will no longer receive any tax benefit for their charitable contributions," Rotz said. "This is a major shift in tax policy that will impact an estimated 28 million taxpayers across the country, and disrupt the non-profit sector's ability to form public-private partnerships that grow local solutions for issues that plague communities across the state."

Medical expenses: The plan calls for eliminating this itemized deduction. For healthy people, this is no big deal. For the not-so healthy and senior citizens who, for example, pay high out-of-pocket medical costs, long-term care insurance or live in a retirement community where expenses can be considered as medical costs, this would be a significant change.

"You have somebody in a nursing home and they are paying a place like Messiah Village, paying them about $10,000 a month to live there and if you have full-blown care, you could be losing out on a potential $120,000 deduction," Humes said. "Usually if you are in that situation, that deduction results in zero dollars of income tax from investment income and the like."

The 429-page proposal contains a myriad of other changes, including one that would reduce the corporate tax rate, which is hoped would spur economic growth and create new jobs. It also would add to the national debt, which was concerning to some of the experts interviewed.

Of course, they also don't expect this plan to be changed substantially before it reaches President Donald Trump's desk. According to a Washington Post story on the plan, Trump wants the legislation to pass the House and the Senate by the end of the year. The Senate Republicans are supposed to unveil their plan next week.

*This post was updated to include a comment from United Way of Pennsylvania President Kristen Rotz about how it could affect charitable giving.
Some of the best fall color currently in the state can be found in Weiser State Forest in the east-central counties of Dauphin, Northumberland, Montour, Columbia, Schuylkill, Carbon and Lebanon. Sassafras, hickories, and red and sugar maples are providing some fantastic shades of yellow and orange.

A highly recommended scenic drive travels northeast from Route 322 through Powell's Valley, looping back into Clark's Valley on Route 325. From there, continue northeast and make a right onto Gold Mine Road. Head south to Swatara State Park, then Route 443 West and back toward Route 322.

In the Southeastern Region (Adams, York, Lancaster, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, Bucks, Berks, Lehigh and Northampton counties), foliage is at peak. The northern areas are slightly past peak but there is still some great color in Northampton, Lehigh, Berks and Bucks counties.

The Wertz Tract in Berks County is still colorful, but many leaves were lost due to this weekend's storm. White and red oaks are adding pleasant fall shades in some higher elevations. A car ride to Mt. Gretna, Lebanon County, offers beautiful scenery in a classic, small-town setting.

Fall foliage season is waning across the state, but "some regions in the southeastern quarter of the state still boast great fall color," according to Ryan Reed, environmental education specialist with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation & Natural Resources and author of the weekly Fall Foliage Report for Pennsylvania.

He noted that "a recent, strong and windy storm system stripped off many leaves statewide, but several species of hickories, maples and oaks are vibrant holdovers. Although at the end of their peak, yellow poplar, sassafras and yellow birch are adding bright color, even if only to the forest floor in some areas."

In the Northern Region of McKean, Potter, Tioga, Bradford and Sullivan counties, forests are well-past peak, but a "second peak" of fall color is evident in some oak and beech forests. American beech trees are at peak yellow, but being mostly in the understory beech saplings are best viewed via scenic drives rather than from vistas.

In the Northeast a few areas of nice autumn color remain in parts of Monroe and Luzerne counties. A good place to view the last of the fall foliage is Route 209 through Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in eastern Monroe and Pike counties.

In the northwestern counties of Erie, Crawford, Warren, Forest and the northern half of Venango, many of the trees have lost or are losing their leaves, as the fall foliage season winds down.

In the Central Region, which is a funnel-shaped band with its narrow end in southern Wayne and Pike counties, stretching across the central third of Pennsylvania to Fayette, Greene, and Washington counties, widening to the northwest to include Erie and Warren counties.)

In the Mid-State counties of Elk, Cameron, Clearfield, Clinton, Lycoming, Union, Centre, Snyder, Juniata, Mifflin, Huntingdon, Perry and Cumberland, Bald Eagle State Forest heavy rain and high winds last weekend knocked many leaves and even limbs to the ground.

In Tuscarora State Forest oak-dominated settings are displaying quintessential fall shades of scarlet, russet, and yellow. Hickories and beeches are adding hues of orange and bright yellow, as well. A car trip down any of the valley roads paralleling Blacklog, Tuscarora, Conococheague, Kittatinny or Blue Mountain offers still-vibrant scenery along Routes 103, 35, 75 and 274.

In the approximately half-million combined acres of Sproul and Moshannon state forests, most hardwood species' leaves are now on the ground. Noteworthy species retaining leaves and color are species of oak, including red, black, white and chestnut. Shades of red and pale-yellow dot the mountainsides when viewed from afar. Route options for a scenic drive through the forest district include routes 144, 120, and 44.

Rothrock State Forest still has much to offer the fall foliage seeker. Although leaves are past peak to the north, they are beautiful to the south in the Trough Creek Division. Blaze-orange hickories are still the species providing the most color.

In the southwestern counties of Allegheny, Washington, Greene, Westmoreland, Fayette and Somerset most of the area is past peak but some quality fall color can still be found to the east of Laurel Ridge State Park. Valleys surrounding Gary's Run, Blue Hole Creek and Cole Run are surprisingly still brilliant, and upland oaks are adding some pleasant shades of deep red to the canopy.

In the southcentral counties of Bedford, Fulton, Franklin, Adams, York and southern Cumberland, red oaks have changed to a deep maroon color. Many birch, maple and poplar leaves were driven to the forest floor by the recent storm, but those remaining are still adding a heavy dose of yellow throughout the district. Bright orange hickories are presently the highlight of the southern Pennsylvania forest. Recommended scenic drives include routes 326, 915, and 522; as well as Summit Road on Sideling Hill Mountain where scenic vistas are accessible by vehicle.

Michaux State Forest district is currently unrivaled for current fall color. Pignut and shagbark hickories are displaying strikingly vibrant orange colors. Oaks are also adding awesome contrast with various shades of crimson and russet.

It is a wonderful time to hike to Pole Steeple, Hammonds Rock, or Spruce Run vistas in the northeastern part of the district forest. A trip to Gettysburg National Park is also highly recommended for a dose of history along with fantastic foliage viewing.
In this Jan. 6, 2016, file photo, producer Harvey Weinstein participates in a panel at the A&E 2016 Winter TCA in Pasadena, Calif. There are several advantages to an Ontario woman's plan to sue Weinstein over alleged sexual assaults, say legal experts who believe civil court offers better prospects for a victim. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File
Alberta Education Minister David Eggen arrives for a cabinet meeting in Calgary, Alta., Thursday, May 28, 2015. Alberta is proposing new legislation to ensure that students who join gay-straight alliances in school are not outed without their permission. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland updates the media on the NAFTA negotiations in the foyer outside the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday, Sept. 25, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
The island will gladly take oil power over solar if it turns the lights back on. - Watch video By Jonathan Levin, Naureen S Malik, and Emma Ockerman

MIAMI/NEW YORK

Petroleumworld 11 03 017

A month after Hurricane Maria devastated the island, power lines still lie slack along roads, utility poles are snapped clean in half, and most Puerto Ricans remain in the dark.

So you could understand why Cruz Maria Ramos Resto, a 50-year-old school cafeteria worker, rolled her eyes when asked if she supports the solar-driven grid of the futurethe one that environmentalists, renewable energy developers and Puerto Rico's government have been touting since Maria laid waste to the island's power system.

But of course!" said Resto, who lives next to an oil-burning power plant in Palo Seco. When are you bringing it over? Let's have it, already! Let's see it!"

There's plenty of hype about rebuilding Puerto Rico's grid using solar panels, wind farms and batteries, with Tesla Inc.'s Elon Musk and Virgin Group founder Richard Branson backing the idea. Then there's the crushing reality : The U.S. territory is broke, and millions of disillusioned Puerto Ricans expect little to change in how they get their energy anytime soon.

For longer than most can remember, they've paid some of the highest energy costs in the U.S. to a notoriously unreliable utility that neglected their grid for years and runs fossil-fuel plants that may be damaging their lungs.

A spray-painted message on a concrete wall outside the Palo Seco power plant sums up their sentiment: Turn it back on! If island residents must choose between getting the lights on tomorrow and waiting for Musk to airdrop solar panels, they'll take Palo Secoeven as a church in town turns black from the soot.

Talking about microgrids to powerless Puerto Ricans right now is idiotic,Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, said during a recent forum in New York. Give them diesel generators.

Sure, everyone would like to see Puerto Rico rebuild an efficient and green power system, said Richard Donner, a credit analyst covering Puerto Rico's government-run utility for Moody's Investors Service. But the question is how do you get from here to there? It's a matter of money. And time, both of which Puerto Rico's leaders have in short supply.

What can the government realistically offer by, say, December? More back-up diesel generators and restoration of the same aging power plants the island has been relying on for decades, according to Thomas Lewis, the U.S. regional president of Morristown, New Jersey-based contractor Louis Berger.

You can't deploy and build the systems that Tesla is talking about and these very sophisticated microgrids between now and December and have them fully operational, said Lewis, whose company has contracts with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to respond to disasters. It has delivered about 300 back-up generators to the island.

Restoring power by December is key for Puerto Rico's leaders who, along with the Trump administration , are facing a tirade of criticism as days without power turn into weeks, and weeks into months. Ricardo Rossello, the commonwealth's 38-year-old governor, has vowed to get most lights back on by Christmas.

But he also remains set on an energy overhaul that would convert the island's backward energy infrastructure into one fueled by solar panels and Musk's batteries. Rossello, who has a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Michigan, engaged Musk on Twitter about it in the middle of the initial response to the hurricane.

Do you want to show the world the power and scalability of your #TeslaTechnologies? Rossello tweeted . PR could be that flagship project. The tweet and subsequent response created a whirlwind of attention and led to a more probing conversation with Musk, few details of which have been disclosed.

Realistically such a feat would be, as Lewis put it, very complicated. With the territory drowning in $74 billion of debt, it'll probably need federal government funding, community drives, charitable donations from corporations on the mainland, and investments from private-equity firms. On Tuesday, the Senate sent President Donald Trump a $36.5 billion hurricane relief bill that gives Puerto Rico access to $4.9 billion in low-interest loans.

Community development block grants could help, Lewis said. So could the insurance industry.

Rossello's government is aware that building the grid of the future costs money. That's where the Federal Emergency Management Agency comes in, said Manuel Laboy, Puerto Rico's economic development and commerce secretary. He said FEMA has funding programs the island can tap to pay for new energy infrastructure.

FEMA's chief, William Brock Long, has said in no uncertain terms that such an arrangement would be unlikely and that his agency's primary role is to bring infrastructure back to its original state.

But that state, as Laboy noted, is obsolete. It has not been kept up to current codes and standards, he said, making the case to use FEMA funds for improvements. If the agency gives Puerto Rico the flexibility, There is a fair chance that we can pull this off.

Laboy said the government is already considering building a series of micro-grids and regional systems. On Tuesday, Tesla tweeted that the first of many solar and storage projects was already coming online at Puerto Rico's Hospital del Nino. In addition to Tesla, Laboy said the island is considering bringing in companies such as Sonnen GmbH, Arensis Corp. and Sunnova Energy Corp. It would probably hold some sort of competitive bidding process, he said.

Even if Puerto Rico could find the money to pay these solar installers, there's the question of who would run it.

Rossello has vowed to reform the island's bankrupt Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. But just this week, the utility became entangled in yet another high-profile mess after awarding one of its biggest restoration contracts thus farworth $300 millionto a little-known company called Whitefish Energy. Environmentalists are already raising questions about the firm, which is based in Whitefish, Montana, the same small town that U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke also calls home.

(For his part, the authority's chief executive, Ricardo Ramos, insisted Tuesday that nothing was amiss in the deal. He said the utility evaluated five or six" proposals, and Whitefish's was attractive because they promised to mobilize workers quickly and didn't require an upfront payment.)

Marco Antonio Rigau, president of the city council in Puerto Rico's capital, San Juan, suggested splitting Prepa into regional utilities that would link up to help each other during outages. Laboy said the government is considering all options.

One scenario would have private companies running the island's power generation while a public utility maintains the power lines. But the island's dealings with the private sector have had their own problems. Shortly before the hurricane, protests broke out over waste from AES Corp.'s coal-fired power plant in Puerto Rico.

Near a landfill that AES uses, someone has spray-painted a skull and a question: Who is killing us?

It's not a coincidence that Puerto Rico has the highest asthma rate in the nation," said Judith Enck, a former administrator with the Environmental Protection Agency whose region covered Puerto Rico. The average oil-fueled power plant there is about 60 years old, she said.

AES spokeswoman Amy Ackerman said by phone Tuesday that the Arlington, Virginia-based company uses landfills that meet federal and territory environmental regulations for its coal waste. Emissions from the plant in Puerto Rico are six times lower than federal limits because of clean coal technology, she said.

Both the coal complex and a solar plant AES runs on the island remain shut after the storm knocked out transmission lines. Once those power lines are repaired, the coal plant will restart. Waste shipments to the landfill would probably resume sometime after, Ackerman said.

While AES doesn't have an official comment on the push for micro-grids and renewables in Puerto Rico, Ackerman noted that its plant is the lowest-cost power generator on the island by far. She also said the company as a whole has been shifting more toward natural gas and renewables for future growth.

Whatever replaces Puerto Rico's wrecked power system, Enck said, one thing is clear: It's not worth spending hundreds of millions of dollars to resurrect the island's same old rickety, unreliable, dirty electrical grid.
Arnold & Porter U.S. to exit global anti-corruption effort aimed at oil cash. Oil, mining companies pledged to disclose overseas payments. U.S. joins Azerbaijan in rejecting anti-corruption initiative. By Jennifer A Dlouhy

The Trump administration said it will exit a global anti-corruption effort that compels oil, gas and mining companies to disclose the payments they give governments worldwide.

The decision, announced in a letter Thursday to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, may undercut the effort that aims to give citizens and watchdogs in poor but mineral-rich nations details on how much their government leaders get in taxes, royalties and lease payments. With that information, they can ensure the money is spent on roads and schools, not squirreled away in foreign bank accounts.

"The U.S. government remains committed to fighting corruption in the extractive industries sector and the ideals of transparency enshrined in the EITI principles," Gregory Gould, the director of the Interior Department's natural resources revenue office, wrote in the letter. However, "domestic implementation of EITI does not fully account for the U.S. legal framework."

The decision follows a long lobbying battle waged by the American Petroleum Institute , Exxon Mobil Corp . and Chevron Corp . against a related regulation compelling U.S. energy and mining companies to disclose those payments. President Donald Trump axed that rule earlier this year.

"It's pretty disgraceful for the United States , said Jana Morgan, director of the Publish What You Pay coalition that supports the initiative. "Chinese state-owned oil companies and Russian state-owned oil companies" are disclosing payments.

Read More: Trump Repeal of SEC Regulation Signals More to Come

"So you literally have American companies that are less transparent than Russian and Chinese state-owned enterprises," she said. The pullback puts the U.S. in line with Equatorial Guinea and Azerbaijan -- two other countries that are not fully participating in the voluntary, global initiative.

The initiative was launched in 2002 by then-UK Prime Minister Tony Blair with the goal of combating the so-called "resource curse" -- a phenomenon in which countries' oil and mineral resources have enriched a few and not led to broader prosperity. The idea was simple: If more is known about the money mining companies pay to governments, it can discourage graft by making officials accountable for explaining how it was spent. The effort was embraced by the Obama administration.

In February, amid oil industry pressure, Trump signed a congressional resolution repealing a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that required oil, gas and mining companies publish the payments they make to governments. That rule, mandated under the Dodd-Frank law, was seen as critical to compelling disclosure and satisfying the EITI requirements.

Tax Payments

The U.S. decision to withdraw as an EITI implementing country "is a disappointing, backwards step," Fredrik Reinfeldt, the initiative's chair, said in an emailed statement. Reinfeldt pointed to the disapproval of the Dodd-Frank payment disclosure rule as "a setback undermining the EITI's efforts."

Some U.S. energy companies also had dragged their feet on revealing more about their tax returns. Foreign-based companies such as Royal Dutch Shell Plc , Statoil ASA , Total SA and BP Plc disclosed their tax payments, as required under the laws of their home countries.

But at least three big U.S.-based oil companies didn't disclose their tax payments: Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Exxon.

Chevron spokeswoman Melissa Ritchie said the company has been committed to the U.S. effort since its inception. "Chevron spent a significant amount of time preparing and reconciling USEITI report data," she said, "but not payments to the IRS, given the confidential nature of IRS data."

A representative for Exxon Mobil pointed to a January opinion piece describing the company's support for the initiative everywhere it operates.

"Exxon and Chevron's preference for secrecy" is what "made it impossible for the U.S. to comply," said Corinna Gilfillan, head of the U.S. office at Global Witness, a group focused on curbing environmental and human rights abuses tied to oil and mineral extraction.

American Petroleum Institute spokesman Eric Wohlschlegel said the industry will continue working with the Interior department in reporting revenues and disbursements and with the State Departmen t to drive global transparency.

"We're still supportive of EITI, as we have been, and we're going to continue to support our member companies and the U.S. government's participation at the internationally," he said.

Exxon, Chevron and API all have members on the broad stakeholder group guiding the U.S. effort.

The State Department, led by former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, will now be in charge of the U.S. commitment to the EITI as a "supporting country," Interior's Gould wrote.

Nothing in U.S. law precludes oil, gas or mining companies from voluntarily disclosing their tax or royalty payments, and some foreign subsidiaries of U.S. energy companies are already doing that.

"In reality, the refusal of all but a handful of the involved companies to disclose tax payments -- not U.S. law -- rendered the U.S. unable to meet the basic level of transparency required," Morgan said.

The Interior Department said it would continue to maintain a web portal for disclosing government revenues by company and commodity will remain up and operational.

Veronika Shime, who represented the National Mining Association on the stakeholder group guiding the U.S. effort, called that disclosure website critical and said she was pleased it would continue.

Shime said she couldn't explain the U.S. retreat but suspected that the overall cost of the program and a dispiriting lack of attention to it may have been factors. Given already strong anti-corruption measures built into U.S. law and regulations, the government may have felt it was unnecessary and expensive, Shime said.
In general, men are twice as likely to cheat on a spouse than women are. That frequency increases over the lifespan, peaking among the elderly. Among men 18 to 29 who have ever been married, about 1 in 10 is
Corrections Secretary John Wetzel leads a tour through the newest prison in Pennsylvania Friday, September 01, 2017 at State Correction Institution Phoenix in Skippack, Pennsylvania. The facility is inching closer to opening, two years late, to replace Graterford Prison at a cost of $400 million. (WILLIAM THOMAS CAIN / For The Philadelphia Inquirer) Read more

Weeks after another blown deadline, inspectors have approved Housing Unit D, the first of 12 cell-block buildings for occupancy by prisoners at State Correctional Institute Phoenix, the $400 million replacement prison rising next door to the 1920s-era Graterford complex in Skippack Township, Montgomery County.

All 12 inspections were to have been completed in September, two years after the original target date. State officials say the pace should pick up soon: "We expect Housing Units E, F and H to be inspected for Certificates of Occupancy within the next week," said Troy Thompson, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of General Services, which oversees state building projects. Some 14 of 32 total "Final Inspections" should be done by the end of this week, with 18 more "anticipated" by the third week of December 2017.

The state says general contractor Walsh/Heery Joint Venture is still racking up "liquidated damages" at the rate of $35,000 a day for the past few years, since failing to meet a November 2015 deadline. Damages now total $25.4 million, and are rising every day buildings have not passed final inspection, according to General Services.

The general contractor insists it should not have to pay the money. Earlier this year Pennsylvania advanced the contractor $2 million to pay subcontractors while insisting it wants that money back, along with the liquidated damages, when the job is done.

The state Department of Corrections expects to move prisoners to Phoenix from Graterford by the end of June, 2018.
Cab driver Pierre Haifa (left) was only netting $25,000 as a taxi driver when Melrose Credit Union loaned Haifa and a partner most of the $900,000 it cost to buy two Philadelphia cab medallions. Now Melrose is calling in many taxi medallion loans and Haifas lawyer, Eli Gabay (right), who represents 30 cab companies, is trying to come up with a resolution. Read more

Nearly 10 years ago, as the recession deepened, Philadelphia homeowners by the hundreds and later by the thousands were facing foreclosure.

Mortgage companies were calling in loans that in many cases were made to buyers who couldn't repay them, let alone withstand the strain of unemployment, illness, or divorce. People were on the verge of losing their homes even if they caught up on payments, because they couldn't afford penalties or fees to halt the foreclosure process.

Into the breach stepped Annette Rizzo, a Common Pleas Court judge, who delayed sheriff's sales and used her position to order bankers and homeowners to negotiate. Her efforts halted at least 1,400 foreclosures, delayed many more sheriff's sales, and became a model throughout the United States. She was even invited to the White House.

On Friday, at the "suggestion" of Common Pleas Court Judge Gary S. Glazer, lawyers involved in Philadelphia's taxi industry met in a City Hall courtroom to begin Round One of negotiations to create a similar program over loans made to finance taxi medallion purchases.

Citing the court's role in the mortgage crisis, Glazer made his suggestion at a hearing Tuesday involving "confessions of judgment" filed against 81 local medallion owners by Melrose Credit Union of Briarwood, N.Y., lawyers said. The confessions, unless Glazer strikes them, allow the credit union to act immediately to force the medallions into auction and seize the medallion owners' assets.

In October 2013, before UberX and Lyft entered the market, taxi medallions were selling for $530,000. Any local medallion owners, who continued to refinance as medallion prices went up, owe from $300,000 to $500,000 per medallion.

These days, medallions are worth $52,000 and falling.

"Many of these people will lose their homes," said Eli Gabay, a Center City lawyer who represents 30 cab companies that collectively own 50 medallions.

Melrose's loan portfolio got so bad that in February, the New York state Department of Financial Services took it over, citing "unsafe and unsound conditions at the credit union." Melrose is also a major medallion lender in New York City and Chicago.

If their medallions and vehicles are seized, the cab industry may disappear, Gabay said. He said that in court Tuesday, the judge reminded the lawyers that "these are real people with real lives."

Gabay said before the meeting that he hoped Melrose would withdraw the confessions of judgment at least for a time, so some settlement can be reached. Or maybe, he said, it would allow owners to walk away from debts they could never repay.

Melrose did neither, Gabay said later, although the credit union did agree to participate in a program, yet to be defined.

Meanwhile, the owners can't borrow money for any purpose, said Jeremy Abay, a lawyer who represents other medallion owners. Mediation, Abay said, could help.

The judge and the Philadelphia Parking Authority, which regulates cabs, declined comment. Melrose's attorney, Marc Bogutz, did not return calls.

Pierre Haifa, who, with a partner owes nearly $900,000 on two medallions, is hoping for a positive outcome. When he and a partner borrowed the money in 2013, each was netting about $25,000 per year driving a cab. Haifa, of South Philadelphia, was banking on selling the medallions later as prices rose.

Gabay said that when Melrose made the loans, its executives knew that Haifa and his partner would never be able to repay them. By earning fees, "they made money on making these huge loans to people who would not otherwise have qualified," Gabay said, banking on medallion prices' continuing to rise.

But when UberX and Lyft entered the market in the summer and fall of 2014, Haifa's business tanked, and so did the value of Melrose's loans

Like many others, Haifa stopped paying "because I could no longer afford the payments," he said.

Now, Haifa, who is married and has two children, drives his cab 15 hours a day, six days a week, and barely nets $10,000 a year. "It's very, very stressful."
The nation's economy added a blistering 261,000 jobs in October as the job market began to recover from job loss caused by the hurricanes, the U.S. Labor Department reported Friday morning. The unemployment rate edged down to 4.1 percent from 4.2 percent in September.

The numbers come as companies are increasingly scrambling for workers at the 10th anniversary of the devastating recession that gripped the nation starting in late 2007 and sent the unemployment rate soaring above 10 percent.

Wall Street reacted cautiously to the jobs report early in the day, but major indexes all closed up. The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 7.99 points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,587.84 after flipping between modest gains and losses. The push higher helped it clinch its longest weekly winning streak in nearly four years. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 22.93 points, or 0.1 percent, to 23,539.19. The Nasdaq composite climbed 49.49 points, or 0.7 percent, to 6,764.44.

Troy Singleton, a business services representative at CareerLink, told a gathering of employers and social service agency representatives at a panel Thursday that city businesses are recruiting for hundreds of workers. Among them are Southwark Metal Manufacturing Co. in Northeast Philadelphia, Republic Bank, and the Naval Foundry and Propeller Center at the Navy Yard.

The job market, he said, could provide opportunities to people who are often difficult to employ, such as people coming out of prison. "Sometimes they are almost scared to thrive," he said. CareerLink is the governmental entity that links employers and prospective employees.

Jobs were added in construction, manufacturing and transportation, professional and technical services, health and education, and leisure and hospitality. Even the federal "swamp" added workers, with federal employment increasing by 5,000 jobs.

The biggest job loser was retailing, which declined by 8,300 jobs in October, typically a time when retailers are ramping up. But many department store retailers are closing locations in the face of competition from Amazon and other internet sellers.

Robust hiring at car dealerships didn't do enough to offset retail losses at general merchandise, apparel and electronic stores. There was a slight increase in nonstore retailers.

Although the unemployment rate declined, the problem of long-term unemployment persists. One in four jobless remain unemployed after six months of steady looking. That rate has remained basically the same for a year. In October, 1.6 million people had been out of work for more than six months.

Disparities remain: The unemployment rate for African Americans is 7.5 percent and 4.8 percent for people of Hispanic ethnicity. The biggest losers are teenagers aged 16 to 19 who are looking for work but can't find it. The unemployment rate for them is 13.7 percent.
A petroleum pipeline that encircles the Pennsylvania suburbs around Philadelphia will be converted to deliver natural gas from Bucks County to Marcus Hook under a $189 million deal announced Thursday between Talen Energy Corp. and New Jersey Resources Corp.

Talen, which is based in Allentown, is selling its Interstate Energy Co. LLC pipeline unit to Adelphia Gateway, LLC, a subsidiary of New Jersey Resources, which is based in Wall, N.J. The 84-mile underground pipeline was now delivers either oil or natural gas to two Talen power plants in Northampton County.

Adelphia Gateway plans to convert the southern 50-mile portion of the pipeline, which now transports oil in a northern direction, to transport gas southward to customers in Montgomery, Chester and Delaware Counties. Adelphia on Thursday launched an "open season" to solicit bids from potential new customers.

The 18-inch diameter pipeline will connect with the Texas Eastern natural gas pipeline at an existing interchange near Rich Hill Road in Richland Township, Bucks County and would deliver up to 250,000 thousand cubic feet of gas a day, providing a substantial new source of gas to the region.

"Today, the Philadelphia market is constrained with limited access to affordable energy sources," said Steve Westhoven, senior vice president of NJR Midstream, a subsidiary of New Jersey Resources. "With the Adelphia Gateway project, we look forward to applying our market expertise to serve customers and support economic development opportunities in the region."

Adelphia will to continue to supply natural gas on the northern 34-mile section of pipe to Talen Energy's Martins Creek and Lower Mount Bethel generating stations.

The pipeline was built in the 1970s to deliver oil from Sunoco's former Marcus Hook refinery to power plants owned by Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. It was partly converted to natural gas in 1996. With the refinery's closure and oil's fall from favor as a fuel source for electricity generation, the pipeline becomes the latest piece of energy infrastructure converted to accommodate new gas production from Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale fields.

The sale requires the approval of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, and is expected take about a year to close.
A sign at one of Woods Services entrances at its campus near Langhorne. Read more

Magellan Behavioral Health, which manages mental health insurance benefits in six Pennsylvania counties, has launched an investigation into conditions at Woods Services, which treats about 650 children and adults with intellectual disabilities at its Langhorne facility.

A report released Monday by Disability Rights New York found pervasive abuse and neglect at the facility.

"Magellan is aware of the reports concerning Woods Services and has already begun its own investigation," Colleen Flanagan-Johnson, vice president, external communications for Magellan Health, emailed Friday. "We are working with customers and members to ensure they understand their options for treatment elsewhere."

Magellan contacted families of a dozen children, according to Woods spokeswoman Cheryl Kauffman.

Six of the children are already in the process of going to a less intensive facility or going home, Kauffman said.

"Two of those, the families are fighting and want their children to stay here. The other six individuals, Magellan did call their families, and the six families refused to move their children elsewhere," Kauffman said.

Kathy Romett, of Pottstown, said she was one of the parents contacted by Magellen. "They wanted to hear about my experience. I didn't have any thing negative to say," Romett said.

Her 10-year-old son, who is nonverbal and has been diagnosed with autism, is going home next week after two years at Woods, Romett said. "He was very violent, and they helped us learn how to deal with that." Romett was among more than a dozen parents who contacted The Inquirer to praise the care their children have received at Woods.

Meanwhile, Stephanie Moskowitz is trying to get her 14-year-old son, Samuel, back on track after a Woods staff member punched him in the face last December, breaking his nose, and then hit him in the face with a plastic bowling pin. She has sent him to another behavioral health facility, and Magellan was helpful in that move, she said.

Moskowitz, who lives in King of Prussia, said she was extremely nervous about sending her son away from home for care in August 2016. "The worst thing I thought could happen happened," she said.
Artists rendering of South Philadelphia Shopping Center at 23rd Street and Oregon Avenue after redevelopment into part of a mixed-use project to be called South Quarter Plaza. Read more

Retail landlord Cedar Realty Trust has acquired an Oregon Avenue strip-mall-and-office property about a half block from its South Philadelphia Shopping Center, which is slated for redevelopment.

Port Washington, N.Y.-based Cedar paid $3.3 million for the 52,700-square-foot parcel at 2113-29 Oregon Ave. in the Girard Estate neighborhood in July, according to records filed with the city. The purchase was disclosed this week as part of the investment trust's quarterly financial release.

The parcel  home to shops including a pretzel store and a pizzeria, as well as a medical office building  is to the east of Cedar's ShopRite-anchored South Philadelphia center, with a non-Cedar-owned retail property between them.

Cedar operations chief Robin Zeigler did not immediately respond to a phone message asking about plans for the newly acquired parcel.

The company, which owns shopping centers across Pennsylvania and other eastern states, earlier this year disclosed plans to combine the South Philadelphia center with its adjacent Quartermaster Plaza into a renovated enclave of shops, homes and offices to be called South Quarter Crossing.

Cedar is also planning to redevelop its Port Richmond Village shopping center at Aramingo Avenue and York Street, Zeigler said Thursday during a conference call with analysts.

Starbucks Corp. has signed a letter of intent to lease space at the redeveloped Port Richmond center, Zeigler said.
The legend of Bubbie Chow began, like so many other flights of Asian Jewish fusion fancy, behind the steamy open-counter kitchen of the original Cheu Noodle Bar on 10th Street. It seems that chef and co-owner Ben Puchowitz's signature ramen, an unconventional bowl of brisket broth spiked with funky Korean kimchi spice and topped with a fluffy matzo ball, had sent such a powerful siren call from its photo feature in Bon Appetit magazine that a young chef in Boston decided he needed to move to Philadelphia to be a part of it.

Andy Chow, whom Puchowitz subsequently employed for two years as an "amazing" sous-chef at both Cheu and Bing Bing Dim Sum, happens to be Chinese American  but he grew up with a lot of Jewish friends. "He told me he felt connected to it," said Puchowitz. "And he reminisced about Jewish food memories so much  we used to joke that he had a Jewish grandmother. I gave her the fictitious name of 'Bubbie Chow.' "

Chef Andy has since returned to Boston. But Cheu's magnetic force has only continued to grow  and grow up  as evidenced by its latest and most polished branch, in Fishtown. A 19th-century carriage house has been transformed into a moody Asian night market counter wrapped in a riot of colorful graffiti art, with adoring hipster patrons slurping vegan noodle bowls in their beanie caps, and an energetic, youthful vibe that's tapped the edgy zeitgeist of Frankford Avenue's recent revival. In tandem with a maturing kitchen and impressive service, this latest incarnation is where Cheu's considerable ambition and vision are finally being executed at the level they deserve. After four years of refining the concept (including its short-lived stand in the Whole Foods food hall), it's now a cultural phenomenon in its own right as one of Philly's signature restaurants.

People get hung up on the notion of authenticity, but in many ways, Cheu is an expression of a new and genuine American experience, reflecting, among other cultural affinities, Jews' longtime love affair with Chinese food. The dishes resonate at full volume, evoking many places but harmonizing as something fresh that feels perfectly at home at a counter in Fishtown.

A prime example is the dish through which Chow's imaginary grandma lives on: "Bubbie Chow's Sliced Beef," a sharing platter of char siu brisket and onions braised in hoisin and oyster sauce flanked by a steamer basket of bao buns. It's a can't-miss centerpiece on Cheu's irrepressible menu  and a remarkably fair value at $26. Add dabs of beet-juice-infused BBQ sauce, spicy mustard, and a pickle with some meat to one of those puffy bun sandwiches, and it's like eating a divine Asian Reuben.

This large-format creation, a perfect anchor to jump-start a meal for three or four, is just the kind of dish Puchowitz and co-owner Shawn Darragh have long wanted to serve but never quite had the space to. And though 34 seats is by no means large (the 10th Street location has 24, and Bing Bing on East Passyunk has 50), this Fishtown branch has a hidden mezzanine prep room with equipment that has allowed Puchowitz the ability to finally refine and expand aspects of his menu that have long been a work in progress, with space for more dough work and the fresh-made bao buns that have become a steamy canvas for a world of tasty possibilities, from tender pork belly to scrapple and soybean falafel fritters. Add in the al fresco patio this Cheu will eventually share with Nunu, the Japanese-inspired katsu and yakitori bar they're building next door, and this venture represents a solid next-level progression in every aspect for this restaurant group.

Though their early projects were created more or less on a shoestring, the bigger budget here was well spent on a pro in Kate Rohrer of Rohe Creative. Philly's current "it" restaurant designer (Double Knot, Bud & Marilyn's) did wonders in transforming the bones of this historic, arched-brick stable into a lively eating hall with intricate inlaid wood touches (plus a banquette made of milled oak rods that look like giant chopsticks), industrial accents (chain-link fence between the back booths), and indirect lighting that casts moody auras across the whitewashed brick counter and back wall, where a giant noodle-slurping octopus painted by a pair of renowned Brooklyn street artists presides over the room. Squint and take in the hundreds of intricate cartoon characters created by Jon Billett as well as Puchowitz's brother Zach (also a famed glass pipe artist) that cover every surface of the room, from the counter stool cushions to the insanely intricate bathroom scrawled with designs across the fixtures, and the wallpaper made from a shimmery collage of ramen wrappers.

Other aspects of the operation have shown a similar refinement. The youthful staff may come to your table in Kenzo-style hoodies and multicolored hairdos, but they were able to articulate every detail of the emulsified oyster sauce for the Chinese broccoli, dissect the "corn nut furikake," and elaborate on the tea-infused Asian cocktail list with the ease of any veteran from an upscale dining room in Rittenhouse Square. (They also proactively noticed I didn't love the overly boozy Perfect Time and replaced it free of charge.)

And speaking of that corn nut furikake, an unlikely word string that melds my favorite turnpike snack with a nori-based Japanese spice blend to dust over a roasted sweet potato dish, this kitchen has taken big steps forward in polishing its repertoire, too. The culinary details in those early days four years ago often needed refining, especially when compared to their traditional Asian inspirations. But Puchowitz, who came to public notice as the chef at Matyson after his cousin Matt Spector left for California, has learned that the success zone resides in more unconventional riffs, a few fusion steps away from tradition. His best creations are witty and imaginative, energized by clever ingredient combos, and reliably delicious for $15 or less.

The value at the new Cheu is still exceptional, but it's the details of texture and consistently layered flavors that have been dialed in with greater precision. A gingery Thai basil curry lit with kaffir lime, chilies, and crushed peanuts illuminates the herbal delicacy of tender chicken wontons tucked beneath spiraling threads of spun raw daikon. Tiny rice pearls and a Chinese mustard vinaigrette add spark to the pristine tuna poke. The crunch of fried garlic, mint, and chili oil elevated the sweet softness of fried Asian eggplants set beneath a soulful ground pork and miso gravy, an early fall homage to a classic dish from Sagami, the venerable sushi haunt in Collingswood where Puchowitz nurtured his love of Asian flavors at a young age. For late fall, that gravy has been repurposed for the loco moco rice bowl beneath the comfort of a fried egg. A clever hit of smoke in the pork dumplings, paired with a dusting of fried quinoa, gives the familiar delicacy a puff and snap of new intrigue.

Cheu's chicken wings glazed in tangy caramelized black garlic sauce never needed improving. Something about the micro-crunch of sesame seeds and shaved scallions over the wings' crackly cornstarch crusts make them totally irresistible. But little improvements have continued to make the menu's greatest hits better, like the addition of chicken broth that now subtly buoys the brisket ramen with a rounder flavor, and a more careful process that leaves the bowl less greasy with fat (and more nutty with Korean ssamjang paste) than I recall.

With Fishtown's chef de cuisine Justin Bacharach (ex-Zahav/Percy Street) actively collaborating with Puchowitz, the menu's Jewish tones also seem more pronounced than ever, from the beet and goat cheese stuffings that make the handsomely pleated Rangoon dumplings taste like they contain liquid borscht to the flaky round "bing" pastry filled with ground beef and the funky ping of spicy kimchi that also comes streaked with a deli helping of Thousand Island dressing.

"You know, I guess we are a Jewish restaurant!" conceded Puchowitz, half in jest, with the sudden epiphany that a sizable chunk of his Asian menu comes with dill pickles or a schmear.

But in fact, the success of this latest Cheu is that it has finally grown up to become something uniquely personal that both captures the moment and also ultimately defies easy categorization. And the legend of Bubbie Chow that marks this latest chapter is only likely to grow.
The Rev. Adan Mairena, pastor of the West Kensington Ministry in Norris Square, stands in front of the sidewalk memorial for Francisco Frankie Caraballo. Read more

Frankie's blood did not wash away.

Maybe police thought that it would, the way the rain pounded the pavement that Sunday night. Or maybe the dark had made it hard for them to see the sidewalk, still stained deep red when his family arrived the next morning at Hancock and Susquehanna.

Cops usually make the call to the fire department to hose off the blood. But for reasons that wouldn't become clearer until later, that didn't happen this time.

From inside the church across the street, the Rev. Adan Mairena, pastor of the West Kensington Ministry in Norris Square, heard the women on the sidewalk, their voices growing louder, crying. The victim's sister and aunt had come to set up a curbside memorial and instead were stunned to find the remnants of their loved one's violent last moments: shell casings from the gun someone had used to shoot him in the head, blue rubber gloves that the medics likely used to try to save him, and blood, so much blood that no question remained where he had taken his last breath.

The night before, on Oct. 30, Mairena had arrived at the parsonage next to the church to flashing police lights. Officers told him to go inside. He wondered if the body under the white sheet on the ground was someone he knew, a parishioner maybe, God forbid, a kid from the neighborhood.

By now, most everyone knew that it was 33-year-old Francisco "Frankie" Caraballo, whose family lived just a few blocks away. As it happened, he was related to one of Mairena's parishioners.

Some calls were hastily made, to Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez, to an apologetic district Capt. Krista Dahl-Campbell, who said through a department spokesperson that the officers and investigators on the scene the night before "thought that the rain would wash away the blood." About an hour later, they got a fire truck there to clean the sidewalk. "We will do better," she said.

We can start with making these cleanups less discretionary.

By the next day, only those who knew that someone had chosen that sidewalk to end a man's life could make out the stain. One of Caraballo's cousins sat in his car near the sidewalk memorial, his eyes wet with tears as he talked about his family's loss compounded by the bloodstains left behind.

It was disrespectful, Jeremy Cruz said  to his cousin's life and to his death. His cousin had gotten into trouble for selling drugs in the past, relatives acknowledged, but that was behind him. He was a good guy, a father who left behind a 5-year-old son.

Later, a small group of neighbors gathered around the memorial and talked about how traumatic it was for the dead man's family, but also for the neighbors who had undoubtedly walked past the crime scene while walking their dogs in the park. Not to mention the children headed to a nearby day care and school.

More than a few wondered the same thing: If this had happened in Rittenhouse Square and not Norris Square, would police have been more careful?

They already knew the answer.

Mairena called what happened symbolic of the lives of people in many of Philadelphia's neighborhoods, living and dead. Unvalued.

Five days before Caraballo was killed, and less than a mile away on the 600 block of West Susquehanna Avenue, another man was shot in the middle of the day. For hours on Oct. 24, Kelvin Herrera Delacruz's body lay near a dumpster mere steps from Maria Roman's front door, one of his hands still balled up in a fist. Roman recognized him as one of the young men who had grown up around the area.

After the body was removed, Roman, 59, watched police scatter something on the bloodstain before they left, presumably to break it down. When it didn't go away, Roman panicked.

In 2011, Roman's neighbor Justin Reyes, 17, was shot outside a nearby bodega. Roman worried what seeing the blood would do to his mother, Kathy Lees.

So Roman rushed to clean it up before her neighbor got home. She spent an hour on her hands and knees, scrubbing with bleach until the blood washed away.

When I stopped by, the only hint at what had happened there was a blue rubber glove and some yellow crime-scene tape that could have been mistaken for a Halloween decoration.

Only those who had seen Delacruz's body fall would have known a man's blood had been spilled here.

But the streets are never wiped clean, not entirely.

Whether or not fire hoses scatter the evidence, pushing scarlet pools down the storm drains and into the sewers, Philly's streets are forever stained with the blood of the dead.
Zenos Frudakis, at work earlier this year on a statue of famed ACLU attorney Clarence Darrow, commissioned for a county courthouse in Tennessee. Read more

"I don't know who the powers that be are that decided this," Frudakis said as he was driving to New York for an annual dinner honoring Mark Twain. "Who has the power to remove the mayor? I'm disappointed."

Rizzo, it turns out, was Frudakis' "first sculpture of a man in a suit," he says. "Someone from the city should have called me. I've done more free-standing sculpture than anyone in the city. I know a lot about it."

For the record, the city said it called Frudakis on Wednesday to let him know and hear any concerns he might have.

Lauren Hitt, Mayor Kenney's spokeswoman, said Frudakis "thanked us for letting [him] know and offered to help in any way we might need moving forward."

Frudakis said he had some concern for the safety of the piece. It's big, and it's heavy.

"It's a tricky thing to take out," he said. "You don't want it to fall on anyone."

But mostly Frudakis is disappointed by what he sees as a "lost opportunity to educate" people about who Rizzo was and how he was viewed differently by different groups of people.

"You could put up plaques telling people there are different opinions about him," Frudakis said. "You could put up another sculpture of someone else from a different political place. You know, I could do it. I'd be happy to do it. I'm from a different political place."

But what "really bothers" Frudakis is his belief that the Rizzo sculpture should not be considered in the same context as Confederate generals.

"They were traitors to America." he said. "Frank Rizzo was not a traitor to America."

Said Frudakis: "I'm not defending Frank Rizzo as a person, the racial polarizing and all that. It was a different time. You had Spiro Agnew, Nixon.  This thing could be used for education. But you've got to be very respectful when you move it, respectful to the majority of people who voted for him. I think this decision should be put off till we pass through all this discussion about Confederate sculptures. That bothers me."
Filmmakers (clockwise, from top left) Maggie Betts, Zoe Lister-Jones, and Lone Scherfig are all working to change the male-dominated film industry. Read more

One of the year's funniest lines comes from the movie Band Aid.

A woman (Zoe Lister-Jones) goes to the home of her creepy neighbor (Fred Armisen, at his out-there best), the sort of fellow whose demeanor suggests a backyard full of buried hitchhikers, and finds two gorgeous women relaxing in his living room.

When he's out of earshot, she leans forward and asks: "Are you here of your own free will?"

I think of that line as I survey the bulging portfolio of reports alleging that powerful Hollywood men like Harvey Weinstein, James Toback, and Brett Ratner  all of whom have denied the accusations  have used their positions as a springboard for the serial abuse of young women. The stories have depressing consistency  young women looking for a foothold in the industry, effectively (and sometimes literally) captive to male gatekeepers.

Are you here of your own free will?

Apparently, for women in Hollywood, the answer is often no.

Actor/writer/producer Brit Marling described the adverse economics that contributes to the power imbalance that feeds predatory behavior. Marling, who said she was harassed by Weinstein, wrote in the Atlantic: "Weinstein was a gatekeeper who could give actresses a career that would sustain their lives and the livelihood of their families. He could also give them fame, which is one of few ways for women to gain some semblance of power and voice inside a patriarchal world. They knew it. He knew it. Weinstein could also ensure that these women would never work again if they humiliated him. That's not just artistic or emotional exile  that's also economic exile."

In the face of these stories of alarmingly widespread abuse (recent names include Dustin Hoffman, who has apologized for his behavior), it's perhaps helpful to note there is good news, and it starts, appropriately enough, with movies like Band Aid.

It's one of three dozen or so movies, by my count, directed by women to be released on Philadelphia screens this year. That's a depressingly low number of movies, but what's key is that it's a growing number, and that growth is encouraging. Even more encouraging, women like Lister-Jones (who not only starred in Band Aid, but directed and wrote the "free will" line) are using their positions of power and influence to hire other women. Lister-Jones aimed to hire an entirely female crew, and when she couldn't find a woman for a technical job, she asked that a male employee mentor a female worker in the job.

It's a trend.

For Novitiate, opening Friday, writer-director Maggie Betts hired a female editor, female cinematographer, and a largely female crew.

For Betts, making a movie about women at a convent, her reasons for hiring more women were artistic as much as economic.

"It wasn't necessarily something I pursued for political reasons," she said. "I was making a movie about a community of women, and it just seemed right to have a community of women making the movie. And it turned out to be the appropriate environment. It turned into a safe space for collaboration. There was a lot of camaraderie. Frankly, it's just a lot of fun to work with other women."

Whether by design or by chance, it's happening more often. This year, Their Finest, directed by Lone Scherfig, featured a female screenwriter, editor, and composer for a story about a woman making her way in the men's world of movie-making in wartime London.

Men are part of the movement, too  director William Oldroyd, making Lady Macbeth, worked to ensure that half of the folks hired to work on the film were women.

Betts is even rarer in the directorial universe, as an African American woman, as is Dee Rees, whose Mudbound opens Nov. 17 and will stream on Netflix. Betts said a more diverse talent pool was bound to make movies better.

"Women are minorities in the film business, and that motivates them," she said. "I get that, because you have this kind of drive that makes you want to work harder, push yourself farther, because when you fail, you feel like your gender is failing."

She cites her female director of photography, Kat Westergaard.

Betts adds that it is not about pitting women against men  Westergaard works with a crew of devoted colleagues, all "big, burly guys," and "they worship her. Because she's so wonderful to work for, and with."

There are more women like Betts and Westergaard taking control of their economic destinies.

Marling, for instance, now runs her own show, The OA, for Netflix. Good for her. And good for Sarah Polley, who wrote of her own run-in with Weinstein in the New York Times; after her tenure as a child actress, she has successfully transitioned to the director's chair. Her most recent project finds her adapting Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace for Netflix. Angelina Jolie, who has said she was one of Weinstein's victims, now writes and directs and produces her own movies. She's executive producer of the animated movie The Breadwinner, directed by Nora Twomey (The Secret of Kells), opening here Dec. 1.

"I kind of like the fight," Betts said. "I don't like inequality, but in a way I like the fact that people underestimate me, or the people I'm working with. Because you want to work extra hard to counter their biases about our capacity to do the job."

Hollywood has a long, sorry, chronic history of "casting couch" abuse. So long and so chronic, you wonder about the efficacy of rehabbing away the psychosexual compulsions of certain men in positions of power.

Those men probably can't be changed.

But they can be replaced.

Are you here of your own free will?

On more and more movie sets, run by more and more women, the answer is yes.
A Father Divine follower, dressed in her Rosebud uniform, walks through one of the many rooms in the Father Divine Museum and Library. Read more

Two ornate, velvet-upholstered chairs  thrones, almost  were positioned facing the crowd gathered for the Sunday-afternoon ribbon cutting for Father Divine's Library and Museum.

The seats appeared to be empty, but each speaker that stepped up turned to greet them before addressing the audience: "Peace, Father. Peace, Mother. Peace, everyone."

Life and death, presence and absence, are fluid concepts at Woodmont, the grand, 73-acre Gladwyne estate that is the last stronghold of the International Peace Mission movement created by Father Divine, the civil rights leader, businessman, philanthropist, and self-proclaimed god. Today, more than 50 years after his death, he's still the head of the household. The movement  or, perhaps, cult  was once reported to have as many as 20 million followers. Now, just 12 or 15 true believers, most in their 80s or 90s, reside at Woodmont, living in celibacy and isolation according to Divine's International Modest Code.

These days, those left in the Peace Mission have turned their focus to legacy-building  by finally opening the library, a collection of hundreds of thousands of letters, photographs, audio recordings, home movies, and manuscripts that was a decade in the making, and by welcoming in documentary filmmaker Lenny Feinberg (The Art of the Steal, Black and White, and Dead All Over) for three years of shooting. His film, Father's Kingdom, will premiere at the Doc NYC film festival Nov. 11.

"It's a different universe once you go through these gates. It's a different world, a different time zone," Feinberg, of Lower Merion, said last Sunday, greeting a visitor to Woodmont with the word "Peace." ("Hello"  which contains within it the word "hell"  is taboo.)

Feinberg began researching the Peace Mission after his daughter, Julia, told him about a banquet she attended at Woodmont, how the women in their red "rosebud" uniforms  designating their almost nun-like status  and men in their baby-blue jackets served Father's empty chair first and addressed him as if he were present.

In the film, Feinberg attempts a delicate balance in navigating Father Divine's undeniable successes as a passionate civil rights leader and the many questions that surround him.

That starts with describing Father Divine's birth in 1879 in Rockville, Md., as George Baker; that claim, to Divine's followers, is blasphemy. It continues with questions about how the Peace Mission accumulated wealth, likely by persuading followers to part with their savings, and with Divine's rejection of personal attachments. For those raised as children in the movement, that led to chronic emotional neglect.

And it follows the anguished deliberations of Christopher Stewart, who moved into Woodmont full time in September, but hasn't yet taken "crusader's vows." Those would mean a lifetime of celibacy, and permanently severing his 26-year romantic relationship.

Producer Nancy Cutler said the followers shared their stories for one reason: "They're on a quest to keep Father Divine's legacy alive."

After all, Divine also worked to combat Jim Crow: organizing to demand justice for lynchings and integrating segregated communities like Brigantine, N.J., where beaches were reserved for whites until Father Divine purchased a large resort there. The Divine Lorraine was the first integrated hotel in Philadelphia.

The Peace Mission distributed food and clothing to anyone who needed it, white or black  though words describing a person's race were scrubbed from all the movement's language. When Father Divine was arrested for disturbing the peace with the hordes who followed him to Sayville, Long Island, a judge sentenced him to year in prison  then dropped dead three days later. Divine was quoted from his prison cell as saying, "I hated to do it."

The film tracks "miracles" such as that spurred the growth of the religion, the movement, and the real-estate empire of "Heavens" scattered around the Northeast. It also notes how the locus of the mission shifted to Philadelphia in 1942, when Father Divine fled New York after a court there ordered him to repay a follower who'd given him her life savings. His followers bought Woodmont, the 1894 estate built by steel magnate Alan Wood Jr. for $75,000 in 1952.

And, it charts the movement's denouement after the death of Father Divine in 1965, as Mother Divine, his second wife, attempted to keep it going. She died in March 2017.

It's now facing the same challenges as other religions, like the Shakers, that favor neither proselytization nor procreation. Peace Mission members declined to estimate the number of followers remaining.

"Their answer to everything is Father and Mother will provide," Feinberg said.

But Roger Klaus, one of Father Divine's younger followers at age 71, is hoping they may provide through this film.

"It had some things that were inaccurate," he said  like the references to George Baker.

On the other hand, "Father Divine's name used to be known all over the world, but the younger generation doesn't know anything. I hope they hear about this."

And he's hoping the library and museum, open to the public on Sunday and Wednesday, will generate fresh interest.

The cornerstone reads "2009 A.D.F.D."  short for, "in the year of our lord, Father Divine."

Construction was completed in 2011, but it took another six years to open the library to the public. And there's more still to be done. Almost every word Father Divine spoke was documented in shorthand, or in various iterations of recording media: wax cylinders, wire recordings, reel-to-reel tapes, and cassettes.

Stewart, 47, who's the chief curator, said volunteers are needed to continue cataloging and digitizing the archives: "at least 50,000 letters, correspondence, a quarter-million photographs."

Because it was pouring rain on the day of the ribbon cutting, the crowd packed into a separate building for speeches. They included Kenny Gamble, who recalled dining at Circle Mission as a young boy, plus academic researchers, historians, supporters, and followers. True believers and agnostics shared the microphone easily. One speaker said a central part of his interest in the Peace Mission was in the cooperative economic system it utilized, including property deeds sometimes with 400 names on them. Another believed Father Divine had cured his cancer.

There were also "harmonizers" like Carol and Marshall Strax, a Nanuet, N.Y., couple who spoke reverently of Father and Mother Divine.

"Marshall was raised by a follower, Precious Jewel. One day she retired and disappeared from their home. Marshall always wondered what happened to her," Carol said.

Rather than resenting the movement, though, they began visiting Woodmont regularly themselves.

Rik Rydant, a researcher from High Falls, N.Y., with a longstanding interest in the Peace Mission, contributed a large collection of primary documents to the library.

"Coming here, it's almost like being back 2,000 years ago, watching the apostles of Christ at the Last Supper," he said.

Leonard Norman Primiano, a professor of religion at Cabrini College, said he was just relieved that the gospels were intact.

"As a scholar of the Peace Mission movement, many years ago I would say to Father and Mother, you have got to preserve the history," he said. "These are invaluable resources for the history of religion in the United States.  The way this country developed and the way race relations developed."

Then everyone shook out their umbrellas and walked back across the rain-soaked lawn to tour the new library.

Feinberg said, "You'd think Father would have picked a better day."
Opossums  and this isn't debatable  are better for the planet than we are.

These quiet, toothy marsupials don't create trash or stab one another or blather on about "Game of Thrones" or slip paper bags full of cash under tables to pay off blackmail. They eat bugs and berries, animals we've plowed into with our cars, and ferry their babies on their backs while they scamper in the darkness from one habitat we've destroyed to another.

When they're scared, they try to act tough, then resort to playing dead. Who can't relate?

Sadly, the opossum at the center of a Bloomsburg University scandal was wide awake and annoyed while a student and two other young men allegedly doused it in what is undoubtedly a light beer and kissed its head before dumping it in a trashcan last weekend. These bros shared their antics on social media  another thing opossums don't bother with, despite having thumbs. The public flipped out.

"You don't just go and treat an animal like that and dump beer down its throat and its eyes, and then just throw it in the garbage," Bloomsburg sophomore Rachel Bell told 16 WNEP of Scranton

On Tuesday, "Possum Posts Probed" was the top story at the Press Enterprise in Bloomsburg. Two petitions were started to punish the young men, who were ultimately charged yesterday with unlawful taking or possession of game or wildlife and disturbing game or wildlife.

"The opossum was forced to consume alcohol, forcibly kissed by a human, forcibly manhandled by the neck which is incredibly painful for an Opossum, and one picture would suggest that the animal was punched in the abdominal while being forcibly kissed."  Change.org petition

The men  Michael Robert Tice, of Newport; David Mason Snook, of Reedsville, and Morgan Scot Ehrenzeller, of McAlisterville  could face a fine of up to $1,500 and up to three months in prison. Ehrenzeller is a student at the school, 135 miles northeast of Philadelphia.

The animal, according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission, ran off, though opossums don't run all the fast.
Family members of Jayanna Powell held a vigil for her on Dec. 18, 2016, at the West Philly crash scene. Read more

A year ago, Jayanna Powell's parents sat by their dying 8-year-old daughter's side at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and watched her take her last breath. "I love you," her mother said.

This week, her parents, Ayeshia Poole and James Powell, and other relatives sat in a Philadelphia courtroom at the jury trial of the admitted hit-and-run driver who had plowed into Jayanna as she crossed 63rd Street at Lansdowne Avenue on her way home from school.

Jayanna, her shoes and book bag ripped from her by the impact of the crash, was found lying under a tree next to the road, 100 feet south of the West Philadelphia intersection, and died that day at CHOP.

Her brother Hassan Cox, then 12, who was holding her hand, was struck in his right knee by the fleeing car and survived.

The driver, Paul Woodlyn 3d, now 25, of the 1200 block of Marlyn Road in Overbrook, pleaded guilty at the start of his trial Tuesday to a felony charge of leaving the scene of a fatal accident. He disputed the other charges  homicide by vehicle, involuntary manslaughter, and recklessly endangering another person.

On Friday, a jury of nine women and three men acquitted Woodlyn of the homicide by vehicle charge, but convicted him of manslaughter and reckless endangerment. The panel deliberated seven hours over two days.

Poole, 31, clearly upset and on the verge of tears after hearing the acquittal on the homicide charge, declined to comment afterward. Powell, 45, the father, said: "It's crazy. I never get to see my daughter again.  I have to go to the gravesite."

Woodlyn, who showed no reaction upon hearing the verdicts and who has been in custody since his arrest Nov. 30, 2016, is to be sentenced Jan. 19 by Common Pleas Court Judge J. Scott O'Keefe. He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of three years in prison and a maximum of 17 years.

It was 3:12 p.m. Nov. 18, 2016, when Jayanna, a second-grader at the Lewis C. Cassidy elementary school at 6523 Lansdowne Ave. in Overbrook, and her three siblings were crossing the south side of 63rd at Lansdowne.

Woodlyn was driving south on 63rd. His light had just turned green. Testifying Wednesday, Woodlyn said the car in front of him in the right lane was stopped, so he drove around the car and went through the intersection in the left lane.

"I didn't see the kids," he testified. Once he saw them, he said, he couldn't avoid them.

"I just closed my eyes," he said. "After the impact, I just panicked and I left."

He claimed he hit his brakes, "but it was too late."

"I didn't deliberately hit anyone," Woodlyn testified.

Assistant District Attorney Erica Rebstock pointed out that Woodlyn was not charged with deliberately hitting anyone, but rather with driving recklessly and speeding, causing Jayanna's death.

Woodlyn "was driving too fast" while approaching the intersection, she told jurors Thursday. The Nissan hit Jayanna with such force that part of the car's front grill fell off, and the child was thrown 100 feet away, the prosecutor said. She was unconscious.

Three bystanders testified that they didn't hear the car brake before or after the crash. Officer Patrick Gallagher of the Accident Investigation District also testified that he saw no skid marks to indicate a vehicle braking.

Jayanna and her brother "shouldn't have been mowed down by this man driving like a maniac," Rebstock told jurors.

Defense attorney Benjamin Cooper said in his closing argument: "This was an accident."

"He left the scene, we all know that," Cooper said. "That's not cool at all. The question here is whether or not he committed a homicide."

Jayanna's death greatly affected the city. On Nov. 29, 11 days after the hit-and-run, police held a news conference at which Poole and Jayanna's father, James Powell, pleaded for the driver to surrender.

Nicholas DiMarcello, owner of a Chester County auto body shop, testified Tuesday that he saw a TV report of the news conference and called police the next day, telling them that a damaged 2012 Nissan Altima matching the description of the vehicle had been brought to his shop Nov. 19. It had been parked outside, and the owner, Jasmine Glover, later identified as Woodlyn's girlfriend, called to get an estimate for the repairs.

She said "it hit a deer," DiMarcello recalled.

"It's been the worst year of my life," Poole said during a break in the trial Tuesday. About 5:30 p.m. this Nov. 18, family members will hold another vigil for Jayanna at the crash scene. They will release pink and purple balloons, her favorite colors.
Medical specimen tube known as a sharks tooth used by some drug dealers to package fentanyl and heroin. Read more

Six months of text messages on Meredith DiFilippo's cellphone showed that the 37-year-old Queen Village woman regularly bought drugs from Joseph Massimino Jr.

But did Massimino sell DiFilippo the fentanyl that killed her and her 33-year-old boyfriend, Richard Heller?

Proving that link between dealer and deceased is the issue facing Pennsylvania prosecutors in cases filed under the state's 2011 law that created a first-degree felony for a "drug delivery resulting in death."

Some state prosecutors have called the charge too difficult to prove, especially in cases of people who die after using combinations of illegal and prescription drugs.

The law, which carries a maximum prison term of 40 years, was created in response to dramatically increasing numbers of overdose deaths, most attributed to opioids: heroin and its pharmaceutically created cousins such as fentanyl, which is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine. Fentanyl is often mixed with heroin, with deadly results.

In Philadelphia and the seven surrounding counties, officials say, more than 1,300 people died of overdoses in the first half of this year  50 percent more than a year earlier. Despite those numbers, few people in the region have been charged with drug delivery resulting in death. In Philadelphia, Massimino  son of imprisoned mob underboss Joseph "Mousie" Massimino  is only the second person charged. The first was Edwin Correa, 36, charged in the March 29 death of Jose Santiago.

Court records show that on that date Correa was arrested on drug charges and was detained in Cell No. 7 at Police Headquarters at Seventh and Race Streets.

Correa allegedly had two packets of heroin hidden in the waistband of his pants, and police said he swallowed one packet and passed the other to Santiago, 56, who was in Cell No. 8, also detained on drug charges. About 10 a.m. turnkeys found Santiago unconscious. Emergency medical personnel tried to revive him without success. The autopsy showed that Santiago died of an overdose, and police allege that Correa watched efforts to revive him but said nothing.

On Wednesday before Common Pleas Court Judge Kathryn Streeter Lewis, prosecution and defense lawyers debated whether there was sufficient proof that Massimino had supplied the fentanyl that killed the couple.

Assistant District Attorney Thomas Lipscomb said the circumstantial evidence was clear: DiFilippo texted Massimino on April 6 to pick up some drugs that afternoon at his house in the 700 block of Mountain Street in South Philadelphia.

Later that day, DiFilippo and Heller overdosed in her second-floor apartment in the 400 block of Bainbridge Street. Their bodies were discovered April 9, Lipscomb said, and the autopsies showed that both died of fentanyl overdoses.

The text messages on DiFilippo's phone led South Detectives to Massimino's Mountain Street house; they obtained a warrant and searched it April 17.

Inside, say court documents, police found $200,000 worth of heroin, methamphetamines, methadone, alprazolam, clonazepam, and a large quantity of uncut fentanyl; as well as $7,000 in cash, guns, and a ballistic vest.

Police also found a type of drug-packaging material colloquially known as a "shark's tooth," 1-inch plastic tubes shaped like the ocean predator's teeth.

Lipscomb said a shark's tooth tube was found in DiFilippo's apartment and contained cocaine and fentanyl residue.

Massimino's lawyer, Gregory J. Pagano, maintained that the proof was shaky at best. Pagano conceded that Massimino, 46, sold drugs to DiFilippo but said the drugs she referred to in her April 6 text to "Joey P." were "mud" and "blues," street slang that both sides agree is open to interpretation.

Pagano argued that no cocaine was found in Massimino's house. Pagano said there was no way to prove that Massimino sold DiFilippo fentanyl and that if he did, it was the fentanyl that killed her. Pagano noted that the medical examiner's time-of-death estimate left a 48-hour-window between April 6 and 9 when DiFilippo could have died.

"Without those text messages, there would be absolutely no link to him," Pagano told the judge.

Lewis denied Pagano's motion to quash the prosecution, ruling that the evidence was sufficient to let the case proceed. But the challenge is certain to recur when Massimino goes to trial. No date has been set.

Lipscomb argued that he is not required to present direct evidence of an exchange of fentanyl between DiFilippo and Massimino, that an unbroken chain of circumstantial evidence will do.

Lipscomb said DiFilippo and Massimino exchanged text messages, she went to his house to buy drugs, then took them home with her.

"After that, all transmissions from her cease," Lipscomb said. "And then, on April 9, two people are found dead of fentanyl poisoning."
Fred Anton, a longtime Republican power broker in Pennsylvania politics and a Philadelphia native, was found dead Thursday in the Delaware River after being reported missing the day before, police said.

Anton, 83, was last seen leaving his residence in the unit block of North Christopher Columbus Boulevard about 10:45 a.m. Wednesday. Police said he was suffering from undisclosed medical issues and depression.

Shortly after 11:30 a.m. Thursday, the police Marine Unit responded to a report of a person in the river near where Anton lived and recovered his body. The Medical Examiner's Office was investigating how he died.

Anton had long been the leader of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Association, a statewide trade organization that became the premier pro-business lobbying presence in Harrisburg under Anton.

"At his peak, he could kill a bill if he wanted to, or he could make a bill if he wanted to," former Gov. Ed Rendell said.

In 2012, a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette profile led off with this sentence: "When Fred Anton calls Republican politicians at the state Capitol, they don't put him on hold."

David N. Taylor, president of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Association, said in a statement that the organization was heartbroken by Anton's death.

"All of us who had the privilege of knowing him and working for him will treasure the memories of our time with him, with gratitude for having had him as our leader," Taylor said.

Speaker of the Pennsylvania House Mike Turzai, an Allegheny County Republican, said in a statement that he was "deeply saddened" by Anton's passing.

"When Fred entered a room, everyone's attention turned to him. It is no coincidence that many of Pennsylvania's governors, U.S. senators, congressmen, and state legislative leaders have considered Fred a close friend and adviser. He was gracious to everyone who came to know him," Turzai said.

"Being profoundly well-read, well-spoken and knowledgeable, Fred freely offered advice to those who would listen, and I will forever be grateful for his invaluable advice and friendship through the years," Turzai said. "Lidia and I send our deepest sympathy to his partner of many years, Emily Ryan, and his children, Fred and Sarah."

Pennsyvania Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, a Republican from Centre County, in a statement said Anton's "presence dominated a room."

"While he was well known as a leader who got things done, I knew him as a cherished family friend whose caring and kindness supported and inspired three generations of Cormans. He will be greatly missed," Corman said.

U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey also offered a statement on Anton.

"Fred was an icon in Pennsylvania's conservative movement and served as a mentor to many, including myself," the Pennsylvania Republican said. "He was a passionate advocate for the city of Philadelphia, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and for the country he loved. My thoughts and condolences are with Fred's family; he will be missed."

Former Republican Gov. Tom Ridge in a statement called Anton "a true gentleman."

"His loss will leave a huge void in Pennsylvania, and beyond," Ridge said.

Anton was born in Philadelphia and graduated from Haverford High School. He earned a law degree from the Villanova School of Law and was a veteran of the Marine Corps.

When Rendell was elected mayor of Philadelphia in 1991, Anton joined his transition team and worked with Rendell throughout his two terms in office.

"Fred was one of the most important business leaders in Philadelphia," Rendell said.

"He deeply cared for the city," Rendell said, adding that they were good friends, "even though we were at opposite ends of the political spectrum."
Opening day at Eakins Oval in summer 2016. The Fairmount Park Conservancy, which recently helped transform the Oval, will receive $3 million to support park and recreation center volunteer groups. Read more

As the city prepares to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into rebuilding its libraries, recreation centers, and playgrounds, the groups that look after those spaces need some help.

Philadelphia has about 200 volunteer groups, often known as "friends-of groups," whose members advocate for their spaces  from safety issues to improvements  and plan much of the programming that brings people out.

On Saturday, the Knight Foundation will announce a $3.28 million grant to the Fairmount Park Conservancy to support the community groups.

"This is not hyperbole  having people engaged in parks and recreation centers is as important as the capital investment we're set to make in parks and recreation and libraries," said Jamie Gauthier, executive director of the conservancy. "That will be a wasted investment if we don't also invest in communities' abilities to actively engage a diverse set of residents in these public assets."

The money could go toward workshops on marketing, budgeting, and fund-raising as well as recruitment strategies to bring in younger members.

The city is in the midst of selecting sites for a $500 million overhaul. A preliminary list of sites came out this week.

"We're really looking to ensure that investments are made in the people and communities who use public spaces," said Patrick Morgan, Philadelphia program director at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. "We want people who use the spaces to be the ones to shape them, to be at the table, and we think that this  helps to do that."

At last count, Philadelphia had 110 friends-of park groups and 90 recreation advisory councils.

"We want to maintain this incredible network, and to do that we need to find our next generation of park stewards," said Kathryn Ott Lovell, the city's parks and recreation commissioner. "A lot of these leaders have done this for 20, 30 years, and they're waiting to pass the baton on to the next crew of folks."

Lovell hopes the money evens the playing field between groups serving poorer and wealthier neighborhoods.

"You might have a neighborhood group like Fox Chase able to charge $150 for summer camp programming for 50 kids, and then they've got some money for programs," Lovell said. "But if you go to Francis J. Myers in Southwest Philadelphia, they're charging $20 for summer camp, and probably 50 percent can't pay that, so there's not the same ability."

The money could also help parks and recreation centers that don't have volunteer groups, like McCreesh Recreation Center in Southwest Philadelphia.

Tracey L. Gordon has lived near McCreesh for 24 years. She's trying to organize an advisory council to push the city to reopen the center, which has been closed for the last year.

"If we don't fight for these spaces, I absolutely don't think they'll ever reopen," she said. "It's only fair that all children in Philadelphia have equal access to recreation."
A man climbs a ladder to the Campamento de los Olvidados, ( The camp of the Forgotten ) on the Rio Arecibo in Utuado Puerto Rico, Thursday Nov. 2, 2017. Hurricane Maria washed out the bridge requiring people to walk across the river and climb a wooden ladder to reach the top of the bridge. Read more

UTUADO, Puerto Rico  An orange shopping cart hovers above the river, swaying from a cable that stretches where a concrete bridge once did.

On Thursday morning, 39-year-old Elias Fresse loaded a suitcase and a bag of clothes into the basket, then carefully descended about 50 feet down two wooden ladders to the river's bed, which was mostly dry. The plush Minnie Mouse tied to his backpack was a surprise for his 3-year-old daughter, Valerie.

"I've been doing this for two weeks now," Fresse said, his rain boots coated in mud from the hour-long hike each way through dense woods and downed trees to his family's home. "Every three days I go out."

As Puerto Rico continues its slow recovery from Hurricane Maria, this is a community cut off. Campamento de los Olvidados, "Camp of the Forgotten," reads a sign neighbors posted at the edge of the bridge, the nickname they gave their community after the storm.

For weeks, the homemade pulley system has been their means of survival, the way to get the food and water deliveries that started arriving two weeks after the storm.

But on Thursday, there was a new reason to be hopeful. The government's public water utility is constructing a bridge a half-mile upstream, and rumors that it would be only accessible to the agency's own vehicles had turned out to be just rumors.

Its not true. Its fake news, said Marilyn Luciano Soto, 47, who said she met with the projects engineer Wednesday.

That means cars could soon be traveling again across the Rio Abajo. It would be a significant step but far from the last. Even travel on the accessible side of the bridge is treacherous.

There, the mountain hugs the river, the slopes slashed like wound marks where landslides occurred. That threat remains. The roads are stained burnt orange, the color of mud, or scarred with deep craters that filled with water. Trees and wires crane over cars that pass beneath.

On Thursday, a working bridge was a distant possibility as people made their trips.

Elena Guzman, 44, and her mother, Anna Oquendo, 71, crossed the river for a doctor's appointment, Guzman's fifth in two weeks to treat a stomach virus.

Carlos Ocasio, 61, who created the shopping-cart system with cable he took from a friend and a pulley bought at a Home Depot, crossed with five 5-gallon cans to bring back gasoline for the generator that is powering his home and two neighbors'.

Iliamar Medina, 17, crossed to escape.

"I've been accustomed to what's happening," she said before hopping into the car of a family friend who was taking her to Caguas, about two hours away. "But I need a break."

Medina said her family is surviving, though she worries about her mother, who has severe asthma. If she has a bad attack, Medina said, there is no way to take her to a hospital.

Though many have made the crossing more than a dozen times and seem undaunted, the journey is undeniably dangerous. The first ladder down, made from scraps of wood gathered after the storm, is wedged into a towering pile of brush. To get up on the other side, one must pull oneself up holding the metal caging of the bridge's retaining wall.

Some days it rains, and the journey becomes impossible.

On three occasions, Renaldo Rodriguez, 47, Luciano Soto's husband, traveled across only to find rushing waters when he returned. He slept those nights in his car, the home with the yellow roof and matching porch he shares with his wife just across the river.

She is too scared to cross.

Luciano Soto said she had watched from her home as the rising waters rushed over the bridge, then lifted it and flung it downstream.

"That was the most horrible thing I'd ever seen," she said. "I thought, how the hell am I going to get out of here? That's my only entrance and exit."

She crossed once, but before the river had subsided, wading into the chest-deep water and holding onto a cord tied to the other side. It left her "traumatized," she said.

Now she will keep to her side until a bridge is built.

Fresse won't stay to see that happen. On Tuesday, he will board a flight with his wife and daughters for Virginia, where he has family, leaving behind the concrete house in the mountains he built with his own hands.

He doesn't know if they will come back.

"I've been thinking about it for a whole month.  This island is awesome," he said. "But I think about the girls."
In this June 26, 2017, file photo, protesters outside the federal courthouse in San Antonio, Texas, take part in a rally to oppose a new Texas sanctuary cities bill that aligns with the president's tougher stance on illegal immigration. Read more

Days before Virginia's tight gubernatorial election, Democratic nominee Ralph Northam is still facing questions about his stance toward "sanctuary cities"  localities that decline to enforce federal immigration laws.

Never mind that Virginia has no sanctuary cities. Or that there is no evidence that they lead to increased crime or gang activity. Republicans have seized on the issue as a way of portraying Northam as soft on crime.

And Northam is not alone.

In tight elections from New York to Albuquerque, Republicans are using sanctuary cities to attack Democrats as enabling Latino gang violence. Democrats, who have criticized the Trump administration for deporting undocumented immigrants with no criminal records, are struggling to explain their positions.

"I don't mind the term 'sanctuary city' if we define it, but nobody ever defines it," said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who leads the Latino Alliance of the Conference of Mayors. "If it means that our cops aren't going to be immigration agents, and that we'll build trust between communities, that's right. If sanctuary cities mean towns where we harbor criminals  come on, that's laughable. That's not what we are."

In Virginia, Northam has repeatedly walked into a trap set by Republicans. In January, President Donald Trump threatened to cut off federal funds to sanctuary cities. In February, the GOP-controlled state senate forced Northam, the lieutenant governor, to break a tie on a bill that would have banned sanctuary cities in Virginia.

Thomas Norment Jr., R-James City, the Virginia Senate's majority leader, initially voted against the ban  an odd move for the GOP leader to break from his party  but it set up a tie forcing Northam to go on the record on a contentious issue.

Ed Gillespie, who in June became the Republican nominee for governor, said he would have approved the ban.

That vote, as Democrats expected, became the focus of millions of dollars in attack ads, accusing Northam of leaving Virginians vulnerable to MS-13 gang violence. In TV ads, Northam said he had favored tougher laws against gangs; in debates, Northam called the February bill a "political trick."

But on Wednesday, he went further, telling Norfolk television station WAVY that he could sign a similar bill but only if a Virginia city actually declared sanctuary status.

"I've always been opposed to sanctuary cities," said Northam.

Republicans, who believe that the attacks were helping Gillespie close a polling gap, rounded on Northam for changing his position. So did some progressives, who accused the Democrat of flaking on a tough, moral issue.

"I want to elect Ralph Northam, but parroting Gillespie's hateful xenophobia is despicable," Ezra Levin, a co-founder of the grass roots Indivisible network of progressive groups, said in a tweet. "Find your spine, Ralph."

Virginia voters, meanwhile, have been unsure what to think.

Chance McCracken, a bail enforcement agent in Virginia Beach, said he had not seen Gillespie's ads but learned on the radio that he opposed "sanctuary cities." He said he thought that meant some cities might not "report any felonies to [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] or the federal government" if Northam won.

"The general code of the street is you don't talk," said McCracken, 28. "It's more so with immigrants. The first thing they do is flee, and they're often hard to find because they don't have any documents."

But Cathleen Gormley, who supports Northam as well as some down-ticket Republicans, called the attempt to link gangs with sanctuary cities was "ridiculous." Many MS-13 gang members, she said, were born in the United States.

"They've been here for 25 years," said Gormley, 56, a lawyer who became familiar with the gang when she did juvenile law. "Just because you have immigrants in your state doesn't mean you're going to have MS-13 or any other gangs. They're not all immigrants."

Jeff Taylor, a Republican in Dinwiddie County, said that the state had "a lot of Latino immigrants, most of them good," but that he'd heard of sanctuary cities leading to more crime.

"I know some in California are pretty much letting them get away with murder," said Taylor, 57. "They're not pressing charges, because they're afraid they're going to get into the system where ICE can get to them."

There's no evidence that sanctuary status has any effect on crime rates, and some law enforcement groups have argued  like Garcetti  that they're less able to focus on violent crime if they're compelled to turn noniolent immigrants over to ICE. They also say undocumented residents who are crime victims or witnesses would be less likely to turn to local police if they believe the officials are working with federal authorities and will help deport them.

"Immigrants residing in our cities must be able to trust the police and all of the city government," the Major Cities Chiefs Association and the U.S. Conference of Mayors said in a joint statement earlier this year.

But across the country, Republicans have been using the sanctuary cities debate to win votes. In Albuquerque, a Democratic-leaning city where Republicans have controlled city hall for years, Republican mayoral nominee Dan Lewis warned that his opponent would put people at risk by not coordinating with ICE.

"What's scary about that, what's dangerous about that, is we're talking about violent offenders," Lewis said in a debate last month with Democrat Tim Keller.

"That is absolutely wrong," Keller countered. "That is coded language. That is national talking points from the president."

In New Jersey, Republican gubernatorial candidate Kim Guadagno has spent weeks warning that Democrat Phil Murphy will turn the state over to criminals. At a town hall meeting in September, a worried constituent asked Murphy if undocumented immigrants who commit "a felony or drunken driving" should be reported.

"The field has been so tilted against the "dreamers," against immigrants, my bias is going to be having their back," said Murphy.

Guadagno, who has lagged in polls, grabbed hold of the issue. She ran TV ads about the grim 2007 story of an undocumented Peruvian immigrant who committed three murders. At a late October news conference, she said that Murphy had "disqualified himself" by suggesting he would let New Jersey police ignore orders from ICE agents and pointed to other crimes carried out by immigrants.

"Those are the types of people who get released back out into our communities when you declare yourself a sanctuary city," she said.

Not far away, in New York's Nassau County, Republicans have used a similar line of attack in a direct mail ad for Jack Martins, a candidate for county executive.

"Meet your new neighbors!" the mailer reads. "[Democrat Laura Curran] will roll out the welcome mat for violent gangs like MS-13!"

Even New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is expected to win a landslide reelection Tuesday, has been caught off-guard by a question about immigrants and crime. In January, when the Trump administration first targeted sanctuary communities, de Blasio appeared to be caught by surprise by a question about which crimes should be reported to ICE.

"Is grand larceny or drunken driving a very minor offense?" asked CNN's Jake Tapper.

"Drunk driving that does not lead to any other negative outcome, I could define as that," de Blasio said.

Comments like those worry some Democrats. Simon Rosenberg, the founder of the New Democratic Network and a strategist on immigration policy, said Democrats need to be more clear that they want ICE to focus on "felons, not families"  and that they needed to be ready to argue for some deportations.

"Democrats can say that President Obama was the leader who prioritized the deportation of criminals, and Donald Trump has taken his eye of the ball," said Rosenberg. "We got criminals out of the country. We policed the border. When Obama left office, there were fewer undocumented immigrants in this country than there were 10 years before. We're for deporting the violent criminals first."

Garcetti, who said he'd studied how crime was covered on Fox News  and how crimes involving immigrants were given special attention  agreed that Democrats needed to focus on law enforcement.

Democrats worry that even if Northam wins the close Virginia race Tuesday, Republicans will unleash waves of sanctuary city attacks into 2018. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Penn., who is running for Senate against Sen. Bob Casey, D-Penn., said that the issue was increasingly breaking his way  and Trump's way.

"Pennsylvania's a blue-collar state," said Barletta. "Sanctuary citizens become safe havens for terrorists and people in the country illegally. People are going to understand that."
WASHINGTON  The Trump administration released a dire scientific report Friday detailing the growing threats of climate change. The report stands in stark contrast to the administration's efforts to downplay humans' role in global warming, withdraw from an international climate accord and reverse Obama-era policies aimed at curbing America's greenhouse-gas output.

The White House did not seek to prevent the release of the government's National Climate Assessment, which is mandated by law, despite the fact that its findings sharply contradict the administration's policies. The report affirms that climate change is driven almost entirely by human action, warns of potential sea level rise as high as 8 feet by the year 2100, and enumerates myriad climate-related damages across the United States that are already occurring due to 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of global warming since 1900.

"It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century," the document reports. "For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence."

The report's release underscores the extent to which the machinery of the federal scientific establishment, operating in multiple agencies across the government, continues to grind on even as top administration officials have minimized or disparaged its findings. Federal scientists have continued to author papers and issue reports on climate change, for example, even as political appointees have altered the wording of news releases or blocked civil servants from speaking about their conclusions in public forums. The climate assessment process is dictated by a 1990 law that Democratic and Republican administrations have followed.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and President Donald Trump have all questioned the extent of humans' contribution to climate change. One of EPA's web pages posted scientific conclusions similar to those in the new report until earlier this year, when Pruitt's deputies ordered it removed.

The report comes as Trump and members of his Cabinet are working to promote U.S. fossil fuel production and repeal several federal rules aimed at curbing the nation's carbon output, including ones limiting greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants, oil and gas operations on federal land and carbon emissions from cars and trucks. Trump has also announced he will exit the Paris climate agreement, under which the U.S. has pledged to cut its overall greenhouse-gas emissions between 26 percent and 28 percent compared to 2005 levels by 2025.

The report could have considerable legal and policy significance, as the scientific matter provides new and stronger support for EPA's greenhouse gas "endangerment finding" under the Clean Air Act, which lays the foundation for regulations on emissions.

"This is a federal government report whose contents completely undercut their policies, completely undercut the statements made by senior members of the administration," said Phil Duffy, the director of the Woods Hole Research Center.

The government is required to produce the National Assessment every four years. This time, the report is split into two documents, one that lays out the fundamental science of climate change and the other that shows how the United States is being impacted on a regional basis. Combined, the two documents total over 2,000 pages.

The first document, called the Climate Science Special Report, is now a finalized report, having been peer reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences and vetted by experts across government agencies. It was formally unveiled Friday.

"I think this report is basically the most comprehensive climate science report in the world right now," said Robert Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers who is an expert on sea-level rise and served as one of the report's lead authors.

It affirms that the U.S. is already experiencing more extreme heat and rainfall events and more large wildfires in the West, that more than 25 U.S. coastal cities are already experiencing more flooding, and that seas could rise by between 1 and 4 feet by the year 2100, and perhaps even more than that if Antarctica proves to be unstable, as is currently feared. The report says that a rise of over 8 feet is "physically possible" with high levels of greenhouse-gas emissions, but there's no way right now to predict how likely it is to happen.

When it comes to rapidly escalating levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the report states, "there is no climate analog for this century at any time in at least the last 50 million years."

Most striking, perhaps, the report warns of the unpredictable  changes that scientists cannot foresee that could involve tipping points or fast changes in the climate system. These could switch the climate into "new states that are very different from those experienced in the recent past."

Given these strong statements  and how they contradict Trump administration statements and policies  some members of the scientific community had speculated that the administration might refuse to publish the report or alter its conclusions. During the last Republican presidential administration, that of George W. Bush, the national assessment process was highly controversial, and a senior official at the White House Council on Environmental Quality edited aspects of some government science reports.

Yet multiple experts, as well as some administration officials and federal scientists, said that Trump political appointees did not change the special report's scientific conclusions. While some edits have been made to its final version  for instance, omitting or softening some references to the Paris climate agreement  those are focused on policy.

A senior administration official, who asked for anonymity because the process is still underway, said in an interview that top Trump officials decided to put out the assessment without changing the findings of its contributors even if some appointees may have different views.

A federal scientist involved in writing the report, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said that political appointees made no effort to change the scientific findings after being briefed on them.

Glynis Lough, who is deputy director of the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists and had served as chief of staff for the National Climate Assessment at the U.S. Global Change Research Program until mid-2016, said in an interview that the changes made by government officials to the latest report "are consistent with the types of changes that were made in the previous administration for the 2014 National Climate Assessment, to avoid policy prescriptiveness."

Perhaps no agency under Trump has tried to downplay and undermine climate science more than the EPA. Most recently, political appointees at the EPA instructed two agency scientists and one contractor not to speak as planned at a scientific conference in Rhode Island. The conference marked the culmination of a three-year report on the status of Narragansett Bay, New England's largest estuary, in which climate change featured prominently.

The EPA also has altered parts of its website containing detailed climate data and scientific information. As part of that overhaul, in April the agency took down pages that had existed for years and contained a wealth of information on the scientific causes of global warming, its consequences and ways for communities to mitigate or adapt. The agency said it was simply making changes to better reflect the new administration's priorities, and that any pages taken down would be archived.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has repeatedly advocated for the creation of a governmentwide "red team/blue team" exercise, in which a group of outside critics would challenge the validity of mainstream scientific conclusions around climate change.

Other departments have also removed climate change documents online: Interior's Bureau of Land Management, for example, no longer provides access to documents assessing the danger that future warming poses to deserts in the Southwest.

And when U.S. Geological Survey scientists working with international researchers published an article in the journal Nature evaluating how climate change and human population growth would affect where rain-fed agriculture could thrive, USGS published a news release that omitted the words "climate change" altogether.

The Agriculture Department's climate hubs, however, remain freely available online. And researchers at the U.S. Forest Service have continued to publish papers this year on how climate change is affecting wildfires, wetlands and aquatic habitat across the country.

While the Trump administration has not altered the new climate science report substantially, it is already coming under fire from some of the administration's allies.

The day before it was published, Steven Koonin, a New York University physicist who has met with EPA administrator Scott Pruitt and advocated for the "red team/blue team" exercise, pre-emptively criticized the document in the Wall Street Journal, calling it "deceptive."

Koonin argued that the report "ominously notes that while global sea level rose an average 0.05 inch a year during most of the 20th century, it has risen at about twice that rate since 1993. But it fails to mention that the rate fluctuated by comparable amounts several times during the 20th century."

But one of the report's authors suggested Koonin is creating a straw man. "The report does not state that the rate since 1993 is the fastest than during any comparable period since 1900 (though in my informal assessment it likely is), which is the non-statement Steve seems to be objecting to," Kopp countered by email.

Still, the line of criticism could be amplified by conservatives in the coming days.

Meanwhile, the administration also released, in draft form, the longer volume 2 of the National Climate Assessment, which looks at regional impacts across the United States. This document is not final, but is now available for public comment and will itself now begin a peer review process, with final publication expected in late 2018.

Already, however, it is possible to discern some of what it will conclude. For instance, a peer reviewed Environmental Protection Agency technical document released to inform the assessment finds that the monetary costs of climate change in the U.S. could be dramatic.

That document, dubbed the Climate Change Impacts and Risk Analysis, finds that in a high end warming scenario, high temperatures could lead to the loss per year of "almost 1.9 billion labor hours across the national workforce" by 2090. That would mean $ 160 billion annually in lost income to workers.

With high levels of warming, coastal property damages in 2090 could total another $ 120 billion annually, and deaths from temperature extremes could reach 9,300 per year, or in monetized terms, $ 140 billion annually in damages. Additional tens of billions annually could occur in the form of damages to roads, rail lines, and electrical infrastructure, the report finds.

This could all be lessened considerably, the report notes, if warming is held to lower levels.

  

The Washington Post's Jason Samenow contributed to this report.
Joyce Ajlouny, the new general secretary of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), sits in front of a quilt that depicts the AFSC symbol, a red and black star. Read more

As the new general secretary of the American Friends Service Committee, Joyce Ajlouny need only look at her own life  the fraught years spent as a Palestinian American Quaker in the cauldron of the West Bank  to embrace the group's century-old human-rights mission.

She was 2 when the town of Ramallah was captured by Israel during the Six-Day War in June 1967. Since then, she has lived on and off in the occupied territory, attending American schools there and eventually becoming director at her alma mater, Ramallah Friends. But she likened her existence on the West Bank to being in an "open prison," exposed to violence, harassment, and humiliation. A childhood girlfriend was shot. Her husband was detained in the middle of the night by Israeli soldiers.

"I feel very fortunate to be here," said Ajlouny, 51, who took the helm of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Quaker organization, based in Philadelphia, in September. "But there is a guilt factor that I left my people behind."

Empathy born of experience, said clerk of the AFSC board Philip Lord, should serve Ajlouny well in her new post at the Friends committee, which is celebrating its centennial this year. She is the 13th general secretary, and one of only a few with roots outside the United States.

"It's time for a leader like her," Lord said. "With the level of polarization and divisiveness in this country and the world, here is someone who comes from a Palestinian background and is able to engage in conversations with people who feel differently [about Palestinian issues], listen and find the common humanity."

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has roiled the Quaker community  now with 400,000 members worldwide  since 1970. That year, the AFSC and a Canadian Quaker group coauthored a pamphlet, "Search for Peace in the Middle East," that "strongly supported Palestinian rights and was quite critical of Israel," said Quaker historian Thomas Hamm, a professor at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind.

Locally and more recently, the issue boiled over at Friends' Central School in Wynnewood this year, when administrators canceled a speech by Sa'ed Atshan, an assistant professor at Swarthmore College and a Palestinian Quaker who, like Ajlouny, graduated from Ramallah Friends.

Ajlouny has felt the heat herself. While the Ramallah school's director, she created "Go Palestine," a summer camp that she says offers Palestinian youngsters around the world a chance to learn about their roots. In June, it was the subject of a critical article by the Jewish News Service, which distributes content from a right-wing Israeli publication owned by the American casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. The camp was accused of showing anti-Israel films and presenting lectures by militants, some with terrorist connections.

Denying the accusations, Ajlouny questioned what she described as the article's intent to impugn "the one school that teaches nonviolence, the one school that is purely Quaker, and the one that teaches The Diary of Anne Frank in its curriculum. They chose the wrong school. It's as simple as that."

At Ramallah Friends, passing along her Quaker values to Palestinian youth  peaceful paths to liberation through dialogue and reconciliation  was challenging, but the rewards great.

"I am unequivocally clear that violence is never the answer" to oppression, she said. But "it is most difficult to promote nonviolence among a population that is subjected to it. There is anger, and feelings of revenge and retaliation.  It's very difficult to manage these emotions, especially among the young."

The AFSC was founded in 1917 by a group of Quakers who developed alternative service opportunities for conscientious objectors during World War I. With 250 staffers in 15 countries, it works on international peace-building efforts, and issues such as immigration, housing, discrimination, and criminal justice reform.

Within Quakerism today, said Hamm, viewpoints and practices range from "the most dedicated tree-hugging-chain-yourself-to-the-nuclear-missile peace activist to the most Bible-thumping fundamentalist who would admire Jerry Falwell and Donald Trump because he is antiabortion." Some conservatives have divorced themselves from the AFSC, saying it is more a leftist social-action group than a religious organization and citing, among other things, a "pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel" bent.

The AFSC "didn't represent us in any way," said Wayne Evans, former general superintendent for the eastern region of the Evangelical Friends Church, "so we don't know what they are doing."

The third of four children of a Palestinian homemaker and an American manager for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Ajlouny was born in East Jerusalem and raised in the Religious Society of Friends  the result of her Greek Orthodox grandmother's conversion to Quakerism. Ajlouny has dual citizenship, as do her three sons and husband, Ziad Khalaf, executive director of the A.M. Qattan Foundation, an educational and cultural nonprofit in Ramallah.

During what she describes as a middle-class childhood, she often visited her father's family in Michigan. Those trips were a respite from the perils of living in occupied territory. "When someone occupies you, it hits your core," she said. "You live under losing hope for a better life."

Ajlouny left Ramallah to earn a bachelor's degree in computer science at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich., in 1987. She got her master's in organizational management and development from Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Afterward, she returned to the West Bank to teach at Ramallah Friends. It was then, during the first Palestinan intifadah, that a 22-year-old Ajlouny told a reporter she was "ashamed" to be American  words she now says were "too harsh."

"I am proud of my Americanism," she said in a recent interview. "But I am very disappointed with American policies toward my people, and I don't think the American government is taking an evenhanded stand when it comes to oppression of a people who have been dispossessed of their homes and their country for so many years."

Ajlouny left to work in international development and relief projects for the United Nations and Oxfam Great Britain, a confederation of charitable groups fighting global poverty. Thirteen years ago, she went back to run Ramallah Friends.

"She is highly organized, creative, and entrepreneurial," and managed to grow the school's endowment and expand its special-needs programming while "working in a war zone," said Colin Saxton, general secretary of Friends United Meeting, an Indiana-based association of yearly meetings that owns and operates the 1,000-student school.

Ajlouny's views on Palestinian issues have sometimes prompted accusations that she is "outspoken," Saxton said, but she is "an advocate for the school and for Palestinians. She is passionate about it, and has done a great job of communicating a story that needs to be told."

At AFSC, she replaces Shan Cretin, who during seven years as general secretary oversaw a new strategic plan and expanded youth-leadership and antiviolence programs. Ajlouny says she wants to "scale up" the committee's grassroots human-rights activities at a time when bigotry, violence, and the promotion of intolerance have resurfaced in a "blatant way."

She points to AFSC efforts to use the courtroom to combat discrimination against Muslims, to train immigrants to know their legal rights, and to help schools in Miami craft policies that deter Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from entering buildings to detain students.

Ajlouny also hopes to bring educational programming on Israeli-Palestinian issues into Quaker schools, where many of the students are Jewish. That, she said, could prevent confrontations like the one at Friends' Central over Sa'ed Atshan, who teaches conflict resolution at Swarthmore. To Ajlouny, he is a sterling example of the values instilled at Ramallah Friends.

In February, administrators called off a lecture by Atshan after complaints from some school families that the Swarthmore educator was an anti-Israel activist. That action led to protests, a petition, and the firing of the two teachers who invited him to speak. School officials eventually extended another invitation to Atshan to talk about his "personal experiences and path to peace education," but he declined.

Ajlouny envisions discussions in the schools that will change people, not just policies.

"My interactions with Israelis have changed me, and my engagement with them has changed them," she said, "and that is where we start."
Don Cairns, 51, honored as Chester Countys 2017 Farmer of the Year for his land preservation, best-practices farming and dedication to 4-H future farmers, checks the soybeans on his Parkesburg farm, judging whether theyre dry enough to harvest. Read more

Donald Cairns of Parkesburg, honored as the 2017 Farmer of the Year by the Chester County Agricultural Development Council, has a fleet of gigantic planting and harvesting machines with onboard computers that guide everything from steering through the rows to distributing the exact amount of seed in each one.

But when Cairns wanted to know if his soybeans were ready to harvest after a recent rain, he walked through his fields as he's always done, knelt down in a row, and popped open a bean pod.

"Throw them in my mouth and chew on them," he said.

"Best way to tell. First, the pods must be dry enough to easily crack open. Then, the beans inside the pods should be dry enough to store. From experience, I chew on the beans and tell what the moisture is. They need to be 13.5 percent or less for long-term storage."

He estimated that the beans he was chewing were 20 percent to 22 percent moisture, too wet to harvest that day.

Cairns, 51, looked out over his rolling fields of winter wheat, rye-grass pasture, soybeans, and corn, laid out like a living palette of greens and browns on his 100-acre Cairns Family Farm. He owns a 130-acre farm a few miles away in Gap, and leases 1,420 acres on both sides of the border between western Chester and eastern Lancaster Counties.

With the help of only one employee, Cairns plants 1,000 acres of corn, 500 acres of soybeans, and 150 acres of wheat. He grows 13 million pounds of grain, 275 tractor-trailer loads.

The corn and soybeans feed dairy cattle and poultry on local farms, which sell their products to local families. Cairns sells his wheat to local flour mills that supply local bakeries.

"It's all local," Cairns said, believing firmly that farming is vital to the well-being of neighboring communities.

He felt this way long before he could act on his belief. "I was very excited about farming as a little kid, but we didn't have a farm," Cairns said. "When I was 11 years old, one of our friends, Randy Bremer, a Presbyterian minister, bought some Angus cattle and invited me over to help take care of them. I thought this was cool. When I was 12, I bought my first cow. My dad bought four. "

Cairns said he knew 40 years ago, raising his first cow, Heifer No. 637, in a rented pasture, what he wanted in life. "I think people that have a calling to farming have that calling inside of them," he said, "and back then, when I was 11, 12 years old, is when I discovered that calling."

When Heifer No. 637 gave birth to her first calf, Barney, Cairns began a seven-year run of showing his cattle at 4-H shows and learning how to judge them.

He still has the 1948 Ford 8N and 1952 Farmall Super M tractors he first drove as a kid, housed alongside his high-tech farm machines.

"That's one of my babies," he said, patting the Farmall's ancient hood. "I would never sell it."

When he graduated from college, farm prices were so prohibitively low that Cairns deferred his farming dream and went into the commercial insurance business for 13 years before he and his wife bought the old dairy farm that became the Cairns Family Farm in 1997. He's been farming it for 16 years.

Hillary Krummrich, director of the Chester County Agricultural Development Council, said one of the reasons Cairns is being honored is his commitment to land conservation, "not only on the ground he owns, but he even made improvements on the ground he leases from other people, which is amazing."

During a tour of his leased farmland, Cairns stopped at a sloping field and pointed out the U-shaped terraces he bulldozed into it to prevent storm-water runoff from carrying away topsoil. The terraces direct runoff into a grassy waterway that empties into a creek. "I want that water to be clean when it leaves this field," he said.

Cairns said he practices no-till farming, leaving the remains of cornstalks to decompose naturally instead of plowing them under, because running a tractor burns fossil fuel and tilling the soil releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. He uses cover crops including rye grass to prevent erosion and enrich the soil.

Krummrich cited Cairns' massive 250,000-bushel grain storage and drying facility that dominates the Parkesburg landscape and looks like it just flew in from Nebraska.

"It allows him to determine when he wants to harvest and when he wants to sell the product," she said. "A lot of farmers have to rely on someone else to dry and store the grain, so they have to harvest and get it out immediately. They have much less control over the market."

She said Cairns, who has mentored young farmers since he was one himself, is also being honored because of his 28 years on the county's 4-H board, which built the Romano 4-H Center of Chester County in Honey Brook.

Along with his best-practices farming, Cairns said he was proud of his 15 years of going door-to-door to persuade his neighbors to permanently preserve their farmland by selling conservation easements through the Chester County Agricultural Land Preservation Board.

To date, he's helped 25 farm families preserve their land forever.

"I didn't want to be the only preserved farm here, surrounded by heavy development," Cairns said, looking out over his farm and the preserved farms around it.
After Mayor Kenney made his historic pitch for local control of Philadelphia's schools, residents from Philadelphia and beyond reacted:

Steven Scott Bradley, Chairman, African American Chamber of Commerce of PA, NJ & DE: "The return to local control under a mayor-appointed board provides a chance to end the tension between charter and traditional schools. As Philadelphians, we must all be focused on creating quality schools, and not focused on whether those schools are charter or traditional District-run schools. I know Mayor Kenney is committed to the goal of providing all children of color a quality education and the business community will continue to support this pursuit."

Kendra Brooks, Philadelphia parent, member of Our City Our Schools coalition: "Ultimately, we would like a fully elected school board. The fight is never over."

Sharif El-Mekki, founder of The Fellowship-Black Male Educators for Social Justice, principal of Mastery Charter-Shoemaker Campus: "With a local, mayor-appointed school board, Philadelphia has an opportunity to turn the tide and assertively pursue a just and equitable education for its students, thus improving the quality of life for our communities. While we should aggressively pursue justice for Pennsylvania's lack of an equitable budget, we can't wait to pursue other solutions as well. These solutions should include local control and accountability for exercising this control. Ultimately, the voices of those most impacted should always be at the table."

David Hardy, founder of Boys' Latin of Philadelphia Charter School and board member, Philadelphia School Partnership: "I'm hopeful. I want to see someone take responsibility so when we fail children, someone is accountable."

Lisa Haver, retired Philadelphia teacher, founder of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools: "Yes, we need more money, but this is an opportunity to re-evaluate our spending priorities."

Superintendent William R. Hite Jr.: "I will continue to advocate for the resources that will increase the successes, stability and positive momentum we have been able to achieve as a School District. I am optimistic and excited about the future of the School District of Philadelphia and about our work to improve academic outcomes."

State Sen. Vincent Hughes: "It's a bold plan. It follows through on his commitment to bring the school district back under city control, consistent with the legal cases going through the Supreme Court right now. The state has dropped the ball dramatically on generations of Philadelphia school children and low-income school districts across Pennsylvania."

Jerry Jordan, President, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers: "The PFT has been fighting state control of our schools for the past 17 years. With today's announcement, Mayor Kenney is demonstrating his commitment to public education and to local control of schools that earned him the endorsement of our union and the support of Philly's educators."

Mollie Michel, district parent: "A quality education is the cornerstone of a successful, productive life. My kids, and all of Philadelphia's children, deserve the best educational opportunities from pre-K to high school. A return to local control under a Mayor-appointed board is the best chance our kids have to attend thriving schools and receive a top notch education that will allow them to realize their dreams."

Stephen Miskin, spokesman for Harrisburg House Republicans: "It is refreshing to hear the mayor wants to take full financial and academic responsibility for ALL the public schools in Philadelphia. Because this is really union-driven, parents and students may still have reason for concern about the fate of successful renaissance schools, turn-around schools or charter schoolsWe wish the mayor well and hope this really does benefit students and parents."

Jerry Sweeney, President, Chief Executive Officer and Trustee, Brandywine Realty Trust: "In order to achieve long-term sustained growth, retention and overall vitality for Philadelphia, both life-long Philadelphians and newcomers to our city must feel confident that our local schools will offer their children a strong education in a safe environment. It is imperative that we transition to a system that is controlled locally by our mayor and his appointed board members to ensure strengthened alignment and uniformity of purpose between the school board and the administration. As a result, the city will be better positioned to achieve successful outcomes for public schools."

Reverend Dr. Alyn E. Waller, Senior Pastor, Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church: "Too many children in this city don't have the chance to break the cycle of poverty because they don't have a quality school in their neighborhood. I know Mayor Kenney is committed to achieving this goal for our children  he has already shown that commitment through pre-k and community schools. With a return to a local board with mayoral appointment and ratification by City Council, Philadelphians will have one, central point of accountability for providing all our children access to opportunity."

SRC Chair Joyce Wilkerson: "On November 16 a resolution will come before the SRC which would take the first step in a process to bring local control of the School District back to Philadelphia. Strong public education is the most significant factor in the welfare of our city and the future of our children. It is time for Philadelphia to take ownership of that future."

State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams: "The SRC was created for a fiscal crisis, not a performance crisis. So the question would be: Has the fiscal crisis ended? After three years of a balanced budget, I guess that would suggest that is has. That would allow us to have the conversation within the context of the law. That's what we're using. Now the reality is, politically, there has been a long desire and a waiting moment for us taking back control of our own school district. And I think those two things converged with the perfect timing. We have the right governor and the right mayor."
U.S. Rep. Bob Brady (left), chairman of the Democratic City Committee in Philadelphia, said it was a mistake for U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans (center) and former Gov. Ed Rendell (right) to call a breakfast meeting of African-American ward leaders on Saturday. Read more

GOTV usually stands in politics for "get out the vote."

But for former Gov. Ed Rendell and U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans, a breakfast meeting they hosted Saturday could be better described as Gossip Overtakes the Victuals.

Rendell and Evans set up the event at the Bellevue on South Broad Street. On the menu: eggs, bacon, assorted pastries, and an exhortation for the invited African American Democratic ward leaders and elected officials to get out the vote in Tuesday's general election for two statewide black candidates  Dwayne Woodruff for Supreme Court and Carolyn Nichols for Superior Court.

Then came the rumors and recriminations.

The majority of the members of the United Ward Leaders of Color, which represents more than 20 black Democratic ward leaders in the city, decided to boycott the breakfast. Only five or so turned up Saturday.

There were two factors driving the hostility  Rendell in April told City and State that U.S. Rep. Robert Brady, chairman of the Democratic City Committee, should rein in the power of ward leaders in the city.

"Now he wants to hold a breakfast for us?" said Edgar "Sonny" Campbell, leader of the United Ward Leaders of Color and a close ally of Brady. "We were very disturbed about the comments he made about us."

The other factor: a rumor that the GOTV effort was really a cover for a meeting to push Evans as a possible successor to Brady as party chairman.

This was a particularly sensitive time for that rumor to land. Two of Brady's political consultants  Ken Smukler and Don "D.A." Jones  were indicted last week, accused of attempting to hide campaign contributions from Brady's political action committee to former Municipal Court Judge Jimmie Moore, a 2012 primary election rival who then dropped his challenge. Moore and his former campaign manager have pleaded guilty to not reporting the contributions.

We asked State Sen. Anthony H. Williams, a ward leader who skipped the breakfast, what he had heard about all that. Williams was teed up, starting his remarks with: "Ed Rendell  God rest his political soul."

He added: "There's a head of the party. When there's a vacancy, we'll let everyone know."

City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell told us she also boycotted after getting calls from other United Ward Leaders of Color members.

Pete Wilson, a West Philly ward leader, decided to check out the breakfast. He said Evans told him "point blank" he had no interest in becoming party chairman.

"Bob's the chairman," Wilson said. "Now, he has a lot of stuff going on around him. Whether he's pulled into any of that, nobody knows."

Rendell was unavailable for comment. For days. Go figure.

Evans said the event drew a great crowd and the rumor-mongering is putting the focus on the wrong thing.

"It was about turning out the vote," he said. "Strictly about turning out the vote."

Evans also said he told Brady, when he came calling, that he was not looking to run for party chairman.

Brady confirmed that but still thinks the breakfast was a mistake.

"They should never split the party up," he said. "I'm color-blind. I would never have a meeting with just one group."

Will the rumors clear up? Hard to say, especially given Brady's tepid responses to our last two questions.

Is he definitely running for another term in the U.S. House next year?

"Yeah, why not?" he shrugged

Is he definitely running for another term as party chairman next year?

"If they keep me," he said of the ward leaders. "It's up to them."

The return of Tim OBrien

We noticed two things about the most recent campaign finance report filed by Beth Grossman, the Republican nominee for district attorney in Philadelphia. She raised $76,970 from Sept. 19 to Oct. 23, a noticeable uptick for her political action committee. And $5,500 of that was paid in the same time period to Tim O'Brien, a campaign consultant.

You may recall O'Brien as the guy who served five four-year terms as bail commissioner in the First Judicial District. Or you may remember him as the guy who pleaded guilty in October 2014 to simple assault and recklessly endangering another person after his second domestic violence arrest in 2013 involving his then-girlfriend.

O'Brien stood in for Grossman two weeks ago when the Upper Holmesburg Civic Association held a candidate forum. The Northeast Times reports O'Brien claimed Larry Krasner, the Democratic nominee in the race, "does not talk often about victims."

Grossman said she has known O'Brien for 20 years and had a "very frank discussion" with him about his conviction.

"I believe in giving people a second chance at redemption," she said. "That has nothing to do with my advocacy for victims of crimes."

O'Brien, who was sentenced to probation that ended in April, said he accepted responsibility and "took my punishment." O'Brien also worked briefly last year as a city-paid consultant for City Councilman David Oh on criminal justice issues.

"I just think I have a right to move on with my life," he said. "This doesn't mean Beth doesn't care about victims."

Quotable:

"I like to joke sometimes that Council used to be less boring. When I do, I see Jimmy on the chamber floor, mixing it up with Fran Rafferty and John Street. God forbid we ever go back to that time, but it's an era I feel lucky to have personally witnessed. Jimmy Tayoun will never be forgotten."

 City Council President Darrell Clarke on the death Wednesday of Jimmy Tayoun, a former councilman turned federal prison inmate turned publisher of the Public Record. Tayoun's viewing will be held Friday from 6 from 9 p.m. and Saturday from 9 to 10:30 a.m., followed by a Funeral Mass, all at St. Maron's Maronite Catholic Church, 1013 Ellsworth St. in South Philadelphia.

Staff writer Chris Brennan contributed to this column. Tips: clout@philly.com.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been sued by the city over federal grant money that is being denied to sanctuary cities. Read more

A federal judge declared from the bench Thursday that the City of Philadelphia  a so-called sanctuary city  substantially complies with the Trump administration's conditions for receiving a government law enforcement grant.

U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson made no formal ruling in a case that has been widely watched and debated, and indicated he would not issue a decision for two weeks. But after pressing administration lawyers with question after question, Baylson said he believed that "the city is in substantial compliance" and that a Justice Department letter asserting otherwise "is wrong."

At the heart of the case is a relatively small amount of money  a $1.5 million federal grant to a city with a $4.4 billion budget  but a big principle: whether the administration can withhold money unless the city agrees to more actively help federal agents identify and arrest people who immigrated without appropriate documents.

The city filed suit against Attorney General Jeff Sessions in August.

Broadly defined, a sanctuary city limits its cooperation with federal authorities who enforce immigration law. Those cities' leaders aim to ease fears of deportation among undocumented residents, believing that members of immigrant communities will then be more willing to report crime.

President Trump and Sessions have argued that sanctuary city policies allow dangerous criminals to be released to prey on local neighborhoods when instead they should be returned to their homelands. The administration aims to withhold grant money as a means to make cities assist federal agents seeking to deport undocumented immigrants.

Baylson heard a day of testimony last week and a half-day of arguments Thursday, and continues to review a voluminous written record.

"I think he's leaning toward us," said lawyer Sara Solow, retained to help represent the city in the case.

Barring appeals, that would clear the way for the city to receive the federal money for police overtime, training, and other improvements.

City officials testified that they willingly turn over information about undocumented people who have been convicted or are actively under suspicion of committing a serious crime.

"Isn't that all you're entitled to?" the judge asked Chad Readler, the administration's acting assistant attorney general for the civil division.

If federal agents were willing to accept that without demanding information on every person about whom they inquire, "we wouldn't be here," Baylson told Readler.

Readler declined to comment after the hearing.

In court, he argued that the case was simple: The government has the power and right to set conditions on grants. The city has the option of meeting those terms and getting the money.

"If they want to keep a policy that's different from the federal policy, don't accept the grant," Readler said.

In July, Sessions added two more requirements for cities wishing to receive law enforcement grants: When requested by officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, cities must give agents two days' notice before releasing undocumented inmates from custody. In addition, they must allow ICE agents to enter any detention facility to question immigrants about their right to be or stay in the United States.

Readler contended that ICE was not getting all the information it needed from Philadelphia.

City officials testified that both they and ICE authorities have access to the same law enforcement databases  and that local police are not agents of the U.S. government.

They testified that it is impossible for them to provide advance notice of an inmate's release, because those dates are unknown. The vast majority of prisoners in city jails haven't been convicted of anything  they're awaiting trial, and could be released at any time by posting bail or by judicial order.

Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and California also have gone to court over the new grant restrictions.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivers remarks about defending national security, at the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York on Thursday. Read more

WASHINGTON  Senate Democrats have demanded an explanation from Attorney General Jeff Sessions over why he did not disclose a March 2016 gathering with then-candidate Donald Trump and members of his campaign team at which an adviser offered to set up a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Sessions' participation in the gathering was detailed in court documents released Monday by special counsel Robert Mueller. The adviser who offered to set up the meeting was George Papadopoulos, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, according to the documents.

Sessions had not previously disclosed the meeting, despite being asked over multiple appearances on Capitol Hill whether he or anyone on the campaign ever discussed meeting with Russians.

"This is another example in an alarming pattern in which you, the nation's top law enforcement officer, apparently failed to tell the truth, under oath, about the Trump team's contacts with agents of Russia," Senate Judiciary Committee member Al Franken (D., Minn.) wrote Thursday in a letter to Sessions.

Senate Republicans have not rushed to Sessions' defense but were less ruffled about his participation in the Papadopoulos meeting.

"If anybody's got any concerns about his meeting, write him a letter and see what he says," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said.

A Sessions spokeswoman declined to comment this week on the March 31 meeting with Trump and campaign advisers, including Papadopoulos. But on Thursday, a person familiar with Sessions's recollections said that "people who remember the conversation" believed that Papadopoulos was proposing an idea of using his Russian contacts to try to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin, "which was immediately rejected by then-Senator Sessions."

"Papadopoulos was some 29-year old that nobody had ever heard of and who struck people in the room as someone who didn't have a lot of credibility," the person said. "As far as Sessions seemed to be concerned, when he shut down this idea of Papadopoulos engaging with Russia, that was the end of it and he moved the meeting along to other issues."

"The March 31 comments by this Papadopoulos person did not leave a lasting impression," the person said. "The attorney general immediately dismissed it and moved on."

The Washington Post also reported earlier this week that Papadopoulos sat next to Sessions during a dinner at the Capitol Hill Club for campaign advisers weeks before the Republican National Convention.

At the time of that article, a spokeswoman for Sessions declined to comment. But on Thursday, the person familiar with Sessions's recollections said, "the attorney general has no clear recollection of this person. He may have been at future Trump events that Sessions attended  including a dinner at the Capitol Hill Club with some members of the foreign policy committee over the summer  but Sessions doesn't recall any further interactions with him, including any phone calls or emails."

This is not the first time lawmakers have accused Sessions of withholding information from congressional testimony about interactions with or about Russians while working with the Trump campaign.

During his January confirmation hearing to become attorney general, Sessions told the Judiciary Committee that he had had no communication with Russian officials, only to have The Washington Post reveal in March that he had spoken twice with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak.

Following the Post report, Sessions recused himself from the Justice Department's Russia probes  an action that infuriated Trump.

Last month, Sessions told the same committee that he was not aware of any Trump surrogates having contacts with Russian officials. Democrats on the committee, including Franken, are now arguing that statement may have been false too.

"He needs to clarify his testimony before our committee," said Judiciary Committee member Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. "There were questions that elicited exactly the kind of information that the Papadopoulos plea agreement made."

"The attorney general needs to explain to our committee what are the obvious implications of his presence at that meeting, and how he can square that with his testimony to our committee," said Sen. Christopher Coons (D., Del.), another member of the Judiciary committee.

The person familiar with Sessions's interactions with Papadopoulos said Sessions had been "entirely truthful and consistent on this matter." He "he had no knowledge of any conversations by anyone connected to the Trump campaign with any Russian or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election in the United States."

Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is also looking into allegations of collusion and Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, also want a reckoning from Sessions.

"I think there are many more questions for Jeff Sessions," said Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.), a member of the panel. "He should be honest and disclose all truths, especially when he is under oath or testifying before the United States Congress."
Vice President Mike Pence thanks employees at the conclusion of his remarks at Correct Craft world headquarters in Orlando, Fla., on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017. Read more

WASHINGTON  Vice President Pence will headline one of Pennsylvania s biggest annual political gatherings this December, giving a speech (and raising money) at the state GOP's main event during the Pennsylvania Society weekend.

Pence will speak at the Commonwealth Club Luncheon at the pre-holiday gathering, where elected officials, political insiders and lobbyists of all stripes gather in New York City for drinking, schmoozing, and maneuvering.

Pence's appearance will come two years after President Trump headlined the same event  accepting an invitation that was controversial at the time and caused several big-name Republicans to skip the lunch. Now, the atmosphere is different, especially after Pennsylvania supported Trump in last year's election.

The speech will be in the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center on Dec. 1. Tickets cost $1,000 per person, or $5,000 for a VIP reception that includes a photo with Pence, according to an invitation.

The president has lavished Pennsylvania with attention. Pence is also coming to the Harrisburg area Saturday to push tax reform, heading to the same site that Trump visited for an October event. Trump's daughter, Ivanka, also talked taxes in Bucks County last month.
During the 2016 election, Jenna Abrams and Pamela Moore were popular online figures in right-wing circles. They never really existed. Read more

Jenna Abrams was a popular figure in right-wing social media circles. Boasting nearly 70,000 followers, Abrams was featured in numerous news articles during the 2016 election, spotlighted by outlets as varied as USA Today, the Washington Post, the BBC, and Yahoo! Sports. Her tweet about CNN airing porn during Anthony Bourdain's show (it didn't) was reported by numerous outlets.

But Abrams never existed.

According to information released by House Democrats earlier this week, Abrams was one of more than 2,750 fake Twitter accounts created by employees at the Internet Research Agency, a "troll farm" funded by the Russian government based in St. Petersburg. In addition to the Abrams account, several other popular conservative social media personalities  @LauraBaeley, SouthLoneStar, Ten_GOP  were all revealed to be troll accounts. All have been deactivated on Twitter.

According to the Daily Beast, the agency developed a following around the Abrams account by offering humorous, seemingly non-political takes on pop culture figures like Kim Kardashian. The agency also furnished the fake account, which dates back to 2014, with a personal website, a Gmail account and even a GoFundMe page.

Once the Abrams account began to develop a following, the tone of its tweets shifted from pokes and prods at celebrities to divisive views on hot topics like immigration and segregation.

"To those people, who hate the Confederate flag. Did you know that the flag and the war wasn't about slavery, it was all about money," the Abrams account wrote in April of 2016. The tweet quickly went viral, earning rebukes from historian Kevin Kruse and Al Letson, the host of the Center for Investigative Reporting's popular Reveal podcast.

Those rebukes only allowed Abrams initial message to spread even wider, which was the ultimate intention of Russia's propaganda campaign  to sow dissension and increase the racial divide among America's voting populace, revealing the world's only superpower as a country in decline.

"The tried and tested way of active measures is to use an adversary's existing weaknesses against himself, to drive wedges into pre-existing cracks," Thomas Rid, a professor of war studies at King's College London, told Politfact. "The more polarized a society, the more vulnerable it is. And America in 2016, of course, was highly polarized, with lots of cracks to drive wedges into, but not old wedges, improved high-tech wedges that allowed the Kremlin's operatives to attack their target faster, more reactively and at a far larger scale than ever before."

Pamela Moore, another popular online personality during the 2016 election who tweeted using the handle @Pamela_Moore13. was also created in the same Russian troll factory with the same basic mission  to sow division and heighten racial tension among Americans.

Unlike the Abrams account, which went out of its way to say it wasn't pro-Trump, nearly all of Moore's tweets leading up to the election appear to have crafted to support Trump's campaign. Among the account's most widely shared posts leading up to the election were tweets repeating lies and conspiracy theories about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and pushing themes of Trump's campaign, including this anti-refugee post that was shared more than 4,700 times.

Former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn followed both accounts. His son, Michael Flynn Jr., shared a tweet from the Abrams account just days before the election.

Flynn wasn't alone: Donald Trump Jr., Kellyanne Conway and Brad Parscale, Trump's campaign digital director, all retweeted fake Russian Twitter accounts in the month before the election. Vice President Mike Pence followed five different accounts tied to the Internet Research Agency, according to the Daily Beast.

Russia's disinformation campaign wasn't limited to just Twitter; the country utilized ads and fake accounts like the ones below on many different social media accounts, including Facebook and Instagram, information released by the House Intelligence Committee showed.
The statue of former Mayor Frank Rizzo in front of the Municipal Services Building will be relocated, according to the office of Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney. Read more

After months of protests and public arguments, Mayor Kenney's administration on Friday announced that it would move the bronze statue of former Mayor Frank L. Rizzo that has stood outside the Municipal Services Building for nearly two decades.

In a brief statement, Michael DiBerardinis, city managing director, didn't say where or when the statue would be relocated, but cast the emotionally and politically freighted decision as part of a planned remake of the surrounding Thomas Paine Plaza.

It was an anticlimactic moment considering the passions the Rizzo statue aroused during a summer of protests, forcing sometimes uncomfortable questions about which leaders of the past should be honored and which should not. Statues of heroes of the Confederacy were removed in city after city.

To his Philadelphia detractors, Rizzo oppressed black citizens as police commissioner in the 1960s and was elected mayor in the 1970s in part by appealing to the racial fears of white Philadelphians. To those who admired him, the activists demanding the statue's removal were maligning a good man who protected all people from crime.

"This decision comes at a time when we have begun the preliminary stages of planning to re-envision Paine Plaza as a new type of inviting and engaging public space," DiBerardinis' statement said. Similar efforts have been completed at Dilworth Park, on City Hall's western apron, and are underway at JFK Plaza  LOVE Park  just to the northwest.

Frank Rizzo Jr., a former City Council member, complained Friday that Kenney and his administration did not tell him or his 101-year-old mother of the decision before announcing it. Rizzo, who is chairman of a nonprofit that raises money for cleaning and maintenance of the statue, said they both learned the news from reporters.

Rizzo also suggested that the tone of the announcement makes clear the outcome of the process, even though the City Charter requires approval from the city's Art Commission for any change to the statue.

"People who support the monument probably won't even waste their time going [to an expected Art Commission hearing] based on the stacked deck," Rizzo said. "This is not a very professional process."

Ajeenah Amir, a spokeswoman for Kenney, blamed the failure to inform Rizzo on an "internal miscommunication."

Asked if he planned to resist the statue being moved, Rizzo brought up the 2019 election, when Kenney will seek a second term.

"I've been around politics all my life," Rizzo said. "I don't think there's a reason to raise an objection, other than [to note] the supporters of Frank Rizzo remember this on Election Day."

Once news of the city's decision circulated, some reacted with intense emotion. The Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler, an activist pastor in Philadelphia, compared the bronze Rizzo to a Confederate flag.

"This statue is a representation to black people of terror," he said.

The 2,000-pound, 10-foot-tall statue of Rizzo, who rose through the Police Department and served as mayor from 1972 to 1980, was erected on Jan. 1, 1999. Rizzo, who changed from Democrat to Republican, was campaigning to return as mayor when he died in 1991. The sculptor said he believes the statue it shouldn't be moved.

City Councilwoman Helen Gym sparked a conversation about the statue with a tweet in August, calling for its removal after white supremacists and neo-Nazis clashed with counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va., over the planned removal of a statute of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Gym praised Friday's announcement, saying Rizzo "tells us a lot about who Philadelphia was, and now our public spaces tell a different story about who we aspire to be and what our future holds for us."

"Relocating the statue is not and has never been about erasing history," she said in a statement. "It's about acknowledging how complex and complicated our history is, and being thoughtful and deliberate about what images we uphold in our public spaces."

DiBerardinis said the responses to a city website seeking advice on the statue helped officials find potential new sites. He said the next step will be feasibility studies for those locations, followed by a proposal submitted to the Art Commission, which will take at least six months.

Amir refused to identify the locations. "We're exploring multiple options for a new site," she said in an email, "though we would certainly engage with the surrounding community before deciding to locate the statue there."

The City Charter gives the Art Commission the final say.

The nine-member commission, according to the charter, must include a painter, a sculptor, an architect, a landscape architect, a member of the Parks and Recreation Commission, an experienced business executive, and two faculty or governing board members from schools of art or architecture.

Chairman Alan Greenberger, a professor at Drexel University who served as a deputy mayor during Michael A. Nutter's two terms, said Friday the commission will hold at least one public hearing on that proposal and possibly more, depending on how many people hope to testify. He also emphasized that Friday's announcement was just the beginning of the process.

"They haven't really declared a result in a formal sense," Greenberger said. "They've declared an intention to make a proposal."

Staff writer Andrew Seidman contributed to this article.

A previous version of this story misspelled the name of the Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions was greeted by protesters when he came to Philadelphia this summer. Read more

During a court hearing over Philadelphia's conduct as a sanctuary city, Justice Department lawyer Arjun Garg rarely veered from applying a two-word label to the people at the heart of the case  "illegal aliens."

Philadelphia City Solicitor Sozi Tulante, standing six feet away in the same federal courtroom, never uttered those words.

"If you're here without documents, you hear all that comes with it," he said. "We're very intentional about how we refer to people."

Tulante leads the city's fight against the Trump administration's effort to withhold law-enforcement grant money from sanctuary cities. In court, he spoke of "residents" and "citizens" who might not have the necessary papers to be in this country.

These days, the terminology around immigrants  undocumented, illegal, unauthorized, unlawful, alien  has become as divisive as immigration itself. There's little consensus on what to call a populace estimated at more than 11 million. Different people and groups use different terms, and accuse each other of deliberately choosing words that are too soft or too harsh.

"The language itself becomes part of the argument, part of the battle," said David Spener, author of Clandestine Crossings: Migrants and Coyotes on the Texas-Mexico Border, and chair of the sociology and anthropology department at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

Spener prefers "migrants" because it implies long-term travel in different directions, including circles, as opposed to the straight, one-way trip indicated by "immigrants."

He has considered "autonomous migrants," people who move without government permission because they're focused on their families' needs, and "unprotected migrants," since the lack of official approval can put them at the mercy of traffickers.

The debate has sharpened during the last two years, largely driven by Donald Trump, who as a candidate and as president has described border-crossers as "illegals" and "illegal aliens" who foment "illegal immigration" to the United States.

"You know the illegals," Trump told a conference of police chiefs in February. "You know them by their first name. You know them by their nicknames. You're in the neighborhoods. You know the bad ones, you know the good ones. I want you to turn in the bad ones."

The city sued Attorney General Jeff Sessions in August over the administration's plan to withhold money from sanctuary cities, which limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

Last week, outside U.S. District Court in Center City where the case was being heard, Justice Department attorney Garg declined to say why he chose "illegal aliens" as the correct term. But some conservative thinkers argue that phrase is exactly accurate, used in legal opinions and in reports by the Department of Homeland Security.

"The correct term is 'illegal alien,' " Hans von Spakovsky wrote in the conservative magazine National Review. "The politically correct term 'undocumented immigrant'  is a made-up term used by progressive groups and media sources to extinguish the line between legal immigrants and illegal aliens."

For others, the phrase provokes a visceral reaction.

"I'm a human being," said Maria Sotomayor, who immigrated from Ecuador and is now deputy director of the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition, an advocacy group. "A human being is not a crime."

Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel famously said that no human can be illegal. Pope Francis refers to "migrants" and "refugees" and "our brothers and sisters." And last year, the Library of Congress dropped "illegal alien" from its subject headings  angering conservative lawmakers who claimed the library had bowed to liberal pressure.

There's been a push to uncouple "illegal" from immigration by groups like Race Forward, which runs a campaign called "Drop the I-Word." They argue that "illegal" is never applied to white immigrants, that it encourages hate crimes, and lacks legal and journalistic accuracy.

"It's dehumanizing," said Jasmine Rivera, a Philadelphia activist and the daughter of Mexican immigrants. "Folks are always afraid of 'the other,' and by using language to place a name on who is 'the other,' you stop looking at people as human beings."

Being in the United States without authorization is a civil violation, not a criminal offense.

Kevin Fandl, a former counsel to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, points out that drug dealers and other criminals are never identified as "illegals."

The Temple University legal-studies scholar prefers "unlawful immigrants," to mean people who are present without legal authority. The word "undocumented" is imperfect, Fandl said, because many people have documents, just not the correct ones.

The Associated Press eliminated "illegal immigrant" from its reports in 2013, saying "illegal" should describe an action, not a person. The Inquirer stylebook says no to the use of "aliens" and strongly discourages the term "illegal immigrant."

Never, the stylebook warns reporters and editors, use "unauthorized immigrant"  the phrase chosen as accurate by the Pew Research Center in a revealing 2017 study on immigration. The center estimated the U.S. is home to 11.3 million undocumented immigrants, about half of them Mexican.

"Words are laden always with connotations," said Spener, the Trinity University sociologist. "To be an 'illegal immigrant' or 'illegal alien' is not about having committed an illegal act  it's a status.  You cross the border, but the border envelops you even in U.S. territory."
Heading back down to valley after the first ski descent of the South Face of Malte Brun (Enrico Mosetti, Ben Briggs, Tom Grant 11/2017) Photo by Enrico Mosetti

The Zig Zag route on the South Face of Malte Brun (3198 m), New Zealand, skied for the first time by Enrico Mosetti, Ben Briggs, Tom Grant in November 2017 Photo by Tom Grant

Malte Brun in New Zealand, first ski descent of South Face

03.11.2017 by by Planetmountain

Italys Enrico Mosetti and Britains Ben Briggs and Tom Grant have made the first ski descent of the South Face of Mt. Malte Brun, describing the run as 'probably the most technical ski descent in New Zealand.

A few days after the outrageous first ski descent of the fearsome Caroline Face, i.e. the difficult and dangerous SE Face Aoraki / Mt Cook (3724 m) in New Zealand, Italian alpinist Enrico Mosetti and his British counterparts Ben Briggs and Tom Grant have come up trumps once again.

Following their first raid Mosetti told planetmountain.com that they were heading straight back up into the mountains to make the most of good conditions, and now its clear that the trio have scored another major first descent in the National Park, namely down the South Face of Malte Brun, the 8th highest mountain in the country.

After Fridays achievement Mosetti, Briggs and Grant headed across to the other side of the Tasman Glacier and ascended the complex 3198 peak. The descent was carried out down the Malte route, established in 1981 by Nigel Perry and Richard Mortenson also referred to as the Zig Zag route as it winds its way along the righthand side of the South Face. One abseil was needed down the 600m line, graded 5.4 E4, which, in Mosettis words, equates to 'probably the most technical ski descent in New Zealand.

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VIDEO: Boy on Mission to Buy Every Officer a Donut Visits Maricopa County Sheriff's Office

Tyler Carach, 9, is on a mission to buy every law enforcement officer a donut and earlier this week he visited the Maricopa County (AZ) Sheriff's Office (MCSO).

Carach, who has appeared on the "Steve Harvey Show" to promote his "I DONUT need a reason to thank a cop" campaign was in Arizona on a road trip that is scheduled to take him to 10 states in 10 days.

During his visit at the MCSO Training Center, he shot paintball guns with the training staff, led recruits in pushups, met with the SWAT team, watched a K-9 demonstration, was presented a badge by Sheriff Paul Penzone, and treated the MCSO personnel to donuts and coffee. Officers from the Phoenix Police Department also came to the training center to meet Carach and partake of the donuts and coffee.

Carach lives in Florida.
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A new report raises more even more questions about Russian links to the Trump campaign during last years election, with CNN indicating that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was aware of a Trump aides trip to Russia.

According to the report, Carter Page had informed Sessions during the 2016 campaign season that he was making a trip to Russia.

More from CNN:

Former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page privately testified Thursday that he mentioned to Jeff Sessions he was traveling to Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign  as new questions emerge about the attorney generals comments to Congress about Russia and the Trump campaign. During more than six hours of closed-door testimony, Page said that he informed Sessions about his coming July 2016 trip to Russia, which Page told CNN was unconnected to his campaign role. Page described the conversation to CNN after he finished talking to the House intelligence committee. Sessions discussion with Page will fuel further scrutiny about what the attorney general knew about connections between the Trump campaign and Russia  and communications about Russia that he did not disclose despite a persistent line of questioning in three separate hearings this year.

This new revelation comes after months of repeated claims by the attorney general that he was largely in the dark about the Trump teams many contacts with Russia during the campaign. Those claims, of course, turned out to be completely false as Sessions and others had repeatedly communicated with Russia last year without disclosing it.

As The New York Times reported a short time ago, court documents unsealed this week after three Trump associates were charged only confirms these lies:

Standing before reporters in February, President Trump said unequivocally that he knew of nobody from his campaign who was in contact with Russians during the election. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has told the Senate the same thing. Court documents unsealed this week cast doubt on both statements and raised the possibility that Mr. Sessions could be called back to Congress for further questioning.

The indictments of three Trump campaign associates marked a significant escalation in Robert Muellers ongoing investigation into the presidents ties to Russia. With Sessions now on the hot seat, the probe is set to reach even higher into the presidents inner circle.

Jeff Sessions didnt just meet with the Russians himself during last years campaign, but he was informed about similar contacts made by others in the campaign, despite again claiming otherwise.

The longer this investigation goes on, the more the American people are learning that nothing this administration says, particularly when it comes to Russia, can be trusted.
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By Jonathan Landay and Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters)  Senate Democrats on Thursday demanded that Attorney General Jeff Sessions be recalled to testify on the Trump campaigns Russia contacts following the disclosure of an effort to set up a meeting for then-Republican candidate Donald Trump with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Judiciary Committee Democrats want to question Sessions, who served as the Trump campaigns chief foreign policy adviser, about his denials of knowing anything about contacts between the campaign and Russians.

Sessions needs to come back before the committee, in person, under oath, to explain why he cannot seem to provide truthful, complete answers, Senator Patrick Leahy, the panels senior Democrat, said in a statement.

A spokesman for another committee Democrat, Al Franken, told Reuters that Franken would totally agree with that request. Attorney General Sessions should explain himself about the multiple things he said in committee that seem to contradict themselves.

Franken sent a letter to Sessions on Thursday accusing the attorney general of failing to tell the truth about the Trump campaigns contacts with Russians.

This is another example in an alarming pattern in which you, the nations top law enforcement officer, apparently failed to tell the truth under oath, Franken wrote in the eight-page letter demanding answers to more than 30 questions.

Sessions testified about Russian contacts before the Senate Judiciary Committee in October and the Senate Intelligence Committee in June.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Cynthia Osterman)
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Donald Trump appears to have just discovered that he isnt a dictator and doesnt have complete control of the FBI and Justice Department.

According to a new report from The Hill, the president said he is frustrated that he isnt supposed to be involved in overseeing any potential investigation into his former opponent, Hillary Clinton.

The saddest thing, is because Im the president of the United States, Im not supposed to be involved in the Justice Department, Trump said in an interview, apparently just discovering that his position does have limits. I am not supposed to be involved in the FBI. Im not supposed to be doing the kinds of things I would love to be doing and Im very frustrated by it.

Though Trump is correct that he is not supposed to be involved in the FBIs work, he seemed to have forgotten that earlier this year when he admitted that he fired former FBI director James Comey because of the Russia investigation.

But in this rare moment of truth-telling from Trump, he essentially admitted that he wishes he could use the full weight of the FBI and Department of Justice to go after his political opponents, regardless of the fact that there is no merit to the slew of allegations the right-wing has thrown at Clinton. This is a stunning and dangerous admission from a President of the United States.

Meanwhile, in the reality-based world, there is a legitimate and increasingly damning investigation circling the White House in relation to the presidents ties to Russia during last years election. Three Trump officials have already been charged and more are likely to come.

If there is any investigation Trump should be worried about, its the one that is pushing his administration closer to complete collapse  not the phony one he wishes he could wage against Hillary Clinton.
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By Ian Simpson

WASHINGTON (Reuters)  U.S. congressional Democrats filed suit on Thursday seeking the release of government documents related to Republican President Donald Trumps ownership of a Washington hotel that critics say represents a conflict of interest.

In the lawsuit, Democrats on the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee said the General Services Administration (GSA), the governments property arm, illegally withheld documents about the Trump International Hotel.

The 14-page suit marks the latest legal skirmish over the luxury hotel a few blocks from the White House, which has become a rallying point for anti-Trump protesters. Critics say the hotel violates government rules barring elected officials from taking part in a lease of federal property.

Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the committees ranking Democrat, said the GSA had ignored federal law by refusing to provide documents about the hotels operation, foreign payments to the hotel or the legal reasoning that Trump could be a party to the lease.

We have no transparency  no ability to check for ongoing conflicts of interest or unconstitutional foreign payments, Cummings said in a statement.

The suit filed in U.S. District Court names acting General Services Administrator Timothy Horne as defendant. Pam Dixon, a spokeswoman for the agency, said it would not comment on pending litigation.

Cummings and other critics have argued that the hotel housed in the governments historic Old Post Office represented a conflict of interest because Trump is both landlord and tenant of the building. A GSA contracting officer said in March that the hotel was not in violation of federal conflict-of-interest rules.

Thursdays lawsuit said the GSA rebuffed three requests from committee Democrats for information about the hotel since Trump took office in January. The requests included ones filed under a law which mandates that a federal agency turn over information requested by at least seven members of the committee.

Under the same law, the GSA had produced documents about the Trump International Hotel while Democrat Barack Obama was president, the suit said.

Trump is facing numerous lawsuits targeting his alleged failure to distance himself from his business empire while in office. The president ceded day-to-day control of his businesses to his sons, Eric and Donald Jr., in a move he said would steer clear of conflicts of interest.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Andrew Hay)
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By Emily Flitter

NEW YORK (Reuters)  The Sierra Club and five other U.S. environmental groups sued a White House advisory council and the U.S. Interior Department, saying they were illegally withholding information about a review of public land designations, according to court papers.

In the lawsuit filed on Thursday, the groups asked the court to compel the Interior Department and the White House Council on Environmental Quality to provide documents on the departments review of a group of national monuments, where industrial activities like mining and oil drilling are prohibited.

Interior put more than a dozen monuments under review earlier this year. Several news outlets reported the department had determined which of those it would shrink, but it has not released a formal report.

U.S. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, pledged last week to reduce the size of two monuments in Utah, according to U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch.

Interior Department and White House officials referred questions about the lawsuit to the U.S. Justice Department. A Justice Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The environmental groups, which also include the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Wilderness Society, said Interior and the White House council were not meeting appropriate deadlines under the Freedom of Information Act. That law requires government agencies to release their documents to the public upon request and lays out a timeline for doing so.

By failing to provide the requested records, Defendants are actively impeding Plaintiffs access to government information and blocking Plaintiffs ability to carry out their organizational missions, the lawsuit said.

(Reporting by Emily Flitter; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
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Republicans are considering adding repealing the individual mandate to their tax cuts for the rich bill, which means that not only would your taxes go up but 15 million people would lose their health insurance.

Politico reported:

Conservatives are attempting to revive efforts to gut Obamacares individual mandate as part of the Republican overhaul of the tax code. But the Houses top tax writer, while leaving the door open to a measure President Donald Trump supports, said Friday that such a move would complicate the tax packages prospects, particularly in the Senate.

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The president feels very strongly about including this at some step before the final process, House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady said of mandate repeal during a POLITICO Playbook interview. No decisions have been made.

Of course, Trump wants to do this. Its the kind of idiotic move that would kill the Republican tax cut bill. After losing so many times while trying to repeal Obamacare, one might think that Trump would eventually get the hint. If they mess with Obamacare in the tax bill, the whole plan will crash and burn.

The tax cut bill has turned into a sum of all Republican evils piece of legislation. Not content with cutting taxes on the rich while everyone else gets nothing or tax increase, the GOP also wants to take health care away from 15 million people.

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When Trump was asked if he would fire his Attorney General if he wouldnt investigate Hillary Clinton and Democrats, the President gave an answer that made it clear that Jeff Sessions better investigate Clinton or else.

Video:

When asked if he would fire Sessions if he doesnt investigate Clinton and the Democrats, Trump said, I dont know.

He added, A lot of people are disappointed in the Justice Department, including me.

The Presidents answer made it clear. If Sessions doesnt investigate Clinton, he will be fired. Getting rid of Sessions for not investigating Hillary Clinton, would also open the door for Trump to appoint a new attorney general who could fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The endgame for Trump isnt about investigating Democrats. The President is trying to kill the Russia investigation.

Trump is meddling in the DOJ in a way that hasnt been seen since Richard Nixon. Trump is trying to save his dying presidency, and if firing Jeff Sessions would give him the pretense he needs to also fire the Special Counsel, the odds are good that Donald Trump will invent a reason to fire Jeff Sessions.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters)  Three Republican U.S. lawmakers called on Friday for Robert Mueller to resign as special counsel investigating Russia and the 2016 U.S. election, the latest in a series of conservatives criticisms of the FBI and Justice Department during the probe of how Moscow may have influenced the campaign.

Representatives Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs and Louis Gohmert accused Mueller of a conflict of interest because he was director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation when former President Barack Obamas administration approved an agreement allowing a Russian company to buy a Canadian company that owned 20 percent of U.S. uranium supplies.

President Donald Trumps fellow Republicans have been calling for an investigation into the Uranium One deal, amid news of Muellers first indictments of Trump associates as the special counsel investigates allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow.

Moscow denies any effort to influence the election, and Trump has dismissed the investigation as a witch hunt.

On Monday, the day the indictments became public, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said a special counsel should be appointed to investigate Democrats over the uranium deal.

Another group of Republican lawmakers, including House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte launched an investigation last week to examine issues including the role of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trumps 2016 opponent, in the uranium deal.

Democrats have dismissed the Republicans activities as a partisan effort to distract from Muellers probe and from efforts to ensure that a foreign government, Moscow, does not influence future U.S. elections.

Gaetz, Biggs and Gohmert are all members of the House Judiciary Committee, which has oversight over the FBI and Department of Justice.

Gaetz has called for investigations of issues related to Clinton previously, including accusing former FBI Director James Comey of colluding with Mueller on the FBIs investigation of Clintons emails.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Alistair Bell)
Paul Bowers is an education reporter and father of three living in North Charleston. He previously worked at the Charleston City Paper, where he was twice named South Carolina Journalist of the Year in the weekly category.
The owners of The Venue at Falls Park in Greenville are expanding their footprint with another upscale events venue in the space formerly occupied by Pour Taproom. Read moreFormer Pour Taproom in downtown Greenville to become an events venue
One person is dead after a crash this morning west of Rochester, authorities said.

Deputies responded at 11:23 a.m. to the 4900 block of Country Club Road West in Cascade Township, according to a news release from the Olmsted County Sheriff's Office.

They found the driver dead at the scene. Officials believe they've identified the victim, and are working on family notifications.

The Rochester/Olmsted County Forensic Mapping Unit is assisting with the investigation.

More information about the incident will be released Thursday morning, the release says.
Leadership training and public speaking are things that most people avoid. But members of Toastmasters, a nonprofit organization that focuses on public speaking and leadership, choose to spend their time practicing their communication skills.

If you start to hear some extra chatter in the air today, it's likely because Toastmasters from Minnesota and Ontario will be arriving here for their District 6 fall conference.

Ahead of today's events, we caught up with Toastmaster International President Balraj Arunasalam about public speaking, reducing nerves, and the "pen drop technique."

How did you begin speaking at Toastmasters meetings?

I did not want to speak and I was a very shy speaker, and I joined a club that was a very elite club. I thought, "I will just not speak in this club at all. I'll just go, have fun, and listen to speakers." I was only able to do that for about three or four months, until the president at that time identified (me). So, I started breaking my ice.

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How can someone get involved in Toastmasters?

Toastmasters is a worldwide organization based in California at the moment, moving to Denver, Colo. We are the world leaders in communication and leadership training. And we are in 141 countries, in 16,500 clubs, with a membership of over 352,000. So you can always find a club near your place and join.

How can someone become more comfortable with public speaking?

You know, I am not talking about only public speaking. There are thousands and thousands  probably millions in the world  who go to their board meetings and company meetings and other areas, and they don't speak up, even in a small group. My recommendation is to join (Toastmasters), watch people speaking. If you go to about five, six meetings and absorb the norms of speaking, the aspects of speaking, and listen to those evaluations, you will build your confidence to do that.

Do you have any specific tips for nervous speakers?

One: Where does stress hit you? Or even otherwise in life, where does stress hit us the most? In which part of the body?

Is it your heart?

The first part of the body that pains us is the shoulder-blade. And you relax that shoulder-blade and do some rotations clockwise, anti-clockwise, and release that. Just behind your neck where the spine begins  is where you feel anxiety. And that blocks your vocal cord. So there you lose the confidence for speaking. So if you release them, then you will feel the immense power building up in you.

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Two: You must remember to take deep breaths. Sometimes people forget the techniques and the norms of breathing. They will not deep-breathe, they will do just the opposite. They don't absorb enough oxygen to buoy them up so they can speak.

And then, if you're next to speak, always you have butterflies in your stomach. That's the time when you really need to calm down. And there's an exercise that I do, that I teach also, is to drop your pen. When you bend yourself and your head is looking down at the ground, your oxygen supply and your blood supply to your brain increases. And when you slowly get up, you will see yourself differently so that you are able to speak, and say, "I can do this. I can do this."

-----

Learn more

For more information on the 2017 Fall Conference for the District 6 Toastmasters, go to https://www.d6tm.org/2017-fall-conference/ .
One of the most popular fire extinguishers for homes, small businesses and personal recreation is the subject of a safety recall.

The Rochester Fire Department has been informed by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission that Kidde brand extinguishers should be checked.

While there have only been about 390 reports of failures, the recall covers nearly 40 million extinguishers. The recall was issued after reports of extinguishers not working at a fire and the nozzle forcefully separating from the extinguisher to create an impact hazard.

There is no outward indication that the extinguisher won't work when needed among the failed extinguishers.

There has been one death associated with the reported failure of the extinguisher to operate when used to put out a car fire, the release says.

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Rochester Fire recommends that people check to see if their fire extinguishers:

 Have a plastic handle

 Are made by Kidde. It's important to note that the maker of the extinguisher will indicate Kidde, but in some cases, the brand name may be something different than Kidde, such as Sears, Ademco, Montgomery Ward, etc.

If you think yours qualifies, go the website https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2018/Kidde-Recalls-Fire-Extinguishers-with-Plastic%20Handles-Due-to-Failure-to-Discharge-and-Nozzle-Detachment-One-Death-Reported to determine if the extinguisher falls within the model numbers and dates of manufacture contained within the recall.

There are further instructions on the website indicating what to do next if you have one of the recalled models.

Your local retailer cannot help you with this recall.

Contact Kidde at its website  www.kidde.com  and click on Product Safety Recall , or call 855-271-0773 for return and replacement information.
ST. PAUL  The Goodhue County Republican Party of Minnesota has been fined $1,000 by a state campaign finance board for illegally accepting an earmarked contribution.

At issue is $1,000 given to the party by Sen. David Osmek, R-Mound, to support efforts to get Red Wing Republican Mike Goggin elected to the Senate. Shortly after getting the check, the Goodhue County Republicans gave it to Goggin's election campaign, according to Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board documents.

In an interview, Goodhue County Republican Party of Minnesota Chairman Merle Larson took responsibility for the error.

"It was pure ignorance on my part. I did not know the rules on earmarking and so this is what happened," Larson said.

During an investigation, the board found that on Aug. 25, 2016, Osmek called Goggin to tell him he wanted to make a contribution to a local party unit to help defeat the Red Wing Republican's rival  DFL Sen. Matt Schmit. Goggin talked to Larson about the donation. Goggin then called Osmek and suggested he send the check to Larson. A $1,000 check from the David Osmek Volunteer Committee made out to the Goodhue County Republican Party of Minnesota was sent to Larson's home.

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After receiving the contribution, Larson sent an email to the party's treasurer telling him that the contribution came "with the expressed request that this donation be sent to the Mike Goggin for Senate Committee." The check was deposited on Aug. 30, 2016 and party's treasurer issued a check to the Goggin committee in the same amount two days later. The memo on the check said, "BEAT MATT SCHMIT!"

Larson said it was that memo on the check that made him believe the money was to be directed to Goggin and that no one explicitly told him to do it.

The Goggin campaign later returned $625 of the contribution out of concern the campaign had already received the maximum amount of money allowed from the local party. The party then sent that money back to Osmek's campaign.

The board found that, "the record establishes by a preponderance of evidence that the Goodhue RPM accepted the Osmek committee's contribution with the condition that it was used to defeat Goggin's opponent, and, thus, to help get Goggin elected." The board concluded that violated the state's ban on accepting earmarked contributions. However, the board determined there was insufficient evidence that the individuals involved were intentionally seeking to circumvent state law.

"Osmek's testimony was clear that he did not intend or expect to exert any control over the means by which the party unit used the money to influence the Goggin-Schmit election," a board report says.

Goggin went on to win the November 2016 election, defeating Schmit. Osmek is currently running for governor. He declined to comment.

The board ordered that the local party return the remaining $375 received from the Osmek committee. It must also pay a civil penalty of $1,000 within 60 days.

"It was unfortunate, and I feel terrible about it, but we'll pay the fine and move on," Larson said.
Today Politico published an excerpt from Donna Braziles forthcoming book titled Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House. Brazile, in case you have forgotten, is the long-time Democratic Party operative who replaced Debbie Wasserman-Schultz as Chair of the Democratic National Committee. In the Politico excerpt, Brazile throws Wasserman-Schultz and numerous others under the bus.

Brazile says that the Democratic Party was in terrible financial condition. In order to save itself, it sold its soul to the Clinton operation, prior to when Hillary became the partys presidential nominee:

President Barack Obamas neglect had left the party in significant debt.

***

The Saturday morning after the convention in July, I called Gary Gensler, the chief financial officer of Hillarys campaign. He wasted no words. He told me the Democratic Party was broke and $2 million in debt.

***

Officials from Hillarys campaign had taken a look at the DNCs books. Obama left the party $24 million in debt$15 million in bank debt and more than $8 million owed to vendors after the 2012 campaignand had been paying that off very slowly.

So Hillarys campaign paid off the debt and placed the [Democratic] party on an allowance. Brazile said she had no knowledge of these arrangementsor even of the partys perilous financial conditioneven though she was an officer of the DNC. It was all Debbies fault.

Brazile endorses Politicos assertion, made in May of last year, that Clintons arrangement with the DNC was essentiallymoney laundering. Which seems like a rather dangerous concession for a former DNC chair to make.

The campaign had the DNC on life support, giving it money every month to meet its basic expenses, while the campaign was using the party as a fund-raising clearinghouse. Under FEC law, an individual can contribute a maximum of $2,700 directly to a presidential campaign. But the limits are much higher for contributions to state parties and a partys national committee. Individuals who had maxed out their $2,700 contribution limit to the campaign could write an additional check for $353,400 to the Hillary Victory Fundthat figure represented $10,000 to each of the 32 states parties who were part of the Victory Fund agreement$320,000and $33,400 to the DNC. The money would be deposited in the states first, and transferred to the DNC shortly after that. Money in the battleground states usually stayed in that state, but all the other states funneled that money directly to the DNC, which quickly transferred the money to Brooklyn.

Brazile eventually learned that this arrangement, and more, had been put in writing via an agreement between the DNC and the Clinton campaign that was executed long before Hillary won the nomination:

When I got back from a vacation in Marthas Vineyard, I at last found the document that described it all: the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America. The agreementsigned by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook with a copy to Marc Eliasspecified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the partys finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings. I had been wondering why it was that I couldnt write a press release without passing it by Brooklyn. Well, here was the answer.

So Brazile sadly told Bernie Sanders that what had been leaked was true: the DNC had rigged the nomination process to ensure Hillarys victory.

Brazile says, in the Politico excerpt, that the Clinton campaigns money laundering arrangement with the Democratic Party was not illegal, but I have no idea whether that assertion is true or not. (Nor does Brazile, I suspect.) Ann Althouse has her doubts:

Id like a neutral outsider, a respected prosecutor, to investigate whether this was criminal. Im not accepting Braziles self-interested assertion. It was bad, really bad, she keeps saying, but  magically  it was not criminal. My impression of campaign finance law  and Im not an expert  is that many things that dont even seem wrong have been criminalized. Brazile has it the other way around.

I agree. I think this is grist for a third special counsel: the second, as I have said before, should look into Uranium One, the FBIs apparent complicity in the cover-up of Uranium One, and collusion between the Clinton campaign and Russians. The third special counsel should investigate whether the Clinton campaign and the DNC violated campaign finance laws or other statutes through their money laundering agreement. I note that Marc Elias is a figure who keeps cropping up in these scandals. The second and third special counsels should pay particular attention to him.

One last comment: my opinion of Barack Obama is very low, but one thing I have always given him credit for is a phenomenal ability to raise money. I am surprised to learn that he is being blamedby Ms. Brazile, at leastfor leaving the Democratic Party in disastrous financial (as opposed to electoral) condition.
Its nothing new, obviously, but yesterdays press briefing by Sarah Sanders illustrated once again the White House press corpss bizarrely anti-Trump animus. Sanders began the press briefing by talking about the Islamic terrorism in New York that occurred the day before. Most Americans would say that Sayfullo Saipovs attack is evidence in favor of President Trumps immigration policies.

The White House press corps obviously does not agree. These are the questions that Sanders fielded on Saipovs ISIS-inspired mass murder, quoted verbatim from the transcript of the briefing:

Q Sarah, in the hours  and, in fact, the days  after the horrific shooting in Las Vegas, the President repeatedly said now is not the time to talk about policy, now is not the time to talk about politics, and thats for another time; right now we need to mourn the dead.

Yet, this morning, the President launched into a political argument with Senator Chuck Schumer on Twitter, literally hours after this incident yesterday. Why was he so quick to go the political route and point fingers at Chuck Schumer for the fact that this person was in the country at all?

***

Q We heard today, at about 11:30 this morning, from the mayor and the governor of New York, who had said at that time the President had yet to call. Has the President called his mayor, his governor? Hes a New Yorker.

***

Q Sarah, why wasnt Uzbekistan on the travel ban list?

***

Q Why isnt the President calling for Uzbekistan to be put on the list?

***

Q Thank you, Sarah. On Senator Schumer, can you tell us when is the last time he and the President spoke? And more broadly, the President is saying that he is responsible at least in part for this attack. Does the President still see him as someone 

***

Q Thanks a lot, Sarah. The President was asked a little bit earlier, when he was meeting with his Cabinet, about the possibility of sending this terror suspect to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And he said he is indeed open to that. Does the President believe he has the authority as Commander-in-Chief to send this terror suspect to Gitmo? Thats my first question.

And my second question is about Gitmo. What advantages does the President see in sending this terror suspect to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba?

***

Q Thanks, Sarah. The President said last night that hed ordered DHS to step up our already extreme vetting. Im wondering if you could tell us a little bit specifically about what extreme vetting entails, and if theres any indication that it might have had an impact on preventing yesterdays attack.

***

Q Sarah, separate from the Guantanamo Bay question, does the President believe this suspect should be classified as an enemy combatant?

***

Q Have you determined that  you said youre open to the enemy combatant thing. You think he is an enemy 

***

Q Does the green card status in any way influence that determination?

***

Q Sarah, I want to follow up on the question Jon was asking you earlier. Youre making the case that these are not new policies hes talking about, and yet the question still remains, he is delving into a policy and political discussion. And he and you were very clear after the Las Vegas shooting that it wasnt appropriate to talk about policy. So whats the difference now?

***

Q But, Sarah, the President invoked Chuck Schumers name. So how can you argue that its not a political argument that hes making?

***

Q Is he failing to unify the country at this point?

***

Q When hes talking about quicker, greater punishment, is he just talking about better enforcement of laws that currently exist, or is he talking about some sort of extrajudicial process? And are you looking at doing an executive order that would empower him? Would you make something like that public, or would you consider doing a secret order?

***

Q Sarah, John Miller, the Deputy New York City Police Commissioner, said the suspect committed the attack in the name of ISIS. Governor Cuomo said the suspect was associated with ISIS. How can the President make the case that we are annihilating ISIS when an attack like this occurs? Are his policies emboldening the remnants of ISIS?

***

Q Thank you, Sarah. A follow-up question on Jon Deckers question. The criterion that you listed for enhanced vetting sounds very much like that for a national I.D. card  a subject that comes up every few years in Congress but which has never been acted on. Is the administration in favor of a national I.D. card as part of the enhanced vetting?

***

Q Between the time the President sent the tweet out last night saying that hes called for a step-up of extreme vetting until now, can you lay out exactly what has been stepped up in that timeframe?

***

Q Sarah, the President talked about wanting merit-based immigration today and criticized the diversity visa program. Is he aware that the diversity visa program actually does have a merit-based component to it?

***

Q So the 350,000 people have come in since the Uzbek gentleman yesterday came in  350,000 people come into the country on this program. One of them now, apparently, has been accused of a terrorist act. One of the 350,000 create a problem then for that program?
Last week Jennifer Kerns called for an investigation into the placement of what Ive been calling the Trump Dossier into the hands of the Obama administration  the hands of John Brennan in particular. Kerns didnt quote the Gershwin brothers song, but she had the refrain: lets call the whole thing off. I drew on her Washington Examiner column in part 2 of this series.

Kerns now returns with more on the Brennan connection (her column is full of links that I havent inserted):

In the wake of recent revelations proving the now-debunked Trump dossier was crafted by Democratic opposition research firm Fusion GPS, paid for the Democratic National Committee and also funded by Hillary Clintons presidential campaign, many people still arent aware of precisely how a political document made it onto the radar of the intelligence community. To fully understand it, one must look no further than John Brennan  the man who voted for the Communist Party candidate in the presidential election of 1976, briefed in 2008 then-Senator Barack Obama for his presidential bid, and later went on to become President Barack Obamas director of the CIA. It was Brennan who first accepted Fusion GPS dossier at the CIA, and the Obama loyalist drove the FBI to investigate Trump as early as summer 2016. From Brennans desk the salacious document, which alluded to golden showers and other nefarious rumors, gained traction throughout the intelligence community like a dirty comic book being passed around a seventh-grade locker room.

Kerns poses a few questions for Brennan:

First, who gave Brennan the Fusion GPS dossier? Second, was he aware at the time that the information was political fodder paid for by the DNC, intended to damage the opposing partys candidate? Did he accept it on its face as serious intelligence material? Third, was Brennan aware that he may have been used as a tool of the DNC and Hillary Clintons campaign as the vehicle by which to get the document infused into the bloodstream of the intelligence community, where the now-debunked dossier would become the impetus for the Trump Russia investigation? Fourth, could Brennan have willingly placed the dossier into files in an attempt to undermine then-candidate Trump? Given that Brennan is no political neophyte, it seems reasonable to suggest that Brennan would have known the political ramifications of such a salacious dossier. Lastly, given Brennans previous intelligence nightmares, why on earth would anyone believe in the Fusion GPS dossier he passed along?

Ive got one more. I would like to know what Brennan himself thought of the authenticity of the (dis)information supposedly provided by Steeles official Russian sources.
I wrote here about the ABAs unfair attack on Steve Grasz, President Trumps nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The ABA rated Grasz not qualified based on what amounts to character assassination.

Republicans on the Judiciary Committee were not amused. Chairman Grassley stated:

This rating is very surprising to me and to many other Senators on the Committee. When I look at Mr. Graszs resume, it appears that hes eminently qualified to be a Circuit Court judge.

Sens. Deb Fischer and Ben Sasse, the Senators from Graszs home state, also weighed in. Fischer cut to the chase, declaring:

I am sad to say that after thoroughly examining the substance of the ABAs report, it is evident to me that the ABA evaluation of Mr. Grasz was a baseless political character assassination.

Sasse took to the Senate to castigate the ABA. He said: We should completely dispel with the fiction that the American Bar Association is a fair and impartial arbiter of facts. Based on Ed Whelans research, Sasse also documented the bias of the left-wing law professor who led the smear campaign against Grasz. Sasses speech is worth watching in full.

During his questioning of Grasz, Sen. Jeff Flake did a fine job of pulling back the curtain on the ABA interview process. In response to Flakes questions, Grasz testified that during his interview with the ABA interviewer, he was repeatedly asked about his substantive view on social issues, including abortion.

In addition, the interviewer kept using the words you people. When Grasz finally asked to whom the interviewer was referring, the response was conservatives and Republicans.

The interviewer also asked Grasz what kinds of schools his children attend school. They attend a Lutheran school. Why does that matter?

According to Grasz, the interviewer devoted considerable time to the candidates past criticism of the ABAs outsized role in Nebraska judicial nominations. One wonders whether the ABA held this criticism against him.

Flake stated:

[T]he ABAs long history of liberal, political activism makes it very hard to see how their process isnt biased.

Graszs testimony reinforces that view.

I think the ABA, by attacking Grasz, has lost what little was left of its credibility with regard to evaluating judicial nominees. The ABA very rarely gives a fully non qualified rating. As Ed Whelan has demonstrated, the record doesnt justify that rating. Why did the ABA use up its capital on an Eighth Circuit nominee whose resume screams qualified, at a minimum?

Some are speculating that Sen. Dianne Feinstein colluded with the ABA. Im told that her staff was furious with Chairman Grassleys staff for holding a June 28 hearing on two other nominees  Trevor McFadden and Tim Kelly (both district court selections)  before the ABA ratings were in. Feinstein has expressed her concern (both privately and publicly) that the Committee needs ABA ratings before a hearing. She is said still to be furious about the June 28 hearings.

Waiting for the ABAs rating to come in before holding a hearing enables Democratic Senators to use a low rating by that left-leaning outfit publicly to embarrass a nominee. Senate Dems certainly tried to accomplish that yesterday, to the delight of their allies in the left-wing media.

Waiting for the rating might also deter the Chairman from calling the witness. It may well be that Feinstein wanted a test case for a nominee rated fully non-qualified to see whether Grassley would call the witness. The ABA provided one.

If so, I think the strategy backfired. In two weeks, the Judiciary Committee will hear testimony from the ABA about its evaluation process. It has some explaining to do.

Whatever its explanation, GOP Senators are unlikely to take its ratings at all seriously going forward.
I put everything I had to offer on the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick/Geoffrey Ward documentary The Vietnam War into Notes on the Ken Burns version. I think the documentary seeks to fix the record in falsity. To take only one example, as I say in my Notes, Burns and his colleagues were apparently unable to find a soldier to recall his service in anything other than shades of disillusion, disgust and shame. Much more remains to be done on this deeply dishonest work to prevent it from becoming the received history of the war.

There is no one whose opinion on the Ken Burns version I wanted more than Yales Professor Charles Hill. Professor Hill is diplomat in residence and lecturer in International Studies at Yale as well as a research fellow of the Hoover Institution. Before he landed at Yale, however, Professor Hill had an incredibly distinguished career in the State Department. In the course of his career in the government he served in Saigon during the climactic period of the Vietnam War (1971-1973). Among the roles he served was that of mission coordinator in the United States Embassy. Molly Worthen covers Professor Hills work in Vietnam in chapter 6 of her precocious 2005 biography, The Man on Whom Nothing Was Lost: The Grand Strategy of Charles Hill.

Professor Hill watched the documentary with intense attention. I quoted from an email he sent me on the documentary in an earlier installment of this series. The Hoover Institution has now posted Professor Hills essay On The Vietnam War.' It opens:

History is written by the victors has been the wisdom of the ages, restated jocularly but truthfully by Winston Churchill about his story of the Second World War. Ken Burns and Lynn Novicks The Vietnam War fulfills this dictum once again, but with a unique twist. As Americans, they are among the losers, but their documentary exalts the winnersCommunist North Vietnam. At the same time, they themselves are on the winning side in the domestic American contest between the anti-Vietnam War movement and those who saw the war as necessary in the larger Cold War struggle.

In his reading of the Ken Burns version, Professor Hill takes special note of its use of the vets and the related motifs:

To ensure that the audience grasps the new story behind the old history of the war, the producers feature a variety of individuals who give their testimony of what happened in Vietnam. There are grizzled American veterans who reveal themselves as heroes-in-reverse, detailing how they began their service as proud patriots until, through bitter experience, they turned against the war. There are distinguished diplomats and foreign policy experts who point out the foolish mistakes and ignorant policies imposed by uncomprehending U.S. officials. And there are the journalists, like the war correspondent Neil Sheehan, whose timely interventions exposed the moral emptiness of the war. Taken together across the ten episodes, the voice of these witnesses play the role of the Greek Chorus in a classic tragedy, giving warnings of doleful consequences ahead. The veterans, as the producers use them, declare that American servicemen in Vietnam were scared: I was scared of them. I hated them. I was so scared. This becomes a series-long trope, repeatedly illustrated by silent images of Americans in or near combat, each face etched in fear. The diplomats and experts repeatedly denounce the ineluctable stupidity of American leaders. And the journalists emit expressions of woe!

Professor Hill draws out the current use to which Burns puts his version of the war:

The established narrative of the war, and the gloss on it provided by Burns-Novicks inner theme, is that the Vietnam War represented not only Hanois victory over the United States, but, more consequentially, the victory of all of the layers of social-political-cultural-personal revolution of the Sixties. To reaffirm the anti-war movement doctrinally is to lock in all the vast changes in the American character brought about by what the documentary sees as the truly greatest generation, the radicals of the 1960s. Thus the Burns-Novick film is as much, or more, about America in the twenty-first century as it is about the years between 1954 and 1975 in Southeast Asia. That was about a political-military conflict; it became and is now about a new phase of moral superiority.

Professor Hill has made an indispensable contribution to understanding the Ken Burns version. There is much more. All it makes for must reading. Take in the whole thing here.
At great personal cost, researcher has striven to provide Ethiopians with knowledge to improve their lives

For many Chinese, Africa is a continent that is not only far away, but also strange and wild. He Wang, however, has spent most of her time there for more than a decade and has just left her 92-year-old mother to travel there for the eighth time. Each of her visits to Africa has lasted more than 10 months.

While He was busy preparing her luggage for her latest visit, at home in Hunan's provincial capital of Changsha, her mother came to her constantly. It seemed that the older woman intended to say something - but she never opened her mouth.

"Last time when I was about to head for Africa, she sighed to me that she doubted if she would see me again the following year," says the researcher from the Hunan Institute of Aquaculture Research.

He, however, was determined to continue her unfinished task of helping Ethiopia develop aquaculture to contribute to the country's development.

Even during her stay of more than two months at home, she often stayed up until the middle of the night drafting the first-ever fish production textbook for Ethiopia. He, 53, says she has almost finished the draft and expects to use it in her teaching this year.

As well as the textbook, as ever, she took a lot of other things with her. She had four big suitcases this time, containing daily necessities, kitchenware, teaching aids and gifts for friends at Alage Agricultural Technical Vocational Education and Training College, where she works.

"Each time I leave, I take with me as many things as possible, since it is difficult to buy some items because of shortages there," she says.

When she is at the college, the nearest town for buying daily necessities is Bulbula, 50 kilometers away, while Addis Ababa, the capital, is an additional 190 km to the north. Vehicles are rare on the unpaved road from the college to Bulbula and always create a cloud of thick dust.

When He started teaching there in 2013, she was astonished to find she had to start from scratch, as there were no textbooks, teaching or experimental facilities available for her on the 4,200-hectare college campus. Students had to travel to a farm more than three hours away for practical experience.

With no machinery or experienced engineers, she spent four months building a 200-square-meter fish pond 1.5 meters deep with her students and colleagues. The project led to He being given the nickname "The Iron Lady".

A total of 13 fish ponds have now been built at the college. Students also have equipment including microscopes and pH test strips that she supplied.

Before "The Iron Lady" went to Alage, she had also worked at Holeta ATVET College. She arrived there for the first time in 2003. In 2009, she also went to Zimbabwe for a year to contribute her expertise.

Though Holeta is only 40 km away from Addis Ababa, life there was hard. Without phone service, it was difficult to get in touch with family and friends. The water supply was unreliable, and horse-drawn vehicles were needed for the journey to buy vegetables.

Wild animals and insects were a problem. Once when He was reading books on her bed in the evening, she suddenly found ants on the windowsill of her room. She tried to drive them away but more came, and eventually there were ants almost everywhere - on the ceiling, on the bed and on the floor. She had to spend the night on a sofa.

"One of my Chinese colleagues even suffered depressive disorders because of the difficulties in carrying out work and the inconvenience in everyday life," she recalls.

So far, He has helped Ethiopia to educate more than 1,000 aquaculture students, and many of them have become the backbone of the country's agricultural development. In July, she was granted an award by the Ethiopian government.

With her recommendation, one of her colleagues received his master's degree in genetic engineering at South China Agricultural University and is preparing to apply to continue his studies in China. She says the colleague "tells me a magazine in the United States will probably publish one of his papers, which will help him a lot to continue studying in China".

However, He feels sorry for her family, since she has spent very little time with them in recent years. Last November, she had to leave for Ethiopia in the evening of the day when her daughter's wedding ceremony had been held. But her family has been very supportive of her work, she says.

"She did all the things responding to the call of the country. They are of great significance. We all support her," says He's husband, Zou Zhongyi.

houliqiang@chinadaily.com.cn

Students from the Alage Agricultural Technical Vocational Education and Training College practice fishing under the guidance of Chinese researcher He Wang. Photos Provided to China Daily

(China Daily European Weekly 11/03/2017 page18)
The Press of Atlantic Citys Bailey Award is back.

This annual award is given to a local for-profit business that has gone above and beyond to make a difference in South Jersey.

The winning business will be featured in The Press on Christmas Day, receive a trophy recognizing the accomplishment and taken to lunch by Publisher Mark Blum.

The award is inspired by James Stewarts character in the film Its a Wonderful Life.

George Bailey is a selfless banker known for supporting his community in times of need and making personal sacrifices for the good of others.

In the movie, he provides his own money to save local businesses. Baileys altruism is recognized and the community unites around him.

The Bailey Award recognizes a South Jersey business for its ability to contribute to the community in ways that give back and make a difference.

Nominations can be made through Sunday, Dec.1. To nominate a business, go to PressContests.com and click on the Bailey Award link.

Describe why you consider the business to be a good citizen and how it has made a difference in the community. Supporting photos can be uploaded in JPG format. A business can be nominated more than once.

The previous five winners vote on who should receive the honor for 2017, based on the following criteria: involvement, achievements, innovation, contributions and impact on the community.
This weekend's events will hopefully draw many people to Atlantic City, but something in the water is attracting some ocean dwellers.

OCEARCH researchers tweeted Thursday afternoon that a tagged 5-foot, 66 lbs. white shark pup pinged off the coast of Atlantic City.

PINGd up! So off shore of Atlantic City... slots or rays...black jack or flounder... so much to do offshore of Jersey! #imajerseysharknow pic.twitter.com/6r9W1bvkNl  Mission The Shark (@MissionShark) November 2, 2017

The young shark, named "Mission", was tagged by researchers in August of this year in Montauk, New York. "Mission" has had several pings off Long Island in the last few months. He seems to be headed south and possibly following the path of another great white in the water.

On Monday, a great white shark named "Miss Costa" pinged about 150 miles off the shore. Earlier Thursday, "Miss Costa" pinged near Wallops Island, Maryland.

The great white population has increased over the years, in part to harvesting bans and other protective legislation. Great whites are common for the waters and travel in migratory patterns up and down the East Coast in search of prey.

A ping occurs when a tagged shark surfaces for approximately 90 seconds and the locator is able to send a tracking signal.
PLEASE BE ADVISED: Soon we will no longer integrate with Facebook for story comments. The commenting option is not going away, however, readers will need to register for a FREE site account to continue sharing their thoughts and feedback on stories. If you already have an account (i.e. current subscribers, posting in obituary guestbooks, for submitting community events), you may use that login, otherwise, you will be prompted to create a new account.
China's development road map and other outcomes of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which ended on Oct 25, will have century-long global impacts as the country deepens engagement with the world, according to European politicians, scholars and lawyers.

"The Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era ... has a cardinal importance for the further successful progress of China," Maja Gojkovic, speaker of the National Assembly of Serbia, told China Daily.

"I am convinced that the direction taken at this congress will yield measurable results and prosperity for the whole of the friendly people of China in this century."

Having closely observed the congress, Gojkovic said Xi clearly demonstrated the intention to take China to a new era that will include continuation of the country's development and an increase in citizens' standard of living.

"I am convinced that President Xi, having regard for the indivisible trust of the Communist Party of China that he enjoys and that was undoubtedly confirmed in this congress, will lead China through the path of success and prosperity in the forthcoming years," Gojkovic said.

When Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel was asked what his message would be for China's new leadership formed at the 19th National Congress, he said Belgium will build a stronger relationship with China at diplomatic and economic levels, while both sides need to develop mutual understanding.

"I believe we can work together toward this aspect (of building a stronger bilateral relationship)," Michel told China Daily at the recent launch ceremony for direct flights between Brussels and Shanghai.

Rolf J. Langhammer, former vice-president of the Germany-based Kiel Institute for the World Economy, says the key message of the congress, for him, is that China is strongly signaling growing interest in actively participating in and leading globalization, a trend that started a decade ago.

Langhammer says that, with its increasing international acceptance as a benevolent government, China will further take into account the interests of partner countries in decision-making.

He says China has already made "first steps" in this direction and has won trust by shouldering responsibility by contributing to global economic growth.

Thomas Lagerqvist, senior adviser of Mannheimer Swartling, a Sweden-based law firm, says that to fulfill the Chinese Dream, this vision will serve as a guiding star into the new era. The world wants China to succeed, as that will benefit global cooperation, he says.

Lagerqvist says China's economy has been transitioning from a phase of rapid growth to a stage of high-quality development and is in a pivotal stage for transforming the growth model, improving economic structure and fostering new growth drivers.

fujing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 11/03/2017 page25)
Malawi marked an important milestone in its transportation sector recently when it inaugurated the Malawi section of the Nacala Corridor railway line, which stretches from Moatize in western Mozambique to the Indian Ocean port of Nacala to the east.

Jappie Mtuwa Mhango, Malawi's minister of transportation and public works, officially launched the $4.9 billion railway line section, which was financed by Vale Logistics of Brazil.

The purpose of constructing the railway section is to accommodate the passage of coal from Moatize in Mozambique, passing through Malawi to the port of Nacala-a-Velha in Mozambique.

Malawi's Minister of Transport and Public Works Jappie Mtuwa Mhango (left) with Mozambican Minister of Transport and Communications Carlos Mesquita.

The agreement for construction of the new railway was signed by the government of Malawi and Vale Logistics in 2011 through a 30-year public-private partnership arrangement, the minister says.

Through this infrastructure, on the import side, the Nacala Corridor will enhance the transportation of fertilizer, diesel, grain and general containerized cargo, with an average of 350,000 tons per year.

On the export side, the corridor will facilitate the movement of a total of 100,000 tons on average of Malawian sugar, pigeon peas, tobacco and tea, with the capacity to increase this number threefold, says Renato Torres, chairman of Nacala Corridor Logistics Cos.

The corridor will serve the southern African region, particularly Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, linking these countries to the natural deep-water port in Nacala.

The development comes as the China-led Belt and Road Initiative gains momentum.

China's ambassador to Malawi welcomed the development and encouraged Africa to emulate the example of the Belt and Road Initiative.

The essence of Belt and Road includes cooperation, common development, mutual benefits, openness and sharing, says the ambassador, Wang Shiting.

Africa is a historically important component of the ancient Silk Road and is still an indispensable part today, the ambassador says.

"Africa is in desperate need of development and, of course, the development of the continent cannot be realized without assistance from the international community," Wang says.

"The core of the Belt and Road Initiative is focusing on common development. We hope that African countries can get investment, trade, infrastructure and industrialization, which are key to their development through their active participation in the initiative."

Wang says he believes Africa will benefit a lot in poverty reduction, development and regional integration through participation.

"On the other hand, the active participation of Africa in the Belt and Road Initiative will also strengthen its connection with the international community, especially its connectivity with Asian and European countries," Wang says.

The railway network in Malawi is 797 kilometers long. Of this, 101 km between Nkaya and Nayuchi is being upgraded by the private sector as part of the route from the coal mines at Moatize to Nacala.

The remainder of the rail line, from Mchinji through Salima in central Malawi to Marka on the border with Mozambique in southern Malawi, is in poor condition, with 80 km of track that is unusable because of bridge and track washouts following natural disasters.

Locomotive equipment and rolling stock are old and unreliable. Construction of the new link from Nkaya to the coal mines at Moatize began in 2012 to provide mainly for coal transportation on the corridor to Nacala.

For China Daily

(China Daily European Weekly 11/03/2017 page28)
More than 2,500 Chinese language experts have graduated from the Confucius Institute at the University of Zimbabwe since it opened a decade ago.

A Confucius Institute is a nonprofit public institution affiliated with China's Ministry of Education and tasked with promoting the Chinese language and culture, supporting the teaching of Chinese across the world and organizing cultural exchanges.

The CIUZ was established in March 2007 in partnership with Renmin University of China, which made the University of Zimbabwe the second university in Africa, after the University of Nairobi, to establish a Confucius Institute.

Director of the CIUZ and senior lecturer Herbert Mushangwe says many Zimbabweans now appreciate the language as an important bridge between the two cultures.

"In 2007, the CIUZ only offered Chinese language short courses, with 30 students and only two Chinese teachers. Now we offer Chinese language as a degree (bachelor of arts major), and we were the first Confucius Institute in Africa to do so.

"Since inception, CIUZ has managed to produce more than 2,500 graduates, most of whom are working for various Sino-Zimbabwe organisations, schools and government departments as translators, teachers and marketing managers," says Mushangwe. The institute celebrated its 10th anniversary on Oct 27.

Since 2010, around 10 graduates from the University of Zimbabwe have been sent to China each year to pursue postgraduate studies, he says.

A senior lecturer at the Department of Linguistics, Laston Mukaro, says that as well as offering general degrees, the University of Zimbabwe has reviewed its curriculum to allow all honors programs. This has enabled the CIUZ, in collaboration with other departments, to offer three Chinese-related programs: honors in Chinese language and cultural studies; dual honors in Chinese and English language; and dual honors in Chinese and linguistics.

Mukaro says there is a huge demand from public and private schools for Chinese teaching.

"Over the past 10 years, the CIUZ has managed to spread its wings by opening 10 other teaching sites spread over teachers' colleges, highs schools and universities. Cumulatively, these CIUZ teaching sites have nearly 800 students studying the Chinese language," says Mukaro, who is also executive chairman of the Zimbabwe-China Alumni Association.

The CIUZ also offers demand-driven and tailor-made nondegree short term courses and part time Chinese studies.

It also serves as the only Chinese Proficiency Test (HSK) and Oral Chinese Proficiency Test (HSKK) center in the country. Since the establishment of the testing center in 2012, nearly 1,800 people have taken their examinations there, doubling the number of Zimbabwean students eligible to study in Chinese universities.

The CIUZ also helps Zimbabwean students to apply for Chinese government scholarships. And since 2008, 227 students have successfully secured opportunities to further their studies at various universities in China.

The CIUZ is one of 31 Confucius Institutes in Africa and 480 in the world. More than 12 Zimbabweans are employed by the Confucius Institute.

Chinese Ambassador Huang Ping says Chinese is fast becoming a common language in Zimbabwe, which shows the success of the Confucius Institute and the scholarships provided by the Chinese government.

University of Zimbabwe Vice-Chancellor Levi Nyagura hails the University of Zimbabwe as "the only university in Africa that has trained local competent teachers of the Chinese language and culture".

For China Daily

(China Daily European Weekly 11/03/2017 page29)
(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/596712/Alpari_Andrey_Dashin_with_Prime_Minister.jpg )



"Mauritius, with its flexible and progressive legislation, offers favourable conditions for conducting business. The transparency of government regulators and their business approach create a positive business climate for Alpari and other international companies and lay the foundation for long-term cooperation. Alpari plans to continue its successful development on global markets and to further contribute to establishing Mauritius as an international financial centre." - noted Andrey Dashin.

Pravind Jugnauth, the Prime Minister of Mauritius, was keen to stress that the presence of such major players on the international market as Alpari is evidence of a high level of confidence in Mauritius. The government is constantly working to improve the country's business climate and regulatory framework, particularly in the financial sector, which undoubtedly attracts foreign business to the country. Jugnauth further expressed hope that his government's working relationship with Alpari would continue to develop. Today, Mauritius has the potential to become a recognised financial centre.

About Alpari

Andrey Dashin, Ultimate Beneficial Owner, has been working in the Forex industry for almost 20 years. Alpari today is an influential and globally connected brand, with its products, services and trademarks making it one of the most recognisable companies in the financial industry. Alpari services over one million clients from 150 countries of the world and has over 80 offices across the globe. Alpari's aggregated trading turnover exceeded $1 trillion in 2016.

Contact: Andrei Loboda; tel.: +7-495-721-5959

SOURCE Alpari
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160406/798673 )



With the aim of offering relaxation and internal rejuvenation to various entities, this wonderful yoga retreat in Kerala is being organized by Rishikul Yogshala. Yogis, travelers, yoga erudite from all over the globe are welcome to join this healthy holidays retreat for mental and physical upheaval. Yoga and Meditation class, Detoxifying Yoga Therapy, Yogic Deep Relaxation class are going to be some of the highlights of this program. Additionally, the participants shall also be taken for local visits and excursions to explore the mesmeric beauty of the town; Visit to Varkala and Kaapil Beach with Back water Drive, Ashram visit, Visit to Fish Aquarium, to name a few. All the guests shall be further pampered with two rewarding Ayurvedic Massages (at no additional cost) during the course of the yoga program.

The participants shall be provided with beautiful and cozy accommodation in the pristine premises of Varkala Beach. Decked in wood and lush green scenery, the venue is only a few meters away from the breathtaking sea. Guests can avail the option of staying nearer to the beach or, can avail the option of dwelling in wooden huts, situated at the top of Varkala cliff. The rooms allotted are well-kept and equipped with all modern amenities such as twin beds, mosquito nets, water geyser, TV, seating area, etc. The rooms can be availed on both sharing and private basis. Extracted and prepared in Ayurvedic herbs, the food shall be served thrice a day along with rejuvenating herbal drinks. The meals shall be purely yogic and fused with palatable flavors for gratification of the body and soul.

Rishikul Yogshala has been actively spreading the education of yoga and spirituality since 2010. Being an RYS category yoga school, the Yogshala has always strived as the epitome of quality education in the science of yoga. The school majorly specializes in traditional styles of yoga, such as Hatha and Ashtanga Yoga. The Yogshala, that is headquartered in Rishikesh, India, serves as the passionate member of the yoga education community by being present in various major locations of India and abroad such as Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam, Kerala, and Mysore.

In addition to Yoga and Ayurveda Retreats, the school conducts certified RYT 200, 300 and 500 Hour programs. All the yoga classes, therapies and treatments are offered under the experienced teachers and assistants. Grab the opportunity to experience the magic of Kerala with the well balanced healthy living.

About Rishikul Yogshala

Rishikul Yogshala is an internationally acclaimed Yoga and Meditation Retreat Center, headquartered in Rishikesh with branches at Kerala and several locations in India and neighboring countries since 2010. The school has been approved by Yoga Alliance USA and Yoga Alliance International. Rishikul Yogshala offers 200, 300, and 500 hour Yoga TTC courses along with 7 and 15 day yoga retreats.

For more information, visit https://www.rishikulyogshala.org/

Media contact:

+91-7060060954

email: info@rishikulyogshala.org



SOURCE Rishikul Yogshala
If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here
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
Brussels, Oct 29 : An Indian community organisation in Brussels called "Art Lounge 9" organised Diwali celebrations at Atomium, one of the iconic monuments of the Belgian capital and the world at large.

On Saturday evening the city of Brussels flew the Indian tricolour atop the iconic monument.

Gaitri Issar Kumar, the India envoy to Belgium, Luxembourg and the EU, said that India has made rapid strides in science and technology and having the Indian flag atop the monument commemorating the advancement of the Atomic Age is a testament to India's achievements.

The King and Queen of Belgium are scheduled to visit India from November 5 to 11. India and Belgium are also celebrating 70 years of diplomatic relations this year.
New Delhi, Oct 29 : A 50-year old shopkeeper from Haryana was stabbed to death here, police said on Sunday.

A pedestrian found the man lying at Nangli Puna flyover in west Delhi late on Saturday and informed police.

"A team reached the spot and found the man -- later identified as Ashok, a resident of Ambala in Haryana -- with a stab injury on the left side of his chest," Deputy Commissioner of Police Rishi Pal said.

"He was rushed to a hospital where doctor declared him dead."

During investigation, it was found that Ashok had come here to purchase some equipment for his shop in Haryana.

"Some electronic spare parts like sound amplifiers, ac-dc converters and other electronic materials, a hand bag and keys were found at the spot," Pal said.

He said "prima-facie it appears to be a case of robbery" but police are looking at other angles too.

"A case of murder has been registered. The CCTV footages of the nearby intersections were being examined to identify the accused," Pal said.
Jammu, Oct 31 : An Israeli defence delegation visited the Indian Army's Northern Command headquarters at Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, official sources said.

"An Israeli delegation led by Major General Yakov (Kobi) Barak called on the Northern Command's General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Lt Gen Devraj Anbu to discuss matters of mutual interest," an Army statement said.
New Delhi, Oct 31 : An Afghan national, said to be a member of an international drugs cartel, has been arrested here and over one kg of fine quality heroin seized from him, police said on Tuesday.

Police said Qari Mohammad Hanif, 40, used two Afghanistan passports to smuggle heroin into India. He had visited India five times since May 2017.

"Hanif was held on Friday when he came to hand over heroin to peddlers in Mehrauli area. He told police that he supplied heroin to dealers in Delhi and the National Capital Region and adjoining states. These dealers supply heroin at rave parties and other events," Deputy Commissioner of Police P.S. Kushwah said.

More than 575 gm of drugs were seized from his rented flat in Lajpat Nagar, the official said.

A postgraduate in law, Hanif had a government job in Afghanistan but left his job to join the drugs cartel when he met Jabatur, the kingpin of an international drug cartel, in March 2017 in Jalalabad.

This man offered Hanif $800 per visit for smuggling heroin pellets into India.

Hanif supplied over three kg heroin pellets, valued at over Rs 6 crore in the international market, during his earlier visits to India, police said.
Raipur, Oct 31 : Senior journalist Vinod Verma, arrested on extortion charges in connection with a Chhattisgarh Minister's alleged sex CD, was on Tuesday sent in 14-day judicial custody by a court here.

When Verma was presented before Fourth Sessions Judge Bhavesh Kumar Vatti, he pleaded against being lodged with hardened criminals.

The court accepted his plea and directed he be kept in a special cell in jail, remanding him in judicial custody till November 13.

Verma was arrested by the Chhattisgarh Police in coordination with Uttar Pradesh Police from his house in Ghaziabad on Friday morning on charges of extortion over an alleged "sex CD" of the Bharatiya Janata Party leader in Chhattisgarh.

A court granted three-day transit remand to police to facilitate his transfer to Chhattisgarh.
Washington, Oct 31 : US President Donald Trump will not visit the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) separating North Korea and South Korea during his upcoming Asian tour due to a tight schedule, the White House said on Tuesday.

Instead, Trump will visit Camp Humphreys, a military base about 60 km south of Seoul, during his visit to South Korea, a senior White House official told reporters in a briefing.

The President had to choose between the DMZ and the Camp Humphreys because of the limited time, said the official on condition of anonymity, who also pointed out that no US President has ever visited Camp Humphreys yet, while Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defence Secretary Jim Mattis have all visited the heavily fortified border.

Trump's travel to Asia is slated for November 3 to November 14, and it will take him to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

During his trip, Trump will attend the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Vietnam on November 10-11 and the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the Philippines on November 12.
Nairobi, Nov 1 : The European Union (EU) observer mission has called on Kenya's leaders to enter political dialogue to resolve the impasse following the controversial election re-run.

"More than ever there is a need in Kenya for political leaders to take up their responsibility and find a way out of the impasse through direct talks at the highest level," the mission said on Monday in its preliminary statement on the October 26 repeat elections, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Grievances over the electoral processes should be addressed through judicial channels for legally-mandated remedy. The courts and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) be given full opportunity to work independently and without undue pressure," the observers said.

EU Chief Observer Marietje Schaake said actions by rival sides have put Kenya in an extremely difficult position.

"These include attacks on the judiciary as well as the IEBC, the introduction of changes to the legal framework without consensus, obstruction of the electoral process and officials, and some disproportionate actions by the security forces," Schaake said.

The EU said despite these problems, polling and counting appeared to be generally well administered and some technical improvements were evident in the results process although further assessment is still needed.

IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati on October 26 announced Kenyatta as the winner after he garnered 98.3 per cent of the total votes cast, against his National Super Alliance (NASA) rival Raila Odinga's 1 per cent.

Odinga, who withdrew from the race had rallied his supporters to boycott the repeat election, which was marred by low turnout and violent protests in opposition strongholds.

Schaake also called on security agencies to be fully accountable, including by providing public information on forces deployed and actions taken.

"There should be independent investigation into their actions and any casualties, with information made public on subsequent measures taken," she said.
Jambusar (Gujarat), Nov 1 : Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday attacked the Modi government for demonetization and GST, saying small and medium businesses had been destroyed and they had no ease of doing business irrespective of what the World Bank said.

India has jumped 30 paces in ease of doing business in the World Bank's latest business ranking list of 100 countries.

Speaking at a public meeting here, Gandhi said: "Jaitleyji sits in his office and listens to outsiders. I would request him that he visits small traders or mid-sized business persons and ask them whether ease of doing business has improved for them or not.

"The entire country will scream in unison that there is no ease of doing business. Your demonetization and GST has hit us hard," he said at the rally comprising mostly farmers and small traders in this town in Bharuch, the home district of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel.

"What is spoken abroad is truth for this government but what the poor say in India is farce for them," he added.

Rahul Gandhi is on his third leg of a three-day visit to poll-bound Gujarat that began on Wednesday. Under the 'Navsarjan (Rejuvenated) Gujarat' campaign, Gandhi will cover 30 Assembly constituencies across Bharuch, Tapi, Navsari, Valsad and Surat districts in south Gujarat.

He said there was no section of the society in Gujarat which was happy with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rule and there was widespread anger across the country over demonetization and tardy implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

"They have destroyed the economy by demonetization and have ensured that the GDP fell by 2 per cent. But he (Prime Minister) did not stop at that. He introduced GST with multiple tax rates and a high rate of 28 per cent in one go," he said.

"I have given GST a new name. Gabbar Singh Tax. It means that poor who sweats it out sees his money snatched away from him."

Gandhi ridiculed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's promise to unearth black money in Swiss banks, saying Modi did not understand that not all money was black and that a very small per cent of it was in cash. The rest was in real estate and jewellery.

"It's been three years of Modi government. Show me one person whom they have put in jail for having black money in Swiss banks? Look at Vijay Mallya, he is enjoying in London. What has Modiji done?," he asked, drawing laughter from the people.

Gandhi said the so-called Gujarat model of development had left virtually every community in the state angry and frustrated.

"The only people who are not unhappy are 5-10 industrialists who are making merry and are supporting Modiji and BJP. Everyone else is on the streets agitating," he said, referring to the ongoing agitations by Patels, Dalits, OBCs and farmers.

"The Gujarat model is take water, electricity and land of the people and give it to a handful of industrialists. In Gujarat Model, if you do not have money, no work will get done."

In his fiery speech, Gandhi accused the BJP governments at the Centre and in Gujarat of promoting crony capitalism.

"These 5 or 10 big industrialists, I will not name anyone, are ruling in every sector. Be it health, education, power, water, manufacturing."

The Congress leader then warned: "The BJP is going to get an electric shock in the Gujarat election. People have realized the truth. The next government in Gujarat will be of farmers, poor, traders and not of Modiji's industrialists."

Gandhi said Modi's 'Make in India' scheme was a total failure.

"Let me give you some figures. India and China house almost the same number of people. But China creates 50,000 jobs every year. In India, we create only 450.

"Modiji speaks about 'Make in India'. He promised everything will be made in India. But today, three million Gujaratis are jobless."

He said demonetisation hit a severe blow to the labour class, farmers, small businesses and traders who rely heavily on cash transactions. They were somehow managing when they were dealt another blow in the form of GST.

"We warned the government don't implement GST hastily. Do it slowly, kindly. They didn't listen. We told them it was not the Congress vs BJP. It is a matter that concerns the nation, the economy."

Addressing the public meeting earlier, Congress leader Ahmed Patel countered allegations that he had links with two ISIS terror suspects caught in Gujarat. One of them worked in a hospital wherein Ahmed Patel was a trustee till 2015.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani had asked Patel if he had links with the suspect who worked in the Sardar Patel Hospital in Ankleshwar.

"I conducted a research (on the person arrested) and found that he worked in hospitals instituted by BJP leaders. Care Hospital, where he worked was inaugurated by Narendra Modi," Patel said.
New Delhi, Nov 1 : The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a proposed law to recognise universities that have been training teachers without permission from a statutory body, making their alumni eligible for government jobs.

The Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the amendment of the National Council for Teacher Education Act, 1993, which will grant retrospective recognition to universities that are found to be conducting teacher education courses without permission of the NCTE, an official statement said.

The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) is the statutory body set up under the act in 1995 to formally oversee standards, procedures and processes in the education system.

All institutions running teacher education courses like B.Ed (Bachelor of Education) among others have to now obtain recognition from the NCTE under Section 14 of the Act.

The courses of such universities have to be permitted under Section 15.
Los Angeles, Nov 2 : Actor Kevin Spacey, who is facing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, is now seeking evaluation and treatment.

"Kevin Spacey is taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment. No other information is available at this time," Spacey's representative told variety.com.

His decision to seek treatment follows actor Anthony Rapp's allegation that Spacey made a sexual advance toward him when Rapp was just 14 years old.

Besides Rapp, actor-filmmaker Tony Montana and Mexican actor Roberto Cavazos have also accused Spacey of sexual misconduct.

Montana has claimed that a seemingly-drunk Spacey "grabbed my whole package" at a Los Angeles bar back in 2003.

Cavazos took the social media route to recount his "unpleasant encounters" with Spacey.

In a letter written in Spanish on Facebook, he said: "I myself had a couple of unpleasant encounters with Spacey that were on the edge of being called harassment. Moreover, had I been a woman, I probably would not have hesitated to identify him as such, but I suppose that the lack of a more specifically direct or aggressive action led me to justify the incident as 'one of those things'."
Rae Bareli, Nov 2 : Union Power Minister R.K. Singh on Thursday denied claims from some political leaders and families of the deceased that human negligence was to blame for the boiler blast in NTPC's Unchahar unit here that left 30 dead and dozens seriously injured.

"I have seen everything during my physical inspection of the accident scene and I can say that there is no human negligence in the unfortunate incident," Singh told reporters, after visiting the accident site along with state Power Minister Shrikant Sharma.

He also announced that the Central government has decided to give financial assistance of Rs 20 lakh to the families of the deceased and Rs 10 lakh each to the critically injured, while those who sustained minor injuries would get Rs 2 lakh each, the Union Minister announced.

This compensation would be in addition to the ex-gratia and financial assistance announced by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

The state-run National Thermal Power Corp (NTPC) has also announced a financial assistance of Rs 5 lakh each to the families of the dead. The Prime Minister's Relief Fund will also give Rs 2 lakh each to the next of kin of the deceased.

R.K. Singh also said that the priority of the government, both at the Centre and the state, was to save as many lives as possible, provide them best, prompt and adequate treatment.

Singh also said that NTPC's Unchahar unit was among the best in the country and that rumours that there was extra load on it or that it was under pressure to increase production were unfounded and baseless.

How and why the accident happened would be conclusively found and detailed in the probe ordered by the Ministry which would be completed in 30 days, he added.

State Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma, who also visited Rae Bareli on Thursday, urged the opposition parties not to make political currency out of the tragic incident.

"Both the state and Union governments are saddened at the tragedy and are doing all they can to bring relief to the affected," he said and added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was personally very sad at the loss of lives in the accident.
Washington, Nov 3 : US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will accompany President Donald Trump on his upcoming Asia trip, the State Department said.

Besides accompanying Trump on his travels to Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, Tillerson will also visit Burma, Xinhua news agency quoted the statement issued by the State Department as saying.

"The Secretary's six-country trip demonstrates the Administration's commitment to our alliances and partnerships in the Asia Pacific and highlights our ongoing engagement in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the East Asia Summit (EAS) on regional issues of mutual interest and concern," said the statement.
Vienna, Nov 3 : The unemployment rate in Austria declined 4.6 per cent year-on-year for October, the Social Affairs Ministry said.

This equates to 393,029 people in the country presently registered as jobless, Xinhua news agency reported.

The number of non-self-employed persons increased by 65,000 compared to October of last year, the ministry report on Thursday stated, while the number of available job positions at the Public Employment Service (AMS) is currently over 59,000, a 44.5 per cent year-on-year increase.

The unemployment drop was seen across all states in the country other than Vorarlberg, where a slight 0.3 per cent increase was recorded.

Also notable in the new figures was a 0.7 per cent decline in unemployment for persons aged 50 and over.
Washington, Nov 3 : US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has turned over documents to Special Counsel Robert Mueller as investigators have begun interrogations about the senior advisor's role in the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, the media reported.

Mueller's investigators have expressed interest in Kushner as part of its probe into Russian meddling, including potential obstruction of justice in Comey's firing, informed sources told CNN on Thursday.

Their questions about Kushner signal that Mueller's investigators are reaching the President's inner circle and have extended beyond the 2016 campaign to actions taken at the White House by high-level officials.

However, it was not clear how Kushner's advice to the President might relate to the overall Russia investigation or potential obstruction of justice, the sources said.

Kushner voluntarily turned over documents he had from the campaign and the transition, and these related to any contacts with Russia. The documents are similar to the ones Kushner gave to congressional investigators, they added.

According to the sources, investigators have asked witnesses also about how a statement was issued in the name of Donald Trump Jr. regarding a Trump Tower meeting and about the circumstances surrounding the departures of other White House aides.

A White House official told CNN that the Mueller team's questions about Kushner are not a surprise, and that the senior advisor would be among a list of people who investigators would be asking about.

The disclosures follow this week's indictments Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his longtime business partner and campaign deputy, Rick Gates.

Both pleaded not guilty.

Former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty for making a false statement to the FBI about contacts with people connected with the Russian government.
Washington, Nov 3 : US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will visit Myanmar to push for an end to the violence that has plagued the country's Rakhine state resulting is the mass exodus of the Rohingya Muslim minority, the State Department announced.

He will visit the country's capital, Nay Pyi Taw, where he will meet with "senior leaders and officials on actions to address the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State", according to the announcement made on Thursday, and will express US support for the country's recent democratic transition.

The visit will take place on November 15, as Tillerson wraps up a 10-day trip across Asia with President Donald Trump.

A State Department spokesperson told CNN that Tillerson will use his visit to "urge leaders to establish conditions under which Rohingya can return to Rakhine in a fully safe and voluntary manner".

Tillerson has been increasingly vocal in condemning attacks on Myanmar's minority Rohingya Muslims.

Speaking at an event this week, he said the US was "extraordinarily concerned" about the situation, urging the country's military leaders to show restraint.

"What's most important to us is that the world can't just stand idly by and be witness to the atrocities that are being reported in the area," he said.

The UN estimates that some 603,000 Rohingya have fled across the border into neighbouring Bangladesh since August 25, when an attack on security forces in Rakhine triggered the widespread violence, CNN reported.

UN Human Rights Chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein has referred to the plight of the Rohingya as "textbook ethnic cleansing".

The State Department is currently reviewing whether the situation meets the legal definition of ethnic cleansing.

In recent weeks, Tillerson has spoken by phone with Myanmar's de-facto civilian leader, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, and the head of the military, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.
New Delhi, Nov 3 : Two of the injured in the NTPC boiler blast in Uttar Pradesh has been shifted to the Safdarjung hospital here. Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel has visited them.

A green corridor was created to bring the patients to the national capital, considering the seriousness of their condition.

Seven more injured in the Tuesday's blast were also to be shifted to the city's AIIMS hospital, besides the Safdarjung's 's trauma centre, said an official.

Patel visited Safdarjung hospital late on Thursday "to oversee and ensure that patients from the blast got the best medical care and treatment", said the official from the Union Health Ministry.

She has suggested that facilities and doctors from the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital could also be used, if necessary.

The death toll in the blast in National Thermal Power Corporation's 500MW unit in Rae Bareli rose to 30 on Thursday. The government has ordered a magisterial probe into the tragedy.

The massive explosion took place in state-owned power plant's Unchahar town unit on the Lucknow-Allahabad Highway on Tuesday. Many were trapped when the boiler burst and a huge ball of dust rose, making the rescue operations difficult.
Pyongyang, Nov 3 : North Korea on Friday denied that there had been deaths in an accident at its nuclear test ground following its latest atomic test as previously reported by a Japanese broadcaster.

A TV Asahi report citing North Korean sources said some 200 people may have died when a tunnel collapsed days after North Korea's nuclear test on September 3, reports Efe news.

In a statement published by state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), North Korea condemned what it described as a "false report", and attacked the Japanese authorities for allowing TV Asahi to broadcast such information.

Pyongyang accused the "Japanese reactionaries" of wanting to create a smokescreen with the report and of spreading the "fictitious story" that there was a "threat from the north", which the regime considered an excuse to facilitate a future invasion of its territory.

The regime also accused Tokyo of putting "interceptor missiles on a permanent deployment" and of mobilising ordinary citizens for an evacuation drill under the "pretext of the ballistic rocket launch by North Korea".

Although it is impossible to verify the information reported by TV Asahi given the extreme secrecy of the North Korean regime, several experts said that Pyongyang's repeated nuclear tests - six to date - could have caused significant structural damage to the tunnel in the Punggye-ri nuclear test ground.

South Korean Meteorological Administration director Nam Jae-cheol recently explained that a satellite image analysis showed the real possibility of a major collapse in Punggye-ri, located under a small mountain range in the northeast of North Korea, if another detonation occurs in the tunnels.
Beijing, Nov 3 : Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Cheng Xiaodong on Friday said that Beijing was working with New Delhi to improve bilateral ties, guided by the "neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics".

A day after China blocked a US resolution seeking an international ban on Pakistan-based terrorist Masood Azhar, Cheng said India was an important neighbour to which China attached great importance.

"India is an important neighbour of China. China attaches great importance to its relations with India and we are already working with India to promote the constant progress of bilateral relations guided by the neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics," Cheng told the media.

Cheng and other ministers were briefing the media on President Xi Jinping's visit to Vietnam and Laos from November 10 to 14.

Xi will attend the 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders Meeting in Da Nang, Vietnam, from November 10 to 11. This will be Xi's first official foreign visit after his re-election at last month's National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

The ties between India and China took a hit when their Armies had an over two-month face-off at Doklam in the Sikkim section of their border.

"This visit by President Xi will help open the neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for a new era.

"In his report to the 19th CPC National Congress, President Xi fully elaborated on the overall goal of China's foreign policy in the new era which is to foster new types of international relations and build a community of shared future for mankind.

"This will be an overall direction for the neighbourhood diplomacy of China in the next stage.

"At the same time, President Xi also elaborated on China's neighborhood diplomacy, focussing on the principles of sincerity, unanimity inclusiveness and mutual benefit and neighbourhood diplomacy, partnership, and friendship with its neighbours," Cheng added.
The national leadership of the CPI has called for the CPI(M)-led LDF government in Kerala to take action against state transport minister Thomas Chandy over charges of land encroachment and illegal reclamation of paddy fields and backwaters.

According to reports in the vernacular media, CPI national general secretary Sudhakar Reddy has accused Thomas Chandy of abuse of power to encroach on revenue land.

Saying that there was no place for corruption in a left government, Reddy reportedly called on the Pinarayi Vijayan-led state government to take appropriate action against Chandy based on the report submitted by the Alappuzha district collector and the recommendations of revenue minister E Chandrasekharan.

Meanwhile, responding to the CPI general secretarys comments, Thomas Chandy said that there was no need for him to indulge in corruption, adding that he had given Rs. 10 crore to charity over the last 12 years.

Thomas Chandy faces allegations of illegally reclaiming paddy fields to construct a parking lot for the resort owned by him, encroaching on Marthandam backwaters by laying buoys, and constructing a private road leading to his resort using MPLADS funds.

Alappuzha district collector T V Anupama had the other day submitted a report to the government reportedly confirming the veracity of the allegations against the transport minister.
Shimla, Nov 3 : It's literally a do-or-die battle for both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief ministerial faces in the upcoming Himachal Pradesh assembly polls. Both veterans -- one in his eighties and the other in his seventies -- are struggling for their political survival.

One is veteran Congress leader and incumbent Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, 83, who is pushing hard to get to the helm for the seventh time. The other is the BJP's Prem Kumar Dhumal, 73, who is making a strong bid to ensure the party's victory with a record margin to silence his detractors within the party.

For almost two decades, both the parties in the state have fought almost every assembly and parliamentary polls under their leadership.

"This time, Virbhadra Singh is fighting on two fronts -- one is to establish his son Vikramaditya Singh, who is contesting his maiden assembly election, and the second is to ensure the party's repeat as he forced the Congress to announce him as the chief ministerial candidate despite all odds," a political observer told IANS.

For Dhumal, it's simply the battle for "self-survival" after facing a humiliating defeat in the 2012 assembly polls. Since then, he was almost marginalised by the BJP faction led by Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda.

After thwarting foes within, Virbhadra Singh donned his battle gear much ahead of this arch rival Dhumal, whose name was cleared by the BJP as its chief ministerial candidate just days ahead of the polling for the 68-seat assembly on November 9.

"The announcement of Dhumal as the chief ministerial candidate was part of the BJP's strategy to boost the morale of the cadres as the party for long was divided in two camps -- one led by Dhumal and the other by Nadda," a senior state BJP leader admitted.

Interestingly, both Virbhadra Singh and Dhumal are seeking re-election from new seats and that is not going to be easy for them.

The Congress leader is in the fray from Arki in Solan district, the BJP's pocket borough that he chose himself, while Dhumal is contesting from Sujanpur, the seat he was asked to contest from.

The Sujanpur contest seems interesting as the Congress has fielded Rajinder Rana, who knows the Dhumal family well.

Virbhadra Singh knows the assembly poll will be a vote on the performance of his five-year-old government.

"We are seeking votes on the basis of development by our government, especially in the education, health and connectivity sectors," a confident Virbhadra Singh, who first became the Chief Minister in 1983, told IANS.

The Chief Minister, who has been in active politics for over 50 years, is a regular target of the top BJP leadership, who point to his being out on bail and facing corruption charges in the Delhi High Court during the time he was the Union Steel Minister 2009-11.

But against all odds, he alone tours across the state seeking votes for the Congress. Party leaders said the Chief Minister is single-handedly campaigning and he is conducting 15 to 20 meetings in two to three constituencies every day.

He starts his campaign at 9 a.m. and continues till late into the night. He holds closed-door meetings with party workers in the evening for their feedback.

The only saving grace for the Congress is that its Vice President, Rahul Gandhi, will tour the state on November 6, a day before the campaigning comes to an end.

Contrary to this, the BJP has fielded its entire top brass -- from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to his cabinet colleagues, including Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley and J.P. Nadda.

Even party President Amit Shah is aggressively touring the hill state.

"The Congress has failed to handle even sensitive cases like gang-rape of a schoolgirl. Our focus on coming to power will be eliminating forest, mining, liquor and transfer mafias that are active in the state for long. This will greatly help restoring the faith of the public," Dhumal told IANS.

Political observers say issues like development have been pushed to the background as personal attacks dominate most of the election rallies.

"Apart from mudslinging, there is no public-specific agenda with both the leaders. They are just trying to woo voters by raking up personal issues," an observer said.

Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said Singh is the main "star" of the party campaign in the state.

"Virbhadra Singh is campaigning on the ground and the BJP is baffled at the response he is getting. We don't have to be loud to impress the people, like the BJP is doing," Surjewala told reporters in Shimla on Thursday.

Virbhadra Singh is targeting Dhumal by saying he has always worked with a political vendetta against him.

But a confident Dhumal believes there is a favourable wind prevailing for the BJP's return as the present government has wasted much time in the ongoing corruption cases against Virbhadra Singh and his family rather than focusing on development.

The future of the arch rivals will be pronounced on December 18, the day the votes cast will be counted along with those in Gujarat.

The Congress won 36 of the 68 seats in Himachal Pradesh in 2012 with a 42.81 per cent vote share, while the BJP bagged 26 seats with a 38.47 per cent vote share.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)
Chandigarh, Nov 3 : Morning fog and smog from stubble burning took its toll in Punjab on Friday when four people died after their car fell into a minor irrigation canal near Abohar town, around 310 km from here, police said.

The victims included a middle-aged man and his two sons who had come from Hisar in neighbouring Haryana to attend a wedding in Rorianwali village near Abohar.

The fourth victim had taken a lift in the car at the last moment, police said.

Police investigations revealed that the car driver, who was injured in the accident, failed to see the minor canal near the Abohar bypass and the car fell into it.
Mumbai, Nov 3 : Filmmaker Karan Johar will judge acting and singing skills of contestants on a reality television show tentatively titled "Ticket To Bollywood".

To be produced by Endemol, the show -- previously known as "India's Next Superstar" -- will go on air on Star Plus in a few months, read a statement issued on behalf of the channel.

The show will also give a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work in a film under Karan's banner Dharma Productions. The auditions for the reality show are said to be on.

Casting director Mukesh Chhabra will be hunting for talent along with other actors from the television industry.
Washington, Nov 3 : US President Donald Trump has authorised an increase in the disaster assistance to Puerto Rico, taking up 90 per cent of the cost of rebuilding public infrastructure, including restoring the power grid destroyed by hurricane Maria in September.

The expenditure, which will be covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is higher than the usual 75 per cent that Washington normally assumes in such cases, reports Efe news.

Apart from the reconstruction of public infrastructure, Trump also "authorised a 100 per cent federal cost share for debris removal and emergency protective measures", the White House said on Thursday.

"The President has authorised assistance conditioned upon having extra controls on project cost estimation and project management in place to facilitate the expeditious rebuilding of Puerto Rico's infrastructure," the statement added.

The "controls" refer to ensuring proper utilisation of federal tax dollars and cost-effective activities.

Trump had been criticised for not taking the disaster situation in Puerto Rico seriously.

The President had also lashed out at the Puerto Rican local authorities for wanting the US to do everything.

Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on September 20, leaving at least 54 people dead, destroying the island's power grid and causing a massive humanitarian crisis that further worsened the economic crisis.

So far, only 30 per cent of the people have got their power supply back.
Islamabad, Nov 3 : Pakistan's anti-corruption body on Friday petitioned the High Court against the accountability court's order to release former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's son-in-law Captain Muhammad Safdar (retd) on bail after he was taken into custody on October 9.

Safdar was held upon his arrival from London at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport in the capital, where he was set to appear before the accountability court in connection with a NAB corruption reference, following the issuance of a non-bailable arrest warrant for his absence in earlier hearings, Dawn online reported.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) asked the Islamabad High Court to suspend the accountability court's order to release Safdar on bail after he furnished surety bonds worth Rs 5 million.

The NAB prosecutor general, making Safdar and the accountability court judge party in the petition, challenged the decision to release Maryam Nawaz's husband requesting he be sent to Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail on judicial remand.

The NAB petition maintained that an order to release the suspect can only be passed by the Supreme Court and that the accountability court should have sent Captain Safdar to jail.

The petition came days after Sindh lawmakers lambasted the NAB's "double standards" in its dealing with members of the Sharif family and others.

The Sharifs are facing trial in connection with references filed by the NAB pertaining to their Avenfield properties in London, the Azizia Steel Mills as well as another 16 offshore companies.

The three accused -- the former Prime Minister, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law pleaded not guilty to the charges. Sharif's sons Hassan and Hussain Nawaz were named co-accused in the chargesheet in the corruption references.

Sharif and his sons were named in all three NAB references while Maryam Nawaz and Safdar were named only in the London reference.
Srinagar, Nov 3 : Authorities on Friday permitted the weekly congregational prayers in Srinagar's biggest mosque, Jamia Masjid, after five weeks as no restrictions were in place in the old city.

Life was reported to be normal in Rainawari, Khanyar, Nowhatta, M.R. Gunj and Safa Kadal with shops, public transport, other businesses, government offices and banks in these areas functioning on a Friday for the first time in five weeks.

Senior separatist leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq also offered prayers at the Jamia Masjid and delivered his traditional weekly sermon.

The Mirwaiz had remained under house arrest during last five Fridays. But he was allowed to join the devotees in Nowhatta area on Friday.

Police said no untoward incident was reported from anywhere in Srinagar.
Bhubaneswar, Nov 3 : Odisha Agriculture Minister Damodar Rout on Friday appealed to the farmers in the state not to take the extreme step of committing suicide and torching their pest-affected standing paddy crop.

In the last three days, farmers in Bargarh, Jharsuguda, Nuapada, Ganjam, Sambalpur and Rayagada districts in the state have set their crops on fire on acres of paddy fields following pest attacks.

"Paddy crops have been regarded as Goddess Laxmi in our society since time immemorial; I am requesting the farmers in distress with folded hands not to set their pest-affected standing paddy crops," said Rout.

"I am deeply moved with the way our farmers are burning their paddy crop. It seems synonymous with setting Devi Laxmi on fire. Age-old belief goes that by resorting to such a deplorable act, we're deliberately divesting ourselves from the divine grace. We'll be cursed as 'Laxmichhada'," said the Minister.

He assured that the state government will take appropriate action and adequate compensation will be provided.

Brunda Sahu, a farmer of Kalapani village in Bargarh district, committed suicide by consuming poison on Wednesday. He had burnt his damaged crop on Tuesday following a pest attack.

A woman farmer attempted suicide by consuming poison at Gujadiha village under Singhakhunta panchayat in Balasore district on Thursday night.

Family sources said Saraswati Patra, wife of Surendra Patra, was under mental stress for the last couple of days due to crop damage caused by pest attack.

She had also borrowed Rs 30,000 from local moneylenders to cultivate paddy on 3 acres of land.

The state government has set up a toll-free number, 1800-180-1551, to respond promptly to the distressed farmers.
Beijing, Nov 3 : More than 50 prominent international authors have written to Chinese President Xi Jinping urging him to free Liu Xia, the wife of deceased activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo.

The letter, signed by Margaret Atwood, Chimamanda Adichie, Philip Roth, Tom Stoppard and George Saunders, appealed to Xi's "conscience" and "sense of compassion" to release Liu Xia, who has been under house arrest since 2010 despite never being accused of any crime, the Guardian reported on Friday.

Liu Xia was last seen publicly on July 15 in photos of the memorial service for the dissident, who died of liver cancer while in custody two days earlier.

In a video posted to YouTube in July she said: "I am outside recuperating, everyone please grant me time to mourn, time for my heart to heal and one day I will be able to face you all in a healthy state".

There was speculation that she made the comments under duress.

The joint letter by the authors stated: "We urge you to lift all remaining restrictions against Liu Xia, and to ensure her freedom of speech, her freedom to meet with others, and her freedom to travel."

The letter decried her "de facto incommunicado detention" and cited China's own Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in appealing for Liu Xia's release.

The letter was organised by PEN America, a group that advocates freedom of expression around the world.

It was also signed by writers Teju Cole, Louise Erdrich, Michael Chabon, Chang-rae Lee and Stephen Sondheim. The group also opened the letter to signatures from the public.

"On his upcoming visit to Beijing, we hope President (Donald) Trump will voice the US' concern about the inhumane and unjustifiable detention of a poet who has been accused of no crime," said Suzanne Nossel, executive director of PEN America.

Trump will visit Beijing from November 8 to 9 but experts doubt he will raise the case of one of China's most prominent political prisoners, the report said.

Liu Xia's late husband who was one of China's foremost pro-democracy campaigners died at 61. He was serving an 11 year sentence for "inciting subversion of state power".

In 2010, he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his activism in favour of democracy in China. After the dissident's death, Liu Xia was almost immediately cut off from the outside world, confined to her apartment in Beijing.
New Delhi, Nov 3 : The BJP on Friday slammed Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel for his letter to the High Court seeking withdrawal of a letter he had written alleging that a division bench of the court had passed orders against the legislature without ascertaining facts, and demanded his resignation.

"The application moved by the Delhi Assembly Speaker in the Delhi High Court seeking withdrawal of the letter within a couple of days clearly shows that he knew that writing this letter is unconstitutional and anarchic," Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit chief Manoj Tiwari told reporters here.

Slamming Goel, the BJP leader said, "The decision to allow or deny the withdrawal of the letter is the prerogative of the court and the party will not like to comment on it."

"But after this misdeed, Goel has no moral right to continue as the Speaker. He must resign," Tiwari demanded.

Targetting Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Tiwari said, "The AAP government should put its views on the matter before the people and Goel should be removed from the post."

The BJP leader's remarks came a day after the Delhi Assembly Speaker on Thursday told the Delhi High Court that he wants to withdraw the letter he wrote to Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal expressing agony at "developments that are purposely triggered to cripple the functioning of the Legislative Assembly".

The three-page letter is now being heard as a petition.

The letter talks about the role of two senior bureaucrats and how they have tried to "undermine" the legislature.

The Speaker, who is the Aam Aadmi Party legislator for Shahdara, did not name the two officials. But, as per sources, the reference is to petitions in High Court filed recently by Principal Secretary, PWD, Ashwani Kumar and Delhi Chief Secretary M.M. Kutty.

Lashing out at Goel, Tiwari said, "Questions have been constantly raised on the role of the Speaker for allowing this misuse of the Assembly. But the news of the Speaker writing a letter to the Delhi High Court has shocked all.

"This is an attack on the relations of two pillars of democracy -- the legislature and the judiciary," he said.

Tiwari, who represents the northeast constituency of Delhi in Lok Sabha, accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its government of constantly shaming the people of Delhi with its "anarchic" working.

"AAP earlier degraded the administrative and constitutional setup of Delhi and now they have shamed the legislature and judicial setup too," he alleged.

He said that for the last three years development work was at a standstill in Delhi as the Kejriwal government was busy in a power struggle with the central government and the Lt. Governor.

He also accused the AAP government of misusing its absolute majority in the Delhi Assembly by bringing and approving unlawful bills.
London, Nov 3 : Indian-origin International Development Secretary of UK, Priti Patel, held undisclosed meetings in Israel without telling the Foreign Office while accompanied by an influential pro-Israeli Conservative lobbyist, the media reported.

Patel met Yair Lapid, the leader of one of Israel's main political parties, and made visits to several organisations where official departmental business was reportedly discussed, the BBC reported.

She was accompanied by Lord Polak, honorary president of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), an influential lobbying organisation, during the August visit.

According to the report, at least one of the meetings was held at the suggestion of the Israeli Ambassador to London.

British diplomats in Israel were not informed about Patel's plans. The meetings took place over two days in August while Patel was on a holiday in Israel.

Some ministers and MPs accused Patel of trying to win favour with wealthy pro-Israeli Conservative donors who could fund a potential future leadership campaign.

Others accused her of conducting her own "freelance foreign policy" on Israel. Patel is a long-standing supporter of Israel and a former vice-chairman of CFI.

Ministers also said there was a potential risk that the meetings could have broken the ministerial code of conduct, the Guardian reported.

One Minister said: "This is outrageous. She is a Cabinet minister. She just cannot do this. This is about donors and influence."

Another former minister said: "What does it say to the rest of the Middle East if a senior Cabinet minister in charge of Britain's huge aid budget disappears for 48 hours from a family holiday in Israel and is under the wing of a pro-Israeli lobbyist?"

The revelations risk embarrassing the government while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in London to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration when Britain first gave its support for a national home for the Jewish people.

A Downing Street source denied Patel had done anything wrong. And a source at the Department for International Development said it was a private holiday paid for by the Secretary of State herself.

Foreign Office sources in London and diplomatic sources in the region confirmed that Patel had not given them any warning of her visit, the BBC said.

However, Lord Polak told the BBC that he just happened to be on holiday at the same time as Patel. "We met up for one or two things," he said. "...I just joined her for a couple of days, some drinks, some dinner, that kind of thing."

That included the meeting with Lapid: "He is just an old friend of mine... We just had coffee with him. It wasn't anything formal," Lord Polak said.
Beijing, Nov 3 : The Chinese government on Friday called on the US and North Korea to exercise restraint and help reduce tensions after two US bombers flew near the Korean peninsula before US President Donald Trump's upcoming Asia trip.

"The situation in the Korean peninsula is still highly sensitive and complicated. All parties should watch their words and actions and move to alleviate tensions," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying.

"All parties should exercise restraint and help reduce tensions instead of aggravating them," said Hua, who recommended going back to consultations and dialogue catering to the concerns of both sides in a balanced way.

Trump will arrive in Japan on Sunday after which he will visit South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

The trip comes at a time marked by months of missile and nuclear tests by the North Korean regime that have escalated regional tensions, even sparking fears of an armed conflict.

Hua also criticised Washington's decision to impose sanctions against China's Bank of Dandong, which is accused of collaborating in evading financial sanctions on North Korea.

"We strongly oppose the long-arm jurisdiction imposed by any country in accordance with its own domestic laws," she added, in a clear reference to the bank which takes its name from the main Chinese city bordering North Korea.
Valsad (Gujarat), Nov 3 : Terming the assembly elections in Gujarat a fight between truth and lies, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Friday said truth lies with his party, and not the BJP.

"This is a fight between truth and lies. On one side, it is Gujarat's people, on the other 5-10 industrialists. Modiji and BJP have everything, they have power in many states. They have power in the central government, in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. They have a lot of power, they have police.

"But the Congress party will win in Gujarat, because truth is with us. They don't represent truth. Truth lies in the hearts of the people of Gujarat," said Gandhi during a corner meeting in Pardi.

"There are about 30 lakh unemployed youth in Gujarat today. Modiji had promised two crore jobs every year. Only one lakh youth are given jobs every year. In China 50,000 jobs are created per day, under Modi government, it is 450 per day. It is a matter of shame."

The Congress leader said all the communities in Gujarat are agitating against the state government, be it the Patidars, the Adivasis, Dalits and the farmers.

"The truth of Gujarat is corruption, land-grabbing, attack on Patidars, lathicharge on Dalits in Una, poverty of Adivasis and unemployment," Gandhi said.

"The BJP government has handed over the resources of Gujarat like wealth, electricity, water, land, to just 5-10 industrialists. It gave Rs 33,000 crore to one company to manufacture Nano cars. In the past 10-15 days, I travelled more than 1,000 km, why couldn't I see a single Nano car?

"I didn't see it anywhere. Not just Gujarat, you'll not see it anywhere. The question is..this money belonged to whom? Was it Tata company's, the Chief Minister's or did it belong to Gujarat's farmers, labourers and the poor," he asked.

"With a similar amount (Rs 33,000 crore), the Congress government implemented MNREGA scheme in the entire country, gave employment to crores," said Gandhi, adding the same amount was given to one company by Gujarat government but the people of the state did not benefit from it.
Kolkata, Nov 3 : The State Bank of India expects additional capital flowing from the proposed Rs 2.11 lakh crore recapitalisation plan would add to its capacity to take care of future credit growth, an official said on Friday.

The Centre has announced recapitalisation plan of Rs 2.11 lakh crore for public sector banks, including Rs 18,139 crore through budgetary provisions, Rs 1.35 lakh crore by recapitalisation bonds, with the balance Rs 58,000 crore to be raised by banks from market.

"The SBI is adequately capitalised and our capital adequacy ratio is highest among all public sector banks. We are well above the benchmark in terms of capital adequacy ratio. For extending loan growth, the bank needs capital. It will help the bank to leverage that for expanding its balance sheet further," bank's Deputy Managing Director (Chief Operating Officer), National Banking Group, Neeraj Vyas, said.

Asked on the sidelines of an event organised by the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry as to how much the country's largest bank could get from the recapitalisation funds, he said: "We do not know the details."

He said it needs to be seen how the government will treat "weak" and "healthy" banks in terms of distributing the funds.

An SBI research note had said: "After provision of bad assets, we believe there may still be around Rs 1 lakh crore available for lending. The resultant multiplier impact of Rs 1 lakh crore could unleash at least Rs 3.3 lakh crore and that could go up to Rs 10 lakh crore additional infusion in the economy. This could concomitantly push up the Gross Domestic Product."
Melbourne, Nov 3 : Eyeing the growth in passenger traffic between India and Australia, SriLankan Airlines has launched a direct flight service to Melbourne from its Colombo hub.

Launched on October 29, 2017, the service is aimed at attracting Indian passenger traffic to Melbourne, says Dimuthu Tennakoon, Head of Worldwide Sales and Distribution, SriLankan Airlines.

"Given the number of Indians domiciled in Australia and the students who pursue higher education, and now with the one-stop connectivity offered by us, we are certain to witness travel movements throughout the year," Tennakoon told IANS.

"On the other hand, India with its cultural vibrancy will be of much interest to the Australian travellers... We see a great potential for both VFR (visiting friends and relatives) and leisure travel."

As a key cultural, sports, educational and employment centre of Australia, Melbourne has emerged as a preferred destination for Indian travellers in the recent past.

According to Tourism Australia, by August 2017, the number of tourist arrivals from India has been 286,200 which has shown a growth of 15.3 per cent, compared to the numbers recorded during the same period last year.

Besides the new flight offering, the airline hopes to cash in on the fact that it has the largest operations of any foreign carrier in India.

Presently, it has over 120 frequencies to 14 Indian destinations.

"SriLankan Airlines is currently the foreign carrier that operates out of the most number of Indian destinations," said Tennakoon.

"Our connectivity beyond Colombo to the Far East, Middle East, United Kingdom and now to Australia has certainly given us the advantage."

The airline also intends to increase its frequencies to key Indian destinations to cater to the expected demand from India to Melbourne.

"With the view of strengthening regional focus, we have planned frequency increases to Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore for 2017," he added.

(Rohit Vaid was in Melbourne on an invitation of SriLankan Airlines. He can be contacted at rohit.v@ians.in)
New York, Nov 3 : The increasing use of social media has always been associated with the deteriorating mental health of the young generation. But take heart, as social media use may not affect mental health, says a new research.

The study found no evidence supporting the view that the amount of time spent on social media increases mental health problems, such as loneliness, decreased empathy and social anxiety.

Instead, some people tend to use the media platform to encourage a moral panic -- a process whereby panic or fear is being created among the masses over an issue -- to create a situation of interest, said the researchers.

"We do not deny the potential for some online behaviours to be associated with mental health problems. But the research focuses on the behaviour of individuals rather than assuming social media to be the root cause of all socio-personal problems," explained Chloe Berryman, researcher at the University of Florida in the US.

The researchers surveyed youngsters by questioning them over their responses towards the media platforms, social relationships and whether they were mentally affected by some incidents.

The study, published in the journal Psychiatric Quarterly, found that the only concerned part was to do with vaguebooking or social media posts that contain little actual and clear information, but written in such a way as to solicit attention and concern from potential readers.

Young people who tended to often write such posts were found to be lonelier and had more suicidal thoughts than others.

"Vaguebooking was slightly predictive of suicidal ideation, suggesting this particular behaviour could be a warning sign for serious issues," said Berryman.

"It is therefore possible that some forms of social media use may function as a 'cry for help' among individuals with pre-existing mental health problems."
Kolkata, Nov 3 : Criticising the West Bengal government's role in tackling the outbreak of dengue, the state Congress leadership on Friday held a protest rally here and demanded it take adequate measures to prevent the disease.

The Congress activists, who marched from WBPCC head office Bidhan Bhavan to Esplanade crossing in central Kolkata, carried banners and placards demanding an answer from the government and also sprinkled bleaching powder on both sides of the road as a symbolic protest against the lack of cleanliness drive in the city.

State Congress president Adhir Chowdhury, who led the rally, accused the Bengal government of not taking any help from the central bodies to tackle the "dengue situation" and claimed "the government does not want to reveal that dengue has taken the form of epidemic in Bengal."

He also accused the state government of trying to hide the number of dengue victims by pressurising the medical practitioners.

"The people in Bengal are dying of dengue but the state government is instructing the doctors not to mention dengue in the medical prescriptions. They are asking the doctors to mention the sickness as unknown fever instead, so that the spread of dengue in the state does not come to the forefront," Chowdhury alleged.

"The attempts to hide the facts about dengue is a criminal offence by the government. They are killing the people of Bengal in cold blood," he said.

Refuting Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's claims that the opposition parties are indulging in dirty politics over the issue, Chowdhury said Banerjee herself is busy doing political matchmaking with the Shiv Sena in Mumbai while people in her state are dying.

"We are not doing politics over the issue, the Chief Minister is busy doing politics. She is holding meeting with Hindu hardliners like Shiv Sena in Mumbai so that the Hindus in Bengal do not say her government is busy doing minority appeasement. She is trying to convince the Hindus here that she is with them," he added.
Hyderabad, Nov 3 : Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday handed over a cheque of Rs 417.16 crore to BHEL for Damaracharla Yadadri ultra mega thermal power plant.

The 4,000 MW ultra mega power plant is coming up at Damaracharla in Suryapet district at a cost of Rs 20,379 crore.

Handing over the cheque to Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) Chairman and Managing Director Atul Sobti, the Chief Minister said the project should be completed within three years.

He said for transparency and timely completion of the power plants, the works were entrusted to the public sector company.

Noting that the land required for the plant was acquired and all the permissions including the environmental clearance were given, the Chief Minister said the work should be speeded up keeping in view the substantial increase in demand from the coming year.

"We have decided to give 24 hour power supply to farmers from next March. Construction of the lift irrigation schemes is going on. Several new industries are coming up. Need for power in other sectors is also growing up," he said.

KCR, as the Chief Minister is popularly known, said there will be an additional need for 3,500 MW. Keeping this in view, the state embarked on construction of major power plants.

Of all the plants, Yadadri plant is very important. "Work on the 5 x 800 MW plants should be taken up simultaneously and parallelly and should be completed in three years," he said.

Telangana State Power Generation Corporation CMD Prabhakar Rao told KCR that the works on the 800 MW Kothagudem plant will be completed in two or three months while Manuguru plant will be completed by the coming year.
Kozhikode (Kerala), Nov 3 : With protests against laying of GAIL pipelines in parts of Kozhikode and Malappuram districts taking a violent turn, the Kerala government has decided to call an all-party meeting on Monday over the issue.

State Industries Minister A.C. Moideen has asked the Kozhikode district collector U.V. Jose to call a meeting to discuss the issue on Monday.

The protest on Wednesday at Mukkom near here turned violent. In retaliation, the police reportedly barged into homes and arrested several people who they believed were behind the violent protests.

The police are now claiming that those behind the violence and the organisation of the protests had links with extremist groups.

On Friday morning, a delegation of top opposition leaders led by former State Congress president V.M. Sudheeran visited the Mukkam area and met the protesters.

After the meeting, he said that this is a protest seeking proper compensation.

"To quell a protest using force is not the right way for authorities and governments," said Sudheeran and assured the protesters that all support would be given to them.

A housewife, speaking to the media, expressed shock at the police high-handedness. She said the police even barged into toilets to take away people.

"This has never happened before," said the woman.

The police action has been roundly criticised on social media too. Several pictures are also doing the rounds of when the CPI-M was against the pipeline when they were in the opposition in 2015.

One of the most vocal proponents of the project now is CPI-M politburo member and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who has been quoted as saying that the police will be forced to act and some will have to suffer to pave the way for development.

Former Defence Minister and Congress leader A.K. Antony said that development should take place but only through consensus and for that the people have to be taken into confidence.

Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala who is currently on a state-wide yatra told the media in Kannur that if the state government does not act sensibly and address the issue, then they will be forced to join hands with the protesters.

The pipeline which begins from Kochi with one line to Mengaluru and another to Tamil Nadu has so far covered a few districts. For the past one month, protests are on in Kozhikode and Malappuram districts, even as the work is going on.
New Delhi, Nov 3 : Former Trinamool Congress leader Mukul Roy on Friday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) here, and said he believed that it is a "secular" force.

"I believe BJP is not a communal force, it is a secular force and it rules the country..." Roy said soon after formally joining the party.

"I believe in the leadership of Narendra Modi ji, Kailash Vijayvargiya ji and Amit (Shah) bhai, in the near future, BJP will come to power in West Bengal for the benefit of people of West Bengal," he said.

Roy recalled that the Trinamool fought Lok Sabha elections in 1998 for the first time as a partner of the BJP and again in 1999, was a member of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance after which Mamata Banerjee also became a minister in then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's cabinet.

"I feel without BJP, TMC could not have established (itself) then," he said.

BJP leader and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad meanwhile said that Roy, one of Trinamool's founding members will help BJP expand its footprint in West Bengal.

"Today a veteran public figure and political leader, Mukul Roy has joined BJP. He helped TMC come to power in West Bengal, and has been an MP for 12 years," he said, adding that the "most notable feature" of his political life is that for 30 years of the Left government led by the CPI-M "where voice of dissent had no place", he fought against "atrocities".

Stressing Roy offered to join the BJP without any conditions, he said: "He is coming to BJP at a time when it is expanding its footprint in Bengal."

Roy quit the Banerjee-led party on September 25 and resigned as a Rajya Sabha member on October 11.
Beijing, Nov 3 : US President Donald Trump will be able to use his Twitter account during his upcoming official visit to China, where the social network is blocked due to censorship, a senior Chinese government official said on Friday.

Trump, whose fondness for tweeting has led to his involvement in many controversies, is expected to arrive in Beijing next week on Wednesday and is scheduled to leave early on Friday, Efe news reported.

"About how President Trump communicates around the world, it is something you don't need to worry about," said China's Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Zheng Zeguang.

Very considerate preparations have been made for Trump and his wife Melania to offer them warm hospitality in Beijing, he added.

However, Twitter, as well as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google and many other social networks or Internet pages are blocked in China.

But Chinese authorities are eager to offer Trump the same warm and friendly hospitality that the White House offered to President Xi Jinping and his wife during their stay in Mar-a-lago (Florida) in April on the occasion of the first bilateral meeting between the two Presidents, the report said.
Zhuhai (China), Nov 3 : Julia Goerges of Germany snatched the last semifinal place with a 6-2, 7-6(4) win over top seed Kristina Mladenovic at the Hengqin Life WTA Elite Trophy here on Friday.

The World No.7 seed Goerges, who beat Magdalena Rybarikova at her opening match, topped their group with a 2-0 record to join the final four, reports Xinhua news agency.

In the semifinals, Goerges will play against CoCo Vandeweghe of the US while Ashleigh Barty of Australia will clash with Latovia's Anastasija Sevastova in the other match.
New Delhi, Nov 3 : The CBI has began a probe into the conspiracy hatched to kill certain Congress workers in the run-up to the 2012 Manipur assembly elections, during which one person was shot dead by police, an official said on Friday.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday filed the First Information Report in the case, saying that on a tip-off on January 14, 2012, Manipur Police laid a trap and killed Thangjam Thoithoi, who along with his aide had planned to kill some active Congress workers in a bomb blast.

Following the shootout, a case was registered at the Wangoi police station in Manipur's Imphal district.

The CBI took over the case after the Supreme Court on July 14 directed the agency to go through the case records, lodge necessary FIRs and complete the investigation.

The FIR said the alleged attacker's accomplice escaped after the about seven-minute shootout, adding that a two-wheeler, a Chinese hand grenade, and a 9mm pistol were found near the body.
New Delhi, Nov 3 : The attacks on two Indian students in the Italian city of Milan are being investigated by the authorities there, a senior official said here on Friday.

"The matter is under investigation by the local authorities," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in his weekly media briefing here.

"There were two students who were attacked on two different days," he said.

He said that the Indian Consul General has met both the students and another official from the consulate was also sent to the hospital where they were admitted.

The Indian Consulate in Milan had on Monday said that it has received reports of attacks and cautioned students to stay away from any area perceived to be of risk.

On Tuesday, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said that she had spoken to an Indian student assaulted in Milan and was told that it was not a racial attack but robbery.

Sushma Swaraj had earlier said she was personally monitoring the situation amid reports of attacks on Indian students in the Italian city.

Stating that it was case of robbery and physical assault, Kumar in Friday's briefing said: "We have promised to extend all possible help. We have also taken it up with the local authorities in Milan."

He added that the Indian Embassy in Rome has taken it up with the Italian Foreign Office.
Islamabad, Nov 3 : Pakistan has conveyed its "serious concerns" over the display of anti-Pakistan slogans on taxis plying in London.

Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua summoned British High Commissioner Thomas Drew on Friday to convey the concerns over the slogans seen on some cabs in London, attacking Pakistan's territorial integrity and sovereignty.

According to the Foreign Office, the High Commissioner was told that Pakistan objected to the propaganda.

The issue is also being raised with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by the Pakistan High Commissioner in London.

"Pakistan is aware of the intentions of such sinister and malicious campaigns, which should not be allowed on the soil of a friendly country," Janjua said in a statement.

Pakistani social media users in London had come across the cabs and shared their pictures.

In September, Pakistan had summoned the Swiss ambassador over the public display of anti-Pakistan posters in Switzerland.
Jaipur, Nov 3 : Protest by the Karni Sena against Sanjay Leela Bhansali's multi-starrer "Padmavati" picked up pace in Rajasthan ahead of its December 1 release with a complete bandh observed in Chittorgarh on Friday.

"We are not against the movie as such. What we want is that Bhansali's team should screen the movie for historians and intellectuals before releasing it as we are afraid and concerned that historical facts have been distorted in the movie," Vishavbandhu Rathore, Pradesh Mahasachiv Sri Rajput Karni Sena, a Rajput community organisation, told IANS.

"We had called for Chittorgarh bandh today, and we got support from everyone. It was a complete bandh in Chittorgarh today," said Mahipal Singh Makrana, state president of Sri Rajput Karni said.

Rani Padmini or Padmavati was queen of Chittorgarh.

He said before releasing posters and trailer of the film it should have been shown to the historians and intellectuals, but inspite of the promise made by Bhansali's team a few months back nothing was done.

"We are now going to Gujarat to hold a press conference there and also hold a rally in Gandhinagar on November 12 against the movie," he said.

In January, activists of a Rajput organisation, Shi Rajput Karni Sena had protested, manhandled and misbehaved with the crew of "Padmavati" claiming that Bhansali was distorting historical facts in the movie.

They had also damaged some cameras and other equipments. Bhansali had to stop shooting.

"We will not allow distorted facts to be shown in the film at any cost," Makrana said.

Karni Sena claims that they have got a big library and that in no book is it written that Alauddin Khilji fell in love with Padmavati or that he was her lover.

"They are trying to defame Padmavati by distorting historical facts. It is not acceptable," an activist of Karni Sena said.

In March some miscreants broke the mirrors in Padmini Mahal (palace) in Chittorgarh Fort where Alauddin Khilji is believed to have seen Rani Padmavati or Padmini.

Shri Rajput Karni Sena claims that mirror was invented years after this incident is claimed to have happened so it is a completely untrue and false story.
Mumbai, Nov 3 : The Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) on Friday posted a net loss of Rs 76.18 crore in the quarter ended September 30, up from Rs 17.77 crore in the year-ago period.

Its revenue from operations, during the quarter under review, was Rs 808.22 crore, up by 6.5 per cent from Rs 758.24 crore in the corresponding period last year.

The shipping major said its total expenses in the second quarter of the current fiscal grew by 9.5 per cent to Rs 883.04 crore, against Rs 806.02 crore in the year-ago period.

The company said it sold one container carrier while its board approved a proposal to sell two vessels.

The leading shipping carrier posted a net loss of Rs 82.90 crore in the first half of the current fiscal as against a profit of Rs 39.92 crore in the same period last year.
New Delhi, Nov 3 : The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday signed an MoU with C-DAC's Pune branch for a robust IT network architecture and security, a state of the art data centre, hardware optimization and an advanced cyber-forensics capability, an official statement.

The MoU, valid for the next two years, was signed at the counter-terrorism agency's headquarters here by NIA Inspector General Mukesh Singh and Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) Executive Director Hemant Darbari.

NIA's newly-appointed Director General Yogesh Chander Modi and C-DAC's Director General Debashis Dutta were present on the occasion.

"This MoU is intended to establish collaboration between the C-DAC and the NIA for consultancy or turnkey solutions in designing and implementing the information systems architecture, data centre and other related information systems projects of critical importance to the NIA and its branches, "With the present MoU, the NIA aims to establish a robust network IT architecture and security, a state of the art data centre, hardware optimization and an advanced cyber-forensics capability for the NIA headquarters as well as all other branches of NIA," an NIA statement said.

In the past also, the C-DAC Trivandrum was consulted by the NIA branch in Kochi for capacity building of the agency's IT division and in the field of cyber forensics, it said.

C-DAC is an autonomous scientific society of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology.
New Delhi, Nov 3 : The Congress on Friday attacked the Modi government saying its "ineffective foreign policy" has compromised national security, after China once again blocked the move to declare Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar an international terrorist.

"Modi government has once again compromised national security by an ineffective foreign policy. In the past year, China had thwarted several attempts by New Delhi to get Jaish-e-Mohammad's chief Maulana Masood Azhar named a terrorist by the United Nations," said Congress spokesperson R.P.N Singh.

"In September this year, the BRICS nations grouping, of which China is a key member, had declared Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) among groups responsible for committing, organizing or supporting terrorist acts in a joint statement," he added.

"This was hailed as a big diplomatic victory by the Modi government. Now China has used a 'technical hold' to veto a proposal to declare Masood Azhar as a global terrorist.

"China does not have moral right or the legal right now to prevent the United Nations from declaring him as an international terrorist. False bravado, chest thumping, and hyperbole have become the hallmark of BJP's national security and foreign policy," he added.

Singh said it was intriguing how the names of various BJP leaders have cropped up whenever there are questions about links to Dawood Ibrahim.

"The entire country witnessed when several BJP ministers and leaders of the Devendra Fadnavis (Maharashtra Chief Minister) government recently attended a wedding of Dawood Ibrahim's relatives.

"Self-contradictory posturing of the BJP - on engaging with the Hurriyat or freeing separatists like Masarat Alam or Asiya Andrabi - has blatantly exposed their hypocrisy for holding onto power at any cost. Will the BJP answer why did it release Masarat Alam," Singh asked.

He pointed out that in April 2015, Alam had raised anti-India slogans and hoisted the Pakistan flag in the valley and in August 2015 Asiya Andrabi addressed a rally organised by Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa in Pakistan. Now, she features on Beti Bachao posters, he said.

"Terrorism can be fought only by a united people, not by a people divided by religion. Religious polarization that is intrinsic to the value system of parties like the BJP severely erodes our capacity to combat terrorism," said Singh.
Bhopal, Nov 3 : President Ram Nath Kovind will visit the Madhya Pradesh capital on a one-day visit on November 10, said an official on Friday.

Kovind, who is scheduled to take part in Kabir Pragatotsav ceremony here, will be making his first visit to the state after taking over the country's top post.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that special arrangements are being made to welcome the President.
New Delhi, Nov 3 : A group of drunken men attacked AIIMS security guards at Gate 3 of its Trauma Centre, injuring some of them and forcing police intervention, doctors and security personnel said on Friday.

According to the security department of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, the attackers took the security guards by surprise on Thursday night with their aggression.

"As the guards were outnumbered, they had to call Delhi police for help. Only with the help of the police they were able to lock the gate but could not disperse the mob," said a security supervisor at the Centre which receives a large number of accident victims daily.

"The drunken men were throwing stones and bricks on the gate. A few guards got injured," said the supervisor at the Centre, officially called the Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre.

On Friday, the Resident Doctors Association (RDA) of AIIMS urged the hospital to strengthen security at the Trauma Centre.

"We are concerned about the security of the resident doctors who reside in the Centre, doctors' hostels and the residents who take the tunnel route to the Centre for their duties... There was stone pelting by some outsiders at Gate 3 on Thursday. Similar issues have existed for long," the RDA said in a letter to the Trauma Centre chief.

"Kindly direct the security department so that no untoward incident happens. Delhi Police help may also be sought in this regard if needed," said the letter.
Navsari (Gujarat), Nov 3 : After OBC leader Alpesh Thakore joined the Congress, Gujarat Dalit activist Jignesh Mevani met Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi here on Friday and said it was at least willing to have a dialogue with them as against the "arrogant" BJP.

Mevani clarified that he was not joining the Congress but stressed that he along with all Dalit organisations and activists would go all out to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Assembly elections.

"Right since the Una incident one-and-a-half years ago and even before, there has been simmering anger among all Dalit organisations and activists against the arrogant attitude of the BJP government," he told the media after meeting Gandhi at a farm house in Navsari town in south Gujarat.

"Forget about looking into our demands, they did not even care to have a dialogue with us," Mevani added.

Flanked by the Congress scion, Mevani addressed the media from a bus in which Gandhi was travelling during his campaign in the region.

Mevani, a lawyer fighting land rights cases of Dalits, said: "We have a charter of 17 demands for justice and Rahulji has agreed to implement most of them if the Congress comes to power."

He claimed it was heartening that the Congress leader had a dialogue. "In fact, on 90 per cent of our demands, he said these were not merely demands but our constitutional rights which are being denied by the BJP," Mevani said.

"Rahulji called us in a pro-active approach. There was discussion, there was debate, there was a dialogue. He has promised to include most of our demands in the Congress manifesto. We will do everything to defeat the anti-people BJP."

The Dalit activist said there would be more meetings with Gandhi. Right now he was not joining the Congress.

Gandhi, speaking in Hindi, said: "There is no section of the society that is happy in Gujarat. Be it Jignesh, Hardik or Alpesh, they are all representatives of the all-pervasive anger and frustration."

Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi without naming him, Gandhi said: "A Congress government will listen to the people's Mann Ki Baat and not impose our own Mann Ki Baat."
Agartala, Nov 3 : Book sellers and publishers from Bangladesh are facing trouble in displaying and selling their publications in India due to customs regulations, a Tripura Publishers Guild official said.

"Book sellers and publishers of Bangladesh are facing serious problems in displaying and selling their publications in India. The Indian Customs regulations prevented 10 Bangladeshi book sellers and publishers from participating in the Agartala Pustak Mela," Tripura Publishers Guild secretary Raghunath Sarkar said here.

According to him, 10 Bangladeshi book sellers and publishers were keen to participate in the book fair but the Indian customs authorities said they would have to seek written permission and submit the books and publications two months ahead of their participation in the fair. "These complicated rules come in the way of Bangladeshi publishers and book sellers from attending the fair," he added.

Assistant Commissioner of Customs Jyotish Das said for display of Bangladeshi books in India no duty is charged but for sale of books and publications the stipulated duty and necessary formalities must be followed as per rules.

"Customs never create unnecessary obstacles for display and sale of Bangladeshi books in India," Das told IANS.

On Thursday, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar inaugurated the 13-day 13th Agartala Pustak Mela here. Book sellers and publishers from Delhi, Kolkata and Assam besides Tripura are taking part in the fair.

Sarkar alleged that "some forces" are trying to control the print, electronic and social media in the country.

"Truth and facts must bring to light and people have the right to know the actual happenings. Good books and publications should be published more for the welfare of the society and people," Sarkar stated.
New Delhi, Nov 3 : Following a media report that controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik has been given permanent residency in Malaysia, India on Friday said that it will soon request the Malaysian government for his extradtion.

"Any formal request where we are seeking the assistance of a foreign government in cases of extradition, it requires a legal process internally first," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in response to a question at his weekly media briefing here.

"We are nearing the completion of this exercise and once this exercise is complete, we will make an official request to the Malaysian government on this matter," he said.

According to the media report, Naik has been given permanent residency in Malaysia and top Malaysian government officials have embraced him.

"Over the time spent in this country, he has not broken any laws or regulations. As such, there is no reason from a legal standpoint to detain or arrest him," Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was quoted as telling the country's parliament.

In July this year, a special court in Mumbai declared Naik a "proclaimed offender".

According to National Investigation Agency (NIA), after the order declaring Naik - who enjoys a NRI status - a proclaimed offender was issued on July 21, the process to attach his assets started under the Criminal Procedure Code's Section 83.
Paris, Nov 3 : Justice must be done for murdered journalists who perform important functions in taking forward fundamental freedoms and bolstering the strength of societies, a senior UN official has said.

"Justice is a cornerstone of a free society. It dissuades those who threaten freedom of expression and emboldens those who stand to defend it," said Irina Bokova, the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) on Thursday, in her message for the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists.

The date was chosen in commemoration of the assassination of two French journalists in Mali on November 2, 2013.

From 2006 to 2016, at least 930 journalists were killed. In 2016 alone, some 102 journalists were killed in the line of duty. Worryingly, more than nine out of 10 cases, the perpetrators are never brought to justice.

"We must ensure justice is done for every journalist killed," Bokova said.
New Delhi, Nov 3 : Suspected Al-Qaeda operative and British national Samiun Rahman, arrested on charge of radicalising Rohingyas to fight the Myanmar Army, on Friday told a court that he was "sexually harassed" in the Tihar Central Jail here.

Additional Sessions Judge Sidharth Sharma asked the jail officials to file a response on Rahman's plea and listed the matter for November 8.

In an application moved through counsel M.S. Khan, Rahman said that on November 2, five securitymen came to see him in jail Number 1 and touched his body parts inappropriately and told him to strip.

Rahman said his cell lacked basic facilities and he did not get proper food, drinking water, or medicines.

Rahman, 27, was arrested near Shakarpur bus stand in east Delhi on September 17.

Police claimed his mission was to set up base in Manipur or Mizoram and radicalise Rohingya Muslims to fight the military in Myanmar.

Police said the accused was in India for the past two months under a fake identity of Shumon Haq from Kishanganj in Bihar and held a fake voter identity card in the same name.

Rahman, an alleged operative of Al-Qaeda for four years, had received three-month arms training in Syria and also fought in Alleppo.

Police said Rahman's father, hailing from Bangladesh, was a businessman in London while his brother and three sisters also worked in London.
Thane, Nov 3 : A private detective has been arrested for allegedly extorting Rs 1 crore from a suspended IAS officer of Maharashtra, a senior police officer said here on Friday.

"A private detective and his wife were arrested by the Thane Anti-Extortion Cell on Thursday from a rented flat in Dombivli town. We have recovered two laptops, 15 CDs, five mobile handsets, four pen-drives, and other incriminating documents from their home," Thane Police Commissioner Parambir SinghSingh told media persons.

Satish Sakharam Mangle, who runs a private detective agency, and his second wife Shraddha, were caught red-handed accepting the amount at their home in Dombivali on Thursday by a decoy police team.

They had attempted to extort Rs 10 crore from the former Maharashtra State Roads Development Corporation Vice-Chairman & Managing Director Radheshyam Mopalwar, but after negotiations, agreed to settle for Rs 7 crore.

"They even threatened him on October 31 at a five-star hotel in Mumbai that if he (Mopalwar) failed to pay up the Rs. 70 million extortion amount, they would hire a criminal gang to eliminate him and his daughter, Tanvi," Singh said.

Giving further details, he said that the case dates back to August 1, when hoping to blackmail and extort money from Mopalwar, the Mangles handed him an audio tape of an alleged corruption matter.

Subsequently, they also met several politicians from different parties to level wild allegations of graft against Mopalwar, who was subsequently suspended from his post by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis after a sting operation of his alleged corrupt deals were highlighted in the print and electronic media.

On October 23, the Mangles and their associate Anil Vedmehta, summoned Mopalwar through his friend Kling Mishra, to a hotel near the Kharegaon Toll Plaza on the Mumbai-Nashik highway and demanded Rs 10 crore for withdrawing all complaints of corruption and handing over all the audio tape recordings to him.

Of this, Mopalwar agreed to pay an up front amount of Rs 1 crore to Mangle in Thane.

Following a complaint lodged by Mopalwar, the Thane police laid a trap and nabbed Mangle red-handed taking the money, delivered by a plainclothed police team.

Incidentally, investigators said Mangle was a mediator in the divorce between Mopalwar and his (ex)-wife and took advantage of his personal relations with the suspended bureaucrat.

Last year, through an associate, Mangle had alleged demanded Rs 56 lakh from Mopalwar at the MSRDC office in Bandra and a complaint was lodged with the local police.

Singh said that Mangle was a SSC pass and later drop-out of a diploma course in computers after which he launched his own private detective agency. He had developed contacts with senior government officers and was adept at recording telephone calls which he used for his rackets.

Mangle has been booked under various IPC sections, besides a case registered against him with the Bandra Police under the IT Act, and a rape case with Mira Road (Thane) Police.
Kolkata, Nov 3 : As former Trinamool Congress leader Mukul Roy joined the BJP, its West Bengal state unit on Friday said the party would not stand behind or give cover to any leader found guilty in the eyes of the law but added that Roy's guilt remains to be proved.

The one time second-in-command of Trinamool, Roy's name figures in both the Saradha ponzi scam and Narada sting cases.

"Those who are found guilty will be punished. The party won't stand behind them or give them cover. Leaders of a lot of parties, including the CPI-M, have got involved," said West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh.

Regarding Roy, Ghosh said it was yet to be proved that he was guilty.

"It remains to be proved that he is involved. The state government has sent to jail some of our party leaders also by involving them in various cases. That doesn't mean they are involved," he said.

State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury trained his guns on Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee, alleging she believed in the "use and throw" policy, and that Roy switched over to the BJP as he had no other option.

"Mukul Roy has been groomed in the Congress gharana (family). He has gone to the BJP because there was no other option before him.

"It is also a big question why Mukul Roy, who founded the Trinamool and was also its second in command at some point of time, had to leave the party.

"That's because the Trinamool supremo believes in the use and throw policy," he said.

Roy had been sidelined in the Trinamool in the months leading up to his resignation from the party. He was divested of all posts and responsibilities and ignored in crucial party matters. In an organisational reshuffle, Banerjee even abolished the Vice President's post he had been holding for over a year.

Late September, Roy announced his decision to quit the party and his Rajya Sabha membership.

He formally joined the BJP on Friday in New Delhi in the presence of its senior leaders.

The CPI-M led Left Front however, saw a covert nexus between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Banerjee in the latest episode.

"Banerjee used him for all her dirty work, and has released him for the time being. And now, Modibhai has roped him to do the similar dirty jobs for him.

"It will be Roy's job to ensure the relations between Modibhai and didibhai (read Mamata who is populary called 'didi' or elder sister) are not spoiled," said LF legislature party leader Sujan Chakraborty.

But Chakraborty wondered whether Trinamool or Roy can survive in this way.

"If Trinamool or Roy think they can survive through such stratagems, I'll say that is a remote possibility."

Describing Roy as one of the main actors in the Saradha scam, Chakraborty said: "BJP has now proved that even such people can take shelter in its fold."
New Delhi, Nov 3 : Delhi will generate 1,000 megawatt (MW) of solar power by 2019 which will also help bring down electricity rates, state Health Minister Satyendra Jain said on Friday.

"During the peak hours, there is a demand of about 6,500 MW and during the non-peak hours, it comes down to 3,500 MW. By 2019, Delhi will start producing 1,000 MW of clean energy," Jain told media here.

"All the three discoms of Delhi have been finally been convinced about this after the government spoke to them for about five to six months," he said.

About five lakh people will benefit from this, he said.

Jain said that fossil fuel power plants that burn carbon fuels such coal, oil or gas to generate electricity produce huge amounts of pollution and thus there is a need to use clean energy.

He also said the solar power project would help in lowering electricity rates in the city, where Rs 5.95 per unit is charged for consumption between 210 and 400 units.

"We are expecting these rates to go down to Rs 3 per unit," Jain said, adding that solar pumps will be available at subsidised for the farmers here.

"Domestic electricity meter installation for small businesses open in homes in residential areas, with connections from 0 to 5 KW, will be considered," he added.

Delhi was the second-most polluted major city in the world, as per a WHO study last year.
New Delhi, Nov 3 : Nagaland Chief Minister T.R. Zeliang on Friday called on Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and urged a solution to the longstanding Naga political problem ahead of the February-March 2018 elections to the 60-member assembly.

"It has been 20 years of negotiations and it is important that the settlement of the Naga political issue is initiated before the next elections," the Chief Minister told Singh.

He was accompanied by his Cabinet colleagues and Nagaland's lone Lok Sabha member Neiphiu Rio.

The Union Home Minister said he hoped the "settlement of the Naga political issue will be done soon".

Later, the Centre's interlocutor for Naga peace talks, R.N. Ravi, explained to Zeliang and his Ministers at the Nagaland House here that they were very near to arriving at solution to cruicial issues and it was essential that all parties were involved in the final parleys to ensure peaceful and long-lasting solution.

Ravi told the Naga leaders that most substantial issues have been resolved and only symbolic issues need final resolution.

The interlocutor exhorted them to impress upon all parties the need for an early solution.

On August 3, 2015, the central government and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland's Issac Muivah faction signed the Framework Agreement. However, neither side released its details.

The separatist group has been in talks with the government since 1997 after the signing of a ceasefire agreement.
Guwahati, Nov 3 : The Assam unit of the BJP has warned party legislator Shiladitya Dev against making comments on Bengali-speaking Muslims of Assam and said that no member of the party should comment on anything that is against the ideology of the party.

Assam BJP president Ranjit Dass said this on Friday while reacting to media reports highlighting some of the statements made by Dev, particularly against Bengali-speaking Muslims.

"The statements made by Dev are his personal view and not those of the party. The statements of Dev have no connection with the ideology of the party," said Das, adding that the party cannot support the views of Dev, particularly at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is putting in his best efforts to end poverty, communalism, racism from the country.

"BJP's national policy does not support communalism. The Prime Minister believes in 'Saabka sath Saabka Vikas' policy," he sad while urging Dev to restrain from making such comments which are against the party.

Dev was very vocal against Bengali-speaking Muslims, particularly those living in char areas of Assam, which he said "have become breeding grounds of terrorism".

He had also said that the Assam government had been wasting money in the name of development of char areas and that the government must stop spending money on developing the char areas.

Dev also said that the Rohingyas were entering southern Assam's Barak Valley from Tripura. He alleged that the Left Front government in Tripura was pushing them into Assam to gain political mileage.
Kolkata, Nov 3 : The readership of Bengali literature has been steadily declining in both West Bengal and Bangladesh, with students turning their back on writings in the language, Jnanpith awardee poet Sankha Ghosh said here on Friday.

Inaugurating the third edition of the Apeejay Bangla Sahitya Utsob, the two-time Sahitya Akademi winner said literary festivals were an effective tool to reverse the trend.

"It is true that the readership of Bengali literature has seen a steady decline. The same thing happened in Bangladesh too where students of schools and colleges are turning their back on Bengali writings.

"But hopefully there are still some enthusiasts. Initiatives like this focuse on increasing the enthusiasm among people," he said after opening the festival by lighting the lamp.

Lauding the festival, Ghosh said it was an important initiative to encourage readers of Bengali literature.

"I love coming here. It is good that the festival is growing," he said.

In a bid to evoke interest among the young bibliophiles and encourage the enthusiasts, the festival this year has introduced a host of youth-centric events and increased its span to three days.

About the present situation of Bengali literature, renowned author Sanjib Chattopadhyay said writers should stop worrying about book sales and pen their creations with a free mind to produce good writings.

"Every good writer works with his own theme. To produce good literature one has to set his mind free and be a part of his own story. Then and only then his efforts are rewarded. An author cannot write thinking about what the readers would like and how many copies of his writing would sell," Chattopadhyay said.

The inaugural session of the festival, organised by Oxford Bookstores in association with Patra Bharati, was also graced by leading Bengali novelist Imdadul Haq Milon.

Hailing the enthusiasm of people over the last two years of the literary festival, the organisers said they have introduced a host of youth centric activities in this edition to attract the young people to the treasure trove of Bengali literature.

"Special focus has been given this year towards engaging the youths by introducing two musical performances and a photography competition to showcase one's love for reading," said Swagat Sengupta, Festival Director and CEO Oxford Bookstores.
Surat, Nov 3 : With slogans of "Jai Sardar, Jai Patidar", Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Friday evening stormed into the Patidar-dominated Varachha area here in the diamond hub asserting that the "satya" of Gujarat and that of the BJP were two different things.

He also promised to come here again on November 8 when the ruling BJP celebrates "anti-black money day".

Varachha area is one of the key centres of Hardik Patel led Patidar agitation for reservations to the community under the OBC category.

Amid a cheering audience, Gandhi asserted that the reality of BJP and Gujarat were two different things, and the fight was now between the two.

He said while the UPA government had allotted Rs 35,000 crore for MNREGA, the national rural employment guarantee scheme, Narendra Modi, as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, had allocated Rs 33,000 crore to Tatas for the Nano project.

"You gave everything and wanted employment, education for your children, treatment for your ailment. Did you get it? Every time you click a selfie, a youth in China benefits," Gandhi said, speaking in Hindi, as the crowds screamed, "No, no."

"You wanted education for your children, you have to give Rs 10 lakh to Rs 15 lakh as capitation fees since most institutions in Gujarat are owned by private companies.

"The state of health facilities is no different. This is what the BJP has done in these years. Taken everything from you and helped a handful of business houses."

Terming the small and mid-sized businessmen of Surat as the "only ones who can challenge the China story", he termed demonetisation and tardy implementation of GST as an attack on the people.

"Demonetisation was done to capture black money. Narendra Modiji did not understand that all black money is not in cash, but in real estate, Swiss bank accounts.

"If Modiji had attacked black money, why is Vijay Mallya in London? Why was no suited booted guy standing in the queues in front of the banks?" Gandhi asked "GST was Congress's idea, but we had said it should be capped at 18 per cent and there should not be so many slabs. But we were told 'we run the government, you are in opposition, you don't have to tell us what to do'.

"GST was implemented without testing. Surat was a loser, small businessmen were the sufferers. The idea was to take your money," he added.

Lambasting Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over the recent World Bank's report on ease of doing business which shows India in an improved situation, Gandhi said: "We don't need certificate from the World Bank, but from the small and mid-sized businessmen of Surat."

"You people have now gotten into a habit of listening to Narendra Modiji's 'Mann ki Baat' every now and then, if we come to power, you don't have to listen to us, but we shall listen to you. The day Congress comes to power in India, we shall change GST," Gandhi added.

He asserted, to a huge applause, "Modiji had said "Na main Khaunga na khaney dunga", but he did not say a word about the controversy around the astounding growth of Amit Shah's son."

Continuing his direct attack on Modi, Gandhi said: "Modiji these days has adopted a new approach called "na bolunga, na bolne dunga" (I will neither speak nor allow anyone else to speak)."

"Modi claims himself to be the chowkidar of the country. If he really is so, he should institute an inquiry into the company of Amit Shah's son. If he doesn't do this, he is not the chowkidar, but a bhagidaar (partner)."

Earlier in Valsad, Gandhi, terming the Gujarat elections a fight between truth and lies, said truth lies with his party, and not the BJP.

He had also attacked the Modi government over employment generation and noted that all the communities in Gujarat are agitating against the state government, be it the Patidars, the Adivasis, Dalits and the farmers.
Bengaluru, Nov 3 : Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat would honour his two Kodava predecessors on Saturday in Karnataka's Kodagu district, a defence official said.

"The army chief will pay homage to Indian army chiefs, Field Marshal K.M. Cariappa and General K.S. Thimayya by unveiling their statues at Cauvery College at Gonikoppal to inspire the students as martial race of Kodavas," the official told IANS.

Cariappa was the first Indian Commander-in-Chief of the Army and was conferred the Field Marshal rank on April 1986. He is also a recipient of the Order of the British Empire for his role in the Burma campaign against the Japanese during the Second World War.

Cariappa also led the forces on the western front during the 1947 India-Pakistan war. He is the first of the two officers to hold the five-star rank of Field Marshal, the other being S.H.F.J. 'Sam' Manekshaw.

Thimayya, who was Chief of Army Staff from 1957 to 1961, was the only Indian to command an infantry brigade in World War II.

"Our Army's history is incomplete without knowing the valour of Kodava warriors like Cariappa and Thimayya who are commanded for their leadership and inspiration," said the official.

Located in the southern part of the Western Ghats, around 240 km from Bengaluru, Kodagu has a sizeable population of war veterans and war widows.

The bronze statues are installed in the vicinity of the 'Lyn House', the ancestral house of Kodavdira family, to which both the Generals belonged to.

"The 7 feet, 6 inch tall statues were made at Bidadi (near Bengaluru) at a cost of Rs 17 lakh. It's the only location in the country where statues of two Generals are installed at one place," said the official.

Lt. Gen. R.K. Anand, General Officer Commanding, South India area, Major Gen. K.S. Nijjar, General Officer Commanding, Karnataka & Kerala Sub-Area and serving and retired Army officers will be present on the occasion along with their families.

The Army had set up over a decade ago the Field Marshal Cariappa-General Thimayya Forum with a view to helping Kodagu veteran soldiers and motivate the youth to join the armed services.

The Forum has been celebrating the birthdays of Carippa and Thimayya every year since 2007 at Madikeri in the same district where they were born.

Cariappa was born on January 28, 1899 and died May 15, 1993 at the age of 94 in Bengaluru, while Thimayya was born on March 30, 1906 and died on December 17, 1965 at the age of 59 in Cyprus.

"The Forum has converted Thimayya's residence 'Sunny Side' at Madikeri as a museum and is building a war memorial in his honour. It will be unveiled next year" added the official.
New Delhi, Nov 3 : India and Armenia on Friday reviewed bilateral ties across multiple sectors in a bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan.

The two leaders discussed bilateral as well as regional and multilateral issues during the course of the meeting.

"The two sides reviewed present status of bilateral relations and discussed ways to further strengthen future cooperation in diverse areas including political, defence, space, trade and investment, science and technology, education, culture and people to people contacts," an External Affairs Ministry statement said.

"Specific areas with potential to propel bilateral trade and economic relations were discussed including in the sectors of food processing, renewable energy, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, information technology, mining and jewellery," it said.

Data made available by the External Affairs citing Statistical Service of Armenia, the bilateral trade stood at $32.3 million only.

India's imports from Armenia were at $0.4 million and exports to Armenia stood at $31.9 mn again favouring India.

Indian exports to Armenia consist of bovine meat, agricultural products, electrical equipment, cut and polished diamonds, optical equipment, plastics, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, garments and other chemical goods and cars, while Armenia's exports include non-ferrous metals and rawrubber.

In Friday's meeting, both sides agreed that early conclusion of an India-Eurasian Economic Union free trade agreement would unleash huge opportunities in increasing bilateral trade.

Earlier on Friday, Sargsyan attended the Worl Food India 207 which was inaugurated by Modi.

He also called on President Ram Nath Kovind and met Vice President Venkaiah Naidu.

The Armenian President arrived here on Thursday on a four-day visit to India.
Kolkata, Nov 3 : Left Front chairman Biman Bose on Friday called upon the people to resist attacks on democracy and be prepared to lay down their lives in the struggles for life and livelihood.

Addressing a rally at the conclusion of the statewide jatha (march) brought out by the by 'Bengal Platform of Mass Organisations' (BPMO) pressing for a 17-point charter of demands, he said the Left workers should go to all the 40,000 villages and 126 municipalities in the state to reach their messages to the masses.

"When we started the march, we intended to reach out to all the 40,000 villages and the 126 municipalities. But it seems our work is unfinished as our message has not reached everywhere. So your responsibility has increased," he said.

Targeting the ruling Trinamool Congress, he alleged that it has destroyed the state's cultural ethos through its rowdyism.

"If there is an attack on democracy, you have to resist whenever any such incident happens... You have to be prepared to lay down your lives in the coming struggles for life and livelihood."

Altogether 117 state based mass organisations including those of the Left Front, had come under the banner of BPMO which held big and numerous local level marches, culminating into rallies in the district headquarters, as also the state capital. The march started from October 22 and ended in Kolkata on Friday.

The 17-point charter of demands includes ensuring remunerative prices for farmers, digital ration cards for all, food for all, setting up of new factories to provide jobs, opening of closed factories, minimum guaranteed wages for workers in unorganised sectors, compensation to victims of ponzi scams, security for women and strenghening of ICDS and mid-day meal schemes.
New Delhi, Nov 3 : Delhi Police arrested a couple from West Bengal on the charges of trafficking and pushing girls from Delhi and NCR into bar dancing after luring them with promises of providing good jobs. Two girls were also rescued from their clutches, police said on Friday.

Subir Das, 32, and Simran, 21, natives of Siliguri in West Bengal and Faridabad in Haryana, respectively, were arrested on October 29 from their paying guest (PG) accommodation in West Bengal, the police said here.

During the raid, police teams rescued a girl and her niece from West Bengal, who were pushed into dancing in a dance bar owned by Das, officer said.

"Das' bar was located in Cosmos Mall in Siliguri and he had deputed Simran to bring girls from Delhi and NCR region. Das used to pay Rs 10,000 per girl in addition to travel and other expenses to Simran," Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Vijay Kumar said.

The police had received a complaint of two girls being pushed into bar dancing after being forcibly taken to Siliguri instead of Jaipur by Simran, who had promised to give them job of wedding welcome girls in Jaipur.

"During the counseling, both victims stated that Simran promised them job at wedding ceremonies in Rajasthan but took them to West Bengal and handed over to Das. It was Das who forced them to work as bar dancers.

"The accused also took their documents such as Aadhaar cards and educational certificates, so that they do not leave the bar," the officer added.

The couple were booked on charges of buying or disposing of any person as a slave and criminal conspiracy, DCP Vijay Kumar added.
New Delhi, Nov 3 : The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has terminated the work contracts of several companies, including Larsen and Toubro and Essel Infra, due to faulty bidding for Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects and Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) projects.

The termination of contracts have been done since 2014, and NHAI has asked for representations, if any, on the works to be made to the General Manager (Technical) of the division concerned at the NHAI head office by November 6.

Among the projects of infra giant L&T that have been cancelled include a six-lane project in Maharashtra's Pimpalgaon-Nasik-Gobde section.

"The L&T has also been barred to bid for PPPs till March 28, 2019 and for EPC projects till March 28, 2018," said official documents from the NHAI, which are with IANS.

Essel Infra has been barred from bidding for PPPs till July 21, 2019 while it also cannot participate in EPC projects till July 21, 2018.

According to NHAI, the notice cum list was uploaded to the website for three days and has been removed now as the message has been conveyed to the companies.

Other companies whose projects have been cancelled and barred from participating in EPC and PPP projects include Hindustan Construction Company, AMBA infrastructure, and Soma Enterprises.

Hindustan Construction Company has been barred to bid for PPPs till March 30, 2020 and from EPC projects till March 30, 2019, while the NHAI has terminated its 4-lane project in West Bengal, said the official document.

Several projects in Bihar being done by companies such as Gammon Infrastructure, and Progressive Constructions in a joint venture with MVR have been cancelled.

Gammon was barred from participating in PPP projects till August 28, 2017.

KSS Petron Private Ltd, Valecha Engineerings, and Karystroy Service Investments Pvt Ltd have been barred from participating in PPP projects till March 19, 2020, while they cannot participate in EPC mode projects till March 19, 2019.

Corson Corviam has been barred from participating in PPP contracts till March 3,2020 while it can't bid for EPC mode projects till March 14, 2019.

Transstroy (India) Ltd has been barred from PPP projects till May 5,2020 while it won't be eligible to participate in EPC projects till May 5, 2019.

In the northeast, JKM Infra and NKC projects won't be eligible to participate in PPP projects till January 2020 and EPC projects till January 1, 2019.

In West Bengal, Madhucon Infra's four lanning of Barasat-Krishnagar section on NH-34 has been cancelled and it can't bid for PPP projects till May 2, 2019 and EPC projects till May 2, 2018.
Washington, Nov 4 : US Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, charged with desertion in Afghanistan, dodged a prison sentence after a special military court sentenced him to demotion and a dishonorable discharge, a media report said.

The sentence on Friday, handed down by a court-martial at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, allows Bergdahl to avoid the maximum penalty he faced, which was life in prison, while sentencing him to a demotion in rank to private (the lowest level), forfeiture of $10,000 and a dishonorable discharge, according to the CNN news channel, Efe news reported.

Bergdahl went missing from his base in Afghanistan in 2009. He spent five years as a prisoner of the Taliban before being released at the end of May 2014 in a prisoner swap negotiated by the then Barack Obama administration, involving the release of five Taliban fighters imprisoned at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba.

Upon his return home, the Pentagon, which during his captivity promoted Bergdahl to the rank of Sergeant, decided to investigate the circumstances of his disappearance from a post in the embattled Afghan province of Paktika and recommended a military trial with a sentence of life imprisonment if found guilty.

After a long review of the case, the US armed forces decided to press charges against Bergdahl for desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.
Visiting Brazil is about to get easier. For a limited time, Goway is making it cheaper too. For any Brazil booking made with Goway in the month of November, the company will cover the cost of the Brazil tourist visa.

Throughout November, Goway is offering Globetrotters jetting off on a Brazil vacation a credit to offset the cost of the countrys hefty visa fee.

A political tool that often becomes a game of tit for tat between countries, visas catch Globetrotters up in their wake, becoming an added cost and hassle to travel. Some visas and the procedures to obtain them can even dissuade Globetrotters from travelling to that country. One victim of its own policies is Brazil, where the lengthy and pricey visa process has deterred many visitors to South America from exploring its largest country.

While Goway Travel cant change Brazils visa policy, the company is doing its part to ease the burden. For any Brazil booking made with Goway in the month of November, the company will cover the cost of the Brazil tourist visa. This can be a saving of $160US / $120CA  though as with all visa charges, there is the chance it will change by the time the traveller applies.

To be eligible for the credit, Globetrotters need to submit their receipt for the issuing of the visa when confirming their booking. Goway will then deduct that amount from the trip price.

Sadly, Goway cannot actually fill in the paperwork and submit the application. Thats still up to the traveller, as is the cost of any third-party application service. But the company will cover the visa fee.

Brazil will in fact soon be making the visa process easier. Effective January 8th 2018, Canadian passport holders travelling to Brazil will be able to apply for their Brazilian visa via an electronic visa application, done online. As of June 15th 2018, US passport holders will enjoy the same service.

Now, crossing the border in Iguassu Falls from Argentina for a day visit to the Brazil side, visiting the vibrant city of Rio de Janeiro, the natural playground of the Pantanalor journeying to the heart of the Amazon is much easier and $160US / $120CA per person cheaper with no visa cost involved, all thanks to Goway.

Since 1970, Goway has been providing unforgettable travel experiences to Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Central & South America, Idyllic Island destinations and Europe. Today Goway is recognized as one of North America's leading travel companies for individuals, families and groups to select exotic destinations around the globe. Goway has offices in Toronto, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Manila, and Sydney, Australia.

For reservations and information, visit http://www.goway.com, or call 1-800-387-8850.
Taiwan Pavilion at AAPEX 2017

The foremost non-profit trade and investment promotion organization in Taiwan, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), will be leading 53 Taiwanese manufacturers to attend AAPEX 2017. The show will be held at the Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2, 2017.

AAPEX, also known as the Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo, is the largest automotive aftermarket products exhibition in North America. This year, the show is expected to be joined by 2,200 exhibiting companies and 158,000 automotive aftermarket professionals from more than 140 countries.

The group of 53 Taiwanese companies led by TAITRA will be exhibiting at the Taiwan Pavilion, located at Lobby Level 1 of the Sands Hall. On display will be their latest breakthroughs and innovations in the field of automotive products and technology.

The automotive industry of Taiwan is one of the best in the world, and Taiwanese manufacturers have long been globally recognized for their high product quality and extraordinary service flexibility.

The Taiwan Pavilion at AAPEX 2017 will enable the visitors to see the excellent offers from the top manufacturers of the country. Get a sneak preview of the exhibitors and their products at: https://goo.gl/N9nYjV

Visitors can also make advance appointment bookings with the exhibitors from the website.

The national B2B trade portal of Taiwan, Taiwantrade.com, will also be exhibiting at booth number 7920 of the Sands Expo & Convention Center, where the visitors will be introduced to the many useful sourcing services provided by the online portal.

The Taiwantrade.com booth will also introduce the visitors to the webpage auto.taiwantrade.com with the company profiles of 3,784 Taiwanese suppliers and 43,095 product catalogs.

You are cordially invited to visit the Taiwan Pavilion at AAPEX 2017, located at Lobby Level 1 of the Sands Hall across booth numbers 8003~8107, 7819~7821, 7919~7920, 8019~8026, 8119~8126, 8028~8032 and 8128~8033 of the Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2, 2017.

Steven Yu (stevenyu(at)taitra(dot)org.tw)
Christopher Kelly, CEO of AdYoYo, as well as Kuntal (KJ) Mehta, owner and founder of Seashore Partners, will be attending WebSummit, the largest tech conference in the world from November 6th  9th 2017. Seashore Partners has assisted AdYoYo in building the video based buy and sell marketplace now available throughout the United States, India, and several other countries.

"Seashore Partners is integral to our success at AdYoYo," said Mr. Kelly. "Their expertise, technical know-how, and superb communication rate them as the best technical development and information technology partner I have worked with."

AdYoYo is a unique local marketplace app that allows users to buy and sell quickly using the power of video, giving those users a better shopping experience.

"Our partnership is aimed at boosting user experience by providing the right technology stack based on AdYoYo's needs," said Mr. Mehta.

Seashore Partners takes pride in creating high impact, result driven and user centric applications to best suit their client's business needs. Their team of mobile app developers delivers capable apps following a thorough process that starts with planning and strategizing, and ends with deploying the app.

Seashore Partners provide services from small to Enterprise clients in Video, Mobile, Social, IOT, BOT, Web Apps and custom business solutions using smart technology stacks.

Have an app idea? Connect with Seashore Partners at kj(at)seashorepartners(dot)com or call us at 201-993-0454.
It should never be the intention of school-based telehealth centers to erode the local medical community.

Global/Georgia Partnership for Telehealth (GPT) is excited to announce that it now serves more than one hundred schools throughout the state of Georgia, a major milestone for the telehealth networking agency. GPT has been very passionate about this market segment for many years, and employees are grateful that their passion has yielded such results. According to Loren Nix, Director of School-Based Telehealth at GPT, the key to the companys success in school-based telehealth lies in its unique approach to planning school-based programs. From the beginning phases, GPT seeks to develop telehealth programs around each school systems needs that capitalize on an already-existing medical community. As we begin initial planning with schools interested in implementing telehealth, we strongly encourage them to conduct a local scavenger hunt to assess and tap into existing healthcare providers in their area, Nix explains. It should never be the intention of school-based telehealth centers to erode the local medical community. GPT believes school-based telehealth should work to enhance existing medical services and to provide better access to care. GPTs robust network of providers can then step in to support healthcare needs that are not met locally.

Global Partnership for Telehealth (GPT)a not-for-profit, statewide telehealth network based in Waycross, Georgiais changing the face of school-based healthcare by partnering with more than 25 Georgia school systems to provide telehealth services to both students and staff. GPTs school-based telehealth program began as a pilot project in Berrien Elementary School in 2009; it has since expanded to include more than one hundred schools across the state of Georgia. GPTs model provides the telehealth equipment and infrastructure needed for school nurses, counselors, and other staff to connect patients with healthcare providers for acute care, specialty care, and behavioral health needs. GPT, however, is more than just an equipment vendor. The agency also provides programmatic support, training, end-user IT support, scheduling assistance, and a dedicated regional account manager who will assist with telehealth needs and program success.

To learn more about GPT and its school-based telehealth program, contact Loren Nix at loren.nix(at)gpth(dot)org.

About Global/Georgia Partnership for TeleHealth

Global Partnership for TeleHealth is a non-profit agency based on experience and knowledge gained from years of creating and maintaining telemedicine programs, and made possible by advanced telecommunications, software and equipment. The hallmark of the Global Partnership for TeleHealth is the Open Access Network, a web of national and international strategic partnership clinical access points with successful existing telemedicine programs. This comprehensive network also supports the creation of new telemedicine locations to maximize opportunities for timely specialty services across the globe.

Global Partnership for TeleHealths Expansion

Global Partnership for TeleHealth is a worldwide extension of the work of Georgia Partnership for TeleHealth that was established in 2006 in Waycross, Georgia. The original Georgia-based program quickly grew to include state-of-the-art telehealth solutions for individuals living in underserved communities within neighboring states then expanded into 11 states and 4 countries.

This expansion resulted in the development of the Global Partnership for TeleHealths centralized scheduling portal to connect patients with specialist consultations via the Open Access Network in a matter of days or even hours versus the weeks or months that it may have taken before.

GPT Mission

Leveraging telehealth technologies for the benefit of all.

GPT Vision

Healthcare everywhere.

GPT Values

Integrity  Expertise  Passion  Innovation
Outfitter Satellite, a retailer that sells and rents satellite phones and airtime, selected 3dcart as the best eCommerce platform for SEO in September 2016 after several years of diminished Google search result rankings with its previous SEO company.

First page search results are critical in the competitive mobile satellite services industry. eCommerce businesses rely on search results to attract customers and make sales. Aware of the importance of SEO, Outfitter Satellite signed up for 3dcart's SEO services. Strong first page Google search results for Outfitter Satellites site were attained in less than a year. Now, the company's slippage off the first page of Google is a thing of the past, and their products are moving up into the top 10 results across the board.

Outfitter Satellite's stated goal is to take the burden of satellite communications off their customers so they can focus on their lives, not the ins and outs of their equipment. They offer 24/7 support and seek to provide their customers with an enjoyable, hassle-free experience. Through the efforts of 3dcart's team, more customers are discovering Outfitter Satellite and the great service they offer.

An Outfitter Satellite spokesman stated that the company is pleased by their experience with 3dcart's experts. "[3dcart has] been courteous, prompt and always willing to help understand OUR business versus looking at us as a cookie cutter type template-driven industry. Our products require activation of service and the SEO team [has] been instrumental in helping us design a site that allows for single checkout and selection of service without abandoned carts or incomplete orders." Outfitter Satellite continues to expand its base of loyal customers and 3dcart is on the job of keeping relevant traffic rolling in through a multi-part SEO strategy built for success.

About Outfitter Satellite

Outfitter Satellite (https://www.OutfitterSatellite.com), located in Nashville, Tennessee is one of the largest providers of satellite phone rental equipment in the United States. For almost two decades, we have offered Iridium, Inmarsat and other mobile satellite services. Our clients range from hunters and hikers travelling in remote locations to government and corporate users engaged in disaster response after a hurricane or earthquake. Outfitter Satellite is a Marlink Elite Partner and offers a powerful array of value-added services and technical expertise.

About 3dcart

3dcart (https://www.3dcart.com), located in Tamarac, Florida, is the most SEO-friendly eCommerce platform for retailers and internet marketers to grow their online stores' traffic and sales. 3dcart includes 24x7 Technical Support, 100+ Mobile-Ready Themes, order management software, built-in blog, email marketing tools and more. Since 1997, the company has been a leader in the eCommerce market, building online stores for businesses of all sizes. Today, 3dcart is Visa PCI Certified and a Google Partner.
The BOMA Project, a U.S.-based nonprofit that implements a high-impact, gender-focused poverty graduation program in the drought-threatened arid lands of eastern Africa, announced the appointment of Megan Gash as Director of Research, Evaluation and Learning. BOMA empowers women to establish sustainable livelihoods, build resilient families, graduate from extreme poverty and catalyze change in their rural communities, and is distinguished by a rigorous commitment to data collection, monitoring, and accountability.

Ms. Gash most recently served as Research Director at the Grameen Foundation, a global nonprofit organization that brings innovative and sustainable solutions to the fight against poverty and hunger. Prior to that role, Megan worked as a Research and Evaluation Specialist at Freedom from Hunger, where she directed research, evaluation and monitoring activities for programs in West Africa, led research components of grants, oversaw relationships with research partners, and disseminated research results through briefs, conferences, webinars, blogging, and guest lectures.

She has also held roles as Program Specialist & Consultant at The IRIS Center in College Park, Maryland, and as a Field Supervisor for a USAID Poverty Assessment Tools Project for FINCA International in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

"As we scale our program across eastern Africa and progress toward our goal of reaching 1 million women and children by 2022, we want to continue to implement and ensure best-in-class Research, Evaluation and Learning practices, says Kathleen Colson, Founder and CEO of the BOMA Project. Megan brings valuable leadership and expertise to the process of developing and applying our theories of change.

BOMAs unique poverty graduation program is deeply respected in the development space for its commitment to monitoring, research and learning, says Megan, and I am extremely pleased to be joining this fast-growing team as they are poised to dramatically increase their impact.

Ms. Gash is based in Sacramento, CA and will travel frequently to BOMAs U.S. headquarters in Manchester, Vermont and the BOMA offices in Kenya.

The BOMA Project is a registered 501(c)(3) organization. For more information, visit bomaproject.org. Follow @bomaproject and facebook.com/thebomaproject
Dr. Melissa A. Seeker Dr. Seeker is a talented and caring physician whose expertise will enhance our services to women in very positive ways...

Dr. Melissa Seeker has joined Santa Rosas preeminent Women's OB/GYN Medical Group. She is an alumnus of Saint Louis University where she graduated as a member of Alpha Sigma Nu with honors prior to receiving her MD at Creighton University School of Medicine. She served as Chief Resident in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University Of Arizona College Of Medicine  Phoenix, formerly Banner University Medical Center, where she underwent her residency training.

Dr. Seeker holds many awards and honors in her specialty of Obstetrics and Gynecology including the Award for Excellence in Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery from the University Of Arizona College Of Medicine  Phoenix. During her medical training, she spent six weeks in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia providing care to over 3,500 patients with a small medical team. Her resident research project in minimally invasive surgery was selected for presentation at the Society for Gynecologic Surgeons Annual Scientific Meeting. Dr. Seeker also received advanced certification in integrative medicine after completing an elective course from The University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine.

Dr. Seeker has special interest in pregnancy education and has volunteered her services to worthy organizations and outreaches specializing in gynecologic care. She is happily married and the proud owner of two boxer dogs and one cat. Outside of medicine, she enjoys traveling, scuba diving, camping, hiking, cooking, and enjoying the great outdoors.

We are delighted to welcome Melissa to our growing practice, says Dr. Lela Emad, M.D. "Dr. Seeker is a talented and caring physician whose expertise will enhance our services to women in very positive ways.

About the Womens OB/GYN Medical Group

As recognized leaders in the OB/GYN field, the Womens OB/GYN Medical Group has offered a full range of premier obstetrics and gynecology services and expertise to women in the North Bay area for more than 25 years. The provider team of expert OB/GYN physicians, certified nurse midwives, family nurse practitioners, and medical assistants provides unmatched care to patients in the Santa Rosa region. As women proudly serving women, this unique group understands patient needs and expectations like no other.

Along with Dr. Seeker, the Womens OB/GYN Medical Groups staff of physicians includes; Lela Emad, MD, Shazah Khawaja, M.D., Amita Kachru, M.D., Susan Logan, M.D. and Tara Bartlett M.D. Together, these doctors share a unique whole-body approach to medicine as they work to discover the underlying causes of a womans health problems, rather than simply treating the symptoms. Every one of the health professionals at Womens OB/GYN is committed to both alleviating short-term ailments and maximizing long-term health.

The Women's OB/GYN Medical Group strives to better the lives of all women with a holistic approach to womens health. To learn more about these fine physicians and the many services provided by the Womens OB/GYN Medical Group visit the website. To schedule an appointment with Dr. Seeker, please call: (707) 579-1102.
DP Governance Limited (DPG) have formally announced the appointment of Ed Tucker (former head of Cyber Security at HMRC) to the role of Chief Information Officer signalling their move from the shadows into the main stream Data Protection market space.

Many will be surprised that Tucker has joined a start-up given that his personal stock is at a career high thanks to winning three major security awards in 2017, European Chief Information Security Officer of the Year, UK Security Professional of the Year, and Security Leader of the Year but Tucker explains:

Those who know me would undoubtedly describe me as disruptive as I tend to just want to get things done and if things get in my way I tend to go through them. Having known many of my new colleagues via previous roles for many years, I was first aware of DPG in 2014 when I was asked to critique an early version of the proposition. What surprised me was how aligned their thinking was about what the market really needed. Rather than being caught up in GDPR, DPG were thinking way ahead of the curve and looking at sustainable Data Protection across all possible vulnerabilities

COO, Steve Mellings picks up the story; We started building DPGs IP set in 2013 and as we evolved we reached out to industry thought leaders to get some informal opinion. Ed, as usual, offered some rambunctious insight which was no less than Id come to expect from him but for those at DPG new to Ed this set him aside from many who seem to repeat or follow rather than lead. As a company looking to disrupt the market place, when it came to the hiring cycle, I felt there was no better place to start than with Ed. Of course, if wed got to him before his three awards the negotiation may have been a little easier on us!

Tucker says; Businesses have to get better with data. In order to maximise business value and drive true efficiencies then you have to fully understand your data, the interactions, relationships, ontologies and models. This is how you get to the heart of a successful transformation programme. GDPR of course sits as a spectre to a successful outcome of being a data driven business. This need not be the case and I think DPG have a solution that ensures data protection activities are not only commensurate to threat and risk, but also facilitates the business to achieve its goals through effective use of data.

DPG has developed a Knowledge Base called Parsyfal which now includes over 5000 question sets which can be deployed via their Pathfinder software to enable organisations to interrogate over 85 different business processes. Fully customisable, Parsyfal can offer a complete 360 assessment of all operational and technical vulnerabilities which may exist within the business or can be customised to provide compliance GAP Analysis for requirements such as GDPR, PCI DSS, NIS and ISO 27001

Sign up for Eds weekly Podcast or to attend DPGs Data Protection Forum by contacting events(at)dpgovernance(dot)com
The Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area welcomes the public to their Annual Meeting, featuring a lecture and reception on the evening of Monday, November 13 at Frederick Community College. Dr. Turkiya L. Lowe, Chief Historian of the National Park Service will deliver a talk, After the War Ends: Preserving Reconstruction Era History in Border State Maryland with time following the lecture for a Q&A session.

The event will begin at 7:00 PM at the Frederick Community College Conference Center, located at 7932 Opposumtown Pike. The Annual Meeting will include Dr. Lowes remarks, as well as highlights from the last year in the Heritage Area. The evening will conclude with a light dessert reception, ending at 9:00 PM.

The Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area Annual Meeting is free and open to the public. All ages from middle school students through adults are encouraged to attend. RSVPs are appreciated but not required. RSVP on Eventbrite.

The Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area is a certified part of the Maryland Heritage Area Program. The mission of the Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area is to promote the stewardship of our historic, cultural, and natural Civil War resources; encourage superior visitor experiences; and stimulate tourism, economic prosperity, and educational development, thereby improving the quality of life in our community for the benefit of both residents and visitors.
Hollywood-based Memorial Healthcare System was recently honored with three significant awards by the Florida Hospital Association at its annual meeting: Caregiver of the Year, Innovation of the Year in Patient Care, and Best Hospital Workplace.



Rayford Shipman earned the Celebration of Service caregiver award for providing those whove suffered traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries, lost limbs, or had strokes opportunities to participate in sports tailored to their abilities. As manager of the Adaptive Sports & Recreation program at Memorial Regional Hospital South, Shipman positively impacted more than 500 physically disabled patients in 2016 by facilitating their participation in hand cycling, disc golf, adaptive bowling, fishing, and other activities. The Memorial Sharks, a wheelchair basketball team he organized, finished second in the nation in recent competition. Shipman continues to grow the program through a variety of efforts.

The award for Innovation of the Year in Patient Care (over 150 beds) recognizes a multi-disciplinary collaboration between medical teams at the Memorial Cardiac and Vascular Institute and Joe DiMaggio Childrens Hospital. The group performed a ventricular tachycardia ablation via a trans-apical approach on a 14-month-old, just the third time the procedure had ever been done anywhere, and the first time it had ever been performed on a child. Their work corrected Amelias arrhythmia and saved the young girls life.

Memorial Healthcare System (over 150 beds) was honored for Best Hospital Workplace for promoting employee satisfaction and engagement. Its staff of more than 13,000 was provided opportunities to advance through merit, professional development, and paid college tuition. Nearly 20% of Memorials workforce has been with the healthcare system for more 15 years and its turnover rate is 33% lower than the industry average.

The Florida Hospital Association annually honors health care leaders and organizations committed

to providing high-quality care to all Floridians. Its awards highlight personal and organizational accomplishments within the Florida hospital community. Its 2017 Celebration of Achievement in Quality and Service banquet was held in Orlando recently.

Memorial Healthcare System is one of the largest public healthcare systems in the country and a national leader in quality care and patient satisfaction, highly regarded for its exceptional patient- and family-centered care. Its facilities include Memorial Regional Hospital, Memorial Regional Hospital South, Joe DiMaggio Childrens Hospital, Memorial Hospital West, Memorial Hospital Miramar, Memorial Hospital Pembroke and Memorial Manor nursing home.

Modern Healthcare (Best Place to Work in Healthcare), Forbes (Americas Best Employers), Florida Trend (Floridas Best Companies to Work For), and Beckers Hospital Review (150 Great Places to Work in Healthcare) have all recognized Memorial Healthcare System for excellence.

For more information, visit mhs.net.
We pride ourselves on having the first nationally normed objective measure of EF for preschool children, but caregivers also want solutions they can try to help improve childrens EF skills and prepare them to succeed in school.

Research on school readiness has uncovered a link between the skill-set referred to as executive function and academic success in the early years and beyond. In fact, executive function skills are more predictive of success in school than traditional IQ tests.

What is executive function (EF)? EF refers to the neurocognitive skills that allow us to organize information, focus on tasks, control behavior, and think flexibly. These skills are essential for goal-directed control of attention, thought, emotion, and behavior  in other words, these skills provide a foundation for learning. Though unlike IQ, EF skills can be developed and learned through practice, especially in the early years of development.

The Minnesota Executive Function Scale (MEFS) provided by Reflection Sciences is a scientifically valid and reliable game-like tablet measure of EF for ages 2 and up. It is being used by educators in 32 states to measure growth in EF and the effectiveness of teaching methods, curricula, and interventions.

According to Reflection Sciences Co-founder and CEO Stephanie Carlson, We pride ourselves on having the first nationally normed objective measure of EF for preschool children, but caregivers also want solutions they can try to help improve childrens EF skills and prepare them to succeed in school. I am delighted to be able to recommend Kikos Thinking Time games as a natural complement to the MEFS.

Kikos Thinking Time games were developed from a large body of scientific research. Each game is based on a neuropsychological task that is known to have cognitive benefits in lab studies. Kiko Labs turned these tasks into engaging games that children love to play.

The partnership between Kiko Labs and Reflection Sciences serves to provide schools and early childhood advocacy organizations with the tools to practice EF using Kikos Thinking Time games and concretely measure EF gains in student populations using the MEFS.

While EF skills are critical for a childs success in school, their development is not guaranteed, said Grace Wardhana, Co-founder of Kiko Labs. Kikos Thinking Time helps support these skills, which are so important to a childs development and school readiness. Were delighted to partner with Reflection Sciences to bring a complete solution to schools to help early learners build and measure the foundational skills for school success.

Learn more about how pairing digital tools can help you measure and improve school readiness for your students.

Visit http://www.reflectionsciences.com to learn more about how you can receive professional development and track EF skills in your students using the MEFS.

Visit http://www.kikolabs.com to learn more about how Kikos Thinking Time games can help your students build skills foundational to cognitive learning.

About Kiko Labs:

Kiko Labs worked with neuroscientists from the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard to develop Kiko's Thinking Time, an adaptive training program for early learners, aged 3 to 7. Kiko's Thinking Time uses a suite of activities to target skills foundational to cognitive learning and school readiness: executive function, reasoning, and spatial skills. Learn more at http://www.kikolabs.com.

About Reflection Sciences:

Founded by scientists at the University of Minnesota, Reflection Sciences provides training and tools for assessing executive function. Their Minnesota Executive Function Scale (MEFS) is the first objective, scientifically-based, and normed direct assessment of Executive Function for ages 2 years and up  and it takes less than 5 minutes to complete. MEFS is a fun game for students, but it provides vital data for educators and parents. Learn more at http://www.reflectionsciences.com.

Contact:

Reflection Sciences, info(at)reflectionsciences.com

or

Kiko Labs, support(at)kikolabs.com
Despite a slow-down of the market in South Africa, our management sees it as a strategic market and whilst weve seen some companies disinvest from the region there is substantial upside potential, particularly in the commercial & industrial and regionally in the tracker market and off-grid."

PROINSO, which has been active in South Africa since 2011, has now opened a fully owned subsidiary. The company previously operated directly from Europe and, in more recent years, through a local dealership. The strategic decision comes in pursuit of strengthening and expanding its business in the region to include its other business units. Warren Pollard, previously Sales Manager of Trina Solar for Africa, was appointed as General Manager of PROINSO South Africa.

PROINSOs products will be distributed from two logistics centres located in Cape Town and Johannesburg. The company will continue to supply products from its global strategic partners, world-leading PV manufacturers such as SMA, Trojan Battery, Jinko Solar and Ingeteam. PROINSO will also be announcing a new relationship shortly, with the intent of continuing the growth of its 2.7GW of projects supplied globally.

PROINSO also brings uninterrupted power supply solutions including solar, batteries and diesel generation, up to and including utility scale, which has seen high demand in other regions.

PROINSO technology will offer local installers a direct relationship for PROINSO PV Rack, manufactured in Germany, and its solar tracking system, TURNSOLE Powered by OMRON. The tracker, developed in partnership with Japanese corporation OMRON, draws on PROINSOs 12 years of experience in building, owning and operating trackers and OMRONs over 80 years of electronics strength in providing a robust and reliable complete solution. This is coupled with MECASOLAR for large scale tracker projects.

EPM is PROINSOs project partnership unit focused on using the procurement, engineering and management strengths of both PROINSO and its installer partners to create value for end clients. EPM has demonstrated significant success with over 320 MW of projects of all scales completed.

Despite a slow-down of the market in South Africa, our management sees it as a strategic market and whilst weve seen some companies disinvest from the region there is substantial upside potential, particularly in the commercial & industrial and regionally in the tracker market and off-grid total solutions said Warren Pollard, General Manager at PROINSO South Africa.

PROINSO South Africa

7th floor, Mandela Rhodes Place (Cnr of Wale and Burg Street)

8000 Cape Town, South Africa

southafrica(at)proinso(dot)net

+27 (0)21 410 8908

ABOUT PROINSO

http://www.proinso.net

PROINSO is a leading global distributor, integrator and technology company in the solar market. The company offers supply and engineering services to installers, construction companies and clients for commercial, utility, residential and off-grid projects worldwide. PROINSOs Qualified Installer Network is the companys go-to workforce for installation and O&M services; counting over 2,500 professional solar installers. Since its establishment in 2006 PROINSO has supplied over 2.7 GW of projects and has operations in over 20 countries across 6 continents.
Clearvision's Gerry Tombs, CEO, and Simon Wood, Marketing Director, accept the 'Dynamic Growth of the Year Award' The Solent Business Awards are a great opportunity to celebrate the best of the best. Every year were blown away by the ambitious and determined businesses that are dominating the Solent region.

Leading software solutions company Clearvision has been recognised for its business growth, named as the winner of the Dynamic Growth of the Year Award at the recent Solent Business Awards.

Organised by 'The Business Magazine', the awards scheme is now in its third year. Publisher of 'The Business Magazine' David Murray describes the awards as aimed very much at the top-end; they are prestigious trophies that attract entries from the very best companies.

A previous winner of Business of the Year at the South Coast Business Awards, and two-time finalist in the National Business Awards, Clearvision now ranks among the business elite of the south coast.

Clearvision is a Platinum Solution Partner of global software giant Atlassian. With offices in the UK, Ireland, and the USA, Clearvision has experienced an international growth that has seen a rapid expansion of staff and services far beyond its Southampton headquarters.

The Solent Business Awards are a great opportunity to celebrate the best of the best. Every year were blown away by the ambitious and determined businesses that are dominating the Solent region, says John Hutchinson, managing partner of Pitmans Law, the sponsor of the Clearvisions Dynamic Growth of the Year Award category.

With a company mission of empowering teams to reach their full potential, Clearvision is practicing what it preaches as it continues to grow from strength to strength.

Simon Wood, Clearvisions Marketing Director, attributes the win to the companys vision of teamwork. At Clearvision we practice and promote the three Ts of high performance: teamwork, tactics and tools. Empowering teams is about creating a collaborative team culture, providing the correct work process and using the right technology.

ABOUT CLEARVISION

Clearvision is an innovative software services company with offices in the UK, Philadelphia, and Dublin. An Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner, Clearvision has been servicing enterprises globally since 2005, supporting digital transformations and providing consultancy, training, support, and hosting for the entire range of Atlassian products, alongside other industry-leading collaborative solutions that support its mission of empowering teams to reach their full potential.
Celebrating its fifth anniversary of use in live casework, STRmix has moved from being an experimental technology to the broadly accepted norm in cases in which a sophisticated forensic software is required to resolve mixed DNA profiles previously thought to be too complex to interpret.

Twenty-nine U.S. labs including numerous local, state, and federal agencies now routinely use STRmix when resolving DNA profiles. This includes everything from the recently announced Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory to state and local agencies such as the Michigan State Police, Texas Department of Public Safety, and the California Department of Justice.

An additional 14 laboratories in Australia, England, Scotland, Republic of Ireland, Canada, and New Zealand are using STRmix.

Earlier this year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) published its validation of STRmix for use on mixtures of up to five persons. Noting that STRmix offers numerous advantages over historical methods of DNA profile analysis and has greater statistical power for estimating evidentiary weight  all of which can be used reliably in human identification testing  the FBI began using STRmix in its casework in December 2015.

Another 51 U.S. labs are currently at various stages of STRmix installation, validation, and training.

In five short years, DNA evidence interpreted with STRmix has been successfully used in numerous U.S. court cases, while there have been at least 13 successful admissibility hearings for STRmix, says John Buckleton DSc, FRSNZ, Forensic Scientist at the New Zealand Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR).

Buckleton, who developed STRmix in collaboration with ESRs Jo-Anne Bright and Duncan Taylor from Forensic Science South Australia (FSSA), adds, Since 2012, STRmix has been used to interpret DNA evidence in thousands of cases internationally.

FSSA Director Chris Pearman notes, STRmix has greatly assisted in enabling FSSA to provide high-quality evidentiary and investigative information to the South Australia Police. With the use of STRmix, complex mixed profiles can be deconvoluted and searched against the DNA database, generating 10 times the investigative information we could previously provide to police investigators.

ESR recently launched an upgraded version of STRmix after a full year of technical development and testing. STRmix v2.5 contains a number of powerful new features designed to significantly improve functionality, speed, memory, and ease of use, including: multi-kit functionality, enabling interpretation of DNA profiles from different test kits; a likelihood ratio (LR) batcher tool, allowing users to calculate multiple LRs from multiple reference inputs to a previously run deconvolution; and a combined DNA Index System (CODIS) report.

For more information about STRmix visit http://www.esr.cri.nz/ or http://strmix.esr.cri.nz/.
Shelli Taylor Planet Fitness as a brand has been on my radar for a number of years as a category leader.

United PF Partners (United PF), the largest Planet Fitness franchisee with 78 operating clubs, announced today the addition of Shelli Taylor as Chief Operating Officer and part of the companys executive leadership team.

Taylor brings a wealth of knowledge and experience primarily from her 20 year career at Starbucks Coffee Corporation, where she was most recently the Senior Vice President of Starbucks Coffee China overseeing more than 2,000 stores. Taylor, a graduate of University of California at Riverside, started her career with the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company in California and later moved to Starbucks to support opening new market openings in California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. Taylor held Director and Regional Director roles in the Starbucks Western Division before moving to Asia as the Vice President of Operations and Store Development in Taiwan. Taylor was promoted to run New Business Development for Greater China before becoming the Region Vice President for Starbucks in China. In 2010, Taylor left Starbucks to become the Vice President, Center Operations, for the Walt Disney Company, Disney English Division in China delivering immersive English language learning experiences, products and services for children ages 2 to 12 years of age. In 2012, Taylor became the Chief Operating Officer for Education Elements, a pioneer in helping districts design and implement personalized learning solutions. Lastly, in 2015, Taylor returned to Starbucks as the Senior Vice President Starbucks Coffee China leading a team with over 2,000 stores and 22,000 employees.

Im honored to have such a well-known and respected industry veteran join our leadership team, said Trey Owen, CEO, United PF. Shelli has immense experience that will benefit our growing platform and Im excited for United PF to achieve new levels of efficiency, profitability and brand excellence under her leadership.

Im thrilled to join the United PF team and bring my experiences in multi-unit leadership to the fitness segment, which has a lot of similarities, said Shelli Taylor, COO of United PF. Planet Fitness as a brand has been on my radar for a number of years as a category leader and I look forward to being a part of such a highly respected and growing innovative brand.

Founded in 1992 in Dover, N.H., Planet Fitness, home of the Judgement Free Zone, is one of the largest and fastest growing franchisors and operators of fitness clubs with more than 1,400 clubs and over 10 million members. Planet Fitness targets the roughly 83 percent of the U.S. population who does not belong to a gym by delivering a high-quality, high-value fitness experience in a non-intimidating environment.

About United PF Partners

United PF is the largest Planet Fitness franchisee in the U.S. with 78 clubs and development rights to build new clubs across the Midwest, South, and Mid-Atlantic regions. Led by Trey Owen, CEO, United PF is the combination of five leading Planet Fitness franchisees with clubs across nine states, including Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia. United PFs keys to success are selecting optimal locations, operating exceptionally clean clubs, providing a friendly customer experience and protecting the Judgement Free Zone. United PF was created in November 2016 through the combination of five planet fitness franchisees led by JLM Financial Partners and Eagle Merchant Partners. United PF has subsequently added-on two additional franchise groups in September 2017 increasing the count to 78 open clubs.

About JLM Financial Partners

JLM Financial Partners, founded by Larry Meyer and Trey Owen and an affiliate of JLM Financial Investments, is a private investment firm based in Austin, Texas that owned 25 Planet Fitness clubs with a sizable area development agreement which are now part of United PF Partners. JLM also owns and manages assets and investments in healthcare and real estate. For more information, visit http://www.jlmfinancialpartners.com.

About Eagle Merchant Partners

Eagle Merchant Partners is an Atlanta, Georgia based private equity firm focused on lower middle market companies in the multi-unit consumer, logistics and industrial sectors in the Southeastern United States. The partnership is one of the most experienced private equity investors in the region, investing in sixteen companies with more than $1.5 billion in revenues. For more information, visit http://www.eaglemerchantpartners.com.
Harvey Daniels

Haute Residence welcomes Harvey Daniels, Vice President of Development Sales for ONE Sothebys International Realty, to its prestigious network of top brokers. As a partner of Haute Residence, Daniels exclusively represents the high-end real estate market in Downtown Miami, Florida.

As Vice President of Development Sales, Harvey Daniels leads the luxury development sales division of ONE Sothebys International Realty in Dade County. With more than $2 billion in sales, Daniels possesses more than 18 years of real estate experience specializing in the pre-construction luxury condominium market.

In his role, he works directly with ONE Sotheby's developer clients to launch luxury projects from concept to marketplace, and focuses on expanding the firm's development services in South Florida. He has worked with the most prominent developments in the market, and most recently, Miami's most prestigious new address  1000 Museum.

About Haute Residence:

Designed as a partnership-driven luxury real estate portal, Haute Residence connects its affluent readers with top real estate professionals, while offering the latest in real estate news, showcasing the worlds most extraordinary residences on the market and sharing expert advice from its knowledgeable and experienced real estate partners.

The invitation-only luxury real estate network, which partners with just one agent in every market, unites a distinguished collective of leading real estate agents and brokers and highlights the most extravagant properties in leading markets around the globe for affluent buyers, sellers, and real estate enthusiasts.

HauteResidence.com has grown to be the number one news source for million-dollar listings, high-end residential developments, celebrity real estate, and more.

Access all of this information and more by visiting: http://www.hauteresidence.com
Mobile data is the currency for building businesses, and Twines mobile data set is the most valuable I have encountered

Twine, a leading provider of vetted, verified, and validated mobile data to the mobile marketing industry, has recruited former 140 Proof VP Susan Mandell as its first sales vice president as part of its strategy to expand access to its unrivaled audience targeting dataset.

Based in Chicago, Mandell will focus on clients who seek added agility and targeting precision in their mobile campaigns, especially during the upcoming holiday shopping season and beyond. Twine compiles user data from hundreds of mobile apps and then carefully vets and validates it to ensure that clients reach the customers they really want to reach, delivering better return on investment. Clients can target on real, mobile-sourced attributes such as age, gender, location, and app install profile.

Mandell has been particularly valuable to her clients in delivering profitable, cost effective programs for customer identification and sales, said Twine CEO Elliott Easterling. We know she will deliver competitive advantage to Twine clients, building their revenues and profitability.

For nearly four years, Twine has provided data feeds, audience targeting, and onboarding to a wide range of clients, generating strong results through its unique ability to obtain accurate, validated data to match specific client needs.

Mobile data is the currency for building businesses, and Twines mobile data set is the most valuable I have encountered, Mandell said. Twine will provide brands, agencies and publishers greater control over their ability to reach their target audiences at scale across all of their inventory partners. Twines deterministic data sets are available within every DSP/DMP, which simplifies the often-arduous setup process.

Mandell will collaborate closely with Will McGivern-Smith, Twines Chicago-based Chief Product Officer and Vice President of Business Development, who has established key partnerships and revenue sources for the companys data. McGivern-Smiths mandate is to build the tools marketers, agencies, and publishers need for true insight into their customers.

Wills insights into both technology and client services are rare in our industry, and they provide a powerful combination of strengths to deliver results to our clients, Mandell added. We are already working on new initiatives to give our clients an even stronger competitive advantage as they seek to identify and reach customers on the basis of who they are, where they are, and what they are doing.

Prior to joining Twine, Mandell was Vice President at 140 Proof, where she grew the largest book of business in the firm by partnering with Fortune 500 companies and other major clients across the United States. Earlier, she launched the youth division of Gorilla Nation Kids & Teens in the Midwest. During her 12 years in media sales, she has moved strategically from radio to traditional digital publishers to mobile platforms. Mandell holds a bachelors degree in communications from the University of Illinois and resides in Chicago.

McGivern-Smith joined Twine in 2015 after a successful career at Nielsen Catalina Solutions and, earlier, Starcom MediaVest Group. He holds a MS degree in Data Science and Analytics from Northwestern University and bachelors degree in economics from Carleton College. He resides in Chicago.

Twines Chicago office is located at 1871 in the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. Please contact:

smandell(at)twinedata(dot)com

will(at)twinedata(dot)com

About Twine

Twine is a mobile data platform that believes true, honest, accurate data is the fuel that helps our partners grow their businesses efficiently and effectively. Our app publisher partners generate revenue while maintaining control over their data; our partners at agencies, brands, and ad tech firms get comprehensive, high quality mobile targeting and intelligence. For more information, visit http://www.twinedata.com.
The team at Skye Bruce Properties Richmond, Va.-area brokerage firm Skye Bruce Properties joins Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty as an affiliate.

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty, one of the countrys fastest-growing real estate brokerages, announced today that Skye Bruce Properties, a top-ranked independent brokerage firm in Richmond, Va., has joined the company as an affiliate.

We are extremely pleased and excited to welcome Skye, David and their extended family of agents into our company, said Kevin Wiles, president and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty. Theyve grown their firm into one of the most innovative and successful independent brokerages in Richmond, and we consider it an honor and a confirmation of our values and benefits when a top-performing firm like Skye Bruce Properties decides to partner with us.

Led and co-owned by broker Skye Bruce and partner David Bruce, Skye Bruce Properties has consistently been a top-producing real estate group in Central Virginia for more than a decade. The firm will operate as the Short Pump/Glen Allen sales office in Richmond for Berkshire Hathaway Home Services PenFed Realty as an affiliate. Skye Bruce will continue as managing broker at their current location at 100 Concourse Drive in Glen Allen. The transition will be complete on December 1, 2017.

As a full service real estate firm, we are always looking for ways to bring more value to our clients, said Skye Bruce. We are excited to affiliate with a brand that carries the name of Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway Inc., one of the worlds most trusted and respected corporations. We believe both our clients and agents will appreciate the added value and marketing potential the brand will offer, and use it to their advantage.

Skye Bruce Properties will continue to grow its market share in the Short Pump/Glen Allen area, as well as other targeted communities, including the Atlee/Mechanicsville area. Skye Bruce Properties intends to significantly expand its agent roster over the next 24 months.

Were looking for professionals who share our entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to clients and community, said David Bruce. Our vision is to build an organization devoted to equipping a new generation of real estate entrepreneurs with the knowledge, tools, mindset and support needed to provide their clients with the absolute best real estate services available. Building a successful business can be the adventure of a lifetime and gives us the opportunity to give back and make a significant contribution to our community.

With this transition, Skye Bruce Properties gains access to Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Global Network Platform, a powerful suite of tools focusing on marketing support, social media, video production/distribution, professional education, lead generation and the exclusive Berkshire Hathaway Luxury Collection designation for high-end listings.

We congratulate Skye Bruce Properties and PenFed Realty on their exciting partnership, said Gino Blefari, CEO of HSF Affliaites. We look forward to supporting them and their continued success in the years ahead.

Skye Bruce Properties can be reached at 804-467-7041 or via email at skye(at)skyebruce(dot)com.

About the company

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty (http://www.penfedrealty.com) is a full-service real estate company with an annual sales volume of $2.8 billion. The company has 1,800 agents and more than 50 offices, providing complete real estate services nationwide. PenFed Realty is a wholly-owned subsidiary of PenFed Credit Union, a financial institution with more than $23.6 billion in assets and more than 1.6 million members worldwide. PenFed Realty is a member of the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices brokerage network, operated by HSF Affiliates LLC. We are proud to be an equal employment opportunity employer. Equal Housing Opportunity.
BOMA 2017 Areas of Impact

SDI Presence LLC released its review of BOMA International 2017s New Office Measurement Standards, identifying modifications to the standard that can change a buildings current Rentable Area.

With the accounting of every conceivable portion of a property, BOMA 2017 makes for a much more involved calculation process, but results in greater transparency for tenants, leasing agents and ownership, states SDI Commercial Real Estate General Manager Bob Ladner.

Last updated in in 2010, this BOMA methodology is considered the indisputable standard for measuring buildings rentable square footage (RSF) in the United States, Canada and internationally. As the 2010 method, the new 2017 standard allows for an alternative method of measurement that provides a full building load factor rather than a floor-by-floor load factor, especially helpful when a building has wide variations in floor occupancy (such as floors featuring building amenities, or buildings with a wide disparity in actual floor sizes). The standard also explicitly allows for the use of standard corridor configurations throughout a building.

SDIs real estate consultants identified several opportunities for owners to grow their rentable space via the 2017 industry standards:



Major Vertical Penetration area can be included on originating floor.

Measurement now includes unenclosed features such as balconies, terraces and finished rooftop decks.

Introduction to Inter-Building areas to distribute services and/or amenity areas to the tenants.

Public Pedestrian Thoroughfare condition is removed.

If you are preparing to buy or sell a property, or lease several contiguous floors to a single tenant, you may benefit from an updated measurement, states Ladner.

SDI helps building owners and managers maximize the leasing revenues, operational efficiencies, and security of their properties. Trusted by the nations top real estate developers, owners, and managers, SDI has assessed over 200M square footage of properties across the United States, adding over $285M in potential annual revenue for our clients.

About SDI

IT services integrator SDI delivers technology managed services, business consulting and infrastructure solutions to achieve IT performance expectations while advancing our clients to a digital enterprise. With a 20-year corporate resume, SDI helps our clients meet rising customer expectations, enhance security, and capture revenues. SDI is a certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), with a portfolio of clients that includes some of the nations largest airports, utilities, commercial real estate portfolios, and government agencies. SDI delivers a deep technical presence through a local delivery model to achieve customer confidence and success. Visit us at http://www.sdipresence.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram at SDI Presence and Twitter using @sdipresence.
The Adoption Tax Credit, a credit for middle-income Americans to help offset their costs associated with adopting a child, could be gone.

The legislation unveiled in the House Republicans Tax Reform Proposal includes elimination of the Adoption Tax Credit. Since 1997, the Adoption Tax Credit has been a permanent part of the U.S. Tax Code and has enabled those who adopt a child to recover some of the costs up to $13,000.

RESOLVE and its advocates are outraged at this action, said Barbara Collura, President / CEO, RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association. The Adoption Tax Credit, a credit for middle-income Americans to help offset their costs associated with adopting a child, could be gone.

RESOLVE has actively defended the Adoption Tax Credit, and its advocates are committed to fighting the Tax Reforms Proposal to eliminate the Adoption Tax Credit.

RESOLVE advocates have been talking about the importance of the Adoption Tax Credit with their Members of Congress for years, continued Collura. Each year hundreds of RESOLVE advocates meet in Washington, DC to advocate for this credit. The financial relief provided by the ATC has made adoption possible  its as simple as that. RESOLVE will fight hard to do everything we can to save the Adoption Tax Credit.

RESOLVE is a member of the Save the Adoption Tax Credit Working Group, a national collaboration of organizations and individuals united to support adoption by advocating for the adoption tax credit. To learn more, visit AdoptionTaxCredit.org.

RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association is a national nonprofit patient advocacy organization. One in eight U.S. couples of childbearing age has trouble conceiving or carrying a pregnancy to term. Founded in 1974, RESOLVE provides free support groups in more than 200 communities; is the leading patient advocacy voice; and serves as the go-to organization for anyone challenged in their family building. For more information, visit http://www.RESOLVE.org.
CEO, PRESIDENT Dessange Group North America

Dessange International, the worlds leading operator in the high-end comprehensive beauty care market and owner of Fantastic Sams, Camille Albane and Dessange franchise brands, announced today the hiring of John Costanza as President and Chief Executive Officer of Dessange Group North America.

Most recently, Costanza served as General Manager International Professional Division at Conair Corporation. Under his leadership, the company developed global professional division brands, namely Conair Professional, Babyliss, Satin Smooth, Aquage and Rusk.

Bringing 22 years of extensive international and North American management experience, Costanza will lead Dessange Group North Americas expansion of its three salon franchise brands  now in nearly 2,000 locations worldwide. He will also be responsible for the U.S. distribution of the Phytodess hair care products.

Costanza is a graduate of Harvard Business School. He has enjoyed significant successes while at Conair, LOreal USA, Sally Beauty Holding Canada and Joico Hair Care Laboratories.

John, who possesses incredible organizational skills, is an industry leader and true asset to Dessange, says Benjamin Dessange, Chairman of the Executive Board of Dessange International. It is his proven ability to maximize teams and his fundamental business vision that convinced us he is the leader of today and tomorrow to take us to the next level. I look forward to John joining our company. His long-standing experience in the beauty industry brings us a wealth of knowledge.

The three salon franchises  Fantastic Sams, with over 1,000 locations in North America; and the worldwide brands Camille Albane, an urban, upscale authentic French hair salon with 300 locations; and Dessange, the franchise leader in luxury hair salons and spas with more than 400 locations  enjoy a strategic position in the salon franchise industry.

I see immense growth potential in our North American operations and the opportunity to recruit, train and innovate the beauty care and stylists of the future, said Costanza. Our people are our greatest asset in franchise owners, employees and customers.

About Dessange International

With more than 60 years of experience, Dessange International, the worlds leading operator in the high-end comprehensive beauty care market, is devoted to improving the overall well-being of each of its customers. The company boasts a worldwide network of nearly 2,000 salons, developing its own beauty care treatments, beauty institutes, and city-center spas, as well as its lines of makeup, accessories and hair, facial and body care products. To find out why Dessange International is the leading luxury and total beauty franchise and to learn more about franchise opportunities, visit dessangefranchise.com.
RE/MAX Realtor Michelle Fisher was recently named a 2017 Distinguished Realtor by Expert Network, whose panel carefully considers the reviews and feedback of customers, clients and peers when bestowing awards.

Additionally, Fisher, a native of Colorado who has lived in Colorado Springs for more than fifteen years, received Best of 2017 Colorado Springs (third consecutive year) recognition from Colorado Springs Award Program, which each year identifies companies and individuals that have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category.

What an honor and blessing it is to be recognized throughout our community, as well as throughout the nation, said Fisher, a Zillow All-Star and 5-Star Agent.

No stranger to awards, Fisher, a 2016 RE/MAX Hall of Fame inductee, has received a plethora of prestigious RE/MAX Properties, Inc. honors, such as the Quantum Leap Award, Platinum QSC Award, 2016 Client Service Award (the only agent out of her entire firm to receive this), 300% Club Award and the Hall of Honor Award. She is also a Peak Producers Award winner, putting her in the top 10 percent in El Paso County.

Furthermore, Fisher is a RE/MAX Miracle Agent, a dedicated supporter who participates in the Miracle Home/Miracle Property program and pledge to make a donation to her local Childrens Miracle Network Hospital,Childrens Hospital Colorado, after each closed property sale. To date, Fisher has already contributed over $10,000 to Childrens Miracle Network as a Miracle Agent.

Fisher, her husband and two daughters are also a sponsor family for Compassion Internationa l, a child-advocacy ministry that pairs compassionate people with those who are suffering from poverty. Additionally, Fisher recently hosted a donation drive for Soles4Souls, a nonprofit global social enterprise committed to fighting poverty through the collection and distribution of shoes and clothing, to benefit victims of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

About Michelle Fisher, RE/MAX Properties, Inc.

Michelle Fisher is an Accredited Buyers Representative, Accredited Staging Professional, Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist, Certified Negotiation Expert, Certified New Home Specialist, Military Residential Specialist, Residential Construction Certified, Seller Representative Specialist, USA Cares Certified Military Housing Specialist and Quality Service Certified. For more information, call (719) 322-6467, or visit http://www.movesbymichelle.com.

About the NALA

The NALA offers small and medium-sized businesses effective ways to reach customers through new media. As a single-agency source, the NALA helps businesses flourish in their local community. The NALAs mission is to promote a business relevant and newsworthy events and achievements, both online and through traditional media. The information and content in this article are not in conjunction with the views of the NALA. For media inquiries, please call 805.650.6121, ext. 361.
Naladhu Spa Treatment On Pool Deck

With only 20 beach houses dotted around a palm-fringed island in the middle of the ocean, Naladhu Private Island Maldives by Anantara epitomizes castaway luxury with timeless moments. Recognized for its entirely unique take on the Maldivian experience, Naladhu has been awarded a top spot in the Conde Nast Travelers 2017 Readers Choice Awards, positioned as the #1 Resort in the World.

The Readers Choice Awards are known as the best of the best of travel, the epitome of excellence, with this years awards the 30th in an illustrious history. Over 300,000 dedicated readers voted on their favorite hotels, destinations and travel experiences across the globe.

It is a great honor to be recognized by Conde Nast Travelers readers as the number one resort in the world. This year, we decided to rename the property to reflect its true and unique qualities and so this award is testament to the dedication, passion and commitment of our team in delivering this experience to our guests, comments Coetzer Deysel, General Manager at Naladhu Private Island, Anantara Dhigu and Anantara Veli.

Naladhu Private Island Resort has been a favorite choice for travelers from all around the world for many years as it provides them with the luxury, exclusivity and privacy that they seek from a holiday in the Maldives. We measure our success by the high levels of returning guests who visit us year after year, treating Naladhu as their island paradise home.

Naladhu Private Island Maldives, formally known as Naladhu Maldives, pampers guests from the minute they arrive to be greeted by their own, personal, 24 hour, on-call House Master. They experience the ultimate in barefoot luxury and secluded island living, staying in one of only 19 stylish and elegant houses or the island's lavish 2-bedroom residence. Each island home blends colonial-style interiors, luxurious sophistication and above all offers complete intimacy and privacy.

In 2018, Naladhu Private Island will see a number of extra additions that will elevate it even further as the world leader, making the guest experience even more exquisite and unique.

Naladhu Private Island Maldives delivers foot-in-the-sand luxury, with days spent in hammocks fixed between palm trees or in lounge chairs on the private pristine white beach, nights at its world-class restaurant  The Living Room, which entertains a number of Michelin Star chefs from around the globe each year.

Anantara Resorts made a clean sweep of the Indian Ocean category as well, with Naladhu Private Island Maldives placing #1, Niyama Private Islands Maldives placing #2, Anantara Kihavah Maldives Villas placing #12 and Anantara Veli Maldives Resort and Anantara Dhigu Maldives Resort placing #17 and #18 respectively.

Anantara is a luxury hospitality brand for modern travelers, connecting them to genuine places, people and stories through personal experiences, and providing heartfelt hospitality in the worlds most exciting destinations across the world. From cosmopolitan cities to desert sands to lush islands, Anantara connects travelers to the indigenous, grounds them in authentic luxury, and hosts them with passionate expertise.
Michelle Schwartz

Haute Residence welcomes prominent real estate agent, Michelle Schwartz to its invitation-only network of top brokers. As a Haute Residence partner, Schwartz exclusively represents the high-end real estate markets in Studio City and Sherman Oaks, California.

A Beverly Hills native and quintessential L.A. gal, Schwartz grew up immersed in Los Angeles real estate, learning the intricate nuances of each neighborhood. A founding member of The Agency, she is managing partner of the firms new Sherman Oaks office, which provides exceptional real estate services to the San Fernando Valley.

In the business since 2010, Schwartz specializes in Los Angeles affluent Westside and the Valley. Currently residing in Studio City, Schwartz has the ability to represent clients across the city with an equal grasp of 310 and 818 markets and their respective distinct characteristics. Her years of experience and solid knowledge of brand and lifestyle marketing allow her to provide an array of opportunities, perspectives, leverage, and exposure that is unmatched in the industry. Nominated as Inmans Most Innovative Agent of 2016, she has proven her abilities career-wide.

With an unwavering commitment to her clients, Schwartz thrives on offering an exceptional level of service, assisting with everything from property prep and staging to design and landscaping. Always readily available, she provides results-oriented guidance with honesty, transparency, and sincerity, which has earned her a flourishing business based heavily upon referrals and repeat clients. Whether budgets are high or low, Schwartz treats all of her clients with the respect and kindness they deserve, happy to guide them through the transaction process.

Schwartz is a former team member of The Umansky Group, headed by Founder and CEO of The Agency, Mauricio Umansky. Prior to practicing real estate, she owned her own marketing and public relations firm, which focused on consumer goods and trends, health and nutrition, and licensed goods. Working with Fortune 500 companies such as Reebok, Herbalife International, Disney, Bank of America, and ESPN, Schwartz has shown exceptional ability and comprehension in getting into the minds of consumers.

A graduate of The University of Southern California, when not selling real estate or developing her own design/build projects, Schwartz is an honored wife and mother of two wonderful boys, Ethan and Asher, and snuggler of Hugo, her first child, an Italian Greyhound. She is proud of her Mexican heritage and is fluent in Spanish.

About Haute Residence:

Designed as a partnership-driven luxury real estate portal, Haute Residence connects its affluent readers with top real estate professionals, while offering the latest in real estate news, showcasing the worlds most extraordinary residences on the market and sharing expert advice from its knowledgeable and experienced real estate partners.

The invitation-only luxury real estate network, which partners with just one agent in every market, unites a distinguished collective of leading real estate agents and brokers and highlights the most extravagant properties in leading markets around the globe for affluent buyers, sellers, and real estate enthusiasts.

HauteResidence.com has grown to be the number one news source for million-dollar listings, high-end residential developments, celebrity real estate, and more.

Access all of this information and more by visiting: http://www.hauteresidence.com
interjet-logo1-5in-150.png This increase in passenger traffic came in the face of a number of challenges experienced by the airline industry this quarter, including hurricanes and the devastating earthquake in our home country. Jose Luis Garza, CEO of Interjet.

Interjet reported record international passenger traffic for the 3rd quarter of 2017, posting a 23% increase in passenger traffic compared with the same period last year, according to figures released by the company this week. During the 3rd quarter, Interjet transported more than 733,000 passengers with load factors for August alone, up over 34% YOY.

This increase in passenger traffic came in the face of a number of challenges experienced by the airline industry this quarter, including hurricanes and the devastating earthquake in our home country, said Jose Luis Garza, CEO of Interjet. I am very proud of the way our Interjet family responded to these challenges and the great results weve been able to achieve in spite of this adversity, he added.

Interjet continues to expand its international service and recently announced the addition of new, non-stop flights between Los Angeles and Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta and El Bajio, Mexico. Interjet already serves Los Angeles with non-stop flights to Cancun, Mexico City and Guadalajara, Mexico. This new service is scheduled to start November 23, 2017.

These new, international flights are important to Interjet as they will complement our ever-expanding network offering leisure and business travelers more destinations to choose from when traveling to Mexico from the U.S., said Julio Gamero, Interjets Chief Commercial Officer. Were now flying more than 18% of all international traffic between North America and Mexico, and our footprint is only going to get bigger, he added.

Interjet, was recently named the TripAdvisor 2017 Travelers Choice winner as the best Mexican airline. In addition to lower fares, Interjet offers more legroom between seats, inflight service that includes free light snacks and drinks, no fees for checked baggage on specific fares and female-only lavatories.

For more information regarding Interjet or to make a reservation, visit http://www.interjet.com or in the U.S, call 1-866-285-9525.

About Interjet

Interjet is an international airline based in Mexico City providing air service to 54 destinations in eight countries, including 36 cities in Mexico. Its network includes service to nine U.S. markets: Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Orlando/Sanford and San Antonio. Other international routes include Montreal, Canada; Havana, Santa Clara and Varadero, Cuba; Bogota, Colombia; Guatemala City, Guatemala; Lima, Peru; and San Jose, Costa Rica. The airline operates a fleet of more than 77 aircraft including three Airbus A320neos, 48 Airbus A320s, four Airbus A321s and 22 Superjet 100s.

Media Contact

Sheilla Moonens

Tel. +52 (55) 9178 5500 Ext. 5880

Email: sheilla.moonens(at)interjet(dot)com.mx
In the first eight months of this year, Hong Kongs wine imports reached HK$ 7.56 billion. Most of the wines were imported from France, the UK and Italy and imports from Italy even recorded a 22% growth.

As the international wine hub and gateway to the Asian market, Hong Kong is ever increasingly one of the most important wine scenes in the world. Vinitaly Hong Kong will be back at the International Wine & Spirits Fair from the 9th to the 11th of November, offering the 20,000 buyers and visitors an even more valuable B2B experience: the traditional walk around tastings will be enhanced by a series of private B2B meetings as well as 20 exclusive educational classes held by Italian Wineries, Consortiums, Vinitaly International Academy and many others.

The #B2BHongKong meetings, organized in collaboration with HKTC, are a brand new initiative of Vinitaly International aimed at supporting Italian wine companies in their effort to grow their business in the Asian market. There will be a succession of 110 meetings between Italian wine producers and chief executive officers, general managers, marketing directors and buyers from 14 different countries such as Chinese Mainland, USA, Indonesia, Taiwan, Philippine, Singapore, Vietnam, Australia, Cambodia, Monaco, Brazil and Thailand. 14 different Italian wineries that exhibit with Vinitaly International at this edition of Vinitaly Hong Kong have this exclusive opportunity to respond to the high demand in the market.

According to the Hong Kong Trade Development Councils deputy executive director Benjamin Chau, In the first eight months of this year, Hong Kongs wine imports reached HK$ 7.56 billion. Most of the wines were imported from France, the UK and Italy and imports from Italy even recorded a 22% growth. (The Drinks Business, November,1, https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2017/11/hong-kong-international-wine-spirits-fair-returns-next-week/) Hong Kong is thirsty for Italian wine more than ever.

Vinitaly International is ready to quench this thirst. For the eighth consecutive year at the International Wine & Spirits Fair, a rich, informative program has been prepared for the Italian Pavilion covering 1006sqm. From boutique wineries to co-ops to family owned wineries, the wide range of exhibitors display the essence of Italian wines; the diversity of over 590 + native grapes and wines made from them coming from all parts of the country.

A quintessential part of Vinitaly Hong Kong revolves around wine education. The various seminars held by world-known experts on Italian wine are of a very high level yet informative. Vinitaly International Academy (VIA) with its Scientific Director, Ian DAgata will hold three VIA Executive Wine Seminars, as well as an additional session dedicated to wines selected for the new wine guide, 5StarWines - the Book 2017 encompassing a compilation of wines selected by a panel of International judges the week before Vinitaly (http://www.5starwines.it/).

Jean Charles Viens, Hong Kong-based wine expert and educator, writer at Spirito Divino Asia will be holding 9 masterclasses thus completing a full schedule of educational sessions organized by Vinitaly International in collaboration with the wine website Wine Meridian, Consortium Alto Adige Wines, Consortium Enoteca Regionale Emilia Romagna, Piemonte Land of Perfection and La Collina dei Ciliegi.

Registrations for the masterclasses can be made by following these links:

Valpantenashire - La Collina dei Ciliegi (https://lacollinadeiciliegitasting.eventbrite.it)

Emilia Romagna Wine Tasting - Enoteca Regionale Emilia Romagna (https://emiliaromagnatasting.eventbrite.it)

Alto Adige - Wines from the Italian Dolomites - Consortium Alto Adige Wines (https://altoadigewinestasting.eventbrite.it)

International Varieties in Italy - Vinitaly International Academy (https://internationalvarietiesitaly.eventbrite.it)

The Versatility of Sangiovese, cornerstone of many great wines - Vinitaly International Academy (https://sangiovesewines.eventbrite.it)

Special Selection from 5StarWines - the Book 2017 (https://5starwines2017.eventbrite.it)

Italys Benchmark Wines - Vinitaly International Academy (https://italybenchmarkwines.eventbrite.it)

Have a Sip of Abruzzo with Casal Thaulero Wines - Wine Meridian (https://winemeridian_casalthaulerowines.eventbrite.it)

The Wine Net: The Excellence of the Italian Wine Co-op - Wine Meridian (https://thewinenet.eventbrite.it)

Excellences of Piedmont: Nebbiolo, Barbera, Moscato - Piemonte Land of Perfection (https://piemontelandofperfection.eventbrite.it)

Italian Wines In the World - Wine Meridian (https://italianwinesintheworld.eventbrite.it)

As for the previous editions, every day the Vinitaly Lounge will offer all attendees the opportunity to sip good Italian coffee and taste Italian food thanks to Vinitaly International's partnership with Illy and Casale. Vinitaly International would also like to take this opportunity to thank our partners, Grande Passione, Bellissima Italia, Spirito di Vino Asia, Wines-Info, Wines Times, and SoWine.

About:

Veronafiere is the leading organizer of trade shows in Italy including Vinitaly (http://www.vinitaly.com), the largest wine and spirits fair in the world. During its 51th edition Vinitaly counted more than 4,270 exhibitors on a 100,000+ square meter area and 128,000 visitors from 142 different countries with more than 30,000 top international buyers (up by 8%). The next edition of the fair will take place on 15 - 18 April 2018. The premier event to Vinitaly, OperaWine (http://www.operawine.it) Finest Italian Wines: 100 Great Producers, will unite international wine professionals on April 14th in the heart of Verona, offering them the unique opportunity to discover and taste the wines of the 100 Best Italian Producers, as selected by Wine Spectator. Since 1998 Vinitaly International travels to several countries such as Russia, China, USA and Hong Kong thanks to its strategic arm abroad, Vinitaly International. In February 2014 Vinitaly International launched an educational project, the Vinitaly International Academy (VIA) with the aim of divulging and broadcasting the excellence and diversity of Italian wine around the globe. VIA this year launched the third edition of its Certification Course and today counts 116 Italian Wine Ambassadors and 8 Italian Wine Experts.
Stacie Faulds, Cruise Planners Director of Marketing accepts the International Franchise Association FranTech Award on behalf of Cruise Planners in San Diego, Calif. When designing new technology, we strive to provide high-tech solutions for franchisees that strengthen the connection between travel agents and their clients, Michelle Fee, CEO and co-founder of Cruise Planners.

The nations leading home-based travel franchise, Cruise Planners, an American Express Travel Representative, recently earned a FranTech Award from the International Franchise Association (IFA) and continues to stand out as a leader in innovation and technology. Presented at the 2017 FranTech Franchise Innovation Conference, October 19-20 in San Diego, the IFA award recognized Cruise Planners for its 2017 Technology Suite for travel agents which includes CP View, CP Insights and the newly redesigned corporate website. Announced to travel agents at its 2017 Annual Conference on October 16, Cruise Planners continues to make strides in technology and innovation by becoming the first home-based travel agency to enter the world of Artificial Intelligence with the introduction of two new Alexa Skills making vacation planning easy for consumers and serve as a virtual assistant for travel agents.

The 2017 technology suite represents the largest amount of tech innovations ever launched by Cruise Planners and provides highly efficient and targeted insight for franchise owners to market and work with their clients, said Michelle Fee, CEO and co-founder of Cruise Planners. When designing new technology, we strive to provide high-tech solutions for franchisees that strengthen the connection between travel agents and their clients.

Stacie Faulds, Cruise Planners Director of Marketing accepts the International Franchise Association FranTech Award on behalf of Cruise Planners in San Diego, Calif. Cruise Planners earned this award for its 2017 launch of technology solutions for its franchisees.

Creating technology solutions has increased sales for franchisees by leveraging data, introducing a lead-generating tool and syncing back-end business intelligence. The technology innovations were welcomed with a high adoption rate, proving these solutionoriented tools are effective and beneficial to the agent network.

Recently released custom tools developed by Cruise Planners Home Office Team include:



Alexa SkillsTwo voice-activated skills using Artificial Intelligence to help Cruise Planners agents and their clients. One skill acts as a virtual personal assistant for Cruise Planners agents and the other is a hands-free way for customers to connect with their travel agent as they plan and countdown to their vacations

CP MaxxCruise Planners next-generation booking and customer relationship management system for faster, streamlined results that Maxximizes business, efficiencies and profits

CP InsightsHighly-efficient and targeted insight for franchise owners to market and work with their clients to provide relevant marketing and customized travel offers.

CP ViewTool that curates data across the Cruise Planners network to anticipate client buying habits and target the right clients, leading to increased sales, brand credibility and stronger relationships.

Cruise Planners takes an in-depth approach and reviews a variety of sources for inspiration, most notably, how the most successful franchisees perform and what common sentiments are echoed across the network in terms of technology needs.

About Cruise Planners, an American Express Travel Representative

Cruise Planners, an American Express Travel Representative, is the nations largest home-based travel agent franchise network in the travel industry. Cruise Planners operates a network of more than 1,800 franchise owners who independently book amazing vacation and travel experiences for their clients. The Florida-based Home Office Team positions a nation-wide network of franchise owners for success by providing innovative marketing, booking and technology tools, as well as professional development and hands-on training with the industrys top executives. The company continues to be lauded and has been named the No.1 travel franchise by Entrepreneur magazine for 14 consecutive years. Cruise Planners was recently featured in Entrepreneur as one of the top 30 franchise innovators in technology, has been consistently named as one of the Top Women-Owned Businesses by the South Florida Business Journal, is on the Inc. 5000 list as one of the fastest-growing private companies in America, has been ranked as the #1 travel franchise by Franchise Business Review for 6 years in a row, and was recognized as one of the Top Workplaces by the Sun Sentinel since it started ranking companies.

Headquartered in Coral Springs, Fla. with more than 23 years of experience, Cruise Planners has achieved top producer status with every major cruise line. Accolades include numerous Magellan Awards from Travel Weekly, American Express Travel Representative Excellence Award for 13 consecutive years (2004-2016), American Express Agency of the Year (2010), Royal Caribbean International Chairmans Award (2015), Royal Caribbean International Presidents Award for Overall Achievement (2012 and 2014), Royal Caribbean International Home-Based Partner of the Year (2007-2013), Norwegian Cruise Line Elite Agency of the Year (2016), Norwegian Cruise Line Franchise Agency of the Year (2011-2015), Celebrity Cruises Home-Based Partner of the Year (2016), Celebrity Cruises Field Sales Account of the Year (2015), Celebrity Cruises Home-Based Account of the Year (2013-2014) and Celebrity Cruises Southeast Region Travel Agent Partner of the Year (2010), Ted Arison Founders Award  Carnival Cruise Line (2017), Travel Impressions Best of the Best Globe Award (2008-2016), Sandals Top Host  Worldwide, Globus Family of Brands Premier Agency Partner (2009-2016), Platinum Circle Member with Viking River Cruises (2009-2015), Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection Top Producer (2008-2014) and Regent Seven Seas Cruises Top Producer. Cruise Planners is one of the Top 50 franchises for Veterans according to GI magazine, the Top Franchise Brand for Veterans according to Franchise Business Review, has been named one of the Top 25 franchises for African-Americans by Black Enterprise magazine and is a member of the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association. For more information, visit http://www.cruiseplanners.com.

Stay in Touch: Media can stay up-to-date with Cruise Planners by visiting our media room, following us on Twitter @Cruisitude or on Facebook. For additional information or to make reservations, vacationers should locate a travel advisor near them. For those interested in becoming a franchise owner, please visit the Cruise Planners franchise website.
John Wilton Windle Ball Janik LLPs range of knowledge and experience enables us to streamline complex construction issues. We provide strong and creative representation for clients, no matter what issues they face.

John W. Windle joined Ball Janik LLPs Orlando office on September 27, 2017. John Windle is an associate in Ball Janik LLPs Construction Defect and Litigation practices. Mr. Windle helps clients come through the tough process of obtaining funds to pay for buildings (including homes) riddled with construction defects. Mr. Windle has a Bachelors in Psychology which helps him listen to, understand, and resolve the issues in his clients cases. Mr. Windle is a member of the Florida Bars Trial Lawyer Section.

John Windle was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. John attended Flagler College, where he graduated in three years with honors, obtained a psychology degree, and met the high standards to become a member of Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology.

After Flagler College, Mr. Windle attended the University of Florida Levin College of Law. While at the University of Florida, John was on the Executive Board of the Florida Moot Court Team, obtained a certificate of excellence for pro bono work, worked in the Family Law Clinic, made the Deans List in the fall of 2013 and 2015, and played rugby for the University.

Prior to joining Ball Janik, Mr. Windle defended insurance companies in a wide variety of actions while working for Metzger Law Group, P.A. in Tampa and for Wicker, Smith, OHara, McCoy & Ford, P.A. in Jacksonville. These positions allowed for Mr. Windle to handle matters such as construction defect, slip and fall, auto negligence, class action, breach of contract, declaratory action, medical malpractice, first party actions, and many more. Through these experiences, Mr. Windle learned how insurance companies operate in practice, which helps him secure optimal settlements and judgments for his clients.

Mr. Windle was inspired to become a lawyer by his grandfather, Wayne Windle, who set a fine example for John. Wayne is the current managing partner of Windle, Hood, Norton, Brittain & Jay, LLP in El Paso, Texas. At the age of 27, Wayne distinguished himself by becoming the youngest attorney at that time to make a winning argument in front of the United States Supreme Court. Wayne later went on to become the ABOTA Texas Trail Lawyer of the year for 2009 and became the only lawyer to win El Pasos civility award two years in a row. After over 50 years of practice, Wayne continues to inspire John by teaching him the most important things he has learned in his storied career, including the best ways to advocate for his clients in unexpected situations.

About Ball Janik LLP

Ball Janik LLP is a national law firm with offices in Portland, Oregon and Orlando, Florida. For over thirty years, Ball Janik LLP has been providing outstanding legal services in the areas of construction litigation, construction defect, bankruptcy and creditor rights, commercial litigation, construction and design, employment, real estate and land use, insurance recovery for policyholders, and securities litigation.

Ball Janik LLP represents large and small businesses; state, municipal and local governments; community associations; schools and universities; and individuals. Ball Janik LLP provides clients an aggressive, skilled, team approach to solve problems and achieve results. Ball Janik LLP has been recognized by Chambers USA, U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers, The Best Lawyers in America, and Corporate International. Ball Janik LLPs success and integrity have repeatedly made it one of Oregons Most Admired Professional Firms, according to the Portland Business Journals survey results of CEOs throughout the region.
HNTB's Lynette Mellett, PE, and Shawn J. Murphy, PE, were named as Top 40 Under 40 award recipients by Airport Business magazine. Not only are Lynette and Shawn leaders dedicated to excellence and the advancement of the industry, but they also devote personal time to organizations in order to support aviation engineering in their communities.

Two of HNTB Corporations aviation experts  Lynette Mellett, PE, and Shawn J. Murphy, PE  were named as Top 40 Under 40 award recipients by Airport Business magazine. The annual award recognizes 40 aviation industry professionals under the age of 40 for their academic, professional and community achievements.

Mellett joined HNTB as a project engineer in 2003 after graduation from Iowa State University and worked on a variety of civil projects while preparing for the professional engineer exam. She began her aviation path working with three general aviation airports on on call contracts in the Federal Aviation Administration central region. As her career progressed, she added international and more general aviation airport projects. She was awarded her Professional Engineer license in 2008 from the State of Kansas and was promoted to project manager at HNTB. In 2013, she began her current role as aviation section manger. She is responsible for delivery of all civil aviation projects from HNTBs Kansas City office, ensuring quality, maintaining budgets, schedules and exceeding clients expectations.

Murphy joined HNTB in 2005 after earning a civil engineering degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago. As a member of the aviation design team, his first project was the Runway 10L-28R Extension, part of the OHare International Airport Modernization Program. This was the first major runway project completed under the program and its design garnered an Honor Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Illinois. Additional experience included a wide range of airfield capital improvement projects at OHare, Midway International Airport, and Louisville International Airport, and an assault landing zone runway at Lakehurst Naval Air Engineering Station used for C-17 and C-130 cooperative training flights, for which he completed a Pavement Design & Management course with the United States Air Force Academy. In his current role as HNTB project manager, Murphy is responsible for delivery of construction phase services on all contracts of the Runway 9C-27C program, the final major runway project of the OHare Modernization Program.

HNTB is honored to have such exceptional professionals on our team, said Laddie Irion, HNTB national aviation market sector leader and senior vice president. Not only are Lynette and Shawn leaders dedicated to excellence and the advancement of the industry, but they also devote personal time to organizations in order to support aviation engineering in their communities.

Airport Business magazine is the most widely circulated and audited business publication that targets professionals who manage airports, airport-based businesses and corporate flight facilities in North America. Its more than 17,000 subscribers are critical to the safe operation of the North American air transportation system.

The 2017 Top 40 Under 40 represent the truly remarkable young professionals in the aviation industry, who are transforming how North America moves, said Joe Petrie, editor-in-chief of Airport Business magazine. With such a robust crop of winners in 2017 representing so many different facets of the industry, there is clear evidence for optimism when it comes to the current pool of talented professionals who will be leading the industry in the next decade.

This is the sixth year of the Top 40 program. Many past honorees are now leading major institutions and projects of the aviation industry due to their dedication and recognition for their valuable skills.

According to Engineering News-Records Top Design Firms Sourcebook for 2017, HNTB moved up in the rankings to the top six airport consulting firms in the United States.

HNTBs many signature aviation projects include design of the air traffic control tower at San Francisco International Airport; design of the T2 West Green Build terminal expansion at San Diego International Airport; program management at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport; architectural and engineering and design services at Los Angeles International Airport; design and construction management of runway status lights implementation at airports across the country; program management and owners representative services for Chicagos OHare and Midway international airports; program management and construction management for the Hotel and Transit Center at Denver International Airport; taxiway design, construction services improvements and a terminal planning study at Kansas City International Airport; and master plan update for Tampa International Airport. The firms largest ongoing aviation project is serving as architect of record for design of the new South Terminal C at Orlando International Airport.

About HNTB

HNTB Corporation is an employee-owned infrastructure firm serving public and private owners and contractors. Celebrating a century of service, HNTB understands the life cycle of infrastructure and addresses clients most complex technical, financial and operational challenges. Professionals nationwide deliver a full range of infrastructure-related services, including award-winning planning, design, program management and construction management. For more information, visit http://www.hntb.com.
Today, Blazntech closed out a record week for their Wefunder Equity Crowdfunding campaign, upping their total amount raised to over $77K. The company was one of the top five most-funded campaigns on the Wefunder platform this week. Blazntech is a veteran-owned and operated company that has developed the worlds first and only motorized weapons cleaning system, a patented, pocket-size tool that manages to quickly and effectively (without any disassembly) clean most commonly used rifles and handguns.

Benjamin Bondar, the founder of Blazntech, is an Iraq war veteran and first conceived the idea as a reliable cleaning tool while he was overseas.

I knew there had to be a better way to efficiently clean our weapons, said Bondar. Of course, being able to clean weapons quickly in the military much more important than for civilians, but its still a problem that every gun enthusiast faces. What we have, and are bringing to market, significantly reduces that most precious commodity that is equal to everyone - time.

BLAZnTECH's retail strategy is based on direct sales and dealer offerings. They have established relations with the Department of Defense (including interest from Allied Forces) and are well positioned to become a leader in the weapons maintenance market. Right now, the primary focus is to establish U.S. based production, providing a revolutionary product compliant with the Berry Amendment.

For more information on Blazntech and to learn about investing in their Wefunder campaign, visit https://wefunder.com/blazntech.

ABOUT BLAZNTECH

Blazntech is a veteran-owned and operated company that has developed the worlds first and only motorized weapons cleaning system. Blazntech is founded by Benjamin Bondar, a former stock market analyst who managed over 2.3MM on his own trading floor. Bondar is a veteran of Iraq, a FAA certified pilot and the inventor of the Motorized Weapons Cleaning System. For more information, visit http://blazntech.com/.
StormX, the blockchain-powered adtech and gamified micro-task innovators, today announced that Michael J. Critelli, CEO and President of Dossia Service Corporation and former CEO of Pitney Bowes, and Amit Shafrir, former President of AOL Premium Services and former Executive President of Badoo, have been added to its Board of Advisors. Critelli and Shafrir bring decades of technology experience and unparalleled industry knowledge to the StormX Board.

StormX CEO Simon Yu said, We are very proud to announce that Michael J. Critelli and Amit Shafrir have joined the StormX team. Both have solidified themselves as technology industry titans, having developed and grown some of the most well-known and transformative companies in the space, like AOL, Netscape, Pitney Bowes, and ICQ. We are confident that Michael and Amit will offer invaluable insights on creating an industry-leading technology platform focused on user-experience, while also helping us shape our unique StormX brand.

Michael J. Critelli is the current President and CEO of Dossia Service Corporation, a health analytics platform provider that supports technology-driven population health management. Prior to his tenure at Dossia, Critelli was the CEO of Pitney Bowes, a global technology company best known for its postage meters and other mailing equipment and services. Under Critelli, the company transitioned its entire installed equipment base to digital, networked systems and was ranked as one of Americas most innovative companies.

StormX is a company with a vision and mission to reconfigure the way work is designed and delivered, and to expand work opportunities and workforce skill development, and economic empowerment all over the world. I am excited to offer my counsel alongside its established team of multi-disciplinary experts, said Michael J. Critelli.

Amit Shafrir has vast expertise in both consumer Internet and enterprise software. He has spent more than two decades managing some of the Internet's most powerful and recognizable brands, including online service providers AOL and Netscape, and Badoo, the worlds largest social network for mobile and online dating. Currently, Shafrir is the CEO and Co-Founder of Quiv, a platform that connects users with experts, enabling them to ask questions in return for a charitable donation to the experts cause.

Amit Shafrir said, Ive spent my career looking for the next exciting technological innovation, and StormX fits the profile of a rapidly-growing, industry-defining business that will have a very large social impact. I feel that StormX has the potential to reshape the way the freelance industry operates and establish itself as a leading blockchain innovator.

The StormX Board of Advisors includes prominent industry leaders such as Bancor Co-Founder Guy Benartzi, Bittrex CEO Bill Shihara, Jaxx Founder and CEO Anthony Di lorio, founding CTO of Zynga Tom Bollich, AlphaBit.fund CEO Liam Robertson and Strategist Brad Mills, VOIP pioneer and Vonage Founder and CEO Jeff Pulver, Alchemist Ventures and Ethereum Chief Strategist Steven Nerayoff Esq. LL.M., Juloot interactive Founder Hanan Gazit Ph.D., Brian Kelly Capital LLC Founder and CNBC contributor Brian Kelly, and Appuri Founder and CTO Damon Danieli.

Registration is now open for the STORM token crowdsale which starts Tuesday, November 7th via the official STORM website at stormtoken.com/tokensale.

About StormX, Inc.:

StormX, Inc. is the creator of Storm Play (formerly known as BitMaker), and Storm Market, with gamified micro-tasks, where people can earn STORM tokens anywhere, at anytime, from any device. With over 1.2 million downloads, over 270k monthly active users across 187 countries, StormX is expanding based on the demand. Current gamified micro-tasks include trying out different products and services, like from Hulu, Dollar Shave Club and Final Fantasy. As Storm Market expands, the focus is adding new category of gamified micro-tasks (Storm Gigs) in Machine Learning and QA Testing. The vision is not only about enabling more micro-earning opportunities, but also creating a gamified path for people globally to advance in life with a whole new way of job advancement.
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The popularity of low-fee exchange-traded funds has come at the expense of active managers, who now have no choice but to fight back. And to stay afloat, they're going to have to get creative.

That could very well involve reinventing themselves by charging fees based on performance. While that may seem obvious, most funds have historically charged their clients a flat management fee, regardless of returns.

Now it may be in their best interest to implement so-called variable pricing mutual funds, the adoption of which could "radically alter" money management as we know it, according to Citigroup.

"The rise of passive investment management has undermined the profitability of the asset management industry," Robert Buckland, the chief global equity strategist at Citigroup, wrote in a client note. "The stock market has recognized this. In the old days, asset managers used to outperform the bull market. That is no longer the case. Companies need to reinvent themselves."

How did it come to this?

Before we get into the specifics of the potentially game-changing variable pricing funds, let's take a step back and assess how we ended up in this situation.

At the root of the shift has been the proliferation of passive investment, as Buckland mentioned above. ETFs, which typically follow and index and stand in contrast to their actively managed mutual-fund counterparts, have become one of the world's hottest investment products.

According to the EPFR, passive equity funds have seen global inflows of $620 billion in the past 12 months, while active funds have seen outflows of $359 billion. In terms of sheer size, the combined assets of US ETFs hit $3.1 trillion in August, increasing roughly $700 billion in a single year, according to Investment Company Institute data.

A big part of this divergence in flows stems from how much cheaper passive funds are. Citigroup notes that the average charge for a US-based active equity mutual fund is 84 basis points, compared with just 11 basis points for passive. Hence the importance of active managers making their pricing more attractive.

The potentially game-changing role of variable pricing mutual funds

That's where variable pricing mutual funds come in. Pioneered by AllianceBernstein earlier in 2017, the methodology is simple: the bigger the outperformance, the bigger the fee.

Citigroup finds that this fee structure generally delivers investors better net returns than at the present time, except during periods of substantial outperformance. In other words, they may cap potential upside, but they also don't leave investors wanting more in the event of more average returns.

It also incentivizes the mutual-fund managers to crush their benchmarks, especially since they'll get a smaller fee if performance is middling. Here's a visual representation:

With all of that in mind, Citigroup says these funds will "radically alter" the industry in the following four ways:

In addition to the risks outlined above, Citigroup also sees active-manager margins coming under serious pressure during periods of market losses. And such a development would hit investors in the wallet, given the "significant cultural pressure on compensation" likely to result from lower fees.

Citigroup also warns that potential investors in variable pricing mutual funds could end up paying high fees for trailing performance that they didn't themselves enjoy. On the flipside, following weak periods, the firm says funds would have to worry about "free riding"  the mutual-fund version of value investing, which involves finding underpriced assets with strong upside.
Political commentator and writer Keith Olbermann sparked a debate on ABC's "The View" on Friday when host Sunny Hostin asked him about a tweet he recently wrote accusing Donald Trump Jr. and his family of doing "more damage to America than Bin Laden + ISIS combined."

Conservative host Meghan McCain, Arizona Sen. John McCain's daughter, challenged Olbermann, arguing that "the comparison is absurd" and that "rhetoric like that is so damaging" to the country, which she said is plagued by political divisions.

Olbermann, who recently released his new book, "Trump is F--king Crazy," defended himself by arguing that the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq and Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 was more damaging to America than the terrorist attack itself.

"The Iraq War was a waste of these people's lives," Olbermann countered. "And it was unnecessary."

"Bin Laden was dedicated to the destruction of everything we hold dear and our freedoms," McCain countered before Hostin interrupted, "Perhaps some people think Trump is dedicated to the destruction "

"Do you want President Trump to fail?" McCain asked Olbermann before the show cut to a commercial break. "Do you want America to fail? Because I'm genuinely curious."

Watch the clip below:
Revelations about a former foreign policy adviser for President Donald Trump's campaign, George Papadopoulos, has put the spotlight back on another top Trump official  Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

A renewed round of attention has come Sessions's way as a result of statements he made to the Senate Judiciary Committee that appear to not line up with what is now known about Papadopoulos, who was revealed Monday to have pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI.

At a March 31 meeting of Trump's national security team  a meeting which Sessions helped lead and is photographed at, along with Trump  Papadopoulos offered to use a Russian contact to try and set up a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, multiple outlets reported. Documents released Monday showed Papadopoulos was in contact with Russians who offered "dirt" on 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Though Sessions rejected the March 31 proposal by Papadopoulos, as NBC News reported, the recent revelations conflict with Sessions's past statements to Congress.

In June testimony, Sessions said, "Let me state this clearly: I have never met with or had any conversations with any Russians or foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election. Further, I have no knowledge of any such conversations by anyone connected to the Trump campaign."

Additionally, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham asked Sessions in October whether he ever overheard "a conversation between you and anybody on the campaign who talked about meeting with the Russians?"

"I have not seen anything that would indicate collusion with Russians to impact the campaign," he answered.

That caused a number of senators to call for further questioning of Sessions, who already has made a number of missteps before the Judiciary Committee.

In January, during a line of questioning from Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota, Sessions said he was unaware of any communications between Russian officials and Trump campaign affiliates and said he "did not have communications with the Russians." It was later reported that Sessions had a handful of conversations during the campaign with the Russian ambassador to the US at the time, Sergey Kislyak. As a result, Sessions recused himself from all matters related to the Trump campaign and insisted he did not attempt to mislead the committee.

Democrats insist that Sessions has to come back before the Senate Judiciary Committee

"It's hard to keep up with the constantly shifting accounts of Attorney General Sessions's contacts with Russians during the campaign," Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, a member of the Judiciary Committee, told Business Insider in a statement. "And it's no longer possible for him to deny any knowledge of the Trump team's entanglement with the Kremlin  a denial he made under oath before the Judiciary Committee just two weeks ago."

He called on Sessions to come back before the committee to "explain himself."

Franken, the senator who has had a number of memorable spars with Sessions during the committee hearings, sent a letter to the attorney general Thursday. In it, he wrote that the "newest revelation strongly suggests that the Senate  and the American public  cannot trust your word."

Other Democrats on the committee, such as Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, also asked for Sessions to "immediately come before" the committee.

"The Attorney General was already given an opportunity to correct his earlier misleading answers to me and Sen. Franken in January through written, supplemental testimony," Leahy wrote. "Yet he only continued to mislead. He now needs to come back before the committee, in person, under oath, to explain why he cannot seem to provide truthful, complete answers to these important and relevant questions."

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on Franken's and his fellow Democrats' statements.

"Its a legitimate area of inquiry"

Republicans signaled that they too believe it is legitimate to further question Sessions after the Papadopoulos documents were released.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 in Republican leadership and a member of the Judiciary Committee, told CNN he "certainly" thinks "it's a legitimate area of inquiry."

And Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, told CNN that he's "looking into" whether Sessions should amend his past testimony to the committee.

Sources close to Sessions told NBC News that, while Sessions did reject Papadopoulos' offer, he did not recall the episode.

"The March 31 comments by this Papadopoulos person did not leave a lasting impression," said the source. "As far as Sessions seemed to be concerned, when he shut down this idea of Papadopoulos engaging with Russia, that was the end of it and he moved the meeting along to other issues."

That source added that Sessions wasn't aware of Papadopoulos being offered "dirt" on Clinton.

J.D. Gordon, the former director of the Trump campaign's national security advisory committee, told Business Insider's Natasha Bertrand that both he and Sessions "did not know" that Papadopoulos "continued to try and arrange" a meeting after Sessions nixed the idea at the March meeting.

Papadopoulos "obviously went to great lengths to go around me and Sen. Sessions," Gordon said on Tuesday. "Presidential campaigns are like that. ... I have been senior staff/senior adviser on 3 now ... very hard to know what every single person is doing, especially since some folks deliberately go around the chain of command or circumvent it."

Did Sessions perjure himself?

Andrew Wright, a former associate counsel to President Barack Obama and Vice President Al Gore, told Business Insider that "there are a number of questions" Sessions needs to answer about both "his proximity to Papadopoulos and his candor with respect to his answers to the Senate."

He added that the notion that Sessions does not remember shutting down Papadopoulos at the meeting suggests "one of two things."

"Either you're lying, or you didn't put in the sort of proper due-diligence to prepare for your hearing," he said. "Neither is good, but only one of those is criminal."

Though he credited Sessions with having "the right answer" to Papadopoulos' proposal to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin, it makes it harder to believe that Sessions does not remember the exchange.
The Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG) had said that in spite of a directive by the National Labour Commission (NLC), asking the Ministry of Finance to pay the arrears within two weeks, they are yet to be paid.

On the basis of this development, leadership has decided that members should withdraw our services in all the thirty-eight public colleges of education till such a time that the arrears are fully paid to members, having duly consulted all Local and Zonal branches of the Association on the matter, a statement signed by the National Secretary of the Association, Prince Obeng-Himah said.
Captain Planet, whose real name is Jeff Silvanus Dodji Dovo Negro, shared his experience when he first visited the United States of America narrating how he was detained for two hours in the US because of his name.

He said he had to wait for that amount of time in order for the immigration authority in the United States contact Ghana to find out if he was truly Ghanaian.

Upon his return back to Ghana, the musician said he was compelled to drop a part of his name to avoid having the same problem subsequently.

READ MORE: Top celebrity weddings of 2016

When I came to Ghana I was so upset I had to take some of the names out, he said.

Captain Planet also confirmed rumours that his wife is older than him.

My wife is older than me but it doesnt change anything, he said

The Suhum-born rapper recently released a latest hit Obi Agye Obi Girl which features Kofi Kinaata.

My inspiration [for the song] came from hearing stories of breakups from friends and also, some of them are from movies that Ive been watching. he said.
Well, if you are not a hustler, or if you're an introvert, you might not known that feeling.

But if you do know the feeling, Ghana's John Mahama and Muhammadu Buhari, President of Nigeria are basically you and your homeboy.

And from the photos we have gotten, the duo are surely best buds.

1. How you welcome each other knowing you are about to have a blast

2. When you want to "play" shenanigans but you have to wait on Nigerian jollof

Seriously, look at John Mahama's face, he is not amused at the thought of Nigerian jollof. Even Buhari's tells the story of want of Ghana Jollof.

3. And when you finally, somehow, down the jollof

...you leave the dinner table with so much joy.

4. And then you start remembering all your plights together

5. ...and even more laughter

6. But all good things like meeting best buds have to come to an end

Buhari is probably telling Mahama, "lets do this again...maybe more often".

READ ALSO: The only 7 presidents Uhuru follows on Twitter
Google.com, the internet's largest and most trusted search engine, has an autocomplete feature which suggests search terms based on what people are searching for most.

READ ALSO: Here are 7 celebrities who are accused of bleaching

The preceding is actually a very loose explanation of what the search engine does when it comes to autocomplete and any Google fanboy would have you know that.

I consider myself a Google fanboy, but today, I am wearing a different hat and won't go into much detail about that.

I typed "why are Ghanaians" into the search box in Google and got met with a rather weird autocomplete list of things people are wondering about when it comes to Ghanaians.

And just off the top of my mind, some of the questions are really dumb ones, but who's to blame them...they surely didn't know better.

So, in a new series of posts, I will be tackling each of these assumptions and try to answer these "why are Ghanaians..." questions.

And the first in these questions is "why are Ghanaians so dark".

First of all, not all Ghanaians are dark.

I have researched and, thankfully, there is no statistic on the number of light-skinned people in Ghana against their dark-skinned counterparts.

I can't even begin to fathom out the repercussions of trying to profile and count Ghanaians based on the shade of their skin.

READ ALSO: 5 things Ghana has that the rest of the world urgently needs

But of the top of my head, I can say that there are probably just as many fair Ghanaians as there are dark Ghanaians living in the country.

However, the perception that Ghanaians are dark, or even so dark, is so widespread that I feel part of it might be rooted in the skewed colourism with which the world views Africans on the whole.

I came across a thread on TheStudentRoom.co.uk where someone had asked: "Do light skin black Somalis and Ghanaians exist?".

Seriously!!!

But it is not just among Westerners that this perception that Ghanaians are mainly dark people lives.

It is a common belief held by Nigerians and South Africans.

This becomes fodder for a Twitter fight and other social bickering where they try to "troll" Ghanaians for being "so dark".

"Many Nigerians are surprised to see that Ghana has fair complexioned people. Their original notion is that they are all black-skinned, not just dark or brown. To see a fair complexioned person, a Nigerian will first suspect the person to hail from Nigeria. Many white people married black Ghanaians and their offsprings complexion is brighter. That is not the only reason, there are also naturally fair people here but a majority of Ghanaians are very dark", this from an article written by a Nigerian on "The 10 Things Nigerians Know About Ghanaians".

Is Becca bleaching? - Wochit

Most of the submissions in the aforementioned text are true, but it still proffers the idea that majority of Ghanaians are dark.

Whereas this might be true, major ethnic groups in Ghana like the Ewe, Fante, Ga, Gonja, Frafra are made up of mainly light-skinned people.

To wit, the question, "why are Ghanaians so dark" is even wrong from the onset. Not all Ghanaians are dark, and maybe even not "so dark" for the ones who are light-skinned.
The three teenagers are of ages 14 and 16 years with oldest among them having a Senior Secondary School certificate.

The accused, who is standing trial on a two-count charge of conspiracy and knowingly allowing teenagers to engage in unlawful sexual intercourse.

She, however, denied the charges.

But the Prosecutor, Sgt. Kehinde Omisakin told the court that the accused committed the offences between June 2016 and Oct. 28 at No. 22, Oresegun St., off Odo Eran in Bariga.

She alleged that the woman allocated a room to the teenagers for the purpose of prostitution and collected returns from the girls after sex bouts.

The offences contravened Sections 138 and 411 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that section 138 stipulates 14 years imprisonment.
A shot of Macallan whisky purportedly made in 1878 that a Chinese man paid $10,000 for at a Swiss hotel was actually distilled between 1970 and 1972, local media reported Friday.

In August, the young customer entered the Devil's Place Whisky Bar at the luxury Waldhaus Hotel in St. Moritz, northeast Switzerland, and expressed particular interest in rare Macallans.

The bar, which has a whisky collection honoured in the Guinness Book of World Records, had 47 options, ranging from seven Swiss francs to ten grand per glass.

The customer chose the bottle marked as an 1878 vintage, which went for 9,999 Swiss francs ($10,000, 8,500 euros) for a two-centilitre (0.66-fluid-ounce) measure.

Whisky experts were not convinced.

According to the Swiss news site 20minuten.ch, specialists at Rare Whisky 101, who regularly serve as consultants at whisky auctions, established that the bottle's label was a fake.

The proprietor of the Waldhaus, Sandro Bernasconi, then travelled to Beijing and refunded the customer to prove that "the Swiss are honest people and do not engage in scams", 20minuten quoted him as saying.

The site also published a photo of the two men holding a symbolic voucher valued at 9,999 Swiss francs, dated October 2017.

Bernasconi said the bottle with the fake label was bought 25 years ago by his father who previously ran the hotel.
Representatives of the Nigerian High Commissioner and Canadian High Commissioner; Ministers of state present ; Honourable Members of Parliament; Representatives of Political Parties, Religious Organisations, Trade Unions , Student groups and Civil Society Organizations, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

I find it a great pleasure and privilege to have you all here at this historic gathering.

The POWA FORUM is a broad based public discourse platform designed to widen the existing political space for women in Ghana for wider inclusion and active citizenry participation through a conscious effort to offer public speaking spaces to progressive women rights activists imbued with believe in ordinary people, love for country and practical knowledge about inclusive developmental politics related to the social and economic empowerment of women.

Women empowerment has no substitute. Women are the bedrock of the families, our communities and our nation.

There have been several laudable projects with respect to women empowerment since the 1995 Beijing Conference on women rights. This had focused mainly on reproductive right issues and economic empowerment projects.

These however were at the expense of the struggle for greater inclusiveness of women in the decision making process of the country. This is to mean lack of active participation in national politics.

POWA holds strongly that greater women representation in governance is crucial step in the attainment of gender equity.

The 2016 general election in Ghana marked another milestone of a generally peaceful electoral process and a smooth handover of power, climaxing two decades of multi-party democracy.

However it has also witnessed a sharp decline in women representation in government and parliament.

To achieve any meaningful recognition of women and women issues in the pinnacle of national life will require affirmative action. Affirmative action policy to bring women to the fore front of national life, particularly politics, will signify a commitment towards social justice, political and economic democracy.

It is much more than just symbolism. Affirmative provides the space for social education and re-thinking. It will contribute immensely in reshaping the public psyche about the potential of women in all spheres of life and a positive recognition of their status and dignity. It will motivate more women to stand up to the challenge of engaging in active public life, despite the cultural and social barriers; inspired by the example and experiences of other women.

There are fewer women in politics today not only due to social and cultural barriers but also due to the indifference of national leadership to women rights issues, which have been place in the periphery of national life.

The POWA Forum serves as a melting point of diverse opinions, aimed at creating a National Consensus on the means and of achieving gender equity by placing the issue at the Centre of National Political discourse.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, I believe Social, Political, and Cultural Leaders have a role to play in the upliftment of women.

The POWA FORUM which is to be held quarterly in general, aims through discussions at making national leaders of all walks of life accountable to their responsibility towards women empowerment. This explains the broad representation of Ghanaian society engaged in this process and present here this afternoon.

This maiden forum, however, is to lay emphasis on elective and representative politics as means of sparking the deeper and broader issues of gender equity.

Womens right are human rights, lets continue to be the mouthpieces for our Mothers, Sisters, Aunties, Girlfriends, Wives and Daughters.

Permit me to make mention of the special contribution made by Centre for Social Policy Studies, College of Humanities, University of Ghana, Legon and GHONE TV and EIB Network and the POWA team; who have all worked so very hard to make this maiden edition of the POWA FORUM possible.
It's hard to imagine we'll get to all of them in this lifetime. But if you want to try, consider this a guide to finding the best of the best out there.

Scroll down for a closer look:

ALASKA: Seward Highway

Take a two-hour drive between Anchorage to Seward, a tiny seaside community, and you will pass the Chugach Mountains and the gorgeous shores of the Turnagain arm.

ARIZONA: Highway 89

Although Route 66 has become synonymous with American wanderlust and freedom, there are other choices in Arizona with some staggering views. Take Highway 89 from Flagstaff, Arizona to see views of the Grand Canyon, Echo Cliffs, and the Vermilion Cliffs.

CALIFORNIA: Pacific Coast Highway

This is a very common recommendation, but for a reason. The winding Pacific Coast Highway is the longest state route in California and provides sweeping views of the water. It doubles as an easy route to popular cities like Long Beach and the San Francisco Bay Area.

COLORADO: Trail Ridge Road

Of all the beautiful highways on this list, Trail Ridge Road is an absolute must. Eleven miles of this highway sits above the tree lines and there are beautiful views of the Grand Lake. You may even see bighorn sheep.

HAWAII: Route 61 or Pali Highway

Nuuanu Pali tunnels#paliloo... @ loukwhajazzy

Pali Highway runs northeast from downtown Honolulu to Kailua on the island of Oahu. It has steep cliffs and many lookout points along the way.

IDAHO: Old Highway 95

This is a classic highway for a road trip. Old Highway 95 will take you through the heart of Idaho to see stretches of grassy meadows, the Rockies, and Clearwater River.

FLORIDA: Overseas Highway

The Overseas Highway is the perfect choice if you're looking for a stunning drive in Florida. Take the 113-mile highway through the Florida Keys and stare at miles of ocean blue along the way.

MAINE: US Route 1

This picture doesn't exactly do it justice, but the US Route 1 in Maine is the best highway if you're looking for views of the coast. Stop and look at the many lighthouses along the way.

MASSACHUSETTS: Mohawk Trail

The Mohawk Trail, or Route 2, is one of the first auto-touring roads in the country. The 69-mile-long highway extends from Athol to Williamstown and provides breathtaking views of the Berkshire Mountains.

MISSISSIPPI: Natchez Trace Parkway

What makes the Natchez Trace Parkway stand out is its serene simplicity. The two-lane parkway extends 444 miles and makes its way from Mississippi to Tennessee. The road commemorates the Natchez Trace, a path that was created by Native Americans for trade.

MONTANA: Going-To-The-Sun-Road

Perhaps one of the best-named highways out there, Going-To-The-Sun Road is a 52-mile highway that cuts right through Glacier National Park. The two-lane highway isn't the easiest drive with its sharp turns, but the sweeping views of large lakes and cedar trees shouldn't be missed.

NEVADA: Mount Rose Highway

The 25-mile drive has views of Washoe Valley and Lake Tahoe Basin. You'll have beautiful views of the Sierra mountains and there are plenty of scenic pullovers along the way to take everything. But be careful: the highway itself is very twisty and it's known to get covered in snow during the winter season.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Kancamagus Highway

The Kancamagus Highway runs for just under 35 miles along New Hampshire's Route 112. It cuts through the White Mountain National Forest so it's a great drive if you want to see fall foliage.

NEW YORK: Seven Lakes Drive

This gorgeous parkway is located in Hudson Valley and is the best way to get to Bear State Mountain Park. As you can guess by the name, the road passes by seven lakes, like Lake Askoti, pictured here.

NORTH CAROLINA: Blue Ridge Parkway

Blue Ridge Parkway is a personal favorite of mine because I drove through it in college and camped there for the night. The winding highway is covered in a canopy of trees and shows beautiful vistas of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Try going in the fall when the leaves are changing colors and stop in Asheville while you're there.

OREGON: Mt. Hood Scenic Byway

Mt. Hood has been dubbed one of Oregon's scenic wonders. Take the roughly 100-mile scenic byway for breathtaking views of the mountain and Hood River Valley. There are plenty of places to camp along the way.

TENNESSEE: Natchez Trace Parkway

The 440-mile highway actually passes through Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee. In Tennessee, you'll get access to many waterfalls, like Jackson Falls, and the Birdsong Hollow, a gorgeous double-arched bridge.

UTAH: Scenic Byway 12

Take your time on this 124-mile highway that leads you to two national parks: Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef. You'll get to see plenty of creeks and canyons along the way.

VERMONT: Route 17

There are plenty of options to choose from in Vermont. Route 100 is certainly a classic, but a great alternative is Route 17 that will take you from the edge of Lake Champlain to the Green Mountains with plenty of views of the foliage along the way.

WASHINGTON: Cascade Loop

SR 20, Washington Pass, & L... @ theyanman

The Cascade Loop is a must-do for any American road trip. You get to see the waterfalls of Stevens Pass Greenway, three national forests, and cute villages along the way. Try and go in the Spring, when the snow has thawed and you can more easily drive the 440-mile route.

WEST VIRGINIA: Highland Scenic Highway

Rode across the #HighlandSc... @ pstraxler

Highland Scenic Highway is on my personal to-do list because it looks like a beautiful drive for a Spring road trip. It runs 43 miles through the Monongahela National Forest with plenty of look-out points along the way. Be prepared to stop and look at the wildflower fields.

WYOMING: Beartooth Highway
The White House says Trump will be aiming to "underscore his commitment to longstanding United States alliances and partnerships, and reaffirm United States leadership in promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific region." But there are concerns in Asia about the degree to which the Trump administration is genuinely committed to the economic prosperity and security of the region given its sharp policy shifts from the previous administration.

Traditional US allies in the Asia Pacific will likely be looking for signs of continued American support from Trump  especially given that the American president pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, which was largely seen as a statement about the US's long-term commitment to the region.

Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping will be closely watched, although analysts aren't expecting substantive developments. Below, we outlined the key issues to keep an eye on in each of the countries that Trump will be visiting.

Japan

On the US-Japan agenda: Trump will meet with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who will host the US president for a meeting with families of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea. Trump will also meet with American and Japanese service members.

What's been going on in Japan: Abe's ruling coalition recently won a more than two-thirds majority in snap elections. Abe is now set to be the longest-serving prime minister in postwar Japan, and is likely to push for changes in the country's defense sector.

What to watch for: Abe will likely be trying to gauge whether the Trump administration is on the same page as Japan when it comes to North Korea, and whether it will be committed to security in the region. Notably, during a congratulatory call after the snap elections, Trump and Abe reportedly discussed being united on the need to up the pressure on North Korea.

Why this matters: Japan has been a pacifist nation since the end of World War II; its constitution includes an article that renounces war as a sovereign right of the nation and outlaws the use of force as means by which to settle international disputes. But Abe has made efforts to revise that clause and has been working to "remove pacifist constraints" on the military.

His agenda has, arguably, been helped forward by the ongoing North Korea crisis, even though about half of poll respondents disagree with the revision of the pacifist clause. It's possible that if it looks like the US will be pulling out of regional disputes in Asia, Abe might be inspired to move his defense agenda forward.

South Korea

On the US-Korea agenda: Trump will be participating in bilateral meetings with President Moon Jae-in and will visit American and South Korean service members. He will also speak at the National Assembly, where he is expected to "celebrate the enduring alliance and friendship" between the US and South Korea and call on the international community to up the pressure on North Korea.

What's been going on in South Korea: Moon, who was elected in May, has spoken about the importance of relations between South Korea and China, which is noteworthy given the US's decision to pull out of TPP. In October, the two countries agreed to end their dispute over the deployment of a US missile-defense system in Korea. Their leaders will be on the sidelines of the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation countries on November 10-11 (after both will have met with Trump).

What to watch for: Not wholly unlike Japan, Korea will also likely be trying to gauge whether the Trump administration is on the same page when it comes to North Korea and overall regional issues. Notably, Trump tweeted a jab at South Korea back in September, prompting analysts to argue that a divide might be opening between the two countries. A split in the US-South Korean alliance would theoretically be a strategic benefit for both China and North Korea.

Additionally, South Korea recently agreed to amend its trade deal with the US, known as KORUS, after Trump threatened to withdraw from it earlier this year.

Why this matters: Any indication that the US wants to pull further out of the Asia-Pacific region could theoretically inspire South Korea to inch closer to China, which is already its larger trading partner.

China

On the US-China agenda: Trump will be meeting with Xi and will participate in a series of "bilateral, commercial, and cultural events." The president plans to "stress fair and reciprocal trade and economic relations," an official told Bloomberg.

What's been going on in China: An amendment including President Xi's name was added to China's constitution during the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. This is the first time a living leader's name was added since Mao Zedong and reflects Xi's strong standing within the party. Trump tweeted his congratulations to Xi.

What to watch for: Analysts will likely be keeping an eye on any glimmers of insights on trade and North Korea. But "few will be expecting any substantial developments," Julian Evans-Pritchard, a China economist at Capital Economics, said in a note to clients this week. "The usual pattern is for China to offer a concession such as on market access, which may never materialize, and to agree a few trade deals, and then for business to continue as usual."

Why this matters: Trump's trade agenda and the crisis in North Korea are much more closely intertwined than some might think. Although Trump repeatedly criticized China's trade agenda, and once called them the "grand champions" of currency manipulation, he ultimately pulled back from officially labeling China a currency manipulator. That's likely because of the delicate situation in North Korea, which he himself implied in an interview with The Economist.

Vietnam

On the US-Vietnam agenda: Trump will participate in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting. He'll deliver a speech at the summit, during which he will "present the United States' vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region and underscore the important role the region plays in advancing Americas economic prosperity." He'll also meet with President Tran Dai Quang.

What's been going on in Vietnam: US-Vietnam relations improved under the Obama administration. Last year, when Obama visited Hanoi, he announced the US would repeal a ban on the sale of lethal military equipment, which was largely interpreted as a move to support Vietnam in its clashes with China in the South China Sea.

Since Trump came into office railing against China, many thought he might be even tougher than the Obama administration. But he has eased his criticism instead, which has likely raised concerns in Vietnam about future US responses to China's ambitions in the South China Sea.

What to watch for: Vietnam will likely be looking for signs of commitment from the US on security vis-a-vis China and possibly trade. It's worth noting that Vietnam would've been one of the biggest winners from the TPP agreement, so Trump's decision to pull out was a major blow.

Why this matters: The US is the biggest recipient of Vietnam's exports.

Philippines

On the US-Philippines agenda: Trump will celebrate the 40th anniversary of US-ASEAN relations at the US-ASEAN Summit and participate in meetings with President Rodrigo Duterte.

What's been going on in Philippines: Duterte announced last year his "separation" from the US and called President Barack Obama a "son of a bitch." Analysts interpreted this as an attempt to get more economic, trade, and investment benefits from China. He was also likely keen to see some international support for his "war on drugs," which was denounced in 2016 by both the US and human-rights groups. China expressed support for the crackdown ahead of Duterte's visit there last year.

What to watch for: Trump and Duterte have a "warm rapport," according to a senior administration official. Trump once praised Duterte for doing an "unbelievable job on the drug problem." It will be worth watching how their dynamic plays out.

Why this matters: As analysts at BMI Research explained last year, the Philippines has been a key US ally in the Asia Pacific for decades, in part because of its strategic location between the South China Sea and the western Pacific Ocean, both of which are key for international trade. Additionally, the Philippines is an element of the "first island chain" from southern Japan and Taiwan down to the South China Sea, which the US formulated during the Cold War to contain the former USSR and China.

Last year, those analysts argued that if the Philippines were to continue pulling toward China, then the US might have to "increasingly cultivate Vietnam as a regional security partner to partially offset the withdrawal of the Philippines from an informal US-led bloc of Asian nations aimed at counterbalancing China's rise."
Montel Williams is suing a number of "scam" medical-cannabis companies in Arizona he says used his face to sell products without his permission.

According to the complaint, a network of corporate entities, with names such as Secrets of ISIS and Advanceable Technology, linked to Timothy K. Isaac, are accused of using Williams' likeness to hawk scam cannabidiol products and entrap customers into buying products that may not actually contain cannabidiol.

Isaac, a former weightlifter, pleaded guilty in 2009 to several charges, including one related to selling misbranded drugs. Isaac is named personally as a defendant in the suit.

Cannabidiol, or CBD, is an active compound found in the cannabis plant; it has medicinal but no psychoactive properties.

Williams is a longtime medical-marijuana advocate. He started using the drug to ease symptoms associated with his multiple sclerosis in 1999 and founded Lenitiv Labs, a medical-marijuana company, earlier this year. It's geared toward the California market, with plans to expand to other states.

Lenitiv Labs operates a research division and offers a line of medical-grade cannabis oils and other products containing CBD as well as THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis.

"When Montel entered the cannabis industry by founding Lenitiv Labs, he did so because he believes patients deserve safe, efficacious cannabis medicines," Jonathan Franks, a spokesman for Williams and Lenitiv Labs, said in an email to Business Insider. "Its important to understand what this scam was  this was a shameless and calculated attempt to weaponize Montels and Lenitivs credibility against seriously ill consumers."

Fake ads

After Williams spoke with Janet Burns, a freelance reporter and Forbes contributor, about his new venture in April, his words and face started appearing on the internet as ads for CBD products that he had never endorsed, with brand names like Revive CBD Oil and Hemptif CBD.

According to Burns, who first wrote the story of Lenitiv's founding, websites designed to mimic a Forbes contributor page and an ABC News article used portions of her original story and doctored quotes from Williams and other celebrities as testimonials for the products.

Fake testimonials from Whoopi Goldberg, who started her own line of medical-cannabis products, Whoopi and Maya, as well as Bill Gates, music mogul Dr. Dre, and Lady Gaga also appeared alongside those of Williams.

At least 12 sites hosted the ads that linked back to the sites that are linked to Isaac, according to the complaint.

Customers began complaining to Williams about the products they purchased, according to the complaint, even though he had nothing to do with the product. And, after customers had signed up for what was advertised as a "free trial," they were locked into an automatic credit-card billing scheme with no way to cancel, according to the complaint.

Isaac denied on Wednesday that he was responsible for running the ads.

"I'm tired of being blamed for stupid things," Isaac told The Phoenix News Times. "I'm tired of people trashing my name."

In 2009, Isaac pleaded guilty to a slew of federal charges related to a company he ran that imported a prescription-free Viagra-like drug from China, The Phoenix New Times reported that year.

The firm that Williams retained, Davis & Gilbert LLP, has "very successfully" handled a similar case wherein Dr. Oz's likeness was used to endorse scam products, Franks told Business Insider in an email.

"This suit was an easy decision for us because its true to the principles that underly Montels advocacy and on which the Lenitiv brand was founded," Franks added.

"Mr. Williams has instructed his attorneys to pursue this litigation aggressively," Franks said. "We intend to name more defendants as we learn the identities of the scammers involved."
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A federal judge in New York has denied a request by the Russian-owned real-estate firm Prevezon to grant temporary immigration parole to its lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, according to a court document filed late Friday afternoon.

Prevezon has still not paid the $5.9 million it owes the US government as part of a civil forfeiture settlement the parties reached in May. Prosecutors now want to re-open the case in New York, and Prevezon wants Veselnitskaya there for the proceedings.

But Judge William H. Pauley III ruled on Friday that "in-person meetings with counsel... do not justify the exercise of its immigration parole authority."

"Prevezon offers very little, if anything, to justify its request," Pauley wrote.

The Prevezon case was set to go to trial in New York in May but was suddenly settled for $5.9 million three days before the first court date.

The government described the settlement as a victory against corruption, but Prevezon characterized it as proof that the company had done nothing wrong. It said it considered the "surprise" offer from prosecutors "too good to refuse."

Pauley implied in his ruling on Friday that Prevezon should have been eager to pay the $5.9 million because, absent settlement, "the trial would have showcased a tale of international intrigue  a massive tax fraud in Russia resulting in the transfer of $230 million through a Byzantine web of shell companies."

The investigation into whether Prevezon, which is incorporated in Cyprus, laundered millions of dollars into New York City property garnered high-profile attention given its ties to a $230 million Russian tax-fraud scheme and Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, whose suspicious death aroused international media attention.

The US government had been investigating the $230 million scheme that Magnitsky uncovered  and what happened to the proceeds  for nearly four years. Prosecutors said the funds from the elaborate scheme had been laundered via shell companies and real-estate purchases.

The trail ultimately led to Manhattan, where Preet Bharara, then the US attorney there, accused Prevezon in September 2013 of receiving "at least $1,965,444 in proceeds from the $230 million fraud scheme" in early 2008 via wire transfers from at least two suspected shell companies through the Southern District of New York. The company then invested those funds "in various New York properties," according to the complaint.

Pauley wrote on Friday that "in view of recent revelations regarding Russias outsized influence, there may have been more to this money laundering case than a few luxury condominiums at 20 Pine Street."

Veselnitskaya famously attended a meeting last June at Trump Tower with several of Donald Trump's campaign advisers  Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner. She brought with her a memo that closely mirrored one written by the Russian prosecutor's office two months earlier, suggesting she was dispatched to the meeting with the Kremlin's blessing  or under its direction.
President Donald Trump's personal Twitter account appeared to be offline on Thursday at around 7:00 p.m. eastern time.

The account was restored several minutes later, but many on Twitter took note of the account's disappearance.

At around 8:00 p.m., the official Twitter Government account tweeted that Trump's account "was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee."

"The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored," Twitter Government said. "We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again."

Twitter later said its investigation found "that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee's last day."

Trump's account, which has over 41 million followers, is the main account he uses to disseminate statements and attack his critics. The account was his personal account rather than his official White House account.

Trump frequently uses Twitter to deliver political messages ranging from congressional candidate endorsements to rebuking celebrities for their political leanings.
WASHINGTON  A group of conservative Republican lawmakers introduced a resolution on Friday calling for Robert Mueller to recuse himself as the special counsel investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 US election and whether President Donald Trump's campaign team colluded with Moscow.

Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Louie Gohmert of Texas say Mueller should step down because he was the FBI director in 2010 when US government agencies approved the sale of Uranium One, a Canadian energy company, to a Russian nuclear-energy firm. The deal required approval because Uranium One had mining operations in the US.

Gaetz says the issue is that Mueller's FBI had found evidence of criminal activity that may have been relevant to the deal but did not bring any charges, and that Mueller therefore should recuse himself from the current investigation.

"These deeply troubling events took place when Mr. Mueller was the Director of the FBI. As such, his impartiality is hopelessly compromised," Gaetz said in a statement. "He must step down immediately."

Many of Gaetz's Republican colleagues, however, have previously expressed support for Mueller and his investigation. Senate Republicans have even introduced bills to create a barrier between Trump and Mueller in the event the president attempts to fire him.
The opioid crisis is a nationwide problem with no red-state or blue-state bias, but of the outlier counties with the highest levels of opioid overdose deaths in the country, the vast majority voted for President Donald Trump in 2016, and many lie in rural regions like Appalachia, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Out of all the counties for which opioid overdose death data has been compiled by the CDC, there are 82 outlier counties where 15 people or more died per 100,000 people. Of these 82 counties, 77 voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election, according to Townhall.com voting data. With several exceptions, the majority of these outlying counties lie in Appalachia or the rural West.

The factors that fuel drug addiction and abuse also drive Trumps appeal in middle America

To many experts, this does not come as a surprise.

Shannon Monnat, a rural sociologist and demographer at Pennsylvania State University, said her findings indicate that places where rates of death due to drug addiction, alcohol abuse, and suicide are high are also places that heavily supported Trump in the election.

"I expected to see it because when you think about the underlying factors that lead to overdose or suicide, it's depression, despair, distress, and anxiety," Monnat told Business Insider.

Research Monnat did after the election suggested that counties that were largely white and had a high "economic distress index" correlated strongly with high support for Trump. The index, which Monnat has used in her research for years, combines the percentages of people who are in poverty, unemployed, disabled, in single-parent families, living on public assistance, or living without health insurance. These same places also had exceptionally high rates of drug overdoses and deaths.

Historian Kathleen Frydl's research shows an even more striking trend. She noticed that many typically Democratic counties that were particularly heavily affected by the opioid crisis went red on election night. She named this segment of the population the "oxy electorate."

Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry and behavior sciences at Stanford University, agreed, and said that even though poverty is by no means a determinate factor in whether people will begin using drugs, he said it makes someone more likely to fall into addiction once they have already begun using.

"You can imagine communities where everybody loses their jobs, and a lot of public amenities decay, and families become more strained," Humphreys said. "In that environment, substance use that normally might not become a problem could spiral into addiction more easily than it would otherwise."

The evidence for this is no longer just anecdotal  research from the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that unemployment and opioid overdoses and deaths are directly correlated. The paper demonstrates that as the unemployment rate for a given county increases by one percentage point, the opioid death rate per 100,000 rises by 0.19 (3.6%) and the opioid overdose emergency department visit rate per 100,000 increases by 0.95 (7.0%).

Trump declared a national public health emergency in October to combat the mounting rates of death and addiction due to opioids, pledging to expand enforcement along the southern border, implement drug courts, and pursue a "just say no" strategy. However, Monnat says that more needs to be done to address the underlying causes of drug abuse and death that she has observed.

"One of the things with President Trump's announcement and the opioid commission's forthcoming recommendation is that they're very treatment based," she said. "They focus almost exclusively on keeping addicts from dying rather than keeping people from falling into addiction to begin with."

Still, more needs to be done on the treatment side, Humphreys said. He claimed that opioid death rates remain correlated to geography.

"Why are more people dying in West Virginia? When people are addicted, they're far less likely to get treatment, if they have an overdose, they're far less likely for an ambulance to come, which could be really far away," Humphreys said. "The services aren't there. So the same drug problem that is less likely to end up ruining your life if you happen to live in a city that has abundant health services, is going to harm you more when you're living in a low-income rural state like West Virginia, Kentucky, or southern Ohio.

One of the things the Trump administration is tackling is opioid overprescription. Research suggests that legally prescribed opioids can lead to addiction and abuse of more dangerous drugs like heroin later on, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Yet both Monnat and Humphreys agree that only tackling the immediate causes of death from opioid abuse won't solve the problem in the long-term. Humphreys, who is himself a native of West Virginia, said his personal experiences watching his home transform because of economic decline, unemployment, and the mountain of opioid deaths has made it clear to him that the social conditions that made the opioid crisis possible run deep.

In my hometown people die every year," Humphreys recounts. "There were some drugs when I was growing up, but there was no significant problem with diverted opioids, and there certainly not many people using heroin. And then on the economic side, the coal industry has collapsed, it used to employ a lot of people in my family. Those were very good jobs, they paid very well for someone with a high school degree.
Between the US, South Korea, and Japan, the North Korean missile threat looms large and Trump is expected to reaffirm the US's commitment to the countries' alliance, though he has in the past questioned if the Asian allies pay their fair shares.

With China, the emerging world power that Trump accused of currency manipulation and "killing us" with a trade deficit, the US appears to actually have made progress. China now cooperates with the US on containing and limiting trade with North Korea like never before.

China apparently dropped its opposition to the deployment of THAAD missile defense batteries to South Korea and normalized relations in a "
President Donald Trump lamented in a Thursday interview that he couldn't exert more influence over the Justice Department and the FBI.

"The saddest thing is that because I'm the president of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department. I am not supposed to be involved with the FBI," Trump said on "The Larry O'Connor Show" less than a week after special counsel Robert Mueller handed down indictments to former members of his campaign including its former chairman, Paul Manafort.

Trump was responding to a comment from the host that his listeners wanted to see the Justice Department go after the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton.

"I look at what's happening with the Justice Department. Well, why aren't they going after Hillary Clinton with her emails and with her, the dossier?" Trump said, referring to the Democratic Party-funded dossier designed to find connections between Trump and Russia that has been both partially discredited and partially corroborated.

The president added that he was "very unhappy" with where the Justice Department "isn't going."

"I am not supposed to be doing the kind of things that I would love to be doing," he said. "And I am very frustrated by it."

Trump's interactions with the Justice Department have come under scrutiny, particularly as they relate to his May firing of the FBI director, James Comey, which led to Mueller's appointment. Comey was overseeing the FBI's investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials in the 2016 presidential election, an investigation that is now folded into the special counsel's Russia-related investigation.

Trump continued to lambaste the Justice Department in a series of Friday-morning tweets, saying "everybody is asking" why it was not investigating Clinton and the Democrats.

"At some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper," he tweeted. "The American public deserves it!"

Speaking with reporters outside the White House ahead of his lengthy trip to Asia, Trump said he was "really not involved" with the Justice Department, adding that he would "like to let it run itself."
Most of the allegations involve Spacey inappropriately touching, or making sexual advances toward, younger male actors. The accusations start as early as the 1980s, around the beginning of Spacey's acting career, and run into the late 2000s.

Last week, Spacey's representatives responded to Business Insider's request for comment on the subsequent accusations, saying: "Kevin Spacey is taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment. No other information is available at this time."

After eight people who worked on Netflix's "House of Cards" accused Spacey of sexual harassment or assault in a CNN report Thursday evening, Spacey's agency and publicist dropped the actor, according to BuzzFeed News.

Production on "House of Cards" was suspended indefinitely on October 31, and Spacey was fired from the show on Saturday.

Here are all the men who have publicly accused Spacey of sexual misconduct:

Anthony Rapp

In an article published in late October by BuzzFeed News, the "Star Trek: Discovery" actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of making a sexual advance toward him when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26.

Rapp said the incident happened in 1986, while Rapp and Spacey were cast members in a Broadway production, when Spacey invited him to a party at his Manhattan apartment. He said Spacey later found him watching TV in a bedroom and that Spacey picked him up, placed him on the bed, and lay on top of him.

"I still to this day can't wrap my head around so many aspects of it. It's just deeply confusing to me," Rapp told BuzzFeed News.

In a statement, Spacey apologized to Rapp, saying he did "not remember the encounter" but that if it happened it "would have been deeply inappropriate, drunken behavior."

Roberto Cavazos

The actor Roberto Cavazos in a Facebook post accused Spacey of trying to touch him without his consent at the bar of London's Old Vic theater in 2008.

Spacey was the artistic director of the theater from 2004 to 2015, and Cavazos appeared in numerous plays there starting in 2008.

"I don't remember how many people told me the same story: Spacey would invite them to meet him to 'talk about their careers,'" Cavazos said in the post, originally written in Spanish. "When they arrived at the theatre, [Spacey] had prepared champagne on the stage, beautifully lit. Each story varied in how far the picnic went, but the technique was the same. More common was to find him at the bar of the theatre, grabbing whoever caught his attention."

"There are many of us who have a 'Kevin Spacey story,'" he continued. "It seems the only requirement was to be a male under the age of 30 for Mr Spacey to feel free to touch us. It was so common that it became a local joke (of very bad taste)."

Tony Montana

The independent filmmaker Tony Montana told Radar Online that Spacey groped him at a Los Angeles bar in 2003, when Montana was in his 30s.

"I went up to order a drink, and Kevin came up to me and put his arm around me," Montana told the outlet. "He was telling me to come with him, to leave the bar. He put his hand on my crotch forcefully and grabbed my whole package."

Montana said Spacey then told him, "This designates ownership." Montana said that after he removed Spacey's hand and walked away, Spacey, who appeared intoxicated, followed him into the bathroom.

"I backed him out the door, and I pushed him," he said. "One of his friends was in line, and I said, 'It's time to take your boy home.' They all ended up leaving."

Montana said he had post-traumatic stress disorder for six months afterward.

An unnamed man with "authority in the industry"

An unnamed man who described himself as in a "position of responsibility and authority in the industry" told the BBC about an incident in 1984 in which he woke to find Spacey "lying on" him.

The man said he met Spacey at a summer theater when he was 16. The next year, he stayed with Spacey, then an up-and-coming Broadway actor, at his New York City apartment, where the man said the incident occurred.

The man said Spacey tried to get him to sleep in his bed, but the man chose to sleep on a couch instead. He said he woke up to find Spacey's "head was on my stomach, and his arms were wrapped around my torso." The man said he was fully clothed and that Spacey was in his underwear.

The man said he did not believe anything sexual took place but that he was left feeling "uncomfortable at best, traumatized at worst."

An unnamed man who says he had a sexual relationship with Spacey at 14

Another unnamed man said in an interview with Vulture that he and Spacey had a sexual relationship when the man was 14 and that Spacey attempted to rape him.

The man said he met Spacey when the actor was working as a guest teacher at an acting class the man attended in 1981, when the man was 12 and Spacey was 22. The man said he saw Spacey again while in line for a Shakespeare in the Park production in 1983, after which they began a relationship.

The man said that, while the two had sex multiple times, on one occasion Spacey told him he wanted to have sex and tried to do so even though he said no.

"Luckily, I threw him off me," the man said. "I saved myself in many ways in that minute from the much deeper trauma that would've come from having been raped."

Spacey's attorney told Vulture in an email that "Mr. Spacey absolutely denies the allegations."

Eight current and former employees of Netflix's "House of Cards" said they either witnessed or were victims of sexual misconduct by Spacey

Eight people who worked on Netflix's "House of Cards" accused Spacey of sexual harassment or assault in a CNN report last week.

The current and former employees said Spacey created a "toxic" work environment with "predatory" behavior on the show's set. The allegations included nonconsensual touching and inappropriate comments toward staff members, most of whom were young men, the people said.

One former production assistant told CNN that once when he and Spacey were in a car, Spacey put his hands down the production assistant's pants without his consent.

"I was in a state of shock," the assistant said. "He was a man in a very powerful position on the show, and I was someone very low on the totem pole and on the food chain there."

He also said Spacey had sexually assaulted him once before.

"I have no doubt that this type of predatory behavior was routine for him, and that my experience was one of many, and that Kevin had few if any qualms about exploiting his status and position," the assistant said. "It was a toxic environment for young men who had to interact with him at all in the crew, cast, background actors."

An unnamed man from London who says he was sexually assaulted in 2008

Police in London are investigating a report that Spacey sexually assaulted a man in 2008, UK publications including Sky News, The Sun, and The Telegraph reported.

The accuser said he went to Spacey's home in the Lambeth borough of London for a drink one night and woke up to Spacey sexually assaulting him, the reports say. The man was 23 at the time.

The Sun reported that the man said that as he left Spacey's house, the actor said, "Don't tell anyone about this."

London's Metropolitan Police opened an investigation after the man made a report on Wednesday.

Police have not named Spacey in connection with the investigation, telling Business Insider, "It is alleged a man assaulted another man in 2008 in Lambeth."

Harry Dreyfuss

The actor Harry Dreyfuss said in an essay published by BuzzFeed News that Spacey groped him in 2008, when Dreyfuss was 18, while his father, Richard Dreyfuss, was rehearsing a play at Spacey's London apartment.

While his father was rehearsing lines for "Complicit," which Spacey directed at the Old Vic theater, Harry Dreyfuss said Spacey repeatedly touched his thigh before groping his crotch.

Harry Dreyfuss said his father was unaware of the incident "because he was deeply focused on his script." He said he told his father about the incident four or five years after it happened, and Richard Dreyfuss tweeted on Saturday that he was "incredibly proud" of his son for coming forward.

"In retrospect, what disgusts me about Kevin was how safe he did feel," Harry Dreyfuss wrote in the BuzzFeed News piece. "He knew he could fondle me in a room with my father and that I wouldn't say a word."

Bryan Freedman, a lawyer representing Spacey, told the news outlet, "Let me be clear, Mr. Spacey absolutely denies the allegations."

The son of former news anchor Heather Unruh

Emotional Mother of Alleged Kevin Spacey Victim Speak Out: 'Spacey ... grabbed his genitals'

Former Boston-based news anchor Heather Unruh accused Kevin Spacey of sexually assaulting her son, in a press conference on Wednesday, The Wrap reported.
Ebosele, who is in charge of the Omega Fire Ministries (OMF) branch in Lusaka, the countrys capital, has been asked to leave the country within 48 hours.

The Senior Pastor and General Overseer of OFM, has issued a warning to the government in response to the ongoing drama.

Zambian Observer reports that Apostle Suleman has accused the country of being threatened by the success of his church.

He added that this why Zambian authorities are targeting Nigerian owned businesses and removing pastors sent by him.

He said, If you fight my pastor, you are fighting me. And if you fight me, wait for the results, there will be problems. There will be reactions.

It's not the best thing to do. When you do this, you send signals around the world. I am saying this because I know they are watching me. There are people you touch and things will just spoil.

Pastor Ebosele knows why he is being deported

He believes that he was given this 48-hour ultimatum because he refused to pay a K30 000 bribe, Lusaka Times reports.

He explains that a particular senior official from the Ministry of Religious National Guidance had made it his mission to deport pastor after the cleric refused to pay the bribe. This happened as he was trying to renew his immigration documents.

Pastor Ebosele adds that former expelled members had also lied to the ministry about him because these people were working with certain government officials in order to take over his church in his absence.

In his words, I got a call from one man from Religious Affairs. This man can call thirty times in one minute, I dont know how much they gave him. I went to the office to see him at his office, where he accused me of a lot and lots of things.

From there he told me that I needed to cooperate with him because my deportation order is already on his table. He said if I dont cooperate he would have me deported and I should give him K30, 000, to which I questioned whether it was his ministry that deported people.

Reportedly, the pastors story has been confirmed by the Omega Fire Ministries administrator, Lackson Mwanza. Speaking with the Daily Nation, Mwanza added that the pastor is still in the custody of the police.

What the government is saying

Pulse Religion reached out to the Public Unit of the immigration office in Zambia to confirm or deny this story.

They responded with a press release titled Immigration Arrests Forty-Eight (48).

It read, The Department between Monday, 30th October 2017 and Thursday, 2nd November 2017 arrested a total of forty-eight (48) persons for various immigration offences, countrywide.

During this period, the Department also effected one (01) deportation and removed twelve (12) illegal immigrants from the country. Mr Augustine Oso Ebosele (38) a Nigerian Head Pastor of Omega Fire Ministries, a Pentecostal Church located at Plot 18884/M Woodlands, Lusaka was deported on Thursday, 2nd November 2017 via Kenneth Kaunda International Airport. He was deported because there were reasonable grounds to believe that his presence in Zambia was likely to be a danger to peace and good order.

On Tuesday, 31st October 2017, Mr Augustine Oso Ebosele was taken into custody after he refused to comply with Immigration Officers at his residence in Ibex Hill. His Nigerian wife and two Zambians were also apprehended and detained for obstructing the officers in the execution of duty. They have since been released after being warned about their future conduct

This press release goes with Chief Government Spokesperson, Kampamba Mulengas initial statement on Thursday, November 2, 2017.

Mulenga also responded to Apostle Sulemans accusation that the Zambian government is against Nigerians.

She said, Omega Fire Ministries Headquartered in Nigeria is free to send a senior pastor to come and help reconcile the membership in Lusaka.
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The University named a female hostel after Dr. Stella Adadevoh, whose death by implication saved Nigeria from Ebola epidemic.

Ebola was an imported danger brought to Nigeria from Liberia by an infested Patrick Sawyer. As a diligent Doctor, Adadevoh attended to Sawyer, the disease carrier. She contacted the disease and eventually died of Ebola.

Her death sent a strong signal to the government about the impending danger dangling on our heads. Her death was a serious call to action for the government that enjoys being reactive to every issue.

Adadevor was a genuine life saver. A heroine that should be recognised and honoured.

In other climes, she would have become a symbol of love and care. A goddess of diligence enshrined in school curricular for the younger generations.

But here is Nigeria, we have seen none of this. No institution health or educational has recognized the christ-like effort of Adadevoh to prevent a nation of 180 million people from dying of Ebola.

While the Federal and state government are still dragging their feet and are yet to see a reason to immortalise a life saver, the University authorities in the North, Bayero University have named a female hostel in the Institution's Teaching Hospital after Adadevoh.

Kudos to Bayero University, Kano management for this.

Prior to this time, Nigerians have cried out to government to honour the heroine but the pleas have been falling on deaf ears.

Now, that the BUK has shown them how to honour a heroine, the story of her heroic act has to be passed down to incoming generations.

The younger generations need to know about her selflessness and diligence which saved a whole country from being consumed by a deadly disease.

One way to do this is to name schools, library, hostels, university teaching hospitals in her name.

Nigeria has a lot of state and federal Universities but only one has honoured the Ebola heroine.

The younger generations know about the like s of Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Tafawa Balewa and Ahmadu Bello not only because they were taught about these men at schools but also because streets, Schools, institutions are named after them. Their faces are even printed on our currency.

So, for the younger generations to know about Dr Stella Adadevoh, Teaching Hospitals across the country should have laboratories, hostels, libraries named after her.

Adadevoh should also be a veritable reference in Civic education and History in both primary schools and secondary schools respectively.
"Look at how skinny he is" and "she's so fat, no one would want to date her" are common examples of body shaming. We all went through this in our teenage years- a period when we were not yet confident of our bodies.

Even as adults many of us still struggle with our body shape, facial looks and body tone. Body shaming has gotten worse over the years. After struggling to get a hot picture of yourself, you post on on Twitter or the 'gram only for a troll to shatter your self-confidence.

This doesn't happen to just you and me, celebrities are more prone to body shaming than any group of people. Take the recent example of Big Brother Naija housemate Uriel who was dragged on Instagram comments because of the way her breasts looked.

It became so much of an issue that she had to respond to the body shamers. "I am proud of my big saggy boobs, these boobs will feed my children" she proudly said. Thankfully her self-confidence was taken away by IG gangsters.

Celebrities are always in the bull's eye for the body shaming gang to take shots at. Prison Break star Wentworth Miller was body shamed for the increase in his weight. The TV star responded and revealed that his weight gain was due to his battle with depression.

Nollywood star Uche Jombo was body shamed a lot by trolls for not having a sexy, slim figure after giving birth. Not everyone can pull of a Beyonce or Mercy Johnson quickly after having a baby but don't tell the trolls this.

ALSO READ: Teen girl rips apart classmate for body shaming

Body shaming is one of the worst traits of mankind. We seek perfection in others when we are hardly perfect. Subconsciously we are pleased with the fact that many others have the same body issues like us.

For celebrities, it is worse. We are happy to know that the rich and famous still have to deal with things like low rate of metabolism, stretch marks, pot belly, and varicose veins. You can call it schadenfreude (deriving pleasure from another person's misfortune). Deep down we are happy that this star or that celeb doesn't have it perfect. Trolls love this.

Body shaming is not good on any level. Not everyone is born with a perfect body. Not every woman will have a Coca-Cola body and not every man will be built like Luke Cage.
While some Nigerians have figured out that the best time to see a movie is 8 AM on Saturdays and Sundays, some of us still stroll into the cinemas at any other time, and constantly get to encounter some annoying people.

Pulse Movies has put together seven types of annoying people you will meet at the cinema.

1. The Phone center

These ones wander into the cinema with their phone on the ring out mode. And when it rings, they always pick up, disrupting a quiet hall.

There are also those who assume that since their phones are on silent, they can distract their neighbours by browsing the internet, reading their messages or watching a video.

2. The happy or troubled couple

Theres always that couple in the cinema hall that think they are actually invisible and people cant see them groping and making out.

Nobody actually wants to see you guys make up or make out.

3. The chatterbox/ Spoiler Kings

These ones are your biggest nightmare and can be detected the moment they walk into the hall. They are rarely alone, and the cinema seems like the best place for them to 'catch up.' They talk about anything but the movie.

The spoiler kings are those ones who return for a replay of a movie and ruin it for others with comments such as: "Just keep watching, the girl will kill the boy" - what are we still watching?

4. The emotional ones

These are those annoying ones who find everything funny. Toyin Aimakhu waking up in the morning is funny to them.

They leave you wondering if you are all seeing the same movie. The other people in this category cant see a movie without being dramatic.

They are so absorbed with the story that they react physically by jumping, gasping, "awwing," and "Ahhing" up and down.

5. The Waka Waka

What is worse than getting comfortable in your seat and having someone say "excuse me, I want to pass?"

Some others arrive late, and will just be walking up and down in search of a seat, which they probably never find, because, they are late.

Let's not even forget those who sit at the end of a row, and disrupt the whole hall because they want to go to the bathroom.

6. Excited group of teenagers

If for any reason, you find yourself in a cinema hall with a group of hyperactive teenagers, who are probably on a 'date,' consider your cinema experience for that day ruined.

From chattering to emotional responses, these excited teenagers are everything we already mentioned on the list.

7. Crying baby

We love babies... But it's still difficult to understand why parents bring their babies, who are, as expected, restless, to watch a movie with the public.
The films, showed different levels of artistry, but were all mostly impressive in the ways they sought to educate and entertain.

Gyrow, for instance, is instructive about health and sickness, and follows the title character, a nine year old doctor who heals sick people through magical assistance. Aje & Kpako highlights economic inequality between two 10 year olds, growing up in 80s in Nigeria.

The graphic work in Dawn of Thunder was received enthusiastically, underlying the need for more creative adaptations of local myths and folklores.

"Town Crier" is a wild tale that invokes a host of dysfunctional characters and situations, while Crush is a more traditional treatment of boy-girl attraction.

The British Council presentations continued with Creative Hustle, a panel discussion on alternative pathways in film, moderated by Nadia Denton.

The series of shorts forming part of the Councils Film Connections were screened. They include, Robot & Scarecrow, Tower XYZ, Brixton Rock, A Viable Candidate, and 1745 among others.

The United States Embassys spotlight was on the documentary, Class Divide, a riveting exploration by Mark Levin of gentrification and income distribution in a New York suburb where the class distinction is visible just across the road, on a particular street.

A couple of short films were screened at the Silverbird Galleria. Some of them are, Slip, a tense domestic drama, directed by Joshua Enakarhire and Yesterday, Emmanuel Udochukwus treatise on ethnic relations and the passions they inflame.

There was a repeat screening of Kenneth Gyangs latest, The Lost Cafe, starring Tunde Aladese and a brief Q & A followed shortly, with Gyang, the cast and crew narrating the films journey to existence.

The reception to Idemuza, a heart-warming, grass to grace drama about an orphans struggle to make something for her family was quite welcoming.

Previously released films, Dinner and Tatu rounded out the feature length screenings for the day.

Earlier, AFRIFF artistic director, Newton Aduaka moderated an interesting keynote conversation with Abba T. Makama (Green White Green), C.J. Obasi (O-Town) and Michael Omonua, members of the Surreal 16 Collective, a group of filmmakers making a case for art house cinema through offbeat, impressionistic visuals.

Punuka Attorneys and Solicitors, a Lekki-based law firm presented a masterclass on the legal aspects of producing content for television. Facilitated by Isioma Idigbe, the session touched on issues like writer, producer and non-disclosure agreements.

The day came to a close with a cocktail at the residence of the French Consul General, Laurent Polonceaux, kicking off the French Embassy showcase.

The night of cultural exchange had German Ambassador to Nigeria, Hugo Herbert in attendance, as well as film industry heavyweights like Joke Silva, Kunle Afolayan, Seun Kuti, Bolanle Austen-Peters and Steve Ayorinde, Lagos State Commissioner for Information & Strategy.

Patron of AFRIFF/MD/CEO, Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe, in his remarks, stressed on the importance of the festival as a great platform to help young people realize all they can be, while AFRIFF founder, Chioma Ude expressed her delight with the French partnership.

AFRIFF is an annual weeklong, all-encompassing world class showcase running, this year, from October 29, to November 4, 2017.
The suspect, Agu Echezona Harrison, who has been remanded in prison custody by the presiding judge, according to News Agency of Nigeria [NAN], was said to have inserted his fingers into the private parts of his young child over a period of time before the mother got to know about the abuse and reported to the police.

The prosecuting officer, Adebayo Haroun, had earlier told the court that Harrison who was arraigned on a one-count charge of sexual assault, had committed the offence between 2013 and 2015 at his residence at 23, Rotimi Omotosho Street, Isheri Osun.

Haroun said it was Harrison's wife, Akukwe Priscilla, who reported the case to the police, saying that the accused was fond of touching the little girls private part.

According to Akukwe Priscilla, she noticed an offensive odour oozing out of her daughters private part with frequent whitish discharge.

When she asked what happened to her, the girl reportedly replied that her father had been inserting his hand into her 'bum bum'.

Priscilla continued:

"When I took my daughter to a hospital, a test was conducted and the nurses confirmed that someone has been touching her.

When I confronted him [Harrison], he denied it and I angrily went to his mother to report the matter. My mother-in-law told him to stop me from escalating the issue.

After that, in December 2013, he raped my younger sister and also tried to deny it, not knowing I had taken my sister for a test at the hospital to check the drop of sperm found inside her.

Since it was barely 24 hours that the rape happened, I forced him to go for a test also and he did. The hospital confirmed it was a match with the one on my sister. He immediately started begging and prostrating, saying that he was sorry.

I had felt he was truly sorry but in 2014, I started noticing same discharge from my daughter. I had to leave the house with my kids, which he later came fighting for custody, especially for my little girl.

Meanwhile, Harrison who was angry that he had been taken to a court in the case, was said to have verbally attacked some journalists who were trying to get the facts of the matter from the court.

I will sue you, people, if you write anything about me. It is a family affair and, therefore, none of your business, he quoted as saying.
Dambazau and the Head of Service, Mrs. Winifred E. Oyo-Ita were accused of employing Maina.

You will recall that Dambazau, on Sunday, October 22, 2017, in a statement signed by his press secretary, Ehisienmen Osaigbovo, said the ex-pension boss was recalled through the office of the head of service.

The statement said: "The ex-Chairman of the Presidential Task Force Team on Pension Reforms, Abdulrasheed Maina was posted few days ago to the Ministry of Interior by the Office of the Head of Service on an Acting capacity to fill a vacancy created following the retirement of the Director heading the Human Resources Department in the Ministry.

"For the avoidance of doubt, issues relating to Discipline, Employment, Re-engagement, Posting, Promotion and Retirements of Federal Civil Servants are the responsibility of the Federal Civil Service Commission and Office of the Head of Service of the Federation, of which no Minister exercises such powers as erroneously expressed.

"It is understood that Mainas last posting was with the Ministry of Interior, and that is probably why he was re-posted back to the Ministry.

"It is therefore improper for anybody to think that a Minister could exercise such powers or influence the process of Discipline, Re-engagement, and Deployment of any civil servant to his Ministry or any other Ministry for that matter. Again Such responsibility is that of the Federal Civil Service Commission and/or the Head of Civil Service."
When the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) visited the hospital, the manager said that it was against practice to give out information about patients.

Meanwhile, the family of the former vice president had in a statement thanked members of the public for their concern on the health of their father.

The statement signed by the traditional ruler of Oko, Prof. Laz Ekwueme, said that the former vice president would remain under close medical attention.

The former Vice President was on Oct. 29, hospitalised for alleged chest infection.

Ekwueme had a quiet celebration of his 85th birthday on Oct. 21 in the company of his family members and he remained in high spirits up till his recent health challenges.

His doctors confirmed that he is stable, but he will remain under close medical attention in the mean time.

The family requests the sustained support and prayers of Nigerians as he continues to make a full recovery, Ekwueme said.

Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress (APC) Chairman in Abia, Chief Donatus Nwankpa, has called on the Federal and South-East state governments to rally round the former Vice President to ensure he gets proper medical treatment.

Ekwueme is a national figure. The Federal and the South-East governors should rally round the elder statesman to ensure that he gets the best of treatment.

He was vice president under Alhaji Shehu Shagari in 1983. Most of the Federal Government colleges were built under his watch and at a minimal cost.

The former vice president has never been indicted of any corruption. Ekwuemes issue transcends party politics.

I call on the Federal Government and the five south-east governors to urgently move in and intervene to ensure that he gets the best of treatment anywhere in the world.

Also, the Enugu State government said it had visited the elder statesman in the hospital.

The Commissioner for Information, Mr Ogbuagu Anikwe, told NAN that Gov. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, visited the former vice president in the hospital.
During the resumption of his kidnapping trial on Friday, November 3, 2017, Evans filed an application seeking to be released on bail and for his case to be given an accelerated hearing by the court.

The lead prosecution counsel, Ms. Titilayo Shitta-Bay, described the bail application, seeking accelerated hearing filed alongside an application seeking to quash the charges as an attempt to frustrate the trial and asked the judge to dismiss it.

During the last court hearing on October 19, Evans changed his initial plea of 'guilty' to 'not guilty' to the two-count charges of conspiracy and kidnapping.

The suspect had initially entered a 'guilty' plea to the charges after he was arraigned, alongside five other accomplices, before the court on Wednesday, August 30.

The suspect is being tried alongside five accomplices: Uche Amadi, Ogechi Izechuwku, Okechukwu Nwachukwu, Chilaka Ifeanyi and Victor Chukwumonso.

The defendants are accused of capturing, detaining and collecting a ransom of 223,000 on Mr. Duru Donatius between Feb. 14 and April 12, 2017.

Evans is also facing separate charges that include conspiracy, kidnap and murder before the Igbosere division of the Lagos High Court and will plead to the charges before Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo onNovember 10.

The charges relate to the alleged kidnap and murder of Sylvanius Ahanonu Hafiia, and the conspiracy and attempted kidnap of the chairman of The Young Shall Grow Motors, Vincent Obianodo.

Evans was arrested by a combined team of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) and the Anti-Kidnap Unit of the Lagos State Police Command at one of his Magodo Phase II GRA, Lagos, home on Saturday, June 10, 2017.
The group also described reports in the media it had endorsed the Governor as a farce.

CANs Director of National Issues, Bishop Stephen Adegbite, also called on Nigerians to disregard the report.

According to Punch, Adegbite also said It has come to our notice that it is in the media that our secretariat wrote a letter endorsing the candidature of Governor Peter Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State for President come 2019.

This is a farce and should be completely disregarded by all and sundry.

CAN, as we all know, is the umbrella body of all Christians in Nigeria; so, how on earth can the organisation come out to support or endorse the candidature of anyone?

What we do as a body is to pray to God to choose leaders that will do His will and bring comfort to His people through good governance and counsel where necessary. We dont endorse candidates, we have never done that and we do not intend to start that now.

We urge all Christians to continue to pray for our country, Nigeria, and for the leadership at the helm of affairs today to succeed in delivering the dividends of democracy to all Nigerians not minding their ethnic or religious colouration.
In a statement issued in Lokoja on Thursday, Novermber 2, 2017 by the governor's Special Adviser on Security, Jerry Omodara, he described the murder of Mr. Yakubu alongside one Ibrahim Otaru, who reportedly came to discuss some community issues with him, as further proof of the culture of violence and the systemic decimation of law abiding citizens by the enemies of peace in the state and called on security agencies to rise to the occasion and apprehend the killers.

"It is lamentable that in spite of what we are doing to make Kogi State safe and secure, some bad eggs still take pride in the unenviable record of being one of the most violent in the country.

"This latest gruesome murder of Mr. Yakubu has again confirmed the reign of politics of intolerance, banditry and assassinations which our government has sworn to wipe out," the statement said.

The governor said his administration is determined to fight against impunity to deter further crimes, uphold the rule of law and protect public trust in the justice system.

He described the late Yakubu as an exceptionally brilliant, humble, forthright and focused personality who spent almost his entire life for the good of humanity.

"He was a dogged union leader who contributed immensely to the welfare of his members in the promotion of robust labour relations between his union and the state government as well as a trusted community leader who gave total support to government's war against bandits and hoodlums in Kogi central and the state at large."

ALSO READ: Kogi union leader killed amid negotiations for unpaid salaries

Governor Bello described his death as a huge loss not only to his family and the organised labour, but to the state government, noting that his advice at various times on labour related issues as well as security in the Central Senatorial district were invaluable.
The state Commissioner for Health, Dr Innocent Vakkai, who disclosed this in Jalingo, at the flag-off of the November 2017 Round of Polio Immunisation Campaign, said the targeted population was reached.

The commissioner however noted that the campaign encountered challenges in October when some people rejected the vaccine, claiming that it contained monkey pox.

We had some difficulty in the field where some people rejected the polio vaccine claiming it had monkey pox virus."

However, it is good to inform you that we developed different counter measures during and after the campaign; God willing, we have dispelled the rumour."

It therefore becomes necessary to further clarify that there is no relationship between our immunisation campaign and the emergence of monkey pox virus."

It is also important to put on record that there is no outbreak of monkey pox disease in Taraba State, Vakkai said.

The Deputy Governor of the state, Alhaji Haruna Manu, said the state would continue to commit resources into immunisation campaigns.

He noted that Nigeria and Pakistan were the only countries still having cases of polio, saying that the state would do everything possible to prevent its citizens from contracting the disease.

Alhaji Aminu Hassan, the Executive Secretary, State Primary Health Care Development Agency, said the agency was committed to formulating the Integrated Primary Health Care under One Roof (PHCUOR) policy.

He explained that the PHCUOR was a national policy aimed at reducing fragmentation in primary health care service delivery, and integrating the services under one authority.
She said that there were about 500 Nigerians in Chinese prisons detained for various offences and also explained that there was no prisoner transfer agreement between both countries.

She also refuted claims that there were thousands of Nigerians detained in Chinese prisons.

You hear 2000 but that is exaggerated. I think we have less than 500 Nigerians in Chinese prisons.

Until we sign a treaty; there is no treaty between both countries for prisoners transfer, when that exists the transfer of prisoners would be possible.

We get a lot of appeals and some prisoners say they want to move from one prison there to another, it is not going to happen.

We have been talking to them but their law is their law. My appeal to Nigerians is to obey the laws of that country because it is getting tougher; they have sanctions and they follow through.

She also said that Nigerian businesses were thriving in China.

Dabiri-Erewa further urged Nigerians to learn from the Chinese culture of discipline and persistence in promoting national development.

Discipline and leadership are what we should learn from China; they have a plan for the next 20 years, even the young ones in schools are being groomed for that plan.

They also have the we can do spirit, it is working for them."
Tinubu's eldest son, Jide, 36, died in London on Wednesday, November 1, 2017, leaving behind a wife and three boys.

In a statement issued on his behalf on Thursday, November 2, by Tunde Rahman, his media aide, Tinubu described the deceased as "highly intelligent person with a vibrant personality and a zest for life".

Contrary to the speculations that Jide died ofalcohol poisoning, the former Governor of Lagos State said his son died of cardiac arrest.

Tinubu said, "Those who knew him could not help but like him. Yet, he was taken away by cardiac arrest when it seemed he had so much life to still live.

"This is a reminder that we must live each day to its best as none of us knows when our last day shall be.

"Mortality comes upon us all. We have no choice in that but we do have a choice whether we shall be good or bad, just or unjust. Let us all strive toward the best in ourselves.

"Jide lived for so long in London and there he has left behind a darling wife and three precious boys. My wife Remi and I have gone to London to be with them at this painful time to support and help them.

"Please excuse our absence from Lagos for a while but it is essential that we are with them. Prayers are being offered and will continue to be offered for the repose of his soul. I have suffered a grave loss that no parent would like to bear."

ALSO READ: APC Chieftains condole with Tinubu over son's death
In an interview with the BBC, the unnamed woman reported that soldiers of the Nigerian Army had forced their way into her home in the state capital and immediately tried to rape her. When her husband tried to come to her rescue, he was savagely beaten before he was shot.

The woman further told the BBC about how she was then dragged to an army checkpoint and dumped in a hole with her injured husband until the next morning when he was too weak to move.

She was released the next day without her husband whose corpse was later dumped at their home.

She narrated to the BBC, "It was 11pm, we were all asleep in the house when a soldier broke down the door. He came straight for me and grabbed me. I was shouting 'I have a husband, I am married.'

"When my husband came in, the soldiers just knocked him down. I ran out with the children shouting for help.

"They just started to beat my husband all of them. One of them shot him. It grazed his head. I don't know how long it was. They dragged him away. They came back, beat me, and then they dragged me to their checkpoint.

"They threw us in a hole and told us to lie down and threw sand on top of us. We spent the whole night in the hole. In the morning, they told us to get out, but my husband was too weak, I managed to climb out. There was blood all over my face.

"They told me to pull my husband out of the hole but I couldn't do it. So they dragged him from the hole. They told me to go home and take care of my children.

"Later they came back. They had my husband. When I touched his body, he was dead. After I had fainted, it was the police who took me to the hospital.

"I remember everything about him. I was in love with him. He's a very funny person. The children ask about him all the time. He is always on my mind. He took very good care of us."

It remains unclear why the soldiers had been in their home that night, as the Nigerian army said they have no record of the attack after the family reported it.

The Boko Haram insurgency in the region has prompted a heavy military presence as several camps have been opened for Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) whose homes have been affected.

The random attack against the woman's family slightly mirrors other cases of extensive sexual abuse of women in the region carried out by security personnel drafted to protect their lives.
THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER

Buhari to present 2018 budget next week Tuesday

President Muhammadu Buhari will next week Tuesday present the 2018 budget proposal to a joint session of the National Assembly.

APC governors split, Okorocha says no automatic ticket for Buhari

Two days after some governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) reportedly expressed their readiness to give an automatic ticket to President Muhammadu Buhari to contest the 2019 election, there was a loud dissenting voice from one of them yesterday.

Senate to probe alleged $1.35b power sector fraud

The Senate is set to commence an investigation into an alleged $1.35 billion fraud in the power sector.

__________________________________________________

VANGUARD NEWSPAPER

Buhari, Dambazau meet over Maina

President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, met with Interior Affairs Minister, Lt. General Abdulrahman Dambazau (retd), over the rumpus caused by the recall of former chairman of the Presidential Task Team on Pension Reforms, Abdulrasheed Maina.

Why Intels licence is not renewed  OGFZA

Amidst escalating dispute between the Oil and Gas Free Zones Authority (OGFZA) and the oil and gas logistic giant, Intels Nigeria Limited (INL) OGFZA has alleged that INL has not met the conditions for licence renewal.

Dont fly Ekwueme abroad until his condition stabilizes, doctors advise family

Sequel to his reported unstable condition, doctors have advised the family of ailing second republic Vice President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme against flying him abroad until his condition improves.

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THE PUNCH NEWSPAPER

Forgery: FG amends Misaus charges, adds three more counts

The Federal Government has amended the charges of making false documents filed before the Federal High Court in Abuja against the Senator representing Bauchi Central Senatorial District, Isah Misau.

Aisha Buhari right on Aso Rock clinic - Perm Sec

The Permanent Secretary, State House, Abuja, Mr. Jalal Arabi, admitted on Thursday that President Muhammadu Buharis wife, Aisha, was right on her recent comments on the poor state of the State House Medical Centre.

No automatic ticket for anyone in 2019, says APC

The All Progressives Congress has come out with its strongest position yet on the controversy generated by the clamour by some party members for an automatic ticket for President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019.

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THISDAY NEWSPAPER

Buhari to Lay 2018 Budget Tuesday, Senate Says Dec Passage Target Unrealistic

President Muhammadu Buhari has formally notified the National Assembly of his readiness to lay the 2018 Appropriation Bill before the parliament next Tuesday.

Adeosun: FGs Revenue and Debt Strategy to Cut Debt Service Cost by N168bn

The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, disclosed Thursday that the federal governments current revenue and debt management strategy would mitigate the nations debt service risk, culminating in the cutting of debt service cost by about N168 billion per annum.

MTN Restates Commitment to List on NSE in Six Months

MTN Group in South Africa has reiterated its commitment to list its Nigerian subsidiary on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in the next six months as part of the settlement of the $1 billion fine imposed on it in 2015 by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) over the failure by the telecoms company to deactivate 5.2 million unregistered SIM cards on its network.

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BUSINESSDAY NEWSPAPER

Shipping firms squeeze businesses with demurrage, container charges

Businesses including those in the manufacturing sector that depend on the seaports to bring in raw materials have raised alarm over the high cost of doing business at the ports as foreign shipping liners continue to squeeze their profit margin with arbitrary charges.

Oil firms seek PE deals to fund marginal field bids

With bank loans to the energy sector constituting nearly 40 percent of their non-performing loan portfolios, killing desire for further lending, local oil firms are seeking equity financing and other funding arrangements to participate in the forthcoming marginal fields and inland basin bid rounds.

Hiltons expansion strategy opens opportunity for local real estate players
This followed a motion by Rep. Muhammad Usman (Kaduna-APC) on the Need to Address Declining Immunization Coverage in Nigeria.

Moving the motion, Usman noted that the Multi-Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS)and National Immunisation Coverage Survey (NICS) Report of 2016/2017 revealed a National Immunization Coverage rate of 33 per cent.

He added that only three per cent of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) attained 80 per cent coverage.

The lawmaker disclosed that this was contrary to the global standard of 90 per cent as-an indicator-for- fully immunised according to the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) or the African standard of 74 per cent.

He further said the report revealed that 77 per cent of the assessed children did not receive all the life-saving vaccines while 37 per cent received some, 40 per cent did not receive any vaccines at all from the Routine Immunisation Programme and were classified as missed children.

According to Usman, only 1 in 4 children in the rural areas was fully immunized while 1 in 10 children of the poorest families received full immunisation.

Funding for immunisation activities, including vaccine procurement and value chain, would have suffered severe shortages with its grim consequences had International Development Partners not come to the aid of Nigeria.

With the expected complete pull out of Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) from Nigeria in 2021, alternative and sustainable financing options must be put in place to forestall any catastrophe in immunisation financing in the future.

The House urged government to implement the one per cent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for financing the Basic Health Care Provision Fund in the 2018 budget as enjoined by the National Health Act.

It also called for the adoption of innovative financing mechanism by establishing a National Immunisation Trust Fund.

The Federal Ministry of Health and its relevant Agencies were further advised by the House, to spearhead advocacy and sensitization on immunisation uptake and co-funding for Immunisation at all levels of government.

House therefore, mandated its Committee on Healthcare Services to ensure implementation and report back within eight weeks for further legislative action.
This act was reportedly carried out by a Twitter employee who was leaving the company.

Twitter spokesperson said the company was looking into the situation. It was still unclear who the employee was, how that employee got access to the president's account and whether any security breaches led to the subsequent deactivation.

Though the account has since come back, Trump is yet to comment on the matter. Instead the next tweet that came from him was to formally introduce his nominee candidate for chairman of the US Federal Reserve.

A lot of employees can suspend a users account, a former senior Twitter employee told Buzzfeed. But far fewer -- only hundreds -- have the power to deactivate one

Trump himself has yet to tweet about his account's brief absence. Instead, he posted other messages including the nomination of Jerome Powell as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Trump lately has been in the news recently for violating Twitter abuse rules and getting away with it, because it is newsworthy.

Twitter was sure to make light of the incidence.

But some quarters don't see it as no trivial matter. The National Archives has advised Trump to preserve all tweets as presidential records, while a professor at the U.S. Naval War College is worried that U.S. enemies could be using Trump's tweets to build a psychological profile of the president, The Post's Avi Selk reported.

Recent tweets by Trump about North Korea have stirred up tensions, such as one where Trump threatened that " they won't be around much longer."
The website Down Detector showed a huge spike in problems with the app, suggesting that almost everyone is unable to get online. The problems focused in Western Europe and Asia, but were reported across the world.

Users couldn't send or receive messages for a while, apparently due to a server problem. However service is being said to have been restored gradually.

The Facebook owned app has experienced this kind of outages in the past, which has been quickly resolved.

Things seem to be fine with the service over here in Nigeria.
Trump's remarks come ahead of his first visit to Asia since taking office, with soaring tensions over North Korea's nuclear and missile programs expected to take center stage.

"Japan is a warrior nation, and I tell China and I tell everyone else that listens, I mean, you're gonna have yourself a big problem with Japan pretty soon if you allow this to continue with North Korea," Trump said on Fox News.

However, Trump also said that President Xi Jinping has been "pretty terrific" on North Korea, and that "China is helping us."

After a chiding from Trump for failing to rein in Kim, China has implemented tougher UN sanctions against North Korea, and Xi's relationship with the US leader appears to be warming.

North Korea in July launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles apparently capable of reaching the US mainland -- described by its leader Kim Jong-Un as a gift to "American bastards".

The North followed that up with two missiles that passed over Japan, and its sixth nuclear test, by far its most powerful yet.

The US president raised the specter of Japan taking action over North Korea as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe continues efforts to change its US-imposed pacifist constitution, seen by conservatives as an outdated legacy of wartime defeat, so Japan can formally transform its well-equipped and well-trained Self Defense Forces into a full-fledged military.
The court is set to reconvene on November 7.

The former premier, who was forced out by the Supreme Court in July over a scandal kindled by the Panama Papers leak, had been facing an arrest warrant for failing to appear at hearings since early October.

He has spent most of the time since in London, where his wife is receiving treatment for cancer. He arrived in Islamabad on Thursday.

Sharif became the 15th premier in Pakistan's 70-year history to be ousted before completing a full term, after the corruption investigation against him.

The claims against the prime minister stemmed from the Panama Papers leak last year, which sparked a media frenzy over the luxurious lifestyles and high-end London property portfolio owned by his family.

Sharif and his supporters have denied the allegations and hinted at a political conspiracy driven by the powerful military.

"I am going to Pakistan despite (my wife's) chemotherapy to appear in a bogus case," he told media in London before departing.

"Pakistan's system has contradictions... all this must be changed, now is the time to change it."

He said nothing to media outside the court in Islamabad, but his son-in-law Muhammad Safdar also hinted at a conspiracy.

"Till the time the courts are... free from the fear of some other people, I can't expect any fair trial from this court," Safdar said outside the court.

Earlier this week Sharif summoned top officials from his eponymous ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to London for a summit on the party's leadership as legal pressure grows.

Sharif named loyalist Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as prime minister days after his ousting, and said his younger brother Shahbaz, currently the chief minister of Punjab province, would eventually succeed him.
"We want to make a point to show the public, to show the press, to everybody in our respective countries that this is our soil," Wilders told reporters.

"By making that impossible the government or the mayor at least proved that it is not a part of Belgium but it is part of an Islamic enclave and this is totally unacceptable," Wilders said.

Molenbeek was tarred as a hotbed of Islamic extremism after the November 2015 Paris attacks and the March 2016 Brussels bombings because several of the plotters hailed from there.

The authorities on Thursday banned the "Islam safari", with Molenbeek mayor Francoise Schepmans warning of "a serious threat to public order" flowing from their planned protest's "ostensibly insulting and discriminatory nature".

In the end, Dewinter and Wilders spoke to reporters in the federal parliament in Brussels, alleging they were victims of "fatwas" from elected officials who submitted to "Islam's domination".

Dewinter said: "I think this makes very clear that those neighbourhoods in Europe are 'no-go zones'."

Molenbeek -- an impoverished neighbourhood of around 95,000 people, many of them Muslim, from nearly 100 nationalities -- is trying to shed an image as an extremist hotbed.

In 2001, it was in Molenbeek that the assassins of Afghanistan's anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud had stayed.
Macron told Putin in a phone conversation that "humanitarian access (should be) guaranteed as soon as possible, in particular in Eastern Ghouta where hundreds of thousands of people are in great distress," the president's office said in a statement.

A "de-escalation zone" deal agreed by regime allies Iran and Russia and rebel backer Turkey has been in place in the region near the capital Damascus since July.

But humanitarian aid, subject to authorisation by the Syrian authorities, is only trickling in and hundreds of cases of severe malnutrition have been reported in recent weeks.

The region is one of the last strongholds of rebels fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since 2011.

Macron also stressed "the need to renew the mandate" of investigators from the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in the coming weeks, the statement said.

The UN panel known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) issued a report -- disputed by Damascus and Moscow -- last month that blamed the Syrian government for a sarin gas attack in April.
Suu Kyi, a nobel laureate who leads Myanmar's pro-democracy party, has been hammered by the international community for failing to use her moral power to speak up in defence of the Rohingya Muslim minority.

As she arrived in Rakhine State, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced a plan to visit Myanmar for talks next week, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees demanded that the Rohingya be allowed home as citizens.

Some 600,000 of the stateless minority have fled to Bangladesh since late August carrying accounts of murder, rape and arson at the hands of Myanmar's powerful army, after militant raids sparked a ferocious military retaliation.

The UN says the army operation is likely tantamount to ethnic cleansing, while pressure has mounted on Myanmar to provide security for the Rohingya and allow people to return home.

Suu Kyi left via state capital Sittwe as evening fell on Thursday after a visit that also took in Maungdaw and Buthidaung in northern Rakhine.

It was her first trip in office to the region, which has seen some of the worst communal violence to cut through the western state since 2012, severely damaging Myanmar's global reputation.

"The Lady" -- as she is known -- met with the Rohingya community in Maungdaw town, according to local media, a first for a leader keen to convince observers inside the country and abroad that the crisis has abated and reconstruction can begin.

But it was not clear if Suu Kyi visited some of the hundreds of Rohingya villages torched by the army -- allegedly aided by ethnic Rakhine Buddhist locals.

The Rohingya who remain in northern Rakhine are living in fear, surrounded by hostile neighbours, who refuse to let them farm or move freely.

The UN on Thursday again called for unfettered humanitarian access to a zone still under army lockdown.

And Filippo Frandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, declared that not only must the refugees be allowed to return but that they should be accorded full Myanmar citizenship.

"These people cannot remain stateless because this statelessness exposes them to discrimination and abuse, as has been the case in the past," he told reporters at UN headquarters.

On Thursday around 3,000 Rohingya arrived by land at the Bangladesh border, a sign hunger and fear is still driving people from their homes.

"The army didn't attack us but made our life very difficult,"Mohammad Zafar, 35, from a village in Buthidaung told AFP at the Bangladesh border.

"We were not paid for any work and couldn't go to markets. How long is it possible to live like that?"

'Here for generations'

Suu Kyi heads a committee charged with rebuilding Rakhine.

She was joined on Thursday by businessman Zaw Zaw, one of a host of military "cronies" who thrived under junta rule and are now taking prominent roles in rebuilding the battered region.

There are fears a carve-up of contracts in Rakhine by big business will further divorce the Rohingya from their land.

Suu Kyi says the Rohingya who have fled are now welcome back, if they meet contested "verification" criteria for re-entry to Myanmar.

The Rohingya are loathed in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship and denigrated as illegal "Bengali" immigrants.

Their legal status is at the crux of communal tensions, with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists adamant that Rohingya are foreign interlopers.

A Rohingya resident who has remained in Maungdaw town appealed to Suu Kyi to reconsider foisting a controversial national verification card (NVC) on the minority.

The card grants them limited rights of residence in Myanmar, but does not recognise them as an ethnic group with citizenship.

The Rohingya say it is a bureaucratic attempt to erase their identity and force a shaky legal status onto them in a region where many claim generations of ancestry.

"We cannot do anything with this NVC card, so we do not want to receive it," the resident said, requesting anonymity fearing reprisals.

"We are not Bengalis from Bangladesh, we are Rohingya living here for generations."

Observers say Suu Kyi has chosen not to criticise the army in fear of a backlash from a powerful institution that controls all security matters.

jpegMpeg4-1280x720The United States has also condemned the violence, but has been careful to say that it holds the military and not Suu Kyi's civilian administration responsible.

Tillerson's spokeswoman Heather Nauert said he would visit Naypyidaw on November 15 for talks on the "humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State and US support for Burma's democratic transition."
The anti-corruption campaigner was laid to rest after a service in Mosta, close to the site where the blogger was blown up in a car bombing in an October 16 attack which made headlines around the world.

"We still do not know who killed Daphne," Archbishop Charles Scicluna told the relatives and friends gathered for the private ceremony.

"Whoever took part, I tell you this: however hard you try to evade the justice of men, you will never escape the justice of God," he said.

Caruana Galizia, 53, had made repeated and detailed corruption allegations for years against Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's inner circle and had recently turned her investigative scrutiny on the opposition as well.

After her death, her family accused Muscat of creating a culture of impunity that turned Malta into a "mafia island".

Caruana Galizia's family had asked the PM, Malta's president and international media to stay away from the funeral.

Crowds gathered outside the Roman Catholic Church after the ceremony broke into applause as her coffin, covered in white flowers, was carried outside by her sons Matthew, 31, Andrew, 26, and Paul, 21.

'No mercy'

EU Parliament chief Antonio Tajani and the OSCE's media freedom representative Harlem Desir both paid their respects at the church, while flags outside the European Commission in Brussels flew at half mast.

"The right of a journalist to investigate, ask uncomfortable questions and report effectively, is at the heart of our values and needs to be guaranteed at all times," the European Commission said in a statement.

Desir said "no mercy" should be shown to "the perpetrators and masterminds behind this heinous crime".

Eight of the world's largest news organisations have urged the European Commission to probe the murder, saying it could not be allowed to achieve the "clear objective of silencing her investigation into corruption at the highest levels in Malta".

Signatories include James Harding, the director of news and current affairs at the BBC, Jerome Fenoglio, director of Le Monde, Katharine Viner, the editor-in-chief of the Guardian and Dean Baquet, New York Times executive editor.

In the letter sent to commission vice-president Frans Timmermans Thursday, they called for an investigation into the independence of the media in Malta, the "only EU country that has such extensive media ownership by the political parties".
Australia shut off water and electricity to the camp, but some 600 men remain inside, fearful for their safety if they move to transition centres where locals are reportedly hostile.

"The current mood of the men is they are really distraught and depressed," Manus detainee and Sudanese refugee Abdul Aziz Adam told AFP.

"We are just helping and caring for each other and trying to help each other just to stay alive," the 24-year-old said.

As the stand-off entered its fourth day, New Zealand's new Labour government renewed an offer to take 150 of the refugees which was initially made in 2013 but never acted upon by Australia.

"We would like to work with Australia to help find a compassionate solution to this," Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway told Radio New Zealand.

"We've got an offer of 150 people and we really hope that Australia takes that up... we are here to help," he said.

The issue is set to arise when New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who came to power just last month, meets Australia's conservative Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in Sydney on Sunday.

Iranian Behrouz Boochani, another Manus detainee, told AFP Friday the detainees viewed New Zealand as a "big opportunity to take us from this hellhole prison".

"We are asking the New Zealand PM to make a serious negotiation with the Australian government and if Australia rejects it again, to try to do a deal with PNG."

Boochani added that the detainees were able to "collect water in rubbish bins" after a downpour the day before, and were also boiling water pooled inside a hole they had dug to drink.

"Many people are unable to sleep because of hunger and fear," he said.

Manus a 'dumping ground'

The impasse has frustrated Manus Governor Charlie Benjamin, who accused the Australian and PNG governments of using his island as a "dumping ground" for the asylum-seekers.

"The ministers involved in signing the agreement to bring the asylum seekers to Manus in 2013 didn't give a thought about the Manus people," he told PNG daily The National.

"They never did one time involve me in the negotiation although I was the governor at that time."

The UNHCR representative on the island, Lam Nai Jit, told AFP Thursday tensions were likely to rise as the men battled the "extremely hot and humid" weather.

A key concern for the refugees has been the lack of medication, particularly for those being treated for mental health conditions.

"Around 20 percent of people in the detention centre are being prescribed anti-depression drugs for obviously being depressed or for post-traumatic stress," Australian Greens senator Nick McKim, who visited the centre Tuesday, told AFP late Thursday.

The newspaper The Australian, which gained access to the compound on Thursday, said some of the men had not been outside the site since they were taken there years ago, and were almost hysterical about leaving.

Three transition centres on Manus were available for the men to move to, but the UNHCR said one was not finished while two did not have security fences.

Locals were also not consulted when the facilities were being built, stoking tensions between Manus communities and the refugees, Lam said.

Australia's immigration department insisted Friday PNG had given the refugees "suitable alternatives" to move to, and that "any claims to the contrary are simply not true".

Canberra's offshore processing policy has been criticised by rights groups as essentially placing refugees in indefinite detention on remote Pacific islands.
Russia has sharply criticized the findings of the panel known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) which said the Syrian air force dropped sarin on the opposition-held village of Khan Sheikhun nearly seven months ago.

More than 80 people, including young children, died in the April 4 attack that provoked global outrage and prompted the United States to fire cruise missiles at a Syrian air base.

Russia has questioned the work of the panel because the experts did not go to Khan Sheikhun and worked from samples Moscow maintains may have been tampered with by Western intelligence.

The draft resolution "requests the JIM to retain its findings... until such time when full-scale and high-quality investigation on the site of an incident becomes possible."

It appeared unlikely that the United States, France and Britain would agree to shelving a report from a panel that they have praised as professional, impartial and independent.

US, Russia clash

The mandate of the JIM expires November 16 and its fate has been at the center of a major row between Russia, Syria's ally, and the United States, backed by France and Britain.

The White House issued a strong statement denouncing Moscow's attempts to undermine the work of the panel, which Russia helped establish with the United States in 2015.

"Russia's attempts to undermine and eliminate the JIM show a callous disregard for the suffering and loss of life caused by the use of chemical weapons and an utter lack of respect for international norms," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.

The draft resolution requests the JIM to send a team to Khan Sheikhun to "conduct full-scale investigation using the whole spectrum of relevant methods".

Another team should return to the Shayrat air base to collect samples to establish whether sarin was stored at the military facility.

Russia maintains the sarin was most likely released by an explosive device set off on the ground, and not a Syrian air strike.

- Moscow says UN report 'amateurish'-

In Moscow earlier, a senior foreign ministry official rejected the findings, branding the report "superficial, unprofessional and amateurish".

"The mission did their research from a distance, that in itself is a scandal," said Mikhail Ulyanov, head of the foreign ministry's security and disarmament department.

To establish its findings, the panel relied on witness testimony, video footage, photographs, satellite imagery along with analysis of samples from Khan Sheikhun, some of which were obtained from Turkey.

The report by the joint UN-Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) panel has revived calls for UN sanctions to be imposed on Syria over the Khan Sheikhun attack.

Russia in late October vetoed a US-drafted resolution that would have extended the mandate of the JIM for a year, casting its ninth veto at the Security Council to block action against its Syrian ally.

Moscow opposed renewing the mandate of JIM before the release of the Khan Sheikhun report which occurred two days later.
Spanish prosecutors want to charge Carles Puigdemont, who is holed up in Belgium, with rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds. On Thursday the 54-year-old ignored a summons to appear before the same judge in Madrid.

An EU arrest warrant was also issued for four Catalan ministers who also failed to show up and are also thought to be in Belgium. They, like Puigdemont, were dismissed by Spains central government a week ago, a court statement said.

On Thursday the same Spanish judge had Puigdemonts deputy and seven other deposed regional ministers jailed pending a possible trial because of a risk that they might similarly abscond.

Speaking in an interview on Belgian television channel RTBF on Friday recorded before the widely expected warrant was issued, Puigdemont said he was not hiding from real justice but from a clearly politicised Spanish legal system.
A day after bombshell indictments in a US probe of Moscow's election interference and possible coordination between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia, Facebook, Google and Twitter told concerned lawmakers Tuesday they were taking necessary steps to rid their platforms of disinformation, propaganda and provocation.

In their testimony, the social media companies revealed startling new data showing many more millions of Americans were exposed to the fake news than previously thought.

In another hearing on Wednesday, Facebook said the apparent political meddling included use of its image-oriented messaging service Instagram, and that those suspect accounts were seen by some 20 million Americans last year.

The latest data on Instagram was on top of the estimated 126 million Americans exposed to Facebook posts from Russian entities seeking to create divisions during the election campaign.

In Thursday's interview, Brittin revealed that "there had been a very limited use" of their advertising by Russian interests during the election, highlighting two accounts which spent "about $4,700 on advertising" that was not targeted on demographics or geography.

"But any misrepresentation is bad, and we have continued to look at how we can improve our policies and transparency," he said.

Committed to Europe

But misinformation is not the only battle Google is facing.

In March, The Times newspaper revealed that ads for companies and other organisations were being promoted alongside extremist content, including videos posted by American white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan member David Duke as well as by Wagdi Ghoneim, an Islamist preacher banned from the UK for inciting hatred.

The scandal exposed the weaknesses of a system of automated sale of advertising space based on algorithms, and shook advertiser confidence. It led to a slew of companies pulling ads from Google's internet platforms.

"The advertisers pullback has been limited but relatively serious," Brittin said, but there was "no big impact on our numbers".

The group has in any case passed a battery of measures to reassure advertisers -- which can now more precisely determine the type of content on which they want their ads to appear.

Google has also invested in ways to better detect suspicious content, including with artificial intelligence and machine learning tools, hiring significant numbers of people, and putting in place faster procedures in case of emergency.

Brittin also said Google was committed to developing its European operations, which count about 14,000 employees.

"We want to continue to invest in Europe," he said, even as the European Union wages a major crackdown on member states bending rules to give big international firms unfair tax breaks, with Apple and Google in the firing line.

In June, the EU slapped Google with a record fine of 2.4 billion euros ($2.8 billion) for illegally favouring its shopping service in search results, accusing the company of booking huge profits while denying state-coffers much-needed money.
He was arrested during a series of police raids in Sydney and Brisbane in late 2014.

Four others, including an unnamed teenager, were jailed for between nine and 18 years for similar or lesser offences -- such as intentionally making a document connected with the preparation of a terrorist act.

Khalid "occupied a co-ordinating role" in the plot, Justice Geoffrey Bellew wrote in his ruling.

"In offending as he did, Khalid demonstrated that he was a devout terrorist," he added.

Canberra has become increasingly worried about homegrown extremism and officials say they have prevented 13 terror attacks in recent years.

But several have taken place, including the murder of a Sydney police employee in 2015 by a 15-year-old boy, who was then killed in an exchange of gunfire with officers.

In his ruling, Bellew said Khalid adhered to the "religious ideology of Wahhabi-Salafism".

"The cause that was to be advanced in the proposed terrorist act or acts was that of violent jihad... The offender had publicly displayed his support for the violent jihad espoused by ISIS (Islamic State)," he said.

The group had been planning to kill police officers and attack government buildings, and had considered using weapons such as firearms, Bellew added.
The simultaneous assaults on Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria and Al-Qaim in western Iraq dealt fresh blows to IS in its former heartland, leaving Albu Kamal, on the Syrian side of the border, the last town of note under its full control.

The jihadist group that once laid claim to a self-styled "caliphate" spanning swathes of Syria and Iraq has seen its proto-state crumble in recent months under the pressure of multiple offensives.

In October, it lost its one-time de facto Syrian capital Raqa after an assault of more than four months waged by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-Arab alliance.

On Friday, Syrian state media announced that the army, backed by Russian firepower, had recaptured all of Deir Ezzor city, in the oil-rich east of the country.

"The army announces full control of Deir Ezzor city," state television said in a breaking news alert, citing sources on the ground.

State news agency SANA also reported that Deir Ezzor had been "fully liberated."

State television said engineering units from the army were combing captured neighbourhoods to clear mines and other explosives.

Syrian forces entered Deir Ezzor city in September, breaking an IS siege of nearly three years on government-held parts of the provincial capital.

The battle has been ferocious, with heavy Russian air strikes and Syrian artillery fire leaving much of the city in ruins.

A reporter contributing to AFP inside the city on Thursday saw entire floors of buildings that had crashed onto those beneath, while on others, facades were completely blown away to reveal empty, destroyed interiors.

Trenches dug by IS fighters were still visible, as were army minesweepers working to locate and defuse explosives laid by the jihadists.

Iraqi forces enter Al-Qaim

Before Syria's war began in March 2011 with anti-government protests, around 300,000 people lived in the city, provincial capital of Deir Ezzor province along Syria's eastern border with Iraq.

But in 2014, IS jihadists seized the city and much of the surrounding province, including vital oil and gas fields that once served as a key source of revenue for the extremists.

IS has now been driven from most of its strongholds in Deir Ezzor, but it still controls over 35 percent of the province, much of it empty desert.

Its last major position is the town of Albu Kamal, though it also holds a string of smaller towns and villages and at least one oil field, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

IS, which at its peak controlled territory roughly the size of Britain, has suffered a string of losses in recent months in both Syria and Iraq.

On October 17, it lost the city of Raqa to the US-backed SDF, a highly symbolic blow that illustrated how its "caliphate" has disintegrated.

In Deir Ezzor province, it is under attack by both regime and SDF forces, while across the border in Iraq it now retains a foothold in just a single town, Al-Qaim, after losing its stronghold of Mosul in July and the town of Hawija in October.

But Iraqi forces entered Al-Qaim on Friday, military commanders said, unleashing a barrage of artillery fire along with Iraqi and US-led coalition airstrikes.

Troops from the army and the elite Counter Terrorism Service "have started the assault on the centre of Al-Qaim," Staff Major General Noman Abed al-Zobai, the commander of the 7th Division, told AFP from the scene.

Shortly afterwards, another officer said on condition of anonymity that the town's Gaza district had fallen from jihadist hands.

The paramilitary Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) force said in a statement that jihadists had set fire to civilian houses in the southwestern neighbourhood to make it harder to see them from the air.

Government forces launched the operation last week to seize Al-Qaim and its surroundings, a barren pocket of desert along the Euphrates river near the Syrian border.

The US-led coalition has said around 1,500 IS fighters are left in the area, which it expects to be the scene of the "last big fight" against the group in Iraq.
In another day of high drama in Spain's biggest crisis in decades, judge Carmen Lamela had Puigdemont's deputy and seven other deposed regional ministers detained pending a potential trial for alleged sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds.

With television channels showing images of police vans with flashing blue lights said to be taking the former ministers to different prisons, Catalans took to the streets in anger and disbelief.

There were protests in front of the Catalan parliament in Barcelona, the regional capital, with police estimating a crowd of 20,000. Others gathered outside town halls across the region including 8,000 people in both Girona and Tarragona.

Those in Barcelona held up their mobile phones like candles and waved separatist flags -- red and yellow stripes with a white star -- also holding black-and-yellow "libertad" ("freedom") signs.

The crowds, who included elderly couples and young parents carrying toddlers, chanted "Free political prisoners" and "This isn't justice but dictatorship."

"It makes you angry even when you don't vote for independence because every time a disproportionate measure is taken, it only fuels independence," said retired teacher Dolores, 66.

Puigdemont called in a statement broadcast on Catalan TV from an undisclosed location for the release of the ministers and said that the situation "is no longer an internal Spanish affair".

"The international community, and especially the European community, must realise the danger these attitudes represent," he said.

Flight risk

A total of 20 people including Puigdemont, Junqueras and the speaker of the Catalan regional parliament had been summoned for questioning on Thursday.

A hearing of the speaker of Catalan's parliament and five others at the Supreme Court was adjourned until November 9 after their lawyers requested more time to prepare their defence.

Puigdemont and four others with him in Belgium failed to show.

Puigdemont's Belgian lawyer Paul Bekaert told Flemish television channel VRT that his client told him that the warrant "has been issued against the president and four other ministers who are in Belgium."

He expected the Spanish judiciary will now send an extradition request to Belgian federal prosecutors but said Puigdemont would appeal if a Belgian judge approves the request.

In respect to his no-show at the hearing, Bekaert said his client "did not find a climate conducive to testifying and it would be better to put a bit of distance between it."

In her ruling, judge Lamela said she had ordered preventive detention for those who remained because of a possible flight risk.

"Let's remember that some of the defendants have already gone to other countries, dodging possible penal responsibilities," she wrote.

A ninth former minister, who resigned last Friday, was also remanded in custody but will be set free if he pays bail of 50,000 euros ($58,000).

Independence drive

Catalan demands for independence date back centuries but have surged in recent years, in part due to a difficult economic situation.

Puigdemont's government organised an independence referendum on October 1 despite a court ban.

Spanish police tried and failed to stop it, in some cases firing rubber bullets at people defending polling stations.

A declaration of independence by the Catalan parliament followed last Friday.

But that same day, Rajoy dismissed the regional government, imposing direct rule on Catalonia and called regional elections for December 21.

'Failed state'

Marta Rovira, a lawyer and Catalan separatist lawmaker, briefly broke down in tears as she spoke to reporters in Madrid after the announcement of the detentions.

"The Spanish state is a failed state, a state that has failed democratically," she said. "I'm convinced we won't surrender, we won't, we will fight until the end."

But Catalans, fiercely proud of their language and culture, remain deeply divided about independence, polls indicate.

The European Union has swung firmly behind Rajoy. Spain's central bank warned Thursday of a possible recession in Catalonia if the crisis continues.
"We have four parties sitting at the table that are really very far apart," said Katrin Goering-Eckardt of the left-leaning Greens on the talks with Merkel's conservative bloc and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP).

The goal is to cobble together by year's end an unprecedented federal "Jamaica coalition" -- nicknamed after the parties' colours, which match those of the Caribbean nation's flag.

Merkel, who emerged from the poll weakened, will size up progress of the exploratory talks on Friday, with the stakes extraordinarily high for all involved.

A failure of the negotiations could trigger new elections, which would likely cost Merkel's conservatives particularly dearly and further boost the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

"If the alliance does not come together, Merkel is finished," weekly newspaper Die Zeit said.

The talks, which started slowly last month, are now gathering pace. But last week saw bitter clashes on hot-button issues including immigration and climate protection.

There was so little progress that the negotiators decided largely to leave those topics out of this week's discussions in the hope of making headway on less contentious points.

'Mother Teresa' type

The personal chemistry among the wildly different personalities in the mix has also proved volatile.

FDP negotiator Wolfgang Kubicki, who annoyed the Greens' Goering-Eckhardt at the start of the talks with a rakish kiss of the hand, accused her this week of being a self-righteous "Mother Teresa" type.

"You get the feeling that if you have a different opinion you are a bad person," he complained.

Alexander Dobrindt of the CSU, the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's Christian Democrats, accused the Greens of "provoking a breakdown" of the negotiations in sticking to a welcoming stance toward refugees.

"Anyone who fails to see the AfD's success and its links to the refugee crisis is not really serious about forming a government," he said, referring to the anti-immigration party whose support surged to nearly 13 percent in the election.

Political scientist Ursula Muench dismissed many of the broadsides as play-acting by seasoned professionals.

But she said there were nevertheless "fundamental" differences, particularly between the CSU and the Greens, on globalisation and cultural identity that would be extremely tough to bridge.

"These aren't about little compromises you can make -- they revolve around the question 'how open or sheltered do you want to make German society?'" Muench, who runs the Academy for Political Education near Munich, told AFP.

"Even if you manage to bend over backwards, how can you convince your own base that you still represent their interests?"

Conspicuously absent from the sniping has been Merkel, Forbes magazine's most powerful woman again this year, whose above-the-fray style has kept her at the helm of Europe's top economy for 12 years.

'Decisive rounds of poker'

Participants in the talks say that despite the flame-throwing in the media, the atmosphere set by Merkel behind closed doors is "business-like" and pragmatic.

"This is not our desired coalition. But if we spend five weeks in talks and then say 'never mind', we'd better have a good reason to give the voters," one negotiator said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He put the odds of success at 80-20 in favour.

The camps are racing toward a November 25 deadline, when the Greens' notoriously combative rank-and-file will vote on whether enough progress has been made to enter into full-blown coalition talks.

The negotiators can point to a handful of accords thus far on issues including maintaining a balanced budget, working toward full employment and fighting poverty in old age.

The hope is that the risk of no deal will focus minds to tackle the thorniest items on the docket.

"The parties are warming up for the decisive rounds of poker," the daily Magdeburger Volksstimme said.
Selahattin Demirtas was detained in a police raid on his home overnight on November 4 last year. His then co-leader Figen Yuksekdag was detained in a simultaneous swoop.

While the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) splits all its main posts between men and women to ensure gender parity, Demirtas was and remains the main face of the party, an impassioned speaker with an instinct for political symbolism.

The HDP first entered the Turkish parliament after the June 2015 elections and is now the second-largest opposition party after the secular Republican People's Party (CHP), a breakthrough largely credited to Demirtas.

Demirtas and Yuksekdag were among 12 HDP lawmakers rounded up under the state of emergency imposed after the July 15, 2016 failed coup, which the party strongly opposed. Now, nine HDP MPs remain in prison including Demirtas and Yuksekdag.

Yuksekdag was stripped of her MP status in February and she stepped down as the party's co-chair in May. Demirtas remains co-leader but his incarceration severely limits his ability to communicate with the outside world.

"The (government) is trying to paralyse us with these attacks but I can in fact say that they have not succeeded," Serpil Kemalbay, who replaced Yuksekdag as co-leader, told AFP.

'Not easy to shut up'

Before his arrest, Demirtas was the only politician in Turkey who matched Erdogan's rhetorical skills, even earning himself the moniker the "Kurdish Obama".

But now Demirtas, 44, who is being held at a prison in Edirne, northwest Turkey, risks up to 142 years in jail if convicted.

He and the other HDP suspects are accused of links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), blacklisted as a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies. Despite being held for a year, Demirtas has yet to go on trial on those charges.

But HDP officials insist he retains his political weight.

"He is in prison but his words reach the people," HDP MP Filiz Kerestecioglu told AFP. "He is not a person easily shut up."

He has written poetry, produced artwork, tweeted while in prison through a third party and even written a selection of short stories entitled "Seher" ("Dawn" in Turkish).

His publisher Dipnot said Seher was sold out within three days after 20,000 copies were bought in September while 130,000 copies have been put on sale.

'Attracted non-Kurd votes'

But some observers question whether the party can remain a major political force without its most recognisable figure who managed to expand its popularity beyond the traditional Kurdish electorate.

"Demirtas was attracting especially non-Kurdish leftist and liberal voters," said Burak Bilgehan Ozpek, author of the upcoming book "The Peace Process between Turkey and the Kurds: Anatomy of a Failure".

"Without Demirtas, it is not surprising to expect the HDP to adopt an ethnic and radical agenda," he said, adding it was not an "influential" party anymore.

Ankara accuses the HDP of merely being a political front for the PKK, which has battled the Turkish state for over three decades in search of greater rights and powers for the Kurdish minority.

But even Demirtas never succeeded in fully distancing the HDP from the outlawed group, a predicament not helped by the fact his own brother fought for the PKK in Iraq.

But Aykan Erdemir, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said Demirtas' imprisonment had "not made a dent in the HDP leader's charisma, but seems to have strengthened it".

"Demirtas could end up as an even more powerful campaigner for the Kurdish cause from his prison cell," he argued.

'Deliver a solution'

But the party has been hit hard by arrests. Some 11,500 officials, members and HDP sympathisers have been detained since the end of the PKK ceasefire in July 2015 while 4,537 have been formally arrested.

A total of five MPs lost their lawmaker status while authorities have opened investigations into 55 out of 59 HDP MPs, the party says.

Opinion polls -- to be treated with caution in Turkey -- suggest it is currently well short of the 10 percent threshold needed to get into parliament.

But Kemalbay expressed determination that the HDP would pass the threshold to enter parliament again in general elections in November 2019.

"We may not be able to see this because of the media embargo but the people see the reality," she said.
The Greek authorities were alerted that the boat was in distress. As a patrol arrived the boat sank.

The survivors -- 14 adults and a child -- said there were up to 24 people onboard the vessel when it set out from Turkey. Search efforts were continuing Friday, in a bid to find any more survivors.

Hundreds of people, mostly Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans, have died since 2015 as they tried to cross from Turkey to Greece in often rickety boats.

The numbers dropped dramatically after March last year, when Turkey and the EU agreed a deal to stem the flow of people.

But the numbers have started to rise again since August, with some 5,000 migrants arriving on Greek islands in September, the UN says.

More than a dozen Syrian refugees are on hunger strike in Athens to highlight the plight of 2,000 people waiting for at least six months to be allowed to rejoin families, mainly in Germany.
The (Decatur) Herald and Review reports Thursday that the coroner identified the victims as 43-year-old Michael E. Roberts-Mathenia and 34-year-old Johnathan T. Ballance. Coroner Michael Day says the men died Tuesday of multiple gunshot wounds and were hit in the head, neck and torso. They were found in the mobile home's front room.
CHICAGO (AP)  The federal government and the state of Illinois have filed a lawsuit accusing a suburban Chicago youth counseling center of defrauding Medicaid of millions of dollars.

The lawsuit alleges Laynie Foundation Inc. and owners Summer Matheson and Terrence Ewing fraudulently billed Medicaid for more mental health counseling services than the organization provided.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court also alleges Matheson and Ewing directed the foundation to seek Medicaid payments for non-reimbursable activities such as internal case reviews, staff training and record keeping.

From January 2012 through February 2016, the Laynie Foundation submitted approximately $8.2 million in claims for purported mental health services. The foundation received approximately $6.3 million for these claims, the lawsuit contends.

Efforts Wednesday to reach Laynie Foundation officials for comment were unsuccessful. A message said the foundation's telephone number was temporarily out of order.
OTTUMWA, Iowa (AP)  A trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 21 for a dog handler accused of leaving four animals in a hot vehicle outside an Iowa dog show, killing three.

Police say two were found dead July 8 outside the American Kennel Club All Breeds Dog Show in Ottumwa. A third died at a veterinary clinic.

Court records say Craig Eugene told police his vehicle was running when he put the dogs inside but wasn't running when he returned. The National Weather Service says the Ottumwa temperature peaked at 89 degrees (32 Celsius) that day.

The records say Eugene, who lives in Marengo, Illinois, has pleaded not guilty to four counts of animal cruelty.

Ottumwa is 85 miles (135 kilometers) southeast of Des Moines.
NEW YORK (AP)  On his way to work each morning, Antonio Collac stops to light a candle at St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church, a stone-columned sanctuary two blocks from lower Manhattan's ground zero.

There, beneath a vaulted roof that was pierced by the landing gear from one of the jets that felled the World Trade Center, and before the altar where firefighters laid the broken body of Mychal Judge  the chaplain often counted as Sept. 11's first victim  the tragedy of that morning 16 autumns ago is anything but abstract. Collac, a designer who has worked in the neighborhood for many years, says he, too, is a vessel for memories of that day.

But on Wednesday morning, Collac came to offer a new prayer  this one for the eight people killed and 12 seriously injured when terror again targeted lower Manhattan the day before, again just a few blocks away. The attack served as a reminder, he said, for a neighborhood that has been transformed by construction and washed over by a tide of tourism in the years since 9/11. For all the area's success in pushing to remake itself, people here acknowledge that the memories of its past still help shape their state of mind.

"You know, this area is Target A. We know. Everybody knows," Collac said, pausing at the bottom of the church steps. "But there is nothing we can do, my friend. We have to continue and the only thing we can do is pray."

It is not clear whether Sayfullo Saipov, a 29-year-old immigrant from Uzbekistan who mowed down bikers and pedestrians Tuesday with a rented pickup truck, knew just how close he was to the site of the 2001 terror attack. When his truck struck a school bus and came to a halt, just five short blocks separated him the crowds that flock to the 9/11 Memorial. On Wednesday morning, the chop from the police helicopters deployed to keep watch over the new terror site overwhelmed the sound of the waterfalls that continuously fill the memorial's reflection pools.

But for many of the thousands who live, work and study in this neighborhood, the notion that it might again find itself in the crosshairs of a terrorist attack was hardly surprising.

Most days, caught up in their rush from the subways to the area's new condominiums and office towers, they said it is easy to forget what seem like existential worries. Then, they walk around the corner and gaze up at the new Freedom Tower and remember that for all the neighborhood's new wealth and cosmopolitan energy, for much of the rest of the world it remains defined by what came before. This week's attack, if anything, is just a fresh, albeit horrifying, confirmation.

Postal worker Lorraine Bell took a cigarette break at the base of the glassy new 7 World Trade Center tower, in a triangular pocket park dedicated to those who survived 9/11. In September 2001, Bell said, she was working at a union office about 2 miles away when a TV began showing images of the smoke billowing from the Trade Center. She rushed out to a supermarket and headed downtown, handing out bottles of water to those stumbling out of the complex, covered head to toe in white soot.

Now, with a new job in this neighborhood, she marvels at what it has become.

"They did almost a 360 degree turn," she said.

But that has not stopped Bell from worrying that some of the grime that gathers on the ground here is not from construction, but residue of ash from the 2001 attack, even around the newest buildings. Her discomfort with the neighborhood is not unique, she said.

"People go along every day like its normal," she said. "But do you know there are lots of people who don't want to work down here?"

Samantha Aponte, 19, is too young to remember 9/11, but she, too, knows that feeling. Long before this week's attack, she said, she had spent years in school watching documentaries about the 2001 attack and hearing about it from those who went through it. When she was admitted last year to the Borough of Manhattan Community College, a commuter school with more than 27,000 students that sits between the memorial site and the location of this week's attack, she told her mother she felt uncomfortable with the idea.

On Wednesday, when just seven of the 21 students enrolled in her math class showed up for the lecture, it occurred to her that she may not be alone in her doubts.

"I feel as though this is a targeted place," Aponte said.

Aponte is quick to note that, after more than a year of classes here, her relationship with the neighborhood has changed. When the weather is nice, she loves sitting by the river. The bike path where Saipov ran down tourists borders a park that fringes the Hudson for miles, filled with runners in the morning, office workers at lunch time and free yoga classes on summer evenings.

In streets once cordoned off by rescuers, students from Stuyvesant High School and the community college now fill benches and fast-food joints on weekday afternoons. On some blocks, sidewalks are thronged by young couples with babies in strollers, residents of the many buildings that have been converted into luxury apartments.

Since the 2001 attacks, "it's like God threw money to this area," said Louisa Lopez, who lives nearby and stopped in Wednesday at St. Peter's.

Within hours of this week's attack, kids in costumes were out trick or treating and by Wednesday morning, tourists were flocking again to the Memorial, threading streets choked with honking traffic. They meant the victims no disrespect, people said, but it is a sign of the necessary adjustments that this neighborhood  and the world that has watched it rebuild  have made since 9/11.

After hearing about the attack Tuesday night, David Dodds of Wayne, New Jersey, said his daughter suggested he put off a long-planned visit to the 9/11 Memorial Museum. On Wednesday, though, Dodds stood by the reflecting pools, thinking about the two people he knew who'd escaped the World Trade Center before it fell, and one who did not make it. It didn't matter that terrorism had again found this neighborhood. He needed to be here, he said.

"I have that same feeling here as when I go to the Vietnam War Memorial. It's that same kind of quiet, grateful feeling," Dodds said, sitting on a stone block at the edge of the memorial plaza.

"We have to move on, but we have to remember the past," he said. "Do we have a choice? Of course we're here. What are you guys going to do, hibernate? Then for sure, they've won."
President Donald Trump has proposed what he calls "the biggest tax cut since Ronald Reagan." He also wants vast simplification so that Americans can fill out their taxes on a postcard return. Let's hope that part of this reform package will be to defang the IRS, which treats Americans as if they are guilty until proven innocent and invades the basic privacy rights of citizens.

Meanwhile, Trump's critics on the left seem to think the tax code is just fine the way it is -- although some, like socialist hero Bernie Sanders, want tax rates to go much higher.

So as a primer for why Americans deserve genuine tax relief and reform, here are five reminders of how badly our tax system is broken:

1. $6 trillion and counting:

This year, businesses and families will pay an all-time record high $6 trillion in federal, state and local taxes. That's more than the GDP of all but a handful of countries. For millions of Americans, taxes are now the single largest expenditure item in the family budget.

All of this revenue flows into government coffers through an endless pipeline of extractions: income taxes, payroll taxes, import taxes, gasoline taxes, cigarette taxes, state income and sales taxes, property taxes, food taxes, beer taxes, soda pop taxes, sewer taxes, water taxes, investment taxes, hotel taxes, stock taxes, energy taxes, health care taxes, prescription drug taxes, airline ticket taxes and more. And after all of that, when you are laid in a casket, you pay a tax for the privilege of dying.

2. We punish businesses with highest tax rates in the world:

America is supposed to be the land of the free and a paragon of free markets and free enterprise. Yet today, the 40 percent tax rate in the U.S. is the highest in the world. Higher than socialist Sweden and higher than former communist countries like Russia and China. Our combined federal and state tax rates are almost twice the rate of the countries we compete with. It's almost as if the system were designed by the countries that we compete with so they could steal our jobs, factories and businesses.

These high tax rates put American companies at a 20-percentage point disadvantage in global markets. Trump is right when he says the rest of the world is laughing behind our backs.

3. An 82,000-page monstrosity:

The first income tax was just four pages long. Today the code is 10 times longer than Tolstoy's "War and Peace" and 1,000 times longer than the U.S. Constitution. This benefits no one but the tax accountants, lawyers and lobbyists who feed off the complexity of the tax code.

The tax code should be easily understandable to taxpayers. It is not. It reads as if it were written in Greek and in legalese that only a tax lawyer could understand. If Trump wants to drain the swamp, the cleanup must start with the tax code.

4. The IRS is America's KGB:

Is there any agency in America scarier or more abusive than the IRS? The government can garnish your wages and take money from your bank account without due process of law. It can invade your home or office.

We saw under President Barack Obama how the IRS engages in political witch-hunts against conservative activists and organizations it doesn't like. Today, because of the complexity of the tax system, the IRS employs 82,000 snoopers. It now costs our federal government $12 billion a year just to administer. It costs families and businesses at least this amount just to figure out how much taxes they owe.

5. Tax loopholes are rigged for the rich and politically powerful:

The tax code is crammed with tax write-offs that overwhelmingly benefit the super rich. Only one of three Americans even take advantage of these special interest tax provisions by itemizing their deductions and under the Trump plan (which doubles the standard deduction) that will fall to closer to less than one in 10 tax filers. But 99 percent of millionaires feast on deductions and loopholes.

Why can't we shut down this rigged system? Because of the politically connected and the K Street lobbies and lawyers who spend millions of dollars to keep their tax shelters in place.

By the way, George Soros just stashed $18 billion into the biggest tax shelter in American history. This is money that will never be taxed. Typical liberal: he wants everyone to pay more taxes -- except himself.
Celebrating Our Service Members

Friday, November 11 is Veterans Day, when we honor and show gratitude to all members of our Armed Forces  those currently serving, those who...

Transit Equity Starts With QueensLink

For decades Queens has seen a disinvestment in the necessary transit infrastructure the borough needs to promote equity and sustainability. Most of the time, transformative...
Energy is collected from solar panels mounted on top of the station to power lighting and other facilities on the stations platforms and in its offices, with any surplus electricity sold to Energy Company of Brasilia. The installation will also be a laboratory for vocational training courses for school children from low-income families.

The power plant was designed by metro technicians through various stages of basic research, applied research, project design and execution. Guariroba solar station represents an innovation for Brazil and Latin America, reducing socio-environmental externalities for the operation of the metro and contributing to the environmental and economic sustainability of the systems in the Federal District and Brazil, says the Metro-DFs CEO, Mr Marcelo Dourado.

Initial projections indicate that Metro-DF will get its $US 7.7m investment back within seven-and-a-half years, considering an installed capacity of 3MW and the electricity supply currently contracted by Metro-DF is around 15MW/month at an average cost of $US 1m/month.

Metro-DF is working on three other stations under its solar photovoltaic energy project.
Nearly 11 months into the Administration of Donald J. Trump, leadership appointments at the three federal regulatory agencies of significant importance to railroadsthe National Mediation Board, Federal Railroad Administration and Surface Transportation Boardhave yet to be finalized.

A changing of the guard at the three-member National Mediation Board (NMB) is almost complete, awaiting two new Republican members and a renominated Democratic member to take their oaths of office next week following Senate confirmation Nov. 2.

Republicans Gerald W. (Trey) Fauth III and Kyle Fortson will join eight-year NMB veteran and Democrat Linda Pucala just as rail labor negotiations on a new national package of wages, benefits and work rules are at a crucial stage. Puchala provides crucial continuity, as she has been guiding mediation efforts between the labor organizations and the railroads.

Fauth, nominated by President Trump in June, succeeds Democrat Harry Hoglander, who served on the NMB for 15 years, while Fortson, also nominated in June, takes the Republican seat of Nicholas Gael, who voluntarily departed the NMB during his first term earlier this year to become chief of staff to Labor Secretary R. Alexander Acosta.

Although NMB terms run for three years, delays in nomination and confirmation have Puchala confirmed to a seat whose term expires July 1, 2018; Fortson to a seat expiring July 1, 2019; and Fauth to a seat expiring July 1, 2020. NMB members may remain in office indefinitely beyond expiration of their terms pending Senate reconfirmation or Senate confirmation of a successor.

At the two other regulatory agencies of significant importance to railroadsthe Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and Surface Transportation Board (STB)nominations are moving exceptionally slowly.

Ronald L. Batory, nominated July 11 by President Trump to be Federal Railroad Administrator, and who received a unanimous endorsement from the Senate Commerce Committee Aug. 2, awaits Senate confirmation. A hold on his nomination was placed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) as leverage on Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to release up to $15 billion in matching federal grants and loans for the Gateway Project, including new rail tunnels under the Hudson River linking New Jersey with Manhattan, and renovation of the Farley Post Office building into a new Penn Station.

The non-binding federal cost sharing of the Gateway Project is a product of the Obama Administration, but was never enacted into law. The Trump Administration shows no inclination to advance the funds. Not coincidentally, Schumer voted against confirming Chao, who is the spouse of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). How long Batory will remain a political hostage is unknown, although Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) is said anxious to broker a solution. The Commerce Committee has primary oversight of the DOT and its agencies, including the FRA.

At the STB, two new seatsbringing the number of Senate-confirmed seats there to five, as authorized by the 2015 Surface Transportation Board Reauthorization Acthave yet to be filled. No reason has been given for the delay in naming nomineesfirst by President Obama and now by President Trump.

With the Sept. 30 resignation of Democrat Dan Elliott, the STB now has just two Senate-confirmed membersRepublican Acting Chairman Ann Begeman and Democrat Deb Miller. Millers first term expires Dec. 31, but the STB statute permits a one-year holdover absent confirmation of a successor or her renomination and reconfirmation to a second term. Miller told Railway Age Nov. 2 that she has not made a decision whether to seek renomination. Begeman is serving a second term that expires Dec. 31, 2020.

Railway Age has confirmed that the Trump White House currently is interviewing two finalists for vacant Republican seatsSenate Commerce Committee legislative aide Patrick Fuchs and career railroad consultant and lobbyist Keith Hartwell. Numerous names are in play for the Democratic seat vacated by Elliott, but there is no indication any has traction yet within the White House.

There is nothing preventing the STB from having three Republicansincluding Begemanand just Democrat Miller. Alternatively, Elliotts seat could be filled by one Republican, giving the STB a 2-1 Republican majority and leaving the two new seats vacant. It is likely, however, that Senate Democrats would move to block any Republican nominees to the STB absent also a nominee to the vacant Democratic seat.

As for the new NMB members, Fortson earned an undergraduate degree in history from the University of Colorado, and a J.D. from the George Washington University Law School. Previously, she was a legislative assistant to former Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.); counsel to former Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.); policy analyst and counsel to the Senate Republican Policy Committee; and, since 2004, labor counsel and labor policy director to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Fauth has been associated with railroad economics and consulting since 1978 at G.W. Fauth & Associates, founded in 1957 by his late father, and of which he is now president. For four years, he was chief of staff to former STB Republican member Wayne O. Burkes, where he was involved with labor arbitration and dispute resolution arising from rail mergers and the harmonizing of separate collective bargaining agreements. He earned an undergraduate degree in history and government from Hampden Sydney College.

Puchala was an NMB senior mediator for 10 years prior to her first term on the NMB beginning in 2009. She has skills in alternative dispute resolution and previously was president of the Association of Flight Attendants. She earned an undergraduate degree in business from Cleary University.

As an independent (from the Executive Branch) regulatory agency, the NMB administers the Railway Labor Act, which applies equally to interstate freight, passenger and commuter railroads, and interstate airlines. The NMB provides mediation in collective bargaining disputes, voluntary alternative dispute resolution programs, binding arbitration to resolve contract interpretation and employee discipline disputes, and establishes rules for conducting union representation elections.
Russian NGO files appeal in dispute with Google over links removal

MOSCOW, November 3 (RAPSI)  The SOVA Center for Information and Analysis has appealed a courts ruling dismissing its lawsuit against Google, seeking the recovery of links removed from search results under the law on information protection, documents of the Moscow District Commercial Court read on Friday.

On June 28, the Moscow Commercial Court dismissed the motion filed by the Center noting that the demands were not substantiated or backed up by documents. On September 12, the Ninth Commercial Court upheld the ruling of a lower court.

According to SOVA, in March 2016 Google officially informed the Center that the search engine had to delete links to information from its website connected with news dated by 2006, 2008 and 2010.

The applicant claims that Googles actions curtails the organizations right to freedom of information. The Center claims that articles removed from the search contained brief information about xenophobic crimes and crimes against human dignity. It also noted that information was distributed legally and that no one asked the center to remove it.

The abovementioned crimes are classified as ones against the fundamentals of the Constitutional system and state security and as such have high social value and cant be removed without taking interests of society into account, the Center argues. The applicant stated that the law on information protection obliges search engine operator to judge motions on removal of links on its own, basing the decisions on subjective factors while also being limited in ability to confirm validity of information.

The SOVA Center is engaged in information and research activities in the realm of problems related to nationalism and xenophobia; social and religious relations; political radicalism; development of liberal values; and human rights protection in Russia.
Moscow court refuses to seize property of VIM Airlines on request of Hong Kong firm

MOSCOW, November 3 (RAPSI)  The Moscow Commercial Court has dismissed a motion filed by Aviation Service (HK) Limited, a company registered in Hong Kong, seeking to seize property of VIM Airlines, the courts documents read on Friday.

This motion was lodged as part of a lawsuit on recovery of a 293-million-ruble (about $5.1 million) debt from the airline.

The applicant seeks to arrest the accounts of Vim Airlines in a bank, seize its mortgaged property as well as prohibit it from making deals with officially registered real estate. According to the applicant, the defendant may be bankrupt.

The court, however, believes that Aviation Service (HK) Limited did not provide sufficient evidence proving need for adoption of interim measures.

On October 17, a criminal case was launched over premeditated bankruptcy of VIM Airlines.

Investigators believe that certain top managers and owners of the air carrier intentionally made losing bargains in 2016 and 2017 including those aimed at siphoning of assets abroad. The deals led to enormous financial outlay and undoubtedly resulted in the companys failure to pay debts to creditors in full.

Earlier, probe was opened into VIM Airlines employees over alleged embezzlement.

According to investigators, employees of the VIM Airlines continued to sell tickets to clients despite being aware that the airline was not able to transfer passengers because there were not enough funds to buy fuel. Investigators believe that the employees embezzled more than one million rubles ($17,000).

In late September, the Investigative Committee official representative Svetlana Petrenko told RAPSI that investigative authorities took measures to recover damage caused by employees of the airline as part of the notorious embezzlement case.

VIM Airlines CEO and chief accountant, Alexander Kochnev and Yekaterina Panteleyeva, have been arrested as part of the case. Co-owners of VIM Airlines Rashid Mursekayev and Svetlana Mursekayeva fled Russia and are currently residing abroad, according to investigators.

On November 1, the High Court of Ireland issued temporary orders against three aviation firms linked to Mursekayev and appointed a receiver of their shares.
Russian cadet charged with abetting terrorism to stay in detention until January

ST. PETERSBURG, November 3 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov)  The St. Petersburg Garrison Military Court on Friday extended the detention of the A.F. Mozhaisky's Military-Space Academys cadet Vadim Osipov, who stands charged with abetting terrorism, until January 8, his lawyer Vitaly Cherkasov told RAPSI.

Investigators believe that the cadet was involved in inducing and recruiting his course mates for terrorist activities and/or provided financial aid to terrorists. A book banned as extremist has been uploaded to his smartphone, according to investigators. Moreover, a copy book paper containing the barracks scheme and capture plan have been seized from him.

Osipov claimed that he had discussed the St. Petersburg metro terror attack that occurred on April 3 and actions of security services. The cadet stated that he had drawn the barracks scheme in order to think the safety system through and discuss shortcomings for self-education.

The A.F. Mozhaisky Military Space Academy is a military educational institution providing training for specialists of the Aerospace Forces and other types of the Armed Forces in 40 different military specialties.




Russian Economy Ministry drafts bill on unscheduled checks of businesses

MOSCOW, November 3 (RAPSI)  Russias Ministry of Economic Development has drafted a bill limiting the number of unscheduled inspections of businesses.

The document has been published on the federal website of legal acts for public discussion.

Amendments are proposed to the law on rights protection of companies and businessmen during the state and municipal supervision.

The bill fixes the limited number of random checks approved by regulatory bodies, an explanatory note to the document reads. The limit of audits will be determined by chairs of control bodies annually in accordance with the requirements set by Russias government or in certain cases by the President.

Under the draft law, the limit of inspections may not exceed 30% of average number of scheduled checks conducted in a certain field over the previous three years. Timing of unscheduled inspections is to be reduced to 10 working days.

The legislation would take effect on January 1, 2019, if adopted.
Wrong end of the stick. shutterstock.com

Geoffrey M Hodgson, University of Hertfordshire

One hundred years ago, the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia and set up the first long-lasting Marxist government. The Russian Revolutions impact was wide-ranging. One important  and overlooked  effect was how it changed the idea of the term Left in political terminology. Following the Bolshevik takeover, the term Left became more strongly associated with collectivism and public ownership.

But originally the term Left meant something quite different. Indeed, collectivism or public ownership are not exclusive to the Left. The word fascism derives from the fasces symbol of Ancient Rome, a bundle of rods containing an axe, which signify collective strength.

Another effect of 1917 was to undermine further the democratic credentials of the Left. These had already been undermined by early socialists such as Robert Owen, who had been opposed to democracy. After Soviet Russia and Maos China, part of the Left was linked to totalitarian regimes with human rights abuses, execution without trial, little freedom of expression and arbitrary confiscation of property.

Origins of Left and Right

The political terms Left and Right originated in the French Revolution. In 1789, in the National Constituent Assembly, deputies most critical of the monarchy began to gather on the seats to the left of the presidents chair. Conservative supporters of the aristocracy and the monarchy congregated on the right side.

Those on the right wished to maintain the authority of the crown by means of a royal veto, to preserve some rights of the aristocracy, to have an unelected upper house, and to maintain major property and tax qualifications for voting.

Those on the left wished to limit the powers of the monarchy and to create a democratic republic. They demanded an end to aristocratic privileges and limitations to the powers of the church and the state.

Hence Left originally meant liberty, human rights, and equality under the law. It meant opposition to monarchy, aristocracy, theocracy, state monopolies, and other institutionalised privileges. The original Left opposed justifications of authority derived from religion or from noble birth. It supported democracy and private enterprise.

Ostensibly, the Left has always stood for equality. But what does this mean? Does it mean equality under the law? Such equality was explicitly denied by Karl Marx and his followers, who argued that after the revolution the bourgeois class should be denied legal rights. This was put into practice after the revolution in Russia in 1917.

The pursuit of equality is not confined to socialists. Liberals such as Thomas Paine and John Stuart Mill promoted the more equal distribution of income and wealth, as well as equality under the law. Liberals favour markets and private property, partly because they help protect individual autonomy. So can liberals be described as Left? Todays Left has become so widely associated with public ownership that it would not include radical liberals in its broad movement.

The term Right has also shifted in meaning, from nationalist and traditionalist apologies for the privileges of aristocracy, to greater advocacy of free markets and private ownership, which ironically had been the territory of the original Left of 1789.

Wrong turnings?

The Marxist government in Russia quickly evolved into a one-party state. A regime of purges and terror ensued. I argue in my book Wrong Turnings: How the Left Got Lost that a slide towards totalitarianism is inevitable within Marxism. This is because the Marxist concept of class struggle and its proposal for a proletarian government undermines the notion of universal human rights, developed in the Enlightenment and proclaimed in the French Revolution.

By the 1970s some on the Left went further, to oppose any export of Western ideas, and to reject any notion that poorer countries deserved to enjoy the same human rights that were promoted in Europe and North America. Proposals to extend these rights or values were seen as apologies for Western imperialism. And, in their enthusiasm for anti-imperialist struggles many on the Left supported terrorists and religious extremists, including the IRA, Hamas, Hezbollah and the regime in Iran. This is far from the views of the original Left.

Of course, people that consider themselves as Left-leaning are not obliged to follow the ideas of the original Left. But it is important to understand how strains of Left thinking have twisted and turned from their original source. And recognise that alternatives are possible  particularly when the language of politics today is so broken. George Orwell wrote in 1946:

One  ought to recognise that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.

The term Left has gone through major changes of meaning in the last two centuries. With this decay there has been a large degree of chaos. Meanwhile parties on the Left around the world are in crisis as a result of ideological fragmentation. If we are to have progressive change in society we need to first reconfigure the political map and no longer be restricted by what has come to define Left and Right.

Geoffrey M Hodgson, Research Professor, Hertfordshire Business School, University of Hertfordshire

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
From all sides, the message is coming in: the world as we know it is on the verge of something really bad. From the Right, we hear that West and Judeo-Christian Civilisation are in the pincers of foreign infidels and native, hooded extremists. Left-wing declinism buzzes about coups, surveillance regimes, and the inevitable  if elusive  collapse of capitalism. For Wolfgang Streeck, the prophetic German sociologist, its capitalism or democracy. Like many declinist postures, Streeck presents either purgatory or paradise. Like so many before him, Streeck insists that we have passed through the vestibule of the inferno. Before capitalism will go to hell, he claims in How Will Capitalism End? (2016), it will for the foreseeable future hang in limbo, dead or about to die from an overdose of itself but still very much around, as nobody will have the power to move its decaying body out of the way.

In fact, the idea of decline is one thing the extremes of Left and Right agree upon. Julian Assange, avatar of apocalyptic populism, gets kudos from neo-Nazis and social justice crusaders alike. He noted to one reporter how American power, source of the planets evils, was in decline like Romes. This could be the beginning, he whispered with a smile, repeating it like the mantra of an avenging angel.

Romes decline looms large as the precedent. So, world historians have played their part as doomsayers. At the same time as the English historian Edward Gibbons first volume of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776) was published, the American colonists said good-bye to their overlords; some read that as an omen. The First World War brought endism into the modern age. The most famous rendition was the German historian Oswald Spenglers The Decline of the West (1918). The carnage of Flanders and the influenza plague of 1918  which wiped out up to five per cent of the worlds population  made The Decline of the West more than timely. Spengler added a spin: he predicted that, by the end of the century, Western civilisation would need an all-powerful executive to rescue it, an idea that autocrats have seized upon with repeated glee ever since.

It is almost part of the modern condition to expect the party to be over sooner rather than later. What varies is how the end will come. Will it be a Biblical cataclysm, a great leveller? Or will it be more gradual, like Malthusian hunger or a moralist slump?

Our declinist age is noteworthy in one important way. Its not just the Westerns who are in trouble; thanks to globalisation, its the Resterners too. In fact, we are all, as a species, in this mess; our world supply chains and climate change have ensured that we are poised before a sixth mass extinction together. We should worry less about our lifestyle and more about life itself.

Declinisms share some traits. They have more purchase in times of turmoil and uncertainty. They are also prone to thinking that the circles of hell can be avoided only with a great catharsis or a great charismatic figure.

But most of all: they ignore signs of improvement that point to less drastic ways out of trouble. Declinists have a big blindspot because they are attracted to daring, total, all-encompassing alternatives to the humdrum greyness of modest solutions. Why go for partial and piecemeal when you can overturn the whole system?

Declinists claim to see the big picture. Their portraits are grandiose, subsuming, total. Consider one of the all-time bestsellers, the Club of Romes The Limits to Growth (1972). With more than 30 million copies sold in 30 languages, this Project on the Predicament of Mankind gave alarmed readers a portrait of demise, mapped out with gloomy confidence about feedback loops and interactions. In fact, it shared much in common with the good Reverend Thomas Malthus, including the obsession with diminishing returns. Fixated with the decline of arable land, Malthus could not see sources of increasing returns  at least not at first. Some of his friends eventually convinced him that machinery and colonialism solved the problem of too little food for too many mouths; later editions of his Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) went through contortions to figure this out. In the same way, systems analysts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology simulated the whole world, but could not admit little pictures of ingenuity, problem-solving and adaptation  some of which had the perverse effect of unlocking so many more sources of carbon that wed begin to bake the planet several generations later!

One dissenting voice in the 1970s was Albert O Hirschmans. He worried about the lure of doomsaying. Dire predictions, he warned, can blind big-picture observers to countervailing forces, positive stories and glimmers of solutions. There is a reason why: declinists confuse the growing pains of change with signs of the end of entire systems. Declinism misses the possibility that behind the downsizing old ways there might be new ones poking through.

Why the allure of declinism if history seldom conforms to the predictions? To Hirschman, it was traceable to a prophetic style, one that appealed to intellectuals drawn to fundamentalist explanations and who preferred to point to intractable causes of social problems. For revolutionaries, what awaits is a utopian alternative. For reactionaries, what lies in wait is dystopia. The result is an antagonistic mode of thinking, a belief that history swings from one big, integrated, all-encompassing system to another. Compared with modest advances, compromises and concessions  how boring!  the magnificent vision of a complete overhaul has so many charms.

The preference for the bold and the big has hazards. The inability to see unheralded achievements and hopeful signs in a frenzy to overhaul can often yield more destruction than construction. Hirschman had seen the toll of declinism before. Growing up in Weimar Germany, he watched his country fall prey to an ideological trap, and fork into extremes in the early 1930s, as Communists and Fascists agreed to tear down the republic in pursuit of their rival utopias  while disagreeing on everything else.

Decades later, Hirschman observed how Latin Americans despaired about the prospects for democratic reform. Their slide into what he called fracasomania  the propensity to see failures everywhere  blotted out real, incremental advances and achievements that fell short of high expectations. And the reason they fell short was because Latin Americas decline had gripped democratic reformism. The result was to put more faith in ever-more extreme views and the temptations of direct action. Students at the University of Buenos Aires joined the ranks of urban guerrillas. At the other end of the spectrum, Argentine reactionaries bemoaned the end of Western civilisation and turned to paramilitary death squads. When the coup detat finally came in March of 1976, the military junta baptised itself as the process of national re-organisation. As close friends slipped into hiding or fled, Hirschman felt pangs of deja vu. He began to have nightmares about the ideological traps of his youth. When German publishers asked him to write a special preface to the German translation of his classic Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970), memories of Berlin 1933 came storming back.

The problem with declinism is that it confirms the virtues of our highest, impossible solutions to fundamental problems. It also confirms the disappointments we harbour in the changes we have actually made. This is not to say there arent deep-seated problems. But seeing them as evidence of ineluctable demise can impoverish our imaginations by luring us to the sirens of either total change or fatalism.

Jeremy Adelman

This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative Commons.
The first span of the once-controversial Padma Bridge linking the north and south of Bangladesh is now in place. The bridges now-very visible rush to completion shows the promise in the countrys economic future.

The Padma Bridge will connect the relatively poor agricultural districts of Shariatpur and Madaripur to the more affluent, urbanized regions of Munshigani next to Dhaka, the capital. At nearly four miles, the bridge will be the longest in the Padma-Brahmaputra-Meghna river basin. It will ease pressure on the countrys leading seaport in Chittagong, 150 miles southeast of Dhaka, by directly linking the capital and the Mongla Port, the countrys second busiest seaport, which is 182 miles to Dhakas southwest.



The bridge will cost as much as $3.5 billion and will be paid for entirely by the government of Bangladesh. It is the first and highest-profile of several infrastructure projects that the government plans to fund and complete over the next several years.



The Padma Bridge, which will be finished next November, will be the countrys inaugural fixed-river bridge and will accommodate both road and rail traffic. The steel truss will have two levels; a four-lane highway will be on the upper level and a single-track railway will be on the lower level. The bridge will also carry high-pressure gas transmission lines and fiberoptic communication cables. It is the very embodiment of Bangladeshs determination to construct all manner of modern connectivity.



By connecting the southwest region of Bangladesh with the northern and eastern regions, the Padma Bridge will do much to tie together the sprawling nation of 163 million people. It will reduce the drive from economically prosperous Dhaka to the still-developing southwest by more than 60 miles. This will dramatically cut the cost and time associated with the transportation of goods and people between the regions.



Farmers will be able to get their products to market in Dhaka in less than two hours, a trip that currently takes a full day from many major farms. Roughly 30 million people will be directly affected by the Padma Bridge and many of those will be lifted out of poverty because of the opportunities it will create.



The bridge will also increase trade in South Asia among Bangladeshs neighbors Bhutan, India and Nepal. To accelerate this progress, the government plans to construct a high-tech park in Shariatpur and an airport in neighboring Bagerhat near Dhaka. These developments will increase not only person-to-person contacts, but will also promote high-tech investment, which already has been surging in Bangladesh. Economists have estimated that the bridge, when operating, will add 1.6 percentage points to the annual Gross Domestic Product of Bangladesh.



Not long ago there were serious doubts about whether the bridge would ever be built. International lenders including the World Bank, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the Asian Development Bank and the Islamic Development Bank expressed enthusiasm about the project. But that faded, forcing Bangladesh to finance the project itself.



The World Bank claimed to have uncovered a massive web of corruption connected to the project and decided to withdraw its funding. Other international lenders quickly followed. But their actions were too hasty. A Canadian court recently found no evidence of corruption in the project and dismissed all claims. The court stated that evidence of corruption was based on nothing more than gossip and rumour.



In the end, the citizens of Bangladesh will get the bridge they need and deserve. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the Bangladeshi government have long recognized the economic and cultural importance of the Padma Bridge and were never going to abandon the project, certainly not for lack of foreign funding. As the prime minister said: We have set a brilliant example to the world by constructing this massive bridge on such a large river with a strong current.  We, the Bengali nation, fought and liberated the country. We can do whatever we want if we have the true will and determination.



The Padma Bridge is a symbol of a promising future for a country that was founded with so little just 46 years ago.


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John Aranha got an order from Central Mumbai District Consumer Forum that made Croma pay him Rs 26,300 for a fridge he had bought but was never delivered to him, says consumer activist Jehangir B Gai.

John Aranha had booked a Samsung Refrigerator through Croma. He paid full price of the fridge on November 8, 2012, by availing a loan from Bajaj Finance.

Despite having received the entire payment, Croma failed to deliver the fridge.

Meanwhile, Aranha kept paying the equated monthly instalments and cleared the entire loan given by Bajaj Finance so that he does not become a defaulter.

When the fridge did not arrive at all, Aranha finally had a notice issued to Croma on July 2, 2015.

As there was no response, he filed a complaint before the Central Mumbai District Consumer Forum on March 11, 2016, jointly against Croma as well as Bajaj Finance. He sought delivery of the fridge, and claimed interest for the delay, compensation for mental agony and litigation costs.

Instead of expressing any remorse for its conduct, Croma contested the complaint. It contended that Aranha's case was time barred.

It contended that the model booked by Aranha was no longer available, so the booking had been cancelled on December 28, 2012, and Bajaj Finance had been requested to refund the money.

Croma claimed that there was no deficiency on its part and the complaint should be dismissed.

Bajaj Finance also contested the complaint.

It claimed that it had advanced a loan merely as a financer, which had been cleared by Aranha.

Bajaj argued that it had nothing to do with Croma's failure to either deliver the fridge or refund its price.

The Forum observed that the complaint had been filed more than two years after the fridge was booked. But this would not affect the limitation since the cause of action was continuing, as Croma had neither given delivery of the refrigerator nor refunded the amount paid for it.

The Forum observed that Croma would not be entitled to take disadvantage of its own wrong. So the complaint was held to be within limitation.

On merits, the Forum observed that delivery of the fridge was Croma's responsibility and not that of Bajaj Finance, which had needlessly been dragged into the litigation.

So far as Croma was concerned, the Forum observed that even though the full price had been paid, Croma had not delivered the fridge, but had unilaterally cancelled the booking without intimating Aranha about the cancellation.

Thus, Croma had illegally retained and used Aranha's money right from the time of booking.

Accordingly, by its order of September 4, 2017, delivered by the president of the Forum, B S Wasekar for the Bench along with member S R Sanap, the Central Mumbai Forum ordered Croma to refund the amount of Rs 26,300 paid for the fridge, together with 18 per cent interest from November 8, 2012 when it had been booked, till the time the amount was refunded.

Additionally, compensation of Rs 10,000 and costs of Rs 10,000 were also awarded.

The conclusion is that when neither delivery is given nor the money refunded, the cause of action keeps continuing, so limitation will not apply.

Photograph: PTI Photo.

Note: The lead image is used only for representational purpose.
The case relates roughly to assessment years 2000-01 to 2002-03 and 2004-05 to 2007-08

The Supreme Court in a recent judgment has ruled that the outsourcing of work to India by multinational companies (MNCs) per se would not give rise to any permanent establishment (PE) in the country and, hence, the global income of these MNCs attributable to this back-office work cannot be taxed in India.

The judgment will have repercussions for taxing outsourcing businesses as well as subsidiaries of MNCs.

The apex court upheld the ruling of the Delhi High Court and rejected the contention of the revenue department in this regard.

The case relates to taxation matters relating to two US-based companies e-Fund Corporation (e-Fund Corp) and e-Fund IT Solutions Group Inc (e-Fund Inc).

These companies have paid taxes on their global income in the US. e-Fund Corp is a holding company with almost a 100 per cent stake in IDLX Corporation, another company based in the US.

IDLX Corporation holds almost a 100 per cent stake in IDLX International BV, based in the Netherlands.

IDLX International BV, in turn, has a 100 per cent stake in IDLX Holding BV, which holds a 100 per cent stake in e-Funds International India Private Ltd.

IDLX International BV is also a holding company having almost a 100 per cent stake in e-Fund Inc.

The contention of the revenue department was that the income of e-Fund Corp and e-Fund Inc was attributable to India because the two assesses had a PE in India.

This means that their income should be taxed in India, irrespective of whether they had paid taxes in the US.

The case relates roughly to assessment years 2000-01 to 2002-03 and 2004-05 to 2007-08.

Separately, the income earned by e-Fund India was taxed in India. As such, the revenue department said that the balance or differential amount - income attributable to e-Fund Corp and e-Fund Inc not included in the income earned and taxed in the hands of e-Fund India - should be taxed in India.

The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), Delhi, had upheld the position of the revenue department. But, the Delhi high court had rejected both the revenue departments plea and the ITAT order.

The Supreme Court held that no part of the main business and revenue-earning activity of the two American companies was carried on through a fixed business place in India.

It also said the Indian company only rendered support services, which enabled the assesses, in turn, to offer services to their clients abroad.

The court said: This outsourcing of work to India would not give rise to a fixed place PE and the high court judgment is, therefore, correct on this score.

The high court had given the opinion that a holding company or a subsidiary company by itself cannot constitute a PE.

Abhishek Goenka of PwC India said: The decision reiterates the internationally accepted principles that a subsidiary company carrying on its own business does not by itself create a PE for its foreign holding company.

The rulings

The judgment is a landmark in a series of permanent establishment (PE) cases

The Supreme Court had earlier this year ruled that Formula One World Championship Ltd had a PE in the Buddh International Circuit, the venue of the Indian Grand Prix, and as such all India sourced business income of the company was taxable in India

In 2007, the SC had ruled in the case of revenue department versus Morgan Stanley that the outsourcing of services, such as back-office operations to a captive service provider would not per se create a PE of the parent in India

Photograph: Vivek Prakash/Reuters
'The war against ISIS is what earned the Kurds global recognition of being some of the best fighters that overshadowed regular armies,' points out Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).

IMAGE: Kurdish Peshmerga fighters seen near Altun Kupri between Kirkuk and Erbil, Iraq, October 20, 2017. Photograph: Azad Lashkari/Reuters

Kurds number a sizeable 30 million, mostly based in the neighbouring countries of Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria. They are also the largest ethnic lot of homeless wanderers yet to find a homeland for themselves.

The Kurds themselves have many divisions amongst them. However, by and large, they display overwhelming convergence on one issue: A Kurdistan for the Kurds.

Hopes of a greater Kurdistan were at its zenith after the break-up of the Ottoman empire.

The Treaty of Sevres was responsive to Kurdish aspirations and called for the creation of an independent Kurdish State encompassing the Kurdish majority areas of modern day Turkey.

Such a solution to meet Kurdish demands had the support of the then American president. However, Kemal Ataturk's nationalistic fervour led to the Treaty of Lausanne, burying Kurdish hopes for a hundred years that followed.

In the interim, the Kurds have repeatedly trudged with their meagre belongings on their backs, away from gunfire and repression, to re-enact repeatedly a story of mass migration.

It started with escaping from Mahabad in Iran where Mustafa Barzani had announced the establishment of the first Kurdish State.

In Turkey, assimilationist pressures on these fiercely independent people led to restraints on the Kurdish language and culture. The Kurdish identity faced a Turkish assault with Kurds being called mountain Turks.

Kurds barely found any international support till the first Gulf war ended. Then US president George H W Bush, under severe pressure after having halted the advance of US-led forces in the first Gulf war of 1991, decided to demarcate 'no fly zones', giving the Kurds some respite from Saddam Hussein. It was also the first-ever Kurdish area, recognised to be so.

The Iraqi Kurds had first attained some autonomy in 1970 after a protracted contest with the Iraqis. They created a democratic establishment when they elected a parliament in 1992 after the first Gulf war.

Iraq's 2005 constitution gave the Kurds the status of a federal State.

The Iraqis are also supposed to give 17 percent of their budget to the Kurds; a sharing arrangement that the Iraqis didn't quite honour, forcing the Kurds to locate a new revenue stream by selling oil.

The war against ISIS is what earned the Kurds global recognition. The Kurdish peshmerga were hailed as tough fighters, soldiers whose courage and grit overshadowed regular armies.

At Mosul, Iraqi soldiers retreated when attacked by ISIS terrorists. Their withdrawal was a shock. The billions of dollars that the Americans had spent to train and arm Iraqi troops seemed to have gone up in smoke.

The Peshmerga dislodged ISIS to hold Kirkuk and later partnered the Iraqis in the battle for Mosul.

In Syria too, with American partnership, the Kurds liberated large areas from ISIS.

Masoud Barzani, Mustafa Barzani's son and the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, could perhaps not have contemplated a more advantageous position to give Kurdish aspirations and his own chances of retaining power a push than the conditions available today.

With ISIS defeated -- at least in territorial battles -- and the Kurds recognised as having been a crucial factor for that military success, Barzani's calling a referendum on Kurdish independence from Iraq wasn't a surprise.

An astute politician, Barzani knew the current affection for the Kurds would diminish quickly now that ISIS had crumpled. It was just a matter of time!

For Barzani, it was an opportunity to gain an edge in domestic Kurdish politics.

The two main parties in Iraqi Kurdish areas are the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdish Democratic Party. The KDP is headed by Barzani whose father Mustafa had led the party earlier.

Masoud Barzani has been president since 2005. Re-elected in 2009, the Iraqi Kurdish parliament extended his tenure by two years in 2013. In 2015, no election was held neither did parliament approve his continuance in office.

Like the KDP, the PUK is also a divided house. Factions within each of these parties affect the cohesion of the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighting force.

The negative international response that greeted the Kurdish referendum could not have been a surprise for Barzani. The fact that he included the amalgamation of disputed territories like Kirkuk in the referendum only made it more difficult for other nations to contemplate supporting him.

Iraqi hostility to the referendum was swift; the Iraqis halted all flights to Kurdish areas. The Turks soon joined the Iraqis.

The Americans spoke about legitimate Kurdish demands but unequivocally opposed the referendum. The Americans are categorical that they would not like to see the break up of Iraq.

The fact that Iran may make further incursions into Iraq would have weighed heavily on the American position.

The American stand on the Kurdish issue has vacillated over the years. In 2006, then US senator Joe Biden proposed dividing Iraq into Statelets. In 2014, the Kurds abandoned a referendum under American pressure.

Today, with Iran gaining ground in Iraq, the Americans believe supporting the Kurds would drive Baghdad firmly into Tehran's embrace.

Iran -- which has a restive and sizeable Kurdish population -- knows only too well that an independent Kurdish State near its borders will fan the Iranian Kurds' desire for a homeland.

After the Iraqi Kurdish referendum won a huge 'Yes' for independence, Baghdad moved its security forces to take over Kirkuk including the oil fields and airport.

Baghdad had already reached an understanding with a faction of the PUK. Divisions between the KDP and PUK helped the rulers in Baghdad. Barzani's cousin opposed him in the KDP, and that turned the tables decisively.

For the US, Iraq, Turkey and Iran, a destabilised Iraq is not in their interest. The situation that prevailed in Iraqi Kurdistan before the referendum is the desirable end state for them.

The Iraqi Kurdish government already controls education and taxation, it has its own military and diplomatic offices.

The big four want to ensure that Baghdad dominates the region with the Kurds being given ample freedom simultaneously to manage their affairs.

Kirkuk's oil wealth will remain a bone of contention between Baghdad and the Iraqi Kurdish government in Erbil. Both sides have to respect the decisions taken so far about sharing the budget outlay.

Baghdad is committed to providing 17 percent of the federal budget to the Kurds, something that needs to be adhered to.

The Kurds, similarly, cannot export oil on their own without involving the Iraqis. Major multinationals have contracts with the Iraqi Kurdish government for oil, complicating the situation. These issues will need to be dealt with by Baghdad with equanimity and professionally.

Barzani's move to call a referendum has in effect been detrimental to secure a Kurdish homeland.

The idea of a greater Kurdistan, inclusive of the Kurdish areas of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, has not been served by the referendum.

Barzani possibly did not realise that West Asia is tired of strife and is looking for normalcy to rebuild -- and not another contest that is bound to be bloody.

As of now, the international borders of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria will remain sacrosanct with the Kurds opting for dialogue and pursuing greater allocation of Iraqi budgetary resources.
Seeking to court dynamic young leaders representing different caste interests ahead of the Gujarat polls, Rahul Gandhi on Friday met Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani, who stopped short of pledging support to the Congress but declared he would ask his followers not to vote for Bharatiya Janata Party.

The 36-year-old Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch leader, who shot to prominence after the Dalit flogging incident in Gujarats Una some time back, met Gandhi and claimed the Congress vice president assured him that more than 90 per cent of his demands will be incorporated in the partys poll manifesto.

Gandhi and Mevani had half-an-hour closed-door meeting at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Navsari.

Since Una (incident), we launched numerous agitations and submitted memorandums. Despite this, the thick-skinned BJP government, which is not only anti-Dalit but also anti-people, has not considered even one demand of our community. They have not even bothered to even to talk to us, Mevani told reporters after the meeting.

On the other hand, the Congress was receptive to the demands of the Dalit community, Mevani added.

Several Dalit youths were flogged in Una on suspicion of cow slaughter when they were skinning a dead animal.

We had a detailed discussion with Rahulji on our 17 demands. Rahulji not only listened to us, but said over 90 per cent of them were our constitutional rights. He assured us that most of the legitimate demands would be included in the Congress manifesto, he said.

Asked if he would advise Dalits to vote for the Congress in the upcoming polls, Mevani said, I will ask my community not to vote for the BJP.

The demands include five acres of farmland to each Dalit family, alternative employment for those involved in cattle-skinning and manual scavenging, and the release of a probe report on the incident of firing on the community members at Thangadh in Surendranagar district in 2012.

We listen to everyone and work after hearing their problems -- be it Jignesh, Hardik (Patidar quota stir leader Hardik Patel) or Alpesh (OBC leader Alpesh Thakor), Gandhi said after the meeting.

On the other hand, the BJP is only interested in making the people listen to its Mann Ki Baat, the Congress vice president said, taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modis monthly radio programme.

The Congress, out of power in the key western state for over 22 years now, has been trying to woo three young leaders who have emerged on Gujarats political firmament in recent times through various agitations.

Alpesh Thakor, an Other Backward Classes leader, has already joined the party.

Hardik Patel, the Patidar quota stir leader, the most prominent among the three, has so far not declared support to the Congress, but has been critical of the BJP.

The 24-year-old recently met the Congresss in charge for Gujarat Ashok Gehlot and put forth a set of demands, including reservation for the influential Patel community in government jobs and educational institutions in the Other Backward Classes category.

The Congress, however, has promised it would provide quotas to the community under the Economically Backward Classes category.

The first round of talks between Gujarat Congress leaders took place on October 30 but the quota issue remained unresolved. However, it accepted the four other demands put forward by Patel, who did not attend the talks.

Congress agreed to the demand for formation of a special investigation team, if voted to power, to investigate alleged atrocities against the members of the community during the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti rally in Ahmedabad on August 25-26, 2015, senior Congress leader Siddharth Patel said after. He said legal action will be taken against those held guilty.

It also promised withdrawal of all police cases against Hardiks PAAS members, including on the serious charge of sedition. If voted to power, the Congress government will make an ex-gratia payment of Rs 35 lakh to the kin of those killed during the quota agitation and a government job to one member of their families, Patel said.

The Congress will form a commission for general category communities and provide it with a corpus of Rs 2,000 crore for education, skill development and self-employment, he said.

The reservation issue, however, can prove a major hurdle in Hardik Patel extending support to the Congress as Alpesh Thakor, who heads the Kshatriya Thakor Sena, has been opposed to reservation to the Patels within the quota meant for the backward classes.

In fact, Thakor had launched an agitation to counter the one led by Hardik Patel for reservation for his community.
The Senate on Friday confirmed by a voice vote the nomination of Kenneth Juster as the next United States ambassador to India.

Juster, 62, is an old India hand who played a key role in the landmark Indo-US civil nuclear deal.

He would replace Richard Verma as the top American diplomat to India. The position has been lying vacant since January 20 after Verma resigned from the post with the swearing in of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States.

The latest development follows Juster's nomination confirmation which was on last Friday agreed by the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee by a voice vote, reflecting the bipartisan support his nomination has in the Congress.

Juster is soon expected to be headed to India for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Hyderabad later this month. The annual summit is being co-hosted by India and the US.

Trump's senior adviser and daughter Ivanka Trump will be leading a high-powered American delegation of entrepreneurs to the GES, which will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Powerful Democratic Senator Mark Warner welcomed the Senate confirmation of Juster.

"I was proud to support Ken's nomination to be our country's representative in India, one of our most important defence partners in the region," he said.

"I have known Ken since we were in law school in the 1970s. As Ambassador, I trust his decades of work on critical issues like trade, cybersecurity and defence will help advance the US-India relationship in a positive direction," Warner said.

Juster was nominated to be the Ambassador to India on September 5. He has over 35 years of experience as a senior business executive, senior law partner, and senior government official, including serving as the US Under Secretary of Commerce from 2001 to 2005.

Juster founded and served as the US Chair of the US-India High Technology Cooperation Group, and was one of the key architects of the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership initiative between the United States and India.

His work related to India played an important role in the transformation of the US-India relationship and helped provide the foundation for the historic civil nuclear agreement between the two countries.

Most recently, Juster had served as the Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council.

Juster played a key role in enhancing the Indo-US ties under the Bush administration.

Juster has also served as the Counsellor (acting) of the State Department from 1992-1993, and deputy and senior adviser to the Deputy Secretary of State from 1989-1992.

In the private sector, he has been a partner at the investment firm Warburg Pincus LLC, executive vice president at Salesforce.com, and senior partner at the law firm Arnold & Porter.

He has also served as Chairman of Harvard University's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and as vice chairman of The Asia Foundation.

Juster holds a law degree from the Harvard Law School, a masters degree in Public Policy from the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and a bachelors degree in Government from Harvard College.

IMAGE: Kenneth Juster being introduced to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as a nominee to be the US Ambassador to India by Virginia Senator Mark Warner on Friday. Photograph: Kind courtesy @MarkWarner/Twitter
Donald Trump will be the first United States president in 25 years to make a state visit to South Korea.

While Trump is unlikely to visit the Korean demilitarised zone, he would deliver a major policy speech of the trip before the Korean National Assembly on November 8.

This is the only policy speech scheduled so far during Trumps nearly two-week five-nation Asia trip with stops in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and Philippines.

It will be the first state visit in 25 years by a US president, a South Korean embassy official told a group of foreign journalists.

Since a Korean president can host only one state visit per country during his term, this visit is particularly meaningful, the official noted.

Trumps visit is expected to be an opportunity for the two leaders to reaffirm their personal friendship and trust, as well as the two countries ironclad alliance, the official said.

Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in are expected to discuss strengthening the alliance, developing close coordination to resolve the North Korea nuclear issue, establishing peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia, and increasing cooperation on bilateral and global issues.

Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are scheduled to arrive in Seoul on November 7.

Image: US President Donald Trump waves as he boards Marine One while departing from the White House. Trump is embarking on a five country, eleven day tour throughout Asia. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Donald Trump may be the worlds most powerful man but a disgruntled Twitter customer support employee on the final day at the social media giant managed to delete the Twitter-happy US presidents account for 11 minutes.

On Thursday evening, visitors to Trumps Twitter page for a short time could only see a message that read Sorry, that page doesnt exist!

Trumps account has over 41 million followers. He had joined Twitter in March 2009 and he has tweeted more than 36,000 times.

Twitter initially said the account had been inadvertently deactivated due to human error, but later indicated it was done intentionally by a departing worker.

Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employees last day, it said.

Twitter did not name the staffer who deactivated Trumps account, but it did describe the person as a customer support employee.

We are conducting a full internal review, it said on the official Twitter government account.

Trump brushed off the outage in a new tweet on Friday, suggesting it showed the impact he was having.

My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee, Trump wrote. I guess the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact.

After his account was restored, Trumps first tweet was about the Republican Partys tax cuts plan.

Trump has been actively using the social media platform to promote his policies and also attack his political opponents both during the presidential campaign in 2016 and since assuming office in January.

In one interview he said that when someone said something about him, he was able to go bing, bing, bing on Twitter - and take care of it.

Trump has even used Twitter to announce major policy changes, and even surprised Pentagon officials in July by tweeting that transgender people would be barred from serving in any capacity in the US military.

In one of his other most controversial tweets, Trump had taunted Federal Bureau of Investigation chief James Comey days before sacking him in May.

Meanwhile, the fact that one worker was able to take down the presidents account left people asking whether Twitter has appropriate internal controls.

This is a case of human negligence and lack of process in place, Subramanian Udaiyappan, a Bangalore-based cybersecurity specialist at Cisco told CNN.

Twitter needs to ensure that only the right people have access to such actions and these have to go through process permissions, approvals and logging before any action is taken by an employee, Udaiyappan said.

Meanwhile, Twitter was also flooded with people wanting to congratulate the employee responsible.

Kudos to the @twitter customer support employee who deactivated Trumps twitter account on his last work day. You sir are my hero, one person tweeted.

Whoever disabled Donald Trumps Twitter account shouldnt be sacked. They should be promoted, another one tweeted.

Image: US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive to board Air Force One for travel to Hawaii, on his way to an extended trip to five countries in Asia, from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
He is likely to speak on economic issues, particularly the impact of GST and demonetisation, reports Archis Mohan.

As part of the Lokshahi Bachao Abhiyan, or the campaign to save democracy, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha will address public meetings in Gujarat in mid-November.

The campaign is led by former Gujarat chief minister Suresh Mehta. Gujarat is scheduled to vote on December 9 and 14.

Mehta has invited the BJP veteran to speak on November 14, 15 and 16. The meetings will be held in Ahmedabad, Rajkot, and Surat.

Speaking to this correspondent, Mehta said Sinha had confirmed his attendance. Sinha could not be contacted as he was travelling abroad.

He is likely to speak on economic issues, particularly the impact of goods and services tax and demonetisation.

Reports from Gujarat said the campaign is supported by the Congress, but Mehta said it was a conglomeration of civil society groups, trade unions, environmental activists, Gandhians, and eminent citizens.

"My campaign is not affiliated to any political party. It is an initiative by the citizens to bring to the fore the reality of the so-called Gujarat development model," he said.

Mehta, who quit the BJP in 2007 after differences with then Chief Minister Narendra Modi, said the campaign will not ask the electorate to vote in favour of any particular party but to throw out the BJP government.

Mehta was Gujarat CM for nearly a year in 1995-96 and also the finance minister in the Keshubhai Patel-led government of that time.

Of late, Sinha has been critical of the Narendra Modi government's handling of the economy and the shrinking space for dissent within his party.

He said he was 'past caring' if the BJP was to take any disciplinary action against him.
No conversation about Indian art is complete without mention of Madhvi Parekh, notes Ritika Kochhar.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

The first thing you notice about Madhvi Parekh is her confidence in herself.

While most artists choose to speak in the gallery, she and Manu Parekh invite you into their home at Chittaranjan Park in Delhi.

She sends a message to her husband to be around so that he can take over the interview if she doesn't want to do it for some reason.

She's clear about her likes and dislikes. It's eventually Manu Parekh who keeps you entertained while she sketches an intricate image of Jesus.

They've always worked as a team even if they didn't live together for five years after they got married.

"I would visit her in her village (Sanjaya in Gujarat's Anand district) and I found she was nothing like the other girls," Manu Parekh says.

"She was a tomboy and there was nothing romantic about her. She would go to school while I was there, and there was no question of coming out to wave goodbye to me when I left."

Here was a woman who would not compromise on her freedom.

He tried to ensure that she studied further but it wasn't possible because they lived in a joint family, so they moved to Mumbai.

When she expressed an interest in learning art, he was ready with a book by Paul Klee.

"I gave it to her because they are so simple. You make a square and then create dot after dot till you get to the next square. In two, three days, she stopped listening to me," he recalls.

The square became a face, the triangle was the body; then she added a tail and moochh (whiskers) and it was an animal.

"The day after Manisha's (their elder daughter) birth, she showed me her works" and he knew he was looking at an artist.

They have been together 50 years now. "In India, there are many artist couples. The difference is that most of them have had love marriages," he laughs.

Despite being self-effacing and modest, Madhvi Parekh, 75, has always been aware of herself and her space in the world of art.

In the 1980s, she did a series of five group shows with Nalini Malani, Nilima Sheikh and Arpita Singh.

The series, called Through the Looking Glass, is still seen as one of contemporary India's most important exhibitions.

For the four artists, it was a chance to travel across India by train. "The art world was smaller then and we all admired each others works," Sheikh, a friend and contemporary, reminiscences.

"Madhvi had a clear pictorial intelligence. Her work wasn't fixed in a timeframe," she says. "The sources she derived from were unconventional. She understood that she was untaught, but she was working with a kind of inventiveness that comes from canvas painting."

"Now she's developed a language that she may not have had at that time, but the intelligence was always there."

Her daughter Manisha was in college in Baroda (now Vadodara) and came to Mumbai to help set up the show.

"It had a great impact on me," says the second generation artist. "With these small format water colours, I started understanding what 'feminine' is as opposed to the notion of the aggressive feminist. This became a very important area in my work."

Madhvi Parekh may not have studied at a major art institution, but a quote by Picasso seems apt. 'It took me four years to paint like Raphael (the Renaissance master), but a lifetime to paint like a child.'

Critics have noted similarities in her works to him as well as Klee, Matisse, Jamini Roy and Rabindranath Tagore. She herself acknowledges the influences of Klee, Joan Miro and speaks of da Vinci as an inspiration.

Her works are deceptively simple. At first glance, they make you happy, because they seem to come from a place of innocence that invokes child or folk art.

The colours are bright, the drawings look folksy, and are filled with dots and lines.

The themes range from scenes Madhvi Parekh saw as a child in Sanjaya, like the behrupiyas (impersonators) and circus performers to gods and goddesses. On a closer look, you notice that her palette spreads from black to blue, green and pink -- colours as fantastical as her animals with human faces.

Another self-taught master, Bhupen Khakhar, once said of her, 'When I encounter her work, my responses keep changing. In her water colours, the use of transparent layers of lighter colours to create darker effects brings out pain in them...'

'Her early oil paintings remind one of children and adults as they move fearlessly in the jungle. They are not scared of the animals because the animals too move around like human beings.'

Manu Parekh says that the similarity between Khakhar and Madhvi Parekh was that they were always ambitious, tenacious and clear from the inside.

"I'd want to cry when I made a mistake. Bhupen taught me to paint a layer of white on top and do it again. The colours would be brighter against a white background," Madhvi Parekh recalls.

The next most interesting phase of her career was when she visited museums in Europe in 1994. She decided to make sculptures with found objects after seeing Joan Miro's naive art sculptures.

She also saw da Vinci's The Last Supper and, not understanding the theological references till later, decided to create a version on five large acrylic sheets with reverse painting.

In 2010, saddened by the intense suffering depicted in the Holocaust Museum in Israel, she found herself outside a church where she felt drawn to the powerful image of Jesus.

Since then she's been working on images of Christ and like African masks. She's even done a series of exhibitions with The Seagull Foundation for the Arts in churches in Kolkata and Goa.

She's currently working on a painting of The Last Supper that shows disciples wearing masks from all over the world, but she's clear that this theological phase is now ending.

It says a lot about Madhvi Parekh that everyone tells me that they would be happy to speak about her further.

After all these years, there is still a rawness about her, an energy and newness. She paints from the gut and with a greater sense of adventure.

She's not afraid of making mistakes because she doesn't know they are mistakes. Her instinct is to work with animals and nature, and to humanise her entire lived experience.

As she straddles the space between rural and urban, the self-taught artist has reached a place where critics have come to believe that any conversation around Indian art history is incomplete without the mention of Madhvi Parekh.

The Curious Seeker, a retrospective of Madhvi Parekh's works over five decades, is on at the DAG Modern, New Delhi, till November 30.
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Zimbabwe

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Zimbabwe, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67a926.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 74/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 24/30

Political Environment: 25/40

Economic Environment: 25/30

Quick Facts

Population: 16,000,000

Freedom in the World Status: Partly Free

Net Freedom Status: Partly Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 16.4%

Key Developments in 2016:

In July, as an antigovernment protest movement was gaining momentum, the broadcasting authority issued a notice to the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) and a private radio outlet warning that they could be prosecuted for programming that could "incite, encourage, or glamorize violence or brutality."

As word of planned protest actions spread via social media and mobile messaging services, WhatsApp, one such service, was temporarily suspended in July. Authorities rejected allegations of ordering telecommunications companies to block access to the service, but also blamed WhatsApp for helping to encourage protests and propagate lies.

Several journalists covering antigovernment protests were arrested, assaulted, or saw their equipment confiscated.

The Constitutional Court struck down criminal defamation provisions in February, but the year saw a number of civil defamation claims by public officials against media houses and journalists that published stories implicating them in corruption.

Executive Summary

Press freedom is restricted in Zimbabwe. Journalists face harassment, threats, arbitrary arrests, and confiscation of equipment, and poor economic conditions continue to place financial strain on the media sector. Authorities frequently invoke civil and criminal provisions in an attempt to silence critical journalists. In a country where many people reply on the radio for information, media diversity is limited by authorities' sustained refusal to grant licenses to community radio stations.

In 2016, journalists encountered difficulties while attempting to cover an antigovernment protest movement that was in large part mobilized through social media. Several reporters attempting to cover protest actions were attacked, including by police officers. In July, the messaging service WhatsApp was temporarily suspended. Officials blamed WhatsApp for helping to propagate lies and encourage demonstrations, but denied blocking it; the blockage likely also hampered journalists' ability to locate and cover protest actions. Also in July, Zimbabwe's broadcasting authority issued a statement addressed to the ZBC and the radio station Star FM warning that programs that "incite, encourage, or glamorize violence or brutality" were illegal under a 2004 broadcasting law, and added that the stations should avoid "broadcasting obscene and undesirable comments." That statement followed an April address by President Robert Mugabe at which he suggested that a Chinese-style filtering regime could be established to restrict internet access, purportedly to prevent "abuses."

Meanwhile, journalists and media outlets behind stories unflattering to senior officials faced criminal charges and civil defamation cases.

Legal Environment: 24 / 30

The 2013 constitution provides for freedom of expression and access to information, with some limitations. However, an otherwise draconian legal framework continues to inhibit the activities of journalists and media outlets. The Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act (CLCRA) severely limit what journalists may publish and mandate harsh penalties  including long prison sentences  for violators. The 2007 Interception of Communications Act allows officials to intercept telephonic and electronic communications and to monitor their content to prevent a "serious offense" or a "threat to national security."

Several journalists were arrested and charged under restrictive laws in 2016. In January, NewsDay editor Nqaba Matshazi and reporter Xolisani Ncube were charged with publishing false information in connection with an article on preferential bonuses for Central Intelligence Office (CIO) members. In August, James Jemwa, a freelance journalist, was arrested and charged with incitement; he had been reporting on an antigovernment demonstration in the capital. Additionally, in response to a growing wave of criticism and the mobilization of citizens through social media, the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) in July warned that citizens could be arrested for "the gross irresponsible use of social media and telecommunications services," adding, "all SIM cards in Zimbabwe are registered in the name of the user. Perpetrators can easily be identified."

The Constitutional Court in February 2016 struck down criminal defamation provisions. However, 2016 saw a number of civil defamation claims by public officials against media houses and journalists that published stories implicating them in corruption. Among them was a November 2016 case filed by Minister of Local Government, Public Works, and National Housing Saviour Kasukuwere, who sued the Zimbabwe Newspapers Group (Zimpapers) and five journalists for defamation over articles implicating him in a scandal involving the improper allocation of public land. Also in November, Higher and Tertiary Education Minister Jonathan Moyo sued Zimpapers over articles implicating him in the abuse of funds, theft, and corruption. The previous month, Moyo had filed a separate defamation case against Zimpapers over a story he claimed wrongly implicated him in the theft of motor vehicles.

The right to information is theoretically provided by the 2002 Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), though with a number of exemptions. In practice, the relevant provisions of the law are not operational, and accessing official information remains extremely difficult. The colonial-era Official Secrets Act is also used to maintain tight control over information.

The Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) regulates the licensing of publications and journalists. In 2012, the ZMC announced the creation of the 13-member Zimbabwe Media Council, as provided for under the AIPPA. The council is charged with developing codes of conduct for print media, and has the power to impose punishments on media houses that transgress the codes. However, chronic underfunding has greatly constrained its capacity to fulfill this mandate. The independent Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe (VMCZ), a self-regulatory body for all types of media that is supported by a majority of print outlets, has continued to develop its scope of activities, and has heard numerous formal complaints and adjudicated disputes over media content.

Broadcasting licenses have been consistently denied to independent and community radio stations, but granted to government-affiliated organizations. No community radio stations have been licensed since 2001, and independent outlets that campaign for licenses face harassment by authorities. Commercial radio licenses issued have generally gone to companies that are either state-controlled, or owned or operated by individuals with close links to the ruling party. Critics allege that the board of the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ), which is responsible for granting radio and television licenses, was illegally appointed in 2009 by the information minister and stacked with loyalists of President Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party. Media advocacy groups have criticized the licensing process for its complexity, political nature, and prohibitively high fees.

Professional and media-monitoring organizations such as the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, the Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe, and the local chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) are also occasionally subject to official pressure.

The AIPPA requires all journalists and media companies to register, and gives the information minister sweeping powers to decide which publications can operate legally and who is able to work as a journalist. Unlicensed journalists can face criminal charges and a sentence of up to two years in prison.

Political Environment: 25 / 40

The state-controlled ZBC runs the vast majority of broadcast media outlets, which are subject to overt political interference and censorship. ZBC coverage favors the ZANU-PF.

The Zimbabwe Censorship Board is empowered by law to declare materials indecent and block their distribution. The board in March 2016 upheld a 2015 decision banning a documentary about the 2013 constitution. Separately, the messaging service WhatsApp was temporarily blocked in July 2016, prompting suspicion that the government had requested that telecommunications companies ban access to it in order to discourage protest actions. Officials blamed WhatsApp for helping to propagate lies and encourage protests, but denied blocking it; the blockage also potentially affected journalists' ability to cover protest actions. Also in July, Zimbabwe's broadcasting authority issued a statement addressed to the ZBC and the radio station Star FM, warning that programs that "incite, encourage, or glamorize violence or brutality" were illegal under a 2004 broadcasting law, and added that the stations should avoid "broadcasting obscene and undesirable comments." In April, President Mugabe spoke approvingly of China's system for restricting access to certain websites, saying such a system could be implemented in Zimbabwe in order to halt "abuses" online.

Faced with legal restrictions and the threat of extralegal intimidation, some journalists practice self-censorship, particularly regarding sensitive issues such as corruption or factional fighting within ZANU-PF.

Radio remains the primary source of information for many people in Zimbabwe, particularly in rural areas. While there are numerous radio stations, diversity is limited due to the ZANU-PF's control over broadcasting licenses. However, two private radio stations that opened in 2012, Star FM and ZiFM, provide a range of views. Radio listeners in Zimbabwe are required to obtain a license for each radio in their possession, which must be renewed annually, with profits going to the ZBC. The government has also made car radio license renewal a required element of updating vehicle registration. In July 2016, the Constitutional Court ruled that all Zimbabweans with a device capable of receiving a radio or television signal must pay license fees to the ZBC; the requirement had been challenged on grounds that it forced citizens to pay for services they did not necessarily use. Satellite television services that carry international and regional news programming remain largely uncensored, and are accessed by a growing share of the population. It is estimated that just over half of the population has a working television at home, and of these, about two-thirds access content via satellite dishes.

Online newspapers, news portals, and blogs run by Zimbabweans living abroad are increasingly popular among those with internet access. Diaspora media also distribute news and information via text-messaging and social-media platforms.

Steep accreditation fees introduced in 2011 for foreign media bureaus and their local correspondents remain in place. Foreign journalists can encounter restrictions on residing full-time in the country, and are sometimes denied visas. Local correspondents for foreign publications have also been refused accreditation or threatened with lawsuits and deportation in the past. In July 2016, two foreign journalists from Sky News were detained and then deported for failing to obtain accreditation.

Journalists risk verbal intimidation, physical attacks, arbitrary arrest and detention, interception of communications, and financial pressure at the hands of the police, government officials, and supporters of the main political parties. In the summer of 2016, several journalists were physically assaulted or had their equipment seized while covering antigovernment protests and other activities. Riot police attacked Lucy Yasini, a freelance journalist, as she was reporting on an opposition march. Jemwa, another freelancer, was assaulted, possibly by ZANU-PF supporters, who also seized his phone, press card, and camera. He was later arrested for incitement. Journalists working for foreign media outlets  including Al-Jazeera English, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and the African News Agency  were subject to physical harassment by police while reporting on an antigovernment protest. Freelance photographer Mlondolozi Ndlovu was harassed by protesters while covering a demonstration. A ZBC vehicle was set on fire at one demonstration, also reportedly by protesters.

Economic Environment: 25 / 30

The government controls the two main daily newspapers, the Chronicle and the Herald, whose propagandistic coverage generally favors Mugabe and the ZANU-PF. The private Alpha Media Holdings group publishes a number of papers, including NewsDay, the Standard, and the Zimbabwe Independent. The Daily News, published by the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, resumed operations in 2011 after being shuttered in 2003, and is generally aligned with the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai (MDC-T). Some foreign newspapers, mainly from South Africa, are available.

Newspapers are relatively expensive and have poor distribution networks outside urban areas. Vendors and distributors of independent newspapers are occasionally harassed by soldiers or ruling party supporters. State-run companies do not often advertise in private papers, and state-run media outlets do not generally accept advertising from companies thought to be aligned with the opposition.

The Broadcasting Services Act bans foreign funding and investment in that sector, making it difficult for private players to enter the market. Access to broadcast media in some districts is hampered by deteriorating equipment and a lack of transmission sites. However, Zimbabwe's transition from analog to digital broadcasting has provided an opportunity to upgrade the country's broadcast infrastructure, and in 2015, authorities reached agreements with European and Chinese companies to facilitate improvements. The transition to digital broadcasting was ongoing in 2016.

Local authorities occasionally raid homes in rural areas and confiscate the shortwave radios used to access foreign broadcasts.

The country's continued economic crisis has adversely affected the media industry. Media houses have been forced to downsize, cut salaries, and defer payments. Low salaries may encourage some reporters to accept bribes.

Internet access and usage have expanded in recent years, despite frequent power outages. Zimbabwe had an internet penetration rate of more than 23 percent of the population in 2016, with most accessing the internet via their mobile phones.

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Freedom of the Press 2017 - West Bank and Gaza Strip

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - West Bank and Gaza Strip, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67afa.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 84/100 (1) (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 28/30 (1)

Political Environment: 34/40

Economic Environment: 22/30

Quick Facts

Population: 2,800,000

Freedom in the World Status: Not Free

Key Developments in 2016:

Israeli forces arrested dozens of Palestinian journalists during 2016, accusing them of inciting violence or aiding banned militant groups. Some remained in detention at year's end.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip arrested at least 21 journalists, and a third of those detained reported torture or other mistreatment in custody.

Israeli authorities raided a number of media offices and temporarily shut down at least four, including a radio station in the Hebron area and a printing house in Qalqilya.

Executive Summary

Media freedom in the West Bank and Gaza remained seriously obstructed during 2016, with journalists  especially local reporters  regularly subjected to arrest, detention, and interrogation by Israeli forces, the PA, and Hamas.

Ongoing concerns in Israel about the alleged role of Palestinian news outlets in inciting terrorist violence against Israeli soldiers and civilians prompted a crackdown on Palestinian media, including the closure of broadcasting and printing facilities and the arrest of journalists and managers. In a number of instances, Israeli authorities did not present evidence of direct incitement by the individuals detained.

The PA in the West Bank continued its long-standing practice of arresting and temporarily detaining journalists without charge, while Hamas in the Gaza Strip stepped up its use of summonses and interrogations to intimidate journalists who produced critical coverage.

Legal Environment: 28 / 30 (1)

The Palestinian Basic Law guarantees a free press, enshrines the right to establish media outlets, and prohibits government censorship. However, the 1995 Press and Publication Law imposes burdensome administrative regulations and bans content that undermines "the general system" or "national unity," or that is "inconsistent with morals." Defamation is a criminal offense, and journalists have been prosecuted for publishing criticism of Palestinian officials.

The Ramallah-based PA arrested at least 15 journalists in the West Bank in 2016, while Hamas authorities in Gaza arrested at least six others, according to the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA). At least seven of those arrested reported torture or other mistreatment in custody. Journalists are typically detained over reporting that is deemed critical of the authorities, and Human Rights Watch documented additional cases during the year in which Palestinian security forces arrested activists and others for ridiculing the authorities on Facebook. Such arrests rarely lead to formal charges or prison sentences, amounting instead to a form of harassment and intimidation.

In addition to Palestinian laws, as administered by the different authorities in the West Bank and Gaza, journalists in the territories are subject to controls imposed by the Israeli military, including measures banning incitement to terrorism. The legal standard for incitement under the Israeli military code, to which the West Bank is subject, is much lower than in Israeli civilian law.

Concerns continued to grow in 2016 that Israel was using recent attacks on its security personnel and civilians as a pretext to crack down on Palestinian media and freedom of expression. Scores of Palestinian social media users have been arrested since October 2015 for posts that allegedly incited violence. Israeli forces also arrested Palestinian journalists for alleged incitement or working for outlets affiliated with banned militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. MADA reported 46 cases of arrest and administrative detention of Palestinian journalists by Israeli authorities in 2016, up sharply from 20 in 2015 and 13 in 2014. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) confirmed that at least seven Palestinian journalists remained in Israeli custody as of December, including one who had been arrested in late 2015.

Four of the journalists still in Israeli detention at year's end had been arrested in August 2016, when Israeli forces raided and shut down Al-Sanabel Radio in Dura, near Hebron in the West Bank. A sound engineer was also detained, and military prosecutors charged the five with offenses including incitement and aiding Hamas. They were referred for trial in September, but final verdicts were still pending at the close of 2016. CPJ's review of the indictment found no examples of direct incitement to imminent violence by the accused.

Various freedom of information bills have been under review by Palestinian officials for several years, with progress repeatedly delayed.

The PA regulates all television and radio licenses in the West Bank. In order to obtain a broadcast license, applicants must gain approval from the interior, information, and telecommunications ministries, which review financing sources, content, and technical issues, respectively. Licenses must be renewed each year. Critics accuse the PA of arbitrarily increasing licensing fees  even though prices are supposed to correspond to the strength and reach of the broadcast frequency  in order to force certain outlets off the air. Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007, has introduced a system of accreditation that requires all outlets and journalists to register with its authorities.

Political Environment: 34 / 40

Media outlets and journalists in the West Bank and Gaza are affected by political pressure and violence from both Palestinian and Israeli authorities, as well as editorial control by owners or funders with partisan political interests.

Censorship, including self-censorship, is common among Palestinian media organizations. According to a 2014 MADA report, more than 68 percent of journalists in the Palestinian territories said their work or their colleagues' work had been barred from publication at least once. The same report found that over 80 percent of Palestinian journalists had engaged in self-censorship.

In 2014, Hamas and the Fatah-led PA lifted bans on each other's affiliated newspapers that had prevented them from being published in Gaza and the West Bank, respectively. However, in November 2015, during a spike in violence across the occupied territories, the PA ordered broadcasters in the West Bank to cease airing the Hamas-linked television channel Al-Aqsa, headquartered in Gaza.

Israeli authorities raided and temporarily closed at least four media facilities in the West Bank in 2016. In March, the adjacent offices of Islamic Jihad-affiliated television station Palestine Today and the media production company Trans-Media were raided and closed in Al-Bireh, and three employees were arrested. However, both companies apparently continued to function from other facilities. The August raid on Al-Sanabel Radio resulted in its closure for three months, but it was broadcasting again by December. Later in December, Israeli forces raided and closed the Asayel Yafa printing house and arrested its owner. MADA documented seven other cases during the year in which Israeli authorities raided media outlets and seized or damaged equipment without ordering a shutdown.

Israeli forces in the West Bank regularly obstructed the work of journalists in the field. Checkpoints  which entail searches, interrogations, and sometimes short detentions  have long hindered movement and limited journalists' ability to report within and beyond the occupied territories. In one prominent case, columnist Omar Nazzal  a board member of the Palestinian Journalist Syndicate  was arrested in April 2016 while attempting to cross from the West Bank into Jordan, from where he planned to travel to a journalists' conference in Europe. He remained in Israeli administrative detention at year's end. Nazzal had written on controversial topics in the weeks leading up to his arrest, and posted Facebook messages criticizing Israel for clamping down on Palestinian media.

The Israeli military has also curbed coverage of regular protests near the Israeli security barrier in the West Bank by declaring such areas "closed military zones." Physical assaults on Palestinian journalists often occur in the context of protests. According to MADA's annual report, Israeli forces were responsible for a total of 58 cases of assault in 2016, including the killing of a media student during a military operation; this represented a sharp decline from the previous two years, which featured more general unrest. MADA reported a total of eight assaults by Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and Gaza during 2016.

The Foreign Press Association accused Hamas of imposing various restrictions on the entry and operation of international journalists in Gaza in 2016, including intrusive interrogations and permit denials. Two foreign journalists, including one with the New York Times, were reportedly banned by Hamas as a result of their work.

Palestinian officials in both Gaza and the West Bank used summons and interrogations extensively during the year to harass and intimidate journalists. MADA documented 51 such incidents in 2016, up from 38 in 2015. Gaza accounted for the entire increase, with 28 cases in 2016 versus 15 in 2015.

Economic Environment: 22 / 30

The PA and Hamas fund four of five major Palestinian newspapers, and they are not editorially independent in practice. In the West Bank, Al-Hayat al-Jadidah is exclusively funded by the PA, which also partially finances Al-Ayyam. Hamas funds the twice-weekly Al-Risala and the daily Filistin. Al-Quds, a family-owned, Jerusalem-based newspaper established in 1951, is considered less vulnerable to partisan influence. Its East Jerusalem location, however, makes it subject to Israeli military censorship.

There are more than a dozen West Bank television stations and between 60 and 70 radio stations, in addition to the handful of television stations and approximately two dozen radio stations operating in Gaza. West Bank broadcasters are generally small outlets that focus on local issues. In Gaza, Hamas operates Al-Aqsa TV and allows transmission of the PA-controlled Palestine TV, based in Ramallah. Much like the subsidized print outlets, these channels are seen as mouthpieces for Hamas and the PA. Residents also have access to a variety of foreign broadcasts.

About 61 percent of Palestinians used the internet in 2016, according to the International Telecommunication Union. However, access to reliable telecommunications technology in the territories is severely limited by Israeli restrictions. Both the West Bank and Gaza rely on Israeli telecommunications infrastructure, with routing switches, cell towers, and gateway switches generally located in Israeli-controlled territory. In addition, Israel controls access to the electromagnetic spectrum across the territories, and has long prohibited Palestinian companies from offering 3G mobile internet services, leaving that market in the hands of Israeli carriers. The prohibition was due to be lifted under a November 2015 agreement, but it had yet to be implemented at the end of 2016.

Because the fragile Palestinian economy generates little commercial advertising revenue, local media outlets are often dependent on funding from the PA, political factions, and foreign donors, which affects their editorial autonomy.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - United Arab Emirates

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - United Arab Emirates, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67b4a.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 78/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 25/30

Political Environment: 30/40

Economic Environment: 23/30

Quick Facts

Population: 9,300,000

Freedom in the World Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: Not Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 91.2%

Key Developments in 2016:

After being held without charge for eight months, a prominent academic and critic of the government, Nasser Bin Ghaith, appeared in a closed court session in April and faced accusations of committing cybercrime and terrorism.

The government continued to hold Jordanian journalist Tayseer al-Najjar in detention throughout the year, ostensibly in connection to his social media posts about politically sensitive topics, including Israel and Egypt.

In June, authorities blocked the website of the Middle East Eye, a news organization that provides independent coverage of the region.

Executive Summary

Although the United Arab Emirates (UAE) serves as a regional hub for international media and hosts satellite television networks that broadcast to the Arab world, the domestic media environment is tightly controlled. Nearly all media outlets serving Emirati audiences are either owned or heavily influenced by the authorities. Individuals who use internet-based platforms to publicize dissenting views or sensitive information have for years been subjected to arbitrary and extralegal detention or criminal prosecution with little due process.

Bin Ghaith, an academic and frequent commentator on regional politics, remained in prison at year's end. Before his court appearance in April, authorities had held him for eight months without charge, denying him access to a lawyer or his family. His arrest seemed to be connected to comments he made on Twitter about the UAE and Egyptian governments, as well as his alleged affiliation with banned organizations. In a second session in May, the Federal Supreme Court charged him with violating antiterrorism, national security, and cybercrime legislation. Al-Najjar, a Jordanian journalist working for the UAE-based Dar newspaper, was also a target of persecution in connection to social media posts  seemingly, critical comments he made about Egypt, Israel, and the Gulf region at large. Arrested in December 2015, al-Najjar remained in detention at the end of 2016. It was unclear whether he had been formally charged or given access to a lawyer.

Censorship remained a central aspect of the government's media policies. In June, the Middle East Eye reported that authorities had blocked access to its website, which provides regional news coverage, including critical reporting on the UAE's domestic and foreign policies.

Legal Environment: 25 / 30

While the constitution provides for freedom of speech, the government uses its judicial, legislative, and executive powers to limit this liberty in practice. UAE Federal Law No. 15 of 1980 for Printed Matter and Publications regulates all aspects of the media and is considered one of the most restrictive press laws in the Arab world. It authorizes the state to censor both domestic and foreign publications prior to distribution, and prohibits criticism of the government, UAE rulers and ruling families, and friendly foreign governments. The law also bans publication of information that "causes damage to the national economy." Violations of the law can result in fines and prison sentences.

Defamation is a criminal offense. Journalists can also be prosecuted under other articles of the penal code as well as under a highly restrictive cybercrime law. The cybercrime law criminalizes the use of the internet to commit a range of offenses  including violating political, social, and religious norms  and subjects perpetrators to prison terms and fines. Although the law centers on information technology, it has detrimental implications for both traditional journalism published online and citizen journalism. Article 24 makes it a crime to use a computer network to "damage the national unity or social peace." Article 28 of the law states that the publication or dissemination of information, news, or images deemed "liable to endanger state security and its higher interests or infringe on the public order" can lead to imprisonment and a fine of up to 1 million dirhams ($270,000). Under Article 29, "deriding or harming the reputation, stature, or status of the state, any of its institutions, its president or vice president, the rulers of the emirates, their crown princes or their deputies," as well as a number of national symbols, is also punishable with imprisonment and a fine of the same amount. Article 41 allows the government to close websites related to the commission of these crimes.

An antiterrorism law passed in 2014 includes vague language prohibiting any speech that "antagonizes the state," among other offenses, and has allowed authorities to prosecute peaceful dissent and critical journalism as a form of "terrorism." The law carries penalties including death, life in prison, and fines of up to 100 million dirhams ($27 million).

In April 2016, after eight months of incommunicado detention, Bin Ghaith appeared in court after being held without charge for eight months. In a second court appearance in May, the court formally charged him of a range of offenses under the country's penal code as well as antiterrorism and cybercrime laws. Most of the charges were tied to his exercise of free speech online  ostensibly, criticisms of Emirati and Egyptian authorities  while others were connected to his alleged affiliation with Al-Islah and the Ummah Party, which the UAE government classifies as terrorist organizations. After the May hearing, authorities transferred Bin Ghaith to a maximum security facility. He had limited access to legal counsel and claimed to have been tortured in custody. The case was ongoing at year's end.

Since his December 2015 arrest, al-Najjar, a Jordanian national, has also been denied due process. His arrest seemed to be connected to comments he made on Facebook that were critical of political issues in Israel, Egypt, and Gulf states. In October 2016, prosecutors informed him that he would face charges under UAE's cybercrime law, but it remained unclear whether he had access to a lawyer or whether a trial had begun by year's end. Al-Najjar had been held incommunicado for the first two months of his detention but, unlike Bin Ghaith, was occasionally able to communicate with his family thereafter.

Although there is a legal framework for access to public information, obtaining official documents or data remains difficult in practice, with government entities often rejecting or ignoring requests. There is no law guaranteeing freedom of information as a fundamental right.

The National Media Council (NMC) is responsible for licensing all publications and issuing press credentials to editors. Members of the council are appointed by the UAE's president, the hereditary ruler of Abu Dhabi. The UAE has four "media free zones" (MFZs)  areas in which foreign media outlets produce news content intended for foreign audiences  located in the emirates of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Ras al-Khaimah, and Fujairah. The Dubai and Abu Dhabi MFZs host bureaus of international media outlets such as CNN, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya, and Agence France-Presse. Broadcast media outlets based in the MFZs are regulated by the Technology and Media Free Zone Authority but are also subject to the 1980 press law and the penal code. All free zones must obtain approval from the NMC before licensing any print or broadcast activities.

There is a journalists' association, but the group cannot engage in genuine advocacy in the country's highly restricted environment.

Political Environment: 30 / 40

Journalists, especially foreign journalists working for Emirati media outlets, have reported having their stories censored by their editors, most often when covering sensitive issues such as religion, politics, or foreign allies of the UAE. Foreign media outlets based in the MFZs operate with relative freedom, although some journalists have received vague threats regarding their reporting.

Online censorship is extensive. When attempting to visit a prohibited site, internet users are directed to a proxy server that maintains a list of banned websites and blocks material deemed inconsistent with the "religious, cultural, political, and moral values of the country." Websites that are considered indecent include those featuring pornography, dating or personal advertisements, and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) content. Some websites based in Israel or covering religions other than Islam, notably the Baha'i faith, are also blocked. Many users reportedly employ circumvention tools, such as virtual private networks (VPNs), to access blocked content. Police in Dubai have affirmed that the use of VPNs is illegal and can lead to criminal charges. In June 2016, the Middle East Eye, which provides regional news coverage and had engaged in critical reporting on the Emirati government, reported that its website was inaccessible in the UAE.

Due to vaguely defined red lines on permissible speech, media professionals practice extreme forms of self-censorship. Emirati journalists often face warnings and threats if they push the limits of acceptable media coverage. However, noncitizen journalists account for the overwhelming majority of those working in the UAE, and they face harsher measures, including dismissal and deportation. Moreover, the increasing frequency of arrests, convictions, and detentions without trial affecting critics of the government, particularly social media users, has had a chilling effect on journalistic activity and free speech in general.

Although journalists, bloggers, and online activists are not often subject to retaliatory physical violence, many are arbitrarily detained by authorities and held for long periods of time with no apparent legal justification. There have been reports of abuse in custody, although restrictions on access to detention centers and detainees make it difficult to investigate claims.

Economic Environment: 23 / 30

About a dozen newspapers are published in Arabic and English in the UAE, and there are several terrestrial radio and television stations. Most media outlets are either state-owned or have close government affiliations. The Arab Media Group and Dubai Media Incorporated serve as the Dubai government's media arm, publishing several newspapers and operating television and radio stations. Privately owned newspapers such as the Arabic daily Al-Khaleej and its English-language sister paper, Gulf Today, face heavy influence from the government. Almost all Arabic-language broadcast media that target domestic audiences are state-owned and provide only the official view on local issues. However, satellite television service is widespread and provides uncensored access to international broadcasts.

Most major papers receive government subsidies and rely predominantly on the official Emirates News Agency for content and guidance on whether or how to cover sensitive topics in the news. Only a small minority of working journalists are native Emiratis, and observers note that expatriate journalists with relatively good pay have little incentive to engage with the risks of critical or investigative journalism.

Close to 91 percent of the population had regular access to the internet in 2016. There are two internet service providers  Etisalat and Du, both owned and operated by state corporations. The UAE has an extremely high mobile-phone penetration rate, with nearly twice as many mobile subscriptions as residents; most users have internet-enabled smartphones, making such devices one of the most popular ways to receive news content.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Ukraine

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Ukraine, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67b7a.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

Total Score: 53/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 13/30

Political Environment: 25/40 (1)

Economic Environment: 15/30 (1)

Note: The numerical ratings and status listed above do not reflect conditions in Crimea, which is examined in a separate report. Freedom of the Press country reports assess the level of media independence in a given geographical area, regardless of whether it is affected by the state, nonstate actors, or foreign powers. Disputed territories are sometimes assessed separately if they meet certain criteria, including boundaries that are sufficiently stable to allow year-on-year comparisons. For more information, see the report methodology and FAQ.

Quick Facts

Population: 42,700,000

Freedom in the World Status: Partly Free

Net Freedom Status: Partly Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 49.3%

Key Developments in 2016:

Regulators launched an ownership transparency mechanism for television and radio companies, requiring them to disclose detailed information about the identities of their owners.

Efforts to transform the state radio and television companies into a public broadcaster continued, although organizational and funding challenges, as well as difficulties in the termination of some state companies, continued to delay the process.

In November, the government approved plans for the privatization of 244 print outlets with the aim of safeguarding these publications' editorial independence from state influence.

Violence, threats, intimidation, and harassment against media professionals and organizations continued; in the most alarming case of the year, a car bomb killed prominent journalist Pavel Sheremet in July.

Executive Summary

Ukraine's media environment has significantly improved since a change in government in 2014, and ongoing reforms continue to strengthen the legal and economic framework for journalists and outlets. However, there are several remaining challenges, including undue political interference with content as well as violence, harassment, and other abuse of journalists.

The government continued to adopt new media legislation in 2016, and implemented a number of positive reforms passed in the previous year. In June 2016, President Petro Poroshenko signed a law to facilitate transforming the country's state radio and television companies into a public broadcaster, a process that began in 2014. The government also took steps to reduce state influence in the print sector in November, approving a list of 244 publicly owned local print outlets for privatization. Separately, to comply with legislation that came into force in October 2015, broadcasters began disclosing detailed information about the identities of their owners  including ultimate beneficiaries.

Journalistic access to the Donbas regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, partly held by separatists since 2014, remained restricted. Although violence against the press has significantly decreased since its peak in 2014, attacks on media professionals and houses nevertheless continued. In July, a car bomb killed Sheremet, who had a show on Radio Vesti and reported for the independent online paper Ukrayinska Pravda. In May, the vigilante website Myrotvorets published the personal information of approximately 5,000 Ukrainian and foreign media professionals who had received accreditation from separatist authorities in Donetsk and Luhansk to report on the conflict. Several journalists reported receiving threats following the publication of the list. Although authorities opened an investigation into the case, the website continued to update the data, and also published a separate list of information about Ukrainian journalists working in Russia.

Ongoing instability and violence in Donbas, as well as concerns about general Russian interference in Ukrainian affairs, continued to create tensions in the country's political environment and affected the government's attitude toward the media. At a press conference in June, Poroshenko requested that journalists refrain from covering negative stories about Ukraine, a statement that media watchdogs decried for undermining journalistic independence. After Myrotvorets exposed the personal details of thousands of journalists, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and lawmaker Anton Herashchenko praised the website's actions.

Legal Environment: 13 / 30

The constitutional and legal framework for the media in Ukraine is among the most progressive in Eastern Europe, though its protections are not always upheld in practice. Legislation adopted in 2015 increased penalties for crimes against journalists and established mechanisms for financial assistance to journalists who are injured, and to the families of those who are killed, while performing their professional duties. Impunity for crimes against the media nevertheless remains a problem in Ukraine, with many incidents reportedly going unpunished.

A separate package of 2015 laws banned symbols related to "communist and Nazi totalitarian regimes"  with some exceptions, including for educational purposes  and penalized the denial of the "criminal nature" of these regimes. They also criminalized public denial of the legitimacy of several groups that fought for Ukrainian independence in the 20th century. Local and international media rights organizations expressed concerns that the broadly worded laws could discourage open debate and critical journalism about politically sensitive topics.

In a case that tested the legal system's tolerance for dissenting views on national security issues, journalist and blogger Ruslan Kotsaba was sentenced in May 2016 to three and a half years in prison for allegedly obstructing the armed forces by calling for a boycott of military conscription in a video posted to YouTube in 2015. In July, however, an appellate court overturned the conviction and released Kotsaba, who had spent a year and a half in detention.

In February 2016, the parliament adopted a law that criminalized the illegal seizure of journalists' materials and other actions that improperly obstruct their work, though the quality of enforcement of the new measure remained in doubt. Journalists have the legal right to protect the confidentiality of sources unless compelled by a court order. Libel was decriminalized in 2001, and in 2009 the Supreme Court instructed judges to follow the civil libel standards of the European Court of Human Rights, which granted lower levels of protection to public officials and clearly distinguished between value judgments and factual information. Officials nevertheless continue to use the threat of libel lawsuits to deter critical reporting.

The courts in Ukraine reputedly suffer from corruption and political dependence on the executive branch, affecting their impartiality when dealing with media-related cases. Conflicting laws on the media's ability to monitor and record courtroom proceedings have led to disputes between journalists and judges.

The 2011 law on access to public information, reinforced by a number of other laws, is considered one of the best of its kind in Europe, though implementation remains problematic. The Institute of Mass Information (IMI), a Ukrainian nongovernmental organization (NGO), has reported that restrictions on journalists' access to public information are most often imposed by local authorities. The February 2016 legislation to criminalize obstruction of journalists' work notably included a provision that would punish unlawful denial of journalists' requests for information.

Legal requirements for the establishment and operation of private media outlets are not unduly onerous, although print media must be formally registered with the state. Registration is not required for online media. Television and radio outlets must obtain licenses from the National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council, which has been criticized at times for opaque decision-making, bias in favor of major media holdings, and failure to punish content violations. A 2015 law required the council to release detailed explanations of its licensing decisions.

There are no burdensome restrictions on freedom to pursue the journalistic profession, and a number of groups and associations, including the National Union of Journalists and the Independent Media Trade Union of Ukraine, are able to support journalistic interests. However, Russian-backed separatist authorities in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk have been known to deny accreditation to both local and foreign journalists based on accusations of "propagandistic" or "negative" reporting.

In October 2016, prominent online newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda reported that it had obtained recordings suggesting that its staff had been under surveillance by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). The paper called on authorities to explain, but the SBU declined on national security grounds.

Political Environment: 25 / 40 (1)

The content of private media outlets is often influenced by the political or commercial interests of their owners. At least four major media groups, which together garner a television audience share of about 76 percent, are owned by powerful business magnates, or oligarchs, whose primary businesses are not in the media sector. Public media also reportedly face editorial interference. Zurab Alasania resigned as head of the public broadcaster in November 2016, citing government pressure over recent investigative reports on corruption as one of the reasons for his departure.

Freedom of access to official sources varies, depending on the public institution or official. Local officials in particular have been known to restrict media access to the activities of government bodies.

The constitution prohibits censorship, but some forms of de facto censorship have been used to control media content in the country. The National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council obtained court orders in 2014 to temporarily suspend the retransmission of certain Russian channels in Ukraine. The suspensions came after Russian state-controlled news outlets carried aggressively propagandistic content that was apparently designed to support the Russian occupation of Crimea, encourage pro-Russian separatism in eastern and southern Ukraine, and discredit the new government in Kyiv. The retransmission of a number of Russian channels remained barred during 2016.

In occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, Russian-backed separatists retained control of broadcasting facilities that they had seized in 2014, and continued to block the transmission of most Ukrainian television channels. The self-proclaimed governments of these regions have also restricted access to numerous websites.

Ukrainian journalists have reported a degree of self-censorship on politically sensitive issues, such as alleged human rights abuses by the military in the Donbas conflict.

Despite the role of oligarchs and other pressures on journalistic freedom, the Ukrainian media collectively offer some diversity of viewpoints, ranging from the popular television channel Inter, which is regarded as pro-Russian, to President Poroshenko's 5 Kanal and anti-Russian outlets like the magazine Ukrainian Week. However, observers have noted growing nationalistic tendencies in Ukrainian journalism that damage objectivity and reduce reporters' and managers' willingness to challenge government narratives or pursue critical investigative work. Some outlets continue to focus on public-interest journalism, including the nonprofit Hromadske.TV and the state-owned television channel UA:First, though their market share is limited. The media's considerable reporting on official corruption rarely results in meaningful enforcement action by the authorities.

The government continues to restrict access to the country for some foreign journalists on national security grounds. In May 2016, Poroshenko issued a decree barring entry to 17 Russian journalists until the end of 2017. The SBU reported in December that it had denied entry to 61 Russian journalists during 2016.

In April 2016, the presenter of a well-known Russian-language political talk show, Canadian and Italian citizen Savik Shuster, was banned from working in Ukraine. The employment agency's decision on his work permit was reversed by a court in June. However, under pressure from an ongoing tax case and financial difficulties, Shuster's online television outlet announced in December that it would cease operations in early 2017.

IMI registered more than 100 cases of interference with journalistic activities, over 40 cases of threats or intimidation, and 30 cases of beatings or assaults on journalists in 2016, with most incidents perpetrated by individuals, law enforcement officers, or local officials. In July, journalist Pavel Sheremet, who wrote about topics such as corruption in Ukraine and Russian propaganda, was killed by a bomb in the car he was driving. The vehicle belonged to his partner Alena Pritula, owner of Ukrainska Pravda, suggesting that she might have been the intended target.

In May 2016, the Ukrainian website Myrotvorets published the names and personal information of about 5,000 journalists accredited by pro-Russian forces in Donbas. The journalists were then denounced by Interior Minister Avakov, and some faced harassment and death threats. Anton Herashchenko, the minister's adviser and a member of parliament who joined Avakov in praising the website's actions, was suspected of playing a role in the publication. Poroshenko criticized the website in June, but urged reporters not to write "negative" articles about Ukraine. The case remained under investigation at year's end.

The offices of the television station Inter were attacked or besieged by nationalist protesters on several occasions in 2016. In September, a group of masked assailants set fire to the building, injuring a number of employees. Separately, cyberattacks on media outlets were a routine occurrence during the year, according to IMI.

Economic Environment: 15 / 30 (1)

Most media in Ukraine are privately owned, and the most popular source of news is television. Officials have moved in recent years to transform Ukraine's state television and radio outlets into public-service broadcasters. A 2015 law established a new public broadcasting corporation that would be overseen by a supervisory board with strong civil society representation. It was set to begin operations in January 2017. In June 2016, Poroshenko signed legislation requiring the merger of all state and regional media companies into the new entity, with provisions designed to overcome obstruction by the state enterprise Ukrtelefilm, which had resisted the reform.

A number of state television and radio companies duly merged into the new public broadcasting company during 2016, and in December the cabinet approved the charter of the organization, dubbed the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (UA:PBC). However, its initial budget allocations were substantially below the level expected, which Alasania cited as one of the reasons for his resignation in November.

A law adopted in December 2015 facilitated the privatization of print media owned by central, regional, and local government authorities, which watchdogs praised as an important step toward increasing pluralism in the sector. Implementation was slow, however, and the list of 244 print outlets to be privatized during the first stage of the reform was approved by the cabinet only in November 2016.

The private media sector is characterized by large holdings under the control of influential politicians and oligarchs. For example, the television station 5 Kanal is owned by President Poroshenko. The Inter group is owned by opposition lawmaker Serhiy Lyovochkin, oligarch Dmytro Firtash, and former SBU head Valeriy Khoroshkovskyi. Media Group Ukraine and the newspaper Segodnya are owned by oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, while oligarch Viktor Pinchuk owns Star Light Media.

Legislation that came into force in late 2015 banned individuals or entities from offshore economic zones or "aggressor or occupier states"  a designation determined by the government  from establishing or owning broadcasting or program service provider companies in Ukraine.

Ownership transparency among television and radio companies increased during 2016 as result of the same 2015 legislation, which required broadcasters and program service providers to disclose detailed information about their ownership structures, including the identities of ultimate beneficiaries. The companies consequently identified their ultimate beneficiaries on their websites. There is a lesser degree of transparency regarding ownership of print media, but ultimate beneficiaries in many cases can be ascertained via a registry maintained by the Justice Ministry. Online media are not subject to regulations on ownership transparency.

The government does not restrict access to the internet, which was used by about 49 percent of the population as of 2015. Ukrainians have increasingly turned to online platforms, including social media, for their news and information.

Although a crowded media market  with some outlets supported by wealthy owners  makes it difficult for new enterprises to become financially sustainable, the basic costs of establishing and operating media outlets are not generally prohibitive. Zeonbud, the country's only digital terrestrial television transmission company, announced substantial price cuts for its services in August 2015. The company, which had obtained an exclusive license through an opaque process in 2010, was declared a monopoly in 2014 and fined by the state antimonopoly committee in December 2015 for abuse of its dominant position in the market. However, an economic court invalidated the finding on monopoly abuse and removed the penalty in May 2016; that ruling was confirmed by the Supreme Economic Court in October.

Difficult economic conditions in Ukraine have placed the media sector, particularly small outlets, under financial strain in recent years. Advertising revenue for print media has declined, leaving newspapers even more financially dependent on politicized owners. Paid content disguised as news (jeansa) remains widespread and weakens the credibility of journalists, especially during elections. IMI monitored jeansa materials from April until December 2016, finding that the city of Mykolaiv had the highest percentage in print media (15 percent), while the city of Dnipropetrovsk had the highest percentage in online media (7 percent). The nonprofit outlet Hromadske.TV continued to rely in part on funding from foreign donors in 2016.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Turkey

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Turkey, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67b9a.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 76/100 (5) (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 27/30 (1)

Political Environment: 33/40 (3)

Economic Environment: 16/30 (1)

Quick Facts

Population: 79,500,000

Freedom in the World Status: Partly Free

Net Freedom Status: Not Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 53.7%

Key Developments in 2016:

The government, using enhanced powers under a state of emergency, carried out a massive purge of media outlets accused of links to an attempted military coup in July. Authorities seized control of some outlets, forcibly closed or blocked dozens of others, and detained scores of journalists.

Journalists working in the country's predominantly Kurdish southeast faced serious obstacles to their reporting  such as threats, physical violence, and criminal investigations  in the context of a counterinsurgency campaign against Kurdish separatist fighters. At least one journalist was killed while working in the region, and residents experienced multiple episodes of interrupted internet service or social media access.

Restrictive legal and regulatory changes adopted during the year included a new rule permitting the telecommunications regulator to shut down internet service for national security reasons and a state advertising policy barring official advertisements in media linked to loosely defined terrorism charges.

Executive Summary

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have overseen a substantial decline in press freedom over the past decade, aggressively using the penal code, criminal defamation laws, and antiterrorism legislation to jail large numbers of journalists and punish critical reporting. The authorities have also employed legal tools and the state's economic leverage to seize or engineer changes in ownership at major media groups, resulting in more consistently progovernment coverage by mainstream outlets.

Media freedom deteriorated dramatically in the aftermath of the coup attempt in July 2016. After security forces loyal to Erdogan successfully put down the violent insurrection, the government declared a state of emergency and began to purge the bureaucracy, armed forces, and civil society of elements it accused of supporting or collaborating with the coup plotters. Erdogan named the exiled Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen as the mastermind of the coup, but the purge also targeted those suspected of affiliation with leftist or Kurdish organizations.

The press was particularly affected by the crackdown. More than 150 media outlets  including newspapers, television and radio channels, news agencies, magazines, publishing houses, and news websites  were forcibly shut down and had their assets seized in the months following the coup bid. As of December, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) confirmed that at least 81 journalists were behind bars in Turkey, making the country the world's leading jailer of journalists. Other groups put the tally higher, with the Turkey-based Platform for Independent Journalism (P24) counting as many as 145 detained journalists. More than 2,700 media workers were fired or forced to resign, hundreds lost their press credentials, an unknown number had their passports revoked and were forbidden from leaving the country, and 54 journalists had their property confiscated.

Legal Environment: 27 / 30 (1)

Constitutional guarantees of press freedom and freedom of expression are undermined by provisions in the penal code, the criminal procedure code, and the harsh, broadly worded antiterrorism law that essentially leave punishment of normal journalistic activity to the discretion of prosecutors and judges. Constitutional protections have also been subverted by hostile public rhetoric against critical journalists and outlets from Erdogan and other government officials, which is often echoed in the progovernment press. Executive decrees issued under the state of emergency following the July 2016 coup attempt suspended many legal safeguards, empowering the authorities to dismiss public employees, shutter companies and organizations, confiscate property, and waive protections against the arbitrary detention and abuse of suspects, all without independent review.

A 2004 press law replaced prison sentences with fines for violations of its provisions, but elements of the penal code and several other restrictive laws have led to the imprisonment of dozens of journalists and writers in recent years. Estimates of the number of journalists behind bars at the end of 2016 varied, but CPJ counted at least 81 as of December, and P24 reported as many as 145.

Article 301 of the penal code, which prescribes prison terms of six months to two years for "denigration of the Turkish nation," can be used to punish journalists who discuss the division of Cyprus, criticize the security forces, or state that genocide was committed against the Armenians beginning in 1915. While a set of 2008 amendments to the article were largely cosmetic, the maximum prison sentence was reduced from three years to two, and a requirement that the Ministry of Justice would have to approve use of Article 301 significantly curbed its application in practice. Very few of those prosecuted under Article 301 receive convictions, but the trials are time-consuming and expensive, and the law exerts a chilling effect on speech. Article 216 of the penal code, which bans incitement of hatred or violence based on ethnicity, class, or religion and carries a prison term of up to three years, has also been used against journalists and other commentators.

Turkey's antiterrorism law, officially called the Law on the Fight against Terrorism, and related provisions in the penal code rely on broad language and vague definitions, allowing room for application against a wide range of activities. Article 314 of the penal code, pertaining to membership in an armed organization, is regularly used against members of the media, particularly Kurds and those associated with the political left. Other articles as well as the antiterrorism law penalize "making terrorist propaganda" and the publication of the statements of illegal groups. The Fourth Judicial Reform package, passed in 2013, slightly alleviated the antiterrorism law's limitations on publishing such statements, clarifying that publication would only be a crime if the statement constituted coercion, violence, or genuine threats. Nevertheless, both the law and related sections of the penal code remain highly restrictive, and have been widely criticized by media and human rights groups. The European Court of Human Rights has found in multiple rulings that specific provisions of the antiterrorism law amount to censorship and violations of free expression.

Media face addition restrictions in the 2014 Law Amending the Law on State Intelligence Services and the National Intelligence Organization, which granted the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) much greater powers, including the ability to access any personal data without a court order. It also gave MIT personnel immunity for legal violations committed in the course of their work, and criminalized reporting on or acquiring information about the body. Media workers can face up to nine years in prison for publishing information from leaked intelligence material.

Most of the scores of journalists who were detained on criminal charges during 2016 were accused of belonging to, propagandizing for, or aiding a terrorist organization  usually a reference to the Gulen movement or the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant group. In one prominent case, Cumhuriyet editor in chief Can Dundar and the paper's Ankara bureau chief, Erdem Gul, were convicted of divulging state secrets and sentenced to five years and 10 months and five years in prison, respectively. They had originally been arrested in November 2015 on charges that included assisting a terrorist group, namely the Gulen movement; the charges stemmed from the newspaper's publication of information about the MIT allegedly supplying weapons to Islamist militants in Syria. The two had been released pending trial in February 2016 thanks to a ruling from the Constitutional Court, and they were allowed to remain free while appealing their sentences. Dundar eventually left the country and resigned his position, though both he and Gul faced new charges of aiding a terrorist organization in a case that was ongoing at year's end. In October, police detained Cumhuriyet's new editor in chief, Murat Sabuncu, and at least 11 other staff members and directors for allegedly aiding terrorist organizations. In November, Murat and eight of the others were formally arrested, charged, and jailed pending trial.

Defamation is a criminal offense and often results in high fines and prison terms, which have a chilling effect on journalistic work. Insulting the president is a separate offense outlined in the penal code. Prominent officials, including Erdogan, frequently initiate defamation and insult cases against journalists, cartoonists, artists, and academics. As of June 2016, Erdogan had brought nearly 2,000 such cases since assuming the presidency in 2014. In July, he announced that he was withdrawing all pending complaints against those charged with insulting him in a gesture of national unity following the coup attempt. However, defamation cases involving other state officials continued, and the president's legal team began filing new charges.

Journalists do not generally receive fair treatment in the judicial system, and the courts' handling of media-related cases in 2016 showed a lack of impartiality and independence. Turkey's Constitutional Court, which historically has demonstrated some willingness to rule against prosecutors and protect the rights of journalists, appeared to change course after some of its members were arrested following the coup attempt. According to the independent press agency Bianet, the court ruled favorably on only two applications by journalists during 2016, compared with eight in 2015.

Turkey adopted a freedom of information law in 2003. However, state secrets whose release may harm national security, economic interests, state investigations, or intelligence activity, or "violate the private life of the individual," are exempt from requests. In practice, access to official information remains challenging.

The Supreme Council of Radio and Television (RTUK), whose members are elected by the parliament, has the power to issue and cancel broadcasting licenses, a process which is heavily politicized. It also has the authority to sanction broadcasters if they are not in compliance with the law or the council's expansive broadcasting principles. The body is frequently subject to political pressure, and its board is currently dominated by members affiliated with the AKP. According to Bianet, RTUK issued 50 warnings and 112 fines to television channels, and 7 warnings and 11 fines to radio stations in 2016. Within days of the July coup attempt, RTUK withdrew the operating licenses of two dozen television and radio outlets over their alleged links the Gulen movement, and many more were later closed by executive decree. Print outlets can be shut down if they violate laws restricting media freedom, and they too faced dozens of closures beginning in July.

Amendments made in 2014 to Law No. 5651, commonly known as the Internet Law of Turkey, expanded the power of the Telecommunication and Communication Presidency (TIB) to order the blocking of websites, allowing it to do so on vaguely defined grounds and without prior court approval, though a court must uphold the order within 48 hours for a block to remain in place. Regulatory revisions published in the official gazette in June 2016 appeared to grant the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK), the country's main telecommunications regulator, greater power to suspend internet and telecommunications service for national security purposes. In August, the TIB, which had been accused of infiltration by the Gulen movement, was disbanded by decree; its functions were folded into the BTK.

A discriminatory accreditation system enforced by the Directorate General of Press and Information (BYEGM), a body under the control of the prime minister's office, is used to screen out critical journalists, restricting access to the offices of the president and cabinet ministers. Regulatory amendments published in the official gazette in 2015 granted the deputy prime minister overseeing the BYEGM the power to issue permanent press cards, and altered the composition of the BYEGM's Press Card Commission, increasing its membership from 13 to 15 but decreasing the number of seats for media representatives from 8 to 5. Local journalists' organizations criticized the move, which was made without meaningful consultation with the media, for further reducing the impartiality of the accreditation process. The Turkish Journalists' Association (TGC) and Turkish Journalists' Union (TGS) withdrew from the Press Card Commission as a result. According to the TGS, only 1.5 percent of journalists belong to a union. In 2016, nearly 800 press cards were revoked, largely as part of the postcoup crackdown.

Political Environment: 33 / 40 (3)

Systematic political pressure from the executive branch has led to widespread dismissals of journalists for critical reporting on the Erdogan government in recent years. This pattern continued in 2016, but firings and forced resignations accelerated dramatically during the postcoup purge. According to Bianet, more than 2,700 journalists and other media workers were dismissed or forced to quit during the year, compared with 348 in 2015. Leaked documents and wiretaps, particularly in 2013 and 2014, have revealed the extent of government efforts to create a loyal media, and shown Erdogan and other prominent officials exerting editorial pressure through direct instructions, admonishments for undesirable content, and financial incentives.

Media outlets are sometimes denied access to events and information for political reasons. Critical outlets are regularly denied access to the AKP's party congress and meetings, and the government prevents certain journalists from attending press conferences or accompanying officials on foreign visits.

Censorship of content occurs both offline and online. Sensitive topics include Kurdish issues, the Armenian genocide, and subjects deemed offensive to or critical of Islam or the Turkish state. Enforcement of the relevant laws is arbitrary and unpredictable, and many publications on such subjects have been available over the years. However, censorship reached unprecedented levels following the July 2016 coup attempt. On one day alone toward the end of July, the government ordered the closure of nearly 50 newspapers, 3 news agencies, 16 television channels, 15 magazines, and almost 30 publishers over their alleged support for or connections to the coup plotters. According to Reporters Without Borders, close to 150 different media outlets were forcibly closed between July and December, with only 20 eventually permitted to reopen. Other observers placed the number of closures at nearly 200. Kurdish outlets were especially hard hit.

Censorship typically intensifies following major security incidents, as demonstrated earlier in 2016. Following a suicide bombing that killed at least 10 people in Istanbul in January, authorities instituted a blackout on media coverage of the explosion. A similar order was issued following a car bombing in Ankara that killed 28 people in February. After a carefully orchestrated terrorist attack at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport killed more than 40 people in June, a gag order prohibited the broadcast of any images of the explosion, blast site, or the dead and wounded, and restricted the release of information about the investigation.

Censorship of content published on online news and social media platforms continued during the year, and access to major services including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook was temporarily blocked on several occasions. Such restrictions were particularly pervasive in the country's predominantly Kurdish southeast; all internet access in the region was suspended in September and October in response to protests against the detention of local Kurdish officials. Nationwide blockages of WhatsApp, the popular messaging application, were reported in November. According to the independent organization Engelli Web, the total number of websites blocked in Turkey  including for apolitical reasons like copyright infringement  surpassed 115,000 by the end of 2016.

Fear of legal reprisals or loss of employment in a concentrated media market has led to widespread self-censorship in recent years. Some journalists have nevertheless attempted to cover sensitive political, religious, and social issues. The 2016 purge accelerated the erosion of media diversity, though even before the mass closures, the sector was strikingly polarized, with most outlets representing distinct political and social viewpoints and reporting news from predetermined angles. The high rate of dismissals in previous years had led many prominent commentators to write for smaller online outlets that were less susceptible to political pressure. However, their audiences were also considerably smaller.

Both local and foreign journalists were subject to increased harassment, intimidation, and arrests while covering newsworthy events during 2016; retaliatory violence against the media also escalated. According to Bianet, 56 journalists and 6 outlets faced some form of attack, while 118 journalists and 5 media outlets were subjected to threats. Moreover, multiple foreign journalists were either deported or refused entry into Turkey as a result of their work. Among other cases, Hasnain Kazim, a foreign correspondent for Der Spiegel in Istanbul, was forced to leave the country in March after authorities refused to renew his residency permit. In April, the Dutch-Turkish columnist Ebru Umar was arrested on charges of defaming Erdogan during a visit to Turkey; she was eventually released and forced to leave the country in May. Also in April, the Turkish bureau chief of Sputnik news agency was prevented from reentering Turkey from Russia after his press card and residency permit were revoked.

In February 2016, the offices of two newspapers, Yeni Akit and Yeni Safak, were attacked by assailants hurling Molotov cocktails and firing gunshots. No one was injured, but no suspects were identified by police. In May, Can Dundar, the Cumhuriyet editor in chief, was attacked by a gunman outside the courthouse where his trial was taking place. He escaped unharmed, but a nearby journalist with the NTV television station was shot in the leg. The gunman was arrested and was free pending trial at year's end.

According to CPJ, two journalists were killed in Turkey in connection with their work during 2016. Rohat Aktas, a reporter with the Kurdish daily Azadiya Welat, was killed while covering clashes between Turkish security forces and Kurdish militants in Cizre in February. In April, Zaher al-Shurqat, a Syrian journalist and correspondent for the online broadcast outlet Aleppo Today, was assassinated in Gaziantep. Al-Shurqat was known for his critical coverage of the Islamic State militant group, which claimed responsibility for the murder.

Economic Environment: 16 / 30 (1)

Thousands of privately owned newspapers and periodicals are published in Turkey, though only a small fraction are dailies with national reach, and many contain a high proportion of columns and opinion articles as opposed to news reports. Broadcast media are also numerous, with hundreds of private television channels, including those available via cable and satellite, and more than 1,000 commercial radio stations.

More than 58 percent of the population accessed the internet in 2016, and online outlets are increasingly popular as venues for critical journalism, particularly by reporters who have been dismissed or forced to resign from traditional outlets for political reasons. Major online news portals include T24, P24, Diken, and Bianet. Although a number of these platforms consistently provide independent reporting, they have limited financial resources. Internet service providers can face high fines for noncompliance with blocking orders. The deliberate disruptions of internet service or access to major communications platforms that were imposed by the authorities during 2016 seriously affected the ability of journalists to produce and disseminate their work.

Private media ownership remains concentrated in the hands of a few large holding companies that earn the majority of their revenue from nonmedia assets, particularly in construction, energy, mining, and financial services. The centralization of public procurement decisions at the highest levels of the executive branch under AKP rule has led to increasing use of economic leverage to influence the content of media outlets owned by these companies. In one of the most flagrant examples of such manipulation, wiretap recordings leaked in 2013 indicated that the government dictated which holding companies would purchase the Sabah-ATV media group in exchange for a multibillion-dollar contract to build Istanbul's third airport.

The government has also used various forms of financial pressure to punish dissent, including the withholding of state advertising from critical outlets. In October 2016, the Press Advertising Authority (BIK), which controls the allocation of official advertising, adopted a new policy under which newspapers whose ownership, management, or employees are facing terrorism-related charges cannot benefit from state advertising. Access to advertising can only be restored if the suspect employees are fired or the charges are either dropped or fully adjudicated.

The most aggressive form of state intervention in the business operations of media enterprises has been the direct seizure of assets. For example, the courts placed several major media outlets under the control of government-appointed trustees in 2015 as part of an investigation into the alleged Gulenist ties of their holding company, and similar actions occurred in the first half of 2016. In March, the newspaper Zaman, a leading outlet known for its criticism of the government, was seized and placed under the management of trustees. Following the takeover, observers noted a dramatic shift in its editorial content, which became markedly more progovernment; the paper was shuttered entirely in the aftermath of the July coup attempt. The Cihan news agency was also seized in March and forced to close along with Zaman in July. Decrees issued under the state of emergency allowed the authorities to seize the assets of the news outlets they shuttered on national security grounds, and numerous media companies were taken over in this manner.

The purges have caused widespread unemployment among journalists and other media workers, with more than 10,000 out of work by the end of 2016, according to the Turkish Journalists' Association.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Tanzania

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Tanzania, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67bba.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

Total Score: 58/100 (3) (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 21/30 (3)

Political Environment: 22/40

Economic Environment: 15/30

Quick Facts

Population: 54,200,000

Freedom in the World Status: Partly Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 5.4%

Key Developments in 2016:

In November, President John Magufuli signed into law the restrictive Media Services Bill, which replaced self-regulatory and independent media oversight mechanisms with a government-controlled one, and required that all journalists obtain accreditation from a government-appointed board.

In September, five people were charged under the Electronic and Postal Communications Act for sharing critical remarks about Magufuli and the country's police made on social media and messaging platforms.

In December, a cofounder of the popular whistleblowing website JamiiForums faced charges under the Cybercrimes Act for refusing to share the forum's user data and for operating a website that is not registered in Tanzania.

Authorities banned two newspapers, Mawio and Mseto, after they published stories on political tensions in Zanzibar and corruption allegations against President Magufuli, respectively.

Executive Summary

Although the constitution provides for freedom of speech, it does not specifically guarantee freedom of the press. Current laws give authorities broad discretion to restrict media on the basis of national security or public interest, and difficult registration processes hinder print and electronic media. The media landscape is diverse but deeply polarized along political lines. Control of the media is mostly concentrated in the hands of a few proprietors  including the government, which reportedly withholds advertising contracts from critical outlets.

In 2016, a number of journalists faced trumped-up charges under a range of laws that allow Tanzanian authorities to exert pressure on the media sector. Also during the year, several media outfits were closed on politically motivated grounds. The invocation of existing laws, combined with the signing of the restrictive Media Services Bill in November, contributed to growing self-censorship among journalists across the country. Upon its enactment, the Media Services Act shifted power from self-regulatory and independent media oversight mechanisms to a government-controlled one, and required that all journalists obtain accreditation from a government-appointed board.

Since the 2015 enactment of the Cybercrimes Act, which provides for prison terms and fines for a variety of online activities, authorities have used it to bring charges against at least 10 individuals; among them was a senior university lecturer who was charged in September 2016 for insulting the president in a WhatsApp message. In December, JamiiForums cofounder Maxence Melo was detained for a week and charged under the law for two offences: operating a website that was not registered in Tanzania and obstructing an investigation by refusing to disclose information about users of the site. Separately, in September, authorities charged five people under the Electronic and Postal Communications Act for insulting Magufuli and the Tanzanian police on social media and messaging platforms.

In January, just two months into Magufuli's administration, authorities invoked the 1976 Newspapers Act to force the closure of the Mawio newspaper, which had published critical stories about the political crisis in the semiautonomous Zanzibar archipelago. In August, the weekly Mseto was banned for three years, also under the Newspapers Act, after it published a story about a deputy minister who had accused Magufuli of corruption. The same month, authorities ordered the closure of two independent radio stations, accusing them of broadcasting "seditious" material.

Explanatory Note

This country report has been abridged for Freedom of the Press 2017. For background information on press freedom in Tanzania, see Freedom of the Press 2016.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Syria

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Syria, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67bfa.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 90/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 29/30

Political Environment: 38/40

Economic Environment: 23/30

Quick Facts

Population: 17,200,000

Freedom in the World Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: Not Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 30.0%

Key Developments in 2016:

At least 14 journalists were killed in connection with their work during the year, the majority of whom died as a result of Syrian government air strikes or clashes between armed groups.

The Islamic State (IS) militant group continued its brutal crackdown on dissent, releasing a graphic video of the murder of five media activists and threatening other journalists who criticize its rule.

Five foreign journalists were released by or escaped from the militant group Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra.

Executive Summary

Syria remained one of the most dangerous places in the world to practice journalism, as its multilateral civil war pitted the repressive government of President Bashar al-Assad against IS, Kurdish separatists, and an array of opposition militias. Journalists were killed, kidnapped, threatened, or subjected to assassination attempts across most of the country. Territory controlled by IS and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham were especially high-risk areas for kidnapping. As a result, few foreign reporters ventured to the northern and eastern provinces of Aleppo, Raqqa, and Deir al-Zour during the year, leaving local journalists to covertly gather and disseminate news.

Syrian journalists in general were more exposed to violence than their foreign counterparts. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), all but one of the 14 journalists killed during the year were Syrian, and the majority of those injured and threatened because of their work were also local reporters.

Legal Environment: 29 / 30

Article 43 of the Syrian constitution provides for freedom of the press, while a 2011 media law prohibits a "monopoly on the media," guarantees the "right to access information about public affairs," and bans "the arrest, questioning, or searching of journalists." In practice, these protections are virtually nonexistent in government-held areas. The media law bars outlets from publishing content that affects "national unity and national security" or incites sectarian strife or "hate crimes," and forbids the publication of any information about the armed forces. It holds editors in chief, journalists, and spokespeople accountable for violations, and prescribes fines of up to 1 million Syrian pounds ($4,600). Article 3 states that the law "upholds freedom of expression guaranteed in the Syrian constitution" and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but Article 4 says the media must "respect this freedom of expression" by "practicing it with awareness and responsibility." Such broad wording gives the authorities leeway to crack down on journalists.

In addition to media laws, the government has used security-related legislation to control and punish journalists. At least seven Syrian journalists were incarcerated in government prisons as of December 2016, according to CPJ. Although in most cases the authorities released little or no information about any charges against them, those known to have faced prosecution were tried by military or state security courts for antistate crimes. Syrian authorities regularly use torture and other abuse to extract confessions and account passwords.

The media law ostensibly provides for access to government information, but officials have broad discretion to withhold information on security and other grounds, and journalists are unable to make use of such information requests in practice.

In government-controlled areas, a National Media Council (NMC) regulates the information sector. Among other duties, it sets conditions for licenses, issues them to private media outlets, specifies rules on funding, and issues press credentials to journalists. The NMC lacks independence, and effectively serves as a mouthpiece for the government's media policy and a vehicle for state propaganda. Although the law requires authorities to consult the NMC before detaining or arresting journalists, searching or seizing their equipment, or investigating their activities, this process is a mere formality. The NMC also regularly criticizes media coverage that is displeasing to the regime, and works to intimidate outlets into taking a progovernment editorial line.

Outside of territories controlled by the government, the legal environment for the media varies depending on the group in control. IS dominated significant parts of the country's north and east in 2016, while also making smaller inroads into central Syria. It systematically enforces its own repressive legal regime, including provisions pertaining to the media.

Legal conditions are somewhat more permissive in Syrian Kurdistan, known locally as Rojava, where Kurdish leaders and militias have established functional autonomy during the civil war. In 2014, Rojava formally declared local autonomy and established its own constitution, which includes protections for the media. Article 24 affirms "the right to freedom of opinion and expression." However, the same article also provides that such freedoms may be curtailed to ensure the "security of the autonomous regions, public safety and order, the integrity of the individual," and other interests, seemingly opening the door to restrictive laws on issues like sedition and libel.

In 2013, Kurdish authorities established the Union of Free Media (YRA), an official body with numerous press-related functions that continued to operate after autonomy was declared. All news media in the Kurdish cantons must obtain permits from the YRA in order to function legally. The Democratic Union Party (PYD), the dominant Kurdish political force in Rojava, appears to exercise partisan influence over media regulation. In recent years, Kurdish authorities have revoked the licenses of Orient TV, a Syrian opposition station, and the Rudaw Media Network, which is affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), a PYD rival that governs in Iraqi Kurdistan. The outlets, which were accused of publishing "lies" that incited violence and internal discord, were banned in the eastern Jazira Canton in 2015. The central Kobani Canton followed suit with its own bans in February 2016; Rudaw reported that the canton's PYD authorities had barred local journalists and freelancers from working with the network and warned other entities to cut off contact.

Political Environment: 38 / 40

Authorities in government-held areas continued to forcibly restrict news coverage during 2016. False statements and propaganda are common on state-run outlets, and all media are subject to official censorship. The General Corporation for the Distribution of Publications is responsible for prior censorship and distribution of all printed materials in Syria. It regularly excises controversial content prior to circulation and fully blocks distribution of certain publications. A combination of intensifying censorship and the economic strain of war has sharply reduced media diversity in territory controlled by the government. Only a few dozen print publications remain in circulation, down from several hundred prior to the conflict. Most are locally based generalist and lifestyle publications, and few deal with politics or current events. Visas for the foreign press are restricted in government-held areas. Journalists are subject to onerous restrictions on their movements and activities, but are sometimes able to flout them given the chaotic security situation, which weakens the government's ability to police the media. The government uses cyberattacks to disable media outlets and spy on journalists' communications.

IS tightly controlled the dissemination of information in areas where it exercised authority in 2016. In 2014, observers obtained a list of 11 restrictions issued by the IS press office, including a rule requiring journalists to submit most of their work to official censorship bodies prior to publication. IS also employs an expansive propaganda operation in its territory. It produces a multilingual magazine, Dabiq, and has achieved notoriety for its sophisticated use of social media for recruitment and propaganda purposes. Like the government, IS is known to direct cyberattacks against journalists and activists.

Critical media operating in both government-held and IS-held territory do so at great risk, and thus circulate their materials primarily underground or online. Citizen journalists have helped to fill the gap created by restrictions on mainstream media and have played an integral role in documenting protests and atrocities. For example, uncensored articles and videos from IS areas have been made available to the outside world through media groups such as Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently and Eye on the Homeland, whose citizen journalists work secretly and face lethal punishment if detected by the militant group.

In Rojava and areas held by various opposition rebel groups, the loss of government control has led to a proliferation of outlets. While some are independent, others are affiliated with particular political factions and show a corresponding bias. According to a report published in December 2016 by the Middle East Institute, there are at least 196 active media outlets operating in Syria. Of those, 71 are progovernment, a further 71 are aligned with the opposition, 39 are described as independent, and 14 are listed as independent outlets focused on the Kurdish areas. The report notes that the majority of the outlets deemed independent are antigovernment by virtue of their support for a democratic Syria.

Syria is one of the world's most dangerous countries for the press. Journalists face multiple obstacles to reporting safely, including the danger of being caught in cross fire or bombardments, or directly targeted and killed. Journalists are also at risk of harassment, intimidation, and detention in all parts of the country, including areas held by opposition and Kurdish forces. At least 14 reporters were killed in connection with their work during 2016, according to CPJ, the same number as in 2015. Although the majority of those killed, including one Iranian reporter, died in air strikes or combat situations, several others were deliberately murdered.

In June, IS released a graphic video showing the murder of five Syrian media activists who had worked to document the militant group's abuses in Deir al-Zour. The video included an explicit threat to other journalists and media activists, warning that any critical reporting would put their lives at risk. Also in June, Khaled Eissa, a journalist opposed to the Assad government, died of injuries he sustained a week earlier from a bomb planted outside his home. Opposition media described the attack as an assassination attempt against Eissa and fellow reporter Hadi Abdullah.

A number of journalists have gone missing while working in Syria. Most are Syrian, but they also include Austin Tice, a U.S. photographer last heard from in August 2012, and Jumpei Yasuda, a Japanese reporter last heard from in June 2015. In May 2016, three Spanish journalists were released by Jabhat Fatah al-Sham after 10 months of confinement; it was reported that an $11 million ransom was paid to the group. American freelancer Lindsey Snell was detained by Jabhat Fatah al-Sham in July, but was able to negotiate her own release, only to be arrested by Turkish authorities while crossing the border in August. She was later released and deported. German freelance reporter Jaina Findeisen was also able to escape Jabhat Fatah al-Sham custody in September, having been held captive since October 2015.

In April, masked assailants attacked an independent radio station in Rojava, Arta FM. The gunmen abducted and threatened the station's director, warning him to stop broadcasting, then set fire to the station's offices. It continued to broadcast via satellite.

Economic Environment: 23 / 30

In regime-held territory, the government and allied businessmen own most print and broadcast outlets and tightly control editorial policy. As a result, genuinely independent media in these sectors are virtually nonexistent. New print and broadcast outlets have emerged in opposition-controlled territory, but their financing  which relies on Syrian expatriates and international donors  hinders viability, and staff are mostly volunteers. Some outlets are based abroad and maintain a reporting staff in Syria. Orient TV, the opposition television channel owned by exiled Syrian automotive mogul Ghassan Aboud, broadcasts via satellite from Dubai and has correspondents based in Syria.

Rojava is home to a number of local media outlets, including Ronahi TV, Arta FM, the newspaper Nudem, and the news agency Hawar News. However, these too suffer from economic constraints, relying on volunteers and subsidies from local and foreign Kurdish benefactors. Even foreign television stations operating in the territory, such as Kurdish outlets from northern Iraq, are economically dependent on affiliated political parties.

About 32 percent of the population used the internet as of 2016, and social media and communication tools such as Skype are increasingly employed to transmit news. War-related damage to infrastructure and deliberate interference by combatants cause frequent power outages and disruption of telecommunications. Government forces obstruct internet access in besieged rebel-held areas, and IS tightly restricts access in territory under its control. Opposition groups sometimes circumvent these problems by using satellite devices to access the internet and telephone service.

Syria's war-ravaged economy is not conducive to sustaining private outlets. Several opposition media outlets closed their print operations in 2016, choosing to publish online only due to financial challenges and physical insecurity. The Kurdish news website Welati shut down in May, citing financial difficulties.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Serbia

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Serbia, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67c3a.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

Total Score: 49/100 (4) (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 15/30 (3)

Political Environment: 21/40

Economic Environment: 13/30 (1)

Quick Facts

Population: 7,100,000

Freedom in the World Status: Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 65.3%

Key Developments in 2016:

Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and allied media outlets, particularly the Informer tabloid, continued a campaign to portray investigative and critical media as foreign-backed propagandists.

In July, the governing Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) hosted an exhibition at a Belgrade art gallery in which media outlets that had criticized Vucic and his allies were depicted as liars.

Following the SNS's strong performance in elections to the legislature of the autonomous province of Vojvodina, a number of journalists were dismissed from the provincial public broadcaster in what many described as a politically motivated purge.

A series of death threats and other intimidation directed at journalists prompted a statement of concern from the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE) in September.

Executive Summary

Serbia's constitution and legal framework guarantee freedom of the press. However, in practice, these guarantees are not well enforced, and press freedom has eroded under the SNS-led administration of Prime Minister Vucic. Independent and investigative journalists face frequent harassment, including by government officials and in progovernment media. Physical attacks against journalists take place each year, and death threats and other intimidation targeting media workers are a serious concern.

In 2016, Vucic and a number of government-friendly outlets continued to portray investigative and critical media organizations as foreign-backed propagandists seeking to damage the government and destabilize Serbia. The progovernment Informer often smears critical outlets and reporters, claiming that they have links to mafia groups or foreign intelligence agencies. In March, it ran an article containing details from an independent reporter's unpublished investigation, prompting some local media advocates to express concern about possible government surveillance of critical journalists. In January, journalists held a series of demonstrations in Belgrade and other cities to protest government hostility toward the media.

In September, the OSCE representative on freedom of the media issued a statement about death threats and other intimidation aimed at reporters, expressing alarm and calling for thorough investigations. Nine journalists experienced physical attacks in 2016, according to Serbia's Independent Association of Journalists. Such incidents are rarely investigated.

A recent media privatization drive meant to bring the country in line with European Union (EU) market requirements has left the ownership structures of many privatized outlets unclear, though it appears that some were purchased by politically connected actors who use them as party mouthpieces, particularly for the SNS. Separately, following a strong SNS showing in elections to the Vojvodina legislature in April, a number of journalists were dismissed from the region's public broadcaster. Media freedom advocates criticized the staffing changes as politically motivated. The development prompted both the OSCE and the EU to announce in a joint statement that they had "taken note" of the situation, and to remind the public broadcaster of its responsibility to produce unbiased news for Vojvodina residents.

Legal Environment: 15 / 30 (3)

Freedoms of speech and the press are protected under Serbia's constitution and legal system. However, these protections are not consistently upheld in practice, and in 2016 were undermined by the efforts of Prime Minister Vucic and a number of government-friendly outlets to portray investigative and critical media organizations as foreign-backed propagandists seeking to damage the government and destabilize Serbia.

Reporters and media outlets may risk lawsuits or threats of legal action in connection with critical or investigative coverage. Journalists are subject to prosecution under the 2009 Data Secrecy Law, which protects information related to national security, public safety, and foreign affairs, among other categories. Defamation was decriminalized in 2012, and is now a civil offense. In November 2016, Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic filed a defamation case against the weekly magazine NIN over an article they published which accused him of being responsible for illegal demolitions in Belgrade's Savamala district, where a controversial urban regeneration project is planned. The suit, in which Stefanovic sought 300,000 dinars ($2,700), was open at year's end. Articles criminalizing insult remain on the books; such offenses are technically not punishable by prison sentences, but journalists can be imprisoned if they are unable to pay associated fines.

Some confusion within the judiciary over Serbia's media laws continues.

Authorities frequently obstruct journalists' efforts to obtain public information under the 2004 Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance.

The Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media issues licenses to broadcasters. However, its processes are nontransparent and it has yet to prepare by-laws that permit the implementation of some 2014 reforms, and the EU has encouraged it to take additional measures to ensure its independence.

There are no licensing requirements for journalists. In March, the progovernment Informer ran an article containing details from independent reporter Stevan Dojcinovic's unpublished investigation, prompting some local media advocates to express concern about possible government surveillance of journalists. The 2010 Law on Electronic Communications requires telecommunications providers to keep records on the source, destination, and timing of all electronic communications for one year for potential government use, provided that a court approves such requests for information.

A number of journalists' associations are active in working to protect media workers' interests. In late 2015 and in January 2016, journalists staged a number of protests at which they denounced pressure against media workers by Vucic's government.

Political Environment: 21 / 40

Media outlets and journalists continued to face pressure from politicians and owners over content and editorial policies in 2016. Notably, there was evidence of politically motivated decisions at the provincial public broadcaster RTV Vojvodina in 2016. In April, Svetlana Bozic Kraincanic of RTV Vojvodina was suspended and fined by the broadcaster's director after asking Vucic, at a press conference, whether he had rejected nationalistic ideas of a "greater Serbia." Vucic condemned the sanctions, which were based on claims that by asking a question posed by members of an activist group that was protesting outside the conference, that Bozic Kraincanic had violated the broadcaster's code of ethics by allowing third-party influence on its programming. Despite Vucic's remarks, the sanctions were not reversed. Later, following a strong SNS showing in elections to the Vojvodina legislature in April, a number of journalists were dismissed from RTV Vojvodina; they claimed that they were replaced with journalists more sympathetic to the SNS. Media freedom advocates criticized the staffing changes as politically motivated. The development prompted both the OSCE and the EU to announce in a joint statement that they had "taken note" of the situation, and to remind the public broadcaster of its responsibility to produce unbiased news for Vojvodina residents.

Separately, the National Council of the Ethnic Hungarian Minority in Serbia implemented reforms allowing it to appoint the editors in chief of two Hungarian-language media outlets, the Magyar Szo daily and the Het Nap weekly magazine. Previously, the publications' journalists had been permitted influence in the selection.

On occasion, websites carrying news about sensitive topics have been temporarily blocked, prompting concerns about government censorship of the internet. Self-censorship is widespread, with journalists attributing the phenomenon not only to harassment that often follows critical or investigative reporting, but also to economic pressures, such as the risk of losing advertising contracts in connection with such reports

Journalists in Serbia face verbal abuse and intimidation. In 2016, Vucic and a number of government-friendly outlets continued to portray investigative and critical media organizations as foreign-backed propagandists seeking to damage the government and destabilize Serbia. The progovernment Informer often smears critical outlets and reporters, claiming that they have links to mafia groups or foreign intelligence agencies. The March Informer article that detailed Dojcinovic's investigation alleged that he had invented a scandal in cooperation with drug dealers and criminals in order to smear Vucic. In September, a photograph of journalist Slobodan Georgiev, of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), appeared in the Informer, where he was accused of being paid by the EU to create chaos in Serbia. And in July, the governing SNS hosted an exhibition at a Belgrade art gallery in which media outlets that had criticized Vucic and his allies were depicted as liars.

In September, the OSCE representative on freedom of the media issued a statement about death threats and other extralegal intimidation aimed at Serbian reporters, expressing alarm and calling for thorough investigations. Nine journalists experienced physical attacks in 2016, according to Serbia's Independent Association of Journalists.

Economic Environment: 13 / 30 (1)

Serbia has hundreds of print outlets, radio stations, television stations, and online news portals serving a population of about 7.1 million. A handful of national commercial broadcasters compete with the public broadcaster, Radio Television of Serbia (RTS). Television is the primary source of news in Serbia for most people. Some newspapers remain influential despite low circulation, with print headlines often serving as the basis for discussions on morning television and radio programs. A recent media privatization drive meant to bring the country in line with EU market requirements has left the ownership structures of many privatized outlets unclear, though it appears that some were purchased by politically connected actors who use them as party mouthpieces, particularly for the SNS.

Most outlets in the country's crowded media market are not financially self-sufficient, and are unable to fund high-quality journalism. Many outlets obtain news items from social media, or publish press releases as news.

Many news outlets depend heavily on the government's subsidies and advertising purchases, which are allocated through opaque processes. Broader economic problems have contributed to an increase in self-censorship and a significant decline in investigative journalism in recent years.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Russia

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Russia, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67c5a.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 83/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 25/30

Political Environment: 34/40

Economic Environment: 24/30

Quick Facts

Population: 144,300,000

Freedom in the World Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: Not Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 73.4%

Key Developments in 2016:

Legal amendments that were signed into law in July gave the state security services greater access to communications data and increased penalties for promoting "extremism" and other offenses.

Top editors at the independent RBC media group were dismissed in May after its coverage of the Panama Papers  leaked documents from a Panamanian law firm that revealed possible corruption among President Vladimir Putin's associates  apparently prompted increased legal and political pressure on the group's owner. Other RBC journalists subsequently resigned, and new chief editors were hired from the state-owned news agency TASS in July.

Media outlets favored the ruling United Russia party in their coverage of the September parliamentary elections.

Throughout the year there were reports of attacks, threats, censorship, arrests, and prison sentences against both journalists and ordinary citizens who had posted or shared politically sensitive information online. Among other cases, two bloggers were sentenced to prison for commentary on Ukraine and Syria, and an online journalist was jailed in Chechnya on dubious drug-possession charges.

Executive Summary

Russia remains a country with a large array of media outlets, but limited access to critical or independent coverage and diverse political viewpoints. Television, which is still the leading source of news and information, often functions as a propaganda tool for the government. The mainstream media showed significant bias toward the ruling United Russia party in their reporting on the September 2016 parliamentary elections. The media are also expected to conform to official narratives on issues like Russia's occupation of Crimea and military intervention in Syria, and the dissemination of critical views on those topics can result in website blocking or prison sentences.

While some independent broadcasters, publications, and online news sources continue to operate, their market share is not extensive and they regularly face pressure from the government. Such pressure, including aggressive tax inspections and criminal investigations, apparently led to the ouster of top editors at the RBC media group in May.

The legal framework gives the government broad, discretionary powers to regulate media content. This includes the so-called Yarovaya laws, a package of antiterrorism legislation signed in July that increased prison sentences for promoting terrorism or extremism online and requires internet service providers to retain and allow decryption of communications data for possible inspection by security agencies.

Violence against journalists remained common in 2016. There were widespread reports of attacks, arrests, and threats against both professional journalists and social media users. The risk of violence or prosecution was particularly high in Chechnya, an insurgency-prone Russian republic governed by pro-Kremlin strongman Ramzan Kadyrov. A group of Russian and foreign journalists and human rights workers were attacked and beaten by masked assailants as their bus approached the Chechen border in March.

Legal Environment: 25 / 30

Although the Russian constitution provides for freedoms of speech and of the press, government officials frequently use the country's politicized and corrupt court system to harass the few journalists and bloggers who expose abuses by authorities. Russian law has a broad definition of extremism that officials invoke to silence government critics. Enforcement of this and other restrictive legal provisions has encouraged self-censorship.

In July 2016, President Vladimir Putin signed a package of legal amendments known as the Yarovaya laws. They compel telecommunications and internet service providers to retain all communications records for six months and all metadata for three years, enabling security services to access the information as needed. The maximum penalty for extremism was increased from four to eight years in prison, and internet users who express approval of terrorism  also a vaguely defined term in Russian laws  will face up to seven years in prison. The act of urging people to participate in "mass disturbances" was criminalized, carrying a prison sentence of five to 10 years. Another provision criminalized the withholding of information about certain crimes from the authorities.

A 2013 law allows the state telecommunications regulator, Roskomnadzor, to block websites that disseminate calls for riots, "extremist" activities, or participation in illegal assemblies. The law continued to be invoked against independent and opposition websites in 2016, as were laws that allow blocking on various other grounds. By mid-2016, according to the Russian organization Roskomsvoboda, more than 30,000 websites were blacklisted by Russian authorities. In total, about 600,000 sites were actually blocked because they shared internet protocol addresses with blacklisted sites.

Prosecutors in 2016 continued their practice of charging individuals  including journalists, bloggers, and social media users  with defamation, extremism, and other criminal offenses designed to limit free speech. In May, for example, social media user Andrey Bubeyev was sentenced to more than two years in prison for reposting two items that were critical of Russian policy toward Ukraine. In September, blogger Ruslan Sokolovsky was arrested and charged with inciting hatred and offending religious sensibilities for posting a video to YouTube in which he plays the smartphone game Pokemon Go in a church. He faced up to five years in prison. In December, Aleksey Kungurov was convicted of "publicly justifying terrorism" in a 2015 blog post that criticized Russia's military intervention in Syria. He was ordered to serve over two years in a penal colony.

While the constitution and a 2009 law provide for freedom of information, accessing information related to government bodies or via government websites is extremely difficult in practice.

Russian business entities can legally establish and operate commercial media outlets, but licensing decisions are often opaque, arbitrary, or motivated by political considerations. Regulatory bodies are not impartial or politically independent, and have exerted editorial pressure on media outlets through investigations and enforcement actions. A 2014 law requires any website, blog, or public social media account with more than 3,000 daily viewers to register with Roskomnadzor as a media outlet and comply with the regulations accompanying that status, including bans on anonymous authorship and legal responsibility for comments posted by users.

Under a 2012 law, civil society organizations, including those advocating for journalists and media freedom, are registered as "foreign agents" if they are found to receive foreign funding and engage in broadly defined "political activity." A law signed in 2015 allows the prosecutor general's office to designate foreign organizations as "undesirable," after which anyone working with the blacklisted group can face up to seven years in prison. In August 2016, the prosecutor general's office labeled the U.S.-based Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF), which assists independent news outlets in countries around the world, as an undesirable organization.

Media freedom advocates can face retaliation for their work. In October 2016, it was reported that the head of the Union of Journalists of the Khanty-Mansi District, Aleksandr Grigorenko, had been investigated for alleged embezzlement and dismissed from his position after he accused the district government of censorship.

Political Environment: 34 / 40

The main national news agenda is firmly controlled by the Kremlin. The government sets editorial policy at state-owned television stations, which dominate the media landscape and generate propagandistic content. The country's hundreds of newspapers offer content on a wide range of topics but rarely challenge the official line on important issues such as corruption or foreign policy. Meaningful political debate is mostly limited to news websites, some radio programs, and a handful of newspapers. These outlets operate with the understanding that the government has the means to close them at any time.

In March 2016, the state-owned channel NTV aired a documentary that smeared independent regional media outlets, claiming that they colluded with the U.S. government in exchange for MDIF funding. In April, the state television channel Rossiya-1 broadcast an "expose" of opposition politician and activist Aleksey Navalny, citing apparently fabricated evidence to assert that he was a paid foreign agent in a conspiracy to change the regime in Russia.

The state-dominated media showed significant bias toward the ruling United Russia party in the September 2016 parliamentary elections. Monitoring by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe found that over 90 percent of election coverage on the national television channels was dedicated to Putin and other government officials.

There is substantial evidence that the government also organizes propaganda campaigns online, including by hiring people or creating automated social media accounts to produce positive content about the regime and attack its detractors. Aside from fulfilling specific disinformation and propaganda goals, the practice undermines the Russian internet as a source of reliable news and information.

The country's few independent media outlets struggled to remain operational in the face of political pressure in 2016. The Glasnost Defence Foundation recorded hundreds of media freedom violations during the year, including the dismissal of 22 journalists and editors. In May 2016, three top editors at the independent media group RBC were pushed out of their jobs after overseeing critical coverage of Putin's family and close associates, among other sensitive topics. The editors were replaced in July by hires from the state-owned news agency TASS, and many RBC journalists resigned in protest. One prominent Russian news site, Meduza, operates from a base in Latvia to avoid interference by Russian authorities.

The violations documented by the Glasnost Defence Foundation included numerous instances of censorship, with 34 cases of interference in the activities of online publications. Among other prominent blocking decisions during the year, Roskomnadzor announced in July that it would four block websites calling for a boycott of the September parliamentary elections. The professional networking site LinkedIn was blocked in Russia in November for failing to observe a 2015 law requiring companies to store their data about Russian citizens on Russian territory.

Self-censorship is thought to be common among journalists, especially on sensitive topics such as Russian military activity, government corruption, and the political opposition.

Both Russian and foreign journalists often encounter physical intimidation or official obstruction while reporting in the field. In February 2016, a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) news crew was harassed by a local progovernment television station in Novosibirsk, which accused the BBC of defaming Russia with its reporting on the economy. In September, journalists from Reuters were prevented from reporting on the parliamentary elections at polling stations in Siberia. Also that month, Paris-based correspondent Roman Sushchenko of the Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform was detained upon arrival in Russia, where he said he planned to visit relatives. He was charged with espionage and remained in detention at year's end.

The Committee to Protect Journalists recorded no murders of journalists in connection with their work in 2016, but the organization has documented 56 such murders in Russia since 1992, finding that the perpetrators nearly always enjoyed impunity. Nonfatal assaults remain relatively common. The Glasnost Defence Foundation collected 54 reports of attacks on journalists and bloggers in 2016. For example, in May Denis Kuchmenko, a journalist and general director of a local television company who had reported on electoral corruption, was assaulted with a taser in Bratsk, and journalist and activist Grigoriy Pasko was attacked in September after arriving in Barnaul to train local journalists in investigative reporting.

Administrators and users of antigovernment groups on social media were subject to physical attacks and intimidation, including beatings and arson, during 2016. In March, for example, administrator Aleksandr Markov was beaten at his home by a group of unknown attackers.

In Chechnya, journalists and citizens who aired critical views about the regime or pro-Kremlin Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov faced a widespread campaign of retribution, including murders, abductions, threats against family members, and public humiliation via televised "apologies." On January 1, the body of university lecturer Khizir Yezhiyev was found outside Grozny, showing signs of torture. Yezhiyev, who had participated in a closed group that was critical of the Chechen administration on the social-networking platform VKontakte, was abducted by unknown gunmen in December 2015 and reportedly taken to a local police station. In March 2016, a busload of Russian and foreign journalists traveling to Chechnya were beaten by masked men, who then set the bus on fire. Journalist Zhalaudi Geriyev of the independent news website Kavkazsky Uzel was detained in Chechnya in April and sentenced to three years in prison in September on trumped-up charges of drug possession after being abused in custody.

Economic Environment: 24 / 30

The Russian state controls, either directly or through proxies, all of the major national television networks, as well as national radio networks, important national newspapers, and two major news agencies. Although numerous private outlets also operate in each medium, state and state-affiliated outlets account for most of the media sector. State-run television is still the main news source for most Russians, though internet access continues to grow. About 76 percent of Russians used the internet in 2016, and online media represented some 11 percent of the roughly 83,000 media outlets registered with Roskomnadzor. In addition to domestic media, the government owns an array of media assets directed at foreign audiences, including RT, an international, multilingual satellite news network that promotes the Kremlin's views and interests.

A law signed in 2014 restricted foreign ownership stakes in Russian media assets to 20 percent as of early 2016, with a final deadline of early 2017 for some companies. In 2015, Germany's Axel Springer group sold the Russian edition of Forbes, and Finland's Sanoma sold its stakes in the business newspaper Vedomosti and the English-language Moscow Times. Russian media executives were the buyers in both transactions.

The authorities sometimes disrupt production and distribution of news content through means including eviction of news outlets from their offices, interruptions of broadcast transmissions, obstruction of print circulation, and seizure of newspaper pressruns. According to the Glasnost Defence Foundation, 16 publications had pressruns seized during 2016.

Most media businesses remain dependent on subsidies from the state or private owners. Government advertising allocations are an important means of influencing content, and private businesses are reportedly reluctant to place advertisements with outlets that are not favorable to the government. Strains on the Russian economy have reduced both subsidies and advertising revenue in recent years.

In February 2015, Putin signed amendments to 2014 legislation that had banned advertising on television channels that charged subscription fees for cable and satellite viewers and did not hold terrestrial broadcasting licenses. The initial ban threatened the commercial viability of many outlets, though notably not the traditional progovernment broadcasters. Under the 2015 amendments, pay channels can air advertisements if their share of foreign programming does not exceed 25 percent.

Corruption is endemic in Russia, and recent declines in the pay rates of journalists and editors have increased their vulnerability to bribery and conflicts of interest, particularly in struggling regional and local markets.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Philippines

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Philippines, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67c9a.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

Total Score: 44/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 14/30

Political Environment: 20/40

Economic Environment: 10/30

Quick Facts

Population: 102,600,000

Freedom in the World Status: Partly Free

Net Freedom Status: Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 40.7%

Key Developments in 2016:

Rodrigo Duterte was elected president of the Philippines in May. His hostile rhetoric against the media inflamed an already dangerous environment for journalists and raised concerns about his government's commitment to upholding press freedom.

In July, Duterte issued an executive order creating the country's first freedom of information regime, but its narrow scope and high number of exceptions limit its impact.

Duterte in October issued an order creating a special task force on journalists' safety, which was empowered to investigate crimes against journalists. However, no major investigations had begun by year's end.

Two people were convicted of murdering journalists in 2016. Nevertheless, the Philippines remains one of the most dangerous places in the world to practice journalism, and violent attacks against media workers usually go unpunished.

Executive Summary

Public and private media in the Philippines offer a wide range of views and provide coverage of controversial topics, including counterinsurgency campaigns and high-level corruption cases. However, media freedom is compromised by the threat of legal action, including under criminal defamation laws, and the Philippines remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. Existing legal protections have generally failed to prevent or punish acts of violence, leading to an entrenched climate of impunity. And while the media collectively offer a broad spectrum of viewpoints, outlets are often accused of providing sensationalist content rather than investigative journalism and useful analysis.

Hostile rhetoric toward members of the media by Duterte further exacerbated an already perilous situation for journalists in the Philippines; Duterte, for example, weeks after his election asserted that "corrupt" reporters "are not exempted from assassination." Journalists who investigated the Duterte administration's role in extrajudicial killings carried out as part of its war on drugs frequently faced harassment and death threats. In a move designed to address journalists' longstanding concerns about their safety, President Duterte in October issued an order creating the Presidential Task Force on Violations of the Right to Life, Liberty, and Security of the Members of the Media, which was empowered to investigate crimes against journalists. However, no major investigations were initiated by year's end.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), three reporters were murdered in 2016. Though none of the killings could be definitively linked to the victims' work, each had reported on sensitive issues, including official corruption and organized crime. While two people were convicted of murdering journalists in 2016, impunity for such crimes remains the norm.

Despite an ongoing campaign by a coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the country lacks a robust freedom of information law, and national security and privacy justifications are regularly employed to obstruct access to government information. In July 2016, Duterte issued an executive order that established a limited access to information regime over the country's executive branch. However, transparency advocates criticized the order's long list of exceptions, which they said effectively nullified its utility. The order did not apply to the legislature or judicial system.

Legal Environment: 14 / 30

The constitution guarantees freedom of speech and of expression. However, in 2016 these guarantees were undermined by President Duterte, whose antagonistic rhetoric  including a May declaration that "corrupt" journalists "are not exempted from assassination"  contributed to a hostile environment for the press. National security legislation introduced in 2007 can be used to curb journalists' traditional rights and access to sources, as can the National Security Clearance System, which was designed to "protect and ensure the integrity and sanctity" of classified information against "enemies of the state."

Existing legal protections have failed to prevent or punish violence against journalists, leading to an entrenched climate of impunity. The trial for the alleged perpetrators of the 2009 Maguindanao massacre, in which 58 civilians  including 32 journalists  were killed when gunmen launched an ambush intended to prevent a local politician from filing his candidacy for governor, continued in 2016. The process has featured violent witness intimidation as well as the killings of a number of witnesses, and only a portion of the 197 suspects have been arraigned. However, the National Police Commission dismissed 21 officers and suspended another 11 in December 2015 for misconduct, after finding that they had failed to intervene as they witnessed the massacre while on duty.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranked the Philippines as the fourth-worst country in the world for impunity in 2016. According to the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, out of the more than 170 court cases that have been brought against suspects in the murders of journalists since 1986, fewer than 20 have led to convictions. However, 2016 saw a few exceptions to this general trend. In June, a former police officer was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison for the 2010 murder of the radio journalist Desiderio Camangyan. And in August, the former mayor of the municipality of Lezo was sentenced to 14 years in prison for the 2004 homicide of broadcaster Herson Hinolan.

Defamation is a criminal offense that can be punished with prison terms and large fines. For nearly two decades, journalists and advocacy groups have been frustrated in their campaign to decriminalize libel and defamation. Cases continue to be filed against journalists whose reporting angers officials and other powerful individuals.

Weaknesses in the judicial system often affect the handling of cases related to media freedom. Those with the means to hire strong legal representation are able to manipulate the technicalities of the law in their favor, or delay cases to the point where justice is effectively denied.

National security and privacy justifications are regularly employed to obstruct the public's access to government information. In July 2016, President Duterte issued an executive order that established a limited access to information regime over the country's executive branch. However, transparency advocates criticized the order's long list of exceptions, which they said effectively nullified its utility. Moreover, the order covers only information held by the executive branch and does not apply to the legislature or judicial system. An access to information law that would cover the entire government has been stalled for years despite a vigorous campaign by civil society organizations.

There are no restrictive licensing requirements for newspapers or journalists, and the country has numerous journalists' associations.

Political Environment: 20 / 40

While the media collectively offer a range of views, reporting by private outlets tends to reflect the political or business interests of their owners and financial supporters. Both the private media and the many publicly owned television and radio stations address controversial topics, including alleged election fraud, ongoing counterinsurgency campaigns, and high-level corruption cases. However, the country's outlets are often accused of providing shallow and provocative content as opposed to investigative journalism and useful analysis.

In October 2016, a watchdog group, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, issued a report on its monitoring of a series of television news specials that marked the first 100 days of the Duterte administration, and evaluated the new administration's activities during that period. The group found that the outlets were generally deferential to the president, and lacked substantive coverage of the human rights implications of Duterte's drug war. However, the study also noted that some newspapers, since Duterte's inauguration, had offered more critical perspectives.

A censorship board has the power to edit or ban content for both television and film, but government censorship does not typically affect political material. Politically motivated libel cases and the threat of violence, including aggressive online harassment, leads some journalists and media outlets to practice self-censorship.

Journalists are subject to harassment, threats, stalking, illegal arrests, raids on their outlets, and murder. Hostile rhetoric from President Duterte has further inflamed the already dangerous environment for journalists in the country. Media investigations into the Duterte administration's role in extrajudicial killings carried out as part of its war on drugs have been followed by harassment and threats of murder and rape against the journalists conducting them. According to CPJ, three journalists were murdered in 2016. Though none of the killings could be definitively linked to the victims' work, each reported on sensitive social and political issues, including antidrug operations, corruption, and organized crime.

In October, President Duterte issued an administrative order creating the Presidential Task Force on Violations of the Right to Life, Liberty and Security of the Members of the Media, a body established to investigate crimes against journalists. However, no major investigations had begun by year's end.

Economic Environment: 10 / 30

Most media outlets are privately owned. A wide variety of views is presented on state television and radio. There are hundreds of newspaper titles. Private television ownership is concentrated, with the two largest media networks, ABS-CBN and GMA-7, controlled by wealthy families with interests in other sectors of the economy; together the networks reach more than 80 percent of television audiences. Radio is also a popular medium, and there are more than 600 stations in the country. ABS-CBN and GMA-7 are also major players in radio, reaching nearly 50 percent of FM listeners.

Just over 55 percent of the population accessed the internet in 2016. Internet use is not restricted, and Filipinos are among the region's most active users of social media such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, which often carry news content. Fixed-line broadband penetration remains low, particularly in rural areas, and many users access the internet through their mobile phones.

The practice of using bribes or strategic "favors" to elicit positive coverage is widespread; it is a subject openly debated among journalists, and various organizations offer ethics training in an effort to combat bribery. In another common practice known as block-timing, individuals or groups lease airtime from broadcast stations using their own sponsors. Block-time programs are often designed to promote or attack political interests, especially during election campaigns, though they are also used by local environmental, human rights, or anticorruption activists. These programs are prone to sensationalism and unethical practices, and their hosts are frequently victims of violence.

Job security is tenuous for many journalists, as salaries are small and employment uncertain, and contractual work continues to replace permanent positions. Some reporters are expected to seek advertisers to supply revenue for their own wages.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Pakistan

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Pakistan, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67cba.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 65/100 (1) (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 19/30

Political Environment: 30/40 (1)

Economic Environment: 16/30

Quick Facts

Population: 203,400,000

Freedom in the World Status: Partly Free

Net Freedom Status: Not Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 18.0%

Key Developments in 2016:

The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill (PECB) became law in September. It contains vague language that could give authorities broad powers to censor online content and prosecute online speech.

The country's powerful military pressured media outlets and journalists to disseminate positive coverage of its operations against militant Islamist groups.

Three journalists were killed during the year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). In October, the organization reported that 21 murders of journalists since 2006 remained unsolved.

Executive Summary

Restrictive laws including ones penalizing defamation and blasphemy; threats directed at journalists from a variety of actors, including the military and intelligence agencies and militant groups; and the threat of violence contribute to a hostile operating environment for Pakistan's journalists.

The controversial PECB became law in September. Its provisions contain vague language that could permit authorities broad powers to censor online content in the name of preserving national security. The law also provides for as long as three years' imprisonment for disseminating information with "dishonest" intent or which is deemed to harm an individual's reputation.

Pakistan's journalists, who already face severe obstacles in covering activities of the armed forces, in 2016 came under acute pressure to disseminate positive coverage of military operations, with some sources reporting that the military figures issue explicit directives for coverage.

While the rate of media workers' killings has declined somewhat in recent years, Pakistan remains among the most dangerous places in the world to practice journalism. In 2016, two journalists were killed in a Quetta bombing in August, and another was shot and killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in January. Impunity remains the norm for attacks against journalists.

Legal Environment: 19 / 30

The constitution and other legislation, such as the Official Secrets Act, authorize the government to curb freedom of speech on subjects including the constitution itself, the armed forces, the judiciary, and religion. Broadly defined contempt laws have been employed by the judiciary to restrict reporting on particular cases or judges. Journalists can face prosecution under a variety of antiterrorism measures. The 2014 Protection of Pakistan Act gives security forces expansive powers to search, detain, and use force against suspects. It also includes vague references to "internet offenses and other offenses related to information technology"  provisions that have raised concerns that the law could be used against journalists. The controversial PECB became law in September 2016. The measure has been criticized for containing vague language that could permit authorities broad powers to censor online content in order to preserve national security. The law also provides for as long as three years' imprisonment for disseminating information with "dishonest" intent, or which is deemed to harm an individual's reputation.

Separately, after the daily Dawn published an October 2016 story detailing a clash in which civilian officials had demanded that the military take greater action against militant activity in the country, a government commission was formed to investigate the source of the story. The Press Council of Pakistan (PCP), the state print regulator, the following month resolved that the committee's mission was inappropriate and should not move forward. Meanwhile, the report's author was added to a list of people prohibited from leaving the country.

Defamation is a criminal offense punishable by fines and up to two years in prison, though in most instances defamation claims do not result in any fine or action. Blasphemy laws have been used against journalists.

Separately, in 2015, a court in Lahore ordered Pakistan's broadcast and print regulatory bodies  the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) and the PCP, respectively  to institute a ban on coverage of Altaf Hussain, head of the secular Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM); the order came in response to several petitions alleging that he had defamed state institutions, including the armed forces, in various speeches. In February 2016, PEMRA issued a warning against the private ARY News channel for what it described as irresponsible reporting on the army.

Accessing official information remains difficult, and existing provisions for obtaining public records are generally ineffective. However, positive developments have been seen at the provincial levels, notably in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which each passed generally progressive freedom of information legislation in 2013 that has since seen some use. A draft of a national-level freedom of information law, produced by a senate committee, has won praise from transparency advocates but had not been approved at the end of 2016.

The broadcast media must register through PEMRA, whose members are appointed or approved by the government. In 2015, a renowned investigative journalist was appointed as PEMRA's chair. Nevertheless, the agency has a record of issuing politicized suspensions and fines, and in late 2016, it suspended and fined two television channels in response to critical coverage of the judiciary, and issued a fine, but not a suspension, against a third on the same basis.

Print media can operate on the basis of a declaration. The PCP is tasked with hearing complaints against print media and promoting journalistic ethics, but is generally ineffective.

A number of media advocacy organizations including those that focus on online freedoms operate in the country, but divisions between the various groups hamper their ability to advocate collectively.

The authorities are believed to engage in online surveillance, and the communications of some journalists have reportedly been monitored. Such practices encourage self-censorship and deter contacts between journalists and their sources.

Political Environment: 30 / 40 (1)

Many journalists are expected to follow editorial lines set by their media houses. Political actors, government officials, and military and intelligence officers regularly complain about critical reporting, and some have attempted to exert control over media content through unofficial "guidance" to newspaper editors on placement of front-page stories and permissible topics of coverage. Armed groups, political parties, and state institutions have coerced news outlets into publishing denunciations of their opponents.

In 2016, the media came under acute pressure from the military to produce positive coverage of its Zarb-e-Azb operation against militant Islamist groups operating in regions near the Afghan border, with reports of military directives for coverage being issued to journalists and outlets. Meanwhile, the military's media wing disseminated coverage that was critical of the country's civilian leaders, in an apparent attempt to promote the military as the most responsible steward of the country. Such pressure has contributing to self-censorship, as well as a decrease in the diversity of viewpoints available in Pakistani media with regard to military operations.

Media access to certain parts of the country remains restricted, either by special government regulations or a high threat of violence. Conditions for reporters covering the ongoing civil conflict and military offensive in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and some districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province remain difficult, with journalists at risk of detention, threats, expulsion, abduction, attacks, and other interference by actors including Taliban militants and local tribal groups, criminal organizations, and the army and intelligence services. Journalists' ability to cover military operations in the FATA is limited, as they can gain official access only if they agree to become embedded with military units, which means that any reporting is subject to potential censorship. Media in general remain much more tightly restricted in the FATA and Balochistan than elsewhere in Pakistan.

Websites and blogs addressing sensitive subjects are routinely blocked, and the government has increased censorship of allegedly blasphemous material in recent years. Access to the video-sharing website YouTube was restored in January 2016, after being blocked for several years. However, residents of Pakistan have access to a local version of YouTube, which allows Pakistani authorities to remove content deemed offensive.

Fear of reprisals has caused some journalists to self-censor, particularly on military or intelligence operations, sensitive social or religious issues, and certain militant groups and political parties.

While Pakistan remains among the most dangerous places in the world for journalists to operate, the number of killings has declined somewhat over the last five years, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). According to CPJ, three journalists were killed in Pakistan in 2016. Two  cameraman Shehzad Ahmed and cameraman Mehmood Khan  died in a bombing attack in Quetta in August. In January, Muhammad Umar, a correspondent with the private Daily Dera News was shot and killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province; CPJ was investigating whether the killing was related to his work as a journalist. Impunity remains the norm for most journalists' killings. In October 2016, CPJ reported that 21 murders of journalists that were committed between September 1, 2006, and August 31, 2016, remained unsolved.

Economic Environment: 16 / 30

Pakistan is home to hundreds of daily, weekly, and monthly news publications that publish in English, Urdu, and a number of regional languages. Several dozen all-news cable and satellite television channels  some of which broadcast from outside the country  provide live domestic news coverage, commentary, and call-in talk shows, informing viewers and shaping public opinion on current events. However, the government continues to control Pakistan Television and Radio Pakistan, the only free-to-air terrestrial broadcast outlets with national reach; the staff receives directives from the Information Ministry, and their coverage supports official viewpoints.

Private radio stations operate in some major cities but are restricted in how they carry news programming, and PEMRA imposes a maximum broadcast radius of 50 kilometers (30 miles) on private FM transmitters. In some rural regions such as the FATA, illegal extremist radio is prominent, with radical Islamists broadcasting unchallenged propaganda. International television and radio broadcasts are usually available in Pakistan, with the exception of news channels based in India. About 16 percent of people in Pakistan accessed the internet in 2016, according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), with an increasing number of people accessing the internet on smart phones. Blogs and social media are growing in popularity, and many traditional news outlets provide content over the internet.

Cable television operators occasionally pressure media outlets to censor stories that could conflict with their business interests, or suspend the transmission of certain channels in response to threats.

There are few restrictions on news production and distribution, but there are high costs associated with the establishment and operation of broadcast media operations.

Provincial and national authorities have used advertising boycotts and bribes to put economic pressure on media outlets or provide incentives to keep journalists in check. Both state and private interests, including the powerful intelligence agencies, reportedly pay for favorable press coverage, a practice that is exacerbated by the low salaries of many journalists.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Nigeria

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Nigeria, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67cda.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

Total Score: 51/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 14/30

Political Environment: 22/40

Economic Environment: 15/30

Quick Facts

Population: 186,500,000

Freedom in the World Status: Partly Free

Net Freedom Status: Partly Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 47.4%

Key Developments in 2016:

Two bloggers were arrested under provisions of the Cybercrimes Act after criticizing public officials.

In May, the Senate rejected the proposed Frivolous Petitions Bill, which would have increased the government's power to restrict and punish online speech.

Several journalists were attacked by security officers during the year.

The military's continued success in fighting the militant group Boko Haram in the country's northeast provided the media with greater access to the region.

Executive Summary

Nigeria has a vibrant and varied media landscape, with outlets that openly criticize government policies. President Muhammadu Buhari's relatively successful efforts in fighting Boko Haram, as well as a peaceful political transition in 2015, have brought some limited improvements to the media environment.

However, journalists risk prosecution under restrictive laws, including the broadly worded Cybercrimes Act. Two bloggers were arrested under its provisions in 2016, after criticizing public officials. However, as of September 2016, no journalists had yet been convicted of violating the act.

Journalists face attacks while carrying out their work, sometimes by security officials. Attacks against journalists often go unprosecuted, and an environment of impunity for attackers, combined with the threat of legal prosecution and harassment in connection with critical coverage, encourages self-censorship.

Legal Environment: 14 / 30

The constitution guarantees freedom of expression and of the press, and courts in recent years have issued rulings that expanded legal protections for journalists. However, criminal and civil laws punish various press and speech offenses, including sedition, criminal defamation, and the publication of false news. Sharia (Islamic law) statutes, which are in effect in 12 northern states, impose severe penalties for alleged press offenses, though they are not implemented in practice. Impunity for those who commit crimes against journalists remains a problem. Many past murders of journalists, including a number of which were believed to have been committed by members of Boko Haram, remained unsolved.

The 2015 Cybercrimes Act prohibits the online transmission of falsehoods, or of material sent "for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, ill will, or needless anxiety to another." Violators can receive heavy fines and a prison sentence of up to three years. Security forces have used the Cybercrimes Act to arrest and prosecute bloggers who criticize government officials and powerful businessmen, with at least two bloggers arrested in 2016 under its provisions. In August, police arrested Musa Babale Azare over his criticism of the Bauchi State governor on social media. He was later released on bail. The same month, Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) ordered the arrest of Abubakar Sidiq Usman after he criticized the commission on his blog. He was released after a day and a half in detention, though his electronics and personal effects were confiscated. However, as of September 2016, it did not appear that any journalists had actually been convicted of violating the Cybercrimes Act.

In a positive development, the Frivolous Petitions Bill, which was introduced to the Senate in 2015 and would have strengthened restrictions on online speech, was withdrawn in May 2016.

The 2011 Freedom of Information Act guarantees citizens' right to public information, and has put pressure on government agencies to release records in response to petitions by media and activist groups. However, an April 2016 report by the Carter Center found that the law was not being fully implemented due to "a pervasive culture of secrecy in government business," misuse of the Official Secrets Act, low usage by the public, and a lack of institutional preparedness by government agencies. Some state governors have also balked at complying with the law, arguing that the federal legislation is not applicable to the states.

Legally, individuals and corporate bodies can establish and operate private media outlets, especially print and online media, without undue interference. However, public agencies responsible for media licensing and regulation are run by government appointees whose decisions are subject to political influence. The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), the broadcasting regulator, has come under scrutiny for processes and decisions that critics view as opaque and politically biased.

People may freely enter the practice of journalism in Nigeria. Several professional bodies, such as the Nigerian Union of Journalists and the Nigerian Guild of Editors, support and defend journalists' right to freely practice their trade.

Political Environment: 22 / 40

Nigeria has one of the most vibrant and varied media landscapes in Africa, and journalists working in the print sector in particular can be outspoken in their condemnations of unpopular government policies. However, journalists and outlets can face interference or pressure from owners, public officials, and regulators as a result of criticism of the government or coverage of sensitive issues like corruption and national security.

In recent years, both security forces and Boko Haram have impeded reporting in the country's northeast. However, the continuing success of Nigeria's military campaign against Boko Haram has led to greater access to the area for journalists

A 2004 NBC ban on the live rebroadcast of foreign programs, including news, on domestic stations remains in force. However, international broadcasters such as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Voice of America, and Radio France Internationale (RFI) are among the key sources of news in the country.

There is no official censorship body. Some journalists self-censor on sensitive political, social, ethnic, or religious issues due to the risk of harassment or attack, as well as due to reluctance to displease media owners and sponsors.

Journalists continue to face obstruction, harassment, violence, and arbitrary detention while working, as well as in retaliation for their work. In February 2016, three journalists working for separate independent television stations were detained by police in the city of Owerri. Police reportedly suspected that two of the journalists had observed road safety officials demanding a bribe from a passing motorist, and the officers demanded the journalists turn over their phones, believing they had recorded the incident. When they refused, they were arrested, along with a third journalist who had observed the altercation. The three were later released, and the arresting officers disciplined.

In March 2016, police in Lagos detained Yomi Olomofe, publisher of Prime magazine, on accusations of assault and extortion. In 2015, Olomofe was beaten by a group of men while reporting on an illegal smuggling operation on the Nigerian border with Benin. Olomofe later filed a police report accusing the men of his assault. The group eventually filed a counterclaim alleging Olomofe has attacked them, precipitating his arrest. Olomofe was later released without formal charges.

In May 2016, police officers in Lagos assaulted and arrested Sampson Unamka, a reporter with the independent daily newspaper the Nation, for filming them while they were beating two people. The officers then took him to a police station, where he was ordered to delete the video before being released. Also in May, police detained a correspondent with the independent station Channels Television, Pius Iroja Angbo, and his cameraman Mike Umele, after the two were caught filming officials of the Benue State Water Board stealing water to sell on the black market. They were held for about four hours before being released. And in September, soldiers and secret police arrested ten journalists and media support staff of the independent news website Watchdog Media News in Benin, the Edo State capital. The site's editor, Taiye Garrick, alleged that the team members  who went to the city to cover gubernatorial election  were beaten with barbed wire and doused with water by the soldiers. The army denied wrongdoing and said they suspected that the journalists were connected to illegal gangs that had threatened to disrupt the election, a charge the journalists denied.

Economic Environment: 15 / 30

There are more than 100 national and local news publications, the most influential of which are privately owned. The two main nationwide broadcast networks are state owned: the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), and the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). Some private broadcast stations, such as Channels Television and Africa Independent Television (AIT), offer robust national news coverage. While radio remains the main source of information for Nigerians, television penetration has grown substantially in recent years with the proliferation of satellite dishes, even in rural areas. A number of print and broadcast media outlets are owned by state and local governments, or by individuals directly involved in politics.

Private television stations must ensure that 60 percent of their programming is produced locally, while private radio outlets must ensure that 80 percent of content is produced locally. Licensing fees and taxes for broadcast media remain high, and many outlets experience financial difficulties that makes their survival precarious. A number of state-owned daily papers are poorly produced and have low circulations, and receive large advertising subsidies.

As traditional outlets are increasingly burdened by high operating costs or subject to editorial interference, people are increasingly turning to online outlets and social media platforms for news. According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), about 26 percent of people accessed the internet in 2016, though other studies have issued higher percentages.

Bribery and corruption remain problems in the media industry, particularly in the form of small cash gifts that sources give to journalists. Meanwhile, a 2016 recession led to a number of job losses in the media sector. In June, the parent company of AIT Raypower FM Stations laid off all of their workers in the city of Benin; the workers had been protesting more than two years of unpaid salaries.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Netherlands

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Netherlands, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67cfa.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Free

Total Score: 11/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: /30

Political Environment: /40

Economic Environment: /30

Quick Facts

Population: 17,000,000

Freedom in the World Status: Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 93.1%

Key Developments in 2016:

In April, a member of the D66 party submitted a bill to repeal criminal provisions against lese majeste, the offense of insulting the monarch; the proposal remained under discussion at year's end.

A legislative initiative to amend the Intelligence and Security Act caused alarm within the journalistic community, with critics noting that the proposed expansion of the intelligence services' ability to gather communications data could threaten the protection of journalistic sources.

After a failed coup attempt against Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July, a camera crew covering a pro-Erdogan rally in Rotterdam came under attack by participants; a number of journalists who covered the coup attempt also received threats, ostensibly from supporters of the Turkish president.

Executive Summary

The media function in a predominantly free and transparent environment. Freedoms of expression and the press are legally protected, though controversial criminal provisions against insult and defamation remain on the books. Various watchdog groups as well as politicians have also expressed concern in recent years that the government's antiterrorism measures, particularly legislation, have the potential to weaken journalistic freedom.

Proposed changes to the Intelligence and Security Act, under consideration for several years, continued to move through the legislative system in 2016. Among other things, the proposal envisions expanding the power of Dutch intelligence services to include untargeted, large-scale surveillance. Critics of the bill, among them Dutch and international rights watchdogs, continued to warn that dragnet surveillance powers would undermine the ability of journalists to protect their sources and discourage sources from communicating with the media altogether. In October, the Council of State, a constitutionally mandated advisory body, published a review of the bill. The review found expanded surveillance to be both legitimate and necessary but expressed concerns about the provisions on untargeted surveillance, noting that they may not be compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights. The proposal remained under discussion at year's end.

In a positive step, a D66 legislator submitted a proposal in April to eliminate criminal provisions against lese-majeste and a related law against insulting foreign heads of state. The initiative received support from four other parties  effectively, a parliamentary majority  but remained under discussion at year's end. Separately, the Senate passed amendments to the Media Act in October. They include measures to increase the news and educational content aired by public broadcasters. Although the package also included a controversial provision empowering the Minister of Education, Culture, and Science to appoint the board of directors and supervisory board of the public broadcasting agency, it mandated the creation of an independent advisory committee to prevent the minister from making politically motivated appointments.

In the aftermath of a failed coup attempt in Turkey in July, a number of journalists in the Netherlands received threats after covering the event and its reverberations in the Netherlands' Turkish community. At a gathering of Erdogan supporters in Rotterdam, a camera operator for NOS, a public service broadcaster, was hit by participants, and the crew reported damage to their car. Generally, such violence and threats against media professionals are rare.

Explanatory Note

This country report has been abridged for Freedom of the Press 2017. For background information on press freedom in Netherlands, see Freedom of the Press 2016.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Myanmar

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Myanmar, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67d1a.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 73/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 23/30

Political Environment: 29/40 (1)

Economic Environment: 21/30 (1)

Quick Facts

Population: 52,400,000

Freedom in the World Status: Partly Free

Net Freedom Status: Not Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 21.8%

Key Developments in 2016:

The governing National League for Democracy (NLD) failed to pass a right to information law or enact legislation needed to implement the 2015 Broadcasting Law, which would allow private companies to enter the broadcast market.

Journalist Soe Moe Tun was murdered in December while reporting on the illegal logging industry. Separately, two journalists were threatened by bomb blasts outside their homes.

Media coverage of violence in Rakhine State was tightly controlled by the military and government, and a journalist was fired after reporting on security forces' alleged human rights abuses against the state's Rohingya ethnic minority.

There was a sharp increase in the number of defamation cases filed against people who criticized the government online.

Executive Summary

Conditions for the media in Myanmar have improved significantly since the country began its ongoing transition from military dictatorship toward electoral democracy. However, the government maintains tight control over the media sector through the use of harsh defamation and other laws. In addition to prosecutions, media workers risk threats and physical violence in response to critical or investigative coverage, particularly when it focuses on the government, the military, rebel groups, or the status and treatment of the Rohingya ethnic minority. The media are deeply polarized along political lines, and independent outlets struggle for financial sustainability.

The media landscape in 2016 was marked by the delay of legislative reforms, and the increasing use of litigious tactics to hamper media freedom. The 2015 Broadcasting Law, which would enable private companies to enter the broadcast market for the first time, had yet to take effect at year's end because lawmakers failed to approve legislation necessary for its implementation. Similarly, the parliament failed to undertake any noticeable work on a law that would guarantee the right to access government information.

There was a substantial increase in authorities' prosecution of online speech under the 2013 Telecommunications Law, which was frequently invoked against people who purportedly insulted or defamed the military, the president, or NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who in April 2016 stepped into the powerful new position of state counselor. At least two journalists in 2016 were prosecuted for defamation under Article 500 of the penal code, which dates back to the era of military rule.

Authorities tightly restrict reporting on military activity in Rakhine State, where the armed forces have been accused of severe mistreatment of the Rohingya population. A journalist who was fired from the English-language Myanmar Times claimed that the government had pressured the paper to dismiss her following the October publication of her article on allegations that security forces had raped more than two dozen women in Rakhine State.

Legal Environment: 23 / 30

The 2008 constitution provides for freedoms of expression and of the press, while at the same time setting out broad and ambiguous conditions under which these rights may be curtailed. A number of laws include provisions that can be used to restrict journalistic activity. For example, the 1950 Emergency Provisions Act bans content that would "affect the morality or conduct of the public or a group of people in a way that would undermine the security of the Union or the restoration of law and order." The 2004 Electronics Transactions Law prohibits the electronic transfer of information liable to undermine national security and has been used to imprison journalists. The 2013 Telecommunications Law allows the government to intercept any information that threatens national security or the rule of law. Other laws, including defamation provisions in the penal code and the 1923 Official Secrets Act, have also been applied in ways that restrict media freedom.

A substantial increase in the number of defamation cases brought against journalists and social media users was documented in 2016. Since the NLD came to power in April 2016, 38 people have been prosecuted for defamation under Article 66D of the Telecommunications Law, which bans "extorting, coercing, restraining wrongfully, defaming, disturbing, causing undue influence, or threatening any person using a telecommunications network" and provides for a prison sentence of as long as three years. Of those charged, 15 were in detention at year's end. (The previous government had invoked the 66D provision only seven times over the past three years.) In addition, at least two defamation convictions under Article 500 of the penal code were recorded against journalists in 2016.

In 2015, parliament ratified the Broadcast Law, the third media-related law approved since the end of prepublication censorship in 2012. It maintains presidential control over the broadcasting sector, though it also enables private companies to enter the broadcast market for the first time, allocating licenses between public service, commercial, and community media sectors. Broadcasters were previously required to partner with the state-owned Myanmar Radio and Television (MRTV). The law establishes a Broadcast Council authorized to issue and revoke broadcast licenses, but the president will appoint its members, undermining its independence. Despite high expectations, in 2016 lawmakers failed to approve legislation necessary for the Broadcast Law's implementation.

The other two new media laws were approved in 2014. The Printers and Publishers Registration Law was drafted by the Ministry of Information. Although it removed the legal threat of imprisonment for journalists posed by its 1962 predecessor, it gave the government the right to withhold media licenses and ban reporting that is harmful to "national security, rule of law, or community peace and tranquility," or that "insults religion" or violates the constitution.

The Media Law was drafted by the interim Myanmar Press Council (MPC) and contains strong protections for press freedom, including the increased use of mediation to settle disputes. However, it has been invoked against journalists who published critical commentary about former president Thein Sein, with the Ministry of Information saying their remarks violated the law's code of conduct. (Thein Sein stepped down after the NLD candidate won a presidential election held in March 2016.)

The courts lack the independence to try media-related cases impartially.

There was no legislative movement in 2016 on a Right to Information law, and access to government officials and the military remained inconsistent. However, journalists' organizations are active in pressing for more openness by the authorities, and their efforts are supported by foreign embassies and international media development organizations.

The interim MPC formed in 2012 was replaced by the permanent, self-regulatory Media Council in December 2015. Though some members were elected, others were appointed by the government, media, and civil society groups; some media representatives said the process lacked transparency and refused to participate in the vote for the elected positions.

A number of internationally funded journalism training programs and local chapters of international media freedom organizations have been established since 2012 to support journalists in Myanmar.

Political Environment: 29 / 40 (1)

Media outlets are able to cover political news with relative freedom, addressing many topics that were once considered off-limits and scrutinizing the activities of the government and legislature. However, Burmese-language state media continue to avoid criticism of the government or military, and interethnic tension remains a sensitive subject, especially with respect to Buddhists and Muslims and particularly in relation to conflicts in Rakhine State. Independent media organizations formerly in exile continue to assimilate into the media landscape. Outlets affiliated with ethnic minority groups continue to register and obtain licenses, and minority journalists continue to assert themselves at media conferences and other discussions and workshops on media pluralism.

Expectations that the new NLD administration would increase government communications with the press were not fulfilled in 2016; access to political leaders remains highly controlled, and few briefings have been held.

Although prepublication censorship was eliminated in 2012, many journalists and editors exercise self-censorship to avoid being punished for the content of their reporting.

Since 2012, a broader range of news and information has become available, particularly print media in urban areas and on the Facebook pages of new media organizations targeting Myanmar's growing number of internet users. However, the vast majority of Myanmar's people still rely on television and radio to get their news, and these sectors continued to be dominated by state-owned and state-affiliated media in 2016.

Physical violence, intimidation, and harassment directed against members of the press continued in 2016. Soe Moe Tun from the Eleven Media Group was found beaten to death in December after reporting on the illegal logging industry. Two journalists were also threatened by bomb blasts outside their homes in Rakhine State and Kachin State, respectively. Investigations were pending at year's end. Many journalists reported threats and harassment from Buddhist nationalist groups in response to coverage of the Muslim Rohingya minority. A journalist who was fired from the English-language Myanmar Times claimed that the government had pressured the paper to dismiss her following the October publication of an article on allegations that security forces had raped more than two dozen women in Rakhine State. The firing was said to come after a complaint by the Minister of Information about the report.

Economic Environment: 21 / 30 (1)

Although private ownership in the media sector has expanded in recent years, it remains highly concentrated, and state-affiliated outlets continue to hold a dominant position. Nevertheless, a number of private online and print outlets have been established in recent years. The country's press corps is lively and growing, but largely young and undertrained.

Most Burmese look to broadcast outlets for news. Broadcast media remain controlled by the state, although the Broadcast Law will permit diversified media ownership if implementing measures are passed. Six public television stations are available, with five controlled by the Ministry of Information and one by the armed forces. The eight domestic FM radio channels are controlled by the government or its allies. Radio programs transmitted from abroad by Voice of America and Radio Free Asia are accessible and popular. Because of high monthly subscription fees to access satellite television, many viewers install the receivers illegally.

Media ownership is generally transparent, but media literacy among the general population is low. High levels of poverty and illiteracy, along with poor infrastructure and distribution networks, mean that print media are accessible mainly in urban areas.

Infrastructure for production and distribution of print and broadcast media is largely monopolized by the state, so only those with significant resources can compete in the commercial market. The Mandalay Alinn Daily News and the daily Pyi Myanmar both halted production in 2016 due to a lack of funds.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Morocco

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Morocco, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67d3a.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 66/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 23/30

Political Environment: 25/40

Economic Environment: 18/30

Quick Facts

Population: 34,700,000

Freedom in the World Status: Partly Free

Net Freedom Status: Partly Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 57.1%

Key Developments in 2016:

In July, Parliament approved a revised press code that abolished prison sentences for press offenses, but the penal code still effectively allows journalists to be prosecuted and jailed for their work.

Seven people arrested in 2015 for their role in a training program for citizen journalists faced continued delays in their trial during the year, with observers noting that the authorities regularly use such lengthy proceedings to harass and intimidate journalists and other critics.

At least five foreign journalists were deported from Morocco after reporting on sensitive topics, such as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) issues, sex trafficking, and the disputed territory of Western Sahara.

Executive Summary

The media in Morocco face considerable restrictions. A range of laws either directly limit media freedom or are used to do so. Journalists regularly encounter harassment and cannot report freely in certain areas, especially Western Sahara. The state uses advertising and subsidies, as well as aggressive financial harassment, to repress critical media coverage. However, the population has some access to independent viewpoints through the internet, satellite broadcasts, and private radio. Reforms introduced in 2016 made minor improvements to the legal situation for the press, but the government retained broad powers to censor news content, suspend critical media outlets, and pursue fines and prison sentences against journalists.

Legal Environment: 23 / 30

Morocco's 2011 constitution guarantees freedom of the press, and prohibits prior censorship. However, its vague language provides wide latitude for interpretation and hinders enforcement of media protections.

In July 2016, Parliament gave final approval to a revised press code that included a number of improvements, including decriminalization of defamation, strengthened fair-trial provisions for prosecuted journalists, and protection for journalists' sources, subject to judicial review. The law also recognizes online news outlets, but subjects them to additional scrutiny from regulatory bodies. The law drew criticism from media freedom advocates for retaining the use of heavy fines and for the powers it grants to authorities to censor and suspend publications. Moreover, a number of elements in the penal code, also revised in July, can still be used to prosecute and imprison journalists, diminishing the value of the protections they supposedly enjoy under the new press law. For example, the penal code allows prison terms for speech deemed to harm Islam, the monarchy, or Morocco's territorial integrity, as well as for defaming state institutions, insulting public officials, inciting hatred or discrimination, and denigrating court decisions.

The 2003 antiterrorism law provides for heavy criminal penalties, including fines and jail time, for vaguely worded offenses that include advocacy, support, or incitement to terrorism. In 2013, journalist Ali Anouzla was arrested and detained for two months after he wrote an article that included a link to a YouTube video in which an extremist group criticized Morocco's King Mohammed VI and called for Moroccan youth to wage jihad. His case has been repeatedly postponed. Anouzla faced in charges in January 2016 for a November 2015 interview with a German newspaper in which he allegedly questioned the status of Western Sahara, though the case was dropped in May after he insisted that he had been misquoted and the paper corrected its translation. He left Morocco to live in Germany in March.

A 2015 criminal case involving seven senior journalists and activists stretched on throughout 2016 due to repeated delays in their trial. In July 2015, police had disrupted a training session for citizen journalists and confiscated their equipment. In November of that year, the seven trainers were put on trial for allegedly threatening national security and failing to disclose foreign funding in connection with the program, which was sponsored by the Dutch press freedom organization Free Press Unlimited. They faced up to five years in prison. Three of the defendants eventually left the country, two for France and one for the Netherlands.

In February 2016, Abdallah Bakkali, president of the National Syndicate of the Moroccan Press and editor of the opposition daily Al-Alam, was sued for defamation by the Interior Ministry after he wrote an article criticizing alleged fraud in recent local and regional elections. The case was then postponed several times and remained pending at year's end.

In July 2016, the lower house of Parliament approved a long-delayed draft bill on access to information. Critics noted a number of problems with the bill, including the narrow scope of institutions covered under the law, its long list of exceptions, and vague wording that would give administrators broad discretion to withhold information. The legislation had yet to be approved by the upper chamber of Parliament at year's end.

The High Authority for Audiovisual Communication (HACA) issues broadcast licenses and monitors content to ensure compliance with licensing requirements. The king appoints the president of HACA and four of its eight board members. The prime minister appoints two additional board members, and the presidents of the two chambers of Parliament each appoint one of the remaining members.

In July 2016, Parliament adopted an amendment to the law on HACA, allowing it to ensure that broadcast media represent the full scope of Morocco's linguistic, cultural, and geographic diversity, and to enforce protections for a pluralistic range of opinions. The new measure also establishes mechanisms for HACA to receive complaints concerning alleged violations of these guarantees from broadcasters, both chambers of Parliament, the government, civil society associations, and individuals. Separately in July, Parliament approved a new version of the broadcasting law that broadly maintains restrictions on critical coverage of sensitive issues, such as the monarchy, religion, and Western Sahara.

In the print sector, both local and foreign publications must obtain accreditation in order to operate and publish, and they can be suspended or censored if their content is deemed a threat to public order. A law promulgated in April 2016 created the National Press Council, a self-regulatory body charged with mediating disputes within the industry, monitoring outlets for compliance with journalistic ethics, and issuing press cards. The council would be composed of 21 members serving four-year terms, with 14 elected by publishers and journalists and the remainder representing other civil society groups. Under the law, the council was set to be operational within one year, but it had not yet been established by the end of 2016.

A December 2015 law established new guidelines related to the practice of journalism, mandated that journalists receive university training, and forbade those with certain criminal convictions from joining the profession. Many public and private institutions provide journalism training, and barriers to entry to the profession are otherwise limited in practice. Unions and advocacy organizations defend journalists' rights and interests. However, the work of journalists is hampered by factors including state surveillance of their communications.

Political Environment: 25 / 40

King Mohammed VI and the government continued to wield considerable control over the editorial content of public broadcast media in 2016. The government holds the sole authority to appoint the managers of public radio and television stations. HACA regularly publishes reports on the amount of coverage given to various political parties by the media, and has found that the government and ruling parties enjoy disproportionate airtime. However, HACA concluded that the media made substantial improvements in their coverage of the political landscape ahead of the legislative elections in October 2016. Parties generally received airtime proportionate to their representation in Parliament and the range of seats they were contesting, in keeping with a formula established by regulators.

The government uses the press law and other legislation to exert editorial pressure and impose censorship on private media, including news websites and blogging platforms. Foreign publications are available in Morocco, but the foreign media are not immune from government censorship. In January 2016, the authorities banned the circulation of one issue of a French magazine that contained images depicting the prophet Muhammad. However, the publisher made the issue available online, and it was widely distributed among internet users in Morocco.

Self-censorship is common, and journalists tend to stay within the official redlines to avoid heavy fines, prison sentences, or extralegal intimidation and physical violence in retribution for their stories. Some journalists continue to push the boundaries of permissible coverage and report on sensitive subjects, but most such reporters have moved outside Morocco to escape government harassment and surveillance.

In April 2016, two French journalists were deported after reporting on an attack against a gay couple in the city of Beni Mellal. In September, two Italian investigative journalists were detained while reporting on an alleged child prostitution network in Marrakech. According to authorities, the journalists had failed to obtain authorization to film in Morocco. Their equipment was confiscated and they were deported the same day.

Independent media are scarce in the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Media outlets operated by supporters of independence for Western Sahara are accessible online, but journalists working for such outlets are regularly subject to arrest and prosecution, and foreign journalists who enter the region without authorization can be deported. In September 2016, for example, Said Amidan and Brahim Laajail, citizen journalists working for the Sahrawi outlet Equipe Media, were arrested in the town of Guelmim and held for three days. They were sentenced in November to three and two months in jail, respectively, for "attacking a public official," though the sentences were apparently suspended. The two were believed to have been targeted because of their ties to Spanish activists who had been investigating the human rights situation in Western Sahara. Separately, Camille Lavoix, a French freelance journalist who had been reporting from the city of Dakhla, was detained by authorities and deported in October.

Economic Environment: 18 / 30

There are scores of daily and weekly news publications in circulation in Morocco, and most are privately owned. The high rate of illiteracy in parts of the country limits the reach of the press as a news source. There are more than a dozen private radio stations, hundreds of news websites, and satellite television stations that offer alternative and independent viewpoints on political issues. Community radio stations are not recognized by the broadcasting law, but many broadcast online. Use of the internet in general, and social media in particular, continues to grow rapidly. Approximately 58 percent of the population regularly accessed the internet in 2016.

From January to November 2016, the National Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ANRT) imposed a ban on internet-based mobile telephone calls, which affected popular communications applications such as WhatsApp and Skype. The agency cited previously unenforced rules against unlicensed providers of telephone services. After a vigorous lobbying effort by advocates and international pressure ahead of a UN climate-change conference to be held in the country, regulators lifted the ban in November. The episode was seen in part as an effort to protect the revenue of incumbent telecommunications firms.

The market for printing and distribution of newspapers is largely free and features a number of private, competitive companies. However, many newspapers are heavily indebted to these companies.

The state uses advertising and subsidies, as well as financial harassment, to repress critical media coverage and intimidate the independent press. In October 2016, the subscription-based news website Le Desk announced that it was near insolvency and under threat of closure due to its inability to attract official advertising and the fact that Moroccan law prevented it from seeking foreign investment. General subsidy allocation is controlled by the Information Ministry and has been criticized as nontransparent and discriminatory against smaller publications.

Because of low salaries and a lack of job security, corruption among journalists is endemic.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Moldova

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Moldova, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67d63.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

Total Score: 56/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 17/30

Political Environment: 21/40

Economic Environment: 18/30

Quick Facts

Population: 3,600,000

Freedom in the World Status: Partly Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 49.8%

Key Developments in 2016:

In January, as protests took place outside Parliament, journalists were prevented from leaving the press room for several hours, with police citing security concerns.

In February, the broadcasting code was amended to limit the number of outlets a single person could own to two. However, the amendment does not apply retroactively, meaning those who already own more than two outlets will not be affected until they are due to renew existing licenses.

In April, journalists were finally allowed back into the Parliament chamber, having been relegated for most of the previous two years to a press room supplied with a video feed of legislative proceedings.

Executive Summary

Despite efforts by civil society organizations to encourage improvements in media legislation and policy, press freedom in Moldova remains constrained by outdated or poorly enforced media laws, as well as pressure exerted against journalists by government officials, media owners, and others. Concentration of ownership remains a problem, and smaller local outlets have difficulty competing against better-funded enterprises controlled by the country's politically powerful business magnates, or oligarchs.

In 2016, journalists were prevented from accessing ostensibly public meetings and other events on several occasions. There were also a number of instances in which journalists covering demonstrations were attacked by protesters. Reporting on the 2016 presidential election campaign was characterized by highly partisan content and outright disinformation.

Moldova's vibrant civil society groups continued to support journalists' rights through protests, declarations, media monitoring, and other advocacy during the year.

Legal Environment: 17 / 30

The constitution and basic laws provide for freedoms of expression and of the press, but poor implementation leads to violations or neglect of these rights in practice. Some laws, including civil defamation provisions, can be employed to restrict or penalize journalists, though their use has declined over the last decade.

Compliance with the 2000 Access to Information Law remains weak. Journalists, lawyers, and other stakeholders have been working to develop amendments to the law. A review of most of the proposals by a parliamentary committee was postponed in November 2016, but that month Parliament approved an amendment that increased fines for violations of the law  such as the issuance of documents containing false data  and reduced the window of time officials had to respond to information requests. Some additional regulations must be developed before the amendment's provisions can come into force. Separately, campaign finance laws obstruct journalists' access to information, including candidates' financial reports.

Members of the Audiovisual Coordinating Council (CCA) are appointed by Parliament and subject to political influence. The CCA does not always effectively enforce media regulations, and the body drew complaints from journalists' groups over its handling of election coverage in 2016; the groups said its media monitoring operations did not commence in a timely manner, and that it had not respected the proper procedures for issuing sanctions.

Vibrant and vocal civil society organizations support journalists' rights through protests, declarations, monitoring, and advocacy. There are no formal conditions for becoming a journalist or for practicing journalism.

The government in March 2016 introduced a draft law, known by its detractors as the "Big Brother" law, that could facilitate censorship and state surveillance of journalists. It requires internet service providers to collect and retain users' metadata, and would enable the government to block access to content deemed to promote hatred, discrimination, or violence. The measure drew sharp criticism from civil society groups, which pointed out its potential for misuse and noted that their previous input on the bill had been disregarded. The draft law had yet to be approved at year's end.

Political Environment: 21 / 40

Media outlets are regularly used to advance the business or political interests of their owners. This was apparent in coverage of the 2016 presidential election campaign; media monitoring reports issued by Moldova's Independent Journalism Center (IJC) found that few outlets prioritized providing information in the public interest. The IJC concluded that partisan coverage, as well as defamation and disinformation, had contributed to an unfair playing field for the candidates.

Journalists continue to voice concerns about politicization of the public broadcaster. Separately, in October 2016, the government appointed Valeriu Renita, who had previously served as a spokesperson for former president Vladimir Voronin, to head the Moldovan office of the television and radio company MIR, a Russian-language project of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Renita replaced Ion Terguta, who was known for his criticism of the government and for pointing out government influence in the media.

Direct government censorship is uncommon. However, in January 2016, the national telecommunications operator, Moldtelecom, blocked several channels' coverage of protests outside Parliament. Journalists' associations expressed skepticism of Moldtelecom's subsequent claims that it had experienced a cyberattack. Journalists working for outlets whose owners interfere in news coverage may practice self-censorship to safeguard their jobs.

Officials sometimes obstruct journalists' access to material or events that they are trying to cover. In January 2016, journalists were temporarily locked in a room at the offices of the Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM) while party leaders vacated the building in order to avoid questioning. Also that month, as protests took place outside Parliament, journalists were prevented from leaving the building's press room for several hours, with police citing security concerns. In March, a television crew from Publika TV was banned from city council meetings in Balti, reportedly after the mayor said he did not approve of past coverage by the channel. In June, a journalist was banned from entering a meeting of the Dignity and Truth political grouping at a town community center, and was forcibly removed when he attempted to enter without permission. The same month, security guards at a court in Drochia similarly removed a reporter who had been prevented from filming inside the premises but persisted in his attempts to do so.

In a more positive development, following protests by journalists and activists, the Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM) in November 2016 lifted some restrictions on journalists' access to its premises. And in April, journalists were finally allowed back into the Parliament chamber, having been relegated for most of the previous two years to a press room supplied with a video feed of legislative proceedings.

There were frequent reports of journalists being harassed or attacked in the course of their work in 2016. Journalists covering protests were assaulted by participants on several occasions, including during the January demonstrations outside Parliament, when a cameraman was robbed of his equipment. Some journalists experienced retaliatory harassment during the year. A reporter who requested comment from the Interior Ministry for a story on corruption allegations subsequently received a summons for questioning, and was warned that if she did not appear she could be compelled to obey the order or fined.

Economic Environment: 18 / 30

Most national television and radio broadcasters are in private hands, as are the majority of press agencies and many newspapers. Media ownership became somewhat clearer following 2015 amendments to the broadcasting code that required radio and television companies to disclose their owners and board members. It was revealed that four of the five television stations with national reach belonged to Vladimir Plahotniuc, an oligarch who serves as chair of the PDM. In addition, Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova (PLDM) legislator Chiril Lucinschi disclosed his ownership of two smaller television channels, TV7 and Bravo. News sources from Russia and Romania are available in Moldova. About 71 percent of the population accessed the internet in 2016.

In February, the broadcasting code was amended to limit the number of outlets a single person could own to two. However, the amendment does not apply retroactively, meaning those who already own more than two outlets will not be affected until they are due to renew existing licenses. Civil society activists pointed out this deficiency during the drafting process, but their concerns were disregarded. Long-standing efforts to adopt a more comprehensive overhaul of the outdated broadcasting code stalled yet again in 2016.

Private media remain dependent on financial subsidies from their owners as well as affiliated businesses and political groups, rather than market-driven advertising and subscriptions. The allocation of state advertising and subsidies is poorly regulated and often nontransparent, allowing government agencies to favor certain outlets.

Economic pressures continued to force media outlets to cut costs during the year. Small, local outlets have difficulty obtaining advertising revenue and competing against the numerous oligarch-owned outlets, which are better funded.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Mexico

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Mexico, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67d84.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 64/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 19/30

Political Environment: 31/40

Economic Environment: 14/30

Quick Facts

Population: 128,600,000

Freedom in the World Status: Partly Free

Net Freedom Status: Partly Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 57.4%

Key Developments in 2016:

At least two journalists were killed as a result of their work, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), but seven more were killed for motives that had yet to be confirmed, making 2016 one of the deadliest years for journalists in Mexico over the last decade. Another organization, Article 19, counted 11 murders of journalists in possible connection with their work for the year, and a total of 100 such killings since 2000.

In May, the Supreme Court struck down a legal cap on the fines that could be imposed on journalists in Mexico City, raising the possibility that libel suits by public officials and others could lead to financially ruinous judgments.

Citizens submitted more requests for public information during the year, but a report by watchdog organizations found that the performance of government agencies responsible for guaranteeing access to information had deteriorated since 2014.

Executive Summary

Mexico is one of the world's most dangerous places for journalists and media workers. Most murders and other violent attacks are not punished, leading to an expectation of impunity, and journalists face extreme editorial pressure  including credible threats of violence  from criminal organizations and corrupt authorities. Governmental mechanisms to protect journalists are hampered by bureaucratic rivalries, lack of resources, and inadequate training.

The legal framework for the media remains problematic. Nearly a third of Mexico's states retain criminal defamation laws, and high-profile civil suits continued to be filed against journalists during 2016. In May, the Supreme Court upheld provisions of a 2014 telecommunications law that grant the government extensive access to users' communications data, which civil society groups had criticized as a threat to privacy and freedom of expression.

Public officials and private actors continued to use economic incentives to manipulate the media environment during the year. The government influences major commercial outlets through the distribution of official advertising, and there are few regulatory mechanisms to limit or standardize such spending. About half of state governments do not publish data regarding their official advertising expenses. Despite his campaign promises, President Enrique Pena Nieto had not succeeded in creating a regulatory body for governmental advertising as of 2016. Meanwhile, small, independent new outlets struggle to remain financially viable.

Legal Environment: 19 / 30

Freedom of expression is established in Articles 6 and 7 of the constitution, and there are a number of legal mechanisms designed to ensure journalists' safety and freedom to operate. However, despite legislation in 2013 that facilitated the transfer of crimes against journalists to the federal prosecutorial system, impunity for these crimes remained the norm in 2016, as federal officials have proven unwilling or unable to halt or punish the growing tally of murders. The Office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Freedom of Expression (FEADLE) has been hesitant to assert its jurisdiction over such crimes without state officials' approval. Many government officials have dismissed potential journalism-related motives for attacks and threats with questionable haste, often invoking journalists' personal lives as motives for their deaths despite evidence to the contrary. CPJ ranked Mexico sixth in the world in its 2016 Global Impunity Index, finding that 21 journalists had been killed with complete impunity in the past decade.

Elements of both the criminal and civil codes continue to be used to intimidate journalists and pose major obstacles to freedom of expression. Defamation is a civil rather than a criminal matter in most states and at the federal level, but nine states have yet to eliminate the offense from the penal code.

According to Article 19, eight journalists were sued during 2016 for denouncing corruption or human rights violations. In one high-profile libel case during the year, former Coahuila governor Humberto Moreira filed a lawsuit against journalist and academic researcher Sergio Aguayo in a Mexico City court in July 2016. Moreira sought more than $500,000 in compensation from Aguayo, who had asserted in a column that Moreira was corrupt and that his career exemplified impunity in Mexico. Aguayo was forced to borrow money from his university to post a large bond with the court, and the case was ongoing at year's end. Moreira, who allegedly had links to the Zetas drug cartel, had been arrested on money laundering charges in Spain in January, but the charges were provisionally dismissed the following month after the Mexican government intervened on his behalf. Aguayo argued that the libel suit was intended to dissuade him from investigating a massacre in Allende, Coahuila, in 2011.

In July, the president of the broadcasting company MVS filed a libel suit against prominent journalist Carmen Aristegui, who wrote in the prologue of a book that the company had fired her under political pressure in 2015 after she exposed a scandal involving a mansion built for Pena Nieto's family by a government contractor. In October 2016, a judge ruled that Aristegui had damaged the reputation of the MVS president and must include an extract of the judgment in future editions of the book.

In May 2016, the Supreme Court overturned legal provisions in Mexico City that had capped the financial penalties that could be imposed on journalists for libel. Commentators noted that this could expose reporters to more lawsuits seeking exorbitant amounts in compensation, which would in turn deter critical coverage of powerful groups and individuals.

Mexico first passed a freedom of information law in 2002, and related principles and guidelines were enshrined in the constitution with a 2007 amendment to Article 6. A General Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information adopted in 2015 aimed to impose stronger standards for information disclosure at all levels of government; new federal and state laws were enacted during 2016 to bring such legislation into compliance with the 2015 measure. Nevertheless, information can still be temporarily withheld if it is deemed to be in the public interest or the interest of national security to do so, and accessing information is often a time-consuming and difficult process in practice.

Citizens submitted 141,160 information requests to governmental offices in 2016, a 15 percent increase over the previous year, according to the National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information, and Personal Data Protection (INAI). However, the National Index of Organizations that Guarantee the Right to Access to Information (INOGDAI), a civil society report published in May 2016, gave public transparency bodies an average score of 49.74 percent out of 100, a decline since the previous edition of the index in 2014. The report also found that the agencies assessed typically failed to raise awareness of the country's transparency laws and mechanisms.

Individuals and business entities can legally establish and operate private media outlets, and the 2014 Federal Telecommunications and Broadcasting Act, known as the "Ley Telecom," was designed to facilitate greater competition among television stations and telecommunications providers. The law created the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) as a regulator, and it published implementing regulations in late 2015. The IFT is empowered to force concessions from telecommunications firms and television networks that are designated as dominant in their respective markets. A new television broadcaster that had received a license in 2015 launched in October 2016, but it remained unclear whether this and other new media ventures would be able to compete in practice with well-established players that enjoy financial support from governmental advertising. The IFT has licensed a number of community radio stations, but it continued to close many others for illegal use of spectrum.

Professional licenses are not required to become a journalist in Mexico. However, the practice of journalism is limited by a range of external pressures, including the threat of surveillance. Under the Ley Telecom, the government may require internet and mobile service providers to store user data for at least two years, and to provide detailed communication records to security agencies. Such records could theoretically enable authorities to identify or monitor whistle-blowers, journalists' sources, and individuals engaging in political expression. After a legal challenge by a coalition of civil society organizations, the Supreme Court ruled in May 2016 that authorities needed a judicial warrant to access users' metadata records, but not to obtain real-time geolocation data.

Media reports in recent years have cited ample evidence that various surveillance technologies are used widely by government agencies at all levels. In one notable case, independent analysts found in 2016 that investigative journalist Rafael Cabrera, who was involved in reporting on the presidential mansion scandal, had been targeted with spyware marketed to Mexican authorities by the Israeli company NSO.

A number of press freedom organizations and journalists' associations operate in Mexico, but they have faced increased intimidation in recent years.

Political Environment: 31 / 40

Media outlets and their employees encounter pressure from a variety of actors interested in manipulating or obstructing news content, including owners with political or separate business agendas, major advertisers seeking positive or neutral coverage, government officials, and criminal organizations. Critical journalists are sometimes fired or otherwise threatened with professional repercussions if their work conflicts with the interests of such groups.

The authorities do not engage directly in official censorship or formally block online content, but media outlets have suffered from unofficial censorship, often perpetrated by criminal organizations. This type of censorship can include cyberattacks that disable news websites for long periods of time. Several major distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on media outlets were reported during 2016.

When employment-based or technological pressure is not enough, more coercive methods have been used against journalists. Drug-trafficking organizations, frequently in cooperation with authorities in their areas, have created "zones of silence," or what the Washington Post called an "institutionalized system of cartel censorship." For media editors in such regions, survival can require accepting explicit criminal demands regarding content and practicing self-censorship. However, the proliferation of threats  and impunity for perpetrators  has caused self-censorship to deepen and spread across the country, including to areas that had not been considered hotspots for drug-related violence.

Among other such incidents during the year, authorities in Tijuana warned in November 2016 that the so-called Jalisco New Generation Cartel was plotting to attack the Zeta weekly after it published the names and photographs of "most wanted" cartel members in the state. Journalists face significant obstacles when attempting to receive protection through the federal government mechanism for protecting journalists and human rights defenders that was created in 2012. Low levels of funding and political will, bureaucratic rivalries, and lack of training are among the challenges that affect the federal government's ability to protect journalists.

Dozens of journalists have been killed or disappeared in recent decades, often in the context of collusion between criminal organizations and government officials. CPJ has documented the murders of at least 37 journalists and four media workers in connection with their work from 1992 through 2016, and another 49 killings in that period for which the motive has not been confirmed. Other organizations cite much higher figures: Mexico's National Commission on Human Rights reported 119 reporters killed from 2000 to November 2016.

For 2016, CPJ identified two journalists who were killed as a result of their work, but seven more were killed for unverified reasons, bringing the total to at least nine deaths, almost double the figure for 2015. Article 19 reported 11 murders of journalists in 2016, while Periodistas en Riesgo reported 14. The two cases confirmed by CPJ were those of Marcos Hernandez Bautista, a reporter with the daily Noticias, Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca who was assassinated in January after working on sensitive stories involving local power brokers, and Elidio Ramos Zarate, a crime reporter for the Oaxaca newspaper El Sur who was fatally shot by two attackers on a motorcycle in June after receiving threats as he covered clashes between police and protesting teachers' unions. A local police commander was arrested and charged with Hernandez's murder, but the Ramos Zarate case remained unsolved at year's end.

In addition to murders, hundreds of nonfatal attacks on journalists and press outlets occur in Mexico every year, with many allegedly perpetrated by corrupt or abusive government officials. Of 426 acts of aggression against the media recorded by Article 19 in 2016, 81 were categorized as nonfatal physical attacks on journalists or their property, and another 79 were listed as intimidation. Periodistas en Riesgo reported 46 incidents of aggression, including an arson attack on the home of a reporter in Baja California Sur, the beating of a pregnant reporter by demonstrators in Oaxaca, 15 threats to journalists, six arbitrary arrests, an attack in which a reporter was struck and killed by a police car, and retaliatory asset seizures against the Sinaloa newspaper El Noroeste after it reported on local corruption.

Economic Environment: 14 / 30

Mexico is home to a large number of media outlets. Mexico City alone features approximately 30 print newspapers, along with dozens of magazines. Each of the 32 states has multiple newspapers, and the number of online news outlets is growing rapidly. However, the quantity of media publications does not signal robust diversity within the sector. Low rates of internet penetration in rural areas impede the growth of online readership, and print publications have very limited circulation, restricted mostly to urban areas. In much of the country, the main sources of information are the oligopolistic broadcast media.

Two networks  Televisa and TV Azteca  control most of the television sector. Televisa accounts for about 70 percent of the free-to-air market and more than 60 percent of the cable and satellite market. As the dominant player in its industry, it is now subject to certain competition restrictions under the Ley Telecom. TV Azteca controls about 30 percent of the free-to-air market but has struggled to develop paid services. In 2015, the IFT announced that two media companies had submitted winning bids for new television licenses that would end the existing free-to-air duopoly, though one was later canceled after the bidder failed to meet financial deadlines. The other company, owned by a conglomerate with assets in several industries, began broadcasting nationwide as Imagen Television in October 2016.

America Movil group was designated as the dominant player in telecommunications, prompting steps to increase competition in that industry. While America Movil's market share has fallen as a result, it still controls well over 60 percent of both the fixed-line and mobile markets. High costs and lack of investment have historically limited access to telecommunications services, but internet penetration continues to grow, reaching nearly 60 percent in 2016. Regional disparities are substantial, with much higher internet penetration rates in the north and near the capital, and very low rates in rural southeastern states like Chiapas and Oaxaca.

Article 190 of the Ley Telecom authorizes the "appropriate authority" within the Mexican government to request the suspension of telecommunications service in order to "halt the commission of crimes." Civil society groups have expressed concern that authorities could abuse the provision to limit the dissemination of news and information at critical moments.

The federal government and some state governments use advertising expenditures to influence the editorial policies of media outlets. The bulk of governmental advertising goes to major broadcast media, while print outlets are supported on a selective basis. Officials have broad discretion in the allocation of advertising purchases, as there are no meaningful legal or regulatory restrictions on such spending. President Pena Nieto made a campaign pledge to create an independent body that would control governmental advertising, but no progress had been made on the matter as of 2016. According to a 2015 study by Fundar and Article 19, about half of the 32 state governments in Mexico do not publish data about their official advertising expenses. In November 2016, Fundar and INAI launched a campaign to encourage state governments to make their ad spending open and transparent. At least one state, Chihuahua, had already begun implementing the recommended practices, and another, Quintana Roo, had pledged to do so.

Bribery of journalists is considered a widespread phenomenon, but it is not well documented. Such bribery seems to be particularly common in the context of arrangements established between candidates and media outlets during electoral periods.

Economic difficulties continued to affect the media industry as a whole in 2016. Late in the year, La Jornada, an important independent daily, was reportedly considering sharp salary cuts, and Televisa moved to lay off 20 percent of its personnel. Independent online media organizations, which often struggle to survive financially, use crowdfunding to supplement their resources. Lado B, an online investigative journalism group based in Puebla, succeeded in securing funds with a Kickstarter campaign.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Kenya

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Kenya, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67da6.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

Total Score: 58/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 17/30

Political Environment: 24/40

Economic Environment: 17/30

Quick Facts

Population: 45,400,000

Freedom in the World Status: Partly Free

Net Freedom Status: Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 45.6%

Key Developments in 2016:

In August, President Uhuru Kenyatta signed a new Access to Information Law that codified procedures for requesting government information and contained penalties for public officials who improperly withhold it. However, it also contained exemptions, including for vaguely defined national security concerns.

In January, a number of journalists and bloggers were arrested under a section of the 2013 Kenya Information and Communications (Amendment) Act (KICA) that criminalized the transmission of "offensive" or "menacing" messages over telecommunications devices. However, in April, the High Court found that section unconstitutional.

A number of journalists were harassed or attacked throughout the year, including by politicians, police, and opposition protestors.

In September, freelance photographer and journalist Dennis Otieno was killed at his home by unknown assailants.

Executive Summary

Kenya's constitution includes protections for freedom of expression and of the press, and the country's media provide critical reporting and a diversity of views. However, government officials have exhibited intolerance for critical media, including through the introduction and approval of restrictive legislation that has been invoked to arrest media workers. Journalists risk harassment and attacks while carrying out their work and in retaliation for it, and some observers have expressed concern that both legal and extralegal harassment will increase in the lead-up to the 2017 general elections.

In 2016, there were several legal developments that contributed to a freer media environment. In April, the High Court struck down a provision of the KICA that criminalized the transmission of "offensive" or "menacing" messages over telecommunications devices, a measure that had been used to prosecute journalists who reported on sensitive topics including those related to national security. The decision came after more than a dozen journalists had been arrested under the provision in January alone. In August, President Kenyatta signed an Access to Information Law that codified procedures for requesting government information, and which allowed for officials who improperly withhold information to be penalized. However, the law also includes exemptions, including for cabinet deliberations and for vaguely defined national security concerns.

Acts of violence against journalists continued in 2016. A number of journalists were attacked while covering opposition protests. In September 2016, Dennis Otieno, a freelance photographer and journalist, was killed by unidentified attackers who raided his home. While the motive for the killing was unclear, Otieno's wife, who was home at the time, said the attackers had demanded certain pictures from his camera before fatally shooting him, and stole some of his equipment.

In 2015, the government began redirecting a large portion of its advertising to online platforms, making the economic situation for traditional media outlets more tenuous. However, a proliferation of online outlets has increased the diversity of news content available to the growing number of people who have access to the internet.

Legal Environment: 17 / 30

The country's 2010 constitution was widely praised for expanding freedoms of expression and the press, specifically by prohibiting the state from interfering with the editorial independence of individual journalists, and both state-owned and private media outlets. While the constitution does contain potential curbs on press freedom with regard to privacy, incitement, hate speech, and antigovernment propaganda in times of war, these provisions are not as severe as those in the previous charter.

The Media Act protects the confidentiality of sources, though intimidation of journalists by officials and others undermines this legislation. In March 2016, police threatened two parliamentary reporters with arrest if they did not reveal their sources for a story  which was based on information available in the public domain  about procurement processes in the military. Police eventually stopped harassing the reporters following pushback from journalists' organizations.

A number of recent laws threaten press freedom, and have contributed to growing self-censorship. The 2014 Security Laws (Amendment) Act introduced lengthy prison sentences and hefty fines for unauthorized dissemination of information that undermines counterterrorism investigations or operations, or of photographs showing the victims of terrorist attacks. Other provisions in the law grant broad surveillance powers to Kenyan security forces. While the High Court in 2015 found several parts of the legislation unconstitutional, including restrictions on the publication of sensitive content, the expanded powers of the security forces remained intact.

In 2013, the government adopted the KICA and the Media Council Act. Among other things, they created a government-appointed Communications and Multimedia Appeals Tribunal with the power to hear appeals on complaints initially handled by the Media Council of Kenya (MCK), the country's principal media regulatory body. The tribunal is authorized to withdraw media accreditation and seize assets to cover fiscal penalties. Individual journalists face fines of up to 500,000 shillings ($5,000), and media companies of up to 20 million shillings ($200,000) if they are found in breach of a code of conduct drafted by legislators. Moreover, Section 29 of the KICA criminalized the transmission of "offensive" or "menacing" messages over telecommunications networks. More than dozen people were reportedly arrested for violating that section of the law in January 2016 alone, though few of them actually ended up in court.

Media groups had challenged both the KICA and the Media Council Act in 2014, and in 2016 decisions were finally handed down. In April, the High Court found Section 29 of KICA unconstitutional. Then, in May, the High Court found two provisions of the Media Council Act unconstitutional: one section which the court said failed to adequately define what constitutes a national security threat, and another that placed certain requirements on the composition of the Communications and Multimedia Appeals Tribunal. However, it upheld the other sections of both the Media Council Act and the KICA, including a measure that allowed fines for breaching the code of conduct drafted by lawmakers, which has been criticized as vague.

Although rarely used, several anachronistic laws concerning media freedom remain on the books. The 1967 Preservation of Public Security Act gives the president sweeping powers to censor, control, or prohibit information that is deemed a security risk.

The majority of defamation cases are tried under civil law, but defamation is still a criminal offense.

In August 2016, President Kenyatta signed the new Access to Information Law, which lays out procedures for requesting government information and penalizes public officials  including with prison sentences or fines  for withholding information. However, the law also includes exemptions, including for cabinet deliberations and ambiguously defined cases of national security. In the past, obtaining information had been difficult; most government records are classified as secret, and officials worry about suffering reprisals for releasing information.

The MCK is legally tasked with regulating media standards, but is considered weak. The Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK), the primary regulator of broadcast media, is appointed by the information minister, and its chair by the president; it is generally considered to be politicized. Legal challenges of the appointment of its board members continued in 2016.

The MCK issues press cards, and typically does so based on the educational programs individuals have completed and their practical experience as a journalist. A number of different journalists' associations operate, with some speaking out regularly in defense of journalists. However, these associations have struggled to coordinate activities both amongst themselves and with civil society organizations.

Political Environment: 24 / 40

Kenya's leading media outlets, especially in the print sector, provide rigorous and critical coverage of politics and political figures. However, editorial pressure shapes coverage at many outlets, and reporters can face repercussions for critical coverage. Major news outlets have refused to publish controversial articles, or have dismissed journalists who have produced them. For example, in January 2016, an editor at the Daily Nation newspaper was suspended, and then fired, after writing an editorial criticizing the president. Many journalists and activists have turned to online outlets and social media platforms to bypass political and business influences at established media groups. The government controls board appointments at the state broadcaster, the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), and while it is generally perceived as progovernment, in practice the KBC attempts to provide balanced coverage.

Editorial pressure, corporations' ability to withdraw advertising contracts in response to critical coverage, concerns about prosecution under restrictive laws, and demands to reveal sources all contribute to increasing self-censorship among journalists.

Despite political pressures, the Kenyan media is diverse and provides a breadth of content and viewpoints. At the same time, many Kenyans lament the constant focus by mainstream outlets on the two main political parties, and have increasingly turned to blogs and social media in search of coverage of more diverse coverage of political and social issues. To some extent, social media platforms are becoming greater agenda setters than traditional media outlets.

Journalists are routinely intimidated, threatened, attacked, and obstructed by both state and nonstate actors while doing their jobs. In 2016, a number of journalists were attacked while covering opposition protests, including by demonstrators. At a May protest against electoral reforms, police reportedly threw canisters of tear gas inside a car carrying several journalists. In October, a journalist with the Kenya News Agency was attacked by police while covering an attempt by a group of workers to claim allegedly unpaid wages from the office of the governor of Tana River County. In December, the Africa correspondent for the British newspaper the Times, who had reported from Kenya since 2012, was detained upon arrival at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, and his phones were confiscated before he was released. While the reason for his detention was unclear, he had recently written an investigative piece about the alleged murder in Kenya of a British real estate developer.

Journalists also face intimidation and attacks as a result of their work, with most such violations carried out by politicians or police officers in 2016. In March, a journalist from Kass FM was threatened by the governor of Elgeyo Marakwet County, who took issue with the journalist's critical coverage and told him he was being watched closely. The same month, a journalist with the Nation Media Group (NMG) was threatened by a parliamentarian in connection with a story implicating the lawmaker in the disappearance of some 5 million shillings' ($50,000) worth of public funds.

Many journalists are concerned that harassment and attacks both during the course of their work and as a result of it will become more common in the lead-up to the 2017 general elections.

Also, in September 2016, freelance photographer and journalist Dennis Otieno was killed in Kitale after three unknown men raided his home. While a motive was not clear, Otieno's wife, who was home at the time, said the attackers demanded certain pictures from his camera before fatally shooting him, and stole some of his equipment.

Economic Environment: 17 / 30

There are at least four daily newspapers, one business daily, and several regional weekly newspapers in Kenya, as well as a number of tabloids that publish irregularly. Several private television broadcasters and one state broadcaster operate alongside numerous private and community radio stations. There has been a significant expansion of FM radio outlets in recent years, particularly ethnic stations, and their call-in shows have fostered public participation as well as commentary that is critical of the government. Two private companies, NMG and the Standard Media Group, run a number of independent television networks and popular newspapers.

Most media outlets are owned by politicians or politically connected people. While the ownership of these outlets is generally known, there are no legal provisions in place requiring ownership transparency. Five media companies capture over 70 percent of all media consumers.

In 2015, Kenya completed a transition to digital broadcasting, which facilitated access to a wider variety of television channels. However, the costs associated with a set-top box, which is needed to access digital broadcasting, is prohibitively high cost for many Kenyans, particularly those in rural areas. International news media, including the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Radio France Internationale (RFI), are widely available, as are newer foreign outlets such as the Chinese government's China Central Television (CCTV). Meanwhile, there are some 3,000 active blogs, according to the Bloggers Association of Kenya (BAKE). According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), 26 percent of people in Kenya accessed the internet in 2016. However, figures from other organizations that explicitly include internet access via mobile phones report rates that are much higher.

In 2015, the government began redirecting a large portion of its advertising to online platforms, making the economic situation for traditional media outlets more tenuous. In 2015, the government announced plans to streamline all of its advertising through the new Government Advertising Agency (GAA). Observers have voiced concerns about such a high concentration of power in one agency. Separately, in July 2016, NMG indicated that it would file a lawsuit against the government for unpaid advertising fees in the order of 123 million shillings ($1.2 million).

Due to low pay, many journalists outside of major urban centers accept remuneration from the entities that they cover. In June, NMG announced that it would consolidate two of its Kenyan television stations, citing a need to embrace a digital model. A number of journalists lost their jobs as a result of the move, with some saying NMG had violated the law by failing them to give them adequate notice ahead of the layoffs.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Italy

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Italy, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67dca.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

Total Score: 31/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 12/30

Political Environment: 10/40

Economic Environment: 9/30

Quick Facts

Population: 60,600,000

Freedom in the World Status: Free

Net Freedom Status: Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 65.6%

Key Developments in 2016:

In May, the Council of Ministers approved Italy's first freedom of information law; media freedom advocates gave the legislation generally positive reviews but stressed the need for proper implementation.

In July, a court in Milan convicted an editor and journalist for Panorama magazine in a defamation case launched by the governor of Sicily, who filed charges over a 2012 article that linked him to organized crime.

Watchdogs raised alarm about a controversial cyberbullying bill that was approved by the House of Deputies in October, noting that its broad definitions and stiff penalties could be used to curb the exercise of free speech online.

In December, the French company Vivendi revealed its acquisition of 12 percent of Mediaset, the Italian media conglomerate, and announced intentions to increase its stake, fueling speculations that it could be planning a hostile takeover.

Executive Summary

Italy's media environment remained relatively open and vibrant in 2016, although several longstanding issues  including the status of defamation as a criminal offense, political influence on the public broadcaster, lack of effective legislation on conflicts of interest, and heavy concentration of media ownership  continued to pose challenges to media houses and professionals. The government took steps to address a number of weaknesses in the media environment during the year. In May, the Council of Ministers approved a long-awaited freedom of information act, which went into effect in December. Media freedom advocates welcomed the legislation  the first of its kind in Italy  but noted the need to ensure proper implementation and to improve the law's approach toward information exemptions and recourse in the case of refusals. As part of a sweeping broadcasting reform initiative, officials also continued efforts to improve the public broadcaster's independence, efficiency, and sustainability. Among other initiatives, legislators approved a new system for collecting television license fees, shifting to an integrated approach designed to combat payment evasion.

Italy's criminal defamation legislation remained the target of international criticism. In July, a court found an editor and journalist for Panorama magazine guilty in a defamation case launched by the governor of Sicily, ordering them to pay 800 ($900) in fines and 45,000 ($50,000) in damages. The governor filed the suit over a 2012 article that alleged links between him and organized crime groups. Separately, in a controversial step, the House of Deputies approved a bill in October that aims to curb cyberbullying. Media freedom advocates warned that the broad definitions, low standards of proof, and steep penalties set in the legislation could be used to curb speech online, and encouraged legislators to refine these points before granting final approval. Debate was ongoing at year's end.

The heavy concentration of ownership in Italy's media market showed no signs of improvement, although there were some shifts. In December, the French media group Vivendi announced that it had bought a 12 percent stake in Mediaset, the Italian media giant owned by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Vivendi also stated intentions to increase its stake, prompting analysts to speculate about the possibility of a hostile takeover. As Vivendi is the largest shareholder of Telecom Italia, one of Italy's major fixed and mobile telecommunications providers, an increase in its stake in Mediaset could serve to simply shift, rather than decrease, ownership concentration in the telecommunications market.

Legal Environment: 12 / 30

Freedoms of expression and the press are constitutionally guaranteed and generally respected. Defamation is a criminal offense, punishable by a fine of no less than 516 ($570) or six months to three years in prison. The House of Deputies approved an overhaul of these rules in 2015, but the changes had not been approved by the Senate at the close of 2016. The reform effort seeks to abolish imprisonment for journalists as a punishment for defamation, but maintains fines of up to 50,000 ($56,000) in case a journalist knowingly spreads false information. In addition to criminal charges, an alleged victim of defamation can pursue civil litigation. Preliminary mediation is mandatory in civil cases, and disputes are submitted to court (where they can take up to seven years to lead to a verdict) only when the parties fail to reach an agreement. In July, in a case tied to a 2012 article in Panorama magazine, a judge found the magazine's editor, Giorgio Mule, and a journalist, Antonio Rossitto, guilty of defaming the governor of Sicily and ordered 800 ($900) in fines and 45,000 ($50,000) in damages. The article had alleged connections between the governor and organized crime groups. According to Ossigeno per l'Informazione, a local press freedom watchdog, 63 journalists faced spurious legal action in 2016, compared with 88 in 2015.

A freedom of information act  Italy's first  was approved by the Council of Ministers in May and came into effect in December. Media rights and transparency advocates had voiced concern about a number of weakness in the initial draft, but legislators addressed most criticisms in the final version. According to the law, individuals can request information from public bodies without charge, but are responsible for printing and reproduction costs. If public bodies deny access to any piece of information, they must provide a reason. An independent monitoring observatory will be tasked with overseeing the law's implementation, and the country's independent anticorruption authority will issue guidelines, including for cases when public bodies may provide summary information instead of full data. Watchdogs and rights groups noted that the law lists wide exemptions for information that may compromise state secrets, public order, national defense, international relations, the state's economic and financial stability, or ongoing criminal investigations, and urged the government to refine this aspect. Furthermore, they noted that the law does not prescribe sanctions for public entities that refuse to answer requests. FOIA4Italty, a civic group that had been a major force of public engagement during the drafting of the bill, applauded the approval of the law while stressing the need to address these remaining concerns and to ensure effective implementation.

AGCOM (Autorita per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni) is the main regulatory body for all media industries, and is responsible for ensuring fair competitive conditions and pluralism in the news. AGCOM is an independent agency and is accountable to Parliament. The board president is appointed by the president of Italy upon the advice of the government; two of the board's four members are elected by the Senate and two by the House of Deputies. Critics have noted that this system, which in practice results in political appointments based on party affiliation, is an impediment to AGCOM's neutrality.

Journalists do not need a license to practice, but they do need a license to work as full-time professionals with one of the major media outlets. Obtaining a license requires passing a professional qualification test after serving as an intern for at least 18 months or attending a two-year accredited school of journalism.

Political Environment: 10 / 40

Political influence on the media is a serious challenge in Italy. Given the close relationship between media and politics in Italy, the lack of rules on conflicts of interest for media owners who are involved in politics is a major problem. At the forefront of this problematic relationship is former prime minister Berlusconi, who owns Mediaset. He was expelled from his seat in Parliament in 2013 after being convicted of tax fraud involving Mediaset. Although he is barred from running for public office until 2019, when he will be 83 years old, he is still the leader of the main center-right party while also retaining ownership of the country's largest media company.

Political interference in the management of RAI, the state-owned public broadcaster, has also historically been a serious problem. Legislators approved a sweeping reform of the public broadcaster  including its management structure  at the end of 2015, and implementation was ongoing in 2016. Proponents characterize the reform as shifting control of RAI away from the interests of the various political parties in Parliament and toward the government.

Censorship of media content is generally not a concern. Although the internet is largely unrestricted, websites can be blocked for selling counterfeit goods, illegal video streaming, unlicensed gambling, or child pornography. In October, the House of Deputies approved a bill aimed at preventing cyberbullying. The bill, which was awaiting approval by the Senate at year's end, stipulates that anyone can request that online service providers remove content aimed at abusing, attacking, or ridiculing an underage individual or group. Net freedom advocates criticized the bill for employing an extremely broad definition of cyberbullying, setting low standards of proof, and prescribing a heavy penalty  a 100,000 fine  for noncompliance, among other things. Discussion of possible amendments to the bill was ongoing at year's end.

Journalists occasionally face intimidation and attacks from organized crime networks and other political or social groups. According to Ossigeno per l'Informazione, 62 journalists received verbal or written threats, 57 were physically attacked, and 4 had their equipment damaged in 2016  generally lower figures than in 2015. None of these incidents resulted in fatalities or critical injuries. Mapping Media Freedom, an organization tracking threats, violations, and limitations faced by members of the press, received 86 reports from Italy in 2016, compared with 82 in 2015. Several reporters live under police protection due to their work on organized crime.

Economic Environment: 9 / 30

Television is the most popular source of information in Italy, followed by the internet, newspapers, and radio. Approximately 62 percent of the population accessed the internet in 2016.

The transition from terrestrial to digital television has increased content pluralism through the creation of a high number of new channels. Italian news agencies, which provide most news content to the media, are free from government influence.

Media ownership is highly concentrated. Legally, no broadcaster is allowed to control more than 20 percent of television and radio stations or more than 20 percent of the total revenue from the entire media industry, though joint ownership of broadcast and print media has been permitted since 2012. Several international bodies have repeatedly pressed their concerns about the inadequacy of these norms and the negative effects of ownership concentration.

According to AGCOM's 2016 report, almost 90 percent of total revenues in the television sector and more than 40 percent of total revenues in the communications sector are held by only three operators: Sky Italia (owned by the American corporation 21st Century Fox), Mediaset (owned by Berlusconi), and RAI (the public broadcaster). Mediaset owns several television channels, the country's largest magazine publisher, and the largest advertising company. Berlusconi also controls the largest book publisher in the country, and his brother owns one of the national major daily newspapers, Il Giornale. In December, the French media conglomerate Vivendi revealed that it had acquired a 12 percent stake in Mediaset and planned to increase its ownership to as much as a fifth of the company. The announcement led analysts to suspect that Mediaset may become subject to a hostile takeover as party of Vivendi's strategy to build a transnational content company in Europe. However, Berlusconi's holding company, Fininvest, still owns 40 percent of Mediaset's shares. Vivendi had previously bought a 24 percent stake in Italy's former national telephone monopoly, Telecom Italia, becoming its biggest shareholder. If it continues, Vivendi's expansion of shares in Mediaset could thus signal a shift, rather than a decrease, of ownership concentration in the telecommunications market.

The publishing sector is more fragmented, featuring a few large and many smaller groups, especially in local newspapers and specialist magazines. In March, the publishing companies of two of the three most widely distributed paid dailies  La Repubblica and La Stampa  announced a merger that would create a new company controlling more than 20 percent of the Italian print news market. As a result of the merger, the two largest newspaper publishers (Gruppo L'Espresso and RCS Mediagroup) will account for a combined 45 percent of total sector revenue. The merger is set to be finalized in 2017. It received approval from the media regulator in October, and will require approval from the country's antitrust authority as well.

In 2016, the government changed the system for payment of television license fees, shifting to an integrated system in which owners of television sets pay the fee as part of their energy bills, rather than through a separate manual transaction. Notoriously lax controls under the previous system had significantly hampered RAI's financial standing, with experts estimating that as much as 30 percent of households neglected to pay the license fee. The reform is expected to curb evasion and place RAI on stronger financial footing.

In 2016, newspapers continued to see declining sales and revenues. According to AGCOM, between 2000 and 2016, average daily newspaper sales fell from 6 million to below 3 million. Many newspapers depend on public subsidies. In October, Parliament approved new legislation aimed at reforming access to public funds. Among other things, the legislation sets limits on the funds available to enterprises and bars newspapers belonging to political parties, political movements, and interest groups from receiving subsidies.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Israel

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Israel, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67dea.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

Total Score: 33/100 (1) (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 8/30 (1)

Political Environment: 14/40

Economic Environment: 11/30

Note: The scores and narrative for Israel do not reflect conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which are assessed in a separate report.

Quick Facts

Population: 8,200,000

Freedom in the World Status: Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 78.9%

Key Developments in 2016:

Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu issued statements to denounce journalists in unusually hostile terms during the year, with especially harsh and personalized attacks directed at senior reporters Ilana Dayan of Channel 2 and Raviv Drucker of Channel 10 in November.

Journalists continued to face defamation suits by prominent politicians, with Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman filing new claims for financial damages in March and May, respectively.

In February, it was reported that the military censor had instructed dozens of bloggers and administrators of major social media accounts to submit security-related items for prepublication review, expanding a practice previously in place for traditional media.

Executive Summary

Israel hosts a lively, pluralistic media environment in which press freedom is generally respected. However, due to ongoing conflicts with Palestinian groups and neighboring countries, media outlets are subject to military censorship and gag orders, and journalists often face travel restrictions. Economic pressures have undermined the sustainability of key outlets in recent years, threatening long-term media pluralism.

Political interference is also a growing concern. Prime Minister Netanyahu retained the role of communications minister in 2016, supervising the regulation of broadcast and online media and raising concerns about conflicts of interest. His government postponed the opening of a new public broadcasting corporation, stoked uncertainty about the future of public radio and the parliamentary television channel, and weighed possible changes to the commercial broadcast sector that could threaten existing outlets.

The financial viability of private print and broadcast outlets remained in doubt in 2016, especially given the considerable market share of the free paper Israel Hayom, the country's leading print outlet. It is owned and subsidized by American businessman Sheldon Adelson and strongly supports Netanyahu, who has been accused of colluding with the paper and other friendly news outlets to ensure favorable coverage.

Legal Environment: 8 / 30 (1)

Legal protections for freedom of the press are robust. While the country's Basic Laws do not specifically address the issue, and the Knesset consistently refuses to pass legislation that would incorporate it into the Basic Laws, the Supreme Court has affirmed that freedom of expression is an essential component of human dignity. The legal standing of press freedom has also been reinforced by court rulings that cite principles laid out in Israel's Declaration of Independence.

However, official respect for the media's legal protections was undermined during 2016 by a series of statements in which the prime minister excoriated leading journalists who had investigated him, particularly Dayan and Drucker in November. Using terms like "desperate," "pathetic," and "left-wing extremist," Netanyahu accused the reporters of pursuing a malicious agenda against him and misleading the public with propaganda and lies. The statements, some of which were posted on the prime minister's Facebook page, were considered unusually aggressive for an Israeli leader. In response, dozens of senior journalists signed a joint letter objecting to such efforts to discredit the media and warning that they could encourage physical violence.

The country's legal framework includes a number of restrictive elements that are sometimes used against journalists. Hate speech and publishing praise of violence are prohibited. In June 2016, the Knesset passed a comprehensive antiterrorism law that combined, replaced, and expanded on a number of older measures, some of which had been in place since the 1940s. The new law criminalized expressions of sympathy for or encouragement of terrorist acts, among other broadly defined offenses, raising concerns that it could affect the work of journalists. However, there were no reports of the law being used against journalists during the year.

In addition, the government introduced a bill that empowers judges, at the state's request, to order social media platforms to remove inflammatory content that constitutes a criminal offense and poses a risk to personal, public, or national security. Critics of the bill argued that its vague terminology could be used to restrict legitimate speech. However, the government approved the legislation and submitted it to the Knesset, which was preparing for a first reading at year's end.

The confidentiality of journalistic sources is not explicitly protected under Israeli law, but it is recognized by the courts. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that journalistic privilege extends not only to the confidential source itself, but also to information that may reveal the identity of the source. Nevertheless, authorities have continued to conduct investigations and surveillance with the aim of uncovering journalists' sources. In 2016, the lower courts issued some problematic decisions on the topic. In a libel case brought by Knesset member Oren Hazan against journalist Amit Segal regarding a 2015 investigative report about Hazan's past, the court in June 2016 refused Segal's request to have his sources testify in a closed session to protect their confidentiality. Separately in September, a district court ruled that Channel 2 had to give police the raw footage from an interview with a criminal suspect that was later edited and broadcast, overturning a lower court's 2015 decision and finding that the interviewee did not enjoy the same protections as a confidential source. The decision was being appealed to the Supreme Court at year's end.

The media continue to face the threat of lawsuits for libel and defamation. In Hazan's case against Segal, the court in October rejected the majority of the plaintiff's claim and generally upheld Segal's reporting, but awarded Hazan 40,000 shekels ($10,000) in compensation for certain inaccuracies in the coverage. Meanwhile, Netanyahu and his wife filed a case in March seeking 280,000 shekels ($73,000) in compensation for journalist Igal Sarna's Facebook post about an alleged argument between the couple. In May, Defense Minister Lieberman sued a journalist from Channel 10 for 140,000 shekels ($36,000), claiming that the journalist falsely accused him of leaking the state comptroller's report about operational failures during Israel's 2014 military offensive against the militant group Hamas in Gaza. Also during the year, a real estate company linked to a convicted trafficker in women was pursuing a lawsuit against investigative journalist Sharon Shpurer, seeking 1.68 million shekels ($436,000) after Shpurer publicly identified the trafficker as an owner of the company in a Facebook post and urged the public not to do business with it.

Freedom of information has been protected by law since 1998, and the courts have gradually widened their interpretation of the public's right to know. The tools provided by the law are used by journalists and activist groups, and many newsworthy pieces of information have been exposed. In a high-profile case involving the prime minister, a district court ruled in July 2016 that Netanyahu did not have to release the dates and times of his conversations with Sheldon Adelson and the editor in chief of Israel Hayom; the conversations would ostensibly indicate that the Prime Minister's Office provides the newspaper with instructions regarding content. The court, reversing its initial 2015 ruling in favor of Drucker and Channel 10, found that releasing the information would violate the privacy rights of both the prime minister and Adelson. Drucker appealed the case to the Supreme Court in October.

According to the Press Ordinance of 1933, publishers are required to obtain a license from the Interior Ministry to operate a newspaper, and the ministry is empowered to refuse or revoke licenses on various grounds. However, a separate regulation that had allowed the Interior Ministry to close newspapers without providing justification was revoked under the 2016 antiterrorism law, and the government was preparing legislation at year's end to cancel the 1933 Press Ordinance as well.

Netanyahu has served as communications minister since late 2014, having decided to retain the vacant portfolio for himself after the March 2015 elections, meaning he oversees regulatory decisions regarding Israel's broadcast, internet, and telecommunications markets. In an example of the conflicts of interest raised by this arrangement, the attorney general said in June 2016 that Netanyahu would be barred from involvement in any regulatory matters affecting the companies of his personal friend Shaul Elovitch, whose Bezeq telecommunications conglomerate owns the satellite television provider Yes and the web portal and news site Walla, among other units. Separately that month, a committee headed by the director general of the Communications Ministry, a close political ally of the prime minister, released its recommendations on reforms to the commercial television sector. Though designed to encourage competition, the proposed changes would give new enterprises an advantage and threaten the viability of established outlets such as Channel 2 and Channel 10, whose reporters have clashed with Netanyahu in recent years.

Also during the year, the government was working on plans to close the military-operated Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) or shift it to the Defense Ministry, and to merge the Second Authority for Television and Radio  an independent regulator of broadcast media  with the Cable and Satellite Council, placing the unified agency under the Communications Ministry's control. In August, the Knesset passed legislation that changed the rules governing an upcoming tender for management of the Knesset Channel, currently operated by Channel 2, and included a controversial clause barring the Knesset Channel from airing content that violates the dignity of the legislature unless it has news or educational value. Concerns that the law was meant to favor a progovernment bidder in the tender were underscored in December, when the Cable and Satellite Council granted permission for Channel 20, the right-leaning Jewish heritage station, to broadcast news content.

The Government Press Office (GPO) requires journalists operating in Israel to have proper accreditation in order to attend official press conferences, gain permission to access government buildings, and pass through Israeli military checkpoints. Hundreds of foreign journalists are generally accredited. However, the GPO has occasionally refused to provide press cards  especially to Palestinians  on national security grounds, thus preventing the affected reporters from entering Israel.

A long-standing law forbidding Israeli citizens from traveling to "enemy states" such as Lebanon and Syria without permission from the Interior Ministry has, on occasion, been applied to journalists. Press freedom organizations have condemned the selective application of the law, as well as the potential effects of such travel restrictions on the diversity of news available to the Israeli public. Although Israeli journalists are generally barred from entering the Palestinian territories without explicit military approval, in practice the military frequently ignores the presence of Israeli journalists in the territories.

During the last several years, journalists have been drawn into a series of legal battles to protect their labor rights, supported by a new union founded in 2012 to defend journalists' interests. In December 2015, the reporters of the financial newspaper Globes reached a collective agreement with the paper's management  a significant achievement for the Union of Journalists in Israel. In 2016, Globes employees successfully blocked a management plan to print a free daily produced by the Walla news website, arguing that it could harm their interests.

Political Environment: 14 / 40

The Israeli media collectively offer a diverse range of views, and they are generally free from overt political interference. However, some private outlets are highly partisan in their news coverage, and broadcast stations in particular have regularly faced instances of political pressure in recent years. In 2016, Netanyahu initiated a series of meetings with Israeli media executives and senior journalists from multiple outlets, during which he reprimanded them for their coverage of his government and him personally. Separately, in addition to explicit denunciations, the prime minister and a number of other politicians showed their displeasure with particular journalists by blocking the reporters from their social-media accounts.

The Israel Hayom newspaper, which enjoys the largest distribution in Israel, consistently supports Prime Minister Netanyahu, and Walla is also thought to favor Netanyahu due to his friendship with Elovitch, the owner of its parent company. Israel Hayom's major competitor, the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth and its website Ynet, are known for criticizing the prime minister and supporting other politicians. The main television broadcasters, both commercial and public, are largely free of specific political biases, though the repeated delays in the launch of a new public broadcaster during 2016 raised concerns about future politicization.

Under the 1948 Defense Act, softened by the 1996 Censorship Agreement between the media and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the military censor has the power to penalize, shut down, or halt production of a publication for national security reasons. In practice, however, the censor's role is quite limited and under strict judicial oversight. Journalists often evade restrictions by leaking a story to a foreign outlet and then republishing it. Digital media have added to the challenge of enforcing the 1996 agreement, and bloggers outside Israel publish concrete information that is barred from publication inside the country. The military censor has shown a growing interest in tracking information posted online, especially on social media. In February 2016, it was reported that the censor had instructed about 30 bloggers and administrators of social media accounts with large followings to submit security-related items for prepublication review, expanding a practice previously in place for traditional media. The censor also sought to place observers in WhatsApp groups used by reporters and spokespeople to exchange information for pending stories. Following harsh public criticism, the censor was compelled to clarify its operational guidelines.

To compensate for their limited ability to use the military censor, security officials have obtained court-issued gag orders to block coverage of sensitive stories. Research published in July 2016 showed a sharp increase in the use of gag orders over the past 15 years, with 231 issued in 2015 alone.

In addition to such direct censorship, journalists are thought to practice some degree of self-censorship, largely to conform to the editorial line of their outlets, whether it is pro- or antigovernment in orientation.

The pluralistic makeup of Israeli society is reflected in the press landscape, which includes more than a dozen daily newspapers and a wide range of weeklies and news websites serving readers from various religious, ethnic, and linguistic groups. A similarly diverse selection of broadcast media is also available in Israel, including local radio stations that cater to the country's regional communities as well as ultra-Orthodox, Russian-speaking, and Arabic-speaking populations.

Deliberate violence against or harassment of journalists is relatively rare in Israel. The principal targets have traditionally been Arab journalists  both foreign and local, often in and around Jerusalem  though many incidents have also stemmed from private or commercial conflicts and harassment of journalists who are reporting from social demonstrations or contentious court hearings. In October 2016, during the trial of an Israeli soldier charged with killing a wounded and disarmed Palestinian assailant, well-known journalist and political commentator Amnon Abramovich was assaulted both verbally and physically by supporters of the accused.

Economic Environment: 11 / 30

Israel's major newspapers are privately owned, and some freely criticize government policies and aggressively pursue cases of official corruption. However, the popularity of the free, progovernment newspaper Israel Hayom, which has risen to capture nearly 40 percent of the daily market since its launch in 2007, has placed financial pressure on other mainstream papers, as its owner-subsidized business model has forced them to slash advertising rates, thus threatening their sustainability. Yedioth Ahronoth, previously the leading paper, places second at about 35 percent. Other dailies' market shares are in the single digits. Due to the transfer of advertising budgets to digital media, the fact that Israel has a small advertising market overall, and the continued growth of Israel Hayom, print journalism in Israel is suffering losses. Dismissals of journalists and threats that newspapers will be forced to shut down have become a matter of routine, as has a trend of ownership consolidation. The financial daily Globes faced a likely sale after the assets of its owner, debt-laden businessman Eliezer Fishman, were placed in receivership in December 2016.

A diverse selection of television and radio outlets are available in Israel, although ownership concentration among private stations is a growing concern. The consumer base for unique, Hebrew-language outlets is relatively small, which contributes to unusually high barriers to entry for new outlets. Most Israelis subscribe to cable, satellite, or digital terrestrial television services that provide access to international stations. Cellcom TV, a competing service providing multichannel television over the internet, was launched in early 2015, but has not yet penetrated the market significantly. Regulatory authorities have not yet decided which regulatory system will apply to businesses that offer television content to Israeli audiences online.

The prominence of the state-run Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) in the television market has declined significantly in recent years due to competition from private television and radio outlets, continuing political interference in the content of IBA programming, and poor management. The IBA's radio station, Kol Israel, and the military-operated Galei Tzahal remain popular. In July 2014, the Knesset voted to close the IBA in 2015 and replace it with a new entity. The law offered sound guarantees to protect the new authority from political pressure and to ensure that it will operate more efficiently. Only a fraction of the IBA's staff would be employed by the new authority, drawing objections from labor unions. A professional manager was brought in to replace political appointees, and by 2015 the IBA was in the process of transitioning to its new structure. Although a large wave of dismissals was carried out in late 2015, the new authority was not yet able to function, leaving the diminished IBA in place.

During 2016, the government further delayed the start date for the new Israel Broadcasting Corporation (IBC). While Netanyahu claimed that the IBC simply was not ready for launch, several investigations  as well as the prime minister's and his supporters' own statements on the matter  indicated that the delays were politically motivated. These developments fueled concerns about the future of public broadcasting in Israel.

Israel has one of the region's highest rates of internet usage, at 79 percent as of 2015. Most internet users are active on social media, and a number of online news and information websites have sprung up in recent years. The government generally does not restrict internet access, although blocking of certain data on applications like Google Maps, as well as surveillance of internet service providers and telecommunications services, is carried out, ostensibly for security purposes.

The transparency of ownership at various media outlets is greater than in the past, but this is largely due to scrutiny by rival outlets and efforts organized on social media. Some members of the media have failed to comply with Israel Press Council ethical guidelines that require them to disclose the full range of interests behind their respective outlets.

While the allocation of state advertising and announcements to newspapers is guided in part by circulation figures, other considerations also play a role, and there is room for discretion in practice. Some research in recent years has suggested that government ministries tend to favor outlets whose owners are considered to be friendly to the administration.

The use of branded content and unmarked "native advertising"  paid material that blends in with the surrounding content  is an increasingly important revenue stream, and sometimes even the main revenue stream, for major media outlets in Israel. The most-viewed news website in Israel, Ynet, is also the site that contains the most native advertising, and commercial firms even fund some of its journalists' salaries directly. Advertisers in Israel include not only private companies, but also government ministries, state agencies, and nonprofit organizations that pay millions of shekels to websites, newspapers, and commercial television channels to get their messages out, with the paid nature of the content often obscured. This takes place even though under existing law, branded content is forbidden on commercial television. A bill intended to address the problem failed to become law in 2016. It would have amended the Consumer Protection Law to more strictly regulate all forms of paid content in all sectors of the media, including print and online, where the rules are both weak and poorly enforced. Prime Minister Netanyahu decided to support the bill, which presented a potential threat to the critical Yedioth Ahronoth, politicizing the debate and leading the opposition to derail the legislation.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Iraq

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Iraq, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67e0a.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 71/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 23/30

Political Environment: 32/40

Economic Environment: 16/30

Quick Facts

Population: 38,100,000

Freedom in the World Status: Not Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 17.2%

Key Developments in 2016:

Iraq remained one of the world's deadliest countries for the press, with at least six journalists and one media worker killed in connection with their work during the year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

The Communications and Media Commission (CMC) withdrew the television broadcast licenses of Al-Baghdadiya in March and Qatar's Al-Jazeera in April for what critics said were political reasons.

The Islamic State (IS) militant group maintained a strict censorship regime in the areas still under its control, though a government offensive to recapture the city of Mosul commenced in October.

Executive Summary

Legal protections for press freedom in Iraq are undermined in practice by decades-old restrictions in the penal code and the unstable security situation. Ongoing violence and impunity for past crimes encourage self-censorship and impair journalists' ability to operate, particularly in areas affected by the conflict with IS. Even in comparatively safe regions, media freedom is curtailed through political pressure and interference from the government and state regulators, as well as editorial control by owners with partisan or sectarian affiliations.

Legal Environment: 23 / 30

Iraq's constitution protects freedoms of speech and expression, but vague and redundant laws govern the media. The 1968 Publications Law prescribes up to seven years in prison for insulting the government, and the 1969 penal code criminalizes defamation and insult. In 2010, the Supreme Judicial Council created a special court to prosecute journalists despite a ban on the creation of special courts in Article 95 of the constitution. A 2011 Journalist Protection Law is widely regarded as ineffective due to its ambiguous language, restrictions on who is recognized as a journalist, and failure to repeal harmful elements of existing laws.

The government has initiated a number of legal cases against journalists in recent years. In March 2016, Montadhar Naser, editor of the independent news site Al-Aalem al-Jadeed, was brought before the Federal Publishing and Media Court to face defamation charges over a report alleging corruption in Iraq's telecommunications regulatory body. Naser was asked to divulge the source for the article, and he refused. Consequently, he was fired from his job with the state-owned Iraqi Media Network, his personal website was blocked, and he was blacklisted by the government. A judge dismissed the defamation charges in August.

In areas under the control of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, the 2008 Kurdistan Press Law protects journalists' right to obtain "information of importance to citizens and with relevance to the public interest." Under the law, officials are required to investigate incidents in which journalists are injured or killed as a result of their work, although few journalists' deaths have been investigated. The press law abolishes imprisonment as a penalty for defamation, but journalists can face high fines. Moreover, public officials have often brought libel and insult cases against journalists using the Iraqi penal code, undermining the protections provided in the Kurdistan Press Law.

Iraq lacks national legislation guaranteeing access to government information, and journalists struggle to obtain official documents in practice. The KRG passed legislation guaranteeing access to information in 2013, but critics note that the law contains vague language and vast exceptions, and is rarely used by journalists because of poor or biased implementation.

The government-controlled CMC is the primary body responsible for regulating broadcast media. After the government declared a state of emergency amid the IS offensive in 2014, the CMC issued "mandatory" guidelines for media "during the war on terror"  a series of vague stipulations that placed arbitrary restrictions on coverage. One provision required the media to "hold on to the patriotic sense" and to "be careful when broadcasting material that . . . may express insulting sentiments" or does "not accord with the moral and patriotic order required for the war on terror." Another forbade the broadcasting or publishing of material critical of the security forces and instead obliged journalists to focus on their accomplishments. Media in Iraqi Kurdistan received similar guidelines.

The CMC is highly politicized and often retaliates against critical media outlets. In March 2016, it withdrew the television broadcast license for Al-Baghdadiya and ordered police to shutter its 16 offices around the country. No reason was given for the move, but Al-Baghdadiya, which broadcasts via satellite from Egypt, is a pro-Sunni outlet that is critical of the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government, and had supported the anticorruption protest movement that swept Iraq the previous year. Moreover, the closure occurred two days before additional demonstrations in Baghdad were set to take place, again focused on official corruption and failure to deliver public services. In April, the CMC suspended the broadcast license of Qatar-based television network Al-Jazeera for one year , accusing it of violating the 2014 guidelines governing reporting on the war against IS, and of inciting violence and sectarianism.

Although a number of journalists' organizations and media freedom advocacy groups operate in Iraq, their ability to secure concessions and reforms from the government is limited. Media workers and other observers have noted the lack of effective self-regulatory mechanisms and ethical standards in the sector.

Political Environment: 32 / 40

The Iraqi news media are diverse and collectively present a range of views, but most outlets are owned by or affiliated with political parties and ethnic factions, often leading to sharply partisan coverage. Outlets also face various forms of pressure from the authorities, and reporters are regularly denied access to sensitive events and officials. Fear of reprisals  from fatal violence to criminal defamation suits  makes self-censorship among journalists common.

In October 2016, the government's Iraqi Media Network entered into an arrangement with a group of private media outlets to produce and air a joint nightly news program and coordinate their communications strategies with the aim of fostering public support for the military campaign against IS. Participating outlets are provided with technical and material support by the state. The deal prevents channels in the coalition from disseminating news that runs counter to the official narrative, and excludes channels that have been critical of the government.

The conflict with IS has restricted journalists' ability to access the affected areas and led to large-scale shutdowns of media and internet services. Shortly after the militant group gained control of Mosul in June 2014, the prime minister's office ordered the Ministry of Communications to shut down internet service in IS-occupied provinces, ostensibly to prevent the group from using social media to plan attacks and release propaganda. Access to websites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and the internet in general is periodically blocked throughout Iraq. In May 2016, the Ministry of Communications shut down all broadband and mobile internet connections for three hours each day over a period of several days to prevent students from cheating on Iraq's national exams.

Journalists regularly face harassment, intimidation, and violence from a variety of actors in the course of their reporting. According to CPJ, at least six journalists and one media technician were killed as a result of their work during 2016, while the motives for another four killings remained unconfirmed.

Most of the year's fatalities came in the context of fighting between progovernment forces and IS in different parts of the country. The victims worked for a variety of news outlets. In July, cameraman Ali Mahmud of Al-Ghadeer TV was killed near Mosul when IS fighters attacked the government convoy he was accompanying. In August, cameraman Mustafa Saeed of Kurdistan TV, a channel linked to the KRG's ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), was also killed while covering the Mosul offensive, and media technician Ali Ghani of Al-Ahad TV, affiliated with the Shiite militia Asaib Ahl al-Haq, was killed in a mortar attack in Anbar Province. In October, Ali Raysan of Al-Sumaria TV and Ahmed Haceroglu of Turkmeneli TV were killed while reporting on fighting with IS near Mosul and in Kirkuk, respectively. At least seven other journalists were seriously wounded while covering combat around Mosul.

Separately in January, unknown assailants shot and killed Al-Sharqiya TV correspondent Saif Talal and his cameraman, Hassan al-Anbaki, while they were traveling by car in Diyala Province. Al-Sharqiya later accused local militias of responsibility for the killings. Diyala was taken back from IS by government and allied forces in 2015, but it has subsequently suffered from continued violence and a raft of abuses by Shiite militias aligned with the government.

Even journalists based outside of combat zones have been targeted for their work, as retaliatory violence is prevalent across Iraq. In December, for example, Afrah Shawqi al-Qaisi, a journalist known for her criticism of impunity within the security forces, was abducted from her home in Baghdad by a group of men claiming to be security personnel. She remained missing at year's end. Women journalists in general face the additional challenge of gender-based violence or harassment that impedes their professional activities. Also in December, Mohammed Thabet Shahaza, manager of Radio Baba Gurgur in Kirkuk, was shot and killed as he left his workplace, though the motive was unclear.

Journalists in Iraqi Kurdistan, particularly those working for independent or opposition outlets, sometimes encounter violence and other interference. In August 2016, reporter Wedad Hussein Ali of Roj News, an agency linked to the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant group, was kidnapped and murdered near Dohuk in the KRG. In October, the Kurdish channels NRT TV and KNN TV, affiliated with the political opposition to the KDP, were banned by the KRG government from reporting on the front lines of the battle for Mosul, along with several other outlets. In December, Shukri Zaynadin, a cameraman for KNN, was found dead in a rural area in Dohuk Province. Police claimed he was killed by a wild animal, but local media and Zaynadin's family alleged that he was murdered in connection with his work. He had received numerous death threats before his disappearance.

Economic Environment: 16 / 30

Hundreds of privately owned television, radio, and print media outlets have opened since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, offering content in languages including Arabic, Kurdish, Syriac, and Turkmen. However, political parties and ethnic factions fund most media outlets. The government controls the Iraqi Media Network, a holding company that owns the television station Al-Iraqiya, Republic of Iraq Radio, and the newspaper Al-Sabah. Satellite dishes are legal and common. Numerous satellite networks transmit into Iraq, including Al-Sharqiya, an Iraqi-owned station that broadcasts from Dubai; Qatar's Al-Jazeera; and the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya. IS retained control of a number of seized media outlets in 2016, and has established its own communications infrastructure in the territories under its control. The group operates its own television station, Dabiq, and an online magazine of the same name.

Until the crisis created by the IS offensive in the summer of 2014, the internet had largely operated without government restriction, and usage had steadily increased since 2003. A growing number of Iraqis turn to online outlets and social media to spread information and consume news, partly due to distrust of corrupt or partisan journalism in the mainstream media. However, poor infrastructure and sporadic access to electricity continue to make Iraq's penetration rate for fixed-line internet access one of the lowest in the region, leading the majority of Iraqi users to rely on wireless technology. The overall internet penetration rate stood at 21 percent in 2016.

Commercial advertising revenues alone are too small to sustain Iraq's private media, and the government shapes the editorial content of some outlets by manipulating public advertising or pressuring private advertisers. Journalists have also reportedly slanted the news in return for bribes from officials, political figures, or businessmen. In KRG areas, independent media suffer from lack of advertising and are unable to compete with outlets that are subsidized by the major Kurdish parties. Many Iraqi outlets struggle financially, forcing journalists to go without pay for extended periods.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Iran

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Iran, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67e2a.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 90/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 30/30

Political Environment: 36/40

Economic Environment: 24/30

Quick Facts

Population: 79,500,000

Freedom in the World Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: Not Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 44.1%

Key Developments in 2016:

As of December, there were eight journalists behind bars in Iran, down from 19 in 2015 and 30 in 2014, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). However, many others were arbitrarily arrested and released during the year, or were free on bail and continued to face charges or restrictions on their ability to work.

In April, Davoud Assadi, the brother of Paris-based Iranian journalist Houshang Assadi, was sentenced to five years in prison for acting against national security. The Center for Human Rights in Iran cited the case as an example of the regime's practice of pressuring journalists living overseas by targeting their relatives.

In June, the judiciary shuttered the reformist newspaper Ghanoon in response to complaints about critical coverage from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The paper, one of several outlets to suffer suspension or blocking in 2016, was reportedly allowed to resume publication later in the year.

Executive Summary

Conditions for the media in Iran are highly repressive. Certain topics  including criticism of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei  are subject to long-standing redlines, enforced in part through harsh online and offline censorship. Journalists are silenced and forced into self-censorship through harassment, arbitrary detention, and prison sentences for vaguely defined offenses.

The situation has not significantly improved since the 2013 election of President Hassan Rouhani, who presented himself as a moderate. In fact, journalists in recent years have become victims of the tensions between the moderate faction of the Iranian establishment and powerful hard-liners who control key law enforcement institutions, with the latter asserting their authority by bringing cases against reporters on national security grounds. For example, four journalists who had been arrested by the IRGC's intelligence unit in November 2015 received sentences of up to two years in prison after appeals in 2016; at least two of them engaged in hunger strikes while in detention.

In January 2016, Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian  who had been in Iranian custody on trumped-up espionage charges since mid-2014  was released as part of a prisoner exchange with the United States that coincided with the lifting of sanctions under the 2015 international agreement on Iran's nuclear program.

The authorities continued to formally ban popular online information platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in 2016. Although many Iranians accessed these services using circumvention tools, law enforcement officials and progovernment groups monitored their activity and worked to suppress critical or "immoral" content.

Legal Environment: 30 / 30

Constitutional provisions and laws restrict what can be covered in the media and fail to provide protections for journalists. The authorities regularly invoke vaguely worded laws to criminalize dissenting opinions.

Article 24 of the constitution guarantees freedom of the press, but with a broad exception for content that is deemed "detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam or the rights of the public." The Press Law, first drafted in 1986 and amended in 2000, states that "publications and news media shall enjoy freedom of expression provided what they publish does not violate Islamic principles of the civil code." Article 3 of the law states, "The press have the right to publish the opinions, constructive criticisms, suggestions and explanations of individuals and government officials for public information while duly observing the Islamic teachings and the best interest of the community."

Article 500 of the penal code states that anyone who undertakes any form of propaganda against the state will be sentenced to between three months and a year in prison, but the code leaves "propaganda" undefined. Under Article 513, certain offenses deemed to be an "insult" to religion are punishable by death, or prison terms of one to five years for lesser offenses, with "insult" similarly undefined. In 2010, the government broadened the definition of the crime of moharebeh, or "enmity against God," in order to convict activists and journalists. Iranian law also provides for sentences of up to two years in prison, up to 74 lashes, or fines for those convicted of intentionally creating "anxiety and unease in the public's mind," spreading "false rumors," writing about "acts that are not true," and criticizing state officials; however, many prison sentences have been arbitrarily harsh, ranging from 6 to 10 years or more. Courts also frequently set exorbitant bail for detained journalists. The high bail amounts and suspended jail sentences often discourage journalists from engaging in media activities and criticism of the establishment even when they are not behind bars.

A new law that took effect in June 2016 defined "political crimes" to include expression that, for example, insults or defames state officials, so long as the intent is to "reform" rather than damage the foundations of the regime. Offenses with the latter intent would still be categorized as more serious national security crimes. The law calls for designated political criminals to be housed separately from other inmates and enjoy certain privileges in their trial and custody, though it was not clear that these provisions were implemented during the year.

Bloggers and online activists face many of the same legal repercussions for their work as do professional journalists. The judiciary frequently denies accused journalists and bloggers due process by referring their cases to the Revolutionary Courts, which generally feature closed-door hearings and denial of access to an attorney. Political cartoonists and satirists are also frequently targeted by authorities.

Multiple journalists faced arrest, indictment, or imprisonment during 2016. In January, Iranian authorities released Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, a dual Iranian-American national, after keeping him behind bars for 544 days, including 50 days in solitary confinement. Rezaian and three other U.S. citizens were released as part of a prisoner exchange. Rezaian had been convicted in 2015 on espionage charges, which were dismissed by his family and the Post as baseless. A lawsuit filed by Rezaian and his family in October alleged that the Iranian government held him hostage "for the unlawful purpose of extorting concessions from the U.S. government and others."

In February, former British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Persian service reporter Bahman Daroshafaei was arrested in Tehran on unspecified charges. Daroshafaei, who holds dual Iranian-British nationality, had in the past been repeatedly interrogated by the Intelligence Ministry about his work in journalism. He was released on bail later the same month and apparently remained free at year's end.

In March and April, a Revolutionary Court sentenced three journalists  Afarin Chitsaz from the state-run Iran daily newspaper, editor Ehsan Mazandarani of the newspaper Farhikhtegan, and Saman Safarzaei of the monthly Andisheh Pouya  to, respectively, ten, seven, and five years in prison. The charges included spreading antigovernment propaganda and insulting government officials. The three were arrested by the intelligence branch of the IRGC in November 2015 for allegedly belonging to an "infiltration network" controlled by Western powers. Their sentences were later reduced to two years in prison on appeal. Also in April, Davoud Assadi, the brother of Paris-based Iranian journalist Houshang Assadi, was sentenced to five years in prison for acting against national security, illustrating the regime practice of targeting the relatives of Iranian journalists working overseas. Mazandarani was temporarily released for medical treatment in October after a prolonged hunger strike and solitary confinement damaged his health.

In July, an appellate court in the city of Saveh sentenced journalist and blogger Mohammad Reza Fathi to 459 lashes for defamation and publishing false information, increasing the original penalty of 444 lashes handed down in April, though the penal code called for only part of the punishment to actually be administered. The charges stemmed from Fathi's posts about city officials.

In August, prominent journalist Issa Saharkhiz was sentenced to three years in prison for allegedly insulting the supreme leader; the sentence was reduced to 21 months without explanation in September. He had suffered from health problems since his original arrest in November 2015 due to hunger strikes and existing ailments.

In September, Sadra Mohaghegh, an editor of the reformist daily Shargh, was arrested by security agents. The charges against him were unclear, but he was later released on bail. Progovernment news agencies claimed that he had been arrested for working with "counterrevolutionary" media. Separately that month, journalist Souroush Farhadian, a contributor to several reformist publications, was sentenced to seven months in prison. His lawyers said the conviction for propaganda against the regime stemmed from his criticism of the house arrest of opposition leaders. The verdict was being appealed at year's end.

In December, reformist journalist Farzad Pourmoradi went on trial for "spreading lies with the purpose of disturbing public order" and "insulting officials." He had been arrested in October 2015 and released on bail.

In 2014, the government issued regulations for the implementation of a moribund 2009 law on access to official information. The law had called for the regulations to be produced within three months, but the government apparently failed to act for over five years. The legislation includes no penalties for failure to release information; exemptions apply to state secrets, personal information, and information that conflicts with public morality.

The leader of the audiovisual media policy agency is chosen by the supreme leader, and is supervised by a council made up of presidential, judicial, and parliamentary representatives. In August 2016, a bill that would establish a new oversight organization for the media was expected to be sent to the parliament. Critics claimed that it would further restrict independent journalism. Drafted in 2014, the bill calls for a "nongovernmental" institution run by a high council composed of state officials, including the culture minister or his representative, and three members of the regime-controlled Press Supervisory Board. At year's end, it was not clear whether the bill was in fact submitted to lawmakers for review, or whether the original draft had been revised since 2014.

Press licenses are issued by the Press Supervisory Board and have been rescinded in retaliation for criticism of the ruling establishment. The authorities also target journalists' associations and civil society organizations that support freedom of expression. The Association of Iranian Journalists, a professional syndicate dedicated to protecting journalists' rights, was shut down in 2009. Despite numerous attempts by members of the association, officials refuse to permit it to resume its activities. State media and other loyalist outlets are used to propagate false claims about freedom of expression activists. Hard-line media, including the daily Kayhan and the Fars and Tasnim news agencies, are notorious for attacking reformists, establishment critics, and others.

Political Environment: 36 / 40

The Iranian media landscape is dominated by official, semiofficial, conservative, and reformist news outlets that support the authorities or particular factions of the ruling establishment. Hard-line outlets strongly oppose reformists and opposition figures. Kayhan in particular is often seen as the mouthpiece of the supreme leader, although in some cases  namely on the issue of Iran's nuclear program  the daily has not necessarily reflected Khamenei's official stance. Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), a state agency with a monopoly on domestic television and radio broadcasts, airs programs aimed at smearing and discrediting dissidents and critical journalists. IRIB also has a record of working with security forces and airing forced confessions by dissidents and others. Its news and analysis are censored and biased in favor of the establishment.

Media outlets that carry independent, critical, or reformist-leaning content regularly face closure. In June 2016, the judiciary shuttered the reformist newspaper Ghanoon due to complaints from the IRGC. According to the paper, it was accused of "libel and publishing falsehoods to create public anxiety." Several days before it was closed, it had published a story criticizing the conditions in an Iranian prison. Moreover, in January, Ghanoon was critical of the IRGC's handling of the arrest of U.S. sailors in Iranian territorial waters. The paper reportedly resumed publication later in the year. Also in June, the Press Supervisory Board closed the conservative news site Jahannews for allegedly threatening national security by publishing false information. The website had claimed that government officials held talks with Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour prior to his killing in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan that May. In September, the website Memari News was blocked after it published documents about the sale of city-owned properties to senior officials and municipal council members. Eight other news sites that reported on the documents were also blocked.

The wholesale blocking of social media websites including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, and surveillance of the activities of Iranians who manage to reach such platforms, remained in effect in 2016. In August, the IRGC reported that it had questioned, detained, or issued warnings to more than 450 administrators of groups on various social media platforms regarding allegedly immoral content.

Foreign media are unable to operate freely in Iran. The government requires all foreign correspondents to provide detailed itineraries and proposed stories before visas are granted, and visas are regularly denied to foreign reporters who have previously been critical of the regime. Authorities have in recent years arrested a number of Iranian journalists and documentary filmmakers for suspected ties with Persian-language media outlets based abroad, particularly the BBC Persian service. In June 2016, about 700 Iranian journalists received anonymous text messages warning them not to contact "hostile elements" overseas.

According to CPJ, Iran had eight incarcerated journalists as of December 2016, down from 19 in 2015 and 30 in 2014. However, these figures did not account for those who were arbitrarily arrested and released throughout the year, some of whom continued to face charges and were effectively unable to work. Prison conditions remain harsh, and detained journalists are often held in solitary confinement in the first weeks or months of their imprisonment.

Economic Environment: 24 / 30

Given the limited distribution of print media outside large cities, radio and television serve as the principal sources of news for many citizens. Article 175 of the constitution forbids private broadcasting. The state maintains a monopoly on all domestic broadcast media and presents only the official political and religious viewpoints. In the print sector, the newspapers with the widest circulation and influence adhere to a conservative editorial position or are directly operated by the government. A state-run English-language satellite station, Press TV, was launched in 2007. The IRGC largely controls the Fars news agency. Several other hard-line news outlets, including Tasnim news agency, are also closely associated with the IRGC and state security forces.

Many Iranians use banned satellite receivers to watch international channels. Their number is reportedly on the rise despite a state campaign of raiding homes, confiscating dishes, and fining owners. Officials claimed to have destroyed over 100,000 seized satellite dishes in July 2016. The authorities also engage in systematic jamming of foreign satellite signals for viewers in Tehran and other cities, stepping up the effort during sensitive political times, including elections. In recent years, some officials and media reports have raised concerns over the jamming's interference with meteorological forecasts and its potential health hazards for citizens. Iran has repeatedly jammed the Persian television service of the BBC, whose popular programming challenges the government's portrayals of both the domestic political scene and Iran's foreign relations. The uncensored news broadcasts of U.S.-backed Radio Farda have also been jammed.

Although access to the websites of international Persian-language media outlets and other organizations is similarly blocked by Iranian authorities, many Iranians use circumvention tools to reach otherwise censored information on the internet and discuss taboo subjects on banned social-media sites. The regime's increased monitoring of such activity in recent years is a tacit acknowledgment of its inability to completely silence online dissent through blocking. The internet in general is subject to extremely slow speeds and other practical obstacles in Iran, but it continues to expand as an important source of news coverage and analysis. The penetration rate reached more than 53 percent in 2016.

In 2009, as part of an ostensible privatization process, a corporation linked to the IRGC bought a majority stake in the Telecommunications Company of Iran (TCI) with little outside competition. The government retains ownership of most of the remaining portion. The transaction effectively gave the IRGC indirect control over the country's dominant provider of fixed-line, mobile, and internet communications services. The country's other major mobile carriers are also linked to the IRGC or the state.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Indonesia

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Indonesia, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67e4a.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

Total Score: 49/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 16/30

Political Environment: 18/40

Economic Environment: 15/30

Quick Facts

Population: 259,400,000

Freedom in the World Status: Partly Free

Net Freedom Status: Partly Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 22.0%

Key Developments in 2016:

Amendments to the 2008 Information and Electronic Transactions (ITE) Law retained criminal penalties for online defamation, but reduced the maximum sentence. The amendments also introduced a provision media watchdogs said could permit the censorship of past news articles.

The governor of Jakarta was charged with blasphemy over a remark he made about a verse in the Koran.

Authorities refused to issue a media visa to a French journalist who had produced a documentary that made allegations of state-backed human rights abuses in the eastern Papuan provinces.

Executive Summary

Indonesia's media landscape is vibrant and diverse, though outlets' editorial positions frequently correspond with their owners' interests. Concerns remain about the use of criminal defamation laws and the ITE Law to suppress free expression. Amendments to the ITE law approved in 2016 introduced the "right to be forgotten," by which individuals could appeal for the removal of online content deemed "irrelevant." Media advocacy groups expressed concern that the new provision could be invoked to censor past news reports.

Indonesia's Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) noted an uptick in reported incidents of violence against the press in 2016. Meanwhile, blasphemy charges against Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama ("Ahok") were filed in November in connection with remarks he had made about the Koran weeks earlier. The case against him served as a reminder that individuals could still be charged and potentially imprisoned for making statements perceived as insulting religion.

Legal Environment: 16 / 30

Constitutional and legal provisions allow for freedoms of speech and of the press, though both the government and private actors sometimes obstruct these rights. The 1999 Law on the Press created the independent Indonesian Press Council, whose mandate includes protecting the press from outside interference, creating a code of ethics, and finding solutions to public complaints lodged against the press. Although the Press Council is supposed to adjudicate all media disputes, authorities continue to undermine the council's mandate by bringing defamation charges to the courts.

Defamation is an offense covered by more than 40 provisions of the criminal code. The 2008 ITE law contains criminal sanctions for digital expression. Under 2016 amendments to the ITE Law, the maximum penalty for online defamation was reduced to four years, from six previously. The amendments also introduced the "right to be forgotten," by which individuals could appeal for the removal of online content deemed "irrelevant." That provision prompted concerns that the ITE Law could be invoked to censor past news reports.

A 2011 Constitutional Court decision to uphold an article of the criminal code banning blasphemy had negative implications for freedom of expression, as did the judges' apparent endorsement of the government's argument that the prohibition of blasphemy is vital to protecting religious harmony. In November 2016, Ahok, Jakarta's Christian governor, was charged with blasphemy over a remark he made in September about a verse in the Koran. His trial was ongoing at year's end.

The 2008 Law on Public Information Transparency established the right to access public information, but implementation remains flawed. The State Intelligence Law (SIL), passed in 2011, can conflict with the 2008 law. Article 26 of the SIL prohibits individuals or legal entities from revealing or communicating state secrets, with penalties of up to 10 years in prison and fines exceeding 100 million rupiah ($7,400). This article is open to misinterpretation and abuse by state officials, as state secrets are not clearly defined.

Print media are regulated through the independent Indonesian Press Council, while broadcast media must be licensed by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) and the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI), both of which appear to operate for the most part independently.

There are no barriers in Indonesia to becoming a journalist, and professional groups such as the AJI are outspoken in their defense of journalists' rights and interests.

Political Environment: 18 / 40

Indonesia's print and electronic media are generally free from government interference. However, the powerful, politically connected owners of private print and broadcast outlets often influence the tone of coverage.

While President Joko Widodo in 2015 announced the easing of restrictions on the presence of foreign journalists in the provinces of Papua and West Papua, access is still not automatic, unimpeded, or granted quickly. In January 2016, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to issue a media visa to French journalist Cyril Payen, a senior reporter for France 24 television; Payen produced the 2015 documentary "The Forgotten War in Papua," which covered allegations of human rights abuses and conflict-related casualties sponsored by state actors over the previous quarter century in the Papuan provinces. Local military and police also raise obstacles to media activities in that area.

The attorney general's office can request a court order to ban written material. Freedom of expression advocates have criticized the amended ITE Law for permitting censorship, noting that as of early November 2016, the MCIT had already invoked it to restrict access to 11 websites it determined were "spreading hatred." The MCIT is empowered to block online content deemed to be "negative" or "culturally inappropriate," such as pornography or gambling websites.

Some reporters practice self-censorship to avoid possible prosecution under the country's defamation laws, or to avoid intimidation or harassment.

The Indonesian public has access to a variety of news sources and perspectives provided by a large number of private print, broadcast, and digital outlets. Social-media sites such as YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook have become extremely popular in Indonesia.

Journalists remain subject to attacks and physical harassment from both the authorities and nonstate actors. The Legal Aid Institute for the Press (LHB Pers) reported 83 incidents of violence against the press in 2016, while the AJI documented 78, which was nearly double the 43 it had documented for 2015. The AJI found that 19 of the instances it documented in 2016 were instigated by either the military or the police.

Economic Environment: 15 / 30

Twelve media companies own the country's roughly 10 major national television stations and 5 of the 6 major newspapers, and nearly all of these companies have ties to a political party. Additionally, the state operates Televisi Republik Indonesia. Although a wide range of privately owned local publications operate across Indonesia's provinces, the print sector is dominated by two media conglomerates, the Jawa Pos Group and Kompas Gramedia. Political parties, large corporations, and powerful individuals can influence media content, as was demonstrated during the 2014 presidential election, when major media outlets' coverage openly reflected the political affiliations of their owners.

About 25 percent of the population accessed the internet in 2016, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The lack of high-speed infrastructure outside major cities limits the medium's use in rural areas.

Although there are few restrictions on news production and distribution for Indonesians, foreign ownership of broadcast media is banned under the 2002 Broadcast Act.

Advertising remains a robust source of income for newspapers and television companies. Working conditions for Indonesian journalists are poor. According to AJI, media companies do not pay competitive salaries, leading many journalists to take second jobs with corporate sponsors or accept bribes for coverage.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Ghana

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Ghana, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67eb4.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

Total Score: 33/100 (2) (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 9/30 (1)

Political Environment: 13/40 (1)

Economic Environment: 11/30

Quick Facts

Population: 28,200,000

Freedom in the World Status: Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 23.5%

Key Developments in 2016:

In April, security officials at a private mining corporation seized equipment belonging to three Danish journalists.

In May, a senior police official raised the possibility of blocking access to social media during the year's general elections, in what he described as a plan to maintain security and prevent the spread of misinformation. The proposal was widely criticized and never enacted.

Several violent attacks against media workers took place during the year, including a January mob attack against a radio station in Brong Ahafo Region.

In November, the Supreme Court struck down 2015 regulations issued by the National Media Commission (NMC) that could have facilitated prepublication censorship.

Executive Summary

Freedom of the press is legally guaranteed in Ghana, and the country has a diverse media landscape. However, Ghana's reputation as one of the freest media environments in sub-Saharan Africa was tarnished in 2016 by a series of physical attacks against journalists. These included a January mob attack on a radio station in the Brong Ahafo Region, and an incident in April in which a radio presenter at Kumasi-based Fox FM and a panelist were attacked during a live broadcast by supporters of an opposition political party.

However, 2016 saw some legal developments favorable to press freedom. In June, the government withdrew the Interception of Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages Bill, known as the "spy bill," from parliamentary consideration; local and international rights groups had opposed provisions within the bill they said had the potential to undermine the right to privacy in private communications. In November, the Supreme Court struck down 2015 content standards regulations issued by the NMC, saying they were tantamount to a censorship regime. Formal consideration by the parliament of a draft right to information bill, which has won praise for its robust provisions, began in March.

Legal Environment: 9 / 30 (1)

Freedom of the press is protected by the 1992 constitution, but some laws can be invoked to restrict journalists' and media outlets' activities. Criminal libel and sedition laws were repealed in 2001, but the publication of false news with intent to "cause fear and alarm to the public or to disturb the public peace" remains a misdemeanor under Ghana's criminal code. Current and former public officials, as well as private citizens, sometimes pursue civil libel suits with exorbitant compensation requests against journalists and media outlets.

The constitution provides for freedom of information, but there is no legislation to implement this guarantee. Formal parliamentary consideration of a draft right to information bill, which has won praise for its robust provisions, began in 2016, though lawmakers had yet to approve it at year's end.

There are two media regulatory institutions in Ghana. The NMC focuses on content, while the National Communications Authority (NCA) is responsible for license allocation. The NCA operates under the authority of the Ministry of Information and has faced criticism for favoring applicants with connections to the government, while the NMC is generally viewed as more independent. In 2015, the NCA awarded Afriwave Telecom a contract to establish a single clearinghouse through which all voice and data communications would pass. Civil society activists expressed concern that its establishment could permit government monitoring of phone calls, text messages, e-mail, and other communications, and could introduce the possibility of a large-scale telecommunications shutdown for political reasons. They also said it could prompt an overall increase in the cost of telecommunications services for consumers. The deal continued to come under scrutiny in 2016, including for alleged corruption in the NCA's tender process.

Ghanaians may freely enter the profession of journalism. The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) represents journalists from various media sectors, and works to advance media freedom. It has two representatives on the NMC. The Media Foundation of West Africa (MFWA), an advocacy group, is also active in Ghana. In 2016, MFWA faced lawsuits that were part of a larger effort undertaken by senior judges intended to quash reporting on a wide-ranging corruption scandal in the judiciary. The organization faced high legal defense costs, which hampered its operations. Separately, in June 2016, the government withdrew the Interception of Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages Bill, known as the "spy bill," from parliamentary consideration. Local and international rights groups had opposed certain provisions they said had the potential to undermine the right to privacy in private communications.

Political Environment: 13 / 40 (1)

While the constitution protects the state-run Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) from government interference, political parties attempt to influence coverage. Private media face editorial pressure from their owners, particularly those with political connections.

The constitution prohibits censorship, and the Supreme Court upheld this principle in a November 2016 decision to nullify content standards regulations issued by the NMC the previous year. The regulations, which the court deemed tantamount to a censorship regime, had required the operators of public electronic communications or broadcasting services to submit content to the NMC for approval before dissemination, and had permitted fines and a jail sentence of up to five years for failure to comply. Separately, the Ministry of Communication's Information Services Department (ISD) issued guidelines in 2015 requiring that ISD officials accompany foreign media workers when filming, and that they submit final newsreels to the ISD before they are aired publicly. Journalists who refuse to accept the conditions will be denied permission to work in Ghana.

In 2016, a number of journalists experiences attacks, intimidation, or interference while working. Some of the seven attacks and four threats the MFWA recorded during the year were carried out by security agents. In July, local media reported that police in the Gomoa Ojobi District of Ghana's Central Region had beaten and temporarily detained a reporter they believed had recorded footage of them. The MWFA also recorded three arbitrary arrests of journalists during the year.

Among the most visible instances of violence against journalists in 2016 was a January raid on the Brong Ahafo Region radio station Jerryson FM, which was attacked by clients of a failed microfinance company controlled by the same person who owned the station. The attackers threatened to kill members of the station's staff if their demands for money were not met, and one attacker kidnapped the child of one of the station's journalists; the child was later rescued by police. In April, a radio presenter from Kumasi-based Fox FM and a panelist were attacked during a live broadcast by supporters of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) after the panelist had criticized the party. Separately, in April 2016, security forces stationed at Saaman, a mining community in Ghana's Eastern Region, harassed three Danish journalists who were working on a documentary about mining and the environment, and seized their filming equipment. The events took place even though the journalists had complied with the restrictive provisions contained in the 2015 ISD guidelines on foreign journalists' operations.

Radio journalist George Abanga was shot and killed in 2015. A man was taken into custody after confessing to the killing, but some observers have expressed concern about the suspect's mental condition, and raised questions as to whether he was truly involved.

Economic Environment: 11 / 30

According to the African Media Barometer, a joint project of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) foundation and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), in 2016 there were 58 authorized television operators in Ghana and 481 FM radio stations, of which 31 were state-owned, 345 were private, 79 were community-owned, and 21 were operated by universities. Dozens of newspapers, including 2 state-owned and 3 private dailies, publish regularly. Use of the internet is growing, with about 35 percent of people accessing it in 2016. Blogging and social networking have increased in urban centers.

While the internet is unrestricted, a senior police official in May 2016 raised the possibility of blocking access to social media during the year's general elections, in an effort to maintain security and prevent the spread of misinformation. The remarks drew heavy criticism from the political opposition, rights advocates, and a domestic anticensorship campaign, and then President John Mahama in August explicitly rejected the proposal. The distribution of print media remains challenging outside of urban areas. The high cost of newspapers also inhibits accessibility.

Economic sustainability is a challenge for Ghana's media. The GBC receives inadequate funding from the government and must sell advertising to support operations, which leaves the outlet dependent on the large corporations that can afford its rates. Meanwhile, electricity fluctuations known as dumsor have had adverse effects on media houses, forcing some to invest in generators in order to publish or broadcast. Journalists are poorly paid, and many are willing to accept money in exchange for covering particular events.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - France

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - France, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67ed4.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Free

Total Score: 26/100 (2) (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 6/30

Political Environment: 13/40 (2)

Economic Environment: 7/30

Quick Facts

Population: 64,600,000

Freedom in the World Status: Free

Net Freedom Status: Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 84.7%

Key Developments in 2016:

A new law strengthening core aspects of media freedom was approved by the parliament in October, though a section of it that bolstered journalists' right to protect their sources was later struck down.

Staff at the television channels Canal+ and iTele came into conflict with their parent company, Canal+ Group, after experiencing pressure to abandon critical reporting on the business interests of Canal+ Group's owner. Such pressure was linked to the cancelation of Special Investigation, a Canal+ program, in June.

Several journalists were physically assaulted by protesters and police while covering demonstrations against reforms to France's labor code.

Executive Summary

France has a strong tradition of independent journalism and a generally free media environment. However, in recent years, defamation cases, intrusive new security laws, and editorial pressure on journalists by owners have contributed to concerns about decreasing media freedom.

A long-running battle between Vincent Bollore, a French business magnate and media owner, and the journalists employed by his outlets intensified during 2016. At the Canal+ channel, which is owned by Bollore's Canal+ Group, the Special Investigation program was cancelled in June; it had aired reports critical of Bollore's businesses. In October, journalists at Canal+ Group's iTele news channel went on strike for several weeks in protest of editorial pressure.

Also in October, France adopted a new law that enhanced the editorial independence of media outlets by offering reporters certain protections from pressure exerted by owners and managers. The law also bolstered journalists' right to protect their sources, but that provision was struck down by the Constitutional Court in November.

In 2016, protests against reforms to the French labor code took place on numerous occasions, and journalists covering the events were attacked by both police and demonstrators. On one occasion, a journalist was prevented from covering such a demonstration under a provision of the state of emergency that was issued in late 2015 following a large-scale terrorist attack, and which remained in effect throughout 2016.

Deep unease among French journalists that followed the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack abated somewhat in 2016.

Legal Environment: 6 / 30

The constitution and governing institutions in France support an open media environment, although certain laws limit aspects of press freedom and freedom of expression in practice.

The penal code punishes efforts to justify war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as incitement to discrimination and violence. Holocaust denial is a crime under the 1990 Gayssot Act. The Law on Guidelines and Programming for the Performance of Internal Security allows websites suspected of containing child pornography to be blocked without a court order, and allows police to install or remove spyware under judicial oversight.

A counterterrorism law adopted in 2014 came under fire for ambiguous provisions that could limit free speech, especially online. It removed the criminal offenses of publicly inciting or glorifying terrorism from the 1881 press law and added them to the criminal code; accordingly, those broadly defined crimes can be punished with up to seven years in prison and a 100,000 ($110,000) fine if committed online. When committed offline, the offenses can draw penalties of up to five years in prison and a 75,000 ($83,000) fine. The law also empowers authorities to compel internet service providers to block sites for glorifying terrorism, and to do so without a court order; it also allows police to use online monitoring and surveillance to detect violators. Between March 2015 and February 2016, 68 websites were blocked due to alleged terrorist sympathies, according to a report of the National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL), the body that oversees the law's implementation.

In November 2015, Paris suffered a large-scale terrorist attack by the Islamic State (IS) militant group that resulted in the deaths of 130 people. The government imposed a 12-day state of emergency, and the National Assembly then adopted legislation extending it for three months, with a provision authorizing the government to block internet communications that enable terrorist acts, among other emergency powers. The state of emergency was renewed multiple times in 2016, and remained in effect throughout the year. In December, it was extended for seven months.

Strict defamation laws impose fines on those found guilty, and are sometimes invoked in order to intimidate journalists. In 2013, a provision of the press code that mandated a 45,000 ($50,000) fine for insulting the president was repealed after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found that it violated freedom of expression. However, the repeal did not affect a provision  which remained in place in 2016  that applies the same penalty to defamation of public officials. Bollore Group, a French transportation company, has invoked defamation laws in response to media criticism. In April 2016, a Paris court dismissed a lawsuit brought by the company against the online news portal Bastamag, which had published a report alleging that the Bollore Group had engaged in corrupt business practices in Africa and Asia. In July, the Bollore Group sued the public television channel France 2 after it aired a critical documentary on the company's activities in Africa. In November, the group's Cameroonian subsidiary also brought a suit against France 2 over the same documentary.

In October 2016, a new media freedom law designed to better insulate journalists from editorial pressure was promulgated. Its provisions included a "right of opposition" by which journalists may refuse to undertake an action imposed on them by their employer that violates ethical standards for journalists. The law also strengthened journalists' ability to protect their sources, mandating that their identities could only be revealed under "exceptional circumstances" and with prior judicial authorization. However, the Constitutional Court struck that provision in November.

Although existing laws guarantee access to information, access rights hinge on the protection of a third party's reputation, and requests for information are sometimes denied. A bill passed in October 2016 includes a mandate that most national, provincial, and local state bodies publish their official documents and data online.

France's regulatory body for electronic media, the High Audiovisual Council (CSA), was granted greater independence under a 2013 law. The president of France appoints the president of the council.

Recently approved laws have raised some concerns about the potential for the legally sanctioned surveillance of journalists and others. A 2013 programming law gives extensive rights to government agencies to monitor the internet and phone usage of French citizens in real time. The law requires no judicial supervision and provides for broad grounds on which to justify surveillance of an individual. In the aftermath of the January 2015 terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo, the government pushed through an intelligence bill that was widely criticized by press freedom groups for giving authorities greater power to carry out intrusive surveillance without a court order, including mass surveillance of mobile phones and personal internet data. The legislation was adopted by the parliament in May 2015 and approved by the Constitutional Council that July. The rights group Legal Press Association has appealed the law to the ECHR, whose decision was pending at the end of 2016.

Political Environment: 13 / 40 (2)

France's media are robust and express a wide range of opinions. However, editorial pressure from media owners remains an issue. In June 2016, the private television channel Canal+ announced the cancelation of its Special Investigation program, under apparent pressure from Vincent Bollore, the businessman who owns its parent company, Canal+ Group. The cancellation came in the wake of a long-running dispute between Canal+ staff and Canal+ Group management, which had pressured journalists to modify material that was critical of Bollore's business interests. In October, journalists at the 24-hour news channel iTele, also part of the Canal+ Group, went on strike for several weeks, demanding greater editorial independence after having experienced similar pressure from Bollore.

Separately, in April, then deputy National Assembly speaker Denis Baupin tried to prevent the news website Mediapart from publishing accusations that he had sexually harassed female colleagues by threatening the outlet with legal action. His threats were unsuccessful, and the expose led to his resignation in May.

Ongoing economic pressures on the industry as well as pressure from media owners have encouraged some self-censorship in recent years.

Journalists occasionally face restrictions, physical interference, and violence while reporting in the field. Protests against a reform of the French labor code took place on numerous occasions in 2016, and journalists covering the events were attacked by both police and demonstrators. In May, journalists covering protests in multiple cities were targeted by police, with several reporting beatings and the use of tear gas. The number of complaints by journalists led some observers to speculate that people with press armbands had been specifically targeted. Several reporters were assaulted by demonstrators at protests against the labor reforms that took place in April and October. In May, one journalist was prevented from covering a demonstration against the reforms in Paris, after authorities accused him of planning to take part in violent action at the demonstration; he was banned from the protest site under provisions of the state of emergency that was active throughout the year.

Separately, in August, Zaman France, a Turkish-language newspaper based in Paris, was forced to shut down after receiving hundreds of threats from supporters of the Turkish government, of which the publication was critical. Mediapart is routinely denied access to events held by the far-right National Front.

Economic Environment: 7 / 30

France has a vibrant media environment, with a variety of print, broadcast, and online outlets in operation. Television stations include the three main national public channels as well as a number of private stations. Private radio stations flourish, while the public broadcaster Radio France is also popular. There are more than 50 daily newspapers, most of which are privately owned. Private print and broadcast media outlets are frequently owned by companies with close ties to prominent politicians and defense contractors. Nearly 85 percent of the population accessed the internet in 2016.

The state provides both direct and indirect subsidies to the press, including assistance with the costs of distribution, and controls the prices of newspapers. Bribery of journalists is not considered a widespread problem in the French media.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Ethiopia

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Ethiopia, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67ef3.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 86/100 (3) (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 29/30 (1)

Political Environment: 38/40 (2)

Economic Environment: 19/30

Quick Facts

Population: 101,700,000

Freedom in the World Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: Not Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 11.6%

Key Developments in 2016:

In October, in response to ongoing antigovernment protests, the authorities enacted a state of emergency that allowed them to restrict internet access and social media use.

The Addis Standard magazine halted publication of its print edition, citing restrictions linked to the state of emergency.

Ethiopia was the second-worst jailer of journalists in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which counted 16 journalists behind bars as of December.

Authorities continued to restrict free movement and reporting outside Addis Ababa. In August, three journalists, including two from the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), were detained while reporting on a severe drought from the town of Shashamene and escorted back to the capital, where they were ordered to remain.

Executive Summary

Ethiopia's media environment is one of the most restrictive in sub-Saharan Africa. The government of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn continues to use the country's harsh antiterrorism law and other legal measures to silence critical journalists and bloggers. As of December 2016, Ethiopia was detaining 16 journalists, making it the fifth-worst jailer of journalists in the world and the second-worst in sub-Saharan Africa, after Eritrea. In addition to the use of harsh laws, the government employs a variety of other strategies to maintain a stranglehold on the flow of information, including outright censorship of newspapers and the internet, arbitrary detention and intimidation of journalists and online writers, and heavy taxation on the publishing process.

In 2016, Ethiopia was racked by antigovernment protests, which primarily took place in the Oromia and Amhara regions; more than 800 people were killed in the government's disproportionate response, according to some estimates, and thousands more were detained. As protests continued, authorities in October imposed a severely restrictive state of emergency that banned many forms of speech. Among other actions taken under the state of emergency, the government prohibited the use of social media to share information about the situation, blocked access to two important diaspora television channels that were deemed terrorist organizations, and banned political parties from issuing any press statements that authorities deemed incendiary. A number of reporters were swept up in the mass detentions that followed the emergency declaration. The state of emergency significantly limited independent journalists' activities and contributed to a pervasive atmosphere of self-censorship, allowing state-run and government-friendly private outlets to fill the resulting information vacuum.

Journalists also continued to face repercussions for reporting on previous years' protests. In March, Solomon Kebede, managing editor of the now-defunct publication Ye Muslimoch Guday, finally received a prison sentence after being detained since January 2013 on terrorism charges linked to coverage of 2012 protests by the Muslim community. He was reportedly released in April 2016. Two journalists with Radio Bilal who had also reported on the Muslim protests were convicted on terrorism charges in December 2016, but had not been sentenced by year's end. They had been in detention since early 2015.

Legal Environment: 29 / 30 (1)

While the constitution guarantees freedom of the press, the 2005 criminal code contains many provisions that limit this right, including restrictions on "obscene" communication, defamation, and criticism of public officials. The 2009 antiterrorism law, ostensibly designed to address crimes related to armed insurgencies, has been used extensively against journalists. Among them are Darsema Sori and Khalid Mohammed of the faith-based Radio Bilal, who had been arrested in 2015 in connection with coverage of demonstrations by members of Ethiopia's Muslim community. In December 2016, they were convicted of inciting terrorism and attempting to overthrow the government, but had not been sentenced at year's end. In March, Kebede, the managing editor of the now-defunct publication Ye Muslimoch Guday, finally received a prison sentence after being detained since 2013 on terrorism charges linked to coverage of the same protest movement; he was freed the following month. Yusuf Getachew, also of Ye Muslimoch Guday, was released from prison in September 2016 after receiving a presidential pardon; he had been imprisoned since 2012 and convicted under the terrorism law in 2015, also for covering the Muslim protests.

Other laws that can be used to restrict journalists' activities include the Computer Crime Proclamation, which was adopted by the House of People's Representatives in June 2016, and enables surveillance by security forces and broadens the definition of criminal defamation. The 2012 Telecom Fraud Offences Proclamation prescribes significant fines and up to eight years in prison for those convicted of using the telecommunications network to disseminate a "terrorizing message." The law also criminalizes the use of popular voice over internet protocol (VoIP) communications software such as Skype for commercial purposes, or to bypass the telecommunications monopoly of state-owned Ethio Telecom. The 2009 Proclamation for the Registration and Regulation of Charities and Societies introduced onerous administrative requirements for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and has crippled their ability to monitor and advocate for media freedom and other rights issues.

In 2016, Ethiopia was racked by antigovernment protests, which primarily took place in the Oromia and Amhara regions; more than 800 people were killed in the government's disproportionate response, according to some estimates, and thousands more were detained. In October, a state of emergency was imposed in response to the protests. This six-month law restricts the use of social media to share information about the situation and prohibited people from viewing or disseminating material from two television channels run by Ethiopians abroad  Ethiopian Satellite Television and Radio (ESAT), and Oromo Media Network (OMN)  which were characterized as terrorist organizations. It also and banned political parties from issuing any press statements that authorities deemed incendiary, and prohibited the dissemination of material that "could create misunderstanding between people or unrest." A number of reporters were swept up in the mass detentions that followed the emergency declaration.

The government's selective enforcement of the laws and the lack of an independent judiciary mean that journalists have few guarantees of due process or a fair trial. Court cases can continue for years, and many journalists have multiple charges pending against them.

The 2008 Freedom of the Mass Media and Access to Information Proclamation allows for freedom of information, but imposes onerous licensing and registration requirements and harsh sanctions for violations. The media regulatory system remains under the control of the ruling party, and most professional media associations are closely aligned with the government.

Authorities are known to monitor private telephone calls, online communications, and web browsing habits, and have taken steps to prevent the use of tools that can be used to circumvent such monitoring, including Tor and virtual private network (VPN) software. The threat of surveillance, as well as the restrictive provisions of the 2016 state of emergency, made it extremely difficult for journalists to organize to defend their interests in 2016. Harsh press laws and the ongoing repression of media workers discourage people from entering the profession of journalism.

Political Environment: 38 / 40 (2)

Ethiopia's media are dominated by state-owned broadcasters and government-oriented newspapers. Many private newspapers, which generally have low circulation, report that officials attempt to control content through article placement requests and telephone calls to editors about stories that are critical of the government. Reporters who cover controversial topics risk being arrested or dismissed from their jobs.

Private media outlets have difficulty accessing government information and press briefings, and gaining access to official events. Many bloggers and journalists at private outlets are wary of even attempting to interact with government officials, with mistrust deepening in the wake of the 2016 state of emergency. Officials, for their part, seldom provide unscripted information even to friendly media, out of concern for their careers.

Authorities continued to restrict free movement and reporting outside Addis Ababa. In August, three journalists, including two from the U.S. public broadcaster, were detained while reporting on a severe drought from the town of Shashamene and escorted back to the capital, where they were ordered to remain.

Censorship and self-censorship are routinely practiced. Government control of the country's primary printing press allows for prepublication censorship of newspapers. The risk of job loss, harassment, prosecution, and arbitrary arrest encourage journalists to self-censor.

Provisions of the state of emergency severely restricted the range of news sources available in Ethiopia. Access to websites including Facebook, Twitter, the Washington Post, the New York Times and numerous local websites was blocked. In October, the Addis Standard magazine halted publication of its print edition, citing restrictions linked to the state of emergency.

Harassment and intimidation of critical journalists in Ethiopia remains a common practice among law enforcement officials. The mass arrests that accompanied the 2016 state of emergency further served to intimidate Ethiopian journalists. Several of the journalists who were swept up in the detentions remained in custody without charge at year's end.

Economic Environment: 19 / 30

The number of print outlets covering politics has decreased significantly over the last decade, while weekly papers and magazines on business and lifestyle topics have proliferated. The state operates the only national television station and owns almost all radio outlets, the primary sources of information for Ethiopians. State-controlled media are biased in favor of the government and the ruling party. Broadcasting law prohibits any political, religious, or foreign entities from owning stations, and the owners of the few private radio stations that operate are generally seen as friendly to the authorities. In October 2016, the Broadcasting Authority granted digital television licenses to private companies for the first time. However, the three new licenses went to broadcasters affiliated with ruling party.

Ethiopia is one of the few remaining countries in Africa to maintain a complete monopoly on telecommunications, including provision of internet service. The government's control of the telecommunications sector has allowed it to contain the potential of new communication technologies that might enable greater civic and political mobilization. At the same time, it has invested massive resources into technologies that support its own state surveillance apparatus and development agenda.

The state telecommunications company continued to disrupt the signals of international broadcasters including Voice of America and Deutsche Welle in 2016, and blocked internet access on numerous occasions throughout the year. A nationwide internet blackout in August lasted two days. Internet access in Oromia and Amhara was frequently blocked as mass protests took place. Mobile access to the internet was blocked in number of places following the declaration of the state of emergency. Just over 15 percent of people in Ethiopia accessed the internet in 2016.

Fear of prosecution and heavy taxes on the publishing process have effectively concentrated the printing industry in the hands of the largest state-run printer, Berhanena Selam Printing Press. In 2012, Berhanena Selam introduced a revised "standard contract" that allows it to refuse distribution of content deemed to be contrary to state interests. Publishers must submit to the contract or risk losing their printing privileges. By giving the state enterprise the power to vet and review articles before printing them, the new contract essentially reestablished official prepublication censorship in Ethiopia.

Most advertising contracts originate with the government or companies associated with the state, and go to state-affiliated outlets rather than independent ones. Advertising from private companies can also be challenging to obtain, as these organizations could face retaliation from the government for advertising in critical publications.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Egypt

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Egypt, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67f10.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 77/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 26/30 (1)

Political Environment: 34/40 (1)

Economic Environment: 17/30

Quick Facts

Population: 93,500,000

Freedom in the World Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: Not Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 35.9%

Key Developments in 2016:

Egypt was the world's third-worst jailer of journalists in 2016, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), with 25 journalists behind bars as of December.

In November, the head of the Journalists' Syndicate and two of its board members were sentenced to two years in prison for allegedly protecting journalists from arrest and spreading false news about a police raid on the syndicate's headquarters. The defendants remained free pending an appeal at year's end.

A new media regulatory framework signed into law in December created three government-dominated supervisory bodies with sweeping powers over content and licensing, and provided few protections for the press, drawing criticism from journalists and media freedom advocates.

Executive Summary

The efforts of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's government to quash dissent and shutter critical news sources have produced a media environment in which most public and private outlets are firmly supportive of the regime. Government officials have directly pressured media owners regarding content, and managers cancel programs or withdraw articles that could draw reprisals from the authorities. In December 2016, for example, the television program of prominent journalist Ibrahim Eissa stopped airing new episodes after his increasingly critical coverage of the government and parliament prompted denunciations by lawmakers, threats of legal action, and economic pressure on the station's owner. Cancelation of the show appeared likely at year's end.

The government has also sought to support the creation or acquisition of friendly private media groups. Multiple projects were reportedly being organized during 2016, including the DMC television network, which was scheduled to launch in January 2017. The network was alleged to have close ties to the government and security agencies.

Separately during 2016, authorities continued to employ a variety of coercive tools against journalists and media enterprises that strayed from officially sanctioned narratives, including criminal prosecution, gag orders, arbitrary detention, and serious physical abuse in police custody. Freedom of expression activists documented hundreds of violations during the year, as journalists faced physical attacks and other attempts to obstruct reporting by both security agents and civilians.

Legal Environment: 26 / 30 (1)

The 2014 constitution contains several positive provisions regarding freedom of expression, access to information, and the media. Article 65 guarantees freedom of thought, opinion, and the expression thereof. Article 68 declares that all official state documents and information are the property of the people, who have the right to access such materials in a timely and transparent manner. Articles 70, 71, and 72 all govern the press, providing for many of the rights that support a free media environment. They guarantee the freedom of the print, broadcast, and digital sectors; enshrine the right to establish media outlets; ban all forms of media censorship, including the suspension and closure of outlets; ban prison terms for press crimes; and declare the independence and neutrality of all state-owned media outlets. The constitution also calls for the establishment of independent regulatory bodies tasked with supporting and developing both private and state-owned media and administering all relevant regulations.

However, these guarantees are seriously undermined by a variety of exceptions and ambiguities. Article 71 authorizes media censorship "in times of war or general mobilization." The same article, which ostensibly eliminates jail terms for media offenses, leaves room for imprisonment for crimes related to incitement of violence, discrimination, and defamation. The constitution notably fails to specify the composition and appointment procedures for regulatory bodies, meaning ordinary legislation can create structures that enable political influence.

Moreover, the country's press laws and penal code include an array of articles that can be used to imprison journalists. For example, defamation is a criminal offense, and sentences of up to five years in prison can be imposed for blasphemy, or "exploiting religion in spreading, either by words, in writing or in any other means, extreme ideas for the purposes of inciting strife, ridiculing or insulting [the Abrahamic faiths] or a sect following it, or damaging national unity."

The authorities continued to arrest and prosecute journalists during 2016, subjecting them to deeply flawed legal proceedings that disregarded their fundamental rights. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 25 reporters were behind bars in Egypt as of December, making the country the world's third leading jailer of journalists. In May, security forces raided the headquarters of the Egyptian Journalists' Syndicate to arrest Mahmoud el-Sakka and Amr Badr, two journalists who had been hiding from the police. In June, prosecutors brought charges against Yahya Qalash, the head of the syndicate, and two of its board members for allegedly harboring the journalists and spreading false news. Qalash and the board members were convicted and sentenced to two years in prison in November, but remained free at year's end with an appeal pending.

In April 2015, 13 journalists were sentenced to life in prison, and one was sentenced to death, following convictions for plotting against the state during a 2013 sit-in at Cairo's Raba'a Square, which ended when a violent crackdown by security forces killed hundreds of civilians. Some of those convicted were tried in absentia. After months of delays and obstructions in the appeals process, Egypt's Court of Cassation granted the nine journalists who were tried in custody a retrial in December 2015. They remained in detention throughout 2016, and their retrial was ongoing.

In February 2016, authorities blocked Hossam Bahgat, a prominent journalist with the online newspaper Mada Masr, from boarding a flight to Jordan and informed him that he was prohibited from leaving the country by order of the public prosecutor's office. The order was part of a wide-ranging criminal investigation into certain journalists and human rights advocates for allegedly accepting foreign funding to undermine national security. Bahgat had been briefly detained for questioning in late 2015. As part of the ongoing investigation, Bahgat's assets were frozen by a court in September 2016.

A variety of laws restrict reporting on sensitive issues. A counterterrorism law issued by al-Sisi in 2015 prohibits journalists from publishing information related to militant violence if it contradicts official government accounts. Violations can result in heavy fines and a one-year ban from the practice of journalism. The measure makes it extremely difficult for journalists to freely report on areas affected by terrorism and insurgency, particularly the Sinai Peninsula.

Freedom of information legislation has been under discussion for years but never implemented. In December 2016, a parliamentary committee agreed to appoint a subcommittee to complete the formulation of a draft law, but no substantive progress was made by year's end.

Licensing and registration processes are often arbitrary and opaque, with formal regulations weakly or unevenly enforced. Decisions on media operations are frequently made according to political or security concerns rather than impartial regulatory mechanisms. Despite this lack of standardized procedures, journalists and media outlets that fail to toe the government line regularly face accusations of failing to secure proper registration. In December 2016, authorities arrested Al-Jazeera news producer Mahmoud Hussein after he arrived in Egypt for a vacation. Though he was not there in a professional capacity, he was charged with a variety of offenses, including operating as a journalist in the country without a proper license and spreading false news.

In December 2016, the parliament passed a law creating three new media regulatory bodies, fulfilling a mandate of the 2014 constitution. The National Agency for the Media will manage state-owned television and radio, while the National Agency for the Press will manage state-owned print media. The Supreme Council for Media Regulation, the dominant body, will have licensing powers for both audiovisual and print outlets and supervise the entire media landscape in coordination with the other agencies. Each body has 13 board members, with the chairman appointed by the president. The president also selects two additional members on each panel, and certain cabinet ministries and the parliament appoint several members. Only four are selected by journalists' associations. Due to heavy reliance on the executive for appointments and al-Sisi's de facto control over the parliament, the government will effectively choose majorities for each of the regulatory bodies, undercutting their independence. Journalists harshly criticized the law for enshrining government control of the media and failing to establish unambiguous guidelines for media conduct. The legislation includes vague language about the bounds of permissible reporting, leaving room for arbitrary enforcement.

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) dedicated to protecting journalists' rights and freedom of expression have long been subject to restrictive laws that apply to all civil society groups. In 2014, al-Sisi signed a decree that amended the penal code to ban the receipt of foreign funding for activities that "harm the national interest," potentially affecting NGOs. During 2016, both Hossam Bahgat and another prominent free expression advocate, Gamal Eid, were facing charges under the amended code. In particular, Eid was accused of accepting money from the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists for the purpose of "defaming Egypt." Their case remained open at year's end.

The government has been working to augment its electronic surveillance capabilities over the past several years, adding to concerns about privacy and the confidentiality of journalists' sources and activities. In late 2014, a new interagency body, the High Council for Cybersecurity, was established. Although it was ostensibly founded to defend Egyptian interests against cyberattacks, digital rights advocates have expressed concern that it expands the state's surveillance capacity. Meanwhile, the government has increasingly asserted its intention to monitor online activity in the interest of protecting national security.

Political Environment: 34 / 40 (1)

Following the 2013 coup that brought al-Sisi to power, the authorities began to purge the media of any support for the Muslim Brotherhood. Any sharp criticism of al-Sisi was also sidelined or suppressed. This process continued in 2016, with public and private outlets broadly embracing pro-Sisi and anti-Muslim Brotherhood narratives and expressing strong support for the security forces. Al-Sisi himself has convened private meetings with prominent newspaper editors and television presenters, during which he discourages critical reporting and calls on journalists to produce material aimed at inspiring national unity.

As in previous years, state media generally displayed a progovernment bias in 2016. Journalists at public outlets can face disciplinary action for straying from government narratives. In November 2015, a prominent Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) host, Azza al-Hanawy, was suspended after calling on al-Sisi to address government corruption. Although she was allowed to return to work later that month, ERTU fired her in March 2016 after she again criticized al-Sisi on air. Apolitical but progressive cultural and religious content is also restricted by authorities. In February, ERTU canceled the television show of another broadcaster, Aytan al-Mogy, after she aired an interview with a reformist Islamic scholar that drew criticism from Al-Azhar, the country's most respected religious institution.

There are virtually no private outlets based in Egypt that oppose the government. The Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist opposition elements have moved their affiliated media operations abroad, primarily to Turkey, where they established satellite television and online outlets. Many such outlets feature inflammatory political and sectarian rhetoric.

While some Egypt-based reporters at private outlets criticized government agencies during 2016, they generally refrained from targeting al-Sisi so as to avoid pressure from owners and management. One prominent exception for most of the year was Ibrahim Eissa, who used his program on the privately owned channel Al-Kahera wal Nas to air pointed criticism of the parliament, the government, and the president himself on a variety of topics. He persisted despite denunciations from lawmakers, threats of legal action, and government pressure on the other businesses of his station's owner. In December, however, the channel stopped airing new episodes of Eissa's program, and it appeared likely to be canceled. In another case involving Al-Kahera wal Nas, in May 2015 journalist Islam al-Beheiry was convicted of blasphemy in connection with the content of his television show, which discussed sensitive religious issues and drew rebukes from Al-Azhar. He was ultimately sentenced to a year in prison, but was released early in November 2016, after receiving a presidential pardon.

In addition to editorial pressure at public and private outlets, direct censorship was a problem in 2016, with the government or judicial officials issuing multiple gag orders to restrict media coverage of sensitive topics. This strategy is often used by authorities to hide embarrassing details of official corruption cases. In July 2016, the attorney general issued a gag order related to an investigation into an allegedly corrupt judge.

Journalists frequently face interference in the course of their work. Domestic media rights organizations documented numerous cases of obstruction of coverage, illegal detention, and outright attacks in 2016. The Association for Free Thought and Expression (AFTE), an Egyptian NGO, documented at least 437 such violations during the year, committed by both civilians and state actors.

Journalists have been detained for long periods of time without charge, and some have reported torture or mistreatment in custody. Among other cases in 2016, three photojournalists were arrested in September on charges including spreading false information and were reportedly beaten and electrocuted by authorities. They remained in pretrial detention as of December.

Economic Environment: 17 / 30

Egypt has more than 500 newspapers, magazines, journals, and other periodicals, and the state retains ownership of several important titles. However, print media have limited circulation. In a country of more than 93 million people, the largest newspapers, including Al-Ahram and Al-Masry al-Youm, have circulations of well under a million.

ERTU remains the only terrestrial broadcaster and controls a range of regional and specialty channels. Its programming is among the least popular in the country, with audiences increasingly turning to privately owned Egyptian satellite television channels or those based in the Gulf Arab states. In 2015, the government began a five-year restructuring process aimed at reducing ERTU's considerable debt and improving the quality of its programming. It is expected to privatize several of its media properties during the restructuring process.

In 2016, the government and its allies were also reportedly preparing to launch new, ostensibly private television enterprises, including DMC, which was scheduled to debut in January 2017. The network was alleged to have close ties to the government and security agencies.

Some 39 percent of Egyptians accessed the internet as of 2016. Social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, play an important role in diffusing news and information. Egyptians account for the largest share of Facebook users in the Arab world.

Authorities sometimes interfere with media production and distribution. In April 2016, the daily Al-Masry al-Youm was forced to halt printing and change a headline on its lead story documenting the visit of Saudi Arabia's king, as it had implied that the Egyptian government had ceded Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia in exchange for economic aid.

Trends in media ownership, spending, revenues, and advertising are difficult to assess given the industry's opacity. The government supports state media directly and through advertising, although it is unclear what types of advertising subsidies exist. The country's weak economy has forced both state-owned and private outlets to slash their budgets. Shutdowns, layoffs, and cuts to content were common across the media sector in 2016.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Crimea

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Crimea, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67f54.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 94/100 (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 30/30

Political Environment: 38/40

Economic Environment: 26/30

Quick Facts

Population: 2,300,000

Freedom in the World Status: Not Free

Key Developments in 2016:

Authorities blocked online access to a number of outlets including Krym.Realii, Sobytiya Kryma, ATR, and Chernomorskaya TRC, further decreasing the variety of news sources available to residents of Crimea.

In April, agents with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) raided the homes of several journalists accused of advocating for Crimea's independence, confiscating equipment in at least one case.

In December, FSB officers searched the premises of the occupation government-funded television station Millet as part of an embezzlement investigation, and confiscated some material.

In November, authorities opened a criminal bribery case against businessman Aleksey Amelin, who had won control of most FM radio frequencies in Crimea in a flawed 2015 frequency tender.

Executive Summary

In early 2014, Russian forces invaded the autonomous Ukrainian region of Crimea, which was then incorporated into the Russian Federation through a referendum widely condemned as having been conducted in violation of international law. Aggressive efforts by Russian and Russian-installed local authorities to establish control over what had been a fairly pluralistic media landscape have left conditions in Crimea worse than in Russia itself.

Violence and extralegal intimidation against journalists decreased in 2016, as almost all independent journalists had either left Crimea and moved to mainland Ukraine, or had left the profession of journalism. The few still working to produce independent journalism increasingly faced pressure in the form of criminal prosecutions. Reporters whose work challenged authorities frequently faced allegations of separatism or extremism, while others found themselves the targets of trumped-up charges unrelated to their work as journalists. Those affiliated with occupation authorities also faced pressure in 2016, including a businessman who controlled much of the peninsula's radio sector, and a television station established by occupation authorities in 2015, meant to serve the ethnic Tatar minority population.

Legal Environment: 30 / 30

After the March 2014 annexation, which was not recognized internationally, the occupation authorities began enforcing Russia's constitution and federal laws. A local constitution based on the Russian model was imposed the following month. Although the Russian constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the press, a variety of restrictive laws  including Russian laws and local Crimean regulations  and a politicized judiciary curb media independence in practice. Journalists are subject to trumped-up criminal charges for defamation and incitement to separatism, as well as for "extremism," a poorly defined offense that can be invoked to penalize nearly any activity authorities deem disruptive.

In April 2016, agents with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) raided the homes of several Crimean journalists accused of advocating for Crimea's independence, confiscating equipment in at least one case. One of the raids' targets, Mykola Semena of the news website Krym.Realii, the Crimean service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was charged with undermining Russian territorial integrity using mass media; he faces as long as five years in prison and at year's end was the subject of a travel ban preventing him from leaving Crimea. In July, he was barred from accessing his personal bank account due to his name appearing on a "terrorist list" published by the Federal Financial Monitoring Service of the Russian Federation. Additionally, a number of people were questioned or faced charges during the year in connection with material posted to social networking websites that authorities deemed extremist or to promote separatism.

Journalists are not able to make effective use of a 2009 Russian law on access to public information.

In the months after the 2014 annexation, the occupation authorities harassed pro-Ukraine media outlets, shutting down some and threatening others with closure. All mass media  including online outlets  were given until April 2015 to register with Roskomnadzor, the Russian federal media regulator, and to obtain a license; editors were repeatedly warned by officials that they would not be allowed to register if they disseminated "extremist" materials. After the deadline expired, Roskomnadzor reported that 232 media outlets had successfully registered, down from about 3,000 under Ukrainian rule. Those barred from reregistering included several outlets  television, radio, print, and online  that served the Crimean Tatar minority.

Like other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), journalists' associations and groups dedicated to press freedom and freedom of expression are now subject to onerous Russian laws, including measures restricting foreign funding. Support from mainland Ukraine is hampered by the lack of banking connections between Ukrainian institutions and the occupied peninsula. Almost all human rights and civic activists have relocated to mainland Ukraine to escape legal restrictions as well as extralegal harassment, detentions, and intimidation in Crimea.

Political Environment: 38 / 40

While Crimea had featured a relatively pluralistic media environment under Ukrainian control, in 2014 the occupation authorities immediately began cutting off access to Ukrainian news outlets and replacing them with Russian alternatives. Television retransmission facilities were seized by armed men, and the signals of Russian broadcasters were substituted for those of the main Ukrainian stations. After the reregistration process was completed in April 2015, virtually all Crimea-based news outlets carried content that was supportive of the Russian or local pro-Russian authorities. After facing official pressure or being denied registration, independent local media organizations and many of their journalists migrated to mainland Ukraine. In December 2016, as Ukrainian authorities were constructing a telecommunications tower near Crimea, occupation authorities announced that Ukrainian broadcasts would be blocked in Crimea for failing to comply with Russian law.

Unofficial censorship and self-censorship are widely practiced in Crimea. In October 2016, the editorial team of the Novosti Sevastopolia website received a letter from Roskomnadzor requesting that it remove an article about a group of people who had threatened to set themselves on fire to oppose local authorities' attempts to take over their apartments; the regulator claimed the paper was disseminating propaganda advocating suicide.

Internet access in Crimea is governed by Russia's restrictive telecommunications regulators, and websites hosting material unpalatable to Russian authorities are often deemed "extremist" and blocked. In 2016, authorities took steps to block online access to a number of outlets including Krym.Realii, Sobytiya Kryma, ATR, and Chernomorskaya TRC, further decreasing the diversity of news sources available to residents of Crimea.

Foreign journalists and outlets require accreditation from Russia's Foreign Ministry to enter and operate in Crimea, and occupation authorities apply this rule to outlets based in mainland Ukraine, limiting their access to the peninsula. Family members of journalists working from exile have faced harassment by the authorities.

Journalists and bloggers in Crimea are subject to obstruction, arbitrary detention, interrogation, and seizure or damage of their equipment as they attempt to perform their jobs, with reporters covering issues that affect Crimean Tatars being particularly affected. However, the rate of extralegal intimidation and violence against journalists decreased in 2016, compared to the previous two years; instead, pressure against journalists was generally applied by police, prosecutors, or the FSB, who employed legal or administrative means.

A number of journalists perceived as critical of authorities faced criminal prosecutions on trumped-up allegations unrelated to their work in 2016. In June, Alexei Salov, the editor in chief of the news website Argumenty Nedeli-Krym, was arrested in Simferopol and accused of extortion; the outlet had recently covered among other topics the occupation authorities' banning of the Mejlis, the official but nongovernmental representative body of the Crimean Tatar people, on grounds of extremism. And in October, FSB officers arrested Tvoya Gazeta editor in chief Aleksey Nazimov, who is known for his criticism of local authorities, on claims that he had blackmailed a local politician. A court later rejected his lawyer's request that he be confined to house arrest rather than held in custody. Separately, in December, FSB officers searched the offices of the occupation government-funded television station Millet, where they confiscated some material in connection with an embezzlement investigation. Millet, designed to serve the Tatar population, had been established in 2015, after independent Tatar-language outlets were pushed out of the peninsula.

Economic Environment: 26 / 30

The changes imposed by the occupation authorities since 2014 have left Russian outlets, particularly state-owned television stations, with a dominant position in the Crimean media market. A flawed frequency tender in 2015 further concentrated economic control over the radio sector. This effectively excluded any Ukrainian and local Crimean outlets that did not enjoy official support in Moscow. As a result of the tender, the rights to frequencies belonging to existing Crimean stations were in many cases transferred to major Russian media holdings or well-connected local businessmen. In 2015, businessman Aleksey Amelin gained control over most FM frequencies in Crimea as a result of discriminatory competition of radio-frequency allocation. In November 2016, authorities opened a criminal bribery case against Amelin, which could lead to ownership changes at the outlets he controls.

In addition to the exclusion of most Ukrainian broadcasters, distribution of Ukrainian print outlets has been obstructed by Russian and Russian-backed Crimean officials. In 2014 Ukraine's postal agency announced that it could no longer make deliveries of Ukrainian publications to the peninsula.

The broader economic environment in which the media operate has been affected by a variety of other factors related to the occupation, including expropriations by Russian-backed local authorities, Russian government subsidies, obstacles to trade and communications with mainland Ukraine, and international sanctions.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Congo, Democratic Republic of (Kinshasa)

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Congo, Democratic Republic of (Kinshasa), 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67f7a.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 82/100 (4) (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 25/30 (1)

Political Environment: 32/40 (2)

Economic Environment: 25/30 (1)

Quick Facts

Population: 79,800,000

Freedom in the World Status: Not Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 3.8%

Key Developments in 2016:

A number of journalists were arbitrarily detained while covering protests in Kinshasa at which participants called for President Joseph Kabila to step down, as constitutionally mandated, at the end of his second term. There were also reports of media workers being beaten by security forces during the demonstrations, during which dozens of protesters were killed.

Marcel Lubala, a state television journalist, was murdered in his home in November.

In November, the communications ministry issued regulations that restricted the operations of foreign media outlets working within the country.

Executive Summary

Press freedom is severely restricted in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Journalists and media outlets who challenge powerful figures or cover protests and other controversial events run the risk of prosecution, harassment, and attack, including by members of the security services. Poor economic conditions make it difficult for many outlets to remain financially sustainable.

In 2016, authorities failed to hold constitutionally mandated elections set for November, and President Joseph Kabila overstayed his term in office. The developments prompted violent protests, and the consequent suppression of human rights groups, citizens' movements, and journalists. The broadcast signals of numerous media outlets were cut or scrambled, access to social media websites was restricted, and the Communications Ministry issued an order that restricted the operations of foreign broadcasters within the country.

Legal Environment: 25 / 30 (1)

Although the constitution and various laws provide for freedoms of speech and of the press, these guarantees are seldom enforced. Reporters risk arrest and criminal prosecution for carrying out ordinary journalistic activities, and corruption and politicization of the judiciary hampers impartial adjudication of cases against journalists. A number of journalists faced dubious legal prosecutions in 2016. Among them was the arrest and detention on unclear charges in March of Willibrond Kahamwiti, an editor for the Ishango News; he was held for several weeks after his paper published an article on the failing health of a former government official, and released in June after paying a fine. In June, Papy Okito, a journalist with the newspaper Echo d'opinions, was arrested after refusing to publish a letter from the country's economy minister refuting an earlier story in which he was accused of graft. Okito was later released on bail.

Defamation is a criminal offense, and authorities frequently invoke or threaten to invoke defamation laws in response to critical coverage.

Media outlets are regulated by the High Council for Broadcasting and Communication (CSAC), which has the power to temporarily suspend outlets for hate speech and other serious ethical transgressions. Advocates for free expression have criticized the council as politically biased and indifferent to press freedom violations. The government in 2016 invoked regulatory mechanisms to hamper some outlets' operations. In January, the Communications Ministry ordered the closure of two television stations owned by Moise Katumbi  a former governor of Katanga Province who defected from the ruling party and is now a member of the opposition  for allegedly failing to pay annual licensing fees. Both stations disputed the claim, and observers charged that political motives were behind the closures. Similarly, in March, the ministry issued an order that shuttered another channel owned by an opposition leader, Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwanza, for the same reason; its management similarly protested that the order had been politically motivated.

In August 2016, the electoral commission announced that planned presidential elections would be postponed, sparking outrage among Kabila's political opponents and civil society groups. The subsequent government crackdown exacerbated already repressive conditions for journalists; severe pressure to limit critical coverage of the political situation and the activities of the opposition left little space in which to conduct normal journalistic activities.

Nevertheless, a number of professional associations work to support journalists and advocate for their rights. In March 2016, the group Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) convened a forum in Kinshasa to establish best practices for coverage of the planned presidential election; the event was notable as the first nationwide meeting of journalists in the country. Pressure from the group also led to a formal apology in May by the government for an assault perpetrated by the security services against a journalist investigating a case of arbitrary detention.

Political Environment: 32 / 40 (2)

Many media outlets display political bias. State-owned broadcasters favor President Kabila's party, though other ruling political parties are occasionally given airtime. Private outlets owned by partisan figures and affiliated businesspeople are often used to disseminate political propaganda. The only independent radio network with nationwide reach, Radio Okapi, is funded by the United Nations and the Switzerland-based Fondation Hirondelle. In an apparent push to increase the prevalence of progovernment media ahead of the 2016 elections, the state-run Radio Television Nationale Congolaise (RTNC) established new local branches throughout the country in 2015, and directed RTNC staff to avoid criticizing government officials or giving airtime to the opposition.

Amid the 2016 protests that erupted in response to the postponement of the presidential election, authorities enacted several measures that gave the government greater control over what information could be disseminated, and which outlets were permitted to broadcast. Among them was a November decree that prohibited foreign broadcasters from operating in the country unless they were taken over by a Congolese citizen. Alternatively, foreign broadcasters could establish partnerships with Congolese outlets, but then would be able to stream content on their partners' allotted frequencies only intermittently. The decree came after authorities had cut the signal of the French radio broadcaster Radio France Internationale (RFI), whose signal remained blocked after the decree was issued even though it specified that foreign broadcasters would be given time to comply with the new regulations.

Private media outlets are frequently subject to censorship and retaliatory action over antigovernment content, with such efforts intensifying in 2016 as the end of Kabila's constitutionally mandated term approached. In November, the signal for the UN-backed Radio Okapi was scrambled. In December, it was reported that local authorities in Kasai Oriental Province had instituted a ban on all political programming. The same month, in Kongo Central Province, two television stations were raided by police and taken off the air as they broadcast a discussion of a no-confidence motion against a local governor. Finally, the signals for Canal Congo Television and Radio Liberte, both owned by an opposition politician, were cut off without explanation in late December. A compromise reached between Kabila and the opposition on December 31 to hold new elections in 2017 included a pledge to work toward the reopening of media outlets that were shuttered during the unrest that took place in 2016. Authorities have also taken action aimed at blocking the spread of news regarding the security forces. In March, the administration in Rutshuru Territory, in North Kivu Province, issued an order prohibiting the media from reporting on any information related to the security services. Six local radio stations subsequently ceased production of their news reports, citing fear of reprisals.

Journalists risk being arrested while covering protests and other tense or controversial situations. At least eight journalists and media workers with both local and foreign outlets were arrested and detained for varying lengths of time while attempting to cover protests in Kinshasa that erupted in September, which saw clashes between demonstrators and police that left dozens of people dead. There were also reports of attacks against media workers during the unrest, including by security forces. Separately, in December, journalist Adele Uvon was arrested as she was covering a press conference by members of an antigovernment citizens' movement, and detained for nearly a week.

Journalists were subject to physical violence and other reprisals from state authorities as a result of their work in 2016. In July, two radio journalists were arrested and held for more than a week in Ituri Province after they broadcast news of a petition denouncing military abuses in the area. They were forced to sign a document agreeing to not report on such cases in the future before they were released. In August, armed security agents raided the home of journalist Christian Kahindo Muke, purportedly in connection to his nonpayment of a $1,500 defamation fine. However, Muke had never been notified of the fine, and learned of it only after his lawyer protested the home raid to authorities. The same month, a deputy commander of the North Kivu police threatened a Radio Okapi journalist in apparent connection with a story about the fatal beating by police officers of a young person in Goma; following the deputy commander's warning, the journalist claimed that he was followed by police officers and received threatening phone calls.

In November, Marcel Lubala, a reporter with the state television broadcaster, was shot dead in his home. The motive for his murder remains unclear.

A media crackdown in neighboring Burundi has resulted in the presence of a number of Burundian journalists in the DRC, where they have faced scrutiny from the government. In late 2015, authorities arrested radio technician Egide Mwemero of the Burundi-based Radio Publique Africaine (RPA), in the town of Uvira, near the Burundian border. He was eventually accused of espionage after being held without charge for months, but was finally released in October 2016.

Economic Environment: 25 / 30 (1)

The DRC retains a large and relatively diverse private press, including both progovernment and pro-opposition outlets. Hundreds of privately owned radio and television stations operate alongside three state-owned radio stations and a state-owned television station. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and RFI are available in several cities on FM radio. Given low literacy rates and poverty, the population relies largely on radio broadcasts to receive news. Only a few stations, including the state broadcasters and internationally funded Radio Okapi, have nationwide reach. While internet access has spread in urban areas thanks to the proliferation of private and affordable internet cafes, only about 6 percent of the population used the internet in 2016.

Authorities have been known to disrupt the means of news production and distribution in order to suppress critical coverage of the government or of other powerful figures. In November 2016, the distributor of the newspaper La Tempete des Tropiques was arrested and copies of that day's edition of the paper were confiscated when police suspected an article critical of the head of a local church was to appear. The government during the year also took steps to prevent critical coverage of Kabila by invoking restrictive measures that limited or prevented outlets' ability to broadcast. And in December, as opposition groups were planning for demonstrations to mark the end of Kabila's constitutional mandate, the government ordered internet service providers to block access to various social media sites and communication tools, including Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp, a move journalists said impeded their work.

Poor economic conditions in the country make it difficult for many media outlets to operate. Many cannot afford to pay the requisite licensing fees and thus operate illegally, leaving them vulnerable to selective closure by the government. Other costs of doing business compound the pressure. The price of advertising has plummeted in recent years, depriving outlets of badly needed revenue. Meanwhile, in June 2016, the price of mobile internet service increased by substantial amounts across all providers, drawing protests from press groups who say the hikes threatened their ability to work.

Journalists at major media outlets are usually poorly paid and insufficiently trained, leaving them vulnerable to bribery and political manipulation.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Brazil

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Brazil, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67fba.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

Total Score: 47/100 (1) (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 14/30 (1)

Political Environment: 22/40

Economic Environment: 11/30

Quick Facts

Population: 206,100,000

Freedom in the World Status: Free

Net Freedom Status: Partly Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 59.1%

Key Developments in 2016:

Joao Miranda do Carmo, the editor of the news website SAD Sem Censura, was shot to death in front of his home in the state of Goias in July. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) confirmed that the killing was directly connected with his work as a journalist.

Brazil's National Federation of Journalists (FENAJ) identified 161 cases of verbal and physical attacks against journalists during the year.

In September, the government eliminated the board of trustees of the public Brazilian Communications Company (EBC), which manages Brazil's public radio and television stations as well as a news agency; the board was intended to ensure the body's independence. Additional changes allow for the president to appoint and dismiss its top executive.

In the lead-up to the October municipal elections, CTRL+X, an initiative of the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (ABRAJI), recorded scores of election-related lawsuits against media outlets that sought to suppress information. Courts granted such requests in some cases.

Executive Summary

Brazil remains a dangerous place to practice journalism, with harassment, intimidation, and violent attacks recorded each year, and most such attacks going unpunished. Usually, the victims of serious retaliatory violence are those who work away from the main cities, and operate without the protection and visibility provided by large mainstream news outlets. However, recent years have seen an increase in attacks and threats against journalists who have covered protests in major cities that emerged in 2013, and set in motion a political crisis that culminated in the August 2016 impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. In 2016, FENAJ identified 161 cases of verbal and physical attacks against journalists, while ABRAJI recorded 73 instances of aggression against journalists that took place during protests, more than half of which the group said were perpetrated by police officers.

Journalists also face pressure from the courts, both via decisions that curtail their operations, and lawsuits filed against journalists by members of judicial institutions. A number of legal cases seeking to suppress media outlets' operations were filed in the lead-up to 2016 municipal elections, with courts granting some such requests. Meanwhile, CPJ in June condemned a series of apparently coordinated lawsuits filed by members of the judiciary against five journalists at an outlet that had published articles revealing the inflated salaries of judges, magistrates, and district attorneys in the southern state of Parana. However, in a development viewed as setting a positive precedent for the country's access to information law, a Sao Paulo court in 2016 dismissed a defamation case against a blogger who, through a request under the access law, had obtained the names of companies fined by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security for keeping workers in slave-like conditions, and had published them.

Ownership of mass media continues to be highly concentrated among a few major companies, which receive a significant portion of available advertising contracts.

Legal Environment: 14 / 30 (1)

Brazil has strong constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression, but they are not always enforced. Journalists covering sensitive topics including crime and corruption face a real risk of violent attack, and such attacks, including murders, often go unpunished.

Politicians frequently invoke restrictive laws to silence journalists or media outlets. In the lead-up to October 2016 municipal elections, CTRL+X, an ABRAJI initiative, recorded scores of election-related lawsuits against media outlets seeking the suppression or removal of information, some of which courts granted. Under the 2015 right-of-reply law, media outlets must publish, at no cost, a reply from any person or organization who obtains a legal judgement stating that the outlet had defamed them. However, media outlets have only a matter of days to appeal to any such order. Press freedom advocates argue that the fast-paced process imposed on media outlets denies journalists and outlets the right to effectively defend themselves.

Various forms of libel and defamation remain criminalized in Brazil, although most of the numerous lawsuits that arise each year are filed under civil statutes.

Journalists can face pressure from the courts, both via decisions that curtail their operations, and lawsuits filed by members of judicial institutions. In June 2016, CPJ denounced judicial harassment against the newspaper Gazeta do Povo and five of its journalists. In February, the newspaper had published stories about inflated salaries for judges, magistrates, and district attorneys in the southern state of Parana, which exceeded the ceiling provided for in the constitution. Between March and June, 46 individual, nearly identical lawsuits were filed by judicial officials against the five reporters. The newspaper disclosed that, in aggregate, by June the journalists had traveled over 3,700 miles within Parana and had missed nearly 20 days of work to be in court.

Journalists' right to keep their sources confidential is enshrined in the constitution. In 2016 this right was tested in the courts, and ultimately upheld in at least two cases. In August, a court in Brasilia issued an order compelling the release of information regarding phone calls made by Murilo Ramos, a reporter for the weekly magazine Epoca, in order to identify a source who leaked a list of Brazilian citizens suspected of having secret Swiss bank accounts. However, the decision was suspended in October by a federal court. In November, the journalist Andreza Matais's phone confidentiality rights were suspended by a Sao Paulo court in order to identify the source for a series of 2012 articles in the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo about possible irregularities at Banco do Brasil. The decision was reversed in December.

In 2012, Brazil passed a comprehensive freedom of information law, guaranteeing public access to documents and data from the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government at the federal, state, and municipal levels. The law also provides for access to information about private entities that receive public funding. Moreover, the law stipulates that information about human rights violations is not exempt from disclosure. In practice, however, the government does not always release requested information. Among those who have used the law in their reporting is the blogger Leonardo Sakamoto, who in 2015 published a list of companies fined by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security for keeping workers in slave-like conditions. Although Sakamoto obtained the companies' names through the freedom of information law, one company filed a defamation lawsuit against him. The case was finally settled in 2016, when the Court of Justice of Sao Paulo confirmed that Sakamoto had not committed a libel crime. The decision was considered a positive precedent regarding the freedom of information law.

The operation of radio and television stations requires a concession granted by the federal government. There are numerous agencies and public departments responsible for the overall broadcasting system, including radio and television licenses and the renewal of such authorizations. Their different roles are not always clearly defined, which hurts their oversight activities.

In September, the government eliminated the board of trustees of the public EBC, which manages Brazil's public radio and television stations as well as a news agency; the board was intended to ensure the body's independence. Additional changes allow for the president to appoint and dismiss its top executive. In 2009, the Supreme Court cancelled a rule limiting the exercise of journalism to those who have a college degree in the field. According to the court, the regulation was not in line with the freedom of expression rights guaranteed by the Brazilian constitution.

Political Environment: 22 / 40

Many private media outlets are owned by politically connected actors who use them to promote their own interests.

Judicial censorship  in which courts bar media outlets from publishing information about prominent politicians and businesspeople, demand the removal of published material, or order journalists to pay hefty fines for disseminating information  remained common in 2016. Besides imposing sentences involving jail time and fines, judges frequently order the removal of specific content from news websites and blogs. During 2016, in Parana State, Marcelo Auler was ordered to delete 10 articles from his blog in response to at least two separate lawsuits arguing that the articles were offensive to police officers investigating a corruption scandal. One of the decisions rendered in May amounted to censorship, forbidding him from publishing any other articles that could be considered offensive to the officers. In addition, the judge ruled without hearing Auler's defense. In the lead-up to the October 2016 municipal elections, CTRL+X recorded hundreds of election-related lawsuits against the online disclosure of information, including 228 situations in which courts either ordered a website or blog suspended, or forced it to delete information already published. Meanwhile, the messaging service WhatsApp was temporarily blocked in May 2016 by a judge in Sergipe State; the following day, the decision was overruled by a higher court.

A wide variety of views are found in the Brazilian media landscape. However, media diversity is hampered somewhat by the difficulty of obtaining community radio licenses, though reforms since 2015 have made the process somewhat more accessible. In 2016, 48 new community radio licenses were granted, bringing the portion of Brazilian municipalities with at least one community radio station to 71 percent. Regional television stations mostly transmit content produced by broadcasters in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, with a small part of airtime dedicated to local productions. The trade-off is that the regional television stations receive programming with good technical quality for low cost and, in exchange, allow the national television organizations access to regional viewers and advertisement market.

Investigative and critical journalists, particularly those who cover corruption and crime, face threats, harassment, obstruction, and violence, which in some cases has been deadly. While such incidents are more common in Brazil's provincial cities and towns, recent years have seen an increase in attacks and threats against journalists who have covered street protests in major cities that emerged in 2013 and set in motion a political crisis that culminated in Rousseff's impeachment in August 2016. In 2016, ABRAJI recorded 73 cases in which journalists were targeted during street protests. In more than half of them, the aggressors were police officers; in at least 29 out of 39 such cases, the victims reported being attacked despite having been identified as members of the press. In August 2016, a Sao Paulo court dismissed a lawsuit filed by photographer Sergio Andrade da Silva, who in 2013 had been blinded in one eye after being shot by a military police officer's rubber bullet while covering a protest in Sao Paulo. According to the court, da Silva was solely responsible for the incident because he chose to place himself between protesters and the police.

Usually, the victims of serious retaliatory violence are those who work away from the main cities and without the protection and visibility provided by large mainstream news outlets. Thus, most of the journalists killed in the country are bloggers or those who work in small radio stations or local newspapers. According to CPJ, one journalist was killed in 2016 in direct connection with their work. The journalist, Joao Miranda do Carmo, the editor of the news website SAD Sem Censura (or Santo Antonio do Descoberto Uncensored), had recently condemned a local garbage collection tax, unpaved roads, and reports that municipal employees had not been paid on time; he was gunned down in front of his house in the state of Goias in July by individuals inside a car. Three days after the murder, Douglas Ferreira de Morais, the head of the municipal police, was arrested in connection with the killing, and Ferreira de Morais's son was arrested the following month.

Separately, in March 2016, in Parana State, radio host Joao Valdecir de Borba of Radio Difusora AM was killed by two unidentified men inside the station's bathroom. Five months earlier, Borba had placed, without explanation, a request with the station's director that he stop reporting on crime, which was granted. In August, Mauricio Campos Rosa, the owner of a local newspaper in the southeastern town of Santa Luiza, died after being shot five times. The motive in both killings was not known.

Economic Environment: 11 / 30

Brazil is South America's largest media market, with thousands of radio stations, hundreds of television channels, and a variety of major newspapers. Ownership of mass media remains highly concentrated among a few major companies. The Grupo Globo conglomerate controls key television, cable, and satellite networks, as well as several radio stations and print outlets. Another company, Editora Abril, leads Brazil's magazine market. The television market is largely controlled by five private companies and one public body. The EBC manages Brazil's public radio and television stations as well as a news agency

The federal constitution prohibits elected officials from holding media licenses while in office. However, some 40 federal senators and congress members own stakes in Brazilian radio or television stations. A lawsuit filed at the Supreme Court in 2011 challenges the constitutionality of such arrangements; the case is ongoing. Meanwhile, in 2016, federal courts ordered that radio licenses issued to three members of the Chamber of Deputies be revoked.

The strong concentration of the Brazilian media can make it difficult for new actors to find their footing in the market.

About 60 percent of the population accessed the internet in 2016.

Brazil's advertising market is highly concentrated, with most advertising revenue found within the television sector. The federal government is a major contributor of advertising revenue, and a November 2015 report by the Brazilian group Intervozes and the German Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) foundation estimated that 82 percent of the government's 2013 television advertising budget went to the five largest television groups. In 2013, the Brazilian Radio and Television Association (ABERT) estimated that Brazil had 4,645 commercial radio stations, and that about a third of the advertising expenditure in the radio sector was concentrated among 150 stations. Advertising on online outlets has increased in recent years.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Bangladesh

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Bangladesh, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67fda.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 62/100 (1) (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 19/30 (1)

Political Environment: 27/40

Economic Environment: 16/30

Quick Facts

Population: 162,900,000

Freedom in the World Status: Partly Free

Net Freedom Status: Partly Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 14.4%

Key Developments in 2016:

Physical violence and threats against journalists and bloggers continued with impunity, with past murders remaining unsolved and other acts of violence going unpunished.

Authorities initiated legal action against several journalists under restrictive laws, including defamation, sedition, and the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act.

Authorities periodically blocked access to certain news websites, and in August shut down internet access for several hours in parts of Dhaka.

Executive Summary

The absence of justice for the murders of several bloggers since early 2015 has helped to cultivate an environment of impunity for threats and attacks against journalists. While the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) did not record any murders that were explicitly connected to journalists' work in 2016, at least one blogger, as well as the editor of Bangladesh's only LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) magazine, were murdered during the year in apparent retaliation for their activism.

Meanwhile, the government continued to intimidate and silence critical journalists via legal threats, arrests, and prosecutions. For example, multiple defamation and sedition lawsuits were filed against the editor of the Daily Star after he admitted in February to publishing unsubstantiated information, given to him by the military intelligence service in 2007 and 2008, about Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Several journalists also faced arrest under the restrictive Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act.

In August 2016, authorities restricted access to 35 news websites, including several known for criticism of the government. The same month, access to the internet was blocked for over three hours in parts of Dhaka, with the shutdown explained as a test of safety procedures that might be necessary in the event of a terrorist attack or other emergency.

Legal Environment: 19 / 30 (1)

The constitution provides for freedom of expression, subject to "reasonable restrictions," but this right is not always enforced. Impunity is the norm for those who perpetrate crimes against journalists, and police investigations that are initiated in response to such crimes generally proceed slowly. However, in a positive development, in June 2016 authorities arrested a suspect for the 2015 attack on the Shuddhashar publishing house in Dhaka, in which publisher Ahmed Rahim Tutul was seriously wounded. (Tutul had since fled Bangladesh and in 2016 settled in Norway).

A number of laws may be invoked to restrict journalists' activities, and 2016 saw an uptick in legal cases against journalists, notably against those at mainstream outlets. A number of these cases involved the ICT Act, which covers online crimes, including defamation and blasphemy; permits law enforcement agencies to arrest and indefinitely detain suspects without bail; and imposes no limits on officials' power during the investigatory period. Shamsuzzoha Manik, owner of publisher Ba-Dwip Prakashan, was arrested in February 2016 at the Bangladesh International Book Fair and charged under the ICT Act with criticizing religion. His arrest came after Islamist extremists threatened violence if he was not detained for disseminating publications they considered disrespectful of Islam. He was released late October and his trial was set for early 2017; he could serve up to 14 years in prison if found guilty. In August, police invoked provisions of the ICT Act against two editors with the news website Banglamail24, after it had run a story refuting speculation that the prime minister's son had been killed. The following month, police arrested and detained the editor of education news website DainikShiksha under the ICT Act for alleged defamation of a former official with ties to the ruling party. Reporters sometimes face contempt of court charges or other legal action for critical reporting on judicial proceedings or personnel, including on the actions of Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal, which is tasked with examining war crimes associated with the country's 1971 independence conflict.

Defamation is a criminal offense. Sedition laws can be applied broadly, and penalties range from fines to life in prison or even the death penalty if the accused is found to have undermined the constitution. Ekushey TV chairman Abdus Salam, who was arrested and charged with sedition in 2015 after the station aired a speech by an opposition figure, remained imprisoned at the end of 2016. Mahfuz Anam, editor of the Daily Star, had 62 defamation and 17 sedition lawsuits filed against him after he admitted in February to publishing unsubstantiated information, given to him by the military intelligence service in 2007 and 2008, about Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. A warrant was also issued for his arrest and lawmakers called for his paper to be closed.

The 2009 Right to Information (RTI) Act simplified the fees required to access information, overrode existing secrecy legislation, and granted greater independence to the Information Commission, tasked with overseeing and promoting the law. However, ongoing challenges include low response rates to requests for information, and the need to increase awareness of the act's existence among the general public and the authorities.

The Ministry of Information controls broadcast licensing for both commercial and community outlets. Television stations have occasionally been closed, ostensibly for being in breach of broadcasting regulations. A draft Broadcast Act was pending at the end of 2016; it drew criticism from rights groups for permitting jail terms, rather than fines and other civil measures, for the violation of its provisions.

The government at times interferes with journalistic work through surveillance. Some journalists' e-mail correspondence is reportedly watched by police, and those brought in for questioning have been asked to supply personal internet passwords to intelligence officers. An official government committee was formed in 2014 to monitor blogs and social media websites, and to identify individuals who produced or posted anti-Islamic content.

Political Environment: 27 / 40

The Bangladeshi media collectively present an array of views. However, political coverage can be highly partisan, as the owners of many private outlets exert editorial control that reflects their personal political affiliations. Private broadcast outlets are required to air selected government-produced news segments and official speeches. There have been reports of government officials instructing private outlets not to cover activities of the opposition, and outlets with ties to opposition parties or critical of the ruling party have been threatened with closure. Additionally, in the wake of a deadly terrorist attack in Dhaka in July 2016, authorities banned the Islamic television station Peace TV, amid accusations that the station incited the attack.

Authorities have been known to withhold information from or obstruct the activities of journalists they view with suspicion. In 2016, journalists from the newspapers Prothom Alo and the Daily Star were not permitted access to events with the prime minister due to their criticism of the government.

Censorship of internet-based content has become increasingly common in Bangladesh. In August 2016, authorities restricted access to 35 news websites, including several known for criticism of the government. Separately, there have been reports of authorities prohibiting broadcasts of opposition events.

Some professional journalists practice self-censorship to avoid repercussions when reporting on sensitive topics like the military and judiciary; journalists may also self-censor in order to keep from harming the business or political interests of media owners. Death threats and attacks against bloggers have exacerbated self-censorship amongst them, leading many to stop writing, go into hiding, or leave the country.

Journalists risk threats and retaliatory violence by criminal organizations; party activists; business owners; figures associated with the intelligence services, police, and military; and Islamist groups in connection with their work, and some such attacks have been deadly. In November 2016, two television journalists were assaulted by about 10 people while covering an illegal polythene factory in Dhaka. The attackers also damaged their equipment, and one of the journalists was doused in kerosene, but bystanders intervened before the attackers could set him on fire.

Extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent have been confirmed or suspected in several recent assassinations of bloggers who had criticized Islamic fundamentalism. In April 2016, law student, blogger, and secular activist Nazimuddin Samad was murdered in Dhaka. Samad regularly posted critical commentary regarding Islam on Facebook, and his name was included on a hit list of atheist bloggers Islamic extremists had sent to the Interior Ministry. In April, Xulhaz Mannan, editor of the only LGBT magazine in Bangladesh, Roopbaan, was murdered at his home in Dhaka. The killings followed the murder in 2015 of four bloggers who were critical of fundamentalist Islam. Impunity is the norm for attacks against journalists. Some officials have suggested that those writing on controversial subjects self-censor in order to avoid being attacked.

Economic Environment: 16 / 30

There is a wide variety of privately owned daily and weekly print publications. There are more than 40 privately owned television stations and some two dozen radio stations, including a number of community stations. The public Bangladesh Television (BTV) remains the sole terrestrial television broadcaster with national reach. Many families in rural areas  where the majority of the country's population lives  do not have a reliable supply of electricity or cannot afford a television set. Access to television in urban areas is much more common. Low literacy rates in rural areas limit the reach of newspapers outside of urban centers.

Private broadcast and print media in Bangladesh are often owned by business conglomerates controlled by politically influential individuals or families with extensive assets in other industries, such as manufacturing and finance. Some such outlets allow the interests of their owners to influence their news coverage.

Access to the internet is usually unrestricted, though the penetration rate was still only about 18 percent of the population in 2016, according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). During the past few years, the number of online news outlets, including news websites and internet-based radio stations, has increased dramatically, as has use of social-networking websites.

The government has occasionally interfered with internet and mobile networks. In August 2016, access to the internet was blocked for over three hours in parts of Dhaka, with the shutdown explained as a test of safety procedures that might be necessary in the event of a terrorist attack or other emergency. YouTube, Facebook, other social media and messaging applications have been blocked occasionally.

Political considerations influence the distribution of government advertising revenue and subsidized newsprint, on which many publications depend. Private media owners and corporate interests are also able to influence content through the allocation of advertising. In 2015, the army's military intelligence wing successfully pressured a number of major companies to stop advertising in Prothom Alo and the Daily Star after both papers reported on a sensitive army operation in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region.

Because salaries are often low, some journalists are open to bribes or other incentives to slant their coverage or suppress embarrassing or sensitive information.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Azerbaijan

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Azerbaijan, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc67ffa.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Total Score: 90/100 (1) (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 29/30

Political Environment: 39/40 (1)

Economic Environment: 22/30

Quick Facts

Population: 9,800,000

Freedom in the World Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: Partly Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 77.0%

Key Developments in 2016:

The parliament tightened legal restrictions on media freedom, broadening the scope of existing criminal defamation legislation in November and amending martial law in December to expand permissible information controls.

A number of journalists were released from prison during the year, either by court order or presidential pardon, but several others remained behind bars at year's end.

The websites of Meydan TV, the Azadlq newspaper, Voice of America, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)'s Azerbaijani service were periodically blocked in November and December.

The diversity of the media landscape continued to shrink, particularly after the progovernment television channel ANS and the print version of the opposition Azadlq were forced to cease operations in July and September, respectively.

Executive Summary

Media professionals operate in a highly repressive environment, and freedom of the press is routinely and systematically violated. The government of President Ilham Aliyev perceives the free press as a threat to the stability of its increasingly authoritarian rule, and has waged a campaign to punish and silence independent voices in recent years.

Legislators took a number of steps to tighten the country's already restrictive legal environment in 2016. In November, the parliament expanded a law against insulting the president to include online content, and also made it illegal to disseminate libelous or insulting content under false user accounts. Legislation passed in December grants the government wide control over content disseminated by media outlets in case of declaration of martial law.

The government maintained a tight grip over the country's information landscape and continued to punish those who express criticism or dissent. After heavy fighting broke out along the line of contact with Nagorno Karabakh, a disputed territory held by Armenian separatists, the government heavily censored coverage of combat deaths and threatened outlets whose reporting disagreed with the information published by the Ministry of Defense. In July, the National Television and Radio Council (NTRC) terminated the license of the private progovernment television channel ANS after it ran a portion of an interview with Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, claiming that the content harmed Azerbaijan's relations with Turkey and constituted "terrorist propaganda." The move followed a failed coup attempt in Turkey that the country's regime accused Gulen of orchestrating. Separately, in September, Azadliq suspended its print edition after its state-run publishing house terminated services due to the newspaper's outstanding debts.

The few independent outlets that are still able to reach audiences in Azerbaijan face constant pressure and risk. In April, authorities launched a criminal investigation into Meydan TV, an independent outlet operating from Germany, for illegal entrepreneurship, tax evasion, abuse of power, and other spurious charges. Reporters and bloggers also continued to face harassment, threats, violence, and intimidation by authorities. Although several media professionals were released from prison during the year, many others were detained, arrested, or convicted in politically motivated cases.

Legal Environment: 29 / 30

The constitution, the Law on Mass Media, and the Law on the Right to Obtain Information guarantee freedom of speech and the right to access to information. However, these guarantees fall short of international standards in several cases and are systematically violated in practice. Defamation remains a criminal offense, punishable by up to three years in prison and large fines. Disseminating information that damages the honor and dignity of the president can be punished with up to two years in prison, or up to five years when linked to accusations of other criminal activity. Under the Law on Mass Media, the government can close online media outlets if they are found guilty of defamation twice in one year.

The government and political elite use defamation and insult suits as one of many legal means of punishing individual journalists and stifling independent and opposition media. The opposition newspaper Azadlq has been a frequent target of defamation suits in recent years, facing exorbitant fines that have contributed to its precarious financial situation. Government rhetoric also undermines the journalistic profession, as officials routinely disparage critical journalists, denouncing them as "anti-Azerbaijani" or accusing them of espionage.

Constitutional changes passed in a hastily organized and controversial referendum in September 2016 mainly served to expand executive power, but had more direct negative consequences on freedom of expression as well. The amendments included an expanded prohibition of hate speech based on a vague and open-ended definition, leading critics to worry about the potential to justify a wide range of restrictions on speech.

In November, the parliament passed changes to the criminal code that extended provisions against insulting the president to include any content posted online. The changes also prohibited defamatory or insulting content using false user information. Separately, in legislation passed in December, the parliament expanded the government's ability to control media content in case of martial law. Legislators framed the move as a response to the heavy fighting with Nagorno Karabakh in April.

Independent journalists and media outlets are unlikely to receive a fair trial, as the executive branch controls the judiciary, which is also limited by corruption and inefficiency.

The government has failed to appoint a special information ombudsman as required by freedom of information legislation, transferring the role instead to an existing ombudsman's office. Authorities at all levels systematically refuse to respond to information requests. Lawsuits filed by media outlets and civil society representatives over state agencies' failure to answer requests generally do not yield results. Commercial enterprises have the right to withhold information about their registration, ownership, and structure, which severely limits the ability of reporters to uncover corporate corruption and identify the private assets of public figures.

The government nominates all nine members of the NTRC, and members' terms may be renewed indefinitely. The deputy chairperson, Sona Veliyeva, is the wife of Ali Hasanov, the powerful head of the social-political department within the president's administration. She also owns the Kaspi newspaper. The NTRC favors state-owned broadcasters in licensing decisions, which remain opaque. The council has repeatedly failed to publish a list of available television and radio frequencies despite an obligation to do so annually. The British Broadcasting Corporation, RFE/RL, and Voice of America have been off local airwaves in Azerbaijan since 2009, when NTRC regulations banned foreign broadcasters from accessing national frequencies; these services broadcast online and via satellite. Following a failed coup attempt in Turkey in July, both the NTRC and the Press Council released statements prioritizing diplomatic relations with Ankara over media freedom.

The government has been known to monitor and harass social media activists, journalists, and bloggers online.Italian cyber-surveillance company Hacking Team showed that would allow it to covertly monitor the online activities of its citizens. The targets of such surveillance remain unclear.

Political Environment: 39 / 40 (1)

The Aliyev regime and its elite allies exercise extensive control over the news and information content of outlets that are owned by the state or progovernment individuals. The opposition has limited access to such outlets. Independent outlets struggle to obtain access to government officials and events, which limits their ability to provide well rounded reporting.

Although official censorship is prohibited by law, authorities use various methods, including contradictory legislation, to censor the media. Legal amendments adopted in 2009 restrict the ability of journalists to film or photograph individuals without their consent, even at public events. The broadly repressive environment also contributes to a high level of self-censorship.

Officials exercised heavy control over reporting about the April clashes in Nagorno Karabakh, particularly coverage of combat deaths. Meydan TV faced harsh reprisals, including accusations of treason, after publishing fatality numbers that contradicted those given by the Ministry of Defense, which has been known to publish artificially low statistics on this issue. ANS also came under fire for unfavorable content during the year. The NTRC filed a suit to revoke the channel's broadcast license in July, after the channel aired a preview of an interview with Gulen, whom Ankara accused of masterminding the coup attempt in Turkey. In justifying its decision, the NTRC stated the need to protect relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey and to prevent the dissemination of "terrorist propaganda." A Baku court granted the regulator's request. The Gulen-linked Zaman-Azerbaijan newspaper and Zaman.az webpage were also closed following the coup attempt. Separately, the websites of Azadlq, Meydan TV, Voice of America, and RFE/RL were intermittently blocked in November and December.

Diversity and plurality are severely limited in the media landscape, which inhibits prospects for robust, informed public debate.Several independent outlets  including Mediaforum.az, Meydan TV, and RFE/RL  have closed their Baku offices in recent years due to government pressure or threats, with some choosing to operate from abroad, and the state's shuttering of several outlets in 2016 further exacerbated the situation. Media monitoring by Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety, a local press freedom organization, during the September referendum campaign found coverage to be largely one-sided, favoring the government-backed "yes" vote.

Security forces often interfere with the media's ability to cover events. During antireferendum rallies before the September vote,.

Many media professionals and freedom of expression activists have fled the country or gone into hiding to avoid persecution. Those who remain in Azerbaijan continued to face retaliatory harassment, intimidation, violence, and threats in 2016, and impunity for such attacks remained the norm. Authorities arbitrarily use various criminal laws  including those pertaining to hooliganism, drug and weapons possession, treason, and tax evasion  to prosecute media professionals in reprisal for critical coverage. In April, for example, state investigators opened a criminal case against Meydan TV for illegal entrepreneurship, large-scale tax evasion, and abuse of power. Separately, in June, police arrested Fikrat Faramazoglu, the editor of the news website jam.az, on charges of extortion. He remained behind bars at year's end, and his lawyer reported that he had been tortured in custody.

A presidential pardon in March led to the release of five journalists and bloggers. Also in March, Rauf Mirkadirov, a correspondent for the Russian-language Zerkalo newspaper who had been convicted of espionage in 2015, received conditional release. In May, the Supreme Court suspended Khadija Ismayilova's sentence, granting her release. Ismayilova, a contributor to RFE/RL who had exposed corruption among Azerbaijan's ruling elite, has faced an extensive campaign of government harassment for several years and was convicted of tax evasion, illegal entrepreneurship, abuse of power, and embezzlement in 2015. Despite her release, she is prohibited from leaving Azerbaijan and faces restrictions on her professional activities. Such restrictions on personal freedoms are common for journalists who have run afoul of the Aliyev regime.

The Committee to Protect Journalists reported that five journalists remained behind bars as of December, though local groups gave higher estimates. Prison conditions are dire for journalists and for political prisoners in general; ill-treatment and denial of medical care are routine.

Economic Environment: 22 / 30

Print and broadcast media are almost entirely in the hands of the government and its allies, sometimes controlled through nominal intermediaries. The lack of laws to facilitate transparency in the private sector makes it difficult to identify the true owners or beneficiaries of news outlets. According to the NTRC, there are ten national television stations, including a public broadcaster and three other state-run stations; 13 private regional television stations; and more than a dozen national radio stations. More than 30 daily newspapers are registered, and the opposition papers Yeni Musavat and Azadlq have historically been the most widely read. In September 2016, Azadlq suspended its print version after the state-run Azerbaijan Publishing House terminated the paper's contract due to outstanding debts. Azadlq had been unable to access its bank accounts since the arrest of its financial director in August, and its bank refused to authorize the paper's new financial director as signatory.

Online media, including internet-based television, have grown in importance in recent years. Approximately 78 percent of the population used the internet in 2016; mobile data subscriptions significantly exceed the number of fixed broadband accounts. Blogs and social media platforms such as Facebook are widely used for sharing critical opinions on the ruling elites and illuminating subjects that are often ignored in the mainstream media, but the government has countered such activity by criminalizing defamation online, prosecuting bloggers and activists, and harassing online outlets.

The handful of independent and opposition media outlets that continue to operate are struggling for survival. The authorities use economic pressure on distribution, printing, and advertising to control the print, broadcast, and digital industries. The allocation of state advertising and state subsidies is not conducted transparently. In a post-mission statement in September, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders noted that his office had received reports of the government pressuring private companies to refrain from advertising with critical and independent media. Many journalists work without employment security or contracts, and receive irregular salaries.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Argentina

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Argentina, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc6801a.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

Total Score: 46/100 (4) (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 13/30 (1)

Political Environment: 12/40 (2)

Economic Environment: 15/30 (1)

Quick Facts

Population: 43,600,000

Freedom in the World Status: Free

Net Freedom Status: Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 69.4%

Key Developments in 2016:

The government of President Mauricio Macri reversed its predecessor's pattern of hostility toward the private media, resuming regular press conferences and ending official criticism and harassment of specific journalists.

In September Congress passed a long-delayed freedom of information law that was expected to improve public access to government documents.

In August the government established an official framework for the distribution of state advertising, with objective criteria designed to prevent political bias.

The resulting changes and reductions in state advertising led several outlets that had benefited from the previous government's largesse to shut down or carry out layoffs of journalists.

Executive Summary

Argentina has a robust media sector that represents a plurality of views. Under the Macri administration, which took power in December 2015, relations between the government and the private media have improved. The previous government, led by former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, had engaged in secretive and hostile behavior toward the press, including numerous verbal attacks on outlets and individual journalists. Despite the changed political climate, the news industry continues to suffer from ownership concentration, with the media conglomerate Grupo Clarin and the somewhat smaller group La Nacion  both of which generally support Macri  dominating the national market.

Shortly after taking office, Macri had issued decrees aimed at revising several elements of a 2009 media law that was seen as a politicized attempt to curb the size and influence of Clarin. The decrees were suspended by federal courts in January 2016, but Congress confirmed the changes through legislation in April. Among other provisions, the 2016 law replaced two regulatory bodies with a new National Communications Authority, lifted restrictions on the number of broadcast licenses a media group can own, and allowed telecommunications companies to provide cable television services.

The new administration also took steps to halt the politicized allocation of state advertising, a practice that was rampant under the previous government. However, the reduction in spending, combined with the country's difficult economic situation, affected media businesses' financial sustainability. Separately, several physical attacks or threats against journalists were reported during the year, though extreme violence against the press remains rare.

Legal Environment: 13 / 30 (1)

Argentina's constitution provides for freedom of the media and of expression, and restricts Congress from passing legislation that would affect those freedoms. Defamation-related offenses were decriminalized for journalists in 2009 and can no longer result in prison sentences. However, fines can still be issued in civil cases.

A 2011 amendment to the antiterrorism law increased penalties for terrorist acts. An interpretation by the head of Argentina's Financial Investigations Unit stated that news outlets could be held accountable under the law if they published material that "terrorizes" the public. Although the government stated that the measure was not intended for use against the media, it was invoked in 2014 to charge a journalist, Juan Pablo Suarez, for publishing video footage of a police protest in Santiago del Estero. The aggravated "terrorism" charge was later dropped, but Suarez still faced a charge of incitement to violence, and the law itself remained in place.

Congress approved an access to information law in September 2016, and it was expected to take effect within a year. The final passage of the law followed years of failed attempts to adopt such a measure. The new legislation creates an Agency for Access to Public Information and permits every citizen to request information from state bodies, which must respond within 15 days, subject to a 15-day extension. Private entities that receive state funding are also covered by the law. Requests can be denied to protect certain exempted information, such as defense, foreign policy, or trade secrets.

The previous lack of a freedom of information law was especially problematic given the government's record of manipulating key economic and other statistics, for which it was formally censured by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2013. However, the Macri administration largely restored credibility to the statistics agency during 2016, and the IMF lifted its censure in November.

Upon taking office in late 2015, Macri issued decrees that reversed large portions of the 2009 Law on Audiovisual Communications Services, also known as the Ley de Medios. The ostensible aim of the law was to break up media monopolies and improve competition and service quality, but many observers argued that it was implemented with political bias, as it was largely used in attempts to dismantle the extensive media holdings of Grupo Clarin, which was critical of the Fernandez de Kirchner administration. There was also evidence that the regulatory bodies created by the law displayed bias in the licensing process, granting new operating licenses almost exclusively to government or progovernment entities.

Macri's bid to repeal the law by decree was blocked in January by federal judges acting on injunction requests from a consumers' association and a community radio station. However, in April Congress adopted a law based on Macri's decrees. The legislation merged the two media regulatory bodies established by the 2009 law, the Federal Communications Services Authority (Afsca) and the Federal Authority for Information Technology and Communications (Aftic), into a single new entity responsible for media regulation in Argentina, the National Communications Authority (Enacom). Four members of the seven-member board of Enacom would be appointed by the president, with the rest chosen by the three main factions in Congress.

In moves toward deregulation that would reduce pressure on Clarin, the 2016 law also lifted a prohibition on the sale of broadcast licenses between media companies and eased restrictions on the number of broadcast licenses a company can own. Moreover, telecommunications companies would be able to offer cable television service as soon as 2018.

There are no legal restrictions on becoming a journalist, and professional groups are free to support journalists' rights and interests.

Political Environment: 12 / 40 (2)

The Macri administration improved government relations with the press during 2016. The tenure of Fernandez de Kirchner was characterized by state hostility toward the media, including verbal and written attacks on critical outlets and individual journalists. Ministers held few press conferences and often excluded certain media from such meetings. By contrast, Macri and his cabinet ministers held regular press conferences and opened up a broader dialogue with journalists and media organizations regarding state policies.

The media, including the internet, are generally free from official censorship. There have been some cases of the government taking down or blocking access to websites that facilitate illegal commercial activity or publish copyrighted or defamatory material, but the practice is not pervasive. Although journalists faced less pressure to self-censor regarding coverage of the government in 2016, the threat of violent reprisals continued to encourage self-censorship on stories involving organized crime, human trafficking, or the illegal drug trade.

Extreme violence against members of the press is very rare in Argentina, and no journalists were murdered in 2016. The Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA) registered 65 attacks against the media  including threats, assaults, attacks on media facilities, confiscation of equipment, and obstruction of coverage  during the year, which represented a significant decrease from the 94 incidents reported in 2015. In September, the Ministry of Security presented a protocol for the protection of journalistic activity, particularly for reporters focused on organized crime and drug trafficking; the protocol's provisions included a mechanism for journalists to request state protection.

Among other cases in which journalists faced attacks or apparent reprisals for their work in 2016, Luciano Barrera, a photojournalist from news site El Esquiu.com, was beaten, detained for five hours, and had the memory card of his camera confiscated by police in Santa Rosa, Catamarca Province, after he took pictures of an auto accident in February. In July, gunshots were fired at the home of Santa Fe journalist Emanuel Soverchia, who said the incident was likely tied to his reporting on corruption in the province. Television journalist Luis Majul received anonymous death threats by text message in August as he interviewed a protected witness in a major corruption case. In December, the offices of two online news outlets focused on corruption and abuse of authority  Revista Anfibia and Cosecha Roja  were broken into and had equipment, computers, and notebooks stolen.

Economic Environment: 15 / 30 (1)

Argentina has a large private media sector, with more than 150 daily newspapers, hundreds of commercial radio stations, and dozens of television stations. However, private ownership remains concentrated, with Grupo Clarin commanding a significant share of the print, broadcast, and internet service markets. Public media are less influential; the country's largest public television station, TV Publica, has a much lower audience share than its private competitors. Public radio has also declined in importance since the privatization of the industry in 1980, though many private radio stations operate on temporary licenses pending regulatory reforms. Privately owned online news outlets are widely available, with about 70 percent of Argentines accessing the internet as of 2016.

Government and regulatory decisions that affect news distribution have often appeared politicized. In June 2016, the government announced that it was suspending the free-to-air broadcast signals of Telesur, a left-wing media venture backed primarily by the Venezuelan government, and RT, a Russian state-owned channel, explaining that the digital spectrum was needed for provincial government stations. Macri's government in March had withdrawn from Telesur, in which Argentina held a minority stake, citing in part its fiscal austerity goals. The previous administration had supported both stations, and critics said that the changes in policy were based on shifting ideological and diplomatic alignments.

A 2011 law designated newsprint as a commodity of public interest, making it subject to government regulation. Under the law, the government can increase its minority stake in the only Argentine company that manufactures newsprint, Papel Prensa, in order to produce enough newsprint to satisfy the demand of all newspapers in the country; the rule could lead to eventual government control of the newsprint supply. Beginning in 2010, the previous government had pursued an investigation into the two private media groups that control a majority stake in Papel Prensa, Grupo Clarin and La Nacion, alleging that they acquired the shares at a time when the seller was under coercion by the military dictatorship of 1976-83. A judge dismissed the case in December 2016, but a prosecutor and private plaintiffs filed appeals of that decision later in the month.

In August, the Macri administration issued new guidelines on state advertising expenditures in a bid to correct some of the distortions that had arisen under the previous government. According to figures cited by the Inter American Press Association, the Fernandez de Kirchner government spent $380 million on official advertising in its last year in power  some 25 times more than in 2003, when Fernandez de Kirchner's husband and predecessor took office. The allocation of such funding was widely believed to favor progovernment outlets. The new guidelines call for state advertising to be distributed objectively according to the size of the media outlet's audience, its geographical reach, the relevance of the message to the news source's specific audience, and the extent to which the outlet contributes to the plurality of voices.

While the reforms were generally seen as a necessary step, the reduction and redirection of state advertising contributed to mass layoffs and closures among outlets that had come to depend on government funds over the past decade, leading some critics to warn of a threat to diversity. Journalists' organizations also called on media owners who were conducting layoffs or withholding salaries to respect the labor rights of their employees.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Freedom of the Press 2017 - Afghanistan

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 1 November 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2017 - Afghanistan, 1 November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59fc6803a.html [accessed 16 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Press Freedom Status: Partly Free

Total Score: 46/100 (4) (0 = Most Free, 100 = Least Free)

Legal Environment: 13/30 (1)

Political Environment: 18/40 (2)

Economic Environment: 15/30 (1)

Status Change:

Afghanistan's status improved from Not Free to Partly Free due to recent legal changes  including the creation of a mechanism to adjudicate complaints about the media without resorting to prosecution, and decrees to improve protections for journalists and access to information  that illustrate the current administration's more favorable stance on media independence. The status change also reflects long-term growth in the diversity of private media in Afghanistan, though the deteriorating security environment further restricted journalists' ability to operate safely throughout the country in 2016.

Quick Facts

Population: 43,600,000

Freedom in the World Status: Free

Net Freedom Status: Free

Internet Penetration Rate: 69.4%

Key Developments in 2016:

President Ashraf Ghani issued decrees in January and October that called for stronger protections for media freedom and instructed government agencies to facilitate journalists' access to information, respectively.

The new Mass Media Commission issued a well-received bylaw on the establishment and activity of private media outlets in February.

Media groups led by the Afghanistan Journalists Federation adopted a national code of ethics in May.

The Afghan Journalists Safety Committee (AJSC) reported 101 incidents of violence against journalists and media workers over the course of the year, up sharply from 73 in 2015. The total included 13 deaths, seven of which occurred in January when a Taliban suicide bombing struck a vehicle carrying employees of Tolo TV in Kabul.

Executive Summary

Afghanistan is home to a large and diverse array of private media outlets, including dozens of television stations, more than 170 radio stations, and hundreds of print publications. Although journalists faced a relatively hostile legal and political environment under the administration of President Hamid Karzai, the current National Unity Government led by President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah has adopted laws and policies that are more supportive of media independence. For example, the new Mass Media Commission, formed under revised media legislation that was adopted in 2015, includes representatives of the media, journalists' organizations, and the government. It is tasked in part with adjudicating complaints against the media, and law enforcement agencies cannot pursue criminal cases against journalists without consulting the commission.

In February 2016, the Mass Media Commission issued a bylaw on the establishment and activity of private media, laying out minimum requirements for media professionals on issues like contracts, safety, insurance, and pensions. Also during the year, the president signed decrees aimed at bolstering protection for media freedoms, including by investigating unsolved cases of violence against journalists, and calling on government agencies to permit greater access to official information. In May, the president appointed human rights activist Nader Naderi to serve as ambassador for the protection of freedom of speech, and in August the National Security Council collaborated with the Afghan Journalists Federation to adopt new safety guidelines and mechanisms for coordinating the government response to violence against the media.

Despite such positive initiatives, implementation has often been inadequate, particularly on the issue of violence against the press. The security environment in Afghanistan grew worse in 2016, with the AJSC reporting a marked increase in attacks, including the killing of 13 journalists and media professionals. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), using narrower criteria, confirmed the murders of four journalists in connection with their work during the year, but this still represented the largest figure it had reported for the country since 2001. Journalists continue to self-censor, especially in the face of rising threats from the Taliban, the Islamic State (IS) militant group, and regional warlords. However, Afghan government officials and security forces remain responsible for the largest number of reported cases of violence and intimidation, which are often linked to coverage of corruption or other official wrongdoing.

Explanatory Note

This country report has been abridged for Freedom of the Press 2017. For background information on press freedom in Afghanistan, see Freedom of the Press 2016.

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
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GREENWICH  Some say truck drivers like the Pennsylvania man at the wheel of the tractor trailer that stopped short of a low-hanging Merritt Parkway overpass  causing the death of a Stamford man whose car slammed into the back of the big rig this week  should understand the highways restrictions.

Others believe more needs to be done to deliver the message.

Signs prohibiting commercial vehicles from entering the highway sit on every on-ramp along the route, according to the state Department of Transportation. Some have height markers. None of the overpasses  including the Stanwich Road bridge in Greenwich where the accident occurred Thursday morning  can accommodate large vehicles.

Kevin Nursick, a spokesman for the DOT, said Friday a $4.25 million project to upgrade and replace all of the signs along the approximately 32 miles of the Merritt Parkway will begin later this month. Nursick said the federally funded initiative, which is expected to take about a year to complete, will also enhance the language of the highways restrictions on all of the entrance ramps.

Nursick also said the DOT plans to submit a report to the state Legislature by Jan. 1 with potential options to improve notifications of the height restrictions on the Merritt obviously to help reduce the number of incidents occurring with trucks illegally using the parkway.

The Pennsylvania driver had not been ticketed or charged as of Friday, State Police said. The crash shut down the Merritt Parkway for hours as police documented the fatal scene.

They are professionals. They're supposed to understand the signage around them, Nursick said of truck drivers. Theres really no excuse for them to get on to the Merritt Parkway if they are driving one of those vehicles that are restricted.

Family members of the crash victim, Akija Elezaj, 62, declined to comment at their Turn of River home in Stamford on Friday.

Elezajs death underlined the danger of commercial vehicles on the Merritt Parkway.

More often, the crashes are not fatal  just a major inconvenience.

That is where the majority of our problems happen in my career, Deputy Greenwich Fire Chief Kevin Millette said. The drivers are lost and not paying attention to the signs and the next thing they see there is a bridge they wont fit under.

State Police Troop G receives 911 calls each day reporting commercial vehicles on the parkway. Many of them are driven by non-commercial drivers, like people who rent a U-Haul to move their belongings.

They are just following their GPS, not realizing that the vehicle they just rented is not allowed on that parkway, State Trooper Sgt. Robert Derry said. This also goes for (all types of) trailers being towed on the parkway.

Most of the 911 callers are locals whove read the no commercial vehicle of passenger cars only signs many times, Derry said. Most of the offenders are from out of state. Because theyre not using the box trucks for work, many feel the signs arent meant for them.

I believe that theres a signage issue that's not really getting the message out to the traveling motorist about being on the parkway with these illegal vehicles, he said.

A DOT-led group thats studying the signage could recommend changes in the future, Derry said.

Those changes are more difficult to implement than on other roads for the same reason commercial vehicles are banned: the Merritt is a scenic road. Thats meant no billboards, and no clearance markers on some of the charming, arching overpasses  including the one where Elezaj died.
Vancouver, BC -- (ReleaseWire) -- 11/03/2017 --According to a new series of reports on the Mexico market for minimally invasive spinal (MIS) implants by iData Research (www.idataresearch.com), the country imports minimally invasive devices, mostly from American and European manufacturers. However, the U.S. dollar has seen strong growth recently. As a result, it has been less profitable for companies to import MIS devices and this has stunted market growth.



Other market segments are also experiencing significant changes. The MIS interbody market is seeing a shift toward oblique lumbar interbody fusion (OLIF) and lateral lumbar interbody fusion (LLIF) devices and away from minimally invasive posterior lumbar interbody fusion (MIPLIF) and minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (MITLIF) devices. The oblique and lateral lumbar approaches are expected to see more growth than their posterior and transforaminal lumbar counterparts, although positive growth is expected across all segments.



"While smaller companies in the space are generally focusing on the private healthcare sector in Mexico, larger companies such as Zimmer Biomet have been able to establish relationships with the public sector as well," explains Jeffrey Wong, Strategic Analyst Manager at iData Research. "This gives them brand recognition and means that surgeons are familiar with the company when it comes to newer technologies."



Zimmer Biomet is the leading competitor in the Mexican minimally invasive spine market due to their leading share in the MIS pedicle screw and spinous process fixation segments. Zimmer Biomet's Aspen has been very successful and has gained considerable share since its introduction. The company has also benefitted from strong growth in Mexico due to effective use of third-party vendors. However, since the recent introduction of new products in the market, Zimmer Biomet's share of the total market has stabilized. Zimmer Biomet's market share will continue to be contested as more innovative competitor products enter the market.



DePuy Synthes is the second-largest overall market leader in the Mexican MIS spine market. The company holds the leading position in the MIS interbody segment and the relatively small facet fixation segment. Via its parent company, Johnson & Johnson, DePuy Synthes has also managed to establish stronger relationships with the public sector than some of its competitors.



Additional competitors in the Mexican minimally invasive spinal market include Medtronic, NuVasive, Globus Medical, Stryker and Ulrich Medical among others. The number of companies present in the MIS segments is expected to grow as prices stabilize and the technology becomes more familiar.



For Further Information



More on the MIS implant market in Mexico can be found in a series of reports published by iData Research entitled the Mexico Market Report Suite for Minimally Invasive Spinal Implants 2018. The full report suite includes segments for MIS interbody devices, MIS pedicle screws, spinous process fixation, facet fixation, spine endoscope and MIS spine instrumentation.



The iData report series on MIS implants covers the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan and 15 countries in Europe including Germany, France, the United Kingdom (U.K.), Italy, Spain, Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg), Scandinavia (Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway), Portugal, Austria and Switzerland. Reports provide a comprehensive analysis including units sold, market value, forecasts, as well as detailed competitive market shares and analysis of major players' success strategies in each market and segment. To find out more about MIS implant market and procedure data, register online or email us at info@idataresearch.net for a Mexico Market Report Suite for Minimally Invasive Spinal Implants 2018 brochure and synopsis.



About iData Research

iData Research (www.idataresearch.com) is an international market research and consulting firm, dedicated to providing the best in business intelligence for the medical device industry. Our research empowers our clients by providing them with the necessary tools to achieve their goals and do it right the first time. iData covers research in: Spinal Implants and VCF, Spinal MIS, Orthopedic Trauma, Large & Small Joints, Orthopedic Soft Tissue, Orthopedic Biomaterials, Orthopedic Soft Tissue Reinforcement and Regeneration, Wound Management, Dental Operatory Equipment, Dental Material, Dental Lasers, Dental Prosthetics, Dental CAD/CAM, Dental Bone Graft Substitutes, Ultrasound, X-Ray Imaging, Diagnostic Imaging, Oncology, Ophthalmics, Vascular Access, Laparoscopy, Urology, Gynecology, Endoscopy, Interventional Cardiology, Cardiac Surgery, Cardiac Rhythm Management, Electrophysiology, Operating Room Equipment, Surgical Microscopes, Robotics and Surgical Navigation, Anesthesiology and more.



We have built a reputation and earned our clients' trust based on consistent and uniquely intelligent research that allows our customers to make confident decisions and impact their businesses. A combination of market expertise and over a decade of experience has resulted in a deep understanding of the medical device industry that has inspired innovation and propelled our clients to success.
Cambodia is a dangerous country for environmental activists like Leng Ouch, who won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2016 and the Asia Game Changer Award on Nov. 1 in New York. He continues to expose illegal logging and corruption in Cambodia. He was interviewed by RFA Khmer Service reporter Tin Zakariya by phone on Nov. 2



RFA: Why were you given this latest award?

Leng Ouch: I won this prize because of my work in protecting the environment. I have mobilized people to help protect Cambodia's forests and have advocated for an end to illegal logging and the trade in smuggled timber. I have also made public statements hoping to ease tensions between Cambodia and the U.S. I have asked the U.S. to relieve the debt Cambodia owes, and I have also called on European countries to freeze their timber trade with countries like China and Vietnam, because these countries engage in illegal logging in Cambodia and Laos. Vietnam plays a significant role in illegal logging in Cambodia, because it sells the logs and timber it gets to European countries. I have also appealed to the world to stop buying wood from China and Vietnam.



RFA: You are recognized as an activist who has risked his life fighting to protect Prey Long forest, and have even lost a leg because of your activities. Aren't you afraid of being killed like the activist Chut Wutty, who was killed while advocating for the protection of the forests and environment?

Leng Ouch: Yes, I am afraid. However, I have to take risks to make change. If I don't take these risks, illegal loggers will be free to continue destroy our forests. I know that life may be short for me. A year after I won the Goldman Environmental Prize, I lost my left leg. But no matter how short my life may be, I will continue to fight to protect the environment. I am not afraid to expose and denounce tycoons who engage in illegal logging and deforestation.



RFA: Who are the tycoons who engage in illegal logging? Why are they not affected by [prime minister] Hun Sens promise to curb illegal logging?

Leng Ouch: Ty Pheap is one of them. He is backed by several government officials, including military personnel and high-ranking police officials. Another is An Marady, who owns sawmills across the country. Ly Yong Phat also owns sawmills. Kith Meng is also involved in illegal logging in the Lower Sesan 2 dam reservoir. There are also a lot more. There are 3,000 to 4,000 people who are involved in illegal logging. They are protected by corrupt officials, and whistleblowers are put at risk and put on a blacklist for persecution. I was arrested and threatened with death on several occasions but I have gotten used to this kind of intimidation.



RFA: Several of the people you have named are members of the ruling party [CPP] and are Hun Sens close associates. Is this the reason those tycoons remain at large?

Leng Ouch: It is easy to crack down on crime, but unfortunately the government has no will to do it. Thats because the proceeds from illegal logging are put into political campaigns for the ruling party. Before each election, tycoons will collect proceeds from their crimes to support the ruling partys political campaigns and the Cambodian Red Cross.This is a fact.



RFA: How effective Is the Cambodian governments effort to stop illegal logging, as announced by Hun Sen?

Leng Ouch: It's not. And thats because Hun Sens relatives are involved in forest crimes. And several tycoons are ruling party members. There is no way they can be prosecuted as long as they are protected by the ruling elite.



RFA: Where does most illegal logging take place?

Leng Ouch: This happens in the border areas. At least 200-300 truckloads of logs are transported from Cambodia into Vietnam every day.



RFA: If illegal logging continues at this rate, what will happen to the forests in the future?

Leng Ouch: The governments pledge to curb illegal logging exists only on paper. In reality they have not been able to stop it. People have no faith that the government will protect the forests and the environment. We have to rely heavily on each member of the community to stand up and protect our forests and environment. We have to take this matter into our own hands.
Late Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo's wife Liu Xia (C) and his brother Liu Xiaoguang (L) hold a portrait of Liu Xiaobo and receive his ashes in an urn at a funeral parlor in Shenyang, northeastern China's Liaoning province, July 15, 2017.

Dozens of writers and artists have called on Chinese president Xi Jinping to end all restrictions and surveillance imposed on Liu Xia, widow of late Nobel peace laureate and political prisoner Liu Xiaobo.

"We ask you to remove all remaining restrictions on Liu Xia, including over her freedom of movement, and to permit her to meet and speak freely with others including her family, friends, and members of the media," some 50 writers, artists and supporters of PEN America said in an open letter to Xi ahead of President Donald Trump's visit to China on Nov. 8.

"The only apparent reason for her long detention is her connection to Liu Xiaobo," said the letter, which was signed by well-known authors, including Chimamanda Achibie, Margaret Atwood, and Khaled Hosseini.

"As a result of her years of enforced solitude, Liu Xia is reported to be in poor physical and mental health, including a diagnosis of depression and a heart condition," said the letter, which also bore the signatures of composer Stephen Sondheim, philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, and satirist Jules Feiffer.

Liu Xia was last seen in photographs on July 15 at the sea burial of her husband's ashes, but has been incommunicado since then, with a security guard hanging around her Beijing home.

The letter dismissed claims that Liu Xia is free to do as she pleases.

"The circumstances make it clear that she remains in a state of de facto incommunicado detention, cut off from the outside world and barred from making her own free decisions regarding whom to speak with and where to travel," it said.

"Liu Xia has undergone great suffering for many years, simply for being the wife of a man that China has deemed to be a dissident," it said. "She has committed no crime, and she has not been charged with any crime."

"She should be free to meet freely with family, friends, and members of the international community, free to travel where she wishes, and free to be reunited with the outside world," the letter said.

PEN America executive director Suzanne Nossel also called on Trump to voice concern over the plight of Liu Xia when he meets with Chinese leaders in Beijing.

"On his upcoming visit to Beijing, we hope President Trump will voice the United States concern about the inhumane and unjustifiable detention of a poet who has been accused of no crime," Nossel said in a statement.

"Liu Xia lost her husband when he contracted cancer in prison and faced limited treatment opportunities," she said. "Her continued torment is a singularly cruel manifestation of Chinas determination to suppress not only dissenters, but someone whose only crime was to love one."

However, the Trump administration has been taking a more muted approach than the administration of President Obama to such concerns, Reuters reported, citing current and former U.S. officials, rights activists and diplomats.

Scant signs of a letup

There are scant signs, too, that there will be any letup in a comprehensive crackdown on peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party that has been the order of the day under the Xi administration.

Earlier this week, authorities in the eastern province of Shandong sentenced netizen Wang Jiangfeng to one year and 10 months' in prison after finding him guilty of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble."

Wang was accused of referring to the head of the ruling Chinese Communist Party as "Steamed Bun Xi" in a group message to the social media platforms WeChat and QQ.

The phrase has been banned on China's tightly controlled internet since the president ordered the buns during a visit to a Beijing restaurant in December 2013, prompting petitioners to gather outside toting a placard that read "President Xi, I'd like to eat steamed buns too" in a bid to get their grievances against the government heard.

The incident sparked an online meme in which Xi was referred to jokingly as Steamed Bun Xi, in a pun on the name of a legendary Song dynasty official who fought corruption. Censors later banned the meme, deleting social media posts that contained references to it.

Wang's lawyer Li Yongheng said his client would appeal.

"Wang Jiangfeng made it very clear in court that he plans to appeal," Li said.

Wang's wife Li Wenjuan said she had begun to nurture false hopes when a retrial was ordered earlier this year.

"I thought that if there was a retrial, that they would find him not guilty and release him," she said. "But then they dragged it out until Sept. 29, and I began to have doubts."

Trump embarked on an 11-day trip to Asia on Friday that will take in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Talks with his Japanese, South Korean, and Chinese counterparts will likely be dominated by North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons programs.

Trump's visit will be the longest to Asia by a U.S. president since President George Bush's visit in 1991-1992.

Reported by Gao Feng for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Authorities in Shanghai on Friday tried a woman for "obstructing public officials" after she pursued complaints for many years through the ruling Chinese Communist Party's petitioning system.



Sun Hongqin was placed in administrative detention after being brought back from Beijing, where she was pursuing a complaint against local officials in Shanghai.



The Shanghai No. 2 Railways and Public Transportation Court heard her case on Friday morning before adjourning, she said.



"Of course the charge of obstructing public officials is unfair," she said. "I only received the notification of the charge against me at around 6.00 p.m. yesterday, and they held the trial this morning."



Sun said pursuing an official complaint via China's "letters and visits" petitioning system doesn't break any of the country's laws.



"It's very unfair of them to use such tactics on me," she said. "If the court prosecuted this case properly, sticking to the law, then I would win for sure."



"They have used all manner of tactics ... and I am not optimistic," she said. "But this is a battle ... I won't be led by the nose by them ... I will continue to sue and complain about their illegal actions."



"I keep fighting, and I keep losing, but whatever happens, I have to keep going," she said.



Tight security at trial



Shanghai rights activist Ren Naijun said he had attended the trial, where security was very tight.



"There were a lot of police outside the court buildings, which seems pretty excessive if they were there because of [Sun]," Ren said.



"I was asked to produce my ID, and I had to leave my cell phone and bag with them."



"But if I had been going to a different chamber, I would have been able to take my cell phone with me," Ren said. "



Sun has been protesting the freezing of her state pension for the past 17 years, as well as her forcible eviction and the demolition of her home in 2010.



To date, she has had no redress for her grievances, and has faced continual harassment from officials targeting both herself and members of her family.



'Heading backwards'



Shanghai-based dissident Ma Yalian said China is regressing when it comes to the rule of law.



"The rule of law has been heading backwards in China in the past few years," he said. "The vise is tightening."



"Ordinary people are still trying to find a way through, but it is a cruel struggle," he said.



Authorities in China have stepped up nationwide "stability maintenance" measures targeting anyone with a critical opinion of the government, as President Xi Jinping consolidates his personal grip on power in the wake of the 19th Party Congress last month.



China's "letters and visits" complaints system is flooded with some 22,000 new complaints daily across the country, according to government figures from 2013.



But petitioners say local authorities often retaliate against them with arbitrary detentions, beatings, and other forms of harassment, and never allow a complaint to make it far enough through the system to qualify for a higher review.



Reported by Gao Feng for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wong Lok-to for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Nurul Islam, his wife, Amina Khatun, and their five children sit in their hut at a camp for Rohingya refugees in Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh, Nov. 3, 2017.

As Bangladeshs government struggled this week to persuade residents of overcrowded refugee camps to use contraceptives as part of a new push to promote family planning among Rohingya Muslims, Nurul Islams wife gave birth to their fifth child.

Three-day-old Ayesha was born Tuesday in a tiny, one-room hut in Teknaf upazila (sub-district) in Coxs Bazar district that her parents and four brothers have called home for the past two months since they fled a fresh cycle of violence and atrocities allegedly committed against the Rohingya minority by the military in neighboring Myanmar.

Islam was elated at what he described as his latest achievement.

Having a child shows that you are a strong man. I now have five of them, the 32-year-old proudly told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service. And I will try for more, he added with an air of confidence.

Unlike most other members of his community, Islam said, he was aware of birth control procedures but wasnt interested because the practice was considered a sin.

I know what a condom is but have never used one, he said  a telling statement uttered by a majority of Rohingya that prompted the family planning office of Coxs Bazar to introduce birth control steps in about 15 refugee camps sheltering nearly 1 million members of the displaced group.

More than 600,000 of them, including about 20,000 pregnant women, have arrived in southeastern Bangladesh from Buddhist-majority Myanmar since its military launched a counter-offensive in response to insurgent attacks in Rakhine state on Aug. 25, according to the latest estimates from the United Nations.

Deep-rooted problem

Officials with the Directorate of Family Planning, which is connected to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, launched the birth control program in Rohingya camps in September.

But soon after, they realized they were only scratching the surface of a deep-rooted problem, Pintu Kanti Bhattacharjee, the departments deputy director, told BenarNews.

A majority of Rohingya, who are largely uneducated, are not aware of birth control measures. The ones who are aware are convinced that family planning methods conflict with their faith, he said, adding, We then realized we were faced with a huge challenge.

Before the refugee crisis exploded in late August, Bhattacharjees department had about 50 workers.

We have hired about 200 people over the past few weeks and still feel the need for more staff, he said. The near 250 health workers operate out of 13 offices in Ukhia and Teknaf sub-districts and go door-to-door to educate Rohingya about the benefits of family planning.

So far, we have managed to talk about birth control with 150,000 Rohingya. We convinced 7,500 of them to take contraceptive measures like condoms, pills and injections, Bhattacharjee said.

I would like to opt for birth control

Islam, the refugee who became a father for the fifth time this week, was among the unconvinced multitude.

Our children are Allahs gift to us. We will accept as many as he gives us, he said, as he prepared to walk 1 km (0.6 mile) to the nearest food distribution center to bring his family something to eat.

Allah will take care of them, he added, before disappearing into the crowd of refugees rushing to get ration supplies.

Islams wife, Amina Khatun, 24, said she did not agree with her husband.

If they [family planning workers] come here, I would like to opt for birth control, she told BenarNews.

She had their first child when she was 16 years old, two years after getting married. Over the next eight years she delivered four more children. All of them, including the latest addition to their family, were born at home with help from women in the neighborhood.

Its not easy to take care of so many children. And my husband wants to have more, Khatun said exhaustedly as she breastfed her newborn.

Abdul Muktalif, 57, a camp leader in Teknaf, said that all Rohingya couples had at least five children in hopes that the more kids they have, the more money they will bring in when they grow up.

Muktalif, who has been living at the Leda camp for the last 14 years, has 15 children  the youngest 1 year old  from three wives.

Officials weigh voluntary sterilization

Bhattacharjee said his office was mulling the idea of providing voluntary sterilization to Rohingya but cannot implement it unless the Ministry (of Health and Family Welfare) approves it.

In a statement issued Thursday, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said: Simply offering sterilization would be a narrow and unethical approach.

Family planning is a matter of individual choice, should be completely voluntary, and women, girls and couples should have access to the widest method mix for them to choose from complemented by adequate information and counseling on available methods and services, it said.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
Tun Khin, founder and president of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, speaks about Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh displacement camps during a panel discussion on the crisis in Myanmar's northern Rakhine state, in Washington, Nov. 1, 2017.

Rohingya human rights activist Tun Khin, recently spent several weeks in Muslim refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh to which hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled during a military crackdown in Myanmars northern Rakhine state. The founder and president of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, a leading voice for Rohingya around the world, was in Washington on Wednesday, participating in a panel discussion on Capitol Hill about the ongoing violence in Rakhine, the mass displacement of Rohingya, and the work that international and domestic NGOs are doing to alleviate the crisis. The following is an edited version of an interview Tun Khin did with Kyaw Kyaw Aung of RFAs Myanmar Service.

RFA: You went to Bangladesh to observe and interview Rohingya refugees a few weeks ago. What did you see?

Tun Khin: I went there in mid-September and stayed there about a month. The situation of refugees there is terrible. They were cracked down on by the Myanmar army, which killed them, set fire to their homes, and raped women when they were in Rakhine state. The refugee camps they are living in now have no clean water or proper shelter. I saw some women who had given birth on the way to Bangladesh after traveling about 10 days from Buthidaung township [in northern Rakhine state].

RFA: Bangladesh and Myanmar are in the process of repatriating Rohingya refugees based on a 1993 agreement between the two countries that allows the return of Rohingya who can prove residence in Myanmar. What is the best way for both countries and the international community to see that they are accepted back?

Tun Khin: In my opinion, they shouldnt be sent back to Rakhine state right now because all their property has been destroyed. Where would they live if they are sent back?

RFA: The Myanmar government has been building houses for them, so if both countries agree on the repatriation process, what other difficulty would they face?

Tun Khin: The Rohingya whom I met in Bangladesh told me that they have nothing left in Rakhine state and they dont have any right to travel, marry, or get an education. The question is, how can they return to a place where they have no rights?

RFA: The international community has pointed out that Myanmars 1982 Citizenship Law bars these Muslims from becoming citizens. If the law needs to be amended, which points should be changed?

Tun Khin: Before the Citizenship Law was issued, Rohingya already constituted an ethnic group in Myanmar. After this law was issued, other people were given national identity cards, but the Rohingya were given temporary registration certificates, commonly known as white cards. This Citizenship Law is not up to international standards, and the Rohingya can become citizens only if this law is amended.

RFA: After the deadly attacks by the Muslim militant group the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on 30 police posts in northern Rakhine on Aug. 25, local ethnic Rakhine people became worried about their territory, and 600,000 Muslims had to flee to Bangladesh. Do the activists and organizations that work for Rohingya rights support ARSAs activities?

Tun Khin: As far as I know, the activists and organizations working on Rohingya rights dont support ARSA. We dont know them, and we dont have any connections to them. ARSAs target is the Myanmar army and police who have oppressed the Rohingya.

RFA: What about the many hundred deaths of local civilians from other ethnic groups in northern Rakhine state, such as Hindus, Mro, and Daingnet?

Tun Khin: Only the Myanmar army and government announced such news. We dont know who killed them, because the Myanmar government hasnt allowed international reporters to go to these areas.

RFA: ARSA's leader Ata Ullah released a video urging all Muslims in Rakhine to unite and fight to take over territory in the state as their own land. Now Bangladesh and the United Nations are calling on Myanmar to create a safe zone for Rohingya. Because of this, ethnic Rakhine non-Muslims, including the Burmese, are concerned about losing their territory, and they have been holding rallies to support the army and the government. Do you think these campaigns are reasonable?

Tun Khin: No, they are not reasonable. People who are fighting against the Myanmar army are young people with knives and sticks. How can they fight to have a territory of their own? The Myanmar government and army are doing this to incite more hatred against the Rohingya.

RFA: The media in India have published reports that said Al-Qaeda provided military training to the Rohingya. Are you concerned about the Rohingya making contact with terrorist groups such as ISIS or Al-Qaeda and about increased instability in Rakhine?

Tun Khin: We all are worried about increased instability in the region, but the media in India have published baseless news.

RFA: Do you think ARSA will carry out further attacks?

Tun Khin: ARSA members are young people, and they are not well organized, but they have been saying they will continue the fighting. Actually, we have to search for a political solution.

RFA: Since 2016, international activists like you who work for Rohingya rights have blamed State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi for the crisis in Rakhine state. Why?

Tun Khin: Actually, the Myanmar army is committing crimes against the Rohingya, such as killing them, raping women, and burning down their houses, but Aung San Suu Kyi is protecting the army by saying that what the international media say [about the militarys atrocities] is not true. She is a Nobel Peace Prize winner whom we depended on and had expectations of. We [Rohingyas] even campaigned for her and other political prisoners freedom about seven years ago. We are very disappointed that she is protecting the army.



Reported by Kyaw Kyaw Aung for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Villagers cover the body of Myanmar land rights activist Htay Aung, who was beaten to death by a mob, Nov. 1, 2017.

A Myanmar land rights activist who challenged illegal land grabs in northern Shan State was beaten to death this week by a mob of some 20 people, a fellow unionist told RFAs Myanmar Service on Thursday.

Htay Aung, a member of the National Farmers Union was attacked by a mob on Wednesday in Iwine Parhe Village of Naungcho Township, northeast of the city of Mandalay and later died at Mandalay Hospital.

Naw Ohn Hla, chairwoman of the National Farmers Union, described to RFA the events leading up to the attack, for which three people have been arrested.

An Iwine Parhe Village administrator telephoned Farmers Union members and asked them to meet to talk about a land grab case on October 28. Htay Aung and some group members went to the meeting point and about 20 people including women attacked him in front of the village administrator, she told RFA.

Thats why we wonder if this was planned, added Naw Ohn Hla.

Of the 20 or more attackers, Eike Kyaw, Kyaw Zan Lat and Naw Ngyin were arrested, she said.

I asked the police to take action against all the people who were involved in the case and gave them the names of people involved as I was told by local villagers. I also asked them to work for getting justice, said Naw Ohn Hla.

RFAs efforts to reach Naungcho Police Station and Banbwe Police Station in Naungcho Township by telephone were unsuccessful.

Htay Aung, a leading rural activist who has tried to call the attention of Myanmars president and vice-president to land-grab cases, spoke to RFA in mid-October about a long-running dispute in Naungcho Township involving 346 acres that were seized from 31 households back in 1997.

The land had changed hands, with a New Zealand farming concern growing corn, wheat and sesame until 2002, then a group from Palaung ethnic minority growing corn and sugarcane from 2005-2008.

We havent gotten the lands back yet. We have reported it to authorities since 2015, but havent had any response, Htay Aung told RFA.

We received the letters from military and said this land is to be returned to us, but we cant work on it yet. We dont know what Naungcho Township administrator and Land Records and Agricultural Department are doing about it," he said.

Land grabs and the appropriation of public property to turn over to foreign and domestic companies are a major source of political and social tension in Myanmar and other Southeast Asian countries.

Reported by San San Tin and Wai Mar Htun for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Paul Eckert.
A Rohingya Muslim mob attacked and injured two ethnic Rakhine residents of Thaye Koneboung village in Myanmars conflict-torn northern Rakhine state on Thursday, the latest bout of violence amid growing tension between Buddhist and Muslim communities in the ethnically and religiously divided state.

About 30 Rohingya attacked the men with knives and sticks in the village in Maungdaw township, said Tin Aung, administrator of Thaye Koneboung village. His account could not be independently verified in a conflict zone under tight army control.

We dont know why they approached and attacked these villagers, he said. Local witnesses said only four people attacked them, though the rest were standing around.

One of the injured was taken to the hospital, he said.

The incident is further proof that trust has been lost between the two communities and people are still provoking each other, he said.

Aung Than Tin, a resident of Thaye Koneboung village said those injured were part of a seven-member group who had left the area to go fishing.

The attackers spoke their own language, and villagers couldnt understand them, he said. As these Muslims attacked them, the villagers ran away, but two people were injured.

The villagers filed a report at their local police station as well as at Myoma Police Station in Maungdaw, he said.

A deadly attack by a Muslim militant group on 30 police outposts and an army facility on Aug. 25 sparked a military crackdown in the northern Rakhine townships of Maungdaw, Buthidaung, and Rathedaung.

The operation caused more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslim residents to flee to safety in neighboring Bangladesh where some have accused soldiers of indiscriminate killing, arson, torture, and rape.

The Myanmar government has denied the accusations.

About 30,000 Hindus and other non-Muslims living in northern Rakhine fled south amid the crackdown and subsequent communal attacks in which Muslim militants raided villages and in some cases killed the residents.

Thousands of Rohingya are still passing through Maungdaw en route to Bangladesh.

Local villagers are getting worried because more than 10,000 Muslims coming from other places are staying in this area waiting to go to Bangladesh, Aung Than Tin said.

We have had the same provocations from Muslims in the past because they were a majority in our area, and just a few local ethnic [Rakhine] people lived here, he said. But the Muslims who we had problems with already fled to Bangladesh, and these people are newcomers from other areas.

Security guards have been deployed in the village to protect non-Muslim residents, he said.

Unexpected visit

The attack comes a day after State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi paid an unexpected visit to Maungdaw township where she met with members of both ethnic Rakhine and Rohingya communities. It was her first foray in the state following the deadly August attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and previous smaller-scale attacks by the same group in October 2016.

The Nobel laureate has come under fire by the international community for not speaking out about the treatment of the Rohingya in what the United Nations and others call ethnic cleansing in the region  an allegation Myanmar has rejected.

In the meantime, Myanmar and Bangladesh are working on a plan to repatriate some of the 600,000 Rohingya who fled during the most recent military crackdown in northern Rakhine.

Earlier this week, the Myanmar government blamed Bangladesh for stalling on some points of a 1993 repatriation agreement between the two countries that would allow Rohingya who can prove residency to return to the country. Bangladesh officials have denied the charge.

Reported by Min Thein Aung and Wai Mar Tun for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Authorities in northwestern Chinas Xinjiang are urging citizens to turn in ethnic Uyghur workers in government and other public sectors suspected of disloyalty toward Chinese policies in the politically sensitive region, sources say.



Phone lines have been set up to encourage informants in major cities, while a public announcement issued in mid-October in Xinjiangs Bortala city urges readers to identify cadres and other workers suspected of two-faced behavior.



Numerous categories of disloyal activity are outlined in the document, a copy of which was recently obtained by RFAs Uyghur Service.



Some concern involvement in religious practice restricted by authorities in the mostly Muslim region, while others relate to the harboring or promotion of separatist or extremist sentiment, or to the providing of support to separatist groups.



The publication of information harming the unity of the country or distorting the history of Xinjiang, the ethnically Turkic Uyghurs homeland now claimed by Beijing, is also flagged as a disloyal act.



Reached for comment by RFA, an officer on duty at the Gusu police station in Bortala quickly hung up the phone, while an officer in Bortalas Hongxin police station said that rewards would not be offered for information on two-faced workers.



Just expose them, like it said in the announcement, he said.



Also speaking to RFA, a Han Chinese official at the Bortala Party Committee office said that a special office has now been set up in Bortala to examine information brought forward by informers.



Higher authorities will judge all of this, she said, before whispering to a colleague and then hanging up the phone.



Heightened repression



Heightened repression in Xinjiang may now be leading Uyghurs living in the region to betray others in order to survive, Ilshat Hassanpresident of the Washington-based Uyghur American Associationtold RFA in an interview.



As soon as ordinary Uyghurs realize that nothing can guarantee their personal safety, they may decide to expose others so-called dangerous and suspicious activities in order to protect themselves, he said.



In this way, they can show the Chinese authorities that they themselves are not a danger to the state.



Since April, thousands of Uyghurs accused of harboring extremist and politically incorrect views have been detained in re-education camps throughout Xinjiang, where members of the ethnic group complain of pervasive discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression under Chinese rule.



Reports indicate that authorities in Xinjiang are now also detaining Uyghurs who have traveled outside China, sometimes to visit family members in Central Asia or to pursue religious studies in Turkey and Egypt, and are refusing to free them until they admit it was wrong to have left the country.



China regularly conducts strike hard campaigns in Xinjiang, including police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people, including videos and other material.



While China blames some Uyghurs for terrorist attacks, experts outside China say that Beijing has exaggerated the threat from the Uyghurs and that repressive domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence there that has left hundreds dead since 2009.



Reported and translated by Kurban Niyaz for RFAs Uyghur Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
When President Xi Jinping unveiled his newly reshuffled Politburo standing committee after the 19th national congress of the ruling Chinese Communist Party closed last month, not one was female. This was less surprising than it might have been given that there has never been a woman in the all-powerful committee, and that less than a quarter of congress delegates were female. There is only one woman on the 25-member Politburo. U.S.-based activist Zhang Qing, who founded the group Women's Rights in China, told RFA's Mandarin Service about the challenges women face in getting to the top in Chinese politics:



RFA: What do you think the new leadership says about women's status in China's political life?



Zhang Qing: The Chinese Communist Party has a handful of men on its Politburo standing committee handle all of the research and implementation of policy and laws. It's the same with family planning policy. In the 1950s, they told women to have more children, then they told them to only have one. Now that has been relaxed to two children. A handful of men came up with all of this. On the surface, men and women are equal, but in reality, women are underrepresented in the job market and in education. Also, women in China are forced to retire at the age of 55.



RFA: Do you see this as something that comes from the top?



Zhang Qing: [President Xi wants] the husband to go out to work and the woman to stay home to support him and to bring up the family, to take the responsibility of educating the children. There has been an initiative to promote Confucianism across the whole country in the past few years, and some women believe in this idea too. There's a famous Chinese academic who told women they should get back in the kitchen. So all of this shows you the lack of respect for women on the part of Chinese men, who pay no attention to women's rights, whether they are high or low-ranking.



RFA: What are your thoughts about the detention of the Feminist Five ahead of International Women's Day, 2015?



Zhang Qing: All they did was to speak out against sexual harassment, and advocate for women's rights. It had very little to do with politics. It's not as if they were trying to overthrow the Communist Party. But the Chinese Communist Party ruthlessly suppressed them. The United States may not have had a female president, but at least there is justice in its laws, and the proportion of women in politics is higher. There are also NGOs and members of Congress elected by the people who have to listen to the people. In China, however, the National People's Congress is just there for decoration. And there is even less attention paid to women, children and other vulnerable groups. Even the recent Marriage Law and the Domestic Violence Law are unfair to women.



RFA: Do you see any improvement during the Xi era in the status of Chinese women?



Zhang Qing: Women are more than capable, with their deep social sensitivity, of running a country, and they are very good at mobilizing. But at the current time in China, their lack of participation in politics is something to be ashamed of. Taiwan is tiny, but it has a female leader. The chief executive of Hong Kong is also a woman ... and yet we have never had a woman on the Politburo standing committee in China, ever. I think it's very hard to see how there could be an improvement in women's rights during the Xi era.



RFA: What do you see happening in the next five years?



Zhang Qing: I think the next five years are going to be quite tragic for women, especially if Xi Jinping continues to make constitutional changes and governs for a very long time. It will be piling layer upon layer of tragedy, because, based on everything Xi Jinping has said about his views on women, he really doesn't concern himself with them at all ... The oppression of women under Xi is worse than it was under [former president] Hu Jintao. I don't think the new administration will do much at all for women. I'm not optimistic that there will be any improvement in women's rights at all.



Reported by Han Qing for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
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A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
DALEVILLE  When county officials moved two historic slave buildings to make way for economic growth in Botetourt County, the controversy also moved Steve Clinton closer to his decision to run for his old seat on the board of supervisors.

Clinton, who served on the board for 14 years, is challenging Todd Dodson in the Amsterdam district.

Dodson and the rest of the board supported relocating the last remaining outbuildings of the Greenfield Plantation last year, moving a slave quarters and kitchen house intact from their spot on a hilltop in what is now the Greenfield industrial park.

It just kind of caught fire, Clinton said of the issues role in his decision to run as an independent against the Republican incumbent.

In one of the countys more contentious debates in recent years, critics accused the board of destroying the historical integrity of the buildings, disturbing the home of the black communitys ancestors and failing to involve the public in the plan until it was a done deal.

Clinton appeared on behalf of opponents at a board meeting in February 2016, when he asked the supervisors to delay the move and consider a new strategy. But by then, bulldozers and house-movers already had been set in motion.

In a recent interview, Clinton said county residents who sought his involvement urged him afterward to run for the board of supervisors again, something that he had already been thinking about.

But Clinton isnt making the controversy a major issue in his campaign, which he said is more focused on his record and how to manage a growing economy while preserving Botetourt Countys natural beauty and open spaces.

Dodson maintains that it made sense to move the slave buildings about a half-mile to a new spot, a historical preservation area within the Greenfield complex but away from the hustle and bustle of industry.

A citizens committee backed the move 20 years ago, but it didnt gain momentum until the Greater Roanoke Valley Development Foundation selected Greenfield for the construction of a $3 million vacant building as a lure for new industry.

We didnt come up with this, Dodson said. We just looked at it, dusted the plan off, and said thats a good idea. 

But to Clinton, the top-down manner in which the county executed its plan revealed an unwillingness to listen to the public.

I do think that the board itself has become more detached from the citizens, he said. Theres a separation from the people.

Dodson said he and his fellow board members considered all comments from the community.

Just because we didnt agree with you doesnt mean that we didnt listen, he said, citing comments from many constituents who supported the boards stance.

Moving historic buildings to make way for economic progress is just one example of tension between the new and old Botetourt.

The Amsterdam District is at the center of a growth spurt fueled by the more than 1,300 new jobs expected from a new Ballast Point brewery and distribution center that opened over the summer, a high-tech automotive parts factory currently under construction by Eldor Corp., a community college shared services center and other industrial expansions announced since Dodson began his first term in 2014.

Rapid growth will force county officials to deal with issues like traffic, increased demand for services and the need for more affordable rental housing to accommodate a new workforce.

For some residents who value Botetourt County for its country living within a short drive of the city, the line between rural and urban is getting too close for comfort.

Theres been a lot of change in the county over the last four years, Dodson said. That gets people nervous, and I understand that.

Rather than rubber-stamp every development proposal that comes before it, he said, the board has taken a more strategic approach based on a vision for the county that it formulated in 2014.

The plan calls for concentrating growth in the more populated southern end of the county  an area that includes the Exit 150 interchange off Interstate 81, the Daleville Town Center and the Greenfield industrial park  while preserving the rural stretches and farmland to the north, with an emphasis on reviving that regions agricultural economy.

Im not going to say that the old way is the bad way, Dodson said. But this board has set a new way and a new vision to get things done in Botetourt County.

Clinton agreed what with the growth, things are just a whole lot more complex than they were. New residents love the beauty and country setting, but they have a higher expectation for services.

In many respects, Clinton and Dodson are similar.

Both have records as Republican board members. Both are businessmen with prior military backgrounds  Dodson is a retired U.S. Army colonel with combat experience in the special forces; Clinton served in the U.S. Air Force. Both say the toughest decision during their time on the board was voting for a tax increase.

Although the board raised taxes during Clintons 14 years on the board, which ended when he did not seek re-election in 2013 to take an out-of-town job, an earlier decrease in the rate worked out to a net decline of 3 cents per $100 of assessed value during his tenure.

Dodson voted for a 7-cent increase in the rate in 2016 that established the current levy of 79 cents per $100 of assessed value.

A Nov. 1 political advertisement in The Fincastle Herald, paid for by Clintons campaign, described Dodson as just another tax and spend politician.

Dodson argued at a recent candidates forum that during his term the board decided that it could no longer dip into the countys reserve fund to balance the budget, as previous boards had done, because it was not good fiscal management.

I think thats where the county tripped up, he said.

At the same forum, a murmur of discontent ran through the crowd when Dodson explained his position on the Greenfield slave quarters controversy.

During an interview earlier in the month, Clinton included the issue as one of several reasons why he thinks Botetourt should be working harder to address race relations in a county that is about 95 percent white.

Weve probably convinced ourselves in Botetourt that everything is fine and comfortable with race relations, and it probably is on the surface, he said. But its a separated society.

Asked to respond, Dodson said: If hes trying to make race a part of the campaign, thats his issue.  If somebodys got a race issue, Id love to help them with it. But I dont know of any.

This year marks the first time since 2011 that Botetourt voters have a choice for the board of supervisors.

Theres an uncontested race for an open seat in the Buchanan district, where Ray Sloan, a funeral home owner and chaplain for the Botetourt Fire & EMS Department, is poised to replace John Williamson, who chose not to seek another term.

Clinton, who was a Republican during his earlier years on the board, said he decided to run as an independent this time rather than challenge Dodson for the partys nomination. That way, he said, more voters could be presented with a choice.

I wanted to have more of a community conversation, he said.
CHRISTIANSBURG  A Roanoke man accused of exposing himself near Montgomery Countys Margaret Beeks Elementary School last spring pleaded not guilty Thursday but agreed that there was enough evidence to convict him.

In an agreement worked out before his hearing, John Darrell Willard, 49, was convicted in Montgomery County General District Court of indecent exposure and simulated public masturbation. Judge Gino Williams imposed a sentence of 12 months to serve and suspended another 12 months of jail time, saying it could be reimposed if Willard commits other crimes in the next three years.

Charges of possessing marijuana and obstructing justice, also tied to the April 11 incident near the school in Blacksburg, were dropped as part of the agreement.

Unmentioned at Thursdays hearing were eight felony child pornography possession charges that the Blacksburg Police Department announced in May it was adding to the accusations against Willard. Those are pending in the countys Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, where a hearing is scheduled for Dec. 11.

Defense attorney Robert Rider of Roanoke noted that Willard has already served much of his sentence and asked if he could report next week to begin serving the remainder of his time on weekends. Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Chris Dorsey said that he did not object and Williams approved the arrangement.
Standardized test scores are getting better at Shawsville Middle School, but as far as the state is concerned, there is still more work to be done.

The school was awarded partial accreditation by the Virginia Department of Education this week, buying teachers and administrators three more years to earn full accreditation.

The news comes on the heels of an academic rebuilding effort that school Principal Andy Hipple said he hopes will be complete by the end of this school year.

I am glad that the gains being made by our students and our school are being recognized, he said. We are focused on relationships with our students and our families. Shawsville Middle is also dedicated to removing barriers to success for each of our students and helping all students achieve.

An increased effort in sharpening the schools math curriculum helped.

Last years success in math at SMS is an example of the potential that this school has to meet all accreditation benchmarks, said Montgomery County Superintendent Mark Miear. We know the tools that the school needs to succeed and are dedicating necessary resources to ensure the schools English scores follow the same pattern as last years math scores.

The school, which houses sixth through eighth graders in Eastern Montgomery County, has not held full accreditation status since the 2013-2014 school year. In 2014, after earning accreditation with warning, the school lost the designation due to poor performance in mathematics and English, according to state accountability data provided by VDE.

Hipple took over as principal in July. Since he arrived there, he said the support from the district for the academic rebuild has been satisfactory.

Theyve been very receptive to our needs, he said. Weve done some things to present information differently to students and have it make sense to them.

Hipple said that boosted teacher accountability and across-the-board remediation for students who are prone to struggle in core competencies have led to the recent turnaround.

This is really good news and Im glad how things are going, he said. Well get there.

The candidates in the District C Montgomery County School Board race - a district that includes the school - commented on the matter Thursday.

Tim Thornton issued this statement:

"This is good news, but we need to realize theres still a lot of work to do. As the school systems appeal to the Virginia Department said, Shawsville Middle has had a 50 percent turnover among English teachers and three different principals over the past four years. That kind of instability certainly contributes to poor performance. The good news about this new rating is it will focus both the county and the state on fixing the schools problems. We have to remember these arent just statistics. These are children, these are people who depend on the school system to help prepare them for life and work far beyond Middle School. When theyre failing academically because of turnover and turmoil, were failing them. We have to do better."

Dana Partin could not be reached for comment by The Roanoke Times, but on her Facebook page, she wrote:

"Im glad to hear that Shawsville Middle School has received partial accreditation from the Virginia Department of Education. The partial accreditation was received due to an increase in last years math scores and gains in English. If elected, I will work closely with fellow school board members, Principal Andy Hipple and Superintendent Mark Miear to ensure that students further increase their scores which will allow Shawsville Middle to meet the benchmarks for full accreditation."
The North Carolina development company with controversial plans to build apartments on part of the former Shenandoah Life Insurance property in southwest Roanoke has extended its option on the land by another 60 days.

Berkley Hall LLC entered into a six-month option to buy 17 mostly wooded acres on Brambleton Avenue from owner Carilion Clinic earlier this year. In August, Carilion confirmed that the developer had unilaterally exercised a 90-day extension of the option that was available under the original contract.

Friday, about the time that extension was due to expire, Carilion spokeswoman Hannah Cline said the health care company agreed to the additional 60 days at the request of Berkley Hall.

That means neighbors who have vocally opposed development of the land may have to wait until as late as the end of the year for news of whether Berkley Hall will buy and build perhaps 200 apartments there.

For half a century or more, neighbors in the Grandin Court and Raleigh Court neighborhoods have treated the undeveloped part of the former insurance company campus as a de facto park, hiking the trails there, enjoying wildlife and sledding. The privately owned but unfenced or posted land adjoins city property that carries the Murray Run Greenway from Shrine Hill Park to Fishburn Park.

When Carilion, which bought the Shenandoah Life property in 2015 for $4.6 million, announced in February that it had agreed to sell the land to Berkley Hall, neighbors quickly mobilized to oppose the sale and any development.

However, Berkley Hall can build on the site under its existing zoning, so while the city planning department must approve specific development plans, the company requires no additional approval from the city planning commission or the Roanoke City Council.

Over the summer, Berkley Hall and its local engineer, Lumsden Associates, filed a series of preliminary development plans for the land with city planners for their review, only to have them rejected mainly because of public road and building setback requirements. Those plans showed nine or 10 buildings with about 240 apartments in them.

In August, Berkley Hall showed city officials a different approach  two bigger buildings containing 96 apartments each, both fronting on Brambleton Avenue.

While some key details like building heights and stormwater, grading and landscaping plans that require city approval were missing, the last plan conformed to city zoning requirements.

Since then, the developer has not filed any new plans with the city planning department. Theyve continued to discuss their proposal with city planners, but its been several weeks since the last meeting, Roanoke Director of Planning Chris Chittum said.
The Donald Trump mantra of Build That Wall backfired this week at a Halloween party at Virginia Military Institute.

A cardboard replica of the border wall, created by several cadets as part of a costume contest in the VMI barracks Tuesday night, was in poor taste and demonstrated a lack of appreciation that it was offensive, school officials said in a Facebook post.

One online video provided to The Roanoke Times shows three cadets with their heads sticking out of holes cut from the top of a cardboard box construction that is labeled Trumps Wall.

Also printed on the wall are the words keep out and no cholos. Cholo is a derogatory term for lower-class Mexican men.

Other cadets, two dressed as what appear to be Mexicans and one who could pass for Trump, can be seen standing next to the wall.

Obviously, some people took offense to it, but as far as we know there was no intent to offend anybody, VMI Spokesman Stewart MacInnis said Friday. But the fact that people were offended is something we need to be aware of.

Not all of the observers seemed upset. The Trump Wall was voted the best costume during the Halloween costume party, which MacInnis said is an annual VMI-sanctioned event that takes place in different locations throughout the barracks.

Since the party, disagreements among cadets have surfaced on social media and in other forums.

Although MacInnis said he was not aware of any altercations or threats, the schools Facebook post said the incident raises the issue of civility in both the way it was presented and how cadets have reacted to it since then.

This lack of civility is inappropriate and does not represent the values of the institute, the statement read. The VMI leadership does not tolerate this type of behavior and is addressing the matter with the Corps of Cadets.

No disciplinary action has been taken to date, MacInnis said.

Halloween high jinks at VMI have been happening long before Trump proposed building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border during last years presidential campaign.

In 2005, a group of cadets wound up in hot water after they were photographed dressed as Nazi soldiers, drag queens and a starving African during a Halloween event at the barracks.

One picture showed three men in their VMI-issued uniforms giving the Nazi salute to the camera. Two were wearing homemade swastika armbands and one sported a small Hitler-style moustache.

Another photograph showed a cadet smeared head-to-toe in dark makeup and wearing a loin cloth.

Calling the images insensitive and inappropriate, VMI officials imposed disciplinary measures that required the cadets to write essays, remain confined to barracks and march hours of penalty tours.

At the time, VMI officials said they had made no decision on whether to impose restrictions on future Halloween events.
By Timothy Jost

Jost is an emeritus professor at the Washington and Lee University School of Law and lives in Harrisonburg. He blogs at www.healthaffairs.org/blog on health policy issues.

On Nov. 1, the 45-day 2018 open enrollment period began Virginias individual health insurance market. A half-million Virginians who purchase insurance as individuals  instead of being insured through their employer, Medicare, or Medicaid  will face several surprises when they go to shop.

First, many will have fewer insurers to choose among than last year  in many counties, only Anthem remains. Families with low or modest incomes are likely to pay no more than they did last year, and may qualify for low deductible policies. Virginians whose incomes exceed 400 percent of the federal poverty level will likely have to pay substantially more than they did last year, but may find cheaper coverage through an agent or broker.

What is going on here? From the day of his inauguration, President Donald Trump has been at war with the Affordable Care Act, and thus with the individual market. He has acted repeatedly to undermine the ACA and destabilize the individual insurance market. His actions include creating uncertainty about the enforcement of the individual mandate, cutting the open enrollment period in half from 2017, and slashing outreach funds by 90 percent. Most dramatically, the administration recently stopped reimbursing insurers for reductions they are legally required to make in cost-sharing for lower-income enrollees. That decision alone increased Virginia premiums by up to 24 percent for some plans.

President Trump has not been subtle about his intentions, making statements like Ive been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do politically speaking is let Obamacare explode. As he cut off the cost-sharing reduction payments, he tweeted: The Democrats ObamaCare is imploding. Massive subsidy payments to their pet insurance companies has stopped.

Insurers and state insurance regulators across the country have been clear about the effects of the presidents actions  dramatic premium increases and insurers abandoning the individual market. Anthem announced that it was leaving most of Virginia earlier this year  which would have left 63 counties without an insurer  in part because of the uncertainty caused by federal actions. They only came back after they were granted a premium increase of over 56 percent to address the looming federal fund cutoff. Without the Trump administrations sabotage, premium increases would have been in the single digits, as premium increases in employer plans have been.

What can Virginians do about this situation?

First, if you need individual coverage, go to HealthCare.gov or see your agent or broker and shop. You may be eligible for assistance that lowers your premiums and deductibles or otherwise find affordable coverage. Remember you only have until December 15 to find coverage this year, and if you are not enrolled by then you may not have another chance until November, 2018. If you were insured for 2017 through HealthCare.gov and do not pick your own plan for 2018, you may be assigned to a plan and not find out until it is too late to choose another.

Second, tell your congressional representative to support bipartisan market stability legislation that would bring down premiums for next year and might even help for 2018 if enacted soon enough. This legislation, with a dozen Republican and a dozen Democratic sponsors, is our best hope for short-term stabilization of insurance markets.

Third, vote for Ralph Northam for governor. Ralph Northam is a physician who has practiced both in the army and in private practice. He understands health care. As lieutenant governor he has worked with Governor Terry McAuliffe, who was able to convince Anthem to return to Virginia this summer. Unlike his opponent, Northam will stand up to the Trump administration for Virginia insurance markets.

Fourth, vote for Mark Herring for attorney general. Attorney General Herring has repeatedly joined other state attorneys general in litigation to protect access to health care. He will fight for your right to affordable health insurance.

Finally, vote for members of the House of Delegates who will bring Medicaid expansion to Virginia. For four years Republicans in the House and Senate have blocked Medicaid expansion, keeping 300,000 Virginians uninsured and forfeiting $142 million a month in federal funding. Virginias failure to expand Medicaid drives up private insurance premiums, particularly now that insurers must build into their premiums the cost of reducing cost-sharing for many Virginians who could be on Medicaid.

Exercise your choice shopping for insurance coverage that best suits your needs and your vote on Nov. 7 to protect access to affordable coverage.
Cllr Chris Read

A BID for crucial extra cash to support Rotherham victims through the countrys biggest CSE trials has been rejected by the Home Office.

Rotherham Borough Council asked for 6 million over four years to help survivors involved in the Operation Stovewood investigation.

The council, alongside South Yorkshire Police, the National Crime Agency and health partners, had been in discussions with the Government for two years.

But the Home Office has denied any further funding on top of a 2 million payment already agreed by the Department for Education to help children affected by the trials.

Now council leader Cllr Chris Read is seeking an urgent meeting with ministers. He said: We know from their experience, and from experience elsewhere in the country, that the support given to victims and survivors around the criminal process is absolutely critical to their wellbeing, and to securing convictions.

It isnt an optional extra, its absolutely essential. Now at the start of the biggest ever criminal investigation into child sexual exploitation in Britain, with 21 men already facing charges and likely many, many more to come, for the Government not to make special funding available without delay would be shameful.

Operation Stovewood has investigated child sexual exploitation crimes committed in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, the period covered by the Jay report.

The Department for Education committed extra funding to fund social care for children and the additional money was requested to fund more independent sexual violence advocates, social workers, health workers and voluntary sector support staff.

Cllr Read said: Three years ago, Rotherham was given public assurances by the then Prime Minister and then home secretary, who is now the Prime Minister, that the all necessary resources would be made available to secure justice.

But now that the cameras have gone home, the Government has been dawdling."

Home Office permanent secretary Philip Rutnam said: The Department for Education recognises that there is an exceptional need to support children in need of support or at risk of abuse and will provide additional funding to the local authority to support childrens social care.

It is the clear view of Home Office ministers that there are appropriate existing funding mechanisms available to respond to the other elements of the bid.

As such no additional funding can be made available through an alternative bidding process.

The Home Office suggested using the Police Special Grant but Cllr Read said this did not take into account the high demand in South Yorkshire owing to other challenges faced by the force.
A TAXI driver has accused council chiefs of hypocrisy after reporting a school minibus used for carrying children which he believed was in a poor condition.

Tauseef Shah said taxis had to undergo three MOTs a year and have no scratches whereas the minibus, which has been cleared as roadworthy by

Rotherham Borough Council, was allowed to carry youngsters despite its rusting paintwork.

Mr Shah was so angry at the state of the minibus, used by Rotherham Aspire, that he took photographs and sent an open letter to the council, MPs, as well as Prime Minister Theresa May.

Rotherham Aspire is a pupil referral unit based on New Street, Rawmarsh.

The cabbie, who works with A1 Taxis in Rotherham but made the complaint in a personal capacity, said: I was shocked to see this vehicle being used by the vulnerable children and staff of this institution, Rotherham Aspire.

This is a matter of public concern and child safety.

A council spokesman said: All the usual procedures have been followed for this vehicle, and this has included prescribed inspections and testing, vehicle servicing and driver vehicle checks.

This particular vehicle is maintained in line with current legal requirements for the vehicles use.
Israel Diamond Exchange (IDE) has re-elected President Yoram Dvash for a second term at a General Assembly of bourse members, says a press note from IDE.

The IDE also held elections for its board of directors and members of the Control Committee on 1 Nov, when sixteen new board members were elected to the directorate.

IDE President, Yoram Dvash actively introduced innovations into IDE during the past two years, negotiating a new agreement with the Tax Authority, as well as instituting its first ethical code and strengthening its arbitration system.

In addition, Dvash established the IDEs International Tender Center---an e-commerce wing in the bourse; promoted the establishment of two new polishing centers for large diamonds on exchange premises; and inaugurated IDEs Innovation Center to host early-stage startups in the diamond industry.



Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished




(Agencia CMA Latam) - Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, told the President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, to continue being an ally to ensure a lasting peace in the South American country. Trudeau's comments were made in a joint declaration released during Santos' state visit to Canada.



The Prime Minister asserted that it is important to preserve peace in Colombia and mentioned bilateral support initiatives. "We agreed to work together to establish bilateral initiatives, such as Canadian Police providing training, capacitation and strategic advice to their Colombian counterparts," Trudeau said.



Trudeau also announced that his country would send 'different experts to Colombia to work together with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

by Agencia CMA Latam

For comments and feedback: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Spanning more than 1,470 km, the Tui-Samoa system is set to strengthen Samoas domestic and international communication capabilities

The Samoa Submarine Cable Company Limited (S.S.C.C.) and Alcatel Submarine Networks (A.S.N.), part of Nokia, have landed on Monday the Tui-Samoa Cable in Apia and on its way to land in Savaii.

The system is set to contribute to Samoas economic and social development by encouraging I.C.T. innovation in education, commerce, agriculture, finance, health, tourism and E-government.

The Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Afamasaga Lepuiai Tupai, hailed the arrival of the Cable as a major milestone for Samoa.

This is a major milestone for the Samoa Connectivity Project and we would like to thank our partners - the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the Australian Government  for working closely together with local Samoan investors and for making this possible, he said.

The Chairperson of S.S.C.C, Leiataua Alden Godinet, is equally excited.

Our aim is to deliver fast, reliable and affordable internet services that can improve Samoans lives, through access to a high quality connectivity infrastructure that can spur Samoas I.C.T. growth, he said.

This landing is a key achievement in our vision to provide our end-users and partners a dramatically increased bandwidth at the lowest cost.

Philippe Piron, President of Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, said: Alcatel submarine Networks continued need for broadband access is driving new projects in the Asia-Pacific region.

We are pleased to work with S.S.C.C. helping them enhance broadband capacity and connectivity for the Pacific people, institutions and businesses by making our expertise and knowledge of the Pacific area available.

Operations were carried out by the Ile de Re cable ship which is a 143 mt long cable ship capable of loading up to 6,000 km of cables and provided with state-of the art equipment for cable laying and maintenance.
Scott Barlow and Fatu Vagana have been found guilty of possession of methamphetamine, or ice, and a glass pipe used for smoking drugs.

The duo will be sentenced on 28 November 2017.

The decision was delivered by Supreme Court Justice Tafaoimalo Leilani Tuala yesterday.

Prosecuting the case were Fatumanavaupolu Ofisa Tagaloa and Anne Matalasi.

Leitaualesa Jerry Brunt is representing Vagana while Aumua Ming Leung Wai stood in for Barlow.

The defendants are charged with jointly knowing having in their possession methamphetamine that weighed 5.9 grams.

In addition, Barlow is also charged with knowingly having in his possession a utensil glass pipe.

Both accused pleaded not guilty.

Justice Tafaoimalo said the incident occurred on 28th June, 2017, where Barlow and Vagana went in a taxi to Fagalii International Airport.

Scott went inside the airport to allegedly uplift an envelope addressed to a Penina Setu arriving on a Talofa Airways flight from American Samoa, Justice Tafaoimalo said.

Fatu waited in the taxi with the taxi driver in the car park of the airport.

As it turns out, what had arrived from American Samoa was a bag for Penina Setu.

Upon the bag being searched by a Customs officer, three packets of methamphetamine were discovered.

The taxi was searched by Police and a glass pipe was found in the taxi.

The prosecution called more than 10 witnesses.

Taking the stand was an Authorised Qualified Analyst with the Scientific Research Organisation of Samoa (S.R.O.S.) Narcotics Laboratory, who confirmed with the court that all three packets she received from Police contained methamphetamine and the interior of the glass pipe also contained methamphetamine.

According to Justice Tafaoimalo, the taxi driver, Pilitati Tavita, was the prosecutions main witness because he transported the defendants to the airport.

He picked up Vagana from the Mulinuu wharf, and then they picked up Barlow and headed to the Fagalii International Airport.

Pilitati informed the court that 30 minutes after Mr. Barlow went into the airport the second time, Police arrived and searched the car and Pilitati told them what was inside the tissue.

He explains how the pipe came to be in the taxi.

During cross examination, Pilitati informed the court that he has known Barlow for three years and Barlow uses the pipe to smoke his ice.

Pilitati admits that he smokes ice as well but denies that the pipe belongs to him.

A Customs officer also took the stand and said that when inspecting the bag, there were Twisties and an ie at the bottom.

The Customs officer said he started to get suspicious because he knew Barlow had been charged with importing ice in 2013.

He searched the bag and he felt an ie that was tied in a thick knot.

The officer added that Barlow said to him uso faamolemole, I can give you whatever you want, I can give you $5000 each I cannot go back to that place I love my children and wife.

According to the Customs Officer, that was when he knew there was something hidden in the ie.

The officer said he started to untie the ie while Barlow was still pleading with him, offering to do anything he wanted.

Scott looked very worried, he was slapping his head and pleading, the officer said.

Evidence given by the Prosecution stated that while at the airport, Barlow told the guy that he was there to pick up an envelope from Tutuila.

Justice Tafaoimalo said Barlow did offer the Customs officer $5000.

But the guy (Customs officer) made a phone call while Scott was still pleading with him.

Scott says he offered his service to help Fatu sell ice because he would get some to smoke himself.

Vagana also took the stand noting that he has lived in American Samoa with his family for 32 years.

According to the co-defendant, Barlow said he needed $7000 but after discussions to provide materials for their house, they agreed on $3000.

He went to the A.T.M. and withdrew $2000 and he had $1000 cash on him. This was counted out and given to Scott.

The agreement was that Scott would deliver the materials to Vaitele and Fatu would transport the materials to Savaii.

These materials have still not been supplied and the house is complete.

Vagana further noted that his sister passed away in June and he contacted Barlow for the money to help with the funeral instead of the building materials.

He said he called Barlow more than 10 times to return his money.

Vagana confirms that on the day in question, he was not aware they were going to the airport.

He also says he has no understanding of ice and he does not consume it or wish to consume it.

DISCUSSION

Justice Tafaoimalo said there were key conflicts between the evidence of Mr. Barlow and Mr. Vagana in relation to the bag from American Samoa.

Mr. Barlow says he was expecting an envelope of money from American Samoa and he was uplifting it on instructions of Mr. Vagana.

Mr. Vagana says he never instructed Mr. Barlow and had no knowledge of why they were at the airport that day.

He was in the car awaiting money he says Mr. Barlow owed him for an order of building materials which never arrived. Both deny knowledge of the bag and of the narcotics.

It comes down to my assessment of credibility and reliability of the witnesses.

I believe Pilitati in relation to what he heard and what he saw in relation to the name Penina Setu.

Both the accused have a motive to be less than truthful as both are trying to shift and avoid blame and responsibility for this very serious offence.

Pilitati has no reason to lie in relation to what he heard and what he saw.

Justice Tafaoimalo noted the fact that Pilitati admitted to smoking ice too and has no bearing on his role as the taxi driver to the airport.

I found Scott to be anxious and fraught when giving his evidence.

The reason is clear. He does not want to go to jail.

I find Scott knew that what was arriving was a bag and what was inside the bag was ice, said Justice Tafaoimalo.

I found Fatu to be unconvincing and evasive.

I do not accept his evidence that he wrote down a phone number in the taxi for the reason that the number of whoever had called him would have been stored in the telephone that he had.

This is unbelievable and implausible.

He went on to say that it was a name in his wallet but it was not the name Penina.

This is a clear inconsistency in his evidence, she noted.

Justice Tafaoimalo further pointed out that in her ruling that much evidence was called in relation to Scotts belief that he was there to pick up an envelope of money.

I do not find that this was his true belief even if he expressed it to those at the airport before and after the bag had been searched.

He has a motive to exculpate himself as I find he knew that drugs were being brought in from American Samoa.

I find the drugs were arranged by Fatu who gave the name of the sender and receiver.

Not only is there direct evidence from Scott and Pilitati which I believe in relation to Fatu being the one who knew the names of the receiver and the sender, I find that Fatu also had the opportunity to arrange this cargo from surrounding circumstances. He lives in American Samoa. He has lived in American Samoa for 32 years.

He says he has been back and forth from American Samoa four times since Mothers day, which falls within the month of May.

His connection to American Samoa is very strong circumstantial evidence which I cannot disregard.

He also, by his own evidence, said he needed a person in Upolu for his building materials because he has been in American Samoa for many years.

Scott said and I accept, that Fatu asked for his help to sell ice.

These established facts lead to very solid inferences about Fatus involvement in organising the bag for Penina Setu.

In conclusion, Justice Tafaoimalo stated: I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the evidence supports potential physical custody of the drugs by Scott and, actual control of the drugs by Fatu at the time of the alleged offending.

Justice Tafaoimalo further pointed out that both accused had knowledge of the substance in their possession and they both had the intention to exercise possession.
Top legal minds from the Pacific gathered in Samoa this week.

They are here for the Pacific Islands Legal Officers Network (P.I.L.O.N.) workshop opened by Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi on Thursday.

The workshop is funded by Australia and New Zealand.

Participants come from Vanuatu, Tonga, Solomon Islands and Samoa.

Justice of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, Sir William Young, Justice Mark Cooper of the High Court of New Zealand and Judge Carlo Shore of UNs Tribunal were also present.

In addressing the meeting, Tuilaepa said advocacy is very important part of any democracy.

To the participants, advocacy is an important part of any democracy and by exception an important part of any Justice System, said Tuilaepa.

We the islands pride ourselves in being able to speak as orators before our communities in our own language.

You must also use that cultural pride to build your skills in the European courts and oversee the day to day life of our Pacific people.

Your participation in this training will strengthen not only you as a professional, but also strengthen the Justice System of the countries that you call home.

Our hope and prayer is that you will absorb all the lessons that members of the faculty will teach you in the coming days and then you will use those skills in your own land.

For Samoa, one of the goals of our law and justice sector is promoting a safe, fair and justice Samoa, building capacity, litigation and skills in the court room is an important step towards achieving that goal.

This is the second time Samoa has hosted this event.

Tuilaepa also acknowledged the support of New Zealands Ministry of Foreign Affairs towards the training.

This training is no small feat and it would not have been possible if not for the commitment of your two offices, he said.

Thank you also to the Chief Justice, Minister of Justice Administration of Samoa for agreeing to make available this office here at Mulinuu for this training.

This will allow the participants and faculty members to undertake the training in a court center which I understand is greatly beneficial to the participants.
The ban imposed on taro exports from Samoa by the American Samoa government has been lifted.

This was confirmed by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Lopaoo Natanielu Mua.

But allowing taro exports back into the territory comes with conditions.

They include contact details such as telephone and email addresses as well as assurances that the taro are thoroughly cleaned and meets American Samoas quarantine requirements.

American Samoa is also giving local exporters 15 days to obtain an improved permit from the territory prior to shipping.

And the Ministry of Agriculture has accepted the conditions, says Lopaoo.

We agreed not only for the sake of local taro exporters but also in response to requests from American Samoa residents which have been bombarding my Office for Samoa to export taro to the territory as there supply is in critical levels. They are running out of taro and they need our help,  said the Minister.

If you recall, American Samoa unilaterally imposed the ban without official communication to our government.

And despite that, as a responsible government we respected the band knowing very well that it will not impact taro market access to New Zealand and the United States. On that note, I am happy to say that American Samoa has removed the ban at their provocative, he added.

The Minister added that to satisfy quarantine requirements, all the fresh taro exports bound for American Samoa will also be processed at the Atele Plant where Samoas frozen taro exports are also processed.

Its a huge ask for our exporters but it needs to be done.

The Minister will be meeting with taro exporters and farmers next week to brief the stakeholders.
Every tattoo has its own meaning and purpose.

For some people, it is a reflection of who they are, what they value and the memories which inspired them.

Scott Warner, a tourist from New Zealand, is looking forward to getting a tattoo.

For him, it is a symbol of the close bond he has developed with Samoa and her people.

I had decided to get inked today (yesterday) to remember this trip; also to make a connection to Samoa and to remind myself of this happy holiday I have had here, he said.

According to Scott, he has been in a fair number of places around the world but it is the people, the relaxation and the time spent here that he enjoys the most.

He added he loved the remote beaches because he was the only person on the beach which was a rare sight in almost all other tourist destinations.

Talking with Dear Tourist, he said he made a connection with a Samoan family here that he has come to know quite well.

Coming to Samoa for the 43-year-old is like visiting relatives, even though he is not a Samoan, he feels like he is part of this Samoan family.

It is his second time here in Samoa and he just cannot seem to get enough of the country and its people.

This is my second time coming to Samoa and it is so beautiful here. I would definitely come back but it is mainly for the people really, he said.

The people of Samoa have made this eight-day trip for Scott a memorable vacation, with the Samoan way of life and the behaviour of the people which has left him amazed.

Being away from Apia and seeing the local villages and getting to experience things such as the making of the umu and enjoying the food with the people and just getting back to the basics of life was an amazing experience, said Scott.

Scott is thankful to the people of Samoa and their warm hospitality.

He said not only would he return, he would also spread the word to the people he knew in New Zealand, to come to Samoa for a great holiday
L-R: Fepuleai Roger Toleafoa (ACEO MCIL); John Oakeshott (SPC); Tuimaseve Kuinimeri Finau (SROS); Tagaloa Eddie Wilson (Chairman of Samoa MAWG and President of SAME); Tanuvasa Semy Siakimotu (PHAMA); Saena Tialino Penaia (Samoa Farmers Federated Incorporated Rep); Talei Fidow-Moors (Samoa Quarantine - MAF); Tilafono David Hunter (CEO MAF); Lisi M. Iosefa (MCIL); Raymond Voigt (Beekeeping); Bronwyn Wiseman (PHAMA); Tiatia Tauloa (Taro Industry & Savaii Farmers Rep); Asuao Kirifi Pouono (PHAMA); Yan Diczbalis (DAF QLD/ ACIAR); Natalie Dillon (DAF QLD).

When the Pacific Horticultural and Agricultural Market Access (P.H.A.M.A.) Programme was established in 2011, it was designed to help Pacific Island countries improve market access for primary and value-added products.

Six years on, the Australian and New Zealand Government-funded programme has progressed in leaps and bounds, successfully impacting thousands of livelihoods, protecting jobs and initiating breakthroughs for commodity-exporting households and communities across the Pacific.

P.H.A.M.A. recently undertook a study to determine these benefits, now launched in an Impact Report.

An aid-for-trade programme, P.H.A.M.A.s goal is to increase exports of fresh and value-added agricultural products, contributing to economic growth and improved rural livelihoods.

P.H.A.M.A. supports agriculture because it is central to the economy of Pacific Island countries and is a major employer and source of livelihood for many Pacific families.

Agriculture is also the second largest contributor to gross domestic product (G.D.P.) in the countries in which P.H.A.M.A. works: Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.

Launched at the Pacific Week of Agriculture in Vanuatu, the Impact Report, available on P.H.A.M.A.s website, reveals that P.H.A.M.A. has successfully impacted about 142,200 livelihoods and at least 5,600 jobs.

Recognising that agricultural interventions take time to yield results, the impact study has projected that P.H.A.M.A.s total economic impact to the end of 2020 is conservatively estimated at T$154.4 million a result of protecting and increasing agricultural exports incomes.

Among its priorities, P.H.A.M.A. strives to ensure that greater numbers of people in poverty are included in trade and export, to facilitate improved incomes and lives.

The programme has also committed to involving more Pacific island women in training and capacity building activities; empowering them and boosting their confidence to engage further in trade and export.

Some notable achievements by P.H.A.M.A. include:

 Helping to protect Solomon Islands seafood exports to the European Union. As one of three main supporters, P.H.A.M.A.s contribution is valued at AUD30 million (T$58.9 million) from 2012 to the end of 2020. P.H.A.M.A.s support has helped to protect 3,100 jobs for Solomon Islanders.

 Helping to protect approximately AUD15m (T$29.4 million) worth of annual exports of kava and 39,000 livelihoods in Fiji and Vanuatu. P.H.A.M.A.s contribution is valued at AUD14.5 million (T$58.9 million) to the end of 2020. P.H.A.M.A. has worked with both countries to put in place quality systems by developing quality standards and manuals and kava quality screening tests.

 Establishing a pathway for squash exports from Tonga to China. Three-year projections for squash exports into China show a steady increase from 1,500 tonnes in the first year to 5,000 tonnes in the third year, or over AUD6 million (T$11.7 million) over the 20172020 period.

 Supporting cocoa value chains in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Samoa. P.H.A.M.A. has assisted cocoa farmers, processors and exporters to earn additional income which filters through to over 20,000 rural households in the Solomon Islands, 9,000 in Vanuatu and hundreds of households in Samoa.

 Establishing Market Access Working Groups and Industry Working Groups to bring together members of the public and private sectors to prioritise market access issues and activities.

Other export commodities which P.H.A.M.A. supports are coffee, coconuts, value-added coconut products, taro, watermelon, sawn timber, beef, ginger, fresh produce, spices and handicrafts.

Over the years, P.H.A.M.A.s work and support has inspired many farmers, processors and exporters to explore and pursue new goals, lifting their standard of living and contributing to overall economic development.

The P.H.A.M.A. Programme will continue working to safeguard and grow the future of export commodities and livelihoods in the Pacific.

To do this, the program will continue to invest in forging effective public and private partnerships where it operates and work together with its regional partners like Pacific Community (S.P.C.), Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (A.C.I.A.R.) and others.
The Samoa Qualifications Authority (S.Q.A) has officially welcomed its new Chief Executive Officer.

She is Letuimanuasina Dr. Emma Kruse Vaai.

She started on Wednesday 1st November, 2017 and she was welcomed during an ava ceremony.

The celebration began with a prayer led by S.Q.A Assistant Chief Executive Officer, Taua Molia Taioalo, at the S.Q.A conference room, T.A.T.T.E Building Sogi.

S.Q.A Chairperson, Gatoloaifaana Tilianamua Afamasaga and Board Member, Fua Meki Hazelman were also there to welcome her.

In her welcome remarks, Gatoloaifaana extended the Board of Directors good wishes and Gods blessings for the successful continuation of the work of the Authority.

In response, Letuimanuasina thanked the staff and Board of S.Q.A for their warm welcome.

I express my heartfelt gratitude for the trust and confidence place upon me to lead this organization, said the C.E.O.

I can only do this with the help of God and the support of the Board and the staff. I firmly believe that team work is important to achieve our goals.

Letuimanuasina also acknowledged the outstanding work by former C.E.Os of S.Q.A; the late Fepuleai Sinapi Moli and Lemalu Lafi Sanerivi.

Prior to her appointment as the S.Q.A C.E.O, she was Professor of English and Applied Linguistics at the N.U.S. Faculty of Education.

She was also the Deputy Vice Chancellor of the National University of Samoa and Deputy C.E.O and Academic Director of the Samoa Polytechnic before this institution was merged with the National University.

She is a graduate of Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand and the University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia.
The Meriland Early Childhood Education and Study Centre has officially opened at Safaatoa-Uta, Lefaga.

Opened by Sinaupualofa Chairperson, Kuinimeri Eti Tamati, the initiative aims to meet the Sinaupualofa Trust core objectives of alleviating poverty and assisting children from low-income families.

The centre will cater for pre-school children during the day and tutorial services in the evening for kids of Safaatoa and neighbouring villages.

Whilst some expenses concerned such as housing of the pre-school operations must be met by the village, the bulk of expenses especially teachers salaries, are to be met by the Trust.

It has always been a lifetime work and dream for me to work with kids at pre-school level because I genuinely believe that children who are nurtured properly in a loving environment will grow up to be kind-hearted and God-fearing adults.

However, our Government never has enough money for these types of projects, so Sinaupualofa is willing to meet some of the costs in order for pre-schools to be established at village level, says Mrs. Tamati.

Mrs. Tamatis family donated part of their family home to house the pre-school whilst plans are in the pipeline to build a separate building for the pre-school.

The Meriland E.C.E. and Study Centers will reach out to all villages in Samoa that have no pre-schools.

Mrs. Tamati said another Meriland E.C.E. would be set up before the end of November closer to town, and she was willing to consider applications from any village in Samoa who are keen to open their own Meriland E.C.E.

The prayer service for the official openning was conducted by Rev. Iaeva Amitai of Safaatoa-Tai E.F.K.S. and Rev. Nomeneta Simanu of Safaatoa-Uta E.F.K.S.
Good roads are essential in order to develop the lives of Samoan people and the country as a whole.

Unfortunately, this is not the case for the village of Musumusu, Fagaloa.

According to Perenise Titi, a village member, the poor road condition affects their daily travel.

He says there are no buses servicing their area because of the road condition.

Thats the ongoing problem that our village has been facing hundreds of years ago, and until now there are no buses for Musumusu because of the bad road, the 40-year-old father of two told the Village Voice team yesterday.

The road is nowhere near any condition for vehicles to drive through from Monday to Sunday, and if you do, then youll have to dodge potholes.

Thats why many families use their own cars or vehicles from neighbouring villages to get to town or other places.

Buses turn back after Lona and Taelefaga and they never come here at Musumusu, and I understand because of the damaged roads and that will cost bus owners.

Perenise said some farmers hardly take their taro and other crops to Apia because of the cost of transport.

The thing is its cheap to transport taro by bus because it costs us less.

But when you think of using someones car, then thats a burden to farmers because almost all of the money you receive from selling goes straight to pay for the car.

But many of us prefer Apia to sell taro, taamu and other crops because the sale is very fast, he said.

Aside from this, Perenise said life in our village is great.

The only issue for many of us is money and I think we know this, but food is everywhere.

Another aspect of living in the village he admires is the strong cultural values and practices that exist in the village.

You have your own roles and responsibilities and we depend so much on the land to provide for us.

We have guidelines here in the village to control village members.

In my honest opinion, living in the village is a good way to maintain our culture and heritage.

I am used to the lifestyle here in the village, and aside from many problems that we face every day, life is easy in the village, he added.
It is high time the government of Samoa listens to the plight of the people.

This is the opinion of Asi Alofa, a 50-year-old father from Falelauniu while referring to the struggles faced by the people of Samoa.

And the expensive cost of living does not ease our daily burden, he adds.

Asi said our daily struggles painted the reality of many families in Samoa.

He is frustrated with the expensive cost of living that his family and most other families in Samoa are facing.

I just want to voice this out to the government for they should know and understand our struggle of trying to cover daily needs from day to day, he told the Village Voice team yesterday.

The struggle we go through to make ends meet every day is the real picture of many families in Samoa today and thats not a lie.

All I can do now is to thank God for his love that makes us strong every day.

Asi says whatever income he receives is not enough to cater for his familys daily expenses.

When we get paid, almost all our pay goes straight to loans, and other stuff, he said.

Then all you see in your pocket is just a few cents for you and your children to survive. I tell you everyone is struggling these days and we have so much on our shoulders.

The government should do something while we still have time.

Asi feels that the leaders of the country are not really seeing the struggles the people are experiencing every day.

Ministers are too busy voicing out their opinions in Parliament and try to make themselves look good to people, but in reality nothing is being addressed.

We still have families that dont have access to water, road damage is everywhere, and I mean totally nothing.

They hardly come up with something good for the people of Samoa because they really dont care about us.

Theyre too busy every day.

To Asi, walking into a shop with $100, is like walking in with nothing.

Its like you just buy one or two items then all your wages vanish and everyone is living that life here in Samoa, and thats why our people move to New Zealand and Australia.

Life in our own country is expensive.

I must admit that my family does not have much and I know this is the reality for many families in Samoa.

Dealing with budgeting every week is really difficult and I believe that without hard work there is no survival for many of the families in Samoa, Asi said.
Youve got to do whatever it takes to protect those you love, especially girls.

Aiga Eseese is a father of five children from the village of Nuu Fou.

He spoke about the real threat to Samoa right now in terms of cases of rape against young girls.

Speaking with the Village Voice team yesterday, Mr. Eseese said such cases worried him very much.

There is so much happening within Samoa lately, and not a day goes by that I dont hear and watch news about young girls getting raped.

I have young daughters and I have told my wife not to send them to the shop or anywhere anymore both day and night time because I dont want anything bad to happen to them.

Mr. Eseese shared how he felt about the place they were staying in right now.

People in this place are from here and there and it is unsafe sending my daughters outside of the house.

We have been living here in Nuu Fou for eight years now and still I dont trust my daughters going to the shop by themselves, so if we ever need anything from the shop Ill just go.

Mr. Eseese is currently working at the Ah-Liki company and he is the sole provider for his family.

He believes the issue with young girls should raise awareness among parents.

To me I think parents should work together to protect their children all the time especially the girls.

It goes back to basic Samoan nurturing through family prayers every evening, as well as teaching the girls how to dress up in the house as well as outside and parents have to be there all the time with them.

Mr. Eseese says that if we really love our children, then we have to do whatever it takes to protect them.

In order to protect our loved ones, we have to do whatever it takes to protect them and work together in communities and villages to minimise this serious threat to Samoa and our young girls.
The anxiety over the 3.55 million pounds of nuclear waste sitting at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) dominates most of the discussion about the future of the site.

After all, the spent fuel is located in what many say is the most vulnerable site imaginable  about 100 feet from the Pacific Ocean, next to one of the most heavily traveled freeways in the country (Interstate 5), in an area with a history of seismic activity and within a 50-mile radius of where 8.4 million people live.

But often overlooked is what will eventually happen to the land where the plant currently sits, which is carved out of an 85-acre chunk of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, owned by the Department of the Navy.

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Back in 1964, an easement was issued by the Department of the Navy to Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric to construct SONGS.

Our interest, plainly stated, is the safe, expeditious closure, dismantling, clean-up and return of the land so we can use it for training, Tom Caughlan, the regional liaison officer for the Marine Corps, said Thursday night in Laguna Hills at the most recent meeting of the SONGS Community Engagement Panel. Thats our area of expertise.

Caughlan, a retired Marine colonel who is also a Community Engagement Panel member, said specifics will be worked out in conjunction with federal environmental regulations as the plant completes its process of being decommissioned.

We will start moving forward, I would say, incrementally, Caughlan told the Union-Tribune during a break in Thursdays meeting. This will be an iterative process. It will not be, bang, heres our plan  The basic function is training.

Until that day comes, some have argued for moving the nuclear waste at SONGS to a location within the premises of Camp Pendleton that is farther from the ocean as a way to enhance safety.

Related: Moving nuclear waste out of San Onofre: When and how?

During a cantankerous public comment period, William Alley of San Diego, who has written a book with his wife Rosemarie Alley about the problems of handing nuclear waste, said the Navy should look at moving SONGS waste to locations that include a mesa at the base, on the east side of I-5.

Caughlan said the Marine Corps and the Navy essentially defer to the assessment of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that the current storage location  which is behind a seawall that is 28-feet high  is safe.

Id rather not deal with a hypothetical, Caughlan said. Im certainly not a decision-maker there. This is a safety, science, engineering-driven process, over which the NRC holds the governments authority.

The NRC is in charge of reactor safety and disposal of spent fuel for the nations nuclear facilities.

There are other leased parcels of land at Camp Pendleton but Tom Palmisano, vice president, decommissioning and chief nuclear officer at SONGS, said using those parcels as potential sites for spent fuel would require acquiring a new NRC license.

Currently there is no other alternative for us other than to store it (in its present) location, Palmisano said, adding that the current site we felt, was the best choice.

In 2015, the California Coastal Commission made a controversial decision to approve Edisons plan to store spent fuel at its current location. However, the Coastal Commissions permit expires in 2035.

Palmisano said if the SONGS waste is still on site in 2035, Edison will go to the Coastal Commission and, when it applies for a permit extension, will have to justify why the current location is appropriate or talk about an alternative site.

Were an advocate for getting (the spent fuel) off the San Onofre site, lets be clear, we agree with that, Palmisano said. But whatever (potential new site) you decide is going to be a challenge to get local consent, to get the license and to get the transportation set up.

About one-third of the waste at SONGS is sitting in what is called dry cask storage. The remaining two-thirds are in wet storage, where the assemblies are being cooled. Dry storage is considered safer than wet storage.

Starting next month, workers at SONGS will begin the slow process of transferring the fuel assemblies in wet storage to a dry cask storage site that recently wrapped up construction.

The transfer is expected to be completed in 2019.

Like waste at nuclear facilities across the country, the spent fuel at SONGS is stuck on site until the federal government opens a repository to receive the nearly 80,000 metric tons that has piled up over the years.

Business

rob.nikolewski@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1251 Twitter: @robnikolewski

ALSO

San Onofre nuclear waste agreement offers hope for some, an illusion for others

House panel passes bill that resurrects sending nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain

Why San Onofres nuclear waste stays on the beach
Kilroy Realty, the Los Angeles commercial developer known for suburban office parks, is venturing into downtown San Diego.

The company said Thursday that it bought a full block for $19.4 million last month and has hired the Gensler architectural firm to design a five-story, 172,000-square foot building that could open in as early as two years.

Downtown is the most diverse and amenity-based area with no Class A office in Little Italy, said Nelson Ackerly, senior vice president and manager of the San Diego market. And so it creates a good opportunity for us and were excited to bring this project to market.

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The preliminary plan calls for about 15,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space on the ground floor. The rest will be office space.

Once approval is granted from Civic San Diego, the citys downtown planning agency, Kilroy hopes construction can begin late next year or early in 2019 with completion about a year later.

The location, previously owned by several families who have owned the site for nearly a century, is bounded by Kettner Boulevard and Hawthorn, Ivy and California streets.

Its location near Solar Turbines industrial plant on Pacific Highway precluded residential use.

But Victor Krebs, the Colliers International broker who represented both sides along with Mark Lewkowitz, said the site still drew more than 15 bidders in February interested in building a hotel or office-retail project.

The location is hard to beat, Krebs said, being near the downtown waterfront and amidst the vibrant Little Italy restaurant scene and accompanying housing projects.

How often do you get a full block to work with in that good of a location? he asked.

Other office developers have expressed interest in much larger office towers but have yet to land financing or major anchor tenants.

The Kilroy project can go forward without preleasing, Krebs said, because of the buildings relatively small size.

Kilroy has more than a dozen other buildings in the county with the most recent high-profile project being One Paseo in Carmel Valley.

East Village has commanded the most attention in office development recently with the next project, Block D with 60,000 square feet, due next summer.

Its super exciting, said Stacey Pennington, spokeswoman for the Block D project at 15th and E streets. Its a total validation of all the things weve been working toward downtown to create a vibrant, urban core thats attractive and desirable.

The Downtown San Diego Partnership gladly welcomed the Kilroy news.

Its encouraging to see these projects come forward after a decade-long drought in major multi-tenant office building development in our community, said spokeswoman Angela Wells.

Real estate expert Gary London said Little Italy was a logical place for office, now that housing and retail/restaurant uses have been firmly established.

This is the one unique location where ground-floor space really matters, he said.

Jason Hughes, whose brokerage exclusively represents tenants, called Kilroy a premier landlord that will bring a fantastic product to market.

Business

roger.showley@sduniontribune.com; (619) 293-1286; Twitter: @rogershowley
As part of a makeover at Disney California Adventure, the popular California Screamin roller coaster will be remade into the Incredicoaster, inspired by the Pixar Animation Studios movie The Incredibles.

The news of the roller coaster change, announced on the Disneyland Resort blog, is among the first few details offered on plans to redo Paradise Pier, a boardwalk-inspired area of California Adventure Park.

California Screamin will close Jan. 8, with plans to reopen with its new look in the summer of 2018. The coaster will include a mid-century-modern-style loading area and new ride vehicles, the blog said.

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The park, which opened in 2001, was originally intended to reflect the fun-and-sun attitude of California but initially failed to draw the crowds Disney had hoped. The latest makeover is part of a larger effort over the last few years to inject California Adventure with more Disney characters and boost attendance.

During the D23 Expo in July, Disney representatives announced plans to add characters from Pixar movies to Paradise Pier, converting it to Pixar Pier. Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt Disney Co.

A neighborhood on the western side of the boardwalk will be inspired by another Pixar film, Inside Out, and will include a family-friendly attraction, the Disney blog said.

Mickeys Fun Wheel, the giant Ferris wheel in the center of the boardwalk, will have a new look, with each of the 24 gondolas on the wheel featuring a different Pixar character, the blog said. Among other construction projects that will begin Jan. 8, the midway games on the boardwalk will also be overhauled, each with a new Pixar flavor.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

To read more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter.
Broadcom Ltd reportedly is considering making a bid to acquire rival chip maker Qualcomm in a deal that could top $100 billion and be the largest in the semiconductor industry.

Shares of Qualcomm jumped nearly 13 percent to close at $61.81 Friday following a Bloomberg story, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the deal.

According to Bloomberg, the offer would be roughly $70 a share in cash and stock  though a final decision on the whether to make the bid has not been made.

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A Qualcomm spokeswoman declined to comment. The cellular technology giant is one of two Fortune 500 companies in San Diego, along with Sempra Energy.

Qualcomms shares have been trading in the mid-$50s for much of this year  down about 18 percent because of its fierce legal battle with Apple over patent royalties, and hefty fines and lawsuits from anti-monopoly regulators in the U.S., South Korea and Taiwan.

The CEO of Broadcom, Hock Tan, is a deal maker, said Patrick Moorhead of industry research firm Moor Insights & Strategy. He buys companies, then splits them apart, keeps what he wants and moves forward.

Related: Qualcomm sues Apple again, alleging it shared confidential software with rival Intel

Earlier this week, Tan announced that the Singapore company would return its headquarters to the United States. The rationale appears to be aimed at sustaining Tans strategy of growing through acquisitions  which might be easier to get approved by regulators if the company is based in the U.S., said Bernstein Research Analyst Stacy Rasgon in a note to clients.

Broadcom and Qualcomm were once bitter rivals who fought a contentious patent infringement battle in court. Qualcomm paid $891 million to settle the case in 2009.

Broadcom, then based in Irvine, was acquired in 2016 for $37 billion in cash and stock by Avago Technologies, Tans Singapore-based semiconductor outfit that has been growing through acquisitions  including LSI Corp., PLX Technology, Emulex and others. Though the merged companies took the Broadcom name, Tan and his executive team run the company. Broadcom currently lists Singapore and San Jose as co-headquarters.

Broadcom, a long-time supplier to Apple, has been working for a year to buy Brocade Communications Systems, a data center chip maker, for $5.5 billion. The completion of the deal has been delayed because of an ongoing review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

Meanwhile, Qualcomm has been seeking regulatory approval since last year for its acquisition of Dutch auto and secure payments chip maker NXP Semiconductor for $38 billion in cash, or $110 a share.

Qualcomm has approval from five global regulators but is waiting on reviews in Europe, China, South Korea and Japan. Activist NXP shareholders have been lobbying NXP to seek a higher price from Qualcomm.

Related: Regulatory fines, trouble with Apple weigh on Qualcomms financial results

Buying NXP would diversity Qualcomm beyond smartphones  pushing it into automotive micro-controllers, near field communications, Internet of Things and other new markets.

On the other hand, Qualcomm and Broadcom compete on several fronts, including Wi-Fi/Bluetooth technology and radio frequency front-end transceivers/amplifiers.

There is much more overlap with Broadcom than with NXP, said Moorhead. But Broadcom doesnt have LTE and it doesnt have 5G. That is the biggest reason to make the case for why this would make sense for Broadcom.

Founded in 1985, Qualcomm ranks among San Diego Countys largest employers with roughly 13,000 local workers and about 33,800 worldwide. Its technology powers the cellular connection for most of smartphones on the planet.

Over the years, the company has become woven into the fabric of the region  ranging from its support for UC San Diego to Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs $120 million pledge (with his wife, Joan) to the San Diego Symphony to the Qualcomm Foundations work with food banks.

This week, the San Diego wireless giant reported full fiscal year results of $22.3 billion in sales and net income of $1.65 billion  down 57 percent from the prior year under generally accepted accounting principles because of fines from anti-trust regulators and the legal dispute with Apple, which has stopped paying patent royalties to Qualcomm.

Some recent published reports also said Apple was considering dumping Qualcomms chips from next years versions of iPhones and iPads.

For the first three quarters of its fiscal year, Broadcom posted sales of $12.8 billion and net income of $1.16 billion.

Broadcoms shares ended trading Friday up 5.5 percent at $273.63 on the Nasdaq exchange.

Business

mike.freeman@sduniontribune.com;

Twitter:@TechDiego

760-529-4973
Three animal rights activists who staged a protest this summer during SeaWorlds Orca Encounter have been barred from entering the San Diego marine park and its sister Aquatica park for the next three years.

SeaWorlds request for a restraining order was granted this week by San Diego Superior Court Judge Timothy Taylor, whose ruling targeted three members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals  Lisa Marie Lange, PETAs senior vice president for communications; Ricky Chavez Rodriguez; and Lyanne Fernandez.

The judge ruled that they are also prohibited from harassing, threatening or committing violence against SeaWorld employees.

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The ruling and requested injunction stemmed from a protest July 24 when actor James Cromwell and six PETA activists disrupted SeaWorlds revamped orca presentation, which replaced the long-running theatrical Shamu show. SeaWorld claimed the individuals were behaving aggressively and had refused to leave the park.

SeaWorld President Marilyn Hannes said the park decided to take the unprecedented action of seeking a restraining order because of a dangerous and volatile situation the activists created that easily could have escalated and put them, our employees and even the animals at risk.

The three protesters at the time of the incident were removed from the park and later charged with criminal trespass, which is the subject of a separate case that is still pending.

The court ruling will not keep PETA from continuing to hold peaceful protests over what it claims is SeaWorlds inhumane treatment of marine mammals, the organization said in a statement.

We ask decent people to come together to protest such cruelty by all lawful means available, said PETA President Ingrid Newkirk.

SeaWorld as a company has been struggling to rebuild its brand amid a continued backlash from the 2013 Blackfish documentary that was critical of SeaWorlds treatment of killer whales.

Although the company has ended the captive breeding of its orcas and is phasing out its Shamu shows, SeaWorld still faces lagging revenues and attendance. In a recent cost-cutting move, it laid off 350 employees across the company.

Business

lori.weisberg@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-2251

Twitter: @loriweisberg
California must go back to the drawing board and reassess limits for how much hexavalent chromium  a toxic compound made famous in the film Erin Brokovich  can be present in drinking water.

The state water board last month eliminated a rule restricting how much of the heavy metal is permitted in drinking water supplies after Sacramento Superior Court Judge Christopher Krueger ruled that state regulators didnt consider whether the restrictions were economically feasible.

Krueger agreed with arguments by the California Manufacturers and Technology Association and the Solano County Taxpayers Association that the California Department of Public Health didnt properly analyze the economic impacts of the rule, which the plaintiffs argued would be massively expensive.

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The State Water Resources Control Board must now develop a new standard for the chemical, with more rigorous analysis of its costs.

The board didnt agree with the courts decision, but it decided not to appeal, and decided to move forward with adopting the (maximum contaminant level), said water board spokesman Andrew DiLuccia.

Gino DiCaro, vice president of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, said the organization will weigh in as the water board revisits the rule.

The court ordered them to go forward with a new rule, and now we have the opportunity to ensure that the proper economic analysis is done, DiCaro said.

Hexavalent chromium, or chrome 6, is a heavy metal that occurs naturally and through industrial processes, and is linked to cancer. That risk came to light in the film Erin Brokovich, which detailed the legal battle of residents in the small, Central Valley town of Hinkley who were sickened by the chemical.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency sets a limit of 100 parts per billion of total chromium, including hexavalent chromium, as well as a related chemical, trivalent chromium, which is not toxic and is a trace nutrient in food. California sets total chromium limits at half that  or 50 parts per billion. The states newer rule, introduced in 2014, restricts hexavalent chromium alone to 10 parts per billion.

Environmentalists argued that even that level was too high, noting that the states public health goal for the heavy metal is .02 parts per billion  500 times lower than the law allowed. That goal represents the level of the chemical in drinking water that poses no significant health risk. Numerically, its the amount that would cause one extra cancer case per million people.

In a 2016 study, the Environmental Working Group found that Pala and Camp Pendleton had the highest levels of hexavalent chromium in San Diego for the years 2013 through 2015, while Oceanside and Poway showed the lowest. Water from Poway, with one of the lowest levels in the county, at .009 parts per billion, would pose a risk of less than one cancer case per million people. Pala, with the highest levels in the county, at .49 parts per billion, represents a risk of about 25 additional cancer cases per million. All San Diego districts had levels below the state legal limit.

About 34 sites in California had levels above the 10 parts per billion level, according to the state water board.

The manufacturing and taxpayer associations argued in court that the new limit was too high, and would be prohibitively costly to achieve. They pointed to a cost analysis by the California Department of Public Health, which developed the rule for hexavalent chromium.

That analysis concluded that treatment systems to remove chromium would cost customers in large water districts about $5 a month, but would hike water bills for customers of the smallest districts by $469 per month, or $5,630 per year.

Our concerns were that there were some monthly water rates that were exorbitantly high and not proven to be economically feasible, DiCaro said.

David Andrews, a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group, agreed that the economic analysis wasnt adequate, but said it overstated the costs of complying with the new rule, while underestimating the benefits of installing drinking water filtration systems.

The calculations assumed that the entire cost of treating water to remove the toxins would be borne entirely by ratepayers, he noted. Instead, industrial polluters should pay their share to treat chromium contamination, he said, and the state should help smaller districts meet stricter standards.

There should be some mechanisms to provide assistance to some of these smaller community with higher pollution concentrations, Andrews said.

In the smallest districts, he said, reverse osmosis systems could be installed in individual households for a fraction of the cost of new treatment plants. And water treatment devices, whether at the district or household level, would provide additional health benefits by removing other harmful chemicals besides hexavalent chromium, he said.

Water quality rules typically take 18 to 24 months to develop, DiLuccia said, and the water board will start as soon as possible. As it develops the new rule, environmental health advocates will push to lower the standard further, Andrews said.

We think its economically feasible and in the benefit of public health to set hexavalent chromium limits below 10 parts per billion, he said.

In their lawsuit, the manufacturers and taxpayers associations argued that the state limit was too restrictive. Krueger, the superior court judge, declined to rule on that assertion, and DiCaro didnt say whether his organization would press for less stringent rules in the next round.

Delivering safe, clean and affordable water to millions of people is the highest priority to water systems in California, he said. We dont object to the chrome 6 standard, we just need economic feasibility to be part of the rule.

deborah.brennan@sduniontribune.com Twitter@deborahsbrennan
CARLSBAD

Congregation hosts Veterans Day event

Congregation Bnai Tikvah will hold a Veterans Day event at 7 p.m. Nov. 10 at 2510 Gateway Road, with Presentation of the Colors by Jewish War Veterans and Honor Guard, North County Post 385, blessings for the country led by Rabbi Ben Leinow and patriotic songs with Cantor Larry Kornit. Leinow will receive an award for his work as police chaplain from the Escondido Police Department. Refreshments will follow the program, which is free and open to the community. Call (858) 472-0303 or visit bnaitikvahsd.org.

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Free meditation class offered at senior center

The Carlsbad Senior Center offers free Primordial Sound Meditation from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Monday at 799 Pine Ave. A Chopra-certified instructor leads students through a practice for moving beyond the minds constant stream of thoughts into stillness, allowing release of stress and a state of deep, restful awareness. Visit www.carlsbadca.gov/parksandrec or call (760) 602-4650.

ENCINITAS

Community center holding ballet classes

Ballet classes for ages 13 and older will start Monday at the Encinitas Community Center, 1140 Oakcrest Park Drive. Level I (Beginning) will be offered from 6:30 to7:30 pm. Mondays; Level II (Intermediate) is from 7:30 to 8:45 p.m. Mondays and/or Thursdays; and a mixed level class is from 9 to 10 a.m. Saturdays. A Just Barre class consisting of barre exercises with no across the floor movements is from 6:45 to 7:30 p.m. Thursdays. The instructor is former professional dancer Marti Neal. Visit encinitasparksandrec.com or call (760) 943-2260.

ESCONDIDO

All-you-can-eat pancake breakfast

The Community of Del Dios is holding an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast from 8 to 11 a.m. Sunday featuring pancakes, eggs, sausage, kielbasa, ham, homemade beans, homemade salsa, orange juice and coffee. Breakfast will be served at the Del Dios Community Center (the Old Firehouse) at 20155 Elm Lane between Del Dios Highway and Lake Drive on the shores of Lake Hodges. The community has been serving the twice-a-year breakfast for more than 30 years. Proceeds go to help the community of Del Dios and Mount Israel with fire prevention, ecological preservation and the maintenance of the community center. Call (760) 741-6817.

NORTH COUNTY

Help a Hero program seeks donations

The Armed Service YMCA Camp Pendleton started its Be a Hero, Help a Hero Campaign and is seeking donations from community members, civic groups and businesses to support its programs that assist Camp Pendleton Marines and sailors and their families. Visit asymca.org/donate-camp-pendleton.

OCEANSIDE

Surfing documentary

to be screened Tuesday

The California Surf Museum will present a screening of Between the Lines, a documentary about surfing and the war in Vietnam, 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Oceanside Library Community Room, 330 N. Coast Highway. The event is held in conjunction with the museums exhibit, China Beach: Surfing During the Vietnam War and the Healing Power of Wave Riding. The film won the Best Documentary Award at the 2009 X-Dance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Many of the documentarys personalities are slated to attend, as well as producer/writers Ty Ponder, Scott Bass and Troy Page. A question-and-answer session will be held. DVDs will be sold. Suggested donation: $10 at the door. Doors open at 6 p.m. Parking is available in the Civic Center parking structure adjacent to the library. Call (760) 721-6876.

Dementia care expert to speak Wednesday

Dementia care expert Laura Wayman, author of A Loving Approach to Dementia Care, will give a free presentation from 2 to 4 p.m. Wednesday at Aegis at Shadowridge, 1440 S. Melrose Drive. Wayman will discuss what dementia is, and what it is not and a specialized form of communication for those who are suffering with Alzheimers or any cause of dementia symptoms. The talk is open to the public and aimed at caregivers, families, senior care professionals and the community. Reserve a seat at (760) 444-0758.

Meeting focuses on programs for veterans

The Interfaith Community Services/Veterans Association of North County Veterans Advisory Committee meets at noon Monday in the VANC Resource Center, 1617 Mission Ave. Speakers include Victor Ortiz, who will present an update on the latest news from Soldiers Who Salsa. Onyx Llauger will discuss how she and Dignity Memorial are alerting older veterans to plan ahead. Dr. Robert M. Smith, director of the VA medical center in La Jolla and the Oceanside VA clinic will provide an update on changes in VA health care, and Rex Kern, cemetery director for Fort Rosecrans and Miramar national cemeteries, will speak about services for veterans. The meeting will include a question-and-answer session and networking. Pizza will be provided; contributions are urged. If you want to give a 10-minute update or highlight an event to help veterans, email idahoonezero@sbcglobal.net or ccrewe@msn.com.

VISTA

Karaoke Monday

at senior center

The Gloria McClellan Center will host Karaoke Monday from 11 a.m. to noon Monday at 1400 Vale Terrace Drive. Community members can share their singing talents. Call (760) 643-5285.

Free ride offered to veterans this month

The Gloria McClellan Centers Out and About Transportation Program is offering city of Vista veterans, ages 60 years and older, one free ride during the month of November, to honor veterans. For information or to sign up, call (760) 639-6161.

PHOTO:

Fifteen members of the Oceanside Newcomers & Friends volunteered at the recent North County San Diego Heart and Stroke Walk. The volunteers worked in many of the booths set up along the Oceanside amphitheater and pier. From left: Lois Gadol, Diane Gilbert, Joan Husen, Bonnie Conners, Minnie Schicker, Vicki DeFrancesco, Carola Grove, Deb White, Kathy Engel, Pat Carson, Bert Oberst, Marianne Chatterton, Sheila Cruz and Linda Misuela. Not pictured: Nancy Albert. The club is a nonprofit social group formed in 1988 to foster friendships. The group is open to those who recently moved to Oceanside and surrounding areas as well as longtime residents who would like to connect with new friends and come together for social and cultural activities, along with retirees or residents who want to get to know their community better. The group meets at 10 a.m. the first Tuesday of each month at the Veterans Association of North County, 1617 Mission Ave. Prospective members and guests are welcome. Visit oceansidenewcomers.org or email oceansidenewcomerscontact@gmail.com.

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Two weeks ago in an Escondido backyard, Erika Shawver witnessed something she never thought shed see: Her 3-year-old son Caiden went for a swim.

Caiden has a sensory-processing disorder. Over the past year or so, every time Erika took her son to a pool for paid lessons, hed end up in hysterics, fearful of the water, of being touched or being approached by an instructor.

Then Caiden met Cori.

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Cori is a 1-year-old golden/Labrador retriever mix in training to become a certified water rescue dog. Cori offers canine assistance to swimming instructors, which means she can make pool time fun, educational and less scary for children with special needs.

As soon as Cori leapt into the swimming pool with Caiden that day, the boys anxieties over strangers, being touched, noise and other sensory issues washed away.

He can get overwhelmed so easily, so I was shocked when I saw how quickly he responded to Cori, Shawver said. He had confidence in the dog, which made him confident in himself and it made him want to swim with Cori. Then he began to trust the teacher because she was helping him be with Cori.

At his third swim lesson this week, Caiden plunged into the water without Cori, clung happily to the instructor and held his breath underwater for the first time.

Caiden Shawver, center, grips the handles on the safety vest of water rescue dog Cori in an Escondido pool. With them are swim instructor Jodi Powell, rear, and dog handler Deb Parker. Caiden, who has a sensory processing disorder, is learning to swim with Coris help. (Charlie Neuman /San Diego Union-Tribune )

Cori is the latest canine prodigy owned by Judy Fridono. The Escondido dog trainer is better known for her other pet, Surf Dog Ricochet, who has more than 230,000 followers on Facebook. Ricochet is a gentle-natured, 9-year-old golden retriever and certified therapy dog who has won national acclaim riding waves with children and veterans with special needs.

Fridono, 59, became a full-time certified dog trainer in 2003 when rheumatoid arthritis forced her to give up her career in health care. Ricochet hadnt made the grade as a regular therapy dog, but she excelled in surfing. So Fridono started the nonprofit foundation Waves of Empowerment, which provides free surf training with Ricochet for children and adults with special needs.

Because Fridonos mobility is limited, she has relied over the years on volunteer Deb Parker to serve as the water handler for Ricochet, and now Cori. Parker, who is a chef by training, said Cori has come a long way. As a puppy, she was afraid of the water and showed zero talent for surfing.

Judy Fridono, right, watches her 1-year-old retriever mix Cori leap into her backyard swimming pool with Logan Powell, 6, left, and his brother Sawyer Powell, 4, during a swim lesson. (Charlie Neuman / San Diego Union-Tribune )

Then, on a beach trip in May, Parker said she noticed that Cori would pull to shore any children who grabbed her leash or collar. And in Fridonos backyard, above-ground swimming pool, Cori would leap into the water after children and push them with her fast-paddling front legs toward the stairs.

Cori just has a natural instinct, Parker said. Judy doesnt push dogs into doing anything. She believes every dog has their purpose. If we listen to them, they will tell us what that is.

The final piece of the puzzle clicked into place in June, when Fridono and Parker met Jodi Powell at a Waves of Empowerment autism paddleboard camp in Carlsbad.

Powell was there because her 6-year-old son, Logan, has sensory processing issues. She also runs Special Fishies Swim & Play, a 20-year-old swim school for children with special needs, including autism, cerebral palsy and Down syndrome.

Powell said that many children on the autism spectrum dont feel connected to their bodies, but when theyre in the water that connection occurs, so it can be a very freeing experience if they can learn to swim.

However, Powell said she has spent up to three years with some students because every special-needs child learns in different ways, some slower than others. After she saw how her son Logan interacted with Ricochet at the camp, and later with Cori in the pool, she wondered if dogs might be the missing ingredient in making a breakthrough with the hardest-to-reach children.

Over the past three month, the trio of women have worked intensively with Cori and Powells two sons, Logan, and 4-year-old Sawyer, Caiden and others to practice different swim-training techniques.

Fridono has reached out to the Scuola Italiana Cani Salvataggio  a school in Italy where dogs are trained as working lifeguards  about getting Cori certified for water rescue. She has also outfitted Cori with an Italian-made, life-saving vest. The buoyant vest has handles on the back that children can grip to be pulled around the pool, something Caiden Shawver especially enjoys.

The trio plans to apply for grants to create a nonprofit program for canine-assisted swimming. For now, theyre offering lessons on a sliding scale to special needs students through Powells company (specialfishies.org). Eventually, they hope to build a permanent pool and sensory education center where both Powell and Parker can work full time.

Until then, theyre all volunteering their time, watching what Parker calls breathtaking work between Cori and the swim students.

Cori is the bridge between the instructor and special-needs children, Parker said. What she does is create a bridge of trust between them and then the magic can happen.

pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com
Oceanside agreed this week to set some rules for flying drones in public places, the result of recent incidents, including one that injured a beachgoer.

We just want to establish some protocols so we can be sure people are safe, police Lt. Aaron Doyle told Oceanside City Council members at a meeting Wednesday.

The rapid spread of remotely piloted aircraft has some cities looking for ways to control them. Poway was one of the first cities in the area to set limits in 2015, and San Diego adopted its regulations in April. The Federal Aviation Administration also sets regulations for drones, but those rules are administrative and cant be enforced by local police.

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Oceansides proposal would require operators to get a permit before flying drones over the beach, the pier and a few other places. Among other restrictions, it would require drones to remain within the operators line of sight, outside the flight path of any occupied aircraft, and only operate during daylight.

Oceanside City Council members unanimously supported the proposal, which would be effective 30 days after a second presentation to the council expected later this year.

Three incidents over the summer prompted Oceanside police to request the ordinance, Doyle said.

A drone fell onto a beachgoer causing minor injuries in July after the pilot lost sight of his flying machine and it crashed into a palm tree near the city pier, he said. Another narrowly missed a young girl on the beach in August after the operator lost control.

Perhaps the most serious problem occurred in June, Doyle said. City and county firefighters were battling an 85-acre blaze near the border of Oceanside and Camp Pendleton. Crews in aircraft delivering water drops on the fire spotted a drone in their flight path, and all aerial operations had to cease for about one hour until it was gone.

Not only does the delay hinder firefighting efforts, but a mid-air collision between a remotely operated drone and an occupied aircraft could have tragic results, with fatalities and extensive property damage, the lieutenant said.

The proposed ordinance also prohibits drones over occupied schools, or to transmit visual images or audio recordings of anyone who has a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Drones must remain within the line of sight of the operator without the use of binoculars or other vision-enhancing devices, and cannot approach any closer than 25 feet to any person but the operator or an assistant.

Also, the ordinance requires a pre-approved, one-time city permit to operate a drone over the beach, the pier, the City Hall complex or police and fire stations. The cost of the permit is expected to be about $150, but Councilwoman Esther Sanchez said the amount should be less.

Some beautiful videos have made with drones over Oceansides pier, mission and beaches, Sanchez said, and she wants to encourage people to make more of them. Posted on the internet, the videos can boost the citys image and help attract tourists to the area.

Councilman Jerry Kern said the cost of the permit should be enough to recover the citys costs for regulating the activity, and that the amount can be adjusted later, if necessary.

The technology is moving so rapidly, were playing catch-up, Kern said.

The proposed regulations should not prohibit the average person from flying drones they receive as gifts or buy for hobbies, Councilman Jack Feller said.

This does not prohibit a guy who gets a drone from flying it in his cul de sac, Feller said.

Violators of the ordinance could be subject to fines of $1,000 for each violation, and could have their drone impounded as evidence.

philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @phildiehl
Opening statements and testimony started Thursday in the murder trial of three suspected gang members accused of randomly attacking and repeatedly stabbing a stranger as he walked down a Fallbrook street in January 2016.

Kevin Garcia, 22, Tyler Dean, 26, and Ryan Valdez, 19, have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of 33-year-old Hugh Pettigrew III.

Suspected Fallbrook gang member Kevin Garcia, seen here at his preliminary hearing in October 2016, has pleaded not guilty to murder in what authorities said was a random stabbing attack on a stranger walking down a Fallbrook street. (John Gibbins/San Diego Union-Tribune )

The trio is also accused of having committed the murder in furtherance of a gang. The trial is expected to run through November.

Pettigrew had left a fast-food restaurant and was walking home along Ammunition Road when the three men jumped and stabbed him about 10:45 p.m. on Jan. 22, 2016.

The victim staggered about a quarter-mile to the Alturas Road apartment of family members, where he collapsed.

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He told family members that hed been attacked by between three to five gang members, according to testimony last year at the preliminary hearing for the trio.

Tyler Dean, seen here at the Vista courthouse in October 2016, is one of three suspected gang members who have pleaded not guilty to murder in what prosecutors say was a random attack on a stranger walking down a Fallbrook street in January 2016. (John Gibbins/San Diego Union-Tribune )

He was rushed to a hospital, but died more than two weeks later.

Surveillance video from nearby businesses helped investigators piece together the attack and eventually led them to Garcia, Dean and Valdez.

The lead detective on the case said one video depicts three smaller figures surrounding Pettigrew, who stood about 6 feet, 8 inches and weighed more than 400 pounds.

Trial has started for suspected gang member Ryan Valdez, seen here at the Vista courthouse in October 2016, and two co-defendants accused of murder in the stabbing death of a stranger who was walking down the street in January 2016. The victim, Hugh Pettigrew III, later died. (John Gibbins/San Diego Union-Tribune )

Pettigrews friends and family members have described him as funny and upbeat, and said he had no gang affiliation.

Last year, the District Attorneys Office lost its bid to charge the trio with a hate crime. A judge rejected the prosecutors argument that the defendants primarily Latino gang dislikes black people, and that the crime was racially motivated.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

(760) 529-4945

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT
Authors with San Diego ties were among the winners in an annual contest run by some of Southern Californias most discerning readers  the employees at bookstores.

Don Winslow, who lives near Julian, won in the mystery category for The Force, a novel about cops in New York and the moral line they walk  and sometimes cross  while doing their work.

Los Angeles writer Brit Bennett won the fiction award for The Mothers. Set in Oceanside, where Bennett grew up, its about a 17-year-old girl trying to figure out her future amid the competing influences of family, church and various kinds of mothering.

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The picture-book award went to Kadir Nelson, who came to San Diego as a child, graduated from Crawford High and spent many years here as a childrens illustrator and author before moving to Los Angeles. He won for his work on Blue Sky White Stars, written by Sarvinder Naberhaus, which is about iconic American images, including the flag and the Statue of Liberty.

In all, seven awards were handed out last weekend by the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association, a non-profit trade group that represents bookstores, publishers and other industry professionals.

To be eligible, an author has to live in Southern California. There were 137 nominations for books published in the past year. Voting by booksellers narrowed the group to three finalists in each category; another round of voting selected the winners.

The other victors: Sherri L. Smith, Pasadena (young adult); Holly Goldberg Sloan, Short (middle grade); Jason Porath, Rejected Princesses: Tales of Historys Boldest Heroines, Hellions and Heretics (non-fiction); and Tom Zimmerman with J. Eric Lynxwiler, Spectacular Illumination: Neon Los Angeles, 1925-1965 (art, architecture and photography).

This was at least the fourth time Winslow has won the mystery prize, which is named after author T. Jefferson Parker, another multiple winner of the award who lives in Fallbrook.

john.wilkens@sduniontribune.com
A county clerk in Kentucky made headlines in the United States in 2015 when she defied a landmark Supreme Court ruling and refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. But that was old news in Mexico, where months earlier a similar showdown had played out.

After almost two years, two gay men were finally issued the marriage license they were legally entitled to in Mexicali, the capital of the northern Mexico state of Baja California. No Dress Code Required documents the obstacles that couple, Victor Manuel Aguirre Espinoza and Victor Fernando Urias Amparo, who goes by Fernando, confronted to reach their goal  and the public support that saw to it they would.

As early as 2010, Mexicos highest court upheld same-sex marriages, yet local compliance varied widely. Citing religious grounds, the Mexicali mayor and Baja California governor made no secret of their opposition. In the film, Victor and Fernando are repeatedly rebuffed; municipal officials challenge their birth certificates, and investigate a claim they are mentally ill. Three wedding dates are scheduled, then postponed. At one, authorities say a bomb threat is closing City Hall.

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Publicly, the men remain amused; privately, they grow increasingly politicized. Asked if he knew what he was getting into, Victor says, I didnt understand. I had to change my attitude so people would respect me. As they become a media cause celebre, though, the bureaucrats eventually relent.

Cristina Herrera Borquezs film limits its point of view to Victor and Fernandos, and doesnt delve into the opposition or examine the backstage maneuverings. When, as a public demonstration grows, the men are suddenly asked into the mayors office, no cameras follow. But they get their license, and No Dress Code Required chronicles the grudging advance of cultural change.

Gold writes for The New York Times.

No Dress Code Required

Running time: 1:32

Showing: Nov. 3-9. Digital Gym Cinema, 2921 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego.

Twitter: @outdoorlivingsd

michael.rocha@sduniontribune.com
Merrill Tony McPeaks journey to the top ranks of the U.S. Air Force began as a poor San Diego State undergraduate.

In those days, ROTC paid $1 a day. I got a check for $90 every three months, said McPeak, 81. There was nothing faster than how quickly I cashed that check.

Graduating with an economics degree in 1957, McPeak left San Diego for fighter pilot school and began his long climb through the ranks.

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He would fly 269 combat missions in Vietnam and eventually become a four-star general, serving as Air Force chief of staff during the 1991 Gulf War.

Retired from the military since 1994, he was a commentator and adviser on the Ken Burns and Lynn Novick documentary, The Vietnam War, which aired on PBS this September.

The Vietnam War was the formative national experience in the second half of the 20th century, he said over the phone from his home in Lake Oswego, Ore. We certainly could not be the country we are today if we hadnt gone through it. And its important that the history of it is right  as much as you can get history right.

McPeak argued that, despite American power, the war had been a lost cause. Saigons government, he said, was corrupt, while its military was crippled by desertions.

They were losing a battalion a month to desertions, he said. Meanwhile, I was fighting these guys every day who were pretty tough.

McPeak will visit San Diego on Nov. 13 to discuss the documentary and his career. He remains opinionated about the United Statess place in the world.

From Afghanistan to North Korea, he argued, Washington lacks strategic vision.

Theres no strategy possible unless you have some direction, have a goal and know what you want to do, he said. I dont know if the present administration has a strategy on anything.

His three-volume memoir  Hangar Flying,  Below the Zone and Roles and Missions  is available at amazon.com or www.generalmcpeak.com.
There was a time when Enzo loved visiting his veterinarian. Hed trot into the office, tail wagging, eager for attention.

That changed after a surgery didnt go well. From then on, Enzos body shook in fear when he saw where he was headed.

So, as the furry black mix of border collie, Australian shepherd and German shepherd aged and dealt with cancer, his owners chose to minimize his stress. There would be no more trips to the vet. He received palliative care at home over several months. Then, when it came time to say goodbye  when he could hardly walk and was in obvious discomfort  they arranged for in-home euthanasia.

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On his final day this May, Enzo, 10, dined on chicken, hamburger and ice cream. He was given a Reiki (therapeutic massage) treatment. He lay on his bed in his favorite backyard spot with owners Gene and Dana Foreman by his side and his constant buddy, Rocky, a little gray poodle mix, snuggled next to him.

When veterinarian Elizabeth Benson arrived, Enzo greeted her as hed never done before, licking her face. When it was time, she gave him a sedative. Later, she inserted a catheter for the euthanasia drugs. Within moments, he was gone.

You know, its always heartbreaking, says Dana Foreman. But I have to say, we had the time to spend the day with him and he was very peaceful.

Enzo didnt have to be carried to the car for a final, anxiety-filled trip or spend his final moments in uncomfortable surroundings. To Benson, a former emergency-care veterinarian, thats how it should be.

Benson started Paws Into Grace in 2008, providing in-home hospice care and euthanasia for dogs and cats after years of having to put down pets in busy clinics.

There was so much commotion, she says. Nothings familiar and it smells like alcohol and everything scares them. I just thought, This is all wrong, they shouldnt be scared in their last moments. It just broke my heart.

Growing trend

The growth of in-home hospice and euthanasia care for pets has been steady over the past decade, though the American Veterinary Medical Association doesnt keep statistics on that type of specific service. Neither does the International Association for Animal Hospice and Palliative Care, founded in 2009. But Kathryn Jennings, the IAAHP executive director, calls it an up-and-coming field in which even brick-and-mortar veterinary clinics are adding these in-home services. Over the past four years, IAAHP membership has grown from 75 to 450.

When Dr. Joe Rosenberg started his practice, Go In Peace, 13 years ago he recalls being one of only two or three veterinarians who regularly provided the service in the San Diego area. Now there are more than 20 local listings for such services.

Rosenberg, who originally specialized in treating horses, transitioned into in-home euthanasia by chance. He also does animal acupuncture and had been working with a boxer for several months when its owners asked him if hed come to their home to provide euthanasia for the dog. After providing the service, he recognized a need for it. In the years since, hes done in-home euthanasia for dogs, cats, pigs, horses and even llamas. He says its less stress for all concerned, and families have more time to say farewell the way they want.

Its usually a much more comfortable environment, he says. They (pets) are able to be surrounded by their entire family instead of in a cold, unfamiliar room. Generally theyre more at peace, both their family and themselves.

Dr. Sondra Elson, a veterinarian since 2010, began operating Compassionate Heart almost four years ago. She was drawn to it after her previous veterinary experience.

She says euthanasia in traditional clinics is done well and is humane, but with constant new appointments, drop-ins and emergencies occurring to pull staff in different directions, long, quiet goodbyes often arent possible.

Its a little different when somebody comes to your home and is with you for 45 minutes to an hour, she says. If you think about it, most human beings, if they are asked, Where do you want to pass away when its your time? are going to say at home with the people that love them, where its comfortable, and they want that for their pets.

It is a more expensive option. In-home euthanasia generally costs about $250 (sometimes more than twice the cost in an office), plus there can be an extra charge for mileage traveled by the vet. In addition, these services most often arrange for the pets body to be taken away for cremation, which is a separate cost.

Yet local veterinarians who do in-home hospice and euthanasia say it can be a good choice because:

 It eliminates the animals stress of travel to the vet. For many cats, the cycle of stress begins the minute the family gets out the carrier, says Elson. When you think about it, in a hospital or clinic, most of the time a pet has had something happen there they didnt appreciate.

 It may be hard on older, disabled or injured pets to be transported.

 Owners who are elderly or disabled might have difficulty picking up their pet (especially a large dog) or driving.

Still, many pet owners  even longtime owners  dont know about in-home hospice care and euthanasia, says Dr. Summer Griffin, who works with Benson at Paws Into Grace. Word-of-mouth between owners is how most people learn of it, she says.

Just letting owners know they have an option is important, she says.

Its a calling

A big part of the work done by Paws Into Grace, and other services, is in-home hospice care. Again, part of the goal is to take away the stress of visiting a vets office.

You get this (fatal) diagnosis, but you dont want to do a lot of tests, says Benson. You want to keep them comfortable.

Part of the process is education, letting owners know the signs when pets lives deteriorate to the point euthanasia is necessary.

To Griffin, this work is a calling. She can see shes helping.

Yes, its a hard day and theres grief, but I also get to see the love that these clients have for their pets, she says. And if theyre willing to have me come out to their home, these are the pets that are well-loved ... I get to prevent suffering, and that gets me through it.

I never will put down a pet for behavioral or moving or something that can be treated. We truly explore all options. Ive gone to a couple calls when Ive said, You know what? Its not time. We have options.

I can rest easy at night, knowing I gave this family and this pet a peaceful transition, a way to say goodbye.

Williams is a San Diego freelance writer.
Los Angeles school district officials plan to recommend at the next school board meeting that 10 charter schools be shut down because they refuse to comply with district rules.

The district confirmed the recommendations Thursday.



For the record: An earlier version of this post identified a Camino Nuevo charter school as among those recommended for shutting down. The Camino Nuevo charter is recommended for approval.

Charter school leaders, who say they are standing up against regulations they find onerous, wont back down and will leave it to board members to decide their schools fates Tuesday.

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They may get a sympathetic ear because the board majority is the first to be elected with major financial support from charter backers.

The futures of six other charter schools also are at risk over the same issues. All told, there have never been as many L.A. charter schools facing potential closure at one time  certainly never over conflicts they instigated.

If the charters dont prevail, they still could appeal any denials to the county or state education boards.

Both the district and charter operators say they are looking out for students.

A key point of dispute is the authority of the districts inspector general to conduct long-running investigations of charter schools. Charter operators want to narrow this power and say state law supports such limits.

They also want more legal rights to contest district decisions and more multiyear contracts to use district campuses. Current state law requires only one-year agreements.

More broadly, they contend that their schools suffer from having to navigate district policies that change frequently, often appear to be arbitrary and are applied inconsistently.

Having fewer rules, they say, would be in keeping with state law and the idea that charter schools should be less burdened by bureaucracy and thus freed to approach education more creatively and efficiently.

The five charter networks opposing the rules are absolutely committed to making improvements to policy that are reasonable, straightforward and in the best interests of students, said Cassy Horton, a managing director with the California Charter Schools Assn.

District officials praise the inspector general for rooting out criminal activity at a few charters and also for identifying poor practices, which then can be improved. The work of the inspector general and the enforcing of common-sense rules, they say, are essential to financial and academic accountability, according to L.A. Unified.

Both sides have compromised, but not enough to resolve the dispute.

The districts charter division recommended denying renewed authorization to eight Alliance College-Ready Public Schools campuses and two Magnolia Public Schools campuses. Six KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) schools may be reauthorized on the condition that they demonstrate compliance with district rules in the near future. KIPP administrators have not agreed to that condition.

Three proposed charters, which hope to open in the future, also are at risk in this dispute: one each from KIPP, Equitas Academy Charter Schools and STEM Preparatory Schools.

The boards vote on the recommendations could be its most defining and important to date. In July, the new, charter-supported majority took control.

Charter operators felt the time was right to press for changes they consider long overdue.

We remain hopeful that the LAUSD board on November 7th will do the right thing for students, leaders of the five charter networks said in a statement.

Charter schools are privately managed, publicly funded and exempt, under state law, from some  but not all  rules that apply to traditional schools. L.A. Unified has imposed regulations of its own, as have other districts.

L.A. Unified officials say that theyve developed their charter rules and policy over two decades of experience and that their approach has made the school system a national model for charter oversight. The rules, they argue, have helped make many charters successful and kept them publicly accountable. With 224 independent charter schools, the district is Californias largest charter authorizer.

Weve learned a lot of lessons with our schools, said Jose Cole-Gutierrez, director of the charter division. These are lessons learned to try to be helpful, not to try to undermine any autonomies.

The board majority could side with charters and overrule the staff recommendation, but such a move  which could be seen as reducing oversight  could come with political blowback if Ref Rodriguez is the deciding vote.

Rodriguez faces criminal charges of political money laundering. Separately, Partnerships to Uplift Communities, the charter network he co-founded, recently reported possible conflicts of interest involving Rodriguez and $285,000 in payments that he allegedly authorized when he was a senior executive at PUC.

Rodriguez, who has denied any wrongdoing, left his job at PUC Schools when he joined the L.A. school board in July 2015.

In all, 28 existing charter schools are coming up for renewal, and four new ones will be seeking authorization. Two negative recommendations, for a proposed charter and for the North Valley Military Institute, will be based on factors other than the dispute over district rules.

howard.blume@latimes.com

@howardblume

UPDATES:

6:25 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details about the districts recommendations on certain charter schools.

This article was originally published at 3:05 p.m.
In the three weeks since allegations of sexual misconduct by Harvey Weinstein first surfaced, the famed movie mogul has already become the subject of criminal investigations in at least four jurisdictions.

But its probably going to take time for detectives to investigate the various accusations made by women. All of the probes appear to be in their early stages and detectives will need to work to corroborate their stories, examine evidence and interview any witnesses.

These are not the easiest cases

Dmitry Gorin, a criminal defense attorney and former Los Angeles County sex crimes prosecutor, said the detectives in each city  Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, New York and London  will probably compare notes to look for patterns and possible witnesses. Authorities in New York and Los Angeles are already in talks, sources said. Police will also probably interview Weinsteins legal team.

"Detectives and prosecutors are going to let them present any evidence that helps exonerate their client before making any decisions on whether to pursue charges," Gorin said.

Weinsteins representatives have repeatedly denied that he committed any criminal acts.

Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson, a former criminal prosecutor, said the cases by their nature face challenges, in part because the investigations are beginning years  and in some cases decades  after the alleged misconduct is said to have occurred. It also remains unclear what types of physical evidence might still exist and whether supporting witnesses can be found.

As a result, the various detectives will probably share information to help determine which agency has the strongest evidence.

"These are not the easiest cases, so you want the most timely and the most corroborated," Levenson said.

Scotland Yard has 11 cases

The epicenter of the criminal investigations appears to be in London, where Scotland Yard said this week it is investigating 11 separate allegations. But Levenson said New York or Los Angeles would be most likely to bring a case because Weinstein remains on American soil. The moguls lawyers would probably fight extradition to England if it came to that, she added.

British authorities said the alleged attacks involved seven women and that nine were reported to have occurred on British soil. Three women have stepped forward within the last week, British police said, including one who contended she was attacked in the early 1990s.

Scotland Yard released details of the probe this week but did not mention Weinstein by name, which is standard procedure in British criminal investigations. Several sources confirmed to The Times that the subject of the investigation is Weinstein.

The British investigations began Oct. 11 when a woman came forward to report that Weinstein sexually assaulted her in the late 1980s in West London. British actress Lysette Anthony later said publicly that she had made the report.

On Oct. 14, another woman alleged that she was sexually assaulted in Westminster in London in 2010 and 2011, and in Camden, a London borough, in 2015. A day later, a woman alleged to police that she was sexually assaulted in Westminster in 1992, Scotland Yard said.

A fourth woman told British police she was sexually assaulted outside England in the early 1980s. Scotland Yard said it referred that report to the appropriate police agency but did not provide details.

A fifth woman reported to police Oct. 24 that she was attacked in Westminster in the mid-1990s. Two days later, a sixth woman came to police and contended that she was attacked outside the United Kingdom in 2012 and then in Westminster in 2013 and 2014. British police said they forwarded the 2012 allegation to the relevant police agency.

The seventh woman reported her allegation Saturday, saying she was sexually assaulted in Westminster in 1994, according to Scotland Yard.

LAPD investigating allegations by two women

Since a New York Times article Oct. 5 first revealed allegations of sexual misconduct against Weinstein, more than 50 woman have alleged they were sexually harassed or assaulted by the former independent film impresario. Weinstein was fired from his job early last month.

Actresses Asia Argento, Rose McGowan, Lucia Evans and Anthony have publicly stated that they were raped or forced to perform a sex act by Weinstein.

In Los Angeles, police are investigating an Italian model-actress accusations of being forced by Weinstein to have sex with him in her hotel room in 2013.

It is the first case related to Weinstein to be reported in Southern California.

At Mr C's Hotel, the actress told The Times, he grabbed me by the hair and forced me to do something I did not want to do, she said. He then dragged me to the bathroom and forcibly raped me.

Weinsteins representative denied the allegation.

On Thursday, the LAPD said it was investigating allegations made by a second woman. A department spokesman did not provide details about the accusations but said the incident occurred in 2013. A spokesman described the allegations as lewd conduct.

Beverly Hills police said Tuesday the department has opened investigations into Weinstein. Police did not provide details of the investigations but urged anyone who believes he or she was a victim to come forward.

Allegations in New York

New York police are reviewing at least three cases.

One investigation involves an allegation that Weinstein forced a woman to perform oral sex on him in his Miramax office. Lucia Evans has identified herself to the New York Times as the accuser. A second case involves an alleged forcible sex act more than a decade ago and a third investigation involves a sexual assault allegation stemming from a 2010 incident.

Manhattan Dist. Atty. Cyrus R. Vance in 2015 previously declined to charge Weinstein in connection with allegations by a model, who alleged he groped her.

ALSO

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She accused director Brett Ratner of rape in a Facebook post. Then he sued her for defamation

Warner Bros. responds to sexual harassment lawsuit brought by former 'Bachelorette' producer with arbitration demand
A Sacramento County sheriffs deputy shot and killed a despondent man who advanced at him with a pitchfork Thursday morning, officials said.

A resident in a northern section of the county called police just before 10 a.m. and reported that the man, described only as a 56-year-old Sacramento resident, was acting erratically and seemed despondent, the Sheriffs Department said in a statement.

Deputies pulled up to the 5300 block of President Avenue and reported the man had a knife, officials said. The man retreated to a garage, then reappeared  now with a large pitchfork  and began to advance, according to the Sheriffs Department.

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The deputy ordered the suspect to drop the pitchfork numerous times, and the suspect refused as he continued advancing on the deputys position, authorities said.

In fear for his life, the department said, the deputy shot the man once. The man was pronounced dead at the scene. The deputy who fired his weapon has been on the force for 14 years. No other information was immediately available about him or the dead man.

The sheriffs homicide bureau and professional standards divisions will review the shooting, along with independent reviews by the district attorneys office and inspector general, all of which is standard in use-of-force incidents.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.
A 21-year-old man is accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl at her Oceanside home a day after meeting her on a teen messaging app, according to a complaint filed in San Diego federal court.

Isaiah Smallwood-Jackson began chatting with the girl on Spotafriend on Sept. 16, according to court documents. Smallwood-Jackson  who went by Logan  listed his age as 17 but in messages said he was really 21, the complaint alleges.

The two continued their conversation via text messages, where the conversation grew sexual quickly and Smallwood-Jackson asked for nude photos and her address, according to the complaint. Smallwood-Jackson asked if she was ready to lose her virginity, but he didnt want to use condoms, the complaint states.

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He went to her house, and the girl later reported to police that he had sexually assaulted her, authorities said. He was arrested last Friday on a charge of attempted enticement of a minor.

In an unrelated case, a 50-year-old man was arrested Tuesday on accusations of sending several images of child pornography to another unnamed person over the Kik messaging app.

In their conversation, Felipe Barreto  using the name Dan Zorro  allegedly asked another man about his girl and told him to try taking lewd photos of her while she slept, according to the complaint. Both men exchanged sexual photos of prepubescent girls, the complaint states.

In March, Barreto allegedly conversed with an undercover officer who was pretending to be a 13-year-old girl, according to the complaint. Barreto attempted to meet with the girl for sexual purposes and was arrested by Carlsbad police. He listed his residence as Lakeside at the time of the arrest and his employer as the U.S. Navy.

He pleaded guilty to attempting to arrange an illicit meeting with a minor and was sentenced to three years in prison, the District Attorneys Office said. However, the prison sentence was stayed as long as he didnt violate probation.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavis
San Diego Superior Court Judge Gary Kreep, publicly censured in August for his conduct on the bench by the state judicial discipline agency, has been frequently absent from his duties in a downtown courtroom the past several months.

For several years Kreep has been assigned to hear landlord-tenant dispute cases in a second floor courtroom of the central courthouse. But lawyers who regularly appear in that courtroom said he is on the bench only intermittently these days.

Its hard to put a timeline on Kreeps attendance  some lawyers said they have not seen him for months, since the early summer, while others said he was on the bench as recently as August or September.

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Complicating matters is that it is difficult to determine the attendance record of a judge, information that is hard to get and cloaked in secrecy.

Both local Rules of Court,  the guidebook that governs the administration of the court  and rules for the judicial disciplinary agency the Commission on Judicial Performance (CJP) keep the information largely confidential.

Under commission rules, a judge who is absent for more than 90 days in a 12-month period has to be reported to the state CJP by the presiding judge of the court where the judge works.

However, whether a judge has been formally reported for being absent is not public information, under the commissions sweeping confidentiality rules that keep much information about judicial conduct secret.

Asked this week if Kreep has missed 90 or more days, San Diego court officials initially said the information was not public, citing the court rule making personnel information about judges exempt from disclosure.

When questioned if the rule also covers the basic attendance history of a judge, the court provided a little more information: a court spokeswoman said that Kreep has not been absent for more than 90 days over the past 12 months.

But the court declined to reveal how many days Kreep has missed. I have been told the Court cannot provide specific information in any individuals personnel file, spokeswoman Karen Dalton wrote in an email.

Kreep did not respond to requests for an interview sent via email and through the court.

The rules appear to give wide latitude to judges, who receive a salary of $200,042 per year as of July 1.

There are provisions in the rules that authorize absences that total more than 90 days, and allow extra time off under extraordinary circumstances so long as it is documented in writing.

Kreep could be on a medical leave or dealing with medical problems.

During his disciplinary proceedings earlier this year he said he had back problems. And at times during a two-week-long hearing on the charges in February in front of a panel of three judges acting as fact finders, Kreep often had to stand up to relieve his discomfort.

Kreep battled the CJP over misconduct allegations that were filed against him in 2016. He was accused of making a string of inappropriate and offensive comments to lawyers, defendants and others, most of which occurred in his first year or so on the bench.

Kreep acknowledged he said many of the statements but contended he did not intend to disparage people, and said that he has since learned and changed his conduct and how he runs his courtroom.

In its ruling issued in August the commission blasted him for a pattern of misconduct that demonstrates a lack of judicial temperament. The public censure was the second-most serious outcome the commission can impose  only removal from the bench is more serious.

Kreep is up for re-election in 2018. He narrowly won his seat in an upset in 2012, defeating a career prosecutor by fewer than 2,000 votes.

The disciplinary proceedings and the public censure have made him vulnerable in the upcoming race. While rumors of potential challengers have circulated in the courthouse one is already in the race  Deputy District Attorney Matt Brower.

His campaign web page takes direct aim at Kreep. I am running for Superior Court Judge on a platform of taking bias out of the courtroom, he wrote.I hope you will agree this sets me apart from the incumbent in my race.

Brower said in an interview that he does not think Kreep has changed because of the discipline. Im not convinced hes rehabilitated and is a different man now, he said.

Different judges have been handling the landlord-tenant cases in Kreeps department in his absence, lawyers and court officials said. That caseload is likely about to grow.

In September because of state budget cuts, the court closed the Vista courtroom handling such disputes, and sent all cases to the downtown court.

The downtown court now handles all landlord tenant disputes from around the county, since the court in previous years had closed courtrooms handling those cases in El Cajon and Chula Vista.

Twitter: @gregmoran

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com
The driver in a car-to-car gang shooting that killed an 18-year-old woman in front of her boyfriend and their baby in 1995 was sentenced Friday to eight years in state prison.

Samuel David Sayles III, now 41, was given the longest possible sentence in the slaying of Crystal Odom in Encanto in a case that went unsolved for 20 years.

Odoms parents were tearful in court as San Diego Superior Court Judge Eugenia Eyherabide imposed the prison term on Sayles.

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Hes just as guilty as the shooter, James Odom, Crystals father, read from a statement in court. God will find him guilty of murder.

The victims mother, Gloria Jimenez, was too distraught to read her statement, so Deputy District Attorney David Bost did it for her. It read, in part, that she still feels grief, sorrow, anger and pain daily for the loss of her daughter, whom she described as loving and giving to others.

Her statement noted that Crystal Odom, who was about to graduate from high school, wanted to be a probation or police officer.

San Diego homicide investigators arrested Sayles, Aswad Walker and Jamar Phillips in 2015.

Sayles was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in which a firearm was used, with a gang allegation. He had a juvenile record of two auto thefts and burglary, and was on adult probation for another car theft at the time of the killing.

Phillips, who was a minor at the time of the crime, pleaded guilty in Juvenile Court, where the details of his case are sealed. He was 37 when he was arrested, and testified later against Sayles and Walker.

Authorities allege Walker, now 40, was the passenger with Sayles who shot Odom three times in the head and once in the torso. He has been tried twice for murder, resulting in two hung juries. A third trial is set for Jan. 16.

Bost said that on the night of the crime, April 29, 1995, Odom drove to an Encanto gas station. Her boyfriend, Curtis Harvey, and their 10-month-old daughter, Aaliyah, were in the car.

Harvey exchanged some hard, but silent, looks with at least three men in another car. It made Odom so uneasy that she didnt wait to get gas. She drove away.

The three men followed in their car, and Sayles pulled alongside Odoms car at Akins Avenue and 65th Street. One of his passengers fired several rounds at her. Harvey drove her to her mothers home, where Odom died.

A break in the cold case came 20 years later when a tipster identified Sayles and Walker, police said.

The judge ruled out granting probation for Sayles and said the great violence of the offense led her to impose the stiffest possible sentence. But she added that she believes he has changed since the slaying.

Do I think youre remorseful? Eyherabide asked, looking at Sayles. I do. It says so in the probation report. I dont think you are that same person.

pauline.repard@sduniontribune

Twitter: @pdrepard
Thousands of Covered California policyholders can save money this year by paying extra attention to a few unprecedented changes which could dramatically affect the cost of health coverage in 2018.

President Donald Trumps recent order to withhold special payments to health insurance companies, and a decision by Anthem Blue Cross to pull out of most of the states Obamacare markets, will affect more than 10,000 current Covered California enrollees in San Diego County as this years annual open enrollment season gets underway.

Started Wednesday, the three-month stretch gives more than 1.4 million Californians  about 120,000 in the San Diego area  their annual chance to make changes to their health insurance plans for next year.

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Elimination of cost-sharing payments to insurers caused Covered California to tack on a surcharge to 2018 rates, and the impact of those price hikes fall hardest on those whose annual incomes are high enough that they do not qualify for Obamacare subsidies which, unlike the cost-sharing payments to insurers, will continue.

The cost-sharing payments would have cost the federal government about $10 billion next year. But it is the individual subsidies, which significantly defray monthly premium costs for millions of Americans, that have ave been a controversial part of the Affordable Care Act, with many opponents saying the expense is simply not sustainable over the long term.

According to the U.S. Congressional Budget office, premium subsidies will cost $38 billion in 2017 and, if the Affordable Care Acts existing system of income-based payments continues, outlays will reach $606 billion by 2027. Expanding Medicaid to include millions more Americans has been even more expensive, with outlays in 2017 estimated to reach $70 billion, growing to $998 billion over the next decade.

Covered Californias decision to tack on surcharges in order to compensate health insurance companies who were hit by the presidents executive order has created an unequal situation for customers.

Peter Lee, Covered Californias executive director, said those who receive subsidies that help pay their monthly premiums should be just fine. The Affordable Care Act calculates subsidy amounts in such a way that, as plan prices increase, so do the subsidies.

In pretty much every case, if you qualify for premium subsidies, you should end up paying the same amount or, in some cases, even a little bit less, Lee said.

But those who dont qualify for subsidies are in a bit more of a pinch. The 6,500 unsubsidized San Diego County residents currently in Covered California silver plans are in for double-digit premium increases if they stay put with their current plans. The same silver plans, he said, are offered off the Covered California exchange either directly from insurance companies or through local health insurance brokers.

But there is one key difference.

Off exchange there is no surcharge. For people who dont qualify for (subsidies) were directing them to go off exchange and avoid this extra cost. Well help them switch over to the exact same product, Lee said.

Michael Byrd, chief business development officer for Sharp Health Plan, said the confusing situation has prompted his organization to call affected policyholders and explain the options. Some choose to move up to a gold-level plan or down to a bronze-level plan while others opt to exit the exchange and buy off-exchange.

The surcharge has also created a surprising situation for those whose incomes qualify them for subsidies, Byrd added. Because subsidy amounts are calculated based on the cost of the second-cheapest silver plan in a market, the amount of subsidies that people qualify for has actually increased.

People are finding that they can actually upgrade to a gold plan, and its actually not much more than a silver plan or, if they havent used their coverage at all, theyre finding they can move down to bronze and get much, much cheaper premiums, Byrd said.

This premium dance will be extra relevant this year for nearly 4,400 San Diego County residents currently covered by Anthem Blue Cross plans. Anthem announced earlier this year that it is pulling out of most Covered California markets, forcing thousands to find new coverage for 2018.

Craig Gussin, a local health insurance broker and spokesman for the National Health Underwriters Association, said he anticipates spending many hours with his clients working through available options whether theyre dealing with the Anthem cancellation or the surcharge situation. Many may load Covered Californias plan picker website, see much higher premiums, and feel a little faint.

We want to say dont freak out. There is time to figure this out, and we can find a solution thats going to work for you, Gussin said.

Covered California has not let up on its push to promote its offerings even though marketing and assistance budgets in many states with federally-operated exchanges have been slashed.

Lee visited the La Maestra health center in San Diegos City Heights neighborhood Thursday morning aboard a charter tour bus temporarily wrapped with his organizations logos, slogans and human-shaped splashes of color. The moving billboard is designed to promote this years Covered in Art theme.

In 12 of the 22 cities that the bus tour will visit, Covered California has commissioned local muralists to design and paint health care-themed works designed to last for decades. The public art push is a not-so-subtle statement that, despite ongoing efforts in Washington to end the Affordable Care Act, Lee expects his organization to have staying power.

Going into our fifth year, Covered California is woven into the fabric of San Diego, Lee said. Were rock solid.

Though its open enrollment continues through January of 2018, plans must be purchased or renewed by Dec. 15 in order for coverage to start on Jan. 1.

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
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the controversial soldier who abandoned his combat outpost in Afghanistan eight years ago and was swiftly captured by the Taliban, was punished Friday with a demotion and a dishonorable discharge. He received no prison time.

The military judge presiding over the trial, Col. Jeffery Nance, had wide leeway to impose anything from no sentence to life imprisonment. Though prosecutors had urged the judge to sentence Bergdahl to 14 years in jail, defense lawyers had argued for no prison time  just a dishonorable or bad-conduct discharge  because of the torture he suffered as a prisoner of war.

The 31-year-old from Hailey, Idaho, clenched his jaw and began to shake as the judge read the sentence, which included a demotion from sergeant to private and a forfeiture of pay of $1,000 a month for 10 months. Two defense attorneys on each side of him wrapped an arm around his back.

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Less than an hour and a half after the sentencing, President Trump offered his thoughts on Twitter: The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military.

Outside the courthouse, Bergdahls lead attorney, Eugene R. Fidell of Yale Law School, said Bergdahl was still absorbing the ruling, yet it was a tremendous relief to get no prison time.

Still, Fidell vowed he would appeal the ruling and continue to attempt to get the case dismissed on the basis of Trumps inflammatory comments about Bergdahl.

Last year, on the campaign trail, Trump called Bergdahl a dirty rotten traitor who deserved to be executed by firing squad or ejected from a plane without a parachute. A few weeks ago, Trump said he could not comment on the case, but then added: I think people have heard my comments in the past.

President Trumps unprincipled effort to stoke a lynch-mob atmosphere while seeking our nations highest office has cast a dark cloud over the case, Fidell said. Every American should be offended by his assault on the fair administration of justice and disdain for basic constitutional rights.

Bergdahl, who was captured in June 2009 within hours of walking off his remote post in eastern Afghanistans Paktika province near the border with Pakistan, pleaded guilty last month to two charges: deserting his post in Afghanistan, which carries a punishment of up to five years, and misbehavior before the enemy, a more serious charge that involves endangering the lives of fellow troops and carries a potential sentence of life imprisonment.

During his trial, prosecutors highlighted the hazards to which Bergdahl exposed his comrades who embarked on a massive search and rescue mission in the days and weeks after his disappearance. The judge heard emotional testimony from former Navy SEAL James Hatch, who was hit by enemy fire that shattered his right femur, and the wife of Master Sgt. Mark Allen, who was shot in the head, leaving him unable to speak or walk.

The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017

In turn, the defense team appealed for leniency, stressing the physical and emotional toll of five grueling years of captivity by the Taliban and its allies. In court, Bergdahl recounted how he was caged, tortured and beaten, and he apologized to those whose lives he endangered.

Jail time, the defense argued, threatened to exacerbate Bergdahls already severe mental health problems. A forensic psychiatrist testified during the trial that Bergdahl suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as schizotypal personality disorder, which includes severe anxiety, unconventional behavior and grandiose thinking.

After the judge imposed his sentence, many within the military  including those who were wounded while attempting to rescue Bergdahl  expressed surprise and shock that Bergdahl would spend no time in jail.

Jonathan Morita, 33, of Valencia, Calif., a former Army corporal who testified for the prosecution about his injuries after a rocket-propelled grenade shattered his right hand during a search mission for Bergdahl, said in a telephone interview that he only halfway accepted the judges decision.

Though Morita believed the judge was right to demote Bergdahl and hand down a dishonorable discharge, he said he had expected a sentence of at least 10 years in prison. As a result of Bergdahls reckless decision to desert his post, Morita said, he could not bend his right thumb or index finger. His comrade, Sgt. Mark Allen, who was injured in the same mission, no longer can walk or speak.

Its just unacceptable, he said. I understand he was in captivity for five years. I get that he may have PTSD.  But he sat in the courtroom all this time, and he spoke in a clear, considered voice  just stone-cold. It didnt look like hes totally suffering. Now hes going to be free, while my sergeant, who ended up shot in the head, is never going to have a life again.

ThoughGen. Robert Abrams, the commanding general of Army Forces Command at Ft. Bragg who convened the court martial, could potentially reduce Bergdahls punishment, he cannot increase it.

A dishonorable discharge, the most serious punitive discharge a judge can impose, strips a service member of all military and veteran healthcare and education benefits. Fidell said such a discharge carries a lifetime stigma that will deprive Bergdahl of substantial benefits.

Beyond that, if you feel something fundamentally unfair has happened  and I am talking about President Trump here  that the judicial process has been distorted for improper, thoughtless reasons that are basically inimical to our way of life, rule of law in country, then you appeal, he added.

Bergdahls fate has been the subject of fierce disagreement, in and outside the military, ever since he was brought home by President Obama in May 2014 in a widely criticized swap for five Taliban commanders held at a U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

While Obama celebrated his return, saying the U.S. does not ever leave its men and women in uniform behind, the U.S. House of Representatives swiftly passed a resolution condemning the Obama administrations failure to notify Congress before striking the deal and expressing national security concerns over the Taliban prisoners release.

During the trial, Bergdahls attorneys repeatedly argued that Trumps inflammatory comments constitute an undue command influence that has made a fair trial impossible. Yet on Monday, Nance ruled that although unlawful command influence is the mortal enemy of military justice, Trumps comments would not prevent Bergdahl from receiving a fair trial because, as the sole sentencing authority, he was uninfluenced by the presidents opinions and held no fear of any repercussions from anyone who did not agree with the sentence he imposed.

Rejecting a defense motion to dismiss the case, Nance said he would consider Trumps comments as mitigating evidence that could lessen punishment.

Although Nances decision not to impose jail time was influenced by the fact that Bergdahl tried to redeem himself by trying to escape, Trumps comments more than likely compelled the judge to send a message to the government.

Whatever likelihood that Nance was going to sentence Bergdahl to a couple of years evaporated a couple of days ago when Trump made that statement, said Geoffrey Corn, a retired lieutenant colonel who is professor at South Texas College of Law in Houston. Trumps statements were inflammatory and they were stupid, and you know the military justice system is very, very vigilant about the effect of unlawful command influence impacting soldiers ability to get a fair trial.

Jarvie is a Times special correspondent.

UPDATES:

2:10 p.m.: This article was updated with reaction from Bowe Bergdahls defense lawyer, witnesses and other details.

10:30 a.m.: This article was updated with a tweeted reaction to the judges decision from President Trump.

This article was originally published at 8:55 a.m.
The suspect in this weeks deadly truck attack in New York, Sayfullo Saipov, came to the United States from Uzbekistan, a Central Asian country and former Soviet republic, apparently seeking a better life.

The country, which has faced years of economic stagnation, relies on remittances from those who go abroad to help families make ends meet, but also has seen militant movements grow from political and religious conflict.

In Saipovs case, authorities said it appears radicalization came a year ago in the U.S., not Uzbekistan, from watching Islamic State videos on his cellphone. Investigators found 90 videos and 3,800 images related to Islamic State on his phone, according to court documents.

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Authorities said Saipov, 29, claimed that he carried out the attack in the name of Islamic State and that he felt good about what he had done. He faces federal charges of supporting Islamic State extremists and vehicular violence in the Tuesday attack, which left eight people dead and 12 injured.

Authorities say Islamic State is among several extremist groups that attract people with roots in a number of countries. Heres some background on Uzbekistan.

Have people from Uzbekistan been involved in attacks before?

In 2015, prosecutors in New York arrested three men, including two citizens of Uzbekistan, for trying to join Islamic State and carry out attacks in the US.

Akhror Saidakhmetov, 19, an immigrant from Kazakhstan who worked at a cellphone repair store, and Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, 24, an immigrant from Uzbekistan who worked in a restaurant, both had obtained permanent resident status in the US. In August, Abror Habibov, 30, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, pleaded guilty to charges he worked with the pair to plan attacks in the U.S., including trying to kill President Obama, and raising funds to travel to Syria to join Islamic State. All three were active on an Uzbek-language online forum affiliated with Islamic State.

While that plot did not go forward, several deadly attacks in Europe have been attributed to Islamic State members from Central Asia.

Prosecutors in Turkey are currently trying Abdulkadir Masharipov, a citizen of Uzbekistan who allegedly saw combat in Afghanistan and Syria, for the killing of 39 revelers at a nightclub in Istanbul on Dec. 31, 2016. Masharipov was allegedly part of a network of Islamic State members from former Soviet countries that was also responsible for a June 2016 attack on Istanbuls Ataturk International Airport that killed 45 people.

The perpetrators in the Istanbul attack were in direct contact with Islamic State in Syria and had received combat training for such operations.

We dont know the facts about Saipov, said Nate Schenkkan, a researcher with Freedom House who monitors democratic governance in Central Asia. Maybe he was just someone who was disaffected, or angry, and became meshed in narratives of vengeance, of violence, and simply acted them out according to a template advanced to anyone with an internet connection who wants to read it.

Why did Saipov come to the U.S.?

Saipov, who reportedly had no history of problems with Uzbek authorities, appears to have immigrated to the U.S. for economic reasons, which is increasingly common in Uzbekistan. He entered the U.S. legally in 2010 and worked as a trucker and Uber driver.

Decades of corruption have stagnated Uzbekistans economy, making it one of the poorest countries in the region and highly dependent on remittances from those working abroad, which account for around half of the countrys gross domestic product.

Economically its a desperate and terrible situation. Its hard to work there and hard to make money, Schenkkan said. There are very well-established diaspora networks, in Turkey, in Russia, in Kazakhstan, so many people go to work and send money back. There was nothing strange about Saipov, about a guy at this age going abroad to work.

Why is Central Asia, and especially Uzbekistan, ideologically important for Islamic State?

Uzbekistan, with a population of 32 million, is the most populated of five former Soviet countries that make up Central Asia. It has long served as a cultural and linguistic bridge between South Asia, the Middle East and Russia.

The Fergana Valley, the most densely populated region of Central Asia, cuts across modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, and served as a cradle for Islamic empires that governed the predominantly Muslim region until the 19th century, when they lost ground to the Russian Empire and eventually became part of the Soviet Union.

When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, what used to be five provinces became five independent nations: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Though the countrys names are supposed to correspond to Soviet-era ethnic classifications  Uzbek, Tajik, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, and Turkmen, respectively  its not always the case: for instance, about 15% of Kyrgyzstan is ethnically Uzbek.

Is Uzbekistan a breeding ground for extremism?

The countrys recent history of religious and political repression has given rise to militant movements that have been active in the Middle East and South Asia.

Uzbekistan held elections in 1991, but they were considered largely fraudulent. The former local head of the Communist Party, Islam Karimov, became president in a pattern replicated across Central Asia.

After independence, it was thought many of the most severe restrictions on religious expression imposed during Soviet rule in Uzbekistan would be lifted, but Karimov decisively put reform movements down.

In neighboring Tajikistan, a civil war erupted between Islamists and the government, drawing dissident Islamists from Uzbekistan, and providing Karimov with justification for imposing what human rights groups say were some of the most severe restrictions on religious expression in the world.

By the late 1990s, militants had formed the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which called for Karimovs overthrow and carried out a handful of attacks in the country. The group found more room to operate in neighboring Afghanistan, where it became a prominent ally of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, much of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan membership was forced to move to Pakistan, and over the last 16 years some of the deadliest attacks in that country have been carried out by members of the group.

With the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, thousands of veteran militants from Central Asia found a new theater to operate in, with some becoming Islamic States leading commanders.

Karimov, who ruled the country until his death in 2016, oversaw one of the most repressive states in the world. More than 10,000 people are imprisoned, and torture is widespread, according to Human Rights Watch, with most prisoners accused of crimes related to religious extremism, for behavior like growing a beard, wearing a headscarf, or visiting the mosque for prayers. Tens of thousands of others are on a black list, said Schenkkan, and anyone seeking to leave the country must obtain an exit visa from the government.

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who succeeded Karimov after his death, has indicated the government would like to open up. This year, Uzbekistan allowed human rights monitors to return to the country after years of being banned, and pledged those on the black list would be given a chance to clear their names. A handful of prominent dissidents have returned from exile, but some have been detained on arrival.

Mirziyoyev issued a statement condemning the attack in New York City, and pledging his government would help with any investigation, but some rights groups worry the president may follow Karimovs pattern, and use the threat of terrorist attacks to roll back or cancel planned reforms.

Given the way the government has treated political and religious dissent, including from Islamists, for decades, its not like there is some other step they have been waiting to take, Schenkkan said. But there has been a kind of softening recently  and this could damage that. It could allow the government to question that process.

Farooq is a special correspondent.
Concerns about neighborhood volunteers overseeing cash generated by San Diegos 52 recreation centers is prompting the city to consider policy changes that are unpopular with the volunteers.

City Attorney Mara Elliott and other city officials say its illegal and inappropriate for private citizens to control money that belongs to city taxpayers.

But the volunteers, who serve on panels called recreation councils, say theyve operated this way for decades with minimal problems, and that there are too many unanswered questions about the proposed changes.

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City officials say theyre moving quickly on the changes so they can hammer out details of the new policy with the volunteers by a Dec. 31 deadline, contending thats necessary to avoid cancellation of recreation center activities in early 2018.

But the City Council this week rejected changes proposed by Elliott, preferring instead to have the councils Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods craft an alternate solution at its Dec. 6 meeting.

That timeline would make it difficult for the council to approve a new policy before its year-end recess begins Dec. 16.

Many of the volunteers have lobbied Elliott to give the councils an extension of their permits beyond Dec. 31 to avoid an interruption of services, but no extension has been granted.

If the council chooses not to act, the city would then have no mechanism to collect funds and no authority to spend funds on recreation programs, Elliott said this week. And without permits, the recreation councils would have no authority to collect or spend funds on these programs.

But many of the volunteers say theyve frequently been allowed to operate with expired permits in the past, contending the Dec. 31 deadline is artificial and unnecessary.

Elliott says the city cant move forward with an illegal system that allows city money to be handled by unauthorized people.

There are no checks and balances in place to ensure public dollars are spent fairly, appropriately and in compliance with state and local laws, she said.

Elliott also says her change would allow the recreation councils to retain their advisory roles.

The only real change, she says, would be the money being placed in individual city accounts designated for each center, instead of it being in private bank accounts controlled by each council.

Councilman Scott Sherman supports Elliotts proposal.

The fact we are putting private citizens in charge of a checkbook that is part of the citys money gives chances for problems, he said this week.

But Councilman David Alvarez is opposed, based more on how the proposed changes have been handled than what they would accomplish.

Community members have been very clear about the lack of transparency in the proposed changes, said Alvarez, suggesting the city is ruining its relationship with the volunteers. This proposal has been rushed through

Councilwoman Lorie Zapf agreed.

I am not seeing the need for this fire drill, she said. There are so many unanswered questions.

Those comments echo the sentiments of many of the volunteers.

Theres no need for an abrupt and disruptive change like this, said Jeff Stevens, a member of the Mira Mesa Recreation Council.

Robin Kaufman, leader of the Rancho Bernardo Recreation Council, said the changes could create unintended consequences unless they are carefully worked out.

There are many unknowns to this matter and all we are asking for is time, she said.

One such unknown is what will happen to fundraising money the recreation councils have secured in recent years. The money is in the accounts of the councils, which are nonprofits, but doesnt belong to the city.

Gail Forbes of the La Jolla Recreation Council said the controversy has driven a wedge between the city and its volunteers, who only care about bolstering San Diego and its residents.

If this proposal were really going to help our city, wed all be in favor of it, she said.

david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick
Two inmates serving the ends of their prison sentences at a Kearny Mesa halfway house walked away from the facility today and went on the lam, authorities reported Thursday.

Staffers at the Custody to Community Transitional Reentry Program center on Armstrong Street discovered Karen Flores,26, and Gisselle Rivas, 20, missing shortly before noon, according to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials.

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Authorities determined that Flores and Rivas had managed to remove their required ankle-worn electronic tracking devices, corrections department spokeswoman Krissi Khokhobashvili said.

Corrections officials have notified local law enforcement agencies about the escapes and requested their assistance in tracking down the two inmates, each described as a 5-foot 1-inch Hispanic woman with brown hair and brown eyes.

Flores was sentenced in Los Angeles County in August 2016 to serve two years and eight months for second-degree robbery and grand theft. She had been at the transitional facility near Kearny Mesa Recreation Center since May and was scheduled to be released next September.

Rivas was sentenced in January 2017, also in the Los Angeles area, to serve four years for first-degree burglary and vehicle theft. She had been at the halfway house since June, slated to be released next April.

The transitional-reentry program allows eligible inmates to serve the conclusions of their sentences in a community-based setting in lieu of state prison. The program provides a range of rehabilitative services that assist with substance-abuse recovery, employment, education, housing, family reunification and social support.

Anyone with information about either escapee can call (916) 464-4169 or local law enforcement.

pauline.repard@sduniontribune

Twitter: @pdrepard
A 25-year-old man whose motorcycle was struck by a car near Pacific Beach Middle School was critically hurt Thursday evening, police said.

The rider was going south on Ingraham Street about 6:20 p.m. when a northbound Kia sedan turned west onto Diamond Street, across the path of the motorcycle, police said.

It was unclear which motorist had the right of way.

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The motorcyclist suffered life-threatening injuries and was taken to a hospital, police said.

The driver of the Kia, a 30-year-old man, was not hurt.

Police said neither drugs nor alcohol was a factor in the collision.

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Email: david.hernandez@sduniontribune.com

Phone: (619) 293-1876

Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez
A man driving a stolen truck led police on a chase Thursday from National City to Encanto, where officers forced the pickup to a halt and arrested him with help from a police dog.

The pursuit began in the area of Euclid Avenue and Plaza Boulevard about 4 p.m., authorities said.

San Diego and National City police chased the man on various roads for about a half-hour before the truck ran over a tire-flattening spike strip that officers had laid in its path at 65th Street and Wunderlin Avenue, San Diego police Officer Tony Martinez said.

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The suspect continued south and west for a short time, driving on two rims now covered only with tatters of rubber, then pulled to a stop on Fergus Street near Imperial Avenue.

Though surrounded and boxed in, the man refused to surrender for several minutes, until officers released a police dog that leaped onto him and dragged him to the pavement.

Officers then swarmed the suspect and took him into custody.

Breaking News

Email: david.hernandez@sduniontribune.com

Phone: (619) 293-1876

Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez
A clerk accused of selling the synthetic drug spice was arrested during a raid at a Hillcrest smoke shop Tuesday morning, police said.

Loay Lawrence was taken into custody at Godfather Smoke Shop on Fifth Avenue. The 55-year-old was in possession of about 1/3 pound of spice, 375 kratom pills and nearly $5,000 in cash.

Kratom  a green powder derived from the crushed leaves of the kratom tree  is not a synthetic drug, but it is still banned under the citys synthetic drug ordinance because of how it affects users. Last year, one person died after overdosing on the drug, according to the Medical Examiners Office.

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It definitely has some addictive qualities and some nasty effects, San Diego police Lt. Matt Novak said.

Detectives launched the investigation after getting several tips that spice was being dealt in the Hillcrest community, Novak said. Further information led them to the smoke shop and Lawrence.

Investigators plan to speak with the owners of the shop to determine how much they knew of Lawrences activities.

Those accused of violating the citys synthetic drug ordinance can face six months in jail, a $1,000 fine and probation.

Twitter: @LAWinkley

(619) 293-1546

lyndsay.winkley@sduniontribune.com
Snapping the reigns of a chestnut horse, Albert Lin galloped across the broad plains of Mongolia, unleashing the exuberance he felt searching for the tomb of Genghis Khan, the notorious 13th century conqueror.

It was 2009 and the UC San Diego scientist was about to experience a bit of fame. The split-second splendor of his horse ride was captured by National Geographic in a studly photo that seemed to scream:

Adventurer! Explorer! Man of action!

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The photo could have been a curse; Lin was only in his 20s when he began using satellite images and ground-penetrating radar to hunt for Khans burial site. It was unclear whether his work in science would amount to anything, even though National Geographic soon named Lin an emerging explorer.

He did not find Khans remains. But nearly a decade later, the photo has turned out to be a snapshot of a scientist in bloom.

The 36 year-old Lin recently returned from field research in Guatemala, where he fought off killer bees to help National Geographic film a documentary. Hes become a global leader in sharing compelling satellite images on social media and asking the public to help him search for archaeological remains.

Lin also co-founded a company that uses online video games to teach science to young students. And he and his colleagues at UC San Diego are about to launch the Center for Human Frontiers, a think tank, of sorts, focused on how technology is changing mankind.

His most notable achievement, though, may be surviving a personal tragedy that could have ended his career in science.

Last year, Lins right leg was severely damaged in an off-road vehicle accident. Bones were broken and splintered, like pieces of bamboo.

Doctors amputated Lins leg from the knee down in hopes of alleviating excruciating pain. He was fitted with a prosthetic limb, but then suffered from phantom pain, something many people feel when an arm or leg is removed.

We thought Albert would be set back for years, said Lins long-time friend, industrial designer Derek Lomas.

Instead, he leveled up with nearly super human powers. With the help of neuroscientists, prostheticists, and a whole lot of good vibes, Albert figured out how to remap his own brain.

It shows that Albert can turn any experience into pure gold.

Many people were unaware of the accident until Lin tweaked his website, noting that he had become partially bionic.

He wasnt being glib; Lin is always looking for the upside in life. Hell point to his temple and say, The positivity of the mind is more powerful than the body.

He finds positivity everywhere, including in unexpected places, at unexpected times.

On Sept. 26th, Lin went surfing to mark the one year anniversary of his accident. He took to Instagram to explain what happened next:

I get out to dry off and watch the sunset (and) a van pulls up next to me. Two medics on their break get out to take in the beauty of the horizon at dusk.

As if the universe was just saying hello, one of the medics suddenly recognizes me. He had transported me on that fateful day one year ago... Maybe we really are in living in a simulation. Whatever it is, the universe is a mysterious but awesome playwright.

For Lin, the play has had some rocky moments.

He zipped through UC San Diego, where he earned bachelors and Masters degrees, and a doctorate in materials science. Toward the end, while finishing his doctorate, Lin grew restless, unhappy.

I felt like I was losing my sense of humanity, Lin said. I asked myself, Why am I doing this? Id had this notion that I wanted to study indigenous early cultures that still had an essence of humanity. I wanted to live with the nomads in Mongolia.

And so he went and did it.

Albert took a plane to China, a train to Mongolia, then rode a horse to the northern steppes, where he basically got accepted by the nomads (herders who roam the land), said Eli Spencer, a UC San Diego physician-scientist, and one of Lins friends.

Lin got that far, in part, due to an act of kindness on the train.

Albert overhead a guard shouting at a fellow passenger and threatening to remove (him), Lomas said. Albert intervened and persuaded the guard to move on.

In thanks, the passenger offered to connect Albert to her family in Mongolia  and thats how Albert received the necessary support to search the Forbidden Zone for the lost tomb of Genghis Khan.

The Forbidden Zone is a large, desolate area of Mongolia thats thought to contain the burial grounds of Khan, who died about 800 years ago, after creating a massive empire that took in large areas of China, Central Asia and Iran. The Mongol leader also was known as an innovator, especially in military strategy and his use of tools.

Historians also remember Khan as a barbarian who directly or indirectly killed millions. The total number isnt known. In fact, many of the details of Khans life arent known. Theyre shrouded in mythology.

Lin hoped to slice through that in 2009 when he began using satellite imagery and other non-invasive tools to study Mongolia.

The goal was to be a tomb saver, not a tomb raider.

I wanted to know how one man could reshape the planet, creating this huge empire in just one lifetime, said Lin. Khan created his own reality.

His search, spread over four years, revealed comparatively little about Khans death. But he made interesting archaeological finds with the help of the people who examined the satellite images that he posted on the the web.

Lin also popularized the process, co-founding Tomnod, a company whose software greatly advanced the use of crowdsourcing in the analysis of satellite images and maps.

The crowdsourcing may prove to be childs play compared to his next undertaking  creating the Center for Human Frontiers. The center will be broadly devoted to examining how technology  past, present, and future  shapes humanity.

The centers specific mission statement is proving to be more elusive, partly because of Lins nature. Hes a deeply empathetic soul who is intrigued by everyone and everything. He riffs on ideas in the same way that William Faulkner wrote sentences. Which is to say, he airs things out.

At times, Lin baffles listeners with New Age-y terms like flow states and mind hives.

Eventually, though, his ideas come into focus. Its starting to appear that his center will deeply explore the merger of machines and mankind, and how the connectivity of the web represents a collective mind and perhaps a conscious Internet.

Those ideas underlie his decision to ask the National Science Foundation for money to find ways to use smartphones, software, and connectivity to make it easier for amputees around the world to get access to specialists and manufacturers who can provide them with affordable prosthetics.

He presses the point forcefully. On a recent afternoon, Lin stuck his carbon fiber and titanium prosthetic limb on a desk and said, There are 40 million amputees around the world. Most of them dont have the advantages Ive had with this. We need to help them.

Spencer is betting that he succeeds, saying, There are a lot of frontiers out there. Most people dont see them. Albert does. And he pushes on through. He gets things done.

Science Playlist  On Now In a first, scientists rid human embryos of a potentially fatal gene mutation by editing their DNA On Now Space station flyovers visible from San Diego this week 0:55 On Now UCSD's 'ghost drivers' begin testing people's reaction seemingly empty cars 1:29 On Now 10 interesting facts about Mars On Now Kids can add years to your life On Now LA 90: SpaceX launches recycled rocket On Now Big passions, big giving: Malin Burnham 2:30 On Now Big passions, big giving: Darlene Shiley 2:40 On Now Big passions, big giving: Joan and Irwin Jacobs 2:45 On Now Ocean temperatures warming at rapid rate, study finds

Twitter: @grobbins

gary.robbins@sduniontribune.com
A new Democratic candidate used a popular liberal news show Thursday to launch a bid to oust Dianne Feinstein, saying its time for Californias longtime senator to go.

Dianne Feinstein isnt doing it at all, said 37-year-old Alison Hartson, the leader of a group aimed at getting money out of politics, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

We as a progressive movement, we have got to take this fight to the doorstep of Congress, she said.

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Cenk Uygur, the host of the flagship, namesake show on the online progressive media network The Young Turks, will advise Hartsons campaign. She also has the support of Justice Democrats, a progressive political action committee that is targeting incumbent Democrats across the country.

Hartson lives in Orange County and is not well-known outside of progressive circles. She said she is hoping to capitalize on the wave of people inspired by the 2016 presidential bid of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

We have to get more progressives to help Bernie keep this fight moving forward, Hartson said. We get in there and begin showing people whats possible, I guarantee you we are going to light a fire.

Her candidacy presents an immediate challenge to Democratic state Senate leader Kevin de Leon, who is hoping to be the more progressive foil to the moderate-leaning Feinstein and announced he would run against the senator last month.

The progressives who were electrified by Sanders campaign talk about free college, healthcare for all and getting big money out of politics are frustrated enough to challenge incumbent Democrats who they say arent fighting hard for those issues.

As an example, Hartson pointed to Sanders 2015 push for a constitutional amendment to get money out of politics, which no other Democrat co-sponsored.

Some California progressives have voiced frustration with Feinstein in part because shes not willing to offer blanket resistance to the Trump administration. Though she has staunchly opposed Trump on many issues, progressives lashed out at her in late August when Feinstein urged patience with Trump and said she believed he could be a good president if he learns and changes.

De Leon was one of Feinsteins biggest critics following the patience comment. Billionaire Democratic donor Tom Steyer is also weighing a Senate bid in California and has urged Democrats to push for Trumps impeachment. More than a dozen lesser-known candidates have announced theyll challenge Feinstein too.

Hartson pledged to take donations only from individuals and to turn down corporate or political action committee donations, similar to Sanders policy during the 2016 election.

Refusing corporate or special interest money, especially in a contest against a senator who is known for her strong fundraising and who could self-fund the campaign if necessary, makes for an uphill battle in a state where senate campaigns can cost more than $10 million.

Hartson hopes that the affiliation with The Young Turks, on which Uygur often asks viewers to contribute to his causes, will help her compete and that progressives will unite to support the campaign. Shes been on the show a handful of times in the last five years but is not a regular face.

Now that we know what were capable of  I am very confident that the people on the ground, the boots on the ground are going to make up for the money, Hartson said.

To focus on the race, Hartson is stepping down as national director of WolfPAC, a nonpartisan political action committee associated with The Young Turks network that is dedicated to getting big money out of elections.

WolfPAC is working to get state government to support a ban on corporate money in elections by amending the Constitution. Five states, including California, have passed a resolution calling for a campaign finance amendment.

Hartson was a high school English teacher in Orange County when she realized the influence of money in politics was the root cause of other problems in society, she said. She volunteered for groups working on the issue and quickly rose through the ranks at WolfPAC. She organized supporters across California to push the resolution through in Sacramento in 2014 and led the effort that passed similar resolutions in three other states.

sarah.wire@latimes.com

Follow @sarahdwire on Twitter

Read more about the 55 members of Californias delegation at latimes.com/politics

ALSO:

Californias Sen. Dianne Feinstein says shell run for a sixth term: Theres still so much work left to do

California Senate leader Kevin de Leon announces he will challenge Sen. Dianne Feinstein

California could flip the House, and these 13 races will make the difference

Updates on California politics
Two plaques outside the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum declare the charitys special thanks to county Supervisor Ron Roberts for his efforts to fund the installation of two massive granite lions.

Trouble is, the bronze tributes affixed to matching statues on each side of Third Avenue in downtown San Diego were dedicated in 2016. That was seven years after the Board of Supervisors cracked down on elected officials receiving personal thanks for their role in granting public funds.

Now, after U-T Watchdog noticed the wording and asked Roberts about the apparent violation, he and the museum say they will remove the plaques.

The San Diego Chinese Historical Museum independently chose the language that is in use on the exterior monuments, Roberts said in a statement. When my office alerted them to your query, they volunteered to remove the plaques from the two lions as they were installed after the board policy was changed.

Spokesman Tim McClain confirmed that Roberts attended the June 2016 dedication ceremony. He said the supervisor read the inscription at the time and now regrets he did not alert museum officials to the violation back then.

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Roberts awarded just under $100,000 to the museum in recent years under a county program that allows elected officials to direct $10 million a year to local organizations.

An U-T report in 2009 described how the supervisors were receiving favors and public recognition from the groups they supported with taxpayer dollars. The county followed with efforts to tighten the rules to prohibit crediting the politicians.

An organization may only recognize the County of San Diego, and not individual Board members, on items funded with the grant funds, county policy now states.

The county Neighborhood Reinvestment Program has been controversial for years.

Under the program, each elected official is allotted $2 million a year to donate to charities or public agencies, within certain guidelines.

Officials say the program is an effective ways for elected leaders to aid worthwhile programs in need of specific funding. Critics have called it a slush fund that allows incumbents to curry favor across their district in advance of elections.

The grant program also has been criticized for appearing to fund overseas travel for some county supervisors. Roberts has traveled to China at least six times during his tenure, funded by the San Diego World Trade Center, to which he directed more than $1 million in public funding.

In 2006, former Supervisor Pam Slater-Price traveled to Austria on a trip paid for by Mainly Mozart, a nonprofit musical group that received more than $200,000 of county money at her direction.

Officials at the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum declined to discuss the plaques.

Interim Executive Director Brandon Horrocks referred questions to a public-relations consultant hired by the charity, who did not respond to questions.

Board Chairman Michael Yee later issued a statement saying the museum would remove the plaques as soon as possible. It was not immediately clear whether they would be replaced or what would become of the original markers.

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jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1708 @sdutMcDonald
Did you know that the greatest public transportation systems in the world have a direct and important connection to San Diego? The ticketing systems for London, Chicago, Vancouver and Sydney have all been enhanced and modernized through the technologies of San Diego-based Cubic Transportation Systems. And joining this global lineup will be New York City following a $533 million contract awarded to Cubic on October 25, taking The Big Apple to the next level in modern transit payment.

This is just one of the many remarkable ways San Diego companies are connecting abroad to create jobs and opportunities here at home. World Trade Center San Diego  an affiliate of San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation  in conjunction with Congressman Scott Peters, led a delegation of San Diego companies and organizations to London and Cambridge, U.K. last week to strengthen economic ties with one of our regions top markets for trade and investment.

San Diego companies are engaging in mutually beneficial relationship with the U.K. every day. More than 10,000 San Diegans are employed by U.K.-based companies and the U.K. is a top export market for San Diego-produced goods and services. Transatlantic collaboration between our nations is also developing life-changing and lifesaving technologies for San Diego, the U.S. and the world. These technologies are being developed by companies like San Diego-based Illumina, a genomics company which also has a large presence in the U.K.

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And Chargemaster, a licensee of Qualcomms wireless electric vehicle charging technology, Qualcomm Halo just opened the worlds first EV Experience Center in the U.K. Theyre looking at additional markets to deploy this technology and the EV Experience Center concept to help accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles around the world.

Increasingly, our smaller innovation companies are taking advantage of these international relationships as well. For example, San Diego-based Forge Therapeutics, a biotech developing novel therapies to combat drug-resistant superbugs, is nearly doubling its presence in San Diego because of its new alliance with the U.K.-based team at Evotec.

Congenica, a genomics company based in Cambridge, partnered with San Diego-based Edico Genome. Their combined technologies are expediting genome sequencing, which helps clinicians deliver targeted therapies. While Edico Genome and Congenica leadership were celebrating this partnership in Cambridge last week, Edico Genome and other partners were stateside, setting a world record for the fastest analysis of 1,000 whole human genomes.

We know better than anyone that this progress is the result of long-term, behind-the-scenes work building relationships, establishing partnerships, staffing, scaling and financing across multiple time zones, languages and currencies. Yet many of them began simply: by bringing together interesting, ambitious people from distinct parts of the world. Trade missions, like our recent journey to the U.K., allow us to showcase the innovation and discovery produced by the San Diego region. It also allows us to celebrate the success of our collaborative partnerships where big ideas that will drive tomorrows economy take root.

In the months and years ahead, there will be many business transactions, new investments and strategic partnerships as a product of the work we did on the ground in the U.K. in October. We will have stronger relationships, more visibility as a region and new opportunities to grow because of who we met with and what we saw there.

In contrast, the messages coming from Washington D.C. and London remain divisive and damaging to our economic future. As regional leaders, we can and must set the record straight. Our mayor, Kevin Faulconer, traveled to Mexico City and Vancouver on behalf of our region earlier this year. We were honored to join Congressman Peters in representing San Diego alongside a talented delegation last week in London and Cambridge.

It is up to us at the metro level to continue to show up, shake hands and build the types of economic partnerships that make us more connected, more competitive and more prosperous. We hope that our elected and business leaders continue to join forces to do just that.

Clarke, Ph.D. is executive director of World Trade Center San Diego and vice president of economic development at San Diego Regional EDC.
Once again, an initiative to overhaul the federal tax code has begun. A major issue has been repeatedly neglected in dialogue regarding such reform: the downside legal protections and benefits that corporate and other types of business entities receive that bolster business success and wealth generation. Our nation affords opportunity to entrepreneurs and investors by providing them with a legal safety net allowing them to risk losses and failure while protecting their personal assets held outside of a particular shielded business entity on which they profit.

In the current debate regarding taxation such downside legal protections should be considered in setting corporate and individual tax rates on upside profits because these protections greatly enhance opportunity for profitability while imposing costs on society.

American law provides a way to structure businesses such that an owner or investor is protected from having personal liability for losses of that business. Such limited liability is an important reason why the law recognizes those businesses to be separate from their owners. These laws in conjunction with bankruptcy regulations give personal protection to owners should a business fail. They shield their personal wealth including other business interests from having to pay what is owed on contracts the business has made and not fulfilled. They also offer protections against any other liability, including lawsuits. Only the resources of the bankrupt business itself may be taken to satisfy most legal obligations.

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These legal protections are costly to society. The benefit of limited liability means that debts beyond resources left in a bankrupt company will go unpaid. Money owed to individuals, other organizations and government, under civil and criminal law is normally not the responsibility of private parties with a stake in the failed company regardless of how much they profited in the past. This includes lawsuits where the interests of another have been injured such as violation of the rights of customers or employees. The three largest American corporate bankruptcies were Lehman Bros., Washington Mutual and WorldCom, with each resulting in substantial financial losses to Americans.

Furthermore, American tax laws encourage businesses to take risk by allowing for deductibility of losses against profits including two-year carry back and 20-year carry forward provisions permitting losses to be taken against past and future profits. The IRS requires that deductible business expenses be ordinary and necessary, but is very liberal as to what is acceptable under this regulation. There is no test for the wisdom of an investment. What becomes a money-losing venture normally can be written off against present and future profits. Tax law provides an incentive to take risks with this downside protection that lowers taxes a business is obligated to pay, sometimes to zero. It is not a secret in the business world that companies take what some would judge as foolish risks because of these provisions.

Nellie Akalp, CEO of CorpNet, a company that assists new businesses formation, advises entrepreneurs to never start just one business. Multiple corporations allow owners to isolate the risks and losses to each separate activity. The movie industry is notorious for putting each project into a different company to limit losses from failures. Developers and construction businesses often form a new company for each separate project, so that their profitable ventures wont pay for losers. President Donald Trump famously used such laws to protect and build his business empire while filing four major bankruptcies.

Who reaps the greatest upside benefit from downside legal protections on business? Based upon data from the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances, Professor Edward N. Wolff found that the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans controlled 93 percent of business equity ownership. According to the Economic Report of the President, 2013, in that year the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans owned 81 percent of corporate stock and the richest 20 percent owned 92 percent. The Pew Research Center found that in 2013, 53 percent of Americans owned no stock. A small percentage of wealthy Americans accrue most of the benefit from these policies that boost business creation and profitability. For many Americans, this scheme results in higher taxes so the government can meet tax revenue goals.

The debate over individual and corporate tax rates should factor in the advantages businesses and, ultimately, their owners, derive from the aforementioned laws. In fairness, the costs to society of downside protections should be offset. The best way to do this is through taxes paid by businesses and those fortunate enough to gain wealth through upside business success made possible, in so many ways, by our society.

Lampe is professor of business law and social responsibility at the University of San Diego School of Business. Christianson is a retired professor of economics who taught at the University of San Diego School of Business.
Ever since Donald Trumps unexpected election as president last November, not just the pundit class but plenty of Americans across the ideological spectrum have come to fear that the Republican businessmans triumph wasnt a one-off event triggered by economic and cultural anxieties and a weak Democratic opponent. Increasingly, Trumps successful scorched-Earth campaign seems to be a sign America is a meaner, darker place than many people thought. After the fall of Harvey Weinstein, its incongruous to think back to Trumps relentless belittling of his women accusers as horrible, sick and phony  and that was just one example of Trumps contempt for the norms of civic discourse.

This fear of a mean-spirited America is stoked by every transgressive presidential act, such as when Trump got into a spat with the newly widowed wife of an American soldier. But there has also been reason for optimism. For months, elected Republicans have largely steered clear of the Trump playbook of inflammatory comments, personal attacks on critics and constant media-bashing. While they may share the presidents aggressive, divisive views on immigration, they still seem to grasp that civility and decorum matter. This has generally seemed to be true for most elected Democrats as well.

Until the Virginia governors race, which concludes with voting Tuesday. Once a conservative redoubt, Virginia has become steadily more Democratic in recent years. Both its senators are Democrats, as is termed-out governor Terry McAuliffe, and its voters have backed Democrats in three straight presidential elections.

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To break this losing streak, GOP gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie  previously a mainstream, moderate, big tent Republican National Committee chairman and aide to President George W. Bush  is running a campaign built on hot-button Trump-like takes on culturally freighted issues. One of his ads assert that his Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, a pediatric neurologist, is fighting for the violent MS-13 killer gangs because of his tie-breaking vote in the state Senate to allow cities to reassure unauthorized immigrants they will not be targeted by law enforcement. Another ad blasts Northam for supporting McAuliffes program to restore voting rights to criminals  considered a civil rights issue by African-Americans in Virginia  after their release from prison.

But a Democratic group has an anti-Gillespie ad that is at least as toxic as anything the Republican has released. The Latino Victory Fund put out an ad in which minority youths are being chased by a pickup truck that is flying the Confederate battle flag and has a Gillespie bumper sticker.

Daily Beast columnist Matt Lewis made the case last week that there was nothing unusual or even Trump-inspired about the Virginia governors race, saying previous governors races often dealt with culturally sensitive issues.

Maybe. But from a distance, this benign assessment seems hard to swallow. This is a governors race in which white voters are told they risk death at the hands of nonwhites, and nonwhite voters are told they risk death at the hands of whites  and both sides defend their tactics.

When politicians shove certain people out of their tents instead of seeking new supporters, that portends an ugly future. If this is the new normal for American politics, we will be a diminished nation.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion
The Country Music Association and Brad Paisley on Friday ignited a polarizing debate about how to delicately address last months mass shooting at a country music concert in Las Vegas and whether the press should be barred from approaching the topic at the Country Music Awards.

The big uproar erupted when the CMA spelled out Media Guidelines barring journalists from asking any questions or focusing coverage on last months deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas, guns or politics  or else have their media credentials potentially revoked via security escort.

CMA bars media from asking questions about Las Vegas shooting at its upcoming 2017 annual Country Music Awards ceremony. (San Diego Union-Tribune)

The CMA cites sensitivities at hand in reference to the way 58 people died and more than 500 were wounded when a man sprayed bullets at a country music festival just outside the Mandalay Bay Resort on Oct. 1. The shooting renewed some calls for gun control and for lawmakers to act.

The topic is understandably sensitive, and organizers may have expected that journalists covering the Country Music Awards would likely ask artists about it, but barring such questions did not sit well with Paisley, and other artists and journalists.

Country music star Wheeler Walker, Jr., tweeted no artist with integrity would put up with this [expletive]. Paisley, who is co-hosting the awards with Carrie Underwood next Wednesday, took to Twitter on Friday morning to slam those restrictions on media outlets as ridiculous and unfair.

Three hours later, CMA did what Paisley predicted it would do: It rescinded the rule altogether. In a statement, the CMA apologized, saying it meant no harm.

CMA apologizes for the recently distributed restrictions in the CMA Awards media guidelines, which have since been lifted. The sentiment was not to infringe and was created with the best of intentions to honor and celebrate country music, the statement read.

Paisley followed up with his own tweet: Bravo CMA for doing the right thing & apologizing for this mistake.

While people overwhelmingly praised Paisley for standing up for the free press  a stance thats also become a politicized conversation  others disagreed with him, saying that the Country Music Awards should stick to music and avoid politics. Here are just a few of those people who chimed in on his tweets.

The Country Music Awards ceremony is set for Wednesday, Nov. 8.

Will there be controversy? Should the CMA go on without any mention of the shooting? Should the CMA, as some have put it, stick to music?

Have some thoughts to share?

Join me in a conversation: Shoot me a private email with your thoughts or ideas on a different approach to this story. As always, you can also send us a tweet.

Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @RunGomez

Read The Conversation on Flipboard.
A report from the Western Front in World War I tells of the first exchange of fire between Americans and Germans, and the first three U.S. combat deaths.

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On the night of November 3, 1917, German soldiers raided a trench in the French sector of the Western Front. However, this particular section of the trenches was held by American troops. There was intense fighting as the Germans surprised the Americans. When the fight was over, the Germans took 12 American soldiers back to their lines for interrogation. They left three Americans dead. In the year and nine days that remained of the war, those first American combat deaths would be followed by another 53,000, as well as 63,000 non-combat deaths, mostly from the influenza epidemic that swept through the trenches.

George Pattullo, one of The Posts war correspondents, reported on the deaths, and their comrades reaction to it. His December 29, 1917 article, The First Raid, is a rare, full account of what happened that night in northeastern France.

Despite the American losses, Pattullo was optimistic. The doughboys had stood their ground, he reported, refused to abandon wounded comrades, and fought back fiercely. Now, American soldiers who had been homesick and bored were eager to strike back at the Germans.

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He wrote, The raid of November third, small though it was, has welded the men of the First Division as no amount of training and discipline could do. The boys who came back from those trenches are a hundred per cent better soldiers than before they went. So are all their comrades.

Featured image: Library of Congress
Wan Chai, Hong Kong -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/02/2017 -- With a large inventory of different types of bearings with a variety of specifications, ACES Bearing Company endeavors to become one-stop bearing supplier for its global clientele. Besides all types of bearings, the company has now announced the availability of Japan NSK bearings in their stock and they can supply the product in bulk to industrial clients all across the world.



In many areas, particularly in the fields of electronics, the NSK Bearing has its wide applications. Japan NSK Limited has been manufacturing bearings since 1916, and its bearings are often considered a reliable and quality product by the industries. The company has developed many new products over time that can meet the specific needs of different applications. Now, ACES Bearing Limited has the complete range of NSK bearings in their inventory and can supply the product with reasonable pricing and all essential technical parameters. These refined and sharp bearings are designed to offer a smooth and durable performance in different industries.



The company specializes in offering branded bearings from different manufacturers, because of their strong relationships with the reputed bearing suppliers. Besides, the company maintains large warehouses to stock up bearings from different manufacturers in sufficient quantities. They assure of delivering NSK bearings with the most reliable quality and at the most reasonable prices. The bearings from Japan NSK come with many advantages because of the company's continuous progress in the field of designing and developing enhanced quality bearings for a diverse range of applications.



According to the spokesperson of ACES Bearing, clients can request for the product datasheet and can check the availability of different types of NSK bearings with them. They claim to maintain an extensive inventory of branded bearings, and one can check the types of NSK bearings they have in their stock. Available with different shaft diameters, these NSK bearings have different dynamic and static load capacities. An industrial client can choose bearings with specifications that can perfectly meet their requirements. And ACES Bearing Limited will be able to supply the NSK Bearing at any time.



One can check the complete range of NSK bearings available with them by visiting the website https://www.acesbearing.com.



About ACES Bearing Limited

ACES Bearing limited devotes time to provide customers with the world's leading brand bearings, which are of superior quality and served in most industries in the market. The company maintains a mass stock of products, which enables them to ensure quick delivery to meet client's requirement in time. Also, they have many professional and technical personnel and related advanced equipment to check the quality of the roller bearings before supplying them to the client.



For Media Contact:

Telephone: 00852-31159332

Email: sales@acesbearing.com

Website: https://www.acesbearing.com
New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/03/2017 -- Growing safety concerns due to increase in the fatalities at workplace is shifting the focus of the people to look into workers safety. According to International Labor Organization (ILO), 612 workers die every day due to work related accident across the globe. These accidents can be prevented by installing the safety systems. The workplace safety systems protect the person(s) from various life threatening situations/scenarios at their work premises. These situations/scenarios can be any explosion, falling from height, low visibility, high noise, etc. Stringent occupational health & safety regulations stating unavoidable use of these systems in offices & industries and rapid urbanization are the factors which are anticipated to fuel the growth of workplace safety systems market. Based on application, manufacturing industry is anticipated to dominate the workplace safety systems market and is expected to remain same throughout the forecast period. Based on regions, Asia Pacific excluding Japan is projected to grow at a significant rate during the forecast period. Moreover, government initiatives in India like "Make in India" is expected to drive the growth of manufacturing industry which in turn is expected to drive the growth of workplace safety systems. The workplace safety systems market is highly fragmented and the major players are focused on innovations and launching of new products in order to create a healthy working environment.



Request For Report Sample: https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/12112



Global Workplace Safety System Market Dynamics



The increasing concerns regarding workers' safety is one of the major factor driving the growth of the workplace safety system market. Additionally, the increasing demand from the oil & gas, manufacturing, and chemical industries is expected to propel the growth of the workplace safety system market. Moreover, mandatory regulation stated by NIOSH (National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health), NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) and OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) are driving the industries for compulsory usage of these safety systems which in turn will drive the growth of the workplace safety systems market.



Increasing use of automation equipment in various industries is anticipated to curb the growth of the global workplace safety system market. Additionally, high initial cost and presence of knock-offs in the market are expected to hamper the growth the market.



Global Workplace Safety System Market: Segmentation



The global workplace safety systems market can be segmented on the basis of end-user, application, and region. On the basis of end-user, the global workplace safety market can be segmented into personal safety and public safety. Personal safety can be further segmented into respiratory protection, face protection, fall protection, and protective clothing. On the other hand, public safety systems can be further segmented into CCTV, microphone, fire alarm, and hydrant systems. On the basis of applications, the global workplace safety systems market can be further segmented into construction industry, manufacturing industry, transportation, chemical, pharmaceutical, oil and gas, food and beverage industry, and other industries.



Global Workplace Safety System Market: Region Wise Outlook



North America is expected to be the most promising value generating workplace safety system market in terms of adoption and value generation during the forecast period. Strict regulation by ANSI (American National Standard Institutes), CSA (Canadian Standards Association) and OSHA is expected to propel the demand of workplace safety systems in North America. Asia Pacific is projected to grow at a significant rate during the forecast period due to increase in manufacturing and construction industries in emerging economies like China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Europe is anticipated to witness steady growth over the forecast period.



Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/12112



Global Workplace Safety System Market: Key Players



Some of the players identified in the workplace safety system market are as follows; Honeywell International Inc., Arco Limited, 3M, E.I. du Pont Nemours and Company, J&K Ross Ltd., MSA, Alpha Pro Tech Ltd., NuSafe, Seton Australia, and Conney Safety Products among others.
An international team of archaeologists, physicists and engineers has found a 100-foot (30 m) long space deep inside the Great Pyramid, or Khufus Pyramid, one of the oldest and largest monuments on Earth. A paper reporting this discovery is published in the journal Nature.

Built on the Giza Plateau in Egypt during the IV dynasty by the pharaoh Khufu (Cheops), the Great Pyramid is 458 feet (139 m) high and 755 feet (230 m) wide.

There are three known chambers, at different heights of the pyramid, which all lie in the north-south vertical plane: (i) subterranean chamber, (ii) Queens chamber, and (iii) Kings chamber. These chambers are connected by several corridors, the most notable one being the Grand Gallery.

The Queens chamber and the Kings chamber possess two air shafts each, which were mapped by a series of robots between 1990 and 2010.

To better understand the internal structure of the Great Pyramid, a team of researchers from Japan, France, and Egypt imaged it using elementary subatomic particles called muons, which are by-products of cosmic rays that are only partially absorbed by stone.

Muon particles originate from the interactions of cosmic rays with the atoms of Earths upper atmosphere, and they continuously reach the Earth with a speed near to that of light and a flux of around 10,000 per m2 per minute, they explained.

Similar to X-rays which can penetrate the body and allow bone imaging, these elementary particles, also called heavy electrons, can go through hundreds of feet of stone before being absorbed.

Judiciously placed muon detectors  for example inside a pyramid, below a potential, unknown chamber  can then record particle tracks and discern cavities from denser regions in which some muons are absorbed or deflected.

The challenge of such measurements consists in building extremely precise detectors and in accumulating enough data to increase the contrast.

Three complementary techniques of cosmic-ray muon imaging  nuclear emulsion films, scintillator hodoscopes, and micro-pattern gaseous detectors  were applied to investigate Great Pyramids inner structure.

The known voids (Kings chamber and Grand Gallery) were observed as well as an unexpected big void, which fully demonstrates the ability of cosmic-ray muon radiography to image structures, the scientists said.

According to the team, the center of the newly discovered void is located between 131 and 164 feet (40-50 m) from the floor of the Queens chamber.

Its length is more than 100 feet (30 m) and its cross section is comparable to that of the Grand Gallery.

There are still many architectural hypotheses to consider; in particular, the big void could be made of one or several adjacent structures, and it could be inclined or horizontal. The detailed structure of the void should be further studied, the researchers said.

Overall, this discovery shows how the methods developed in particle physics can shed light on one of the most important heritage buildings, and it calls for more interdisciplinary collaborations to help understanding the pyramid and its construction process.

_____

Kunihiro Morishima et al. Discovery of a big void in Khufus Pyramid by observation of cosmic-ray muons. Nature, published online November 2, 2017; doi: 10.1038/nature24647
As the father of two young children, it is natural for me to think a lot about what their future world will look like. So, when David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Programme, said that ending global hunger, the second sustainable development goal, is not achievable, it left me worried.

Let us talk numbers. By mid-century, there will be around 9.8 billion mouths to feed, at least 30 per cent more than today. Issues like climate change and urban migration will create challenges that will make it harder to feed them all. Right now, 80 per cent of our food is produced by smallholder farmers and three out of four such farmers want to quit farming. Worse, the next generation is uninterested in farming. To add to this, a rapid trend towards urbanisation is going to turn the majority of Asians into urban dwellers after 2020 while cultivable land decreases by 30,000 hectares annually.

It is clear that the answers to global food security do not lie in minor improvements or optimisations but in reimagining the agricultural landscape. Any effort to tackle poverty and food security will be futile if climate resilience isnt factored in, thus the need for climate-smart farming.

However, technology alone cannot solve the problems of farmers, and technologies which enhance farmers climate resilience need not always be hi-tech greenhouses but something which solve region-specific problems related to climate change. These solutions could be as simple as drought-resistant seeds, shade nets, or low-tunnel vegetables.

Technology alone cannot solve the problems of farmers, and technologies which enhance farmers climate resilience need not always be hi-tech. Sathya Raghu Mokkapati, Kheyti

Currently, a seed company may sell seeds without reading the soil report; a fertiliser shop might sell agro-chemicals without assessing field conditions; a loan may be given without knowing farmer cash-flows; and buyers focus on prices and quality. To fix these, all dots should be connected with farmers needs in mind, which is called full stack solution.

Hence, the need to integrate the two terms to what I refer to as full stack climate-smart farming. This basically involves audacious reimagination of the agricultural landscape, recognising farmers as the Chief and building climate resilience along with full stack solutions to ensure that farmers experience of agriculture is seamless and economically meaningful. This end-to-end approach creates meaningful solutions to the real problems of farmers. It uses appropriate technology to protect farmers from the risk of climate change and provides services ranging from soil-testing to produce marketing to support the farmers hard work.

Full stack climate-smart farming can be promoted by governments to encourage start-ups and the private sector to use it to offer various products and services such as soil testing and seed selection and go all the way up to marketing produce. The programmes that exist so far are promising.

In India, Timbaktu supports 20,000 farmer families in the drought-prone districts of Rayalaseema in Andhra Pradesh. The One Acre Fund and BabbanGona in Africa provide end-to-end packages that help small farmers procure the right technology, high-quality seeds and fertilisers on credit. They also train farmers to optimise yields and labour productivity, and gain market access.

Green Agrevolution in Bihar, India has an end-to-end model for farmers. The start-up offers soil testing, crop planning, agriculture input, farmers training, crop advisory based on input purchased, relevant information, and market linkage of farm produce. It currently serves 16,000 farmers.

It is our collective responsibility to wage a war against hunger and food insecurity. Sathya Raghu Mokkapati, Kheyti

Kheyti is also seeing success. The non-profit start-up is working with small farmers in 15 villages of Telangana, India, who daily are looking for ways to produce food with fewer resources. Kheyti provides farmers with items like low-cost modular greenhouses and solutions like financing, inputs, production advisory and marketing. Our farmers are more climate-resilient than before as temperature inside our greenhouse is lower by five degrees compared to outside to help reduce heat stress. Yield is five to seven times more compared to that of open farming and water usage per kilogram is 1/50th of that used outside.
Naledi Pandor has served as South Africas science and technology minister since 2009. During her term, she chose to focus her efforts on two fronts: on being a leading partner in the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), a EUR11.6 million project involving 25 countries; and on fighting HIV/AIDS, which affects an estimated 12 per cent of South Africas population who are HIV-positive.

Pandor spoke in front of more than 1400 science journalists at the 10th World Conference of Science Journalism, held this month (October 26-30) in San Francisco, United States. She gives the impression of a leader who means what she says, and her voice did not falter as she described efforts to make science a leading force in her country and across Africa.

SKA aims to build a network of over 3.000 telescopes across Africa and Australia to form the biggest radio telescope in the world, say says, adding that there are already 500 research groups from 45 countries that have booked to use the new precursor or prototype telescopes once they are completed.

She is proud of it. But why focus on this, when South Africa has more pressing problems?

That was the challenge we had initially, she says. But as the project has taken off, what we have as part of it is a human capital development program. There is a strong scholarship initiative, and then we link that with other African countries.

SciDev.Net caught up with Pandor in San Francisco to find out more about the benefits from SKA, and her other priorities for science in South Africa.

How have young people benefited from SKA?

Schools that are close to the site where the telescope will be built have benefited from science laboratories being provided for them, and from training for science and math teachers. So young people from those schools have been offered scholarships to study engineering and science at the university. We have included the community very much [in this project].

Are there any other sectors that have benefited?

Certainly new infrastructure [is one]. There are roads [that have been] built in remote sites because the radio telescope has to be in an area that is free of radio interference. New energy provision [is another]. We have had to provide electricity in the areas, but in addition we decided to use renewable energy, so we provide to the local community access to a renewable resource. It has been quite a challenge.

Is there anything that has changed as a result of SKA in the way science is done in South Africa?

The project alters the dynamic between Africa and scientists in the rest of the world  because suddenly you are coming to Africa to do high-level research, you are not having scientists leaving Africa to do research elsewhere. [It is] a totally different relationship between science and the African continent.

How have you addressed gender issues in science?

We have a number of incentives that seek to fund women in research. What we have done is issue a policy directive to grant-making institutions that at least 60 per cent of the grant funding must go to women; currently it is less than 40 per cent.

I discovered that we are good at making policy, but we dont monitor [the results] sufficiently.

We had a huge programme to establish research Chairs [in public universities]; and on looking at the numbers, I discovered that less than 23 per cent of the appointees were female. So we had to intervene; when we had funding for more Chairs, all were advertised as available only to women scientists. We got more applicants than the Chairs available  which just signalled that if we dont have a gender lens, we will not achieve gender equity.

Its important that you insert these objectives into whatever policies you have, otherwise you will be doing a lot of things but you will not be achieving change. We are very good at the rhetoric, we all say the right things, but translating the rhetoric into real action is often the problem.

This Q&A was edited for brevity and clarity.
FLORENCE, S.C.  Florence School District One administrators presented options Thursday for two site locations for a new Williams Middle School.

The current school site and land adjacent to Wilson High School are the options that administrators and architects presented at a community meeting Thursday evening at Wilson High School.

Randy Bridges, the districts superintendent, said both sites have pros and cons.

Were not choosing one over the other, Bridges said. Were not saying one is better.

Regardless of location, with board approval, the new Williams Middle School would be about 158,000 square feet. Hal Fuller, vice president of FW Architects in Florence, said this size is about double the size of the current school.

Fuller gave an overview of each site.

The current site has 26 acres while the site adjacent to Wilson High School has 46 acres.

On the smaller site, Fuller said, a one-story or two-story school could be built. A two-story school would have interior classrooms without windows.

Space would be tight on the current Williams site, but at the end of the process, there would not be a vacant building. Bridges said that if the current Williams Middle School was vacated, community opinions would be welcomed about how to use the building.

Fuller said the larger site would provide opportunities for future expansions if needed.

Bridges said relocating the school would not affect zoning.

Fanika George-Steele, a parent with current and future Williams students, said removing the school from its current location could hurt the surrounding community.

Theyve taken enough from us already that weve had to fight to keep over the years, George-Steele said.

She said increased traffic, student drivers and the safety of walking to school are other difficulties surrounding the site adjacent to Wilson.

However, George-Steele said that a larger site could bring more opportunities for programs and facilities.

The pay-as-you-go model for school facilities schedules the construction of a new Williams Middle School by the year 2022. However, if new funding becomes available, the construction could be accelerated.

Bridges said that during a community forum about facilities in August, people started to ask questions about the location of the new school. He said the board wanted to begin gathering community opinions early in the process but that more meetings will be held.

Some board members were present at the meeting. Bridges said the information gathered at the community meeting will be presented to the full board.
FLORENCE, S.C.  Shelter and Nutrition for All Children (SNAC) is in its fourth year, and board member Brent Tiller says awareness of the organization has grown tremendously, in addition to its outreach.

The organization was started to help decrease the number of homeless, indigent and hungry children in Florence County School District One by providing funds or hotel and restaurant vouchers to families in emergencies.

SNAC board members, supporters and representatives of Florence County School District One gathered for the organizations annual cookout fundraiser Thursday afternoon in Florence.

Tiller said that in the past, the cookout was held to bring awareness to the nonprofit organization.

But this year, its more of an outreach and a fundraiser for us than it has been in the past, Tiller said. So tonight is to really gather funds to help the cause, the parents and the kids in FSD1.

Tiller said that when people in the community are told that there are homeless children, they are taken aback. He said school guidance counselors, teachers and administrators help SNAC by identifying students who are in need within the district.

Weve tried to work on permanent housing with the families rather than get them in temporary spots, Tiller sad. So thats a big change (since the organization started). Were really working to establish homes for the children rather than just get them in a hotel. But if thats the need, thats the need.

McLaurin Elementary School guidance counselor Tina Mack said three words describe SNAC: relevant, rigor and relationship.

It provides relevance because it is an appropriate need for our families here in Florence School District One, especially McLaurin, Mack said. Rigor, it is a demanding hardship, and the relationship that it builds between a family, the community and the schools, it keeps us connected.

Mack said the organization is amazing and she thanks the staff for everything it does for the schools in District One.

In addition to eating hamburgers, hot dogs and the fixings, guests listened to live music from West Florence High School student Rachel Freeman and Shasta Partee, founder of My Delivery Doctor.

SNAC helped Partee and her family about two years ago when her daughter became ill.

Basically, she was ill for about a year and SNAC was that light in the darkness, like I told them before, Partee said. They helped financially and emotionally, as well as other family and friends. But SNAC was there. It wasnt a lot I had to do.

Partee said she was in a very hard place, and she only had to let members of SNAC know what she was going through to receive help. She said she is overjoyed with what the organization is doing right now and shes a prime example of who it helps.

SNAC is like one of those steps to lift you up to get you to a successful place, Partee said. That successful place may just be a place to stay, maybe a bed.

Since SNAC started, the number of applicants seeking assistance has risen because there is actually a means to help them now, Tiller said. He calls that a blessing.

We are always so grateful for the communitys support and truly blessed to serves those in need in our community, said Jacqueline Grich, a SNAC board member.
It was really fun.

Awhile back, my church had a smores fest. People set up their fire pits  not close to the church  but in its big parking lot.

There was a long table with all the smores fixings  graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows. Another table had hot chocolate, apple cider and water.

We sat around the fires in our lawn chairs talking, while our churchs worship team played music. Wed get up to roast the marshmallows for our smores.

I had a great time, but noticed when I got home that my sweater smelled like smoke.

So, not wanting to smell like the inside of a chimney when I wore my sweater to work, I tossed it into my washing machine.

Since then, Ive been thinking about a fiery encounter that included three Bible times men named Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

You may remember the story.

It begins after the men along with many other Israelites are carried off into captivity by King Nebuchadnezzars forces and taken to Babylon.

At one point, the king has a 90-foot-tall gold statue built and orders everyone to bow down and worship it.

But those three Israelites wont do that. Theyre only going to bow down to the one true God.

When the king learns this, hes furious and has them brought to him.

He threatens to have them thrown into a fiery furnace if they dont comply.

And, the angry king asks, what god will deliver them out of his hand?

Our friends dont back down.

Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king, they say.

Then they show some God-fueled courage.

The men say that even if God doesnt deliver them, they still wont serve the kings gods or worship the golden image.

Now, the king is hotter than the furnace.

But not for long.

The fuming king has the furnace heated seven times hotter than normal and orders mighty men in his army to bind our three friends and throw them into it.

The soldiers waste no time. The three Israelites are still wearing their hats, cloaks and tunics when theyre bound and thrown into the furnace.

And because the furnace is overheated, the flames kill the men who took our friends up and tossed them in that inferno.

The Israelites fall  still bound  into the furnace.

Suddenly, the king stands up.

Did we not cast three men bound into the fire? the ruler asks.

Everyone agrees the kings math is correct.

But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire  and they are not hurt  and the fourth is like a son of the gods, the astonished king says.

The king comes near the door of the furnace and says: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out and come here!

Did you notice the king didnt try to order that fourth person  who looked like a son of the gods  to do anything?

I think that was a smart move.

Anyway, the three men come out.

The king and his counselors gather around the men and see that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men.

Not one hair on their heads is singed, their cloaks arent damaged  and the Scriptures say the men dont even have the smell of fire on them.

I think that means they didnt smell like smoke.

At any rate, Nebuchadnezzar starts praising God and saying the Lord sent an angel to deliver his servants who trusted in him  setting the kings order aside and yielding their bodies rather than serving or worshiping anyone but God.

The king then orders that anyone who says anything against God will be torn limb from limb and their houses reduced to rubble.

For there is no other God who is able to rescue in this way, the king says.

So, what does this ancient story have to do with us today?

Quite a lot, actually.

For one, you dont have to be tossed into a furnace to go through a fiery trial.

Life can heat up pretty fast when youre going through a health, financial or relationship crisis.

And you dont have to be bound with a rope or chains to be tied up with fear, shame, worry, guilt or regret.

But look at the three Israelites. They were so firm in their resolve to obey the Lords will that not even public humiliation or the kings death threats could dissuade them.

The three men still boldly proclaimed their devotion to God.

Do you suppose they figured it would be better to be in Gods good graces than a human king?

Or do you think they loved God so much that betraying him wasnt an option?

The men knew our almighty God could deliver them, but even if he didnt rescue them  on this side of the sky  they still refused to be disloyal to him.

Were the men ever afraid?

I would think so, but I believe God gave them that extra portion of grace, bravery and determination right when they needed it.

And l believe hell do the same for us  as we trust and rely on him.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had incredible, fire-proof faith, which remains as an inspiration to us all.

And now, as I think about their story and my stinky sweater, Im amazed even by the miracle of them walking out of that furnace  not smelling like smoke.

I see so many lessons in their story, too, like: how God often gives us furnace mates (those who walk with us through fiery trials) and how life may heat up even more when we do whats right, but how God never leaves us.

Whether were walking through a fiery trial or roasting marshmallows, our God is the best furnace mate and fireside friend we could ever have.

*English Standard Version of the Bible.

When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. Isaiah 43:2-3.
Sample excursions include exploring Antigua's historic English Harbor and Nelson's Dockyard, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, spotting celebrity hideaways in the Grenadines while sailing on a catamaran, admiring the white-sand beaches of Grand Turk on horseback and swimming with turtles in Barbados.

The promotion is available in US and Canadian markets for new bookings made through Nov. 30, 2017, and can be combined with a $199 round-trip economy air offer available with select Caribbean sailings from dozens of gateway cities in the US and Canada.

Voyages offering free shore excursions and $199 round-trip economy air include Silver Wind's Feb. 4 seven-day cruise from Fort Lauderdale to San Juan with calls at Grand Turk, Samana, Spanish Town, St. Thomas and St. Barts.

Also eligible are Silver Wind's Feb. 18 weeklong round-trip from San Juan with calls at Spanish Town, St. Maarten, St. Kitts, Martinique, Antigua and Jost Van Dyke, and the ship's Feb. 25 10-day round-trip from San Juan to Spanish Town, St. Barts, St. Lucia, Grenada, Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Guadeloupe, Antigua and Tortola.

Silver Wind's March 11 seven-day round-trip from San Juan visits Spanish Town, St. Kitts, Antigua, St. Maarten, St. Barts and Tortola.

Silver Muse departs March 13 on a nine-day Fort Lauderdale round-trip with calls at Cozumel, Belize City, Santo Tomas de Castilla, Roatan Island and Key West. The ship's March 22 cruise, 13 days from Fort Lauderdale to San Juan, stops at Grand Turk, Tortola, St. Kitts, Martinique, Barbados, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua, St. Barts and St. Thomas.

Silver Wind's March 23 seven-day round-trip from San Juan calls at St. Barts, St. Kitts, Antigua, St. Lucia, Guadeloupe, and the ship's March 30 voyage, also seven days, from San Juan to Fort Lauderdale, charts St. Barts, Tortola, Samana, Grand Turk and Key West.
Shipping which still carries more than 90% of World physical trade has shown little growth in demand for its services and in some sectors a decline.

Shipping started this decade with an oversupply of ships and yet has continued to expand its capacity with an unprecedented newbuilding program in all sectors.

Despite greater ship scrapping which has reached its maximum capacity the surplus has grown and newbuilding orders continue to appear.

The majority of the new ship orders are now in Chinese shipyards which are supported by Chinese Export financing and the establishment of several huge Chinese leasing companies. China will continue to finance and deliver new ships provided they are chartered to Chinese interests as it continues to keep freight rates down on both its imports and exports.

Thus the carrying capacity of the ships in most sectors exceeds demand resulting in the spot market rates in the dry and wet bulk sectors barely covering the operating costs of the ships and their associated debt service.

This benefits the cargo interests in raw materials and the manufacturers of finished goods whose customers are across the oceans. The cost of shipping a container to the USA from China, Japan, Korea or Taiwan is far less than the trucking costs incurred onshore in the USA and there is no revenue for returning the empty box.

The tanker sector depends on shipping crude oil from its source to refineries and then moving the oil products and chemicals to the end users. The discovery and development of new sources of crude oil and natural gas in the USA, combined with new onshore pipelines has led to the country looking to shortly becoming energy independent and an exporter of natural gas.

The opening of the newly enlarged Panama Canal last year has fundamentally changed the supplying of natural gas from the USA to Korea and Japan and ultimately China. It also has enabled large, but not giant, container ships to transit and discharge at ports up and down the US east coast.

It will have a meaningful effect on shipping with countries in Central America and the Caribbean as the large ships that can transit the Canal can also dock at ports that the giant ships cannot.

The rush to build ever larger container ships is questionable as they are aimed at the export trades from China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan to the USA and Europe and rarely travel full on the backhaul routes.

The principal objective of the new US Administration is to bring manufacturing back to the USA along with trillions of dollars of US company profits that presently are legally held offshore. This will significantly reduce cargo volumes across the Pacific and many of the giant ships may well become albatrosses and the expensive port enlargements redundant.

Financial analysts have mixed views about the future for shipping, concentrating mainly on the supply of the existing fleets and the newbuilding orderbook. Little attention is paid to the cargo interests and their future demands for shipping services.

Globalisation is stalled as some nations still look for growth over the next decade while others face the reverse and countries such a China and India look for their growth in their domestic markets.

Oil for instance will be in great demand globally but the energy self-sufficiency objectives of the USA, the growth of tanker fleets in the Middle East and the demise of North Sea oil, Venezuelan oil and the decline of Nigerian exports all combine to suggest reduced demand for the large crude carriers, yet the orderbook continues to enlarge the fleets.

The dry cargo sector is still plagued with over-supply and too many different ship sizes. Its main markets are the movement of raw materials which will definitely change as the major nations revise their manufacturing policies and the devastated countries in the Middle East remain stagnant.

This all combines to remind shipowners and their investors that shipping is a service industry that has lost control of its markets. Too much of the activity in the capital markets has focused on ship values, encouraging newbuildings over continuing to operate well maintained and well managed existing ships that can operate for 20 years.

Yet the revenue streams are barely sufficient to cover operating costs and some debt service but fail to produce surpluses to support the equity needed in the future for fleet replacements.

Cargo interests can clearly afford to pay more for the shipping services they require and have historically committed to time charters to secure these services and develop close relationships with shipowners. The short-term mentality of todays investors has caused the breakdown of these relationships as the ships mostly trade on the spot markets with minimal expenditure on maintenance and can be sold at any time.

Whilst the spot rates are usually higher than the time charter rates the ships usually average less than 300 paid days, provide their own fuel and rarely have regular trading routes.

Despite the extraordinary rises in the US stock markets this year shipping stocks continue to show little or no growth and are treated like penny stocks traded by day traders.

Shipping needs to re-establish itself as it continues to carry 90% of physical world trade, get out from under the influences of the capital markets and re-secure the interests of the commercial banks by focusing on securing the revenue streams from the cargo interests.
BMT will supply performance monitoring systems for four VLCCs being built at SHI for an undisclosed Greek shipowner. The company already has orders for monitoring systems for seven aframax and suezmax tankers being built at SHI for Norwegian and Singapore owners.

The VLCCs will be fitted with the SMART VESSEL system, which has been designed to be flexible to the users requirements.

In a world where we are inundated with data, its critical that we focus on providing a solution that helps to transform this complex information into actionable insights  only then can owners and operators truly begin to enhance operational efficiency and profitability, commented Peter Mantel, md of BMT SMART.
Wison said in a press release that the agreement will see both parties exclusively associate and collaborate with each other on Kumul Petroleum Holdings' FLNG project. Global LNG project developer KBR was in August awarded the Kumul contract for the conceptual development and feasibility study services for an energy hub in the Kikori region of the PNG's Gulf Province.

Wison has a proven track record in LNG projects, successfully completing performance testing at its Nantong yard last before delivering the worlds first barge-based FLNG. Ying Cui, Wison Offshore & Marine ceo said: Were looking forward to a fruitful cooperation between Wison and KBR. Were confident that the combination of both parties strengths will create the best value for our clients by providing them with more cost-effective and quality solutions to lower the overall investment of FLNG project.

Greg Conlon, KBR Asia Pacific president said: KBR is very pleased to be associated with Wison Offshore & Marine in developing a significant nation-building project for PNG and looks forward to further strengthening our relationship with Wison.

No financial details were disclosed.
ANGARA PUSHES FOR FREE MEDICINES FOR POOR FAMILIES IN GOVT HOSPITALS

Senator Sonny Angara seeks to expand the government's free medicines program for poor families to include more hospitals especially in far-flung areas.

Under the earmarking provision of Senate Bill 1592 or the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN), which Angara sponsored as chairman of the ways and means committee, among the programs that the first tax reform package aims to fund is the expansion of the free medicines program for the poor.

"Poor Filipinos still face the problem of limited access to low-cost, safe, and quality essential medicines. It is our duty to make essential health services available to all Filipinos, giving priority to the needs of underprivileged patients," the senator said.

Currently, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has a total of 11 partner hospitals that are implementing the Libreng Gamot Para sa Masa Program (Lingap), which entitles poor patients to free medicine assistance.

The free medicine program is now available at the Philippine General Hospital, Jose Reyes Memorial Hospital, East Avenue Medical Center, Lung Center of the Philippines, Philippine Children's Hospital, and San Lazaro Hospital in NCR; Jose B. Lingad Memorial Hospital in San Fernando, Pampanga; Western Visayas Medical Center in Iloilo City, Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City, Southern Philippines Medical Center in Davao City, and Davao Regional Hospital in Tagum City.

According to DSWD, approximately 13,000 indigent patients have already benefited from the program.

"Layon nating mas marami pa sa ating mahihirap na kababayan ang makinabang sa libreng gamot," said the lawmaker, who cited a World Health Organization study which showed that major causes of deaths in low-income countries can be treated effectively with simple essential medicines.

Angara is also the author of Senate Bill 972 mandating all government district hospitals, local health units and barangay health centers in all cities and municipalities to provide free medicine for the poor.
Press Release

November 3, 2017 De Lima asks for her immediate release; says SC Justices cannot agree on crime charged vs her Senator Leila M. de Lima today urged the Supreme Court (SC) to reconsider its earlier decision dismissing her petition to nullify the arrest warrant issued in connection with the trumped-up illegal drug trade charge the government filed against her. In her 24-page Motion for Reconsideration, De Lima said the High Tribunal should immediately rectify the continuing grave injustice committed against her because the majority of its members cannot even agree on the nature and cause of accusation against her. "The absence of a majority on the nature of the charges against Petitioner is the clearest possible indicator--coming from the Supreme Court itself--that the accusation 'is blatantly a pure invention' and 'a fake charge,' to borrow from Justice Carpio. This is an institutional admission of the gravest consequence," she said. "If the members of the majority could not even agree on the nature of the accusation reflected in the Information, such fact is an objective indicator that respondent judge could not possibly have had probable cause to issue the warrant of arrest against Petitioner," she added. Last Oct. 10, the High Tribunal, voting 9-6, ruled against De Lima's petition to nullify the arrest warrant issued against her by Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court Branch 204 for the trumped-up charge of illegal drug trade allegedly committed when she was justice secretary. Several political pundits however agreed that the SC ruling is "one of the grossest injustices" borrowing the words of Senior Associate Justice Carpio who, along with Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, Associate Justices Marvic Leonen, Francis Jardeleza, Alfredo Caguioa, and Estela Perlas-Bernabe, dissented from the Court's majority decision. De Lima explained that five of the nine justices who voted to dismiss her petition maintained that the crime charged against her is "illegal drug trading", while three other justices asserted that it is the crime of "conspiracy to commit drug trading". "If at least three members of the nine justices constituting the majority that voted against Petitioner believe that the charges are for Conspiracy to Commit Drug Trading, then it only follows that they must have concluded that respondent judge issued a warrant of arrest for an entirely different, and wrong, case. To keep Petitioner in continued pre-trial detention is patent abuse of judicial authority," she said. In De Lima's Summation of Votes, Justices Presbitero Velasco Jr., Lucas Bersamin, Samuel Martires, Andres Reyes Jr., and Alexander Gesmundo agreed that the charge was for the Crime of Illegal Drug Trading, which is the original accusation of the Department of Justice (DOJ). On the other hand, Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo-De Castro, Noel Tijam and Diosdado Peralta argued for the Crime of Conspiracy to Commit Drug Trading, which is the subsequent formulation of the Office of the Solicitor General. "We, therefore, face a situation where the DOJ originally charged Petitioner with Trading in Illegal Drugs, which charge was later 're-angled' into a Conspiracy to Commit Drug Trading, which in turn is incompatible with the ponente's (and four other Members') understanding of the Information, which they believe charges Trading in Illegal Drugs. This is a circus only madmen can enjoy," she said. De Lima also pointed out that Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo is confused as to whether the Information charged is Illegal Drug Trading or Conspiracy to Commit Drug Trading as he changed his mind from one to the other in a matter of four paragraphs. "Bluntly put, in the absence of a majority to sustain the validity of the Information, Petitioner is entitled to an immediate release from pre-trial detention as a matter of right," she said. The Senator from Bicol reiterated her appeal to the SC to seize the "opportunity to rectify the injustice" committed against her for her continued "reckless and impulsive prosecution" which she suffered for the past 253 days in detention. "It is fortunate that Petitioner is a lawyer, a lawmaker and a human rights defender who is vigilant of her rights, who fights for her liberty and freedom not otherwise available to those who cower in fear and subjection," she said. "Otherwise, the opportunity to rectify the injustice might have never even arisen. And it may yet still be lost, and the failure to remedy this injustice will go down in history as a tragically novel case where the Supreme Court - the last bastion of the Rule of Law - stood aside and willingly allowed a citizen, a human rights lawyer, and a dissenter to be incarcerated under charges that are demonstrably false based on the opinions of the members of the Honorable Court," she added. The former justice secretary also maintained the SC should not allow itself to become an instrument of injustice by allowing the proceedings that are undeniably political persecution and abuse of governmental power. "Petitioner, who has complained all throughout these proceedings about the undeniable political persecution and abuse of government power attendant in this case, has reasonable grounds to worry about the Honorable Court itself being the instrument of the injustice she complains of," she said. **** See attached: Copy of MR as filed before the Supreme Court For full text of MR with Annexes: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4nYredmRG9dU0pFQ1p5ZzAtUTQ
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Ross Hendrix carefully peeled the protective plastic from his newly purchased iPhone X, then excitedly thrust it high into the air with his right hand high to show off his prize.

I got my iPhoooone! a grinning Hendrix yelled at the top of his lungs Friday inside the Apple Store on Union Square.

Its not necessarily that I had to have it, but its more like I want to have it, the 20-year-old Oakland resident said. Its a new experience, its like starting over, its like raising your own child. Im really excited.

The scene was repeated all over the world as lines formed long before Apple Stores opened, filled with people who wanted the right to say they were among the first to get their hands on the $999 phone. The Cupertino company, renowned for its ability to hype products, has turned it up a notch in promoting what it touts as its next-generation smartphone. CEO Tim Cook visited an Apple store in Palo Alto on Friday to greet fans.

The hype is so intense this time that people are resorting to stealing.

Thieves reportedly staked out a UPS truck delivering a shipment of 300 iPhone Xs to Apples Stonestown Galleria outlet Wednesday.

An Apple spokeswoman referred questions about the heist to San Francisco police, who would not confirm the make or models of the stolen phones. Officer Robert Rueca said the theft from the delivery truck, which was parked at a mall loading dock about 11:30 a.m, involved a white Dodge van.

Apple said none of the customers who had ordered iPhone Xs for pickup at Stonestown were affected. UPS spokesman Matthew OConnor would say only that the delivery service was working with local law enforcement.

Analysts are watching to see if the phones high price will deter buyers. Somebody let me borrow 1 grand so I can swoop the iPhone X plz, Twitter member Aya Jamal tweeted Thursday.

Twitter member Mike Abraha tweeted last week that he had already ordered an X. I had to borrow money from my 401(k) though, he added.

Research firm Slice Intelligence analyzed advance orders and said the iPhone X was the largest product release in Apples history, with three times more orders than the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus models, which were released in September, and 25 percent more than the iPhone 6, the previous record holder.

Predictably, the X mainly excited customers who were already Apple fans, not owners of rival phones. About 96 percent of X buyers were upgrading from a previous iPhone, Slice said.

Analysts said reports of iPhone X shortages helped fuel demand.

Getting your hands on an iPhone X has become as hard as solving a Rubiks Cube, Daniel Ives, chief strategy officer and head of technology research for GBH Insights, said in an email. Production issues have forced users to plan ahead.

Ives also said a strong pent-up demand from a potential 350 million iPhone users, coupled with the next-generation phone, created the one-two punch to get many to upgrade. The lines in Apple stores around the globe today reflects that.

Thomas Cooke, a professor at Georgetown Universitys McDonough School of Business, said that delaying the iPhone X release long after the iPhone 8 models was incredibly risky, but the company has again proven its genius when it comes to marketing, especially to its loyal customers.

And unsubstantiated rumors of production shortages just causes people to want to get in line, Cooke said.

Benny Evangelista is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: bevangelista@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ChronicleBenny

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

Whats inside the iPhone X?

The iPhone X went on sale Friday around the world, and the device is already being torn apart to see which companies supplied what components. While Apple is designing more of its own components, the company still relies on global manufacturers for parts that support functions like wireless charging, facial recognition and some processors.

IFixit published an early analysis of the guts of the iPhone X on Friday. Here are the main providers of its components:

Qualcomm and Intel for modems

Skyworks Solutions for other wireless components

NXP Semiconductors for the near-field communication chip that powers Apple Pay

Broadcom for other wireless components

Toshiba for flash storage

Cirrus Logic for audio components

Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics for other components

 Bloomberg News
Venture capitalist David Lee sued Ron Conway last week for breach of contract, alleging that Conway is withholding millions of dollars from him.

Lee and Conway co-founded SV Angel, a well-known San Francisco venture capital firm, in early 2010. The fund rose to prominence by investing in successful startups including Airbnb, Pinterest and Snapchat. Lee left SV Angel in 2015, citing a desire to spend more time with his family in Los Angeles, and founded a firm called Refactor Capital. (Though it was initially based in Los Angeles, state records show the firm is now located in Burlingame.)

In the lawsuit, filed in Marin Superior Court on Oct. 24, Lee alleges that Conway is violating the terms of agreements they reached upon his departure, and that Conway is presently withholding at least $3.5 million from him. He also estimates that the amount owed to him will rise to $15 million to $20 million in the next three years as SV Angel distributes its profits.

The suit illustrates some of the difficulties that the creators of venture capital funds have when disentangling large amounts of invested money. It also sheds light on how the relationship between the two men became contentious, in part over Lees use of something called a fee waiver. According to the suit, Conway began questioning Lees use of this practice, as well as other aspects of his record-keeping and business expenses.

Now, theyre locked in a dispute over Lees post-departure payment.

When I left SV Angel, Ron Conway and I reached a settlement regarding my departure, Lee said in a statement. Many of the terms we agreed upon were proposed by Ron. I wish Ron no ill will. I simply want him to honor the agreement we signed.

SV Angel disputed that.

Before we could resolve our differences David filed a lawsuit insisting upon money that SV Angel does not believe he is entitled to receive, SV Angel said in a statement. It is very disappointing that David is trying to pressure SV Angel to pay monies that do not belong to him, and the SV Angel funds intend to vigorously defend against Davids meritless claims.

The lawsuit was first reported by Axioss Pro Rata newsletter.

Sophie Haigney is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sophie.haigney@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SophieHaigney
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It happened so fast, you might have missed it.

President Trumps famed Twitter account vanished from the Internet on Thursday for 11 whole minutes, leaving an error message in its stead: That page doesnt exist!

In the hours since, Twitter has restored the account and its 41 million followers, blamed the surprise deletion on a rogue customer service contractor at the end of his or her last day, and announced new safeguards to prevent this from happening again. On Friday, Twitter rolled out a new feature that will notify users of legitimate account suspensions by email.

But the fallout is far from over.

The unnamed workers final rebellious act shone a spotlight on several security flaws, including Twitter workers ability to hijack high-profile user accounts and the challenge of relying on third-party contractors, as many technology companies do, to manage sensitive data and high-profile accounts.

After years of criticism for its opaque policies around abuse, harassment, hate speech and how accounts are policed, Twitter has in recent weeks made an attempt at transparency.

Chief executive Jack Dorsey vowed to release detailed updates about ongoing changes in Twitters terms of service that dictate what can and cannot be posted on the social network. As part of that, the company unveiled an update Friday to what it calls the Twitter Rules, a code of conduct for users.

Prior to that, the company had sent acting general counsel Sean Edgett to testify Tuesday and Wednesday before Congress on Twitters efforts to understand and combat foreign disinformation campaigns and Russias attempt to meddle in U.S. elections.

Frustrated senators and representatives on both sides of the political aisle admonished Twitter as well as Google and Facebook for their apparent lack of urgency in dealing with foreign threats to American discourse and democracy.

I have more than a little bit of frustration that many of us on this committee have been raising this issue since the beginning of this year, and our claims were frankly blown off by the leadership of your companies, said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who pointed out that not a single CEO was present at this weeks hearings. It bothers me that it took until this committee continually went at you (asking for information), and it wasnt until July or August that you made your first presentations.

Edgett told legislators Twitter has hundreds of employees specifically dedicated to reviewing what kind of content is posted on the service.

Tools used to access the accounts of high-profile Twitter users  or VITs (Very Important Tweeters)  are widely available to hundreds of Twitter employees of all stripes, according to a report in the New York Times.

These tools allow employees to disable accounts, just as Trumps was on Thursday. However, several unnamed employees told the Times, workers are not able to access customers private direct messages or tweet from users accounts.

That limitation, if true, would rule out a nightmare scenario floated by several cybersecurity experts alarmed by Trumps sudden removal from Twitter: someone co-opting the presidents Twitter feed to tweet threats, jeers or inadvertently start an international conflict.

Facebook, which took the brunt of blame and criticism from members of Congress, said it was hiring 10,000 more workers to review content flagged for being inappropriate, threatening or untrue. By the end of next year, social network officials said, Facebook would have 20,000 people working to review questionable posts.

Critics have for months been calling for Trumps removal from Twitter, his favorite medium for communicating with the public. Theyve pointed to Trumps harsh language and call for violent responses as violations of Twitters rules.

Executives have defended their decision to allow the president to remain active on the social network.

In September, Twitter announced in a series of tweets that newsworthiness and whether a tweet is of public interest play a role in deciding whether to remove an account. Twitter at the time said this was an internal policy. On Friday, it formally added the language about newsworthiness to its rules.

A Twitter spokeswoman said Friday that the company is conducting an internal investigation. It was not immediately clear if the findings of the investigation would be made public.

There was, at least, one person who took Trumps removal as a compliment: the president himself.

My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee, Trump tweeted early Friday. I guess the word must finally be getting out  and having an impact.

Marissa Lang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mlang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Marissa_Jae
NEW YORK  President Trumps tweets calling for the death penalty for the man charged in the New York truck rampage could give defense attorneys grounds to argue that Trump has poisoned the minds of potential jurors. But some legal experts doubt that argument will slow the case.

In a highly unusual instance of a president weighing in on the fate of a defendant awaiting trial, Trump said on Twitter that 29-year-old Sayfully Saipov SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY! in the attack that left eight people dead. In another tweet, Trump said prosecutors Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!

Some legal experts Thursday said judges in Manhattans federal courts will not let the presidents remarks slow the case or throw it off track, especially in a courthouse with a quarter-century record of swift terrorism prosecutions with mostly airtight outcomes.

Nothing slows down the train, said James Cohen, a professor at Fordham Law School. He said the yet-to-be-assigned judge will question prospective jurors to ensure they can be fair despite anything they might have heard or read.

Lawyers differed over whether Trump was out of bounds.

Even presidents are entitled to First Amendment rights, said Michael Wildes, a former federal prosecutor.

Joshua Dratel, a veteran defense attorney in terrorism cases, would not predict what a judge might do, but he said the tweets should disqualify prosecutors from seeking the death penalty.

Its inconceivable that it would be fair to seek the death penalty when the president has expressed it twice in a tweet, he said. It poisons the jurors, all the prospective jurors.

Investigators continued poring over Saipovs phone records and online contacts and combing surveillance footage to reconstruct his movements in the weeks before the rampage.

They were also interviewing acquaintances and family, including his wife, who according to a law enforcement official was cooperative and claimed she did know about the attack beforehand.

John Miller, the New York Police Departments deputy commissioner for counterterrorism and intelligence, told CBS that authorities so far believe Saipov acted alone.

Saipov is being held without bail at a Manhattan federal lockup next to the courthouse.

Colleen Long and Larry Neumeister are Associated Press writers.
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The rapid fire of machine guns lets you know the militia is coming down from the hills and that its time to go. You grab what you can and hit the road on foot, leaving behind all that youve known.

This is a reality shared by millions of people around the world. If you were in their shoes  and they might not even have shoes  could you survive?

Visitors to Forced From Home, an exhibit in the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center parking lot off 10th Street in downtown Oakland, will gain a deeper understanding of the dangerous journey made by displaced people around the world.

According to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 65 million people globally have been displaced because of conflict, persecution and human rights violations. Thats the highest number of refugees worldwide since World War II.

The immersive, free exhibit, which runs through Sunday, is hosted by Doctors Without Borders, the medical humanitarian organization. Walking through it was a reminder that compassion for the less fortunate shouldnt be a scarce resource.

One of the most poignant aspects of Forced From Home is that doctors, nurses, project coordinators and health educators who have spent time in the field are the guides for the exhibit tours.

I was guided by Paul Brockmann, a country manager with Doctors Without Borders. Brockmann, 55, has worked in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and India. His last assignment was in Sierra Leone on the West African coast.

Brockmann was there in August when torrential rains caused a mountainside to collapse on the outskirts of Freetown, the capital. As many as 1,000 people were killed and 2,000 homes were destroyed in a country already devastated by a decade of civil war and the Ebola crisis.

Where do those people go when they have to leave their homes?

Well, that was a real issue, Brockmann said.

They go to temporary camps, and thats what Forced From Home shows viewers. The tour begins in a video dome that gives a 360-degree view of a muddy refugee camp.

Liz Hafalia/The Chronicle

At the next stop, youre asked to take the five items  cards with images of water, clothes, money, photos, jewelry  that you would grab if you had to flee your home. As visitors move through the exhibit, their cards are periodically confiscated, because youll lose stuff  or it will be taken  as you travel.

Much of what you, the refugee, carry wont fit on the kind of vessel you hope will take you to safety, like the rubber dinghy at one station. As many as 40 people pack into such boats while trying to cross the Mediterranean. Many dont make it.

This is way fancier than what you would actually encounter, Mark Leirer, a field nurse, said of the dinghy on display. They stuff the women and children in the center ... (and) the men are sitting around the sides. Its about three, four times what its supposed to be.

Its an existence most of us are far removed from in our daily lives. Forced From Home brings it, well, home.

I think thats the power of an exhibit like this, Leirer told me. Youre touching objects. Youre hearing individual, personal stories of people who actually interacted on the ground in this context.

When you come get a story here, its something that actually touches you. Its a lot more impactful than reading it on a piece of paper.

Disaster recently hit close to home for Brockmann, as many of his neighbors in Santa Rosa had to run for their lives when the Tubbs Fire raged early on Oct. 9. Brockmanns home was spared, and he offered his place to friends.

For my friends in Santa Rosa, this is very real, Brockmann said. The difference is they had support to fall back on. There were clean water sources. There were no militias. It was still scary as all get out. It was still destabilizing, but if I lost my home, Im not still being pursued.

The health care tent at Forced From Home stuck out to me. There was a stretcher made out of coated canvas with a hole cut into the center. Thats so people stricken with cholera can lie on their backs and relieve themselves without getting up. There was a white bucket under the hole.

Cholera is spread by contaminated water and food. Recently, there was an epidemic in civil-war-racked Yemen that killed more than 2,000 people.

And this is the station where we stop taking cards, because we never charge for treatment, Brockmann said.

Liz Hafalia/The Chronicle

The exhibit, like Doctors Without Borders centers, is open, rain or shine. According to Rachel Milkovich, media coordinator for Forced From Home, the exhibit drew a total of 13,000 people at the first four stops before arriving in Oakland.

The UNHCR estimates that 28,300 were displaced daily from their homes in 2016, and 55 percent of those refugees were from just three countries: South Sudan, Afghanistan and Syria.

Given the current political climate driven by shortsighted nativism, you probably wont be surprised to hear that the six wealthiest countries, including the United States, host fewer than 9 percent of the worlds refugees.

Weve got to do better. Its simply about doing the right thing to help others.

Every life has value, Brockmann said. Every human has a story, and were trying to amplify the voice of our patients who are some of the most vibrant, generous, kind, strong people in difficult situations.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr
DUBUQUE (AP)  Freshman Ava Terwilleger and sophomore Logan O'Mara stand out from many of their classmates at Dubuque Hempstead High School.

They're not all-state athletes or much different looking from their peers, but they are younger than 16 and employed.

Both teens  Terwilleger is 14 and O'Mara is 15  work for General Manager Paul Schemmel at Fareway in Dubuque. Schemmel said he has about a dozen 14- and-15-year-old grocery baggers working for him at any given time.

"I think they do great," he said. "They have a learning curve on making some adjustments with the family, the work and balancing those out. But we're able to work with those kids and once they're in the store they already have a grasp of how things work when they turn 16."

In Iowa, anyone younger than 16 must work under strict restrictions.

They cannot work during school hours and are limited to a total of three hours each school day  18 hours total per school week  or eight hours each non-school day and up to 40 hours per non-school week.

There also are limits to the times of day a 14- or 15-year-old can work. They're restricted to working from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. during the school year and 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. during the summer.

Schemmel said his young employees work about 10 hours per week.

"They're limited in what they can do," Schemmel said of his youngest employees. "We let them bag and carry groceries. Sometimes they can face-up, that means pull products to the front of the shelf, but we don't even let them push a stock cart."

Experts are at odds as to whether starting to work a "real job" at age 14 is a good or bad thing for teens.

Researchers at the National Commission on Youth praise part-time work and say it contributes to the transition from youth to adulthood. Other studies claim major negative consequences to students working more than 20 hours per week.

According to research by Jeylan T. Mortimer, a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, four basic answers emerge when determining the value of adolescent work experience.

The first is positive and claims employment helps teens to develop a wide range of beneficial attributes, such as the capacity to take responsibility, develop time-management skills, overcome shyness with adults and handle money. Employment also might make them feel more like an adult.

Mortimer says detractors claim teens who work long hours tend to have lower grades than teens who work fewer hours and miss more school.

"These critics also report that as hours of work increase, adolescents drink and smoke more, and engage in a wide range of problem behaviors," Mortimer said.

The third answer claims it makes very little difference in the long run if teens start work at 14 or 18, while a final theory states a positive or negative outcome is completely dependent on the individual and his or her circumstances.

As far as the young Fareway workers are concerned, it's been a positive experience for both.

"Oh, yeah. I love it here," said O'Mara, who has worked at Fareway for 18 months. "I get to interact with customers. It teaches me how to talk with people."

Terwilleger, a two-month Fareway vet, agreed.

"And it teaches work ethic and responsibility," she said.

Schemmel said over the years he's had dozens of employees continue to work at Fareway when they left Dubuque for college.

"The nice thing about Fareway is they're everywhere," he said. "Just in the last year, I've probably had seven kids go off to school and continue to work at Fareway."

Both teens said that work has not had an effect on their grades or extracurricular activities  Terwilleger plays softball. The pair also said some of their friends are not yet as motivated as they are to work.

Schemmel said he always calls a potential worker's parents to make sure they're all right with their child having a job.

"The majority of the (applicants) I've seen are kids coming in on their own for the job," he said. "They want to help with the family or bills or whatever. I tell them school always comes first."

Neither Terwilleger or O'Mara have specific plans for after high school. They both toe the party line when asked what they're going to do with their new-found riches  "Save for college."
The hungry heart of the House tax bill unveiled Thursday can be found in the title President Trump reportedly proposed: the Cut Cut Cut Act. Republican lawmakers ultimately went with something slightly less voracious, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, for legislation that offers small tax cuts to their ordinary constituents, big cuts to their wealthy friends and supporters (and often themselves), and the greatest cut of all to the federal governments bottom line.

Tax reform is a laudable goal in a nation burdened by a convoluted and often unfair system, but this legislation is indeed about cuts. It would reduce federal revenue by at least $1.5 trillion with no plan to replace it. Supporters say the cost would be covered by the growth that inevitably materializes as a result, but there is no evidence to support that claim.

Besides the huge addition to federal deficits, the bills clearest impact would be in favor of the rich  including, to a remarkable extent, the rich president who is the first in decades to conceal his tax returns from the public. It would phase out the tax on multimillionaire estates, reduce the levy on pass-through income from businesses such as the Trump Organizations, and eliminate the alternative minimum tax that usually applies to higher brackets  which, according to a leaked partial return, forced Trump to pay $31 million more in 2005. While the plan retains the 39.6 percent tax rate for the highest incomes, it doubles the minimum earnings for married couples to which the bracket applies, to $1 million. And more of those taxpayers could take advantage of the lower 25 percent rate on pass-through business income.

The House bill would also cut the corporate income tax rate dramatically, from 35 percent to 20 percent. Given that the rate is the worlds highest and is widely avoided, a reduction is justifiable. Unfortunately, the plan does not take the opportunity to make the reduction revenue-neutral by eliminating targeted tax breaks and loopholes, and the lower rate it would impose on foreign assets might not be enough to discourage avoidance, rendering the cut another gift to wealthy interests.

To the extent that such giveaways are mitigated by the plan, its often by soaking blue states that dont support Republicans. The scrapping of deductions for state and local taxes, except for up to $10,000 in property taxes, would disproportionately hurt high-tax states such as California and New York. So would the halving of the current $1 million cap on eligibility for the mortgage interest deduction: Only 5 percent of the nations mortgages are greater than $500,000, and nearly half of them are in California.

The plans benefits for middle-class taxpayers are likely to be more modest and uncertain. While the bill would increase standard deductions and child and family credits, it would also eliminate personal exemptions and deductions for student loan, medical and moving expenses.

Under the circumstances, its comforting that the bill already faces an array of opponents and is expected to change in short order. Moreover, passing it in any form will require a level of political skill that this president and Congress have yet to show.

This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.
The San Francisco Police Department seeks the Police Commissions authorization to arm officers with Tasers, with a vote expected Friday. We say not now  not before we can measure the effectiveness of de-escalation, bias and crisis intervention reforms, and not when the safety and reliability of this weapon are in doubt.

After two years of research by our Criminal Justice Task Force, the Bar Association of San Franciscos Board of Directors voted unanimously to recommend against use of Tasers at this time. As the largest legal organization in the Bay Area, we believe it is our responsibility to advise San Franciscos residents and government about the potential loss of life, the lack of effectiveness of this weapon, and a rise in lawsuits against the cities that use them.

At first glance, Tasers appear to be an attractive alternative, but this widespread myth is far from the reality.

Tasers will not and cannot replace guns. Law enforcement officials, including those at the SFPD, and even Tasers manufacturer, Axon, acknowledge that a Taser is not a substitute for a gun. When confronted with a deadly threat, officers use their firearm. That is not to say that Tasers dont kill people  they do. A recent investigation by Reuters documented a minimum of 1,005 Taser-related deaths.

Many of the victims of Taser deployments come disproportionately from vulnerable populations  the homeless and mentally ill  and 90 percent were unarmed. Other studies demonstrate that nearly two-thirds of the targets were black men.

Extensive manufacturer warnings most likely will shift legal liability. It is significant that there are eight pages listing 22 manufacturer warnings issued in May. These warnings dont prohibit the weapons use on those likely to suffer serious injury or death. Instead, failure to abide by these newly issued warnings means that whenever injury or death occurs, San Francisco, not the manufacturer, could be on the hook.

Tasers are also unlikely to reduce police shootings. A 2009 UCSF study conducted across 50 cities found that in the year after the introduction of Tasers, police shootings by gun and firearm doubled, and deaths overall increased by more than 400 percent. The likely reason is that once a Taser is deployed, the situation escalates and lethal force becomes more likely. So, although Taser advocates often claim otherwise, Tasers probably would not have saved Mario Woods, Alex Nieto, Jessica Williams or other high-profile victims of police shootings in San Francisco.

Tasers are too unreliable to protect our officers  especially smaller and female officers. In Oakland, Tasers have been found to be effective only 50 percent of the time they are deployed; the Los Angeles Police Departments efficacy rate is 53 percent. Worse yet, the new Taser model delivers just half the voltage of the older models and has not been independently tested or studied. A recent lawsuit against the manufacturer by a Houston police officer alleges that she was severely injured because her new-model Taser failed to have any effect.

The SFPD is in the midst of implementing more than 270 reforms recommended by the Department of Justice intended to combat racial bias, reduce the use of force, and introduce long-needed accountability and transparency measures. Introducing a new and dangerous weapon before completing this work would severely undermine that progress. This is not the time for Tasers in San Francisco.

Introducing the new, weaker model may better protect the manufacturer against lawsuits but will probably put both the officer and the public at increased risk when the weapon fails to work.

Merri Baldwin is the president of the Bar Association of San Francisco, an 8,000-member legal organization.

Electronic control weapons defined: Conductive energy devices or Tasers fire projectiles that deliver the debilitating shock through thin wires and can be deployed from a distance; the older-style electronic weapons deliver an electric shock by direct contact.
SACRAMENTO  Californias fire-ravaged regions will need an additional $7.4 billion in federal aid to recover, Gov. Jerry Brown wrote to President Trump on Friday in a letter that was notably missing support from most congressional Republicans.

The states two U.S. senators, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, both Democrats, signed the letter along with nearly every Democratic member of the California congressional delegation. In the letter, Brown said the extra aid is needed to ensure everyone affected by the fires receive the federal support they need and deserve.

Trump already approved emergency aid to help the state fight fires and help victims. Last month, Congress approved $577 million in aid for wildfires across the West.

In all, 39 members of the California congressional delegation signed onto the letter  all Democrats except Rep. Ed Royce of Fullerton. The 13 other congressional Republicans from California did not sign the letter requesting the aid.

Democrat Maxine Waters of Los Angeles did not sign the letter. Efforts to reach her were unsuccessful Friday.

We reached out to the entire California delegation and were hopeful that Democrats and Republicans will overcome Washingtons politics as usual and come together to do whats best for our state, said Brown spokeswoman Ali Bay.

Parker Williams, a spokesman for Rep. Doug LaMalfa of Richvale (Butte County), said many Republicans chose to send their own letters to Trump. Williams said Republicans are committed to helping communities impacted by fires obtain every resource they need to recover.

The wildfires, which began Oct. 8, spread quickly over Californias Wine Country, leaving 43 dead and nearly 9,000 homes and commercial buildings destroyed.

The full economic impact to the agricultural, tourism, hospitality, and wine industries is still not known, Brown wrote in the letter. State and local governments in California are still in the early stages of recovery from this disaster and are still assessing damages and impacts.

As of Oct. 28, the governors office said $7.4 billion in federal funding is needed to help the state recover.

Its unfortunate that some Republicans did not stand with the rest of the California delegation to help fellow Californians ravaged by the recent wildfires, said TJ Adams-Falconer, a spokesman for Rep. Mike Thompson of St. Helena. The additional disaster funds Gov. Brown has requested are for assistance that many of our communities need to recover and rebuild. We will continue to try to work with the Republican members of our delegation to get all those devastated by the fires back on their feet.

Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez@

sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez
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As cities throughout California welcome the sale of recreational cannabis in January, San Francisco lawmakers seem to be trying to squeeze the industry out  at least thats the view of one elected official.

The city that prides itself as the birthplace of the medical marijuana movement is now contemplating rules that would restrict dispensaries from most of its neighborhoods, isolating them in a few tiny green zones.

On Thursday, the Board of Supervisors Land Use and Transportation Committee approved a 1,000-foot buffer  significantly larger than the states recommendation of 600 feet  between every cannabis business and the nearest school. That would effectively prevent any new shops from opening in the Castro, large parts of the Mission and much of the west side. Supervisors Jane Kim and Katy Tang asked that the buffer be extended to child care facilities, which would exclude much of the Haight.

Additionally, just about every supervisor has called for some type of neighborhood cap. Tang wants to relegate pot shops to a few small pockets of the Sunset. Mark Farrell asked that only one dispensary be allowed to operate on each major commercial corridor in his district, which includes the Marina, Pacific Heights and Cow Hollow. Aaron Peskin pressed for a ban in Chinatown. Supervisor Norman Yee asked his colleagues to prohibit cannabis retailers from opening on the ground floor of any building in West Portal. Ahsha Safai asked for a three-dispensary limit in the outer Excelsior.

These proposals infuriate state Sen. Scott Wiener, a former supervisor. On Friday morning, Wiener posted a long Facebook rant, accompanied by a Planning Department map that showed the new prospective green zones  tiny dots on the northeast and southeast corners of the city.

Wiener expressed fear that his former colleagues are being swayed by a small but vocal group of cannabis opponents who pack City Hall for every hearing, insisting that the industry will bring crime and blight into their neighborhoods.

Its like were going back to the Reefer Madness era of the 1930s, Wiener told The Chronicle. Lets stay in 2017 San Francisco.

Noting that 73 percent of San Francisco voters supported state Proposition 64 to legalize recreational marijuana, Wiener chided the supervisors for trying to squelch an innovative, creative industry.

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.

Yee defended his proposed restrictions for West Portal, saying that if he didnt react to the bans being introduced by his colleagues, then every cannabis business would move into my district.

The Land Use and Transportation Committee will vote Monday on the regulations, which then will go before the full board on Nov. 14.

 Rachel Swan

Email: cityinsider@sfchronicle.com, rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@sfcityinsider @rachelswan
With two months left until the sale of recreational marijuana becomes legal throughout California, San Franciscos cannabis rules are continuing their twisted path through the citys legislative process.

On Thursday, members of the Board of Supervisors Land Use and Transportation Committee amended the proposed regulations to make it legal to smoke pot inside dispensaries, an idea that drew resistance from the Department of Public Health.

I think were going to need to have indoor consumption sites, said committee chairman Mark Farrell. This is legal. This is coming. We have tenants with no smoking provisions in their leases and nowhere to go.

To that end, Farrell supported an amendment from Supervisor Jeff Sheehy to take indoor consumption permits out of the hands of public health officials and make them the responsibility of the Office of Cannabis. It passed unanimously and will go before the full board on Nov. 14.

The specter of indoor consumption had put the health department in an awkward position, Sheehy said, noting the departments long-standing policy of banning smoking indoors.

If the city were to stick by that policy, it risked pushing cannabis users into parks and onto sidewalks, Sheehy said.

It seems surreal to me to be talking about safe injection sites for heroin use and then telling people who use cannabis that theres nowhere they can consume, he said.

The committee also approved an amendment by Supervisor Katy Tang to maintain San Franciscos 1,000-foot buffer zone between dispensaries and schools.

Sheehy voted against the amendment, which goes against the Office of Cannabis recommended buffer of 600 feet. The 1,000-foot buffer has been cited as a reason cannabis dispensaries tend to cluster in certain parts of the city.

But the committee isnt done tinkering with the rules. On Monday, it will vote on a proposal to bar cannabis shops from Chinatown, where there is strong opposition, and consider additional amendments that would enable San Franciscos existing dispensaries to begin selling recreational marijuana on Jan. 1.

Office of Cannabis officials previously said they would not issue a single recreational permit until the city creates an equity program to help victims of the federal war on drugs break into the multibillion-dollar cannabis market.

Supervisor Malia Cohen presented a complicated, 10-page draft of that program during a separate cannabis hearing Wednesday. Her version would prioritize people with past marijuana convictions or entrepreneurs who committed other nonviolent crimes, as well as people who were displaced from their homes within the past 22 years. As with the other rules governing cannabis sales, the program would have to be approved by the full Board of Supervisors.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan
When I glanced over the menu at Madcap, Ron Siegels new restaurant in San Anselmo, the offerings seemed a little edgy.

The dishes arent the familiar comfort food one expects in Marin. While Siegel is a great chef, I questioned how the combinations would play. Although there are only a dozen dishes on the menu, plus Brickmaiden bread ($6), diners confront terms like oboro kombu and Parmesan spuma.

A salad of summer melon and cucumber ($8) at first sounds familiar, but that ends with the addition of a atika, a cheese from Cowgirl creamery. What is a toma scoobies, listed as part of the heirloom tomato soup? Turns out to be a bite-sized turnover filled with cheese and greens. The dictionary cant be retired until the main courses, where the ingredients seem more familiar but far from boring.

It could all go horribly wrong  expect that Siegel has proven time and again to be one of the best chefs in the Bay Area, whether hes cooking at the Ritz Carlton and Michael Mina in San Francisco or the quirky Rancho Nicasio in Marin.

During my first dinner near the end of summer I realized that Siegel illustrates the difference between a competent chef and an inspired one. He intuitively balances ingredients and turns out dishes that excite but never overwhelm the senses.

Devils Gulch rabbit tortelloni ($16) ring a third of an oversized plate, along with chunks of chanterelle mushrooms, greens, a meat broth and three puddles of aerated Parmesan cream (or spuma) that interact with the other ingredients in a more precise and refined way than if the cheese was merely sprinkled on top.

A crisp-skinned fillet of Mt. Lassen trout ($15) is placed in a dramatic, wide-rimmed bowl filled with dashi, paper-thin slices of cucumbers and radishes and two crisscrossed leaves of tatsoi that reinforce a subtle Japanese theme.

Siegel is a chef who effortlessly blend cultures, making every dish his own. He jumped on the Japanese bandwagon long before most other Northern Californian chefs; in fact, he led the parade. In 1998 Siegel became the first American to win the original Iron Chef in Japan, and since then hes straddled borders with subtly and purpose.

Herb-roasted chicken ($28) with roasted peppers and Red Hawk potato puree seems like a very straight-forward combination. In the presentation, the components played like a symphony. With an extra crisp skin, the chicken was arranged on the plate with halves of tiny tomatoes, slices of squash and a few twists of baby bok choy. It felt familiar and exotic at the same time, with every element in harmony.

Bolinas black cod ($32) was partly buried under its garnishes of roasted potato slices, cauliflower, individually seasoned purple tatsoi and cubes of pressed pork belly. Theres a lot going on, but again Siegel ties everything into a tight package.

He uses a similar surf-and-turf theme regularly. On another visit he paired local ling cod with braised short ribs ($32). Another time the fish was Petrale sole with clams in a miso shiso broth ($32).

Whats on the menu one day may be gone tomorrow, but theres always something equally good to replace it.

Siegel is a hands-on chef in a tiny kitchen that serves a dining room of 45 seats, assisted by only a sous chef, salad person, expeditor and dishwasher. His preparations incorporate many labor-intensive components; other kitchens would probably require twice as many people to pull off this menu. The chef jokingly says the Ritz Carlton walk-in is bigger than the entire Madcap kitchen.

Yet he continues to present dishes in exciting ways: A salad of Paradise Valley greens ($14) rings two thirds of a dinner plate, the greens woven together with thin slices of apples and ribbons of daikon with a scattering of pistachio and pomegranate. He wraps thin slices of avocado around big eye tuna tartare ($9), forms it into a log and cuts it into pieces, so the exterior looks like piped green frosting, decorated with cherry tomato halves, violas and cosmos petals.

The rabbit liver mousse could easily be served at the French Laundry, where Siegel was the sous chef for three years after it opened in 1993. At Madcap the price is $7 for four bite-sized cubes that look like petit fours layered with almond cake, the liver mousse, hibiscus gelee and a flower garnish.

Siegel also creates the two desserts on the menu: sesame chocolate cake ($10) served with sesame brittle and jasmine rice sherbet, and a shiso panna cotta ($10) presented in a pottery bowl that has a square of cheesecake in the center of the flat lid. Underneath is the creamy custard capped with a vivid glaze of blackberry gelee strewn with matching magenta cosmos flower petals.

For Siegel this is everyday food. For a special occasion extravaganza, he offers a nightly eight-course tasting menu that always includes a few extras. It costs $80. When you consider that Siegel earned four stars cooking at the Ritz Carlton, it gives a clue as to what a good deal this is. Some dishes are gleaned from the menu while others  such as a recent offering of tuna sashimi with yuzu gel and grated soy salt  are made with limited ingredients.

Understanding customers impatience today, he orchestrates the menu so diners can be in and out in less than two hours, although they can linger if desired. A cadre of professional waiters, including Siegels wife, Kim Siegel, who is always there to greet diners and run the front of the house, is expert at reading tables and adjusting accordingly.

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While the food can be lavish, the beautifully transformed interior, which at one time was home to Fork, Lincoln Park and other restaurants, is clearly designed for comfort. The walls have been plastered and darkened; oversized paintings by designer Michael Brennan give an artistic feel to the dining rooms, carved out of two storefronts. The two spaces have historically felt a little out of sync, but Brennan has done a good job of bringing them closer together. With its bar, the room where diners enter seems more casual, although the velvet-like upholstery of a row of booths adds a note of refinement. The second room is defined by dark walls and a series of circular chandeliers that give off a soft glow.

The whole creates a coveted blend of comfort and luxury that should delight every food-loving citizen of Marin, and lure people like me to cross bridges.

In fact, Id go as far to say that Siegel is now cooking the best food Marin has to offer.

   

Madcap

Food:    

Service:   

Atmosphere:   

Price: $$$

Noise: Three Bells
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Money, its often said, cannot buy love or happiness. It would seem that it also cannot buy a perfect luxury work bag  and in the tech world, that invites an opportunity for disruption.

San Francisco startups have been rethinking what working women want to carry, and the result is an outpouring of functional, minimalist options at more accessible prices than designer bags. Call it the handbag renaissance. These understated totes share characteristics including design, materials, utility, but perhaps most of all, a desire to be something not currently in the marketplace.

The newest contender is from serial entrepreneur and early Facebook employee Julia Lam, whose story will be familiar to many.

I was fundraising for my last company, and I was running around from meeting to meeting to social event and back to meeting. I had this cute shoulder bag with my laptop and my life in it, but the weight on one shoulder was hurting me, and I was tipping over in my heels. I thought there had to be a better way, she says.

Her needs were straightforward, yet elusive: Lam wanted something beautiful, professional, practical and with distributed weight  in other words, something with the mind of a briefcase, the wearability of a backpack and the look of a luxury handbag. It also wouldnt hurt to add the portability of a clutch.

Ive been thinking about this idea for several years now, mostly around how to solve challenges for the working woman: How do we build products for women who have a dynamic lifestyle? How do you look good and feel comfortable at work? Lam says.

In 2016, she sold her company, Bucket, and set to work on what would become Tara&Co, working with a designer to create a bag prototype in six weeks. She named it the Tracy 2-in-1 after her friend, engineer and entrepreneur Tracy Chou, whose advocacy for gender representation in technical roles ignited a movement that garnered participation from Google, Facebook and Microsoft, among others.

This being the world of iterations, Lam tapped tech-world friends, including Chou, to be early testers. In May, she launched an Indiegogo campaign to validate product market fit, as she says.

The numbers  more than 300 bags presold at $295 each, which was 115 percent of her goal  validated that women were willing to buy a convertible laptop-friendly tote that works as a shoulder bag, backpack or cross-body, with expandable compartments and a zip-off clutch.

For those not in the startup realm, product market fit is about building something that people want. People will often tell you they want something, but when you build it, they dont use it, Lam says. I wanted to know that if we built this product, people would actually be excited to buy it  and they were. The Tracy 2-in-1 is available on the companys website for $395 starting Wednesday, Nov. 8.

Senreve

The struggle between aesthetics and functionality was all too real for Senreve co-founder Coral Chung, whose $895 Maestra bags have sold out four or five times since becoming available a year ago. The leather bag converts into a backpack and was designed to replace the luxury bags from the likes of Prada, Fendi and Hermes that Chung had used early in her career as a consultant at Bain & Co.

Those types of bags are not made for a multifaceted, busy woman, Chung said. They are going for a woman who usually doesnt carry a laptop, and they might have a driver and dont need to think about security or a zipper on top, or needing the bag to work from day to night.

Like Lam, Chung and co-founder Wendy Wen employed customer testing and numerous iterations to understand what would excite women about a work bag. When it came time to raise money, she saw it as a bad sign if a potential investor wondered what was wrong with the current department-store assortment.

To me that is a very naive kind of response; it shows a lack of understanding, Chung said. Thats like saying, when Google was founded, There were already thousands of search engine companies. Its an oversimplification. I think what we are trying to do is an extremely differentiated point of view that current luxury brands cant do or arent interested in doing.

When Cuyana launched in 2013, co-founders Shilpa Shah and Karla Gallardo were intentionally pushing back against the fashion bag mind-set. They started with a classic leather $175 tote guided by an ethos of fewer, better things. Before we started out, we couldnt find bags that were high quality and accessibly priced, Shah said. We also noticed that most consumers didnt think about longevity, versatility and quality in their purchase decisions.

Everlanes iteration is the leather Day Market tote, a $165 work bag worn by actor (and Prince Harry plus-one) Meghan Markle. (The brands Petra bag is a favorite of Angelina Jolie.)

The definition of a luxury handbag is shifting such that even the material, leather, is open to innovation.

Filbert launched in Sausalito in March with four luxury bags made of vegan leather, cotton canvas and microsuede. Its most expensive, the $415 Riley bag, is the brands answer to a minimalist, hardworking professional bag.

Theres an outdated perception that leather equals luxury, says founder Bridget Brown, who uses a small-batch factory in Portland, Ore., to manufacture her vegan bags. I think theres a newer, better way to look at luxury. Luxury to me is knowing that my products are made in a factory with good, safe conditions and where the workers are treated well and paid fairly.

Moreau

Some luxury brands have taken note. Moreau-Paris, which just feted the opening of its San Francisco store (at 345 Powell St.), offers a two-in-one $3,000 leather bag called the Bregancon.

Art director Fedor Savchenko designs with a mission of building practicality and durability into the bags, which are derived from the companys origins as a 19th century luggage maker. Although Moreau introduces contemporary updates to suit modern life  to accommodate a laptop, for example  the thinking, he says, is to offer something functional that would last rather than something fleetingly fashionable.

People need real things  something to keep for many years, he said at the brands opening party. Everyone is looking for perfection, and we try to approach perfection as well as we can.

Maghan McDowell is a San Francisco freelance writer. Email: style@sfchronicle.com

The contenders

Everlane Day Market Tote

Good for: A marketing 30 under 30 whose style is very Meghan Markle. Or Meghan Markle herself.

Made in: Italy

Price: $165; https://www.everlane.com

Cuyana Classic Leather Tote

Good for: A financial-tech MBA saving for her next trip to India.

Made in: The United States and Turkey

Prices: $175, https://www.cuyana.com

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Filbert The Steiner

Good for: A director of the philanthropic arm of a major software provider.

Made in: United States

Price: $415, https://shopfilbert.com

Tara&Co Tracy 2-in-1

Good for: Aspiring serial entrepreneurs commuting from yoga to a pitch meeting to a networking happy hour.

Made in: China

Price: $395, https://www.taraand.co/

Senreve Maestra

Good for: An engineer and future founder whos aiming to disrupt social shopping.

Made in: Italy

Price: $895, https://www.senreve.com

Moreau-Paris Bregancon Open Tote

Good for: The Francophile COO who prefers an understated less is more aesthetic while #WFH (working from home) in Napa.

Made in: France

Price: $2,700-$3,100, https://moreau-paris.com

 M.M.
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Alexandre Remy is not interested in making high-end wine.

$60 Pinot Noir is a huge financial disaster, says the winemaker. I know. I tried it.

Remy, a partner in Atlas Wine Co., is now trying to make a different sort of wine under his Oro Bello and Omen brands: inexpensive, available at grocery stores, and with a flavor profile that will appeal to middle America.

Its a set of parameters that many of Remys peers would find irreconcilable with the imperatives of being an ambitious young winemaker  imperatives that position wine as a work of art, as a mode of storytelling, as bottled poetry.

Remy doesnt see it that way. I want to be the Lagunitas of wine, he says: affordable craft, always under $20.

Though Atlas wines carry no residual sugar, they taste fruity, ripe and rich. Thats important, Remy insists, if you want to reach a mass audience. Would I love to make Valdiguie? Cornas-style Syrah? Sancerre-like Sauvignon Blanc? Remy says. Yes. But its not what people want.

Anti-elitist bents can feel tired  give the people what they want easily becomes an excuse for making a bad product  but Remy makes a persuasive case. The Atlas wines stand as a meaningfully better alternative than other California wines of equivalent price.

The goal is not to compete with artisanal darlings like Matthiasson and Scribe; the goal is to compete with grocery-shelf hits like The Prisoner and Kendall-Jackson. Within that arena, Remy hopes to position Atlas brands as a bastion of independence within an ever-conglomerating industry. As of this year, 30 companies, out of more than 9,000, control over 90 percent of all domestic wine sold by volume, according to Wine Business Monthly. Just three companies  Gallo, Constellation and the Wine Group  are responsible for more than half of all wine sold in the U.S. For a brand to get on the shelf at Safeway, its got to be big.

I want to be the bridge between high-end wine and the worst wine in the market, Remy says.

John Storey/Special to the Chronicle

Atlas Wine Co. is the rare wine brand born of a vineyard management business, also called Atlas. And even more improbably, the vineyard management side specializes in precisely the sort of grapes that the wine side seeks to avoid: expensive ones.

Remys partners  Barry Belli, a former Frito-Lay executive, and Mike Cybulski, a veteran viticulturist  are shrewd businessmen. Belli and Cybulski formed Atlas Vineyard Management in 2013 when the company theyd previously worked for (Premier Pacific Vineyards, a major vineyard-investment outlet funding the California Public Employees Retirement System) was dissolving, and preparing for layoffs. We just figured we could offer jobs to all the employees if we could branch out on our own, Cybulski says.

They secured the farming contracts for many of PPVs properties, and with investor partners bought 50 percent stakes in five vineyards, including Walala Vineyard in the northwest Sonoma Coast.

(Note: None of the Atlas vineyard holdings were affected by the recent wildfires, although a few of the companys employees lost their homes.)

When Belli and Cybulski decided to launch a wine brand, they tapped Remy, a France-born winemaker who has worked for Chandon, Gallo and Kendall Jackson. Given the sites Atlas farms  vineyards like Sun Chase, Gaps Crown and Durrell, all sources of expensive Pinot Noir  the initial thought was, predictably, expensive Pinot Noir.

That first year, 2013, Remy made eight different wines, including four Pinot Noirs between $50 and $70, and a $25 rose. They called the brand Agnitio. They loved the wines; they were proud of the wines. But they couldnt sell them.

Those prices do well in a flash sale, says Remy. But you cant sell an unknown brand at that price. Expensive Sonoma Pinot is just an oversaturated category.

It broke their hearts, but they had to sell all the Agnitio wine at severe discounts, barely recuperating their costs. And thats when Atlas decided to shift its business model.

From an emotional standpoint, it was hard, says Belli. We farm really high-end vineyards. But when (Remy) put the numbers on a spreadsheet, it was an easy sell.

Today, the Atlas lineup consists of Oro Bello ($17.99 Chardonnay from Lodi and Sonoma) and Omen ($19.99 Cabernet, Zinfandel and red blends from the Sierra Foothills, and Pinot Noir from southern Oregon). Theyre sound, theyre affordable, theyre likable. And Atlas hopes that their companys independence and commitment to not using chemical additives will win over a conscientious consumer.

The goal is to bring wines that are very palatable, with no additives, that people want to drink, Remy says. No MegaPurple, no Velcorin, no gum Arabic.

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How does one make a good wine at that price? Inexpensive fruit sources, to start; thats why the wines lean on grapes from places like Lodi, the Sierra Foothills and southern Oregon. A shorter barrel-aging period keeps inventory moving. Scale helps lower packaging costs. Atlas doesnt own a winery, instead opting for an alternating proprietorship at Perry Creek Winery in Fair Play, in southern El Dorado County. Label design  which Remy says hes paid $10,000 for in the past  was forgone completely; the Omen label is lifted from an Instagram photo of the Ritas Crown Vineyard.

Atlas certainly isnt the first wine brand to promote a transparent pricing scheme. On the contrary, price transparency may soon be the next big trend in wine marketing.

Alit Wines, based in Oregons Willamette Valley, has staked a business on offering high-quality wines direct to consumers, bypassing the middlemen of wholesalers and retailers. Visit Alits website, and youll find a breakdown of costs per bottle (All Natural Farming and Fruit: $5.66), accounting for the winerys profit ($12.35) before landing on the bottle cost ($27.45, excluding shipping).

Alit founder Mark Tarlov  a former Hollywood producer, and founder of Evening Land Vineyards  espouses many of the same ideals as Alexandre Remy. Were trying to get rid of the artifice, Tarlov told me in an interview last year. His aim, like Remys, is to make an honest wine, an artisanal wine, but also a mainstream wine.

Of course, this marketing strategy makes sense only if youre not one of the mainstream wine companies. Gallo, Constellation, Treasury and others have been churning out inexpensive, high-volume wine appealing to the Everyman American palate for decades. And youre not going to find a cost breakdown per bottle for Gallos Apothic Red on its website.

Isnt wine a little late, among other industries, to jump on this price-transparency bandwagon? Look at clothing companies Everlane or Oliver Cabell. Look, even, at Uber and Lyft. For these companies, transparent pricing  which, in the case of the clothing companies, includes transparency about how much of a cut the company is taking  is part of a larger strategy of earning their customers trust.

When I mention to Remy that making cheap wine isnt exactly a revolutionary innovation, he concedes the point. But its still good business, he says.

Atlas is producing 10,000 cases of wine this year, and is on track for 20,000 next year. Oro Bello and Omen wines are distributed in 20 states. The goal is to ramp up to at least 50,000 cases  the Safeway threshold. And thats when you actually start making money, Remy adds.

Most of all, these are wines he feels he can stand behind. If I look at you and tell you that my Pinot Noir costs $70  I cant do it, Remy says. I wouldnt buy it.

I can make fancy wine, he says. Its just a bit boring.
CEDAR FALLS | Area residents got to see Iowas highest court in action during a traveling session at Cedar Falls High School on Thursday night.

And area high school students got to hear from the Iowa Supreme Court justices as guest speakers in the classroom.

In Bob Schmidts American Government class at Cedar Falls high, Chief Justice Mark Cady recapped landmark Iowa court cases that rejected slavery and upheld equal education and gay marriage ahead of federal rulings that did the same.

He also fielded questions from students that included advice on pursuing careers in law.

The legal profession is a public service profession. You represent people to help them through problems that occur in their lives  The first thing you need to think about is does that appeal to you. Is that what you want to do? You have to make a commitment early on that you have good grades, and you should take courses that feed you interest in the law, Cady told the sophomore class.

Schmidt said the visit was a good opportunity to have someone involved with the judicial branch talk with the students.

The Supreme Court has stopped in 26 communities and visited more than 160 schools since starting the traveling sessions in 2011 to inform students about the role and importance of the judicial branch.

The whole purpose is to inform the kids the best we can about the role of our courts and the importance it has, Cady said.

Justice Edward Mansfield gave a similar talk at East High School in Waterloo on Thursday, and Justices Thomas Waterman, David Wiggins and Bruce Zager are slated to speak at Waterloo West, Union High and Waterloo Columbus on Friday.

On Thursday night, the justices gathered in the Cedar Falls High auditorium to hear oral arguments in Jason Gene Weitzels appeal of his domestic assault and operating while intoxicated plea. The Floyd County case was appealed after Weitzel said he wasnt properly notified about surcharges attached to fines during his plea hearing.

In a split decision in May, the Iowa Court of Appeals sided with Weitzel, overturning plea because of the error, but prosecutors asked the Iowa Supreme Court for a further review.

Representing Weitzel during Thursdays hearing was attorney David Kuehner, a Readlyn native now living in Cedar Falls about eight blocks from the school. It was his second time arguing in front of the states highest court.

I have a lot more friends here this time, Kuehner said.

Assistant Iowa Attorney General Thomas Bakke, who represented the state, said the conviction should be upheld because Weitzel understood the essence of the punishment and knew that he would be paying tens of thousands of dollars to government.

In this case, he was told about approximately $22,000 in fines and surcharges, but he wasnt told that the total financial obligation was actually going to be around $28,000 or $29,000, Bakke said.

Well, Ok. If I go buy a car and somebody tells me 22,000 and it turns out to be 28,000, dont you think I got a beef? Justice Brent Appel responded.

Cady said to a person without financial means, the difference is significant.

The Iowa Supreme Court will issue a decision in the case at a later date.

Following the hearing, justices talked with residents during a reception hosted by the schools student council.
The Bucklin familys relationship with Constellation Brands stretches back more than three decades. Thats how long Constellation  a global wine corporation expected to generate $7.33 billion in revenue this year, and owner of California wine brands like Robert Mondavi and Ravenswood  has bought grapes from Old Hill Ranch, the Bucklins 35-acre Sonoma Valley vineyard. But after this years wildfires, for the first time ever, Constellation rejected the Old Hill fruit.

The reason? Smoke taint.

Throughout Wine Country, as the harrowing 2017 harvest nears its end, small-scale growers like Bucklin are facing a harsh reality: Wineries may not be willing to buy their product because they dont want to sell smoke-tainted wines to consumers. When that happens, its largely not the wineries that take the hit, but the growers.

During the earliest hours of the Nuns Fire, flames ripped through Old Hill Ranch, decimating two homes on the property, knocking over more than 40 trees and scorching several century-old vines. Most of Old Hills grapes had been harvested already, but some  including the parcels contracted to Constellation  remained on the vines. For days, thick smoke lingered.

Constellations smoke-testing process takes on a scientific approach, according to vineyard owner Will Bucklin, looking for the presence of the chemical compounds guaiacol and 4-methylguaiacol, which contribute smoky aromas and flavors.

They tested the grapes before they were set to pick and found the compounds present, Bucklin said. And they rejected the grapes based on that.

Bucklin does not have crop insurance, which would probably have helped recoup some of his financial losses because of the smoke, on Old Hill Ranch, originally planted in 1852. Hes planning to get insurance now.

To help soften the blow, Bucklin decided to make Constellations rejected fruit into wine himself (in addition to farming the vineyard, he owns a small, eponymous wine brand), though hes not sure whether hell be able to sell it as wine, either bottled or in bulk. Some Cabernet Sauvignon is tasting good, but one of his lots  an Alicante Bouschet grape variety  is already, as he put it, nasty.

Paul Chinn/The Chronicle

In Napa Valley, grower Maria Haug is waiting to see whether the last of her fruit, some Roussanne grapes, will be rejected.

Were just hoping the numbers come in low, Haug, who with her husband, Rene, farms a 7-acre vineyard in Rutherford, said of the pending smoke-taint analysis. About 90 percent of the Haugs grapes had been picked before the wildfires; the final 5 tons of Roussanne were picked Oct. 26. The day before that pick, the winery client (whom Haug did not name) made Haug sign a contract saying that if the grapes tested positive for high levels of the smoke taint compounds, the winery would not have to pay Haug for the fruit.

If the winery does reject the fruit, Haug will take the grapes, vinify them at a custom-crush facility and attempt to sell the wine on the bulk market. But we dont make money that way, we just cut our losses, she said.

Custom-crush fees come to about $1,000 per ton, she added, plus the costs of pruning, picking and farming; she estimates she might get $1,000 to $1,200 per ton on the bulk market. The Napa County average price of Roussanne, meanwhile  the price the winery would pay her  was $4,250 per ton last year.

What, precisely, is smoke taint, and how can grapes be tested for it?

Theres a lot of confusion on the topic, and not a lot of research has been done, said Robert Tracy, owner of BevTrac Mobile Quality Systems, a Windsor company that provides quality assurance consulting services to the wine industry. What happens is that when smoke is produced from fire, there are lots of volatile compounds that get in the atmosphere, and theres probably eight that could then get into grapes.

Of those eight compounds, two  guaiacol and 4-methylguaiacol  are considered the main smoke taint culprits, and can be tested for. Both can occur in wines normally. They help contribute Syrahs signature smoky aroma, for example, and often appear in high concentrations in wines that have been aged in toasted oak barrels.

When smoke lingers, guaiacol and 4-methylguaiacol can penetrate grape skins. They actually stay in the skin primarily, and sometimes in the pulp, Tracy said. However, those volatile compounds can bind to the sugars in the grapes, rendering them nonvolatile. Volatile compounds can be smelled; nonvolatile ones cant.

According to Tracy, most laboratories can test only for free guaiacol and 4-methylguaiacol. But if the compounds are bound and therefore nonvolatile, neither a laboratory test nor a human nose will detect it. More complications can ensue, because bound compounds can get released later, especially during fermentation.

Thats why you can have low levels of the compounds at the juice stage, but higher levels at the wine stage, because the bond between the sugar and the smoke taint chemical is broken, Tracy said. Glucosidase enzymes that break those bonds, he added, are present in the human mouth, so its possible that smoke taint compounds can be freed by the act of tasting.

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In other words, there may be no way of telling how much smoke taint will appear in a wine down the road.

To make matters more confusing, no standard definition exists for what constitutes too much guaiacol and 4-methylguaiacol in grapes, and when a winery shouldnt make wine from them. Multiple winemakers cited 0.5 parts per billion as the safe threshold, but Haug believes her winery client will not reject her Roussanne if it tests under 23 parts per billion. (White wines, theoretically, should be at a lower risk of showing smoke taint than reds, because the juice typically spends little time exposed to grape skins.)

For Will Bucklin, the fate of the rejected Constellation grapes is unclear. Maybe hell sell the wines on the bulk market  though he doubts that even the bulk market would accept smoke-tainted Alicante Bouschet. Maybe hell apply techniques like reverse osmosis, which has been shown to potentially reduce smoke taint, though hed consider that a last resort.

Maybe the wines will turn out just fine.

I really, strongly feel that I want there to be some character about the fire in the wines, Bucklin said. This is part of the vintage, and its going to be a part of my life, remembering this event. In 10 years, if I sit down and have a bottle of that smoky Cabernet, I want to remember the vintage.

At the same time, he said, I dont want the wines to be disgusting.

Maria Haug, meanwhile, counts her blessings. Her family has been farming its vineyard since the 1940s, and in her lifetime she remembers only two vintages  one in the early 1970s, the other 2011  where the family had to take a loss on contracted fruit.

Its farming, and farming is always a gamble, Haug said. I think a lot of people that are new to the industry may not remember that Napa Valley has had an awful lot of good years.

Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicles wine, beer and spirits writer. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley Instagram: @esthermob
As homelessness shows no sign of shrinking in Oakland, Mayor Libby Schaaf asked homeowners Thursday to open their doors to the unsheltered if they have the space to spare.

Schaafs appeal came during her annual State of the City address at which she discussed Oaklands housing crisis, deadly fires, youth programs, civic arts, road repairs and police reforms. The call to action on homelessness was a new signal of just how entrenched encampments have become in the city as rents continue to climb.

Give up that Airbnb. Fix up that back unit, she said, encouraging property owners to lease apartments at rates affordable to recently homeless individuals.

The event Thursday was held at the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California in downtown Oakland; the first-term mayor delivered her previous two speeches at City Hall.

Schaaf said the location choice, along with music and dance performances by Middle Eastern and Latino groups, was intentional  a response to policies put forth by President Trump seen as harmful to Muslims and immigrants.

On Madison Street outside the carefully planned festivities, hundreds of workers represented by the citys largest union formed a picket in opposition to the mayor. The librarians, street cleaners, parking enforcement officers and other city employees faulted Schaaf and her administration for their handling of Oaklands biggest problems, including homelessness. They said their objective was to draw attention to the real state of Oakland.

They booed and shouted at city leaders, audience members, reporters and worshipers who entered the center. All eight City Council members said they chose not to attend to because of the demonstration.

The protest followed a half-day strike that began at 2:30 p.m. by members of the union, SEIU Local 1021, amid a dispute over work conditions and pay. City and union officials have been trying to hammer out a new contract for the past six months. Another union in contract negotiations, the local chapter of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, joined the demonstration.

In response to the walkout, which city spokeswoman Karen Boyd said came Wednesday on unusually short notice, Oakland libraries, senior centers and child care programs closed early Thursday.

Frankie Izzo, a family advocate at Head Start, a city program for preschool-age children, said the move was overkill.

We chose this time so the least amount of people would be affected, she said. We didnt want to have this big shutdown.

Izzo said her annual caseload has nearly doubled  from 34 when she started two decades ago to 56  and her work responsibilities have grown to include tasks such as data entry. Like city employees in other departments, including the 911 dispatch center, Izzo said there was too much work to do and not enough staff to get it done.

Their message has been shaped into an advertising campaign across downtown city bus stops. The posters decry a crisis made in Oakland and point to issues such as illegal dumping, which has long plagued city leaders.

In her speech, Schaaf said she had great respect for the protesters who were expressing Oakland values and speaking truth to power.

Kimberly Veklerov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kveklerov
A federal appeals court reinstated an environmental groups lawsuit Thursday that accuses Pacific Gas and Electric Co. of contaminating San Francisco and Humboldt bays with potentially dangerous chemicals in a wood preservative used on utility poles.

In its 2010 suit, the Ecological Rights Foundation said sawdust and wood chips at 31 PG&E service yards in Northern California contained pentachlorophenol, a preservative and pesticide with dioxins that can increase the risk of cancer, reproductive damage and other health problems. The Environmental Protection Agency has listed the substance as a probable human carcinogen and many nations banned it in 2015, but the U.S. allows limited use.

The suit said oil and wood waste from poles stored at the yards washed into the bays, damaging the environment and endangering wildlife and human health. The environmental group wants a court to order PG&E to halt or clean up the discharges.

U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco agreed in 2015 that the preservative was found on the ground at PG&E yards, but ruled that the law the environmental group cited in the suit, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, did not apply to storm-water pollution.

That law exempts activities that are subject to the federal Clean Water Act. The Environmental Protection Agency decided many years ago not to require permits under that law for storm-water discharges. But because the agency could have ordered permits, Seeborg said, the discharges were subject to the Clean Water Act and could not be challenged under the Resource Conservation law.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco disagreed and said the suit could proceed.

The Clean Water Act does not require PG&E to get a permit for these discharges, Judge Marsha Berzon said in the 3-0 ruling. That means such pollution is not subject to the water law, she said.

The EPA filed arguments supporting reinstatement of the suit under President Barack Obama, and argued on the side of the environmental group at the courts hearing in February after President Trump took office.

The court also rejected PG&Es argument that the environmental group had not shown that its members had suffered any harm from the alleged pollution and therefore lacked legal standing to sue.

Berzon said the groups members had adequately asserted their reduced ability to enjoy eating local seafood in Bay Area restaurants, observing birds and other wildlife from the air or from the wetlands around Oakland Airport, or sailing and swimming safely in San Francisco Bay, among other harms.

Jason Flanders, a lawyer for the Ecological Rights Foundation, said the ruling closed what could have been a major loophole in pollution law.

Asked for comment, PG&E spokesman Matt Nauman said, The health and safety of our customers and the public is our top priority. We are aware of the courts decision. Were reviewing it and evaluating our next steps.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
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Thidwick Books in San Francisco's Richmond District will be closing its doors at the end of December.

A cheery voicemail message on the tiny shop's telephone broke the news. The bookstore had been a staple in the Richmond District since 1999, although it faced recent challenges.

In 2010, owner Leagrey Dimond was forced to close the original San Francisco location, at 11 Clement St., after a disabled man sued her and the city over the shop's violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Rather than paying to alter the configuration of the 865-square-foot shop to make it wheelchair accessible, Dimond decided to close it.

Just over a year later, Dimond reopened Thidwick at its current location at 1136 Clement St., on a bustling slice of the Richmond two blocks from the Presidio.

The store will offer 40 percent off select merchandise between now and its closing, the voicemail message said. The discount will apply to children's books the first week of November, followed by fiction, mystery and biography/history the three weeks thereafter.

According to the Richmond District Blog, Dimond will donate anything that doesn't sell to San Francisco organizations.

Dimond could not immediately be reached for comment.

Michelle Robertson is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @mrobertsonsf.
The tip does not have to be big  $1 to $5, says the American Hotel and Lodging Association. But less than a third of hotel guests leave any money for the housekeepers.

The hotel association publishes a gratuity guide on its website that offers suggestions for tipping everyone from valet attendants to bellhops.

But why are housekeepers often forgotten? A common explanation is that they are out of sight  that travelers are likely to tip only employees they directly interact with. But another cause may be a simple lack of awareness.

As a general rule, people just dont know theyre supposed to tip, said Shane Blum, an associate professor of hospitality and retail management at Texas Tech University. The setting, he said, compounds the problem. Obviously, when youre with a group of people, like at a restaurant, theres social pressure to tip. In a hotel room, youre usually by yourself and theres not that social pressure.

But even when guests are nudged to leave tips, it does not always work.

In 2014, two longtime housekeepers at the JW Marriott Santa Monica Le Merigot Hotel recalled, guests were regularly leaving tips when they checked out, the result of the hotel chain taking part in the Envelope Please, an initiative started by the nonprofit group A Womans Nation to make it easier for customers to show appreciation to housekeepers. Envelopes were placed in 160,000 Marriott-managed hotel rooms in the United States and Canada, meant to be filled with notes and tips for cleaners.

Within a few weeks, though, the envelopes vanished. We heard that some guests felt the hotel was demanding tips for us, Blanca Guerrero, a housekeeper at the Santa Monica Marriott, said through a translator.

Tipping norms, or the lack of them, may be especially unfair to housekeepers, who arguably do more for guests than park their cars or push the cart containing their dinners. Angela Lemus, a housekeeper at the Wyndham Boston Beacon Hill who makes $19.91 per hour, said through a translator that in addition to scrubbing tubs and taking out trash, she sometimes has to clean blood or other medical waste from rooms.

Guerrero and another housekeeper at the Santa Monica Marriott, Aurelia Gonzalez, who makes $15.66 an hour, said their responsibilities include cleaning not just the inside of rooms but also the balconies.

Most housekeeping workers are women, a disproportionate number of them minorities and immigrants, according to Unite Here, a labor union that represents thousands of hotel housekeepers in North America. Gonzalez was born in Mexico, and Guerrero in El Salvador.

Though their wages are above the median hourly wage of $11.37 for hotel housekeepers reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2016, the professions earnings are less than the pay for housekeepers in other industries, such as hospitals ($12.74 per the Bureau of Labor Statistics).

Pay rates vary widely. Wage Watch, which tracks wage information for the lodging and gambling industries, found that a housekeeper in a New York City hotel can expect to make an average of $29.41 an hour, while one in Charlotte, N.C., might earn $10.

Nationally, housekeepers wages are comparable to desk clerks, whose average hourly rate the Bureau of Labor Statistics tallies at $11.28. But desk clerk jobs do not require the flipping of heavy mattresses or exposure to cleaning chemicals that can lead to respiratory and other health problems. Lemus, for example, developed an allergy to the latex gloves she was required to wear while cleaning. It went on for years, and it got so bad my hands started to bleed. I couldnt let people see my hands, she said.

Yet housekeepers say that, without the gentle nudge of initiatives such as the Envelope Please, only about 30 percent of guests leave a tip  a figure Blum found as well.

Some days someone will leave $5; other days, they leave nothing, Lemus said.

Sometimes we get $2 or $3 in a room, and we get very happy. It makes us feel like someone appreciated us, Guerrero said. But sometimes, several days pass without a tip.

Carmen Cruz, the manager of the four-diamond, 64-room Casa Madrona Hotel and Spa in Sausalito, said tipping trends are changing.

We do leave stationery and envelopes in the room for when you want to write a letter, but we dont want people to feel forced. If they want to leave a tip, it should be from the heart, she said.

Marriott came to that same conclusion after partnering with the Envelope Please. Spokeswoman Connie Kim said the initiative was scrapped within a few months, because it just wasnt popular. (An Internet outcry, including an article on Fortune.com with the headline Marriott to hotel guests: Please pay our maids for us, might have contributed.)

But the idea that it is bad form for hotels to encourage the tipping of maids ought to be reconsidered, Blum said. In 2016, one of his doctoral students conducted an experiment similar to the Envelope Please at a hotel in Lubbock, Texas. In addition to a larger percentage of tippers, the envelopes left in rooms, which made mention of the hotel association guidelines, yielded a flurry of thank-yous from guests.

People would write things like, Thanks for your hard work. You got the sense that knowing the guidelines was helpful to them, Blum said.

Tammy La Gorce is a New York Times writer.
Police are searching for the killer of a 48-year-old man found stabbed to death Thursday afternoon in San Franciscos Hayes Valley, authorities said.

The stabbing occurred about 2 p.m. on the 300 block of Hayes Street, at the intersection of Franklin Street, said Officer Robert Rueca of the San Francisco Police Department.
A 47-year-old man who was shot in the arm by sheriffs deputies in Healdsburg allegedly rammed his pickup truck into an officers patrol car and appeared to reach for a handgun, authorities said Friday.

Shawn Hart, identified as homeless, remained hospitalized and in stable condition three days after being shot. The Sonoma County Sheriffs Office says he will be booked at Sonoma County Jail on suspicion of felony assault and stealing a vehicle.

Hart was determined not be in possession of a firearm during the Tuesday confrontation, investigators said, though two deputies who believed that he might be armed fired at him when he moved toward them after refusing to stand down during a vehicle chase.

The incident occurred late Tuesday after a Guerneville man called to report that Hart had attempted to run him over with his truck near the 300 block of Bailhache Avenue, deputies said. The man was uninjured.

Officers tracked down Hart about 10 miles away near Vineyard Creek Apartments off Airport Boulevard. They determined that the truck Hart was driving had been reported stolen Oct. 13 by his mother, who also said there was a .38 caliber gun in the vehicle, deputies said.

The officers tried to get Hart to pull over using their emergency lights, but Hart ignored their signals, deputies said.

Hart proceeded to the Stonegate Mobile Home Park, where his vehicle got stuck in a vacant field, deputies said. Rather than surrender, he put the truck in reverse and hit the patrol car twice, deputies said.

Officers believed Hart was reaching for a gun when he made a movement toward the passenger seat of the car, deputies said. One deputy fired his gun three times through the front windshield of the patrol car and Harts driver-side window. A second deputy fired one round into the rear driver-side window of the truck.

Hart was struck by gunfire twice in the left arm, and one bullet grazed the tip of his nose. He was transported to a local hospital.

Deputies found two large kitchen knives, about 12 inches long, and a 10-inch folding knife in the back of the truck. No guns were found in the car.

The deputies involved in the shooting were not identified.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
FOREST CITY | Elected officials requested an apology from the Winnebago County Board of Supervisors for comments made on Oct. 24 in its public meeting.

The request was made by County Treasurer Julie Swenson and County Recorder Kris Colby on Tuesday, Oct. 31, during the open forum segment near the end of the supervisors weekly meeting.

I feel offended by the comments, Swenson said.

The comments, which were reported in articles that appeared in the Oct. 29 Globe Gazette and the Nov. 1 Forest City Summit, were made in a discussion addressing the public health departments  and the countys  financial woes.

Winnebago County Board addresses public health, county-wide financial woes FOREST CITY | The Winnebago County Board of Supervisors will have some tough decisions to ma

During the discussion, Supervisor Mike Stensrud, who voiced frustration with the countys financial situation multiple times said, If were in the shape were in, its time to clean house in 2018 and 2020, and Im including myself in 2020.

Those are election years for Swenson, Colby and other elected county officials.

Thats hitting a lot of officials, Swenson said. I believe we all do our part in trying to make the county work well.

At the Oct. 24 meeting, Stensrud also called for a full-blown audit to be conducted on Winnebago County, which was discussed prior to the open forum on Tuesday.

I think those comments just make us look like were not doing our job, Colby said.

Stensrud said those comments werent meant for the offices of Swenson and Colby before expressing further frustration with the countys financial situation and walking out of the meeting before adjournment.

Im very disturbed, very, very disturbed with where were sitting at right now in Winnebago County, and Im part of it. I have to admit Im part of it, he said. I think everybody needs to go home and look into the mirror.

Prior to leaving, Stensrud had apologized for his tirade multiple times to his fellow supervisors throughout the meeting.

Swenson said her office also received phone calls regarding comments made by Supervisor Bill Jensvold, who is also board chairman, about increasing taxes to resolve the countys financial woes and maintaining public health services.

Jensvold, who couldnt recall the comments made at the last meeting but apologized for his involvement in the discussion, said the article created the wrong perception of the county.

Theres no wrongdoing here, he said. Weve got two things that have hit us, and thats the public safety center and the upkeep on this building that has just drained every extra penny that there was.

That hasn't stopped questions among board members.

When we discussed our budget back in January and approved it in March, we had the money that we approved our budget for, so Id like to know why were in the financial mess were in, he said.

Elizabeth Thyer, with Gardiner Thomsen, the countys annual auditing firm, said one of the reasons the county is in the situation it is, is the amount of budget amendments that have been approved in the last few years for renovations to the courthouse, which is nearly $300,000 over its bid at $957,443 with change orders, and the public safety center.

Winnebago County Public Health experiences budget woes FOREST CITY | Winnebago County Public Health may be forced to reduce its services in the com

The revenues are not increasing to cover the expenditures that are going out, she said, noting the county couldve bonded for the courthouse project instead of paying for it through the general basic fund.

Other options include shift expenditures  as code allows  to different funds as well as applying for grant funding for further courthouse renovations because it is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Theres options, Thyer said. Everybody kind of needs to tighten their belts with their budgets as much as possible.

The supervisors agreed that paying for an independent audit would be spending money the county doesnt have to find out what it already knows. They didnt, however, discuss the funding shortfall in the public health department that brought light to the county-wide financial issue last month.

We need to sit down and decide what were going to do moving forward, said Karla Weiss, Winnebago County auditor. The past is the past. and we just need to be adults and move forward, and we got to fix it.

And Jensvold said an audit isnt going to resolve the issue.

A lot of hard work is going to fix it, Weiss said.
Congressional Republicans are proposing to allow churches and other religious institutions to endorse political candidates without losing their tax-exempt status, a plan supported by President Trump but hotly contested by many civil rights and religious organizations.

A 1954 law sponsored by then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson requires the government to revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit, including religious organizations, that endorse or oppose a candidate.

The so-called Johnson Amendment has rarely been enforced, though it was used to revoke the tax exemption of a church that urged Christians not to vote for Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election. It does not prohibit churches or other nonprofits from engaging in political speech or activities besides endorsements.

The Internal Revenue Service has not taken any action against churches that have taken part in a conservative groups Pulpit Freedom Sunday project since 2008, encouraging their congregations to support or oppose particular candidates.

Trump, who was backed by evangelical groups during last years campaign, promised to repeal the Johnson Amendment, telling a religious group in June 2016 that the law had taken a lot of power away from Christianity and other religions. In May, he ordered the Treasury Department not to act against churches that spoke out on moral or political issues.

You couldnt speak politically before. Now you can, the president told the Rev. Pat Robertson, an outspoken conservative and onetime presidential candidate, in a July interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Now, congressional Republicans are proposing to repeal the Johnson Amendment for religious organizations, while leaving it in effect for other nonprofits, as part of the tax-cut legislation they unveiled this week.

I dont want the IRS looming over our faith leaders in the community as they express their religious freedom, Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, chief author of the tax bill, told reporters.

Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, a conservative religious nonprofit, said the 1954 law has been a paper tiger on the books to intimidate people into silence.

What the Johnson Amendment does is chill free speech, Staver said in an interview.

Not all religious organizations agree.

Weakening current law would allow politicians and others seeking political power to pressure churches for endorsements, dividing congregations and opening them up to the flow of secret money, about 40 groups, including the Episcopal Church, the American Jewish Community and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, said in a letter to House committee leaders in July.

Opponents contend a repeal would let political groups redirect campaign funds through churches, which would not be required to disclose them.

The American Civil Liberties Union said Friday that allowing religious institutions to endorse candidates, while continuing to bar other nonprofits from doing so, would be an unconstitutional act of religious favoritism.

Trump and House Republican leaders clearly want to use congregations as political tools for their own benefit, said Maggie Garrett, legislative director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

But Staver, a member of a commission appointed by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, that reviewed tax laws affecting churches, said the repeal is intended only to allow political endorsements. He said it is not designed to let churches become PACs, or political action committees.

Chronicle news services contributed to this report.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
WASHINGTON  Republican lawmakers unveiled the most sweeping rewrite of the tax code in decades on Thursday, outlining a $1.51 trillion plan to cut taxes for corporations, reduce them for some middle-class families and tilt the United States closer, but not entirely, toward the kind of tax system long championed by businesses.

The House plan, released after weeks of internal debate, conflict and delay, is far from final and immediately ignited a legislative and lobbying fight as business groups, special interests and Democrats began tearing into the text ahead of a Republican sprint to get the legislation passed and to President Trumps desk by Christmas.

With this plan, we are making pro growth reforms, so that yes, America can compete with the rest of the world, said House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

But Republicans from high-tax states like New York and New Jersey said the bill will need to change to gain their support. Meanwhile, powerful trade groups representing the real estate industry and small businesses blasted the bill as ineffective and harmful to Americans.

Contrary to their assertions, the Republicans are picking winners and losers, said Jerry Howard, chief executive of the National Association of Home Builders. They are picking rich Americans and corporations over small businesses and the middle class.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said that the plan had the full support of Trump and predicted that it would be on his desk this year. Anticipating the resistance from industry groups, Brady said: Were going to prove them wrong once and for all.

Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., the top tax writer on the Ways and Means Committee, said he was braced for the lobbyist onslaught and would not be deterred.

Weve just finished the opening ceremonies of the lobbyist Olympics. My phone has all kinds messages and there are all kinds of criticisms, he said. The notion of just defending the status quo is insufferable and were not going to do it.

The bill is estimated to cost $1.51 trillion over a decade. Lawmakers must keep the cost of the bill to $1.5 trillion if they want to pass it along party lines and avoid a filibuster by Democrats.

The plan establishes three tax brackets, 12 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent, and also keeps a top rate of 39.6 percent for the highest-earners, collapsing the total number of brackets from seven. The brackets fall along the following lines:

Those making up to $24,000 will pay no income tax. For married taxpayers filing jointly, those earning up to $90,000 will be in the 12 percent bracket; those earning up to $260,000 will in the 25 percent bracket and those earning up to $1 million would fall in the 35 percent bracket. Those making above $1 million will be in the 39.6 percent bracket, which is currently the top rate for millionaires. For unmarried individuals and those filing separately, the bracket thresholds would be half of these amounts, other than the 35 percent bracket, which would be $200,000 for unmarried individuals.

After much nail-biting debate, the House will not make any changes to the pretax treatment of 401(k) plans.

Jim Tankersley, Thomas Kaplan and Alan Rappeport are New York Times writers.
WASHINGTON  President Trump pressed the Justice Department again Friday to investigate his political opponents, lashing out at Democrats as he argued they were the ones who acted corruptly during last years election and not his own campaign, which actually is under investigation.

Shortly before leaving Washington for a 12-day trip to Asia, Trump issued a name-calling blizzard of accusations at Democratic leaders and railed at law enforcement agencies that have refused to prosecute them, even as he acknowledged that presidents are not supposed to intervene in law enforcement decisions.

Im really not involved with the Justice Department. Id like to let it run itself, Trump said before boarding Marine One to start his journey. But honestly, they should be looking at the Democrats. They should be looking at Podesta and all of that dishonesty. They should be looking at a lot of things. And a lot of people are disappointed in the Justice Department, including me.

Trump may have meant Tony Podesta, the Democratic lobbyist who stepped down from his firm this week amid scrutiny from the special counsel, Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russias interference in last years elections. The firm founded by Podesta, the brother of John Podesta, who was Hillary Clintons campaign chairman last year, was referenced, though not by name, in this weeks indictment of Paul Manafort, Trumps former campaign chairman.

Asked if he would fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions if the DOJ doesnt focus its investigative powers on Democrats, Trump said, I dont know.

Trump, who earlier in the week insisted he was not angry at anybody, gave the impression of a man angry at a lot of people. Troubled by low poll numbers, legislative paralysis and an investigation that seems to be accelerating, Trump criticized what he portrayed as the unfairness of his current predicament.

He once again turned to the sort of name calling that has characterized his relatively short political career, assailing Crooked Hillary, Crazie Bernie Sanders and Pocahontas, a derisive nickname he has used for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. He said Clinton stole the Democratic Primary from Sanders and asserted there was Major violation of Campaign Finance Laws and Money Laundering.

Trumps demands for new investigations into Democratic campaign activity come the same week as the special counsels first charges in the investigation into Russias interference in the 2016 election. In addition to the charges against Manafort and deputy Rick Gates, one of Trumps foreign policy advisers pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his efforts to connect the campaign with Russians who had dirt on Clinton from stolen emails.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Eileen Sullivan and Peter Baker are New York Times writers.
MASON CITY | A Mason City man was arrested early Friday morning after a traffic stop for drugs and possession a firearm as a felon.

James Durel Brown, 38, is charged with felony possession of a firearm as a felon, misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance, marijuana  third or subsequent offense and failure to have a valid license or permit.

Brown was stopped about 2:37 a.m. Friday on the 500 block of North Madison Avenue in Mason City. During a search, Brown was in possession of a baggy containing suspected marijuana.

According to court documents, Brown also admitted to having marijuana in his possession.

Officers found a silver colored .32-caliber savage pistol under the passenger seat of his vehicle.

Brown said that his finger prints would be found on the firearm if tested, the criminal complaint said.

Brown is held in the Cerro Gordo County jail on a $5,000 bond.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for 1:15 p.m. Nov. 9 at the Cerro Gordo County Courthouse.
ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- About half of respondents in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll suspect that President Donald Trump himself broke the law during the presidential campaign and just three in 10 Americans think that alleged wrongdoing ends with those who were charged this week by the special counsel.



The poll finds substantial support for the investigation, with 58 percent approving of how special counsel Robert Mueller is handling it, and more  68 percent  approving of the filling of federal charges against Trumps former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and one of his associates.



See PDF with full results here.



Only 28 percent think the case is limited to Manafort, Richard Gates and a former Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, whos pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents. Fifty-three percent see broader wrongdoing, and a substantial 19 percent are withholding judgment.



Moreover, just 37 percent think Trump is cooperating with the investigation; many more, 51 percent, say hes not cooperating, and another sizable share, 12 percent, have no opinion. And 49 percent of Americans think its likely that Trump himself committed a crime in connection with possible Russian attempts to influence the election. Slightly fewer, 44 percent, call this unlikely.



That said, many fewer, 19 percent, think theres been solid evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Trump. Three in 10 in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, instead say its their suspicion only.



Indeed these views strongly reflect partisan predispositions. Nearly three-quarters of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, 73 percent, call it likely that Trump broke the law. Almost the same number of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents, 77 percent, say its unlikely.



Nonetheless, this leaves substantial numbers within Trumps base  36 percent of working-class whites, 34 percent of rural Americans and 30 percent of conservatives, for example  who call it likely that he committed a crime related to the 2016 campaign. Again, most in each case call this a suspicion, not a factual judgment.



Trumps core supporters, however, remain overwhelmingly by his side. Among those who voted for him last year, a mere six percent suspect him of lawbreaking in the campaign. That soars to 80 percent of Hillary Clinton supporters, reflecting the still-raw divisions of the election. Its 58 percent among those who voted for others, or didnt vote.



Political divisions are a bit less garish, but still profound, on other questions. Theres a 40-point gap between Democrats and Republicans in approval of Muellers handling of the investigation, 78 vs. 38 percent, and a 50-point gap between Clinton and Trump voters, though even a third of Trump voters approve (33 percent vs. 83 percent of Clintons).



Three-quarters of Trump voters and two-thirds of Republicans maintain that hes cooperating with Mueller; a mere 15 percent of Clinton voters and 21 percent of Democrats agree (as do just a third of political independents).



That said, there are just two groups in which majorities (both 56 percent) think the case is limited to Manafort, Gates and Papadopoulos  Trump voters and those who approve of Trump. And partisanship fades on the Manafort/Gates indictment: Fifty-seven percent of Republicans and 54 percent of Trump voters approve of it, numbers that swell by 20 or 30 points, respectively, among their political opposites.



Methodology



This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone Oct. 30-Nov. 1, 2017, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 714 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 4 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 32-23-38 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents.



The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York with sampling, data collection and tabulation by Abt Associates of Cambridge, Massachusetts. See details on the surveys methodology here.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
MASON CITY | A fundraiser will be held for a Mason City resident battling a fungal infection in her lungs.

Funds for Linda "Susie" Weber, who is currently on a ventilator at Des Moines Mercy Rehab, will be collected at Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 733 at 1603 S. Monroe Avenue, Mason City. The fundraiser, featuring a bake sale and quilt and afghan raffle, will be held from 1-6 p.m. Saturday.

Money raised will be used to help Susie's husband, Louis Weber, commute from Mason City to Des Moines to see his wife, along with medical expenses. For more info, contact Louis Weber at 515-681-2941 and Kathleen Rogers at 641-530-7473.
MASON CITY | The familiar ring of the Salvation Army Christmas bells will be heard soon in North Iowa -- and the name of this year's campaign chairman has a familiar ring to it, too.

The Salvation Army bell ringers will start their annual fundraising activities on Nov. 10-11 and will resume ringing from Nov. 17 through Dec. 23, excluding Thanksgiving Day and Sundays.

This year's chairman once again is Tim Fleming of Alpha Media Radio in Mason City, who has chaired the campaign several times in recent years.

Assistance needed with kettle drive As many of you know, The Salvation Army is here in Osage year round providing temporary, eme

"We have people who are in need in our community and I know we can count on Mason City and North Iowa to help out during our Christmas campaign," Fleming said in a press release.

Individuals, churches, businesses and civic groups are encouraged to sign up and help fill spots at Salvation Army kettle locations. Those interested are asked to call 641-424-4031.
CALGARY, Alberta, Nov. 02, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Parkland Fuel Corporation (Parkland) (TSX:PKI) announced today the financial and operating results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017. All financial figures are expressed in Canadian dollars.

Our third quarter results show strong growth throughout our base business, as well as an extremely successful first quarter of operations from our newly acquired Ultramar business. The Parkland team delivered strong third quarter results with synergy and integration plans tracking ahead of schedule, said Bob Espey, President and Chief Executive Officer. It has been a transformational year at Parkland, having closed our two largest acquisitions to date in the last four months. I am very pleased to welcome both the Chevron and Ultramar teams to Parkland.

As a result of the closing of Parkland's acquisition of Chevron Canada R & M ULC ("CCRM") which operates a downstream fuel business in British Columbia and Alberta ("Chevron Acquisition") on October 1, 2017, Parkland has increased its 2017 Adjusted EBITDA guidance to $350 million to $390 million (Revised 2017 Guidance Range), see Additional Revised Guidance Considerations section below.

KEY COMPONENTS OF PARKLANDS STRATEGY  Q3 HIGHLIGHTS

GROW

Parkland achieved a record third quarter Adjusted EBITDA of $96.4 million, driven by the successful acquisition of the majority of the Canadian business and assets of CST Brands, Inc. ("Ultramar Business Acquisition"), strong organic growth and performance in the base businesses across all segments.

We achieved a 33.8% growth in volume, delivering approximately 3.6 billion litres of fuel and petroleum products in the third quarter of 2017. The volume increase was driven by the successful acquisition of the Ultramar Business Acquisition, as well as strong organic growth in propane volumes in our Commercial Fuels segment and increased gas and diesel volumes in Parkland USA.

Retail Fuels achieved outstanding Company C-Store same-store sales growth of 4.1% during the third quarter of 2017 as a result of strong national category management, promotion planning and focused execution on converting forecourt fuel sales to backcourt C-Store sales.

Parkland developed a newly refreshed On The Run / Marche Express store concept and is currently in the process of testing retro-fit concepts in key national markets.

Parkland developed a new private label brand, "59th Street Food Co," which will be launched and available at select Parkland locations in the fourth quarter of 2017.

SUPPLY

Parkland continues to drive improved supply economics with demonstrated growth of 4% in Adjusted EBITDA in Supply and Wholesale due to continued focus on executing our supply strategy.

The Parkland Supply and Wholesale team is pleased to welcome the Burnaby Refinery team to Parkland as it looks to expand and optimize supply capabilities within the British Columbia region as part of Parkland's long-term supply advantage strategy.

ACQUIRE

On October 1, 2017, Parkland successfully completed the Chevron Acquisition.

Parkland completed its first full quarter of operations following the addition of the Ultramar Business Acquisition on June 28, 2017 and delivered strong performance throughout this business. Integration efforts throughout the operations and back office are progressing ahead of plan, while synergies are tracking ahead of schedule and are expected to include some supply synergies going forward.

($ millions, unless otherwise noted) Three months ended September 30, Nine months ended September 30, 2017 2016 2015 2017 2016 2015 Financial Summary Sales and operating revenue 2,600.6 1,638.1 1,862.2 6,191.3 4,526.0 4,643.8 Adjusted gross profit(1) 266.3 171.1 167.0 624.9 510.5 445.2 Adjusted EBITDA(1) 96.4 60.3 59.1 220.0 176.4 150.3 Net earnings 12.7 14.7 14.6 33.3 44.2 23.8 Per share  basic 0.10 0.15 0.16 0.30 0.47 0.28 Per share  diluted 0.10 0.15 0.16 0.29 0.46 0.28 Distributable cash flow(2) 46.2 27.8 29.2 107.2 91.0 74.5 Per share(2)(3) 0.35 0.29 0.32 0.95 0.96 0.87 Adjusted distributable cash flow(2) 65.3 33.2 34.6 150.2 109.4 95.6 Per share(2)(3) 0.50 0.35 0.38 1.33 1.15 1.12 Dividends 38.4 27.7 25.4 98.9 81.6 72.2 Per share outstanding 0.29 0.29 0.28 0.76 0.85 0.80 Dividend payout ratio(2) 83 % 99 % 87 % 92 % 90 % 97 % Adjusted dividend payout ratio(2) 59 % 83 % 73 % 66 % 75 % 76 % Total assets 4,825.1 2,424.0 1,836.9 4,825.1 2,424.0 1,836.9 Total long-term liabilities 2,325.7 633.6 598.4 2,325.7 633.6 598.4 Shares outstanding (millions) 130.7 95.9 90.8 130.7 95.9 90.8 Weighted average number of

common shares (millions) 130.5 95.6 90.4 112.7 95.0 85.6 Operating Summary Fuel and petroleum product volume

(million litres) 3,556.6 2,658.6 2,730.6 8,900.9 7,631.8 6,999.5 Fuel and petroleum product adjusted

gross profit(1) (cpl): Retail Fuels 7.10 5.69 5.63 6.28 5.51 5.34 Commercial Fuels 6.71 8.64 8.89 9.48 10.94 11.33 Parkland USA 2.97 3.26 3.34 3.27 3.41 3.36 Operating costs (cpl) 3.42 2.80 2.71 3.21 2.99 2.87 Marketing, general and administrative (cpl) 1.37 1.38 1.26 1.35 1.40 1.37

(1) Measure of segment profit. See Section 12 of the MD&A.

(2) Non-GAAP financial measure. See Section 12 of the MD&A.

(3) Calculated using the weighted average number of common shares.

MD&A AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

The Q3 2017 Managements Discussion and Analysis (Q3 2017 MD&A) and Parkland Fuel Corporations unaudited interim condensed consolidated financial statements for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 (the Interim Consolidated Financial Statements) provide a detailed explanation of Parklands operating results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017. These documents are available online at www.parkland.ca and SEDAR immediately after the results are released by newswire under Parklands profile at www.sedar.com.

CONFERENCE CALL AND WEBCAST INFORMATION

Parkland will host a webcast and conference call at 6:30 a.m. MST (8:30 a.m. EST) on Friday, November 3, 2017 to discuss the results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017.

To access the conference call by telephone, dial toll-free 1-844-889-7784 [Conference ID: 9199089]. The webcast slide presentation can be accessed at https://edge.media-server.com/m6/p/d3t6f9ff. Please connect and log in approximately 10 minutes before the beginning of the call.

The webcast will be available for replay two hours after the conference call ends. It will remain available at the link above for one year and will also be posted to www.parkland.ca.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS AND NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES

Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking information and statements (collectively, forward-looking statements). When used in this news release, the words expect, will, could, would, well positioned, pursue and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. In particular, this news release contains forward-looking statements with respect to, among other things, Revised 2017 Guidance Range, the factors and assumptions that contribute to Parklands 2017 Revised Guidance Range, business objectives and growth strategies, the strength of Parklands balance sheet and financial condition, sources of growth, future acquisitions Parkland's ability to effect synergies, capital expenditures, the anticipated benefits and accretive effects of closed, announced and/or future acquisitions, contribution of Distributable Cash Flow per Share from acquisitions, and plans and objectives of or involving Parkland.

These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. No assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking statements included in this news release should not be unduly relied upon. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this news release. Parkland does not undertake any obligations to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements except as required by securities laws. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of numerous risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to: failure to achieve the results in the Revised 2017 Guidance Range, failure to achieve the anticipated benefits of acquisitions (including but not limited to the Ultramar Business Acquisition and Chevron Acquisition), general economic, market and business conditions, industry capacity, competitive action by other companies, refining and marketing margins, the ability of suppliers to meet commitments, actions by governmental authorities and other regulators including increases in taxes, changes and developments in environmental and other regulations, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of Parkland. See also the risks and uncertainties described in the Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information and Risk Factors included in Parklands Annual Information Form dated March 31, 2017, as filed on SEDAR and available on Parklands website at www.parkland.ca.

Revised 2017 Adjusted EBITDA guidance considerations

The Revised 2017 Adjusted EBITDA guidance of $350 million to $390 million includes growth scenarios that build off the 2016 Adjusted EBITDA of $253.5 million and adds Adjusted EBITDA based on Parkland management's estimate of how the businesses acquired as part of the Ultramar Business Acquisition and Chevron Acquisition will perform with such estimates based on prior performance of such businesses. The Revised 2017 Adjusted EBITDA guidance is also based on the assumption that general market conditions, including but not limited to fuel margins, will remain substantially consistent for the remainder of 2017. Additionally, the lower end of range accounts for potential adverse market conditions in Western Canada and the Northern U.S. and the higher range accounts for contributions from synergies relating to prior acquisitions and Parkland achieving its previously disclosed average annual organic growth goal of 3-5%. Refer to this press release and Parklands press release issued on March 2, 2017 and August 2, 2017 on SEDAR at www.sedar.com for more information.

Financial Measures

This news release refers to certain non-GAAP financial measures that are not determined in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Distributable Cash Flow, Distributable Cash Flow per Share, Adjusted Distributable Cash Flow, Adjusted Distributable Cash Flow per Share, Dividend Payout Ratio, Adjusted Dividend Payout Ratio, and Fuel and Petroleum Product Adjusted Gross Profit are not measures recognized under IFRS and do not have standardized meanings prescribed by IFRS. Management considers these measures to be important supplemental measures of Parklands performance and believes these measures are frequently used by securities analysts, investors and other interested parties in the evaluation of companies in its industries. See Section 6 of the Q3 2017 MD&A for a reconciliation of distributable cash flow to cash flow from operating activities, the IFRS measure most directly comparable to distributable cash flow. See Section 12 of the Q3 2017 MD&A for a discussion of non-GAAP measures and their reconciliations.

Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted Gross Profit are measures of segment profit. See Section 12 of the Q3 2017 MD&A and Note 14 of the Interim Consolidated Financial Statements for a reconciliation of these measures of segment profit. Investors are encouraged to evaluate each adjustment and the reasons Parkland considers it appropriate for supplemental analysis.

Investors are cautioned, however, that these measures should not be construed as an alternative to net earnings determined in accordance with IFRS as an indication of Parklands performance. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

ABOUT PARKLAND FUEL CORPORATION

Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Parkland is Canadas largest and one of North Americas fastest growing independent marketers of fuel and petroleum products. Parkland delivers refined fuels and high quality petroleum products through three channels: Retail Fuels, Commercial Fuels and Supply and Wholesale. As the nations second largest convenience store operator, Parkland prides itself on being able to deliver competitive product offerings to our customers in the retail segment. As the proud owner of the Parkland Burnaby Refinery, Parkland also maintains a portfolio of supply relationships, storage infrastructure, and third-party rail and highway carriers to ensure security of supply to our customers.

Parkland creates value for shareholders by focusing on its proven strategy of growing organically, delivering a supply advantage and acquiring prudently.

Parkland Fuel Corporation is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and trades under the symbol PKI. For more information, visit www.parkland.ca

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

Investor Inquiries

Ben Brooks

Vice President,Treasury and Investor Relations

403-567-2534

Ben.Brooks@parkland.ca

Media Inquiries

Annie Cuerrier

Director, Corporate Communications

403-567-2579

Annie.Cuerrier@parkland.ca

To sign up for Parkland news alerts, please go to https://goo.gl/mNY2zj or visit www.parkland.ca.
TORONTO, Nov. 02, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Honey Badger Exploration Inc. (TSX-V:TUF) (Honey Badger or the Company) announces that it has completed the second and final tranche closing of its previously announced non-brokered private placement financing for additional gross proceeds of $101,250 (the Offering) through the sale of 1,800,000 non-flow through units (the Non-FT Units).

The aggregate gross proceeds of the first and second tranches of the previously announced non-brokered private placement financing is approximately $285,942 through the sale of 2,487,858 non-flow through units and 2,433,333 flow-through units (the Financing).

The gross proceeds from the sale of the FT Units will be used for Canadian exploration expenditures (within the meaning of the Income Tax Act (Canada)) on the Companys exploration properties. The net proceeds from the Non-FT Units will be used for general working capital and other corporate purposes.

Each FT Unit was priced at $0.06 per FT Unit and consists of one flow through common share of the Company and one half of one non-flow-through common share purchase warrant, with each such full warrant exercisable to acquire one common share in the capital of the Company (each a Common Share) for a period of three years following the issuance thereof at a price of $0.10 per Common Share.

Each Non-FT Unit was priced at $0.05625 per Non-FT Unit and consists of one Common Share of and one full share purchase warrant, with each such warrant exercisable to acquire one Common Share for a period of three years following the issuance thereof at a price of $0.075 per Common Share.

In connection with the first tranche of the Financing, Honey Badger paid finders fees in the form of cash compensation of $6,435 and issued 108,000 non-transferable compensation units, with each such compensation unit exercisable at a price of $0.05625 for a period of 3 years following the issuance thereof to acquire one Common Share of the Company and one Non-FT Warrant. Each Non-FT Warrant is exercisable to acquire one Common Share of the Company at a price of $0.075 for a period of 36 months following the closing of the Financing. No finders fees were paid in connection with the second tranche of the Financing.

The Financing is subject to the satisfactory completion and receipt of formal documentation, receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals, including the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV), and other customary conditions.

Any securities issued pursuant to the Financing will be subject to a restricted period of four months and one day from the date of issuance.

Shares for Debt

Honey Badger has agreed to settle certain of its obligations (the Debt) with the issuance of common shares of the Company (the Common Shares). The Debt relates to its obligation to indemnify subscribers of its flow-through shares in connection with additional income taxes payable as a result of the reassessment of subscriber tax returns for shortfalls in the exploration expenditures renounced to those subscribers (the Indemnities).

The Company and certain subscribers entered into debt settlement agreements, which provided that the aggregate amount of the Debt owed to such subscribers shall be $165,061.17 and will be settled by the issuance of 2,934,421 Common Shares at a deemed price of $0.05625 per Common Share (the Shares for Debt Transaction).

The issuance of the Common Shares is subject to the receipt of all applicable regulatory approvals, including the TSXV. The Common Shares to be issued pursuant to the Shares for Debt Transaction may be subject to a four-month hold period.

The Company may settle other similar debt obligations relating to the Indemnities through the issuance of securities, although there can be no assurances that the Company will be able to reach agreements with any other indemnified parties in this regard.

About Honey Badger Exploration Inc.

Honey Badger is a gold and base-metals exploration company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with exploration properties in Quebec. The company's common shares trade on the TSXV under the symbol "TUF".

Qualified Person

Quentin Yarie, PGeo. is the qualified person responsible for preparing, supervising and approving the scientific and technical content of this news release and is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the company's exploration programs.

Contact Us

For more information about the Company visit www.honeybadgerexp.com or call:

Quentin Yarie, President & CEO, (416) 364-7029, qyarie@honeybadgerexp.com

Mia Boiridy, Investor Relations, (416) 364-7029, honeybadgerexp.com

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This News Release contains forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as may, should, expects, plans, anticipates, believes, estimates, predicts, potential or continue or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. These statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our or our industrys actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements.

Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information, which only applies as of the date of this news release. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 02, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Urban Communications Inc. (TSX-V:UBN) (Urban or the Company) announces that it has received a final order from the Supreme Court of British Columbia on November 2, 2017, approving the previously announced plan of arrangement (the Arrangement) involving Urban, ACME Communications Canada, Inc. (ACME) and the holders (Shareholders) of common shares (Shares), options and warrants of Urban (collectively, the Securityholders), pursuant to which ACME will acquire all of the issued and outstanding Shares. Pursuant to the Arrangement, Shareholders will receive, for each Share held, C$0.07 in cash.

The Arrangement required the approval of not less than 66 of the votes cast by Securityholders present in person or represented by proxy at the special meeting of Securityholders held October 31, 2017 (the Meeting). Of votes cast at the Meeting, 99.85% of the Securityholders voted in favour of the special resolution approving the Arrangement.

The parties are concluding closing documentation in order to close the Arrangement, following which Urban will be delisted from the TSX Venture Exchange.

ABOUT URBAN COMMUNICATIONS INC.

Urban Communications Inc. one of the countrys first telecommunications company to deliver Gigabit Internet service to the home, provides a full suite of Internet, voice, video and broadband application products over its 300 km. state-of-the-art carrier grade fibre optic network in Metro Vancouver and Victoria to commercial, residential and public sector customers.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

URBAN CONTACT INFO:

Leslie E. Maerov

Chief Compliance Officer & General Counsel

Phone: (604) 439-8545

lemaerov@ubn.ca

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

Except for statements of historical fact relating to Urban Communications Inc., certain information contained herein constitutes "forward-looking statements" as such term is used in applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements include statements that are predictive in nature, depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, or include words such as "expects", "anticipates", "plans", "believes", "considers", 'intends", targets", or negative versions thereof and other similar expressions, or future or conditional verbs such as "may", "will", "should", "would" and 'could" in particular, statements related to the Arrangement and the expected completion thereof. We provide forward-looking statements for the purpose of conveying information about our current expectations and plans relating to the future and readers are cautioned that such statements may not be appropriate for other purposes. By its nature, this information is subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that may be general or specific and which give rise to the possibility that expectations, forecasts, predictions, projections or conclusions will not prove to be accurate, that assumptions may not be correct and that objectives, strategic goals and priorities will not be achieved. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, risks related to being unable to close the Arrangement in the time frames indicated, failure to satisfy all conditions precedent to the Agreement including required Securityholder approvals, approval of the TSX-V and applicable regulatory authorities.

Other than as specifically required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which such statement is made, or to reflect otherwise.
New York, Nov. 03, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PeerIQ, a leading provider of data and analytics for the consumer lending sector, today announced the appointment of Kevin Walsh as Chief Commercial Officer. Walsh will report to PeerIQ CEO, Ram Ahluwalia.

In his position, Walsh will be responsible for new revenue generation, major partnerships, and leading the companys sales, marketing, and delivery teams.

A former colleague and trusted friend, Kevin has successfully led and grown major businesses across the credit spectrumfrom risk analytics to origination to servicing, said Ram Ahluwalia. He brings unparalleled expertise, product and market knowledge, and leadership that will ensure PeerIQ continues to deliver the best solutions to our customers and partners, particularly as we expand into new customer segments and credit verticals.

Walsh brings more than 20 years of consumer credit risk experience. Prior to PeerIQ, he ran direct-to-consumer mortgage lending for Ocwen Financial, where he led $3B in annual production. He began his career in analytical consulting at Inductis and Opera Solutions, where he led engagements in underwriting, pricing, marketing, and fraud management in consumer and small business credit. He also served as SVP, Credit and Marketing Analytics at Advanta Bank Corp. Walsh holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Yale, where conducted NASA-funded research, and his B.S. in Applied Physics from Cornell.

About PeerIQ

PeerIQ is a data and analytics company that bridges the gap between lenders and the capital markets, offering transparency, data validation, and loan-level credit analytics so parties can transact with confidence. Our platform simplifies workflows across the consumer credit funding cyclefrom whole loans to credit facilities to ABSenabling the safe and secure movement of capital into the lending markets. More information is available at www.peeriq.com.
FORM 8.3

PUBLIC OPENING POSITION DISCLOSURE/DEALING DISCLOSURE BY

A PERSON WITH INTERESTS IN RELEVANT SECURITIES REPRESENTING 1% OR MORE

Rule 8.3 of the Takeover Code (the "Code")

1. KEY INFORMATION

(a) Full name of discloser: OCTOPUS INVESTMENTS LIMITED (b) Owner or controller of interests and short positions disclosed, if different from 1(a):

The naming of nominee or vehicle companies is insufficient. For a trust, the trustee(s), settlor and beneficiaries must be named. (c) Name of offeror/offeree in relation to whose relevant securities this form relates:

Use a separate form for each offeror/offeree Clinigen Group plc (d) If an exempt fund manager connected with an offeror/offeree, state this and specify identity of offeror/offeree: (e) Date position held/dealing undertaken:

For an opening position disclosure, state the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure 02/11/2017 (f) In addition to the company in 1(c) above, is the discloser making disclosures in respect of any other party to the offer?

If it is a cash offer or possible cash offer, state "N/A" NO

2. POSITIONS OF THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

If there are positions or rights to subscribe to disclose in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 2(a) or (b) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security.

(a) Interests and short positions in the relevant securities of the offeror or offeree to which the disclosure relates following the dealing (if any)

Class of relevant security:







Interests Short positions Number % Number % (1) Relevant securities owned and/or controlled: 5,180,116



4.49 (2) Cash-settled derivatives:



(3) Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell:



TOTAL: 5,180,116



4.49

All interests and all short positions should be disclosed.

Details of any open stock-settled derivative positions (including traded options), or agreements to purchase or sell relevant securities, should be given on a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions).

(b) Rights to subscribe for new securities (including directors' and other employee options)

Class of relevant security in relation to which subscription right exists: Details, including nature of the rights concerned and relevant percentages:

3. DEALINGS (IF ANY) BY THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

Where there have been dealings in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 3(a), (b), (c) or (d) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security dealt in.

The currency of all prices and other monetary amounts should be stated.

(a) Purchases and sales

Class of relevant security Purchase/sale



Number of securities Price per unit



0.1p Ordinary Purchase



24,640 11.335





(b) Cash-settled derivative transactions

Class of relevant security Product description

e.g. CFD Nature of dealing

e.g. opening/closing a long/short position, increasing/reducing a long/short position Number of reference securities Price per unit





(c) Stock-settled derivative transactions (including options)

(i) Writing, selling, purchasing or varying

Class of relevant security Product description e.g. call option Writing, purchasing, selling, varying etc. Number of securities to which option relates Exercise price per unit Type

e.g. American, European etc. Expiry date Option money paid/ received per unit

(ii) Exercise

Class of relevant security Product description

e.g. call option Exercising/ exercised against Number of securities Exercise price per unit





(d) Other dealings (including subscribing for new securities)

Class of relevant security Nature of dealing

e.g. subscription, conversion Details Price per unit (if applicable)





4. OTHER INFORMATION

(a) Indemnity and other dealing arrangements

Details of any indemnity or option arrangement, or any agreement or understanding, formal or informal, relating to relevant securities which may be an inducement to deal or refrain from dealing entered into by the person making the disclosure and any party to the offer or any person acting in concert with a party to the offer:

Irrevocable commitments and letters of intent should not be included. If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none"



None





(b) Agreements, arrangements or understandings relating to options or derivatives

Details of any agreement, arrangement or understanding, formal or informal, between the person making the disclosure and any other person relating to:

(i) the voting rights of any relevant securities under any option; or

(ii) the voting rights or future acquisition or disposal of any relevant securities to which any derivative is referenced:

If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none"



None





(c) Attachments

Is a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions) attached? NO

Date of disclosure: 03/11/2017 Contact name: Jessica Sweeney Telephone number: 0207 131 3221

Public disclosures under Rule 8 of the Code must be made to a Regulatory Information Service and must also be emailed to the Takeover Panel at monitoring@disclosure.org.uk. The Panel's Market Surveillance Unit is available for consultation in relation to the Code's disclosure requirements on +44 (0)20 7638 0129.

The Code can be viewed on the Panel's website at www.thetakeoverpanel.org.uk.
Theres good-demented, and then theres bad-demented.

Heres the good-demented. Youre inside a dome  incidentally, one very much like the Epcot Center, except its plated in gold, with spiky gold stalactites plunging down from its rafters. From this caves floor, multiple gold towers like the Empire State Building stretch skyward, bedecked on every tier with strings of gold beads and other treasures. Tap dancers seem to wear a patina of rhinestones as a second skin. On top of all this, miniature fireworks explode.

It might not be the rendition of Friend Like Me you remember from the 1992 film version of Disneys Aladdin, about the eponymous street rat but diamond in the rough who through his adventures with a genie learns to be himself and thus get a girl and a sultanate. But in its translation to live performance, the touring Broadway production periodically creates stupefying spectacle.

A Lisa Frank color palette glows vibrantly. Marketplace buildings are incandescent, as if theyd be hot as smoldering coals to the touch. Lighting designer Natasha Katz and scenic designer Bob Crowley evoke the desert with surprising shades: Dunes are ruby red, the crepuscular sky sapphire blue, giving depth and mystery to what could be a desolate landscape, cannily suggesting the riches that Aladdin (Adam Jacobs) is about to discover.

But the show, which opened Thursday, Nov. 2, at SHNs Orpheum Theatre, is often just plain stupefying, unforgivably so.

The 1992 animated feature was a textbook example of the phenomenon of Orientalism, whereby Western artists exoticize and misrepresent Eastern cultures, perpetuating colonialist stereotypes of the East as primitive and conquerable, propping up the West as intellectually and culturally superior. One of the movies first lyrics describes Arabia as a land where they cut off your ear if they dont like your face; its barbaric, but hey, its home. The musical rewrites the first half of that lyric  its now about how hot the desert is  but keeps the its barbaric part.

Other sins, though, the musical makes little attempt at correcting. Like the movie, the musical mixes the fezes of Ottoman Empire with architecture reminiscent of the Taj Mahal while making jokes about the pyramids of Egypt and the Israelites yet, if were to take our cue from the opening number Arabian Nights, ostensibly taking place in the Arabian Peninsula. Opening the show, the Genie (Anthony Murphy), emphasizes that its set in a fictional location, but fictional isnt the same as plundering bits and pieces from multiple continents worth of real cultures, as if theyre all the same or interchangeable, and then Frankensteining them into some pastiche.

Some sequences, directed by Casey Nicholaw, conjure that old-fashioned Disney charm. The best number, High Adventure, wasnt even in the original film; featuring Aladdins buddies Babkak (Zach Bencal), Omar (Philippe Arroyo) and Kassim (Mike Longo) as they storm the palace to rescue their pal, it has high-octane silliness and surprise-packed physical comedy worthy of the Three Stooges.

But mostly, the show treats us as the stooges, appending a slew of puns and pop culture references  even maniacally referencing most of the other hit Disney cartoons of the 1990s. Musical arrangements, played by a live orchestra conducted by Brent-Alan Huffman, can be as lethargic as Princess Jasmine (Isabelle McCalla) and Aladdins magic carpet ride, which is about as soaring, tumbling, freewheeling as a semi trying to back up without jackknifing. Acting disappoints, especially Murphys Genie, who amps up the roles cartoonishness to the detriment of its humanity.

With this musical, the cartoon is less cartoonish.

Lily Janiak is The San Francisco Chronicles theater critic. Email: ljaniak@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LilyJaniak

Disneys Aladdin: Book by Chad Beguelin. Music by Alan Menken. Lyrics by Tim Rice, Howard Ashman and Beguelin. Through Jan. 7. Two hours, 25 minutes. $45-213, subject to change. Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market St., S.F. (888) 746-1799. www.shnsf.com

To see a preview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeW0UjBYiIA&feature=youtu.be
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Another progressive will challenge Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein in her re-election bid to the US Senate in 2018.

Alison Hartson, 37, announced Thursday that she is entering the race for Feinstein's seat.

Hartson, head of the progressive political action committee Wolf PAC, appeared on the progressive online media network "The Young Turks" to announce her decision.

"We can't expect change from people like Dianne Feinstein who helped to create this corrupt system," Hartson said in a statement. "We can't wait for some progressive ideas to happen 20 years from now. We need a democracy that works for people and we need it now."

Cenk Uygur, founder of "The Young Turks" and head of the progressive group Justice Democrats, will advise Hartson's campaign.

California governor's race 2018: Meet the candidates

Prior to becoming the national director of Wolf PAC, Hartson worked as a teacher and community organizer.

Hartson joins State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon in the race for Feinstein's seat in 2018.

De Leon announced his candidacy in October, stating: "We just have two very different world perspectives. The state has changed significantly over the past 25 years, and we're overdue for a real debate on the issues."

Feinstein drew the ire of some progressives when she said that President Donald Trump could be a "good president" if he can "learn and change." She also ruffled some feathers by stating that DACA is on "shaky legal ground."

"Dianne Feinstein isn't doing it at all," Hartson told the LA Times. "We have to get more progressives to help Bernie (Sanders) keep this fight moving forward. We get in there and begin showing people what's possible, I guarantee you we are going to light a fire."
Q: Our recent Aer Lingus flight from Orlando to Dublin, Ireland, was canceled five hours before departure for no concrete reason. My husband and I are wondering if we have a claim under EU Regulation 261/2004. Aer Lingus says we do not because of local laws, and refunded $142 for our hotel room. We are not cashing this check, as we do not want to settle.

Weve read the regulation, and it seems that we may be eligible based on disruption to our plans, anxiety and inconvenience incurred, since we were ticketed on an EU airline going to an EU country. What do you think?

Jean McShane, Jupiter, Fla.

A: Here we go again. EU 261  the rule airlines love to hate  is a vague rule, and Ive seen travel experts fight each other over it. In case youre just tuning in, EU 261 provides generous compensation for delayed airline passengers, encouraging airlines to stick to their published schedules.

The regulation applies to passengers departing from an airport located in the territory of an EU member state and to passengers departing from an airport located in a third country to an airport situated in the territory of a Member State to which the Treaty applies unless they received benefits or compensation and were given assistance in that third country, if the operating air carrier of the flight concerned is a Community carrier.

Wow, thats a lot of legalese, but lets see if we can unpack it. The law applies to flights from the United States to Europe, but only if the carrier is based in Europe (which Aer Lingus is) and only if you havent received any compensation (which you have, but wisely decided not to accept).

If youre still confused about the rule, dont worry; I have a frequently asked questions section about EU 261 on my advocacy website (www.elliott.org/frequently-asked-questions-about-eu261/).

Theres no local law Im aware of that would apply to your situation. Theres no federal, state or local law that requires Aer Lingus to compensate you for your canceled flight. Yet even if there were, and you had cashed your check, I would argue that paying for your hotel room is not compensation under any law; its just covering some of the expenses you incurred as a result of the overnight delay.

Aer Lingus shouldnt have told you that there were any laws preventing it from compensating you. At the same time, Ive seen airlines argue  probably because of the vagueness of EU 261  that the rules dont apply to them.

I would have pushed back when the airline let itself off the hook. You can do that by contacting Aer Lingus in writing through its website, and, if that doesnt work, forwarding your correspondence to someone higher up the chain. I list the names, numbers and email addresses of key Aer Lingus executives on my site: www.elliott.org/company-contacts/aer-lingus/.

I contacted the airline on your behalf, and it agreed to pay you $1,400, the amount of compensation you were owed under European law.

Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine. Find travel tips at www.elliott.org. Email: chris@elliott.org Twitter: @elliottdotorg
DAMASCUS, Syria  Syrian troops ousted Islamic State extremists Friday from Deir el-Zour, a major city in eastern Syria, while Iraqi forces pushed into the groups last major town across the border in Iraq in simultaneous assaults that dealt further territorial losses to the retreating militants.

With their self-proclaimed caliphate crumbling, the extremists have lost almost all their urban strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

The defeats left the Syrian town of Boukamal as the only urban area still completely under Islamic State control, along with scattered pockets of territory along the Syria-Iraq border.

Syrian troops backed by Russia and Kurdish-led forces supported by the United States are now racing toward Boukamal from opposite sides of the Euphrates River, triggering concerns that a proxy showdown could ensue between the two sides.

Both the U.S. and Russia have embedded special forces with their respective partners and are supporting their advances with air strikes. Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said six Tu-22M bombers struck Islamic State targets near Boukamal, while two Russian submarines in the Mediterranean also launched six cruise missiles at militant targets.

The recapture of Deir el-Zour on the west bank of the Euphrates is another victory for President Bashar Assads forces and his Russian and Iranian allies. Deir el-Zour, which had been divided into a government-held and an Islamic State-held part for nearly three years, is the largest city in eastern Syria and the capital of the oil-rich province of the same name. It is also the largest city to be recaptured by the Syrian government from Islamic State with a population of more than 200,000 people.

Gen. Ali Mayhoub described it as the last phase of the militarys campaign toward the annihilation of Islamic State in Syria. He hailed the citys recapture as a strategic win, noting its location on a crossroads linking the countrys eastern, northern and central regions, as well as an oil and gas reservoir  a reference to the province.

In Iraq, troops pushed into the western neighborhoods of the town of Qaim across the border from Boukamal. An Iraqi officer in the western Anbar region said Iraqi forces have reached the border with Syria.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abdi congratulated Iraqi forces on retaking Qaim just over a week after the operation began. In a statement from his office, al-Abadi described the victory as taking place in record time.

Qaim, about 200 miles west of Baghdad in the Euphrates River Valley, has been used by Islamic State to move fighters and supplies between the two countries at the height of the caliphate, when the militants held nearly a third of both Iraq and Syria.

The extremist group has lost more than 96 percent of the territory it once held across both countries in 2014 and 2015, the height of the caliphate.

Albert Aji and Zeina Karam are Associated Press writers.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands  The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court said Friday she is seeking an investigation of alleged war crimes committed in the war in Afghanistan, an unprecedented probe that could involve U.S. troops.

Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a statement that a preliminary examination found a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed in Afghanistan after U.S.-led troops moved in following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Once the prosecutor submits her investigation request to the court, which is based in the Dutch city of The Hague, its then up to the tribunals judges to decide whether to open one.

An Afghanistan probe would be exceptional because up until now all ICC trials have dealt with alleged crimes in Africa. The only case currently under investigation outside Africa is in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

Human Rights Watch welcomed the announcement as a step toward ending impunity for crimes in Afghanistan.

Thousands and thousands of Afghans have suffered horrendous human rights abuses and war crimes over the years and there has been no accountability, said Richard Dicker of the groups international justice program. The announcement Friday by the prosecutor opens the door to the possibility that for the first time there may be some justice possible for the victims.

Bensouda said in a report last year that U.S. forces and CIA agents may have committed war crimes by torturing detainees in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2014. That opens the possibility that Americans could be among those investigated for possible prosecution, even though the U.S. is not among the courts more than 120 members.

Katherine Gallagher, senior staff attorney at the U.S. rights organization the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the possibility that Americans could be charged sends a long overdue message that no one is above the law.

Taliban and Afghan government forces also may have used torture and committed other atrocities in Afghanistans long and bitter conflict, the report said.

Established in 2002, the International Criminal Court is the worlds first permanent court set up to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Mike Corder is an Associated Press writer.
FORM 8.3

PUBLIC OPENING POSITION DISCLOSURE/DEALING DISCLOSURE BY

A PERSON WITH INTERESTS IN RELEVANT SECURITIES REPRESENTING 1% OR MORE

Rule 8.3 of the Takeover Code (the "Code")

1. KEY INFORMATION

(a) Full name of discloser: Kames Capital Plc (b) Owner or controller of interests and short positions disclosed, if different from 1(a):

The naming of nominee or vehicle companies is insufficient. For a trust, the trustee(s), settlor and beneficiaries must be named. (c) Name of offeror/offeree in relation to whose relevant securities this form relates:

Use a separate form for each offeror/offeree Paysafe Group plc (d) If an exempt fund manager connected with an offeror/offeree, state this and specify identity of offeror/offeree: (e) Date position held/dealing undertaken:

For an opening position disclosure, state the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure 02/11/2017 (f) In addition to the company in 1(c) above, is the discloser making disclosures in respect of any other party to the offer?

If it is a cash offer or possible cash offer, state "N/A" NO

If YES, specify which:

2. POSITIONS OF THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

If there are positions or rights to subscribe to disclose in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 2(a) or (b) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security.

(a) Interests and short positions in the relevant securities of the offeror or offeree to which the disclosure relates following the dealing (if any)

Class of relevant security:



Ordinary Share



Interests Short positions Number % Number % (1) Relevant securities owned and/or controlled: 4,677,972 0.9581 0 0.00 (2) Cash-settled derivatives:



155,712 0.0319 0 0.00 (3) Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell: 0 0.00 0 0.00



TOTAL: 4,833,684 0.99 0 0.00

All interests and all short positions should be disclosed.

Details of any open stock-settled derivative positions (including traded options), or agreements to purchase or sell relevant securities, should be given on a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions).

(b) Rights to subscribe for new securities (including directors' and other employee options)

Class of relevant security in relation to which subscription right exists: Details, including nature of the rights concerned and relevant percentages:

3. DEALINGS (IF ANY) BY THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

Where there have been dealings in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 3(a), (b), (c) or (d) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security dealt in.

The currency of all prices and other monetary amounts should be stated.

(a) Purchases and sales

Class of relevant security Purchase/sale



Number of securities Price per unit Ordinary Share Sale 3,304,750 5.8573 GBP

(b) Cash-settled derivative transactions

Class of relevant security Product description

e.g. CFD Nature of dealing

e.g. opening/closing a long/short position, increasing/reducing a long/short position Number of reference securities Price per unit Ordinary Share CFD Reducing a long position 395,250 5.8573 GBP

(c) Stock-settled derivative transactions (including options)

(i) Writing, selling, purchasing or varying

Class of relevant security Product description e.g. call option Writing, purchasing, selling, varying etc. Number of securities to which option relates Exercise price per unit Type

e.g. American, European etc. Expiry date Option money paid/ received per unit

(ii) Exercise

Class of relevant security Product description

e.g. call option Exercising/ exercised against Number of securities Exercise price per unit

(d) Other dealings (including subscribing for new securities)

Class of relevant security Nature of dealing

e.g. subscription, conversion Details Price per unit (if applicable)

4. OTHER INFORMATION

(a) Indemnity and other dealing arrangements

Details of any indemnity or option arrangement, or any agreement or understanding, formal or informal, relating to relevant securities which may be an inducement to deal or refrain from dealing entered into by the person making the disclosure and any party to the offer or any person acting in concert with a party to the offer:

Irrevocable commitments and letters of intent should not be included. If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none"



None





(b) Agreements, arrangements or understandings relating to options or derivatives

Details of any agreement, arrangement or understanding, formal or informal, between the person making the disclosure and any other person relating to:

(i) the voting rights of any relevant securities under any option; or

(ii) the voting rights or future acquisition or disposal of any relevant securities to which any derivative is referenced:

If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none"









(c) Attachments

Is a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions) attached?





Date of disclosure: 03/11/2017 Contact name: Stephen Adams Telephone number: 0131 549 6714 For any issues relating to this disclosure please contact 0131 549 3288 or kamestradeoperationsmb@kamescapital.com

Public disclosures under Rule 8 of the Code must be made to a Regulatory Information Service and must also be emailed to the Takeover Panel at monitoring@disclosure.org.uk. The Panel's Market Surveillance Unit is available for consultation in relation to the Code's disclosure requirements on +44 (0)20 7638 0129.

The Code can be viewed on the Panel's website at www.thetakeoverpanel.org.uk.
1 Nonsmokers vacation: A marketing company in Tokyo is awarding a novel perk to its non-puffing employees: an extra weeks holiday for nonsmokers. The corporate planning director for Piala, Hirotaka Matsushima, said Thursday that the company began offering the six days of extra vacation to all of its 120 staff members in September. Overall, smoking is still quite prevalent in Japan, with almost 20 percent of over-20-year-olds saying they smoke. Nearly 40 percent of men in their 30s smoke, though thats down from more than half in 2001.

2 War crimes trial: A former member of a Marxist group that seized control of Ethiopia in the 1970s in a bloody purge known as the Red Terror apologized Thursday for the regimes many crimes but denied personal responsibility. In a dramatic confrontation with survivors in a Dutch courtroom at The Hague, 63-year-old Eshetu Alemu accepted blame for the crimes of the Marxist rulers known as the Dergue nearly 40 years ago but insisted he did not carry out the crimes for which Dutch prosecutors hold him responsible. Alemu, a citizen of the Netherlands, is charged with war crimes including involvement in torturing prisoners to death under the 1974-1991 Dergue regime. He faces a maximum life sentence if convicted.
KAMPALA, Uganda  When Martin Owor, a father of six, told his wife he was considering having a vasectomy, she told him it was out of the question. How would they live as husband and wife after his surgical sterilization?

But after a long conversation about growing up poor, the Ugandan man went ahead with a procedure that remains widely unpopular in sub-Saharan Africa, where misunderstandings are high.

To spur development, this East African country that has been a regional leader in tackling health challenges like AIDS now hopes to lower population growth. The issue is widespread in Africa, which faces a population boom even as other parts of the world see dropping birth rates. Over half of the global population growth between now and 2050 will take place in Africa, the United Nations says.

Sub-Saharan Africa, with some of the worlds most impoverished nations, will continue to be plagued by poverty unless governments reduce high fertility rates, development experts say.

Uganda has started recruiting champion men to speak publicly on television and elsewhere about vasectomies as a method of family planning. It has proved difficult.

Many men fear it leads to impotence. Some worry about being stigmatized. Others ask what might happen if, after a vasectomy, they lose all their children in some catastrophe.

Many people think that when a man goes for a vasectomy, he is not going to continue being a normal man, said Owor, who runs a grocery store in eastern Uganda. But there is no problem. My wife is very happy.

Owor said he was compelled to have a vasectomy because he did not want his children to grow up hopelessly poor.

My father had 12 children, so we never had a chance of having a quality education, Owor said. I needed a number that I would try to manage.

Ugandas population has ballooned from 17 million in 1990 to more than 41 million in 2016. It one of nine African countries in the worlds top 10 fastest-growing populations, according to U.N. figures.

Only 35 percent of married women in Uganda use modern methods of contraception, according to government statistics. Abortion is illegal in Uganda, except to save the mothers life.

Although Ugandas fertility rate dropped from 6.9 births per woman in 2001 to 5.4 today, officials say a desirable rate is four births per woman.

As champion men speak out, the government is working to increase male involvement in family planning as a way to meet that goal.

We cant coerce them, because family planning is voluntary and is supposed to be based on human rights, and we want to keep on engaging them, said Placid Mihayo, an assistant government commissioner in charge of sexual and reproductive health.

Ugandas openness recalls its public campaigns against the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s, when many African countries, including Kenya and South Africa, did not fully acknowledge the crisis.

Uganda has done extremely well, said Alain Sibenaler, the U.N. Population Fund representative in Uganda, whose office has been working closely with the government on family planning options. The total fertility rate has dropped in a very short time.

Rodney Muhumuza is an Associated Press writer.
Lithuanian English

Correction: We hereby present a corrected Financial Statements of the I-III quarters of the year 2017 (attached). The result of the III quarter of the Group and The Company is corrected due to the technical mistake. The results of 9 months of the year 2017 of the Group and the Company remain the same.

The Board of AB Kauno Energija (hereinafter  the Company) (code  235014830) assessed results of Companys business activity of 9 months of the year 2017 and financial state as at 30 September 2017 and approved AB Kauno Energija consolidated and Companys non-audited results of 9 months of the year 2017.

The result of Companys activities of 9 months of the year 2017 according to the International Financial Reporting Standards as adopted by the European Union is profit in amount of EUR 3,180 thousand (the result of 9 months of the year 2016 was amounted to EUR 3,584 thousand), turnover from sales is EUR 39,322 thousand (in 9 months of the year 2016 it was amounted to EUR 39,889 thousand). The result of activities of the Group which consists of AB Kauno Energija and its subsidiaries UAB Kauno Energija NT (code  303042623) and UAB Petrasiunu katiline (code  304217723) of 9 months of the year 2017 is profit in amount of EUR 2,923 thousand (the result of 9 months of the year 2016 is EUR 3,752 thousand), turnover from sales is amounted to EUR 39,314 thousand (turnover from sales of 9 months of the year 2016 is amounted to EUR 39,884 thousand).

As at the end of the reporting period (30 September 2017) the rate of critical liquidity of the Company that makes comparison between short-term assets and short-term liabilities, increased from 1.48 to 1.49 during the period from the end of the year 2016 (the same rate of the Group decreased from 1.18 to 1.05). The EBITDA of the Company of 9 months of the year 2017 is EUR 8,494 thousand (EBITDA of 9 months of the year 2016 was EUR 8,830 thousand), and EBITDA of the Group is EUR 8,775 thousand (EBITDA of 9 months of the year 2016 was EUR 8,980 thousand.

The main Companys revenue and profit is generated in 1 and 4 quarters of the year. Companys turnover from sales of 9 months of the year 2017 in comparison with the turnover from sales of the same period of the year 2016 is at 1.40 per cent less due to the decrease in average heat price at 7.49 per cent (in January  September of the year 2017 it was 4.82 ct/kWh and in January  September of the year 2016 it was 5.21 ct/kWh). Chargeable amount of heat in 9 months of the year 2017 was at 6,15 per cent more than in the year 2016 (in 9 months of the year 2017 790,5 thousand MWh of heat charged, and in 9 months of the year 2016  744,7 thousand MWh).

We hereby present an interim unaudited Financial Statements of the I-III quarters of the year 2017 together with confirmation of responsible persons.

Gintautas Muznikas, Head of the Finance Department, tel. +370 37 305 662.
EDISON, N.J., Nov. 03, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, the Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters (NRCC) announced its endorsement of Steve Fulop for Jersey City Mayor.



"I am incredibly proud to receive the support of the Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters," said Mayor Fulop. "We look forward to continuing to build a stronger Jersey City with the help of all of our labor unions, as they serve a major role in bringing jobs and opportunities to residents throughout Jersey City. I know that with the help of the men and women of the Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters we will continue moving Jersey City forward."

The Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters takes the issue of endorsing elected official candidates seriously and only endorses candidates who hold the same values as we do of protecting and preserving workers rights. We only provide endorsements to candidates that support prevailing wage protections, encourage the use of Project Labor Agreements, fight 1099 Worker Misclassification and support fair wages and benefits for working people.

John Ballantyne, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the NRCC, believes that Fulop will continue to support the rights of middle class workers and Jersey City residents when hes re-elected on November 7th.

We are pleased to endorse Mayor Fulop in his re-election for Jersey City mayor, as he believes in supporting responsible bidder language, project labor agreements and other protections that support middle class construction workers, said Ballantyne. As Jersey Citys Mayor, Fulop will continue to bring good paying construction jobs to the City, encourage more businesses to invest and help to improve the quality of life for its residents.

About the NRCC

The Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters (NRCC) represents nearly 40,000 hardworking men and women in Delaware and New Jersey and portions of Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania. NRCC is one of the largest trade unions on the East Coast. The NRCC equips professional men and women carpenters with the skills, training and quality workmanship that are demanded in today's construction industry. For more information on NRCC, please visit our website: www.northeastcarpenters.org; Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NortheastRegionalCouncilofCarpenters; or Twitter: https://twitter.com/nrccarpenters.
GREENVILLE, S.C., Nov. 03, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- First Look MRI, an innovative imaging provider based in Hoschton, Ga., has successfully implemented a full suite of eRAD technologyeRAD RIS, Speech Recognition, PACS, Patient & Physician Portals, and RADAR, its secure communications platform.



eRAD is a subsidiary of RadNet, Inc., a leading provider of standards-based, web-centric radiology image and data management solutions.

First Look MRI is pioneering a new approach to MRI exams. No physician order or referral is required, and the same low price ($399) is extended to all patientsbypassing all insurance issues. Patients schedule their own appointments by phone or through eRADs Patient Portal, or just walk in.

Brian Gay, M.D., CEO of First Look MRI, said: We cut to the chase. Patients who know that their headache, injury, or back pain will require a scan for diagnosis can just start with uswithout paying for the specialist visit to get the order.

The flexibility of the eRAD platform was key for the implementation. First Look MRI makes custom, narrated video results available to patients, and eRAD ensured support for that service through RADAR, its tool for secure communication with patients. Support for video files in RADAR was critical to making this work for our company, said Charlie Wells, President and COO of First Look MRI. That has a tremendous impact on how we can operate and compete in our market.

eRAD provides cloud hosting so that First Look MRI can focus on its business, and not on IT overhead. We dont have to worry about the expense or hassle of archiving images and managing servers, said Dr. Gay. Its good to know eRAD is handling all of that appropriately.

First Look MRI considered many vendors before selecting eRAD. Native speech recognition was definitely an important ingredient, but truly the deciding factor was the eRAD team, said Wells. Everyone had an innovative spirit, just very optimistic and eager to please.

Florence Present, Director of Midwest and East Coast Sales for eRAD, exemplified that attitude from the start. Our business is different, said Dr. Gay, and when we needed extra help, Florence made things happen on the inside. To have a person who makes sure you have resolution, who acts as your voice, who cares about your goalsthats not standard with most companies. Shes the reason we purchased eRAD.

Seth Koeppel, Senior VP of Sales at eRAD, said, First Look MRI is just the kind of imaging provider that is a good fit with us. We always have our sights set on innovation, so when we come across a practice that is charting new territory, we know we can help. Plus First Look MRI is expanding, and thats a sweet spot for us too. Because the eRAD platform is so responsive, so easy to scale, we know that its the ideal secret weapon for those who aim to grow. We look forward to many years of real partnership.

About First Look MRI

First Look MRI is ushering in a new paradigm in healthcare delivery. With the same low cost for all patients and no physician order required, First Look MRI enables patients to take control of their healthcare. Patients receive a written report quickly, which can be shared with other clinicians. Exams are read by a board-certified, veteran radiologist, who can also deliver a narrated custom video report to explain results clearly. First Look MRI makes advanced imaging simpler and more cost-effective.

For more information, visit www.firstlookmri.com

Contact:

Charlie Wells, President and COO

Brian Gay, M.D., CEO

470-639-1262

About eRAD, Inc.

eRAD offers a complete suite of workflow solutions for the imaging industry. Its EHR-Certified RIS, web-based PACS, and multi-site workflow solutions are used by teleradiology businesses, specialty reading groups, multi-site reading groups, hospitals, and outpatient imaging centers. With over 500 installations in the U.S. and abroad, eRADs products are available as cloud-based hosted solutions, or as in-house enterprise solutions. For more information, visit www.erad.com.

Contact:

Seth Koeppel, SVP Sales

Cell: 617-821-4175 | skoeppel@erad.com

About RadNet, Inc.

RadNet, Inc. is the leading national provider of freestanding, fixed-site diagnostic imaging services in the United States based on the number of locations and annual imaging revenue. RadNet has a network of 302 owned and/or operated outpatient imaging centers. RadNets core markets include California, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Florida. In addition, RadNet provides radiology information technology solutions, and other related products and services to customers in the diagnostic imaging industry. Together with affiliated radiologists, and inclusive of full-time and per diem employees and technicians, RadNet has more than 7,000 employees.

For more information, visit www.radnet.com
FORM 8.3

PUBLIC OPENING POSITION DISCLOSURE/DEALING DISCLOSURE BY

A PERSON WITH INTERESTS IN RELEVANT SECURITIES REPRESENTING 1% OR MORE

Rule 8.3 of the Takeover Code (the "Code")

1. KEY INFORMATION

(a) Full name of discloser: Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP (b) Owner or controller of interests and short positions disclosed, if different from 1(a):

The naming of nominee or vehicle companies is insufficient. For a trust, the trustee(s), settlor and beneficiaries must be named. (c) Name of offeror/offeree in relation to whose relevant securities this form relates:

Use a separate form for each offeror/offeree Worldpay Group Plc (d) If an exempt fund manager connected with an offeror/offeree, state this and specify identity of offeror/offeree: (e) Date position held/dealing undertaken:

For an opening position disclosure, state the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure 02 November, 2017 (f) In addition to the company in 1(c) above, is the discloser making disclosures in respect of any other party to the offer?

If it is a cash offer or possible cash offer, state "N/A" YES, Vantiv Inc and Vantiv UK Limited

2. POSITIONS OF THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

If there are positions or rights to subscribe to disclose in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 2(a) or (b) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security.

(a) Interests and short positions in the relevant securities of the offeror or offeree to which the disclosure relates following the dealing (if any)

Class of relevant security:



3p ordinary



Interests Short positions Number % Number % (1) Relevant securities owned and/or controlled: (2) Cash-settled derivatives:



77,344,764 3.8672



(3) Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell:



TOTAL: 77,344,764 3.8672





All interests and all short positions should be disclosed.

Details of any open stock-settled derivative positions (including traded options), or agreements to purchase or sell relevant securities, should be given on a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions).

(b) Rights to subscribe for new securities (including directors' and other employee options)

Class of relevant security in relation to which subscription right exists: Details, including nature of the rights concerned and relevant percentages:

3. DEALINGS (IF ANY) BY THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

Where there have been dealings in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 3(a), (b), (c) or (d) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security dealt in.

The currency of all prices and other monetary amounts should be stated.

(a) Purchases and sales

Class of relevant security Purchase/sale



Number of securities Price per unit





(b) Cash-settled derivative transactions

Class of relevant security Product description

e.g. CFD Nature of dealing

e.g. opening/closing a long/short position, increasing/reducing a long/short position Number of reference securities Price per unit 3p ordinary CFD Increasing a long position 7,000,000 4.0460 GBP 3p ordinary CFD Increasing a long position 500,000 4.0992 GBP 3p ordinary CFD Increasing a long position 8,014 4.0600 GBP

(c) Stock-settled derivative transactions (including options)

(i) Writing, selling, purchasing or varying

Class of relevant security Product description e.g. call option Writing, purchasing, selling, varying etc. Number of securities to which option relates Exercise price per unit Type

e.g. American, European etc. Expiry date Option money paid/ received per unit

(ii) Exercise

Class of relevant security Product description

e.g. call option Exercising/ exercised against Number of securities Exercise price per unit





(d) Other dealings (including subscribing for new securities)

Class of relevant security Nature of dealing

e.g. subscription, conversion Details Price per unit (if applicable)





4. OTHER INFORMATION

(a) Indemnity and other dealing arrangements

Details of any indemnity or option arrangement, or any agreement or understanding, formal or informal, relating to relevant securities which may be an inducement to deal or refrain from dealing entered into by the person making the disclosure and any party to the offer or any person acting in concert with a party to the offer:

Irrevocable commitments and letters of intent should not be included. If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none"



NONE





(b) Agreements, arrangements or understandings relating to options or derivatives

Details of any agreement, arrangement or understanding, formal or informal, between the person making the disclosure and any other person relating to:

(i) the voting rights of any relevant securities under any option; or

(ii) the voting rights or future acquisition or disposal of any relevant securities to which any derivative is referenced:

If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none" NONE









(c) Attachments

Is a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions) attached? NO

Date of disclosure: 03 November 2017 Contact name: James Gange Telephone number: 212-446-4029

Public disclosures under Rule 8 of the Code must be made to a Regulatory Information Service.

The Panel's Market Surveillance Unit is available for consultation in relation to the Code's disclosure requirements on +44 (0)20 7638 0129.

The Code can be viewed on the Panel's website at www.thetakeoverpanel.org.uk.
Paul Santoro, left, was sentenced for filing false reports for asbestos removal at the former Mount Manresa site. His father, Gaspare Santoro, right, who pleaded guilty to the same charge, has since died.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A New Jersey man, who prosecutors said falsified reports, along with his father, for asbestos testing in buildings on the grounds of Mount Manresa, the former Jesuit retreat house in Fort Wadsworth, was sentenced Friday to an unconditional discharge under a plea agreement, but has lost his license.

Paul Santoro, 38, of East Windsor, and his late father, Gaspare Santoro, 77, of Monroe Township, N.J., were hired to conduct asbestos tests by the Savo Brothers, which purchased the 15-acre site for $15 million more than three years ago for a controversial townhouse project.

Prosecutors initially filed criminal charges against the duo in December 2014.

They alleged Paul Santoro submitted city Department of Environmental Protection forms in April of that year with the borough's Department of Buildings declaring the Founders Building, Care Taker's House and Bruno Building were asbestos-free.



Gaspare Santoro signed off on the forms, and demolition began at the site. Asbestos was found at one of the buildings a few days later.



In October 2014, the city hit the Mount Manresa project with $67,400 in fines for asbestos-related violations. Demolition resumed at the site in February 2015.



Prosecutors filed an indictment in June 2015, accusing the father and son of falsifying reports for about five of the buildings on the site.

According to prosecutors, Gaspare Santoro also falsely certified that buildings at three other locations in the borough were "free of asbestos-containing material" -- two homes, at 62 Seaview Ave. in Dongan Hills and 24 Elmbank St. in Eltingville, and a commercial property at 4491 Amboy Road in Eltingville.



Paul Santoro certified the same for a home at 36 Ardmore Ave. in Willowbrook, prosecutors alleged.



In addition, Gaspare Santoro was accused of falsely certifying in three more homes that "a portion of the premises affected by the work is free of asbestos-containing material."

Those properties were at 7563 Amboy Road in Tottenville, 76 Eagan Ave. in Annadale and 195 Wolverine St. in Oakwood, said prosecutors.

In April, the Santoros each pleaded guilty in state Supreme Court, St. George, to a felony count of first-degree offering a false instrument for filing to satisfy all charges against them. It was the top count.

Under the terms of their agreement, the defendants were to ultimately surrender their asbestos-investigator and asbestos-inspector licenses; and the elder Santoro was also required to surrender his professional engineering license.

The defendants were told they could not take on any new business.

Paul Santoro's asbestos license has since expired, and can't be renewed due to his criminal conviction.

Gaspare Santoro died about two months ago, prior to sentencing.

In a statement after the Santoros pleaded guilty, District Attorney Michael E. McMahon said they "showed blatant disregard for public health, including construction workers and neighboring residents."

Jeffrey Lichtman, Gaspare Santoro's lawyer, countered that authorities had made the father and son scapegoats "for the whole Mount Manresa mess."

His said the pair "didn't make a single penny from this."

Assistant District Attorneys Gregg Brown and Carrie Low prosecuted the case.
FORM 8.3

PUBLIC OPENING POSITION DISCLOSURE/DEALING DISCLOSURE BY

A PERSON WITH INTERESTS IN RELEVANT SECURITIES REPRESENTING 1% OR MORE

Rule 8.3 of the Takeover Code (the "Code")

1. KEY INFORMATION

(a) Full name of discloser: Tyrus Capital S.A.M. (b) Owner or controller of interests and short positions disclosed, if different from 1(a):

The naming of nominee or vehicle companies is insufficient. For a trust, the trustee(s), settlor and beneficiaries must be named. (c) Name of offeror/offeree in relation to whose relevant securities this form relates:

Use a separate form for each offeror/offeree Vantiv, Inc. (d) If an exempt fund manager connected with an offeror/offeree, state this and specify identity of offeror/offeree: (e) Date position held/dealing undertaken:

For an opening position disclosure, state the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure 2 November 2017 (f) In addition to the company in 1(c) above, is the discloser making disclosures in respect of any other party to the offer?

If it is a cash offer or possible cash offer, state "N/A" YES

If YES, specify which: Worldpay Group plc

2. POSITIONS OF THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

If there are positions or rights to subscribe to disclose in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 2(a) or (b) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security.

(a) Interests and short positions in the relevant securities of the offeror or offeree to which the disclosure relates following the dealing (if any)

Class of relevant security:



USD 0.00001 Class A common



Interests Short positions Number % Number % (1) Relevant securities owned and/or controlled: (2) Cash-settled derivatives:



1,395,381 0.858 (3) Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell:



TOTAL: 1,395,381 0.858

All interests and all short positions should be disclosed.

Details of any open stock-settled derivative positions (including traded options), or agreements to purchase or sell relevant securities, should be given on a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions).

(b) Rights to subscribe for new securities (including directors' and other employee options)

Class of relevant security in relation to which subscription right exists: Details, including nature of the rights concerned and relevant percentages:

3. DEALINGS (IF ANY) BY THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

Where there have been dealings in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 3(a), (b), (c) or (d) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security dealt in.

The currency of all prices and other monetary amounts should be stated.

(a) Purchases and sales

Class of relevant security Purchase/sale



Number of securities Price per unit





(b) Cash-settled derivative transactions

Class of relevant security Product description

e.g. CFD Nature of dealing

e.g. opening/closing a long/short position, increasing/reducing a long/short position Number of reference securities Price per unit USD 0.00001 Class A common CFD



Reducing a short position 470,400 USD 69.5231

(c) Stock-settled derivative transactions (including options)

(i) Writing, selling, purchasing or varying

Class of relevant security Product description e.g. call option Writing, purchasing, selling, varying etc. Number of securities to which option relates Exercise price per unit Type

e.g. American, European etc. Expiry date Option money paid/ received per unit

(ii) Exercise

Class of relevant security Product description

e.g. call option Exercising/ exercised against Number of securities Exercise price per unit





(d) Other dealings (including subscribing for new securities)

Class of relevant security Nature of dealing

e.g. subscription, conversion Details Price per unit (if applicable)





4. OTHER INFORMATION

(a) Indemnity and other dealing arrangements

Details of any indemnity or option arrangement, or any agreement or understanding, formal or informal, relating to relevant securities which may be an inducement to deal or refrain from dealing entered into by the person making the disclosure and any party to the offer or any person acting in concert with a party to the offer:

Irrevocable commitments and letters of intent should not be included. If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none"



none





(b) Agreements, arrangements or understandings relating to options or derivatives

Details of any agreement, arrangement or understanding, formal or informal, between the person making the disclosure and any other person relating to:

(i) the voting rights of any relevant securities under any option; or

(ii) the voting rights or future acquisition or disposal of any relevant securities to which any derivative is referenced:

If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none"



none





(c) Attachments

Is a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions) attached? NO





Date of disclosure: 3 November 2017 Contact name: Jonathan Beer Telephone number: +377 9999 5030

Public disclosures under Rule 8 of the Code must be made to a Regulatory Information Service.

The Panel's Market Surveillance Unit is available for consultation in relation to the Code's disclosure requirements on +44 (0)20 7638 0129.

The Code can be viewed on the Panel's website at www.thetakeoverpanel.org.uk.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- After the demolition of Hylan Plaza began last month, builders broke ground Friday morning on The Boulevard shopping center coming to the site.

The new $180 million, 460,000-square-foot shopping center, being built in a multi-level "Main Street" format, will be anchored by ShopRite and Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, and is expected to open in fall 2019.

"This is the first milestone in our transformation of the Hylan Plaza into The Boulevard," said Joshua Weinkranz, president, northeast region of the Kimco Realty, the project's developer.

The developer praised Borough President James Oddo and Councilman Steven Matteo for helping the company connect with the community.

"They helped us share our visions of the project with the community, and as a result, the community has been really supportive of the redevelopment and are looking forward to the transformation into The Boulevard," Weinkranz added.

He later challenged the notion that retail is dying, suggesting it merely must adapt to changing trends.

"Today's shoppers expect more of their retail destinations, and today's savvy owners need to create experience-driven retail projects. The Boulevard will be that type of project," said Weinkranz.

He went on to discuss the various retailers that have already leased property in the new development, including ShopRite, Marshalls, Ulta, PetSmart, LA Fitness, Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, AC Moore, Party City and Modells.

"At this point, before we even put a shovel in the ground, we're 80 percent pre-leased on the project," Weinkranz said.

Deputy Borough President Ed Burke was in attendance to express his support for the project and discuss the significance this shopping plaza has to Staten Islanders.

"My generation shopped here often. This was part of the fabric of Staten Island to come here and shop, so to see this reinvestment is really heartening," said Burke.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Rumors circulating on social media that the U.S. Department of Defense is shutting down the national power grid this weekend amid Antifa protests are fake news.

A number of right-wing websites have picked up a rumor that a series of Antifa protests planned for this weekend have prompted the Department of Defense to trigger a nationwide blackout.

Other, more outlandish, theories claim the government will launch an electromagnetic pulse to destroy the power grid and trigger a civil war.

They say its going to be a blackout Nov 4-6 is this true? No power AT ALL  Princess (@venussbabyy) November 1, 2017

The only truth to this rumor is that Refuse Fascism is planning to hold anti-government rallies around the country on Nov. 4.

As for the rest of the rumor, the Department of Defense, alongside amateur ham radio association the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), are merely conducting a pre-planned training exercise this weekend.

The "communications interoperability" exercise will be conducted to simulate a "very bad day" scenario, according to the Department of Defense announcement.

Army MARS Program Manager Paul English confirmed to fact-checking site, Snopes.com, that the event is in fact a pre-planned training exercise that is conducted four times a year.

"There is no actual power or comms outages that will occur in conjunction with this exercise. We have done this exercise every quarter since 2013," said English.

He went on to assure the Snopes site that we will not be affected by the exercise scheduled to improve cooperation between the Department of Defense and amateur radio broadcasters.

"The average citizen will not even know this exercise is taking place. Our focus is to interoperate with the amateur radio community," English added.

The MARS Program also posted an announcement to their Facebook page, addressing various concerns regarding the event.

"In this exercise Amateur Radio operators are conducting a routine training that we do four times a year. The purpose of the training is to prepared for an event we hope will never happen, but should be ready for if it ever does. These exercises are all about coordinating existing capabilities like amateur radio, and citizen volunteers like MARS members, to be a productive part of the solution in the event something like a severe solar storm ever happens," the comment reads.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- When those with mental illness commit crimes, authorities are faced with the complex process of treating the illness while prosecuting the suspect.

Scores of criminal defendants who appear in the borough's courts each year suffer from some type of mental illness.

Isn't it more important to get those individuals the help they need rather than just throwing them behind bars?

Both advocates and legal experts agree that treatment is key to breaking the cycle of criminal behavior for those defendants faced with a mental illness and set them on a healthier path.

When done properly, it serves both the community as a whole and the sick person facing charges.

The borough's Mental Health Court has been viewed an effective and necessary alternative for defendants with mental illnesses. And the court has been a success in a majority of the cases that are referred to it.

Defendants in Mental Health Court are diverted into treatment programs and earn non-jail sentences of probation or a conditional discharge if they complete treatment. They potentially face jail time if they don't finish the program.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers point to the borough's Mental Health Court as an effective and necessary alternative for defendants with mental illness, but agree that a lack of resources has prevented the court from helping even more people.

Housed in state Supreme Court, St. George, the court is available to defendants charged with felonies, typically non-violent ones, who mental illness experts believe can be treated.

Defendants accused of arson, weapon possession, homicides or driving while intoxicated are generally not eligible.

But the system faces a critical problem: In-patient beds are always in short supply, prosecutors and advocates told the Advance.

And if those beds or other forms of treatment aren't available, defendants could be denied having their cases diverted to Mental Health Court.

Programs are limited on Staten Island. As a result, some defendants have had to get treatment in other boroughs or even out of state.

"That's probably the most frustrating thing," said Assistant District Attorney Ann Thompson, who handles mental health cases for the district attorney's office. "We don't have enough resources. If we don't have the resources, that person is not going to be successful in Mental Health Court."

District Attorney Michael E. McMahon said he's asked the state Office of Court Administration for more resources for the court.

Those resources would include additional in-patient beds, expanded programming, the needed staffing for both and the necessary funding.

Given the success reported by those involved with Mental Health Court cases, we urge that those added resources be made available, now.

COMMUNITY COURT ANOTHER NEED

While there is some debate between defense attorneys and the D.A.'s office over the number and selection of cases referred to Mental Health Court, there is another gaping hole in the system most agree needs to be filled.

McMahon told the Advance he's concerned there's no mental-health type court available to misdemeanor offenders in Criminal Court. The Mental Health Court addresses felony issues in state Supreme Court.

Since taking office in January 2016, the district attorney has advocated for the establishment of a Community Court, similar to the Red Hook Community Justice Center, in Brooklyn. There are also two Community Courts in Manhattan and one in the Bronx.

The multi-jurisdictional court deals with misdemeanor offenders, many are persistent offenders, and tries to identify problems in their lives that may be what drives their criminal behavior.



The Red Hook court, for example, has a variety of sanctions and services at its disposal, including restitution projects and treatment for drug, mental-health and trauma-focused issues.



Such a court would have "the biggest impact" in potentially breaking the criminal cycle of recidivist misdemeanor offenders, including those with mental-health issues, McMahon told the Advance.

"Right now, there's nothing for it," he said.

A Community Court "would fill a great void dealing with people whose mental illness is gliding a path into criminality," Paul Capofari, McMahon's top deputy, told the Advance.

We join with the D.A.'s office and others in calling for the establishment of a Community Court on Staten Island to fill that void.

It would be be significant step toward both protecting the residents of our borough and helping those with mental health and other disorders.

(UNTREATED: This is part of a series on the care of Staten Island's mentally ill. Click here for additional stories in the project.)
Page Content

It is with great anticipation that your business has been invited to attend the launch of the first employment and labor website for Government Sint Maarten at the New Government Administration Building on Thursday November 9th, 2017 from 3pm to 5pm.





Attendees will receive information on the website by Mr. Marvio Cooks who was instrumental in the development. The website aims to connect businesses with job seekers on a scale that has never before been accomplished, thereby solidifying the commitment of the Ministry of VSA and by extension the Department of Labor Affairs & Social Services to facilitate this process as we prepare to introduce the National Employment Services Center (NESC).





Together we can make the unveiling of this national employment website a success. Attendees are invited to utilize their laptops and other smart devices for maximum connectivity during the session. Business representatives are also encouraged to have vacancies on hand, as it will be possible to register vacancies on site during the launch.





Please RSVP your attendance by Tuesday November 7, 2017 to labor-affairs@sintmaartengov.org




Page Content

Prime Minister William Marlin tendered the resignation of his cabinet to Governor Eugene Holiday on Thursday afternoon following the motion of no confidence against himself and the other ministers.





Marlin also presented a draft National Decree to the Governor to dissolve Parliament. Once signed, the Parliament of Sint Maarten will be dissolved on January 31, 2018. To make this possible, elections for a new Parliament will have to be held.





Marlin says that the voters of Sint Maarten will now have to decide how to move forward. A one seat majority government is not good for the people of Sint Maarten at this time when the country is faced with a national disaster following the catastrophic devastation brought on by Hurricane Irma.





We need a stable government that can rely on a comfortable majority in Parliament.





Hiding behind the ongoing discussions between himself and the Dutch Government about the conditions set to receive aid was used as excuse to give the government a vote of no confidence. The real reasons are clear to everyone.





The Democratic Party has been trying for several months already to break the government as Wescot-Williams wants to be Prime Minister of Sint Maarten again, at all cost, even at the expense of the people of Sint Maarten. She has gone as far as to use the hurricane to get this accomplished.





The offer of the Prime Minister to the leaders of the UP, Mr. Theo Heyliger, Mrs. Wescott Williams of the DP and Mr. Frans Richardson of the USP was not really entertained.





Parties met on Wednesday at the Parliament Building and shortly thereafter at the Cabinet of the Governor.





All 4 leaders agreed in the presence of the Governor to continue talks aimed at the formation of a National Government.





William Marlin pointed out to the others that the proposal for a National Government was not for him to remain in office as Prime Minister. He even proposed the name of a non-political person with an impeccable record and extensive knowledge of and experience with government, who Marlin says he believes has the support and confidence of all parties.





That seemingly didnt sit well with Wescott-Williams as her mission is to return as Prime Minister.





Following the meeting with the governor and the promise to continue talks to form a National Government, the Chairlady of Parliament returned to the meeting and reopened the meeting as if no consultations had been held.





Marlin said that again he needs to stress and point out, that he had never refused aid. What the ongoing discussion with the Dutch Government had been about all along, was the conditions the government in Holland was attaching to aid. No amount was ever mentioned. Marlin said that it is not him nor his government that was holding up aid, it had been the Dutch government all the while because they wanted to use the devastation caused by the hurricane to get their way with two issues that had nothing to do with aid.





Marlin said that he continues to be committed to the people of Sint Maarten like he has always been.





During the weeks ahead, it will become clear all what the attacks on the Prime Minister had been about. After exposing the present Minister of Social Affairs, suddenly tarpaulins are now available to the same people they were holding hostage for weeks. Ans as the days go by, more and more will be exposed.




New York, New York, Nov. 03, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Beyond Cruises by Group IST announced that it will launch Iceland as one of their new small-ship cruising destinations in 2018. The seven-day Iceland itinerary features some of the nations beautiful and exclusive locations, authentic Icelandic delicacies, and informative excursions that will infuse the culture and history of the nation with entertaining tours and activities.

Passengers traveling with Beyond Cruises to Iceland will experience: Icelands most famous, mineral-rich geothermal spa, the Blue Lagoon; a walk through the geological fault that separates the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates as they explore the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Thingveller National Park; and a descent into Langjokull glacier, as hundreds of feet of tunnels and caverns have been meticulously carved into the ice and are illuminated by LED lights which give the ice an ethereal glow.

While exploring Iceland itself is the highlight of the cruise, sailing with Beyond Cruises provides guests with the opportunity to do so through a more intimate, private mega-yacht experience. The small-ship cruising advantage for shore excursion and tours is the ability of the vessel to dock close to the destination, visiting hidden harbors and little-known ports far from the tourist radar and not accessible by large cruise ships.

The vessel, the M/S Panorama- a three-masted motorsailer- accommodates a maximum of 48 passengers in 24 cabins where guests are well looked after by Beyond Cruises staff, well known for its one-to-two, crew-to-passenger ratio. Beyond Cruises small-ship setting fosters socializing with an on-board community of like-minded people, whether its at the deck bar or through the open-seated dining set up.

The launch of the Beyond Cruises Iceland program is a natural outgrowth of Group ISTs expertise in combining people-to-people experiential travel and the special delights of small-ship cruising, said Michael Goren, President & CEO, Group IST. The natural wonders of Iceland are perfect for the small-ship experience.

-END-

About Beyond Cruises by Group IST

The Group IST passion remains unchanged since its inception: an alchemy that blends enriching oneself educationally and exploring the true identity of a destination, while enjoying the comforts and unique benefits of a small ship sailing the seas.

For more information and reservations contact your local travel agent or visit www.beyondcruises.com; or call 1 800 833 2111.

Follow Group IST on Social Media:

@GroupIST @groupistvoyages @groupistTravel

Group IST/ US Editorial Contact:

The Bradford Group

Karen Hoffman/ Bianca Pappas

Tel: (212) 447-0027

Fax: (212) 725 8253

E-mail: info@bradfordglobalmarketing.com







Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1e165641-f122-402a-955e-b7000efaec9a

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/adfcfca8-e7f0-445f-a287-5e548dad8197

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2630ab78-90c0-473e-b276-adc629cedfe0
Erie, PA, Nov. 03, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Erie Innovation District, LLC, (ErieID), took a major step toward developing and attracting new businesses to downtown Erie with todays announcement that it is collaborating with Dell, one of the largest technology companies in the world.

In a companion announcement, the ErieID revealed its initial downtown Erie headquarters in a shared space with the Erie Insurance Innovation Center at 717 State St.

It also announced the addition of Cleveland-based national technology company MCPc as an ErieID partner, as well as funding support from Ben Franklin Technology Partners for eligible early-stage tech startups.

All four announcements were made on Friday, Nov. 3, at the new headquarters by ErieID President and CEO Karl Sanchack. ErieID founding partners, including lead partner Mercyhurst University, Erie Insurance, McManis & Monsalve Associates, UPMC and Velocity Network Inc. (VNET), were in attendance, as was the director of global alliances for Dell EMC, Douglas Lieberman, and Centennial Scholar Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution, the authority on innovation districts.

When you talk about a multinational technology company like Dell EMC, which literally is a household name, investing resources in Erie, you put yourself in the position of attracting even more businesses to our city, said Mercyhurst University President Michael Victor. This is exactly what the ErieID founders had hoped Karl would be able to do for Erie, and this is just the beginning.

In less than a month on the job, Sanchack is moving quickly toward the ErieIDs goal of establishing Erie as a hub for innovation in the fields of data science, safety and cybersecurity.

Having a bricks-and-mortar presence in downtown Erie is a critical step.

Its also a welcome one, said Erie Insurance President and CEO Tim NeCastro. The commitment to innovation is an important building block in creating and sustaining a vibrant community, said NeCasto, who is chair of the Erie Downtown Development Corporation (EDDC). It says were ready for the future.

Meanwhile, from his temporary office at Mercyhurst University, Sanchack facilitated a Memorandum of Understanding with the ErieID, Dell EMC, VNET and Mercyhurst.

Under the terms of the MOU, Dell EMC, which provides infrastructure for organizations to satisfy their digital needs, will lead the technical development of a service that provides a suite of innovation and business management tools for ErieID participating companies, entrepreneurs and startups. Dell EMC will work collaboratively with VNET on the project.

This Innovation as a Service concept, as Sanchack is calling it, will enable new and existing companies to have immediate access to a digital environment that includes hardware procurement, IT support, data protection and a variety of other high-speed connectivity and cybersecurity capabilities.

Cities like Erie, he said, need to innovate to be successful, need to find the road ahead. Its more than just being a nice thing to do. When youve reached that point of community readiness that I think Erie has, people are more willing to embrace change. I consider myself very lucky to be part of that.

In another development, MCPc, a national technology company based in Cleveland with offices in Erie, is also on board as a partner, explained Mercyhurst Provost and ErieID Chair David Dausey. MCPc is investing $1 million in Mercyhursts Ridge College of Intelligence Studies and Applied Sciences by building a cybersecurity lab for academic programming as well as a Network Operations Center (NOC) on the Erie campus. Within the NOC, the company will train and pay Mercyhurst students at industry rates to work with real MCPc clients. The intention is to grow that operation, housed at Hammermill Library, and scale it as part of the innovation district.

MCPc already has sales offices in Erie and this is the opportunity for it to grow its operations here and bring more jobs to our region, Dausey said.

New and existing businesses with a minimum viable product can apply for accelerator support from the ErieID, while entrepreneurs can seek incubator support. Applications for both can be accessed at erieinnovationdistrict.com beginning in January 2018.

For more information, contact Sanchack at ksanchack@erieinnovationdistrict.com.

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1d4d1680-b45f-4600-b625-016c786b9aff
Businesses are highly complementary with geographical strengths, brand portfolios and product offerings creating expanded growth opportunities and value for customers, shareholders and employees



With 5,500 employees and a presence in over 45 countries, the new company will be a global leader with sales of 1.3 billion and combined EBITDA of 210 million



Fluidra will remain listed on the Spanish stock exchange with its global headquarters in Sabadell (Barcelona), Spain and North American headquarters in Vista (San Diego), California



The merger is expected to close in the first half of 2018

BARCELONA, Spain and SAN DIEGO, Nov. 03, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fluidra S.A. (BME:FDR), a Spanish listed multinational group serving the residential and commercial pool and wellness sector, and Zodiac Pool Solutions (Zodiac), a global manufacturer of residential pool equipment and connected pool solutions, have agreed to merge.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/06e7912f-aba7-4fa9-9241-b4d0e8ca968f

The merger is expected to close in the first half of 2018. Fluidra will maintain global headquarters in Sabadell (Barcelona), Spain and North American headquarters in Vista (San Diego), California. Fluidra Executive President Eloi Planes will serve as Executive Chairman of its Board of Directors, while Zodiac CEO Bruce Brooks will serve as the companys CEO.

The combined company will keep Fluidras name and public listing on the Spanish stock exchange, employ a workforce of 5,500 dedicated pool industry professionals and operate an expansive global footprint stretching across more than 45 countries in North America, Europe, Australia, Asia, South America and Africa, with the US representing its largest market. Sales will total 1.3 billion with combined EBITDA of 210 million, improving margins and cash flow profile.

The merged organization will offer a significantly expanded product portfolio that includes some of the most widely recognized and respected global pool brands, including Zodiac, Jandy Pro Series, Polaris, AstralPool, Cepex, Gre and CTX Professional. Additionally, with its expanded resources, the new company will be positioned to accelerate innovation to meet market demand for more efficient, customer-focused solutions in growing fields like robotics and the Internet of Things.

Zodiac brings to the merger its strong position in North America and a dedicated focus on residential pool solutions, while Fluidra brings its strength in Europe, Australia, Asia, South America and Africa, plus a product portfolio that includes commercial as well as residential pool products. Combining these complementary geographical strengths and areas of expertise will result in a new organization able to offer innovative solutions on a global basis for the total pool market  from residential to commercial projects.

By combining Fluidra and Zodiac, we will build a strong and exciting platform from which to better serve our customers, develop user-driven sustainable innovations and create opportunities for our people and our dealers, said Fluidra Executive President Eloi Planes. This merger will create significant value for all our shareholders.

This will be a merger between two industry leaders with a shared customer-centered vision, a commitment to innovation and a clear and complementary set of values, said Zodiac CEO Bruce Brooks. We will have expanded reach into growing global markets and the ability to accelerate product development and better meet our customers needs worldwide.

The Boards of Directors of Fluidra and Zodiac unanimously support the formation of this new company. In connection with the transaction, Fluidras founding families have entered into a shareholders agreement with affiliates of Rhone Capital, current equity holders of Zodiac; these parties will respectively hold 29 percent and 42 percent of the combined companys shares at closing. This stable group of core shareholders is focused on value creation going forward, and has agreed to customary share transfer restrictions. The shareholders of the combined entity will be represented by an enlarged board of directors consisting of 12 members: four independent, four nominated by the founding families and four nominated by Rhone Capital.

The transaction is subject to the approval of Fluidra's shareholders, as well as other customary conditions including merger control clearances and the exemption by the Spanish stock market regulator (CNMV) of Rhone Capital launching a mandatory takeover bid following completion of the merger.

Citigroup is acting as financial advisor to Fluidra and Credit Suisse is acting as financial advisor to Zodiac. Garrigues is acting as legal advisor to Fluidra and Linklaters is acting as legal advisor to Zodiac.

About Fluidra

Fluidra is a Spanish listed multinational group devoted to the pool and wellness sector, with a focus on developing leading products and applications for the commercial and residential pool markets. The company operates via subsidiaries in 45 countries and under the leading brands of AstralPool, Cepex, CTX Professional and Gre. To learn more about Fluidra, please visit www.fluidra.com.

About Zodiac

Zodiac, a Rhone Capital portfolio company, is a global manufacturer of residential pool equipment and connected pool solutions. The company has a rich heritage of innovation excellence dating back more than 100 years, and markets its product lines under the leading brand names of Zodiac, Polaris, Jandy Pro Series, Nature2, Caretaker, SAVI, Grand Effects and Cover-Pools. To learn more about Zodiac, please visit www.zodiac.com.

About Rhone Capital

With over 20 years of investing experience, Rhone Capital and its affiliates comprise a global alternative investment management firm with approximately 5 billion in assets under management. The firm focuses its private equity investments in market leading businesses with a pan-European or transatlantic presence and global growth opportunities. Rhone Capital, which is currently investing capital from its fifth private equity fund, has invested in a diversified portfolio of companies including those in the chemical, consumer product, food, industrial packaging, specialty material, business services and transportation sectors.
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CALGARY, Alberta, Nov. 03, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On October 5, 2017, West High Yield (W.H.Y.) Resources Ltd. (the "Company") (TSXV:WHY) announced that it had signed a definitive arm's length purchase and sale agreement (the "Agreement") to sell 100% of its right, title and interest in its Record Ridge South, Midnight and O.K. mineral properties (the "Assets") to Gryphon Enterprises, LLC (the "Purchaser"), a limited liability company based in Maryland, USA, for a purchase price of US$750 million in cash. The Agreement provides that the Assets will be transferred by the Company to its wholly-owned subsidiary, and at closing all of the shares of the subsidiary will be transferred by the Company to the Purchaser. The Agreement is available for review under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.



This press release provides further details concerning the transaction contemplated by the Agreement.

Take-or-Pay Agreements

As stated in the Company's October 5, 2017 press release, the proposed transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including the Company having entered into before the closing of the transaction investment grade take-or-pay agreements in the form and on terms and conditions acceptable to the Purchaser, acting reasonably. Investors are cautioned that none of the terms of the take-or-pay agreements have been determined or agreed to by the Company and the Purchaser, including terms relating to product volumes, quality metrics, dates, dollar values, pricing requirements or purchaser credit requirements.

In addition, the Company and the Purchaser have not yet determined how the resulting contractual obligations and future commitments with respect to any take-or-pay agreements will be settled between the Company and Purchaser, or how any liabilities will be settled if the Assets fail to produce sufficient quantities and grade of materials in the time required to satisfy any commitments under any take-or-pay agreements that may be negotiated, which may result in the possibility of ongoing liability to the Company. To date, no take-or-pay agreements in a form acceptable to the Purchaser have been negotiated. If such agreements are not negotiated, the transaction contemplated in the Agreement will not proceed.

The Purchaser Has Not Obtained Financing

The Purchaser is a private limited liability company, formed under the laws of Oklahoma, U.S.A., for the purpose of acquiring the Assets. Stephen D. Cummins presently controls the Purchaser and serves as Managing Member of the Purchaser. Mr. Cummins has over 33 years of business experience and is known to principals of the Company.

Mr. Cummins has engaged a company (the "Arranger") for the purposes of completing the proposed transaction, as well as development of the mining and processing operations moving forward. In connection with the transaction, the Arranger executed a non-binding financing proposal letter, which financing would be used to satisfy the entire purchase price to be paid by the Purchaser under the Agreement and subsequent engineering, procurement, and construction of improvements of the Assets.

The Arranger analyzes and sources funding, but does not itself finance transactions, and is not a major bank/investment firm, or registered vehicle and has no firm commitments or arrangements to fund the transaction. The Purchaser has not obtained a commitment to finance the acquisition of the Assets from the Arranger or from any other source. There is substantial risk that the Purchaser may not be able to obtain financing necessary to complete the proposed transaction. The Purchaser does not have the financial resources to complete the proposed transaction contemplated in the Agreement without third party funding.

If any of the Arranger's and/or lender's conditions to financing cannot be satisfied, or if the financing cannot be otherwise obtained, the proposed transaction may not be completed in accordance with the terms of the Agreement, or at all.

As the Purchaser was formed for the purpose of acquiring the Assets, except for any deposit that may be paid by the Purchaser, the Company will have no practical recourse against the Purchaser in the event that the conditions in the Agreement are satisfied by the Company and the Purchaser is unable to complete the proposed transaction.

Other Conditions

The Agreement remains subject to all shareholder, securities and regulatory approvals and acceptances (as required) and all third party consents (as required) including, without limitation, the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.

The closing of the purchase and sale of the Assets is expected to occur on or before the date that is 90 days from the date that the last of the financing conditions is completed to the Arranger's satisfaction. The Company has the right to terminate the Agreement if closing does not occur on or before March 31, 2018.

Pursuant to Article 2.2.3 of the Agreement, the Purchaser is required to deliver a non-refundable deposit of US$500,000 on or before November 4, 2017. The Company has the right to terminate the Agreement if the deposit is not paid on or by November 4, 2017. As of issuing this press release, the Company has not received the deposit.

As a result of the significant conditions and contingencies described above, there can be no assurances whatsoever that the transaction contemplated in the Agreement will be completed on the terms contemplated in the Agreement or at all. If the transaction contemplated by the Agreement is not completed, the Company intends to continue its ongoing efforts to secure Mining and Rock Quarry Permits. If the transaction is completed, it is expected that the Company will distribute the vast majority of the proceeds from the purchase and sale to the Company's shareholders, while at the same time exploring other business opportunities.

Other Matters

In Article 7.7 of the Agreement, "Baker & McKenzie LLP", is referred to as Purchasers Counsel. The Purchaser advised the Company that Baker McKenzie LLP was identified in the Agreement in error, that it has not engaged Baker McKenzie LLP as legal counsel for the transaction and that Baker McKenzie LLP has no relationship with the Purchaser. The Purchaser has received advice in connection with the proposed transaction from Thomas J. Kenan, who is based in Houston, Texas.

While the Company believes based on testing done to date that the Assets contain a significant supply of magnesium, the statement made by the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company on October 5, 2017 that "if you calculate the three sections of land, there is about 3,000 years of supply of magnesium can be extracted from the property" should not be relied upon.

No finders fee is payable in connection with the proposed transaction.

Trading in the Companys shares was halted on October 6, 2017. After trading was halted, the Company has responded to regulatory inquiries concerning the proposed transaction and the Company. The Company intends to cooperate in connection with such inquiries.

The Company is in discussions regarding when its shares will resume trading.

About West High Yield

West High Yield is a publicly traded junior mining exploration company focused on the acquisition, exploration and development of mineral resource properties in Canada with a primary objective to locate and develop economic gold, nickel and magnesium properties.

For further information please contact:

Frank Marasco

President and Chief Executive Officer West High Yield (W.H.Y.) Resources Ltd.

Telephone: (403) 660-3488

Facsimile: (403) 206-7159

Email: frank@whyresources.com

Dwayne Vinck

Chief Financial Officer

West High Yield (W.H.Y.) Resources Ltd. Telephone: (403) 257-2637

Facsimile: (403) 206-7159

Email: vinck@shaw.ca

Reader Advisory

This is high risk transaction. The completion of the transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including but not limited to, TSX Venture Exchange acceptance. There can be no assurance that the transaction will be completed as proposed or at all.

The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. has in no way passed on the merits of the proposed transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.

Investors are cautioned that, except as disclosed in the information circular to be prepared in connection with the Company's annual and special meeting or as otherwise disclosed in the Agreement, any information released or received with respect to the transaction may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon. Trading in the securities of the Company should be considered highly speculative.

This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. The use of any of the words "expect", "anticipate", "continue", "estimate", "objective", "ongoing", "may", "will", "project", "should", "believe", "plans", "intends" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking information or statements. More particularly and without limitation, this press release contains forward looking statements and information concerning the satisfaction of the conditions to obtain the financing necessary to complete the proposed transaction, the satisfaction of other conditions related to the transaction (including receipt of TSX Venture Exchange approval), the anticipated closing date of the transaction, the Company's anticipated plans whether or not the transaction is completed and the resumption of trading in the Company's shares. The forward-looking statements and information are based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by the Company. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements and information are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward looking statements and information because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct.

Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking information. Some of the risks and other factors that could cause the results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking information include, but are not limited to: general economic conditions in Canada and globally; industry conditions, including governmental regulation; failure to obtain industry partner and other third party consents and approvals, if and when required; the failure of the Purchaser to obtain the necessary financing to complete the transaction; the availability of capital on acceptable terms; the need to obtain required approvals from regulatory authorities; stock market volatility; competition for, among other things, skilled personnel and supplies; changes in tax laws; and the other factors. Readers are cautioned that this list of risk factors should not be construed as exhaustive.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this forward-looking information, which is given as of the date hereof, and to not use such forward-looking information for anything other than its intended purpose. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

The TSXV has in no way passed upon the merits of the proposed transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.
PLANO, Texas - (Nov. 3, 2017) - J. C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE: JCP) today announced an organizational restructuring designed to streamline decision-making and promote greater agility within its merchandise buying teams.

In conjunction with this reorganization, the position of chief merchant has been eliminated and John Tighe will be leaving the Company to pursue other opportunities. Jodie Johnson, SVP and senior general merchandise manager of women's apparel, Sephora, salon, women's specialty, footwear and handbags; James Starke, SVP and senior general merchandise manager of men's apparel, children's apparel and jewelry; and Val Harris, SVP of product development and design, will be reporting to Chairman and CEO Marvin R. Ellison effective immediately.

Additionally, Tony Hurst, SVP and general merchandise manager of home, will have the added responsibility for custom window design and home services, as well as commercial sales, and will report to Joe McFarland, EVP of stores.

"Today's executive realignment reflects a growing need to ensure our Company remains nimble and flexible amid the constant change and transformation in the retail environment. I have the utmost confidence in our executive leaders who will continue to drive efficiency across their respective divisions, and will be empowered to make dynamic buying decisions based on real-time customer data. This simplified structure offers greater flexibility, which is critical to ensuring our assortment remains fresh and relevant, and compels more shoppers to choose JCPenney," said Ellison. "Additionally, I want to thank John for his leadership, service and loyalty to the Company over the years. One of John's greatest contributions to the Company are the leaders he groomed and developed during his time at JCPenney. We wish him success in his future endeavors."

Media Relations:

(972) 431-3400 or jcpnews@jcp.com; follow us at @jcpnews

Investor Relations:

(972) 431-5500 or jcpinvestorrelations@jcpenney.com

About JCPenney:

J. C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE: JCP), one of the nation's largest apparel and home furnishings retailers, combines an expansive footprint of approximately 875 stores across the United States and Puerto Rico with a powerful e-commerce site, jcp.com, to connect with shoppers how, when and where they prefer to shop. At every customer touchpoint, she will get her Penney's worth of a broad assortment of products from an extensive portfolio of private, exclusive and national brands. Powering this shopping experience is the customer service and warrior spirit of over 100,000 associates across the globe, all driving toward the Company's three strategic priorities of strengthening private brands, becoming a world-class omnichannel retailer and increasing revenue per customer. For additional information, please visit jcp.com.

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Canberra ceramics artist Anita McIntyre graduated from the Canberra School of Art in 1976 and since then has had nine major solo exhibitions and been part of countless more, both locally and overseas.

She has exhibited at the Beaver Galleries in Deakin for 20 years and has a new exhibition there now.

Artist Anita McIntyre with her work on show at Beaver Galleries in Deakin. Credit:Rohan Thomson

McIntyre could lay claim to being Canberra's first lady of ceramics.

Her latest exhibition , Stories, Family ,Place, at Beaver Galleries until November 19, continues "my exploration of family history that I call ' Home Country', my visual expressions of the Kimberley's (called my 'Heart Country') and visual explorations of the exotic Angkor Watt and the Mekong river"..
Canberra father and former Rebel Stephen Pattman was spared time behind bars on Friday after shooting at an ex-clubmate out the front of his house.

The shooting marked an acrimonious end to Pattman, 50, and his son's four year association with the outlaw motorcycle gang.

Christopher and Stephen Pattman leave the ACT Supreme Court earlier this year. Credit:Sitthixay Ditthavong

After the shooting, Pattman said he and his son Christopher, 29, fearing for their safety, were forced into hiding in a state forest, where they lived in a caravan for a year.

The two Pattmans joined the Rebels in 2010, in what the older man said was an effort to "protect" his daughter Chloe, the court heard.
When apprentice carpenter Bella Rogers began part-time study at CIT in August, she spent her first month working quietly at a workbench alone.

Bella's fellow students - all male - were so taken aback by her presence in the workshop they didn't quite know what to say to her.

Apprentice carpenter Bella Rogers was accepted to art school but decided on carpentry. Credit:Rohan Thomson

"It took about a month for the boys to start interacting and talking to me properly," Bella said.

"I think they were all just a little bit taken aback and also because I missed the first week it meant that they'd already met each other and formed friendships.
The ACT prison has a new starter in its bid to tackle an ongoing problem with drug taking about inmates.

In the last financial year, about three in 10 items found during searches at the Alexander Maconochie Centre related to drugs. That included syringes secreted in a coffee sachet, a bong made of an empty roll-on deodorant bottle, blue-tack and a hose; and wafers of buprenorphine.

Dog Handler Craig Tyrrell taking Uno 3 on the training course. Photo: Dion Georgopoulos Credit:Dion Georgopoulos

Detection dog Uno began work in May, but on Friday Corrections Minister Shane Rattenbury introduced him publicly.

Mr Rattenbury said Uno would improve "capacity to intercept illicit substances before they enter" the centre.
Fresh from being crowned Australia's richest person, the accounts of Gina Rinehart's private company Hancock Prospecting, reveal the stratospheric rise in her fortunes last year as the family's Roy Hill mine kicked into high gear.

The company doubled its net profit to more than $1.07 billion and unleashed a cash bonanza for its owners with a $767 million dividend.

The vast majority of this dividend, $587 million, will be paid to Rinehart who was listed by Forbes this week as Australia's richest person, after a recovery in iron ore prices boosted her estimated fortune to $US16.6 billion ($21.5 billion).

Hope Margaret Hancock Trust, which is now controlled by Rinehart's estranged daughter, Bianca Rinehart on behalf of her siblings, owns 24 per cent of Hancock Prospecting.
"We left the call frustrated with the lack of transparency from Tesla management," Jeffrey Osborne, a Cowen & Co. analyst who recommends selling the shares, wrote in a note to clients. "Elon Musk needs to stop over promising and under delivering and the board should rein in a CEO who publicly shares his aspirational goals that have rarely been hit." Tesla burned $US1.42 billion in cash in the third quarter. The carmaker is spending heavily on both its auto assembly plant and at its battery gigafactory, contributing to an adjusted lost per share of $US2.92 per share, worse than analysts estimated. Bottlenecks People from key teams at Tesla are now focussed on fixing bottlenecks that have hobbled production, said Musk, who held his earnings call at the Nevada battery factory where he and co-founder J.B. Straubel are spending their days and nights, even camping on the roof .

Despite earlier reports that it was the company's California assembly plant that was gumming up the works, it turns out the famed Gigafactory is the heart of the problem - which is bad news for other Tesla products. The main constraint holding back Model 3 output has been on the assembly line that packages battery cells at the gigafactory, which Musk blamed in part on a subcontractor that "really dropped the ball." Software had to be rewritten from scratch and mechanical and electrical elements of one area of the plant had to be redone. Speaking from the plant, he also faulted himself for picking the wrong subcontractor. He recalled being on the assembly line at 2 am on a Sunday to help diagnose robot calibration issues and said work was being done seven days a week to solve the problems vexing the gigafactory. "One should lead from the front lines and that's why I'm here," he said. The reallocation of resources to fix the facility's difficulties appears to be slowing down Autopilot, the Solar Roof, the Tesla Semi, and the Tesla Network.

"Tesla's cash burn is astounding, and time is ticking," said Salim Morsy, an electric-car analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. "They have some pretty urgent things to deal with, and we just don't have any visibility right now." Here are five key products still waiting to catch an elevator out of the inferno: 1.The Model 3 The "$US35,000 electric car" has been Tesla's top goal and marketing calling card for years. It's an important price point, competing with entry level luxury petrol-powered cars like the BMW 3 Series and the Mercedes C Class.

When you include a $US7,500 US tax credit, the price is cheaper than the average new US car and more in line with a well-optioned Toyota Camry. But on Wednesday's call with analysts, Tesla pushed back its timelines for the Model 3 by three months. And perhaps the biggest warning flag: Musk would no longer give a timeline on when Tesla would reach a production rate of 10,000 a week. Last quarter he was unequivocal on that point: "What people should absolutely have zero concern about - and I mean zero - is that Tesla will achieve a 10,000 unit production week by the end of next year." 2. The solar roof

A year ago this week, Tesla unveiled its remarkable solar shingles with much fanfare in Hollywood on an old set of "Desperate Housewives." It began taking deposits in May. There's still little indication of when the product might roll out. Tesla said things will move slowly in the coming quarter while it gets its new factory in Buffalo, New York, up and running. Then, the company said, the product will ramp up "in 2018." That's a wide window for customers trying to plan a roofing project. Perhaps a better indication of where things stand is this: Tesla's website currently shows job postings for 24 "lead roofer" positions - all in California. Each position, according to the descriptions, would be second-in-command of a small roofing team. Meanwhile, the amount of standard solar installations being done have dropped 42 per cent compared with the same quarter last year, just before Tesla bought SolarCity.

3. Autopilot A year after Tesla started charging $US8,000 for a feature called Full Self Driving, there's still no sign of a rollout of such features, and Musk hinted that a more powerful supercomputer may be needed to achieve its goal. On Wednesday, he said the current hardware can reach "approximately human-level autonomy." Musk concedes that the system will probably need to be significantly safer than the average human driver in order to achieve regulatory approval, so a hardware upgrade may be necessary.

"We'll have more to say on the hardware front soon, we're just not ready to say anything now," said Musk. As a consolation, anyone who has already paid for the option will get a free computer swap. Tesla said new features will be coming for its less-ambitious $US5,000 Enhanced Autopilot package in the next few months. Musk said the other hardware for autonomous driving-8 cameras, a radar and 12 ultrasonic sensors-will be sufficient. Other companies pursuing autonomous driving are also including expensive lidar kits. Musk was undeterred: "We are certain that our hardware strategy is better than any other option, by a lot." 4. Tesla semi Tesla was set to unveil its first all-electric long-range semi truck back in September. Then it was moved to October.

Then it was pushed until November 16, explicitly so that resources could be diverted to deal with Model 3 problems. Tesla reiterated the same unveiling date by press release on Wednesday. However, it's notable that such an integral and supposedly imminent product for Tesla didn't even come up on the analyst 5. The Tesla network
Chocolate makers' dependence on hazelnuts from a single major producer, Turkey, has sent Italy's food giant Ferrero searching for new suppliers to satisfy consumer cravings. Its search has taken it from eastern Canada and Chile to south-western NSW.

The farmer recruitment efforts of Ferrero, one of the world's biggest hazelnut buyers for its Nutella spread, may loosen Turkey's grip on the $US2.8 billion ($3.5 billion) industry, which is prone to volatile prices and tight supplies.

Turkey produces 70 per cent of the world's hazelnuts, leaving buyers such as Ferrero, Kraft Heinz, Mondelez International and Nestle vulnerable.

Last month, Ottawa contributed about $500,000 to a project testing tree varieties in the province of Ontario. Ferrero is helping fund the project and hopes to see farmers plant 25,000 acres of hazelnut trees by 2027, from about 400 currently.
Julie Vuong started her teaching career at Arthur Phillip High School in Parramatta, imparting the finer points of mathematics and science to students in Year 7 through 12. In what some might call an unexpected segue, she now also teaches Mandarin.

Passionate about languages, Vuong was recently awarded a NSW Premier's Kingold Chinese Language Teacher Scholarship to investigate how to redesign language learning environments.

Julie Vuong, left, visited Bubble Kingdom school in China.

"Learning a foreign language such as Chinese opens students' mindsets about global citizenship as they discover new thought processes, and develop inter-cultural understanding about the world," Vuong says.

On a study tour to visit schools in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Melbourne, Vuong met with language education leaders to discuss ideas on what contemporary 21st century learning environments encompass.
Being both young and politically active, members of the NSW Young Liberals are supposed to "get" social media, in the sense that they should be able to deploy it, if not to recruit actual supporters, at least to represent themselves in a way that doesn't invite mockery any greater than they may face already.

They failed at that this week or, to co-opt yoofspeak marginally more fluently than these youths themselves do, they had a social media "fail".

The Young Libs posted to Facebook a picture of two of their number eating Cornetto ice-creams with the caption "Quick #cornettocaucus to support Streets Ice Cream".

It was a riposte to the union campaign to boycott Streets, which has said it must change its workers' conditions to remain viable.
NEW YORK, Nov. 03, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Brookfield Global Listed Infrastructure Income Fund Inc. (NYSE:INF) and Brookfield Real Assets Income Fund Inc. (NYSE:RA) (each, a Fund, and collectively, the Funds) today announced that their Boards of Directors declared their monthly distributions.



Brookfield Global Listed Infrastructure Income Fund Inc. declared a monthly distribution of $0.0817 per share, payable on November 27, 2017 to stockholders of record on November 15, 2017. The ex-distribution date is November 14, 2017. Based on the NYSE closing price of $12.80 on November 2, 2017, the Fund's annualized distribution rate was 7.66%.

Brookfield Real Assets Income Fund Inc. declared a monthly distribution of $0.1990 per share, payable on November 27, 2017 to stockholders of record on November 15, 2017. The ex-distribution date is November 14, 2017. Based on the NYSE closing price of $23.92 on November 2, 2017, the Fund's annualized distribution rate was 9.98%.

Shares purchased on or after the ex-distribution date will not receive the distribution discussed above. Please contact your financial advisor with any questions. Distributions may include net investment income, capital gains and/or return of capital. The distribution rate referenced above is calculated as the annualized amount of the most recent monthly distribution declared divided by the stated stock price. Any portion of the Funds distributions that is a return of capital does not necessarily reflect the Funds investment performance and should not be confused with yield or income. The tax status of distributions will be determined at the end of the taxable year.

Brookfield Investment Management Inc. (the Firm) is an SEC-registered investment adviser and represents the Public Securities platform of Brookfield Asset Management, Inc., providing global listed real assets strategies including real estate equities, infrastructure equities, multi-strategy real asset solutions and real asset debt and diversified real assets. With more than $15 billion of assets under management as of June 30, 2017, the Firm manages separate accounts, registered funds and opportunistic strategies for institutional and individual clients, including financial institutions, public and private pension plans, insurance companies, endowments and foundations, sovereign wealth funds and high net worth investors. The Firm is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management, Inc., a leading global alternative asset manager with approximately $250 billion of assets under management as of June 30, 2017. For more information, go to www.brookfield.com.

Brookfield Global Listed Infrastructure Income Fund Inc. and Brookfield Real Assets Income Fund Inc. are managed by Brookfield Investment Management Inc. The Funds use their website as a channel of distribution of material company information. Financial and other material information regarding the Funds are routinely posted on and accessible at www.brookfield.com.

COMPANY CONTACT

Brookfield Global Listed Infrastructure Income Fund Inc.

Brookfield Real Assets Income Fund Inc.

Brookfield Place

250 Vesey Street, 15th Floor

New York, NY 10281-1023

(855) 777-8001

funds@brookfield.com
The decades-long debate about the preferred size of the Australian economy has stifled a more important debate about the preferred shape of the economy. The fight over energy policy, for example, is not really a fight over the size of our energy sector, or the size of the economy; it is a fight about the kind of energy supply we want more of and the kind of energy supply we want less of. It's not complicated.

Most people want more investment in renewables and some people want more investment in coal-fired power stations. Given that we don't need both, the political fight about which technology to invest in will have a lasting effect on the shape of our economy. It's no different from the debate about removing trams from Sydney back in the 1960s and the debate about building light rail in Canberra in 2015. All investment decisions "create jobs", but only some investment decisions build the society most of us want to live in.

It wasn't the global markets that reshaped our morning, our cities, and our caffeine intake, it was us. Credit:Glenn Hunt

When it comes to our personal lives, we all know it's the quality of our spending decisions, not the amount of money we spend, that matters. For example, when buying clothes, most people choose clothes in the style they like and in a size that fits. And while it's possible to simply tell the shop assistant you would like $1000 worth of clothes, most people would think that's a bit odd. It's the same with ordering food at a restaurant. While you could walk in and order one kilogram of dinner, or $100 worth of dinner, most people choose instead to specify the kind of food they want to eat. The point of the menu is to present us with valid choices; it's our job to match what we feel like with what we spend. Again, it's what we buy, not how much we buy, that matters.

But when it comes to the economy, Australians have been told for decades that as long as the amount of stuff getting bought is growing, we must be doing well. While there is no doubt that opening new asbestos mines would lead to an increase in GDP in Australia, there is no evidence that selling more of something that harms us would make us "better off".
Yvonne Burney, who has died aged 95, was the youngest female SOE agent to be parachuted into wartime France, where she organised one of the largest daylight air drops of arms to the resistance, before being betrayed, arrested by the Gestapo, and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp. She was born Yvonne Jeanne de Vibraye Baseden in Paris on January 20, 1922. Her British father, Clifford Baseden, had served as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War, only to crash land not far from the Chateau de Frescines, north-west of Blois. Her mother, Antoinette de Vibraye, was the volunteer ambulance driver who was sent to fetch him from hospital after his wounds had been dressed; she brought him back for dinner to the chateau, where romance blossomed. Young Yvonne was educated in various European countries until the age of 14, when she arrived in England and attended St Mary's Priory School, Tottenham, until she was 16. When she heard de Gaulle's call to arms on June 22, 1940, she volunteered to join the Free French but was rejected by de Gaulle "as mademoiselle was born of an English father". This was a grave disappointment for a girl whose "thoughts and hopes", as she recalled, "were already in my beloved France".

Jeanne Brousse said she did not know any Jews before she began rescuing them as a young clerk at her local prefecture in Nazi-occupied France. "I felt horrified by the atrocious fate likely to befall all these innocent victims whose only 'mistake' was to have been born Jewish," she once told the historian Martin Gilbert. "I was determined to find solutions so that the greatest number of those who came to me could be saved." Mrs Brousse, who in 1973 was named Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, died on October 19 at a nursing home in Annecy, the Alpine town near the Swiss border where she conducted her life-saving wartime work. She was 96. Her son Denis Brousse confirmed her death and said he did not yet know the cause. As one of the Righteous Among the Nations, Mrs Brousse was among the more than 26,000 gentiles recognised by Yad Vashem for having risked their safety, while seeking no reward, to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust.
Patrick (Pat) Brazil, AO, was head of the Attorney-General's Department from 1983 to 1989. He was the last career lawyer to rise through the ranks to head the department. In today's environment and public service culture, that's unlikely to happen again.

Brazil served and advised 17 attorneys-general from Sir John Spicer to Lionel Bowen. He was one of Australia's leading international and constitutional lawyers. He took these skills into private practice after he left the public service in 1989.

Pat Brazil in 1993, then chairman of the Calvary Hospital board. Credit:Bleuy Thomson

He also made a significant contribution to the Canberra community. He was the inaugural chairman of the Calvary Hospital Board and held the position for three terms, totalling nine years. He was president of the Telopea Swimming Club for four years and its patron for 25 years.

He was a devout Catholic and sang in the St Christopher's Choir for many years. He possessed an excellent singing voice and a repertoire that extended well beyond the liturgical. He was an active participant in a number of Catholic charitable organisations.
The Filipino businessman was in effusive mode, extolling the many virtues of Rodrigo Duterte, controversial president of the Philippines since mid-2016 and rivalling Donald Trump for the sheer unorthodoxy of both the style and substance of his rule.

"He's brought a sense of purpose and confidence  just look at the investment flowing in," he said with a flourish of his hands, adding that his own import-export business had never known better times.

We are sitting in an airport bar in Singapore waiting for the flight to Manila, and I tell him I am going on a short visit for some academic work. Things have changed since my last visit, pre-Duterte, in 2015, and I venture some concerns about rising levels of violence.

A brief frown clouds his face and he asks me where I am staying in Manila. I tell him and he smiles. "You really don't have to worry about EJK there. Just relax and enjoy," he says, raising his glass in salutation.
Good Samaritans on Manus Island trying to deliver food to hungry refugees are being turned away by the military, lawyers say, warning that the men are "starving" and a full-blown humanitarian crisis is unfolding.

It comes as New Zealand's new Labour government confirmed that nation's long-standing offer to accept 150 refugees from Manus Island was "still on the table", and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten urged Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to accept the proposal.

More than 600 hungry, exhausted, mosquito-ravaged men continued their stand-off with authorities at the now-closed Australian-funded regional processing centre on Manus Island on Friday, refusing to leave for fears over their safety on the outside.

An injunction application is before Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court chief justice that, in the short-term, would force PNG to reopen the facility and provide food, water and electricity, and eventually transfer the men to a safe third country. It will be heard on Monday morning.
When I was a child, I was so shy and timid, I barely spoke. I was well into adulthood before I began to talk enough to have conversations. And now I can't shut up.

Silence is golden. Credit:Stocksy

Words are powerful. Sometimes hurtful and damaging. I went from a quiet, thoughtful girl to a bitter, angry wife and mother. My own mother was angry and loud, always yelling. I never wanted to be like that.

I recently read a meme that says, "Anger is a sign that something has to change". Damn straight.
Australian-based crime syndicates are increasingly taking the lead role in importing massive shipments of drugs into the country after sourcing the substances from cartels through Central and South America.

In announcing the arrests of five people allegedly involved in the attempted importation of methylamphetamine (ice) and cocaine worth $200 million, the state's top organised crime investigator said on Friday that the international drug trade was changing.

"There is no doubt in my mind that the organised crime environment in NSW has changed so that we are now part of a transnational network of crime and we are affected by that," Organised Crime Squad Commander, Detective Superintendent Scott Cook said.

"This is no different. This is another example of how Australians, who are principals in a conspiracy, are able to tap in to the world's supply and bring drugs to Australia."
Australia's health ministers have unanimously agreed to tighten regulations for cosmetic surgery that will target doctors who call themselves "cosmetic surgeons" with no specialised accreditation.

At the COAG meeting on Friday, federal health minister Greg Hunt said a new national approach would protect patients seeking cosmetic procedures.

Jean Huang, 35, died after suffering a cardiac arrest at her beauty clinic. Credit:Facebook

"They will have better advice, better protection and better standards that will be dealt with through the medical board of Australia," Mr Hunt said.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the crackdown would focus on doctors who "dressed themselves up as cosmetic surgeons" with inappropriate or no qualifications.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter arrives at Avalon. Credit:Joe Armao According to Amnesty International, in 2016 the world spent $US1.69 trillion on the military, with the US Pentagon issuing $US304 billion in contracts to corporations including Lockheed Martin and Boeing. But how transparent is Australia's defence spending internationally? In December 2016, Christopher Pyne visited Saudi Arabia and met with senior members of the regime, including the head of the National Guard. A Freedom of Information (FOI) request, filed in April by the Australian group, The Medical Association for Prevention of War, found that Canberra was looking to expand the reach of its domestic defence sector and had no issue selling equipment with dual use (for either military or civilian purposes). The government refused to give a full list of companies accompanying Pyne. Christopher Pyne and a delegation of Australian defence firms meet high-ranking Saudi officials headed by National Guard Minister Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah in Riyadh in December 2016. Credit:Twitter Saudi Arabia is already the world's second biggest purchaser of weapons. The Trump administration recently signed a $US350 billion arms deal with Riyadh for the next 10 years.

Saudi Arabia launched military action against Yemen's Houthi rebels in 2015 and the humanitarian situation in what was already the poorest country in the Middle East has rapidly deteriorated. At least 10,000 civilians have been killed, cholera ravages millions of citizens and Saudi Arabia has been accused of committing war crimes by human rights groups. In October the UN included the kingdom on a blacklist for killing and injuring children (though the UN has previously backed down on similar steps under Saudi pressure). A girl is treated for a suspected cholera infection at a hospital in Sanaa, Yemen, in July. Credit:AP Britain has refused to support a United Nations investigation into atrocities because it could affect trade and weapons sales and in July Britain's High Court backed London's arms sales to Saudi Arabia as legal. Charity War Child UK has claimed that British arms companies have earned more than 6 billion ($10.3 billion) from trade with Saudi Arabia since the Yemen conflict began (Holland banned such sales in 2016). Australia has refused to condemn Saudi actions in Yemen. The heavily redacted FOI revealed that there was discussion during Pyne's December trip of the Royal Saudi Naval Force eastern fleet expansion with a budget of $26 billion (Australian shipbuilder Austal accompanied Pyne on his visit), talk of the Tasmanian, Incat-designed and built aluminium catamaran damaged by a Houthi attack off the coast of Yemen in October 2016 and consultation about a future submarine program (though whose was not clear). Boys stand on the remains of a house destroyed by Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen in August. Credit:AP

I asked the Australian Department of Defence for further information on any dealings with Saudi Arabia and was told that "Defence does not release the details of export approvals due to commercial-in-confidence restrictions. Exports of military equipment and technology to Saudi Arabia were assessed in line with Australian export control provisions." Then Greens senator Scott Ludlam was one of the only parliamentarians who questioned Australia's dealings with Saudi Arabia. He told Fairfax Media that he could find nobody in the Labor Party to support his enquiries into Pyne's trip. Greens leader Richard Di Natale told me that he condemned Australia's "military-industrial complex": "Why promote Australia as a global arms dealer when we could be revitalising our manufacturing industry around new energy technology?" The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is one of the world's leading researchers on conflict and armaments. Its latest figures, for the period 2010-2016, showed ships as the biggest Australian export, along with aircraft, missiles and armoured vehicles. The list of customers included Papua New Guinea, Oman, the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Singapore and the United States.

I asked the Department of Defence to whom they were selling defence equipment. They said that no export licences were granted between January 2015 and the present day to Myanmar (currently engaged in ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya, according to the UN), but during the same period dual-use equipment and technology was sold to the United Arab Emirates and Israel. Yemen coalition: King Salman of Saudi Arabia, left, with UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. Credit:AP The UAE stands accused of committing abuses in Libya and Yemen while Israel has been condemned by the UN and human rights groups for war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. An Australian intelligence company, iOmniscient, is selling surveillance equipment to the brutal Bahrain dictatorship. Canberra is already one of the world's biggest importers and exporters of small arms. The federal government's 2016 Defence White Paper outlined a $200 billion investment over the next 10 years. Canberra promotes its wares at events such as this year's Defence and Security Equipment International conference in London, though protesters greeted the tens of thousands of participants. Pyne said in July that his ambition was for Australia to "enormously increase that capacity and send a lot more weapons overseas to appropriate countries and appropriate places of course. We simply wouldn't do so willy-nilly. We have a particular process for that."

He says that current contracts are worth $200 billion in the coming years. That's a massive expansion of defence exports from 2003/2004, when they amounted to just under $600 million. The move was slammed by World Vision Australia chief Tim Costello, who questioned whether Australia should be "exporting death and profiting from bloodshed  Do we really want that to be what people think of when they see the brand 'made in Australia'?" Australian ambassador to the US Joe Hockey appears with Lockheed Martin chief executive Marillyn Hewson via video link before Christopher Pyne's tour of the Lockheed Martin office in Carlton, Melbourne, in August. Credit:Joe Armao The federal government states that export applications are granted against the following criteria: international obligations, human rights, regional security, national security and foreign policy. The government's Global Supply Chain program gives exclusive access to Australian companies to enter into close commercial relationships with, and provide vital parts to, Lockheed Martin, Rheinmetall, Northrop Grumman, Thales, Boeing, BAE and Raytheon. Some of these corporations have unprecedented access to decision making in the Trump administration, with the US President filling key roles in Homeland Security and the Pentagon with defence contractors. However, Barack Obama sold more weapons globally than any US commander-in-chief before him.

Australia's ambition to expand its defence sector is intimately tied to the growth of the world's biggest weapons companies on Australian soil, despite them being connected to some of the world's major conflicts and controversies. Thales is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the European Union's increasingly militarised border policies and Lockheed Martin is supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia. Lockheed Martin refused to answer my questions about its role in Australia despite its presence growing by the year (including the establishment of a research facility at the University of Melbourne, praised by Pyne). Lockheed Martin chief executive Marillyn Hewson shakes hands with a Saudi dignitary. The defence firm signed a $US6 billion letter of intent to build 150 Black Hawk helicopters in the kingdom. Credit:AP But Australia's goal of becoming a global weapons dealer may be futile. SIPRI's senior researcher Siemon Wezeman has closely studied Australia's defence policies and questions their stated aims. "To be honest, I don't see Australia becoming a major arms exporter in any near future," he told me. "The list of exports in the last decade gives not the greatest reasons to be optimistic about exports of major weapons from Australia, the more so since the new-produced weapons listed are not very advanced and are not niche weapons. Australia has no comparative advantage and many other countries produce or can produce them cheaper."
The Health Department will cut jobs for the second time this year as it sheds 55 staff and moves hundreds more employees into the Department of Social Services.

Health's public servants learnt of the overhaul on Thursday afternoon as the department starts to transfer hundreds of staff over several years into Social Services, which will take over its grants administration work.

New Health Department boss Glenys Beauchamp. Credit:Vince Caligiuri

Among staff leaving Health in the latest shake-up, the department has identified 55 positions it won't need after the restructure.

Department first assistant secretary Donna Moody told employees that redundancies would be forced on staff that Health could not redeploy.
HAMILTON, BERMUDA, November 3, 2017 - DHT Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:DHT) ("DHT" or the "Company") today announced that it has appointed Susan Reedy to its board of directors as a Class I Director with a term expiring at the Company's 2020 annual meeting of shareholders. In connection with Ms. Reedy's appointment, the size of the Company's board was increased to six directors.

The appointment of Ms. Reedy as a director is in accordance with the Investor Rights Agreement ("IRA") entered into between the Company and BW Group Limited on April 20, 2017. Pursuant to the IRA, BW Group is entitled to nominate two persons to the Company's board. Ms. Reedy is the second person to be nominated by BW Group as a director.

Erik Lind, DHT's Chairman, stated: "We are very pleased to have Susan join the DHT board. Her background and experience significantly augment the workings of the board to the benefit of DHT."

Ms. Reedy has over 17 years of corporate legal experience. She is currently Head of Legal - Special Projects for BW Group and served as Deputy Managing Director & General Counsel of BW Ventures from 2011 to 2016. Prior to that, Ms. Reedy was associated with Conyers, Dill & Pearman, where she advised shipping and energy clients, and with the corporate department of Owen Bird. Ms. Reedy received her Juris Doctor and Bachelor of Arts degrees from the University of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada) and studied international law at the Utrecht University (Utrecht, Netherlands). She is called to the Bar in Bermuda and Canada and has served on the Women's Oil & Gas Council Committee as well as on the boards of various private companies. Ms. Reedy is a resident of Bermuda and citizen of Canada.

About DHT Holdings, Inc.

DHT is an independent crude oil tanker company operating a fleet of crude oil tankers in the VLCC and Aframax segments. We operate through our wholly owned management companies in Oslo, Norway and Singapore. For further information: www.dhtankers.com.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release may contain assumptions, expectations, projections, intentions and beliefs about future events. When used in this document, words such as "believe," "intend," "anticipate," "estimate," "project," "forecast," "plan," "potential," "will," "may," "should" and "expect" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements but are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements. These statements reflect DHT's current views with respect to future events and are based on assumptions and subject to risks and uncertainties. Given these uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements represent DHT's estimates and assumptions only as of the date of this press release and are not intended to give any assurance as to future results. Investing in DHT's securities involves risk, and investors should be able to bear the loss of their investment. For a detailed discussion of the risk factors that might cause future results to differ, please refer to DHT's Annual Report on Form 20-F, filed with the SEC on March 23, 2017.

DHT undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements contained in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the forward-looking events discussed in this press release might not occur, and DHT's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements.

CONTACT:

Erik A. Lind, Chairman of the Board

Phone: +44 7717 538 337

E-mail: erik.lind@tuftonoceanic.com
Sophie Monk's Tasmanian stalker is the first person jailed under the state's mandatory sentencing laws for assaults on police.

James Scott McCabe, of Beauty Point, appeared in the Launceston Supreme Court on Thursday having pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer in June last year by striking him to the head with a bat and punching him four times.

McCabe was convicted of stalking Sophie Monk by sending her violent and sexual messages on social media.

McCabe was handed an eight-month suspended sentence in 2015 for stalking Australian celebrity Sophie Monk  by assaulting the police officer, he breached that sentence.

Acting Justice Pierre Slicer told the court on Thursday the 2016 attack was serious enough to warrant the mandatory minimum sentence of six months. The court heard the officer was off work for four days following the incident and suffered ongoing headaches.
The man who killed aspiring pastry chef Miming Listiyani squared his shoulders, addressed her father and stammered out an apology for a crime he barely recalls.

"I never meant any of this to happen," Khanh Thanh Ly said. "I don't expect you to forgive and I don't want you to forgive me, but I'm sorry."

Miming Listiyani, 27, had just returned to Australia from overseas. Credit:Facebook

Then he lowered his head and began to shake.

Ly, a drug ring lieutenant connected to the Bali Nine, has pleaded guilty to the murder of his ex-girlfriend.
That sales job could prove to be tougher than usual, given some Liberal MPs are now openly questioning the merits of their own government's policies that would result in thousands of more homes built in their electorates. Senior government minister David Elliott this week warned of a voter backlash in his Baulkham Hills electorate, after developer Mulpha unveiled its plans for a $3 billion redevelopment of Norwest Business Park which could accommodate as many as 20,000 residents. "This is going to be a huge state election issue  it is the only issue that my constituents are talking about in my electorate, and I know several other MPs have concerns also," he told The Sunday Telegraph. And Drummoyne MP John Sidoti says he will refuse to back the government's plan to rezone the Rhodes East precinct for high-rise development of 3600 homes, unless a new school and transport upgrades are provided first.

"My community is saying Rhodes is at capacity," he says. "If they want my support, that's what I want. I want the community benefit of the infrastructure to go in first." Their comments dovetail with a widely held sentiment revealed last month by a Fairfax ReachTell poll, which found an astonishing two-thirds of NSW residents believe Sydney is "full". Labor has recognised the political capital to be tapped from the vein of overdevelopment and has made clear it wants planning strategy to be an election battleground. It has mounted an offensive against the government's core planning process of "priority precincts", which identifies an area as a priority for more density (often around a train station) and accelerates the rezoning process. Opposition planning spokesman Michael Daley has promised to immediately junk the priority precincts scheme if Labor wins power in 2019, describing them as "just a cheap and nasty mass rezoning". He has also committed to "shredding" the government's marque strategy of rezoning around 11 stations along the Sydenham to Bankstown corridor, which snakes for 13 kilometres through Labor heartland.



The rezonings are expected to deliver at least 35,000 new homes over the next two decades, but so far the government has made no commitments towards accompanying infrastructure such as new schools and health centres.



The government plans to rezone around 11 stations along the Sydenham to Bankstown corridor. As part of the corridor strategy, the government has classified four areas along the line as priority precincts  Canterbury, Campsie, Belmore, and Lakemba  which will be rezoned to allow 25-storey apartment towers. It's the stomping ground of federal MP Tony Burke, who joined Labor's attack this week, hosting an overdevelopment forum in Campsie. The corridor strategy stood to "jeopardise" every aspect of the community, he told the 300-strong crowd. "Any planner ... who thought they could pick our community because we wouldn't know how to campaign and we wouldn't know how to complain, has another thing coming." The plans are also being fiercely resisted by Labor-dominated stronghold of Canterbury-Bankstown council, now the state's largest council with 350,000 ratepayers.

"We will not accept this," Labor mayor Khal Asfour says. "We know how to deliver change but these precincts are a tragedy. "I want [the Department of Planning] to tell me how 25-storey towers are supposed to make those centres better places." The Greater Sydney Commission, an independent body responsible for shaping long-term planning strategy for Sydney, has estimated the city will need about 725,000 extra homes over the next 20 years as the city's population climbs to 6 million. And in updated plans released last week, the commission held firm on mandating Sydney councils to find a way to deliver almost 200,000 new homes by 2021, assigning each council five-year housing targets. Planning Minister Anthony Roberts has been swift in his riposte, accusing Labor of wanting "to condemn Sydney to a decade of high house prices, low growth, congested infrastructure, and lower quality of living".

"Mr Daley must come clean  where will he house 2.1 million new residents?" Labor is also quick to point out that its heartland suburbs are being forced to absorb the bulk of the population growth, while some blue ribbon areas have much more modest targets and others are left largely untouched. Canterbury-Bankstown, for example, must find room for 13,250 more homes over the next five years. Woollahra and Hunters Hill, albeit much smaller communities, need only to provide 300 and 150 new dwellings, respectively. For its part, the government is backing the Greater Sydney Commission's 40-year vision for Sydney as three connected cities, where homes, jobs and services can be accessed within 30 minutes. The commission believes reshaping Sydney from a CBD-centric city into a triparted metropolis  comprising a western parkland city, west of the M7; a central river city around greater Parramatta; and an eastern harbour city  will enable 70 per cent of Sydney's projected population of 8 million people access to the "30-minute city" by 2056. But some urban planners are sceptical about the feasibility of the three-city approach, which is contingent on the concentration of growth and jobs around western Sydney.

The idea of beefing up western Sydney is not new, says Professor Peter Phibbs, head of urban and regional planning at the University of Sydney. "[The government] has said the same thing in strategy for 25 years and the number of jobs we've turned up in western Sydney is pretty small. "You can zone things for employment uses but if employers don't want to go there, there's not much you can do about it." The Grattan Institute's John Daley believes this is "the big concern" with the commission's vision. The decline of manufacturing and the shift towards a service-driven economy, where businesses conglomerate near the centre of cities, means the government's ability to change the outcome "is relatively limited", he says.

For the most part, the government is pinning is hopes on the slated Badgerys Creek airport to transform western Sydney's economy, hoping it will generate as many as 60,000 direct jobs. While construction is expected to begin next year, the bulk of the jobs won't come until after it opens in 2026. Dr Marcus Spiller, director of planning firm SGS Economics and Planning, says the commission's plans are the latest in a string of metropolitan strategies that have been commissioned by successive government since 2005. "What is it about our state and our city that means we make good plans but we don't seem to be able to stick to them and deliver them on the ground," he says. The problem, as he identifies it, is one of fractured governance, where planning is hampered by government departments operating as silos. A better model for city planning, he says, is through a metropolitan system of government, such as the Greater London Authority, led by mayor Sadiq Khan. Unlike the commission, it has strategic control over transport, policing, economic development, and fire and emergency planning.

Minister Roberts believes the biggest challenge is not implementation, or even density per se, but "one of public relations". "The challenge is convincing a sceptical electorate in a combative atmosphere of the value and need of these polices," he told an economic forum last week. The scale of the political challenge facing the Berejiklian government was evident at a fiery community meeting in Marrickville Town Hall a fortnight ago. More than 350 people filled the auditorium to hear details of a development proposal by property giant Mirvac to convert the industrial precinct of Carrington Road into a strip of high-rise residential apartment towers. The project is an audaciously ambit bid  a string of 20 buildings some as high as 100 metres tall, well beyond the government's own suggested height limits for the area. Midway through a council bureaucrat's slideshow presentation, a heckler disrupted proceedings.
His casket of burnished gold was adorned with a mass of white lilies and roses and, as the strains of Leonard Cohen's classic Hallelujah drifted out of the church, a thousand sombre mourners gathered to pay their respects to mafia boss Tony Sergi at his funeral at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Griffith on Friday.

Referred to as the "The Operator" by the Royal Commission into Drug Trafficking for his chief role in the Griffith marijuana industry, Mr Sergi's grand send-off was in stark contrast to the unknown resting place of Donald Mackay, whose execution Mr Sergi was alleged to have ordered.

Tony Sergi's gold coffin, covered in white flowers, is taken out of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church on Friday. Credit:Andrew Meares

The body of the anti-drugs campaigner, who disappeared in 1977, has never been found.

Born in the Calabrian town of Plati in Italy in 1935, Antonio Sergi, a local winemaker, came to national attention when Justice Philip Woodward handed down the final report of the Royal Commission into Drug Trafficking.
A "devout terrorist" has been given a lengthy jail sentence after he and two other males pleaded guilty this year to conspiring to commit a terrorist attack in Sydney.

Sulayman Khalid, 22, was the co-ordinator of the plot that planned to target police, an Australian Federal Police building and Lithgow jail.

Sulayman Khalid was jailed for a maximum of 22 years and six months. Credit:SBS

The conspirators had acquired three guns and ammunition and had access to another four firearms from one of their family members.

In the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, Justice Geoffrey Bellew said Khalid organised meetings, issued instructions and promoted extremism as he organised the plot over a six-week period, from November 7 to December 18, 2014.
Alan Baxter-Piggford and Toby Melville-Brown are lucky to tell their story after they were rescued from the water at Seven Mile Beach on Friday.

The two men were dragged 200 metres offshore after being caught in rip between Shoalhaven Heads and Gerroa.

Alan Baxter-Piggford and Toby Melville-Brown are lucky to tell their story after they were rescued from the water at Seven Mile Beach. Credit:Hayley Warden

Emergency services responded to a call at approximately 2.30pm.

"We discovered two people about 200 metres offshore unable to get themselves back," said Shoalhaven LAC acting Inspector Ian Griffin.
An asylum seeker on Manus Island has detailed the deteriorating conditions at the controversial former detention centre during a protest in Brisbane on Friday night.

A large crowd gathered at King George Square and listened as Walid Zazai, speaking via a telephone call from Manus Island, described the struggles of the 600-odd men who remain at the now-decommissioned detention centre.

Protesters gather at King George Square in Brisbane to show their support for refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island. Credit:Amy Mitchell-Whittington

We are in a dark place, he said.

People are laying down on the floor and are we are struggling with serious hunger and have not eaten since Tuesday.
If the field of cranes dominating Melbourne's skyline is any indication, the apartment construction boom is continuing unabated.

There are a record 165 cranes operating in Melbourne  everywhere from Altona to Hawthorn and Fairfield  according to planning website Urban Melbourne.

A Multiplex building site on Collins Street. Credit:Eddie Jim

The number has surged 18 per cent this year, driven by commercial developments particularly in the city, the website said.

Tower cranes employed on commercial projects have more than doubled to 21 this year, including those at the former National Mutual Life Centre on Collins Street and at the Mobil refinery in Altona.
Perth retailers will open their doors for extended trading hours over the Christmas period, after years of campaigning by both retailers and shoppers.

Extended trading hours will begin on December 5 and finish up on New Year's Day, and the new prescribed hours are good news for early birds wanting to get their Christmas shopping out of the way.

Perth will have extended trading hours for Christmas. Credit:Paul Jeffers

The State Government approved changes will see most Perth metropolitan general retail shops open between 7am and 9pm on weekdays, rather than its existing hours of 8am and 9pm.

One of the biggest changes will see Sunday trading hours significantly lengthened from 11am to 5pm to between 8am and 6pm.
The year 12 physics WACE exam has sparked outrage after students claimed the exam was "harder than expected".

Perth mother Sathi Kunjan expressed her frustration in a letter, slamming what she called the exam's lack of consistency.

Students about to commence exams. Credit:Anna Warr

"It was unbelievable," she said.

"Physics is very objective, there is a right and a wrong answer - I don't see why they've got to create such enormity of difficulty in order to test the students.
Partnering with The Great Lakes Coffee and The Coda Coffee Company, bext360 Launches Pilot Program using the bextmachine to Trace Coffee from Uganda to Denver, Colorado

Partnering with Moyee Coffee Company, bext360 Launches Full-scale Production Program Using bext-to-brew Platform and Crypto-tokens to Trace Coffee from Ethiopia to Amsterdam and Payments Made to Ethiopian Coffee Farmers

DENVER, Nov. 03, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- bext360, a company that develops technologies to streamline critical supply chains in emerging economies, today announced two programs with three partners in Africa, Europe and North America to produce the worlds first blockchain traceable coffee, as well as use blockchain to trace payments made to coffee farmers. bext360 has partnered with the Great Lakes Coffee, a Uganda-based coffee exporter and Coda Coffee, a Denver-based coffee roaster, to launch a pilot program using the bextmachine to trace coffee from Uganda to Denver, Colorado in the U.S. The second program with Moyee Coffee, the worlds first FairChain coffee brand based in Ethiopia and Amsterdam, will be in production for four months long and generate revenue. It will use the bext-to-brew platform to trace coffee from Ethiopa to Amsterdam, as well as payments made to coffee farmers in Ethiopia.

Tracing Coffee from Eastern Uganda to Colorado with the bextmachine



The first pilot program will start on November 1, 2017 by sourcing coffee through Great Lakes Coffee in Eastern Uganda, and exporting the product to Coda Coffee in Denver, where the coffee beans will be roasted and sold to consumers. During the pilot, the bextmachine will be deployed in Uganda with Great Lakes Coffee farming partners who will deposit their coffee cherries for analysis at washing stations, where they will also be paid for their harvest. From this collection point, the product will be tracked and analyzed beginning at the washing station all the way to Coda Coffee in Denver, where the coffee will be roasted and available for purchase. The bextmachine links the coffee cherries to special crypto tokens tracking the produce across its lifespan through the different nodes of the supply chain.

The bext360 platform enables all stakeholders  farmers, roasters, and consumers  to access data across the entirety of the supply chain. This data enables complete analysis of the supply chain to identify supply chain inefficiencies, and allow more compensation to farmers who produce higher quality coffee cherries, and provide more visibility for consumers.

Tracing Coffee from Ethiopia to Amsterdam and Payments Back to Ethiopian Farmers with the bext-to-brew platform

The four-month long revenue generating program with Moyee Coffee will begin on November 6, 2017 by sourcing coffee in Ethiopia and providing proof of living-wage payments made to the farmers, all traced and immutable within the blockchain. For this entire coffee harvesting season in Ethiopia, all of Moyees coffee will be fully blockchain-traceable from the washing station in Ethiopia to its retail and wholesale customers in Europe. The collaboration with bext360 makes Moyee the first European coffee brand to introduce fully blockchain-traceable coffee.

Moyee will be providing confirmation data from the producers and farmers at the different points of collection, which will be inputted into bext360s bext-to-brew platform, which is powered by Stellar.orgs blockchain technology. All of this coffee informationfrom origin, quality, to purchasers to payoutsare recorded in the bext-to-brew platform, which links the product to special crypto tokens tracking the produce across its lifespan.

Additionally, the ledger is designed to help keep down overhead costsreplacing paper carbon copies and other inefficient record-keeping methodswhile making the financials easier to audit. For consumers, bext360 provides unprecedented levels of transparency around origin and quality; and allowing, for the first time, a coffee drinker in Europe to pull up this data and verify exactly where her coffee was sourced.

About bext360

bext360 develops technologies that strengthen local businesses and communities in emerging economies by increasing access to capital and streamlining critical supply chains. bext360s bext-to-brew platform revolutionizes the coffee supply chain with IoT, blockchain, machine vision and artificial intelligence while bringing consumers and farming communities together to improve product quality, community livelihoods and the consumer coffee experience. The bext360 technology builds upon the fundamental shift in mobile access, microfinance, and mobile/digital payments in developing countries. A guiding principle of bext360 is to build community by enabling buyers and other organizations with direct paths to improve the quality of both the product and the communities that provide the coffee. For more, please visit www.bext360.com

About The Coda Coffee Company

When your heart and soul is poured into your craft there is a drive that elevates all aspects of what you do. From sourcing the best beans in the world to roasting and delivering an award-winning (2014 Roast Magazines Macro Roaster of the Year) coffee, our cadence is excellence, our drive is to always be better. Every aspect of our craft is diligently nurtured. After all, this is our lifes work. For more, please visit www.codacoffee.com

About The Great Lakes Coffee

Great Lakes Coffee (GLC) is a leading family owned business in East Africa, with over 60 years coffee trading heritage. GLC, based in Uganda is a green coffee sourcing, milling and exporting company. For more, please visit: www.greatlakescoffee.co.ug/

About Moyee

Moyee is the worlds first FairChain coffee brand. Based in Amsterdam and Addis Ababa, the provocative coffee company is on a mission to transforming global coffee into a radically fairer and more transparent industry. Unprecedented in the coffee industry, all of the value-added aspects of Moyees coffee production take place in Ethiopia, including roasting in the country of origin. And because Moyee pays coffee farmers 20% above the market price, they have access to the countrys best coffee. The unique combination of uncompromised coffee and a progressive social and economic agenda is behind the companys tagline: Radically good coffee with radical impact. A cult coffee brand in The Netherlands, Moyee recently introduced its FairChain coffee to Ireland. Further expansion in Europe awaits. For more information, see www.moyeecoffee.com
Fort Bragg, North Carolina: Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl has been dishonourably discharged from the Army by a military judge, but has received no prison time for desertion and endangering troops, ending a drama that began more than eight years ago in war-torn Afghanistan.

At the sentencing hearing, the military judge, Colonel Jeffery R. Nance of the Army, also reduced his rank to private and required him to forfeit $US1000 ($1300) a month of his pay for 10 months. The sentencing on Friday, local time, took only minutes. The judge entered the courtroom, read the verdict, and then left.

The sentence will be reviewed by General Robert B. Abrams, who convened the court-martial, and has the power to lessen the punishment. If the final sentence still includes a punitive discharge, it will then automatically be reviewed by the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals.

Bergdahl was 23 and a private first class when he walked off his base in eastern Afghanistan in June 2009. Army investigators would later characterise his departure as a delusional effort to hike to a larger base and cause enough of a stir that he would get an audience with a senior officer to report what he felt were problems in his unit.
Washington: Senate Democrats have demanded an explanation from Attorney General Jeff Sessions over why he did not disclose a March 2016 gathering with then-candidate Donald Trump and members of his campaign team at which an adviser offered to set up a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Sessions' participation in the gathering was detailed in court documents released Monday by special counsel Robert Mueller III. The adviser who offered to set up the meeting was George Papadopoulos, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, according to the documents.

Sessions had not previously disclosed the meeting, despite being asked over multiple appearances on Capitol Hill whether he or anyone on the campaign ever discussed meeting with Russians.

"This is another example in an alarming pattern in which you, the nation's top law enforcement officer, apparently failed to tell the truth, under oath, about the Trump team's contacts with agents of Russia," Senate Judiciary Committee member Al Franken wrote Thursday in a letter to Sessions.
Bangkok: Ten weeks after Myanmar's army embarked on a ruthless crackdown that has driven more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims from their homes, the country's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi finally visited the scene, telling people not to "quarrel".

From her helicopter, she would have been able to see scores of incinerated villages, but the military has insisted that Rohingya burnt their own villages as they fled. Burmese state media has accused them of fleeing to Bangladesh to tarnish Myanmar's reputation.

Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi arrives in Sittwe, Rakhine state on Thursday. Credit:AP

"I hope everything will go fine as local villagers handle the rebuilding process," Ms Suu Kyi told the residents of Pan Taw Pyin village, according to the New York Times. "We all have to try our best to live peacefully."

The scolding from the Nobel laureate known as The Lady, came as powerful US lawmakers proposed targeted sanctions and travel restrictions on Myanmar military officers accused of orchestrating atrocities that human rights group say amount to crimes against humanity.
In Communist times, Russians celebrated the October Revolution on November 7 (after it began measuring the date by the "new" Gregorian calendar). Tanks and rockets rumbled through Red Square before everyone sat down to pelmeni (dumplings), mayonnaise-drenched salads and vodka, followed by family arguments about history. A woman takes a selfie with a statue of Lenin in a forest near Razliv Lake, outside St Petersburg. Credit:AP Now Russians have a different November holiday, on the 4th, when they remember a distant thrashing of the Poles as their "Day of National Unity". Unity is the theme Putin would like Russians to focus on until April, when the vote in the presidential election will be in, and (probably) he will have been re-elected for another six years. In that context, remembering the overthrow of the Tsar is simply not helpful. A worker uses a water sprayer to wash a statue of Lenin ahead of the centenary. Credit:AP

The Russian Revolution started in February 1917, when autocratic Romanov Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate and a Menshevik (liberal minority) government began reforms. After Vladimir Lenin, leader of the more revolutionary Bolsheviks (majority of the split Russian labour party) returned from Swiss exile to Petrograd, the Communists seized power in October (by the old calendar). Tsar Nicholas and his family were murdered in Yekaterinburg in 1918 and Russia descended into a brutal civil war between reds and whites, which lasted until Communist victory in 1922. A wave of emigres fled to the West, including Sergei Rachmaninoff, who went down in history as both a Russian and an American composer. Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to prolong his tsar-like rule without any turbulence from below. Credit:Kremlin Pool Photo via AP In Mikhail Gorbachev's time, Russians were encouraged to think of Stalin as the real monster while Lenin was still more or less a saint. In fact, however, the terror began under Lenin. It accelerated under Stalin, leading to purges in the 1930s when millions of Russians were executed or sent to the gulags. Many of them were true believers in the ideal of equality that had been hijacked by the violent and unscrupulous.

Workers install an armoured car with the Bolshevik slogan 'Vrag Kapital' (The Enemy of Capital), similar to the one Lenin used to address the crowd during 1917, in the yard of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg earlier this month. Credit:AP Mixed feelings "My great-grandfather Ilya Veger was an old Bolshevik," writer Ludmilla Petrushevskaya posted on Facebook. When two of Veger's children were sentenced to "10 years without the right of correspondence" (code for being shot) in 1937, he kept the faith, Petrushevskaya went on. "In 1947, my great-grandfather went to the NKVD [forerunner of the KGB] at the Lubyanka [jail] and said: 'Ten years without the right of correspondence. So now, where are my children?' On November 8, the old man was knocked over by a bread van on Gorky Street. He was 84 years old."

The post received 186 likes. Ada Gorbacheva commented: "A routine horror story. Does anyone want to go back there?" Officially, the authorities may not be doing much to commemorate the 100th anniversary but Russians are talking about their revolution on the internet. Alexei Burmistrov, a dentist in Moscow, shared the story of his great-grandfather, Kuzma Makarovich, who was a red commissar. "In 1937, he was arrested. And shot. They arrested him at night, in winter. Men in leather coats came to get him. They said a vehicle had broken down and they needed help. They told him to dress warmly and bring a saw. Our relatives never saw him again. "Later it was explained to them that was an NKVD joke: 'dress warmly because you are going to Siberia to cut wood'. He didn't get to cut wood. The decision to shoot him was signed by Stalin. To be more exact, Stalin signed a whole book with a list of the doomed. He put a flourishing signature on the first page."

Subversion Alexei also shared a photograph of a wall fresco by an anonymous artist that recently appeared in Moscow. The subversive graffiti appears to be a jolly street scene, showing an outlet of KFC under a red-and-white awning and a turquoise bread van. But if you look more closely, and recognise what you see, the letters NKVD appear beside the KFC sign and the jaunty bread van driver is wearing a militia uniform. (Bread vans were used as a cover to take people away.) The message is that painful history lies just beneath the surface of today's reality. Subversive street art in Moscow is a reminder of the Soviet era, when people would be taken away in bread vans.

"The problem is with the people's memory," said Alexei. "The USSR was divided between those who sat (in prison) and those who guarded them. With the years, those who sat, and their children and grandchildren, are becoming fewer than those who did the guarding." But Russia's intellectuals are determined not to let history be erased. Project 1917 is an attempt by journalist Mikhail Zygar to show all sides of the story. His website is cleverly formatted like Twitter, with real quotes of the day from historical figures. On October 24, 1917, Alexandra Kollontai, the only woman in Lenin's government, tweeted: "The resolution of the Central Committee has chosen the course of 'AI': armed insurrection is unavoidable. The time is ripe. The decision was taken during a closed session. Dawn finally dispelled the tension in the air. We realised we were hungry. The samovar was brought in, cheese, sausage " The journalist Mikhail Zygar, left, with staff on Project 1917 in Moscow. Credit:New York Times

With foreboding, Duke Gavriil Konstantinovich tweeted from Petrograd: "We stayed home and saw few people. I went to the Marble Palace to visit Mama. Our friends and acquaintances came to visit us as if nothing had changed. Money was tight, and we were forced to sell some of our things. In the evening on the feast day of our regiment, I put on my uniform. I very much desired to celebrate by being in uniform. I dared not, however, go outside, as those in epaulets were much harassed." Harassment turned into decades of horror and it was not until after Stalin's death in 1953 that his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, finally exposed the cult of personality in a secret speech to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party in 1956. This fell well short of the Nuremberg trials and process of repentance that Germany went through after the defeat of the Nazis, but veteran Russian TV journalist Vladimir Posner said recently the 20th Congress was sufficient admission of guilt. Putin as Brezhnev? These days, busts of Stalin are appearing in Russia. Taxi drivers have never stopped using Stalin as a talisman, remembering him not as a mass murderer but as the leader who won the Great Patriotic War (World War II).

The failure to bury the corpse of rogue Communism (literally, because Lenin's body still lies in its Red Square mausoleum) has meant modern Russia has not built a new society on firm foundations. Gorbachev and his successor Boris Yeltsin were hampered in their attempts to reform the country by those harking back to Soviet ways. Despite having been in power for over 17 years, Putin has not really changed much  just silenced his opponents and fallen out with the West. Russians are back in the sovok, a slang word meaning both a Soviet-style society and a dustpan. Some are happy to live in a land of false nostalgia, others not. Anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny hopes to run against Putin in 2018 but will probably be barred from the race. Now socialite and TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak has thrown her hat into the ring. Many see her as a spoiler candidate, blessed by the Kremlin. In all likelihood Putin will cheat retirement despite having reached the age of 65.
An Australian teenager has been arrested in Lebanon after local authorities suspected him of trying to enter Syria to join Islamic State, officials say.

The 18-year-old from Sydney was caught by the Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF) two days before his planned departure to Syria, according to an official statement.

Since his arrest he has been divulging details of Australian ISIS fighters, as well as Australian supporters and financial backers of the terror group.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has confirmed to Fairfax Media that it is providing consular assistance to an Australian man in Lebanon, but owing to privacy rules "will not provide further comment".
PHILIPSBURG:--- The Dominica Foundation St. Maarten (DFS) is inviting all Dominicans residing on St. Maarten/St. Martin to join them as they celebrate Dominica 39Th Independence Anniversary. The celebration will be held on Sunday November 5, 2017, activities kicks off with a church service at the Roman Catholic Church in Philipsburg at 8:00am, all Dominicans are encouraged to attend wearing their traditional/folklore outfit. Following the church service, persons can proceed to the Telem parking lot (across the University of St. Martin) where there will be various Dominica Breakfast dishes on sale from 8:00  11:00am.

The celebration continues with a Car Rally, the rally route begins at Cole Bay (entry to the Causeway Bridge/Bellevue) - Union Road - A.J.C. Brouwers Road - Bush Road - Walter Nisbeth Road (Pondfill), ending at the Telem parking lot. All vehicles are asked to be there by 2:30pm in order to line up; the rally begins at 3:00pm sharp. There will be Dominica specialty dishes and beverages available at the Telem parking lot after the Car Rally.

Due to the passing of Hurricane Maria which devastated Dominica, the morale of Dominicans throughout the island and the diaspora has been heavily affected. Dominicans are known for their patriotism which they display proudly during our Independence celebrations, usually there are various activities taking place in Dominica during the celebrations such as Creole day, Independence Rally, Creole in the Park and the World Creole Festival; unfortunately most of these events are cancelled due to the damages sustained from Hurricane Maria. Even though the island is mourning; we are a resilient community who are doing our best to not only build back our island of residence, St. Maarten/St. Martin but also our island of birth Dominica. We are hoping to lift the spirits of our fellow Dominicans and to reassure them that we made it through the storms and we will rebuild both St. Maarten/St. Martin and Dominica again, stated President of the Foundation, Mr. Clayton Felix.

DFS is looking forward to a grand turnout on November 5th, 2017.

DFS Press Release
PHILIPSBURG:--- Prime Minister William Marlin tendered the resignation of his cabinet to Governor Eugene Holiday on Thursday afternoon following the motion of no confidence against himself and the other ministers.

Marlin also presented a draft National Decree to the Governor to dissolve Parliament. Once signed, the Parliament of Sint Maarten will be dissolved on January 31, 2018. To make this possible, elections for a new Parliament will have to be held.

Marlin says that the voters of Sint Maarten will now have to decide how to move forward. A one-seat majority government is not good for the people of Sint Maarten at this time when the country is faced with a national disaster following the catastrophic devastation brought on by Hurricane Irma.

We need a stable government that can rely on a comfortable majority in Parliament.

Hiding behind the ongoing discussions between himself and the Dutch Government about the conditions set to receive aid was used as excuse to give the government a vote of no confidence. The real reasons are clear to everyone.

The Democratic Party has been trying for several months already to break the government as Wescot-Williams wants to be Prime Minister of Sint Maarten again, at all cost, even at the expense of the people of Sint Maarten. She has gone as far as to use the hurricane to get this accomplished.

The offer of the Prime Minister to the leaders of the UP, Mr. Theo Heyliger, Mrs. Wescott Williams of the DP and Mr. Frans Richardson of the USP was not really entertained.

Parties met on Wednesday at the Parliament Building and shortly thereafter at the Cabinet of the Governor.

All 4 leaders agreed in the presence of the Governor to continue talks aimed at the formation of a National Government.

William Marlin pointed out to the others that the proposal for a National Government was not for him to remain in office as Prime Minister. He even proposed the name of a non-political person with an impeccable record and extensive knowledge of and experience with government, who Marlin says he believes has the support and confidence of all parties.

That seemingly didnt sit well with Wescott-Williams as her mission is to return as Prime Minister.

Following the meeting with the governor and the promise to continue talks to form a National Government, the Chairlady of Parliament returned to the meeting and reopened the meeting as if no consultations had been held.

Marlin said that again he needs to stress and point out, that he had never refused aid. What the ongoing discussion with the Dutch Government had been about all along, was the conditions the government in Holland was attaching to aid. No amount was ever mentioned. Marlin said that it is not him nor his government that was holding up aid, it had been the Dutch government all the while because they wanted to use the devastation caused by the hurricane to get their way with two issues that had nothing to do with aid.

Marlin said that he continues to be committed to the people of Sint Maarten like he has always been.

During the weeks ahead, it will become clear all what the attacks on the Prime Minister had been about. After exposing the present Minister of Social Affairs, suddenly tarpaulins are now available to the same people they were holding hostage for weeks. Ans as the days go by, more and more will be exposed.

Press Release from Prime Minister William Marlin
ORANJESTAD, St. Eustatius:--- I have taken note of the newspaper article regarding a recent speech by former Dutch Minister and current Vice-President of the Council of State, Piet Hein Donner.

In the article, Mr. Donner is quoted, among other things, as having compared Sint Eustatius' legal attempts to stop the Government of the Netherlands from violating international law and to force it to allow Sint Eustatius to run its own affairs with its United Nations-mandated full measure of self-government to the Catalonian approach. Being an experienced exponent of a long line of prominent and well- respected legal minds, Mr. Donners statements highly surprised me, since they seem to be out of touch with the Dutch and international legal reality and jurisprudence.

I do fully agree with Mr. Donner's assertion that it is particularly in the interest of small political units that relations are based on the rule of law, and not power. This is exactly why Sint Eustatius is applying the rule of (international) law to counter the power which the Government of the Netherlands is unjustly wielding over the populations of the islands.

Without getting into the Catalonian issue, I would like to point out that Mr. Donner, as have critics of the current coalition government of Sint Eustatius, completely misrepresents the position which the government of Sint Eustatius has taken. The motion adopted by the Island Council on May 9th, 2017, never set aside Dutch legislation, as Mr. Donner and others put it. It merely resolved that (elements of) Dutch legislation which is/are in violation of higher international legislation like the UN Charter, is/are non-enactable, because it/they is/are automatically overruled/annulled by said higher international legislation. This position finds its legal basis partially in verdicts of the Dutch Supreme Court, and I will gladly share the extensive documentation supporting Sint Eustatius position with Mr. Donner.

Mr. Donners opinion that structures do not solve problems but policies and good governance do, is just that, an opinion to which he is entitled. Other than that, it is irrelevant in the current context of international (constitutional) law.

Since Mr. Donner is making comparisons, allow me to make one of my own. A quick review of documented history will show that Mr. Donners arguments to leave things as they are, which basically means leave the (former) colonizing power in charge, are almost verbatim the same arguments and words used by the Dutch Government towards Indonesia in the 1940s, and the South African government during the period of Apartheid.

I specifically refer to a secret memorandum by then Dutch Minister of Colonies Charles Welter about Indonesias quest for independence dated August 10th, 1940, as quoted in Inge Klinkers dissertation De weg naar het Statuut: het Nederlandse dekolonisatiebeleid in de Caraiben (1940-1954) in vergelijkend perspectief. In said memorandum, Mr. Welter states the following:...wij zijn bijvoorbeeld gewend, den leiders onzer zeventig miljoen rijksgenooten overzee met volle overtuiging voor te houden dat een afzonderlijk volksbestaan, los van de straffere ordening der rijkseenheid, volstrekt niet tot het hoogst bereikbare goed is, met name waar het heil der groote massa des volks.... Welter continued by stating:...dat wij van huis uit vertrouwd zijn met de gedachte dat, in grooter verband bezien het geestelijk en stoffelijk welzijn der menschheid niet onder alle omstandigheden het meest wordt benaderd op de basis van het volstrekt eigenmeesterschap van een aantal raciale en cultureele eenheden.... He concluded by stating:...dat er voor Indie geen aannemelijker politieke situatie denkbaar zou zijn dan de huidige: een geleidelijk proces van zelfstandigwording onder de milde voogdij van een hoog ontwikkeld, handeldrijvend, ongewapend volk als het Nederlandsche....

What happened in and with Indonesia since Mr. Welters memorandum is well known, also to Mr. Donner who, coincidentally or not, represents the successor of Mr. Welters political party the KVP, namely the CDA. I again express the hope that the Government of the Netherlands has learned from its mistakes and misjudgments of the past, and wont repeat them seventy years later.

Regrettably, Mr. Donners recent statements seem to indicate the opposite, as he is holding on to colonial positions taken by the Government of the Netherlands before the establishment of the UN Charter and the decades of decolonization which have followed. As a comparison, can one imagine any politician nowadays stating that women and/or minorities should not have voting rights, without instantly putting an end to his or her career?

If Mr. Donner wants to make a valuable contribution to the (legal) discourse regarding Sint Eustatius position, be it in his formal capacity of Vice-Chairman of the Dutch Council of State or a titre personnel, I suggest that he reviews the 36 questions which were sent to the IPKO by the Sint Eustatius government coalition on June 22nd, 2017, and provides the answers based on his vast legal knowledge and experience. Perhaps Mr. Donner could also use those answers and the documentation supporting Sint Eustatius position as the basis for a future public address, which I would be more than happy to attend.

Finally, in his letter to the Executive Council of July 5th, 2017, former Minister Ronald Plasterk confirms that the Charter of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (het Statuut) and all its adaptations comply with the requirements of the UN Charter. As such, he acknowledges the fact that the Government of the Netherlands is bound by international law to allow the Government of Sint Eustatius to run its own affairs with a full measure of self-government, and without any interference in accordance with the UN Charter and relevant resolutions.

Clyde I. van Putten

Leader of Government of St. Eustatius
Restored print to premiere Nov. 4 as part of UCLA Film & Television Archive Exhibition

A single 35 mm nitrate print had screened in New York City in 1934 and then been placed in a vault. But where did it go?

In September 2016, Jan-Christopher Horak, director of UCLA Film & Television Archive, was searching for material germane to the Archive's research project, Recuerdos de un cine en espanol: Latin American Cinema in Los Angeles, 1930-1960, and noticed a promising film title: Romance Tropical.

A single 35 mm nitrate print had screened in New York City in 1934 and then been placed in a vault belonging to the Krypton Corporation, the contents of which the Packard Humanities Institute (PHI) acquired in 2008. Shortly thereafter, PHI added the material to its collection at UCLA Film & Television Archive. UCLA motion picture archivist Todd Wiener confirmed that the title was produced in Puerto Rico and was possibly the first sound feature film from the island.

Horak followed up with colleagues in Puerto Rico to determine if the title in question was the same Romance Tropical (1934) for which archivists in their country had been searching for more than 80 years. Other than a few photos, a poster and newspaper articles from its initial release, nothing was thought to have remained of the film. In February 2017, a representative of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, Jose Alfredo Hernandez-Mayoral, travelled to Los Angeles to inspect the print and confirmed it was the long-lost film.

Puerto Rican film pioneer and Hollywood veteran Juan E. Viguie produced Romance Tropical and many famous Puerto Rican citizens worked on the movie, including screenwriter Luis Pales Matos-one of the founders of Afro-Antillano poetry, which blends words from Afro-Caribbean culture with the Spanish verse of Puerto Rico. The film also features the work of composer Rafael Munoz, the island's most famous big band leader.

"The serendipitous rediscovery of Romance Tropical is one of the major accomplishments of our present efforts to find and preserve classic Latin American cinema," said Horak.

"Finally finding Romance Tropical is a wonderful motivator as we make efforts to recover after the devastating passage of Hurricane Maria on our beautiful island. As we watch the film, we have the opportunity to see the Puerto Rico of the 1930s, and to be reminded that, as before and as always, Puerto Rico will rise," said Carlos R. Ruiz Cortes, executive director, Institute of Puerto Rican Culture.

A fundraiser reception benefitting Puerto Rico's National Archive will be held at the tranquil courtyard AMMO Cafe following the film. Enjoy fresh, locally-sourced Puerto Rican inspired fare and drinks. DONATION of $50.00 -Each reception attendee will receive a complimentary ticket to the film screening at 7:30 p.m. For tickets visit: bit.ly/RomanceTropical

The original camera negative for Romance Tropical remains missing. Due to the production's inexperience with new sound technology, the surviving 35 mm print had significant inconsistencies in portions of the audio track. PHI re-recorded the soundtrack and produced a new preservation negative and two new 35 mm prints. PHI will repatriate a print to the island when the Archivo de Imagenes en Movimiento has recovered from Hurricane Maria.

The newly restored Romance Tropical will premiere on Saturday, Nov. 4 as part of UCLA Film & Television Archive's ongoing exhibition, Recuerdos de un cine en espanol: Latin American Cinema in Los Angeles, 1930-1960, which celebrates the Spanish-language film culture of downtown Los Angeles. For decades beginning in the 1930s, a vibrant Spanish-speaking cinema culture thrived in downtown Los Angeles where venues such as the Teatro Electrico, the Azteca, the Mayan and the Million Dollar Theatre were home to popular movies from the golden age cinemas of Mexico, Argentina, Cuba and other Latin American countries. The Archive's 38-film retrospective runs through Sunday, Dec. 10, 2017 at its theatrical home, the Billy Wilder Theater, and at the Downtown Independent, the former site of the Azteca.

Puerto Rican film pioneer and Hollywood veteran Juan E. Viguie produced Romance Tropical and many famous Puerto Rican citizens worked on the movie

Recuerdos de un cine en espanol is part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles, taking place from September 2017 through January 2018 at more than 70 cultural institutions across Southern California. Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty. The presenting sponsor is Bank of America.

UCLA Film &Television Archive is renowned for its pioneering efforts to rescue, preserve and showcase moving image media and is dedicated to ensuring that the collective visual memory of our time is explored and enjoyed for generations to come. A public arts unit of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, the Archive is a unique resource for media study and one of the largest repositories of moving image materials in the world. The Archive is well known for its moving image restoration efforts, and many of its projects are invited to screen at prestigious events around the globe, as well as screening locally at UCLA's Billy Wilder Theater.
Lt. Col. Oscar Gomez Cifuentes was an army battalion commander accused of human rights violations

Demobilized members of the ELN (National Liberation Army) arrive in Cali, Colombia. Individuals pictured were not involved in this story.

Deportation officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) on Tuesday removed a former Colombian national army battalion commander accused of human rights violations.

Retired Lt. Col. Oscar Gomez Cifuentes, 53, was implicated in five killings in Colombia that allegedly occurred while he was the commander of Infantry Battalion 43 Efrain Rojas Acevedo. These allegations relate to a disputed report stating that five persons were killed by the battalion during a confrontation at a Colombia ranch in November 2007. This incident was among other incidents reported by military units as "positive" killings of guerrillas in combat; but later these killings were alleged to have been executions committed outside of combat. Such killings are referred to as "false positives."

Between 2008 and 2014, Gomez was admitted into the United States three times as a temporary non-immigrant visitor through New York and Miami. He departed as required the first two times, but he overstayed his visa in 2014. On April 4, 2017, a federal immigration judge ordered him removed back to Colombia; Gomez appealed that decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA).

On June 10, 2017, ERO Miami officers assigned to ICE's Fugitive Operations Team arrested Gomez, and he was taken into custody pending his appeal to the BIA regarding his removal order. However, on Aug. 24, 2017, he withdrew his appeal.

This case was litigated by ICE's Office of the Chief Counsel in Miami with the support of the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center (HRVWCC).

The HRVWCC was established in 2009 to further ICE's efforts to identify, track and prosecute human rights abusers. It leverages the expertise of a select group of agents, lawyers, intelligence and research specialists, historians and analysts who direct the agency's broader enforcement efforts against these offenders.
KANSAS CITY, Mo., Nov. 03, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Caravan Health, the nations leader in Accountable Care Organizations, will host a webinar New Hampshire Rural ACO: Change is Hard, But Required on Tuesday, November 7 at 10:00 a.m. PT/1:00 p.m. ET. Attendees may register here.



Following Caravan Healths outstanding achievements in clinical and financial ACO performance, Greg Paris, Caravan Health vice president and general manager of ACO programs, will present a case study showing how one of Caravans leading ACO partners more than quadrupled its per patient savings and attained a near-perfect quality score. The webinar will feature several of New Hampshire Rural ACO's leaders where they will discuss the strategies they implemented to achieve physician buy-in, equip and motivate staff to change behavior, increase savings, and attain excellence in quality reporting.



The participants of New Hampshire Rural ACO completely altered the trajectory of their health system, said Greg Paris. By following our playbook, the group increased physician engagement, attained $150 in savings per patient in 2016 and are on track to achieve $667 in savings per patient in 2017.



New Hampshire Rural ACO is part of Caravan Healths 2016 first year ACO partners that together, accounted for 37 percent of shared savings among new ACOs in 2016, and are included in the 90 percent that are on track to reduce spending in 2017.



Panelists include:

For more information about the webinar and Caravan Health, visit caravanhealth.com/upcoming-events/.



About Caravan Health

Caravan Health helps providers implement population health programs with affordable, end-to-end solutions that achieve outstanding results. For more information about Caravan Health and its services, visit caravanhealth.com.

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/575c752e-9cde-49f3-ac61-e9a161b181cf
Evolved Intelligence Signalling Firewall Wins Security Solution of The Year at Global Telecoms Awards

Posted by Publisher Telecommunication

Evolved Intelligences SS7 and Diameter Signalling Firewall received industry-wide recognition last night at the 2017 Global Telecoms Awards in London, picking up the award for Security Solution of the Year. This event, held in the heart of London, celebrated excellence and innovation in the global telecoms industry.

Evolved Intelligence is the world leader in signalling firewall, enabling over 50 operators including two Tier 1 European groups. Evolved Intelligences Commercial Director, Peter Blackie, accepted the award on behalf of the company.

We are delighted to have won this prestigious award and to also see the industry acknowledge the importance of signalling security. Over the last couple of years, we have seen more and more operators recognise the importance of securing their signalling network, so its great that excellence in this area is being rewarded.

When asked why he believes Evolved Intelligence won the Security Solution of the Year award, Peter continued: In our experience the innovative architecture and features of our firewall, as well as the advanced analytics and the intuitive user interface at the heart of the system, help operators to effectively manage traffic and rapidly respond to any new threats or suspect patterns of behaviour. This allows our customers to stay one step ahead of the criminals and ensure that their networks stay safe for years to come.

The Global Telecoms Awards is described as the premier event recognising innovation and excellence in the global telecoms industry, celebrating achievements in a variety of telecoms areas.
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If you have not read Ron's book then you do not have the whole story about what I have been doing to try to get my clients out ofGuantanamo. Ron kept up with my activities and even followed me around on occasion to get the full story... then he weaved my story in with the stories of other individuals who are concerned with the direction of the United States. I recommend the book to all of you out there who also care about the direction that the US has gone these past eight years and want to work to change things.
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The list could go on - with Google, or Alphabet, as the company now calls itself, and others. What they all have in common are growth rates that would be impossible in the analog economy. And that they have amassed a dangerous amount of power - which is why they are increasingly facing political pushback.

Shifting Mood

It wasn't that long ago that EU efforts to limit the power of Google and Amazon on the European market were decried in the U.S. as protectionism, as an attempt by the Europeans to protect their own inferior digital economy. Now, though, politicians and economists in the U.S. have even begun discussing the prospect of breaking up the internet giants. The mood has shifted.
The ongoing coalition haggling is all the more embarrassing because the German government will soon be hosting the 2017 Climate Change Conference in Bonn. Angela Merkel will speak there in front of the more than 10,000 delegates and again use the appearance for a display of climate policy hypocrisy, just as she did this spring at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin, when she said: "We have committed ourselves to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius and, if possible, to 1.5 degrees." With respect to Germany, she said that only a few details needed to be ironed out.

Those details are now being discussed in complicated coalition talks. They involve uninspired energy experts from the conservatives going up against hyper-ambitious Greens, on the one hand, and FDP negotiators who are stuck in the past on the other. People like Hermann Otto Solms, 76, who still regrets Merkel's 2011 decision to phase out nuclear energy.

Leadership on Global Markets

The promises of a fossil-fuel phaseout, one might think, are actually quite attractive for Germany, the world's sixth-largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions. A country that shifts completely to renewable energy sources obviates the need for expensive commodity imports and eliminates reliance on regions of the world that are beset by instability. It creates future oriented jobs and ensures technological leadership on the global markets.

There is a lot to criticize about the management of Germany's shift to renewable energies, but the overall direction is the correct one: power plants that transform wind and sun into electricity can now be built at the same cost as coal-fired facilities. "And these prices will continue to fall, which is why the new construction of fossil-fuel power plants will cease worldwide," says Felix Matthes, from the Institute of Applied Ecology in Berlin.

Developments seen at the four large energy companies that have supplied Germany with coal-generated electricity for decades illustrate the phenomenon. E.ON and RWE, for example, have shifted their conventional energy production facilities to a kind of bad bank and are moving into the new energy era with large wind and solar parks in Germany and abroad.

Nobody wants to build new coal-fired power plants, because a wind turbine or solar panel, once it has been installed, produces electricity for nothing, in theory at least. The sun doesn't send an invoice, as an old slogan from the 1990s environment movement had it. Most of the costs for green energy that are added to electricity bills are largely a product of the Renewable Energy Sources Act, passed 17 years ago. The 25 billion euros collected annually as a result essentially represent a down payment on the energy revolution.

'A Welcome Project'

In the future, the largest profits will be earned from new ideas for the powering of homes, heating systems and electric automobiles. Engineers will be vital in developing those ideas, but so too will software developers - seemingly a golden opportunity for the FDP, which placed digital issues at the center of its campaign. "For a party that wants to be seen as modernizers like the FDP, the shift to renewables should really be a welcome project for the future," says energy expert Matthes.

That is particularly true of the automobile industry, which provides jobs to 800,000 people in Germany, according to the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA). German carmakers are currently behind when it comes to the development of electric vehicles. Instead, the newcomer Tesla is paving the way, along with battery producers in Japan and South Korea.

Yet a climate-friendly realignment at Daimler, BMW and co. could actually secure those jobs moving forward. A little noted study performed by the European Climate Foundation, produced in cooperation with the VDA, recently reached the surprising conclusion that jobs in the automotive industry need not be lost in the shift to electromobility. But to make sure they are not, steps must be taken to bring, for example, battery production to Germany.

This prognosis will only become reality if politicians and leading German automobile manufacturers take courageous steps when it comes to, among other things, researching and producing the next generation of batteries. Yet the FDP remains opposed to even explicitly including the term "electromobility" in the coalition agreement now under negotiation. Even the FDP, though, can read in the internal government paper that there is likely no way around it. The paper reads: "To reach the 2030 sectoral emissions targets in the area of transportation, an increased reliance on electromobility is doubtlessly necessary."
New York, Oct 3, 2017 (SPS) - Algeria reiterated in New York its traditional positions and support to the right of peoples under colonial domination to self-determination, including the Sahrawi people.

In its speech to the Committee of the General Assembly on Social, Humanitarian & Cultural Issues, the Algerian delegation said that the self-determination principle is provided for by the UN Charter and reaffirmed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The Algeria delegation spoke at the official session of the Third Committee devoted to the examination of item 71 of its agenda on the right to self-determination.

In response to the statements made by the Algerian delegation, the representative of Morocco reiterated his misleading allegations aiming to unfoundedly underline the evolving nature of the right to self-determination towards "autonomy, implemented in many countries.

Reacting to these allegations, the Algerian delegation reaffirmed that despite Moroccos attacks, Algeria continuously reiterates its constant position in favour of the self-determination of the Sahrawi people.

The work of the Committee continued with the examination of item 64 of the agenda on refugees and displaced persons. The Algerian delegation reaffirmed Algeria's support and solidarity with countries experiencing crises in their immediate neighborhood and beyond.

The delegation also recalled that Algeria continues to host Sahrawi refugees in Tinfoud. These refugees have been waiting for 40 years for safe and dignified repatriation to their homeland, as well as the exercise of their legitimate right to self determination.

Algeria thanked the contributing countries and urged the international community to mobilize more aids for the benefit of the Sahrawi refugees, which totally depend on humanitarian aid.

In addition to the Sahrawi population, Algeria hosts a large number of refugees from Syria, Libya, Mali and other countries.

During the meeting, Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative Mohammed Bessedik straightened out the representative of Morocco, much of whose statement was devoted to the situation of Sahrawi refugees in Tindouf.

Algeria has been and is a host country for refugees because this principle is one of the foundations of its foreign policy, said Bessedik, who denounced the fact that "the executioner appears in the skin of the victim" and recalled that the forced and illegal occupation of Western Sahara is the origin of the conflict in this territory.

The numerous legal decisions on to this conflict and the relevant resolutions of the General Assembly and the Security Council, as well as the various reports of the UN Secretary General, refer to this territory as non-self-governing, concerned by the implementation of the right to self-determination, Bessedik stressed.

The Algerian official recalled the "shameful" division of the Sahrawi territory, a division that contradicts the Moroccan thesis and the sacredness of the territory.

He also referred to "the large-scale massacres perpetrated by Morocco in Western Sahara since the alleged Green March, which actually was an invasion by force that led to lots of massacres, disappearances, killings and assassinations, and hundreds of thousands of refugees flocking to Algeria."

The same official also noted that Morocco is the only country in the world that claims that the Sahrawi refugees are "sequestered" in Tindouf and continues, at the same time, to call the community international community not to assist them but rather to starve them.

Bessedik recalled that Morocco is an occupying power and does not even have the status of administering power. (SPS)

062/SPS/APS
The conference  chaired by NOAH Chief Executive Dawn Howard and opened by NOAH Chair Gaynor Hillier  examined progress from Government, industry response so far and sentiment across the sector ahead of NOAHs next Brexit Barometer report.

A series of key-note speeches set the scene for the day, providing insight into the current regulatory and political context. Speakers included Nigel Gibbens, Chief Veterinary Officer for the UK, Professor Peter Borriello, Chief Executive of the VMD, Sue Hayman, MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Rick Clayton, Technical Director of AnimalhealthEurope.

A panel featuring David Caffall, Chair of the Agri-Brexit Coalition, Mike Murray, Head of Quality and Environmental Standards, ABPI, Chris Laurence from the Canine and Feline Sector Group and David Calpin from the BVA, explored what organisations and stakeholders across the industry have in common, how our industry is working together and how we can do more in the future to achieve common aims.

This was followed by a session focusing on opportunities for innovation, trade, food production and animal health and welfare and what needs to be done to ensure these can be capitalised upon. The session featured thought-provoking presentations from Julie Girling MEP, South West England and Gibraltar, Nick von Westenholz, Director of EU Exit and International Trade, NFU, Professor Janet Bainbridge, CEO for Bioeconomy, Department of International Trade and Professor Julie Fitzpatrick, Scientific Director of the Moredun Research Institute.
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Forget Hawaiian-style, the latest target of mass internet ire is strawberry pizza.

Social media users had their pitchforks ready on Sunday when @MoonEmoji tweeted a photo of a strawberry-topped pizza pie with the caption "strawberries>>pineapples."

The internet critics were not having it.

"That is so wrong it's unreal," wrote @Jeromebill on the photo, which has more than 2,000 comments.

"The police are on their way, I hope it was worth it," added @Blaker212.

One Twitter user simply wrote, "I want to die."

Others were less critical of the idea, with some welcoming the sweet-and-salty concoction and others noting the ubiquitousness of fruit on cheese platters.

The fruit-on-pizza debate is steeped in historical tension. Earlier this year, the internet broke into unrest after Iceland's president Gudni Th. Johannesson said he was "fundamentally opposed" to pineapple on pizza and would ban it if he had the power. Everyone from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to pop star Justin Bieber weighed in on the foodie controversy (both Justins are pro pineapple).

Things got so out-of-hand, Johannesson issued a statement on Facebook, which evolved into a polemic on presidential power.

"I do not have the power to make laws which forbid people to put pineapples on their pizza," he wrote. "I am glad that I do not hold such power. Presidents should not have unlimited power."

Though @MoonEmoji is taking all the credit, the Twitter user is not the first to place the sweet red berries on his or her pie. Multiple cooking blogs have shared recipes for the savory pizza, including a basil and balsamic number from Cookie and Kate in 2013 and a bacon and onion pie courtesy of Closet Cooking.

In December, The San Francisco Chronicle's Food Editor Paolo Lucchesi tasted a strawberry pizza while on a trip to Finland. He cited the experience as the "most mind-bending food moment of 2016."

Michelle Robertson is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @mrobertsonsf.
NORWALK  A Norwalk man was arrested on a warrant Wednesday charging him in the alleged assault of a relative.

Carlos Martel, 24, of Putnam Avenue, was charged with second-degree assault in connection with the Sept. 26 incident.

On Sept. 28, Norwalk police were contacted by Stamford Hospital staff who told them that a patient reported having been stabbed.

The alleged victim told police that they left work at a Main Avenue pharmacy when they saw Martel, who was described as an estranged brother, waiting outside.

Martel reportedly told the victim This is not over before thrusting his hand into the victims abdomen and running away.

The alleged victim noticed a puncture wound caused by an unknown object in Martels hand, but initially did not think it was serious. A couple of days later, however, the victim went to Stamford Hospital for treatment.

A warrant for Martels arrest was obtained and on Wednesday he was located in Rowayton and taken into custody.

His bond was set at $50,000 and he was given a court date of Nov. 2.

llake@hearstmediact.com
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STAMFORD  Theres a chance on Nov. 7 that the Board of Education could remain as is if voters are happy with the state of Stamford Public Schools, as Democratic incumbents Jackie Heftman, Andy George and Betsy Allyn vie for three open seats.

But with three more outside candidates running  Republican Dan Mena, Green Party candidate Jackie Pioli and unaffiliated candidate Theresa Robbins  theres the possibility voters might swing for the unknown.

Even if the incumbents keep their seats, there will still be a shifting of Board leadership. George, previously a Republican, is running as a Democrat for outgoing board president Geoff Alswangers vacant seat. Once the new Board takes their seats, they will vote for a new president.

But the candidates are more than just their parties. Behind the labels are efforts in volunteerism, activism and education.

Jackie Heftman

As the current chair of the Boards labor committee, Heftman, 73, said that shes often awake negotiating contracts until 1 a.m. Its why she says that she still has the stamina for the role.

Heftman, running for her fourth term, is currently the longest serving BOE member. Despite serving for nine years, Heftman said she still has the necessary passion.

For critics who may find Heftmans long stay on the Board to be a negative attribute, she notes that her experience and things that Ive done on the Board, and that historical perspective, are an asset.

With BOE president Geoff Alswanger not seeking re-election, the second most experienced member of the board is Betsy Allyn, who is finishing up her first term of three years.

No matter who is elected on Nov. 7, it will be a relatively fresh Board. Heftman said that it takes at least three years to learn the ins-and-outs of the school system, which she believes makes her experience valuable.

Heftman is retired now, but has a history of volunteering within the schools. She was previously a paraeducator at Roxbury School for seven years, but outside of this, her life has been mainly devoted to volunteering. She also served on the zoning board for 10 years prior to BOE.

My whole life has been about public service in one way or another, she said.

Andy George

George, 63, has been a member of the Board for two years, but is running for re-election after switching parties.

Like Heftman, George believes it takes time to learn the specifics of the school system so experience is important.

Ive enjoyed the two years and its been fun to get involved in this way, he said. The cold reality, though, is that the pace of decision making in a government setting is slower than Id like.

George said he waited until his kids graduated from Stamford Public Schools to run for the Board so he could devote his full attention to it.

We have a lot of evening meetings and thats a lot of time out of the house, he said.

George hopes to see the schools become more equal in terms of resources. For instance, Westhill High School has their agricultural science building, and he thinks it would be beneficial if Stamford High had something like that.

George wants to develop a long-range plan for school facilities if re-elected.

The Board of Ed isnt meant to micromanage or dictate the curriculum or operations themselves, so our responsibilities become advocating for Stamford at the state level and cooperating with the mayor, he said.

Betsy Allyn

Allyn is running for a second term. With children still in the public schools, Allyn said that she is still invested in the daily operations of the district.

Weve done some really good work and Im dedicated to the kids in the city, she said.

Before being elected to the Board, Allyn worked for 20 years as a compliance analyst for GE. She decided in 2012 to stay at home with her children and volunteer, which led her to such roles as vice president of the Parent Teacher Council and freed her up to complete a program at the Parent Leadership Training Institute, an organization that teaches local residents how to get involved in their community.

Education is your key to success in life, Allyn said. This is what we do, we give them the foundation for the success in their lives.

If re-elected, Allyn said she would focus more on transparency on the Board. Over-crowding at some schools is also an issue she hopes to tackle.

We need to continue to work with the mayor and our state legislature to figure out how were going to afford to build another school, she said. We have these portable (classrooms) that we have to address.

Dan Mena

Mena, 80, grew up in Queens and spent much of his life throughout other downstate N.Y. areas like New York City and Westchester County. He moved to Stamford to better accommodate his wife, who worked in Greenwich, after their son went away to college. He has lived here since, for over 18 years.

Mena believes the current Board is lacking the one thing instrumental to a Board of Education: educators. Mena has a doctorate in psychology and education from Columbia University, and taught for over two decades at institutes such as the New York Theological Seminary.

One of the main reasons I want to pursue this position (on the Board of Education) is to be involved in education again, Mena said. You have to have the experience of the beauty, growth, and art form of education ... theres lots of things that happen in a classroom that non-educators will not know how to deal with. To assess that you had to have been a teacher.

Mena wants to focus on solving an absenteeism problem he believes Stamford Public Schools have, and also said that the schools do not have a very pleasant dress code.

Beyond his educational pursuits, though, Mena is an author  and has a soft spot for wolves. One of the books hes written is a childrens book about the animal.

Theyre misunderstood creatures and are always made the big bad wolf, he said. Its actually a noble animal that takes care of its family. I wanted to educate children at an early stage on how beautiful this animal is.

Jackie Pioli

Pioli, 39, is a parent advocate throughout Fairfield County and felt compelled to run for BOE to support parents and students who she feels dont have as loud of a voice.

I feel theres a disconnect between the parents voice and what goes on in the central office, she said.

She helps families navigate the challenges of schools, such as bullying, emotional issues, and the curriculum.

Whatever they need, I help and support them, she said.

Due to her own family experiences, Pioli wanted to counsel other families who might be feeling similarly about navigating the school system, and in turn, run for the Board of Education.

Pioli believes Stamford Public Schools can do a better job of reaching students from all backgrounds. If elected, she hopes to improve the communication between the Board and the rest of the school community, such as teachers and parents.

In her work with surrounding communities, Pioli has found that families are often looking for guidance. She hopes to bring her experience in working with families to the Board of Education.

Parents go to Board meetings and they feel theyre not being listened to, she said. I feel there is an outreach problem. A lot of the parent engagement is through technology, but face-to-face goes a long way.

Theresa Robbins could not be reached for comment.
Deputy Prime Minister Paul Stanescu voiced hope on Friday at the 17th session of the Conference of Ministers responsible for Regional Planning (CEMAT) organised in Bucharest, that the meeting will contribute to the drafting of a guide on the development of functional areas, according agerpres.ro.

"The study we have initiated shows that there is already a wide variety of functional areas in Europe, so we can see this concept in the next multiannual financial programming of European funds. We want today's meeting to contribute to the drafting of a guide on the development of functional areas, with the presentation of relevant project types in these areas and the presentation of the role of local democracy in increasing the efficiency of development activities. The most important aspect is that such meetings take place in order to deliver better public policies to our citizens in the countries we represent, to find the most suitable instruments for development," said Stanescu, Romania's minister of regional development, public administration and European funds.

He added that cooperation in the field of local development at EU level was often based on documents previously drawn up by CEMAT.

Stanescu mentioned that the results of the CEMAT activities are very important to Romania, amidst a nationwide process of legislative revision and adoption in the field of urban planning and urbanisation.

"The intention to organise the 17th session of CEMAT was promoted in the context of Romania holding the presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2019, thus creating the opportunity to establish a connection between the two levels of communication in the field of regional development. The themes suggested for this session regard functional areas  capitalising on local potentials through regional development policies in Europe. This is a current subject in line with the objectives of the Council of Europe and CEMAT and in close connection with the topics discussed at the previous meetings, conducted in Greece, Russia and Portugal," he explained.

Stanescu added that the choice of this topic also took into account the current trends and challenges in regional development and the commitment to implement the 17 sustainable development goals set out under Agenda 2030. In this respect, he underscored the importance of cooperation between the central and local levels of the public administration, public and private and non-governmental sectors, and also among various business operators.

"This is an area of multi-state collaboration that will soon celebrate 50 years. The importance of the event is not only its uniqueness as the only pan-European cooperation framework in the area of spatial planning and regional development, but also its common objective: sustainable development of the European continent. We believe such a platform for debate, exchange of experience and good practices is very useful, and we firmly believe that it can also ensure correlation of development policies between member states and non-members," he said
Romanian and French prosecutors have had joint actions to combat trafficking in cultural goods, given that the patrimony of the two states "is plundered by transnational criminal rings," said Prosecutor General of the General Prosecutor's Office with the French Court of Cassation, Jean-Claude Marin, in an interview for AGERPRES.

J-C Marin has had in 2017 several professional meetings with Prosecutor General Augustin Lazar. Now, in Bucharest, the French guest has attended a roundtable meeting to discuss the functioning of the prosecution offices in Romania and France, the guarantees regarding the appointment of magistrates, the guarantees in terms of their independence and the CSM, which is the main protector of the independence of the judiciary, he said."We have remarked from these discussions that there are similarities between our systems, that we share a common legal culture and that we have common concerns about the functioning of the rule of law. We have discussed about the training of prosecutors in the investigation of organized crime, which is part of the daily work of French and Romanian magistrates."Among the successes of this Romanian-French cooperation, J-C Marin recalls: We have done together with the General Prosecutor's Office common actions in the field of trafficking in cultural goods. The patrimony of our countries is plundered by transnational criminal rings, so there is a need for fluid, bilateral cooperation to combat them and cooperate in this area with the Romanian General Prosecutor's Office, Prosecutor General Lazar, but also with other countries.Another common topic we cooperate in is human trafficking and the two countries have reached a genuine judicial pact to prevent exploitation of minors through begging on major boulevards in our cities, the French official added."There are also other issues that we cannot deal with separately. That is why we need a European structure to fight organized crime and when I speak about it, I am thinking about what is known as the European Prosecutor's Office, provided for by a regulation published in 2017. With regard to the European Prosecutor's Office, I would like to say that this is a new chance, an additional factor of homogenization of justice in the member countries. And the fundamental condition of the treaty regarding the European Prosecutor's Office is that it must be completely independent from the European executive and the same standard of absolute independence will have to be respected by all European prosecutors who will second prosecutors to the European Prosecutor's Office," said the French dignitary.
National Liberal Party (PNL) chairman Ludovic Orban said on Friday in northwestern Oradea that the party he represents will launch a 'far-reaching' series of actions against tax measures forecast by the Government, which could include also street protests.

''We are launching a series of consultations, and obviously we will set up an action plan, in these discussions, which may include street protests, challenges at the Constitutional Court, and notifying the Ombudsman," Ludovic Orban told a press conference.He underscored that the Government can adopt these measures only by means of an emergency ordinance, given that the state budget law, which he said is already late, cannot be built on legislation to be adopted.''The state budget law is constituted on the basis of the legislation in force, in the field of taxation. However, they are late with the state budget bill, which should have been presented in October. And my opinion is that they will issue an ordinance. And here we will try to attack through all possible channels and ways. It is not a joke. These measures are very serious. They, in fact, compromise the prospects for Romania's development in the medium and long term and will lead Romania into a crisis," Orban stressed.Ludovic Orban attended on Friday, in Oradea, the annual debate on the topic "European Funds and Regional Development," together with relevant PNL committee chairman Petru Luhan, PNL Bihor chairman, Ilie Bolojan, and around 60 liberal mayors and business representatives.

AGERPRES.
More than 400 soldiers from several counties of Romania attended a ceremony in downtown Miercurea Ciuc, on the Mountain Troops Day on Friday.

The event, which took place before the monument of the Unknown Soldier, started with a memorial service of the heroes fallen on the battlefields, attended by Bishop Andrei Moldovan of Covasna and Harghita together with a group of priests. The service was followed by several speeches that mentioned the "Knights of the Edelweiss," the elite body of the Romanian Army established 101 years ago.General Teodor Incicas, deputy chief of Romanian Army's staff, delivered a message from Defence Minister Mihai Fifor evoking the centuries-old history of mountain troops that began "in the tough times of the 1916 campaign, in a ravaged country overwhelmed by occupation troops, but that had not given up fighting and hope."In his message, Fifor mentioned World War I battles, when mountain troops earned their glory, and also WWII battles, when 42 battalions of mountain troops were engaged in combat. He also mentioned the period 1945-1961, during which, under Soviet control, the mountain troops were completely abolished, and also the moment of their re-establishment and transformation into an elite body of the Romanian Armed Forces.The event ended with a parade of mountain troops from Miercurea Ciuc, Sfantu Gheorghe, Vatra Dornei, Odorheiu Secuiesc and Lunca de Sus, joined by soldiers of the 6th Mihai Viteazu Special Operation Brigade of Targu Mures.Mountain Troops Day events continued in downtown Miercurea Ciuc with an exhibition of military hardware, weapons and materials specific of mountain troops mounted by the 61st General Virgil Badulescu Mountain Troop Brigade.

AGERPRES .
LOS ANGELES  Sarah Gadon is not your typical young Hollywood star.

For starters, she lives in Toronto.

She also made a name for herself not by starring in blockbuster sequels but in the idiosyncratic films of David Cronenberg (A History of Violence, Eastern Promises). And shes the type who, over a lengthy FaceTime interview, expounds not on her latest juice cleanse but on subjects like the importance of textiles to a culture and emblems of female vanity throughout art history.

Which may be why the 30-year-old is poised to become the latest It-girl  make that It-woman  of TVs current feminist streaming wave, joining a club that includes Elisabeth Moss of The Handmaids Tale, Betty Gilpin and Alison Brie of GLOW and Krysten Ritter of Jessica Jones.

She can be seen as the enigmatic title character in Alias Grace, adapted from the novel by Margaret Atwood. The six-part limited series, which began streaming Friday on Netflix, is led by a team of impressive women, including director Mary Harron (American Psycho) and writer-producer Sarah Polley (Away From Her). Atwood was also involved as a supervising producer.

At the center of it all is Gadon, who gives a mesmerizing performance as Grace Marks, a housemaid and Irish immigrant fending off near-constant abuse in Colonial-era Canada. First seen contemplating her own reflection in the mirror, Grace is a mystery to everyone around her  including, possibly, herself.

When I watch the show, its a real exploration on female subjectivity that gets me really excited, the actress says. Thats the power of women making images, opening up this discourse and this dialogue about how women are seen.

Polleys quest to bring Alias Grace to the screen began two decades ago, when as a teen she first read Atwoods novel. Her agent rightly sensed that Polley, then a child star known for her role in the series The Road to Avonlea, might want to branch out beyond acting and suggested she try to option the rights.

Thankfully, I didnt get them at 17, because I wouldnt have done a very good job, says Polley, now an accomplished writer-director, via telephone.

But the novel, and especially its elusive protagonist, made an impression.

Published in 1996, Alias Grace is inspired by the real-life figure of Grace Marks  something like Canadas answer to Lizzie Borden. A teenage domestic worker and immigrant from Northern Ireland, she was sentenced to life in prison for involvement in the 1843 murders of her employer, a wealthy Ontario farmer, and his housekeeper.

In Atwoods rendering, Grace is alluringly inscrutable and essentially unknowable.

Id never read a character that complex, a woman or a man, says Polley, who was able to snatch up the rights some years later.

But finding an actress who could convincingly play Grace as a teenager, a young woman and in middle age  and, oh, yeah, do a perfect Northern Irish accent  was no small feat. Harron had directed Gadon in the 2011 horror movie The Moth Diaries, while Polley had acted with her in the 2004 Canadian indie Siblings. Both were impressed by her composure and self-assurance.

Sarah on-screen has this gravity, which could suggest someone whos been through a lot, says Harron. She has an old-soul quality that you needed for Grace. She can do very delicate shifts of emotion, even when listening or reacting, even when being still. Her face is very emotionally transparent. Its like water, with little shifts under the surface.

In addition to capturing Graces complexity, Gadon mastered the tricky accent by listening to BBC Radio Ulster and asking friends in Belfast to record portions of the script. The constant manipulation of her jaw gave Gadon brutal headaches, she recalls with a wince.

She also had to learn how to cook and clean like a 19th-century domestic servant, since Grace is nearly always engaged in some kind of physical labor  sewing, scrubbing the floor, emptying chamber pots, laundering clothes. Harron says it was critical that the series show how these young girls just worked from morning until night. So Gadon was sent to Black Creek Pioneer Village, a historical re-enactment camp outside Toronto, and studied Mrs. Beetons Book of Household Management, a Victorian housekeeping guide.

Gadon acknowledges that the physical, technical and emotional demands of the role  not to mention the long hours  occasionally took their toll. Id get to a point where I was paralyzed with anxiety, she says.

But Harron praises Gadons meticulous preparation, likening her to a British theater actor. Gadons discipline may also stem from her training in ballet. She began performing professionally at age 9 in a production of The Nutcracker and eventually segued into acting.

Though Gadon wanted to move to LA once she graduated from high school, her level-headed parents  her mother is a kindergarten teacher and her father a therapist  insisted she go to college instead. Polley attributes Gadons terrifying confidence to her grounded family life: Sometimes you meet someone who is that at ease and at peace in their own skin and the only explanation is they are one of the very few people who have two totally stable parents who stayed together and didnt die.

At the University of Toronto, she pursued a degree in film theory but also started working with fellow Torontonian Cronenberg, starring as Carl Jungs wife in A Dangerous Method and Julianne Moores dead mother in Maps to the Stars (long story).

Gadon is often described as Cronenbergs muse, a term that seems to offend her Canadian modesty. Its so ridiculous, she says with an eye roll. Hes such a genius that he doesnt need me for inspiration at all.

The director also has a supporting role in Alias Grace as a minister sympathetic to Graces plight. At Polleys request, Gadon informed Cronenberg of the offer in an email, jokingly assuring him that hed have way more lines than Atwood, who makes a cameo. (The series, which is a co-production with the CBC and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, might be the most Canadian thing since Strange Brew.)

Alias Grace arrives less than two months after another long-gestating Atwood adaptation, The Handmaids Tale, swept the Emmy Awards and, like that Hulu series, deals with reproductive rights, social class and womens sexual exploitation. It doesnt feel like a coincidence, Gadon says of the current Atwood-mania.

Particularly as a number of sexual misconduct scandals have brought new attention to womens lack of power in Hollywood, Gadon describes working on such a female-driven series as a special moment.

While her performance in Alias Grace will almost certainly bring more high-profile offers from Hollywood, Gadon has no plans to leave Canada permanently. I will always view Toronto as my home, she says.

Eager to generate material that will allow her to stay put north of the border  and inspired by Polley  Gadon has also begun to contemplate roles beyond acting. Sarah has been really encouraging me to think  what kind of stories do I think need to be told and is there any way I can be instrumental in helping those stories get to the screen?
Joe Holleman Joe Holleman is a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow Joe Holleman 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

What becomes a Missourian most? Apparently we think it may be a bigger backside.

The good folks at highspeedinternet.com used Googe Trends to analyze what plastic surgery procedure was the most popular when it came to internet searches and then broke it down by each state in the U.S.

But we're not alone in our wish to swell our seat. Indiana, Maryland, Michigan and Tennessee also searched out information on butt implants more than any other procedure.

In derriere-related data, Texas' most frequent search was for "lower-body lifts," while Louisiana's top search was for "butt lifts."

In Illinois, the most-searched procedure was "lip implants."

The most interesting search item from our other neighboring states came out of Oklahoma, where the apparently blooming Sooners were highly curious about "laser hair removal."

CoolSculpting, the trademark way of getting rid of fat cells by freezing them, was the most searched-for procedure overall, finishing first in 17 states.

In California, the state most associated with plastic surgery, the most popular search was for "chin implants." In New York, the big curiousity focused on "male breast reduction."

Though it barely registered in the online search analysis, the website reported that breast augmentation still was the most popular surgery in the U.S. again in 2016.
Program founder and chief executive Karen Kalish went to New York on Thursday to pick up the check at an awards luncheon hosted by Soledad O'Brien.

Home Works! trains, supports and helps pay teachers to visit with the parents of struggling students to get them engaged in helping their children's education. The program is in 29 schools in Missouri.

"This award is a wonderful validation of the important work of parent and family engagement in our struggling schools in our vulnerable communities," Kalish said in a statement.

The nonprofit Roslyn S. Jaffe Foundation honors the founder of the retail company that includes the brands of Dressbarn, Anne Taylor and Lane Bryant.
ST. LOUIS COUNTY  St. Louis County Chief Medical Examiner Mary E. Case said this week that she has changed the manner of death for the mother of Pamela Hupp from accidental to undetermined due to the investigations surrounding Hupp, who is currently facing first-degree murder charges in an unrelated case.

Hupps mother, Shirley Neumann, 77, was found dead below the balcony of her senior apartment near Fenton in 2013.

Two police investigations and Cases colleague deemed it an accident. But both offices took another look after Hupp fatally shot a mentally disabled man in what police and prosecutors said was an elaborate plan to divert attention from herself in a reinvestigation of the 2011 fatal stabbing of her friend.

Case, speaking with the Post-Dispatch about her decision regarding Neumann, said, Since her death, many things have happened that involved the daughter. And so all of that investigation, including the one in Lincoln County and the one in St. Charles, became pertinent information. And there was just so much going on around this woman ... that I was no longer willing to say it could be an accident.

Case cautioned that she does not know the manner of Neumanns death. She also said that she was willing to consider new information, and that the manner of death could change again.

The deaths of those close to Hupp have been the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Post-Dispatch and KTVI (Channel 2), which aired a report on the medical examiners decision Thursday evening.

Hupp told Fox 2 that her mothers death was an accident. She has repeatedly denied any role in the death of her friend, Elizabeth Betsy Faria, who died at her home near Troy, Mo., in 2011.

Farias husband was convicted of the murder, but that conviction was reversed and he was acquitted in a retrial, in part because his defense team blamed Hupp for the crime.

Hupp has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the August 2016 death of Louis Gumpenberger, 33, in Hupps OFallon, Mo., home. Her trial is scheduled for April, and prosecutors have said theyll seek the death penalty if shes convicted.

One death, 3 investigations

Neumann was found dead by a housekeeper at what was then Lakeview Park Independent Senior Living Community near Fenton on Oct. 31, 2013.

Hupp is the last person known to have seen her mother alive, when she dropped her off at 5 p.m. the day before, police reports say. Hupp had taken her mother to the hospital after a fall, and then kept her overnight at her own home.

When the housekeeper checked on Neumann about 2:30 p.m. the next day, she found the apartment door open, the water running and the patio door open.

The balcony railing was damaged, and Neumanns body was on the ground.

Neumanns son, Michael Neumann, told police she had fallen before.

A detective told the medical examiners office they are comfortable that it was not suspicious and that no foul play occurred, according to the autopsy.

Assistant Medical Examiner Raj Nanduri ruled the manner of death an accident, listing blunt trauma to the chest as the cause of death.

About a month after her death, police took another look when they received an anonymous note that said Hupp had been kind of looked at for a murder involving life insurance, referring to Betsy Farias death.

During that reinvestigation, the housekeeper who found the body told police Shirley Neumann was sometimes unsteady if she took a pill for back pain.

Michael Neumann told police that his mother had arthritis and memory problems. He told them he did not have any concerns about foul play in his mothers death.

Police never talked to Hupp because circumstances did not suggest foul play, a spokesman would later say.

On Aug. 30, 2016, one week after Hupp was charged in Gumpenbergers death, St. Louis County police Detective Matthew Levy spoke again with Michael Neumann, who said he still believed his mothers death was accidental. He said she had fallen numerous times and also said she was unsteady, according to the most current police report.

Hupp, Michael Neumann and one other sibling split $10,000 in life insurance and each received about $120,000 in investments, Michael Neumann told Levy, who was looking into Hupps prior statements to Lincoln County detectives about an inheritance.

In a videotaped interview in 2013, before the first trial of Russell Faria, Hupp was discussing the possibility that defense lawyers would try to blame her for Betsy Farias death. She told a detective my moms worth half a million that I get when she dies, according to a recording of the interview.

She added, If I really wanted money, there was an easier way than trying to combat somebody thats physically stronger than me, meaning Betsy Faria.

Levy couldnt get a subpoena for data that would show the whereabouts of Hupps phone around the time of her mothers death, the police report says.

Levy then contacted Roger LaBoube, an adjunct professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, who couldnt determine whether Shirley Neumann could have fallen through her apartment railing without testing an intact railing of the same make and model.

Lawyers for Lakeview Park refused to provide a railing for police testing, the report says.

NBCs Dateline stacked bags of concrete on a railing and Fox 2 used weight on a pendulum to do their own tests on similar railings. Both broadcasts, and the experts they filmed, concluded that the railing should have withstood the force of Neumann falling or running into the railing.

LaBoube told the Post-Dispatch the tests looked reasonable to me, and that he would have replicated them to some extent.

Case told the Post-Dispatch that she did not consider the testing personnel forensic engineers.

The investigation into Shirley Neumanns death is currently inactive, the police report says. Hupps attorney, Nicholas Williams, said through a spokesman that with no charges pending in the death he doesnt see the need to comment on Dr. Cases actions.

A staged kidnapping?

Police and prosecutors believe Hupp lured Gumpenberger to her home by pretending to be a Dateline producer willing to pay someone to re-enact a 911 call. She called 911 and shot him while pretending to be fending off a kidnapper sent by Russell Faria, according to investigators and court documents, and then planted a kidnapping note, a knife and $400 on Gumpenberger.

Hupp was aware that federal investigators were re-examining Betsy Farias death after Russell Farias acquittal.

Russell Farias lawyers had long tried to point to Hupp as the culprit, as she was the last person known to have seen her friend alive and was the beneficiary of Betsy Farias $150,000 life insurance policy.
BELLEVILLE  A boy, 16, was charged with murder late Thursday after police say he accidentally shot a friend while the two were trying to hit a home.

The two friends had walked up to a home in the 7600 block of West Main Street in Belleville on Sunday night. They staggered their stances  one teen several feet behind the other  and turned to the house to open fire.

No one in the home was hit, but Quantez L. Jones, 16, shot his friend standing in front of him, police say. The friend, Deveon Hunt, 18, was struck in the side by a bullet and died at a hospital.

The St. Clair County states attorney charged Jones with first-degree murder and aggravated discharge of a firearm into a dwelling.

Brendan Kelly, the states attorney, said juveniles who are at least 16 must be charged as adults in a short list of the most serious offenses, including murder.

In addition, in Illinois, someone can be charged with killing a co-defendant if the person died while they were committing a forcible felony, such as bank robbery or, in this case, firing shots at a home.

This was the first homicide of the year in Belleville. The last one was in February 2016.

Police Chief William Clay III credited residents with providing tips and businesses with providing surveillance footage that helped police crack the case. He called in the Major Case Squad to investigate. The squad of about 20 detectives had identified Jones as the suspect by Tuesday, said Belleville Police Capt. Matt Eiskant.

Eiskant said police were called after residents reported multiple shots fired about 10 p.m. Sunday. Police found Hunt bleeding in an alley near West Main and South 76th streets.

Eiskant wouldnt say why the teens were shooting at the house but said they knew the people who lived there.

Asked if they were firing shots to harm or scare, the captain said, A little of both.

Jones lives off of South 74th Street, outside the Belleville city limits. He is a student at Pathways alternative school. The victim, Hunt, used to attend night classes at another alternative school but had stopped attending and was no longer enrolled there when he died.
JEFFERSON CITY  In what his office described as his final trade mission this year, Gov. Eric Greitens will head to Israel on Sunday.

According to a news release, Greitens, a Republican, will meet with top business, education and governmental officials "in an effort to strengthen the economic and cultural bonds between Missouri and the State of Israel."

The Hawthorn Foundation, a nonprofit which often funds overseas trips for Missouri governors, is paying for the trip, along with the Republican Jewish Coalition.

Greitens, 43, is Missouri's first Jewish governor.

Last month, Greitens left Missouri for a trade mission to the United Kingdom and Switzerland. In September, for his first international trade mission as governor, Greitens left for China and South Korea. The Hawthorn Foundation paid for both trips.

The news release said his previous treks have resulted in "hundreds of new Missouri jobs."

Parker Briden, the governor's spokesman, pointed to an October release in which the Department of Economic Development announced the insurance firm Swiss Re was relocating its Overland Park, Kan., operations to downtown Kansas City by late 2018, bringing 400 jobs to Missouri.

Briden also pointed to another release stating the United Kingdom global marketing firm VML is planning to move 120 jobs to Kansas City over the next six years.

Former Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, also visited China, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Israel during his tenure. In total, Nixon traveled overseas more than a dozen times during his eight years in office.

Greitens has also traveled domestically since taking office in January, helping campaign last month for Republican gubernatorial candidates in Iowa, Nebraska and Virginia.

In September, he visited the Republican Leadership Conference on Michigan's Mackinac Island, which bills itself as one of the top Republican gatherings in the Midwest. It also has a history of hosting prospective presidential candidates.
Updated at 9:30 p.m. with comment from a spokeswoman for Rep. Ann Wagner.

WASHINGT0N  An association representing the nations Big Tech companies announced Friday that it would support legislation, supported by Missouri Sens. Claire McCaskill, Roy Blunt and 35 others, that would make it more difficult for sex traffickers to advertise on the internet.

Some members of the association, including Google, had opposed the efforts earlier this year. But after a week in which representatives of Big Tech were harshly questioned by congressional committees investigating Russian involvement in the 2016 elections, the Internet Association on Friday issued this statement about the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act:

Internet Association is committed to combating sexual exploitation and sex trafficking online and supports SESTA. Important changes made to SESTA will grant victims the ability to secure the justice they deserve, allow internet platforms to continue their work combating human trafficking, and protect good actors in the ecosystem.

Internet Association thanks cosponsors Sen. Portman and Sen. Blumenthal for their careful work and bipartisan collaboration on this crucially important topic and Chairman Thune and Ranking Member Nelson for their leadership of the Commerce Committee. We look forward to working with the House and Senate as SESTA moves through the legislative process to ensure that our members are able to continue their work to fight exploitation.

The senators mentioned were Rob Portman, R-Ohio; Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.; John Thune, R-S.D. (who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee); and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., that committees ranking member.

McCaskill issued this statement: Hard-nosed, smart bipartisan negotiations get results, and theres no better example of that than todays deal that brings together some of the biggest tech companies with a bipartisan group of Senators, trafficking victims and law enforcement, all with the same aimholding websites like Backpage accountable and getting justice for victims.

Similar legislation primarily sponsored by Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin, Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017, has been introduced in the House. The Internet Associations statement did not mention that bill.

"We're happy that there is finally a national spotlight on the scourge of modern day slavery," said Ali Pardo, spokeswoman for Wagner. "In the House, we are working with the Judiciary Committee to move FOSTA forward and finally give federal, state, and local prosecutors the tools they need to end these crimes in our communities."

The Internet Association had previously opposed the legislation, arguing that it threatened internet freedom and commerce by peeling back third-party protections given to internet sites that host others content. The association had predicted that a trial lawyer bonanza of overly broad civil lawsuits would ensue if it, or Wagner's legislation, passed.

The Internet Associations release on Friday did not specify what had changed in the proposed legislation to make it acceptable. The association represents Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and a phalanx of other Big Tech companies.

The primary target of the legislation is the online site, Backpage, which critics have said facilitates illegal sex trafficking, including with minors, on its site. Company lawyers have fought back on 1st Amendment and internet protection grounds, generally winning in court challenges. Company lawyers have argued that they have cooperated with law enforcement and that by impeding the advertisements on their site it would potentially drive sex trafficking underground.

McCaskill and Portman had issued a scathing report about Backpage earlier this year.

At the center of the debate is Section 230 of the two-decade-old Communications Decency Act, which defines internet sites as third-party hosts of others content, and therefore not responsible for it in most legal and civil law circumstances.

But in the hearings with Big Tech executives this week, including one before the Senate Intelligence Committee, of which Blunt, R-Mo., is a member, some members of Congress wondered aloud why hosts of the content should not be treat like publishers, in the same way that newspapers and others are.
Pakistan has conveyed its serious concerns over the display of anti-Pakistan slogans on taxis plying the roads in London.

Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua called in British High Commissioner Thomas Drew on Friday to convey Pakistans concerns over the display of such slogans on some cabs in London that directly attacked the countrys territorial integrity and sovereignty.

According to the Foreign Office, the high commissioner was informed that Pakistan, in line with the UN Charter, rejected the actions and advertisements displaying malicious content that impinged on its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The issue is also being raised with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by the Pakistan High Commissioner in London, the Foreign Office said in a statement.

Pakistan is aware of the intentions of such sinister and malicious campaigns, which should not be allowed on the soil of a friendly country, Janjua said.

Pakistani social media users in London had come across the cabs and shared their pictures, condemning the anti-Pakistan propaganda.

In September this year, Pakistan had summoned the Swiss ambassador over the public display of anti-Pakistan posters by a group in Switzerland.

According to a Foreign Office statement, a strong protest was lodged with the ambassador over Swiss authorities permitting the use of its territory for propaganda by elements linked with the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a terrorist organisation which is perpetrating terrorism and violence in Pakistan.

It was also underlined that the Free Baluchistan posters in Genevas had been sponsored by a group linked with the BLA, which has been proscribed by Pakistan as well as some other countries for its violent actions in Balochistan.
U.S. Senate candidate Russell Fagg says he will fight a political groups accusation that the former Billings judge violated federal campaign law.

The group American Democracy Legal Fund has accused Faggs campaign exploratory committee of operating like a campaign during the four months leading up to the Republicans official candidacy.

Fagg said Thursday that hes hired an attorney to fight the allegation, which the former Yellowstone County District Court judge called baseless.

My reputation is very important to me. I have spent my entire career trying to establish a good reputation, Fagg said. I knew when I jumped into this that I would be under scrutiny, and thats fine. But this complaint has absolutely no merit and will be dismissed.

Fagg has asked that his legal bills be paid if he prevails.

ADLF is asking the Federal Election Commission to require Fagg to disclose any fundraising or campaign spending that occurred during his exploratory committee phase. The group is represented by Brad Woodhouse, who according to the Center for Responsive Politics is a former strategist for President Barack Obama and a former communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. He is also past president of American Bridge Political Action Committee, a key funding source for ADLF.

Faggs campaign exploratory committee launched shortly after he announced in June that by October he would retire from his 20-year judicial career. Fagg retired October 13 and became a candidate the next day.

Exploratory campaigns are legal and allow people who are candidate curious to test the political waters under softer financial disclosure standards than full-blown political campaigns. A person who has decided to run cannot continue on in exploratory status. The issue is whether Fagg was an actual candidate during his exploratory phase.
The weather forecast is an overcast day with occasional rain and northerlies.

Its a one-clothing layer day today with a high of 19 and an overnight low of 16 degrees.

Low tide is at 12.40pm and high tide is at 6.50pm. Sea temperature is 17 degrees. Theres an average sea swell of about .6m and sunset tonight is at 7.47pm.

If youre going fishing today the best fish bite time is between 11am and 1pm.

This day in NZ history in1886 the Manawatu rail link opened. Also in 1886 on this day was the birth of Anchor butter. From a dairy factory at Pukekura, Waikato, Henry Reynolds launched his Anchor butter. The brand name, allegedly inspired by a tattoo on the arm of one of his workers, would become one of this countrys best-known trademarks.

On this day in 1974, Summer time was reintroduced on a trial basis. The trial proved popular with most New Zealanders and daylight saving of one hour between October and March was made permanent in 1975.

Not everyone was happy. Dairy farmers in particular objected to having to get up in the dark all year round. Others worried that putting their clocks forward would make hens stop laying, curtains and carpets fade faster, and lawns go brown.

In world history on this day in 1507 Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned to paint Lisa Gherardini (Mona Lisa). In 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik II with the dog Laika, the first animal in space, aboard. In 1973 NASA launched Mariner 10, which will become the first probe to reach Mercury.

Today is the birthday of John Montague, fourth Earl of Sandwich and inventor of the sandwich. He was born in 1718.

Today is also the birthday of American poet William Cullen Bryant who was born in 1794 and wrote "Go forth under the open sky, and listed to natures teachings."

To get involved in activities around the Bay please check out our Whats On page.

Have a great day!
Cruise ship visits to Mount Maunganui are now being treated the same as major sporting events with the Tauranga City Council announcing a number of road closures along Salisbury Avenue and The Mall.

Between November 2017 and February 2018 there will be a number of particularly large cruise ships visiting Tauranga.

The closures are to reduce congestion and enable passengers to safely disembark, during the visits of a number of particularly large passenger ships visiting over the summer peak.

The corner of Salisbury Ave and The Mall from Victoria Road on Salisbury Ave to Prince Ave on The Mall, will be clear of traffic at set times.

Traffic coming down Salisbury Ave will be diverted into Victoria Road and Prince Ave to The Mall. Residents within the diverted area will not be excluded from entering or exiting their properties, nor will service vehicles or emergency services.

The road closures and diversion will be in place on the following days:

Date Ship arrival time Ship name Time of road closure* 4-Nov-17 8.15am Noordam 6.30am  11.00am 7-Nov-17 5.45am Noordam 6.00am  10.30am 9-Nov-17 7.15am Celebrity Solstice 6.00am  10.30am 13-Nov-17 9.15am Celebrity Solstice 6.30am  11.00am 23-Nov-17 7.30am Golden Princess 6.00am  10.30am 25-Nov-17 8.45am Norwegian Jewel 6.30am  10.30am 8-Dec-17 5.40am Celebrity Solstice 6.00am  10.30am 11-Dec-17 8.00am Celebrity Solstice 6.30am  10.30am 22-Dec-17 6.45am Ovation of the Seas 5.30am  10.30am 30-Dec-17 6.15am Sea Princess 6.00am  10.30am 6.30am Radiance of the Seas 3-Jan-18 8.30am Maasdam 6.00am  11.30am 9.15am Ovation of the Seas 16-Jan-18 7.00am Radiance of the Seas 6.00am  11.00am 9.15am Norwegian Jewel 29-Jan-18 6.15am Diamond Princess 6.00am  10.30am 7.15am Norwegian Jewel 9-Feb-18 8.45am Ovation of the Seas 6.00am  10.30am 18-Feb-18 7.00am Columbus 6.30am  12.00pm 10.15am Celebrity Solstice 19-Feb-18 5.45am Golden Princess 5.30am  10.30am 6.15am Diamond Princess

*guide only, timing may change






The driver of a vehicle involved in a crash near Te Kaha is in Middlemore Hospital with a suspected spinal injury.

The 27-year-old man was injured in a crash in Whanarua Bay just before 12pm on Thursday.

The Tauranga-based Trustpower TECT Rescue Helicopter was dispatched to the scene to transport the injured man to hospital.

He was stabilised at the scene by paramedics, before being flown to Middlemore Spinal Unit for assessment and treatment, says a spokesperson for the rescue helicopter.

The driver and passengers of the other vehicle sustained moderate injuries and were taken to Te Kaha Medical Centre via road ambulance.
Beef brewing between two aggressive friends can now be solved with one plastic fist to a robots head.

Te Puke man John Espin has invented a new fighting sport called Stupid Robot Fighting, and is encouraging people to take to the ring and let their junk robot do all the work.

The project involves two robots made entirely out of junk connected by wire or hot glue.

The robots are attached to an octagon frame and are controlled by pushing and pulling on poles attached to the robots limbs and head.

All the robots look slightly different in terms of size and what junk is used, but John insists every robot must have angry eyebrows.

Stupid Robot Fighting League is a bit crazy and a bit silly, but a whole lot of fun, he says.

Its more physical than you think, its three two-minute rounds, and each round starts with a taunt that the operator has to deliver in a threatening manner, which has been written by the other team.

Participates also have to wear a lab coat, glasses and gloves.

Anyone taking part in a fight can make their own robot to fight or choose from the wide range of robots John has, such as Optimus Rufus, El Minion and Suckalucka.

Johns favourite items to use are childrens toys as they make a lot of noise and are nice and colourful. Sturdier items like parts of vacuum cleaners and oil cans also really pack a punch.

I originally started out with cardboard prototypes, which gave me shape and then wooden prototypes which gave weight, says John.

As Ive made more and more robots Ive figure out what sucks and what creates some real damage.

John started the project in January this year and is now seeing interest grow, with many events and companies wanting to take part in the project.

We actually use the robots to advertise on and companies can have their own robots that are branded with their stickers.

On top of the success of Stupid Robot Fighting, his latest project will also hit a giggle nerve - but this time with ugly sweaters.

Ugly Sweater Fighting is only at the prototype stage, but the plan is to join together two sweaters over the top of cans and attach hats together to make a robot face.

Its all about the strength of the sweater, says John. Its just the whole bouncy-ness of them that I think will be quiet amusing.

To keep up to date with Johns crazy ideas, subscribe to his YouTube page Stupid Robot Fighting League, or his check out his website at: www.stupidrobotfighting.com
The weather forecast today is for rain with northwesterlies.

Its a one-clothing layer day today with a high of 20 and an overnight low of 15 degrees.

Low tide is at 1.30pm and high tide is at 7.40pm. Sea temperature is 16 degrees. Theres an average sea swell of about .6m and sunset tonight is at 7.48pm.

If youre going fishing today the best fish bite time is between 12 noon and 2pm.

This day in NZ history in 1918 the New Zealand Division captured the French town of Le Quesnoy which had a garrison of German soldiers stationed there. In 1930 on this day Phar Lap won the Melbourne Cup.

In world history on this day in 1854 Florence Nightingale and her nurses arrived in the Crimea. In 1922 the entrance to King Tuts tomb was discovered.

Our quote for today is from Lemony Snicket, who wrote "If we wait until were ready, well be waiting for the rest of our lives,"

Please check out our Whats On page as there are plenty of activities there to get involved with.

Have a great day!
Project Fiji (a.k.a. Maui) is another example of the grand, powerful and stylish superyachts the revered Lurssen Yachts is known for. Working with Harrison Eidsgaard of Eidsgaard Design, as well as the large yacht management reputation of Moran Yacht & Ship, Lurssen Yachts has introduced a first-look at a new project ahead of her official launch and delivery in 2019.

Built for a repeat client of Moran Yacht & Ship, Fiji is due for delivery in 2019 and will enter the Top 100 as 46th Largest Yacht in the World upon official launch.

Fiji will feature accommodation for 20 guests in 10 spacious staterooms, a 12 metre swimming pool, giant spa area, a room dedicated to diving and . Additionally, Project Maui will have storage for a helicopter on her bow as well as an Aeroboat with a walkable skylight upper deck as well as an integrated fireplace.

Fiji is one of several large Moran Yacht & Ship new construction projects currently under construction at shipyards across the world. We look forward to bringing you more information on the construction project, as and when it emerges.
The Gibraltar government has announced plans for a huge step forward in education, with plans to rebuild or update every school on the Rock before the start of the new educational year in 2019.

The aim of the ambitious project is to benefit all local schoolchildren with new facilities, from nursery to college age, and it includes the creation of two brand new comprehensives on a university-style campus in the Waterport area.

The project has been divided into five separate programmes. The first will involve the creation of new Notre Dame and St Anne's schools in the Laguna district.

Under the second programme, the present Westside school will be totally refurbished and will encompass Governor's Meadow and Bishop Fitzgerald schools, with St Martin's also moving to the same location.

Programme 3 will involve the construction of the two new co-educational comprehensives in separate buildings, but with a shared library.

The fourth programme will move the Gibraltar College to a new purpose-built facility next to the Cross of Sacrifice at Devil's Tower Road.

Finally, under the fifth programme St Paul's, St Mary's and St Joseph's First and Middle Schools and the Hebrew schools will all be completely updated.

The contract is to be put to tender and at present the final cost is not known.

The government's 2015 manifesto included plans to update Gibraltar's schools, but this project, which has been described as revolutionary, goes much further.
Filming for the show in which Antonio Banderas will star as Pablo Picasso has begun. Genius, the Fox 21 and National Geographic series about the life of the painter from Malaga started filming in the city earlier this week. On Tuesday, film crews filled the Malagueta bullring to recreate an important moment from Picasso's early life when he watched a bullfight with his father. They started working at the crack of dawn in order to avoid nosy passersby.

Banderas himself was also present on set, despite not actually being on screen during these scenes, as he is also playing a role in the production. The Malaga-born actor has described bullfighting as his passion. At one point, Banderas donned a bullfighting cap in the way that Picasso was photographed doing by Andre Villers.

The next day, completely different scenes were filmed on the Malagueta beach as it was transformed into the Cote d'Azur, where adult Picasso would go on holiday. In a white shirt, shorts, and grey wig, Banderas became the painter, on the set which had been constructed at five o'clock in the morning. The film crew recreated famous images of Picasso, like the photo taken by Robert Capa in 1948 of the artist holding a beach umbrella and walking behind his partner at the time, Francoise Gilot.

More filming will be taking place in Malaga over the next few days, at locations such as Plaza de la Merced and the museum of Picasso's birthplace, before going on to Paris, Barcelona, and Budapest.
Born in Barcelona in 1919, Jesus Blasco was a Spanish illustrator whose career spanned the golden age of comic-strip art.

One of five brothers, Blasco is considered one of the masters of Spanish comics, making his debut in 1935, when his illustrations were published in the Spanish version of the magazine, Mickey.

One of his best known characters was Cuto, the star of an adventure cartoon published in the magazine, Chico, during the 1940s. Cuto was the emblematic adventurous child, often compared to Herge's Tin Tin.

Blasco's career was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War. Fighting for the republicans, he was held in a prison in France, where he drew pictures of the guards in return for food. He was released in 1940 and returned to Barcelona, where he spent the rest of his life.

Throughout the 1940s, Blasco worked for several Spanish comics and children's magazines, including Las Chicas, for which he created the character Anita Diminuta. A tomboyish girl with plaits, Anita faced countless dangers and horrific enemies, such as witches, wizards, octopuses and other evil creatures.

Jesus Blasco. / SUR

Blasco's international career began at the start of the 1950s, when he created such characters as Buffalo Bill, for the Comet magazine. He also produced the cartoon strip, Billy the Kid for the Sun Magazine and went on to illustrate numerous other popular children's publications until the 1980s. He produced a number of strips for the Lion comic, including The Indestructible Man, Danger Man and Adam Eterno. Lion was a weekly periodical published by Fleetway and among its most famous readers was Prince Charles, for whom, a copy was delivered to the palace every Saturday morning.

His most celebrated strip, the one for which he is best remembered, was The Steel Claw, based on a laboratory assistant who possessed an artificial hand that had extraordinary powers.

At the same time as he was producing for the English market he was also engaged in various projects for other European magazines. At the beginning of the 1980s, he worked on the western series, Tex Willer, and Capitan Trueno, which, at its height sold more than 170,000 copies every week. For this he collaborated with the Spanish writer, Victor Mora, with whom Blasco also made the medieval series, Tallafero in 1987. Jesus Blasco had very productive and influential career, working on some of the most iconic children's publications during the golden era of the comic super hero.

He also illustrated fairy tales and tarocchi cards.

Ironically, he died on 21 October 1995, the same day that Manuel Vazquez Gallego - another celebrated Spanish cartoonist - also died in Barcelona.
Artists and friends joined Carmen Peral, the wife of British artist Rowland Fade, who passed away in May, in a tribute on Monday evening at Almunecar's Casa de la Cultura.

The event took place during the opening of Meeting Art Almunecar, which takes place in the town every year and attracts artists from around the world. Fade last exhibited his work at the meeting in 2016.

The exhibition room at the Casa de Cultura has been named after the artist and a plaque with his name has been mounted above the door.

Rowland Fade

Councillor for Culture Olga Ruano spoke at the tribute event, as did Fade's widow and other artists who had known him and worked with him.

Peral thanked people for attending the event and for their support. She also spoke of her husband's artwork, which has been exhibited internationally.

Rowland Fade was born in Norwich, England on 10 May 1939 and first came to Spain in 1969, before making Almunecar his permanent home in 1995. He was a well known and respected figure on the town's cultural scene.
Last week saw another milestone in the history of this newspaper with the official opening of a new office in Estepona.

Located in the Torre de Control building in the town's port, the office has been up and running since earlier last month, with SUR's representative in the town, Carmen Duran, at the helm.

Duran expressed her satisfaction at the new venture. The aim of the office is to become an important meeting point for residents in Estepona as well as local business owners, she said.

She went on to explain how the location of the new office, at the heart of the town's marina, was convenient for readers of SUR's foreign language newspapers, in English, German and Russian, as this area is a favourite among foreign residents.

It was the contact with local business owners that took precedence over any other aspect of the opening day last week.

While the opening was reason for celebration, the day was also about getting down to work. Around 200 entrepreneurs were invited to attend the two business meetings held during the day, as part of the 'Communication to Boost Sales' events, which are now into their fourth edition.

Experts in marketing for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) explained the concepts contained in the 'Optimal Edition' programme as a tool that helps firms reach out to potential clients through better communication.

If you can't communicate, you don't exist, said Duran.

She offered up the SUR group as an example of an ideal vehicle to use to carry information to the greatest possible number of clients. The weekly newspapers in English, German and Russian and the daily SUR in Spanish reach hundreds of thousands of readers across the province of Malaga and beyond.

This is the first time in years that the group has had an office in Estepona. But it's no surprise that our group is now focusing on Estepona, said Duran, due to its current business growth.

In fact the new office comes at the right time for Estepona, just as the economic and business climate is looking as bright as the streets with their attractive flower pots and murals.

The opening celebrations were attended by the mayor of Estepona, Jose Maria Garcia Urbano, deputy mayors, Jose Maria Ayala and Manuel Aguilar, as well as the head of the SUR office in Marbella, Hector Barbotta, and the deputy editor of SUR in Spanish, Javier Recio.
The British ambassador, Simon Manley, who was in Bilbao this week to support an event with young designers from his country, has long experience in politics. Before being assigned to Spain in 2013 he headed anti-terrorism policy in the UK and was Director of Defence and Strategic Threats. In 2011 he was asked to manage the Foreign Office policies regarding Europe.

Is weak leadership by prime minister Theresa May complicating the UK's negotiations for a successful Brexit?

Our ministers are working together. There is not much time left, for us or for our European partners. In many aspects we can't agree on the exit without knowing what the future relationship will be or, at least, the regulations regarding the transition period after the UK leaves in 2019.

KEY QUOTE Catalonia is important for British investment but the uncertainty benefits nobody

The five principal business organisations in Britain are insisting that the transition be agreed as soon as possible.

I understand not only their interest, but also that of all the European companies. Trade has to be facilitated in a globalised world, with international supply chains.

People say the City is an ecosystem which will not collapse, but can it be damaged?

The City is a global financial centre. An ecosystem consolidated by British commercial law, the transport infrastructure and the quality of education in London.

With regard to the future status of Europeans in the United Kingdom and vice versa, are the parties ever going to agree on this?

I believe we are very close to an agreement. There are aspects which are technically difficult, but both sides are willing. It is a priority, because we need to resolve the uncertainty this situation creates.

We won't talk sovereignty, we'll talk about practical things, you have said about Gibraltar.

The rights of workers who live in Spain need to be ensured. Gibraltar has an economy which is growing a great deal and can boost the economy in that part of Spain.

Your time heading British relations with Europe coincided with the greatest tension between Spain and Gibraltar since the border was closed in 1969.

I was defending the interests of my government, working with Gibraltar and the Spanish government in search of common benefit.

A few months ago you were recommending Catalonia as a place to invest.

Catalonia has been a very important region for British investment and vice versa. However, uncertainty benefits nobody.

Respect for the Constitution

In the British parliament a discussion group was set up about Catalonia and the Spanish Embassy wasn't happy about it.

What is important is the position of the British government, which is in favour of the Constitution. Spain is a major ally and we want it to remain united.

From your anti-terrorism experience, what is the situation after the end of the caliphate of Islamic State?

The threat remains. We need to work on prevention, and explain the reality of Islam as a peaceful religion.

Do the hundreds of British people, among other Europeans, who are enrolled in Islamic State, reflect failures in models of integration?

In a way, but we should be proud of our liberal and multicultural societies. The jihadis want to put a stop to them. We should work with our young people, especially Muslims, so they feel they have the same opportunities as anyone else.

You have warned that the fightagainst terrorism could put fundamental values at risk.

We have to defend our liberties, the rule of law, but guarantee security with difficult decisions. When I was the head of the anti-terrorism fight, I had to walk that delicate line with practically every decision I made.

When in 2009 two judges complained to the Foreign Office about the complicity of the UK in the torture inflicted on Binyam Mohamed by the CIA, you said that national security should prevail.

I warned that the spreading of information about the CIA could compromise the relationship with MI5 or MI6. The exchanges of information, which are key to combating jihadism, depend on the security of information. From what he has said, the case of Mohamed was terrible. However, Mr Mohamed and the British government settled the matter out of court.
In the heat of the political crisis over Catalan separatism, another battle on social media rages, with frequent calls for the rest of Spain to boycott products made in Catalonia in order to prove to the region just how much they need custom from the rest of the country. After all, Catalonia exports more to just one region of Spain, its neighbour, Aragon, than it does to the UK and Germany combined.

Experts have pointed out that a boycott could do more harm than good, as many components of Catalan products are made in the rest of Spain. For example, corks for Cava bottles, a Catalan speciality, actually come from Malaga and tomatoes for oven-ready pizzas prepared near Barcelona come from Extremadura.
Prosecutors called in court on Thursday for former senior members of the Catalan regional government to be denied bail and held in jail and the judge in charge agreed.

Judge Carmen Lamela said that there was a high risk of another crime being committed and evidence being destroyed while investigations continue into their role in last week's unilateral declaration of independence vote (UDI) in the Catalan parliament and the events leading up to it.

Of the regional leaders who were called to testify in Madrid's central Audiencia Nacional court on Thursday, only nine made the journey to the capital. Eight of the attendees, including ex-vice president, Oriol Junqueras, were refused bail and faced possible charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds.

The PM pleased many by calling regional elections for 21 December

Only one who attended the court session, the former Business minister Santi Vila was allowed free if he deposited a 50,000-euro bail. Vila had resigned his post in the Catalan regional government in protest at the planned UDI just ahead of the vote last Friday.

All the regional ministers, known as 'consellers', and former president Carles Puigdemont, were removed from their posts last Saturday with the application of Article 155 of the Spanish constitution that imposed elements of direct rule from Madrid.

Five of the former top regional government team were missing from the morning court session in Madrid in Belgium.

The most notable absence was the ex-regional president himself who was still in Brussels after travelling there earlier in the week, apparently to seek legal advice and try to have their court appearance handled by videolink, a move which the court has refused.

Prosecutors asked the judge on Thursday for an international warrant to be issued for their arrest.

Meanwhile, closeby in Madrid, the Supreme Court was hearing from lawyers of the rebel speaker of the Catalan parliament, Carme Forcadell and five regional MPs who control the parliamentary agenda. They were summoned on suspicion of the same offences However, unlike the 'consellers', they are still in their posts so enjoy some legal immunity and can only testify in the national supreme court and not the lower Audiencia Nacional court.

Unlike the 'consellers' as well, their lawyers managed to get their hearing postponed until 9 November, and they were sent home with a police guard.

Elections called

The court decision on Thursday is the latest turn in Spain's journey through uncharted political waters.

Following last Friday's UDI in Catalonia, the national Senate approved the use of Article 155 measures to rein in the regional government, with the agreement of most national political parties.

PM Mariano Rajoy pleased many by calling snap regional elections in Catalonia for 21 December, to return the area to legality.

Separatist parties have said they will stand once more but it wasn't clear if they would form a single coalition like last time.
Mijas A three day photographic festival will be held at the Las Lagunas Theatre in Mijas Costa from Friday 10 until Sunday 12 November.

Photofestival is the largest gathering of shutterbug aficionados in Andalucia and the event will present an extensive programme that will cater for all levels of photography, whether professional or amateur.

Photographers will have the opportunity to learn new techniques and elements to improve their skills during a series of talks and seminars concerning different aspects of the art. These will include, Simbolismo y Procesos Alternativos en la Fotografia (Symbolism and alternative process in photography), and Transformaciones del Genero Fotografico y Sus Nuevos Escenarios (transformations of the photographic genre and its new scenarios). The talks, which will be in Spanish, will be delivered by celebrated professionals from the photographic sector, along with the winners of the World Press Photo competition.

More than a dozen professional photographers will present workshops covering a range of topics, from cameras and equipment, to the art of taking the perfect picture.

Some of the top camera and photographic companies will be on hand to offer advice and there will be a commercial area selling the latest equipment and accessories.

The event, which is organised by Backstage Productions and sponsored by Fuji Film, Cannon and Jinbei, will be inaugurated at 8.30pm on Friday 10 November.

Entrance to the festival costs 60 euros and there is a 50 per cent discount for students that present their student ID cards at the ticket office. More information: www.photofestival.es
A meeting between mocking, grotesque beings seated at the table in 'The Good Judges' (1894). A crowd of deformed faces appears in 'The entry of Christ into Brussels in 1889' (1898). Neither god nor motherland nor puppets with heads feature in the prints by James Ensor. The deformities he depicts are very similar to those of a century earlier, in 'La Lealtad', 'La lealtad', 'Porque esconderlos' and 'Duendecitos', some of the 'Disparates' of Francisco de Goya.

Artists separated by time but very united in social criticism, especially in their graphic works. This 'crossing of minds' has never been seen before but it is now taking place at the Carmen Thyssen Museum in Malaga in an exhibition which is small but has great substance and impact.

THE EXHIBITION Title: 'Goya/Ensor. Suenos al vuelo'. Where: Museo Carmen Thyssen. C/ Compania, 10. When: Until 28 January. Opening hours: Tuesdays to Sundays, 10am to 8pm. Tickets: Collection, 6 euros; temporary exhibition, 4.50 euros; Sala Noble, 2 euros (free with tickets to the collection and/or temporary exhibition.

The Sala Noble in this museum in Malaga city contains 40 prints by the artist from Aragon and 12 by the Belgian creator in a display which places before the spectator the bravery of both men in the face of political and ecclesiastical censure.

Both Goya and Ensor showed their souls in graphic work. In the case of Goya, for example, there is a great difference between his work as a chamber artist at Court and these prints which are filled with social criticism, said the artistic director of the Thyssen Museum this week, Lourdes Moreno, at the presentation of the exhibition which continues until 28 January.

She also pointed out the novelty of this exhibition in relating the works of Goya and Ensor. The link is the ferocious social criticism of both artists, one in the 18th century and the other in the 19th and 20th. They were both also part of the group of artists who expressed their unrest, she explained, about an exhibition in which the works are sombre and macabre but luminous in terms of formal and intellectual relations between the two artists.

These communicating links are evident in a display which puts the works by both artists alongside each other. There are the 'Masks (The mocking death)' (1922) by Ensor , with 'Folly of Fear' and 'Disparate cruel' (1816-1819). The same contorted faces, the same social background under the sinister caricatures, the same fleshless view of man and society, the same defeat of reason faced with superstition, the same debacle of solidarity against moral plunder.

Didactic postcards

These works were also planned as didactic postcards, in the same way Goya claimed for his 'Caprichos' and 'Disparates'. The exhibition, includes works by Goya from the Fine Arts Museum in Cordoba and is sponsored by the Daniel Pastor Abodagos law firm.

Lourdes Moreno also stressed the pioneering character of Goya's work in the formal aspect, because he worked with nitric acid and aquatint first and then retouched it with a burin, which was an unusual technique.

Goya achieved a nocturnal ambience in the scenes by using aquatint, a technique with which he modernised the etching procedure and which enabled him to suggest dark scenes and mysterious atmospheres, where nightmares come to life and fill the mind of man with fear, she explained.

And there are more mirrors. 'Modo de volar' by Goya together with 'Christ tormented by demons' (1895) and 'The exterminating angel' (1889).

Because of their rawness, the etchings by Francisco de Goya and James Ensor are still able to move and surprise the spectator today. And as a display, this innovation of the sombre world of dreams by both artists, with their indisputable mastery of printing, shows a powerful skill in drawing and technique, which few other artists were able to achieve, said Lourdes.
DECATUR  Less than two months after he was sworn in, Macon County Sheriff Howard Buffett was involved in the police chase that ended in a rollover crash in downtown Decatur on Tuesday.

Lt. Jamie Belcher said Buffett was driving one of the squad cars that pursued a white Chevrolet vehicle that had a person wanted by the sheriffs office on a felony warrant Tuesday evening.

Emmanuel Dunklin, 33, was arrested at the scene Tuesday night. Belcher said Dunklin was the driver of the vehicle, and faces preliminary charges of driving under the influence of drugs, operating an uninsured motor vehicle and failure to stop at a traffic signal.

A 32-year-old woman who was a passenger in the Chevrolet was also arrested at the scene, Belcher said. She faces a preliminary charge of possession of stolen property.

Preliminary charges are subject to review by the Macon County States Attorneys Office.

Belcher said the man wanted on the felony warrant was still in a local hospital Thursday and had not been arrested yet. He suffered a broken pelvis as a result of the crash, Belcher said.

The pursuit began at about 6:30 p.m. at the intersection of South Main Street and 1st Drive after Buffett turned on his lights and attempted to initiate a traffic stop, Belcher said.

The driver fled north on North Franklin Street. The fleeing vehicle ran a red light at the intersection of Franklin and East William Street and was T-boned by a vehicle that had the right-of-way on William, Belcher said.

The crash's impact caused the Chevrolet to roll over onto its side. Dunklin attempted to flee from the scene, but was stopped by sheriffs deputies and taken into custody, Belcher said. The woman who drove the other vehicle was transported to a local hospital with injuries not considered to be life-threatening, Belcher said.

Belcher said a detective with the sheriff's office was riding with Buffett during the pursuit.

Every now and then, the sheriff does his own patrol, Belcher said. He does so just to check in and see how things are going in the field.

Belcher said that former Sheriff Thomas Schneider was also known for going on patrol in a sheriffs office squad car. Buffett was not available for comment Thursday night.

The Illinois State Police is investigating the crash, which Belcher said is standard protocol for any crash that involves a vehicle being pursued by the sheriff's office.

Buffett, 62, was sworn in as sheriff Sept. 15 after Schneider announced his resignation, citing stress and health reasons. He had volunteered as an unpaid auxiliary deputy sheriff for the department for five years, and the sheriffs office said in September that Buffett had completed 3,300 hours of patrol training.

Schneider said he appointed Buffett because he did not want to create an unfair advantage for any of the three sheriff's lieutenants who have announced that they plan to run for the office in the November 2018 election.

The son of multi-billionaire investor Warren Buffett, Howard Buffett came to Decatur in the 1990s to work for Archer Daniels Midland Co. His foundation has donated millions of dollars to Decatur-area projects, including to the sheriffs office, and has continued to make donations since he became sheriff.

Dunklin was held in the Macon County Jail on Thursday, and is due for arraignment on Dec. 1.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the preliminary charge of DUI that Emmanuel Dunklin is facing.
SPRINGFIELD  The WSOY Food Drive received recognition with the Governors Hometown Awards and will be honored Nov. 8 at a ceremony in Springfield.

The Serve Illinois Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service announced the honor in a statement Friday. The award recognizes group efforts that contributed to a communitys quality of life, met a need and had strong volunteer support, the commission said.

The recognition is for the 2016 food drive, which raised 1.4 million pounds/dollars of food for the food banks in the area.

Decatur is among four finalists, one from each division of the state. Judges will choose a winner from the finalists to receive the Governors Cup.

The projects that will be honored will also receive a plaque and a road sign for the town, the commission said.

Nominations for 2017 volunteer work are being accepted. More information on the Governor's Hometown Awards and the Governors Volunteer Service Awards, which is for individuals, can be found at www.serve.illinois.gov.
Aframax boarded by pirates

While underway, the 1997-built Aframax GP T2 was attacked by pirates at night on 30th October in the Singapore Strait, around 6.5 miles northeast of Terumbu Betata, Batam Island, Indonesia, reported ReCAAP.

According to the ReCAAP report on the incident, five pirates armed with knives boarded the Silver Star Ship Managements tanker and went into engine room, tied up duty oiler, stole some spare parts and then left in a small boat. The Master informed the Singapore Vessel Traffic Information System and the crew searched the ship, but no other intruders were found. The crew were reported to be uninjured. The tanker continued on her voyage from Singapore to China.




China looks to increase financing

he retreat of the traditional forms of ship finance since the financial crisis, prompted by the Lehman Brothers crash and subsequent turmoil since 2008, has forced shipowners to seek alternative funding in order to finance replacement tonnage.

Since 2008, it has been well publicised that the traditional European and US banks have worked hard to reduce their exposure to the volatile shipping markets and ran down their portfolios, Gibson Shipbrokers said in a report. Similarly, many of the recent IPO offerings have failed to attract strong levels of interest, often resulting in disappointing failure to reach target price. Next came the US hedge funds which for a while became quite sexy for investors but lost their appeal, as once again the volatile shipping markets put an end to earning a fast buck for those seeking a quick return from that vehicle. Enter China! Many shipowners have have taken advantage of Chinas enthusiasm to enter the finance market, including several well known tanker owners. For example, Scorpio Tankers announced in its second quarter results that in April this year, the company sold and leased back 2013 built MRs to an unaffiliated third party for a total sale price of $87 mill. In September, Scorpio followed this up with a similar sale and leaseback for five more 2012 MRs for $27.5 mill each. In both cases, the deal was concluded through the Shanghai Bank of Communications Financial Leasing (BoComFL). Similarly, Teekay Tankers announced in its 2Q17 results that a $153 mill sale and leaseback financing transaction involving four modern Suezmaxes, again BoComFL were the financiers. But perhaps the biggest BoComFL deal to come to light thus far is the financing (if not all, part) of the estimated $1.3 bill 32 tanker order announced by Trafigura in June. Full details of the project are still to be revealed; however, many of the orders to build Suezmaxes, LR2s and MRs in yards in China and South Korea announced thus far, appear to have BoComFL financial backing, Gibson said. Several Chinese financial institutions have sprung up over the past few years keen to fill the gap left by traditional lenders, in part to support domestic shipbuilders, leasing vessels back to international blue chip owners. This has raised concerns about the ease of raising finance to build more ships for oversupplied markets. However, the blue chip companies are less likely to default on loans. Even so, Chinese financiers are keen on the sale and leaseback deals because lenders are still worried about payment defaulting. Under this arrangement, the banks can more easily take control of the asset should the leasing company default on payments. Gibson said that its records indicated that BoComFL currently finance around 5.2 mil dwt tanker tonnage spread amongst refinancing existing tonnage and newbuildings, but precise data is difficult to obtain. The Industrial & Commercial Bank of China portfolio is estimated at 2 mill dwt of existing tanker tonnage but this particular bank is more heavily involved in financing in a wide range of shipping sectors. However, Minsheng Financial Leasing, one of Chinas largest lessors is reported to finance more than 300 vessels, more than doubling their portfolio in three years with tanker tonnage representing 15% of this total. Clearly, China has once again built a formidable challenge to the traditional western players, in yet another service sector of shipping, but this should hardly be viewed as a surprise, Gibson concluded.




Recently, OCIMFs vessel inspection programme working group were asked to review the SIRE programme.

This was aimed at whether a new, holistic vessel inspection programme could be designed that provides more value to OCIMF members.

The SIRE programme was introduced in 1993 and the only major changes since then were the introduction of the inspector accreditation programme in 2000 and the expansion in scope to include barges in 2005.

OCIMF said in its newsletter that the industry has evolved considerably since 1993 and new challenges, issues and risks have emerged. For example, today there is much better recognition of how human factors contribute to incidents and maritime risk.

The working group presented a draft Terms of Reference for the project at The General Purposes Committee Singapore (GPC 85) meeting last month, where it was approved in principle.

The working group has now become the Vessel Inspection Programme Steering Group and will set up expert work streams to consider the various aspects involved with vessel inspections.

GPC 86 is due to meet in Houston between 21st and 22nd March next year.
A Director of Studies in Physical Sciences has circulated an email to all Queens NatSci freshers, warning them about going through their first few weeks in Cambridge without being completely focused. It states that if they enjoy their social life, instead of using their FULL brain capacity, they will not easily survive the course.

The email was highlighted by Memebridge and Student Minds Cambridge, as it serves as a telling example of a dangerous and unhealthy culture in Cambridge of encouraging students to prioritise work over mental well-being. While the email begins by warning students against pennying' and drinking games, it tells them that Cambridge is NOT like any other uni, where students are allowed to have what they regard as a good time. It even goes on to tell students that ALL of [their] attention to the subject may not be enough for some.

Queens' JCR President, Hope Whitehead, commented on behalf of the JCR: "While the JCR certainly doesn't endorse irresponsible drinking, we are deeply disappointed with the comments made by this fellow. Queens' as a college has made a strong commitment to student welfare and we as a committee work hard to do so as well."

TCS has reached out to the professor for comment.
Archaeologists have found a hidden chamber in Egypts Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest of the ancient worlds seven wonders that dates back to 4,500 years ago. The discovery is the first of its kind in the structure since the 19th century, when other chambers were detected inside it.

A Newly Discovered Chamber Inside The Giza Pyramid

An international team of researchers made the discovery with the help of cosmic ray imaging. The scientists recorded the behavior of subatomic particles known as muons that can penetrate rock, quite like X-rays but deeper.

A 30-meter void was detected deep within the pyramid located above the Grand Gallery region and with a cross-section similar to it. At present, the archaeologists do not know whether the chamber had a purpose or if it was created with a specific function in mind.

However, researcher Mehdi Tayoubi has suggested that the chamber was hidden since the pyramid was constructed.

"The romantic interpretation and what everyone wants to hear is that this is a hidden room and the king's body is inside or there's grave goods we didn't know about or we're going to learn more about history ... and none of that is responsible speculation at the moment," Harvard University Egyptologist Peter Der Manuelian said.

Manuelian added that it is known at present is that the void is huge, which implies that it was an intentional addition and therefore warrants further exploration. The researcher has also said that the good part about using muons for the project is that they cause no damage to the pyramid, whereas in the past, before modern innovations, archaeologists sometimes used to blast through a pyramids walls.

The Great Pyramid: Pyramid Of Cheops Also Known As Khufus Pyramid

The Great Pyramid was built by the pharaoh Khufu who belonged to the fourth dynasty and ruled from 2509 to 2483 BC. One of the major tourist attractions in the world, the monument measures 140 meters in height and is located on the Giza Plateau.

Previous explorations, which took place in the 19th century, revealed that the pyramid has three chambers: the kings chamber at the top, the queens chamber at the center, and a subterranean chamber at the structures base.

Incidentally, King Khufus mummy is missing, though a granite sarcophagus is present in the kings chamber. The queens of the pharaoh were buried elsewhere, and all the treasures that may have been contained in the chambers were robbed long ago.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The UK is sleepwalking towards a serious, long-term weakening of its TV production industry, according to BBC director general Tony Hall.

Citing the rise of global SVoD players, budget pressures on the BBC and dwindling ad revenues at commercial broadcasters, Hall warned that a 500m gap will open up between the amount that is spent on UK content now and the amount that will be spent in 2026.

He said the 500m shortfall, calculated in a specially commissioned report by research firm Mediatique, would not be made up by SVoD companies like Netflix, Amazon and Apple.

Up until now, while the global giants have seen their revenues rise substantially, this hasnt translated into an increased investment in British content.

Hall warned that their investment decisions are likely to focus on a narrow range of very expensive, very high-end shows like The Crown or The Grand Tour that can attract large, global audiences.

Even the most generous calculations suggest they are barely likely to make up half of the 500m gap in British content over the decade ahead And a more realistic forecast points to them contributing substantially less.

Hall added: What this adds up to is not just a real risk to the volume and breadth of British content, but also  as the report warns  a potentially damaging impact on UK distinctiveness, risk-taking, and innovation.

We have to face the reality that the British content we value, and our audiences love and rely upon, is under serious threat.

Hall also noted that the decisions taken on the west coast of the US are increasingly shaping the TV landscape in the UK.

He pointed out that ten years ago, around 83% of independent production companies in the UK were either UK or European owned. The figure today is 40%, with the rest owned by US multinationals.

Hall used the figures to stress the increasing importance of the BBC in the new TV landscape, particularly its role in nurturing talent and investing in high-quality British content across all genres.

We need to look at the BBC afresh  not in terms of our place in a domestic market, but in terms of the broader role we can play in helping to strengthen UK production in a global market.

Hall also cited an Ipsos MORI report which examined the factors which divide Britain and those that bring it together. The report concluded that British content on TV remains a key part of national life.

Hall was delivering the Roscoe lecture at Liverpool John Moores University yesterday.

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Zurich, Switzerland (SPX) Oct 30, 2017



From earthworms and sunflowers to human beings, we are all made up of cells, so it's no surprise that researchers are hard at work investigating these building blocks of life. They have already discovered many of their secrets, but until now, it has not been possible to measure the weight of living cells and how it changes in real time, as no suitable method of measurement has existed. Tha ... more
R Bar & Grille, a restaurant at 157 W. Main St., will officially open for business on Dec. 1.

Owner Randy West described R Bar & Grille as a "modern day steakhouse" that will feature live music and a menu featuring some of he and his head chef's favorite foods to eat and prepare.

West said the restaurant's menu will contain a variety of specialty items, and will be categorized by "land, sea and air." The "land" category will include entrees like steak and hamburgers, "sea" will feature seafood orders like the signature sea crab sandwich and "air" will feature chicken and other poultry-based entrees.

"I can't wait for people to come through the door, walk in and just say 'wow,' said West, adding the doors might open before the Dec. 1.

R Bar & Grille will be the first restaurant opened by West, a retired architect who served as vice-president of BLDD Architects. After the death of wife last year, West said their son encouraged him to follow his passion and open a restaurant of his own.

"He knows I watch Food Network," West said. "I've learned so much from watching that network."

The restaurant's future location was one of several downtown buildings that Main Place Properties began redeveloping for commercial and residential use in April.

Looking forward to the opening, West said he's excited for his restaurant to become one of the many positive experiences that downtown Decatur has to offer.

***

Hickory Point Mall in Forsyth will soon be without a book store.

Wisconsin-based Book World is closing all of its 45 stores in seven states, citing a shift in consumer preference to online shopping.

The national shift in the retail marketplace towards e-commerce has triggered the loss of vital mall anchor stores and a downward spiral in customer counts at Book World stores, reducing sales to a level that will no longer sustain business operations, said Mark Dupont, the company's senior vice president.

Dupont said 325 employees will lose their jobs as a result.

Book World opened in the mall in 2012, filling the space vacated by Waldenbooks.

The book retailer began liquidation sales on Thursday, offering deep discounts on books, toys, games, puzzles, magazines, calendars, trading cards, gifts, and all other merchandise. Dupont said the company timed the closures and liquidation to coincide with the holiday shopping season.

Sales will continue until all inventory is sold. Dupont expects that process to be complete by January.

The company has stores in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa and North Dakota.

The company is headquartered in Appleton, about 30 miles southwest of Green Bay. It is the foruth largest book store chain in the United States.

***

The days are getting shorter and colder, but that doesn't mean the we are out of the woods when it comes to yard work just yet.

The folks at Sure Sharp are there to help with an expanded line-up of equipment at a new location at 2901 N. Woodford St. in Decatur. The building is the former home of Bendsen Signs, which moved a couple blocks down the road to 1506 East McBride Ave.

Co-Owner Robin Brown said the move from 3550 N. 27th St. has been a positive one, providing more visibility and a larger showroom and service area.

I didn't know how busy the road (Woodford Avenue) was until we moved here, she said.

Brands includes Stihl, Ferris Mowers, Echo, Shindawa, Bear Cat and Ariens/Gravely Mowers.

Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday. Check them out on Facebook or call (217) 877-5089.

***

Peddlers Point in Forsyth is looking to connect buyers and sellers.

The business, located at 350 South U.S. 51, is home to more than 25 vendors who sell a variety of items, including antique furniture, collectibles, arts, crafts and much more.

Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. It is closed on Monday.

Peddlers Point shares a building with Connie's Country Greenhouse.

Connie Burgett owns the building with Greg and Elliott Burgett.

She said they decided to open Peddlers Point to take advantage of all the available space the building offers. Burgett said there is space for up to 45 vendors. Those interested in booth space can call (217) 875-7355.

For a sampling of what is offered, check out its Facebook page.
Several of Baton Rouge's most dangerous railroad crossings are poised for upgrades or closures in the coming years, and those designing the safety modifications are looking for the public's help to draw up their plans.

The Federal Railroad Administration awarded a $1.1 million grant in February 2016 to the state Department of Transportation and Development for changes to the railroad crossings. But it has taken nearly two years to reach the next step and actually present drawings to the public that show how engineers propose to modify 10 Kansas City Southern Railway Company crossings and to close six others.

Louisiana ranked fourth in the nation of the number of highway-rail grade crossing fatalities in 2015, with 13 deaths, according to Federal Railroad Administration figures.

Louisiana ranked seventh in the nation last year in the number of fatalities at railroad crossings, according to Operation Lifesaver's rankings based on that year's preliminary Federal Railroad Administration statistics. Last year, the state had 10 deaths, 50 injuries and 84 collisions at railroads, according to the data.

DOTD will hold a public meeting from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Monday at the Carver Branch Library to show those who live, walk and drive near the 16 railroad tracks the ways they propose to change them.

Tracks in line for maintenance include those on North Street; Main Street; Laurel Street; Florida Boulevard; Convention Street; Government Street; Wisteria Street; Myrtle Walk Street; Terrace Avenue; and Louise Street.

Consulting proposals sought for two BR passenger rail stations for proposed service to N.O. The proposed Baton Rouge to New Orleans passenger rail service took another step forward Thursday as the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Author

The crossings expected to permanently close are at Gayosa Street; South Boulevard; Julia Street; Smith Street; Orange Street and Apple Street.

Metro Councilwoman Tara Wicker, whose district encompasses most of those railroad crossings, said it's important that the engineers and public come up with a way to make the tracks safer but also to ensure that closures do not negatively affect the routes people are accustomed to take to work, church, recreation and more.

"We're going to build connecting roads for the ones that we're closing," said DOTD communications director Rodney Mallett.

Mallett said the railroad projects are joint ones, as DOTD has the federal grant, the city-parish owns the property and Kansas City Southern owns the railroad tracks.

Kansas City Southern released a statement Friday saying the company is "in favor of and investing in this project to help support the state and communitys efforts to improve public safety in this corridor."

A number of railroad tracks around downtown and Old South Baton Rouge are particularly dangerous because of their old designs without gates to keep cars from driving over them as trains approach.

Feds: This Baton Rouge railroad crossing one of nation's most crash-prone A railroad crossing on North Foster Drive in Baton Rouge is one of the most accident-prone crossings in the country, federal officials announc

"That's a situation that is definitely of concern," said Downtown Development District Executive Director Davis Rhorer.

The danger is not the only issue that the railroad tracks present. Wicker said the noise and upkeep have also been concerns. She recalled holding a community cleanup in 1997 specifically meant to fix up the railroad tracks.

"There have been issues where people have gone across the track and they've almost taken off the tires because the tracks aren't in great shape," Wicker said.

Conversations about railroad safety in Louisiana have mostly been prompted by tragedies. Three days before Christmas in 2015, a passenger train struck a car stuck on railroad tracks in Iberia Parish. Five people died as a result of the crash, and it ignited a number of discussions about what went wrong.

A few months later, the Federal Railroad Administration announced that a railroad crossing on North Foster Drive in Baton Rouge was one of the most dangerous railroad crossings in the nation.

The North Foster Drive railroad crossing is not one set for safety upgrades through the grant, and the Iberia Parish crossing where the fatal crash happened also has not undergone any safety upgrades since then.

In January of this year, DOTD started a "Don't Stop on the Tracks" railroad safety campaign, running public service announcements on televisions and radios.

Mallett stressed that the safety upgrades proposed for the railroad tracks in Baton Rouge are still in the infancy stage. No construction start date has been set yet, he said, and engineers will use the comments from the public at Monday's meeting to come up with their design plans.

"We've been waiting for them to come about for a long time," Wicker said.
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New Braunfels, TX (78130)

Today

Cloudy skies early will become partly cloudy later in the day. High 58F. Winds NE at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies in the evening, then becoming cloudy overnight. Low 41F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph.
Canberrans are in the dark about the true performance of the territory's emergency departments, as ACT Health admitted the first figures released since an inquiry into health data was announced are not accurate.

Questions put to ACT Health about some of the data have revealed there are still issues with data collection at Canberra hospitals.

There are still issues with data collection at ACT hospitals, including the Canberra Hospital in Woden. Credit:Karleen Minney

Opposition health spokeswoman Vicki Dunne said she had no confidence in the figures, claiming the reality could be much worse.

The most recent figures detailing the performance of Canberra's emergency departments showed a slight overall improvement on treatment times from 2015/16, while the most urgent triage categories, one and two, were down.
It's the first business for owners Jaki Bradley And Sarah Wright, who are both born and bred Canberrans and met at their previous job.

Blow dry bars are particularly popular in the United States, with a number of businesses popping up across Australia over the last couple of years.

Located on Lonsdale Street in the Ori Building is Saloon, Canberra's first ever blow dry bar, which offers up a beauty service menu alongside a wine list.

Like any good bar, the shelves at Braddon's newest bar are stacked with clean wine glasses, but they also have to share shelf space with hair products, blow dryers and brushes.

"I always find that the most fun I ever had whether it was my school formal or going out with my friends or going to a wedding or a ball - the best part is getting ready and it's hanging out with your friends, having some drinks and getting all glammed up," said Ms Bradley.

"And I think it's so cool to be able to actually provide a destination where it's like 'come get ready' and that's the party. We wanted Saloon to be the ultimate hangout for all things beauty, literally everything that we would want when we're getting ready for a night out with our girlfriends or whoever else."

The main service is the blow dry, which are $50 no matter the length of your hair, and you can choose from a 'menu' of blow outs, each named after nineties supermodels.

You can also book in for makeup applications or lessons, hair up-dos and treatments, brow waxing, tints and tattooing, lash lifts, and spray tans.

And then there's the bar side of things, with a predominantly local drinks list of wines, beers and cider, plus mimosas for those morning appointments.
They're a team known for their love of a full, luscious beard, but this week the King O'Malley's crew parted with their beloved facial locks, all in the name of men's health.

Five members of the team from the Irish pub are taking part in Movember, the annual moustache-growing event to raise funds and awareness for men's health issues.

Before: the unshaven Peter Barclay, James Regan, Brendan Sheville, Mark Peisley, and Nick Thackray getting ready to lose their beards for Movember. Credit:Sitthixay Ditthavong

King O'Malley's owner Peter Barclay said it was the tenth year the pub has been involved, and while they have raised more than $10,000 for the event over the years, he said it's about much more than the money.

"Increasing awareness of men's health is more important than anything, and men have really opened up and they're talking with their families and with other men about physical health," he said.
A Canberra woman who defrauded the non-profit training organisation where she worked of more than $157,000 spent on food, clothes and a new car has been sentenced to three years' imprisonment.

Trisha Lee Mooney, 44, was finance officer at the Transport Industries Skills Centre when she processed hundreds of dodgy payments for herself and used her work credit card for personal purchases between 2010 and 2014.

The woman was sentenced to three years behind bars. Credit:Nic Walker

Chief Justice Helen Murrell said her crimes "painted a dismal picture of largely inexplicable dishonesty" from an employee in a position of "significant responsibility" when she ordered Mooney spend a minimum of 18 months behind bars.

She pleaded guilty in the ACT Supreme Court to fraud and using a fake document.
Access Canberra will take no action against an international charity after it held a fundraiser in the capital without a valid licence.

Sunrise Cambodia apologised for the fault, saying an "administrative oversight" had been the cause.

Sunrise Cambodia founder Geraldine Cox. Credit:Lindsay Murdoch

An online search of Access Canberra's records showed The Australia Cambodia Foundation Incorporated, trading as Sunrise Cambodia, held a Charitable Collection Licence (ACT) from 21 June 2011 to 20 June 2016.

This licence had been allowed to lapse before being renewed again on February 13.
A man who was injured when he jumped from Canberra Hospital's roof in an attempt to kill himself a decade ago has been awarded more than $130,000 damages after he successfully sued the ACT government for negligence.

The ACT Supreme Court found health professionals failed to put procedures in place to stop the man, 29, hurting himself in the hours before he plunged to the ground and broke both his ankles while he was a patient at the hospital in 2007.

The man suffered serious injuries when he jumped from the roof of a building at Canberra Hospital. Credit:Karleen Minney

The man, whose name has been suppressed, had self-harmed and threatened to throw himself from the roof of a house before police coaxed him down and took him to hospital for treatment under mental health laws about 4.30am on September 12.

He was admitted and emergency department staff noted he suffered psychological problems.
Some childrens toys being sold in Armenia have been found to contain high levels of a chemical substance said to cause cancer and other serious health problems.

Knarik Grigoryan, a researcher from the Armenian Women for Health and Healthy Environment NGO, told Hetq that high concentrations of phthalate were found in Chinese plastic toys sold at one shop in Yerevan.

The Armenian NGO found high concentrations of the substance, banned in the European Union, the United States, China and other countries, in some of the toys they tested in Armenia.

Phthalates, used in a large variety of products - from moisturizing and softening creams to lotions, fragrances, perfumes, nail polishes  are also used to impart softness and flexibility to toys. Penetrating the body, phthalates can lead to the loss of body's immune response and protective properties, damage liver, kidneys, cause infertility and cancer, metabolic disorders, diarrhea, diabetes, etc. Teenage women and children are the most vulnerable.

The toys were examined by Greenpeace Russia, together with Echo-Soglasie (Russia), Center for Ecological Decisions (Belarus), Armenian Women for Health and Healthy Environment (Armenia), Independent Ecological Expertise (Kyrgyzstan) and Human Health Institute (Kazakhstan).

The use of several types of phthalates is limited to 0.1% of the mass. According to the Eurasian Customs Union technical regulation, some types are banned altogether.

In 2017, the NGOs conducted a public survey to see which toys need to be examined. As a result, 16 types of toys were selected - mostly puppets, bath toys, and animal and cartoon plastic characters.

The toys were purchased from children's shops in Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and ordered online. In April, the samples were transferred to the Greenpeace UK expertise laboratories, as well as to the German Eurofins Consumer Product Testing Analytical Lab. The toys were checked for ten types of phthalates.

Knarik Grigoryan says she bought a toy set (Childrens Toys) made in China and a baby teether, which she sent to the partner organization for testing.

"I preferred to send toys that were more affordable. The teether costed 800 drams, the toy set  1,000 drams," said Knarik Grigoryan.

A laboratory analysis of the toys showed that all the samples contained phthalates in different amounts, including dibutyl phthalate, prohibited by the Eurasian Economic Union. Additionally, more than one third of the toys contained concentrations of phthalate, that are banned in the European Union, China, and elsewhere.

Five of the toy samples, including toys purchased from the Armenian market, contained the highest concentrations of phthalates.

Beginning in 2009, several international organizations, including the World Health Organization, the United Nations Environment Program and others have expressed concerns about the high levels of using harmful materials. In 2013, 100 scientists from 19 countries have signed the Berlaymont Declaration on endocrine disruptors.

In 2013, the production of phthalates in the world amounted to around 5.5 million tons per year. Since phthalates are not chemically mixed with products, they can easily get into the air, water or soil, and so on. This happens not only in production, but also in the process of using the products, as a result of which phthalates interact not only with the human beings but also with the ecosystem.

Consumers need to be pro-active, says government inspector

According to the current Armenian legislation, businesses are obligated to subject imported toys, for testing, to obtain a safety certificate and, if necessary, to show it to the supervisory authority and buyers. Some of the entities do fail to do so, since its regarded as an extra expense.

Levon Khalikyan, who heads Armenias Market Control Inspectorate (MCI), believes his agency is doing its best, but changing people's mindset takes a long time. He says consumers should be proactive, and check whether the product has been examined or not. Before buying, they need to ask for a safety certificate.

When asked why cant imported toys be supervised at the border, Khalikyan responded that under pressure from businesses the law was changed so that safety testing would be required after importation. The official says his agency must see that companies are adhering to the law.

Levon Khalikyan

Non-specialized stores bring in cheap, non-certified toys for profit, especially during the holiday season. Toys are sold everywhere in the lead-up to New Years.

The dissemination of Chinese goods is a problem that no country can handle, but in countries where consumers are attentive, such toys are left out of the market.

People should understand that it is better to prevent sickness rather than spend money on the treatment of the child, " says Khalikyan.

However, toys that havent been inspected sometimes make it to the shelves of specialized toy stores in Armenia.

For example, the MCI found violations in seven of eight businesses importing and selling toys in the country.

One company, Vostanik Hayrenyats, was fined AMD 500,000 for selling toys without proper documentation. Based in the Syunik village of Angeghakot, the company once attempted to import cameras and other household items from the UAE without any customs declaration.

The MCI fined two companies  Tuntunik and Adel  AMD 200,000 apiece for selling toys with no safety certificate.

Armenias prominent SAS supermarket chain was also found in violation of the law.

It was fined for selling toys and other items (cosmetics, detergents and soaps, low voltage electronics) that either had no safety certificate or lacked the required sales label in Armenian.
Mr Beer said this financial year, they were on track to carry out 2000 cremations.

During an inquiry into the management of the ACT's cemeteries, Norwood Park's general manager Stephen Beer said while his facility would lose business, the demand for cremations in the capital was growing.

The head of Canberra's sole crematorium has acknowledged the city needs a second one but says he doesn't have the budget to run the "grandiose" model put forward by government years ago.

Norwood was coping with the demand, Mr Beer said, with up to 14 cremations carried out a day.

But he said Canberra would likely need another crematorium in the future.

"I think my view goes along the line of the government's view, that probably Canberra as it grows on the southside does need an additional facility. Several years ago I did a workshop to Deloitte regarding that and we looked at the feasibility of doing it but it was outside the realms of Norwood Park's budgeting," Mr Beer said.

"We would much prefer that if something was set up on the southside that we'd be offered the opportunity to run it along the lines of what we do at Norwood Park but I think on the southside from what I gleaned when I did the discussion with Deloitte's that it was going to be fairly grandiose type of situation and perhaps $30 and $50 million were the figures given to us. Well that would be out of Norwood Park's budget to actually set that up."

Asked if it was still outside Norwood's budget, Mr Beer said yes "at this stage".
Amid growing uncertainty over the citizenship status of members of Parliament, Katy Gallagher has refused to explain whether she was ineligible to sit in the Senate for more than a year before the last federal election.

High Court rulings against the eligibility of five MPs last month suggest Senator Gallagher may have been ineligible from the time she replaced Kate Lundy in the Senate in March 2015 until she completed Labor Party candidate vetting ahead of the 2016 federal election.

ACT Labor senator Katy Gallagher. Credit:Graham Tidy

Senator Gallagher told Parliament in September her parents Betsy and Charles Gallagher were both British by birth and became Australian citizens after migrating, but she only formally renounced any entitlement to British citizenship by descent from her father after party advice in April last year.

About 20 years after Charles Gallagher's death, Labor officials decided it would be difficult to substantiate his citizenship status.
Senior officials at the University of Canberra are set to face the "direct scrutiny" of a Legislative Assembly inquiry hearing for the first time, with hearings expected in the next fortnight.

The Assembly's Education, Employment and Youth Affairs committee on Thursday resolved to conduct an inquiry into the university's 2016 calendar year annual report and associated financials, despite the government opposing the inquiry.

The University of Canberra will face hearings of the first known inquiry into its financials by an Assembly committee in the next fortnight. Credit:Rohan Thomson

While the inquiry will focus on the 2016 reports, hearings expected to held in the next fortnight will likely include the university's role in property development and its business interests among other issues.

Despite all territory government directorates and agencies being subject to government-wide legislation forcing them to face annual hearings by various committees, the legislation apparently did not include the university.
Australia's peak animal medical body told the ACT government it would not have to ban greyhound racing to improve animal welfare in the sport.

The Australian Veterinary Association told the greyhound taskforce last week raising the standard for animal welfare in the industry would eliminate the need to ban the sport.

Vets met with the ACT government before the ban was announced. Credit:Sitthixay Ditthavong

This was in spite of the association coming out in support of NSW's ban before it was reversed.

But president Dr Paula Parker said the ACT government was committed to shutting down the sport.
First point is that the $44,900 in annual spending per Indigenous person covers more than 150 spending categories, including social security payments, but also government spending on health, all levels of education, law and order, housing, community welfare, transport and even a share of the cost of the public service and defence. So most comes in the form of services provided, rather than cash in hand. A bit over half of the spending comes from state and territory governments, leaving a bit less than half from the feds. The report divides the $44,900 into "mainstream services"  services available to all Australians regardless of ethnic origin  and "Indigenous-specific services". The latter account for just 18 per cent of the total  about $8000 a year per person. This proportion is down on earlier years. Looking at how we've been going on the various indicators of progress during the same period tells us little about whether that money is being spent well or badly.

But this still leaves the annual cost per person of mainstream services for Indigenous Australians exceeding the equivalent cost for other Australians by about $14,5000. How's this explained? Mainly by the greater intensity of Indigenous people's use of mainstream services. For instance, their rate of unemployment is higher. And, rightly or wrongly, a disproportionate share of law and order spending is devoted to Indigenous people. As well, the Indigenous population is, on average, younger  meaning disproportionate spending on education. The rest of the difference between the levels of spending on mainstream services is explained by the higher cost of providing those services in remote locations. Biddle says that 22 per cent of Indigenous Australians live in remote and very remote areas. And remember this. While real spending on Indigenous Australians seems to be rising rapidly in absolute terms, so too is the Indigenous population. It's up by almost 16 per cent over the seven years to June 2016, compared with a little more than 11 per cent for the non-Indigenous population.

Biddle calculates that while real Indigenous spending per person has risen by 6.9 per cent over the seven years, real gross domestic product per person has risen by 7.5 per cent. Sadly, it's true that the Closing the Gap targets set by the Council of Australian Governments in 2009 look unlikely to be achieved. That's because progress to date has been so modest. The targets were worthy, but unrealistic. At this stage it's probable that setting revised, more achievable targets will do more to motivate governments to keep trying. But this isn't to say we're making no progress. Biddle and a colleague at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Francis Markham, have been examining last year's census for evidence on how we're going with the gap. On employment they find no noticeable improvement since the previous census in 2011. On education, however, the news is more encouraging.

"Indigenous people are getting into the education system earlier and staying for longer," they say. "This is likely to lead to improved socio-economic outcomes in future." The proportion of three to five-year-olds attending preschool is up from 43.5 per cent to 48.5 per cent. The proportion of 15 to 18-year-olds at high school is up substantially from 51.2 per cent to 59.7 per cent. The proportion of Indigenous people who've completed year 12 has risen from 28 per cent to 34.6 per cent. And the proportion of 15 to 24-year-olds in tertiary education is up from 14.1 per cent to 16.2 per cent. But let's get real in another sense. Checking the figures to see what's been happening to government spending on Indigenous people is fine, but it tells us nothing about whether that spending is efficient, effective or even adequate. What's more, looking at how we've been going on the various indicators of progress during the same period tells us little about whether that money is being spent well or badly.

Why? Many reasons. Because spending in one year may take many years to have an effect. Because spending in one area can affect multiple outcomes. Because outcomes in one area can be influenced by spending in many areas. We know we're spending more but not achieving the improvement we'd hoped for. What we don't know is whether we're wasting our money or need to be spending a lot more. Why not? Because we know too little about the effectiveness of particular spending programs. We haven't done nearly enough research to see what works and what doesn't. Loading We won't get as far as we should in Closing the Gap until we do our homework. That includes making more data held by government departments available to researchers.
Few Australian poets have had such a varied life and career as Rae Jones, with his community activism culminating as Mayor of Ashfield (2004-2006) and his life as a poet and fiction writer producing a great variety of strange and singular works. Although it is definitely not an autobiography his novel The Lemon Tree certainly gives much that derives from Rae's background.

Some might call Jones "eccentric", except that this little word is often applied to rather dreary types who are easily categorised; and he could never be categorised except when it came to his abilities as a most singular poet, his wonderful talent as a raconteur, his steadfastness as friend, community activist, fellow worker and as husband to Helen and father to Karey, Alyse and Bevan.

Ashfield Mayor Rae Jones as a Qantas aircraft takes off overhead from Sydney Airport, 2005. Credit:Dallas Kilponen

Born into a working class Broken Hill family in 1941, Rae was a "totally useless pupil and a highly successful juvenile delinquent", preparatory to being a panelbeater, jackhammer labourer, crane dogman and above all a very angry roaring boy. Then, after moving to Sydney and, after eight years, tiring of such a life, Jones turned from raging to, among other things poetry, at an age, he later purported, when most young poets had stopped. He had of course been reading poetry along with (among other works) Buddhist scriptures, existentialists, mystics and numerology. After a University of Sydney degree and teaching qualifications, he became a successful, indeed a most unique, teacher in inner western Sydney.

As a writer Jones made this a near necessity: if the poem so demanded it, court the unacceptable. This wasn't the basis for his oeuvre but it does show the risks he was prepared to take, with his most notorious poem, The Deadshits, being a monologue spoken by a pack rapist. That this man is kneed in the genitals by his victim shows whose side the author was on, and adding to its humanist credentials the piece was set to music and sung by Robin Archer on an LP which was banned in sections of the media.
Tanya Plibersek's description of the Turnbull government as a soap opera isn't far from the truth. Series one having concluded with the downfall of Tony Abbott, we are now well into series two and things aren't going well for our current hero. Each day brings a new episode and each episode brings a new twist. On Tuesday, the president of the Senate, Stephen Parry, reveals he might be caught by section 44 of the constitution. On Wednesday, he quits. The Prime Minister says he wishes Mr Parry had made the issue public "some time ago". On Thursday we learn that he did: Communications Minister Mitch Fifield knew about Mr Parry's problem months ago, but didn't tell the Prime Minister. And another member of the cast is suddenly in trouble: Josh Frydenberg might be caught by section 44 because his mother was once a Hungarian citizen. Can this frontline performer and Turnbull ally escape the constitution's voracious grasp? Tune in tomorrow, viewers 

Not a star in the big picture: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Credit:AAP

Other plot lines are also appearing. In South Australia, Christopher Pyne is being bashed up by factional enemies. Elsewhere, Abbott supporters look to be using the citizenship issue as a way to make the Turnbull government look incompetent or unstable. Despite opposition from the senior leadership, some are pushing for an audit of MPs to check their citizenship status. If one or two are found ineligible, the Coalition would lose its majority. One has to ask: do these people actually want to bring their own government down?

Although the Liberals are not the only party affected  and indeed have been less touched by difficulties with section 44 than its Coalition partners  its current fragility has made the contagion far worse for it. The Nationals have suffered major damage, shrugged it off and got on with things. Their leader, Barnaby Joyce, is back on the hustings having renounced his New Zealand citizenship. He has seen off his party's rivals  One Nation, the Shooters and Fishers  and expects to be re-elected in the New England byelection. The Liberals have suffered less damage but are more obsessed by its effects. Some in the party appear to see it as a potential weapon to use in the party's still unreconciled differences over the leadership and policy directions.
I've spent quite some time wandering around various churches, temples and mosques. And I have treated those buildings, and their traditional owners, with respect. I would be mightily unimpressed if I were told that, as an atheist, I could not explore Angkor Wat or walk through Chartres Cathedral or climb the dome of Hagia Sophia but could only look at these sacred monuments from the outside. Why is a big rock any different? Ian Matthews Bondi I climbed Uluru in 1973 as part of a school excursion. There was no opposition  everybody did it. I climbed it again in 1993 (with my six-month-pregnant wife), and there was only a single signpost suggesting that we not do so, but still nearly everyone did it. The recent furore against climbing the rock seems to be closely associated with the rise of online activism. It will be interesting to look back from the Uluru settlement ghost town in 20 years and wonder why the tourists stopped coming. Greg Cantori Kareela I climbed Ayers Rock and then reverently walked around Uluru.

Cedric May Canberra Premier should call Triguboff's bluff Harry Triguboff has threatened to sell all his rental properties and not build any new ones ("Premier and Sydney's richest man square off on renters", November 2). Sydney should be so lucky. The government and councils might then be able to adhere to their building codes relieved of this developer's pressure and coercion  and we might also see some improvement in the quality of design and construction. Ted Wilson Middle Cove The government should call Triguboff's bluff. He has never built rental accommodation; he has built too many apartments which he then hasn't been able to sell, so has been forced to rent. His threatened action would flood the market with apartments and drive down prices. Bring it on!

Peter Craig Alexandria Triguboff and Meriton are large investors in the rental market. He is signalling what he and thousands of other investors will do if the government interferes in the supply and demand of Sydney rentals. He is a businessman and he will do what he needs to do to protect his business interests. It is likely that the government will be burnt with lower stamp duty returns from lower property prices and escalating rents. They will then have to beg Triguboff and others to build more rentals with changed legislation and sweeteners that politicians are good at. Chris Edwards Sydenham When Harry meets Gladys, who will win the stoush? Will the Premier yield to the Developer, faced by his threats and the influence of money? Will she stare him out a la Bishop and counter with some threats of her own? Reroute some of her Connexes through his apartment blocks or resume them at below market value for affordable housing? Eagerly awaiting the next episode, claim and counter-claim. Valerie Reynolds Greenwich

So, Harry Triguboff has threatened to flood the market with apartments for sale and to stop raking in profits from residential development? Damn, that's harsh! Rena Friswell Hornsby Commemoration not celebration Gary Frances (Letters, November 3) refers to World War I and II activities as celebrations during 2017. The services are certainly not celebrations. They are commemorations to remember those who lost their lives and those who went to war. Anyone who has had a relative involved or has been to a commemoration service will fully understand the meaning of a commemoration. We do not celebrate the loss of a family member from the horrific battles of either war. However we do look forward to celebrating Christmas, which is an entirely different occasion. Robyn Lewis Raglan

Just on 75th anniversaries alone we're only halfway through the major events of WWII. Defeats are just as glorious as victories. Just look at Gallipoli, an annual extravaganza if ever there was one. Surely we can find a more dignified way of remembering our war casualties. Chris Danckwerts Turramurra We have the 1918 centenaries to get through. Some decisive battles on the Western Front and of course the Armistice on November 11. In 2019 we will have the centenary of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles which is when WWI was, at last, over. The day the treaty was signed (June 28) was itself an anniversary  five years since the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand. John Lees Castlecrag Politicians should honestly take responsibility

Would all the honest politicians please step forward and state their status? ("Chamber of secrets", November 3). Wes Johnston Paddington I recently applied for a new Medicare card and my son applied for a copy of his HSC. The hoops these government departments make you jump through and the paperwork involved is challenging and time consuming to say the least. They only operate during business hours and you can't do it online. In contrast, in order to comply with the single citizenship requirements to hold political office in Australia you have to find out where your parents were born and then send a letter saying you renounce citizenship of that country if they were born overseas. While I agree that those politicians who failed to perform this simple process are arrogant, stupid and lazy, to suggest we need to spend millions of dollars on a referendum to change the constitution and thereby make it simpler for them, beggars belief. If they can't follow what is a relatively simple procedure in this day and age they shouldn't be representing us in parliament. Rosemary Embery Haberfield The fact they are having so much trouble with the fundamentals of citizenship may explain their confusions with the facts of climate change.

Greg Thompson Bega Leaders of all three major parties continue to insist there is no reason for a complete and impartial assessment of the eligibility for parliamentary service of current members. May I suggest that there be a four-week amnesty for any of them who are ineligible (they would know who they are by now) to own up, otherwise if found out, their salary and entitlements must be repaid? Now there's self-assessment with considerable incentive! Frank McGrath Bulli It's beginning to look as though the only truly unequivocal Australians are the Aboriginal people. Coral Button North Epping

If this crisis extends to the Ashes series then I suggest we all get padded up. Neil Kendrick Waverley Bank before job loses BAN NAB ("Bank jobs upheaval is just the start as automation looms over industry", November 3). Alicia Dawson Balmain

Has NAB chief executive Andrew Thorburn considered how much of the bank's $6.6 billion annual profit was the result of hard work by the bank's employees? Yet 6000 of them will lose their jobs over the next three years. And there will be no pay rises for those who retain their jobs unless there is "productivity improvement" ("No pay rise without lift in productivity", say business chiefs, November 3). And there should also be company tax cuts to "lower business costs". To top it off, Wesfarmers chief executive Richard Goyder claims that he "desperately" wants to pay his workers more, but that also requires "growth in productivity". Of course, any thought of cutting their obscene executive salaries is out of the question. Rob Phillips North Epping Banks are making obscene profits and yet making job cuts like never before. Meanwhile beleaguered staff, already working their butts off because they're terrified of being replaced by internet banking or other forms of technology, are told they won't be getting a pay rise without a lift in productivity. Perhaps the world would be a kinder place if, instead of passing on all the big bickies to shareholders, banks were to share more of their wealth with those workers who helped them create these eye-watering profits. Seems only fair. Bruce Hulbert Lilyfield Heavy toll all round

The proposed F6 Extension between Arncliffe and Loftus will incur an $8 toll each way - totalling $80 per week ("Leaked documents reveal new tolls and a $9b price tag", November 3). Yet the business case does not consider improving the train service between Sydney and Wollongong which is a cheaper option for commuters while not contributing to vehicle emission pollution. The government seems to have missed the OECD report saying that by 2050, outdoor air pollution is "projected to become the top cause of environmentally related deaths worldwide". Homes will be ''acquired''. In other words family homes demolished and owners probably offered less than market value. I am sure the homes won't belong to anyone in government though. Diane Davie Rose Bay Creative playgrounds

Issues of playground space in Sydney's new schools have creatively been overcome for decades in many other cities around the world ("Ultimo school plans to take recess to a whole new level", November 3). Some build indoor training tracks and ball play areas, wrestling arenas, even wall climbing has been provided for inner city high rise schools. Staggered lunch times are provided to allow ease of access to the cafeteria. My youngest son (currently teaching middle school math in a high rise on 5th Avenue in New York) allows his students to use the nearby sport and exercise facilities. The possibilities are there they just need to be radiated for our own inner city schools in Sydney. Janice Creenaune Austinmer Conflicting conflicts Shayne Higson (Letters, November 3) claims Dominic Perrottet has a conflict of interest in the voluntary euthanasia debate because of his religious convictions. Will he also hold that view when it comes to atheists in public office pushing for such laws to be passed? Perhaps we should vet all future parliamentarians to make sure they have no religious convictions so that we may never be in danger of our laws being influenced by them.

Donna Green Glenbrook Join in with Crowe Heartening to see Russell Crowe pointing to our politicians' disgraceful disdain for the human rights of asylum seekers ("Crowe ready to fight, offering a home and jobs to Manus refugees", November 3). How about joining the Crowe-storm, the rest of you prominent Australians? Christine McNeil Mullumbimby If only Sir Ninian was there in '75

On reading the obituary outlining Sir Ninian Stephen's wonderful contribution to our society ("Man of wisdom, diplomacy and charm", November 2), a thought occurred to me. What would have happened had he been governor-general in place of Sir John Kerr in November 1975? The course of Australia's history would have been very different. Carole Molyneux-Richards Bellevue Hill One couldn't help being impressed with the number of honours awarded to Sir Ninian. Among them is a GCMG. In Yes Minister, Bernard Woolley explained to Jim Hacker that in the British public service, the award "CMG" translated to "Call me God". However, GCMG stood for "God calls me God". Quite an honour for Sir Ninian. Stewart Copper Maroubra Buried in endnote 16 on page 255 of Philip Ayres' biography Fortunate Voyager: The Worlds of Ninian Stephen is buried the detail that Sir Ninian was an atheist. It would seem he waited to the very end before he revealed that private information about himself.
Against that is a desperate need by politicians on both sides to repair some of the damage done to the image of politicians and government by the political bastardry of the past decade, a steady display of personal venality, particularly about entitlements and post-political work, and a succession of displays of incompetence, mismanagement and poor stewardship of public resources.

Equally, Labor at the federal level may see the political advantage of running harder on the need for a standing anti-corruption body. Strictly it supports such an idea, but in practice its commitment is half-hearted. This is, officially, because many senior members are not persuaded that corruption is a major problem in federal administration, and unofficially because political folklore has it that those who establish such bodies (in the hope of catching out their political enemies) end up tripping over themselves. As witness, say, Nick Greiner, former NSW Liberal premier brought down by the ICAC he created, or Lionel Murphy, in part destroyed, in the 1980s, by the Senate committee system he helped pioneer in the 1960s.

But the ACT Greens  who hold the balance of power  have now committed themselves to a powerful and extensive anti-corruption body, more on the NSW ICAC model than any other. So Barr may as well make a virtue of necessity, looking to make the ACT a model of a transparent and accountable government. Heaven knows, it may even be popular, and may even lead to more effective, and more economical, government.

Andrew Barr's conversion to the need for a standing ACT anti-corruption agency just before the election last year was less than enthusiastic. He simply could not see the need, but came to recognise that there were perceptions about the way ACT Labor governed that needed to be addressed. He left open the possibility of having one that was as weak as possible  perhaps even more impotent than the South Australian model.

The pratfalls, such as those of recent months on matters of dual citizenship, compound images of politicians in it for themselves, with little concept of the public interest, and with little idea of what they are doing, or where they are going. Polls indicate an increasing public cynicism about the motivation and personal honesty of politicians; in my opinion, this is somewhat unfair, but it is easy enough, listening to the vomit coming from the mouths of politicians themselves, to understand where the perceptions are coming from.

Rebuilding that trust is no mere matter of looking or sounding more pious, or merely of somehow getting, and sticking with, better policies. There is not enough credit in the bank. Indeed, many citizens half-suspect a bipartisan endeavour to rort and abuse the system, while the public are distracted by the appearance of debate. And many believe that some of the checks and balances have been designed to fail, or have been deactivated.

It is quite true that one cannot legislate for honesty or good stewardship. One can, however, make it more certain that dishonesty will be discovered and exposed. Indeed, that the probability of detection, and the certainty, if it is detected, of disgrace and punishment, will by itself deter the abuse of power, whether by ministers and their minders, by ordinary politicians, by public servants, and by others who exercise power and discretion over the lives of others, such as regulators, police officers and judges.

This week saw the handing-down of an ACT Legislative Assembly committee report on the shape an ACT integrity or anti-corruption body may have. The committee was chaired by Shane Rattenbury, a minister in the Barr government and a member of the Greens, which had made its support of a Barr government subject to conditions including an anti-corruption framework. The committee, otherwise of two Labor and two Liberal members, went for a strong body, with the Labor members notably less keen on public hearings, and fearful it could become a place at which reputations could be shredded by false or mischievous allegations. Yet even they bowed to the weight of opinions that an anti-corruption body that failed to have open hearings or publish findings would fail to assuage public anxiety about political and administrative decision-making in the ACT.

Labor and Barr would insist, of course, that there is no such anxiety, or that, if there is, it rests on poor foundations and politically motivated innuendo. As it happened, Thursday saw a Liberal opposition no-confidence motion defeated in the Assembly, angrily repudiated by Barr as "smear and baseless allegation", designed to mask the opposition's hardline conservatism, and as a mere political attack that contained no proof of corruption.
Preventing people from perishing at sea is a noble end, but it does not justify ignoble means. Successive governments' policy of mandatory offshore detention of asylum seekers has harmed hundreds of already suffering children, women and men fleeing persecution, war and worse, and has now created a humanitarian crisis.

After being held in appalling conditions for more than four years in some cases, as many as 600 vulnerable men, most of whom are genuine refugees, have been in a traumatising, perilous limbo since the Australian government closed the detention centre on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island this week. They have no proper protection and dwindling food and water, and have refused to leave the compound. They fear for their lives, as the Manus locals do not want them to become part of their community, struggling as it is against economic hardship.

Refugees and asylum seekers protesting this week inside the now-closed regional processing facility on Manus Island.

The centre has not been closed out of decency; as long as 18 months ago, the PNG Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. It has been unconscionable ever since it was reopened by then prime minister Julia Gillard as she laboured to save the Labor government by fanning fear and prejudice. Labor lost the 2013 election, but her successors, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, have maintained the policy, which includes a refusal to ever allow an asylum seeker who arrived by boat to settle in Australia. This contravenes international law to which Australia is a signatory. Not only is it legal to seek asylum, Australia has a legal duty to properly process such people, however they arrived.

Foisting people on PNG, a poor and unruly nation, clearly will not work. A deal for the United States to take 1250 refugees has existed for more than a year, but only a few dozen have been processed and there is no outlook for that pace to accelerate, particularly as the US has cut immigration staff. New Zealand  the new prime minister of which, Jacinda Ardern, is visiting Australia this weekend and might help provide a circuit-breaker  has offered to take 150 a year. But the Coalition has so far declined.
According to the World Banks recently released Doing Business 2018 report, its gotten slightly easier to do business in Armenia - 0.59 easier.

The report, which investigates regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it, ranks Armenia in 47th place, out of 190 countries, in the ease of doing business.

Last year, Armenia ranked 38th. Evidently, several countries have achieved greater success in facilitating business in their countries than Armenia; at least according to the World Bank.

Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan, at a press conference today in Yerevan, mentioned the report, and said that despite the fall in Armenias overall ranking the business environment in the country had improved.

I am certain the business environment in our country has improved. That what I hear when I meet with businessmen and with diplomates from various nations that defend business interests. Weve lightened the tax and customs regulations, the return of VAT, and granting of licenses, Karapetyan said.

Doing Business measures aspects of regulation affecting 11 areas of the life of a business. Ten of these areas are included in this years ranking on the ease of doing business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.

Georgia ranked far better (8th), while Azerbaijan lagged in 57th place. Russia, Armenias main economic partner, came in 35th.
Energy and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg has completely rejected reports he could have inherited Hungarian citizenship from his mother, saying she is "upset because it raises a dark chapter in our family's lives".

A report on Thursday night suggested there was a "50 per cent likelihood" Mr Frydenberg was a Hungarian citizen by default, as his Jewish mother Erica was born in Budapest in 1943.

With her parents and sisters, the young Erica was interned for a time in the city's ghetto before fleeing the Holocaust. They lived in a displaced persons' camp and gained entry to Australia in 1950. Erica was made an Australian citizen in 1957.

"Months ago I told her that the Hungarian citizenship issue would one day be raised by somebody," Mr Frydenberg told Fairfax Media.
The ghastly possibility facing Josh Frydenberg is that, despite his mother being rendered stateless by the Nazi machine as it tried to obliterate Jews from Europe, his political career has been placed in jeopardy more than 70 years later because Hungary has since tried to rectify the wrongs of its dark past.

Frydenberg, facing down claims that he might be ineligible to sit in Parliament because he holds dual citizenship, spent Friday dismissing as "absurd" the idea he was a Hungarian citizen by descent.

He pointed out that a Hungarian law of 1939 stripped Jews of their citizenship, declaring them to be aliens.

His mother was born in Hungary in 1943, a year before she and her parents were forced by the Nazi-controlled government into the hell of the Jewish ghetto in Budapest.
During a visit this week to Chicago high school, Hyde Park Academy, Prince Harry, alongside Michelle Obama, surprised students in more ways than one.

It's not everyday that a prince and a former First Lady show up unannounced during a seminar being held for 20 students.

Britain's Prince Harry speaks during the closing ceremonies of the Invictus Games. Credit:AP

The students all had the opportunity to discuss the power of young people's voices in making a difference, but it was an answer Prince Harry gave while being quizzed on Chicago's signature delicacies that was one of the biggest (and best) surprises.

"I can safely say from my experience, and all the travelling I've done, all over the world, speaking to people your age - the younger generation is the cure to all of the problems," he told the students.
Public servants moving into the Home Affairs mega-department face losing workplace conditions as its future boss signals he wants them to join Immigration's industrial agreement.

An email sent to staff last month, seen by Fairfax Media, explained Home Affairs secretary-designate Michael Pezzullo wants employees moving into the new department to adopt Immigration's existing workplace deal, potentially seeing them lose some more generous conditions.

Michael Pezzullo is the secretary-designate of the new Home Affairs super-department. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Under Australian Public Service guidelines, staff transferring from one department to another must receive the more lucrative of salaries that applied for their classification immediately before and after their move.

But most commonly they have to adopt conditions set in the workplace agreement of the receiving agency.
Foreign-owned developers based in Australia will be allowed to apply for exemptions from new land tax and stamp duty surcharges under changes proposed by the state government after lobbying by the property industry.

But the government is being accused of bowing to pressure from the industry to deliver developers tax breaks worth tens of millions of dollars a year.

In the June budget Treasurer Dominic Perrottet announced the existing stamp duty surcharge for foreign property investors would be doubled to 8 per cent and the land tax surcharge lifted from 0.75 per cent to 2 per cent as a revenue raising measure.

The budget papers explained foreign-owned developers based in Australia will be eligible for a refund if they sell their new homes or apartments to the public within five years.
The painting by renowned Australian artist Margaret Olley was discovered at a car boot sale for $20. Credit:Louise Kennerley But receiving the final tick of approval took years, and nearly didn't happen at all. Ripped from its original stretcher, the artwork depicts a bouquet of calendulas in vibrant hues of orange, yellow and brown, splayed across a blue gingham tablecloth, rendered in luscious, heavy brush strokes. David Stein is restoring the painting by renowned Australian artist Margaret Olley. Credit:Louise Kennerley Lismore is a special place for Olley's devotees. The celebrated artist was born in the town and was a great supporter of the local art gallery.

Bassett was already an admirer of Olley's work, but didn't have the means to authenticate the painting. Margaret Olley was one of Australia's most significant still-life and interior painters. Stefanie Bassett thinks "if Margaret was alive today she'd probably roar with laughter and say 'well, look what the cat dragged in'." Credit:Ben Rushton She pulled out this Margaret Olley painting. I said 'holy shit' and poured myself another glass of wine. Christopher Mulcahy At the time she was living off the grid in a 1940s farm shack with no running hot water in bushland on the far north coast. She shared her small house with tree snakes, mud wasps, bush rats and sugars gliders, and was concerned the work would eventually become dinner for a local colony of ants. Reaching out to art experts proved tricky, armed only with a mobile phone powered by "sunbeams". And when she did reach experts, they soon lost interest.

"Everyone seemed interested at first, but when I explained how the work came to be in my possession it was like dropping a hot rock - dead ends at every turn - so I gave up" she said. In mid 2017 an old friend, art teacher Bek Golsby-Smith, came to visit Bassett, who showed her the artwork. "Stef pulled out the painting and said 'do you know what that is'. I said 'it looks like a Margaret Olley'." Golsby-Smith had seen Olley's work up close and agreed to take the painting to the "big smoke". In Sydney, Golsby-Smith made many attempts to put the painting in front of the eyes of experts, and even considered ambushing former NSW Art Gallery director Edmund Capon - a friend of Olley's - who worked near her studios.

"I started dropping lines to people that I knew, trying to get people as excited about it as I was, but no one instinctively felt the same way about it that I did," she said. At a dinner party a few months ago, Golsby-Smith put the painting in front of a friend - former google executive Christopher Mulcahy - for his thoughts. Mulcahy was stunned. "I was walking out the door at the end of the dinner party, I was the last person to leave and Bek said 'hang on a second' and went over to her book shelf and started pulling out all these books," Mulcahy said. "At the bottom of the pile was a folder and she pulled out this Margaret Olley painting. I said 'holy shit' and poured myself another glass of wine." Mulcahy contacted The Herald which had recently published an article on a possible renaissance masterpiece discovered in a North Shore home. The Herald pointed him in the direction of one of Australia's most respected art conservationists, David Stein, who has worked with major auction houses to restore and authenticate art works.

Mulcahy sent Stein an email with an image of the work. Stein said he immediately identified it as an Olley. "My reaction to the email was 'wow, that is fantastic, it really looks like an Olley, I'd really like to look at it in the flesh," Stein said. "As soon as I looked at it, I could see the nature of the materials and the condition was all consistent with the period and the authorship." The work is not considered one of Olley's major paintings, and would likely sell for between $8,000 - $10,000. Bassett is still weighing up what to do with it.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will exercise the state governments veto of a federal loan for the Adani Carmichael mine, in the wake of rumours circulating about the role of her partner in the process.

Calling a snap media conference on Friday afternoon, Ms Palaszczuk accused the LNP in Canberra of a smear campaign against her and her partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers infrastructure advisory director Shaun Drabsch.

Annastacia Palaszczuk has been forced to defend her partner's role in the Adani loan approval process. Credit:Darren England/AAP

The apparent smear campaign related to a rumour circulating among LNP senators about Mr Drabschs work, Ms Palaszczuk said.

PWC acted for Adani on its application to the federal governments Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility for an almost $1 billion concessional loan for its rail link.
Labors election campaign has so far been characterised by several announcements which are essentially more funding to extend existing programs.

In the extremely marginal Labor-held seat of Bundaberg on Friday, Ms Palaszczuk announced an extra $200 million for the Works for Queensland program, which provides funding for regional councils to deliver infrastructure projects.

In the extremely marginal Labor-held seat of Bundaberg on Friday, Ms Palaszczuk announced an extra $200 million for the Works for Queensland program. Credit:AAP

The first round of Works for Queensland was rolled out in 2016.

It comes after Thursdays announcement of an extra $180 million over the next three financial years to extend the Skilling Queenslanders for Work program.
Birds are developing longer, stronger beaks to get into backyard birdfeeders. Lizard legs are getting longer, and their feet are getting stickier so they can run faster on concrete.

The black swans in Melbourne's Albert Park are losing their fear of humans, as are local magpies and possums.

A power-walking black swan on Melbourne's South Bank. Credit:Leigh Henningham

Native water dragons in Brisbane are growing longer legs and narrower heads, while squirrel gliders there are inbreeding more.

Even human DNA is subtly changing.
Armenias Human Rights Defender Arman Tatoyan wants school texts to be provided free to public school pupils and students, and has taken the issue to the countrys Constitutional Court.

Tatoyan argues that making students pay for their texts is unconstitutional, since the constitution states that public high schools in Armenia is free.

Today, textbooks are only provided at no charge to pupils in grades one to four. For grades five and up, fees are levied for textbooks.

Tatoyan also says that no exceptions are made for needy families when it comes to paying for their childrens books.

Photo: Saro Baghdasaryan
The quest to pass historic voluntary euthanasia laws has cleared a major hurdle after MPs in the Victorian Parliament's upper house voted narrowly in favour of a second reading of the bill, paving the way for a final vote within weeks.

Two Liberal MPs cast the decisive votes on the issue.

Undeclared MP Simon Ramsay has kept the proposed bill afloat. Credit:Rob Gunstone

Liberal backbencher Simon Ramsay helped to keep the proposed euthanasia laws alive, but with amendments, saying he would seek a reduction in the life expectancy time limit from 12 to six months but allow an exception for motor neurone disease.

Mr Ramsay could prove decisive in ushering in an assisted dying regime, with a tight final vote expected in the upper house.
A delusional patient at a secure unit in Melbourne ambushed a nurse and bashed him with a motorcycle battery, sources have told Fairfax Media.

They say the nurse was lucky not to have been killed by the patient, who had been due to be discharged.

Victorian Mental Health Minister Martin Foley: The government has spent $40 million on anti-violence measures for hospitals,. Credit:Michael Dodge

It was the second of two violent attacks by different patients against nurses at Austin Health's Secure Extended Care Unit in Heidelberg within just three days last month.

The incidents are now subject to an internal review.
Fremantle Dockers player Michael Johnson has been found guilty of assaulting a Bunbury school teacher in a Perth kebab shop last year.

Johnson pleaded not guilty to the November 13 assault of 24-year-old Timothy Craig Bowen and appeared in Perth Magistrate's Court on Friday afternoon to learn his fate.

He was convicted of assault and ordered to pay $4500 in fines and compensation for the attack on Mr Bowen.

The All-Australian defender's lawyer, Richard Utting, reportedly asked for a suspended sentence or a fine for his client.
A 12-year-old Perth boy was seriously injured after being hit by a car while walking across a road in Maylands on Thursday afternoon.

The incident occurred on Whatley Crescent at the intersection of Caledonian Avenue around 5.45pm.

Two Perth boys have been hit by cars in separate incidents on Thursday. Credit:Georgia Matts

The boy was hit by a Hyundai Getz being driven east by a 22-year-old woman.

The driver stopped at the scene and the boy was later conveyed to Princess Margaret Hospital with serious injuries.
Madrid: Less than a week after Catalonia declared independence, a judge from Spain's national court has ordered prison without bail for eight of the region's separatist leaders and reportedly issued an arrest warrant for the movement's leader Carles Puigdemont, now in Brussels.

In all, Spain's attorney general is seeking to prosecute 20 Catalan separatists, including Puigdemont, the former leader of Catalonia, who refused to join the others summoned to court in Madrid.

Spain's public prosecutor asked the judge, Carmen Lamela, to approve an arrest warrant for Puigdemont and four other Catalan politicians who left for Belgium on Monday as the Madrid government began taking over direct administration of Catalonia under emergency measures.

But his lawyer told Belgian state broadcaster VRT, it had already been issued.
The recently indicted clotheshorse and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort came into his professional glory in the 1980s, which tells you everything you need to know about his aesthetic sensibility.

The '80s were when Manafort opened his lobbying firm, when he slipped into the world of global influence and the trajectory of his career was set. It was also the decade of slick excess, when an Armani suit oozed power and savoir-faire, a power tie held cultural significance, and men took pride in the dull glint of their blow-dried hair.

Paul Manafort departs Federal District Court in Washington. Credit:AP

Manafort, 68, pleaded not guilty last week in Washington to multiple charges, the most ominous of which was conspiracy against the United States, appearing in federal district court in a navy pinstriped suit with a silk tie and a starched spread collar shirt. As he navigated television cameras and still photographers, Manafort looked polished and well-tailored. His clothes declared him someone to know, to be admired, to be respected.

Under the circumstances, it's reasonable to notice Manafort's clothes. When the FBI raided his home in July, agents took pictures of his suits. Back when his firm was working with former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, for example, consultants prescribed a fashion makeover, suggesting that Yanukovychreplace his undertaker black suits with navy ones. And then there were the revelations in the unsealed indictment from special counsel Robert Mueller, detailing how Manafort allegedly spent his ill-gotten and unreported gains.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, on a working visit to India to attend the plenary session of the World Food: India 2017 conference, today met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Modi had invited Sargsyan to attend the conference and thanked the Armenian president for accepting.

The Indian prime minister congratulated Sargsyan for successfully making the transition to a parliamentary form of government and the victory of the Republican Party of Armenia in the parliamentary elections.

Modi said he hoped that Sargsyans visit would spur deeper relations between the two countries.
Though the City Council and school board races in Bryan this month can only be decided by residents living in specific single-member districts, all Bryan voters have a say in 13 proposed changes to the city charter that are also on the ballot.

The amendments were drafted by the seven-member Charter Review Advisory Committee and recommended unanimously by the Planning and Zoning Commission and by a super majority of the Bryan City Council -- Councilman Mike Southerland had the lone vote against them. The propositions are mostly minor revisions that clean up language in the charter or bring sections closer in line to norms followed by most Texas municipalities, stressing brevity, clarity and flexibility in the way the city and council operate.

A couple of the propositions, if approved, would mean some slight operational changes for the council.

Proposition B asks voters whether the charter should be amended to change the requirement of holding regular city council meetings twice per month to once per month. The charter committee noted that the document should establish a minimum but be flexible and leave the frequency of meetings to the discretion of the City Council.

If approved, the change would be minimal to the process the council currently follows. There have been five months this year in which both regular meetings of the council were held on the same day. In those instances, the council adjourned the first meeting after executive session and the Hear Citizens portion of the meeting and gaveled back in for the second meeting -- consisting of consent, statutory and regular agenda items -- after a short break.

Mayor Andrew Nelson said the amendment would give the council the discretion to have as many meetings a month as needed to complete city business without requiring it to meet "just to schedule a meeting." It would also provide more flexibility around the summer months and holidays, he said -- the council has historically held both meetings on the same day in previous years in December, for example. The amendment would formalize that practice, he said.

"I've asked all year long, whenever we don't need to meet on two different physical days in a month, let's just not waste everyone's time if we don't need to do it," Nelson said. "If we need another, we can do a special meeting."

If that charter amendment isn't passed, the council would continue to have the two required regular meetings on the same calendar meeting when possible, Nelson said.

Another proposed amendment would change language in the charter related to the appointment or employment of relatives of Bryan council members. Under Proposition G, "no person related within the second degree of affinity [by marriage] or within the third degree of consanguinity [by blood] to members of the City Council" can be appointed or employed by the council. The prohibition would exclude election workers. The amendment drops the third degree by affinity requirement in the current charter language to second degree to reflect state nepotism law.

In its report to the council, the Charter Review Advisory Committee noted that the current language, which was approved by voters in 2014 after a successful petition process from the Citizens of Bryan political action committee, "unduly restricts" the ability of the council to conduct elections cooperatively with other local governments and the city's ability to engage community volunteers for boards and commissions. An example given was that the current wording prohibited children of council members from volunteering at the Bryan Animal Center.

Nelson said the state guidelines are "still pretty restrictive," and the amendment would bring the charter into alignment with those requirements.

One noticeable change would be Proposition J, which, if approved, would drop the required number of readings of ordinances from two to one, unless where required by state law. State law does not require ordinances to be read more than once, unless for certain actions such as property tax increases. The committee noted that the current language in the charter hinders the ability of the council to be "flexible and responsive to urgent matters that arise," and can result in an "excessive" number of special meetings. City staff also said during meetings of the committee that requiring ordinances to be read twice on two separate days can slow down development and the implementation of new regulations.

A sample ballot with the charter amendments can be found on www.brazosvotes.com, and more information about all 13 propositions and the committee's full report on its recommendations can be viewed at www.bryantx.gov.
A charter school operator with high hopes for fast-paced expansion symbolically broke ground in College Station on Thursday for a new facility that school officials say will offer an internationally focused education.

The K-8 school being built near the corner of Graham Road and Longmire Drive in College Station is one of two campuses -- the second will be in Houston -- that International Leadership of Texas will open in August 2018. ILT leadership, along with College Station Mayor Karl Mooney, Lt. Col Jay Brewer with the Texas A&M University Band and Berry Davis, Texas A&M student athlete development director, celebrated the construction, which is already underway.

ILT, which prides itself on producing graduates who can speak Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, has opened 15 schools in the Dallas and Houston areas since it started in 2012. Within the next three to four years, ILT leadership wants to expand in the Brazos Valley with two more campuses.

Typically, ILT will open one K-8 school in a more affluent area and another K-8 in an economically disadvantaged area before opening up a high school, say organizers.

"Ideally, at the high school, we want to have economic diversity," said Eddie Conger, the retired Marine and former Texas A&M student who founded the charter schools.

Conger says ILT is already looking into different areas in Bryan to open the second K-8 charter school in 2019.

"Traditionally, when this year's eighth graders become a freshman class, they will move to a temporary facility," he said. "The high school will be built when the kids are sophomores or juniors."

There are currently four other charter schools in Brazos Valley, according to the Texas Education Agency's website; three in Bryan and one in Rockdale, which are all run by different operators.

While their combined enrollment of those four schools is 663 students according to the TEA website, Conger is expecting anywhere from 1,200 to 1,400 students in ILT's first year based on past experiences opening up schools.

As is the case with all open-enrollment charter schools, tuition is free. Charter schools are largely publicly funded and privately managed. According to TEA data, 90 percent of ILT's budget during the 2014-2015 school year came from state revenue, which amounted to around $8,600 per student.

In this same year, only 12 percent of College Station school district's budget and 40 percent of Bryan's budget came from the state. This amounted to around $10,400 per student in College Station public school and $10,000 per student in Bryan public schools.

Students at charter schools do have to take STAAR tests, but the schools are exempt from other state requirements.

To Conger, these exemptions give charter schools the opportunity to be innovative. Philanthropy is part of their out-of-the-norm practices. Every year, each grade of students in ILT schools comes up with a philanthropic project. He says just the act of having students actively planning is valuable.

"In the process what we hope to develop over a 13-year period is that every kid is learning leadership skills by doing the research, planning, organizing, advocating, executing and then evaluating at the end," he said.

The biggest draw of the program, however, is the international focus. Conger said the school actively hosts international students, although these students pay $40,000 per year.

ILT promotes teaching Spanish and Mandarin, arguing that it's important for Americans to know the languages of their major trade partners. Conger adds that learning Mandarin is especially vital now as China is a rising power in the world.

"Why would we not want little Aggies growing up knowing those three languages?" he said as several bulldozers worked behind him at the ground breaking.

His sentiment of the importance of learning Chinese was shared by James Edge, district director for U.S. Rep Bill Flores, and Mooney.

"We have to do more to prepare our students who are going out into the international marketplace to speak and understand and touch the hearts of many others who they will reach out to through their various endeavors in workforce, in cultural exchange, perhaps also in philanthropy," Mooney said.

ILT will soon find out if the community agrees. Conger said the school will open up online applications this week.
Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less.
Brazos County jurors on Thursday saw crime scene photos showing gunshot victims being pulled from a stock pond and listened to testimony in the capital murder trial of an East Texas man accused of killing six strangers on a November evening two years ago.

Assigned to search the pond behind a home owned by the mother of the 35-year-old defendant, William Mitchell Hudson, Texas Ranger Michael Stoner said they believed he dumped four of the bodies there after moving them with a tractor. Stoner said a Department of Public Safety dive team began pulling bodies out just after 1 p.m. Nov. 16, 2015, two days after the gruesome scene unfolded in the rural community of Tennessee Colony, just northwest of Palestine.

Identifying the people shown in the photographs, Stoner said divers first recovered Austin Kamp, 21; then Thomas Kamp, 45; followed by Kade Johnson, 6; and, last, Nathan Kamp, whose upcoming 24th birthday was the reason the Kamp and Johnson families went camping that mid-November weekend, according to Special Prosecutor Lisa Tanner. Nathan Kamp was unrecognizable, the investigator said a day after Tanner said in her opening statement that Hudson shot him in the face with a hunting rifle.

Publicity prompted a district judge to move the case from Anderson County to Brazos County, where jurors on the second day of the trial heard details about Hudson, who also is charged with killing Carl and Hannah Johnson, a 77-year-old father and his 40-year-old daughter who was the longtime girlfriend of the senior Kamp. If convicted of capital murder, he faces life in prison or death by lethal injection.

Prosecutors told jurors that Hudson killed Austin, Kade, Nathan and Thomas with several firearms while they were out looking for firewood on Nov. 14, 2015, then returned to the campsite and killed Hannah and Carl Johnson. Prosecutors said in an opening statement Wednesday that Hannah Johnson was killed inside an RV, and Carl Johnson was shot then beaten to death as he ran toward the trailer.

Cynthia Johnson, Carl's wife, hid behind a set of camp chairs until dawn and was the sole survivor of the massacre.

According to Tanner, Hudson was upset about Thomas Kamp's legal purchase of land formerly owned by the his family. The property is adjacent to the house where Hudson's mother lived.

Authorities arrested Hudson on Nov. 15 at that house. His mother had been out of town.

Jessica King, who had lived nearby, testified Thursday she heard gunshots while she was feeding her pig around 9 p.m. the night of the killings. King said she heard "somebody yelling, then more gunshots," and said she thought they were coming from near the stock pond.

"I thought it was a hunting accident," King said of the loud, panicked voices yelling, "Stop, stop, please, stop." King gave a statement to law enforcement the next day.

Four members of law enforcement testified separately Thursday, recounting their roles in the investigation. Prosecutors presented investigator's photos of three separate crimes scenes -- the RV where investigators found Hannah and Carl Johnson's bodies, Hudson's mother's home and the stock pond, where they found the other four bodies -- and asked the authorities to explain their reasoning for cataloging each piece of evidence.

Multiple handguns and rifles were found during the course of the investigation, and blood was found on a tractor, ATV and in the RV where two members of the Johnson family were found.

The trial continues at 9 a.m. today in the 361st District Courtroom of the Brazos County Courthouse in Bryan.
Four Texas A&M students accused of beating a man in a summer robbery were among 34 people indicted Thursday by a Brazos County grand jury.

An indictment is not an indication of guilt. It means enough evidence exists for a trial.

Gautham Chidambaram, 20, Ethan Alexander Herrera, 19, Ethan Khwaja, 19 and Megumi Yoshida Sui, 20, were indicted on a charge of aggravated robbery, a first-degree felony punishable by up to 99 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Khwaja was also indicted on possession of marijuana, a state jail felony punishable by up to two years in a state jail.

According to College Station police, a man hiding in an area parking garage called police on July 5 and said he had been assaulted by four people. The man told police he had come to an apartment in the 1500 block of Northpoint Lane to buy drugs, and was sprayed with pepper spray, beaten with an ax handle and bat and had an AR-15 pointed at his head.

Also among those indicted was Christopher Luna, 30, of Bryan. Luna was indicted on a charge of kidnapping and attempted kidnapping, both third-degree felonies each punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

According to Bryan police, in November 2016 a woman in the 3500 block of Finfeather Road reported she was attacked by a stranger. The woman said the man approached her and grabbed her. She was able to fight the man off and run away. He sped off in a vehicle and was not located by police.

Luna was developed as a person of interest in July and the victim picked him out of a lineup. While he was in custody, police said Luna confessed to another attempted kidnapping on July 24 of this year. In that incident, Luna is accused of coming up behind a woman who was doing laundry at a Bryan apartment complex and restraining her arms. Police say he tried to stuff a rag in her mouth to silence her, but she was able to fight him off and he fled.

The grand jury also indicted Lester Darnell Gill, 36, on a first-degree felony drug charge. Bryan police executed a search warrant on Gill's home in February, where they say they found several separate packages of cocaine, including bags of cocaine in one of the toilet drains. Officers confiscated multiple cell phones, a digital scale with cocaine residue and more than $13,000 in cash.
Local State Rep. John Raney was honored by The Arc of Texas with the 2017 Legislator of the Year award at the nonprofit's annual Leadership and Legacy Awards dinner Thursday evening.

Officials said Raney was selected for his work on House Bill 2409, which would have required state contractors to pay employees with intellectual and developmental disabilities at least minimum wage. Although the bill found support in the Texas House of Representatives, it was never brought for a vote in the Texas Senate.

"Representative John Raney is a true advocate for Texans with intellectual and developmental disabilities," said nonprofit officials in a statement on The Arc of Texas website. "... We are excited to have Rep. Raney as a partner in ensuring that people with disabilities can break the cycle of poverty and lead independent, fulfilling lives."

The Arc of Texas is a nonprofit advocacy group focused on promoting and protecting the rights of Texans with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
UPDATE: The 14-year-old girl who was the subject of a search by police after she didn't return to her foster family in Hearne on Friday has been found in College Station. She was safe and uninjured.

Police said no further details would be released.

College Station police are asking the public's help in locating a 14-year-old girl who was last seen at the Post Oak Mall on Friday.

According to police, 14-year-old Martha Ruiz attended a seasonal carnival at the mall with friends on Friday. At some point, Ruiz broke off from her group and went inside to go to the food court. That was the last time anyone saw her.

At 10:30 p.m. Friday, Ruiz's foster family in Hearne contacted authorities to report her missing. Though she lives in Hearne, Ruiz has friends and relatives in Bryan-College Station. Officers searched the carnival, mall and several places the foster family said she may have run to, but they were unable to find her.

She is 5'2" and about 140 pounds. She is Hispanic with brown eyes and brown hair. She has braces on her teeth and a tattoo on her wrist. Anyone with information is asked to call CSPD at 979-764-3600.
Boones Mill voters will decide Tuesday whether to approve liquor by the drink, a vote that could move Franklin County a step closer to allowing the sale of spirits countywide.

A decision by town voters in favor of the ballot question would clear the way for establishment of a tasting room for a local distillery that would feature individual drink sales to patrons.

Franklin County has a long history of piecemeal legalization of mixed drink sales.

After national Prohibition ended in the 1930s, each locality in the county had to hold its own vote on a referendum that would allow liquor-by-the-drink sales. Rocky Mount voters decided to legalize the sales in 1988, but the surrounding county remained dry, according to state code.

Districts surrounding Smith Mountain Lake legalized the sales in 1991, and Ferrum did so in 2000. Ferrum became the fourth of seven magisterial districts to allow approved mixed drinks in surrounding restaurants.

In the past there have been a couple attempts at a countywide referendum, but they have all failed, Boones Mills Town Manager Matt Lawless said.

The Boone District has never had its own referendum, and the election that will be held Tuesday is only for the town of Boones Mill.

Any town resident that wants to vote on the proposed liquor question should be sure to specify that they live in town and make sure that they have the correct ballot, Lawless said.

Lawless also stated that he is a little concerned about how the election is going to play out, but he is not endorsing or opposing the vote at this time.

What I will say is that meals tax revenue is very important to the towns development, he said. We have been very successful with small business development, and that has helped us provide great service.

The fact that Boones Mill still remains a dry location came as a surprise to Franklin County Distilleries in their effort to open a new tasting room in Boones Mill.

Franklin County Distilleries is not a bar; instead it is a store and a tasting room where consumption is limited and is regulated by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

After becoming aware of their current situation, the distillery quickly learned that they needed to get a referendum on the sale of mixed drinks on the ballot. They could get the referendum on the ballot for the whole Boone District, or just the town. The distillery decided to focus on the town.

In order to have the liquor question on the ballot, either 100 registered voters or 10 percent of all Boones Mills registered voters (whichever is greater) had to sign a petition. Lawless said that the town has 169 registered voters, so the distillery only needed 100 signatures.

If the referendum is passed on Tuesday, the distillery would be allowed to open the tasting room as soon as 30 days later.
Can you imagine Elon Musk ever waking up on a Monday morning only to press the snooze button repeatedly because he just didnt feel like going into the office? Or, Richard Branson or Mark Zuckerberg?

It would be quite a surprise if you saw one of them laying on the sofa in a bathrobe trying to gather the strength to turn off the second season of Stranger Things on Netflix and head to the office. Yet, many owners of small businesses have those moments. When that lack of self-motivation hits, some shake it off while others struggle to re-energize and press on.

Thats when its time to think about how you might work on a plan for topping up that self-motivation fuel when the tank starts to get dangerously close to empty. Here are ten steps to recharge your self-motivation levels:

Related: 7 Daily Practices That Power Your Motivation

1. Put more meat on those goals.

Perhaps your goals are lacking the muscle you need to truly energize yourself. If you havent set more meaningful goals that give you something to be excited and have stuck to the tried and true generic goals to increase revenue or add more customers, theres nothing there to sink your teeth into.

Lets go back to Elon Musk. He sets short-term goals that maintain his mental muscle of motivation, but he really flexes it with his longer term goals that fire him up. For example, he has the long-term goals of colonizing Mars, creating a hyperloop, and speeding Los Angeles traffic through underground tunnels. Until then, he focuses on converting Puerto Ricos power grid to renewable energy, adding solar tiles to houses across America, and adding to his fleet of electric cars to increase adoption. Hes also working on those returnable rocketships through SpaceX.

He keeps defining and feeding himself more creative goals to work toward. Keep your mind busy as a business owner and reach for those fantastic long-term goals while you use the short-term ones to fix the barriers to those longer range accomplishments.

Related: Inspiring Quotes to Help You Get Through Your Work Day

2. Hang out with your customers.

Get out of your habitat because there is nothing motivational about sitting in an office whether it is a co-working space, your home, or an office building. There is nothing there that gives you a sense of purpose or rationale for what you are doing.

However, when you go to your customers and hang out with them, suddenly what you are doing becomes more visual, realistic, and just plain interesting. There is a dynamic quality to spending time with customers as well as hearing and experiencing what they go through.

You may have seen the show, Undercover Boss, where a business owner experiences their business by working within it. Numerous CEOs have noted that it was insightful and gave them a completely different picture of their business, including customers and employees.

Of course, you dont have to hide. Go work and engage with your audience in person. You will feel reinvigorated and even come away from it with new ideas and overall renewed purpose for what you are doing. Plus, your customers will be pleased to see you care that much to hang out with them, which impacts their experience.

Related: 3 Reasons You Should Be Hanging Out With Your Target Audience

3. Set a personal mission.

Every business should have a mission or vision statement. This is simply something that describes the broader goals, culture, and underlying core values of the business. While you may already have that, it is not going to necessarily motivate you to keep going. Although it is something that shows why you are in business, it does not really cover your own purpose.

Creating a personal mission statement is motivational because it states why you are doing the business and what you want to achieve from it in relation to your own professional and personal development. Paste it onto your calendar app so that it pops up each day and use it in your social media status updates to remind you and others about your philosophy, which goes well beyond just your business.

Related: Why Business Leaders Must Set a Personal Mission

4.Take time for yourself.

Running your own business can completely consume you. Once you are in it and handling daily operations, putting out those fires, and wearing all those hats, you lose track of time. Days melt into weeks and then months before you realize you have taken a day off. With all that work and no play, Jack or Jill become a dull boy or girl. No one can keep going at full steam all the time.

While we may not be able to have our own personal Necker Island like Richard Branson to escape to, there are ways to actively stop the work-work cycle and live a little. Schedule time off each day to decompress and do something you like. This could be a hobby or time with your family. Dont compromise those special moments because you will find yourself becoming more resentful of your business and motivation will suffer.

There are some business owners who have even gone on sabbatical, letting a trusted team member run their business for a few weeks, a month, or even longer. All say they return with greater enthusiasm and the motivation to take their company to the next level.

Related: 5 Reasons to Make Time for Yourself Right Now

5. Savor the successes you've achieved.

So much is always said about continuing to look forward. However, to stay motivated, its a great strategy to look back on where you have come from on this journey to build your empire. Reflect on those little and big wins that occurred along the way.

Its like looking back on your school yearbook or photo albums to see how much your life has changed. The same can be done for your business. Youll remember the challenges and how you felt at those moments. Those reflections often lead the mind to wonder about what your life (or business) will look back after a few more years when you do this same revisit of the past.

This is the time to take those press mentions and compile them on your website and social media pages. Actively reliving these past successes will tell you what you have achieved while the act of sharing those with others and their reactions will fire up the self-motivation.

Related: How to Leave a Legacy

6. Mentor other business owners or founders

Nothing can motivate you as much as helping others. Not only does it more effectively frame your reality when you see others experiencing similar challenges or business decisions, but it also inspires you to go back and change things after working on other startups. Plus, it just feels good to help others and know that you have made a difference for them, perhaps even serving as the stimulant for them to boost their own motivation.

Sign-up for mentoring sites or businesses that look for experts like yourself who are willing to volunteer their time to help other founders and owners. There may also be those within your own network that are asking questions in online forums where you can lend your knowledge and expertise.

Related: Look to Peer Mentoring Groups for Ideas, Support and Tough Love

7. Set a routine, then change it up.

A routine helps with discipline and keeps you on course with productivity and balance. For example, leverage John Meyers 8 for the Day routine.However, over time, it can have the opposite effect and bore you to death, causing you to become de-motivated.

Use the routine as your foundation but then consider changing up that routine every other week or month. It depends on your personality as everyone has a different place where they hit a wall of monotony. That means you will need to create different routines that you can rotate in or out to keep your time as interesting and stimulating as possible while staying on target with what you want to accomplish.

Related: 11 Tweaks to Your Daily Routine Will Make Your Day More Productive

8. Immerse yourself in inspirational activities.

There is a lot to be said for content out there in terms of its ability to inspire to keep working toward greatness. From TED talks and podcasts to blogs from your fellow entrepreneurs, regularly take a moment to check in with what others are thinking about and sharing based on their own experiences. The emotional connection you make with this content can spur you onwards and upwards.

Search for YouTube channels, blogs, podcasts, and articles on motivation and then subscribe to them so they arrive in your inbox. Go see speakers who cover a wide range of topics that impact your business and participate in events, networking socials, and conferences for further inspiration.

Related: 8 Inspiring Instagram Accounts You Should Follow

9. Make a positive contribution to your community.

You may not realize how much your small business is already positively impacting the community. There were 28.8 million small businesses in 2016 that accounted for 99.7 percent of US businesses! As David M. Kirby wrote in the Huffington Post, small businesses are vital to the future of the United States. Your business is boosting the local economy.

From there, its time to move from think to act. Give back to your community through donations and volunteer work. Bring in passionate interns from local universities to work for a semester. Getting involved with your community can mean further interactions with customers. Even if they are not your target audience, it puts your life and work in perspective when you go help others in need.

Related: Why Community, Not Capital, Helped This Founder Find Success

10. Dont go it alone.

The life of a business owner is lonely at times, especially when you are a one-man band, work from home, or use a virtual team. Dont spend all your time alone because it is difficult to stay motivated.

Instead, build a support network that will help and encourage you whenever you need advice, inspiration, or the ability to vent. This could be a mentor, your spouse, best friend, or fellow small business owner.

Also, working alone tends to prevent you from doing some of the other things on the list because you have no remaining time to do things after covering all the roles and responsibilities in your business. If you have the resources, hire freelancers to cover many of those tasks so you can use the other tips here plus spend more time on the higher level aspects of your business that most likely hold all the excitement.

Losing your mojo is normal and happens to every business at some point. Dont focus on it or let it stress you out. Take action through this list of tips and youll find that your self-motivation returns and even grows.

Related:

10 Ways to Motivate Yourself When You're Really Not Feeling It

5 Things That Will Keep Your Team Satisfied Without Paying Them More

Eliminate the Fear of 'Imposter Syndrome'



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


Leaders' understanding of employee engagement is expanding. It's no longer just about how employees connect to their role and the organization. Instead, employee engagement now includes all aspects of the employee experience. As a result, companies have to adjust their focus.

Related: 5 Companies Getting Employee Engagement Right

An August YouEarnedIt survey of 750 employees identified four key pillars to the employee experience: connection, meaning, impact and appreciation. Yet, the same survey found that only one of 10 employees felt their organization had created an awesome employee experience.

"Today's competitive talent market means businesses have to differentiate from competitors, and those companies that put people, culture, and engagement first, will have a greater ability to attract and retain the best talent," Autumn Manning, co-founder and CEO of Austin-based employee engagement platform YouEarnedIt, said via email.

Manning added that most company leaders mistakenly assume that engagement and employee experience are "HR" problems. But every interaction an employee has at work ties back to his or her experience.

Want to improve the employee experience in your organization? Create the best scenario by modelling other companies successfully tackling this issue:

Having strong connections to colleagues, managers, the company and the community

Five years ago, the CEO of Farm Bureau Financial Services in Des Moines, Iowa, challenged its leaders to help employees connect with the company vision and mission. Over the next year and a half, this insurance and investment agency rolled out several initiatives to spotlight the company's core beliefs.

"Our CEO believed employees would be more engaged and work harder if they understood the connection between their work and the purpose of our organization," Karen Rieck, the vice president of human resources, said by email.

Related: 4 Ways Managers Can Commit to Improving Employee Engagement

As a result, Farm Bureau Financial Services saw a great improvement in its employee experience. Its latest engagement survey found that employees rated their understanding of how their job contributes to company success an average 6.2 out of 7. When asked how well they understood the company's values, employees gave an average score of 6.3.

Even tiny changes in the office can make all the difference. For instance, the agency changed all the computer screen savers to a list of company values as a daily reminder of what the company stands for. Take a similar route at your company and post your mission statement throughout the office.

Knowing that your company, and the work it does, has purpose

Last year, Boston-based marketing firm Acceleration Partners revisited its vision. As a result, its "Vivid Vision" document was born. "It talks about our vision, values, goals and how employees all fit into this equation," Robert Glaze, founder and managing director, said via email.

He recalled how he passed the document around the organization to get feedback from employees and how this helped to get everyone on the same page and enthusiastic about the company's future.

Go one step further: Revisit the meaning of each of your employees' efforts during feedback sessions. Tell people how their performance has supported the company vision. Get specific so employees will see how their individual actions made a difference.

Helping employees impact their colleagues and community in meaningful ways

At Car2go's North American offices, impact is difficult since employees work in 11 different locations. The car-sharing company has worked to overcome this challenge by using a peer-recognition platform. Co-workers now show one other appreciation and stay plugged into what's happening in other offices.

"According to recent internal survey results, the North American employee population scored much higher in the 'recognition and appreciation' category," Lauren Hakim, the Austin-based director of human resources, said in an email. "This can be attributed to North America being the first and only location globally to have implemented a recognition platform to improve employee experience."

Find a way for employees to track their impact within the organization. This can be with a mobile recognition platform or something much simpler. For example, create a space in the office where employees can hang stories of how a particular co-worker has made their own jobs easier.

Offering specific, real-time appreciation for the work done by the people who matter most

"Two years ago, employees told us they wanted more day-to-day recognition," Karen Gaydon senior vice president of employee success, at San Mateo, Calif.-based order-to-cash platform Zuora, wrote via email.

Related: 7 Excellent Reasons to Focus on Employee Engagement

To answer this request, the company rolled out a pilot appreciation program. The key factor that made a difference was the ability to tag each instance of recognition to a core value of the company. This showed employees they were doing great work that helped define the organization as a whole.

When recognizing an employee, make it clear how their actions positively reflect your company and its mission. By showing this appreciation publicly, you'll give the individual and other employees a better idea of what's important to the organization.

Related:

'Employee Engagement' Is So 2016. Here's What Companies Should Really Focus on, in 2017.

Creepy Costumes, Spooky Snacks and More: Here's How 15 Companies Celebrated Halloween

Keeping Your Employees Happy Isn't Always About Higher Pay -- Here Are 6 Alternatives



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


I recently had the pleasure of interviewing two executives of an amazing franchise group out of Florida that banded together to bring aid and relief to hurricane victims in their communities and elsewhere.

Anago Cleaning Systems is a franchise organization based in Ft. Lauderdale that currently has over 1,400 units in the United States and Canada.

I spoke to Adam Povlitz, who is the president of the company. He gave me a brief history of the company that was founded by his father Dave Povlitz in 1989 in Michigan. He explained that the name Anago is a Greek word that means to guide or uplift, or blessed by god, according to his grandmother.

I quickly learned that they live up to their name.

Related: Our Top 10 Franchises You Can Buy

Adam Povlitz introduced me to his right-hand man, Juan Contoni, and they shared their story. Contoni is the company's vice president of operations and also owns and operates the South Florida master franchise, which oversees more than 200 franchisees. When they received the news of the inbound hurricane, they put their heads together to devise a way to mobilize their franchise network to help their communities.

They came up with this plan:

Before the event, send out an email with preparation tips and a list of resources that can help the franchisee in case of emergency. Host an educational meeting for the staff to understand options during the storm and where to seek shelter if need be and where to find the office operations, post-event. Be sure to have a strong communication plan in place in case of loss of transportation or power. Franchisor reaches out to all the franchisees to show their concern and ask if there is anything they can do to help. Send containers of water, clothes, food or anything else the franchisee may need after the event. Encourage neighboring franchise owners who may not have been affected to go out and assist their fellow franchisees. After the event, (as the franchisor), personally make a point to go out and physically help franchise owners who are in need, by cleaning up debris, etc. Send a handwritten note to show concern during the recovery process. Go help local franchisees clean up their office and homes after the event. Send an email on behalf of the franchisee to all of the franchisee's clients and explain their situation and offer any support during their recovery process. Make sure to keep your business's and family's most important documents in a safe place and encourage your staff to do the same. Create a business inventory at least 72 hours prior to event. Disasters are incredibly complicated situations that require people with a very high degree of qualifications and long-term commitment, not just good will, a sense of urgency and short-term availability. So sending a handbook about practical disaster preparedness to the franchisees to attack any circumstance during and after a disaster is helpful and gives them a sense of power. Consider temporary relocation for your staff members and franchisees if needed. Have sufficient supplies stocked for you and the people you are planning to help after a disaster. Be calm, patient and hopeful.

Swing into action.

Once the storm hit, the team was already in action with an assigned point of contact in each market, supplies and hands-on assistance for people in their affected towns and neighborhoods, even finding temporary housing for a customer that lost the roof of their home in the storm. They also helped their commercial clients that needed to get cleaned up and open for business again.

They also decided that they would use their network and newfound disaster relief skills to send aid to Puerto Rico! They recruited a boat and crew and sent over 264,000 gallons of fresh water and other supplies.

Related: 5 Franchises You Can Buy for Less Than $18,000

The Anago story is a great example of how a franchise community, working together, can make a huge difference.

Franchise organizations have a natural network of people and other resources, like equipment, communication systems and expertise. These networks can be mobilized in times of crisis. If you are a franchisor, you can implement similar strategies to have a real impact on your communities.

Related:

Franchise Organization Joins Forces to Help Hurricane Victims

Here Are 5 Facts You Need to Know Before Investing in Jimmy John's, Our 5th Best Franchise You Can Buy

The 5 Best Teaching and Mentorship Franchises You Can Buy



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


SHELTON  Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Shelton will host its Fall Soup Festival from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday.

The menu includes chicken noodle, chili and potato soups, grilled cheese sandwiches, carrots, drinks and homemade desserts. Free will offerings will be collected.

A raffle will offer two $250 cash prizes and two $50 cash prizes, a pie bake sale and a Spin to Win Dessert Wheel.

The church is located at 508 B St. For more information, call Angela at (308) 380-9764.

Doniphan church serving fish, brats

DONIPHAN  St. Pauls Lutheran Church in Doniphan will serve a benefit meal Sunday at the church.

The menu includes fish, Wisconsin-style brats, potatoes, salads and desserts. Serving will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. A freewill offering will be collected to benefit the Orphan Grain Train. Partial funding will be provided by Thrivent Financial.

The church is located at 207 N. Fourth St. The public is welcome to attend.

Soup supper Tuesday at Trinity Lutheran

The Lutheran Laymens League of Trinity Lutheran Church in Grand Island will host a soup supper Tuesday at the church, 212 W. 12th St.

A variety of soups, relishes, desserts and drinks will be served from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall. Freewill donations will be collected.

The proceeds will help support Lutheran Hour Ministries, Trinity Lutheran School and Heartland Lutheran High School.

For more information, call the church office at (308) 382-0753 or Kathy Aufdemberge at (308) 382-5506.

Pancake feed planned at Trinity UMC

The United Methodist Men of Trinity United Methodist Church in Grand Island will host a pancake feed Nov. 10 at the church.

The meal will be served from 4:30 to 7 p.m. in Miller Hall. The costs is $6 for adults and $3 for children ages 5 to 12; children age 4 and younger may eat for free. Tickets may be purchased at the door.

The church is located at 511 N. Elm St. in Grand Island. Use the northeast entrance. All are welcome.

Hastings church plans craft fair

HASTINGS Tinsel Town Market Craft Fair is planned Nov. 10 and 11 by North Shore Churchs Womens Ministry at the church in Hastings.

The event will be from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 10, and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 11.

Homemade chicken noodle, chili, vegetable beef and chicken tortilla soups will be served each day, along with homemade desserts. Freewill donations will be collected and take-out containers of soup will be available.

On Saturday, warm cinnamon rolls and specialty drinks will be served beginning at 8:30 a.m.

The craft fair will include a Sweet Shoppe with unique homemade sweets sold by the pound. The fair will feature 58 booths selling a variety of items, from country furniture and decor to jellies and jams, ladies clothing and dog treats.

Proceeds from this event help the Womens Ministry support memory boxes for mothers who have miscarriages or still births, overseas shelters for victims of sex trafficking, church building in Africa and local needs.

The church is located at 100 W. 33rd St. in Hastings.
A substitute judge ordered that a nearly three-year-old prison homicide case be scheduled for trial.

Dexter Ewing, 44, of Milwaukee is charged with first-degree intentional homicide for killing his cellmate, Jerome Scott, in Columbia Correctional Institution on Feb. 12, 2015.

In a competency hearing Wednesday, Judge James Miller noted that an evaluation had been completed in June, finding Ewing capable of telling right from wrong, with no new orders for psychological evaluation.

Ewing did not appear for the hearing, as Miller looked at the status of the case with defense attorney Ronald Benavides and Assistant District Attorney Troy Cross.

At the time of the incident, Ewing was serving a sentence of life without parole for the April 2008 murder of a Milwaukee woman.

While in prison, Ewing entered a guilty plea to the armed robbery and murder of a wheelchair-bound Milwaukee man in 2006.

On the afternoon of Feb. 12, 2015, according to reports by Columbia County Sheriffs Office detectives, a CCI correctional officer was helping move inmates from their cells to their recreation time, when Ewing told her that his cellmate was lying on the floor and that there was blood everywhere.

Ewing later told detectives that he had put a sharpened toothbrush shank to Scotts throat, brought him from his bed to the floor, tied Scotts hands behind his back with a bed sheet and then strangled him with an electrical cord.

Scott, who was deaf but could read lips, had been moved into Ewings cell about two weeks earlier. The pair argued during their time together and at one point, according to Ewing, Scott threatened him with a pen, saying he wasnt afraid of him.

I will sleep good tonight. He deserved to die, Ewing said to detectives. If I would have done that to him, I would deserve to die. If you cant play in the streets, stay away.

After an argument about Ewing dangling his legs over the top bunk and Scott pulling out the pen, Ewing told officers, that was when he began hearing voices saying, Kill him, kill him; its either him or you.

Im not using my mental illness because without a mental illness, I still would have killed him, Ewing told detectives, saying that his illness only pushed him to do it faster. He went on to say that 55 percent of the people in the world need to be shot and killed, placing himself in the majority. I am a monster as you can see.

In the two weeks leading up to Scotts death, Ewing said, he had been trying to contact the prison psychologist, saying, Dont get me wrong, 95 percent of this was me, but 5 percent of this she should have talked with me.

After Scott was killed, Ewing was moved to Waupun Correctional Institution where he was held in solitary confinement. In May 2016, he was moved to the supermax facility in Boscobel.

In court on Wednesday, Miller  filling in for the Branch 3 judicial seat that has been vacant since Judge Alan Whites September retirement  ordered a four-day trial be scheduled.
Sixty area high school students from six different schools visited two Grand Island businesses on Thursday for Rural Engineering Day.

The students had an opportunity to tour Chief Buildings and Hornady Manufacturing.

The event was sponsored by the Grand Island Chamber of Commerce, Grand Island Area Economic Development Corp. (GIAEDC), Chief Buildings, Hornady Manufacturing and Miller & Associates.

The students learned about opportunities within the University of Nebraska Engineering College and area employers. Presentations included academic preparedness, majors and minors, careers in the industry and how engineering is impacting lives in Central Nebraska.

Attending the event from Amherst High School was Justin Hoeft, a senior.

Im looking into going into engineering, Hoeft said. I thought this would be a good place to come to learn more about the field and opportunities available in Central Nebraska.

He hopes to attend one of the University of Nebraska campuses, and come back to Central Nebraska and enter the workforce as a mechanical engineer, Hoeft said.

Cole Larsen, engineering supervisor for Chief Buildings, spoke to the students.

This is a good opportunity for Chief to help the younger generation understand what we do at Chief, Larsen said.

Chief is a growing business, he said. It hires a lot of its workforce from the Grand Island area.

Larsen can relate to many of the students at the event. He grew up in Brewster and attended UNL to get his engineering degree. He then returned to Central Nebraska to work at Chief Buildings. His degree is in structural engineering.

Chamber President Cindy Johnson said that engineering careers, from mechanical engineer to project engineer, are high-demand, high-skill, and high-wage positions.

Grand Island engineering firms, as well as municipal government, are frequently seeking individuals with an engineering degree and a desire to live in Central Nebraska, Johnson said. The Rural Engineering Day provides an opportunity for students from our area to learn firsthand about the careers available to them in Grand Island and Central Nebraska.

Reed Miller of Miller & Associates in Kearney said it is important to get the younger generation interested in engineering early.

Miller & Associates is a consulting engineering firm that has been in business for more than 40 years.

Tresten Schuarz, a junior at Northwest High School, developed an interest in engineering early, playing with Legos.

Schuarz said he wanted to learn about engineering opportunities in the Grand Island area.

I would like a career in construction or engineering, he said.

Schuarz said its important to recruit local students to engineering careers. He is a native of Grand Island and hopes to return to the community after receiving his university training.

If we dont recruit career engineers, then we wont have any for the future, he said.

Dave Taylor, president of GIAEDC, said the event exposes students to Grand Island industries.

We are excited to showcase Grand Islands employment opportunities as it relates to the engineering and manufacturing fields to area high school students and University of Nebraska-Lincoln faculty and staff, Taylor said. We hope these students think of Grand Island after their academic career.

Grand Island Public Schools students were more than half of those attending the event. Jacqueline Osborne, a Grand Island Senior High sophomore, was one of them.

Osborne, an ROTC student, said she hopes to enter the military to learn more about engineering.

This event allows kids an idea of what is going on in their community and what their opportunities are so they can see ahead to their future, she said.

Grand Island Senior High counselor Larry Uhing accompanied the students. He said the students take high-level math and science classes.

Grand Island relies on talented engineers, Uhing said. We want to support the community. We think a lot of Chief and Hornady when they put something on like this because we know the kids will get a good experience.

Uhing said the students are serious about their careers and their futures.

That is why they are here, he said. They are exploring. There are a lot of opportunities in engineering.

Maggie Jobes, director of recruitment for UNLs College of Engineering, said the Grand Island chamber, the economic development corporation and local industry have been wonderful partners.

Its exciting to see how the Grand Island community has rallied around the college and this idea, Jobes said.

The chamber and the economic development corporation have developed educational partnerships with the Career Pathways Institute, which is a collaboration between the chamber, GIAEDC, Grand Island Public Schools, private businesses and Central Community College.

Jobes said Rural Engineering Days goal is to give students educational choices.

We want students to see firsthand that they have a pathway in engineering, and their choice to pursue an engineering education at Nebraska can lead them back to some awesome career opportunities in Grand Island and Central Nebraska, she said.

We believe the access Central Nebraska students have to the College of Engineering is a vital part of our role, said Lance C. Perez, Ph.D., interim dean of the UNL College of Engineering and Omar H. Heins Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Perez said the College of Engineering is accountable for highlighting engineering opportunities outside of Lincoln and Omaha. He said those areas depend on engineering and technology to move their communities forward.
Subway restaurants, including ones in Central Nebraska, will be collaborating with Feeding America to celebrate Sandwich Day today.

Feeding America is the nations largest hunger-relief organization.

For each sub and 30-ounce drink purchased together today, Subway will donate the monetary equivalent of a meal or 9 cents to Feeding America. One dollar helps provide 11 meals secured by Feeding America. Meals secured by Feeding America are distributed by local member food banks.

In addition, customers who purchase any sandwich and 30-ounce drink will get a free sandwich of equal or lesser value.

Last year, Subway donated 11 million meals or $1 million to Feeding America, the largest single donation Feeding America has received. Subways goal is to top that this year.

Subways donation to Feeding America will benefit millions of Americans facing hunger and seeking help from Feeding Americas network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs.
Hall County is trying to take advantage of a relatively new state law to generate revenue for the renovation of the Hall County Courthouse, with people in other parts of the state watching to see if the effort is successful.

On Tuesday, the Hall County board learned that no bids were received for its planned sale and/or transfer of $41,030 in Nebraska Historic Tax Credits.

The board instructed Hall County Facilities Director Loren Doone Humphrey to check with the Nebraska Department of Revenue and the state auditor to see if they have any recommendations on how to successfully market the tax credits. Humphrey said he did just that and was advised that the $41,030 may have been too small an amount to attract the interest of any bidders.

He told The Independent that he already has shared that information with Jane Richardson, the chairwoman of the boards facilities committee, and he will share the same information with the full facilities committee before the issue comes back to the full board.

Humphrey said the plan would be for the committee to discuss the issue and then make a recommendation to the full board on how to proceed.

The sale of the tax credits would have been used by Hall County to pay a portion of the cost for the renovation of the ornate plaster ceiling in Hall County District Judge Teresa Luthers third-floor courtroom.

Humphrey noted the ceiling renovation is already complete, but the $41,030 in tax credits remains available to potential bidders. He said the original bid deadline has expired, so the county would have to re-advertise that the tax credits are available and request that bids be submitted.

Humphrey said the next phase of the Hall County Courthouse renovation has three additional projects that would qualify for historic tax credits. If Hall County advertises a second time for bidders, it probably would combine the original $41,030 with any historic tax credits made available by the three additional qualifying projects.

He said the final decision will belong to the Hall County board.

The historic tax credits are available to bidders because the Hall County Courthouse is on the National Register of Historic places.

This is the first time weve gone through this (attempting to sell historic tax credits), Humphrey said. I guess were the first county (in Nebraska), from what Im being told, to be awarded tax credits for historical preservation projects. This all comes through the Nebraska State Historical Preservation Office via the Nebraska Department of Revenue.

Humphrey said a state statute created the Nebraska State Historic Tax Credit. He said the new laws goal is to partially offset the cost of rehabilitating historic buildings.

Hall Countys bid document for the original $41,030 partially explained how the tax credits work: NHTCs (Nebraska Historic Credits) may be used to offset Nebraska income tax, Nebraska premium tax imposed on insurance companies, or Nebraska franchise tax imposed on financial institutions, it says. Governmental entities including Hall County that have completed a NHTC project receive Type A credits that are equal to 20 percent of eligible expenditures and are 100 percent transferable.

Humphrey said that if a bank, for example, wanted to bid on Hall Countys tax credits, it would first determine what it wants as a rate of return. A bank hypothetically could offer Hall County $36,000 for the $41,030 in tax credits.

The transaction would generate $36,000 in cash for Hall County while providing the bank with $41,030 in tax credits, which it could claim all in a single year or over a period of years, said Humphrey, who noted that is the explanation provided to him by a banker.

Of course, if several entities were bidding against each other, the competition might slightly increase the revenue for Hall County.

Although the countys $41,030 in historic tax credits might have generated a good rate of return for a successful bidder, the total amount of revenue generated by just $41,030 in tax credits would have been relatively small, he said. Thats why the possibility of combining historic tax credits from the ceiling renovation with three other projects that are part of the overall courthouse renovation is being considered. Even with the same rate of return, the winning bidder would generate more money for itself simply by having a larger amount of tax credits to work with.

Humphrey noted the state statute provides incentives to maintain historically significant buildings. The incentive is needed because when someone is renovating a historic building, you cant go into a building and say, I want to do this renovation. Youve got to do it in a historically appropriate way. Sometimes restoring some of the material in the building  because they wont let you replace it with new material  takes more time.

A December 2015 article in The Independent pointed out that historically accurate renovation of the ceiling in Judge Luthers courtroom added 75 days to the project.

People who want to do a renovation also must consider the cost associated with doing the work in a historically appropriate way. That is something that was also debated by the Hall County board, which approved the courtroom ceiling renovation on a 4-3 vote.

This is pretty new to a lot of people because Ive gotten a few phone calls from other areas and talked to some people from some different counties and different localities, and they say theyre watching us to see how we do it, Humphrey said.

Hall County has to sell or transfer the historic tax credits because as a government entity, it does not pay any taxes itself, he said. The courthouse renovation is work that Hall County must do, whether the state historic tax credits are available or not.

As a result, it makes sense to use the relatively young state law on historic tax credits to help generate an additional revenue stream to pay for a portion of the Hall County Courthouse renovation, Humphrey said.
KEARNEY  Krystale Kendall, 28, of Hastings died Thursday at CHI Good Samaritan in Kearney from injuries she received in a two-vehilce accident near Gibbon on this past Sunday, according to information released by the Buffalo County Sheriffs Office.

An autopsy has been ordered by the Buffalo County Attorneys Office. The investigation of the crash remains ongoing, according to the Buffalo County Sheriffs Office.

The original accident report from the Buffalo County Sheriffs Office said deputies were called to a traffic accident at approximately 8:30 p.m. this past Sunday as a result of a two-vehicle collision at an uncontrolled intersection at 56th Road and Pawnee Road southeast of Gibbon. One of the vehicles was an eastbound 2007 GMC pickup driven by Levi Warta, 28, of rural Gibbon, and the second vehicle was a southbound 2000 Chevrolet Monte Carlo driven by Juan Lopez, 19, of Hastings. Kendall was a passenger in the Lopez vehicle.

All three people were transported to CHI Good Samaritan following the accident. A power pole near the intersection was damaged as a result of the collision.

Deputies were assisted at the scene by Gibbon Volunteer Fire and Rescue, CHI Good Samaritan paramedics, the Buffalo County Highway Department and the Kearney/Buffalo County accident investigation team.
Multiple leaders across the nation, including Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and President Donald Trump, have declared states of emergency in response to the opioid epidemic. Policymakers claim to be battling this public health crisis on all fronts, but one arena continues to be conspicuously ignored: our prisons and jails.

Roughly half of all incarcerated individuals suffer from addiction. And in the two weeks following their release, former prisoners are 129 times more likely to die from overdose than members of the general population.

This is despite the fact that we have robust evidence showing that we can decrease the incidence of relapse, overdose, drug-related health complications like HIV transmission, criminal activity after release and recidivism by offering treatment. And unequivocal data highlights that medication-assisted therapy  that is, treatment with methadone or suboxone  in prisons saves lives.

A study published recently in the journal Addiction showed that offering medication-assisted treatment in prisons reduced drug-related overdose deaths by 85 percent in the four-week period following prisoner release and reduced mortality from all causes by 75 percent over the same period. Few other medical interventions have demonstrated such success.

Unfortunately, however, the majority of correctional facilities in the United States do not offer programs for people addicted to opioids. Out of the 3,200 U.S. jails, only 23 provide maintenance therapy to inmates. And out of the 50 state prison systems, only four offer such treatment. This means that people who are fortunate enough to be part of a treatment program before their incarceration are, upon their entrance to a jail or prison, often taken off their medications and forced to endure cruel, painful and dangerous periods of withdrawal.

This is not a problem of resources. Many incarcerated patients currently receive appropriate care for other chronic conditions, including diabetes, HIV, cancer and even more-newly-recognized disorders, like gender dysphoria. Our federal and state corrections systems have the capacity to offer this treatment  a treatment defined as essential medicine by the World Health Organization. Anne Arundels Road to Recovery program and other correctional facility programs (Rikers jail in New York, the prison system of Rhode Island and Vermont) demonstrate that success with medication-assisted therapy is possible.

The inability to access medical treatment with such established benefits is an unacceptable violation of prisoners constitutional right to basic health care. But this is not just an issue of rights, and this is not just about prisoners. This is a critical public health issue, and the benefits of the therapies we can offer to people with opioid addiction who are currently incarcerated reach far beyond those individuals. Our communities benefit too when we help those suffering from addiction get the care they need to survive and live healthy lives.

Skeptics will argue against such treatment by asserting that it is too expensive, or that it will be diverted and used inappropriately, or that the people with addictions who end up incarcerated should have taken more personal responsibility. But these interventions have been shown to be cost-effective. Diversion can be minimized, while treatment could actually improve security. And moralizing arguments against a well-recognized psychiatric disorder are antiquated, demonstrating poor knowledge of evidence-based treatment, if not also little compassion for a vulnerable population.

As a primary care physician who has worked with formerly incarcerated patients, I have seen first-hand that suboxone allows many people to concentrate on their lives instead of their addictions upon their release from jail or prison. And if we want to save lives on the streets, we cannot send people out of prisons untreated and abandon them when they are the most vulnerable to overdose. If were serious about addressing the opioid epidemic, we have to pay attention to the evidence demonstrating that opioid treatment in jails and prisons is highly effective, and we must act by quickly expanding such treatment to many more facilities around the country.

Current programs offering in-facility treatment should guide the nation, serving as examples of how we can provide vulnerable, disenfranchised people with the care they deserve as fellow humans and members of our society. If we claim, whether as a community, a state or a nation, to be fighting the opioid crisis on all fronts, let us not forget one that offers undeniable evidence of a way to save lives.
RACINE  A disabled man pleaded guilty to reduced charges in court Thursday after he was allegedly found to be running a marijuana trafficking operation out of his Town of Waterford home.

Joseph Mucha, 25, of the 6300 block of North River Bay Road, was originally charged with felony counts of possession with intent to deliver or manufacture THC (amount between 200 and 1,000 grams), maintaining a drug trafficking place and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia charge.

The charges stem from an April 25 search in which Racine Metro Drug Unit officers reportedly found $60,223 in cash, 1 pounds of marijuana and more than a dozen wax marijuana dabs in the Mucha residence.

His parents, Pamela and James Mucha, were also charged with maintaining a drug trafficking house, as a party to a crime. But the charges against Muchas parents were also dismissed as part of the agreement.

Racine County Circuit Judge Mark Nielsen sentenced Joseph Mucha to pay $500 fines for each of the three charges, plus court costs. Mucha will not serve jail time or be on probation following the sentencing.

I understand there is a debate about marijuana ... if you disagree with the current state of the law in the State of Wisconsin, write our Legislature, Nielsen said. If you are using it (marijuana) for medicinal purposes, you would have the courts sympathy. You were using 7 grams of it a week, arguably for medicinal purposes. They caught you with 100 times that and records indicating a lot more.

Plea agreement

Assistant Racine County District Attorney Jennifer Tanck-Adams presented a plea agreement in which Mucha would plead guilty to reduced charges. In return, he would forfeit the more than $60,000 found in his home and pay a $1,000 fine for all three charges, as well as court costs.

The money is part of a civil forfeiture case that is separate from the criminal case, District Attorney Tricia Hanson said in an email to The Journal Times. That case is still pending.

Im very sorry that I put everyone through this, especially my parents, Joseph Mucha said. I feel terrible about that. I put myself in a bad situation. I really feel bad.

The defense asked the judge to consider $100 in fines on each of the three counts, plus court costs.

As the court is aware, his parents were charged out of this, Cafferty said. So he caused his family a great deal of stress and angst  hes embarrassed by that.

In the end, Nielsen admitted he would follow the guideline of both the state and defense.

Mr. Mucha, Im going to pretty much follow along with whats been recommended here, Nielsen said. Ill tell you, with some degree of reluctance.

Drugs, cash & paraphernalia found

When officers arrived on April 25, Joseph, who uses a wheelchair, reportedly told them that much of the marijuana found in the home had been shipped in from Colorado, California and Oregon, and that he reportedly said he knew he was going to get caught eventually.

He added that his parents had no involvement in the operation, which included having the drugs shipped to his home and the homes of his friends.

Based on the strong odor of marijuana in the home and drug paraphernalia, such as scales and packaging materials located in common areas, officers found that to be unlikely, the criminal complaint states.

In addition to the drugs and cash, investigators also uncovered a pistol conversion kit and UPS tracking receipts from Colorado, according to the complaint.

Joseph was reportedly seen using the internet to live-stream video of the search as it took place. An officer unplugged the computer after he heard people making comments, the complaint states.

He has clearly learned his lesson here and the forfeiture of the significant amount of money, along with the convictions, is dramatic punishment, and both the state and I are in agreement that this is a fair way to resolve the case and we would ask the court to approve it, Cafferty said.
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Linkedin Jessicha Valentina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 3, 2017 10:01 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2745f74 1 Art & Culture batik,#batik,film,#film,filmmaking,culture,cultural-heritage,movies,#movies Free

Batik is among the nations most popular items of cultural heritage. Despite its popularity, not many people know about the traditional fabrics history, the manufacturing process as well as the people behind it.

Realizing this, California-based educational filmmaker Andrew Galli showcases the step-by-step batik-making process and the makers in a video titled Batik of Java: A Visual Journey, available for purchase on Galli Publishings website.

Galli first learned about the textile in a contemporary exhibition of batik by artist Rosi Robinson in the Barbican Centre, London, in 2005. As his curiosity on batik grew, he met pre-eminent batik scholar Rudolf G Smend, which led him to wonder about batik makers.

Andrew Galli traveled to Indonesia to meet batik-making communities. (Gwen Jones/File)

Galli told The Jakarta Post via email that to really appreciate batik, one needs to go to the workshops and join a tour or a study group. However, not many people have the opportunity to join those kind of activities.

Together with the films co-producer Daniel Gundlach, Galli traveled to Indonesia to meet the batik communities for the film.

In shooting the film, our goal was to provide a view as if you were part of a study tour, explained Galli, adding that in the video, viewers would be able to learn more about traditional batik and see the makers sharing their work as well as their future hopes.

Read also: Batik: a cultural dilemma of infatuation and appreciation

He told the Post that after returning from Indonesia, he found a rack loaded with faded batik shirts with a sign that said Hawaiian Shirts  $10 each in 4th Street Long Beach, locally known as Retro Row.

It made me laugh. It is very 'American' to take a craft that is from one place and mislabel it to something more familiar, he said.

He also explained that batik is among the most popular quilting fabrics in America. However, the fabrics available in the US are either the most inferior grade of batik ever made or, perhaps, not even batik at all.

Galli said when Americans are shown something that was drawn expertly by hand with wax, dyed dozens of times in deep rich natural dyes without crackle or imperfection, producing magnificent designs that carry subtle or strong cultural meaning, they would say, "Wow, I had no idea".

When you go deeper, you begin to see that batik is, for many of its makers, something very personal that carries the imprint of the makers in the cloth," he said, adding that there is a spiritual side to the cloth and this becomes a road map to the plants that grow in the village, which is used to dye the cloth, the artisan skill and the symbolism of belief, ritual and spirituality behind it.

For me, the opportunity to create a film that gives other foreigners a better road map into this wonderful heritage craft from Indonesia is a special opportunity, he added. (kes)
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Linkedin Shelina Ajit Assomull (The Straits Times/Asia News Network) Singapore  Fri, November 3, 2017 11:30 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a274ac0d 2 Science & Tech iphone-x,iPhone,smartphone,#smartphone,Apple Free

The long-anticipated Apple iPhone X was launched in Singapore's Apple store on Friday.

As the doors opened at 8 a.m., the horde of fans who had lined up overnight outside the Orchard Road store rushed in. The Apple team began a countdown that roared through the crowd, and welcomed the crowd with huge applause.

Within two hours of the store opening, more than 20 iPhone Xs were being offered for resale on online marketplaces such as Carousell. They were priced at $2,500 or more, reaping resellers at least $600 in profit.

There were two queues at the store - one for walk-in buyers and one for those who had pre-ordered the phone.

Those in the pre-order queue were allowed to enter the store first, with students from Thailand, Mr Kittiwat Wang and Mr Supakorn Rieksiri, both 22, leading the way. The men, who have been friends since high school, had pre-ordered two phones each on Oct 27.

Read also: Apple aims to work its magic with iPhone X

#iPhoneX Huge crowds gather outside Apple store in Orchard Road Singapore ahead of iPhone X launch, do you want ? pic.twitter.com/3utpK1L7lL  abhs (@angelbhs2907) November 3, 2017

Mr Supakorn, who studies engineering at Thammasat University, was the first customer to make a purchase. "I'm shaking, I'm going to open it with my mum at home in Thailand," he said.

But Mr Kittiwat, a science student at Mahidol University International College, said he would be opening his purchase straight away. Both friends had flown over to Singapore to buy the phone for themselves and their parents.

Madam Ilha Ahmed, 53, was the first in the walk-in queue to enter the store. The housewife and her son paid for their haul of four phones within 20 minutes of the opening  more than 24 hours after she started queueing.

The self-professed "huge" Apple fan and her son had queued since 6.30am on Thursday. After an exhausting night waiting, she said: "I don't think I will come next time, but it depends on what Apple brings out."

The store, located in Orchard Road, saw crowds of up to 800. This was more than the 200 people at Septembers iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus launch.

Some had luggage with them, while others brought sleeping bags and food to camp out overnight.

Read also: Apple Store Singapore turns into wedding photo location

Buyers were limited to two phones each. The Apple iPhone X retails at $1,648 (64GB) and $1,888 (256GB), and comes in silver or space grey.

Mr Tran Quoc Dat, 25, from Vietnam, came with 10 friends. Each person snapped up two phones each. "I'm feeling crazy, I'm so excited," he said, adding that the group flew here to buy the phones and will be leaving the country with their haul later at night.

One customer who went the extra mile to get the new phone was 36-year-old Jocelyn Ng. She booked a hotel room nearby and joined the queue at 8.30am on Thursday.

"For every iPhone launch I do this, but this is the longest I have waited," said Ms Ng, who works in travel management.

This is the second time in less than two months Singapore has seen eager crowds anticipate an iPhone launch at the Apple store, following the release of iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus in late September.

Topics :

This article appeared on The Straits Times newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
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Linkedin Ni Nyoman Wira (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 3, 2017 11:05 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2747cb5 1 Art & Culture national-gallery-singapore,CIMAM,modern-and-contemporary-art,Singapore,exhibition,#exhibition Free

The National Gallery Singapore is set to host the 2017 International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM) Annual Conference for three days from Nov. 10 to 12.

This is the first time the conference will be held in Southeast Asia.

Themed "The Roles and Responsibilities of Museums in Civil Society," the conference will present speakers who will discuss three sub-themes, namely "Art and the City: From Local to Transnational?", which will talk about what people can do to activate the publics consciousness; "Re-Learning Southeast Asia," which will focus on the cultural and artistic contexts of Southeast Asia; and "What do Museums Collect, and How?", which will focus on the role of the museum and responsibilities in collecting art.

Indonesian artist, curator and director of contemporary art organization ruangrupa, Ade Darmawan, will feature as a speaker in the "Re-Learning Southeast Asia" session on Nov. 11.

The conference will also feature speakers Uta Meta Bauer from Singapore, Gridthiya Gaweewong from Thailand and Adriano Pedrosa from Brazil.

Read also: Jakarta Biennale: A new understanding of contemporary Indonesian art

A series of tours open to participants is scheduled to be held before and after the conference, namely the Pre-Conference Tour to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam from Nov. 8 to 9 and the Post-Conference Tour to Jakarta and Yogyakarta in Indonesia from Nov. 13 to 15.

The theme of this years conference is particularly timely in this global climate of upheavals and uncertainty, said National Gallery Singapore director and 2017 CIMAM conference director Eugene Tan in a press release. If building a more inclusive society that embraces diversity and change requires dialogue and understanding, how museums and art can bridge gaps and bring people and perspectives together must be acknowledged and understood.

CIMAM is the global forum where issues pertinent to institutions of art are explored and debated, with far-reaching effects. I look forward to the ideas and discussions we shall be having in Singapore."

Founded in 1962, CIMAM is an affiliated committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), a network of over 35,000 members and museum professionals who represent the global museum community. The CIMAM conference itself brings together directors and curators of modern and contemporary art museums as well as independent professionals. (kes)
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Linkedin Mariette le Roux and Laurence Coustal (Agence France-Presse) Paris  Fri, November 3, 2017 12:33 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a274d901 2 Art & Culture pyramid,Science,Great-Pyramid,Egypt Free

A passenger plane-sized "void" has been discovered in the middle of the Great Pyramid of Egypt, where it has lain secret and untouched for 4,500 years, scientists revealed on Thursday.

The space is one of four cavities, along with the king and queen's chambers and "Grand Gallery", now known to exist inside the giant monument constructed under pharaoh Khufu of ancient Egypt.

"It is big," said co-discoverer Mehdi Tayoubi of the ScanPyramids project, which has been exploring Khufu's pyramid since October 2015 with non-invasive technology using subatomic particle scans.

"It's the size of a 200-seater airplane, in the heart of the pyramid," Tayoubi told AFP of the discovery, published in science journal Nature.

Towering over the Giza complex on Cairo's outskirts alongside smaller pyramids for kings Menkaure and Khafre and the Great Sphinx, the Khufu's pyramid is the oldest and only surviving construction among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and one of the largest buildings ever erected on Earth.

The cavity is the first major structure found inside the Great Pyramid since the 19th century, the research team said.

"There have been many theories about the existence of secret chambers inside the pyramid," said Tayoubi. "But none have predicted anything this big."

The exact shape and size of the void is fuzzy -- its purpose and possible contents a mystery.

But it is thought to be at least 30 metres (98 feet) long, and located above the "Grand Gallery" -- a sloped corridor almost 50 m long and 9 m high which links Khufu's burial chamber at the pyramid's centre to a tunnel leading outside.

Read also: Particles could reveal clues to how Egypt pyramid was built

Untouched for 4,500 years

The monument -- 139 metres high today, and 230 metres wide -- was erected as a tomb for Khufu, also known as Cheops. To this day, nobody knows quite how it was built.

The void, said co-author Kunihiro Morishima from the Nagoya University in Japan, "was not known by anyone until now, from when the pyramid was built 4,500 years ago".

"The big void is completely closed," he added, which means anything inside it would not have been "touched by anyone after the pyramid (was) built".

The pharaohs of ancient Egypt built these monumental tombs for themselves, complete with sarcophagus to hold their embalmed mummies, and stocked with everything they could require for the afterlife -- food, clothing and jewellery.

Khufu's pyramid was plundered long before it was visited by modern archaeologists, and no relics remain from any of the known chambers.

For this reason, the new cavity may be "very exciting," said Morishima, though it is not known if it contains anything at all.

The team used a technique called "cosmic-ray muon radiography", which allowed them to visualise "known and potentially unknown" voids in the pyramid without having to touch a single stone.

Muons are charged, heavy particles formed from the interactions of cosmic rays with atoms in the upper atmosphere.

Similar to X-rays which can penetrate the human body and allow bone imaging, these particles can follow a mostly straight line through several hundreds of metres of stone before decaying or being absorbed, the team said.

By recording the position and direction of each muon as it travels through the pyramid, muon detectors can distinguish cavities from stone.

Read also: Mexican experts say original pyramid found at Chichen Itza

High confidence

"We will continue to conduct muon imaging for revealing the detail" of the void, said Morishima -- including its dimensions and inclination, and whether it consists of a single, large cavity or a complex of several.

"Our muon imaging technology can't confirm (whether) there are some artifacts or not," he added. Anything inside would be "too small for muon imaging."

The team is already turning its attention to new technology for the next step -- possibly a miniature robot that can travel through tiny holes to examine the inside of the void without disturbing anything.

The discovery, named simply "Big Void", has been confirmed using three different muon technologies and three independent analyses, verifying its existence with "high confidence," the authors said.

"While there is currently no information about the role of this void, these findings show how modern particle physics can shed new light on the world's archaeological heritage," the authors wrote in Nature.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Vatican City, Holy See  Fri, November 3, 2017 13:33 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a27506dd 2 Lifestyle Pope,Pope-Francis,praying,sleep Free

Pope Francis has confessed he sometimes nods off while praying and claims saints too have been known to grab some Holy shut-eye.

"When I pray, sometimes I fall asleep," he said in an episode of a Catholic TV2000 television program published Tuesday on Youtube.

"Saint Therese did it too," he said in reference to a 19th-century French nun, adding that Christians were called to feel like children lying in their fathers' arms -- a place conducive to napping, he implies.

Read also: Pope says sleeping 'like a log' helps him handle stress

The 80-year-old Argentine head of the Roman Catholic Church radiates energy and enthusiasm when he meets people, but his expression turns very grave when he prays, often bowing his head and closing his eyes for long periods.

The pontiff values his sleep and is tucked up in bed each night by 9pm (2000 GMT) -- though he rises with the lark at 4am (0300 GMT).

His fast-paced schedule is only possible because he gets his head down for a snooze after lunch, Vatican sources say.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 3, 2017 17:09 1838 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a275d310 1 Art & Culture sapardi-djoko-darmono,writer,Indonesian-authors,poetry Free

Poetry anthology Hujan Bulan Juni (A June Rain) by Sapardi Djoko Damono is now available in Mandarin, after a reader was compelled to translate the work.

As reported by tempo.co, TF Chan, who is of Indonesian descent but lives in Hong Kong, became a fan of Sapardi's book.

Despite not being familiar with Sapardi, as well not having any background in linguistics, Chan said his interest in the work encouraged him to translate it.

"Sapardi's works are very interesting; it resonated with me, and there was an urge to translate it into Mandarin," Chan said during the book's launch in Jakarta on Wednesday.

The translated book of poetry uses two languages, as the original Indonesian poems are shown beside the Mandarin translation.

"I am not a literary person, not a professional translator, not a cultural observer. It was just a coincidence," Chan said.

Read also: The importance of literary translation for global recognition

Sapari expressed happiness about the positive reception of his work, which has also been translated into a film with the same title.

"Film and then translation. I'm very happy. That means a lot of people want to read my poetry," Sapardi said at the same event.

Hujan Bulan Juni had previously been translated into English, Japanese and Arabic. An established writer, Sapardi's previous works have also been translated into various languages, including German, French and Russian, among others.

Siti Gretia, publishing company Gramedia Pustaka Utama's general manager, expressed hope that Sapardi's work would be used at schools in Indonesia for students studying Mandarin.

"Many schools' curriculum include Mandarin. Hopefully this book can be complementary Mandarin reading material for Indonesian students, while at the same time introducing an Indonesian author to the students," Siti said.

Siti further expressed hope that the book would also be sold in China. (liz/kes)
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Linkedin Selina Wang (Bloomberg)  Fri, November 3, 2017 13:11 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a274fe2b 2 Science & Tech Donald-Trump,#DonaldTrump,Twitter Free

U.S. President Donald Trumps personal Twitter account went down abruptly for about 11 minutes Thursday evening, a brief deactivation the social media company blamed on an employee who was heading out the door.

Attempts to call up Trumps personal page, @realDonaldTrump, turned up a message saying, "Sorry, that page doesnt exist!", prompting many Twitter users to send out screenshots. Within minutes, the account was once again available. The official feed for the U.S. president, @POTUS, wasnt affected.

Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employees last day. We are conducting a full internal review, the company tweeted, after citing inadvertent human error in an earlier post.

Twitter has mistakenly frozen accounts in the past. In 2016, Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey was locked out of his own for a few minutes. Dorsey said in a tweet that the suspension was an internal mistake. Users can also deactivate their own accounts. Once someone chooses to do so, Twitter retains that data for 30 days, after which it begins the process of deleting the information. An account can be reactivated during that period simply by logging in.

Read also: Trump threatens to revoke licence for press

Twitter has come under fire from critics who say the company should banish Trump for violating its terms of service. The U.S. president often uses Twitter to disseminate his thinking, sometimes making disparaging remarks. Twitters rules let the company suspend accounts for violent threats, gender-based attacks and other forms of abuse and harassment.

In June, Trump tweeted remarks aimed at MSNBCs "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski: "I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (dont watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came...to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Years Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!"

The next month, the U.S. President posted a video in which hes shown wrestling and punching a person whose head bears the CNN logo. Many said that tweet violated Twitters policies against violent threats and targeted abuse.

The fact that Twitter hasnt closed Trumps account appears to be a violation of Twitters own rules," Stephen Balkam, the founder of the Family Online Safety Institute, a nonprofit organization thats part of Twitters Trust and Safety Council, said in a recent interview. "If an ordinary citizen tweeted some of what he tweeted, I would think some of them would be taken down."
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Linkedin Nedi Putra AW (The Jakarta Post) Sumenep, Madura  Fri, November 3, 2017 09:21 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2745284 4 Art & Culture Sumenep,Madura,kris,#kris,Javanese-culture,Javanese-dagger Free

The mythical weapon kris is generally associated with Central Java, but the center of kris craftsmen turns out to be in the eastern corner of Java, particularly in Sumenep, Madura.

Aeng Tong-Tong is a village in Saronggi district, located about 30 kilometers northwest of the city of Sumenep. This village is teeming with kris makers busily forging the traditional daggers.

Sanamo, 48, an mpu or kris master craftsman, specializing in family heirloom blades in the village, said Aeng Tong-Tongs kris-making center originated when a local prince named Bukabu served as a guru for Sumenep kings.

He taught religion, royal formality and arts, particularly kris making,Sanamo said.

He added that Sumenep kings relied on the people of Aeng Tong-Tong for the creation of their royal kris treasures and the craftsmanship has since been preserved through generations by local villagers. Sanamo is a third generation mpu.

He said local craftsmen originally only produced the kris for their own families and the royal family.

As time went by, more and more people ordered kris blades for personal collections, thus prompting more villagers to learn the craft.

But the presence of kris craftsmen here is also connected to the name Aeng Tong-Tong, Sanamo said.

Finished products: Various examples of kris produced by kris makers of Aeng Tong-Tong are on display. (JP/Nedi Putra AW)

Aeng Tong-Tong is derived from aeng and tong-tong, which respectively means water and container in Madurese.

The village name depicts the difficulty in finding water springs in this dry area, forcing residents to always carry containers to collect water from outer regions.

As farming is hard to do, kris making has become a primary source of income for most residents.

Almost 90 percent of the villages 400 residents work as kris makers. Based on available data, Sumenep lists more than 640 kris craftsmen, which is believed to be the highest in Indonesia.

In Sanamos estimate, the village can produce hundreds of kris blades daily.

However, the large quantity produced are sold as souvenirs, while the ones ordered as special collections are limited in number because their crafting process may take a month to complete.

Some heirloom kris blades are adorned with gold so that they are crafted in a special way, sometimes even preceded by a ritual with a lamb as an offering, Sanamo said.

Moreover, the pamor (carvings) on these daggers are more intricate compared to those made only for decoration or gifts.

Some kris, like one owned by village head Taufik Rahman, have incredibly intricate carvings on the handle. (JP/Nedi Putra AW)

Consequently, such valuable kris blades can cost tens of millions of rupiah compared to souvenir daggers, which is only worth hundreds of thousands of rupiah per piece.

So far, Aeng Tong-Tong has at least been capable of achieving its community empowerment based on local wisdom.

Many local youth have finished their studies and they now feel their kris-making skills are sufficient, Sanamo said.

While the regeneration of ancestral tradition has been progressing at a steady pace, Sanamo realized that young people should also consider completing their education.

Were trying to provide information and approach their parents in a persuasive and sustainable way, he said.

Kris blades from the village are also marketed and sold online.

Sanamo referred to product placement on various social networks like Facebook and Twitter. As a result, the traditional weapons are now being sold customers in other countries as well.

Young blood: Many youths in the Aeng Tong-Tong village engage in kris-making. (JP/Nedi Putra AW)

Yet, craftsmen still face obstacles when delivering the daggers due to license requirements.

Aeng Tong-Tong village head Taufik Rahman acknowledged the problem and hoped for a more effective legal classification so that the kris could be included in the heirloom category.

The permits can only be obtained from the local police. We have tried to report the problem to the authorities ever since Susilo Bambang Yudoyono was president,said Taufik, who has twice showcased his kris creations at cultural exhibitions in Holland.

Sinarto, the East Java Culture and Tourism Offices secretary, said his agency was seeking to resolve the problem. Were planning to issue a regulation, at least at gubernatorial level, that makes kris products cultural treasures so that they can be safely delivered to other regions as well as other countries.
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Linkedin Fabian Koh (The Straits Times/Asia News Network)  Fri, November 3, 2017 14:30 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2755438 2 Food whisky,alcohol,drink Free

The world's most expensive whisky shot has turned out to be fake.

On Thursday, the shot that was sold at a hotel in St Moritz, Switzerland in August for US$10,000 was proven to be fake after laboratory tests, reported Swissinfo.

One of China's highest-earning online writers, Mr Zhang Wei, 36, from Beijing had purchased it while visiting Waldhaus Am See Hotel's Devil's Place whisky bar, according to the BBC.

The tests conducted by Scottish whisky experts and researchers from Oxford University, found that the drink was not the 1878 bottle of Macallan Single Malt it had claimed to be.

The whisky had a 95 per cent likelihood to have been created between 1970 and 1972, carbon dating found.

It was also possibly not even a single malt, but a blended Scotch of 60 per cent malt and 40 per cent grain.

Read also: Why a few drops of water make whisky taste better

This file handout photo taken and released on August 2, 2017 by the Hotel Waldhaus am See in St. Moritz shows a bottle of whisky labeled to be made in 1878 by the revered Scotch maker Macallan, at the hotel's Devil's Place Whisky Bar. (Hotel Waldhaus am See/AFP/File)

According to Swissinfo, the hotel said it has accepted responsibility and fully reimbursed Mr Zhang.

Hotel owner Sandro Bernasconi personally traveled to Beijing to apologise and pass the cheque to Mr Zhang.

Mr Bernasconi's father Claudio had bought the bottle of whisky 25 years ago for a "five-figure sum", reported Swissinfo.

Experts questioned its authenticity soon after the record sale, so the hotel itself sent the bottle for tests.

"When it comes to selling our customers some of the world's rarest and oldest whiskies, we felt it was our duty to ensure that our stock is 100 percent authentic and the real deal," Mr Bernasconi said.

Topics : whisky alcohol drink

Topics :

This article appeared on The Straits Times newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, November 2 2017

A community unit (RW) head identified as Ade Muhtar has been detained by police for allegedly operating an illegal fireworks factory in Cijantra village, Pagedangan, Tangerang.

Joint personnel raided the factory on Tuesday at 10 a.m. after receiving reports from nearby residents, according to a statement by Tangerang Police crimes unit chief Adj. Comr. Alexander Yurikho.

The workers had already left when we arrived at the factory. But one of them, Ade Muhtar, was [spotted] around the location, who then, along with evidence, was taken to Pagedangan Police station for further investigation, Alexander said.

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Linkedin Eva Aruperes (The Jakarta Post) Manado, North Sulawesi  Fri, November 3, 2017 07:00 1839 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df53829b1 1 National Donald-Trump,immigration,undocumented-foreigners,Indonesians,1998-May-Riots,manado,Foreign-Ministry Free

The Indonesian Foreign Ministrys citizen protection director, Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, has said that 588 Indonesians currently residing in the United States will be deported following US President Donald Trumps tough policy against illegal immigrants.

They have been given the final deportation order. They once had this status but the then US government gave them leeway so they could remain, Lalu told reporters in Manado, North Sulawesi on Wednesday.

According to the ministry, a significant number of Minahasa people from North Sulawesi are residing in the US as undocumented migrants. For years, they have been allowed to remain and work in the US, and most of them now have better lives. They live in New Hampshire, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Lalu said many of those on the deportation list fled Indonesia to escape religious and ethnic persecution in the 1990s, but their requests for asylum were rejected by US courts. Some others are those who used tourist visas but then overstayed, he said.

Read also: Indonesians who fled 1998 riots have ground to stay in US

The policy risks the Indonesians being separated from their family, as some of them who were born in the US are US citizens.

Previously, Reuters reported that around 2,000 Chinese-Indonesians who fled to New Hampshire, US, to escape the 1998 riots were at risk of being deported by US President Donald Trumps administration. (bbs)
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Linkedin Ivany Atina Arbi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 3, 2017 15:32 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2758ce6 1 City transparency,Anies-Baswedan-Sandiaga-Uno Free

In contrast to the transparent bureaucracy that was promised during their gubernatorial campaign, new Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan and his deputy Sandiaga Uno have thus far appeared to implement a closed bureaucratic system, limiting the access of the mass media to their activities at City Hall.

Previously, during the 2012-2017 tenure, former governors Joko Jokowi Widodo, Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama and Djarot Saiful Hidayat allowed journalists from various mass media organizations to interview them in almost every spot in the building, including in front of their respective offices.

Currently, however, the majority of interview sessions are only permitted to be conducted in the main hall of the building called Balairung. The dozens of journalists present at city hall must wait for Anies and Sandiaga in the main hall for press conferences.

This has limited the ability of journalists to find out who is visiting the governor and deputy governor, as well as to learn what topics are being discussed.

Various meetings, which were usually open to the media, such as meetings on the budget and meetings to brief heads of city-owned enterprises, are now closed to the public.

Sandiaga said he had banned the reporters from conducting interviews in front of his office because the background was not good enough to be displayed on television. [The interviews are held in Balairung] because the background there is good enough to be displayed on television, he said.

Meanwhile, Jakarta Communications, Information and Statistics Agency head Dian Ekowati said reporters were banned from joining meetings in order to create a more orderly atmosphere.

The more orderly the atmosphere, the more concentrated the meeting participants are, Dian said.
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Linkedin Emmanuelle Michel and Simon Sturdee (AFP) Madrid, Spain  Fri, November 3, 2017 10:00 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2745c95 2 World catalan,Catalan-independence,Spain,Barcelona Free

A judge in Madrid on Thursday ordered ministers of Catalonia's deposed government to be held in jail pending further probes into their role in the regional government's quest for independence, prompting calls for protests in Barcelona and other cities.

Accused of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds, Catalonia's former vice president Oriol Junqueras and seven other deposed regional ministers were headed for detention after another day of drama in Spain's worst political crisis in decades.

A ninth former minister, who resigned just before the Catalan parliament declared independence on Friday, was also remanded in jail but will be set free if he pays bail of 50,000 euros ($58,000).

Grassroots independence association ANC called "peaceful but firm" protests for 7:00 pm (1800 GMT) in front of the Catalan parliament in Barcelona and city halls around Catalonia.

Independence supporters have urged more protests on Friday night and a big rally on November 12 in Barcelona. Pro-independence umbrella group Crida Democracia called for a week of demonstrations.

- Arrest warrant? -

Spanish prosecutors also sought a European arrest warrant for Catalonia's axed leader Carles Puigdemont, who is in Belgium and refused to show up to be questioned by the same judge.

In her ruling, judge Carmen Lamela said she had ordered preventive detention for the former ministers as she believed there was a risk they could escape, given Puigdemont had gone to Belgium.

Four other ministers also failed to turn up, and prosecutors asked that they too be arrested.

"Let's not forget the purchasing power of the defendants, which allows them to easily leave the Spanish territory and live abroad," Lamela argued in her ruling.

"Let's remember that some of the defendants have already gone to other countries, dodging possible penal responsibilities."

- 'Fuel' to fire -

A total of 19 people including Puigdemont, Junqueras and the speaker of the Catalan regional parliament had been summoned to be questioned on Thursday.

A hearing of the speaker and five others at the Supreme Court was adjourned until November 9 after their lawyers requested more time to prepare their defence.

Tweeting after the order for his detention, Junqueras said: "Every day, do all you can so that good defeats evil in the polls on 21D. Standing tall, with determination and until victory."

He was referring to regional elections called on December 21 by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in a bid to "restore normality" to a region rocked by the secession bid.

"The conflict between Catalonia and the Spanish state won't be resolved through courts and violence," former Catalan president Artur Mas, in Madrid to show his support, said earlier.

"The more fuel and wood you add to the fire, the bigger it becomes."

- Independence drive -

Catalan demands for independence date back centuries but have surged in recent years, in part due to a difficult economic situation.Puigdemont's government organised an independence referendum on October 1 despite a court ban.

Spanish police tried and failed to stop it, in some cases firing rubber bullets at people defending polling stations.

A declaration of independence by the Catalan parliament followed last Friday, greeted by celebrations on the streets of Barcelona.

But that same day, Rajoy's government dismissed the regional government, imposed direct rule on Catalonia and called the December elections.

- Puigdemont the hero -

Marta Rovira, a lawyer and Catalan separatist lawmaker, briefly broke down in tears as she spoke to reporters in Madrid after the announcement of the detentions.

"The Spanish state is a failed state, a state that has failed democratically," she said. "I'm convinced we won't surrender, we won't, we will fight until the end."

In Barcelona earlier Thursday, several hundred demonstrators gathered in front of the regional government chanting "freedom" and "Puigdemont is our president".

"(Puigdemont) hasn't fled, it is a political strategy... forcing the EU to take a stand," said Jorde Segu, 68, a retiree. "He's a hero," added secretary Lidia Amoraga, 62.

-- Divided? --

Catalans, fiercely proud of their language and culture, remain deeply divided about independence, polls indicate.The European Union, several members of which have disgruntled regions of their own, has swung firmly behind Rajoy.

In addition, there are signs of growing divisions in the separatist camp, with many unhappy with Puigdemont, particularly now he is hundreds of miles away.

Spain's central bank also warned Thursday that the region risks suffering an economic recession if the strife continues. (**)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 3 2017

Global fast moving consumer goods firm PT Unilever Indonesia claimed that the plan to sell its margarine division would not affect the Indonesian branchs performance.

Unilever Indonesia finance director Tevilyan Yudhistira Rusli said on Wednesday that the company had a strong presence in the country with its Blue Band brand.

Introduced to the Indonesian market in 1934, the brand is today a market leader in margarine, but its contribution to the companys sales is not significant.

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Linkedin Winny Tang (The Jakarta Post) Nusa Dua, Bali  Fri, November 3, 2017 13:50 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2750b96 1 Business Enggartiasto-Lukita,oil-palm-plantations,Palm-oil-producing-countries,retaliation,EU,negative-campaign Free

Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita has called on palm oil stakeholders to join hands to fight the European Unions negative campaign against palm oil-based products at a conference in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Friday.

In response to the EU campaign, Indonesia would take strong action by disrupting import commodities from Europe, such as milk powder, he added.

If the EU disrupts palm oil production, we will disrupt milk powder imports, he told reporters on the sidelines of 13th Indonesian Palm Oil Conference (IPOC).

Enggar also threatened to stop palm oil exports to Europe for a month, if the EU keeps putting pressure on Indonesia.

He said the EUs negative campaign against palm oil products, based on environmental issues and health concerns, was unfair and baseless.

Oil palm plantations in Indonesia have been strictly controlled through sustainable practices and the consumption of palm oil has also been proven to be healthy, Enggar added.

Palm oil is a crucial commodity for Indonesia as it accounts for 12.5 percent of the countrys total export earnings of US$18 billion last year. From January to August this year, it reached $15 billion. (bbn)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jayapura  Fri, November 3 2017

The Mimika Police are questioning a German national they say is linked to the finding of three human skulls stored in a package at an airport in Papua.

The human skulls were detected during an X-ray security inspection at Mozes Kilangin International Airport on Tuesday. The package was stored in a cargo container in a Garuda Airlines flight heading to Makassar, South Sulawesi.

We are now investigating two people, including a German national who owns [the human skulls], Mimika Police chief Adj. Comr. Dean Mackbon told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 3, 2017 06:15 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a273c516 1 National Jokowi,Joko-Widodo,social-forestry-program,Teluk-Jambe-farmers,karawang,West-Java Free

President Joko Jokowi Widodo has granted around 1,000 farmers in Teluk Jambe, Karawang regency, West Java, permits to use 2,145 hectares of forest areas as part of the governments social forestry program.

I still remember a protest rally you staged several months ago in front of the Presidential Palace. At that time, you buried yourselves in front of the palace, right? Jokowi told Teluk Jambe farmers from Karawang and Bekasi  two West Java regencies  during an event in Muara Gembong, Bekasi.

To raise awareness and gain the government's attention on agrarian conflicts in their area, the Teluk Jambe farmers buried themselves in coffins during a demonstration in front of the Presidential Palace in March.

At that time, I asked you all: Whats the legal status of your land? You replied: Sir, I have an SKD [land ownership letter from village officers]', Jokowi said in his dialogue with Teluk Jambe farmers in March.

The President further said that using SKD as a legal document to prove someones land ownership was not effective.

Thats why I immediately asked National Land Agency head [Sofjan Djalil] to process peoples land certificates, Jokowi said.

He said that because farming land owned by the Teluk Jambe farmers was located in areas belonging to state-owned forestry company Perhutani, the government gave them certificates that would legally allow them to cultivate their farming areas.

So please take care of the forest-use permits for 35 years. If the land was truly essential for the peoples welfare, the permits would be extended for another 35 years. That means you have the right to work there. The legal basis of your land is now clear, so you dont have to demonstrate in front of the Presidential Palace anymore, he said. (hol/ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (AFP) Jakarta, Indonesia  Fri, November 3, 2017 07:28 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a273fde4 2 National orangutan,Tapanuli-orangutan,endangered-species,EndangeredSpecies,IUCN Free

A new species of orangutan has been discovered in the remote jungles of Indonesia, immediately becoming the world's most endangered great ape, researchers said Thursday.

"It's the first declaration of a new great ape species in about 100 years," Ian Singleton, co-author of the study and director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme, told AFP.

The species, called 'Tapanuli orangutan', lives in the Batang Toru forest on Sumatra island, and numbers only about 800 in total, making it the most endangered great ape in the world, Singleton added.

Until recently, scientists thought there were only two genetically distinct types of orangutan, Bornean and Sumatran.

But in 1997 researchers at the Australian National University discovered an isolated population of the great apes in Batang Toru, south of the known habitat for Sumatran orangutans, and scientists began to study the group to see if it was a unique species.

Researchers studied the DNA, skulls and teeth of 33 orangutans killed in human-animal conflict before concluding that they had indeed discovered a new species, giving it the scientific name Pongo tapanuliensis.

Outwardly the Tapanuli orangutan bears a closer resemblance to its Bornean counterpart, with cinnamon-coloured fur that is frizzier than its Sumatran relative. It also has a "prominent moustache", according to the findings published in the journal Current Biology.

Its skull and bone structure are slightly different from its relatives and so is its behaviour, with the long calls of male orangutans lasting on average 21 seconds longer with a greater number of pulses.

Scientists believe the three types of orangutans share a common ancestor but began to diverge into different species about 3.4 million years ago.

"The Batang Toru orangutans appear to be direct descendants of the initial orangutans that had migrated from mainland Asia, and thus constitute the oldest evolutionary line within the genus Pongo," said co-author Alexander Nater of the University of Zurich.

The Tapanuli orangutan species became isolated from its Sumatran relatives about 10-20,000 years ago, Nater added, eventually settling in the Batang Toru forest.

But its tiny population is under severe threat from mining, agricultural encroachment, illegal logging and a proposed hydroelectric dam, which would flood up to eight percent of its habitat.

The authors of the study said conservation measures need to be urgently implemented.

"Orangutans reproduce extremely slowly, and if more than one percent of the population is lost annually this will spiral them to extinction," co-author Serge Wich, professor at Liverpool John Moores University, said.

Both Sumatran and Bornean orangutans are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The Sumatran orangutan population is estimated to be just under 15,000, while about 54,000 orangutans are thought to live in Borneo, according to the IUCN.

Rampant logging and the rapid expansion of palm oil plantations have been blamed for destroying their jungle habitat. The primates have also been attacked by villagers who view them as pests and targeted by poachers to be sold as pets. (**)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 3, 2017 21:02 1838 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2766984 1 National NgurahRaiAirport,Ngurah-Rai-International-Airport,toilets,angkasa-pura,Angkasa-Pura-I Free

I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali has installed toilets specially designed for passengers traveling with young children. It was part of a series of innovations the airport's management has made to improve service for their customers.

Most of the toilets in public areas are designed for adults. Now, we have provided toilets for toddlers, said Yanus Suprayogi, general manager of state-owned airport operator PT Angkasa Pura I office at Ngurah Rai International Airport on Friday.

Inside each restroom, customers can find two types of toilets, one for adults and one for toddlers. The children's toilets come with safety belts.

Parents can use the adult toilets in the same stall as the children, enabling them to supervise their children.

As the airport management, we will evaluate and monitor the quality of our services and facilities, Yanus said as quoted by Antara.

Indonesian Toilet Association chairperson Naning Adiwoso praised and welcomed the innovations used in the toilet design. (dra/ebf)
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Linkedin Rachmadea Aisyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 3, 2017 08:00 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2741f28 1 Business PLN,renewable-energy,power-purchase-agreement Free

State-run electricity firm PLN has announced that it will sign power purchase agreements (PPAs) with nine independent power producers (IPPs) by mid-November.

The nine IPPs are set to build power plants based on renewable resources in various capacities totaling 640.45 megawatts (MW), PLN strategic procurement director Nicke Widyawati said in Jakarta on Thursday.

The largest project is a hydropower plant in Poso, Central Sulawesi, which is planned to have a capacity of 515-MW, with investment amounting to US$831 million.

It will be an expansion of the existing 195-MW power plant owned by Kalla Groups Poso Energy. This will become the largest hydropower plant in Indonesia, Nicke told reporters in a press conference.

The second-largest plant located in Rantau Dedap, South Sumatra will use geothermal energy with a capacity of 86-MW.

The other seven -- all of which are micro-hydro power plants with accumulated capacity of 39.65 MWwill be constructed in Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi and West Nusa Tenggara.

We expect the smaller plants to have started commissioning its plants between this year and next year. The two largest ones should begin operation by 2021, said Nicke.

The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministrys electricity director general, Andy N. Sommeng, who was also present at the conference, said all of the electricity generated from the nine future plants would be sold to PLN for between 8 US cents and 11 US cents per kilowatt hour (kWh).
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 3, 2017 14:38 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2756607 1 City Satpol-PP,illegal-levies,Tanah-Abang-Market Free

The deputy chairman of the Jakarta Public Order Agency (Satpol PP), Hidayatullah, questioned the findings of Indonesian Ombudsman revealing that its members allegedly collected unauthorized fees from street vendors in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta.

He said that he had been a Tanah Abang district head for six years and knew the characteristics of gangs that backed street vendors who were operating illegally.

"The gang members may use slander [to create any accusation]," Hidayatullah said on Friday as quoted by kompas.com.

The gang even lied by telling vendors to give them money, claiming it would be delivered to the local administration, including the heads of community unit (RW) and the neighborhood unit (RT).

However, he appreciated the ombudsmans findings and promised to follow up by asking for the names of the Satpol PP members involved as well as evidence of illegal fee collection.

Jakarta Satpol PP supervision unit head Lamsar Nainggolan said some of his officers indeed had let some street vendors continue operating, but he did not say whether they had received any unauthorized fees from them.

Ombudsman revealed on Thursday that some Satpol PP officers asked for unauthorized fees from street vendors in six areas in the city, one of which is Tanah Abang, in return for permission to conduct their business activities.

The Ombudsman commissioner, Adrianus Meliala, said the officers had received money from gangs who backed the street vendors. (yon)
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Linkedin Severianus Endi (The Jakarta Post) Pontianak, West Kalimantan  Fri, November 3, 2017 18:56 1838 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2762fdb 1 National slow-loris,Sunda-slow-loris,wildlife,West-Kalimantan,rehabilitation,kukang Free

Four Sunda slow lorises, known locally as kukang, have been sent to a rehabilitation camp in a protected forest in Mount Tarak, Ketapang regency, West Kalimantan, so they can regain their wild instincts.

Having long been kept as pets, the slow lorises underwent a rehabilitation process at a shelter owned by the International Animal Rescue (IAR) organization in the past year before being sent to Mt. Tarak for further wildlife training at the end of October.

Ruswanto of the West Kalimantan Natural Resource Conservation Agency (BKSDA) told The Jakarta Post on Friday that two of the four Sunda slow lorises were adult females that had been confiscated from local residents in Pontianak. Another slow loris rescued by the agencys personnel in Sambas regency was an adult male, he added.

Ruswanto said also that during the rehabilitation process at the IAC shelter, a baby slow loris was born and it was now four months old.

It is expected the four slow lorises will be able to immediately adapt and regain their wild instincts as Mt.Tarak remains a well preserved ecosystem and is home to several notable species. These include orangutans and other primates, helmeted hornbills and various other species of birds and mammals.

There is an abundance of natural food in the area," said Ruswanto.

Located in Sungai Awan Kiri village in Muara Pawan district, the IAR shelter began its activities as an orangutan rehabilitation center in November 2009. The shelter, which covers almost 60 hectares, employs 25 animal nurses and has 15 cages. The center is equipped with a clinic and an orangutan school. (ebf)

Into the wild: A Sunda slow loris crawls along a tree branch at a wildlife rehabilitation center in Mount Tarak, Ketapang regency, West Kalimantan. (Courtesy of the West Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency/File)
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Linkedin News Desk (AFP) Sittwe, Myanmar  Fri, November 3, 2017 07:45 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2740e4a 2 World Aung-San-Suu-Kyi,Rakhine,Rakhine-state,Rohingya,Rohingya-Muslims,Rohingya-people,Myanmar Free

Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi visited conflict-wracked northern Rakhine for the first time Thursday, under mounting pressure to halt an army crackdown that has forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee their homes.

Suu Kyi, a nobel laureate who leads Myanmar's pro-democracy party, has been hammered by the international community for failing to use her moral power to speak up in defence of the Rohingya Muslim minority.

As she arrived in Rakhine State, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced a plan to visit Myanmar for talks next week, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees demanded that the Rohingya be allowed home as citizens.

Some 600,000 of the stateless minority have fled to Bangladesh since late August carrying accounts of murder, rape and arson at the hands of Myanmar's powerful army, after militant raids sparked a ferocious military retaliation.

The UN says the army operation is likely tantamount to ethnic cleansing, while pressure has mounted on Myanmar to provide security for the Rohingya and allow people to return home.

Suu Kyi left via state capital Sittwe as evening fell on Thursday after a visit that also took in Maungdaw and Buthidaung in northern Rakhine.

It was her first trip in office to the region, which has seen some of the worst communal violence to cut through the western state since 2012, severely damaging Myanmar's global reputation.

"The Lady" -- as she is known -- met with the Rohingya community in Maungdaw town, according to local media, a first for a leader keen to convince observers inside the country and abroad that the crisis has abated and reconstruction can begin.

But it was not clear if Suu Kyi visited some of the hundreds of Rohingya villages torched by the army -- allegedly aided by ethnic Rakhine Buddhist locals.

The Rohingya who remain in northern Rakhine are living in fear, surrounded by hostile neighbours, who refuse to let them farm or move freely.

The UN on Thursday again called for unfettered humanitarian access to a zone still under army lockdown.

And Filippo Frandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, declared that not only must the refugees be allowed to return but that they should be accorded full Myanmar citizenship.

"These people cannot remain stateless because this statelessness exposes them to discrimination and abuse, as has been the case in the past," he told reporters at UN headquarters.

On Thursday around 3,000 Rohingya arrived by land at the Bangladesh border, a sign hunger and fear is still driving people from their homes.

"The army didn't attack us but made our life very difficult," Mohammad Zafar, 35, from a village in Buthidaung told AFP at the Bangladesh border.

"We were not paid for any work and couldn't go to markets. How long is it possible to live like that?"

-- 'Here for generations' --

Suu Kyi heads a committee charged with rebuilding Rakhine.

She was joined on Thursday by businessman Zaw Zaw, one of a host of military "cronies" who thrived under junta rule and are now taking prominent roles in rebuilding the battered region.

There are fears a carve-up of contracts in Rakhine by big business will further divorce the Rohingya from their land.

Suu Kyi says the Rohingya who have fled are now welcome back, if they meet contested "verification" criteria for re-entry to Myanmar.

The Rohingya are loathed in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship and denigrated as illegal "Bengali" immigrants.

Their legal status is at the crux of communal tensions, with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists adamant that Rohingya are foreign interlopers.

A Rohingya resident who has remained in Maungdaw town appealed to Suu Kyi to reconsider foisting a controversial national verification card (NVC) on the minority.

The card grants them limited rights of residence in Myanmar, but does not recognise them as an ethnic group with citizenship.

The Rohingya say it is a bureaucratic attempt to erase their identity and force a shaky legal status onto them in a region where many claim generations of ancestry.

"We cannot do anything with this NVC card, so we do not want to receive it," the resident said, requesting anonymity fearing reprisals.

"We are not Bengalis from Bangladesh, we are Rohingya living here for generations."

Observers say Suu Kyi has chosen not to criticise the army in fear of a backlash from a powerful institution that controls all security matters.

The United States has also condemned the violence, but has been careful to say that it holds the military and not Suu Kyi's civilian administration responsible.

Tillerson's spokeswoman Heather Nauert said he would visit Naypyidaw on November 15 for talks on the "humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State and US support for Burma's democratic transition."

Aid groups say the risk of major outbreaks of disease is high, while they struggle to deliver food and basic supplies to the unprecedented number of refugees. (**)
A student learns to play a shadow puppet guided by puppet master Ki Purbo Asmoro during Cultural Week in Jakarta Intercultural School (JIS) in Jakarta on Thursday. The puppet training session is held to nurture appreciation for Indonesias cultural heritage and to commemorate World Puppet Day, which falls on Nov. 7. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)(JIS) in Jakarta on Thursday. The puppet training session is held to nurture appreciation for Indonesias cultural heritage and to commemorate World Puppet Day, which falls on Nov. 7. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
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Linkedin News Desk (ANN) Bangkok  Fri, November 3, 2017 15:49 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2759206 2 World #USA,#Asia,#trump,#DonaldTrump,#Donald-Trump,#NorthKorea,#Trade Free

US President Donald Trump will launch what is being billed as the trickiest diplomatic mission in decades this weekend, when he arrives in Asia for a five-country trip. Two issues will dominate the US presidents Asia tour: Nuclear North Korea and trade.

On the eve of Trumps trip, the US excluded Chinas Bank of Dandong from its financial system, alleging it was helping North Korea evade financial sanctions to launder funds. Trump has demanded that Beijing do more to push Pyongyang to halt its efforts to build nuclear missiles capable of reaching American cities.

In another show of force on Thursday, the US flew two B-1B bombers over South Korea.

Trump will arrive in Seoul on November 7 (Tuesday) for two days of talks.

His next stop will be Beijing on Wednesday, where trade will also be top of the agenda. China Daily reports that Trumps three-day trip to China is should yield positive results for bilateral ties, with Beijing officials expecting a number of major business deals to be signed.

Trump last week hailed the extraordinary elevation of Xi Jinping, after Chinas president cemented his power for a second five-year term at a Communist Party Congress that enshrined his thought alongside that of Mao Zedongs in the constitution.

Experts say Trump was seeking to woo Xi before trying to strike a deal over North Korea during his visit.

Its classic Trump, Paul Haenle, a veteran US diplomat who advised both George W Bush and Barack Obama on China, told the Guardian. Trumps comments play very well to a Chinese domestic audience. I think ultimately what he is trying to do is preserve that good personal rapport with Xi which he thinks he will be able to do more with from a negotiating standpoint.

Tensions over trade will play a large role in those negotiations.

Trump this week branded the $347-billion trade deficit between the United States and China embarrassing, telling Cabinet officials that every trade deal America is involved in is disastrous. During his election campaign Trump repeatedly slammed Chinas economic policies, saying they were responsible for stealing US manufacturing jobs. He also accused China of devaluing its currency to keep the price of Chinese exports to America low, thus widening the trade gap.

Chinese officials, though, remain upbeat about the trade opportunities Trumps trip will bring.

US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross will lead a delegation of American business leaders during Trumps visit, and the two sides will sign a number of deals, Fu Ziying, Chinas international trade representative and vice-minister of commerce, told China Daily on Thursday.

We expect that through President Trump's visit, the two sides will achieve positive, pragmatic, mutually beneficial and balanced results, Fu said, before blaming Washington for the trade gap.

The trade imbalance between China and the US, the worlds two largest economies, is largely caused by US curbs on exports of many high-tech products to China, he said, adding that Sino-US trade is completely determined by the markets and consumers of the two sides. According to Chinas Commerce Ministry, US exports to China grew by an average of 11 per cent over the past decade, much higher than the overall growth of 4 per cent in US exports during the same period.

Jin Yong, an expert in International Studies at the Communication University of China, told China Daily the visit would bring greater consensus between Beijing and Washington on issues of trade and the Korean Peninsula.
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Linkedin James Pheby (AFP) London, United Kingdom  Fri, November 3, 2017 09:30 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2745760 2 World sexual-harassment,sexual-harassment-scandal,UK-parliament,Michael-Fallon,defence-minister,Theresa-May Free

The sexual harassment scandal sweeping UK parliament brought fresh allegations against lawmakers on Thursday, after the appointment of a new defence minister following the resignation of Michael Fallon.

Prime Minister Theresa May named Gavin Williamson defence secretary on Thursday after his predecessor became the first casualty of a deepening scandal in British politics.

Williamson, 41, is a trusted ally of the prime minister whose former job as chief whip involved enforcing discipline for May's Conservative Party in parliament.

He was only elected to parliament in 2010 and is best known for having a pet tarantula, Cronus, that he keeps in a glass-sided tank on his desk.

The new defence minister said he was "honoured and excited" by the promotion, adding he was "determined to ensure that the armed forces receive the recognition they deserve".

But some questioned Williamson's expertise for the job, considered one of the biggest and most challenging in the British government.

According to "TheyWorkForYou", an online record of parliamentary activity, Williamson has asked only seven questions on defence since 2010.

May's Downing Street office responded that Williamson "was an excellent and hard-working chief whip and the prime minister thinks he will make an excellent defence secretary".

Britain, a major member of the NATO military alliance, spends two percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defence but the armed forces are facing constant pressure to cut costs.

- Further allegations --

Fallon announced his resignation late Wednesday after earlier in the week apologising for touching a journalist's knee in 2002, but reports suggested there were other allegations which had not been made public at the time of his resignation.

"I accept that in the past I have fallen below the high standards that we require of the armed forces that I have the honour to represent," Fallon said.

According to The Sun newspaper, Fallon's resignation was prompted by complaints against him by the Leader of the House of Commons Andrea Leadsom.

She is said to have accused Fallon of making derogatory comments of a sexual nature to her and about other MPs, between 2010 and 2012, the tabloid reported on its Friday front page.

The main opposition Labour party has also been hit by sexual assault allegations, the latest of which saw MP Kelvin Hopkins suspended from the party on Thursday.

Ava Etemadzadeh, now 27, told The Telegraph daily that Hopkins "rubbed his crotch on me" at a university Labour event in 2014 and subsequently sent her inappropriate text messages.

She said she previously reported the allegations to the Labour party.

-- 'Knows all the dirt' --

The departure of Fallon allowed May to offer a significant promotion to Williamson, who was her parliamentary campaign manager when she successfully ran to become Conservative Party leader.

But the appointment has not been universally welcomed.

Julian Smith, one of Williamson's closest allies, was named new chief whip, raising suggestions that the incoming defence minister had orchestrated the reshuffle.

BBC News political editor Laura Kuenssberg tweeted that a minister had told her that May was "so weak she has let Williamson appoint himself -- this is appalling".

The move raised questions about whether the whips' office had a role in preparing the dossier on ministers that is behind the scandal, and there were reports that Williamson advised May that Fallon may be facing further allegations.

"Make no mistake, Gavin Williamson wants to be prime minister. And he knows all the dirt on his colleagues," wrote Tim Shipman, political editor of The Sunday Times newspaper.

May's spokesman insisted that Williamson "wasn't involved in the reshuffle" but wouldn't say whether he was involved in discussions about Fallon's departure.

"Where allegations are brought to the whips they are then brought forward and dealt with in the proper way," he said.

By promoting Williamson from the whips' office, May has avoided a wider reshuffle of senior cabinet ministers. (**)
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Linkedin Djemi Amnifu (The Jakarta Post) Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara  Fri, November 3, 2017 19:27 1838 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2765ffc 1 National whirlwind,natural-disaster,disaster,disaster-mitigation,disaster-victims,BPBD,Kupang,East-Nusa-Tenggara Free

Heavy rains, along with a whirlwind, have damaged 123 residences in Sikumana subdistrict, Maulafa district, Kupang city, East Nusa Tenggara.

Thirty-four houses suffered severe damage, 67 suffered medium damage, while the remaining 22 houses sustained light damage.

Although many of the houses suffered different levels of damage, no fatalities were reported in the disaster. The whirlwind occurred very fast, causing a panic, Kupang Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) head Adi Manafe told journalists on Friday.

He added that BPBD Kupang personnel had been dispatched to the disaster site to collect information from the victims and to channel emergency relief assistance. Data revealed that 111 residents had been affected by the whirlwind, 108 of whom were adults, while the remaining three were under 5 years old.

We have sent assistance to Sikumana residents whose houses were destroyed by the whirlwind, including tarps, first aid kits, toys, clothing, food and building materials, he said.

One of the victims, Jublina Mauboy, 85, said she was grateful that she did not lose her life during the whirlwind. She and her two grandchildren were inside their house when the disaster occurred and moved the rooftop 10 meters away from the house.

The whirlwind happened very suddenly, blowing away the roof of our house to the yard of our neighbors house. It happened very fast, only several seconds, before we saw our roof had gone, said Jublina, adding that she had already received assistance from the BPBD. (ebf)

A house in Sikumana subdistrict, Maulafa district, Kupang city, East Nusa Tenggara, suffered severe damage after a whirlwind hit the area on Nov. 3. (JP/Djemi Amnifu)
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Linkedin Fachrul Sidiq (The Jakarta Post) Depok  Sat, November 4 2017

Agus Triyatno, 40, an ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver, slowed his bike down when he saw a boat docked in front of him. He immediately realized that it was just a painting. Nonetheless, it caught his attention.

Thats unique. At first, I thought it was real, he said.

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Linkedin News Desk (ANN) Bangkok  Fri, November 3, 2017 16:15 1838 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a275ae56 2 SE Asia #Malaysia,#MalaysiaFundScandal,#NajibRazak,#1MDB,#investigation Free

Goldman Sachs is facing more scrutiny over its role in the 2015 1MDB scandal, amid ongoing accusations that Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak looted more than 2.67 billion ringgit (nearly US$700 million) from the state investment fund. Both 1MDB and Najib, who formerly chaired its advisory board, have consistently denied any wrongdoing.

With probes into 1MDB progressing in Switzerland, the UK, the US and elsewhere, Singapore investigators are interviewing current and former Goldman Sachs executives who worked on bond offerings from 1MDB. Bloomberg reports that the criminal probe into 1MDB fund flows is also scrutinising Goldman Sachs links with Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, who the US says controlled a plot to siphon billions of dollars from the bond proceeds. Neither the bank nor its employees have been publicly accused of criminal offences in relation to the fund.

New York-based Goldman Sachs is under the spotlight for raising almost US$6 billion for 1MDB in 2012 and 2013. Meant to fund development projects, most of the money was instead diverted by high-level 1MDB officials and their associates, US prosecutors allege.

On Thursday, Singapore sought to further cleanse its financial system of the scandal by banning two more individuals connected with 1MDB dealings.

The city-states Monetary Authority slapped six-month bans on Kelvin Ang, a former trader, and former research analyst Lee Chee Waiy, taking to six the number of people the regulator has barred over 1MDB-related matters, Bloomberg reports.

The city-state has also shut the local units of two Swiss banks, seized hundreds of millions in assets and convicted five people over 1MDB-related offences.

In March, MAS banned former Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker Tim Leissner from its securities industry for 10 years after saying he issued an unauthorized letter and made false statements on behalf of the US bank.

Malaysian police on Thursday reopened their investigation into 1MDB on instructions from the attorney-general. The police declined to give details of the probe.

In 2015, then-attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail was removed from his post while heading an investigation into claims of misappropriations of 1MDB funds allegedly involving Najib.

The embattled prime minister has so far weathered the storm over 1MDB and is now gearing up for an election next year. In a bid to woo voters hit by rising living costs, he announced an expansionary 2018 budget last Friday, with a 7.5 percent rise in public spending.
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Linkedin Jeannette I. Andrade (Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN) Manila  Fri, November 3, 2017 19:13 1838 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a276568d 2 SE Asia #ASEAN,#ASEANCommunity,#summit,#Philippines Free

The Philippines' Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) reminded the public to be wary of joining events purportedly organized for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

DILG officer in charge Catalino Cuy said there are activities that have been tied with the ASEAN but are not actually among the 283 official meetings and activities approved by the ASEAN national organizing committee.

According to Cuy, who chairs the committee on security, peace and order, emergency preparedness and response, one such activity is the Asean Youth Forum (AYF) 2017 which is not related to the 31st ASEAN summit.

The DILG official said, We want to make it clear that AYF 2017 organized by certain groups is not at all related to the ASEAN meetings being hosted by our country. It is a standalone activity whose goals are different and separate from the ASEAN.

He claimed that there were reports that the AYF 2017, supposed to be held in Nov. 4 to 7 in Quezon City, is being used by leftist groups to advance their agenda.

Cuy pointed out that the group is recruiting youth volunteers for the event to give it a semblance of being an ASEAN-sanctioned gathering.

Topics :

This article appeared on the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
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Linkedin (Pesona Indonesia) Jakarta  Fri, November 3, 2017 15:08 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2757f34 2 News Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,Banyuwangi,carnival Free

A total of 160 unique costumes will be paraded during the Banyuwangi Ethno Carnival (BEC) event slated in Banyuwangi on Nov. 11.

BEC is an additional [event] that aims to show the cultural richness of Banyuwangi [] Banyuwangi has a strong commitment in tourism development, and BEC 2017 is held to strengthen the attraction element, said Banyuwangi Tourism Agency head MY Bramuda.

The festival also aims to become a place where the young people can channel their creativity, This is a platform for the young people of Banyuwangi who are filled with ideas and creativities. At BEC, these youngsters dont just showcase creative outfits but also act as a messenger of culture and history, added Banyuwangi Regent Azwar Anas.

Read also: Five must-try dishes when traveling to Banyuwangi

Up until Wednesday, the committee has received at least 40 foreign applicants who will be participating in the parade, hailing from countries such as Russia, Belarus, United States, France and Italy. They reportedly would dress up like a Gandrung dancer during the parade.

Every year, Banyuwangi can hold up to 72 events, of which 50 are global events.

There are currently six direct flights for Jakarta  Banyuwangi route from Garuda Indonesia and NAM Air. Plenty of hotels, homestays, inns and guesthouses are available for tourists in the city.

In terms of tourist attractions, Banyuwangi has the popular Ijen Crater, G-Land Beach, Lider Waterfall, Red Island Beach, Green Bay, Osing Tourist Village, Sritanjung Park, Rajegwesi Island, Watu Dodol Beach and Kali Klatak Agro Tourism. (kes)
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Linkedin (Pesona Indonesia) Jakarta  Fri, November 3, 2017 13:07 1839 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a274ea96 2 News Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,Bunaken-National-Marine-Park,North-Sulawesi,diving Free

Indonesia took home the award for the worlds top destination for two years in a row given by London-based Dive Magazine.

Siladen Resort and Spa at Bunaken National Park in North Sulawesi was also named the best dive center and resort by the publication.

A total of 13,845 votes were collected since the first polling in May, of which hundreds of nominated places and liveaboards were reduced to top 25 in each category.

There were three categories presented to the online voters: Best destination, dive center or resort and liveaboard. The second voting period was conducted in October for one full month.

In the best destination category, Indonesia earned the biggest votes with 1,067 or 11.45 percent from the total of 9,399 votes casted.

In the second place was Philippines with 749 votes or 7.97 percent, followed by Azores, an autonomous region of Portugal in the mid-Atlantic, which earned 576 votes or 6.13 percent.

Read also: US filmmaker showcases batik-making process in Batik of Java

For the best dive center or resort category, Siladen Resort and Spa was the first winner with 820 votes or 26.31 percent from a total of 3,117 votes.

This luxury resort sits in the heart of the Bunaken National Park in northern Sulawesi and has long been famed for its quality diving, wrote the publication.

The second spot was given to The Oblu-Helengli resort in the Maldives with 469 votes, followed by Wakatobi in Southeast Sulawesi in the third spot.

Up next in the top 10 list were Lembeh Resorts in West Sumatra, Atmosphere Dauin in the Philippines, Misool in West Papua, Papua Paradise in West Papua, Atlantis International Diving in Bali, Blue Corner in Bali, and Aiyanar in Philippines.

In the liveaboards category, Cocos Sea Hunter from Costa Rica came out as the first winner with 233 votes from the total of 1,338 votes casted, winning by one vote from Sulawesis MY Pelagian.

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said these awards gave a positive impact towards Indonesian tourism, My formula is still the 3Cs; [winning this award] will boost Indonesians Confidence level, said Arief.

The next C is Credible, meaning that the publics trust towards Indonesia will increase. The last C is Calibration, as through this award Indonesia can see where it stands in the global scene. (kes)
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Linkedin (Pesona Indonesia) Jakarta  Fri, November 3, 2017 16:02 1838 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a275a381 2 News Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,digital-tourism,sustainable-tourism Free

A meeting titled Indonesian Tourism Outlook 2018 was held on Nov. 11 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Jakarta.

The meeting was attended by Tourism Minister Arief Yahya, Indonesian economist Faisal Basri, World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) senior vice president Helen Marano and TripAdvisor head of destination marketing APAC Sarah Mathews, among others.

During his speech, Arief mentioned the three digital revolutions that are currently happening: Telecommunication, transportation and tourism.

Sustainable tourism has become a concern among so many people in the world, we need to focus on this. The right way to do it here in Indonesia is through deregulation, said Arief.

Read also: Six tips to get the best hotel deals for a year-end vacation

Arief said that Indonesia still ranks low in environmental sustainability acceleration, thus he hoped to gain insights on how to resolve environmental sustainability problems from other countries through WTTC.

On the other hand, by going digital the tourism industry in Indonesia has increased up to 25.68 percent in 2017.

We take a digital approach, using [only] the best in the world. It can be confirmed that tourism will be number one this year, said Arief.

Meanwhile, Helen said that one of the important things in developing tourism is the support from the government, which should provide rooms for different departments to work and connect to each other.

Sustainable tourism is gaining more attention, not only to reach the GDP [target] but also to maintain and improve tourism in both national and international scenes, said Helen. (kes)
(front page)

Washington, Baghdad drive to prevent

independent Kurdistan

While vowing to continue the fight for Kurdish independence, backed by over 90 percent of the vote in a Sept. 25 referendum across Kurdistan, Kurdish Regional Government President Masoud Barzani announced his resignation, effective Nov. 1.

Barzanis resignation comes amidst an ongoing drive by Washington, other imperialist powers and most capitalist regimes in the region  in particular Baghdad, Tehran, Ankara and Damascus, where millions of Kurds reside  to oppose Kurdish independence. Washington insists on the territorial integrity of Iraq.

Barzani, who had served as KRG president since 2005, made the announcement after elections for president and parliament had been postponed for at least another eight months.

The 3 million Kurds who voted for independence cannot be erased by history, Barzani said in a TV address three days before he stepped down. Even if the referendum wasnt held, there was a plan to attack Kurdistani areas and destabilize the situation in the Kurdistan region, he said. Iraqi government troops and the Tehran-backed Hashd al-Shaabi militia moved against the KRG Oct. 16, seizing Kirkuk and some 30 percent of the territory previously held and protected by Kurdish peshmerga forces.

U.S. officials were pleased to see Barzani go, particularly given his sharp criticism of Washington for giving the green light to the recent attacks on the Kurds.

Immediately after the overwhelming independence vote, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the KRG to turn all border crossings, airports and oil facilities in the Kurdish region over to control by Baghdad. Two weeks later Hashd al-Shaabi and Iraqi troops  deploying U.S. military equipment  launched their assault against the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

They rapidly seized control of this historic Kurdish city as peshmerga commanders in Kirkuk, backing a wing of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan opposed to the Kurdistan Regional Governments course, ordered their troops to withdraw without a fight. The PUK and Barzanis Kurdish Democratic Party are both part of the KRG.

Baghdad took control over oil production and the pipeline near Kirkuk, and arranged for British Petroleum to take over operations there.

Under increased pressure, the KRG offered to suspend results of the referendum in an effort to open negotiations with the Iraqi government. Abadi rejected the offer, saying any hint of independence must be annulled. Iraqi forces and the Iranian-backed militia then pushed deeper into the autonomous Kurdistan region. One focus has been for control over the border crossing in the Kurdish town of Fishkabour, located where Turkey, Iraq and Syria meet. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces has used this crossing in its operations against Islamic State, including in Raqqa and Deir el-Zour province. And the U.S. military uses this crossing to supply its special operations forces in Syria.

The Fishkabour crossing is also the route through which aid is brought to some of the more than 270,000 refugees who fled Raqqa since fighting began there in June.

With Iraqi and Hashd al-Shaabi troops and artillery outside the city, after being repulsed by peshmerga forces, a cease-fire was declared Oct. 27. Meetings between Iraqi and Kurdish representatives have taken place in Mosul, with the U.S. overseeing the talks, reported Rudaw.

Shifts in Syria, Iraq

Tehran, with close military and political relations with the Shiite majority in the Baghdad government, is seeking to connect its forces and allies from the borders of Afghanistan through Iran and Iraq into Syria, hooking up with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Washington wants to prevent this.

A fight is shaping up against Islamic States final stronghold on the Syrian-Iraqi border, including the Syrian city of Abu Kamar and Al Qaim in Iraq. Dictator Bashar al-Assads Syrian government forces  backed by Tehran-backed militias and Moscows air power  are advancing on the Iraqi border on the western bank of the Euphrates River. U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG), are moving along the rivers eastern bank.

At stake for Assad is control over more territory previously lost as well as oil resources. For Tehran and Washington, its the struggle for political and military influence in the region.

And here, as in Iraq, the Kurds may face a situation where their continued autonomy no longer serves the interests of Washington.

Speaking about Raqqa, Syrian Information Minister Mohammad Ramiz Turjuman said Oct. 23, We dont consider any town to be liberated before the Syrian army enters it.





Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home




After the calls from Cambridge University students last week to decolonise their English Literature syllabus, we decided to put together a list of BME authors that you should be reading, and that should be on the syllabus.

1. Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Origins: Colombian

Notable work(s): One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)

One of the most significant works in the Spanish literary canon, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a triumph of literature, allegorising aspects of colonial Latin American history in a story told through seven generations. Garcia Marquez won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.

2. Salman Rushdie

Origins: Indian

Notable work(s):The Satanic Verses (1988), Midnights Children (1981)

Since the famous fatwa issued against Rushdie for The Satanic Verses reached almost legendary status, his novels have become must-reads for any student of literature. Rushdie's masterful weaving together of historical fiction and magical realism has shaped the way post-colonialism in the Indian subcontinent has been written about.

3. Arundhati Roy

Origins: Indian

Notable work(s): The God of Small Things (1997)

Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, The God of Small Things is an atmospheric masterpiece which tells the story of twins growing up in Kerala amongst political and familial unrest. Roys unflinching condemnation of the culturally ingrained caste system remains controversial and undeniably powerful.

4. Toni Morrison



Origins: African-American

Notable work(s): Beloved (1987)

Morrisons Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and after the publishing of the subsequent books in the trilogy, she received the Nobel Prize for Literature. The trilogy visits different eras in African-American history  from slavery to jazz  linked by the universal theme of love.

5. Maxine Hong Kingston

Origins: Chinese-American

Notable work(s): The Woman Warrior (1976)

Subtitled Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, The Woman Warrior is a blend of autobiography with adapted traditional Chinese folktales. Kingston was presented with the National Medal of Arts in 2014 by President Obama.

6. Ngugi wa Thiongo

Origins: Kenyan

Notable work(s): I Will Marry When I Want (1977)

Thiongos play I Will Marry When I Want was designed to demystify the theatrical process and encourage active participation from audience members, but was shut down by the Kenyan regime shortly after opening, and resulted in his imprisonment.

7. Gao Xingjian

Origins: Chinese

Notable work(s): Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather (1986), The Other Shore (1997)

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000, Gaos remarkable collections of short stories, poetry, novels, and plays have a unique, avant-garde voice. He is also a noted translator screenwriter, director, and painter.

8. Natsume Soseki

Origins: Japanese

Notable work(s): Botchan (1906), I Am A Cat (1905)

Botchan is a sharply funny moral tale, which tackles the rapid Westernisation that was occurring in Tokyo at the time, and how to balance it with traditional Japanese values. I Am A Cat satirises once more the interplay between Japanese and Western cultures and customs.

9. Yu Hua

Origins: Chinese

Notable work(s): To Live (1993)

A controversial retelling of Chinese history, the film adaptation of To Live was banned in China, catapulting Yu to worldwide fame. The novel spans from rural folk legends to first-hand descriptions of some of the less successful aspects of Collectivist policy during the Chinese Revolution.

10. Shahrnush Parsipur

Origins: Iranian

Notable work(s): Women without Men (1990), On the Wings of the Wind (2002)

Parsipurs controversial Persian-language novella Women without Men was banned by the Iranian government, and resulted in her incarceration. Despite this, she has published eight novels, alongside various other short stories, and numerous invaluable works of translation.

11. James Baldwin

Origins: African- American

Notable work(s): Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953)

Baldwins collections of social criticism essays are integral to American social history, and his semi-autobiographical novel Go Tell It on the Mountain explores themes of religion in relation to the African-American community in 1930s Harlem.

12. Amitav Ghosh

Origins: Indian

Notable work(s): Sea of Poppies (2008), The Glass Palace (2000)

Sea of Poppies is the first in Ghoshs Ibis trilogy, which uses the encroaching Opium Wars to explore the colonial history of the Indian Ocean periphery. Ghosh famously withdrew The Glass Palace, a historical novel set in and around India, from consideration for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, due to disagreeing with the English-language requirement of the prize.

13. Octavia E. Butler

Origins: African-American

Notable work(s): Bloodchild (1984), Parable of the Sower (1993)

A multiple recipient of the Nebula and Hugo awards, Butlers unique Afrofuturistic science-fiction series have undoubtedly shaped the genre. Concerned with far-reaching issues of survival, and mans fundamental flaws, Butlers work raises vital and uncomfortable questions about the human condition.

14. Hone Tuwhare

Origins: Maori

Notable work(s): No Ordinary Sun (1964), Shape-shifter (1997)

Tuwhare was New Zealands 1999 Te Mata Poet Laureate, whose numerous collections have been received with great critical acclaim. The distinct Maori perspective conveyed through his poetry has been said to bridge cultural gaps, in New Zealand and across the world.

15. Sandra Cisneros

Origins: Mexican-American

Notable work(s): The House on Mango Street (1984)

The House on Mango Street is an iconic coming of age novel, about a young Latina girl determined to leave behind her Chicano and Puerto Rican neighbourhood in Chicago. Issues regarding the intersectionality of race and gender are stylishly explored. The novel won Cisneros the American Book Award, amongst many others.

16. Jamaica Kincaid

Origins: Antiguan-American

Notable work(s): Lucy (1990), A Small Place (1988)

Kincaid was a staff writer for The New Yorker for twenty years, and her loosely autobiographical novel Lucy tells the story of a recent immigrant from the West Indies, who becomes an au pair for a rich family in America. A Small Place is a piece of creative non-fiction concerning Kincaids youth in Antigua, and the impact of British colonialism.

17. Julio Cortazar

Origins: Argentinian

Notable work(s): Hopscotch (1963), Blow-up and Other Stories (1968)

Cortazar was an incredibly influential figure in the Latin American Boom of literature, and his surrealist-inspired innovations have left a lasting legacy. His poetry, drama, and non-fiction writings also have had a huge impact on the movement.

18. Kiran Desai

Origins: Indian

Notable work(s):The Inheritance of Loss (2006)

Daughter of three-time Booker Prize shortlisted novelist Anita Desai, Kiran Desais second novel, The Inheritance of Loss, won the Man Booker Prize. The novel follows an illegal Indian immigrant trying to make his way in America, and an Anglicised Indian girl reconnecting with her roots in India.

19. Colson Whitehead

Origins: African-American

Notable work(s): The Underground Railroad (2016)

Whiteheads sixth novel, the Underground Railroad, won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, as well as being selected for President Obamas summer reading list. The novel tells an alternate history of slaves escaping a plantation in 1800s America.

20. Khaled Hosseini

Origins: Afghan-American

Notable work(s): The Kite Runner (2003), A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

Hosseini worked as a doctor in California before retiring to write full time. His most famous novel, The Kite Runner, has since been adapted for screen and stage. His powerful prose and Afghan protagonist led stories have captured the imagination of readers all over the world.
Model Gigi Hadid has been praised for her fiery response to a right-wing activist in the wake of the New York terror attack.

Hadid reacted angrily to a Twitter post by Laura Loomer, whose bio says she is an investigative journalist, who had condemned Muslims for wearing hijabs near the location of the attack.

On Tuesday, eight people were killed and several injured when a pick-up truck ploughed into pedestrians and cyclists on a bike path in the citys Manhattan area.

Laura, I hate to give you the attention, but I need to tell you- You're a f**king moron. https://t.co/fCezijj2Ao  Gigi Hadid (@GiGiHadid) November 1, 2017

Ms Loomer posted a picture of two women wearing the traditional head covering and wrote: Muslims are out in full force at the scene of the NYC #ISIS attack today rubbing it in everyones face. Aimlessly walking around in hijabs.

She added: Youd think theyd have the decency to not walk around in hijabs @ cross street of the attack. But they dont. I bet theyre loving this.

Hadid, 22, retweeted Ms Loomers second post and wrote: Laura, I hate to give you the attention, but I need to tell you- Youre a f****** moron.

alas.. your RT only proves your classless desperation to spread hate for attention..  Gigi Hadid (@GiGiHadid) November 1, 2017

Ms Loomer retweeted Hadid and wrote: Every verified liberal in Hollywood & MSM is tweeting at me today. I guess I really pissed them off! Its not like I killed 8 ppl

Hadid then retorted: Alas.. your RT only proves your classless desperation to spread hate for attention.

Praising the catwalk star for her tweets, one fan wrote: Thats why shes my idol ladies and gentlemen.

That's why she's my idol ladies and gentlemen   (@shadesofnora) November 1, 2017

Another applauded her using emojis and told Hadid to drag her, while several others wrote: Well said Gigi.

I also hate that she's getting attention, but you're response was way too kind. People like Laura is what's wrong with this country.  ZenWen (@wlft1) November 1, 2017

Perfect response to an ignorant Gigi.  Abdulrahman (@terrificrahman) November 1, 2017

One said that Hadids reply to Ms Loomer was way too kind, but another thought it was the perfect response to an ignorant.

Sayfullo Saipov, a 29-year-old Uzbek immigrant, has been charged with terrorism and other crimes.
Romantic comedy film Four Weddings And A Funeral is being adapted for a new TV series, according to a US report.

The hit 1994 movie, which starred Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell, will be rebooted as an hour-long anthology series on US streaming service Hulu, with The Mindy Projects Mindy Kaling as the writer and executive director.

Richard Curtis, who wrote the hit film, has also signed on as executive producer for the series along with The Mindy Projects co-producer Matt Warburton, Hollywood industry website Deadline reports.

The TV version will mimic the movie by following a group of friends whose lives are intersected by the four weddings and a funeral, and each season is set to have a different story arc.

The cast has yet to be revealed, and the series has yet to be given a release date.

Four Weddings And A Funeral was Curtis breakout hit, and also helped launch Grants international film career.

The Mike Newell-directed film told the tale of the charmingly awkward Charles (Grant) and glamorous American Carrie (MacDowell) who he keeps meeting at the titular events.

Also starring Simon Callow, Kristin Scott Thomas, James Fleet, John Hannah and Rowan Atkinson, Four Weddings And A Funeral was a critical and commercial success.

The film won a handful of Bafta Awards and was nominated for two Oscars, best picture and best original screenplay for Curtis.
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Every few years someone in state government laments, We need a better brand for Wisconsin! Cabinet secretaries scurry about, agency communications directors scratch their heads over possible slogans, and marketing campaigns go largely unfunded.

Heres an idea: Lets talk about Wisconsins tangible business assets without making it all about tourism and cheese (as much as Badger state loyalists value both).

One such asset is quality health care, a commodity largely taken for granted inside Wisconsin and largely unknown to people and companies who may be thinking of moving or expanding here.

Much like an educated workforce, reliable public utilities and affordable business costs for land and talent are worth bragging about, so is quality health care. Thats the conclusion of a report issued this month by the Wisconsin Technology Council.

Taking the pulse: How quality health care builds a better bottom line examined leading indicators of health care quality, based on public and private data. It also compared quality rankings to costs.

Key findings were:

Wisconsin is consistently one of the top states for quality health care, as measured by 200 metrics compiled by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. It ranked No. 1 in the nation in 2017. In the seven-state region surrounding or within a days drive of Wisconsin, only two other states (Iowa and Minnesota) ranked in the top quartile. Wisconsin has ranked no lower than 7th nationally since 2006.

Wisconsin ranked just $3 above the national median ($4,666 versus $4,663) in the average employer share of single premium health insurance in 2015. That placed the state in the second-lowest cost quartile among the 50 states. Wisconsin was $800 above the national median ($13,187 versus $12,387) in the average employer share of family premium health insurance for the same year, still outside the most expensive quartile.

Wisconsin health insurance premiums are growing slower than other states in the seven-state region and the nation, especially since 2010. For single coverage, the cost increase has averaged 2.2 percent per year versus 3.8 percent nationally. Wisconsin ranked second best in the nation in this category. For family coverage, the cost increase has averaged 4 percent versus 4.5 percent nationally. Wisconsin is tied for 10th nationally in controlling the growth in family coverage premiums since 2010.

Wisconsin also ranks favorably in national and regional comparisons of deaths that could have been avoided by proper health care, Medicare 30-day hospital readmissions, hospital length of stays, mean inpatient charges, the percentage of the total population covered by health insurance and use of electronic health records. All are rankings that speak to quality while controlling costs.

The logjam over Obamacare in Washington, D.C., has upended the health insurance market as companies and workers come to grips with rising costs. That confusion is playing out this fall in Wisconsin and elsewhere as group health plan enrollments come due for employers and employees alike.

One potential asset for Wisconsin is that its not a captive health insurance market. The report revealed that Wisconsin is one of only two states (New York is the other) in which the three largest insurers control less than 60 percent of the market. Other states in the seven-state region showed top three insurance market shares ranging from 67 to 97 percent. The U.S. median is 90 percent. More choice may lead to more competition over time, even if Obamacare is dismantled.

Employers have a right to complain about health care costs, but they arent powerless to control the rate of increase or the outcomes.

As the reported noted, individual companies, groups of companies or institutions have found ways to work with health systems. This is often accomplished through on-site clinics, incentive programs and prevention strategies that engage employees. Results include lower rates of absenteeism and fewer people showing up sick, avoiding procedure costs through preventive care, and lower costs of care due to better physical fitness and health habits.

Examples cited in this report include Colony Brands and Monroe Clinic; Ashley Furniture and Gundersen Health System; Hoffmaster and Thedacare; Organic Valley and Vernon Memorial Healthcare; Northeast Wisconsin Technical College and Bellin Health; a collection of companies working with Columbus Community Hospital; and a mix of Chippewa Valley institutions working with Mayo Clinic.

Quality health care is not only nice to have; its an asset in the state-to-state race to attract and retain companies and workers.

Lets market one of the things Wisconsin does best.
Do a Google search for the name Bassem Youssef, and pages of press will come up: a profile of the heart-surgeon-turned-comedian in The New Yorker, transcripts of interviews with him on public radios Fresh Air, Time magazines listing of Youssef among the 100 most influential people in the world in 2013.

It might not come as a surprise, then, that Youssef has been labeled as the Jon Stewart of Egypt. His Arabic-language satirical news show, Al-Bernameg (The Show), was inspired by Stewarts The Daily Show, and during its three-season run became Egypts most-watched TV program. Its biting commentary, however, soon rankled national leaders.

Compared to the voluntary departure of Stewart from the helm of Comedy Centrals The Daily Show in 2015, however, Youssef had to abandon his comedy news anchors chair under political pressure two years earlier.

Youssef will be talking about that journey  which brought him from a career in medicine to a life of satirical comedy to living in the U.S.  at 8 p.m. Wednesday as part of the Wisconsin Union Directorates Distinguished Lecture series.

Youssefs book Revolution for Dummies: Laughing Through the Arab Spring was published last March. Hes the subject of Sara Takslers documentary film, Tickling Giant, which profiles his unusual road to fame. And hes been a familiar face on talk shows ranging from The Daily Show with both Stewart and Trevor Noah, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Today the multi-media Youssef is based in Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife and daughter and is working on developing a TV series, a digital series and a movie.

You know, when you live in L.A. youre always working on something  scripts, screenplays, he said from his home in a September phone interview.

Im working on a few projects, and when its time to announce it, hopefully it will be good news. Its all in the sea of comedy.

In Madison hell perform his one-man show, a mixture of stand-up and storytelling and commentary, he said.

Its basically giving an idea about what happened in the Middle East, from the angle of the media, our media. We have our share of big news, too. Im relating it to what America is going through, and what my new life in Americas been. So its kind of a personal journey, going from the Middle East to here.

Youssefs satirical Al-Bernameg sprung up from the Egyptian revolution of 2011, but its sudden demise also reflected political realities, he said.

We are two steps behind North Korea, basically, Youssef said of his homeland.

Its kind of like if you (asked) someone under Hitler or Mussolini, Can you make fun of the president? (theyd reply) No, you cant.

And under authoritarian regimes, its not just the president, he said. Its everything: the symbols, the army, the government, whatever moralities of the fabric of the society  everything is taboo.

We kind of find a glimpse of that here, he said. People make a big fuss about the flag, which is basically a piece of cloth. What matters is what it stands for. And when people are full of empty rhetoric, this is when they return to idolizing empty symbols.

This is all fake patriotism. People who are the loudest when it comes to patriotism are the least patriotic, he said.

They just use this as a tool to oppress free speech and free expression. I have had this in my country for maybe 60 years. We had a window for a couple of years after the revolution, but its all coming back even worse than before.

Through his stage show coming to Madison, hopefully people will (learn) things about the Middle East they didnt know before, Youssef said.

And they will actually relate that to what they see in the media here. Its meant to have people laugh, but its also meant primarily to make people think. Its informative, with humor.
Once fall hits, something happens to cooks. Taste buds steer toward deep, hearty flavors and comfort foods, and for so many of us, that means that soups on.

One of my favorites is French onion soup. This time of year, its a constant on many restaurant menus. Its loved for its beefy broth, sweet onions and layer of melted cheese. Add in some toasted bread, and it satisfies as a meal.

The onions, of course, are paramount, and I like a good amount of onions in the soup. In every spoonful, you should encounter onion, broth, cheese and a bite of bread. Thats what brings French onion soup together.

What kinds of onions

do you use?

The most common type is the yellow onion. But you can also use white onions, sweet onions and Spanish onions. If its a deep flavor youre after, try red onions. Slice them in -inch-thick slices. I like to cut them into 1/4-inch half circles so they are discernible. If the onions are sliced too thin, you run the risk of having them cook too fast and burn or cook down next to nothing.

How do you cook

the onions?

Start out heating some oil in a pot or Dutch oven. Make sure the onions have some space. Most recipes call for cooking down or caramelizing the onions so they release their natural sugars. When the sugars are released, the onions change color. How dark you want them to be is up to you. A honey color to a deep amber is generally safe. Keep in mind that the darker the color, the deeper the flavor. Just be certain to keep an eye on the onions so they dont burn. Youre aiming for a sweet taste, not a burned one. Also, dont stir the onions a lot, or they wont caramelize properly.

What about the cheese?

Ah, the cheese. Another best part of French onion soup. The classic route calls for Gruyere (groo-YEHR), a cows milk cheese that has some nutty nuances. You can use several varieties, but choose wisely. French onion soup demands a good melting cheese. Options include muenster, fontina, Havarti and provolone.

How about the broth?

Most onion soups call for a beef broth or stock. You need to keep in mind that many store-bought broths or stocks are high in sodium. Many cheeses also have plenty of sodium. So you need to balance the two so the soup isnt overly salty. Its best to choose reduced-sodium varieties.

One of my favorite soup bases is reduced-sodium Better Than Bouillon. Its sold in a 3-ounce jar, and you use 1 teaspoon to 8 ounces of boiling water.

The original version of this recipe (adapted from Martha Stewart Halloween magazine, October 2011) calls for Morbier (MOR-byay), a creamy and mild cows milk cheese from France. Look for Morbier cheese at specialty shops.
A California man has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for his role in a methamphetamine ring selling the drug in the Madison area.

Sean Brown, 34, of Los Angeles, was sentenced in federal court in Madison by U.S. District Judge William Conley.

Brown pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to distribute methamphetamine in August.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said Brown shipped at least 6.25 pounds of methamphetamine into the Madison area from California.

That much meth put Brown into the 10-year minimum sentence category.

The judge said at sentencing that Brown supplied the large quantity of meth for the Wisconsin ring just a few weeks after he had been released from jail in an unrelated case.

Five of the eight defendants pleaded guilty for being in the meth ring. Brown is the second to get sentenced; Christopher Dutton of Madison was sentenced to 15 years in prison in October.
At its heart, the American spirit has always been one of helping those who are less fortunate. American individuals, foundations and corporations gave nearly $400 billion to charity in 2016, according to Giving USA. Thats more than 10 times the annual budget of the state of Wisconsin for the betterment of fellow citizens.

But while most rational people would applaud these efforts, the previous administration in Washington made moves to stifle the efforts to help the most in need  those suffering from life-threatening health conditions.

For decades, charities from across the nation have helped those who suffer from the diseases many of us fear most. Cancer, hemophilia and kidney failure are conditions that often bring a difficult prognosis and medical bills that are unimaginable. Break-the-bank diseases such as these are exactly why we have health insurance.

Unfortunately, because of more bad decisions in Washington, D.C., insurance premiums have been increasing at historic rates. For those who face mounting medical costs and the job loss that is often associated with many of these diseases, charity had been a lifeline to pay for the increasing costs of insurance premiums.

But while President Barack Obama was claiming to speak for those with pre-existing conditions, his administration (the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services, or CMS) adopted a rule that allowed some patients to be denied health insurance coverage if they received help paying premiums from private charity and civic groups, foundations and religious charities. Of course, subsidies from the government  meaning taxpayers  were exempted from this rule.

Let that sink in for a second. The Obama administration denied coverage to Americans because they received charity to help pay for their coverage.

Unfortunately, this story gets even worse for the taxpayer. Because of the CMS rule, insurers can drop coverage for those receiving charitable support to pay for premiums. Many, if not just about all, of these patients are then forced onto Medicaid, Medicare or both. They go from fully privately funded care  through charities and insurance companies  to fully government-funded care in Medicare and Medicaid.

It doesnt take much effort to figure out that the end goal of this Obama administration policy was government-run health care for all.

Luckily, a reprieve is in the works so charities wont be stopped from helping sick Americans pay insurance premiums. Congressman Kevin Cramer of North Dakota has introduced bipartisan legislation that would bar the targeting of chronically ill individuals if they receive private charity assistance. Known as the Access to Marketplace Insurance Act, it was co-sponsored by more than 145 congressional members last session  including three Republicans (Reps. Glenn Grothman, Reid Ribble and Jim Sensenbrenner) and two Democrats (Rep. Gwen Moore and Mark Pocan) from Wisconsin.

This years Access to Marketplace Insurance Act is an opportunity for members of Congress from both sides of the aisle to right this terrible wrong. In the age when everything seems to be partisan, Id like to think that preserving charity assistance for the chronically ill might be an issue we can all agree on.
The World Banks ease of doing business report, 2018, which compares business regulation for domestic firms in 190 economies, placed Bhutan in the 75th position.

In its 2015 report, the country was ranked 70th, its best ranking. However, this happened because the World Bank had changed its methodology in assessing the economies back then. With the earlier methodology, the country was ranked 124th in 2015.

Bhutans rank dropped by one place in 2016. This further slipped to 73rd in the 2017 report that was published last year.

Despite Bhutans falling rank, the country is still the considered the best place to do business in the region with India ranking 100, Nepal (105), Sri Lanka (111), the Maldives (136) Pakistan (147), Bangladesh (177) and Afghanistan (183).

The report, however, stated that Bhutan is among the economies improving the most across three or more parameters and that South Asia is the only region not represented in the top 50 ranking for ease of doing business. However, India stands out this year as one of the 10 economies that improved the most in the areas measured by doing business.

The regions with the highest share of reforming economies in Doing Business 2018 are Europe and Central Asia, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

India made obtaining building permits faster by implementing an online Single Window System for the approval of building plans. The new system allows for the submission and approval of building plans prior to requesting the building permit. India also streamlined the business incorporation process.

Access to credit in Bhutan, according to the report, improved by expanding the scope of information collected and reported by credit bureau.

Bhutan was also one of the nine economies that took steps to clarify corporate governance, ownership and control structures. For example, it enacted legislation that requires companies to nominate independent board members and set up an audit committee. These changes resulted in improvements in the scores of these nine economies on the extent of ownership and control index.

With regard to judicial reforms, the introduction of dedicated benches for commercial cases also helped improve Bhutans score in this parameter. Simplified preregistration and registration formalities (publication, notarization, inspection, and other requirements) were assessed to evaluate this parameter. This has resulted in Bhutans ranking jumping to 25 in terms of enforcing contracts. It, however, stated that it takes about 225 days to enforce a contract in Bhutan.

Bhutan ranked 88 in terms of starting a business. Eight procedures are involved and it takes about 12 days to start a business in Bhutan, according to the World Bank. Bhutan made starting a business easier by reducing the time for obtaining a security clearance certificate, registering at the Office of the Registrar and registering for taxes, the report stated.

In terms of dealing with construction permits, Bhutan is ranked 82. There are 21 procedures involved consuming about 150 days for a permit to materialise.

Four procedures and 61 days are consumed to get an electricity connection. Bhutan is ranked 56 in this parameter.

While Bhutan is again ranked 56 in terms of registering properties, it takes three procedure and 77 days to do so. Even with reforms, Bhutan is ranked 77 in getting credit. It is however ranked 17 in terms of paying taxes and 26 for trading across the border.

While Bhutan strengthened minority investor protections by clarifying ownership and control structures, the country ranked 124 in terms of protecting minority shareholders. This is because the minority shareholders rights are reduced.

The countrys lowest ranking was in resolving insolvency (168), meaning the cases of bankruptcy. This is attributed to lack of such cases in the country and thus there is no practice of resolving insolvency.

Good ranking does not, however, guarantee FDI inflow, it conveys countries regulatory aspects to do business. But it does not cover the aspects of macroeconomic stability, market size and quality of the workforce. There are rigid benchmarks and assumptions made on all the parameters.

Trading across borders, for instance, considers the distance and cost from largest city to border. In Bhutans case, most export commodities to other countries are either processed or manufactured in the bordering towns. But measurements, for the sake of ranking, are considered from Thimphu to Jaigaon.

Many of the parameters, such as enforcing contracts, starting a business and registering properties are based on the assumption that the proponent is a limited liability company. Most limited liability companies in Bhutan are listed on the stock exchange and are countable in numbers.

This means that small and medium enterprises, including the traders, are under-represented making small businesses believe that the ground reality of doing business is different from the ranking.

This is why other instruments such as the enterprise survey conducted by the World Bank, to assess small businesses are Bhutan specific as the private sector in the country is skewed towards small firms.

Meanwhile, the latest ease of doing business report 2018, declared New Zealand as the best country to do business. Singapore, Denmark, Korea, Hong Kong, United States, United Kingdom, Norway, Georgia and Sweden are among the top 10 countries listed in the ease of doing business.
Reiterating that funds are not a constraint for undertaking large developmental projects, Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said nearly Rs 5 trillion can be raised from capital markets, most of which could in fact come from small investors.

We have undertaken various developmental projects for which we need funds. Ive always been saying there is no dearth of funds in the system. We are going to capital markets to raise funds through bonds. I expect small investors to participate in this. We can raise nearly Rs 5 trillion from domestic investors, the Roads and Highways Minister said at a D&B award function here.

Gadkari also urged banks, financial institutions and private players to help develop infra projects and pointed out that his ministry has already undertaken massive infra projects and has set a target of Rs 25 trillion investments in highways and shipping over the next five years. This can create 1 crore jobs and contribute 2-3 per cent to GDP.

We will be rolling out nearly Rs 7 trillion worth of projects which were recently announced before December 2018.

This is the biggest infra programme and include the Bharatmala programme, Gadkari said, adding that he expects to award nearly 25,000 km of road projects this financial year.

Financial year 2012-13 saw awarding of 1,916 km, in 2013-14 it was 3,620 km, in 2014-15 it rose to 7,972 km, while in 2015-16, the quantum grew to 10,098 km. Last fiscal, it touched 15,948 km and this year I have kept a target of 25,000 km, Gadkari said.

Apart from building corridors at a cost of Rs 1.2 trillion, lane expansion will be done at 34 places, logistics parks at 35 locations. In addition, wayside amenities will be created at 180 sites over the next two years with each having job potential for many, he said.

On the ambitious Bharatmala project, he said under the first phase, 550 districts will be linked with the NHs.

The ministry will also be undertaking trial-runs of two seaplanes, one each from Japan and Russia, next month.

We are taking various initiatives to boost tourism.

We will conduct trial runs of sea-planes next month. We are awaiting Cabinet approval for amphibious buses. Besides, we are also taking steps to promote cruise tourism, he said.
The Gujarat Congress is working on a strategy to craft a strong election manifesto for the party in the state where it is emerging as a strong challenge for the incumbent BJP government.

The party, through this exercise, is planning to take all relevant inputs from the people at various levels to highlight the economic and political issues in seven major districts in Gujarat.

Madhusudan Mistry, a senior Congress party leader, is heading the manifesto committee of the Gujarat Congress. Mistry has his work cut-out and plans to make trips to Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Rajkot, Surat, Jamnagar, Vadodara and Kheda after November 7.

The agenda of the trip is to meet traders, women, businessmen, farmers and youth and discuss with them the partys agenda for governance. The party through this exercise is bringing together and meeting representatives of various committees to understand issues faced by people and work around them, thus strengthening its grass root machinery and attracting voters by including their needs in its election manifesto.

The demonetisation drive has deeply affected the farmers and the recent GST implementation has affected traders terribly. The Congress plans to keep its discussions around these two major areas to draw the maximum crowd. The Patidar Reservation demand will also be a part of their discussions. The other aspects they plan to cover are unemployment among the youth, the quota for the Economically Backward classes, homes for the homeless and loan waiver for the farmers.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi on Thursday pitched for making ties with Mauritius stronger and increase cooperation in the field of industry, investment and tourism.

Speaking at a funtion in Mauritius during visit, he mentioned the long ties with the island nation which started with the arrival of people in large numbers from UP in the early 19th century for working in sugarcane fields.

People originating from UP have made a special place for themselves by contributing in the development of Mauritius, the chief minister said.

According to an official spokesman here, Adityanath made an appeal to people of his state for making these ties stronger.

Uttar Pradesh and Mauritius will cooperate each other in the field of industry, investment and tourism, the chief minister said.

Adityanath gave his approval for setting up a joint cultural centre in Varanasi for which he said the state government will provide land.

Inviting people to come to UP to see the birthplace of their ancestors, the Chief Minister said that it will not only encourage tourism but will also make the relations stronger.

Terming Uttar Pradesh as the state with immense possibilities, the Chief Minister said that going by its size and population it is the biggest market in the country and it it very rich from tourism point of view as well.

Referring to the steps taken by his government in encouraging investment and development, the Chief Minister said several policy decisions have been taken for making the process of investment easier and cited the example of the new industrial policy.
Irish actor-filmmaker Kenneth Branagh has described the Hollywood abuse scandal as a horrible wake-up call for the society.

The 56-year-old actor believes the wave of sexual abuse allegations made against a number of renowned figures in the movie business has shone a light on the issue and he hopes that, in time, it will instigate change for the better, reports mirror.co.uk.

I think it feels like a sea change. It is about the abuse of power and its not just (Hollywood) but its clearly across other areas and other workplaces, Branagh said on the show Lorraine.

I think its a horrible, horrible wake-up call to what has never been acceptable and never can be acceptable and may now, in some profound way, I hope, change for the better, he added.
At present, the world is witnessing a sea of advancements with the inclusion of homebased health care being an integral catalyst. This can be backed up by the fact that, there is tremendous pressure on hospitals in delivering services at their facility, especially in critical care that can now be delivered in the home environment.

Use of technology by some companies is set to change the landscape in terms of cost, experience and impact on the outcome of the treatment. The Indian healthcare market is growing fast, alongside the surmounting cost of medical services at hospitals. The rapidly increasing burden of chronic diseases and the demand for quality and efficient medical care has opened the market up for home based services.

This industry has promising prospects as almost 80 per cent of the care that is currently provided in the hospital can be delivered in the home setting, with proper guidance and implementation. This branch of services comes with a wide range of benefits.

Enabling the power of home health care helps reduce unavoidable readmissions to the hospital that can have physical psychological and financial implications. Visiting a hospital may be initially beneficial but comes with its own set of long lasting repercussions in terms of convalescence. Innumerable studies have shown that patients recuperating from illness, injury, or surgical procedures heal more quickly and more successfully when recovering under supervision at home versus in a medical facility.

Also, there is the contention of chronic illness that needs regular referral to the doctors for a steady recuperation. Chronic patients require constant monitoring and care, something that cannot be facilitated by intermittent hospital visits.

Hence, the need for constant care is fulfilled by these home healthcare units. Here are some more vital advantages of home health care:

Convenience:

This is a factor that every family member of the ailing looks for, yet hospitals often come with their own set of inconveniences pertaining to visits and monitoring. On the other hand, competent medical staff with an array of equipments is provided at the comfort of home, obviating the hassle associated with hospital visits for the patient and the family around.

Infection control: Owing to a large number of patients, it is well known that hospital acquired infections can be fatal in vulnerable cases as hospitals harbour an environment filled with ailments, some more contagious than others. A sanitised environment in the home eliminates one source of complication to such an extent that clinical results are comparable or better with fewer complications when home care is provided to individuals with chronic conditions.

Cost:

The cost associated with private healthcare in India is forbiddingly high for the middle class. For example, a typical cost of stay in an ICU in a hospital could range between Rs 35,000 to Rs 50,000 a day. In such a scenario, home healthcare is a cost effective alternative. Putting up an ICU facility at home, complete with equipment and medical expertise, would range between Rs 8,500 to Rs 10,000 a day, cutting the cost greatly.

Focussed attention:

Often, when it comes to hospitals, there is a lack in focused attention as a plethora of ailing patients with sensitive requirements, needs catering to on simultaneous basis. For home healthcare, with dedicated staff at home, the patient gets much better attention as compared to a hospital where each staff is assigned several patients. Homecare is an initiative to reach beyond hospitals, to patients and their families, to not just add years to the lives but also add life to the years that are ahead. The writer is chief executive officer and founder, Critical Care Unified
There has been a 21 per cent reduction in violent Maoist incidents across the country this year compared to the corresponding period in 2016, it was announced at an high-level union Home Ministry meeting held here on Friday.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who chaired the high-level meeting, assured of providing all possible support to the Chhattisgarh government to deal with Maoists.

During the meeting, it was brought out that the declining trend of LWE (Left-Wing Extremism) violence continues across the country which has seen an overall reduction of 21 per cent in violence incidents over corresponding period of last year. The LWE continue to remain under pressure with ever shrinking influence, both in terms of geographical spread and public support, a Home Ministry statement said.

Issues of security and development related measures were discussed in the meeting, the statement said, adding currently, the Centre is providing security related assistance to Chhattisgarh which includes provision of paramilitary forces, helicopters, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Counter Insurgency and Anti Terrorist Schools.

In addition, 11 India Reserve Battalions and two Special India Reserve Battalions have been sanctioned to the state. Funds have also been provided for fortification of 75 police stations and for capacity building of Special Forces under the Special Infrastructure Scheme.

As part of the multi-pronged strategy to deal with LWE, the central government gives equal focus to development measures to bring Maoist-affected districts at par with other areas. Towards this end, the central government has approved a Special Central Assistance Scheme for 35 worst affected LWE districts with an annual outlay of Rs 1,000 crore Important development schemes include the Road Requirement Plan (RRP) Phase-I under which Chhattisgarh was sanctioned 1988 km of road out of which 1351 km have been completed, it said.

The statement said under the newly launched RRP-II, Chhattisgarh has been sanctioned a further 891 km of road.

To improve mobile connectivity, 519 mobile towers have been installed in Phase-I and another 1,028 towers are being planned in Phase-II of the project, it said.

As part of efforts to enhance skill development, Chhattisgarh has been sanctioned nine ITIs and 14 Skill Development Centres. The initiatives taken to improve education infrastructure include approval of two Kendriya Vidyalayas at Bijapur and Sukma and three Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas at Bijapur, Narayanpur and Kondagaon.

Jagdalpur Medical College has been approved for up-gradation as Centre of Excellence at a cost of 200 crore under Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana.

The Jagdalpur airport has been included under the regional connectivity scheme and work for making it operational is nearing completion. Financial inclusion initiatives include sanction of 707 post offices and opening of 108 ATMs and 81 bank branches in LWE affected districts in last two years, it said.

The meeting was attended by the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, Union Minister of State for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, Chhattisgarh Chief Secretary Vivek Dhand, Director General CRPF Rajiv Rai Bhatnagar and senior officers of the Home Ministry and the Chhattisgarh administration.
BJP president Amit Shah is scheduling to launch the partys campaign in Gujarat from November 4 for which his entire tour has been planned.

The state campaign will take off in Kutch, from where Shah will travel to Morbi and Surendranagar. Shahs first set of public meetings are slated for Gandhidham, Morbi, Surendranagar, Bhavnagar, Botad, Amreli, and Ahmedabad.

On November 5, Shah is set to visit tribal dominant areas of Valsad, Navsari, Dangs, Panchmahal, Dahod, Sabarkantha and Aravali.

The party president is in for a long stay in Gujarat, during which he will address party workers and discuss area-specific strategies with the local BJP functionaries. On November 7, he will visit Rajkot city, Rajkot rural and Surat city and meet the diamond and textile traders.

Surat is an important constituency for the party, for not only does it have a substantial strength of diamond business driven vote bank but also the much in pain textile industry associations which the party is out to placate.

Amit Shah has his work cut-out to precision, as coincidently the demonetisation drive will also complete a year during his campaign trip. The distressed traders are keen to discuss their problems and seek relief and Shah may be forced to graciously agree to their demands in this aggressively fought election.

BJP is also laying its hopes on Amit Shahs Gujarat visit to bridge the growing gap between Patidars and the party. They are trying to work on a strategy to win back the support from Patidars.

In his last leg of the campaign trail, Shah will cover Junagadh city, Junagadh rural, Porbandar and Gir Somnath; Bharuch and Narmada; Anand, Kheda, and Mahisagar on November 8. On the last day on November 9, Shah will travel extensively in Surat district, Tapi, Jamnagar city, Jamnagar rural, Dev-Bhoomi Dwarka, Vadodara city, Chhota Udepur and Vadodara district.
Terming the assembly elections in Gujarat a fight between truth and lies, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Friday said the truth lies with his party, and not the BJP.

This is a fight between truth and lies. On one side, it is Gujarats people, on the other 5-10 industrialists. Modiji and BJP have everything, they have power in many states. They have power in the central government, in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. They have a lot of power, they have police.

But the Congress party will win in Gujarat because the truth is with us. They dont represent the truth. The truth lies in the hearts of the people of Gujarat, said Gandhi during a corner meeting in Pardi.

There are about 30 lakh unemployed youth in Gujarat today. Modiji had promised two crore jobs every year. Only one lakh youth are given jobs every year. In China 50,000 jobs are created per day, under Modi government, it is 450 per day. It is a matter of shame.

The Congress leader said all the communities in Gujarat are agitating against the state government, be it the Patidars, the Adivasis, Dalits and the farmers.

The truth of Gujarat is corruption, land-grabbing, attack on Patidars, lathi-charge on Dalits in Una, poverty of Adivasis and unemployment, Gandhi said.

The BJP government has handed over the resources of Gujarat like wealth, electricity, water, land, to just 5-10 industrialists. It gave Rs 33,000 crore to one company to manufacture Nano cars. In the past 10-15 days, I travelled more than 1,000 km, why couldnt I see a single Nano car?

I didnt see it anywhere. Not just Gujarat, youll not see it anywhere. The question is..this money belonged to whom? Was it Tata companys, the Chief Ministers or did it belong to Gujarats farmers, labourers and the poor, he asked.

With a similar amount (Rs 33,000 crore), the Congress government implemented MNREGA scheme in the entire country, gave employment to crores, said Gandhi, adding the same amount was given to one company by Gujarat government but the people of the state did not benefit from it.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi will on Friday address a mega rally in poll-bound Gujarats Surat city on day three of his tour to the southern part of the state, officials said.

The rally is crucial as Surat is home to a sizeable population of Patels, most of whom are traders and were reportedly left disgruntled with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) due to demonetisation and Goods and Service tax (GST).

The Gandhi had scion began the Navsarjan Yatra from Jambusar on November 1, where he met locals and spoke at a public rally.

Gandhi, who has been attacking the Narendra Modi government and the BJP over the Gujarat development model, has also visited a number of temples, a move being seen by many as an attempt to woo Hindu voters.

As per reports, the Congress is also working hard to strike a deal with Patidar leader Hardik Patel who has vowed to not let the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) return to power in the state.

Patel has already gone public asking his community to not vote for the BJP even if the party fielded his father as a candidate.

Alpesh Thakor, the powerful OBC leader, has already joined the Congress while another popular Dalit Leader, Jignesh Mevani, too has been campaigning against the BJP.

Gujarat will go to the hustings in two phases on December 9 and 14. The results of the elections for the 182-member Gujarat assembly will be declared on December 18.
Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani is contemplating to change his seat from Rajkot to Wadhwan.

Rupanis apprehension regarding Rajkot is not misplaced as the Congress is all set to field Indranil Rajyaguru as its candidate from the seat. Rajyaguru is considered to be a tough candidate with a record of being aggressive in his campaigns.

Indranil Rjayaguru has already been campaigning in Rajkot for several months and has been highlighting the shortcomings of the Rupani government. His aggressive campaign against Rupani has shrouded the dependency of Rajkot as a safe seat for BJP chief minister under a cloud of suspicion.

Wadhwan which has been represented by BJP MLA Varshaben Doshi has won the seat in 2007 and 2012. The seat is considered a safe seat for BJP and hence Rupani is keen on contesting from here rather than facing formidable Rajyaguru.

Rupanis fear also stems from the fact that Rajkot has a sizable Kadva Patidar vote bank, who are firmly against BJP due to Patidar reservation agitation. The second largest voter group is that of Rajputs who may not be siding with BJP en masse and their votes may split.

The road to Wadhwan, however, is not going to be easy for Rupani as another BJP heavyweight IK Jadeja, who currently is spearheading the Swarnim Gujarat Committee as an Executive Chairman with a cabinet ministers status and representing Dhrangadhra Constituency, is also said to be interested in contesting from Wadhwan.

For the opposition Congress party also, the decision is a tough one. Apart from Indranil Rajyaguru, the Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi too has shown interest in Wadhwan as the constituency has a sizable Jain community that he belongs to.
Killing of the 25 years old BJP activist Gowhar Ahmad Bhat by terrorist who slit his throat in the Shopian district of South Kashmir yesterday evening has generated on social media strong criticism of cruelty of the ultras.

Terrorists have during the past few days targeted ministers, legislators and leaders of the ruling PDP, but Bhat is the first BJP leader who was murdered with cruelty after abducting him from his home at 6 pm and his throat slit body was recovered from a nearby village few hours later.

Terrorists had recently killed a school teacher by slitting his throat in the neighbouring Pulwama district as they suspected him to be an informer of the security forces.

South Kashmir has again become unsafe place for leaders of the PDPBJP alliance as they are being selected for terror attacks. The PWD minister and chief spokesman of the J&K government, Nayeem Akhtars motorcade was recently attacked with a grenade resulting in death of three innocent pedestrians and injury to about 30 persons.

The security vehicle of a senior MLA of PDP was attacked near Anantnag claiming life of the driver. Grenades were lobbed at the house of another legislator of the PDP in South Kashmir.

However, killing of Bhat has evoked criticism from all quarters. Even some Kashmiri Muslims posted comments criticizing terrorists for killing him.

Kaisar Qureshi tweeted Torture and then slitting throat is the ISIS way of killing innocents. They have adopted this merciless way to kill the #Insaniyat #Kashmir. You can kill us, but never suppress our voice, no matter what! I stand with his bereaved family. Taking lives of innocent people is not Jihad. I condemn such cowardly acts.

Former Chief Minister and NC working president Omar Abdullah tweeted: How tragic. A young life snuffed out in such a heartless way just adds to the sense of shock. Allah jannat naseeb karey.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti in her tweet said, Condemn killing of Gowhar, a young political activist of Shopian. My condolences with the family. This unending violence has to stop.

In a comment on Mehboobas tweet, Asfaq Ahmed Abidi said Terrorists are killing patriot Indians everyday. U are failed in valley. Give it to my Army.

Bhat had joined the BJP three years ago and recently was active in organizing youth convention of the party in Srinagar as a result of which he became a thorn in the neck of various terrorist outfits.

Reacting to the incident, the state BJP chief Sat Sharma said frustrated and devastated, terrorists and their sympathizers have lost all the sense of humanity.
The toll in the explosion at NTPCs Unchahar plant climbed to 29, with nine more deaths reported on Tursday, even as Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders descended on the accident site and demanded a judicial probe.

Union Power Minister R K Singh also arrived at the site to oversee relief measures in what is one of the worst tragedies at a power plant in recent history and even came face to face with Rahul Gandhi at one point.

Singh announced Rs 20 lakh ex-gratia for the next of kin of those killed in the accident.

Also Read: NTPC blast: PM Modi announces ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh each

The Centre also ordered a probe by the NTPCs executive director into the incident while the state administration ordered a magisterial probe.

Twenty nine persons have succumbed to injuries and 85 were being treated at hospitals in Rae Bareli and Lucknow, the NTPC said in an official release.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, took a break from campaigning in Gujarat and met the victims and their families.

The Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat is represented by his mother, Congress president, Sonia Gandhi.

His office tweeted, Labourers have said that the accident took place due to negligence and that there should be a judicial probe into the accident.

I was sad to see the pain of victims of the NTPC incident and their families should get better compensation and government jobs, while the injured should get all possible help, the Congress vice president said.

Rahul Gandhi was accompanied by senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and UP Congress chief Raj Babbar. Azad claimed that a judicial inquiry was important as in the case of a government probe, facts could be concealed.

Uttar Pradesh Energy Minister Shrikant Sharma tweeted, The Centre has constituted a committee to probe the accident.

The committee headed by executive director of NTPC will submit its report in 30 days.

During his visit to the site, Rahul Gandhi was heard making enquiries about the number of workers deputed at the plant.

People are saying that it (the plant unit) was run early (before schedule). It should not have been run that way. We will demand a probe, he said while speaking to reporters.

Meanwhile, Union Power minister Singh announced a compensation amount of Rs 20 lakh to the next of kin of those killed observing that the earlier ex-gratia was not enough.

I am of the view that the ex-gratia which was earlier announced was not enough. Rs 20 lakh compensation will be given to the next of kin of those who died in the accident, while the seriously injured will get Rs 10 lakh and those who sustained minor injuries will be given Rs 2 lakh, he told reporters.

This amount is in addition to the compensation provided under the workmen compensation rules, he said.

In addition, Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved an ex-gratia payment of Rs 2 lakh each for the families of the deceased.

Prime Minister @narendramodi has approved an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh each for the next of kin of those who have lost their lives due to the accident at the NTPC plant in Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh. PM has approved Rs 50,000 each for those injured due to the accident, the prime ministers office said on Twitter.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who is abroad on an official tour, has also announced Rs 2 lakh compensation for the families of those killed and Rs 50,000 for the grievously injured besides Rs 25,000 for the other injured workers.

Opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) demanded a probe by a retired high court judge into the boiler explosion.

The families of the deceased should be given a Rs 50 lakh compensation, while those injured should get Rs 10 lakh, senior SP leader Ahmed Hasan said.

Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma, who visited the accident site, said, Our priority at this point in time is that proper treatment should be ensured to the injured persons. We stand by the families of those dead in their hour of grief. Teams of NTPC and NDRF have already arrived here.

Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued a notice to the UP government over the blast.

Expressing concern, the commission in a statement said that a high-level probe into the matter is immediately required to ascertain the negligence and errors, if any, behind the incident, which involves the right to life.

It said there was need to ensure that such tragedies do not recur. A detailed report is expected from the government within six weeks, the rights panel said.

The NTPC in an official release said that Unit No. 6 (500 MW) of the plant was under shutdown after the accident.

However, five other units of 1,050 MW capacity were operating normally.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday met his Latvian counterpart Maris Kucinskis and held bilateral talks.

Strengthening the bonds of friendship. (Modi and Kucinskis) discussed a wide range of bilateral issues, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted.

Kumar quoted Modi as saying: India and Latvia have strong potential for cooperation in higher education, IT, food processing, fisheries and allied sectors.

Earlier on Friday, Kucinskis attended the World Food India event inaugurated by Modi.
The Jammu and Kashmir government on Thursday suspended Pakistan based Hizbul Mujahideen terror chief Syed Salahuddins son Syed Shahid Yousuf from the agriculture department where he was employed.

His suspension comes 10 days after he was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in a terror-funding case. The 42-year-old Yousuf was working as an agricultural assistant in Budgam in Kashmir when he was arrested by the NIA on October 24.

The state government had sought some clarifications from the NIA before issuing the order.

The order, which was issued today by Director of Agriculture said that Yousuf is deemed to have been suspended from the date of his arrest. Yousuf was arrested by the NIA in connection with a 2011 terror-funding case for allegedly receiving money from his father, who is currently based in Pakistan.

The NIA alleged that Yousuf used to receive funds through a US-based international wire transfer company from Aijaz Ahmed Bhat, another accused in the case who is absconding and based in Saudi Arabia. The NIA claimed he had received a total of nearly Rs 4.5 lakh through eight international wire transfers.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday dubbed BJPs statewide yatra against his government as a yatra of remorse and said the saffron party cannot succeed in the state as its people are politically mature.

He also hit out at BJP national president Amit Shah and state president Yeddyurappa by pointing out that both of them had been to jail.

The chief minister also defended the state governments decision to celebrate the birth anniversary of 18th century Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan.

Siddaramaiahs reaction came after Shah kicked off the 75-day Nava Karnataka Nirmana Parivarthane Yatra, led by Yeddyurappa to expose misdeeds of the Congress government in the 224 assembly constituencies of the state.

Also Read: Amit Shah flags off BJP rally in poll-bound Karnataka

Launching the yatra, Shah had accused the Karnataka government of breaking all records in corruption.

The people of Karnataka are very mature, it is not like UP or any other state. In south India, our people are not emotional, they are politically mature and believe in secular principles Siddaramaiah told reporters.

Roots of secular principles are strong here, he said.

Their (BJP) wish of doing something here cannot happen.

Nothing will happen even if they bring Prime Minister or Shah or Adityanath. Polarisation of votes through Hindutva and instigation will not happen here, the senior Congress leader said.

Defending his government, Siddaramaiah said, There is no corruption or scandalin fact (they) had gone to jail on corruption charges. How many of them had gone?..

Listing out the BJP leaders who had gone to jail including Yeddyurappa, the chief minister asked, Did they go to jail simply?they have to go before the people and tell we have gone to jail and come back, now we are coming in front of you (people).

Siddaramaiah said people of Karnataka are satisfied by his governments programmes during the last five years and have decided to bless the Congress again.

We will 100 per cent come back to power in 2018 Assembly elections. So any number of such yatras by them (BJP) will have no influence, he said.

I do not know who named it Parivarthaneit is not parivarthane, it is teertha yatra (pilgrimage).it is yatre of remorse. It is they who have to change from being communal to secular, he asserted.

The chief minister also chaired a meeting of senior police officials in the state after Neelamani N Raju took charge as first woman Director General of Police of Karnataka, and reviewed the law and order situation in the state.

Law and order situation is good after we came to power.

Our police officials have done their duty, but the BJP is repeatedly trying to disturb the communal harmony, Siddaramaiah said.

In the backdrop of Parivarthana Yatre and Tipu Jayanti, we have discussed things related to it also, he said.

BJP and few other organisations have been opposing the Tipu Jayanti celebrations as they see Tipu Sultan as a religious bigot and a brutal killer.

Pointing out that this was the third year the government will be celebrating Tipu Jayanti, Siddaramaiah said last year it went off smoothly and only in the first year, there was violence due to instigation by RSS and Bajarang Dal.

By and large Karnatkas people have accepted Tipu Jayanti. Tipu was a freedom lover, patriot. As claimed by them (RSS, BJP), he was never anti-Hindu or anti-Kannada or any other community, he said.
The scariest day in the world, Halloween, is over but fear persist. Fear of the unknown is natural. It is more common among people suffering from anxiety disorders, say scientists. And anxiety is a common problem suffered by all age groups, from young to old.

Anxiety disorder is common among people in urban areas, living under stress. And there are different types of anxiety disorders such as panic disorder, social anxiety disorder and other fear-based disorders.

But, how do we overcome fear or anxiety? What is the treatment for anxiety disorders.

Scientists suggest targeting common underlying characteristics of different types of anxieties for effective treatment of anxiety.

A treatment, or set of treatments, focused on sensitivity to uncertain threat could result in a more impactful and efficient way of treating a variety of anxiety disorders and symptoms, said Stephanie Gorka, assistant professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, as quoted in a study published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

Some are more sensitive to uncertain threat and the fear of something bad looming over the day could be quite a disturbing factor for them.

Uncertain threat is what we call anticipatory anxiety. It could be something like not knowing exactly when your doctor will call with test results, Gorka said.

As researchers continue to study the fear psychosis and the treatment for it, one needs to bust the stress and be in a peaceful frame of mind to rid of all anxieties. While it may be easier said than done, staying positive helps. Think positive and talk positive. Positive thinking is all you need to let the peaceful, easy feeling sink in. And a peaceful frame of mind will surely ease away all your anxieties.
Guru Nanak Jayanti is an occasion to reflect on the glorious history of Sikhism, giving the community a chance to be proud of their rich culture and heritage.

Why is Guru Nanak Jayanti celebrated?

Guru Nanak Jayanti marks the significance of the birth of the first Sikh Guru  Guru Nanak Dev. He was the founder and establisher of Sikhism. The sacred day is also known as Guru Nanak Prakash Utsav and Guru Purab.

This most religious festival falls in the month of Kartik, according to the Hindu calendar. The holy day is celebrated mainly in Punjab and Northern parts of India on a massive scale.

How is Guru Nanak Jayanti celebrated?

Gurupurab is celebrated by way of processions, carrying the holy book of Sikhs, Guru Granth Sahib, decorated with flowers and reciting hymns from various scriptures.

On this day, gurudwaras are decorated with love and respect. Early morning melodious Prabhat Pheris that begin from gurudwaras initiate the whole day celebration. They are followed by processions known as the Nagar Kirtans and further led by Panj Pyaras.

People carry Sikh flags and organise a Palki of Guru Granth Sahib, singing devotional songs. A unique sight of amazing display of swordsmanship and martial art is worth watching. After the procession is over, the Langar Prasad is served at gurudwaras.

Karah Prasad is the most important part of the langar having auspicious significance. This sweet dish has the utmost blessings of the great saint. A prayer session takes place around the sunset.

Gurudwaras famous for their Gurupurab celebration

Dont miss the opportunity to visit any of the gurudwaras famous for their Gurupurab celebration. So peaceful and rejuvenating!

Gurudwra Bangla Sahib, Delhi: The view of this gurudwara is mesmerising on Gurupurab. The serene atmosphere, beautiful lighting and two day long Akhand Path calls for a visit to the place.

Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib, Delhi: The shrine is built at the site where ninth Sikh guru, Guru Teg Bahadur was beheaded in 17th century on the orders of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. The gurudwara is known to celebrate every occasion bearing significance to the religion in the best possible way. People travel all the way to be a part of these celebrations especially on Gurupurab.

Golden Temple, Amritsar, Punjab: The famous Sikh pilgrimage witnesses visits from not only Sikh community but Non-Sikh devotees also participating almost in equal number. The pravachans of preachers of Sikhism, stunning lighting and the fireworks are the major attractions on the festival.

Akal Takht, Amritsar, Punjab: The everlasting throne just opposite to Golden Temple is illuminated beautifully for the occasion. If you want to connect yourself to almighty, you can undoubtedly restore that peace of mind here.

Sri Hazoor Sahib, Nanded, Maharashtra: The last Sikh guru, Guru Gobind Singh took his last breath at this holy place. This gurudwara still preserves some of the war weapons used by Guru Gobind Singh like his swords, bows and arrows. Many people visit this place of historical significance at important Gurupurabs.

Gurupurab is around the corner. Plan to visit any of the above gurudwaras. May Guru Nanak Dev shower his utmost blessings on you. Happy Guru Nanak Jayanti!
Iran on Friday accused the CIA of spreading fake news about Tehrans support for the Al Qaeda, describing the claims as an attempt to whitewash the truth about the role US allies had in the September 11, 2001, attacks.

A record low for the reach of petrodollars: CIA & FDD fake news w/ selective Al Qaeda docs re Iran cant whitewash the role of US allies in 9/11, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif wrote on his Twitter account on Friday.

Zarif posted the tweet after the release of a 19-page Al Qaeda report in Arabic, which claimed Iran supported the extremist group before the 9/11 attacks.

The document, part of nearly 47,000 documents released by the CIA, quoted the groups slain leader Osama bin Laden as saying: Anyone who wants to strike America, Iran is ready to support him and help him with their frank and clear rhetoric.

It claimed that Iran and Al Qaeda could overlook their differences and join forces when it came to confronting the US.

The US governments 9/11 Commission has made similar allegations, saying Iranian officials met Al Qaeda leaders in Sudan in either 1991 or early 1992.

Last year, a New York court ordered Iran to pay $7.5 billion in damages to the families of the 9/11 victims.

The release of the files comes as US President Donald Trumps administration seeks to ramp up pressure on Iran, refusing to certify a landmark nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

The Fars news agency, which is close to Iranian conservatives, said on Thursday that the selective publication of documents by the CIA related to Al Qaeda was part of efforts to put pressure on Iran.
North Korea on Friday denied that there had been deaths in an accident at its nuclear test ground following its latest atomic test as previously reported by a Japanese broadcaster.

A TV Asahi report citing North Korean sources said some 200 people may have died when a tunnel collapsed days after North Koreas nuclear test on September 3, reports Efe news.

In a statement published by state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), North Korea condemned what it described as a false report, and attacked the Japanese authorities for allowing TV Asahi to broadcast such information.

Pyongyang accused the Japanese reactionaries of wanting to create a smokescreen with the report and of spreading the fictitious story that there was a threat from the north, which the regime considered an excuse to facilitate a future invasion of its territory.

The regime also accused Tokyo of putting interceptor missiles on a permanent deployment and of mobilising ordinary citizens for an evacuation drill under the pretext of the ballistic rocket launch by North Korea.

Although it is impossible to verify the information reported by TV Asahi given the extreme secrecy of the North Korean regime, several experts said that Pyongyangs repeated nuclear tests  six to date  could have caused significant structural damage to the tunnel in the Punggye-Ri nuclear test ground.

South Korean Meteorological Administration director Nam Jae-Cheol recently explained that a satellite image analysis showed the real possibility of a major collapse in Punggye-RI, located under a small mountain range in the northeast of North Korea if another detonation occurs in the tunnels.
I have learned the hard way not to put my personal life on the Internet. But suffice it to say that, God willing, things should be pretty much back to norm...

4 weeks ago
At least one person was killed and three others injured in a shooting at a cafe in Moroccos tourist city of Marrakesh, local media reported.

Two attackers entered the cafe and shot at the crowd before fleeing the scene with a motorcycle, Xinhua news agency quoted le360.ma news site as reporting on Thursday.

Citing police sources, the news site said investigators think revenge as the motive behind the attack.

No official statement has been issued from the police in this regard.
South Korean civic groups on Friday called for protests over the weekend throughout the country against US President Donald Trumps visit next week.

At least 1,000 people are expected to gather in Jongno in Seoul, for an anti-Trump protest, while similar rallies are expected to take place simultaneously in other cities such as Gwangju, Daejeon, Ulsan and Changwon, reports Efe news.

Trump will visit South Korea between November 7 and 8 for a summit with his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in, and discuss North Koreas nuclear threats and the bilateral free trade pact, among other issues.

South Korean progressive groups have blamed Trumps hard-line policy  sending strategic military assets to the region and his belligerent comments to the regime led by Kim Jong-un  for aggravating tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

The civil groups have called on Moon to take bold measures such as the suspension of joint military drills with the US to bring Pyongyang to the negotiating table.

Besides the anti-Trump rallies, pro-US rallies, led by conservative groups and supporters of the South Korea-US alliance are also expected to take place to welcome Trump.
TALENT PARK OPENS TO MARK 1ST SZ TALENT DAY

2017-11-03  Shenzhen Nanshan





Shenzhen's district governments, Qianhai administration, Shenzhen Talent Group and Shenzhen Affordable Housing Group set up booths to promote their talent-friendly policies and projects at Shenzhen Talent Park in Nanshan District yesterday, which opened on the day to mark the citys first Talent Day.

Shenzhens current prosperity could hardly have been achieved without the efforts made by generations of talents from all around the country and even the world, and we will continue to attract more talents of all kinds to come to Shenzhen, said Shenzhens Party chief Wang Weizhong at the parks grand opening ceremony.

The Talent Day features an array of activities that celebrate the spirit of desiring more talents.

Resident Huang Liqing joined a talent salon at the Nanshan booth. The salon introduced policies for returned overseas Chinese talents who are interested in working in the district.

Huang said he had just returned to Shenzhen after obtaining his masters degree in Singapore.

Many of my high school classmates chose to come back to Shenzhen to work after studying abroad for a year, and I wanted to try my luck as well, said Huang.

A conference on talents was held inside the park after the opening ceremony. During the conference, the city leaders witnessed the signing of contracts between several groups that provide services for all levels of talents recruited to Shenzhen.

The city leaders also granted a working allowance to nine academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and/or the Chinese Academy of Engineering who work in Shenzhen full time.

Each of the academicians was awarded 1 million yuan (US$147,000). Eleven high-end talents were given the title, Talent Ambassador.

Chen Shiyi, president of South University of Science and Technology of China (SUSTech), is one of the Talent Ambassadors. Chen said as a scientist recruited by the city government to work in Shenzhen, he felt honored to be a Talent Ambassador to promote the citys image and hard work put into attracting talents.

There are currently 18 academicians employed at SUSTech and 109 experts in various fields have joined the university under Shenzhens major talent projects, said the president.

Shenzhen has rolled out a trove of talent projects over the past few years and is now home to 5.1 million specially recruited talents. The number of full-time academicians employed to work in Shenzhen has reached nine, increasing the total number of academicians who have signed with the city government to 26.

The Shenzhen Talent Park, located at Shenzhen Bay near Houhai in Nanshan District, was first planned last August. The park covers 770,000 square meters and features beautiful scenery as well as dozens of seminar rooms, lecture theaters and business centers.






Organization: Abt Associates

Funding Source: United

States Agency for International Development (USAID)

Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda

About Abt:

Abt Associates is an international development organization composed of

dedicated professionals who provide technical assistance, research, analysis,

and practical training services in more than 128 countries.



Project: About USAID Vector Control TaskProject:

Abt Associates, a major American business and government research,

technical assistance, and consulting company, manages the USAID-funded Vector

Control Task Order 1. Task Order 1 will support the U.S. Presidents Malaria

Initiative (PMI) and USAID to plan and implement an integrated vector control

approach with the overall goal of reducing the burden of malaria. Abt has

implemented indoor residual spraying (IRS) for PMI since 2009, delivering

high-quality IRS programs and gathering the most comprehensive vector control

entomological data in the world. Under this contract, Abt will expand entomological

monitoring to guide programs focused on insecticide-treated mosquito nets and

IRS and continue to assist PMI in reducing the burden of malaria through IRS

and capacity building in 22 African countries where malaria is endemic. Abt

also will continue to support PMI in IRS monitoring and evaluation, as well as

environmental compliance.

Job Summary: The Central

Warehouse Manager assures that commodities used in IRS campaigns are secure,

accounted for, and safely stored at the projects central warehouse. Receives,

delivers, and registers IRS commodities, and ensures that storage facilities at

the community-level ready for IRS operations.











Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:



The ideal candidate for the USAID Project

Central Warehouse Manager job placement should have completed Secondary School

or a Bachelors Degree in Logistics, Management, Administration or other

relevant field



One year of experience in warehouse management.



Proven ability to work with minimum direction

and supervision.



Demonstrated ability to work both as a member of

a team and as a team leader, with the ability to accept the inputs of other

team members.



Strong management and planning skills of project

tasks and budgets.



Demonstrates leadership and team work and

produces high quality work in a timely, cost effective manner and has excellent

writing skills.



Excellent interpersonal communications and

organizational skills.



Excellent computer skills, computer software

programs, including MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.



Previous experience with USAID funded programs

and/ or other international development experience.



English language fluency.

How to Apply:

All suitably qualified and interested candidates should send their

applications to VectorControl_Uganda@abtassoc.com with the position title in

the subject line of the email.

NB: Documentation required to be considered includes a Cover Page, CV, biodata form, payslip from the most recent position held, copies of educational certificates/degrees, and contact information of at least 3 references we can contact (must include email addresses and phone numbers). Documentation required to be considered includes a Cover Page, CV,, payslip from the most recent position held, copies of educational certificates/degrees, and contact information of at least 3 references we can contact (must include email addresses and phone numbers).



find us on our Facebook page For more of the latest jobs, please visit https://www.theugandanjobline.com orfind us on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline






Job Title: Finance Manager

Organisation: Wageningen UR

Uganda

Duty Station: Kampala,

Uganda

Reports to: Director

Wageningen UR Uganda

About US:

Wageningen UR Uganda Ltd works on processes of innovation and change

through facilitating innovation, brokering knowledge and supporting capacity

development. Wageningen UR Uganda is part of Wageningen University and

Research, under the unit Centre for Development Innovation. Wageningen UR

Uganda is implementing a 4 year ISSD Plus project funded by the Embassy of the

Kingdom of the Netherlands, Kampala. The programme aims to strengthen the

development of a vibrant, pluralistic and market-oriented seed sector that is

able to address key challenges that hamper the seed sector development such as

seed quality assurance and availability of foundation seed. The project is

implemented in collaboration with the National Agricultural Research

Organisation (NARO) for public varieties and food crops and private sector for

vegetable seed.

Job Summary: The Finance

Project Manager will be responsible for sound and accurate financial planning

and reporting in the organisation, ensuring compliance with general accepted

accounting practices (GAAP), donor and Headquarter requirements. The manager is

responsible for the financial and accounting systems of the organisation.



Responsibilities: Key Duties andResponsibilities:



Efficient planning, monitoring and utilisation

of organizational funds p Provide leadership to WUUs Finance and Accounting

strategy to optimize the companys financial performance and efficient donor

fund utilization



a Contribute fully to the development of

organisations strategy across all projects, challenging assumptions and

decision-making as appropriate and providing financial analysis and guidance on

all activities, plans, targets and other organisational drivers



Formulate annual financial plans and projections

for the organization



Carry out analysis of financial risks and

benefits on business initiatives



Periodically review the organizational finance

policy and provide recommendations for improvements.



Prepare periodic financial donor reports as per

donor requirements



Provide technical support in the development of

project work plans, budgets and project expenditures, making sure documents are

accurately prepared, based on realistic prices, donor guidelines,

organizational principles and prudent coding system.



Prepare monthly, quarterly and annual budget vs

expenditure monitoring reports and share with Chief of Party (COP) and Deputy

Chief of.Party (DCOP) and other parties.



Technical support to Field Offices,

Sub-grantees, and other (implementing partners)



Coordinate and monitor Financial Transactions,

prepare periodic cash flow projections and timely request for advances from

headquarter and donors



Coordinate and Manage Annual Audits



Mentor and supervise Finance staff



Build and maintain strategic relationships in

headquarter, URA and other relevant parties.



Be up to date on all tax and finance related

legal requirements



Perform any other duty as required by the Chief

of Party and/or Deputy Chief of Party











Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:



The applicant should must hold a Bachelors

Degree in Finance /Commerce/ Accounting MBA or equivalent is desired



A minimum of five years experience as finance

manager/head of finance department/unit in an organization a Must have at

attained ACCA or CPA or in final stage.



Five or more years experience managing projects

including project development, implementation, reporting, schedules, and risk

management



Previous experience in analysing financial

information, identifying constraints and bottlenecks, and effectively communicating

recommendations to management.



Previous experience and competence of using

accounting software like Tally, or other financial management tools to work

more efficiently and reduce time is critical



High analytical skills with an eye for detail



Excellent communication skills with all levels

of staff, often having to work with various departments to help them plan and

manage their own budgets



Ability to handle high levels of pressure and

critical decision-making.



High integrity and openness combined with

commitment to good governance



Energetic, highly motivated, with an enquiring

mind and passion for excellence and innovation in pursuit of business growth

and success



Demonstrates initiative and effectively manages

self and team through a fast paced environment



Excellent English language skills, including

report writing; relevant local language skills will be an added benefit;



Highly proficient with Microsoft Office products

including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, a Ugandan nationality

How to Apply:

All suitably and qualified and interested candidates should send their

application letters and updated CVs (max. 6 pages) to hr@issduganda.org

NB: DO NOT attach

certificates or academic qualification.

th

November 2017 Deadline: 12November 2017
Job Title: Research Fellow

Organisation: University of

York

Duty Station: Entebbe, Uganda

Reports to: Chief Executive

Officer

Salary: 31,604  47,722 a

year

About University of York:

Founded on principles of excellence, equality and opportunity for all,

the University of York opened in 1963 with just 230 students. Since then we

have become one of the worlds leading universities, carving out a reputation

as an academic powerhouse where a clear focus on excellence has secured

national and international recognition alongside longer established

institutions.

Job Summary: The Research

Fellow will join the Centre for Health Economics (CHE) at Grade 6/7 to work on

a long-term project recently awarded through the RCUK Collective Fund Growing

Capability Award titled: GCRF Thanzi la Onse (Health of All), in collaboration

with project partners in the UK, Malawi and Uganda. The project centres on

supporting health and health care resource allocation decisions in sub-Saharan

Africa, and involves collaboration with specialists in epidemiology and

modelling, as well as policy decisions and governance. The roles will involve regular visits to

sub-Sahara Africa; one Research Fellow will be based at the Health Economics

& Policy Unit (HEPU) of the School of Public Health & Family Medicine,

College of Medicine at the University of Malawi (Lilongwe campus) or Public

Health Institute of Malawi; the other will be based at CHE, in York, but with

frequent visits to the MRC/UVRI Uganda Research Unit on AIDS. The Malawi-based Research Fellow will be

required to attend annual project meetings and training sessions in the

UK. Please indicate for which of the two

positions you are applying (we welcome applications to either location; please

state your preferred location in this case). The main duties of the roles are

to conduct research under the supervision of senior colleagues and to

contribute to the production of research. This will also include communicating

the results of research to different groups through written reports and papers,

presentations at conferences and other forums, and at workshops and other meetings.

You will be required to assist in the identification and development of

potential areas of research and the development of proposals for independent or

collaborative research projects.



Responsibilities: Key Duties andResponsibilities:



The jobholder will supervise the research

activities of less experienced colleagues, providing expert advice and guidance



Actively participate actively in the planning

and management of research projects more generally (e.g. communication with

relevant stakeholders)



Lead on or contribute to the leadership of the

production of research outputs and research outcomes



Provide student supervision and mentorship











Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:



The applicant must hold a Masters degree in

economics, with a significant focus on health economics and/or development

economics, is essential in both roles and a PhD in health economics or relevant

experience is mandatory for appointees to Grade 7.



Well-developed analytical skills, including a

strong quantitative background and knowledge in relevant areas of economics to

engage in high quality research is required.





Previous experience in conducting economic

analysis (e.g. economic evaluation) to inform public policy in a low- and

middle-income country setting is required, and a commitment to the field of

global health is mandatory



Appointees to Grade 7 are required to

demonstrate ability to source research funding and supervise research

activities of less experienced staff and/or students.

How to Apply:

All candidates are strongly encouraged to apply online at the link

below

th

November 2017 Deadline: 26November 2017



find us on our facebook page For more of the latest jobs, please visit https://www.theugandanjobline.com orfind us on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline






Organization: United Nations

Development Programme (UNDP)

Project Name: Building

Resilient Communities, Wetland Ecosystems and Associated Catchments Project

Duty Station: Kampala,

Uganda

Reports to: Programme

Management Specialist/ DRR/DCD/OM or Team Leader ECDR

Grade: SB4

About UNDP:

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the United Nations

global development network. UNDP advocates for change and connects countries to

knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. The

UNDP provides expert advice, training, grant support to developing countries

including Uganda with increasing emphasis on assistance to the least developed

countries.

About Project:

The Ministry of Water and Environment in collaboration with the

Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries and; Uganda National

Meteorology Authority is implementing a wetland restoration project in Eastern

and South Western Uganda entitled Building Resilient Communities, Wetland Ecosystems and

Associated Catchments Project. The USD 44.262 million project is funded by the

Green Climate Fund, Government of Uganda and UNDP for 8 years starting 2017 to

2025.

Job Summary: The Procurement

Officer will be responsible for effective delivery of procurement services in

order to obtain the best value for money in large offices. He/she analyzes and

interprets the financial rules and regulations and provides solutions to a wide

spectrum of complex issues related to procurement. The Procurement Officer

promotes a collaborative, client-focused, quality and results-oriented approach

in the Unit. The Procurement Officer

works in close collaboration with the Management Support and Business

Development, Operations, Programme and project teams in the CO, UNDP HQs staff

and Government officials to successfully deliver procurement services. The ProcurementOfficer will be responsible for effective delivery of procurement services inorder to obtain the best value for money in large offices. He/she analyzes andinterprets the financial rules and regulations and provides solutions to a widespectrum of complex issues related to procurement. The Procurement Officerpromotes a collaborative, client-focused, quality and results-oriented approachin the Unit.The Procurement Officerworks in close collaboration with the Management Support and BusinessDevelopment, Operations, Programme and project teams in the CO, UNDP HQs staffand Government officials to successfully deliver procurement services.



Responsibilities: Key Duties andResponsibilities:



focusing on achievement of the following results: Ensures elaboration and implementation of operational strategiesfocusing on achievement of the following results:



Ensure full compliance of procurement activities

with UN/UNDP rules, regulations, policies and strategies; implementation of the

effective internal control, proper design and functioning of a client-oriented

procurement management system.



CO Procurement business processes mapping and

elaboration/establishment of internal Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in

Procurement, control of the workflows in the Procurement Unit.



Tasked with the analysis of requirements and

synthesis of proposals for cost saving and reduction strategies.



Synthesis of proposals and implementation of

contract strategy in the CO including tendering processes and evaluation,

contractor appraisal, managing the contract and contractor, legal

considerations and payment conditions, risk assessment.



Responsible for the implementation of the

strategic procurement in the CO including sourcing strategy, supplier selection and evaluation, quality

management, customer relationship management, e-procurement introduction and

promotion, performance measurement.



focusing on achievement of the following results: Manages and guides procurement processes for CO, NEX/DEX projects,focusing on achievement of the following results:



Timely and duly preparation of procurement plans

for the office and projects and monitoring of their implementation.



Implementation of proper monitoring and control

of procurement processes including organization of RFQ, ITB or RFP, receipt of

quotations, bids or proposals, their evaluation, negotiation of certain

conditions of contracts in full compliance with UNDP rules and regulation.



Review and certification of submissions to the

Contract, Asset and Procurement Committee (CAP) and Advisory Committee on

Procurement (ACP).



Management of procurement contracts and, upon

delegation of responsibility, performing the functions of Manager Level 1 in

Atlas for Purchase orders approval.



Implementation of the internal control system

which ensures that Purchase orders are duly prepared and dispatched. Timely

corrective actions on POs with budget check errors and other problems.



Preparation of cost-recovery bills in Atlas for

procurement services provided by UNDP to other Agencies.



Implementation of harmonized procurement

services, analysis of requirements and elaboration of proposals on common

services expansion in the UN House, introduction of joint procurement for the

UN Agencies in line with the UN reform.



e-procurement tools focusing on achievement of the following results: Ensures introduction and implementation of sourcing strategy ande-procurement tools focusing on achievement of the following results:



Development and management of the rosters of

suppliers, elaboration of supplier selection and evaluation, quality and

performance measurement mechanisms.



Management of e-procurement module.



CO focusing on achievement of the following results: Ensures facilitation of knowledge building and knowledge sharing in theCO focusing on achievement of the following results:



Organization of trainings for the operations/

projects staff on Procurement.



Synthesis of lessons learnt and best practices

in Procurement.



Sound contributions to knowledge networks and

communities of practice.











Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:



The ideal applicant for the United Nations UNDP

Procurement Officer job placement should hold a Masters Degree or equivalent

in Business Administration, Public Administration, Finance, Economics or related

field.



At least two years experience at the national

or international level in procurement management.



Computer literacy i.e. Experience in the usage

of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc) and advance

knowledge of web based management systems.

Core Competencies:



Demonstrating/safeguarding ethics and integrity



Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound

judgment



Self-development, initiative-taking



Acting as a team player and facilitating team

work



Facilitating and encouraging open communication

in the team, communicating effectively



Creating synergies through self-control



Managing conflict



Learning and sharing knowledge and encourage the

learning of others. Promoting learning and knowledge management/sharing is the

responsibility of each staff member.



Informed and transparent decision making

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender,

nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups

and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications

will be treated with the strictest confidence.

How to Apply:

All suitably qualified and interested candidates who so desire to join

the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, in the aforementioned capacity

should endeavor to Apply Online by Clicking on the link below. Please further

review job requirements and if competent Click Apply Now.

th November

2017 Deadline: 8November2017
Patnaik's close aides say that to understand him, one has to understand his empathy

By Pratul Sharma/Photos Sanjay Ahlawat
India's stock markets extended gains and hit new record high on Friday, driven by strong buying across select bluechip stocks like State Bank of India, Tata Motors, Larsen and Toubro, and ONGC. US President Donald Trump picking Jerome Powell as the new Federal Reserve chairperson also weighed on sentiments as his appointment signals there will be a continuation of the cautious monetary policy stance adopted by outgoing chief Janet Yellen.

The BSE Sensex hit a a fresh life high of 33,733.71 before closing at 33,685.56, up by 112 points or 0.3 per cent. The broader NSE Nifty50 index rose 29 points or 0.3 per cent to end at 10,452.50.

Over the week, the Sensex gained 1.6 per cent, while the Nifty rose 1.3 per cent.

Continued strong domestic mutual fund flows and foreign institutional investors also buying into equities again from October, has primarily driven the rally in India's equity markets.

FIIs who sold around Rs 24,000 crore worth equity over August and September, have re-emerged as net buyers, investing Rs 3,055 crore in October and Rs 987 crore in the first three days of November, taking their total investments so far in 2017 to Rs 38,394 crore.

Sentiments particularly improved after the government unveiled a huge Rs 2.11 lakh crore bank recapitalisation plan last week, apart from a huge infrastructure push.

But, corporate earnings so far this quarter have remained mixed, worrying some analysts.

"The torrent of liquidity is simply unabating. The party will continue till the inflows continue. However, the earnings growth remains tepid and unless earnings recover, liquidity may not be alone able to drive markets for long," feels Ajay Bodke, CEO and chief portfolio manager at Prabhudas Lilladher.

SBI, the country's largest lender, was the biggest gainer on November 3; the stock surged 3.2 per cent after it cut lending rates. The bank is also expected get a sizeable chunk of the government's PSB recapitalisation plan.

Among other major gainers, Tata Motors rose 3 per cent, while ONGC, L&T and Axis Bank gained about 2 per cent.

Coal India, Sun Pharma and Power Grid were among the losers; all dropping around 2 per cent.

Economic data this week has been mixed. The core sector growth hit a six-month high of 5.2 per cent in September. Services activity also grew for the second straight month in October. However, India's manufacturing PMI (purchasing managers index) declined to 50.3 in October from 51.2 in September as the Goods and Services Tax and price hikes that have followed in some segments, weighed.

Looking ahead in the coming week, investors will continue to track corporate earnings. Several major auto companies like Ashok Leyland, Bharat Forge, Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra will report quarterly earnings in the coming week. Nestle India, SBI and Pfizer are among other key companies that will announce their results as well.

Bodke of PL expects the consumer focused sectors like auto, non-banking finance companies, retail, to continue to do well, while the performance of metal firms has also picked up year-on-year, he pointed.
In a letter submitted before the Kerala state home secretary, actor Dileep, who was accused of plotting an attack against a fellow actress, sought a CBI probe, claiming that evidence was fabricated to trap him. In the 12-page letter, Dileep said that he did not know Pulsar Suni, the first accused who waylaid and attacked the actress in a moving car on the night of February 17.

According to Dileep, Kerala police chief Loknath Behera and ADGP Sandhya played a role in ensuring his arrest.

The complaints and evidences that he gave the police when the main accused Suni tried to contact him were ignored, he claimed. "The stand taken by the DGP and ADGP are suspicious. Therefore, the investigation should be given to honest officers who are not part of the current probe or by another agency such as the CBI, he said in his letter.
When Belgium's King Philippe and Queen Mathilda arrive on a state visit to India from November 5 to 11, cooperation in the field of innovation will be the key area of focus, Belgian Ambassador to India Jan Luykx said.

"With the global challenges confronting the world like climate change and also the SDGs (the UN's Sustainable Development Goals) that have to be implemented, you need innovative projects for all sectors of society and of the economy," said Luykx in an interview.

"Now, nobody does it on their own, you do this in cooperation between countries worldwide. You also do it bilaterally," he said.

"That is why the programme of this state visit, which comprises several seminars, is focused on innovative technologies."

According to a statement issued by the Belgian Embassy ahead of the royal visit, Belgium possesses unique assets and innovative technologies, going from novel sectors such as nanotechnology or biotech, and innovative processes in clean technology, to the more traditional sectors such as food processing, glass production and heavy industries.

There will be representatives of 86 companies and 13 academic and scientific organisations accompanying the royal couple in the state visit and dozens of agreements are expected to be signed in the fields of trade and academic relations.

Ambassador Luykx said that there will be two seminars held in New Delhione on innovative technologies in cement industries and the other on innovative technologies in the food sector.

"In Mumbai, there is the clean tech seminar for smart cities. It is all about green technologies, green energy, waste water treatment," he said.

Stating that bilateral trade between India and Belgium is around 12 billion euros yearly, he noted that diamonds form an important part of this.

"I think out of the 12 billion euros, about eight billion euros is Belgium's exports to India and four billion euros is Indian exports to Belgium," Luykx said.

"Out of that eight billion euros of Belgian exports to India, 80 per cent is diamonds. Some other important sectors are chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and engineering products."

The ambassador said that there are around 170 to 180 Belgian companies active in India and quite a number of them are producing not only for the Indian market but also for exports. In this connection, he mentioned a company called Barco based in Noida that makes big display screens and equipment for projecting films and videos in movie halls.

"As as far as Smart Cities are concerned, for example, there is a Belgian company called Tractebel," Luykx said.

"They are a consultancy engineering company and the main consultants for three smart cities coming up in India," he said.

"And then we have a company called Vito that has developed technologies, especially for waste water treatment. There are already some pilot projects running in India."

Asked whether the King's visit will help in the forward movement for a free trade agreement between India and the European Union (EU) with Belgium's capital Brussels being the EU headquarters, the Ambassador said that his country was definitely interested in such an agreement "as soon as possible", but it was for the EU to decide on the talks for this.

A Broad-based Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) between India and the EU has been hanging fire for 11 years now despite 16 rounds of negotiations.

In the India-EU Summit held here last month, it was only decided that the talks would resume when all conditions were met.

While pointing out that the King is coming on a bilateral state visit and this will remain the focus, Luykx said: "Whatever else, it is clear that our message will also be that we want good and strong relations between India and the EU in all fields because whatever is good for the relationship between EU and India is automatically good for Belgium."

After arriving here on November 5, the royal couple will visit the Taj Mahal the next day.

On November 7, there will be a ceremonial welcome for the royal couple following which the King will hold a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Later in the evening, the King and Queen will call on President Ram Nath Kovind, who will host a state banquet in their honour.

The royal couple will leave for Mumbai on November 9 and, after attending the programmes planned there, will depart from India on November 11. This will be the third state visit by a Belgian king, with the previous ones happening in 1970 and 2008.

-IANS
Private hospitals in Karnataka will shut their outpatient departments on Friday to protest against the state government's move to implement the Karnataka Private Medical Establishments (Amendment) Bill 2017. Around 50,000 doctors in the state will abstain from duties as a token of protest against the KPME Bill, which is scheduled to be tabled in the assembly next week.

The bill is considered to be part of the government's move to tighten its grip over private hospitals. It allows the government to fix the rates for different types of treatments and services including consultation, investigations, surgery, implants, ventilation and intensive care. Private hospitals and clinics which charge more than what is fixed by the state government, could be liable to a penalty of not less than Rs 25, 000 which could be extended to Rs 5 lakh and imprisonment for not less than six months which may extended for up to three years.

Private hospitals in the states have termed the bill as ''draconian'. Dr Devi Shetty, chairman, Narayana Health, Bengaluru exhorted private hospitals in the state to close their OPDs on Friday as a mark of protest. Let the government and the people know that we are very sad and upset. We expect them to help us, he said.

Today whenever there is a malpractice litigation, we are investigated by the Consumer Court, State Medical Council, Indian Medical Council, Civil Court, Criminal Court and many other agencies. Our government in the state of Karnataka wants to come up with one more body to investigate any cases of malpractice litigation against us. That is not the tragedy. The tragedy is for the first time in the history of the country, we are not able to represent ourselves by a lawyer. Even terrorist Kasab was allowed to be represented by a lawyer by the government, he added.

However, there are people out there who think the bill is a much-needed one. Rishabh Mehta (name changed) who works with IDFC bank in Bengaluru is all for it. Mehta had back pain since last week and he went to a reputed private hospital in Bengaluru for a checkup. He was prescribed an x-ray. The doctor had a thorough look at his reports and told him that his back pain was caused by a congenital anomaly. He was asked to get a Magnetic Resonance Imaging(MRI) scan done. It would cost him Rs 13,000.

Mehta then went to a hospital close to his office on Residency road for a second opinion. While waiting for his turn in the OP, he figured out the hospital charges just Rs 6,500 for the MRI. By the time he met the doctor, he was mentally prepared to get the scan done. The doctor examined him, went through his reports and told him that he didn't have any anomalies as mentioned in the X-ray report. He didn't need the scan at all. All that the doctor prescribed him was some exercise.

Mehta got a third opinion from another doctor. He just asked him to stay active and move around more often.
The death toll in the NTPC plant explosion climbed to 29 as on Thursday as nine people, including a top officer of the corporation, died during treatment. Meanwhile, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders, who visited the accident site on Thursday, demanded a judicial probe into the incident.

Union Power Minister R.K. Singh also arrived at the site to oversee relief measures in what is one of the worst tragedies at a power plant in recent history, and even came face to face with Rahul Gandhi at one point.

Singh announced Rs 20 lakh ex-gratia for the next of kin of those killed in the accident at the Unchahar plant in Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli.

The Centre also ordered a probe by the NTPC's executive director into the incident, while the state administration ordered a magisterial probe.

"Twenty-nine people have succumbed to injuries and 85 were being treated at hospitals in Rae Bareli and Lucknow," the NTPC said in an official release.

Among the deceased was Assistant General Manager (AGM) at NTPC's Unchahar power plant Sanjeev Kumar Sharma, who died at a private hospital in Lucknow.

"Sanjeev Kumar Sharma died around 6 pm in spite of best efforts by doctors," said his college mate and secretary of vocational education and skill development of Uttar Pradesh Bhuvnesh Kumar said.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took a break from campaigning in poll-bound Gujarat and met the victims and their families.

The Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency is represented by his mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

His office tweeted, "Labourers have said that the accident took place due to negligence and that there should be a judicial probe into the accident."

"I was sad to see the pain of victims of the NTPC incident and their families should get better compensation and government jobs, while the injured should get all possible help," the Congress vice-president said.

Rahul Gandhi was accompanied by senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and UP Congress chief Raj Babbar. Azad claimed that a judicial inquiry was important as in the case of a probe by a government agency, facts could be concealed.

Uttar Pradesh Energy Minister Shrikant Sharma tweeted, "The Centre has constituted a committee to probe the accident. The committee headed by executive director of NTPC will submit its report in 30 days."

During his visit to the site, Rahul Gandhi was heard making enquiries about the number of workers deputed at the plant.

"People are saying that it (the plant unit) was run early (before schedule). It should not have been run that way. We will demand a probe," he told reporters.

Union Power minister Singh announced a compensation amount of Rs 20 lakh to the next of kin of those killed observing that the earlier ex-gratia was not enough.

"I am of the view that the ex-gratia which was earlier announced was not enough. Rs 20 lakh compensation will be given to the next of kin of those who died in the accident, while the seriously injured will get Rs 10 lakh and those who sustained minor injuries will be given Rs 2 lakh," he told reporters.

This amount is in addition to the compensation provided under the workmen compensation rules, he said.

In addition, Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved an ex-gratia payment of Rs 2 lakh each for the families of the deceased.

"Prime Minister @narendramodi has approved an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh each for the next of kin of those who have lost their lives due to the accident at the NTPC plant in Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh. PM has approved Rs 50,000 each for those injured due to the accident," the prime minister's office said on Twitter.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who is abroad on an official tour, has also announced Rs 2 lakh compensation for the families of those killed and Rs 50,000 for the grievously injured besides Rs 25,000 for the other injured workers.

The opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) demanded a probe by a retired high court judge into the boiler explosion.

The families of the deceased should be given Rs 50 lakh as compensation, while those injured should get Rs 10 lakh, senior SP leader Ahmed Hasan said.

Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma, who visited the accident site, said, "Our priority at this point in time is that proper treatment should be ensured to the injured persons. We stand by the families of those dead in their hour of grief. Teams of NTPC and NDRF have already arrived here."

Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued a notice to the UP government over the blast.

Expressing concern, the commission in a statement said that a "high-level probe into the matter is immediately required to ascertain the negligence and errors, if any, behind the incident, which involves the right to life".

It said there was need to ensure that such tragedies do not recur. A detailed report is expected from the government within six weeks, the rights panel said.

The NTPC in an official release said that Unit No. 6 (500 MW) of the plant was shut down after the accident. However, five other units of 1,050 MW capacity were operating normally.

The 1,550-MW plant supplies electricity to nine states, according to officials, and employs around 870 people.

This evening, two middle-aged men, who suffered serious burns, were brought to Delhi and admitted to Safdarjung Hospital, doctors said.

More people, who have suffered grievous injuries in the blast, are likely to be brought for treatment at the hospital as well the AIIMS, a senior official of the health ministry said.

All necessary arrangements have been made at the AIIMS trauma centre and the Safdurjung hospital "as directed by the Union health minister", the official said.

Union Health Minister J P Nadda is in regular touch with the state authorities, he said.

Union Minister of State for Health Anupriya Patel visited Safdarjung Hospital tonight to oversee and ensure that the injured get the best treatment and care.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will visit Myanmar to push for an end to the violence that has plagued the country's Rakhine state resulting is the mass exodus of the Rohingya Muslim minority, the State Department announced.



He will visit the country's capital, Nay Pyi Taw, where he will meet with "senior leaders and officials on actions to address the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State", according to the announcement made on November 2, and will express US support for the country's recent democratic transition.



The visit will take place on November 15, as Tillerson wraps up a 10-day trip across Asia with President Donald Trump.



A State Department spokesperson told CNN that Tillerson will use his visit to "urge leaders to establish conditions under which Rohingya can return to Rakhine in a fully safe and voluntary manner".



Tillerson has been increasingly vocal in condemning attacks on Myanmar's minority Rohingya Muslims.



Speaking at an event this week, he said the US was "extraordinarily concerned" about the situation, urging the country's military leaders to show restraint.



"What's most important to us is that the world can't just stand idly by and be witness to the atrocities that are being reported in the area," he said.



The UN estimates that some 603,000 Rohingya have fled across the border into neighbouring Bangladesh since August 25, when an attack on security forces in Rakhine triggered the widespread violence, CNN reported.



UN Human Rights Chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein has referred to the plight of the Rohingya as "textbook ethnic cleansing".



The State Department is currently reviewing whether the situation meets the legal definition of ethnic cleansing.



In recent weeks, Tillerson has spoken by phone with Myanmar's de-facto civilian leader, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, and the head of the military, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.
US President Donald Trump will tell leaders on a five-nation Asia tour the world is running out of time on North Koreas nuclear crisis and that he will give his strategy to isolate Pyongyang a few months before making adjustments, a top aide said on Thursday.

Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. It will be the longest Asia tour by an American president in more than 25 years.

His goal will be to increase international support for an effort to deprive North Korea of resources as leverage to coerce it to give up nuclear weapons.

The president recognises that were running out of time (to deal with North Korea) and will ask all nations to do more, White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters at a briefing.

As part of the U.S. effort to push China, North Koreas neighbour and main trading partner, to put more pressure on Pyongyang, the US Treasury issued a formal ruling on Thursday cutting off from the U.S. financial system a Chinese bank it accused of laundering money for North Korean concerns.

In June, the Treasury Department declared the Bank of Dandong a primary money laundering concern for serving as a gateway for North Korea to access the U.S. and international financial systems despite U.S. and U.N. sanctions.

South Koreas spy agency told lawmakers on November 2 that North Korea may be planning a new missile test, after brisk activity was spotted at its research facilities.

Read more: Mattis says US cant accept nuclear North Korea



The U.S. military is keeping a close eye on North Korea, which conducted its last missile test on September 15 and its sixth and largest nuclear test on September 3.

Two Guam-based U.S. B-1B bombers flew through South Korean airspace and over the countrys Pilsung Range in an exercise on November 2, the US Air Force said.

The bilateral continuous bomber presence mission was planned in advance ... and was not in response to any current event, the Air Force said in a statement.

Dead end

McMaster said Trump would urge countries with the most influence over Pyongyang to convince its leaders that the pursuit of nuclear weapons is a dead end and that it must denuclearize.

And he will remind friend and foe alike that the United States stands ready to defend itself and our allies using the full range of our capabilities, said McMaster.

Read more: Xi Jinping writes to Kim Jong-un, urges stable ties



China will be perhaps Trumps most critical stop in Asia. There he will ask Chinese President Xi Jinping to do more to rein in North Korea. Senior US officials say China considers North Korea a strategic asset and is reluctant to cut off resources to Pyongyang for fear of triggering a refugee wave.

McMaster said Trump, who has approved a variety of sanctions against North Korea, is at the beginning of his drive for Pyongyang to give up nuclear weapons. Trump has warned he would totally destroy North Korea if it threatened the United States or its allies.

I think we have to be a little patient here for at least a few months to see what more we and others can do, including China, said McMaster. I dont think we need to reassess our strategy now. I think we have to give it a couple of months, a few months, and then see what adjustments we might need to make.

Trump is expected to press Xi to reduce oil exports to North Korea and coal imports from Pyongyang and limit financial transactions. The Chinese leader is newly ascendant after consolidating power at a Communist Party congress.

 Reuters
Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine, who built a cruise ship media company worth hundreds of millions of dollars, entered Floridas Democratic primary for governor Wednesday, joining an already crowded field hoping to replace outgoing Republican Gov. Rick Scott.

Levine evoked the memories of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. with large murals showing their images. He quoted King, saying, The time is always right to do what is right, during his 15 minute speech to several hundred supporters in Miamis Wynwood Design District.

Its long past time to say weve had enough of the political bickering and posturing, enough of the calculated words of hate, enough of those who would tear us down and tear us apart just to score a political point, Levine said. Theyve had their turn. Today belongs to us.

Levine has been building toward the announcement for months, hiring a team of political advisers and touring the state to meet with Democrats and others. He even did a five-day bus trip around Florida for SiriusXM to highlight the states lifestyle and attractions.

Levine grew up in the Brookline, Massachusetts, neighborhood where Kennedy was born and attended the same elementary school that Kennedy did. He moved to Florida when he was 10.

Levine, 55, entered politics for the first time when he spent $2 million of his own money to win the 2013 mayors race. He has already given his political committee more than $2.6 million and raised another $2 million in donations.

Levine built his fortune off a marketing company that began with $500 in capital in a Miami Beach studio apartment and expanded to provide in-cabin magazines and television content for cruise lines. It had $400 million in annual revenue when he sold it in 2000. He is now CEO of a similar company that provides media for Royal Caribbean International.

He occasionally delivered lines in Spanish during the speech. He also criticized President Donald Trumps relief effort after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. Levine charted a plane to the island to deliver supplies.

When the President finally showed up, he descended on the people there with rolls of paper towels, and a boatload of criticism, Levine said. So as Washington politicians pointed fingers at each other, I pointed a cargo plane, filled with life-saving supplies, to San Juan.

He also said climate change will be a priority. Miami Beach recently began a $100 million flood prevention program to address rising sea levels. Some of the citys roads have flooded during high tides even without a storm.

Its time to address climate change by changing Tallahassees climate of denial, he said. I will make Florida an international leader, not just in climate change and sea level rise, but also in solar and renewable energy.

Levine is a longtime friend of former President Bill Clinton, who endorsed him in the mayors race. Hes seen as a moderate who has called for Democrats and Republicans to work together.

He told reporters he doesnt see himself simply as a Democratic politician.

I dont think people vote for party and I dont think they vote for policy. They vote for the person. If someone has a history of getting things done, thats who they vote for, he said.

Former Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas praised Levines leadership style.

Hes taken on issues that other politicians run away from, like climate change, Penelas said. Philip practices a kind of politics that has almost become extinct, and thats the politics of inclusion. He believes in equal opportunity for everyone.

Levine joins former U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum and Orlando-area businessman Chris King in the Democratic primary.

Republicans seeking the seat Scott is leaving due to term limits include Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam and state Sen. Jack Latvala.

(AP)
The CIAs release of documents seized during the 2011 raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden appears to bolster U.S. claims that Iran supported the extremist network leading up to the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

U.S. intelligence officials and prosecutors have long said Iran formed loose ties to the terror organization from 1991 on, something noted in a 19-page al-Qaida report in Arabic that was included in the release of some 47,000 other documents by the CIA.

For its part, Iran has long denied any involvement with al-Qaida. However, the report included in the CIA document dump shows how bin Laden, a Sunni extremist from Irans archrival Saudi Arabia, could look across the Muslim worlds religious divide to partner with the Mideasts Shiite power to target his ultimate enemy, the United States.

Anyone who wants to strike America, Iran is ready to support him and help him with their frank and clear rhetoric, the report reads.

The Associated Press examined a copy of the report released by the Long War Journal, a publication backed by the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank fiercely critical of Iran and skeptical of its nuclear deal with world powers. The CIA gave the Long War Journal early access to the material.

The material also included never-before-seen video of bin Ladens son Hamza, who may be groomed to take over al-Qaida, getting married. It offers the first public look at Hamza bin Laden as an adult. Until now, the public has only seen childhood pictures of him.

The release comes as President Donald Trump has refused to recertify Irans nuclear deal with world powers and faces domestic pressure at home over investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The 19-page report included in the CIA release was available online Wednesday. The CIA later issued a warning about the files on its website, saying that since the material was seized from a terrorist organization  there is no absolute guarantee that all malware has been removed. The CIA then took down the files entirely early Thursday, saying they were temporarily unavailable pending resolution of a technical issue.

We are working to make the material available again as soon as possible, the CIA said.

The unsigned 19-page report is dated in the Islamic calendar year 1428  2007  and offers what appears to be a history of al-Qaidas relationship with Iran. It says Iran offered al-Qaida fighters money and arms and everything they need, and offered them training in Hezbollah camps in Lebanon, in return for striking American interests in Saudi Arabia.

This coincides with an account offered by the U.S. governments 9/11 Commission, which said Iranian officials met with al-Qaida leaders in Sudan in either 1991 or early 1992. The commission said al-Qaida militants later received training in Lebanon from the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which Iran backs to this day.

U.S. prosecutors also said al-Qaida had the backing of Iran and Hezbollah in their 1998 indictment of bin Laden following the al-Qaida truck bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.

Al-Qaidas apparent siding with Iran may seem surprising today, given the enmity Sunni extremists like those of the Islamic State group have for Shiites.

But bin Laden had run out of options by 1991  the one-time fighter against the Soviets in Afghanistan had fallen out with Saudi Arabia over his opposition to the ultraconservative kingdom hosting U.S. troops during the Gulf War. Meanwhile, Iran had become increasingly nervous about Americas growing military expansion in the Mideast.

The relationship between al-Qaida and Iran demonstrated that the Sunni-Shiite divisions did not necessarily pose an insurmountable barrier to cooperation in terrorist operations, the 9/11 Commission report would later say.

Before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New Yorks World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, Iran would allow al-Qaida militants to pass through its borders without receiving stamps in their passports or with visas gotten ahead of time at its consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, according to the 19-page report. That helped the organizations Saudi members avoid suspicion. They also had contact with Iranian intelligence agents, according to the report.

This also matches with U.S. knowledge. Eight of the 10 so-called muscle hijackers on Sept. 11  those who kept passengers under control on the hijacked flights  passed through Iran before arriving in the United States, according to the 9/11 Commission.

However, the commission found no evidence that Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack.

For its part, Iran has denied having any relationship with al-Qaida since the 1998 attacks on the embassies. Iran quietly offered the U.S. assistance after the Sept. 11 attacks, though relations would sour following President George W. Bush naming it to his axis of evil in 2002.

On Thursday, Irans semi-official Fars news agency, which is close to the hard-line paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, dismissed the CIA documents as a project against Tehran.

The 19-page report describes Iranians later putting al-Qaida leaders and members under house arrest sometime after the Sept. 11 attacks. It mentions the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, saying it put increasing pressure on Iran, especially with the rise of al-Qaida in Iraq.

They decided to keep our brothers as a card, the report said.

That would come true in in 2015 as Iran reportedly exchanged some al-Qaida leaders for one of its diplomats held in Yemen by the terror groups local branch. While Yemen described it as a captive exchange, Tehran instead called it a difficult and complicated special operation to secure the Iranian diplomats freedom from the hands of terrorists.

The repercussions  of the Sept. 11 attacks were undoubtedly very large and perhaps above (our) imagination, the al-Qaida report said.

(AP)
Christopher Bailey is quitting Burberry after almost nine years

Exit Mr Nice Guy. Talk to anyone in fashion and theyll tell you Christopher Bailey doesnt have any enemies.

You can believe it just by looking at him. Those cherubic cheeks, that tousled blond hair  his cheeky smile alone could turn prospective mothers-in-law to jelly.

British designers, such as Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, were a rude and unlovable bunch, but here was someone who always seemed too polite, too well-rounded, almost too, well, decent, for the scorpion-infested world of fashion.

Which made this weeks announcement that he would be departing Burberry  the once fusty heritage brand he transformed into British fashions most glamorous export  appear all the more tragic.

But while fashionistas wept into their beautifully tailored trench coats, hardened City observers recognised that his departure had been a long while coming.

For Baileys last eight years serve as an Aesop-like fable of ego, power and reckless over-indulgence.

His turnaround job at Burberry is well-documented. When Bailey arrived 16 years ago  via spells at DKNY and a not particularly happy spell at Gucci, it was a dowdy label favoured by retired colonels and outdoorsy types. Bailey injected some impish glamour into its designs.

Catwalk shows became global events. Gorgeous ad campaigns featuring Sienna Miller and Eddie Redmayne were launched, which were unashamedly British.

In 2002 the company went public and  following an unfortunate chav interlude  landed in the FTSE 100 in 2009.

By now creative director, there was no doubting Baileys talent. But much of his success was achieved under the stewardship of Angela Ahrendts, a brilliant operator with the business nous to sell his designs.

When she departed for Apple in 2014, chairman John Peace panicked. Worried he might soon lose the second half of the brands dynamic partnership, he allowed Bailey, with zero boardroom experience, to become her successor.

Shareholders were rightly nervous. It was like Barcelona making their mercurial playmaker Lionel Messi player-manager-cum-president.

Beauty and the chief: Christopher Bailey with actress Kate Beckinsale and model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

Predictably, the share price began to sour, as did earnings  pre-tax profits fell over the next three years, from 444.6million in 2015 to 394.8million for the most recent period.

While Bailey was still happy to take his creative bow at catwalk shows, he went AWOL when the results came in, never once facing City journalists to explain the slump.

His rewards, however, were stratospheric. In 2015 he was paid 8million, putting him on par with the boss of HSBC, which included a ludicrous 440,000 clothing allowance.

The quiet boy from Yorkshire, where he still keeps a home with his husband, Old Etonian actor Simon Woods, and their two daughters, had begun to look like one of fashions prima donnas.

The beginning of the end came last year when Peace recruited Marco Gobbetti, a smooth-talking Italian with a proven executive record at Celine, to replace Bailey as chief executive. The sell was that Bailey would concentrate on his creative role while Gobbetti would look after the bottom line.

To soften the blow, Bailey was made president, a patronising honorific usually reserved for ageing company dignitaries.

To the fury of shareholders, he was also allowed to keep the same salary. The merry charade was palpable nonsense, of course.

A new boss will always want his own people and, with Burberry struggling to achieve the profit margins being made by rivals LVMH, many feel the brand is crying out for a creative overhaul.

When Gobbetti made soothing noises about the future at Julys AGM, the once golden boy of British tailoring sat silently in the background  for the first time in his dazzling career finding himself in a position where no one in this notoriously fickle business can ever afford to be. He was out of fashion.
Apple shares roared in after-hours trading last night after bosses predicted the new iPhone would trigger a 67bn sales bonanza.

The worlds most valuable company soared 3.4 per cent on the back of fourth-quarter results  pushing its market capitalisation beyond the $900bn mark (689bn).

In figures that smashed Wall Street expectations, Apple revealed sales of 40.3bn for the three months to September 30. This was 12 per cent up on the same period last year.

On the up: The worlds most valuable company soared 3.4 per cent on the back of fourth-quarter results

It sold 46.7m iPhones  more than 500,000 a day  and also made more money per phone than previously. And business in China looked to have finally turned around, with sales up 12 per cent after six quarters of decline.

Most significantly, it said the new iPhone X was set to propel it to record quarterly earnings. From October to January, Apple said it expected to rake in between 64.3bn and 66.7bn overall.

Tim Cook, the tech giants chief executive, said: Were happy to report a very strong finish to a great fiscal 2017, with record fourth-quarter revenue, year-over-year growth for all our product categories, and our best quarter ever for services.

With fantastic new products joining our line-up, were looking forward to a great holiday season, and with the launch of iPhone X getting under way right now, we couldnt be more excited as we begin to deliver our vision for the future. Apples forward guidance was being watched more closely than ever because of the unusual release of its latest handsets. Products usually debut in September and are released soon after, giving analysts a chance to gauge sales from the first weeks.

This time, Apple announced the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X together, but only the iPhone 8 was available within weeks. The X, set to cost 999, is due for release today.

Analysts predicted many gadget-lovers would hold out for the iPhone X because of its superior features, with mobile operators in the US and Canada reporting slow uptake of the iPhone 8.

Whereas the former includes only incremental improvements, such as a faster chip, wireless charging and more storage, the latter has upgrades such as an improved screen and camera, and facial recognition.

Demand is likely to outstrip supply, with Apple saying some deliveries would take five or six weeks. It has also launched other new products, including a new Apple Watch which can be used to make phone calls, a thinner and lighter MacBook and the Apple TV 4K, which it hopes can compete with Googles Chromecast and Amazons Fire TV.

It came as the US firm faced a fresh salvo in its long-running series of legal disputes with chipmaker Qualcomm.

In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday, Qualcomm alleged Apple used its commercial leverage to demand unprecedented access to the chipmakers confidential software, including source code.

Apple started using Intels broadband modem chips in the iPhone 7. It was reported this week that Apple could drop Qualcomms chips from its iPhones and iPads next year.
PAIR JAILED Two fraudsters have been jailed for stealing 7.5million from 193 vulnerable and elderly people by selling them worthless land.

Drew Hales, 32, and James Byrne, 59, worked for a business called Paramount Land which persuaded victims to hand over their life savings.

They were locked up respectively for four years and three months, and 18 months.

OIL FLOAT Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaskas EN+ has set its IPO at $14 per share  the lower end of its guidance.

The power-to-aluminium company wants to raise around 750million at a valuation of around 6billion, to help pay down debt.

It will be the first IPO by a Russian company in London since Moscows annexation of Crimea, which triggered sanctions from the West.

REVENUE RISES Surging sales across its luxury division helped boost cosmetics giant LOreal.

Sales grew 5.1 per cent in the three months to the end of September to 5.4billion  driven by sales in the luxury division which was up 11.2 per cent.

PROFITS SOAR The owner of the New York Stock Exchange made a 427.6million profit in the three months to September 30  up 21 per cent on a year earlier.

Bosses at Intercontinental Exchange launched a 919million share buyback offer for investors.

SOVERIGN CASH Singapores sovereign wealth fund is investing 90million in business lender Oaknorth in exchange for a 10 per cent stake.

The bank last month raised 154million from The Clermont Group, Toscafund and Coltrane.

TECH INVESTMENT Currency business Transferwise has raised 214million from investors including Silicon Valley venture capital firm IVP  an early backer of tech titans Netflix, Twitter and Snap.

LICENCE BID Pre-paid card company Cashplus is seeking a banking licence from the Financial Conduct Authority to boost its profits.
Aaftab Ameen Poonwala, who has been arrested by Delhi Police for killing his live-in partner Shraddha Walker, told the authorities that he had tried to kill her before but changed his mind after she became emotional and started crying. Sources told India Today that on that day too, Aaftab and Shraddha had an argument surrounding the topic of marriage. He further told the police that Shraddha would get angry with him whenever he talked to someone as she doubted his intentions and the two would often quarrel about this too. Aaftab killed Shraddha on May 18, chopped her body parts into 35 pieces and threw them away in Mehrauli forest area over a period of 18 days. The police are still searching for Shraddha's head.
PARENTS of students enrolled at the Swaziland Christian University (SCU) will no doubt be relieved that His Majesty the King has ordered the re-opening of the institution following its unceremonious shut-down by the Ministry of Education.

This follows a visit to the King by Members of Parliament who had tried unsuccessfully to have the Education Minister Phineas Magagula reopen the university while its challenges were being addressed.

We thank His Majesty for his wise decision as we look forward to an amicable solution to the crisis that has engulfed the institution over the past several months. The ministry had closed the university in August, acting on the instruction of the Swaziland Higher Education Council (SHEC), which serves as a regulator of tertiary institutions.

The regulator allegedly found that SCU lacked accreditation to the University of Pretoria as per its claim, had poor physical infrastructure in the laboratories and lacked prescribed books in the library, among other concerns.

This list was not convincing to warrant a closure in my books. A postponement of a graduation perhaps, but not a complete shutdown.

The country has numerous tertiary institutions with worse problems and this act was clearly vindictive given the history between the Education minister and the administration of SCU. Magagula was a founding member of SCU and he helped facilitate the funding agreement with government.

However differences emerged and they parted ways. The rest, as we all know, is history. Sadly, a lot of time has been lost, lecturers have gone unpaid and some students now suspect criminals following the arson attack on a house belonging to ICT Minister Dumsani Ndlangamandla at Mahwalala.



As we anticipate the reopening of SCU, we need to look at the bigger picture. In fact, an Education Indaba is necessary if we are to address the challenges facing our education system from grassroots to tertiary level. We cannot ignore the fact that all our institutions are facing one crisis or another which ultimately affects the quality of the certificates students come out with.



The underfunding of our education is the main undoing. Our University of Swaziland has resorted to forming a company to invest in money making ventures to supplement the government subvention that has been dwindling over the years. Government has found itself having to distribute funding to new universities and the situation is not about to get better anytime soon.



Over the past two months His Majesty has blessed the upgrading of two training institutions to university status. These are the Ngwane Teacher Training College and Matsapha Police Academy, both of which will be offering Degrees come next year.

This is a welcome development for the country that had, for decades, only one university. However, we are all aware of the huge cost implications for government in providing the necessary resources to facilitate effective delivery of the qualifications now on offer.

The immediate expense becomes the infrastructure, learning materials, scholarships and staff salaries among a host of other requirements. Looking at the ability of government to deliver effectively on these obligations with the institutions it currently supports, one is sceptical about the prospects of the new universities.



Government priority spending appears to be focused on raising the wage bill and widening the tax base in an economy that is without any new investments to create the necessary employment opportunities. Security forces, which enjoy the second biggest slice of the national budget allocation, have benefitted the most with hundreds of people being recruited, much against a need for a peaceful country.



As a result, government is currently faced with a close to E400 million cash-flow shortfall after receiving its Southern African Customs Union (SACU) receipts in the last quarter and a multimillion public debt that has left hundreds of businesses unpaid for months. There have been no indications of a fiscal adjustment plan to normalise the situation as wanton spending continues without remorse.

This at the expense of effective health service delivery that has suffered drug shortages across the country. Now it has to contend with a salary increase demand from public servants who were recently hypocritically told they were being offered zero per cent, only for government to secretly award its senior employees with a hefty adjustment.



With these challenges, how then do we secure enough funding for tertiary education? The scholarship recovery is well under way but its success lies in the availability of jobs for the graduates. Once all the money has been collected from those currently owing, then what?

We cannot afford to grow the number of tertiary institutions ahead of governments ability to sustain them all because that would be simply creating more structures with a potential of violence when students cant get their allowances on time, lack books and facilities, etc. The King can only do so much and we have a responsibility to ensure that we do no set him up to fail his people. He, just like all of us, wants quality education for his people, not quantity.




MBABANE  The proposed Road Traffic Fines are too high and as a result, there is a call to slash some of them.



This was one of the findings of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport Portfolio Committee of the House of Assembly, which is chaired by Mhlangatane MP Mbalekelwa Ndwandwe.



As a result, Ndwandwe tabled a report in the House on Wednesday proposing an amendment of the fines.

For example, one of the proposed amendments was that the fine for an unlicensed driver be dropped to E1 000 from the initial E2 000.

The committee has also proposed that the E1 500 which had been recommended for people who run a red traffic light, be reduced to E500. Currently a majority of traffic fines are E60.



The committee said it was their finding that the fines had not been reviewed since 2007 and that the regulations had taken too long to be tabled in Parliament.

Ndwandwes committee recommended that there should be a review of the traffic fines periodically.



The committee recommend that the regulations should be effected within six months of the adoption of the report, said Ndwandwe.

The report is yet to be debated and adopted by the Members of Parliament (MPs).

It suggested that the fines needed to be reduced so that the general public would be able to cope with payments. The MPs were also of the view that the E1 500, which had been proposed for the payment of failing to give way to Their Majesties, should be reduced to E500.



However, some of the MPs have agreed with the ministrys amendments in certain proposed fines.








MBABANE  The role of pastors is to provide counseling and protect people among others; however, Pastor Ndoda Mavimbela is accused of threatening to shoot and burn occupants of a Dlamini homestead.



The occupants include Khanyisile Simelane, children and a couple, Sibusiso Dlamini and Ntombi Ginindza who live at the same homestead.



As a result of the animosity, Khanyisile and the couple have since run to court seeking a peace binding order.

Stating their side of the story before Mbabane Magistrate Sifiso Vilakati, the couple informed the court that Mavimbela was abusive to them to the extent that they had since reported him to the police.



They said Mavimbela had on several occasions threatened to shoot the children he found within the Dlamini homestead.

The duo told the court that the man of God, who was against their stay at the Dlamini homestead, also threatened to burn them inside their houses.

He ordered me to remove all my belongings from the Dlamini homestead, stating that he would burn my house if I failed to do so, said Ginindza.



Dlamini informed the court that Mavimbela, who allegedly had a tendency of insulting him, threatened to shoot and burn him.

However, when stating his side of the story, Mavimbela told the court that the duo had nothing to do with the homestead in question since it belonged to the Mavimbelas instead of Dlaminis. He said he did not understand the duos interest in the matter.



I never threatened to shoot anybody but I warned them to beware of the dogs because I felt they were trespassing, Mavimbela said.

After listening to both parties, Vilakati issued an order that Mavimbela was interdicted and restrained from threatening Khanyisile Simelane and the couple with force and violence. The pastor was ordered to keep and maintain peace with Simelane and all the occupants of the Dlamini homestead.
LOBAMBA - Education and Training Minister Phineas Magagula was yesterday politely kicked out of the House of Assembly.



This was after Magagula attempted to deliver a ministerial statement on the issue of the reopening of the Swaziland Christian University (SCU).



Speaker Themba Msibi first told the House that he had advised the minister against making the statement particularly because he had mentioned things to the effect that the students should only come register at the institution next Monday.



Lobamba Lomdzala MP Marwick Khumalo said there was no way that they would debate the issue especially because they had already addressed it on Wednesday.



Nkhaba MP Menzi Dlamini said just yesterday, they had hailed the King for his wisdom and wondered what else the minister could add.

Minister of Public Service Owen Nxumalo attempted to ask his colleagues to allow Magagula to address the House, but he too was shot down.

If any talks should be made they should be on radio or on other media forums, but not in this House, said Khubuta MP Njabulo Mabuza.



Akasifake ekhikhini nje lestatement sakhe ahambe naso, said Mabuza which is loosely translated; the minister should just put the statement in his pocket and leave with it.



He added that maybe the minister could tell them at a later stage about the statement. Manzini North MP Jan Sithole said the statement was inadmissible. How can he come here and tell us about something of the last? wondered Sithole.



He said if anything, the minister should have tabled the reports on the progress being made at the institution.


MBABANE  A visit by a deputy sheriff and top lawyer to a businessmans home turned nasty leading to the latter getting injured and left with a fractured arm.



The businessman, Vusumuzi Shongwe, who runs a tombstone business, allegedly got injured on his left hand when he got involved in a scuffle with the deputy sheriffs team, which was in the company of a top lawyer.

Shongwe is the same man who made headlines when he handed his son over to the police after he had been implicated in a robbery incident that took place at Hhelehhele.



He handed him over driving his Harley Davidson motorbike.

Shongwe, who had to be stitched and treated in hospital, alleged that he received a call from his receptionist who informed him that there were people from a security company who had come to see him.



Since I was already on my way to the office, I told her that I was going to be there soonest, Shongwe said in an interview with this newspaper.



He alleged that upon arrival, two gentlemen came out of his office, one of them being the lawyer.

They introduced themselves with the other man saying he was a deputy sheriff and that they had come to attach his property in relation to a debt he had with a security company.



I asked him to show me a letter of appointment and his ID as a deputy sheriff. After I had asked for that, the attorney went to a white Isuzu twin cab which had about five men and a lady. From the car he came back with two papers, one of them was a notice of attachment from the High Court, Shongwe alleged.
By PTI: New Delhi, Nov 3 (PTI) Over 1,350 families, who were living at Kathputli Colony here, have been shifted by the DDA to a transit camp, from February 2014 to June this year, the urban body said today.

The shifting of families have been carried out as part of a redevelopment project for the artisans colony in West Delhis Shadipur area.

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Approximately 5.2 hectare land of the DDA near Shadipur Depot in west Delhi has been "under encroachment by jhuggi- dwellers for about 35-40 years". The settlement is known as Kathputli Colony, the DDA said in a statement.

"After notification of Master Plan of Delhi-2021 wherein in situ development of slum areas has been envisaged, tenders were floated for redevelopment of the area on a public private partnership (PPP) mode," it said.

An agreement was signed with a major private builder in September 2009 for the project, the housing authority said.

Shifting of families from the colony to the transit camp in Anand Parbat has been faced with resistance over the years.

"Shifting of these persons to the transit camp was started in February 2014 and by July, 2014, 527 families had been shifted," the DDA said.

Afterwards, the DDA said, it approved recommencing the shifting process on November 18, 2016 and spot verification of eligible beneficiaries.

Till June 30 this year, 828 additional families have been shifted to the transit camp, taking the total number of them shifted to the camp to 1355, the DDA said.

"About one-third of the demolition work had been completed and about four acres of land reclaimed, it added.

Besides the transit camp, DDAs plan is to rehabilitate or resettle some of the illegally settled squatters in the area, in properly built EWS houses measuring about 30 sqm each, with full legal rights of ownership, the statement said.

"These EWS houses would be provided with amenities of one bed room, kitchen, toilet and a lobby," DDA said.

These additional eligible beneficiaries are being offered built-up EWS houses at Narela. The draw for allotment at Narela has been conducted on October 25, 2017 and the result of the draw has been uploaded on the DDAs website, it added. PTI KND DIP

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: Srinagar, Nov 3(PTI) Around 80 militants have been killed in south Kashmir in the past six months and around 115 ultras are still active in the region, of whom over a dozen were foreign terrorists, a top Army official has said.

"There are around 115 militants in south Kashmir and out of them, 99 are local and 15-16 are foreign terrorists. The actions that we have taken in past 6-7 months, we have neutralised nearly 80 terrorists including top leadership.

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"...as soon as the number of terrorists decreases, the situation will improve," General Officer Commanding of the Armys Victor Force, Major General B S Raju, told reporters.

Asked about the killing of a BJP youth leader in Shopian yesterday, Major General Raju said these were "acts of desperation" by the militants.

"Two to three such incidents have taken place in the recent past. We are given to believe that these are acts of desperation by the terrorists.

"They are not able to make any concerted action against the security forces. So they are looking at weaker targets and I am given to believe that police are taking necessary action against the perpetrators of these crimes," he said.

He said the Army and other security agencies would continue to take all necessary actions against the militants so that the people of south Kashmir could live in peace.

"The situation in south Kashmir is much better. Stone pelting and random acts initiated by terrorists have also decreased. As the winter season sets in, our actions would be more effective and peace shall return," he added.

On the Jaish-e-Mohammad militants in south kashmir, Major General Raju said the process of neutralisation of the Jaish cadre has already begun.

"We intend to act particularly against the Jaish".

On fresh recruitment among the militant ranks, he said that it was definitely a cause for concern.

"A lot of stakeholders need to work in a concerted manner to ensure that new recruitment is put in check. I would put the onus on the parents to ensure that they are able to take care of their children and I would put the onus on village elders, to the Moulvis in the villages and towns to ensure that they get right message across to the young people," he added.

He said teachers and principals of schools and colleges also have a role to play.

"The security forces have to ensure that they conduct operations in such a manner that would not alienate the population and the youth," he added. PTI MIJ SMN SMN

--- ENDS ---

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Albany

Four years into a law to encourage the state to buy more local,fresh food from its farmers, it remains murky as to how much of the state's $1 billion annual food budget is being spent locally.

This week, a report by the state's oldest public health academy and a not-for-profit farm advocacy group estimated it could be about 10 percent, but noted that data could not be found for major buyers like the state university system, public hospitals, and the state health Department and Office of the Aging.

That followed a September audit by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, whose office found two annual state reports on the issue in 2015 and 2016 fell "well short of identifying all applicable state food purchases," a finding that was disputed by the agencies responsible for the reports  the state Department of Agriculture and Markets, and Office of General Services.

Both agencies on Friday said the state is doing more than ever to promote state purchase of local food.

In 2013, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the Food Metrics Law, which was meant to track state food purchases and encourage more buying from local farmers. Each year, the state provides food to help feed about 6.6 million people, including local school and university students, children, the elderly, hospital patients, prisoners, people who use food pantries, and the poor.

The law was also meant to encourage state agencies to provide these people with healthier, fresher food produced in the state.

This week, a report examining publicly-available state data was able to track about half of the state's food spending, and estimated the overall share being spent on food from New York's farmers at about 10 percent, said David Haight, state director for American Farmland Trust, the report's co-sponsor.

That included more than 13 percent of food spending in state prisons, 11 percent in local schools, and about 6 percent for both state emergency food assistance and at the state Office of Mental Health.

Haight said the state should push to increase overall spending to 25 percent, which the report said could boost the state's agricultural economy by $200 million. "But, this won't happen by accident. Institutions must look at where their food comes from and take action to buy more that is grown in New York," he added.

He called for changes to the 2013 law to distinguish "between fresh foods grown and raised in New York and those that are only processed in the state." Currently, foods are considered state products if they have been grown, harvested, produced, or processed in the state.

The report was also supported by the New York Academy of Medicine, a 170-year-old public health advocacy group, as well as the not-for-profits Dash NY and Farm To Institution.

The report's lead author, Kimberly Libman, the academy's director of prevention and community development, said boosting spending on "fresh and minimally processed food grown and raised in New York would achieve three important goals: promoting health equity, environmental sustainability, and economic growth."

When DiNapoli released his audit, he said "implementation of the program needed improvement," because state agencies had not not been issued guidelines on how to buy more local food and some were lax in tracking purchases.

After state auditors questioned the missing guidelines this spring, OGS and Ag and Markets issued the paperwork. DiNapoli said those changes ought to produce "increased business from the state" for local farmers.

In a July response to DiNapoli, General Services Commissioner RoAnn Destito said there had been "significant improvement in the tracking and reporting of information over the past 18 months."

The press office at OGS issued a statement: "OGS has worked diligently to ensure that opportunities to purchase locally produced products are included on our centralized food contracts."

Under state "centralized contracts" totaling about $41.5 million in 2016, about 17 percent  or$7 million  was spent on New York state food products, the statement continued.

OGS also touted that New York was one of eight states chosen by the U.S. Agriculture Department to take part in a pilot program to supply fruits and vegetables to schoolchildren. That program currently has 25 vendors supplying 238 schools with $3.5 million of fresh fruits and vegetables annually.

The state Farm Bureau, which represents the New York's multi-billion dollar agriculture industry, helped support the American Farmland Trust/Academy of Medicine report.

"If the Comptroller feels that the reporting wasn't accurate, that is concerning," said Farm Bureau spokesman Steve Ammerman.

"But his report also details how (the two agencies) have responded in a positive manner ... We are hopeful that everything is moving in the right direction because New York state and its leaders have consistently stressed its importance," he said.

In response to a Times Union inquiry, the Agriculture and Markets press office issued a statement: "Under this administration, New York state has never done more to encourage local procurement by state agencies ... the department has also established a procurement workgroup, held multiple local procurement training seminars statewide, and created and distributed a local procurement toolkit."
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Attorneys for the company co-founded by film mogul Harvey Weinstein told a judge Thursday they want to depose him in a lawsuit he filed seeking his employment file and emails.

Weinstein says he needs the records from The Weinstein Co. Holdings to defend himself in potential civil and criminal cases, and to help the company respond to a civil rights investigation by New York's attorney general.

An attorney for the company told a Delaware judge that Weinstein needs to be deposed to determine his true purpose in demanding the documents, which she suggested is purely personal and thus not allowed under Delaware corporation law.

The judge said Weinstein could be deposed, even though his attorney said a deposition would be "tricky" and "fraught with problems," given ongoing criminal investigations into multiple allegations of rape and sexual assault against him. The attorney said Weinstein's ability to testify would be limited without waiving his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

The judge said he would hold a January hearing to decide whether Weinstein's demand for corporate records should be granted.

 Associated Press

Prince Jackson hurt in traffic accident

Michael Jackson's son Prince was involved in a traffic accident Thursday that left him briefly hospitalized, according to his rep.

A statement from his representative said the 20-year-old was headed to his college when he got into an accident with another vehicle. He was taken to the hospital after suffering a knee injury and "multiple lacerations" but was released.

Prince Michael is the eldest of Jackson's three children. He attends Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

 Associated Press

Snoop Dogg album image removed

An album cover image posted to Snoop Dogg's Instagram account showing the rapper looking down on what appears to be the dead body of President Donald Trump has been removed from the platform.

The cover of the "Make America Crip Again" EP shows the rapper looking on as a body covered with a U.S. flag lies on a gurney with a toe tag reading "TRUMP." The image is a play on the cover for Ice Cube's 1991 album "Death Certificate."

The photo was shared by Snoop Dogg Tuesday and later removed.

Snoop Dogg drew a rebuke from Trump on Twitter in March after releasing a music video in which he pointed a toy gun at a clown dressed like the president and pulled the trigger.

 Associated Press

Settlement pending in Ventura's case

Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura and the estate of "American Sniper" author Chris Kyle are apparently working toward a settlement in Ventura's yearslong defamation case.

Ventura sued Kyle in 2012 after Kyle, a retired Navy SEAL, published his autobiography in which he wrote that he punched a man for making derogatory remarks about SEALs, then-President George W. Bush and the Iraq war.

The book referred to the man as "Scruff Face" and said the incident happened in a California bar in 2006. In subsequent interviews with national media, Kyle said "Scruff Face" was Ventura, who served with the SEALs during the Vietnam War.

Ventura denied the allegation, saying the incident was fabricated, and he sued Kyle for defamation. "American Sniper" became a bestseller and was turned into a movie, which didn't mention the Ventura incident.

Kyle was killed in an unrelated incident in 2013, but Ventura continued his suit against the Kyle estate. A federal jury in Minnesota awarded Ventura $1.8 million in 2014, but that verdict was overturned last year on appeal.

Ventura previously said he'd seek a new trial.

 Associated Press

Justice Sotomayor working on 3 books

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has a crowded book publishing schedule.

Sotomayor is working on three books for young people, Penguin Random House told The Associated Press on Thursday. She will be adapting her best-selling memoir "My Beloved World" for middle-graders. She will collaborate with illustrator Lulu Delacre on a picture-book autobiography about important books for her, "Turning Pages." And she and illustrator Rafael Lopez plan a picture book about "childhood differences." The two memoirs are scheduled for next fall. The book about childhood differences is expected in 2019.

 Associated Press
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TROY - Debra Napoli Oquendo has already lost her 21-year-old daughter, whose lifeless body was found in a suitcase in the Hudson River in 2015.

Now she's been subpoenaed to testify at the murder trial of the man charged with her only child's murder. The man is her former husband.

And because she is a future possible witness, she is not permitted to watch the trial of Johnny Oquendo, 40, in Rensselaer County Court.

"I am devastated," Debra Napoli Oquendo told the Times Union as she sat, crying, on a bench outside the courtroom of state Supreme Court Justice Andrew Ceresia.

Prosecutors allege that on Nov. 22, 2015, Oquendo used a plastic shopping bag to strangle Noel Alkaramla in his third-floor apartment at 170 Third St., stuffed her remains in a suitcase and dragged it to the river where he dumped it. The suitcase was found on the Albany side of the river on Dec. 30, 2015.

Police charged Oquendo with the murder.

"I have been waiting and fighting for two years hand in hand with the DA and everyone for justice for my daughter Noel," she said. "And for me to have to go through, first of all losing my only child to a horrific crime but then by the man who was my husband and to do what he did to my child, and then to get in here be subpoenaed as a witness..."

The mother was subpoenaed to appear by Assistant Public Defender William Roberts, attorney for Oquendo.

"Based upon the facts of this case, it is believed that she possesses relevant information that may be introduced at trial," Roberts told the Times Union.

Debra Napoli Oquendo is livid that she cannot watch the case before her testimony.

"This is my daughter," she said. "I birthed her. I raised her. And I buried her."

On Tuesday, Roberts told the jury in his opening statement that although Alkaramla worked at Verdile's restaurant in Lansingburgh as a hostess, she lived a seedier existence and dealt in drugs and prostitution.

Semen found in the victim was matched to Oquendo. Roberts contends Oquendo and his stepdaughter had a casual sexual relationship.

Alkaramla's mother, who noted her former husband is a convicted sex offender, was angered by what she saw as the defense's character assassination of her daughter.

"They turned her into a horrific person - and she was murdered," the mother said. "What about him?

"Why are you turning my belated daughter into a person that she was not? Everyone has issues in life, but my daughter was a beautiful person. So she's not the one to be slandered."

On Friday afternoon, Assistant District Attorney Andrew Botts called an earlier witness, Troy police Capt. Brian Owens, and played portions of surveillance video that allegedly shows Oquendo carrying the suitcase from his apartment to the river.

The trial continues Monday at 9:15 a.m.
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ALBANY  Children in the Mansion neighborhood didn't have to travel far for candy and enjoyment this Halloween after community members came together to organize a "Nightmare on Elm Street" block party  a name apropos to the street that runs through it.

The neighborhood, running east and south of the Empire State Plaza, is part of the larger South End district, a part of Albany too often associated with crime and poverty. According to data compiled by the Capital District Regional Planning Commission, 5,771 city residents younger than 18 lived in poverty in Albany.

"I know outsiders think our neighborhood is scary or unsafe, but it's actually a hidden gem," said Mary Elise Rees, a Mansion-area homeowner who helped organize the event with her family and friend and neighbor Regina Blakemore. "There is a real community here, and it's getting stronger."

For kids from economically challenged households, Halloween and other holidays can bring more stress than fun. "For some it may just be an economic thing  the means to purchase costumes and candy to hand out  or the parents may have to work at night," Rees said.

Rees' brother, who goes by the name Dan Asylum, headed the planning and organization of the party.

"I just wanted to go back to what Halloween used to be, when the community came together to enjoy," said Asylum, a school custodian who also books hardcore and punk bands at local music clubs who has lived in the Mansion neighborhood for more than a decade.

"For an urban neighborhood, it's one of the friendlier placer I've lived," he said.

Asylum and his mother, Carol Schaefer Bolam, acquired permits for the block party and were able to close down a portion of Elm Street. The bean bag toss, ring toss and swimming pool filled with hay and ping-pong balls decorated like eyeballs for a "needle in the haystack" challenge were hits among children, who received candy each time they tried a game or activity. Asylum's aunt dressed as a fortune teller.

At the party's peak about 200 people were in attendance, Asylum estimated. For younger members of the neighborhoods' growing Burmese community, it was their first experience of Halloween.

He said he spent about $1,000 of his own money, which included booking the touring band Ukulele Hunt from California, and secured sponsorship from Lucky Cat Laundromat, Price Chopper, Stewart's Shops, ShopRite, and Dave & Busters.

Excelsior Pub, a New York State-focused bar on nearby Philip Street, was another sponsor.

"There's definitely, in the South End, some kind of red flag that goes up. But honestly ... it's a very block-by-block city," says pub owner Jason Bowers.

He worried that community celebrations like Halloween are under threat.

Bowers worried that developments like "trunk or treating"  where kids collect candy in a parking lot  or going trick or treating at the mall tend to diminish the fun. "It's not the same Norman Rockwell wholesomeness," he said.

Asylum hopes to turn the party into an annual event.

"I think it's the aspect of community and the spirit of fun," Asylum said. "People worried if it's going to be safe. If you put in the effort it can be very safe."

Deanna Fox is a freelance journalist.
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TROY  The campaign to become the next Rensselaer County executive became more personal moving into the final days before Tuesday's election as the Democratic and Republican candidates sat shoulder to shoulder in a televised debate Thursday.

Democrat Andrea Smyth attacked Republican Assemblyman Steven McLaughlins character and ability to lead as a result of recordings of heated conversations between him and a top female aide. Smyth has featured the recordings in radio ads that have aired in the final weeks of the campaign.

The recordings came into the debate sponsored by Spectrum News when Capital Tonight host Liz Benjamin and anchor Solomon Syed questioned the two candidates about sexual harassment, which has jumped into the national discussion with revelations about Hollywood producer Harvey Weinsteins behavior and that of other men in Hollywood, politics and the media.

Ive been shocked as Ive gone door-to-door about how often voters have raised the issue of my opponents horrible abuse of his female staff, said Smyth, who continues to assert it shows McLaughlin is unfit to lead the county.

Smyth said she is responding to the voters comments on their doorsteps despite attempts to speak about her qualifications and program for improving the county.

Said McLaughlin: I understand why my opponent, who is failing and flailing around in her campaign and has really offered no alternatives to make peoples lives better, would do this. The politics of personal destruction are not what people want to talk about.

The issue is two or three months old and voters want to talk about making their lives better, McLaughlin said. The fact is it happened and I apologized and moved on.

McLaughlin said this issue was raised in the Republican and Conservative primaries, which he won, defeating Deputy County Executive Christopher Meyer. McLaughlin also turned his focus on Gov. Andrew Cuomo and former President Bill Clinton and Democratic president candidate Hillary Clinton saying they hadnt return Weinsteins donations.

The two are running to succeed retiring Republican County Executive Kathleen Jimino, who decided not to seek a fifth four-year term in the $121,300 post.

McLaughlin has raised $132,057 and spent $88,814 through the course of the primary and general elections, according to campaign finance records. Smyth has raised $72,093 and spent $61,830.

McLaughlins campaign saw its financial backing jump after the primary as it raised more than $78,000 after the county Republican establishment threw its support behind him.

The Republican leadership also maneuvered to get the Independence and Reform lines for McLaughlin by having Meyer nominated to run for Grafton town justice. This allowed the parties to swing their endorsement to McLaughlin giving him the two additional lines on Tuesday's ballot. The Independence line is considered vital for a Republican to have running for countywide office. The Democrats have an enrollment edge over the Republicans.

Smyth of Rensselaer appears on the Democratic, Working Families and Womens Equality Party lines. Wayne Foy of Troy is the Green Party candidate.

The rest of the debate and the campaign have turned on dealing with water quality issues in Hoosick Falls; making the county more appealing for business development; dealing with social services spending; improving public safety and leadership for the county of 159,429 residents.
WASHINGTON - As the name implies, the GOP ``Tax Cuts & Jobs Act adheres to the deeply held Republican-conservative position that tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy create jobs.
By PTI: programme: Report

New Delhi, Nov 3 (PTI) Lives of more than 90,000 children aged below five years can be saved annually, if India scales up its vaccination programme against pneumonia and diarrhoea, according to a report by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The report noted that although India has made a considerable improvement since last year, a major intervention through an intensive vaccination programme can save so many lives and over a billion dollars every year.

advertisement

The report further stated, since last year, India has increased its performance by seven points, mainly owing to its vaccination coverage of "measles vaccine, Haemophilus influenzae type B vaccine, three doses of diphtheria tetanus and pertussis vaccine, and rotavirus vaccine" during the period.

"India could save over one billion US dollars each year in economic benefits and avert more than 90,000 needless child deaths each year by introducing and scaling up coverage of vaccination programs targeting pneumonia and diarrhoea," the report said.

The study, conducted by the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) of the Hopkins Bloomberg School, was released today ahead of World Pneumonia Day on November 12.

The study was done for 15 countries which are "disproportionately responsible" for global child deaths under five years from pneumonia and diarrhoea.

Although these countries form 55 per cent of the global population together, they contribute as much as 77 per cent to the total global deaths of young children from the two diseases.

The countries which were part of the study are Tanzania, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Ethiopia, Somalia, Angola, Chad and Sudan from Africa and India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and China from Asia. PTI PLB SMN

--- ENDS ---
WASHINGTON - House Republicans took the wraps off their long-anticipated tax bill, revealing a few attempts to appease GOP lawmakers from New York and other high-tax states concerned about the proposed elimination of state and local tax deductions.

The bill stopped short of total repeal of the SALT deduction, which dates back to the Civil War. Instead, it proposed capping property-tax deductions at $10,000.

But it gets rid of deductions for state income taxes, a blow to New Yorkers who pay between 4 percent and 8.82 percent of annual income to Albany. It also eliminates deductions for sales taxes.

Any Republican "who thinks this compromise is going to help them doesnt understand how politics works, said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer on the Senate floor. "Its not what it couldve been."

Karlin, Rick

Republican Reps. Elise Stefanik of Willsboro and John Faso of Kinderhook took a wait-and-see approach, praising aspects of the bill but expressing reservations over cutting the state income-tax deduction. Their support ultimately may be crucial to the chances of the GOP bill, described as the most far-reaching tax overhaul in decades.

The GOP measure, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, is "a starting point that needs to be improved," Stefanik said in a prepared statement. "I will be working with my colleagues in the New York delegation to improve this plan to provide real tax relief for New Yorkers and to address the issue of state and local tax deductions.

In a statement, Faso said: "I remain concerned about the elimination of the deduction for state income taxes and will continue to advocate for such a policy (to) ensure this plan works for New York middle class families.

President Donald Trump and Republican House leaders on Capitol Hill extolled the plan as a boon for the middle class.

"We are giving them a big beautiful Christmas present in the form of a tremendous tax cut, Trump told reporters at the White House. "It will be the biggest cut in the history of our country. It will also be tax reform, and it will create jobs.

A Republican summary of the plan said it would give a typical family of four with an annual income of $59,000 a $1,182 tax cut.

Much of the back and forth on taxes Thursday ranged over familiar terrain: Whether cutting taxes would spur growth, investment and jobs (and thereby generate more tax revenue) or blow a hole in the deficit and line the pockets of CEOs, investors and Wall Street high-rollers with no trickle-down to workers?

The plans basic elements include reduction of the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, collapsing the income brackets from seven to four, doubling the standard deduction to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for married couples, and repealing the alternative minimum tax that guarantees the wealthy pay some taxes. In addition, child-care credits would enhanced and "pass-through tax deductions would be set at 25 percent on a portion of business income declared on personal taxes instead of a higher individual income rate.

Some of the plans highlights are aimed at mollifying the critics. Among them:

No changes to pretax treatment of popular 401(k) retirement plans, which had been the source of much anxiety for lawmakers fearful of negative voter reaction.

Restoration of a 39.6 percent top rate for married couples earning over $1 million.

Extending the repeal date of the estate tax. Instead of immediate repeal, GOP plan doubles the level where the tax kicks in to $11 million and phases it out in six years.

The plan also includes changes that might ultimately prove problematic:

Elimination of deductions for taxpayers with high medical expenses as well for as a tax credit aimed at those over 65 on disability.

Capping the mortgage interest deduction at $500,000 for new loans. Previous outlines of the plan suggested this popular deduction would remain unchanged. It hits hard in states such as New York where home prices are relatively higher.

Doubling the standard deduction. Charities might suffer if fewer people itemize because of the doubling of the standard deduction.

Eliminating interest deductions on student loans, which would be a financial hardship for those attending colleges or universities.

An array of business and real estate leaders in New York said they could not support the GOP plan.

Business Council President and CEO Heather Briccetti urged the state congressional delegation to fight to ensure the final bill keeps (the state and local tax deduction) in place, while at the same time making much-needed reforms to our nations antiquated tax code.

Changes to deductions for mortgage interest and for state and local property taxes would be devastating to homeowners, to the middle class, and to all New Yorkers, said Lewis Dubuque, executive vice president of the New York State Builders Association.

He said the proposed mortgage-interest deduction limit for loans of $500,000 or less would "collapse the real estate market in higher-priced markets like Long Island as well as the Capital Region.

Our initial read of the House tax proposal released today is that it will harm many New York homeowners, said New York State Association of Realtors CEO Duncan R. MacKenzie. It will lessen the value of the property tax deduction and it cuts a host of other key housing-related tax incentives.

Michael P. Durant, state director of National Federation of Independent Business, said the group opposes the proposal as well. He referred to a statement from national NFIB President and CEO Juanita Duggan, who said the bill leaves too many small businesses behind. We are concerned that the pass-through provision does not help most small businesses.

In a New York City news conference, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said it was "a heck of a coincidence that the plan appears to fall harder on blue states such as New York.

"It has a diabolical dimension, he said. "I think they're trying to rush the plan through before people understand what that means.

Trump told Republican lawmakers he wanted the bill on his desk before Thanksgiving. That would represent a significant win for Republicans in a year that has brought them little to cheer about legislatively.

But GOP lawmakers faces a steep climb to offset the $1.5 trillion over a decade that this measure would cost. Without enough offsets to cover the gap, Republicans could face a maneuver by Democrats in the Senate to require 60 votes for passage, which would doom it because Republicans have only 52 votes and virtually all Democrats are opposed.

Such a battle would put the Senates two master tacticians, Schumer and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell against each other in a chess game of wits.

Matt Hamilton and Eric Anderson contributed
It is easy to ignore the recent story of four U.S. servicemen killed in Niger, the giant state in central Africa, because the place is so remote and the circumstances still so murky. That would be a mistake. Niger highlights a much larger problem  just how foolish, how flat-out dumb President Donald Trump is behaving.

Trump is a person who doesn't connect dots  even when they're big, fat polka dots that are hard to miss. Rather, he thinks inside narrow little boxes built from his own simplistic impulses and applause lines  and that tendency is leading us into a web of contradictions abroad. Niger is a perfect example.

I know something about Niger, because I did a documentary there last year for National Geographic's "Years of Living Dangerously" climate series and wrote several columns about it for The New York Times. To understand why groups affiliated with the Islamic State and al-Qaida are popping up in that region of central Africa, you have to connect a lot of dots and recognize the linkages between a number of different problems  not just say, in effect: There are bad guys there. I will call "my generals." They will kill them. I will take credit.

As defense systems expert Lin Wells once put it: To ameliorate problems in places like Niger, you must never think in the box. You must never think out of the box. "You must always think without a box."

Why? Because what is destabilizing all of these countries in the Sahel region of Africa and spawning terrorist groups is a cocktail of climate change, desertification  as the Sahara creeps south  population explosions and misgovernance.

Desertification is the trigger, and climate change and population explosions are the amplifiers. The result is a widening collapse of small-scale farming all over Africa. And that collapse is leading to a rising tide of "economic migrants, interethnic conflicts and extremism," Monique Barbut, who heads the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification and guided me in Niger, explained.

A few numbers: Niger, with rampant poverty and poor access to contraception, has one of the highest birthrates in the world: 7.6 children per woman. Neighboring Nigeria is growing so fast it will replace the U.S. as the third-most-populous country in the world by 2050. Nigeria is a third bigger than Texas.

Meanwhile, climate change in the region is so severe that nearby Senegal's national weather bureau says that from 1950 to 2015, the average temperature there rose two degrees Celsius and the average annual rainfall declined by about 2 inches. The Paris climate accord was designed to keep global average temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by 2100.

Parts of sub-Saharan Africa are already at heat levels that Paris was supposed to prevent by the end of the century  and the region is heading for a 4-degree rise, which will lead to the collapse of even more small farms and to a mad scramble of refugees toward Europe, competition for food and more unemployed males ready to join ISIS for $50 a month.

Barbut reinforced her point by showing me three maps of Africa with dots concentrated in the middle of the continent. Map No. 1: the most vulnerable regions of desertification in 2008. Map No. 2: conflicts and food riots in 2007 and 2008. Map No. 3: terrorist attacks in 2012. The dots of all three maps cluster around Niger and its neighbors. Hello?

And what is Trump's response? It's to focus solely on using the U.S. military to kill terrorists in Africa while offering a budget that eliminates U.S. support for global contraception programs; appointing climate-change deniers to all key environmental posts; pushing coal over clean energy; and curbing U.S. government climate research.

In short, he's sending soldiers to fight a problem that is clearly being exacerbated by climate and population, while eliminating our tools to mitigate these trends.

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.

That evinces no ability to connect the dots or think without a box.

But this is not only in Africa: Trump was obsessed with defeating ISIS in Syria and Iraq. The only way he could do that was by allying with Iran, Syria's regime, Russia, pro-Iranian Shiite militias and pro-U.S. Kurds, who were the main anti-ISIS forces.

We've distanced ourselves from the Kurds, moved to tear up the nuclear deal with Iran and added U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a country we also can't stabilize without the tacit help of Iran.

Nothing Trump ever says has a second paragraph. His whole shtick is just a first paragraph: Build a wall, tear up the Iran deal, tear up TPP, defeat ISIS, send troops to Niger and Afghanistan to kill terrorists, kill climate policy, kill family planning, cut taxes, raise military spending. Every box just marks an applause line he needed somewhere to get elected. Nothing connects  and we will pay for that.

Thomas L. Friedman writes for The New York Times.
[November 03, 2017] Orthodontic Services Market in China - Direct and Online Sales to Boost Growth | Technavio

Technavio market research analysts forecast the orthodontic services market in China to grow at a CAGR of more than 16% during the forecast period, according to their latest report. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171103005772/en/ Technavio has published a new report on the orthodontic services market in China from 2017-2021. (Graphic: Business Wire) The market study covers the present scenario and growth prospects of the orthodontic services market in China for 2017-2021. The report also lists dental clinics and hospitals as the two main service channels, of which dental clinics accounted for close to 53% of the market share in 2016. This report is available at a USD 1,000 discount for a limited time only: View market snapshot before purchasing Buy 1 Technavio report and get the second for 50% off. Buy 2 Technavio reports and get the third for free. Technavio analysts highlight the following three market drivers that are contributing to the growth of the orthodontic services market in China: Direct and online sales for expansion

Increasing incidence of orthodontic and periodontal diseases

Rise in dental laboratories outsourcing orthodontic products Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the eport including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.



Direct and online sales for expansion Vendors in China adopt direct and online product sale strategies to remain competitive in the market. Direct sales help to outgrow the domestic revenue by increasing the overall market shares. Tier-1 companies that offer invisible orthodontic products are promoting direct product sales. The strategy does not involve distributors, which helps companies to offer products at lower prices. This leads to competitive product pricing and increases the implementation of orthodontic products. For instance, ALIGN TECHNOLOGY is promoting and targeting high direct sales in China.

"Many suppliers such as Yancheng Skyortho Supply in China are also offering invisible orthodontic products through online portals including Alibaba, eBay (News - Alert), and AliExpress. These online portals help to sell the products developed by local manufacturing companies such as Hangzhou DTC Medical Apparatus and American Orthodontics Shanghai. The online sales also help in cost reduction of the dental clinics and hospitals," says Srinivas Sashidhar, a lead analyst at Technavio for in-vitro diagnostics research. Increasing incidence of orthodontic and periodontal diseases Periodontal diseases such as bleeding in gums are prevalent among the adult and pediatric population. Smoking, inadequate oral hygiene, diabetes, and low awareness about dental health are major causes of periodontal diseases in people. In the country, insurance companies do not provide reimbursement for dental examination and treatment plans, which restricts most people from opting for them. However, many people in urban areas visit dental clinics due to the awareness about dental diseases and related services, which increases the demand for improved dental services. The rising geriatric population contributes to the increased demand for the use of dental implants, orthodontics (fixed and removable), and other dental services. Hence, the rise in the number of dental procedures is expected to have a positive impact on the growth of the market. Rise in dental laboratories outsourcing orthodontic products Rapid development and improvement in living standards has resulted in an increase in the disposable income of people in China, making high-quality oral treatment affordable for them. This led to the demand for various medical products, including invisible customized orthodontic devices. The number of dental clinics in the country is on the rise, increasing the demand for associated products. For instance, in 2014, Guangdong province in South China had more than 40 dental laboratories that use cutting-edge technologies and offer cost-effective services. "Companies in many developed countries such as the UK and the US outsource their orthodontic products to China to meet the associated rising demand. Along with cost-effective services, the cost of labor is also limited compared to the other countries. The government of China also conducts various dental exhibitions to attract foreign and domestic vendors to invest in orthodontics, which augurs well for the growth of the market," says Srinivas. Browse Related Reports: Global Paper Diagnostics Market 2017-2021

Global Sepsis Diagnostics Market 2017-2021

Global Circulating Tumor Cell (CTC) Diagnostics Market 2017-2021 About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at [email protected]. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171103005772/en/

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[November 02, 2017] Baron & Budd Helps Secure Settlements Totaling $1.25 Billion in Takata Airbag Class Action Litigation and Brings Attention to Improving Airbag Safety Standards

The national law firm of Baron & Budd announced today that it helped secure a $1.25 billion settlement in the Takata airbag class action litigation. In 2014, the firm filed the first class action lawsuit against the now bankrupt airbag manufacturer and seven major auto makers for their role in installing dangerous, defective airbags in vehicles and selling them to consumers without disclosing the defect. Separate cases were filed against Toyota, Mazda, Subaru and BMW; and Honda (News - Alert), Nissan and Ford. Recently, on September 5, the firm sought preliminary approval of settlements with Honda for $605 million and Nissan for $97 million which impacted more than 30 million vehicles. And, on November 1, 2017, the Court granted final approval of a $550 million settlement against Toyota, Mazda, Subaru and BMW which collectively have more than 15 million recalled cars. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a safety recall, which has now expanded to cover more than 40 million cars, trucks and SUVs. "My hope is that these cases will stand as a firm reminder to the auto industry that there are real consequences for placing short-term profits over consumer and vehicle safety standards," said Roland Tellis, head of the Consumer Class Action group at the national law firm of Baron & Budd. "On behalf of our entire Consumer Class Ation team, I can tell you we are incredibly proud of these settlements, because we think it sends a strong message about consumer and vehicle safety. Compensation can never recoup loss of life or other tragic outcomes that resulted from the Takata failures, but it helps consumers deal with the out-of-pocket expenses and inconvenience that resulted from the defective airbags that affected more than 40 million vehicle owners."



Millions of Takata airbags were found to be defective, after it was discovered that a design flaw caused the metal canister housing in the airbag to violently rupture during an accident. When a rupture occurred, metal pieces were projected into vehicle occupants, causing more than a dozen deaths and resulting in the largest consumer product recall in U.S. history. The class action cases alleged that in addition to installing defective airbags into millions of vehicles, Takata and the automakers concealed the defect from consumers in hopes of saving millions of dollars in recall costs. Baron & Budd's involvement in the litigation is led from the firm's offices in Los Angeles. In addition to Tellis, Baron & Budd attorneys Mark Pifko and David Fernandes were instrumental team members who helped to secure these settlements.

The settlements are designed to provide direct compensation to consumers and reimbursement of out-of-pocket costs incurred by consumers in dealing with the airbag recalls. The settlements also allocate funding to pay for free rental cars for owners of certain high-priority vehicles - classified as older vehicles driven in high humidity areas - who are waiting for a replacement airbag. The settlements also provide owners with a free extended warranty on the replacement airbags and will fund a state-of-the-art multi-media outreach program designed to reach class members and publicize the fact that the airbags are defective and should be replaced promptly. Baron & Budd is continuing to actively pursue litigation with Ford (News - Alert) related to defective Takata airbags. ABOUT BARON & BUDD, P.C. The law firm of Baron & Budd, P.C., with offices in Dallas, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Austin, Los Angeles and San Diego, is a nationally recognized law firm with a nearly 40-year history of "Protecting What's Right" for people, communities and businesses harmed by negligence. Baron & Budd's size and resources enable the firm to take on large and complex cases. The firm represents individuals and government and business entities in areas as diverse as dangerous pharmaceuticals and medical devices, environmental contamination, the Gulf oil spill, financial fraud, overtime violations, deceptive advertising, automotive defects, trucking accidents, nursing home abuse, and asbestos-related illnesses such as mesothelioma. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171102006892/en/

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By PTI: Hyderabad, Nov 3 (PTI) The city police today arrested six ABVP activists last night for allegedly vandalising the office of Narayana Junior College at Narayanaguda.

Narayana group of educational institutions are run by the kin of Andhra Pradesh Municipal Administration Minister P Narayana.

According to B Nagarjuna Reddy, sub-inspector of Narayanaguda Police Station, the activists ransacked the office of manager of Narayana group, alleging that he was harassing women employees and one of them allegedly committed suicide due to his "sexual and mental harassment".

advertisement

"We arrested the ABVP workers last night. They are being produced in the court today," the police official told PTI.

ABVP, in a statement called for a shutdown (bandh) of Narayana educational institutions today demanding the arrest of the concerned official.

The outfit demanded immediate release of their arrested leaders.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (central zone) Joel Davis said the ABVP activists also pelted atones at a police car prompting them to book a case under Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, against the agitators. PTI GDK RMT

--- ENDS ---
[November 03, 2017] Myntra Launches Handloom Brand 'Navibhu' at its 6th Annual Summit - Tech Threads

BENGALURU, November 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- - Navibhu unveiled by Hon. Minister for Textiles Smt. Smriti Irani - Showcases new technology innovations - Rapid as a Service and Myntra Mirror Myntra, India's leading platform for fashion and lifestyle today launched its own handloom brand 'Navibhu' with a view to tap the niche but expanding customer interest in the India Handloom Brand, promoted by Ministry of Textiles to support weavers and promote India's traditional handloom industry. The brand was unveiled at Myntra's 6th Annual Brand Summit - Tech Threads 2017 by Hon. Minister for Textiles Smt. Smriti Irani. Myntra will provide a platform for more than 250 styles of traditional hand woven sarees, dupattas and other handloom products for its customers. Tech Threads had delegates from over two hundred leading Indian and international brands come together to deliberate over how e-commerce is shaping the growth of fashion in India. The summit also served as a platform for Myntra to acknowledge its valued partners, recognize best performers, and announce new collaborations and customer-centric innovations. Speaking on the occasion, Hon. Minister for Textiles Smt. Smriti Irani, who launched 'Navibhu', said, "I wish Navibhu - a brand born with the richness of our culture and textile heritage - great success ahead. She underlined the rapid growth in sales ofniche India Handloom Brand products on e-commerce platforms which touched over Rs.260 cr. within two years. Over 900 production units have registered under India Handloom Brand providing a sourcing base for new e-commerce players in the sector." The Hon'ble Minister for Textiles also expressed happiness that M/s. Myntra also agreed to bear 25% of the cost of education of handloom weavers and their ward through National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) and Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).



Ananth Narayanan, CEO, Myntra & Jabong, said, " As a front runner in the fashion industry, we are proud to be part of the Government of India's initiative to preserve and rejuvenate our traditional handloom art forms. We continually strive to provide our customers and brand partners an enhanced customer experience. Our technology innovations, exclusive brand associations, omnichannel play as well as initiatives such as the brand accelerator program have helped us maintain a steady growth rate of 50% YOY and a leading market share of 40% along with Jabong." Myntra also showcased how it is leveraging technology to fuel its next phase of growth with the launch of two breakthrough technology innovations -Rapid as a Service and Myntra Mirror. Myntra has been using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to power the design of its fastest growing, most profitable private labels, Moda Rapido and Here&Now and will now extend this technology to other brands and retailers through a Software-as-a-Service model. Myntra Mirror is an artificial intelligence-based service set to revolutionise the customer-brand interface. The technology engages with customers and provides feedback regarding the customer's 'look' based on style, fit, brand and seasonality.

The summit also featured customer success stories and two fashion showcases by Navibhu and Splash by Lifestyle, with Bollywood star Esha Gupta as the showstopper. The evening ended with an award ceremony for the most innovative and best performing brands on Myntra. About Myntra: Myntra is India's leading platform for fashion brands and pioneer in m-commerce play. Myntra has partnered with over 2,000 leading fashion and lifestyle brands in the country such as Nike, Adidas, Puma, Levis, Wrangler, Arrow, Jealous 21, Diesel, CAT, Harley Davidson, Ferrari, Timberland, US Polo, Fabindia, Biba and many more to offer a wide range in latest branded fashion and lifestyle wear. Myntra services over 19,000 pin codes across the country. With the largest in-season product catalogue, 100% authentic products, Cash on Delivery and 30-day Exchange/Return policy, Myntra is today the preferred shopping destination in India. Media Contacts:

Myntra:

Priyanka Waghre

+91-9886729295

[email protected]

Torque Communications:

Richa Sheth

+91-9986241443

[email protected]





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[November 03, 2017] A Work of Bae Dong-shin, a World-Renowned Painter of South Korea, Sold for 1.5 Million Dollars at an eBay art auction

SEOUL, South Korea, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A palm-size work by Bae Dong-shin (1920-2008), a Korea-born world-renowned painter, was sold for 1.5 million dollars at an international art auction on eBay. The work sold at the auction led by The Korea SNS Journalist Federation had long been kept in Osaka, Japan. Its title is "Portrait of a Lady". A watercolor painting created in 1954 on paper of a very small size (13.4x21.4cm), it was sold to a Japanese collector.

As for the works by Bae Dong-shin, a nude painting which was 56x38cm, ten times as large as this one, was sold for 360,000 dollars to a Japanese collector around October 2014.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Art-Gallery-Watercolor-Portrait-of-Naked-Woman-Korean-Artist-DONG-SHIN-BAE-/281462483261





The recent sale of the work by Bae Dong-shin registered South Korea's highest price per ho, the size unit for Korean paintings. Further, it made Bae the first South Korean artist successively sold at eBay auction, a world-class online art market.



Meanwhile, according to BBC in July 2014, eBay signed with Sotheby for online auction operation.

http://m.bbc.com/news/business-28301139

Bae Dong-shin debuted as a painter into the Japanese art community as a full member of Jiyu Bijutsu Association in 1943 when he was selected for Jiyu Bijutsu Association Exhibition. Returned to Korea, his home country, Bae Dong-shin worked in Gwangju, his home town. And having upgraded watercolor, previously regarded as a study in Korea, to a legitimate genre of fine art, the painter was recognized in his country as the 'authority in Korean watercolor painting' when he was alive.

The specific eBay auction site below.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Art-Gallery-Watercolor-Portrait-of-Woman-Korean-Premier-Artist-DONG-SHIN-BAE-/192338233592 SOURCE The Korea SNS Journalist Federation

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[November 03, 2017] Starrise Media Announces New Stock Short Name, Company Logo, and Company Website

HONG KONG, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Starrise Media Holdings Limited ("Starrise Media", or the "Company", Stock Code: 1616.HK), formerly known as Silverman Holdings Limited, today announced that its Shares traded on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has been renamed from "SILVERMAN HL" to "STARRISE MEDIA" effective today (Friday, 3 November 2017). In addition, the Company's new logo alongside a new website (www.starrise.cn) has taken effect from 31 October 2017 to reflect the change of the Company's name. Following the disposal of the Company's textile business in July 2017, Starrise Media has focused its efforts on further developing its television and film media business. The Company believes that this complete rebranding will complete the transition process, and the new stock short name, company logo, and company website will better reflect the current status of the Company and its direction of future development. Starrise Media continues to see great growth opportunities in the television media business. "The Adoption", a 40-episode television series, produced and invested by Beijing Huasheng Taitong Media Ivestment Company Limited, a subsidiary of the Company, premiered on CCTV8 on 13 August of this year and won the "Gold Angel Award for Outstanding Chinese Television Play Series" at the twelfth Chinese American Film Festival; the shooting of "Qiao's Grand Courtyard 2" and "March in River City" was completed in the first half of the year and both are currently in the release phase; "Wudang Yijian" and "The Echoes of Xibaipo" were completed and are currently in the post-production phase. The aforementioned four dramas are expected to be broadcasted in the second half of the year to the first half of the next year.



The Company believes that these series will further enhance Starrise Media's competitiveness and brand name in the industry. The Company continues to be optimistic about the film, television and media industry in China, and will continue to explore opportunities in the industry to achieve better returns for shareholders and investors. About Starrise Media

Starrise Media Holdings Limited (1616.HK), listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2012, operates business in film, television and media industry in pursuit of new growth driver and aims to be the biggest film and television production company in China. In 2015, Starrise Media completed the acquisition of Beijing Huasheng Taitong Media Investment Company Limited, a domestic film and television production company led by Mr. Meng Fanyao, a National Top Ten TV Producer. Beijing Huasheng Taitong Media owns a production scale of over one hundred episodes per annum and has gained excellent production capacity, with premium television series including Qiao's Grand Courtyard, Mazu, and The Wild Duck, as well as its TV series ''Eastern Battlefield," a 66-episode history drama on Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. Meanwhile, Starrise Media owned Starrise Pictures, an emerging content producing platform aiming at young audiences, having works include a TV drama series ''The Unforgettable Years'', a youth web drama ''Goddess From the Future'', IP movie ''Li Lei and Han Meimei'', to further strengthen the Group's market coverage in the PRC media industry by new media forms such as web dramas and others. For further enquiries, please contact:

Christensen China Limited

Tel: +(852) 2117 0861

Fax: +(852) 2117 0869

Email: [email protected] Logo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20171103/1983265-1LOGO SOURCE Starrise Media Holdings Limited

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[November 03, 2017] Razer Introduces More Ways To Customize With New MOBA / MMO Gaming Mouse & Keypad

ANAHEIM, Calif., Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- (BLIZZCON 2017)  Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, today announced the Razer Naga Trinity gaming mouse and Razer Tartarus V2 gaming keypad. The customizable mouse and keypad can adapt to a wide range of games and playstyles, particularly Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) and Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) games. The Razer Naga Trinity, the ninth iteration of the best-selling Razer Naga family, is a modular mouse featuring three interchangeable side plates. Users can opt for the iconic original 12-button thumb grid of the Razer Naga Chroma designed for MMO games like "World of Warcraft", or the seven-button thumb wheel of the Razer Naga Hex V2 for MOBA and hack-and-slash titles like "Heroes of the Storm" and "Diablo III." A new two-button configuration completes the trifecta, sporting a minimalistic feel that is perfect for general use. When using the 12-button configuration, gamers will have up to 19 programmable keys for customization. The Razer Naga Trinity also comes equipped with an improved sensor over its predecessors, featuring a 5G, true 16,000 dots-per-inch (DPI) optical sensor with 450 IPS for faster and more accurate mouse movements. For even greater game control at your fingertips, gamers can also own the Razer Tartarus V2. The new ergonomic gaming keypad has 32 fully programmable keys (seven more keys than its predecessor) and features Razer's Mecha-Membrane key technology that offers both a soft, cushioned touch and a crisp, tactile click with each keystroke. Users can further expand commands with the eight-way directional thumbpad and three-way scroll wheel, enabling full reign of movement and endless spell combinations. Existing commands may be doubled using Razer's Hypershift mode, which opens a secondary set of commands for macros, windows shortcuts, and everything else that can be layered on top of your current settings. Multiple personalized gaming profiles can be created and saved in the cloud via Razer Synapse 3 (Beta) Cloud Storage. "Customization is what sets our peripherals apart from the competition," says Min-Liang Tan, Razer co-founder and CEO. "This mouse and keypad adapts to you: your game and your playstyle. From 'World of Warcraft' to 'Heroes of the Storm,' these peripherals put the controls in your hands the way you want it." The Razer Naga Trinity and Razer Tartarus V2 are also Powered by Razer Chroma, with up to 16.8 million color options. Button remapping, surface calibration and Razer Chroma lighting effects are all configured and controlled via Razer Synapse 3 (Beta). Many popular games allow for Razer Chroma lighting integration, as well as tutorials, in-game actions and other interactive developer effects. The mouse and keypad are available on RazerStore.com in Q4 2017. For more information on the Razer Naga Trinity, visit https://www.razerzone.com/gaming-mice/razer-naga-trinity



For more information on the Tartarus V2, visit http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-kaypad/razer-tartarus-v2 Razer Naga Trinity

Modular MOBA/MMO gaming mouse

Price: U.S. $99.99 / EU 119.99

Availability:

Available exclusively on Razerzone.com: Q4 2017

Worldwide: From Q1 2018

Product features: 3 interchangeable side plates

2-button Razer Mechanical Mouse Switches plate



7-button Razer Mechanical Mouse Switches thumb wheel plate



12-button Razer Mechanical Mouse Switches thumb grid plate

Total of 19 MOBA / MMO optimized programmable buttons

Rubberized thumb grip

True 16,000 DPI 5G optical sensor

Tilt-click scroll wheel

Razer Chroma lighting with 16.8 million customizable color options

Inter-device color synchronization

Up to 410 inches per second / 50 G acceleration

1000 Hz Ultrapolling / 1 ms response time

Zero-acoustic Ultraslick mouse feet

Razer Synapse 3 enabled

2.1 m / 7 ft braided fiber USB cable

Approximate size: 119 mm / 4.69 in. (Length) x 74 mm / 2.93 in. (Width) x 43 mm / 1.69 in. (Height)

Approximate weight: 120 g / 0.26 lbs. with cable Images: Razer Naga Trinity Images Video: Razer Naga Trinity Launch Trailer Razer Tartarus V2

Price: U.S. $79.99 / EU 89.99 Availability:

Razerzone.com: Available now

Worldwide: Q4 2017 Product features: Razer Mecha-Membrane Technology

32 fully programmable keys

Programmable 8-way directional thumbpad & scrollwheel

Full anti-ghosting

Unlimited macro lengths

Unlimited game profiles

1000Hz Ultrapolling

Ergonomic palm rest

Hypershift mode for expanded commands

Razer Synapse 3 enabled

2.1 m / 7 ft braided fiber USB cable

Approximate size: 203 mm / 7.99 in. (Length) x 153 mm / 6.02 in. (Width) x 60 mm / 2.36 in. (Height)

Approximate weight: 348 g / 0.76 lbs. with cable Images: Razer Tartarus V2 Images Video: Razer Tartarus V2 Launch Trailer ABOUT RAZER: Razer is the world's leading lifestyle brand for gamers. The triple-headed snake trademark of Razer is one of the most recognized logos in the global gaming and esports communities. With a fan base that spans every continent, the company has designed and built the world's largest gamer-focused ecosystem of hardware, software and services. Razer's award-winning hardware ranges from high-performance gaming peripherals (for the PC and console platforms) to the Razer Blade gaming laptops. Razer's software platform, with over 35M users, includes Razer Synapse (an Internet of Things platform), Razer Chroma (a proprietary RGB lighting technology system), and Razer Cortex (a game optimizer and launcher). Razer services include Razer zGold, one of the world's largest virtual credit services for gamers, which allows gamers to purchase virtual goods and items from over 2,500 different games. The company has a global footprint with 9 offices worldwide and is recognized as the leading brand for gamers in the US, Europe and China. Founded in 2005 and dual-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, Razer is backed by institutional investors such as IDG-Accel, Intel Capital and Horizons Ventures. Press Contacts: United States

Kevin Scarpati

[email protected] Stephen Huynh

[email protected]

Europe/Africa

Jan Horak

[email protected] Asia Pacific

Nicholas Ferguson

[email protected] China

Evita Zhang

[email protected] Razer - For Gamers. By Gamers.  View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/razer-introduces-more-ways-to-customize-with-new-moba--mmo-gaming-mouse--keypad-300549135.html SOURCE Razer

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[November 03, 2017] Ford CEO Jim Hackett Announced as CES 2018 Opening Keynote

The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) today announced that Ford (News - Alert) Motor Company's President and CEO Jim Hackett will take the keynote stage to discuss mobility solutions and smart cities at CES 2018. Following CTA President and CEO Gary Shapiro's (News - Alert) opening keynote, Hackett will deliver his keynote at 8:30-10 AM, Tuesday, January 9, in the Venetian's Palazzo Ballroom. Owned and produced by CTA, CES (News - Alert) 2018 will run January 9-12, 2018, in Las Vegas, Nevada. "Ford continues its long leadership in using technology to transform the auto industry and drive a revolution in mobility that champions innovation and safety. Today, Ford is a global leader in amazing developments in self-driving technologies, smart cities, vehicle-to-vehicle communications, and beyond," said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CTA. "We are excited to welcome Jim to CES 2018 keynote stage for the first time and look forward to hearing Ford's transformational and forward-thinking ideas." Hackett's keynote address will focus on the development of mobility solutions as the world progresses towards smarter cities. Ford's vision, under Hackett's leadership, is to become the world's most trusted mobility company, designing smart vehicles for a smart world that help people move more safely, confidently and freely. CTA predicts that there will be 88 smart cities by 2025 and global spending on smart cities is projected to reach more than $34 billion by 2020. CTA will launch CES Smart Cities at CES 2018, which is designed to showcase innovation and thought leadership in smart cities. The conference and exhibit will bring together the entire connected smart cities ecosystem. Before Hackett's role as president and CEO, he was Chairman of Ford Smart Mobility LLC and on a member of the Ford Motor Company (News - Alert) Board of Directors where he served on the Audit, Nominating and Governance, and Sustainability and Innovation committees. The automotive industry is on the verge of a revolution and vehicle tech is making cars safer and drivers more connected. CES 2018 is the global stage for innovation and will feature more than 3,900 exhibiting companies that touch every industry, including nearly 300 vehicle technology exhibitors spanning more than 280,000 square feet on the show floor. Ford will be located in Tech East - LVCC, North Hall - Booth 5002. Please check the CES Keynote Addresses page regularly for updates on the keynote schedule. High-definition video b-roll from CES is available for easy download on CESbroll.com. See exclusive photos from the CES show floor, keynotes, conference sessions, events and award ceremonies in the CES photo gallery. About CES:

CES is the world's gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies. It has served as the proving ground for innovators and breakthrough technologies for 50 years-the global stage where next-generation innovations are introduced to the marketplace. As the largest hands-on event of its kind, CES features all aspects of the industry. Owned and produced by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA)TM, it attracts the world's business leaders and pioneering thinkers. Check out CES video highlights. Follow CES online at CES.tech and on social. About Consumer Technology Association:

Consumer Technology Association (CTA) is the trade association representing the $321 billion U.S. consumer technology industry, which supports more than 15 million U.S. jobs. More than 2,200 companies - 80 percent are small businesses and startups; others are among the world's best known brands - enjoy the benefits of CTA membership including policy advocacy, market research, technical education, industry promotion, standards development and the fostering of business and strategic relationships. CTA also owns and produces CES - the world's gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies. Profits from CES are reinvested into CTA's industry services.







UPCOMING EVENTS  CT Hall of Fame Dinner  CES Unveiled Las Vegas November 7, New York, NY January 7, Las Vegas, NV  CES Unveiled New York- Register  CES 2018 - Register November 9, New York, NY January 9-12, Las Vegas, NV  CES Media Days  CES Asia 2018 January 7-8, 2018, Las Vegas, NV June 13-15, Shanghai, China

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171103005245/en/

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[November 03, 2017] Alberta-based Acceleware Awarded Funding to Test RF XL

EDMONTON, Nov. 3, 2017 /CNW/ - Acceleware Ltd. (TSX-V:AXE) is pleased to announce it has been awarded a $10 million non-repayable contribution to complete a commercial-scale field test of its ground-breaking clean energy technology for bitumen and heavy oil extraction. The funding will be provided by Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) and Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA) in accordance with their mandates to bring clean technologies to market that are economically viable and reduce GHG emissions. The funding is contingent upon the execution of contribution agreements with both SDTC and ERA and a partnership with an oil sands producer to complete the commercial scale field test. Acceleware is in the process of finalizing a partnership with one or more oil sands producers as required to complete this commercial-scale field test in an oil sands reservoir. "We are extremely appreciative of the vote of confidence SDTC and ERA is giving our RF XL technology," says Geoff Clark, CEO of Acceleware. "Today's announcement is confirmation that RF XL is a potential game-changer for Alberta's oil industry. We look forward to working with SDTC, ERA and our other partners in this vital next step in commercializing our technology. RF XL supports the goals set out by the federal and provincial governments to reduce GHG emissions while creating the economic opportunity to usher in a shale oil style revolution of competitiveness and clean growth for Alberta's oil industry." On the heels of a successful 1/20 scale field test earlier this year, Acceleware will complete a commercial-scale field test of its patent pending RF XL technology. RF XL efficiently mobilizes heavy oil and bitumen by using radio waves to heat the water already present in the reservoir. RF XL requires no chemicals or solvents, no external water, utilizes a smaller surface footprint, and can reduce GHG emissions by 50-100%, compared to steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD). Acceleware estimates that RF XL has the potential to reduce capital costs by as much as 70 percent and operating costs by up to 40 percent when compared to SAGD. If successful, RF XL will allow Alberta oil to compete even in today's low oil price environment, as it is commercially viable one well at a time allowing both large and small operators to explore ne deposits, and produce them profitably and cleanly. The commercial-scale test will utilize electronics developed in partnership with GE.



"SDTC is incredibly proud to support Acceleware," said Leah Lawrence, President and CEO of SDTC. "Our mission is to help Canadian cleantech entrepreneurs move their ground-breaking technologies to commercialization by bridging the funding gap between research and market entry. RF XL is the kind of technology that has the potential to generate jobs, growth and export opportunities, and to bring lasting economic, environmental and health benefits to Canadians and people around the world." "ERA helps accelerate promising technologies that will lead to both economic and environmental benefits," said ERA CEO Steve MacDonald. "Funding for this commercial-scale field test provides the support and investment innovators like Acceleware need to develop and commercialize promising new technologies. It is technologies like this that pave the way for cleaner, more sustainable energy sources."

About Acceleware Acceleware (www.acceleware.com) develops high performance seismic imaging and modeling software products and provides innovative technology for radio frequency (RF) heating, an emerging thermal enhanced oil recovery method. As experts in programming for multi-core CPUs and massively parallel GPUs, Acceleware's professional services team specializes in accelerating computationally intense applications for clients to speed up product design, analyze data and help make better business decisions. Acceleware's products and services are used by some of the world's largest energy and engineering companies. Acceleware is a public company on Canada's TSX Venture Exchange under the trading symbol AXE. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Disclaimers

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information generally means information about an issuer's business, capital, or operations that is prospective in nature, and includes disclosure about the issuer's prospective financial performance or financial position. The forward-looking information in this press release includes information about the conditions precedent to and availability of grant funding, the economics of RF XL, the possibility of completing a commercial scale test, and the GHG reduction potential of RF XL technology. Acceleware assumes that the funding will be available as indicated by the funding sources, that it will be able to complete the necessary agreements to access the funding, including agreements with partners, that its technical and economic simulations conducted to date will be confirmed in testing and with the eventual commercial products, and that it will be able to complete the commercial-scale test as currently planned. Actual results may vary from the forward-looking information in this press release due to certain material risk factors. These risk factors are described in detail in Acceleware's continuous disclosure documents, which are filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Acceleware assumes no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking information in this press release, unless it is required to do so under Canadian securities legislation. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described in this release in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE Acceleware Ltd.

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[November 03, 2017] Video Encoder Market to 2023

DUBLIN, November 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Video Encoder Market by Number of Channel (Single, Multichannel), Mounting Type (Stand-alone, Rack-mounted), Application (Broadcast, Surveillance (Retail, Transportation, Commercial, Residential, Institutional)) & Geography - Global Forecast to 2023" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

The video encoder market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.26% between 2017 and 2023; from USD 1.70 Billion in 2017 to USD 2.19 Billion by 2023 The growth of this market is being propelled by the growing deployment in broadcast and surveillance applications. The surveillance application includes different verticals such as retail, transportation, residential, commercial, institutional, and military and defense. The ease of connecting analog cameras to the network and the adoption of high-efficiency video coding (HEVC) standard for video encoding are significant factors that are driving the video encoder market. This market is segmented on the basis of the number of channels, type, application, and geography. On the basis of type, the video encoder market has been segmented into standalone and rack-mounted. Stand-alone video encoders are favorable in situtions where only a few number of cameras are to be connected, while rack-mounted video encoders are useful in instances where large installations with analog cameras are required.



North America has been a major market for broadcast and surveillance equipment. Among all the regions, North America has shown its inclination towards adopting advanced technology across various broadcasting and surveillance applications. Major growth drivers of the video encoder market in this region are collaborations between the government and network arenas, institutional partnerships between equipment manufacturers and research collaborations, and large-scale investments in cloud-based services. The rise of over-the-top (OTT) media broadcasting services is expected to be one of the major restraining factors for the growth of the video encoder market.

Some of the leading players in the video encore market are Harmonic (US), Telairity (US), Hikvision (China), Axis Communications (Sweden), Haivision Systems (US & Canada), and Dahua Technology (China). Harmonic (US) ranked first in the video encoder market.

Key Topics Covered:

1 Introduction



2 Research Methodology



3 Executive Summary



4 Premium Insights



5 Market Overview



6 Video Encoder Market, By Number of Channel



7 Video Encoder Market, By Type



8 Video Encoder Market, By Application



9 Geographic Analysis



10 Competitive Landscape



11 Company Profiles

Acti

Arris

Ateme

Avigilon

Axis Communications

Beamr

Bosch Security Systems

Cisco

Dahua

Delta Digital Video

Ericsson

Haivision

Harmonic

Hikvision

Honeywell Security Group

Ittiam Systems

Lilin

Matrox

Pelco

Streamingcodec

Telairity

Teleste

Vidicore

Vitec

Z3 Technology For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/642m6l/video_encoder About Research and Markets

Research and Markets is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends. Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

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U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716





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[November 03, 2017] Iconiq Lab Announces Its December 2017 Token Sale and Presale

FRANKFURT, Germany, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Iconiq Lab is happy to announce its very own token sale, scheduled to take place on 10 Dec. 2017, with a presale scheduled for 23 Nov. 2017. Please visit iconiqlab.com or follow our community and social media channels for more information and to view our white and color papers: telegram/iconiqlab

iconiqlab.rocket.chat

facebook.com/iconiqlab

twitter.com/iconiqlab Iconiq Lab is an Initial Coin Offer and Token Launch accelerator program. We source, fund, develop and accelerate the most promising crypto, blockchain and tokenizable startups to their own ICO or Token Sale. We help launch tokens supported by real-world, sustainable business solutions. Iconiq Lab will be issuing its own token, ICNQ, to fund the launch and scaling of the Iconiq Lab accelerator program. In doing so, Iconiq Lab creates an ICNQ membership club of avid crypto enthusiasts that will be offered the opportunity to participate in the presales of graduates of the Iconiq Lab accelerator program. The Iconiq Lab club membership token, ICNQ, is structured as a utility token, governed by an ERC20 smart contract. Holders of the ICNQ club membership token will be provided exclusive presale rights, with the associated discounts, to the graduates of the Iconiq Lab ICO accelerator program, as well as have access to exclusive community content and research. The management team of Iconiq Lab will perform due diligence on applicants to the program, selecting only the most promising crypto projects or tokenizable startups for admission. Program participants will be provided expert services related to tokenization, best practices in ICO marketing, legal and regulatory issues, and general business development by Iconiq Lab and its partners as they are accelerated to their own presale and token sale. The ICNQ club membership token must be held in your wallet to participate in the presales of these accelerator program graduates. The first batch of the accelerator program begins in February 2018. The ICNQ presale will begin on Thursday, 23 Nov. 2017 and will remain open until the hard cap of 1,500 ETH is reached or Friday, Dec. 1. Participants in the presale will be awarded a 50% bonus on their ICNQ token purchases, relative to the public sale. Presale participants will be privy to the same club membership rights as public sale participants.



The ICNQ token sale will begin on Sunday, 10 Dec. 2017 and will remain open until either the hard cap of 8,000,000 in BTC/ETH is reached or 31 Dec., 2017. An ETH & BTC to ICNQ exchange rate will be announced in the days prior to the token sale to account for volatility. ICNQ will be transferred to holders immediately following the ICO, subject to basic KYC/AML procedures, and will be transferable through a reputable crypto exchange by January 2018. ICNQ Club Membership tokens will be distributed, and token sale funds used, according to the following:

50% of ICNQ Club membership tokens (8M tokens) will be issued in a public sale to prospective Club Members. Roughly 5% will be issued in the November 2017 presale. 10% of total tokens will be issued to bounty program participants and for other marketing initiatives in the Pre-ICO phase. 10% will be retained by Iconiq Lab Holding GmbH for future growth initiatives, acquisitions or for new key personnel. The remaining 25% of ICNQ tokens will be sold to the management team, advisors and strategic partners of Iconiq Lab to align their interests with ICNQ Club Members. 3M of the ICNQ funds raised will be devoted to a seed wallet which will distribute seed funding to accelerator program participants. 1M each will be used to cover business development, program development and marketing/PR of the initial accelerator program in Germany. 250k each will be used to cover legal and financial/accounting services rendered to Iconiq Lab by third-parties. The remaining 1.5M will be used to scale the program internationally to startup hubs such as London, New York, Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Moscow, Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv, Sydney and others. Iconiq Lab strives to lead in transparency in the crypto economy. As such, there are no side or private deals associated with the presale or public sale, and no parties are granted any exclusive bonuses or discounts that are not publicly available or announced well in advance. Additionally, Iconiq Lab is a member of Santiment's Project Transparency and will disclose all material transactions the token sale proceeds are used for. Iconiq Lab will be instituting a bounty program for community members who wish to participate. Participants will be compensated in ICNQ tokens on a freelance basis for content provided, sharing or retweeting Iconiq Lab posts, or identifying promising startups for the accelerator program. Please register for the Bounty Campaign and learn about the potential participation rewards in the following link: Bounty Program Signup. Iconiq Lab is currently helping many companies launch their token sales and has sourced and perform due diligence on nearly 100 who have applied to the accelerator program. To learn more about the exciting companies we are assisting and have admitted to the initial accelerator program batch, please visit our Case Studies section at iconiqlab.com. Iconiq Lab Accelerator GmbH is structured as a German limited liability company which operates and manages the Iconiq Lab Accelerator Program. Iconiq Lab Accelerator GmbH issues the club membership tokens, ICNQ, and covers the day-to-day operational aspects of the accelerator program. It is wholly owned by its parent company, Iconiq Lab Holding GmbH. Please be wary of potential scammers regarding our token sale. Only official announcements from Iconiq Lab should be heeded. Nobody from Iconiq Lab will ever contact you directly regarding our token sale. Arabdha Sudhir

Phone: 34671772566

Email: [email protected] Related Files Fig1 Token Distribution.png Fig2 Fundraising Uses.png Related Links Website Telegram View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/iconiq-lab-announces-its-december-2017-token-sale-and-presale-300549478.html SOURCE Iconiq Lab

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[November 03, 2017] BC Innovation Council Concludes its #BCGO Tour by Bringing Business Opportunities to Kamloops Tech Innovators

IBM Canada, Rio Tinto, and Venture Kamloops among the presenting companies at the tour's final stop KAMLOOPS, BC, Nov. 3, 2017 /CNW/ - The BC Innovation Council, a Crown agency of the Province, is promoting innovation across British Columbia through the BC Growth Opportunities Tour (#BCGO), which made its final stop in Kamloops this morning. The six-city tour aims to grow regional economies across the province by connecting companies with business challenges to local innovators. Solving the business challenge gives the local innovators entry to an immediate market, providing them with an excellent growth path. BC Innovation Council's #BCGO Fall 2017 Tour built off the success of the inaugural tour, which took place earlier this year. As a result of the first tour, 600 connections have been made, six cross-sector deals have closed, and over 30 deals are currently under discussion. "At #BCGO, Kamloops innovators will meet with top industry leaders, providing more opportunities to take a collaborative approach to made-in-B.C. tech," said Bruce Ralston, Minister of Jobs, Trade and Technology. "Congratulations to Startu Kamloops for being recognized with a Community of the Year Award from Startup Canada. This shows Kamloops' tech sector is gaining traction and helping to grow our economy."



"BCIC's #BCGO Tour is a great example of the type of innovation exchange work we do," said Carl Anderson, President & CEO of the BC Innovation Council. "Connecting business challenges with local tech solutions helps fuel the local economy and leverages the innovative technology and talented entrepreneurs this province has to offer." BCIC's #BCGO Kamloops event featured 11 organizations presenting their business challenges, including Rio Tinto, Open Gaming Solutions, and Venture Kamloops, among others. Examples of some of the tech and innovation needs presented included:

A solution for providing low cost air quality monitors that can accurately measure very low concentrations of SO2 in all seasons, by Rio Tinto

A need to update millions of contest entries in real-time based on world events, by Open Gaming Solutions

A need for data collection and analysis to determine lifestyle and quality of life measures for Kamloops , by Venture Kamloops Kamloops currently has over 140 tech firms that employ nearly 1700 people. Fresh off winning Startup Canada's 2017 Startup Community of the Year Award, the city boasts a growing tech sector that's been buoyed by the work of Venture Kamloops, the marketing and economic development arm of the City of Kamloops, and Kamloops Innovation, a BCIC Acceleration Network partner. Kamloops Innovation offers affordable programs for early stage ventures and supports all initiatives that help grow the Kamloops tech community. Kamloops is also home to Thompson Rivers University, which offers tech-focused programming and The Generator, an on-campus entrepreneurial community that's supported by Kamloops Innovation. The Generator provides mentorship, education, venture creation, and seed funding for TRU alumni, students, faculty, and staff. The #BCGO Fall 2017 Tour was a huge success and sparked connections between companies and innovators all across the province. For more information about the tour or how to get involved with other BCIC initiatives, visit http://bcic.ca. About the BC Innovation Council (www.bcic.ca) The BC Innovation Council, a Crown Agency of the Province of BC, accelerates the growth and success of BC companies by providing resources and market opportunities for applied innovations that solve challenges and drive competitiveness in BC industries. BCIC is fostering the growth of companies that generate revenue, produce high-paying skilled jobs and drive economic development in BC. SOURCE BC Innovation Council

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[November 03, 2017] NCR Announces U.S. Pension De-risking Transaction

NCR Corporation (NYSE: NCR) announced today that, in accordance with the selection made by the fiduciary of its U.S. qualified pension plan (the "Plan"), the Company has entered into an agreement (the "Agreement") with Principal Life Insurance Company, a Principal company. Pursuant to the Agreement, the Plan purchased a single premium group annuity contract from Principal Life Insurance Company in order to secure approximately $190 million of benefits for approximately 6,000 former employees or their related beneficiaries whose monthly pension benefit amount under the Plan as of January 1, 2017 was $500 or less. "This group annuity contract purchase is consistent with our overall strategy to address our legacy pension liabilities," said John Boudreau, NCR Treasurer. "Because this contract was purchased with existing Plan assets, no additional funding of the Plan was required for this purchase." Any impact of this purchase on NCR's financial statements will be included in the year-end 2017 mark-to-market adjustment. NCR anticipates that the single premium group annuity contract will be issued by Principal Life Insurance Company in 2018. No action is required by affected former employees or their related beneficiaries at this time. In December 2017, additional details will be provided in letters and other materials that will be sent to affected former employees or their related beneficiaries. These materials will include instructions on how to secure these benefits. The amount of the future monthly benefit payment for each of these individuals under this group annuity contract will equal the amount of such individual's monthly benefit payable under the terms of the Plan. Additionally, this group annuity contract provides the same rights to future payments, such as survivor benefits, that are currently provided under the terms of the Plan. No action is required by affected former employees or their related beneficiaries at this time in order to receive such benefits. The December 2017 letters will contain further information. This group annuity contract has no bearing on active employees, former employees or their related beneficiaries who have not commenced monthly benefits under the Plan as of January 1, 2017, or former employees or their related beneficiaries whose monthly benefit amount under the Plan as of January 1, 2017 exceeded $500. More information is available by visiting the NCR website at: http://www.ncr.com/pension-transformation. Participants may also access Plan information through the NCR Benefits Service Center website at www.netbenefits.com/ncr or by telephone at 1-800-245-9035. General information about the Principal companies can be found on this website: http://www.principal.com/about/index.htm.



About NCR Corporation NCR Corporation (NYSE: NCR) is a leader in omni-channel solutions, turning everyday interactions with businesses into exceptional experiences. With its software, hardware, and portfolio of services, NCR enables nearly 700 million transactions daily across the financial, retail, hospitality, travel, telecom and technology industries. NCR solutions run the everyday transactions that make your life easier. NCR is headquartered in Duluth, Ga., with about 30,000 employees and does business in 180 countries. NCR is a trademark of NCR Corporation in the United States and other countries. NCR encourages investors to visit its website which is updated regularly with financial and other important information about NCR.

Website: www.ncr.com

Twitter (News - Alert): @NCRCorporation

Facebook (News - Alert): www.facebook.com/ncrcorp

LinkedIn (News - Alert): www.linkedin.com/company/ncr-corporation

YouTube (News - Alert): www.youtube.com/user/ncrcorporation Note to Investors This release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements use words such as "expect," "anticipate," "outlook," "intend," "plan," "believe," "will," "should," "would," "could," and words of similar meaning. Statements that describe or relate to NCR's plans, goals, intentions, strategies, or financial outlook, and statements that do not relate to historical or current fact, are examples of forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on our current beliefs, expectations and assumptions, which may not prove to be accurate, and involve a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are out of NCR's control. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and there are a number of important factors that could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from the results contemplated by such forward-looking statements, including those factors relating to: the strength of demand for ATMs and other financial services hardware and its effect on the results of our businesses and reportable segments; domestic and global economic and credit conditions including, in particular, those resulting from uncertainty in the "BRIC" economies, economic sanctions against Russia, the determination by Britain to exit the European Union, the potential for changes to global or regional trade agreements or the imposition of protectionist trade policies, and the imposition of import or export tariffs or border adjustments; the impact of our indebtedness and its terms on our financial and operating activities; the impact of the terms of our strategic relationship with Blackstone and our Series A Convertible Preferred Stock; the transformation of our business model and our ability to sell higher-margin software and services; the possibility of disruptions in or problems with our data center hosting facilities; cybersecurity risks and compliance with data privacy and protection requirements; our ability to successfully introduce new solutions and compete in the information technology industry; our ability to improve execution in our sales and services organizations; defects or errors in our products; manufacturing disruptions; collectability difficulties in subcontracting relationships in Emerging Industries; the historical seasonality of our sales; foreign currency fluctuations; the availability and success of acquisitions, divestitures and alliances, including the divestiture of our Interactive Printer Solutions business; our pension strategy and underfunded pension obligation; the success of our restructuring plans and cost reduction initiatives; tax rates; reliance on third party suppliers; development and protection of intellectual property; workforce turnover and the ability to attract and retain skilled employees; environmental exposures from our historical and ongoing manufacturing activities; and uncertainties with regard to regulations, lawsuits, claims, and other matters across various jurisdictions. Additional information concerning these and other factors can be found in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8- K. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made. The Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171103005846/en/

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By PTI: charges Siddaramaiah

Bengaluru, Nov 3 (PTI) Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah today hit back at BJP chief Amit Shah for attacking his government for celebrating "Tipu Jayanti" and accused him of making a "desperate attempt" to communalise the situation ahead of the state Assembly polls.

A day after coming under fire by the BJP chief at a rally here, Siddaramaiah claimed the election had brought "tourists like Shah" who display ignorance about the state.

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"We celebrate birthdays of 26 leaders & builders of #NavaKarnataka. @AmitShah in a desperate attempt to communalise, picks on Tipu Jayanthi," Siddaramaiah said in a tweet.

"Election is coming! It brings tourists like @AmitShah who display ignorance about our state & call #KannadaRajyotsava as Karnatak Mahotsav," he claimed.

Flagging-off a 75-day state-wide yatra spearheaded by BJP state mascot B S Yeddyurappa at a rally here yesterday, Shah had flayed "Tipu Jayanti" celebrations, accusing the Siddaramaiah government of practising "vote bank politics."

"Yesterday was November 1. It was Karnatakas formation day. Karnataka Mahotsav (Rajyotsava) celebrations had to happen with grandeur, but Siddaramaiah government had no interest in Karnataka Mahotsava, they are more enthusiastic towards celebrating Tipu Jayanti on November 10," he had said.

In a series of tweets in Kannada, Siddaramaiah defended the "Tipu Jayanti" celebrations.

"People of the state have accepted Tipu Jayanti. Tipu was a patriot. He was not against Hindus or any other community," he said on Twitter.

Siddaramaiah also took a jibe at the state BJP leaders, alleging they had once described Tipu Sultan as a freedom fighter but had become "enlightened" after learning lessons from Shah.

He claimed the BJP yatra was a failure on the very first day, proving that the people were not with the party.

The BJP has been opposing the event as it sees Tipu Sultan, the 18th century ruler of erstwhile Mysore kingdom, as a "brutal killer" and a"religious bigot" who converted people to Islam.

Assembly elections are due in Karnataka early next year in which the BJP is hoping to capture power, unseating the government-led by Siddaramaiah.

Making history, the BJP had installed its first-ever government in the South in 2008 before losing power to the Congress. PTI RA SS AAR

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[November 03, 2017] Netradyne Announces Data Services Platform for Advanced Transportation Technology Ecosystem

SAN DIEGO, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Netradyne today announced a new deep learning analytics data platform for companies within the automotive, transportation and insurance industries. The new, highly customizable offering will arm companies with rich data including dynamic mapping, distributed video search and driving analyticshelping developers better understand the countless fluctuating and ever-changing factors that impact the way commercial and personal vehicles are driven. The new services provide real-time insight into numerous aspects of driving, including road conditions, driver behaviors, unique driving scenarios, seasonal and weather-specific considerations, traffic patterns, concentrated geographic risk areas, and much more. While most companies only have access to singular, event-triggered data points that are then extrapolated and quantified with simulated miles, Netradyne's Driveri platform is able to serve up millions of miles of actual rich driving data from a 360-degree camera, powered by an advanced artificial intelligence TeraFLOP processor. Companies can observe and visually analyze this data to gain insight into deeper road context and texture, which will help them create safer and more technologically advanced productsfrom connected cars to autonomous trucks to interactive roadways. "Netradyne is expected to have more than 500 million minutes of captured and analyzed commercial driving data by the end of 2018," said Avneesh Agrawal, founder and CEO of Netradyne. "This projecte growth is expected to make Netradyne's Data Services Platform the most comprehensive data service on the marketequipping developers with the deepest road insights available."



With access to this deep learning information, automotive and transportation original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), connected car companies and commercial fleets can better tailor their products to meet the needs of today's drivers and help shape the roadways of tomorrow. In addition, insurers can better protect the personal and commercial vehicles they insure. As an added bonus, Netradyne's Driveri customers are given complimentary access to this in-depth data as a valuable reference point. The new service includes the following features and benefits:

Cloud-based client interface, with an intuitive interface for data mining and transfer

Real-time insight into road conditions, driver behaviors and more

Meta-data that has been captured and analyzed by the Netradyne team

Vision data enablement across various platforms with high definition videos (1080p) and high dynamic range optics (120dB) "We're proud to provide companies with these valuable new tools to help them gain deeper real-time intelligence into how road conditions influence driving behavior. The possibilities of how this data can positively impact the the future of driving are endless," said Sandeep Pandya, President at Netradyne. "Our new distributed video search tool, for example, allows the companies we work with to search for combinations of a variety of driver events such as object categories, environmental conditions, traffic patterns, driving patterns and rare events. We can use this information to help create behavior models of how humans drive and provide useful information for training autonomous driving technology." For more information about Netradyne's platform, visit www.Netradyne.com. About Netradyne, Inc. Founded in 2015, Netradyne has technology innovation centers in both San Diego, CA and Bangalore, India where teams are hyper-focused on launching a driver safety platform for Commercial Vehicles. Grounded in the vision of applying Artificial Intelligence for improving fleet safety, Netradyne delivers a holistic view of the driving environment to fleet owners while serving as their driver's advocate. For more information about Driveri or to inquire about commercial vehicle safety tools, please visit www.Netradyne.com. CONTACT: Katie LeChase, 619-234-0345, [email protected] View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/netradyne-announces-data-services-platform-for-advanced-transportation-technology-ecosystem-300549582.html SOURCE Netradyne, Inc.

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[November 03, 2017] Bill 175, Safer Ontario Act, 2017 - GardaWorld Welcomes the Intention of the Government of Ontario

MONTREAL, Nov. 3, 2017 /CNW Telbec/ - Yesterday, the Hon. Marie-France Lalonde, Minister of Public Safety and Correctional Services, and Attorney General, Yasir Navqi tabled the Safer Ontario Act. This bill was long awaited by stakeholders in the security sector. GardaWorld welcomes the intention of the Government of Ontario regarding this act, and more precisely, its objective to "set clear parameters that outline police responsibilities and identify where the use of non-police personnel may be appropriate.'' For several months, GardaWorld and the private security industry have been clearly expressing their readiness to provide police support services to police forces. The private security industry can easily fulfill police support duties for which its security professionals are duly trained and regulated. "When we visit the dentist's office, the individuals working there are not all dentists. Reasons for this are seemingly obvious to us. Yet, in our police forces, trained nd qualified police officers perform tasks beyond their essential duties  tasks for which their expertise are not at all required. Can we afford such a mismatch between duties and qualifications in our police services? No, we cannot." states the Hon. Christian Paradis, Senior Vice President at GardaWorld and former Federal Minister.



"Let us be clear: outsourcing of police support services does not suggest security guards performing work that requires full policing power. Outsourcing police support services means security guards performing support duties, so police officers can focus on their core duties, and therefore, better protect the public,'' added Mr. Paradis. Canada's private security industry is subject to regulations, resulting in obligatory guard training. With more than 140,000 licensed guards, these security professionals are capable to perform police support functions while trusted organizations will be mandated to monitor their work. GardaWorld already provides cash services for financial institutions throughout Canada and United States and airport security, including pre-boarding screening, jointly with federal authorities. "These are great examples on which we can build on,'' explains Mr. Paradis.

Underlining that several other jurisdictions moved in the same direction and that an industry conference was held by the Chamber of Commerce of Canada last spring on the matter, Mr. Paradis is convinced that the Canadian population is ready for these amendments that will optimize the system, and most importantly, improve public safety. In consequence, GardaWorld will follow the legislative process of the bill closely with a firm intent to participate to the parliamentary committee to express its proposals. About GardaWorld GardaWorld is the world's largest privately-owned security and cash services provider. Our 62,000 highly-trained, dedicated professionals serve clients throughout North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. GardaWorld works across a broad range of sectors, including natural resources and critical infrastructures, retail, construction, telecommunications and manufacturing, and on behalf of Fortune 500 companies, governments, NGOs and humanitarian relief organizations. For more information, visit www.garda.com. SOURCE Groupe de securite GardaWorld Inc.

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Centre will present the initiative as a 'best practice in climate change resilience' at the 23rd Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change at Bonn.

Sixty-two-year-old farmer G. Narayanappa used to find it impossible to eke out a living from his 2.5 acres of land in Melavoi, a village in Anantapuram district and the second driest area in India. Since 2015, though, after the farmer turned to zero-budget natural farming (ZBNF), his land has never been fallow. While mango is his main crop, Narayanappa now grows eight types of fruits, three varieties of millets, two oilseeds, nine different vegetables and six kinds of flowers (as short duration crops).

ZBNF is focused on improving soil health and avoiding market inputs like chemical fertilisers. Its main tenets are crop rotation, green manure, biological pest control and mechanical cultivation. "I did not dream the land being green all year round. Now, it is like a oasis," says the farmer. What has worked is "giving more importance to the soil, to which we belong..." he says.

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Drawing on expertise from ZBNF's biggest champion, Subhash Palekar, a Vidarbha farmer who was appointed advisor by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in June, the state government set up a corporation to handhold farmers like Narayanappa. The Andhra Pradesh Rythu Sadhikara Samstha (APRySS) conducted dozens of training programmes where Palekar spoke to farmers. "Cost of production is quite low. We use local seeds that we propagate using only a tenth of the water most farmers are used to," he says. Palekar's prescription involved infusing the soil with a culture of microorganisms in cattle-dung fertiliser. No synthetic fertilisers or pesticides are used.

While just 40,000 farmers took to ZBNF in 2016, the number nearly quadrupled this year to 150,000 farmers across the state. "We emphasise that the 'back to nature' approach is remunerative in the long run. It is climate resilient and favourable to consumers too," says APRySS vice-chairman T. Vijay Kumar. Kumar hired farmers already into natural farming as 'community resource persons', to spend 3-4 weeks in villages outside their native districts, among fellow farmers. This had a lasting impact.

Accolades have followed. The Union agriculture ministry will present the Andhra initiative as a 'country best practice in climate change resilience' at the 23rd Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change at Bonn (Nov. 6-17). Meanwhile, Andhra plans to move 500,000 farmers and 500,000 hectares to ZBNF in three years.

--- ENDS ---
Chidambaram has joined the legal team that will argue the pleas challenging a Delhi High Court ruling that the lieutenant governor is the administrative boss of the Capital.

By Sweta dutta, Arpan Rai: The Aam Aadmi Party government hired senior advocate and former union minister P Chidambaram to appear for it in the Supreme Court in a case to decide Delhi's administrative head, prompting the Congress on Friday to dig up the tense past between its leader and AAP.

Chidambaram has joined the legal team that will argue the pleas challenging a Delhi High Court ruling that the lieutenant governor is the administrative boss of the Capital.

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While senior Congress leaders refrained from questioning the former home and finance minister for taking up the job, AAP insisted that "there have been previous instances where political leaders have fought legal cases in favour of their political adversaries."

AAP has on several occasions attacked Chidambaram, alleging financial irregularities and of representing the BSES at a time his colleagues in Delhi Congress were protesting against the power distribution company, among other things.

Senior AAP leader and former MLA Jarnail Singh, who had hurled a shoe at Chidambaram, was inducted into the party after the incident.

Delhi government official spokesperson Nagendar Sharma tagged Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken in 2015 on Twitter and wrote, "Poor Delhi Cong leaders demand action against BSES but their senior leaders Chidambaram and Sibal argue in Supreme Court for immediate government payment. Ajay Maken, ask your senior colleagues P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi who appear for discoms how they got a court stay."

'CHIDAMBARAM REPRESENTING THE DELHI GOVT, NOT PURSUING AN A.A.P CASE'

Chidambaram too has on several instances hit out at Kejriwal, more recently on the CM's remark about turning Delhi into London.

"I read today someone wants to make Delhi (into) London. I wish them well but let them make the city what it was 20 years ago, before they decide to make it London. I sincerely hope the next idea is not to have a Lord Mayor of Delhi like the Lord Mayor of London," he said in March.

Approached for a comment, Chidambaram maintained that the case he had taken up was for the Delhi government and not the "Kejriwal government".

Maken too said Chidambaram is a professional advocate and is not pursuing an Aam Aadmi Party case but will be representing the Delhi government. "Kejriwal has finally fallen onto the feet of Chidambaram whom he himself once criticised," he told Mail Today.

While the Congress accused AAP of hypocrisy, it must be noted that Chidambaram, who served as home minister between 2008 and 2012 had the opportunity to initiate a process to tweak the "Transaction of Business Rules Delhi" in a bid to expand the city government's autonomy but did not do so.

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Senior Congress leader and son of former chief minister Sheila Dikshit, Sandeep Dikshit, was the only leader who in a long post on social media questioned Chidambaram on the matter. "...when he was the home minister what was his stand on the issue? Officials and ministers used to complain that the home ministry would humiliate the Delhi government and Chidambaram always backed the ministry..." he wrote.

However, the Congress party's official stand on expanding the Delhi government's autonomy is that the existing setup has no inherent problems.

"The Congress government that served three full terms in the national Capital faced no such trouble. Of course, from 1998 to 2004 there were differences when the Congress was in power in the state and there was the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government at the Centre but we managed to resolve those issues. The AAP is raking up the issue to divert attention from its nonperformance," Maken insisted.

A.A.P MLA DEFENDS MOVE

Defending the move, AAP MLA and official spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj said Chidambaram was not representing AAP and was part of the legal team as a constitutional expert. So the move did not amount to hypocrisy, he said.

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"The representation by Chidambaram is akin to what several legal experts and politicians have done in the past...Arun Jaitley, Salman Khursheed and Ravi Shankar Prasad have appeared for various industrialists and political parties in their professional capacity," he said. "Siddharth Luthra, an ASG under Congress government, represented Jaitley in his defamation case."

WATCH | Setback for Kejriwal govt as SC says Delhi govt cant act without L-G's concurrence

--- ENDS ---
The Apacer PT920 Commando 240GB delivers very good performance but you can get that from the Z280 that costs less. Shoppers looking for a military themed computer now have a go-to product, but the rest of us might shy away from this one. It's not a bad drive as long as Apacer doesn't charge too much for the extra gold bling.

Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test .

Features & Specifications

Some think it's a stapler; others think it looks like an AR15 "upper." No matter what you think it looks like, the Apacer PT920 Commando is an NVMe SSD that can shoot IOPS at a high rate of fire. The Commando is the first SSD we've seen that brings an elaborate theme to this otherwise boring looking product group. Like it, love it, or leave it. This is a polarizing product that some will stand in line for and others will protest.

We saw several weapon-themed displays at Computex last June. It's odd to see gun-themed components on display in a country that doesn't allow its citizens to own firearms. Taiwan does have gun enthusiasts, though. A few years ago, a company representative took me to his airsoft store. The store had an elaborate setup full of airsoft rifles, handguns, and grenades. There were pictures on the wall of Asian commandos decked out in jungle camouflage, combat boots, and face paint to match. I would like to think Apacer made the new PT920 Commando NVMe SSD for the global market, including Taiwan, rather than just a few select regions with heavy concentrations of gun enthusiasts.

Without getting too carried away, the Apacer PT920 Commando is a unique SSD that some will enjoy for their build and others will pass on. Unfortunately, the gold color doesn't match most motherboards. We first spotted the concept two years ago with a PCIe 3.0 x2 configuration and a more authentic-looking black that would have matched more system builds. For the final version, Apacer chose to go with a gold color and omitted a heatsink to cool the Phison PS5007-E7 controller.

Specifications

Apacer PT920 Commando (240GB) View Site (opens in new tab) Apacer PT920 Commando (480GB) View Site (opens in new tab)

Apacer offers the PT920 Commando in 240GB and 480GB capacities. Inside, the drives use a similar SSD to the M.2 Z280 we tested back in April. Apacer pairs the Phison PS5007-E7 controller with Nanya DDR3 DRAM and Toshiba 15nm MLC flash. The combination is a favorite for shoppers looking for mainstream NVMe performance at very good price points.

The 480GB PT920 Commando achieves up to 2,500/1,350 MB/s of sequential read/write performance. The 240GB drive we have on hand only achieves up to 860 MB/s of sequential write performance, but that's still more than a SATA 6Gb/s SSD.

Apacer doesn't list random read performance in the Commando's documentation. The company does list random write performance at 160,000 IOPS for the 240GB and 175,000 IOPS for the 480GB. We aren't too concerned with the lack of random read performance data, but we may know why Apacer omitted the specification. The PT920's performance specifications are nearly identical to the Z280 series, but the new gun-themed model is an add-in card that houses an M.2 SSD. In our testing (and testing from others), some of the add-in cards actually reduce performance compared to the same SSD installed in the motherboard's onboard M.2 interface. That may be the case here, but our testing will shed more light on the mystery that is random read performance.

We didn't find any warranty stickers over the screws, so opening the case will not void your warranty. You could use this drive in your desktop and later remove the M.2 SSD and migrate it over to a notebook.

Pricing, Warranty & Endurance

The Apacer PT920 Commando has yet to hit North American shores, but it already sells in Asia and Europe. Apacer tells us the series is coming to America soon. Newegg and Amazon both sell Apacer products and have several of the company's other SSDs in stock.

The PT920 Commando ships with a three-year warranty limited by the write endurance. Apacer armed this series with a generous endurance rating of 349 TBW for the 240GB model and 698 TBW for the 480GB model.

Packaging

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The PT920 Commando lands on store shelves with an attractive retail package. We found a lot of useful information on the box including the warranty and performance data for both capacities.

A Closer Look

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Apacer modeled the design after an AR15 upper with a carry handle. The casing is a thin aluminum cover that's sturdy enough for the task. The backplate doesn't have ventilation holes, so air can't pass unrestricted through the carrier. There is a small opening on the back so your system cooling fan can push air over the internal drive.

We're not fans of this design because the aluminum casing doesn't come into contact the Phison PS5007-E7 controller; it only obstructs air flow. Apacer says the PT920 Commando uses "convection cooling." I've never heard the term convection cooling other than in reference to liquid cooling for industrial applications. I'm sure everyone is familiar with the term convection cooking where a heat source is inside of a closed area, and hot air circulates to decrease cooking time.

Internals

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The PT920 Commando is a PCI 3.0 x4 add-in card that houses an M.2 2280 NVMe SSD.

The PT920 SSD is very similar to the Apacer Z280 SSD we tested last April. The Z280's model number is even on the sticker. There is a slight variation, though. Apacer chose to use the enclosed PS5007-E7 controller rather than the exposed die model we tested. We recently spoke with Phison about the enclosed model and found that it's a standard build that the company has shipped since the controller came to market. We also learned that the full casing adds roughly 1C to the controller's temperature.



MORE: Best SSDs



MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs



MORE: All SSD Content
Police in the homicide unit wants to find a man they consider dangerous, and likely armed. Hes wanted for a homicide at 2512 Quincy Ave., on Thursday and a homicide in Independence on Saturday, Oct. 28.
After losing her son to murder in 2011, Rosilyn Temple turned her grief into action. She formed Mothers in Charge, whose members respond to every homicide call in Kansas City, Missouri. Her story is now the subject of a new documentary, and Temple and director Jon Brick explain how the film came about.
A Kansas City teen has been charged with several car thefts and armed robberies involving vehicles that happened this summer in KC. According to Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, 16-year-old Michael Smith faces charges of first-degree robbery, second-degree robbery, two counts of first-degree tampering with a motor vehicle, and two counts of armed criminal action.
By India Today Web Desk: Priyank Sharma' s troubles are far from over. First, he was thrown out of the house for getting physical with a contestant. And now that he has returned, he has been on the rule-breaking spree. He not only leaked outside information to the contestants but also made Arshi Khan cry by digging her past. Not surprisingly, he got nominated by Bigg Boss as a punishment.

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This is not it. He might not have realised it, but one of the statements he made on the show is creating a lot of trouble in his paradise. In an extra dose video titled Problem hi problem at Bigg Boss house, Hina Khan while massaging Priyank's back is seen saying that he (Priyank) has a special someone in the US and he said that "mat kar mat kar (massage), wahaan USA mein logon ko acha nahi lagta (People in the US might not like it). "Aur kisi ne (Priyank) bola wahaan meri jaan hai," (someone said I have a lover there) Hina said.

Priyank's girlfriend Divya Agarwal is quite upset about the entire episode and expressed her displeasure in an interview to Bollywoodlife.com.

"I am really upset. If he is saying US mein jaan hai toh Mumbai mein kaun hai. If our relationship was just for a show, I would have admitted that. But it's not like that, at least not from my side," she said.

"See the whole point is that he had a girlfriend earlier and now she has shifted to US. I don't know if she still exists in his life or no. But the fact that Hina and Hiten are his new friends, and they know about her, and not me, is somewhere disturbing for me. I don't know what is wrong with Priyank. He has completely changed after going back. He is fighting with his brother, Vikas. I know Vikas personally. He has done so much for Priyank. I think whatever he is, is because Vikas Gupta," she added.

She is not liking his proximity with Ben either. "I have seen him interacting with Ben a lot. She is always putting him in a friendzone, but then he is sticking to her so much."

According to reports, the girl in the USA is Priyank's ex-girlfriend called Nikita Nagpal.

--- ENDS ---
De'Anthony Wiley was expected to testify on his own behalf in his first degree murder trial for the January 2015 killing of She's A Pistol Proprietor Jon Bieker. Wiley is claiming self-defense. In a special to the Sentinel, a reliable observer who has attended the trial from the beginning reports that Wiley, while in a ...
"City Manager Troy Schulte sent out an email telling all 4400 city employees should vote and make sure their family members vote for the airport. They even printed it off and showed me. Is this coercion or a threat???"

"Looks an awful lot like electioneering with city $$'s...."

THANKS TO OUR BLOG COMMUNITY . . . CHECK THIS LINK FEATURING TROY'S CONTROVERSIAL COMMUNICATION AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF . . .

City Manager Troy Schulte: "If all 4,400 City employees turned out to vote and brought just one other person with them, the outcome of this election would be determined by just the vote of City employees!"

Internets controversy over online electioneering in favor of the New Airport Question #1 now confronts City Manager Troy Schulte.First word of this hot mess started among our. . .Another KICK-ASS observation:The common defense of these e-mails is that there is no direct call to action . . ., the City Manager repeats all of the campaign talking points from "Better KCI" effort despite intense debate over these talking points by voters across KCMO . . .Here's a screenshot of the questionable digital blast . . .Also, it's not nice when a public official starts giving de facto orders to workers and their families . . .You decide . . .
Are locals unfair and shaming this controversial Trump donor as they cast their online suspicions upon Mr. Jungerman??? OR is this a sign that Kansas City doesn't have much trust in statements from police???

TKC EXCLUSIVE: THERE HAVEN'T BEEN MANY TIPS FROM BROOKSIDE NEIGHBORS REPORTED . . . DO THEY DESERVE THE SAME SCORN WE GIVE THE EAST SIDE FOR SILENCE AFTER A MURDER???

Finally, is the attention to this killing overrated and a symptom of Kansas City's divisive discourse???

After Thomas Pickert was murdered, police took their sweet time in telling locals that they talked to David Jungerman and that he wasdespite so many media reports which connected his van and his legal biz to the homicide.Questions for our blog community to consider . . .While it's accurate to document the guy's previous crazy and armed actions . . . It's also worth nothing that he has his defenders and those who callously sympathize with his good fortune upon the murder of a legal adversary.Surprisingly, no vigil after this murder.Whilst some complain about too much coverage . . . Other snowflakes lament the lack of an update and speculate that more deets are on the way.You decide . . .
New insights into how the remote areas without obvious coastal facilities were linked to the sea and, by extension, to the Mediterranean world

Underwater search off the Greek island of Naxos island has yielded impressive finds of Classical, Roman and Byzantine eras such as stone anchors, late-class amphora, utilitarian vessels, clay pipelines and 15 lithosphere tracks.

Greece's Culture Ministry announced that underwater research along the southern coast of Naxos has been carried out for the second consecutive year by the Ephorate of Old Antiquities in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute of Athens in the framework of a three-year co-operative program. Research is of particular interest since, for the first time, the underwater area of southern Naxos, from Alyko to Panormo, is systematically investigated. It is an isolated area ideal for port exploration, which remains largely unscathed by modern interventions.

The main objective of the program is the recording and mapping of anchoring sites during ancient and Byzantine times. This year's survey ran from 18 to 29 September 2017, and based on the results of the previous survey period (2016), it focused on places of increased interest.

 From the bay of Ag. Sozzontos, NA of the Monastery of Akrotiri, 5 stone anchors and diagnostic samples of ceramics, such as a late-class amphora, utilitarian vessels of classical era, an integral part of a post-Roman / Byzantine clay pipeline, etc., are believed to indicate that the natural harbor was used by archaic to the Byzantine period as anchorage. Iron anchors and anchor fittings (strings) were also found in the same bay.

 Batteries and scraps of ceramics found in Andrios bay, testifying to activity from Roman and Late Roman times.

 In Panormos bay there are 15 lithosphere tracks demonstrating shiploads in the area. The finds of pottery suggest the use of the site mainly during the Roman and Late Roman periods.

 A new location with a rich pottery concentration was found in Turkomspilia west of Akrotiri, Panormos. The objects that were removed (mainly amphoras) date from the 1st century. B.C. until late-Roman and Byzantine times.

The research program will give new insights into how the remote areas without obvious coastal facilities were linked to the sea and, by extension, to the Mediterranean world. It can give new information about unknown seaside locations, used as links between the inland and sea settlements. The study will reveal whether these natural harbors were only used by specific residential centers at particular times or if they were unaffected by habitat changes in inland settlements.

The survey was conducted under the direction of the Head of Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities Dr. Angeliki Simosi, while scientifically responsible and conducting in the field was the diving architect engineer Aikaterini Tagginidou. On the Norwegian side the director of the research was the archaeologist dr. Sven Ahrens, Curator of the Oslo Maritime Museum. Special thanks are due to Messrs. Manolis and Yannis Bardani, for the help and suggestions they offered during the investigation.

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
Comfort Suites Paradise Island in The Bahamas

COMFORT SUITES PARADISE ISLAND OPEN FOR BUSINESS

PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas (November 3, 2017) - Comfort Suites Paradise Island, a member of the Choice Hotels International, Inc., family of franchises, is among the vast majority of Caribbean hotels that were not seriously impacted by recent storms and are welcoming visitors to indulge in the region's world-renowned hospitality product.

The popular all-suite hotel reports that following the passage of Hurricane Irma through The Islands of The Bahamas in September, the property received no damages as Hurricane Irma did not directly affect New Providence and Paradise Island. Therefore, after the warnings were removed, "we quickly returned to normal operational mode, completing all post-hurricane cleanup efforts and resumed all normal hotel operation activities," reported Jermaine Wright, General Manager of Comfort Suites Paradise Island. Wright further noted that bookings were encouraging as the hotel prepares for an exciting winter season.

Expressing solidarity with affected destinations in the Caribbean, including parts of The Bahamas that were impacted by the storm, Wright lauded the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association's "One Caribbean Family" initiative that allows hotels across the region to help those who have been adversely impacted by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, while also highlighting that more than 70 percent of Caribbean destinations have not been affected and are ready to welcome visitors as usual.

He noted that The Bahamas understands the challenges and hurdles of rebounding from damaging storms, having experienced Hurricane Matthew last year.

Wright further noted that the family-owned property consistently receives high guest satisfaction ratings with visitors regularly reporting that the resort's unique brand of hospitality makes them "feel like family". The owners are intimately involved with the hotel product, supporting the dedicated team and ensuring that the product is constantly upgraded and maintained to industry standards. "This rubs off on our staff, who take an enormous amount of pride in the property and the way we treat guests," he stated.

"We have just completed refurbishment efforts totaling more than US$300,000 to update our Crusoe's Restaurant outdoor space, pool bar and deck," he added, disclosing that total refurbishment expenditure to date exceeds $10 million for the entire property.

Comfort Suites Paradise Island continues to upgrade and expand its product, including its food and beverage experience, which features the Comfort Suites brand's signature full complimentary hot and hearty breakfast.

"We are a Comfort Suites hotel with a difference," said Wright, explaining that Crusoe's Restaurant offers an expanded lunch menu and elegant dining options. At Comfort Suites Paradise Island, all registered child guests eat lunch and dinner free when dining with a registered paying adult.

Guests of Comfort Suites Paradise Island are also able to use the swimming pools, inviting beaches, casino, Lazy River Ride and water slides at Atlantis Paradise Island, which is located adjacent to Comfort Suites. With approved signing privileges, Comfort Suites guests can also enjoy Atlantis' restaurants and lounges.

About Comfort Suites Paradise Island

Comfort Suites Paradise Island is an all-suite Bahamas hotel located in Nassau, Paradise Island. The hotel provides affordable accommodations and complete access to all amenities at the famed Atlantis Resort. Comfort Suites Paradise Island features 223 renovated junior suites that include flat screen cable televisions and free wireless Internet access, plus complimentary hot American buffet breakfast daily. For further information about one of the most family-friendly, affordable Bahamas hotels in Paradise Island, visit www.comfortsuitespi.com

ENDS
It has been known worldwide that Vietnam is a beautiful destination to visit for foreign travelers with unique attractions of nature, culture and history. It is also said that Vietnam is a destination of cheap and diverse travel service. In planning stage of a trip in Vietnam, there is always a common question: How much should we need to travel Vietnam?



(TRAVPR.COM) VIETNAM - November 3rd, 2017 - The answer for your expenses in a Vietnam Custom Holidays will be determined by various things: what standard of accommodation you plan to stay, kind of food you want to eat or how you travel around the country. Nowadays. Vietnam is one of the fastest growing countries in Asia which means the cost of visiting is going up each year too. In spite of this matter, it is still possible to travel Vietnam with a backpackers budget of $40 per day while people looking for a more comfortable trip, the budget can reach up to $100 per day. For travelers who want a Vietnam Luxury Holidays, it should be a budget of $200 or more per day. Below are some tips and estimates for a wonderful Vietnam Customized Tour.

1. Accommodation

Similar to other tourist destinations in the world, Vietnam has few main types of accommodation: budget, mid-range and luxurious. Over the last decade, hotels in Vietnam have grown at a quick pace, with new hotels opening throughout the country every couple of months. Most of the budget accommodation is around $15 - 30 per night with acceptable standards. The tight budget backpackers can even find dorm bed at hostel with just around $5 - 8 per night. The mid-range hotels fluctuate around $40 - 60 per night with spacious room and buffet breakfast included, while the luxurious ones are more various with the average price more than $60 per night.

In major city like Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi, there is a large selection of accommodation with all price ranges while in smaller destinations, there is a good mix of budget and mid-range hotels.

2. Transportation

It is pretty easy now to travel around Vietnam. For travelers having a short time for Vietnam Customized Holidays, flying seem to be the best way with fares for domestic flights vary around $60 - 150 per flight based on airlines and distances. Traveling by train is a good option for travelers who are seeking for the insight experience of travel in Vietnam though it may take longer time. Train fares are around $5 - 60.

Buses sleeper buses are by far the cheapest way to travel around Vietnam, but can be less comfortable and pleasant due to the low infrastructure and busy traffic of the country. Bus fares vary from $4 - 50 for interprovincial traveling.

The recommended transportation inside cities for foreigners are taxis with average price from VND8.000 - 10.000/kilometer ($0.4 - 0.5). With apps on smartphone like Uber or Grab, it is so easy to book taxi in Vietnam and avoid being scammed when price and distance are displayed.

3. Food

In Vietnam, the cost for food is relatively reasonable though sometimes it can range from incredibly expensive to very cheap like any other country. For saving and having the best local experience on a Vietnam Customized Holiday, eating street food and at local restaurants are highly recommended. With the common Vietnamese dishes, the cost is really low at around $1  5 per dish and the most special food of a destination is certain to be charged higher based on the rareness and availability. Generally, the food expense in Vietnam is roughly around $8  15 per person for main meals (lunch, dinner) and $1  4 for breakfast per person.

Vietnam also has many restaurant serving international food like Italian, Indian or Mexican food, but the prices in these eateries are normally more expensive than local restaurants.

4. Other expenses

They can be entrance fees to tourist attractions, souvenir expenses or costs for joining must-do activities in Vietnam. Those expenses can be hard to estimate the amount of money should be spend. However, the entrance fees in Vietnam are normally less than $5 per person; small souvenirs are worth about $1  10 per item (need to bargain); and activities like trekking in Sapa may cost $20  30 or overnight Halong Bay cruise is from $64.

5. Suggested daily budget

- A friendly budget for backpacker is in the range of $40  50 per day. This is enough for covering food, drinks, sight-seeing activities and a comfortable accommodation though your luxuries will be limited. Most of the meals will come from street food stalls and local restaurants instead of Western cafes or eateries.

- The mid-range experience suggests a budget of $60  100 per day. This is okay for paying a room at 3 or 4 star hotel, eating in restaurants and visiting most attractions and activities.

- For luxurious experience in Vietnam, the budget should be at minimum $150 per day. A 5 star hotel may cost $80-130 for a room per night, even more than $200 per night if you plan to stay in the very luxurious, international hotel brand.

Though prices are getting more expensive in Vietnam due to its rapid growth, it is still an affordable destination for most travelers. The costs of traveling here are comparable to neighboring countries like Thailand or Cambodia, although certain things can be cheaper or more expensive.

###
By India Today Web Desk: Housemates woke up to Khalbali from Rang De Basanti and the song was apt considering the mayhem in the house.

The day started with Vikas bitching about Shilpa Shinde, Hina Khan, Benafsha Soonawalla and his friend Priyank Sharma. While talking to Dhinchak Pooja, he said that after completing six weeks in this house, he could trust only three people and they are Hiten, Jyoti and surprisingly Arshi Khan.

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Vikas and Priyank got into heated argument while Shilpa seemed to add fuel to fire.

Arshi Khan displayed a unique way of sweeping the floor, where she was seen lying on the floor with a broom in hand and swept while showing off her 'adayein'. Her antics were comic relief for the day.

Arshi Khan in a still from the show. Picture courtesy: Voot

Later in the day, Bigg Boss asked the housemates to name two of the worst performers in the luxury budget task.

This week's luxury budget task concluded with Team Vikas' victory, as Vikas managed to accumulate the maximum amount of money. Benafsha on the other hand turned out to be the richest individual contestant in the task as she managed to earn money with the help of her friend Priyank. Housemates discussed names of Vikas, Arshi and Shilpa as worst performers, which irked Shilpa and she stormed out of the living area. Finally Mehjabi and Vikas were zeroed in on as the worst performers while Luv named Arshi to be sent to jail, as she never cooperated with him and created trouble during his captaincy.

All the three candidates were escorted to kaal kothri by Luv, where Shilpa continued tormenting Vikas with her comments. Shilpa and Akash mocked Vikas, while he chose to lie down quietly.

Unable to take the humiliation, Vikas decided to leave the house and tried to get out of the jail. Seeing him leave the kaal kothri Bigg Boss asked him to stay put and later called him in the confession room and cajoled him to continue in the house, as the situations in the house are all temporary.

After Vikas returned to kaal kothri, Shilpa was reprimanded by Bigg Boss for making personal comments on Vikas. After coming out, she saw Vikas' food lying in the kitchen area which she offers to him in the jail. She made jibes at Vikas while giving him the plate of food, which he didn't respond to.

Vikas called all the housemates to clear the air about his professional differences with Shilpa, so that the matters were sorted once and for all. During the discussion, Akash started shouting at Vikas, which took an ugly turn and Priyank and Akash got into a heated argument. Housemates intervened and stopped them from getting physical.

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Hina and other housemates spoke to Priyank and asked him not to interfere between Shilpa and Vikas. While the housemates talked about the matter, Akash again tried to poke Priyank.

Vikas' patience will be put to test yet again in tonight's episode, as Shilpa will continue with her taunts. Let's see if he will be able to take it or will call it quits in tonight's episode of Bigg Boss 11.

--- ENDS ---
Former Bigg Boss contestant Sofia Hayat says emotionless sex is dull and mechanical.

By India Today Web Desk: Former Bigg Boss contestant Sofia Hayat doesn't shy away from sharing her bold pictures or opinions. And she is at it again; this time sharing her thoughts on "emotionless sex."

Sofia posted a picture on her Instagram with the message, "Emotionless sex is dull and mechanical sex. It's like two robots banging their metal bodies against each other. It has no fluidity. It is not divine."

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She captioned the picture as: "Sex talk..do you really know what it is.."

Sex talk..do you really know what it is.. A post shared by Sofia Hayat (@sofiahayat) on Nov 1, 2017 at 3:45am PDT

Sofia, who got married to Romanian interior designer Vlad Stanescu last year in an Egyptian ceremony, also talked about the importance of touching your lover in full awareness.

Do you know what awarenesa is..do you kniw the present..do you know God..then you kniw woman... A post shared by Sofia Hayat (@sofiahayat) on Nov 1, 2017 at 9:05am PDT

--- ENDS ---
By India Today Web Desk: A debate has come up over the past two days about khichdi, and it's all thanks to the rumour that khichdi would be announced as India's National Dish at the World Food India 2017 convention. Harsimrat Kaur Badal, the Union Minister of Food Processing Industries, clarified in her tweet that the Indian comfort food will be promoted as the Brand India Food at the event, and that chef Sanjeev Kapoor will attempt at making a World Record with the dish.

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And so, while the debate about the popularity and appeal of khichdi is still raging all around us, we take a closer look at the task ahead of India's masterchef, Sanjeev Kapoor.

Chef Sanjeev Kapoor, with PM Narendra Modi and Harsimrat Kaur Badal. Picture courtesy: Twitter/Food Food

Also Read: How khichdi, staple of kings and commoners, travelled from ancient ages to World Food India 2017

Chef Sanjeev Kapoor is at the World Food India event as the brand ambassador of Great Indian Food Street, a panel at the convention that also includes other popular chefs like Ranveer Brar and Saransh Goila. The chefs will give foreign as well as Indian delegates a taste of Indian cuisine, and even hold workshops to teach their favourite recipes.

However, the main khichdi event will be held on November 4, 11.30 am onward. Chef Sanjeev Kapoor, along with his selected team, will attempt at making a World Record by cooking up 800kgs of a very special Brand India Khichdi in front of a live audience!

Here are a few significant details about this amazing feat Kapoor is about to undertake:

1. The planning and trials for the dish have been done for over three months. Over 50 people have been involved with the dish so far.

2. The khichdi will be cooked in a specially crafted, three-layered, stainless steel giant kadhai (wok), which has the diameter of seven feet and has the capacity of 1000 litres.

Remarkable! We are attempting to cook more than 600kgs of khichdi @worldfoodindia. Wish us luck to set a record! @SanjeevKapoor pic.twitter.com/fK4TmHWFD9- Saransh Goila (@SaranshGoila) November 2, 2017

3. The Brand India Khichdi will be prepared with highly nutritious, typically Indian ingredients. Rice, moong dal, amaranth, jowar, bajra, jo and Indian spices will be steam-cooked to prepare this dish.

4. The khichdi will be served to the audience present at the convention, which includes eminent ambassadors and dignitaries from India and abroad.

5. The khichdi will also be packed and sent to all the Heads of Foreign Missions in India, along with the recipe.

6. The Ministry of Food Processing Industries will also try to ensure that the Brand India Khichdi recipe finds a way to kitchens across the world, and is included in the a la carte menus, through the World Food India event.

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Also Read: 5 ways you can turn the humble khichdi into the tastiest, gourmet dish, ever

Khichdi is cooked all over India in a number of forms, and this attempt at a World Record will make this dish popular all over the world as well. Whether you personally love khichdi or not, the attempt by Kapoor is something absolutely amazing. And given his stature in the Indian culinary scene, the dish is bound to taste brilliant, right?

Here's hoping Kapoor and his team manage to accomplish this incredible feat.

--- ENDS ---
Bathinda, November 3

As the fogging chemical is running out of stock, the exercise in the city has taken a hit. The number of dengue patients has reached 164. The Municipal Corporation (MC), Bathinda, failed to carry out fogging in the past three days in the city.

The MC authorities said fogging was carried out only in those areas where they were getting information of dengue larvae. Two days ago, the MC was left with only 5 litres of fogging chemical. The civic body kept it for the emergency situation.

Now, volunteers of an NGO, Naujawan Welfare Society, have started carrying out fogging in the city on their vehicles in the wake of a high number of dengue cases reported in past two weeks.

It is learnt that the Local Bodies Department instructed the MC to change the fogging chemical. The civic body was told that it could purchase the chemical from Markfed.

Satish Kumar, Chief Sanitary Inspector of the MC, said, The fogging chemical was running out of stock as earlier, we were using other chemical. But last week, we received a letter from the Local Bodies Department stating that Methanol Technical be used for fogging. We have to purchase it from Markfed and we have placed an order for it. Now, we have received the chemical. We will carry out fogging from tomorrow onwards.

Sonu Maheshwari, president of Naujawan Welfare Society, said it was not happening for the first time.

He said it was an every-year story that fogging carry out by the MC proved to be inadequate.

Regular fogging and awareness about the problem will help us get rid of the problem. The state government should provide treatment free of cost at hospitals. The needed infrastructure should be provided to the district hospitals so that no patient is referred to Ludhiana or Chandigarh for treatment in such cases, said Parul Garg, another city resident.

In 2015, Bathinda registered the highest number of dengue and malaria cases.  TNS
Girja Shankar Kaura

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 3

As the process of disinvestment of the debt-ridden Air India gets underway, it has emerged that the Modi government would be in favour of selling the stakes in the national carrier to domestic players only.

With the Prime Minister already having expressed his wish for the control of National Flag carrier to remain within the country, the government is apparently working with that mindset and looking at only the domestic players, some of whom have already expressed their willingness to pick up stakes in Air India.

Three entities  the Tata Group, the Bird Group, an aviation services provider, and InterGlobe Aviation  which operates the budget carrier IndiGo, have so far shown interest in buying stakes in the beleaguered state-run airline which has over the years seen its business shrink due to decades of mismanagement.

Reports suggested that the government was keen in hiving off the five different subsidiaries of Air India to five different entities as it is not possible for any one company to buy the entire Air India empire and as such would seek proposals from various entities for them. Market reports say of the five subsidiaries to be put on sale, the government was keen to engage with SpiceJet, IndiGo and the Tata Group for the three of its flying arms.

While Ajay Singh, the Chairman and Managing Director of SpiceJet, has over and again said the airline was too small to be involved in Air India sale, the government reportedly is keen in handing over the control of Air Indias low-cost airline Air India Express to him.

Financial and on-time performance of SpiceJet has been on the rise and reports suggested that there was thinking in the government that a merger with SpiceJet would be the best option for Air India Express.

Incidentally, Ajay Singh is close to the BJP and had coined the slogan Ab ki Baar Modi Sarkar before the 2014 General Election.

The government, the reports said, was looking at handing over the international domestic operations of Air India to the Tata Group, which had initially launched the airline before it was nationalised.

The Tata Group in collaboration with SIA has been running the Vistara Airline successfully and is also keen to take over Air India to bolster its aircraft strength and get onto the international stage. Reports said though IndiGo had expressed its interest in Air India Express, the government wants to hand over the working of Alliance Air to it.

Incidentally, the process of disinvestment of Air India has begun and the government, with the Group of Ministers in control, has been meeting different stakeholders to formalise the process of selling the national carrier.

Tatas, Bird Group, InterGlobe Aviation in race for buying stakes
Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, November 3

The Maharashtra Government has in principle agreed to provide 200 hectares of land near the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) in Navi Mumbai to Taiwanese hardware manufacturer Foxconn, according to sources here.

Foxconn officials had last month met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union Tranport Minister Nitin Gadkari and sought the land near the port for the manufacturing facility. The facility will be located near the port so that the company can export goods manufactured here, an official from JNPT said.

The Maharashtra Government officials have been told that the company would assemble mobile phones at the facility. It is not clear whether Foxconn would be manufacturing Apples iPhone at the Navi Mumbai facility.

Sources say the plant, to be located in the JNPT Special Economic Zone, would begin operations within eight months of the company being given possession of the land. Foxconn is expected to invest $1 billion in the facility.

Foxconn had earlier held talks with the Maharashtra Government and sought enough land to set up a massive electronic manufacturing plant for which it planned to invest $5 billion over five years. However, the companys officials could not agree on the plots of land offered by the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation.
Tribune News Service

Panchkula, November 3

A 32-year-old youth was found murdered at the Mansa Devi Complex (MDC), Panchkula, today. The victim has been identified as Arun Pal.

He was married and was staying with his two brothers, Babul Pal and Vinod Pal, in Saketri on rent.

Arun used to work as a sweeper in Infosys at IT Park, Chandigarh. The family hails from Amethi, Uttar Pradesh.

According to Babul Pal, who is privately employed in the Industrial Area, Phase 2, Panchkula, Arun came late to the house on Thursday around 11.30 pm. Within five minutes, he went out, he said.

Aruns body was found in bushes on the Saketri-Kishangarh road near Sector 2, MDC. It had multiple stab wounds. Babul received a call around 9.30 am about the body being found. He rushed to the spot along with relatives. He told the police that his cousin Amit had told him that around 11.30 pm on Thursday, he had seen his brother with Monu, also a resident of Saketri. The police have registered a case of murder. According to the police, they received a call about the body and after searching it, they were able to contact Babul Pal.

DCP Manbir Singh said, The postmortem has not been conducted as we are waiting for his parents to reach Panchkula. No weapon has been recovered.

Arun had got married around three years ago to Geeta. The family said a person known to Arun had come and he went with him on foot. He told them that he would come back after seeing off his friend. When he did not come till late in the night, the family members called on his mobile number, which was switched off.

As two beer bottles were found near the crime spot, the police suspect the victim and his friends had drinks and after that a fight must have ensued. Blood was found at two places, which indicated that Arun must have fought back for some time. We have registered a case, said Inspector Harbhajan Singh, SHO of the Mansa Devi police station.
Mohit Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 3

One in eight males and one in seven females in the city are at the risk of developing cancer, states the second annual population-based cancer registry released at the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) here today.

The survey report was jointly released by a team of researchers from the PGIMER, Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai, the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Punjab, and Director of Health Services, Chandigarh.

The figures have not gone down well with UT Heath Secretary Anurag Aggarwal, who was among the guests invited at the function for the release of the report.

He expressed surprise over the high cancer rate in Chandigarh. The city is known for its medical tourism and patients from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Bihar come here for treatment. Did the survey team compile the data (registering patients antecedents) of people who were undergoing treatment for cancer in Chandigarh.

How could these non-communicable disease (NCD) cases be high in Chandigarh where the air is much cleaner and infrastructure perfect for physical activity, asked Aggarwal from the survey team.

Prof JS Thakur, principal investigator, said all the patients were from Chandigarh. He said as per the population-based report, the rate of males suffering from cancer in Chandigarh was much higher at 96.1 per 1 lakh against the national average of 92.4.

Similarly, the rate of city women suffering from cancer was 104.6 per 1 lakh against the national average of 97.4. At 34 per cent, breast cancer is the major cause of concern.

Majority of the cancer cases have been reported from Mani Majra and Sector 37, stated one of the researchers.

The mortality rate of cancer patients is 43.7 among men and 33.9 among women.

Prof Thakur said there was no need to panic as the percentage appears to be high owing to the citys small population.

11.6% male patients have lung cancer

n Considered a smoke-free city, a fair number of male cancer patients in Chandigarh are suffering from lung cancers. The survey report showed 11.6 per cent of patients suffer from lung cancer while prostate cancer was the second biggest form of the disease

n Prof Rakesh Kapoor, who was part of the research team, said the survey was carried in the age group of 1 to 74 years. Elderly people are more at the risk of prostate cancer, he said
Pavneet Singh Chadha

Tribune News Service

Mohali, November 3

Two days after a 15-year-old boy, Manraj Singh, a resident of Kumbra village died of dengue, family members of the victim alleged an epidemic-like situation, complaining that cases of dengue in the village had reached an alarming proportion.

Four members in the family - Manrajs sister, father, uncle and a cousin - are battling against dengue. We have been making rounds of hospitals for the past few weeks. This is an epidemic, said Bajan Singh, victims uncle.

Relatives said Manraj had recently returned from a study tour of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from the US.

Manrajs father, Dara Singh, was admitted to a private hospital for 10 days due to dengue and was discharged recently. Manrajs sister, Harshveer Kaur (17), a student of Class XI at Doon International School, is critical and is undergoing treatment for dengue at a hospital.

Her platelet count had reduced to 20,000 a few days ago. So, she had to be admitted, said a relative. Parminder Kaur, a cousin, who works as a nurse at a private hospital in Mohali and is currently staying with the family in Kumbra, has also tested positive for the vector-borne disease.

Manrajs uncle, Ravinder Singh Bindra, who is the councillor of Kumbra, said: Even last year, several dengue cases were reported from the village. MC officials have conducted fogging, but it has proved to be ineffective.

Ravinder claimed that every house in the village had at least one person complaining of dengue-related symptoms.

Harbinder Singh, a family member, said the larvae had spread because of insanitary conditions and stagnant water that collected in the village.

There is a panic and fear about the dengue fever. We are taking precautions, but the authorities should conduct fogging twice a day to curb the menace.

As of November 2, 2017, the Health Department had received 2,853 samples of suspected cases of dengue, out of which 1,897 have tested positive for the vector-borne disease in Mohali.

Three deaths have been reported from the district. In Mohali city, maximum cases have been reported with the toll reaching 854, followed by 281 cases in Kharar and 176 in Nayagaon. In villages, 445 cases have been reported so far.

Dr Avtar Singh, Epidemiologist, Civil Hospital, Mohali, said 8 suspected cases of dengue-related deaths had been reported, out of which 3 deaths had been confirmed.

When asked about the three suspected dengue-related deaths in the past one week, he said: We are yet to receive the complete medical record of the suspected cases. Officially, three deaths have been confirmed.

A senior official of the Municipal Corporation said they had increased fogging in the vulnerable areas in Phase 7, Phase 3B1, Sectors 70 and 71 where maximum cases were being reported.

Asked how many machines were being used for fumigation, the official said: We have four machines for fogging, out of which three are currently in operation.
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 3

Stressing that a defensive posture is not always the ideal strategy, former Chief of Army Staff Gen VP Malik said, We must be ready with offensive plans at all times to cater to any situation, especially in short duration conflicts.

Speaking at the launch of a book, Battleground Chhamb, authored by Maj Gen AJS Sandhu, former Additional Director Artillery, here today, Gen Malik said, The Pakistani army that we face today is vastly different from what it was the era of 1965 and 1971 wars. He said there had been a sea change in the Pakistani armys ethics and code of conduct, which was a result of its islamisation and nurturing terrorism.

On the book, Gen Malik said it was well-researched and highly informative, having important lessons for military commanders at all levels. The book also contains a chapter on Pakistans perspective of the battle.

At the time of the battle, the authors father, Maj Gen Jaswant Singh, was the General Officer Commanding, 10 Division in Akhnoor, and the senior-most commander in that sector who later became Vice Chief of Army Staff.

Chhamb in south-west Jammu and Kashmir is a strategically vital as well as vulnerable area and was the only place to be attacked by Pakistan in all three wars since 1947. The site of Pakistans biggest land offensive with the objective of capturing Akhnoor, the Battle of Chhamb was the bloodiest, most intense and in the words of the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, was the toughest battle of 1971.
Chandigarh: A 70 kWp rooftop solar power plant was inaugurated at Government Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 38 (West), here on Friday. Siddhanta Das, Director General of Forests and Special Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, who inaugurated the plant, appreciated the efforts taken by the UT Administration in developing Chandigarh as a model solar city. TNS

Cong protests LPG price hike

Chandigarh: The District Congress Urban 1 held a demonstration against the hike in the price of LPG cylinders and rising prices of other commodities, in Sector 22 here on Friday. Chandigarh Congress president Pardeep Chhabra said, "Under the BJP regime, the prices of essential commodities is rising, making it difficult for the common man to meet his day-to-day needs." "When the Congress was in power, it had fixed subsidy on 12 cylinders per year. Then, the BJP had raised a hue and cry over this. At the helms of affairs now, it is not only increasing the prices of LPG every now and then but also plans to end subsidy on cylinders for domestic use," he added. TNS

Market Committee poll on Nov 8

Chandigarh: The election for the post of chairman of the Market Committee will be held on November 8. The election has been necessitated after Jujhar Singh resigned from the post. He has remained the chairman of the committee for about 10 months. The committee has nine directors. Source said Kulvinder Singh Kala was likely to the unanimous choice for the post as majority of the directors belong to the BJP. TNS
Chandigarh, November 3

Another daring snatching has been reported from the city. This time, an MNC staffer was manhandled and her bag, containing Rs 22,000, gold earrings and ATM cards, snatched outside her house in Sector 44. The snatcher later withdrew Rs 49,000 from the victims bank account.

According to the police, the victim, a resident of Sector 44 who works at IT Park, was about to enter the house after parking her car when the miscreant, who was wearing a helmet, came from the rear and pushed the victim.

The victim, not wishing to be named, said she was carrying her laptop on one shoulder and the bag on the other when the accused came from behind and snatched the bag after pushing her to the ground. The victim received a minor injury in the incident.

The victim got up and tried to chase the accused. However, he managed to flee from the spot. The incident took place at 8.35 pm.

Sources said the purse contained cash, gold earrings, important documents, ATM cards, an RC of a car, a driving licence, an office ID card and a wallet. The victim said there was an ATM card, issued recently, in her bag along with its PIN with which the accused withdrew Rs 49,000. The withdrawal was made at an ATM in Sector 66, Mohali. The CCTV footage of the ATM shows the accused wearing a helmet due to which his face is not visible, she said. A case has been registered at the Sector 34 police station.  TNS
Shiv Kumar Sharma

Tribune News Service

Yamunanagar, November 3

The police today booked two persons for sexually assaulting two minor girl students and the principal of a Government Senior Secondary School, Yamunanagar, and five other staff members of the school for not reporting the offence to the police and the higher authorities of the Education Department.

Sheelawanti, SHO, Women Police Station, Yamunanagar, said a case had been registered.

Sources said on a complaint by Dr Richa, District Child Protection Officer (DCPO), Yamunanagar, a case was registered against Kadir and Shajid, both residents of Mumidi village in the district, under Section 4 of the POCSO Act (sexual assault).

The police also booked school principal Paramjit Garg, teachers Dharampal, Anuradha, Gian Chand and Shiv Kumar and peon Asha Rani under Section 21 of the POCSO Act (for not reporting the offence).

Paramjit Singh Badola, member, Haryana State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, said he got information that two students of Class IX of Government Senior Secondary School, Yamunanagar, were sexually assaulted by two youths on October 24.

He said students were absent from school that day. The next day they narrated the incident to their teacher. The teacher brought the matter to the notice of the school principal, but he did not report the offence to the police and the higher authorities of his department.

Badola said the principal got the names of the students struck off from the school. They had been coming to the school since October 25.

Badola today visited the school along with Dr Richa, Ranjan Sharma, legal officer; Satpal Kaur, chairperson, Child Welfare Committee (CWC), Yamunanagar; Suresh Pal, member, CWC; Gurpreet Singh, social worker; Sheelawanti Devi, women police station SHO, Yamunanagar; and Pawan Kumar from the Education Department.

The team spoke to the principal and staff members and recorded their statements. The team also spoke to students of Class IX. The team members later visited the houses of the victims.

The principal and other staff members were aware of the incident, but they committed serious negligence by not reporting it, added Badola.

On the other hand Paramjit Garg, principal, said he had informed the parents of the victims about the incident, but they refused to go to the police.

Sources said the students had told the principal that the accused had taken them to a restaurant in a car on some pretext and sexually assaulted them.
By PTI: New Delhi, Nov 3 (PTI) Britains Prince Charles will arrive in India on November 8 to invite Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), that will be held next year in the UK.

The announcement of Prince Charles two-day visit was made by external affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar here today.

The prince would be accompanied by his wife Duchess of Cornwall, Camilla Parker Bowles, during the visit, which is a part of their 10-day tour of four nations -- Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and India, he said.

advertisement

The visit is aimed at strengthening bilateral relations.

The Prince is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Modi and discuss a wide range of issues, including climate change, sustainable development goals, economic cooperation and the upcoming CHOGM meet, which will take place in April 2018, in the UK, Kumar said.

India and the UK have robust economic ties and their current trade stands at USD 12.19 billion.

India is the 3rd largest investor in the UK and the second largest international job creator in the UK.

The UK is the 3rd largest inward investor in India, with a cumulative equity investment of USD 24.37 billion for the period April 2000?June 2017

This visit will be the 9th visit of the Prince of Wales to India since 1975, last being in 2013.

The Indian diaspora in the UK is one of the largest ethnic minority communities there, with the 2011 census recording approximately 1.5 million people of Indian-origin in the UK, contributing 6 per cent to the countrys GDP. PTI PYK ASK ASK

--- ENDS ---
Shahira Naim

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, November 3

A bus carrying students from a Mandi school overturned on the Yamuna Expressway in Etmadpur  25 km from Agra  on Friday, killing one person and wounding at least 35 others, five of them gravely.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Etmadpur Sub-Divisional Magistrate Rajnish Mishra said one of two buses taking a school group on a study tour to Agra turned turtle after it hit a divider on the Expressway, killing the driver, 52-year-old Hansraj, a resident of Mandi.

The two buses had a total strength of 106 people  students and staff of Mandis Alok Bharti Vidyalaya, and tour operators from a travel agency.

All students on the study tour were from Classes 9-12.

The five people who suffered grave injuries were taken to Sarojini Naidu Medical College Hospital. Dr S.C. Jain, chief medical superintendent, said two underwent amputations: a 25-year-old man from the travel agency named Push Raj, and a 12-year-old boy identified only as Abhishek.

The others who suffered serious injuries have been identified as Oshin (7), Dimple (15) and Priti (16)  all nursing head injuries.

The remaining students have been taking to various private hospitals in Agra, Agra Police Superintendent Amit Pathak said.

School Principal Vikram Thakur, who was also travelling with the group, said that the school had already contacted parents.

Agra accident helpline numbers:

District Magistrate Agra : 9454417509/ 9454419030

SSP Agra: 9454400246

SDM Etmadpur: 9454417667

Chief Medical Superintendent Sarojini Naidu Medical College Agra: 9358510229

Alok Bharti Vidyalaya Principal Vikram Thakur (travelling with the children): 9857857003
Kuldeep Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, November 3

All four main contestants in the fray for the Shimla Assembly seat here have upped their campaigns, seeking votes on the strength of their political connection, individual rapport and vision for the development of the city as a model Assembly constituency.

While each of them has launched the door-to-door campaign, the citys 50,000 voters have kept their cards close to their chest, giving them sleepless nights.

Out of the four candidates  BJPs Suresh Bhardwaj (65), the sitting legislator, CPMs Sanjay Chauhan (49) former Shimla Mayor released their vision paper for the city recently. Congress rebel Harish Janartha (52), former Deputy Mayor, who claims to have the support of a local pro-Virbhadra Singh Congress group, released a 18-points manifesto today, promising the residents that he will work towards making Shimla as a model Assembly constituency.Being younger, both Janartha and Chauhan are cashing in on their connect with the youth of the city. Bhardwaj and Congress candidate Harbhajan Singh Bhajji (68), the oldest among them all, are trying their best to connect with the older citizens as both have remained local MLAs. Other two independents in the fray  Dr Kishori Lal (43), and Virender Singh (45), have no presence in the city so far.

Interestingly, Bhajji has put up big hoardings in Sanjauli and other key locations that feature a big picture of his godfather, Anand Sharma, Rajya Sabha MP, who had come for his campaigning early this week, putting Chief Minister Virbhadra Singhs in the background. On the other hand, Janartha is taking credit for carrying out works worth Rs 600 crore as he enjoys the support of Virbhadra Singh, but he was denied the party ticket and seeking sympathy of voters on the slogan, Shimla Shahar ka Nara hai, Harish Janartah Hamara Hai.

Janarthas hoardings with his election symbol, telephone, compete equally with those of Bhajji, Bhardwaj and Sanjay Chauhan that have come up at key locations of the city roads and streets. Janartha is countering his three rivals on all fronts from parking problems, to congestion and lack of parks blaming Suresh and Sanjay for the mess, seeking votes on the basis of what he did for the city in the last five years as a vice-chairman of the HPTDC.

Suresh Bhardwaj and Sanjay Chauhan are also asking the voters to free Shimla from the drug mafia without naming the candidate. The main plank of Bhardwaj is, Shimla ki Awaj, Suresh Bhardwaj, promising a Shimla free from water and parking woes. Chauhans card is his tenure as a Mayor in which he claimed he brought Shimla civic body earn the smart city tag and provided corruption-free governance.

Those in the fray

Out of the four candidates  BJPs Suresh Bhardwaj (65), the sitting legislator, CPMs Sanjay Chauhan (49) former Shimla Mayor released their vision paper for the city recently. Congress rebel Harish Janartha (52), former Deputy Mayor, who claims to have the support of a local pro-Virbhadra Singh Congress group, released a 18-points manifesto promising the residents that he will work towards making Shimla as a model Assembly constituency. Being younger, both Janartha and Chauhan are cashing in on their connect with the youth of the city. Bhardwaj and Congress candidate Harbhajan Singh Bhajji (68), the oldest among them all, are trying their best to connect with the older citizens as both have remained local MLAs.
Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, November 3

Improving law and order situation in the state with focus on womens safety and restoring the faith of public in police would be the priority of the BJP after it comes to power, said former Chief Minister P K Dhumal who addressed political rallies to seek votes for BJP candidates at NainaDevi in Bilaspur and Gumma and Kasumpti in Shimla district today.

The Gudiya rape and murder case has shamed the state but what was more shameful was that the state government and the police tried to shield the culprits rather than bringing them to the book, said Dhumal adding that eight police officials, including an IG and a DGP, are lodged in jail in connection with the custodial death of one of the accused in Gudiya case.

The BJP will ensure security of the people of the state besides taking strict action against the culprits. Police in jail and CM on bail  this is the situation today and the number in which the public is coming out in BJP rallies itself proves that Lotus will blossom on December 18, Dhumal said.

Taking a dig at the Congress, Dhumal said the former President of India and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had hailed the GST and termed it a great step in rationalising the tax regime of the country but the Congress spokespersons are not ready to believe its own leaders. The result of hard work are pouring in and India has been ranked 100th in the ease of doing business under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said adding that the Centre had given so much to Himachal in terms of health institutions and roads.

BJP Moves EC against DGP

The BJP has filed a complaint with the Election Commission (EC) against DGP Somesh Goyal alleging that he was working as per the wishes of the Chief Minister and Congress leaders. In his complaint, the state convener of the BJP election cell HN Kashyap said the political parties

had requested the EC to depute Central security forces for peaceful elections in the state, but out of the 65 companies, only 20 had been deployed at the booth level, while the remaining had been kept on a standby. He said the deployment of cops at the booth level would help the ruling party, which was leaving no stone unturned to build pressure on officers. Refuting the allegation, the DGP said there has been no deviation from the previous elections and the deployment was as per the plan already submitted to the EC.

Member expelled

The state BJP on Friday expelled MD Sharma from the party primary membership for six years for contesting and working against the party official candidate in Shimla (Rural) Assembly segment.
Shimla, November 3

The Bharatiya Janata Party in Himachal Pradesh was forced to project its two-time former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal as its chief ministerial candidate after charisma of Prime Minister Narendra Modi failed, Congress leader Sachin Pilot said on Friday.

"The BJP had to change its strategy mid-way and was forced to project Prem Kumar Dhumal, while the Congress is always confident of its Chief Ministerial candidate Virbhadra Singh, who is a mass and determined leader," he told reporters here.

"The BJP withdrew (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi face because of fear. We are banking on development, which was unprecedented, in the state that our party ensured in the past five years of its rule," he said.

Pilot questioned the BJP over its huge expenditure over bringing its entire central leadership in the poll-bound state.

Besides the Prime Minister and the BJP chief, the BJP has brought 13 central ministers for poll campaign.

"Their campaign will not be able to impress the voters...They know very well that the Modi government has only harassed the common man," said Pilot, adding that people were feeling the pinch of demonetization, Goods and Services Tax and price rise.

"Whatever the Prime Minister said about demonetization and the GST turned out to be wrong. They came to power last time, exploiting the issue of price rise whereas the reality is that the prices of all daily needs are now sky rocketing," he said.

He said the language used by Modi against the Congress leadership during campaigning "does not behove a leader of the stature of PM".

Regarding the ongoing investigations by central agencies against Virbhadra Shingh and his family, Pilot said the Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate are being used by the central government to harass political opponents.

The hill state will go to polls for 68 assembly seats on November 9. The votes will be counted on December 18 along with those in Gujarat.

In Himachal Pradesh, Congress won 36 of the 68 seats in 2012 with a vote share of 42.81 per cent, while the BJP bagged 26 seats with a 38.47 per cent vote share.  IANS
Tribune News Service

Jammu, November 3

The Border Security Force (BSF) today bid an emotional farewell to Constable Tapan Mondal, who was killed in firing by Pakistan Rangers along the International Border on Thursday.

The BSF organised a wreath-laying ceremony at its frontier headquarters here to pay rich tributes to the brave soldier. Inspector General, BSF Jammu, Ram Awtar; Director General of Police SP Vaid; IGP, BSF, SDS Jamwal; and BSF personnel along with other senior officers of the Central and state government paid floral tributes to the constable.

On the occasion, the DGP said the BSF had a history of bravery and its personnel always stood firm when it came to the nations security. The BSF is the most professional force to protect the sovereignty of the country and people can sleep fearlessly while its personnel are on duty, Vaid said, added that Modals sacrifice would be remembered forever.

Ram Awtar reiterated that the BSF never initiated fire from its side but also never hesitated to give a befitting reply if they were compelled to respond. The cremation of the BSF constable will be held on Saturday at Satul village in Murshidabad district of West Bengal.
Majid Jahangir

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, November 3

Security forces have achieved a major breakthrough after they identified four militants involved in the killing of BJP youth leader Gowhar Bhat.

The four militants behind the killing are Hamas and Umer Nazir of the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Ishfaq Thoker and Zubair Turay of the Hizbul Mujahideen. A police officer privy to the investigation said Hamas, a Pakistan national, was suspected to have masterminded the murder along with three local militants.

Four militants involved in the brutal murder have been identified. Besides Hamas, two local Hizb militants and a Lashkar militant were part of the group that abducted and killed Bhat, the officer said, requesting not to be named. We have started a hunt to trace them.

The officer said Hamas was in the past associated with the Jaish-e-Mohammad and was active in the Tral area. Some time ago, he joined the Lashkar and was active in Shopian district.

The throat-slit body of BJP district youth president Gowhar Bhat, 26, was recovered in south Kashmirs volatile Shopian district on Thursday evening. Bhats body was recovered near his native village Kiloora in Shopian, some 55 km from Srinagar. Bhat had played an active role in the recently held BJP youth convention which was held for the first time in Srinagar. Bhat had joined the BJP two years ago and was holding the post of youth district president (Shopian) from nearly a year.

The investigators are trying to establish when and where Bhat was kidnapped. Sources said his mobile phone was switched off since Thursday afternoon. A large number of mourners participated in his funeral at Shopian.

Superintendent of Police, Shopian, Shriram Ambarkar, however, refused to divulge the details about the investigation. The investigations are on and that is all what I have to say, Ambarkar said.

Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh has condemned the killing of BJP youth leader Gowher Ahmad Bhat. Bhat was killed by militants in Shopian on Thursday. In a message, Nirmal Singh said the heinous crime perpetrated by elements trying to push the state into chaos and confusion would not be tolerated and they would be dealt with sternly. He expressed sympathy with the bereaved family and prayed for peace to the departed soul.
Majid Jahangir

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, November 3

At least two or three militants managed to give security forces the slip during a gunfight on Thursday evening in south Kashmirs Pulwama district that left two soldiers and a Pakistani Jaish-e-Mohammad militant dead.

The security forces launched an anti-militancy operation at Samboora village in Awantipore, Pulwama, some 30 km from Srinagar, after a tip-off about three or four militants, including two foreigners, hiding in a house. As the joint teams were laying cordon around 5.30 pm, the militants fired at the parties and tried to break the cordon.

During the initial cordon, the terrorists came out firing from the house. In the gunfight, an A Plus category foreign terrorist of the JeM, Bader, was killed. One of our jawans was also martyred, said General Officer Commanding, Victor Force, Maj Gen BS Raju, on the sidelines of a function here. About 45 minutes later, another encounter erupted close to the orginal encounter site, where another jawan was martyred.

The two slain soldiers were identified as Sepoy Suraj Singh Topal, 25, of Chamoli district of Uttarakhand and Signal man Kushwah Pradip Singh Brijkishor Singh, 22, of Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

Police sources said the militants escaped during the initial gunfight and the operation was called off at midnight after the security forces were unable to establish fresh contact with the militants.

The militants were probably holding a meeting in the area and were planning to carry out some attacks, a source said. Bader had been operating in the Tral area for the past few months and might have come down to Samboora for the meeting.

Maj General Raju said 80 militants, including their commanders, had been killed this year in south Kashmir. As many as 115 militants, including 90 locals, are active in Pulwama, he said, adding that situation overall had improved.

Army pays homage to martyrs

In a solemn ceremony at Badami Bagh Cantonment, Lt Gen JS Sandhu, Chinar Corps commander and all ranks on Friday paid homage to the two soldiers killed in Pulwama encounter. In a show of solidarity, officials and representatives from the state government and other security agencies also joined in to pay their last respects to the martyrs, an Army spokesman said. Slain Sepoy Suraj Singh Topal, 25, had joined the Army in 2012 and hailed from Falota in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand. He is survived by his parents and two sisters. Signal man Kushwah Pradip Singh Brijkishor Singh, 22, of Gujarat had donned the uniform in 2013. He is survived by his parents and a brother.
Mona

Road fatalities in India are of disastrous proportion. With about 400 people dying on Indian roads, its equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing on Indian soil every single day. It was with a view to create awareness on road safety in India that H Kishie Singhs column Good Motoring was born. Twenty four years on, its joined by a book with the same name!

Automobiles dont kill people, people kill people... is one of the many conclusions that the writer discusses in his book thats full of life, jest and, of course, road wisdom. A collection of some 650 articles but a publisher did not come easy still!

It was finally the story of his Toyota Corolla christened Lucille, Bucephalus and Bhawanti through the road journey from London to Delhi that finally saw light of the day for the book.

The erudite tech expert happens to have a funny bone too thats amply reflected in his weekly columns with The Tribune. His books content page is a testimony to what to expect  Driving Escapades makes the introduction; followed by essays starting with Know Thy Car, Know Thyself, second followed by Maintain Thyself and Thy Car, Learn Thy Manners and the Safety is Important!

Announced at the Khushwant Singh Literature Festival this October, the book sold 500 copies within a few days and thats some satisfaction to Kishie, who knew that there are readers for this but yet was summarily overlooked in favour of Chetan Bhagats and Shobha Des!

Twenty-four years of writing and not a single deadline missed, we want to know the trick, Kishie answers, Having a calendar, as simple as that!

Even in the days of his frequent travels, its not like he wasnt caught in situations, but three columns in reserve was his funda to sail through the rainy days!

To trace this mans journey, starting with a Studebaker in his fathers lap to many a automobile Readomanias 215, this book is your answer to all you want to know about motoring and trust us you are in good hands, for the writer is a recipient of IRF Media Road Safety Award 2017  a very prestigious International Award for Journalism from the International Road Federation, Geneva.

mona@tribunemail.com

We, the culprits

The government alone cant help. The rules, regulations and laws are well in place. We ignore them. It is we, the people who have to wake up, and bring about a change. It is the cars of the rich and famous (and infamous) who kill the poor and unknown. This is a reason these fatalities are not taken seriously. An unknown, unnamed, anonymous rickshaw coolie from Bihar has no one to mourn for him!
GS Paul

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, November 2

Their prayers were answered after 11 long years as two Pakistani sisters, Fatima and Mumtaz, along with Fatimas India-born daughte Heena, left for Pakistan via the Attari border this afternoon.

The sisters were arrested at the Attari railway station in 2006 for carrying drugs. They were released from the Amritsar jail in the morning.

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Fatima and Mumtaz, along with mother Rashida Bibi, were arrested on May 8, 2006, while they were on their way to Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh to meet their maternal uncles.

The three women were sentenced to 10 years and fined Rs 4 lakh. Fatima, who was pregnant then, gave birth to Heena while in jail the same year. Rashida Bibi died of ill-health in 2008.

Local lawyer Navjot Kaur Chhaba fought a legal battle on their behalf. She even approached the PMO in September this year.

Despite having completed the sentence in November 2015, the three had to stay put in the jail transit camp as they were unable to pay the hefty fine imposed by the courts.

Chhaba arranged the money through Batala-based NGO, Sarbat Da Bhala Humanity Club, on April 7 this year.

Despite that, it took seven months for the Union Home and External Affairs Ministries to clear their release.

Pakistan High Commission counsellor Fauzia Manzoor visited Amritsar in August this year and conferred Pakistani nationality on Heena.

Fatima comes from Gujranwala whereas Mumtaz, who is unmarried, is a resident of Sikanderabad. They had argued in the court that the 400-gram smack seized from a bag in their possession belonged to an unknown fellow passenger who vanished on arrival at the Attari station, but their claim could not be authenticated. Consequently, the court pronounced their conviction.

As they left Amritsar for Attari, Heena said, I love India where I was born and received my primary education. I want to become a doctor. I am excited at the prospect of meeting my father, brother and sisters for the first time. If you ask me my nationality, I would say humanity.

Though Mumtaz showed traces of resentment against the Indian authorities for implicating them in a false case, Fatima seemed to have made peace with the situation. Fatima thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for expediting their release and Chabba for tirelessly fighting their case, that too without charging them anything. Let bygones be bygones. I am happy to be reuniting with my family after more than a decade, she said.

And their lawyer was on cloud nine. It is a true Bandi Chhor Divas for me as I tried so hard to get things going. I am so happy to have won this particular fight, she signed off.

And as they were given an emotional farewell here, the two elder women had mixed feelings on their return journey -- they did lose their mother in jail, but had the satisfaction of a new entry into the family in the 11-year-old Heena.

Sarbat Da Bhala Humanity Club president Navtej Guggu gifted Heena a gold chain having a locket with miniature flags of India and Pakistan, while Chabba bought her pink dress and purse on her demand.
The bus driver was killed. The injured include 27 students and six teachers of a school in Himachal Pradesh.

Most of the injured were students from Himachal Pradesh who were on a tour of Agra and surrounding places (Photo: Naeem Ansari)

By Mail Today Bureau: A tourist bus driver was killed and 36 passengers injured after the vehicle overturned and hit the fence along the road on the Yamuna Expressway on Friday morning.

The injured include 27 students and six teachers of a school in Himachal Pradesh.

The driver lost control of the bus after its tyre burst near Khandoli toll plaza at around 10 in the morning.

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The deceased driver was identified as Harish Kumar.

Tour operator Bharat Bhushan is recuperating at Agra's Jay hospital. All the injured were rushed to different hospitals in Agra.

Police later informed the parents of the students about the accident.

It was learnt that the students are from Alok Bharti Vidyalaya of Kotli town in Himachal Pradesh's Mandi district.

Police said the students were on a tour of Agra, Vrindavan and Fatehpur Sikri, and had hired two buses from Chandigardh.

While one of the buses met with the mishap, the other reached the hotel they had put up in without learning about the accident.

'NINE STUDENTS IN CRITICAL CONDITION: POLICE

Police said nine of the injured students are in critical condition.

"We were sleeping when the tyre burst and the bus hit the fence along the road. There was panic all around before we were brought to hospital," said Ankit Malhotra, a Class 9 student.

In another incident, six people, including four children, were killed and eight injured when a CNG auto going towards Delhi from Chhata in Mathura, rammed against a stationary truck on NH2.

The injured were taken to a district hospital, where five were discharged after first aid. The condition of three is stated to be serious but stable.

--- ENDS ---
Manila, November 3

A Filipino militant leaders widow, who has been arrested for allegedly calling on fighters to join a pro-Islamic State group siege in southern Marawi city, also faces allegations that she recruited Indian men to fight in Syria and Iraq, Philippine officials said on Friday.

National Bureau of Investigation investigator Joshua Raymundo said India has asked the Philippines to help investigate Karen Aizha Hamidon, who allegedly worked to encourage several Indian militants last year to join the Islamic State group in the Middle East. Hamidon denied the allegation.

They have detained several individuals who were recruited by Karen to join ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Raymundo told reporters in Manila, adding that the arrested Indian militants identified Hamidon as their recruiter.

India and the Philippines do not have a mutual legal assistance treaty and the Indian government requested Philippine authorities to help collect documentary evidence and recording of statements of witnesses, according to a letter sent by Indias Ministry of Home Affairs to Filipino officials.

Filipino authorities arrested Hamidon last month on suspicion of recruiting Muslims to join a deadly siege in Marawi that had dragged on for five months before being crushed by thousands of troops last week.

The siege left more than 1,100 combatants and civilians dead, including more than 900 Filipino and foreign militants, displaced about half a million people and turned the mosque-studded citys central business and residential districts into a smoldering war zone.

After examining her cellphones and laptop computers, Philippine officials said the 32-year-old Hamidon called on Muslims to join jihad, or holy war, in Marawi in at least 296 messages she posted on social media, mostly through Telegram and WhatsApp messaging services. She faces as many counts of inciting to rebellion, they said.

Hamidon acknowledged shes the widow of Mohammad Jaafar Maguid, an IS-linked Filipino militant commander killed in a clash with police in the southern Philippines in January, but she denied terrorism allegations against her.

Im just a blogger. I am into journalistic articles, composition ... and social media usage but no more, no more than that, she told reporters after she appeared before a prosecutor at the Department of Justice.

I only use the social media as my avenue to spread the message of Islam for religious purposes, for maximum audiences, said the handcuffed Hamidon as she was led away by authorities.  AP
Tribune News Service

Ahmedabad/New Delhi, Nov 3

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi today managed a breakthrough, securing the support of young Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani for the coming Gujarat elections. Mevani will, however, not formally join the party.

On the last day of his three-day visit to south Gujarat, Rahul took time off for a one-on-one meeting with Mevani on Dalits 17-point charter of demands at a farmhouse near Navsari town. The meeting lasted 25 minutes. Mevani will meet the Congress vice-president for a final round later this month.

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To the discomfiture of the ruling BJP, Mevani announced that he and other Dalit leaders would carry out an extensive campaign against the BJP and ensure that the egoist and arrogant government in Gujarat was uprooted. Flanked by Rahul, he was addressing the media from Rahuls campaign vehicle, a bus.

Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) convener Hardik Patel did not meet Rahul though he too was in Surat in connection with the sedition case filed against him by the Gujarat Government. He said the legal cell of the Congress must first clarify on Constitutional provisions for ensuring reservation to the Patels. He said Congress legal experts, including Kapil Sibal, were expected in Ahmedabad on November 6 when the PAAS core panel would hold another round of talks on the issue. A final decision will be taken thereafter, he said, adding the PAAS had no hesitation in backing the Congress.

Sources in Delhi said that under Congress general secretary for Gujarat Ashok Gehlot, a grand anti-BJP alliance was shaping up in the state. Party leaders, however, privately acknowledge it will not be easy to reconcile the demands of OBCs and Dalits because both want quota in government jobs and the education sector and would have to be accommodated under the 50 per cent quota ceiling fixed by the Supreme Court.

Congress Gujarat unit chief Bharatsinh Solanki said the party could always recommend inclusion of new castes. Meanwhile, the Congress is upbeat about the NCP sending feelers

in Gujarat. NCP leader Praful Patel is said to be in touch with the Congress for seat adjustment.

The Akhilesh-led SP and rebel JD-U faction of Chhotu Bhai Vasava are already with the Congress. But the BSP will go it alone.

Himachal Polls

Smriti: Cong didnt do anything constructive

Dharamsala: Union minister Smriti Irani on Friday joined the BJP campaign in Jaisinghpur constituency of Kangra and alleged alleged that the Congress had ruled the country for almost 60 years, but couldnt do anything constructive for the people.

BJP victimising me, will come out clean: CM

Una: Himachal CM Virbhadra Singh on Friday alleged the Centre was misusing powers to victimise him, but he had full faith in the judiciary. Virbhadra said a single complaint against him was being investigated by three central agencies.
Mumbai, November 3

The seafront bungalow on Malabar Hill built by Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah was at the centre of a prolonged battle between his daughter Dina Wadia and the Indian Government.

Wadia died in New York yesterday aged 98. Her petition to regain control of her childhood home is still pending for a final hearing the before a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court.

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The palatial Jinnah House, originally known as South Court, was built by Jinnah in 1936 at a cost of Rs 2 lakh. It was witness to meetings of the Muslim League and a crucial meeting between Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Jinnah before Partition.

Wadia, born to Jinnahs Parsi wife, Rattanbai Petit, in London in August 1919, had insisted that the stately house, designed in European-style architecture, be called South Court.

In 2007, Pakistans then president Pervez Musharraf had expressed desire to acquire the house as Pakistans property to convert it into a consulate. The same year, Wadia (then 88), moved the Bombay High Court with a petition claiming that the title of the mansion be handed over to her as she was the only heir to Jinnah.

Wadia spent many years in Mumbai but had been living in the US for the past few decades. In her petition, she said she wished to spend her remaining years in the house in Mumbai where she had spent her childhood. Wadia, in the petition, had claimed that the bungalow could not be classified as evacuee property as her father had died without leaving behind a will.  PTI
Navsari, November 3

Gujarat Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani on Friday met Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and claimed that the Opposition party had assured to incorporate more than 90 per cent of his demands in its manifesto for the upcoming state Assembly elections.

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Stopping short of declaring an open support to the Congress, Mevani, after his meeting with the Gandhi scion, said he would ask his community members to "defeat" the ruling BJP in the Gujarat polls.

The 182-member Gujarat Assembly is scheduled to go to the polls in two phaseson December 9 and December 14.

We listen to everyone and work after hearing their problemsbe it Jignesh, Hardik (Patidar quota stir leader Hardik Patel) or Alpesh (OBC leader Alpesh Thakor), Rahul Gandhi said after the meeting.

On the other hand, the BJP was only interested in making the people listen to its Mann Ki Baat, the Congress MP said, taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modis radio programme.

Gandhi and Mevani had a half-an-hour long closed-door meeting at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Navsari.

Mevani, a Dalit rights campaigner who shot to fame after the Una Dalit flogging incident last year, dubbed the BJP government in Gujarat as anti-Dalit.

Since Una (the flogging incident), we have launched numerous agitations and submitted memorandums. Despite this, the thick-skinned BJP government, which is not only anti-Dalit but also anti-people, has not considered even one demand of our community. They have not even bothered to talk to us (about the demands), Mevani told reporters after the meeting.

The people of the state will put an end to this arrogance of the BJP, he said.

On the other hand, the Congress was receptive to the demands of the Dalit community, Mevani added.

We (him and other Dalit leaders) had a detailed discussion with Rahul on our 17 demands. He not only listened to us, but said over 90 per cent of our demands were our constitutional rights. He assured us that most of the legitimate demands would be included in the Congress manifesto (for the Gujarat polls), he said.

Asked if he would advise his community members to vote for the Congress in the upcoming Assembly polls, Mevani said, I will ask my community not to vote for the BJP. Mevani, who has been critical of the BJP government in the state, discussed the 17 demands of his community with the Congress vice-president, who is currently on an election campaign tour of south Gujarat.

The demands include an allotment of five acres of farmland to the Dalits, alternative employment for those involved in cattle skinning and manual scavenging and the release of a probe report into an incident of firing on the community members at Thangadh in Surendranagar district in 2012.

Mevani had earlier said he had no plans to join any political party.

Of the three young and prominent caste or community leaders in Gujarat, Thakor has already joined the Congress, while Patel is in negotiations with the party regarding his communitys demand for reservations in jobs and education.

The third one, Mevani, too appears to be supportive of the Opposition party, which has been out of power in Gujarat, Modis home state, for over two decades. PTI
Srinagar/Jammu, November 3

Residents of Shopian district in Jammu and Kashmir today bade a tearful adieu to BJP youth wing leader Gowhar Hussain Bhat, who was allegedly killed by militants.

At Bonagam in Shopian, 52 km from here, hundreds of mourners joined his funeral procession that passed through the village streets before Gowhars mortal remains were laid to rest. This stumped political observers since there is little support for the BJP in the Muslim-majority Valley.

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In Jammu, BJP activists held anti-Pakistan demonstrations in Rajouri district to protest the killing. BJP MLA Ravinder Raina, who led the protesters in the border towns of Sunderbani and Nowshera, called it an attempt to silence the voice of the people of Kashmir.

The body of 30-year-old Bhat, who was kidnapped by militants, was recovered from an orchard in Kiloora in Shopian district.  PTI


New Delhi, November 3

India will very soon make a request to Malaysia for the extradition of Zakir Naik, charged by the NIA for radicalising youth, the External Affairs Ministry said on Friday, amidst reports that the hardline Islamic preacher was there after being given permanent residency.

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Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar also said Indias internal legal process before approaching a foreign country with an extradition request was nearing completion in the case of Naik.

READ: NIA files charge sheet against Zakir Naik in hate speech, incitement case

Asked about reports that Naik has been given permanent residency by Malayasia, which maintained that it has not received any official request from India related to terrorism allegations involving the preacher, Kumar said, Our legal process is nearing completion and we will be making an extradition request very soon.

According to media reports, Naik obtained permanent residency five years ago.

Kumar also said that the nature of the extradition request will be known in next few days.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has charged Naik and the Mumbai-based non-profit Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) that he founded in 1991 with indulging in unlawful activities and promoting religious hatred.

The government has imposed a five-year ban on the IRF under the countrys anti-terror laws and has declared Naik an absconder. PTI
Mumbai, November 3

The seafront bungalow on Malabar Hill built by Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah was at the centre of a prolonged battle between his daughter Dina Wadia and the Indian government.

Wadia died in New York on Thursday at the age of 98. Her petition to regain control of her childhood home is still pending for a final hearing before a division bench of the Bombay High Court.

The palatial Jinnah House, originally known as South Court, was witness to meetings of the Muslim League and a crucial meeting between Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Jinnah before Partition.

Wadia, born to Jinnahs Parsi wife, Rattanbai Petit, in London in August 1919, had insisted that the stately house, designed in European-style architecture, be called South Court.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

In 2007, Pakistans then president Pervez Musharraf had expressed his desire to acquire the house as Pakistans property to convert it into a consulate.

The same year (in August 2007), Wadia (then 88), knocked the doors of the Bombay High Court with a petition claiming that the title of the mansion be handed over to her as she was the only heir to Jinnah.

Wadia spent many years in Mumbai but had been living in the US for the past few decades. In her petition, she said she wished to spend her remaining years in the house in Mumbai where she had spent her childhood years.

Wadia, in the petition, had claimed that the bungalow could not be classified as evacuee property as her father had died without leaving behind a will.

The petition last came up for hearing before a division bench of Justices SV Gangapurwala and AM Badar on July 28 this year which adjourned it simply to September 7. It has not come up for hearing since then.

Soon after her petition was filed, the high court had directed the Union government to file their affidavit in response.

In October 2007, the government filed its affidavit stating that the Jinnah House belonged to the government and that only Jinnahs sister Fatima or her legal heir could claim right over the property.

Wadia had, however, claimed that she was the only heir of Jinnah and hence the title of the house should be handed over to her.

According to Wadia, the (then) state of Bombay took over the property, because Fatima was the trustee of Jinnahs will and had been declared an evacuee (those who migrated to Pakistan post-Partition) in 1949.

Wadia, in her petition, claimed that her fathers will was not probated by the Bombay High Court and therefore had no effect on any operation of law.

Fatima, therefore, could not be the legal owner and so the house should be handed over to his (Jinnah) legal heir.

Also, she (Wadia) is the sole legal heir of Jinnahs property, both under Hindu Law (applicable to Khoja community--to which Jinnah belonged--before Independence) or the Shia Muslim law, her petition claims.

In its reply, the Union government had claimed that her petition is not maintainable and is barred by prolonged and unexplained delay.

The reply filed by G Balasubramanian, deputy secretary to the Ministry of External Affairs, had stated that the Government of India had issued a notification on June 27, 1949, under the Bombay Evacuee Property Act, by which the possession of Jinnah House was vested with the Custodian.

On June 10, 1955, another notification was issued under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, by which the right, title and interest was vested in the Government of India.

Jinnah had bequeathed the Jinnah House to his unmarried sister Fatima by his will dated May 30, 1939. Fatima migrated to Pakistan at the time of Partition and was declared an evacuee and hence the property was taken over by the Indian government under the Bombay Evacuee Property Act, the affidavit filed by the government had said.

In August 2010, the high court had ordered for status quo to be maintained in the matter, but had permitted the Centre to complete the renovation work of the bungalow without making any structural changes.

Wadia wanted the mansion, built by her father in 1936 at a cost of Rs 2 lakh, to be called South Court.

In a newspaper interview during a visit to Mumbai in 2008, she had said, when asked about the Jinnah House bungalow in south Mumbai, Why do you keep calling it Jinnah House? Thats the name the British gave it. Its real name is South Court. Why dont you refer to it by its original name?

In 2004, she visited Jinnahs tomb in Karachi, along with Nusli and his two sons. In the visitors book, she then wrote, May his dream for Pakistan come true. PTI
Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 3

Keeping in view the recent trend of advanced nations indulging in cyber espionage, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is preparing a policy paper enumerating guidelines to secure critical government data from any possible threat leading to any national crisis.

Sources in the government said the draft document of the National Information Security Policy and Guidelines (NISP&G), as prepared by the ministry, had been sent to the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) for vetting.

The NSCS is the advisory body on security policies and issues, which officially services the National Security Council (NSC) whose members are the Prime Minister and the Ministers for Home, Defence and Finance. While the composition is essentially similar to that of Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), the NSC is advised by the National Security Adviser (Ajit Doval) and in that sense, he heads the NSCS.

Since almost every developed country is indulging in cyber espionage, a senior security functionary said, There is a need to enhance our system to secure critical information and data. The policy, worked out by the MHA, is being sent to the NSA for his vetting.

It is learnt that the proposed policy paper is aimed at strengthening the mechanism to safeguard critical data by roping in experts and the use of better technology. The guidelines, as proposed, intend to deal with combating cyber attacks affecting organisations in sectors such as defence, energy, finance, space, telecommunications, transport, public essential services and utilities, law enforcement and security, sources said, adding that a national nodal agency to deal with cyber security and developing indigenous technology has also been proposed.

Even as cases of data breach mostly remained under-reported in the country, a study has put India on the fifth spot globally for being vulnerable to cyber attacks. The legal mechanism has also been weak and fragmented in the country to deal with such situations.

Norms being finalised
Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 3

Getting a technical degree via distance education mode would no longer be possible as the Supreme Court on Friday ruled that that technical education could not be provided through correspondence courses.

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In a landmark verdict affecting millions of students across India, a Bench of Justice AK Goel and Justice UU Lalit restrained educational institutions from providing courses in subjects such as engineering and computer science through the distance education mode.

It suspended engineering degrees granted between 2001 and 2005 to all graduates through distance learning by JRN Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, Rajasthan (JRN); Institute of Advanced Studies in Education, Rajasthan (IASE); Allahabad Agricultural Institute, Allahabad; and Vinayak Mission Research Foundation (VMRF), Tamil Nadu, for want of adherence to statutory guidelines and policies.

The degrees would remain suspended till the students pass an examination under the joint supervision of AICTE-UGC, it ordered, adding that every single advantage on the basis of the degree would also stand suspended till then.

It also directed the CBI to carry out a thorough investigation into the conduct of the officials who dealt with the matters and granted permissions against the policy statement. The conduct of institutions which abused their position to advance their commercial interest illegally, would also be probed, it said.

It directed the UGC to take appropriate steps and implement Section 23 of the UGC Act and restrain deemed universities from using the word university within a month. The court also highlighted the need for better regularly framework for technical education.

The court asked the All-India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) to conduct appropriate written and practical tests for the students and expenses towards conducting the tests would be recovered from the universities concerned.

Students would get only two chances to clear the examination, failing which their degrees will stand recalled and cancelled.

If a student does not wish to appear in such tests, the court has ordered refund of the money deposited by them towards tuition and other fees. Students can exercise the option by January 15, 2018. Institutes have to refund students money by May 31.

The top court issued a series of directions likely to affect hundreds of distance education centres which have been offering technical courses through correspondence and distance learning.

The court asked the UGC to consider if deemed university status enjoyed by JRN, AAI, IASE and VMRF called for withdrawal and conduct a probe by June 30, 2018. If the money is not refunded to the students concerned, that factor shall be taken into account while conducting such exercise.

We restrain all deemed to be universities to carry on any courses in the distance education mode from the academic session 2018-2019 onwards unless and until it is permissible to conduct such courses in distance education mode and specific permissions are granted by the concerned statutory/regulatory authorities in respect of each of those courses and unless the off-campus centres/study centres are individually inspected and found adequate by the concerned statutory authorities. The approvals have to be course specific.

The Union of India may constitute a three-member committee comprising eminent persons who have held high positions in the fields of education, investigation, administration or law at the national level within one month.

The committee may examine the issues indicated above and suggest a road map for strengthening and setting up of oversight and regulatory mechanism in the relevant field of higher education and allied issues within six months. The committee may also suggest oversight mechanism to regulate the deemed to be universities. The Union of India may examine the said report and take such action as maybe considered appropriate within one month thereafter and file an affidavit in this court of the action taken on or before August 31, 2018. The matter shall be placed for consideration of this aspect on 11.09.2018, the court said.

The verdict settles the legal position and gives clarity thousands of students who often opt for such courses for a variety of reasons.

The court cancelled the degrees obtained through distance education and ordered recall of any benefits in terms of promotion or other career advancement, except any monetary benefits that cant be recovered by employers.

Earlier, the Punjab and Haryana and Odisha high courts had expressed divergent views on the contentious issue.

The Bench, which also included Justice UU Lalit, affirmed the verdict of the Punjab and Haryana high court and set aside a verdict by the Odisha High Court, which had allowed technical education via correspondence.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court had in 2015 ruled that a degree in computer science obtained through distance education cant be considered on a par with a regular degree awarded by a university to students attending campus classes.

Earlier, the Madras High Court had said, a degree awarded in the distance education mode without a candidate passing the Class 12 examination was valid, if it had been obtained after passing the entrance test for admission to the graduation course.
Beijing, November 3

China on Friday said it was ready to work with India to promote constant progress of bilateral relations, amid fresh strains in ties after Beijing again blocked Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhars designation as a global terrorist by the UN.

China on Thursday for the fourth time blocked India, the US and other nations bid to list Pathankot terror attack mastermind Azhar as a global terrorist, saying there is no consensus within the members of the sanctions committee.

India reacted sharply to Chinas move, saying accommodating with terrorism for narrow objectives was both short-sighted and counterproductive.

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Chinas Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong on Friday told the media that China attached great importance to its relations with India.

India is an important neighbour of China, Chen said, adding China planned to step up ties with neighbours under the neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in the new era enunciated by President Xi Jinping during the recently concluded key congress of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

We are ready to work with India to promote constant progress of bilateral relations guided by this diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for the new era, Chen said without elaborating.

He said China had been following this concept and vision over the past few years in its cooperation with the neighbours and deepening mutual political trust promoting practical cooperation with them.

In the last two years, China has stonewalled efforts by India to declare Azhar as a global terrorist.

Last year in March, China was the only member in the 15-nation UN organ to put a hold on Indias application with all other 14 members of the Council supporting New Delhis bid to place Azhar on the 1267 sanctions list that would subject him to an assets freeze and travel ban.

The relations between the two neighbours are also strained by a 73-day standoff at Dokalam over the Chinese armys plans to build a strategic road in the area also claimed by Bhutan.

Officials here said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi would travel to India next month to New Delhi to attend the Russia, India, China (RIC) Foreign Ministers meeting during which he would also hold talks with the Indian leadership on the bilateral relations during the second term of Xi. PTI
By PTI: Santiniketan, Nov 3 (PTI) The 80-year-old Cheena Bhavana, the department of Chinese language & Culture in Visva-Bharati university, will initiate more scholar and student exchange programmes in coming years with support from China, its head Abhijit Banerjee said.

Visva-Bharati has signed four MoUs in recent times under which scholars were sent to China and students from Chinese universities came to the Cheena Bhavana on short term exchange programmes, he said.

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"However, we are planning to bring more Chinese scholars from Yunan and Sanghai universities and other institutes in China. The people of China and their government are exchanging all kind of help in this regard," he said.

He was talking to PTI on the sidelines of a programme to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the department which was set up in 1937.

Tracing the journey of the institute, Banerjee said, "Gurudeb (Tagore) had thought about people to people interaction and we have not moved away from that path."

"We are also bringing in other areas such as business, politics and education in research work," he said.

Tagore had visited China in 1924 when he met Prof Tan Yun Shan and invited him to come to Visva-Bharati and set up the department where Chinese and Indian scholars may undertake studies on philosophy and culture of the two nations.

This year also marks the 90th anniversary of Tan Yun Shan who had devoted his life to promote the language and culture of China at the Cheena Bhavana, Banerjee said.

Stating that wall paintings of the Cheena Bhavan had been jointly done by Indian and Chinese students reflecting the synergy of art of the two countries, he said.

Tagore family descendant and a Cheena Bhavana alumnus, 95-year-old Amitendranath Tagore said, Prof Tan Yun Shan had personally supervised the work when the department was coming up in 1937 and brought distinguished Chinese scholars here.

To make Indian soldiers conversant with the Chinese language, the Cheena Bhavana started a certificate-level course earlier this year and the classes were being taken at the military base at Panagarh military base in neighbouring Burdwan West district.

To a question, acting Vice Chancellor Swapan Dutta said, "Indian students can get a lot of exposure by learning Chinese from the academic and professional point of view."

Banerjee said presently 160 students are enrolled at the Cheena Bhavana and among the faculty members, one is from China. PTI SUS NN

--- ENDS ---
Smita Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 3

India and China will sit down for official talks on a gamut of strategic issues when Foreign Minister Wang Yi visits New Delhi in December.

Diplomatic sources told The Tribune that the next round of annual RIC (Russia-China and India) foreign ministerial talks would be held on December 11.

The talks were earlier postponed in April by China citing scheduling problems. Unofficially, it was believed to be a reaction to the Dalai Lamas visit to Arunachal Pradesh over which Beijing had lodged a diplomatic protest.

This will be the first high-level visit from Beijing following the elevation of Xi Jinping at the 18th Communist Party Congress. Wang Yi is expected to hold bilateral talks with his counterpart Sushma Swaraj and meet top Indian leaders on the sidelines of the RIC meet.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with President Xi on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Xiamen soon after the Doklam disengagement. The 73-day military standoff at the Sino-Indian and Bhutanese border trijunction had heightened tensions between Delhi and Beijing.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Modi might have an opportunity to sit across the table with Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang on the sidelines of the upcoming ASEAN summit in the Philippines.

Interestingly, Wang Yis visit will come just weeks after the Bhutan King and Queens state visit to India. King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck had met President Ram Nath Kovind and Modi.

A Rashtrapati Bhawan press release citing the India-Bhutan security concerns as mutual and indivisible on Wednesday said President Kovind conveyed deep appreciation for the King of Bhutans personal involvement and guidance besides the support provided by Bhutan in addressing the recent situation in Doklam. It said the manner in which both India and Bhutan stood together to address the situation in the Doklam area is a clear testimony to our friendship.

Reacting cautiously to the Indian statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying on Thursday said, We are committed to developing friendly relations with these two countries and would also like to see India and Bhutan develop normal relations.

Australia comes on board with quadrilateral

The Chinese Foreign Ministers New Delhi visit will also follow the likely start of the quadrilateral talks involving the US, Japan, Australia and India on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit. The process that was started in 2007 but was soon cut short by former Australian PM Kevin Rudd seeks to find a solution to the Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific.

Acting Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Australia Julie Bishop this week gave a clear indication of Canberra coming on board with the process. In an interview to Fairfax Media, she said, We welcome discussions between Australia, India, Japan and the US to strengthen cooperative arrangements and to maximise our opportunities within the Indo-Pacific region in which international law and rules-based order is respected, so that countries may continue to prosper.
Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 2

Not smugglers, anti-socials or effluents from tanneries. Pakistan is complaining of thick smog from across the border. Quoting experts, Pakistan media claims that smog originating from India has engulfed Pakistans cities, especially Lahore. Large-scale burning (estimated at 3,500 fields per day) of paddy residual has left Pakistan residents gasping for breath, their reports claim.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)



Kahan Singh Pannu, Chairman, Punjab Pollution Control Board, blames it on easterly winds.

Smog has travelled towards Pakistan because of westerly winds moving at a velocity of 7 to 8 km per hour. The smog, starting from Uttar Pradesh, has travelled to Punjab and then moved further into west. The wind velocity has so far been low.

As per the reports in the Pakistan media, the Air Quality Index (AQI) in Lahore was 357 whereas the tolerable limit was 100.

Experts in Pakistan fear more smog as the AQI in India is expected to cross 500 in days to come, if the practice of stubble-burning is not halted. Compared to Lahore, the AQI in Ludhiana has been recorded at 334, in Amritsar at 307 and Mandi Gobindgarh 187.

We are suffering too. Making matters worse, farmers organisations are not cooperating with us, said Pannu.
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 3

Breaking its silence on non-bailable warrants against Leader of the Opposition Sukhpal Khaira on his alleged links with a drug smuggler, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) today expressed solidarity with him. State party convener Bhagwant Mann and all party MLAs termed it a case of political vendetta.

However, some voices within the party favoured that Khaira should resign on moral grounds and set an example for other politicians.

Mann said the party backed him and hoped that the leader would come clean in the case. He said as the matter was in the court, the party had decided to consult it with legal experts. He expressed faith in the judiciary and hoped that justice would prevail.

The Sangrur MP said it would not be appropriate to comment on the issue till the final verdict was out, but political vendetta could not be ruled out.

He said there were multiple examples of framing leaders of Opposition by the ruling parties in false cases in the past. He said they would not be defeated by the nefarious acts of the government and its leaders. The leaders and volunteers stood by Khaira, he said.

Party sources, however, said some leaders had voiced their opinion to the party high command that the politics of AAP was different from other parties. A leader said: Politicians of other parties refuse to resign till they are convicted, but AAP thrives on clean leaders and clean politics. He should resign and let party high command reject his resignation.

Some are publicly seeking his resignation. Capt Bikramjit Singh, former convener of the ex-servicemen wing of the party, in a letter to national convener Arvind Kejriwal, asked: Where are the partys ethics now? He said AAP was seeking resignation of other politicians on the basis of allegations against them, but here non-bailable warrants were issued against a party leader.
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 3

Under pressure to perform against increasing incidents of crime, especially target killings, the state police will soon be empowered with stringent law called Punjab Control of Organised Crime Act (PCOCA), which facilitates conviction on the basis of statements made before a senior officer.

Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh has assured the police that the PCOCA legislation may be moved within this month. He said this at a meeting on law and order with officials of the police and Home Department here last evening.

The CM reportedly expressed his anguish at the frequency of the target killings in the state.

He has asked the police administration to have a team of choice officers and any kind of infrastructure but they must perform at the earliest to solve the recent killings and prevent such incidents.

Sources said the CM asked the police officers about their requirements to check the series of killings. They said the officers sought better technical devices to check internet phone calls or use of other technical means by criminals and terror groups.

On the demand of PCOCA, which is hanging fire for long, the CM directed the Cabinet sub-committee headed by minister Brahm Mohindra to expedite drafting of the legislation.

A spokesperson said the CMs instructions came after DGP Suresh Arora raised the issue of more powers to the police to tackle organised crime and gangsters in the state. The police needed to be empowered to effectively deal with criminal gangs, for which legislation such as PCOCA was required to be introduced on an urgent basis, he said in the meeting.

The CM agreed that it was important to instill the fear of the law among the gangsters to check their attempts to create lawlessness and trouble in the state. The proposed legislation would ensure that the police are not obstructed in dealing with such gangsters with an iron hand, said Amarinder.

The proposed legislation is aimed at empowering police officers of DIG rank or above to invoke PCOCA with a detailed note on reasons for the IPC not being sufficient to deal with the said act of crime. At the same time, it has been proposed that the new law should be tight enough to prevent any arbitrary action under its provisions.

About the law

The Punjab Control of Organised Crime Act (PCOCA) will ensure that the police are not obstructed in dealing with gangsters and hardcore criminals with an iron hand. It will facilitate conviction on the basis of statements made before a senior officer. DGP Suresh Arora had raised the issue of more powers to the police to tackle crime.

Amritsar police zero in on ex-cops killer

The Amritsar police on Friday found that the murder of Hindu leader Vipin Sharma was linked to killing of suspended cop and notorious gangster Shubham Singh's father Baljinder Singh Kalu. While the police have reportedly arrested suspects in the case, they refused to confirm the development. Sources in the department said the prime accused in the Kalu murder case, Simarjit Singh, had links with a close associate of Sharma, who used to run a bookie racket. The sources said Gangster Saraj Singh, who has a close resemblance with the assailant who killed Vipin, had a rivalry with Simarjit Singh, who used collect money on behalf of the bookie. Saraj along with his accomplices Bunny, Dharminder and another person thus killed Vipin, they claimed. TNS
New Delhi, November 4

A Jalandhar woman who was sold off to a family in Saudi Arabia will return on Saturday, Union Minister Swaraj has said in a tweet.

Swaraj said in a tweet, Paramjit Kaur is returning home tomorrow. I appreciate the efforts of Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia. The tweet also had a story carried by the Tribune on September 15, 2017.

Paramjit Kaur is returning home tomorrow. I appreciate the efforts of Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia. pic.twitter.com/f5bOcsufw3  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) November 3, 2017

Kaur, 31, from Bilga village, paid some agents Rs 50,000 for a job in Saudi Arabia. Instead, the agents sold her off for Rs 3 lakh in July.

Once in the country, she was kept illegally confined.

READ: Illegally confined, woman sends SOS from Saudi Arabia

Her husband, Malkiat Ram, and social activist Rajwinder Sharma had approached Sushma Swaraj, External Affairs Minister. An official at Indias Embassy in Riyadh told them that as per Saudi rules, an employer has to pay fee to hire people from abroad.

In Paramjits case, the Saudi family paid Rs 4 lakh to the government there.
Nawanshahr: It was a partial relief for the family of 43-year-old Gurbaksh Kaur when they received her call saying she will be returning from Saudi Arabia on Saturday. Kaur along with her daughter Reena Rani (23), was stuck at Dammam city for the past three months. She will reach New Delhi around 5.30 am on Saturday. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj too tweeted about the return of Gurbaksh Kaur. Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh had taken notice of the reports and urged Swaraj to take action. The family on Friday reached New Delhi to receive Kaur. The Tribune had first highlighted the family's plight 10 days ago.  Aakanksha N Bhardwaj
Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Nawanshahr, November 3

When Gurbaksh Kaur called on Friday to say she was returning, her family was relieved. Three months after she found herself stuck in Saudi Arabia in a nightmarish situation, the 43-year-old will land in New Delhi at 5.30 am on Saturday.

Her family is in the national capital to meet her. Their relief however is only partial: Kaurs 23-year-old daughter Reena, who is also in Saudi Arabia, remains untraceable.

The womens ordeal began three months ago when they left their village Garhi Fateh Khan to go abroad to earn. Three agents had taken Rs 1.20 lakh and promised them jobs in Malaysia. Instead, the two found themselves in Saudi Arabias Dammam city, with agents asking for more money to have them sent back.

In Saudi Arabia, the two women found themselves separated. While Gurbaksh Kaur was dismissed for her job, Reena was allegedly implicated in a case and sent to police, who divulge her whereabouts, news agency IANS reported.

"While she herself had been sacked from her job, Reena had been framed in a false case and handed over to the police, who were not divulging any information on her whereabouts, Gurbaksh is reported to have said in the video, appealing to Sushma Swarajfor help in securing their safe return home," the news agency quoted a Punjab government spokesperson as saying on Monday.

Gurbaksh Kaurs son, 26-year-old Pakhar Ram, however claimed that it was his mother who was implicated in a case and sent to jail, but later "rescued".

His father Gurmel Singh says he has been promised Reena would also return soon.

Their ordeal has been one that has made national headlines  videos of their desperate pleas for help forced the press, Punjabs Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, and Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to intervene.

The Tribune had first highlighted familys plight ten days ago.

When the two women first went missing, their family approached police for help. Finding them uncooperative, they began to seek political intervention: they approached Nawanshahr MLA Angad Singh and Atam Nagar MLA Simranjit Singh Bains, and later to Union Minister Sushma Swaraj.

Police booked the three agents  two of whom are from Jalandhar, according to Kaurs family  for cheating on October 31.
Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, November 3

The Punjab School Education Department today issued directions to all its officers to take necessary legal action against the ministerial staff who are on a pen-down strike and have taken mass casual leaves.

Directing the circle education officers, district education officers, principals and headmasters of all schools and principals of in-service training centres and district institutes of education training to submit the list of all clerical employees on strike, the Office of the Director, School Education Department, asked them to start legal proceedings against the employees for violating the Punjab Civil Services Rules.

As the ministerial staff employees in the department are on a mass casual leave for the past three days, the Director has sought explanation from the officer who had allowed the employees to go on a leave.

Demanding a joint seniority list of about 500 ministerial staff employees in the office of the directorate, over 4,700 clerical field staff in the Education Department are on a protest.

The agitation by the employees became intense after the transfer of Punjab Education Department Ministerial Staff Association president Pawandeep Singh Sidhu from Nawanshahr to Kapurthala last month.

The employees alleged that Sidhus transfer was an act of reprisal as the association had raised its voice against the biased policy of the department.

Members of the Punjab Education Department Ministerial Staff Association observed a pen-down strike on October 30 and for the past three days, they are on a mass casual leave.

We have convened a meeting on November 8 to discuss the further strategy of agitation, said Sidhu.

While qualification, nature of work, appointing authority and service rules of ministerial staff in the directorate office and in the field are the same, there is partiality in giving promotions. While a clerk in the directorate office gets promotion on the completion of five years of service, those in the field are waiting for promotion for the past 26 years, he added.

Prashant Kumar Goyal, Director General, School Education, said not just the School Education Department, the seniority list of field and directorate ministerial staff was separate in many other departments too.
Irena Hayter

Three photographs have been shortlisted for 2017s Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, hosted by the National Portrait Gallery in London. But there is something out of the ordinary about one of this years contenders for the prize. One of the portraits  by the Finnish artist Maija Tammi  is not of a human, but a female android.

The android in the photograph is Erica, described by her creator, Osaka University professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, as the most beautiful and intelligent robot in the world. The hardware beneath her silicone skin helps her achieve facial and mouth movements, but these can be rather unnatural, out of sync with her synthesised voice. She is cognitively sophisticated, though still unable to work out answers to complex questions from first principles, and she cannot move her arms and legs.

If this seems like something out of science fiction, youre not far off. One of Ishiguros first female robots was named Repliee Q1 and he himself has said that the name derives from the French for replicate and from the replicants in Blade Runner: science fiction and robotics have always been entwined. Indeed, in a documentary made by The Guardian about Erica, Ishiguro reveals that he wanted to be an oil painter and insists on the similarities between his work and artistic creation.

It is difficult not to see here a masculine Pygmalion-esque desire to create the perfect artificial woman. Ishiguro-sensei is my father and he understands me entirely, Erica pronounces in the documentary. Her vaunted autonomy seems more like a projection on the part on the roboticists who programme her thoughts, but also occasionally anthropomorphise her: the scientist who introduces himself as Ericas architect also thinks that she is really excited to interact with people.

Illusions of mastery

There has been heightened interest in female robots recently: from articles, podcasts and TV programmes featuring Erica, to excited tales of bionic sex dolls (equipped with personality apps) in the more lurid corners of media space. If we are to co-exist and interact with robots  and we need serious debate on the psychological, ethical, social and legal implications of this  it is perfectly possible to construct embodied AIs that are not humanoid and gendered. So why female androids  and why now?

The idea of the machine-woman first acquired a particular force in the 1920s and 1930s, which saw a proliferation of cultural images of robots, from the invention of the term by the Czech writer Karel Capek in 1921 to the iconic female android in Fritz Langs film Metropolis in 1927. This was also a time of unprecedented female mobility, in all senses of the word. The French garconnes, the neuen Frauen of Germany, and the Japanese modan garu (modern girls) crossed boundaries between masculine and feminine with their short hair, androgynous figures and demands for political equity (the latter often obscured by an obsessive media focus on their sexuality).

The images of submissive artificial women in art and science fiction betray a male cultural desire to symbolically control these new female subjectivities. This was also a time when Fordism and automatisation seemed to transform human bodies as well as machines: the mechanical movements of Chaplins assembly line worker in his film Modern Times (1936) are comical, but also deeply disturbing. While machinery has largely been associated with masculinity, fears about technology out of control could be displaced by being projected onto woman, traditionally seen as the weaker, inferior other.

The current media fixation on hyperrealistic female androids and sex robots comes at a moment when automation threatens not only unskilled labour, but also such bastions of middle-class masculinity as the lower echelons of banking, insurance and law. It is hardly surprising, then, that popular culture is again awash with fantasies of compliant automatised females.

Animating visions

While the creators of the new Blade Runner 2049 film remain in the familiar territory of pleasure model replicants and comforting holographic girlfriends, other artists have been more reflexive about the skewed gender politics of some science fiction and its worrying implications for robotics and for our technological future in general. Ilinca Calugareanu, the director of The Guardians documentary about Erica, and Maija Tammi, the artist who took Ericas portrait, belong in a long lineage of artists who have interrogated male cultural fantasies of artificial women.

Calugareanu shoots people in slow motion, making actions rhythmic and somewhat inorganic, subtly erasing the differences between human and machinic movement, but also emphasising, by contrast, Ericas immobility. Erica and her creators are filmed in medium close shots, in the centre of the frame. The men are silent and immobile, their thoughts narrated via a voiceover: the split between speech and mouth movement is similar to Ericas. The masculine human subjects and the female android get the same filmic treatment, in a gesture that elides the distinction between them.

Maija Tammis photograph of Erica, meanwhile, is part of a series titled One of Them is a Human that includes a portrait of Ishiguro. The camera angle and the play of light in Ericas portrait give silicone the warm texture of skin. The slightly tousled hair implies movement, as if she has just turned her head.

 The Independent
Islamabad, November 3

Pakistans ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today appeared before an anti-graft court which adjourned till November 7 the hearing of corruption cases against him in the Panama Papers scandal that forced him to resign.

Sharif, who returned to the country from London yesterday, during the brief hearing submitted two surety bonds of five million rupees ($48,000) each against bailable arrest warrants issued on October 26, his lawyer Khawaja Harris said.

Three cases were registered by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on September 8 against Sharif, his children and son-in-law in the Accountability Court Islamabad, following a verdict by the Supreme Court. Sharif appeared in the court along with legal team. His daughter Maryam and her husband Muhammad Safdar, also facing trial, were present during todays hearing.  PTI
By PTI: Santiniketan, Nov 3 (PTI) The 80-year-old Cheena Bhavana, the department of Chinese language & Culture in Visva-Bharati university, will initiate more scholar and student exchange programmes in coming years with support from China, its head Abhijit Banerjee said.

Visva-Bharati has signed four MoUs in recent times under which scholars were sent to China and students from Chinese universities came to the Cheena Bhavana on short term exchange programmes, he said.

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"However, we are planning to bring more Chinese scholars from Yunan and Sanghai universities and other institutes in China. The people of China and their government are exchanging all kind of help in this regard," he said.

He was talking to PTI on the sidelines of a programme to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the department which was set up in 1937.

Tracing the journey of the institute, Banerjee said, "Gurudeb (Tagore) had thought about people to people interaction and we have not moved away from that path."

"We are also bringing in other areas such as business, politics and education in research work," he said.

Tagore had visited China in 1924 when he met Prof Tan Yun Shan and invited him to come to Visva-Bharati and set up the department where Chinese and Indian scholars may undertake studies on philosophy and culture of the two nations.

This year also marks the 90th anniversary of Tan Yun Shan who had devoted his life to promote the language and culture of China at the Cheena Bhavana, Banerjee said.

Stating that wall paintings of the Cheena Bhavan had been jointly done by Indian and Chinese students reflecting the synergy of art of the two countries, he said.

Tagore family descendant and a Cheena Bhavana alumnus, 95-year-old Amitendranath Tagore said, Prof Tan Yun Shan had personally supervised the work when the department was coming up in 1937 and brought distinguished Chinese scholars here.

To make Indian soldiers conversant with the Chinese language, the Cheena Bhavana started a certificate-level course earlier this year and the classes were being taken at the military base at Panagarh military base in neighbouring Burdwan West district.

To a question, acting Vice Chancellor Swapan Dutta said, "Indian students can get a lot of exposure by learning Chinese from the academic and professional point of view."

Banerjee said presently 160 students are enrolled at the Cheena Bhavana and among the faculty members, one is from China. PTI SUS NN KKB

--- ENDS ---
Beirut/Erbil, November 3

Islamic States self-proclaimed caliphate was all but reduced on Friday to a pair of border towns at the Iraq-Syria frontier, where thousands of fighters were believed to be holding out after losing nearly all other territory in both countries.

Forces in Syria and Iraq backed by regional states and global powers now appear on the cusp of victory over the group, which proclaimed its authority over all Muslims in 2014 when it held about a third of both countries.

On the Syrian side, government forces declared victory in Deir al-Zor, the last major city in the countrys eastern desert where the militants still had a presence. On the Iraqi side, pro-government forces said they had captured the last border post with Syria in the Euphrates valley and entered the nearby town of al-Qaim, the groups last Iraqi bastion.

A US-led international coalition which has been bombing Islamic State and supporting ground allies on both sides of the frontier said the militant group now has a few thousand fighters left, mainly holed up at the border in Iraqs al-Qaim and its sister town of Albu Kamal on the Syrian side.

We do expect them now to try to flee, but we are cognisant of that and will do all we can to annihilate IS leaders, spokesman US Colonel Ryan Dillon said. He estimated there were 1,500-2,500 fighters left in al-Qaim and 2,000-3,000 in Albu Kamal.

But both the Iraqi and Syrian governments and their international backers say they worry that the fighters will still be able to mount guerrilla attacks once they no longer have territory to defend.

Driven this year from its two de facto capitals  Iraqs Mosul and Syrias Raqqa  Islamic State is pressed into an ever-shrinking pocket of desert straddling the frontier.

In Iraq, it faces the army and Shia armed groups, backed both by the US-led coalition and by Iran. In Syria, the coalition supports an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias in areas north and east of the Euphrates, while Iran and Russia support the government of Bashar al-Assad.  Reuters
Washington, November 3

Beset by challenges at home, President Donald Trump on Friday embarks on the longest trip to Asia by an American president in more than a quarter century, looking for help to pressure North Korea to stand down from a nuclear crisis. Trumps tour of Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines from Friday to November 14 will take him out of Washington as is preoccupied with several issues.

These include an intensifying federal investigation into Russian meddling in last years election, New Yorks recovery from an attack that killed eight persons and debate over a tax-cut plan that if approved by Congress would be his first major legislative victory.

The trip comes just days after Trumps former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was indicted in the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Amid the furor caused by the revelations, the Kremlin said on Friday a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was being discussed and Trump said it might happen.

We may have a meeting with Putin. And, again - Putin is very important because they can help us with North Korea. They can help us with Syria. We have to talk about Ukraine.

Trump will fly on Friday to Hawaii, stopping for a briefing on US military forces in the Pacific and a visit to Pearl Harbor. Trump will then visit Japan and South Korea in search of a united front against North Korea before going to Beijing, where he will push Chinese President Xi Jinping to get tougher with Pyongyang.

Trump will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Danang, Vietnam, make a state visit to Hanoi and end his trip with the Association of South East Asia Nations summit in Manila.  Reuters
Washington, November 3

US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has turned over documents to Special Counsel Robert Mueller as investigators have begun interrogations about the senior advisor's role in the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, the media reported.

Mueller's investigators have expressed interest in Kushner as part of its probe into Russian meddling, including potential obstruction of justice in Comey's firing, informed sources told CNN on Thursday.

Their questions about Kushner signal that Mueller's investigators are reaching the President's inner circle and have extended beyond the 2016 campaign to actions taken at the White House by high-level officials.

However, it was not clear how Kushner's advice to the President might relate to the overall Russia investigation or potential obstruction of justice, the sources said.

Kushner voluntarily turned over documents he had from the campaign and the transition, and these related to any contacts with Russia. The documents are similar to the ones Kushner gave to congressional investigators, they added.

According to the sources, investigators have asked witnesses also about how a statement was issued in the name of Donald Trump Jr. regarding a Trump Tower meeting and about the circumstances surrounding the departures of other White House aides.

A White House official told CNN that the Mueller team's questions about Kushner are not a surprise, and that the senior advisor would be among a list of people who investigators would be asking about.

The disclosures follow this week's indictments Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his longtime business partner and campaign deputy, Rick Gates.

Both pleaded not guilty.

Former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty for making a false statement to the FBI about contacts with people connected with the Russian government.

IANS
Diyarbakir (Turkey), November 3

One Turkish police officer was killed and nine others were wounded on Friday in a raid to capture a suspected Kurdish militant in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, the governor's office said.

The officers launched the operation to arrest a member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the district of Kayapinar west of Diyarbakir city centre, it said in a statement.

When they entered the building, clashes broke out during which a hand grenade was detonated and 10 officers were wounded. One later died after being taken to hospital.

Local resident Zahide Kilinc said she woke up to the sounds of gunfire around 6:00 am and saw officers open fire on a flat nearby.

"Of course we were scared, the children were scared. It was like there was an attack on our home and not the opposite flat," she told AFP.

The governor's office said a member of the PKK was also killed during the clashes.

The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

Over 40,000 people have been killed since it launched its insurgency in Turkey in 1984.

Fighting intensified in the southeast between Turkish security forces and the PKK after the collapse of a two-year ceasefire in 2015.

Six soldiers and two military security guards were killed on Friday in clashes with the PKK in the province of Hakkari, which borders Iraq.

The interior ministry said yesterday its security forces killed 46 members of the "separatist terror organisation"  Turkey's official term for the PKK  in Sirnak and Hakkari in the southeast and Tunceli in the east, state-run news agency Anadolu said.

It was not possible to independently verify the toll.  AFP
Washington, November 3

The US is mulling to designate North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, the White House has said, as President Donald Trump embarks on his five-nation Asia trip on Friday during which the issue of the reclusive nation will be taken up prominently.

"That is an option that's under consideration," the National Security Adviser H R McMaster told reporters at a White House news conference when asked if designating North Korea a State Sponsor of terrorism is an option for the United States.

"The president's cabinet is looking at this as part of the overall strategy on North Korea," he said.

McMaster lashed out at the North Korean regime for the "murder" of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged brother of its dictator Kim Jong-Un.

"A regime who murders someone in a public airport using nerve agent, and a despotic leader who murders his brother in that manner, that's clearly an act of terrorism that fits with a range of other actions. So this is something that's under consideration. And you'll hear more about that soon, I think," McMaster said.

McMaster said there is a concerted effort to isolate North Korea economically. And that has been combined with a major diplomatic effort that asks all countries to do more, he said adding that there's tremendous momentum behind that now.

"We have seen countries across the Indo-Pacific region, but globally, doing more to expel these really, in effect, North Korea slave labourers who are a big source of income for the regime, to shut down a lot of illicit trafficking that was aimed to circumvent the UN sanctions; to shut down a lot of the money-making enterprises of this regime, often times run out of their embassies," he said.

There have been a lot of expulsion of ambassadors, elements of the diplomatic corps, a restriction on this kind of activity, he said, noting that the president welcomes that and appreciates it.

China, he said, is definitely doing more, but obviously it's not enough. "What's really essential to remember about China's approach to this is, China recognises this isn't the United States or anyone else asking China to do us a favour. China recognises it is clearly in the interest of China and all nations to denuclearise the peninsula, he said.

McMaster rued that approaches in the past have not delivered on halting and then reversing North Korea's "very dangerous" nuclear and missile programmes.

"We are out of time to do that because of how these programs have advanced over time. It's time for a really concerted effort to do everything of us to resolve this sort of military action," he said.

Responding to another question, he highlighted three elements of foundation for the multinational approach to North Korea.

"The first of these is a recognition that North Korea is not just a threat to the United States. Everyone acknowledges, China especially, that this is a problem between North Korea and the world," he said.

The second thing, he said, is the universal acknowledgement that denuclearisation of the peninsula is the only acceptable outcome.

"No more freeze for freeze, suspension for suspension," he said.

In addition, McMaster said, "China's acknowledgement that it's acting in its interest obviously, but that China has a great deal of coercive economic power." PTI
Washington, November 3

US bombers overflew the Korean peninsula as part of an exercise with Japanese and South Korean warplanes, the US Air Force said, days before President Donald Trump arrives in the region for a trip set to be dominated by the nuclear-armed North.

Tensions are high over Pyongyang's ballistic missile and atomic programmes, which in recent months have seen it test ICBMs and carry out its sixth nuclear blast.

Trump's visit will throw a spotlight on the issue, after the US President and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un traded insults and threats of war.

Flights by supersonic B-1B Lancer bombers in the area always infuriate North Korea, which condemned the drill as "blackmail" early Friday.

Two B-1B aircraft took off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, and were joined west of Japan by Japan Air Self- Defense Force fighters, the US Pacific Air Force said in a statement.

"The Lancers then transited overland to Korea to integrate with Republic of Korea fighters in the Yellow Sea," the statement read, adding that the aircraft later returned "to their respective home stations."

The exercise was part of the "continuous bomber presence" mission in the Pacific and "was not in response to any current event," the statement said.

The operation follows an October 10 "show of force" in which two Lancers staged the first night-time joint aviation exercises with Japan and South Korea.

North Korea in July launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles apparently capable of reaching the US mainland -- described by Kim as a gift to "American bastards".

It followed up with two missiles that passed over Japan, and its sixth nuclear test, by far its most powerful yet.

Trump has warned of "fire and fury" in response to Pyongyang's threats, and derisively dubbed Kim "Rocket Man", who responded by calling him a "dotard".

This week the North's KCNA news agency described the US president as "incurably mentally deranged".

Trump will on Friday set off for his Asian tour, which will include Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

But his message risks being undermined if the North stages some kind of provocation, such as a missile test. It could be preparing for another launch, Seoul's spy agency reportedly said Thursday.

"Active movements of vehicles have been detected at a missile research facility in Pyongyang," the National Intelligence Service told a closed-door parliamentary audit, according to the Yonhap news agency.

The North habitually condemns B1-B flights as rehearsals for an attack, and KCNA said Friday: "The reality clearly shows that the gangster-like US imperialists are the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war."

Any military strike in Korea could see retaliation and rapid escalation, and much of Seoul -- a city of 10 million people -- is within range of the North's artillery.

The South's President Moon Jae-In has insisted that no military action on the peninsula can be taken without Seoul's approval.

In an interview with Yonhap, Trump's National Security Advisor H R McMaster said diplomacy was Washington's "main effort now".

"The discussion will also be about what more can we do, what more can all countries do to resolve this short of war," he said. AFP
The heavy downpour in Chennai doesn't seem to stop. Here is all that has been going on in Chennai in the last 24 hours.

By India Today Web Desk: Commuters were stranded in different parts of Chennai city due to heavy rains and waterlogging caused by it. As Chennai received 183 mm of rain in the last 24 hours, people are worried if rains would lead to a 2015-like horrific situation.

Here are the latest updates from the city:

Power was shut in at least 70 low-lying areas, reported the Hindu and power cuts were reported from different parts of the city but latest reports say that electricity has been restored. On November 1, two children were electocuted due to a live wire submerged in water in Chennai's Kodungaiyur. The Madras HC directed the Tamil Nadu government to pay Rs 10 Lakh in compensation to the families of these girls, reports First Post. The Tamil Nadu government claimed that around 115 multi-purpose shelters are ready in the coastal districts, reports NDTV. Tamil Nadu State Disaster Management Agency's tweeted, "entire govt machinery is working round the clock to help citizens through 24 X 7". Authorities, media and residents have been sharing helpline numbers on social media. Schools and colleges in Chennai are to remain shut till further notice. IT firms are functional now, but if the intensity of rains increase, companies may shut too. Government has asked IT firms to allow employees to work from home, reports Indian Express. A TOI report said that water entered Tambaram Taluk Government Hospital in Chromepet last night and staff were forced to shift at least 60 patients to the first floor from the ground floor. Train, flight, metro services, though, are back to normal. Yedu Krishna, a resident of Thoraipakkam, told IndiaToday.in that the sun has finally shined over the city, and that the water has receded. He also said power never got interrupted in the area he's living in.

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Here are glimpses of what Chennai city witnessed in the last couple of days -

This is original video taken by me. 13 secs.. At OMR Perungudi, near Apollo hospital..#ChennaiRains #ChennaiFloodTrap pic.twitter.com/LLU0zbliA3- Bhaskar (@bhaskarl3101) November 2, 2017

Traffic closed at T.Nagar Duraisamy subway due to water log.Situation @ 11 PM. Stay Safe #ChennaiRains pic.twitter.com/NohXdUw0DE- Sriram (@Ennaipol_Oruvan) November 2, 2017

Going to be sometime before we see some respite from current spell. Southern parts of Chennai like Adyar, omr will see the bulk of these moderate to heavy spell of rains. #chennairains pic.twitter.com/POENEBPAk5- Chennairains (@ChennaiRains) November 2, 2017

#ChennaiRains #TidelPark Employees are unable to return home as there is absolutely no cabs :-( pic.twitter.com/MZkaz2fYE0- Sathish Kumar M (@sathishmsk) November 2, 2017

--- ENDS ---
Photo: Port of Long Beach

By 2035 only zero-emissions vehicles will be able to enter the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach without paying a penalty. That's part of the Clean Air Action Plan approved by the harbor commissions of both ports.

The 2017 CAAP Update is designed to push for zero emissions by 2035. The plan to reduce emissions will include cleaner vehicles and equipment, better freight infrastructure and planning, and improved freight efficiency.

For trucking companies servicing the ports, newly registered vehicles will be required to meet stringent environmental regulations or face penalties. By mid-2018, all new trucks on the registry must have at least 2014 model year engines. By 2020, a near-zero emissions standard will be enforced with a fee charged when entering port terminals. By 2023, trucks must meet near-zero emissions to enter the registry, and by 2035 only zero-emissions vehicles will be able to enter the port without being charged.

The ports estimate incremental costs of between $7 billion and $14 billion for new technologies, infrastructure investments, and incentive programs to support the CAAP strategies outlined in the latest version of the plan. The plan was developed with feedback from industry stakeholders, according to port officials.

The Harbor Trucking Association, which represents many of the stakeholders at the affected ports, took a positive but circumspect position on the approved plan.

The Harbor Trucking Association is very thankful to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach for engaging with us in the development of the Clean Air Action Plan update, said Weston LaBar, executive director of the association. While we appreciate the ports' approach, we feel the milestones are very ambitious and will be hard to meet."

The CAAP is one of the most ambitious environmental investments ever undertaken by a port complex and must strike a delicate balance of improving air quality through drastic measures and maintaining competitiveness with other ports.

Strategies to deliver on the plan are expected to place a large financial burden on the ports and goods movement industry, and the plan states that it will only be successful with the financial support of the California and federal governments.

We look forward to working with the ports through the implementation process and the vetting of the feasibility of deploying new equipment in the market, said LaBar. Above all, we need to first ensure the port is economically sustainable and competitive, as we work towards increased environmental sustainability and continuing the journey to improve our regions air quality.

Not all industry stakeholders are as cautiously optimistic. Western States Trucking Association Director of Governmental Affairs Joe Rajkovacz expressed concern that requirements for newer, cleaner vehicles would hinder the abilities of small trucking companies to compete.

In our view, its really going to handicap small businesses. It essentially tells small business that you arent going to be able to repurpose older vehicles, Rajkovacz told HDT. This certainly has the specter of the ports doing the bidding of organized labor to try to do everything they can to screw over small businesses.

Rajkovacz also said that the regulations could really hurt the Ports of Los Angeles' and the Port of Long Beach's ability to compete with other ports and could ultimately cost them serious business.

For funding, CAAP states that federal, state and regional government incentives can help offset costs of new equipment and subsidize critical infrastructure needed to support new technologies. A request will be made for incentive funding from federal, state, and regional sources to assist with these efforts, and the ports will remain actively involved in these discussions throughout the implementation of the plan.

When the cost of shipping goods through those ports becomes so high, and theyre already seeing declines in market share, it's going to accelerate, WSTA's Rajkovacz said. The self-righteous, sanctimonious people are going to kill the goose that lays the golden egg in Southern California.
A committee will examine a proposal for a 140-unit apartment complex in the Pearl District, the Tulsa Development Authority said Thursday.

Following an executive session, TDA Chairman Roy Peters said a development agreement review committee would be filled by TDA commissioners Nancy Roberts (chair), Thomas Boxley (vice chair) and city of Tulsa staffers Roger Acebo, Theron Warlick and Jim Coles.

The proposed development, the only request for proposal the TDA received, would occupy the former Laura Dester Childrens Center site at 1415 E. Eighth St.

The Rockford Park Apartments plan is a collaboration among Prairie Fire, a Kansas City, Missouri-based firm and Tulsa developers Nelson Stowe and Ross Group.

Part of the citys Sixth Street Infill Plan, the TDA property is an entire city block, bounded by Seventh Street on the north, Eighth Street on the south, Rockford Avenue on the east and Quincy Avenue on the west. The proposal shows an L-shaped apartment complex adjacent to a 1.8-acre, flood-control park that features a gazebo. Lining the property would be 138 surface parking spaces and 48 curbside street parking spots, documents indicate.

The state of Oklahoma sold the site, which used to house the childrens shelter, to the city in 2015 as part of the city of Tulsas Sixth Street Infill (Pearl District) Plan, and in January 2016 the city approved TDA to act as an agent to acquire other properties in this plan area to redevelop.

Peters said he wants the committee to check on matters such as detention pond requirements and whether the city has any funds available for that purpose.

We also want to make sure we have input from the community, Peters said following the executive session. The city could return to the TDA agenda next month with a recommendation for the next action.

Chris Hrabe, president of Prairie Fire, said he wants to use the $18 million Rockford Park Apartments as a catalyst for economic development.

Tulsa, Oklahoma, has been on our radar screen for a long time, and again when this RFP popped up, we had to get down here and take a look at it, said Hrabe, adding that he had been talking with Ross Group about other opportunities in the area.

Developer Casey Stowe is a principal with Elliot Nelson in Nelson Stowe, which like Ross Group, has developed many local properties.

That was a big desire when this RFP went out is was to get some eyes on it from outside of Tulsa, Stowe said. So we are excited to have a local flavor but also a fresh perspective and the skill set that those guys bring.
While Chennai witnessed 183mm of rain in the last 24 hours, Minambakkam observatory and Nagapattinam received 141mm and 51mm respectively.

By India Today Web Desk: Heavy rains in Chennai have yet again disrupted daily life, and severe waterlogging in various parts of the city has caused major discomfort to the locals.

DMK leader Karunanidhi's house at Gopalapuram got flooded as well.

DMK leader Karunanidhi's house at Gopalapuram

While Chennai witnessed 183mm of rain in the last 24 hours, Minambakkam observatory and Nagapattinam received 141mm and 51mm respectively.

Photo: ANI

Photo: ANI

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After a short-term respite on Thursday morning, heavy rains lashed out at the city in the later half of the day. The delta region of Tamil Nadu and coastal Tamil Nadu has been receiving moderate to intense rainfall, as reported earlier.

"Rainfall activity will continue over north-coastal Tamil Nandu with 'heavy to very heavy rain' over Thiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Chennai and Chegalpattu districts during next 24 hours", said S Balachandran, Director IMD Chennai.

Tamil Nadu MLA J Anbazhagan tweeted that people from Chepauk-Triplicane constituency are complaining of a power-cut since last night.

People from my constituency r continuously reporting tat der is no Electricity from 8pm last night, no reasons spotted as of now. #powercut- J Anbazhagan (@JAnbazhagan) November 3, 2017

Even fishermen have been advised to be cautious before venturing into the sea.

The residents expected that after the 2015 floods which brought Chennai to its knees, the government would have done its work. But it does not seem any lesson has been learnt as Chennaites still complain of waterlogging.

Around the Irumballiyur junction, traffic has been hit due to waterlogging. Residents of Tambaram complain that authorities have not reached them yet despite numerous calls being made on the official helpline.

According to the residents, the 11km stretch from Tambaram to Padapaai needs a new canal to connect to Adyar river and even after Rs 65 crore were allotted for this, no work has been done.

WATCH VIDEO | Heavy rains in Chennai keeping the city severely water-logged in many parts

--- ENDS ---
Oklahoma Speaker of the House of Representatives Charles McCall fired off another round in the ongoing tiffle between his leadership team and the Senate.

In a written statement Friday afternoon issued long after most lawmakers had called it a week, McCall, R-Atoka, said the House has passed bills that would account for $156 million of the $215 million budget hole while the Senate more or less twiddled its thumbs through six weeks of special session.

In the last week the House of Representatives has closed more than 70 percent of the budget shortfall and we have identified up to $30 million in revolving funds that could help us close it even further, McCall said.

This week, the House appropriated $106 million in existing cash ... yet $83 million of those funds are sitting in the Senate and have not been acted upon. ... On top of the existing cash, we raised an additional $50 million in revenue for this years budget by increasing the (gross production tax) on legacy wells. That bill is also waiting on the Senate to hear it.

The Senate has been reluctant to utilize cash for the current budget shortfall, in part because an even tighter budget squeeze is expected for fiscal year 2019, which begins July 1, 2018.

The Senate and Gov. Mary Fallin have pushed the House to raise new revenue, chiefly through increases in tobacco and fuel taxes.

The state constitution, though, requires such measures be approved by three-fourths majorities in both the House and Senate. That works out to 76 votes in the more fractious House, and McCall says he just cant get there.

If anyone wants to revisit votes on revenue bills that have already failed, we will be glad to have that discussion when they bring us a list of 76 House members that will vote for them on the House floor, McCall said.

Democrats and a faction of Republicans came within a few votes of bringing to the floor a grand bargain supported by the Senate, but that failed to be voted out of a House committee.

Even if the bill had made it to the House floor, though, it appeared to be far short of the 76 votes needed for passage.

McCall and his teams handling of the bill in committee came in for criticism from Senate Republicans.

House Republicans are not standing in the way of any ideas that the Governor and Senate want to discuss, but we are leading the way on passing actual measures that close the budget hole, McCall said.
A Collinsville man convicted Friday of child sexual abuse and child neglect against a relative and several of his girlfriends relatives could be sentenced to more than 220 years in prison.

Jury trial proceedings began Monday for 38-year-old Brian Paul Campbell on four charges of child sexual abuse against a person younger than 12 and one count of child neglect.

Three women who have had romantic relationships with Campbell  Beverly Vaughan, Crystal Toney and Christina Renae Mathews  are also listed as co-defendants and face child neglect charges.

The jury deliberated for about an hour before returning guilty verdicts on all five counts and recommending life sentences for each, along with fines totaling $25,000.

Capping off an emotional week of testimony that included statements from two of the three named victims, Assistant District Attorneys Sarah McAmis and Andrea Brown asked the jury to make sure Campbell does not have the opportunity to victimize children again.

McAmis said the case is the latest in a lifetime of perpetration of various forms of sexual violence by Campbell against children, including a girl as young as 5 at the time of his arrest in August 2016.

Today is the day that the broken and breaking victims in this case get the justice they deserve, McAmis said.

Defense attorney Kyle Killam, in his closing argument, emphasized the importance of only focusing on the people listed as reported victims rather than judging Campbell by testimony about other incidents for which he wasn't charged.

Brown said Campbell groomed multiple women and children, including Toney, throughout his life so they would eventually believe that his sexual abuse was normal and consider themselves as having something wrong with them.

We could have been here for months  listening to all the people whose lives have been ruined by Brian Campbell, Brown said. But at some point, enough is enough.

She told reporters after the trial that Campbell is the most prolific predator she has ever prosecuted in her 10-year career.

The state started its case by calling a 34-year-old woman who said Campbell sodomized her when she was 12 and he was 16, an offense that landed Campbell in juvenile detention.

A 9-year-old male relative of Mathews testified Wednesday, saying he witnessed the rape of his female relative, then around 5 or 6, by Campbell and Mathews. He said he was also abused by the couple on multiple occasions.

The two children, along with a younger female relative, went under the care of another relative of Mathews in March 2016 and subsequently disclosed sexual abuse that was reported to authorities.

Killam, during cross-examination, suggested the caretaker may have coached the children to allege Campbell abused them to increase the likelihood she would be awarded guardianship. He pointed out how her testimony did not fully match that of police and therapists involved in the case, saying no medical professional ever told the jury there was medical proof they were sexually abused.

Campbells relative, now 22, described on Tuesday how Campbell propositioned her for sex and touched her inappropriately when she was 11. She said she had walked in on Campbell, who is in a pending divorce proceeding with Vaughan, having sex with Toney.

Current and former police detectives testified about looking into allegations in late 2006 and early 2007 that Campbell violated a then-4-year-old male relative of Vaughans and his now-22-year-old relative. Those inquiries did not lead to convictions at the time, but prosecutors said they show Campbell had a modus operandi of finding women to date and then preying on their young relatives.

Brown said the sentencing recommendations were justice not only for the three people named on Campbells charges, but also others such as the woman assaulted in 1995.

We charged ... a count of something that happened over a decade ago, Brown said, referencing the incident against the now 22-year-old woman. Is that common? No. But its never too late to speak up. Its never too late to tell someone what happened to you, and its never, ever, ever, ever OK to touch a child.
Tulsa police are seeking the publics help in locating a man who is a person of interest in the robbery of a local business on Halloween.

A surveillance image shows the man entering the business in the area of 19200 E. Admiral Blvd. Police did not identify the business that was robbed.

The person is described as a black or Hispanic man with a light complexion, 5-foot-10 to 6-foot-1 tall, 200 to 250 pounds and wearing a hoodie with a red-and-white logo that appears to be the letters VT, VF or W. Anyone with information is asked to contact CrimeStoppers at 918-596-COPS.
Six Tulsa County Sheriffs Office personnel have been arrested since June.

One detention officer has been convicted, and court proceedings are pending for four others, as well as for a sheriffs deputy.

The Tulsa County Sheriffs Office will not hesitate to investigate our employees and request criminal charges when warranted, Sheriff Vic Regalado stated in a news release. Violations of the law and the publics trust will not be tolerated by members of this agency.

Sheriffs Office spokeswoman Casey Roebuck said the department has more than 700 employees.

Every one of these employees has passed a vigorous background check, she said.

A summary of the cases:

 Detention officer Kelby Brooks, 23, was placed on paid leave Aug. 25 when allegations surfaced that he was having inappropriate contact with a teenager. He was hired Sept. 1, 2015. His employment was terminated Wednesday, when he was arrested. His bond was set at $50,000.

 Former detention officer Kevin Clevon Mayo, 20, was arrested June 9 after allegedly sneaking drugs and other contraband into the jail. A search of his backpack found 4 grams of marijuana, crushed-up hydrocodone pills and 2 grams of methamphetamine. He had been hired March 1. He pleaded guilty to three drug-related charges and two other counts and was sentenced July 5 to two years incarceration with three years suspended.

 Detention officer Rickardo Orlando Williams, 38, was arrested June 1 and charged with two counts of sexual battery after three victims said they were subjected to or witnessed Williams groping or humping inmates. He has been free on $40,000 bond and is scheduled to be arraigned Monday. He was hired March 1 and placed on unpaid leave May 22.

 Detention officer Ashley Michelle Smith turned herself in after being charged with sexual battery. The charge alleges that she had an inappropriate relationship with a female inmate. She was hired May 1, and her employment was terminated Oct. 2. She has been free on $5,000 bond and has an arraignment set for Friday.

 Detention officer Ransom Wise Adedeji, also spelled Andedji in some court records, was arrested Oct. 17 after being accused of hitting an inmate with a radio. He was hired July 5. He has been free on a $1,000 bond since his arrest and is on unpaid administrative leave. He is set for arraignment Nov. 21 on a misdemeanor charge of assault and battery.

 Deputy Justin Kaczynski, 35, was arrested Oct. 18. Prosecutors allege he stealthily grabbed a German shepherd from the backyard of a home Sept. 25 and carried the dog away without the owners permission. He was hired as a detention officer July 10, 2012, and was promoted to deputy Dec. 1, 2016. He is free on $2,500 bond and was placed on unpaid leave after being charged with felony larceny of a dog. A preliminary hearing is scheduled Nov. 21.
Are you in Chennai? Do you have a friend, colleague or a family member travelling to Chennai today? Here is a guide on which routes to take and which ones to avoid.

A woman carries a dog as she wades through a water-logged neighbourhood during rains in Chennai, November 1, 2017. Photo: Reuters

Chennai residents, and the whole of India, were reminded of the horrific Chennai floods of 2015 - courtesy, incessant rains since the past few days.

Chennai received 183 mm of rain in the last 24 hours. The Minambakkam observatory recorded 141 mm rainfall and the Nagapattinam observatory recorded 51 mm rainfall.

Heavy rains, and the waterlogging caused, disrupted daily life in the city. Schools have been given an off for the fourth consecutive day today. Here is a glimpse of what is going on in Chennai -

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We thought a guide on which routes to take and which ones to avoid will be of use to you. If you are travelling to Chennai or if any of your colleagues, friends or family members are, direct them to this.

# Those who are travelling to Guindy, Porur, Vadapalani, Pallavaram and Saidapet, DO NOT take the Velachery - Phoenix Mall route. The left after Phoenix Mall is blocked due to waterlogging.

# T-Nagar's Duraisamy subway is closed due to waterlogging. Please take alternate routes.

# AVOID Kathipara - Vadapalani road, heavy waterlogging from Olympia to Ekkaduthangal Metro. TAKE the ALTERNATE route via Saidapet.

# Those who are travelling from Thoraipakkam Road to reach Keelkatalai / Madipakkam please do not take the LIC Nagar route.

# Those travelling from Nungambakkam to Anna Nagar. Sterling Road is filling up fast (knee-deep water) and traffic is bad.

# The Nelson Manickam Subway is being cordoned off by the traffic police as water is filling up. By the next shower, it could be flooded. # Shanthi Colony and Anna Nagar, however, are comparatively better.

# Sholinganallur is not in good shape, best to AVOID the area. Nearly two to three feet water from signal to Aavin. Four wheelers have started stranding one by one.

# Avoid using Medavakkam to Sholingnallur route. Water has started flooding the roads. Nearby Sathak College has hip-deep water by now. Many vehicles already stranded here.

# Mylapore - Vivekananda College road is blocked due to waterlogging. Best to use alternate routes.

--- ENDS ---
The Taste of Home Live cooking show will stop in Tulsa during its "Happiest Holiday Tour" on Tuesday, Nov. 7.

Tickets to the interactive cooking show are available online for the shopping event and live demonstrations that will include tips and tastings perfect for the upcoming holidays. Tulsa's show will take over the Hyatt Regency, 100 E. Second St., starting at 7 p.m.

Admission for the 90-minute show and shopping event start at $25, and VIP tickets are $85. General admission includes shopping opportunities, cocktails available for purchase and dessert sampling after the show; VIP tickets include, in addition to the general admission features, access to the pre-show reception and Taste of Home recipes, preferred seating, shopping opportunities and a goodie bag with Chef's Favorite Kitchen Essentials and the Taste of Home cookbook. Tickets are available online at tasteofhome.com/live.

As part of Taste of Homes ongoing commitment to local charities, Taste of Home is partnering with the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma. There will be a food drive at the event and guest speakers from the food bank to raise awareness of food insecurity. Attendees are asked to bring a nonperishable food item to the event and can also make a financial donation and shop for a cause. Ten percent of all merchandise sales at the event will go to the food bank.
Rohingya families arrive at a UNHCR transit centre near the village of Anjuman Para, Cox's Bazar, south-east Bangladesh after spending four days stranded at the Myanmar border with some 6,800 refugees.  UNHCR/Roger Arnold

In Bangladesh, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and our partners are providing urgent aid and seeking shelter for Rohingya refugees who arrived from Myanmar yesterday and on Wednesday.



According to the Bangladesh border guards, some 3,000 refugees arrived through the Anjuman Para border crossing between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning. They waited in the paddy fields near the border, where Action Contre la Faim sent food and UNICEF distributed water from a boat. Medecins Sans Frontieres identified and brought in people who needed urgent medical attention. UNHCR distributed tokens for relief supplies to be collected further inland when they find a place to settle.



As of this morning, more than 2,000 of them have moved towards UNHCRs transit centre near Kutupalong camp, including some vulnerable refugees who were taken by bus. This comes as our staff just relocated over 400 recent arrivals to a new extension to Kutupalong camp.



At the transit centre, the new arrivals have been given health checks, food, water and basic supplies for a few days before they are relocated to Kutupalong Extension.



New arrivals who spent the night near the border are being directed towards Kutupalong Extension site today.

Bangladesh: Transit centre is 'safe haven' for weary Rohingya family (Marc Hofer, producer-camera)

UNHCRs Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Volker Turk concluded on Wednesday a visit to Myanmar, during which he reiterated UN calls for unrestricted humanitarian access to all communities in need in Rakhine State.



Turk stressed the right of return of refugees who fled from Rakhine State to Bangladesh over recent weeks and appealed for their safe, voluntary, and sustainable return home necessitating safety, protection and peaceful coexistence of all communities in Rakhine State.



UNHCR also emphasized the importance and the need for the robust and early involvement of development actors to engage and invest in community-based programmes in Rakhine State that create conditions that enable sustainable reintegration of returning refugees and benefit all communities in need.



Turk arrived to Bangladesh this morning where over the next four days he will visit refugee settlements in Coxs Bazar and meet with Bangladeshi authorities in Dhaka.



For more information on this topic, please contact:
Murad, left, and Ashraf in the kitchen of the pastry shop where they work  UNHCR/Chadi Ouanes

SFAX, Tunisia  When Murad and Ashraf left Yemen full of hope in 2012 having secured scholarships to study civil engineering in Tunisia, they could not have predicted that  five years on  their country would be in the grip of a brutal civil war leaving them stranded as refugees.

As they pursued their studies in the capital Tunis, Murad, now 27, and Ashraf, 25, watched in horror from afar as violence spread across their homeland. Inside the country, almost two million Yemenis are currently displaced from their homes in desperate conditions and more than 20 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance.

Murad and Ashraf are among 188,000 refugees from Yemens conflict seeking protection overseas. But unlike the majority who left the country to escape the fighting, the two friends dreamt of returning home after their studies only to see their plans dashed.

We certainly would have been persecuted and our lives would have been threatened."

Airports were closed, armed checkpoints were and still are widespread across the whole country, said Murad of their decision to remain in Tunisia. We certainly would have been persecuted and our lives would have been threatened.

As a result of the conflict at home, the students scholarship funding was cut before they had finished their studies. Despite this, both were able to complete their courses, but while Ashraf used his savings to obtain his degree, Murad was unable to graduate due to unpaid tuition fees.

Croissants with almonds and chocolate made by Ashraf and Murad.  UNHCR/Chadi Ouanes

Unable to return home and with their legal status in the country initially unclear, for the first few months after completing their studies the two young men sought out informal work in Sfax, Tunisias second city.

However, as it became clear that they would have to remain in the country indefinitely, the two friends registered with UNHCR  the UN Refugee Agency  and applied for formal refugee status.

"If, one day, Yemen finds peace, I will go back and make the pastries I am making now."

Together with its partner the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, UNHCR helped Murad and Ashraf to find formal employment with a local pastry shop in Sfax, where they make French-inspired cakes and sweets. As well as helping them to find accommodation, UNHCR has also offered to try to help Murad secure his degree.

As a result of this assistance and Tunisias open-door policy to refugees and asylum seekers, Murad and Ashraf have found the stability they need to once again begin planning for their futures. This assistance has allowed me to have financial security, explained Ashraf. I now have a home, a job, and a motorbike to go to work on every day. I feel like Tunisia has become my second home.

The pair still dream of going home, but Murad added that he hopes to take with him a taste of their adopted country. If, one day I hope, Yemen finds peace, I will go back and make the pastries I am making now. I have never seen them there before, and I am positive they would be a big success and give Yemens culinary culture an additional flavour.
Sougrabay Ibrahim, an 84-year-old Karana, from Madagascar, poses for a portrait with her grandchildren while attending a UNHCR stateless workshop.  UNHCR/Roger Arnold

A new UNHCR report warns that discrimination, exclusion and persecution are stark realities for many of the worlds stateless minorities, and calls for immediate action to secure equal nationality rights for all.



More than 75% of the worlds known stateless populations belong to minority groups, the report notes. Left unaddressed, their protracted marginalization can build resentment, increase fear and, in the most extreme cases, lead to instability, insecurity and displacement.



Although the report is based on research prior to late August when hundreds of thousands of Rohingya  the worlds biggest stateless minority  began fleeing Myanmar to Bangladesh, their situation is nonetheless illustrative of the problems that years of discrimination, protracted exclusion and their impact on citizenship status can lead to.



Stateless people are just seeking the same basic rights that all citizens enjoy. But stateless minorities, like the Rohingya, often suffer from entrenched discrimination and a systematic denial of their rights, said the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.



In recent years, important steps have been taken to address statelessness worldwide. However new challenges, like growing forced displacement and arbitrary deprivation of nationality, threaten this progress. States must act now and they must act decisively to end statelessness, added Grandi.



The report This is our home: Stateless minorities and their search for citizenship is released on the third anniversary of UNHCRs #IBelong Campaign to end statelessness. It is based on consultations conducted in May and June 2017 with members of stateless, formerly stateless or at risk minority groups in Madagascar, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Kenya, which were selected as examples to highlight the issues faced by stateless minorities worldwide.



Drawing on discussions with more than 120 individuals, the report shows that, for many minority groups, the cause of statelessness is difference itself: their histories, their looks, their language, their faith. At the same time, statelessness often exacerbates the exclusion that minority groups face, profoundly affecting all aspects of their life  from freedom of movement to development opportunities, and from access to services to the right to vote.



The testimonies in the report show how discrimination negatively impacts stateless minorities communities and intensifies their anxiety for their physical safety and security. It also contributes to poverty and complicates their ability to access documentation, education and health care.



In order to ensure equal nationality rights for stateless minorities, UNHCRs #IBelong Campaign urges all States to take the following steps:

Facilitate the naturalization or confirmation of nationality for stateless minority groups resident on the territory, provided that they were born or have resided there before a particular date, or have parents or grandparents who meet these criteria.

Allow children to gain the nationality of the country in which they were born if they would otherwise be stateless.

Eliminate laws and practices that deny or deprive persons of nationality on the basis of discriminatory grounds such as race, ethnicity, religion, or linguistic minority status.

Ensure universal birth registration to prevent statelessness.

Eliminate procedural and practical obstacles to the issuance of nationality documentation to those entitled to it under law.

Figures

It is difficult to determine how many people are stateless or at risk of statelessness worldwide. Data on statelessness are captured by government and reported to UNHCR. In 2016, 75 countries reported 3.2 million stateless individuals. But UNHCR estimates that this is only a fraction of the total  the true number could even be three times higher.

About the #IBelong Campaign

On 4 November 2014, UNHCR launched its #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness. Statelessness is a man-made problem and relatively easy to resolve and prevent. With the necessary political will and public support, millions of people around the world could acquire a nationality and prevent their children from being born stateless. The #IBelong Campaign is supported by a Global Action Plan, which sets out concrete steps for States to help resolve the problem. By acquiring a nationality, millions of stateless people around the world could gain full access to their human rights and enjoy a sense of belonging in their communities.

For more information on this topic, please contact:
India and China to cooperate fully with each other as Chinese President Xi Jinping begins his second term.

By Ananth Krishnan: A top Chinese diplomat said on Friday that China was "ready to work with India" in what he called "a new era" of Chinese "neighbourhood diplomacy" as President Xi Jinping begins his second term.

On his first overseas visit in his second term, Xi will travel on November 10 to Vietnam to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economic leaders' summit and also pay a state visit to Vietnam and Laos, officials announced on Friday.

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Chen Xiaodong, Assistant Foreign Minister, told reporters the visit would underline what he described as a "guiding principle" for China's relations with neighbours, which had been outlined at the October 18-24 Party Congress in Beijing. The congress affirmed Xi's status asthe leader of the party ahead of his second term, and also enshrined his ideological contribution into the party constitution.

Chen highlighted what he described as the situation in the disputed South China Sea "moving towards relaxation", and said this was part of Xi's "guiding principle" of "neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for a new era", adding that the "progress" in the South China Sea "shows countries in the region have the willingness, wisdom and ability to properly handle the South China Sea issue."

In a thinly veiled comment aimed at the United States, Chen added that China "hopes countries outside the region can look at the positive progress in the South China Sea situation in an objective manner" and help maintain peace and stability in the region.

On Xi's first visit after the congress, he said it "will help open neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for a new era, the goal of which is to foster a new type of international relations and build a community of shared future for mankind. This will be the overall direction for neighbourhood diplomacy for China in the next stage."

"President Xi also elaborated on China's neighbourhood diplomacy focusing on the principle of sincerity, amity, inclusiveness and mutual benefit, and neighbourhood diplomacy aimed at building partnerships and friends with neighbours. We have been following this concept past few years in cooperation with neighbours and in deepening our political mutual trust. This is a guiding principle."

On relations with India, Chen said, "India is an important neighbour of China. China attaches great importance to relations with India. We are ready to work with India to promote constant progress of bilateral relations guided by neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for a new era."

But whether this will see any change in the recent tensions in relations is unclear. Only on Thursday, China for the second year running blocked an application to designate the Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar at the UN Security Council sanctions committee.

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Prime Minister Modi and Xi in September agreed to adopt "a forward looking" approach to the relationship, as they met in Xiamen, China at the BRICS Summit after the August 28 disengagement after a 72-day border stand-off at Doklam near the India-China-Bhutan trijunction.

On Thursday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said both India and China had "properly settled this issue through diplomatic means consistent with our common interest." "We hope India can follow historical conventions and work with China to ensure peace and tranquility of the border area," spokesperson Hua Chunying told reporters.

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: Kolkata, Nov 2 (PTI) The CISF has arrested two Indian Nationals for carrying USD 1,10,000 worth over Rs 72 lakh in Indian currency at the NSC Bose International Airport here.

The entire amount was seized and the passengers were handed over to the airport customs, the CISF sources said today.

Yesterday at about 11.05 PM, during Pre-Embarkation Security Check at the international security hold area of the NSCBI Airport, CISF Assistant Sub-Inspector Deepak Singh noticed suspicious image of laptop chargers from the hand baggages of two passengers Sajjad Ali and Mohan Basu.

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Sajjad Ali, aged about 24 yrs and Mohan Basu, aged about 51 yrs, were scheduled to travel to Singapore by flight No MI-487 at about 11.55 PM.

During frisking of the baggages of both the passengers, the CISF jawans found the booty concealed in 11 AC Adopters. While USD 60,000 were found from the hand baggage of Mohan Basu, USD 50,000 were recovered from the hand baggage of Sajjad Ali.

The matter was immediately informed to the senior officials of the CISF.

Later, both the passengers along-with the seized foreign currency were handed over to the Customs officials for follow-up action. PTI AKB RG

--- ENDS ---
November 3 2017

Former industrial land in East Ayrshire has been earmarked for 2.56m of National lottery funding which aims to reconnect local communities with their own backyard.The cash will be used to revitalize 250sq/km of land straddling the river valleys of Lugar and the Doon, an area which suffers some of the highest deprivation levels in the country following the collapse of the coal industry, with communities left to deal with a legacy of bings and spoil heaps.Despite these issues the Landscape Partnership area also encompasses eight sites of Special Scientific Interest as well as two sites considered to be of international significance - Airds Moss and The Muirkirk and Lowther Uplands which serve as mating land for hen harriers and short-eared owls.Lucy Casot, head of the Heritage Lottery Fund in Scotland, commented: The industrial character of East Ayrshire means that people often dont recognise that its natural resources and meandering rivers make it rich in both built and natural heritage. The Coalfield Communities Landscape Partnership will help people reconnect with their natural heritage, strengthening their sense of pride and inspiring stewardship of the land around them.Specific projects include trails connecting former mining villages; including oral histories of their former inhabitants as well as riverbank restoration and the farming of river rushes to create briquettes for use as a sustainable fuel source.
By PTI: New Delhi, Nov 3 (PTI) Professional competence of those being considered for appointment as judges can best be determined by the members of the higher judiciary and not by the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the Supreme Court collegium has said.

The apex court collegium, headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, has said this while recommending the names of three of the four advocates for appointment as judges of the Jharkhand High Court.

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"As regards comments of Intelligence Bureau about professional competence...we are of the view that professional competence can best be determined by the members of the higher judiciary who have the opportunity to observe his performance on a daily basis," the collegium, which also comprised Justices J Chelameswar and Ranjan Gogoi, said.

"As regards comments touching upon his integrity, the same are qualified by Intelligence Bureaus own statement that there is nothing on record. In our view, it would not be appropriate to take cognisance of any unsubstantiated information based on discreet inquiries made by the Intelligence Bureau," the collegium said.

The apex court collegium has recommended the names of advocates Rajesh Kumar, Anubha Rawat Choudhary and Kailash Prasad Deo for appointment as judges of the Jharkhand High Court after finding them suitable for elevation to the bench.

"Their inter se seniority be fixed as per the existing practice," it said.

Similarly, the collegium has also recommended the name of advocate Arindam Lodh for elevation as a judge of the Tripura High Court.

The collegium also dealt with proposal for appointment of three additional judges as permanent judges of the Gauhati High Court.

It noted in its resolution that terms of two out of these three additional judges was going to expire shortly on November 21.

The collegium has said that at present, the two out of these three judges be appointed as additional judges for a fresh term of one year with effect from November 22, while one of them be appointed as additional judge for a fresh term of one year from January 7, 2018. PTI ABA MNL SJK RKS ARC

--- ENDS ---
(Nov. 3, 2017) -- A University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) doctoral student who drowned earlier this semester will be honored with a posthumous degree from UTSA. Dr. Maria Lockwood 08, 11 was a student in the cell and molecular biology doctoral program in the UTSA College of Sciences Department of Biology. She was also a member of the UTSA Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) research training program.

Lockwood began her education at the Universidad de los Andes in Venezuela, where she earned a medical doctorate and practiced medicine.

When she arrived in the United States, she chose to go back to school at UTSA, first completing a bachelors degree in criminal justice in May 2008 and a masters degree in biology in August 2011.

This semester, she was nearing completion of her doctorate, working with her research mentor Garry Sunter, chair of the UTSA Department of Biology, on a project titled, Inactivation of SnRK1 by Geminiviruses multifunctional proteins AC2/C2 play an important role in the regulation of Plant Innate Immune Responses.

Sunter will present Lockwoods research at 12 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 4 in the Cell and Molecular Biology Seminar Series in the Biosciences Building Loeffler Room (BSB 3.03.02), followed by a small reception and the posthumous awarding of her doctorate.

The Maria Lockwood Memorial Scholarship Fund has been established to support UTSA biology doctoral students in their efforts to present their research projects at local, state and national conferences. Contributions can be made by check or money order payable to UTSA (indicate in the memo section Maria Lockwood Memorial Scholarship Fund) and directed to Jacob Sanchez, assistant director of fiscal administration, at the UTSA Department of Biology in the Biotechnology, Science and Engineering Building (BSE 1.600).

Lockwood, 49, was reported missing from the Padre Island National Seashore near Corpus Christi on Sept. 16. Kenedy County officials later determined that she died from an accidental drowning.
Wyoming Business Tips for Nov. 12-18

A weekly look at Wyoming business questions from the Wyoming Small Business Development Center (WSBDC), part of WyomingEntrepreneur.Biz, a collection of business assistance programs at the University of Wyoming.

By Crystal Mueller, guest columnist

I am ready to hire my first employee. What do I need to think about in terms of hiring the best candidate for my business? John, Casper

According to Fast Company (2015), 56 percent of small-business owners reported hiring challenges as a concern. Poor hiring can cost an organization revenue and growth.

Hiring does not have to be as difficult as you might assume. Following a defined process will set your organization up for success. The first step is to review or create the job description for the position to be filled. In a changing world, work evolves as the organization grows. As an employer, ensuring that each position adds to the financial health of the business is critical to the companys success.

Once the position is well-defined, a consistent process for hiring must be developed. A manager must protect the organization by having a working knowledge of employment laws. Liability issues are minimized when employment laws are built into the hiring process. The job description should include the position, who the person reports to and essential job functions.

The next step is for management to decide on the length of time the position will be advertised, the interview team, interview questions, and what information candidates will be given before and after the interview.

Your interview team of supervisors and co-workers should first compare applicants experience and skills to the job description. Choose your pool of candidates and set time aside to conduct interviews. It may be tempting to deviate questions based on candidates responses to questions; however, a successful interview process requires the same people using the same interview questions. Take notes during interviews and evaluate candidates as soon as possible. Beware of bias, which results in bad hiring.

You have finally found the perfect fit for your organization. Notify the successful candidate and extend an offer. Thank the other candidates only after the chosen candidate has accepted. If the candidate declines, you will need an alternate, and no one likes to feel like second best. All the materials -- even the notes taken by interviewers -- associated with the hiring process, should be retained for a specific length of time determined by leadership. Just like the interview process, the material should be treated as confidential.

The process continues even after the selection is made. Training is crucial whether the employee is new or a current employee moving to a different position in the organization. Good orientation, with a structured training program and ongoing evaluation, is important. A defined period of three to six months should be used to provide feedback to the employee. Continuous feedback is important to successful hiring.

About Crystal Mueller

Mueller has more than 20 years of experience in the human resources field and has led human resources teams at Wyoming Medical Center and Natrona County School District. In addition to her extensive on-the-job experience, she has taught classes at Casper College and the University of Mary, and also presented for Lorman Educational Services. She currently consults with small businesses and shares her knowledge with Nepris and AlphaSights.

A blog version of this article and an opportunity to post comments are available at www.wyomingsbdc.org/blog1/.

The WSBDC is a partnership of the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Wyoming Business Council and the University of Wyoming. To ask a question, call 1-800-348-5194, email wsbdc@uwyo.edu, or write 1000 E. University Ave., Dept. 3922, Laramie, WY, 82071-3922.
U.S. Army via Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- President Donald Trump called the news that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl will not be facing any prison time a "complete disgrace" Friday, but that's far from the harshest comment he's had on the issue.

"The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military," Trump tweeted Friday afternoon.

His most recent previous remark came on Oct. 16, when Trump declined to comment on the Bergdahl case, saying, "They're setting up sentencing, so I'm not going to comment on him. But I think people have heard my comments in the past."

Those past comments have been plentiful, even calling for Bergdahl's death on a number of occasions.

U.S. officials reached a deal in 2014 to release several Taliban prisons in exchange for Bergdahl, who left his base in Afghanistan and was then held captive by the Taliban. Bergdahl was later charged with desertion with intention to shirk duty and misbehavior before the enemy. That was in 2015, just months before Trump announced his candidacy for president.

Trump repeatedly condemned the deal, and also verbally attacked Bergdahl, calling him a traitor and a deserter.

Before his presidential run, Trump wrote in a tweet on June 1, 2014, "President Obama created a VERY BAD precedent by handing over five Taliban prisoners in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Another U.S. loss!"

Despite Trump's repeated claims that several soldiers died in connection to the search for Bergdahl, who ultimately remained in captivity for nearly five years, the U.S. military has never publicly acknowledged such fatalities, though at least three soldiers were seriously injured, according to a prosecution document.

The focus on the deal itself, which Trump clearly viewed as a mistake, carried through the campaign.

The deal granted Bergdahl's freedom for that of five Taliban prisoners who had been detained at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Trump regularly included condemnation of the deal in his campaign speeches and likened it to the Iran Nuclear Deal, which he's also said was a mistake.

"We get Bergdahl, who was a traitor, and they get five of the greatest killers that they've wanted for eight years. We get Bergdahl, I call it the five for one trade," Trump said in August 2016.

Trump has also called for Bergdahls execution, saying he "should have been executed" and that "30 years ago he would have been shot."

"You probably can't do it, but if I win I may just have him flown back in the middle of that place and dropped, right in the middle. Let them have him, let him have them. That's cheaper than a bullet," Trump said at an October 2015 campaign rally.

At another point, Trump said a firing squad should be used to execute Bergdahl and, on Nov. 9, 2015, he said, "In the old days when we were strong and wise, we [would] shoot a guy like that."

Bergdahl noticed Trump's rhetoric, telling a British filmaker last year that it would be impossible for him to get a fair trial once Trump was commander in chief.

We may as well go back to kangaroo courts and lynch mobs that got what they wanted, Bergdahl said. The people who want to hang me; youre never going to convince those people.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved
By P S Gopikrishnan Unnithan: The word 'Jagratha' in Malayalam means awareness, care or caution. That's why the Left Democratic Front (LDF) decided to name their statewide campaign programme Jana Jagratha Yatra. Before the yatra, even the LDF leaders said that this campaign is not against any political party, but only to create awareness among the common people. The 13-day-long campaign from north and south of Kerala was led by Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and Kaanam Rajendran respectively. As both campaigns have come to an end after travelling through all 140 constituencies, did the yatra serve its actual purpose? Let's check from facts.

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Cooper controversy

The northern leg of the yatra flagged of by A Raja in Manjeshwar was led by CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan. But, as the Yatra crossed Kozhikode all its flair was gone. In a road show in Koduvally, the state leader and yatra captain was seen travelling in a BMW mini Cooper car . Though, some criticized that it wasn't right for a communist leader to address the rally in that fashion, the actual issue did not end with that. It was revealed that the car used by Kodiyeri was in fact owned by an accused in gold smuggling case. Though, the Left camp tried to negate this allegations, but all defence claims crumbled as Karat Faizal (owner of the car) himself admitted that he was an accused in the case. Adding insult to injury, it was also revealed that the luxury vehicle was registered in Pondicherry to evade tax in Kerala.

Owing to immense criticisms from various corners, the Left camp was forced to admit their mistake. Kodiyeri Balakrishnan used the word 'jagratha kurav' meaning lack of awareness. Lack of awareness in a campaign to create awareness among the people.

Kuwait Chandy's open challenge

Thomas Chandy, the NCP MLA from Kuttanad, is the richest minister in Pinarayi Vijayan's cabinet. His net worth is estimated to be over Rs 90 crore. Chandy has business establishments in many GCC countries. However, he has been more into tourism-related business in Kerala. Thomas Chandy owns a luxury resort in Kuttanad one of the tourism hotspots in Kerala.

However, the transport minister has come under the scanner for land encroachment and levelling water bodies. The southern leg of the campaign led by CPI state secretary Kannam Rajendran was flagged off from Thiruvananthapuram just days after Alappuzha district collector submitted a detailed report confirming the allegation.

The government, in an attempt to buy more time, sought expert legal opinion on the report submitted by district collector. Sources, close to the government, revealed that any action against the minister during the statewide campaign would be a huge loss for the LDF. But, Thomas Chandy was in no mood to settle as he presided over the Jana Jagratha Yatra in Alappuzha.

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During his speech, he challenged the district administration to take any action against him, if they ever dared. However, Kannam Rajendran warned the minister that the campaign was not a venue to challenge the government machinery. But, there was more to come. After the programme, Chandy told the reporters that he will continue to level portions of Marthandam Lake like he has been doing. This remark forced the chief minister himself to intervene. After the cabinet meeting on last Wednesday, chief minister rebuked Chandy for his remarks during the Jana Jagratha Yatra.

The Jana Jagratha Yatra, which was launched in Kerala immediately after BJP'S Janaraksha Yatra was a golden opportunity for the Left parties to make their presence felt in the state. Unfortunately, the Yatra hit the headlines more often for their carelessness.

--- ENDS ---
Binay Tamang spoke about transcending political affiliations while working for the overall development of the hills.

By Arindam De: The Gorkhaland Territorial Administration's (GTA) caretaker chairman Binay Tamang spoke of inclusive development in the hills, on his visit to Mirik in West Bengal's Darjeeling district on Friday.

Wholeheartedly endorsing the development initiatives of a Trinamool-led Mirik municipality, Tamang hinted at taking along all stakeholders in the hills - in a move that would further marginalise the residual support for embattled Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) chief Bimal Gurung.

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Tamang spoke about transcending political affiliations while working for the overall development of the hills.

In a show of unity, GTA vice chairman Anit Thapa accompanied Binay to Mirik.

Later in the day they held a meeting with local Trinamool leader and Mirik municipality board chairman Lalbahadur Rai. Cooperation in developmental work featured in the agenda.

"This is not a political visit. This is an administrative visit by the GTA. We want all -round development of the hills. There is no politics in that stand. We had a meeting with the chairman, we shall work in stages on various projects," Tamang said.

KEEN CONTEST

Last May, there was a keen contest between the Trinamool Congress and the Morcha for the Mirik municipality.

The TMC had promised that the people of Mirik would be given land deeds.

After the win, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held a rally in Mirik to announce the commencement of the project.

The agitations hit the hills hard, and Trinamool sources claim that many people - ostensibly under pressure from hardline Morcha supporters - supported Gurung.

The situation changed after Gurung went underground. Youth and women Morcha supporters and leaders have reposed their faith in Binay Tamang, and Gurung's supporters aren't coming out in the open.

Tamang said the Mirik lake is a major tourist attraction and is in need of immediate attention.

Municipality chairman Rai said politics and development are separate entities

"We shall unitedly work for the development of Mirik. We need to ensure that the situation is normalised and peace returns here," he said.

Incidentally, a local GJM leader, Vardan Moktan was arrested in Kalimpong's Gairibas area.

He has pending cases of destroying government properties, arson and fanning trouble in the area.

ALSO WATCH | From June 2017 | GJM supporters clash with police in Darjeeling

--- ENDS ---


Its the one day a year when eating savory turkey with all the fixings until you need to undo that top button of your pants is not only accepted, its also widely encouraged  no guilt, no shame. Its in that spirit that Freedom Beat inside the Downtown Grand invites guests to declare their Freedom to Gobble (Pictured: Smoked Turkey Leg at Freedom Beat).

On Thanksgiving, Freedom Beat is offering its Freedom to Gobble dinner beginning a 11 a.m. for just $20 per person. The complete meal includes a choice of Smoked Turkey Leg or Sage and Herb Marinated Turkey Breast and comes with traditional dressing, roasted sweet potato, sauteed green beans, whipped garlic mashed potatoes and plenty of gravy and cranberry sauce. A cast-iron pumpkin pie for dessert and one draft beer is also included.

Even more, for those who think turkey is even better the next day, Freedom Beat offers a variety of Leftover Specials including the Ultimate Turkey Sandwich served on toasted wheat with sliced turkey, mommas stuffing, cranberries and a side of gravy for $10. Served in cast iron and topped with buttery pastry and potatoes, enjoy a flavorful Turkey Pot Pie or a House-Smoked Turkey Leg served with mashed potatoes and gravy, each for $12.

November cocktails at Freedom Beat will feature two spiced bourbon favorites. At just $8, Grate of Spices pairs Wild Turkey with grates of cinnamon and a peach puree, topped with whipped cream; while Mai-Holiday combines that same Wild Turkey flavor with orgeat syrup, fresh lemon juice, and orange zest for just $10.

Known as the definitive downtown dining experience, celebrate Thanksgiving with an impressive four-course dinner at Triple George Grill. The $60 per person prix fixed menu is available on November 23 from 3 p.m.  11 p.m. and begins with an appetizer choice of Deviled Eggs with smoked bacon and microgreens or Baked Artichoke with parmesan breadcrumbs and shallot aioli. Second, enjoy a choice of Butternut Squash soup or Seasonal Mixed Greens with candied walnuts, cranberries and a maple vinaigrette. For the main course, choose either Herb Crusted Prime Rib with mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables or Roasted Turkey Breast with pan gravy, herb stuffing, cranberry chutney and green beans. Top it all off with either Warm Apple Pie or Pumpkin Cheesecake.

Specialty Thanksgiving cocktails at Triple George Grill include the festive Pumpkin Pie Martini featuring RumChata, vanilla vodka, pumpkin liqueur, cinnamon and a graham cracker rim or indulge in a Sparkling Cranberry with champagne, cranberry juice and fresh lime, each for $12.


Americana Las Vegas will celebrate National Happy Hour Day with its popular social hour offerings, extended throughout the evening exclusively in the bar and lounge from 3 to 10 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 12.

Americanas social hour selections include an array of beverages, including house red wine, white wine and champagne, priced at $5 per glass. A selection of signature small bites, created by Chef Stephen Blandino, will be available for $5 each and include: flatbread topped with cauliflower, foraged mushrooms and egg; chipotle roasted Iowa pork tacos served with tomatillo and pineapple salsa; and chilled octopus salad mixed with celery, shaved red onion and California olive oil.


Hip hop artist Earl Stevens, also known as E-40, hosted and performed at Chateau Nightclub & Rooftop at Paris Las Vegas for the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) after-party, sponsored by Lexani, on Wednesday night.

Stevens, accompanied by entourage, arrived at the rooftop nightclub dressed to impress in bright red pants, a graphic T-shirt and a red snapback, along with wearing a flashy gold chain, gold watch and sunglasses. As the group entered the VIP area, the 49-year-old received an over-the-top Chateau welcome with a confetti shower raining over the crowd as he was presented with bottle service and an E-40 sign spelled out by Chateau servers.

The rapper took to the stage to light up the club as he performed several of his hit songs, including Tell Me When to Go and Function. Stevens pumped up the crowd throughout the night, and was seeing enjoying himself in his lavish booth while interacting with friends and fans.

Best known for his extensive career as a rapper, Stevens also encountered success as an entrepreneur and investor, venturing into a variety of industries for business and investment opportunities outside of music.
A bench hearing the case said that besides raising their grievance, petitioners could also assist the court in adjudication of the challenge to the constitutional validity of the demonetisation decision.

By Indo-Asian News Service: The Supreme Court on Friday asked a batch of 14 petitioners seeking the deposit of their demonetised currency notes to impleaed themselves before the constitution bench to raise their grievances.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud said that besides raising their grievance, the petitioners could also assist the court in the adjudication of the challenge to the constitutional validity of the demonetisation decision.

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Attorney General KK Venugopal told the bench that the government will not take any coercive action against them for possessing demonetised currency, stressing that the government will hold its hand in not proceedings against the petitioners only to the extent of money that they mentioned in their petitions and not beyond that.

The batch of 14 petitioners includes NRIs who were not in the country when demonetisation took place and also those who were medically incapacitated. In some cases, people were abroad.

The government had given a December 31, 2016 deadline for depositing the demonetised notes, while for NRIs, it was March 31.

The top court by its December 16, 2016 order had referred all the petitions challenging the legality of demonetisation decision to the constitution bench.

The court had framed nine questions to be addressed by the larger bench which included the validity of demonetisation decision vis-a-vis Section 26(2) and Sections 7,17,23,24,29 and 42 of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 and whether it contravene the provisions of the Constitution's Article 300(A), which says no person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law.

Further question to be addressed by the constitution bench was "Assuming that the notification has been validly issued under the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 whether it is ultra vires Articles 14 and 19 of the Constitution".

The constitution bench, the top court by its December 16 order had said, will also examine the scope of judicial review in matters relating to fiscal and economic policy.

ALSO WATCH | Kamal Haasan apologises for supporting demonetisation, says praised PM Modi's move in a hurry

--- ENDS ---
Mong Cai City police receive a trafficked four-month-old infant from the Chinese police on Tuesday. - VNA/VNS Photo

The infant was handed over by Fangchenggang City police (China) on Tuesday.

The trafficked infant named Ha uc Tuan, born on July 1, 2017, belongs to ong Quang Village, ong Lam Commune, Hoanh Bo District (Quang Ninh Province), according to the local police.

Soon after receiving the baby, Mong Cai City police and local doctors carried out a medical examination of the infant and completed necessary administrative formalities to take him to the provinces social support centre.

Earlier, on July 20, Mong Cai City police co-operated with Dongxing City police (China) to investigate some Vietnamese nationals suspected of being involved in the infant trafficking case.

The case was first uncovered by Fangchenggeng City police on July 5.

In Viet Nam, during the investigation process, Mong Cai City police initially verified, clarified and summoned suspects, who admitted to their involvement, according to the city police.

The police are expanding the investigation.
Left-Green Movement leader Katrin Jakobsdottir has been tasked with forming Iceland's next government. (AFP/Halldor KOLBEINS)

The former journalist led her party to second place with 11 seats in Saturday's vote, which was won by incumbent prime minister Bjarni Benediktsson's Independence Party.

"I have a formal mandate to try to form a government," Jakobsdottir told reporters after talks with President Gudni Johannesson.

Under the Icelandic system, the president, who holds a largely ceremonial role, usually tasks the leader of the biggest party with putting a government together.

But the Independence Party and Benediktsson have been embroiled in a series of political scandals that have damaged their image and the party lost five seats on Saturday.

Jakobsdottir has promised to make sure Iceland's economic prosperity, triggered by booming tourism, leads to a boost in public spending on health and education.
The entrance to En Cave in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park

Thuat said Quang Binh can develop tourism with its forests, beaches, heritage sites and especially Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park as a UNESCO-recognized World Natural Heritage site. The national park includes many caves and a diverse ecosystem over an area of more than 1,000 square kilometers.

According to a Government resolution and the Tourism Law, the province is eligible to develop tourism into a key economic sector, Thuat said at an NA discussion on October 31.

However, the province has faced numerous obstacles to boost tourism development, including a plan to develop a cable car system for Phong Nha-Ke Bang having been rejected.

Though some people worry that the cable car project would affect the environment in the national park, such a project should be allowed to effectively tap tourism potential and put natural resources to good use, Thuat said.

Quang Binh Provinces government expects the support of the central Government, relevant ministries and agencies, scientists and the press in promoting the value of Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, Thuat insisted.

Deputy Lai Xuan Mon of Bac Lieu Province said tourism is a key sector of the economy as the number of international tourists visiting the country has reached 10 million and may hit 13 million this year.

At a recent discussion on socio-economic development by National Assembly deputies, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue said tourism development has helped raise the contribution of services including tourism to the countrys gross domestic product (GDP). The service sector has contributed 3.2 percentage points to the estimated GDP growth of 6.7%, higher than that of the construction sector, and is capable of offsetting a decline of revenue in the oil and gas sector, Hue said.

However, developing a cable car system in a national park like Phong Nha-Ke Bang is a controversial topic.

At a working session in Quang Binh in late August, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc approved in principle a proposal by the provincial government to develop a cable car system stretching 5.2 kilometers to En Cave in close proximity to Phong Nha-Ke Bang Caves.

However, many procedures will have to be done before the cable car project can be executed, especially a procedure to obtain consent from UNESCO.

In 2014, local investor Sun Group put forth a plan to develop a cable car system stretching 10.6 kilometers starting from the entrance of Phong Nha Cave to the rear entrance of Son Doong Cave. The plan faced stiff objections from scientists and the general public.

In early 2015, the Government approved the master plan for long-term development of Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, demanding that the natural heritage site be maintained.

Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park welcomes around one million visitors a year.
Long lines of cars on Hanoi roads during rush hour are the new norm in the capital as more people ditch motorbikes for the four wheeler. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Thanh

Nguyen Dinh Thanh, the owner of a car dealership in Hanois Long Bien District, is in danger of going out of business when a new decree regulating automobile imports takes effect next year.

The decree stipulates that traders will only be permitted to import automobiles if they can provide valid vehicle registration certificates issued by authorities from the countries of origin.

Original quality control certificates for each vehicle and letters of authorization regarding recalls of defective vehicles from the manufacturers will also be required, along with copies of quality assurance certificates provided by the countries of origin.

The requirements are too strict for car dealerships to meet, Thanh said, worrying that the dealership that has fed his family and dozens of workers over the last 10 years will have to close.

We will import 40 more units before the decree takes effect (January 1, 2018). When they are sold out, maybe in two months, we will have to shut down the business.

Thanh is not the only car dealer concerned about the new regulations.

Nguyen Tuan, director of auto dealership Thien Phuc An, said: It is very difficult to get copies of quality assurance certificates for imported cars from foreign authorities. Only official distributors and subsidiaries of manufacturers in Vietnam can get them.

Small traders who import cars through sub-agents or a third country are unable to do this, he added.

Another requirement that requires enterprises to have one car from each batch of imports technically accredited in Vietnam will cost importers more time and money, he said. Businesses may have to spend weeks and up to VND100 million (US$4,340) to complete the accreditation procedure.

Under current regulations, only one certificate is required for each model of car, regardless of how many batches are imported.

Pham Anh Tuan, head of the strategic planning department at Toyota Vietnam, said foreign authorities only provide quality assurance certificates for cars sold in their own countries, not for those that are exported. This is the same in Vietnam.

In some countries, authorities do not issue these certificates at all. In the United States, for example, car manufacturers are responsible for quality control, and government agencies only take over after the assembly line, he said.

Thanh urged the government to change the policy so that car dealerships can survive. He said it would be a waste of money if car dealers had to shut down after making huge investments. Thousands of employees would also lose their jobs, he added.
Petrolimex reports falling profit figures for the second consequtive quarter

Notably, according to Petrolimexs consolidated third quarter business report, the companys net revenue was VND38.3 trillion ($1.69 billion), up 31 per cent on-year thanks to the increasing global selling price of crude oil. The petroleum business contributed 97 per cent of the companys total consolidated revenue.

Regarding the whole nine months, Petrolimexs consolidated net revenue reached VND112.4 trillion ($4.96 billion), equaling 78 per cent of its target for the whole year, with a pre-tax profit of VND3.54 trillion ($156.1 million).

Despite the soaring net revenue, the 3-per-cent decrease in the gross profit margin in the third quarter reduced after-tax profit by 15 per cent on-year, to VND894 billion ($39.4 million).

According to the representative of Petrolimex, in the third quarter alone, the tax on imported petroleum was lower than the existing 10 per cent applicable, impacting Petrolimexs petroleum business. Besides, the after-tax profit of Castrol BP Perco Co., Ltd., Petrolimexs joint venture with one of the world's largest energy companies, BP, contributed to Petrolimexs decrease in after-tax profit.

It is not the first time that Petrolimex has reported dropping profit figures. In the second quarter, it announced a drop of 23 per cent on-year in pre-tax profit in spite of increasing revenue.

Notably, in the second quarter, it earned VND38.5 trillion ($1.69 billion) in net revenue from business activities and services, up 10 per cent on-year. The net revenue for the whole six months was VND74.3 trillion ($3.3 billion), up 26.4 per cent on-year.

However, soaring expenditures in finance, sales, and management decreased its pre-tax profit of the second quarter by 23 per cent on-year to VND1.09 trillion ($48.1 million).

In late August, Petrolimex paid a total of VND3.736 trillion ($165.7 million) in cash dividends for 1.16 billion outstanding shares. With the pay-out ratio of 32.24 per cent, each shareholder received VND3,224 ($0.14) per share.

JX Nippon Oil & Energy currently holds 103,528,476 PLX shares, accounting for 8 per cent of Petrolimexs outstanding shares. For this, the foreign strategic investor received a cash dividend of VND333.7 billion ($14.7 million) for 2016, tantamount to $14.8 million.

Following the VND9 billion ($399,000) loss in 2014, the biggest fuel distributor in Vietnam looked to sell between 15 to 25 per cent of its stakes to raise its chartered capital and reduce state holding in the group to below 75 per cent.

In April 2016, after nearly two years of negotiations, JX Nippon Oil & Energy officially acquired 8 per cent of Petrolimexs shares for around 20 billion (approximately $183 million). Thereby, it means that JX Nippon Oil & Energy can taste the sweet fruits of its investment after a single year.

Petrolimex officially listed on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE) on April 21, 2017 at VND43,200 ($1.9) per share.

Petrolimex set the target to reach a consolidated revenue of VND143.2 trillion ($6.3 billion) for the whole year, up 16 per cent on-year. However, the pre-tax profit is expected to decrease by 26 per cent, to VND4.68 trillion ($206.3 million), the expectation is based on the existing global selling price of crude oil.
Bank earnings have risen on the back of expanded credit and foreign currency lending, Photo: Le Toan

Things have been going quite well for Vietnamese lenders this year, after long periods of struggle and internal restructuring. In the first half of 2017, credit expanded by 9.12 per cent compared to the beginning of the year, driven by retail loans. Lending in foreign currencies went up by 11.5 per cent during the same period, 10 times higher than the growth pace of 2016. Deposits grew modestly, but were offset by the VND160 trillion ($7 billion) parked in the system by the State Treasury of Vietnam.

Reports from the National Financial Supervision Council (NSFC) show that after-tax profits of the entire banking sector reached VND40 trillion ($1.7 billion) in the first seven months of 2017, up 60 per cent year-on-year. The systems net interest margin, which is the difference between lending and deposit rates, stepped up to 2.9 per cent. A switch to retail lending is the main reason for this higher spread in net interest, the reports pointed out.

Another major update is Resolution No.42/2017/QH14, which is expected to accelerate the process of solving non-performing loans. According to Saigon Securities Incorporation (SSI), banks are making bolder moves to address this chronic problem, including using reserves to write off sour loans and speeding up their sale to Vietnam Asset Management Company.

Overall, we expect strong growth for banks in the second half of 2017 and in 2018, thanks to prolonged credit expansion, aggressive measures to tackle bad debt, and stronger corporate governance to follow Basel II, read the NSFC report.

Analysts from Viet Dragon Securities believe that some commercial banks like Military Bank or Asia Commercial Bank have almost fulfilled their obligations for special bonds, paving the way for strong growth in earnings in 2017 and 2018.

These positive prospects are already reflected on the banks stock prices this year. The share prices of most commercial banks have grown by rates between 30 and 80 per cent year-on-year, and trading volume was high. The market also welcomed newcomers such as Vietnam International Bank, Kienlongbank, LienVietPost Bank and, most notably, Vietnam Prosperity Bank, which raised $1.2 billion from 78 foreign investors before the listing.

Vinh Tuan Ngo, head of investment banking at Viet Capital Securities, told VIR that the upcoming listing of Techcombank will be the biggest ever in the Vietnamese financial sector. The bank is slated to make its public debut in the second quarter of 2018, and has locked in its foreign ownership limit to seek strategic investors from abroad.

Banking will be among the most attractive sectors in Vietnam next year. Previously, bank stocks in Vietnam traded below their book value as investors were concerned about various issues in the sector. However, after the recent wave of listings and a more positive earnings outlook, bank shares have been doing much better. It will be easier for the banks to find foreign investors, said Ngo.

Researchers from SSI believe that stricter capital requirements from Basel II will force Vietnamese banks to increase their funding, which includes issuing more bonds and searching for strategic investors. Most recently, Bank of Investment and Development of Vietnam, one of the state-owned lenders, was in negotiations with a potential partner, while LienVietPost Bank is seeking strategic investors from overseas.

That said, the 30 per cent cap on foreign-owned shares remains a major drawback for Vietnamese banks when seeking foreign capital, according to Ngo. This rule has been relaxed for smaller, indebted lenders but not for profitable banks, which are usually the targets for overseas investors.

For state-owned lenders, analysts at SSI emphasise that the government plans to own more than 50 per cent of outstanding shares, but also 65 per cent of voting shares. This implies that there might be some form of non-voting shares in these banks, giving hope to foreign investors who are restricted by the banks small amount of free-floating shares.
Roongrote Rangsiyopash, president and CEO of SCG, disclosed the companys unaudited operating results for the third quarter of this year

Roongrote Rangsiyopash, president and CEO of SCG, disclosed the companys unaudited operating results for the third quarter of 2017. Accordingly, the corporations registered revenue from sales increased by 7 per cent on-year to $3.37 billion, up 3 per cent on-quarter, as a result of better sales from all business units.

SCGs profit for the first nine months was reported at $1.24 billion, a decrease of 3 per cent on-year as a result of strong competition in the Thai cement-building materials business, while revenue from sales increased 4 per cent on-year to $9.85 billion, mostly reflecting higher chemicals prices.

Export revenue accounted for 27 per cent of SCGs consolidated revenue from sales, representing an increase of 5 per cent on-year to $2.67 million.

Regarding SCGs operating results in the ASEAN (excluding Thailand), in the third quarter of this year, revenue from sales was registered at $807 million, which is a 10 per cent year-on-year growth and amounts to 24 per cent of SCGs total sales revenue. This includes sales from both local operations in each ASEAN market and imports from Thai operations.

As of September 30, 2017, SCG had $16.87 billion in total assets, 25 per cent of which are located in the ASEAN (except Thailand).

In Vietnam alone, SCGs third quarter sales revenue amounted to VND6.88 trillion ($309 million), which represents an increase of 32 per cent on-year coming mainly from the packaging and cement-building materials businesses. For the first nine months of 2017, SCG recorded a sales revenue of VND19.2 trillion ($840 million) in Vietnam.

Roongrote said SCG recently made significant fund of funds investments through its world-class venture capital to promote the sustainable growth of startup ecosystems across the region.

Moreover, the company continues to drive its business strategy in response to digital transformation and Industry 4.0 by utilising the Internet of Things to continually maximise business efficiency. For example, technology is applied to detecting the amount of cement in silos and connecting logistics networks as well as automatically checking customers inventories. Robotics is also utilised in production and maintenance processes, ensuring more convenient, faster, and safer operations. Technology can replace human workforce in risky areas and helps lessen Thailands dependency on imported technologies, he stated.
Seamaster Paint Vietnam JSC celebrated its 20th anniversary

The following are some of the outstanding projects using Seamaster paint products.

The pride of Singapore, Marina Bay Sands Intergraded Resort has a unique design accentuated by Seamaster products

CapitaLand Group, a leading real estate developer in Asia, selected Seamaster to decorate its projects, especially high-end projects in Vietnam, including Krista, the Vista, Parcspring, Krisvue, and Vista Verde.

Drawing on green trees and nature for inspiration, Vista Verde was covered by Seamaster's green colour paint

Hung Thinh is another real estate developer vouching for Seamaster for its projects, especially for Melody Vung Tau

Pullman Saigon Centre Hotel also used Seamaster paints for its luxury decoration

Seamaster has organised a Gala Dinner on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of its foundation to show its gratitude to customers and partners accompanying Seamaster on its journey.

The Gala also celebrated 20 years of efforts by the Seamaster board of directors and staff to build and develop the brand.
Dismissed Catalonia's leader Carles Puigdemont walks past Spanish flag as he arrives to address a press conference at The Press Club in Brussels. (NICOLAS MAETERLINCK/BELGA/AFP)

Puigdemont, dismissed last week as Catalan president by the Spanish government and who has since been holed up in Belgium, would fight an eventual bid to extradite him, his lawyer Paul Bekaert told the VRT channel.

"I have just received word from my client that indeed it (the warrant) has been issued against the president and four other ministers who are in Belgium," Bekaert said.

"Practically it means that the Spanish judiciary will now send an extradition request to federal prosecutors in Brussels," he said.

Asked if Puigdemont will remain in Belgium, Bekaert said: "Of course. He has pledged his full cooperation with the Belgian authorities."

Bekaert said his client would appeal should an extradition request be approved by a Belgian judge.

During Spain's biggest crisis in decades, judge Carmen Lamela earlier had Puigdemont's deputy and seven other deposed regional ministers detained pending a potential trial for alleged sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds.

In another day of high drama in Spain's biggest crisis in decades, judge Carmen Lamela had Puigdemont's deputy Oriol Junqueras and seven other deposed regional ministers detained pending a potential trial for alleged sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds.

With television channels showing images of police vans with flashing blue lights said to be taking the former ministers to different prisons, Catalans took to the streets in anger and disbelief.

There were protests in front of the Catalan parliament in Barcelona, the regional capital, with police estimating a crowd of 20,000. Others gathered outside town halls across the region including 8,000 people in both Girona and Tarragona.

Those in Barcelona held up their mobile phones like candles and waved separatist flags - red and yellow stripes with a white star - also holding black-and-yellow "libertad" ("freedom") signs.

The crowds, who included elderly couples and young parents carrying toddlers, chanted "Free political prisoners" and "This isn't justice but dictatorship."

"It makes you angry even when you don't vote for independence because every time a disproportionate measure is taken, it only fuels independence," said retired teacher Dolores, 66.

Puigdemont called in a statement broadcast on Catalan TV from an undisclosed location for the release of the ministers and said that the situation "is no longer an internal Spanish affair".

"The international community, and especially the European community, must realise the danger these attitudes represent," he said.

FLIGHT RISK

A total of 20 people including Puigdemont, Junqueras and the speaker of the Catalan regional parliament had been summoned for questioning on Thursday.

A hearing of the speaker of Catalan's parliament and five others at the Supreme Court was adjourned until Nov 9 after their lawyers requested more time to prepare their defence.

Puigdemont and four others thought to be with him in Belgium failed to show and judge Lamela was widely expected to issue an EU arrest warrant for them, but it was unclear when.

In her ruling, Lamela said she had ordered preventive detention because of a possible flight risk, given Puigdemont's departure.

"Let's remember that some of the defendants have already gone to other countries, dodging possible penal responsibilities," she wrote.

A ninth former minister, who resigned last Friday, was also remanded in custody but will be set free if he pays bail of 50,000 (US$58,000).

INDEPENDENCE DRIVE

Catalan demands for independence date back centuries but have surged in recent years, in part due to a difficult economic situation.

Puigdemont's government organised an independence referendum on Oct 1 despite a court ban.

Spanish police tried and failed to stop it, in some cases firing rubber bullets at people defending polling stations.

A declaration of independence by the Catalan parliament followed last Friday.

But that same day, Rajoy dismissed the regional government, imposing direct rule on Catalonia and called regional elections for Dec 21.

'FAILED STATE'

Marta Rovira, a lawyer and Catalan separatist lawmaker, briefly broke down in tears as she spoke to reporters in Madrid after the announcement of the detentions.

"The Spanish state is a failed state, a state that has failed democratically," she said. "I'm convinced we won't surrender, we won't, we will fight until the end."

But Catalans, fiercely proud of their language and culture, remain deeply divided about independence, polls indicate.

The European Union has swung firmly behind Rajoy. Spain's central bank warned Thursday of a possible recession in Catalonia if the crisis continues.

In addition, there are signs of growing divisions in the separatist camp, with many unhappy with Puigdemont, particularly now he is hundreds of miles away from the region he hopes to lead to independence.
By PTI: prevention

Kolkata, Nov 3 (PTI) West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi has expressed concern over the incidents of dengue, chikungunya, malaria in the state and written to the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government, urging it to ensure treatment for those affected and take steps to prevent these diseases.

A press statement issued by the Raj Bhavan stated that the governor had received information about the incidents of dengue, chikungunya, malaria and scub taefus diseases in the state from newspaper reports and other sources and that he was concerned about the health of the people.

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"Governor Tripathi has written a letter to the state government to the effect that in view of the serious nature of all these diseases and the concern expressed by a large number of the population in this regard, all efforts should be made for treatment as well as prevention of these diseases," the statement said.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had, on October 30, said 13 dengue deaths were reported from the state, but there was no need to "panic". PTI PNT RG RC

--- ENDS ---
US President Donald Trump

President Trump will visit Hawaii before heading to Japan, the Republic of Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. He will meet his Asian counterparts and attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation APEC Summit in Vietnam and the ASEAN-US Senior Meeting in the Philippines.

The US government said in a statement that President Trumps trip reflects his strong commitment to the USs allies and partners and the US role in Asia-Pacific.

Trade, denuclearization of Korean peninsula top Trumps agenda

Headlining Trumps agenda will be reassuring regional leaders, particularly US allies Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the Philippines, of America's defensive commitments and trade cooperation, according to Chairman of the Sino-US Relation Committee Stephen Orlins.

The USs withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement worried Asian countries about Washingtons investment in the region. According to analysts, during this visit President Trump needs to demonstrate the USs interest in boosting economic ties with, and opening markets for, Asian-Pacific countries.

Economic issues will be high on the agenda of talks between Trump and Japanese leaders. Last month, Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso and US Vice President Mike Pence co-chaired the second round of a bilateral economic dialogue in Washington.

The White House said the two countries reached some consensus on trade but differences remain since the dialogue didnt mention the US-Japan Free Trade Agreement. The two sides remain in a dispute over multilateral trade. Washington is re-negotiating the North America Free Trade Agreement and Tokyo is pushing ahead with the TPP Agreement.

After Japan, President Trump will visit the Republic of Korea on November 7. Blue House spokesperson Park Soo hyun said the leaders will discuss US-ROK ties, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) issue, and the general situation in North Asia. Trade ties between the two countries will also be high on the agenda. Two weeks ago in Washington, the US and South Korean Finance Ministers discussed the bilateral Free Trade Agreement and currency manipulation.

With Chinese leaders, Trump will likely discuss the DPRK issue and the trade deficit between China and the US.

Multilateral forum utilized

In addition to visits with each nation's leader, President Trump will also attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and the US-ASEAN Summit, a good opportunity for him to clarify the USs external policy in the Asia-Pacific region and reinforce cooperation with Asian countries in addressing global challenges.

President Trump will likely call on APEC and ASEAN member countries to reform their economies and apply higher international standards, particularly in services, e-commerce, digital trade, and protecting intellectual property rights if they want to boost free trade.

President Trumps tour of Asia is an opportunity for the US to promote its interests and clarify its policy in the region.
Under the discount programme which will be valid until March 31, 2018, passengers could buy economy tickets for the routes from just VND799,000 (US$35.18).



A second and third ticket bought at the same time will have further discounts of 30 percent and 50 percent, respectively. The tickets must have the same passengers name and journey.



Vietnam Airlines is providing daily flights from Vietnam to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore with 1-2 flights to Malaysia, five to Singapore and six to Thailand.
The medium outlook for the Hamico Binh Thuan Minerals Company (KSA), expected to be the biggest provider of ground sand in Vietnam, is positive as the company is offering future stable growth potential.

The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) newly listed KSA shares have caught investors eyes thanks to its leading position in the sand exploration field in Vietnam. KSA also set an ambitious business plan with 128 per cent growth on-year and a targeted after-tax profit of VND129 billion for 2011.

KSA also plans to pay 20 and 25 per cent dividends in 2011 and 2012, respectively, compared to 15 per cent in 2010.

Established in 2006, KSA has engaged in minerals exploration with sand products accounting for the majority and 91 per cent of its revenue and profits from exports of products to Singapore and China. KSA was licenced to explore five sand mines in Binh Thuan and is the owner of the Vietnams biggest white sand mine.

With the encouraging numbers, KSA is offering stable growth in medium to long-term, said Hoang Thi Thanh Thuy, chief analyst with Tan Viet Incorporated (TVSI).

Le Huy Cuong, an analyst with Hoa Binh Securities Company (HBS), said with the KSAs business plan for the next three years and its earnings from current projects, KSAs medium to long-term growth potential was positive and the company could have suddenly high earnings in the next few years.

With the estimated earnings per share (EPS) for 2010 is VND4,021, the reasonable valuation for KSA shares is between VND58,300 and VND62,300, said Cuong.

KSA debuted 12.9 million shares on the HoSE on July 27 at a reference price of VND60,000 each share. On July 30, KSA closed at VND57,000 each, or price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is 114.3, according to StoxPlus statistics.

Thuy said KSAs financial capacity was the same as other mining companies but the returns-on-equity (ROE) and returns-on-assets (ROA) were lower than that of its rivals like KSH and MIH.

Investors can expect KSA positive earnings in the long-run but in the short-run, there is not much hope, said Thuy.

Currently, the company staff is holding 31.4 per cent while others 68.6 per cent of KSA stake, according to KSA listing documents.
By PTI: (Eds: Adds info)

Kolkata, Nov 3 (PTI) West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi has expressed concern over cases of dengue, chikungunya, malaria in the state and written to the Mamata Banerjee government, urging it to ensure treatment for those affected.

A statement issued by the Raj Bhavan today said the governor learnt about cases of dengue, chikungunya and malaria in the state from newspaper reports and other sources and that he was concerned about the health of the people.

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"Governor Tripathi has written a letter to the state government ... that in view of the serious nature of all these diseases and concern expressed by a large number of the population in this regard, all efforts should be made for treatment as well as prevention of these diseases," the statement said.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had on October 30 said 13 dengue deaths were reported in the state, but there was no need to "panic".

The governor had written the letter to Banerjee yesterday.

A delegation of state Congress leaders led by WBPCC president Adhir Chowdhury had met him at Raj Bhawan on the dengue menace. PTI PNT SCH KK GVS

--- ENDS ---
The Ministry for Heritage has announced that three new interpretation panels have been placed within our Old Town in order to provide information on our Medieval History, namely our Islamic and Spanish Periods.
Visiting Chinese Delegation

The Ministry for Economic Development has been hosting a four-day trade mission led by Minister Counsellor from Chinas London Embassy. It will explore the potential for increasing the commercial relationship between Gibraltar and China.

The visiting delegation consists of the following:

Chinese Embassy in the UK

1. Mr Jin Xu, Minister Counsellor for Economic and Commercial Affairs

2. Mr Huang Hongyong, First Secretary

3. Mr Zheng Jiang, First Secretary

4. Ms Huang Tianjiao, Third Secretary

5. Ms Chen Meichen, Third Secretary

China Council for the Promotion of International Trade

6. Ms Zhang Huijuan, Chief Representative

7. Ms Xu Manman, Assistant Representative

China Development Bank London Office

8. Ms Xu Yan, Chief Representative

9. Mrs Yi Shubiao, General Manager, Business Development

Department of Commerce of Hunan Province London Office

10. Mr Liu Yinghuai, Chief Representative China Re London Office

11. Ms Yuan Ting, Chief Representative Wanda Group London Office

12. Mr Chen Hong, Managing Director
Constance Wu. Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

Kevin Kwans novel Crazy Rich Asians is about a Chinese-American woman who travels to Singapore with her boyfriend and experiences serious culture shock. Naturally, one of the first Hollywood producers who approached Kwan about making a Crazy Rich Asians movie asked if Kwan might reconceptualize the story with a white woman as the lead. I was like, Well, youve missed the point completely, Kwan told EW in an interview about the movie. I said, No, thank you. Eventually, Kwan found the right producing team in Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson, who felt it was really important to tell the story and to have this message and to have that representation out there. That was in 2013, way before the whole Hollywood whitewashing movement happened. Now, Crazy Rich Asians is coming to movie theaters next August, directed by Jon M. Chu, with an all-Asian cast led by Constance Wu, who will definitely be much better than whichever Emma or Scarlett that producer wanted to cast.
Photo: Michael Tullberg/Getty Images

Kevin Spacey is now the subject of an investigation by British police, the Guardian reports. Scotland Yards child-abuse and sexual-offenses team are examining allegations from a man who said he was sexually assaulted in 2008, during Spaceys time as artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London. On 1 November, City of London police referred an allegation of sexual assault to the Metropolitan police service, a Scotland Yard spokesman said Friday, according to the Guardian. It is alleged a man assaulted another man in 2008 in Lambeth. Officers from the child abuse and sexual offenses command are investigating. The police did not name Spacey in their statement, but it is believed to be the House of Cards star.

The accuser told the Sun he was 23 when he visited Spaceys home to ask for career advice. He says they shared a drink, and he later passed out and woke up to Spacey performing a sex act on him; he left after asking Spacey to stop. Spacey has now been accused of sexual misconduct by several men, including an anonymous former child actor who spoke to Vulture on Thursday, saying he had a sexual relationship with Spacey when he was underage. Several former House of Cards assistants have also accused the actor of sexual misconduct on set. Spacey was dropped by his agency and publicist Thursday night, and is currently seeking treatment.
After a quick trip to Iraq and Malibu, were back to your regularly scheduled programming. And in season 14 of Greys Anatomy, that means lots of surgeries, jokes, sexy times, patients inspiring doctors, and a boating excursion. Anybody else loving this season?

While all the boys (sans Webber) take a sick day to booze it up, have dorky man contests like Who Can Tie the Most Knots in a Minute, and discuss who is and who is definitely not considered someones sister on the yacht that Jackson bought that morning when Alex suggested it, the ladies are taking over Grey Sloan. As it should always be.

Two ladies in particular are having a very weird day. The first is that 18-year-old girl who is brought in after having some issues while visiting her boyfriend in prison. When a gun goes off and the girl is shot in the stomach, Aprils arm is grazed with the bullet, and a hypochondriac with a standing reservation at Grey Sloan gets hit in the femoral artery, Arizona figures out that the gun in question is actually in the girls vagina. She was attempting to smuggle it into the prison for her boyfriend. Love makes people so dumb.

Not much really comes from the case, but it is hilarious and it means that Arizona gets to say, DID YOU PUT A GUN IN YOUR VAGINA?! Also, Maggie gets to call a vagina a holster, Bailey uses the phrase a gun in the oven, and Webber has to inquire what a gun-gina is. We all know what it is. See what I mean about this season having jokes?

The story line also leads Arizona to lay down some harsh truths on the girl, who is brave enough smuggle a gun into a prison via her vagina (Im sorry, its just too fun not to write as much as possible), but not brave enough to dump her convict boyfriend WHO ASKED HER TO SMUGGLE A GUN INTO A PRISON VIA HER VAGINA. Arizona, you see, is getting anxious about Sofia returning to Seattle and the fact that one day Sofia will be a teenager, but after watching AZ handle this girl, April assures her friend that she will be an excellent mother to a teenager.

The other, more important lady having a weird day is Meredith. But first, when we talk about Meredith having a weird day, we need to stipulate if we are referring to a Normal Human Weird Day or a Meredith Grey Weird Day because there was literally one day when she held a bomb inside a human body. So, Merediths Normal Human Weird Day begins with her precious queen face gracing the cover of an esteemed medical journal for her paper on Megan Hunts surgery. Meredith is kicking ass and taking names. Everyone is super pumped for her, except maybe for Jackson, who is still grumpy over the fact that he cant put his name on that paper or else it becomes ineligible for the Harper Avery (hence, the boat purchase). Everyone else is basking in Merediths sunshine, but Mer doesnt let it get to her head because she has an equally interesting case happening right in front of her.

Meet Judge Jeffrey King. He is handsome, charming without being smarmy, and his lifes work is fighting for justice in domestic-violence cases. Oh, and hes a widower. So, yes, we know immediately that this guy is a goner. He is too good for this world, and especially too good to survive the hellscape that is Grey Sloan Memorial. Unfortunately, Meredith doesnt know this and we have to watch her attempt a risky surgery to save his life.

Because Judge King doesnt qualify for a liver transplant  even though he desperately needs one  Meredith and Jo decide to perform an ALPPS procedure. Itll be the first one done on the West Coast. Yes, its true, Meredith is a rockstar.

Shes also a very good friend. Alex asks her to be nice to Jo  not Meredith nice, real nice  since Jo is still feeling down about not being able to put her name on the Megan Hunt paper due to, you know, her husband tracking her down and possibly murdering her. So, Meredith is very nice to Jo. Too nice. Creepily nice. Like, when Jo does something highly unethical by telling Judge King that she would sign the papers to have the ALPPS procedure even though it is insanely risky because she wouldnt want to wonder what would happen if only she had been a little bit braver, Meredith doesnt yell at her. Eventually, after the procedure goes well, Jo calls Meredith out. Meredith tells Jo that Alex asked her to be nice because Alex loves Jo, but also that Jo is an excellent doctor and she deserves to be on this case. I wasnt lying when I said it was a weird day.

Once the judge is in recovery, Jo uses the time to ask him about her options when it comes to her husband. Unfortunately, his response is just as Jo feared: Theres not much she can do to protect herself. If she wants to divorce him, he will find out where she is. Most people in Jos situation chose to take the risk anyway, attempting to find a way out rather than run and hide their whole lives. Judge King is a nice man. So, when he throws a clot and dies post-surgery, its terrible.

Meredith has no time to mourn  even though she does look very upset at the loss  because Webber whisks her away to the New Intern Welcome Mixer so she can receive a roomful of applause. Theyve just learned that Meredith has been nominated for the Harper Avery Award.

Meredith is happy, but at the moment, this seems to be a low priority. (And is working at Grey Sloan still a conflict like it was for Cristina, or  ?) Instead, both Jo and Meredith have been inspired by their time with Judge King. Jo  who is on her way to becoming Chief Resident, btw  tells Alex that she wants to be a little more brave, so she is going to file for divorce. (Matthew Morrison, we await your arrival.) Meredith shows Bailey six more patients like Judge King, because she wants to perform the ALPPS procedure again. Shes going to save their lives. Its all so empowering! Watching Meredith navigate her love life is always fun, but Greys Anatomy really shines when it reminds us that Meredith Grey is a badass surgeon.

Oh, Jackson also ends the episode feeling very inspired: After his day drinking on his yacht, hes tapped back into his competitive spirit, and it feels good. He wants to get back into the surgical game. Therefore, hes giving Bailey half of his inheritance so that she can fund a new surgical competition. He swears its not just another Harper Avery, but, um, it sure sounds like one. Also, isnt there still a conflict of interest? Has Jackson just spent too much time out in the sun?

Laughter Is the Best Medicine, Except for Real Medicine

 Amelia performs her first surgery post-tumor and has hot hate sex with her mentor-slash-surgeon Tom. Owen feels free post-Amelia and cannot resist an Italian accent and a woman whose specialty is orgasms, so he hooks up with Carina DeLuca (who split with Arizona since AZ has to deal with her daughter returning, dont worry its not cheating).

 Andrew DeLuca is now 0 for 2 when it comes to his sister hooking up with his roommates, since he just made plans to move into Owens house. Poor DeLuca! His luck doesnt seem to be changing, especially since that hot new intern Sam shows up, and those two clearly have a history.

 What are you all doing, standing around, leaning against things? This is a hospital. Miranda Bailey has no time for all the single lady doctor Tindering  until she does. Let the woman swipe for you, Mags!

 Ben announces to the guys that he was accepted to the Fire Training Academy: The only thing Ive been more sure of in my life was marrying Miranda Bailey  but please dont tell her. Their pure delight in wanting to be there when Ben finally does tell Bailey is perfect.

 Drunk Alex walking in on Webbers speech to the new interns is all of us: Wow, hes so good at speeches.

Sob Scale: 1/10

It was sad to lose Judge King, but its predictability softened the blow. If Im being honest, the one point is in honor of Kings assistant, who most definitely went home and sobbed in the shower for a while. Weve all been there, Ponytail.
Willimon. Photo: Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Nantucket Film

Following allegations from eight people that Kevin Spacey sexually assaulted and harassed people on the set of House of Cards, the shows creator Beau Willimon says he was never notified of these complaints. I feel awful for the people who were wronged while working for House of Cards, he tells Deadline. The production did not inform me of the incident that occurred in season one regarding Kevin Spacey or of any action taken as a result. Netflix and Media Rights Capital, which produce the show, confirmed that there was an investigation in 2012 during filming of the first season into a claim that Spacey had made a specific remark and gesture toward a crew member. They said the matter was quickly resolved, with Spacey agreeing to attend training, and that neither company were aware of any other on-set allegations until CNN reported them.

According to Deadline, its possible that Willimon, who was the series showrunner at the time, wasnt made aware of the allegations because he was not deeply involved in on-set production. MCR also reportedly kept the investigation under wraps. Netflix has indefinitely suspended production on the shows final season after allegations of sexual misconduct against minors were made against Spacey. Willimon, who now heads the Writers Guild of America East, continued in his statement: Clearly we as an industry, particularly those in a position of power, myself included, need to be more perceptive and proactive. We also need to do a better job at empowering and supporting our colleagues who come forward. He previously claimed to have no knowledge of the allegations against Spacey outside the show, calling them deeply troubling.
By PTI: Mumbai, Nov 3 (PTI) The seafront bungalow on Malabar Hill built by Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah was at the centre of a prolonged battle between his daughter Dina Wadia and the Indian government.

Wadia died in New York yesterday at the age of 98. Her petition to regain control of her childhood home is still pending for a final hearing the before a division bench of the Bombay High Court.

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The palatial Jinnah House, originally known as South Court, was witness to meetings of the Muslim League and a crucial meeting between Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Jinnah before partition.

Wadia, born to Jinnahs Parsi wife, Rattanbai Petit, in London in August 1919, had insisted that the stately house, designed in European-style architecture, be called South Court.

In 2007, Pakistans then president Pervez Musharraf had expressed his desire to acquire the house as Pakistans property to convert it into a consulate.

The same year (in August 2007), Wadia (then 88), knocked the doors of the Bombay High Court with a petition claiming that the title of the mansion be handed over to her as she was the only heir to Jinnah.

Wadia spent many years in Mumbai but had been living in the US for the past few decades. In her petition, she said she wished to spend her remaining years in the house in Mumbai where she had spent her childhood years.

Wadia, in the petition, had claimed that the bungalow could not be classified as "evacuee property" as her father had died without leaving behind a will.

The petition last came up for hearing before a division bench of Justices S V Gangapurwala and A M Badar on July 28 this year which adjourned it simply to September 7. It has not come up for hearing since then.

Soon after her petition was filed, the high court had directed the Union government to file their affidavit in response.

In October 2007, the government filed its affidavit stating that the Jinnah House belongs to the government and that only Jinnahs sister Fatima or her legal heir can claim right over the property.

Wadia had, however, claimed that she was the only heir of Jinnah and hence the title of the house should be handed over to her.

According to Wadia, the (then) state of Bombay took over the property, because Fatima was the trustee of Jinnahs will, and had been declared an evacuee (those who migrated to Pakistan post-partition) in 1949.

Wadia, in her petition, claimed that her fathers will was not probated by the Bombay High Court and therefore had no effect on any operation of law.

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Fatima, therefore, could not be the legal owner and so the house should be handed over to his (Jinnah) legal heir.

Also, she (Wadia) is the sole legal heir of Jinnahs property, both under Hindu Law (applicable to Khoja community--to which Jinnah belonged--before Independence) or the Shia Muslim law, her petition claims.

In its reply, the Union government had claimed that her petition is not maintainable and is barred by prolonged and unexplained delay.

The reply filed by G Balasubramanian, deputy secretary to the Ministry of External Affairs, had stated that Government of India had issued a notification on June 27, 1949 under the Bombay Evacuee Property Act, by which the possession of Jinnah House was vested with the Custodian.

On June 10, 1955, another notification was issued under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, by which the right, title and interest was vested in Government of India.

Jinnah had bequeathed the Jinnah House to his unmarried sister Fatima by his will dated May 30, 1939. Fatima migrated to Pakistan at the time of partition and was declared an evacuee and hence the property was taken over by the Indian government under the Bombay Evacuee Property Act, the affidavit filed by the government had said.

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In August 2010, the high court had ordered for status quo to be maintained in the matter, but had permitted the Centre to complete the renovation work of the bungalow without making any structural changes.

Wadia wanted the mansion, built by her father in 1936 at a cost of Rs 2 lakh, be called South Court.

In a newspaper interview during a visit to Mumbai in 2008, she had said, when asked about the Jinnah House bungalow in south Mumbai, "Why do you keep calling it Jinnah House? Thats the name the British gave it. Its real name is South Court. Why dont you refer to it by its original name?"

In 2004, she visited Jinnahs tomb in Karachi, along with Nusli and his two sons. In the visitors book, she then wrote, "May his dream for Pakistan come true." PTI SP VT NM NP AAR

--- ENDS ---
Kevin Spacey. Photo: Mark Davis/2015 Getty Images

In the past week, Kevin Spacey has been accused of sexual assault, harassment, and attempted rape by a handful of people. Two of those allegations describe sexual interactions between Spacey and 14-year-old boys. Now his publicist Staci Wolfe has confirmed to Vulture that she has dropped the actor and producer as a client, while a source close to the actor confirms he has also been dropped by the talent agency CAA. These moves come shortly after a new report from CNN in which a former production assistant for House of Cards accused Spacey of sexual assault, while seven more anonymous sources told the outlet that Spacey demonstrated a pattern of abuse while working on the Netflix series. Over the past few days, Spacey has had an award from the the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences rescinded, and seen House of Cards stall in production of its sixth season, which was also designated as its last at the start of the week.
Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell, and Laurence Fishburne in Last Flag Flying. Photo: Lionsgate

This review originally ran during the New York Film Festival.

The opening-night presentation of the 2017 New York Film Festival was unusually somber and down to earth: the American road drama Last Flag Flying, in which three gravely damaged Vietnam vets  Larry, a.k.a. Doc (Steve Carell), Sal (Bryan Cranston), and Mueller (Laurence Fishburne)  reunite in 2003 to bury Docs son, Larry Jr., killed in the first year of the Iraq War. The director, Richard Linklater, keeps the tempo flat, the settings drab. Even the air seems fuzzy, thick. Although the banter is high-flying (Cranstons Sal is a foulmouthed hothead), its a grim slog from the semi-stupor of grief and age (and alcohol) to something that acknowledges even the possibility of transcending the misery of 21st-century America. The movie is so laden its hard to endure. But worth it.

Its tone derives largely from Carells near-catatonic Doc, who travels to Sals seedy bar in Norfolk, Virginia, and then to the Baptist church in which Mueller (now a man of God) delivers fiery sermons. Sal and Mueller have purged all thoughts of Doc from their heads, perhaps  the truth comes out in dribs and drabs and is never totally clear  because of guilt. Decades earlier, something put Doc in the brig and left Sal and Mueller bitter and wrung-out. Theyre awkward with one another even before Doc tells them about his son and asks them to accompany him to retrieve the body. Sals flamboyant, foulmouthed atheism rankles Mueller, a former hell-raiser who had a midlife religious awakening. (I grew up, Sal. I found my lifes purpose.) And Sal has an even more disturbing tendency: Hes always trying to pierce peoples illusions, even when those life lies (a belief in God or in a dead sons heroism) are all thats holding them together.

Besides, what can they say to Doc that will be any consolation? As a kid he was thrust into an unjust war, imprisoned for unjust reasons, and robbed of his only son by an even more unjust war.

What finally unites the three is a strain of anti-authoritarianism, the kind that was culturally sanctified in the Vietnam era but less common in the age of Thank you for your service and less safe in the shadow of a Department of Homeland Security. Smart-ass back talk to an officious Marine colonel (Yul Vazquez) spouting canned platitudes does wonders for the mood  as does changing the coffins destination, over the colonels strenuous objection, from Arlington National Cemetery to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where Doc lives and his wife is buried.

To put that anti-authoritarianism in perspective, it helps to know that these characters originated in Darryl Ponicsans first novel, The Last Detail, a raucous but definitively downbeat story of two long-serving Navy signalmen assigned to transport an 18-year-old from Norfolk, Virginia, to Portsmouth, where the kid will spend eight years in the brig for stealing $40 from a collection bucket. (The kid is a harmless kleptomaniac, a simpleton, but it was the base commanders wifes pet charity.) The 1973 movie, directed by Hal Ashby from a script by Robert Towne, cemented Jack Nicholsons stardom (he played Billy Badass Buddusky) and introduced the goofy young Randy Quaid. Although the novel (not the film) ended with Buddusky getting beaten to death by marines, Ponicsan decided to resurrect all three characters for a 2005 sequel, Last Flag Flying. More than 30 years later after that five-day trip, the unlucky kid comes looking for the closest thing to buddies he has ever had, and their journey from Norfolk (where Buddusky owns a rundown bar) to Portsmouth is both a bleak echo and a search for something that will endure in such an absurd, ephemeral world.

Im of two minds about Linklaters decision to keep the novels basic narrative but cut all ties to The Last Detail, changing the characters names and backstories. (Ponicsan has a screenplay co-credit.) You obviously couldnt bring back that cast: Nicholson is too old, Quaid too insane, and Otis Young (who played the other member of the trio) too deceased. (He died in 2001.) Buddusky might well be Nicholsons greatest performance: Whod want to follow that? And its not like The Last Detail  good as it is  has been a part of our national consciousness for decades. People arent interested in sequels to movies theyve never heard of.

Whats lost, though, is that sensational story of two cynical guards and the innocent doofus who brings them back to life  and then, when they do their duty as pawns of an authority they despise, it drives them to despair. Whats lost is the symmetry of the two road trips from Norfolk to Portsmouth. Last Flag Flying wouldnt exist without the foundation of The Last Detail, and you can sense theres something missing even if you dont know the earlier work. (I miss Townes dialogue, too.)

The trio of stars doesnt quite mesh, with Carell very much on the outside. Its bad casting. He has worked hard to become a serious actor, but dazedness comes too easily to him. It worked in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, where his characters anxiety-driven paralysis is supposed to be funny, and in Anchorman, where hes playing a cretin. In this case, though, once you register Docs despondency, theres nothing else to see in Carells face or hear in his toneless little voice. Its not that hes bad. As caricatures go, hes moving. But his ugly mustache is the most vivid thing about him.

Cranston is at the opposite extreme, giving a full-blown stage performance complete with broad working-class dialect. Its fun to see him roar, though. And he plays well off Fishburne, a titanic actor (in person, he has the widest shoulders Ive ever seen) who can go without missing a beat from complacent godly bromides to torrents of four-letter words. Hes a great bellower.

Last Flag Flying is most unnerving when Sal gets it in his head to deliver unpleasant truths in the face of common sense  or human decency. He vehemently urges Doc to view his sons body, although the round to the back of Larry Jr.s head blew off the young mans face. And the first thing he thinks to do when Larry Jr.s best friend (J. Quinton Johnson) tells him how the young man really died is share the ugly news. Late in the film, Sal drags Doc and Mueller to the home of a dead Vietnam soldiers aging mother (Cicely Tyson), who has lived for decades believing her son was killed while saving the rest of his platoon. Does he think telling her what really happened will help her live? Is that the kind of truth that sets people free?

In the mothers case, no. But theres no universally right answer. Part of the Bush administrations strategy for keeping that absurd war going was making sure that the coffins were never photographed, that the bodies were out of sight. Its in the uncertainties and dissonances of Last Flag Flying that Linklaters humanism really expresses itself. Three men of vastly different values and temperaments come alive in the shared understanding that their losses were for nothing. And that shared understanding is something.
The very funny Swedish art-world farce The Square may have been a divisive pick when it won the Palme dOr at this years Cannes Film Festival, but there was one thing the entire international film community could agree on: the swooning. Claes Bang, the movies dashing and virtually unknown Danish star, might as well carry a fainting couch with him, considering how often he inspires fawning reveries from anyone who sees him, onscreen and off. The main actor, I felt in love, I must say, and Im not the only one, said French actress-director Agnes Jaoui when asked at a press conference why she and other Cannes jury members had given The Square their top prize. Yes! Yes! enthused Will Smith, whod been sitting next to her.

All eyes had been on Bang at Cannes because all eyes had been on The Square, director Ruben Ostlunds first film since his wickedly awkward avalanche comedy Force Majeure, in which a man abandons his family to save himself during a terrifying snow slide (that turns out to be just a scare) and then has to continue on a five-day ski vacation with them. Certain men I know still shudder involuntarily anytime anyone brings it up. Ostlund is once again mining themes of failed masculinity, only through the lens of Bangs Christian, the handsome, arrogant curator of a Stockholm contemporary-art museum whose avalanche comes when he gets robbed of his wallet and phone by a woman he thought he was helping  sending him on an insane quest for revenge that soon has him betraying everything he thinks he stands for.

I think with this part, I got to drive a Rolls-Royce of acting. I cant imagine an actor in the whole world who wouldnt kill his family to do this part, says Bang, sitting across from me in a Toronto restaurant. He got to do comedy; speak extensively in English; show off his electronic-music-dancing skills; have very sweaty sex (and a condom tug-of-war) with Elisabeth Mosss reporter character; interact with a monkey; dig through garbage in the rain; play a loving and fallible father; give grand speeches about the meaning of art; verbally spar with an irate 12-year-old; and have not just a fall but a complete face-plant from grace. One of my agents said, This is the best show reel Ive ever seen! If someone phones me up and says, Can Claes do this?, Ill just pick a scene from the film and send it, Bang goes on. Apart from blowing something up or shooting someone, Im pretty much covering it all.

Comparisons to Pierce Brosnan and Jon Hamm, but funnier, come to mind. Bang is six-foot-four with a great head of dark hair and an air that suggests he takes his martinis shaken, not stirred. Hes also spent the past 30 years plugging away in theater and TV in Denmark and Germany, and in a Scandinavian crime series called The Bridge that aired on the BBC. And watching him for the first time, at age 50  commanding the tricky tone of the biggest opportunity of his career  sparks the same kind of Where have you been? awe that so many felt upon seeing Hamm emerge as Don Draper at 36. Or, perhaps, Bangs fellow Dane, Mads Mikkelsen, now 51, although hed had way more international success by the time he landed NBCs Hannibal four years ago. (Surprise, surprise: Getting to emerge as a sex symbol at 50 is a very male privilege, though lets not begrudge the unwitting beneficiary.) Even Bang cant believe this is happening to him now. When I tell him I want to introduce him to readers who dont yet know he is, he laughs. Obviously they wont. I dont think anyone wouldve seen me anywhere!

At least once people learn his name (pronounced CLAY-ss, plus the sound a gun makes), they arent likely to forget it. He assures me its standard issue in Denmark, even if it reads like its something made up for a comic book or an adult movie here. A superhero porn star! Thats great! I can connect with that, says Bang when I tell him exactly that. Every time he shows his passport at U.S. border control, he says, They look at it, and its like, Really? Are you sure youre called Bang? Is that a joke? His full name is Claes Kasper Bang. Hed asked his new American agent if he ought to just go by Claes Kasper to avoid the fuss, and, says Bang, He was like, No! Dont do that! It was a pretty short conversation. I just didnt want people to think, Heres this idiot Danish actor who made up this name to get attention. Its really quite common here, and Ive had it all my life.

Bang beat out some 150 actors for the part, weathering a massive casting search that went through all the Scandinavian capitals  Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki  and into London. Ostlund had been open to casting an English speaker in the lead, since top posts at museums and operas are often international jobs. Bang tells me he got his American agency, UTA, after some of the agencys famous British and American clients didnt get cast and they wanted to know who did. (Neither he nor Ostlund is naming names, but they were big enough to make Bang lose all hope of getting cast, which hed already thought was a pipe dream, given that Force Majeure had been a big-enough deal that Ostlund could have had his pick of anyone.)

Claes was a surprise to me as well, says Ostlund. Hes not known in Sweden, either, and not that known in Denmark. The casting process was multiple two-hour sessions of workshopping scenes from an unfinished script. What made up Ostlunds mind was a speech hed asked his finalists to write introducing the movies central art exhibition  a literal square in a public plaza thats meant to be a sanctuary of trust and caring  to a crowd of donors. Bangs speech is in the movie almost verbatim. He said, My father just died and I have no one to talk to. Can you talk to me for half an hour? And that was really touching, says Ostlund. That was pretty much the moment I decided on Claes. He was able to bring some emotion to this very intellectual, conceptual idea.

Bang doesnt have writing experience; he just loves going to museums. And Ostlunds thought process was a complete mystery to him. Its funny, Bang says, because after a couple of hours of improv, Ruben said Thanks and was about to send me on my way, until I said, What about that speech Ive prepared? Good thing I insisted on doing it. Months of callbacks went by, all while Bang kept hearing that Ostlund was seeing other people. Bang was actually onstage during a run-through of a Danish play when he heard his phone ring in his bag with the call from Ostlund, which hed known was coming that day. And I had to wait an hour until we finished the play! he says. Then I picked up and found out, and I was jumping up and down. I was literally doing exactly what you would expect a person to do.

Related Stories Elisabeth Moss Is the Queen of Peak TV

Whatever Ostlund saw in Bangs audition may have something to do with how he had to find art on his own, coming from a family of businesspeople where hes, he says, the black sheep. He caught the acting bug during a high-school production of Hair and eventually spent four years of rigorous study at the Danish National School of Performing Arts, which at the time admitted only eight students a year from a pool of 600 applicants. Now he lives in Copenhagen with Lis Kasper Bang, his wife of seven years; they met when she did his makeup on a theater production. She invited him to her 41st-birthday party, and I actually never left, he says. All of a sudden, this new guy took all of the guests to the door. Look, you need to leave now. Bye-bye! And Ive been with her ever since. I was her birthday present! A bit embarrassing, but also quite funny. In his spare time, he composes, produces, sings, and plays all the instruments for his side gig as an electronic-pop musician. When we met up, he was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the image of his idol, David Bowie; he stole the name of his one-man project, This Is Not America, from one of Bowies tracks. His music can be seen in the trippy black-and-white videos hes been putting out on YouTube since 2008, including one with him in a wig and drag makeup.

Fun fact that non-Scandinavians probably wont pick up on: Bang speaks Danish in the film, but almost everyone else, except for Moss, is speaking Swedish. Its the kind of thing that could happen in real life; most Danes and Swedes can understand the others language. And the movie takes place in an alternate reality in which the Swedish monarchy has fallen. The museum where Bangs character works is called X-Royal, and its exterior is the actual Royal Palace in Stockholm. (The backstory Ostlund cut from the film is that the king attempted to reach out to the people via a monarchical YouTube channel, and it went horribly wrong. This is apparently based on the real Swedish king Carl Gustaf XVIs being terrible at press.) Bangs character is named after a Danish king from the 1500s, Christian II, who took over the palace in Stockholm and decapitated everyone inside it. Thats why we thought it would be fun that the next time a Danish guy came to that castle, hed be called Christian too, says Bang. Unsurprisingly, they were not allowed to shoot inside the palace.

Bang hadnt even read the script by the time he got the part. Ostlund likes to find his dialogue through an intense trial-and-error process that makes David Fincher sound like a pushover. The Square shot for 78 days. Most mornings would begin with the actors and Ostlund improvising a scene until Ostlund felt the dialogue seemed natural, at which point Ostlund would lock the script and then start shooting what theyd workshopped again and again. He wants to see if he can get it in one take, so that means that you go through the whole scene for every take, which could easily be seven, eight, nine minutes every take, says Bang. Then hell probably do something like 60 or 70 of those. Its exhausting in that around take 20 or 25, you sort of lose your consciousness. You stop wanting, intellectually, to do something with the scene.

Photo: Daniel Ehrenworth/Vulture

Moss, who arrived ten days before the end of the shoot, says she and Bang bonded immediately while shooting the movies opening sequence. Hes a brilliant actor, she writes by email. You trust him, but youre never sure whats coming next. She plays a not-so-good reporter trying to get Christian to explain self-serious art stuff in normal human terms for an on-camera interview. What made the final cut is only two questions long, but they spent hours going back and forth. To prep, Bang memorized a transcription of a half-hour interview with an actual Stockholm museum director, which he then had to regurgitate, in his own way, in response to whatever Moss gave him  while also flirting with her ever-so-slightly, since that comes up again halfway through the film. At that point, says Bang, I could answer any fucking question you could ask me as a museum director, because wed just rehearsed so much. I could talk about economics, how you fund a museum, anything.

Bang sounds as if he was game for any torture Ostlund had for his character. He didnt just dig through a pile of garbage; he did it for two days in the rain. He didnt just have scenes with a monkey who randomly lives with Anne, Mosss character; he did it while absolutely terrified, because the monkey came with instructions not to sing, yell, or run around it, lest it become unhinged. During his sweaty sex scene with Moss, he was lying on a bed as a cinematographer sat on top of him, gyrating with a camera, to create a more realistic POV. (For her shots, Moss gyrated on top of the cinematographer.) During the scene when Christian and Anne get into a tug-of-war over whos going to throw away the condom  hes clearly afraid shes going to do something sneaky with his sperm  Bang tried a take where he ate it. Well, I didnt swallow it, but a little bit of it was sticking out of my mouth and she was trying to get it out. We were laughing so hard after that. Later, he somehow managed to keep a straight face during a scene in which Anne confronts Christian about their night together (Ostlund insisted that she keep repeating the words You were inside of me) while standing in front of a museum installation of a teetering pile of chairs that could crash to the ground at any moment. Ruben had a button, says Bang, and when he could sense that this would annoy us most, hed push it!

Since Cannes this May, Bang says hes had some 50 scripts come his way, including two British thrillers and a big Hollywood production hes excited about. In a normal year, hed get maybe five film and TV scripts. But hes trying to be picky. Ive been an actor for 30 years, he says. Im not going to run from a great theater production to do two days on an HBO series or something. True to his word, hes just finished doing a Danish translation of British playwright Martin Crimps The City and will soon film a Danish-TV Christmas special. Hes also amped up his side gig and has been recording electronic-music tracks  one is coming out commercially  with Swedish synth-pop legend Marina Schiptjenko, whom he met when she played his boss on The Square. His dream is to work with David Lynch, Michael Haneke, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, or Toni Erdmann director Maren Ade (hes fluent in German), and he cryptically hints that some of those projects hes excited about may align with that dream. Obviously, this film has opened up some opportunities for me, because there are people out there who didnt know that I was here, and now they do, and now they might want to use me, he says. And thats really supercool.

*A version of this article appears in the November 13, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.
Photo: Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/via Getty Images

Harvey Weinsteins arrest could be imminent, the NYPD now tells the AP. After actress Paz de la Huerta came forward to police accusing Weinstein of raping her twice in 2010, officials now say theyre building a case to bring the first criminal charges against the disgraced mogul. Based on interviews with de la Huerta and information that corroborates her story, chief of detectives Robert Boyce told the AP on Friday that they are proceeding with her case. He says de la Huerta demonstrated the ability to articulate each and every minute of the crime, where she was, where they met, where this happened and what he did. The NYPD will now either get a court order for an arrest warrant, or allow prosecutors to seek indictment from a grand jury. The Manhattan district attorneys office confirmed to the AP that a senior prosecutor is now investigating the allegations.

According to Boyce, if the facts were slightly different, Weinstein might already be in handcuffs: If this person was still in new York, and it was recent, wed go right away and make the arrest. No doubt. But were talking about a 7-year-old case. And we have to move forward gathering evidence first. Weinstein has been spotted in disguise in Arizona after completing treatment at a local rehab for sex addiction. Another detective previously told Vanity Fair that he believes we have enough to make an arrest.
Hulks of a feather. Photo: Ladronn, Marvel Entertainment, and Marvel Studios.

It began with a simple pitch. Just a few words long, in fact. It was 2005, and comics writer Greg Pak was called into a meeting with Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada and senior editor Axel Alonso. Hed just been asked to write the monthly series Incredible Hulk, and the pair of higher-ups had an idea for his first story line. As Pak recalls, It was kind of amazing, because basically all they said was, Hulk comes to an alien planet and becomes a gladiator. And I think that was it.

As the bard once put it, from small things, big things one day come. Pak, editor Mark Paniccia, and artists including Carlo Pagulayan, Aaron Lopresti, and Ladronn built a tale from that micro-pitch that would go on to become the defining Hulk story of the past two decades, and easily one of the greatest ever told about the famed character. Entitled Planet Hulk and published from 2006 to 2007, its had the kind of iconic afterlife that few comics stories ever have. Its given birth to stories in not one but three televised cartoons, shout-outs in two video games, an entire direct-to-video animated film, and sequels and spinoffs in comics form. But what sets it apart from nearly every other Hulk tale is that its made it to the most cherished spot in all of superhero fiction: a Marvel movie.

Despite not having the name Hulk in the title, this weekends Thor: Ragnarok is built on the solid foundation of Planet Hulk. A bevy of elements that Pak and his colleagues dreamed up are there: the debased planet Sakaar, the gladiatorial combat that takes place there, the Hulk-spurred Sakaaran revolution that takes down a capricious dictator, electrocution discs that keep slaves in line, the imposing helmet and armor the emerald Avenger wears in the arena, the genial rock-creature Korg and his bug buddy Miek, and  perhaps most important  the unusual Hulk-story trait of the green-skinned smasher actually finding some kind of home and peace a galaxy away from Earth. Given how ad hoc the pitch was and how untested the writer was, its remarkable  and admirable  that Planet Hulk made it this far.

At the time of the storys debut, the Hulk was in a bit of a slump. Hed been kicking around since 1962, and had a dynamite concept behind him: mild-mannered scientist Bruce Banner is caught in an accident that makes him turn into a towering monster whenever he gets angry, and he subsequently has to escape both his inner demons and the forces that seek to destroy him. Hed had his fair share of beloved sagas  many of them written by longtime Hulk scribe Peter David  but it was hard to drum up enthusiasm for him in the mid-aughts. Part of the problem, as Paniccia sees it, was that Incredible Hulk was sorely lacking in, well, the incredible Hulk: Hed kind of been off the table and it was more of a Banner-on-the-run book, he recalls. A shake-up was in order.

The person who delivered it was an unlikely pick. Just a couple of years prior to Paks fateful meeting with his bosses, comics were alien territory for him as a creator. Hed made his bones as an independent filmmaker, directing the acclaimed and idiosyncratic sci-fi anthology feature Robot Stories in 2003. However, hed long been a comic-book nut, and held special affection for the Hulk. Like many geeks of his generation (he was born in 1968), Pak was enchanted by the premier filmed superhero saga of the late 1970s and early 80s: the Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrignostarring CBS television series The Incredible Hulk. That was the one show that I would change my schedule to watch, Pak recalls. He then laughs and gets a little sheepish: I joke about it, but its true: it was my introduction to the literary concept of tragedy. It was like, Oh my God, its so sad!

So its no surprise that, upon snagging a gig writing mid- to low-tier comics for Marvel in 2004, Pak tried to level up and pen the adventures of his favorite brute. He started working for Paniccia on Marvel Nemesis, a series that tied into a video game, and exploited the fact that Paniccia was also editing Incredible Hulk at the time. Id been dropping these hints about how much I like the Hulk, Pak says in an interview conducted along with Paniccia, who acquiesced and offered Pak the job.

Ill never forget asking you if youd like to write the Hulk, Paniccia says. You just had this smile, like coast-to-coast smile on your face. I mean, you were like, You know thats my favorite character? Im like  here, he laughs  Yes, I do. Youve told me maybe one time. The alien gladiator pitch came soon after, and the pair was off to the races.

We wanted to do something where we could let Hulk cut loose, Paniccia says. Because one of the problems with the Hulk is hes so powerful, right? Its true: A core challenge of Hulk storytelling is dealing with the fact that hes nigh invulnerable and incredibly strong, thus making it hard to plausibly threaten him and even harder to show him in typically angry action without causing unheroic death and destruction. An alien environment would provide the twin conceits of sci-fi mishegoss that made him weaker (hes transported through a wormhole that diminishes his powers) and inhuman enemies who could withstand his rage. Whats more, it allowed for unusual new costuming: Hulk in a mohawked helmet and leather skirt, with a metallic covering on one of his arms.

In fevered weekly meetings with Paniccia in New York City, Pak would spout ideas hed conceived after reading through a biography of Genghis Khan, tomes about Roman gladiators, accounts of Spartacuss slave revolt, and Sun Tzus The Art of War. But pop culture was just as important as high culture for him: The locational moniker Sakaar was born as an homage to the consonant-filled planet names of comics creator Bill Mantlos 1980s series The Micronauts, especially the craggy world known as Spartak. It was like, you put a K in the name and it sounds pretty awesome, Pak says with a chuckle. Hulk couldnt be alone in this new world, so that meant the addition of a new supporting cast. Pak dug into ancient Marvel history and invented fellow gladiator Korg as a member of a race of rock-carapaced aliens called the Kronans, which had debuted in 1962. However, the buglike gladiator Miek was all Pak, devised as an underdog who would eventually get power-drunk once he was liberated, leading to a betrayal of his big, green buddy.

Excerpt from Planet Hulk. Photo: Marvel Entertainment and Carlo Pagulayan.

More and more extraterrestrial figures flowed out of Paks head and, brought to life by Pagulayan and Loprestis pencils, readers got to meet them after Incredible Hulk No. 92 launched the story line in February of 2006. The story cycle retains its power a decade later. Its basic outline is simple but operatic: some of the top Marvel superheroes get sick of having to clean up the Hulks mess and launch him into space, he gets sucked into a wormhole and arrives on Sakaar, hes enslaved as a gladiator, he and other gladiators lead a rebellion and overthrow the planets king, Hulk becomes the new king and falls in love, an accident with the ship that brought him to Sakaar causes the deaths of his love (though that was later revealed to be a bit more complicated than it seemed) and scores of his people, then Hulk and a group of his new pals come to Earth to exact revenge on the heroes who exiled him, leading to the next story line, World War Hulk.

The whole thing felt fresh in a way Hulk stories hadnt in a long time. For one thing, there was the new setting and set of characters; so, too, it was exciting to see the Hulk take over and rage out, as opposed to being stuck with puny Banner as the main character. But the real magic of the story lies in the fact that Hulk gets to find a place for himself in a way he never did on our world. Once hes in charge and falls for his romantic partner, the warrior Caiera, he seems somewhat comfortable.

I loved the idea of Hulk being a hero on a planet and being a bit more introspective and being a bit more quiet, Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi tells Vulture when asked what he loves about Planet Hulk. Because every Hulk version we have seen in the past is just him turning into Hulk and smashing everything, but to see a Hulk now quiet and sitting there like General Kurtz from Apocalypse Now in a hot tub? It is a way more interesting character.

Ragnarok co-screenwriter Eric Pearson was similarly taken by that element. Hes filled with rage, but if you give him a place where he can get that rage out and, of all things, be cheered for it  the opposite of Earth, where its his curse  then its kind of the recipe for Hulk to live a Banner-free life and be able to settle down, almost, he says. It was important for me in the script to have that moment where you see that Hulk is calm but hes not turning back into Banner.

Readers were enchanted at the time, too. Despite being launched with little fanfare, Planet Hulk generated great reviews and word of mouth. The Hulk is finally good again, declared reviewer Hilary Goldstein of IGN. Comics Bulletins Dominic Davies wrote that it was a fantastic tale of violence, liberation and pure Hulkdom. Typically, sales of a comics story decline as it goes on and the initial blush wears off, but according to industry-analysis site Comichron, retailer orders for Incredible Hulk actually rose by roughly 35 percent from the first issue to the last, with multiple printings for sold-out installments along the way. Its now regarded as canonical, regularly topping lists of the best Hulk stories ever told. (According to Paniccia, when Hamilton star Okieriete Onaodowan visited the Marvel offices recently, he went out of his way to say that its one of his favorite Marvel epics.)

Related Stories 5 Comics to Read Before You See Thor: Ragnarok

Its no wonder, then, that Planet Hulk popped into Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feiges head nearly a decade later. At the end of the script for 2015s Joss Whedonhelmed Avengers: Age of Ultron, Hulk hops into a flying contraption called a Quinjet and scoots away to be left alone. When that was written, Feige had no plans for a Planet Hulk adaptation  perhaps because the movie-rights situation for a solo Hulk flick remains complicated  but his thinking evolved. Thor actor Chris Hemsworth wanted to have other Marvel characters to play with in the planned Thor threequel. [W]e were like, We need something big, Feige told the Wrap. And whos bigger than the Hulk? He spoke with a brain trust and realized what they needed to do. We would jokily call it Planet Thor, for a while. I went, You know what that means? They go, What? I go, That means Hulk went to space at the end of Ultron. Et voila: A partial Planet Hulk adaptation was born.

The finished film adds and changes a great deal, of course. After all, its a movie about Thor, so our introduction to Sakaar comes when that titular god of thunder ends up enlisted in gladiatorial combat there. Gone is Pak and Pagulayans original king of the planet, replaced by Jeff Goldblums eccentric Grandmaster. Although Korg and Miek show up, theyre a small part of the story, and Caiera and the rest of Hulks revolutionaries are nowhere to be found. And, of course, theres a lot of stuff about Thors native Asgard and its various supporting characters, all of which comes from entirely separate comics sources.

None of that bothers Pak or Paniccia, who attended a screening earlier this week and adored what they saw. Indeed, talking to them, one is reminded of how odd it is that comic books, a dirt-cheap medium that only requires the creative efforts of a small number of people on any given story, are now the source material for enormously complex and massively expensive mass-market products. The first time someone says Sakaar, it just cracked me up, Pak says with a little laugh. Thats a name that I made up, like, pacing around my living room, trying to think of a cool name for a planet. To see it in a big movie like that? Its a trip.
Its a special moment whenever a TV series writers realize the potential chemistry in a character-pairing that they hadnt really considered before. Just look at the new season of Stranger Things, where matching the cocky stud Steve with the even-cockier nerd Dustin for several episodes down the home stretch pays off in comedy gold. Or more on-topic, consider the second half of The Good Places first season, where the romance of Jason and Janet injected some inspired weirdness.

Of course, its possible to run a good thing into the ground. There are inklings in this weeks Good Place, Derek, that the show has just about exhausted the comic potential of its latest odd couple, Jason and Tahani. For the third week in a row, the couple are essentially isolated from the rest of the cast, off in their own story line. And frankly, the wells running a little dry on their side of the Neighborhood.

These two still have their share of laugh-out-loud lines. Jameela Jamil brings her usual crack comic timing to the Hartfordshire Academy for Expressionless Girls former prize student Tahani, as she tentatively embraces her new life with a swamp-dweller who once asked me if the presidents on Mount Rushmore have butts on the other side. And Manny Jacinto is still charmingly guileless as Lynyrd Skynyrd High School grad Jason, whos excited to be spending time with basically like a hot genius teacher who sometimes has sex with me.

But a certain amount of repetition is setting in. Each week so far, a semi-appalled Tahani participates in some Jason-approved activity  like watching the horror film Home Alone  while he tells quirky stories about his life in Jacksonville. Thats all the writers have really come up with for these two to do.

Compare that to Janet and her new boyfriend Derek, who over the course of this episode go from doting on each other to screaming at each other, before reaching a mature understanding that their time together has come to an end. Their scenes together in Derek are like the multitude of Neighborhoods in this seasons Dance Dance Resolution, and DArcy Carden and Jason Mantzoukas make the most of the opportunity to play everything from goofily romantic to sincerely distraught. Carden in particular makes Janet sound far more human than artificial, explaining that shes upset about not knowing how to handle heartbreak because, as she says, The whole point of me is that I know everything. (Next to Michaels because  friends last week, this line may be the most moving in The Good Places short history.)

Derek is the midseason finale, and as such does a lot to restore the status quo in some areas of this seasons story line, while pushing other parts forward. Jason and Tahani almost get married, but the wedding gets interrupted. Janet comes to terms with Jasons new relationship and boxes up Derek, packing him away in a dark corner of her eternal void. On the other end of the spectrum, Michael makes great strides on his path toward becoming more human, while Eleanor finally confesses to Chidi that the two of them were lovers in one of Michaels earlier Neighborhood reboots.

Despite the title, the bulk of this episode is really about Michael, who finds himself in the unfamiliar and uncomfortable position of trying to solve Janets Derek problem without resorting to murder  something that Chidi assures him is frowned upon by ethical philosophers. Michael tries to work within what he learns from his professor is the doctrine of double effect, wherein he can cause something horrible to happen to another person (i.e., Derek) only if hes genuinely trying to do something good. And that doesnt mean he can perform the noble act while winking, either. You should not be winking, Chidi stresses. Or saying the word wink.

Compared to the relative stasis of the Jasani story line, a lot happens with their neighbors and with Michael. All the chatter about honesty and ethics coaxes Eleanor into showing Chidi the Cannonball Run II tape of the two of them sharing a moment of postcoital bonding at Mindy St. Claires house, so that they can start talking through why those other versions of themselves mightve said I love you to each other. (I get why you said it, Eleanor shrugs. Im a total smoke-show.)

But given that so much of this season has been about Michaels crises and his personal journey, its apt that the half-season ends with him and Eleanor shooting the shirt about their mutual struggle to be better. These two are this shows original and perhaps most important pairing. Now theyve become like AA sponsors for each other, as they slowly learn that its not easy not being mean.

In the Neighborhood

 At the start of this season, creator Michael Schur and his writers seemed to be using their perpetual reboot plot to comment on the process of making television. That subtheme crept back in tonight with Michaels comment to Janet that, You cant just go around inventing people! Thats always a temptation for serialized TV, to throw another character into the mix to solve a narrative problem. Derek demonstrates how this doesnt always work.

 I dont want to sound too down on Jasani as a comic device, because again, these two actors are very funny together. Jameela Jamil shows fine comedic range, whether Tahani is praising croquet for combining the classic aspects of British sport  whimsy and restraint  or shes following her partners carefree lead by walloping a ball and shouting, The Jaguars are very good!

 Speaking of Good Place pairings, Eleanor and Janet have their own fun dynamic, built around the latters computer-brain knowledge of nearly everything and the formers lizard-brain attraction to anything pretty. The natures of these two women (cue Janet: not a woman) connect this week when the all-powerful Neighborhood helper offers to make Eleanor her own boyfriend. Based on your last 10,000 comments, it would be Stone Cold Steve Austins head on Tahanis body, Janet says. Or vice versa! Eleanor suggests.

 Not a lot of visual wackiness in Derek, but theres one gag pulled straight from Looney Tunes, when Janets makeshift man glitches while thinking about her ex-husband, and he holds up a little sign: HELP I CANT STOP SAYING JASON.

 After several weeks of focusing on the interpersonal connections between humans, demons, and Janets, The Good Place gets back to the main plot at the end of this midseason finale. In a cliff-hanger stinger, Shawn shows up at Michaels office, and in his best Mad Men boss voice, grimly says. Shut the door. Have a seat. To be continued 
Its not this one. Photo: Disney/Marvel

This story was originally published in 2017 and has been updated ahead of the release of Captain Marvel.

Comedy is the element that once set Marvel comic books apart from its competitors, and over the last decade, its set Marvel movies apart as well. Marvel movies are funny. Its part of what youre being promised when you buy a ticket. In some Marvel movies, the comedy is an added bonus, like a sweet treat at the end of a hearty meal of big human muscles punching big CGI muscles; others feature some of the funniest scenes in the last ten years.

With Captain Marvel opening in theaters this weekend, Vulture decided to look back and pick and rank the five funniest Marvel films thus far. We break down how comedy was used differently  or more effectively  in each of the movies: Some introduced a totally new tone, some showcased a new way to build relationships between the films leads, and others just had more jokes  and those jokes were better than those weve come to expect from comic-book films. We limited the list to five (fine, essentially six) because, though each of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies have a semblance of comedy, most just offer a glimpse  or essentially duplicate  the wit of the films we unpack below.

Here are the the top-five funniest Marvel films in America, Milky Way Galaxy, and the rest of the Seven Realms.

Honorable Mention: Iron Man 2

In retrospect, its funny how funny people thought the first Iron Man was. Save for the scene when Tony Stark blows up, and the scene where Jarvis keeps spraying him with a fire extinguisher, its mostly fairly straightforward. What it did have, though, was Robert Downey Jr. giving a much looser performance than wed come to expect from a superhero. RDJs Iron Man, unplagued by the self-doubt of, say, Spider-Man or Wolverine, or a Nolanian gray backdrop, had the energy of a guy always entering a party in his honor. It was a revelation.

In comparison, however (and though its a worse movie), Iron Man 2 is way funnier. In Iron Man, director Jon Favreau showed us the tiger; in Iron Man 2, he let him out of the cage. And by tiger, I mean something just as dangerous: improvised comedy. Arguably, the Second Citytrained Favreaus biggest contribution to the MCU was showing the Marvel higher-ups that their superhero movies could include a ton of improv and it wouldnt get in the way of the BOOMS! BLAMS! and POWS! There are clearly scenes in Iron Man 2 where Favreau just let RDJ go and filmed whatever happened. And there are scenes like this one, where its clear at times that RDJ is riffing over an existing script:

Notice the crosstalk. Its why Vulture comics expert Abraham Riesman jokes in conversation that Iron Man 2 sometimes feels like a mumblecore movie. I love that little touch of RDJ walking to hit the bell, which seems like something that was decidedly spontaneously. At its core, thats what was so exciting about these two Iron Man movies: You had a star at the center who felt more present than wed come to expect in the genre. Theres almost a Bill Murray quality to RDJs Tony Stark; hes able to walk the line of being both in character but a little outside of it. Its why hes the MCU actor that would be the hardest to replace.

Another case where the sequel is worse, but the comedy is better  or, at minimum, more bountiful. This is largely because the titular Avengers all know each other now, and know how to push each other buttons (learning a bit from what worked so well in Guardians of the Galaxy). Its all very cute, because theyre giants acting like babies. And it gets at what is, arguably, the most consistent, repeatable source of comedy in the MCU: the egos of super men bouncing against each other. [Leans back in a therapist chair and pushes glasses up nose.] Heres the thing about so-called super heroes: Yes, they save the day, but why? Of course, of course, they dont want innocent people to die. However, people are motivated by their desires  superheroes save people because it feels good. They think of themselves as individuals who deserve the power given to them to save; they deserve the muscles bestowed upon them by God, or Gods, or by some chemical. So what happens when they hang out with someone with bigger muscles or access to stronger chemicals? Something like the party scene from Age of Ultron:

(The moment where Thor is worried that Captain America might be able to lift his hammer marks our first glimpse of the Thor we have now  goofy, insecure.)

Because the gang is together in various pairings for the entirety of Age of Ultron, this playfulness is allowed to continue throughout (Visions eventual arrival, with his British-accented, robot deadpan is a great addition)  until, eventually, the film gets sucked up by Ultrons melodrama. The shawarma scene from the first Avengers movie will probably be Joss Whedons most-remembered comedic moment from his turn at the helm, if only because the first film was much more of a sensation. Ultimately, Ultron earns the director his nickname, Jokes Whedon.

The two Iron Man movies set a broad template for the MCU that most of the films have since followed. It was less about defining a story structure or visual style, and more about setting the parameters of what we could expect from the universe  namely, charming superheroes coming to terms with being a superhero, while either cracking wise (Dr. Strange, the latest Captain America movie, and obviously the Iron Man movies) or getting made fun of for being a fish out of water (the first Captain America and first two Thor movies). MCU jokes are what I like to describe as script-doctor comedy, meaning those little quips at the end of scenes that either can be easily replaced by a comedy writer hired to do a pass on the script, or by the director or actor while shooting. (On an upcoming episode of my podcast with Thor: Ragnorak director Taika Waititi, he told me he was given a script with jokes like this that he just ignored.) But theres nothing wrong with this! With a good cast, these jokes can get legitimate laughs.

Ant-Man represents the funniest version of this sort of comedy. It helps that Paul Rudd is just a funnier actor than, say, Chris Evans or Benedict Cumberbatch, so his smart-alecky quips just hit a little bit harder. It also helps that Rudd worked with Adam McKay to rework Edgar Wrights original after he left due to those infamous creative differences. As a result, Rudd and McKay find a little bit more room for comedy than in other, similar films in the franchise. For example, Michael Pena gives a quirky-as-hell performance as Rudds heist buddy. This scene would read okay on the page, but the line readings are just so dang good:

And, of course, shrinking teeny-tiny is a good premise for some solid visual gags. There has not been a sillier, bigger final fight scene than the final fight of Ant-Man, as the tension of the danger constantly gets undercut by the fact that they are essentially playing with toys. This is one of the MCUs great comedic moments:

Theres never been a superhero movie where the man in the funny suit said things were awesome so many times. Its a small thing, but its indicative of how refreshing Homecoming felt when it came out earlier this year. By skipping over the Uncle Dying and the Spider Biting, we got a Spider-Man whos just so excited to be Spider-Man. Homecoming had the familiar MCU plot points, but a tone of its own, one of childlike wonder. Look at how the movie opens, with Peter Parkers voice cracking with excitement as he relives his involvement in Captain America: Civil War in vlog form:

This tone is sustained throughout the picture, which, compared to the increasingly galactic universe, has a humble scope. With a villain whose goal isnt to become a God, theres plenty of time for classic high-school hijinx.

Another reason the comedy works so well: Homecoming is a movie in the long tradition of comedies about a place. Director Jon Watts treats Queens like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies treat space  an area filled with charming, peculiar characters. And smartly, Watts cast funny people like Hannibal Buress, Martin Starr, and Donald Glover to be those characters; each is able to make things pop a little bit more. Watch how grounded Glover is in this scene, building the comedy from character and not just dialogue. You believe him when he says he likes bread. It allows for a deeper laugh, as opposed to a brief giggle that comes from watching people just talking quickly to each other:

Guardians of the Galaxy came right when the MCU needed it most. All of the previous movies were still pretty solid, but heading out of the first Avengers with a new Thor, a new Captain America, and a newly dour Iron Man, the MCU felt like it was losing some of its color. Then came Guardians of the Galaxy, with a degree of levity not yet reached in the franchise.

Its not that the other Marvel movies failed to build comedy from character  its just that they kind of cheated, by making Iron Man a real cutup. We saw a little bit of relationship-based comedy in Avengers, but even that was mostly a bunch of hunks standing around as straight men for Iron Man to riff off. But like The Good Place, each galaxy guardian is a specifically rendered character perfectly designed to annoy everyone else  which means, essentially, all their interactions are a recipe for comedy. Just watch how, in this scene, each characters personality sets up anothers:

This is arguably the best scripted piece of comedy in this series of films. Because of scenes like this, Guardians of the Galaxy almost was No. 1 on the list, if only because of how well-integrated the comedy was with the action. Out of all the Marvel films, it is, most completely, an action-comedy. The fight scenes build up to something akin to a contemporary comedy set piece  all physical gags and people yelling at each other. The prison-escape scene, for example, fulfills both the desire for kicks and punches as well as laughs.

Unlike most of the MCU, Thor: Ragnarok is not a comedic action movie. Its not even really an action comedy, like Guardians. Its a comedy, full stop  just one with a big fight scene toward the end. As director Taika Waititi mentioned to me, Chris Hemsworth was getting tired of Thor being so boring, so it was Waititis mission to make him the coolest dude in the universe.

But he isnt cool like Iron Man is cool, all swagger and comebacks. No, to Waititi, turning Thor cool meant turning Thor into an idiosyncratic, sensitive weirdo. And its not just Hemsworth  everyone does the absolute most in this movie. Jeff Goldblum basically does an impression of Jeff Goldblum, all stammers and whimsical turns of phrase. Cate Blanchett does an impression of a drag queen impersonating Cate Blanchett, complete with long hallways for her sashay down, arms outstretched. Tessa Thompson literally falls down drunk, a modern version of Han Solo.

Technically, this movie shouldnt even exist. As Waititi told me, he and Mark Ruffalo would occasionally find themselves openly wondering when theyd get fired. The film deliberately subverts everything at the core of a big superhero movie  dialogue moves slowly and sometimes awkwardly, the characters are all gentle, feelings are discussed openly. These sort of incongruities probably make up the largest part of the films comedic stew. In this scene, for example, watch how Thor has transformed into a sensitive child, excited to tell his new friend Korg (hilariously voiced by Waititi) about how freaking cool his hammer is:

Do you see Hemsworth smile a little? Thor: Ragnarok isnt just the loosest movie in the MCU, its one of the loosest movies in recent memory. Characters break a little, actors perform as thinly veiled versions of themselves  its incredible to believe its a Marvel movie. Its all because Waititi wanted to convey how fun the movie was to shoot to the audience.

Its a really silly movie, with some of the best, dumbest jokes this side of Popstar. My personal favorite moment comes when Goldblums character is tasked with sentencing a man who committed a crime. I pardon you, he proclaims, to the relief of the criminal, from life. (Waititi said that they tried it five times and couldnt get a take where Hemsworth doesnt laugh.) Its so beautifully dumb and I love it with all of my little heart.

As he tells it, Waititi achieved this brilliance by focused on creating the tone he wanted  and letting the bosses figure out what it means for Infinity War and the future of the character. This means it might not be for everyone  especially those who want their Gods to be big punchers and not awkward nerds  but the rest of us will be laughing too much to care. He shot his shot. A lot couldve went wrong, but Marvel was right to trust Waititi and Waititi was right to trust himself. It is, after all, the funniest Marvel movie.
Well, ladies and Debra Messing stans, we knew this day was coming. As soon as it was announced that Shelley Morrison would not return to Will & Grace as Karen Walkers maid Rosario, most knew that her iconic character had to be killed off. Now its finally happened. Rosario died from surgical complications after collapsing at Karens house and was laid to rest the only way that a sitcom knows how: with a lot of jokes and then a touching moment where Karen finally admits she was her best friend as the show fades away to the credits.

Its sad that Morrison couldnt make one more appearance on the show before calling it quits to give us all a little bit of closure, even if it was to just kill Rosario off. Hell, Charles C. Stevenson reprised his role as Smitty, the bartender whose tragic tales always make Karen laugh, and he looked like he was going to collapse into a pile of ash if a strong wind kicked up. I was seriously worried for him. He looked one bad Martini shake away from breaking a hip.

While were talking about characters returning, I didnt mind seeing Smitty again because he had a bit part, and even if people hadnt watched the original series, he would still be just a funny old bartender (though one that got a rather exaggerated round of applause from the live studio audience). What I didnt totally love was the return of Minnie Drivers Lorraine Finster. She was a character from deep into the shows run and one of Karens many nemeses. Luckily for those of us with short memories, she introduced herself to Karen at the funeral by saying, You married my father and I slept with your husband, so that makes us family in my book. Not only is it a great line, but some of us needed that refresher course.

Driver is great here and Lorraine gets some really good gags  especially when she wants to help Karen by stealing her car, getting an eight ball, going to Atlantic City, and whatever happens, happens  but she really has no purpose. When Leslie Jordan reprised his role of Beverly Leslie last week, he and Karen had a whole hilarious story line about trying to convince Beverlys wife that hes really straight. Lorraine just seems tacked on, like there was a small window in Drivers schedule (she is currently starring in Speechless on another network, after all), so she had to be in this episode, and they needed to find her a few things to do.

(A quick aside: Karen mentioned a few episodes ago that shes still married to Stan, but Lorraine was with Stan when he died. So what, exactly, from the past seasons are we supposed to believe and what are was just supposed to dismiss? Its a silly sitcom, one way or another, but I think we need some delineation of what is canon and what was just silliness that were pushing aside in order to keep the series going.)

One of the problems with the original Will & Grace was that it started to rely too much on guest stars to give it oomph. So far, with this revival, theyre doing something similar, but each week it seems like theyre dragging out a deep cut or a character from the past for one more go-round. If this thing is going to stick, it needs to do so on its own merits, which means relying on the core four.

Because, man, are they great. Will and Graces stupid squabble about him getting a lease for the office next to Graces is dumb, but they both get their moment to excel. Grace goes over to Karen, who is grieving in the bar next to Rosarios funeral, and starts sobbing about her own mothers funeral. Will also gets to go over and have a tender moment with Karen.

But it is Jack who steals scenes the entire episode, from him scarfing down Rosarios Jell-O to trying to convince the priests and nuns at Rosarios funeral that they were living as man and wife. My personal favorite was when he had to bring the books full of magic spells (a.k.a. Bibles) into the church and threw them into each pew before joining Will and Grace on the altar.

And then theres a scene that will go down in W&G history and inspire a thousand GIFs: Jack going next door to the bar to cheer Karen up, but she winds up forcing him to sing and dance. He belts out a very awkward version of Pharrells Happy while going from the Electric Slide to the Ease on Down the Road to the choreography from the Thriller video like hes just walking down the street. It is a damn fine comedic performance.

Megan Mullally is trying to get (another) Emmy with her performance in this episode, whether its pretending that she doesnt know what happened after Rosario died or getting angry with Jack and everyone else to make sure that Rosarios funeral slash quinceanera goes off without a hitch. She is great, of course, giving some killer lines like, Ive been on my own since I was nine months old. I breastfed myself, with a typical lift of one boob. Or my personal favorite: Arent we all just whores looking for a dirty pole to take one last ride on? Karen is firing on all cylinders this episode, and she caps it all off with a nice, sweet moment, where she finally mourns Rosario in her own special way. I think well all miss Rosario very much, but at least we have Jack and Karen (and Will and Grace, too, I guess) to look forward to when the show returns after its winter hiatus.
By PTI: Bengaluru, Nov 3 (PTI) Doctors at nearly 45,000 private hospitals and nursing homes in Karnataka staged protests today against the proposed "draconian" amendments to an act governing the medical profession, badly affecting services in out-patient departments (OPD).

The doctors are opposing the proposed amendments to the Karnataka Private Medical Establishments Act, 2007, to make the private hospitals and nursing homes accountable, saying they were detrimental to the medical profession.

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Protesting against the proposed amendments based on the recommendations madeby retired Supreme Court judge Justice Vikramajit Sen, the doctors suspended outpatient and consultancy services.

Nearly 45,000 private hospitals, including those attached to medical colleges, nursing homes,and clinics across the state were affected by the one-day agitation, claimed Indian Medical Associations state unit president H N Ravindra.

Only emergency cases were taken up, he added.

There were huge crowds outside government hospitals, that were open for out-patients.

Flaying the proposed amendments, Ravindra said, "The government hastabled a draconian amendment to the KPME Act, which existedsince 2007. It is detrimental to the profession."

The governmentintended to set up another cell, although doctors already facemany penalties through consumer court.

"It wants us doctors torun around the courts," he said, adding that there was another provision for imprisoning doctors for three years for mistakes.

"No doctor treats his patient to kill. Instead of upgrading government hospitals, the government wants to regulate us. We demand that the government should include government hospitals also in the bill," Ravindra said.

Medical Director of Manipal Hospitals NagendraSwamy came down heavily on the government for theamendments.

He claimed that the Justice Sen panel had recommended inclusion ofgovernment hospitals in the bill, but the recommendation had been dropped.

"Why should the onus be only on private hospitals while there is no accountability for the government hospitals?" Dr Swamy asked.

He alleged that the move was as an "election gimmick" to woo voters in the state, which is going to Assembly polls early next year.

The Karnataka Janaarogya Chaluvali, a network of civil society and local organisations working on health issues, condemnedthe agitation by private medical establishments, saying they were opposing the governments attempt to hold themaccountable, adhere to the safety guidelines and patientsrights.

It also alleged that the private hospitals werespreading "misinformation" by "twisting and misrepresenting"various provisions of the amendments. PTI GMS RA VS SMN

--- ENDS ---
Trump, who was tweeting again just hours later, didn't say anything about what had happened.

By India Today Web Desk: Donald Trump's Twitter account, a handle tracked by 41.7 million users, was briefly deactivated on Thursday, the social networking website has revealed.

Twitter said "human error" was at fault.

Earlier today @realdonaldtrumps account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee. The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again.- Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017

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Hours later, the US President was tweeting again, and didn't have anything to say about the temporary suspension of his account.

Some Twitter users were unhappy that the handle was re-activated.

who do we have to bribe to get this to "inadvertently" happen permanently- ????? (@uncreativecat) November 3, 2017

NO NO TAKE HIM OFF TWITTER PLEASE- beth harris (@bethharrisLA) November 3, 2017

Why...please let it go away forever!- Out of the Blue (@BlueHaiku2) November 3, 2017

Others were full of praise for the employee responsible for the "human error."

This employee should be awarded the EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH! 11 whole minutes of not seeing a tweet from trump was a blessing!- ilesa Chidester? (@isee61) November 3, 2017

Please ensure this does happen again and promote whoever 'inadvertently' did it.- Sara (@sarniejewell) November 3, 2017

Dear unnamed Twitter employee--we love you and want you to know you did a good thing today. Thank you for those wonderful eleven minutes.- Goddamnit Emily (@emilythebruce) November 3, 2017

That person is a HERO- Kate (@KateChief) November 3, 2017

Please dont... And give that employee a raise- Burt McGirt (@xBurtMcGirtx) November 3, 2017

Who ever it was deserves a raise.- Mr NASCAR (@NascarBettor) November 3, 2017

Whoever committed this "human error" needs a promotion.- James (@JamesFTW) November 3, 2017

Whoever deactivated the account deserves a raise and promotion.- Patrick (@PatrickMCausey) November 3, 2017

Donald Trump is the most-followed world leader on Twitter. His tweets, which are frequent, emotional, and often riddled with spelling errors, reach an audience far greater than Prime Minister Narendra Modi's.

In fact, when Modi visited Trump at the White House earlier this year, the US President said he and his guest were "world leaders in social media."

WATCH VIDEO | US President Trump's Twitter account deactivated for 11 minutes, probe on

--- ENDS ---
Future challenges faced by the Texas economy with trade, immigration and border governance policies were the focus of a recent symposium convened by the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs and its Texas 2030 Project. Some eye-opening facts emerged.

Todays Texas economy depends heavily on international trade and is built around technology, energy-related goods and professional services. Texas exports more goods than any other state by a large margin  40 percent more than the next largest exporter, California. Yet the California economy is 50 percent larger than that of Texas.

The flash point reshaping U.S. trade policy is NAFTA. Economic studies show the trade agreement having a small, positive impact on the economy overall. In practical terms, the winners from this agreement gained enough to more than offset the economic pain of the losers. But there has been little effort to cushion these losses.

Result: todays highly charged NAFTA debate with winner and loser industries and regions. Since NAFTA trade is nearly half of Texas exports, Texas is one of the largest net winner states. But within Texas, winners and losers co-exist: An expert identified the major urban centers where most Texans live as doing well; along the border and in patches of West Texas, less so.

Immigration will also affect our economic future. As with trade, there are winners and losers. Studies show the biggest winners are those with the most education; the big losers were those with the least education. Texas is well above average in the share of immigrants in its work force  more than 21 percent  compared with a U.S. average of 17 percent. The jobs that immigrants hold are vital to some of Texas fastest-growing industries.

The most difficult and divisive problem faced by the Texas economy involves an unpleasant reality: drug and human trafficking. Along our border, these activities form a single, integrated underground industry. It makes above-ground activities more difficult and expensive and reduces quality of life. The de facto security zone that now exists along the Texas border slows trade and commerce and disrupts it wildlife, conservation and tourism activities.

One thing is clear: If diminished access to U.S. markets were to significantly reduce employment opportunities in export industries to our south, increased flows of migrants should be expected. Flows of unauthorized immigrants surged after the Mexican economic crisis of the mid-1990s. At the end of the day, several more points were clear. Texas recent economic growth and economic future are closely tied to U.S. success competing in a world economy.

The global industrial supply chains that were created because of NAFTA and other trade agreements clearly have provided a net economic benefit to Texas. Texans should resist changes to trade policy that do not take their interests into account. The large automotive assembly plants run by Toyota in San Antonio and General Motors in Arlington, both highly dependent on component and subassembly manufacturing supply networks reaching deep into Mexico, exemplify how Texas gained from creation of global supply chains linked to our NAFTA neighbors. Similarly, we are more dependent than average on immigrants in our industries. Texans should pay close attention to details of more restrictive immigration policies that are being proposed because they may have outsized impacts on the Texas economy.

On the front line of an underground drug and human trafficking industry, our border with Mexico is destined to be a laboratory for immigration policy. Texans should work on developing new and innovative ideas  not sit back passively as others unfamiliar with our state contemplate costly and disruptive experiments in our backyard.

Texas continued economic success lies in making our state the best possible location for industries shaping up as the future of America  high technology, energy-related products and technology and professional services. Texas should be a leader in showing how investments in education, at all levels, make Texans winners from globalization, delivering economic benefits from both trade and immigration. With greater investment in its human and physical infrastructure, the entire Texas economy will flourish.
Mondays Waco Independent School District community meeting in East Waco on contingency plans for five academically struggling campuses at risk of closure saw more friction than a similar gathering a week earlier, but it culminated in a rallying cry by NAACP chapter president Peaches Henry for more commitment by those who volunteer to help. Thats exactly what itll take to reverse matters: commitment.

As Trib education writer Shelly Conlon reports, some community members Monday night got caught up in issues of demographics (including minority levels and discouraging poverty rates at the five campuses) and trust. The latter charge was mainly directed at the school board, sometimes for issues it was only partially involved in, such as the painful 2012 consolidation of local schools after the Texas Legislature cut billions of dollars in public school funding statewide. For the record, the board faced either teacher layoffs or campus consolidations. It chose campus consolidations.

New Superintendent A. Marcus Nelson  a bilingual African American (given that demographics appear relevant here)  never directly indicted parents for lack of engagement in helping prepare their children for school. Yet its clear he and his educators see some of the very same problems cited by others, including his predecessor. As the state share of public school funding has dropped and student accountability demanded by the state has increased, schools dealing with poverty wrestle daily with complex burdens that are sometimes rooted in home life.

I tell my team all the time, Were not a social service agency,  Nelson told the crowd. But to some kids we are. And for 98 percent of our kids coming to school, you know the first thing they do when they walk in? They need to eat because some of them havent eaten since Saturday. So when they walk in Monday, we have to feed our kids. Right now, as we speak, were having a coat drive at Central [Texas] Marketplace. You know why? Because its about to get cold and well have kids who dont have coats.

Nelson also touched on something we heard at an earlier meeting: community members who volunteer to help in campus tutoring and mentoring activities, then disappear after a few weeks: Its got to be one of those things where if you commit to come every Thursday at 3 oclock, its because youre going to work with little Evan till little Evan gets it. And its going to be hard work. But we dont need you on campus singing Kumbaya. We already got that. We dont need you to come on campus and shoot hoops. No, this is about instruction.

While Henry acknowledged some community-Waco ISD differences in the past, she correctly stressed the gravity of the challenge today facing struggling schools: This is now a we situation. Others need to consider that, whatever happened in the past, however justified they might be in the grievances they aired Monday night, they will share in the blame should these troubled campuses falter because of lack of community commitment and parental engagement. The end result: shuttered neighborhood schools and failed communities.
LYONS  Ensuring farmers and rural residents have a say in state and national policy is important to a Raymond Central graduate whose daily work aims to enrich the rural landscape.

Johnathan Hladik, who graduated from Raymond Central High School in 2002, currently serves as policy program director for the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons. The organization tasks itself with giving rural Americans a voice in how legislation is drafted.

Hladik grew up on a farm outside Valparaiso, so he understands that farmers and other rural residents sometimes feel their ideas arent fully heard by those in charge.

He said he hopes his work helps to change that perspective.

Thats by far the most satisfying element of it, he said. The best part is that theyre able to give you their input.

After graduating from Raymond Central, Hladik attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He studied economics there, before attending Vermont Law School.

Hes been with the CFRA for almost seven years now, and took his current position about two years ago.

He took an interest in conservation and environmental issues while attending Vermont Law School.

When I went to law school, I found an opportunity to study a lot of farm bill policy, he said. A lot of that came back to conservation and how farmers can be excellent stewards of the land.

The job at the CFRA allows Hladik to apply what he learned in school to the real world.

Having an interest in energy and conservation, Hladik said he enjoys looking for ways farmers could take advantage of renewable energy opportunities.

A big part of that is working to build a better network of transmission infrastructure. The question there is how can rural communities transfer energy from wind farms or solar farms to metropolitan areas.

New development requires a new generation of transmission infrastructure. Americas power grid was designed to carry energy from large generation stations to major population centers  not to utilize energy resources from rural areas, he wrote in a recent column on the CFRA website. As renewable technologies account for a growing share of electricity generation, the development of robust transmission infrastructure must keep pace.

Hladik can elaborate on that too.

Theres a lot of wind in the Midwest, and I think solar is picking up, he said recently. We often dont have infrastructure to give wind a place to go.

And communities cant benefit from renewable energy operations if theres no way to transmit it.

Its not going to do you much good, Hladik said.

But energy projects arent the only programs on which he and policy associates spend their time. They put it all together, from rural health issues to economic

concerns, to get a big picture view of the rural landscape.

From where I sit, I get to see how policy affects rural areas at large, Hladik said. I like to learn, and I like to have that 5,000-foot view.

A big part of getting that birds-eye view happens on the ground level, when CFRA associates travel rural areas to meet with farmers, workers and other stakeholders to get a report on whats really happening in the Heartland.

That feedback includes thoughts expressed by Hladiks family back home.

What I think is really great about the Center is that we just dont take policy positions because we have a hunch theyre right, he said. Im able to go back and talk to family.

The direction the CFRA takes on policy programs is shaped entirely by rural voices, Hladik said.

That means keeping an open mind to all viewpoints.

Were at our best when were independent, nonpartisan and objective, Hladik said. Its very important to me that we maintain and even build upon that reputation.
No explosives were found. The man was taken into custody and charged with one count of felony threats.

By India Today Web Desk: A 33-year-old man told a uniformed US Secret Service officer near the White House that he'd "dropped explosives" in the area, the agency said on Friday.

The man, Ervin Pettaway, was taken into custody and charged with one count of felony threats.

Officials put the White House - President Donald Trump's official residence - on lockdown for several minutes, and closed nearby streets to pedestrians. The lockdown was removed after about an hour, according to two US news reports.

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A sweep of the area didn't turn up any explosives, the Secret Service said.

A Washington Post report said a cellphone belonging to Pettaway was found.

The incident happened 19 minutes after Donald Trump left to begin a tour of Asia, the Associated Press reported.

(With inputs from AP)

ALSO WATCH | US President Trump's Twitter account deactivated for 11 minutes

--- ENDS ---
WAHOO  Area residents will soon notice a change of scenery around Lake Wanahoo.

On the cold and windy morning of Oct. 28, Life Scout Josh Varner of Wahoo and over one dozen Troop 140 Boy Scouts and Scout leaders installed one dozen signs and waste bins to encourage safe disposal of fishing line and garbage.

After a demonstration by Varner, the group split up to install the signs and bins, while walking around the Lake Wanahoo trails to pick up any garbage they could find.

Varner explained that this was part of his project to attain the Eagle Scout rank, which is the highest rank a Boy Scout can achieve.

Following this, Varner explained he will submit a report to the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) detailing the project expenses and hours put in by everyone involved in the effort. The report will also reflect on what did and didnt work, as well as what he learned from the experience.

If the report is approved by the BSA, Varner will be promoted to the rank of Eagle Scout.

In addition to working towards the Eagle Scout honor, Varner said he felt a very personal connection to this project, due to his appreciation of the outdoors and Lake Wanahoo.

Me and my family come here to fish sometimes, Varner said.

Varner added that unused fishing lines have been a major source of pollution for the lake for quite some time, often completely covering rocks.

Varner pointed out it was not uncommon for birds to ingest unused fishing line or become tangled up in it.

As a result, Varner said he wanted to carry out this project to give the lake a fresh start.

Varner said the Eagle Scout process was long. It had been in the planning ever since June, and he had to submit a written proposal to the BSA. The project then had to be submitted to and approved by Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.

In addition, Varner said that he had to raise money to pay for the costs of the signs and materials needed for the project.

In spite of the long, hard work, Varner said it was all worth it and that he could give back to the community of Wahoo.

I think the community is going to appreciate a cleaner lake, he said.

Pack 140 Cub Scout Master Dave Varner said that he felt his son will be more than worthy of the Eagle Scout rank after this project.

Hes been a self-starter, very motivated to move up through the ranks of the Boy Scouts, Varner said.
CERESCO  Raymond Central students and their families eager to go globe-trotting can look forward to a Friday evening event that brings diverse cultures into one local location.

The Raymond Central PTO will once again bring the annual Multicultural Night to the Ceresco Elementary gym this Friday. And, as usual, there will be plenty to see and do.

As organizers are well aware, traveling the world isnt an opportunity available to everyone.

I know thats not possible, said Maureen Brase-Houchin. So this is a way to bring a piece of the world to our little town.

Brase-Houchin and other PTO members have organized the event for four years in a row now, and its becoming a popular night for the Raymond Central School District.

The event came to be when the PTO was trying to think of something new to offer students. Somewhat new to the PTO, Brase-Houchin offered up the idea.

They just were discussing thinking of ideas for an event, she said. I just said oh, have you had a multicultural night? They said can you organize it, and I said OK.

She learned the event would be a bit more difficult to put together than expected, due to performers and presenters schedules and transportation.

But it did come together well in the end, and this year will bring just as wide a variety of experiences as prior years nights.

This year features an Irish bagpipe performance by Dr. Jimmy Shelbourn; Hawaiian Hula by Gwen Cook; Azerbaijan singing by Rufat Dargahli; and a joint performance with Roz Hussin doing Taichi and Kokyo Taiko doing Japanese drumming.

Kokyo Taiko, Brase-Houchins own group, has performed each year. They plan to mix it up this year.

This time for the multicultural night we plan on bringing our big drum, so that will be something different, she said. We need a few people to carry it, and we need more space, so thats why we dont always bring it.

There will also be exhibits representing Malaysia, England, Mexico, Ireland, Japan, Rwanda, South Korea, Pakistan, South Sudan, Vietnam, China, the Ivory Coast, Azerbaijan and Hawaii.

At those exhibits, students and their families will be able to talk with presenters to learn more about their home cultures. The presenters tables will display artifacts, clothing, books and may include games or other activities.

The Ivory Coast, Malaysia and Azerbaijan are all new to the event, Brase-Houchin said. Overall, there will be 14 tables to visit that evening.

It will be a squeeze into the gymnasium, Brase-Houchin said.

The PTO has also recruited a chef from That Place in Ceresco to prepare Greek, Indian and Brazilian dishes. Along with a meal, the chef will explain what makes each dish unique.

It will be educational even ordering your meal, Brase-Houchin said.

The organizers hope the event gives residents an opportunity to learn about and appreciate other cultures and people.

Even trying different foods and seeing what other cultures can bring to this society is important, Brase-Houchin said. Sometimes people are never exposed to that, espe-cially coming from a small town.

The experience also provides a way for attendees to identify with other cultures.

It also helps the students and kids and families to see these people from other places as just like us, Brase-Houchin said. They smile the same, theyre just as kind, they love their families the same.

The evening begins at 5:30 p.m. when exhibits open. Performances start at 6:15 p.m., ending at 7 p.m. Exhibits will then re-open from 7 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Ceresco Elementary is located at 114 South Third Street in Ceresco.
Frecce Tricolori to fly over Rome on 4 November.

Italian president Sergio Mattarella will attend the annual ceremony at Romes Altare della Patria to mark national unity and armed forces on the morning of Wednesday 4 November.

Accompanied by Italy's defence minister Lorenzo Guerini, the president will lay a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Piazza Venezia in honour of Italys war dead and casualties of international peacekeeping missions.

This year, due to the covid-19 emergency, there will be no military display which usually comprises more than 3,000 troops, reports Italian news agency ANSA.

However there will be the flypast by the Italian air forces Frecce Tricolori aerial acrobatic team, emitting plumes of the three colours from the Italian flag.

The date of the annual military ceremony, 4 November, coincides with the anniversary of the armistice of Villa Giusti in 1918, which ended world war one on the Italian front.
After some years of uncertainty over her future, Avro Lancaster AR.10 KB882 arrived safely at her new home with the National Air Force Museum of Canada in Trenton, Ontario during early October. As we reported HERE, the museum took ownership of KB882 in a public ceremony at Manawaska Municipal Airport in Edmundston, New Brunswick on September 20th, 2017. The WWII combat-veteran bomber had been on outdoor display in Edmundston since the end of her RCAF service in 1964. While the City of Edmundston had looked after her carefully during the past half century, there is only so long an aircraft can remain outdoors on a shoestring budget before serious problems arise. Not wanting their precious heritage to degrade further, the City reluctantly decided to part ways with KB882, but it took some time to find the right organization to ensure KB882s preservation for future generations to come. She remains the last complete Lancaster in the world configured in her post-war, RCAF configuration, and, uniquely, still retains the extended nose of an Arctic Reconnaissance variant.

A team of military and civilian personnel from the Royal Canadian Air Forces Aerospace and Telecommunications Engineering Support Squadron (ATESS) as well as the National Air Force Museum of Canada began disassembling the aircraft the day before the handover ceremony.

Given that KB882 had been sitting outside for so long, the team expected the process to take many weeks, with a projected completion date in late October. However, major components were already on their way to Trenton within a week of commencing disassembly.

They progressed so quickly that the wing tips and other wing components had already arrived in Trenton by October 29th.

According to the RCAF press release

This is the third time that ATESS (or its predecessor, No. 6 Repair Depot at Mountain View, near Trenton) has worked on KB882 as the aircraft passed through their capable hands in 1954 and 1964. It is fitting that the same unit that helped prepare KB882 for its journey to Edmundston in May, 1964 is involved now in its move to the museum in Trenton, noted Brigadier-General Howden.

The first challenge was simply moving the aircraft forward from the grassy area where it had rested for years onto the airport tarmac, only a few feet away. First, the bomb bay doors had to be removed so slings could be placed around it. A local 60-tonne crane was engaged to move the aircraft, which has a dry weight of 36,900 pounds (16,738 kilograms). The move was accomplished in six or eight hops of 10 feet (three metres) each, with the aircraft being lifted only a foot (30 centimetres) off the ground with each hop forward. The move, which took a full day, was managed by the recovery and salvage support (RASS) team from ATESS.

Enthusiasm is running high among members of the ATESS team. Its an amazing aircraft, said Master Warrant Officer Dean Thompson of ATESS. The guys are keen to get the job done.

It wasnt built to dismantle, he added, saying that the team is preserving whatever they can, and aiming to dismantle as little as possible to make the restorers work easier. He also noted that the aircraft was simply landed and put in place; there was even still oil in the engines. It was just like tar! he said.

Public display in 2024

KB882 will go directly into the restoration shop at the NAFMC upon its arrival in Trenton. Restoration work is expected to take five to seven years, and KB882 will then be permanently displayed inside a new wing of the museum that will be constructed to house it and other museum aircraft. When it goes on display, the NAFMC will be the only museum in the world to have in its collection both a fully restored Handley Page Halifax and a fully restored Avro Lancaster.

The grand opening and unveiling of KB882 is planned for April 1, 2024, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air Force. KB882 will be a valuable anchor for commemorative activities, a beacon for the preservation of Canadas history and heritage, and a shining example of Edmundstons community spirit, said Brigadier-General Howden.

So, let us gather all together in 2024 in Trenton . . . to visit our old friend KB882 during the celebration of the RCAFs 100th anniversary, suggested Mayor Simard to the audience at the transfer of ownership ceremony.
By PTI: New Delhi, Nov 3 (PTI) The ED has issued fresh summons asking Tejashwi Yadav, son of RJD leader Lalu Prasad, to appear before it on November 13 in connection with its money laundering probe in the railway hotels allotment corruption case, officials sources today said.

The fresh date has been issued after theformer Bihar deputy chief minister skipped similar summons of appearance for October 31, they said.

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The fresh date for his appearance is November 13 now, they added.

The agency had registered a case against Lalu Prasad, his family members and others under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) sometime back.

Tejashwis mother and former Bihar chief minister Rabri has already been asked by the ED to appear before it on November 7, for questioning in the case.

Tejashwi has been once grilled by the ED for over nine hours in connection with the case but he later skipped four summonses to appear again.

Rabri Devi too has skipped the ED summonses at least five times.

In July, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had registered an FIR and conducted multiple searches on the properties of Lalu Prasad, who is also a former Bihar chief minister, and others.

The CBI FIR has alleged that Lalu Prasad during his tenure as the railway minister handed over the maintenance of two Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) hotels to a company in 2004 after receiving a bribe in the form of a prime land in Patna through a benami company owned by Sarla Gupta, wife of Prem Chand Gupta, a former Union minister.

The ED had registered a criminal case against his family members and others under the PMLA, based on the CBI FIR.

The CBI also recently recorded the statements of Tejashwi and Lalu Prasad in this case.

The ED is investigating the alleged "proceeds of crime" generated by the accused, purportedly through shell companies, according to officials.

Others named in the CBI FIR include Vijay Kochhar, Vinay Kochhar (both directors of Sujata Hotels), Delight Marketing company, now known as Lara Projects, and the then IRCTC managing director P K Goel.

The CBI FIR was registered on July 5 in connection with favours allegedly extended to Sujata Hotels in awarding a contract for the upkeep of the hotels in Ranchi and Puri and receiving premium land as quid pro quo. PTI NES DV

--- ENDS ---

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Adelaide star Rory Sloane says he won't put a timeline on a decision about his future ahead of a year in which he becomes an unrestricted free agent.

The tough Crows midfielder, who was has polled 44 Brownlow Medal votes across the past two seasons, is out of contract at the end of 2018, which is his 10th season in Adelaide.

Adelaide's Rory Sloane. Credit:Justin McManus

Sloane, who turns 28 in March, is expected to be highly sought-after, especially in his home state of Victoria.

However the Adelaide vice-captain said he was in no hurry to recommit, setting the scene for what shapes as one of the major AFL storylines next year.
It is appropriate that, as his government unravels, Malcolm Turnbull is visiting Israel, where existential threats to survival constitute the routine of daily life. His hosts' insouciance in the face of pervasive danger seems to have affected our own Prime Minister, who is avowedly experiencing unprecedented fun and zest for life. I do not lightly dismiss Turnbull's claim. His self-regard is boundless and holding office is its own reward. He may well be having the time of his life.

And there is evidence he has not lost his sense of humour. The date of the byelection for New England, occasioned by the citizenship woes of his former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, is December 2. That is the anniversary of the election of the Whitlam government in 1972. When the hapless William McMahon finally called that election Whitlam grandly noted it was also the anniversary of the Battle of Austerlitz, where Napoleon had routed another "ramshackle" and "reactionary" coalition.

Illustration: Simon Letch

Given Turnbull's business and personal links to the Whitlam dynasty, it is unlikely such a coincidence would have eluded him. Indeed, Turnbull's obvious warmth towards Gough Whitlam, Neville Wran and Paul Keating has long been a source of consternation among Coalition colleagues. To Liberal hardliners, Turnbull has always been somewhat suspect as a careerist devoid of ideology.

Despite his abundant talents and vaulting self-belief, Turnbull's political career seems to be drifting towards final, ignominious failure. His legacy may resemble Billy McMahon's rather than Whitlam's. Turnbull has never been able to seize and retain the political initiative since his languid, directionless double-dissolution election campaign last year. The same polls, which provided the rationale for his elevation to the leadership, are now remorselessly squeezing the life out of his government. The reckoning cannot be far off.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued show cause notice to Kashmiri separatist leaders Mohd. Yasin Malik, Mushtaq Ahmad Dar and Shamima alias Shazia alias Bitti under Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

By Munish Pandey: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued show cause notice to Kashmiri separatist leaders Mohd. Yasin Malik, Mushtaq Ahmad Dar and Shamima alias Shazia alias Bitti under Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

The ED has mentioned in the show cause notice that, "Mushtaq Ahmed had illegally received, acquired and got hold of USD 1,00,000 (equivalent to Rs 48.23 lakh) and illegally imported USD 30,000 (equivalent to Rs 44.5 lakh) into India without any permission from Reserve Bank."

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ED added that show cause notice is being served to "Shamima wife of Mushtaq Dar for illegally acquiring and holding, transferring and illegally importing foreign currency of USD 70,000 (equivalent to Rs 33.7 lakh) into India without any permission from Reserve Bank."

Yasin Mailk is allegedly involved in illegal dealing of USD 1,00,000 (equivalent to Rs 48.23 lakh).

The agency has asked all the accused to reply in writing within 30 days that why FEMA should not be held against them. ED has already initiated investigation in this case and will soon be calling them to appear before the agency in person or through legal practitioner or chartered accountant.

The show cause notice to the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief was issued on October 26 and all of them have to file their reply before November 26. In 2001 FIR was filed by the Jammu and Kashmir police, which seized USD 1,00,000 (about Rs 48.23 lakh according to conversion rates at the time) from Mushtaq Ahmad Dar and his wife Shamima alias Shazia alas Bitti. Yaseen Malik was arrested in this case, but was later released on bail.

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A police officer has been hit on the head with an axe handle, while another was struck to the jaw with a can of beer as they tried to apprehend a suspect near Albany.

Police were called to a disturbance at a house on Carbine Street in Orana around 5pm on Thursday afternoon.

Three police officers have been assaulted at a home near Albany. Credit:Robert Shakespeare

Officers attempted to stop and talk to a man near the property but he fled to a residence on a neighbouring street.

When police attempted to enter the house, they were confronted by a large number of aggressive people.
Lilley once wrote a letter to Freddy Krueger actor Robert Englund, saying she viewed the character as a father figure. Credit:Supreme Court of Western Australia In her fictional book about murder and torture, the main character was a man named SOS, a nickname she would later give to herself. Her house was filled with knives, dolls of the horror film character Chucky, and drawings of knife-wielding figures. Photos taken by police inside Lilley's home show several Chucky dolls. Credit:Supreme Court of Western Australia Lilley told the jury her set of knifes (left) was for cooking. Credit:Supreme Court of Western Australia

On June 13, 2016, the deadly fictional world Lilley had created would become reality. Aaron Pajich's body was found in the backyard of an Orelia home in June 2016. Her victim would be Aaron Pajich, an 18-year-old teenager with Asperger's syndrome. Aaron lived with a church friend and was known to go walkabout at times. Lilley and Lenon thought no one would miss him.

They were wrong. "I wonder how long shel [sic] drag it out for, hopefully not too long," wrote Lilley to Lenon, after Aaron's parents made their first public pleas in the media for help to find their missing son. His parents Sharon Pajich and Keith Sweetman, and step-mother Veronica Desmond, however, continued to make public appeals for their son, and when police confirmed his body had been found buried underneath a concrete slab, the community mourned. Hundreds turned out to a candlelight vigil to remember Aaron. Hundreds more attended his funeral, with standing room only at the Rockingham service. As many as 300 people came out for the touching tribute to 18-year-old Aaron Pajich. Credit:Facebook

His primary school teacher, Megan Wiassa shared a moving tribute during the funeral, describing how Mr Pajich's Asperger's syndrome let him "see the world through different eyes". "Azza had a big heart and a loving trusting nature with a lot of love to give... he was joyful, helpful [and] always had a smile on his face," she said. "I love all of my students, but I have a special bond with Aaron... I guided him, I laughed with him and I tried my best to prepare him for that big bright world." She described how Aaron once invited her to his birthday party and although she tried to explain to him that she couldn't go because she was his teacher, his answer convinced her to bend the rules. "He said, 'but Ms Wiassa, you're not my teacher, you're my friend'," she said.

Aaron Pajich was remembered at his funeral as a gentle soul with a pure heart. Credit:Heather McNeill Many spoke about his innocence, his trusting nature  borne from his Asperger's syndrome. But to his killers, that innocence made him their target. He was lured to Rockingham shopping centre the day of his death by family friend Lenon. Lenon, left, buying hydrochloric acid from Bunnings. Lilley, right, the day of Mr Pajich's murder. Credit:Supreme Court of Western Australia

At 10.30am, home security footage from Lilley's Broughton Way house captured the trio walking into the home. Aaron never came out alive. The computer-savy teenager had placed a USB in the home's computer, leading police to believe he may have thought he was there to help install some software. He had no idea the two women in the room with him had been fantasising about killing someone for weeks. The pair had days earlier gone to two separate Bunnings' to purchase "substantial amounts" of hydrochloric acid and sealable drums big enough to place a body inside.

A pot of hydrochloric acid mixed with meat found in the women's garage. Credit:Supreme Court of Western Australia A sauce pot found in the garage showed the pair had been experimenting how meat reacted to the acid. The women had covered the walls of a store room in their house with tarpaulin. They were ready for their first victim. The Orelia home's store room had been covered in tarpaulin. Police believe Mr Pajich's body was kept here before he was buried. Credit:Supreme Court of Western Australia

Vision released by the Supreme Court on Friday showed Lenon walking out the back of the house shortly after Aaron arrived. She walked towards the shed and returned with what appeared to be a large knife concealed in her trousers. She pulled it out just as she went to re-enter the house. It was 11am. Police believe Aaron was murdered shortly after he arrived at the house. State prosecuting lawyer James McTaggart told the women's murder trial Lilley had later bragged to a work colleague about how Aaron was killed.

"She described how she stabbed a person and then as if to convince [him] of the story... she told him about publicity surrounding the case and showed him a photo of Mr Pajich," he told the jury. "She wore Aaron Pajich's murder as some sort of badge of honour." Mr McTaggart said Lilley described in detail what she did, saying 'it was harder than I thought it would be' and 'there was blood everywhere'. After Aaron's death a large section of carpet near the home's computer was cut out of the floor and covered by a rug. The black couch once in the living room had disappeared and was replaced by a white one.

The cut out piece of carpet where Aaron was murdered was cut out and covered with a rug and couch. Credit:Supreme Court of Western Australia Photos released by the court on Friday showed the area of the backyard where the women buried Aaron's body, wrapped in plastic sheeting. He had been stabbed multiple times, garrotted and had cling film around his face. His grave had been clumsily covered over by a freshly laid cement slab and orange tiles. The tiling used to hide Mr Pajich's buried body. Credit:Supreme Court of Western Australia

The next day Lilley texted Lenon, 'I'm seeing things I haven't seen before and feeling things I haven't felt before', to which Ms Lenon replied: 'You're welcome SOS'. Lilley tattooed Lenon with a mark resembling the initials SOS days after the murder. Credit:Supreme Court of Western Australia Lilley had previously been described by Lenon as a "literal psychopath" who she admired and feared. A regular in Perth's underground BDSM (bondage, domination, submission and masochism) scene, Lenon had agreed to become Lilley's submissive and had moved in with her weeks before the murder. Messages between the two women tendered in court. Credit:Supreme Court of Western Australia

Lilley, in her handwritten note tendered in court, said she believed she could "manipulate" those around her. "Scripting situations is easy for me now, maybe I enjoy doing this because when I was young I never had the ability to script my own life and so I just take it too far and script others without them even knowing that I am doing it," she wrote. "They believe they control their speech and action when they are just mere puppets [sic] scripted to my invisible play." Loading Lilley, however, wasn't able to create a script the jury would buy.
Tokyo: Ivanka Trump lauded the Japanese government's efforts to increase female workforce participation during a speech in Tokyo on Friday, giving a high-profile boost to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's "Womenomics" initiative.

"Womenomics recognises the centrality of women, who represent roughly half of our global population, in achieving true economic growth," US President Donald Trump's eldest daughter said at the World Assembly for Women, hosted by Japan's Foreign Ministry.

Ivanka Trump, right, adviser to and daughter of US President Donald Trump, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attend a meeting of the World Assembly for Women in Tokyo. Credit:AP

"When women work, it creates a unique multiplier effect: women are more likely than men to hire other women, to give them access to capital, mentorship and networks."

Japan ranks 114 out of 144 countries in the World Economic Forum's global gender gap survey, released on Thursday. The country has seen reversals of progress in the number of women in positions of political power, according to the report. Only two of the 24 ministers in Abe's cabinet are women.
In this, we learned that a member of Trump's team was offered hacked emails damaging to Hillary Clinton by people he "understood to have substantial connections to Russian government officials", that he was encouraged by his superiors to pursue the lead, tried to set up an "off the record" meeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin, and then lied to the FBI about it. Robert Mueller in 2013. Credit:AP Mueller's reputation as a relentless prosecutor is deserved. Trump loyalists have cause to be concerned. "They're worried about him, not just because of what he's on to, but because he's extremely good," says Samuel Buell, who prosecuted the Enron case and now teaches law at Duke University. Paul Manafort, a former campaign worker for Donald Trump. Credit:Bloomberg

"He also has a sterling independent reputation. If you're saying Mueller can't be fair, you're showing that it isn't really about fairness: you just don't want the guy doing the job." The President, in a call with a New York Times reporter, projected blithe confidence: "I'm not under investigation, as you know  It has nothing to do with us." Then Trump campaign aide Rick Gates at the Republican National Convention in 2016. Credit:AP His chief of staff, John Kelly, told Fox News: "I think the reaction of the administration is let the legal justice system work, everyone's innocent until  presumed innocent  and we'll see where it goes." This is at odds with the message being hammered home on Fox. This version of reality has it that Mueller is compromised by his relationship with sacked FBI director James Comey, that the Clinton campaign "colluded" by funding the infamous Steele dossier documenting Trump's Russian ties, and that the "real scandal" is a uranium deal with the Russian nuclear agency, supposedly approved by Clinton in return for bribes.

Sam Clovis with then Republican candidate Donald Trump in 2016. Credit:AP Jeanine Pirro, the host of Justice with Judge Jeanine, put it bluntly: "Special Counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller must be fired immediately. His role as head of the FBI during the uranium deal and the Russian extortion case, his friendship with Jim Comey, demand his firing." Manafort and his associate Rick Gates have pleaded not guilty to all charges, and the defiant statement from Manafort's lawyer, asserting that "the Russia collusion narrative is fake news", indicates Mueller may have a hard time turning the former campaign chairman against his old boss. Paul Manafort, left, leaves Federal District Court in Washington on Monday. Credit:AP "An indictment has a way of focusing the mind," says former assistant US attorney Randall Eliason, now a law professor at George Washington University.

"[Manafort] has been resistant, clearly, but now that he's faced with the reality of more than a decade in prison  his incentive to co-operate has got dramatically greater." Papadopoulos was arrested on July 27, and pleaded guilty to the relatively minor charge of making false statements on October 5. In a motion to keep the case sealed, Mueller's team described him as a "proactive cooperator" - language that suggests he has been secretly recording conversations with his former colleagues. "Normally when federal investigators work with a witness in that form, they want tape recordings," says Buell. The Washington Post has identified the unnamed supervisors in court documents as Manafort, Gates, campaign co-chair Sam Clovis and campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Attorney-General Jeff Sessions is also implicated, as he attended the March 31 "national security" meeting at which Papadopolous pitched his Russian connections. Sessions now faces accusations of lying under oath at his confirmation hearing, where he denied any knowledge of contact between the Trump campaign and Russia.

"The mere fact that they were party to conversations does not suggest culpability," says Jacob Frenkel, a former federal prosecutor. "There is conduct here that may be perceived as sinister and unseemly, but  if the Russians had already developed a body of information about Hillary Clinton, and nobody in the Trump camp induced or enticed Russians to secure that information, then there may be no violation of law." Eliason disagrees, and says there are "a number of different options" prosecutors could pursue, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The Manafort and Gates indictments and the Papadopoulos plea deal are merely the first cards Mueller is showing. Meanwhile Trump's defenders are jumping to the task. Fox host and Trump confidant Sean Hannity has been warning of a "deep state conspiracy" to undermine the President for months, and has hosted guests pushing the thoroughly debunked Uranium One story  the sale of a controlling stake in a Canadian mining company, approved by several regulatory bodies  more than 30 times. "This has been a HORRIBLE week for Mueller," Hannity tweeted. "THIS IS ALL A DISTRACTION."

In the Wall Street Journal, David Rivkin and Lee Casey called for Trump to issue "a blanket presidential pardon to anyone involved in supposed collusion with Russia", suggesting this would be analogous to Abraham Lincoln pardoning Confederate soldiers after the US Civil War. New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin argued that "special counsel Robert Mueller will never be able to untangle the tangled webs with any credibility and needs to step aside". (Fox, the Journal and the Post are all owned by Rupert Murdoch.) Republican congressman Devin Nunes has announced an investigation into the Uranium One deal, in partnership with Trey Gowdy, who led the Benghazi hearings that attempted to pin responsibility for the deaths of four Americans killed in a terrorist attack on Clinton. As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes is also charged with investigating Russian interference in the presidential election, but is manifestly too partisan to do so credibly.

But could Trump fire Mueller, as his supporters crave? Republican senator Roy Blunt has said it would be "a big mistake", and fellow Republicans Charles Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Mike Lee and John McCain have all issued coded warnings. Trump is weak  his legislative agenda is stalled and his approval rating is historically low, at 33 per cent in the latest Gallup poll  but he continues to enjoy the support of his own party, at least in public. "When push comes to shove, what are Republicans in Congress going to do? That is the ultimate question here," says Buell. "We're getting mixed signals." Trump certainly has the constitutional right to pardon Manafort, should he so desire. In August he pardoned sheriff Joe Arpaio, who had been convicted of contempt of court for refusing to stop racially profiling Hispanic drivers. As well as a nod to his white nationalist base, this was a signal that Trump will look after his own, using all available powers. A pardon would only apply to federal crimes, and New York Attorney-General Eric Schneiderman also has Manafort in his sights. Anyone pardoned would lose their Fifth Amendment right to silence, should Mueller later call on them to testify. Plus, pardoning Manafort may cost Trump more political capital than he has to spend.
Bangkok: The United Nations' human rights chief has lashed out at the Turnbull government, expressing "serious concerns" over the welfare, safety and well-being of more than 600 refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island.

In a blunt statement issued in Geneva, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, described the situation on the Papua New Guinea island as an "unfolding humanitarian emergency".

Refugees and asylum seekers protesting inside the now-closed regional processing facility on Manus Island, which they refuse to leave.

"All migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers are human beings," Prince Zeid said through a spokesman.

"Like all of us, they have a right to a safe and secure environment, a right to an adequate standard of living and to participate in the decision-making process that is affecting their future," the spokesman said.
By PTI: terrorism: Goel

Jammu, Nov 3 (PTI) Union minister Vijay Goel said tonight that the killing of a BJP youth wing leader in Kashmir has strengthened the resolve of the government to stamp out terrorism from the state.

"It has further strengthened our resolve to stamp out terrorism from Jammu and Kashmir, instead of getting demoralised. These incidents cannot stop us," Goel, a senior BJP leader, told reporters here.

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The body of 30-year-old Gowhar Hussain Bhat, who was kidnapped by militants, was recovered from an orchard in Kiloora in Shopian district of south Kashmir yesterday with his throat slit.

Bhat, a resident of Bonagam in Shopian, 52 km from Srinagar, was the district president of the Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha.

"Gowhar has joined the BJP two years ago. He was a strong youth leader of the party. We condemn his killing in a cowardly act by terrorists. BJP president Amit Shah has condemned and also expressed concern over the killing," Goel said.

"Such terror incidents have taken place in the past, but they have not been able to demoralise the government and the BJP. Instead, such attacks strengthened our resolve," he said in reply to a question whether it was an act to demoralise the BJP and the government.

The Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Statistics and Programme Implementation was here to review the progress of various central-sponsored projects in the state.

On the ceasefire violations by Pakistan, the minister said, "We are giving them befitting and strong reply and will continue to do so if they do any mischief." PTI AB SMN

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The campaign, consisting a series of memes, shows an impoverished couple and a child thanking Modi for his unfulfilled promises.

By Jumana Shah: A few days after the BJP launched an offensive social media video taking to task Modi's critics, rather than defending the 'Vikas Gando Thayo Chhe' campaign, the Gujarat Congress has struck back with a 'Thank You Mota Saheb (Bade Sahaab)' campaign.

This campaign, consisting a series of memes, shows an impoverished couple and a child thanking Modi for his unfulfilled promises.

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The promises mentioned in the memes are that of depositing Rs 15 lakh in poor people's account by bringing back black money stashed abroad; sending mangoes to Pakistan premier, the country who beheaded Indian soldiers; for making a Standard V-pass person the education minister (Bhupendrasinh Chudasama) who has ruined the life of several students.

The last one says 'Thank You' for suddenly introducing policies and half-baked laws like GST and demonetization, which are 'Tughlaqi' in nature. Congress's IT Cell chairman Rohan Gupta said they have released about five such memes as of now, but another 20 have been lined up, which will gradually surface over the next three to four days.

"We released these memes on WhatsApp earlier today. The response is phenomenal. In fact, people are adding their own original lines, ending it with Thank You Bade Sahaab. We are picking those up and making memes and circulating them again," Gupta said.

A few days ago, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had termed GST as Gabbar Singh Tax. The Congress had picked it up and started a social media war over Sholay characters. This had caught the imagination of people and BJP responded with its own set of memes and videos. Soon after, videos defending BJP's Hu Vikas Chhu (I am Vikas) as poll agenda got into circulation.

Earlier this week, a 3.55 minute video starring Gujarati actor Jimit Trivedi, that takes the offensive tone in defending Modi's Vikas agenda, has also caught on in the virtual space.

Taking the same tone, this new campaign by Congress attempts to draw attention by sarcasm. It is important to note that one of the slides makes a reference to the Tughlaq dynasty, terming the GST and demonetisation as 'Tughlaqui'.

Tughlaq dynasty, that ruled over India in the medieval ages, was of Turkish-Indo origin. Their time today is reminiscent of harsh policies and cruelties. '

Tughlaqui' has become an adjective of sorts for arbitrary and harsh practices by the rulers. BJP spokesperson and former minister in Modi's state cabinet Jaynarayan Vyas shrugged it off.

"This is nothing but consolidated version of baseless statements they've been making on and off," he said.

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VIDEO | Gujarat model meant to serve the rich, of no help to the poor: Rahul in Bharuch rally

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BJP going all-in with Modi for perhaps the most prestigious electoral battle in Gujarat after it came to power at the centre.

By Kumar Shakti Shekhar: The BJP is contesting perhaps the most prestigious electoral battle in Gujarat after it came to power at the centre by winning a historic mandate in 2014 Lok Sabha election. As both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah come from Gujarat, the stakes are high for the party ruling at the centre and in the poll-bound western state.

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Though the BJP is going to polls with Chief Minister Vijay Rupani as its face, PM Modi remains the mascot and the overarching personality around whom revolves the party's complete electoral strategy. In fact, the party's 'Mission 150' has been set by keeping Modi at the centre.

MODI THE MASCOT

Making the Gujarat election a prestige battle, Amit Shah said the voters of the state gave 127 of the 182 seats to the BJP when Modi was the chief minister in 2002. Now that he is the prime minister, the people should give 150 seats to the party, he added.

On his part, the prime minister too is investing extensive time and energy in his home state. He has been visiting Gujarat quite often much before the election was announced. He has launched several projects like the ground-breaking of bullet train and inaugurated others like the Ghogha-Dahej ro-ro (roll on-roll off) ferry service and Sardar Sarovar Dam.

The election has become a do-or-die battle for the BJP , particularly for PM Modi and Amit Shah. The party has gone all out to counter the Congress which has launched an aggressive campaign against it.

BRAND MODI

The BJP continues to project and publicise 'Brand Modi' to attract voters in Gujarat, particularly on the social media. In the latest endeavour, the party has released a short film on Facebook extolling the prime minister.

The four-minute video is slugged 'Dekhiye kya kehta hai vikas - Main hoon vikas, main hoon Gujarat' (See what development says - I am development, I am Gujarat), with hashtags 'ProudToBeGujarati' and 'ProudToBeIndian'.

The documentary is set in a gents' saloon. It starts with a journalist calling Modi a "dictator".

To this, another client waiting for his turn in the saloon stands up and gives a long lecture to the journalist and his friend. This person extols Modi and derides leaders like Congress president Sonia Gandhi, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and Samajwadi Party's founder leader Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The Modi supporter takes a jibe at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Congress. He says Modi could have kept silent like his predecessor and just signed on files. Or, he could have indulged in corruption.

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He talks about the significant decisions taken by the Modi government such as opening of bank accounts under the Jan Dhan scheme, demonetisation, checking black marketing and surgical strikes.

He says, "These were suicidal steps. Just imagine the consequences if the system had not supported Modi on these measures!"

Singing paeans on Modi, he says the PM wakes up at 5 am, has not taken a single day's holiday in these three years and goes to meet the soldiers on the borders every Diwali.Taking a swipe at journalists, he says the prime minister does not throw cocktail parties for them and does not take them along with on foreign trips.

The Modi supporter dwells on the dynasty politics and the charges of nepotism against the opposition leaders. He says members of Modi's family did not get flats or land nor they have gone on foreign trips. "The children of Modi's brothers have not even seen how an aeroplane looks like from inside," he says.

He goes on to talk about the centre's Ujjwala scheme under which LPG gas connections are given to targeted sections of the society and surrendering of gas subsidy by the affluent families and the Swachh Bharat and Make In India campaigns.

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The person attacks Lalu for helping sons in politics, Mulayam for favouring members of his family and Sonia Gandhi for favouring Rahul.

"If Modi fails today, no future PM will dare fight corruption. He will surrender," he says.Convinced with the person's arguments, the journalist says he will do a story on this. He asks for the person's contact number. "Main hoon vikas, main hoon Gujarat. Save kar lena (I am development, I am Gujarat. Save this," he says, repeating Modi's slogan.

RAHUL GANDHI'S AGGRESSION

The BJP's counter-attack came after Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi too increased the frequency of his visits to Gujarat. Moreover, he is seen in an attacking mode, trying to corner the BJP over issues of development and economy, such as calling Goods and Services Tax (GST) as "Gabbar Singh Tax".

Besides attacking the BJP and Modi to queer the ruling dispensation's pitch, Rahul is seeking to increase Congress' votes. He is visiting temples in a bid to play soft Hindutva. He has also been courting the troika of youth activists - Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti chief Hardik Patel, OBC leader Alpesh Thakore and pro-Dalit activist Jignesh Mevani.

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Thakore has already rejoined the Congress. Patel is still flirting with the Congress. Mevani has pledged his support to the main opposition party, though not explicitly.

Besides the aggression on the ground, the Congress is on the forefront in attacking the BJP on social media. From making 'Vikas gando thayo chhe' (Development has gone crazy) viral on the social media to Rahul's Twitter handle @OfficeOfRG getting super active, the Congress is not leaving any stone unturned to hurt the BJP.

BJP'S RETORT

Initially, the BJP was taken by surprise by the Congress' unprecedented aggression. It took some time to find a suitable response to counter the rival's charge. Senior leaders like Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Amit Shah and Rupani failed to give a befitting response.

However, the ruling party slowly got its act together. It was left to Modi to launch 'Hoon chhun vikas, hoon chhun Gujarat' (I am development, I am Gujarat) to present a credible counter to Congress' 'Vikas gando thayo chhe' campaign.

The BJP is seeking to take the social media battle on another level. The Gujarati 'asmita' (pride) is back in focus.

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While the Haryana district has a clutch of world-class hospitals that are even visited by foreign medical tourists, scores of unlicensed clinics have also mushroomed.

By Ajay Kumar: The healthcare system in Gurgaon is under a massive quack attack and authorities say they are powerless.

While the Haryana district has a clutch of world-class hospitals that are even visited by foreign medical tourists, scores of unlicensed clinics too have mushroomed.

Officials say they cannot act because the state does not have a law to stop the opening of such dubious units. So those possessing registered medical practitioner (RMP) certificates or with experience as compounders in recognised hospitals simply walk through this legal loophole.

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India has laws banning quackery but they are rarely enforced, often because in large parts of the country authorities have little else to offer needy citizens as healthcare.

According to data available with Mail Today, 214 clinics are currently operational in Gurgaon that have no licence. The statistics emerged after local resident Mahender Kumar, who suffered from sloppy treatment at one such medical centre, sought from authorities the number of these unsafe clinics and hospitals in the district.

"Every state has some rules under which nursing homes or clinics can be opened by medical practitioners ," Dr KK Agrawal, president of the Indian Medical Association, told Mail Today.

"Delhi has a nursing home registration Act and it is mandatory for every clinic and hospital to register under this." RMPs can only provide follow-up consultation under the guidance of MBBS doctors.

The information provided by the government to Mahender Kumar shows 54 such shady clinics have been identified in Farrukhnagar, 48 in Harsaru, 39 in Badshahpur, 26 in Ghanghola, 23 in Pataudi, 18 in Bhorakalan, 15 in Sohna and 1 in Bhangrola.

Sources, however, said a large number of units in Manesar, Begampur Khatola and Khandsa village are also run by RMP practitioners and compounders, targeting poor labourers and underprivileged sections.

"I was one of the victims of such clinics three months ago when I took medicine of viral fever from an RMP doctor in Bahalpa village under Sohna tehshil. I got high blood pressure and hypertension as side effects of the medicines prescribed by that so-called doctor. My relatives admitted me to a private hospital in Badshahpur," Kumar said.

"I then decided to fight against such clinics and therefore filed a complaint. However, I was disappointed with the reply that Haryana government does not have any Act to put brakes on them."

Sources say the state government had finalised a bill on registration of nursing homes about three years ago but it could not be tabled in the assembly. At a clinic in Badshahpur, Mail Today found a self-stated doctor providing allopathic tablets to a patient in a small envelope by pulling the pills out of the original pack.

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The RMP said over 50 people come to him with symptoms of viral fever every day as winter is around the corner.

"The entire business runs here on trust. The patients are mostly poor labourers who cannot afford private hospitals. They have faith in our treatment and so come here regularly," said an avowed doctor, who wore a mask to protect his identity.

'COMPLETELY CRIMINAL'

Many of these practitioners claim to possess miraculous cures for arthritis, orthopaedic disorders and sexual dysfunction. They also have connections with doctors and blood test laboratories and run illegal gender determination procedures.

"There have to be MD, MBBS doctors to perform any surgical procedures. If any clinic or medical facility is conducting any such medical operations without MBBS, MD doctors, then it is completely criminal," Dr Girish Tyagi, registrar of DMC, said, pointing to stipulations in the Clinical Establishments Act.

When contacted, BK Rajora, civil surgeon of Gurugram, said the health department is aware of the situation but there are no preventive measures available.

"Still, we keep an eye on them through government doctors deployed at community health centres of the region. They are entitled to conduct raids and register FIRs following any patient complaint about botched treatment at a particular clinic."

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The Congress now expects animosity between Dhumal and Nadda's supporters to be out in the open.

Bharatiya Janata Party Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha chunaav Shri @DhumalHP-ji ke netritva mein ladegi," BJP president Amit Shah tweeted minutes after proclaiming two times chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal as the party's chief ministerial candidate for the Himachal Pradesh assembly elections.

Addressing himself directly to incumbent Congress chief minister Virbhadra Singh at a crowded rally in Rajgarh in Sirmour district, Shah said, "I will make it clear today. The BJP is fighting elections in the country under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And in Himachal Pradesh, the BJP is fighting the elections under Prem Kumar Dhumal's leadership. He is our face for the polls." Pausing momentarily for his message to settle in, he added, "Dhumalji is a former chief minister and leader of the opposition, but after December 18, he will be chief minister." The crowd of very evidently pleased saffron supporters erupted into slogans, "Modi-ji ko Jai Shri Ram! Dhumal-ji ko Jai Shri Ram!"

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Shah's proclamation, which was promptly endorsed by PM Modi on Twitter, has finally given the BJP a face in the Himachal elections. But with barely a week's campaigning left before the voting on November 9, many, including several state BJP leaders, believe the announcement may have come too late.

"We have, avoidably, gifted Virbhadra Singh and the Congress an opportunity to rebuild and turn what would have been a certain victory for the BJP into a contest," a senior BJP leader told India Today, citing the party's internal feedback that shows the Congress regaining considerable ground.

While Modi and Shah did not name Dhumal till it got precariously close to polling day, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi acted with unusual deftness, declaring Virbhadra as the party's chief ministerial candidate well ahead of the election schedule notification on October 12.

That Dhumal's selection was more of a course correction than the carefully crafted strategy that Shah is known for is evident from the surprise it has evoked within the BJP itself. As late as on October 29, when finance minister Arun Jaitley released the BJP's poll manifesto in Shimla, senior party leaders were defending the leadership's decision to not name a chief minister as "a matter of strategy". Union health minister Jagat Prakash Nadda, who was widely seen as Dhumal's main rival for the top job, said in an interview on October 29 that "the people should decide [who they want as chief minister]". Asked why the BJP had not declared a name in Himachal when B.S. Yeddyurappa had been declared the party's face in Karnataka much ahead of the assembly polls next year, Nadda said: "There have been many times when we haven't projected a chief minister. It is a matter of strategy, which differs from time to time and state to state. There wasn't any face in Haryana, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand or Uttar Pradesh."

Most analysts believe that the declaration of Dhumal's candidacy will benefit the BJP, which already had the edge given the anti-incumbency the Congress faces in the state. Also, since the time the BJP first captured power in Himachal in 1977, the trend there has been to not return an incumbent party to power.

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While there is visible cheer in the BJP camp, Shah's October 31 announcement doesn't appear to have dampened Virbhadra's spirits. His close aides say the animosity between Dhumal and Nadda's supporters is now likely to be out in the open. They also point out that BJP veteran and former chief minister Shanta Kumar, who wields considerable influence in 15 assembly segments in Kangra, would not be pleased with Dhumal's anointment.

Dhumal was addressing an election rally in Jwalamukhi (Kangra) when he was informed about Shah's decision. Thanking Modi and Shah, he declared the move would catapult the BJP from its target of 50-plus seats to over 60 in the 68-member assembly.

Results from the single-phase polling will be declared alongside those for the Gujarat assembly elections. Watch this space on December 18.

VIDEO | Himachal Pradesh Opinion Poll: BJP set for big win defeating Congress CM Virbhadra Singh

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Its been a breakout year for BItcoin. Aside from tremendous surges in Bitcoins value and Bitcoin funds being launched worldwide as well as in Canada , investors have become increasingly curious about the digital currencies. But despite that momentum, theres one barrier that the rising asset class hasnt broken yet.The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has received and rejected multiple Bitcoin ETF proposals this year, reported the Wall Street Journal. In March, it turned down two separate applications from the Winklevoss twins and SolidX Management In both instances, the SEC said that Bitcoin trading lacked transparency, which in its view made the currency prone to market manipulation. The fact that trading occurred on unregulated exchanges outside the US would have made it impossible for US exchanges that listed Bitcoin ETFs to enter into surveillance-sharing agreements to protect against such manipulation.In its decision on the SolidX proposal, the regulator said that there had been well-established, significant, regulated markets for trading futures on the underlying commodity for all ETFs it approved previously. Bitcoin is only eight years old, which gives it a very shallow trading history compared to other commodities, and it is not backed by any sovereign nation.Earlier this week, CME Group, which operates the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and other futures markets, unveiled plans to launch a bitcoin-futures contract by the end of the year. Its still awaiting regulatory approval, but if its greenlit, some observers say it could pave the way for a bitcoin-based ETF.While cryptocurrencies have enjoyed growing popularity, it has also been branded by detractors as a fraud and a novelty, as well as a scam.
We bring you interesting accounts of son of the soil Haridas, American Samuel Stokes' daughter-in-law Vidya Stokes' rise in Himachal politics and the incident when Anand Sharma's kurta was torn.

By Saurabh Dwivedi: As Himachal Pradesh goes to election in a single-phase polling in less than a week, we bring you interesting accounts of a former state minister, how a Congress leader was injured and how politicians across party lines are related to each other.

'SON OF SOIL' HARIDAS' CONTRIBUTION

Yashwant Singh Parmar was the first chief minister of Himachal Pradesh. Haridas was a minister in his government. Although Haridar wasn't academically too qualified, he had a perceptive understanding of people and the ability to deal with tough situations. He didn't just sign files, but instead used to write his full name on them. If he accepted something, he used to say, "Haridas agrees". If he didn't, he wrote, "Haridas disagrees."

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Haridas once came to know that there was something special about the soil in Bilaspur and the areas adjoining it. Grabbing a fistful of that soil as sample, he came to Vidhan Sabha. He demanded that the soil be tested as it could be put to better industrial use. While there were many who mocked his idea then, it was due to the qualities of this soil that several cement plants were set up here.

WHEN CONGRESS LEADER ANAND SHARMA's KURTA WAS TORN

It was an era when Virbhadra Singh was reigning supreme in Himachal Pradesh. But Pandit Sukhram and former Chief Minister Thakur Ram Lal were desperately eyeing a return to power. It was 1997. By this time, Pandit Sukhram had formed his own party - Himachal Vikas Congress. Ram Lal was often miffed by his party and as many times appeased by them. Soon came a point at which he declared that he would revolt in an unprecedented way. He said that he would hold a congregation of farmers at Parwanoo, which is Himachal's biggest wholesale market, and invited farmers from his constituency Jubbal Kotkhai and Solan.

At this assembly of farmers, journalists and Congress leaders, including Anand Sharma and those from the Virbhadra Singh camp, were waiting for Ram Lal. Before the address to the farmers could begin, clashes broke out among various Congress workers. While Ram Lal managed to escape unhurt, Anand Sharma bore the brunt of the anger of the disgruntled cadres. His kurta were torn and he was injured so severely that he had to be hospitalised at Chandigarh's PGI. The journalists, who suffered injuries, protested by holding a sit-in at the venue itself.

HISTORY OF RELATED POLITICIANS IN HIMACHAL

Samuel Stokes was an American who came to Himachal Pradesh with an apple plant in his hand and then settled here permanently. He participated in India's freedom struggle and later came to be known as Satyanand Stokes. His daughter Satyavati was married in Punjab. But her husband died only a few years later.

Following this incident, she became actively involved in Congress politics. Soon after, the area of Punjab where she lived became a part of Himachal. Satyavati later began to understand Himachal politics and subsequently became a part of the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly. It was here that she met and soon got close to the then Chief Minister Yashwant Singh Parmar. After some years, the duo tied the knot. Parmar spent his last days in Satyavati's company.

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Meanwhile, Satyavati's sister-in-law Vidya Stokes was also an active member of the Congress. She was believed to be particularly close to Sonia Gandhi. When Vidya was Himachal Pradesh's Congress chief in 2003, there was such a strong wave in her support that she seemed like an automatic chief ministerial choice. Vidya made her debut in politics in 1974 following the demise of Satyanand Stokes' MLA son. She continued as an MLA till 2017.

Meanwhile, Thakur Ram Lal's daughter was married to Yashwant Singh Parmar's son Kush Nahar. However, Ram Lal and Parmar did not share a friendly relationship. Ram Lal had become the chief minister after removing Parmar from the post.

BJP too is no stranger to relationships in Himachal Pradesh politics. Two-time Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal's son Anurag Thakur is married to former Assembly Speaker Gulab Singh Thakur's daughter Shefali Thakur. Gulab Singh Thakur contests election from Joginder Nagar constituency in Mandi district. While Dhumal was the chief minister, Gulab Singh Thakur used to travel in a red-beacon car. Prior to joining the BJP, Gulab Singh Thakur was a member of the Congress party.

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(As told to India Today by Editor-in-Chief of Himachal Dastak Hemant Kumar, who has been actively covering the state since 1998.)

WATCH VIDEO | Himachal Pradesh Opinion Poll: BJP set for big win defeating Congress CM Virbhadra

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Youth-only and Military/Veteran-only waterfowl hunts canceled this weekend at Ballard WMA; Fewer blinds available at Boatwright WMA
By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 02, 2017 | 08:54 PM | MARSHALL COUNTY, KY

A Marshall County man was jailed Wednesday after he allegedly threatened to burn down a church.

According to the Marshall County Sheriff's Office, deputies responded on Wednesday to Zion's Cause Baptist Church in Draffenville in reference to a man who walked in and asked for money. After the man was told there was not any money to give, police said he became irate, yelling at the secretary. He also allegedly stated that he would be back to burn the church down.

The man was located at St. Pius Catholic Church in Calvert City, again asking for money. Deputies arrested 24-year-old Dustin M. Wright, of Calvert City, and charged him with 2nd degree terroristic threatening.
Farakh Ali Gayen, 22, is just over five feet tall, appears quite frail and in general cuts an unassuming figure. He is the son of a teashop owner in South 24 Parganas, the largest district in West Bengal and one of the 250 "most backward districts" in the country in 2006. But Farakh was doing alright for himself. He had Rs 13 lakh in his bank account, a small fortune for a young man in this rural district.

Now in police custody, Farakh admits he kidnapped and sold girls for a living. The younger, the better. He's not the only such modern day slaver either since 2014, 16,000 girls have gone missing from South 24 Parganas. In the past 18 months, according to NGO Shakti Vahini, 300 girls have been rescued and 50 traffickers arrested. Kailash Satyarthi, child rights activist and Nobel laureate, began a 35-day march across the country on September 11 to demand action against such trafficking. Satyarthi said he was waging an "all-out war on rape, abuse, and trafficking". The sexual exploitation of children, he added, "[is] a moral epidemic...Our silence is breeding more violence". Last month, in a meeting with President Ram Nath Kovind, Satyarthi called for a national children's tribunal to be set up.

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Farakh confesses it was the prospect of easy money that attracted him to the business of slavery. He envied his sister's lifestyle in Delhi- expensive flat, fancy clothes and, always, bundles of cash at hand. "I was told I could also end up being rich like Radhe, my brother-in-law," Farakh says. "All I had to do was deliver young girls from the village and I would make Rs 20,000 to Rs 50,000 for each." He cruised around local villages on a Hero Karizma motorbike, flashing his Rs 40,000 mobile phone, his watch and sunglasses. For girls in an overwhelmingly poor area, he embodied a dream, the possibility of an escape to a better life.

Babita, 16, was a typical victim. Farakh got her number from a mobile recharge point - traffickers, it appears, routinely procure such information for as little as Rs 100 per number. It took him 15 calls to get Babita to meet him at Mathurapur railway station, from where she was taken to Delhi. Like many victims of trafficking, Babita was unconscious, knocked out by something slipped into a drink or snack. In Delhi, Farakh handed her over to his sister, who sold Babita to a brothel in Agra. "I was kept in a building with small rooms and no windows," Babita says. "We would be locked up for most of the day, let out only to entertain customers. On some days, there could be 15 or 20 customers. If we refused anyone, we'd get a beating. I used a customer's phone to tell my family that I was in Agra."

The family told Shakti Vahini and a rescue operation was planned. Babita was unrecognisable, utterly changed from the girl in the photograph provided to the rescue team. Rishi Kant of Shakti Vahini has over 20 years of experience rescuing girls from similar situations. He says that children are often injected with hormones and drugs to hasten the onset of puberty. This makes them put on weight and look older than they really are.

Babita and six other girls from her district were rescued in mid-July. Six out of every 10 girls rescued from traffickers are from West Bengal. The enslavement and sale of children, usually to brothels, is a thriving business. According to a conservative estimate from the Union ministry for home affairs, nearly 100,000 children go missing every year. As quoted in a report on commercial sexual exploitation by Satyarthi's NGO, Global March Against Child Labour, the lower estimate of the size of commercial sexual exploitation industry in India is $35 billion, around 2 per cent of the GDP. "This black money," Satyarthi said, "propels the most heinous crimes against girls and women."

Most victims are from India's most impoverished states, including Assam, Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (see One Way Ticket). In recent years, the sex trade industry has grown alongside disposable incomes, with brothels now found in a variety of city neighbourhoods. Over 90 per cent of those trafficked for sex are female, according to Global March Against Child Labour. India is a supplier, transit point and destination for victims of sex trafficking, meaning girls are both trafficked from and to India and that traffickers hold girls in the country before sending them to other parts of the world. Although victims from India are trafficked to some 18 foreign countries, a 2016 report by HAQ Centre for Child Rights revealed that 90 per cent of trafficking in India is internal, and that the victims were overwhelmingly from India's lowest economic and social strata.

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The HAQ report argues that increased trafficking between states is the result of better connections, more mobility and rapid urbanisation. Many 'agents', more accurately, pimps, madams and kidnappers, offer victims fictional jobs in some nearby urban agglomeration. Another ploy used by slavers, particularly in northern states such as Punjab and Haryana, is the fake marriage proposal. Atiya Bose of Aangan, an NGO that helps rehabilitate victims of sex trafficking, says that financially vulnerable families are particularly susceptible to such proposals. So relieved are these families that the prospective groom appears uninterested in lavish wedding ceremonies or dowries that they don't see that lack of interest as a red flag. Often, the 'groom's family' is even prepared to pay the girl's family for her hand in marriage. In such sham marriages, victims often end up being forced to serve as servants to the families they have married into, before being sold onward.

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Source: NCRB report

And as Internet access becomes widespread, traffickers are even making use of social media sites like Facebook as recruiting tools. Shakti Vahini's Kant says he recently rescued a girl from Nagaland after she had already boarded a plane, headed towards a trafficker who had created a fake Facebook profile and made a series of false promises to her. Kant adds that in Jharkhand alone, he knows of 300 WhatsApp groups dedicated to sex slavery.

For traffickers, Kant says, Jharkhand is an ideal hunting ground. The state's population is poor and poorly educated; tribal girls as young as 10 are being sold to brothels. From Khunti district alone, 25 kilometres from Ranchi, part of the so-called 'Red Corridor' at the heart of Maoist-Naxalite insurgency, 79 traffickers were recently arrested. Global March Against Child Labour reports that 70 per cent of Indian girls sold into the sex trade are between 16 and 18 years old and kept in captivity for between 12 and 18 months on average, complicating the process of rehabilitation. The age of the victims hints at another unpalatable fact of Indian sex trafficking, many of the victims are likely sold into slavery by members of their own families. The traffickers who buy the victims are young too, often just 18 or 19 years old.

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Three years ago, a notorious trafficker, Panna Lal, and his wife were arrested in Delhi. The two were charged with various offences related to trafficking minors from remote parts of Jharkhand. Accounts in various media pegged Panna Lal's fortune at Rs 66 crore from allegedly having 'placed' some 10,000 girls from Jharkhand, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh in 'work'. The money movement in the trade is astounding. Global March Against Child Labour estimates that brothels make anywhere between Rs 1.5 crore and Rs 14.4 crore per year, while the industry as a whole generates well in excess of Rs 2 lakh crore in illegal money (see graphic The Commerce of Sex Trafficking). These enormous sums might explain why the political response to such modern day slavery has been so tepid. In 2003, a study by the National Human Rights Commission, the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the Institute for Social Sciences estimated that 20 per cent of the brothel population is minors.

That so many children can be at risk while so little is done about it is outrageous. However, many of those working to make a change say that there has been a gradual evolution in the attitude of both police and government authorities. Ajeet Singh of Varanasi-based NGO Guriya has helped rescue and rehabilitate trafficked children for nearly three decades. In 1988, he 'adopted' three children from a sex worker, paying for their upkeep. He was 17 at the time.

He is currently fighting cases against 803 traffickers across Uttar Pradesh. Singh knows he is a marked man. His home in the narrow lanes of Khajuri colony in Varanasi doubles as his office, complete with towering stacks of files. It is protected by an imposing steel door and a sophisticated home security system. There is an iron gate, too, essential for a man forced to homeschool his daughter because of threats directed at his family. He has received death threats and his workers have been beaten up, but the state hasn't seen fit to provide him with any protection. Still, he says, "earlier there was no concept of sex trafficking. Now, at least, people are talking about it. And talking is the beginning of a solution". Singh believes that the efforts of civil society have made a difference. "The attitude of the authorities when I started protesting," he says, "was 'Such women are like this only, just throw them in the lock-up.' We fought those attitudes, we fought to make this a human rights issue and now we have anti-human trafficking units, now there is an advisory committee and a new law is on the anvil. Jahan kuchh nahin tha, wahan itna kuchh hai (Where there was once nothing, there is now something)."

Even such cautious optimism can wear thin sometimes. In May 2015, eight Puducherry police officers were sacked, charged with raping four children who had been rescued from traffickers. Still, Triveni Acharya of Rescue Foundation, an NGO that helps rehabilitate child sex workers in Mumbai, cites the evolution in the attitude of the police force as the single most positive change she has witnessed. "Earlier, the police and politicians seemed to believe that prostitution meant there would be fewer rapes. Thankfully, the police are more sensitised now. Training programmes have helped, as has the anti-trafficking cell and the special court. After Nirbhaya (the victim of the December 16, 2012 Delhi gang rape), the law has become much stricter. If a little girl is rescued, immediate action is taken."

Better policing, or at least better intent, is also becoming more evident in South 24 Parganas. Female police officers have visited some 3,200 schools to talk to students about trafficking. Schools now have drop boxes to enable schoolgirls to complain about harassment. Kant says Shakti Vahini and the police are putting together 'Swayamsiddha' teams, including students and teachers, to educate girls about human trafficking, to show videos and organise seminars. "We educate girls," he says, "to recognise danger, to be wary." They're even roping in IT students to teach schoolgirls about protecting their privacy online. Some 350 schools in South 24 Parganas have already enrolled in the Swayamsiddha programme.

Much of Atiya Bose's work at Aangan is also about prevention, about creating community watch groups that understand how traffickers operate. But much remains to be done. "It is impractical," she says, "to expect the government to be everywhere. We show communities how to be vigilant." But for all the good work, the outlook remains dismal. Despite admitting to the lack of credible data, the Union ministry for women and child development told Parliament in March that nearly 20,000 women and children were trafficked in 2016, a rise of 25 per cent over the previous year. Some officials argue that this rise is a result of increased awareness and reporting rather than an actual increase in trafficking. Whatever the truth, the conviction rate for traffickers, at 2 to 5 percent, is unquestionably appalling.

According to Roop Sen of Sanjog, an organisation working for child protection, gender justice and social equity, investigators have little incentive and fewer tools to catch traffickers. Acharya agrees, saying: "When girls are brought to Mumbai, for instance, from other states or countries, the Mumbai police has no jurisdiction to go there. Inter-state investigation and cooperation has to improve." Meanwhile, a draft anti-trafficking bill has been the object of sustained criticism, including from sex workers, for inadequacies ranging from a lack of clarity, to equating voluntary sex work with trafficking.

Supreme Court lawyer Aparna Bhat argues that any new law must have "the child at its centre. Currently our law is focused on prosecution but the protection of victims is largely missing." Everyone agrees that a new law is necessary.

A stated objective of the trafficking bill is to create an institutional mechanism under the central government focusing on the issue of human trafficking with input from all stakeholders under the guidance and authority of the Union ministry for women and child development. Currently, there is an Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act, 1956, a Protection of Children against Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), 2012, a Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, and various sections of the Indian Penal Code that deal with organised crime. The multiplicity of laws has meant a tussle over turf between the Union ministry for home affairs and the women and child development ministry.

Without a coherent, unified strategy to combat human trafficking and a clear demarcation of roles and responsibilities, there is bound to be uncertainty. The paucity of data also hinders evidence-based planning. Sen points out that the police "ends up conducting generic raids because they do not have necessary intelligence". Rehabilitation is another challenge. Because of police shortcomings, minors sometimes spend as many as three to five years, according to some estimates, in captivity. A return to normal life and society is so difficult after such a long spell in sex work that many older girls go back to prostitution even after they are rescued. They lack emotional or infrastructural support and their time as sex slaves is often compounded by substance abuse issues.

"You need to give these girls support," says Bose, "we need to allocate funds for rehabilitation." Over e-mail, Maneka Gandhi, the women and child development minister, asserts that "rehabilitation of the victim forms a critical part of the bill". There is in the bill, she writes, "a complete structure including the details of a victim compensation fund. The objective is to ensure that victims of trafficking get suitably reintegrated." The bill is with the cabinet, the ministry says, "and an early decision is expected".

In Varanasi, Guriya runs a rehabilitation centre for the children of sex workers in Shivdaspur, the city's red light district. "All the children here," says Manju, Singh's partner at the NGO, "are the children of pimps and prostitutes. Some of these children are so bright but they are discriminated against when it comes to admissions into colleges and institutions of higher study." Many of the children are forced to lie to have a chance at success and the prospect of building different lives for themselves and their mothers. Rajni Gupta, for instance, is 18 and dreams of getting a job at a bank; Shabana, in the second year of her BA, wants to be a police officer; and Rani who is no longer in college, teaches Urdu and Arabic to 40 children in the neighbourhood.

There are indications that protecting children from sexual exploitation is finally becoming a national policy priority. The proposed Juvenile Justice Act provides for a child protection officer at every police station and child welfare committees at the district level. Anganwadis, rural mother and childcare centres, can also be mobilised to play a role in the protection of children. Perhaps, as the proposed new anti-trafficking law is debated, there will be an acknowledgement of the need for better communication between ministries, the need for a comprehensive review of the existing judicial machinery, the need for more effective use of technology, including surveillance of brothels and hot spots, the need for mapping the source and destination areas for trafficked children, and the need for an interlinked database, like the National Intelligence Grid, among all agencies.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka, has been at the forefront of the dialogue. "There must be effective identification and coordination," he says, "among government departments at every level, sharing information and acting on it. Because the enormity and gravity of the issue of India's lost children cannot be overstated."

Coherent anti-trafficking legislation would be a start. Or even executing the provisions of existing laws. In Kurnool on his yatra, Satyarthi described the implementation of POCSO as "pathetic", criticising particularly the "slow pace of enforcement". How quickly will Farakh, and traffickers like him, with lakhs in their accounts and the fancy accoutrements they use to impress young girls, be convicted and jailed? Will it stem the rot? Urgent action is necessary if we are to give all girls an opportunity to develop to their fullest potential.

SHREYA*

The grey of the monsoon sky seemed to leech into the unpainted cement walls of the half-finished house on the edges of a distant village, two hours by car from Varanasi. Shreya, 19, now lives here. She was kidnapped on two separate occasions when she was 14 and sold into sex slavery. "This is not her home," says Devi Prasad, who works for the NGO Guriya, "it's a safe house we use." There is a panicked flutter, when Prasad calls out for Shreya, as some startled pigeons make their escape.

Shreya was taken from near her house in her village in the Ghazipur district of Uttar Pradesh on November 21, 2012. It was 8.30 in the evening and Shreya, then 14, was on her way back from a field where she'd gone to relieve herself. Her abductors were two young men from the same village and known to her family. They forced her onto their motorbike and later beat her into submission. She was taken first to Varanasi and then to Shakti Nagar in Madhya Pradesh. The family went repeatedly to the police but were ignored. They allege that the sub-inspector of the local police station had been paid off.

It was only after the family went to Guriya that the police registered an FIR in February 2013, over two months after Shreya had been kidnapped. When the police found her, she says, they held her for seven days and forced her to sign blank pieces of paper. She was returned to her family on May 1 after appearing before a magistrate. Just three days later, she was kidnapped by the same men again. The family allege that the same corrupt sub-inspector was part of the plot.

This time Shreya was taken to Mumbai, to a house in the Gonpada area where she was repeatedly beaten and raped. When Shreya overheard her captors talking about a deal to sell her for Rs 50,000, she made plans to escape. She stole some money from the men and the next morning, at a busy traffic light near a train station, she jumped out of an auto rickshaw while her kidnappers were distracted. She boarded a train without knowing where it was going. It turned out to be Surat in Gujarat, from where she called her father. Since then she has been living in safe houses.

SITARA

Frail and tiny, at not much more than four feet tall, Sitara could pass off as a 10-year-old. Her head is covered with a cotton dupatta. She was 14 when she and her sister were kidnapped on July 23, 2015. "We had gone to buy medicines for my mother," she says, her Hindi laced with Urdu, "when we met a neighbour at the chemist. He offered us something to drink and when I woke up I was in Ahmedabad." They were kept drugged. "Aapka saaman aa gaya hai," your goods have arrived, Sitara says she heard her neighbour and kidnapper tell two men. They took it in turn to rape both girls. A pattern that was repeated in the course of four days.

The girls' family complained at the Bhelupur police station in Varanasi the day the girls went missing. But, they say, the police seemed uninterested in investigating till the family took their complaint to an anti-trafficking NGO. The kidnappers were finally caught by the Ahmedabad police at a bus stop where they were waiting with the girls to board a bus to Mansa in Punjab to negotiate their sale.

But the girls' ordeal doesn't end here. The legal process has been devastating for the family. The alleged kidnappers filed their own FIR, alleging harassment by Sitara's family. Though the FIR was quashed, Sitara's kidnappers are out on bail and continue to menace the family. She lives in a small room, with just enough space for a single bed, that she shares with her parents and four siblings. "I don't go anywhere in the neighbourhood," she says, "because everywhere I hear the same whispers: 'Arre yeh toh wohi ladki hai na', the one that was abducted." Her sister has since married but rarely visits for fear that someone might tell her husband.

MAYA

Like so many young victims of prolonged sexual abuse, 15-year-old Maya (name changed) often blames herself. "Kahin na kahin," she says, "meri bhi galti hai, mai us par vishvas nahin karti toh aaj main aisi nahin hoti." If only she hadn't trusted her oldest friend, she keeps saying. She had known Anita (name changed) since they were seven. So, when Anita said they should skip school to visit a nearby fair with her brothers, Maya thought nothing of it.

Halfway to the fair, Anita claimed she was ill but persuaded Maya to carry on. Next thing she knew, she had woken up in a strange room. "I could see a tea shop from the window, with Raipur written on the hoarding." Maya says she begged Anita's brothers to let her go, but they raped her at knifepoint for days. She remembers waking up late one night on a bus, in a drugged haze, and seeing the brothers at a refreshment stall.

Seizing her opportunity to escape, she crept off the bus and ran as fast as she could into the dark night. She got on the first bus she found. The driver turned out to be a "good man". "Hamne kaha", Maya says, "uncle hum Banaras mein rehte hain," and he drove her to the Cantonment area of the city. Maya doesn't know where she was but Varanasi is a 17 to 20 hour drive from Raipur in Chhattisgarh. She had been held captive for 20 days and kept in complete darkness. By the time she escaped, she had little sense of time or direction.

The police acted quickly and arrested the brothers within a week of Maya's escape. But the brothers are out on bail. Maya lives with her grandmother. Unable to face life in the village where her captors still live and where everyone knows her story.

SHARMILA

Too often, friends, neighbours, even family are the primary contact for traffickers looking to kidnap young girls. Sharmila (name changed), for instance, was abducted by someone she called "didi". Ayushi, a young woman with her own daughter, was a regular visitor to their home in Varanasi. They played, cooked, and ate together. Sharmila had given up school at 11 to look after her ill mother and Ayushi was a window to the world, an older sister rather than a mother-figure.

On February 18, 2016, Ayushi suggested they take a 20-minute auto ride to buy vegetables, instead of going to their usual, neighbourhood vendor. Ayushi's brother joined them in the auto and offered Sharmila some prasad. She woke up in a dark room, surrounded by Ayushi's family. Sharmila reflexively calls Ayushi's mother "Kiran aunty", even as she accuses her of inflicting savage beatings. Ayushi's two brothers also beat and raped her. "One day," Sharmila says, "I told aunty, 'they both rape me, please ask them to stop'." But, she adds, "aunty said, 'zyada bologi toh chaar logon ko aur bulayenge' (talk too much and I'll call four more men)."

Sharmila, who was aware that she would soon be sold into the flesh trade, began to plan her escape. Persuading Ayushi's family that she had no intention to return to her family, "kya moonh lekar jaayenge", what face have I left to show, Sharmila accompanied her captors to Varanasi for Ayushi's daughter's mundan, a baby's ritual head-shaving. In Varanasi, she had a stroke of luck. She spotted her brother on the street, driving an auto. Sharmila told Ayushi she needed to go relieve herself and she'd go behind a nearby trashcan. Once free, she ran to her brother.

They went to the police, but they laughed off the complaints, insinuating that Sharmila had run away with her kidnapper and was fabricating a story to save face. After the intervention of NGO Guriya, a case was registered earlier this year. Even in court, a female judge repeatedly asked her if she was telling the truth. Eventually the case collapsed due to lack of evidence. Her family has been isolated. "Phir se uthwa lenge," Sharmila's abductors still say, "marwa denge, tezaab fikwa denge", threatening to kill her, to throw acid in her face. "I am not scared," Sharmila insists, "I just don't want my family to be hurt."

A rape victim with her father seeking assistance at the NGO Guriya, Varanasi

(With Romita Datta in Kolkata, Moeena Halim in Mumbai and Bandeep Singh in Delhi)

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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Nov. 02, 2017 | EVANSVILLE, IN

By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 02, 2017 | 03:52 PM | EVANSVILLE, IN

Authorities in Indiana are asking for the public's help finding a missing teen.



Police say 15-year-old Grace Carr was last seen at her home in Evansville, IN on Oct. 22.



Carr is white, and weighs 127 pounds. She is 5'2" tall and has brown eyes and long, brown hair. She has a piercing on the right side of her nose.



Carr reportedly needs medication that she does not currently have with her. She has not had any contact with her family since she went missing.



Anyone who knows where Carr might be is asked to call the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Office at 812-421-6201, or the Bring our Missing Home, Inc. Tipline at 810-294-4858.
By PTI: Srinagar, Nov 3 (PTI) Hundreds of local residents in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir today bade a tearful adieu to BJP youth wing leader Gowhar Hussain Bhat, who was allegedly killed by militants.

The residents of Bonagam in Shopian, 52 km from here, participated at his funeral procession that passed through the roads of the village before his mortal remains were laid to rest, officials said.

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The sizeable number of people at the funeral surprised observers here as there is not much support for the BJP in the predominantly Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley.

The body of Bhat, aged 30, who was kidnapped by militants, was recovered from an orchard in Kiloora in Shopian district of south Kashmir yesterday with his throat slit.

Bhat was the district president of the Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha and had been associated with the party for over two years. PTI MIJ KJ

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By PTI: Santiniketan (WB), Nov 3 (PTI) Indo-China relations are not going to be a walk in the park, but the two nations need to have the confidence to make things work, Chinese Consul General in Kolkata, Ma Zhanwu said today.

Speaking at the inaugural session to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Cheena Bhavana here, he said the "differences" between the two countries were outweighed by their shared interest and trust.

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Calling for a new impetus in the bilateral relations, Ma said, "China-India relationship is not going to be a walk in the park. It is going to be difficult with ups and downs. However, we need to have confidence that we can do it".

Quoting a recent statement of Chinese President Xi Jinping, he said his country did not pose a threat to any other nation, and "certainly not India".

"Our president had said China will never seek hegemony or engage in expansion, and will not pose any threat to anybody," he said.

Describing China as a "modern, prosperous, socialist and democratic" country, Ma said it wants to make its relationship with India most vibrant one.

"We need to aim high. We need to have mutual trust. We need to hear from the other side as well," the Chinese diplomat said.

Ma also asked the media to play a key role in bolstering ties between the two nations.

"Talk more of great nations and less of conflicts," he said.

Hailing the two-day conference to mark the 80th anniversary of Cheena Bhavana, he said over 70 scholars from China were attending the meet for which preparations had begun one-and-a-half years back.

The Cheena Bhavana (Institute of Chinese Language and Culture) at Visva Bharati University was founded by Rabindranath Tagore in April, 1937.

Stressing the need to realise Tagores vision for the institute, he said, "There should be more interaction in boosting Sino-India relations. We need to focus on economic development and political relations as part of our study".

The Consul General lamented that there were many interpreters of Chinese language from countries like Canada, but very few from India.

"We need to look at our immediate neighbours. This is true for both nations," he said.

Ma also advocated the introduction of Chinese learning course from junior level in India, and Hindi and other Indian language courses in China.

Talking about Cheena Bhavana retaining its heritage, acting Vice Chancellor of the varsity, Swapan Dutta, said, "We have kept the building design intact, and will never tinker with these things. However, we are modernising the lab with interactive audio and video." PTI SUS RBT SUN SRY

--- ENDS ---

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Take a trip down memory lane to relive the glory days of the aloo sandwich, which was a staple in every Indian home.

By Shreya Goswami: When you think of making or eating a sandwich today, what comes to mind? It has to have cheese, of course. There are varieties of stuffings that go into that sandwich--veggies, chicken, bacon, fresh lettuce--apart from the cheese. And then you put it in a fancy grilling machine that does the rest of the work for you.

Yes, these sandwiches are absolutely delicious, and we can't seem to get enough of them. But did you know that these sandwich varieties are rather new to Indian homes?

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Ask anybody who grew up in the '80s and '90s, and you'll know what we're talking about. Making sandwiches at home during those decades involved a combination of two things that have been driven to near-extinction these days--potatoes and sandwich toasters.

Picture courtesy: Instagram/blue.namkeen

Before processed cheese became cheaply and readily available in Indian markets, we used to indulge in a very different variety of sandwiches. They were invariably stuffed with one form of aloo sabji or the other.

Also Read: Here's why Murukku Sandwich should be your snack of the day

It could be the regular chokha, basically mashed potatoes mixed with chopped onions, chillies and sometimes coriander. In some homes, the chokha was replaced by jeera aloo. Being a gourmet sandwich-maker in those days meant you would try adding different twists to the aloo--by adding aamchoor, the masala from an old achaar jar or chaat masala, or frying the potato cubes, or even slathering the bread slices with coriander chutney or ketchup.

The sandwiches were assembled, and then carefully placed in an old-school sandwich toaster. The toasters were made with two square-shaped metal containers, attached to long sticks with plastic handles. A clasp helped keep the toaster shut as you turned the gas stove on, and toasted the sandwich till golden-brown.

Image for representative purpose. Picture courtesy: Amazon

With the coming of electric grilling machines and sandwich makers, this old toaster has almost disappeared from most Indian homes. Why waste time holding a toaster over the flame, when you can let an electric machine do all the work for you?

This, and the wide variety of sandwich spreads and ingredients, have together made the old aloo sandwich, which most of us grew up on, obsolete. We just don't make them any more, especially because stuffing bread with potato just doesn't sound healthy or trendy any more.

Picture courtesy: Instagram/vidit_kumar_09

But ask yourself, even with all the fuss (and the many times when the sandwich would just stick to the toaster and refuse to come off), didn't the old-school aloo sandwiches taste like a bit of heaven--especially when mom made it as an after-school, pre-homework snack?

Also Read: Guess how much the world's most-expensive grilled-cheese sandwich costs

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Of course it did! So take a trip down memory lane with us, and try making this simple aloo sandwich today. Trust us when we say that the nostalgia and the goodness of plain-old aloo will satiate your taste buds while you relive your childhood once again. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

4 slices white bread

1 cup mashed potatoes

1 small-sized onion, chopped

2 green chillies, chopped

1 tsp chaat masala

2 tbsp coriander chutney

Salt, to taste

Butter, as needed

Picture courtesy: Instagram/emojeefood

Method:

1. Place the mashed potatoes in a large bowl. Add the onions, chillies, chaat masala, and salt to taste. Mix everything together.

2. Spread the coriander chutney on two slices of bread, and butter on the other two. Place the potato mix on top of the slices with the chutney. Put some water on the edges of the slices, then place the buttered slices on top, and seal.

3. Carefully place the assembled sandwiches in a toaster or grilling machine. If you're using a toaster, butter the metal cases, place the sandwich and put it on a medium flame. Cook till both sides are golden-brown. If you're using a grilling machine, butter the case lightly and place the sandwich. Cook till done.

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Serve the sandwiches with ketchup and tea, and relive the glory days of the '90s!

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The terror group also called the Manhattan attack "one of the most prominent attacks targeting Crusaders in America".

By India Today Web Desk: The Islamic State has commented on Wednesday's Manhattan truck attack that killed eight people, saying the man responsible for the deaths was a "soldier of the caliphate".

The global terror group has been known to be swift when advancing claims of responsibility for terrorist strikes and usually does it via its official news agency, Amaq. Today's statements, however, were came in its weekly newsletter, and picked up by journalists and private intelligence operators.

1. The Islamic State has just issued its weekly newsletter and in it they describe the Manhattan attacker as a "soldier of the caliphate" pic.twitter.com/xNymoOeeSG- Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) November 3, 2017

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According to a New York Times journalist who covers the Islamic State, the terror group also called the Manhattan attack "one of the most prominent attacks targeting Crusaders in America". The ISIS statement reportedly goes on to say the Manhattan attack a nod to the terror group's call to the "soldiers of the caliphate in America and Europe to target the citizens of the Crusader countries that are part of the alliance against the Islamic State."

Notably, as the boss of a private intelligence agency observed, the Islamic State did not talk about or suggest that it had help with planning or coordinating the attack.

2) #ISIS didn't indicate any connection/coordination with the #NYC attacker Sayfullo Saipov, but as an ISIS inspired attack pic.twitter.com/W4DLYT77d8- Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) November 3, 2017

The ISIS statement apart from talking about the Manhattan terror attack also spoke about last month's Las Vegas shooting, which too was claimed by the Islamic State. More than 50 people died after a gunman rained bullets from a hotel window onto a crowd of concert-goers in Las Vegas.

In Manhattan, Sayfullo Saipov drove a truck onto a bicycle path and mowed down cyclists and pedestrians, killing eight people and injuring several more.

United States of America officials, soon after the attack, said that it was a suspected terrorist incident but have not yet officially pinned the blame on ISIS. US President Donald Trump, however, has referenced ISIS in his tweets about the incident, which have called for the Manhattan attacker to be sentenced to death.

Click here to Enlarge At least eight people were killed after a truck mowed down people on a bicycle parth in Manhattan (AP photo)

(With inputs from agencies)

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Paperbacks and Pieces, 429 Mankato Ave., will host multi-awarding winning Minnesota mystery author Allen Eskens from 3-6 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 4.

Eskens will read from his newest book "The Deep Dark Descending" followed by a Q & A.

Allen Eskens is the bestselling author of "The Life We Bury," "The Guise of Another," "The Heavens May Fall" and "The Deep Dark Descending." He is the recipient of the Barry Award, Minnesota Book Award, Rosebud Award (Left Coast Crime) and Silver Falchion Award and has been a finalist for the Edgar Award, Thriller Award, Anthony Award and Audie Award. His books have been translated into 20 languages and his novel, "The Life We Bury" is in development for a feature film.

Allen has a journalism degree from the University of Minnesota and a law degree from Hamline University. After law school, he studied creative writing in the M.F.A. program at Minnesota State University-Mankato, as well as the Loft Literary Center and the Iowa Summer Writers Festival.

Allen grew up on the hills of central Missouri. He now lives with his wife, Joely, in greater Minnesota where he recently retired after practicing criminal law for 25 years.
Rural towns in Buffalo County will be taxed $186,085 to cover cost of county aid for town bridges and culverts in 2018.

Five of 17 towns petitioned the county highway commissioner for shared county aid, according to the Buffalo County Highway Committee.

The Town of Waumandee petitioned for $91,786 in shared county aid for a Schoepps Valley Bridge project. The town put up an equal amount.

Three projects were aided in the Town of Cross.

The 50 percent county share totaled $16,000 for work on Mustang Road No. 1 and 2, and a drainage culvert crossing under Baertsch Valley Road.

The county board of supervisors authorized $37,500 aid to the Town of Glencoe for Ziegeweid Bridge, and $30,000 county match went to Town of Lincoln for Boettcher Bridge.

Alleman Bridge in the Town of Naples was aided at $10,000 and a culvert project in Wojchik Valley in Waumandee was county funded at $800.

The combined cost of town and county money raised for 2018 projects was $372,170.

Wisconsin state law regulates how the county aid program works for town bridge and culvert projects.

Tax money that the county raises for town bridge aid is held in a separate account administered by the county highway committee.

The town board and highway committee share supervision over project design, construction and cost.

The countys property tax levy for aid to town bridges and culvert is collected from rural towns only because the program does not apply to villages and cities.

A financial technology company ranked Buffalo County first among the top 10 counties in Wisconsin in best overall value index.
Winona-area residents should know by late Tuesday the fate of Winona Area Public Schools long-anticipated and much-discussed facilities referendum.

The referendum asks taxpayers to contribute $82 million toward the consolidation of district elementary schools, as well as the renovation and expansion of several district buildings.

A yes vote would conclude the districts years-long struggle to solve its elementary schools puzzle. A no vote would send school board members back to the drawing board, and would save  for the time being  two historic neighborhood schools.

Polling places will be open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. for those who live within district boundaries.

Residents can still request mail-in ballots, though district officials say theres no guarantee those ballots will reach election judges by Tuesday.

During business hours Friday and Monday, voters can also cast absentee ballots at district offices, 903 Gilmore Ave.

Sarah Slaby, the districts director of finance, said residents can register to vote at their polling places on election day. Also, if theyre in line when polls close, theyll still be allowed to vote.

Elections judges will count the votes at each of the districts five polling places, before sending the totals to district offices.

Results could come in as early as 9:30, according to Slaby, though residents might not know the outcome until a little later. She said the district is hoping to publish live results on Minnesotas Secretary of State website (www.sos.state.mn.us), though she hasnt heard back from state officials.

Superintendent Rich Dahman has said the referendum would help shore up the districts budget, saving as much as $1.1 million annually.

Those savings would come from the employment of fewer teachers and the reduction of operational costs  both stemming from the closure of Jefferson and Madison elementary schools.

Washington-Kosciusko and Goodview elementary schools would be renovated and expanded to hold more students.

The referendum would also fund projects at Winona Senior High School, Winona Middle School and the Winona Area Learning Center.

The Winona school board is expected to certify the election results on Nov. 16.
Just as people need to update or improve or add onto their house after a few years, schools also face maintenance and upgrade needs  or sometimes a new house to replace an older one.

Up until this year, the taxes placed on ag land fell disproportionately on farmers. During the 2017 Legislative Session, our representatives passed the Agricultural Bond Tax Credit, which the Minnesota School Boards Association supported as a way to balance the needs of student learning environments with taxes placed on farmers. This 40 percent tax credit will help our school districts in Greater Minnesota with existing and future school bonds.

While cities and counties dont need voter approval for new construction, school districts must continue to provide justification to the voters and to the Minnesota Department of Education that construction is needed. The reasons for construction vary by school district, but common reasons include an increase in population or aging buildings that require updating or replacing. These learning environments may provide all-day kindergarten, early learning and other space to help prepare our students for the workforce and/or post-secondary education.

This 40 percent agricultural bond credit enjoys a broad base of bipartisan support, not only helping schools and students, but farmers as well. As many districts ask their citizens Tuesday to help with building and operating needs, MSBA would like to thank legislators in their bipartisan support for ag land tax relief. But most of all, wed like to thank our citizens for supporting learning environments where students can thrive.

Kirk Schneidawind, St. Peter, Minn.
Humanitarian crises around the world have driven many from their home countries in search of a new, sustainable life.

With millions of refugees displaced, the problem is impossible for the international community ignore.

However, misinformation comes with the attention focused on this global problem.

Kristina Hammell of Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota came to Winonas Wesley United Methodist Church to discuss the issue and raise awareness about the challenges.

Hammell, the director of refugee resettlement, spoke to an audience of about 25 people on the work her organization does, and why it matters.

Theyre fearful of the terrorists we see every day in the media, Hammell said. Theyre running away from them. They go to another country hoping that maybe one day their country will be better.

During her presentation, Hammell illustrated what refugees must go through to qualify for a chance at life in a new country.

The United States Refugee Admissions Program includes rigorous medical and background checks, a vetting process that typically takes at least two years. Due to slow moving bureaucracies that manage this, immunization records can expire by the time an applicants case is even looked at.

If they do manage to find a way out of the refugee camps, the odds are still stacked against them.

Passage into the U.S. isnt free, and in order to afford the plane ticket, almost all refugees arrive in debt. They are then subject to the same tax code U.S. citizens, despite a belief by some that their status exempts them from paying taxes.

According to a definition by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, or UNHCR, a refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence. A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.

This does not include migrants that relocate in order to pursue economic gains, but people that flee having no other choice.

Instead of looking at our differences so much, look at our similarities, Hammel said. Theyre not different than us, theyre just seeking a place to have those families, a place to be home at.

Susan Althoff is part of the Wesley United Women's Group that invited Hammell to speak.

Theres a lot of people out there with misconceptions about the whole issue, and its nice to have that conversation and learn a little bit more and get those details, Althoff said. Theyre fact based details.

Jack Hedin was one of the local citizens who attended the meeting.

I know that there are both refugees and immigrants living in and around Winona, Im aware of these folks, but I dont know that much about the process they take in order to come here, Hedin said. I feel like its my duty as a citizen and as a neighbor to refugees and immigrants to learn more about it.

About 130 individual refugees were settled in the Rochester area this fiscal year.

It's daunting to imagine the difficulties in adjusting to a new culture. But after the horrors witnessed by many of the new arrivals, it's a vast situational improvement.

Zina Jadooa is one of the success stories that arrived in 2010. She came from Iraq, and now works with Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota as a case manager and Arabic interpreter. She has been doing the work for the past three years.

Im blessed to work with the agency because every day, theres a new thing that I learn," Jadooa said. "Each culture has their own traditions that I help them to adapt here."
After months living under ISIS's brutal rule in Raqqa, Maha finally managed to escape.

In August, as the besieged city was being pounded by a US-backed coalition, the 23-year-old Syrian widow fled with her two-year-old son Odai and elderly aunt.

They joined hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced since the operation to retake the city from ISIS began last year.

Yet now, even after Kurdish forces declared victory in Raqqa, their future is far from certain as they move from camp to camp in the outskirts of the city.

Maha's only lifeline to the outside world has been her mother Wafa, 40, who sought asylum in the Netherlands in 2014.

Before she escaped Raqqa, CNN chronicled Maha's WhatsApp conversations with her mother. Now, we take up Maha's story as she attempts to make it to Turkey.

The following video includes excerpts from the latest voice messages Maha has exchanged with her mother on WhatsApp, shared by Wafa with CNN. Their voices have been distorted.

Credits Producers: Dominique van Heerden and Laila Ben Allal Digital Producer: Eliza Mackintosh Video Producer: Sara Delgrossi Motion Graphics Designer: Ignacio Osorio Design and development: Mark Oliver, Henrik Pettersson and Kevin Taverner
CSA conference planned in Dells

WISCONSIN DELLS  Wisconsin Farmers Union, in partnership with several Midwest organizations, will host the Midwest CSA Conference Dec. 7-8 at Chula Vista Resort in Wisconsin Dells.

The conference will provide a forum for Community Supported Agriculture farmers and advocates to come together for discussion and peer-to-peer learning. Full-group sessions will discuss individual farms and the movement as a whole. There will also be a trade show with exhibitors showing important products and information for CSA farmers.

Four tracks throughout the two-day conference will offer workshops for farmers in the areas of financial management and business planning, beginning CSA farming, production and logistics, and building community. The conference will also feature a general session panel discussion with CSA farmers and members, who will share their experiences.

For more information or to register, visit midwestcsa.com. A discount for early registration can be obtained by Nov. 10. For room reservations, call 855-923-8144 and refer to booking ID number F51475.
Baraboo leaders planning to ask citizens permission to impose a new vehicle registration tax are fine-tuning how theyll word the question.

For months, city officials have discussed imposing an annual $20 fee, commonly known as a wheel tax, on top of the $75 the state already charges. The money would be spent on local road repair.

On Thursday, the Baraboo Common Councils public safety committee voted 3-0 to place this question on the April election ballot:

Shall the city of Baraboo impose an annual vehicle registration fee of $20.00 on all motor vehicles registered in this state that are customarily kept in the city of Baraboo, with the fee to be used exclusively for road improvements?

The committees recommendation will go to the full council. I think the language is perfect, Ald. Tom Kolb said.

Youve got to keep it simple, Ald. Michael Plautz added.

The Legislature is considering requiring municipalities looking to enact wheel taxes to get voters permission via referendum. With some Common Council members on the fence about increasing citizens tax burden, Baraboo decided to pre-emptively put the question to voters. The city faces a December deadline for placing the question on the spring ballot.

Municipalities across Wisconsin are enacting wheel taxes to pay for road repairs, compensating for diminishing state transportation aid. In recent years, Baraboo has borrowed less than a half-million dollars a year for street work. City leaders estimate theyd need to budget $2 million a year to keep up with repairs. Charging an extra $20 would generate $270,000.

Mayor Mike Palm sought feedback on the proposed wheel tax through the city newsletter, and found opinions mixed. An unscientific online poll hosted by the Baraboo News Republic, Portage Daily Register and Beaver Dam Daily Citizen earlier this year found 64 percent of respondents oppose wheel taxes.
There was some pushback on comments about Beaver Dams racial diversity, Thursday afternoon, during a Beaver Dam Chamber of Commerce panel discussion that focused on demographic shifts in the area.

While you think Beaver Dam is very diverse, its not at all, Marilynn Reichel told the panel. Theres a lot of hidden stuff in the different groups that I belong to and Im constantly shocked at how little diversity we have in the people interacting in those groups.

Letty Castillo from Central Wisconsin Community Action Council, the Rev. Cherie Forret from Trinity Church-United Methodist, Mayor Becky Glewen and Beaver Dam Schools Superintendent Mark DiStefano comprised the panel.

Laura Goral echoed similar critiques. She said that she had two children-of-color who stayed in the community for some time and then left for a more welcoming environment and a space where people talked more about black culture.

To add diversity to our cultural palette we have to have very (purposeful) outreach, she said. We have to mean it and we have to participate

DiStefano said that in the last six years the school district has seen a steady 1 percent rise in the Hispanic population. Right now, 17 percent of the student body is Hispanic. He said its not a spike, but it has been a steady increase. However, there hasnt been the same increase with black students entering the district.

Castillo said the community should focus on engaging minority populations with dignity and respect. Glewen said the city could work on building a more welcoming environment that pushes minority populations to the forefront and engages younger people too. She said that with the growing Hispanic population she thinks there could be more representation in city government.

We should be working on how they help and be a part of strengthening our community and strengthening our youth, she said.

Glewen also turned the focus to Beaver Dams aging population specifically those 65 and older. She has been focused in recent years in attracting and retaining young people in part to help avoid a worker shortage.

According to The Wisconsin Taxpayer Alliance, the availability of young people to replace workers expected to retire in the next decade is somewhere between 80 and 90 percent in Dodge County. That compares with northern counties like Bayfield and Florence, where the anticipated replacement rate is just 50 percent.

Glewen agreed that the situation in Dodge County isnt as dire as it is in northern Wisconsin, but she said that its still a major concern for her. She said the population that is aging out of the workforce is less likely to spend their money in the local economy.
Information is taken from the records of the Portage Police Department and does not represent a comprehensive list of police activity. Each individual named in this report is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Between 6:58 a.m. Monday and 7:48 a.m. Wednesday, police responded to 60 calls.

Ridge Motor Inn: Police on Monday at 11:17 p.m. responded to a domestic disturbance where a 35-year-old Portage woman was arrested and cited for domestic disorderly conduct and physical abuse to a child.

West Wisconsin Street and Silver Lake Drive: Police on Tuesday at 6:59 a.m. responded to a reported vehicle accident where a 17-year-old male from Arkdale was cited for failure to yield during a left turn and driving without proof of insurance.

Rusch Elementary School: Police on Tuesday at 10:26 a.m. responded to a disturbance where a 9-year-old Portage boy had reportedly struck three staff members and was then referred to Columbia County Health and Human Services for disorderly conduct and battery.

Walmart: Police on Tuesday at 10:53 p.m. responded to a reported theft where Brianna Neprud, 19, of Baraboo, was arrested on suspicion of shoplifting, misdemeanor bail jumping, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Abhay Chopra-directed Ittefaq is mysterious and the story is the true winner here. Watch Ittefaq for the mystery at its heart.

By Samrudhi Ghosh: Ittefaq is a contemporary adaptation of the 1969 hit of the same name. Will the murder mystery starring Sidharth Malhotra, Sonakshi Sinha and Akshaye Khanna live up to the hype? Here is our Ittefaq movie review.

Ittefaq had built up the intrigue early on with its no-promotion strategy, a daring risk taken by the makers, especially at a time when Bollywood is taking promotions to the next level. Story-wise, it has surprisingly little in common with the 1969 film of the same name starring Rajesh Khanna and Nanda, which it was touted to be a remake of.

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Ittefaq begins with a chase sequence - UK-based novelist Vikram Sethi (Sidharth Malhotra) is on the run. He is suspected of killing his wife, Catherine. In an attempt to escape the police, he lands up at Maya's (Sonakshi Sinha) house. Vikram is apprehended here, next to the dead body of Shekhar Sinha, Maya's husband.

What seems like an open-and-shut case is, in reality, far more complex, as Dev (Akshaye Khanna) finds out when he takes over the case. With two strong suspects and their Rashomon-like equally-convincing-yet-opposite versions of what really happened that night, it remains to be seen who is the real killer.

Ittefaq works because of its fast pacing - with a short run time of 1 hour 46 minutes, the story is not allowed to meander. Director Abhay Chopra, who is also credited as one of the writers of the film, maintains the suspense throughout. Whodunnits are far and few in Bollywood, and Ittefaq is one of the nicer ones.

That the film is devoid of songs is a huge plus; not only are we spared unnecessary distractions, but it also allows the background score to heighten the tension.

It is not, however, without flaws. A revelation made just before the interval does not fall in line with the film's big reveal. For someone who is on a tight deadline, Akshaye Khanna's character interrogates at his own sweet pace.

Sidharth Malhotra and Sonakshi Sinha are alright in Ittefaq - their acting chops are nothing to write home about - but it is Akshaye Khanna who is the star of the film. Whether it's his no-nonsense demeanour or smart-aleck one-liners, Akshaye is a delight to watch on screen.

There is a slight touch of humour at the expense of the Mumbai police, that is quite enjoyable. But it is the mystery at the centre of the story that is the true winner of the film.

Abhay Chopra-directed Ittefaq is mysterious and the story is the true winner here. Watch Ittefaq for the mystery at its heart.

ALSO WATCH: I have misbehaved and faced rejections in college, says Sidharth Malhotra

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A Baraboo man faces felony charges after allegedly being found passed out with a loaded sawed-off shotgun and a lit gas torch inside a truck.

Jonathan Popple, 33, has been charged with possession of a short-barreled shotgun or rifle, as a repeat offense, repeated possession of a firearm by a felon and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia.

Popple appeared in Columbia County Circuit Court for a bond hearing Wednesday where District Attorney Jane Kohlwey requested Popple be held on a substantial cash bond.

He was found passed out in his vehicle with a torch that was still flaming in the vehicle that we believe was used for consuming some controlled substance, Kohlwey said.

The charges came from an incident around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday when a Columbia County Sheriffs Office deputy noticed a pickup truck parked in Pine Island Wildlife Reserve along the Wisconsin River, just west of Portage.

The officer reported that the man inside the truck appeared to be asleep or passed out, and on the floor was a burning gas torch. After waking the man (Popple), the officer asked him to turn off the torch and step out of the vehicle.

A search of the truck revealed more torches and lighters, used smoking pipes, a container with plastic baggies in it, scales, two knives and a sawed-off shotgun. The 12-gauge shotgun, which had been under a T-shirt, had the barrel and part of the stock cut off and was loaded with three rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber.

Suspected illegal drugs were found. Kohlwey said the material was sent to the Wisconsin State Crime Lab for testing as a matter of officer safety and it being in a small enough quantity that the officer did not want to hazard it being used up in field testing.

He was just convicted of felony drug charges for distribution of controlled substances in February 2016 and was revoked from that probation and placed on a one-year jail sentence, so he is probably just out of jail from those charges, Kohlwey said.

Judge W. Andrew Voigt said, The simple reality is that the collection of allegations here, in particular the circumstances described of the defendant when discovered, are sufficiently dangerous that I dont know that this court could seriously consider a signature bond under any circumstances.

Voigt ordered Popple to be held on a $2,500 cash bond and to next appear in court for a Nov. 9. If convicted, Popple faces a potential sentence of more than 20 years in prison for the weapons charges.
Most Americans probably dont look to Italy for solutions to our most pressing problems, but the Italians are onto a long-term fix for the dangerous ways the public digests information from the internet. With Russian meddling and all kinds of nefarious forces playing games with the truth in this country, information consumers need intellectual tools to sift fact from fancy. Italy is helping lead the way toward building a smarter public.

Italian school students on Tuesday began practicing a checklist of basic instructions on internet use to help them be more skeptical information consumers. The government is teaming up with top social media companies to help alert students to websites whose bogus information is designed to induce outrage, division and mistrust, The New York Times reports.

The fundamental idea here is that students (as well as adults) need to practice critical thinking instead of assuming that because its on the internet, it must be true. Does it sound too good to be true? Too outrageous to be believable? Then it probably is.

The need for critical thinking is universal, which is why students here should be exposed to the same kind of exercises that will start taking place in Italian classrooms. The exercises focus on simple procedures: Dont recirculate or like a posting unless you can verify the item is true. Scrutinize the sourcing. Look for evidence to substantiate what the author is asserting.

We in the news business do this every day, because people with a political ax to grind very often twist the facts to suit their own agendas. They typically use a kernel of truth to build a deliberately slanted or deceptive narrative.

Extremists on the political left and right often perpetuate the myth that the mainstream news media deliberately stifles the truth. If reputable news organizations dont cover a salacious accusation or assumption, its almost always because we cannot verify it as fact or because we have investigated it independently and know it to be false.

Teaching critical thinking in school doesnt mean instructors should indoctrinate students or tell them what to think. Rather, teachers should prod students to think for themselves and avoid groupthink.

The dangers of not teaching such skills are growing. An internet propaganda outlet stated last year that the Democratic Party was operating a child-trafficking ring out of a Washington pizza restaurant. Instead of attempting to verify this outrageous nonsense, Edgar Welch, of North Carolina, opened fire on the restaurant with an assault rifle.

Americas democracy is under attack by a Russian government that knows our publics susceptibility to misinformation. No amount of nuclear weapons or troop buildups can stop this foe. Critical thinking skills are our nations first line of defense in the new misinformation age.
By India Today Web Desk: Sidharth Malhotra has been linked with Alia Bhatt ever since they made their debut together in Karan Johar's Student Of The Year (2012), although they have always maintained that they are just good friends.

Sidharth's film Ittefaq hits the screens today, and as part of the promotions of the film, he came on a special chat show hosted by the film's producer, Karan Johar, with the other two leads, Sonakshi Sinha and Akshaye Khanna.

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Interestingly, when Karan asked Sidharth about his relationship status, he was quick to respond with, "Oh, I'm single." Later in the interview, he was asked to describe his sex life in one word, and the actor said that it was "exciting". On being prodded further, Sidharth said, "Exciting, thrilling and intriguing."

Meanwhile, reports of Sidharth and Alia's break-up were doing the rounds, but pictures of them partying together put the rumours to rest. The rumoured lovebirds attended Shah Rukh Khan's birthday bash in Alibaug, and it looked like Alia had changed into Sidharth's t-shirt after the party.

ALSO WATCH: Sidharth Malhotra opens up on his relationship with Alia Bhatt

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Global developmental institution needs to be accountable on Lonmin

The time to account has come for the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is the largest global development institution with an exclusive focus on the private sector in developing countries. It has not been held accountable for the violation of its own policy in a number of instances, including cases relating to high-profile issues in South Africa.

As an institution within the World Bank, the IFC advances economic development by investing in projects of a commercial nature and/or providing advice and support for such projects. Being both an institution within the World Bank and an ostensibly development-focused finance institution, it goes without saying that this body provides a great deal of funding to countries in the Global South.

The IFC boasts that over the past five decades it has provided finance in excess of $25-billion in Sub-Saharan Africa alone. It goes without saying therefore that the IFC is a powerful financial player and as such has potential to significantly impact the lives of people all over the world, by simply performing its function: providing finance. It is often said that with power comes responsibility. However, responsibility is not bred through power but through accountability. Sadly, the IFC, an important and global financial and economic player operates neither responsibly nor accountably.

Accountability and responsibility can be achieved in a variety of ways; an obvious example is that citizens hold their governments accountable by using the right to vote. But, where there is an imbalance of power, repositories of power are held accountable through court processes. Independent and efficient court processes present an opportunity for the disempowered to at the very least air their grievances, be heard and at most hold those in power accountable through orders and judgments. This, however, is not the case for the IFC. As with many development finance institutions, the Articles of Agreement establishing the IFC, and signed by member states provides that:

Actions may be brought against the Corporation only in a court of competent jurisdiction in the territories of a member in which the Corporation has an office, has appointed an agent for the purpose of accepting service of process, or has issued or guaranteed securities.

Upon reading this provision, one might come to the conclusion that the IFC does not have immunity from court processes but instead places conditions on the manner in which such court processes may be conducted. That interpretation has not, however, been adopted by a US District Court in a case brought in relation to the Mundra plant in India.

The IFC provided a $450-million loan for the construction of the Tata Mundra plant in India. Following the IFCs failure to take necessary reasonable steps to prevent harm in the affected community as is required in terms of its own policy (the Policy on Social and Environmental Sustainability and the Performance Standards) the plant project destroyed the local marine environment, fish populations and sources of water used for drinking and irrigation.

When the affected Indian community tried to sue the IFC in the United States, where the head office of IFC is based, the court declared that the IFC had immunity and therefore could not be sued. This is because the US had enacted a law which granted it the power to determine whether the IFC would have immunity, it did not make a determination to that effect however. Essentially, this decision means that if the IFC finances projects and as a result of the projects, there are social and environmental consequences, the IFC cannot be held legally accountable. Whats worse is that even if such social and environmental consequences occur as a result of the IFC not upholding its own policy, affected persons or communities cannot sue IFC, in the US. This position is worsened in South Africa because, unlike the US, our statute books do contain a provision that provides absolute immunity to the IFC and other financial institutions like it. So, without juridical court process, how would one go about holding the IFC accountable?

As it stands, the only possible manner in which to potentially hold the IFC accountable is through the Office of the Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO). The CAO is the independent recourse mechanism for projects supported by the IFC. The mandate of the CAO is to address the concerns of individuals or communities affected by IFC projects and to foster greater public accountability of the IFC. The IFC receives complaints from persons or communities that are affected by IFC funded projects. The CAO achieves its mandate though dispute resolution (with the relevant and willing stakeholders), compliance auditing and advice to the IFC. Sadly, even this means of accountability is lacking. Our experience evidences that an affected mine community in South Africa sought redress from the CAO, with very little success.

In June 2015, the women of Sikhala Sonke, an organisation based in Marikana, Rustenburg, lodged a complaint with the CAO concerning the IFCs investment in Lonmin PLC, the platinum mining company. In 2007, the IFC made a $50-million investment in Lonmin which was earmarked for Lonmins Local Economic Development Programme. This funding was granted to ensure that Lonmin contributed to the development of nearby communities by providing infrastructure, basic services and poverty eradication programmes.

Having seen no positive changes to the living conditions of those living around Lonmin (as envisioned in the IFC loan and Performance Standards), Sikhala Sonke, with the assistance of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, lodged a complaint with the CAO. The complaint highlighted concerns related to access to housing, water, and sanitation, and ensuring sound and effective environmental management, gender empowerment, education and black economic empowerment.

Following the complaint, Sikhala Sonke participated in a dispute resolution process with Lonmin, facilitated by the CAO. Despite Sikhala Sonkes good faith efforts, nearly 17 months after lodging the complaint with the CAO, and nearly 10 months of engagement with Lonmin resulting in only three separate meetings, no progress was made on the issues which formed the core of the Sikhala Sonkes complaint to the CAO.

The process failed to yield a resolution to any of the issues. The process failed to foster greater public accountability of the IFC. Consequently, Sikhala Sonke withdrew from the process and requested that the CAO commence with the compliance process. Sikhala Sonke then moved on to the second phase of the CAO accountability process: compliance, in the hopes that this instead, would ensure accountability. To date, however, this has not proved itself to be true.

While Sikhala Sonke hopes that the CAOs compliance process will ensure a full analysis of the reasons for the IFC and Lonmins failure to comply with the IFCs policy and the IFCs failure to ensure that Lonmin complied with its policy, seemingly this process yet again will yield no fruit. Sikhala Sonke has been waiting for the CAOs compliance report since May 2017, having pulled out of the dispute resolution process in March 2017. Technically, the CAO has 45 days to publish a compliance appraisal; this period expired close to three months ago. Numerous engagements with the CAO, expose the fact that this delay in finalising the compliance appraisal. It is worth noting that the CAO also rejected a complaint triggered by its own CEO on the basis that the nexus between the (IFCs) E&S performance issues  and the tragic outcomes of the August 2012 dispute (the Marikana Massacre) is insufficiently established. Further elaborative of the CAOs inability to hold the IFC accountable is the complaint lodged on Net1.

In April 2016, the IFC invested $107-million in Net1 UEPS Technologies Inc. (Net1). Net1s subsidiary, Cash Paymaster Services (Pty) Ltd (CPS) is the company that was awarded a tender by the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) for the payment of social grants. The awarding of this tender to Net1s subsidiary was declared unlawful and invalid and set aside by the Constitutional Court. It is on this basis that NGOs Corruption Watch, Black Sash and Equal Education lodged a complaint with the CAO in an attempt to hold the IFC accountable for investing in Net1, despite knowing of Net1s legal woes. The NGOs submitted that there was lack of due diligence on the part of the IFC in respect of the IFCs policy. The CAO has considered the NGOs complaint and instead of investigating it further, rejected the complaint. Steadfast as they are however, the NGOs intend to submit an amended complaint.

It goes without saying that development is important and that the work of the IFC can positively contribute to development of many countries. With that said, such development cannot be at the cost of peoples livelihoods and their environment; it should be instead be inclusive, people-focused and elected, sustainable. The IFC is well aware of this; hence its Policy on Social and Environmental Sustainability and the Performance Standards. The above examples illustrate a number of occasions where the IFC has not been held accountable for the violation of this policy.

Affected persons cannot sue the IFC and the only mechanism they can use  the CAO  takes very long periods of time to finalise its compliance reports, when it does choose to investigate the complaints. Its imperative that the IFC and other development financial institutions, like it, adhere to the notion of development that is inclusive, people-focused and elected, sustainable. At the core of this development model is ensuring accountability either by means of the courts or an effective and efficient CAO. The time has come for the CAO to actually hold the IFC accountable and the time has come for us to hold it accountable for failing to do so.

Nomonde Nyembe and Palesa Madi are attorneys at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, based at Wits University.

This article first appeared in the Daily Maverick.
JD-U spokespersons raised questions over the character of Tejashwi Yadav alleging that the former deputy CM only indulged in doing "rangreliyaan" and "aish-mauj".

By Rohit Kumar Singh: It's an all out photo war that is going on in Bihar politics between the JD-U and RJD ever since a picture of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar went viral showing him with a prime accused of Bhojpur hooch tragedy that took place in 2012.

Couple of days back, former deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav lashed out at Nitish for his viral photo with the hooch accused which led JD-U to release a picture of Tejashwi Yadav with a girl on Friday.

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JD-U spokespersons Sanjay Singh, Neeraj Kumar and Nikhil Mandal, who addressed a press conference, raised questions over the character of Tejashwi Yadav alleging that the former deputy CM only indulged in doing "rangreliyaan" and "aish-mauj". Sanjay Singh also alleged that both Lalu and Tejashwi consumed liquor regularly.

'TEJASHWI ONLY BELIEVED IN DOING AISH-MAUJ'

"It is very clear from the picture that Tejashwi only believed in doing aish-mauj and he is indulging in doing "rangreliyaan" with his female partner. I want to ask Lalu is this the values of his family? First Lalu should look into his own house and then question others," said Sanjay Singh, JD-U spokesperson.

Within an hour of JD-U releasing the controversial photo, Tejashwi reacted slamming Nitish Kumar of being the mastermind behind the act of the JD-U spokespersons. Calling the move of the JD-U to release his personal photo as unfortunate, Tejashwi too indirectly indulged in personal attack on the chief minister.

"Nitish should tell why did he name two trains as Archana Express and Upasana Express? Also Nitish should tell that whenever he goes to Delhi, why does he drop his luggage at the Bihar Niwas and go to Palam Vihar and Dwarka?" questioned the former deputy CM.

But, things got murkier from here when RJD spokesperson Shakti Singh Yadav, who was also present at Tejashwi's presser, showed picture of JD-U spokesperson Sanjay Singh's son with a girl.

"We don't believe in character assassination of women. We are not like JD-U who shows personal picture of someone. This is not the character of RJD," said, Shakti Singh Yadav while displaying the photo to the press.

Hitting back at Tejashwi's personal attack on Nitish, JD-U said that he should clarify on his photo with a girl rather than questioning the name of the trains launched when Nitish was the railway minister.

"Does Tejashwi want that the trains should have been named bhrastachari express or narsanghaar express or sajayafta express ?" said Neeraj Kumar, JD-U spokesperson.

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VIMS researchers observe one of Chesapeake Bays rarest creatures

Distinguishing characteristics: Algae often grows on the backs and tails of manatees, which makes their skin appear green or brown. Photo by Scott Smith/Crown Pointe Marina

Distinguishing characteristics: A manatee's broad, rounded tail is one of its distinguishing characteristics. Photo by Scott Smith/Crown Pointe Marina Photo - of - Hide Caption

Researchers at William & Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine Science spend a lot of time in, on, and near the water, and are thus used to seeing some pretty uncommon marine life.

But when seagrass researcher Corey Holbert glanced into the waters of the VIMS Boat Basin on the day after Halloween, you can excuse him for doing a double take. Where the basins access channel empties into the York River  right below the Coleman Bridge  lolled a 6- to 8-foot-long manatee.

What in the world is that?" Holbert remembers thinking. It went under water right after I first saw it, so at first glance I wasnt sure what it was  a seal, a shark? I just had no idea.

Normally found in the warmer waters of Florida and the Caribbean, manatees are rare visitors to Chesapeake Bay, especially outside the summer months. The 65-degree water temperature in the York River on the day of Holberts sighting was several degrees below the animals preferred lower limit of 68 degrees. Indeed, the animals are subject to hypothermia in waters below 60 degrees.

As Holbert stood on the edge of the canal wondering what he had seen, the mysterious apparition suddenly reappeared, and this time he got a good look. It was fairly close to the top of the water and I could see that broad, flat tail and its distinctive face and snout. When I saw those features I knew it was a manatee.

Excited to share his discovery with colleagues, Holbert contacted VIMS Professor Robert JJ Orth, fellow seagrass researcher Paul Richardson, and Ph.D. student AJ Johnson; together they spent the next 20 minutes watching and filming the creature before it made its way into the York River. Every three or four minutes it would poke its head up and take a breath, says Holbert, and thats when we would get the best look.

Adding to their surprise was the manatees direction when leaving  instead of taking a left-hand turn toward the bay mouth and warmer, more southerly waters; it hung a right and began to swim even farther up the York River.

Orth, whose career at VIMS began in 1969, says this is his first manatee sighting in the bay. But his knowledge of the species biology and ecology makes him concerned about this animals fate.

Were not sure what will happen to this guy, as they dont like cold water, he says. In Florida, when it gets really cold, the densest concentrations of manatees occur in the plume of warm water released by power plants.

Holbert shares Orths apprehension. Who knows where it will head or what will become of it?, he asks. Im definitely concerned, what with the water temperatures dropping. Hopefully it will make its way out [of the bay] and head south, but theres really no way of knowing.

The sighting of the manatee by a team of seagrass researchers is especially ironic, as the underwater plants they study are this species favorite food.

Theres quite a bit of eelgrass on the shelves along the mouth of the York River, says Orth, but this guy was heading upriver towards West Point, where theres nothing for it to eat, unless its going to eat macroalgae  sea lettuce or Argardiella.

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Theres some evidence to support that idea, as Holbert and the others saw the manatee exhibit what they thought was feeding behavior in the boat channel, where macroalgae is the only submerged vegetation.

We could see these big sediment plumes around it  we dont know if it was feeding on the macroalgae that grows on the bottom or just hanging out, he says. Manatees are known to eat macroalgae elsewhere in their range.

Adding to the days mystery is that a manatee was also spotted around 11 a.m. that morning in the Perrin River, about 5 miles downriver from VIMS near Crown Pointe Marina. It could be the same animal  a manatee can travel fairly long distances at speeds up to 5 miles per hour and would have been helped along by the incoming tide  but because none of the observers were able to get a good look at the body, that question will remain unanswered.

Manatee researchers can tell individuals apart by the unique pattern of propeller scars that many bear along their backs. Boat strikes are one of the leading causes of death among manatees, and one of the reasons they were once on the endangered species list. Regulations and education have improved the manatees chances at survival in recent years, but the species U.S. population is still only about 6,000 animals.

Who knows if it was the same manatee or a different one? asks Holbert. I wouldn't be surprised either way. Given the small number of people who actually have their eyes on the bay, and the vast amount of water it holds, I would have to imagine that more of these critters make it in than we realize  we might just never see them.

The last sighting of a live manatee in the Chesapeake region came in July 2016, when an animal was spotted near Rudee Inlet. A dead manatee was discovered in Marylands Patapsco River in November 2016. The bay's most famous manatee is Chessie, a tagged and easily identified animal that first appeared in 1994 and was subsequently seen in 2001 and 2011. There is some thought that manatees may be visiting the Bay more regularly due to climate change and the bays warming waters.
W&M project helping to unearth queer history in Virginia

Explaining her research W&M Community Studies Professor of History and director of American Studies Leisa Meyer described two years of ongoing research to build a digital archive on queer history in Virginia during a three-day conference at the university Oct. 26-28. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

Gaining insight Assistant Professor of English Kara Thompson, chair of the panel on queer digital humanities, and Associate Professor Alexis Lothian of the University of Maryland follow Leisa Meyer's presentation during a roundtable discussion of the subject. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

Pulling it together Associate Professor of American studies and English Elizabeth Losh (green slacks) coordinated the three-day symposium on Race, Memory and the Digital Humanities. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

Pamela Z A composer/performer and media artist who works primarily with voice, live electronic processing, sampled sound and video, Pamela Z presented an artist's talk and later performed at W&M's recent conference on Race, Memory and the Digital Humanities. Photo by Stephen Salpukas Photo - of - Hide Caption

The Commonwealth of Virginia has long carried the stigma of absence and erasure when it comes to queer history, William & Mary Community Studies Professor of History and director of American Studies Leisa Meyer told those attending a recent conference on Race, Memory, and the Digital Humanities at the university. However, a research project she leads is helping to change that reputation.

Meyer was joined on the opening panel of the Oct. 26-28 event by Georgetown University Assistant Professor Amanda Phillips and University of Maryland Assistant Professor Alexis Lothian in a discussion of queer digital humanities.

The symposium included panels on Colonial and Post-Colonial Digital Humanities; Trust, Memorialization and Community Participation; Race, Digital Humanities and the Region; an artists talk and performance by Pamela Z and keynote speeches by Jessica Marie Johnson of Johns Hopkins and Gabrielle Foreman of the University of Delaware. It was funded in part by the Arts & Sciences Annual Fund.

Meyer spoke about the W&M LGBTIQ Research Project she is leading and its importance because, Virginias work in queer activism has been really critical in terms of the national scene  and a lot of people have no idea.

Twenty-five of Meyers students, nearly three-fourths of whom Meyer said were queer students of color, spent 2016 combing through archives located at Virginia Commonwealth University, the Virginia Historical Society, the Library of Virginia and the special collections at Swem Library, looking to excavate and preserve knowledge related to LGBTIQ people and their experiences in our state.

While often frustrated because the information found was focused almost exclusively on white gay men, the students uncovered a couple of significant, previously unheralded, accomplishments.

In 1986, the Gay Alliance of Students at Virginia Commonwealth University successfully sued the Commonwealth to lift the prohibition on public funding for homosexual student organizations This federal case required that LGBTIQ student organizations be able to receive financial support (like other student organizations) at publicly funded colleges and universities.

Five years later, students found, the William & Mary Gay and Lesbian Alumni Association was the key litigant in the trial that struck down one element of Virginias ABC laws, which prevented the serving of alcohol to homosexuals, prostitutes, racial agitators, and felons, among other groups. This federal court victory also had regional repercussions as many states used agencies like ABC boards to target individuals and groups who were deemed unhealthy or a threat to state citizens.

One of the things you see in a lot of this is that there are parallels between the targeting of different groups at a time when massive resistance to desegregation is building in Virginia, Meyer said. Theres also a parallel focus on other kinds of deviants, other types of threats to the state other than sexuality and race.

This fall, undergraduate student researchers have begun collecting oral histories in conjunction with community partners such as Diversity Richmond (the former Gay Community Center of Richmond) and organizations such as Side by Side. Located in Richmond, Charlottesville and Petersburg, Side by Side staff work with LGBTIQ youth who are in various stages of exploring their sexuality or gender non-conformity and perhaps at issue with their parents.

The W&M LGBTIQ Research project has collected 38 oral histories through Diversity Richmond and an additional 16 with alumni of W&M.

They were sort of shackled by what archives hold, Meyer said, explaining the move to oral history. Whose records get archived? Whose records get saved? Who agrees to put records in archives?

Weve focused on William & Mary and LGBTIQ alums of color. So weve tried to have those voices become primary and the lens through which LGBTIQ cultures, activisms, people, etc., are read.

Meyer said that, in collaboration with community partners, the goal is to be part of an effort to get out, to be part of a digital world and to get out a fingerprint in terms of LGBTIQ history in Virginia."
On Thursday, Haasan had said that right-wing groups that held dialogues in the past were now resorting to violence.

By India Today Web Desk: A day after Tamil actor Kamal Haasan spoke about Hindu terror, a case of defamation for hurting religious sentiments has been filed against the actor in Varanasi. The matter will be heard by tomorrow, reported news agency ANI.

Haasan has been booked under sections 500 (Punishment for defamation), 511, 298 (hurting religious sentiment), 295-A (intend to outrage religious feelings), and 505-C (attempt to incite hatred enmity between classes) of the Indian Penal Code.

Case filed against Kamal Haasan under IPC sec 500, 511, 298, 295(a) & 505(c) over his remark on Hindu terror. Matter to be heard tomorrow.- ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) November 3, 2017

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On Thursday, Haasan had said that right-wing groups that held dialogues in the past were now resorting to violence.

Kamal Haasan said, "Right-wing cannot challenge anyone saying there are Hindu terrorists because there terror has spread into their camp as well. Such terror activities are not going to help them in way."

Haasan's comments did not go down well with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Senior BJP leader Vinay Katiyar today said that Haasan should apologise for the statement.

"His mental state is unstable. He should be getting treated in a hospital. Politics of such defamatory nature is not okay. He doesn't have any proof," he said.

Earlier today, another actor backed Kamal Haasan's statement. Prakash Raj in a tweet asked "If instilling fear in the name of religion..culture..morality is not terrorizing..than what is it.."

If instilling fear in the name of religion..culture..morality is not terrorizing..than what is it ..#justasking pic.twitter.com/hs8Y3H700L- Prakash Raj (@prakashraaj) November 3, 2017

Congress leader Dinesh Gundurao too has come forward and reiterated Haasan's stand on Hindu terror

This fundamentalism exists in our country, we should confront it and not run away: Dinesh Gundurao,Congress #KamalHaasan- ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017

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A terrorist belonging to the Jaish-e-Mohammed has been killed and 2 security personnel martyred in an ongoing encounter in Samboora village of south Kashmir's Pulwama district.

By India Today Web Desk: A terrorist has been killed and 2 security personnel martyred in an encounter in Samboora village of south Kashmir's Pulwama district.

The slain terrorist belonged to the Jaish-e-Mohammed and has been identified as Babar.

The encounter began last evening after based on specific inputs from Jammu and Kashmir police about the presence of two terrorists in the area, a joint operation was launched by troops of 50 RR, SOG and CRPF in the Samboora village in Pulwama.

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As the security forces were cordoning off the area, the terrorists hiding in the area started firing indiscriminately, wounding 2 Army jawans. The security personnel retaliated, killing the Jaish terrorist.

Both the jawans later succumbed to their injuries.

Two other terrorists are believed to have escaped under the cover of darkness. The operation is still in progress.

Internet services have been suspended in the area due to the encounter.

WATCH VIDEO | Terrorist gunned down, 2 Army soldiers martyred in encounter in Pulwama

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The Kerala Police has confirmed that six people who are currently in the ISIS camp have clear PFI connections.

By P S Gopikrishnan Unnithan: A sting operation by India Today TV that exposed the fundamentalist organisation Popular Front of India's foul proselytisation tactics and designs to turn the country into an Islamic state has created ripples in Kerala.

The chief minister's office, which was the first to step in, called for a detailed copy of the findings.

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Following this, state police chief Loknath Behera directed top officials to probe the allegations. The department has confirmed that six people who are currently in ISIS camp have clear PFI connections.

INDIA TODAY'S STING REPORT

On Tuesday, India Today TV aired the explosive sting report which laid bare a nexus between Islamic extremist groups and Popular Front of India.

Ahmed Shareef, a senior PFI leader and associate editor of group mouthpiece Gulf Thejas was the first to be caught on camera.

He claimed before undercover reporters that a key aim of PFI was to create an Islamic state in India and later spread it to the rest of the world.

He also revealed the modus operandi of illegal fund transactions from the Gulf to Kerala. Shareef said that Sathya Sarani in Malappuram, which is considered an Islamic education institution, received a lot of money through hawala.

AS Zainaba, president of the AFI's women's wing, said on hidden camera Sathya Sarani is a conversion factory masquerading as an educational organisation.

Hours after the India Today TV report , Kerala police released the names and photographs of half a dozen youngsters from the state who are currently with ISIS in Syria.

The six, including a woman, have been identified as Abdul Ghayoom, Abdul Manaf, Shabeer, Safwan, Suhail and his wife Rizwana, all hailing from Kannur district.

All the men were active PFI workers in Kannur.

ISIS MODULE BUSTED

The police gathered the evidence from an ISIS module busted in Kannur last week. The team included three people who were deported from Turkey after they were caught trying to sneak into Syria.

Two others were Islamic State handlers in Kerala. Hamsa from Thalasserry was believed to be the kingpin of ISIS recruitment from the state. He had been on the radar of the state police for quite some time.

Cops also say that Hamsa was in touch with some PFI leaders in the state. Further investigation about this module led to the discovery that many people who went missing from Kerala and are believed to have joined ISIS have received help from PFI. Some of them travelled abroad with fake passports.

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The state police have been tracking the movement of suspected ISIS sympathisers for over a year. Though the state government is yet to give an official response on the sting, sources say chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has taken up the issue seriously.

According to the police sources, 22 people who went missing from Kerala have joined ISIS so far. Five of them have been confirmed dead by their families and cops.

Though the NIA has taken up the investigation in these cases, state police have been carrying out a parallel probe and are keeping a close eye on over 50 people who are suspected ISIS sympathisers.

WATCH | Operation Conversion Factory: Kerala Islamic NGO behind conversion racket?

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UK seeks close energy relationship with EU after Brexit

03 November 2017

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The UK government's top priority is to agree arrangements with the European Union related to energy - particularly nuclear energy - that are as close as possible to current arrangements, the country's energy minister last week told a parliamentary inquiry into Brexit and the UK's energy security.

Richard Harrington - undersecretary of state at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) - gave evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union, Energy and Environment Sub-Committee on 25 October.

When asked about Brexit's effect on the UK's energy security, Harrington said: "As far as security of supply is concerned, I do not believe it will affect it because we have a very well-functioning, competitive and resilient energy system now." He added, "The capacity market, new nuclear, offshore wind and so on have helped a lot to [achieve diversity of supply]. I believe that government intervention generally - with contracts-for-difference and the capacity market options, for example - has made sure that we are not too dependent on any particular source of supply."

However, he told the committee that the UK benefits from electricity interconnections with other European countries. "Electricity connection is something that we think can deliver benefits in terms of both cost but also security in being part of the larger market."

The UK has 4 GW of electrical interconnection, with a further 9.5 GW having either received or seeking regulatory approval. Construction of two 4.4 GW interconnectors - with Belgium and Norway - is well advanced, he said. Since the June 2016 referendum vote in favour of leaving the EU, construction of two further interconnections - both with France - has also started.

"It suggests that is a growing area, and obviously trade as part of a broader bloc is a good and efficient way of getting the power we need and supplying the capacity," Harrington said. "We will always make sure we have sufficient energy security, whether through domestic or imported means, in the capacity market as well."

He told the committee he does not expect consumer energy costs to be significantly impacted by Brexit. "It is our policy to maintain an affordable energy supply for the UK, and for the EU it is the same." However, he noted: "We cannot assess the energy costs until we know what the new arrangements are, other than to say that I expect a solution that is as near to business as usual as we can possibly get it, and I see no reason why that would affect energy costs."

Nuclear research

Nuclear research is one of four priority areas identified by the government for discussion in the UK's future partnership with the EU. "As we have to keep saying, it is a subject for the negotiations, but it is a very high-priority issue when it comes to looking at what our future relationship with the European Union will be," Harrington said.

He noted that the British government has signalled its willingness to maintain nuclear research collaboration with European partners after the UK leaves the EU. It has committed to underwrite UK funding of the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion project at Culham. The underwriting of those funds will be until the end of 2020, Harrington said, noting this move had "received a lot of support within the industry".

"It is clearly our intention to agree a far-reaching science and innovation agreement with the EU. We want the framework for future collaboration that we have now," Harrington told the committee. "We hope to have a full and open discussion about it, when we can."

Euratom discussions

Harrington was also questioned about the impact of the UK leaving the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). He said the first round of negotiations has focused on the UK's separation from Euratom. "The key issues we have been looking at there are around the ownership of materials and equipment, and providing legal certainty about contracts that are in place. Those negotiations have been positive, broadly speaking."

He stressed to the committee, "Euratom is to do with safeguards - basically, non-proliferation. Safety is dealt with separately and will not change in the slightest. The current regulatory regime will remain."

David Pollock, a Labour member of the House of Lords, said he believed the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has admitted it will have difficulty in the short-term, at least, in maintaining European standards of safeguarding once the UK leaves the EU.

Commenting on this, Katrina McLeay, head of safeguards and delivery at BEIS's Euratom exit team, said: "We are working very closely with the ONR to ensure that we meet our international obligations when we leave. We have made a commitment to reach Euratom standards." She said the ONR is making progress on recruiting staff and developing its IT system.

Harrington elaborated, saying the government is trying to ensure that the safeguards regime is "in place - and in place very quickly - when we leave Euratom". He said, "We are providing the money necessary to do it - set-up costs of approximately GBP10 million. That is for the IT platform and related things. We are negotiating with Euratom itself about the purchase and transfer of the kit that goes with it." However, he noted, "The money is not the relevant thing; I am sure that that can easily be agreed. The issue is the legal process. Recruitment is beginning, to recruit the necessary inspectors and qualified people to do it."

He said he has "every reason to believe" that the UK will have the necessary safeguards arrangements in place once it leaves the EU. Asked if some of the pre-existing arrangements could be kept in place if it is not achieved in time, Harrington replied: "I am sure that if we had to we might, but I do not think that it will be necessary."

"On the safeguards regime, we hope to replicate the powers that Euratom has, to do with safeguards in the UK. I do not think that there is an issue beyond that," he told the committee. "We have no intention of building a less effective form of regulatory regime - or, indeed, one that is directly controlled by government."

When asked about potential associate membership for the UK of Euratom, Harrington said: "It is not as though there is a pre-prepared associate membership option that we could elect to take. I cannot say directly that we would seek associate membership, because there is no definition of that. However, what we can seek - and are seeking - is an agreement that is as close as possible. Again, there is a mutuality of interest in doing that."

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News

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Haile Selassie was made the emperor of Ethiopia in 1930 and ruled until the second World War when he was forced out during the Italian conquest. He called for condemnation of Italy, whom he accused of using chemical weapons against the people of Ethiopia during the war. After a decade in exile, Selassie came back and took over once again as the emperor in 1941 with the aim of modernizing the country socially, economically, and educationally. He stayed in power until 1974 when political instability and the unemployed forced him out of office.

Early Life

On July 23, 1892, Haile Selassie was born at a place called Ejersa Gora. He was first given the name Lij Tafari Makonne (the Harars governor) and was the only son of Makonnen who lived to adulthood. Selassie traced his origin back to the child of Shebas Queen and King Solomon, Menelik I. Emperor Menelik II, who was the Tafaris cousin, did not bear a male child who would take over, and after the death of Tafaris father, he took his son (Tafari) as the heir.

However, following the death of Menelik II in 1913, Lij Yasu, the emperor's grandson, was appointed the emperor. Due to Yasu's links with Islam, he failed to earn the favor of the mostly Christian population; consequently, he was deposed in 1916 and succeeded by Tafari. Tafari was viewed by the younger generation in Ethiopia as the symbol of hope and better future. He represented Ethiopia in the League of Nations in 1923, and he became the first ruler of Ethiopia to fly abroad. In 1928, he self-appointed himself the king and following the death of Zauditu, Tafari became the emperor, and he officially used the name Haile Selassie which means Might of the Trinity.

His Leadership

Haile Selassie ran the government guided by his ambitions where he promulgated a new Constitution, built schools, strengthened police, and centralized the power. He left the country in 1926 following the Italy invasion and led the resistance against the Italian, first by seeking the help of League of Nations. Selassie managed to reclaim his country with the assistance of the British and once again assumed the position of emperor. As the anti-colonialism wave swept across Africa, he inaugurated a new constitution in 1955 outlining equality under the law; however, Selassie retained his powers.

His Last Years

A high number of youths who were unemployed, the 1970s famine, and the inability of Selassies government to resolve the country's problems undermined his rule. In February 1974, the government forces staged a mutiny due to underpayment, which worsened Selassie's problems. He was finally removed from power and forced to stay in his residence until his death in 1975.

False claims came out attributing his death to natural causes; however, evidence indicated that Selassie was strangled, possibly on the governments orders. A burial was conducted in November 2000 and his body buried in Trinity Cathedral of Addis Ababa.

Legacy

Haile Selassie was a devoted Christian, and his frequent quotation of the Bible led to his incarnation by the Rastafari movement. The differing mansions of the Rastafari religion believe him to be either a messenger of God, the messiah, or the human enbodiment of Jah (God). Although his importance differs from mansion to mansion, all agree that Haile Selassie is intrinsically linked with the Rastafari religion.
The Jammu and Kashmir govt has put its foot down and rejected the application for an excise clearance to a duty-paid liquor shop at the Srinagar airport.

By Rahul Shrivastava: Srinagar airport will not to get a liquor shop. In an attempt to boost tourism and indicate to tourists that Kashmir was returning to normalcy, the Airport Authority of India (AAI) had floated a tender for a duty-paid liquor shop at the Srinagar airport in September. But the Jammu and Kashmir govt, of which the BJP is a part, has put its foot down and rejected the application for an excise clearance to a duty-paid liquor shop at the Srinagar airport. The state govt, sources say, didn't want protests from political opponents and religious heads over the issue.

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Following discussions in the govt, the AAI has cancelled the tender. India Today has accessed the notice issued by AAI cancelling the tender. The notice says "AAI today cancelled the tender for a liquor shop at Srinagar International Airport. This announcement came after state's excise Dept refused permission for opening a liquor shop at the airport."

Top sources, in Central govt, said that the NDA govt too didn't want to push the issue it doesn't want to provide a reason for a flare up in the valley at a time when an interlocutor has been appointed to utilise the lull to start a dialogue.

The AAI move had surprised many as since 1991 militants had declared an unofficial ban against liquor in Kashmir while Jammu and Kashmir is not an officially dry state. Liquor vends were closed in Kashmir after 'Allah Tigers' -- a militant outfit issued a blanket ban on its sale and consumption, soon after the armed insurgency erupted in the region.

The AAI cancelled its move after Jammu and Kashmir government on Friday said it won't allow opening of a liquor shop at Srinagar airport. A terse message from the excise dept said that the move to open a liquor shop "violates the provisions of J&K excise Act, 1958 and liquor License and Sales Rules, 1984."

An order, bearing number EC/Exc/Misc/JKEL-2 /4549, dated 03-11-2017, issued to Director, AAI, Srinagar issued by Excise Commissioner Javed Khan read: "In continuation to this office letter No. EC/Exc/1249 dated 13-10-2017 where under you have been intimated that the J&K excise Department shall not grant Liquor license for opening of liquor shop/ vend at Srinagar International airport in violation of to the provisions of J&K excise Act, 1958 and liquor License and Sales Rules, 1984."

The note further said, "It is further intimated that opening of liquor vend/ shop at the international airport Srinagar will not be allowed/permitted as such you may stop the process of any such proposal, as the Excise Department will not grant license required for opening of liquor vend/shop at the international airport."

In Sept, Airports Authority of India had invited e-tenders seeking bids from the potential players to run a duty-paid liquor shop at the airport -- with the lowest bid of Rs 200,000 per month.

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According to sources, 50 firms had shown interest to run the duty-paid outlet at the airport that caters to 20 odd flights and nearly 3500 passengers a day. The outlet scheduled to start operations from January 1, 2018 was to sell all famous liquor brands.

The Centre hoped that a liquor outlet at Srinagar airport would send out yet another signal that things were returning to normal in the trouble torn Kashmir valley. There are very few places in Kashmir that serve liquor and the airport was considered to be a safe place to sell liquor.

The AAI, however, had made it clear that liquor consumption would be allowed at the airport.

Sources in Srinagar says right now there are only few bars in high-end hotels in the entire valley following pressure from militants, religious preachers and a conservative society.

Sometime back, a public interest litigation seeking a ban on liquor sale in line with states like Gujarat and Bihar was moved in the high court.

The state government, however, had ruled-out a ban on sale and consumption of liquor. In March this year, the Peoples Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance updated the policy for liquor sale.

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Interestingly, despite an unofficial ban and social outcry against liquor sale in Kashmir, it is witnessing an increase.

Official data shows that around 2 lakh bottles of different kinds/brands of liquor were sold in J&K in 2015-16 compared to 1.69 lakh bottles in 2014-15 and 1.53 lakh bottles in 2013-14 -- making liquor sale one of the biggest revenue generators for the state. From liquor excise, govt earned Rs 5.3 billion in 2015-16 compared to Rs 4.6 billion in 2014-15 and Rs 4.3 billion in 2013-14.

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This weeks congressional hearings on extremist content on the Internet mark a new stage in the McCarthyite witch hunt by congressional Democrats, working with the intelligence agencies and leading media outlets, to legitimize censorship and attack free speech on the Internet.

One after another, congressmen and senators goaded representatives of Google, Twitter and Facebook to admit that their platforms were used to sow social divisions and extremist political opinions. The aim of this campaign is to claim that social conflict within the United States arises not from the scale of social inequality in America, greater than in any other country in the developed world, but rather from the actions of outside agitators working in the service of the Kremlin.

The hearings revolved around claims that Russia sought to weaponize the Internet by harnessing social anger within the United States. Russia, said Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, promoted discord in the US by inflaming passions on a range of divisive issues. It sought to mobilize real Americans to sign online petitions and join rallies and protests.

The McCarthyite witch hunts of the 1950s sought to suppress left-wing thought and label all forms of dissent as illegitimate and treasonous. Those who led them worked to purge left-wing opinion from Hollywood, the trade unions and the universities.

Likewise, the new McCarthyism is aimed at creating a political climate in which left-wing organizations and figures are demonized as agents of the Kremlin who are essentially engaged in treasonous activity deserving of criminal prosecution.

To this end, the congressional witch-hunters released a series of Russia-linked social media posts expressing opposition to police violence and social inequality. These were meant to serve as smoking gun examples of how Russia worked to sow social divisions within the US.

The argument that it takes a Vladimir Putin to divide the United States is, frankly, laughable. So far this year there have been 273 mass shootings in which four or more people were killed or injured. More than 1,000 people are killed by police every year.

The United States is bursting at the seams with social discontent. Inequality, war, the pressures caused by poverty-wage jobsall are sources of enormous social anger.

The Democrats absurd narrative stems from their attempt to rationalize away their disastrous defeat in the 2016 election, blaming it on a Kremlin-backed conspiracy instead of their own indifference to the social misery that pervades the country.

At Wednesdays hearings, Schiff declared that the problem is not just foreign and complained that the algorithms used by social media companies tend to accentuate content that is fear-based or anger-based.

That helps it pick up an audience and go viral and be amplified, he said, with the consequence of widening divisions among our society.

When was the last time Schiff or any of his colleagues held a hearing on the real sources of division and social discontent in America? Are they holding hearings on the soaring wealth of the financial elite, on the criminal conduct of the wars in Afghanistan or Syria? No, Schiffs concern is to prevent the people from learning anything that would fuel their anger.

To this end, he asked representatives of Facebook, Twitter and Google what societal obligation they have to change the fact that what ends up percolating to the top of our feeds tends to be things we were looking for.

In this statement, Schiff makes clear the real content of the Democratic Partys furor about fake news and Russian meddling. What concerns Schiff and his colleagues is not fake news, but true news that goes viral and gets amplified because it reflects popular anger.

The problem, according to Schiff and his fellow congressional witch-hunters, is that people looking for politically critical viewpoints can actually find them on the Internet, as opposed to what they find in the corporate-controlled newspapers and TV broadcasters.

Amid soaring social inequality, a spiraling political crisis and the continuous threat of nuclear war, millions of people have grown justifiably hostile to the capitalist system and the political establishment. The immense popularity of the Internet reflects the fact that it provides people with the chance to obtain information that news outlets such as the New York Times, working with the intelligence agencies, seek to keep from them.

The ruling elite sees the combination of social disaffection and the unlimited access to information provided by the Internet as an existential threat that must be combated through censorship. As Clint Watts, a former US Army officer and FBI agent, put it at Tuesdays hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee: Civil wars dont start with gunshots, they start with words. Americas war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions Stopping the false information artillery barrage landing on social media users comes only when those outlets distributing bogus stories are silencedsilence the guns and the barrage will end.

The fact that censorship is spoken of so openly means that a major intensification is coming. The American ruling elite, to use the words of Watts, believes it is already engaged in a civil war with its own population and is more than willing to use censorship to silence sources of rebellion.

Google, Facebook and Twitter are already engaged in censorship, each of them announcing that they are hiring thousands of people to moderate and review content. Earlier this month, Google removed from its list of preferred channels on YouTube the Russian-sponsored TV station and online news outlet RT, which reports stories largely censored by the mainstream press. Twitter likewise blocked RT from using its advertising service.

In April, Google implemented a change to its search algorithm that slashed traffic to left-wing, antiwar and progressive websites by more than 55 percent. Last month, it removed almost all pages from the World Socialist Web Site from its news service, Google News, together with articles from leading left-wing journalists such as Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges.

This drive to destroy freedom of speech must be opposed! It is the spearhead for the dismantling of democratic rights not just in the United States, but all over the world.

We call on all readers of the World Socialist Web Site to donate to its campaign against Googles censorship and to join the International Committee of the Fourth International, which is leading the struggle to defend democratic rights as part of the development of an international working-class movement for socialism.
A newly released police report details how 21-year-old autoworker Jacoby Hennings sought help from the United Auto Workers on the morning of October 20 before the young man, who was struggling to hold two temporary part-time jobs at Detroit area auto plants, apparently killed himself inside Fords Woodhaven Stamping plant.

Although the news media had dropped the story, writing it off as another workplace shooting by a disgruntled employee, the tragic death of the son of two Detroit Chrysler workers has struck a deep chord among workers angered over the cruel conditions facing this young man and other Temporary Part-Time workers (TPT). A World Socialist Web Site article on Hennings October 28 funeral has been viewed more than 50,000 times on social media.

The Woodhaven Police Department report was obtained by the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter through a Freedom of Information Act request.

According to the Narrative section of the 11-page report, Martin Hernandez, who identified himself as a Ford Human Resources manager, told officers that Hennings came to his office this morning seeking advice because he was late for work. Hernandez told the police Hennings was clearly disoriented and was talking in circles.

Hennings requested to be taken to an office that did not have windows and wanted to speak with and [sic] African American UAW Representative. Hennings mentioned several times that people were out to get him.

The police report says, Hennings was taken to the second level to speak with Arnold Miller and Christopher Pfaff, two UAW Local 387 officials who were in the union office in the plant. Miller, who is African American, is the Trustee Chair and Pfaff, who is white, is listed as a Bargaining Representative on Local 387s site.

Miller and Pfaff both stated Hennings appeared very paranoid and that they spoke with Hennings in the office for over one hour. Hennings brought a black pack into the office that he continually looked at during their conversation. Miller and Pfaff suggested Hennings call his parents to come pick him up from the plant and leave for the day. Hennings placed his cell phone on the desk in front of him. However, he never attempted to make a phone call. Hennings continually stated people were out to get him.

Hennings pulled a black handgun from his waistband, the report continues. Pfaff attempted to disarm Hennings and gain control of the gun, but was unsuccessful. Miller and Pfaff ran from the office and began yelling to alert other employees of the threat.

It is not known what was said during more than one hour in the union office. Although the report notes that Hernandez, Pfaff, Miller and Jablowski [presumably Bill Jablonski, the Midnights Representative (D4) for UAW Local 387] all completed Woodhaven Police Witness Statement Forms, which were forwarded to the DB (Detective Bureau), the police denied a request for a copy of these statements. A representative of the Woodhaven Police Department told the WSWS that their statements were not covered by Freedom of Information Act and could only be obtained by an attorney through a motion for discovery.

One thing is clear, however; far from addressing the young mans concerns and giving him confidence that the union would protect his job and livelihood, whatever the local union officials said did not assuage his despair.

Shortly after union officials sounded the alarm police and SWAT teams from several local departments and the Michigan State Police responding to an active shooter with possible shots fired call descended on the plant.

The police responded in a typically heavy-handed, militaristic manner. Despite the fact that no shots had been fired, there was apparently not the slightest effort made to establish contact with the clearly frightened and disoriented young man and attempt to de-escalate the situation.

According to the Woodhaven Police report, four policemen reached the second floor, spotted Hennings 30-40 feet away, hiding behind a row of lockers and shouted orders at him to show his hands and move away from the wall. At that point the police reported, a gunshot was heard, and he fell to the ground. Hennings, the report continued, appeared to have shot himself in the head and appeared deceased.

Police later said there was the only one shot fired and no one else in the plant was hurt.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the UAW issued a one-paragraph statement lamenting the unfortunate incident that resulted in one of our members taking their own life with a firearm. UAW 387 officials have made no public comments and have not returned calls from the WSWS.

According to accounts in the local news media, including from a few Ford workers, Hennings was disciplined for coming into work late that morning and escorted out of the plant. He apparently returned to talk to the HR manager and local UAW officials.

Hennings was not only working a temporary part-time job at Ford, but another one at Fiat Chryslers Warren Truck Assembly Plant, 37 miles away. In addition to fearing the loss of his job at Ford, co-workers at the Warren Truck plant said he was also concerned about imminent layoffs when Fiat Chrysler shifts production of its top-selling Dodge Ram pick-up trucks to another plant.

Whatever the specific circumstances which led to Hennings death, the roots of this tragedy lie in the brutal conditions faced by young workers in the auto industry and throughout the economy, which tell the real story behind the boom in corporate profits and the stock market. Recent studies show that 100 percent of the job growth in the US between 2005 and 2015 came from temporary help agency workers, on-call workers, contract workers, and so-called independent contractors.

The notion that Hennings was a disgruntled employee is being promoted by the UAW because it is complicit in the creation of a sub-class of highly exploited temporary part-timers who, while being forced to pay dues to the UAW, have no job security and can be fired at will. Like Jacoby Hennings, they work irregular hours and are on call, while constantly under the threat that their chance to gain full-time status will be snatched away if they miss a day of work or are late.

As the WSWS has detailed, beginning in 2007 and then under Obamas 2009 restructuring of the auto industry, the UAW agreed to a vast expansion of TPTs. This enabled the corporations to replace tens of thousands of higher-paid legacy workers with disposable workers being paid near poverty wages who could be quickly tossed out of the plants when vehicle demand fell and production was cut back. As a reward, the UAW was given control of a multi-billion-dollar retiree health care trust fund and its top figures were paid off, as the expanding FBI probe into the UAW bribery scandal has revealed.

Below is a selection of statements of sympathy for Hennings left by workers on WSWS articles. We are concealing their names to protect them against management-UAW retaliation.

This is painful to read, but it needs to be an eye opener to the reality that many people are facing, said KR. These plant jobs and the union are nothing like they used to be. I come from a GM, Ford, and Chrysler family...union and management. There used to be respect that came with these jobs, but theyre just short of a sweatshop now.

It is so sad how the company has bought the union, said JB. I have worked for Chrysler for many years and the union used to help people but now these young people are on their own. The next contract you better change things.

BT said, This is so sad on every level & it hit very close to home. I work very close to one of his [Hennings] family members and I see the hurt shes going through but its very true, if the UAW doesnt step in and help these temps get hired, unfortunately I can see something like this happening again or worse. We see it every day, how they get treated. Its almost unreal, no vacation, no personal days, cant miss a day or be late, management talking to you crazy & union leaders really not helping you as much but you pay union dues anyway. Its super stressful and combined with whatever else you have going on its not a good situation.
Using an elaborate bag of tricks, the gang appears to have made the most of the security turmoil in Kashmir.

A marble mine owner, Hemendra Kalal, 24, in Dungarpur paid Rs 12 lakh in 2015 to procure a weapons licence backdated to 2008 when the man was himself a minor! A four-month-long investigation by the state anti-terrorism squad (ATS) has unearthed a gun-running network spread across four states that has been 'arranging' licences from Jammu and Kashmir and firearms from Madhya Pradesh. Kahal was arrested in October, but later released on bail.

Using an elaborate bag of tricks, the gang appears to have made the most of the security turmoil in Kashmir. All one needs here for an arms licence (for individual use by army and security force personnel) with all-India validity is a recommendation from a local commanding officer. The ATS found that scores of licences had been issued on the basis of forged letters (from COs). Recipients' images were photoshopped to depict them in uniform. The gun licences were all backdated to avoid the online scrutiny that started in 2015-16.

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ATS SP Vikas Kumar says the flourishing trade in fake licences and weapons moved to the 'disturbed states' after 2008 when others like Rajasthan introduced stringent rules and background checks. In fact, this had led to the closure of Wali Mohammad & Sons, Ajmer's leading gun house, in 2008. Meanwhile, the Udaipur police says it has unearthed another arms racket where over 500 people got arms 'licences' from Nagaland, another disturbed state.

ATS officers say Wali Mohammad's son Usman (who is absconding) and grandson Zubair were in the business of procuring weapons and forged or fake licences. According to them, Rahul Grover, a resident of Jammu, was responsible for getting the licences, while another, Vishal Ahuja from Ferozepur (Punjab), facilitated the transactions. The arms were procured through a contact-a gun house in Dewas (MP).

An ATS raid on the shuttered Wali Gun House in September yielded 400 weapons, including an antique silver-and-ivory revolver valued at Rs 20 lakh. Records of the Dewas gun house are now being verified to determine whether single licences were used to sell multiple weapons.

An estimated 4,500 licences on which weapons were bought from the gun house in Dewas are currently being probed by the Rajasthan ATS. Investigating officers fear the number of illicit licences and weapons could be many times that number. Meanwhile, the Jaipur district and sessions court has ordered the J&K home secretary to provide 'all requisite information' to the Rajasthan ATS. Bijju Joseph, the inspector general heading the ATS probe, also visited Srinagar to check records. While the ATS has so far not found any terror angle, Joseph says many of the arms are now in the possession of criminals. Those arrested for buying and selling illegal weapons include Ravi Kant Tripathi of the Hindu Jagran Manch, and Mukesh Modi and his son Rohit Modi of Sirohi, all of them known for their proximity to the ruling BJP.

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Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon is the first high-profile scalp in a sex scandal sweeping British politics, which has taken on ever more contrived dimensions.

Fallon resigned after being made to apologise for placing his hand on the knee of a female journalist 15 years ago. This is despite the fact that the woman involved, Julia Hartley-Brewer, had not complained and has publicly disassociated herself from what she described as a political witch-hunt.

Fallon is among 40 Tory MPs in a so-called dirty dossier leaked to Rupert Murdochs Sun newspaper. While most names are redacted, it reportedly includes six serving cabinet ministers. Some 15 names relate to consensual relationships, while one Tory MP is accused of sexting a young female who had applied for work, and another is under investigation for getting his personal assistant to buy a sex-toy for his wife.

The sex-scandal, if such a designation can be applied, sprang to life following that surrounding American film producer Harvey Weinstein, which has now engulfed Kevin Spacey and Dustin Hoffman. It is asserted that Westminster is the UKs equivalent of Hollywooda place where sexual harassment and misogyny are so rife and engrained that they can only be dealt with by outing those involved, without the wearisome encumbrance of due process.

No evidence has been provided to back up many of the claims and, as yet, no one has been charged with any offence.

To make this observation is not to imply that Westminster is a bastion of morality, or that the allegations are entirely without foundation. This is an institution that has systematically stripped workers of any rights, leaving them prey to all manner of abuses, under the mantra of survival of the fittest and there is no such thing as society.

Fallon himself is a leading warmonger, whose bellicose threats of military aggression against Russia and North Korea include his statement last month that Britain should be prepared to use nuclear weapons against Pyongyang. Yet he has left office over an action so inconsequential that the woman involved thought nothing of it, and even with a degree of public sympathy behind him. Meanwhile, the war preparations continue regardless.

Secretary of State Damien Green also stands accused of inappropriate behaviour. Tory political activist, journalist and feminist, Kate Maltby, has detailed how she sought out Greena close friend of her motherwhen starting her career. At a meeting in 2015 where he promised to help her advance, she felt a fleeting hand against my kneeso brief it was almost deniable.

This was apparently the cause of such distress for MaltbyYou probably have no idea of how awkward, embarrassed and professionally compromised you made me feel, she wrote of Green in the Timesthat they had no contact until after she had posed in a corset for a national newspaper and Green sent an appreciative text suggesting they meet up.

Maltby only decided to respond when Green was suddenly promoted to Deputy Prime Minister earlier this year, on the occasion of which she sent him a message stating, I look forward to seeing what you achieve in government.

For this, Green is fighting for his political survival.

Writing in the Guardian, Polly Toynbee opined: What an irony it would be if another good old British parliamentary sex scandal brought down this governmentand not the Brexit abomination or the extreme suffering caused by austerity or any of the myriad acts of atrocious governance they have been guilty of since 2010.

More than irony is involved. Can it be mere coincidence that Green and Fallon are Prime Minister Theresa Mays key political alliescharged with managing the bitter infighting between the pro and anti-Brexit wings of the Conservative Party, which has become even more charged since Junes general election?

May has already been threatened with a leadership challenge. The British government has just six weeks left to convince its European Union partners to begin negotiations on the terms of its exit from the single market, but there is no sign of movement. Meanwhile, bogus allegations of Russian interference in last years Brexit referendum have taken a qualitative turn with the UK Electoral Commission investigating Arron Banks, the entrepreneur who funded anti-Brexit campaigns.

At any rate, the scatter-gun nature of what has been described as Britains cultural revolution, or the new Puritanismconflating sexual interaction with criminal actionslends itself to the settling of scores for political ends.

Sheffield Labour MP Jared OMara is suspended from the party for online comments he wrote more than a decade ago about women and homosexuals. The offending remarks were brought to light by right-wing blogger, Guido Fawkes (OMara is a supporter of party leader Jeremy Corbyn).

This week, Bex Bailey said she was raped at a Labour Party event six years ago by a senior member, but was discouraged from reporting it by a fellow activist.

Bailey is a former aide to Liz Kendall, the Blairite challenger to Corbyn in 2015, and was the youth representative on Labours National Executive Committee until last year. Although she had not taken the alleged attack to the police, Bailey did report it to BBC Politics Editor Laura Kuenssberg, whose anti-Corbyn bias is a matter of record.

The internal investigations set up by Labour into such charges are now being used to tar anyone supporting Corbynand more specifically, left-wing or socialist politicsas rape apologists.

Suzanne Moore in the Guardian declared that many Jeremy Corbyn loyalists are nasty misogynists, while at the Telegraph, Zoe Strimpel asserted that Corbyns rise has given those on the Left with thuggish instincts an open field. And a party that embraces thuggish impulses will behave thuggishly.

Whatever the exact fallout from these events, nothing good will result. There is a profoundly sinister undercurrent, as befits a campaign predicated on jettisoning the presumption of innocence.

Andrea Leadsom, Leader of the House of Commons, has been put in charge of acting on allegations of sexual misconduct. Leadsom, who boasts of her admiration for Margaret Thatcher and the centrality of her Christian faith (she prays all the time) has announced she will be setting the bar significantly below criminal activity in dealing with inappropriate behaviour.

Right-wing journalist Melanie Phillips writes that the parliamentary sex scandal has got seriously out of hand. But she blames it on the sexual revolution and lifestyle free-for-all, which turned sex from a private, sacramental activity within marriage into little more than a recreational sport.

As women threw themselves into lifestyles of immodesty, promiscuity and casual sex, this led to an exponential increase in male sexual misbehaviour as men sought to assert their masculinity, she states.

The answer presumably is that women should get back in the kitchen. Phillips is notorious for her anti-Muslim screeds, usually disguised as a defence of womens rights. Yet her comments would be perfectly acceptable to the Taliban.

This speaks to more fundamental impulses. So wide is the designation of abuse that names on the sex-pest list are said to include Home Secretary Amber Rudd for having a relationship with a fellow MP following her divorce, and Tory MP Jake Berry for having a son with his partner, a party aide. A striking number involve homosexual relations, including one male MP accused of liking intercourse with men who are wearing womens perfume. One can only surmise that it is not the perfume but the act that is considered morally reprehensible.

A warning must be made. The campaign launched in the name of protecting women and gays, with the support of the identity-politics crowd, will invariably be used to overturn democratic and social rights and legitimise the most backward and reactionary ideologies.
Dominique Morisseaus two-act play, Skeleton Crew, recently had a run at the Detroit Public Theatre. The drama, which premiered at the Atlantic Theater Company in New York City in January 2016, takes place in the breakroom of a stamping plant in Detroit somewhere around year 2008.

Three of the characters are production workers. The central figure, Faye (Ella Joyce), is a black woman in her late 50s. Outspoken, caustic and gay (and alienated from her son as a result), she has lost her houseto foreclosureand a great deal more.

Audience members realize soon enough that Fayewho also suffers from breast cancer but eternally and defiantly puffs on a cigarette in front of the prominent No Smoking signis sleeping in the breakroom, because the cold weather has made spending nights in her car impossible. She has worked at the plant for 29 years (Been on the line longer than you been born) and serves as the UAW union representative.

Dez (Brian Taylor), a black man in his 20s, is angry, individualistic, even explosive, but also quite sensitive. He has plans to open his own repair shop-garage (Few more months of overtime, Im in there). The pregnant Shanita (Shawntay Dalon), a young woman and single-mother-to-be in her 20s, also black, is hard-working, according to the playwright, and believes in the work she does.

The fourth and final character is the workers supervisor, Reggie (Brian Marable), a black man in his 30s. He wears a tie, always has a clipboard under his arm and tries, to his own way of thinking, to keep everyone and everything in the plant in line. His late mother was Fayes closest friend, and he has known her since childhood.

We quickly learn that the plant, the last small factory standing [in Detroit presumably], in Dezs words, is scheduled to close. Reggie tells Faye, HR is sending out the notice as soon as details are final. Faye thinks of her own situation (I hit thirty years at the end of the year.  Retirement package be real different for twenty-nine years versus thirty) and that of the others. The supervisor implores her not to tell the workers she is supposed to represent. Help me figure this out without sounding the alarm, Reggie pleads, using his family connection to Faye as a kind of emotional blackmail. She agrees to say nothing for the time being (Fine. Well do it your way).

As Skeleton Crew proceeds, the various social and personal pressures mount, with the impending closure of the factory, which eventually becomes common knowledge, looming in the background.

Faye desperately attempts to keep the lid on things at the plant and in her own chaotic existence. The factory is now literally and figuratively her home: I know everything about this place, Dez. The walls talk to me. The dust on the floor write me messages. Im in the vents. Im in the bulletin board. Im in the chipped paint. Aint nobody can slip through the cracks past me up in here.

For Reggies benefit, she recounts the circumstances that have led her to camp out in the breakroom, circumstances faced by millions in America: I wasnt keepin up the payments on the note [mortgage]. Goddamn property taxes killin me. Roof was near cavin in and I couldnt afford to fix it up. Cancer treatments kickin my ass. What you want me to say? I aint goin through my whole list of finances with you. Shit got out of my hands. End of the damn story.

Meanwhile, Dez increasingly comes into conflict with Reggie and the rest of (unseen) management over his latenesses and general insubordination. When company policy, prompted by a spate of robberies of plant materiel, dictates that lockers and workers belongings be searched, Dez resists the humiliating procedure. He faces off with Reggie, who complains that he keeps breaking the rules. Always treating me like Im up to no good, Dez responds. Like I aint got a righteous bone in my body. Wont matter why I do what I do or what my intentions are. Wont matter what plans I got or what Im trying to build. You got your mind made up that Im shit and you just waiting for proof. A gun found in Dezs bag seems to confirm Reggies worst suspicions.

Shanitas job and life situation seems precarious, perhaps more so to others than it does to her. Faye, knowing that the plant is shutting down, is appalled that the pregnant young woman had turned down an office job. But Shanita wants to stay in the auto industry. She loves the sound of machines running.  Sound like harmony. Like life happening. Production. Good sound. She doesnt want any part of the other job. Here, I feel like Im building somethin important. Love the way the line needs me.  Im building something that you can see come to life at the end. Got a motor in it and its gonna take somebody somewhere.  Workin in this industry is what I do. Uncertainty is always there. But its the work Im made of.  Everybody cant do what I do. I belong here. Ride it til the wheels fall off.

Reggie is tormented by a divided loyalty between management requirements and demands and his desire to see that the workers get a fair break. Pressured by Faye, he replies defensively, I dont own this place. I just try to keep it running smoothly. Then later: Im also thinking that I need my job just like everybody else. If this company folds, I could fold with it. I dont have a union to protect me, I just have my reputation. He explains that hes thinking about the workers, but hes also thinking about How I could lose my job and make my family lose everything.  Im walking the line, Faye. One foot in front of the other and trying not to fall and crash and break my spine.

As should already be obvious, there are a number of strong elements in Skeleton Crew. First of all, and this is not an insignificant matter, there is the physical and social time and place: the devastating economic slump of 2008, working class Detroit, a stamping plant. The play never wavers from its legitimately urgent concentration on and interest in the lives of this handful of workers, confronting powerful economic and social forces. This in itself is commendable and rare.

Morisseau, originally from Detroit, has an undeniable way with words. At times she tries too hard to be authentic and local, but generally speaking, the dialogue is relatively rich and evocative. The story itself is coherent and intelligently set out, and it is sometimes moving. The actors have clearly thrown themselves into one of the few opportunities they have to do something about real life. The set resembles an industrial lunchroom, down to the unmatched plastic chairs, the inevitable company notices, the miserable, fading green paint and the decades of grime.

However, there are also serious weaknesses in Skeleton Crew. This is a story about the working class, not a drama of the working class, so to speak. Some of that is inevitable. But some of it is not. There is a lack of an appreciation here of the concrete, historical conditions facing the American working class. For all its immediacy, the play is either distant from or wrongheaded about some of the most pressing questions.

The drama in Skeleton Crew resolves itself into the struggle to negotiate the best terms under which the workers jobs will be eliminated. No one questions the right of the owners to damage or destroy the workers lives. The closest thing to rebellion is this speech by Dez in Act Two: Yall gotta be kiddin getting moral on me right now. You think any of this is moral? Keep us workin these presses til we pull a fuckin shoulder blade, and then replace us in a heartbeat if we cant keep up the production. You think when this ship sinks the captains going down?

Of course, Morisseau cant invent a mass upsurge in the auto industry that hasnt taken place yet, but the artist is also charged with doing more than simply reproducing the empirical surface and the individualist illusions. The workers may not see certain things at this moment, but what does the playwright see? The private ownership of the auto industry and the profit system as a whole have proven catastrophic for Detroit, the poorest major city in the US, where unemployment, poverty, drug abuse and homelessness are rampant.

Bound up with this is the playwrights portrayal of the United Auto Workers, which has collaborated with the auto companies and various governments in the destruction of hundreds of thousands of jobs and the transformation of life for wide layers of the population in Detroit, Flint, Pontiac and other communities into a nightmare.

In her directors notes, included in the program at the Detroit Public Theatre, Morisseau explains that she spoke to many people as part of her preparation to write Skeleton Crew, including UAW activists. She goes on later to comment, One of my consultants said, the important thing about the UAW that people need to understand is that at its core it isnt just about the rights of auto workers, but about civil rights in general.

Morisseau was clearly talking to the wrong people, those connected in one way or another to the well-heeled, privileged and widely hated UAW officialdom. The organization is a corrupt, bureaucratic shell that exists to police the factories in the interests of the auto companies, large and small.

Her outlook helps explain why she has the only opposition to the UAW in her drama come from the right, so to speak, from those, like Dez, who complain that the union pulls money outta my paycheck every month, for what? Only thing the UAW do for me is force me to strike when I dont even want to.  I done paid enough dues in my life already, I aint tryin to pay to nobody else. Strikes? What strikes? The UAW hasnt lifted a finger in decades to stop the immiseration of the working class in Detroit, or anywhere else.

Dez later complains that Faye, the nominal union representative, hasnt done anything: You supposed to be on our side. Fighting for us. What happened to all that union talk you got every other day?  Tell me why you aint called no meetings down at the Local or demand this company let us know our fate. Tell me why we aint talkin health coverage or severance deals? Aint even gonna prep us for the blow that might be comin? But this protest is pretty ineffectual and quickly set aside.

One of the other big questions is Morisseaus decision to make the entire cast African American. According to an ABC News item in 2009, the nation's 60 or so African-American automotive suppliershave annual sales of about $4 billion and employ some 8,000 people, about 70 percent of them black. The company in Skeleton Crew appears to be African American-owned, as far as one can tell. But still, 70 percent is not 100 percent.

Morisseau is a strong admirer of the work of playwright August Wilson (Fences), the chronicler of African American working class life in Pittsburgh and an ardent black nationalist, who once declared, Lets make a rule: blacks don't direct Italian films, Italians don't direct Jewish films, Jews don't direct black-American films.

There is no evidence that Morisseau subscribes to that reactionary and crippling viewpoint, but there is something limiting about her choice of characters. Whether it is deliberately racialist or not, the choice to have only black characters working in a Michigan auto plant is parochial and insular, and, frankly, makes the drama less interesting and complex. At the very least, the playwright has taken the easy way out in this regard.

This is bound up as well with the over-emphasis on vernacular, which doesnt prove all that much except the playwright has a skilled ear and pen. Pinning down the rhythms of speech, accompanied between scenes by J Dilla-inspired beats, is a secondary matter. It can even be an evasion ultimately of the effort to arrive at the truth about the condition of the working class, black, white, Latino, Asian and immigrant, an effort that deserved to be placed at the center of such a serious work.
After imposing Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution to suspend Catalonias elected government last week, Spain, backed by the European Union (EU), is rapidly moving towards a military regime. As High Court judge Carmen Lamela remanded into custody eight ministers of the Catalan regional government, Spanish armed forces chief General Fernando Alejandre threatened yesterday to attack Catalonia.

In the right-wing daily ABC, Alejandre affirmed that his plans for domestic military intervention are part of similar plans by NATO countries across Europe and North America. Just like our allies, he said, we are developing plans to, among other things, defend critical infrastructure, take action in response to catastrophes or crisis situations, react to external threats, fight terrorism or engage in collective defense in the context of the [NATO] Atlantic alliance.

Apparently to assure readers that the Spanish army is not preparing a coup, Alejandre immediately added: Naturally, our plans take into account that the Armed Forces are tools serving the Spanish Nation, and that the executive branch must decide on the time and form of an intervention.

Alejandre stressed, however, that Catalonia was a target of Spanish war planning. He called the Catalan independence movement the greatest threat to our democracy. To prepare the Spanish army for its tasks, he wrote, I must take into account the accord adopted by the Senate on October 27, which noted the extraordinary gravity of the disobedience of constitutional obligations, and the carrying out of actions gravely contrary to the general interest, by the institutions of the Catalan regional government.

Having singled out the threat supposedly posed by Catalonia, Alejandre continued: History shows that, if need be, Spains people and also its armed forces know how to defend our Nation. Hailing Spanish soldiers of all epochs, he declared, Our history is replete with examples where the Spanish military put its love for Spain before all other considerations...

Alejandres claim that Catalan separatism is the greatest threat to Spanish democracy is an absurd political lie: the main threat comes from Madrid and the army.

His comments are a warning that Spain and the whole European Union (EU) are moving towards dictatorship. Alejandres assurances that there will be no coup are an evasion. Madrid launched an all-out confrontation with Catalonia during the October 1 Catalan independence referendum, which it sought to block through a violent police crackdown. As it decapitates the Catalan government and tries to install its unelected viceroys in Barcelona in the face of mass protests, Madrid doubtless plans to rely on the security forces even more than during the referendum.

His praise for the Spanish armys role during all epochs is a chilling threat that must serve as a warning to workers across Europe. Over the last century, apart from its aggressive and bloodthirsty colonial wars in North Africa, the Spanish army has had only one target: the Spanish people. The last time the Spanish army marched into Catalonia, in January 1939 under the command of fascist Generalissimo Francisco Franco at the end of the Spanish Civil War, it carried out mass executions of its political opponents in order to crush revolutionary struggles of the working class.

The threat of domestic military intervention in Spain, amid a state of emergency in neighboring France and escalating demands for Internet censorship in Washington, is the product of a mortal crisis of capitalism. After a quarter century of escalating militarism and austerity measures since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and particularly since the 2008 Wall Street crash, the EU is discredited. With tens of millions of workers unemployed and living standards falling in much of Europe, the ruling class is terrified of rising social anger and moving towards dictatorship.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoys Popular Party (PP) government is ruthlessly attacking the Catalan bourgeois nationalists to show that no opposition will be tolerated. Independence referendums had been held peacefully in Quebec in Canada or in Scotland in the UK. Nonetheless, Madrid deliberately inflamed the Catalan conflict, assaulting peaceful voters during the October 1 referendum and then rejecting Catalan president Carles Puigdemonts suspension of a declaration of independence and appeals for dialogue.

Madrids main target is opposition in the working class, and in its assault on Catalonia it is acting with contempt for the Spanish people. Despite weeks of non-stop anti-Catalan propaganda in the press, polls suggest growing opposition in Spain to Madrids crushing of Catalan self-rule. In a recent El Mundo poll, 57 percent of Spaniards and 76 percent of Catalans wanted a peaceful Catalan independence referendum to be held, whilst large majorities opposed independence.

Nevertheless, Madrid aims to seize the Catalan regional state apparatus and impose austerity and militarism at the behest of the EU, which is has backed Madrid and demanded thatdespite the Catalan crisisit continue to cut social spending to meet EU budget deficit criteria.

Yesterday, Spanish courts jailed Catalan ministers including Oriol Junqueras (Deputy President), Jordi Turull (spokesperson), Raul Romeva (foreign affairs) and Joaquin Form (interior). Accused of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement over the October 1 referendum and the October 27 declaration of independence, they face up to 30 years in jail.

Ousted Catalan premier Carles Puigdemont and four regional ministers who fled to Belgium on Monday also face arrest. Spains Public Prosecutor is demanding the High Court issue European Arrest Warrants. Charges of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement have also been levelled at the Catalan Parliament Speaker Carme Forcadell and five members of the Speakers Committee.

This ruthless response was not meted out to one accused minister, Santi Vila, who resigned at the last minute before the independence vote last Friday. He was not jailed, but released on 50,000 bail. Vila was greeted with shouts of traitor, coward, and now the police protect you on his arrival at court. He is clearly being groomed as the contender in the December 21 election that Madrid has demanded be organized in Catalonia.

The only way forward to oppose the turn by Madrid and the EU towards dictatorship is the independent mobilization of the working class across Spain and Europe in a revolutionary, socialist and internationalist struggleagainst not only Madrid and the EU, but also the Catalan nationalists.

The latter, having run pro-austerity administrations in Barcelona for decades, advance the reactionary perspective of building a separate capitalist state in Catalonia oriented to the EU.

While Madrid and the Puigdemont government are engaged in an increasingly bitter struggle against each other, they are also closing ranks against the working class. Both are seeking a deal at the expense of the workers, based on the EUs ever more militarized austerity policy. In Brussels, Puigdemont repeated his appeals to the EU to broker a deal with Madrid, and acquiesced to Rajoys call for December 21 elections, calling them a democratic plebiscite.

A rally was organized by the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Omnium in Barcelona. The citys mayor, Ada Colau, councilors of her Podemos-backed BComu coalition, the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) and Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT), and the petty-bourgeois Candidature of Popular Unity (CUP) attended. Colau proposed an amnesty and the annulment of Article 155 after the December 21 elections as minimum points for reconciliation and a return to democratic normality in Catalonia.

Colaus government has voted to recognise Puigdemonts administration as the legitimate Government of Catalonia, rejected the application of Article 155 and the authoritarian and threatening response of the State. It rejected a CUP motion to recognize the proclamation of the Catalan Republic on October 27.

Similar proposals are being made by strategists of the ruling class internationally. In an editorial, the New York Times wrote, For the moment, Spains prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, armed with the countrys Constitution, appeared to have taken the upper hand. However, it warned, Rajoys unyielding stance could backfire if the standoff continues. The violent tactics of the Spanish police in trying to break up the referendum left bitter feelings in Catalonia, and more strong-arm tactics, should Catalans defy Madrid, could further shift sympathiesperhaps outside Spain as well.

The newspaper counseled de-escalation and relying on the bankruptcy of the union bureaucracy and its political allies, like the Podemos party, to strangle working class opposition. Major trade unions and many civil servants appear likely to accept Madrids temporary control, it wrote. If Catalan parties are in fact prepared to participate in a new regional election, Mr. Rajoy should display magnanimity by apologizing for the behavior of the police on Oct. 1, the Times advised.

The basis of such a reconciliation would be an agreement of all of the parties on stepped-up military and police deployments and austerity measures in Catalonia and across Spain.
The study group has been set up on the backdrop of the Supreme Court's observations that a bullock is not as strong as a horse so it cannot be a race animal.

By Kiran Tare: Caught in a fire over allowing bullock cart racing the Maharashtra state government has taken a step to find a solution to Bombay High Court's ban on the racing. The government has set up a nine-member group of veterinary doctors to do a comparative study between the bull, bullocks and the horse to determine whether the bullock is a race animal.

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The study group has been set up on the backdrop of the Supreme Court's observations that a bullock is not as strong as a horse so it cannot be a race animal.

The brief given to the committee is to study the bullocks' anatomy structure, their stamina to run, their draught capacity (stamina to pull weights), the physiological and biochemical changes while running and other allied matters.

The nine-member group of veterinary doctors has been given a month to find out the stamina of the bull and bullocks to run, compared to that of the horse.

The state Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Dairy Development and Fisheries department on Thursday issued a Government Resolution (GR) in this regard. The group is expected to study the various breeds of bulls, bullocks and horses and examine the stamina of the bull to run.

The study group has been given six parameters - to study the anatomy and physiology of different types of breeds of bulls and bullocks in comparison to the horse, to study their capacity to run, to study the draught capacity (stamina to pull weights), to study physiological and biochemical changes during running of the bulls, bullocks and horses, to submit expert opinion regarding technical aspect like anatomical, physiological, biochemical, clinical and surgical interventions and aid for bulls and bullock as a race animal, to prepare comprehensive report of study and compilation of research work, studies and trials conducted across the world, its references and committees expert opinion.

The state had enforced the revised amendments on August 10, 2017 to the amendments made by the Center to its Prevention of Cruel Treatment to Animals, Act 1960 with a view to allow Bullock cart racing in the state. However, a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against the said amendments was filed in the Bombay HC.

On October 10, 2017 the HC noted the Supreme Court of India judgment in the A Nagaraj versus Indian Animal Welfare Board on May 7, 2014 had stated "the bull is not an animal that does not exhibit work-skills like the horse. Besides taking into account the anatomical structure of the bull, the bull is not fit to run in races". Hence, the Bombay HC declined to grant permission to bullock cart racing in the state.

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The ban on bullock cart racing in the state has evoked sharp reactions in the state. Bullock cart racing has been quite popular especially in Western Maharashtra and also in some other parts of the state.

--- ENDS ---
VALDOSTA, GA (WALB) - An inspection of a food delivery truck at Valdosta State Prison found a huge cache of banned materials, Thursday.

Someone had hollowed out several heads of cabbage, and hidden cell phones, marijuana, and tobacco inside.

Officers recovered 811 grams tobacco, 308 grams of marijuana, two LG touch screen cell phones, a Samsung J3 cell phone, and three cell phone chargers.

A spokesman for the Georgia Department of Corrections said that the investigation is continuing, and no arrests have been made yet.

Copyright 2017 WALB. All rights reserved.

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Copyright 2017 WTXL via Raycom News Network. All rights reserved.
COLQUITT COUNTY, Ga. (WTXL) - Colquitt Regional, Legacy Village and the Colquitt County Health Department teamed up to host a drive thru flu shot clinic.

In a little over six minutes, people drove through the line, filled out forms and got their flu shot.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the United States millions of people become ill, hundreds of thousands are hospitalized and tens of thousands of people die from the flu every year.

MOBILE USERS: Download our WTXL news app on your Apple and Android devices for the latest from South Georgia and North Florida. Also, download our WTXL Weather Now app for Apple and Android devices to get the latest local weather wherever you go.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for additional local news and hourly updates.

Copyright 2017 WTXL via Raycom News Network. All rights reserved.
TALLAHASSE, Fla. (WTXL) - A state senator says there is an organized effort to "tear down" the Senate and make it weak ahead of the 2018 legislative session.

Sen. Jack Latvala made his comments Thursday at the Associated Press Annual Pre-Session Planning Day at the Capitol.

His remarks were in response to reports of a private investigator who had followed Latvala and photographed him kissing a lobbyist Latvala described as a longtime friend.

The Clearwater Republican also criticized House Speaker Richard Corcoran and suggested some House members had resigned because of him.

MOBILE USERS: Download our WTXL news app on your Apple and Android devices for the latest from South Georgia and North Florida. Also, download our WTXL Weather Now app for Apple and Android devices to get the latest local weather wherever you go.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for additional local news and hourly updates.

Copyright 2017 WTXL via Raycom News Network. All rights reserved.
PERRY, Fla. (WTXL) - Florida Department of Law Enforcement are assisting Perry Police with a crime scene in Perry, Fla.

Reports say there was a shooting.

Perry Police Chief Jamie Cruise says the male victim drove himself to the hospital in Perry with non-life threatening injuries shortly before 6 p.m. on Thursday.

Police are still working to find out where the shooting actually happened. They say they have no suspects at this time.

WTXL will keep you updated as more details become available.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Tallahassee continues to grow and support local artists and businesses. It's this growth and support that ignited a renovation in Railroad Square Art Park.

Railroad Square Art Park has been a popular hangout in Tallahassee since the mid 70s and welcomes people from all walks of life. And it's all centered around an old warehouse.

"It used to be a storage place for lumber and sheet metal and other things when it was owned by McDonnell Lumberyard," said Lillian Finn, the property manager at Railroad Square Art Park. "It dates back to 1941. It was used in the war efforts, World War II."

With a high demand of artists looking for a place to set up shop, Finn went to the drawing board.

The new Breezeway Marketplace at Railroad Square is home to nine different businesses all under one roof. The business owners are all optimistic that this new improvements to the art park will bring in even more visitors.

"With it being brand new, and it's so cute in here," said Jessica Duncan, who owns Fun4TallyKids.com. "I absolutely love the little cottages. It's going to attract a lot of people."

Duncan, who was about to relocate her office away from the park, knows about bringing people to Railroad Square. With her office in the Breezeway market, she believes this is just what she needs to continue with her business and family friendly events.

"I was told that was a totally new demographic to have families and kids come out to do events at Railroad Square," said Duncan

She says this renovation to the old House of Plywood makes the art park that much more family friendly.

It took 19 months to complete the Breezeway. It's now open to the public.
MAYO, Fla. (WTXL) - The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has identified the suspect shot in an officer-involved shooting in Lafayette County.

They say employee of the Department of Children and Families (DCF) called the Lafayette County Sheriff's Office after she was threatened by an armed man, now identified as 62-year-old Joseph Molnar, in the area of 1368 SE County Road 420 in Mayo, FL.

As deputies arrived, Molnar pointed his weapon at officers and failed to follow commands from law enforcement to drop the weapon.

Lafayette County deputies called for backup assistance from the Suwannee County Sheriffs Office SWAT team. When the SWAT team arrived, Molnar began shooting at deputies.

Deputies fired back and the subject was shot. Molnar was transported to Shands Hospital where he is in critical condition.

No deputies were injured and the DCF employee was not hurt. After the shooting, deputies found Molnar was in possession of at least four firearms.

At the request of Lafayette and Suwannee County Sheriffs Offices, FDLE will conduct an independent investigation to determine the facts of the officer involved shooting and will provide that information to the state attorney.
THOMASVILLE, Ga. (WTXL) - Much-needed upgrades are coming to one Thomasville neighborhood, thanks to a major grant from the state of Georgia.

Thomasville was awarded three-quarters of a million dollars to improve the Fletcherville community.

The city was one of 59 Georgia communities to receive a 2017 community development block grant. Officials worked with residents to address the key concerns in the neighborhood.

"We've previously received complaints about drainage, and this gave us an opportunity back in January of this year to formalize those complaints or these issues from the neighborhood  and then put them in an application to DCA, and now, we have the funds to address them," said Jerry Pionessa, Thomasville's assistant city manager.

The project will include sidewalk construction, drainage improvements, and sewer rehab.
THOMASVILLE, Ga. (WTXL) - The wife of a Thomasville man who was shot and killed by police is speaking out, saying law enforcement went too far.

Its getting harder and harder every day, said Brittany Minter.

Brittany Minter is heartbroken after losing the love of her life last month in an incident she cant wrap her head around. On October 4th, her husband of nine years, Jomekia Minter, went missing while she was at work.

He wasnt responding to my texts or calls, so I knew something wasnt right," said Brittany.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says they found him that evening walking down County Line Road. Deputies say he had a pistol and was talking irrationally.

I understand he had a gun, and theyre there for their safety, but he wasnt going to hurt anyone, said Brittany.

Trying to diffuse the situation, authorities say Jomekia pointed his gun at SWAT officers and Thomas County deputy Tyler Lamon fatally shot Minter, a harsh reality for his wife and children.

It is really hard to tell your kids that their daddy is not coming home, said Brittany.

Minter says it wasnt like her husband to just wander off county line road with a firearm, especially since they didnt have any in the home. She says authorities shouldve contacted her before firing their own weapons.

They took him away from us. They broke a family apart," said Brittany. "He is gone. Hes not coming home.

Minter says shes pursuing legal action to get justice for her husband. The deputy that fatally shot him was placed on administrative leave.
In 2015, Harshal Vibhandik, a 35-year-old New York-based investment banker, returned to his hometown Dhule to partner with Pragat Shaikshanik Maharashtra, a state programme to bring government schools onto digital learning platforms. In just two years, Vibhandik and his team have managed to equip 52,000 of the 67,000 Marathi-medium schools across rural Maharashtra with computer-based audio-visual learning facilities.

Tablets and interactive projectors have replaced textbooks and notebooks in wi-fi enabled schoolrooms. Maths and science classes now employ LCD projectors and laptop computers. Initially paid for from Vibhandik's savings and contributions from his NRI friends in the US, local zila parishads pitched in with funds after seeing the results.

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Almost 70 per cent of the funds required for the project are being raised by local villagers now. According to the Maharashtra State Council of Education Research & Training (MSCERT), rural residents contributed an impressive Rs 312 crore between July 2015 and September 2016. The money was used mainly to build or repair classrooms, toilets and buy computers and related hardware.

The transformation is truly remarkable: the state education department's annual report, released last March, recorded a 15 per cent jump in attendance in village schools over the past two years. Officials acknowledge that interactive education has become a "bigger glue than mid-day meals" for students to stick around in classrooms. Pratham's Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2016) also notes that the number of children 'out of school' came down 1.5 percentage points in 2014 to 0.9 per cent in 2016.

Maharashtra's education minister Vinod Tawde proudly points out, "Around 44,000 students have left private English-medium schools to join our state Marathi-medium schools."

But there's a new problem now. Schools equipped with the new digital learning platforms are finding it difficult to pay the fatter electricity bills, in some cases up to 10 times more than before the computers were installed. The zila parishads ought to bear the burden, but most of them are already strapped for cash. Keen to keep the project going, Vibhandik has decided to knock on the doors of corporate houses. "They helped us in the past; I hope they will do the same during this crisis as well," he says.

Union human resources development minister Prakash Javadekar wants to replicate Maharashtra's digital learning model in other states. Vibhandik says he is prepared to help but only "if funding is not an issue".

--- ENDS ---
Carlos Adrian Gonzalez-Espinoza appears in Yakima County Superior Court during a preliminary hearing Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017. Gonzalez-Espinoza is suspected of having been involved in a fatal shooting in Yakima on Tuesday. (SHAWN GUST/Yakima Herald-Republic)
By India Today Web Desk: Malayalam superstar Dileep today has sought CBI inquiry in the sensational Kerala actress abduction and assault case. According to reports, Dileep wrote a 12-page letter to the Home Secretary seeking the CBI's interference in the case.

Actor Dileep has sought CBI inquiry into Malayalam actress molestation & abduction case- ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017

In the letter, Dileep alleged that there was a 'conspiracy' angle against him and that he is innocent. Dileep also said that the prime accused Pulsar Suni blackmailed and threatened him.

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After spending nearly three months in jail, Dileep was granted a bail by the Kerala High Court last month. He was given a conditional bail by executing a bond of Rs 1 lakh. The prosecution argued that Dileep might tamper with the evidence against him, if he is granted bail.

Over the last few months, the assault case has seen several twists and turns. Pulsar Suni has made some shocking revelations during the course of interrogation. Based on Suni's statements, filmmaker Nadir Shah was questioned for the second time by the SIT.

Earlier in February this year, the popular Malayalam actress, who has worked in Tamil and Telugu films, was abducted and allegedly molested inside her car for two hours by a gang of six men.

ALSO WATCH: Dileep's bail plea rejected by Kerala HC for the second time

--- ENDS ---
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The West Bengal government opposes the Centre's move, insisting that the Constitution guarantees the right to life to everyone, not just Indian citizens.

When Shamima, a Rohingya refugee imprisoned at Dum Dum Central Jail in Kolkata, gave birth to a child in August 2016, she named him 'Azad' (free). As a refugee and prison inmate facing trial under the Foreigners Act, this note of hope was about all she could offer her baby boy. Just two months earlier, the young mother had been arrested while crossing into India to join her husband and in-laws, believed to be employed as wage workers in Hyderabad.

Azad, born in Kolkata, could claim to be Indian. But Shamima, like scores of others, is in legal limbo - Myanmar doesn't acknowledge the Rohingya as citizens, while India is looking to deport 40,000 refugees like her. Strictly applied, the rules say Shamima would have to leave Azad behind if she were deported as Delhi desires.

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Deportation after "engagement with Myanmar and with a sober and sensitive approach", as foreign secretary S. Jaishankar describes it, is Delhi's official line on the refugee crisis. The West Bengal government opposes this approach, insisting that the Constitution guarantees the right to life to everyone, not just Indian citizens.

Although prison records peg the official number of Rohingya refugees in West Bengal's jails and shelter homes at just 55, officials say there is reason to suspect that many of the 3,000 Bangladeshis in jails are in fact Rohingya refugees. But despite instructions from the ministry of external affairs, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee isn't in any hurry to identify and repatriate them.

West Bengal's Commission for the Protection of Child Rights has moved the Supreme Court against Delhi's bid to deport the Rohingya: "You cannot deport children and their mothers to a conflict zone. It goes against the principles of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," says Ananya Chatterjee, the commission's chairperson. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) has also sought withdrawal of the Centre's instructions to state governments on similar grounds.

Encouraged by her government's stand, Madhurima Dhanuka, who heads the state's prison reforms programme, says the Centre's orders on deporting Rohingya refugees will be fruitless, since deportation requires that Myanmar first acknowledge them as its citizens.

In West Bengal, Banerjee's government is doing all it can to comfort such refugees. The state child commission has arranged baby food, mosquito nets and blankets, besides a subsistence allowance for young mothers. And perhaps to underline the compassionate approach, at a press conference on September 19, Banerjee said: "Commoners are not terrorists. If commoners suffer, humanity will suffer." Predictably, BJP state secretary Col. Diptangshu Chowdhury says this is simply more evidence of Mamata Banerjee's "politics of [Muslim] appeasement".

--- ENDS ---
The metallic knocking and faint sounds beyond the claustrophobic darkness are the main landscape in the special fighting zone of Yaltam, the Israeli Navy s Underwater Missions Unit.

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The unit, which is used to operating 100 meters underwater, will be required to break a record in the future by diving 300 meters below sea level, for defense purposes, on the gas rigs the Israeli economy is already relying on.

From a distance of hundreds of kilometers off Israels shores, Yaltam fighters will be required to defend the strategic asset whose waypoint is already in the crosshairs of Hezbollahs advanced Yakhont missilesthe gas drilling rigs.

Underwater, prepared for any scenario (Photo: IDF Spokespersons Unit)

There, at the bottom of the shelf in the depth of the Mediterranean Sea, the fighters will emerge for prevention measures aimed at thwarting any threat being prepared by Hassan Nasrallahs organization.

Meanwhile, the fighters are busy locating missing people at sea and handling old naval mines and explosive devices.

A Ynet crew joined the units beret march swim after it completed eight months of an exhausting track, and held a first-of-its-kind interview, inside the water, with the units commander, Lieutenant Colonel Ido Kaufman.

Its highly critical if a merchant vessel arriving in Israel is harmed, because then the rest of the boats wouldnt come and the supply of goods to Israel would be halted, Lt. Col. Ido explained how the naval arena turned into a defense stronghold.

We also know how to deal with underwater sabotage, which causes the enemy a lot of destruction and damage, but I cant go into detail. In past wars, we carried out operational activities on the borderline and beyond the borderline.

(Photo: IDF Spokespersons Unit)

"The exclusive economic zone, Ido added, presents a new challenge of reaching depths of 300 meters, and we are trying to overcome this challenge by looking into the future purchase of means of warfare that will cater to this need.

There are few units in the IDF with such diverse missions like Yaltam. In routine times, the fighters find themselves searching for citizens who have gone missing in the Sea of Galilee or handling a suspicious blank shell spotted floating off the shores of Haifa.

That same week, the fighters might also be deploying or upgrading a sensor network for the detection of enemy divers off the shores of the Gaza Strip or on the maritime border with Lebanon. Shortly afterwards, they would sail hundreds of miles west to find a needle in a haystack: To locate and lift from the deep water a new missile launched as part of an experiment with a new Israel Air Force system.

Neutralizing the threat within several minutes

The next big challenge facing Ido and his subordinates has to do with defending the exclusive economic zone. Navy officials have realized that the remote gas drilling rigs are only a small part of the mission. Important sailing routes pass near the Israeli rigs, making them vulnerable.

The Yaltams equipment (IDF Spokespersons Unit)

The enemy has made progress in its ability to attack from the air and from the sea, and the underwater area is progressing too, so we have to precede what the enemy has in store for us. Its a huge, long, wide and deep area, and we must get to know it very well, says Lt. Col. Ido.

We received a taste of the possible threats to the exclusive economic zone a moment before arriving at the port. The calm created by the breakwater on the backdrop of Mount Carmel was violated by a powerful underwater explosion, which created a foamy waterspout and metal particles flying above it.

The units diving equipment (Photo: IDF Spokespersons Unit)

The units Explosives Squadron tried to cut 8 millimeters of a thick metallic cord, inside the water, to which a mine was firmly attached, using an explosive device containing 1 kilogram of plastic explosives, which the fighters were required to assemble in no time.

We have designated explosive devices for this mission, but sometimes well be very far from the mother base or from the bunker, and well have to act quickly, explained Major Ron Inbar, commander of the Explosives Squadron. This way, well be able to neutralize the threat within just a few minutes.

(Photo: Ido Erez)

Ron and his fighters have several diving methods, including surface-supplied diving in which they are connected to a boat above them with long tubes, or more independent diving based on breathing systems.

His commander, Lt. Col. Ido, elaborates on the dangerous cases in which a fighter could encounter breathing problems due to strong currents deep in the water, and cases of exaggerated self-confidence, when instead of getting some air from his diving partner, a fighter starts searching for solutions himself. In radical situations underwater, you must stop, relax and continue the mission. When youre in the water, everything is quiet, and there is someone behind you who is counting on you.

(Photo: Ido Erez)

We also have the tiny underwater vehicle, which will soon be replaced with a larger and stronger robot against the strong currents in the Mediterranean Sea, with a sonar that scans a wider radius.

Sara is the strongest fighter on the team

Back to the naval beret march. The 12 cadets, who have completed a five-hour swim from the Meridien Hotel area in southern Haifa to the port area, are escorted by Sergeant Major Noa Keren, an instructor, fighter and sapper in the unit. She lets the exhausted cadets take a short break and hands them raisins to freshen up.

Eleven years ago, the unit began admitting women too, and one of the fighters who stood out is Sergeant Sara Anog, the only woman fighter in the current class which completed the route.

Sergeant Sara Anog and Sergeant Noam Zinger (Photo: Yoav Zitun)

We dont have to walk so much and dont have to climb mountains either, says Sergeant Major Noa. This kind of swimming is physically very difficult, because well use this ability on the coldest days and on the hottest days, in high seas and in strong currents. After all, its not natural for the body. Sara meets the requirements just like the boys, so theres no reason for her not to succeed. This unit needs men and women fighters with strong motoric capabilities, an ability to work with tools and excellent physical fitness. Its a voluntary unit, and no one forces you to put your head under the water.

Sergeant Noam Zinger, who swam alongside Sara, says she is the strongest one on the team, even if not physically. She is the strongest in mind.

Sergeant Sara Anog (Photo: Yoav Zitun)

Sara herself says she never dove before starting the route as part of the unit. I seized the opportunity. Theres no feeling here of differences between the boys and girls, and you always feel theres someone next to you.

Like infantry regiment commanders who have women fighters too, Lt. Col. Ido has similar things to say about his female subordinates: Our unit is considered very manly compared to similar units in the world, because of the heavy weights the soldiers are required to carry, but we have proved that its possible. The women fighters planning and performance skills are higher, quicker and more fundamental than the boys skills, in the world of guidance as well.
A memorial plaque near Paris in memory of Ilan Halimi, a French Jew tortured and murdered in 2006, was pulled off, thrown on the ground and covered with anti-Semitic writing.

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The plaque, located in a park in the Paris suburb of Bagneux, was found vandalized Wednesday morning. It was covered with anti-Semitic graffiti, swastikas and the phrase "Free Fofana"referring to the gang leader responsible for Halimis death.

"This kind of act is an insult to this young person and all those who fight against anti-Semitism and racism," said Bagneux Mayor Marie-Helene Amiable, according to the French newspaper Lexpress.

Ilan Halimi (Photo: AFP)

Amiable added that the plaque, which has already been maliciously vandalized two years before, would be replaced as soon as possible.

The affair is still considered to be one of the most horrifying incidents of anti-Semitism in France's recent history.

Politicians from across the spectrum in France were quick to express their shock and condemned the incident.

France's interior minister has condemned the desecration of a prominent Jewish grave plaque near Paris by unknown vandals as "cowardly and odious."

France's leading Jewish group the CRIF said that this latest event highlights the country's persistent anti-Semitism.

The plaque was placed in the park in 2011 in memory of Ilan Halimi, who was kidnapped at the age of 24 and cruelly tortured for three weeks by the "gang of barbarians," led by Youssouf Fofana.

The Gang of Barbarians, a French criminal gang whose members were predominately French-born children of Muslim immigrants, kidnapped Halimi because they believed that "the Jews are rich," calling his middle class family in demand of exorbitantly large sums of money on several occasions.

They even called a local rabbi, claiming that he was "a representative of the Jewish community that should provide the ransom."

Halimi was found dying near the railroad tracks south of a construction town and perished on his way to the hospital.

Fofana was sentenced to life imprisonment for orchestrating Halimi's kidnapping and ransoming.

Halimi was reburied in Israel in 2007.
Nine Syrian residents were killed and 23 were wounded by a rare suicide attack on Friday near the Syrian-Israeli border, this according to Damascus-based Arab news agency SANA. As a result of the attack, an Israeli citizen from the Druze village of Majdal Shams was lightly injured and subsequently treated for his injuries. The attack took place in the Syrian village of Hader, which is close to the Druze-Israeli town of Majdal Shams.

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The village of Hader sits within the Quneitra Governate, considered to be one of President Bashar al-Assad's military strongholds in the Syrian Golan Heights. According to unconfirmed reports, a car bomb was used in the attack.

After opening trading at the London Stock Exchange, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the position Israel is taking in light of the heated hostilities within Syria.

Druze protestors (: ayham marjeh)

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Netanyahu stated that Israel will continue to protect its borders in the north and south, while maintaining sympathy to "our Druze Brethren."

Druze MK Akran Hasson (Kulanu) claimed that the attack included some 150 Jabhat al-Nusra militants and confirmed that it indeed included a car bomb.

Druze demonstrators arrive at Syria-Israel border fence

"Four of those killed are my family members, the Hasson family, which is the largest in the village," said Hasson. There are dozens more who are wounded.

"People have to understand that these are murderers who are massacring their own people," continued Hasson. "I've said it before to the army and the government: each one these groups (involved in the internal Syrian conflict), who we used to believe in, eventually turned their guns toward us (the Druze population). They cannot be trusted.

"I know that Assad's army is also using the Druze population for its own interests. We're counting on the IDF, this is our country, but the citizens in Hader are our brothers, they're family. We cannot allow them to bet hurt."

In a highly unusual turn of events, the IDF issued a statement in light of the attack, saying it was willing to aid the Druze residents of Hader, who are currently fighting to prevent the Assad's Syrian army from overtaking the South Syria village.

The suicide attack in Syria

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"Over the past six years, there has been internal fighting in Syria. Israel's policy is very clearwe do not interfere in the fighting or assist either side, while offering humanitarian and medical aid to local residents of the Syrian Golan Heights to ease their suffering. We do not and will not assist terrorism organizations in the Golan in any way," said IDF Arabic Spokesperson, Maj. Avichai Adraee.

"In the last few hours, there has been substantial fighting in the area of the village of Hader. Despite lies spread by parties with a personal stake in the matter, Israel is not and will not assist any terrorist group in hurting the village's residents. On the contrarywe will continue to stand by the Druze living in the (Syrianed) Golan Heights."

After hearing that their family members had been killed in Hader, hundreds of Druze citizens from the Israeli town of Majdal Shams and the area began rioting: after gathering at the Shouting Hill on the Israeli side of the border with Syriaused to communicate with Syrian family members and other residents standing on the other side of the borderbefore reaching the border fence and damaging it.

Smoke from the suicide attack in Hader

Dozens of Druze Israelis crossed the border into Syria following the attack. The IDF retrieved them within minutes. Druze protestors also damaged the border fence.

Syria has been torn apart by a civil war waged between the Assad's Syrian army and rebel forces opposing his totalitarian regime since 2011. Israel has repeatedly stated it will not interfere in the internal Syrian struggle, though it does offer humanitarian aid as well as medical care to Syrian refugees who manage to reach the border.

The Israel-Syria border

A relatively large village, Hader is in actuality under control of the IDF, which monitors it using posts on Mt. Hermon and tanks stationed directly facing it. Two years ago, IDF Northern Command went as far as to prepare offense plans for it to carry out operations within Hader itself, if the need should arise.

Following the deadly attack, Adraee announced that "the IDF is closely monitoring the developments in the town of Hader."

Israeli Druze demonstrate in solidarity with Druze kin injured in attack in Syria

The number of casualties in the attack is expected to rise due to the severe injuries sustained by those hurt in it, and the continued shooting and rocket fire launched by terrorist group al-Nusra Front, which is making it difficult to rescue any survivors.

Earlier Friday, the rebel forces fighting Assad announced a military operation called 'Breaking the Palace Shackles,' aimed at relieving some of the pressure put by Assad's army on the nearby Druze-Syrian village of Beir Jann, located close to the border with Israel. The rebels called on their supporters to help in the struggle against the Syrian army. It is estimated that Friday's suicide attack was part of the attempt to strike at Assad's army.
Dozens of Druze Israelis crossed the border into Syria following a deadly suicide attack in a neaby Druze-Syrian village of Hader on Friday. The IDF retrieved them within minutes. Druze protestors also damaged the border fence.

Earlier on Friday, nine Syrian residents were killed and 23 were wounded by a rare suicide attack on Friday near the Syrian-Israeli border, this according to Damascus-based Arab news agency SANA. As a result of the attack, an Israeli citizen from the Druze village of Majdal Shams was lightly injured and subsequently treated for his injuries. The attack took place in the Syrian village of Hader, which is close to the Druze-Israeli town of Majdal Shams.

The village of Hader sits within the Quneitra Governate, considered to be one of President Bashar al-Assad's military strongholds in the Syrian Golan Heights. According to unconfirmed reports, a car bomb was used in the attack.
After the IDF Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, stated Thursday that Israel would not allow the bodies of the five terrorists killed in the tunnel bombing to be exumed from the tunnel without without Hamas relaying information on the conditions of the Israeli POWs and MIAs in is holding captive, senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar responded on Friday by saying that Hamas will be giving out such information.

Al-Zahar continued by saying that as far as Hamas is concerned, the terrorists who died in the tunnel were buried in the soil of their land.

The Iran-linked terrorist group Islamic Jihad, whose militants were the ones buried in the tunnel, issued a statement announcing that it considers them to be dead.
The two Gazan terrorist organizationsHamas and the Islamic Jihadwhich have had five men missing or killed in the tunnel detonated by Israel earlier this week, declared the men Friday morning to be killed in action, and refused to deal on the ability to search for them in exchange for the return of Israeli prisoners of war and missing persons still held in Gaza.

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The joint Palestinian decision came following an announcement by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) Thursday, who said Israel would not allow Hamas and the Islamic Jihad to extract the men without progress being made on the return of missing Israeli soldiers and citizens.

The detonated tunnel on the Palestinian side of the border

terrorist casualties in the detonation to 12, alongside 11 who were wounded. "The detonated tunnel is not the only tunnel we posses to cross into Israel," the organization added.

Hamas came out with a simultaneous declaration through its senior official Mahmoud a-Zahar, who responded to COGAT Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai 's announcement in saying, "We will not be supplying Israel with information on the missing persons in return for locating our missing men from the tunnel. As far as we're concerned, they were buried in their homeland."

A-Zahar added he refused to accede to the terms set by Israel regarding providing information about Israeli prisoners in Gaza in order to allow the search for the missing terrorists to continue.

"No details on the soldiers will be provided in exchange for continuing the search for our missing men. Information will only be provided in return for releasing prisoners incarcerated in Israeli jails," a-Zahar said, noting he considered Israel's terms to be blackmail.

Senior Hamas official a-Zahar refused Israel's terms to allow search for the missing terrorists in return for the return of Israeli MIAs (Photo: Reuters)

COGAT Mordechai announced Thursday that "Following overtures from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to allow searching for the missing terrorists underneath the tunnel, received by the IDF this week, Maj.-Gen. Mordechai spoke to Jacques De Maio, the head of the ICRC delegation to Israel, stressing to him that Israel would not allow search efforts in the Gaza Strip security zone without progress on the issue of Israeli POWs and MIAs."

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit said Friday morning he has been working in complete cooperation with the defense establishment and the IDF to construct judicial recourse both for the tunnel incident itself and for Israel's routine security needs.

Mandelblit noted the request to search for killed or wounded terrorists came from the ICRC. In his legal opinion, the Attorney General stressed that according to both international law and the High Court's ruling on the matter, searches may be delayed or prevented altogether in light of security considerations presented by the relevant entities.

AG Mandelblit said search efforts for the terrorists may be delayed or prevented citing security concerns (Photo: Yariv Katz)

Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman made clear his stance in opposing allowing Hamas and the Islamic Jihad entry into the Gaza Strip security zone to extract the bodies of their men. "The decision was made by the political, rather than legal, ranks. Any disagreement will invariably be decided on by the ministerial cabinet," Lieberman said.

The following pronouncements came on the heels of declarations made by the families of Sgt. Oron Shaul and Lt. Hadar Goldin , whose bodies have been held by Hamas since Operation Protective Edge.

"Any Israeli humanitarian gesture toward Hamas must be conditioned in the return of our sons home. If the Israeli government accedes to Hamas demands, it would constitute a moral injustice and diplomatic weakness. It cannot be that the government continues acceding to Hamas's humanitarian caprices while IDF soldiers are being held by it," the Goldin family said

The Shaul family provided its own statement, saying, "We hope the Israeli government doesn't dare accede to Hamas's request as long as they're not returning Oron. Oron was kidnapped into a tunnel the Hamas fighters dug, and has been held by them in Gaza for more than three years, while they refuse to allow the Red Cross to ascertain his situation."

Goldin (L) and Shaul's bodies are still being held by Hamas

Both Shaul and Goldin, who were killed in Gaza during the 2014 Operation Protective Edge, were declared by the IDF's chief rabbi as fallen soldiers whose place of burial was unknown.

In response to the Israeli refusal to acquiesce to the Palestinian organizations' demand, "Adalah  The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel" and the "Al Mezan Center for Human Rights" contacted the High Court of Justice in an appeal to hold an emergency hearing instructing the IDF to allow extraction of the trapped terrorists.

Search efforts were undertaken to locate the five terrorists still missing after Monday's detonation

Adalah claimed "Preventing search, extraction and evacuation of the wounded menwho may die as a result of the Israeli attackconstitutes a flagrant contravention of Israeli law as well as the norms of international law the State of Israel is bound by."
In light of the Syrian accusations levied against the IDF for supposedly helping rebel forces carry out a suicide attack in the Syrian Druze village of Hader Friday, the army published an extraordinary announcement saying it was "Ready and willing to assist the people of the village and would prevent Hader from being harmed or occupied out of a sense of commitment to the Druze people."

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National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat made the same point to the Israeli Druze community's spiritual leader Mowafaq Tarif, telling him Israel will not allow terrorist elements to overtake Hader.

GOC Northern Command Strick (R) with Druze spiritual leader Tarif (2nd from right) (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

After opening trading at the London Stock Exchange, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the position Israel is taking in light of the heated hostilities within Syria.

Netanyahu stated that Israel will continue to protect its borders in the north and south, while maintaining sympathy to "our Druze Brethren."

After the attack, hundreds of Druze from the Israeli side of the border rioted near Majdal Shams.

Riots broke out in Majdal Shams after the attack in Syria Friday (: ayham marjeh)

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The IDF said the rioters broke through a gate in the border fence and ten of them came within several dozen meters of the fence. IDF forces gave pursuit and returned the Druze protesters to Israeli territory. The rioters were handed over to the police, which will decide whether to further detain them.

The near break-through, the first since the May 2011 riots to succeed despite the new, double fence built on the border, came on the heels of an particularly tense day that started with a suicide bombing in Hader, claiming the lives of at least nine and wounding 23 when al-Nusra Front terrorists detonated a car bomb there.

The riots in Majdal Shams escalated further when some of the village's residents found out their relatives were murdered in Hader.

Druze protesters near the Israeli border with Syria (Photo: AFP)

The heads of the Druze community in Israel stated Friday the community's leaders, including Tarif, met with GOC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Yoel Strick in the army's Mount Hermon outpost.

Tarif demanded the IDF do its utmost to prevent Hader being overrun or its denizens harmed out of Israel and the army's commitment to the Israeli Druze community. The Druze leaders further maintained senior political and military ranks gave them their word the IDF will not allow Hader to be occupied and will endeavor to return the situation there to normal.

Tarif and the other Druze leaders then called on Israeli Druze to not be led astray by rumor mongering on social media and elsewhere regarding the severity of the situation.

The Nusra Front force, which attacked Hader earlier Friday, entered the village after flanking it by moving on the eastern side of the Israeli border, very close to the border itself. This brought about Syrian and Druze claims the attacks was carried out under Israeli auspices, or at the very least with the army turning a blind eye to it. The army vigorously disavowed the allegations. Syrian rebels oftentimes cling to the Israeli border fence when battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's army out of the assumption they would not be attacked due to their position.

The aftermath of the suicide attack in Hader

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In a Northern Command status evaluation, it was decided to maintain high alert and readiness near the border while using existing routine security battalions, and to forego sending reinforcements to the forces already active as part of the Golan Division. Northern Command, in fact, made preparations for a possible escalation as far back as three weeks ago, in light of increased fighting in the northern Golan Heights between Assad's army and the Syrian rebels.

In order to calm spirits and prevent further riots in Majdal Shams, Buq'ata and Mas'ade, the three Israeli Druze villages near the border, senior Northern Command officers have been keeping Israeli Druze community elders abreast of all developments.

Hader, a large Druze village under Assad's control, is, in fact, under light Israeli military and air de-facto control: outposts on the Hermon's slopes overlook it, tanks are permanently deployed opposite it and Northern Command has been preparing plans to operate inside it for the past two years.

In response of the fighting in the area, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, GOC Northern Command Strick and Bashan Division Commander Brig.-Gen. Yaniv Asor held a status evaluation of their own in the early afternoon hours of Friday.

An IDF force near the Syrian border (Photo: AFP)

As for the IDF possibly operating within Hader itself, the Northern Command has prepared several alternatives for operation, the most extreme of which entails cross-border ground operations. Should the IDF decide to interfere in the fighting, however, it will be able to attack either from the ground or the air, due to the Israeli oversight over the village mentioned above.

When the status evaluation concluded, the IDF published its announcement saying it would refrain from overtaking Hader. "Claims regarding Israeli involvement and assistance provided to world jihad elements in the Golan Heights fighting were baseless," the army added.

"In contravention of the lies propagated by certain interested parties, Israel does not, has not and will not assist any terrorist element in harming the people of Hader. On the contrary, we will maintain our stance side by side with the Golan Heights' Druze community," IDF Arabic Spokesperson Maj. Avichai Adraee posted on Facebook.

Adraee's Facebook post

A lie such as the one Adraee was referring to was disseminated by secretary-general of the Quneitra Ba'ath Party, who said, "The Zionist enemy has been continually providing medal services to terrorists and assisting in their attacks."

Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt addressed the people of Hader after the attack and the IDF's announcement it would help them should rebels overrun their village. "Do not believe Israel or those calling for it help will assist you. Unite and count on yourselves alone, as well as on any impartial and honest Arab support," he said.
By PTI: New Delhi, Nov 3 (PTI) Mars Food, part of Mars Inc, today said it has completed acquisition of Preferred Brands International, a Connecticut-based manufacturer and marketer of ready-to-heat Indian and Asian food products.

"We have completed the acquisition of Preferred Brands International and Tasty Bite. From our first meeting with the company, we were impressed by the strength of their portfolio, capabilities and the strong values which run through the business, allowing us to deliver against our purpose," Mars Food, Drinks and Multisales Global President Fiona Dawson said in a statement.

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Over coming weeks, Mars Food said, it will launch its popular pasta sauce brand Dolmio in India.

"Dolmio will initially launch with four flavours... The range will initially be available in retail stores in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, with the ambition to bring these great tasting pasta sauces to more cities across India in the near future," it added.

In August this year, Mars Food had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Preferred Brands International, manufacturer and marketer of ready-to-heat Indian and Asian food products sold primarily under the Tasty Bite brand.

Tasty Bite manufactures products out of its Pune facility and exports the majority of them to the US.

Preferred Brands International also has a significant food-service business under which it supplies food products to other manufacturers and quick service restaurants in India.

Tasty Bites portfolio includes a range of vegetarian offerings, including Indian and Asian entrees, spice and simmer meal kits, and organic rice and lentils.

While the majority of sales are generated in North America, Preferred Brands International also manufactures products that are sold through retailers in the UK and Australia and through food-service in India.

Tasty Bite has a subsidiary listed on the BSE and the NSE, which will continue to be listed after the acquisition. PTI SVK ARD

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Following a US-backed Israeli filibuster that lasted almost four hours, the Palestinian delegation and other Arab states failed Thursday in passing a resolution denouncing Israel during the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)'s 39th General Conference in Paris.

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Discussion at UNESCO's education committee was slated to commence at 3 pm, with the expectation being the measure would be approved within minutes by general consensus and without going to a vote, as has been the case in the organization since 2009.

UNESCO's General Conference saw a nearly four-hour filibuster (Photo: AP)

The resolution deal with denouncing Israel over the state of education in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. The Palestinian delegation clearly had a majority to pass the resolution, and the Israeli mission to UNESCO therefore forwent any attempt to drum up votes from countries to vote alongside it.

Instead, Israelwith American supportendeavored to make us of every conceivable article in UNESCO regulations to stall for time, for example by asking for a roll-call vote of all of the organization's 196 member countries.

When the session opened, the Kenyan chairman presiding said the resolution was to be approved with neither debate nor a vote. While Israel and the US were not permitted to vote, as they have failed to pay their membership dues to the organization for the past six years, regulations still stipulate they are entitled to seek a stay in passing the resolution until the next general conference, in two years' time. When Arab countries voiced their objections, Israel moved to a vote on each of the resolution's 11 articles.

The committee's chairman and other representatives were certain the vote would be conducted with a show of hands, in which case it would have concluded with a resounding Palestinian victory, but Israel persisted in its sabotaging efforts and asked for a roll-call vote, a request necessitating the support of one other country. The US lent its support to the Israeli request, and a vote commenced that lasted more than an hour with one country voting after another.

Israeli envoy to UNESCO Shama-Hacohen (L) arguing with his Palestinian counterpart

After the roll-call, Israel objected to the Palestinian request to not hold a discussion but instead move immediately to approving the resolution, once again operating an article in the regulations and seeking another roll-call vote on not debating the resolution.

The second roll-call vote lasted more than an hour once again and the representatives of the countries participating in the debate started showing signs of nervousness as they session was to conclude at 6 pm with many of them setting appointments and expecting to attend receptions afterwards.

At some point, the deputy Palestinian envoy to UNESCO lost his cool. Along with his Arab compatriots, he appealed to the Kenyan chairman and stressed him to block the Israeli-American filibuster. "The Israeli envoy is trying to take this plenum hostage. Don't let him get away with this," he exhorted.

All told, the various votes lasted until 7 pm with several surprises noted during the proceedings, such as China abstaining on the vote on the Israeli postponement request, marking the first time the Communist juggernaut did not automatically support the Palestinians.

UNESCO's Paris headquarters (Photo: AP)

Mexico also voted in Israel's favor for the first time, instead of abstaining, with a possible reason being Israeli humanitarian efforts following the devastating earthquake to hit the country.

The Palestinians are expected to attempt to pass two additional anti-Israeli resolutions in the coming days. The resolutions will invariably eventually pass, but Israel has been adamant to send its message of protest to the international community.

"We have made it clear that the days are over when anti-Israel resolutions can be passed in five minutes. This obsession against Israel will come with a price tag. The organization and world countries will need to devote dozens of hours, to add additional days for debate and to sit through long sessions. Maybe then they will start wondering whether it is worth their time invested in resolutions that are political, aimless, and have nothing to do with education, culture or science," said Carmel Shama-Hacohen , Israel's envoy to UNESCO.

"The filibuster communicates Israel's message of protest effectively and, under certain circumstances, may lead to resolutions not being adopted. One thing is certain: these resolutions will cease being perceived as natural and obvious as the sun shining in the morning," Shama-Hacohen added.
The man who killed 58 people at a country music festival in Las Vegas last month had been depressed after losing a significant amount of money in the past two years and that may have been a "determining factor" in the worst mass shooting in modern US history, the city's sheriff said.

Gunman Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old high-stakes gambler and real estate investor, had lost a "significant amount of wealth" since September 2015, which led to "bouts of depression," Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said in an interview this week with Las Vegas news station KLAS-TV.

"This individual was status-driven, based on how he liked to be recognized in the casino environment and how he liked to be recognized by his friends and family," Lombardo said. "So, obviously, that was starting to decline in the short period of time, and that may have had a determining effect on why he did what he did."
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News

Tucson, Arizona - On November 2, 2017, Western National Parks Association (WNPA), a nonprofit education partner of the National Park Service (NPS) since 1938, announced the recipients of its annual awards at the WNPA Board reception. For over 30 years, WNPA has recognized individuals and organizations who make exceptional contributions to national parks and generate widespread awareness of WNPAs mission.

We are delighted to recognize and honor these national park stewards who work diligently to preserve and protect national parks in the West and around the country and help make the parks a priority for all, said James E. Cook, executive director of WNPA.

James E. Bradford, retired regional archaeologist, NPS Intermountain Region, received the Emil W. Haury Award for his longstanding dedication to archaeology in national parks. His 1992 archaeological survey of Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, a park of special importance to Bradford, is still the standard reference guide for the monument 25 years later. Bradfords dedication to archaeology spans decades, from his time studying at Northern Arizona University to his six years of field experience excavating and surveying in Utah and New Mexico to his 38 years working for NPS. In addition to his work in terrestrial archaeology, Bradford completed over 1,150 dives to explore underwater archaeological sites as an archaeologist for NPSs Submerged Resources Center. His contributions to the world of archaeology and NPS throughout his career are innumerable.

Arizona State Museum (ASM) at the University of Arizona, the oldest and largest museum of anthropology in the North American Southwest, received the Edward B. Danson Award for its part in a triumvirate partnership with WNPA and NPS. ASM is home to numerous important artifacts from national parks and archaeological sites around the Southwest. Since its inception over 100 years ago, ASM has worked with NPS to preserve and protect significant artifacts, including the Western Archeological and Conservation Center collection, a zooarchaeological collection on long-term loan from NPS. As a partner and supporter of WNPA, ASM has taken part in WNPAs National Park Experience Pavilion at the annual Tucson Festival of Books, helping promote visits to national parks.

Dan and Susan Gottlieb, founders of The G2 Gallery in Venice, California, were awarded the Stewart L. Udall Award for their work delivering the beauty and importance of national parks to widespread audiences. The G2 Gallery showcases many of the worlds most noted and celebrated outdoor photographers, bringing attention to environmental issues and conservation through photographic exhibits. The Gallery also donates proceeds of art sales to environmental charities. Since its opening in March 2008, The G2 Gallery has provided $1.2 million in funds to more than 70 organizations, including WNPA, the Santa Monica Mountains Fund, NatureBridge, Yosemite Conservancy, and more. To celebrate the NPS centennial, The G2 Gallery held a four-part series of exhibits highlighting NPS sites in the Northeast, South, Midwest, and West, from the well-known to the lesser-visited.

About the Edward B. Danson Award

This award honors those who show exceptional support and loyalty to WNPA and national parks. The Danson Award was named for the noted archaeologist and director of the Museum of Northern Arizona (19561975). A former WNPA board member, he began his service in 1958. Danson was also awarded the Department of Interior Conservation Award in 1986 and served as a member of the National Park Service Advisory Board.

About the Emil W. Haury Award

This award honors outstanding contributions to scientific research in the national parks and monuments. The Haury Award was named for the noted anthropologist and archaeologist. In 1938, Haury was instrumental in founding the Southwest Monument Association, which was renamed Western National Parks Association in 2002. Haury served on the National Park Service Advisory Board in the 1960s.

About the Stewart L. Udall Award

This award honors those who work to support park interpretation programs, deliver the park message to popular audiences, or rally broad support for national parks. The Udall Award was named for the noted conservationist, Secretary of the Interior (19611969), and former WNPA board member (19841994). Udall awardees may include authors, poets, artists, photographers, writers, publishers, and others who are inspirational conservationists.

About WNPA: Western National Parks Association (WNPA) helps make the national park experience possible for everyone. As a nonprofit education partner of the National Park Service, WNPA supports parks across the West, developing products, services, and programs that enrich the visitor experience. Since 1938, WNPA has worked to connect new generations to parks in meaningful ways, all with one simple goal: create advocates who want to preserve and protect these special places for everyone, for all time. Learn more at www.wnpa.org.
Yuma News

Yuma, Arizona - Today, at about 12:28 p.m., officers responded to the area of Salida Del Sol Elementary School, 910 S. Avenue C, in reference to a male subject possibly carrying a rifle and throwing something at a sign. The school was placed on lockdown while officer searched the area.

Officers located the subject, but no weapon was located. The investigation revealed the subject hit the sign with his hand and no damage was located. The object the subject was carrying was a saw.

The school was in lockdown for approximately 8 minutes.
Stiri pe aceeasi tema

- President Klaus Iohannis declared, on Thursday, that the new justice laws that were recently adopted by Parliament are good and he indicated that he would promulgate them if they pass the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR). Fii la curent cu cele mai noi stiri. Urmareste stiripesurse.ro

- President Klaus Iohannis is participating, Thursday through Friday, in Brussels, in the meeting of the European Council, among the topics of discussion being the necessary measures in the field of energy, following the package of proposals presented by the European Commission and the reaffirmation

- President Klaus Iohannis will participate, on Thursday and Friday, in Brussels, in the meeting of the European Council, among the topics of discussion being the necessary measures in the field of energy, following the package of proposals presented by the European Commission and the reaffirmation

- Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca said on Thursday that after Parliament approves the new justice laws, expected this month, in November Romania can expect a positive report that will lead to the European Commission lifting the Co-operation and Verification Mechanism (CVM). Fii la curent cu cele

- President Klaus Iohannis declared, on Friday, that his express request for the Government and Parliament regarding the package of Justice laws was to take into account the known recommendations, adding that he does not believe that the opinion of the Venice Commission will be different from those

- President Klaus Iohannis will participate, on Thursday and Friday, in the first meeting of the European Political Community and in the informal meeting of the European Council, which is taking place in Prague, in the Czech Republic, the Presidential Administration informed, told Agerpres. Fii

- President Klaus Iohannis participated on Tuesday in a videoconference with European Council President Charles Michel and a group of European leaders as a preparation stage for the meetings to take place on Thursday and Friday in Prague. Fii la curent cu cele mai noi stiri. Urmareste

- The draft justice laws, under debate in the Parliament, took into account the opinions of the Venice Commission and were drawn up after consultation with the European partners, respectively with the European Commission, the Minister of Justice, Catalin Predoiu, said on Thursday. Fii la curent
By PTI: (Eds: Adds fresh quotes of Mukul Roy)

New Delhi, Nov 3 (PTI) Mukul Roy, who was long the second most powerful leader of the Trinamool Congress, today joined the BJP, claiming that people of West Bengal wanted an alternative to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and will vote the saffron party to power in the next polls.

The former railway minister, known for his organisational skills, joined the BJP in the presence of its chief Amit Shah.

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Roy told reporters later that the BJP was not a communal but secular party.

Roy (63) recalled how the TMC forged an alliance with the BJP soon after Banerjee founded it and became a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. He said the regional party could not have grown without the BJPs support.

Rejecting Banerjees charge against the BJP, he said, "It is not a communal party. It is a secular party. People in Bengal are not happy and are looking for an alternative. The BJP will soon clinch power in the state."

Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told a press conference after Roy joined the party that he was a founder leader of the TMC leader who played a key role in its expansion and march to power in the state.

He also effectively fought excesses and atrocities of the previous CPI(M) governments, Prasad said, insisting that Roy expressed his desire to join the BJP unconditionally and the party welcomes him wholeheartedly.

Roy later told journalists that "restoring democracy" in West Bengal will be his priority.

"I will work for restoration of democracy in Bengal, that will be my first task. I am a national level politician, I will try to see that people in Bengal can at least vote according to their choice. If people can cast their votes in panchayat polls, the BJP will wrest power from the TMC in least in 5 zila parishads," he said.

"I am an organisational man. People of Bengal have turned against the TMC government. I am sure that in the Lok Sabha polls in 2019 and Assembly elections in 2021 the BJP will win Bengal," Roy said.

The party is likely to task him with an important responsibility to drive its growth in the eastern state, where it has been traditionally weak. However, it is not clear yet what role he will have in the organisation.

"His role will be decided," BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, who is the partys in-charge for the state, said.

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The BJP will expand further in the state with Roys indunction, Prasad said.

Asked about corruption allegations against him, Roy said the law will take its own course.

It will be his "proud privilege" to work under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah, he said.

Roy had quit the Rajya Sabha and the TMC last month. He was suspended by the party earlier as his differences with Banerjee grew and he was seen veering towards the BJP. PTI KR NAB CSN SK

--- ENDS ---
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate World Food India 2017 event on Friday.

World Food India (WFI) is a global event to facilitate partnerships between Indian and international businesses and investors.

One of the most remarkable feature of the event would be the 800 kg khichdi, which would be cooked by celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor.

800 kg khichdi, a traditional Indian dish relished by both rich and poor, will be prepared live on November 4 at the World Food India event here in a bid to create world record and popularise it as brand India food globally.

Khichdi  prepared using rice, pulses, coarse cereals and spices  has been selected as Brand India Food because it symbolises the countrys unity in diversity.

A giant kadhai (frying pan) of the capacity of 1,000 litres and 7 feet in diameter will be used for slow steam- cooking of more than 800 kg khichdi.

WFI is a gateway to the Indian food economy and an opportunity to showcase, connect, and collaborate.

Th event is being held in partnership with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), at New Delhi, India from 3-5 November, 2017.

President Ram Nath Kovind will grace the occasion for the valedictory address on November 5, 2017.

WFI is organised by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries. WFI will be the largest gathering of investors, manufacturers, producers, food processors, policy makers, and organisations from the global food ecosystem.

It aims to provide opportunities for both investment and trade in the food processing sector for leading Indian and international companies.

Encompassing the entire food spectrum from production to consumption, WFI is looking at creating a better sourcing environment, thereby enabling higher returns for farmers, creating employment, and fostering entrepreneurship.

WFI will help in understanding the policy environment around food processing sector.

The event would also identify specific opportunities during the Business-to-government & Government to government meetings.

The WFI 2017 would lead to exposure to a shelf of specific projects for investment in processing and strengths of India in pre-identified food processing sub-sectors.
Islamabad: Pakistan's ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday appeared before an anti-graft court which adjourned till November 7 the hearing of corruption cases against him in the Panama Papers scandal that forced him to resign.

Sharif, who returned to the country from London yesterday, during the brief hearing submitted two surety bonds of five million rupees (USD 48,000) each against bailable arrest warrants issued on October 26, his lawyer Khawaja Harris said.

He had gone to London last month to be with his ailing wife Kulsoom Nawaz who is battling throat cancer.

Sharif, 67, and some of his family members are facing charges relating to their ownership of properties in London.

He resigned as prime minister in July after the country's Supreme Court disqualified him over undeclared income.

Three cases were registered by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on September 8 against Sharif, his children and son-in-law in the Accountability Court Islamabad, following a verdict by the Supreme Court.

Sharif appeared in the court along with legal team.

His daughter Maryam and her husband Muhammad Safdar, also facing trial, were present during today's hearing.

At the start of the hearing, the defence asked the accountability judge to consider the verdict of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), which yesterday ordered the Accountability Court to hear again the plea that Sharif?s three cases should be clubbed together.

The anti-graft court last month rejected an application by Sharif that since all three cases deal with assets beyond means, so they should be taken up as a single case.

The decision was challenged in the IHC which referred the case to the Accountability Court with an order to re-hear it. However, the IHC did not issue detailed verdict and Sharif?s lawyer asked the court to adjourn the hearing till a comprehensive judgement.

The court then adjourned the hearing till November 7.

Sharif told the media that he was victimised.

He also said that Pakistan Peoples Party leader Asif Ali Zardari was speaking against him "to please someone".

"I don?t have to say anything as the present situation and actions are in front of everyone," he said.

Heavy security arrangements were made around the judicial complex today to deal with any untoward situation.

Sharif was indicted in absence in three cases. Maryam and Safdar have been indicted in one case with him, while the court is proceeding separately against his two sons Husain and Hasan who are co-accused in three cases.

The court during the hearing on October 9 decided to separate the trial of his sons from Sharif and his daughter and son-in-law.

The cases are based on the July 28 disqualification verdict of the Supreme Court and to launch three corruption cases against him, his family, and one case against Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.

The political future of Sharif, who leads the country's most powerful political family and the ruling PML-N party, has been hanging in balance since then. If convicted, Sharif can be jailed.

Sharif's family alleges that the cases are politically motivated.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan`s anti-corruption body on Friday petitioned the High Court against the accountability court`s order to release former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif`s son-in-law Captain Muhammad Safdar (retd) on bail after he was taken into custody on October 9.

Safdar was held upon his arrival from London at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport in the capital, where he was set to appear before the accountability court in connection with a NAB corruption reference, following the issuance of a non-bailable arrest warrant for his absence in earlier hearings, Dawn online reported.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) asked the Islamabad High Court to suspend the accountability court`s order to release Safdar on bail after he furnished surety bonds worth Rs 5 million.

The NAB prosecutor general, making Safdar and the accountability court judge party in the petition, challenged the decision to release Maryam Nawaz`s husband requesting he be sent to Rawalpindi`s Adiala Jail on judicial remand.

The NAB petition maintained that an order to release the suspect can only be passed by the Supreme Court and that the accountability court should have sent Captain Safdar to jail.

The petition came days after Sindh lawmakers lambasted the NAB`s "double standards" in its dealing with members of the Sharif family and others.

The Sharifs are facing trial in connection with references filed by the NAB pertaining to their Avenfield properties in London, the Azizia Steel Mills as well as another 16 offshore companies.

The three accused -- the former Prime Minister, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law pleaded not guilty to the charges. Sharif`s sons Hassan and Hussain Nawaz were named co-accused in the chargesheet in the corruption references.

Sharif and his sons were named in all three NAB references while Maryam Nawaz and Safdar were named only in the London reference.
By PTI: New Delhi, Nov 3 (PTI) An international cartel of drugs supplier was busted with the arrest of its kingpin, a Myanmar national, and two members and seizure of 438kg contraband worth over Rs 50 crore from them, police said today.

One Sumit Kumar (22) was running a racket of supplying pseudoephedrine to prepare methamphetamine or crystal meth (Ice) for rave parties in Myanmar, they said.

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He used to send the drugs from Delhi to northeastern states from where it was then smuggled into Myanmar.

On October 31, a team of Special Cell learnt that Kumar would be reaching the New Delhi railway station to make bookings for transporting "parcels" of the drugs to Guwahati.

Acting on this information, a trap was laid and Kumar was arrested with 340 kg of Pseudoephedrine.

During interrogation, he revealed that a Myanmar national Sum Mang alias Pa Mang alias Pa Sum was the kingpin of the racket.

Subsequently, Mang was arrested alongwith 96 kg of Pseudoephedrine from Vikaspuri here, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) P S Kushwah said.

Police also seized a fake Indian voter ID card and a PAN card from Mang along with a car and some cell phones.

The drug was being sent to Myanmar to prepare methamphetamine or crystal meth (Ice), which is sold between US Dollar 200 to 650 per gram all over the world for use specially in rave parties, the officer said.

Yesterday, a drug supplier, Sunil Goel alias Mukesh (51) was arrested from the road opposite Ramprastha in east Delhi with two kg of refined narcotic drug Pseudoephedrine, the officer added. PTI SLB DIP

--- ENDS ---
BEIJING: China on Friday said it was ready to work with India to promote "constant progress" of bilateral relations, amid fresh strains in ties after Beijing again blocked Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhar's designation as a global terrorist by the UN.

On November 2, China, for the fourth time, blocked India, the US and other nations' bid to list Pathankot terror attack mastermind Azhar as a global terrorist, saying "there is no consensus" within the members of the sanctions committee.

India reacted sharply to China's move, saying "accommodating with terrorism" for narrow objectives was both short-sighted and counterproductive.

China's Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong today told the media that China attached great importance to its relations with India.

"India is an important neighbour of China," Chen said, adding China plans to step up ties with neighbours under the "neighbourhood diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in the new era" enunciated by President Xi Jinping during the recently concluded key Congress of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

"We are ready to work with India to promote constant progress of bilateral relations guided by this diplomacy with Chinese characteristics for the new era," Chen said without elaborating.

He said China has been following this concept and vision over the past few years in its cooperation with the neighbours and deepening mutual political trust promoting practical cooperation with them.

In the last two years, China has stonewalled efforts by India to declare Azhar as a global terrorist.

Last year in March, China was the only member in the 15- nation UN organ to put a hold on India's application with all other 14 members of the Council supporting New Delhi's bid to place Azhar on the 1267 sanctions list that would subject him to an assets freeze and travel ban.

The relations between the two neighbours are also strained by a 73-day standoff at Dokalam over Chinese army?s plans to build a strategic road in the area also claimed by Bhutan.

Officials here said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to India next month to New Delhi to attend the Russia, India, China (RIC) Foreign Ministers meeting during which he would also hold talks with the Indian leadership on the bilateral relations during the second term of Xi.
Agartala: Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has requested the Centre to use satellite imaging to verify reports about China`s plan to construct a 1,000-km tunnel for diverting water from the Brahmaputra river.

The BJP minister suspects that China may use `water bomb` against riparian India by opening the gates of water reservoirs.

"There were reports in the Chinese newspaper which the government denied. I am not in a position to say what is happening in China and now it is for the government of India to verify which is true," Sarma told reporters on Thursday, and added, "India has lot of advance knowledge in satellite imaging and if they are constructing, India satellites will detect that. So let us wait for what government of India says on this."

Although the Chinese Government has dismissed such reports, the Assam minister raised concerns in light of the rapid and sudden floods occurring in the state despite lack of rainfall."

China has not shared the hydrological data of Brahmaputra for last one year. Now what is happening in Assam is there are rapid and sudden floods. Initially we thought that it must be water released from any hydroelectric project but during the last floods, we noticed that there has been no rain in Assam or Arunachal Pradesh," Sarma said.

Sarma further demanded that India should press China to share the hydrological data and if required, go to the international forum for the same.

"The Central Government has assured us that they would take it up with the Chinese Government. We also feel that if they are not willing to give us the data, we should go to some international forum," Sarma said.

Reports published in the Chinese newspapers said that the engineers there were testing techniques that could be used to build a 1,000-km tunnel - the world's longest - to carry water from Tibet to Xinjiang by diverting the Yarlung Tsangpo river in southern Tibet to the Taklimakan Desert in Xinjiang.

Downstream, in India, the river becomes the Brahmaputra, which joins the Ganges in Bangladesh.Speaking on the state's issues, the Assam Miinster said the biggest hurdle in the development of Tripura was the Left, and that 50 per cent of the problems would be removed once the Manik Sarkar Government was out of power.

He also demanded that all mysterious murder-related cases - right from TV journalist Santanu Bhowmik to the BJP workers, which are under SIT investigation - should be handed over to the CBI.

Sarma informed that the BJP would be visiting Tripura for ground inspection about the reality of the murder of TV journalist Santanu Bhowmik on November 10, and that it was planning to make the journalist's murder a prime issue in the coming Parliament session.

The BJP leader who was on a two-day visit to Tripura to see party`s activities, alleged that the SIT of the Tripura Police was working as the B-team of the CPM and hence, he added, all murder and crime cases committed by its leaders are handed over to the SIT just for an eyewash and with very poorly investigated charge sheets.

"The court has no other option but to acquit them," Sarma added.
Patna: The Enforcement Directorate on Friday issued summons to Lalu Prasad Yadav's son Tejashwi Yadav in connection with the alleged irregularities in a 2006 IRCTC hotels maintenance contract case.

The former Bihar deputy chief minister has been asked by the ED to appear before it on November 13.

The son of RJD chief was on October 10 grilled for about nine hours by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with its money laundering probe in the railway hotels allotment corruption case.

The ED had registered a criminal case against Lalu Prasad's family members and others under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), sometime back.

Earlier, Lalu Prasad and Tejashwi were questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for hours in connection with the case on October 5 and 6 respectively.

The ED, on July 27, had registered a separate case under the PMLA following the CBI FIR in the matter and began probing Lalu Prasad and others for alleged transfer of money through shell companies.

The CBI, on July 5, had filed a corruption case against Lalu Prasad, his wife Rabri Devi and Tejashwi Yadav for alleged irregularities in the allotment of contracts for Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) hotels in Ranchi and Puri in 2006 to a private firm when the RJD chief was the Railway Minister.

The contracts were given to Sujata Hotels, a company owned by Vijay and Vinay Kochhar -- both named in the CBI FIR as accused -- in lieu of a bribe in the form of a three-acre commercial plot at a prime location in Bihar`s Patna district, the CBI said.

A preliminary CBI inquiry found the land was sold by the Kochhars to Delight Marketing Company and the payment was arranged through Ahluwalia Contractors and its promoter Bikramjeet Singh Ahluwalia, another accused. The ED has since also questioned Ahluwalia.

Delight Marketing, which bought the property from the Kochhars, was later taken over by Rabri Devi and Tejashwi Yadav, alleges the CBI.

Sarla Gupta, wife of the RJD chief`s close associate and former Union Minister Prem Chand Gupta and a director of Delight Marketing, is a co-accused in the case, apart from then IRCTC Managing Director P.K. Goel.
New Delhi: Sanjay Leela Bhansali's magnum opus Padmavati has garnered enough eyeballs ahead of its mega release on December 1, 2017. The period film stars Deepika Padukone as Rani Padmini, Shahid Kapoor as Maharawal Ratan Singh and Ranveer Singh as Alauddin Khilji respectively.

However, the movie has been in the news ever since it was announced. The film has received a backlash from certain sects from Rajasthan protesting against its release. Huge protests broke out in Chittorgarh wherein people joined in to stall the film's release, reported ANI.

Protest in #Rajasthan against upcoming movie #Padmavati, people from all walks of life participated:Visuals from #Chittorgarh,bandh observed pic.twitter.com/8ZO5g14BvV  ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2017

A bandh has been observed in the state against the film. Earlier, members of Rajput Karni Sena had vandalised an artiste's Padmavati rangoli at a mall in Surat which had drawn the attention of leading lady Deepika Padukone too.

She had even tweeted about the incident and expressed his displeasure. The same group had vandalised the sets of Padmavati at Jaigarh Fort while they were shooting and abused the filmmaker, asking him to stall the movie. The fringe group had reservations over the way Bhansali might have presented facts in the film.

Pramod Rana, the national convenor of Rajput Karni Sena had previously told ANI, We cannot give permission to tamper with the rich history of India. The only thing that we want is that Sanjay Leela Bhansali should show the movie to some of the foremost people of our organisation and tell them that we are not tempering any fact of the history. If he has shown some wrong facts in the movie, then he should delete that scene. This matter is not about one caste. It is everyone's right to save the heritage of the Indian history."

"I don't need to tell you what we will do. You saw Jaipur, Kolhapur, I don't think I need to you anything. We are doing a programme on November 12 in Gujarat. But if the movie releases with wrong facts, we won't leave Bhansali," Rana added.

Further, he even added about the fact that how Bhansali had promised to show the film but eventually did not. "In Jaipur, Bhansali promised in writing that he will show the movie to us with right historical facts. But he did not show us the movie, he said.

(With ANI inputs)
Mumbai: There were reports suggesting that the Badshah of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan, has been roped in by Yash Raj Films for the fourth edition of their super-hit franchise Dhoom 4. But the superstar, who celebrated his 52 birthday on November 2, put all speculations to rest.

The Raees star denied reports about him appearing in the next instalment of the Dhoom series and said that he has not signed any new film at the moment. Aamir Khan had played the protagonist in the third instlment of the blockbuster series and rumours suggested that the makers were considering another superstar for the fourth edition.

I have not signed any film at all. Even I keep reading reports. I think I should first finish this film (Aanand L Rai's next), it is taking time, said Shah Rukh.

"I want to be available, I don't want to waste Anushka Sharma and Katrina Kaif's dates... I want to be very clear that I don't want to waste their dates. They have signed two films. Katrina has Thugs-of-Hindostan and Anushka has Sui Dhaaga. I want to be available," the actor said.

On being prodded further about whether they have discussed the next film in Dhoom franchise, he said there has been no offer from the Yash Raj Films.

With Yash Raj there is no offer. They just tell me. But I have explained to Aditya Chopra, Karan Johar and my other director friends that I am not thinking of any other film till December, they understand and respect that, he said.

For the uninitiated, SRK is a very dear friend of both Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar. In fact most of his blockbuster films have been under their banner. But the actor, who was last seen in Jab Harry Met Sejal hasnt apparently discussed any new venture with either of them.

Currently, the actor is busy shooting for Aanand L Rai's film, in which he plays the role of a dwarf.

(With PTI inputs)
Jaipur: Want to soak in the musical genius of stalwarts like Pt. Jasraj and Pt. Hari Prasad Chaurasia among other classical greats, all under an open starlit sky, surrounded by the beautiful edifices of master architect Charles Correa? Head to the Jawahar Kala Kendra here in the Pink City.

This splendid overnight concert, titled Raag will take place on Saturday night at 9.30 p.m and will continue till 5 a.m on Sunday morning.

"Looking at the enthusiastic response of the audience at the first and one-of-its-kind programme of 'Raag' in Jaipur last year, we are excited to once again host the concert this year featuring several world renowned maestros of Indian classical music," said Pooja Sood, DG of Jawahar Kala Kendra.

The concert will open with the rendition of Mohammad Aman at the Kendra's Madhyavarti' amphitheatre at 9.30 pm on Saturday. This will be followed by a tabla recital by Pandita. Anuradha Pal. The midnight will unfold with the flute recital of Padma Vibhushan awardee Pt. Hari Prasad Chaurasia. A sarangi recital by Ustad Liyaqat Ali Khan along with Rimpa Shiva on the tabla will be another interesting feature of the show.

Noted vocalist Ashwini Bhide-Deshpande will render the Jasrangji Jugalbandi' with Pt. Sanjeev Abhyankar. The musical magic will conclude with the performance of world renowned vocalist Pt. Jasraj at 5 am on Sunday.
New Delhi: An Al-Qaeda suspect lodged in Tihar jail on charges of radicalizing Rohingyas to fight the Myanmar Army has accused the prison guards of sexually harassing him, a media report said on Friday.

Rahman moved an application against five Tamil Nadu security personnel deployed in Tihar jail accusing them of sexual harassment, the ANI reported.

The 28-year-old was arrested by the special cell of the Delhi Police last month on charges of terror activities.

It is alleged that Rahman had come to India to train refugee Rohingya Muslims to fight the Myanmar Army.

He was reportedly indoctrinated during his time at a London prison.

Rahman, alias Hamdan, is a resident of Port Pool Lane in London, and was staying in India with a fake identity of Shumon Haq, a news portal reported.

His fake ID mentions his residential address as House No. 88, Mullabadi post office, Dhantola Thakurganj, Kishanganj, Bihar.

Rahman's father, who was a businessman, had moved to Britain from Bangladesh in the 1960s and settled in central London, the report added.

He was reportedly radicalized during his time at a London prison in 2012.

After his release, he went to Mauritania to join an Al-Qaeda affiliated group.

Rahman was arrested on September 19 from Shakarpur after he was allegedly trying to set an Al-Qaeda base in the Delhi-NCR to recruit cadres for jihad.

The police had seized a 9mm pistol, a laptop and a mobile phone from his possession.
NEW DELHI: Tihar Jail Superintendent will on Friday appear before a Delhi court over a plea filed by jailed gangster Neeraj Bawana, alleging inhuman treatment meted out to him in the prison.

The court had earlier summoned the Tihar Jail superintendent after Bawana filed the petition.

Earlier, Bawana`s lawyer had requested the court to provide better and more hygienic conditions to him in jail.

In the plea, Bawana alleged that the jail inmates were kept locked round-the-clock and not allowed fresh air and sunlight.

He also complained about the poor quality of food and stinking cell.Bawana, accused of allegedly running a crime syndicate, is facing trial under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act along with nine others.
NEW DELHI: The Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government has roped in senior Congress leader P Chidambaram to fight its case in the Supreme Court against the high court verdict, which had held that the national capital is not a state and the Lieutenant Governor is its administrative head.

The former home minister and senior Congress leader, along with eight other lawyers would present the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government's case before the five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra.

The apex court on Thursday commenced a crucial hearing to determine whether the elected government or the Lieutenant Governor enjoys supremacy in administration of the Union Territory of Delhi, observing that the constitutional scheme was prima facie tilted in favour of LG.

AAP government told the apex court that its ministers have to bow down before the bureaucrats to get their opinions and, by virtue of proviso in Article 239AA, the babus do not acknowledge them as the heads of the departments.

While hearing the case, the SC indicated that it may fix a time frame within which the Delhi Lt Governor should dispose of the files sent to him by the state government and in case of delay in clearing files, he will have to assign reasons.

On August 4, the High Court had ruled that Delhi continues to remain a union territory under the Constitution with the LG as its administrative head.

It had said that the special constitutional provision Article 239AA dealing with Delhi does not "dilute" the effect of Article 239 which relates to the union territory and hence, the concurrence of the LG in administrative issues was "mandatory".

What happened in SC on November 2

The daylong hearing saw judges questioning senior counsel Gopal Subramanium, appearing for the city's state ruling Aam Aadmi Party, who argued that the Lt. Governor was exercising his powers in a manner to stultify the functioning of a democratically-elected government.

What emerged during the daylong hearing was that Delhi government can't look at in the area of law and order, police and land, and the in the area where it can enact law and aid and advise the Lt. Governor, the latter can exercise his veto and citing differences, refer the matter to the President for decision. There were also some grey areas where the Delhi government had no footprints.

It put several questions on Article 239AA to senior advocate Gopal Subramanium, who led the arguments for the Delhi government.

Subramanium said that LG was taking several executive decisions and a harmonious interpretation of Article 239AA is required to fulfil the constitutional mandate for a democratically elected government in Delhi.

"More than 1.14 lakh vacancies are there, but I cannot fill it up and have to seek LG's permission. I can't take steps to stop deaths in sewers. This is hampering governance.

The LG cannot use his power under Article 239AA proviso (4) to stultify the daily governance by sitting over the files," he said.

Justice Chandrachud said that LG cannot stultify a scheme by sitting over the files instead he is bound to under Article 239AA to refer the matter to President in case of difference of opinion.

Subramanium said the Delhi government accepts the supremacy of Parliament and its powers but motive behind incorporating Article 239AA in the Constitution by amendments was to give voice to the people by democratically elected government.

He said that proviso (4) in Article 239AA cannot be used by the LG to frustrate the constitutional mandate of an elected government in Delhi.

"Law is very clear at present that LG partially enjoys delegated powers of President and partially he has to work in aid and advice of council of ministers. If their is difference of opinion, then he may refer the matter to the President for early resolution," the bench said.

Arvind Kejriwal government also blamed Centre for paralysing the executive functions of the demoratically elected government in Delhi through the LG.

"I want proviso (4) of Article 239AA to be given a meaning which is consistent with the scheme by which both can co-exist, as was the motive behind the amendment in Constitution", Subramanium said.

To this, the bench said there are three things -- executive action, difference of opinion and validity of such opinion, which needs to be deliberated.

"Parliament's supremacy is not doubted but legislative existence needs to be accepted and both can co-exist. It is the synergy which is relevant with respect to Article 239AA," the senior advocate said.

He said the Delhi High Court had said that LG will not be bound with the aid and advice of council of ministers and he is the administrative head.

"I can show a series of orders of LG which are in excess of executive functions. Then why have a government when it can't exercise its duties," Subramanium said.

The bench observed that when laws were already there, Delhi government is free to implement it and where there are no laws, the legislature can make it in concurrence with LG and if there is a difference of opinion, then LG's decision is binding.

"This is a case where LG enjoys supreme power and is the ultimate authority where aid and advice of council of ministers is neutralised," Subramanium said, adding that the Delhi High Court had said that LG in Delhi has more powers than the President or the governor of any state.
New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday exhorted global as well as domestic companies to invest in the food sector, saying that it has the potential to become a principal industry.

Addressing business leaders at the World Food India event here, he said that as the economy grows it will impact the lifestyles of people and the food industry would be a major beneficiary this change.

"Therefore, what happens to the traditional concept of agriculture and the farm-to-the-kitchen relationship will undergo a change. It's already visible in large part of urban India," he said.

He also stressed upon the need to increase farm productivity, improve storage facilities and spur food processing activity.

The current infrastructure is not sufficient to meet the future demand and there is need to add capacity as population would not only grow but also become richer with increase in GDP, Jaitley said.

He said the most sensible investor is the one who doesn't look at what India is in 2017, but what it will be in 2040 and 2050.

"I think, in 2017, we should start thinking of this group in 2040 and 2050. If we keep that in mind, this is going to be one industry which is going to be one of principal industries as far as India is concerned," he added.

He also assured investors that the country will not shy away from taking tough decisions in the long term interest of the economy.

India has displayed a great capacity to take difficult decisions, he said, citing examples like demonetisation and implementation of Goods and Services Tax.

"India is willing for a change. India is changing... Not only are our doors open, those who come in they get red carpet. The experience of our investors has been, they have always gone back as happy investors. I am sure those who enter the sector they will also have the same experience," he said.

On infrastructure development, Jaitley said the government has undertaken many initiatives like construction of 250 highways, addition of 35-40 new airports and modernisation of 400 railway stations.

Food Processing Industries Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said the government has initiated various reforms in the sector.

Some other reforms are also underway, she said, adding that there is a proposal for setting up of a Food Processing Bank.
President Donald Trump's national security adviser says North Korea could be returned to the list of countries the U.S. believes sponsor terrorism.

By AP: President Donald Trump's national security adviser says North Korea could be returned to the list of countries the U.S. believes sponsor terrorism, as part of Trump's strategy to counter the North's growing nuclear threat.

"You'll hear more about that soon, I think," the adviser, H.R. McMaster, said at a briefing on the eve of Trump's five-nation tour of Asia, which starts Friday. North Korea's nuclear and missile weapons threat will be a key focus of Trump's meetings with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines during the 12-day trip, the president's first official visit to the region.

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McMaster cited the killing in a Malaysian airport earlier this year of the estranged half-brother of North Korea's leader as an act of terrorism that could lead to the North's being added back to a list that currently includes only Iran, Sudan and Syria.

While Malaysia has not directly accused North Korea , South Korea's spy agency has claimed the attack was part of a plot by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to kill his brother, Kim Jong Nam.

"A regime who murders someone in a public airport using nerve agent, and a despotic leader who murders his brother in that manner, I mean, that's clearly an act of terrorism that fits in with a range of other actions," McMaster said. He said returning North Korea to the state sponsors of terrorism list "is something that's under consideration."

Kim Jong Nam died in February after two women rubbed his face with a liquid later identified as VX nerve agent as he passed through the airport in Kuala Lumpur.

Under legislation enacted Aug. 2, the State Department was required to determine within 90 days - or around Thursday - whether North Korea meets the criteria for being designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson "continues to evaluate whether or not to designate DPRK as a state sponsor of terror," an official said Thursday. "The Department has informed Members of Congress that he expects to conclude his review and announce a decision within the month."

Trump's trip comes amid escalating tensions with North Korea, which has continued to pursue its missile and nuclear programs and ramped up its missile testing. In a recent speech at the United Nations, Trump said he would "totally destroy" the nation, if necessary. He has also derided the North Korean leader as "little Rocket Man." Kim has returned the favor, calling Trump a "mentally deranged U.S. dotard."

McMaster said the president would not temper his rhetoric against North Korea while on tour.

"The president will use whatever language he wants to use," he said. "That's been of great reassurance to our allies, partners and others in the region who are literally under the gun of this regime."

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McMaster said a denuclearized Korean peninsula "is the only plausible outcome" and he called on other nations, including China - North Korea's chief benefactor in the region, to do more to help make that a reality.

The national security adviser said Trump would address North Korea's human rights record during the trip.

The U.S. kept North Korea on its terrorism blacklist for two decades after the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner that killed 115 people. But President George W. Bush lifted the designation in 2008 to smooth the way for aid-for-disarmament negotiations.

Re-designating North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism would be largely of symbolic significance. North Korea is heavily and increasingly sanctioned for its nuclear and missile activity in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions. Sanctions from a terror designation are unlikely to inflict significant, additional economic punishment.

--- ENDS ---
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asserted that it is now easier to do business in India than ever before after the country leaped 30 places to break into top 100 nations worldwide.

The jump to 100th rank on this year's World Bank Ease of Doing Business index, from last year's 130, is the biggest by any country this year, he said while addressing the World Food India conference here.

India, he said, is one of fastest growing economies in the world and implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from July 1 has eliminated multiplicity of taxes.

The prime minister invited global companies to come and invest in the food process industry in India, saying it offers immense opportunity.

He made a point that more investment is required in contract farming, raw material sourcing and creating agricultural linkages.

There are opportunities in post-harvest management, Modi said, adding that there is immense potential for value addition in areas such as organic food.

He also spoke of the government targeting doubling of farmers' income in five years. India can provide solution and offer win-win partnership combination of traditional Indian food and modern technology, the prime minister stressed.
New Delhi: The change in the wind direction has slightly improved the air quality in Delhi but it continues to remain 'very poor', according to Central Pollution Control Board.

Delhi's air quality index was measured at 311 particulate matter (PM) against 355 (PM) measured a day before.

Several places in NCR, which were earlier suffering from 'severe' air quality on Thursday saw improvement with the CPCB recording AQI at 325 in Haryana's Gurugram (against 354 on Wednesday), 321 in UP's Noida (344 on Wednesday), 352 in Ghaziabad (402 on Wednesday) and 372 in Rajasthan's Bhiwadi (417 on Wednesday).



Haryana's Faridabad, where air quality was being placed at "severe" or "very poor" since the past week, saw a considerable improvement on Thursday, with the AQI at 82 or "satisfactory" against "very poor" (347) on Wednesday and "severe" (410) on Tuesday.



In Delhi, the major pollutant PM2.5, or particles with diameter less than 2.5mm, also saw a slight drop mostly because the wind stopped entering from Punjab where stubble burning continues unabated.



The average PM2.5 value at 16 different areas of Delhi was 280, still 4.5 times more than the permissible limit.



Shadipur area in central Delhi was however most polluted with AQI still "severe" at 436 at 5 p.m. The PM2.5 value there was around 500 till 7 a.m. while it ranged between 382 to 305 from 8 a.m. onwards till 6 p.m.



Safe limit for PM2.5 is 60 (microgrammes per cubic metre) as per national standards and 25 internationally.



The PM2.5 levels at eight out of ten monitoring stations of System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) were placed under "very poor" category, while slight improvement was seen at Pusa and Dhirpur (north Delhi).



The PM2.5 value at Dhirpur, Pitampura, Delhi University (north Delhi), Pusa (central Delhi), Lodhi Road, Mathura Road, Aya Nagar (south Delhi) and Delhi Airport (T3) as well as Noida and Gurugram ranged between 260 and 322 on Thursday, against 392 and 326 on Wednesday and 362 and 302 on Tuesday.



The trend in air quality improvement could however be short-lived, warn weather analysts as the wind are likely to change again Sunday onwards.



According to the weather forecast, from Wednesday onwards, cold and dry north-westerly winds which were bringing toxins from neighbouring Punjab and Haryana, due to stubble burning there, to Delhi had changed into warm but moist south-easterly winds, thereby giving slight breather to the Delhi-NCR for next two to three days.

(With IANS inputs)
Valsad: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi would meet Gujarat Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani on Friday at Navsari, a spokesperson of the party said.

Mevani, who has been critical of the ruling BJP in the state, is expected to discuss the demands of his community when he meets the Congress vice-president, who is currently on an election campaign tour of south Gujarat.

"Jignesh Mevani and other Dalit leaders had met Ashok Gehlot (Congress' Gujarat affairs in-charge) earlier and presented a set of demands to him," Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said.

"We have extended an invitation to Mevani to meet our vice-president Rahul Gandhi today. The two will meet at Navsari later in the day," he added.

Congress Scheduled Castes (SC) cell national president K Raju also said a meeting had been arranged between Rahul Gandhi and Mevani.

Mevani had earlier said he would meet Rahul Gandhi only when he was called to discuss the opposition party's stand on various demands of the Dalit community.

The Dalit rights campaigner, who has dubbed the BJP "anti-Dalit", had also said he had no plans to join any political party.

"I want to make it clear that neither have I joined the Congress nor am I going to join the party in the future. Not just the Congress, I have no plans of joining any other party as of now," he had told reporters in Ahmedabad yesterday.

However, the young leader, who shot to fame after the Una Dalit flogging incident last year, had added that he was ready to meet Rahul Gandhi to know about the Congress' stand on 17 demands related to his community.

The demands include an allotment of five acres of farmland to the Dalits, alternative employment for those involved in cattle-skinning and manual scavenging and the release of a probe report into an incident of firing on the community members at Thangadh in Surendranagar district in 2012.

"Since the BJP government is not even ready to hold talks with us on these demands, it is very clear that it is anti Dalit. And, that is why we are also anti-BJP. But, that does not mean we are joining another party," Mevani had said.

"However, I am ready to meet Rahul Gandhi to know about his party's stand on these demands. I want to know what can they do for our community if they come to power (in Gujarat)," he had added.
NEW DELHI: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday met Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani while he was campaigning for Gujarat Assembly elections.

Post meeting, Mevani said that the Congress vice president assured him of including their demands in the election manifesto.

"Met Rahul Ji. He told us 90% of our demands aren't demands but our constitutional rights which will be included in manifesto," Mevani said.

The meeting is believed to be aimed at strengthening Congress's prospects in Gujarat Assembly polls.

Following the meeting, the young Dalit leader, who shot to fame after the Una Dalit flogging incident last year joined Rahul's Navsarjan Yatra from Navsari.

Earlier on Thursday, Mevani said, "I want to make it clear that neither have I joined the Congress nor am I going to join the party in the future. Not just the Congress, I have no plans of joining any other party as of now."

The purpose of Mevani, a lawyer fighting land rights cases of Dalits, to meet the Congress vice president was to know his stand on 17 demands related to his community.

The demands include an allotment of five acres of farmland to the Dalits, alternative employment for those involved in cattle-skinning and manual scavenging and the release of a probe report into an incident of firing on the community members at Thangadh in Surendranagar district in 2012.

(With inputs from agencies)
Washington: Former al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden closely followed developments in Kashmir and the trial of Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley in the 2008 Mumbai attack case, according to documents released by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The documents were seized from a Pakistani compound where the Qaeda founder was killed in a US raid in 2011.

According to the news material, the 9/11 attacks mastermind closely followed news related to the arrest of Lashkar-e-Toiba operative Headley and was a regular reader of some of the top Indian publications.

The massive amount of new material released on Wednesday contains nearly 470,000 items totalling 321 gigabytes of data.

It includes audio, video and text files found on devices recovered from bin Laden's compound, where he lived with his wife and children along with two couriers and their families.

The CIA also released bin Laden's 228-page personal journal, written by hand in Arabic.

The Qaeda leader was killed in the May 2, 2011, raid by US Navy SEALs after nearly 10 years in hiding following the September 2001 attacks.

An Indian Express article titled Omar Sheikhs Pak handler Ilyas Kashmiri also handled Headley was found from the computer of Laden in Abbottabad. The article was dated November 16, 2009.

A Press Trust of India story headlined Al-Qaeda helping Taliban to destabilise Pakistan Government: Gates, dated February 9, 2010, was also found on Ladens computer.
NEW DELHI: Defence experts on Friday slammed China for blocking India`s request at the United Nations Security Council to declare Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist.

Speaking to ANI, defence expert PK Sehgal said that China's move will weaken its relationship with India.

"This shows that the attitude of China is same as it was earlier and there is no change in it. This will weaken India and China relationship. China will never let down its client state Pakistan. China is misusing its veto power and overlooking the views of all the other countries which are supporting India," he said.

Defence expert Rahul Jalali said that China is adopting the double standard on terrorism."China had already said this that they will block this proposal. Earlier also they did this. On one hand, China talks about curbing terrorism, while on the other hand, they block the proposal to declare Masood Azhar a global terrorist," he said.

On Thursday, China exercised the veto against the United States-backed proposal at the UN Security Council to declare Masood Azhar as a global terrorist, citing a lack of consensus.

China had earlier indicated it would block India`s request at the Security Council.

Hua Chunying, the spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a recent press conference, "As for the listing application by the relevant country [India], there are disagreements. China put the technical hold so as to allow for more time to deliberate on this matter. To our regret, the committee so far has yet to reach consensus."

"China always maintains that on the listing matter, the 1267 Committee [Security Council Committee] shall uphold the principle of objectivity, impartiality and professionalism, and make its decisions by consensus among its members on the basis of solid evidence," Hua added.

The "technical hold" could not be extended as it expired on Thursday, and hence, China was being expected to block the request permanently.

The Jaish-e-Muhammad is designated as a terrorist organisation by the U.S. State Department, while India accuses its leader of launching several terrorist attacks on its soil, including the 2016 Pathankot airbase attack.

Following the attack, India had initiated the move to include Azhar on the U.N. terrorist list. All 15 members of the Security Council, except China, supported India's bid.

China is one of the five veto-holding members of the United Nations other than United States, United Kingdom, Russia and France.
New Delhi: India said on Friday that China's continuous blocking of Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhar's designation as a global terrorist by the UN will not deter it from fighting terrorism.

"I think the decision by a country to block a consensus should not be seen as an end to our counter-terrorism efforts. What is important is that it does not, in any way, take away our resolve to fight terrorism," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.

During a media briefing, he said India will continue to work with like-minded countries to fight terrorism.

"It will not impact our resolve to fight terror," he said, referring to China's decision.

China yesterday had for the fourth time blocked the bid to list Pathankot terror attack mastermind Azhar as a global terrorist by the UN, saying "there is no consensus" within the members of the sanctions committee.

A veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, China has repeatedly blocked India, the US and other nations' bid to put a ban on the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief under the Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the Council.

Kumar said India had taken up the issue with the highest level of the Chinese government.

On Zakir Naik, Kumar said India will soon make a formal request to Malaysia for his extradition.
NEW DELHI: China's decision to block another bid to declare Pathankot terror attack mastermind Masood Azhar as a global terrorist will not impact India's resolve to fight terror, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Friday. MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said that China's decision should not be seen as the end of fight against terror.

The statement comes after China on Thursday rejected the move to treat the JeM chief as a global terrorist saying that there was no consensus on the issue. The MEA had said it was deeply disappointed by China's decision to block the UN move once again.

"India strongly believes that double standards and selective approaches will only undermine international communitys resolve to combat terrorism," MEA had said in a statement on Thursday.

A veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, China has repeatedly blocked India's move to put a ban on the JeM chief under the al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the Council. In February this year, China had asked India to provide 'solid evidence' to back efforts to get JeM chief banned by the UN.

China had in August extended by three months it's technical hold on the proposal to list Azhar as a global terrorist by the UN after having blocked the move in February this year at the United Nations.

This is the second year in succession that China has blocked the resolution.

Last year, China had done the same to stall India's application before the same Committee.

China in the past had asked India to discuss the issue directly with Pakistan in order to reach an understanding of Azhar's listing.

Last year in March, China was the only member in the 15- nation UN organ to put a hold on India's application with all other 14 members of the Council supporting New Delhi's bid to place Azhar on the 1267 sanctions list that would subject him to an assets freeze and travel ban.
Ending all speculations, former Trinamool Congress MP Mukul Roy on Friday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. Once considered as one of the closest aides of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Roy had hit out at the party while tendering his resignation as a Rajya Sabha member.

Roy had said: "A party should have certain principles. Sometimes Trinamool Congress is with the BJP, sometimes they are with the Congress. We were very much a part of the NDA government once and joined hands with the BJP. Now the party thinks that the country cannot go ahead without the Congress. These things compelled me to leave the party with a heavy heart."

TMC has been accusing him of hobnobbing with the BJP. Roy had met several BJP heavyweights including Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and its National General Secretary and West Bengal in charge Kailash Vijayvargiya in the past few days.

He was suspended from the TMC for six years for "anti-party activities". The party has repeatedly said that his role in connection with the Saradha, Narada and Alchemist scams should be investigated.

The Narada scam refers to a sting operation in which TMC leaders were allegedly caught on camera accepting money, while the Saradha and Alchemist scams are chit fund frauds.

Reacting to the allegations, Roy had said that he will fully cooperate with the CBI and the ED. "Whenever they call me for questioning I will appear before them," he had said.
Santiniketan: Indo-China relations are not going to be a walk in the park, but the two nations need to have the confidence to make things work, Chinese Consul General in Kolkata, Ma Zhanwu said on Friday.

Speaking at the inaugural session to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Cheena Bhavana here, he said the "differences" between the two countries were outweighed by their shared interest and trust.

Calling for a new impetus in the bilateral relations, Ma said, "China-India relationship is not going to be a walk in the park. It is going to be difficult with ups and downs. However, we need to have confidence that we can do it".

Quoting a recent statement of Chinese President Xi Jinping, he said his country did not pose a threat to any other nation, and "certainly not India".

"Our president had said China will never seek hegemony or engage in expansion, and will not pose any threat to anybody," he said.

Describing China as a "modern, prosperous, socialist and democratic" country, Ma said it wants to make its relationship with India most vibrant one.

"We need to aim high. We need to have mutual trust. We need to hear from the other side as well," the Chinese diplomat said.

Ma also asked the media to play a key role in bolstering ties between the two nations.

"Talk more of great nations and less of conflicts," he said.

Hailing the two-day conference to mark the 80th anniversary of Cheena Bhavana, he said over 70 scholars from China were attending the meet for which preparations had begun one-and-a-half years back.

The Cheena Bhavana (Institute of Chinese Language and Culture) at Visva Bharati University was founded by Rabindranath Tagore in April, 1937.

Stressing the need to realise Tagore's vision for the institute, he said, "There should be more interaction in boosting Sino-India relations. We need to focus on economic development and political relations as part of our study".

The Consul General lamented that there were many interpreters of Chinese language from countries like Canada, but very few from India.

"We need to look at our immediate neighbours. This is true for both nations," he said.

Ma also advocated the introduction of Chinese learning course from junior level in India, and Hindi and other Indian language courses in China.

Talking about Cheena Bhavana retaining its heritage, acting Vice Chancellor of the varsity, Swapan Dutta, said, "We have kept the building design intact, and will never tinker with these things. However, we are modernising the lab with interactive audio and video."
Gujarat BJP spokesperson I K Jadeja said the party had received several representations from the Kshatriya community about distortion of historical facts in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Padmavati.

By Sushant Mehta: Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Padmavati has got stuck in a loop of controversies as pressure seems to be mounting on Bhansali and his team when it comes to screening of the film for politicians and the right-wing groups.

Gujarat BJP spokesperson I K Jadeja announced that the party has written to the Election Commission (EC) stating that the film should not be released as it distorts history, the party has also sent a letter to the censor board urging the CBFC to re-examine the film.

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Jadeja said the party had received several representations from the Kshatriya community about distortion of historical facts in the film.

He said, "EC should arrange for prerelease screening of the movie for select Kshatriya representatives to provide them a fair opportunity to prevent unnecessary tension ahead of Gujarat polls," adding that a representation has been made to the poll panel to not allow the release of the film before that.

The BJP leader also claimed "Padmavati and Khilji had never met in real life."

This while, Maharashtra Tourism minister Jaykumar Rawal demanded a ban on the film as the movie could hurt the sentiments of the Rajput community and cause unrest in the state.

The historic drama based on Rani Padmavati and Delhi Sultan Alauddin Khilji's ransack of Chittor is set for a December-1 release.

Gujarat is going to polls on December 9 and 14.

'NO ONE CAN STOP THIS FILM'

BJP's official stand on Padmavati comes just days after their leader Shankersingh Vaghela wanted to see the film before its official release. Vaghela, an influential Kshatriya leader and former chief minister of the state, had also warned that if it was released without the community's approval, there could be violence.

This is not the first brush with controversy for Padmavati as the Karni Sena, a Rajput organisation, raised objections to an alleged romantic angle between Padmavati and Khilji - that they suspect could be shown in the movie.

However, director Sanjay Leela Bhansali and the cast of the film have maintained throughout that the film does not portray any such relationship between the two lead characters.

Deepika Padukone who plays queen Padmavati spoke with the media at the 3D trailer launch of the film in Mumbai recently and said, "Nothing, and no one can stop this film," hinting that the film will be released as scheduled.

Bhansali has not as yet commented on the latest developments - in what one can call a cautious move - considering he was roughed up on the sets of Padmavati in Rajasthan by members of the Karni Sena.

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At 3 hours and 13 minutes, Padmavati is Bhansali's longest film till date.

Meanwhile, the Congress said the ruling party was doing politics and trying to turn the film into a poll issue.

"Now that the elections are round the corner, you are writing to the EC asking it not to allow release of the movie. This is an attempt by the BJP to make it a poll issue," Congress spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil said.

--- ENDS ---
New Delhi: In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court on Friday ruled that technical education cannot be provided through the process of correspondence courses.

While passing the order, the apex court hailed the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which had earlier ruled out a degree in computer science through a distance education.

Earlier, the Orissa High Court had allowed technical education by correspondence. The same order was set aside by the SC today.
LONDON: The UK's charity watchdog has opened a compliance case against the National Council of Hindu Temples (UK) after the group was accused of inviting a controversial speaker to a seminar in the Parliament complex.

The umbrella group for Hindu temples and organisations in Britain had invited Tapan Ghosh, the founder of Hindu Samhati based in West Bengal, to give a keynote address at an event titled 'Tolerating the intolerant: The abuse of Hindu human rights in Europe and India' last month, during which he is accused of voicing extremist views.

The UK's Charity Commission, in charge of regulating all charitable institutions registered in the country, confirmed today that it had opened a case which will involve questioning the trustees to decide if any further action was required.

"The Commission has opened a case into the National Council of Hindu Temples (UK) to assess concerns raised regarding a speaker at an event linked to the charity," the Charity Commission said in a statement.

Meanwhile, members of the Association of British Muslims, the Asian Mums Network, and the Women Against Radicalisation Network have co-signed an open letter to the Charity Commission demanding the National Council of Hindu Temples (UK) be stripped of its charity status.

"We believe the NCHTUK should be stripped of its charity status for inciting religious hatred...(Ghosh) runs a hardline Hindu militant group whose sole purpose is to demonise and 'protect Hindus from Muslim aggression'," the letter reads.

The event in the House of Commons complex in October was hosted by Conservative party MP Bob Blackman as chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for British Hindus.

Ghosh "made no abhorrent remarks at the meeting, and I am quite clear that I and the National Council of Hindu Temples do not agree with the views he previously stated," he said.

The NHCTUK?has stressed that the core subject of the event was the "sustained targeting and abuse of Hindu and Sikh girls? their selection on the basis of their religion and their subsequent physical and emotional abuse for the purposes of forced conversion to Islam".

During his visit to the UK, Ghosh also attended a Diwali event organised by the Hindu Forum of Britain last month alongside Cabinet ministers including home secretary Amber Rudd, who has been forced to distance herself from his views.

"The home secretary fundamentally disagrees with Ghosh?s views on Islam. The home secretary accepted an invitation from the Hindu Forum of Britain to attend an event in Parliament... to celebrate Diwali. She did not speak to Ghosh and was not present when he spoke," her spokesperson said.
NEW DELHI: The Centre told the Supreme Court on Friday that no criminal action would be taken against 14 petitioners who could not deposit demonetised currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500.

The apex court, meanwhile, disposed of 14 petitions seeking its nod to deposit demonetised notes and said that a five-judge Constitution Bench would deal with this aspect besides deciding the validity of Centre's decision to demonetise currency notes.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud said that besides raising their grievance, the petitioners could also assist the court in the adjudication of the challenge to the constitutional validity of the demonetisation decision.

Attorney General KK Venugopal said that the government will not take any coercive action against them for possessing demonetised currency.

The batch of 14 petitioners include NRIs who were not in the country when demonetisation took place and also those who were medically incapacitated.

The SC bench said the Constitution Bench would also deal with the individual plea of those who could not deposit their currency notes during the window period provided by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Some petitioners claim that they have not challenged the constitutional validity of either certain provisions of the RBI Act and Centre's November 8, 2016, notification, rather they want to deposit their demonetised currency notes.

"Our hard-earned money has been confiscated without due process of law and without granting fair opportunity," lawyer Pranav Sachdeva, appering for one of the petitioners said adding the Constitution bench be constituted as expeditiously as possible.

The bench asked the petitioners to file two to three-page-long interlocutory applications in the pending petitions which would be dealt by the constitution bench later.

It then disposed of individual petitions filed by 14 persons seeking permission to deposit currency notes on the ground that they could not deposit the notes with banks due to some unavoidable and compelling reasons.

The apex court had on December 16, last year referred to a Constitution Bench, the issue of validity of government's decision to demonetise currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500.

While holding that the challenge to November 8 notification was in the arena of "public importance" as complaints of inconvenience have been brought, it said there was a need for a direction for referring it to a larger bench for "authoritative pronouncement by five judges".

BJP to celebrate note ban anniversary

On November 8, 2016, the Centre had decided to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

On November 8, 2017 the BJP will organise programmes highlighting all the steps the government has taken against black money.

The Congress-led 18 Opposition parties have announced that they will observe November 8 as Black Day to protest against the "ill-conceived and hasty" decision of the government to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes a year ago.

The IMF has lowered India's growth projection to 6.7 percent in 2017, 0.5 percentage points less than its previous two forecasts in April and July, attributing it to demonetisation and introduction of the GST.
WhatsApp suffered a worldwide outage for a short while on Friday afternoon. Services were partially restored about an hour. However, it is not clear if the service has been restored to all users across the globe.



During the outage, a sent message would show with a single tick, which means the message had been sent. Immediately after circumstances confirmed WhatsApp was indeed out of action, Twitter came ahead to the ultimate rescue of the milennials, who had stopped imagining there was a breathing life without the WhatsApp.And there were reasons why people turned to Twitter.

#WhatsAppDown is down not only in TN or India, but throughout the world. FB & Twitter helps us to know it :-)  Sathish Kumar M (@sathishmsk) November 3, 2017

There has been no statement yet from WhatsApp on why the outage occurred or even acknowledging that the wildly popular app had indeed gone down.

This has meant there still questions over how many countries or regions faced the outage, and to what extent the services have been restored.

#Whatsapp service restored it was a major breakdown felt all over the world



#whatsappdown November 3, 2017

'Whatsappdown' was the top trending item on Twitter in India, which is WhatsApp`s biggest market with about 200 million of its billion-plus users. It was also a top trending item on Twitter in Pakistan, Britain, Germany and many other countries.

The app has become a near-universal mode of communication, spreading from text messages to VoIP and video calls. WhatsApp crossed 1 billion downloads in July 2017. It has been downloaded a more than a billion times on Android devices alone.

Users from India, most of Europe, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Saudi Arabia, USA and Sri Lanka complained about the problem.

WhatsApp has faced similar widespread outages this year, including for several hours in May. The service was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for USD 19 billion.
THANE: A 23-year-old man was sentenced to seven years of rigorous imprisonment by a special court here for raping a five-year-old girl in 2013.

R N Bawankar, judge of the special court for hearing cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, held Mohammed Akbar alias Guddu Mohammed Aslam Ansari, guilty of rape and awarded the sentence on Monday.

The court also slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 on him.

Ansari lived near a police chowkie under Shanti Nagar police station limits.

Public Prosecutor Ujjwala Moholkar told the court that on October 26, 2013, he took the girl to a nearby secluded place and sexually assaulted her.

The girl later returned home and narrated the incident to her parents, after which they approached the police and filed a complaint.

The court held Ansari guilty under IPC section 376 (rape) and section 4 of the POCSO Act.
New Delhi: The Centre has told the Supreme Court that all mobile phone subscribers had to mandatorily link their numbers with their Aadhaar by February 6 under the e-KYC verification.

While citing an order passed by the Supreme Court, the Centre said that it was the apex court which had approved the norm for mandatory Aadhaar-mobile number linkage in the Lokniti Foundation case on February 6, 2017, while giving a window of one year.

The deadline for mobile numbers and Aadhaar card linking cannot be done unilaterally since it was fixed by the Supreme Court, said the Centre.

Recently, a nine-judge constitution bench of the apex court had held that Right to Privacy was a Fundamental Right under the Constitution. Several petitioners challenging the validity of Aadhaar had claimed it violated privacy rights.

The Centre had on October 25 told the Supreme Court that the deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar to receive the benefits of government schemes has been extended till March 31, 2018 for those who do not have the 12-digit unique biometric identification number and were willing to enroll for it.

Some petitioners in the top court have termed the linking of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) number with bank accounts and mobile numbers as "illegal and unconstitutional".

One of the counsel representing the petitioners had earlier said that final hearing in the main Aadhaar matter, which is pending before the apex court, was necessary as the government "cannot compel" citizens to link their Aadhaar with either bank accounts or cell phone numbers.
Mumbai: Actress-host Shibani Dandekar says she is excited to reprise the role of actress Lisa Haydon in the Telugu and Malayalam remakes of Hindi entertainer Queen.

"So excited to be shooting the Telugu and Malyalam versions of Queen as Vijaylaxmi. Can't wait! Here we go woot," she tweeted.

Earlier, Amy Jackson was to play essay Lisa Haydon's role from the original Queen in all its four southern versions. Amy had walked out of the film citing creative differences and non-availability of dates.

Elli AvRam has been cast in the Tamil and Kannada remakes.

The makers of the film are starting their first schedule in France. Starring Tamannaah Bhatia, Kajal Aggarwal, Manjima Mohan and Parul Yadav in the lead in their respective languages, the film will be sequentially be shot at various locations adding a tinge of southern element to it.

The Hindi version of Queen, which released in 2013, stars Kangana Ranaut and Rajkummar Rao.

The movie revolves around Rani, a 24-year-old homely girl, decides to go on her honeymoon alone when her fiance calls off their wedding. Travelling around Europe, she finds joy, makes friends and gains new-found independence.
By PTI: By Sajjad Hussain

Islamabad, Nov 3 (PTI) Pakistans top leadership today expressed their condolences over the death of Dina Wadia, saying the only daughter of the countrys founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah was a greatly respected and admired figure.

Wadia passed away at her home in New York yesterday. She was 98.

The Foreign Office in a message said that President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi "expressed deepest condolences, on behalf of the people and government of Pakistan, on the passing away of Ms Dina Wadia".

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"Mr Nusli Wadia, Mrs Dina Wadias son has been conveyed the sadness of the Pakistani nation, on the demise of their beloved mother who was greatly respected and admired in Pakistan. May she rest in peace," it said.

Born on the night between August 14 and 15 in 1919 in London, Dinas relation with Jinnah suffered when she decided to marry a Parsi man against her fathers wishes.

She visited Pakistan after partition, first when Jinnah died in 1948 and the second time in 2004.

"This has been very sad as well as wonderful for me. May his (Jinnahs) dream for Pakistan come true," she wrote in the visitors book.

Dina is survived by her son and Wadia group chairman Nusli N Wadia, daughter Diana N Wadia and great grandsons Ness and Jeh Wadia. PTI SH MRJ AKJ MRJ

--- ENDS ---
New Delhi: Although delayed, NASA's Juno spacecraft delivered data on October 31, confirming that the probe's eighth Science flyby of Jupiter was a successful one.

On October 24, Juno performed the flyby over Jupiter's mysterious cloud tops. However, the confirmation was delayed by several days due to solar conjunction at Jupiter, which affected communications during the days prior to and after the flyby.

As per NASA, solar conjunction is the period when the path of communication between Earth and Jupiter comes into close proximity with the Sun.

During solar conjunction, no attempts are made to send new instructions or receive information from Juno, as it is impossible to predict what information might be corrupted due to interference from charged particles from the Sun.

Instead, a transmission moratorium is put into place; engineers send instructions prior to the start of solar conjunction and store data on board for transmission back to Earth following the event.

All the science collected during the flyby was carried in Junos memory until yesterday, when Jupiter came out of solar conjunction, said the new Juno project manager, Ed Hirst, from NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

All science instruments and the spacecraft's JunoCam were operating, and the new data are now being transmitted to Earth and being delivered into the hands of our science team.

There is no more exciting place to be than in orbit around Jupiter and no team Id rather be with than the Juno team, said Hirst. Our spacecraft is in great shape, and the team is looking forward to many more flybys of the solar systems largest planet.

Juno's next close flyby of Jupiter will occur on December 16.

Ever since its smooth transit from Earth into its destined orbit around Jupiter, NASA's Juno spacecraft has been beaming back some amazing data on the planet as well as giving space enthusiasts spectacular visual treats from time to time.

With many turning points marking its one-year-long journey in Jupiter's orbit, Juno has revolutionised the world's perception and understanding of the gas giant.

Juno was launched on August 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and arrived in orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. During its mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planet's cloud tops  as close as about 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers).

During these flybys, Juno is probing beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and studying its auroras to learn more about the planet's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.
New Delhi: It's not just us humans who like to photobomb others for fun  it's asteroids too! Two Hubble images were released by NASA, which shows how some of our solar system's asteroids have photobombed deep images of the universe.

These asteroids reside, on average, only about 160 million miles from Earth  right around the corner in astronomical terms. Yet, they've elbowed their way into this picture of thousands of galaxies scattered across space and time at inconceivably farther distances.

The first image is of a random patch of sky, which is a part of a survey called Frontier Fields. Thousands of galaxies are on display, including massive yellowish ellipticals and majestic blue spirals. Much smaller, fragmentary blue galaxies are sprinkled throughout the field.

According to NASA, the reddest objects are most likely the farthest galaxies, whose light has been stretched into the red part of the spectrum by the expansion of space.

Asteroid trails can be seen across the image as curved or S-shaped streaks. Instead of appearing as one long trail, appear in multiple Hubble exposures that have been combined into one image.

Of the 20 total asteroid sightings for this field, seven are unique objects. Of these seven asteroids, only two were earlier identified. The others were too faint to be seen previously, NASA said.

Due to an observational effect called parallax, the trails look curved. As Hubble orbits around Earth, an asteroid will appear to move along an arc with respect to the vastly more distant background stars and galaxies.

The second image is of the parallel field for the galaxy cluster Abell 370. According to NASA, it was assembled from images taken in visible and infrared light.

The field's position on the sky is near the ecliptic, the plane of our solar system. This is the zone in which most asteroids reside, which is why Hubble astronomers saw so many crossings.

Hubble deep-sky observations taken along a line-of-sight near the plane of our solar system commonly record asteroid trails.

Playing the role of scientists' 'third eye in the sky' effortlessly, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has given astronomers hope of discovering evolutionary secrets of the universe.

In the past, Hubble has helped unearth massive revelations, most of which have turned out to be breakthroughs in the world of space.

Helping scientists reach out into the depths of the universe and discover numerous things that would have otherwise, been impossible, the project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) has been highly dependable.
New Delhi: November 3, 2017 marks the 60th anniversary of the day a dog was sent into space for the first time and literally became the 'first astronaut'.

Post the success of Sputnik-1, launched on October 4, 1957, Soviet leader at the time Nikita Khrushchev ordered the team to send a dog into space.

She gave them a month's time to fulfill the task, which was very less considering the amount of work and preparations that had to be made.

However, they did what they were told and sealed a stray dog named Laika into a capsule, which was Sputnik 2, and sent her off on her journey on November 3.

That was the last they saw of her. The engineers had no way of bringing her back alive.

With the one-way mission, Laika became the first living creature to step foot outside Earth into space and also the first one to die there.

The world was told that Laika had enough food and water to survive in space for a week, before she dies.

Unfortunately, however, Laika only lasted for seven hours, falling victim to panic and severe exhaustion.

While this wasn't the first time Russia sent a dog into space, the rest of the flights were suborbital, wherein the dogs were sent out of atmosphere and brought back to Earth.

Unlike Laika, all other dogs survived.

Laika was hailed as a national hero and her journey paved the way for Yuri Gagarin's successful mission in 1961, which was accomplished in 89 minutes.
CHENNAI: As the city is reeling under heavy rains, the number of rain-related deaths has on Friday risen to 14 in Tamil Nadu.

Normal life was disrupted as rain continued to lash Chennai resulting in 30cm of showers in some eight hours. The traffic moved at a snail's pace as the downpour caused heavy water-logging in various parts of the city.

The local administration identified 15 zones where the situation has dramatically worsened.

On Wednesday two girls died due to electrocution in Kodungaiyur in Chennai as heavy rains pounded the city and suburban areas as well as coastal districts of Tamil Nadu for a third day.

Schools in Chennai and Kancheepuram districts were also closed owing to heavy rains. According to reports, the announcement was made by the collectors, who after reviewing the rains arrived at the decision to declare leave for the schools.

Bhavna and Vijayshri, both eight years old, were electrocuted when they stepped on a power cable covered by stagnant rainwater in R.R. Nagar.

Another girl escaped after she jumped on a cement slab. The girls were playing near their home as the schools were closed because of the rains.

Eight officials of the Electricity Board, including an Executive Engineer and an Assistant Engineer, were suspended for dereliction of duty, Electricity Minister S.P. Velumani told reporters.

He also announced a solatium of Rs 2 lakh for the kin of the dead.
Chennai: Schools in Chennai and Kancheepuram districts will remain closed on Friday owing to heavy rains. According to reports, the announcement was made by the collectors, who after reviewing the rains arrived at the decision to declare leave for the schools.

Heavy rains lashed parts of Chennai and neighbouring areas on Thursday, with Chennai receiving a total of 12 cm rain. While people were left astray in the waterlogged areas, heavy traffic was also noticed in a few parts.

On Wednesday two girls died due to electrocution in Kodungaiyur in Chennai as heavy rains pounded the city and suburban areas as well as coastal districts of Tamil Nadu for a third day.

Bhavna and Vijayshri, both eight years old, were electrocuted when they stepped on a power cable covered by stagnant rain water in R.R. Nagar.

Another girl escaped after she jumped on a cement slab. The girls were playing near their home as the schools were closed because of the rains.

Eight officials of the Electricity Board, including an Executive Engineer and an Assistant Engineer, were suspended for dereliction of duty, Electricity Minister S.P. Velumani told reporters.

He also announced a solatium of Rs 2 lakh for the kin of the dead.

He said leakage of electricity from the wire from an open pillar box was the reason for the girls' electrocution. A five-member group has been set up in the Electricity Board that would ensure that such incidents do not recur, he added.

Velumani said chances of electrocution were less in Chennai because of underground cabling of electric wires but the accident took place because of the lack of proper upkeep of the pillar box. There were 40,000 such pillar boxes in the city, he added.

Angry residents staged a protest condemning government negligence. They complained that the negligence of the pillar box despite their complaints was the reason for the death of the girls.

As rains continued to lash Chennai and suburbs, low lying areas, especially in Mudichur and Selaiyur near Tambaram, were marooned.

Varadarajapuram near Mudichur, one of the worst-hit areas in the 2015 floods, again presented a picture of plight as residents started leaving for safer places.

The Met office has predicted intermittent rains in Chennai, Kanchipuram and Tiruvallur districts for Thursday.

Schools in these districts were closed for a second consecutive day on Wednesday owing to rains. They were closed on Tuesday owing to rains on Monday.



(With IANS inputs)
WhatsApp suffered a global outage on Friday afternoon with users across the world complaining that they were unable to send or receive messages through the App. WhatsApp confirmed the outage and said that it was working to resolve the problem.

Along with India, users from most of Europe, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Saudi Arabia, USA and Sri Lanka complained about the problem. There has been no statement yet from WhatsApp on why the outage occurred.



People took to social media to report that they are unable to delete or edit their profile image or update their information. Some even said their privacy settings cannot be updated.

But while WhatsApp is desperate to resolve the issue, Twitter missed no time in making the most of the situation.

Check out what Twitterati said:

Feeling the election season:

Meanwhile Kerjriwal hums to himself, isme bhi Modi Ji ka hath hai. #whatsappdown___  Amit Kumar (@iamit7) November 3, 2017

AAP aur Congress ko haraane ki saazish ke tahat #WhatsAppDown kiya gaya hai https://t.co/UlB8BsiTdW  Shrin (@ShrrinG) November 3, 2017

Does it work if Aadhaar is linked? Pun intended.

Link your Aadhar with whatsapp. Now its working ....!!#WhatsAppDown  Amir Pathan (@iamirpathan) November 3, 2017

First world problems

The reason for #WhatsAppDown could be an Indian engineer working there. His girl blocked him and he went 'le phir, main block to sab block'  Poddar Ji (@poddarmihir) November 3, 2017

Thank God. You Exist!

The roads will be safe today, no car accident, no human accident, no heating poles #whatsappdown  Mahtab Hussain (@MahtabHussain17) November 3, 2017

On a positive note, we are spared from the family group discussions and fake news and videos sent on the group #WhatsAppdown  Karan Shah (@Karan_J_Shah) November 3, 2017

Over 20K people are gonna have have bad luck for 7 years because #WhatsAppDown so they can't forward a chain message _ pic.twitter.com/tC7nSoknF6  No One (@IamBonkosi_SA) November 3, 2017

500 people in India have already died because Whatsapp is down and they couldn't forward a chain message to 10 people. #WhatsappDown  Bhargav Vyas (@111_bhargav) November 3, 2017

Did you uninstall to check too?

When you almost unistalled whatsapp just to reinstall it again. But Twitter had your back. #whatsappdown pic.twitter.com/coiPaJKx5G  revolutionary _ (@ntsoahae_naledi) November 3, 2017

Burn! Can anything be worse than this?

Earlier, WhatsApp suffered a global outage in May and it took them hours to fix the problem.
LUCKNOW: Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav has finally agreed to provide his voice sample in the case filed by IPS officer Amitabh Thakur regarding an alleged threat given by him over mobile phone on July 10, 2015, police said on Thursday.

Mulayam Singh`s willingness was revealed by the case`s investigating officer, Circle Officer, Hazratganj, Abhay Mishra when Thakur sought to know about the progress in the case. The investigating officer also said he will be collecting voice sample of both parties very soon.

Previously in his report submitted before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Lucknow, Mishra said that Mulayam Singh was not cooperating in the investigation. He said that he and his predecessor Awanish Mishra have sent notice to Mulayam Singh around dozen times through special messenger, registered post and Station Officer, Gautampalli but no one in his residence had received it so far.
NEW DELHI: A three-year-old kid from Michigan's Dearborn shot two other toddlers with a handgun in a daycare, a media report said on Friday.

According to The Washington Post, the incident took place in late September.

Samantha Eubanks, who did not have the license to run the daycare facility in her home, was looking after six children when she heard a noise upstairs.

She reportedly knew her husband's weapons were kept in the second-floor bedroom.

The wounded duo was immediately rushed to the hospital in critical condition. One of them lost an eye after undergoing numerous surgeries, the report said.

Charges were filed against Samantha and her husband Timothy Eubanks, parents of the toddler who fired the shots, on Thursday for illegally running the facility.

While Timothy is charged with six counts of second-degree child abuse, Samantha is booked under 12 counts of second-degree child abuse and two counts of felony firearm.

The couple is likely to face 10 years of imprisonment.

"The allegations, in this case, have set forth a tremendous tragedy," 19th District Court Judge Gene Hunt said at an arraignment. "And the tragedy, although not intentional, was the result of reckless disregard for the safety of the children."

The children shot in the home will require "long-term care," Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad said in a news conference.

"That toddler apparently knew how to fire that weapon," Haddad added. "The fact that the weapon was in proximity where someone very small could get it is totally unacceptable."

He said that all gun owners have an obligation to keep those around them safe.
Beijing: President Xi Jinping has instructed the Chinese armed forces to improve their combat capabilities and readiness for war, an official media report said on Friday.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), made the remarks while inspecting the CMC joint battle command centre as its commander-in-chief.

"The CMC should lead the armed forces to be ready to fight and win wars, and to undertake the missions and tasks of the new era entrusted to them by the party and the people," Xi was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua news agency.

CMC is the overall high command of the 2.3 million-strong Chinese PLA, the world's largest army.

This is the second time Xi has highlighted the role of the armed forces since he began his second term after securing the endorsement of the key Congress of the ruling CPC which concluded here on October 24.

He was re-elected as president, general secretary of the party, and head of the military.

Xi began his second tenure on October 26 with a meeting of top military officials, regarded as a main source of his power base, after the once-in-a-five-years CPC Congress endorsed his leadership for another term and also conferred on him a powerful status, equating him with party founder Mao Zedong by including his ideological thoughts in the Constitution.

Xi, 64, who heads the powerful Central Military Commission, is the only civilian leader in the body which is otherwise packed with top officials of the armed forces.

In his meeting with the military top brass, he ordered them to be absolutely loyal to the party, to focus on how to win wars, to pioneer reforms and innovation, to scientifically manage commanding a unit, to lead troops in accordance with the strictest standards and to be in the forefront in complying with laws and regulations.
By PTI: Islamabad, Nov 3 (PTI) Pakistan today summoned the British High Commissioner here and conveyed its "serious concern" over anti-Pakistan slogans recently displayed on cabs in London.

The Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) said Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua called in British envoy Thomas Drew.

She conveyed "serious concern at the display of slogans on London cabs that directly attack Pakistans territorial integrity and sovereignty".

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The FO said the British High Commissioner was informed that Pakistan, in line with the UN Charter, rejects actions and advertisements with malicious content that impinge on "our sovereignty and territorial integrity".

It said the issue was also being raised with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by Pakistans High Commissioner in London.

"Pakistan is aware of the intentions of such sinister and malicious campaigns, which should not be allowed on the soil of a friendly country," the FO said.

Details about the offending content were not provided but they seem to be linked with anti-Pakistan banners which appeared in Switzerland in September.

Pakistan had summoned the Swiss ambassador here to protest over the banners which were attributed to a militant group active in restive Balochistan province which is witnessing an armed separatist insurgency. PTI SH KUN

--- ENDS ---
BEIJING: A senior Chinese diplomat said on Friday China has made its best efforts to resolve issues on the Korean peninsula, ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump`s state visit to Beijing next week when he is expected to press China to do more on North Korea.

Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang said the North Korean nuclear issue would be an important topic up for discussion at the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump.

China firmly opposes conflict on the Korean peninsula and believes using force is not the correct way to resolve the issue, Zheng told reporters at a briefing in Beijing. China and the United States have a

shared interest in peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, Zheng said.
Berlin: The German government on Friday expressed its full support for Madrid following the detention of eight former Catalan ministers over their role in the region's independence drive.

"From the federal government's point of view, Spain is, of course, a state governed by the rule of law and as government spokesman, I see no reason at all to comment on decisions made by Spanish courts," Steffen Seibert told reporters following the controversial move yesterday.

"We continue to support the clear position of the Spanish prime minister (Mariano Rajoy)," Seibert said.

"What's important to us is that the unity and constitutional order of Spain are maintained."

Tensions have soared in Spain after a large chunk of Catalonia's axed government was thrown behind bars yesterday pending probes into their role in the secession push.

A Spanish judge was also today set to issue an EU arrest warrant for Catalonia's deposed leader Carles Puigdemont, who is holed up in Belgium.

The European Union and its member states have been resolute in their support for Madrid throughout the crisis.

Spain has been plunged into turmoil since Puigdemont's government organised an independence referendum on October 1 despite a court ban.

A declaration of independence by the Catalan parliament followed last Friday.

But the same day, Rajoy dismissed the regional government, imposed direct rule on Catalonia and called regional elections for December 21.
Tehran: Iran has accused the CIA of spreading "fake news" about the Islamic republic with newly declassified files seized in the 2011 raid in Pakistan in which Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed.

The CIA on Wednesday released 470,000 additional files found in May 2011 when US Navy SEALs burst into Bin Laden`s compound in Abbottabad and shot him dead.

According to scholars from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), who were allowed to see the trove before it was made public, the files shed new light on the murky relationship between the Sunni extremist group and Shiite Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif dismissed the allegations.

"A record low for the reach of petrodollars: CIA & FDD fake news w/selective AlQaeda docs re: Iran can`t whitewash role of US allies in 9/11," he wrote on Twitter late on Thursday.

The release of the files comes as US President Donald Trump`s administration seeks to ramp up pressure on Iran, refusing to certify a landmark nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

Iran denies any link to Al-Qaeda and has provided financial and military backing to help the Syrian regime fight Sunni extremists and other opponents.

The Fars news agency, which is close to Iranian conservatives, said Thursday that the selective publication of documents by the CIA related to Al-Qaeda was part of efforts "to put pressure on Iran".
Baghdad: Iraqi forces said they recaptured an important crossing on the border with Syria from the Islamic State group on Friday as they advanced into the jihadists' last bastion in Iraq.

Iraq's Joint Operations Command said troops had "regained full control" of the Husaybah border post on the edge of the town of Al-Qaim after launching a push to oust the jihadists.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi released a statement congratulating the armed forces for "entering into Al-Qaim and liberating" the border crossing.

An Iraqi army officer told AFP that the jihadists "deserted the border post after several of them were killed" and headed off into Syria.

Al-Qaim and the surrounding areas are the last remnants of the self-styled caliphate IS declared after rampaging across Iraq and Syria in 2014.

Iraqi forces backed up by air strikes from a US-led coalition launched the operation last week to seize back the strategically located pocket of barren desert along the Euphrates river.

IS is simultaneously battling for survival in its holdouts across the border in Syria, where government troops said they ousted the group from the key city of Deir Ezzor today.
NEW YORK: Islamic State has claimed responsibility, without providing proof, for a truck attack earlier this week that killed eight people in the deadliest assault on New York City since Sept. 11, 2001.

The militant group on Thursday described accused attacker Sayfullo Saipov, 29, as "one of the caliphate soldiers" in a weekly issue of its Al-Naba newspaper.

The Uzbek immigrant was charged in federal court on Wednesday with acting in support of Islamic State by plowing a rented pickup truck down a popular riverside bike trail, crushing pedestrians and cyclists and injuring a dozen people in addition to those killed.

According to the criminal complaint against him, Saipov told investigators he was inspired by watching Islamic State propaganda videos on his cellphone, felt good about what he had done, and asked for permission to display the group`s flag in his room at Bellevue Hospital.

Saipov was taken to Bellevue after being shot in the abdomen by a police officer before his arrest.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has called for Saipov to receive the death penalty, said in a Twitter post on Friday that Islamic State had claimed as their soldier the "Degenerate Animal" who killed and wounded "the wonderful people on the West Side" of Lower Manhattan.

"Based on that, the Military has hit ISIS "much harder" over the last two days. They will pay a big price for every attack on us!" Trump tweeted.

Earlier this week, Trump suggested sending Saipov to the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba, where terrorism suspects apprehended overseas are incarcerated. But on Thursday, he said doing so would be too complicated.

The U.S. president has also urged Congress to end the Diversity Immigrant Visa program under which Saipov entered the United States in 2010.

The diversity program, signed into law in 1990 by Republican President George H.W. Bush, was designed to provide more permanent resident visas to people from countries with low U.S. immigration rates.

Five Argentine tourists, a Belgian woman, a New Yorker and a New Jersey man were killed in Tuesday afternoon`s attack.

The attack unfolded just blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, where some 2,600 people were killed when suicide hijackers crashed two jetliners into the Twin Towers 16 years ago.

One of the two criminal counts Saipov faces, violence and destruction of motor vehicles causing the deaths of eight people, carries the death penalty if the government chooses to seek it, prosecutors said.

Saipov waived his right to remain silent or have an attorney present when he agreed to speak to investigators from his hospital bed, the criminal complaint said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has said it has located another Uzbek man, Mukhammadzoir Kadirov, 32, who it said was wanted for questioning as a person of interest in the attack.

Citing an unnamed law enforcement official, ABC News reported on Friday that Saipov placed a telephone call to Kadirov immediately before he carried out the attack. ABC News said the significance of the call was not known.
CAIRO: A militant group called Ansar al-Islam claimed responsibility for an attack in Egypt`s Western Desert that killed several policemen on Oct. 21, the newly emerged group said in a statement on Friday.

"We have started our jihad with the battle of the Lion`s Den in the Bahariya Oasis area on the borders of Cairo and were victorious against the enemy`s campaign," the group said in a statement indicating this was its first attack.

The group did not provide any evidence for the claim. The statement was carried by another group called Guardians of Sharia.

Three security sources said at the time that at least 52 police officers and conscripts were killed on Oct. 21 when their patrol came under attack. The interior ministry rebutted that claim the next day, saying only 16 policemen had been killed.
LONDON: The ashes of notorious British child serial killer Ian Brady have been scattered at sea after he was cremated without ceremony last week, court documents revealed Friday.

The remains of Brady, who died aged 79 in May, were placed in a weighted urn and buried off the coast of Liverpool, north-west England, in the early hours of October 26.

Brady and his girlfriend Myra Hindley tortured and murdered five children between July 1963 and October 1965.

The victims, many of whom were sexually assaulted, were buried on Saddleworth Moor, in a national park near Manchester, although the body of 12-year-old Keith Bennett has never been found.

Relatives of the victims feared that Brady would have his ashes spread over the moor, but a court ruled out the possibility earlier this month.

"The deceased`s wishes are relevant, but they do not outweigh the need to avoid justified public indignation and actual unrest," said Chancellor of the High Court Geoffrey Vos.

Vos also ruled that there be "no music and no ceremony."

Brady`s lawyer Robin Makin said his client had asked for the fifth movement of Hector Berlioz`s hallucinatory Symphonie Fantastique, "Dream of the Night of the Sabbath", to be played.

The brutality of their crimes and the role of Hindley in luring innocent young children to their deaths, have made it one of Britain`s most infamous cases.

Brady and Hindley were jailed in 1966 for the murders of John Kilbride, 12, Lesley Ann Downey, 10, and Edward Evans, 17.

Years later, the pair confessed to Bennett`s murder and that of 16-year-old Pauline Reade.

Brady never expressed remorse for the killings, and the judge in his trial said both he and Hindley were "evil beyond belief". Hindley died in prison in 2002.
CAIRO: Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a truck attack in New York City that killed eight people on Tuesday, the group`s online publication said on Thursday.

Islamic State said in its weekly issue of Al-Naba newspaper that "the attacker is one of the caliphate soldiers".

However, it did not provide evidence to support its claim.

29-year-old New York truck attack suspect Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov had left a note behind in the rental truck, pledging his allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syriac (ISIS).

Hours after the attack, that claimed lives of at least eight people, United States President Donald Trump said that America must not let the ISIS "return to or enter" the country.

Officials said it was the deadliest terrorist attack in New York City since 9/11.Saipov came to the U.S. from Uzbekistan.

According to the media reports, Saipov may have gained entry through the diversity visa programme.

Afterwards, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released a statement saying he did use the lottery to enter the U.S. in 2010.

Authorities had charged Saipov with providing support to a terrorist organisation, alleging the Islamic State-inspired him to carry out the attack."

In court papers, federal authorities said that Sayfullo Saipov told the FBI that he began planning his attack a year ago, though he settled on using a truck as a weapon only two months prior," The Washington Post had reported.
By PTI: London cabs

Islamabad, Nov 3 (PTI) Pakistan today summoned the British High Commissioner here to protest over the "Free Balochistan" slogans being displayed on London cabs that it said attacked the countrys territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua summoned the British High Commissioner in Pakistan Thomas Drew over slogans being displayed on London taxis.

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According to a statement released by the Foreign Office, "the high commissioner was informed that Pakistan, in line with the UN Charter, rejects actions and advertisements with malicious content that impinge on our sovereignty and territorial integrity."

The issue is also being raised with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by the Pakistan High Commissioner in London, the Foreign Office said in a statement.

"Pakistan is aware of the intentions of such sinister and malicious campaigns, which should not be allowed on the soil of a friendly country," the statement said.

According to media reports, "Free Balochistan" slogans appeared on taxis in London.

In September this year, Pakistan had summoned the Swiss ambassador over the public display of anti-Pakistan posters by a group in Switzerland.

Balochistan is the largest of Pakistans four provinces, but people in the restive region have long complained that they do not get a fair share of its natural resources. PTI AKJ AKJ

--- ENDS ---
Columbia: A US military judge ruled Friday that Bowe Bergdahl, the US soldier who deserted his Afghanistan post only to be held captive by insurgents for five years, would serve no prison time after a politically charged trial.

The judge ordered Sergeant Bergdahl to be dishonorably discharged, his rank slashed to private, and for him to pay a $10,000 fine, the Pentagon said.

During last year`s presidential campaign Donald Trump said he believed Bergdahl should be put to death for abandoning his post in the war zone.
PYONGYANG: North Korea on Friday condemned two US bombers flying near the Korean peninsula claiming that the exercise was a trial run for a surprise nuclear attack, media reports said.

US Air Force B-1 bombers, accompanied by fighter jets from South Korea and Japan, conducted a flyover near the Korean peninsula on Thursday, CNN reported.

The Two B-1B Lancers from Anderson Air Force Base in Guam rendezvoused with the Japanese and South Korean jets as part of the planned "bilateral integration" exercise -- at one point flying over Seoul.

In response, Pyongyang`s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said: "The gangster-like US imperialists are ceaselessly resorting to their frantic nuclear threat and blackmail to stifle North Korea with nukes at any cost.

"On Thursday they let a formation of B-1B nuclear strategic bombers stationed at the Anderson Air Force Base on Guam stealthily fly into South Korea again to stage a surprise nuclear strike drill targeting North Korea.

"The reality clearly shows that the United States is the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean Peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war," KCNA added.

The "continuous bomber presence mission" was planned in advance and was "not in response to any current event", Air Force spokesperson Capt. Candice Dillitte said on Thursday.

The flyover comes after two more US aircraft carriers joined the Japan-based USS Ronald Reagan in the Asia-Pacific region last week, CNN reported.

The Pentagon said the movement of the carriers and their accompanying strike groups was long planned, as the USS Nimitz heads back to the US West Coast after a deployment in the Middle East and the USS Theodore Roosevelt heads to that area to replace it.

On Monday, US, South Korean and Japanese officials issued a statement urging North Korea to "refrain from irresponsible provocations" and walk away from its "destructive and reckless path" of weapons development.

Thursday`s development comes ahead of President Donald Trump`s Asia tour, which runs from November 5-14, to visit Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, and whose agenda will be partly focused on dealing with the North Korean crisis, reports Efe news.

The US has repeatedly deployed the B-1Bs in recent weeks with the apparent aim of deterring Kim Jong-un`s regime from continuing its weapons tests.

Washington and Seoul agreed last week at their annual security meetings to "enhance rotational deployments of US strategic assets in and around the peninsula," including bomber jets, submarines and nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.
RABAT: One man was shot dead and two others were hurt in a tourist area of Marrakesh, authorities in Morocco said, adding that it appeared to be a local settling of scores.

Two attackers wearing balaclavas shot the victim at a cafe in the town, a popular destination for foreign visitors. The man, who was hit in the head, died instantly.

The two assailants also injured two other people in a hail of bullets before they fled on a motorbike, local authorities said.

Initial investigations indicate that the dead man was specifically targeted, authorities said.

Morocco`s head of government said on Twitter that two people had already been arrested.

The cafe where the shooting happened is located in a very busy tourist section of the town, close to several popular hotels.

The incident prompted widespread concern on social media, with rumours of a terrorist attack circulating on the Moroccan internet.

Shooting deaths are extremely rare in Morocco, where there are very few guns in circulation.

The kingdom has previously been the victim of terrorist attacks, with 45 people killed in 2003 in Casablanca, and 17 killed in Marrakesh in 2011.
United Nations: UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi has told the UN Security Council that over 800,000 Myanmar Rohingya were probably in the "most acute" situation.

Grandi made the remarks about Rohingya refugees, as in comparison to 65 million to 66 million people forcibly displaced in the world, Xinhua news agency reported.

"We spoke about some of the most complex crisis in Africa especially South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo," he told reporters outside the council`s chambers.

"There was much focus on the situation in Bangladesh -- Rohingya refugees coming from Myanmar -- and the way forward in that crisis which is probably the most acute at the moment."

Of those 800,000 refugees, the UN officials said 607,000 fled violence in northern Rakhine State since August 25 when Rohingya rebels allegedly staged deadly attacks against security posts, triggering retributions from government forces and civilian vigilantes. Villages were torched and villagers fled in face of deadly violence.

Access to northern Rakhine State -- one of the least developed in Myanmar -- has been tightly restricted, although a senior UN official flew over part of the terrorized area last month and reported seeing burnt-out villages.

"There was support for the role the UNHCR can play in facilitating discussion on voluntary safe and dignified return if and when conditions are created in Rakhine State for this to happen," the head of the UN Refugee Agency said.

"We spoke about important overlaps of the agenda of my office ... and the agenda of the Security Council."

He explained that since refugees are a humanitarian issue they are discussed within the UNHCR as "a non-political manner", but it is an issue which overlaps with the peace and security agenda of the Security Council.

So, the solutions for refugee problems "are essentially political", he added.

Grandi said the problem for the Rohingya refugees is to "safely and in a dignified manner go back home" .

Thursday`s Security Council session "was an opportunity to exchange views on all these matters, both policy issues and operational issues".
New Delhi: In the second such instance in less than two months, 'Free Balochistan' posters appeared on several London vehicles this week. The message has infuriated Pakistan and the British High Commissioner in Islamabad was promptly summoned on Friday and a protest was registered with him.

Several vehicles were seen with the 'Free Balochistan' posters embossed on car frames. These also urged for the rights of Baloch people to be safeguarded. World Baloch Organisation took to Twitter to claim that it was their way of highlighting human rights violation in Pakistan. "Our peaceful awareness campaign in the great city London aims to highlight human rights abuses in #Balochistan by Pakistani authorities," read a message on what appeared as their official Twitter handle.

Our peaceful awareness campaign in the great city London aims to highlight human rights abuses in #Balochistan by Pakistani authorities, Raise your voice against decades of enforced disappearances & extra-judicial killings! Stand up for Humanity!#FreeBalochistan#SaveBalochWomen pic.twitter.com/vr897jsB6m  WBO (@WorldBalochOrg) November 3, 2017

Pakistan reacted sharply and the Dawn reported that British High Commissioner Thomas Drew 'was informed that Pakistan, in line with the UN Charter, rejects actions and advertisements with malicious content that impinge on our sovereignty and territorial integrity.'

Balochis have been demanding freedom for Balochistan - a resource-rich region within Pakistan. They allege that Pakistani authorities are guilty of violating basic human rights and that the region has been deliberately kept away from economic development. "We will approach parliaments of the world and make our issues known. We are an occupied land; we did not accede," Amir Ahmed Suleman Daud, one of the key voices demanding freedom for Balochistan, said in an interview recently.

While Pakistan has attempted to crack down on those involved in the freedom struggle in the Balochistan region, not every attempt from exiled Balochis have worked. In September, diplomatic tensions between Pakistan and Switzerland rose after 'Free Balochistan' posters emerged in Geneva's public space. The poster campaign was apparently orchestrated by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a banned entity in Pakistan. Islamabad said not enough was done to prevent such an occurrence. Ambassador-designate Thomas Kolly was summoned and some senators even demanded that he be expelled from the country.
ISTANBUL: A policeman and a militant from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were killed in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Friday, the local governor`s office said.

It said nine other policemen were wounded during a security operation against the Kurdish group in the city. "Clashes broke out as our security forces entered the address to apprehend a member of the PKK," the governor`s office said.

The PKK, which is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union, has led a three-decade armed insurgency against the Turkish state.

The government has been increasing operations against the militant group since the collapse of a ceasefire in 2015.
MOSCOW: Russia on Friday accused the United States of committing a "war crime" in Syria, saying its army had denied Syrian refugees access to humanitarian aid.

"The most severe humanitarian situation remains in the Al-Tanf region," the Russian defence ministry`s Syria reconciliation centre said, referring to a garrison where US and other foreign troops train anti-Islamic State group fighters.

Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees from the Al-Rukban refugee camp on the Jordanian border are deprived of humanitarian aid because of the United States, which "illegally placed their military base there and forbids approach within 55 kilometres (35 miles) under the threat of death," the centre said.

"The actions of the US military and the so-called international coalition in Al-Tanf are a gross violation of international humanitarian law and could qualify as a war crime," it said in a statement quoted by Russian news agencies.

Earlier this month Moscow accused the US of supporting IS jihadists and enabling them to mount counter-offensive attacks in eastern Syria from near the Al-Tanf garrison.

Al-Tanf, on the key highway connecting Damascus with Baghdad, has been repeatedly menaced by a surge of Iran-backed troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Washington says the garrison is used by US and British special forces to train rebel Syrian groups fighting IS jihadists.

Russia has been flying a bombing campaign in Syria since 2015, when it stepped in to support the Assad regime and tipped the conflict in his favour.
Damascus: The Syrian army announced today it liberated the long-contested eastern city of Deir el-Zour from the Islamic State group, a largely symbolic victory in the military's bigger fight to capture the last remaining IS strongholds in the oil-rich province along the border with Iraq.

In a statement, the military said it was now in full control of the city after a weeks-long campaign carried out with allied forces. It said army units were now removing booby traps and mines left behind by the extremist group in the city.

Deir el-Zour, on the west bank of the Euphrates River, had been divided into a government-held and an IS-held part for nearly three years.

Syrian government forces and their pro-government allies first broke the militant group's siege of their part of the city in September in a Russian-backed offensive, and have been advancing against IS positions since then. The city is the largest in eastern Syria and the capital of the province with the same name.

The development is the latest significant defeat for IS as the militant group sees its self-proclaimed "caliphate" crumble and lose almost all urban strongholds, including Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in northern Syria.

It also comes as Iraqi forces and allied Shiite militiamen are chasing IS remnants inside the town of Qaim, on the Iraqi side of the border.

The Syrian army, backed by Russia and Iran, and Kurdish- led Syrian forces, backed by the United States, are now racing to take the rest of the oil-rich eastern province of Deir el- Zour, including the key town of Boukamal near the Iraqi border.

Moscow's military involvement in the Syrian war since 2015 has propped up President Bashar Assad's forces and turned the conflict in his favor, while Russian mediation earlier this year launched cease-fire talks in Astana, Kazakhstan.

The talks, sponsored jointly with Iran and Turkey, have brokered local deals that have significantly reduced violence in the war-torn country.

"Army units, in cooperation with allied forces, liberated the city of Deir al-Zour completely from the Daesh terrorist organization," the military statement said, using the Arabic name for IS.

Footage posted on the website of the Syrian state news agency SANA shows the last moments of the fighting between the Syrian army and IS in Deir el-Zour, including shelling by Syrian tanks and plumes of smoke rising over the city's IS- held and mostly destroyed neighborhoods of Jamiayat and Jabiliyeh before they were liberated.
Diyarbakir: One Turkish police officer was killed and nine others were wounded today in a raid to capture a suspected Kurdish militant in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, the governor's office said.

The officers launched the operation to arrest a member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the district of Kayapinar west of Diyarbakir city centre, it said in a statement.

When they entered the building, clashes broke out during which a hand grenade was detonated and 10 officers were wounded. One later died after being taken to hospital.

Local resident Zahide Kilinc said she woke up to the sounds of gunfire around 6:00 AM and saw officers open fire on a flat nearby.

"Of course we were scared, the children were scared. It was like there was an attack on our home and not the opposite flat," she told AFP.

The governor's office said a member of the PKK was also killed during the clashes.

The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

Over 40,000 people have been killed since it launched its insurgency in Turkey in 1984.

Fighting intensified in the southeast between Turkish security forces and the PKK after the collapse of a two-year ceasefire in 2015.

Six soldiers and two military security guards were killed yesterday in clashes with the PKK in the province of Hakkari which borders Iraq.

The interior ministry said yesterday its security forces killed 46 members of the "separatist terror organisation" -- Turkey's official term for the PKK -- in Sirnak and Hakkari in the southeast and

Tunceli in the east, state-run news agency Anadolu said.

It was not possible to independently verify the toll.
Just before stepping out of the gates of the company, a Twitter employee on Friday did what many in the United States might be wanting to do. The employee brought down Donald Trump's Twitter account making the US President disappear from the microblogging site.

Twitter's Government and Elections team attributed the incident to a rogue employee. "Earlier today @realdonaldtrump's account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee. The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again," the team said.

"Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee's last day. We are conducting a full internal review," they added.

Though the account was restored in 11 minutes, the Twitter employee has been hailed as a hero on social media.

Here is how Twitter reacted to the incident:

You are a hero!

Damn. If it wasn't his last day I'd say give him a raise  Orlando Bain_____ (@orlandobain) November 3, 2017

The kids a hero. Too bad it wasn't permanent  that's my name (@cody1mac) November 3, 2017

Not all heroes wear capes.  David Betz (@DFBetz) November 3, 2017

You should hire them back for good common sense.  BP (@The_BillP) November 3, 2017

Awards are being showered on him, at least on Twitter:

Give this person the medal of freedom  The Dog Saint (@LJtheDogSaint85) November 3, 2017

For 11 blessed minutes, America's collective IQ rose about 20%. Thanks anonymous Twitter hero.  Juan, P.E. #RESIST__ (@jrivera64) November 3, 2017

This person deserves the Nobel Peace Prize  Christopher Goguen (@TheGoguenator) November 3, 2017

When history was made

I survived the Trump twitter outage



November 2, 2017



6:58PM to 7:04PM #neverforget  Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) November 2, 2017

I was there for the great vanishing of Donald Trump's Twitter account.



Nov 2, 2017.  Justin Jacobs (@justinjacobs) November 2, 2017

We'll all remember where we were during the 10 minutes of peace while Donald Trump's Twitter account was down.  Mike Drucker (@MikeDrucker) November 2, 2017

This is my best moment of 2017. pic.twitter.com/LNKGKwWBVm  I'm Sorry Aunt Lydia (@TinaMcGugan) November 3, 2017

@jack I need to very seriously tell you that the 70 seconds that Trump's twitter account went away were the happiest 70 seconds of my year. November 2, 2017

WORD!

With the revocation of Donald Trump's Twitter account he experiences censorship that he wants to apply to the news media.  Benjamin Franklin (@Benjami76920410) November 3, 2017

There have been several calls for Twitter to ban Trump for his tweets by many who claim that his posts could be interpreted as calls to violence.

Quite the last day it was.
The Baloch nationalists are protesting in London against Pakistan to raise a voice against the country's atrocities towards the Baloch province.

By Santosh Chaubey: Pakistan today summoned the British High Commissioner to lodge its protest against "Free Balochistan" slogans on London cabs by Baloch activists. Photographs of vehicles carrying "#FreeBalochistan", "Raise Your Voice" and "Save Baloch People" are going viral on social media.

Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua kept Pakistani' government's stand in front of the British High Commissioner Thomas Drew and called such display of anti-Pakistan slogans, a direct attack on Pakistan's territorial integrity and sovereignty. They also reminded Britain that such "sinister and malicious campaigns should not be allowed on the soil of a friendly country."

Photo: Twitter/@WorldBalochORG

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A release by Pakistan's Foreign Office further told that Pakistan was also raising the issue with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Britain. Baloch nationalists had run a similar campaign in Geneva in September during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) which had seen similar protests from the Pakistani establishment.

The permanent representative of Pakistan to the United Nations had then written a letter to the Swiss authorities which said "The use of Swiss soil by terrorists and violent secessionists for nefarious designs against Pakistan and its 200 million people was totally unacceptable."

HOW IMPORTANT BALOCHISTAN IS FOR PAKISTAN?

Balochistan is Pakistan's largest but least developed province. It covers almost half of Pakistan and is rich in natural resources like oil, gas, gold and copper. Out of 1.3 crore inhabitants, most of its inhabitants are Baloch. The province with the Gwadar port is of strategic importance for Pakistan as it shares border with Iran and Afghanistan. The proposed economic corridor between Pakistan and China, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), passes through many areas of the province before its destination at the Gwadar port.

BALOCH TORTURE

Baloch nationalists blame Pakistan for forcefully acceding their province and exploiting its resources at the cost of Baloch lives. Pakistani security forces are alleged to have killed thousands of Baloch people. Reports of rape, torture and disappearances are common. Baloch people say they are ethnically different from Pakistanis and are demanding freedom or autonomy to decide their own affairs. They have also criticised the CPEC which they see as yet another tool to exploit the Baloch people.

--- ENDS ---
SEOUL: North Korea said US B-1B bombers flew over the Korean Peninsula on Thursday and carried out bombing drills simulating attacks on major targets in the country, the North's official KCNA news agency said on Friday.

The strategic bombers, escorted by U.S. and South Korean fighter jets, flew from the Anderson Air Force Base in Guam, to conduct a "surprise" strike drill, the KCNA said.

There was no immediate confirmation from the U.S. and South Korean militaries.
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has authorised an increase in the disaster assistance to Puerto Rico, taking up 90 per cent of the cost of rebuilding public infrastructure, including restoring the power grid destroyed by hurricane Maria in September.

The expenditure, which will be covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is higher than the usual 75 per cent that Washington normally assumes in such cases, reports Efe news.

Apart from the reconstruction of public infrastructure, Trump also "authorised a 100 per cent federal cost share for debris removal and emergency protective measures", the White House said on Thursday.

"The President has authorised assistance conditioned upon having extra controls on project cost estimation and project management in place to facilitate the expeditious rebuilding of Puerto Rico`s infrastructure," the statement added.

The "controls" refer to ensuring proper utilisation of federal tax dollars and cost-effective activities.

Trump had been criticised for not taking the disaster situation in Puerto Rico seriously.

The President had also lashed out at the Puerto Rican local authorities for wanting the US to do everything.

Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on September 20, leaving at least 54 people dead, destroying the island`s power grid and causing a massive humanitarian crisis that further worsened the economic crisis.

So far, only 30 per cent of the people have got their power supply back.
Patna District Magistrate Sanjay Agarwal has lodged an FIR against an executive engineer for siphoning off Rs 13 crore from amount meant for constructing toilets.

By Rohit Kumar Singh: Patna District Magistrate Sanjay Agarwal has unearthed a scam in the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) of the district where an executive engineer siphoned off Rs 13 crore from the government treasury and transferred it into the account of three NGOs.

The scandal has come to be known as the "toilet scam".

Vinay Kumar Sinha, executive engineer in the PHED department, siphoned off Rs 13 crore in just 15 days.

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In May last year, there was a policy decision that was taken by the Bihar government where it was decided that toilets in rural households would no longer be constructed by the PHED department, but instead by the rural development department.

Sinha, who was not authorised to release funds more than Rs 5 lakh in a day and Rs 50 lakh a month, illegally transferred Rs 13 crore within 15 days, the transition period when the work of the PHED department was handed over to the rural development department into the account of three NGOs namely - Aadi Shakti Seva Sansthan (Rs 10 crore), Maa Sarveshawari Seva Sansthan (Rs 2.14 crore) and Satyam Shivam Kala Kendra (Rs 1.52 crore). Cleverly, the money was deposited into the NGOs account through several cheques issued, each valuing Rs 5 lakh or less.

Patna District Magistrate Sanjay Agarwal.

SET UP 2-MEMBER PANEL TO PROBE THE CASE: PATNA DM

Speaking to India Today, Patna DM Sanjay Agarwal said that after learning about the irregularities in withdrawal of funds during the review meeting of the PHED department, he set up a two-member committee to investigate the case and later found that there was indeed a scam that had taken place. He said that the executive engineer also failed to prove that the money was transferred to the NGOs to construct toilets.

"I set up a two-member committee headed by the Deputy Development Commissioner to investigate the matter. A detailed investigation has showed that the executive engineer had siphoned Rs 13 crore fraudulently and deposited it in the NGOs' accounts", Agarwal said.

According to the policy of the state government, a financial assistance of Rs 12,000 was given to every household to construct a toilet. Payment to many beneficiaries for the toilets built in 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15 was pending.

Funds worth Rs 13 crore were meant to be given to these beneficiaries.

"Under the scheme, NGO does not have to make payment to the beneficiary, but instead they get the money directly", the Patna DM said.

The Patna administration has lodged an FIR against Vinay Kumar Sinha, accountant and directors of the NGOs. The process of seizing the properties of the accused has also begun.

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Sinha, who is currently posted as the superintendent engineer at the Bihar Rajya Jal Parishad, is absconding.

WATCH VIDEO | End of dirty train toilet seats? Railways to introduce biodegradable cover dispenser

--- ENDS ---
Both the railroads and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way  Employes Division say the extension will help all parties make the best decision on how to proceed with the outstanding tentative labor agreements.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 2, ARMENPRESS. Co-rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for the monitoring of obligations and commitments by Armenia Giuseppe Galati (Italy, EPP/CD) and Alan Meale (United Kingdom, SOC) , will pay a visit to Yerevan on 6-7 November 2017.



ARMENPRESS reports discussions will mainly focus on recent political developments and on-going reforms with regard to the implementation of the new constitution, the judicial independence and the fight against corruption, as well as further electoral reforms following the 2017 elections.



The co-rapporteurs are scheduled to meet with the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the President of the National Assembly, and the Minister of Justice. Talks are also scheduled with the political groups represented in the National Assembly, the Armenian delegation to PACE, the human rights defender, and civil society representatives.
By PTI: New Delhi, Nov 3 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi today held talks with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Latvian Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis separately to cement Indias bilateral ties with the two countries.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said prime minister Modi and president Sargsyan discussed ways to intensify cooperation.

"They (Armenia) are a big importer of our pharma products. There were some discussions to assess on how to take it forward," Kumar said in response to a question on the nature of talks.

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He said that there is also cooperation between India and Armenia in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector.

"We have set up an ICT center in Yerevan (the capital of Armenia) and some discussion took place on how this can be upgraded," he said.

"Reinvigorating age-old ties. PM @narendramodi meets President Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia, discusses ways to intensify cooperation," Kumar tweeted earlier.

With Latvia, talks were held to strengthen cooperation especially in the field of Information Technology.

"Strengthening the bonds of friendship. PM @narendramodi met PM Maris Kucinskis of Latvia, discussed wide range of bilateral issues," Kumar tweeted.

He quoted prime minister Modi as saying that India and Latvia have strong potential for cooperation in higher education, IT, food processing, fisheries and allied sectors.

Kumar said there are around 1,000 Indian students studying in the European country.

The visiting dignitaries also took part in the World Food India conference. PTI PR ASK ASK

--- ENDS ---
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. As of October 1, 2017 the population of Armenia comprised 2 million 979.6 thousand people, according to the data of the National Statistical Service, Armenpress reports.

Women comprise 1 million 555.3 thousand, and men are 1 million 424.3 thousand.

Urban population in Armenia comprised 1 million 898.8 thousand people in the 9 months of this year, whereas the rural population was 1 million 080.8 people, the difference  818 thousand.

The largest number of people is located in the capital Yerevan  1 million 076.6 thousand people which is more than the entire rural population (56.6%). Yerevan is followed by Armavir in terms of the largest number of people  265.6 thousand, the lowest number is in Vayots Dzor  50.1 thousand people. The average age of the permanent population was 36.2 years in early 2017, for men  34.3, and for women  38.0. In 2016 the expected life expectancy in Armenia for women was 78.3 years, and for men - 71.6 years.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a truck attack in New York City that killed eight people on Tuesday, the groups online publication said on Thursday, Reuters reports.

Islamic State said in its weekly issue of Al-Naba newspaper that the attacker is one of the caliphate soldiers. It did not provide evidence to support its claim.

Eight people were killed and almost a dozen injured when a 29-year-old man in a rented pickup truck drove down a busy bicycle path near the World Trade Center Tuesday in Manhattan, New York City.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Deputy foreign minister of Armenia Karen Nazaryan on November 2 receives Snezana Samardzic-Markovic, Council of Europe's Director General of DG Democracy, press service of the foreign ministry told Armenpress.

During the meeting the sides discussed Armenias active cooperation with the organization, the ongoing programs, including within the frames of Armenia-CoE 2015-2018 Action Plan.

The deputy FM highlighted with satisfaction the existing partnering relations with the CoE DG Democracy and thanked for the expert assistance provided by the Directorate to the Armenian former governments legislative initiatives.

The joint works carried out within the framework of several CoE committees, as well as issues relating the process of Armenias joining to the CoE conventions were discussed during the meeting.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Armenias deputy foreign minister Shavarsh Kocharyan has presented the foreign policy priorities of Armenia for 2018.

During parliamentary debates of the 2018 state budget draft, Kocharyan stressed that the implementation of the foreign policy course will be aimed at the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, based on fundamental principles of international right and norms, namely the right to self-determination.

Our policy will be directed towards strengthening the military-political component of foreign security, international recognition condemnation of the Armenian Genocide and prevention of the crime of genocide, Kocharyan said.

He added that in 2018 Armenia will continue bilateral cooperation with different partner countries.

We will continue our works in all directions in multilateral relations. It is the continuous strengthening of cooperation in both the EEU, CSTO and CIS, expansion of comprehensive partnership with the EU, active involvement in the UN, Council of Europe and the OSCE, he said.

He reminded that the Francophonie Conference will take place in Armenia in 2018. Dialogue with NATO will continue, and serious attention will be paid to the economic component of foreign policy.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Armenia doesnt see any obstacle for signing the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership agreement with the European Union on November 24, deputy foreign minister Shavarsh Kocharyan said during the discussion of the 2018 state budget draft in the Parliament, in response to the question of Tsarukyan faction secretary Vahe Enfiajyan, Armenpress reports.

We do not see any obstacle for signing this agreement on November 24. Deputy foreign minister Karen Nazaryan also talked about this during the November 2 discussion in the Parliament, Kocharyan said.

In response to the MPs another question whether Armenia plans to join new international structures in 2018, the deputy FM gave negative response. We have no plan to join any new international structure in 2018.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. A group of lawyers, headed by Omer Faruk Eminagaoghlu  founder of YARSAV the Union of Judges and Prosecutors of Ankara, filed a lawsuit against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the countrys Prime Minister Binali Yildirimn, as well as the recently resigned mayors, local media said.

The lawsuit mentions that Erdogan, Yildirimn and the mayors have violated constitutional order and hindered the realization of political rights.

The YARSAV founder said the mayors didnt resign voluntarily, but were rather forced and pressured by the AK party leaders.

The mayors who were forced to resign include mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, among others.

The Balikesir Mayor, who also resigned, withdrew from the AK party soon after leaving his position.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. After the completion of construction of the third Armenia-Iran high-voltage power plant, Armenia will have an opportunity to increase the gas import volumes from Iran, deputy foreign minister Shavarsh Kocharyan said during the discussion of the 2018 state budget draft in the Parliament, reports Armenpress.

When we finish the construction of that plant, we will have a chance to increase the Iranian gas import volumes. At the moment the pipeline through which we import gas from Iran is used by 20-25%. At the moment we are unable to use more since there is an agreement, according to which we give electricity to Iran, and it gives us gas. Currently our capacities are not enough to give them more electricity for which we can increase the gas import volumes, the deputy FM said.

He added that the construction of new high-voltage power station will enable to supply more electricity to Iran, and Armenia will receive more gas from Iran.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Diaspora Minister Hranush Hakobyan says she agrees with the opinions of Armenias ruling party (HHK) officials that there is no one else other than President Serzh Sargsyan who knows the nuances of ensuring the countrys security and the NK conflict settlement better.

There is no other individual in the issue of our security and the NK conflict settlement who knows all nuances to such extent, knows the negotiations process, knows what is happening in the Minsk Group, whats the conduct of Azerbaijan etc, etc. I think, that we, in person of our President, have a rather powerful man for the Karabakh issue, defense and ensuring security, Hakobyan told reporters.

She mentioned that the ruling party hasnt yet discussed the issue of a candidate for PM in 2018, at the same time the minister praised PM Karen Karapetyan.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, while on a working visit in India at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on November 3 participated in the plenary session of the World Food: India -2017 conference, and the opening ceremony of an international food industry exhibition under the same title, which was attended by nearly 2000 participants of more than 20 countries, press service of the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

President Serzh Sargsyan delivered remarks at the conference.

Remarks delivered by President Serzh Sargsyan at "World Food: India -2017" Conference

Your Excellency Mr. Prime Minister,

Distinguished Ministers,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

To begin with, I would like to warmly congratulate people of India and the distinguished Prime Minister Modi for organizing this impressive forum, as well as to thank for the invitation extended to me to participate in this event. I wish every success to all the participants of the exhibition.

The specialization and geographic diversity of the fair comes to demonstrate the mighty potential and role India plays in the global food market that resumed from the effective work carried out in the course of the 70 years of independence. I avail myself of this opportunity and congratulate friendly people of India upon that historical jubilee.

It is worth to note that India, a nation of history of several millenaries, in such a brief period of time managed to record impressive achievements in the nations political and social-economic development, thus becoming one of the major motive forces behind the world economy.

We in Armenia, as a friend of India, are glad to state that due to its reforms and consistent work, India is now self-sufficient in terms of food. Moreover, it became one of the recognized leaders of food production on the global market and major producer and exporter of a number of agricultural goods on the global scale.

It is further testified by this fair which, needless to say, is the best platform for sharing the best practices available in India, as well as identifying new markets and establishing new partnerships.

Processing agricultural goods and exporting food items is also important for Armenias economic development.

Armenian producers have been combining traditional methodologies and modern technologies to reprocess fruits and vegetables, and have thus accumulated some positive experience that led to ever increased demand for Armenian food products on the external markets. Our entrepreneurs are now initiating their first steps in order to present their products also on the Indian market.

We believe that the transfer to Indian entrepreneurs of the best Armenian know-how in the area of food production and cooperation to that effect may be promising. It may increase the effectiveness of the fruit and vegetables processing industry, as well as help create new enterprises and employment opportunities.

We can also give new impetus to Armenian-Indian cooperation in the multilateral format since Armenia is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, and enjoys regime of generalized scheme of preferences in the trade with the European Union. Those entrepreneurs who would launch business activities in Armenia should have every opportunity to take advantage of the auspicious conditions provided by Armenia.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are living in times when numerous issues need joint and comprehensive solutions. One of such issues is food security. At the 2015 UN Sustainable Development Summit Armenia adopted Declaration and agenda for Sustainable Development. Food security is one among its 17 goals, as is giving impetus to sustainable agricultural development.

Armenia consistently works in order to achieve those objectives. Due to both our domestic policy and flexible external trade policy we register new achievements every year in the course of fulfilling those goals.

In conclusion let me once again wish every success to the cabinet of Prime Minister Modi in the course of realization of very promising reforms and projects they initiated, and the participants of this Forum-very fruitful work.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Installing investigation mechanisms for incidents in the Artsakh-Azerbaijan line of contact is Azerbaijans international obligation, since 1995, deputy FM Shavarsh Kocharyan told reporters.

A trilateral agreement was signed in 1995 between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Artsakh, which speaks about strengthening the ceasefire regime and installing investigative mechanisms in the line of contact. Meaning the installation of these mechanisms is the international obligation of Azerbaijan, Kocharyan said.

Shavarsh Kocharyan reminded that the Armenian side has raised the necessity of installing the mechanisms on various occasions, agreements were even made that these mechanisms should be installed, however Azerbaijan created obstacles. We will insist that Azerbaijan fulfills its international obligation. This isnt a precondition, because as I said, it is Azerbaijans international obligation, which must be fulfilled, Kocharyan said.

He also specified that without the participation of Artsakh, no one can make decisions regarding the status of Artsakh and territorial integrity. The mediators realize this very well and it is no coincidence that they always say that when the day will come for specific negotiations to progress, it is impossible without Artsakhs participation, he said.

Shavarsh Kocharyan said Azerbaijans dream is to break down the peaceful settlement negotiations process of the conflict.

The negotiations format is well known, where three UN Security Council permanent members are mediators, the task of which is also to ensure peace. It is understandable as to what kind of a straightjacket this is for Azerbaijan, which speaks about solutions by force. Thats why they are willing to destroy the negotiations format. But we arent going to pour water on their mill. We are saying that if the conflict isnt getting settled, its Azerbaijans fault, not the mediators.
By Kamlesh Damodar Sutar: Calling the demonetisation and GST an attack on small and medium businessmen, Congress vice President Rahul Gandhi announced that he will be spending the anniversary of demonetisation on November 8 with the traders of Surat.

Rahul was addressing a massive rally in Varachcha, Surat on his last day of third phase of Navsarjan Yatra in South Gujarat. However, regardless the rally in Patidar stronghold, the Congress vice president refrained from making any comment on the demand of reservation by the Patidar caste.

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Sharpening his attack on the BJP and PM Narendra Modi, Rahul yet again reiterated that the GST was nothing but Gabbar Singh Tax that was extorting Money from common people.

In his 40 minute speech Rahul focused primarily on GST and demonetisation.

"Big companies do not bring in employment. It is small businesses that bring business. Lakhs of Jobs are generated because of the textile and diamond markets of Surat. Due to demonetisation and GST they suffered badly. It is an attack on small businesses," Rahul thundered.

"If PM Modi made an attack on black money why aren't Swiss bank account holders behind bar? How is Vijay Mallya in London? No suit boot wala was seen in the queues," added Rahul.

Rahul quipped that the PM makes people listen to his mann ki baat but the Congress believes in listening to people's mann ki baat.

Rahul went on to announce that the day his party comes to power they will change the existing GST. The Congress vice president also launched a scathing attack on BJP president Amit Shah.

"Amit Shah's son's income has increased by 16,000 times. But the PM has not uttered a single word about it. He said na Khaunga na Khane doonga, but now he says na bolunga na bolne doonga (I won't speak and won't allow anyone else to speak).

Demanding an inquiry into Jay Shah's, Rahul said "if PM Narendra Modi feels he is chowkidar (watchman) of the nation he should order an inquiry into Jay Shah, Otherwise he is not Chowkidar he is also a Bhagidar (partner).

Rahul announced that on November 8 demonetisation will complete a year and that he will spend the day with the diamond and textile manufacturers and traders of Surat to understand their problems. Congress has already announced that it will be observing the day as Black day.

VIDEO | Rahul Gandhi 2.0: BJP-Congress dogfight over his image makeover

--- ENDS ---
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. The 24th annual assembly of the Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges (FEAS) has kicked off in Yerevan, Armenia.

The three-day event has brought together the executives of the stock exchanges of the members of the union, representatives of more than 20 countries.

Secretary General of FEAS Konstantin Saroyan said this is the first meeting since the headquarters of FEAS moved from Istanbul to Yerevan.

The assembly will focus on the main strategies of development of FEAS, and participants will present the activities of the financial markets of their respective countries.

The participation is quite active, almost all of our members are present, proving the significance of both the federation and the strategy and ideas which will be discussed, Saroyan said.

Asked why the HQ moved to Yerevan, he said that the Istanbul stock exchange had ideological contradictions with the federation, and essentially the cooperation didnt continue, which led to the decision that the HQ must be in Yerevan.

The presence of the HQ is also additional jobs, as well as additional income, he said.

FEAS Chairman of the Council Mohammed Farid highlighted the exchange of new ideas and views during the assembly, as well as the opportunity to together design the reform agenda of the sector.

Vice president of the Central Bank of Armenia Nerses Yeritsyan also delivered opening remarks at the event.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. The United States supports the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Robert Cekuta said, APA reports.

Commenting on the recent meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents, the Ambassador said: We support the work on organizing a meeting between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, and this work continues. We hope the conflict will be settled peacefully. Such settlement is strictly important.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Armenias ministry of emergency situations will receive modern special equipment worth 16 million Euros from Russia in 2018, emergency situations minister Davit Tonoyan said during the discussion of the 2018 state budget draft in the Parliament, Armenpress reports.

In 2019 we will also receive modern firefighting vehicles worth 15 million USD from Japan, the minister said.

He added that they will receive firefighting and rescue equipment from Russia as a result of which the maintenance costs will increase which the government should take into consideration.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. The current level of social relationships and great expectations to counter unlawful occurrences force to have such a police force which will be able to adequately respond criminal threats, as a result of which every citizen of Armenia must feel safe and protected, deputy police chief of Armenia Vardan Yeghiazaryan said during parliamentary debates of the 2018 state budget.

The actions aimed at implementing the abovementioned goals will be the foundation of the planned 2018 developments, he said, presenting the 2018 development program of the police force.

According to him, the organizational-legal type of the police, and its structural changes are important. We find it to be appropriate for the police to be defined as a state body subordinate to the Prime Minister. This model is appropriate to an extent that it will enable the police to transition to the new constitutional status swiftly, without structural and functional significant changes and loss of time. In addition, the political neutrality will be even more guaranteed in the proposed status, he said

Departments of the central apparatus which have similar functions will be merged, and new criminal and public security police forces will be formed.

A new 24/7 patrol service is also planned to be created.

The deputy chief also said that the use of modern information technologies will be increased.

Under the 2018 state budget draft, 41,6 billion drams will be allocated to the police force.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Hayk Yesayan, the Director General at Ucom, presented tablets to the students of Armath engineering laboratory in Artsvaberd border village of Tavush region. Having been opened 2 years ago with the support of Ucom, this laboratory and its student engineers and programmers have met the expectations of Armath project initiators in this short period of time, Ucom told Armenpress.

For the 10th jubilee Robotics competition, organized by the Union of Information Technology Enterprises (UITE), the students of Armath laboratory from Artsvaberd have designed a robot, which, according to the rules of competition, were to find objects in the competition field, such as cubes, balls and convex polygons, pick them up and move to the place reserved for that robot. Experts assure that the competition, as compared with similar international competitions, is much more complicated. As a result of a 3-month hard work, 12 teams from Tavush, Lori, Gegharkunik and Shirak regions, as well as Yerevan, reached the finals.

Today the award-winning team of 3 members is the pride of Artsvaberd. The prize equal to 700,000 AMD will be used to implement other innovative projects.

Since an early age I used to take things apart and put them back together again, but now its thanks to Armath that Ive started to think about creating things that would make peoples life easier. For example, now Im thinking about designing a solar-powered and fully automated drier facility for our village, where everything from washing, slicing, arranging up to drying of apples should be performed by means of an equipment, Vahagn Zargaryan, a student of Armath laboratory in Artsvaberd, shared his future plans.

Vahagn have also designed a smart door model, radio-based devices, as well as assembled a solar battery with his own hands. He has turned his own bedroom into a mini-laboratory: in order to enter his bedroom, one has to enter a special code on a self-made security device.

For me personally this visit is the most inspirational. If the team of a 16-year old Vahagn participated in the robotics competition held in the USA, he would surely take the first place, as the task given during the Armenian robotics competition was much harder than that of the US competition. Armath project is a long-term, project aimed at shaping fundamental and engineering mindset. Its results will be seen in the years to come and it will bring fundamental changes to our education system, which well witness in 4-5 years, said Hayk Yesayan, the Director General at Ucom.

Its worth reminding that Ucom is the largest supporter of Armath laboratories. Thanks to investments of Ucom, equaling to about 150 million AMD, 39 Armath laboratories are now operating in a number of regions of Armenia, including border settlements.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. The authorities of Azerbaijan tried to reach an agreement with Russia in February, 2017, offering them to exchange the citizen of that country, blogger Alexander Lapshin with Azerbaijani diversionists Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam Asgarov imprisoned in Artsakh, Stepanakert. ARMENPRESS reports blogger Lapshin has himself exposed the attempt of the secret deal.

I will briefly remind that according to the Azerbaijani mass media the mentioned 2 persons were just tourists who had decided to visit the graves of their relatives in Karabakh, which is under the control of Armenians. They crossed the contact line in Aghdam region and started their journey to the graves of their relatives by killing an Armenian child.

In Stepanakert they told during a trial that the child had seen them and they had to kill him not to be caught. Afterwards, they run across a forest, hid, and then appeared near a village, killed there two people who tried to catch them. The third tourist was killed in a shooting with Armenians.

In brief, they were peaceful tourists, who had arrived from Azerbaijan armed with Kalashnikovs, Lapshin reminded, noting that the Court of Artsakh has convicted them to life imprisonment.

The blogger told that after arresting him Azerbaijan tried to provoke Russia, saying that if Russia helped them in the negotiations for the return of those two tourist-diversionists, it would accelerate the process of his own release. In the words of a very high ranking official of the Russian Foreign Ministry, that situation was very embarrassing for Sergey Lavrov and Azerbaijan was dismissed with its proposal. The Russian side could in no way understand what could link the citizen of Russia and Israel, Lapshin, with Azerbaijani diversionists. And what is most important, why should Armenia exchange the murderers with me when I am not a citizen of Armenia?

Later, the authorities of Israel were also informed on the incident, who were also severely infuriated by Azerbaijani position, the blogger told.

Lapshin told that he first heard about that plan during an interrogation by Azerbaijani investigator from the Prosecutor General's Office.

To say that I was just amazed at the absurd acts of the country in the hands of which I had appeared means to say nothing. I felt like an Afghan hostage representing the Taliban, moreover, they tried to bargain over me.

Russia, I am thankful for your principled stance. I can say the same for Israel. I am also thankful to Armenia for it did not step back.

Lapshin assessed the act of the two diversionists who killed 3 civilians and are arrested in Artsakh as a jihadist movement.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan on November 3 met with Prime Minister of Uzbekistan Abdulla Aripov during his visit in Tashkent, press service of the Armenian government told Armenpress.

The PM said Armenia is interested in intensifying the inter-state ties with Uzbekistan. According to him, the sides need to intensify the contacts at business community, chambers of commerce and industry, development agencies level. In this context importance was attached to creating inter-governmental commission on economic cooperation.

The Armenian PM in particular highlighted the cooperation prospects within the framework of the free economic zone to be created on the border with Iran.

The PMs also discussed the cooperation development opportunities in tourism field, in particular, they touched upon issues on creating direct air communication between Yerevan and Tashkent, as well as on opening diplomatic representations.

The Armenian and Uzbek PMs agreed to give new impetus to the bilateral ties which will contribute to intensifying the political and economic relations between the two countries.

Today in the evening the Armenian PM will meet with President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan met with Indias Vice President, Chairman of the upper house of the parliament Venkaiah Naidu in New Delhi, press service of the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

The Armenian President thanked for giving warm reception to his delegation in friendly India and attached great importance to the active inter-parliamentary cooperation for strengthening the Armenian-Indian inter-state ties.

The President warmly remembered the visit of former Indian Vice President to Armenia in spring of 2017 and the effective discussion on the Armenian-Indian relations, and expressed hope that Mr. Naidu will also have a chance to visit Armenia. According to the President, this visit will have a great effect on intensifying the bilateral inter-state ties and parliamentary relations.

The Indian Vice President welcomed the Armenian President and his delegation, stating that the Indian and Armenian peoples with their old history and rich culture have many similarities in civilization and values, they are creators, peace-lovers and hospitable, thus it is necessary to consistently continue maintaining and strengthening the centuries-old friendship, as well as to unite efforts in fight against current universal challenges, one of which is terrorism.

The two officials agreed that the views and approaches of the two countries coincide in terms of the need of reforms of the international structures, including the UN so that they will be able to respond to threats in line with the demands of time.

President Sargsyan informed to the Indian Vice President that there is already a parliamentary friendship group with India in Armenias newly-elected Parliament.

The meeting also touched upon the bilateral commercial relations and their development opportunities, the situation in South Caucasus and the existing threats, including the negotiation process for the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. The Indian Vice President emphasized the need to settle all conflicts exclusively through dialogue and peaceful means.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. As part of the implementation of the protocol of the 12th session of the Armenian-Russian intergovernmental commission on military-technical cooperation, the delegation of the Russian Irkut Corporation JSC arrived in Armenia on a working visit from October 30 to November 3.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the Defense Ministry of Armenia, during the visit the members of the delegation met with the group led by Deputy Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia - Head of military industrial state committee of the Ministry of Defense David Pakhchanyan and Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Armenia, Lieutenant-General Stepan Galstyan.

During the meeting the sides highlighted the implementation of the provisions of the 12th session of the Armenian-Russian intergovernmental commission on military-technical cooperation, as well as multi-layered cooperation between the Defense Ministry of Armenia and Irkut Corporation JSC.

Protocols were signed based on the results of the talks.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Chairman of the Standing Committee on Foreign Relations of the National Assembly of Armenia Armen Ashotyan, Committee members Shirak Torosyan, Arayik Aghababyan and Artak Zeynalyan received the authoritative delegation led by the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Council of Representatives of the Republic of Iraq Abdelbari Al-Zibari.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the parliament of Armenia, welcoming the guests Armen Ashotyan thanked the partner delegation of the parliament of the Republic of Iraq for accepting the Committees invitation to visit Armenia.

Armen Ashotyan highlighted the development of the friendly relations between Armenia and Iraq, and has noted that besides the cultural ties, numerous perspectives concerning the economic, political and humanitarian cooperation also unite the two peoples.

Armen Ashotyan also stated that within the framework of the foreign policy priorities the Republic of Armenia greatly highlights the development of the relations with the Near East countries, including also with the Republic of Iraq. In this context he has touched upon the historical firm friendship existing between the peoples of Armenia and Iraq, which once again underlines the reality that there are no religious problems in the region.

The Committee Chairman emphasized the close cooperation of the Committees on Foreign Relations of the two parliaments and noted that the Committees can have contribution in practice to the development of the inter-parliamentary ties. In this context the role and activities of the Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Groups was also highly assessed.

Regarding the regional problems, Armen Ashotyan highlighted the victory of the Iraqi people in fight against DAESH and has noted that the fight against extremism is one of the most important priorities of the foreign policy of the two states.

The Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Council of Representatives of the Republic of Iraq Abdelbari Al-Zibari has thanked the Armenian side for the invitation and noted that the Armenian-Iraqi relations have great potential of development. He has emphasized the possibilities of cooperation in the economic, political and humanitarian spheres.

The sides also referred to the perspectives of development in the sphere of tourism and the necessity of having regular flights between the two states.

At the end of the meeting the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Council of Representatives of the Republic of Iraq expressed wish to host in Iraq the delegation of the Standing Committee on Foreign Relations of the National Assembly of Armenia, which Armen Ashotyan gladly accepted.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi has alleged that the land acquisition from farmers has been the biggest corruption in the present government.

By Kamlesh Damodar Sutar: Alleging that the land acquisition from farmers has been the biggest corruption in the present government, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi announced that his party will change the land acquisition laws in Gujarat if voted to power. Rahul was interacting with farmers of South Gujarat during the third leg of the Gujarat Navsarjan Yatra.

Farmers who have lost their land or have received notices for land acquisition met Rahul during his meeting. Most of the farmers alleged that their lands were being taken without consent for projects like the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), Vapi-Vadodara Express way, and the upcoming Mumbai-Ahmadabad bullet train.

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Speaking to farmers, Rahul said that the UPA had introduced the Land Acquisition Act but the present government is against it. "PM Narendra Modi tried to change the Land Acquisition Act thrice due to pressure from businessmen," Rahul alleged.

"If the panchayat opposes, no one can take an acre of land. We had made provisions that if land is acquired then the compensation should be four times," Rahul added.

"If our government comes to power in Gujarat, we will bring the national acquisition act here and we will not allow land to be taken without your permission," announced Rahul .

"Under the guise of development, our land in being snatched. Multi crop cultivating land is being taken away and in some cases even without the mandatory consent of 70% of the farmers land is being taken away," alleged Jayanti Patel, convener of the Khedut Samaj, a body opposing the land acquisition.

When asked why they chose to meet the Congress vice president, particularly during the election time, Patel said, "We are meeting Rahul Gandhi because we feel that he will be able to give us justice. If the BJP is not speaking for us, we will obviously turn to those who are listening to us. "

Meanwhile, minutes after the interaction started, power went off and there were slogans from farmers saying "Vikas Gando thayo che" (Vikas has gone mad). Rahul started speaking without the microphone, but the power was restored immediately.

--- ENDS ---
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan met with Indian President Ram Nath Kovind on November 3 in New Delhi.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the Armenian Presidents Office, expressing gratitude for the high-level reception of the Armenian delegation, President Serzh Sargsyan once again congratulated Ram Nath Kovind on being elected the President of India and wished him new achievements in his responsible mission of making India prosperous and welfare of the Indian people.

Serzh Sargsyan expressed conviction that the meeting with President Kovind will give new impetus to the strengthening of friendship between the Armenian and Indian peoples and the future development of interstate relations. President of Armenia assessed the World Food Forum and exhibition in India rather impressive, in the opening of which participated the Armenian official delegation led by Serzh Sargsyan.

President Sargsyan talked with satisfaction about his productive meetings with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Vice President Venkaiah Naidu in the sidelines of his working visit, during which the sides discussed in detail the strengthening and deepening of Armenian-Indian friendly relations in inter-parliamentary and inter-governmental levels.

Referring to the centuries of Armenian-Indian friendship, Serzh Sargsyan noted that many historians have documented numerous interactions between the two peoples, and according to numerous sources Armenian and Indian merchants established firm ties back in the first millennium. President Sargsyan assessed it logical that starting from the 16th century Armenian communities were established in a number of major Indian cities, which had an active contribution to Indias public, political, economic and cultural life.

Pointing out the Armenian community in Kolkata, the Armenian President noted that in 17-19 centuries the community was very vigorous and had an active participation in not only Indias public-political life, but also in the life of all Armenians. In this context the President recalled the first Armenian printed periodical Azdarar published in 1794 in Madras.

President Serzh Sargsyan thanked the Indian President and the Indian people for the careful treatment towards the Armenian cultural heritage in India. Noting, that tomorrow he will visit one of Indias most famous sights in Agra city, the Taj Mahal, the President documented with satisfaction that also Armenian constructors participated in the construction of the marvelous monument-mausoleum.

Serzh Sargsyan expressed with satisfaction that during the 25 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations Armenia and India managed to transform the friendly relations with deep historical roots into warm and partnering interstate relations. President Sargsyan thanked his colleague for his congratulatory message addressed on that important jubilee year and hoped that regular high level visits will help to fully discover the great cooperation potential between the countries and to outline the directions of expanding bilateral relations.

The President of India congratulated his Armenian counterpart on the reforms underway in Armenia and the launch of a new state governance system, as well as the victory of the political party led by President Sargsyan in the parliamentary elections and wished success.

Apart from Armenian-Indian bilateral and multilateral partnership issues, regional issues and challenges were also touched upon at the meeting, including Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement process. President Ram Nath Kovind reaffirmed the position of his country to settle the conflict through peaceful means and dialogue and stressed that India supports the mediation efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 3, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan concluded the first day of his working visit to India by meeting the representatives of the Armenian community.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the Armenian Presidents Office, the President addressed a greeting message to the present, where he touched upon the historical interactions between Armenia and India, the great role of the Armenian community in India in strengthening the centuries-old friendship of the two peoples, Armenia-Diaspora relations, the challenges facing the Motherland and the Armenians throughout the world and the ways to withstand them, as well as the latest incidents of key importance for Armenia, including the transfer to full parliamentary governance following the constitutional referendum.

During the meeting Serzh Sargsyan also answered the questions of the community representatives, listened to their success stories, their problems and their expectations from the Motherland for their solutions. At the request of the community members, President Sargsyan introduced the issues discussed with Indias top leadership today and the agreements that are aimed at further strengthening the historical ties between the two friendly states and peoples.

During the meeting the President noted that its a pleasure to see that President of Yerevan Medical University Alumni Association Dr. Daljeet Singh Chauhan is present with the Armenian community. Serzh Sargsyan expressed conviction that the great number of Indian alumni of Armenian higher educational institutions is another bridge for friendship between the two states that should be further expanded and strengthened.

President Sargsyan gave an interview to Doordarshan Public Broadcaster on the agenda of Armenian-Indian interstate relations and the development prospects, potential for partnership in trade and economic sphere, historical and cultural interactions between the Armenian and Indian peoples and a number of other issues.
YEREVAN, 3 NOVEMBER, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 3 November, USD exchange rate is up by 0.38 drams to 484.37 drams. EUR exchange rate is up by 0.69 drams to 564.15 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate is down by 0.04 drams to 8.28 drams. GBP exchange rate is down by 7.92 drams to 632.88 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price is up by 49.09 drams to 19920.8 drams. Silver price is up by 2.38 drams to 265.98 drams. Platinum price is up by 11.38 drams to 14498.33 drams.
HOUSTON, TXAneros, the well-known sexual health and wellness products manufacturer will sponsor the 10th annual Careers in Sexuality Conference at Widener University in Philadelphia, PA, for the third year in a row. The event will be held November 3, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the campus University Center located at One University Place, Chester, PA 19013.

We are always honored to sponsor Widener University's Careers in Sexuality Conference. It is the premiere sexology school in the country, and we consider it our responsibility to support progressive sex education, said Aneros Director of Sales and Marketing Brent Aldon. Aneros is aligned with the goals and missives of this conference which aims to provide better resources and create a more open dialogue about human sexuality.

As a platinum sponsor, Aneros will be featured in signage, marketing, and advertising materials while showcasing its products and providing products for raffles during the annual student-run program in the Philadelphia area.

The event was established in 2007 by Widener Universitys Center for Human Sexuality Studies (CHSS) students who sought to create a conference to prepare their peers with practical skills to enter the workforce. The conference provides sexuality graduate students the opportunity to learn directly from successful professionals in the field.

As creators and developers of the Trident Series, the only medically-patented prostate massager on the market, Aneros is known for its stimulating male products, offering natural, preventative measures for erectile dysfunctions (ED) and relief from prostate complications. The company is also known for its acclaimed female Kegel exerciser EVI.

Aneros website, Aneros.com, features the Aneros Forum, which creates a sex-positive, safe atmosphere for consumers to learn about improving their health and discovering new forms of pleasure.
MONTREAL, QCManyVids has just inaugurated its new MV Loft, which acts as both a studio and a "home away from home" for ManyVids stars, and the company is inviting those stars to come stay at the loft for an "unforgettable week." The MV Loft is a 3,500 sq. ft. private loft situated in Montreal, Canada.

Its a very exciting moment. The MV Loft was created to help give more exposure to MV stars by promoting them as much as possible. Our MV Marketing Team is composed of true marketing masters who want to help propel our MV stars to the top of the MV community. If you want to be MV famous, being part of the MV Loft will bring them there in no time, claimed Stephanie, ManyVids PR Coordinator.

ManyVids is inviting 4 MV stars every week for five days and four nights. At the MV Loft, the MV stars can create their own original content, either alone or with their fellow MV Loft roommates. In addition, ManyVids is planning to produce a wide variety of original content that will promote their MV stars.

At the MV Loft, the MV Marketing Team is standing by to put you through the MV promo machine. We want to transform you from an MV star into an MV superstar by making you the focus of a professional photo shoot and a professionally shot solo vid, by interviewing you live on the MV podcast, by shooting you in fun vids that will appear on the MV Pop YouTube channel and on the MV blog, and by plastering you all over our social media accounts, added Stephanie.

The MV Loft is also being billed as a "great environment in which to play." MV stars invited to the MV Loft can explore the city of Montreal during their free time, as well as enjoy the extras that ManyVids offers the MV stars during their stay, such as a bottle of champagne, limo rides and an MV gift bag stocked full of MV goodies.

To cap off the week, every Thursday, MV Loft residents will also be the VIP Guests of Honor at the official MV after-party held at the Somwhr Liquor Lounge, one of trendiest clubs in the area, where theyll have unlimited free drinks and private security.

For more information, read the full announcement from ManyVids.
CHATSWORTH, Calif.Pipedream Products 12-foot King Cock once again went viral as it headed from eroFame in Hannover, Germany, to Ahoy, Rotterdam.

The King Cock was accompanied by Dutch mega star Bobbi Eden, on the way to her Erotic Exhibition in Ahoy when the press caught wind of the giant cock in transit. Soon after, the Pipedream King Cock was appearing on Dutch TV, radio and a number of online placements from Telegraaf.nl to Rijnmond.nl.

The giant King Cock was created as a promotional tool to celebrate the mega-manufacturers award winning King Cock line. The collection has now become the number one brand in the world, with sales surpassing over 5 million units worldwide, all made in Pipedreams U.S.-based state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities. Carefully crafted and made from phthalate-free, latex-free, hypoallergenic PVC, the King Cock collection is the most realistic American-made dildos on the market and guaranteed to fly off the shelves.

For more on the King Cock collection, contact your Pipedream Products sales rep or visit PipedreamProducts.com.
Former KP Snacks and Cadbury boss Nick Bunker is to lead McVities owner Pladis in the UK.

Pladis said the appointment of Bunker followed the decision of current Pladis UK & Ireland MD Jon Eggleton to step down from his role to pursue new opportunities outside of Pladis.

Eggleton had led the business, which includes former United Biscuit brands McVities and Jacobs, for 14 years. United Biscuits became part of the Pladis operation following its acquisition by Yildiz Holdings in 2014.

Pladis global CEO Cem Karakas thanked Eggleton for his strong contribution and deep commitment to Pladis and our brands.

During his tenure, we have successfully integrated the former United Biscuits business into the newly created Pladis organisation and built a strong foundation for continued growth in our core UK and Ireland region and beyond," he added.

Bunker, who takes up the new role on Monday (6 November), was most recently CEO of KP Snacks, which was previously part of United Biscuits and was sold to German snacking giant Intersnack five years ago.

Pladis said Bunker had led the re-structuring of the business and the revitalisation of the brand portfolio through innovation, marketing and reducing complexity.

Before joining KP Snacks, Bunker held senior roles at Kraft including managing director of Kraft Foods Gulf Cooperation Council GCC region, and managing director of Kraft Foods Czech and Slovak Republics.

He was also president of Kraft Foods and Cadbury UK/Ireland, where he led the integration of the Kraft and Cadbury businesses.

Bunker said he had long admired Pladis brand portfolio: I am looking forward to working with the whole Pladis team to continue to develop the business and the outstanding opportunities ahead."

Karakas described Bunker as a highly experienced and talented executive.
Regulations, market dynamics, and cultural shifts are changing the way we say goodbye

New Jersey Revised Statute 45:7-65.1. In the interests of safeguarding public health, no person who operates, maintains, or uses a mortuary within this State shall serve, or permit or suffer to be served on or about the mortuary premises any food or refreshments in conjunction with any funeral or in conjunction with any service offered or provided for the preparation and disposal of dead human bodies.

Nebraska Revised Statute  71-605(8) The interment, disinterment, or reinterment of a dead human body shall be performed under the direct supervision of a licensed funeral director and embalmer.

In New York, a cemetery may not sell burial vaults. N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. tit. 19,  201.6.

Under Texas law, it's illegal to transport cremated remains outside the state. Tex. Penal Code Ann.  42.08

Walk through a cemetery and you notice a quiet, reverent hush.Some graves and cemeteries are cared for with a meticulous touch, lush with the greenest grass and a sea of floral bouquets. Others are slightly overgrown and aged, yet they hold a serenity all their own.Yet death isn't a comfortable subject to talk about, and that cultural avoidance runs counter to a strong sentiment to remember the dead. The ways we remember the dead, and what we do with their remains, are shifting, but the funeral industry and lawmakers aren't necessarily adjusting to those changes.The prognosis for the funeral industry in the U.S. as we've come to know it isn't good, says one law school professor. Federal and state regulations are hampering the funeral business and dissuading entrepreneurs from entering it, which could result in an industrywide crisis, or worse.The U.S. funeral service industry is an estimated $20.7-billion per year business, and the average traditional funeral costs anywhere between $8,000 to $10,000, according to a Public Broadcasting System investigation. But like any industry, funeral homes and cemeteries are regulated by federal, state, and local law. In North Carolina, working with the death-care industry often means becoming licensed or obtaining a permit to open a funeral home.Even the Federal Trade Commission has a hand in the funeral service industry. The Funeral Rule , originally enacted in 1984 and amended in 1994, requires funeral homes to provide a general price list and outline what purchases are required by law to their customers.Most Americans are probably unaware of how much work it takes to open a funeral home or become a funeral service licensee. Years of education and resident training costing thousands of dollars and lead to an average annual salary of about $50,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics . With a rising cremation rate across the country and a high barrier to enter the industry, the financial viability of funeral homes is at risk.Tanya Marsh, a law professor at Wake Forest University, specializes in funeral and cemetery law. She issues a warning to the government.Marsh said.Cremations cost significantly less than traditional funerals because they don't require embalming the deceased or purchasing a casket. The average cremation service costs $1,000 to $2,500.Marsh says people are choosing to hold memorial services at universities, museums, parks, churches, and even at home instead of at a funeral home.While people may be spending less at the funeral home, Marsh says the cost of entering the funeral service industry hasn't changed in decades.Every position in a funeral home, from an embalmer to a funeral home director, requires a license. The N.C. Board of Funeral Services mandates through Chapter 90 of the General Statutes a minimum of two years enrolled in a mortuary science college, a passing score on all required national and state exams, electronic fingerprint submission, and a 12-month resident traineeship in a related field.Funeral service industry licensees also must provide evidence of good moral standing through the testimony of at least three people. Licensees also are required to complete five hours of continuing education as a prerequisite for renewing their license every year.In March, North Carolina legislators tried to amend the state funeral laws with House Bill 529 , but it has stalled in the House Committee on Regulatory Reform. Rep. James Boles, R-Moore, and Rep. Kelly Alexander, D-Mecklenburg, both involved in the funeral service industry, are primary sponsors of the bill. Neither immediately responded to requests for comment on this story.H.B. 529 clarifies some licensing requirements for funeral service licensees, as well as includes regulations for crematory operators and alkaline hydrolysis burials. Alkaline hydrolysis is a relatively new method of disposing bodies through a superheated chemical mixture in a pressurized vessel. It is thought to be a greener alternative to both cremations and traditional burials. H.B. 529 would require a license to operate an alkaline hydrolysis machine with the same requirements and fees as licensing of crematories.Simply opening a funeral home requires compliance with yet another set of regulations, including adhering to specific building standards and environmental rules, as well as obtaining an establishment permit before business can begin. Obtaining a permit costs $400 and $250 to renew annually - even the sewage system attached to an establishment is regulated to some degree. Failure to comply can result in penalties and fees.said Bill Forsberg, the executive director of the N.C. Funeral Directors Association.Marsh argues the requirements to enter into the funeral service industry haven't caught up to modern trends, particularly regarding educational requirements.Marsh explained.Embalming isn't even mandatory in every burial. No laws or regulations in North Carolina require embalming, but some funeral homes may have policies requiring the practice for public viewings or delayed interments.The industry isn't particularly nimble. Marsh says packing up and moving to where demand is higher isn't really an option, especially when so much investment goes into opening a funeral home.Marsh said.Marsh suggests deregulating the industry and starting with a blank slate. Legislators and board members need to ask themselves what they want to accomplish and what's the government's interest in having any regulations in the first place.Marsh argued.Consumer protection is another possible area for concern but, Marsh says, most of the regulatory apparatus of the funeral service industry wouldn't be needed if lawmakers just started over.Marsh said.Jon Sanders, director of regulatory studies at the John Locke Foundation, says deregulating an industry opens the door for competitors to lower prices and makes it easier for entrepreneurs to innovate. It might feel strange to view the funeral service industry as a business in which prices and costs matter, but the rule of economics applies to everything, funerals included.Sanders explained.Marsh estimates the U.S. has some 24,000 funeral service businesses, excluding cemeteries. The funeral service industry is well-organized and has a strong sense of identity, which can conflict with entrepreneurs and small businesses who dare challenge the industry standard model.State boards and funeral service licensees have taken issue with issues such as selling unlicensed headstones in New Jersey to selling environmentally friendly caskets in Alabama . Changing state board regulations often requires going through the courts.The Institute of Justice, a nonprofit national law firm, has litigated dozens of cases regarding the funeral service industry. IJ has broken up casket cartels and helped entrepreneurs keep their businesses in the face of onerous regulations.IJ Attorney Renee Flaherty said . "It is important that people have choices and that entrepreneurs are able to respond to the need to keep prices down. Unreasonable regulations benefit no one but the funeral industry's pocketbooks."Forsberg says the industry is adapting to consumer demands in North Carolina by increasing available crematory services and employing more women funeral directors."The funeral business is changing, and the consumers are changing it for us. They are driving the change just like in any other industry or profession they want to see the value of the purchase," Forsberg said. "What we are creating is an experience for them rather than just selling them products."But government often gets in the way.Says Marsh, "The system of laws that we have does not facilitate the industry providing consumers with the range of choice that they want at a price that they are willing to pay. The free-market economics of the industry have been disturbed by government regulation. Regulation is not protecting the free market. It is destroying the free market in funeral services."Regulations for the funeral service industry sometimes make little sense. Marsh points out how public health concerns have not caught up with the scientific understanding that dead bodies aren't a major source of disease. Other regulations are clearly inspired by anti-competitive sentiments. Marsh provided a few examples of funeral service regulations across the country that are unnecessary and burdensome.
The Democrat leadership has made constant, profound and incredible pronouncements that one's supportive vote for Republicans is tantamount to surrendering Democracy forever. Understanding their sincere thinking in their extreme position: How will you still vote on this election day?

Democrat; because the continuance of this Democracy from the existential threat of extreme Republicans is paramount.

Republican; the process of having a choice is the democratic method within what so called "Democracy" does exists.
The Charlotte Observer reported last week that enrollment in the Charlotte Mecklenburg School District had increased by only about 200 students over the previous year. According to reports, fall 2017 CMS enrollment is 147,359 students. The new numbers equate to an increase of about one-tenth of one percent, far less than 750 or so new students enrollment planners had expected.The lower public school enrollments had been tied to the rapid expansion of charter schools in the Charlotte area which is now home to 47 charter schools that enrolled almost 17,000 students in 2016.How the public views these changes is hard to say. However, they will have a chance to voice their opinion on November 7. That's when Charlotte area residents will vote on a $922 million bond referendum to build 10 new schools and provide money to replace, renovate and expand others.The largest school district in North Carolina, Wake County Public Schools (WCPSS), has not yet released fall 2017 enrollment numbers. However, like CMS, over the past decade, WCPSS has experienced significant enrollment growth. In recent years enrollment growth has slowed largely because of economic and demographic factors. In addition, fewer students are attending public schools because students have other educational options.In Wake County the presence of more charter, private and home school options has significantly impacted the enrollment growth in WCPSS. Last year the News & Observer reported that planners adjusted their growth estimates downward from 3,000 to 2,000 additional students a year.Like its neighbors in the Queen City, Wake County is also expected to vote either in May or November on a bond referendum ranging upwards of $1.1 billion to build new schools and renovate old ones.Anyone who has reviewed WCPSS growth projections over the past decade has seen WCPSS has a history of overestimating student enrollment. The release of the WCPSS enrollment data will determine if these projections will also fall into that camp.How will these changes and the growth of educational options influence voters? Will voters be willing to spend billions on schools when enrollment is flat or declining and families are choosing to enroll their children in charter or private schools? It's an important question that voters should consider and schools be willing to address.
By PTI: Valsad, Nov 3 (PTI) Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi would meet Gujarat Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani today at Navsari, a spokesperson of the party said.

Mevani, who has been critical of the ruling BJP in the state, is expected to discuss the demands of his community when he meets the Congress vice-president, who is currently on an election campaign tour of south Gujarat.

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"Jignesh Mevani and other Dalit leaders had met Ashok Gehlot (Congress Gujarat affairs in-charge) earlier and presented a set of demands to him," Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said.

"We have extended an invitation to Mevani to meet our vice-president Rahul Gandhi today. The two will meet at Navsari later in the day," he added.

Congress Scheduled Castes (SC) cell national president K Raju also said a meeting had been arranged between Rahul Gandhi and Mevani.

Mevani had earlier said he would meet Rahul Gandhi only when he was called to discuss the opposition partys stand on various demands of the Dalit community.

The Dalit rights campaigner, who has dubbed the BJP "anti-Dalit", had also said he had no plans to join any political party.

"I want to make it clear that neither have I joined the Congress nor am I going to join the party in the future. Not just the Congress, I have no plans of joining any other party as of now," he had told reporters in Ahmedabad yesterday.

However, the young leader, who shot to fame after the Una Dalit flogging incident last year, had added that he was ready to meet Rahul Gandhi to know about the Congress stand on 17 demands related to his community.

The demands include an allotment of five acres of farmland to the Dalits, alternative employment for those involved in cattle-skinning and manual scavenging and the release of a probe report into an incident of firing on the community members at Thangadh in Surendranagar district in 2012.

"Since the BJP government is not even ready to hold talks with us on these demands, it is very clear that it is anti Dalit. And, that is why we are also anti-BJP. But, that does not mean we are joining another party," Mevani had said.

"However, I am ready to meet Rahul Gandhi to know about his partys stand on these demands. I want to know what can they do for our community if they come to power (in Gujarat)," he had added. PTI KA PD RSY RC

--- ENDS ---
WASHINGTON, DC Congressman Walter B. Jones (NC-3) is moving to help Eastern North Carolina fishermen who could be hurt by legislation pending before Congress. The bills threaten America's domestic shark fisheries, and a significant piece of those fisheries is in Eastern North Carolina. They are sustainably managed and help support the economy in coastal North Carolina and other small fishing communities around the country.The bills - H.R. 1456 and S. 793 - purport to be an attempt to stop the practice of shark finning (i.e. the process of removing fins at sea and discarding the shark). They seek to do so by banning the sale of fins, even those harvested legally here in the United States. However well-intentioned the bill sponsors may be, the fact is that shark finning has been illegal in the United States for many years. Advocates for the legislation have countered with the false allegation that the practice is still widespread. They publicly claimed that NOAA Fisheries had 500 cases of shark finning over the last several years. That number sounded impossibly high to Congressman Jones, so in August he asked NOAA Fisheries for the real number of federal shark finning violations assessed over the past five years. According to NOAA, the real number is not 500, it is 22. The Associated Press recently ran a story correcting the record on the 'fake news' claims distributed by the bill's supporters. You can find that story HERE "If foreign countries are failing to manage their shark populations appropriately, they should change their ways," said Congressman Jones. "But we should not put U.S. fishermen out of business in the process."This week, Congressman Jones urged U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross to join him in opposing the legislation. The Commerce Department is home to the regulatory agency - NOAA Fisheries - which manages the domestic shark fisheries. As Congressman Jones pointed out to Secretary Ross in a letter, federal law mandates that the domestic shark fishery be managed sustainably. According to renowned shark scientist, Dr. Robert E. Heuter of Florida's Mote Marine Lab, America has "one of the best systems in the world for shark fisheries management and conservation." The proof can be seen in NOAA Fisheries own data. NOAA Fisheries' 2015 coastal shark survey captured and tagged "more than 2,800 sharks, the most in the survey's 29-year history." The leader of the survey stated that NOAA Fisheries has "seen an increase in the number of sharks in every survey since 2001," and the agency called the survey results "very good news for shark populations."said Congressman Jones.Click for a copy of the letter sent by Congressman Jones to Secretary Ross.
Since Prop 2, The HSUS has led a national campaign to convince food retailers to phase in cage-free purchasing practices and to stop buying any eggs that come from hens in cages. Photo by David Paul Morris

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California voters can help end the era of extreme confinement of animals on factory farms by qualifying an initiative petition in the months ahead and then passing the measure a year from now. The HSUS and a large coalition of organizations will formally launch the campaign next week, with a series of two dozen grassroots meetings to train citizens to collect signatures for the first critical phase of the ballot measure. Theres still time to add your name to the roster of more than 600 volunteers who have already signed up to attend.

If it sounds familiar, it is. California voters backed Prop 2 by an almost two-to-one margin nearly a decade ago, approving a statute to require that hens, pigs, and calves statewide must be able to stand, lie, turn around, and stretch their limbs. Two years later, in 2010, the California legislature and then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger enacted AB 1437 to apply Prop 2s standards to eggs sold statewide, regardless of where theyre produced. Both measures were set to take effect in 2015, stipulating that every producer and retailer must embrace cage-free as the standard.

But the California Department of Food and Agriculture pulled a fast one in 2013, adopting a rule that seemed to suggest that hens could be legally confined in cages with lower stocking densities. The result was that a class of California egg farmers simply jury-rigged their cages to give the birds a little more space, subverting the purposes of Prop 2. Major food retailers in the state passively accepted that outcome, with most of them buying eggs from producers in California and throughout the country that came from hens in cages, albeit more spacious ones.

We cannot let that stand, and this new ballot measure would nullify that unwarranted, undemocratic state rule. It would also make the law crystal clear: 1) no hens kept in cages in California, and 2) no eggs sold in California that come from hens kept in those cages.

Some farmers recognize that the future of the egg industry is cage-free and they are joining the cage-free movement with enthusiasm. Glenn Hickman is one of Americas biggest and most successful egg producers, and hes built major cage-free facilities in California. Hes pledged to convert his operations from cage to cage-free, and collectively, those barns will supply an enormous portion of the market. He and other key egg producers are backing the new ballot measure, recognizing that good business and better treatment of animals are in alignment.

The egg industrys going cage-free, and the sooner the better, Hickman told me. Weve been steadily shifting our companys flock from cage to cage-free, including all cage-free production in the Central Valley of California.

Hes on the board of United Egg Producers, the national trade association for the industry. That trade association, which raised nearly $10 million against Prop 2, says its neutral on this ballot measure. UEP says that more than anything, producers want certainty. They want to know that if they build new housing systems, theyll be able to sell eggs from those new systems.

A disreputable offshoot group, the National Association of Egg Farmers, has announced its against the measure. And the Association of California Egg Farmers has filed a competing measure, seeking more time for the transition to cage-free, even though voters and lawmakers intended producers to be compliant with Prop 2 and AB 1437 two years ago, in 2015.

Since Prop 2, The HSUS has led a national campaign to convince food retailers to phase in cage-free purchasing practices and to stop buying any eggs that come from hens in cages. Paying careful attention to the voters rejection of cage confinement systems, an astonishing 300 companies have joined our campaign  almost every big-name brand in food retail.

Indeed some major food retailers, such as Costco and Compass Group, have made cage-free pledges that are soon to take effect, and theyll provide shelf space for farmers who have made investments in cage-free systems. Many major retailers, including McDonalds and Walmart, have pledged to switch entirely to cage-free, but their deadlines are still far off.

The transition to cage-free cannot suddenly happen in 2025, which is the date that a large number of retailers chose as the deadline for their commitment. Farmers need to build new housing systems year by year in order to convert the entire egg industry to cage-free by that date, given the magnitude of the conversion and the billions of dollars that must be invested.

Thats where our new ballot measure comes in. It will require housing systems by 2019 that are impractical for cage confinement. And by 2021, its an absolute cage-free requirement.

But this new ballot measure promises to do more than convert the egg industry. It will also bring us closer to a gestation-crate-free future in the pig industry. It will stipulate that by 2022, any bacon or other pork products must come from operations that do not confine sows in two-foot-by-seven-foot crates, which prevent them from moving more than a few inches.

That squares with many existing corporate commitments. McDonalds and so many other major producers committed to phase in that commitment for pork by that same year.

While the veal industry is small, and has already largely converted to cage-free, the ballot measure ensures that therell be no retreat on those pledges and actions.

We are in good legal standing in advocating for these new policies. While Prop 2 and AB 1437 faced legal attacks from egg farmers and Midwest politicians acting on behalf of agribusiness interests, California prevailed in a series of state and federal challenges to these laws.

Congressman Steve King of Iowa, though, is acting on behalf of agribusiness interests through a different channel  working to have the federal government preempt state animal welfare laws related to agriculture. In 2013, he tried unsuccessfully to attach an amendment to the Farm Bill to prevent California or any other state from adopting its own animal welfare or food safety standards, such as Prop 2 and AB 1437. Many lawmakers, embracing states rights principles, worked to nix his amendment when the final Farm Bill went to President Obama for his signature.

But King is at it again, and hes aiming to attach the measure to a new Farm Bill, which is being developed and should be passed before next Novembers elections. Well have to work hard to block his effort to subvert states rights and gut animal welfare laws.

And remember, King not only doesnt want the states to pass food safety and animal welfare laws; he doesnt want Congress to pass those sorts of laws either. He fought an effort in 2011 in Congress to require a national minimum standard for space for laying hens. In fact, hes actively opposed all animal welfare laws at the federal level, including laws to combat dogfighting and cockfighting.

A year ago, Massachusetts voters approved a ballot measure nearly identical to the one being proposed in California. Voters approved it with a staggering 78 percent of the vote, with 348 of 351 municipalities favoring the measure. The National Pork Producers Council, the National Association of Egg Farmers, and Protect the Harvest opposed the measure. But voters rejected their archaic and regressive thinking, and embraced a common-sense animal welfare standard in agriculture.

Its clear that a vast majority of people oppose cruelty to animals and believe that animals built to move should be allowed to move. Immobilizing animals as a production strategy is deplorable, and now that people see theres a better way, theyre demanding legal and corporate standards that enshrine that principle. The public and Americas major corporations are on board.

I hope youll join us and get on board with our campaign.
Registered child sex offenders in the US are about to have their passports revoked. Their new passports will require a "unique identifier" printed on the inside of the back cover that reads, "The bearer was convicted of a sex offense against a minor, and is a covered sex offender pursuant to (U.S. law)."

The passport requirement is part of the "International Megan's Law," which passed last year.

According to AP, this new law "aims to curb child exploitation and child sex tourism."

Registered child sex offenders will still be able to travel out of the US, but may not be accepted into the country they are traveling to.

The State Department said the language in the passports "will not prevent covered sex offenders from departing the United States, nor will it affect the validity of their passports." However, it also noted that American citizens, like those of other nations, are subject to the entry laws, rules and requirements of countries they wish to visit. Many countries prohibit or place strict restrictions on the travel of convicted felons.

Child sex offenders are the only types of felons required to be identified on US passports.

Image: Kat
A gentleman from Hawaii sent his ex-girlfriend 144 nasty texts and phone messages within 1 1/2 hours, violating a court order from last February that blocked him from having contact with her. As part of his punishment, he now must send her 144 compliments, and none of them can be the same. "No repeating words," the judge said.

Daren Young, 30, also spent 157 days in jail, was fined $2,400, and ordered to serve 200 hours of community service.

According to Mashable:

"For every nasty thing you said about her, you're going to say a nice thing," the judge said per the Maui News Apparently, Young was apologetic about the textstorm and promised, "I'm not going to do it again." But still the judge was shocked by the text vitriol. "It's so childish to think a grown man can be so thumb-happy," she said in court.

Thumb-happy Trump better hope he never gets this judge!

Image: Joi Ito
What a huge bummer. David Corn is the guy who broke the 'Steele Dossier' story, and did a great job of it.

Politico reports that Mother Jones today said that very same Washington bureau chief David Corn has for some time been under internal investigation for "inappropriate workplace behavior three years ago, warning him about touching female staffers and insensitive descriptions of sexual violence, and would now probe the allegations further in light of two emails written by former staffers in 2014 and 2015 and obtained by POLITICO."

Wow. So many of these stories coming out right now.

Mr. Corn is considered Mother Jones' most high-profile byline, and makes regular appearances on MSNBC. He is represented by a speaker's bureau.

From Politico's report:

One of the emails, written in 2015 by a former staffer outlining concerns she had heard from other women in the Washington office, said Corn, now 58, made "rape jokes," "regularly gave [several women] unwelcome shoulder rubs and engaged in uninvited touching of their legs, arms, backs, and waists," and "made inappropriate comments about women's sexuality and anatomy." The other email, from 2014, was by a former female staffer who claimed that Corn "came up behind me and put his hands and arms around my body in a way that felt sexual and domineering." CEO Monika Bauerlein and editor-in-chief Clara Jeffery said they had not seen these emails, which were shared several years ago between colleagues and union representatives. But the magazine's leaders acknowledged dealing with allegations of inappropriate touching and comments around the time the emails were written, and said they believe Corn has stopped those behaviors. Corn, in a statement to POLITICO, said that neither his comments nor his touching of colleagues was in any way sexual. "I am an exuberant person and have been known to pat male and female colleagues on the shoulder or slap them on the back, but always in a collegial or celebratory way," he said. "I have never touched any work colleague in a sexual manner. Once concerns were raised about this type of contact, I have been mindful to avoid it to prevent any misperception. If anyone ever perceived any of this as 'sexual' or 'domineering,' I am sorrythat was never my intent."

Oh.

That clears it right up.

Thanks.

Below, Corn's byline on Mother Jones.

PHOTO, TOP: David Corn, via Wikipedia
Alt-right blogger Jenna Abrams (@Jenn_Abrams) enjoyed a large following in Twitter, and her tweets were cited by Buzzfeed, the NY Times, and other news agencies. It turned out "she" was another creation of the Internet Research Agency, the Russian government-funded troll farm in St. Petersburg.

From The Daily Beast:

Remnants from some of Abrams' most elaborate conspiracies and xenophobic opinions still remain in replies from celebrities sparring withor agreeing withher account.

Roseanne Barr responded to one of Abrams' tweets on Feb. 2, 2016, to call a common enemy "pro-pedophile." Abrams' tweet earlier in the day about a Saudi Arabian Starbucks went viral, meriting pickup from The Telegraph and Russia Today, and even a response from Starbucks' corporate Twitter account.

Barr elaborated in a tweet later in the month, saying "dems repubs libertarians indies greens, black white yellow red-all religions" are "#PEDOPHILES."

Even Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia and an expert in Russian propaganda, got into a number of Twitter spats with Abrams. McFaul responded to Abrams' posts in 10 separate months between February of 2015 and August of 2016.

Before they knew the account was run by paid disinformation agents, Abrams' ahistorical slavery revisionism irked journalists and historians alike.

Al Letson, the host of the Center for Investigative Reporting's Reveal podcast, received over 65,000 retweets and 153,000 likes when he refuted Abrams' incorrect Civil War claim.
Joe Ricketts, Trumpist founder of TD Ameritrade and owner of DNAinfo (which acquired Gothamist and the other -ist) sites, has shut down all Gothamist and related properties following a unionization vote by his employees.



Ricketts posted a disingenous note to the sites' front doors blaming "insufficient progress" to "support the tremendous effort and expense" of the business for the shut down.



In September, Mr. Ricketts, a conservative who supported President Trump in last year's election, raised the ante with a post on his blog titled "Why I'm Against Unions At Businesses I Create," in which he argued that "unions promote a corrosive us-against-them dynamic that destroys the esprit de corps businesses need to succeed." But reporters at many digital news sites make only a fraction of what staffers made in the heyday of print newspapers. And in joining the Writers Guild of America East, which has organized staffs at some larger digital organizations, including Vice and HuffPost, the DNAinfo and Gothamist staffers hoped for stability and recognition. Emma Whitford, a Gothamist reporter, said that organizers from the union assured the workers that threats to shut the sites down were just "textbook union-busting tactics." The union said in a statement: "It is no secret that threats were made to these workers during the organizing drive. The Guild will be looking at all of our potential areas of recourse and we will aggressively pursue our new members' rights."



DNAinfo and Gothamist Are Shut Down After Vote to Unionize

[Andy Newman and John Leland/New York Times]
Salem Chapel BME in St Catharines, Ontario, built by slaves who settled in the area after escaping the United States of America, is in desperate shape.

A GoFundMe has been created to help preserve this important piece of actual North American heritage.

Via the Grio:

The members of a church in Canada that was attended by Harriet Tubman say that the building is in desperate need of repairs.

Salem Chapel BME (British Methodist Episcopal) was built by the former slaves who settled in St Catharines, Ontario, in 1853 and was designated a Canadian National Historic Site in 2000, though it remains privately owned by the congregation.

In the nineteenth century, Tubman would bring escaped slaves to Canada rather than the Northern states in the United States, once famously stating, "I wouldn't trust Uncle Sam with my people no longer, I brought them all clear off to Canada."

"The church represents a gateway to freedom for many, many African Americans who fled," church historian Rochelle Bush told the CBC. "It was a hub for abolitionist activity."

While the church once served 200 people in its congregation, now, that number has dwindled to only 11. And while nearly 4,000 visitors a year come to tour the site, the congregation says that the money raised that way barely covers the basics to keep the lights on.

A GoFundMe page started by the congregation states that the church needs more long-term help, including cables or earthquake straps to secure the 162-year-old frame of the building from traffic and nearby construction. They also need new paint, new windows, and a new doorframe.

The fundraiser is looking for $100,000 immediately for the most urgent needs but would eventually like to use $500,000 to more extensively work on the building.
Shoppers drawing their firearms to help stop a more aggressive 2nd amendment rights enthusiast did not. Shoppers report panic, while the local police suggest the investigation was slowed up to 5hrs.

If one draws a weapon, they become a suspect and create more work for the boys in blue.

Via the Denver Post:
As Chinese Naval presence in the Indian Ocean region becomes more pronounced, India for the first time ever has offered to share real time information and intelligence.

By Sudhi Ranjan Sen: As Chinese Naval presence in the Indian Ocean region becomes more pronounced, India for the first time ever has offered to share "real time information and intelligence" with the navy of countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri-Lanka, Mauritius and other friendly countries to counter conventional and non-conventional threats. The threats include drugs, human trafficking, smuggling and territorial disputes in the South-China Sea.

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The offer was made at "Goa Maritime Conclave", a first of its kind initiative led by India. As China becomes more aggressive in the South China Sea region, India has formed a new grouping of friendly countries and Navies in the Indian Ocean to explore areas of mutual interest and cooperation.

In an indication of its intent, China has recently set-up its first off-shore base in the Horn of Africa. Chinese warships and submarines sailing out of East Africa will now be able to project power far away from its shores.

Instead of going alone, India has chosen a cooperative approach instead. It has got together Navies of 10 friendly countries under a single umbrella.

"We have identified common security threats across all countries and need greater degree for coordination and info sharing to take things forward to provide maritime security and safety of the global commons of the Indian Ocean," Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sunil Lanba told India Today. He also added that the proposal for sharing information and intelligence "has been received positively" by all.

Helped by GSAT-7 satellite - Rukmini, the Indian Navy has a complete picture of vast waters of the Indian Ocean. From Gulf of Aden in Northern tip of the Arabian Sea to shores or Australia and New Zealand. This is further supplemented by a fleet long range maritime surveillance aircraft - the US P8i.

Once information and Intelligence sharing agreement is operational, it would mean countries like Indonesia, Mauritius, and Malaysia would be acting in coordination with India Navy. "On the basis of information shared by India, Indonesia and Malaysia can mobilize ships to handle threats," a senior officer who was part of the discussion told India Today.

Speaking exclusively to India Today the First Admiral of Indonesia B. Irwanto said, "It is great move, no one can take on all threats alone, there need for cooperation and coordination between friendly navies."

Mauritius too has welcomed the offer from India. Karl Nobin of Mauritus told India Today, "Intelligence and information sharing would help smaller countries with fewer resources and using the information we can handle threats more effectively with lesser resources."

In 2017, at least 14 Chinese warships and submarines including nuclear submarines crisscrossed the waters of Indian Ocean. "Our assessment indicates that Chinese deployment in our areas of Interest is unlikely to increase immediately," Admiral Lanba told India Today.

--- ENDS ---

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Martha O'Donovan, a 25-year-old woman from New Jersey who now lives in Zimbabwe, was arrested today for tweeting insults about President Robert Mugabe. She now faces up to 20 years in prison.

O'Donovan worked at the satirical social media outlet Magamba TV, in the capital Harare, where she apparently tweeted a couple of things under the Twitter handle @matigary that hurt the president's feelings.

According to AP, the offending tweet was: "We are being led by a selfish and sick man," along with an image of 93-year-old Mugabe with a catheter.

And according to The Guardian, "the offending tweet referred to a 'goblin whose wife and stepson bought a Rolls Royce.'"

She has been charged with "undermining the authority of or insulting the president" and "subverting a constitutionally elected government," says AP. O'Donovan denies the allegations as "baseless and malicious."

Image: Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Lock (USAF)
Amazon Gold Box Deals For November 2, 2017

The 7 Best Deals On Amazon Today

The AskMen editorial team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service.

The holiday season is upon us, and we'll be here the whole time bringing you the best of Amazon's 1-day Gold Box deals. If you're stumped and looking for gift-giving inspiration, check out our roundup of Christmas gifts for men, or our complete guide to what to get a girl for Christmas.

37% Off Onkyo HT-S3800 5.1 Channel Home Theater Package

If you want the complete home theater experience, you could source each component one by one, spending thousands of dollars and countless hours in the process. Or, you could buy a great system like this and be done with it. 5.1 channels means you get a center speaker, two front speakers, two surround sound speakers and a subwoofer  and with an average of 105 W/channel, your place is gonna thump. The sound will also be high-quality, thanks to the Dolby Trued and DTS-HD Master Audio decoding. Hook this setup to a huge TV, and never waste money at the movie theater again.

$199.00 at Amazon.com

57% Off Liberty Men's Handmade Leather Classic Brogue Wing-Tip

Dress shoes are by nature stodgy and understated, because theoretically formal dress is no place for personal expression. But that's what makes wingtips so great, with their patterns and perforations injecting a little fun into otherwise staid proceedings. And because they're just a little less formal, you can get away with wearing them with jeans, which you can't say for other dress shoes. Note: This exact price is for the brown ones, size 10. If you play around with the size and color options the prices may change, but will generally be around 50%-60% off. Sorry, buying shoes on Amazon is hell.

$51.99 at Amazon.com

28% Off Gevalia Signature Blend Coffee, K-CUP Pods, 100 Count

The big knock on Keurig K-cups, besides their disastrous environmental impact, is that they're barely cheaper than going to a coffee shop, and not nearly as good. Their convenience is undeniable though, and if you can get them at a good price, why not? This would certainly qualify, as it works out to just $0.36 per cup. Amazon's even beating out discount stores like Costco and Sam's Club here, so you should probably jump on these before the deal goes away.

$35.99 at Amazon.com

47% Off Hoover Cruise Cordless 22V Lithium Ion Stick Vacuum

Whether you have a small place or just need a secondary vacuum for small jobs, the latest generation of cordless vacuums is hard to beat. This one is lightweight (less than 5 lbs), and has an impressive 30 minute run time thanks to the Lithium Ion battery. Because it's so small, it's also ideal for reaching up to vacuum high places like fans and ceilings, which I bet you never even considered doing before.

$94.99 at Amazon.com

53% Off Zipbuds SLIDE Sport Earbuds

Tangled headphones can be a real bitch, but they're also an unfortunate inevitability  because there's only one way for them to be not tangled, but infinite ways for them to tangle, the law of averages says they WILL tangle if left in a bag or pocket long enough. Zipbuds (which would also make a great name for a weed delivery service) solves this with a simple, genius zipper system that keeps the two cords bound together when not in use. They're also made of military-grade bulletproof fibers, making them so durable that Zipbuds guarantees them for life. There are a few other colors available at this price, but they won't last long.

$27.99 at Amazon.com

70% Off Cr 3 Inch Gel-Infused Memory Foam Mattress Topper (Twin XL)

College dorm mattresses are basically torture devices. They have no padding whatsoever, so the springs poke and prod. They've also been slept on by God knows how many people before you, so they're often bent and worn out of shape. Give yourself (or your college student) a break with this thick, supportive memory foam pad, made to fit standard dorm room beds. The memory foam will cushion and relieve pressure, making it easier to get some much-needed sleep. All other sizes are available on sale too, but the twin XL features the biggest discount.

$59.54 at Amazon.com

37% Off Fitpacker Meal Prep Containers (28oz - Set of 16)

It's kind of hard for adults to pack their lunch, you know? What, are you going to carry a lunchbox, like a little tiny baby? And yet, meal prep and brown bagging is probably the single biggest step you can take to improve your health, waistline and wellbeing, so it behooves you to do so. Thankfully, these takeout-style containers are perfectly sized for a hearty lunch, so you can cook ahead and stack these in the fridge before the workweek starts. They're also BPA free, making them microwave and dishwasher safe.

$16.99 at Amazon.com

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75 Best Gifts for Dog Lovers

Obsessed With Your Dog Like We Are? Keep Reading

The AskMen editorial team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service.

Listen up guys  its the holiday season for everyone  even the dogs in our lives. More and more people are bringing dogs into their home as members of the family. In fact, according to Psychology Today, 90 percent of people report their pets are full-fledged family. So when giving gifts this holiday season, its no surprise that 87 percent of dog owners  or should we say dog parents  plan on buying their pups gifts according to the most recent Rover.com holiday shopping report.

RELATED: Best Pet Subscription Boxes

So, if you populate that proud percentage of pet parents planning on providing presents to their pups this year, then you have found yourself in the right place. From the perfect beds for every occasion to the best toys for every type of chewer, we have what we consider the best gifts for dogs you can get this year. Dont worry, were dog dads ourselves, so we wouldnt lead you astray.

Molecule Pet Bed

Clean and simple, this dog bed is comfy and cozy for furry friends big and small. With a removable machine washable, water and stain resistant cover and and this bed features a reversible cushion with one side cozy and the other side cool to accommodate different seasons or your pets personal preferences.

From $129 at Amazon.com

Tuft & Needle Dog Bed

Bigger is better when it comes to this handsome style, because this is designed as two beds in one. This Tuft & Needle bed has a foam base similar to the bedding brands mattress and a cushion that detaches for convenient travel, or another option if your dog likes a change of pace midday. Its canvas-like cover is dense, durable, and easily washed.

From $120 at Amazon.com

Best Friends by Sheri Calming Shag Vegan Fur Donut Cuddler

Fluffy, puffy, and calming, this dog best will keep any pup in your life nice and cozy all year long.

$32.51 at Amazon.com

PupRug Faux Tiger Print Memory Foam Bed

Real fur and animal hides are passe, but these fuzzy faux hide dog beds are super stylish.

$199 at Paw.com

Pet So Good Larvik Pet House

Spoil your special friend with this stylish modernist dog bed.

$400 at PetSoGood.com

Noize Sawyer Coat

This puffer has your puppers name all over it. Known for vegan, cruelty-free, sustainable coats for the bipeds among us, Noize wasnt going to let the quadrupeds we share our homes with go cold on those long walks we all enjoy taking together. Filled with warm padding and lined with plush faux shearling, you might as well treat yourself and get a coat to match.

$66.50 at Noize.com

The Worthy Dog Colorblock Tartan Flannel Shirt

You're not the only one who loves to throw on a good flannel for a long walk in the cold weather. Add this to their pups walking rotation.

$26.99 at BaxterBoo.com

Rororiri Colton Hoodie

Fido meet teddy. Teddy meet Fido.

$80 at Rororiri.com

Canine Styles Couture Wool Coat

Classic tweed looks great no matter how many legs you have.

$225 at CanineStyles.com

Toms Dog Slipper Toy

This Toms x Pride Bites Alpargata squeaky chew toy throws the brands iconic style to the dogs. Quite literally. Built to withstand 55 pounds of pull pressure, inside, outside, on land and by sea, this machine washable toy floats and squeaks like no other shoe theyve chewed up yet.

$9.99 at Toms.com

ZippyPaws No Stuffing Squeaky Plush Dog Toy

if their dog has a habit of ripping out the stuffing from all of their favorite toys, go ahead and beat them to the punch.

$9.99 at Amazon.com

KONG Wobbler Treat Dispensing Dog Toy

No matter the chops on K-9, this will keep them busy for hours. Tell them to fill it up when they have a work call and rest assured, there will be no barks to bother them.

$14.99 at Amazon.com

Wickedbone Smart Bone

Take tech to the toy pile with this wild Wickedbone Smart bone. Use the app to choose between interactive auto-play modes or control with a joystick in drive mode. It can automatically adjust how it reacts based on different actions of the dog playing with it.

$79 at Amazon.com

Fi Series 2 Dog Collar

If you have ever had a moment of pure panic wondering if your dog got out without your knowledge, this is the collar for you (or that someone you know). This collar establishes a backyard geofence so there is never a worry about their pup getting out again. With app monitoring, a dog parent can be on vacation or at the office (some day again in the future maybe) and know whos walking and taking care of their best friend.

$149 at TryFi.com

Diggs Revol Collapsible Dog Crate

Form meets function with this handsome, portable, collapsible crate. Crafted from durable aluminum, steel mesh wire, and reinforced plastic this crate is designed to baby industry standards, which means no pinched paws or fingers. Dog mom and dad can use the wheels and carrying handle to take this with them, never having to worry about portable puppy training again.

From $245 at Amazon.com

Found My Animal Cotton Rope Dog Leash

Hand dyed and crafted in its studio in New York, Found My Animal leashes are hand-spliced to withstand hundreds of pounds of pull with the ends then whipped for additional durability. Part of the proceeds from sales go to support animal welfare and rescue organizations with a whole section of their website dedicated to helping facilitate direct pet adoptions. #AdoptDontShop

$62 at FoundMyAnimal.com

YETI Custom Dog Bowl

Let their dog show off their personality with this durable, custom designable dog bowl.

From $39.99 at Yeti.com

Fable The Game Toy

The Game is designed to mimic the experience of hunting prey and can hold over 1.5 cups of dry food so that dogs can eat an entire meal as nature intended, while also providing great physical and mental stimulation (reminiscent of that fun squirrel chase they're always after).

$55 at FablePets.com

Kiehls Cuddly-Coat Grooming Rinse

Every dog gets dirty, so every dog needs a good shampoo. That's because dog shampoo has a different pH balance to keep dogs skin and coat from getting dry and itchy (like those we use might do).

$20 at Kiehls.com

Hertzko Self Cleaning Slicker Brush

No one likes cleaning out a dog brush, so give them the gift of not having to do that anymore.

$15.99 at Amazon.com

Moshiqa Golden Vessel of Wonder

If you would have told us this time last year that we would be into a capsule collection of golden Wonder Woman-inspired dog accessories, wed politely disagree. But, here we are, totally into this golden goodie bag for our dog.

$2,100 at Moshiqa.com

Arlo Sky Pet Carrier

Stylish and streamlined, this dog carrier is designed to be TSA friendly (remember that?) and we think it is one of the best carriers of the year.

$200 at Arloskye.com

Petsfit Soft Pet Backpack Carrier for Hiking

If TSA isn't on the check list for a good carrier, this one will certainly do the job. Let them fo hands-free with this stylish Petsfit back pack.

$54.99 at Amazon.com

Best Choice Products Pet Stroller and Trailer

If Nike or Lululemon is under the tree of your dog owning friends, this might be a nice addition.

$169.99 at Amazon.com

Duluth Trading Co. Fire Hose Dog Travel Food Storage

Hardy and handsome, this Duluth travel food bag snaps up tight, to keep any kibble from coming out.

$19.95 at DuluthTrading.com

Kurgo Dog Walking and Car Harness

If road trips are always on the agenda, this harness is a great addition to their car kit.

$31.99 at Amazon.com

URPOWER Dog Seat Cover

Accidents happen in the back seat on road trips, but that doesn't mean that have to ruin nice (or even not so nice) upholstery.

$33.99 at Amazon.com

West and Willow Custom Pet Portrait

A custom pet portrait is something every dog owner should have. Help the dog owner on your list check this off theirs.

From $59.95 at WestandWillow.com

ConStruct X Best Friends Unisex Dog Geo Curved Mask and Bandana Set

It wouldnt be 2020 without a face mask and dog bandana matching set.

$20 at Macys.com

Olivia and Cocoa Watercolor Pup Pillows

Do you know the breed of their dog? (Well go on the record to say we both support and encourage always rescuing your dogs.) If so, you can get them a great gift. It may not be as personal as their own pups face on the pillow you gift them, but its a fantastic gift nonetheless.

$88 at OliviaandCocoa.com

I Love Paws Custom Dog Tote Bag

Help them take their pup with them wherever they go with this custom tote. Finally, the dog can go to the grocery store.

From $29.99 at ILovePaws.com

Furbo Dog Camera with Dog Nanny

Does you dog get bored at home? Well, keep your eyes on them and when they need a little action, give it to them with this treat tossing dog camera.

$199 at Amazon.com

Embark Dog DNA Test

People aren't the only ones who can get surprising results from DNA tests. Their pup's look could be deceiving, and finding out could be fun.

From $129 at EmbarkVet.com

Oliver Gal Custom Pet Portrait

Add a little kitsch to their collection with this over-the-top pet portrait.

$139 at OliverGal.com

Pijuan Design Re-Treat Dog House

They will want to be "in the dog house" if this is the house in question.

$3,500 at PDWorkshop.com

Wild One Stocking Stuffer Set

Yes dogs should have stockings and yes they should get stuffed. This little grab-and-go gift is a great set of favorites that work together, either for yourself or a loved one. Made from biodegradable, eco-friendly plant-based viscose, these bags are a must for urban dog dwellers, while the organic treats made from real foods are good no matter where pup resides.

$13.50 at WildOne.com

DreamBone Holiday Rawhide-Free Chews and Treats for Dogs

Some dogs like rawhide and some dogs dont. Lets be honest, all dogs love rawhide, but its not always great for little pup stomachs. This DreamBone bag-o-treats is a great alternative for all the dogs out there that need to stay away from the hard stuff.

$14.99 at Amazon.com

Brutus Broth

There are plenty of picky puppers out there that stare at their kibble wondering Is that it? Well, it doesnt have to be. Give the gift of a tasty dinner with a little bone broth topper.

From $7.99 at BrutusBroth.com

Wondercide Complete Control Flea and Tick Kit

Fleas and ticks? Not today, satan. Help keep that pup in tickless and in tip-top shape naturally with the great selection of natural repellents from Wondercide. In scents such as lemongrass, cedarwood, peppermint, and rosemary, the fight to keep fleas and ticks off the dog has never been this pleasant.

$69.99 at Wondercide.com

Finn Pup Bundle

Dogs need an extra boost too, and these supplements do the trick  and look great out on the counter (no more forgetting at feed time). Finn offers formulas for hips and joints, skin and coats, a calming aid, and a multivitamin. No matter what, we always wish we could have done more while our best friend was still with us. Do more now  whether its your pup, or that of someone you love.

$49 at PetFinn.com

Happiness Dog Chews

After six years of development, these dog chews are ready for the toughest test  the dogs! This yummy, high quality, wholesome dog treat is safe, long lasting, and edible. Packed with great ingredients such as chicken, fish, beef, and eggs, the standout star is yak cheese  the hero ingredient that makes these an extra special treat.

From $13 at ChewsHappiness.com

Goodboy Supplement Advent Calendar

Give the good boy or girl a treat everyday of the season with this fun, festive, and flavorful advent calendar.

$40 at TryGoodBoy.com

NuWave OxyPure Air Purifier

Give the gift of clean air with this intense air purifier fromNuWave. With WiFi capabilities and app control, this OxyPure Smart Air Purifier saves on energy with its energy-efficient smart-touch controls and auto-monitoring capabilities that can be remotely monitored and controlled from anywhere in your home. Four separate layers on filtration  HEPA carbon, ozone, bio-guard, and stainless steel  mean whomever gets this will be getting your moneys worth for sure.

$599.99 at Amazon.com

WagWear WagWellies Dog Boots

Come on. These are just too cute.

$64 at WagWaer.com

Wild One Eucalyptus Grooming Wipes

Much like dogs need special shampoo, they need special wipes too. Remember, they cover a lot more ground by licking, if you catch our drift here.

$16 at WildOne.com

Populum Zen Pets Hemp CBD Chews

If their dog needs to chill out a bit, Populum is designed to help. Human-grade CBD works to relax Rover without any side effects.

From $39 at Populum.com

Paw Scout Bluetooth Custom Dog Tag

You have something to help you find your iPhone. Get something to find your pet.

$19.95 at PawScout.com

Earth Rated Dog Poop Bags

Shit happens. Just make sure they pick it up afterwards.

$11.99 at Amazon.com

Bona Spray Mop

The floors of new dog owners might be the cleanest floors out there. Thats because there is constant cleanup after innocent accidents. This mop from flooring experts Bona makes cleaning up little mishaps quick and easy, so there is still plenty of time to help puppy potty train.

$33.99 at Amazon.com

Sundays Food for Dogs

Its like kibble, but better. Made by a vet for their very own pet, this is a brand that uses human-grade ingredients to make a delicious treat for their dog. Whats more? The site makes it easy to compare their dogs' current food with Sundays, just in case they dont believe how good this gently dried food actually is.

$29 at SundaysforDogs.com

iRobot Roomba i3+ 3550

All dogs shed (no matter what that Doodle breeder may tell you) but some dogs shed a ,em>lot. This Roomba is built for just such issues thanks to its unique dual multi-surface rubber brushes don't get tangled with pet hair and high-efficiency filter that traps 99 percent of dog allergens. Oh yeah, and it dumps the dirt all by itself  a big win when it comes to dog hair disposal.

$399 at Amazon.com

Grounds & Hounds Nice List Holiday Bundle

What goes together better than coffee and dogs? Well, at least for us anyway, because we cant seem to get enough of either. If you have someone on your list like us, this will be the gift that keeps on giving. Twenty percent of all profits are deployed to its network of rescue organizations working to make the second-chance mission a reality.

$38.99 at GroundsandHoundsCoffee.com

Jinx Weekender Wag Bag

People get swag, dogs get wag. This weekender wag bag has the essentials any dog needs for a long weekend Pick from three choice flavors of a superfood kibble, plus they get plant-based pumpkin and apple recipe biscuits, a portable water bowl, tennis ball, and a handsome limited edition tote bag.

$55 at ThinkJinx.com

Lemonade Pet Insurance

If youre more of a practical gift giver, opt for the most sensible of pet insurance. If youre not a dog parent, you wont understand, but surprising someone with this might just be one of the best gifts you could possibly give.

Price varies at Lemonade.com

Open Farm Gently Cooked Dog Food

Mmm mmm! Is gently cooked the new freeze dried? It just might be, since this food is seriously next level good  for dogs. Yes, it looks good enough for the human carnivores out there to eat (it does use human-grade ingredients) it is made for dogs. Loaded with humanely raised, antibiotic, and growth hormone-free meats mixed with superfoods like non-GMO leafy greens, pumpkin, and coconut oil, this is top of the line for mans best friend.

From $79.99 at OpenFarmPet.com

Big Kibble: The Hidden Dangers of the Pet Food Industry

Sure, this looks like it could be a bit of a downer, but the best gift you can give is the gift of good health to someones pet. We all sign up knowing they wont be here forever, but knowledge is power when it comes to keeping your dogs healthy. This best selling new release gives an inside look at the shocking lack of regulation within the pet food industry, and how readers can dramatically improve the quality of their dogs lives through diet.

$14.99 at Amazon.com

First Vet

Another gift to set up dog parents for success is making vet visits a priority. With the advent of telehealth (even before the pandemic) the same exciting technological developments span into pet health. First vet gives peace-of-mind when those middle-of-the-night emergencies pop up because there is someone ready to help, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Add to that the low price of $7.50 per month for unlimited consultations and advice, treatment and even if you need it, a referral to their local vet.

Prices vary at FirstVet.com

Yeedi K650 Robot Vacuum

Using an upgraded power system with strong suction, this voice controlled robot vacuum is perfect for both carpet and hard floor cleaning. The newly-designed silicone tangle-free brush eliminates trapped dog hair while the oversized dustbin helps to find and hold the hidden hairs under sofas during shedding seasons. Help the new puppy parent start the new year off on a clean (like, really clean slate).

$199 at Amazon.com

Bark Social Dogs are My Favorite People Sweatshirt

If you really dont know what to get the passionate puppy person you know, go with a cozy sweatshirt that says it like it really is.

$34.99 at BarkSocial.com

Bath & Body Works Fresh Balsam 3-Wick Candle

Nothing helps cut dog smell like a strong yet pleasant candle, and Bath & Body Works have some of the best you can buy. Just make sure they don't think you're trying to tell them something.

$14.50 at BathAndBodyWorks.com

SmartPetLove Snuggle Puppy Behavioral Aid Toy

New puppies might miss their momma. This is designed to help them out.

$39.95 at Amazon.com

Natures Miracle Advanced Stain and Odor Eliminator

Oh yes, it's a miracle indeed.

$25.99 at Amazon.com

Ruggable Cambria Ruby Rug

Accident on the rug? No problem, throw it in the wash? They can't? Then they need a Ruggable rug.

$399 at Ruggable.com

Old Faithful: Dogs of a Certain Age

Puppies are great, but senior dogs often get looked over. Not anymore. Old Faithful shows just how wonderful these best friends can be their whole life long.

From $6.59 at Amazon.com

Rocco and Roxie Welcome Home Box

These are the best sellers from small shop Rocco & Roxie Supply. Consider this a one-stop-shop for the new puppy parent in your life. This easy box includes calm shampoo formulated with aloe, rosemary, and chamomile, a small ball with no toxic BPAs, phthalates, latex, or heavy metals, a rope-bone toy with thick, colorful strands of braided cotton that are perfect for tossing, a pack of beef jerky snacks, and maybe, most importantly stain and odor eliminator.

$65.97 at RoccoandRoxie.com

Bixi Pet Liberty Sample Box

Looking to let the gift recipient make the ultimate decision in what they want? This sample box is the way to do it. With various samples of Bixis best sellers, and a gift card to get them started, this is going to go over like gangbusters. Aw, Buster.

$10 at BixiPet.com

Dogdrop Wipes & Poop Bags Bundle

Listen, shit happens, and no one knows more about that than a pet parent living anywhere that requires them to clean up after their dog. It may not seem like much, but a big box of poop bags and wipes will make anyone with a dog a much happier person.

$32 at Dogdrop.com

Best Subscription Boxes

Dandy Personalized Supplement Treats

From $40/Month at LoveDandy.com

K9 Planet Subscription Box

From $19.95 at K9Planet.com

BarkBox Subscription Box

From $22 at BarkBox.com

Rescue Box Subscription Box

From $23.45 at RescueBox.com

PupJoy Subscription Box

From $29 at PupJoy.com

Bullymake Subscription Box

From $31 at Bullymake.com

Pet Treater Subscription Box

From $15 at PetTreater.com

Best Dog Charities

If you love dogs, but dont have one at home, there are still plenty of dogs who would love to get a gift from you. If you dont know where to begin, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals  the ASPCA  is a great place to start. If you are looking for a more local charity to donate to, which can have a higher impact per animal capita, there are options there too that have a more narrowed focus on specific issues that help animals, veterans and people with disabilities. If none of these tug at your heart strings, dont worry, there are plenty more out there that have been vetted for their integrity and they can be ranked and compared here.

Houston PetSet

Rescue Dogs Rock NYC

Kentucky Humane Society

Search Dog Foundation

Patriot Paws

FurKids

However you choose to love your dogs or other dogs outside your home, giving something to these friends is a great idea. We have domesticated them to rely on us for all things nature once provided and they have shown their loyalty for over 12,000 years. Say thank you this year with a special gift and give that pooch some smooches for us.

You Might Also Dig:

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How To Shave Your Balls

A Gentleman's Guide To Shaving Your Balls

Welcome to the dawning of a new grooming age. One where the modern gent takes pride in shaving his balls without succumbing to the public ridicule of coming off as less manly. You know this better as manscaping, and yes, its become the new it trend thats transcended the male grooming landscape and redefined our views of masculinity in the millennial era.



A hairy groin wont exactly score you points with the opposite sex these days, as most women are taking a liking to dudes with a smoother package. Think differently? Peep it. A study conducted between two public universities in the US documented in an issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine provided these intriguing stats:

49% percent of guys shaved off all their pubic hair at some point in a month

38% of all study participants claimed they were typically hair free

Roughly the same percentage of both sexes (76% women and 74% men) claim to shave their pubes

32% of men agreed shaving down their made them feel cleaner

Those numbers should sway you to perform some sort of deforestation. Still on the fence? OK. Another survey done by Gillette showed that 92% of women prefer a guy that keeps it nice and tidy down under. Argument done.

Its understandable how certain worries can plague your conscious such as taking a razor to such a delicate spot or the extra maintenance that comes with properly buzzing your grapefruits. But hey, its time to get with the program. Doing so can only give you less sweaty testes, provide for a more sensual oral experience, and result in an enticing bikini line, if youre all about the David Beckham, Euro-beach look.



So why shouldnt your nuts receive the same treatment as, say, your face, head, back, or nose? Heres an in-depth guide to how to shave your balls in style.

Learn To Proceed With Caution

The groin area harbours bacteria and yeast that can spread across the body when performing other manscaping duties using the same tools. Even the slightest laceration can result in that bacteria getting inside and leading to potential cases of abscesses, cellulitis, and Fournier gangrene: a necrotising infection that causes some pretty disgusting side effects.



Feel your scrotum and shaft for a second. Notice the several skin folds and grooves? The sensitivity of both areas makes them susceptible to cuts. Thats incredible scary when seeing how most common genital injuries reported take place in accident and emergency wards due to the direct consequence of hair removal. Ouch. So play nice down there.

Any good shave starts with providing a smooth cutting surface. Be sure to use your non-cutting hand to pull the skin back tight. The odds of nipping your jewels are less because youre preventing the skin from rolling underneath the blade. So tug that sack.



Maintaining a steady hand is vital for shaving your balls successfully as well. You might want to take a razor to the face first, so calm those nerves and practice precise strokes. This should build confidence when venturing down under. Shave in the direction of your hair and not against it, for this will stave off irritation and any post-shave stubble. Lastly, take the proper steps to implement a cleaning procedure such as wiping down your grooming tool of choice with rubbing alcohol. Wash your hands too before proceeding.

The Ballscaping Pre-Ritual

Common sense tells you at this point to never shave any body part under dry conditions. Thats just begging for a bloody or inflamed outcome. Hopping in the shower is the most effective way to soften crotch fur, for it will stimulate every lingering pube and allow for a smoother pass of the blade. Doing so opens your pores and lubricates the skin. Once out the tub, its all about prepping your sack with the right pre-shave and shaving solutions. The following three products fit the bill.

Body. Hair. Face. Shave. Lab Series covers all four verticals with a potent body wash that creates a rich lather formulated to purge the body of dirt, oil, and other pollutants. Its suitable for all hair and skin types with some reviewers co-signing its gentleness on coarse hair. The dense cushioning of its texture will deliver better razor glide and protect skin as well.

Lab Series Pro LS All-In-One Shower Gel, 20 at Boots

This multi-functional shaving elixir works to soften whiskers and soothe skin. The combination of active natural ingredients and essentials oils seep through hair to moisturise the shaving surface. And as an applicator, its incredibly active in cooling, healing, and tightening your sheath, which helps vastly when in taut mode.

Baxter Shave Tonic, 17 at Amazon

A shave gel is the best shaving agent to apply for many good reasons. Besides its translucent appearance, many come loaded with healing and moisturising properties. Nothing compares to Recipe For Mens foam-free offering, which gives forth maximum comfort by softening and lifting fur for slicker shaves. Aloe Vera, lemon extract, and menthol tame inflammation and nourish the nuts to prevent bacterial attacks and excess sebum from developing.

Recipe For Men Clear Shaving Gel, 16 at Amazon

Picking The Right Grooming Tools

No well-groomed gent enters the jungle without the necessary equipment to tame a hairy beast. Some guys prefer a razor over a body trimmer and vice versa. Others favour the more old-fashioned way of using scissors. Dont ask why. All these instruments complement each other when nipping hair off your balls. Just really depends on how close of a shave or trim you desire.

Hair growth patterns are genetic and some guys actually experience it near the base or lower shaft of their magic stick. Its considered normal. Shaving this form of pubic hair is a short-term quick fix. However, it must be shaved constantly as stubble regrowth is said to trigger irritation in a sex partner. Tweezers are known as the most popular solution because plucking hair out slows down the growth process. However, its very time-consuming. So why bother. Also, refrain from using any wax hair removal system because it can cause serious damage to your penis skin.

That being said, lets look and see how some of the others are beneficial to the ball-shaving experience.

Body Trimmers

Imagine your nut sack is your chin, only with a full-grown beard. No way youre going to take a straight razor to it before trimming it down. Before putting in any skin-level blade work, use a trimmer to shorten pubic hair to a manageable length. This will ensure you dont feel any hair pulling when getting closer to the skin surface.

Investing in one of these is a must. Guys with a bushy sack require the hardware to shorten their way through the weeds for a more intimate cut. A body groomer wont fully rid your privates of hair, but its the quickest and most useful way to achieve a basic shave.

The market has a variety of options available, some with multi-purpose features that come in handy for other manscaping needs.

AskMens pick for Best Body Hair Trimmer lives up to its hype with a skin-protecting shaving head made from hypoallergenic materials, plus five built-in trim options for precise trimming and a waterproof design. The premium foil design captures loose hair with every stroke. The self-sharpening blades also account for low maintenance care.

Philips Bodygroom Series, 58.06 at Amazon

Heres another waterproof electric body trimmer loaded with a nice list of bells and whistles. Were looking at seven different comb attachments and a trimming head that adapts to the contours of your body. Many have made mention of how great it is for sensitive areas, so word of mouth holds weight here.

Gillette Fusion Proglide Styler, 12 at Amazon

Manual Razors

The bolder route, cartridge-based razors deliver the cleanest and closest shave possible. But shaving like that requires more time and paying special attention to your testicles. No one wants a slashed up scrotum. Right? These selections just might encourage you to move forward.

Flexibility is everything when it comes to manscaping. Gillette makes one of the most resilient razors with patented FlexBall technology to reach every difficult curve down there. The cartridge is capable of pivoting in multiple directions and opens the lane for longer strokes to lessen the shaving time. Thinner blades are used for decreased facial resistance, which translates well on the balls.

Gillette Fusion ProGlide Razor, 10 at Amazon

As a razor, this 4-in-1 styling tool gets the job done. Though its biggest selling point is not the blade. Its the built-in power trimmer with three adjustable settings that executes trims at most lengths with finesse. Granted were not talking a fancy electrical trimmer here by any means, but the product is powerful enough to mow through pubes.

Wilkinson Sword Hydro 5 Groomer, 13.34 at Amazon

Scissors

Hairdressing clippers come in handy when looking to tame excessive hair growth. They prove to be incredibly useful for snipping through longer hair strands. Just dont expect a uniform finish or to complete a full trim in fast succession. If youre feeling that adventurous, wrap your fingers around these sharp sheers.

What makes these scissors such a popular item are its ultra sharp blades made from Japanese steel and tension screw for stable handling. Cutting offers balanced execution, doing all the work without forcing the user to apply extra pressure on thick hairs. Also comes with a removable finger rest for some extra comfort during an otherwise wholly uncomfortable grooming task.

Sanguine Professional Hairdressing Scissors, 12.40 at Amazon

A trusted name in facial hair shearing, Tweezermans cutters are serviceable enough to double as a pair of pubic hair scissors. Sharpness is guaranteed along the blades, whereas the curved tip guides the blades away from skin to reduce the risk of wounds. Men with coarse hair might need a more durable option, but those with more malleable threads will find cutting action to be reliable.

Tweezerman GEAR Stainless Steel Scissors, 17.45 at Amazon

Clean-Up Time

Thought the nightmare was over? Oh no. Just like your face, your balls deserve the same post-shave love. One word: Aftershave. The antiseptic agent keeps ingrown hairs and razor burn at bay. Dont settle for a splash-based formula. Why? Well, most liquid aftershaves contain alcohol. So unless you want your them burning up, look into an aftershave balm to hydrate and soothe the skin. Bonus: it provides a relaxing sensation during application.

Take other post-shave remedies into account, for some, if not all will be needed to take care of common skincare issues. Lacerations. Ingrown hairs. Razor burn. Common stuff basically. Add these to your virtual cart.

Half aftershave, half skin cream, Ahava employs an anti-bacterial formula that disinfects skin when spread sufficiently. Its a mineral-rich salve that absorbs quickly for instant moisturisation and relieves your nuts of any burns. Dead sea minerals are used as well to restore skin to its natural state.

Ahava Soothing After-Shave Moisturiser, 23.50 at Amazon

Sensitive types require something more gentle. DMC has the proper solution with an alcohol and fragrance-free balm made to calm skin from any discomfort. Its very cooling upon application. Then theres the impressive list of ingredients that condition skin incredibly well for a budget-friendly skincare product. Youre even left with a light, clean scent to freshen your underwear throughout the day.

Dove Men+ Care Sensitive Post Shave Balm, 15.99 at Amazon

Nothing better than an all-in-one.This unique moisturising deodorant is designed to keep you both fresh and hydrated all day long. The Crop Preserver is residue and oil-free, and is formulated with natural herbs that work to soften coarse hair in your most sensitive areas. Manscaping just got interesting. Comes in a set with a double-edged safety razor and disposable shaving mat.

Crop Preserver, 30 at Manscaped

Achieving the perfect ballscaping shave requires near-flawless strokes. So yea, accidents, even if minor, will occur. This is when an alum block comes in handy. Taylor's block is a post-shave healer with antiseptic qualities that calm razor burn and stop bleeding, all while closing skin pores to leave skin tight.

RazoRock Alum Block, 7.95 at Mankind

There Will Be Blood, But Dont Panic

If its your first rodeo, anticipate some slip-ups along the way. Keep a box of tissues on hand. In case you notice some minor bleeding, dont trip, just take a damp piece of bounty or toilet paper and apply pressure onto the cut. Hold it there for up to 10 minutes and it should stop the wound from leaking.



Follow these steps, practice patience, and your boys will be breathing hair-free going into the summer.

Related Reading

The Dos And Don'ts Of Manscaping That Every Guy Should Know

Electric Shavers Are Great, But These Classic Razors Are Better
The modern-day prospectors in Canada's new cannabis market are working hard and cutting deals as the final eight months tick down to the day when recreational marijuana is fully legalized.

Like the gold miners who trekked to the Yukon 120 years ago, today's fortune hunters are forging into the unknown. Some will get rich, some won't make it, and a few will leave their mark for generations.

The motherlode is an industry valued at $23 billion, according to research from accounting firm Deloitte. That includes growing and retail sales, transportation, security, edibles, taxes, and tourism.

Canadians could also be at the forefront of a growing global business, exporting not only cannabis and its derivatives, but also the technology to grow it.

Pot sales already rake in billions and employ an untold number of people. But that's the black market, an illegal racket enriching criminal organizations. Corporate Canada is plotting its takeover and the new bosses have business degrees, corner offices and expensive suits.

They face the daunting task of turning a big business that's operated outside the law into a legitimate legal enterprise. A big part of it is navigating through new federal regulations, laws and bylaws that are still in formation.

The first big test for these cannabis entrepreneurs is whether they can draw the nation's estimated five million existing consumers away from the underground market.

"Just like any other competitor entering a new market, the incumbents aren't going to give up easily," says Kyle Murray, vice dean of the University of Alberta's school of business.

Eliminating the black market

Most provinces have not firmed up precisely how they'll sell pot to the public. Only Ontario and New Brunswick have announced a retail framework. In both cases, it will be government-owned stores like provincial liquor outlets.

- Ontario unveils pot plan, including online ordering, 150 stand-alone stores

Story continues

That's a big mistake, according to Greg McLeish, an analyst with Mackie Research Capital Corporation, an investment firm. He argues government-run retail outlets will actually help the black market thrive.

"These guys have been growing for a long time," he says, noting that price and convenience will be key in determining where people buy their weed.

McLeish also points out that it makes more sense to absorb people from the existing underground cannabis culture into the legalized system.

Corporate and cannabis cultures converge

One of the early leaders in the industry, Alberta-based Aurora Cannabis is among those actively recruiting from the underground.

"The hybrid culture that we've created, that uniquely hybrid culture has been incredibly satisfying to be part of," says Cam Battley, Aurora's executive vice president.

"Aurora is made up of suits like me, people from business backgrounds as well as people from the cannabis culture and have extensive knowledge and passion for the cannabis plant itself," he says.

The company already produces medical marijuana at its 5,000-square-metre grow operation in the village of Cremona, Alta. It's also building two additional high-tech greenhouses  a facility in Pointe-Claire, Que, and a massive operation at Edmonton International Airport  and branching out to edibles , hemp products, and growing kits.

Aurora is also looking overseas. It's inked a deal to supply medical marijuana to the emerging German market and bought into an Australian medical marijuana firm.

Battley says the company's diversity and international strategy will insulate it from any problems that could emerge from a bungled retail rollout at the provincial level.

"I have concerns they will not get it right," he says, pointing to Ontario's plans for retail sales. "This very limited, very controlled government monopoly approach will not crack the black market."

Canada has an international edge

As the first major industrialized nation to fully legalize recreational marijuana, Canada is an early leader in a field.

"It gives us first-mover advantage," says U of A's Murray. "We can be the innovator in some products, we can learn new approaches to developing and harvesting."

Germany, with a population of over 80 million people legally sells medical marijuana in its pharmacies, but lacks domestic production. Along with Aurora, three other Canadian firms have signed contracts to put their products in German drug stores.

Thinking beyond the joint

Nutritional High, a Toronto-based company, is looking south with a wide roster of products. In Colorado, the first U.S. state to legalize recreational marijuana, it has built a production facility that produces cannabis-infused chocolates, candies, tinctures and topical creams. It's also setting up operations in other states.

"Some people will want to smoke the product, some people want to vape the product, some people want to eat products like gummies, or edibles or chocolates, other people are going to want pills," says company chairman David Posner.

Canadian regulations won't allow the sale of edibles when marijuana becomes legal on July 1, 2018. But the federal government says they will come later.

Billions of dollars, thousands of jobs

The impact of legal cannabis in Canada will have a long reach. The cannabis corporations that are now emerging will need accountants, public relations professionals, packagers, security and legal experts. They'll be leasing office space, buying furniture, paying taxes, and hiring lots and lots of people.

Governments are spending millions on education, police and testing. Laboratories are getting a boost as part of research and development programs.

And there's potential for people with skill in recognizing the subtle qualities of a bong hit to find new careers as "budtenders"  the cannabis equivalent of sommeliers.

But experts say not all the new businesses will thrive or even survive.

"We'll have an opportunity so see who's more innovative, who's more efficient in production and can control costs," Murray says.

In the goldrush that started in 1896, most of those who made lasting fortunes were not the gold miners. Rather, they were the ones selling picks and shovels, building hotels and restaurants, and supplying food and clothing to those hoping to strike it rich.

In Canada's new green rush, it could well be that the ones who achieve lasting success are those who find a profitable niche somewhere between the seedlings and the smoke.
The controversial former judge who asked why a woman didn't keep her knees together to prevent an alleged rape wants to practise law again in Alberta.

The Law Society of Alberta has scheduled a reinstatement hearing for Robin Camp later this month.

"That's what he knows how to do," said Camp's lawyer, Alain Hepner. "He was, as I understand, an excellent lawyer, he did largely construction law."

"He wants to get back into the practice of law in Canada."

Camp resigned from his position as a federal court judge in March after the Canadian Judicial Council unanimously recommended he be removed from the bench following an inquiry into inappropriate comments he made during a 2014 sexual assault trial while he was an Alberta provincial court judge.

During the complainant's testimony, Camp told the young woman that "pain and sex sometimes go together" and asked why she didn't just keep her "knees together."

In its ruling, the judicial council wrote that Camp's comments during the trial were "profoundly destructive of the concept of impartiality, integrity and independence of the judicial role."

Camp has publicly apologized several times for the comments he made during the trial.

He also sought counselling and education in the aftermath.

"It's a difficult time for him, over the last two years with what's been going on," said Hepner.

Camp, who got his law degree in South Africa in 1975, was originally admitted to the Alberta bar in 1999.

He most recently worked as a lawyer at JSS Barristers in Calgary. In 2012, Camp was appointed as a provincial court judge in Calgary.

The trial, which led to the judicial council hearing and ultimately Camp's resignation, took place in 2014.

The Alberta Court of Appeal ordered a new trial after reviewing transcripts, which revealed Camp's controversial comments, but the judge had already been elevated to the Federal Court by then-Conservative justice minister Peter MacKay.

Camp had to resign from the law society when he became a member of the judiciary.

The good-character hearing will be presided over by three appointed benchers on Nov. 14.
First Nations can make political decisions to remove members from their communities, but an Indigenous physician says that might not be the best approach.

"I think it's not going to work," Marcia Anderson said regarding whether First Nations should banish members suspected of selling drugs.

"I think it's going to increase stigma [around drug users] and result in unintended harm."

Earlier this week, Pine Creek First Nation made headlines after banishing one of their community members for suspected drug dealing.

Anderson, a physician and head of the University of Manitoba's Indigenous health and healing program, says she recognizes First Nations have the political authority to banish members suspected of drug dealing, and that it can be politically attractive to Indigenous leaders.

However, Anderson says, communities would be better served taking a harm-reduction approach to drugs.

Find ways to reduce demand for drugs

The "war on drugs" and other punitive measures have been completely ineffective, she says, and have added to Indigenous people being disproportionately over-represented in the criminal justice system.

"I would really encourage communities and the broader public to think about ways that we could reduce the demand for drugs," Anderson said. "And then work on harm reduction for people who are  using drugs instead of trying to focus on these criminal justice-based approaches."

Anderson suggests a lack of resources  many First Nations have under-funded schools and health services, and often don't have the resources to deal with drug addictions  combined with a history of poverty and personal trauma results in many people in First Nations communities seeing drugs as a natural escape.

"Instead of trying to work at actually fixing the way that kids grow up, that inequity streams them into things like drug abuse and addictions," Anderson said.

Iceland's approach is working

Story continues

She points to countries such as Iceland that have dramatically reduced the use of intoxicants by teenagers in a span of eight years, using a programmed approach.

"[In Iceland] From [1998] to 2012, the rate of 15 and 16-year-olds who had been drunk in the past month went from 42.5 per cent to five per cent," Anderson said.

"Some of the ways that they did that were flooding opportunities for recreation  for organized sports, music, dance, things like that  that were accessible even for people on low incomes."

Iceland has also seen success by adopting curfews for youth, she says.

For communities that lack resources, Anderson would like to see people from community leadership, public health systems and philanthropists fill the gap in funding by advocating for First Nations.

"I think for communities where there is currently not a lot going on or a lot available, that's where they can start building that up and focusing on it."

Grand chief backs banishment

Jerry Daniels, grand chief of the Southern Chiefs Organization in Manitoba, is hoping that communities such as Pine Creek can be supported in their decision to banish drug dealers.

"Their objective is to bring down the amount of drugs that are going into our communities. [Drugs are] taking a toll on our communities in a lot of different ways," Daniels said. "It's the children that suffer the most."

The person who was banished from Pine Creek was only suspected of drug dealing, and not criminally charged.

"I think that it's going to be up to the community on how they proceed. There's a challenges when you don't have a charge that's been laid," Daniels said.

"But then, if you have a number of people that are certain of it, then the community has to make that decision."

Daniels also said that there is a wider conversation happening among leaders about how to move forward with people suspected of selling drugs in their communities.

"Our chiefs are operating in a state of crisis constantly. If you're a leader in the community and you're dealing with all of these different issues, you have to address it and you have to let people know that you're serious  this is the way to do it," Daniels said.

Pine Creek is not the first community to banish members. Daniels noted that Fisher River First Nation, as well as many northern Manitoba First Nations don't take kindly to drug dealing.

Although he supports banishment, he also recognizes that more needs to be done to address drug use in First Nations communities.

"We need to focus on mental health in our communities. We need to focus on supporting our families and creating opportunities. There's a lot of different things that we can do," Daniels said.
By PTI: New Delhi, Nov 3 (PTI) The Aadhaar matter hearing in the Supreme Court today witnessed some lighter moments when Justice A K Sikri said even he has been receiving messages from mobile service providers and the banks to link his account and phone number with Aadhaar.

The issue about messages received from banks and mobile service providers was raised by senior lawyer K V Vishwanathan, who was representing one of the petitioners.

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Vishwanathan told the bench, which also comprised Justice Ashok Bhushan, that the people were "in a panicky situation" as the messages received from the banks and telecom service providers were threatening them of deactivation of accounts or mobile numbers if they failed to link them with Aadhaar.

Attorney General K K Venugopal countered his submissions saying these were oral arguments only.

"I do not want to say this in the presence of media people, but I am also receiving such messages," Justice Sikri said.

During the hearing, Vishwanathan said the Centre should tell the banks and mobile service providers not to send such messages but they should instead inform the customers about the last date of linking Aadhaar.

The apex court later made it clear that banks and telecom service providers will have to indicate the last date of linking the accounts and mobile numbers with Aadhaar in their communications with the customers.

At present, the last date to link Aadhaar with bank accounts is December 31 this year while for mobile numbers, it is February 6, 2018.

The bench also observed that the petitioners could raise all issues before another bench which would commence the final hearing on Aadhaar-related matters in the last week of this month.

The recent affidavit filed by the Centre in the top court in Aadhaar matter was also referred to during the hearing.

Regarding linking of bank accounts with Aadhaar, the Centre has said in its affidavit that though the last date was December 31, it may be extended up to March 31 next year.

"Therefore, until March 31, 2018, existing bank accounts will not be made non-operational for not linking with Aadhaar. But as far as opening of new bank accounts are concerned, Aadhaar or enrolment ID must be given as proof of identity," it said.

On mobile number linking, it said since the apex courts February 6 this year order required Aadhaar-based e-KYC verification of subscribers within one year, the February 6, 2018 deadline for this cannot be modified by the government unilaterally. PTI ABA MNL SJK RKS ARC

--- ENDS ---

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A Quebec woman who pleaded guilty to smuggling more than 30 kilograms of cocaine into Australia last year was sentenced to 7 years in prison on Friday.

Isabelle Lagace, 29, looked relieved when she learned her fate, according to Australian broadcaster 9News. She was facing a life sentence.

Judge Kate Traill read out Lagace's affidavit in court. Lagace expressed remorse for her "error in judgment."

"It pains me to know my defining moments of womanhood will be spent in prison halfway around the world," she said.

"This will haunt me for the rest of my life."

Lagace pleaded guilty in December. Counting the time she has already served behind bars, she will be eligible for parole in February 2021.

She and two other Quebecers, 64-year-old Andre Tamine and 23-year-old Melina Roberge, were arrested Aug. 29, 2016, after the cruise ship they were travelling on, Sea Princess, docked in Sydney.

Using sniffer dogs, Australian authorities discovered in their bags a total of 95 kilograms of cocaine. They estimate the street value of the drugs at at least $20 million.

Lagace and Roberge were allegedly transporting 35 kilograms and Tamine was allegedly transporting the rest.

The haul was Australia's largest seizure of narcotics carried by passengers of a cruise ship or airliner, according to the Australian Border Force.

The two women travelled together, shared a cabin and posted many pictures of the exotic destinations they visited on social media. It is still unclear how they are connected to Tamine.

Roberge alleges she knew nothing about the contents of the suitcase. She and Tamine will stand trial in February.
Women wear traditional gowns while waiting to march into the Kicukiro College of Technology football pitch April 5, 2014 in Kigali, Rwanda. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

When thinking of global leaders on gender equality, what countries come to mind? Iceland? Check, theyre at top of this years Global Gender Gap ranking. Canada? Not quite there yet. Rwanda?

You betcha.

In this annual report from the World Economic Forum, Rwanda ranked fourth out of 144 countries for having the smallest gap between men and women. Its the only African country that ranks in the top 10 (there are no North American countries in the top 10).

The report looked at four areas that contribute to gender inequality: health, education, economy and politics.

Rwanda is first globally for health and survival in 2017. They also ranked third for political empowerment, seventh in economic participation and opportunity and 113th for educational attainment. Since its first year on the ranking, it has closed 82 per cent of its gender gap. Its improvement is largely based on the narrowing of the gender wage gap, and the impressive number of women in parliament; 61 per cent of Rwandas parliamentarians are women, the highest percentage of anywhere in the world.

Canada, meanwhile, ranked 16th overall. It wasnt all bad news, though: Canada ranks first among all countries for educational attainment. It also ranked 20th for political empowerment, 29th for economic participation and opportunity, and a distant 105th for health and survival.

Even while coming in 16th, its a good-news story for Canada. The country climbed 19 ranks on the 2017 index, breaking into the top 20 for the first time. Trudeaus push for gender parity in his government helped substantially improve Canadas political empowerment score. Canada has closed 77 per cent of the gender gap since the start of the annual report, however that gap has actually increased by 3 per cent since 2015.

The low health and survival score comes from the healthy life expectancy of Canadians: the average live expectancy for women is 73.3 years and 71.3 years for men, putting Canada at 113th when it comes to global life expectancy. Because the survey weights the gap between how long a woman versus how long a man lives in the country, the narrow difference in lifespan, actually hurt Canadas rank.

Story continues

The United States ranked 49th overall, moving down four spots from last year.

Globally, it wasnt a good year for closing the gap between men and women.

Gender parity is shifting into reverse this year for the first time since the World Economic Forum started measuring it, writes Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman for the World Economic Forum.

According to the report, out of the 142 countries covered by the Index both this year and last year, 82 countries have increased their overall gender gap score compared to last year, while 60 have seen it decrease.

At the current rate which the gender pay gap is closing, for example, it will take 217 years for women to earn the same as men globally.

Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.




3D Printing

New U-M Tech Can Cut 3D Printing Time in Half

Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed an algorithm that can cut the time required to 3D print an object by as much as half.

As a 3D printer works, its moving parts cause vibration, which leads to errors in printing the object. The faster a machine prints, the more it vibrates and the larger the printing errors become.

"Armed with knowledge of the printer's dynamic behavior, the program anticipates when the printer may vibrate excessively and adjusts its motions accordingly," said Chinedum Okwudire, associate professor of mechanical engineering and director of U-M's Smart and Sustainable Automation Research Lab, in a prepared statement.

In a U Michigan news release, Okwudire pointed at recent comments by the CEO of XYZprinting, Simon Shen, who said that slow printing speed is one of the things keeping 3D-printing technology from finding a broader market.

"We're just waiting for the next evolution of the technology," Shen told TechCrunch last year. "If they can do it much faster, more precise and easier, that will bring more people to 3D printers. Not waiting for four to six hours for a print, but 40 to 60 minutes."

The software can be used on consumer 3D printers and even a variety of large industrial-grade printers, according to Okwudire, who said he'd like to integrate the algorithm with printer firmware in the future.

"Eventually, one of the places we would want to see the algorithm applied is in the firmware  the software that runs on the printer itself. That way, it will be integrated with the printers, regardless of the size."

A video explaining the software and showing it in action next to a standard print and a sped-up print without the advantage of the algorithm is available on YouTube.
PRABAL DOSTYK 2017: Indo  Kazakhstan Joint Exercise begins

Published: November 2, 2017

The bilateral military exercise PRABAL DOSTYK  2017 between India and Kazakhstan began at Bakloh, Himachal Pradesh. Prabal Dostyk means Robust Friendship

It is second edition of the joint military training exercise between both countries. The first edition of exercise was held in Karaganda region of Kazakhstan in September 2016.

Key Facts

The fourteen day joint training aims to build and promote bilateral army-to-army relations and exchange skills and experiences between Kazakhstan and the Indian Army. It also aims at enhancing military ties between two countries for achieving interoperability between two armies.

The exercise will help in strengthening ties between two countries and would serve as platform for exchange of drills and procedures leading to seamless interoperability. The training contingents comprise of platoon strength from the 11th Gorkha Rifles of Indian Army and similar strength of Kazakhstan Army.

The Indian troops participating in joint exercise have undergone extensive training in counter terrorism and low-intensity conflict operations at Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School, Vairengte, Mizoram.

Month: Current Affairs - November, 2017

Category: Defence Current Affairs

Topics: Defence  Himachal Pradesh  India-Kazakhstan  Indian Military Exercises  Military Exercises  PRABAL DOSTYK 2017

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Arkansas' highest court has ruled state prison officials must identify the manufacturer of one of the lethal injection drugs they plan to use to put a convicted murderer to death next week.





LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP)  The Latest on Arkansas' planned execution of convicted murderer Jack Greene on Nov. 9 (all times local):





1:25 p.m.





Arkansas' highest court has ruled state prison officials must identify the manufacturer of one of the lethal injection drugs they plan to use to put a convicted murderer to death next week.





The state Supreme Court on Thursday upheld part of a lower court's ruling ordering the Department of Correction to release the labels for its supply of midazolam, one of three drugs Arkansas uses in its lethal injection process. The court said the labels must be released, but said a Pulaski County judge must determine what identifying information other than the manufacturer can be withheld.





A Pulaski County judge in September ordered the state to release the labels without any information withheld, but justices halted that ordered while the state appealed. Arkansas law keeps the supplier of its execution drugs secret.





11:19 a.m.





A lawyer for an Arkansas death row inmate set for execution next week is telling a judge that the state's prisons director doesn't have the expertise to decide whether the man should live or die.





Jack Greene's lawyers say doctors should have a greater say on whether Greene understands why he is to be executed. Arkansas law gives the prisons chief's opinion considerable weight.





Television station KATV reported Greene and lawyer John Williams were in Jefferson County Circuit Court on Thursday hoping to stop the Nov. 9 execution. Assistant attorney general Kathryn Henry said any change in the law should come from legislators.





If Greene receives a lethal injection next week, it would be Arkansas' first execution since it put four men to death in an eight-day period in April.

 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!





"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

The Associated Press, November 2, 2017
In May 2014, a man stabbed four people to death and injured dozens on a Taipei train. He was executed on 10 May 2016  10 days before President Tsai Ing-wen assumed office. The pace of executions in Taiwan has waxed and waned over recent decades  after a nearly five-year pause in executions, 33 people were executed between 2010 and 2016. Today, the death penalty remains legal, popular and contentious.





Treason, piracy and serious drug offences are among the crimes for which courts may impose a death sentence, although the overwhelming majority of executions in the last decade have been for murder. Retention of the death penalty is permitted but discouraged under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Taiwan adopted as domestic law in 2009.





In January 2017, a group of independent human-rights experts invited by the Taiwanese government to review compliance expressed its strong regrets that there has been no progress in the abolition of capital punishment as the utmost form of corporal punishment. Since the adoption of the ICCPR, there have been procedural adjustments  such as requiring appellate sentencing hearings in all capital cases  and a concomitant drop in the number of death sentences finalised by the courts. But there has been no change in the governments basic position that the death penalty is legal.





The death penalty is also popular. A 2016 poll by the National Development Council found that nearly 88 per cent of the public were against its abolition. This high degree of public support is less surprising when viewed in light of the polls timing  it immediately followed a public outcry over the grisly murder of a four year old girl. But an earlier 2015 poll similarly found that over 80 per cent of people did not support abolition.





It is also hard to find any lawyers, judges or legal academics in Taiwan who expect this support to markedly decrease anytime soon. They hope to gradually increase public support for abolition by exploring accompanying reforms aimed at shoring up public safety, including the possibility of introducing life without parole.





Despite widespread support among the general public, the death penalty remains contentious in political circles. In 2016, a legislator proposed an amendment to the criminal law that would require the death penalty in most murder cases where the victim is a child. In contrast, at the 2016 European UnionTaiwan Human Rights Exchange Programme a group of legislators met with EU human rights experts to discuss possible alternative sentences to the death penalty.









The current Minister of Justice, Chiu Tai-san, has been circumspect in his public remarks, calling for dialogue between those in favour of and opposed to the death penalty. President Tsai too has avoided taking a clear public stance since taking office, though in 2015 she did remark that abolition of the death penalty required both a social consensus and comprehensive complementary measures, neither of which she saw present in Taiwan.









Tsais reluctance to push the death penalty into the spotlight is not surprising considering that her approval rating dipped below 30 per cent earlier this year. In addition, her political capital is already stretched thin with an ambitious agenda underway, including tackling controversial pension reform













As 2017 draws to a close, it appears likely that it will be an execution-free year in Taiwan. But there still remains a lack of momentum for outright abolition in the executive and legislative branches, and Taiwans Constitutional Court has not yet intimated that it might issue a decision rendering the practice unconstitutional. As such, the death penalty is expected to linger, experiencing periods of disuse disrupted by occasional executions. This enduring use of the death penalty remains a stain on Taiwans otherwise steadily improving record of championing international human rights norms.





Source: East Asia Forum , Margaret K Lewis, November 1, 2017. Margaret K Lewis is a Professor of Law at Seton Hall University and a Fulbright Senior Scholar at National Taiwan University College of Law.









 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com







Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!












By PTI: By Lalit K Jha

Washington, Nov 3 (PTI) The Senate today confirmed by a voice vote the nomination of Kenneth Juster as the next US Ambassador to India.

Juster, 62, is an old India hand who played a key role in the landmark Indo-US civil nuclear deal.

He would replace Richard Verma as the top American diplomat to India. The position has been lying vacant since January 20 after Verma resigned from the post with the swearing in of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States.

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The latest development follows Justers nomination confirmation which was on last Friday agreed by the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee by a voice vote, reflecting the bipartisan support his nomination has in the Congress.

Juster is soon expected to be headed to India for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Hyderabad later this month. The annual summit is being co-hosted by India and the United States.

Trumps senior adviser and daughter Ivanka Trump will be leading a high-powered American delegation of entrepreneurs to the GES, which will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Powerful Democratic Senator Mark Warner welcomed the Senate confirmation of Juster.

"I was proud to support Kens nomination to be our countrys representative in India, one of our most important defence partners in the region," he said.

"I have known Ken since we were in law school in the 1970s. As Ambassador, I trust his decades of work on critical issues like trade, cybersecurity and defence will help advance the US-India relationship in a positive direction," Warner said.

Juster was nominated to be the Ambassador to India on September 5. He has over 35 years of experience as a senior business executive, senior law partner, and senior government official, including serving as the US Under Secretary of Commerce from 2001 to 2005.

Juster founded and served as the US Chair of the US-India High Technology Cooperation Group, and was one of the key architects of the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership initiative between the United States and India.

His work related to India played an important role in the transformation of the US-India relationship and helped provide the foundation for the historic civil nuclear agreement between the two countries.

Most recently, Juster had served as the Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council.

Juster played a key role in enhancing the Indo-US ties under the Bush administration.

Juster has also served as the Counsellor (acting) of the State Department from 1992-1993, and deputy and senior adviser to the Deputy Secretary of State from 1989-1992.

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In the private sector, he has been a partner at the investment firm Warburg Pincus LLC, Executive Vice President at Salesforce.com, and senior partner at the law firm Arnold & Porter.

He has also served as Chairman of Harvard Universitys Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and as Vice Chairman of The Asia Foundation.

Juster holds a law degree from the Harvard Law School, a masters degree in Public Policy from the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and a bachelors degree in Government from Harvard College. PTI LKJ CK

--- ENDS ---
Its been 34 years since the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. At a ceremony honoring the 241 Americans who were killed during the mission to keep peace in that war-torn country, Vice President Mike Pence said that attack was the opening salvo in a war that we have waged ever since  the global war on terror.

Its a conflict that has taken American troops across the wider world from Lebanon to Libya, from Nigeria to Afghanistan, from Somalia to Iraq, and many other battlefields in between.

Vice President Pence called radical Islamic terrorism a hydra with many heads, which the Trump administration is committed to defeat.

Hezbollah is the terrorist organization which planned and perpetrated the Beirut attack. Under President Donald Trump, Mr. Pence said, the United States has redoubled efforts to cripple Hezbollahs terrorist network and bring its leaders to justice:

Our administration announced rewards for information leading to the location, arrest, and conviction of two of Hezbollahs senior-most leaders, including Fuad Shukr, one of the masterminds behind the bombing of the Marine Corps barracks.

But Hezbollah is merely a proxy for the leading state sponsor of terrorism, said Vice President Pence. And President Donald Trump has put Iran on notice that we will no longer toleratetheir support of terrorism.

As the President often says, he has no higher priority than the safety and security of the American people, and we will fight tirelessly to defeat the specter of radical Islamic terror no matter where it rears its ugly head.

That also means in Afghanistan, U.S. forces will remain engaged in the fight against the Taliban and all terrorist groups, until the menace to our homeland is eliminated; and beyond the hard won victories in Iraq and Syria, the U.S. will continue to hunt down and destroy ISIS at its source, so it can no longer threaten our people, our allies and our way of life.

The war on terror began 34 years ago, said Vice President Pence. And brave Americans, continue the fight. We honor their service and sacrifice renew[ing] our pledge thatthe sacrifice we remember today will not have been in vain. And as a nation, we resolve that under the leadership of President Donald Trump, we will drive the cancer of terrorism from the face of the Earth.
A screen grab of Carles Puigdemont's speech on TV3.

Carles Puigdemont, the former Catalan premier who was ousted along with the rest of his cabinet over their illegal declaration of independence from Spain, berated the Spanish state that attacks with runaway fury after watching several of his ministers being taken into custody following their appearance before a High Court judge who is investigating them for sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds.

Behind bars, my government is infinitely more free than their deluded jailers Former Catalan premier Carles Puigdemont

Speaking from Belgium, where he took refuge on Monday, Puigdemont criticized the decision to jail his former deputy, Oriol Junqueras, and eight more officials  although one of them, former business department chief Santi Vila, currently in Estremera prison in Madrid, on Friday morning posted the bail that will allow him to avoid pre-trial detention.

In a message that was aired on the Catalan public station TV3, Puigdemont, who is depicting himself as the head of a government in exile, demanded the immediate release of his former ministers, and asked the Catalan people to fight this most serious attack on democracy serenely and without violence.

Around 20,000 people protested the imprisonment on Thursday evening in front of the regional assembly, according to the Barcelona police force. The demonstration was organized by ANC and Omnium, two civic associations that have worked actively towards secession, and whose leaders, Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart, are themselves in preventive custody in connection with the illegal independence referendum of October 1.

Prosecutors on Thursday also began legal proceedings to issue an international arrest warrant for Puigdemont, who failed to show up at the Audiencia Nacional, Spains central High Court, to testify in the sedition case. The former premier was first thought to be seeking asylum in Belgium to avoid legal action by the Spanish courts, although he later denied that claim. He has retained the services of a Belgian lawyer with experience deflecting extradition requests for members of the Basque terrorist group ETA.

A man protests the pre-trial detention of former Catalan ministers on Thursday; the banners behind read: Freedom for the political prisoners. ALBERT GARCIA

Puigdemont is at an undisclosed location in Brussels, and spoke before the cameras inside what appeared to be a hotel room. Using passionate rhetoric  behind bars, my government is infinitely more free than their deluded jailers  he continued to depict the courts actions against the unconstitutional secession bid as an attack against democracy, and insisted that there is no separation of powers in Spain.

Despite the lack of international support for the Catalan republic  EU Council President Donald Tusk has said that Spain continues to be the EUs interlocutor  Puigdemont is attempting to internationalize his cause by claiming that it is Spain that is acting outside the rule of law.

Although EU institutions have issued no statements, leaders of nationalist parties criticized the events of Thursday. Jailing democratically elected leaders is going too far, said Geert Bourgeois, head of the Flanders region of Belgium. Meanwhile, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, who heads a fragile coalition of liberals and nationalists, has asked his government members to keep quiet about the Catalan crisis.

December 21

Puigdemont also described the move to jail the former officials as a coup against the December 21 election.

The election was set by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy using emergency powers allowing the central government to adopt measures to force a breakaway region to obey national legislation. These measures were green-lighted by the Spanish Senate on the same day that 70 separatist deputies in the 135-seat Catalan parliament approved a document declaring independence and paving the way for a separate republic. Most of the opposition walked out in protest over an act that violated the Spanish Constitution and the Catalan Statute of Autonomy.

Puigdemont described the move to jail the former officials as a coup against the December 21 election

Just one day earlier, intense behind-the-scenes negotiations had nearly produced an agreement by which Puigdemont, still in power, would call early elections himself, and Rajoy would not invoke Article 155 of the Constitution.

The talks ultimately failed, and the separatist deputies went ahead with their unilateral declaration. The move triggered a demonstration by hundreds of thousands of supporters of unity on Sunday, underscoring the rift in Catalan society over the issue of independence.

English version by Susana Urra.
Former members of the Catalan government, who have now been incarcerated, on Thursday at the High Court. Luis Sevillano Arribas (EL PAIS)

It is easy to understand why the placement in pre-trial custody of half of the sacked Catalan government would cause concern, given the logical desire shared by most to see normality return as soon as possible. But at this serious moment in time it is worth remembering that the only people responsible for the fact that the justice system has reacted in such a forceful manner are the politicians and civic leaders, who, as part of a well-organized civil coup plot, have been repeatedly and deliberately breaking the law. The only people responsible for the fact that the justice system is  already unavoidably  participating in the campaign for the December 21 regional elections are those alleged to have committed extremely serious crimes.

This is not about sending politicians to prison for their ideas; is about repeated failure to comply with the Constitutional Court

The writ from High Court judge Carmen Lamela leaves almost no room for doubt about the obstinate and recidivist crimes of those who, skirting around the law, were already proposing a well-planned road map toward independence as far back as 2015. This is not about sending politicians to prison for their ideas, as some are arguing. Rather, this is about repeated failure to comply with Constitutional Court rulings against the laws the independence movement has been passing. The suspects have not hesitated in stirring up social unrest, aimed at, as the legal writ states, generating political and economic instability to force the [Spanish] state to accept negotiations on separation.

The principle that states the the worse things are, the better they are is going to be the motto of choice for pro-separatist forces in the upcoming election campaign. The secessionist bloc has not hesitated to disparage Spain (a country it wants to destroy) sowing doubt about the independence of the Spanish judicial system and describing the pro-independence civic leaders Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart  necessary agitators in their independence plan  as political prisoners. The eight politicians that the judge has now sent to prison are not the first to suffer from being jailed in this country. It is worth remembering that many of those who have ended up behind bars in the past belong to the Popular Party (PP) of the government of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, which proves that the judicial system is, indeed, independent. Politicians cannot avoid the full force of the law as spelled out in the Spanish Penal Code.

Paradoxically, the forcefulness of the justice system plays into the hands of the independence cause and its logic of victim-hood, but it is essential to understand that the wheels of justice turn at a speed that is independent of politics, and there is no other option in a democracy than to comply. Only politics will be able to solve the Catalan crisis permanently; but politics and democracy are not possible without justice, and without respect for the application of the full weight of the law.

Spains democratic system cannot allow itself to be intimidated by the thuggish threats of the Catalan independence movement

The dramatic denouement of the judicial process highlights the extreme situation in which we find ourselves. Even so, there should be no room for fear. Spains democratic system cannot allow itself to be intimidated by the thuggish threats of the Catalan independence movement, which is always airing the possibility of a massive and violent revolt against the decisions made within the framework of the rule of law. The former Catalan premier Artur Mas resorted to this strategy again when, outside the High Court, he warned: The more gasoline you throw on the fire, the bigger it gets.

These are threats that are now backfiring on the suspects, in that they point to the possible crime of rebellion of which they are being accused. As Judge Lamela points out, inciting the tumultuous protests involving the use of brute force  like those seen September 21, when police searches were being carried out ahead of the illegal independence referendum  could constitute a crime. If there is good will and if the new reality is accepted, there will be no conflict between police forces, Catalan interior minister Joaquim Forn went as far as saying after October 1, in statements included in the judicial writ.

We can expect a difficult period ahead in which we must ensure we are not dragged along by the crude dynamic of Puigdemont and his followers. A democracy that has demonstrated its maturity in this crisis cannot let itself be intimidated by the boasts of politicians who are prepared to destroy legal order. It should be even less intimidated by legal rulings in line with the law, no matter how inopportune they appear in the context of high political tension.

We must ensure we are not dragged along by the crude dynamic of Puigdemont and his followers

Carles Puigdemont and his ministers are also responsible for this political and social tension; they have ignored the fact they were sacked and have defied the Spanish state since Saturday, acting as if they were still in power. The ex-president Puigdement is, in addition, doubly responsible in as much as the judge has taken into account his ridiculous flight to Belgium by ordering pre-trial custody for the rest of his government on the basis they pose a flight risk.

Former minister Santi Vila was clear-sighted enough to resign so that he would not see himself involved in the universal declaration of independence. This is why he is receiving different treatment and has been able to pay bail to avoid pre-trial custody. The other ministers could have copied him by resigning or calling elections, as was offered to them insistently. But they preferred to continue, in full knowledge of the gravity of the crimes they were committing, and now we are mired in a serious political and judicial problem that politicians will have to deal with as intelligently as possible.

English version by George Mills.
Bank of Spain governor Luis Linde. EFE

The Bank of Spain is warning about the medium-term economic consequences of the ongoing political tension in Catalonia.

In a report analyzing the risk to Spains financial stability, the central bank said that the economy could lose between 0.3 and 2.5 points of GDP in two years, representing between 3 billion and more than 27 billion.

In a worst-case scenario, up to 60% of all projected growth for 2018 and 2019 could evaporate into thin air, reads the Financial Stability Report, which was released on Thursday.

The Bank of Spain notes that these are all hypothetical scenarios

Catalonia runs the risk of getting the worst of it and entering a full-blown recession.

A potential heightening, or prolongation, of the political situation might adversely impact the economic outlook and financial stability in Spain, says the report. Greater uncertainty might dent economic agents confidence and thereby affect their spending and investment decisions, subsequently exerting a negative impact on economic activity and employment.

The report also underscores the political tension in Catalonia and its potential repercussions for funding conditions on the capital markets and for the Spanish economy as a whole.

To date, says the report, the effect of the political tensions in Catalonia have been visible especially on the financial markets: In addition to global risk factors, the Spanish financial markets are exposed to other specific risks and, in particular, to those relating to political tensions in Catalonia.

Catalonia runs the risk of getting the worst of it and entering a full-blown recession

But the effects could extend to household spending, corporate investment, hiring decisions and financing conditions. In the medium term, says the Bank of Spain, the macroeconomic impact of the current situation of uncertainty will depend both on its intensity and its duration.

Analysts considered two scenarios. The most benign one sees the worst of the uncertainty ending by year-end, when fresh elections are scheduled to be held. The accumulated cost to the economy would be three-tenths of a point, or around 3 billion, for the 2018-2019 period.

But there is a harsher scenario in which the Catalan conflict persists throughout the next two years, creating a situation similar to the beginning of the economic crisis in 2008, or when Spain was on the brink of a bailout in 2012.

Greater uncertainty might dent economic agents confidence

This latter scenario would entail a reduction of almost 60% of the growth considered in the baseline scenario for the Spanish economy as a whole, and a recession in the Catalan economy for much of the horizon analyzed, says the report.

The Bank of Spain notes that these are all hypothetical scenarios that depend on a set of assumptions, and should not be construed as growth forecasts. But in any event, they serve to evidence the significant economic risks and costs of the situation caused by the independence initiatives in Catalonia.

The Bank of Spain was the first institution to warn that political instability in Catalonia could harm consumption, investment and financing conditions.

English version by Susana Urra.
The Kremlin has set its sights on Catalonia. The gigantic strategy of digital destabilization undertaken by Moscow, and which reached its zenith at the last US elections, has now made its mark on the secessionist conflict in Spain . Thats according to two members of the Intelligence Committee of the United States Senate, who addressed this interference at hearings with representatives from Facebook, Twitter and Google.

Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, from left to right: Vice-president and legal representative for Facebook, Colin Stretch; Twitter representative, Sean Edgett; and Google representative, Kent Walker. ALEX WONG (AFP)

We know the Russians were involved in the French election. We know that they were involved in the German elections. We are now learning they were involved in the separation of Spain, said the independent senator from Maine, Angus S. King.

We know the Russians were involved in the French and German elections. We are now learning they were involved in the separation of Spain US Senator Angus S. King

The machinery of Russian interference has no limits. The investigations opened in the United States as a result of the Kremlin campaign against Hillary Clinton are uncovering a global game of intoxication and chaos. The best-known case to date was the US elections in 2016. The ICA 2017-01D report from the National Intelligence Council established that Vladimir Putin had ordered a strategy to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton and harm her electability and potential presidency. To this end, according to the report signed by the CIA, the NSA and the FBI, Moscow orchestrated covert intelligence operations  such as cyber activity  with overt efforts by Russian government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users, or trolls.

This meddling machine was seen in the German elections, Brexit, the French elections and also, as revealed by an EL PAIS investigation, in Catalonia. Russia denies any involvement. But the Russian machine encouraged the independence movement and stirred discord through a complex network of biased content.

The effects of this operation fuel radical discontent, both inside and outside the affected country. Platforms as aggressive and conspiratorial as the American sties Infowars or Breitbart, the latter headed up by the former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon, have not been reluctant to join the campaign and publish articles with a high degree of distortion. EU attacks brutalized Catalan voters for mounting nationalist coup against Europe, read one of its headlines.

The controversy has now reached Facebook, Google and Twitter. The Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Senator King and Senator Martin Heinrich from New Mexico, looked at where their responsibilities lie and what measures have been taken to stop the dissemination of information about the Catalan operation.

The effects of this operation fuel radical discontent, both in the affected country and outside it

You operate global platforms and there are reliable sources that report that similar operations [to the US] may be happening, for example, in Catalonia. What are you doing, right now, to ensure that your platforms are not used to generate division around the world to weaken Western democracies? And in particular, with the case of Catalonia, are you aware of what happened there? asked Democratic Senator Heinrich.

As was the case throughout the hearing, only general responses were received. The legal representative for Facebook said that they focus on preventing this kind of abuse on their platform, particularly with elections, including in Catalonia. The spokesman for Twitter did not go any further, by answering affirmatively but asking for time to collect data. Google said it lacked the data to answer as well. Queried yesterday by this newspaper, none of the companies offered any more details.

The senators expressed their displeasure at the representatives who had been sent by the companies to the hearing, and stressed that they wished to speak with the actual decision-makers. I would like to ask you who takes the decisions, said Senator King.

The calm responses from the social network firms contrasts with the magnitude of the problem detected. The Russian network, according to the companies themselves, has managed to publish more than a thousand videos on YouTube, control 2,752 Twitter accounts and reach 126 million Facebook users in the US. And it is an active operation. Their involvement has been seen in the recent controversy over the protests by African American players in the NFL.

Russia uses all kinds of conflicts to achieve its goal of weakening Western democracies

The exposed operation is enormous. The Alliance for Ensuring Democracy, a platform from the German Marshall Fund, follows the phenomenon closely by tracking Twitter accounts, and has presented a report to the Senate detailing how Moscow has developed a system of comprehensive intervention.

The report references Russian interference on various online platforms. It discovered links between some YouTube and Facebook accounts but maintains that unless they share their data it will be impossible to understand the extent and impact of this meddling machine.

The material used in this strategy is not just political. The spokesman for the Alliance, Brett Schafer, says that all kinds of conflicts are used to achieve its goal of weakening Western democracies.

English version by Debora Almeida.
By PTI: (Eds: Updating with fresh inputs and background)

By Lalit K Jha

Washington, Nov 3 (PTI) Kenneth Juster, a top economic expert on India, was today unanimously confirmed by the Senate as the next US Ambassador to New Delhi, filling a key position as the two countries push forward their strategic ties.

Juster, 62, is an old India hand who played a key role in developing the landmark Indo-US civil nuclear deal.

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He would replace Indian-American Richard Verma as the top American diplomat to India. The position has been lying vacant since January 20 after Verma resigned from the post after the swearing in of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the US.

Justers nomination confirmation on last Friday agreed by the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee by a voice vote, reflecting the bipartisan support for him in Congress.

His appointment comes at a time when President Donald Trump sees an important role for India in South Asia. While announcing his new South Asia policy, Trump had said, "We will develop a deeper strategic partnership with India, but we want them to help us more in Afghanistan."

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson during a major India- policy speech before his visit to India had said the US was Indias "reliable partner" at the world stage in this period of uncertainty and angst.

He had said the emerging Delhi-Washington strategic partnership stands upon a shared commitment upholding the rule of law, freedom of navigation, universal values and free trade.

Powerful Democratic Senator Mark Warner welcomed the Senate confirmation of Juster.

"I was proud to support Kens nomination to be our countrys representative in India, one of our most important defence partners in the region," he said.

"I have known Ken since we were in law school in the 1970s. As Ambassador, I trust his decades of work on critical issues like trade, cybersecurity and defence will help advance the US-India relationship in a positive direction," Warner said.

Juster was nominated to be the Ambassador to India on September 5. He has over 35 years of experience as a senior business executive, senior law partner, and senior government official, including serving as the US Under Secretary of Commerce from 2001 to 2005.

Juster is soon expected to visit India for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Hyderabad later this month. The annual summit is being co-hosted by India and the United States.

Trumps senior adviser and daughter Ivanka Trump will be leading a high-powered American delegation of entrepreneurs to the GES, which will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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Juster founded and served as the US Chair of the US-India High Technology Cooperation Group, and was one of the key architects of the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership initiative between the United States and India.

His work related to India played an important role in the transformation of the US-India relationship and helped provide the foundation for the historic civil nuclear agreement between the two countries.

Most recently, Juster had served as the Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council.

Juster played a key role in enhancing the Indo-US ties under the Bush administration.

Juster has also served as the Counsellor (acting) of the State Department from 1992-1993, and deputy and senior adviser to the Deputy Secretary of State from 1989-1992.

In the private sector, he has been a partner at the investment firm Warburg Pincus LLC, Executive Vice President at Salesforce.com, and senior partner at the law firm Arnold & Porter.

He has also served as Chairman of Harvard Universitys Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs, and as Vice Chairman of The Asia Foundation.

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Juster holds a law degree from the Harvard Law School, a masters degree in Public Policy from the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and a bachelors degree in Government from Harvard College. PTI LKJ CK NSA

--- ENDS ---
Carles Puigdemonts press conference in Brussels earlier this week. YVES HERMAN (REUTERS)

High Court Judge Carmen Lamela has issued a national and international arrest warrant for former Catalan premier Carles Puigdemont, who is currently in Brussels. As well as the ex-president of the northeastern Spanish region, the order also seeks the detention of four of his former ministers in the Catalan government, who are also in Belgium, and all of whom ignored a judicial order to appear in the national court this week on charges of rebellion, sedition and misappropriation of funds related to the Catalan secessionist drive.

The warrant seeks the detention of Puigdemont, Antoni Comin (ex-health minister), Clara Ponsati (education), Meritxell Serret (agriculture) and Lluis Puig (culture).

Disproportionate measures have been adopted

Santi Vila, former Catalan business chief

In her writ, Judge Lamela states that Puigdemont took advantage of his role at the head of the Catalan government to hold an independence referendum to achieve the secession of Catalonia within Spain, together with other authorities, public servants and public and private Catalan institutions. To do so, they promoted and used intimidating and violent force from the pro-independence sectors of the population, calling for insurrection and challenging the constitutional order.

The Belgian prosecutor has stated that it will take action to apprehend Carles Puigdemont as soon as it receives the European order

From Brussels, ousted Catalan premier Carles Puigdemont has been decrying Spains attacks against democracy and stating that there is no separation of powers in the country. On Friday, Spanish government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo defended this separation, and underscored that the only goal behind its removal of the governing team in Catalonia is to restore constitutional order as soon as possible.

Separatist councilors in Barcelona demanding freedom for "political prisoners." Quique Garcia (EFE)

Earlier in the day, the High Court dismissed an appeal to release the leaders of two Catalan civic associations who are in pre-trial detention over their role in a Barcelona protest where demonstrators vandalized Civil Guard patrol cars.

Jordi Sanchez, the head of the National Catalan Assembly (ANC), and Jordi Cuixart, the head of Omnium Cultural, have been in custody since October 16 in connection with a criminal probe over the events of September 20, when an angry crowd congregated outside a building where the Civil Guard was conducting a raid ahead of the October 1 illegal independence referendum in the region.

This is a time for generosity. Let us seek solutions, not battles or reproaches

Marta Pascal, PDeCAT

Meanwhile, the former head of the Catalan business department, Santi Vila, on Friday walked out of a Madrid prison where he had spent one night after posting bail of 50,000. He was the only one of a group of nine former Catalan government members to be offered a chance to avoid preventive custody.

The others, including ex-deputy premier Oriol Junqueras, have been sent to various Madrid penitentiaries after the judge ruled they are a high flight risk. They all face charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds over their push to secede from Spain.

Speaking to the media following his release, Vila asked political parties to mediate in the conflict between Madrid and Barcelona.

Spanish government spokesman Inigo Mendez De Vigo during a Friday press conference. @ Julian Rojas (EL PAIS)

Disproportionate measures have been adopted. I am convinced that most democrats of the world do not understand this, he said. I urge all political parties in Spain, appealing to their democratic values, to end this terrible situation that has put politicians in prison. Were not going to solve this inside the courts.

Vila resigned his position one day before 70 separatist deputies voted in favor of a document declaring independence and paving the way for a Catalan republic. His resignation illustrated his disagreement with former premier Carles Puigdemonts last-minute decision to push ahead with the unconstitutional declaration, instead of calling early elections in the region.

Now, Vila wants to run as a candidate for the moderate wing of the Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT) in the December 21 election, which was called last week by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in a bid to restore normality to the region.

New election

Also on Friday, Minister Mendez de Vigo added that jailed Catalan officials may still participate in the December 21 ballot. As long as there is no final court judgment, everyones civil rights are intact and they may run in elections, he said.

Despite rejecting the Spanish Constitution in their independence declaration last Friday, separatist parties have accepted the new election set by Madrid, and are considering their options for a joint bid.

PDeCAT and the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) have been partners in Catalonias governing coalition Junts pel Si since the 2015 election, when they secured 48% of the vote and 62 seats. Marta Pascal, the PDeCAT coordinator, said on Friday that her party wants to run with ERC again, but the latter so far seems more inclined to go it alone.

This is a time for generosity. Let us seek solutions, not battles or reproaches, she said, suggesting disagreement within the pro-independence movement.

The National Statistics Institute has published the voter census for December 21. A total of 5,553,983 people will have the right to vote, of whom 224,844 are residents abroad.

English version by Susana Urra.
Islamic Republics Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has called the latest CIA release of Al-Qaida files, showing connections between Iran and the militant group, fake news and selective.

The Central Intelligence Agency on Wednesday released 470,000 additional files found in May 2011 when U.S. Navy SEALs killed Bin Laden in Pakistan.

According to experts at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who were allowed to see the files before they were released, the material revealed more details about ties between the Sunni extremist group and Shiite Iran.

The files show there was some sort of an agreement that if Al-Qaida attacked American targets in the Middle East, it could receive arms and money from Iran and training in Hezbollah military bases.

Last month, CIA Director Mike Pompeo had promised to release documents about Iran and Al-Qaida relations for the public to see.

On Thursday, Zarif dismissed the documents by calling them fake news in a tweet, adding that the U.S. cant whitewash role of US allies in 9/11, in an apparent reference to Saudi Arabia.

In the years since the 9/11 attacks, media reports have surfaced alleging that members of Osama Bin-Ladens Family visited or lived in Iran and some members of the extremist group were allowed to travel through Iran.
BEIRUT, Nov 3 (Reuters) - A senior U.S. official met Syria's national security chief in Damascus this week in the highest ranking visit to Syria by a U.S. official since the start of the war in 2011, a senior regional official close to Damascus told Reuters on Friday.

The Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar first reported the visit earlier on Friday, saying that the U.S. official discussed security matters including Americans missing in Syria. Among them are operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The regional official did not name the U.S. official who met Ali Mamlouk, Syria's national security chief. "It is an important step, but Damascus does not have confidence in the American position," the regional official said.

The U.S. official traveled to Damascus via Lebanon.

The United States has supported the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian war. It has provided anti-Assad rebels with weapons via a CIA-run military aid program that President Donald Trump ordered shut down earlier this year.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last week reiterated the U.S. position that Assad should leave power, saying the "reign of the Assad family is coming to an end" and "the only issue is how that should be brought about".

With military backing from Russia and Iran, Assad has recovered control of swathes of lost Syrian territory over the last two years and appears militarily unassailable.

U.S. forces have been fighting in Syria as part of the coalition against Islamic State, helping Kurdish-led militias capture Raqqa and other parts of northern and eastern Syria.

During the meeting, Mamlouk protested to the U.S. official that U.S. forces "are on Syrian land and this is considered occupation", the regional official said.

The U.S. official responded that "our presence is advisory and we are fighting Daesh", the regional official added, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. Syrian government officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

Trend:

Over the past 24 hours, Armenias armed forces have 119 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Nov. 3.

The Armenian armed forces were using heavy machine guns.

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.
Details added (first version posted on 11:47)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

Trend:

Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group are working actively on the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a meeting with OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger in Moscow Nov. 3.

Lavrov noted that the joint work is very important in the settlement of conflicts.

Greminger, for his part, expressed confidence that such an international inclusive security organization as the OSCE can prevent crises from turning into conflicts and confront transnational challenges.

This has never been more important and apparent than today, he noted.

This is why I have made it my mission to reinvigorate the OSCE as the essential forum for security dialogue in the Euroatlantic and Eurasian space, added the OSCE secretary general.

I intend to work and try to build a positive unifying agenda, added Greminger.

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.
Details added (first version posted at 13:15)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.3

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

Russia is interested in the effectiveness of the OSCEs work in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a joint press conference with OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger in Moscow Nov. 3.

Russia is interested in the OSCEs more active and effective work in the Transnistrian direction, in what concerns the Geneva discussions on stability in the Transcaucasia and in the Balkans. We also point out that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, along with the sides, play main role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict's settlement, he said.

Greminger, for his part, noted the necessity to re-establish dialogue in the OSCE space, adding this will require the sincere efforts of all parties.

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, Nov. 2

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received a delegation of Montenegro led by Minister of Foreign Affairs Srdjan Darmanovic.

The head of state said that the two countries have very good ties covering various spheres, a high-level cooperation format.

President Aliyev recalled with satisfaction his visit to Montenegro, as well as the visits of president and prime minister of Montenegro to Azerbaijan, and spoke about mutual visit of various ministers and other officials and emphasized the importance of all these visits in terms of developing bilateral cooperation.

The president said that the two countries cooperate in various spheres, including economy, energy, investments, trade and tourism.

Touching upon the memorandum of cooperation in the energy sphere, signed between Azerbaijan and Montenegro, President Aliyev spoke about the successful work being carried out in this field and expressed hope that the memorandum will be very useful from this point of view.

He said that Azerbaijan and Montenegro have developed tourism infrastructure, and there is a need for an even greater inflow of tourists in both directions.

Minister Darmanovic, for his part, said that this is his first visit to Azerbaijan, noting that the success achieved by the country in a short period made a deep impression on him.

The minister noted that he is proud of visiting the monument to the national leader Heydar Aliyev in the Alley of Honor, and stressed that the great leader played a big role in the development of Azerbaijan.

Darmanovic added that President Ilham Aliyev successfully continues the national leaders policy and has achieved rapid development of the country.

President Aliyev expressed confidence that the Montenegrin ministers visit to Baku will be significant in terms of gaining more impressions about Azerbaijan.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

Trend:

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has congratulated Shinzo Abe on his re-election as Japanese prime minister.

President Aliyev expressed satisfaction with the current level of development of the Azerbaijan-Japan relations.

The head of state also expressed hope that the two sides will continue efforts to further strengthen the friendly ties between the two countries and their peoples, and expand mutual effective cooperation.

I wish you robust health, happiness, continuous success in activities for prosperity of the friendly Japanese people, said President Aliyev in his congratulatory letter.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

By Elchin Mehdiyev  Trend:

Exchange of views on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict's settlement at the Tehran meeting was important for Azerbaijan, MP Hikmat Babaoglu told Trend Nov. 3.

"One of the most important things for Azerbaijan at the trilateral meeting of the Azerbaijani, Iranian and Russian presidents, held Nov. 1 in Tehran, was the exchange of views on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and, most importantly, the reflection of this issue in the final declaration of the meeting," Babaoglu said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

The Tehran declaration says the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh issue is an obstacle to regional integration, the MP noted. It is also stressed that the issue should be resolved based on the decisions made so far on international level. This is an extremely important detail, as the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council regarding the conflicts settlement call for the withdrawal of Armenian occupation forces from Azerbaijan.

The MP added that a number of important issues related to economy, transportation, combating terrorism and drug trafficking, and others were also discussed at the meeting.
By PTI: (Eds: Updating with fresh inputs)

By Lalit K Jha

Washington, Nov 3 (PTI) Kenneth Juster, a top economic expert on India, was today unanimously confirmed by the Senate as the next US Ambassador to New Delhi, filling a key position as the two countries push forward their strategic ties.

Juster, 62, is an old India hand who played a key role in developing the landmark Indo-US civil nuclear deal.

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He will replace Indian-American Richard Verma as the top American diplomat to India. The position has been lying vacant since January 20 after Verma resigned from the post after the swearing in of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the US.

Justers nomination confirmation on last Friday agreed by the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee by a voice vote, reflecting the bipartisan support for him in Congress.

His appointment comes at a time when President Donald Trump sees an important role for India in South Asia. While announcing his new South Asia policy, Trump had said, "We will develop a deeper strategic partnership with India, but we want them to help us more in Afghanistan."

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson during a major India- policy speech before his visit to India had said the US was Indias "reliable partner" at the world stage in this period of uncertainty and angst.

He had said the emerging Delhi-Washington strategic partnership stands upon a shared commitment upholding the rule of law, freedom of navigation, universal values and free trade.

Powerful Democratic Senator Mark Warner welcomed the Senate confirmation of Juster.

"I was proud to support Kens nomination to be our countrys representative in India, one of our most important defence partners in the region," he said.

"I have known Ken since we were in law school in the 1970s. As Ambassador, I trust his decades of work on critical issues like trade, cybersecurity and defence will help advance the US-India relationship in a positive direction," Warner said.

Juster was nominated to be the Ambassador to India on September 5. He has over 35 years of experience as a senior business executive, senior law partner, and senior government official, including serving as the US Under Secretary of Commerce from 2001 to 2005.

Juster is soon expected to visit India for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Hyderabad later this month. The annual summit is being co-hosted by India and the United States.

Trumps senior adviser and daughter Ivanka Trump will be leading a high-powered American delegation of entrepreneurs to the GES, which will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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Juster founded and served as the US Chair of the US-India High Technology Cooperation Group, and was one of the key architects of the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership initiative between the United States and India.

His work related to India played an important role in the transformation of the US-India relationship and helped provide the foundation for the historic civil nuclear agreement between the two countries.

Most recently, Juster had served as the Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council.

Juster played a key role in enhancing the Indo-US ties under the Bush administration.

Juster has also served as the Counsellor (acting) of the State Department from 1992-1993, and deputy and senior adviser to the Deputy Secretary of State from 1989-1992.

In the private sector, he has been a partner at the investment firm Warburg Pincus LLC, Executive Vice President at Salesforce.com, and senior partner at the law firm Arnold & Porter.

He has also served as Chairman of Harvard Universitys Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs, and as Vice Chairman of The Asia Foundation.

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Juster holds a law degree from the Harvard Law School, a masters degree in Public Policy from the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and a bachelors degree in Government from Harvard College.

Top American lawmakers and corporate leaders applauded the confirmation of Juster as the next US Ambassador to India.

"Congratulations to Ken Juster, confirmed to be US Ambassador to India. Good news for US-India ties!? said Nisha Desai Biswal, president of US India Business Council and former Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia.

Juster was a USIBC board member earlier.

Former envoy Verma tweeted, "Congratulations Ambassador Juster!?

"There is no better person for the job, and his confirmation comes at a critical time when India, the worlds largest democracy, is a vital partner for the US in geo- political, defence, and business relations," said Mukesh Aghi, president of US India Strategic and Partnership Forum (USISPF).

The USISPF in a statement applauded the Senate for confirming Juster as the new US Ambassador to India. PTILKJ CK NSA PMS

--- ENDS ---
Details added (first version posted on 11:00)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received a delegation led by head of the France-Azerbaijan Friendship Group at the National Assembly of the French Republic Pierre-Alain Raphan.

The head of state congratulated Pierre-Alain Raphan on his election to the French parliament and expressed satisfaction with the fact that he leads the France-Azerbaijan Friendship Group.

The visit of Pierre-Alain Raphan to Azerbaijan creates a good opportunity for better acquaintance with the country, said President Aliyev.

Touching upon bilateral relations, the head of state noted that the French-Azerbaijani relations are at a very high level today, and cooperation in political, economic, energy and infrastructure spheres gives good results.

President Aliyev stressed the importance of activities of many French companies in Azerbaijan over many years.

The head of state said that France, as co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, also plays its role in the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

However, the Armenian lobby disseminates fictitious and false information about Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh in various countries and tries to mislead the international community and prevent a fair resolution of the conflict, added the president.

Having said that the agenda of Azerbaijan-France bilateral relations is quite extensive, President Aliyev noted with certainty that these ties will become even stronger in the coming years.

Pierre-Alain Raphan, for his part, said that he is proud of meeting with President Ilham Aliyev in Baku, and feels joy of leading the France-Azerbaijan Friendship Group.

All of us, including French President Emmanuel Macron, want the French-Azerbaijani relations to rise to an even higher level, he noted.

Pierre-Alain Raphan noted the need for further efforts to strengthen political, economic and cultural ties between the two countries.

He also stressed the importance of bringing the realities about Azerbaijan to the attention of French society. Touching upon the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Pierre-Alain Raphan said that France is committed to the resolutions existing in connection with the settlement of the conflict.

The two sides also exchanged views on cooperation in the spheres of space industry, construction, transportation, water management, metro, railway, military-technical and others.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

Trend:

The goal is to make the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway economically attractive, said Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev in an interview with Euronews TV channel following the landmark ceremony to inaugurate the rail line in Baku Oct. 30.

Euronews presented a story in its Focus program about the opening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. The TV channels correspondent interviewed the presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkey and the prime minister of Georgia.

There is no shorter way between Asia and Europe, Ilham Aliyev told Euronews. Our goal for the future is to agree on tariffs to make it economically attractive. In the long-term, the volume of cargo will grow, and of course this means big profits, big revenues, new jobs and cooperation.

The projects implementation is an historic event, said the president.

This railway connects continents, Eurasia. This is a shooter way between Asia and Europe. Azerbaijan together with Turkey and Georgia actively participated in its construction, noted President Aliyev.

He added that the participation of Turkish, Georgian, Kazakh, Uzbek friends, prime ministers, ministers from Turkmenistan, Tajikistan in the opening ceremony once again proves how important the project is.

This railway will bring stability, prosperity, development to the whole region, said the Azerbaijani president.

We expect a gradual growth of cargo transportation up to 17 million tons through the territory of Azerbaijan via this route, noted President Aliyev responding to the question about expectations and strategic tasks.

I think that this route is of economic importance. This route will be used by all countries located along it, because, I repeat, this is the shortest way. Therefore, we will work together on it, added Ilham Aliyev.
Details added (first version posted on 14:40)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

Trend:

Future goal is to make the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway economically attractive, said Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev in an interview with Euronews TV channel following the landmark ceremony to inaugurate the rail line in Baku Oct. 30.

Euronews presented a story in its Focus program about the opening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. The TV channels correspondent interviewed the presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkey and the prime minister of Georgia.

There is no shorter way between Asia and Europe, Ilham Aliyev told Euronews. Our goal for the future is to agree on tariffs to make it economically attractive. In the long-term, the volume of cargo will grow, and of course this means big profits, big revenues, new jobs and cooperation.

The projects implementation is an historic event, said the president.

This railway connects continents, Eurasia. This is a shooter way between Asia and Europe. Azerbaijan together with Turkey and Georgia actively participated in its construction, noted President Aliyev,

He added that the participation of Turkish, Georgian, Kazakh, Uzbek friends, prime ministers, ministers from Turkmenistan, Tajikistan in the opening ceremony once again proves how important the project is.

This railway will bring stability, prosperity, development to the whole region, said the Azerbaijani president.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

Trend:

Armenia has become the weakest country in the region because of its aggression against Azerbaijan and integration of Armenia into the large-scale regional projects would only be possible once it leaves the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan's Los Angeles Consul General Nasimi Aghayev said.

At the invitation of the West Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce (WLACC), Aghayev addressed the Chamber members on Nov. 1, 2017.

In his presentation, the Consul General spoke of Azerbaijan's path to independence and its rapid development as a free and independent nation since 1991.

Aghayev informed the participants about the economic reforms undertaken in the country and current efforts by the Government to diversify the economic development even more vigorously into such areas as tourism, IT, agriculture and transportation, among others, which are already beginning to produce positive results, strengthening Azerbaijan's position as the largest economy in the South Caucasus region.

Highlighting Azerbaijan's role in implementing projects of regional and trans-regional importance and magnitude, the Consul General spoke of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railroad that was inaugurated on October 30, 2017 and that is set to connect China with Europe through the shortest and most reliable route.

Informing the Chamber members of Azerbaijan-US economic and trade relations as well as the favorable business and investment climate established in Azerbaijan, Aghayev invited the Chamber members to invest in and trade with Azerbaijan.

Considered one of the most influential chambers of commerce in California, the WLACC has over 1,250 members representing many renowned companies, including some of the nation's largest corporate entities. Previous speakers of the WLACC included Los Angeles Mayors, members of U.S. Congress, California state elected officials and others.

The Consul General also informed the audience about the illegal military occupation and ethnic cleansing of around 20 percent of Azerbaijan's sovereign territory by neighboring Armenia.

He noted that this illegal occupation and the ongoing conflict with Azerbaijan has only damaged Armenia's well-being over the last 26 years of its independence, making it the weakest economy of the South Caucasus.

"Since 1991, Armenia has lost a million of its population to economic emigration," Aghayev said, adding that integration of Armenia into the large-scale regional projects involving Azerbaijan and the other South Caucasian nation - Georgia, would only be possible once Armenia leaves the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, allowing hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani displaced population to return to their homes and lands.

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.
Details added (first version posted on 14:40)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

Trend:

The goal is to make the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway economically attractive, said Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev in an interview with Euronews TV channel following the landmark ceremony to inaugurate the rail line in Baku Oct. 30.

Euronews presented a story in its Focus program about the opening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. The TV channels correspondent interviewed the presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkey and the prime minister of Georgia.

There is no shorter way between Asia and Europe, Ilham Aliyev told Euronews. Our goal for the future is to agree on tariffs to make it economically attractive. In the long-term, the volume of cargo will grow, and of course this means big profits, big revenues, new jobs and cooperation.

The projects implementation is an historic event, said the president.

This railway connects continents, Eurasia. This is a shooter way between Asia and Europe. Azerbaijan together with Turkey and Georgia actively participated in its construction, noted President Aliyev.

He added that the participation of Turkish, Georgian, Kazakh, Uzbek friends, prime ministers, ministers from Turkmenistan, Tajikistan in the opening ceremony once again proves how important the project is.

This railway will bring stability, prosperity, development to the whole region, said the Azerbaijani president.

We expect a gradual growth of cargo transportation up to 17 million tons through the territory of Azerbaijan via this route, noted President Aliyev responding to the question about expectations and strategic tasks.

I think that this route is of economic importance. This route will be used by all countries located along it, because, I repeat, this is the shortest way. Therefore, we will work together on it, added Ilham Aliyev.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

Trend:

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has decreed to amend the Decree on Additional Measures in Regulation of Turnover of Items with Limited Civil Circulation, dated Sept. 12, 2005.

In accordance with the amendments, Azerbaijan gives permission for the import of cornea into the country.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

Trend:

No one was killed during the accident at well #490 on the Garadag section of the Complex Drilling Trust, SOCAR told Trend Nov. 3.

The company said that two drilling assistants  Fikrat Gozalov, 1965,and Javad Adilov, 1964  were injured as a result of the accident. Both of them were immediately hospitalized. Currently, their condition is estimated as satisfactory.

Causes of the accident are under investigation.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

Trend:

Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS) hosted Fourth Regional Student Development Summit conducted by Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) with organizational support from the Higher School and sponsorship support from SOCAR, BP, Statoil, Schlumberger and ExxonMobil companies. The four-day event, which was held in conjunction with the Caspian Technical Conference and Exhibition, gathered SPE Chapter officers from student chapters in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Uzbekistan.

BHOS Rector Elmar Gasimov participated in opening ceremony of the summit. Speaking at the ceremony, he welcomed 2018 SPE President Darcy Spady and all the delegates of the summit. The Rector emphasized that SPE programs and activities are very important for professional development of petroleum engineering students and young specialists who just start working in the oil and gas industry. He also said that future engineers should actively participate in SPE projects and initiatives.

During first two days of the summit, the delegates participated in workshops and prepared presentations. In the course of training sessions, they were learning leadership skills and working with young engineers who gave them professional advices. Upon results of the presentations contest, the Higher School student teams led by Elmir Abilov and Gulay Ibragimova took first and second place respectively.

The summit delegates also attended Caspian Technical Conference and Exhibition organized by the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Representative of SPE student Chapter at BHOS, third-year Petroleum Engineering student Orkhan Khankishiyev and other undergraduates of the Higher School arranged Baku sight-seeing tours for the guests tours to acquaint them with rich historical and cultural heritage of Azerbaijan.

The fourth SPE Regional Student Development Summit aimed to increase students technical knowledge, discuss current industry situations and further progress. It also provided them with the opportunity to network with peers, share ideas, meet with major industry figures and employers and work together on joint technical projects.

The Society of Petroleum Engineers is a not-for-profit professional organization whose mission is to collect, disseminate, and exchange technical knowledge concerning the exploration, development and production of oil and gas resources and related technologies for the public benefit and to provide opportunities for professionals to enhance their technical and professional competence.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:

The European Union (EU) and Azerbaijan must focus on the expansion of agricultural trade volume, head of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan Kestutis Jankauskas said at the final conference on the e-insurance project in Baku Nov. 3.

He said that despite the EU is the main trade partner of Azerbaijan, the trade turnover volume in agricultural sector is low.

"Export of agricultural products from Azerbaijan to the EU quadrupled in 2017 compared to 2012, the ambassador said. Nevertheless, I think that there is still great development potential in this sphere and we must continue to work in this area."

He said that the EU allocated 70 million euros to Azerbaijan for the development of agriculture and rural areas, which is 40 percent of the total funds allocated to the country.

According to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee, the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and the EU countries amounted to $5.03 billion in January-September 2017, $3.73 billion of which accounted for the export of Azerbaijani products to the EU countries.
Details added (first version posted on 11:14)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:

The European Union (EU) and Azerbaijan must focus on the expansion of agricultural trade volume, head of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan Kestutis Jankauskas said at the final conference on the e-insurance project in Baku Nov. 3.

He said that despite the EU is the main trade partner of Azerbaijan, the trade turnover volume in agricultural sector is low.

"Export of agricultural products from Azerbaijan to the EU quadrupled in 2017 compared to 2012, the ambassador said. Nevertheless, I think that there is still great development potential in this sphere and we must continue to work in this area."

He said that the EU allocated 70 million euros to Azerbaijan for the development of agriculture and rural areas, which is 40 percent of the total funds allocated to the country.

According to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee, the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and the EU countries amounted to $5.03 billion in January-September 2017, $3.73 billion of which accounted for the export of Azerbaijani products to the EU countries.
By PTI: McMaster

By Lalit K Jha

Washington, Nov 3 (PTI) The US has made "significant" progress in its fight against terror, National Security Advisor H R McMaster has said, underlining that President Donald Trump would reiterate key elements of his counter- terrorism policy during his visit to the Indo-Pacific region.

Trumps National Security Advisor H R McMaster has said its time to recognise that theres been progress on three fronts -- "first, denying terrorists safe havens and support bases; second, cutting off their funding; and third, discrediting their wicked ideology".

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"I think its time for us to recognise that theres been significant progress on all three fronts," McMaster said, noting that Trump articulated his counter-terrorism policy for the first time in a major policy speech in Riyadh early this year.

Raqqa (in Syria) and Mosul (in Iraq) have been liberated as the US has worked very hard with allies and partners to deny that safe haven and support bases, in this case to the Islamic State militant group, he said during a White House news conference here.

"Second, we should recognise that theres been considerable progress on terrorist financing; as you saw (Treasury) Secretary (Steven) Mnuchins visit to the region last week, during which he opened the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center," he said.

Trump will embark on a 12-day trip to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Hawaii beginning today.

"And then...a lot of leaders across the world, and the president foremost among them, discrediting this ideology jihadist ideology," he said and praised the Saudi crown princes speech during which he called for a return to moderate Islam.

"At the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) 50th birthday party in Manila, the president will discuss how to strengthen partnerships across the Indo-Pacific to further efforts against transnational terrorist organisations," McMaster said. PTI LKJ UZM

--- ENDS ---
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) sold $318.7 million at the currency auctions organized by the countrys Central Bank (CBA) in October 2017, SOFAZ said Nov. 3.

SOFAZ sold around $2.8 billion at the currency auctions in January-October 2017. In total, the Azerbaijani banks bought about $4.92 billion from SOFAZ in 2016.

SOFAZ will continue selling the currency through auctions in 2017.

The currency is sold as part of SOFAZs transfers to the Azerbaijani state budget, which are envisaged in the volume of 6.1 billion manats for 2017.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

Azerbaijans insurance companies that are members of the Green Card international motor insurance system, issued 2,954 international insurance policies for vehicles in October 2017, the Compulsory Insurance Bureau of Azerbaijan (ISB) said Nov. 3.

As many as 1,628 contracts were concluded with the owners of vehicles going to Turkey and Iran, 1,285 contracts with owners traveling to Russia, Ukraine and Moldova, 41 contracts  with owners traveling to all countries included in the Green Card system (with the exception of Israel and Belarus).

Premiums on international vehicle insurance contracts amounted to 192,180 Azerbaijani manats.

According to the ISB, 2,213 of the signed contracts accounted for insurance of cars, 343 of the signed contracts accounted for insurance of trucks, 269 for insurance of trailers, 129 for insurance of buses and two for insurance of motorcycles.

The Green Card system has been functioning since 1951. The system became operational in Azerbaijan on January 1, 2016. Its main objective is the settlement of claims of victims of road accidents, involving foreign vehicles, in accordance with the national legislation of a country where the accident happened.

The ISB includes 16 companies, 13 of which are authorized to sell policies of compulsory civil liability insurance for motor vehicles.

After the Law on Types of Compulsory Insurance came into force in December 2011, the base cost of a motor vehicle compulsory civil liability insurance policy is 50 manats and is applied to the cars with an engine capacity of up to 1,500 cubic centimeters.

As the volume of the engine increases from 1,500 to 5,000 cubic centimeters, coefficients from 1.5 to 5 are added up to the cost. Coefficient 5 is used for cars with an engine capacity of over 5,000 cubic centimeters.

Previously, the insurance premium for all cars was 10 manats.

There are 22 insurance companies in Azerbaijan.

(1.7003 manats = 1$ on Nov. 3)
Belarus calls for setting up a free trade zone for services and the common procurement market in the CIS as soon as possible, Belarus' Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov said at the CIS Heads of Government Council meeting in Tashkent Nov.3, BelTA has learned.

The CIS has been working on its free trade zone for services for six years already. The prompt completion of the work on the agreement on the free trade zone for services will guarantee the development of a big regional center of modern and high-technology services in the CIS.

The common procurement market is another issue on the CIS agenda. It plays the key role in the free trade zone. Openness and equal conditions in this segment mean the potential for growth of mutual trade in the CIS. It is important that the reached agreements are implemented in full and cover all the CIS member states.

Cooperation in the CIS is broad in scope, with the economic sector remaining at its core. Belarus keeps drawing attention to such matters as the development of common markets and equal conditions for economic activities.

Andrei Kobyakov is paying a working visit to Uzbekistan on 2-3 November. The Belarusian premier has already met with Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Uzbekistan Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov and Kyrgyzstan Prime Minister Sapar Isakov.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

Azerbaijans Bank Respublika and NBCBank have started negotiations on merger, a source in the countrys banking market told Trend Nov. 3.

For Bank Respublika, which is looking for buyers of some of its shares, this is the second attempt of merger. Earlier, the bank negotiated the merger with Azerbaijans Rabitabank, however the talks were unsuccessful.

The reason is that Rabitabank was ready for merger only if it received 70 percent of shares of Bank Respublika. However, shareholders of Bank Repsublika dont want to completely lose control of their bank.

As a result, the parties couldnt come to an agreement and it was decided to stop the negotiations, the source noted. At present, Bank Respublika is discussing the possibility of merger with NBCBank.

The terms of the current talks are completely different, the source added. In case of successful negotiations, the shareholders of both banks will receive equal shares in a newly merged bank, and this satisfies Bank Respublika, said the source.

As of July 1, 2017, 14 individuals and five legal entities, including members of the Supervisory Board Natig Guliyev and Elchin Guliyev, as well as Deutsche Investitions und Entwicklungsgesellschaft and Sparkassen International Development Trust were Bank Respublikas shareholders.

Nurgun Group company is the founder and one of the shareholders of NBCBank. In total, the bank has nine shareholders (seven individuals and two legal entities).

The source added that for Bank Respublika, the issue of merger is very important for the banks existence, and the decrease in the volume of capital was the reason for merger.

The regulatory requirement for the capital of banks is 50 million manats. The total capital of Bank Respublika at the beginning of July 2017 was 51.9 million manats, and by the end of the third quarter, this figure dropped to 46.2 million manats. In addition, the banks loss increased from 0.583 million manats in the first half of the year to 1.6 million manats at the end of the third quarter.

Unlike Bank Respublika, NBCBank keeps its profitability. In the third quarter of 2017, the banks profit amounted to almost 2.5 million manats, and the banks total capital amounted to 55.8 million manats.

(1.7003 manats = 1 USD on Nov. 3)
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

Gudrat Seyfullayev was appointed the 13th advisor to Azerbaijans taxes minister, the Ministry of Taxes told Trend.

In addition, Zaur Fatizade was appointed as new director general of the Taxes Ministrys Department of National Revenue. In this position, he succeeded Natig Shirinov who was appointed as director general of the Department for Analysis and Control Over Tax Risks.

Meanwhile, Zamin Rzayev was appointed the director general of the Department for Supervision over Fulfillment of Tax Obligations, while Zohrab Omarov was appointed the director general of the Department for Supervision over Execution of Tax Legislation.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

Trend:

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev today signed a decree extending the moratorium on inspections of business activities in Azerbaijan until Jan. 1, 2021.

The moratorium will not apply to quality control of medicines, compliance with safety regulations, and safety control of food products.

Meanwhile, according to the decree, quality control of medicines and compliance with safety regulations will be conducted by the Ministry of Healthcare, while control over food quality will be carried out by the Food Safety Agency of Azerbaijan.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:

Shah Deniz Stage 2 is an exceptional project, Ewan Drummond, BP regional vice-president for projects in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, said at the SPE Annual Caspian Technical Conference and Exhibition in Baku Nov. 3.

He noted that the Shah Deniz Stage 2 project has been completed by more than 98 percent.

Work on the project is ongoing in accordance with the schedule and approved budget, he noted. It is a very complex 28-billion project with large-scale drilling program, unprecedented underwater infrastructure, construction of two connected platforms, expansion of the Sangachal terminal and South Caucasus Pipeline with the construction of two compressor stations in Georgia. It involved eight joint ventures, more than a hundred suppliers, three engineering alliances and about 30,000 employees. It is very rare when in such projects, everything goes in line with the approved plan, Drummond said.

He noted that in most major projects even with good planning, the expenses during implementation may exceed the costs planned by the final investment decision.

Drummond further noted that the Khankendi vessel for underwater construction has already started operations within the project.

Within the implementation of Shah Deniz Stage 2, gas production will increase from 9 to 25 billion cubic meters per year. The produced gas will be exported to Turkey and the European markets through the expansion of the South Caucasus Pipeline and the construction of the Trans-Anatolian (TANAP) and Trans-Adriatic (TAP) gas pipelines.

A contract for development of the Shah Deniz offshore field was signed on June 4, 1996. The field's reserves are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.3

By Leman Zeynalova, Anvar Mammadov  Trend:

The Southern Gas Corridor, which envisages transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, is a very important project, Kestutis Jankauskas, head of the EU delegation to Azerbaijan, told reporters Nov.3.

The Southern Gas Corridor, which is now being built and hopefully will start functioning in some years, is another symbolic and very important development connecting our markets and delivering energy resources between this region and EU, he added.

The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority energy projects for the EU. It envisages the transportation of gas from the Caspian region to the European countries through Georgia and Turkey.

At the initial stage, the gas to be produced as part of the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz field is considered as the main source for the Southern Gas Corridor projects. Other sources can also connect to this project at a later stage.



As part of the Stage 2 of the Shah Deniz development, the gas will be exported to Turkey and European markets by expanding the South Caucasus Pipeline and the construction of Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline and Trans Adriatic Pipeline.

Further, talking about the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway, which has been recently opened, Jankauskas noted that this project is very welcome.

EU in general supports all kinds of interconnections. Roads connect people. This is important for enhancement of the relationship, for trade, for people traveling, for cargoes being transported between our market, Azerbaijan, South Caucasus countries, EU, Turkey and then reaching further to Central Asia and China, being transported faster and being transported safely. This railway exactly helps to achieve this goal, he said.

The opening of the BTK railway took place in Baku Oct.30.

The first train departed from the Azerbaijani port of Alat after its inauguration by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili. In order not to miss such an historic event, the leaders and high-ranking officials of a number of countries, including Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, that will somehow be involved in the transportation along this corridor, attended the solemn ceremony.

The BTK railway was constructed on the basis a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement. The railways peak capacity will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At an initial stage, this figure will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

By Anvar Mammadov  Trend:

Azerbaijan successfully implemented a project on introducing electronic agriculture system in the country, Ilham Bayramov, head of office of Azerbaijani Ministry of Agriculture, told reporters in Baku Nov. 3.

The project`s implementation started two years ago with the support of the European Union. The EU technical assistance aimed at creating an electronic agriculture system in Azerbaijan amounted to 1.4 million euros.

The aim of the project is to ensure a fair and transparent distribution of agricultural subsidies.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

By Ali Mustafayev  Trend:

A group of people held a rally in front of the Kazakh embassy, in Bishkek, according to reports of local media outlets.

The protesters called on the Kazakh authorities to open the border with Kyrgyzstan until November, otherwise, they will require the Kyrgyz authorities to start the procedure of withdrawal from the Eurasian Economic Union.

The protesters appealed to the Kazakh authorities and President Nursultan Nazarbayev, urging to resolve the situation on the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border and to provide access to the border checkpoints until November 5.

The situation on the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border aggravated after Minister of Economy of Kyrgyzstan Artem Novikov said on October 25 that Kyrgyzstan refuses to sign a road map aimed at resolving the situation on the border of the two countries.

Since then, the Kazakh border guards intensified the control regime, which led to appearance of large automobile jams.

Over 700 loaded trucks have been stuck at the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border checkpoints as of Nov. 1, 2017.

Kazakhstan's officials announced that it is necessary to equalize taxes and put equal values to goods for both Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan to resolve the situation at the border.
The victim received multiple stab wounds in the chest and stomach. Police are probing the case from multiple angles, and no arrest has been made so far.

By Ajay Kumar: A 60-year-old man was stabbed to death in south Delhi, police said on Friday.

The incident occurred on Thursday around 9 pm when Ram Lal, who was a resident of Madangir, went out for a walk. He was attacked by three bike-borne assailants.

Lal received multiple stab wounds in the chest and stomach. Police got to know after a passerby spotted him in a pool of blood and called the PCR.

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Police rushed to the spot and took Lal to the AIIMS trauma centre but he succumbed to his injuries.

Police are probing the case from multiple angles. No arrest has been made so far.

"We are scanning local criminals and also looking for CCTV footage to get some clues. The probe is currently on and we have not ruled out personal enmity or family dispute," police said.

--- ENDS ---
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 3

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

President of India Ram Nath Kovind expressed confidence in expansion of ties with Turkmenistan, the Turkmen government said Nov. 3.

Bilateral relations between India and Turkmenistan are traditionally of trustworthy and friendly nature. I am confident that our ties will continue to strengthen and develop in various areas, the Indian president said in a letter to his Turkmen counterpart Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov.

The two states are involved in a large regional energy project for the construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline.

The total length of the TAPI pipeline will be 1,814 kilometers. A 214-kilometer section of the pipeline will run through Turkmenistan, a 774-kilometer section will run through Afghanistan and an 826-kilometer section will run through Pakistan to Fazilka settlement on the border with India.

Construction of the Turkmen section of TAPI started in 2015 and is scheduled to finish in late 2018.

The pipelines annual capacity will be 33 billion cubic meters of gas.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Nov. 3

By Diana Aliyeva  Trend:

President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev received on November 2 Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who arrived in the country on an official visit, as well as to attend a regular meeting of the Council of CIS Heads of Government, Uzbek president's press-service reported.

It was specially noted that the high-level talks in Moscow in April this year, as well as regular meetings of the leaders of the two countries, including during the CIS summit in Sochi last month, gave a powerful impetus to strengthening the relations of strategic partnership and alliance, filled bilateral cooperation with qualitatively new content.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev thanked Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev for his warm welcome and conveyed the greetings and best wishes of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A note of readiness was expressed for further development and strengthening of partnership relations and mutually beneficial practical cooperation between the two countries.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Nov. 3

By Diana Aliyeva  Trend:

Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis supports Uzbekistans reforms, initiated by the countrys President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry said in a message.

The Uzbek and Latvian presidents have recently exchanged congratulatory messages on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries which is marked on November 3.

"Uzbekistan is one of the closest partners in the Central Asian region," the Latvian president said. The active exchange of visits at the highest political level over the past 25 years testifies to our mutual understanding and friendship.

I would like to express Latvia's support for the impressive program of state reforms in Uzbekistan initiated by President Mirziyoyev, the Latvian president added. "I think that the efforts undertaken to strengthen the rule of law and modernize the economy, will reveal Uzbekistans huge development potential.

President Vejonis has emphasized that friendly relations between Latvia and Uzbekistan will continue to flourish.

"During a short historical period, reliable partnership relations based on friendship, mutual understanding and trust have been established between our countries," President Mirziyoyev said a message.

The Uzbek president stressed a commitment to the further expansion and intensification of mutually beneficial bilateral cooperation in the political, trade, economic, innovative, transport, cultural and humanitarian spheres and expressed confidence that by making joint efforts the Uzbekistan-Latvia multifaceted relations will strengthen.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Nov. 3

By Diana Aliyeva  Trend:

Two international exhibitions on mining equipment, as well as metallurgy and engineering will be held in Tashkent on November 15-17.

According to the exhibitions organizer, ITE Uzbekistan, more than 50 companies from 14 countries, such as Australia, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Kazakhstan, China, Latvia, Poland, Russia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Sweden, South Korea, will take part in the 12th International Exhibition on Mining and Processing of Metals and Minerals  MiningWorld Uzbekistan 2017.

MiningWorld Uzbekistan 2017 will present new ideas and strategies for exploring, extracting and processing minerals, and will become a place for meetings with representatives of companies manufacturing equipment and machinery for the industry.

Meanwhile, the 10th Central Asian International Exhibition, Metallurgy. Machinery. Engineering, will be held in Tashkent.

This year more than 50 companies from seven countries, such as Germany, Italy, China, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, the Czech Republic, will take part in the exhibition.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Nov. 3

By Diana Aliyeva  Trend:

More than 10 documents were signed in Tashkent Nov. 2 following a meeting with a Russian delegation led by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who arrived in Uzbekistan for an official visit.

According to the Uzbek news agency UzA, several memorandums and agreements were signed to develop cooperation in oil refining, banking, investment, commercial and industrial spheres, car manufacturing, science, migration and other areas.

The prospects for further development of cooperation between Uzbekistan and Russia were discussed during the talks in an expanded format with participation of official delegations of the two countries.

The Uzbek delegation was headed by Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov.

The Uzbek-Russian cooperation is developing on the basis of the strategic partnership agreement, the agreement on allied relations and a number of other important documents.

Uzbekistans President Shavkat Mirziyoyev paid a state visit to Russia in April 2017 and heads of the two countries also held a meeting as part of the session of the CIS Council of Heads of States, held in Sochi in October.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Nov. 3

By Diana Aliyeva Trend:

More than 10 documents on the development of multifaceted cooperation between the member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) were signed during the meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of Government held Nov. 3, 2017 in Tashkent, the press service of the CIS Executive Committee reported.

During the talks of the CIS heads of government in an expanded format, the sides discussed a wide range of issues of integration cooperation between the CIS countries.

An agreement on the exchange of information necessary to determine and control the customs value of goods in the CIS countries, a protocol on amending the agreement on the rules for determining the country of origin of goods in the CIS dated Nov.20, 2009 were signed at the meeting.

Besides, a protocol on amending the agreement on the harmonization of requirements for additional training and professional competence of international road carriers of the CIS countries dated Nov. 24, 2006 and an agreement on exchange of information within the CIS countries in the field of combating terrorism and other violent manifestations of extremism, as well as their financing were also signed.

The CIS Council of Heads of Government appointed Major General Sergey Dudko (Belarus) as deputy head of the CIS Antiterrorism Center.

It was decided to amend the provision on the coordination transport meeting of the CIS member countries.

The heads of government approved the concept of cooperation of the CIS member states in the field of land reclamation and a plan of priority measures for its implementation. The concept of cooperation of the CIS member states in the field of oil and gas engineering and the plan of priority measures for its implementation were also approved.

The next meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of Government is scheduled for June 1, 2018 in the city of Dushanbe (Tajikistan).
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

While majority of Iranians have refused to obtain life insurance, over 90 percent of vehicles in the country have no Collision and Comprehensive Insurance.

Head of the Central Insurance of Iran Abdolnaser Hemmati has said that there are about 25 million vehicles in the country but only three million cars have Collision and Comprehensive Insurance, Mehr news agency reported Nov. 3.

Meanwhile, about 80 percent of Iranians have failed to receive life insurance services as only 14 million have bought life insurance in the country, so far, he added.

The official further mentioned that insurance penetration has reached 2.1 percent in the country.

Speaking about opportunities to invest in Irans insurance industry, he said despite the low number of purchased life insurance, the figure has increased by 70 percent over the past two years.

In the meantime, the insurance penetration has grown 4.5 folds.

Hemmati also said that two European insurance firms are now in talks with Iranian counterparts to enter the market.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31

By Fatih Karimov Trend:

Iran imported 19.932 million tons of goods, worth $27.817 billion, during the first seven months of the current fiscal year (started March 20, 2017).

The figure indicates a 14.89 percent increase in terms of value compared to the same period of the preceding year, the Iranian Customs Administration said in Oct. 31.

Average price for each ton of Irans imported goods in the mentioned period was around $1,396, indicating a rise by 8.89 percent, year on year.

Increased volume of capital goods, imported cars, car parts as well as some staple goods has led to increase of Irans imports during the current fiscal year.

Rice worth $1 billion topped the list of Iran's imported goods during the 7-month period.

Corn fodder ($882 million), car parts ($738 million), cars with 1,500-2,000 cc engines ($625 million), and soybean meal ($536 million) were the other goods mainly imported to the Islamic Republic in the first seven months of the current fiscal year (March 20-Oct. 22).

China was the main exporter of goods to Iran in the mentioned period. Iran imported $6.82 billion worth of goods from China in the 7-month period.

After China, the UAE ($4.678 billion), Turkey ($1.933 billion), South Korea ($1.844 billion) and Germany ($1.54 billion) were other four biggest exporters of goods to Iran.

Irans non-oil trade turnover increased by 6.2 percent to $52.527 billion during the 7-month period, meanwhile the country experienced a negative trade balance of $3.1 billion.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.3

By Trend:

At least eight Iranian border guards were killed in an armed clash with suspect terrorists along the countrys northwestern frontiers in West Azerbaijan province, local authorities said.

The armed clash took place this evening near Chaldoran border point, official IRNA news agency reported.

The report added that several terrorists were also killed during the confrontation. However, the report did not provide the exact number of the slain terrorists.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.3

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

Azerbaijan-Iran-Russia trilateral platform improve political and security environment in the region, Cyril Widdershoven, a Middle East geopolitical specialist, a partner at Dutch risk consultancy VEROCY and SVP MEA-Risk, told Trend Nov.3.

Aside from Azerbaijan-Iran-Russia platform, Azerbaijan is also the initiator of such formats as Azerbaijan-Iran-Turkey, Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey and etc.

From Azerbaijan's view point, it is the right step to take, increasing its cooperation with countries in the region, said the expert.

Azerbaijan is having a vast interest in oil and gas operations in the region, including its energy cooperation with Iran, said Widdershoven, adding that this can be increased or enhanced via this kind of set up.

This kind of cooperation also strengthens regional cooperation. Maybe it also will open up new investment opportunities in the countries, he said.

Overall, the expert believes that it is a very good approach, as cooperation and discussions between countries improve political and security environments.

Azerbaijan is set up its own position as a possible mediator or bridge between countries. This role is based on its geographical and historical position, which is to be commended, said Widdershoven.

Azerbaijani, Iranian and Russian presidents held a trilateral meeting Nov. 1 in Tehran.

Ali Hasanov, Azerbaijani presidents aide for public and political affairs, said in an interview with Trend that this meeting is first of all, a platform important for ensuring stability, security and promoting collaborative environment in the region, for further development of trade-economic ties, cooperation in energy and transport sectors between the countries, and solution of other pressing issues

The mutual respect and fruitful cooperation between the three countries is of great importance for solution of pressing issues of the whole region, and all participants are determined to continue the fruitful cooperation, Hasanov added.

I should also note that initiative and leadership of the majority of bilateral and multilateral meetings, held in the region lately, belong to Azerbaijan. The initiative to hold a tripartite meeting of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia, to create partnership between them, as well as the initiative of joint projects that are being implemented or intended to be implemented also came from Azerbaijan, and they have already begun to yield positive results.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
The Supreme Court observed that panic could set in among people if mobile operators and banks continued bombarding customers with text messages asking them to submit their Aadhaar details.

By India Today Web Desk: If you're among those who receive constant, nagging 'reminders' to link your Aadhaar number with your bank account and mobile phone connection, then the Supreme Court shares your anguish. Or so it seems.

The Supreme Court observed that panic could set in among people if mobile operators and banks continued bombarding customers with text messages asking them to submit their Aadhaar details.

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"Even I get multiple calls and messages asking to link Aadhar with mobile and bank," Supreme Court judge Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri observed as the court directed banks and mobile operators to provide clarity to customers on what the last date to submit their Aadhaar numbers is.

The apex court was hearing a clutch of pleas challenging the mandatory linking of Aadhaar with cellphone connections and bank accounts.

The court did not rule on the pleas themselves, sending them to a constitution bench that is already hearing several petitions regarding the mandatory use of Aadhaar. That bench is expected to hear the matter towards the end of this month.

The deadlines for linking Aadhaar numbers with bank accounts and mobile phone connections currently are 31 December 2017 and 6 February 2018, respectively.

Customers on Twitter have reported receiving pesky communiques from banks and telecom operators warning them to link Aadhaar to their respective accounts in order to ensure their service continues uninterrupted.

Okay @HDFC_Bank is sending me threatening pop ups about blocking my account if I don't link with Aadhar. Someone tell me - DO I HAVE TO? pic.twitter.com/I7U4h3081I- Anuya Jakatdar (@anuyeaah) September 27, 2017

This is what the Supreme Court was referring when it observed that panic might set in among people if clarity on the deadline to link Aadhaar to bank accounts and phone connection is not provided.

Neighbour's SIMs are blocked by Airtel/Vodafone because 'lack of Aadhaar card in account'. WTF!- Harpreet Singh (@Harry_Jerry) October 25, 2017

The apex court has now asked banks and telecom operators to clearly inform their customers by when they can link Aadhaar to their accounts.

In a related development, the Centre told the Supreme Court today that it was considering extending the deadline to link Aadhaar to bank accounts to March 2018.

The government told the court that it hasn't made a final decision on the proposed extension yet but said it is likely to happen.

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(With inputs from Anusha Soni in New Delhi)

--- ENDS ---
Tokyo police have formed a squad of female officers to guard first lady Melania Trump when she and President Trump visit Japan in a few days, Abc NEWS reports.

The squad will also protect Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and one of his advisers, while she is there for the presidential visit, local media reported. She arrived in Tokyo today.

The officers wore black suits as they trained outside Tokyos Imperial Palace Wednesday, ahead of the Trumps arrival.

We opted for a more cultivated look to suit the occasion," an officer in charge of the security plan said, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. The team even practiced their training on the citys streets.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump may meet next week at an APEC summit in Vietnam, the Kremlin said on Friday, saying talks were underway about setting up such an encounter, Reuters reports.

Putin and Trump first met at a G20 summit in Hamburg in July when they discussed allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election, but agreed to focus on better ties rather than litigating the past.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have soured further since, however.

Trump in August grudgingly signed off on new sanctions against Russia, a move Moscow said ended hopes for better ties. Putin, dismayed by the sanctions, ordered Washington to more than halve its embassy and consular staff in Russia.

But when asked if Putin and Trump might meet at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit taking place next week in Vietnam, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow did not rule out such a meeting.

"It (the meeting) is indeed being discussed," Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

"It's hard to overestimate the importance and significance for all international matters of any contact between the presidents of Russia and the United States," said Peskov.

The APEC summit is taking place in the Vietnamese city of Danang from Nov. 8-10.
Proposed U.S. sanctions targeting Myanmars military for its treatment of Rohingya Muslims would hinder the fledgling civilian government sharing power with the generals, a spokesman for de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Friday, Reuters reports.

The bill, introduced by members of the U.S. Senate on the eve of Donald Trumps departure on his first trip to Asia since becoming president in January, seeks to reimpose some sanctions lifted last year as Myanmar returned to democracy.

The measure would impose targeted sanctions and travel curbs on Myanmar military officials and bar the United States from supplying most assistance to the military until perpetrators of atrocities against the Rohingya in Myanmars western Rakhine State are held accountable.

Responding to the moves in Washington, Suu Kyis spokesman, Zaw Htay, told Reuters, we need internal stability to improve the countrys economy. Imposing international sanctions directly affects the people in travel and in business investments, and there are many bad consequences.

Myanmar officials would explain the governments efforts on Rakhine during a visit by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson scheduled for Nov. 15, he added.

We will explain to him what we are doing when he comes here. We can not tell him not to do that. And we dont know what is U.S. policy, Zaw Htay said.

Zaw Htay, a former army major who is a holdover from the quasi-civilian administration that handed over the reins last year, said the army, known as the Tatmadaw, had to be involved in Myanmars transition.

Myanmar was previously hit by sanctions over the military juntas brutal suppression of the then opposition led by Suu Kyi, but Zaw Htay stressed the civilian government still has to work with the military.

The countrys reconstruction cannot be done only by the government. The Tatmadaw needs to be involved, it is very clear. Everything has to undergo negotiation with the Tatmadaw under the 2008 constitution, he said, referring to the charter drawn up by the junta before Myanmar began its democracy transition.

Sanctions and pressures affect the governments work. It wont be a positive result if they impose sanctions, as with the previous experience (of sanctions).
Canadian government has introduced sanctions against 30 Russian citizens, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday, TASS reported.

It said the restrictive measures were taken in line with the recently endorsed legislative piece entitled the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, which is also known as the Sergei Magnitsky law and is a Canadian variation of the US Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act.

The ministry said the sanctions concerned the individuals who, in the opinion of the Canadian government, bear responsibility for or are involved in crude violations of human rights or corruption schemes. The Canadian authorities will freeze all the banking assets of the blacklisted persons and will ban entry to the Canadian territory for them.

"Canada is determined to protect human rights and combat corruption worldwide," the countrys foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland said in connection with the sanctions. "Today's announcement sends a clear message that Canada will take action against individuals who have profited from acts of significant corruption or who have been involved in gross violations of human rights."

She added she was glad to see the first practical application of the Magnitsky law.
A Spanish judge ordered nine Catalan secessionist leaders to be held in custody on Thursday pending a potential trial over the regions independence push, Reuters reported.

The lawyer for ousted Catalan President Carles Puigdemont said a warrant had also been issued for his clients arrest - though the statement was dismissed by a senior official in Spains High Court. The reason for the differing accounts was not immediately clear.

In an short address broadcast by Catalan regional television TV3, Puigdemont called for the release of the legitimate government of Catalonia, a call echoed by hundreds of people gathered outside the Catalan parliament.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy sacked Puigdemont and his government last week, hours after the Catalan parliament made a unilateral declaration of independence - a vote boycotted by the opposition and declared illegal by Spanish courts.

Puigdemont later traveled to Belgium with four associates and ignored an order to appear before the High Court to answer charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds relating to the regions secessionist drive.

Mr. Puigdemont will stay here. He has said that he will fully cooperate with Belgian authorities during the procedure, lawyer Paul Bekaert told Belgian state broadcaster VRT.

He said Puigdemont had told him a European arrest warrant has been issued, though the court source said that would most likely happen on Friday.

The detention of the secessionist leaders and Puigdemonts flight to Belgium make it difficult for leading figures from the independence movement to stand in a snap election in the wealthy region called by the Spanish government for Dec. 21.

Puigdemont said on Tuesday he would go back to Spain only if given unspecified guarantees by the Spanish government. His flight appears to have cost some support for his cause at home.

President, enough is enough, the influential Catalan newspaper el Peridico, which has been skeptical of the case for independence, said on its front page on Wednesday.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Turkey condemns the holding of military exercises by Greece and Egypt on the island of Rhodes, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a message Nov. 3.

According to the Paris Peace Treaties, signed in 1947, it is forbidden to conduct any military exercises in Rhodes, says the message, adding that the conduct of military exercises in Rhodes is a gross violation of international law.

In this regard, the Greek ambassador was summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry and Ankaras dissatisfaction was expressed on the issue.

Turkey calls on Greece to refrain from actions that could lead to tension in the Aegean Sea region, says the Turkish Foreign Ministrys message.

It should be noted that Egypt and Greece will hold joint naval exercises in Rhodes from Oct. 30 to Nov. 4.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

The Turkish Coast Guard found the bodies of three crew members of the countrys sunken BILAL BAL vessel, the Turkish media reported Nov. 3.

At present, the rest seven members of the crew are being searched by the countrys Coast Guard.

BILAL BAL ship with 10 people on board sank near the shores of the Black Sea November 1.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Turkey has full right to military operations in Syria against terrorists, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, the countrys media reported Nov. 3.

Erdogan said that Turkey will destroy all terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq.

He added that no country would allow establishment of a corridor of terrorists on its borders.

Turkey has been moving military equipment to its border with Syria since June 21.

Military equipment was deployed in Turkeys south-central province of Kilis, which borders Syrian territories controlled by YPG and PYD.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
By Sarah Suk, KYODO NEWS - Nov 3, 2017 - 21:10 | Feature, All

Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike explained to former U.S. Vice President Al Gore about the efforts the Japanese capital is making to tackle climate change in the lead-up to the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, as the two attended the closing ceremony of the Tokyo International Film Festival on Friday.

Koike, a former Japanese environment minister, also asked Gore to introduce to the world what Tokyo is doing as he continues his own environmental activism.

Gore was in Japan to attend the ceremony, where his documentary, "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power," a 10-year follow-up on his film "An Inconvenient Truth," was screened as the festival's closing film.

"I think there are many people who feel that the global environment has become severer and harsher over the past 10 years," Koike said in a brief talk session with Gore.

"I believe you are a missionary for protecting Earth. I hope you will continue to enlighten more people through your films so that they will be able to go through awareness reform, that we are the ones who are destroying Earth and we are the ones who should protect Earth," she said.

The governor explained how the Tokyo metropolitan government is utilizing hydrogen energy and planning to make use of recycled products during the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, as part of measures to fight global warming.

"We think the Olympics and Paralympics are good opportunities to send the message from Tokyo that we need to protect the environment. We would be happy if you, as a missionary, could convey to the world about Tokyo's efforts," Koike said.

Gore thanked Koike for her remarks and her support toward the film festival, whose 30th edition closed after a 10-day run.

"I wish you the very best in the upcoming Olympics. I'm pleased to hear about your work to promote solutions to the climate crisis during the Olympics," said the 69-year-old American won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with a U.N. panel on climate change.

Koike noted the importance of not only national governments but also major metropolitan areas like Tokyo to make moves to counter global warming.

"There is currently a network for measures against climate change among major cities, and I recently met with the mayors of Paris and Los Angeles and shared the view that we have to make the Olympics and Paralympics sustainable," she said, referring to the host cities for the 2024 and 2028 Summer Games, respectively.

Koike said one of the planned projects in 2020 is to apply the metropolitan government's cap-and-trade program to make four days -- when the opening and closing ceremonies for both the Olympics and the Paralympics will take place -- free of carbon dioxide emissions.

The cap-and-trade system is a framework for emissions credit transactions that involves a governing body setting a cap on the amount of CO2 emissions that parties can emit and issuing credits for their emissions-reduction efforts.

Such credits can be traded with parties that cannot meet the cap.
KYODO NEWS - Nov 3, 2017 - 16:22 | Feature, All

The results of stricter screenings of drivers aged 75 or older in Japan showed that about 30,000 of them may be suffering dementia, the National Police Agency said Thursday.

The 30,000 drivers represent about 3 percent of the 1.1 million elderly road-goers who have undergone cognitive function tests since March 12, when tougher screenings were introduced under a revised road traffic law.

With Japan, the world's most aged country, seeing a rise in serious traffic accidents involving elderly drivers, the revised law requires people aged 75 or older to see a doctor if a cognitive function test they take as part of the driver's license renewal process indicates they may be suffering dementia.

Of the 1.1 million seniors tested by police by the end of September, 30,170 were required to see a doctor for further examination. Of them, 7,673 have seen a doctor, leading to the revocation or suspension of 1,622 licenses, the agency said.

Although the remaining 6,051 were allowed by doctors to continue driving, about 70 percent were determined as being at risk of developing dementia in the future and required to see a doctor again in six months.

However, the police screenings also showed that a majority of elderly drivers, or some 780,000, were found to have no problems with their cognitive abilities, while 300,000 were categorized as having a minor issue.

Among fatal traffic accidents involving elderly drivers in recent years, a truck driven by an 87-year-old man in Yokohama near Tokyo ran into a group of school children in October last year, killing one boy, while an 83-year-old woman in Tokyo lost control of her car at a hospital the following month, causing two deaths.
By Poulomi Saha: Suspended Trinamool Congress leader Mukul Roy, who resigned from the party in September this year, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party today in the presence of Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, party general secretary and West Bengal in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya, and Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Swapan Dasgupta.

Welcoming Roy into the party, Ravi Shankar Prasad said, "Mukul Roy expressed his desire to join BJP without any conditions. We welcome him enthusiastically. We are confident BJP will expand in Bengal due to his experience in organisational work".

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Mukul Roy was one of the founder members of the TMC and was considered to West Bengal Chief Minister's Mamata Banerjee until he had a falling out with her.

Mukul Roy handled the Ministry of Railways in the previous UPA government after Mamata Banerjee removed party MP Dinesh Trivedi who was at the helm of affairs after a train fare hike he had effected was widely criticised as anti-populist.

Upon joining the BJP, Mukul Roy said, "TMC couldn't have been formed without the support of the BJP. Mamata Banerjee was a member of Atalji's Cabinet. I believe BJP is not a communal force, it is a secular force". He added he was confident the BJP would grab power in West Bengal under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah.

Earlier this year, Mukul Roy was booked by the CBI along with twelve other Trinamool Congress leaders for corruption and criminal misconduct after they were seen taking bribes in a sting operation conducted by Narada news channel.

The BJP, which has been at the forefront of the campaign against the TMC in the Narada case, evaded this question when asked at the press conference today. Mukul Roy, on his part, only said, "The law will take its own course".

Trinamool Congress has said Mukul Roy has joined the BJP only to save himself from the ongoing investigation.

VIDEO | Arrest PM Modi, Amit Shah for Gujarat riots: Mamata after TMC leader held in chit fund scam

--- ENDS ---
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath reached Mauritius today the shivers of Jai Shri Ram started filling in the Bhojpuri Conference. UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Union Minister Giriraj Singh are on a three-day trip to Mauritius, to attracted Business investors investing in Uttar Pradesh.

According to the media reports, as soon as Yogi Adityanath came to take part in the Bhojpuri Pravasi Sammelan, people used the slogans of Yogi Yogi. Yogi Adityanath's visit to Ayodhya, Chitrakoot, Mathura and Varanasi and Agra were highly appreciated during this time. After this conference, on the tweet of CM, it was told that CM Yogi also invited the people of Mauritius to visit these tourist destinations. Through another tweet that Mauritius is a vibrant, democratic, multicultural and multi-ethnic nation like India, thanks to the accustomed Indian workers.

In addition, CM Yogi while addressing the immigrants in the conference said that the Ganga and ancient sites are equally important for Mauritius as well as for the holy Indians as the Ganga.

In order to attract the Mauritians to the investment, the Chief Minister Yogi said that many policy decisions have been taken while making investment process in Uttar Pradesh easy and attractive. Describing Uttar Pradesh as the country's biggest market due to area and population, it said that the state is also rich in tourism terms. Yogi Adityanath addressed the 183rd Abroad Day program in Maori. This tour is being considered as important for investment business.

CM Yogi Adityanath, Mauritius, NRIs investment, CM Yogi, Uttar Pradesh, Youth Advisor, New Delhi, Visit to Mauritius Visit, Jay Shri Ram
By PTI: By Lalit K Jha

Washington, Nov 3 (PTI) US President Donald Trump today said he would extend his trip in the Philippines by another day to attend the East Asia Summit, a key meeting between ASEAN and eight of its partners.

The US was originally scheduled to be represented by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the all-important East Asia Summit to be held in the Philippines on November 14.

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Trump announced the news to reporters before boarding Marine One on the White House lawns for the nearly two-week long maiden trip to Asia with stops in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

This is the longest trip ever by a US President to Asia in a quarter century.

"Were going to have a very successful trip. There is a lot of goodwill," Trump told reporters.

Looking forward to his trip, Trump said he is "actually staying an extra day" in the Philippines.

"We have a big conference, a second conference. I think we?re going to have great success," he said, referring to the East Asia Summit.

"Well be talking about trade. Well be talking about obviously North Korea. Well be enlisting the help of a lot of people and countries and we?ll see what happens," Trump said.

Later, the White House said that President Trump plans to spend an additional day in the Philippines to attend the East Asia Summit.

Officials said the trip is to "strengthen longstanding" alliances and expand new partnerships.

On the eve of Trumps departure, National Security Advisor H R McMaster said the "historic trip" will build on his ongoing presidential diplomacy.

Trumps trip will focus on three goals: strengthening international resolve to denuclearise North Korea; promote a free and open Indo-Pacific region; and advance American prosperity through fair and reciprocal trade and economic practices.

In the last 10 months, Trump has actively engaged leaders in the Indo-Pacific to address a range of strategic issues, including, most notably, the North Korean nuclear threat.

Since taking office, Trump has placed 43 calls to Indo- Pacific leaders and conducted bilateral meetings with Japan, South Korea, China, India, Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand.

"This trip is a great opportunity to demonstrate Americas and the Trump administrations commitment to the Indo-Pacific and our efforts to strengthen longstanding American alliances and expand new partnerships," McMaster said.

The US remains committed to the complete, verifiable and permanent denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, he said, asserting that during his trip Trump will reiterate the plain fact that North Korea threatens not just its allies, but also a threat to the entire world.

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So all nations of the world must do more to counter that threat, he said. "That is happening. But the president recognizes that were running out of time and will ask all nations to do more," McMaster said.

In particular, he will continue to call on all responsible nations, especially those with the most influence over North Korea, to isolate its regime economically and politically, to convince its leaders that the pursuit of nuclear weapons is a dead end and that it is past time to denuclearize.

During his meetings with world leaders, Trump will remind friend and foe alike that the US stands ready to defend itself and its allies using the full range of its capabilities.

McMaster said Trump will also use his trip to promote his vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

He will make the case that respect for freedom of navigation and overflight, the rule of law, sovereignty, freedom from coercion, and private enterprise and open markets is the best model to increase prosperity throughout the region, and to secure the freedom and independence of all nations, the top presidential advisor said.

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Observing that increasing prosperity of the American people is always one of Trumps top priorities, McMaster said that throughout the trip, the president will stress his commitment to free, fair and reciprocal trade. PTI LKJ ZH

--- ENDS ---
TipRanks

The elections are behind us, the latest inflation data showed an easing back in the rate of increase, and markets finished last week with their best trading sessions in months. The signs have aligned for investors to feel good. Or should they? Billionaire investor Carl Icahn believes otherwise, and in a recent interview he laid out the case for the bears. I am still quite bearish on what is going to happen. A rally like this is of course very dramatic to say the least, but you have them all the
By PTI: (Eds: Updating with more quotes)

By Lalit K Jha

Washington, Nov 3 (PTI) US President Donald Trump today said he would extend his trip in the Philippines by another day to attend the East Asia Summit, a key meeting between ASEAN and eight of its partners.

The US was originally scheduled to be represented by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the all-important East Asia Summit to be held in the Philippines on November 14.

advertisement

Trump announced the news to reporters before boarding Marine One on the White House lawns for the nearly two-week long maiden trip to Asia with stops in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

The November 3 to November 14 travel of Trump is not only his longest foreign trip to date, but also the longest trip to Asia by a US president in more than a quarter century.

"Just took off for ceremony @Pearl Harbor. Will then be heading to Japan, S Korea, China, Vietnam & the Philippines. Will never let you down!" Trump tweeted moments after he boarded Air Force One.

Looking forward to his trip, Trump earlier said he is "actually staying an extra day" in the Philippines.

"Were going to have a very successful trip. There is a lot of goodwill," Trump told reporters.

"We have a big conference, a second conference. I think we?re going to have great success," he said, referring to the East Asia Summit.

"Well be talking about trade. Well be talking about obviously North Korea. Well be enlisting the help of a lot of people and countries and we?ll see what happens," Trump said.

The White House later said that President Trump plans to spend an additional day in the Philippines to attend the East Asia Summit.

Officials said the trip is to "strengthen longstanding" alliances and expand new partnerships.

Noting that this historic trip will build on this ongoing presidential diplomacy, National Security Advisor H R McMaster said Trump?s trip will focus on three goals: strengthening international resolve to denuclearize North Korea; promote a free and open Indo-Pacific region; and advance American prosperity through fair and reciprocal trade and economic practices.

In the last 10 months, Trump has actively engaged leaders in the Indo-Pacific to address a range of strategic issues, including, most notably, the North Korean nuclear threat.

Since taking office, Trump has placed 43 calls to Indo- Pacific leaders and conducted bilateral meetings with Japan, South Korea, China, India, Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand.

advertisement

"This trip is a great opportunity to demonstrate Americas and the Trump administrations commitment to the Indo-Pacific and our efforts to strengthen longstanding American alliances and expand new partnerships," McMaster said on the eve of Trumps departure.

The US remains committed to the complete, verifiable and permanent denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, he said, asserting that during his trip Trump will reiterate the plain fact that North Korea threatens not just its allies, but also a threat to the entire world.

So all nations of the world must do more to counter that threat, he said. "That is happening. But the president recognizes that were running out of time and will ask all nations to do more," McMaster said.

In particular, he will continue to call on all responsible nations, especially those with the most influence over North Korea, to isolate its regime economically and politically, to convince its leaders that the pursuit of nuclear weapons is a dead end and that it is past time to denuclearize.

During his meetings with world leaders, Trump will remind friend and foe alike that the US stands ready to defend itself and its allies using the full range of its capabilities.

advertisement

McMaster said Trump will also use his trip to promote his vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

He will make the case that respect for freedom of navigation and overflight, the rule of law, sovereignty, freedom from coercion, and private enterprise and open markets is the best model to increase prosperity throughout the region, and to secure the freedom and independence of all nations, the top presidential advisor said.

Observing that increasing prosperity of the American people is always one of Trumps top priorities, McMaster said that throughout the trip, the president will stress his commitment to free, fair and reciprocal trade. PTI LKJ ZH

--- ENDS ---
IAS officer Radheshyam Mopalwar was being blackmailed by a private detective Satish Mangle and his wife who is a Marathi film and TV actress Shraddha Mangle.

By Divyesh Singh: The Thane Police's Anti-Extortion Cell has arrested a couple for allegedly blackmailing and demanding extortion of Rs 10 crore from a senior bureaucrat in Maharashtra.

The complainant IAS officer Radheshyam Mopalwar, who was earlier holding charge as managing director of Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), was being blackmailed by a private detective Satish Mangle and his wife who is a Marathi film and TV actress Shraddha Mangle.

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The couple told Mopalwar that they had many videos and audio clips of him where he could be seen or heard conversing about his involvement in some corrupt deals while he held the office at MSRDC.

Satish even threatened Mopalwar that if he failed to adhere to his demands, he would make the clips public and distribute it to news channels.Satish had two meetings earlier with Mopalwar for the extortion demand he had made and those were at Kahregaon in Kalva and at his residence at Palava city in Dombivali. The third meeting was at JW Marriott Hotel in Juhu, Mumbai where the extortion money was finally reduced to Rs 7 crore by Satish. This meeting was recorded by Mopalwar.

"We had laid a trap at Satish's residence in Palava city in Dombivali where trap money of Rs 1 crore in dummy notes were sent as first installment. Satish and his wife Shraddha were caught red-handed accepting the money. Satish initially came in touch with Mopalwar when he sought his services while his divorce proceedings with his wife were going on." said Thane Police Commissioner Parambir Singh.

Singh further added, "Satish would record all meetings and then tampered with one such clip and threatened Mopalwar and demanded extortion of Rs 10 crore from him. Two more people's involvement in the case has come to light."

Satish had earlier made allegations against Mopalwar, who is presently on leave and facing inquiry by a state appointed committee regarding corruption allegations. Shraddha, an actress and socialite, would help Satish in the blackmailing business he carried out and extorted money.

It is suspected that several such victims, who are bureaucrats and politicians, would have fallen prey to Satish and Shraddha.

Satish led a lavish life and owned a fleet of super cars which consist of Mercedes, BMW, Toyota Fortuner and several others. The couple is suspected to own several properties in Mumbai and Thane too. During the launch of one of their salons in Borivali some film personalities and TV actors were present.

Thane Police might seek help of some central agencies also as it is suspected that the couple would channel out their Ill gotten money through hawala and other illegal channels.

The team that arrested Satish and Shraddha was led by encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma and Police Inspector Rajkumar Kothmire from the Anti-Extortion Cell -- the same officers who have been investigating the three extortion cases registered Dawood Ibrahim, his brother Iqbal, Anees and Chhota Shakeel registered in Thane.

--- ENDS ---

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Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding said on Thursday its quarterly revenue climbed 61%, beating analysts estimates, helped by growth in its core e-commerce business.

The firm, headed by billionaire entrepreneur Jack Ma, posted 55.12 billion yuan ($8.34 billion) in revenue for the July-September quarter, above a 52.2 billion yuan forecast from analysts polled by Reuters.

Net income more than doubled from a year ago to 17.67 billion yuan, growing at a faster clip than the previous two quarters.

The second quarter is often slower for Alibaba as it prepares for the annual blockbuster Singles Day event on Nov. 11, a sales bonanza that shifts more goods than the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales days in the United States combined.

Alibaba baba , whose Tmall and Taobao shopping platforms dominate online retail in China, saw revenues from its core e-commerce business hit 46.46 billion yuan, a 63% rise from the same quarter a year earlier.

Up next for Alibaba is the 11.11 shopping festival, Chinas largest online sales event that acts as a yardstick for the countrys retail appetite. Sales tend to dip in the preceding and following quarters.

Revenue from Alibabas fast-growing cloud computing business was 3.0 billion yuan, up 99% but slowing from a 130% rise a year earlier.
We expect Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. IONS to beat expectations when it reports third-quarter 2017 results on Nov 7.

Last quarter, the company reported a wider-than-expected loss, resulting in a negative surprise of 50%. The company has missed estimates twice in the four trailing quarters while beating the same on two occasions, delivering an average positive earnings surprise of 21.90%.

Notably, Ionis share price has increased 19.4% year to date, compared with the Zacks classified industrys decline of 0.2%.

Lets see how things are shaping up for this announcement.

Earnings Whispers

Our proven model shows that Ionis is likely to beat estimates this quarter as it has the right combination of two key ingredients  a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold)  which have a significantly higher chance of beating earnings.

Zacks ESP: Earnings ESP, which represents the difference between the Most Accurate estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate, is +150%. This is because the Most Accurate estimate is pegged at 5 cents per share while the Zacks Consensus Estimate is pegged at 2 cents per share. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Zacks Rank: Ionis currently carries a Zacks Rank #1, which when combined with a positive ESP makes us reasonably confident of an earnings beat.

Note that we caution against stocks with a Zacks Rank #4 or 5 (Sell-rated) going into the earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing negative estimate revisions.

Factors to Consider

Ionis earns revenues in the form of upfront, milestone and other payments under its partnerships with leading health care companies like Biogen Inc. BIIB and Glaxo. These agreements also validate the companys technology platform.

Ionis and Biogen received FDA approval for Spinraza in December 2016 for treating spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). The drug was approved in Europe in June 2017 as the first treatment for SMA. Ionis had entered into a collaboration agreement with Biogen to develop and commercialize Spinraza in 2012. Moreover, as part of the licensing agreement with Biogen, Ionis earns royalties on Spinraza sales from Biogen.

Story continues

Last week, Biogen released its third-quarter 2017 results and announced that Spinraza has witnessed strong demand in the United States, which drove sales. The company is working on expanding access to all patients.

In June 2017, Spinraza received approval in Japan, which earned Ionis $40 million in milestone payments in August. Moreover, Ionis received another $10 million from Biogen associated with the validation of an undisclosed neurological disease target.

Apart from Spinraza, we expect investor focus to be on pipeline updates at the third-quarter conference call.

During the quarter, Ionis and Akcea submitted regulatory applications to the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the FDA and Health Canada for volanesorsen for the treatment of patients with familial chylomicronemia syndrome (FCS). We note that in March, the companies had announced positive results from the Phase III APPROACH study of volanesorsen in patients with FCS. In fact, the companies believe that volanesorsen has the potential to be the first treatment option for patients suffering from the daily burden as well as the life-threatening risks of FCS.

Notably in August, Ionis announced that Glaxo has declined its option to develop Inotersen and IONIS-FB-L Rx. Ionis now retains all rights to the candidates and will develop them independently. Ionis announced data from a completed phase III study in May, which demonstrated significant improvement in neurological disease progression and quality of life in patients with hereditary TTR amyloidosis.

Ionis has several early to mid-stage pipeline candidates for various indications. We expect the company to provide updates on different studies, including the path forward for Inotersen, in the third-quarter earnings call.

Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Quote

Other Stocks to Consider

Here are some health care stocks that you may also want to consider, as our model shows that these have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat this quarter.

Agenus Inc. AGEN has an Earnings ESP of +8.11% and a Zacks Rank #2. The company is scheduled to release results on Nov 7. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Myriad Genetics, Inc. MYGN has an Earnings ESP of +1.04% and a Zacks Rank #2. The company is scheduled to release results on Nov 7.

More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone!

It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 27 billion devices in just 3 years, creating a $1.7 trillion market.

Zacks has just released a Special Report that spotlights this fast-emerging phenomenon and 6 tickers for taking advantage of it. If you don't buy now, you may kick yourself in 2020.

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Myriad Genetics, Inc. (MYGN) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Biogen Inc. (BIIB) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Agenus Inc. (AGEN) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (IONS) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment Research
China and Vietnam have reached an agreement on managing their dispute in the South China Sea through friendly talks, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Friday, following an ugly spat over the summer between the two communist neighbors. The countries have long been at loggerheads over the strategic waterway, through which more than $3 trillion in cargo passes every year, with Vietnam having emerged as the most vocal opponent of China's claims to the majority of the regional sea. A scheduled meeting between their foreign ministers in August was cancelled on the sidelines of a regional gathering in Manila amid an argument about militarization in the South China Sea and island-building. Hanoi and Beijing, however, have sought to get relations back on track, with a top Chinese leader telling his Vietnamese hosts in September that their two communist parties have a "shared destiny". Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met senior Vietnamese officials in Hanoi this week. Speaking before Chinese President Xi Jinping goes to Vietnam next week for a state visit and to attend a summit of Asia Pacific leaders, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong said national leaders of the two countries have had many "deep, frank" discussions on maritime issues. "They reached an important consensus," Chen told a news briefing. "Both sides will uphold the principle of friendly consultations and dialogue to jointly manage and control maritime disputes , and protect the bigger picture of developing Sino-Vietnam relations and stability in the South China Sea." Vietnam's Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh said in a statement late on Thursday that he had proposed in a meeting with Wang that the two countries resolve disputes based on common sense and international law. The latter point is a contentious one in the South China Sea, where Vietnam has long said China's extensive territorial claim has no legal basis . China and Southeast Asian countries are willing and able to handle the South China Sea issue themselves, Chen said, in an oblique reference to the United States , whose comments on the dispute and naval patrols in the waterway have angered Beijing . "We also hope countries outside the region can objectively view positive change in the South China Sea situation, and do more for peace and stability in the region," Chen said. China has appeared uneasy at Vietnamese efforts to rally Southeast Asian countries over the busy swathe of sea as well as at its neighbor's growing defense ties with the United States, Japan and India . In July, under pressure from Beijing, Vietnam suspended oil drilling in offshore waters also claimed by China. Brunei, Malaysia , the Philippines and Taiwan also claim parts of the South China Sea, and dispute China's contention of sovereignty over most of the waters. China has undertaken more construction and reclamation in the South China Sea, recent satellite images show , and is likely to more powerfully reassert its claims over the waterway soon, regional diplomats and military officers say. Xi is also visiting Laos during his tour, another communist-run county once firmly in Vietnam's orbit, but which is now increasingly close to Beijing and the site of several major Chinese infrastructure projects. China and Vietnam have reached an agreement on managing their dispute in the South China Sea through friendly talks, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Friday, following an ugly spat over the summer between the two communist neighbors. The countries have long been at loggerheads over the strategic waterway, through which more than $3 trillion in cargo passes every year, with Vietnam having emerged as the most vocal opponent of China's claims to the majority of the regional sea. A scheduled meeting between their foreign ministers in August was cancelled on the sidelines of a regional gathering in Manila amid an argument about militarization in the South China Sea and island-building. Hanoi and Beijing, however, have sought to get relations back on track, with a top Chinese leader telling his Vietnamese hosts in September that their two communist parties have a "shared destiny". Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met senior Vietnamese officials in Hanoi this week. Speaking before Chinese President Xi Jinping goes to Vietnam next week for a state visit and to attend a summit of Asia Pacific leaders, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong said national leaders of the two countries have had many "deep, frank" discussions on maritime issues. "They reached an important consensus," Chen told a news briefing. "Both sides will uphold the principle of friendly consultations and dialogue to jointly manage and control maritime disputes , and protect the bigger picture of developing Sino-Vietnam relations and stability in the South China Sea." Vietnam's Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh said in a statement late on Thursday that he had proposed in a meeting with Wang that the two countries resolve disputes based on common sense and international law. The latter point is a contentious one in the South China Sea, where Vietnam has long said China's extensive territorial claim has no legal basis . China and Southeast Asian countries are willing and able to handle the South China Sea issue themselves, Chen said, in an oblique reference to the United States , whose comments on the dispute and naval patrols in the waterway have angered Beijing . "We also hope countries outside the region can objectively view positive change in the South China Sea situation, and do more for peace and stability in the region," Chen said. China has appeared uneasy at Vietnamese efforts to rally Southeast Asian countries over the busy swathe of sea as well as at its neighbor's growing defense ties with the United States, Japan and India . In July, under pressure from Beijing, Vietnam suspended oil drilling in offshore waters also claimed by China. Brunei, Malaysia , the Philippines and Taiwan also claim parts of the South China Sea, and dispute China's contention of sovereignty over most of the waters. China has undertaken more construction and reclamation in the South China Sea, recent satellite images show , and is likely to more powerfully reassert its claims over the waterway soon, regional diplomats and military officers say. Xi is also visiting Laos during his tour, another communist-run county once firmly in Vietnam's orbit, but which is now increasingly close to Beijing and the site of several major Chinese infrastructure projects.



More From CNBC


A Bombardier CSeries aircraft is pictured during a news conference to announce a partnership between Airbus and Bombardier on the C Series aircraft programme, in Colomiers near Toulouse, France, October 17, 2017. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

By Matt Scuffham

TORONTO (Reuters) - Bombardier Inc (BBDb.TO) should look at all options for its transportation business including partnering with China's state-owned CRRC , one of Bombardier's biggest shareholders said on Wednesday.

"I think we have to look at everything. Every opportunity that comes up ought to be looked at," Caisse de depot et Placement du Quebec Chief Executive Officer Michael Sabia told reporters when asked about a deal with CRRC.

Germany's Siemens (SIEGn.DE) and France's Alstom (ALSO.PA) said they are merging their train manufacturing operations in September. The move will leave Bombardier competing in a market dominated by CRRC, the world's largest train maker, and a combined Siemens and Alstom group as the second biggest.

Sabia said Bombardier should consider a partnership with CRRC rather than selling the business to the Chinese.

"I think the transportation business is a long-run asset of Bombardier. I don't see an opportunity or reason to go down the sale path," he said.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has said that the combination of Siemens and Alstom could be expanded to include Bombardier and create a business capable of competing with CRRC but Sabia said such a combination would be difficult.

"A three-party dance is a complicated dance. It's hard not to step on people's toes," he said.

"If a door opened and there were an interesting transaction to be done, would we have any objections in principle? No. But those are very difficult to get done."

The Caisse, which invests on behalf of workers and retirees in the Canadian province of Quebec, took a 30 percent stake in Bombardier's money-generating rail division in November 2015.

(Reporting by Matt Scuffham; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Steve Orlofsky)
Broadcom Limited company logo is pictured on an office building in Rancho Bernardo, California May 12, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake/Files

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chipmaker Broadcom Ltd plans to redomicile to the United States from Singapore, President Donald Trump said on Thursday at a White House news conference where the company's chief executive cited Republican tax efforts.

Broadcom Chief Executive Officer Hock Tan told reporters: "America is again the best place to lead a business with a global footprint. Thanks to you Mr. President, business conditions have steadily improved."

The company later confirmed the plan in a statement that quoted Tan as saying: "We expect the tax reform plan effectively to level the playing field for large multinational corporations headquartered in the United States and to allow us to go all in on U.S. redomiciliation. However, we intend to redomicile to the United States even if there is no corporate tax reform.

Trump praised the move, calling Broadcom "one of the really great, great companies."

"They employ over 7,500 workers in many states across our country. Were looking forward to seeing that number grow very substantially, which it is now anticipated to do," he added.

The company, which makes a range of semiconductor products for wireless communications, smartphones, data center networking and other markets, is currently incorporated in Singapore and co-headquartered there and in San Jose, California.

Its shares fell about 3 percent after the announcement.

(Reporting by James Oliphant; Writing by Eric Walsh; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
qualcomm

Albert Gea/Reuters

The semiconductor giant Broadcom is exploring an acquisition of $80 billion Qualcomm, according to a Bloomberg News report on Friday citing people familiar with the matter. It would be the biggest-ever purchase of a semiconductor manufacturer.

Shares of Qualcomm surged roughly 15% on the news, while Broadcom's stock climbed more than 3%.

According to the Bloomberg report, Broadcom is in talks with financial advisers but no final decisions have been made.

Broadcom, which has a market value of $110 billion, on Thursday announced it would move its headquarters to the US from Singapore.

Qualcomm is also trying to complete a $47 billion purchase of NXP Semiconductors.

It has been a quieter year for mergers-and-acquisitions activity so far in 2017  with US inbound M&A volume for the first nine months at $199.3 billion, down 39% from last year, according to Dealogic  though the activity in semiconductors shows just how much consolidation is taking place.

Tech acquisitions, in particular, have dropped sharply. The sector's M&A volume in the Americas reached $117.9 billion in the first nine months of 2017, a 58% decrease from the same period in 2016, Dealogic data shows.

However, John Waldron, a cohead of the investment-banking division at Goldman Sachs, recently told Business Insider he expected big-ticket M&A to pick up.

Of his firm's debt operation, Waldron said, "If what we think is going to happen happens, which is more endgame consolidation, that would be really good for this business."

NOW WATCH: Watch billionaire Jack Ma sing his heart out during a surprise performance at a music festival

See Also:
By PTI: (Eds: Updating with more details)

Washington, Nov 3 (PTI) Donald Trump may be the worlds most powerful man but a disgruntled Twitter customer support employee on the final day at the social media giant managed to delete the twitter-happy US Presidents account for 11 minutes.

On Thursday evening, visitors to Trumps Twitter page for a short time could only see a message that read "Sorry, that page doesnt exist!"

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Trumps account has over 41 million followers. He had joined Twitter in March 2009 and he has tweeted more than 36,000 times.

Twitter initially said the account had been "inadvertently deactivated due to human error", but later indicated it was done intentionally by a departing worker.

"Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employees last day," it said.

Twitter did not name the staffer who deactivated Trumps account, but it did describe the person as a "customer support employee."

"We are conducting a full internal review," it said on the official Twitter Government account.

Trump brushed off the outage in a new tweet today, suggesting it showed the "impact" he was having.

"My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee," Trump wrote. "I guess the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact."

After his account was restored, Trumps first tweet was about the Republican Partys tax cuts plan.

Trump has been actively using the social media platform to promote his policies and also attack his political opponents both during the presidential campaign in 2016 and since assuming office in January.

In one interview he said that when someone said something about him, he was able to go "bing, bing, bing on Twitter" - and take care of it.

Trump has even used Twitter to announce major policy changes, and even surprised Pentagon officials in July by tweeting that transgender people would be barred from serving in any capacity in the US military.

In one of his other most controversial tweets, Trump had taunted FBI chief James Comey days before sacking him in May.

Meanwhile, the fact that one worker was able to take down the presidents account left people asking whether Twitter has appropriate internal controls.

"This is a case of human negligence and lack of process in place," Subramanian Udaiyappan, a Bangalore-based cybersecurity specialist at Cisco told CNN.

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"Twitter needs to ensure that only the right people have access to such actions and these have to go through process permissions, approvals and logging before any action is taken by an employee," Udaiyappan said.

Meanwhile, Twitter was also flooded with people wanting to congratulate the employee responsible.

"Kudos to the @twitter customer support employee who deactivated Trumps twitter account on his last work day. You sir are my hero," one person tweeted.

"Whoever disabled Donald Trumps Twitter account shouldnt be sacked. They should be promoted," another one tweeted. PTI AKJ AKJ

--- ENDS ---
In his longest official visit yetand the longest in decades of any US president to AsiaDonald Trump will visit five Asian countries in little more than a week. Its a busy trip, and a chance for the Trump administration to try to make headway on some of the most thorny strategic matters before it: how to deal with North Korea, shore up regional alliances, and find common ground with China while pressing hard on issues like trade.

The trip begins in Hawaii on Nov. 3 where he will visit Pearl Harbor. He kicks off the Asia portion of the visit in Japan on Nov. 5, and concludes his trip in the Philippines just after the following weekend.

Heres a primer on where he will be, whom he will meet, and equally important, where he is not going.

Japan, Nov. 5-6

Takuya Yokota shows a picture of his sister Megumi Yokota, a Japanese national abducted by North Korean agents decades ago.

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe just had a strong showing in a general election where he essentially campaigned on one issue: North Korea, playing up his friendship with Trump as the key to keeping Japan safe. Abes also keen to revise Japans anti-war constitution, a move that could allow the nation more leeway on things like when to shoot down North Korean missiles. Its rhetoric that Trump might appreciate, as the president said during campaigning last year that Japan and South Korea need to take more responsibility for their own security (since taking office the president has said the US stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100%). In Japan, Trump will:

Meet US service members and Japans Self-Defense Forces at Yokota Air Force Base, near Tokyo

Play a round of golf

Call on the Japanese imperial family

Meet the parents of Megumi Yokota, a Japanese teenager abducted by North Korean agents in 1977 when she was 13. Abe says he proposed the meeting to Trump in September at the United Nations General Assembly meeting, where Trump mentioned Megumi in a speech

Attend bilateral meetings and a banquet hosted by Abe

Story continues

South Korea, Nov. 7-8

South Korea is not first among equals when it comes to dealing with the global security issue that concerns it more than it does any other countryNorth Korea. Its not one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, which periodically meets to slap more sanctions on Pyongyang (it last sat on the council as an elected member in 2013-2014). If a war breaks out with North Korea, it wont have operational command (paywall) over its troops. And unlike China and Japan, theres still no US ambassador in Korea to regularly communicate Seouls point of view. Japan and the US are far more closely aligned (paywall) on North Korea, and the feeling of being sidelineddubbed in the country Korea passingemerged early in Trumps term. From president Moon Jae-ins point of view, Trumps trip is a chance to do something about this state of affairs.

But Trump isnt likely to see eye-to-eye with a man who made his career as a human-rights lawyer, and whose approach to North Korea involves persuading North Korea to join the Winter Olympics that South Korea is hosting early next year. Trump may also be looking for concessions on the US-South Korea free-trade agreement. In South Korea, Trump will:

Visit American and South Korean military personnel at Camp Humphreys, described in a briefing by a senior administration official ahead of the visit as an excellent example of burden-sharing by the South Korean government

Have a bilateral meeting with president Moon and attend a state dinner

Address lawmakers at the National Assembly on Nov. 8, in a speech the administration official said will call for maximizing pressure on North Korea

Visit the Seoul National Cemetery, where the remains of tens of thousands of soldiers who died in the Korean War are buried

China, Nov. 8-10

Melania and I look forward to being with President Xi & Madame Peng Liyuan in China in two weeks for what will hopefully be a historic trip! pic.twitter.com/uFMonzza7N  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2017

When Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping meet on the latters turf, Xis power will be the greatest its ever been. Trumps, meanwhile, has partially diminished in the time since he hosted Xi at Mar-a-Lago in April, where he ordered a missile strike during dinner. Nonetheless, Trump is expected to bring up contentious issues, such as market access for US companies, the trade deficit, and whether China is tough enough on North Korea. Trumps entourage will also include business leaders brought together by commerce secretary Wilbur Rossbut not his daughter Ivanka Trump, who is admired in China (paywall).

Ryan Hass, a foreign-policy expert at the Brookings Institutions John L. Thornton China Center, said that there are risks to going in with the assumption that Trump will be able to come back with something from China.

Trump has tried to increase pressure on trade for much of the past six months through tweets, phone calls with Xi, and messages conveyed through his envoys, to no avail, wrote Hass. During that period, China has not blinked. The U.S. trade deficit with China has grown, not shrunk.

His advice? Trump should avoid levying specific threats of future enforcement actions, as doing so now would only result in limiting future negotiating space.

In China, Trump will:

Be welcomed with a honor guard

Engage in commercial and cultural meetings, including with Xi

Attend a state banquet

Vietnam, Nov. 10-11

Last year, during president Barack Obamas visit to Vietnam, the US announced it was lifting a decades-old arms embargo (paywall), but also emphasized that Vietnam had to make improvements on human rights. Trump is going to arrive in a Vietnam that is continuing, if not deepening, a crackdown on dissidents. Just days ahead of the visit, the daughter of imprisoned blogger Mother Mushroom posted a letter on her mothers Facebook page appealing to Trumps wife, Melania Trump, for help in freeing her mother. Vietnam also has concerns about Chinas activities in the South China Sea, and trade with the USit stood to gain a lot from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that Trump has pulled America out of.

Earlier this year, Vietnams prime minister visited the White House.

In Vietnam, Trump will:

Participate in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders meeting in the resort town of Danang

Speak at the APEC CEO summit

Attend bilateral meetings with president Dan Trai Quang in Hanoi.

Philippines, Nov. 12-13

Making new friends.

Soon after Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte took office last year, he began taking swings at the longstanding US-Philippine alliance. He told then president Obama to go to hell and worse, leading Obama to cancel a planned trip there. He threatened to discontinue joint military exercises with the USthey have continued, but have been scaled down. Meanwhile, Duterte has warmed significantly to China, and has appeared to set aside a vindicating international tribunal decision over disputed parts of the South China Sea, that was handed down in response to a complaint brought by Manila.

The senior administration official said Trump has a warm rapport with Duterte. Trump has said that Dutertewhose war on drugs has resulted in thousands of extrajudicial killingsis doing a great job combating the drug problem. He has also invited Duterte to the White House, but the Philippine leader said at the time he was a bit busy. In the Philippines, Trump will:

Attend a gala celebration for the 50th anniversary of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)

Mark the 40th anniversary of US-ASEAN releations with a summit on Nov. 13

Hold bilateral meetings with Duterte and other officials.

Where hes not going

Although it initially seemed to be on the cards, Trump in the end decided not visit the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas, with a senior administration official calling such a visit a cliche.

Trump also wont attend the East Asia Summit on Nov. 14 in the Philippines, even though hell already be in the country. Some analysts say that even though Trump is already attending other summits on his Asia trip, this particular one focuses on crucial regional political and security issues (paywall). Trumps move to go home early could be a mistake, as it could be seen as an example of the US ceding valuable ground to China in a geopolitically tense region.

Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief, our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news.

More stories from Quartz:
Today on Capitol Hill, House GOP lawmakers unveiled the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and, in the process, doubled down on their message that corporate tax cuts will spur growth, raise wages, and benefit the American worker.

The proposal, which touches nearly every aspect of Americas tax system, would permanently and immediately lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20% while also delivering other corporate tax breaks.

Proponents of corporate tax cuts argue that they will enable employers to create more jobs. Opponents see no basis for this assumption based on past experience with tax cuts under presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

Instead of simply hoping that such tax cuts will trickle down to the broader public, why not make trickle down a necessary condition for businesses to receive lower taxes?

One way to accomplish this is to amend a current provision in the tax code that allows executives to deduct any yearly income they make over $1 million if they meet certain performance standards. The amendment could deny this deduction to companies unless they also make it available to all of the workforce. Such incentives encourage companies to take a second look at how they compensate their employees.

A second way to deal with the trickle-down problem would be to provide a tax credit for employee training. Government training programs have thus far been small and not been very effective; employer efforts would function much better.

I just returned from a field trip to Kentucky where a coalition of employers is partnering with a community college to train workers to be technicians in their manufacturing plants. The collaborators have designed a smart program in which apprentices work for sponsoring employers three days a week and attend customized training at a community college for two days. Its a smart program that is supplying employers with desperately needed skilled labor. A tax credit for such programs could go a long way.

Story continues

This vision of inclusive capitalism should have bipartisan support. Instead of relying on government training programs or requiring low-wage workers to turn to government handouts that are expensive and demeaning, businesses would help workers gain the skills that they need and offer pay packages that better reflect their contributions.

These ideas wont solve all of our problems, of course, and we should be skeptical of adding additional provisions to a tax code that badly needs to be simplified. But these and similar ideas deserve a hearing. They do not rely on government to retool the labor force or improve our lagging productivity growth. Instead they call on businesses to play a bigger role, but with a nudge from a reformed tax system.

This would move us toward a system of more inclusive capitalismencouraging economic growth but making sure its benefits are more widely shared.

Isabel Sawhill is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where she is writing a book about the forgotten Americans and the dignity of work.
[caption id="attachment_1971" align="aligncenter" width="616"]

Eric Williams.[/caption] Texas' Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld the death sentence imposed upon former Justice of the Peace Eric Williams, who was convicted of capital murder in connection with death of two prosecutors and one of their wives. Williams was tried and convicted of capital murder in 2014 for the death of Cynthia McLelland, who was shot inside her Forney home along with her husband, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland. Williams was also charged with capital murder for the killing of Mark Hasse, a Kaufman County assistant district attorney who was fatally shot while walking from the employee parking lot to work. McLelland and Hasse had previously prosecuted Williams in burglary and theft by a public servant case. Williams was later removed from his job as a justice of the peace because of the convictions and was ultimately disbarred by the State Bar of Texas. Williams appealed his conviction and death sentence to the CCA, arguing among other things that his brain is broken because of diabetes and that the judge who presided over his capital murder trial case biased the jury through facial expressions. But in a 110-page decision released Nov. 1, the CCA rejected all of Williams points of error. In his decision, CCA Judge Michael Keasler noted that Williams planned to kill two other judges and presented a future danger to society. In addition to the three murders Williams had committed and the two murders that he was planning at the time of his arrest, Williams had a general history of making threats when he became angry or wanted to control others. He threatened to kill other attorneys over perceived insults and injuries, Keasler wrote. Keasler also noted Williams had pointed a gun at a couple in a church parking lot when he was chasing his dog, he had threatened to kill his own wife, and hed threatened to kill his elderly, ill father-in-law in a dispute over a cellphone bill. Viewing the future dangerousness evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, we conclude that a rational trier of fact could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a probability that Williams would commit criminal acts of violence constituting a continuing threat to society, Keasler wrote. Williams wife, Kim Williams, assisted her husband in the slayings and avoided a death sentence by pleading guilty and testifying against him during the 2014 trial. Kim Williams was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2015.
Time Warner (TWX) shares fell Thursday after a newspaper reported that the Department of Justice is considering an antitrust lawsuit to block AT&T (NYSE:T)'s acquisition of the media company. Time Warner share price was down 4.1 percent after The Wall Street Journal reported that the department's antitrust division is preparing for litigation in case it decides to sue to block the deal. AT&T's stock was down 1.2 percent. At the same time, the department and the companies are discussing possible terms that would allow the deal to receive the government's approval, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. AT&T representatives have met with Justice officials in recent weeks, and the department hasn't made a final decision, but the two sides aren't close to an agreement, the Journal's sources said. "When the DOJ reviews any transaction, it is common and expected for both sides to prepare for all possible scenarios," AT&T said in a statement. "For over 40 years, vertical mergers like this one have always been approved because they benefit consumers without removing any competitors from the market. While we won't comment on our discussions with DOJ, we see no reason in the law or the facts why this transaction should be an exception." Time Warner and the Department of Justice declined comment.

AT&T reached an agreement to buy Time Warner for more than $85 billion last October. In July, sources told CNBC the deal could close in as soon as 60 days. Read the full Wall Street Journal story here.



More From CNBC


Tesla CEO Elon Musk called recent media coverage over the companys decision to fire about 700 employees following annual performance reviews ridiculous and that the automaker must have higher standards than its competitors if it hopes to survive.

At every company in the world, theres annual performance reviews, Musk said, adding that Tesla has an extremely high standard, and one thats far higher than other car companies. You cant be a little guy and have equal levels of skill as a big guy.

Tesla employs 33,000 people. A 700-person cut--the number Musk cited Wednesday during Teslas third-quarter earnings call--would mean Tesla dismissed about 2% of its workers.

The San Jose Mercury News reported in October that an estimated 400 to 700 Tesla employees were dismissed, many of whom said the dismissals came with little or no warning.

Tesla told Fortune that these cuts were made following the companys annual performance review process. The United Auto Workers filed a complaint against Tesla on Oct. 25, claiming the company fired workers who were trying to unionize.

You have two boxes of equal ability, and ones much smaller, the big guys going to crush the little guy, obviously, Musk elaborated. So the little guy better have a heck of a lot more skill or hes going to get clobbered. So that is why our standards are high. Theyre not high because we believe in being mean to people. Theyre high because if theyre not high, we will die.

Musk emphasized that in spite of these high standards only 2% of people didnt make the grade, noting that this is a very low percentage. Musk also said reports didnt include that several thousand employees were promoted and almost half those promotions were in manufacturing.

In a previous statement sent to Fortune, Tesla said 17% of its employees were promoted, and almost half of those promotions were within its factory in Fremont.

Story continues

A quick look at Teslas career page shows a different, yet related problem: lots of job openings. Its an issue the Musk later addressed in the earnings call, noting that the company is sucking the labor pool dry to fill positions at its factory in Fremont, Calif., and battery factory near Reno, Nevada.

Tesla reported Wednesday that it lost $619 million in the third quarter, its biggest-ever quarterly loss. Those losses were bigger than usual as Tesla tried to speed up production of its more affordable Model 3 sedan.

The company said it had $3.53 billion in cash and cash-equivalents as of Sept. 30, compared to $3.04 billion at the end of the second quarter.

Last month, Tesla reported that it produced 260 of its new Model 3 electric cars in the third quarter, of which it has delivered 220, dramatically missing Musk's prediction that it would produce more than 1,600 cars by September.

Overall, the company delivered 26,150 vehicles in the third quarter. Of those, 14,065 were Model S sedans, 11,865 were Model X SUVs, and 220 were Model 3 cars.

See original article on Fortune.com

More from Fortune.com
"I made this item you are going to buy, but I didn't get paid for it." So reads tags found on clothes at Zara stores in Istanbul. The workers are from Bravo Tekstil, an apparel factory in the city, which makes clothes for Zara, Mango and Next. The facility abruptly shut down roughly a year ago, when its owner disappeared along with its money. Zara had paid the factory its due, but that money did not make its way into the pockets of the workers. Workers are been campaigning to get three months of back wages and severance they say they are owed. There is a change.org petition for the cause. The issue made its way back into the news last week, when the workers went into Zara stores to bemoan their cause on clothes that have already been manufactured. Zara's parent company Inditex has set up a hardship fund to raise money "for the workers affected by the fraudulent disappearance of the Bravo factory's owner." It began to put together the fund shortly after the factory owner disappeared. "Inditex has met all of its contractual obligations to Bravo Textil and is currently working on a proposal with the local IndustriALL affiliate, Mango and Next to establish a hardship fund for the workers affected by the fraudulent disappearance of the Bravo factory's owner," said Inditex in a statement. "We are committed to finding a swift solution for all of those impacted." Inditex, which is based in Spain and has a market capitalization of 97 billion euros ($113 billion), is one of the world's largest fashion retailers. It owns 7,405 stores and employs 162,450. The company has helped to reshape the fashion industry with its ability to quickly produce and turnaround cheaper fashion items.



More From CNBC


By PTI: By Lalit K Jha

Washington, Nov 3 (PTI) A bipartisan group of five powerful lawmakers have introduced a legislation to impose sanctions on senior military officials of Myanmar who allegedly are involved in human rights violations against Rohingyas.

Nearly 600,000 minority Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh since August 25 to escape violence in Myanmars Rakhine State where the army has launched a crackdown against militants.

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Myanmar does not recognise Rohingya as an ethnic group and insists that they are Bangladeshi migrants living illegally in the country.

The proposal introduced by Senators John McCain, Ben Cardin, Dick Durbin, Marco Rubio and Todd Young, calls for targeted sanctions and travel restrictions on senior military officials of Myanmar responsible for the atrocities and systematic human rights abuses against the Rohingya people in the country.

If passed by the Congress, the legislation would prohibit certain military cooperation with the military of Myanmar until the Departments of State and Defence can certify that officials have halted the violence.

The bill would also support economic and security sector reform, and encourage Myanmars successful transition of power to a civilian government.

"The systematic human rights abuses being committed against the Rohingya people in Myanmar demand a strong response from the US and the international community," said McCain.

More than 600,000 Rohingya have been forced to flee their homes, hundreds of villages have been burned, and scores of civilians have been killed in a campaign of violence that the United Nations has called a ?textbook example of ethnic cleansing, he said.

McCain said the legislation would hold accountable the senior military officials responsible for the slaughter and displacement of innocent men, women and children in Myanmar, and make clear that the US will not stand for these atrocities.

According to Cardin, this full-blown humanitarian crisis is happening under the watch of the international community, and this bill will allow Congress to strengthen the Presidents hand by making it clear to officials in Myanmar that there will be consequences for their crimes against humanity.

The Myanmar military has engaged in a brutal campaign against the countrys Rohingya population, razing villages, raping women and killing innocent civilians, alleged Rubio.

Other Senators who have signed on this legislation are Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley, Dianne Feinstein, Brian Schatz, Tim Kaine, Chris Van Hollen, Tammy Baldwin, Cory Booker, and Jeanne Shaheen.

Congressmen Eliot Engel, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Steve Chabot, a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, have introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives. PTI LKJ AMS AKJ AMS

--- ENDS ---

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Facebook already has around half of its roughly 23,000 employees allocated to safety and security, and the company plans to aggressively grow this number  a move that comes amid growing criticism over Russia-linked influence on ads on the social network.

We already have about 10,000 people working on safety and security, and were planning to double that to 20,000 in the next year, said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO on the companys earnings call on Wednesday.

This means by the end of 2018, potentially 60% of Facebooks workforce will be allocated to safety and security, which covers ad review, information and data security, violent video screening, anti-hacking and more, according to a Facebook spokesperson.

Hiring 10,000 people is a significant investment and is a sign that public and political pressure has led Facebook to take the great power of its platform seriously. But is it enough?

To properly answer that question, think about what it means for Facebook to be hacked, and what the stakes are. With Facebook, everything is unique. Instead of normal hacking  think, unlocking a safe with a stethoscope.

Facebook is trying to solve, or at least mitigate, social engineering. By itself thats a difficult problem, said Alex McGeorge, head of threat intelligence at Immunity Inc., a security consulting firm. Now theyre trying to do it at this grand scale no one has ever done before.

The biggest investment isnt 10,000 new employees, its putting profit second

McGeorge doesnt think 10,000 extra hands alone will solve the problem. Instead, it will take a serious effort to put security priorities first. On the earnings call, Zuckerberg said he was willing to do what is necessary, even if it comes at the expense of Facebooks bottom line.

This shift in priorities is absolutely critical, McGeorge said. Facebook making this big investment in security is a good headline, but the company needs to give teams the ability to possibly make decisions that affect the bottom line. If the new security personnel are overruled by decisions made by the companys marketing teams the change is meaningless.

Story continues

Its not just about writing more secure code at this point, its about influencing the direction of the ship, said McGeorge. You need two steps: You need buying at the executive level. Everyone in the C-Suite needs to be on that plan. All chiefs in charge of bringing revenue in, they need to understand that security trumps all.

Zuckerberg indicated that he is dead serious about this. The reason Im talking about this on our earnings call is that Ive directed our teams to invest so much in security on top of the other investments were making that it will significantly impact our profitability going forward, he said.

In 2018, total expenses will grow between 45% and 60% from 2017. Protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits, Zuckerberg said. Video expenses and investments will accompany security spending, he added.

McGeorge noted that simply hiring more people is not enough, follow through is paramount. Facebook critics will be watching how the company responds to the holes in its current security framework, weaknesses Russia took advantage of to serve millions of Americans fake ads and undermine U.S. politics. But beyond that, the key thing to watch is how Facebook deals with what the hackers learned through their ad campaigns. In addition to any influence, hackers who gamed Facebooks network came away with critical knowledge, namely how to leverage Facebooks chief product: Targeting content to people.

Framing a profit-second philosophy as long-term investment

In order to sell this to Wall Street, Zuckerberg framed these expenses as long-term profitability and put these efforts under the umbrella of refining product.

People do not want false news or hate speech or bullying or any of the bad content that were talking about, he said on the call. So to the extent that we can eradicate that from the platform, that will create a better product, which will also create a stronger long-term community and better business as well.

The artificial intelligence Facebook will use in concert with the new workforce will be researched and implemented to accomplish security goals. However, it may also provide a leap forward for AI  another potential for profit.

At least one analyst felt so moved by Zuckerbergs arguments that he made a comment in addition to asking a question, one of the few to do so during the conference call.

I think this incremental spend on security is highly unfortunate, but I think it makes eminent sense, said Mark Mahaney from RBC Capital Markets. I think most long-term investors realize that community maximization, including security, would lead to long-term profit maximization.

Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann. Confidential tip line: emann[at]oath[.com].

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On July 19, 2016, Donald Trump officially became the nominee of the Republican Party.

On Oct. 25, 2017, Donald Trump officially won control of the Republican Party.

Throughout the 2016 election and the first nine months of Trumps presidency, people differentiated between Republicans and Trump Republicans. Thats no longer possible. Now, if youre a Republican, you either truly believe in Trump or youve just sold your soul to him; there are no other options.

How do I know this? Because Republican Sen. Jeff Flake said so when he announced his retirement from the Senate on Oct. 25. Flake strongly denounced Trump as dangerous and reckless. As he said, I couldnt sleep at night having to embrace the president or condoning his behavior or being okay with some of his positions.

Flake joins other Republicans who have recently taken the same stand, like Sen. Bob Corker, who questioned the presidents stability and competence by calling Trumps White House an an adult day care center. Even former Sen. Tom Coburn declared that the president has a personality disorder.

But something else Flake said made Trumps capture of the Grand Old Party clear. During an interview the following morning on CNNs New Day, he said, I couldnt run the kind of race that I would be proud of and win in a Republican primary at this time. The politics in that way ha[ve] changed. All that matters to reelection as a Republican is if youre with the president.

Flake made it clear: There is no path to election as a Republican today except as a Trump Republican. Whether Republicans are conspirators or merely complicit, the party slogan is now, Im with him.

This changed reality is already playing out in Virginias gubernatorial race. Long before Trumps emergence in Republican politics, Ed Gillespie warned his party against going down the Trump road. In a 2006 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Populists, Beware! Gillespie cautioned Republicans to avoid the political siren song of anti-immigrant policies or plans to build a bigger wall.

Story continues

Fast-forward to his 2017 campaign: Gillespie is driving straight down Trumps road at full speed, running anti-immigrant ads rife with racially motivated tropes, abandoning everything he urged his party to uphold.

A former Romney staffer recently tweeted, I worked with @EdWGillespie on the Romney campaign; a great guy, now covering himself in filth. The Washington Post summed up this dynamic in its editorial endorsing democratic candidate Ralph Northam, writing that Gillespie swapped his cloak as a problem-solver for a demagogues mantle.

Republicans in 2018 will either follow Gillespie and his ilk into Trumps filth or no longer be Republicans. To paraphrase Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars, their journey to the dark side is complete.

There is nothing grand or old about the Republican Party anymore. The GOP is dead.

Jesse F. Ferguson is a Democratic strategist who worked as deputy national press secretary and senior advisor on Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign. Previously he served as deputy executive director and director of independent expenditures for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
The share prices of the worlds two biggest wind turbine manufacturers have fallen after the U.S. House of Representatives proposed whipping away tax credits for renewable energy in order to pay for tax cuts elsewhere.

Thursdays tax reform bill maintains tax breaks for fossil fuel, but removes a $7,500 credit for electric cars and cuts the benefit from a wind credit by a third. Unless the bill is revised, it would also nix a 10% tax credit for big solar and geothermal projects after 2027.

Denmarks Vestas, the worlds biggest wind turbine manufacturer, was quick to express its disappointment. So too were its investorsits stock price was down 8.6% on Friday.

Spains Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, the industrys number two, saw its stock fall 5.2% on Friday. However, the company already had bad news this week, with a Reuters report pointing out that it was falling behind Vestas in the U.S. market.

The proposed removal of the electric car credit also hit Teslas stock by 6.8% in Thursdays trading.

Of course, the bill may be revised, and soon. According to Bloomberg, Ways and Means Committee chair Tom Brady said he may rewrite it this weekend, ahead of a committee vote on Monday.

Iowa senator Chuck Grassley has also spoken out against the bills changes to the wind credit, as a 2015 compromise will already see the credit gradually phased out over the next few years.
By Ana Mano

SAO PAULO, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Brazil's Itaqui port, the country's closest deepwater gateway to the Panama Canal, has projected a rise in 2017 shipping volumes thanks to a record grain harvest and development of a new northern farming frontier.

Most of Itaqui's export cargo arrives by train instead of roads. It is the deepest public port in Brazil, and its travel time to Europe and North America is seven days shorter than from rivals in the South.

Itaqui can handle minerals, grains, fertilizers, fuel and woodpulp consignments. Until recently, it was strategic to oil company Petroleo Brasileiro, which accessed its deepwater berth to import fuel in large vessels.

With a change in Petrobras' strategy causing its fuel transshipment activity to fall to almost zero, grains became even more crucial to Itaqui operations, Ted Lago, head of the state-owned company that controls the port, said in a telephone interview.

After Petrobras' move, overall 2016 cargo volumes dropped 23 percent as Itaqui's new grain terminal was still ramping up operations. A fall in grain output from the Matopiba region, Brazil's newest farming frontier in the north, also took its toll.

"This was a double blow for us," Lago said.

Yet as Matopiba recovered and Brazil harvested a record grain crop this year, total Itaqui volumes should rise 12.5 percent to 19 million tonnes, with grains making up 8 million tonnes, Lago said.

Recent regulatory challenges threatened Itaqui's ambition to become one of Brazil's best-run state ports.

After global firms like Louis Dreyfus Corp and Glencore International spent about $184 million to build a new grain terminal as part of a wider consortium, a regulatory limit set by port watchdog Antaq was imposed on the amount of grains an established operator, VLI Operacoes Portuarias SA, could move at Itaqui.

The cap, set at 2.4 million tonnes of soybeans and 90,000 tonnes of soymeal, was supposed to lure new private investors to Itaqui's new terminal at the expense of VLI, Lago said. Partly owned by miner Vale SA, VLI operates one of the two railroads serving Itaqui.

Story continues

Until a consortium known as Tegram Operacoes Portuarias SA reaches full capacity by mid-2019, that limitation stands, Lago said. The cap was only loosened in September of 2016, after regulator Antaq defined that it excluded corn.

"The cap issue was like throwing gasoline on fire," Lago said.

($1 = 3.2611 reais) (Reporting by Ana Mano; Editing by David Gregorio)
trump

The EventShares US Tax Reform Fund was launched last week; its methodology can shed crucial light on how to trade Trump's tax plan.

EventShares CIO Ben Phillips says that, from an investment standpoint, the biggest focus should be on the corporate tax cuts.



If you're going to create an exchange-traded fund around a specific policy proposal  such as tax reform  you'd better be able to identify the companies that will be most affected by it.

That much should be self-evident. Actually nailing it, though, isn't so simple, because tax reform has so many different aspects to it, and certain facets of it are proving to be much more exciting to investors than others.

EventShares just launched the first policy-driven ETF. It's called the EventShares US Tax Reform Fund, and in a recent interview its chief investment officer, Ben Phillips, told Business Insider how to wade through investor sentiment and political action to pick the most likely beneficiaries of the Republican effort to cut taxes.

Pulling less weight will be major exporters  or those most likely to benefit from a repatriation tax holiday  and companies poised to be positively affected by capital-expenditure deductions. Instead, focus on the companies paying the highest effective tax rate because they're the ones with the most to gain.

With this in mind, two-thirds of the tax reform ETF is made up of more domestically focused small-cap stocks with $1 billion to $10 billion in market cap, since they're poised to benefit most from a lower US tax rate, Phillips says.

Beyond the methodology for the tax reform ETF  outlined in more detail below, along with single stock picks  Phillips and I also talked about how the fund came about in the first place, as well as what other ETFs EventShares might have up its sleeve in the future.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Joe Ciolli: Can you walk through the methodology for the tax reform ETF?

Story continues

Ben Phillips: Right now, the fund is 100% equity, equal-weighted, and thoughtfully active. We want to rebalance quarterly, like most traditional ETFs, but we still reserve the right to change the portfolio intra-quarter if we need to, or if its valuable to fund holders.

Tax reform really focuses on three key buckets: tax cuts (largest, with about half), exporters, and capex deductions. Of course a lot of companies can fit into multiple buckets. We drill down on securities that we expect to move the most on the policy initiatives.

Roughly two-thirds of the portfolio is small-cap stocks, with $1 billion to $10 billion of market cap. The rest of the companies are bigger.

One of the tax-cut beneficiaries, in our opinion, is Caleres. They benefit from a shift to a territorial tax system. They make shoes in the US. Theyre one of the few US-centric retailers that actually makes its products here. Theyre not like many other retailers. The fact that they make them here puts them at a competitive advantage.

Fiserv is a large-cap high taxpayer, and they stand to benefit pretty significantly from tax reform, just because of their high rate.

We have Phillips 66 in there, and the idea there is that they pay high taxes, and also would benefit from the fact that lower taxes would make US oil and gas exporters more profitable relative to the rest of the world.

Within exporters, you have Ford, which has the largest amount of local production out of any car company in the world, which gives them the potential to see the biggest benefit from tax reform.

LyondellBasell is a triple whammy  it has a high tax rate, its a major potential beneficiary from capex deductibility, and US-produced plastic pellets would be more competitive on a global basis.

Ciolli: What about repatriation specifically?

Phillips: We dont have any in there just for cash repatriation, although a lot of our components have that embedded. Its really a one-time event, and it doesnt have a huge multiplier effect on corporate market valuations. We thought it was much more beneficial for a company that receives tax cuts, which would help it improve its earnings stream into perpetuity.

Ciolli: In terms of the Trump tax plan being released this week, what are you watching most closely?

Phillips: The TAXR portfolio is built specifically around the tax reform framework announced by congressional leadership on September 27. Its largely focused on the corporate beneficiaries.

A lot of the changes being discussed and debated after that announcement in late December are on the individual tax rates. We think the corporate tax cuts are most likely to stand. The exporters are still likely to benefit from a lower tax regime, and we think the capex reduction will stay. We dont see much changing on the corporate side. Its really important how the Senate receives it, more so than just the House announcement.

Ciolli: Does some of the opposition weve seen affect the corporate side of things? Or does it not matter to you because your ETF is a way to play either side of the trade?

Phillips: People can express a view on the short side if they dont think tax reform is going to go through. Our internal view, however, is that theres enough impetus in DC to get some form of tax reform done.

People can express a view on the short side if they dont think tax reform is going to go through. Our internal view, however, is that theres enough impetus in DC to get some form of tax reform done.

Whether that includes the full package, thats to be determined. But I think there is enough momentum behind tax reform to get something done, and the corporate side specifically is highly likely.

Ciolli: Given their composition, do you think your funds can be used as a proxy for investor sentiment around tax reform?

Phillips: You can definitely get some view into what those that are investing in ETFs or public stocks are saying, and you can read the tea leaves around sentiment shifts that are going on.

In mid-August, there was more of a focus on tax reform, and we saw a lot of activity in those stocks in our portfolio. They give you really interesting indicators.

More important, the most value for investors is if some tax-reform legislation goes through, and then the expected performance of that fund ends up being very strong. The goal is to have a really strong fund in and of itself with this embedded tax-reform catalyst. But leading up to the Senate vote, it might be an important indicator to watch.

Tax reform has implications for almost every company that does business in the US, as well as for every person who lives in the US.

Ciolli: What was the genesis for the tax-reform fund? How long ago did you start working on it?

Phillips: Two of the three cofounders are Goldman alums. While we were at Goldman, we saw these institutional products being offered to institutional clients. We saw these high-tax baskets offered by various large banks. Our thought was that these products were out there, but only the big banks offered them, and they were often expensive and illiquid. The thought of bringing a product and an ETF wrapper to anyone with a brokerage account was appealing.

Ciolli: The launch seems very well timed. How did you anticipate the need for a fund like this?

Phillips: Tax reform has implications for almost every company that does business in the US, as well as for every person who lives in the US.

We thought that if there really is major tax reform, this deserves a stand-alone product.

Ciolli: Do you have any other similar ETFs planned for the future?

Phillips: The European Union Breakup Fund (ticker: EXIT) is expected to be our fourth fund. Brexit was the genesis of the idea. When we saw it occur, it made us think that Europe has some geopolitical questions that we should be asking, namely, what happens if countries start to leave the EU, and what are investors supposed to do about that? Theres no product out there like that. I would say stay tuned for 2018.

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SEE ALSO: Traders don't want to get burned again by Trump's tax reform promises
Weve known for months that getting an iPhone X on launch day will be hard. Unless you have a confirmed pre-order set for delivery on the 3rd, or youre reading this from the sidewalk in front of the Apple Store, youre likely not going to be getting a device.

But the bad news just keeps coming, as weve confirmed that one traditionally popular method of getting a phone on launch day wont be working this year.

It looks like virtually zero carrier stores will have any iPhone X devices in stock Friday morning, according to retail employees and carrier spokespeople.

T-Mobile told BGR Weve seen a ton of excitement around iPhone X during pre-order, and in-store inventory at launch will likely be very limited. Well have plenty of demo devices, and customers can go to a T-Mobile store to touch, feel and experience iPhone X and order one right then and there.

Don't Miss: Amazon just launched its Countdown to Black Friday event with 10 killer deals

Multiple AT&T sources have said that the New England AT&T market will have no devices available, outside of potentially a few flagship stores that might get a handful of phones.

Sprint has confirmed similar details, saying only that it would have limited in-store availability on Friday. Sprint and Verizon retail employees at stores in NYC told BGR that they arent expecting any devices on Friday.

Xfinity Mobile, Comcasts mobile division, will also have limited stock in some stores. Given the relative obscurity of the network, this might be your best bet to try and get a walk-in device  just make sure youre a Comcast home internet customer first.

The one silver lining is that all carrier stores are getting demo devices, which customers will be able to come into stores and play with. If you want one, though, youll be stuck placing an order for delivery in December or January.

Heres the short version: A couple of big, corporate-owned flagship stores in major cities might be getting a few devices to sell on Friday morning, but in general, theres no point lining up in front of a carrier store to try to get a device.

Story continues

This is a departure from the usual iPhone launch procedure, which generally sees widespread availability of a device at carrier stores on launch day. However, supply problems with the iPhone X have been widely reported. Pre-orders for launch day sold out within minutes, and wait times for deliveries currently sit at around six weeks.

Additional reporting by Jonathan Geller

Update: Sprint has released the full list of stores where itll have the iPhone X in stock on launch day:

Chicago  2625 Cicero Ave, Suite A, Cicero, IL 60804

Kansas City  4901 Town Center Drive, Town Center Plaza, Leawood, KS 66211

Los Angeles  364 S. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90048

Miami  12206 Pines Blvd, Pembroke Pines, FL 33026

New York City  175 5th Ave (Flatiron store at 23rd and 5th Avenue), New York, NY 1001

Availability will be limited, likely meaning there will only be a handful of handsets ready for buyers tomorrow. If you want to be one of the lucky few, better grab your sleeping bag.

Trending right now:

See the original version of this article on BGR.com
The Justice Department Might Try to Block AT&T's $85.4 Billion Bid for Time Warner

The U.S. Department of Justice is considering seeking to block AT&Ts merger with Time Warners as it continues talks with the two companies, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The financial newspaper also said the DOJ might still consider approving the deal with certain conditions but that the two sides were not close to an agreement.

Shares of Time Warner twx were down 4.2% at $94.2, while AT&Ts shares t inched up.

Get Data Sheet, Fortunes technology newsletter

The U.S. wireless carrier is in the process of buying Time Warner for $85.4 billion in a deal that is expected to close by the end of the year.

Neither company had any immediate comment.
Martin Marietta Materials, Inc.'s MLM third-quarter 2017 adjusted earnings per share of $2.39 missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.49 by 4%. Earnings also declined 4% from the prior-year quarter due to the impact of hurricanes.



Consolidated net sales of $1.02 billion missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.06 billion and declined 1.6% year over year.

Martin Marietta reported total revenues (including freight and delivery) of $1.09 billion in the quarter under review that declined 1.5% from the year-ago quarter. Freight and delivery revenues totaled $65.6 million, remained flat year over year.



Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. Quote

Segment Discussion

The Building Materials business includes aggregates, cement, ready mixed concrete, asphalt and paving product lines.

The segments net sales fell 1.5% to $963.6 million owing to lower volumes. The segments total revenues dropped 1.4% to $1.02 billion in the quarter.

Aggregates net sales grew 1.4% to $647.1 million. Ready Mixed Concrete net sales fell nearly 9% to $240.4 million.

Shipments (volume) in the aggregates product line decreased 3.2% due to ongoing project delays. Again, customer- and DOT-related labor constraints, government uncertainty and higher precipitation due to major hurricane and tropical storm activity led to the decline.

Geographically, West Groups aggregate volumes dropped 6.8% owing to wet weather conditions. The Southeast Group, however, managed to withstand the effects of the hurricanes and reported a 4.7% increase in volumes on robust residential and nonresidential construction activity.

The Magnesia Specialties segment  which includes magnesium oxide, magnesium hydroxide and dolomite lime products  reported net sales of $58.5 million that decreased 2.8% year over year. The segments total revenues were $63.9 million, down 1.9% year over year.

Story continues

The drop in revenues was led by decline in both chemicals and lime product lines.

Margins

Consolidated gross margin increased 20 basis points (bps) to 26.8%.

Financials

Martin Marietta ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $35.2 million, as of Sep 30, 2017, compared with $60.7 million as of Sep 30, 2016, and $50 million as on Dec 31, 2016.

As of Sep 30, 2017, there were 62.9 million shares of Martin Mariettas common stock outstanding and 14.7 million shares remaining under the current repurchase authorization.

2017 Guidance

Net sales are expected in the band of $3.64 billion to $3.74 billion, lower than the prior guidance of $3.75 billion to $3.95 billion.

Total revenues are projected in the range of $3.87 billion to $3.97 billion. Gross profit is anticipated in the range of $910 million to $960 million.

Aggregates Product line net sales are projected in the range of $ 2.1 billion to $2.16 billion (lower than the previous range of $2.2-$2.3 billion). Aggregates product line volume is expected in the range of -1% to 1%, down from the previously expected growth of 4-5.5%.

Cement Product Line net sales are estimated in the range of $365 million to $375 million, lowered from the previous expectation of $380-$400 million.

Ready Mixed Concrete and Asphalt/Paving Product Lines net sales are projected in the band of $1.27 billion to $1.31 billion as compared to the prior guidance of $1.3-$1.4 billion.

Magnesia Specialties Business net sales are expected between $245 million and $250 million.

Zacks Rank & Peer Release

Martin Marietta carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).

Vulcan Materials Companys VMC third-quarter 2017 adjusted earnings of $1.04 per share beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 95 cents by 9.5%. The bottom line increased about 2% on a year-over-year basis.

Total revenues of $1.09 billion surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.06 billion by 2.8%. Sales increased 9% from the prior-year quarter.

You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Upcoming Sector Releases

D.R. Horton, Inc. DHI is slated to release its quarterly numbers on Nov 9. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings is pegged at 82 cents, highlighting an increase of 9.3% on a year-over-year basis.

Louisiana-Pacific Corp. LPX is scheduled to release its quarterly numbers on Nov 6. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings is pegged at 77 cents, highlighting an increase of 140.6% on a year-over-year basis.

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Himachal Pradesh CM Virbhadra Singh today accused the BJP of political vendetta and misuse of power to win state assembly election.

By India Today Web Desk: Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today slammed the BJP in a series of tweets saying that "BJP's supposed fight against corruption made me laugh."

Virbhadra Singh slammed BJP's chief ministerial candidate, Prem Kumar Dhumal over his remarks stating that his party will provide corruption-free government in Himachal Pradesh if it was voted to power.

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Taking to Twitter Virbhadra Singh wrote, "@DhumalHP Ji, your remarks on BJP's supposed fight against corruption made me laugh. Last time I saw, your own sons were out on bail."

Singh said that the BJP's "main achievement is 'ease of doing corruption'. @AmitShah & son's miracle of 16,000 times lucre hike happens only in BJP rule. BJP's fear of real Vikas, as being witnessed in Himachal Pradesh today, is the reason why personal attacks on me is your main agenda."

Ur partys main achievement is ease of doing corruption. @AmitShah & sons miracle of 16,000 times lucre hike happens only in BJP rule.2/4- Virbhadra Singh (@virbhadrasingh) November 3, 2017

He further said, "Let's not forget the time when your party chose a joyous day of wedding of my daughter, Himachal's daughter, to carry out a CBI raid." The CBI had conducted raids on Virbhadra Singh's residence in September, 2015 on the night of his daughter's wedding.

Virbhadra Singh's comments followed his offensive against Prime Minister Narendra Modi hours after his rally at Kangra yesterday. Singh had accused the BJP and PM Modi of misusing power and money in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly election.

Virbhadra Singh said, "Modi ji, you come to Himachal hundred times, we welcome you. But I can tell you, I haven't seen such a public display and misuse of power and money as you and the BJP are doing in Himachal Pradesh polls."

--- ENDS ---
Mo Bridges and his mother travel from their hometown in Memphis, TN and meet with Daymond John. He takes Mo on a tour of his childhood home in Brooklyn to ensure this young man never forgets some of lifes most valuable lessons (Photo by Giovanni Rufino/ABC via Getty Images).

Parents want to support their teens entrepreneurial dreams, but it turns out most dont have them.

Eighty-eight percent of parents would be extremely or very likely to support their teens becoming entrepreneurs when they grow up. In contrast, a mere 30% of teens say they want to start a business, according to a new survey by Junior Achievement (JA) and EY.

They surveyed 1,007 parents of children ages 13-17 and 1,005 13- to 17-year-olds.

Parents are seeing entrepreneurship as an exciting opportunity, especially because its embraced by society. While kids arent showing as much interest, this may change as parents encourage them to take risks, said Ed Grocholski, Senior Vice President, Junior Achievement.

In 2013, startup activity was at its lowest point in the last 20 years. It has gone up for three consecutive years, nearly reaching the peak before the drop during the Great Recession, according to the 2017 Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurship.

Plus, hit shows like Silicon Valley and Shark Tank make the idea of starting a company accessible and entertaining, at least for parents. And young founders like Facebooks (FB) Mark Zuckerberg and Snaps (SNAP) Evan Spiegel have hatched small ideas into publicly traded companies.

And though teens are consuming the content and driving tech companies growth, teens are reluctant to think about entrepreneurship as a feasible path.

Risky business

Thirty-one percent of teens said their primary concern is that starting a business is too risky. Twenty-one percent said that theres not enough money in it. Only 16 percent of teens indicate they have no concerns about trying.

Conversely, 53% of parents have no concerns about their teen starting a business as an adult.

I do think theres something to be said about being a risk taker and trying new things. Employers hire people with entrepreneurial mindsets. Its not just about starting a business, said Grocholski.

JA is trying to help young students make smart economic choices and realize the breadth of opportunities they have. The nonprofit reaches nearly 5 million students every year in 109 markets across the US. Grocholski said its his mission to support teens and continue to encourage parents to take the road less traveled.

Story continues

Sixteen-year-old Jakayla Dickson from Fort Worth, Texas, started a company called Feel the Color through a JA program at her school. When Dickson was growing up, her blind aunt would constantly ask her to color-coordinate her wardrobe for her. This experience inspired Dickson to come up with the idea to sew braille into clothing tags so that blind or visually impaired individuals could match their clothes. Now, shes working with an investment banker and trying to make it into a real company.

Parents can really help kids maneuver around a lot of challenges  incorporation, paperwork, filing, etc. Its about getting pointed in the right direction, Grocholski said. Thats the best case scenario: knocking down the barriers but letting the child do the work.

Melody Hahm is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering entrepreneurship, technology and real estate. Follow her on Twitter @melodyhahm.

Read more:
US President Donald Trump shows samples of the proposed new tax form during a meeting with House Republican leaders and Republican members of the House Ways and Means Committee at the White House on November 2, 2017, as Republicans unveiled a sweeping tax bill (AFP Photo/NICHOLAS KAMM)

Washington (AFP) - US Republican leaders unveiled a sweeping tax bill Thursday that would dramatically slash corporate rates, but the measure was already under fire from within the party despite pressure from President Donald Trump.

Simmering disagreements persisted over what should end up in the largest tax overhaul since Ronald Reagan's 1980s presidency, with at least one House Republican openly opposing the legislation.

The effort, conducted largely in secret in recent months, is seen by many Republicans as a shot at political redemption after they and Trump failed in their high-stakes bid to repeal and replace Barack Obama's signature health care reforms.

"This is it. This is a very important and special moment for our country," House Speaker Paul Ryan said in announcing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Ryan said a family of four would save an average of $1,182 a year under the plan, which he hailed as an overhaul that will "deliver real relief" for working Americans.

"It will help you save for retirement," he said. "It will help you save for a rainy day."

Trump applauded the bill as an "important step" towards tax relief, but he acknowledged the hurdles ahead in getting the controversial measure through Congress.

Speaking in the Oval Office, the president said he expected to be able to lock in a "giant tax cut" for Americans before Christmas this year.

The Republican Party is under intense pressure to score a major legislative victory in 2017, but it will likely need to do all the heavy lifting as Democrats have united against the legislation.

- 'Half-baked' plan -

Senate rules allow for the measure to add $1.5 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. But with the cuts expected to cost far more, tax-writers have scrambled to find other ways to boost revenues and cut spending to cover the costs.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi swiftly blasted the new plan as a "half-baked bill" that would "plunder the middle class" in order to further enrich the wealthy.

Story continues

The bill condenses the existing seven tax brackets to just four, plus an effective fifth bracket at zero percent.

Critically, it keeps the top rate for wealthy tax-payers at 39.6 percent, rather than 35 percent as proposed in September under the White House tax outline.

But it raises the threshold for the top bracket to $1 million for married couples, from the current $470,700 -- meaning a major tax break for earners within that window.

The corporate tax rate would be permanently lowered to 20 percent from 35 percent, a move Republicans insist will provide rocket fuel for the US economy to take off.

The bill roughly doubles the standard deduction that individuals and families can claim on their taxes, and expands the child tax credit, while eliminating a raft of deductions, including for alimony payments and some medical expenses.

It also eliminates the estate tax, beginning in 2024, on money inherited by Americans through a parent's death, and repeals the Alternative Minimum Tax.

The home interest deduction will be limited to loans up to $500,000, instead of the current $1 million.

That move drew the ire of the National Association of Home Builders, which said limiting the deduction will hurt homebuyers in expensive markets.

- Apprehension -

With the release of the highly anticipated bill, the hard sell begins.

Some rank-and-file members from high-tax states like New York and New Jersey had opposed plans to curb local tax deductions as a way to help cover the cost.

A compromise was struck, so that homeowners can write off property taxes up to $10,000 while other state and local deductions are eliminated.

But New York Republican congressman Lee Zeldin said there was "not enough progress" on the issue. "I'm a 'no' on this bill in its current form," he said in a statement.

The sell might be even tougher in the Senate where Republicans, who hold a 52-48 majority, can afford only two defectors.

A handful of GOP senators have already expressed reservations, including Bob Corker, a Trump critic who said he hopes the final bill "will not add to the deficit."

Senate Republicans Marco Rubio and Mike Lee voiced disappointment that the child tax credit was not expanded more.
The tax plan unveiled today by Republicans in the House of Representatives could lead to a housing recession, according to National Association of Home Builders CEO Jerry Howard.Howard said his members were "irate" about a proposed plan to slice the mortgage interest deduction in half, to a maximum of $500,000."There are seven million homes on the market right now that are more than $500,000. Those houses are automatically going to be devalued," he said. "What we've seen is that when house values start to go down, it spreads to the next market after that, and another market, and the next thing you know you have a housing recession." Howard was speaking on CNBC's Power Lunch . Stocks of the major homebuilders were falling Thursday after the tax plan was announced. Toll Brothers (NYSE: TOL) , a Horsham, Pennsylvania-based luxury homebuilder was hit hardest, falling more than 6 percent. Lennar (NYSE: LEN) and KB Home (NYSE: KBH) were each down more than three percent Thursday. Fort Worth, Texas-based D.R. Horton (NYSE: DHI) , America's largest homebuilder by the number of houses sold, was down less than one percent on the news. The GOP tax plan also nearly doubles the standard deduction , meaning fewer taxpayers would itemize and take the mortgage interest deduction. Currently, about 21 percent of filers take the mortgage deduction, but under the new framework, only about 4 percent would, according to recent estimates from the Tax Policy Center. The tax plan unveiled today by Republicans in the House of Representatives could lead to a housing recession, according to National Association of Home Builders CEO Jerry Howard. Howard said his members were "irate" about a proposed plan to slice the mortgage interest deduction in half, to a maximum of $500,000. "There are seven million homes on the market right now that are more than $500,000. Those houses are automatically going to be devalued," he said. "What we've seen is that when house values start to go down, it spreads to the next market after that, and another market, and the next thing you know you have a housing recession." Howard was speaking on CNBC's Power Lunch . Stocks of the major homebuilders were falling Thursday after the tax plan was announced. Toll Brothers (NYSE: TOL) , a Horsham, Pennsylvania-based luxury homebuilder was hit hardest, falling more than 6 percent. Lennar (NYSE: LEN) and KB Home (NYSE: KBH) were each down more than three percent Thursday. Fort Worth, Texas-based D.R. Horton (NYSE: DHI) , America's largest homebuilder by the number of houses sold, was down less than one percent on the news. The GOP tax plan also nearly doubles the standard deduction , meaning fewer taxpayers would itemize and take the mortgage interest deduction. Currently, about 21 percent of filers take the mortgage deduction, but under the new framework, only about 4 percent would, according to recent estimates from the Tax Policy Center.



More From CNBC


(Reuters) - Qualcomm Inc has sued Apple Inc , alleging that it violated a software license contract to benefit rival chipmaker Intel Corp for making broadband modems, the latest salvo in the longstanding dispute between Qualcomm and Apple. Qualcomm said in a lawsuit filed in California state court in San Diego on Wednesday that Apple used its commercial leverage to demand unprecedented access to the chipmaker's highly confidential software, including source code. Apple declined to comment on the suit. The company started using Intel's broadband modem chips in the iPhone 7. In its complaint, Qualcomm alleged that Apple was required under its contract to ensure that Apple engineers working with Qualcomm did not communicate details about Qualcomm chips to Apple engineers working on competing chips from Intel. Qualcomm alleged that in July, Apple emailed Qualcomm to request "highly confidential" information about how its chips work on an unidentified wireless carrier's network. Apple copied an Intel engineer in the email for information, Qualcomm alleged. In another instance, Qualcomm alleged that an Apple engineer working on a competing chip asked an Apple engineer working with Qualcomm to get technical information from Qualcomm. Reuters reported earlier this week that Apple would drop Qualcomm's chips altogether from its iPhones and iPads beginning next year. (Reporting by Sonam Rai in Bengaluru and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Dan Grebler)
The plea, filed by three advocates and a company secretary, has claimed that the new Rs 50 notes do not bear any identification mark for visually impaired persons to differentiate between denominations.

By India Today Web Desk: The light-blue Rs 50 denominations, the recently launched currency is said to be not friendly for the visually-impaired.

The note cannot be differentiated from others by visually impaired persons, a PIL today claimed in the Delhi HC which sought the RBI and the Centres stand on the issue.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said the matter needed urgent attention of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the central government as it was of public importance.

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"The issue is of public importance and relates to the rights of the visually impaired persons. It needs an urgent attention of the RBI and Central government. Let it be considered," the bench said.

It, however, refused to stay the printing and circulation of the new Rs 50 notes which were issued on August 18.

The bench issued notice and directed the Centre and RBI to file their responses in two weeks and listed the matter for further hearing on December 6.

The plea, filed by three advocates and a company secretary, has claimed that the new Rs 50 notes do not bear any identification mark for visually impaired persons to differentiate between denominations.

They have sought a direction to the RBI to issue the new Rs 50 notes with identification mark for visually impaired persons which should be then approved by the Centre.

The petition by advocate Rohit Dandriyal also sought directions to the authorities to withdraw the Rs 50 notes which do not have any identification marks and stop printing.

It said that according to the RBI, a special feature has been introduced on the left of the watermark window on all notes except the Rs 10 note.

This feature is in different shapes for various denominations. For example, a vertical rectangle denotes a Rs 20 note, a square means Rs 50 (in older notes), triangle and circle for Rs 100, a diamond denoted the Rs 1,000 currency which is not a legal tender now, it said.

These designs are etched into the notes, the plea said.

It has claimed that by issuing such notes, the respondents (government and RBI) "violated the constitutional right of visually impaired persons, which is confirmed by article 14 of the Constitution India i.e. the state shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India".

With inputs from PTI

--- ENDS ---
AT&T plans to give $1,000 bonuses to more than 200,000 workers and will issue the checks over the holidays if President Donald Trump signs the tax bill before Christmas (AFP Photo/HO) (AT&T CORPORATION/AFP/File)

New York (AFP) - A&T expressed confidence Thursday that it will eventually win passage of its proposed $85 billion takeover of Time Warner after a report said US regulators were considering suing to block the deal.

The Justice Department is considering a lawsuit to prevent the megadeal, but has not made a final decision, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The two sides are in settlement talks with the department that could allow some form of the deal to go through, but they are not close to an agreement, the report said.

Trading in shares of Time Warner was briefly suspended on the news, and shares finished down 3.8 percent at $94.70. AT&T dropped 1.1 percent to $33.17.

The New York Stock Exchange occasionally halts trading of individual stocks in the event of sharp prices movements or in anticipation of major news announcements affecting the company.

But in a statement responding to the report, AT&T said it remained confident the deal would still go through.

An AT&T spokeswoman noted that the proposed deal is a "vertical" transaction that marries companies from different sectors instead of a case where both parties are direct competitors, which are typically approved.

"For over 40 years, vertical mergers like this one have always been approved because they benefit consumers without removing any competitors from the market," the AT&T spokeswoman said.

"While we won't comment on our discussions with DOJ, we see no reason in the law or the facts why this transaction should be an exception."

However, she added, "When the DOJ reviews any transaction, it is common and expected for both sides to prepare for all possible scenarios."

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to request for comment.

AT&T in October 2016 unveiled the proposed takeover of the parent company of Warner Bros. studios and TV assets such as HBO and CNN at a time when streaming services such as Netflix are eroding key revenue streams for cable television.

Story continues

AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson has argued the deal would provide consumers new lower-priced options and more autonomy in how they pick programming.

But those statements have drawn a skeptical response from some lawmakers in Washington, who have said the merger could concentrate too much power in the telecom giant, which might opt to squeeze out shows developed by other programmers.

A suit from the Department of Justice would not kill the AT&T-Time Warner transaction outright, but some companies in the past have chosen to withdraw mergers in the wake of regulatory opposition that drags on.

Halliburton in May 2016 scotched its proposed takeover of rival oil services company Baker Hughes in the face of repeat roadblocks from officials.

On the other side, Walgreens Boots Alliance in September announced it won regulatory approval to buy rival Rite Aid, but only after the deal was radically pared down in response to regulator concern.
TrueCar, Inc. TRUE is slated to report third-quarter 2017 results on Nov 6 after the bell. Last quarter, the companys earnings matched the Zacks Consensus Estimate.

Notably, TrueCars surprise history has been impressive with an average positive earnings surprise of 53.33%. Year to date, the stock has gained 29.1%, underperforming its industrys 31.1% rally.

Lets see how things are shaping up for this announcement.

Factors to Consider

TrueCar's revenues improved year over year in the last four quarters while its losses narrowed. The companys second-quarter 2017 revenues increased 23% from the year-ago quarter. Moreover, non-GAAP net income per share was a penny against net loss per share of 5 cents reported in the year-ago quarter.

TrueCars core auto buying offering, inventory and pricing solution have been gaining strength. The company is currently working on a number of initiatives that are helping it to grow traffic, raise conversion rates and improve close rates. It is steering upstream into the research and discovery phase of the car buying process, and downstream into the transaction phase. Driven by these, market share and revenue gains are anticipated in the to-be-reported quarter.

Truecars business remains strong on both new car and used car fronts. While used car is benefiting from transition to Capsella technology and SEO efforts, new car is riding on dealer network growth and improvement. These factors are expected to contribute to margin expansion in the to-be-reported quarter.

The company made progress with its dealer pledge (reforming, product, advertising and business practices), launched in the first quarter of 2016, which is helping it to attract high quality franchise dealers to its platform. The company is expected to grow on the number of dealers in the to-be-reported quarter. Other focus areas include enhancement of trade-ins, digital retailing and affinity partnership.

Story continues

For the third quarter, TrueCar expects revenues between $85 million and $87 million and adjusted EBITDA in the range of $7 million to $8 million. Additionally, it expects units to remain in a range of 265,000 to 270,000.

TrueCar, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise

TrueCar, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise | TrueCar, Inc. Quote

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TrueCar has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) and an Earnings ESP of 0.00%. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

According to the Zacks model, a company with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or #3 (Hold) has a good chance of beating estimates if it also has a positive Earnings ESP. The Sell-rated stocks (Zacks Rank #4 or #5) are best avoided.

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Republicans touting the new tax-cut plan released by the House of Representatives on Nov. 2 insist it will do wonders for the middle class. A lot of people dont believe it.

In a new Yahoo Finance poll, 31% of respondents felt their taxes would go up under the GOP tax plan, while 42% said their taxes would go down. Twenty-three percent felt theyd end up the same and 5% werent sure. (Numbers dont add to 100 because of rounding.)

Source: Yahoo Finance survey conducted on SurveyMonkey

Those findings suggest Republicans arent convincing people that their tax-cut plan will be good for the middle class, or the economy overall. House Speaker Paul Ryan says a typical family with two kids would save $1,182 in taxes per year under the plan. In our survey, however, 22% of voters in that income bracket  between $50,001 and $75,000 in annual household income  feel their taxes will go up. Thats a big messaging problem for Republicans, including President Donald Trump, who backs the House plan.

Getty Images. The new tax bill unveiled by Republicans Thursday is so simple that taxpayers will be able to file using a postcard, according to GOP lawmakers.

The sweeping House plan would revamp both the corporate and individual side of the income-tax code. It would slash the corporate tax rate to 20% from 35%, to make the United States a more attractive place for global companies to do business. On the individual side, it would replace seven income brackets with five and undoubtedly lower the tax burden for some filers. But by shifting deductions around, the House plan makes it difficult for any given family to tell whether theyd end up better off or worse off under the plan, leaving plenty of room for critics to demagogue the whole proposal.

Source: Yahoo Finance survey conducted on SurveyMonkey

Not surprisingly, people with higher incomes are more likely to believe their taxes will go up. Among people with incomes below $150,000 a year, 23% think their taxes will rise under the GOP plan. Above $150,000, 36% think theyll face a higher tax bill. In a way, thats by design. Since the GOP plan would put new limits on the deductibility of mortgage interest and state and local taxes deductions typically claimed by wealthier filers  its likely to hit higher earners harder.

Even some Trump voters feel theyd pay more under the Republican plan. Of poll respondents who voted for Trump, 19% say their taxes will go up. Of those who didnt vote for Trump, 39% think their taxes will rise. The gap could reflect the large portion of Democrats who presumably did not vote for Trump and live in high-income states such as New York and California.

More than 8,000 people took the poll, which we ran on Nov. 2 and Nov. 3. The full results are here. If theres good news for Republicans, its that voters do think their plan would make taxes easier to navigate. Forty-five percent of respondents said the plan would make their taxes simpler, while just 6% said it would make their taxes more complicated. Thirty-seven percent expect no change and 11% arent sure.

Source: Yahoo Finance survey conducted on SurveyMonkey

But theres deep skepticism about who the plan is really meant to benefit. Forty-nine percent of all respondents feel the plan would mostly benefit businesses, while just 7% feel individuals will be the main beneficiaries. That perception is likely to dog Republicans for as long as theyre negotiating a bill, and it could lead the Senate to temper many elements of the House plan. Republican senators could kill efforts to repeal the federal estate tax, for instance, or to limit the deduction for state and local taxes. They could also insist on bigger tax cuts for individuals and smaller ones for corporations.

The negotiations will be intense, with Trump insisting he wont accept a corporate rate any higher than 20%. But theres already strong opposition to the overall House plan from powerful lobbying groups representing the real estate industry, which argues that reining in itemized deductions will hurt homeowners. And the National Federation of Independent Business, another influential group, says the tax plan will leave too many small businesses in the dust. If the plan raises taxes on top of all that  or even leads some people to think their taxes will go up  voters can legitimately ask, whats the point?

Confidential tip line: rickjnewman@yahoo.com. Encrypted communication available.

Read more:

Rick Newman is the author of four books, including Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman
FILE PHOTO: The GM logo is seen at the General Motors Warren Transmission Operations Plant in Warren, Michigan October 26, 2015. Photo taken October 26. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook (Reuters)

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - General Motors Co <GM.N> and Ford Motor Co <F.N> confirmed Thursday they are cooperating with an expanded Justice Department probe into alleged misspending at United Auto Workers union training centers funded by U.S. automakers.

The investigation became public in July, when federal prosecutors accused a former Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV <FCHA.MI> vice president of making $1.2 million in improper payments to a former union vice president and his wife. Four people have been charged in the Fiat Chrysler probe.

The Detroit News reported on Thursday that prosecutors issued subpoenas about training centers financed by GM and Ford and said investigators are looking at charities operated by senior union officials at the companies.

"We are cooperating with the inquiry," Ford spokeswoman Kelli Felker said.

General Motors is conducting an internal investigation into the matter. "We are fully cooperating with the investigation," GM spokesman Pat Morrissey said.

The National Training Center (NTC) is a separate entity from the UAW that receives no union dues, but the alleged abuses "dishonored the union and the values we have upheld for more than 80 years," the union said in July.

Ford added that it is "confident in the UAW-Ford National Programs Center leadership team."

The investigation into union leaders and executives at Fiat Chrysler has resulted in charges against the company's former vice president of employee relations, Alphons Iacobelli. He was charged with making $1.2 million in improper payments to a former union vice president and his wife. Iacobelli has pleaded not guilty.

The government also charged that Jerome Durden, a former Fiat Chrysler official, conspired to divert over $4.5 million in training center funds intended to pay for training for union members. Durden pleaded guilty on Aug. 8 to conspiracy and preparing false tax returns and faces up to 37 months in prison under a plea deal.

Story continues

Virdell King, 65, of Detroit, a former UAW official responsible for negotiating the contract between Fiat Chrysler and the union, pleaded guilty in August to violating labor law.

The head of the Detroit FBI, David Gelios, has said "years of fraud and corruption within a select group of the FCA and UAW hierarchy continue to be eroded through the diligence and collaboration of law enforcement."

Fiat Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne in a statement said the "deplorable" conduct "had nothing whatsoever to do with the collective bargaining process" and the "egregious acts were neither known to nor sanctioned by (Fiat Chrysler)."

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
FILE PHOTO: Solar electric panels are shown installed on the roof of the Hanover Olympic building, the first building to offer individual solar-powered net-zero apartments in Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 6, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo (Reuters)

By David Lawder and Diane Bartz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Members of the U.S. International Trade Commission on Tuesday made three different recommendations for restricting solar cell and panel imports on Tuesday, giving President Donald Trump a range of choices to address injury to domestic producers.

The recommendations range from an immediate 35 percent tariff on all imported panels to a four-year quota system that allows the import of up to 8.9 gigawatts of solar cells and modules in the first year. The president's ultimate decision could have a major impact on the price of U.S. power generated by the sun.

Both supporters and critics of import curbs on solar products were disappointed by the proposals, which were unveiled at a public meeting in Washington.

Trade remedies were requested in a petition earlier this year by two small U.S. manufacturers that said they were unable to compete with cheap panels made overseas, mainly in Asia. The companies, Suniva Inc and the U.S. arm of Germany's SolarWorld AG, said Tuesday's recommendations did not go far enough to protect domestic producers.

"The ITC's remedy simply will not fix the problem the ITC itself identified," Suniva said in a statement. The company, which is majority owned by Hong Kong-based Shunfeng International Clean Energy, filed the rare Section 201 petition nine days after seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April. It had sought a minimum price on panels of 74 cents a watt, nearly double their current cost.

One analyst said the stiffest remedy recommended, a 35 percent tariff on solar panels, would add about 10 percent to the cost of a utility-scale project but would have a negligible impact on the price of residential systems because panels themselves make up a small portion of their overall cost.

"It's not nearly the doomsday impact we were potentially expecting," said Camron Barati, a solar analyst with market research firm IHS Markit Technology.

Story continues

But the top U.S. solar trade group, the Solar Energy Industries Association, said in a statement on Tuesday that any tariffs would be "intensely harmful" to the industry. The group has lobbied heavily against import restrictions on the grounds that they would undermine a 70 percent drop in the cost of solar since 2010 that has made the technology competitive with fossil fuels.

The ITC will deliver its report to Trump by Nov. 13. He will have broad leeway to come up with his own alternative or do nothing at all. Since only two members agreed on the same restrictions, there was no majority recommendation from the four-member commission.

"There is still plenty to be worried about," said MJ Shiao, who follows the U.S. solar market for GTM Research.

Trump has vowed to protect U.S. manufacturers from low-priced imports, and U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has talked about tariff-rate quotas as a flexible way to protect some industries, allowing imports in as needed, but only up to a certain level before high tariffs kick in.

Commissioners David Johanson and Irving Williamson urged the president to impose an immediate 30 percent tariff on completed solar modules, to be lowered in subsequent years, and a tariff-rate quota on solar cells. Imports of cells in excess of one gigawatt would be subject to a 30 percent tariff that would decline after the first year.

ITC Chair Rhonda Schmidtlein recommended an immediate 35 percent four-year tariff on imported solar modules, with a four-year tariff rate quota on solar cells. This would impose a 30 percent tariff on imports exceeding 0.5 gigawatts and 10 percent on imports below that level. These tariffs would decline over a four-year period.

In the most lenient recommendation, Commissioner Meredith Broadbent said the president should impose a four-year quota system that allows for imports of up to 8.9 gigawatts of solar cells and modules in the first year.

(Additional reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Richard Chang and Dan Grebler)
The House tax bill released earlier today has something for VCs (and private equity folks, and hedge fund managers) to celebrate: it doesn't touch the carried interest tax break that both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton vowed to do away with on the campaign trail last year.

Carried interest is the percentage of a fund's profit -- usually a 20 percent share but sometimes up to 30 percent for top firms -- thats paid to firms' partners. It's currently treated as long-term capital gains, making it eligible for a tax rate as low as 23.8 percent. Ordinary income, in contrast, can be taxed as much as 39.6 percent for single individuals earning more than $415,050 or more than $466,950 for those who are married and filing jointly.

During every U.S. presidential election season, at least one candidate vows to repeal carried interest deductions, while VCs and other private market investors rail against these proclamations, in part because they believe they deserve the tax break for taking risks and holding on to assets for what often becomes many years on end.

Indeed, in summer of last year, the National Venture Capital Association, which represents venture firms interests, called Clinton's plans to do away with carried interest "misguided" and of Trump's similar promises to do away with carried interest, the organization said it would threaten [the] entrepreneurial ecosystem, said the NVCA.

In fairness, the NVCA might have been right about Trump's proposal. It suggested ending carried interest at long-term capital gains rates and instead taxing it at 33 percent, which was the highest marginal tax bracket in his plan at the time. That wasn't the confusing part, though. What didn't make sense to academics was a related plan to create a 15 percent business tax for members of partnerships and other pass-through business entities -- which would probably destroy a lot more than the entrepreneurial ecosystem. (The very real concern: that pretty much every business would restructure as a pass-through, and the country would essentially run out of tax dollars.)

Story continues

Former Goldman Sachs president turned White House advisor Gary Cohn said last month on CNBC that Trump remains intent on eliminating the carried interest tax break even though it wasnt specified in his tax framework.

The president remains committed to ending the carried interest deduction," he'd said. "As we continue to evolve on the framework, the president has made it clear to the tax writers and Congress. Carried interest is one of those loopholes that we talk about when we talk about getting rid of loopholes that affect wealthy Americans.

We'll see. For one thing, even a blanket increase of taxation on capital gains to ordinary tax rates would result in only $1 billion to $2 billion per year in additional tax revenue according to some estimates. To put that into perspective, $3.4 trillion in revenue is collected every year.

The House plan is also far from final and, as notes The New York Times, has already "ignited a legislative and lobbying fight" with business groups, special interests and Democrats expected to fight tooth and nail for their own interests as Republicans race to get the legislation passed and on Trumps desk for a final sign-off by Christmas.
A Venezuelan debt default could plunge the already struggling country into a full-blown humanitarian emergency (AFP Photo/JUAN BARRETO) (AFP/File)

Caracas (AFP) - Venezuela has called its foreign creditors to a meeting November 13 in Caracas in an effort to restructure its estimated at $150 billion debt, Vice President Tareck el Aissami said Friday.

Aissami said the government is seeking "sovereign commitments" for a debt renegotiation.

He is leading a commission in charge of restructuring the debt in crisis-hit Venezuela, which is seen by many investors as being on the verge of default.

Flanked by the ministers in charge of the economy, finance and energy, El Aissami confirmed the country had made a payment of nearly $1.2 billion to service the debt of state oil company PDVSA.

President Nicolas Maduro announced Monday that Venezuela would make that payment and then immediately begin talks to refinance the debt.

El Aissami, one of the Venezuelan officials sanctioned by the United States due to alleged ties to drug trafficking, said the talks with creditors will "establish the groundwork to renegotiate the terms of the foreign debt of the Republic and of PDVSA."

"We will begin a sovereign renegotiations of our debt and we will continue to comply fully, transparently, as our government has done historically," he said in a televised statement.

He noted that since 2014 Venezuela, which has the largest proven crude oil reserves in the world, has paid nearly $72 billion in principal and interest payments on the debt.

Maduro has repeatedly blamed the United States for the country's woes, saying Washington is trying to strangle Venezuela with sanctions.

US sanctions imposed on Venezuela in August ban US trade in any new bonds issued by the Venezuelan government or PDVSA -- a needed step in any restructuring.

El Aissami denounced the "continued aggression, permanent sabotage, blockade and financial persecution" that US President Donald Trump has imposed on the people of Venezuela.

But he said the sanctions really hurt bondholders and financial institutions.

Much of Venezuela's debt is held by China and Russia, to be paid off in oil -- the resource that underpins the Venezuelan economy. The country has less than $10 billion in foreign currency reserves.

Credit-rating agencies are increasingly warning of the risk of a Venezuelan debt default.
The corporate logo of the state oil company PDVSA is seen at a gas station in Caracas, Venezuela, August 30, 2017. REUTERS/Andres Martinez Casares/Files (Reuters)

By Brian Ellsworth

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA faces a $1.2 billion bond payment on Thursday that will test the ruling Socialist Party's resolve to pay its foreign debt despite a crippling economic crisis that has spurred widespread food shortages.

Markets remained optimistic that President Nicolas Maduro's government will make the payment, though investors expect delays. PDVSA last week struggled for days to deliver funds for a separate bond payment amid confusion over which banks were charged with transferring the money.

However, most economists say a default is increasingly likely in the medium term as Venezuela's collapsing socialist economic model has left the once-prosperous population destitute and led to deterioration of the OPEC nation's vital oil industry.

"Their ability to pay seems to be very precarious and that's reflected in the lateness of the payments of the coupon as well as the amortization payments," said Josephine Shea, Director of Emerging Markets at Standish, a BNY Mellon subsidiary that has $154 billion under management.

"My expectation is that eventually these bonds will have to be restructured ... most likely through a default situation."

Maduro insists his government will pay all its debts but says it is a victim of an "economic war" led by opposition adversaries and fueled by U.S. sanctions that block Venezuela from refinancing its debt.

PDVSA's 2017N bond has rallied in recent weeks on market optimism that it will be paid down, driven by the completion, albeit delayed, of an $842 million principal payment on PDVSA's 2020 bond.

PDVSA and Venezuela bonds were rising slightly in early trading on Thursday, according to Thomson Reuters data, with the PDVSA 2022 bond rising 0.750 percentage points to a bid price of 48.000.

PDVSA did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

After Thursday's payment, Venezuela has no foreign bond maturities until the second half of 2018.

Story continues

But in a possible sign of financial desperation, Venezuela and PDVSA have been skipping interest payments since the start of October, racking up close to $750 million in pending coupons by repeatedly invoking 30-day grace periods.

Even if it scrapes together the funds to pay those down, it faces at least another $800 million in interest payments in November and December.

INVESTOR PROFIT, CHILD MALNUTRITION

The country is struggling with shortages of basic products such as food and medicine, in part because hard currency for imports is being diverted toward Wall Street investors.

Child malnutrition has reached the scale of a humanitarian crisis in four Venezuelan states, according to a May 2017 report by Caritas Internationalis, a Rome-based nongovernmental organization with links to the Catholic Church. Medicine shortages have also left children dying of preventable diseases.

Government officials say ideological adversaries are exaggerating problems for political effect.

But the situation is a stark contrast to the oil boom years of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, who spent generously on social welfare programs while borrowing profusely to keep spending at full tilt.

Venezuela's debt is the highest yielding of emerging market bonds measured by JPMorgan's EMBI Global Diversified Index, paying investors an average of 31 percentage points more than comparable U.S. Treasury notes.

That is nearly double the spread on bonds issued by Mozambique, which is already in default, and more than six times the spread on bonds from war-torn Ukraine.

(Additional reporting by Dion Rabouin in New York,; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Rosalba O'Brien)
Award-winning director Rob Reiner says that Lyndon Baines Johnson is the second-best U.S. president after Franklin D. Roosevelt.Reiner directed the upcoming film titled "LBJ," which chronicles the presidency of Johnson. The former vice president was thrust into the nation's highest position after the 1963 assassination of president John F. Kennedy. "I mean LBJ was a consummate legislator," Reiner tells CNBC Make It . "This guy was able to understand how government worked and how to move policy." The film director explains that Johnson understood how at some level everything "intersected with politics" and so was able to move the government forward. Under Johnson's tenure, the landmark Civil Rights Act was signed into law. The legislation, which was signed in 1964, ended segregation in public places and prohibited discrimination based on color, religion, sex or national origin. But Johnson is not without fault, says Reiner. "He got us into Vietnam and that was bad and I didn't like that," says the film director. "I was against the war and I was of draft age at the time." Over the years, Johnson has been viewed favorably by both historians and those in academia. In a February presidential leadership survey by C-SPAN , Johnson came in tenth place overall out of 44 presidents. The survey was distributed to historians and other professional observers of the presidency. The participants rated each president on ten qualities of presidential leadership such as"public persuasion," "crisis leadership" and "economic management."Johnson came in first and second place, respectively, for his relations with Congress and for pursuing justice for all. Johnson's ability to establish close personal relationships across the political aisle is a trait that even former Vice President Joe Biden can get behind. In a 2017 speech to Colby College, Biden noted that forming close relationships is useful in politics and in the workplace. "Over the course of time, in public life, I found that it comes down to just being personal," he told the graduating class. "All politics, all international relations is personal."Notably, Johnson's lowest leadership scores were for international relations and moral authority. The former president likely ranked lowest for these because of his role in escalating the Vietnam War.Yet even with this glaring fact on Johnson's presidential resume, Reiner says that the 36th president still ranks highly among U.S. leaders."[Johnson] was the example of a great leader," says the film director. "If you look at what he did legislatively, domestically it's unparalleled and maybe second to FDR the greatest American president." Like this story? Like CNBC Make It on FacebookSee also:Joe Biden says he sees this one trait in all the most successful leadersCondoleezza Rice attributes her success to this vital life lesson she learned from playing sportsTim Cook says this Air Force general's speech is 'what leadership looks like' Award-winning director Rob Reiner says that Lyndon Baines Johnson is the second-best U.S. president after Franklin D. Roosevelt. Reiner directed the upcoming film titled "LBJ," which chronicles the presidency of Johnson. The former vice president was thrust into the nation's highest position after the 1963 assassination of president John F. Kennedy. "I mean LBJ was a consummate legislator," Reiner tells CNBC Make It . "This guy was able to understand how government worked and how to move policy." The film director explains that Johnson understood how at some level everything "intersected with politics" and so was able to move the government forward. Under Johnson's tenure, the landmark Civil Rights Act was signed into law. The legislation, which was signed in 1964, ended segregation in public places and prohibited discrimination based on color, religion, sex or national origin. But Johnson is not without fault, says Reiner. "He got us into Vietnam and that was bad and I didn't like that," says the film director. "I was against the war and I was of draft age at the time." Over the years, Johnson has been viewed favorably by both historians and those in academia. In a February presidential leadership survey by C-SPAN , Johnson came in tenth place overall out of 44 presidents. The survey was distributed to historians and other professional observers of the presidency. The participants rated each president on ten qualities of presidential leadership such as"public persuasion," "crisis leadership" and "economic management." Johnson came in first and second place, respectively, for his relations with Congress and for pursuing justice for all. Johnson's ability to establish close personal relationships across the political aisle is a trait that even former Vice President Joe Biden can get behind. In a 2017 speech to Colby College, Biden noted that forming close relationships is useful in politics and in the workplace. "Over the course of time, in public life, I found that it comes down to just being personal," he told the graduating class. "All politics, all international relations is personal." Notably, Johnson's lowest leadership scores were for international relations and moral authority. The former president likely ranked lowest for these because of his role in escalating the Vietnam War. Yet even with this glaring fact on Johnson's presidential resume, Reiner says that the 36th president still ranks highly among U.S. leaders. "[Johnson] was the example of a great leader," says the film director. "If you look at what he did legislatively, domestically it's unparalleled and maybe second to FDR the greatest American president." Like this story? Like CNBC Make It on Facebook See also: Joe Biden says he sees this one trait in all the most successful leaders Condoleezza Rice attributes her success to this vital life lesson she learned from playing sports Tim Cook says this Air Force general's speech is 'what leadership looks like'



More From CNBC


By PTI: Kolkata, Nov 3 (PTI) West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi today conveyed his good wishes to the people of the state and prayed for their well-being on the eve of Guru Nanak Jayanti.

Tripathi wished that Guru Nanaks teachings on fraternity and universality be upheld among all sections of the society.

"May the bond of amity and integrity be strengthened as a mark of respect to Guru Nanak," Tripathi said in a message released from his official residence, the Raj Bhawan today. PTI SCH SBN

--- ENDS ---

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Vanda (VNDA) shares have started gaining and might continue moving higher in the near term, as indicated by solid earnings estimate revisions.

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL  November 3, 2017  Today, Zacks Equity Research discusses the Industry: Hotels, Part 3, including Marriott International, Inc. MAR, Hyatt Hotels Corp. H, Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. HLT and Wyndham Worldwide Corp. WYN.

Industry: Hotels, Part 3

Link: https://www.zacks.com/commentary/135154/hotel-stocks-challenged-by-trump-slump-economic-woes

The moderating but positive outlook on lodging demand growth raises hope. Then again, the so-called Trump Slump in travel -- the anticipated decline in foreign travelers to the United States due to Trump administration policies regarding immigration -- is a threat to the U.S. economy or the hotel industry.

Additionally, increased supply coupled with macroeconomic concerns in several emerging economies could keep hoteliers growth in check. This makes it important to take a closer look at some of the dampeners before investing in the hotel industry.

Below we discuss some of the headwinds that hotel stocks may face in the near and the long term:

Trumps Policies Hover Over Hoteliers: President Trumps efforts to impose a travel ban on inbound travelers from some predominantly Muslim countries along with the ban on a broad range of electronic devices in the cabins of U.S.-bound aircraft from certain countries has affected travel demand to and from the United States.

Though the bans have been temporary, his stringent policies on immigration and tourist visas to deter foreigners from entering the United States appear to have made international visitors rethink their vacation in the country, thereby casting a pall on future travel demand. The President has also talked about building a wall along the U.S. southern border to curb Mexican immigrants entering the country illegally.

Notably, since Trump took office, though there have been clear signs and data suggesting that though more people are traveling than ever before, the number of people willing to travel to the United States has reduced dramatically thanks to his plans. In fact, theres been continued slowdown in U.S.-bound air travel bookings ever since. Also, online searches by prospective travelers to the United States have also been witnessing a sharp decline.

Story continues

America is thus bucking the trend and not in a good way. Per new insights from the U.S. Travel Association, visitor numbers contracted in four out of the seven months for which data is available this year, materializing fears that Trumps policies are putting tourists off visiting the United States. Notably, the declines were the steepest in February and March, immediately after the so-called Muslim ban came into force.

In fact, as per Tourism Economics earlier estimations, the drop-off in tourism is anticipated to result in 4.3 million fewer visitors this year. This adds up to a staggering loss of $7.4 billion in revenues for the United States. Meanwhile, another 6.3 million visitors and the $10.8 billion that they would have spent is likely to be lost in 2018 due to these policies.

Thus, as tourists plan to steer clear of Trumps America, this is sure to be detrimental to the hotel businesses and the overall Leisure & Hospitality industry.

Lingering Uncertainty in Certain International Markets: Despite immense growth potential, hoteliers are still apprehensive of several macroeconomic issues like the social/political impact of Brexit and decelerating growth in certain parts of Asia. Though Trumps stringent policies might make travelers opt for Europe and Asia, instead of the United States, various concerns in these regions raise eyebrows.

Notably, a sluggish economy and oversupply in Brazil are weighing on demand in the Latin American region and has checked overall sales. In fact, a weak Latin American economy, aggravated by political turmoil led to softer tourism numbers in 2015 and 2016. This has continued so far in 2017 and is not expected to change much for the rest of the year. Continued uncertainty in Africa and macroeconomic factors in Venezuela are likely to restrict hoteliers revenues.

In Europe, economic/political conditions are expected to be challenging after U.K.s exit from the 28-member economic bloc. Business in Europe is as it is clouded by economic uncertainties in the Northern region and deflation in the Eurozone.

Terror attacks in key European cities like London, Paris, Zurich and Brussels have also affected tourism. Challenging market dynamics in France is a potent headwind. Additionally, concerns of further terror attacks and violence against foreign tourists are increasingly hurting trade in many African countries such as Kenya and Nigeria.

If these arent enough, a cooling economy in China  which might continue to hurt discretionary spending and travel  and concerns over Japan owing to a weaker yen and tax increases are adding to hoteliers woes.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, political unrest, lower government spending, new hotel supply and a tough oil market continue to hurt tourism and RevPAR trends. Any respite from these ills in the region is not expected in the near term.

Most of the leading hoteliers have considerable presence in the above-mentioned markets and are thus vulnerable to the economic conditions in these regions as it might limit their business growth.

Fluctuation in Exchange Rates: Most of the major hoteliers like Marriott International, Inc., Hyatt Hotels Corp., Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. and Wyndham Worldwide Corp. generate a substantial portion of their revenues from customers outside the country and are therefore highly vulnerable to fluctuations in exchange rates. Thus, continued volatility in exchange rates would continue to hurt their results as it has been doing so over the past few quarters.

Meanwhile, if the U.S. dollar strengthens against various other currencies, negative currency translation is going to be a major concern for these companies. Also, a strong dollar means that travel to the United States is becoming more expensive for visitors from other countries and they might look for alternative destinations. This, in turn, will likely thwart travel demand and length of stays. Both these factors would possibly be detrimental to the hotel industry.

Slowing RevPar Trends &Operating Margins Under Pressure: Most of the hoteliers in the United States have been witnessing slowing revenue per available room (RevPAR) trends of late because of continued muted international visitation. Moreover, continued increase in supply of hotels in the domestic market is limiting room rents, thereby hurting RevPAR.

Moreover, the majority of leading hoteliers expect soft demand in the oil producing regions, mainly parts of Texas, Houston, Louisiana, Houston, Oklahoma City and West Virginia, to continue taking a toll on RevPAR.

Operating margins for hoteliers are yet to reach the industry peak of 2007 in the United States given the spike in costs. Hoteliers are looking to differentiate themselves and keep pace with changing consumer tastes through investments in technology, quick customer service and real-time marketing. These are denting margins even further. Additionally, most hoteliers plan to gain competitive advantage and differentiate their brands through renovation. This will, however, come at the cost of near-term margins.

Meanwhile, as the economy improves and unemployment levels drop, hotel managers are expected to continue struggling to control their largest operating expense  labor costs. Rising salaries, wages and benefits, as well as increased staffing levels have been adding to hoteliers labor costs.

Moreover, hoteliers are unable to match the rising cost of operations with the increase in room rates. This is lowering their ability to achieve levels of profit growth observed in the last four to five years.

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India has expressed disappointment over neighboring Chinas decision to once more impede its push for blacklisting a Pakistani militant leader accused of attacks on its territory.

With Washingtons support, New Delhi has been trying to include Maulana Masood Azhar on a United Nations sanctions list of groups and individuals with ties to Al-Qaeda. India blames Azhar for orchestrating a deadly attack on its parliament in 2002 and another one on an airbase last year.

Beijing, a close ally of Islamabad, however, has repeatedly blocked New Delhis efforts to blacklist Azhar. Security council member China has cited a lack of consensus for holding the ban but India rejects such claims.

In a statement on November 2, Indias Foreign Ministry said it was deeply disappointed that once again, a single country has blocked international consensus on the designation of an acknowledged terrorist and leader of a UN-designated terrorist organization, Masood Azhar".

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying recently said there were clear rules for listing a person or group as a terrorist.

As for the listing application by the relevant country [India], there are disagreements. China put the technical hold so as to allow for more time to deliberate on this matter. To our regret, the committee so far has yet to reach consensus, she told journalists.

Beijing says it will move forward with the application only once all UN Security Council members are in complete agreement. "China always maintains that on the listing matter, the 1267 Committee [Security Council Committee] shall uphold the principle of objectivity, impartiality, and professionalism, and make its decisions by consensus among its members on the basis of solid evidence, Hua said.

Azhar, the leader of the banned hard-line Jaish-e Mohammad militant group, has been a longtime foe of Indias. He was arrested in Srinagar, the capital of India-administered Kashmir, in the mid-1990s. But he was released in December 1999 in exchange for the passengers of a hijacked Indian airliner.

His fate has now become a thorny issue in relations between regional giants and rivals China and India.

New Delhi worries Beijing will back its "all-weather" friend, and its archrival, Islamabad.

"India strongly believes that double standards and selective approaches will only undermine the international communitys resolve to combat terrorism," India's Foreign Ministry said.

While under pressure Islamabad has repeatedly put Azhar under house arrest or protective custody, his group has generally been spared from the large-scale military operations or harsh crackdowns that Pakistani Taliban, Baloch separatists, and some other militant groups have endured during the past decade.

In an explosive revelation last year, Pakistani daily Dawn revealed that Beijing has quietly questioned Islamabads motives in preventing Azhars blacklisting.

Chinese authorities have conveyed their willingness to keep putting on technical hold a UN ban on Jaish-e Mohammad leader Masood Azhar; they have questioned the logic of doing so repeatedly, the paper quoted then Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry, now Pakistans ambassador in Washington, as telling Pakistans political and military leaders.

Pakistans powerful military, however, rejected the story as a fabrication and pushed for an investigation. Ultimately, several senior officials lost their jobs because of the controversy.

 with reporting by Reuters, VOA, and Dawn.com
A sister of New York City terror suspect Sayfullo Saipov has told RFE/RL from their native Uzbekistan that her family believes the 29-year-old was "brainwashed" and has pleaded with U.S. authorities to give him "time" and a "fair trial."

Umida Saipova, 27, offered condolences to the families of the victims of the October 31 rampage in which Saipov is accused of plowing a pickup truck through a bike path in Manhattan, killing eight people and leaving around a dozen others injured.

"My mother says she didn't notice any sign of [radicalization] when she visited him in the U.S. twice," Saipova said of 50-year-old Muqaddas Saipova, who was last in the United States to visit her son earlier this year. "My mother said she would have brought him back to Uzbekistan had she noticed anything."

Saipov was shot in the abdomen and apprehended by police, reportedly after fleeing the rented truck, which authorities say contained messages expressing support for radical Islamist group Islamic State (IS). The perpetrator was said to have shouted, "Allahu akbar," as he left the scene of the attack.

The incident was the deadliest terrorist attack on New York City since Al-Qaeda militants slammed hijacked passenger jets into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 2001, killing more than 2,600 people.

Prosecutors reported that Saipov said he was inspired by IS and "felt good about what he had done," even demanding to hang an IS banner in his hospital room.

'IS Soldier'

IS on November 3 declared in an article in the group's weekly newspaper that "one of the soldiers of the Islamic State attacked a number of crusaders on a street in New York City," according to the SITE Intelligence Group. The group called the attacker a "soldier of the caliphate."

Informed in Tashkent of her brother's reported request to hang the IS flag in the hospital, Saipova said "there was no sign" of a problem.

"We don't know who has brainwashed him," Saipova said, speaking in Uzbek by telephone. "We don't know his circumstances. We don't know. Perhaps he's become part of some organized group."

She added: "I don't know, honestly, how long it will take for his head to get rid of that poison, but I'm sure he will come to his senses, God willing.

But she acknowledged that the family had been alarmed in recent years after Saipov's 2013 marriage to see an image of him with a full beard in the style of some extreme religious elements.

"When we first time saw him on Skype with a beard, we got scared, honestly. We were terrified," she said. "I cried and called him and asked him why."

Saipova said her brother told her about having been stopped in his car and mugged, and said he grew a beard to appear older and "to scare them."

'Normal' Conversation

The family had a "normal" conversation with her brother, a permanent legal U.S. resident since 2010, one day before the attack in New York, she said.

"I spoke with him by the phone a day before," Saipova told RFE/RL. "He was in a good mood. It was a usual, good conversation."

He had told them he was eating his mother's "favorite pastry" on his way to pick up a client at the airport, she said.

Saipov worked as an Uber driver in the New Jersey area for about six months before the attack.

Saipova said she was prepared to travel to the United States to speak with her brother in hopes of discovering what might have driven him to violence.

The criminal complaint filed with an injured Saipov present in federal court on November 1 said that the accused had waived his right to remain silent or have an attorney present in speaking to investigators from his Manhattan hospital bed.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo suggested Saipov was radicalized after he arrived in the United States from Uzbekistan in 2010 via the U.S. Diversity Visa Immigrant Program, known as the green-card lottery.

'Message To Trump'

In the hours after the attack, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted out calls for "the NYC terrorist" to be sent to Guantanamo, the military facility in Cuba where U.S. officials have kept designated "enemy combatants" since 9/11.

But Trump later cited "something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed" and suggested the process "should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!"

"We don't think he should be given the death penalty immediately," a crying Saipova told RFE/RL. "We are hoping for a fair trial. We are ready to go there, if it's possible, to talk to him."

She urged U.S. authorities to "give him a bit more time," adding, "Please pass my message to Trump, if possible.

Both of Saipov's parents and an uncle were said be undergoing questioning by authorities in Uzbekistan, and Saipov's sister said on November 3 that the family "still doesn't know where" her father and uncle "are now."

She said her mother had returned to their Tashkent-area home on November 3 from the hospital, where she was taken to be treated for what Saipova described as "shock."

Later efforts on November 3 to contact Umida Saipova by telephone or at the home on the outskirts of Tashkent were unsuccessful.


FredstarRR233 wrote:

Besides the rankings here and the more commonly known ones from Financial Times, how am I to determine if a certain school is good or not if it's not in the the more known top 50 or 100 rankings' lists.



I'm trying to be realistic with my chances based on my credentials and potential GMAT score. If I'm looking at plan B's for mid-tier schools, how can I judge their quality? For instance, since I want to go to school in Europe, hopefully in Spain, EAE has popped up and it is part of AACSB, AEEDE, and is #2 ranked on MERCO and top 50 rated by American Economia but it doesn't require the GMAT to the application. Is this a good school or not?

Coming from India I can understand your concerns. Here the first evaluation is on the basis of ranking. Each B schools ranking uses specific sets of factors to rank them, thus until your requirements align with the factors they are not that useful. I suggest my students to create their own list of factors of doing an MBA like:1) Industry2) Profile3) Linguistic/geographical and other barriers4) BudgetThis should help in creating a primary list of schools that you would target. Once you have your score you can further filter your list. It would also help to look into the current economy of the region too.In terms of European schools please also understand most school in Europe do not require a GMAT score, it is an add on. This isn't the same as in USA where GMAT is a necessary requirement to apply to a top B school. European schools are good too however they serve very specific industries/ profile.
One product to protect all your devices, without slowing them down.

The Hilton hotel chain, which has more than 4,000 properties in over 90 countries, has to pay a $700,000 settlement to the states of New York and Vermont following two point-of-sale attacks the company didnt properly handle, writes BBC News.

Although the credit card breaches were identified in 2014 and 2015, and affected over 363,000 payment cards, Hilton Domestic Operating Company, Inc informed customers about them in November 2015, according to investigators. The lax security measures, as well as informing customers so late about the hack of their payment information, gave hackers free rein to make fraudulent purchases.

Businesses have a duty to notify consumers in the event of a breach and protect their personal information as securely as possible, said Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman.

Lax security practices like those we uncovered at Hilton put New Yorkers credit card information and other personal data at serious risk. My office will continue to hold businesses accountable for protecting their customers personal information.

The company officially admitted the breach only after security researcher Brian Krebs wrote on his blog that a number of gift shops restaurants in the chain may have been hacked.

The first attack took place between November 18 and December 5, 2014, when a hotel computer was infected with malware to communicate with an outside server. Hackers used PoS malware to steal names, payment card numbers, security codes and expiration dates. The second attack was between April 21 and July 27, 2015, and again targeted payment card data.

Besides paying the fine to New York and Vermont in a joint settlement, Hilton will strengthen security and ensure any future breaches are announced as soon as identified.

Hilton is strongly committed to protecting our customers payment card information and maintaining the integrity of our systems, the company said in a statement.

As of May 2018 when the EUs GDPR goes into effect, the outcome of such cases will change drastically. If the fine were in line with GDPR legislation, it would be $420 million, as the fine can represent up to 4 percent of the companys turnover.
By PTI: airlines: Jayant Sinha

New Delhi, Nov 3 (PTI) Union minister Jayant Sinha said today that the government will take up the issue of increase in ticket cancellation charges with airlines.

Low-cost carrier SpiceJet revised its cancellation fee from Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,000 for domestic flights and from Rs 3,000 to Rs 3,500 for international flights with effect from November 1. Its competitor IndiGo had done the same in September.

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In response to a tweet asking the minister of state for civil aviation whether there would be "any action towards the increased cancellation and excess baggage charges", Sinha said "We will take up these matters with the airlines."

An official on condition of anonymity said that the ministry will discuss the "issue of passenger convenience (fee) and charges in general" with airlines.

Various airlines charge a convenience fee for online booking of tickets.

In August, airlines had also hiked fee for baggage exceeding weight limit of 15 kg. PTI JC RAM ASK ASK

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By PTI: New Delhi, Nov 3 (PTI) Poor workers should not suffer in the tussle between the Centre, Delhi government and MCD, the Delhi High Court said today.

While hearing the issue of pending salaries of sanitation workers of the citys municipal bodies, the court said due to non-release of funds by the Delhi government, the ultimate sufferers were the workers of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the entire national capital.

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"MCD is not like a private company that if they do not perform, you will not pay them. Ultimately, workers suffer and, when they go on strike, whole Delhi suffers," a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said.

"Let the problems between the Delhi government, Union of India and MCD not come in the way of salaries of workers. We want these poor people to get their dues," it said.

The bench was a hearing a plea seeking a direction to the authorities to ensure that the workers of East and North Delhi Municipal Corporations call off their strike, which started on October 11 and October 16 respectively, and resume work.

The workers had later called off the strike.

The court heard the submissions of Delhi government standing counsel Ramesh Singh and asked if the government was moving in the spirit of releasing the money to MCD.

The counsel sought time to seek instruction after which the bench listed the matter for November 14.

Singh said it was the obligation of MCD and not the Delhi government to pay salaries to sanitation workers and claimed that the civic body was not doing anything on its part.

The court had earlier directed the then striking sanitation employees not to obstruct cleaning of garbage as they caused serious diseases like dengue.

The court was hearing a plea by one Rahul Birla, who had sought a direction to the government and the EDMC to make immediate payment of the arrears.

Advocate Niraj Gupta, appearing for the petitioner, had urged the court to direct the EDMC to issue medical cashless cards to its sanitation workers.

The plea has also sought direction to the authorities to immediately implement the recommendations of the 4th Finance Commission.

The workers of all the three MCDs had also gone on strike in January 2015, October 2015 and January 2016, which had worsened the sanitary conditions and accumulated garbage in the capital posing an imminent risk of outbreak of diseases. PTI SKV HMP ARC

--- ENDS ---
Chanakya and Megasthnese hinted about khichdi in their writings but medieval travellers and Mughal emperors made sure that the ancient dish entered historical accounts.

By Prabhash K Dutta: Over the next three days, the range of Indian cuisines would be on display at the World Food India, 2017 in New Delhi. Participants from more than 40 countries and 27 Indian states are taking part in the exhibition, organised in association with industry body CII.

Ahead of the World Food India 2017 and on social media, khichdi, an ancient Indian dish, attracted unusual attention. From the confusion about the Narendra Modi government's plan to declare khichdi the national food to the dish being projected as the Brand India food were all debated and discussed on social media. Cooked and eaten in almost every Indian home, khichdi had seldom received such attention in millennia.

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Simply put, khichdi is a Indian style porridge. It is believed to be the salty derivative of the Vedic dish, Kshirodana (modern version is kheer). The word khichdi has its origin in Sanskrit term, Khichcha meaning 'mixed' or 'mixture'. Renowned chef Sanjeev Kapoor will cook khichdi to set a world record during the World Food India 2017.

KHICHDI IN HISTORY

Ancient Indian texts talk about dishes prepared with the mixture of rice and pulses. Two of the words that are mentioned in reference to a dish like khichdi are Krisaranna and Khichcha.

Archaeological evidence from around 1200 BC proves that Indians ate rice and pulses together. Though, these two grains were definitely eaten in much earlier days separately.

Famous philosopher of ancient age, Chanakya, who was the prime minister of Magadhan emperor Chandragupta Maurya, has cryptically wrote about a balances dish that could possibly be taken for khichdi.

Chanakya's prescription for a balanced meal was one prastha (about 1.4 pounds) of rice, quarter prastha of lentils, 1/62 prastha of salt, and 1/16 prastha of ghee taken together.

His contemporary and famous writer Megasthenese -who stayed in the royal court of Chandragupta Maurya for years - provides a detailed account of how rice and pulses formed the popular dish in India and were eaten together.

FOREIGN TRAVELERS AND KHICHDI

It is interesting that Indian authors and Asian travelers did not write about khichdi much but the foreign tourist-writers found the dish peculiar enough to mention about it in good detail. Indian and Asian writers might have found khichdi too common to warrant a special place in their accounts.

Medieval traveller from Morocco, Ibn Batuta mentions Kishri being prepared and eaten by Indians around middle of 14th century. Ibn Batuta describes that moong is boiled with rice and eaten after adding ghee. He says people had this dish every day for breakfast.

Russian traveller Nikitin described about Khichdi being eaten by people in south India in 15th century. In 17th century, French tourist-writer Tavernier - who was so fond of India that he came here six times - wrote that khichdi was a popular evening meal in Indian homes.

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MUGHALS LOVED KHICHDI

Khichdi had special place in Mughal royal kitchen. There is no record of khichdi being a cuisine in the kitchens of Mughal empire founder Babur or his son Humayun, it gained importance during Akbar, the first India-born Mughal emperor.

Akbar's minister and court historian Abul Fazl talks about several varieties of khichdi cooked in the royal kitchen. In Ain-i-Akbari, he gives specific recipes for each variety. Then, there is famous tale of Birbal's khichdi.

Of all the Mughal emperors, Jahangir can be singled out for his fondness of khichdi. A special variety of khichdi was prepared for him by adding pistachios and raisins to the old recipe. The emperor named the dish as Lazeezaan, meaning delicious.

Aurangzeb, the Mughal emperor least known for extravagance and eating, was fond of another variety of khichdi called Alamgiri khichdi. This variety had fish and eggs among its ingredients.

KHICHDI OF OTHER RULERS

The Nizams of Hyderabad too gave importance to khichdi in their royal meals. A non-veg improvisation of khichdi - by adding minced meat - particularly found place in Nizam's kitchen.

In the 19th century, the British took khichdi from India to their own country, where it became Kedgeree. It became a rather sophisticated breakfast dish in England. It is still popular in England.

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Every part of India has some recipe of khichdi. From khichuri in West Bengal to Ven Pongal in Kerala, khichdi has united India in geographical expanse with its flavor and through dynasties till the last Mughal emperor.

.@HarsimratBadal_ explains the rationale behind the World Food India.#NewsTodayLive https://t.co/4fqxBVUizL pic.twitter.com/HCxNg3Giqu

- India Today (@IndiaToday) November 2, 2017

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Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has produced a film documentary about refugees around the world.

He filmed a total of 40 refugee camps in 23 countries. The documentary tells about people who fled war and environmental crises. Others left their home country for religious reasons.

The goal of the new film is to show how the refugee crisis affects everyone. This is just one of the many voices heard in the film:

Being a refugee is much more than a political status. It is the most pervasive kind of cruelty that can be exercised against a human being. You are forcibly robbing this human being of all aspects that would make human life not just tolerable but meaningful in many ways.

The documentary is called Human Flow. It says over 65 million people in the world today have been forced to leave their homes. Ai Weiwei used drone aircraft to film the movement of refugees. He and his crew equipped the drones with cameras to get pictures of those displaced from up high.

Ai spoke with VOA about his project.

Human flow has always happens in human history. Its in many cases, it's part of our humanity and our civilization.

But things are different now, he notes. Ai Weiwei says countries are working to stop the flow of people by preventing refugees from crossing borders. After a very difficult trip by sea and days of walking, many refugees from the Middle East made their way to northern Greece. But then they were stopped at the border with Macedonia.

Over 70 borders have built up their fences and walls and have forbidden any refugee to pass through. So, by doing that, they really not only stopped the life line of those refugees to try to find a safe place, even just temporarily across the border and go to another location, but also putting them in extreme dangerous conditions."

In part of the film, a doctor examines a baby. He says it is a bad situation.

Two months old, and born here but he didnt have any vaccination. No showering facilities. The hygienic situation is very bad.

The documentary looks at the refugee crisis in some areas, as well as the personal stories of those suffering. Like one man who holds up photographs of family members who died at sea.

They all died at sea. His wife is buried here. His son is buried here. And his daughter too. His son also drowned at sea. This is my brother Sakhi Ahmad.

Human Flow shows large numbers of people fleeing wars, religious persecution, and environmental disasters. Ai Weiwei says we need to save those people from displacement. If we do not, he warns, generations will be born without identity, or the possibility of a better life. He believes that will make them targets for extremists.

"And those people, those child[ren}, when they grow up they only see how their parents being badly treated, unfairly treated, the world watching but doing nothing. They see people being killed, homes being burned, the drones throw the bombs and kill, blindly kill all the people. And what kind of image would remain in their mind?"

The Chinese activist is critical of Europe and the United States for lacking empathy, leadership and ideas about the refugee issue. He warns that if this does not change, no ones future will be safe.

Im Anne Ball.

Penelope Poulou wrote this story for VOANews.com. Anne Ball adapted her story for Learning English. George Grow was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section and visit us on our Facebook page.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

persecution  n. the act of continually treating in a cruel and harmful way

pervasive  adj. existing in every part of something : spreading to all parts of something

aspect  n. a part of something

tolerable  adj. good enough to be accepted but not very good

hygienic  adj. relating to being clean and to the things that are done to maintain good health

empathy  n. the feeling that you understand and share another person's experiences and emotions


The Uzbek man who killed eight people in New York City came to the United States on a diversity immigrant visa.

After the attack, President Donald Trump announced he wants to work with U.S. lawmakers to end the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program.

Trump said, I am going to ask Congress to immediately initiate work to get rid of this program  diversity, diversity lottery. Sounds nice; its not nice. Its not good. Its not good. It hasnt been good. Weve been against it.

The diversity visa program is known as the green card lottery. It is the only hope for some would-be Americans to live in the United States. The program is open to non-refugees, individuals with no family members in the U.S. and those lacking an employer willing to guarantee them a job.

To be considered for the program, a person must have a high school education or a few years of work experience.

Natives of most countries can qualify, but there are exceptions, such as Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-born), Colombia, and the Dominican Republic. The list also includes El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Also included are Peru, the Philippines, South Korea, the United Kingdom and its territories except Northern Ireland, and Vietnam.

People born in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan qualify for the diversity lottery program.

Between September 2015 and September 2016, the U.S. government approved 45,664 diversity visas. More than 2,300 of them were given to Uzbeks.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer helped to create the legislation for the program in the 1990s. Schumer is a leading member of the Democratic Party.

Trump has blamed Schumer and the Democrats for the terror attack in New York.

In a statement, Schumer said I have always believed and continue to believe that immigration is good for America. He also asked the president to support the real solution of anti-terrorism financing, which would be cut under the most recent budget proposed by the Trump administration.

Schumer was also one of eight lawmakers who wrote the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill in 2013. The bill would have ended the green card lottery. The measure passed the Senate, but the House of Representatives did not vote on it.

Leon Fresco formerly served in the Office of Immigration Litigation at the U.S. Department of Justice. He worked there during the presidency of Barack Obama.

Fresco developed the legislation in 2013. He noted that cutting the lottery program was part of a compromise between the two main political parties.

Family-based system

President Trump has called for a new immigration system, one that is based on merit, not family ties.

The United States currently has a family-based immigration policy. The immigration system is based on sponsorship. A U.S. citizen or green card holder can offer to accept responsibility for family members who leave their home country to move to the U.S.

Partners and young children qualify as immediate relatives and do not need to wait for a visa number. But for brothers, sisters and adult children, the process can be long and difficult.

It's extremely difficultbrothers and sisters are at the very end," said Naomi Tsu, deputy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center. Tsu said it is even harder if they live in countries that have a lot of immigrants coming to the United States.

The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute reports that in 2015, more than 1 million permanent residents were admitted to the United States. Of that number, 44 percent were immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, and 20 percent entered through a family-sponsored preference.

Only 14 percent entered on job-based visas.

Merit-based immigration

Merit-based immigration would give preference to non-citizens with high-paying job offers, past successes, English-language skills and education. All of those would be considered under the proposed green card system.

Tsu explained that the system would give points for age, the salary you are able to command, and how much money you are going to invest in the U.S. economy.

The higher the rating, the more likely an immigrant would be admitted to the United States. This system would be similar to merit-based immigration systems used by Canada and Australia.

Pros and cons

Supporters of a merit-based system say it would help lower immigration rates. And they say it will ensure that the immigrants who do get accepted are highly skilled and less likely to need public assistance.

In August, Trump said that the United States has operated a very low-skill immigration system. He was speaking in support for a bill known as the RAISE, Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy, Act. It aims to cut legal immigration from 1 million to 500,000 each year, in part by moving to a merit-based system.

This [family-based] policy has placed substantial pressure on American workers, taxpayers and community resources, Trump said.

But critics say the U.S. economy also needs low-skilled workers, and a merit-based system would hurt industries that depend on them.

Critics also see the merit-based system as un-American. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said Wednesday that the proposed system abandons the fundamental respect for family, at the heart of our faith, at the heart of who we are as Americans.

VOA News reported this story. Ashley Thompson adapted it for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

diversity - n. the quality or state of having many different forms, types, ideas, etc.

initiate - v. to cause the beginning of (something) : to start or begin (something)

lottery - n. a system used to decide who will get or be given something by choosing names or numbers by chance

qualify - v. to have the necessary skill or knowledge to do a particular job or activity : to have the qualifications to do something

merit - n. the quality of being good, important, or useful: value or worth

preference - n. an advantage that is given to some people or things and not to others

salary - n. an amount of money that an employee is paid each year

substantial - adj. large in amount, size, or number

abandon - v. to stop supporting or helping (someone or something)
November 5 is United Nations Tsunami Awareness Day.

Tsunami is a Japanese word for a long, destructive ocean wave caused by an undersea earthquake.

The goal of the observance is to learn from disasters of the past and to prepare for the future.

Two tsunamis in the last 15 years have changed the way people around the world think about these destructive events.

On December 26, 2004, a magnitude 9 earthquake near the coast of Indonesia caused tsunami waves that struck the coasts of four countries.

An estimated 230,000 people died and costs were in the billions of dollars.

One school girl from a Pacific island nation described a tsunami this way: like a monster, it destroys everything.

The event forced officials to develop a better tsunami warning system.

Bulgarias U.N. Ambassador Georgi Velikov Panayotov was on vacation with his wife in Thailand in 2004 and survived the tsunami.

He warned there is nothing you can do to stop a tsunami.

But he said, What we can do is build early warning systems and, of course, educating the population about the devastating power of the tsunami wave.

After the event in Indonesia, many countries believed they were prepared if a tsunami struck.

Devastation in northeastern Japan

Then, on March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake struck northeastern Japan. It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in that country.

More than 18,000 people died. The tsunami also caused serious damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power center on the island of Honshu. At the time, the nuclear center was Japans biggest.

The human cost of the disaster was huge. The tsunami of 2011 also is one of the most costly disasters in history. Several nuclear reactors were severely damaged and leaked radiation. Clean up efforts continue to this day.

Japans U.N. Ambassador Koro Bessho said, before the 2011 earthquake, People thought that we were prepared for it.

But he said officials had expected an event that hits every 100 years and the earthquake was of the size of possibly every 500 years or one thousand years.

Efforts look to early warning, preparation

The two events caused people in the Pacific and Indian Ocean areas to study and improve preparedness for disasters.

This led to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in 2015 in Sendai, Japan.

The agreement was a U.N. effort to raise awareness about disaster risks and to urge countries to assess how well they were prepared for them.

Willem Rampangilei is head of the Disaster Management Agency in Indonesia. He said Indonesia passed a law on disaster management after the 2004 tsunami. It led in 2008 to the creation of his agency.

Our responsibilities include mitigation and preparedness, emergency response, as well as post-disaster rehabilitation and reconstruction, he said.

He adds that 150 million Indonesians are at risk from earthquakes, 60 million from floods and four million from tsunamis.

After the 2004 waves, a Tsunami Warning System was put in place. It provides three regional watch centers in India, Indonesia, and Australia. There also are 26 national tsunami information centers throughout the area.

As a result, Banda Aceh received warnings eight minutes after an earthquake in 2012. No deaths were reported.

Preparedness has spread beyond Asia. There are now early warning systems in place for the Caribbean Sea, the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and surrounding areas.

Educating young people early on

This week, the U.N. Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, held an early warning exercise involving 15 countries in the northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean. The group is studying local plans to deal with a tsunami emergency.

In countries where there is a risk of a tsunami, officials are aiming to teach children from an early age so they know how to react.

Children are taught to shelter in place until an earthquake passes. Then, they are to go with classmates to higher ground away from coastal areas and possibly deadly sea waves.

Japan is sharing its knowledge by assisting with evacuation exercises in schools in 18 countries. Next week, Japan is holding an event for high school students from 25 nations. It is aimed at teaching about tsunami risks and life-saving measures in such an event.

Japans Tohoku University joined with Japanese companies to publish a report on the risks of tsunamis around the world. By studying historical records, researchers found big differences between tsunamis. They also found that the height of a wave had little to do with its destructive force.

Improved building codes can save lives

Countries that have been hit by tsunamis have learned that better building requirements can save lives and limit damage.

Chile is a country that has learned this first hand. In February 2010, an 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck the country also causing a powerful tsunami. About 525 people died.

Four years later, another earthquake of 8.4 magnitude, struck. This time, 15 people were killed in the quake, but no one died in the following tsunami.

Diplomat Jorge Iglesias Mori said measures to improve building standards had been carried out in the four years. Building codes were strengthened, he said. He added that the country put more resources into early warning systems, education, and exercises.

He also said Chile worked with Japan in sharing knowledge and experience.

Im Mario Ritter. And Im Alice Bryant.

Margaret Besheer reported this story for VOA News. Mario Ritter adapted it for VOA Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

magnitude n. a measure of the force of an earthquake

devastating adj. causing great damage

awareness n. the state of knowing about something

assess v. to study and make a judgment

mitigation n. making an effort to reduce the bad effects of something, like a flood or earthquake

rehabilitation n. a process of recovery, bringing someone or something back to its former state or health

evacuation n. the act of moving people out of a place because of some emergency

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.
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S&P 500 3,991.73 DOW 33,592.92 QQQ 289.39 Retiring Soon? 8 Facts About Retirement You Need to Know These 5 Microcap Stocks (Ad) Three Penny Stocks Making Big Moves In November Agilent Remains In Buy Range Ahead Of Next Week's Q4 Report These 5 Microcap Stocks (Ad) Dont Chase Walmart Higher, Wait For Extra Low Prices Russian airstrikes reported in cities across Ukraine 5 Diamonds in the Rough (Ad) Stocks gain ground after wholesale inflation eases in US The Latest | UN Climate Summit

S&P 500 3,991.73 DOW 33,592.92 QQQ 289.39 Retiring Soon? 8 Facts About Retirement You Need to Know These 5 Microcap Stocks (Ad) Three Penny Stocks Making Big Moves In November Agilent Remains In Buy Range Ahead Of Next Week's Q4 Report These 5 Microcap Stocks (Ad) Dont Chase Walmart Higher, Wait For Extra Low Prices Russian airstrikes reported in cities across Ukraine 5 Diamonds in the Rough (Ad) Stocks gain ground after wholesale inflation eases in US The Latest | UN Climate Summit
Yeh Hai Mohabbatein is all set to take a leap, yet again.

By India Today Web Desk: Raman (Karan Patel) and Ishita's (Divyanka Tripathi) love story is all set to take another turn, with the two meeting as strangers in a new city--Budapest, Hungary. The show will take a 1.5-year leap, post which the storyline of Yeh Hai Mohabbatein will undergo a huge change.

Going by the promo, it is quite possible that the makers might have introduced another memory loss track to amp up the ratings.

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Shagun's (Anita Hassanandani) memory loss drama sometime back helped the show a bit, but the viewers, it seems, were craving to see Raman and Ishita together as a couple. And that will surely happen after the leap.

From being inseparable to complete strangers now. What happened to Raman and Ishita? Find out on #YeHaiMohabbatein, 6th Nov at 7:30pm. pic.twitter.com/W1lDXYS49h- STAR PLUS (@StarPlus) November 2, 2017

Last time the show took a leap (7 years), the story moved to Australia--after Raman and Ishita separated post Ruhi's (Aditi Bhatia) kidnapping drama. Another leap is taking the show to another country.

The show's cast Divyanka Tripathi, Karan Patel, Aditi Bhatia, Ribbhu Mehra, Abhishek Verma and Anita Hassanandani shit in Budapest for around a week for the sequence.

A source close to the production house said that the leap was slated for last year but couldn't happen for some unknown reasons. This year, the production house and channel took a collective decision to take a leap on the show.

Will the leap help revive the show's ratings? Only time will tell.

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Citizens Financial Group, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for Citizens Bank, National Association that provides retail and commercial banking products and services to individuals, small businesses, middle-market companies, corporations, and institutions in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Consumer Banking and Commercial Banking. The Consumer Banking segment offers deposit products, mortgage and home equity lending products, credit cards, business loans, wealth management, and investment services; and auto, education, and point-of-sale finance loans, as well as digital deposit products. This segment serves its customers through telephone service centers, as well as through its online and mobile platforms. The Commercial Banking segment provides various financial products and solutions, including lending and leasing, deposit and treasury management services, foreign exchange, and interest rate and commodity risk management solutions, as well as syndicated loans, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and debt and equity capital markets services. This segment serves government banking, not-for-profit, healthcare, technology, professionals, oil and gas, asset finance, franchise finance, asset-based lending, commercial real estate, private equity, and sponsor finance industries. It operates approximately 1,200 branches in 14 states and the District of Columbia; 114 retail and commercial non-branch offices in national markets; and approximately 3,300 automated teller machines. The company was formerly known as RBS Citizens Financial Group, Inc. and changed its name to Citizens Financial Group, Inc. in April 2014. Citizens Financial Group, Inc. was founded in 1828 and is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Blood biomarkers appear to be an early-warning signal for the accelerated loss of lung function and airway obstruction in firefighters who responded to the World Trade Center disaster, according to new research published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

In "Blood Leukocyte Concentrations, FEV1 Decline, and Airflow Limitation: a 15-year Longitudinal Study of WTC-exposed Firefighters," researchers report on a study of 9,434 firefighters conducted from Sept. 11, 2001, to Sept. 10, 2016.

In the aftermath of 9/11, New York City fire department rescue and recovery workers exposed to the caustic dust at the site experienced high rates of lung injury and excessive loss of lung function. After 2002, lung function stabilized in a majority of those exposed, but some firefighters continuing to lose lung function at an accelerated rate while some improved, according to the authors.

"We have previously observed some of our patients were doing worse than others and performed this study because we wanted to understand factors that increased the risk for excessive lung function loss," said senior study author Michael D. Weiden, MS, MD, associate professor of medicine and environmental medicine at New York University and a New York City Fire Department medical officer. "These findings could motivate future research to find other treatments for this group with ongoing lung injury."

The study goal was to determine if these different trajectories were associated with blood concentrations of eosinophils and neutrophils, two types of immune cells that play a role in many respiratory diseases and are routinely measured during medical evaluations.

The study found:

12.7 percent of participants experienced accelerated FEV1 loss (>64 ml/year loss beyond expected), while 8.3 percent showed improvement in FEV1, the maximum amount of air that can be exhaled in one second.

Both higher blood eosinophil (?300 cells/l) and neutrophil (?4,500 cells/l) concentrations were associated with accelerated FEV1 decline.

4,500 cells/l were associated with a higher risk of accelerated FEV1

Higher eosinophil, but not neutrophil, concentrations were also associated with airflow obstruction, defined as FEV1/FVC (Forced Vital Capacity, the air that can be expelled from the lungs after the deepest breath) <0.70.

Individuals with accelerated FEV1 decline were more than four times as likely to have airflow obstruction as those who had expected FEV1 decline.

In a subset of firefighters (4,303) who had blood counts before 9/11, there was an association between elevated eosinophil and neutrophil levels before 9/11 and afterwards, and those higher levels before 9/11 were associated with accelerated FEV1 decline.

The study adjusted for several factors, including age, race, length of Ground Zero exposure and smoking. There were significant interactions between smoking, eosinophil and neutrophil concentrations and FEV1 decline.

"After 9/11, about one in eight firefighters who worked at the World Trade Center had accelerated loss of lung function over the next 15 years," Dr. Weiden said. "Even in those who had never smoked we found that accelerated loss of lung function increased their risk of airway obstruction and COPD."

The authors said that this study may not be generalizable to another population exposed to caustic dust because of the massive nature of the exposure and the fact that the firefighters were overwhelmingly white men who had been healthy.

More information: "Blood biomarkers may be early-warning signal for #lung problems in #9/11 firefighters" Annals of the American Thoracic Society, 2017.
Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Using a molecular method likely to become widely adopted by the field, researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health have discovered brain circuitry essential for alertness, or vigilance  and for brain states more generally. Strikingly, the same cell types and circuits are engaged during alertness in zebra fish and mice, species whose evolutionary forebears parted ways hundreds of millions of years ago. This suggests that the human brain is likely similarly wired for this state critical to survival.

"Vigilance gone awry marks states such as mania and those seen in post-traumatic stress disorder and depression," explained Joshua Gordon, M.D., Ph.D., director of the NIH's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), which along with the National Institute on Drug Abuse, co-funded the study. "Gaining familiarity with the molecular players in a behavior  as this new tool promises  may someday lead to clinical interventions targeting dysfunctional brain states."

Karl Deisseroth, M.D., Ph.D. , Matthew Lovett-Barron, Ph.D. , and Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, colleagues, report on findings using a neural activity screening technology they call Multi-MAP (Multiplexed-alignment of Molecular and Activity Phenotypes) online Nov. 2, 2017 in the journal Cell.

For the first time, Multi-MAP makes it possible to see which neurons are activated in a behaving animal during a particular brain state  and subsequently molecularly analyze just those neurons to identify the subtypes and circuits involved.

NIMH-funded scientists revealed the types of neurons supporting alertness, using a molecular method called MultiMAP in transparent larval zebrafish. Multiple types of neurons communicate by secreting the same major chemical messengers: serotonin (red), dopamine and noradrenalin (yellow) and acetylcholine (cyan). Credit: National Institutes of Health

In this case, the researchers used the technique to screen activity of neurons visible through the transparent heads of genetically-engineered larval zebra fish. They gauged vigilance by measuring how long it took the animals to swish their tails in response to a threatening stimulus.

A molecular analysis revealing subtypes led to identification of six suspect circuits composed of distinct populations of neurons that modulate neuronal activity, only one of which had previously been linked to vigilance. Virtually the same players were operative in follow-up experiments examining such reaction time-related circuitry in mouse brain. Using optogenetics  another breakthrough exploratory tool developed by Deisseroth and colleaguesthe researchers narrowed the field to three circuits that definitively boost alertness in mice, including the one previously known. The other three are thought to play a reportorial rather than regulatory role.

More information: Matthew Lovett-Barron et al. Ancestral Circuits for the Coordinated Modulation of Brain State, Cell (2017). Journal information: Cell Matthew Lovett-Barron et al. Ancestral Circuits for the Coordinated Modulation of Brain State,(2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.10.021
Research centred on PDL1, an immune checkpoint protein and prominent target of cancer immunotherapies. Credit: University of York

Scientists have discovered key new information about how to boost our immune system's fight against cancer.

Their research revealed a trick that healthy cells use to prevent undue suppression of the immune response.

The study, by scientists from the University of York, the Hull York Medical School and Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, could lead to improved use and management of cancer immunotherapies.

Our immune system has a remarkable potential to clear pre-cancerous or cancer cells. However, often cancer cells develop the ability to emit 'off' signals to immune cells and fool them into apathy.

Immune checkpoints

These 'off' signals are called 'immune checkpoints'. In the last five years, the way we treat cancer has been transformed by developing drugs that try to stop these off signals and reawaken our immune system.

The research centred on PDL1, an 'immune checkpoint' protein and prominent target of cancer immunotherapies.

The researchers were inspired by the fact that immune checkpoints are not just present in cancer cells. They exist naturally in our body to prevent immune cells from prolonged or unnecessary immune responses, for example autoimmunity (where our immune system attacks our own cells).

Based on this observation, rather than exploring how immune checkpoints are controlled in cancer cells, the researchers went back and asked how the immune checkpoint protein PDL1 is controlled in normal non-cancerous cells.

By understanding the normal biology of this important drug target, the investigators hoped to gain new insight into ways of "rewiring" cancer cells in a manner that would render them susceptible to immune attack.

Immunologist Dr Dimitris Lagos of the Centre for Immunology and Infection, which is part of the University of York's Department of Biology and Hull York Medical School, led the research.

Dr Lagos said: "We wanted to find mechanisms that suppress the levels of PDL1 in healthy cells. Remarkably, we discovered that miR-155, a tiny biomolecule from a family of genes called microRNAs, keeps a check on PDL1 levels.

"Interestingly, miR-155 has been known to be a key regulator of immunity for almost a decade. However, its connection to the immune checkpoint function has eluded scientists. This discovery has the potential to help us come up with more effective anti-cancer immunotherapies"

New discovery

Dr Tyson V. Sharp of Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, who collaborated with Dr Lagos in the study said: "Immuno-oncology, the study of anti-cancer immunity, is a highly active research space in cancer medicine.

"This exciting finding opens up new avenues of investigation that we believe can help us develop novel and more effective treatments for cancer, including cancers of unmet needs, such as lung and pancreatic cancer. More work is needed to reveal the full potential of this new discovery."

The study is published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

More information: Daniel Yee et al. MicroRNA-155 induction via TNF- and IFN- suppresses expression of programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) in human primary cells, Journal of Biological Chemistry (2017). Journal information: Journal of Biological Chemistry Daniel Yee et al. MicroRNA-155 induction via TNF- and IFN- suppresses expression of programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) in human primary cells,(2017). DOI: 10.1074/jbc.M117.809053
Credit: University of Glasgow

Young or middle aged people with Atrial Fibrillation (AF), the most common heart rhythm abnormality, are at greater risk of death if they have other long term health conditions, according to a new study.

The research, led by the University of Glasgow and published today in Europace, has suggested that AF patients, who also have other health conditions, should be prioritised for healthcare interventions.

The study used UK Biobank data to examine the problem of having multimorbidity (two or more long term health conditions) for those who also have AF. It found that young or middle aged people in this group were at an increased risk of death over a follow up period of between 5 and 10 years.

Patients with AF who also had four or more long term health conditions were six times more likely to die than those without any long term conditions.

Authors of the study have suggested that patients with AF and other long terms conditions should be prioritised for higher levels of monitoring and offered health interventions to aid with treatment, and in some cases to adjust their lifestyle in order to reduce the impact of their conditions.

Lead author of the study, Frances Mair, Norie Miller Professor of General Practice from the University of Glasgow, said "We have shown that young and middle-aged patients with atrial fibrillation and one or more other long chronic illnesses are at increased risk of death over a follow-up period of 5-10 years.

"This suggests that these patients should be prioritised for interventions to enhance their adherence to treatment, and in some cases to adjust their lifestyle in order to reduce the impact of their other chronic illnesses (comoribidities) on survival."

The study looked at 3651 participants with Atrial Fibrillation and examined the impact of other long term conditions on their health. Presence of other conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and osteoporosis were associated with a significantly higher risk of mortality.

Dr Bhautesh Jani, NRS Career Research Fellow, said: "Future clinical guidelines for AF need to take greater account of co-morbidity. Young and middle aged patients with AF and multiple co-morbidities may need closer monitoring by health professionals as they are at higher risk of dying."

Atrial Fibrillation is the most common sustained heart rhythm abnormality, affecting an estimated 33 million people worldwide. The prevalence of AF is increasing globally, partly attributable to improved surveillance and the increasing prevalence of lifestyle related cardiovascular disease risk factors.

More information: Multimorbidity and comorbidity in atrial fibrillation and effects on survival: findings from UK Biobank Cohort. Multimorbidity and comorbidity in atrial fibrillation and effects on survival: findings from UK Biobank Cohort. eprints.gla.ac.uk/147770/
A reconstruction of neurons in the adult fly mushroom body -- including Kenyon cells (yellow), mushroom body output neurons (purple), and dopaminergic neurons (green) -- highlights unexpected connections. Credit: Takemura et al./ eLife 2017

What was once thought to be a done-and-dusted map of the fruit fly brain has gotten a second look, and researchers have discovered that it's actually not done at all.

Two teams of scientists at the Janelia Research Campus have independently mapped a brain region critical for memory and learning in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, in the larval and adult life stages. Their findings have added some unexpected neural connections, or synapses, to a seemingly solved circuit.

The results underscore the need for deeply detailed brain mapping, and make a case for using high-resolution electron microscopy (EM) to do it, says Albert Cardona, a group leader and neurobiologist at Janelia. Even in the most well-studied parts of the fly brain, he says, there's still a lot more for scientists to see.

Cardona and colleagues, and Janelia's FlyEM Project team and collaborators, recently published two separate studies: one in Nature on August 10, 2017, the other in eLife on July 18, 2017, detailing the newly discovered neural connections and how they might relate to behavior.

"This region of the brain had been picked over for decades, and people had already described the major circuits," says Gerry Rubin, Janelia's executive director. "The models had everything all neat and tidy; these papers say, 'Well, not so quick.' "

Scientists have studied the neural underpinnings of fly learning and memory for more than 40 years, and mapped the brain region involved using light microscopy. That technique doesn't capture the neural nitty-gritty in quite the same way that electron microscopy does, Rubin says. EM is more time-intensive but can offer much more imaging detail.

Rubin likens the current state of EM in connectomics, the mapping of synapses in the brain, to the early days of human genome sequencing. Rubin, a pioneer of gene sequencing in Drosophila during his tenure as an HHMI investigator at the University of California, Berkeley, recalls that some scientists initially shied away from sequencing. They cited the deluge of information and deep detail as a burden, not a boon, he says. Now a similar dispute permeates the connectomics field: Is electron microscopy worth the additional effort? Or can scientists continue to rely on tried-and-true light microscopy?

Janelia scientists captured images of neurons in the learning and memory center of the adult fly brain using electron microscopy, at 8-nanometer resolution. Credit: Takemura et al./ eLife 2017

Now, given Cardona and FlyEM's new studies, the teams say that EM should be included as a key aspect of understanding the fly brain.

Both teams' papers are part of larger efforts to map the whole Drosophila nervous system - Cardona and collaborators in larvae, the FlyEM Project's team in adult flies. The studies employed two different EM methods: transmission electron microscopy (TEM) in the larvae and focused-ion beam scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) in the adult, and specialized software that helps make sense of the immense tangle of neurons. Both studies targeted the mushroom body, the area of the brain responsible for associative learning (like associating a bell's ring with a tasty treat - think Pavlov's dog).

The mushroom body consists of multiple compartments, three of which make up the "alpha lobe" in the adult. FlyEM zeroed in on this region, mapping a total of 983 neurons. Cardona's approach differed slightly. Neurons in the larva's nervous system are smaller compared to the adult fly, so he was able to trace the 300 neurons of the larval mushroom bodies.

Much to their surprise, FIB-SEM revealed three classes of never-before-seen synapses in the mushroom body - which were observed in both the larva and the adult. These synaptic connections were formed among three neuron types: Kenyon cells, which report sensory information; dopaminergic neurons, which provide details about the sensory information; and output neurons, which relay information beyond the mushroom body.

The fact that these synapses were seen in young and full-grown flies implies that the connections are a critical part of the learning and memory circuit, Rubin says.

"When we saw them in the larva, we weren't sure if it was just a developmental artifact - if they would go away, like the neuron version of baby teeth," he says. Janelia's FlyEM team confirmed the neurons' existence in adults, and study coauthors, Yoshi Aso, Toshi Hige, and Glenn Turner, showed that the synapses contributed to the function of the mushroom body.

Now, the teams are continuing to map the fly and larva nervous systems in full. FlyEM, with 10-fold more neurons to chart, is taking advantage of a boost from the software side - applying the latest machine vision and artificial intelligence methods in collaboration with Google, as well as computer algorithms and software developed in-house at Janelia. Steve Plaza, who manages the FlyEM team, speculates that the 18 months it took to complete this study could have stretched to 10 years had it not been for the computational power that streamlined their work.

"I'm really excited about the progress in this field," Rubin says. "If you would have asked me a year ago how long it would take to map the whole fly brain, I would have said, 'Thirty years, and I'd be lucky to see it.' Now, I'd say more like five years," he says. "I think the field is really about to take off."

More information: Katharina Eichler et al, The complete connectome of a learning and memory centre in an insect brain, Nature (2017). Katharina Eichler et al, The complete connectome of a learning and memory centre in an insect brain,(2017). DOI: 10.1038/nature23455 Shin-ya Takemura et al. A connectome of a learning and memory center in the adult Drosophila brain, eLife (2017). DOI: 10.7554/eLife.26975 Journal information: Nature , eLife
PhD candidate Samantha Stronge. Credit: University of Auckland

Are New Zealanders more narcissistic than they used to be? Do millennials really have a stronger sense of entitlement than previous generations?

The answer, according to the first-ever study investigating narcissism in New Zealand, is no.

The research, from the University of Auckland, tested 'psychological entitlement', the sense that one is entitled to more than other people, as a measure of narcissism. Entitlement is a key indicator of narcissistic behaviour because it is considered "socially toxic", associated with emotional instability, disagreeableness, selfishness and aggression.

Lead author and doctoral candidate in the University of Auckland's School of Psychology, Sam Stronge, says the study found no evidence that New Zealanders are more narcissistic than they used to be, or that younger generations feel any more entitled that previous generations did at the same age.

However the study findings, from surveying more than 10,000 New Zealanders aged 19 to 75 years using data from the National Attitudes and Values Survey (NZAVS) is only a 'first look' at narcissism and should be treated with caution, Ms Stronge says.

"The NZAVS has only been going six years so far, so we could only track changes over five years of data and we know that psychosocial changes happen slowly and over longer periods of time," she says.

"What we have done in this study is come up with some initial findings and what we're looking forward to is building on these to track changes in narcissism over time."

While the study found no significant rise in a sense of entitlement by younger people, including the so-called millennial generation (those born between 1982 and 2002) it did find a slight increase in entitlement for people aged 65 years and over.

Women aged 69 years showed higher levels of entitlement than women aged 69 did five years ago, as did men aged 64 and 69 years old.

"There could be a simple explanation for this, which aligns with international research, and that is what we call the 'la dolce vita' effect, retired people feeling they have worked hard and now deserve to reap the benefits of that."

The study also generally mirrored the findings of international research which theorises that our sense of entitlement naturally decreases over time as we age.

"When older generations look at younger generations and judge them to be more narcissistic, they may well be right  but only at their current age."

The study also looked at gender differences in regard to a sense of entitlement.

"Looking at gender differences for example, men were on average more entitled than women. Men and women's entitlement also changed differently across the lifespan: women's entitlement appears to steadily decrease, whereas men's entitlement initially gets higher across their 20's before decreasing."

The study is published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

More information: Samantha Stronge et al. Are People Becoming More Entitled Over Time? Not in New Zealand, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (2017). Journal information: Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin Samantha Stronge et al. Are People Becoming More Entitled Over Time? Not in New Zealand,(2017). DOI: 10.1177/0146167217733079
Two new studies on diastolic heart failure are starting at the German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK). They will investigate whether this form of heart failure can be better diagnosed and its causes clarified with the help of cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR).

Diastolic heart failure, also called heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), is a disease that appears contradictory at first glance. Patients exhibit the symptoms of systolic heart failure; for example, they suffer from dyspnoea and water retention. Yet unlike with systolic heart failure, the pumping power of the heart is not impaired. Rather, the problem with HFpEF is that the left ventricle is stiff and does not sufficiently fill with blood. This is also where the terms diastolic and systolic heart failure are derived from. Diastolic denotes the phase when the heart expands and fills with blood, while systolic denotes the phase when the heart contracts and ejects blood.

Whether the heart is insufficiently filled with blood is hard to measure with the non-invasive methods currently used, such as an ultrasound examination, and is often only identified late. Invasive methods are indeed more exact, but expensive, onerous, and they cannot identify the causes of the disease.

New standard for the diagnosis of HFpEF

The multicentre study DECIPHER HFpEF-DZHK12 headed by Professor Eike Nagel of the University Hospital Frankfurt aims to establish cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) of the heart as the standard method for diagnosing HFpEF. To this end, the study compares the CMR data with the results of the present gold standard in the diagnosis of HFpEF, invasive haemodynamics, where patients are examined using a cardiac catheter. In order to obtain a comprehensive picture of the validity of CMR, Nagel and his colleagues are also comparing the CMR measurements to the results of ultrasound examinations and analyses of myocardial tissue samples.

A disease with many causes

Using these data, the researchers aim to investigate whether CMR can help clarify why the disease arises, especially since the underlying cause of diastolic heart failure can vary greatly. For example, it can be caused by an inflammation of the heart muscle (myocardium), thickening of the myocardium, or decreased blood flow to the myocardium due to changes to the smallest blood vessels. CMR procedures developed in recent years enable these parameters to be assessed and are for the first time merged in a combined examination in the study. This is because, unlike an ultrasound examination, these new procedures can not only measure the flow and filling of the ventricle, but also see, whether the heart muscle is inflamed, whether there is a pathological proliferation of the connective tissue, or whether there is a change to the small vessels.

"Only once the causes are clear can patients receive targeted medicinal therapy, because the treatment of myocardial inflammation differs entirely to that of a circulatory disorder," explains Nagel. "Significant therapeutic studies are only possible once we can distinguish between the various patient subgroups." DECIPHER HFpEF-DZHK12 aims to lay the foundation for this. It is the first multicentre study on the diagnosis of HFpEF worldwide. Beside Frankfurt am Main, the DZHK sites in Berlin, Heidelberg, Gottingen, and Bad Nauheim are also participating. If the results are positive, the study would lead to a modification of the guidelines for diagnosing HFpEF.

Testing the innovative CMR procedure

Furthermore, a pilot study on a novel method of diagnosing HFpEF that goes one step further is also starting at the Gottingen DZHK site. Headed by PD Dr. Dr. Andreas Schuster, the researchers will test whether the newly developed real-time CMR technology is suitable for the early and safe diagnosis of HFpEF. This pioneering technology was developed by Professor Dr. Jens Frahm of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Gottingen and is currently only available to a few centres worldwide. For the first time, it enables physical stress during CMR measurements since the patients can breathe freely during the CMR examination and do not have to hold their breath during the measurements as they have to with standard techniques. This is made possible through an unprecedented acceleration, whereby entire recordings of the heart movement are captured in one to two heart beats. With the help of the technology, in their study, the researchers at the Gottingen site now aim to define CMR parameters that can replace a haemodynamic stress test of the right ventricle. This stress test is conducted using a cardiac catheter and is one of the most sensitive and specific diagnostic procedures for HFpEF.

Heart stress provides information

"When you do physical work or exercise, the heart beats faster. Thus, the time in which the heart is filled with oxygen-rich blood is reduced and any difficulty with the filling of the ventricle that may exist becomes even clearer," Dr. Soren Backhaus of the Heart Center Gottingen explains the concept of the stress test. In the study, the patients must ride a bike for the stress test during the CMR. To this end, a kind of stationary exercise bike is installed on the examination couch, so that patients can cycle while lying down during the CMR. In the process, the researchers measure the heart rate, which should reach between 100 and 110 beats per minute, in order to establish more clearly where the difficulty with filling the ventricle lies. The CMR examination will also be conducted at rest and will be compared with the results of the invasive haemodynamics, also conducted at rest and under stress. The advantage of the stress test during the CMR for the patients is that it is non-invasive, there is no exposure to radiation and it still produces detailed images with a high resolution for a precise diagnosis.

"If this approach helps us to identify CMR parameters that can be used to determine a HFpEF safely and early, larger multicentre studies will follow in order to validate our findings and establish the new CMR procedure in the diagnosis of HFpEF," Schuster says, looking to the future.

More information: Validation of CMR Against Invasive Haemodynamics in Patients With HFpEF (DECIPHER-HFpEF). Validation of CMR Against Invasive Haemodynamics in Patients With HFpEF (DECIPHER-HFpEF). clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03251183 Cardiovascular magnetic resonance real time exercise stress testing in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03260621

Provided by Deutsches Zentrum fur Herz-Kreislauf-Forschung (DZHK)
A new study indicates that certain non-medical factors affect racial disparities in wait-listing for a kidney transplant. The findings will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2017 October 31-November 5 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, LA.

African Americans have a higher incidence of kidney failure but lower rates of kidney transplantation compared with Whites. Because disparities persist even after adjusting for medical factors, Yue-Harn Ng, MD (University of New Mexico), and her colleagues assessed whether non-medical factors might play a role.

In the study of 1057 patients who were referred for kidney transplant evaluation, there were significant racial differences in baseline demographic characteristics, medical, cultural, and psychosocial factors. African American patients were less likely to be wait-listed than White patients. Having a living donor led to earlier wait-listing, but older age, having a lower-status occupation, and being on dialysis had a negative impact on early wait-listing (100 days). Higher income, more transplant knowledge, and having good social support were positively associated with wait listing, but having more comorbidities, using public insurance, and being African American were negative predictors of wait-listing throughout the transplant evaluation process.

"From this study, we concluded that non-medical factors affect racial disparity in kidney transplant wait-listing," said Dr. Ng. "Our research highlights the need to diversify current interventions to include non-medical factors such as psychosocial and cultural factors in our goals of achieving equality in kidney transplantation."

More information: Study: "Factors Impacting Racial Disparity in Kidney Transplant Wait-Listing" (Abstract 2770187)
(HealthDay)It's a frequent occurrence: A single, childless older man without a designated caregiver suffers a debilitating stroke, and is sent to a nursing home for the remainder of his life.

New research shows that male seniors who find themselves in this situation have triple the odds of being sent to a nursing home within five years of their attack, compared to men with a caregiver. A similar risk wasn't seen for women.

The study "highlights older adults as being vulnerable to the loss of independent living if they cannot identify anyone to care for them," said study author Justin Blackburn, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

"This is particularly true for older men, who may be unable to access or reluctant to use formal services delivered within their home or community," Blackburn said. He spoke in a news release from the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, which recently published the findings.

One New York City geriatrician said this scenario is all too familiar.

"We see this on Staten Island when there are no other caregivers to help and support patients in needlike after a stroke, when nursing home placement may be the only option left," said Dr. Theodore Strange. He is associate chair of medicine at Staten Island University Hospital.

Strange believes that "men are likely at an increased risk because, in the traditional model of the wife taking care of the home needs, this is a challenge [for men] to accomplish."

In the new study, Blackburn's team noted that "Americans prefer to remain at home with family support than to be institutionalized. Only 29 percent of adults say they are willing to move into a nursing home if they become disabled, compared with 75 percent who would rather rely on an informal caregiver."

But which Americans are most likely to find outtoo latethat they simply have no choice when it comes to avoiding the nursing home?

In the study, Blackburn's group tracked 2003-2013 data from a national survey on more than 30,000 people aged 45 or older. One of the questions: "If you had a serious illness or became disabled, do you have someone who would be able to provide care for you on an ongoing basis?"

The researchers then tracked outcomes for any of the respondents who'd suffered a stroke during the study timeframe. Overall, 560 of the participants suffered a stroke during the 10 years of the study. Sixty-eight of these patients were sent to nursing home care within one year of their stroke, and 119 were in nursing homes within five years of their stroke, the study found.

People who didn't have a caregiver were 70 percent more likely to be sent to nursing home care within a year of their stroke, and this was primarily focused on men, according to the report.

In fact, men lacking a caregiver were more than three times as likely to be sent to a nursing home compared to men who did have a caregiver. But for women in this situation, the risk rose less significantly37 percent.

Income mattered, too: The odds of nursing home care after a stroke were much higher for men making less than $20,000 per year than those making $50,000 or more, the research showed.

According to the researchers, men are particularly vulnerable if left single with a stroke because they're typically less able to take care of themselves in the home.

"For many men, it is often assumed that their spouse can serve as a caregiver," the study authors wrote. But while single women who've survived a stroke may be able to still care for themselves at home, men often find it more difficult.

"The effect of having a caregiver [after a stroke] appears less important in women than in men," the researchers noted.

Dr. Maria Torroella Carney is chief of geriatrics at Northwell Health in New Hyde Park, N.Y. She agreed that men's increased vulnerability to needing nursing home care may come down to traditional gender roles.

"Perhaps women, who tend to be caregivers, may understand the role and importance of caregiving," she said. "Men, who have held less caregiving roles, may not understand the importance of caregiving in the recuperation after a stroke and how it may affect the ability to live in the community as independently as possible."

The study findings also highlight the need for everyone but perhaps especially mento prepare for stroke and other health problems as they age.

According to Carney, doctors can "explain to stroke patients and families about accessing resources that may help them when caregiving support is not identified."

Knowledge is power, she said, and a full discussion beforehand of how single, older men can retain their independence after a stroke "could mean the difference between living in their own home or going to a nursing home."

More information: Theodore Strange, M.D., associate chair, medicine, Staten Island University Hospital, New York City; Maria Torroella Carney, M.D., chief, division of geriatric and palliative medicine, Northwell Health, New Hyde Park, N.Y.; Oct. 26, 2017, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, online Theodore Strange, M.D., associate chair, medicine, Staten Island University Hospital, New York City; Maria Torroella Carney, M.D., chief, division of geriatric and palliative medicine, Northwell Health, New Hyde Park, N.Y.; Oct. 26, 2017,, online There's more on stroke recovery at the National Stroke Association. Journal information: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society

Copyright  2017 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

New research published today by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine concludes that patients registered to general practices owned by limited companies, including large organisations, reported worse experiences of their care than other patients. The research examined data for 7,949 general practices in England included in the General Practice Patient Survey 2013-2014.

The researchers, from Imperial College London, looked at five patient experience measures for the study: the frequency of consulting a preferred doctor; the ability to get a convenient appointment; rating of doctor communication skills; ease of contacting the practice by telephone; and the overall experience.

Dr Thomas Cowling, lead author of the research paper, said: "Across all contract and ownership types, patients generally reported positive experiences of their general practices. However, patients registered to general practices owned by limited companies reported worse experience of their care than patients registered to other practices on average."

The researchers found the sizes of the differences in experience varied from moderate to large across four outcome measures and were largest for the frequency of consulting a preferred doctor.

Dr Cowling said: "It is the responsibility of commissioners, regulators, clinicians and owners to guarantee that individual practices meet expected standards while ensuring that care quality is not systematically associated with the ownership.

"Commissioners also need to ensure that contracts offer good value for money, more so at a time when the NHS is very financially challenged."

More information: Contract and ownership type of general practices and patient experience in England: multilevel analysis of a national cross-sectional survey, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (2017). Journal information: Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Contract and ownership type of general practices and patient experience in England: multilevel analysis of a national cross-sectional survey,(2017). DOI: 10.1177/0141076817738499
(HealthDay)The ability to purchase a product containing a class 3 topical steroid online, without physician authorization, highlights the dangers of prescription-strength medications being acquired as over-the-counter products, according to a research letter published online Nov. 1 in JAMA Dermatology.

Katherine T. Burke, from Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C., and colleagues described the case of an African-American patient treated for recurrent atopic dermatitis complicated by secondary bacterial infections.

The researchers note that the patient was treated with triamcinolone 0.1 percent ointment, which had little effect. Without medical consultation, the patient switched to an over-the-counter triple-combination cream called Funbact-A, which had clotrimazole, and neomycin sulfate listed as active ingredients. The product also contained a class 3 topical steroid, prescription-strength betamethasone, and was available for purchase online without authorization from a physician. The patient had been applying the cream for only a few days before an office appointment; the product was discontinued before occurrence of adverse events.

"Dermatologists and primary care physicians should be cognizant of any over-the-counter product that their patients are using," the authors write. "In addition, as leaders in health care and advocates for patient safety, physicians who come across these products should take the initiative to report the illegal sale of the product to the FDA."

Copyright  2017 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Developing a universal flu vaccine that would protect against all seasonal and pandemic strains of the virus is no easy task, and new research suggests that one of the most promising strategies -- creating a vaccine that targets the "stalk" of a protein that covers the flu virus -- is a strong one, but isn't completely bulletproof. Researchers found that the stalk of the hemagglutinin protein can vary in response to pressure from the immune system. Credit: University of Rochester Medical Center

Flu shot season is here. But as you head to the doctor's office or pharmacy to get vaccinated, scientists are working to make this yearly ritual a thing of the past. Researchers around the world, including at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC), are pursuing a "universal" flu vaccine, one that would protect against most or all seasonal and pandemic strains of the flu virus.

This is no easy task, and a study out today in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that one of the most promising strategies - creating a vaccine that targets the "stalk" of a protein that covers the flu virus - is a strong one, but isn't completely bulletproof.

The hemagglutinin protein, which blankets the outside of the flu virus, looks a bit like a flower; it has a stalk (think stem) and a head (think petals). Current vaccines target the head, which is the part of the virus that's always changing in an effort to evade our immune defenses. The head sits on the stalk, and it's believed that the stalk stays relatively constant from one strain of flu to another. Directing a vaccine and the body's immune response towards the stalk is a seemingly logical strategy for creating a shot that would provide broad protection.

But, contrary to current assumptions, researchers at the URMC-based New York Influenza Center of Excellence (NYICE) found that the stalk can change, although not as easily or frequently as the head.

Using supercomputers at the University's Health Sciences Center for Computational Innovation, they analyzed the genetic sequences of human H1N1 flu viruses circulating since 1918. They found variations in both the head and the stalk, although variability was highest in the head region.

In the lab, they coupled the H1N1 virus with human antibodies - immune system soldiers that fight off foreign invaders. Not surprisingly, repetitive exposure to the antibodies caused many mutations in the head, as it worked to escape the immune system's clutches. But, it led to a few modifications in the stalk, too. The results suggest that the stalk can vary in response to pressure from the immune system.

"The good news is that it's much more difficult to drive mutations in the stalk, but it's not impossible," said David J. Topham, Ph.D., study author and the Marie Curran Wilson and Joseph Chamberlain Wilson Professor in the department of Microbiology and Immunology at URMC. "A universal flu vaccine based on the stalk would be more broadly protective than the ones we use now, but this information should be taken into account as we move forward with research and development."

Despite efforts to vaccinate, the World Health Organization estimates that the flu virus results in 1 billion infections, 3 to 5 million cases of severe disease, and 300,000 to 500,000 deaths annually. Current vaccines, which require experts to pick the flu strains that they believe are going to circulate in a given year, are typically 40 to 70 percent effective in the U.S., though in some years protection is as low as 20 percent. Experts agree there is room for improvement and the National Institutes of Health is leading the charge in the creation of a universal vaccine.

More information: Christopher S. Anderson et al. Natural and directed antigenic drift of the H1 influenza virus hemagglutinin stalk domain, Scientific Reports (2017). Journal information: Scientific Reports Christopher S. Anderson et al. Natural and directed antigenic drift of the H1 influenza virus hemagglutinin stalk domain,(2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-14931-7
An isolated pancreatic islet from mouse. Beta cells in the islets that make insulin are labelled in red and alpha cells, green. The arrow shows an alpha cell that spontaneously turned into a beta cell. Contrary to previous reports, UC Davis researchers showed that the antimalarial drug artemether did not turn alpha cells into new, insulin-producing beta cells. Credit: Mark Huising, UC Davis

A drug used to treat malaria does not, after all, create new insulin-producing cells, according to a new paper from researchers at the University of California, Davis. The work, published in Cell Metabolism Nov. 2, refutes a study published in Cell in January.

In the United States, around 30 million people live with diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So any news of a potential new treatment is a big deal.

"First we had hoped that we would be able to replicate the findings, but they didn't hold up," said Mark Huising, in the Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior, UC Davis College of Biological Sciences. "People with Type 1 diabetes, they see these stories come out and they think maybe there's something on the horizon and then nothing ever follows through," Huising said.

Understanding diabetes at the cellular level

The symptoms of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are quite similar but the underlying causes differ. In type 1 diabetes, the body fails to create enough insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas that regulates cellular intake of nutrients. In Type 2 diabetes, cells no longer respond efficiently to insulin.

Insulin is produced in hormone-producing regions of the pancreas called islets. Within the islets are alpha and beta cells. Beta cells are integral to creating insulin.

"That's the cell that if you lose (insulin production), you get Type 1 diabetes," said Huising. So there is always interest in any process that might generate new beta cells to replace those lost in Type 1 diabetes.

The antimalaria drug artemether has been reported to generate insulin-producing beta cells from alpha cells in the pancreatic islet. But experiments by Sharon Lee, Mark Huising and colleagues at UC Davis did not show any alpha cells (green) transforming to beta cells (red) when islets were treated with artemether for 72 hours (lower right). Credit: Mark Huising, UC Davis

An eye-catching 'discovery'

In early 2017, in a paper published in the journal Cell, a European team reported that the antimalarial drug artemether could convert alpha cells into functional beta cells. While alpha cells converting into beta cells had been described before, this was the first time an existing drug had been reported to stimulate the process and it caused a lot of excitement in the field, Huising said.

Outfitted with the precision tools to capture alpha-to-beta cellular conversion, Huising enlisted graduate student Sharon Lee to assist with replicating the original experiment.

"We were hoping, expecting, to confirm," Huising said. "We weren't able to."

The importance of reproducibility

For her experiments, Lee used pancreatic islets derived from mice. After around four months of experiments with artemether, it was clear that the drug was not triggering alpha to beta cell conversion, as the initial Cell paper had claimed.

Lee and Huising's paper highlights the importance of reproducibility, a perennial and hotly contested topic of concern at all levels of scientific research. It also demonstrates how routine lab assignments meant to educate students can provide the foundations for published research.

"It's important to realize that our work has an impact in the real world," Huising said. "We should continuously strive to hold ourselves and our peers to a higher standard, particularly when we talk about discoveries that promise a possible cure for diabetes."

More information: Talitha van der Meulen et al, Artemether Does Not Turn  Cells into  Cells, Cell Metabolism (2017). Journal information: Cell , Cell Metabolism Talitha van der Meulen et al, Artemether Does Not Turn  Cells into  Cells,(2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2017.10.002
(HealthDay)Nearly 18 percent of kids have a chronic health condition, such as asthma or allergies. If your child is one of them, working successfully with your school's nurse will help keep him or her safe.

Because a good chunk of a child's day is spent in school, it's important to communicate clearly and regularly with this key member of the administration.

Start every school year with a visit to the nurse's office to drop off medication and paperwork from your pediatrician. The nurse will likely develop an individualized health care plan, or IHCP, that's based on the doctor's written action plan. Depending on your child's age, the medication permission form will state if he or she can carry and use medication on his or her own, although the school may have its own rules about this.

Be very specific in your discussions. For example, if your child has asthma, the school needs to know how severe it is, what medication he or she takes, and what to do in an emergency.

With food allergies, provide a list of foods to be avoided along with doctor-recommended substitutions.

Signing a release at school and at the doctor's office lets you exchange all vital information. Double check that all the contact numbers the school has on file for you and your child's health care providers are correct.

Even if your child doesn't have a chronic condition, always bring any short-term illnesses that occur during the school year to the nurse's attention. Examples are an ear or throat infection, a rash and any injury that limits his or her activity.

If the nurse knows the situation, she can help your child get better as well as ease any concerns from other kids or their parents.

More information: The American Academy of Pediatrics has guidelines for working with The American Academy of Pediatrics has guidelines for working with school nurses

Copyright  2017 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
(HealthDay)Use of an accessory lead shield placed between the staff member and the patient during cardiac catheterization can reduce radiation exposure among technologists and nurses, according to a study published online Nov. 1 in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions.

Ryan D. Madder, M.D., from Frederik Meijer Heart & Vascular Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and colleagues examined real-time radiation exposure data collected among nurses and technologists during 764 catheterizations. Standard radiation protection measures were used in Phase I (401 catheterizations), and standard radiation measures were combined with an accessory lead shield placed between the staff member and patient in Phase II (363 patients). The effective dose normalized to dose area product (E DAP ) was the measure of radiation exposure.

The researchers found that use of an accessory lead shield in Phase II was correlated with a 62.5 and a 63.6 percent lower E DAP per case among technologists and nurses, respectively. Accessory shielding remained independently associated with a lower E DAP among both technologists and nurses in multivariate analysis (34.2 and 36.4 percent reductions, respectively).

"The relatively simple approach of using accessory lead shields to protect staff members during cardiac catheterization was associated with a nearly two-thirds reduction in radiation exposure among nurses and technologists," the authors write.

One author disclosed ties to Corindus Vascular Robotics, which partially funded the study.

Copyright  2017 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
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Gold price remains stable

Copper falls in price

Microsoft to leave Azerbaijan

G7 and NATO leaders say they are ready to support Poland in investigation of bombings

Joe Biden asks Congress for new funding for Ukraine

Finance Minister: Capital expenses will greatly increase in Armenia in 2023

Azerbaijani MFA accuses French Senate of undermining relations normalization process between Baku and Yerevan

Armen Grigoryan to pay working visit to India

AP: Missile falls in Poland may have been fired by Ukraine to shoot down Russian missile

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Germany to establish maintenance center in Slovakia for weapons supplied to Ukraine

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French Senate passes resolution calling for sanctions against Azerbaijan

Rishi Sunak hints that he will abandon plans to declare China 'threat' to national security

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YEREVAN.  Eduard Grigoryan, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the tragedy that had occurred in the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia on October 27, 1999, has died at night.

He had a sharp pain around his heart at night, an ambulance was quickly called, and he was taken to hospital, where he was pronounced dead, said Gor Ghlechyan, Head of Public Relations at the Penitentiary Department of Armenia, speaking to Armenian News-NEWS.am.

Forensic medical examination will find out what exactly he died from, Ghlechyan added.

A group of criminals broke into the NA Sessions Hall, on October 27, 1999, and shot and killed several government and parliament members.

This terrorist act took the lives of Prime Minister and Supreme Commander Vazgen Sargsyan, NA Speaker Karen Demirchyan, Vice-Speakers Yuri Bakhshyan and Ruben Miroyan, Operational Affairs Minister Leonard Petrosyan, and MPs Armenak Armenakyan, Henrik Abrahamyan, and Mikayel Kotanyan.

The trial of the terrorists, who committed this crime, was held from 2001 to 2003. As a result, six of them were sentenced to life imprisonment, whereas another one was handed down a fourteen-year prison term.

The court case, however, did not expose the actual persons behind this tragedy, and, as a result, the Armenian society still has considerable doubts regarding the architects of this terrorist act.
YEREVAN.  The trilateral agreement on natural gas supply from Turkmenistan is on the agenda of discussions.

Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan on Friday noted about the aforementioned at the National Assembly standing committees debates on the draft of the 2018 State Budget of Armenia.

In his words, this matter was talked about in October, during Prime Minister Karen Karapetyans visit to Iran.

But the matter is not so much about gas supply, but rather gas exchange.

According to the proposal, Armenia will transfer money, or give goodsdepending on the contract, to Turkmenistan. In return, Turkmenistan will supply gas to Iran, and the latter Iran will transfer same amount of gas to Armenia.

Thereby it will not be necessary to particularly supply gas from Turkmenistan to Armenia via [natural gas] pipeline, Kocharyan explained.
YEREVAN.  The Armenian side is ready to discuss any, truly compromise-based decision with Azerbaijan.

Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan on Friday told the aforesaid to reporters at the National Assembly of Armenia.

In his words, if Azerbaijan comes to its senses and the decision will be truly compromise-based, this is enough for negotiations. Now, however, there are no such signs; and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group mediators realize this very well.

Until then, I consider talks regarding one-sided concessions as masochism, added Kocharyan.
President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, who is paying a working visit to India on the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Friday attended the plenary session of the World Food India 2017 conference in New Delhi, and the ceremonious opening of an international food industry exhibition of the same name, with about 2,000 participants from over 20 countries.

Also, the President delivered an address at the aforementioned conference.

Your Excellency Mr. Prime Minister,

Distinguished Ministers,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

To begin with, I would like to warmly congratulate people of India and the distinguished Prime Minister Modi for organizing this impressive forum, as well as to thank for the invitation extended to me to participate in this event. I wish every success to all the participants of the exhibition.

The specialization and geographic diversity of the fair comes to demonstrate the mighty potential and role India plays in the global food market that resumed from the effective work carried out in the course of the 70 years of independence. I avail myself of this opportunity and congratulate friendly people of India upon that historical jubilee.

It is worth to note that India, a nation of history of several millenaries, in such a brief period of time managed to record impressive achievements in the nations political and social-economic development, thus becoming one of the major motive forces behind the world economy.

We in Armenia, as a friend of India, are glad to state that due to its reforms and consistent work, India is now self-sufficient in terms of food. Moreover, it became one of the recognized leaders of food production on the global market and major producer and exporter of a number of agricultural goods on the global scale.

It is further testified by this fair which, needless to say, is the best platform for sharing the best practices available in India, as well as identifying new markets and establishing new partnerships.

Processing agricultural goods and exporting food items is also important for Armenias economic development.

Armenian producers have been combining traditional methodologies and modern technologies to reprocess fruits and vegetables, and have thus accumulated some positive experience that led to ever increased demand for Armenian food products on the external markets. Our entrepreneurs are now initiating their first steps in order to present their products also on the Indian market.

We believe that the transfer to Indian entrepreneurs of the best Armenian know-how in the area of food production and cooperation to that effect may be promising. It may increase the effectiveness of the fruit and vegetables processing industry, as well as help create new enterprises and employment opportunities.

We can also give new impetus to Armenian-Indian cooperation in the multilateral format since Armenia is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, and enjoys regime of generalized scheme of preferences in the trade with the European Union. Those entrepreneurs who would launch business activities in Armenia should have every opportunity to take advantage of the auspicious conditions provided by Armenia.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are living in times when numerous issues need joint and comprehensive solutions. One of such issues is food security. At the 2015 UN Sustainable Development Summit Armenia adopted Declaration and agenda for Sustainable Development. Food security is one among its 17 goals, as is giving impetus to sustainable agricultural development.

Armenia consistently works in order to achieve those objectives. Due to both our domestic policy and flexible external trade policy we register new achievements every year in the course of fulfilling those goals.

In conclusion let me once again wish every success to the cabinet of Prime Minister Modi in the course of realization of very promising reforms and projects they initiated, and the participants of this Forum-very fruitful work.

Thank you for your attention, the President of Armenia stated in his address at the World Food India 2017 conference.
CNN Greece has aired a documentary on the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic/NKR), and its conflict with Azerbaijan.

The maker of this report, Maria Karchilaki, visited the NKR Defense Army positions, and spoke with the leaders and ordinary residents of Artsakh.

In particular, the Greek journalist noted that Nagorno-Karabakh is between war and peace.

Also, she stressed that by the decision of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Nagorno-Karabakh was annexed to the Azerbaijan SSR, albeit most of Karabakhs inhabitants were Armenians.

In addition, the documentary states that although the Karabakh conflict is considered frozen ever since the ceasefire agreement in 1994, the biggest armed clash since the establishment of this truce took place in 2016, and this reminded that unresolved conflicts are perilous.
YEREVAN.  Within the framework of his visit to Uzbekistan, Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan of Armenia on Friday attended a meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which was first held in narrow, and then in extended formats.

In his remarks at the narrow-format meeting, the PM said the Free Trade Area Treaty is the groundwork that provides vast opportunities for the furtherance of mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation within the CIS, press office of the government of Armenia informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

Stressing that Armenia is prepared to continue building relations with the other CIS countries on this platform, Karapetyan expressed a conviction that the continued removal of trade barriers and the implementation of the Free Trade Area Treaty will have a positive impact in terms of promoting economic growth in these countries and providing opportunities for closer economic interaction between them.

Also, the meeting adopted about two dozen documents aimed at developing cooperation in the economic and several other domains within the Commonwealth.

In addition, it was decided to hold the next meeting of the Council of CIS Heads of Government in June 2018, in Tajikistan.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan met with Indian President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday in New Delhi, the press service of the Armenian Presidents Office reported.

Expressing gratitude for the high-level reception of the Armenian delegation, President Serzh Sargsyan once again congratulated Ram Nath Kovind on being elected the President of India and wished him new achievements in his responsible mission of making India prosperous and welfare of the Indian people.

Serzh Sargsyan expressed conviction that the meeting with President Kovind will give new impetus to the strengthening of friendship between the Armenian and Indian peoples and the future development of interstate relations.

President of Armenia assessed the World Food Forum and exhibition in India rather impressive, in the opening of which participated the Armenian official delegation led by Serzh Sargsyan.

President Sargsyan talked with satisfaction about his productive meetings with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Vice President Venkaiah Naidu in the sidelines of his working visit, during which the sides discussed in detail the strengthening and deepening of Armenian-Indian friendly relations in inter-parliamentary and inter-governmental levels.

Referring to the centuries of Armenian-Indian friendship, Serzh Sargsyan noted that many historians have documented numerous interactions between the two peoples, and according to numerous sources Armenian and Indian merchants established firm ties back in the first millennium. President Sargsyan assessed it logical that starting from the 16th century Armenian communities were established in a number of major Indian cities, which had an active contribution to Indias public, political, economic and cultural life.

Pointing out the Armenian community in Kolkata, the Armenian President noted that in 17-19 centuries the community was very vigorous and had an active participation in not only Indias public-political life, but also in the life of all Armenians. In this context the President recalled the first Armenian printed periodical Azdarar published in 1794 in Madras.

President Serzh Sargsyan thanked the Indian President and the Indian people for the careful treatment towards the Armenian cultural heritage in India. Noting, that tomorrow he will visit one of Indias most famous sights in Agra city, the Taj Mahal, the President documented with satisfaction that also Armenian constructors participated in the construction of the marvelous monument-mausoleum.

Serzh Sargsyan expressed with satisfaction that during the 25 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations Armenia and India managed to transform the friendly relations with deep historical roots into warm and partnering interstate relations. President Sargsyan thanked his colleague for his congratulatory message addressed on that important jubilee year and hoped that regular high level visits will help to fully discover the great cooperation potential between the countries and to outline the directions of expanding bilateral relations.

The President of India congratulated his Armenian counterpart on the reforms underway in Armenia and the launch of a new state governance system, as well as the victory of the political party led by President Sargsyan in the parliamentary elections and wished success. Apart from Armenian-Indian bilateral and multilateral partnership issues, regional issues and challenges were also touched upon at the meeting, including Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement process.

President Ram Nath Kovind reaffirmed the position of his country to settle the conflict through peaceful means and dialogue and stressed that India supports the mediation efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs.
UC Santa Cruzs Institute of the Arts and Sciences will resume its popular series of LASER talks on campus this fall on Tuesday, November 14, at 7 p.m. in the Digital Arts Research Center.

The Leonardo Art and Science Evening Rendezvous (LASER) is a national program of evening gatherings that bring artists, scientists, and scholars together for informal presentations and conversations.

The fall event will include presentations by three UC Santa Cruz faculty--Yolande Harris ("Listening to the Ocean in the Desert: Displaced Sounds, Displaced Environments"); Barry Sinervo ("Rock-paper-scissors in Biological, Social and Virtual Worlds"); Miriam Greenberg ("No Place Like Home: Integrating Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences to Represent the Affordable Housing Crisis in Santa Cruz")--plus Digital Arts and New Media alumni Andrea Steves and Tim Furstnau (FICTILUS: "Prehistory of a Museum of Capitalism").

Were thrilled to bring back the popular LASER series with another strong lineup that brings art together with the natural and social sciences, said John Weber, founding director of the Arts Divisions Institute of Arts and Sciences.

As always, the idea of the series is to feature brilliant speakers from a wide range of disciplines. We want people who normally only hear art talks to hear about science, or social science. And we want people in the sciences to hear how artists talk about their work.

Yolande Harris is a UC Santa Cruz art lecturer and sound artist who explores ideas of sonic consciousness and techno-intuition. Her projects consider expanding perception beyond the range of human senses, the technological mediation of underwater environments, and our relationship to other species.

Her installations often deal with the sonification of data, sound worlds outside the range of human hearing, underwater bioacoustics, and techniques of navigation, Weber noted. This will be a great chance to hear from an artist with a real connection to the natural sciences. I know shes been thinking a lot about whales in the Monterey Bay since moving to Santa Cruz last year, and Im looking forward to hearing more about that research.

Barry Sinervo is a professor of evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz and director of the UC-wide Institute for the Study of the Ecological and Evolutionary Climate Impacts. He is currently researching contemporary extinctions of reptiles and amphibians, and changes in plant communities driven by climate change at sites distributed on five continents.

Barry Sinervo has been on my list of top people I wanted to get for the LASER series for a couple of years, said Weber. Hes done groundbreaking work in the field of evolutionary biology looking at the mating behavior strategies of lizards. Hes also leading a huge research effort involving nine UC campuses that will utilize the universitys huge Natural Reserve System as a climate change observatory for biotic systems.

For the LASER talk, hell be speaking about lizards and rock-paper-scissors alternative reproductive tactics, Weber added. It will be about lizard sex, and if you want to know more, you need to come to the talk!

The author of Branding New York: How a City in Crisis was Sold to the World, UC Santa Cruz sociology professor Miriam Greenberg explores the crossroads of urban political economy, political ecology, geography, and cultural studies--with particular interest in the dynamics at play in moments of crisis. She is co-author with Tulane sociologist Kevin Fox Gotham of Crisis Cities, a book about post-crisis redevelopment in New York City following 9/11 and New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

Miriam Greenberg is working to establish what she calls critical sustainability studies as a field that connects greening efforts in technology and housing to questions of economic justice, said Weber. Living where we do, the urgent need for this should be evident.

In California we see an increasing commitment to green technologies such as solar power, wind power and wave power coexisting with dramatic cost increases in housing and hence, urban living. So this is clearly an area that needs more research and action. Miriams work with Steve McKay and other UCSC faculty for the No Place Like Home project is looking directly at Santa Cruz, and how we are experiencing this housing crisis, Weber added.

FICTILIS is the name of the collaborative practice of alumni multimedia artists and curators Andrea Steves and Timothy Furstnau. The word FICTILIS is Latin for capable of being shaped or changed; earthen," which refers both to the form of their practice, and the role it is intended to play within a larger culture. Furstnau and Steves graduated from the Digital Arts and New Media M.F.A. program of the UC Santa Cruz Art Division in 2016. Their talk will be about the history of their recent project, the Museum of Capitalism.

I first saw Andreas and Tims Museum of Capitalism in a sketch form as their M.F.A. show for the Digital Art New Media graduate program here a couple of years ago, Weber noted. Its an idea theyd been working on for a while. Then this summer, the fully realized Museum of Capitalism exhibition was on view in a huge space in Oakland at Jack London Square, complete with a museum book store, mugs, bags, the whole deal!

We were blown away by the scale and ambition of the project. It included work by several current and past faculty members here--including Sharon Daniels from Film and Digital Media, Newton and Helen Harrison from the DANM program, and emeritus film and digital media professor Chip Lord--shown with artists from across the U.S. and abroad. There was a great review of the show in the New Yorker this summer, Weber added, and were thrilled to celebrate the well-earned success of these two recent DANM grads.

The LASER presentations begin at 7 p.m. in the Digital Arts Research Center building (DARC--Room 108). Doors open at 6:30 pm. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Institute of the Arts and Sciences at ias@ucsc.edu.
Brazile tell-all: Says she has PROOF Hillary rigged the DNC nomination for herself

The Democratic establishment continues to offer up Bill and Hillary Clinton for sacrifice in what more and more looks like a party purging itself of its past so that it can plot its political future.

In an op-ed by former DNC official and CNN contributor Donna Brazile, who once served as an advisor on both of Bill Clintons presidential campaign and ran Vice President Al Gores unsuccessful 2000 presidential campaign, she claims she has proof that Hillary Clinton rigged last years Democratic presidential nomination to steal it from rival Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Brazile, who was also a one-time interim chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, also slammed former President Barack Obama and Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz for the DNCs myriad of problems last year, saying both gave Hillary complete control of the party even before she won the nomination.

Brazile noted that while some were trying to figure out whether Clinton rigged the process to favor herself over Sanders and a former Democratic Maryland governor, she found out that the committee was in dire financial straits.

When I was asked to run the Democratic Party after the Russians hacked our emails, I stumbled onto a shocking truth about the Clinton campaign, she said.

For the record, there is no evidence that Russians hacked DNC emails other than claims by DNC officials that it happened; the committee refused to allow the FBI to analyze its servers to determine if Russian cyber warriors had indeed gained access to them. Independent cyber-forensic analyses have determined that the Russian government was not actually involved, as The National Sentinel has reported. (Related: STORM: Complete panic at DNC after Kim Dotcom says he was in on Seth Richs effort to get stolen docs to WikiLeaks.)

In any event, Brazile said that Wasserman Schultz, who chaired the DNC from May 2011 to July 2016, basically turned over control of the party and all its resources to the Clinton campaign in exchange for a monthly stipend to cover expenses.

Debbie was not a good manager. She hadnt been very interested in controlling the party  she let Clintons headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired so she didnt have to inform the party officers how bad the situation was, Brazile wrote.

She said at one point she discovered a joint fundraising agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America. At that point, she figured out that the DNC had been subjugated by the Clinton campaign almost a full year before Hillary actually got the nomination.

The agreement  signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook with a copy to [lawyer] Marc Elias  specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the partys finances, strategy, and all the money raised, Brazile said.

Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings, she noted further.

Brazile then blamed Obama and Wasserman Schulz for leaving the DNC with no funds and heavily in debt, forcing the committee to rely on the Clinton campaign for a financial lifeline.

As Western Journalism reported:

As a result, this created an atmosphere that greatly favored Clintonover Democrat candidates, most notably Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, according to Brazile.

She said that Obama and Wasserman Schulz left the DNC $24 million in debt, and she said she believes that the latter refused to reduce overhead and costs in off-election years which further depleted funds.

The party chair usually shrinks the staff between presidential election campaigns, but Debbie had chosen not to do that, she wrote.

J. D. Heyes is the editor-in-chief of The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

WesternJournalism.com

TheNationalSentinel.com

Submit a correction >>
Three dead after boat sinks crossing from Turkey to Greece

Athens (AFP) - At least three people drowned on Friday after their wooden boat sank in the narrow stretch of water separating Turkey from the Greek island of Kalymnos, Greek port police said.

A woman's body was recovered by a Greek patrol boat, while two other bodies were found in Turkish waters.

The Greek authorities were alerted that the boat was in distress. As a patrol arrived the boat sank.

The survivors -- 14 adults and a child -- said there were up to 24 people onboard the vessel when it set out from Turkey. Search efforts were continuing Friday, in a bid to find any more survivors.

Hundreds of people, mostly Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans, have died since 2015 as they tried to cross from Turkey to Greece in often rickety boats.

The numbers dropped dramatically after March last year, when Turkey and the EU agreed a deal to stem the flow of people.

But the numbers have started to rise again since August, with some 5,000 migrants arriving on Greek islands in September, the UN says.

More than a dozen Syrian refugees are on hunger strike in Athens to highlight the plight of 2,000 people waiting for at least six months to be allowed to rejoin families, mainly in Germany.

Greek migration minister Yiannis Mouzalas said on Wednesday that the increase in arrivals was causing "major difficulties" on the islands.
my EXACT though when i saw this

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It's what he deserves.



I like seeing predators suffer consequences.

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So do I, but if only it would happen a lot more often. I found this an interesting and sad read:

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this woman stole this from an australian feminist page jsyk

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tbf there bad been stories before and nobody cared. the same with Bryan Singer.

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MTE. How many other celebs are getting dropped by their publicists or agencies?

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kevin spacey has been abusing men and getting away with it for decades, just like weinstein and cosby. this is a dumb take.

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i kinda disagree with this bc it's thanks to the brave people who came out with weinstein story that his story got attention and now spacey is getting dropped.

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Im not going to applaud people for taking actions they should have taken years ago. They knew about him. They all knew about him.

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Exactly. They were fine until he got caught so publically.

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this is the one thing i'm v cynical about when it comes to all these scandals, but especially weinstein, richardson & spacey. everyone knew and these reactions from the showbiz industry have nothing to do with genuine outrage or concern for the victims, and everything to do with damage control & going with the zeitgeist.

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yeah, we keep hearing how the weinstein company was already in trouble and wanted harvey out. house of cards was ending soon and everyone was over it anyway. Like, is it once these powerful people are a threat to profits we can think about holding them accountable?

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yup

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Of course they did, but better late than never.

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Agreed. As fucking if his agency and publicist didn't know about him. Suuuure. If anything, they are even more transparent with this. "Oh, this pedophile isn't benefiting us anymore, byeee"

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That's great but I'm not buying that his publicist didn't know anything. If the general public knew of rumors... it sounds like they're trying to save face because the sexual assault is top news

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Cuttin n runnin

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Better late than never?

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I really never thought anything would happen to him this is wild

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i'm a bit alarmed and how much his career got destroyed in a matter of days, especially when he was this a-list, multiple oscar-winning revered actor. like damn, but he deserves it for being a raging pile of shit

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Same. Has it even been a week?

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the weinstein story feels like it dropped MONTHS ago, but it hasn't even been a month yet?! like how?!!?

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I'm surprised too. Feels like Cosby was way worse and he basically got away with it? Smh must be because most of Cosby's crimes were much older

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me too. I've said this before but when Anthony Rapp came out last weekend with his story I was 100% sure everything would get swept under the rug because Kevin Spacey is such a well-liked actor (among the general public). It hasn't even been a week since that story came out and look where we are now.

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i'm guessing there's more victims and more serious crimes in the list. that's what happened with weinstein. before ronan's article came out, people started to cut ties with weinstein. then we found out he was a serial rapist.

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It's wild to me at how fast a lot of this is happening. It will be interesting to see if it sticks. I'm hesitant to believe in the change though because I feel people are being reactionary and not laying strategic foundation for long-term resolve.

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Y'know, I was thinking about Spacey and how all of this has unfolded. I'm sure not a lot of people are aware of this, but Spacey had a huge hit to his career in the late 90's-early 00's, when he was papped being intimate and close to men. He disappeared to London for years, and being out of the public eye rehabbed his image a lot. I'm sure there's always been whispers about him groping people, and being generally gross, and I wonder if his general attitude and sleazy-ness is why the public has turned on him once again now that there's strong allegations against him.

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oop

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I saw this late last night and cheered. I though he was going to escape any really consequences. He may still make a comeback later like Mel Gibson, but at least he's suffering now.

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Gibsons comeback is revolting, though thankfully pretty contained. I hope Spacey doesnt even get that.

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At this rate, the sixth season premiere of House of Cards will open with Frank returning to his home planet, a la Poochie ("Note: Frank died on the way back to his home planet").

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Lmao yes!



Actually someone with talent should make a gif like that.

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lol

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Damn he's crumbling.



Is this the same publicist who made his coming out diversion statement?

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Let him burn. I can't deal with all these gays saying "Leave Kevin alone!"

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Attitude Magazine on FB.

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I was checking Yashar Alis Twitter for an update on Spacey when I came across another horrifying, stomach-churning story. http://nypost.com/2017/11/03/portfolio-manager-accused-of-raping-beating-women-in-penthouse-dungeon/amp/

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they need to legit find out if he's a serial killer b/c that behavior... he's murdered women for sure

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Holy shit....I hope his daughter is somewhere safe

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Fuck that. Is the article saying he had his fixers sign NDAs or the women he raped and beat? Those NDAs cannot be legally used to silence people about all the triggering shit that's in that article. Also, someone rescue his daughter holy shit.

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This makes me want to cry. Im praying for these women and his daughter

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yeah i'm gonna need the fixers outed too. And I'm gonna need some of these crooked lawyers and fixers to start being disbarred and going to prison. They are abusing the law with these cover ups.

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Pretty sure if he did not have that money he would have killed them



This is horrible. I really hope his daughter is far away from him right now. Poor her, it's really horrible.

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omfg no way those ndas are valid, i mean i'm sure the women are scared.

i hope his daughter is far far away from him because srsly wtf is wrong with him.

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Mte. I cant even imagine what would happen if there was another sony hack situation but involving the big talent agencies instead.

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Having worked there for a year, I can confirm this is true.

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I worked there for a week, got a job offer elsewhere, and got the fuck out. What a snake pit!

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Oh hi fellow ex-agency person. UTA ain't shit either haha.

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MTE i made a similar comment above. i hope they get exposed too.



Edited at 2017-11-03 05:28 pm (UTC)

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I also don't know why I forgot this but I was in the speakers department and I used to write a lot of contracts for him to go on speaking engagements.

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CAA banned Courtney Love from even entering their building for making that Weinstein "joke". They're complicit in looooots of terrible bullshit.

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this is now my go to gif for anyone who is complete trash. this is now my go to gif for anyone who is complete trash.

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I rewound that moment about 5x. And it came at the perfect time because it so fits the times.

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What is that from?

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CW's Dynasty reboot.

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remember his 4am London mugging story

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yup. and his subsequent 'clarification' too.

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GUYS! He tripped over his dog in the park. Come on!

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I feel like they already missed an opportunity by not performing Dope :/ DNA is an ok song but not one of my favorites from BTS



Edited at 2017-11-03 04:25 pm (UTC)

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Dope is all choreo really tho.



If anything Blood Sweat & Tears and maybe Fire.

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Blood Sweat and Tears is the superior song but that crotch-grabbing stage-humping choreo would not go over well with non-fan audiences lol



Fire would be good tho, I agree. But it makes sense for them to perform their new song.

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Fire would be good too.



I just feel that they should introduce themselves to the non kpop demographic with a catchy radio friendly (ie: more westernized sound) song. DNA sounds too generic to me and blood sweat and tears is a little too out their for non Kpop fans

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fire or BST would def. work better.

from this album i like mic drop but idk how that it will grab people' attention.



for me the best bts era is run <333

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fire is their best song for this kind of performance. dna is like their worst song lol

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This is overwhelming I feel excited for them and hope it's in korean still. even if I wish they were performing Pied Piper or Blood Sweat & Tears instead.

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they always bring these kpop acts over for award shows and no one cares except their stans on twitter

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True but only twitter stans care about these award shows in 2017 anyway.

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I know I haven't watched an award show in years, if something good happens you can find it on youtube the next day

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Ngl, I've cringed at every attempt at u.s debut since boa (and at least she made an English song). It ain't gonna happen. Only stans and twelve year old will give a shit.

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Yes maybe kpop had a chance to get mainstream in the US after Psy but it didn't happen so RIP

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They're literally only doing this to cash in on thirsty fans tuning in for ratings, they don't actually give a shit lol.



The sad part is that ARMY fall for it every single time.

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"they always bring these kpop acts over for award shows"



?????

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Can you even count on one hand how many times its happened?

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don't tell them!

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Quite stupid to single Kpop acts out when no one except for stans care about 99.9% of the acts in those award shows no matter what country they hail from.

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Edited at 2017-11-03 04:30 pm (UTC)

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lmao mte Taemin.

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i am obsessed with MOVE. the song and choreo is so fucking amazing

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they should perform blood sweat and tears cos that song goes off and the choreography is amazing

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It'd be cool to see more non-English songs start to become mainstream in America. I loved BoA's English debut tho. The choreo for Eat You Up and I Did It For Love are amazing. I'm sad she didn't go far.

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So excited!

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Im definitely a salty old crusty Wonder Girl fan. WG and Xtina. 2 legends ahead of their time

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Wonder Girls deserved better

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don't even let me start on Wonder Girls. their last album was a masterpiece. too ahead of their time indeed

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Wonder Girls have become my favorite of their gen.

All of their songs were good.



Like Money is my current bop!

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ugh, should have been Blood, Sweat and Tears

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the succes they have now is amazing but we all know they won't become mainstream. the only time i actually heard them on western radio is on bbc radio 1 on sunday



but lbr it should've been blood sweat and tears

(or butterfly but i don't think that would work lmao)



Edited at 2017-11-03 04:54 pm (UTC)

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Korean music shows have better production values than most award shows lbr



Edited at 2017-11-03 05:57 pm (UTC)

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western camera work sucks for live events

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Yay for them!

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i love kard <3 i hope they get bigger and bigger

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yeah i think kard could do it too

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lol why are ppl so salty over this. The BBMAs was great promo for them even though everyone said it was irrelevant and their fanbase grew a ton, as evidenced by their sales this comeback. This is just another opportunity to get some exposure and snatch some new fans considering no new boyband has really established themselves already. Nobody is seriously thinking about K-Pop becoming mainstream.

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I'm shocked.



It's as if they read this and translated it in their mind to ARMY's saying that BTS are mainstream or something. Same thing with the fan voted Billboard Award.



It's not a big deal to anyone but the stans, but most of these lesser award shows are just that. Talking about "Household names"... I don't even think Fifth Harmony and most of the attendees like Sean Mendes are household names.

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omg thank you. people are so dramatic over bts

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yeah the reactions are a bit ott

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Nobody is seriously thinking about K-Pop becoming mainstream.



Tell ARMYs that.



But it's mostly because other fandoms are jealous their faves aren't getting these opportunities, idk.

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mte

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Too much salt, everyone loves to hate, instead of making things happen for their favs.

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omg loved ur icon

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People just don't like ARMY, simple as that.

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everyone is just bitter it isn't their favorite group getting the western award show gigs.



theres also a lot of people who wanna pretend like bts isnt actually popular in korea or internationally and all the promo is just...imaginary i guess

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ontd does this over every kpop act lol

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mte

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im so here for this, just wish it was a different song.

dope/blood, sweat and tears would have been such an amazing performance

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Pennsylvania Creates Home Care Apprenticeship Program

Kathleen Kleinmann, CEO of TRPIL and a licensed home care provider, said the CNA apprentices "will gain invaluable hand-on training and the skills needed to provide quality community support services to consumers in a home care setting. This training will help our nurses to safely perform their job duties and provide people with disabilities with a vital service to help them transition from care facilities to living independently in their homes."

The Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry has approved an apprenticeship program, the Certified Nursing Assistant in a Home Care Setting apprenticeship, to help individuals with disabilities by providing competent personal care and promoting healthy living and safe environments in homes and communities. The program is a partnership between Transitional Paths to Independent Living (TRPIL) Community Services, the Fayette County Career and Technical Institute, and SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, according to the department's announcement.

L&I Deputy Secretary for Workforce Development Eileen Cipriani announced approval of it after she joined Department of Aging Quality and Compliance Specialist Michelle Glidden for a "Jobs that Pay" tour at TRPIL in Washington, Pa. "The Wolf Administration supports the growth and expansion of apprenticeship programs as a tool to create a pool of high-skilled, qualified talent for employers," Cipriani said. "The apprentices we met today have a unique opportunity to train in a home-care setting and gain valuable hands-on experience that will provide them with the necessary skill set to meet the regional employment needs of employers upon program completion."

The Wolf Administration established the Apprenticeship and Training Office last year to support and expand apprenticeships. Programs registered through the office provide employer-driven training; job seekers obtain valuable skills and a nationally recognized credential. Since the office was created, 2,606 new apprentices and 77 new registered apprenticeship occupations statewide have been created.

"Direct care workers of any kind are the hands, the voice, and the face of long-term care for many older Pennsylvanians and persons with disabilities who rely upon this particular workforce in order to live and age well in their homes and communities," said Secretary of Aging Teresa Osborne. "The Wolf Administration is committed to supporting partnerships like this so that we can create opportunities for Pennsylvanians to receive the training and support needed to either further their career path or reenter the workforce."

Kathleen Kleinmann, CEO of TRPIL and a licensed home care provider, said the CNA apprentices "will gain invaluable hand-on training and the skills needed to provide quality community support services to consumers in a home care setting. This training will help our nurses to safely perform their job duties and provide people with disabilities with a vital service to help them transition from care facilities to living independently in their homes."
Season's eatings! The weather may be getting colder, but Dining Month on OnMilwaukee is just cooking up, dishing out your winning picks in this year's Best of Dining poll. Dining Month is brought to you by Fein Brothers, your premier food service equipment and supply dealer in Wisconsin since 1929. Congratulations to all of the winners, and happy eating for all those who voted! See all the winners for the month so far here.

From 2008 to 2013, the beloved Bay View bar and cafe won this category every single year. But for the past three years, Milwaukee readers voted a different restaurant "best sandwich"  Benji's (2014), Glorioso's (2015) and Jake's Deli (2016). And those three made it a close race again, along with Bavette La Boucherie, but Cafe Lulu reclaimed its throne this year.

Cafe Lulu's combination of sandwiches, pitas, falafel, melts and baguettes  plus their house-made potato chips and amazing Asian slaw  hits the mark for meat eaters and vegetarians alike, and it proved once again (or, at least, for now) that it's just too tasty to top.

Meanwhile, the OnMilwaukee staff decided to eat like it's 2015, picking Brady Street staple Glorioso's.

Runners up:

2. Glorioso's

3. Bavette La Boucherie

4. Benji's

5. Jake's

OnMilwaukee editors' pick: Glorioso's

Lori Fredrich's pick: Bavette La Boucherie

When it comes to creative combinations, the sandwiches at Bavette La Boucherie are still among my favorites in town. And thats largely due to Chef Karen Bell, whose creations are spot-on in flavor and balance. Shes also masterful with unexpected combos, so theres always something interesting and new to try. Steak with truffled mushroom duxelle and roasted grapes? Pork cheek with roasted squash? Theyre both good, and so are all of the others. Trust me. When in doubt, opt for the tongue Reuben. It doesnt disappoint.
Time flies when youre having fun. It seems like just yesterday that Milwaukee Public Schools did its last long range facilities master plan, but that was 2011 and since then theres been no small amount of chatter in these parts about school buildings and who should control them and be allowed to buy them and for what purpose.

As the states mandate that only charter and private schools could buy MPS properties declared surplus by the district recently expired on a number of buildings that are now back on the free market to anyone who is interested and has the means, MPS has announced that it is undertaking its next facilities master plan, which will be created in concert with Florida-based MGT Consulting Group.

In the first half of the 20th century, the district was often doing a buildings plan at five-year intervals, but with so much to discuss in the district these days  and as budgets are tighter than ever  seven years seems about right. Anyway, some of the decision-making comes down to demographic shifts, and considering the federal census is an every-10-years proposition, seven seems a good compromise.

"The district seeks a new plan to align with changes that have occurred within the last five or more years in our community," reads a statement from MPS issued this morning. "Developing this plan requires an understanding of the facility implications of the education mission, goals and programs of the district as well as significant input from students, families, staff, community members and partners.

"A Long-range Facilities Master Plan (LRFMP) will provide a cost effective, actionable plan to address the short- and long-term facility needs of the district. Drafting the plan will include a comprehensive analysis of education trends, school programming, capacity, building standards, operating costs and other factors. This information will be used to allocate resources and make decisions for the long-term, best interests of our students and community."

The final report is expected to be presented to the Milwaukee Board of School Directors in March.

The last plan report was published in November 2011 and ran 114 pages. Among the facility recommendations it made were:

While you and I might debate (or bicker, depending) on the efficacy of the changes that grew from the last LRFMP  the creation of which is a complicated and emotional business  its clear that the plan was acted upon and not simply filed away for historians to look at later.

In order to get community input, MPS is holding a series of community conversations, inviting staff, parents, students and community members to have their say. They will be held from 6 until 7 p.m. on:

Wednesday, Nov. 8, South Division High School, 1515 W. Lapham Blvd.

Monday, Nov. 13, Bay View High School, 2751 S. Lenox St.

Wednesday, Nov. 15, Hopkins-Lloyd Community School, 1503 W. Hopkins St.

Wednesday, Nov. 29, James Madison Academic Campus, 8135 W. Florist Ave.

For more information click here.
Refugees barricaded inside a shuttered Australian detention camp in Papua New Guinea were becoming "distraught and depressed", detainees said Friday, as New Zealand renewed an offer to resettle some of them. The remote camp on PNG's Manus Island -- one of two centres holding asylum-seekers who tried to reach Australia by boat -- was proclaimed closed on Tuesday after the nation's Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional. Australia shut off water and electricity to the camp, but some 600 men remain inside, fearful for their safety if they move to transition centres where locals are reportedly hostile. "The current mood of the men is they are really distraught and depressed," Manus detainee and Sudanese refugee Abdul Aziz Adam told AFP. "We are just helping and caring for each other and trying to help each other just to stay alive," the 24-year-old said. As the stand-off entered its fourth day, New Zealand's new Labour government renewed an offer to take 150 of the refugees which was initially made in 2013 but never acted upon by Australia. "We would like to work with Australia to help find a compassionate solution to this," Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway told Radio New Zealand. "We've got an offer of 150 people and we really hope that Australia takes that up... we are here to help," he said. The issue is set to arise when New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who came to power just last month, meets Australia's conservative Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in Sydney on Sunday. Iranian Behrouz Boochani, another Manus detainee, told AFP Friday the detainees viewed New Zealand as a "big opportunity to take us from this hellhole prison". "We are asking the New Zealand PM to make a serious negotiation with the Australian government and if Australia rejects it again, to try to do a deal with PNG." Boochani added that the detainees were able to "collect water in rubbish bins" after a downpour the day before, and were also boiling water pooled inside a hole they had dug to drink. "Many people are unable to sleep because of hunger and fear," he said. - Manus a 'dumping ground' - The impasse has frustrated Manus Governor Charlie Benjamin, who accused the Australian and PNG governments of using his island as a "dumping ground" for the asylum-seekers. "The ministers involved in signing the agreement to bring the asylum seekers to Manus in 2013 didn't give a thought about the Manus people," he told PNG daily The National. "They never did one time involve me in the negotiation although I was the governor at that time." The UNHCR representative on the island, Lam Nai Jit, told AFP Thursday tensions were likely to rise as the men battled the "extremely hot and humid" weather. A key concern for the refugees has been the lack of medication, particularly for those being treated for mental health conditions. "Around 20 percent of people in the detention centre are being prescribed anti-depression drugs for obviously being depressed or for post-traumatic stress," Australian Greens senator Nick McKim, who visited the centre Tuesday, told AFP late Thursday. The newspaper The Australian, which gained access to the compound on Thursday, said some of the men had not been outside the site since they were taken there years ago, and were almost hysterical about leaving. Three transition centres on Manus were available for the men to move to, but the UNHCR said one was not finished while two did not have security fences. Locals were also not consulted when the facilities were being built, stoking tensions between Manus communities and the refugees, Lam said. Canberra's offshore processing policy has been criticised by rights groups as essentially placing refugees in indefinite detention on remote Pacific islands. But the government says it has stopped deaths at sea after a spate of drownings.
Men at work threshing wheat with a steam engine and separator in Hinckley, Millard Country in Utah in the late 1800s or early 1900s. The owner of the outfit, William Brown Alldredge, a Utah Pioneer of 1867, is the man second from the engine on the right. Credit: Utah Division of State History

On July 22, 1847, a scouting party from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stood above the Great Salt Lake Valley in modern-day Utah; by 1870, more than 18,000 followers had colonized the valley and surrounding region, displacing Native American populations to establish dispersed farming communities. While historians continue to debate the drivers of this colonization event, a new study from the University of Utah proposes that agricultural productivity drove dispersal patterns in a process that led the current distribution of Utah populations today.

Utah anthropologists adapted a well-known ecological model, and tested its predictions by combining satellite-derived measures of agricultural suitability with historical census data. They found that the model accurately predicted the patterns in which settlement occurred in Utah, as well as the present-day distribution of people.

"People are going to go where they can do the best for themselves and their families. For these early settlers, they're going to settle where the agriculture is best," said Peter Yaworsky, lead author and doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Utah.

The study published on Nov. 3, 2017 in the journal American Antiquity.

Settle the best place first, and most often

The researchers are the first to apply a model from population ecology to explain historical settlement data from the 19th and 20th centuries. Ecologists originally developed the model to study distribution patterns of wildlife populations. Anthropologists have since adopted it as a way to understand the decisions that individuals make when distributing themselves across a new area.

"We thought that we could use these same hypotheses, this same model, the same predictions, to talk about this colonization event, as well as others worldwide," said Yaworsky.

Early Euro-Americans settled the best agricultural areas first, and most often. Later arrivals chose areas with the next-best agricultural potential, and so on. Credit: Peter Yaworsky

The paper shows that as Euro-Americans settled across Utah, they chose areas most suited for agriculture to make the best living possible for themselves and their families. As new families moved in and increased competition for water and land, the agricultural suitability of the region declined. As more newcomers arrived, they chose to settle in the area with the next-best agricultural potential, and so on.

"I was surprised how well it worked," said senior author Brian Codding, associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and director of the U's Archaeological Center. "I hope more anthropologists and historians will start to look at other historical events like this and try to explain these types of settler-colonial events in ecological terms."

Not only do these results help explain the past, but they illustrate why populations are distributed across the state the way they are today.

"From the model, we predicted that the best places should always have the most people," Yaworsky said. "This is why we see major cities on the Wasatch Front."

By settling the state to maximize agricultural productivity, early settlers set a process into motion that impacts us today.

"Where Utahns live today reflects the historical inertia of those early decisions, in addition to the distribution of resources that remain important today, like water," Codding said.

The model predicts that as more Euro-American families settled an area and they increase competition for water and land, the agricultural quality declines (left). Newcomers then choose to settle in the next-best quality area. The observed patterns largely fit this prediction, but researchers were surprised that settlers moved into poorer-quality habitats more rapidly than you would expect (right). Credit: Brian Codding, Peter Yaworsky

The beehive state

The researchers randomly selected 84 settlements of the 347 established between 1847 and 1950 across Utah, and tracked the population changes over time using extensive historical records and census data. Yaworsky then developed two measures of agricultural suitability from satellite and soils data compiled over the past 17 years. By utilizing Utah's historical records, the U researchers got the best of both worldsdetailed data over a time scale long enough to see patterns emerge.

The model accurately predicted the order of settlements in Utah, with one surprise. "Settlers dispersed into poorer-quality habitats more rapidly than you'd expect," Yaworsky said.

One explanation could be that the early settlers were directed by the Mormon leader Brigham Young, who also sought to occupy as much land as possible in order to establish a Mormon state. To accomplish this, he may have directed families to settle in areas of poorer agricultural quality before it was absolutely necessary.

If this is true, then founding the beehive state may have required some settlers to sacrifice their agricultural production. However, "overall, we still see that people were doing the best they could for themselves and their families," Codding said.

A new tool to study migration

Validation of this tried and true ecological model with the use of historic human settlement gives Yaworsky and Codding hope that future studies will apply the model to better understand global colonization and migration events in the past, and those occurring today.

"Our study demonstrates that you can use these models to talk about colonization events worldwide. We can look for ecological or economical explanations for settlement not only in the past, but also in the present," said Yaworsky.
This artist's impression shows how the newly discovered belts of dust around the closest star to the Solar System, Proxima Centauri, may look. ALMA observations revealed the glow coming from cold dust in a region between one to four times as far from Proxima Centauri as the Earth is from the Sun. The data also hint at the presence of an even cooler outer dust belt and indicate the presence of an elaborate planetary system. These structures are similar to the much larger belts in the Solar System and are also expected to be made from particles of rock and ice that failed to form planets.Note that this sketch is not to scale -- to make Proxima b clearly visible it has been shown further from the star and larger than it is in reality. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

The ALMA Observatory has detected dust around Proxima Centauri. These observations reveal the glow coming from cold dust in a region between one to four times as far from Proxima Centauri as the Earth is from the Sun. The data also hint at the presence of an outer dust belt and may indicate the presence of a planetary system. These structures are similar to the belts in the Solar System and are expected to be made from rock and ice.

Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the Sun. It is a faint red dwarf lying just four light-years away in the southern constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur). It is orbited by the Earth-sized temperate world Proxima b, discovered in 2016 and the closest planet to the Solar System. But there is more to this system than just a single planet. The new ALMA observations reveal emission from clouds of cold cosmic dust surrounding the star.

The lead author of the new study, Guillem Anglada, from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (CSIC), Granada, Spain, explains the significance of this find: "The dust around Proxima is important because, following the discovery of the terrestrial planet Proxima b, it's the first indication of the presence of an elaborate planetary system, and not just a single planet, around the star closest to our Sun."

Dust belts are the remains of material that did not form into larger bodies such as planets. The particles of rock and ice in these belts vary in size from the tiniest dust grain, smaller than a millimetre across, up to asteroid-like bodies many kilometres in diameter.

Dust appears to lie in a belt that extends a few hundred million kilometres from Proxima Centauri and has a total mass of about one hundredth of the Earth's mass. This belt is estimated to have a temperature of about -230 degrees Celsius, as cold as that of the Kuiper Belt in the outer Solar System.

There are also hints in the ALMA data of another belt of even colder dust about ten times further out. If confirmed, the nature of an outer belt is intriguing, given its very cold environment far from a star that is cooler and fainter than the Sun. Both belts are much further from Proxima Centauri than the planet Proxima b, which orbits at just four million kilometres from its parent star.

Guillem Anglada explains the implications of the discovery: "This result suggests that Proxima Centauri may have a multiple planet system with a rich history of interactions that resulted in the formation of a dust belt. Further study may also provide information that might point to the locations of as yet unidentified additional planets."

Proxima Centauri's planetary system is also particularly interesting because there are plansthe Starshot projectfor future direct exploration of the system with microprobes attached to laser-driven sails. A knowledge of the dust environment around the star is essential for planning such a mission.

Co-author Pedro Amado, also from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, explains that this observation is just the start: "These first results show that ALMA can detect dust structures orbiting around Proxima. Further observations will give us a more detailed picture of Proxima's planetary system. In combination with the study of protoplanetary discs around young stars, many of the details of the processes that led to the formation of the Earth and the Solar System about 4600 million years ago will be unveiled. What we are seeing now is just the appetiser compared to what is coming!"

This research was presented in a paper entitled "ALMA Discovery of Dust Belts Around Proxima Centauri", by Guillem Anglada et al., to appear in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Provided by ESO
Boston College is betting big on the sciences.

The private Jesuit school, better known for its philosophy and economics programs, unveiled plans Friday for a $150 million science facility that will bring a new engineering major to campus.

School officials are calling it an ambitious step forward that combines the college's longstanding strength in the liberal arts with its newer expansion into the sciences.

The crowning jewel of the 150,000-square-foot (13,935-square-meter) facility will be a new integrated science institute named after Apple executive Phil Schiller and his wife, Kim Gassett-Schiller, who donated $25 million for the project.

Schiller, a 1982 graduate of the school, said the institute aims to give scholars from the humanities and the sciences a place to team up on major global problems.

"This is where the best work comes from, as diverse minds with different experiences try to understand a problem together and solve things as a team," said Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing. "That is where big leaps forward happen."

Construction is scheduled to begin in spring 2019 at the school's campus west of Boston. It will add research laboratories, classrooms and space for students and faculty to collaborate across disciplines.

It also will bring a new engineering major to campus as the school seeks an edge in competition with other major universities.

The new facility is Boston College's latest step in a recent push toward the sciences. Last year, it became one of 115 universities in the U.S. designated as a top research institution by the Carnegie Foundation, which classifies schools based on their research spending and staffing levels, among other factors.

The shift follows in the steps of other private schools that have pursued aggressive expansions into science and research fields, which can add prestigeand a source of revenue for universities.

Nearby Harvard University is continuing work on a $1 billion science and engineering complex in Boston's Allston neighborhood after the project was put on hold amid an economic slump in 2010.

North Carolina's Wake Forest University also introduced a new engineering program this year, blending a science curriculum with the private school's liberal arts tradition.

At Boston College, officials say the new Schiller institute aims to tackle projects ranging from the development of clean energy to technology that can diagnose and treat humans in poor areas around the world.

The school enrolls about 15,000 students at its campus west of Boston. Last year it had the No. 40 largest endowment among U.S. colleges, valued at nearly $2.1 billion, according to an annual study by the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

School President William Leahy thanked Schiller for the donation on Friday, saying it will "have a profound effect on the university's ability to address pressing societal needs through advanced scientific research."

 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Estonia's Prime Minister Juri Ratas announced the decision to suspend security certificates for state-issued ID cards until their owners download an update to patch a flaw

Cyber-savvy Estonia said on Thursday it would suspend security certificates for up to 760,000 state-issued electronic ID-cards with faulty chips as of Friday midnight to mitigate the risk of identity theft.

Dubbed E-stonia for being one of the world's most wired nations, the Baltic eurozone state of 1.3 million people issues electronic ID cards giving citizens online access to virtually all public services at a special "e-government" state portal.

IT security experts recently discovered a flaw in the Swiss-made chips used in the cards that makes them vulnerable to malware.

"The functioning of an e-state is based on trust and the state cannot afford identity theft happening to the owner of an Estonian ID card," Prime Minister Juri Ratas said Thursday as he announced the decision to suspend security certificates for cards until their owners download an update to patch the flaw.

"By blocking the certificates of the ID cards at risk, the state is ensuring the safety of the ID card," Ratas said.

"As far as we currently know, there has been no instances of e-identity theft, but the threat assessment of the Police and Border Guard Board and the Information System Authority indicates that this threat has become real," he added.

Estonia has made a name for itself for being a trailblazer in technology, notably pioneered e-voting in 2005 and playing host to NATO's cyber defence centre.

Estonian authorities also warned that other cards and computer systems using the chips produced by the same manufacturer were also at risk.

Since 2001 Estonian electronic ID cards have been manufactured by the Swiss company Trub AG and its successor Gemalto AG.

In September, Trub Baltic AS that belongs to the Gemalto group, announced they were cooperating with the Estonian government on solving the problem.

As of October 31, all users of faulty ID cards can update their security certificates remotely and at Estonian police and border guard service points.

As of Thursday night around 40,000 users had already done so.

 2017 AFP
Credit: University of East Anglia

New research from the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, and Dalhousie University, Canada, reveals how immune systems can evolve resistance to parasites.

A study, published today in Nature Communications, solves the enigma of how species can adapt and change their immune system to cope with new parasitic threats - whilst at the same time showing little or no evolutionary change in critical immune function over millions of years.

The findings help to explain why we humans have some immune genes that are almost identical to those of chimpanzees.

Scientists from UEA and Dalhousie University studied how Guppy fish (Poecilia reticulata) adapt to survive by studying their immune genes, known as the Major Histocompatibility Complex or MHC genes.

They found that guppies fine-tune these genes in each location, enabling them to adapt and survive in many different and extreme environments. Despite this adaptation, genes maintained critical function of tens of millions of years.

The discovery could improve scientists' understanding of how related species can adapt and change their immune system to cope with new threats from parasites while simultaneously sharing similar function.

Dr Jackie Lighten from UEA led the study. He said: "Guppies are a small, colourful fish native to South America, Trinidad and Tobago. They are a fantastic model for researching the ecology and evolution of vertebrates.

"MHC genes are an important line of defence in the immune system in vertebrates, including humans. Because parasites evolve quicker than their vertebrate hosts, immune genes need to be highly diverse to keep up with parasites and prevent infections.

"MHC genes produce protein structures that are on the external surface of cells. These genes are diverse and so produce an array of proteins, each of which presents a specific part of a parasite or pathogen that has attempted to infect the body. The specific shape of the protein dictates which parasites it can recognize, and signals to the immune system to prevent infection."

The study looked at MHC genetic variation in 59 guppy populations across Trinidad, Tobago, Barbados, and Hawaii. The authors found hundreds of different immune variants, but these so called 'alleles' appear to be clustered in a smaller number of functional groups or 'supertypes."

Prof van Oosterhout, also from UEA's School of Environmental Sciences, said: "Each supertype protects the host against a specific group of parasites, and these supertypes were common across populations, and species, irrespective of the location.

"However, the alleles that make up a supertype track the rapid evolution of the parasites, and they too are evolving rapidly. These alleles are largely specific to each population, and they help in the 'fine-tuning' of the immune response to the specific (local) parasites that attack the host in that population."

Before this study, scientists debated how these immune genes can evolve rapidly (which is necessary to keep up with the fast-evolving parasites), whilst also showing little or no evolutionary change in their function over millions of years, as observed between humans and chimpanzees. This study resolves that debate.

Prof Bentzen from Dalhousie University said: "Although this study focused on MHC genes in vertebrates, the evolutionary dynamics described in it likely apply to other gene families, for example resistance genes and those which prevent self-fertilization in plants (self-incompatibility loci) that are caught up in their own evolutionary races."

Dr Lighten added: "It is an important step forward in understanding the evolutionary genetics of the immune system, and can help explain some of the puzzling observations observed in previous studies of many other organisms."

"Evolutionary genetics of immunological supertypes reveals two faces of the Red Queen" is published in the journal Nature Communications on November 3, 2017.

More information: Jackie Lighten et al. Evolutionary genetics of immunological supertypes reveals two faces of the Red Queen, Nature Communications (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01183-2 Journal information: Nature Communications
Brendan animation crop.

Who can forget Steven Spielberg's first Jurassic Park movie in 1993? How eagerly did we anticipate that bellowing T-Rex? Or gasp at the sheer scale of the brachiosaurus as it lumbered into view? Never before had animation been so lifelike and believable. I was hooked  this is what I wanted to do.

An animator's role is to design the movement of a creature or character. For 15 years I worked in visual effects for films where this was a useful skill  if a director wanted his hero to be attacked by a four-headed, six-legged dragon, I could use my knowledge of anatomy from existing creatures and my understanding of physics to design its movement. When I transferred to academia, it was not immediately apparent where this skill could be used in a research practice.

Then I realised it could be useful in recreating extinct species. Without the actual animal to study, artists have to bridge the gap between bones and the creature's fully fleshed appearance. Paleoartists  illustrators of extinct species have been doing this since the first fossils were found.

However, where a paleoartist is concerned with the look of the creature, I wanted to focus on its movement, combining existing knowledge and skills with detailed research into current palaeontological discoveries to create as accurate an animation of that species as possible. By focusing on the science  something professional animators rarely have time to do  and building it from a skeleton, I could acquire a deeper understanding of the creature and the way it moved.

Scotland's archaeopteryx guy

This year celebrates the 100th anniversary of the publication of On Growth and Form by renowned Scots zoologist D'Arcy Thompson, a professor of natural history at Dundee and St Andrews Universities for 63 years. So it was fitting in 2017 to animate a fossil from his large collection of zoological specimens at his museum in Dundee.

I was drawn to a rare cast of the Berlin Specimen of archaeopteryx  one of the earliest known descendants of modern birds. The archaeopteryx is an icon of evolution that helped to show the transition of dinosaurs to birds, and support the then new theory of evolution. Thompson refers to this in his book, describing how the hip-bones of archaeopteryx could be manipulated to form the hip-bones of more recent late-Cretaceous bird, Apatornis.

The fossil is not only vitally important scientifically, but is one of the most beautiful found, with its wings held aloft in an angel-like pose. First the delicate fossil was laser-scanned, then loaded into our computer animation program, Maya.

The key to animating it correctly would be the skeleton, and luckily the cast allowed me to clearly see the sizes and shapes of the limb bones. Then I researched bird movement, looking at chickens, jackdaws, lapwings, vultures, magpies and crows. Archaeopteryx is about the size of a crow and so I looked to them for the speed of movements, although they are built for walking, with long legs, like a chicken.

And there are differences between these modern birds and their Jurassic predecessor; the long tail of archyopteryx would mean that its centre of gravity and leg posture would be different. On a visit to the Royal Veterinary College in London, I was introduced to the XROMM machine which X-rays animals as they move  an incredibly useful resource for animation.

Social media reaction

From X-rays I moved to animation tests to see how one movement would fit on the proportions of archaeopteryx. Then I thought it might be interesting to post my work on Twitter, so I created animated gif files to play automatically. Next I decided to hijack the paleontological hashtag #fossilfriday and posted my animation with the 3-D scan of the fossil cast in the background. Not only did they prove popular, but palaeontologists and paleoartists gave me great feedback that was helpful as I refined my animation.

When top paleoartist Scott Hartman, with numerous scientific papers to his name, described my walk as a "very solid archaeopteryx walk cycle", that really made my day.

The most popular animated gif was of the skeleton emerging from the fossil, bone by bone, which then came to life. There is something magical about an animal reforming in front of your eyes, something broken becoming whole, something extinct and long dead coming back to life. It's something every dinosaur enthusiast wants to see.

So how did the archaeopteryx fly? It may have had wings to aid jumping and running, gliding down from a tree or to help it climb. There is even a theory that the archaeopteryx ran across water like a basilisk lizard, using its wings to prevent it from sinking into the water.

At the moment there is no clear consensus, so the final animation was more of an exploration of current ideas and theories. My archaeopteryx flapped and jumped to catch a dragonfly then ran with its wings out and flapping, then flew and finally glided back to earth.

But it was important to connect the animated archaeopteryx to the fossil, to increase understanding of the animal, not upstage or distract from it. The animation was projected on to a perspex prism containing a 3-D print of the fossil cast, which provided a holographic effect where the bones seemed to emerge from the fossil, reform as the animal, then disappear again, leaving the viewer looking at the fossil with new eyes.

There is still so much to know about the archaeopteryx. As new specimens are found and new discoveries made, the artworks will need to reflect those changes. Like scientists, paleoartists need to change their views according to new evidence. So the time will come again when I return to my archaeopteryx and make it fly once more.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Liquid at room temperature, an indium gallium alloy can be used to create stretchable circuit wiring and electrical switches. Credit: College of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

Transistors, those tiny electrical switches that process signals and data, are the brain power behind every electronic device  from laptops and smartphones to your digital thermostat. As they continue to shrink in size, computers have become smaller, more powerful, and more pervasive. However, as we look to build squishy, human-friendly machines that have the look and feel of soft natural organisms, we need to look beyond the rigid materials used to create electrical switches and circuits.

Mechanical engineers Carmel Majidi and James Wissman of the Soft Machines Lab at Carnegie Mellon University have been looking at new ways to create electronics that are not just digitally functional but also soft and deformable. Rather than making circuits from rigid metals like copper or silver, they use a special metal alloy that is liquid at room temperature. This alloy, made by mixing indium and gallium, is a non-toxic alternative to mercury and can be infused in rubber to make circuits that are as soft and elastic as natural skin.

Teaming up with Michael Dickey at North Carolina State University, they recently discovered that liquid metal electronics are not only useful for stretchable circuit wiring but can also be used to make electrical switches. These fluidic transistors work by opening and closing the connection between two liquid metal droplets. When a voltage drop is applied in one direction, the droplets move towards each other and coalesce to form a metallic bridge for conducting electricity. When voltage is applied in a different direction, the droplets spontaneously break apart and turn the switch to open. By quickly alternating between an open and closed and open switch state with only a small amount of voltage, the researchers were able to mimic the properties of a conventional transistor.

The team came to this result by exploiting a capillary instability. "We see capillary instabilities all the time," says Majidi. "If you turn on a faucet and the flow rate is really low, sometimes you'll see this transition from a steady stream to individual droplets. That's called a Rayleigh instability."

The researchers had to find a way to induce this instability in the liquid metal such that it could seamlessly transition from one droplet to two. After performing a series of tests on droplets within a sodium hydroxide bath, they realized that the instability was driven by the coupling between an applied voltage and an electro-chemical reaction. This coupling caused a gradient in the droplet's surface oxidation, which then resulted in a gradient in the droplet's surface tension, which finally drove the separation of the two droplets.

The team calls it a liquid metal transistor because it has the same kind of circuit properties found in a conventional circuit transistor. "We have these two droplets that are analogous to source and drain electrodes in a field-effect transistor, and we can use this shape programmable effect to open and close the circuit," says Majidi. "You could eventually use this effect to create these physically reconfigurable circuits."

The applications for this type of programmable matter are endless. If materials can be programmed to change shape, they can potentially change their function depending on their configuration, or even reconfigure themselves to bypass damage in extreme environments. "It could be on a structure that's undergoing some very large physical deformations, like a flying robot that mimics the properties of a bird," says Majidi. "When it spreads its wings, you want the circuitry on the wings to also deform and reconfigure so that they remain operational or support some new kind of electrical functionality."

Other applications could include liquid computers for uses in technologies of the future. Think of miniature computers that interface with biological material to monitor disease in the body or restore brain function to a stroke survivor. Imagine search and rescue robots that can self-assemble new parts when damaged. Although it sounds like science fiction, liquid computing might one day be as commonplace as today's laptops.

Wissman, Dickey, and Majidi summarized their research in a paper published in the journal Advanced Science.
Credit: University of Nottingham

"Genome editing is not the answer to world poverty, because food shortage isn't the problem' says a group of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) surveyed by the University of Nottingham.

This is one of three main findings in a report from the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University, which looks at NGO's scepticism of genome editing technology.

Genome editing is a rapidly emerging biotechnology gathering hype as a new tool which can be used to develop solutions to a number of global food security issues, vulnerabilities, and problems.

However, resistance to these technologies is well documented and the debate around agricultural technology has been heated and long-running, with the arguments by Greenpeace and NGOs against the technology, being frequently dismissed as based on 'emotion' and 'dogma."

As with earlier debates on GM crops, NGOs have increasingly become the subject of intense criticism from leading scientists who support genome editing in agriculture. The debates have provoked passion on all sides, but rarely have they led to a mutual understanding from both parties. There is now a danger that genome editing will be mired in a similarly polarised and intractable debate as the wider field of agricultural technology.

In the report "Why are NGOs sceptical of genome editing?" published in EMBO reports, experts from the University of Nottingham, University of Exeter, and University of Sheffield examine why NGOs are so sceptical through a one-day focus group and nine interviews involving 14 participants from UK and EU-based NGOs.

The findings suggest that opposition to agricultural biotechnology and genome editing cannot be dismissed as being emotional or dogmatic.

Instead, the results of the study found that the view from NGOs on genome editing is based on three specific scepticisms;

How the problem is defined as a lack of food rather than a lack of access to food, and the alleged urgency of this crisis;

The solutions, particularly whether further entrenching intensive agriculture through science and technology can address socio-economic inequalities

The motivations for removing genome editing from GM regulations  are those involved driven purely for the greater good? Or are they driven by commercial objectives?

Dr Richard Helliwell from the University of Nottingham, and lead author of the report, says: "Sceptical NGOs give alternative problems and solutions with different outcomes, as part of a broader political discussion about policy impacts within society.

"Our research clearly shows that opportunities are needed for open and constructive debate to build a mutual understanding of opposing positions if the goal is to truly assess the potential for genome-edited crops to play a role in addressing the problem of global food vulnerability."

More information: Richard Helliwell et al. Why are NGOs sceptical of genome editing?, EMBO reports (2017). DOI: 10.15252/embr.201744385 Journal information: EMBO Reports
Geoffrey Hinton, a University Professor Emeritus at U of T and a research fellow at Google, recently published two papers that may help correct one of deep learning's key shortcomings. Credit: Johnny Guatto

Geoffrey Hinton may be the "godfather" of deep learning, a suddenly hot field of artificial intelligence, or AI  but that doesn't mean he's resting on his algorithms.

Hinton, a University Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, recently released two new papers that promise to improve the way machines understand the world through images or video  a technology with applications ranging from self-driving cars to making medical diagnoses.

"This is a much more robust way to detect objects than what we have at present," Hinton, who is also a fellow at Google's AI research arm, said today at a tech conference in Toronto.

"If you've been in the field for a long time like I have, you know that the neural nets that we use now  there's nothing special about them. We just sort of made them up."

Hinton's latest approach, detailed in a recent story in Wired magazine, relies on something he calls "capsule networks." Here's how it works: At present, deep learning algorithms must be trained on millions of images before they can reliably distinguish a picture of, say, a cat from something else. In part, that's because the software isn't very good at applying what it's already learned to brand new situations  for example, recognizing a cat that's being viewed from a slightly different angle. Capsule networks, by contrast, can help track the relationship between various parts of an object  in the case of a cat, one example might be the relative distance between its nose and mouth.

Hinton talked about his research, co-authored with Sara Sabour and Nicholas Frosst, at Google's Go North conference, held at Toronto's Evergreen Brick Works.

With his new research, there's little doubt Hinton is doing his part to move the AI ball forward  even if it draws on ideas he's been contemplating for the past 40 years.

In one of his recently published papers, Hinton's capsule networks matched the accuracy of the best previous techniques when it comes to recognizing hand-written digits, according to Wired. The second paper cut in half the previous error rate on a test that challenges software to recognize objects like toys from different angles, the magazine said.

"What we showed is early days," Hinton cautioned attendees at Go North.

"It works quite impressively on small datasets. But until it works on large datasets, you shouldn't believe it."

Even so, other researchers are lauding Hinton's efforts.

"It's too early to tell how far this particular architecture will go," Gary Marcus, a professor of psychology at New York University, told Wired. "But it's great to see Hinton out of the rut that the field has seemed fixated on."

More information: Dynamic Routing Between Capsules, arXiv:1710.09829 [cs.CV] arxiv.org/abs/1710.09829 Matrix capsules with EM routing, openreview.net/forum?id=HJWLfGWRbeId=HJWLfGWRb
Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2017), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

From the fourth most populous city to the rugged Outback, the Sentinel-3A satellite gives us a wide-ranging view over Australia's southwestern corner.

This perspective from space clearly illustrates human's influence on our environment: the agricultural landscape that dominates in the lower-left is suddenly interrupted by the more densely vegetated national parks and forests.

The city of Perth is located on the coast along the left edge of the image. About 150 km north of Perth sits ESA's tracking station at New Norcia, where a 35 m-diameter radio dish communicates with deep-space missions such as Rosetta and Mars Express.

Moving further inland, grasslands give way to the deserts of Australia's vast and remote interior  known as the Outback  with a landscape dominated by red soil and sparse vegetation. Several large salt lakes are visible across the image in white, including the appropriately named Lake Disappointment by explorer Frank Hann in search of fresh water (top of image).

Clouds over the ocean obstruct our view of the southern coast, but the lack of cloud cover over the interior desert pronounces the dry climate, which is a consequence of global wind patterns.

Sentinel-3 offers a 'bigger picture' for Europe's Copernicus programme by systematically monitoring Earth's oceans, land, ice and atmosphere to understand large-scale global dynamics.

While the satellite mission carries a suite of cutting-edge instruments, this image, also featured on the Earth from Space video programme, was captured on 9 April 2017 by the satellite's Ocean and Land Colour Instrument, which helps to monitor ocean ecosystems, supports crop management and agriculture, and provides estimates of atmospheric aerosol and clouds.
Microscopic image of a chip. Top left: functional modulator with electrical contacts; right: test modulator without electrical contact; below: test components. Credit: ETH Zurich

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed the first opto-electronic circuit component that works without glass and is instead made of metal. The component, referred to as a modulator, converts electrical data signals into optical signals. It is smaller and faster than current modulators, and much easier and cheaper to make.

Optical components for microelectronics must be made of glass. Metals are not suitable for this purpose, since optical data can propagate only across roughly a distance of 100 micrometres. This was the general view of scientists until recently. A team of researchers headed by Juerg Leuthold, professor in the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, has now succeeded in doing what was thought to be impossible and developed a light-processing component made of metal. The researchers have presented their findings in the latest issue of the journal Science.

They accomplished this feat by building a small enough component: at just 3 x 36 micrometres, it is within a size range in which both optical and electrical information can propagate in metals.

Component for fibre optic networks

The component is a modulator: modulators convert electrical data signals into optical signals. They are installed in modern internet routers used for fibre optic networks and enable fibre optic data connections between computer units in data centres. However, the standard components used today function differently than the new modulators.

The new component works by aiming the light from a fibre optic source at the modulator, causing the electrons on its surface to oscillate. Experts refer to this as a surface plasmon oscillation. This oscillation can be changed indirectly by electrical data pulses. When the oscillation of the electrons is converted back into light, the electrical information is now encoded onto the optical signal. This means that the information is converted from an electrical into an optical data pulse that can be transmitted via fibre optics.

Schematic representation of the metallic modulator: Left: a continuous beam of light strikes a metallic lattice that deflects the light onto the chip. Right: an optical data pulse exits the component. Credit: ETH Zurich

Faster and smaller

Two years ago, Leuthold and his colleagues developed one of these plasmonic modulators. At the time, it was the smallest and fastest modulator ever built, but the semiconductor chip still had various glass components.

By replacing all the glass components with metallic ones, the scientists have succeeded in building an even smaller modulator that works up to highest speed. "In metals, electrons can move at practically any speed, whereas the speed in glass is limited due to its physical properties," says Masafumi Ayata, a doctoral student in Leuthold's group and lead author of the study. In the experiment, the researchers succeeded in transmitting data at 116 gigabits per second. They are convinced that with further improvements, even higher data transfer rates will be possible.

Etched from a gold layer

The modulator prototype tested by the ETH researchers is made of a gold layer that lies on a glass surface. The scientists emphasised that the glass has no function. "Instead of the glass layer, we could also use other suitable smooth surfaces," says Leuthold. It might also be possible to use less expensive copper instead of gold for industrial applications. The important point is that only one metallic coating is required for the new modulators. "This makes them much easier and cheaper to fabricate," says Leuthold.

The researchers are already working with an industrial partner in order to put the new modulator into practice, and talks with other partners are in progress. However, Leuthold believes that further development may be required before the technology is ready for the market; for example, he expects that the current loss of signal strength during modulation can be reduced further.

For computers and autonomous vehicles

The new modulator could one day be used not only for telecommunications applications, but for computers as well. "The computer industry is considering using fibre optics to transfer data between the individual chips inside computers," says Leuthold. However, this would require tiny modulators  such as Leuthold and his team have developed.

Ultimately, it is also conceivable that the modulators could be used in displays  including bendable ones  and optical sensors, such as those in the Lidar system for distance measurement that are used in (semi-) autonomous cars.

More information: Masafumi Ayata et al. High-speed plasmonic modulator in a single metal layer, Science (2017). DOI: 10.1126/science.aan5953 Journal information: Science
Khufus pyramid is the largest in the Giza pyramid complex. Credit: Ricardo Liberato/wikipedia, CC BY-SA

Particle physicists have uncovered a large, hidden void in Khufu's Pyramid, the largest pyramid in Giza, Egypt  built between 2600 and 2500 BC. The discovery, published in Nature, was made using cosmic-ray based imaging and may help scientists work out how the enigmatic pyramid was actually constructed.

The technology works by tracking particles called muons. They are very similar to electrons  having the same charge and a quantum property called spin  but are 207 times heavier. This difference in mass is quite important as it turns out it determines how these particles interact when hitting matter.

Highly energetic electrons emit electromagnetic radiation, such as X-rays, when they hit solid matter  making them lose energy and get stuck in the target material. Due to the muon's much higher mass, this emission of electromagnetic radiation is suppressed by a factor of 207 squared compared to electrons. As a result, muons are not stopped so quickly by any material, they are highly penetrative.

Muons are commonly produced in cosmic rays. The Earth's upper atmosphere is constantly bombarded with charged particles from the sun but also from sources outside of our solar system. It is the latter that provide the more energetic cosmic rays that can produce muons and other particles in a chain of reactions.

As muons have a relatively long lifetime and are pretty stable, they are the most numerous particles seen from cosmic rays at ground level. And although a lot of energy is lost on the way, muons with very high energies do occur.

The known chambers of the pyramid and the newly discovered void. contact@hip.institute

Doing science with muons

The particles are fairly easy to detect. They produce a thin trail of "ionisation" along the path they take  which means that they knock electrons off atoms, leaving the atoms charged. This is quite handy, allowing scientists using several detectors to follow the path of the muon back to its origin. Also, if there's a lot of material in the way of the muon, it can lose all of its energy and stop in the material and decay (split into other particles) before being detected.

These properties make muons great candidates for taking images of objects that otherwise are impenetrable or impossible to observe. Just like bones produce a shadow on a photographic film exposed to X-rays, a heavy and dense object with a high atomic number will produce a shadow or a reduction in the number of muons being able to pass through that object.

The first time muons were used in this way was in 1955, when E. P. George measured the overburden of rock over a tunnel by comparing the muon flux outside and inside of the said tunnel. The first known attempt to take a deliberate "muogram" happened in 1970 when Luis W. Alvarez looked for extended caverns in the second pyramid of Giza, but found none.

Within the last decade or so, muon tomography has experienced a bit of a fresh boost. In 2007, a Japanese collaboration took a muogram of the crater of the volcano Mt Asama to investigate its inside structure.

Muon scans are also being used to investigate the Fukushima reactor remnants. In the UK, the University of Sheffield is proposing to use measurements of the muon flux to monitor carbon storage sites.

Exploring Khufu

The easiest way to use muons to investigate large objects such as a pyramid is to look for differences in the muon flux coming through it. A solid pyramid would leave a shadow or a reduction in the number of muons in that direction. If there is a large hollow void inside the pyramid the muon flux would be increased in the direction of that void. The bigger the difference between "solid" and "hollow" the easier it becomes.

All you need to do is sit somewhere near the ground, look a bit upwards from the horizon towards the pyramid and count the number of muons coming from every direction. As cosmic muons need to be somewhat energetic to pass through a whole pyramid and as our detector "eyes" are relatively small, we need to sit there and count for quite a while, typically several months in order to count enough muons. In the same way as we have two eyes to get a 3-D image of the world in our brains, we want two separate detector "eyes" to get a 3-D image of the void inside the pyramid.

The interesting thing about the approach of this team is that they have chosen three different detector technologies to investigate the pyramid. The first one is a bit old fashioned but offers a supreme resolution of the resulting image: photographic plates which get blackened by the ionisation. These were left for months inside of one of the known chambers in the pyramid and analysed in Japan after data taking was finished.

Muon telescope setup in front of Khufus Pyramid. contact@hip.institute

For the second method plastic "scintillators" that produce a light flash when a charged particle passes through them were employed. These kinds of detectors are used in several modern neutrino experiments.

And finally chambers filled with gas, where the ionisation caused by the charged particles can be monitored, were used to look directly along the direction of the newly discovered cavern.

The electronic signal of those detectors was directly phoned back to Paris via a 3G data link. Of course a pyramid with three known caverns and a large hollow gallery inside is a bit of a complex object to take a muogram of (it only shows light and dark). So often these pictures need to be compared to a computer simulation of the cosmic muons and the known pyramid, with warts and all. In this case, a careful analysis of the pictures of the three detectors and the computer simulation yielded the discovery of a 30 metre long void, up to now unknown, inside of the Great Pyramid of Giza. What a great success for a new toolkit.

The technique can now help us study the detailed shape of this void. While we don't know anything about the role of the structure, research projects involving scientists from other backgrounds could build on this study to help us discover more about its function.

It's great to see how cutting-edge particle physics can help us shed light on the most ancient human culture. Perhaps we are witnessing the beginning of a revolution in science  making it truly interdisciplinary.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Lichens. Credit: MIPT

An MIPT-based team of researchers has proposed analyzing lichen composition to assess atmospheric air quality when conventional monitoring stations are unavailable. They produced a case study of the Xanthoria parietina lichen, whose samples were collected in Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, and two towns outside MoscowDolgoprudny and Dubna. Sample analysis revealed their iron, copper, and manganese content, along with free radical concentrations of phenol and polyphenoltwo types of compounds occurring naturally in lichens. The research findings were published in the Journal of Applied Spectroscopy.

"By showing that atmospheric air quality determines the concentration of radicals in lichens, we prove that electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy can be used for environmental monitoring in cities," says Associate Professor Svetlana Zhuravleva of the Department of Chemistry, MIPT. "This makes the method very convenient for those areas where air monitoring stations are not available. Even major cities populated by millions of people typically have no more than 10 such facilities."

Metal ions and free radicals of organic molecules are involved in enzymatic reactions vital to health. But excess ions and radicals disrupt cell metabolism and interfere with the natural balance of redox reactions by damaging proteins, nucleic acids, and the lipids in the cell membrane. As this damage builds up in the cells, it can lead to numerous serious diseases. Atmospheric air pollution in densely populated industrial cities is one of the chief factors implicated in the excessive metal ion and free radical counts in living cells. Researchers have estimated that in 2015, 16 percent of deaths globally resulted from diseases caused by poor environmental conditions. This is three times the number of deaths caused by AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined, or 15 times the number of people killed in wars and by other forms of violence.

The metals measured were magnesium and two transition elementsiron and copper. Their ions are capable of entering redox reactions, whereby they can give up or take on electrons with relative ease. If electron exchange in a redox process results in a metal ion having an uneven number of electrons, one of them is bound to be unpaired. Such ions with unpaired electrons are called paramagnetic. Radicals are somewhat similar. This term is reserved for all other ions, atoms, and even whole molecules of organic or inorganic compounds that have an unpaired electron. The characteristic trait of radicals and metal ions is their very reactive nature; that is, they readily undergo chemical reactions with other molecules. As a result of an elevated concentration of such reactive species in living cells, abnormal chemical processes occur more often. They prevent individual cells and by extension the body as a whole from maintaining the state of dynamic equilibrium known as homeostasis. Prior research indicated that higher content of free radicals and paramagnetic metal ions in mammalian cells correlates with a deterioration of health.

"Lichens readily absorb compounds of metals from polluted atmospheric air. Besides that, they are autonomous and require no special conditions: Lichens can grow on trees, rocks, metal structures. They need no soil, minimum light and are thus abundant throughout Russia," explains MIPT Professor Eduard Trukhan, who holds an ScD in physics and mathematics. "All of this makes lichens a prime candidate for use in environmental monitoring and assessing the risks that pollution poses to the population."

To measure the content of metal ions and organic radicals in lichens, the researchers employed two analytical techniques. First, the total content of all reactive species with unpaired electrons was determined by means of electron paramagnetic resonance. After that, their individual concentrations were identified via optical emission spectroscopy.

The researchers compared the data they obtained with the air pollution index, a standard complex indicator of environmental quality. API values are measured, calculated, and publicly released by the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring of Russia and the country's Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment. API is calculated as the sum of average annual concentrations of pollutants expressed in terms of their maximum admissible concentrations, which are based on their hazard ratings. Air pollution in Dubna and Dolgoprudny is considered to be low (API < 5), but Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod have a poor ranking (5 < API < 7), as far as air quality is concerned. This coincides with the findings on free radical and paramagnetic metal ion content in lichen samples. To cite some data as an example, the concentration of organic radicals in samples from Moscow is 1.9 that in the samples obtained in Dubna, whose paramagnetic metal content turned out to be 5.6 times lower, compared to the Russian capital.

Pavel Bondarenko, a researcher at the Department of Chemistry, MIPT, highlights the relevance of the work: "This study provides the first ranking scale for grading environmental quality based on paramagnetic center concentration in lichens. It could be used to map urban pollution and identify those zones in cities that might pose danger for human health."

More information: P. V. Bondarenko et al. EPR Spectroscopy in Environmental Lichen-Indication, Journal of Applied Spectroscopy (2017). DOI: 10.1007/s10812-017-0523-2
Intelligent autopilots could make flying easier for the crews and allow them to undertake on-board training. Credit: A-PiMod/ DLR

Intelligent autopilot and cockpits designed by virtual reality could ease the burden on pilots and make flying safer for Europe's airline passengers.

Figures show that 918 million passengers travelled by air in the EU in 2015  a 4.7% increase on the previous year  and passenger numbers are still growing.

Flight safety is a key priority and now researchers have developed a digital co-pilot that can help to analyse risks and offer in-flight advice to the human pilots on board, while also monitoring their stress levels and workload.

The issue

There has been a considerable increase in the number of flights and air carriers within the EU over the past 25 years. Passenger numbers have also risen - from 360 million a year in 1993 to almost a billion today.

As the volume of air traffic continues to grow, the EU needs to ensure that the rate of air accidents continues to decline in order to keep the level of fatalities low.

Developing a smart, green and integrated transport system, which includes aviation safety, is a key priority for the next three years of the Horizon 2020 funding programme, which was announced on October 27.

A consortium of experts from across the aerospace industry, including global giants Honeywell and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), teamed up with research institutions on the EU-funded A-PiMod project to look at how sophisticated software could relieve the burden of stress on pilots in the cockpit.

"Too high a workload can cause stress, which leads to mistakes," said Dr Helmut Tobben of DLR, which led the project. "This system could reduce the risk of accidents."

The system makes recommendations based on the condition of the aircraft and also the condition of the pilot. By measuring eye movements, gestures and inputs from the pilot, A-PiMod draws conclusions about their stress levels and their workload, and offers suggestions to the pilot which are adapted to the situation.

It cannot override pilots' decisions but can make suggestions to the crew about which tasks they should perform themselves and which they should let the autopilot take over.

There are other benefits too. "Variation of workload is a problem for flight crews," Dr Tobben said. "For example, on a flight taking off from a busy airport such as Paris and landing in New York, the first and last minutes of the flight will have a high workload. In between, for six hours the crew will not have much to do."

Uniform

A system like A-PiMod could lead to a much more uniform workload, with the intelligent autopilot taking over more tasks when pilots are busy. It could also free up time for the crew to undertake training programmes or other tasks in quieter moments.

The system has so far been tested on flight simulators, but one potential sticking point to rolling out a technology like this is data protection, says Dr Tobben.

"The pilots who tested the system were worried about the data the system collects about the performance of the pilots and whether it would be passed on to the airline," he said. But he is hopeful that those issues will be resolved. "I believe, sooner or later, we will have these systems."

Improved human-centered design is also at the heart of the EU-funded i-VISION project which uses virtual reality technology to evaluate cockpit configuration. The i-VISION concept stemmed from European aircraft manufacturer Airbus's wish to explore new flexible and low-cost tools for designing and evaluating aircraft cockpits.

Growing levels of new technology combined with new safety requirements and changing operational needs has meant the flight decks of airliners are becoming ever more complicated places for pilots.

"These elements comprise a complex workspace that allows (no) room for errors," explained Dr Dimitris Mavrikios, of LMS-University of Patras in Greece which led the project. "Thus they need to be tested thoroughly before and after the actual integration in the real cockpit for safety and security reasons."

Virtual environment

The i-VISION project uses a virtual environment to evaluate new cockpit components and how crews interact with them. Using a head-mounted display, a finger tracking system and a flight simulator, i-VISION analyses a stream of data from the flight instruments and about the pilots' behaviour.

It also makes use of semantic web technologies, which are digital languages specially developed to define and find connections in data by expressing that data in a way that machines can easily process.

Together they form a system that eliminates the need for costly and time-consuming physical mock-ups to be built. It can also be used to provide crew training.

"The semantic engine that is attached to the virtual reality framework, dramatically increases the usefulness and relevance of manipulated data to human operators," said Dr Mavrikios. "This makes virtual cockpits and interaction with them smarter than simple simulators."

The use of virtual reality reflects a growing trend across many industries, not just aerospace, added Dr Mavrikios.

"Virtual reality offers a unique and critical advantage when compared to the more conventional desktop simulation," he said. '(It has) the ability to obtain information directly from the user's actions and behaviour during the simulation of a scenario."

The i-VISION project, which finished last year, will soon have a concrete impact on how cockpits are developed. Airbus will be using the tool to experiment with new cockpit concepts, taking human factors into account early on in the design process.

Dr Mavrikios believes there is potential for much more use of virtual reality technology in many sectors but especially in aerospace and aviation, for flight training and real-time pilot assistance among other applications.

"The high-stakes nature of modern aviation where a mistake can come at a huge cost, has spurred on technological progress," he said. "The aviation industry has always been willing to try out new technologies for the sake of ensuring safety. As such, virtual reality has been welcomed by the aviation industry."
WASHINGTON, November 2, 2017  The NRF Foundation today announced eight teams as semi-finalists for the 2018 Student Challenge, a business case competition for NRF Student Association members to demonstrate their creativity and business acumen to retail executives, sponsored by KPMG. The finalists will attend the NRF Foundation GALA in New York City, where the top team will be announced January 14.

The purpose of the Student Challenge is to bring classroom learnings into a real-life business scenario, and this years concept delivered on that mission, NRF Foundation Executive Director Ellen Davis said. We look forward to seeing this years finalists thrive as they use this experience combined with their incredible creativity and educational backgrounds to make a difference in the retail industry upon graduation.

The Foundation has partnered with STORY  a New York City retailer that takes the point of view of a magazine, changes its selection like a gallery and sells things like a store  and KPMG for the fifth year of the competition.

Each team, composed of two to four students, was required to select one of three sponsors  3M, Staples, or CVS  and then develop a 25-page written pitch and a 90-second pitch video to convince STORY CEO and founder Rachel Shechtman on why and how their proposal should come to life. Each proposal was created to provide an experience for the customer through selected merchandise, marketing approach, social media campaigns and carefully selected events.

Executives from over 20 retail companies will participate in two rounds of judging. Judges will have access to a teams pitch presentation and video and will score them against the determined criteria. In the second round, judges will take part in a teleconference with teams and ask questions about the pitch presentation and select the top three teams. In the final round, the final three teams will present live to a panel of retail executives in New York City.

The top three teams will receive $5,000 for each participating student. The second-place team will receive $2,500 for each student, while the third-place team will receive $1,500 for each student.

The following teams along with their sponsors have been named semi-finalists. To learn more, click here.

Columbia College Chicago

Chicago/3M
InVue Bolsters Software Offering For Retailers Through Acquiring

InVue entered into an agreement to acquire MicroSigns Inc., a leading provider of digital retail content and pricing systems headquartered in Montreal, Quebec.

Through the acquisition, InVue expands their software offerings and further strengthens their leadership position in retail security and merchandising solutions. MicroSigns will become part of InVues Software Solutions division, which includes security platform Access Manager as well as InVue Insight, a merchandising analytics and planogram compliance system for retailers.

This acquisition is part of our strategy to broaden our offering to help our customers merchandise more effectively and consequently, increase their profitability. We are now able to offer our retail and brand partners an enhanced experience for their customers which includes digital messaging and analytics., said InVues CEO Jim Sankey. MicroSigns digital messaging platform allows retailers to instantly update or change what is displayed on devices within their stores, eliminating traditional price tags and messaging, making it an ideal complement to our existing software solutions.

MicroSigns founder & CEO, Rene-Pierre St. Laurent, commented, We are thrilled to be part of InVue. The partnership will allow us to offer our solutions to a broader range of customers as well as invest and expand our product portfolio.

The pioneer in security for merchandise on display, InVue has over 40 years experience providing global retailers and brands innovative ways to increase sales while securing their merchandise. InVue continues that legacy with the addition of MicroSigns to the portfolio.

About InVue

Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, InVue provides global brands, retailers and businesses with innovative merchandising, software and security solutions. InVue products promote and protect retail merchandise seamlessly to help customers improve their profits.

About MicroSigns

Established in 2003 and headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, MicroSigns has developed a unique platform specifically tailored to meet the operating challenges of todays retailers. MicroSigns consumer-facing devices and on device apps  improve the in-store experience for both shoppers and staff through custom digital messaging.

Other Point of Sale News:
By Matt Spetalnick and Prak Chan Thul

WASHINGTON/PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Just days after the killing of a prominent Cambodian government critic last year during a crackdown by the country's longtime leader, President Barack Obama dispatched Washingtons chief human rights envoy to Phnom Penh to attend the activist's funeral.

In meetings with Cambodian authorities, then-Assistant Secretary of State Tom Malinowski warned the military not to intervene in the political turmoil or else crucial U.S. ties would suffer, sending a clear message that America stood behind the opposition.

It was one example of the kind of high-level, rapid-response U.S. diplomacy that President Donald Trump has so far avoided in Cambodia even as the Southeast Asian nation  together with many of its neighbours - has lurched increasingly away from the democratic path.

As Trump prepares to depart on his first Asia tour, which will bring him face-to-face with a number of leaders with poor human rights records, his administration has been taking a more muted approach than his predecessor to such concerns, said current and former U.S. officials, rights activists and diplomats.

In addition to the situation in Cambodia, they cite what they see as a slow, overly cautious response to Myanmars Rohingya crisis, Trump's failure to publicly call out autocratic leaders he meets over rights abuses, an eagerness to engage with the Philippines' controversial president, Rodrigo Duterte, and a less vocal approach to human rights in China.

National security adviser H.R. McMaster pushed back against the notion that Trump would downplay human rights on his Nov. 3-14 trip, saying he would speak out "about the importance of promoting freedom and individual rights."

When asked why Trump condemns U.S. adversaries such as Syria and Venezuela on human rights grounds but not the Philippines, Turkey and Russia, McMaster told reporters on Thursday: "How much does it help to yell about these problems? It hasn't really delivered in recent history anyway."

Story continues

AMERICA FIRST

The dominant view within Trumps White House is that under his America First world-view human rights concerns related to allies and strategically important countries should be managed gently to avoid impeding job-creating business deals or undercutting security efforts such as isolating North Korea, several Trump aides said.

Soft-pedalling human rights may also help Washington avoid alienating countries in Southeast Asia that it wants to keep from moving further into China's orbit, those aides said. Beijing puts little pressure on its neighbours over such issues.

This approach, however, has sown frustration among some U.S. diplomats who deal with human rights and disappointed dissidents in several countries, according to Reuters interviews with more than a dozen people involved in these matters in Washington and Asian capitals. The failure so far to fill several senior Asia and human rights posts at the State Department is a further handicap, they say.

Obama's former top Asia adviser, Evan Medeiros, is one of those critical of what he sees as the Trump administration's lower-key approach to human rights. Its a false dichotomy to say that somehow a focus on human rights detracts from American security or economic well-being, he said.

Even under Obama, however, there were some in the human rights community who at times found fault with U.S. actions.

While the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was praised for stressing human rights in Asia-Pacific trade negotiations, he faced criticism that he suspended sanctions on Myanmar prematurely and lifted a ban on the sale of lethal arms to Vietnam.

He spoke eloquently and sometimes delivered, said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. But he also didnt fully use the carrots and sticks of American power.

Though Trump has said little on human rights beyond condemning adversaries such as North Korea and Venezuela, United Nations envoy Nikki Haley has been one of the few top aides who have spoken out more broadly. She visited sub-Saharan Africa and pressed leaders to tackle political and humanitarian problems.

'WE ARE NOT HERE TO LECTURE'

Trump set the tone in Saudi Arabia in May when he told an audience that included monarchs and strongmen from the Muslim world: We are not here to lecture.

He has hosted several autocratic leaders - including Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who had been frozen out of White House visits since leading a 2014 military coup - but has steered clear of publicly criticizing their records on human rights.

Such visits under Obama usually included addressing rights concerns, the Democratic president's former aides said.

McMaster insisted that Trump preferred to deal with such issues "quietly in every relationship."

One closely watched meeting will be with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte. Trump praised him in a phone call in April for a bloody anti-drugs campaign. An administration official told reporters human rights would be part of their "frank and friendly discussions."

But the government in Manila has been feeling less heat from the Trump administration about extrajudicial killings linked to drugs crackdown, according to a foreign ministry official.

Its a very different White House under President Donald Trump, not like under President Barack Obama, who pushed human rights hard during his term, the official told Reuters. We are not hearing this from the White House.

Another issue expected to be front and centre is Myanmars Rohingya crisis.

Trumps critics, including Democratic lawmakers, have chided the administration for what they have seen as a halting response. U.S. officials have been reluctant to label the situation as ethnic cleansing even though the United Nations has used the term. Myanmar rejects that accusation, saying action was needed to combat terrorism.

Two months after an outbreak of violence that sent more than half a million Rohingya Muslims fleeing into Bangladesh, Washington has now sent a senior delegation, announced a planned visit by Tillerson on Nov. 15, and is threatening modest sanctions.

CAMBODIA CRACKDOWN

When Kem Ley, a popular Cambodian political commentator, was killed by a gunman in July 2016, Malinowski, the State Department official, flew to Phnom Penh just days later and met top aides to Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has ruled for more than three decades.

Malinowskis stern words helped give local diplomats leverage to press rights concerns behind the scenes, said one U.S. official involved in Southeast Asia diplomacy.

This year Hun Sen has intensified his crackdown, including the arrest of opposition leader Kem Sokha, while also stepping up rhetoric against Washington.

The State Department has largely limited its response to statements of deep concern.

Cambodian government spokesman Phay Siphan said Cambodia had not felt pressure from Washington and Trump was clearly taking a different approach than Obama.

"Their tone is lighter. Before, they would bully," said ruling party parliamentarian Sok Eysan. The change under Trump, he added, "means we are on the right path towards democracy," an assertion that contradicts human rights advocates who say the political climate has deteriorated.

In Vietnam, dissident Nguyen Quang A expressed pessimism about Trumps visit.

Nguyen, who was detained by authorities on his way to meet Obama during a visit last year, said: I don't think Trump will talk about human rights. Just look at his words and actions.

The White House has not signalled that Trump plans to meet any dissidents during his Asia trip, something Obama frequently did in his foreign travels.

In Beijing, some U.S. diplomats expressed frustration over what they see as botched messaging signalling a retreat on human rights. But the officials said the administration has supported work on behalf of Chinese dissidents.

A Beijing-based diplomat from another Western country said, however, that U.S. participation in meetings between Western allies to coordinate strategy on human rights was much reduced, for example, when it came to putting out joint statements on issues of concern.

China has been relieved to see Trump giving human rights less weight, according to a Chinese diplomat in Washington.

But Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said: As for human rights, we are always willing to have constructive dialogue with countries of the world on the basis of mutual respect.

(Additional reporting by by Jason Szep in Washington, Antoni Slodkowski in Yangon, Manuel Mogato and Karen Lema in Manila, Michael Martina and Ben Blanchard in Beijing, Matthew Tostevin in Bangkok; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Ross Colvin)
One year after the arrest of its charismatic chief, Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party defiantly insists it is the only true opposition against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but faces an uphill battle to remain a major force. Selahattin Demirtas was detained in a police raid on his home overnight on November 4 last year. His then co-leader Figen Yuksekdag was detained in a simultaneous swoop. While the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) splits all its main posts between men and women to ensure gender parity, Demirtas was and remains the main face of the party, an impassioned speaker with an instinct for political symbolism. The HDP first entered the Turkish parliament after the June 2015 elections and is now the second-largest opposition party after the secular Republican People's Party (CHP), a breakthrough largely credited to Demirtas. Demirtas and Yuksekdag were among 12 HDP lawmakers rounded up under the state of emergency imposed after the July 15, 2016 failed coup, which the party strongly opposed. Now, nine HDP MPs remain in prison including Demirtas and Yuksekdag. Yuksekdag was stripped of her MP status in February and she stepped down as the party's co-chair in May. Demirtas remains co-leader but his incarceration severely limits his ability to communicate with the outside world. "The (government) is trying to paralyse us with these attacks but I can in fact say that they have not succeeded," Serpil Kemalbay, who replaced Yuksekdag as co-leader, told AFP. - 'Not easy to shut up' - Before his arrest, Demirtas was the only politician in Turkey who matched Erdogan's rhetorical skills, even earning himself the moniker the "Kurdish Obama". But now Demirtas, 44, who is being held at a prison in Edirne, northwest Turkey, risks up to 142 years in jail if convicted. He and the other HDP suspects are accused of links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), blacklisted as a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies. Despite being held for a year, Demirtas has yet to go on trial on those charges. But HDP officials insist he retains his political weight. "He is in prison but his words reach the people," HDP MP Filiz Kerestecioglu told AFP. "He is not a person easily shut up." He has written poetry, produced artwork, tweeted while in prison through a third party and even written a selection of short stories entitled "Seher" ("Dawn" in Turkish). His publisher Dipnot said Seher was sold out within three days after 20,000 copies were bought in September while 130,000 copies have been put on sale. - 'Attracted non-Kurd votes' - But some observers question whether the party can remain a major political force without its most recognisable figure who managed to expand its popularity beyond the traditional Kurdish electorate. "Demirtas was attracting especially non-Kurdish leftist and liberal voters," said Burak Bilgehan Ozpek, author of the upcoming book "The Peace Process between Turkey and the Kurds: Anatomy of a Failure". "Without Demirtas, it is not surprising to expect the HDP to adopt an ethnic and radical agenda," he said, adding it was not an "influential" party anymore. Ankara accuses the HDP of merely being a political front for the PKK, which has battled the Turkish state for over three decades in search of greater rights and powers for the Kurdish minority. But even Demirtas never succeeded in fully distancing the HDP from the outlawed group, a predicament not helped by the fact his own brother fought for the PKK in Iraq. But Aykan Erdemir, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said Demirtas' imprisonment had "not made a dent in the HDP leader's charisma, but seems to have strengthened it". "Demirtas could end up as an even more powerful campaigner for the Kurdish cause from his prison cell," he argued. - 'Deliver a solution' - But the party has been hit hard by arrests. Some 11,500 officials, members and HDP sympathisers have been detained since the end of the PKK ceasefire in July 2015 while 4,537 have been formally arrested. A total of five MPs lost their lawmaker status while authorities have opened investigations into 55 out of 59 HDP MPs, the party says. Opinion polls -- to be treated with caution in Turkey -- suggest it is currently well short of the 10 percent threshold needed to get into parliament. But Kemalbay expressed determination that the HDP would pass the threshold to enter parliament again in general elections in November 2019. "We may not be able to see this because of the media embargo but the people see the reality," she said. "They see the HDP as the force to deliver a solution" to the Kurdish issue.
When Sayfullo Saipov used a truck to mow people down on a New York street, ultimately killing eight according to terror charges, he guaranteed his former homeland Uzbekistan would receive the worst kind of headlines. People from ex-Soviet Central Asia have been at the heart of high-profile attacks this year in the United States, Russia, Sweden and Turkey. Yet Saipov, according to official accounts, came into contact with radical Islamic ideologies not in the country of his birth, but in the one he adopted seven years ago: the US. Saipov moved to America in 2010 under a visa programme -- President Donald Trump's response to Tuesday's attack was to announce tougher vetting for immigrants. "Most of these attackers come from rather secular backgrounds and tend to radicalise in their country of destination rather than origin," said Yan Matusevich, research officer at the Vienna-headquartered International Centre for Migration Policy Development. Thousands of former residents of the region's five countries known as the "stans" -- -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan -- have joined the ranks of the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq since 2011. However incidents involving violent extremism at home have been relatively rare. - Global form of radicalisation - But if one single theme does link the Central Asia-born assailants of very different backgrounds accused of attacks this year in New York, Istanbul, Saint Petersburg and Stockholm, it is migration. Uzbek national Abdulgadir Masharipov, who killed 39 people in a January 1 attack on a nightclub in Istanbul had lived and trained as a militant in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to Turkish authorities. Another Uzbek, Rakhmat Akilov, who ploughed a truck into a crowd of pedestrians in Stockholm in April, killing five, was a failed asylum seeker reportedly at risk of deportation. Akbarjon Djalilov, identified as the 22-year-old bomber behind the Saint Petersburg metro blast in April that killed 16 people including himself was born in Kyrgyzstan but left for Russia with his family aged 17. While the series of attacks appear to form a "Central Asian pattern" Matusevich argues they are part of "a broader, more global form of radicalisation" and the attackers' "actual life situations were quite diverse". Saipov worked as an Uber driver in New Jersey. Uzbekistan's government has said that there was nothing to indicate he was an extremist before leaving. Saipov was described by his former neighbours in the capital Tashkent "in very positive terms", said the government's statement on Wednesday. "His parents followed traditional Islam and were never seen in connection with any extremist branches," it added. - 'Adept at delivering message' - Looking for a common thread, analysts focus on exposure to online extremist content, particularly produced by the Islamic State group in whose name Saipov committed the attack, according to New York police. "The only thing we can say about commonalities between Saipov and (Istanbul attacker) Masharipov is that they were Uzbeks living outside the country with access to Islamic State propaganda material," said Deirdre Tynan, Central Asia Project Director for the International Crisis Group. While stressing it is "too early" to say if Saipov had direct contact with IS, Tynan says the organisation has been adept at delivering its message in Russian and Central Asian languages across a variety of platforms. Sleek IS propaganda appearing to target Central Asians gained international attention in 2015 when a child identifying as a Kazakh IS recruit was shown in a video executing an alleged Russian spy. Another video released months later featured a former special forces chief from Tajikistan who defected to IS. IS's sophisticated media strategy has been critical in helping recruit Central Asians, setting it apart from other radical organisations operating in the region, Tynan says. But rights monitors say the group's global prominence has also given former Soviet governments a pretext to intensify crackdowns on devout Muslims. Likewise in Russia, since the April bombing in Saint Petersburg, security services have visibly increased raids targeting Central Asian migrants, sometimes claiming to have foiled extremist plots. "You get the impression that some of these arrests have a political thrust, to identify (to the public) an enemy of sorts," Svetlana Gannushkina, a renowned Russian rights defender whose work focuses on migration, told AFP. "And who are Russia's enemies? Well, the external enemy is the United States, but the internal enemy is (Central Asian) migrants," Gannushkina said.
In a cloud of ochre dust, a column of army pickup trucks slowly advances on a dirt road near Mali's border with Burkina Faso -- one of the world's hotspots for jihadism. The national flag of Mali flaps in the wind: an appropriate symbol for a brand-new force whose first task is to assure terrified locals that governance is returning to lawless lands. "We are here to secure the zone and to reassure people that they can live a normal life," Lieutenant Gaoussou Diara, who commands 100 Malian troops in the convoy, told AFP. "The track between Tessit and Kayrougouten (in central Mali) is a major route, used by traders and the population." The new force, called the G5 Sahel, aims at pooling the military resources of five desert nations -- Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger -- that are reeling from years of jihadist attacks. Thousands of civilians have died, many of them in suicide bombings, and tens of thousands have fled their homes. Villagers or nomads who fall under jihadist rule are subject to vicious punishments in the supposed name of Islamic justice. The idea behind the 5,000-troop force dates back to November 2015, but it took another two years to become operational, with its first forays launched this week. Funding remains a major challenge, given the extreme poverty of the five nations. France, the former colonial power in the Sahel, is the scheme's biggest political backer and is providing a hefty dose of support to help the multinational force get going. - Border fear -- Priority number one is to re-establish authority in the frontier region, especially in the "tri-border" area where the frontiers of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso converge. Here, the stony landscape, sparsely interspersed by trees, sprawls to the horizon. It is nominally inhabited by nomadic cattle farmers -- but it has also become a blood-stained haven for jihadist groups linked to the so-called Islamic State and al-Qaeda, and for traffickers of almost every hue. In Tillit, a Malian village located several dozen kilometres from the Burkinabe border, bears the scars of these overlords. In the middle of a cluster of poor houses made of daub stands a sign bearing the jihadist insignia. The village's mayor and teacher, threatened, have fled. On the school's blackboard is written the date that children last had a lesson: June 1, 2017. "I cannot talk to you, I cannot sell anything," the owner of a modest grocery apologises to the visitor. Mamadou, an interpreter, explains. "The people here are afraid. The Malian security forces do not often come here." - Five-nation force - On paper, the G5 Sahel plans to number up to 5,000 military, police and civilian troops by March 2018, placed under the leadership of a Malian general, Didier Dacko, at a command post in the Niger capital Niamey. The troops will comprise two battalions each from Mali and Niger and one each from Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania. In these very early stages, the national contingents are not being mixed, as operational procedures are hammered out. And French support -- providing training, air and armoured backup and logistical support -- is critical. About 20 armoured vehicles drawn from France's forces in the Sahel, known as Operation Barkhane, were part in the G5's first border convoy this week. France intervened militarily in northern Mali in 2013 to help drive out al-Qaeda-linked gunmen. "We don't have the same resources as Barkhane, but we have acquired a lot of experience with them," said a Malian lieutenant who spoke on condition of identification only by his first name, Diara. He had just ordered his troops to carry out security checks on two motorbikes that came near the convoy. "Today, we are the ones who are leading the patrol, and our French friends are in support." A French infantry captain, Gauthier, pointed out that the Malians had a unique skills set. "This is their country, and it is easier for them to distinguish between a farmer and a terrorist -- and their knowledge of the terrain is critical." As if to prove the point, his armoured vehicle was guided by Malian troops to the safest point for crossing a dried-out riverbed. "The goal is for these countries to be able to work together to ensure their own security. We are there to help them gain capability," said a French lieutenant colonel, who gave his name as Marc-Antoine. "Ultimately, these operations aim at providing an exit door for French forces" in the Sahel, he said. "We do not wish to become an army of occupation."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other party leaders Friday vowed to push on with thorny coalition talks and refrain from personal insults, despite deep differences on hot-button issues from immigration to climate change. Merkel, who won September elections without a clear majority and must now forge a multi-party government, predicted that negotiations would continue to be "difficult" but added that she believed an agreement could be reached "if we all try hard". Leaders of her conservatives, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and ecologist Greens said they would meet again next week to hammer out compromises, having so far agreed only on relatively uncontentious issues like the need to support families, improve education and boost digital infrastructure. FDP delegate Wolfgang Kubicki said that, while they seek common ground despite deep ideological and policy differences, all sides had agreed to tone down public sniping and name-calling that has threatened to poison the atmosphere. "If we keep throwing pies at each others' faces, we don't need to keep talking," he said. The common goal is to cobble together by year's end an unprecedented federal "Jamaica coalition" -- nicknamed after the parties' colours, which match those of the Caribbean nation's flag -- to govern Europe's top economy. A breakdown of the talks would likely trigger new elections, which could cost Merkel's conservatives particularly dearly and further boost the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party which has entered parliament for the first time. "If the alliance does not come together, Merkel is finished," weekly newspaper Die Zeit said. - 'Mother Teresa' type - The negotiators can point to a handful of accords so far on issues including maintaining a balanced budget, working toward full employment and fighting poverty in old age. Tough battles lie ahead on the Greens' push to shutter coal plants and phase out fossil fuel vehicles to meet Germany's climate goals -- red flag demands to the pro-business FDP. Negotiators will also have to square the Greens' wish for an open multicultural society that welcomes refugees with the harder line and tough law-and-order emphasis of Merkel's Bavarian sister party the CSU. But, aside from the tricky policy issues and battle for cabinet posts, the personal chemistry among the wildly different personalities in the mix has so far proved volatile. Kubicki, who annoyed the Greens' Goering-Eckhardt at the start of the talks with a rakish kiss of the hand, accused her this week of being a self-righteous "Mother Teresa" type. "You get the feeling that if you have a different opinion you are a bad person," he complained. Alexander Dobrindt of the CSU has cautioned the Greens against spreading "leftist nonsense" and accused them of "provoking a breakdown" of talks by sticking to a welcoming stance toward refugees. "Anyone who fails to see the AfD's success and its links to the refugee crisis is not really serious about forming a government," he said, referring to the anti-immigration party whose support surged to nearly 13 percent in the election. - 'Rounds of poker' - Political scientist Ursula Muench dismissed many of the broadsides as play-acting by seasoned professionals. But she said there were nevertheless "fundamental" differences, particularly between the CSU and the Greens, on globalisation and cultural identity that would be tough to bridge. "These aren't about little compromises you can make -- they revolve around the question 'how open or sheltered do you want to make German society?'" Muench, who runs the Academy for Political Education near Munich, told AFP. "Even if you manage to bend over backwards, how can you convince your own base that you still represent their interests?" The camps are racing toward a November 25 deadline, when the Greens' notoriously combative rank-and-file will vote on whether enough progress has been made to enter into full-blown coalition talks. Veteran Greens lawmaker Juergen Trittin pointed darkly to the fact that in some policy areas "we haven't even agreed on what we disagree on". The hope is that the risk of no deal will focus minds to tackle the thorniest items on the docket. "The parties are warming up for the decisive rounds of poker," the daily Magdeburger Volksstimme said. "It was clear from the start that the road to Jamaica would be tough and fraught with risk. Don't expect miracles."
A view of village of Hader seen from Jubata al-Khashab in Quneitra province, Syria, November 3, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Faqir

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Israel's military said on Friday it was ready to protect a frontier village in Syria held by the Syrian government, where Damascus said jihadist rebels exploded a car killing at least nine people.

The statement was an unusually explicit Israeli pledge to intervene in the war in Syria, where Israeli officials are voicing deeper alarm at the role of Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, which are fighting alongside the Syrian government.

The Israeli air force says it has struck arms convoys of the Syrian military and Hezbollah nearly 100 times in recent years. Its most recent strike was on Wednesday according to the Syrian government.

Quneitra province in Syria, where Hader village is located, is particularly sensitive for Israel because it lies next to the Golan Heights area that Israel captured from Syria in 1967.

Syrian rebel factions launched an attack on Syrian government territory in Quneitra on Friday, with the aim of connecting two insurgent-held areas. The attack included the car bomb in Hader, which Syrian state media attributed to the jihadist group formerly known as the Nusra Front.

A military media unit run by Hezbollah said the insurgents attacked from three directions and made no gains after heavy fighting during the day. It accused Israel of firing a surface-to-surface missile at a Syrian army position in the area.

Syrian state media accused Israel of giving various kinds of support to the Nusra Front. In its statement, the Israeli military denied any involvement with jihadist groups in the fighting.

The village of Hader is populated by members of the Druze, a minority religious sect present in Syria, Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Lebanon.

Israel's Druze, some of whom have reached the senior echelons of the Israeli military and government, have been calling for help on behalf of their brethren in Syria, both at home and abroad. The flashpoint village of Hader has been of particular concern.

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After Friday's car bomb there, Syrian state television broadcast footage it said was of residents of the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights trying to cross the border to help people in Hader.

Druze residents tried to cross into Syria, but were held back by Israeli soldiers, Israel's military said on Twitter.

"The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) is prepared and ready to assist the residents of the village and prevent damage to or the capture of the village Hader out of commitment to the Druze population," the military said in a statement.

Israeli officials have previously said they were looking at the possibility of assisting Hader, whose residents have Druze kinsman lobbying on their behalf in Israel.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem and Angus McDowall in Beirut; Editing by Robin Pomeroy, Peter Graff and Andrew Heavens)
File photo of Singapores currency. (PHOTO: Getty Images)

In one of the largest money laundering court cases heard in Singapore, a man was jailed 60 months on Friday (3 November) for receiving more than $4 million of illegal funds via a company and funnelling a portion of the money out of the country.

Ambrose Dionysius was found guilty on 18 July this year on four counts of abetting his company in receiving stolen property and two counts of receiving the monies in his personal capacity after an eight-day trial in the State Courts. The 60-year-old Singaporean was also convicted on five counts of trafficking the stolen money out of Singapore.

Dionysius was a de facto director of Hayashi Construction and Engineering and a signatory of the companys Bank of China (BOC) bank account, which received the stolen funds in July 2013. He had supplied bank account details to an individual to allow Hayashis account to receive the illegal funds.

On 3 July 2013, employees from the RBC Royal Bank (RBC Bank) in Trinidad and Tobago had received a wire transfer instruction via an email of a person who was purportedly from the National Insurance Property Development Company (Nipdec).

Nipdec has a bank account with RBC Bank. However the bank employees didnt realise that the request had come from a email with the wrong domain name  Nipderc, instead of Nipdec.

The same request was repeated from the sham email a few days after the first request, resulting in RBC Bank transferring 671,586 euros ($1,095,075) out of Nipdecs bank account into Hayashis Bank of China bank account in Singapore on 8 July 2013. Another sum of money was transferred to Hayashi on 12 July after RBC Bank received a third request.

A total equivalent to $4,417,866 was channelled into Hayashis bank account. RBC Bank, which brought a civil claim against Hayashi in the High Court, was able to recover a sum amounting to $3.4 million, leaving it with a net loss of about $1.0 million.

An employee of RBC Bank has since given evidence that the bank had been a victim of a fraud and that it had fully reimbursed Nipdec. A general manager from Nipdec said in an affidavit submitted to the court that Nipdec had never dealt with Hayashi and that it did not have any reason to make payments to Hayashi.

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Dionysius said during the trial that he did not expect the remittances and was shocked and afraid when Hayashi received the monies. Despite his surprise, Dionysius did not inform authorities of the monies.

The prosecution said that Dionysius decided to withdraw the money but he knew moving the entire sum at one go would raise red flags with the bank. As a result, he withdrew $400,000 on 10 July 2013 and trafficked $100,000 out of Singapore that same day. Dionysius made more withdrawals and channelled a sum of money to a Malaysian associate, Wendy Song Li Woon. By 12 July 2013, 90 per cent of the stolen funds had been transferred.

To cover up the remittances to his account, Dionysius prepared a sham iron ore contract for BOC Singapore, which supposedly was related to the delivery of iron ore. However, Dionysius admitted while on the stand that the contract was not meant to be carried out and that there was no agreement for Nipdec to purchase any iron ore.

The prosecution called for at least 68 months jail for Dionysius, arguing that his offences were carefully planned and that he took active steps to avoid detection, as proven by the fraudulent iron ore contract.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Leong Weng Tat added that a deterrence sentence was needed to protect Singapores reputation as a clean and trusted financial centre.

The prosecution pointed out that Dionysius was motivated by personal gain as Hayashi was promised 10 per cent commission for allowing its bank account to serve as a conduit for the illicit money, and Dionysius would receive a share of the commission.

In mitigation documents, Dionysiuss lawyer, S Radakrishnan, said that his client suffers from diabetes and colorectal cancer. He said that a long period of incarceration would have a negative impact on Dionysiuss health.

The defence counsel added that Dionysius is the sole breadwinner of his family who had been working as a part-time driver prior to the case. He was suspended from his job by the Land Transport Authority. The lawyer said that the prosecutions sentence was too harsh given that his client had not received any money.

In sentencing Dionysius, District Judge Imran Abdul Hamid said it was fortunate that Dionysius did not profit from the offences.

For dishonestly receiving stolen property, Dionysius could have been jailed up to five years and/or fined. For transferring property believed to be from criminal conduct, Dionysius could have been jailed up to seven years and/or fined a maximum $500,000.
Philippine marines from the Special Warfare Group stand to attention during their arrival from Marawi at port area in metro Manila, Philippines October 30, 2017. REUTERS/Dondi Tawatao (Reuters)

MANILA (Reuters) - More than a week after the Philippines declared victory over pro-Islamic State militants in Marawi, security officials on Friday expressed concern over lone wolf attacks, with Australia issuing a "high threat" alert about travel to Manila.

Skirmishes continued between soldiers and holdouts from the Islamist militant group that seized a lakeside town on the southern island of Mindanao. More than 1,100 people, including 165 troops, were killed in the five-month conflict.

"One concern after Marawi is the possibility of threats from lone wolves," defence department spokesman Arsenio Andolong told reporters, two days after an Uzbek plowed into New York pedestrians and bikers in what U.S. officials called a terrorist act.

The army remained on high alert after President Rodrigo Duterte said five cities in Mindanao were potential targets of Islamist militants after their defeat in Marawi, he added.

On Friday, the Australian embassy issued a travel advisory, warning of "a high threat of terrorist attack" in the Philippines, including Manila, the capital.

"Be alert to possible threats around locations that have a low level of protective security and places known to be possible terrorist targets," it said.

It told Australians to reconsider travel plans to eastern Mindanao and avoid its central and western regions.

The advisory was similar to one issued early this year, said military spokesman Major-General Restituto Padilla.

"It was only a reiteration, there is no credible threat," he added.

Two days ago, army soldiers killed the righthand man of Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon, the emir of pro-Islamic State militants in Southeast Asia, who was gunned down last month. His death hastened the collapse of the Marawi-based militant group, leading to its defeat.

(Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Decked out with flashing lights and cartoon characters, with loud music pumping, rickety bicycle rickshaws have become a hit with tourists visiting the historic Malaysian city of Malacca. Once a common sight in many parts of Malaysia, the three-wheelers, known locally as trishaws, were largely phased out as cars became more affordable and took over the country's roads. But in Malacca, a former colonial settlement that is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of Malaysia's top tourist draws, the pedal-powered vehicles live on. They have adapted to the modern era in a bid to appeal to tourists, adding figures of cartoon characters such as Hello Kitty and Pokemon's Pikachu and blinking fairy lights that are turned on at night. Their sound systems blare out an eclectic mix of music, from techno to Bollywood hits and Chinese ballads. "Malacca's trishaws are unique for their decorations -- other trishaws, they don't come close," said driver Mohamad Isa Mursidi, whose three-wheeled steed was decorated with Hello Kitty dolls and a bouquet of plastic flowers in a heart-shaped frame. When they are not ferrying visitors around Malacca, the rickshaws can usually be found hanging around the historic central square in the shadow of the Stadthuys, an imposing red building that was the governor's office during Dutch colonial rule. A 30-minute ride on a selected route around some of the city's historic buildings costs around 25 ringgit (US$6). The noisy, garish trishaws may not be to the taste of everyone visiting the ancient city. But for many heading to Malacca, a trip in one of the colourful rickshaws is all part of the experience. "It gives a romantic feeling to the heart at night," said local tourist Ganapathy Kuppusamy. Malacca, on peninsular Malaysia's southwest cost, has a history dating back to around the 15th century. With a strategic location on the Straits of Malacca, it became a wealthy entrepot and attracted traders from around the world. It was colonised first by the Portuguese, later by the Dutch and finally by the British in the 19th century, when it became part of the Straits Settlements with Penang, in modern-day Malaysia, and Singapore.
Russia on Friday accused the United States of committing a "war crime" in Syria, saying its army had denied Syrian refugees access to humanitarian aid. "The most severe humanitarian situation remains in the Al-Tanf region," the Russian defence ministry's Syria reconciliation centre said, referring to a garrison where US and other foreign troops train anti-Islamic State group fighters. Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees from the Al-Rukban refugee camp on the Jordanian border are deprived of humanitarian aid because of the United States, which "illegally placed their military base there and forbids approach within 55 kilometres (35 miles) under the threat of death," the centre said. "The actions of the US military and the so-called international coalition in Al-Tanf are a gross violation of international humanitarian law and could qualify as a war crime," it said in a statement quoted by Russian news agencies. Earlier this month Moscow accused the US of supporting IS jihadists and enabling them to mount counter-offensive attacks in eastern Syria from near the Al-Tanf garrison. Al-Tanf, on the key highway connecting Damascus with Baghdad, has been repeatedly menaced by a surge of Iran-backed troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Washington says the garrison is used by US and British special forces to train rebel Syrian groups fighting IS jihadists. Russia has been flying a bombing campaign in Syria since 2015, when it stepped in to support the Assad regime and tipped the conflict in his favour.
Russia's decision two years ago to intervene militarily in Syria appears to have saved Bashar al-Assads regime but a peace settlement seems ever more elusive, analysts say. On Friday, Syrian government troops retook Deir Ezzor, the last major city where the Islamic State group had a presence. Assad's forces did so with Russian air support. The successful action edged the Syrian president closer to what looks like victory in the six-year-long war. "Russia has won the war," foreign affairs analyst Vladimir Frolov told AFP, "but it remains unclear if it can win peace in Syria." When the Russian army began its bombing campaign in support of Assad's government in September 2015, the regime seemed fragile and its army was exhausted and demoralised by major setbacks against rebel groups and jihadists. Moscow demonstrated its military force by sending helicopters, submarines, bomber aircraft and long distance missiles to hit groups fighting the regime. Supported by Russia's unrelenting bombing, Assad's forces regained control of more than half the country, recapturing the ancient city of Palmyra from IS in a symbolic victory and chasing rebel groups out of their stronghold of Aleppo in the north. - 'Get out of Syria' - The difficulty for Moscow now is to balance its military success with a political process and put an end to a conflict that has killed more than 330,000 people and displaced millions. "The strategy is simple: get out of Syria through the negotiation process," said Alexander Shumilin, a Middle East scholar at the Institute for US and Canadian Studies. "It is clear that these military operations will not lead to political solutions, without which nothing can be achieved." The attempts for peace talks under Moscow's watch started in January this year with the first conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, when regime envoys and representatives of Syrian rebel groups that still control considerable territories gathered for the first time. Initiated by Assad's allies Russia and Iran, the Astana negotiations led to the creation of "de-escalation zones," which limit the violence inside designated areas without implementing a real cease fire. Under the agreement that also involves rebels' backer Turkey, Russian military police were deployed to monitor the zones. The Astana talks have run in parallel to repeated negotiations held in Geneva with the backing of the United Nations. The latter have failed to gain traction. The fate of Assad remains a huge stumbling block, preventing global players from reaching a peace settlement over Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly blocked Western efforts to oust Assad but his departure remains a critical point Syrian opposition groups insist on. - 'Never ending trap' - Frolov said Moscow could not and did not want to remove Assad. "Russia expects Assad's regime to stay forever with slight modifications and embellishments sold internationally as an all-inclusive national reconciliation government," he said. Alexei Malashenko, head of research at the Dialogue of Civilisations Institute, added: "Russia has found itself in a never ending trap because it cannot reach a consensus on Syria." He also said that Moscow cannot bear the costs of reconstructing the country alone. Aware of the deadlock, Russia, Turkey and Iran announced a new initiative this week, pledging to bring Assad's regime and its opponents together for a "congress" in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on November 18. Moscow said 33 Syrian organisations including pro-regime forces and the full spectrum of opposition groups had been invited. But Syrian opposition groups in exile have said they will boycott the talks, calling them a joke. "Sochi will not work because Assad, supported by Iran, is uncompromising and thinks he has nothing to sacrifice," said Shumilin. "Assad wants a military victory while Russia wants negotiations."
Syria's army has seized Deir Ezzor from the Islamic State group, state media said Friday, driving the jihadists from the last major city where they were present. "The army announces full control of Deir Ezzor city," state television said in a breaking news alert, citing sources on the ground. State news agency SANA also reported that Deir Ezzor had been "fully liberated." State television reported that engineering units from the army were combing captured neighbourhoods to defuse mines and other explosives. On Thursday, a reporter contributing to AFP saw widespread destruction in the city, with whole buildings hit by air strikes or artillery fire crumpled into themselves and streets strewn with rubble. Trenches dug by IS fighters to defend their positions were still visible as government minesweepers worked. Syrian troops and allied fighters backed by Russian air power have been battling inside the eastern city since September, when they broke an IS siege of nearly three years on government-held districts. In recent days they have advanced, capturing a string of neighbourhoods and encircling remaining IS fighters. The city is the provincial capital of surrounding Deir Ezzor province, an oil-rich region that sits on the county's eastern border with Iraq. The province was once largely held by IS, though parts of Deir Ezzor city stayed under government control throughout the jihadist group's reign. IS is now facing twin assaults in the province, from the army as well as US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters. The jihadist group has lost much of the territory it once held in the province. Its most important remaining position is the town of Albu Kamal on the Iraqi border. More than 330,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.
Sayfullo Saipov, the suspected driver who killed eight people in New York on Tuesday. (Photo: St. Charles County [Mo.] Dept. of Corrections/AFP/Getty Images)

Just a few days before Sayfullo Saipov, a 29-year-old immigrant from Uzbekistan, was arrested in the deadly truck attack on a New York City bicycle path, another Uzbek man was sentenced by a federal judge in Brooklyn to 15 years in prison for conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic terror organization ISIS.

That man, Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, was one of five men from Uzbekistan arrested in Brooklyn since 2015 for conspiring to join the Islamic State. In 2014, Juraboev had threatened online to kill then-President Barack Obama, drawing the FBIs attention to himself and to two associates  one Uzbek, one from neighboring Kazakhstan  who were charged with plotting to join ISIS fighters in Syria or to carry out violence in the United States, including a plan to bomb Coney Island.

Its not clear whether Saipov, who had most recently been living in Paterson, N.J., had ties to any of these men specifically. But officials said that Saipovs name had surfaced in a separate investigation before Tuesdays attack, in which he allegedly drove a truck for nearly a mile down a riverfront bicycle path, killing eight and injuring 11 before he was shot and captured by police. By Wednesday evening, federal agents had located a second Uzbek man, 32-year-old Mukhammadzoir Kadirov, who they believe had been in contact with Saipov.

In this courtroom drawing, defendant Akhror Saidakmetov, left, an interpreter, center, and defendant Abdurasul Juraboev appear at federal court in New York on terrorism charges, Feb. 25, 2015. Saidakmetov and Juraboev are two of the three men arrested on charges of plotting to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State group and wage war against the U.S. (Photo of sketch: Jane Rosenberg/AP)

The dust had barely settled on the West Side Highway before President Trump began reigniting his push for tougher restrictions on immigration and even travel to the U.S. as a way to keep out terrorists. Uzbekistan has never been mentioned by Trump as a potential threat and was not listed in any of the several versions of the administrations travel bans. But natives of the former Soviet republic, which borders on Kazakhstan, Afghanistan and other central Asian countries, are very much on the radar of security officials in other countries. Uzbek nationals have been accused in a number of violent attacks in the name of ISIS, including the New Years Eve shooting at a nightclub in Istanbul that killed 39 and a truck attack in Stockholm this April that left five people dead and several others injured. Authorities in Turkey have identified citizens of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan among those responsible for the deadly attack on Istanbul Ataturk Airport in 2016.

Story continues

We cannot say for sure when or where these individuals were radicalized, but what makes Islamic State different from groups like al-Qaida or the Taliban is its ability to reach potential recruits in their native language, be that Russian or Uzbek, [and] whether they are living in Central Asia, Russia, Europe or the U.S., Deirdre Tynan, Central Asia project director for the International Crisis Group, told Yahoo News. These are accessible, slick and well-produced campaigns across a range of platforms. Recruiters and others interested in Islamic State can communicate online creating a sense of community and purpose that can be compelling and very difficult for the authorities to take action on.

Muslims pray during the Eid al-Fitr holiday in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in June. (Photo: Bahtiyar Abdukerimov/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

In recent years, the Islamic States sophisticated recruitment campaign seems have had notable success in penetrating the fringes of Uzbekistans Muslim majority. But Islamic extremism is endemic in the nation, whose autocratic government has long been condemned by international human rights groups for systemic religious persecution, even codifying restrictions on religious freedom into the national law.

In fact, Erica Marat, associate professor and director of the Homeland Defense Fellowship Program at National Defense University, said that radical Islams presence on the fringes of Uzbek society predates the countrys independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991.

Inside Uzbekistan, its always been a way of political protest to an oppressive government, said Marat, an expert on security issues in post-Communist countries. Under officially atheist Soviet rule, the government always made it worse by trying to control religious expressions, and presenting itself as the only legitimate power.

Although they constitute an overwhelming majority of the countrys population, Muslims have long been targets of religious persecution at the hands of the Uzbek government. In 2004, Human Rights Watch reported that, over the previous decade, the governments persecution of Muslims who dont align with an officially authorized branch of the faith had resulted in the arrest, torture, public degradation, and incarceration in grossly inhumane conditions of an estimated 7,000 people.

Resentment against the oppressive government, run by President Islam Karimov from 1989 until his death in 2016, led to the emergence in 1998 of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, or IMU, a militant Islamist group aimed at overthrowing Karimov. In more recent years, however, the IMU has expanded its purview beyond Uzbekistans landlocked borders, allying itself first with al-Qaida and the Taliban, and eventually with the Islamic State. In 2015, the IMUs leadership announced that the Uzbek group was not just an ally, but actually a part of ISIS.

According to an October 2017 report by the Soufan Center, a nonprofit focused on global security research, ISIS has recruited an estimated 1,500 soldiers from Uzbekistan to fight in Syria or Iraq.

In addition to the desire for freedom of religious expression, Marat points to the economic opportunities provided by ISIS as a major selling point for some financially frustrated Muslims in Uzbekistan and the surrounding region.

Fighters joining from Central Asia are also known to be attracted to ISIS precisely as a way of earning a living, she told Yahoo News.

Still, while Marat said that Uzbekistan is certainly among the places that have seen an increase in radicalization and support for ISIS, she emphasized that Islamic extremism is still very much confined to the countrys political fringe.

Its important to know that there are far more people living in Uzbekistan and the wider region that condemn extremism, she said.

The entrance to the financial institute in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where Sayfullo Saipov studied between 2005 and 2009, according to police records. (Photo: Timur Karpov)

Marat also cautioned against conflating the growing allure of ISIS in Uzbekistan (and in Central Asia generally) with the radicalization of Saipov, who has lived in the United States since 2010.

These are two parallel processes, as I see them, she said, suggesting that while Saipov may have been exposed to militancy in Uzbekistan, I think his radicalization could have really taken place here in the U.S.

News stories since Saipovs arrest are consistent with that view.

Unfortunately, this is a common story for migrants from different regions, coming from countries where community support and large families really help you to succeed in life, the Western experience of relying on your own work, your own effort is a bit of a shock, she said. Some people are able to flourish in this Western environment. Others, however, get frustrated and feel that theyre failures because theyre unable to live their American dream or whatever they believe the West to be.

ISIS, with its larger-than-life ideology, offers this venue for young men and some women to feel like they belong, to regain some sense of community, she said.

Sayfullo Saipov, the suspect in the New York City truck attack, is seen in this courtroom sketch appearing in a Manhattan federal courtroom in a wheelchair. (Photo of sketch: Jane Rosenberg/Reuters)

What ultimately led to Saipovs radicalization is not yet clear, but according to court documents outlining the federal charges filed against him Wednesday, he told investigators that hed been planning to carry out an attack for a year and had been inspired to do so by watching ISIS videos on his cellphone, particularly one in which ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called on Muslims living in the United States to retaliate for Muslims killed in Iraq.

As the case against Saipov moves forward, Marat said, its really important to understand the specific moments in the life of this attacker that led him to radicalize, what is it in his behavior, the challenges that he faced.

Im not trying to defend him, she clarified, but understanding his grievances, his perception of life in the U.S., would really help us understand why individuals, especially from Muslim countries, are radicalized in the U.S.

I think, in this sense, ethnicity, or place of birth, is a poor predictor, Marat continued. Its more about what are the experiences that immigrants live in the U.S.

Read more from Yahoo News:
The Islamic State jihadist group Friday lost control of two of the last major towns under its grip in Syria and Iraq, as Syrian troops and Iraqi security forces advanced in the Euphrates Valley border region. The simultaneous assaults on Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria and Al-Qaim in western Iraq dealt fresh blows to IS in its former heartland, leaving Albu Kamal, on the Syrian side of the border, as the last town of note under its control. The jihadist group that once laid claim to a self-styled "caliphate" spanning swathes of Syria and Iraq has seen its proto-state crumble in recent months under the pressure of multiple offensives. In October, it lost its one-time de facto Syrian capital Raqa after an assault of more than four months waged by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-Arab alliance. On Friday, Syria's army announced that its Russian-backed assault had recaptured all of Deir Ezzor city, in the oil-rich east of the country, while Iraqi forces captured the Husaybah border post and the nearby town of Al-Qaim. "The army forces... restored security and stability to all of Deir Ezzor city," a spokesman for the Syrian army command said in a statement broadcast live on state television. "Deir Ezzor represents the final phase in the complete elimination of Daesh," the statement added, using the Arabic acronym for the group. The city "was the headquarters of the organisation's leadership, and in losing it, they lose their capacity to direct terrorist operations", it added. State television said engineering units from the army were combing captured neighbourhoods to clear mines and other explosives. Syrian forces entered Deir Ezzor city in September, breaking an IS siege of nearly three years on government-held parts of the provincial capital. The battle has been ferocious, with heavy Russian air strikes and Syrian artillery fire leaving much of the city in ruins. - Iraqi forces take Al-Qaim - Before Syria's war began in March 2011 with anti-government protests, around 300,000 people lived in the city, the capital of Deir Ezzor province along Syria's eastern border with Iraq. But in 2014, IS jihadists seized the city and much of the surrounding province, including vital oil and gas fields that once served as a key source of revenue for the extremists. IS has now been driven from most of its strongholds in Deir Ezzor, but it still controls more than 35 percent of the province, much of it empty desert. Its last major position is the town of Albu Kamal, though it also holds a string of smaller towns and villages and at least one oilfield, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor. IS, which at its peak controlled territory roughly the size of Britain, has suffered a string of losses in recent months in both Syria and Iraq. On October 17, it lost the city of Raqa to the US-backed SDF, a highly symbolic blow that illustrated how its "caliphate" has disintegrated. Despite its defeats on the battlefield, analysts are warning that IS is not down and out in the absence of a political vision to ensure stability in Iraq and Syria. "This absence of a long-term strategy leaves Daesh (IS) a lot of room for regrouping in the near future, while continuing to work its networks of supporters around the world," said Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor at Sciences Po university in Paris. In Deir Ezzor province, IS is under attack from both regime and SDF forces, while across the border in Iraq it had retained a foothold in just a single town, Al-Qaim, after losing its stronghold of Mosul in July and the town of Hawija in October. Iraqi forces captured Al-Qaim within hours of seizing an important border crossing nearby, military commanders said on Friday. Iraq's Prime Minister Haider Abadi hailed what he called "the liberation of Al-Qaim in record time". Iraq's Joint Operations Command said earlier that troops had "regained full control" of the Husaybah border post on the edge of Al-Qaim. The Britain-based Observatory said several trucks with dozens of IS fighters fleeing from Al-Qaim crossed the border and sought refuge in Albu Kamal. Government forces launched the operation last week to seize Al-Qaim and its surroundings, a barren pocket of desert along the Euphrates near the Syrian border. The jihadists have been squeezed into nearby Rawa and surrounding desert areas of the two towns in Iraq's vast Anbar province. The US-led coalition has said around 1,500 IS fighters are left in the area, which it expects to be the scene of the "last big fight" against the group in Iraq. On the other side of the border, Syrian regime forces are now around 30 kilometres (18 miles) from Albu Kamal. Their advance on Albu Kamal is being supported by Russian air power. On Friday, four members of the same family were killed in an air strike on an IS-held village south of Albu Kamal, the Observatory said, without identifying the aircraft. burs-sah/hc/srm
The United Nations and Bogota signed a major pact Friday to uproot Colombia's booming cocaine business, as part of peace efforts between the government and drug trade-controlling rebels. The deal worth $315 million (270 million euros) aims to wean farmers off growing coca -- the raw material for cocaine -- by replacing it with safer crops like coffee and cacao. The Vienna-based Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said it was one of the most ambitious initiatives to date to free rural communities from the clutches of drug dealers. Colombia is ranked by the United Nations as the world's biggest producer of coca. Its growing area rose by a staggering 52 percent to 146,000 hectares (361,000 acres) last year. "This historical agreement is a unique opportunity to turn the tide against Colombia's coca cultivation and help farmers embrace alternative development," UNODC head Yury Fedotov said in a statement. Colombia's special post-conflict envoy Rafael Pardo Rueda hailed the project as "fundamental" for the implementation of a historic peace deal sealed in June between Bogota and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). - 'Not an easy task' - For decades the drug trade funded the FARC, the country's largest rebel group, which controlled key regions where coca leaf and cocaine production flourished. The organisation was formed in 1964 to fight for land rights and to protect rural communities. The conflict drew in leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary groups and state forces and has left 260,000 people dead, more than 60,000 missing and seven million displaced. But after lengthy negotiations, the FARC this summer agreed to disarm and help weed out coca by persuading farmers to switch to other forms of agriculture. In exchange, the UN established a new mission in Colombia in July to help thousands of former FARC combatants return to mainstream society. However progress has been slow as ex-rebels struggle to reintegrate, leaving them tempted to join other dissident groups, keep their weapons, and traffic drugs. As a result, many villagers still face threats from armed dissidents to keep growing coca. "Reduction of coca crop area is not an easy task in terms of administrative or logistical procedures, but it's also not an easy task in terms of it being a reduction of an illegal rent to an illegal group," Rueda, who is also Colombia's labour minister, told AFP. In addition, eradication teams have to navigate around numerous landmines planted to protect the coca plantations. But Bogota is hopeful that the UN-backed initiative will blow a hole in the drug trade by offering Colombia's 120,000 coca-growing families incentives to go legal. Farmers earn around $300 a month per hectare of coca but need to give a big cut to the dealers, Rueda said. Colombia is now offering them the same amount, which they get to keep in full. The goal is to get rid of 100,000 hectares by next year -- half by forced eradication and half by the voluntary substitution programme. burs-nla/txw
US bombers overflew the Korean peninsula Thursday as part of an exercise with Japanese and South Korean warplanes, the US Air Force said, days before President Donald Trump arrives in the region for a trip set to be dominated by the nuclear-armed North. Tensions are high over Pyongyang's ballistic missile and atomic programmes, which in recent months have seen it test ICBMs and carry out its sixth nuclear blast. Trump's visit will throw a spotlight on the issue, after the US President and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un traded insults and threats of war. Flights by supersonic B-1B Lancer bombers in the area always infuriate North Korea, which condemned the drill as "blackmail" early Friday. Two B-1B aircraft took off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, and were joined west of Japan by Japan Air Self-Defense Force fighters, the US Pacific Air Force said in a statement. "The Lancers then transited overland to Korea to integrate with Republic of Korea fighters in the Yellow Sea," the statement read, adding that the aircraft later returned "to their respective home stations." The exercise was part of the "continuous bomber presence" mission in the Pacific and "was not in response to any current event," the statement said. The operation follows an October 10 "show of force" in which two Lancers staged the first night-time joint aviation exercises with Japan and South Korea. North Korea in July launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles apparently capable of reaching the US mainland -- described by Kim as a gift to "American bastards". It followed up with two missiles that passed over Japan, and its sixth nuclear test, by far its most powerful yet. Trump has warned of "fire and fury" in response to Pyongyang's threats, and derisively dubbed Kim "Rocket Man", who responded by calling him a "dotard". This week the North's KCNA news agency described the US president as "incurably mentally deranged". - Missile test? - Trump will on Friday set off for his Asian tour, which will include Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. But his message risks being undermined if the North stages some kind of provocation, such as a missile test. It could be preparing for another launch, Seoul's spy agency reportedly said Thursday. "Active movements of vehicles have been detected at a missile research facility in Pyongyang," the National Intelligence Service told a closed-door parliamentary audit, according to the Yonhap news agency. The North habitually condemns B1-B flights as rehearsals for an attack, and KCNA said Friday: "The reality clearly shows that the gangster-like US imperialists are the very one who is aggravating the situation of the Korean peninsula and seeking to ignite a nuclear war." Any military strike in Korea could see retaliation and rapid escalation, and much of Seoul -- a city of 10 million people -- is within range of the North's artillery. The South's President Moon Jae-In has insisted that no military action on the peninsula can be taken without Seoul's approval. In an interview with Yonhap, Trump's National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said diplomacy was Washington's "main effort now". "The discussion will also be about what more can we do, what more can all countries do to resolve this short of war," he said.
On Oct. 11, Democratic Rep. Al Green took to the House floor and called on his colleagues to impeach President Trump. Greens 15-page resolution didnt allege a specific crimearticles of impeachment dont need tobut it did include a bill of particulars that almost any Democrat could get behind, citing Trumps record of inciting white supremacy, sexism, bigotry, hatred, xenophobia, race-baiting, and racism by demeaning, defaming, disrespecting, and disparaging women and certain minorities. As a privileged resolution, Green could have forced a votesomething that Republicans, smelling an opportunity to divide Democrats, would have been pleased to offer. But when the time came, Green didnt appear on the floor to formally offer his resolution.

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That came as a relief to the rest of the Democratic caucus, and particularly to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who had spoken to Green that morning.

For all their talk about Trumps transgressions, Democratic leaders are trying desperately to keep a lid on the idea of actually impeaching him.

Democratic leaders are trying desperately to keep a lid on the idea of actually impeaching Trump.

To party leaders, strategists, and Democrats in competitive districts, talk of impeachment only serves as a distraction heading into an election cycle in which the party hopes to retake the House and, if the stars align perfectly, maybe even the Senate. With a historically unpopular president and polls trending in their favor, the mere mention of the I-word sends Democratic leaders scrambling to dismiss it as prematurelest they hand a rallying cry to Trumps defenders.

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That pragmatic approach has created an irreconcilable tension with a restive base that tends to view impeachment in moral, historical terms. Activist groups like Indivisible and MoveOn called on Congress to start the impeachment process in June, and the issue seems likely to pick up steam as indictments from special counsel Robert Mueller roll in. The billionaire investor Tom Steyer collected more than 1 million signatures in support of impeachment in just two weeks after he launched a $10 million campaign to push the issue.

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Steyer, the Democratic Partys biggest donor, was prompted to act, he told me in an interview, by the partys silence on this issue, when it was obvious to the majority of Americansor certainly the overwhelming majority of Democratsthat this guy has to go.

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As far as Im concerned, people are pretending this isnt a crisis, people are pretending that were not out of control, people are pretending that we dont have a dysfunctional federal government, Steyer said. But all those things are actually true.

When I asked Steyer if he had given a heads-up to Democratic leaders, he laughed for 17 seconds.

Why would I do that?

The last time a party ran on impeachment, it didnt go well. In 1998, Republicans thought they had been handed a gift in the form of Bill Clintons sexual indiscretions with Monica Lewinsky. They made impeaching Clinton a central issue in the midterms and predicted big gains in both chambers. But Democrats rallied to Clintons defense and the GOPs plan backfired. Democrats gained five seats in the Housethe only time in the 20th century that a party gained seats midway through its second presidential term. (It helped Democrats that the economy was strong, too.)

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That history is not lost on the partys current leaders. 1998 was the year Democrats recaptured the governors mansion in Nancy Pelosis home state of California, with a 20-point landslide, after 16 years of Republican rule. Its also the year Chuck Schumer, now the Senate minority leader, defeated an incumbent Republican to win his seat in the Senate.

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Now, Pelosi, Schumer, and other leading party figures are trying to ensure Democrats do not repeat the same mistake. They have tamped down any talk of impeachmentpreaching patience with Muellers ongoing investigation while dismissing the calls to begin impeachment proceedings posthaste.

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I think the leader and I have made it very clear that we think impeachment, which is a very powerful tool that the Congress has to ensure that the leader of our country is one who should be our leader  is premature at this point in time, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, one of Pelosis top deputies, told me last week when I asked whether Steyers move was a wise use of resources. Not off the table, he assured, but premature.

Pelosi, whose every utterance threatens to become a Republican rallying cry, was even more terse the previous week when asked whether she supports an impeachment resolution: No.

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Democrats currently hold an overwhelming lead on the generic congressional ballot, and leaders worry that impeachment chatter might cloud their focus on Republicans unpopular economic agenda, which they argue deserves the full glare of their spotlight.

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Support impeachment and you risk alienating moderates. Oppose impeachment and you risk inviting a primary challenge from the left.

Right now, this tax fight is Armageddon, a senior Democratic House aide told me. Between the tax fight and what we need to be talking about in terms of our agenda, those are the two things members should be talking about. We cant afford anything else.

For individual members, the politics are tricky. Support impeachment and you risk alienating moderates. Oppose impeachment and you risk inviting a primary challenge from the left, like the one currently being waged against California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Feinstein has been pilloried for preaching patience with Trump, and for suggesting he could yet turn out to be a good president. Those comments have already drawn one left-leaning primary challenger, and there are rumors that Steyers pro-impeachment campaign might be a prelude to him entering the race. This is not a time for patienceDonald Trump is not fit for office, Steyer wrote in the kickoff letter last month. It is evident that there is zero reason to believe he can be a good president. 

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Steyer told me that line wasnt meant in any way, shape, or form as a direct shot at Feinstein exclusively, just that her comments were a kind of startling example of an attitude that this is normal, or that President Trumps problem is one of inexperience that he can overcome. When I asked Feinstein about Steyers campaign earlier this week outside the Senate chamber, she didnt really feel like getting into it. Well, hes got strong feelings, and he has the money, and so hes doing it, she said. Asked about her quote in the letter, she said, Im not interested in responding, thank you, and walked into the chamber.

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But if Democrats are hoping to avoid the issue, Steyers millions are making it difficult. His impeachment ads are the first result under a Google search for impeachment, and they pop up regularly as sponsored tweets and on major TV networksincluding during the countrys most influential political program, Fox and Friends, a move that reliably produced its intended signal boost from the president himself.

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Steyer has spent hundreds of millions of dollars backing Democratic candidates over the years, but he seemed annoyed when I asked whether he would be complicating life for Democrats in competitive races like, say, North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp or Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill.

We could go down that rabbit hole but, frankly, thats been the problem, he said. As long as were making those tactical, small-bore political decisions instead of telling the truth and doing the right thing, were in a lot of trouble.

To Democrats in Washington, Steyers campaign is the trouble.

A truly bad idea, Jim Manley, a former top aide to retired Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, told me shortly after Steyers initiative launched. Ive gotten so wound up, Ive forgotten what I was going to say.

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He composed himself. Its tailor-made for massive Republican pushback, the idea that a Democratic billionaire is going to push members on impeachment. Its just giving Republicans a talking point that we dont need at this point in time.

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A truly bad idea. Ive gotten so wound up, Ive forgotten what I was going to say.  Jim Manley, former Senate aide

Manley said that personally, he was there in terms of wanting to begin the debate about impeachment, but for a guy to come in and try to push the process like this is absolutely wrong. And Im sure this is the last thing that Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate want to see right now. In fact, as Politico first reported, Pelosiannoyed after being asked a question about Steyers campaign during a TV appearancecalled Steyer to tell him his campaign was a distraction. The call has so far gone unreturned. (This isnt about me, or Rep. Pelosi, Steyer responded in a statement when I asked whether he intended to get back to her. This is about giving a voice to the American people who are demanding the political establishment stand up to Trump.)

Publicly, Democrats are shrugging off his campaign and touting their unity. Tom Steyer is for our message, Hoyer, the Democratic whip, told me. He also has an individual focus on impeachment. But hes for our message. If you ask Tom Steyer today, are you for the things Hoyer just said? Hed say yes.

And it is strikingly true that there is little distance between those on the record for impeachment and those who remain hesitant to embrace it.

Every Democrat, in my view, believes that the daily actions and the conduct of the president of the United States today is dangerous to our country, destabilizing to our economy, and harmful to our people, Hoyer said. Neither Steyer nor Green could have said it better. Manley, too, admitted that Trump is a clear and present danger to our country. Steyer used that precise term in his letter.

The only difference, it seems, is whether to put it to a vote.

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So far, Democratic leaders have avoided an on-the-record vote on impeachment proceedings, even as more attempts roll in from the rank-and-file. California Rep. Brad Sherman has also introduced articles of impeachment, and Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez announced this week that he and a group of other Democrats would file new charges by Thanksgiving.

In an interview, Sherman argued that talking about impeachment is just another way to call attention to economic issues.

My own personal goal is to parlay the fact that I filed articles of impeachment into more coverage of our comments, and my particular take, on the economy, Sherman said. I was on [Tucker Carlson Tonight] last week, and I finally taunted him into getting on the show to talk about [our] economic message. If I hadnt filed articles of impeachment, Id never be on Tucker Carlson to talk about our economic message.

He explained that theres a necessary balance to strike in terms of impeachment talk. If you talk about it too little, then people think can Trump can act with impunity and were not listening to our base, he said. Arguably, if you talk about it to the exclusion of your economic plan, swing voters will think you dont have an economic plan.

Those who think its too soon to talk impeachment argue that its only appropriate to wait for the conclusion of Muellers investigation before pushing ahead with an effort. Such a position has the benefit of punting the difficult question of impeachment indefinitely into the future.

But those who favor pursuing impeachment now, like Green, find that this offers the public a skewed impression of what the impeachment process is all about: that the high crimes and misdemeanors cited in the Constitutions impeachment clause need to be actual criminal charges.

The House has allowed impeachment, the investigation, to be outsourced. This has given people the belief that this is criminal in nature, Green told me. Because you have someone investigating the president for judicial purposes, meaning looking for a crime. Well, that gives the public the notion that we have to have a crime exposed before the House can proceed with impeachment.

Whether Mr. Mueller decides that theres been a crime committed or not, he said, the House can still proceed with its political process.

Still, Green said, if some of his Democratic colleagues want to wait for the conclusion of that investigation, he wouldnt try to change their minds: Im not saying to anyone, dont wait, if thats what youd like to do.

Whether Mr. Mueller decides that theres been a crime committed or not, the House can still proceed with its political process.  Texas Rep. Al Green

Green wasnt a well-known public figure until he latched onto impeachment. In my interview with him, he was careful and deliberate with every word. The recognition that a push for impeachment could harm some of his Democratic colleagues seemed to make him uncomfortable, and he insisted that he was neither lobbying support for his resolution nor trying to interfere with others processes. It is, after all, a much safer political bet to call for the Republican presidents impeachment when you represent a D+29 district, as Green does, than if you represent a competitive district. Thats not to say that this has been personally easy for Green, whos faced racist death threats and had to bring on additional security for himself and his staff.

Im not trying to get anyone else to stand with me, he said.

But Green said he still considers impeachment a moral imperative.

Dr. King reminded us that there are times in life that you have to do that which is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; you have to do whats right, Green told me. And thats what I see happening here. Its not just the right thing to do, he says. Its the righteous thing to do.

Green declined to say when he might file his impeachment charges.
The hydropower plant on the Danube remains controversial

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Twenty-five years ago Slovakia unilaterally dammed the Danube River and directed part of its water into a man-made channel and down into turbines of the hydropower plant in Gabcikovo. Damming the river was the last construction phase of Slovakias part of the communist-era Slovak-Hungarian twin-dam project Gabcikovo-Nagymaros.

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After a quarter century of operation the power plant remains controversial. While the government praises its benefits in the form of green energy generation as well as better anti-flood protection and navigability of the river, environmentalists point to its impact on the Danubes eco-system.

The Gabcikovo plant has been glorified as our family silver, writes environmentalist Mikulas Huba on the occasion of the anniversary. Is it really so rosy as it is interpreted?

He perceives the Gabcikovo project to be a legacy of the industrial era from the second half of the 20th century, when there was glorified heavy engineering, steel and cement to the detriment of the opinions of nature scientists and the green infrastructure preferred in the developed world.

But the Gabcikovo plant is not a problem itself only as it is simultaneously a precedence, opines Huba. The glorifying campaign, which has been raised around it again in these last weeks, wants to make passable also other, so-far unimplemented, large water projects in Slovakia.

Special cabinet session in Gabcikovo

To mark the anniversary of the damming from October 24, 1992, the Robert Fico government held a special session at the hydropower plant.

Its operation so far has confirmed its quality, the material on Gabcikovo acknowledged by the cabinet reads.

Apart from the higher clogging of the Hrusovska Zdrz dam with sediments, none of the negative predictions made by the projects opponents have been confirmed. Neither the environment, nor the Zitny Ostrov area southeast of Bratislava, which is Europes largest river island and the countrys largest reservoir of potable water, have been threatened, read the material.

The governments material praised benefits as better anti-flood protection, the creation of a water way with the depth of 3.5 metres at least or the possibility of generating ecologically clean energy.

The erosion of the Danube Rivers bed halted, the better part of the left-side system of Danubes branches addressed, the life conditions of water and forest animals significantly improved, the capacity of underground water reserves has increased, the possibility of year-round usage of the river port in Bratislava improved, ideal conditions for the development of water sports, tourism and recreation were created as well as place for lovers of art and culture, reads the material.

The Gabcikovo hydroelectric plant, with an installed capacity of 720 MW, generates about 7-10 percent of the annual electricity consumption of Slovakia. Between October 1992 and December 2016 it generated more than 54 million MWh of electricity.

Environmentalists are critical

The informal group of the S-O-S environmentalists, of which Huba is also a member, does not agree with glorifying the Gabcikovo hydroelectric plant. They sent Environment Minister Laszlo Solymos their stance on unfulfilled promises, the negative impacts of the plant as well as the current challenges the plant poses to its future operation.

S-O-S says that in the construction of the Gabcikovo project that dozens of square kilometres of quality arable land were flooded as well as the Cormorant Island nature reserve and that the dam disrupted the infiltration and self-purifying ability of the river. The biodiversity was reduced.

On the other hand, the river transport has not increased as originally promised even though environmentalists admit that there are more reasons behind this. The construction of the Gabcikovo power plant neither led to replacing the generation of electricity in coal-fired and nuclear power plants as was originally promised.

The group states that the clogging of the Hrusovska Zdrz dam means a challenge for the future. The group estimates that due to sediments the volume of the dam has almost halved. Sedimentation increases the river bed and thus reduces the projects anti-flood benefits and makes the river less navigable. Sediments also mean a threat to the quality of drinking water resources since they mean a physical as well as chemical barrier preventing the infiltration of water from the river down into underground water.

Parts of the Gabcikovo project

The Gabcikovo hydropower plant consists of the Hrusovska Zdrz dam, whose task is to accumulate water for the hydropower plant in Gabcikovo, the 17 km long channel bringing river water to the power station, the Gabcikovo power station itself, two locks and the 8.2 km channel taking water from the Gabcikovo plant back to the Danube River.

History of Gabcikovo

The Gabcikovo hydropower plant is the Slovak part of a failed communist-era Slovak-Hungarian twin-dam project on the Danube. It was hoped that the two dams, a project launched in 1977, would work together to provide electrical power, limit flooding and improve the navigability of the Danube River.

Hungary pulled out of the project in 1989, when Slovakias part of the project was 90 percent complete. Slovakia responded by switching to an alternative plan, the C variant, and building its part of the project.

On October 24, 1992, Julius Binder, the then director of the state company Vodohospodarska Vystavba constructing the Gabcikovo hydropower plant ordered the damming of the Danube at Cunovo village. Originally the Danube should have been dammed near Dunakiliti village in Hungary. This process lasted four days, after which water started flowing down to the turbines in Gabcikovo.

The change in the project means that the Gabcikovo hydropower plant is not a peaking power plant generating electricity during peak hours of electricity demand as originally planned, but as a base load power plant. Such a power station provides a continuous supply of electricity throughout the year.

This change means that it is less profitable since peak electricity is more expensive as base load electricity.

Lawsuits

The unilateral decision to dam the river and put the power station into operation led to protests from the Hungarian side.

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Read also: Lawsuit over Gabcikovo is over, contract for operation is invalid Read more

Hungary terminated the agreement in 1992 against the will of Slovak officials and in 1993 the case was brought to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. It ruled in 1997 that both sides had breached the contract and that the contract was still valid. The discussion between Slovakia and Hungary on the implementation of the verdict still continues.

Based on valid contracts the Gabcikovo hydropower plant should have remained state property and was excluded from the assets of Slovenske Elektrarne (SE) allocated for privatisation. When Enel acquired 66 percent of SE assets in 2006, it also signed a 30-year contract to operate Gabcikovo. This meant that the plant remained state property, but was operated by SE  which also sold the electricity generated by it.

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Read also: Heads roll over extremely high reward for legal services in Gabcikovo Read more

Robert Ficos governments challenged the rental contract and succeeded. The state company Vodohospodarska Vystavba took over the Gabcikovo hydropower plant in 2015.

Overhaul needed

After 25 years in operation the Gabcikovo hydropower plant needs repairs and modernisation, whose costs are estimated at more than 144.5 million.

The Gabcikovo hydropower plant is set to undergo a major modernisation processes, namely general repairs and the reconstruction of the hydroelectric power plant, including the repair of the turbines as well as the innovation and modernisation of the lock chambers at the Gabcikovo plant, said Environment Minister Solymos, adding that 85 percent of the repairs will be co-financed by EU funds.

Its owner and operator, Vodohospodarska Vystavba, has already promulgated an international tender for the contractor to carry out the general overhaul of eight turbogenerators belonging to the power plant.

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Read also: Vodohospodarska vystavba announces tender for Gabcikovo overhaul Read more

The tender will last until the end of November. The general overhaul of the turbines is expected to cost around 71 million.
Voters could elect 416 regional deputies and eight governors.

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Read also: FAQ: How can foreigners vote in regional elections in Slovakia? Read more

The fifth regional election in Slovakia is over. Most polling stations in a total of 2,927 municipalities closed at 22:00, but some in Trencin Region stayed open until 23:15 due to power failure. The first preliminary results are gradually being published on two websites (www.volbysr.sk and www.statistics.sk).

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The official results will be published and confirmed on November 5.

Voters, including foreigners had the opportunity to elect 416 members of regional parliaments and eight regional governors. There were 2,864 candidates altogether running for the seats in the regional parliaments. There were 78 candidates for the governorships.

What you should know

The self-governing regions (known under the acronym VUC) are funded by taxes paid directly to the regions, including personal income and motor vehicle tax as well as through grants from central government ministries and European structural funds.

Unlike previous years, the regional governors will be elected in the first round. Moreover, the regional governors and deputies will be elected for five years. This is only a one-off measure as MPs want to unify the days for holding regional and municipal elections in 2022, TASR wrote.

The reason for such step is low turnout in the regional elections. In 2013, it was only 20.11 percent of eligible voters.

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Everything there is to know about blood or hair donation in Slovakia.

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Donating Blood

What conditions need to be met so I can donate blood?

You must be between the ages of 18 and 60, however, if you donate regularly it is possible to keep doing it after you are 65 if your weight is over 50 kilograms.

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When I cannot donate?

You should not donate blood if you have ever used intravenous or intermuscular drugs, if you went through a hepatitis disease in the past or suffer from other serious or chronic diseases.

The questionnaire you will be asked to fill out also asks you to state if you are a man having intercourse with men, and if you often change sexual partners.

Women are not advised to donate blood shortly before, during, or shortly after menstruation and during pregnancy.

How often may I donate blood?

Men can donate every three months, and women every four months.

How long does the donation take?

The whole process from registration to leaving takes about two hours and the blood draw is from 5 to 15 minutes.

How much blood is taken?

450 millilitres of blood.

Should I take a vacation from work?

When donating blood during working hours, you are eligible to have paid time off for the duration of travel to/from the donation station and for recovery. However, you will need confirmation from a doctor to give to your employer.

How should I prepare for blood donation?

Drink a lot of water one day before donating, at least 2 litres. Moreover, it is recommended to drink half a litre of water in the morning on the day of donation. Black coffee is permitted.

Do not eat fatty food (cheese, butter, cream, meat) the evening or morning before donating. It is better to consume fruits, vegetables, fat-free bakery products, jam or honey.

Do not smoke 6 hours before donation, do not drink alcohol 12  14 hours before donation and do not do any intense physical activity, such as fitness or training the day before.

Should I bring my ID?

You will be asked to identify yourself with an ID and health insurance card. If you have donated blood before, bring your donating blood card as well. In the next step, you will fill in the questionnaire about your health, lifestyle and past illnesses.

How much will I get paid for donating blood?

Nothing. In Slovakia, you donate blood voluntarily without claim to the money.

Where can I donate blood?

At the National Transfusion Stations in various cities: Bratislava  Kramare, Bratislava  Ruzinov, Banska Bystrica, Kosice, Martin, Nitra, Nove Zamky, Poprad, Presov, Trencin, Trnava, Zilina. The National Transfusion Service often organises mobile donations for the public. Learn more at their website (only in Slovak).

Hair

For what purpose should I cut and donate my hair?

The initiative Vystrihaj sa Slovensko (Cut your hair Slovakia) makes wigs from donated hair for free for women suffering from oncological diseases.

Illustrative Stock Photo (Source: Adelle Kalakouti/TASR)

Who can donate hair?

Women, men, children.

What are the conditions?

The minimum length of hair for donating is 40 centimetres. Preferable is undyed or lightly dyed hair. Even grey hair and hair that was cut long ago and stored properly is suitable for donating. Hair should be cut in the direction of growth and tied with several hair elastics.

Where should I cut my hair?

If you are in Bratislava, the Einsteinova 21 hair salon will make sure that your hair is cut properly and your new haircut will be for free. If you live outside of Bratislava, look for a local hairdresser. There are almost 20 friendly salons in Slovakia who were taught how to cut hair correctly for donating purposes. Then send it via post to VSS, Liga proti rakovine SR, Brestovava 6, 821 02 Bratislava.

How much hair is needed to make a wig?

For one wig about 250  300 grams of hair is needed. 60  80 grams of hair is gained from one haircut, so one wig requires hair from three or four donors. It takes two or three weeks to create one wig. Other materials are also needed: anti-allergic hat, chemicals for hair treatment and others.

How long will the project last?

As long as people keep donating hair!
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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3D Printing

New Tech Can Cut 3D Printing Time in Half

Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed an algorithm that can cut the time required to 3D print an object by as much as half.

As a 3D printer works, its moving parts cause vibration, which leads to errors in printing the object. The faster a machine prints, the more it vibrates and the larger the printing errors become.

"Armed with knowledge of the printer's dynamic behavior, the program anticipates when the printer may vibrate excessively and adjusts its motions accordingly," said Chinedum Okwudire, associate professor of mechanical engineering and director of U-M's Smart and Sustainable Automation Research Lab, in a prepared statement.

In a U Michigan news release, Okwudire pointed at recent comments by the CEO of XYZprinting, Simon Shen, who said that slow printing speed is one of the things keeping 3D-printing technology from finding a broader market.

"We're just waiting for the next evolution of the technology," Shen told TechCrunch last year. "If they can do it much faster, more precise and easier, that will bring more people to 3D printers. Not waiting for four to six hours for a print, but 40 to 60 minutes."

The software can be used on consumer 3D printers and even a variety of large industrial-grade printers, according to Okwudire, who said he'd like to integrate the algorithm with printer firmware in the future.

"Eventually, one of the places we would want to see the algorithm applied is in the firmware  the software that runs on the printer itself. That way, it will be integrated with the printers, regardless of the size."

A video explaining the software and showing it in action next to a standard print and a sped-up print without the advantage of the algorithm is available on YouTube.




In a ground-breaking decision, the Singapore High Court has ruled that it does not have original jurisdiction under the Singapore Patents Act to revoke a patent. Up until this decision, it has been common practice for defendants in patent infringement proceedings to challenge the validity of a patent by means of a counterclaim for revocation of the patent in question. Indeed, prior Court decisions have exercised such jurisdiction under the Singapore Patents Act to revoke granted patents. Thus, both the validity and infringement issues were determined in the same proceedings and heard before the same judge who would also revoke the patent.In Sun Electric Pte Ltd v Sunseap Group Pte Ltd [2017] SGHC 232 , the main argument before the High Court was that section 80(1) of the Patents Act only provides that the Registrar of Patents (the "Registrar") may revoke a patent on the grounds specified therein, without any reference to "the court". The Plaintiff contended, and the Court accepted, that Parliament had never intended to vest with the court original jurisdiction for revocation. The Plaintiff relied on the contrasting provision in the UK, namely section 72(1) of the UK Patents Act 1977 (c.37), which expressly provides that the power to revoke a patent is enjoyed by both the court and the comptroller, the UK equivalent of the Registrar. The Court held that given that section 80(1) of the Patents Act was based on this UK provision, the omission of any reference to "the court" was therefore deliberate and intentional.The Court observed that although the grounds on which the validity of a patent can be put in issue are identical to the grounds on which the patent may be revoked (see sections 80 and 82(3) of the Patents Act), it is not necessary to wait for an infringement action to be commenced before starting revocation proceedings. A counterclaim for invalidity of the patent in infringement proceedings is an in personam action (i.e., against an individual entity), and a defendant has the express right to defend the proceedings by raising the issue of validity of the res (i.e., the patent in question).Therefore, whilst the Court could find the patent invalid as between the parties, an order revoking a patent would have effect in rem (i.e., against the patent) and is conclusive against the world. Revocation also has effect from the date of the grant of the patent. Accordingly, the Court found that jurisdiction in rem is necessary for the court to have jurisdiction to hear and determine revocation applications. In this regard, the Court noted that section 80 of the Patents Act is the only statutory provision in the Patents Act that deals with revocation. As stated above, section 80 of the Patents Act does not make any reference to the court. Further, statutory provisions and procedures on revocation in the Patents Act are directed only towards the Registrar; there are no provisions for an application for revocation of the patent to the court.The Court was urged to exercise its powers under section 91(1) of the Patents Act, a seemingly "catch-all" provision allowing the court the right to make any order or exercise any power which the Registrar possessed for the same question that was before the Registrar. However, the Court found that section 91(1) of the Patents Act only grants the court the power, but not the jurisdiction, which the Registrar has under the Patents Act. In the absence of an express statutory provision conferring original jurisdiction upon the High Court to hear revocation proceedings or to grant a prayer for revocation, whether or not by way of counterclaim in infringement proceedings, the Court ruled that a court has no such jurisdiction.The effect of the decision is that a defendant may still counterclaim that the patent is invalid in infringement proceedings, but that the Court will not be able to revoke the patent. The defendant (or other parties) would need to file separate revocation proceedings before the Registrar to revoke the patent. In practice, this could mean that the invalid patent would remain on the register if no revocation proceedings are brought, which is not entirely satisfactory. Whether this decision will be brought before the Court of Appeal remains to be seen. In the meantime, potential defendants in patent infringement disputes in Singapore who wish to revoke the patents in question must rethink their strategies and consider whether to commence revocation proceedings before the Registrar.Photo on lower left by Jacklee and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Vietnamese campers were among thousands who gathered outside the Apple store along Orchard Road in Singapore from Thursday night for the anticipated launch of the iPhone X in the following morning.

Wrist tags were used to allow queuers to leave the line without losing their place.

Store employees told a Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper correspondent at the scene that nearly 500 wrist tags had been handed out as of 7:30 pm the same evening, a day before the official launch.

The iPhone X, which is Apple's 10th anniversary phone, retails at S$1,648 (US$1,210) for the entry-level 64GB model, and S$1,888 ($1,386) for the 256GB model.

Police officers were dispatched to the scene to maintain order as thousands lined up for nearly 200 meters outside of the zigzag queue area.

Queuers could be heard speaking Chinese, Vietnamese and Indian English, most of whom having showed up since the day before.

Long lines are seen outside the Apple store along Orchard Road in Singapore, November 2, 2017 Photo: Tuoi Tre

A group of over 20 Vietnamese said they had camped outside the store since Saturday, but were not allowed to queue until Wednesday.

People with wrist tags were told to go home for sleep and return at 6:00 am on Friday.

H., an iPhone dealer from Vietnam, said he had hired three campers at the price of S$200 ($147) each and pay for their expenses to queue for the flagship phone since Wednesday.

The Ho Chi Minh City-based businessman said he had received orders for at least eight iPhone Xs, including a customer who wanted to buy four 256GB devices at VND89 million ($3,918) each on the condition that the phones arrive in Hanoi on Friday evening.

Apple store employees attach wrist tags to queuers. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Early Friday, some stores in Vietnam put up the price of over VND58 million ($2,555) for the 64GB model for those who want to be the first to own the device in the country, which has no official Apple store.

Expectedly, local market prices plunged below VND40 million ($1,762) in the afternoon when more phones arrived from Singapore.

Apple in September took the wraps off its much-anticipated iPhone X, a glass and stainless steel device with an edge-to-edge display that Chief Executive Tim Cook called the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone.

In a statement on Thursday, Apple said the initial response for the iPhone X showed that customer demand was "off the charts", adding that it was "working hard" to get the device "into the hands of every customer who wants one, as quickly as possible", Channel News Asia reported.

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The Asian Development Banks (ADB) Board of Directors has approved US$170 million in loans to aid the Vietnamese government in upgrading urban infrastructure and addressing climate change as part of its Secondary Green Cities Development Project.

Projects funded by these loans will benefit about 116,000 households in the cities of Hue, Vinh Yen, and Ha Giang, ADB said in a press release on Thursday.

These are the respective provincial capitals of Thua Thien-Hue in central Vietnam, and Vinh Phuc and Ha Giang in the northern part of the country.

Urbanization continues to have a positive impact on Vietnams growth, though many cities still lack key urban infrastructure services and remain vulnerable to climate change, particularly flooding, even as they continue to be centers of economic activity, according Satoshi Ishii, a Principal Urban Development Specialist at ADB.

We look forward to working with the provincial peoples committees of Thua Thien-Hue, Vinh Phuc, and Ha Giang to make sure that their provincial capitals are green and climate-resilient, while enhancing their economic competitiveness, Ishii said.

More than 30 million people live in urban centers in Vietnam, but the impact of urbanization across the country is extremely uneven.

Unlike the capital Hanoi and other highly developed urban centers, secondary cities, urban areas with populations between 50,000 to 300,000 such as Hue, Vinh Yen and Ha Giang, are lagging behind, according to ADB.

A perfect example is that less than 60 percent of households in secondary cities have access to clean water and only ten percent of their wastewater is properly treated.

The Secondary Green Cities Development Project will help improve the livability, environmental friendliness, and climate resilience of these urban centers.

For Vinh Yen, the project will include a new wastewater treatment system, upgrades to 66.1 kilometers of its drainage control, dredging of the Dam Vac lake, and the development of 44.5 hectares of new public green space.

In Hue, the project will include upgrades to 21.9 km of drainage pipelines, the rehabilitation of 15.9 km of road surface and drainage, and the development 17.2 ha of green space.

In Ha Giang, the project will upgrade about seven km of urban drainage, protect 5.6 km of river embankments, and enhance the road urban network through a new 6.2 km road and 150-meter bridge to divert the increase in traffic.

Apart from the loans, ADB will also administer a total of $14.1 million in technical assistance to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and $6 million in grant investments from the Global Environment Facility and the Urban Climate Change Resilience Trust Fund.

The technical assistance will mainstream a green and resilient city development approach across government agencies through policy advice and capacity building. The approach will then be replicated in other cities in Vietnam.

ADB, based in Manila, is dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth, and regional integration.

Established in 1966, ADB is celebrating 50 years of development partnership in the region. It is owned by 67 members48 from the region. In 2016, ADB assistance totaled $31.7 billion, including $14 billion in co-financing.
A draft law on cyber security is looking to require all foreign providers of Internet-related services to open data centers in Vietnam in order to continue offering their services to local users.

The proposed piece of legislation is expected to improve Vietnams cyber security, but has experts worrying that it may violate the countrys international commitments to unrestricted access.

If passed by the lawmaking National Assembly, the law would force popular companies like Facebook, Google, Viber, Skype, and Uber to obtain an operating license, open a representative office in Vietnam, and operate servers within the country on which all Vietnamese user data must be stored.

The draft law calls for companies who fail to comply with the new regulations to cease offering services within Vietnams borders.

A country without Facebook, Google

If imposed, this law would become a barrier denying the Vietnamese people access to the advances of worlds communication technologies, Huynh Thanh Phi, a marketing expert, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

According to Phi, the widespread popularity of cloud storage  a method of storing digital data in logical pools with the physical storage spanning multiple servers and locations  means that the use of data is what should be governed, not its storage.

With more than 64 million Facebook users, Vietnam ranks seventh worldwide in number of social media users, accounting for three percent of the platforms global user base, according to a July report released by We Are Social, a social media marketing and advertising agency.

A Vietnamese man uses Facebook on his laptop. Photo: Tuoi Tre News

Meanwhile, nearly all of Vietnams nearly 50 million Internet users are estimated to be using at least one service provided by Google, according to official reports.

However, the companies have yet to open a representative office or data center in Vietnam, relying on their headquarters in other countries to manage Vietnamese user data.

Bui Viet Hien Nhi, vice chief of communications at FPT Telecom, says that the proposed law is a necessary move to improve control and limit risks concerning trade fraud and information security.

However, the opening of data centers in Vietnam would not be simple and easy, and would definitely receive little support from foreign companies, she added.

Vu Quang Duc, a Ho Chi Minh City-based lawyer, asserted that services like Facebook and Google have become so popular among local Internet users that one way or another they will figure out a way to access the services, even if the companies are barred from operating in Vietnam.

I dont think administrative measures would work in managing cross-border services offered by foreign firms, Duc said. Instead, technical measures would be a more effective approach in this regard.

For Nguyen Hong Van, vice president of Vietnam Institute of Information Security, the proposed law is needed to safeguard Vietnams cyber security.

What would happen if personal information such as locations and behaviors of the Vietnamese population is gathered by people with bad intentions through such services, which we neither have knowledge nor control of, Van said. If a cyber war was to be waged against Vietnam using such loopholes, the consequences would be immeasurable.

The Asia-Pacific headquarters of Google in Singapore. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Against international commitments

According to Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), the requirement for foreign Internet service providers to open representative offices in Vietnam would potentially be in conflict with the countrys commitments as a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Such commitments included unrestricted market access for cross-border telecommunications services.

The requirement dictated at Article 34 of the draft law violates Vietnams WTO and EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) commitments, VCCI wrote in a dispatch addressed to the National Defense and Security Committee of the lawmaking National Assembly.

Hoang Quang Phong, vice president of VCCI, said the proposed law also violates Article 14.13 of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), of which Vietnam is a signatory, which requires that no party shall require a covered person to use or locate computing facilities in that partys territory as a condition for conducting business in that territory.

The TPP is a trade agreement between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam to promote economic growth, transparency, good governance and enhanced labor and environmental protections among the nations.

Though the TPP has now been ratified by the National Assebly of Vietnam, the country is in the process of negotiating with ten other Pacific nations, without the U.S., to reach a final conclusion [on the fate of the TPP], Phong explained. Therefore, a law that goes in the opposite direction of the TPP should not be imposed at the moment.

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Rains are expected to continue for the next few days in Vietnam, affecting the harvest in the world's top producer of robusta coffee, while Indonesia remained quiet, traders said on Thursday.

A storm heading to the central and southern Vietnam is likely to cause rains in several parts of the Central Highlands, Vietnam's main coffee belt, during the weekend, preventing farmers from harvesting and drying coffee beans.

"It's been rainy for three to four days but turns sunny this morning; farmers are not harvesting ... beans are not ripe yet," said Le Duc Huy, vice general director of Simexco, a top exporter in Daklak, Vietnam's largest coffee growing province.

Severe rains would hit some eastern coastal provinces from Friday in the south and central Vietnam, and could extend to the Central Highlands in the west, with "complicated and prolonged" developments, the weather forecast centre said.

Most parts of the Central Highlands are likely to see sunny days after the weekend rains, the National Meteorological and Hydrological Center said on its website.

"If it turns out to be a mix of rainy and sunny days, it is actually a boost to the coffee beans to ripe faster and better," said independent analyst Nguyen Quang Binh.

Traders said farmers in Daklak were offering coffee beans at 39,200-40,000 dong ($1.73-$1.76) per kg, the lowest level since Sept. 6, 2016, as prices track a fall in London robusta coffee market.

London January robusta coffee futures contract fell as much as 5.9 percent this week to $1,830 a tonne on Wednesday, a low intraday level unseen since Sept. 1 last year, Thomson Reuters Eikon data showed.

Export contracts were unmatched as sellers offered the 5 percent black and broken grade 2 robusta at a discount of $40-$50 to the January contract while importers asked for a discount of $60-$70, traders said.

In Indonesia, the grade 4 defect 80 robusta beans was being traded at a $20-$30 premium to the January contract, tightening from a $40 premium a week earlier, a trader said.

Most traders are only fulfilling their committed contracts and are not active, the trader said, as harvest will not start until April next year.
The TUI Airways flight TOM064 landed at Phu Quoc at 6:20 pm after a 12-hour flight, carrying 261 passengers and 14 crew members from Londons Gatwick Airport.

TUI Airways, formerly known as Thomson Airways, officially changed its name on October 2, 2017. The charter airline is known for offering scheduled and charter flights from the UK and the Republic of Ireland to destinations in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America.

According to a TUI representative, the airline will operate two weekly charter flights between London and Phu Quoc.

The flights will arrive in Phu Quoc from London on Wednesday afternoon (Vietnam time), and make their return trip the following morning.

A 300-seat Boeing 787 Dreamliner will be used to operate the direct London-Phu Quoc flights, according to the TUI representative.

In related news, a Bangkok Airways flight landed in Phu Quoc on Sunday, transporting 63 passengers directly from Bangkok.

The airline says it will begin operating Bangkok-Phu Quoc flights on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays starting in November.

Italian carrier Neos has also announced plans to operate direct charter flights between Milan and Phu Quoc between December 19 and April 2018.

The flights would depart from Milan every Tuesday and make their return from Phu Quoc every Wednesday using a 250-seat Boeing 767.

As of 2017, Vietnams Phu Quoc Island has welcome direct flights from global destinations including the UK, China, Russia, South Korea, Sweden, and Thailand.

The island, a UNESCO-recognized World Biosphere Reserve located in southern Kien Giang Province, allows a 30-day visa exemption for all international visitors.

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A female scholar is sharing her love for Russia after becoming the first Vietnamese scientist to be honored with the Medal of Pushkin, an award from the Russian government honoring achievements in the arts and culture, education, humanities, and literature

Nguyen Tuyet Minh, an Associate Professor and Doctor of Science, is proud to share the special memories she created during her time spent in the European country, particularly in the wake of her most recent achievement.

When Tuoi Tre (Youth) reporters showed up at Minhs home to interview her about the honor, they were awed by the Russia-related memorabilia adorning the walls and shelves.

I have been given another chance to return to Russia. I consider it my second home, the academic said.

Minhs last visit to the European nation took place just a few months ago during a trip with old and friends and teachers.

At the age of 79, I thought I was bidding a final farewell to Russia when the trip ended, she added.

The award came as a complete surprise for the scholar.

Others candidates can boast noticeable achievements and contributions to Russia. However, I believe they picked me because of the diversity of my work, she continued.

Minh spent 26 years completing the Grand Vietnamese-Russian Dictionary, a joint project between the Soviet Union Science Academy, now called the Russian Science Academy, and the Social Science Committee, commonly known as the Vietnam Social Science Academy.

The intellectual started learning about Russia and its language when she was 15 years old and completed her doctoral and doctor of science programs in the European country.

Minh also played a crucial role in the development of a Russian language textbook for foreign-language students, taught Russian to generations of students, published research, wrote books about the language, and participated in cultural exchanges between two countries.

Pretty much all of my work has been related to the Russian language, she stated.

The first 100 students

Minh first came to Russia in 1954 as a part of 100 member Vietnamese student delegation, the first of its kind, sent to the nation for language acquisition.

We had one and a half years to study. Because there was no Russian-Vietnamese dictionary back then, the teachers taught us by pointing at objects and teaching us how to say them in Russian, she elaborated.

Education in Russia focuses on self-study, the scholar continued, adding that the skill plays an important role in her job.

After returning to Vietnam in 1990, she spent 15 years serving as the vice head of the Faculty of Russian language and culture at the University of Languages and International Study in Hanoi.

Her husband and daughter also in Russia related fields.

The academic is set to receive her Medal of Pushkin at the Kremlin Palace in Moscow on January 4, 2018.

Former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nong Duc Manh was the first Vietnamese citizen to be honored with the recognition.

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The World Bank has appointed a Hong Kong university as a consultant for Vietnams Ministry of Education and Training on a project aimed at promoting the continuous professional development of the Vietnamese teachers.

The appointment of the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) was announced after a rigorous short-listing and selection process for the Vietnamese education ministrys Enhancing Teacher Education Program (ETEP), during which the Hong Kong institution stood out among top universities and education consultancies from North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

The announcement was made by EdUHK in a statement released Thursday.

The EdUKH team will provide ten-month consultancy services for eight Lead Teacher Training Universities (LTTUs) in Vietnam through a series of face-to-face training workshops and school-based consultancies aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of Vietnams teacher and principal education, according to EdUHK.

Professor John Lee conducts a project initiation workshop in Hanoi, which is participated by representatives from the Vietnamese education ministry, World Bank and 8 LTTUs. Photo: EdUHK

Selected by the education ministry, the eight LTTUs span across Vietnam, from Hanoi in the north to Ho Chi Minh in the south. These teacher training universities will eventually serve as stewards of Vietnams new continuous professional development system.

EdUHKs role will be to help the World Bank task team and the Vietnamese education ministry expand and finalize performance agreements between the ministry and the LTTUs. The team will also be tasked with creating a mechanism to track the implementation.

EdUHK will also build on the LTTUs capacity to develop their institutional development strategies and plans to enable them to implement their Performance Agreements efficiently and effectively, the university said.

The EdUHK project team consists of seven renowned education experts at EdUHK, and is led by professor John Lee Chi-kin, chair professor of curriculum and instruction and vice president (academic) of the university.

Project team members pose for a photo with President Professor Stephen Cheung Yan-leung. Photo: EdUHK

We are very pleased to have the opportunity to contribute our expertise to a nation-wide project in Southeast Asia, Professor Stephen Cheung Yan-leung, EdUHK president, said in a statement.

Building on our track record in the region, I have every confidence that we can have a positive impact on the transformation and enhancement of Vietnams teacher education through this knowledge-transfer project.

Professor Lee, the project team leader said ETEP is a mutually beneficial project, in which EdUHK can work with its Vietnamese counterparts and the World Bank team to realize the countrys educational reform goals.
A press conference was convened on Thursday in the central Vietnamese city of Da Nang to highlight the important features of next weeks Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

Hundreds of Vietnamese and foreign reporters were present as Bui Thanh Son, deputy minister of Foreign Affairs and APEC 2017 SOM Chair, announced that leaders of all 21 member economies have confirmed their participation in the summit.

Over 2,000 Vietnamese and foreign businesses have also signed up for the event.

According to Son, U.S. President Donald Trump, Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet all plan to hold bilateral visits to Vietnam during the event.

As host of this years event, Vietnam hopes to continue affirming its independent and diverse foreign policies, along with furthering its active integration with the international community, the official continued.

The Southeast Asian country also plans to use the event as an opportunity to enhance mutual trust and cooperation with other APEC member economies, especially the nations 13 strategic partners.

APEC is a regional economic forum established in 1989 and comprised of 21 member states, including Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the United States, and Vietnam, among others.

The Economic Leaders Week, the culmination of Vietnams year-long hosting of APEC meetings, is scheduled to take place from November 6 to 11 in Da Nang.

According to the Vietnam News Agency, State President Tran Dai Quang will chair the 25th APEC Economic Leaders Retreat on November 11 and deliver an opening speech at the APEC CEO Summit, slated for November 8 to10.

The Vietnam Business Summit will be held on November 7 with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc in attendance to deliver a keynote speech.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh and Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh will co-chair the 29th APEC Ministerial Meeting (AMM) on November 8.

Deputy Minister Son will preside over the APEC Concluding Senior Officials Meeting (CSOM) on November 6 and 7.

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With tropical storm Damrey continues to gathering strength and speeding toward Vietnams south-central coast, all provinces likely to be affected by the typhoon have prepared evacuation plans for nearly 400,000 local residents.

As of 10:00 am on Friday, the typhoon, the 12th to hit Vietnam this year, was located about 400 kilometers east of the coastline of the south-central province of Ninh Thuan. In early afternoon, the storm continued to strengthen, packing winds at 115 to 135km per hour.

Authorities in Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, Khanh Hoa, Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan, provinces that are likely to be affected by the typhoon, have developed plans to evacuate a total of 389,143 people, according to the Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control.

Earlier on Thursday, the search and rescue committee in Phu Yen already evacuated 759 households with 1,958 residents in flooded areas to safe places.

In the meantime, the command of the Vietnamese border defense unit said on Friday morning it has briefed 385,911 people working on 79,182 boats of the storms movement and direction, as well as providing them guidance to stay safe during the extreme weather.

A map detailing the development of tropical storm Damrey from November 3 to 5, 2017. Photo: National Center for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting

Forty boats with 308 laborers in Binh Dinh and Ba Ria-Vung Tau that are still operating in dangerous waters have been urged to rush to safe places before the storm makes landfall.

As of 10:00 am on Friday, 121 fishing boats with 2,985 fishermen have arrived at Vietnams Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago in the East Vietnam Sea to shelter from the storm safely.

Vietnam Airlines on Friday canceled eight flights between Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City with Cam Ranh, and two services on the Ho Chi Minh City-Da Lat route due to bad weather.

According to the latest forecasts, by 10:00 pm, storm Damrey will reach a location about 170 kilometers east of the coastline spanning from Khanh Hoa to Ninh Thuan, packing winds at 115 to 135km per hour.

Previous forecasts suggested that the storm will make landfall in the south-central region during the following 24 to 36 hours, before weakening into a tropical depression.
Free TV Australia has appointed Bridget Fair, currently Group Chief  Corporate and Regulatory Affairs at Seven WestMedia as its new Chief Executive Officer.

She will take over the role from Free TV Acting CEO, Pamela Longstaff who stepped into the role following the exit of Brett Saville, after just 4 months in the role.

Free TV Australia Chairman Harold Mitchell said, We are honoured such a well-regarded and talented professional has joined the organisation to lead it through its next chapter. Bridget has over 20 years experience in the industry, 17 of those with one of our members, Seven West Media. Im confident that with energy and drive, Bridget will take Free TV into the new digital media world, navigating all its opportunities and challenges.

Bridget Fair said, Commercial free to air television has a special place in the hearts and homes of millions of Australians. It has unparalleled reach and influence despite the new multi- platform world we find ourselves in and I firmly believe it has a very strong future. Im excited by the opportunity to lead this industry as we continue to innovate and evolve.

Im very much looking forward to working closely with Nine, Ten, Southern Cross Austereo, Prime and of course Seven West Media in representing FreeTV and its fundamentally important role in our community.

Chairman of Seven West Media, Kerry Stokes, said While we are sad to see Bridget leave us, we

are delighted we will be able to continue to work with her in the very important role she is taking on at Free TV. I have enjoyed watching Bridgets career evolve over the last 17 years with Seven to become the best regulatory executive in the country, with the recent media reforms a testament to her exceptional work.

Chief Executive Officer Tim Worner, added Bridget has been an outstanding member of our executive team and a passionate advocate for our company, not just in Canberra, but all over the country.

Harold Mitchell thanked outgoing CEO Pam Longstaff, who will complete her contract at the end of the year.

We thank Pam who re-joined Free TV on a fixed-term contract as Acting CEO to lead the organisation through a critical juncture and to undertake an extensive review of our operations. Her time at the helm saw us close out media reform, secure the removal of licence fees and set Free TV on a course that will take the organisation into the future. We commend her on an outstanding job, he said.

Pam Longstaff said, It has been a privilege to lead the industry through a period of historic media reform. I thank Free TVs staff, congratulate Bridget and hand over with enormous confidence that the organisation is well placed to represent the industry into the future.

Bridget Fair begins in February 2018.
[November 02, 2017] Tableau Reports Third Quarter 2017 Financial Results

SEATTLE, Nov. 2, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tableau Software, Inc. (NYSE: DATA) today reported results for its third quarter ended September 30, 2017. "Customers are embracing our subscription offerings even faster than expected," said Adam Selipsky, President and Chief Executive Officer of Tableau. "Forty-five percent of our license bookings were sold on a subscription basis this quarter, nearly triple the percentage a year ago, as more and more customers turn to subscription to better address their analytics needs with lower upfront cost and reduced risk." Financial Summary Total revenue grew to $214.9 million , up 4% year over year.

, up 4% year over year. Total annual recurring revenue was $526.2 million , up 46% year over year.

, up 46% year over year. Subscription annual recurring revenue was $139.2 million , up 204% year over year.

, up 204% year over year. Ratable license bookings were 45% of total license bookings, compared to 16% in the third quarter of 2016.

Diluted GAAP net loss per share was $0.59 ; diluted non-GAAP net income per share was $0.08 . Financial Results

Total revenue increased 4% to $214.9 million, up from $206.1 million in the third quarter of 2016. Total annual recurring revenue increased 46% to $526.2 million, up from $361.4 million at the end of the third quarter of 2016. Subscription annual recurring revenue increased 204% to $139.2 million, up from $45.7 million at the end of the third quarter of 2016. GAAP operating loss for the third quarter of 2017 was $49.0 million, compared to a GAAP operating loss of $29.4 million for the third quarter of 2016. GAAP net loss for the third quarter of 2017 was $46.6 million, or $0.59 per diluted common share, compared to a GAAP net loss of $30.3 million, or $0.40 per diluted common share, for the third quarter of 2016. Non-GAAP operating income, which excludes stock-based compensation expense and expense related to amortization of acquired intangible assets, was $5.5 million for the third quarter of 2017, compared to a non-GAAP operating income of $18.1 million for the third quarter of 2016. Non-GAAP net income, which excludes stock-based compensation expense, expense related to amortization of acquired intangible assets and non-GAAP income tax adjustments, was $6.4 million for the third quarter of 2017, or $0.08 per diluted common share, compared to a non-GAAP net income of $13.3 million, or $0.16 per diluted common share, for the third quarter of 2016. During the third quarter ended September 30, 2017, Tableau repurchased 276,491 shares of the Company's outstanding Class A common stock for a total of $20.0 million. As of September 30, 2017, the Company was authorized to repurchase a remaining $120.0 million of its Class A common stock under the previously authorized repurchase program. Recent Business Highlights Launched Tableau 10.4, which includes data source certification, to help customers use the right data at the right time, functionality for smarter conversations between teams with discussions and viz snapshots and new geospatial capabilities.

Acquired ClearGraph, a startup that enables smart data discovery and data analysis through natural language query technology ("NLQ").

Hosted Tableau's 10th annual customer conference in Las Vegas , with 14,000 registered customers and partners. Tableau Conference provided more than 400 learning sessions, including over 100 customers sharing their use cases and best practices with Tableau. Upcoming innovations were showcased at the conference, including the new Hyper data engine in beta, Tableau Server on the Linux operating system, a new extensions API in developer preview and Maestro, Tableau's data prep product expected to be in beta by the end of the year. Conference Call and Webcast Information

In conjunction with this announcement, Tableau will host a conference call at 1:30 p.m. PT (4:30 p.m. ET) today to discuss Tableau's third quarter 2017 financial results. A live audio webcast and replay of the call, together with detailed financial information, will be available in the Investor Relations section of Tableau's website at http://investors.tableau.com. The live call can be accessed by dialing (833) 241-7252 (U.S.) or (647) 689-4216 (outside the U.S.) and referencing passcode 99505369. A replay of the call can also be accessed by dialing (800) 585-8367 (U.S.) or (416) 621-4642 (outside the U.S.), and referencing passcode 99505369. About Tableau

Tableau (NYSE: DATA) helps people see and understand data. Tableau helps anyone quickly analyze, visualize and share information. More than 65,000 customer accounts get rapid results with Tableau in the office and on-the-go. Hundreds of thousands of people have used Tableau Public to share data in their blogs and websites. See how Tableau can help you by downloading the free trial at www.tableau.com/trial. Tableau and Tableau Software are trademarks of Tableau Software, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains, and statements made during the above referenced conference call will contain, "forward-looking" statements, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including regarding the Company's transition to subscription licensing and continued product adoption, including strong subscription demand and annual recurring revenue growth; demand, adoption and deployment by enterprise customers, and the Company's ability to service, execute and grow that demand in the U.S. and globally; the Company's further transition to subscription and term licensing and its expected increase in demand for its products as a result of its subscription license pricing; the willingness and ability of its partners to sell its subscription licenses; the Company's research and development investments, costs, continued innovation and ability to timely release future products and features; the Company's leadership position in the sector and ability to address market opportunities as a visual analytics platform; the Company's expectations regarding future operating results, including revenues, expenses and net income or loss, and future performance of key metrics; and the Company's stock repurchase authorization and timing and ability to repurchase shares of the Company's Class A common stock under its stock repurchase program. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, but are based on management's expectations as of the date of this press release and assumptions that are inherently subject to uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements include the following: risks associated with anticipated growth in Tableau's business and addressable market; customer demand for Tableau's products and services and customer response to its subscription pricing offerings; competitive factors, including new market entrants and changes in the competitive environment, pricing changes, sales cycle time and increased competition; Tableau's enterprise sales execution and expansion and further transition to subscription and term licensing; Tableau's ability to attract, integrate and retain qualified personnel; general economic and industry conditions, including expenditure trends for business analytics and productivity tools; new product introductions and Tableau's ability to develop and deliver innovative, secure and high-quality products; Tableau's ability to provide high-quality customer service and support offerings; risks associated with international expansion and operations; macroeconomic conditions; market conditions; and the possibility that the stock repurchase program may be suspended or discontinued. These and other important risk factors are described more fully in additional documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Tableau's most recently filed Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, Annual Report on Form 10-K and other reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and could cause actual results to vary from expectations. All information provided in this release and in the conference call is as of the date hereof and Tableau undertakes no duty to update this information except as required by law. Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Tableau believes that the use of non-GAAP gross profit and gross margin, non-GAAP operating income (loss) and operating margin, non-GAAP net income (loss), non-GAAP net income (loss) per basic and diluted common share and free cash flow is helpful to its investors. These measures, which are referred to as non-GAAP financial measures, are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States, or GAAP. Non-GAAP gross profit is calculated by excluding stock-based compensation expense and expense related to amortization of acquired intangible assets, each to the extent attributable to the cost of revenues, from gross profit. Non-GAAP gross margin is the ratio calculated by dividing non-GAAP gross profit by total revenues. Non-GAAP operating income (loss) is calculated by excluding stock-based compensation expense and expense related to amortization of acquired intangible assets from operating income (loss). Non-GAAP operating margin is the ratio calculated by dividing non-GAAP operating income (loss) by total revenues. Non-GAAP net income (loss) is calculated by excluding stock-based compensation expense, expense related to amortization of acquired intangible assets and non-GAAP income tax adjustments from net income (loss). Non-GAAP net income (loss) per basic and diluted common share is calculated by dividing non-GAAP net income (loss) by the basic and diluted weighted average shares outstanding. Non-GAAP diluted weighted average shares outstanding includes the effect of dilutive shares in periods of non-GAAP net income. Non-GAAP financial information is adjusted for a tax rate equal to Tableau's estimated tax rate on non-GAAP income over a three-year financial projection. This rate is based on Tableau's estimated annual GAAP income tax rate forecast, adjusted to account for items excluded from GAAP income in calculating the non-GAAP financial measures. To determine this long-term non-GAAP tax rate, Tableau evaluates a three-year financial projection that excludes the impact of non-cash stock-based compensation expense and expense related to amortization of acquired intangible assets. The long-term non-GAAP tax rate takes into account other factors including Tableau's current operating structure, its existing tax positions in various jurisdictions and key legislation in major jurisdictions where Tableau operates. The long-term non-GAAP tax rate applied to the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 and 2016 was 30%. The long-term non-GAAP tax rate assumes the Company's deferred income tax assets will be realized based upon projected future taxable income excluding stock-based compensation expense. The Company anticipates using this long-term non-GAAP tax rate in future periods and may provide updates to this rate on an annual basis, or more frequently if material changes occur. Because of varying available valuation methodologies, subjective assumptions and the variety of equity instruments that can impact a company's non-cash expenses, Tableau believes that providing non-GAAP financial measures that exclude stock-based compensation expense allow for more meaningful comparisons between its operating results from period to period. The expense related to amortization of acquired intangible assets is dependent upon estimates and assumptions, which can vary significantly and are unique to each asset acquired; therefore, Tableau believes non-GAAP measures that adjust for the amortization of acquired intangible assets provides investors a consistent basis for comparison across accounting periods. All of these non-GAAP financial measures are important tools for financial and operational decision-making and for evaluating Tableau's own operating results over different periods of time. Tableau calculates free cash flow as net cash provided by operating activities less net cash used in investing activities for purchases of property and equipment. Tableau considers free cash flow to be a liquidity measure that provides useful information to management and investors about the amount of cash generated by Tableau's business that can be used for strategic opportunities, including investing in Tableau's business, making strategic acquisitions, repurchasing Tableau's common stock and strengthening Tableau's balance sheet. All of Tableau's non-GAAP financial measures are important tools for financial and operational decision-making and for evaluating Tableau's operating results over different periods of time. Non-GAAP financial measures may not provide information that is directly comparable to that provided by other companies in Tableau's industry, as other companies in the industry may calculate non-GAAP financial results differently. In addition, there are limitations in using non-GAAP financial measures because the non-GAAP financial measures are not prepared in accordance with GAAP, may be different from non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies and exclude expenses that may have a material impact on Tableau's reported financial results. Further, stock-based compensation expense has been and will continue to be for the foreseeable future a significant recurring expense in Tableau's business and an important part of the compensation provided to its employees. The presentation of non-GAAP financial information is not meant to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the directly comparable financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. Investors should review the reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to the comparable GAAP financial measures included below, and not rely on any single financial measure to evaluate Tableau's business.







Tableau Software, Inc. Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations (In thousands, except per share data) (Unaudited)





Three Months Ended

September 30,

Nine Months Ended

September 30,



2017

2016

2017

2016 Revenues















License

$ 99,424



$ 116,655



$ 299,964



$ 329,419

Maintenance and services

115,493



89,402



327,739



246,871

Total revenues

214,917



206,057



627,703



576,290

Cost of revenues















License

3,265



1,760



9,474



4,393

Maintenance and services

26,664



22,270



73,775



66,994

Total cost of revenues (1)

29,929



24,030



83,249



71,387

Gross profit

184,988



182,027



544,454



504,903

Operating expenses















Sales and marketing (1)

123,842



114,530



366,020



340,583

Research and development (1)

84,494



75,348



249,863



223,757

General and administrative (1)

25,697



21,505



76,017



63,178

Total operating expenses

234,033



211,383



691,900



627,518

Operating loss

(49,045)



(29,356)



(147,446)



(122,615)

Other income, net

3,677



814



8,931



3,496

Loss before income tax expense

(45,368)



(28,542)



(138,515)



(119,119)

Income tax expense

1,185



1,719



5,207



4,242

Net loss

$ (46,553)



$ (30,261)



$ (143,722)



$ (123,361)



















Net loss per share:















Basic

$ (0.59)



$ (0.40)



$ (1.83)



$ (1.65)

Diluted

$ (0.59)



$ (0.40)



$ (1.83)



$ (1.65)



















Weighted average shares used to compute net loss per share:















Basic

79,440



75,647



78,463



74,743

Diluted

79,440



75,647



78,463



74,743





(1) Includes stock-based compensation expense as follows:



Three Months Ended

September 30,

Nine Months Ended

September 30,



2017

2016

2017

2016













Cost of revenues

$ 2,885



$ 2,614



$ 8,252



$ 8,060

Sales and marketing

18,603



17,487



55,221



51,037

Research and development

27,337



23,372



76,500



67,880

General and administrative

5,489



3,910



15,650



10,977

Tableau Software, Inc. Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets (In thousands) (Unaudited)



September 30, 2017

December 31, 2016 Assets





Current assets





Cash and cash equivalents $ 790,945



$ 908,717

Short-term investments 152,351





Accounts receivable, net 131,595



206,765

Prepaid expenses and other current assets 38,442



36,011

Income taxes receivable 448



131

Total current assets 1,113,781



1,151,624

Long-term investments 45,512





Property and equipment, net 106,100



106,637

Goodwill 35,083



15,531

Deferred income taxes 2,482



1,449

Deposits and other assets 16,340



11,958

Total assets $ 1,319,298



$ 1,287,199

Liabilities and stockholders' equity





Current liabilities





Accounts payable $ 9,713



$ 17,637

Accrued compensation and employee related benefits 78,795



70,230

Other accrued liabilities 58,777



53,418

Income taxes payable 2,002



1,893

Deferred revenue 338,848



285,543

Total current liabilities 488,135



428,721

Deferred revenue 27,504



26,930

Other long-term liabilities 51,057



39,700

Total liabilities 566,696



495,351

Stockholders' equity





Common stock 8



8

Additional paid-in capital 1,122,903



1,007,205

Accumulated other comprehensive income (loss) (9,189)



1,593

Accumulated deficit (361,120)



(216,958)

Total stockholders' equity 752,602



791,848

Total liabilities and stockholders' equity $ 1,319,298



$ 1,287,199

Tableau Software, Inc. Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows (In thousands) (Unaudited)





Nine Months Ended

September 30,



2017

2016 Operating activities







Net loss

$ (143,722)



$ (123,361)

Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash provided by operating activities







Depreciation and amortization expense

34,174



25,091

Amortization of premiums on investments

162





Stock-based compensation expense

155,623



137,954

Deferred income taxes

(226)



282

Changes in operating assets and liabilities







Accounts receivable, net

80,030



(5,150)

Prepaid expenses, deposits and other assets

(138)



(10,355)

Income taxes receivable

(297)



72

Deferred revenue

45,109



49,868

Accounts payable and accrued liabilities

9,452



32,043

Income taxes payable

26



517

Net cash provided by operating activities(1)

180,193



106,961

Investing activities







Purchases of property and equipment

(43,179)



(42,334)

Business combinations, net of cash acquired

(23,966)



(16,399)

Purchases of investments

(198,144)





Net cash used in investing activities

(265,289)



(58,733)

Financing activities







Proceeds from issuance of common stock

24,305



21,203

Repurchases of common stock

(59,986)





Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities(1)

(35,681)



21,203

Effect of exchange rate changes on cash and cash equivalents

3,005



(738)

Net increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents

(117,772)



68,693

Cash and cash equivalents







Beginning of period

908,717



795,900

End of period

$ 790,945



$ 864,593



(1) Tableau adopted Accounting Standards Update ("ASU") 2016-09 in the first quarter of 2017. Prior to the adoption of ASU 2016-09, excess tax benefits related to stock awards were required to be presented as an inflow from financing activities and an outflow from operating activities on the statement of cash flows. Under the new standard, all tax-related cash flows resulting from share-based payments are reported as operating activities. Tableau adopted the new requirement retrospectively, and for the nine months ended September 30, 2016, this resulted in an increase to net cash provided by operating activities of $0.8 million and a corresponding decrease to net cash provided by (used in) financing activities of $0.8 million. Tableau Software, Inc. Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Financial Measures (In thousands, except per share data) (Unaudited)



Three Months Ended

September 30,

Nine Months Ended

September 30,

2017

2016

2017

2016 Reconciliation of gross profit to non-GAAP gross profit:













Gross profit $ 184,988



$ 182,027



$ 544,454



$ 504,903

Excluding: Stock-based compensation expense attributable to cost of revenues 2,885



2,614



8,252



8,060

Excluding: Amortization of acquired intangible assets 264



95



454



227

Non-GAAP gross profit $ 188,137



$ 184,736



$ 553,160



$ 513,190

















Reconciliation of gross margin to non-GAAP gross margin:













Gross margin 86.1 %

88.3 %

86.7 %

87.6 % Excluding: Stock-based compensation expense attributable to cost of revenues 1.3 %

1.3 %

1.3 %

1.4 % Excluding: Amortization of acquired intangible assets 0.1 %

0.0 %

0.1 %

0.0 % Non-GAAP gross margin 87.5 %

89.7 %

88.1 %

89.1 %















Reconciliation of operating loss to non-GAAP operating income:













Operating loss $ (49,045)



$ (29,356)



$ (147,446)



$ (122,615)

Excluding: Stock-based compensation expense 54,314



47,383



155,623



137,954

Excluding: Amortization of acquired intangible assets 264



95



454



227

Non-GAAP operating income $ 5,533



$ 18,122



$ 8,631



$ 15,566

















Reconciliation of operating margin to non-GAAP operating margin:













Operating margin (22.8) %

(14.2) %

(23.5) %

(21.3) % Excluding: Stock-based compensation expense 25.3 %

23.0 %

24.8 %

23.9 % Excluding: Amortization of acquired intangible assets 0.1 %

0.0 %

0.1 %

0.0 % Non-GAAP operating margin 2.6 %

8.8 %

1.4 %

2.7 %









Three Months Ended

September 30,

Nine Months Ended

September 30,

2017

2016

2017

2016 Reconciliation of net loss to non-GAAP net income:













Net loss $ (46,553)



$ (30,261)



$ (143,722)



$ (123,361)

Excluding: Stock-based compensation expense 54,314



47,383



155,623



137,954

Excluding: Amortization of acquired intangible assets 264



95



454



227

Income tax adjustments (1,578)



(3,962)



(62)



(1,477)

Non-GAAP net income $ 6,447



$ 13,255



$ 12,293



$ 13,343

















Weighted average shares used to compute non-GAAP basic net income per share 79,440



75,647



78,463



74,743

Effect of potentially dilutive shares: stock awards 4,398



4,917



3,981



4,933

Weighted average shares used to compute non-GAAP diluted net income per share 83,838



80,564



82,444



79,676

















Non-GAAP net income per share:













Basic $ 0.08



$ 0.18



$ 0.16



$ 0.18

Diluted $ 0.08



$ 0.16



$ 0.15



$ 0.17



























Nine Months Ended

September 30,









2017

2016 Reconciliation of net cash provided by operating activities to free cash flow:













Net cash provided by operating activities(1)







$ 180,193



$ 106,961

Less: Purchases of property and equipment







43,179



42,334

Free cash flow (1)







$ 137,014



$ 64,627

Net cash used in investing activities







$ (265,289)



$ (58,733)

Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities(1)







$ (35,681)



$ 21,203



(1) Tableau adopted ASU 2016-09 in the first quarter of 2017. Prior to the adoption of ASU 2016-09, excess tax benefits related to stock awards were required to be presented as an inflow from financing activities and an outflow from operating activities on the statement of cash flows. Under the new standard, all tax-related cash flows resulting from share-based payments are reported as operating activities. Tableau adopted the new requirement retrospectively, and for the nine months ended September 30, 2016, this resulted in an increase to net cash provided by operating activities of $0.8 million and a corresponding decrease to net cash provided by (used in) financing activities of $0.8 million. Tableau Software, Inc. Trended Metrics

The following metrics are intended as a supplement to the financial statements found in this release and other information furnished or filed with the SEC. In the event of discrepancies between amounts in these tables and the Company's historical disclosures or financial statements, readers should rely on the Company's filings with the SEC and financial statements in the Company's most recent earnings release.

Tableau intends to periodically review and refine the definition, methodology and appropriateness of each of these supplemental metrics. As a result, metrics are subject to removal and/or change, and such changes could be material.



Q1`16 Q2`16 Q3`16 Q4`16 FY 2016 Q1`17 Q2`17 Q3`17

(Dollars in thousands)









(Unaudited)







Customer metrics















Customer accounts (1) 42,000+

46,000+

50,000+

54,000+

54,000+

57,000+

61,000+

65,000+

Customer accounts added in period (1) 3,500+

3,900+

3,600+

4,000+

15,000+

3,300+

4,000+

4,100+

Deals greater than $100,000 (2) 268

332

360

589

1,549

294

372

337

Customer accounts that purchased greater than $1 million during the quarter (1,2) 10

16

10

25



10

15

13



















Geographic revenue metrics















United States and Canada $ 123,648

$ 141,478

$ 147,820

$ 173,548

$ 586,494

$ 141,496

$ 146,102

$ 150,059

International $ 48,050

$ 57,057

$ 58,237

$ 77,105

$ 240,449

$ 58,410

$ 66,778

$ 64,858

United States and Canada as % of total revenue 72 % 71 % 72 % 69 % 71 % 71 % 69 % 70 % International as % of total revenue 28 % 29 % 28 % 31 % 29 % 29 % 31 % 30 %

















Additional revenue metrics















Total annual recurring revenue (3) $ 295,513

$ 328,316

$ 361,382

$ 411,192

$ 411,192

$ 439,001

$ 483,578

$ 526,211

Subscription annual recurring revenue (4) $ 32,285

$ 37,690

$ 45,735

$ 58,355

$ 58,355

$ 71,950

$ 103,538

$ 139,210

Ratable revenue as % of total revenue (5) 42 % 40 % 44 % 40 % 41 % 54 % 56 % 63 % Ratable license revenue as % of total license revenue (6) 9 % 9 % 11 % 10 % 10 % 19 % 23 % 34 % Services revenues as a % of maintenance and services revenue (7) 15 % 16 % 14 % 15 % 15 % 12 % 13 % 12 %

















Bookings metrics















License bookings year-over-year growth (decline) % (2) 24 % 28 % 11 % 25 % 22 % 6 % 0 % (3) % Normalized license bookings year-over-year growth (2,8) 27 % 29 % 14 % 30 % 25 % 20 % 20 % 21 % Ratable bookings as % of total bookings (2) 45 % 47 % 48 % 51 % 48 % 55 % 61 % 65 % Ratable license bookings as % of total license bookings (2) 12 % 16 % 16 % 20 % 17 % 26 % 37 % 45 %

















Other metrics















Worldwide employees 3,168

3,248

3,280

3,223

3,223

3,193

3,305

3,418



(1) Tableau defines a customer account as a single purchaser of its products. Customer accounts are typically organizations. In some cases, organizations will have multiple groups purchasing Tableau software, which count as discrete customer accounts.

(2) These operating metrics are based on Tableau's definition of bookings, which is defined as the first year of contracted revenue only and does not include additional years beyond the first year unless a customer pays for those years up front. Bookings includes both new sales and renewals. Tableau's bookings may not be comparable to similarly named measures disclosed by other companies in the software industry. Bookings is not a measure of revenue or an indication of actual revenue results. Revenues ultimately recognized could be affected by a number of factors. License bookings include sales of software licenses and subscriptions to Tableau Online. Ratable bookings are sales transactions that result in revenues, which will be amortized over a period of time.

(3) Tableau defines total annual recurring revenue ("Total ARR") as the annualized recurring value of all active contracts at the end of a reporting period. Total ARR includes subscription annual recurring revenue ("Subscription ARR") and the annualized value of all maintenance contracts related to perpetual licenses active at the end of a reporting period.

(4) Tableau defines Subscription ARR as the annualized recurring value of all active subscription contracts at the end of a reporting period. Subscription ARR includes term licenses and renewals, subscription enterprise license agreements and Tableau Online subscriptions and renewals, and excludes distribution original equipment manufacturer ("OEM") license agreements and perpetual-style enterprise license agreements.

(5) Ratable revenues were amortized during the respective periods. For example, sales of Tableau Online, enterprise license agreements, term licenses and OEM license arrangements, as well as maintenance and support, are recognized ratably.

(6) Ratable license revenues were amortized during the respective periods. For example, sales of Tableau Online, enterprise license agreements, term licenses and OEM license arrangements are recognized ratably.

(7) Services revenues were recognized upon delivery of professional services and training.

(8) Tableau calculates normalized license bookings by applying the equivalent ratio of perpetual prices to subscription bookings, assuming demand and discount are held constant, to adjust term license and renewals, subscription enterprise license agreements and Tableau Online subscriptions and renewals. View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tableau-reports-third-quarter-2017-financial-results-300548823.html SOURCE Tableau Software

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
Actor Vince Colosimo has been fined $3500 and had his licence cancelled for 5 months after pleading guilty to two charges in the Melbourne Magistrates Court today.

Colosimo, 50, tested positive to ice when he was pulled over in Exhibition Street on March 5. At the time his license had been suspended for six months after he had accumulated too many demerit points.

The court heard that it was the third time he had been caught driving while suspended.

Defence lawyer Tara Hartnett said the case had drawn significant media attention, because of Colosimos profile, causing him and his family great embarrassment.

Magistrate David Starvaggi said driving under the influence of drugs was a basic issue that even a kindergarten kid could understand.

Youre building a nice little history for yourself here, he said.

Youre risking a jail term  if youre back here for a fourth time it wont be pretty.

As well as the fine and a five-month license suspension, Colosimo will also have to pay some court costs.

Colosimo, who most recently appeared in The Ex-PM, Sunshine, Offspring and The Warriors and will feature in Underbelly Files: Chopper, did not comment outside court.

Source: The Age, 9News
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Joseph Yun (R) answers questions from reporters following meeting with Japan and South Korea chief nuclear negotiators to talk about North Korean issues at the Iikura guest house in Tokyo, Japan April 25, 2017. REUTERS/Toru Yamanaka/Pool/File Photo

Thomson Reuters

By Matt Spetalnick, Arshad Mohammed and Hyonhee Shin

WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) - Saddled with the toughest job in American diplomacy, the chief U.S. negotiator with North Korea stands between a U.S. president who insists he doesnt want to talk and an enemy who shows no interest in listening.

While veteran State Department Asia hand Joseph Yun might be Washingtons best diplomatic hope for reducing the risk of a devastating war on the Korean peninsula, he serves an administration riven by divisions over how to handle Pyongyang.

On the other side, North Koreas young leader, Kim Jong Un, shows little interest in negotiating either, at least not until he has developed a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

Despite the daunting obstacles, South Korean-born Yun has told colleagues and others he hopes his diplomatic efforts can lower the temperature in a dangerous nuclear stand-off, according to Reuters interviews with more than a dozen current and former U.S. officials and South Korean diplomats.

Most were deeply skeptical about his chances.

"Hes such a dreamer," a White House official said, with a note of sarcasm.

"We dont think this is going anywhere," said another U.S. official, although he suggested it was still worthwhile to keep engaging at some level with the North Koreans as long as Yun does not appear to be undermining President Donald Trumps public rejection of direct negotiations.

Trump has told aides that his military threats will drive North Korea to capitulate and rein in its nuclear and missile programs, four White House officials said, a view not shared among most U.S. intelligence agencies.

Yun, however, is quietly pursuing direct diplomacy with North Korean officials at the United Nations and has a mandate to discuss issues beyond the release of U.S. citizens, a senior State Department official told Reuters this week. In June, he secured the release of U.S. student Otto Warmbier, who returned to the United States in a coma and died days later.

Story continues

'RUNNING OUT OF TIME'

Trump headed to Asia on Friday as a senior aide warned the world is "running out of time" on the North Korea crisis. Behind the scenes, Yun is trying to keep open a fragile line of communication that could be used to prevent any miscalculation by one side or the other from spiraling into military conflict.

Further aggravating tensions, two U.S. strategic bombers conducted drills over South Korea on Thursday. That followed word from South Koreas spy agency that North Korea may be preparing another missile launch.

U.S. officials have said privately that intercepting a test missile is among options under consideration, though there is disagreement within the administration about the risks.

In the midst of this is Yun, a soft-spoken, 32-year foreign service veteran who took on the job a year ago, near the end of the Obama administration.

He is grappling with Trumps strident rhetoric as well as disagreement among the president's top aides over whether saber-rattling will force Kim to capitulate and what the threshold for any military actions should be, according to several U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Concern about Yuns difficulties has surfaced in Seoul, where he visits regularly and where Trump will travel next week on the second stop of his Asian tour.

Several South Korean officials expressed worry that Yuns diplomatic efforts with North Korea lack any real underpinning of support from the White House.

"Things are clearly not easy for him," one South Korean diplomat said. "Yun is precisely that person (to talk to North Korea), but Trump is killing the whole process."

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters on Sept. 30 the United States was probing for a diplomatic opening, only to be slapped down by Trump, who told him via Twitter this was a waste of time.

At the same time, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who regularly briefs Trump on intelligence matters and is considered one of the most hawkish voices on North Korea in the president's inner circle, has apparently gained stature.

Several officials familiar with those discussions say Pompeo is feeding Trump assessments that U.S. military threats will force Kim to bow to U.S. demands for nuclear disarmament, a position that some U.S. intelligence officers privately contest.

The CIA declined comment.

NORTH KOREAN NEGOTIATOR 'SHOCKED'

A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Yun has become diplomatically "untethered," not fully connected to a core U.S. approach that is emphasizing economic sanctions and the threat of military action rather than diplomacy.

The one tangible achievement of Yun's diplomatic efforts in the past year was winning the release of 22-year-old Warmbier in secret talks with North Korean officials in Oslo and New York. Yun flew to Pyongyang in June to medically evacuate Warmbier.

When Choe Son Hui, head of the North Korean foreign ministry's North America bureau, met Yun in Oslo, she was unaware of how serious Warmbier's condition was, a source in Washington knowledgeable about the matter said.

But once she learned about it she was "shocked" and Yun was summoned urgently to meet a North Korean diplomat in New York, which quickly led to Warmbier's return home, the source said.

Warmbier's death complicated Yun's efforts as it contributed to a chilling of U.S.-North Korean contacts around that time, the State Department official said.

STUMBLING IN THE DARK

Despite Trumps threats of military action against Pyongyang, the State Department official said Yuns view was "the less you engage diplomatically, the more likely you are in the dark."

Even so, Trumps rhetoric has raised questions among allies, and possibly even in North Korea, about how serious, if at all, his administration is about diplomacy and how much of a mandate Yun may have to pursue it.

Trump "personalized" the conflict  deriding Kim as "Little Rocket Man" - against the advice of his national security and intelligence experts, some of whom warned it could be counterproductive, a senior national security official said.

Another official pointed out, however, that Trump, who in May said he would be honored to meet Kim, had not hurled any fresh insults at Kim in recent days, raising hopes for an altered approach.

A South Korean official in Seoul said it was necessary for Washington to have someone in contact with North Korea to help spur future negotiations if they are ever to take hold.

But Trumps national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, told Japans NHK television this week: "What we cannot afford to do is enter into these long, drawn-out negotiations that allow North Korea to use these negotiations as cover for continuing their nuclear and missile programs."

Former U.S. negotiators sympathize with Yun, whose authority to negotiate has been undercut by the tug-of-war between a White House breathing fire and a State Department pushing a peaceful solution.

"Nobody doubted my authority," said Wendy Sherman, one of the lead U.S. negotiators who achieved the 2015 deal under which

Iran agreed to restrain its nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions. "All of this undermines our ability to do the job."

Robert Gallucci, who was chief U.S. negotiator during the North Korean nuclear crisis of 1994 and has had recent contact with Yun, said the envoy is realistic about the challenges of negotiating in the current atmosphere, including the tone set by the president, but he believes in the mission even as his approach is guided by realism.

(Additional reporting by James Pearson in Seoul, John Walcott and David Brunnstrom in Washington, Linda Sieg in Tokyo; Editing by Kieran Murray and Ross Colvin)

See Also:
FILE PHOTO: An honor guard carries the coffin of U.S. Army Sergeant La David Johnson, who was among four special forces soldiers killed in Niger, at a graveside service in Hollywood, Florida, October 21, 2017. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo

Thomson Reuters

By Tim Cocks and Idrees Ali

NIAMEY/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A month after an Islamist ambush in Niger killed eight U.S. and Nigerien troops, the two sides' officials still cannot agree on the sequence of events leading to the incident or even, possibly more importantly, on the nature of the mission itself.

Four soldiers from each nation were killed when a joint patrol was attacked on Oct. 4 by dozens of militants with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

The incident drew attention to the little-known U.S. military presence in Niger at a time when many Americans are weary of U.S. involvement in conflicts abroad and Nigeriens are chafing at the growing presence of foreign troops on their soil.

The United States has 800 soldiers operating in the largely desert West African nation, more than France, which has 4,000 in the wider Sahel trying to tackle Islamist militancy. The main U.S. base in Africa is in Djibouti, which supports about 4,000 personnel.

A Pentagon investigation into the incident, led by a two-star general from U.S. Africa Command, may take weeks. The Pentagon says it has not settled on any final version of events.

Through interviews in Niger's capital Niamey and Washington, Reuters has tried to piece together the events of Oct. 3 to Oct. 6, when the last U.S. soldier's body was recovered.

Accounts by Nigerien and American officials differ over the mission's objectives, and whether and how they may have changed.

The one consistent thread is that they appear to have been woefully unprepared for their enemy.

"CONSIDERED SAFE"

U.S. and Niger officials agree that on Oct. 3, 12 U.S. Special Forces and 30 Nigeriens left Niamey and headed north to the Mali border. Twenty six similar patrols had taken place in the area in the past six months without enemy contact, the Pentagon said.

After that, the stories of the two sides diverge.

"It was an intelligence mission but also a mission of an operational nature," Niger Interior Minister Mohamed Bazoum told Reuters in an interview. "It was in a zone that was considered safe, not enemy territory."

Story continues

Specifically, the mission aimed to detain and question a suspected recruiter for Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, an Islamic State affiliate, according to a senior Nigerien security source with knowledge of the operation and two mid-level government sources, all of whom declined to be named.

The senior source said the mission was thought low enough risk that they had no armored vehicles or body armor.

U.S. officials vehemently contradict this account.

"The service members involved in this unfortunate incident were unequivocally not directed to do a 'kill or capture mission'. They were on a reconnaissance mission," the Pentagon said in statement sent to Reuters on Thursday. It said it would provide more details once the investigation is complete.

All three Nigerien sources said the target was a mid-ranking commander called Doundou Chefou who was recruiting disgruntled youths from the Fulani ethnic group along Niger-Mali border.

Chefou commanded Islamic State fighters affiliated to the movement led by an Arabic-speaking north African called Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, the Nigerien sources said.

According to the senior Nigerien security official, the team initially sought Chefou out near a remote border village on Oct. 3. They found a militant camp there but no fighters, he said.

After that, Nigerien intelligence officials on the team received fresh orders from their headquarters to pursue him in the village of Tongo Tongo, so they stayed the night nearby, the official said.

Three U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while it is true the team was given an additional task mid-mission, it was never in pursuit of a militant.

SECOND TEAM

The U.S. officials said their soldiers were asked to work with the Nigerien troops to be on standby to help a second U.S. military team whose mission was indeed to pursue a militant. That mission was called off, however. It is unclear when or why.

"Did the mission change? That's one of the questions being asked. I can't tell you definitively the answer to that question," General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last month.

The U.S. officials said the first team was asked to gather intelligence on the militant. The Americans could do this under U.S. military rules of engagement that allow American forces to accompany partner forces only when the chances of enemy contact are "unlikely."

Asked about the existence of a second mission, none of the Nigerien sources were aware of it.

U.S. and Nigerien officials agree the team was ambushed after they met local leaders in Tongo Tongo on Oct. 4.

One of the Nigerien government sources said the militants first came with just a few gunmen with AK47s on motorbikes to slow them down, and later brought out heavier 1.27mm sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

That might explain why the team took an hour to call for help - one of the issues that has most disturbed senior Pentagon officials - because the initial attack may have only involved light arms.

A few minutes after the team called for air support, a surveillance drone appeared, providing a live feed, but it took another hour before French military aircraft arrived. They were unable to drop bombs because of how close the fighting was, diplomatic sources have said.

One U.S. official said at least some of the four U.S. soldiers killed were then separated from the convoy. They included Sergeant La David T. Johnson, whose body was not recovered for two days. It is unclear why.

U.S. PRESENCE LIKELY TO GROW

It is unlikely the United States will back away from Niger because of its central location in the Sahel and because of the proliferation of militant groups around it, including Nigeria's Islamic State-linked Boko Haram and al-Qaeda affiliates.

Several current and former U.S. officials with Africa experience said they expected U.S. military focus on the Sahel to grow, not decrease.

Retired general Donald Bolduc, who led U.S. special operations in Africa until June, said the military should retain a small "footprint" in Africa but needed more intelligence and surveillance resources and medical and air support.

While the most assets have gone to the Middle East and Afghanistan, "there needs to be ... a different perspective on how we allocate the resources between theaters," he said.

He expressed surprise at the idea that the unit which was ambushed had been redirected to focus on a militant leader.

Senior militant leaders are normally well protected, Bolduc said, with rings of security guards and layers of militants who communicate with one another via radio.

"I'm as confused about it as you are," he said. "That's not how it's done. ... The resources and planning didn't seem to be there for that kind of operation."

(Additional reporting by David Lewis in Nairobi, Moussa Aksar in Niamey, Warren Strobel and Yara Bayoumy in Washington; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

See Also:
Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic gestures during a joint news conference with Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki in the West Bank town of Bethlehem January 6, 2017. REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma

Thomson Reuters

By Aleksandar Vasovic

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbia wants to maintain its delicate balancing act between Russia and the West, its foreign minister said on Thursday, dismissing U.S. calls for it to pick a side.

The largest of the states to emerge from the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Orthodox Christian and Slavic Serbia has natural affinity with Moscow, but it is keen to join the European Union.

This month, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Hoyt Brian Yee told Belgrade it "cannot sit on two chairs at the same time". His remarks sparked sharp criticism in the Serbian capital.

Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic, who heads the co-ruling Socialists, once led by late strongman Slobodan Milosevic, said Belgrade would maintain balance with the West, Russia and China.

"What we do not want is that someone pulls our own chair from under us ... what is important is to see what is in our own best interest," Dacic told Reuters in an interview.

Although the EU is Serbia's single largest trade partner and investor, Russia controls its oil and gas supplies. Moscow has also sought to bolster military ties with Belgrade with the donation of six MiG-29 fighter jets.

At Serbia's request, Moscow blocked independent Kosovo from becoming a member of the United Nations.

The ethnic Albanian-dominated Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 following a bloody 1998-1999 war. It has been recognized by 115 countries including the United States and most EU members, but not Serbia or Russia.

Dacic likened Serbia's opposition to Kosovan independence to Spain's rejection of Catalonia's referendum on secession.

"If Spain can fight for its concept of Catalonia then we Serbs can fight for our country," he said.

Serbia, which cherishes Kosovo as its historic birthplace, and the government in Pristina should seek "a win-win solution" and "an international conference" that would prevent future wars "for a century," Dacic said.

Story continues

Earlier this year he suggested autonomy and delimitation for Serb areas in Kosovo.

"That would be the only possible, realistic and lasting ... solution of the problem," he said in the interview.

There are around 120,000 Serbs in Kosovo and most of them, mainly in the north, just outside Serbia, oppose the Pristina authorities.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

See Also:
By Ange Aboa

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Protesters clashed with police in western Ivory Coast's cocoa belt on Friday after the death of a youth leader, raising the prospect of more disruptions to the harvest.

Nearly 7,000 people have fled illegal plantations and 10 have died in the past month because of land disputes between native groups and migrants from other parts of Ivory Coast and neighbouring countries.

Ethnically charged conflicts over land in Ivory Coast's fertile west were at the heart of a decade of turmoil that culminated in a brief civil war in 2010-11 that killed more than 3,000 people.

Members of the We alliance from the Guere, Yacouba and Wobe ethnic groups have in recent weeks entered the Cavally and Gouin-Debe reserves and threatened ethnic Baoules and migrants from Burkina Faso farming there, hurting cocoa deliveries.

Violence flared after well-known We youth leader Modeste Nenonhon was shot dead on Thursday in the village of Beoua, the Red Cross and a government spokesman told Reuters.

The house of a local prefect was ransacked by protesters in the town of Guiglo, where many of the farmers have fled, said government spokesman Bruno Kone, adding that an inquiry into the violence and the death were underway.

It was not clear who was responsible for the shooting, but thousands of We demonstrators again took to the streets in the towns of Blolequin and Guiglo on Friday. In Guiglo, police fired tear gas to disperse protesters.

"There is a big march to Blolequin and another one also to Guiglo," said Franck Gaba, an official with the Ivorian Red Cross. "Last night, a vehicle was set on fire in the court where Baoule displaced people are set up."

Baoule and Burkinabe farmers in the region were on edge, fearing retaliatory attacks after the youth leader's death.

"We are afraid for our safety in the villages here because ... the youth of the alliance will seek revenge," said Felix Kouadio, who cultivates seven hectares of cocoa in the Gouin-Debe reserve.

Story continues

The volume of cocoa beans from the area has already dropped in recent weeks as farmers flee. Continuing tensions could impact more deliveries just as the cocoa harvest picks up pace this month.

The Ivorian Parks and Reserves Office (OIPR) estimates that up to 40 percent of Ivorian cocoa production comes from illegal plantations like the ones impacted by the violence.

(Reporting by Ange Aboa; Writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Edmund Blair)
Scientists now know that the universe contains at least two trillion galaxies. Its a mind-scrunchingly big place, very different to the conception of the universe we had when the worlds major religions were founded. So do the astronomical discoveries of the last few centuries have implications for religion?

Over the last few decades, a new way of arguing for atheism has emerged. Philosophers of religion such as Michael Martin and Nicholas Everitt have asked us to consider the kind of universe we would expect the Christian God to have created, and compare it with the universe we actually live in. They argue there is a mismatch. Everitt focuses on how big the universe is, and argues this gives us reason to believe the God of classical Christianity doesnt exist.

To explain why, we need a little theology. Traditionally, the Christian God is held to be deeply concerned with human beings. Genesis (1:27) states: God created mankind in his own image. Psalms (8:1-5) says: O Lord  What is man that You take thought of him  Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty! And, of course, John (3:16) explains God gave humans his son out of love for us.

These texts show that God is human-oriented: human beings are like God, and he values us highly. Although were focusing on Christianity, these claims can be found in other monotheistic religions, too.

Not a human-oriented universe

If God is human-oriented, wouldnt you expect him to create a universe in which humans feature prominently? Youd expect humans to occupy most of the universe, existing across time. Yet that isnt the kind of universe we live in. Humans are very small, and space, as Douglas Adams once put it, is big, really really big.

Scientists estimate that the observable universe, the part of it we can see, is around 93 billion light years across. The whole universe is at least 250 times as large as the observable universe.

Story continues

Our own planet is 150m kilometres away from the sun. Earths nearest stars, the Alpha Centauri system, are four light years away (thats around 40 trillion kilometres). Our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains anywhere from 100 to 400 billion stars. The observable universe contains around 300 sextillion stars. Humans occupy the tiniest fraction of it. The landmass of planet Earth is a drop in this ocean of space.

To paraphrase Adams, the universe is also really, really old. Perhaps over 13 billion years old. Earth is around four billion years old, and humans evolved around 200,000 years ago. Temporally speaking, humans have been around for an eye-blink.

Clearly, there is a discrepancy between the kind of universe we would expect a human-oriented God to create, and the universe we live in. How can we explain it? Surely the simplest explanation is that God doesnt exist. The spatial and temporal size of the universe gives us reason to be atheists.

As Everitt puts it:

The findings of modern science significantly reduce the probability that theism is true, because the universe is turning out to be very unlike the sort of universe which we would have expected, had theism been true.

Other explanations?

The fact that atheism is the simplest reply to the mismatch doesnt mean that other explanations arent possible. Perhaps God exists but his motives for not creating humans sooner, or on a bigger scale, are unknowable. The divine is, after all, mysterious.

Perhaps the swathes of space strung with gossamer nebulae serve some aesthetic purpose, beauty wrought on an inhuman scale. Or, perhaps, God exists but isnt as human-oriented as we thought. Perhaps God values rocks and cosmic dust more highly than humans.

The problem with these rival explanations is that, as they stand, they are unsatisfying. They hint at reasons why God might create tiny humans in a gargantuan place but are a million miles away from fully explaining why. The weight of galaxies, and the press of years, seem to sweep us towards atheism.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Emily Thomas receives funding from NWO (the Netherlands Research Council) and the British Academy.
By Fatos Bytyci

PRISTINA (Reuters) - Kosovo's prime minister called on Friday for an international investigation after some of his countrymen were convicted of taking part in a gun battle with Macedonian police.

The men were part of a group of ethnic Albanians jailed in neighbouring Macedonia on Thursday, some of them for life, on charges of plotting attacks and clashing with the police in a 2015 shootout.

Crowds took to the streets of Kosovo's capital after the sentencing, accusing the Macedonian authorities of staging the attack. Protesters in the eastern Kosovan town of Gjilan burnt the Macedonian flag.

Kosovan media and officials have regularly said the accused Albanians were innocent and the victims of a plot by Macedonia's former nationalist government - an allegation dismissed by Skopje.

"Justice must be done," Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj said in a statement. "An international investigation would help find the truth which we are all demanding."

He did not say who or what should carry out the inquiry.

Kosovo's foreign minister, Behgjet Pacolli, said he had called his ambassador in Skopje for consultations and asked for a "clarification" from the Macedonian ambassador in Pristina, without going into further details.

Most of the defendants in Thursday's hearing were from neighbouring Kosovo, while others were from Macedonias own Albanian minority. They all denied the charges.

The 2015 shootout occurred during a police raid that followed an attack by armed men on a border post. Some of them were former guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (NLA), an ethnic Albanian militia that had fought an insurgency in 2001 in which scores of people were killed.

Macedonia, a small ex-Yugoslav republic of about two million people, declared independence in 1991 and mostly avoided the violence that accompanied the break up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, until the clashes with ethnic Albanian fighters in 2001.

Albanians are believed to make up around 30 percent of Macedonias population, living mostly in the northwest near the borders with Kosovo and Albania.

(Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; Editing by Ivana Sekularac and Andrew Heavens)
Prue Leiths fellow The Great British Bake Off judge has admitted he was horrified when she accidentally revealed who had won the show before the final aired.

Paul Hollywood was shocked when his fellow judge made the gaffe by tweeting that Sophie Faldo had triumphed in the finale  nearly 12 hours before the episode aired.

Paul Hollywood has shared his reaction to Prue Leiths infamous Great British Bake Off gaffe

But the 51-year-old chef has admitted the 77-year-old restaurateur simply made a mistake.

During an episode of The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice host Jo Brand couldnt resist poking fun at Prue.

She joked the co-judge couldnt be here, as she is too busy deleting her Twitter account.

Paul Hollywood breaks silence on Prue Leiths epic Bake Off Twitter gaffe: I was horrified

Jo then asked Paul what he made of the incident, and he replied: What can I say? I was horrified. But at the same time, she made a mistake.

Prue blamed her tweet on the six-hour time difference in Bhutan.

She said: Im in Bhutan. The time difference is massive. I thought that they got it six hours ago. Im in too much of a state to talk about it. I f***ed up.

I am so sorry to the fans of the show for my mistake this morning, I am in a different time zone and mortified by my error #GBBO.  Prue Leith (@PrueLeith) October 31, 2017

It's the #GBBO final! Who will win? Thrilled to say Paul, Noel Sandi & I will all be back! Do you want to join us? https://t.co/Ff5DiP5nC5  Prue Leith (@PrueLeith) October 31, 2017

Prue also took to Twitter to apologise to Bake Off fans, admitting she was mortified.

She tweeted: I am so sorry to the fans of the show for my mistake this morning, I am in a different time zone and mortified by my error #GBBO. (sic)

Story continues

Prue had revealed it had been so emotional working on the Channel 4 show before announcing Sophie had triumphed.

Paul and Prue alongside Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig

She wrote: No one told me judging a #gbbo final would be so emotional. I wanted them all to win. Bravo Sophie (sic)

While she deleted the tweet within seconds, it was too late for some who had already seen it.

Despite the blunder, Prue also revealed she, fellow judge Paul, 51, and co-hosts Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig will return for another series.





Read more from Yahoo Celebrity:

Harry Styles fans banned from buying kiwis from nearby supermarket

Tom Fletcher reveals why he only cast half of his McBusted bandmates in stage show

Strictly Come Dancing: Alexandra Burke admits she screams and shouts at partner Gorka Marquez

Follow Yahoo Celeb UK on Twitter and Instagram for all of the latest celebrity news!
IoT Tech Expo: 7 Free Things You Can Get Involved with at the Leading IoT Event in Silicon Valley This Month

The leading IoT event series is returning to Silicon Valley later this month and there are plenty of free areas which you can get involved with. Taking place on November 29-30 alongside the Blockchain Expo and AI Expo, the IoT Tech Expo North America event will host 9,000 attendees to explore the entire ecosystem, introducing the latest technology innovations across 15 conference tracks in addition to hosting a vast exhibition of over 300 companies and over 300 industry leading speakers.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171102006481/en/

The IoT Tech Expo North America is returning to Silicon Valley later this month and there are plenty of free areas which you can get involved with. Taking place on November 29-30 alongside the Blockchain Expo and AI Expo, the IoT Tech Expo North America event will host 9,000 attendees to explore the entire ecosystem, across 15 conference tracks and a vast exhibition of over 300 companies. (Photo: Business Wire)

Here are just 7 of the free aspects at the event which you can get involved with:

1. Dedicated Bluetooth Session

Taking place on November 29 on the 'IoT Innovations & Technologies' stage, Bluetooth will host a unique series of fireside chats which will tap some of the leading integrators, suppliers, customers and analysts to explore the impact a newly expanded range of fit-for-purpose network topologies from Bluetooth across multiple sectors, including Smart Industry, Smart Buildings, Smart Cities, and Smart Homes. Panellists from Bluetooth, Intel (News - Alert), National Instruments, Aruba and more will explore how Bluetooth technology is transforming connected places into smart laces.







2. The vast exhibition showcasing the latest tech

With 300+ exhibitors, including a dedicated AI start-up zone, you will see the latest IoT, Blockchain and AI innovations in action, from bots to drones, connected home devices to Machine Learning, AI to wearables.

3. 2 co-located events

Co-located with the IoT Tech Expo, the Blockchain Expo and AI Expo will allow you to explore 3 ecosystems in 1 and discover how the convergence of these 3 areas is powering the future of technology!

4. 6 Conference Tracks covering IoT, Blockchain and AI

Your Free Expo Pass will provide access to 6 conference tracks; Developing for the IoT, IoT Innovations & Technologies, ICOs & Blockchain Technologies, Developing Blockchain Applications, AI for Developers and Bot & Virtual Assistant Development. Register for your free expo pass here.

5. Keynote Panel: Monetisation - Unlocking the revenue potential

Within the 'Developing for the IoT' conference, senior-level speakers from Wells Fargo (News - Alert), Visa, Geotab and Momenta Partners will be discussing different strategies to enable monetisation and achieve competitive advantage and asking the question; Should companies move away from one function devices? The session will explore the role of collaboration, how partnerships can help unlock revenue potential and ways which new data sources can be utilised to provide new opportunities. November 30 - 2pm.

6. NASA Session: AI powering missions to Mars

For over 50 years, NASA's crewed missions have been confined to the Earth-Moon system, where speed-of-light communications delays between crew and ground are practically non-existent. Jeremy Frank, Group Lead at NASA, will discuss why future astronauts will need smarter tools employing AI techniques make decisions without inefficient communication back and forth with ground-based mission control. This session will describe several demonstrations of astronaut decision support tools using AI techniques as a foundation. November 29 - 12pm.

7. Panel: Blockchain from the investor's perspective: A VC view of the marketplace

According to Markets and Markets, the global blockchain technology market is expected to rise from $210m in 2016 to $2.31bn by 2021. In this session, leading venture capitalists and investors will examine the emerging blockchain technology landscape and why there is so much attention around the sector. November 29 - 2pm.

These are just 7 of the free areas you can get involved with at the IoT Tech Expo North America 2017 in Silicon Valley on November 29-30! All you need to do is register for your FREE expo pass to experience all of the above and more.

Click here to find out more about the IoT Tech Expo North America.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

About IoT Tech Expo

The IoT Tech Expo World Series (www.iottechexpo.com) hosts top level content and discussion, introducing and exploring the latest innovations in the Internet of Things arena. It brings together key industries including Manufacturing, Transport, Health, Logistics, Government, Energy and Automotive.

IoT Tech Expo World Series

IoT Tech Expo North America - 29- 30 November, Santa Clara, Silicon Valley

IoT Tech Expo Global - 18- 19 April 2018, Olympia London

IoT Tech Expo Europe - 1-2 October 2018, RAI Amsterdam

For speaking, sponsorship and exhibitor enquiries please contact the team at [email protected] or call on +44 (0) 117 980 9023.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171102006481/en/
By Maureen N. Maratita

HAGATNA, Guam (Reuters) - Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen arrived on the U.S. Pacific island of Guam on Friday on her way back from visiting diplomatic allies in the Pacific - a trip that caused strong objections from China, which claims Taiwan as its own.

Beijing had urged the United States not to allow Tsai to transit its territory on her trip, which included two days in Hawaii before she headed on to Tuvalu, the Solomon Islands and the Marshall Islands.

The timing is particularly touchy as U.S. President Donald Trump is due in Beijing next week.

China regards self-ruled and democratic Taiwan as its sovereign territory and regularly calls it the most sensitive and important issue between it and the United States, strongly objecting to transit stops by Taiwanese presidents.

While the office of Guam Governor Edward B. Calvo described Tsai's visit as "private and unofficial", she was provided with a police escort upon her arrival.

Speaking at a banquet, Tsai said that "Taiwan and Guam share a unique friendship."

She described Guam as the "closest part of the United States" to Taiwan, adding: "The people of Taiwan are grateful for your support."

James F. Moriarty, chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, the U.S. mission in Taiwan, said Hawaii, Guam and Taiwan were bound together not only by the Pacific Ocean but also by "an expectation of democracy."

Guam is home to a large U.S. military base and would be key to any U.S. assistance to Taiwan in the event of a conflict with China. Beijing has never renounced the possible use of force to bring the island under its control.

Relations between Beijing and Taipei have nosedived since Tsai was elected last year; China believes she wants formal independence for Taiwan, a red line for Beijing.

For her part, Tsai says she wants to maintain peace with China but will defend Taiwan's democracy and security.

Story continues

The U.S. State Department had said Tsai's transits through U.S. soil would be "private and unofficial" and based on long-standing U.S. practice consistent with "our unofficial relations with Taiwan".

Last December, Trump angered Beijing by taking a telephone call from Tsai shortly after winning the presidential election.

Tsai has been in the United States twice this year. In January, she stopped over in Houston and San Francisco on her way to and from Latin America.

(Reporting by Maureen N. Maratita; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) - Four members of Turkey's security forces and four Kurdish militants were killed in a clash early on Thursday near the border between northern Iraq and southeast Turkey, security and hospital sources said.

They said Turkish forces launched a helicopter-backed operation in search of further Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, who sought to cross the border into Hakkari province's mountainous Semdinli district.

Two Turkish soldiers and two members of the country's state-backed village guard militia were killed in the fighting, along with four PKK members, the sources said.

The PKK launched a separatist insurgency in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict. It is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union.

(Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by David Dolan)

See Also:
BEIRUT (Reuters) - A senior U.S. official met Syria's national security chief in Damascus this week in the highest ranking visit to Syria by a U.S. official since the start of the war in 2011, a senior regional official close to Damascus told Reuters on Friday.

The Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar first reported the visit earlier on Friday, saying that the U.S. official discussed security matters including Americans missing in Syria. Among them are operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The regional official did not name the U.S. official who met Ali Mamlouk, Syria's national security chief. "It is an important step, but Damascus does not have confidence in the American position," the regional official said.

The U.S. official travelled to Damascus via Lebanon.

The United States has supported the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian war. It has provided anti-Assad rebels with weapons via a CIA-run military aid programme that President Donald Trump ordered shut down earlier this year.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last week reiterated the U.S. position that Assad should leave power, saying the "reign of the Assad family is coming to an end" and "the only issue is how that should be brought about".

With military backing from Russia and Iran, Assad has recovered control of swathes of lost Syrian territory over the last two years and appears militarily unassailable.

U.S. forces have been fighting in Syria as part of the coalition against Islamic State, helping Kurdish-led militias capture Raqqa and other parts of northern and eastern Syria.

During the meeting, Mamlouk protested to the U.S. official that U.S. forces "are on Syrian land and this is considered occupation", the regional official said. The U.S. official responded that "our presence is advisory and we are fighting Daesh", the regional official added, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Syrian government officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Laila Bassam; Writing by Tom Perry; editing by Ralph Boulton)
Credit Suisse reiterated its 'outperform' stance on BT Group stock, telling clients that markets were not yet pricing in the likely outcome to Ofcoms upcoming Wholesale Local Access (WLA) review, among other factors.

Given that Sky had ruled out building a UK fibre network and TalkTalk simply did not have enough balance sheet muscle, that increasingly left BT looking as the only realistic option for Ofcom if it wanted to meet its 40% Fibre-to-the-Premise (FttP) ambitions, analyst Paul Sidney said in a research note sent to clients on 8 June.

That would translate into the regulator keeping in place sufficient incentives for BT to build-out FttP on the scale which was needed.

"This is a more positive scenario than is currently priced into BT shares."

To that, one also had to add recent price increases and a more positive Champions League impact from fiscal year 2019.

Shares in BT were offering a free cash flow yield of 6.5% versus 6.9% for the wider European Telecom sector, despite the companys higher rate of growth in free cash flow, the analyst added.

As a result, Sidney said he was raising his forecasts for the companys sales and operating profits for the years between 2017 and 2019, although he kept his target price at 510p.

In terms of potential upcoming share price catalysts, the analyst flagged the telecommunications outfits first quarter numbers on 28 July, the first draft of Ofcoms WLA in Autumn 2016 and the next Champions League rights auction in the final quarter of 2016.

However, BT had been able to turnaround its UK wireline business over the past few years thanks to line growth (population/housing growth) rice increases and migration towards more expensive higher-speed fibre lines, he pointed out.

Hence, "any material negative impact on the UK economy caused by the UK leaving the EU could see these trends (in price increases and migration towards more expensive higher-speed fibre lines) slow or reverse."
RBC Capital Markets downgraded Cairn Energy to sector perform from outperform and cut the price target to 250p from 260p until 2017 drilling plans are confirmed.

The Canadian bank said drilling success at the SNE field offshore Senegal has provided a welcome exception to recent drilling disappointments across the sector.

RBC said the results demonstrated unequivocally that SNE has the potential to be a major oil field with reservoirs capable of delivering commercial flow rates.

However, with limited news flow until drilling restarts in 2017, there is the potential for the stock to drift compared to leveraged peers, particularly in an improving oil price environment.

In the medium term, RBC reckons Cairn remains well placed to become the go to UK main list E&P stock given a strong balance sheet, production base and stated strategy to return value created by the drill bit to shareholders.

However, establishing this, more fully formed, business will require time and production start-up from the Catcher (Cairn 20%, Premier Oil operated) and Kraken (Cairn 29.5%, EnQuest operated) fields H2/17, it said.

At 1040 BST, Cairn shares were down 0.5% to 195p.
There's little domestic business news due on Friday, save a speech from Monetary Policy Member Gertjan Vlieghe, corporate updates from Investec, JD Wetherspoon and SThree, while possibly most significant item of macroeconomic data may be US retail sales .

Noted dove Vlieghe will deliver a speech at the Society of Business Economists annual conference at around 09:50 in London.

Before this, JS Wetherspoon will have issued its final results for the 53 weeks to 30 July, having already disclosed like-for-like sales growth accelerating to 5.3% in the early summer and standing 3.9% higher over the first 50 weeks of the year.

Founder Tim Martin also reiterated his guidance that LFL sales of about 3-4% will be required to maintain profits at this year's levels in the next financial year.

Numis expects an EBIT margin at the top of the guided range, 7.6-7.8%, which implies 128m of EBIT and 63.6p of EPS.

"The step change EPS in FY17 reflects LFL sales growth well above industry average and a pick-up in margin from an historic low in FY16 as the company has raised prices to close the substantial gap versus competitors."

The broker also noted that JDW had been buying back stock "at an unprecedented rate" in recent weeks, "suggesting either a looser leverage target, confidence on outlook, or both".

Recruiter SThree is due to update investors on its third quarter, after the second saw net fees increase 4% on a like-for-like basis after a flat start to the year.

UBS forecast a small acceleration in LFL growth to at least 4% and also said there was potential for currency-driven upgrades from recent euro strength.

The bank expects a meaningful improvement in the UK, after holding back group performance in the second quarter with a 14% decline, boosted by management changes and market data continuing to pick up.

"Continental Europe should remain robust in mid/high-single digits, Americas strong double-digits, and APAC and ME should hopefully remain in growth."

Investec is in the diary to provide an update on its first quarter, having in May reported a 18.5% increase in full-year statutory operating profits to 599.1m that drove a 6.3% rise in statutory earnings per share to 48.3p.

Good balance sheet growth in both the UK and South Africa is expected, Numis said, with continued net inflows into both the asset management and wealth management businesses.

"We expect a compression in the yield on assets within the UK bank but a reduction in funding costs and more importantly a reduction in excess liquidity to have supported the group NIM.

"We remain cautious about the UK economic outlook and commodity and political risks remain in South Africa but we believe both the Wealth and Asset management businesses have attractive prospects."

Later in the day the US Census Bureau will produce its monthly update on retail sales for August. Month-on-month sales growth is estimated to have eased to 0.1% from 0.6%, or if excluding automobiles it is seen remaining at 0.5% for another month.

US industrial production, also due at 1330 BST, is seen easing to 0.1% from 0.2% a month earlier.

Friday, 15 September

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Retail Sales (US) (13:30)

Industrial Production (US) (14:15)

U. of Michigan Confidence (Prelim) (US) (15:00)

Business Inventories (US) (15:00)

FINALS

Wetherspoon (J.D.)

TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS

SThree

AGMs

SVM UK Emerging Fund, Tungsten Corporation, Blenheim Natural Resources, Aberdeen Private Equity Fund Ltd.,

Sterling Part Shares, Invesco Income Growth Trust, PetroNeft Resources

EGMs

JSC Federal Grid Company of Unified Energy System GDR (REG S)

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Ashtead Group, Severfield, Walker Crips Group, Greene King, Lazard World Trust Fund, London & Associated Properties

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Informa, Apax Global Alpha Limited, Berkeley Group Holdings (The), Maven Income & Growth 4 VCT, RM Secured Direct Lending, Securities Trust of Scotland, IMI, Chemring Group, Maven Income and Growth VCT 5, GCP Infrastructure Investments Ltd, Maven Income & Growth 3 VCT, Hazel Renewable Energy VCT 1, North Midland Construction, Maven Income & Growth 2 VCT, Hazel Renewable Energy VCT 2, Pearson, Synectics

SPECIAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Cambian Group

QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

General Electric Co.

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE

BlackRock World Mining Trust, Canadian General Investments Ltd., Carnival
J Sainsbury will on Wednesday post its trading update for the 12 weeks to 4 June.

The supermarket is expected to report a drop in first quarter like-for-like sales due to its shift away from multi-pack promotions to simpler price cuts.

Kantar Worldpanel last week said the supermarkets sales in the 12 weeks to 22 May were down 1.2% while its market share shrank to 16.2% from 16.5%.

Following the report, Deutsche Bank said it lowers its estimates on first quarter like-for-like sales to a 1.4% fall from a previous forecast for a 0.4% decline after already cutting its projections last month from a 0.6% increase.

Deutsche Bank cut its target price to 310p from 325p but reiterated a buy rating on the stock.

We expect a +1% contribution from new space to drive total sales growth excluding fuel of -0.4%, according to Deutsche Bank analyst Niamh Mcsherry.

While this Kantar data is disappointing, we still see the opportunity for Sainsburys to invest more in the offer in order to recover top line momentum.

The UKs so-called Big Four supermarkets, including Sainsbury, Tesco, Asda and Morrisons, have been engaged in a price war amid fierce competition from discounters Aldi and Lidl.

Last month Sainsbury chief executive Mike Coupe said: Weve seen food prices fall by almost 4% in the past couple of years. Great for customers. Not necessarily great if youre selling groceries.

Coupe warned that the grocery market would remain competitive for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, investors will be looking to Wednesdays trading update for any update on Sainsburys acquisition of Argos owner Home Retail Group. The deal is expected to be completed in the third quarter pending regulatory approval.

However, the UK competition watchdog said last month that it was looking into whether the proposed take-over could result in a substantial lessening of competition for consumers.

The Competition and Markets Authority is expected to announce on if it intends on launching a full investigation on 25 July.

Wednesday 08 June



INTERIMS

Alternative Networks, Redhall Group, Sanderson Group



INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Crude Oil Inventories (US) (15:30)

MBA Mortgage Applications (US) (12:00)



FINALS

Best of the Best, CMC Markets , Creston, GB Group, Grafenia , Tricorn Group, Workspace Group



ANNUAL REPORT

CMC Markets



AGMS

Central Asia Metals, Hurricane Energy, M&C Saatchi, Share plc, Witan Pacific Inv Trust



UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Industrial Production (09:30)

Manufacturing Production (09:30)



FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Compagnie de St-Gobain SA
Pictures of dogs and their smiling owners line a wall of John Robertsons office in Kelly Hall.

Each canine, from Spanky, the Boston terrier, to Lena, the miniature schnauzer, battled brain cancer and lived longer than expected, thanks to a clinical trial at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech.

In the next few years, Robertson, a research professor of biomedical engineering and mechanics at Virginia Tech, hopes to post pictures of people on his wall.

A recently awarded $9.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Healths National Cancer Institute will help a team that includes Robertson and other engineers, cancer researchers, surgeons, and veterinarians from Virginia Tech and Wake Forest University to test the same treatment methods on humans.

The five-year grant will fund four different approaches to treating brain cancer, specifically glioblastoma, the most common and deadliest form of brain cancer in adults.

The goal of our work has always been to get critical therapies to people, Robertson said. This grant will provide us with the resources to take this over the line.

Most of the researchers work within the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences. The school is a joint graduate program that includes faculty from Virginia Techs College of Engineering, the Wake Forest School of Medicine, and the College of Veterinary Medicine. It is supported, in part, by the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science at Virginia Tech.

Some researchers at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute also are developing new approaches to treating glioblastoma.

Fifteen years ago, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest researchers set out to find a treatment for glioblastoma, which has a median human survival rate of about 14 months in its most aggressive form, according to the American Brain Tumor Association. Monthly trips to Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, from Blacksburg are typical for the Virginia Tech team.

Waldemar Debinski, a professor of cancer biology, radiation oncology, and microbiology and immunology at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, is the principal investigator for the grant, which is the largest the group has received. Debinski also directs the Brain Tumor Center of Excellence at Wake Forest Baptist.

Though the teams research represents different methods, all are synergistic.

This project really does epitomize the strengths of the team, said Rafael Davalos, a professor of biomedical engineering and mechanics at Virginia Tech who co-wrote the grant.

Davalos leads one of the four projects, with a technology that he created called electric field ablation. It sends nonthermal voltage into a cells protective membrane, identifying malignant cancer cells and killing them. Scott Verbridge, a tumor micro environment specialist and assistant professor of biomedical engineering and science at Virginia Tech, works with Davalos researching ways to identify and destroy only malignant cells, without harming healthy cells.

For another project, Debinski and his team are developing candidate drugs that will target and eliminate tumor compartments that are primarily responsible for tumor progression and are resistant to treatment.



Chris Rylander, a former associate professor at Virginia Tech and leader of another project, is developing a fiberoptic microneedle device that can be used to insert a chemotherapy drug into cancerous tumors. Rylander now is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.

Akiva Mintz, formerly of Wake Forest, who now is a professor of radiology at Columbia University Medical Center, leads a fourth project. His group is developing methods that would allow drugs to get into the brain from the blood and using noninvasive molecular imaging that traces the way a drug is distributed throughout the body.

All of the projects include cancer therapies that have been tested in dogs in a series of clinical trials led by John Rossmeisl, a neurosurgeon and a professor of neurology at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. With the treatment, some of the dogs tumors shrank, and some canines lived a year longer than expected, he said.
[November 02, 2017] The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) Applauds Sen. Merkley and Original Co-Sponsors for Introducing The Alan Reinstein Ban Asbestos Now Act

The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), an independent nonprofit which combines education, advocacy, and community to help ensure justice for asbestos victims; today applauds Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR)-along with original co-sponsors Cory Booker (D-NJ), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA (News - Alert)), Ed Markey (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jon Tester (D-MT), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)-for the introduction of The Alan Reinstein Ban Asbestos Now Act of 2017 (ARBAN). The act would expedite a ban on asbestos imports and uses of the hazardous substance, both current and future. With this Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would be able to make the manufacture, processing, use, commercial distribution, and disposal of asbestos illegal after 18 months of its passage. This is in stark contrast to the current review cycle that can take up to 7 years, as mandated by the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act that passed last summer. In addition to saving lives with the expedited ban, ARBAN is also expected to save the EPA time and money, while preventing harmful exemptions that could allow the chloralkali industry to continue its dangerous use of asbestos. With the increse in asbestos imports and more than 15,000 Americans dying each year from asbestos exposure, the timing of the bill is critical.



"It's outrageous that in the year 2017, asbestos is still allowed in the United States," said Merkley. "It's time for us to catch up to the rest of the developed world, and ban this dangerous public health threat once and for all." "ADAO is extremely thankful to Senator Merkley and the original co-sponsors for the introduction of The Alan Reinstein Ban Asbestos Now Act of 2017," said Linda Reinstein, President of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) and widow to the bill's namesake. "The U.S. is the only western industrialized nation that has not banned asbestos. We watch with relief as we see the Canadian ban about to go into effect next year, and we are extremely hopeful that we can soon follow in our neighbor's footsteps. Asbestos imports are on the rise as the chemical industry continues shamefully to seek a way to profit from a known carcinogen, putting the lives of miners from other countries at risk, as well as those exposed during and after production. As Libby, Montana taught us, the mining and use of asbestos causes harm that spans decades and generations. We must deal with asbestos at our own borders. We are hopeful that ARBAN can make asbestos a thing of the past in this nation."

Early supporters for ARBAN include: the American Public Health Association (APHA), Center for Asbestos Related Disease (CARD), Libby, MT, Environmental Information Association (EIA), Environmental Working Group (EWG), Global Ban Asbestos Network (GBAN), Less Cancer, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families (SCHF), and internationally, Associacao Brasileira dos Expostos ao Amianto (ABREA). About the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) is a global leader in combining education, advocacy, and community initiatives to prevent and end asbestos exposure. ADAO seeks to raise public awareness about the dangers of asbestos, advocate for an asbestos ban, and protect asbestos victims' civil rights. ADAO, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, does not make legal referrals. For more information, visit www.asbestosdiseaseawareness.org. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171102006800/en/

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[November 02, 2017] New AHF Billboard Campaign Highlights Troubling Global HIV/AIDS Statistics As World AIDS Day Approaches on December 1st

In anticipation of World AIDS Day on December 1st, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) has launched a new billboard outdoor advertising to call attention to the millions of people still affected by HIV/AIDS around the globe today. Inspired by vintage fuel pump counters, the billboards draw attention to staggering statistics from UNAIDS on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, including "1,000,000 AIDS Deaths in 2016"; "1,800,000 New HIV Cases in 2016" and "20,000,000 Untreated HIV Cases in 2016." The final number on each billboard appears to be rolling, a visual allusion to the fact that the numbers of individuals directly affected by HIV/AIDS continue to increase. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171102006808/en/



AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) launches 2017 outdoor billboard campaign to call attention to the millions of people still affected by HIV/AIDS around the globe today. (Graphic: Business Wire)

"Each year as we commemorate World AIDS Day, we like to stop and access the progress that has been made in the fight against HIV/AIDS around the world and identify those areas where our efforts still need to be refocused and intensified. As AHF celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and the milestone of having over 820,000 patients in our care across the globe, we are encouraged that millions of lives have been saved through targeted prevention efforts, testing and breakthrough medical treatments. However, the prescription drugs required to treat HIV/AIDS and many other chronic diseases remain out of reach for many governments, insurers and individuals due to Big Pharma's endless pursuit of profits at the expense of people in need. This unconscionable price gouging must be stopped," said AHF President Michael Weinstein. "These billboards are meant to be a stark reminder that real lives are at stake in our challenge to win the decades-long fight against this global epidemic." The billboards started appearing in late September in high-visibility locations around Los Angeles; Brooklyn, NY; Atlanta, GA; Washington, DC; and South Florida and are scheduled to run through mid-November. In September 1983, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) used the term 'AIDS' (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) for the first time, describing it as "a disease at least moderately predictive of a defect in cell mediated immunity, occurring in a person with no known case for diminished resistance to that disease." The International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses announced in May 1986 that the virus that causes AIDS will officially be called HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). According to UNAIDS, over 36 million people are living with HIV/AIDS around the world and over 76 million people have become infected with HIV since the start of the epidemic. Although AIDS has claimed more than 35 million lives to date, AIDS-related deaths have fallen by 48% since the peak in 2005. In 2016, over 19 million people globally were accessing antiretroviral therapy to prolong their lives and stop the spread of the virus. In 1987, a group of activists founded AIDS Hospice Foundation in Los Angeles to provide a final resting place for terminally ill AIDS patients. Three years later, as lifesaving antiretroviral medical therapy was introduced, AIDS Hospice Foundation changed its name to AIDS Healthcare Foundation in 1990 to signify its new focus on being a medical provider to people living with HIV/AIDS. As the largest global provider of HIV medical care today, AHF will debut a new billboard closer to World AIDS Day with the number of people living with HIV/AIDS the organization now has in care worldwide. AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over 821,000 individuals in 38 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook (News - Alert): www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter (News - Alert): @aidshealthcare. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171102006808/en/

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Brown County approves Bailey Pro Rodeo as new stock provider

Bailey Pro Rodeo out of North Dakota has been selected as the new rodeo stock provider for the Dacotah Stampede Rodeo, a two-day event at the fair.
New Mexico will be featured in the coming fifth season of Moveable Feast With Fine Cooking.

In fact, episodes with Taos and Santa Fe will air Saturday, Nov. 4, and Nov. 11, respectively, on New Mexico PBS. The new season also welcomes Curtis Stone as a host. Stone visited Taos and Santa Fe to experience the flavors of the Southwest.

The Taos episode airs at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 4, on New Mexico PBS. The episode follows Stone as he gets a taste of the local cuisine.

Stone meets with Christopher Lujan, who grows ancient heirloom blue corn on Taos Pueblo and learns about its significance to indigenous cultures.

Stone then finds more fresh produce at Matt Romero Farms, which grows everything from oats to heirloom chiles. He brings all these ingredients together with the help of chef Andrew Horton, who believes in simple dishes and rustic cooking, and chef Chris Maher, who owns Cooking Studio Taos, where the feast is held.

Lujan got involved with the show because he wants to share the importance of blue corn with the world.

Blue corn has been in our pueblo and among Native people for centuries, Lujan says. But a lot of people dont know about it. I want to educate them on how we use it and how it grows.

In addition to blue corn, Lujan also grows white GMO-free sweet corn, which he makes into chicos.

I also grind the blue corn, and its used for pancakes, he says.

Lujan says he demonstrated his process to the crew, which was in Taos for a couple days.

I like to farm, Lujan says. I like to go up to my land and pray with the corn. I get into my prayer mode, and it brings me peace and tranquillity.

The Santa Fe show will air at 3:30 p.m. Nov. 11 on New Mexico PBS.

In the episode Stone meets up with chef Martin Rios, co-owner of the award-winning Restaurant Martin in Santa Fe, and chef Leslie Chavez, who shares her strong background in catering and pastry in New Mexico. Together, they visit The Rooted Leaf and Celestial Bee, a farm that produces exquisite bee honey and fresh, highly cared-for produce.

They also visit a local chile farmer to see how Chimayo chile, a local heritage pepper, is dried and ground.

At a colorful hacienda in Santa Fe, chef Rios makes rosemary-roasted turnips and chef Chavez makes a sopaipilla served with the locally sourced honey.

The New Mexico-themed episodes will air before the Nov. 18 national season premiere of the show.

SEND ME YOUR TIPS: If you know of a movie filming in the state, or are curious about one, email film@ABQjournal.com. Follow me on Twitter @agomezART.
Dia de los Muertos: Cosecha del Alma commemorates the ancestors through art, poetry, music and dance in the ambiance of a historical theater.

The event, which begins at 7 tonight at the KiMo Theatre, is an intimate evening of remembrance as part of Day of the Dead.

Day of the Dead is about honoring ancestors, and in doing so, ancestor worship is of universal nature. It applies to all cultures in the world, so this is a form of ancestor worship, if you will, honoring the ancestors, and in this case it derived from Central Mexico, the Mexica people, Azteca people, pre-Columbian honoring the dead, said Jaime Chavez, producer and director of tonights event.  In New Mexico, it was never celebrated the way that its celebrated today. This is 20 years of borrowing and lending or reconnecting, if you will, with our ancient roots and basically bringing them to the forefront and honoring what we see as the cycle of life. This is all related to the land and the cosmos.

Dia de los Muertos: Cosecha del Alma is a little different in its celebration.

It is trying to bring in the best artists, poets, musicians, Chavez said. What we try to do is a lot of the cream or the essence of the arts to project and to do that in a community way so that folks can connect to the experience and grow from it.

As people arrive they can enjoy an art show and visit a traditional altar as they enter into the theater. The art show is curated by New Mexico painter Eric Christo Martinez. The event will open with a blessing and a performance by dancers from Zia and Jemez pueblos. Grupo Libertad, originally from Juarez, will then perform its Latin American fusion music, which includes musica de la nueva trova and musica de protesta. Chicago poet and activist Susan Sandoval will perform spoken word. Rudy Arredondo of the National Latino Farmers & Ranchers Trade Association, which Chavez is also a part of, will play a few songs of socially conscious-minded music.

Chavez is the second poet on the program and will be accompanied by pianist Frank Chiwewe of Isleta Pueblo.

Hell be backing me up, Im sure in an abstract, melodic way, and after that we go into a song because this all stays together with everybody thats on stage now until the end, Chavez said. We go on with Tony Lujan. Were dealing with some pretty high-powered performers. Hes a trumpet virtuoso, recording artist, arranger, composer, concert performer. Hes a world-famous jazz legend from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
NEW YORK  In the three weeks since the string of allegations against Harvey Weinstein first began, an ongoing domino effect has tumbled through not just Hollywood but at least a dozen other industries. Its open season on open secrets.

Nearly every day has brought new allegations of sexual harassment, assault or misconduct, and subsequent firings, dismissals or the distancing of men in various stations of power, from highly regarded media pundits to celebrity chefs.

There is no turning back, Asia Argento said Wednesday on Twitter. All predators will go down.

Argento, the Italian filmmaker and actress who has said Weinstein raped her, declared that shortly after allegations of sexual harassment were leveled by six women against filmmaker Brett Ratner. (Weinstein has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex, while Ratner has denied each allegation against him.) Her social-media avatar is a simple photo of herself, with a fist raised high.

The posture and language of revolution has been adopted by others, too, like actress Rose McGowan, another alleged victim of sexual assault by Weinstein. At last weeks Womens Convention in Detroit, McGowan declared: Join me. Join all of us!

Whats unfolding, womens rights advocates say, is a rolling reckoning thats gaining steam with every new revelation of sexual harassment. What began with just a handful of women standing up against one of Hollywoods most pugnacious power players has turned into a movement of its own. Now that some of the silences and stigmas around sexual harassment have been shattered, the flood gates are open.

This is the patriarchy starting to crumble, says Toni Van Pelt, president of the National Organization of Women. I think that women are finally taking their power. They know theyre strong.

In the three weeks since the first allegations were leveled against Weinstein, there have been at least 20 prominent men who have been forced to defend or apologize for past actions. Amazon Studios chief Roy Price resigned after a television producer on one of Amazons shows said he had sexually harassed her. Following allegations of sexual advances on an underage actor, Netflix halted production on Kevin Spaceys House of Cards. A Roman Polanski retrospective prompted protests in Paris.

Sari Kamin was one of 38 women who came forward to the Los Angeles Times to say that the director James Toback sexually harassed her by luring her with the possibility of a film role. Toback has denied the claims but within days the number of alleged victims climbed past 300.

Listening to women come out from the Harvey Weinstein fallout, that certainly empowered me, said Kamin. It brought back a lot of painful memories and kind of unlocked something. It made me think: Well, if they can come forward maybe so can I.

More than anything what made me want to come forward is: I felt like finally people were listening, said Kamin, a once aspiring actress who now works in publishing and food writing. That was signaled very clearly with what happened with Weinstein. Another woman spoke and then another woman spoke and there was action. There were consequences. It told me not only that people were listening but that they wanted to do something  that they want to stand up and say: No more. That was a powerful thing to tap into.

An air of whos next has settled over not just Hollywood, but elsewhere, too. NBC News terminated Mark Halperins contract allegations that he sexually harassed a dozen women while at ABC News. John Besh, the New Orleans celebrity chef, stepped down from the company he founded after more than two dozen allegations of sexual harassment. Fashion photographer Terry Richardson, who has previously been accused of sexual harassment, was banned by Conde Nast. Accusations of harassment have been leveled against actors Dustin Hoffman and Jeremy Piven.

Vox fired its editorial director, Lockhart Steele after a former employee raised allegations. Andy Signore, senior vice president of Defy Media, was fired after several women made sexual harassment allegations. The Atlantic magazine removed contributing editor Leon Wieseltier from its masthead after allegations emerged that Wieseltier harassed numerous women during his lengthy tenure with The New Republic.

Two executives at Fidelity Investments were forced out for sexual harassment. Nickelodeon fired The Loud House show runner Chris Savino for sexual harassment. NPR news chief Michael Oreskes, who was ousted after sexual harassment allegations dating back to the 1990s surfaced. Oreskes was a vice president and senior managing editor at The Associated Press from 2008 until he joined NPR in 2015.

It has been a head-spinning few weeks that some believe is adding up to a landmark moment for a pervasive and under-reported problem. Up to 85 percent of women say that they have been sexually harassed at work, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, but only a fraction of those cases are reported, partially due to the professional and legal risks for women who come forward. In the wake of the Weinstein saga, millions of women have posted me too on social media, sharing their individual stories of sexual assault and harassment.

Im sensing a cultural shift, says Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Womens Law Center. In an issue that has usually been met with widespread disbelief and shaming, people have been able to really tell their stories of harassment and violence without shaming, without discounting and disbelief. And thats really empowering. I dont think you can just put that back into a box.

Some, however, are concerned that the Weinstein saga is unfairly tarring men with the same brush of scandal  that those who might be considered merely lecherous are being conflated with predators.

As we grapple with these issues, we desperately need nuance, Cathy Young, a contributing editor at Reason, wrote in an op-ed for The Los Angeles Times. Lets distinguish between abuse, minor bad behavior and innocent miscommunication. And lets not demonize men or patronize women.

Yet others see this domino effect as a long-overdue culmination in the decades-long fight for gender equality.

Women speaking out about sexual harassment reminds me of one of the core reasons we came together for the March, said Teresa Shook, one of the organizers of Januarys Womens March the day after the inauguration of President Donald Trump. Hear our voice was a unifying mantra for we will not be silent anymore.'

Linda Sarsour, an organizer of the Womens Convention and of the march, drew even more direct lines from the Weinstein fallout to the political climate following the election of Trump, who famously boasted about groping women to Access Hollywood.

This is all connected, said Sarsour. What youll see over the course of next year is more women taking agency and getting into more powerful positions.

This is a big moment in our history, Sarsour added. Definitely one for the history books.

___

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

A new report issued by Albuquerques Office of Inspector General blasts city officials for what it calls a systemic failure to make city buildings and other infrastructure accessible to people with disabilities, saying that officials appear to have a laissez-faire attitude when it comes to complying with the federal civil rights law.

While progress has been made in compliance with the (American with Disabilities Act), it is insufficient  the city has had over a quarter of a century to comply with the law and there are still thousands of violations, Inspector General David T. Harper wrote in the report, which was issued Thursday. Funding should never have been the main factor  ADA compliance should have been the paramount factor in capital improvement decisions.

Mayor Richard Berrys administration disputes the conclusions reached by the IG, saying the city has made ADA compliance a priority for new projects and has been setting aside money to bring existing facilities into compliance.

The IGs Office notes that ADA compliance issues include problems such as buckled sidewalks, technology violations, access to the bosque, parking spaces and signs in Braille.

Among the concerns raised in the report are that people have been injured around construction sites because they havent been roped off and bathrooms at the zoo are not in full compliance with the ADA. The report also says that there isnt captioning for City Council meetings available through Government Channel 16 and there isnt an American Sign Language interpreter present at council meetings.

The report has been sent to the mayor, city councilors and other officials, though city officials are not required to act on any of the recommendations.

City officials note that most of Albuquerques facilities were built before the ADA was enacted in 1990.

This Administration has diligently worked to make new and existing public facilities and projects accessible to all, Chief Operating Officer Michael Riordan said in an emailed statement. The City is ADA compliant in every new project we have constructed such as ART, Civic Plaza, the Bosque Trail and Officer Dan Webster Park. We continue to recognize the need to retrofit and upgrade preexisting infrastructure and amenities, which is why we have been committed to setting aside funding to do so in each budget.

Webster Park, near Wyoming and Copper NE, has features for children who use wheelchairs and those in the autism spectrum. The city also recently finished a $2 million ADA-compliant trail through the bosque.

According to the Mayors Office, significant ADA upgrades have been included as part of the Albuquerque Rapid Transit project, which will transform Central Avenue into a mass transit corridor with a nine-mile stretch of bus-only lanes and bus stops.

As part of the project, 359 noncompliant curb ramps have been replaced; 354 noncompliant drive pads have been reconstructed; all pedestrian crossings were widened to 10 feet throughout the project, and to 12 feet at the stops, allowing room for wheelchairs to pass one another; sidewalks have been widened projectwide to a minimum of six feet; 60 audible and vibratory notifications were added to station and crosswalk crossings; and tactile notifications have been installed at all 19 bus stops, the Mayors Office said.

But the Office of Inspector General, an independent arm of the city, concluded after a review that Albuquerque officials could have and should have done more to bring the city in compliance. The review done over six months was undertaken in response to multiple concerns raised by the Albuquerque ADA community.

The report notes that the city has undertaken capital improvement projects that cost millions, money that could have been diverted to ADA compliance projects. It says that other cities, such as Honolulu, have made complying with the ADA a priority.

This is about city leadership making ADA compliance a top priority and listening to the disabled community when making decisions about future capital improvement projects, the report says. The city is at risk of civil lawsuits and the possibility of a (Department of Justice) investigation.

The report notes that other cities in New Mexico, including Santa Fe, Gallup and Taos, have been the subject of DOJ investigations and settlements over ADA issues.

The report also says that there appears to be a degree of environmental injustice within the city when it comes to ADA compliance.

That is, during the random inspection process, it seems certain neighborhoods have higher degrees of non-compliance with regard to curb ramps and public access ways  such as severely buckled sidewalks, the report says.
Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, co-chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, agreed Thursday to accept a Republican into the all-Democratic group after her GOP House colleagues complained that the caucus was exclusionary.

Lujan Grisham, who is giving up the Albuquerque-based 1st Congressional District seat to run for governor of New Mexico in 2018, found herself embroiled in Capitol Hill brouhaha this week after Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Florida, complained that the group was excluding him from joining despite his ethnicity.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus should not discriminate against any American of Hispanic descent, Curbelo said in a statement. The CHC should focus on uniting Americas Hispanic community in support of issues like compassionate immigration reform, economic growth and opportunity, and better education.

A report in Politico on Wednesday said the Hispanic Caucus tabled the issue last week after outcry from some members who complained about Curbelo trying to join, calling it a political ploy on his part to improve his reelection chances.

Lujan Grisham and other members of the CHC have said Curbelos exclusion wasnt due to his being a Republican, but his opposition to some CHC priorities such as comprehensive immigration reform or the DREAM Act for young people who were brought to the country illegally.

But the group could soon relent. Lujan Grisham said the matter will be put to a vote of the Caucus early next week.

I have been on the record to include Hispanic members of Congress from both parties and both chambers in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, including Congressman Curbelo, Lujan Grisham said in a statement to the Journal Thursday night. Today, our caucus sent a letter inviting both Representative Curbelo and (Florida Republican Rep.) Ileana) Ros-Lehtinen to join our effort advocating for Hispanic communities. But regardless of my personal opinion, this is a caucus matter that could be voted on as early as next week.

Politico also reported that CHC members also have concerns about letting Curbelo attend their private meetings, which are often focused on strategies aimed at rebutting anti-immigration efforts by Republicans in Congress and the administration.

A position statement by the CHC said in part Members have been clear that this is not about party, it is about being consistent with the values and issues of the CHC. We support the Dream Act, we support increased access to healthcare through the ACA, we voice our vocal support for the humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico, we want a tax plan that helps the middle class. The CHC is on the front lines of protecting the Hispanic community from the Trump Administrations harmful policies and putting forth productive, common-sense legislation that lifts up our community.

New Mexico Republicans, eager to take Democratic gubernatorial front-runner Lujan Grisham down a notch, criticized her role in the controversy.

Michelle Lujan Grishams decision not to allow one of her colleagues to join the Congressional Hispanic Caucus because he is a Republican is sad, disappointing and extremely divisive, said Ryan Cangiolosi, chairman of the Republican Party of New Mexico. New Mexicans deserve a leader who will unite people to make our state a better place to live, work, and raise a family. Lujan Grishams refusal to work with a Republican lawmaker shows that she would advance a partisan agenda as governor instead of reaching across the aisle on behalf of all New Mexico families.
New Mexicos state-level proposal for Amazons HQ2 is our latest example of our states willingness and ability to compete for jobs and investment around the country and the world. Thanks to Gov. Susana Martinezs reforms and tools that are making New Mexico more competitive than ever before, were making a strong case  not just to Amazon, but to many other regional, national and global businesses  that we have what it takes for them to grow and thrive.

Balancing budgets, cutting taxes, streamlining regulations, growing and developing our workforce training, and investing in infrastructure  tools and reforms like these make New Mexico a great place to do business. We recently used these assets to recruit Facebook and their massive high-tech data center to New Mexico  along with half a billion dollars in investment and hundreds of new jobs.

With tools, reforms  and results  like these, were partnering with business leaders, communities and economic development groups around the state to show all New Mexico has to offer as a hub for high-tech jobs and companies like Amazon, Facebook and others. Through these partnerships, were capitalizing on the tools, reforms and assets that make New Mexico more competitive and business-friendly.

Our workforce is growing and diversifying like never before  which is crucial to turning New Mexico into a hub for high-tech jobs. More New Mexicans are graduating from high school than ever before, and more of them are college and career ready. We have a world-class research university system and one of the highest concentrations of PhDs in the country.

New Mexico is a place where big ideas come to life on a daily basis. As home to world-renowned artists and artisans, as well as scientific, engineering and research institutions that are creating the future right now, New Mexico excels at thinking big. This was a cornerstone of Amazons RFP and a resource that abounds here. Since the time of the Anasazi, New Mexico has been at the center of ground-breaking achievement and now, were creating robust tools like the Catalyst Fund that will help New Mexico companies change the world.

Were also turning New Mexico into a leader in international commerce and trade by investing in the borderplex in Santa Teresa. Weve quadrupled exports to Mexico, millions of square feet of warehouse and industrial space that were vacant are now full, and now more New Mexico companies are selling more of their products to more markets around the country and the world.

Were also home to world-class infrastructure. Our highway system, access to passenger and commercial air travel and rail infrastructure make New Mexico a great strategic hub for logistics, transportation and distribution.

Its also important to note the high quality of life we have here in New Mexico. From a low cost of living, to short commutes, to top-notch outdoor adventure recreation opportunities and more, New Mexico is a great place to live, work and raise a family.

Our strengths are clear  from our schools and workforce to our infrastructure and business-friendly environment, New Mexico is a great place for high-tech, manufacturing and all kinds of other companies to grow and thrive. The word is getting out around the country and the world. Were bringing in global and national leaders like Facebook, Union Pacific, Safelite and others  and boosting our local high-tech innovators as well, like Intellicyt, RiskSense, Skorpios and a host of others.

And theyre bringing jobs and investment unlike anything our state has seen in recent memory. From investments like Facebooks half-a-billion-dollar double-down on New Mexico to our recent largest private-sector job growth in more than a decade, New Mexico competes for jobs and investment like never before on a regional, national and global scale.

Its no secret  Amazons HQ2 is one of the hottest economic development projects around. New Mexico has a powerful case to make across the board, and were excited to work with all our local, industry and community partners to make that case. New Mexico is more competitive for jobs and investment than ever before, and it is paying off for our families and businesses with unprecedented opportunities and results in our state.
An Albuquerque man is behind bars after donating his computer  chock-full of child pornography  to a center that provides support to people with disabilities.

Keith Mager, 59, faces two charges of sexual exploitation of children, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court.

When Mager donated his computer to the Adelante Development Center, agents say he told employees the computer needed to be fixed and he asked them to retrieve some photos from a folder titled WOW.

According to the complaint, Mager told them to notify him when it was finished.

Instead, Adelante notified special agents with the New Mexico Attorney Generals Office on Aug. 9 after finding dozens of child porn photos, including as the screensaver.

During questioning, Mager told agents he didnt plan on donating the computer to the center but admitted to downloading and possessing child pornography, according to the complaint.

He allegedly told agents he finds child pornography through a search of family nudist camps and had saved two handfuls of child porn to a file titled WOW.

The complaint says Mager admitted to agents that he bought a new computer and, although he is trying to figure out Windows 10, already has a WOW folder on it full of child pornography.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  The 2011 sex offender legislation thats surfaced as political ammunition against Tim Keller in Albuquerques mayoral race came about after repeated  and largely successful  lawsuits against New Mexicos largest city for enacting local ordinances that went beyond what was then on the states books.

Keller, who was then a member of the state Senate, voted in favor of the 2011 bill that would have barred cities and counties from enacting or enforcing local ordinances aimed at restricting where convicted sex offenders can live. The state already required  and still requires  that sex offenders register with law enforcement after moving or being released from jail.

The 2011 bill, which was sponsored by Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque, died on the Senate floor after six Democrats joined Senate Republicans in casting no votes.

Kellers yes vote on the bill has been cited by Dan Lewis, his opponent in the mayoral runoff election, and outside groups in hard-hitting campaign ads that accuse him of being soft on crime.

In addition, Lewis raised the issue of Kellers vote in a recent mayoral debate, saying, Hes got a record of voting on something thats absolutely dangerous and disgusting.

Keller has defended his vote and has been quick to point out he also voted for 2013 sex offender legislation that contained similar language to the 2011 bill and was signed into law by Gov. Susana Martinez.

The 2013 bill also strengthened state laws regarding convicted sex offenders, which the 2011 bill did not do.

Meanwhile, advocates for sexual assault victims have rallied behind Keller and criticized the attacks.

Background

Heres how the 2011 bill came about:

The Albuquerque City Council, under pressure from then-Mayor Martin Chavez, enacted various restrictions on sex offenders in the years leading up to 2011, including the citys own sex offender registration database.

Some of the restrictions barred sex offenders from living close to schools and from being alone with children other than their own, and were largely prompted by highly publicized cases of pedophiles moving to the area from out of state, Chavez says.

Basically, we were trying to do anything we could to make sex offenders uncomfortable in Albuquerque, Chavez said in a recent interview.

However, many of the provisions in Albuquerques sex offender ordinance were struck down by the courts as being unconstitutional after the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico filed suit. Only a few restrictions were left in place.

Peter Simonson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, said the state already had a sex offender registration law in place when Albuquerque enacted its more far-reaching ordinance.

He also claimed theres little public policy benefit to making sex offenders, many of whom have already served jail time, register with authorities, saying, Its pretty clear these sex offender registries have no impact on recidivism.

Both Chavez and Simonson agreed the court cases were the backdrop for the 2011 Keller-supported bill, which ended up failing.

2013 bill

In 2013, lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a comprehensive update to the states sex offender laws that included a provision barring local governments from imposing any restrictions on sex offenders beyond what the state requires. The provision was worded differently from the 2011 bill but appeared to have a similar intent.

That 2013 bill, which Keller also voted for, passed the Senate on the final day of the legislative session and was subsequently signed into law by Martinez, a Republican who was then in her first term.

In addition to pre-empting local government ordinances, the 2013 bill required sex offenders to provide more information when registering with law enforcement and provide their account information for social networking sites.

It also closed a perceived loophole dealing with sex offenders who move to New Mexico from other states.

Our families deserve to know that we are doing everything we can to protect them from sex offenders, provide law enforcement with the most complete information and make our communities as safe as possible, Martinez said after signing the bill into law.

Rep. Antonio Moe Maestas, D-Albuquerque, the sponsor of the 2013 legislation, credited Keller  who was the Senates majority whip at the time  for helping get the bill across the legislative finish line.

We frankly have one of the strongest sex offender laws in the country  and its working, Maestas said in an interview.

Former Albuquerque Mayor Chavez said he likely would have opposed the legislation if he were still in office, but acknowledged he might have voted for it if he were a legislator.

Disputed claim

Keller, for his part, has defended the 2011 bill as aiming to ensure there was a consistent statewide policy for sex offenders.

He has also taken issue with Lewis claim that he regrets his vote on the bill.

Ive never said that, Keller told the Journal. Hes literally making that up.

Lewis made the claim during a mayoral debate last month. He said Thursday that he had gotten the information from other members of the Legislature but declined to say who.

If he doesnt regret it, he doesnt regret it, Lewis said.

As the two top vote-getters in the Oct. 3 mayoral election, Keller, a Democrat, and Lewis, a Republican, will face each other in a Nov. 14 runoff. The winner takes office on Dec. 1. Early voting is underway and continues through Nov. 10.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

A state lawmaker has voiced concern that certain topics, such as racial violence in cities and the 1945 atomic bomb attacks on Japan, will be omitted from this years standardized test for U.S. history taken by New Mexico high school students.

Rep. G. Andres Romero, D-Albuquerque, a U.S. history teacher at Atrisco Heritage Academy High School, said the deletions touch on issues such as the civil rights movement, populism and trustbusting.

The deletions appeared in an end-of-course exam blueprint posted recently on the New Mexico Public Education Department website. The exam blueprint is based on the states social studies standards for grades nine through 12 adopted by PED in 2009.

The items that were deleted, some of them are controversial items, Romero said. Why start striking bits of the standards on the end-of-course exams?

The U.S. history blueprint indicates that no questions about civil rights leaders Rosa Parks or Malcolm X will be included in the end-of-course exam. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. remains a potential test subject.

Christopher Ruszkowski, PEDs secretary designate, said all the deleted material remains in the complete U.S. history standards that all teachers are required to cover in their classes.

The criticism is misleading, he said, because our teachers and our schools teach the standards, and the standards themselves havent changed in over a decade.

End-of-course exams cant cover all the material in the standards, Ruszkowski said. The blueprints are changed each year by teachers and subject-matter experts, and are intended to provide transparency for teachers preparing students for tests, he said.

The blueprint is created for a single exam for a single year, he said. A key purpose of the blueprints is to minimize the time students spend taking tests  a request of teachers and superintendents, he said.

Were looking everywhere to find places to reduce testing time.

Romero raised concerns about the U.S. history blueprint at a meeting last week of the Legislative Education Study Committee, which at the time was discussing PEDs proposed science standards.

PED in September proposed a set of science standards that was based on the Next Generation Science Standards but contained a number of changes that drew fire from scientists and educators.

Ruszkowski announced last week that New Mexico will adopt the Next Generation Science Standards as written, with the addition of six state-specific standards.

Just like the concerns with the Next Generation Science Standards, Im afraid theres an attempt to try and sanitize social studies, Romero said.

Ruszkowski denied any attempt by PED to bar controversial topics from classrooms. The U.S. history blueprint has no effect on the states overall standards, he said.

All of our best teachers and schools teach to the standards, he said. This idea that teachers are teaching to the test is not what Im seeing around the state in our best schools and classrooms.
WASHINGTON  New Mexico Republicans and business leaders described a sweeping tax overhaul proposal unveiled in Congress on Thursday as potentially helpful to the states stagnant economy, while congressional delegation Democrats said it would shortchange low- and middle-income New Mexicans.

The centerpiece of President Donald Trumps domestic agenda would slash the corporate rate and reduce the personal income taxes of most Americans, but it would also phase out some popular deductions and add $1.5 trillion to the national debt.

Trump visited Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday to congratulate them on their plan. He said the proposed changes to the tax code are another important step toward providing massive tax relief for the American people.

My tax reform priorities have been the same since Day One: bringing tax cuts for hardworking, middle-income Americans; eliminating unfair loopholes and deductions; and slashing business taxes so employers can create jobs, raise wages and dominate their competition around the world, Trump said.

Eager for a domestic policy victory after a GOP effort to repeal and replace Obamacare failed over the summer, Trump told congressional Republicans on Thursday that he wants the tax bill on his desk by Thanksgiving. GOP House members, mindful of a fierce partisan fight ahead, say a Christmas timeline is more feasible.

Under the plan, middle-income families would pay less, thanks to a doubling of the standard deduction and an increase in the child tax credit. Wealthy Americans, including Trump, would benefit from the repeal of the alternative minimum tax and phaseout of the estate tax. Republicans calculate that a family of four with a median $60,000 income would receive a tax cut of almost $1,200. However, many two-income, upper middle-class families would pay more after being bumped into a higher tax bracket and losing a valuable deduction on state income taxes.

The plan would shrink the number of tax brackets from seven to four, with respective rates of 12 percent, 25 percent, 35 percent and 39.6 percent. The tax system would be simplified, and most people would be able to file returns on a postcard-sized form.

The proposal would leave intact the existing rules on 401(k) retirement accounts and the ability of Americans to contribute up to $18,000 a year into the accounts tax-deferred. But it would limit the widely used deduction for mortgage interest to new home loans of $500,000 or less, a sharp reduction from the current $1 million cap.

The four Democrats in New Mexicos congressional delegation swiftly denounced the proposal as a giveaway to the rich. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said the tax package is full of inequity.

It eliminates deductions for state and local income and sales taxes, a key provision for many middle-class families across the country, while repealing the estate tax for the super-wealthy, Udall said. It gives big corporations a permanent tax break, while eliminating personal exemptions and the student loan deductions.

Rep. Steve Pearce, a New Mexico Republican who is running for governor in 2018, said the legislation would empower the middle class, while tax breaks for businesses would mean more jobs.

By lowering the corporate tax rate, manufacturing can once again return to the United States, bringing with it good-paying jobs for people across the nation, he said. It is time New Mexicans have a simple, fair and modernized tax code.

John Garcia, head of the Home Builders Association of Central New Mexico, said New Mexico builders  90 percent of whom are independent operators  welcome federal tax breaks and market certainty that encourages them to invest. Although national homebuilders grumbled about the impact of slashing mortgage interest deductions on home growth, the median price of a home in Albuquerque is just $219,000.

Were still hurting. We still havent pulled out of the recession in New Mexico, Garcia said. We are hopeful that (the overall tax package) will stimulate the economy and improve conditions for people who are putting their risk and everything theyve got into building houses.

Terri Cole, president of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, sounded an optimistic note about the tax plans impact on business, and said the chamber would analyze its impact on New Mexico in the days ahead.

While we have not studied the bill in its entirety, making the tax system more effective and business-friendly is good for all of us, Cole said.

Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget in Washington, said that although the package eliminates some deductions to help pay for cuts, it continues to rely on unrealistic economic growth assumptions to justify its cost.

Even a $1.5 trillion increase in the debt amounts to almost $12,000 per household  a steep price passed on to our children, MacGuineas said. While it is encouraging to see the House move forward on tax reform, it seems each new vote and milestone is a step backwards for the cause of fiscal responsibility.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The big money that the Espanola Public Schools keeps paying out in lawsuits over the sexual misconduct of former elementary school teacher Gary Gregor  now totaling more than $7.5 million in two cases, with a third suit still pending, as the Journals T.S. Last reported this week  may finally provide an impetus for dealing with an issue thats become known as passing the trash.

Espanola is paying the price for allowing Gregor access to the young girls hes accused of touching and otherwise abusing. Its possible that at least $2.5 million of the payments will come straight from the school districts coffers  an insurance carrier has balked at paying, maintaining the district knew about Gregors problems before the policy was issued.

Theres a broader problem. Gregor had faced accusations at three previous school districts, in three states, before he ever got to Espanolas Fairview Elementary and finally lost his teaching license. Lets review, again, Gregors history.

He was trouble before he ever got to New Mexico. In Utah, after he was accused of sexual misconduct with female students, Gregor faced criminal charges, but they were dismissed in 1995. The case started with a parents complaint after two girls stayed after school with Gregor for hours, and it turns out there had been more serious earlier complaints.

Gregor moved on to Montana. One of the New Mexico lawsuits on behalf of Espanola students says that public records show he acknowledged when applying for a New Mexico teaching license that he was fired from his Montana school job for insubordination that had to do with a school policy barring after-school activities with students. But that didnt keep him from getting the state license.

Next up, Santa Fe Public Schools, where he got a teaching job at Agua Fria Elementary. Docents at the Museum of International Folk Art said theyd spotted inappropriate behavior by Gregor with girls from his class during a field trip. Subsequent questioning of other Gregor students is said to have shown a pattern of similar behavior before the museum outing. But the Santa Fe district let him go with a non-critical neutral reference and he ended up next teaching in Espanola.

How did that go? According to the first lawsuit against Gregor and Espanola schools, Gregor, among other things, twice asked a fourth-grader to spend the night at his home, giving her gifts like candy and teddy bears and touching her intimately. He was fired in 2010.

All of this began to leak out for public consumption in 2011. It was Gregor who put himself in the spotlight, when he filed a court appeal that was later dropped after the state Public Education Department failed to renew his teaching license.

Finally, in April of this year and only after national news organizations began to focus on Gregor as a prime of example of passing the trash, the New Mexico Attorney Generals Office filed charges criminal child sex abuse charges against Gregor, including rape of a minor.

Now another part of state government also has started to pay attention. The board of the New Mexico Public Education Insurance Authority  which is having to cover those big pay-outs for sex abuse  has voted to initiate a legislative proposal an effort to stop school districts from being able to allow troubled teachers to resign quietly and move on to other districts.

Superintendents are supposed to notify PED when they know about facts that justify disciplinary action against a teacher. But a lawyer for the insurance authority says many districts violate state statutes and that results in an increase in large claims with respect to improper relationships between educators and students, according to minutes of an insurance authority board meeting.

The proposed legislation seems to focus on creating new criminal offenses for improper relationships between teachers and students. Those are already illegal when the student is a minor; maybe the focus should really be on reporting requirements for improper or illegal behavior.

A federal judge in 2014 found that Santa Fe school district officials, in Gregors case, didnt violate state law requiring that school officials report suspected child abuse to the state Children, Youth and Families Department and law enforcement. Why? The judge said the states reporting requirement, at least in this case, applied only to abuse in which the suspected perpetrator was a parent or guardian, not a school employee.

Espanola Public Schools or its insurers may have to shell out still more big bucks for Gregors activities, since a third lawsuit is still pending. The bigger issue is whether the people in charge of New Mexicos public schools will make sure the states schools stop passing the trash.
PLAQUEMINE, La. (AP)  Authorities say a teenager who pulled the trigger on what he thought was an empty handgun fired a bullet that went through the family dog and hit his grandmother, killing the woman at the scene.

Kenny Payne, the police chief in Plaquemine, Louisiana, told news outlets that the shooting appears to be accidental. That's based on the teenager's 911 call and information from his sister.

He says 19-year-old Blaise Horton was removing the magazine from the gun Thursday when he fatally shot Cathy DuPont Fulton.

The chief says the dog was being treated at an emergency veterinarian clinic, while Horton was being booked in jail on a negligent homicide charge.

It's unclear if the teen has a lawyer.

 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
DAMASCUS, Syria  Syrian troops ousted Islamic State extremists Friday from Deir el-Zour, a major city in eastern Syria, while Iraqi forces pushed into the groups last major town across the border in Iraq in simultaneous assaults that dealt further territorial losses to the retreating militants.

With their self-proclaimed caliphate crumbling, the extremists have lost almost all their urban strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

The defeats left the Syrian town of Boukamal as the only urban area still completely under IS control, along with scattered pockets of territory along the Syria-Iraq border.

Syrian troops backed by Russia and Kurdish-led forces supported by the United States are now racing toward Boukamal from opposite sides of the Euphrates River, triggering concerns that a proxy showdown could ensue between the two sides.

Both the U.S. and Russia have embedded special forces with their respective partners and are supporting their advances with airstrikes. Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said six Tu-22M bombers struck IS targets near Boukamal, while two Russian submarines in the Mediterranean also launched six cruise missiles at IS targets.

With the loss of Deir el-Zour, Daesh loses its ability to lead terrorist operations by its militants who are now isolated and encircled eastern countryside of the city, said Gen. Ali Mayhoub, declaring victory in a statement read on Syrian TV. He used an Arabic name for IS in the broadcast.

Video broadcast on state-run media showed the last moments of the ferocious fighting in Deir el-Zour, including shelling by Syrian tanks and plumes of smoke rising over the citys mostly destroyed neighborhoods of Jamiayat and Jabiliyeh before they were liberated.

The recapture of Deir el-Zour on the west bank of the Euphrates is another victory for President Bashar Assads forces and his Russian and Iranian allies. Deir el-Zour, which had been divided into a government-held and an IS-held part for nearly three years, is the largest city in eastern Syria and the capital of the oil-rich province of the same name. It is also the largest city to be recaptured by the Syrian government from IS.

Mayhoub described it as the last phase of the militarys campaign toward the annihilation of IS in Syria. He hailed the citys recapture as a strategic win, noting its location on a crossroads linking the countrys eastern, northern and central regions, as well as an oil and gas reservoir  a reference to the province.

In Iraq, troops pushed into the western neighborhoods of the town of Qaim across the border from Boukamal. An Iraqi officer in the western Anbar region said Iraqi forces have reached the border with Syria.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abdi congratulated Iraqi forces on retaking Qaim just over a week after the operation began. In a statement from his office, al-Abadi described the victory as taking place in record time.

Earlier in the day, Iraqi forces retook the nearby Husaybah border crossing with Syria, according to the prime ministers office.

Qaim, about 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of Baghdad in the Euphrates River Valley, has been used by IS to move fighters and supplies between the two countries at the height of the caliphate, when IS held nearly a third of both Iraq and Syria.

The extremist group has lost more than 96 percent of the territory it once held across both countries in 2014 and 2015, the height of the caliphate. Those losses include Iraqs second-largest city of Mosul, which it lost in July, and Raqqa, the groups one-time de facto capital in northern Syria, which it lost last month.

The militants, routed from one urban stronghold after another, have recently been moving deeper into Syrias remote desert, where they are believed to be regrouping and preparing to return to guerrilla-style tactics, including scattered hit-and-run attacks and suicide bombings.

Experts agree the groups territorial losses will not mark the end of IS, which will continue its insurgency and try to inspire attacks around the globe by disenchanted individuals.

In its weekly newsletter, the group claimed credit for the bike path attack that killed eight people in New York. Authorities identified the attacker as Sayfullo Saipov, 29, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, and the Islamic State group described him as a soldier of the caliphate.

While the city of Deir el-Zour was divided into parts held by the Syrian government and the militants, the United Nations was only occasionally able to deliver helicopter-dropped food aid to besieged residents estimated to number about 200,000.

Syrian government forces and their allies first broke the militant siege of their part of the city in September in a Russian-backed offensive, and have been advancing on IS positions since then.

Moscows involvement in the Syrian civil war since 2015 has propped up Assads forces and turned the conflict in his favor, while Russian mediation earlier this year launched cease-fire talks in Astana, Kazakhstan. The talks, sponsored jointly with Iran and Turkey, have brokered local deals that have significantly reduced violence in the country.

___

Karam reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Susannah George in Baghdad and Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed.
MADRID  A Spanish judge issued an international arrest warrant on Friday for former members of the Catalan Cabinet who were last seen in Brussels, including the ousted separatist leader Carles Puigdemont, who said he was prepared to run for his old job even while battling extradition in Belgium.

The National Court judge filed the request with the Belgian prosecutor to detain Puigdemont and his four aides, and issued separate international search and arrest warrants to alert Interpol in case they flee Belgium.

Puigdemonts Belgian lawyer did not answer calls requesting comment, but has said that his client will fight extradition to Spain without seeking political asylum. Belgian federal prosecutors said they had received the arrest warrant and could question Puigdemont in coming days.

We will study it, and put it in the hands of an investigating judge, spokesman Eric Van Der Sijpt told The Associated Press. We are not in any hurry.

Puigdemont and the four others are being sought for five different crimes, including rebellion, sedition and embezzlement in a Spanish investigation into their roles in pushing for secession for Catalonia.

The officials flew to Brussels after Spanish authorities removed Puigdemont and his Cabinet from office on Saturday for declaring independence for Catalonia. The Spanish government has also called an early regional election for Dec. 21.

Puigdemont told Belgian state broadcaster that he was in Belgium ready to be a candidate in the early polls and because he had lost faith in the Spanish justice system.

We can run a campaign anywhere because were in a globalized world, he told RTBF, adding that he was not in Belgium to Belgianize Catalan politics.

I did not flee, but its impossible to properly prepare a legal defense while in Spain, he told the broadcaster.

If Belgium acts on the international warrant issued by Spain and arrests him, Puigdemont would have to be brought before an investigating judge within 24 hours. His extradition procedure would take 15 days, Belgian legal experts say. But should Puigdemont appeal, that process could take a further 45 days, meaning that he would probably not leave Belgium before early January, well after the elections.

In her decision on Friday, Judge Carmen Lamela said that Puigdemont apparently is in Belgium and accused him of leading the mobilization of the pro-independence sectors of the population to act in support of the illegal referendum and thus the secession process outside the legal channels to reform the constitution.

Spain says the only legal way to achieve secession is by reforming Spains 1978 Constitution with an ample majority in the national parliament. The constitution says the country is indivisible and doesnt allow regional votes on sovereignty.

The arrest warrant came a day after the same judge jailed nine former members of Puigdemonts separatist government. All members of the ousted Cabinet were ordered to appear at Spains National Court on Thursday to answer questions in a rebellion investigation. Five of them, including Puigdemont, didnt show up.

Spanish prosecutors want to charge members of the dismissed regional government as well as six additional members of the regional parliament for promoting official steps to declaring Catalonias independence.

Meanwhile, a panel of National Court judges on Friday rejected an appeal seeking the release of two separatist activists who were jailed last month in a separate sedition investigation.

A National Court spokesman said the president of the Assemblea Nacional Catalana, Jordi Sanchez, and Omnium Cultural leader Jordi Cuixart will remain in a Madrid jail while the investigation continues. The spokesman spoke on condition of anonymity in line with court policy.

Sanchez and Cuixart are being investigated for allegedly orchestrating protests that hindered a judicial investigation to halt preparations for a banned independence referendum held on Oct. 1.

Under Spains legal system, investigating judges can have suspects detained while a comprehensive probe, sometimes taking months, determines if they should be charged.

Spanish government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo deflected questions by the media regarding the jailing of the Catalan officials. The separation of powers meant that the governments focus was on preparing for the early election it called for Catalonia, Mendez de Vigo said.

What the government guarantees is that there will be elections where the parties that want to run can present their programs, and we hope that the election can end this period of uncertainty and the deterioration of harmonious coexistence in Catalonia, he said.

One of the nine jailed Catalan officials, ex-regional minister for business Santi Vila, posted bail of 50,000 euros ($58,000) and was released from custody on Friday. His passport was confiscated and Vila needs to show up in court regularly as the rebellion, sedition and embezzlement probe continues.

The other eight were held without having bail set.

I ask for all political parties across Spain, appealing to their democratic values, to put an end to this terrible situation that has put politicians in prison, Vila said as he left the Estremera prison near Madrid.

Vila resigned in protest a day before Catalonias parliament voted in favor of the independence declaration. He has said he wants to lead the center-right separatist Democratic Party of Catalonia in the upcoming election on a moderate platform.

Puigdemont and his Cabinet were removed by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who used extraordinary constitutional authority authorized by the Spanish Senate to depose the separatists, dissolve the regional legislature and call the early regional election.

Spains Supreme Court is also investigating six members of Catalonias parliament. The court postponed a hearing Thursday until next week to allow more time for them to prepare their defenses in the case.

In all, Spanish prosecutors are investigating 20 regional politicians for rebellion and other crimes that would be punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

___

Cook reported from Brussels. Associated Press writer Joseph Wilson in Barcelona contributed to this report.

___

Find complete AP coverage of Catalonia here: https://apnews.com/tag/Spain
LAS CRUCES  The female suspect in a burglary in progress call that turned deadly Tuesday night has been identified as 37-year-old Heather Denean Bubrig of New Orleans, LA.

A multi-agency task force is still investigating the incident involving Bubrig, who was fatally shot by a reserve deputy with the Dona Ana County Sheriffs Department. Detectives have learned that earlier Tuesday evening, Bubrig was a passenger in a white 2016 Chevrolet crew cab pickup reportedly driven by her 51-year-old boyfriend, who is also from Louisiana.

According to the boyfriend, Bubrig was discharged from an El Paso-area mental health facility that day and, according to him, became emotionally upset at a hotel the two were reportedly staying at. The boyfriend told law enforcement officers she had threatened harm to him, demanding to leave the hotel for fear that someone was out to hurt her.

The couple was traveling westbound on Interstate 10 near milepost 135 when the boyfriend said he pulled over. Bubrig reportedly exited the vehicle and was attempting to walk into traffic. The boyfriend said he tried to contain her, but she was resisting.

Two phone calls were made by passersby to 911, each reporting a physical altercation happening between a man and a woman. Bubrig then reportedly fled, and the boyfriend drove away and called 911.

Just before 9 p.m., two additional calls were made to 911, one from a homeowner in the 5500 block of La Pradera Road who said a woman  later identified as Bubrig  had entered his home, claiming that someone was trying to kill her. The second call was from a resident in the 5400 block of La Pradera Road, who said a woman matching Bubrigs description was inside a shed on the callers property.

Several officers  including sheriffs deputies, a reserve deputy and an officer from the Mesilla Marshals office  arrived on La Pradera Road and approached the shed. Bubrig then reportedly came out of the shed armed with a sledge axe  a tool used for splitting wood, also known as a maul.

According to deputies, Bubrig closed distance on the reserve deputy, who fired at least two rounds toward her.

Despite all life-saving efforts, Bubrig was pronounced dead at the scene. Her body was transported to the University of New Mexico Office of the Medical Examiner for autopsy, which was performed Thursday. Results of the autopsy are expected to be completed in the next six to eight weeks.

The 47-year-old reserve deputy involved in the shooting has been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation. He has been with the department since 2014. Reserve deputies are volunteer officers with the sheriffs department and do not receive financial compensation.

The incident is under investigation by the Officer-Involved Incident Task Force, which includes investigators with the Dona Ana County Sheriffs Department, the Las Cruces Police Department, New Mexico State Police and New Mexico State University Police.



2017 the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.)

Visit the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.) at www.lcsun-news.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

_____
SALT LAKE CITY  An ex-con accused of killing a University of Utah student from China casually strolled multiple floors of a downtown Salt Lake City library about 15 hours after the fatal shooting and amid a massive manhunt. But he was quickly arrested in a bathroom by security, according to surveillance video released Thursday.

Videos released by the Salt Lake City Public Library showed Austin Boutain, 24, enter the building just after noon Tuesday, about 4 miles (6 kilometers) from the canyon on the edge of the university campus where police believe Boutain killed 23-year-old student ChenWei Guo during an attempted carjacking.

Boutain, with tattoos on his arms, face and back of his neck and wearing a white T-shirt, black beanie and jeans, can be seen carrying a water bottle and dark jacket around as he walks through multiple floors of the library and rides an elevator.

About 20 minutes after he arrived in the library, the video showed Boutain enter a bathroom on the third floor. About two minutes later, a security guard entered the bathroom.

The guard left but returned quickly with a second guard and entered the bathroom with his hand hovering over a gun on his hip.

A third guard can be seen arriving in the hallway, talking on the phone to someone as the other guards emerge from the bathroom with Boutain, whose wrists are handcuffed behind his back.

Police later said he surrendered without incident.

Other library surveillance footage shows Boutain in a library security holding room standing calmly as officers pat him down and have him sit on a bench waiting for police to arrive.

After about 10 minutes, officers showed up and walked Boutain calmly out of the nearly empty library, according to the footage.

Boutain, who has yet been formally charged, was being held Thursday in jail on suspicion of aggravated murder, robbery and other charges. He will likely face charges in Utah, then be extradited to Colorado, where police believe he killed 63-year-old Mitchell Ingle, stole his guns and drove his truck to Utah.

Ingles body was found in his trailer in Colorado on Tuesday.

Boutains wife, Kathleen Boutain, is also named as suspect in Ingles death. She was in jail in Utah on drug and theft charges.

No attorney has been listed for the Boutains.
PORTLAND, Texas  Actor Lou Diamond Phillips faces a driving while intoxicated charge in Texas for an incident that happened just hours before he appeared at a speaking engagement in Corpus Christi.

Police in Portland, Texas, arrested Phillips around 1:30 a.m. Friday. Jail records show the La Bamba star was freed after posting bail, which had been set at $2,500.

Police Chief Mark Cory says an officer was conducting an unrelated traffic stop when the 55-year-old Phillips drove up and asked for directions. The officer suspected Phillips had been drinking.

Cory says Phillips blood alcohol level was .20 percent  more than twice the legal limit for driving.

Cory says Phillips, who listed a California address, was cooperative.

Jail records listed no attorney for Phillips, a 1980 graduate of Corpus Christis Flour Bluff High School.
WASHINGTON  It was just before noon in Moscow on March 10, 2016, when the first volley of malicious messages hit the Hillary Clinton campaign.

The first 29 phishing emails were almost all misfires. Addressed to people who worked for Clinton during her first presidential run, the messages bounced back untouched.

Except one.

Within nine days, some of the campaigns most consequential secrets would be in the hackers hands, part of a massive operation aimed at vacuuming up millions of messages from thousands of inboxes across the world.

An Associated Press investigation into the digital break-ins that disrupted the U.S. presidential contest has sketched out an anatomy of the hack that led to months of damaging disclosures about the Democratic Partys nominee. It wasnt just a few aides that the hackers went after; it was an all-out blitz across the Democratic Party. They tried to compromise Clintons inner circle and more than 130 party employees, supporters and contractors.

While U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia was behind the email thefts, the AP drew on forensic data to report Thursday that the hackers known as Fancy Bear were closely aligned with the interests of the Russian government.

The APs reconstruction based on a database of 19,000 malicious links recently shared by cybersecurity firm Secureworks  shows how the hackers worked their way around the Clinton campaigns top-of-the-line digital security to steal chairman John Podestas emails in March 2016.

It also helps explain how a Russian-linked intermediary could boast to a Trump policy adviser, a month later, that the Kremlin had thousands of emails worth of dirt on Clinton.

____

PHISHING FOR VICTIMS

The rogue messages that first flew across the internet March 10 were dressed up to look like they came from Google, the company that provided the Clinton campaigns email infrastructure. The messages urged users to boost their security or change their passwords while in fact steering them toward decoy websites designed to collect their credentials.

One of the first people targeted was Rahul Sreenivasan, who had worked as a Clinton organizer in Texas in 2008  his first paid job in politics. Sreenivasan, now a legislative staffer in Austin, was dumbfounded when told by the AP that hackers had tried to break into his 2008 email  an address he said had been dead for nearly a decade.

They probably crawled the internet for this stuff, he said.

Almost everyone else targeted in the initial wave was, like Sreenivasan, a 2008 staffer whose defunct email address had somehow lingered online.

But one email made its way to the account of another staffer whod worked for Clinton in 2008 and joined again in 2016, the AP found. Its possible the hackers broke in and stole her contacts; the data shows the phishing links sent to her were clicked several times.

Secureworks data reveals when phishing links were created and indicates whether they were clicked. But it doesnt show whether people entered their passwords.

Within hours of a second volley emailed March 11, the hackers hit pay dirt. All of a sudden, they were sending links aimed at senior Clinton officials nonpublic 2016 addresses, including those belonging to longtime Clinton aide Robert Russo and campaign chairman John Podesta.

The Clinton campaign was no easy target; several former employees said the organization put particular stress on digital safety.

Work emails were protected by two-factor authentication, a technique that uses a second passcode to keep accounts secure. Most messages were deleted after 30 days and staff went through phishing drills. Security awareness even followed the campaigners into the bathroom, where someone put a picture of a toothbrush under the words: You shouldnt share your passwords either.

Two-factor authentication may have slowed the hackers, but it didnt stop them. After repeated attempts to break into various staffers hillaryclinton.com accounts, the hackers turned to the personal Gmail addresses. It was there on March 19 that they targeted top Clinton lieutenants  including campaign manager Robby Mook, senior adviser Jake Sullivan and political fixer Philippe Reines.

A malicious link was generated for Podesta at 11:28 a.m. Moscow time, the AP found. Documents subsequently published by WikiLeaks show that the rogue email arrived in his inbox six minutes later. The link was clicked twice.

Podestas messages  at least 50,000 of them  were in the hackers hands.

___

A SERIOUS BREACH

Though the heart of the campaign was now compromised, the hacking efforts continued. Three new volleys of malicious messages were generated on the 22nd, 23rd and 25th of March, targeting communications director Jennifer Palmieri and Clinton confidante Huma Abedin, among others.

The torrent of phishing emails caught the attention of the FBI, which had spent the previous six months urging the Democratic National Committee in Washington to raise its shield against suspected Russian hacking. In late March, FBI agents paid a visit to Clintons Brooklyn headquarters, where they were received warily, given the agencys investigation into the candidates use of a private email server while secretary of state.

The phishing messages also caught the attention of Secureworks, a subsidiary of Dell Technologies, which had been following Fancy Bear, whom Secureworks codenamed Iron Twilight.

Fancy Bear had made a critical mistake.

It fumbled a setting in the Bitly link-shortening service that it was using to sneak its emails past Googles spam filter. The blunder exposed whom they were targeting.

It was late March when Secureworks discovered the hackers were going after Democrats.

As soon as we started seeing some of those hillaryclinton.com email addresses coming through, the DNC email addresses, we realized its going to be an interesting twist to this, said Rafe Pilling, a senior security researcher with Secureworks.

By early April Fancy Bear was getting increasingly aggressive, the AP found. More than 60 bogus emails were prepared for Clinton campaign and DNC staffers on April 6 alone, and the hackers began hunting for Democrats beyond New York and Washington, targeting the digital communications director for Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and a deputy director in the office of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

The groups hackers seemed particularly interested in Democratic officials working on voter registration issues: Pratt Wiley, the DNCs then-director of voter protection, had been targeted as far back as October 2015 and the hackers tried to pry open his inbox as many as 15 times over six months.

Employees at several organizations connected to the Democrats were targeted, including the Clinton Foundation, the Center for American Progress, technology provider NGP VAN, campaign strategy firm 270 Strategies, and partisan news outlet Shareblue Media.

As the hacking intensified, other elements swung into place. On April 12, 2016, someone paid $37 worth of bitcoin to the Romanian web hosting company THCServers.com , to reserve a website called Electionleaks.com, according to transaction records obtained by AP. A botched registration meant the site never got off the ground, but the records show THC received a nearly identical payment a week later to create DCLeaks.com.

By the second half of April, the DNCs senior leadership was beginning to realize something was amiss. One DNC consultant, Alexandra Chalupa, received an April 20 warning from Yahoo saying her account was under threat from state-sponsored hackers, according to a screengrab she circulated among colleagues.

The Trump campaign had gotten a whiff of Clinton email hacking, too. According to recently unsealed court documents, former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos said that it was at an April 26 meeting at a London hotel that he was told by a professor closely connected to the Russian government that the Kremlin had obtained compromising information about Clinton.

They have dirt on her, Papadopoulos said he was told. They have thousands of emails.

A few days later, Amy Dacey, then the DNC chief executive, got an urgent call.

Thered been a serious breach at the DNC.

___

DONT EVEN TALK TO YOUR DOG ABOUT IT

It was 4 p.m. on Friday June 10 when some 100 staffers filed into the Democratic National Committees main conference room for a mandatory, all-hands meeting.

What I am about to tell you cannot leave this room, DNC chief operating officer Lindsey Reynolds told the assembled crowd, according to two people there at the time.

Everyone needed to turn in their laptops immediately; there would be no last-minute emails; no downloading documents and no exceptions. Reynolds insisted on total secrecy.

Dont even talk to your dog about it, she was quoted as saying.

Reynolds didnt return messages seeking comment.

Two days later, as the cybersecurity firm that was brought in to clean out the DNCs computers finished its work, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told a British Sunday television show that emails related to Clinton were pending publication.

WikiLeaks has a very good year ahead, he said.

On Tuesday, June 14, the Democrats went public with the allegation that their computers had been compromised by Russian state-backed hackers, including Fancy Bear.

Shortly after noon the next day, William Bastone, the editor-in-chief of investigative news site The Smoking Gun, got an email bearing a small cache of documents marked CONFIDENTIAL.

Hi, the message said. This is Guccifer 2.0 and this is me who hacked Democratic National Committee.

___

CAN IT INFLUENCE THE ELECTION?

Guccifer 2.0 acted as a kind of master of ceremonies during the summer of leaks, proclaiming that the DNCs stolen documents were in WikiLeaks hands, publishing a selection of the material himself and constantly chatting up journalists over Twitter in a bid to keep the story in the press.

He appeared particularly excited to hear on June 24 that his leaks had sparked a lawsuit against the DNC by disgruntled supporters of Clinton rival Bernie Sanders.

Can it influence the election in any how? he asked a journalist with Russias Sputnik News, in uneven English.

Later that month Guccifer 2.0 began directing reporters to the newly launched DCLeaks site, which was also dribbling out stolen material on Democrats. When WikiLeaks joined the fray on July 22 with its own disclosures the leaks metastasized into a crisis, triggering intraparty feuding that forced the resignation of the DNCs chairwoman and drew angry protests at the Democratic National Convention.

Guccifer 2.0, WikiLeaks and DCLeaks ultimately published more than 150,000 emails stolen from more than a dozen Democrats, according to an AP count.

The AP has since found that each of one of those Democrats had previously been targeted by Fancy Bear, either at their personal Gmail addresses or via the DNC, a finding established by running targets emails against the Secureworks list.

All three leak-branded sites have distanced themselves from Moscow. DCLeaks claimed to be run by American hacktivists. WikiLeaks said Russia wasnt its source. Guccifer 2.0 claimed to be Romanian.

But there were signs of dishonesty from the start. The first document Guccifer 2.0 published on June 15 came not from the DNC as advertised but from Podestas inbox , according to a former DNC official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

The official said the word CONFIDENTIAL was not in the original document .

Guccifer 2.0 had airbrushed it to catch reporters attention.

___

PLEASE GOD, DONT LET IT BE ME

To hear the defeated candidate tell it, theres no doubt the leaks helped swing the election.

Even if Russian interference made only a marginal difference, Clinton told an audience at a recent speech at Stanford University, this election was won at the margins, in the Electoral College.

Its clear Clintons campaign was profoundly destabilized by the sudden exposures that regularly radiated from every hacked inbox. It wasnt just her arch-sounding speeches to Wall Street executives or the exposure of political machinations but also the brutal stripping of so many staffers privacy.

It felt like your friend had just been robbed, but it wasnt just one friend, it was all your friends at the same time by the same criminal, said Jesse Ferguson, a former Clinton spokesman.

An atmosphere of dread settled over the Democrats as the disclosures continued.

One staffer described walking through the DNCs office in Washington to find employees scrolling through articles about Putin and Russia. Another said she began looking over her shoulder when returning from Clinton headquarters in Brooklyn after sundown. Some feared they were being watched; a car break-in, a strange woman found lurking in a backyard late at night and even a snake spotted on the grounds of the DNC all fed an undercurrent of fear.

Even those who hadnt worked at Democratic organizations for years were anxious. Brent Kimmel, a former technologist at the DNC, remembers watching the leaks stream out and thinking: Please God, dont let it be me.

___

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN

On Oct. 7, it was Podesta.

The day began badly, with Hillary Clintons phone buzzing with crank messages after its number was exposed in a leak from the day before. The number had to be changed immediately; a former campaign official said that Abedin, Clintons confidante, had to call staffers one at a time with Clintons new contact information because no one dared put it in an email.

The same afternoon, just as the American electorate was digesting a lewd audio tape of Trump boasting about sexually assaulting women, WikiLeaks began publishing the emails stolen from Podesta.

The publications sparked a media stampede as they were doled out one batch at a time, with many news organizations tasking reporters with scrolling through the thousands of emails being released in tranches. At the AP alone, as many as 30 journalists were assigned, at various times, to go through the material.

Guccifer 2.0 told one reporter he was thrilled that WikiLeaks had finally followed through.

Together with Assange well make america great again, he wrote.

___

Donn reported from Plymouth, Massachusetts. Desmond Butler, Ted Bridis, Julie Pace and Ken Thomas in Washington, Justin Myers in Chicago, Frank Bajak in Houston, Lori Hinnant in Paris, Maggie Michael in Cairo, Erika Kinetz in Shanghai and Vadim Ghirda in Bucharest, Romania contributed to this report.

___

Editors Note: Satters father, David Satter, is an author and Russia specialist who has been critical of the Russian government. Several of his emails were published last year by hackers and his address is on Secureworks list.

___

Previously in this series: http://apne.ws/b8By82B
Officers congregate during an investigation of an armed suspect inside a Bank of America call center in Rio Rancho on Friday evening (Roberto Rosales/Journal) The SWAT team stands guard during an investigation of an armed suspect inside a Bank of America call center in Rio Rancho on Friday evening (Roberto Rosales/Journal) Rio Rancho police officers work from the back of one of their vehicles as they investigate an armed subject near NM 528 and NM 550, Friday. (Marla Brose/Albuquerque Journal) Prev 1 of 3 Next

An armed employee killed himself Friday night after an hours-long standoff at a call center in Rio Rancho, according to a Rio Rancho Police Department spokesman.

Captain Ron Vigil said the man shot himself inside the Bank of America call center, near Carr and Picabo SE, during negotiations with police. Nobody else was injured in the incident.

Although Vigil didnt identify the man, family members said it was 44-year-old Eugene Junior Basurto.

Basurtos cousin Michelle Fernandez, who lives in California, said Basurto sent the family a text message saying goodbye earlier Friday.

Fernandez said Basurto told family he went into the call center and told his boss to evacuate the building to make sure nobody else got hurt.

He didnt want to hurt anybody, she said.

Basurto has been battling Hodgkins Lymphomaand the associated depressionfor several years, she said. Most recently, he was in his third remission when doctors found new lumps.

Fernandez said her cousin was good when the two spoke a few days ago.

He had good days and bad days, she said.

She described Basurto, who was raised in the San Francisco area, as a happy-go-lucky uncle who loved all his nieces and nephews.

He had worked at the call center for less than a year, Fernandez said. The company had helped him with his chemotherapy and healthcare needs.

Police were notified around 2:30 p.m. when those at the call center perceived a threat and evacuated the facility of over 300 employees, Vigil said. Negotiators were talking on the phone with Basurto hoping to get a peaceful resolution when the line went silent, followed by an unknown noise.

It is very disappointing whenever you have an exchange  youre hopeful and believe youre making progress  then it takes a turn, he said.

Vigil said the investigation is still underway.
OMAHA, Neb.  Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said Friday that its third-quarter profit fell 43 percent because of a $1.4 billion insurance underwriting loss from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria and earthquakes in Mexico.

The Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate owns Geico and several other insurers, including General Reinsurance.

Berkshire said it earned $4.07 billion, or about $1.65 per Class B share. Thats down from $7.2 billion, or $2.92 per Class B share.

Berkshire said that without its investment and derivative gains, which can be volatile, its operating earnings were $3.44 billion, or $1.40 per share.

The five analysts surveyed by FactSet expected Berkshire Hathaway to report operating earnings per Class B share of $1.59.

Buffetts company generated revenue of $60.53 billion in the period.

Berkshire Hathaway executives do not routinely discuss quarterly earnings results.

Edward Jones analyst Jim Shanahan said the insurance losses were larger than he expected. He noted Buffett said in August that Berkshires exposure to the storms would be limited because it hadnt written much catastrophe insurance in recent years because prices were too low.

But the $3 billion pretax insurance losses Berkshire reported in this quarter werent far behind the $3.4 billion in hurricane-related losses Berkshire recorded in 2005 when Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma struck the Gulf Coast.

CFRA Research analyst Cathy Seifert said the underwriting losses in Berkshires insurance businesses drove the quarterly result. Outside of insurance, Berkshires other businesses reported a modest 2.9 percent increase in operating profits.

For instance, Berkshires BNSF railroad contributed $1.04 billion to the companys quarterly profit, up slightly from last years $1.02 billion net income at the railroad.

Berkshire recorded much lower investment gains this year with $623 million in the quarter. Thats significantly lower than last years $2.3 billion that was boosted by Wrigley paying Berkshire to repurchase preferred shares Buffetts company held.

Berkshire owns more than 90 subsidiaries, including clothing, furniture and jewelry firms. It also has major investments in such companies as Coca-Cola Co. and Wells Fargo & Co.

Its Class B shares were down $1.27 to $186 in after-hours trading Friday following the release of the earnings report.

___

Follow Josh Funk online at www.twitter.com/funkwrite

___

Online:

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: www.berkshirehathaway.com
Nilkamal Limited is a brand synonymous with trust for the last 3 decades due to its undisputed leadership in the Moulded Plastic Furniture and Material Handling Products segments. Being a forward-looking brand, Nilkamal has launched its future-ready solution under the brand name Nilkamal BubbleGUARD.

Nilkamal BubbleGUARD is a multi-layer polypropylene board with a unique circular honeycomb structure manufactured with patented European Technology. The airlock technology creates non-collapsible bubbles which provide a cushioning effect to ensure protection. The patented structure results in a high strength - to- weight ratio, making these panels strong and durable yet lightweight.

This revolutionary board is suitable for endless applications. It is scientifically engineered to replace conventional methods of protecting, packaging, panelling and more, with its simplicity of usage. Available in customisable colours, these boards also provide a wide range of processing and laminating possibilities. They can be laminated in-line with a vast range of compatible materials that includes foam, textiles and printed film.

What makes Nilkamal BubbleGUARD so versatile and unique is Nilkamals understanding of the material and its approach to changing customer needs. The company has designed the product to be highly customisable so the boards are available in a range that varies from thin and flexible to strong and rigid and is available in a series that starts at 250 GSM and goes up to as high as 3500 GSM, depending on the application. The company strongly thus believes that Nilkamal BubbleGUARD can be best described as  One board, million possibilities.

Printing and Signage solution:

Nilkamals BubbleGUARD has launched its specialized revolutionary printing and signage solution  PrintGUARD.

PrintGUARD is a hi-performance, tailor-made, eco-friendly polypropylene based media for the graphics and display industry.

Customisation is a key to the success of a printing media and we understand this, says Mr. Mihir H Parekh  AVP Nilkamal BubbleGUARD Division. He adds, Since inception, the printing industry has grown many folds and reached beyond imagination, because of innovation. We realized, however, that the industry has not seen a breakthrough media that would allow the printers to experiment with colour, texture, laminates or fabrication. Thus we came up with PrintGUARD.

Its patented design provides a seamless finish with the special matte surface and corona treatment. PrintGUARD is easy to fabricate and is compatible with Flatbed direct digital printing, screen printing and also PVC vinyl and paper lamination. Currently, it is readily available in white colour.
Wieden+Kennedy Delhi is pleased to announce the appointment of Lubna Khan as the agencys new Head of Strategy.

Lubna brings over 18 years of experience in strategy and innovation to her new role. She is also a clinically trained psychologist, and continues to explore new ways of using insight for behavioral change.

Prior to W+K Delhi, Lubna worked as a Marketing consultant to young businesses launching in India. From July 2015 to January 2017, she was at Leo Burnett Orchard, where she was the National Strategy Head. Over the course of her career, Lubna has worked across a diverse set of categories, partnering with organizations like Amazon, P&G, ITC, Wipro, Nestle, GSK Consumer Healthcare, Suntory, Maybank, Kao, Samsung, Microsoft, Nokia, LG, and Airtel, to create communication with demonstrable impact on brands, businesses, culture and people. She has previously also worked with WPP agencies including Grey, JWT, Wunderman and Y & R, in both India and Malaysia.

Commenting on the latest addition to the team, Sidharth Loyal, Managing Director, W+K Delhi said, As W+K enters into its next phase of growth, it is our commitment to further reinforce and build on our strategic offering to help deliver a more effective creative product, and Lubnas extensive experience combined with a unique insight into human psychology is a definite asset.

In addition, Lubna has been recognized by WPPs Atticus Awards for her work in the area of Innovation Strategy, and has also won several effectiveness awards, including the APAC Effie, The Warc Prize for Asian Strategy, The International AME and the Asian Marketing Effectiveness and Strategy Award.

I am excited to join the Wieden+Kennedy family, with its unique creative culture and an amazingly talented bunch of people. I look forward to helping brands in India grow and thrive, utilizing the breakthrough power of strategic creativity, said Lubna.

Lubna has also coauthored a book on Strategic Communication for HIV/ AIDS, which still serves as the core reference for the Government of India.
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ATLANTIS JAPAN GROWTH FUND LIMITED (the Company)

(A closed-ended investment company incorporated in Guernsey with registration number 30709)

Legal Entity Identifier  54930041W0LDG00PGL69

Notice of Extraordinary General Meeting

3 November 2017

Further to the Board's announcement on 15 September 2017 regarding the proposed discontinuation of the Subscription Rights, the Company announces that a circular containing further details of that proposal is being posted to Shareholders today (the "Circular"). The Circular also contains a notice convening an extraordinary general meeting of the Company for Thursday, 23 November 2017 commencing at 9.30 a.m. at which a special resolution will be proposed to approve changes to the Articles of Incorporation that delete the provisions relating to the Subscription Rights.

Copies of the Circular have been submitted to the National Storage Mechanism and will shortly be available for inspection at www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/nsm and on the Company's website.

Words and expressions defined in the Circular have the same meanings when used in this announcement unless the context requires otherwise.





Enquiries



Website: www.atlantisjapangrowthfund.com





Company Secretary

Tony Sharpe

Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Guernsey) Limited

Tel: +44 (0) 1481 745736

Email: ts236@ntrs.com



Investor Relations

Richard Gittus

Tiburon Partners LLP

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MINSK, Belarus, Nov. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mapbox, the mapping and location platform for developers, today announced that it is bringing on the deep learning team at MapData, a neural network-based map SDK team in Minsk, Belarus. The company also plans to open a new office in the High Tech Park in Minsk.

The team in Minsk will be dedicated to supporting deep learning, computer vision and self-driving vehicles to complement the company's larger investments in autonomous driving and growing presence within the automotive industry.

"Navigation apps have not innovated in years," said Eric Gundersen, CEO of Mapbox. "Drivers are looking at 2D maps on their phones like the old school atlas our parents had  we can do so much better. Front-facing cameras and navigation displays need to merge. Drivers should see an augmented reality, with directions showing up in front of where they need to turn. Phones will be the heads-up displays of the future without the need for expensive hardware."

"It's great to see how fruitful cooperation during the last one and a half years has grown into a new breathtaking project," said Alexander Matveenko, General Manager for Mapbox in Minsk. "My big dream was always to have and ride in a self-driving car. It's incredible that I get to be part of it and work on creating it."

During the past few years, Minsk has been rapidly growing as an innovation hub. Mapbox has been successfully working with developers in the city for the past 18 months and felt the timing was right to expand its investment and activities in the area.

"The President of Belarus is expanding benefits for the members of the High Tech Park area in Minsk and making it easier for companies to set up shop," said Denis Alienkov, Alienkov & Partners, who has been supporting Mapbox's activities in Minsk.

Mapbox was initially introduced to Minsk by Yury Melnichek, the founder of Maps.me and lead investor AIMatters, who currently serves as an advisor to Mapbox. Melnichek saw potential in Mapbox's technology, not only for the automotive industry, but for the growth of Minsk as well.

"The combination of technical talent and a really dedicated work ethic is going to drive a lot of startups here. I believe this is an ecosystem that is important for Mapbox to be a part of," said Melnichek.

About Mapbox

Mapbox is the location platform for developers. Mapbox provides a global map, real- time traffic, location search and navigation via our APIs and SDKs. Our services power industry leaders, including CNN, General Electric, IBM, Instacart, Lonely Planet, Mastercard, Snapchat, Tableau, and The Weather Channel. Mapbox is the foundation for other platforms, letting enterprises analyze their data, drone companies publish flyovers, friends find each other, real estate sites visualize properties, satellite companies process cloud-free imagery, and insurance companies track assets. Founded in 2010, Mapbox has over 290 employees with global locations in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Bangalore, Berlin, Minsk, Shanghai, and Ayacucho. Learn more at mapbox.com, and follow our blog. Or follow us on Twitter.

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We can help you make sense of the agribusiness industry, extending from chemicals and fertilizers used as inputs into agriculture, to the commodities, food and by-products that are an output to farming, with policy and regulation applied at every step of the value chain.
November 2, 2017

House leaders have neutered a bipartisan push to suspend US military support for Saudi Arabias campaign against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., had planned to offer a resolution this week requiring President Donald Trump to cease US military involvement in Yemen except for forces engaged in operations directed at al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or associated forces. A new resolution introduced Wednesday and obtained by Al-Monitor, however, eliminates that clause amid pressure from House leaders opposed to the motion.

In addition to eliminating the removal of armed forces clause, the new resolution calls on all responsible countries to take appropriate and necessary measures against the government of Iran, including the interdiction of Iranian weapons to the Houthis. It also urges an end to the obstruction of humanitarian aid while supporting the Saudi-led Arab coalitions commitments to abide by their no-strike list and restricted target list and improve targeting capabilities.

Khanna told Al-Monitor that he believes that House leadership negotiated in good faith on the compromise resolution. The full House is expected to debate and vote on his new resolution later this month.

At the very least I want to have a vote in the House and a debate in the House to acknowledge that weve been refueling [Saudi coalition planes], to acknowledge that weve been assisting with targeting and to acknowledge that there are activities that are not authorized under the 2001 [war authorization], Khanna said. If we can come to a resolution that would have at least those key provisions in it, Im OK to have a vote.

Peace activists, however, are furious at the missed opportunity to end US support for the Saudi coalition, which has been accused of indiscriminately bombing civilian targets. They argue that eliminating the clause calling for the removal of armed forces and the addition of other clauses has rendered the new resolution toothless.

This is an effort likely to succeed because most of both the Democrats and Republicans are warmongers when it comes to [aiding] Saudi Arabia, said retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell and a vocal critic of the war in Yemen. The substitute language  makes it look as if the signers are concerned about the humanitarian disaster  [and] concerned about the threat from Iran, commingling that threat nicely, but inaccurately, with al-Qaeda.

Riyadh and its allies intervened in March 2015 to restore the UN-backed government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Since then, the United States has provided the Saudi coalition with targeting assistance, aircraft refueling and intelligence. Additionally, US forces regularly target al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS) militants throughout the war-torn country.

The Intercept news website reported Tuesday that Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., had dissuaded Democrats from signing onto Khannas original resolution; Wilkerson referred to the compromise resolution as Hoyer-inspired cop-out legislation.

However, Hoyer spokeswoman Katie Grant told Al-Monitor, He never dissuaded anyone from co-sponsoring the original resolution. She added that Hoyer supports the new resolution.

The original resolution was predominantly a liberal endeavor endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. It also garnered support from a small handful of noninterventionist Republicans.

In Yemen, I dont have a great deal of respect for Saudi Arabia, Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., one of the original resolutions initial co-sponsors, told Al-Monitor.

Jones also criticized House leaders decision not to put the original resolution on the floor.

Ive been very disappointed, said Jones. [House leadership] has got their own agenda and thats what gets on the floor.

Lawmakers opposed to US support for Saudi Arabias Yemen campaign have another chance to exert pressure on the Trump administration as House and Senate conferees negotiate a compromise annual defense authorization.

In July, the House passed an amendment from Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, onto its version of the annual defense bill; the amendment would prohibit the administration from using funds for military activities in Yemen that dont fall under the purview of the 2001 military authorization. The administration uses that legislation as legal justification for counterterrorism operations. The Senate bill does not include such language.
November 3, 2017

CAIRO  Egypts Detained Youth Committee for Presidential Pardon will issue the latest list of inmates to receive pardons after the World Youth Forum, which kicks off in Sharm el-Sheikh on Nov. 4. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and relevant ministers are scheduled to make appearances at the six-day event.

The committee had launched an initiative on Sept. 26 to examine the issues of pardoned prisoners being able to return to their studies or government jobs as well as psychological rehabilitation programs to help them overcome the effects of incarceration.

Sisi established the Detained Youth Committee for Presidential Pardon last year, on Nov. 1, following a recommendation by the first National Youth Conference, held in Sharm el-Sheikh Oct. 24, 2016, to identify detained youths who appear to be eligible for pardons. Among those eligible, for example, are prisoners convicted of crimes related to politics.

In September 2015, dozens of political activists accused of violating the Protest Law and two journalists from Al Jazeera English allegedly involved in the so-called Marriott terror cell were released through a presidential pardon. Two years later, on March 13, Sisi issued a second pardon, releasing 203 young men sentenced for their role in rallies and protests. The third pardon followed on July 23, freeing 596 inmates, and 211 prisoners were released by a pardon issued on Sept. 12.

Parliamentarian and Detained Youth Committee member Tariq al-Kholi told Al-Monitor, The idea of rehabilitating released prisoners was initially raised at the first meeting between the members of the committee and President Sisi in November 2016. Sisi subsequently issued his recommendations to all concerned ministers to cooperate with the committee to set up a complete plan for the rehabilitation of released prisoners and to provide it with facilities.

Kholi added, The committee held meetings on Oct. 28 and 29 with the ministries concerned with this initiative, namely the ministries of Youth, Social Solidarity, Education and Higher Education. The meetings discussed psychological rehabilitation programs for released prisoners, as well as the development of laws allowing the released to return to their jobs.

He further explained, These meetings mainly sought to amend certain regulations and laws to facilitate the re-employment of released prisoners who were dismissed from their jobs or help them return to their universities, whether public or private. The amendments and the design of psychological rehabilitation programs will be drafted after the World Youth Forum.

Two years ago, Omar Hazeq, a political activist, had been hopeful about returning home after his name appeared on a September 2015 list of 100 prisoners to be pardoned. He was enthusiastic about going back to his old government job and getting his life back. Once outside prison walls, however, his hope faded. He found himself stigmatized and socially restricted by his status as a former prisoner.

Hazeq was sentenced to two years in prison and fined 50,000 Egyptian pounds ($2,833) on Feb. 16, 2014. He had been arrested on Dec. 2, 2013, under Protest Law No. 107 (2013), for taking part in an unauthorized demonstration outside an Alexandria court to denounce officers accused of beating to death Khaled Said in 2010 while in police custody. Hazeq told Al-Monitor about the difficulties he faced after his release.

While I was serving my time, I was fired from my job as an Arabic-language editor at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, on April 22, 2014, Hazeq said. The president of the library alleged that the crimes I was convicted of threatened the regime. I also found out on Jan. 14 of this year that I had been slapped with a travel ban, when security authorities prohibited me from traveling to Austria to receive an international prize in literature.

Hazeq added, Hundreds of released prisoners, who served their time or were freed by a presidential pardon, have found themselves jobless, whether they worked in the government sector or the private sector. Add to this the continued harassment by the police after their release. In February, I was arrested and interrogated at one of the security services' headquarters. Some of the released prisoners are put under security surveillance or ordered not to leave their homes, a measure similar to house arrest.

Hazeq said that whenever he applies for a new job, he has to provide a judicial record, which kills any chance of being employed. The Civil Service Law only provides for the dismissal of employees charged with crimes that violate honor and trust, Hazeq said. This is not my case.

For the time being, Hazeq has no faith in the social integration initiative for pardoned prisoners launched by the Detained Youth Committee. This will remain the case as long as the regime continues to harass its political opponents and imprison those who dare to criticize its policies.
November 3, 2017

A new ultra-Orthodox art gallery will shortly open in the Geula neighborhood, the heart of ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem, demonstrating the change in Israel's ultra-Orthodox sectors outlook on art.

The gallery will be housed in the Schneller Compound, a historic building built in 1860 as a Christian orphanage and later used as a British military base and by the Israel Defense Forces at the founding of the state until 2008, before it was restored and repurposed in recent years.

Until a few decades ago, there was hardly any connection between art and the ultra-Orthodox. While there was ultra-Orthodox art, it was not a means to express a personal perspective or tell a story and certainly not a medium for protest and criticism.

The pioneers of ultra-Orthodox art are newly religious, among them famous figures such as Ika Yisraeli, Pupik Arnon and Rabbi Uri Zohar, who in 2003 established the Art Shelter Gallery [in Makor Barush]  the first gallery in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, Noa Lea Cohn, a researcher of contemporary Jewish art, told Al-Monitor. She is currently writing a dissertation at Bar-Ilan University on the first wave of newly religious artists in Israel.

There were efforts to bring art to ultra-Orthodox society before then. At the beginning of the 1990s, two pioneering women established a center for amateur art at a community center in Romema, a middle-class ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in the heart of Jerusalem. The center quickly took off and soon high-level art courses were offered there.

Motta Brim is one prominent ultra-Orthodox artist who is not newly religious. He became known in 2001 through a Jerusalem municipality project that distributed concrete sculptures of lions to artists from Israel and around the world to decorate. Brim decided to paint the image of ultra-Orthodox politician Aryeh Deri, now the minister of interior. It caused an uproar and brought me wide exposure, but at the time I didnt seek to provoke. I truly saw Deri as a man who led a social revolution with Jews of Eastern origin, and I saw him as a social activist and a very interesting symbol, he told Al-Monitor.

Brim sees a recent revolution in art in the ultra-Orthodox sector. Thirty years ago, when I started creating, there was no one to talk to, he said. Today theres a very lively exchange. At one time I never saw ultra-Orthodox people come to exhibits to see art, and today at almost every exhibit you can see the ultra-Orthodox. And Im not talking about exhibits within the sector.

Rivka Vardi, the director of Aman, the Bezalel Academy of Art and Designs ultra-Orthodox branch, told Al-Monitor, Today it seems much less threatening, but at first not everyone liked the idea of bringing art into the sector." Vardi herself had been following the issue for two decades. There were a lot of questions. People asked how it comports with Jewish law and religion. But we explained again and again that it doesnt conflict and you can even make good art at a high level without bumping against the boundaries of the Jewish law, she explained.

Ultra-Orthodox artists have various specific concerns. Exodus 20:4 says, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth, taken as a warning against statues, masks and images. There are also social tabbos surrounding a person "wasting" his time in art instead of learning the Torah or providing for his family.

From my point of view, I didnt want to make do with mediocre art, and the whole time my dream was to establish Bezalel for the ultra-Orthodox, Vardi added.

Indeed, after 15 years Vardi's dream came true this year, following several activities that reconciled the ultra-Orthodox sector with arts. The activity in the neighborhoods proved itself. We have the auto-art, which is actually an art pickup truck. It engaged 8,000 participants in 2016, she said. It's a colorful truck with art equipment and instructors that tours ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, offering children art workshops. This project has created a need for art teachers, and so weve opened a division for certificate studies some fiver or six years ago. Four years ago, we had another significant jump in activity, when we opened the division for a bachelors degree in architecture, art and visual communications in partnership with Bezalel, Vardi noted.

Women have taken the lead in ultra-Orthodox art, and only women have participated so far in the bachelor's program. Vardi said, I assume that it is a matter of time and we will see interesting developments [from ultra-Orthodox men] too.

The third Jerusalem Biennale also focused on ultra-Orthodox art, with an exhibition called Popthodox/Black Humor, curated by Cohn. This exhibition, at Beit Hasid in downtown Jerusalem, brings together various ultra-Orthodox art pieces that have humorous and self-mocking angles. This exhibit exposes visitors to the fascinating world of ultra-Orthodox art. It has works that present pride in the sector together with social criticism, she said.

According to Cohn, Judaism and art are historically linked, and in the present era there is a new relationship between religion and art. If until now Jewish art was mostly usable art  what we know as Judaica  as opposed to in the modern era. Art no longer appears only in the religious dimension and it has a wider statement that touches on more areas, she noted. This division has actually caused art to be viewed as something more neutral and thus today it is easier to connect to even in the ultra-Orthodox sector.

And what about art as protest and defiance? Cohn prefers to see it as something that connects. My dream is to establish a museum for Orthodox art and through it to bring the various shades of the ultra-Orthodox sector to other sectors, she said, so that it can break boundaries and stereotypes and create understanding by means of art.

Brim also expressed doubt regarding provocative art. In my eyes, art is something that builds bridges. It must be comfortable and pleasant, he said. Art is an international language and an excellent tool for connection. You can leave controversies and quarrels for Facebook and street protests. With art, I prefer to connect people and not to polarize.
November 3, 2017

Lovers of contemporary art in the Middle East have a lot to choose from this November. The region's three biennials are ongoing, and new exhibitions, with a strong dose of photography, are set to open.

Biennials: The 3rd Jerusalem Biennial continues until Nov. 16, with more than a dozen exhibitions around the city. One of them, Dreamland Never Found, curated by Maria Wates, brings together artists born in the former Soviet Union who present interpretations, through paintings and photographs, of the new waves of immigration to Israel driven by recent political and economic events in the post-Soviet territories.

The clock is ticking for a chance to see the 15th Istanbul Biennial and satellite exhibits and activities. The doors close Nov. 12. It is worth exploring the least-known venue of this large art event  Proposal for a House Museum of an Unknown Crying Man, a work by the Egyptian artist Mahmoud Khaled at Ark Kultur. The installation  based on a police raid on the Queen Boat, a floating disco on the Nile, and the subsequent arrests and trials of 52 gay men in 2001  offers strong criticism of anti-gay policies and attitudes in Egypt and the rest of the region.

The Beirut component of the 13th Sharjah Biennial continues at the Sursock Museum, with the exhibition Fruit of Sleep, curated by Reem Fadda. The exhibit defines dormancy as the act of plotting after failed attempts of a revolution. The show wraps up at the end of the year.

Contemporary art in Iran: The current exhibition at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Roots and Stones, features the German-British sculptor Tony Cragg. The 80 pieces on display focus primarily on Cragg's work on geometric shapes, using industrial materials. In parallel with the exhibition, a group of Iranian artists are working in the museum's courtyard to realize a large, marble sculpture designed by Cragg. It is expected to be completed in November. Roots and Stones, which opened in late October, continues to the end of the year.

Back to the movies: The legacy of Ronit Elkabetz, the Israeli actress and filmmaker who died last year, will be honored in a special exhibition at the Design Museum Holon on Nov. 28. Je t'aime, Ronit Elkabetz will take visitors on a visual journey of the identities and personas of this revolutionary actress, filmmaker and all-around icon.

Photography: Cairographie, the first photography and videography festival in Egypt, opens Nov. 5 at two of Cairos cultural hubs, Darb 1718 and Photopia. The festival celebrates photography and video by bringing together different artists who tackle contemporary topics. A series of talks, Born to Change: Young Artists on the Rise, will be held Nov. 17. The festival continues through Dec. 31.

The exhibition Insight, in Irans Golestan Palace Museum, a lavish UNESCO-listed building, features 80 photographs by two Iranian photographers from the Qajar period and by the German photographer Hans Georg Berger. The works bring the old and new together in their presentation of Shiite shrines in Iraq and Islamic seminaries in Iran. The images by the two Iranians were taken in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when they served as official, court photographers for the Qajar kings Nasser ad-Din Shah (1821-1900) and Mozaffar ad-Din Shah (1853-1907). They illustrate local life around the shrines in the Iraqi cities of Najaf, Karbala and Samarra. Bergers photos of Islamic seminaries in Iran were taken in 2000 and 2005. The exhibition closes Nov. 15.
November 3, 2017

Nine months after being elected head of Hamas' political bureau in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar is still the talk of the town thanks to his bold decisions such as reconciliation with Fatah, his meeting with dismissed Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan and his growing rapprochement with Egypt. Many Palestinians now see Sinwar as a Palestinian national leader rather than a Hamas leader in Gaza.

Houssam Badran, a member of Hamas' political bureau based in Qatar, told Al-Monitor, Hamas decisions are made by its Shura Councils and leading institutions, but each leader leaves his own fingerprint. Sinwar believes in institutional work within the movement, but he is dynamic, energetic and ready to take the initiative. When it comes to the movements general stance and reconciliation with Fatah, he never makes a decision without consulting with the entire leadership. Still, Sinwar is an effective and influential leader, and his position as the head of Hamas in Gaza gives him room to take action and impose his influence both internally and externally.

Sinwars biography shows extensive leadership experience before Hamas was officially founded in 1987, and even before he founded the Gaza security apparatus in 1985 by order from the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Hamas originated. In prison, Sinwar headed the supreme leadership body for Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails between 1988 and 2011.

After his release in 2011, Sinwar was elected as a member of Hamas' political bureau and acted as a coordinator for its political and military wings. In 2015, he was made responsible for Israeli prisoners in Hamas jails.

Imad Mohsen, a spokesman for Dahlans Reformist Current, told Al-Monitor, Sinwars charisma played a major role in his growing prominence. Although Hamas is an institutional movement with a Shura Council and a political bureau, this man has prioritized national considerations rather than partisan interests and broke the ice between us and Hamas. He met Dahlan in Cairo back in June, and only a few days ago Dahlan himself told us that he has been looking for a leader as enthusiastic as Sinwar for 10 years now. In addition, Egypt sees Sinwar as a leader with whom it can agree because he believes national considerations are more important than ideological affiliations.

The Ramallah-based al-Hadath newspaper reported that Egyptian intelligence presented a report to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in July describing Sinwar as honest, courageous and credible. The document facilitated dealings between him and Egypt on securing the border between Gaza and Sinai.

Alex Fishman, a military analyst for the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, wrote Oct. 18 that Egypt was treating Sinwar like a precious jewel wrapped in soft linen and packed in a silver case. Sinwar was accorded heavy security during his frequent visits to Cairo since June, as Egypt fears Israel will attempt to assassinate him because the Egyptians have found common ground and reached understandings with him, Fishman added.

Sinwar is fluent in Hebrew and has written books about the work of Israeli intelligence. In September 2015, the US State Department added his name to its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists.

Sinwar's latest statement came on Oct. 24, when he stressed that reconciliation with Fatah is a strategic choice for Hamas, and that the reconciliation decision was made collectively by the Hamas leadership at home and abroad.

Zulfiqar Sawirjo, a member of the Central Committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told Al-Monitor, Sinwar gave Hamas decisions a Palestinian dimension and conveyed what the Palestinian street really wants. As a former prisoner, he knew how to build warm and intimate relations between Hamas and the national factions after the movement had been very cautious with its relationships in the past. Before Sinwar, ideology overshadowed national interests in Hamas and despite his power and influence, he has yet to reach the stage of taking decisive stances on his own.

In recent weeks, Sinwar has been holding regular meetings with Palestinian elites, youths, journalists, trade unionists, businessmen and political factions. At these meetings, he has explained the policy Hamas will adopt in the next phase and heard proposals to resolve the crises plaguing the Gaza Strip.

On Sept. 29, Sinwar threatened to break the neck of anyone who tries to obstruct reconciliation with Fatah. Ahmed Youssef, a former political adviser to former Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh, tweeted the same day that he feared Sinwar would establish an alternative leadership approach that diverges from dialogue, but then deleted the tweet without explanation.

Musa Abu Marzuq, another member of Hamas' political bureau, said on Oct. 26 that Sinwar had not meant to imply that some Hamas members were trying to impede reconciliation, because we in [Hamas] have always relied on logic and reason in our institutional and regional positions, not on undermining one another.

On Oct. 29, Hassan Yousef, a Hamas leader in the West Bank, said that Sinwar is not the decision-maker in Gaza.

Mahmoud Mardawi, member of Hamas national relations bureau, a former prisoner and a friend of Sinwars, told Al-Monitor, Sinwar is a great leading figure, but he does not want to work outside the organizational structure of Hamas, since he is in charge of the Gaza Strip. He is responsible for implementing the movements decisions, mainly achieving reconciliation with Fatah, which was an organizational decision that concerns all of Hamas. Sinwar is charged with implementing it on the ground and solving any problems it faces.

Mardawi added, I refuse to separate Sinwar from Hamas, and although some leaders do not see eye to eye with him, the institution represents everyone. Hamas is currently preparing to lead the Palestinian national project and, naturally, it is bringing together different generations and different visions.

Raed Nairat, a professor of political science at An-Najah National University in Nablus and the head of the Contemporary Center for Studies and Policy Analysis, told Al-Monitor, Hamas takes its time in making decisions because everything needs to go through political institutions and councils. It seems that Sinwar took advantage of the movements slow decision-making process and made what looked like some hasty decisions by taking shortcuts when it comes to the partisan framework. His actions come from working outside the organizational channels during the long years he spent in prison.

Nairat added, Sinwar will surely make further efforts to achieve a successful reconciliation because it would grant him more influence on the national level. If reconciliation were to fail, he would suffer a lot both within Hamas and beyond.

Regardless of whether everyone approves of Sinwars opinions, he brings something new to the table within the Hamas leadership. Over the past 30 years, the movement never rushed into any decisions, although not everyone was happy with this policy. Today, Sinwar has been making major decisions that may scare some Hamas members, despite the remarkably wide public support for them.
November 2, 2017

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip  Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are outraged that sanctions against Gaza remain in place despite the reconciliation agreement signed Oct. 12 by Fatah and Hamas in Cairo. They are upset in particular about the reduced fuel supply to Gaza's only power plant. Any euphoria over news of the reconciliation in this regard has worn thin, as it appears relief may not be in sight for at least another month.

The reconciliation agreement calls for completion of the necessary procedures to enable the consensus government to fully exercise its tasks and assume its responsibilities in the administration of both Gaza and the West Bank by Dec. 1. The transfer of Hamas' control over Gaza, in fact, began in early October, kick-started by the movement's Sept. 17 announcement of the dissolution of the administrative committee it formed in March to oversee Gaza. Hamas took full control of Gaza in 2007 after a violent conflict there with Fatah, the main party in the Palestinian Authority (PA).

A delegation from the Ramallah-based consensus government headed by Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah arrived in Gaza on Oct. 2 after Hamas announced the demise of the administrative committee. On Oct. 3, the ministers of the consensus government began taking control of Gaza ministries from Hamas. On Nov. 1, the PA took control of the Rafah crossing with Egypt and the Erez and Kerem Shalom crossings with Israel. The Israeli crossings are expected to be opened immediately, but the crossing at Rafah will be delayed to address security issues given the Islamic State insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula.

In an Aug. 3 statement to the Quds Press International News Agency, Azzam al-Ahmad, a member of Fatah's Central Committee and the Fatah official responsible for the reconciliation file, said that dissolving the committee was necessary to end the sanctions imposed on Gaza. The Hamas administrative committee was dissolved after that statement. Many Palestinians, apparently erroneously, had assumed that relief would immediately follow dissolution.

Yahya Moussa, a Hamas leader in Khan Yunis, expressed surprise at the current situation. He told Al-Monitor, We do not know why [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas continues to impose sanctions on Gaza, even though we have dissolved the administrative committee and handed over all the ministries and crossings to the consensus government.

He added, The delay in removing the sanctions is unjustified. Those suffering from these sanctions are the Palestinians in Gaza, who receive electricity only four hours a day, who are prohibited from traveling and who do not have access to medical treatment abroad. Thus, the government, or Palestinian Authority, are asked to end these sanctions immediately and without delay.

During an Oct. 3 press conference after the PA Cabinets first meeting in Gaza following the start of reconciliation talks, government spokesman Yousuf al-Mahmoud said, These measures will be discussed in Cairo during the meeting of Fatah and Hamas, referring to the gathering scheduled for the first week in December to resolve outstanding issues.

Jamal Muheisen, a member of Fatah's Central Committee, told Al-Monitor, The measures imposed on Gaza are not sanctions, but steps for the sake of the reconciliation. The proof is that these measures succeeded in pushing Hamas toward reconciliation and toward handing over rule to the consensus government.

Muheisen further explained, The sanctions on Gaza have not been abolished yet given that the government has not been handed the totality of its tasks and prerogatives for the management of Gazas affairs. It is true that the governments members came to Gaza, and its ministers have received their ministries in Gaza. However, the government's direct rule in Gaza will begin as soon as Hamas and Fatah resolve pending issues, namely the Gaza employees crisis, the security of Gaza and the [holding of] general [parliamentary and presidential] elections. These matters are scheduled to be discussed in the upcoming meeting that will take place in Cairo in December.

Muheisen concluded, We do not want to anticipate things before we see the results of the Cairo meeting, and it is not possible to address the repercussions of more than 10 years of Palestinian division in one night. Therefore, the reconciliation necessarily takes time.

In regard to the Cairo meeting, Muheisen said, [It] will be considered a new turn for better living standards for Gaza residents, since the government will begin to implement dozens and perhaps hundreds of development and operational projects aimed at improving life in Gaza.

Talal Okal, a professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, told Al-Monitor, These sanctions [are] a power card in the hands of the Fatah movement to pressure its most prominent political rival to accept Fatah solutions to the pending issues that will be discussed at the scheduled Cairo meeting. He emphasized, It is clear that Fatah is trying to manipulate Hamas through its continuous sanctions in order to force it to make more concessions and show more flexibility in the scope of the unresolved issues.

Moussa, however, dismissed the idea that Fatah is trying to blackmail Hamas. He said, Reconciliation is based on partnership and cooperation, not on manipulation, blackmail or isolation of Hamas from the Palestinian scene. The relationship among partners is not based on such logic, but on the strengthening of cooperation and complementarity.

Iyad al-Qara, the director general of the Hamas-affiliated newspaper Felesteen, told Al-Monitor that the movement is doing everything it can for the sake of reconciliation and that its leaders are making statements to indicate their flexibility in trying to resolve the existing division. Yahya Sinwar, Hamas' leader in Gaza, told representatives of trade unions on Oct. 24 that his movement has made a strategic decision to achieve reconciliation and end the Palestinian division at any cost.

According to Qara, Abbas was surprised by Hamas' willingness to dissolve the administrative committee in the hope of reconciliation and relinquish control over Gaza. Abbas' wariness about the decision may be what has led him to maintain the sanctions on Gaza until he is certain of full PA control over Gaza.

Given demands calling for sanctions to be lifted, Abbas said in an interview with the Xinhua News Agency on Oct. 23 in regard to the reconciliation, [It] requires time and patience, and we dont want to rush things.

It now seems clear that the reconciliation agreement signed in October was basically a protocol, a memorandum of understanding, paving the way for the real test for the success or failure of reconciliation in December. With sanctions relief in the balance, the concern now is the possible failure of Fatah and Hamas to reach attainable solutions to their outstanding issues.
November 3, 2017

Where a playground once stood in disrepair, between the municipality and the school of a small village in Palestine, a free access community skate park now stands. The majority of the children of Jayyous, a village in the northwest of the West Bank, are rolling around their new play space, while others celebrate on a terrace overlooking the park, singing and dancing to a local party song.

Skateboarding is amazing. I feel like a bird when Im skating, Yasmeen Foqha, 15, told Al-Monitor, between laps around the park.

The 650-square-meter (7,000-square-foot) skate park was constructed in September by the British charity SkatePal with a team of international volunteers, alongside local partner SkateQilya. SkatePal has been operating within Palestine since 2013 to promote the benefits of skateboarding in a region where cultural, educational and sporting opportunities are limited. Their last project was a 700-square-meter skate park in the village of Asira al-Shamaliya, just north of the West Bank city of Nablus. SkateQilya is a youth empowerment program based in Qalqilya, west of Jayyous and bordering the Israeli wall. Through their summer camps, they use skateboarding to teach leadership skills and community building to young people in the West Bank. The organization is primarily funded through the American nonprofit Playgrounds for Palestine as well as individual donors.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Jayyous is home to just under 4,000 people with half of the population under 25. The village is in close proximity to the Israeli-West Bank wall and directly affected by frequent raids by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Only one hour into the opening of the park, word spread that the IDF was in the village. A group of children started running toward the center of town to see where the soldiers were, while other park visitors and skaters stayed within the safety of the park.

SkateQilya Director Mohammad Othmans main aim of the park in Jayyous is to keep the children out of trouble with the Israeli soldiers. The most important thing is us protecting the children from being arrested, harassed or humiliated by the Israeli army, Othman told Al-Monitor.

With no public park for the children to play previously, they would hang out after school hours in the streets or go to the wall to throw rocks at it. From September to the end of October, we had about 25 kids arrested [for this reason], Othman added.

Abdel Jaber, 14, has only been skating since the park construction finished. It makes me happy. Its fun, a good hobby and sport. Before I never really had something to pass my time, Jaber told Al-Monitor.

SkatePal founder and executive director Charlie Davis views skateboarding as a good release for the children in Palestine, especially those in Jayyous who are clearly stressed by their living situation. Skateboarding can be quite an aggressive sport, depending on how you want to do it, but also creative. So I think thats a perfect outlet for people who want to direct their stress through something, Davis told Al-Monitor.

The majority of the children at the opening appeared desensitized to the IDF arriving during an event of importance to them. Jaber stated how normal it was. I dont know why they would want to enter here, its a play area, he said. The soldiers stated they were trying to find the child who threw stones at the wall and was now hiding behind the skate park.

SkatePal volunteer Zak Saleh returned to Palestine from England to help build the Jayyous skate park after assisting SkatePal in Asira al-Shamaliya two years ago. He believes skateboarding opens up a whole new word for the children. Theyre so locked into the country here. Due to the occupation, its difficult for them to travel around. With skateboarding, it allows you to look at your surroundings differently. For example, maybe there is a slight incline in the concrete and it becomes a whole new spot that you could enjoy, Saleh told Al-Monitor.

Skateboarding is also a sport where barriers of gender, age, and religion are broken down. Othman was originally concerned the community in Jayyous would comment on the mixing of boys and girls together, as in more conservative Palestinian towns there is traditionally a gender divide. In reality, I would say we have about 90% support. Everyone is happy there will be a place for children to release their energy and learn something new, Othman said.

Foqha understands how strange it is for her to skate in her hometown Tulkarm, just north of Jayyous. In Jayyous [at the skate park] it feels normal, but in Tulkarm, I cant skate in the street because people look at me like, What are you doing? Foqha said. They dont look at boys like this. Boys can do anything in our community, but girls no.

Foqha finds it inspiring that boys and girls can skate together. The boys have more courage and when we see this, we take that from them. As a girl, we are sometimes afraid of many things, but the boys arent afraid of anything, she said.

Having equality between boys and girls is important for SkatePal, so they ensure both female and male volunteers stay in the communities and teach skateboarding to the children. When you see women in their 30s and they still skate, theyre independent, they have jobs and they arent married or have kids, it shows its a possible thing to do. [People in Palestine] see this is something else that works, Davis noted.

SkatePal director Theo Krish sees the possibilities that can emanate from the projects SkatePal and SkateQilya create and run in Palestine, such as skateboarding lessons and camps, providing future and more long-term opportunities for the youth. There are possibilities for them to take on roles within the organizations, Krish told Al-Monitor.

My ultimate aim when I started SkatePal was to have a self-sufficient team, which doesnt rely on foreigners. Thats what a skate scene should be about, Davis noted.

Beyond that youre looking at skateboarding in Palestine getting to a stage that a skate shop can exist and someone needs to run that, or run the first board company or magazine in the country, Krish added.

Foqha concluded that her continued dedication to skateboarding is her resistance to the occupation. Anything that we succeed in, it helps us toward our freedom. Because of this, we try to succeed in everything, she said.
November 3, 2017

WASHINGTON  The CIA and the Czech diplomats serving as the US protecting power in Syria declined to comment Friday on a report that a US official had gone to Damascus, Syria, this week to talk with Syrian security chief Ali Mamlouk about security concerns, including American citizens believed detained in Syria.

The conspicuous lack of denials suggests that the United States might be pursuing discreet, back-channel talks with Damascus with the purpose of gaining the release of American citizens. Such talks could also be useful to directly communicate US security concerns as advances against the so-called Islamic State (IS) put US-backed forces in close proximity to Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian forces on the ground, and as the United States tries to ensure that Iran does not set up a presence on Syrian territory close to Israel, analysts said.

There are a range of issues that are outstanding between the US and the Syrian governments, including the fate of US prisoners the United States believes are being held under Damascus authority, Nicholas Heras, a military analyst with the Center for a New American Security, told Al-Monitor after stressing that he has no direct knowledge if the reported US official visit to Damascus took place.

Direct talks would also be useful to get a sense directly from the lions den itself what are the intentions of the [Bashar al-] Assad government toward the future of eastern Syria as the counter-IS campaign winds down and US-backed forces and Assad-backed forces come directly face to face, staring at each other, Heras said. And also potential future regime moves into areas of Syria such as in the southwest that are of high concern to key US allies such as Israel and Jordan.

A senior US official met Syrias national security chief in Damascus this week in the highest-ranking visit to Syria by a US official since the start of the war in 2011, Reuters reported it was told by a senior regional official close to Damascus Nov. 3, after Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar first reported on the alleged visit.

Feel free to say we declined to comment, a CIA press officer told Al-Monitor the same day.

We cant comment on this matter, a Czech diplomat also told Al-Monitor Nov. 3.

A State Department official told Al-Monitor that the department had no information on the reported visit.

During the meeting, Mamlouk protested to the US official that US forces 'are on Syrian land and this is considered occupation, Reuters reported the regional official said. The US official responded that our presence is advisory and we are fighting Daesh, the regional official added, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

The regional security official did not name the US official who allegedly met with Mamlouk, but said he had traveled to Damascus from Lebanon, Reuters reported.

CIA director Mike Pompeo was previously reported to have started a back channel with Mamlouk shortly after taking office last January with the alleged purpose of seeking the release of American journalist Austin Tice. Tice, a former Marine, was abducted while working as a freelance reporter in Syria in August 2012 and is believed to be held by forces loyal to Assad.

Syrian officials have repeatedly denied that Tice is being held in Syria.

Austin Tice is not in the hands of Syrian authorities, and we dont have any information about him at all, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told the Associated Press in an April 2016 interview.

The Reuters report Friday said that there are other US citizens detained in Syria, including CIA operatives. Diplomatic sources have previously told Al-Monitor there are other cases of Americans being held in Syria, beyond Tice, but did not share their names.

One former senior US official expressed caution about some of the details in the report. I'm not sure why you would do this meeting in Damascus, the former senior US official, speaking not for attribution, said. Too risky. Would only happen on the third or fourth meeting if I had to guess, and even then there would be little reason to do it there and lots of reasons not to. He suggested it would make more sense for such a meeting to take place in Beirut.

If the United States did send an official to Damascus, it was not with a message of rapprochement, although Syria may try to suggest that is the case, analysts said.

This type of communication is intended to be episodic, Heras said. What it really does that is useful for the US side is it cuts out the middleman, such as Russia, and allows the United States to communicate directly with relevant Syrian government agencies that have an ability to tap into the highest levels of decision-making in Damascus.

This also allows the United States to directly say to the face of the regime that it wont accept aggressive actions toward US partners like Israel, which is a major source of concern in Washington, Heras said. And it also sends a signal to Tehran and Moscow that, when it needs to, the United States does not have to rely on them to say what it needs to say to Assad.

The United States and the [Donald] Trump administration continue to say they are not actively looking to overthrow Assad by force, but they do not see a future Syria with Assad in power, Heras said. It also is not a sign of rapprochement, because the United States is trying very hard to create the conditions for the war over the aftermath of the war, which is to prevent Assad and his partners from having access to reconstruction funds and the international organizations it needs to underwrite the future reconstruction of the areas it controls.

The United States wants a whole and unified Syria with no role for Bashar al-Assad in the government, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told journalists in Geneva after meeting with UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura in Geneva last week. The reign of the Assad family is coming to an end. The only issue is how that should be brought about.

De Mistura has called for the next round of Syrian political talks between the regime and opposition to be held in Geneva on Nov. 28.

Ahead of that, the Syrian opposition is expected to meet in Riyadh to try to come up with a united platform, an adviser to the Syrian oppositions High Negotiating Committee told Al-Monitor.

The United States and European allies have been cool to a Russian proposal to host a Congress of Syrian National Dialogue in the Black Sea city of Sochi on Nov. 18, and Syrian opposition groups have said they will not attend.

With respect to the conference the Russians are pushing, the United States continues to support efforts by the UN and the Geneva process  to undertake a political process with international legitimacy that can end the Syrian conflict, a State Department official told Al-Monitor Nov. 3.

"The road to peace lies through Geneva," British Ambassador to the UN Matthew Rycroft said Thursday.

"Now we are told that the road, which has already taken a significant detour into Astana, now needs another detour into Sochi, Rycroft said. I'm relatively skeptical about that.
Rep. Terri Sewell and Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill traded accusations on Twitter Thursday, after a Jefferson County probate judge said none of the voters identified by Merrill's office as possible illegal crossover voters had ever even attempted to vote in the runoff election.

Merrill's office, which oversees elections in Alabama, sent more than 600 names to probate judges throughout the state. Those voters, Merrill said, had potentially voted illegally in the September runoff between Republicans Roy Moore and Luther Strange. However, local officials determined that most, if not all of those names, had been misidentified as crossover voters because of how pollworkers had kept their records.

Merrill has been on the defensive ever since, and Sewell sent him a letter accusing his office of voter intimidation, a claim Merrill called "hilarious."

On Thursday, that dispute spilled over on Twitter with each official lobbing accusations and snarky replies at the other.

You can read that full exchange below.

Threatening innocent voters with jail time is never "hilarious." It's called voter intimidation. @JohnHMerrill https://t.co/6ESIegArJ3  Rep. Terri A. Sewell (@RepTerriSewell) November 2, 2017

Always helps to be informed about the issues that we want to speak about. If thats not the case it often puts us in a defensive posture.  John Merrill (@JohnHMerrill) November 2, 2017

Agreed. Surprised that anyone spoke out recommending the prosecution of 700 voters before checking the list for errors.  Rep. Terri A. Sewell (@RepTerriSewell) November 2, 2017

Nobody did that. Thats why it would be better if you were more informed before you spoke about an issue youre not familiar with.  John Merrill (@JohnHMerrill) November 2, 2017

I am very familiar with voter intimidation. I come from Selma where our families fought, bled, and died for their right to vote.  Rep. Terri A. Sewell (@RepTerriSewell) November 2, 2017

Nobody is talking about voter suppression your voter intimidation except for the uninformed. We would never stand for voter oppression.  John Merrill (@JohnHMerrill) November 2, 2017
Today marks the launch of a few new products, like the Xbox One X, and Call of Duty WWII. Both of which are already discounted, although barely. Sony has made a special edition PlayStation 4 Slim for Call of Duty WWII which is currently available for just $289 and that comes with 1TB of storage. For reference, the PlayStation 4 Slim bundle with Uncharted 4 that has been sold for the past year, came with just 500GB of storage for $229. So this is a great price when you think about it.

LGs OLED TVs are also still on sale over at eBay. Youll find the 55-inch OLED TV for $1399, while the larger 65-inch is available for $2199. Both of which are their lowest prices. There are also quite a few monitor deals so far in Black November. So if youre looking for a new monitor to spice up your setup, now might be the time to pick one up. Dells UltraSharp 34-inch ultrawide monitor with a 34401440 resolution display is currently being sold for $629.99. Thats a great price for this great looking monitor, that will take multi-tasking to a whole new level.

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All of the deals listed below that have expirations dates expire at midnight PST on their respective dates. So if you are looking to pick one of these up, youll want to do so before midnight PST.
Google and its partner OEMs could have a big lawsuit on their hands over issues with the new Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. The smartphones have been among the most hotly anticipated devices of this year and their specs drew plenty of interest, but the launch hasnt exactly been smooth. Shortly after the devices started reaching customers, user reports started surfacing regarding various issues, particularly some pesky screen problems with the higher-end Pixel 2 XL. A large law firm, Girard Gibbs LLP, is now interested in the matter and is looking into things to see if a class action lawsuit is due. The firm is investigating Google, as well as LG, which made the Pixel 2 XL, and HTC, which made the Pixel 2.

Most of the user complaints have been about the Google Pixel 2 XL and its screen burn-in issues, and the magnitude of the problem has prompted Girard Gibbs LLP to take a closer look at the claims. The firms investigation is mainly focused on the larger and more problematic Pixel 2 XL, but the Pixel 2 is not exempt either as its also had its fair share of issues. The firm has posted an announcement on its website that its looking into reports against Google, LG, and HTC, and is prompting Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL owners to come forward and share their experience with the smartphones. As part of its investigation, Girard Gibbs LLP is offering confidential case consultation for free to any disgruntled Pixel 2 or Pixel 2 XL owners who have been facing issues with their new smartphones.

If enough people step forward, report legitimate issues, and are willing to be part of a class action suit, Google, LG, and HTC might have to settle issues in court and it could prove to be quite costly. This is not the first huge class action suit Gerard Gibbs LLP files against a large company, and the law firm is unlikely to back down if it finds enough people willing to back up the claims against the companies. Google has extended the warranty to two years for all Pixel 2 series smartphones worldwide so that at least helps consumers a little bit should problems arise. The base warranty previously covered the smartphones for just one year, not two. It remains to be seen how things will unfold with Gerard Gibbs LLPs investigation, but more details should surface soon enough.
Buying any one of Samsungs 2017 flagships in the United States makes you eligible for a free Samsung Desktop Experience (DeX) Station or the new Gear VR headset, as per the companys latest promotion which is available until November 18th. The offer itself apparently only applies to purchases made directly from Samsung U.S. and extends to the Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8 Plus, Galaxy S8 Active, and the newly launched Galaxy Note 8 phablet. The Enterprise Edition of the Galaxy Note 8 seems to be the only new premium device from the company that doesnt appear to be eligible for the promotion, presumably due to the fact that its aimed at the enterprise segment and major clients which can already receive some other incentives from the company. Refer to the banner below for the full list of devices eligible for the new deal.

As always, youll have to register your handset with the company before your free gadget arrives separately and it seems that this offer can be combined with the presently running trade-in one that allows you to save up to $300 on your new device if you provide the South Korean phone maker with your old one. Apart from the companys official website, the Samsung Shop Android app is also part of the promotion, with the only other limitation being that the buyer looking to take advantage of the deal must be over 18. Equal Payments can be combined with the deal, allowing you to pay off your device in up to 24 monthly installments with no annual percentage rate, so long as youre willing and able to open a Samsung Financing Program Account. While the platform usually restricts users to purchases over $349, all of the companys 2017 flagships are well above that mark anyway.

Samsungs new promotion coincides with the recent release of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, as well as the launch of pre-orders for the iPhone X, Apples first bezel-less smartphone. The Seoul-based tech giant will presumably debut more similar promotions in the coming weeks as it seeks to continue competing with its largest global rival until its ready to launch the Galaxy S9 series circa March 2018.
A device thats believed to be the Samsung Gear 360 (2018) camera appeared in a new design patent granted to the Seoul-based tech giant by the Korean Intellectual Property Office over the summer, with the filing itself being publicized earlier this week. Unlike the last commercially released model, the one seen below appears to have been designed to look more lifelike, being depicted with a minimalist face drawn on its head. The render that can be seen above and the ones in the gallery below also show the possible Gear 360 (2018) as wearing headphones and what appears to be a tiny replica of a virtual reality headset, as well as a winter cap, though none of those items are likely to be bundled with the camera and may only be used as part of some promotional materials.

Much like the previous model, the new Gear 360 (2018) is expected to boast 4K capabilities and still be able to record 360-degree video content. HDR and YouTube support are also presumed to be part of the package, as well as native compatibility with Samsungs Gear VR lineup of headsets. The camera still features a large circular physical button on its front which is meant to start and stop recording, with its actual lens not being perpendicular to the body and Samsungs patent showing it as being tilted slightly upward. The body of the device is also more rounded and is now closer to adopting a pear-like shape than the one of a simple handle featured on the old model. The actual name of the product isnt mentioned anywhere in the patent documentation, though the filing clearly describes the device as a handheld camera.

The South Korean tech giant traditionally refreshes its Gear 360 lineup circa the first quarter of every calendar year, meaning that its two best opportunities to announce the Gear 360 (2018) might be the Consumer Electronics Show in mid-January and Mobile World Congress in late February. Alternatively, the company may launch the camera alongside the Galaxy S9 smartphone lineup at a dedicated event in March before commercializing it next spring. The price of the gadget will likely be comparable to the one of its previous iteration which hovered around the $230 mark, depending on the market.
T-Mobile made a new merger proposal to Sprint which the fourth largest wireless carrier in the country is now in the process of reviewing, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people with knowledge of the effort to save the consolidation that SoftBank reportedly decided to call off. T-Mobile Chief Executive Officer John Legere is said to have explicitly told Sprint head Marcelo Claure that the Bellevue, Washington-based telecom giant would prefer to keep the deal alive.

Insiders previously claimed that Sprint parent opted to quit the negotiations because Deutsche Telekom wasnt prepared to provide it with any significant level of control over the combined entity. While the two parties reportedly agreed to general merger terms, the matter of corporate power structure is something they werent able to settle so far; the German telecom conglomerate agreed to an all-stock deal that would see SoftBank receive a premium for its assets compared to how Sprints shares are currently trading, but only under the condition of having full control over the merged company, with SoftBanks founder and CEO Masayoshi Son only being awarded the position of a co-chairman of the theoretical entity which he would share with Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Hottges, according to previous reports. SoftBank allegedly wasnt prepared to agree to such conditions and proposed ending the talks several days back.

Sources now claim that the two parties may be able to reach a new deal in the coming weeks but nothing is set in stone and the future of the widely reported consolidation heavily depends on the concessions both would be prepared to make. If the deal eventually goes through and results in an official merger proposal, its understood that T-Mobile CEO would be chosen to lead the combined entity. Besides T-Mobile and Sprints parents still having to agree to a tie-up, the deal itself would also be subjected to heavy regulatory scrutiny from the Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, and possibly the Federal Communications Commission, though the FCC Chairman Ajit Pai previously signaled that the agency may not stand in the way of such a merger. Neither party has yet commented on the matter in any capacity and both have previously only hinted that no M&A opportunities will be left unexplored in the near term.
Samsung is making it possible for users to completely disable the Bixby key found on the Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8 Plus, and the Galaxy Note 8, with the South Korean phone maker now distributing a new update to its last three Android flagships allowing for the button to be rendered inoperable at will. Doing so is as simple as navigating to the Bixby Key section of the system Settings app where the same key can also be re-enabled if the user wishes to do so. The new software package is currently being distributed via the Galaxy Apps store and is expected to hit all eligible devices over the coming days. The update is accompanied by a new version of the Bixby Home and Bixby Service systems, though their changelogs dont appear to mention any major additions and presumably only ship with bug fixes and possible performance improvements.

The new update builds on the one distributed in mid-September when Samsung allowed users to disable Bixby activations using the extra physical keys on its devices, though the button itself would still wake up the handsets when pressed. The dedicated Bixby key has been one of the rare complaints users had about the Galaxy S8 lineup and the recently launched Galaxy Note 8, with all three devices otherwise being highly praised by both critics and consumers alike. Not all people who opted to purchase one of Samsungs 2017 flagships wanted to use Bixby and even some who did ended up not preferring conjuring the artificial intelligence assistant with a dedicated button, with that feedback apparently prompting Samsung to provide its customers with a way to disable the key. Remapping the button still isnt officially approved by the company who previously fought against such attempts with some success.

Bixby is still advertised as one of the main selling points of Samsungs new high-end smartphones and the South Korean company is likely to continue pursuing that approach over the course of 2018, with the upcoming Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus both being expected to feature a similar key dedicated to activating the digital companion. The tech giants next Android flagships are expected to be officially announced by late winter.
YouTube users have been complaining of issues with getting a black screen instead of having a video load up for a couple of days now, but the issue seems to be getting gradually fixed by Google. While reports have largely waned and this writers personal testing across multiple devices, operating systems, and accounts yielded no problems, there are still others out there reporting the black screen issue happening to them intermittently. In some of these cases, users are able to fix the issue simply by refreshing the page. Google has yet to acknowledge the problem outside of the YouTube Support forums, where no new topics about the problem have been made in the last few hours as of 9 AM PT, at least. Reports of the problem started circulating around the 1st of November, spiked and became fairly widespread, and began to wane somewhere in the early hours of this morning.

The problem manifests as a simple black screen taking the place of the video you want to watch, no matter how long you wait. While many users are no longer reporting issues, the problem is still around and is seemingly still affecting some people as of this writing. A number of users tried refreshing the page and reported that this fixes the issue, which could indicate that Google has set YouTube to somehow screen videos and fix the issue in real time as the video is being pulled from the server to be sent to a users machine. This most likely means that Google has a handle on the situation and knows how to fix it, and is opting to implement that fix on a case-by-case basis rather than bringing the whole site down temporarily to apply a major fix. An alternative explanation is that Google has yet to start resolving the situation but that only some users are occasionally affected by the reported problems.

This is far from the first time that YouTube has experienced widespread issues, though Google usually takes time to make it known that the company is aware of any problems and is fixing them. The company does sometimes wait until after issues are fixed to post about them, just to let users know that it was made aware of any problematic occurrences, what happened, how it was fixed, and what the plan is to keep the same issue from happening again. Since the problem seems to be fixed for some users worldwide and Google has yet to post about it, that may be the case in this situation as well.
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By Vasundhara Rastogi

Phnom Penh, once known as the Pearl of Asia, is the capital and largest city of Cambodia. Located at the confluence of three major rivers  the Mekong, the Tonle Sap River, and the Bassac River -, the city serves as Cambodias major economic, business, and trading destination. Though the city is located 120 miles away from the sea, its proximity to the Mekong river valley makes it an ideal port  connecting the landlocked region to the South China Sea via Vietnam by the Hau Giang channel of the Mekong Delta. Phnom Penh is home to 1.5 million people, and serves as a major global and domestic tourist destination in Cambodia. Khmer, the most popular and official language of the country is the main language; English and French are also widely spoken.

RELATED: Pre-Investment and Market Entry Advisory from Dezan Shira & Associates

Regional connectivity

Since the end of Cambodias civil war in 1975, the city has undergone rapid development in terms of infrastructure. The city has four main national highways and three rail lines that connect it to the main seaport at Sihanoukville (also known as Kampong Saom). The highways radiates out to other parts of Cambodia and its neighboring countries  Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos.

Phnom Penh International Airport is well connected with popular cities in the region, such as Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City and regional hubs such as Singapore and Hong Kong. Domestically, too, it is well connected  Phnom Penh has direct and frequent flights to Siem Reap, the main tourist gateway to the ancient Khmer ruins of Angkor Wat, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Special Economic Zones

Cambodias economy has grown remarkably in the past few years, with an annual growth rate averaging more than 7 percent between 2012 and 2016. This growth has been largely driven by its ability to provide low-cost, labor-intensive manufacturing  especially in the garment, footwear, and food-products sectors in its well established special economic zones (SEZs). The country houses around 30 SEZs that provide preferential incentives to investors and offer government import-export administrative support to facilitate trade. The main SEZ in Phnom Penh as well as the most developed SEZ in Cambodia is the Phnom Penh SEZ (PPSEZ). The PPSEZ currently has an estimated 80 tenants and 15,000 employees. Notable corporations already present in PPSEZ include Coca-Cola, Toyota, and Yamaha.

Some of the key incentives include corporate income tax exemption of up to nine years, exemption from import duty on materials and equipment used in production, investment protection agreements with the worlds leading economies, freedom from price control, as well as free remittance of foreign currency. Besides, export-oriented manufacturers can access preferential treatment under ASEANs Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) to explore Asian markets and increase competitiveness.

Since foreign nationals cannot own land in Cambodia, SEZs offer them an opportunity to develop, or sub-lease plots with up to 50 years of renewable leases. This gives businesses more flexibility in organizing their factory activities over a long period of time.

Manufacturing hub

Phnom Penhs is the countrys economic center, accounting for a large share of the Cambodian economy. The city, along with its neighboring provinces, serve as the most industrially developed area in the country  in terms of labor force and infrastructure. Phnom Penh specializes in light labor-intensive industries such as garments and footwear, food and beverage, and consumer products.

The Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone (PPSEZ), established in 2006, holds the key to the citys economic growth and development. The SEZ is strategically located between Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City at the center of the East-West Economic Corridor that links Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar. The economic zone serves as a manufacturing hub for over 77 export-oriented companies that produce a diverse range of products. These include companies manufacturing mechanical and electrical products, garments and shoes, pharmaceutical products, consumer products, as well as pharmaceutical, packaging, and logistics companies.

Over the years, with the opening up of its economy and a stable political environment, several other industries have mushroomed in Phnom Penh. A number of shopping centers, hotels, and commercial centers have opened up, making real estate a lucrative business in the city. Tourism is also a major contributor in the capital; Phnom Penh is a major tourist destination in the country, along with Siem Reap and Sihanoukville. Tourism accounts for approximately 18 percent of Cambodias economy. Among the most popular tourist areas in Phnom Penh are Tuol Sleng Museum, Wat Ounalom, Wat Phnom, and Sisowath Quay, alongside the Tonle Sap. Sisowath Quay is a long stretch of road that has several restaurants, bars, and hotels establishments.

Phnom Penh is endowed with several advantages for export-oriented manufacturing industries, such as access to cheap workforce, low-cost manufacturing, and its connectivity with several well-established foreign markets. These factors along with infrastructure development, FTAs with fast-growing economies, and its strategic location in the heart of Southeast Asia  continue to create opportunities for businesses in the region.

About Us ASEAN Briefing is published by Asia Briefing, a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. We produce material for foreign investors throughout Asia, including China, India, Indonesia, Russia, the Silk Road & Vietnam. For editorial matters please contact us here and for a complimentary subscription to our products, please click here. Dezan Shira & Associates provide business intelligence, due diligence, legal, tax and advisory services throughout the ASEAN and Asia. We maintain offices in Singapore, as well as Hanoi & Ho Chi Minh City, and maintain Alliance offices in Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Manila as well as throughout China, South-East Asia, India and Russia. For assistance with ASEAN investments into any of the featured countries, please contact us at provide business intelligence, due diligence, legal, tax and advisory services throughout the ASEAN and Asia. We maintain offices in Singapore, as well as Hanoi & Ho Chi Minh City, and maintain Alliance offices in Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Manila as well as throughout China, South-East Asia, India and Russia. For assistance with ASEAN investments into any of the featured countries, please contact us at asean@dezshira.com or visit us at www.dezshira.com

Dezan Shira & Associates Brochure

Dezan Shira & Associates is a pan-Asia, multi-disciplinary professional services firm, providing legal, tax and operational advisory to international corporate investors. Operational throughout China, ASEAN and India, our mission is to guide foreign companies through Asias complex regulatory environment and assist them with all aspects of establishing, maintaining and growing their business operations in the region. This brochure provides an overview of the services and expertise Dezan Shira & Associates can provide.

An Introduction to Doing Business in ASEAN 2017

An Introduction to Doing Business in ASEAN 2017 introduces the fundamentals of investing in the 10-nation ASEAN bloc, concentrating on economics, trade, corporate establishment, and taxation. We also include the latest development news for each country, with the intent to provide an executive assessment of the varying component parts of ASEAN, assessing each member state and providing the most up-to-date economic and demographic data on each.

How to Set Up in the Philippines



In this issue of ASEAN Briefing magazine, we provide an introduction to the Philippines as well as analyze the various market entry options available for investors interested in expanding to the island nation. We also discuss the step-by-step process for setting up a business entity in the Philippines, highlighting the various statutory requirements for overseas investors. Finally, we explore the potential for Singapore to serve as a viable base to administer investors Philippine operations.
New electric supply contracts were recently written for 60 Charleston Chamber members, resulting in projected savings of tens of thousands of dollars for the group over the next year.

Electrical usage from all participating businesses was pooled together making it possible for everyone in the group to get a great low rate, regardless of their individual usage.

Don Frontone, president/CEO for The Stone River Group, acted as the broker for the Chamber group and negotiated the fixed rate per kilowatt hour for the contract term.

The new rate of 4.77 cents per kilowatt hour is nearly a cent less than the rate on the last contracts. Contracts were issued through Homefield Energy and will go into effect on December 1.

Many of the Chamber businesses are small to mid-size and their owners just dont have the time or expertise to negotiate with the independent energy providers.

The Chamber is able to help its member businesses save money by coordinating this aggregated buying group, freeing up real dollars that can be reinvested into their businesses.

The new contract provides a 17 percent or $51,561 annual savings from the last contract price. New members of the group will realize a savings of 27% or $92,547 annually over the current Ameren default rate.

Two Charleston businesses that just signed contracts will save $7,894 and $4,664 annually. Another business will see a savings of about $700 per month.

The Charleston Chamber also offers a savings option for its members who use natural gas. Businesses who switch from Ameren to the Chamber program typically save about 11% on their natural gas bills.

For more information about the electric and natural gas programs, call the Charleston Chamber office at 217-345-7041. A Request for Rate Quote form can also be downloaded from the Chamber homepage at www.charlestonchamber.com.

***

One of the hottest travel destinations right now is Iceland -- the Land of Fire and Ice. The Charleston Chamber is excited to announce a new travel program to this amazing country next October.

Iceland is a unique destination that offers pristine nature, active geysers, healing geothermal pools, dramatic lava fields, magnificent waterfalls, breathtaking landscapes and a chance to view the Northern Lights.

Passengers will take an overnight flight out of Chicago on the evening of Saturday, Oct. 6, and return on Friday, Oct. 12.

Highlights of the trip include a city tour of Reykjavik, a full day adventure to the South Shore with volcanoes and waterfalls, a relaxing soak in the mineral rich waters of the Blue Lagoon, a full day excursion on the Golden Circle tour to the Thingvellir National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site, a whale watching trip and a special excursion to view the Aurora Borealis.

The all-inclusive price of $2,979 per person (Double Occupancy) includes roundtrip airfare from Chicago, five nights accommodations; seven meals; international air departure taxes and fees, baggage handling, and all admissions to sites on the itinerary.

All members of the public, Chamber members and non-members are invited to attend a free informational meeting on Friday, Nov. 17, to learn more about this special travel program. The meeting will be held at 11 a.m. at the Charleston Chamber office located at 501 Jackson Ave. in Charleston.

A detailed itinerary and additional tour information including the online reservation form are available on the Chamber website at www.charlestonchamber.com, or call the office at 217-345-7041.
Best Straight Razors

Bring on the Barbershop Shave With These Straight Razors

The AskMen editorial team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service.

With additions by Barret Wertz.

Fashioning the vogue of the mountain man or growing out the beard for any number of reasons remains a cool thing to do at the moment. We get it. The so-called recession beard period is no more. But maybe when The New York Times claims the beard has gone mainstream, like every other style trend thats come (and gone), its time to pick up a straight razor for the era of the lumberjack look might officially be done. Finished. Caput. So start thinking about shaving it off.

RELATED: The 8 Best Razors for Men

Why Straight Razors?

Theres no more manly way to bask in the satisfaction of a smooth face than by running a single-steel blade across that mug of yours. Straight razors have the one-up in several areas over electric razors, multi blade razors, and even some of the industrys best safety razors. As far as gains:

Using a straight or single blade razor is viewed as the more elegant and skilled way to lose the scruff

Very low continuous costs, once youre equipped with the right tools

More economical, for they last close to a lifetime depending on maintenance

They are environmentally-friendly, as blades are less frequently replaced or thrown away in comparison to plastic cartridge-based razors

Were talking the closest shave possible

What to Look For

The market is stocked with a lot of different options, but to tell you the truth, the majority are generally the same. Construction plays a vital role and only a handful of reputable straight razor manufacturers make the cut and prove worthy of the investment. Just a couple of pointers to take into consideration when shopping for an elite model:

Blade quality: You want the most important component of the razor to be built from carbon or stainless steel. Carbon can be hardened to a larger extent, is more flexible, and conforms to the face easier. Stainless is resistant to rust and water damage, with the edges lasting longer.

You want the most important component of the razor to be built from carbon or stainless steel. Carbon can be hardened to a larger extent, is more flexible, and conforms to the face easier. Stainless is resistant to rust and water damage, with the edges lasting longer. Handle build: Three options are afforded to you. Wood and resin handles bear a hard wooden finish, whereas celluloid, bone, and horn models are the most durable for better handling. Polymer handles come in an avoidable plastic-type form.

Three options are afforded to you. Wood and resin handles bear a hard wooden finish, whereas celluloid, bone, and horn models are the most durable for better handling. Polymer handles come in an avoidable plastic-type form. Stropability: Invest in a blade designed for long-term honing and requiring the least amount of laps (strokes between the blade and strop).

Invest in a blade designed for long-term honing and requiring the least amount of laps (strokes between the blade and strop). Versatility: Any blade within the 5/8 inch to 6/8 inch range is ideal for beginners looking to reduce their chances of cuts. Experienced types can work with a 9/16 inch or even 4/8 inch razor for better maneuverability and closer shaves.

Also remember when operating a straight razor to shave going with the grain in the direction your beard grows, rinsing the blade as needed. Hold it at a 90-degree angle as you take the strokes. If you dont, you might want to stock up on Band-Aids.

Now that youre prepped, read on for the best blades money can buy, plus all the accessories you'll need to master your new morning ritual.

Best Straight Razors

Best Overall Straight Razor

Dovo Shavette

Why we love it: The interchangeable blade holders allow use for a variety of blades.

A coveted selection by most experts, the Dovo Shavette is a versatile shaver with several convenience factors that cater to the frequent flyer who wants to maintain a clean-cut profile. For one, it supports all types of blades. Size works to its advantage with a smaller design suitable for dopp kit storage. In addition, the lightweight feel provides good balance to give you excellent maneuverability when practicing special shaving techniques. Stainless steel housing wears well against wet shaves, too. The additional travel case comes in handy to hoist the extra clear and black blade holder bundled with the package, which actually serves great for protecting users from unwanted nicks.

$60 at Amazon.com

Best Luxury Straight Razor

Feather DX Folding Wood Handle Razor

Why we love it: Supports any of the four Artist Club blades including light, professional, super, and ProGuard

Popular demand places this classic on any list. The Feather DX screams opulence, from the resinated wooden handle to the stainless steel body. Sharpness proves to be the brands speciality, for the device is actually treated with whats been described as a finishing material that blesses the razor head and blade glide with suave stroking action against all surfaces. The end result is a smooth AF kisser, but one wrong move will result in a nasty gusher. Beware. Great weight balanced with strong grip control lets you dominate the shaving experience. The high price tag does nothing to diminish the razors infinite value for disposable blades over the years will equate to more than what youll actually drop on this vintage-inspired cutter.

$253 at Amazon.com

Best Budget Straight Razor

Equinox Professional Straight Edge Razor

Why we love it: It's the No. 1 best seller on Amazon for a reason

Made from top notch, quality stainless steel, this affordable straight edge razor is designed to last you a long time. Guaranteed, in fact. It will never rust or tarnish after all the uses youll give it, since it will obviously be a regular part of your new shaving routine. Built with an easy-open blade guard, you can exchange each blade after a could shaves with ease. Built with comfort and stability in mind, the Equinox Professional Straight Edge Razor provides the right holding angle and does one hell of a good job shaving. Pro tip: Be sure to gently squeeze the protection cap before closing it to ensure a tight and secure grip so your blade will not fall out.

$16.97 at Amazon.com

More Great Straight Razors

Parker SR1 Stainless Steel Straight Razor

Why we love it: No holders are required for use. None. Perfect for barber kits.

This Amazon favorite has the customer reviews to solidify its shaving prowess. Parkers stainless steel slicer has the prestige of a premium razor, only at a far more affordable rate and backed by a large community of seasoned barbers. The genuine stainless steel housing gives it a swank look most costly razors fail to emulate. Then comes the rounded edge on the blade compartment that works amazingly to reduce lesions when paired with a grade-A shaving soap. A snap-lock mechanism holds the blade in place so no discomfort or wiggling is present when skimming facial surfaces. Plus the fact that it accepts single-edge or one half double-edge blades favors its placement.

$19.99 at Amazon.com

Utopia Care Professional Barber Straight Edge Razor

This sleek and stylish stainless steel straight blade is covered in a black matte finish giving it a stealth look while also helping prevent rust for long-lasting performance. Featuring easy-flip blade cover and comfortable metal grip allowing for easy maneuvering and a close shave, this razor comes stocked with enough blades  100 premium derby blades to be precise  to get you through the year, if not more.

$19.99 at Amazon.com

Facon Professional Classic Straight Edge Barber Razor

Another affordable option that doesnt skimp on quality, the Facon Professional Straight Edge Barber Razor is a safe bet for those experienced and novice alike. This 100% genuine Japanese stainless steel razor has a unique black powder coating and comes in 20% heavier and more balanced than similarly-styled razors, allowing for a more ergonomic design for better articulated control. Whats more, the adjustable screws mean extra comfort and flexible maneuvering. All that, and its guaranteed for life.

$19.95 at Amazon.com

Accessories

Cremo 100% Cruelty-Free Shave Brush

To create a rich, creamy lather, nothing beats a good shave brush. The premium bristles of a facial sweeper soak up shaving cream or soap incredibly well to create a nice lubrication surface that lifts the whiskers and spreads delicately across your grille. Cremo offers a budget-friendly, cruelty-free option made from horse hair that makes for a sweet addition to any straight razor set with a vintage off white acrylic handle for great grip. This prevents any slippage when venturing into wet shaves.

$19.33 at Amazon.com

Proraso Refreshing Shaving Soap

Listen. The shaving cream market is an overpopulated one with tons of great options that benefit every style of shave. But if you want our professional opinion, Proraso offers an amazing shaving solution that works well with a straight blade. The combination of natural glycerin and coconut oil delivers a slickness that keeps the skin taut, providing the steadiest of strokes. Lather build-up is incredibly generous to where only a dollop is necessary to generate a nice and thick froth that wont damage the quality of your blades. You cant go wrong here. Then again, every man has his own taste. For more expert suggestions, check out AskMens roundup of the best shaving creams.

$10 at Amazon.com

Baxter of California After Shave Balm

Even the smoothest of cuts can result in a minor nick, or several  not to mention some inflammation depending on your skin sensitivity. The answer is as clear as an aftershave balm. Baxters remains an AskMen favorite for the lotion-cool sensation it leaves on the face. Its deeply enriched in glycerin that produces enough hydration to replace your everyday moisturizer, while other key ingredients like allantoin treat irritations after completing a straight shave. The subtle yet zesty aroma of lime and mint is a fitting fragrance that completes the sophisticated grooming task.

$19 at Amazon.com

Arkansas Knife Sharpening Stone

Blade sharpening is a critical technique for straight razor shaving. A sharpening stone will definitely get the job done and provide that shear cutting edge you desire when stroking with the grain. This one in particular is requested by knifesmen of multiple trades including chefs, craftsmen, and professional barbers. The stone shows unnoticeable wear and tear after a year, still producing an exceptional taper of the blade. It also carries special properties that bless the cutter with a polish after each sharpening. Commit to a few minutes of sharpening for every session to get the razor-sharp results you desire.

$56.95 at Amazon.com

Product photos from retailer site.

You Might Also Dig:

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SUV

HP

kWh

EV

The V8-powered Levante was always on Maserati's roadmap to success. In fact, probably should have come out by now, along with a whole other bunch of cars they can't afford to develop. The company is struggling due to lack of sales, but we have some confidence in the's potential.The only problem is that there's already a performance Italian SUV in the Alfa Romeo Stelvio QV. Sure, it's only got a 2.9-liter V6, but it's also tuned by Ferrari, and at 510, it comes pretty close to what the Levante GTS is going to offer.The Maserati Levante currently tops out at the 424-hp S model. The GTS is going to have the same 3.8-liter as the Quattroporte GTS , producing 523-hp and 479 pound-feet of torque or 530 HP and 710 Nm over in Europe. All-wheel drive, a host of chassis mods and sportier setup for the 8-speed gearbox will all follow.The design isn't changing that much. You've got bigger side intakes at the front and massive quad pipes flanked by a diffuser rear.According to our insider information, the Levante GTS will bow early next year and will be sold as a 2019 model in the states. It's already looking at some very still competition from the new Cayenne Turbo, and that's before BMW and Mercedes also bring out their big guns.Beyond the Levante GTS, we should see a Levante plug-in hybrid join the fight. It's going to have a similar setup to the Chrysler Pacifica. Yes, the minivan with the 3.6-liter V6 and a dual-motor transmission. Powering those is a 16battery with about 30 miles of purerange.
TDI

AWD

SUV

MQB

The name is featured in a presentation Skoda held in China at the end of October, which is described as an  SUV Coupe . So to speak, thats a five-door sport utility vehicle with coupe-inspired design elements, something similar to what BMW achieved with the X3-based X4 and X6-based X5. And to that effect, what Mercedes-Benz did with the GLC Coupe and GLE Coupe.Bearing in mind its called Kodiaq GT, its a given the newcomer will share a lot of its oily bits with the seven-seat Kodiaq . The TSI andturbocharged engines, the manual and DSG transmissions, the e Haldex clutch-basedsystem, cockpit trim, the list is almost as long as Santas Christmas gift list.Uploaded by Chinese publication PC Auto , the roadmap in question also lists something called mainstream SUV under the Yeti, Karoq, and Kodiaq. The Yeti is yesterdays news considering the Karoq succeeded the compact-sized crossover, but what about the so-called mainstream? That, dear reader, might be our best clue yet that Skoda intends to do a SEAT Arona of its own.Based on theA0 platform that underpins the 2017 Volkswagen Polo, the Arona is something of an Ibiza on stilts. The subcompact segment, however, is gaining popularity in Europe, and Skoda wants a piece of the sales pie. In all likelihood, the yet-unnamed Skoda equivalent to the Arona will differ from the Spanish crossover only in design. Hearsay suggests the future model will be launched in 2019. The Kodiaq GT is also expected to arrive in '19.
SUV

AMG

How can we be so sure? That's because you can't build something now, out of the blue, that could compete with decades of tradition. Even if BMW, to pick one, were to build a rugged off-road capable, how would it style it? With modern looks? How is that a G-Class competitor? Would the Bavarians use a legacy approach? What legacy? The brand has no history building this type of vehicles.No, BMW and Audi are smart enough to stay out of it and focus on filling other niches (such as Audi is doing with the Q8 or BMW with the 2 Series Active and Grand Tourer). The G-Wagen is the untouchable, and even its rivals can respect that.For this new model, Mercedes-Benz has prepped everything from scratch - or so it says - making it the first complete makeover since its initial commercial launch in 1979. But don't expect this exhaustive transformation to show on the outside - the design elements that made the G-Class the legend it is are going nowhere.The SUV is growing in all directions but also promises to shed a few pounds - as many as 880 (or 400 kg), if rumors turn out to be true. That should help with its fuel efficiency first and foremost, but it dynamic performance should also receive a bump since that's a lot of weight even for a car this size.With Mercedes-Benz busy spreading the new inline-six engines across the range, the 2019 G-Class will see those units replace the current V6 options, but you're probably more interested to know what happens to the AMG G 63 model.We are as well since all we know right now is that it will use the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 engine and an-fiddled version of the 9G-TRONIC automatic transmission. The power output could be anything up to the 612 hp found in the Mercedes-AMG E 63 S, or the Affalterbach engineers might choose to dial it down a little.Whatever the case, the new G 63 will be a fast machine in a straight line with those side exhaust taking care of the aural drama. Just like its predecessor, don't expect it to be a driver's car, though, and bending should still be a very tilting experience despite possible advancements in the suspension area as well.While the exterior design will change completely and yet remain the same, the interior will only do the former. Expect new everything as the G-Class will fall in line with the rest of the Mercedes-Benz/AMG lineup regarding cabin feel. We'll just have to wait and see how the latest curvy interior design fits the G-Wagen, but we should probably relax and trust the men on the task.The Mercedes-Benz G-Class is slated for an early 2018 release at the Detroit Auto Show, which means there are just two short months separating us from that moment. In the meantime, all we can do is sit and wait and hope it either drops some of the camo or someone leaks a few naked pictures.
One current and three former female lawmakers say they have been harassed or subjected to hostile sexual comments by fellow members of Congress, AP's Erica Werner and Juliet Linderman write.

Why it matters: The accounts, part of a torrent of revelations following the Harvey Weinstein scandal, raise "troubling questions about the boys' club environment in Congress where male lawmakers can feel empowered to target not only staffers but even their own peers ..."

"The incidents ... usually [occurred] when the women were young newcomers to Congress. They range from isolated comments ... to repeated unwanted come-ons, to ... groping on the House floor. ... [T]he revelations underscore that no woman is immune, even at the highest reaches of government."

"The lawmakers declined to identify the perpetrators by name, but at least two of the men continue to serve in the House. None of the female lawmakers interviewed reported what happened, and some noted it was not clear where they would lodge such a complaint."

The cases:
Freedom Partners Action Fund, part of the non-profit group backed by the Koch brothers, is launching a $1 million TV and digital ad campaign supporting Republican Adam Laxalt in the Nevada gubernatorial race.

Why it matters: This is the group's first ad campaign of the 2018 cycle, and it suggests they will continue putting money into state races in the hopes of getting Republicans elected. And although Steve Sisolak, the Democratic candidate running against Laxalt, has been the frontrunner in the primaries, this general election for NV governor is expected to be a toss-up  Laxalt's early support from groups in the Koch Network could give him an advantage in getting his name recognition up.

What they're saying: The ad reflects something you'll likely see in other races around the country  the mention of a clear contrast between these candidates running for statewide office and the stereotypical "establishment" politicians in Washington, D.C. "Too many politicians say one thing and do another to get elected, but Adam Laxalt is a public servant committed to putting politics aside and the people first," said Bill Riggs, spokesman for FPAF.

Watch the ad here.
McMaster behind the podium at a White House briefing. Photo: Carolyn Kaster / AP

National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster previewed President Trump's 10-day Asia trip Thursday. Trump will tell Asian leaders that North Korea's "pursuit of nuclear weapons is a dead end."

Trump has 3 objectives for his trip to Asia: to call for the denuclearization of North Korea, to advocate for fair trade relationships, to promote a free and open Indo-Pacific region, McMaster said.
CHARLESTON -- The English Department at Eastern Illinois University is hosting the second Nancy Hennings Memorial Poetry Reading of the academic year at 6 p.m. Thursday. The reading will take place at Bobs Bookstore, 303 Lincoln Ave.

The featured poet is John Palen. His new poetry collection, Distant Music (Mayapple Press, 2017), evokes his lifelong bond with the American Midwest. Raised in small towns in southwestern Missouri, he earned degrees from Washington University in St. Louis and Michigan State University, and worked for 45 years as a journalist and journalism educator in Missouri, Illinois and Michigan.

His poetry has appeared in literary magazines since the late 1960s, in Prairie Schooner, Kansas Quarterly, Passages North, Arcadia, Midwest Prairie Review, The MacGuffin, Bluestem and elsewhere. Mayapple Press brought out his Open Communion: New and Selected Poems in 2004. His work has appeared in anthologies from Wayne State University Press and Milkweed Editions. He lives and writes in retirement in Central Illinois, where he enjoys volunteer work as a certified Master Naturalist. Distant Music will be available for purchase at the reading.

The second reader is Clint Walker. He started writing fiction while attending the Creative Writing graduate program at EIU in 2008. Its there he won the James K. Johnson Creative Writing award and went on to be published in Carte Blanche, Jersey Devil Press, and Line Zero. He is currently working on his first collection of short stories, and is a copy editor at the JG-TC newspaper in Mattoon-Charleston, where his column, "The Throwback Machine," can be read every Saturday.

Ann Hart is a graduate student in Creative Writing at Eastern Illinois University. Her work can be found at Rattle-Poets Respond, fewerthan500.com, C-U haiku, Silver Birch Press and in the anthology Tomato Slices. She was the 2016 winner of CUMTD Poets on the Bus with her poem "These Eight Short Lines."

The Hennings readings are made possible thanks to an endowed fund established to honor Nancy Hennings, poet and longtime supporter of the arts in Coles County. The readings are free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Daiva Markelis at dmmarkelis@eiu.edu.
As of Oct. 25, FEMA had paid $2.8 billion in federal assistance under the National Flood Insurance Program to people affected by Hurricane Harvey and $179 million to those in the path of Hurricane Irma  but just $121,000 to people in the areas devastated by Maria, per early estimates FEMA provided to Axios. That's because FEMA received 180 times as many claims from Harvey victims as Maria victims.

The big picture: Flood insurance is not available to much of Puerto Rico. Buying flood insurance under the federal program requires municipalities and counties to maintain reasonable flood standards, which may pose too high a cost for most counties on the island, according to R.J. Lehmann, an expert on insurance and financial service policy at the R Street Institute, a free market think tank. "It really comes down to this: Puerto Rico doesn't buy flood insurance because Puerto Rico is very poor," Lehmann said.

By the numbers: In Puerto Rico, 5,267 properties are covered by the National Flood Insurance Program, compared to 1,725,394 properties in Florida, per FEMA data shared with Axios.

The details:

Hurricane Harvey

Landfall: Aug. 25, Texas

90,500 claims submitted, including 90,000 from Texas residents and 500 from Louisiana residents

586,758 Texas properties and 495,002 Louisiana properties insured under the NFIP

$2.8 billion paid for all claims

Hurricane Irma Landfall: Sept. 10, Florida 30,000 claims submitted, including 25,900 from Florida, 2,200 from South Carolina, 1,900 from Georgia, 73 from the Virgin Islands, 5 from Puerto Rico, 3 from Alabama 1,725,394 Florida properties and 1,383 Virgin Islands properties insured under the NFIP $179 million paid for all claims, including $157 million to residents of Florida, $12 million to Georgia, $8 million to South Carolina Hurricane Maria Landfall: Sept. 20, Puerto Rico 500 claims received from Puerto Rico 5.267 Puerto Rico properties insured under the NFIP $121,000 paid for all claims It's also a mortgage problem, Lehmann said. A significant portion of the properties that do have flood insurance are foreclosed, and homeowners who aren't paying their mortgages are not eligible for the flood insurance that comes with it."There's a lot that Puerto Rico is going to miss out on" under federal insurance programs like the NFIP, due to the stipulations that the aid comes with, Lehmann said. The island will be much more reliant on federal aid under the Stafford Act to fund its ongoing recovery.
Maria Cantwell speaks with Jim VandeHei and Chuck Todd at an Axios/NBC energy policy event Thursday morning in Washington, D.C. Photo: Chuck Kennedy / Axios

Senator Maria Cantwell told Axios' CEO and Co-Founder Jim VandeHei and NBC's Chuck Todd "the notion that this administration is going to cut the energy efficiency officeand instead try to hold on to this coal ideait's not an energy strategy for the future." The senator was joining an Axios/NBC event this morning, helping us drive the discussion about the administration's energy policy priorities in 2017.

Why it matters, per Cantwell: She said Trump's administration is basically saying, "it's time to go back," referencing Trump's comments on coal. Going backwards is not what is best for the economy, per Cantwell.

On cybersecurity: She said it's the "number one threat" to our national infrastructure.

On election hacking: "We need a lot of data and understanding of what just transpired to make sure we're not hacked in the future."

On regulating tech like a utility: "I don't think it's our biggest challenge...we need to make sure...no one controls all the channels.
For decades, the region stretching from Australia to Asia has been referred to in Washington as as the "Asia-Pacific." "But as Trump prepares for a five-nation Asian tour, White House officials and even the president himself are steering clear of that term and using 'Indo-Pacific' instead," writes AP's AP's Matthew Pennington.

Why it matters: "By using 'Indo-Pacific,' the administration wants to propagate the idea that it's a region that stretches far beyond China's backyard and the tiger economies of East Asia."
The White House signed off on a climate research report released Friday that explains how humans are primarily responsible for global warming over the last century, despite its contrast with the administration's climate change stance, the New York Times reports. President of the Woods Hole Research Center, Philip B. Duffy, told the Times that the CSSR "begs the question, where are members of the administration getting their information from? They're obviously not getting it from their own scientists."

Why it matters: The Climate Change Special Report (CSSR) is considered the "most definitive statement on climate change science" in the U.S. It explains that "human activities...are the dominant cause of the observed warming," and there "is no convincing alternative explanation." The U.S. is meeting with 195 countries at the U.N.'s global warming conference next week in where they're expected to support clean fossil fuels.
3 November 2017 10:30 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Over the past 24 hours, Armenias armed forces have 119 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said on November 3.

The Armenian armed forces were using heavy machine guns.

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.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
3 November 2017 10:03 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The first freight train running along the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway reached Kars on November 3.

ADY Express , subsidiary of Azerbaijan Railways, told Trend Nov.3 that the first operation on cargo transshipment on the BTK rail line took place at Akhalkalaki station.

"From Kars the train has already left in the direction of Mersin (in the south of Turkey), this road will take about 40 hours," the company said.

The train, consisting of 32 containers loaded with grain, traveled from Baku to Kars in 40 hours. The train departed from Kazakhstan Oct. 24. Its final destination will be the Turkish Mersin.

The opening of the BTK railway took place in Baku Oct.30.

The first train departed from the Azerbaijani port of Alat after its inauguration by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili. In order not to miss such an historic event, the leaders and high-ranking officials of a number of countries, including Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, that will somehow be involved in the transportation along this corridor, attended the solemn ceremony.

The BTK railway was constructed on the basis a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement. The railways peak capacity will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At an initial stage, this figure will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
3 November 2017 11:12 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The heads of state of Russia, Azerbaijan, and Iran met in Tehran on Wednesday as the second leg of a tripartite meeting series, which addresses the international North-South Transport Corridor project aimed at facilitating trilateral trade, oil, transportation, banking, and agricultural cooperation, among others.

The first trilateral meeting was held in August 2016, in Azerbaijans capital Baku, where the trio discussed environmental issues and the fight against terrorism, as well as ways of enhancing inter-state commerce, energy production, communications and transportation.

It seems that this series of meetings is going to strengthen the trio as a newly emerging economic nucleus, of which new achievements must be expected in the future.

Iran and Russia

Last Iranian year (ended March 20, 2017), Iran exported $400 million worth of commodities to Russia while the value of imports exceeded $1.5 billion.

On the sidelines of the trilateral Tehran event, the head of Russia's state-controlled oil giant Rosneft said the company had signed a roadmap with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) to implement strategic projects in Iran.

Igor Sechin said that the deal paved the way for legally-binding documents to be signed within a year.

The output from the joint projects, with total investments worth up to $30 billion, is seen plateauing at 55 million tons per year (1.1 million barrels per day).

In the meantime, Irans biggest trade center Iranians' Trade House in Astrakhan was inaugurated in the southern Russian city in the presence of Iranian Ambassador Mehdi Sanaei this week.

The Russian port of Astrakhan is a center for commercial activities of nearly 200 Iranian firms which has turned the port to the largest center of Iranians economic activities in the Eurasian country.

Also on Wednesday, Iranian Finance Minister Masoud Karbasian and Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, meeting as heads of a joint economic committee between Iran and Russia, announced that Iran-Russia trade grew 70 percent during the past year. They also reviewed cooperation on making investments, expansion of joint railway and marine transportation, agricultural projects, medicine, and oil and gas as favorable cooperation fields.

Following the orders of the two countries presidents to enhance economic cooperation in various sectors, after a comprehensive and detailed discussion, we assessed different aspects of a roadmap to bolster economic ties between Iran and Russia, Novak said in that meeting.

Iran and Azerbaijan

Speaking during a bilateral meeting with Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani noted that the joint construction of the Rasht-Astara railway is an important part of the North-South Corridor, which will be used for transporting goods from the Sea of Oman and the Persian Gulf, to the Caucasus and Eastern Europe.

Azerbaijan will launch a pilot run of the Astara-Astara line in December. The railroad is part of the International North-South Transport Corridor, which runs a distance of 8.3 km (5.2 mi) up from its southern border with Iran, into which it extends 1.4 km (0.87 mi) to Irans port city of Astara. The initiative to build the line also includes the construction of a bridge on Astarachay River that stretches along the border.

President Rouhani also said the anticipated opening of a regional railway line, known as the Astara-Astara railway, will further expand linkages, literally and figuratively, between the two countries.

The Iranian president also hailed the growing ties between Tehran and Baku as "an example of relations for other countries in the region."

The leaders of Iran and Azerbaijan have held 10 meetings in recent years, which indicates their determination to deepen relations in all spheres, Rouhani said.

Trade between Iran and Azerbaijan has increased by 33 percent in the first nine months of 2017, compared to the same period in 2016, according to President Aliyev who was speaking during the meeting.

President Aliyev also called for closer relations with Iran, citing the common history, culture and religion of Iranians and Azerbaijanis as a great asset that links the two nations.

The International North-South Transport Corridor will connect India, Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe via 7,200 km (4,474 mi) of railway tracks. The new corridor is expected to increase the 600,000 tons per year of commodities currently being traded between Iran and Azerbaijan to five million at the corridors inception, and later to 10 million tons per year.

Rouhani for his part called for efforts to enhance economic ties between Iran and Azerbaijan, proposing to use their national currencies in the bilateral trade.

In 2016, trade turnover between Iran and Azerbaijan hit $210.8 million. Between January and July of this year, trade totaled $148.9 million, according to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee.

Iranian corporate investments in Azerbaijan have been growing as well. Over 500 Iranian companies invested about $3 billion in Azerbaijan's $37.8 billion-economy since 1993.

In 2016, Azerbaijans AzEuroCar LLC and Iran Khodro signed an agreement to create an automobile manufacturing facility in Azerbaijans Neftchala Industrial District. The plant, costing around $15 million, is expected to churn out nearly 10,000 cars per year, including brands such as Runna, Samand, Soren, Dena, Peugeot 206, Peugeot 207, Renaults Tondar and Renault Pickup.

In a recent interview with Trend in Baku, Karbasian expressed his countrys interest in agricultural cooperation with Azerbaijan, saying Iran is capable of transferring its experience to the neighboring country.

Iran has obtained proper experience and technology in agriculture sector, therefore the Islamic Republic is interested in cooperation with other countries, including Azerbaijan, in this regard, he said.

The Islamic Republic exported 5.8 million tons of agricultural products worth of $5.686 billion during the last fiscal year (ended March 20, 2017), indicating an increase of 21.7 percent in volume terms and 3.61 percent in value terms.

Saying the creation of a special economic zone would exempt Azerbaijan from some regulations, Karbasian added the special economic zone would provide Baku with opportunities to benefit from its investments in Irans Astara.

Azerbaijans Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev, addressing a joint meeting Oct. 26, put forward the proposal on setting up the economic zone.

Iran and Azerbaijan also have plans to expand cooperation in other spheres, in particular maritime transportation, power generation and customs services.

The sides have also discussed the ways for increasing the working hours of customs services between the two countries with a view to ease transit of goods.

The trade between Iran and Azerbaijan made up $400 million over the past eight months, Iranian ambassador to Azerbaijan Javad Jahangirzadeh has recently said.

The ambassador underlined that the economic ties are rapidly developing thanks to the efforts of the Azerbaijan-Iran State Commission on Economy, Trade and Humanitarian Cooperation.

Russia and Azerbaijan

President Aliyev, speaking at a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during the Tehran event, said the increase in trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Russia "indicates to the restoration of our economies."

We have met several times this year and our meetings always lead to good results, because we give new momentum to the development of relations. We are very delighted that in the economic sphere, the trade turnover is increasing after certain complex processes, said President Aliyev. This indicates that there is great mutual interest between business entities, and the increase in trade turnover is an indication of the recovery of our economies, the mutual interest.

President Aliyev said Azerbaijans relations with Russia are of strategic nature. He noted that Azerbaijan and Russia cooperate in all spheres  humanitarian, economic, energy, transportation, military and technical.

He expressed satisfaction that the meeting took place as part of the trilateral summit, which is a very important event of global scale.

Before the meeting with Ilham Aliyev, Vladimir Putin said there is a strategic partnership between the two countries.

He noted that bilateral efforts to develop relations are not in vain.

An example of this is the growth in trade turnover: in the first nine months of 2017, this indicator grew by almost 62%, Putin said.

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3 November 2017 10:50 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Decrease of Azerbaijans positions in the World Banks (WB) Doing Business 2018 ranking on a number of indicators doesnt mean that the country doesnt work in these directions, WB expert Maria Gamez told Trend.

She said that Azerbaijan carries out a lot of work for development in these areas and achieves rapid growth rates, but the countries of the region are ahead of Azerbaijan on these indicators.

In addition, a number of reforms carried out by Azerbaijan fall out the reporting period, and they will be taken into account in the WBs next report, she noted.

For example, Azerbaijan lost several positions on Getting Credit indicator, she said. This is explained by the fact that Azerbaijan didnt adopt the law on registration of movable property at the time of writing the report, she added.

In other countries of the region, this legislation was applied long ago and bears fruit, she said.

In turn, WB expert Klaus Koch-Saldarriaga noted that Azerbaijan also lags behind the region on Dealing with Construction Permits indicator.

On average, 16 procedures are required for obtaining a building permit in the region, while 21 procedures are required for that in Azerbaijan, he added.

Azerbaijan ranked 57th among 190 countries in the Doing Business 2018. The distance to frontier score stood at 70.19. This is while in the previous report, Azerbaijan ranked 65th and scored 67.07.

The rankings are based on the average of each economys distance to frontier scores for the 10 topics included in this years aggregate ranking. This measure shows how close each economy is to global best practices in business regulation. A higher score indicates a more efficient business environment and stronger legal institutions. Thus, Azerbaijans position in this report has improved compared to the last year's report.

The WB said that during the reporting period, Azerbaijan has carried out four reforms, as compared to three during the previous reporting period.

Azerbaijan joined the WB Group in 1992.

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3 November 2017 12:23 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The European Union (EU) and Azerbaijan must focus on the expansion of agricultural trade volume, head of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan Kestutis Jankauskas said at the final conference on the e-insurance project in Baku on November 3.

He said that despite the EU is the main trade partner of Azerbaijan, the trade turnover volume in agricultural sector is low.

"Export of agricultural products from Azerbaijan to the EU quadrupled in 2017 compared to 2012, the ambassador said. Nevertheless, I think that there is still great development potential in this sphere and we must continue to work in this area."

He said that the EU allocated 70 million euros to Azerbaijan for the development of agriculture and rural areas, which is 40 percent of the total funds allocated to the country.

According to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee, the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and the EU countries amounted to $5.03 billion in January-September 2017, $3.73 billion of which accounted for the export of Azerbaijani products to the EU countries.

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3 November 2017 17:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Azerbaijans Agriculture Ministry will continue using the services of the countrys low-Earth-orbit AzerSky satellite to monitor agricultural crops, Ilham Bayramov, chief of administration of the ministry, told reporters in Baku on November 3.

We are using AzerSkys services for monitoring and mapping of agricultural crops, assessing yield and controlling subsidized lands, Bayramov said. This year we have already implemented four pilot projects.

Pictures received from Azerbaijans low-Earth-orbit AzerSky satellite are used within the Land Parcel Identification System project, which is being implemented by the countrys Ministry of Agriculture.

The AzerSky satellite has been transferred to Azerbaijan on the basis of an agreement signed December 2, 2014 between the Azercosmos OJSC and the French Airbus Defence and Space company.

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University of Illinois May 2017 graduates, honorees named

URBANA -- Andrew Dole, Sarah Foster and Lacey Jo Solomon are former Mattoon High School graduates that earned Bronze Tablet and University Honors at the May 2017 commencement.

The University of Illinois has announced 6,208 Deans List and 236 Bronze Tablet honorees and graduates for the 2017 spring semester.

University Honors and inclusion on the Bronze Tablet are the university's highest honors for graduating students. Honorees, who are the top 3 percent from each college's 2017 graduating class, must have a total grade-point average of at least 3.5 (out of a possible 4.0), although in recent years an average as high as 3.9 was needed to make the list in some colleges at Illinois.

The first Bronze Tablet, bearing 14 names, appeared in 1925.

A total of 8,528 students graduated in May. Commencement for all graduates is held in the spring.

Scogins admitted to Culver-Stockton's class of fall 2018

CANTON, MO -- Charisma Scogins of Charleston has been was admitted to Culver-Stockton's fall 2018 incoming class and was awarded the trustees academic scholarship.

Culver-Stockton College, located in Canton, Mo., is a four-year residential institution in affiliation with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). C-SC specializes in experiential education and is one of only two colleges in the nation to offer the 12/3 semester calendar, where the typical 15-week semester is divided into two terms, a 12-week term and a three-week term.
3 November 2017 12:30 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

The traditional 8th European Film Festival solemnly opened in Park Cinema Park Bulvar on November 2.

The event, organized jointly by The Delegation of the European Union to Azerbaijan, the Embassies of the EU Member States and Norway, in cooperation with Park Cinema will last until November 12.

Representatives of diplomatic missions, art and cultural figures, cinema lovers attended the festival's opening ceremony, Trend Life reported.

In his speech, Head of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan Kestutis Jankauskas stressed that film festival, which became a tradition in Azerbaijan, serves the development of cultural relations between EU countries and Azerbaijan.

The programme includes screening of 21 films from 19 European Union countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom) as well as Norway and Azerbaijan. The films represent various genres to suit interests of the possibly larger audience.

During the festival opening ceremony, films "Lumiere!" (France) and "Monkey" (Bulgaria) were presented to the viewers.

The film "Lumiere!" by French director Thierry Fremaux a unique journey to the origins of cinematography, a story the Lumiere brothers. The film is based on archival materials.

The drama "Monkey" directed by Dimitar Kotsev tells about the life of two teenagers. They will find answers to questions that adults do not even dare ask.

In the framework of the festival, Azerbaijani film "Pomegranate Orchard" will be screened in Park Cinema Metropark on November 8.

Notably, films screening is being held in Park Cinema Metropark, Park Cinema Flame Towers and Park Cinema Park Bulvar. Films are shown in the original language with English subtitles. All events are open to the public and organized free of charge on "first come first served" basis.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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3 November 2017 14:39 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

The Azerbaijani National Art Museum and Kazakh Museum of Fine Arts have signed an agreement on cooperation.

The document was signed by the director of the Azerbaijan National Museum of Arts, honored art worker, Chingiz Farzaliyev and the director of Kazakh Museum of Fine Arts Ainabek Ospanov.

Chingiz Farzaliyev expressed satisfaction with the expansion of relations and effective cooperation between the museums. He stressed that the following agreement aims at the further development of cooperation between the two cultural institutions, Trend Life reported.

Ainabek Ospanov said that the agreement will contribute to the further development of cooperation and exchange of experience between two museums.

Within the framework of the agreement, mutual scientific research, restoration and conservation activity, exchange of experience between museum workers, preparation of joint exhibitions will be organized.

At the same time, the agreement promotes the Kazakh culture in Azerbaijan and vise versa.

The signing ceremony was attended by representatives of the Embassy of Kazakhstan in Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijan National Art Museum and the Kazakh Museum of Fine Arts.

National Art Museum is one of the largest and oldest art museums in the country. This museum was established in 1936, and today is located in two classical buildings dating back to the 19th century.

Art lovers can find here not only Azerbaijani art, but also works of art from Western Europe, Russia, and the East.

About 17,000 items are kept in storage, and expositions are changed from time to time, so that more of the works can be displayed.

There is also a section for ancient Azerbaijani art with ceramics and metalwork, utensils, miniatures, needlework, national clothing and jewelry, as well as carpets, belts and daggers traditionally decorated with precious and semi-precious stones.

The museum also provides excursions, so you will not get lost here.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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3 November 2017 10:57 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will discuss the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger on November 3, Russian Foreign Ministrys Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Thursday.

The Russian Foreign Minister is slated to meet with the OSCE Secretary General on November 3, who will be in Moscow on his first working visit since taking office in July this year, Zakharova said.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war that ended with signing of a fragile ceasefire in 1994. Since the war, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

While the OSCE Minsk Group acted as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, the occupation of the territory of the sovereign state with its internationally recognized boundaries has been left out of due attention of the international community for years.

Until now, Armenia ignores four UN Security Council resolutions on immediate withdrawal from the occupied territory of Azerbaijan, thus keeping tension high in the region.

The last meeting between the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents to discuss the peaceful settlement of the conflict was held by the OSCE Minsk Group past month in Geneva. After the meeting, the MG reported that the presidents agreed to take measures to intensify the negotiation process on the settlement of the conflict and to take additional steps to reduce tensions along the frontline.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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3 November 2017 14:51 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

One of the most important issues for Azerbaijan at the recent trilateral meeting of the Presidents of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia was the exchange of views on the solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and, most importantly, the reflection of this issue in the final declaration.

Azerbaijani MP Hikmat Babaoglu made the remarks in his interview to Trend on November 2.

The declaration reads that the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh problem is an obstacle to regional integration, and stresses that the problem should be resolved on the basis of international-level decisions taken to this day.

This is an extremely important detail, as the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council call for the withdrawal of Armenian occupation forces from the territory of Azerbaijan, Babaoglu said.

Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Hassan Rouhani of Iran met in Tehran on November 1 in order to further strengthen the Baku-Moscow-Tehran format. The heads of state discussed political, economic, transport and humanitarian issues, fight against terrorism and drug trafficking, as well as exchanged views on regional issues and mutual cooperation.

The trilateral meeting of the Presidents of Azerbaijan, Russia and Iran was very important for resolving the issues of the regions further development and ensuring its security, Babaoglu said.

The MP added that the idea of the new trilateral format belongs to Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan-Russia-Iran is the second such format of cooperation and partnership after the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey format.

The first tripartite meeting of the three countries presidents was held in Azerbaijan in August last year. At the time, the heads of state concluded their assembly by adopting a declaration affirming their intent to develop trilateral cooperation. The third such meeting will be held in Russia.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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2 November 2017 16:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Azerbaijans First Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva met with members of the France-Azerbaijan Friendship Group of Frances National Assembly on November 2.

Welcoming the guests, Mehriban Aliyeva congratulated Pierre-Alain Raphan on his appointment as head of the France-Azerbaijan Friendship Group and wished him success in his work.

Mehriban Aliyeva, who was the head of Azerbaijan-France Friendship Group while being a member of the Azerbaijani parliament, said that the Groups activity gives momentum to the expansion of ties between the two countries.

The first vice president said she believes that the potential in the two countries relations will be better used in the future.

This will lead to further strengthening of our relations, added Aliyeva.

Noting that this year marks the 25th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and France, Mehriban Aliyeva underlined that the two countries cooperation has been developing over the past years.

She said that Azerbaijan attaches great importance to relations with France in all spheres. Emphasizing that the humanitarian sphere is a priority for the two countries, Mehriban Aliyeva noted that great success has been achieved in this sphere in recent years.

Touching upon the cooperation in the field of education, the first vice president of Azerbaijan spoke about the large-scale projects implemented by the two countries in this field.

She noted that there are French lycee and the French-Azerbaijani University in Azerbaijan that serve the development of the educational system of Azerbaijan, as well as bilateral relations.

Reminding that good cooperation was established between different cities of France and Azerbaijan and agreements on sister cities were signed in recent years, Mehriban Aliyeva said that the first steps in this direction were taken in the field of culture.

She added that the implemented projects are aimed at promoting Azerbaijan in the regions of France.

The first vice president of Azerbaijan praised the steps taken in this area as they have a positive impact on economic relations.

Mehriban Aliyeva noted that successful cooperation was established in many areas and added that there is great potential.

She expressed hope that the friendly relations between Azerbaijan and France and the two countries peoples will be further strengthened by using this potential.

Expressing hope that the first visit of Pierre-Alain Raphan to Azerbaijan would be successful, Mehriban Aliyeva wished him success in the future activity.

Head of the France-Azerbaijan Friendship Group Pierre-Alain Raphan, for his part, said that he will work diligently during his term to deepen the cooperation between the two countries.

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2 November 2017 16:08 (UTC+04:00)

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received a delegation led by Vice President of the Italian Senate Linda Lanzillotta, Azertac reported.

Vice President of the Italian Senate Linda Lanzillotta said that her visit to Azerbaijan was fruitful and interesting, stressing its importance in terms of strengthening friendship with Azerbaijan.

Noting that the energy sector is a key area for cooperation between the two countries, Linda Lanzillotta expressed her country`s commitment to the TAP project. She expressed her confidence that it is also very important in expanding relations between Azerbaijan and Italy.

Touching upon the work done to diversify the economy in Azerbaijan, the vice president said Italy is interested in cooperation with Azerbaijan in the fields of infrastructure and agriculture. Recalling Milan Expo 2015, Linda Lanzillotta noted that the Azerbaijani pavilion in the exhibition aroused great interest and was highly appreciated.

President Ilham Aliyev said that his country attaches great importance to developing Italy-Azerbaijan bilateral ties. The head of state noted that Italy is the major trade partner of Azerbaijan, emphasizing oil export plays a key role here. The President pointed out that the TAP project is of great importance in developing long-term cooperation between the two countries, and noted that this project is being successfully implemented on schedule, expressing hope that the work will be completed on time. President Ilham Aliyev also said that works in other parts of the Southern Gas Corridor, including Shahdeniz, South Caucasus Pipeline were implemented 100 percent, while TANAP more than 80 percent. Stressing the importance of the Southern Gas Corridor as a global energy security project, the head of state noted that Italy is one of the main countries where Azerbaijan will export gas, adding it is of particular importance in developing the bilateral bonds.

Underlining the significance of speeding up work to diversify the trade, the head of state stressed the necessity of focusing on other areas, including industry, agriculture, infrastructure and transport. Touching upon the participation of Italian companies in the projects, which are being implemented in Azerbaijan, President Ilham Aliyev invited Italian companies to participate in infrastructure and other projects, which will be implemented in Baku and regions of the country.

They exchanged views over expansion of opportunities of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Italy in a variety of fields.

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3 November 2017 10:17 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The close ties existing between Azerbaijani and Russian peoples are successfully developing today, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said.

President Aliyev made the remarks at a meeting with Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council of Russia, Co-Chairman of the Bilateral Commission Ilyas Umakhanov and Chairman of the People's Assembly of the Republic of Dagestan Khizri Shikhsaidov.

While reviewing the agenda of our bilateral relations at another meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, we found out that there is no a single issue that would need solution, President Aliyev said.

During the meeting we just recalled the achievements, namely, the results of our cooperation in the economic, transport, energy and political spheres, the president said. We gave instructions to the relevant organizations to determine the ways for further development of relations. That is, this is such a level of relations when there are no special issues needing to be resolved even at the presidents level."

The president stressed that all issues are being solved successfully.

"Of course, today Russia and Azerbaijan demonstrate high-level good-neighborly, partnership and reliable friendly relations, President Aliyev said. You, Ilyas Magomed-Salamovich and Khizri Isayevich, play a big role, as I know you are making great efforts and contributing to the strengthening of the Russia-Azerbaijan relations.

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3 November 2017 10:11 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The trilateral meeting of the Azerbaijani, Iranian and Russian presidents, held on November 1 in Tehran, is a platform important for ensuring stability and security, as well as promoting collaborative environment in the region, Ali Hasanov, Azerbaijani presidents aide for public and political affairs, said in an interview with Trend.

Hasanov said the important developments recently taking place in the South Caucasus and the Caspian and Black seas basin, as well as the giant trans-national projects carried out under Azerbaijans leadership had significant impact on the November 1 meeting of the presidents of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia in Tehran.

In the past week, the Azerbaijani president had meetings with almost all heads of states and governments of the region. At those meetings he had important discussions on all pressing issues of the regions political and economic life, as well as on the prospects of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, which is the most important segment of the East-West transportation and communication corridor, and on the support to be provided by this project to the regions countries, to the strengthening of trade-economic ties in the world in general, he said.

The trilateral meeting of the Azerbaijani, Iranian and Russian presidents is, first of all, a platform important for ensuring stability, security and promoting collaborative environment in the region, for further development of trade-economic ties, cooperation in energy and transport sectors between the countries, and solution of other pressing issues.

It can be said for sure that the heads of states were quite pleased with yesterday's meeting and its results. Delegations of Azerbaijan, Russia and Iran discussed current situation and tasks ahead in various spheres, as well as the partnership policy. I think the positive results of the meetings held will manifest in near future.

He said the Tehran meeting showed that there are sincere friendly relations between Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia.

The mutual respect and fruitful cooperation between the three countries is of great importance for solution of pressing issues of the whole region, and all participants are determined to continue the fruitful cooperation, Hasanov added.

I should also note that initiative and leadership of the majority of bilateral and multilateral meetings, held in the region lately, belong to Azerbaijan. The initiative to hold a tripartite meeting of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia, to create partnership between them, as well as the initiative of joint projects that are being implemented or intended to be implemented also came from Azerbaijan, and they have already begun to yield positive results.

Therefore, as in all other issues, Azerbaijans leadership at yesterdays meeting was prominent and will remain as such in the future, Hasanov said.

I would like to note that the creation of such new formats of cooperation is topical. Along with Azerbaijan-Iran-Russia, there are also the Azerbaijan-Iran-Turkey and Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey platforms. Perhaps, in the future, the cooperation will be continued in the Azerbaijan-Turkey-Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan-Turkey-Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan-Iran-Turkmenistan and other formats. These formats will have a positive impact on consolidation of peace, tranquility, prosperity, trade and economic relations in the region, Hasanov said.

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3 November 2017 10:18 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva has met with a delegation led by Vice President of the Italian Senate Linda Lanzillotta.

First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva expressed her gratitude to Vice President of the Italian Senate Linda Lanzillotta for the friendly attitude and attention towards Azerbaijan. Noting that this year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Italy, Mehriban Aliyeva hailed the existence of successful bilateral relations, which meet mutual interests.

Hailing successful development of Azerbaijan-Italy relations, Mehriban Aliyeva said cooperation between the two countries covers political, economic and humanitarian spheres. The First Vice-President said Azerbaijan makes its contribution to Europe's energy security, noting that the implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor project will further enhance Azerbaijan's role in ensuring European energy security. First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva said that having joined TAP project, Italy successfully cooperates with Azerbaijan in this field. Saying that 60 per cent of the construction work of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) has been done, the First Vice-President expressed her hope that the pipeline will be put into operation on time.

Emphasizing development of Azerbaijan-Italy relations in many areas, Mehriban Aliyeva noted that there is a much greater potential. The First Vice-President expressed her confidence that this potential will be used more effectively in the future. Mehriban Aliyeva underlined the possibility of the implementation of humanitarian projects bringing the two countries and nations closer to each other.

First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva expressed her hope that the visit of the Vice President of the Italian Senate to Azerbaijan will give a new impetus to the steps taken in this area.

Vice President of the Italian Senate Linda Lanzillotta thanked for the meeting and expressed her country's interest in developing bilateral relations.

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3 November 2017 13:20 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Azerbaijan-Iran-Russia trilateral platform improve political and security environment in the region, Cyril Widdershoven, a Middle East geopolitical specialist, a partner at Dutch risk consultancy VEROCY and SVP MEA-Risk, told Trend on November 3.

Aside from Azerbaijan-Iran-Russia platform, Azerbaijan is also the initiator of such formats as Azerbaijan-Iran-Turkey, Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey and etc.

From Azerbaijan's view point, it is the right step to take, increasing its cooperation with countries in the region, said the expert.

Azerbaijan is having a vast interest in oil and gas operations in the region, including its energy cooperation with Iran, said Widdershoven, adding that this can be increased or enhanced via this kind of set up.

This kind of cooperation also strengthens regional cooperation. Maybe it also will open up new investment opportunities in the countries, he said.

Overall, the expert believes that it is a very good approach, as cooperation and discussions between countries improve political and security environments.

Azerbaijan is set up its own position as a possible mediator or bridge between countries. This role is based on its geographical and historical position, which is to be commended, said Widdershoven.

Azerbaijani, Iranian and Russian presidents held a trilateral meeting Nov. 1 in Tehran.

Ali Hasanov, Azerbaijani presidents aide for public and political affairs, said in an interview with Trend that this meeting is first of all, a platform important for ensuring stability, security and promoting collaborative environment in the region, for further development of trade-economic ties, cooperation in energy and transport sectors between the countries, and solution of other pressing issues

The mutual respect and fruitful cooperation between the three countries is of great importance for solution of pressing issues of the whole region, and all participants are determined to continue the fruitful cooperation, Hasanov added.

I should also note that initiative and leadership of the majority of bilateral and multilateral meetings, held in the region lately, belong to Azerbaijan. The initiative to hold a tripartite meeting of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia, to create partnership between them, as well as the initiative of joint projects that are being implemented or intended to be implemented also came from Azerbaijan, and they have already begun to yield positive results.

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3 November 2017 14:53 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The goal is to make the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway economically attractive, said Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev in an interview with Euronews TV channel following the landmark ceremony to inaugurate the rail line in Baku on October 30.

Euronews presented a story in its Focus program about the opening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. The TV channels correspondent interviewed the presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkey and the prime minister of Georgia.

There is no shorter way between Asia and Europe, Ilham Aliyev told Euronews. Our goal for the future is to agree on tariffs to make it economically attractive. In the long-term, the volume of cargo will grow, and of course this means big profits, big revenues, new jobs and cooperation.

The projects implementation is an historic event, said the president.

This railway connects continents, Eurasia. This is a shooter way between Asia and Europe. Azerbaijan together with Turkey and Georgia actively participated in its construction, noted President Aliyev.

He added that the participation of Turkish, Georgian, Kazakh, Uzbek friends, prime ministers, ministers from Turkmenistan, Tajikistan in the opening ceremony once again proves how important the project is.

This railway will bring stability, prosperity, development to the whole region, said the Azerbaijani president.

We expect a gradual growth of cargo transportation up to 17 million tons through the territory of Azerbaijan via this route, noted President Aliyev responding to the question about expectations and strategic tasks.

I think that this route is of economic importance. This route will be used by all countries located along it, because, I repeat, this is the shortest way. Therefore, we will work together on it, added Ilham Aliyev.

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3 November 2017 15:12 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The Southern Gas Corridor, which envisages transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, is a very important project, Kestutis Jankauskas, head of the EU delegation to Azerbaijan, told reporters on November 3.

The Southern Gas Corridor, which is now being built and hopefully will start functioning in some years, is another symbolic and very important development connecting our markets and delivering energy resources between this region and EU, he added.

The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority energy projects for the EU. It envisages the transportation of gas from the Caspian region to the European countries through Georgia and Turkey.

At the initial stage, the gas to be produced as part of the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz field is considered as the main source for the Southern Gas Corridor projects. Other sources can also connect to this project at a later stage.



As part of the Stage 2 of the Shah Deniz development, the gas will be exported to Turkey and European markets by expanding the South Caucasus Pipeline and the construction of Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline and Trans Adriatic Pipeline.

Further, talking about the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway, which has been recently opened, Jankauskas noted that this project is very welcome.

EU in general supports all kinds of interconnections. Roads connect people. This is important for enhancement of the relationship, for trade, for people traveling, for cargoes being transported between our market, Azerbaijan, South Caucasus countries, EU, Turkey and then reaching further to Central Asia and China, being transported faster and being transported safely. This railway exactly helps to achieve this goal, he said.

The opening of the BTK railway took place in Baku Oct.30.

The first train departed from the Azerbaijani port of Alat after its inauguration by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili. In order not to miss such an historic event, the leaders and high-ranking officials of a number of countries, including Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, that will somehow be involved in the transportation along this corridor, attended the solemn ceremony.

The BTK railway was constructed on the basis a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement. The railways peak capacity will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At an initial stage, this figure will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.

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3 November 2017 11:25 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Uzbekistan and Russia signed a number of documents and agreements in order to further boost cooperation between the two countries.

More than ten documents were signed on November 2 following a meeting between Uzbek representatives and Russian delegation led by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev who arrived in Tashkent on an official visit.

Several memorandums and agreements to develop cooperation in the oil-refining, banking-financial, investment, commercial and industrial spheres, automotive, science, foreign migration and other areas were signed, UzA reported.

The prospects for further development of cooperation between Uzbekistan and Russia were discussed during the meeting in an expanded format with the participation of official delegations of the two countries.

The Uzbek delegation was led by the Uzbek Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov.

Earlier, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev held talks with Russian Prime Minister.

Issues of further expansion and deepening of Uzbek-Russian multifaceted relations, increase in the volume of mutual trade, implementation of joint cooperation projects in various sectors of the economy, development of cultural and humanitarian exchange were discussed.

A note of readiness was expressed for further development and strengthening of partnership relations and mutually beneficial practical cooperation between the two countries.

Uzbek-Russian cooperation is developing on the basis of the Strategic Partnership Treaty, the Treaty on Allied Relations and a number of other important documents.

Over the past six months, about 20 visits took place at the intergovernmental level.

Trade and economic cooperation, especially in the field of agriculture, the supply of food products and industrial cooperation, is developing dynamically.

By the end of the year Uzbekistan intends to reach the $5 billion trade turnover level with Russia. Moreover, this year Russia has come out on top among Uzbekistans foreign trade partners.

In 2016, bilateral trade exceeded $4 billion. Uzbekistan exports natural gas, cars, chemical, textile, fruit and vegetable products to Russia. Black and nonferrous metals, wood, oil and oil products, electrical engineering, paper products and pharmaceuticals are imported from Russia.

There are 961 enterprises in Uzbekistan with participation of Russian capital and 569 enterprises created with participation of investors from Uzbekistan in Russia.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
3 November 2017 15:29 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Russias state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom and Uzbekistans Academy of Sciences signed a memorandum on cooperation in the field of using atomic energy for peaceful purposes.

The signing ceremony took place on the eve of the visit of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to Tashkent.

The document was signed by Rosatoms general director Alexey Likhachev and the president of the Academy of Sciences Bekhzod Yuldashev.

The memorandum on cooperation in the field of using atomic energy for peaceful purposes records the intentions of the parties to develop cooperation in the areas related to the practical application of nuclear technologies and training of personnel, according to the message on the website of the company.

In particular, it stipulates "the development of cooperation in such areas as the creation and development of nuclear infrastructure in Uzbekistan, the development of programs to raise public awareness of nuclear technologies and their application."

It is also planned to create appropriate information centers, conduct fundamental and applied research in nuclear physics, use radioisotopes and radiation technologies in industry, medicine, agriculture and other fields.

The parties intend to sign a standard framework intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Rosatom brings together assets in the field of nuclear energy, design and construction of nuclear power plants, power engineering. The company accounts for 36 percent of the global uranium enrichment market and 17 percent of the nuclear fuel market.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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3 November 2017 17:49 (UTC+04:00)

By Aygul Salmanova

Tourism tends to become one of the main sectors of the Azerbaijani economy, and that can be seen from the huge flow of tourists visiting the country this year.

Today tourism is developing with high speed in Azerbaijan, with a contribution of 4.5 percent to the national GDP. The country witnesses more than 2 million annual foreign tourist arrivals and thousands of domestic tourism visits.

Speaking of tourists it is impossible to avoid the growing number of tourists coming from Muslim countries. And due to the influx of Muslim guests, the country now is considering to develop halal tourism, a sub-category of tourism that is aligned with the laws and traditions of Islam.

An increase in the number of hotels complying with halal standards in Azerbaijan is possible due to the increase in the number of newly built hotels, said Muzaffer Agakarimov, advisor to the Chairman of the Azerbaijan Tourism Association (AzTA).

Saying that halal standards have been applied in a number of hotels in Azerbaijan, Agakarimov noted that there should be a separate pool, prayer room for women and men. In the hotels operating in halal standards, there should be no alcoholic beverages, and food should be prepared in halal standards.

In the future, when some new hotels are built, some entrepreneurs can build their own placement facilities on halal standards, and entrepreneurs need additional investment to build these types of hotels, so it's not that easy to implement these standards, he said.

Agakarimov told that the application of halal standards in hotels is related to the influx of tourists coming to our country from Islamic countries.

However, Agakarimov believes that implementation of halal standards is not mandatory.

If any hotel wants to build its activity on the basis of these standards, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Tourism Association can help hotels in this area, he said.

The purpose of applying the Tourism Excursion Services, Halal Management System, Hotels standard, adopted in Azerbaijan this year, is to increase the number of tourists from Muslim countries to Azerbaijan.

The number of Muslim tourists for today is 108 million and this figure will reach 150 million in 2020, the statistics reveals.

It should be particularly mentioned that Azerbaijan has lately became the most favorite place for travel of many Arab tourists. The majority of them are from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Iraq. Short distance between Azerbaijan and their countries is one of the reasons of such a great tourist growth.

In the 2016 survey of GMTI covering 130 tourist destinations, Azerbaijan, has ranked 20th among the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

The countrys incomparable historical and cultural heritage, as well as expertise in halal hospitality, allowed Azerbaijan to enter the list of the top Muslim holidays destinations. In Azerbaijan, where modernity and intellect meet Islam and modern cultures, Muslim visitors can have an unforgettable experience.

Meanwhile, this year the GMTI put Azerbaijan 24th on development of halal tourism

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
During an Oct. 26 panel at the Becker's ASC Review 24th Annual Meeting: The Business and Operations of ASCs, held in Chicago, three healthcare leaders discussed various cost reduction strategies ambulatory surgery centers can harness to improve their bottom lines and increase their caseloads.

Panelists included Josh Carter, senior vice president of ASC sales for Northfield, Ill.-based Medline; Stephen Blake, CEO of Central Park ENT & Surgery Center in Arlington, Texas; and Catherine Retzbach, BSN, RN, administrator of Holly, N.J.-based Memorial Ambulatory Surgery Center.

Mr. Blake said a key factor to cost reduction is standardization. Leaders should focus on standardizing the products that cost their ASC the most money. "Sometimes it's the higher ticket items, but most of the time it's common products like medical gloves that can save you the most money by standardizing," he said.

Cost and utilization data are crucial for identifying standardization opportunities, but ASCs don't always have this necessary information. Therefore, distributors can be a valuable resource for ASCs looking to improve standardization, according to Mr. Carter. "They can tell you what's used, where," he said. "So you should lean on them in that area."

ASCs should also communicate with distributors to ensure contracts are properly enacted for the items they're buying. "If you're not buying on contract, you're spending too much money," says Mr. Carter. "That's quick savings on items you're buying today."

While improved inventory management can significantly reduce an ASC's expenses, leaders should think twice before using the cost savings to invest into a new procedure or technology. Ms. Retzbach said a general surgeon at her center was very interested in offering robotic surgery for outpatients. However, ASC leadership decided investing in a surgical robot did not make financial sense, since the center only had one employee on staff who could use it.

"What if the surgeon broke his leg and couldn't work for a month?" said Ms. Retzbach. "The robot would just sit there unused."

Therefore, before investing in a new technology or service to increase cases, leaders must assess whether it will be a good fit for the community, help expand the ASC's market and positively affect the center's bottom line.

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The Security Service of Ukraine believes a group of hackers called Fancy Bear, allegedly linked to Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate, was behind last week's Bad Rabbit ransomware attack, CyberScoop reports.

Ukraine officials claim the group coordinated the attack, which disrupted operations at multiple organizations including government agencies, transportation services and news outlets throughout Ukraine and Russia, the agency wrote in a letter to CyberScoop Wednesday.

According to the letter, officials allege the attackers intended for Bad Rabbit to act as a smokescreen while they sent targeted phishing emails to various organizations in an attempt to gain access to "financial and confidential information." However, it is unclear whether Ukraine officials are also blaming Fancy Bear for the phishing component of the attacks.

"Given the scale of the infrastructure created for the attack (more than 50 pre-compromised sites, a number of leased servers and domain names), high qualifications of the developers of malicious software and unbiased performers, as well as the lack of mercenary motives for the purpose of attack, the [Security Service of Ukraine] has reason to suspect, that the group [Fancy Bear] is behind these events," the letter written by the Security Service of Ukraine and translated by CyberScoop reads.

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Rural hospitals across the nation are facing financial challenges, causing some facilities to file for bankruptcy or close their doors for good. While many community hospitals are struggling to stay afloat, Putnam County Memorial Hospital, a 15-bed critical access hospital in Unionville, Mo., is more profitable than ever.

Hospital Partners, a Florida-based management company, took over operations of Putnam County Memorial Hospital in September 2016. The management company is co-owned by Jorge Perez and David Byrns, who became the hospital's CEO. Within days of the takeover, another company, called Hospital Laboratory Partners, which also has ties to Mr. Perez, was incorporated in Florida and began billing health insurers for laboratory work through Putnam County Memorial Hospital, including some tests that were not performed at the facility, according to an investigation by Side Effects Public Media, KCUR and KBIA.

According to a report released in August by Missouri State Auditor Nicole Galloway, Putnam County Memorial Hospital generated $92 million in revenue in the six months after the new laboratory billing arrangement was implemented. This represented an increase of approximately 2,353 percent when compared to the previous six-month period, as the hospital's revenue for the year before totaled $7.5 million.

The auditor claimed Putnam County Memorial Hospital acted as a shell company by submitting claims for other labs and funneling the insurance payments through the hospital.

"Based on our review of hospital accounts, the vast majority of laboratory billings are for out-of-state lab activity for individuals who are not patients of hospital physicians," stated the auditor's report.

The auditor's report noted 80 percent of the revenue went to various lab companies, some of which had ties to Mr. Perez. A public records request of the hospital by Side Effects Media revealed the hospital paid more than $26 million to Hospital Laboratory Partners between November 2016 and March 2017.

The auditor's report showed 6 percent of the hospital's revenue from the lab program went to a company that handled the hospital's billing, and the public records request revealed the billing company was registered by Mr. Perez in 2014.

Ms. Galloway has turned her findings over to the Missouri attorney general, the FBI and the Putnam County prosecuting attorney.

Mr. Perez defended the lab billing practices. He said the billing program at Putnam County Memorial Hospital is legal and a necessary lifeline for struggling community hospitals, according to KBIA.

Marc Hartstein, a former Medicare official with expertise in government billing and payment regulations, told KBIA the situation at Putnam County Memorial Hospital raises a lot of questions because of the drastic change in laboratory referrals after the change in ownership.

Brian Bauer, a shareholder with the health care law firm Hall Render, told KBIA the billing arrangement could cause financial troubles for Putnam County Memorial Hospital. According to Mr. Bauer, when insurance companies strike agreements with rural hospitals, they aren't expecting the hospital to have a lab program that generates tens of millions of dollars annually. The high-volume lab referral program at Putnam County Memorial Hospital may cause insurers to try to recoup their money, leaving the hospital on the hook with no way to repay the funds.

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How long can you expect a hospital bed to last? What about that recently purchased centrifuge or aging asphalt parking lot? And should the brand new cardiac care wing take your hospital into the 2050s or the 2090s?

A little known specialty within accounting, asset lifing seeks to answer these questions and provide hospitals and health systems millions of dollars in annually recurring benefit to their bottom line.

Experts at Chicago-based Prism Healthcare Partners LTD and Principle Valuation LLC, a member of Prism Healthcare Partners, sat alongside client SCL Health, an 11-hospital health system headquartered in Colorado, to explain how they worked together to realize over $50 million in annual depreciation reductions, which translated into a stronger balance sheet and income statement.

Janice James, managing partner of Prism, and Timothy Baker, managing partner of Principle Valuation, talked about the process and benefits of asset relifing. Lydia Jumonville, CEO and EVP/CFO for SCL Health, and Kyle Engman, vice president, chief accounting officer and controller for SCL Health, discussed why it worked for their organization.

1. What is asset lifing and why does it matter for hospitals?

Timothy Baker: Asset life sets the stage for the depreciation expense (rate of depreciation) associated with any fixed asset, from a wheelchair to the buildings that comprise a hospital. Until 2001, Medicare incentivized depreciating assets quickly to maximize cost reimbursement. These assets remained on the books and in the hospital long after they were fully depreciated. While this incentive disappeared 16 years ago, many hospital accounting departments continue to use shorter lives and accelerated depreciation.

For decades, hospitals have utilized the lives assigned to assets by the American Hospital Association (AHA), which tried to maximize the rate of depreciation due to the old Medicare cost reimbursement methodology. Those guidelines use shorter lives which accelerate depreciation and reduce a hospitals bottom line.

Our study of asset lives at more than 400 hospitals found that actual lives are much longer than the AHA guidelines assign. Relifing assigns a more realistic life for an asset and reduces depreciation expense. While the reduction in depreciation is a non-cash benefit, it increases operating income and can lead to better bond ratings, as well as reduced costs associated with insurance and capital expenditures. Hospital execs are often surprised by the magnitude of benefit we find.

2. Was SCL Health surprised?

Lydia Jumonville: Yes. I actually didnt think the benefit would be that big. Principle Valuation gives conservative estimates, and even the conservative estimate sounded really good. We didnt expect to see $50 million in annually recurring benefit.

3. So, why did SCL Health embark on this project?

Kyle Engman: The motivation on our part was to get a lower depreciation expense through correcting asset lives, and having those lives be a little more realistic. Once we saw how that worked in our pilot at St. Francis Health, where more than $3 million in annual benefit was identified, we made a decision to do it across the entire system.

Lydia Jumonville: It also gave us peace of mind. To have somebody come in and clean up our asset records and get some consistency was a big deal. And we also learned how to use Principle Valuations study, so we have a standardized asset depreciation methodology across the system for future purchases.

Kyle Engman: Especially after merging with Exempla Healthcare in 2009, it was important to work toward standardization. Its easy to think the AHA guidelines made everything consistent but sometimes its not that straightforward. The AHA list isnt that long. We hadnt consistently used AHA lives in each system, so this project brought much needed uniformity to our merged system.

4. Could you give an example of how this works?

Timothy Baker: Think about a helicopter. The AHA guidelines estimate a helicopter should last four years. Studies show, including ours, that helicopters last 30 years with proper maintenance. Under the old method, the balance sheet of the hospital after four years would show that the helicopter is fully depreciated and has no value. But in reality it should last approximately another 25 years. This is only one of many assets that, without relifing, would cause the balance sheet and many operating ratios to be inaccurately presented. Rating agencies look at these numbers, and you always want them to see your hospital in the best - and most accurate - light.

A helicopter is just one line item, but you have to multiply that out across all fixed assets. Our findings are pretty dramatic when it comes to buildings. The AHA guideline is 40 years (average), but we might estimate 70, 80, even 100 years on some building components, such as foundations and frame. With maintenance and remodeling, initial construction components remain intact and last a long time.

5. Aside from more favorable operating ratios and cleaned up books, are there other benefits?

Janice James: Writing off assets too quickly can negatively impact the fair market value of a hospital or system and also make it more difficult to borrow money. After relifing, some organizations will see reduced insurance expenses, and keep in mind insurance companies generally wont issue a new policy for an asset that is more than 50 percent depreciated. (SCL Health is self insured so this benefit didnt apply to them.)

For SCL Health, the biggest benefit of relifing came from improved operating ratios, which affect ratings, and it gave them accurate, consistent books.

6. Since the project reviewed assets throughout the system, how big was the time burden to your finance staff and others at SCL Health?

Janice James: We requested asset records for each location and then did a tour of each facility with facility engineers at each care site. The whole process can be completed in weeks.

Kyle Engman: It certainly wasnt overwhelming or intrusive. Id say any disruption was minimal and worthwhile.

7. What did your auditors think? Did they agree with the results?

Kyle Engman: They had questions. They wanted to make sure the lives made sense, but at the end of the day they took no exception to the changes.

Lydia Jumonville: From my perspective, they did exactly what they should do. They needed to know there was a rationale and support.

Timothy Baker: Principle Valuation reviewed everything with the auditors and explained the study of assets, culled from more than 400 hospitals, that we use to support our findings.

8. Did you have to restate your financial statements or make any footnotes in the audit report?

Kyle Engman: No, we did not have to restate our financial statements. This was a change in accounting estimate, which does not require a restatement. The benefits were made retroactive to our financial statement for the entire fiscal year, so we were able to record a full year of benefit. A note in our audit report was made about the assessment and implementation of the asset lifing study due to the significance of the benefit identified.

9. Would you recommend asset lifing to other healthcare executives?

Lydia Jumonville: Yes, I already have.
Memorial Hospital at Gulfport (Miss.) ushered in a new policy regarding nonurgent care in its emergency room Nov. 1.

Under the policy, nonurgent ER patients aren't diagnosed and treated unless they pay their insurance copay or a $200 deposit prior to receiving care. Those nonurgent patients who don't pay their copay or the deposit are sent to the hospital's walk-in clinics. According to the hospital, nonurgent patients are those who are in stable condition at the time of assessment and are not likely to develop a life-threatening condition. Qualified providers will assess patients to determine whether they fit that definition.

By implementing this policy, hospital officials hope to reduce the number of nonurgent visits in the ER to make room for more critical patients. Memorial Hospital at Gulfport's ED sees approximately 6,000 patients each month, and about a quarter of those patients do not have an emergency medical condition, the hospital said in a press release.

Memorial Hospital President and CEO Gary Marchand recently answered questions from Becker's Hospital Review about the reasoning behind the policy and how patients are responding.

Note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Question: What prompted the policy?

Gary Marchand: We initially had about a 30 percent population loss [after Hurricane Katrina], and we never really recovered to those population levels again until about 2012, 2013. Still, since 2012 and 2013 our population base is only about 5 percent higher than it was pre-Katrina. So, we're looking at the same relative population size we were in 2005.

Even though our population is only up 5 percent, our visits are up by 30 percent in the ER. The sicker patients we're seeing in the ER are up 25 percent and the number of patients we admit to an inpatient bed from the ER is up 40 percent over this same period of time. So, we have a population growth netting 5 percent but we're seeing much sicker and much higher volume of patients, and we're admitting more patients than ever out of the ER to an inpatient unit.

The rationale behind the change is to ease the congestion in the ER to allow us to focus our resources on the sickest residents that are presenting in the ER at higher volume levels. We have expanded our ER beds recently from 42 to 49. A fair number of those beds are being occupied by psychiatric patients rather than medical or acute or trauma type injuries. We are resource constrained because of Medicare [and] Medicaid payment policies so we're basically shifting resources to care for sicker residents.

Q: What does the policy entail?

GM: Clinically we've always done a medical screening examination in the ER. We have historically treated and then sought to bill and collect from the patients once they left. What the new policy entails is continuing our medical screening examination process. When we get to the end of that, a qualified provider will make a determination as to whether the condition is emergent or nonurgent. If you are nonurgent, at that point you're required to make your copayment or a $200 deposit toward the cost of your treatment. If you elect not to be treated, then we'll refer you to one of our 15 walk-in clinics.

Q: How is this different than what the hospital did before?

GM: We have always done a screening examination and allowed the care to continue and then we were basically trying to bill and collect from insurers and patients  if they were self-insured. So the clinical track is historically we had a medical screening examination process and you were diagnosed and treated. Now, after the medical screening examination process occurs, if you're emergent you're diagnosed and treated. If you're nonurgent and you don't make your required copay or make the deposit, you're referred to one of our walk-in clinics, which shares a single EHR with the hospital, as well as its diagnostic centers and physician clinics.

Q: Have you noticed other hospitals adopting similar policies?

GM: We do see nationally and in the state of Mississippi ERs being constrained by the volume of residents seeking care. We do see movement among key insurance players at the national level to begin to treat any ER visit that is a nonurgent condition as an out-of-network claim. That's not happening in Mississippi yet, but the trend is starting to emerge nationally for that to happen. We are aware from the Healthcare Financial Management Association that about half of the nation's hospitals do charge upfront fees for nonurgent visits in their ER. When you laser in down to the state of Mississippi, there is one other hospital we know that's done this in maybe the past four or five months.

Q: How have staff and patients reacted to the new policy?

GM: Generally, we find the community being supportive of the policy because I think they do understand the congestion issue we're trying to address in the ER and that those resources need to be first and foremost for the most acutely ill residents. And our staff are supportive of the organizational goals  they're all prepped up and trained to do it  and, obviously, we started easing into this Nov. 1. The staff is trained, the workflow has been adjusted, any renovations required in the ER to accommodate the new workflow have been done. So, a lot of planning has gone into this. We're still [willing] to, two, three months down the road, change course a little bit [if we need to].

Q: Anything to add about the policy?

GM: I think what makes us unique  at least in our own mind  is over the past five or six years we have opened 15 walk-in clinics in the three coastal counties in Mississippi. These walk-in clinics [are] open up to seven days a week, [and] several of them have extended evening hours. They're open on Sunday and late on Monday through [Saturday]. I think what makes us a little bit unique is we've already invested in a way the community can access care close to home. Walk-in clinics provide care that is more cost-efficient for both the hospital and the patient.

Also, in the past three years  I think largely because of these walk-in clinics  about 10,000 visits have been lowered in the ER. What we've seen, though, is despite our lower-acuity visits being down by about 10,000 visits a year, they've been replaced by sicker patients. One of the goals of the new policy is to get those last 10,000 or so visits that are low acuity into the walk-in clinics over the next several years.

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CHARLESTON (JG-TC) -- An Oakland man was arrested for sexual abuse and sexual assault Wednesday after a months-long investigation among multiple agencies.

Timothy D. Clapp, 62, was arrested after the Department of Children and Family Services investigated allegations of sexual assault and sexual abuse, according to Charleston police.

In September, the DCFS was assisted by the Charleston Police Department, the Coles County State Attorney's Office, the Coles County Sheriff's Office, the Oakland Police Department and the Children's Advocacy Center of East Central Illinois in the investigation.

According to Charleston police, the DCFS received "several" hotline calls and enlisted the help of local agencies to investigate further. The investigation led to a $150,000 arrest warrant for Clapp.

Clapp was arrested for predatory criminal sexual assault of a victim under 13 years old and aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a victim under the age of 18 and family. Clapp was sent to the Coles County jail but was later released on bond.
Here are 15 recent news updates on health IT companies.

1. Allscripts CEO Paul Black urged the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to focus on providing the nation's veterans with the high-quality, interoperable healthcare in a company blog post Oct. 30.

2. Amazon's net sales increased 34 percent to $43.7 billion in the third quarter, compared with $32.7 billion one year prior, according to the company's third quarter financial results released Oct. 26.

3. American Well named Harry Kim its senior vice president of strategic partnerships, the company announced Oct. 26.

4. Cerner released financial results for its third quarter, which ended Sept. 30. The company posted $1.28 billion in revenue, an 8 percent increase from the third quarter of 2016.

5. Cerner President Zane Burke noted during an Oct. 26 earnings call the company plans to pursue additional EHR contracts at a range of government agencies.

6. Drchrono unveiled a specialty EHR for urgent care practices Oct. 26.

7. Epic approved DocASAP, an appointment scheduling solution provider, for the App Orchard, DocASAP announced Oct. 24.

8. General Electric released its third quarter earnings results Oct. 20, posting $33.47 billion in revenue.

9. General Electric is reportedly exploring divesting its healthcare and transportation businesses, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

10. A team of researchers from Boston-based Harvard Medical School, Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital and IBM Research developed a risk score to predict patient outcomes after cirrhosis-related admissions.

11. IBM elected Joseph R. Swedish and Frederick H. Waddell to its board of directors, effective immediately, the company announced Oct. 30.

12. Leidos, a Reston, Va.-based science and technology company, appointed Rob Thomas II as vice president for strategic accounts and government relations, the company announced Oct. 30.

13. One Drop, a digital health company focused on diabetes care management, entered into a data sharing collaboration with Fitbit, the company announced Oct. 31.

14. Meditech released financial results for the third quarter, noting a 33 percent jump in product revenue during the course of one year.

15. Zocdoc, an online scheduling service for healthcare organizations, introduced Zocdoc Insurance Checker to help patients verify their plan details Oct. 24.
Omaha, Neb.-based Children's Hospital & Medical Center signed an agreement to purchase a portion of a 12-acre lot from Omaha-based Methodist Health System for just under $10 million, according to The World Herald.

The 12-acre property, located in Omaha, was put up for sale by Methodist in September. Children's Hospital & Medical Center will utilize seven acres of the property. The remaining land was sold to NP Dodge Co, a real estate firm.

"[The purchase] is really to keep us in the center of Omaha for the rest of the century," said Richard Azizkhan, MD, Children's president and CEO told The World Herald.

The additional seven acres will increase Children's footprint in Omaha to approximately 22 acres.

Hospital officials have yet to determine the property's use, according to the report.
The healthcare industry added 21,500 jobs in October, with hospitals contributing 2,800 to that total, according to Friday's jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This is not far from the industry's average monthly gain of 24,000 jobs so far in 2017, according to the BLS. However, it is about 10,000 less than the industry's average monthly gain of 32,000 in 2016.

Ambulatory healthcare services showed the biggest employment growth in the industry last month, adding 16,100 jobs. Hospitals added 2,800 jobs last month, down from the 4,500 jobs they added in September.

Overall, U.S. employment rose by 261,000 in October, according to the BLS.
Nurses at Boston-based Tufts Medical Center picketed Thursday night as a contract agreement with management remains unreached.

Approximately 350 nurses participated in the picket outside the hospital, as did a number of elected officials and labor leaders, according to the Massachusetts Nurses Association, which represents 1,200 Tufts nurses. However, the hospital reported there were approximately 125 people at the picket, including nurses and others not affiliated with Tufts.

The union said the goal of the picket was "to draw the public's attention back to the nurses' continued fight for a fair contract, as well as to put pressure on management to reach a fair settlement as soon as possible."

Thursday's action marks the first picket since Tufts nurses went on strike in July.

More than 10 negotiating sessions have taken place since the strike. However, both sides have been unable to fully resolve key sticking points such as staffing, pay and pension benefits  which were among issues leading to the strike, union officials said via news release.

Tufts and the union argue they have made efforts to reach an agreement.

The union claims it has made "significant compromises" regarding nurses' pension benefits, while Tufts told Becker's Hospital Review via email it has "gone to great lengths to engage the MNA in meaningful contract discussions and ... made significant movement in our proposals to address the concerns of our nurses and the long-term health of the medical center."

Tufts added, "We are dismayed that the union has chosen to direct its time and energy towards another disruptive picket rather than on good faith bargaining at the table. Unfortunately, we cannot give the union everything it wants and remain financially healthy and viable for the community we serve. We continue to be hopeful that an agreement can be reached."

The MNA and Tufts have been in negotiations since April 2016.
From hospitals settling overbilling allegations to a nurse suing a hospital for discrimination, here are the latest healthcare industry lawsuits and settlements making headlines.

1. Maine hospital to pay $1.5M to settle overbilling allegations

Mercy Hospital in Portland, Maine, agreed to pay $1.51 million to resolve allegations it violated the federal and Maine False Claims Acts.

2. Catholic Health to pay $6M to settle overbilling allegations

Buffalo, N.Y.-based Catholic Health agreed to pay $6 million to settle allegations its nursing home subsidiary overbilled Medicare for rehabilitation therapy services.

3. Maryland hospital quotes Shakespeare in defense of physician who used fake identity

Dimensions Health, a Maryland system serving residents of Prince George's County, argued in a motion to dismiss that it should not face a putative class-action lawsuit alleging a former OB-GYN used a fake identity while providing care to at least 1,000 women at Dimensions' facilities.

4. Catholic nurse sues Duke University Hospital after she refuses to assist with abortions

A Catholic nurse filed a lawsuit Oct. 27 against Durham, N.C.-based Duke University Hospital for allegedly discriminating against her religious beliefs after she refused to assist with abortions, contraceptives or vaccinations.

5. Presbyterian Healthcare reaches $18.5M settlement over alleged tax fraud

Albuquerque, N.M.-based Presbyterian Healthcare Services agreed to pay the state $18.5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging tax fraud.

6. Utah nurse reaches $500k settlement with Salt Lake City, U of Utah after blood draw scandal

The Utah nurse forcibly arrested for refusing to let a police officer draw blood from an unconscious patient reached a settlement with Salt Lake City and the University of Utah.

7. Steward Health Care sues Massachusetts to avoid financial disclosures

Steward Health Care, a 36-hospital system based in Boston, is suing state officials for demanding financial information.

8. Hartford HealthCare loses lawsuit claiming Anthem forced 'catastrophically' low rates

A district judge tossed a lawsuit filed by Hartford (Conn.) HealthCare against Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Connecticut.

9. Judge rules against Florida governor's nursing home generator rule

A Florida judge rejected an emergency rule adopted Sept. 16 for generators at assisted living facilities and nursing homes.

10. CareFirst petitions Supreme Court to hear data breach case, establish guidance for determining standing

Health insurer CareFirst is petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court's ruling that permitted a data breach class-action lawsuit against the company to advance.

11. 4 Oklahoma hospitals allege BCBS breached contract

Four rural Oklahoma hospitals sued Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oklahoma for allegedly breaching contract amid an ongoing rate dispute.

12. New Jersey files opioid epidemic lawsuit against Purdue Pharma

New Jersey Attorney General Christopher Porrino filed a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, alleging the drugmaker engaged in deceptive marketing campaigns from the late 1990s through 2007 to promote the widespread use of opioid pain medicines, including OxyContin.

13. Mid Dakota physician testifies in court, says majority of patients do not approve of Sanford merger

A Bismarck, N.D.-based Mid Dakota Clinic physician took the stand to voice her opposition to the health system's proposed merger with Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Sanford Health, stating the majority of her patients do not support the deal.

14. Vitas, largest US for-profit hospice chain, to dole out $75M in false claims settlement

Cincinnati-based Chemed Corporation and its subsidiaries, Vitas Hospice Services and Vitas Healthcare Corporation, agreed to pay a $75 million settlement for allegedly submitting false claims for hospice services to Medicare.

15. Ohio county files opioid lawsuit against drugmakers, distributors

Officials with Cuyahoga County filed a lawsuit against multiple drugmakers, drug distributors and physicians for their alleged role in facilitating high rates of opioid overdoses in one of Ohio's most populated counties.

More articles on legal and regulatory issues:

6 latest False Claims Act settlements

Court battle over CSR payments remains at a standstill

Rhode Island fines Prime Healthcare $1M for illegally converting 2 hospitals to nonprofits
The following payers made headlines this week, beginning with the most recent.

1. UnitedHealthcare to lay off 381 in Phoenix

UnitedHealthcare in Phoenix, part of the insurance branch of UnitedHealth Group, will lay off 381 employees.

2. 'An Optum wannabe': Experts say UnitedHealth, more than Amazon, is fueling CVS-Aetna deal

While many analysts predicted CVS Health is in talks to buy Aetna to stay ahead of Amazon, industry experts are now attributing the proposed merger to another competitor  UnitedHealth Group.

3. Hartford HealthCare loses lawsuit claiming Anthem forced 'catastrophically' low rates

A district judge tossed a lawsuit filed by Hartford (Conn.) HealthCare against Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Connecticut Wednesday.

4. Carle COO to serve as Health Alliance chief administrative officer: 3 points

John Snyder stepped into the chief administrative officer role at Health Alliance, a for-profit health insurance company under Urbana, Ill.-based Carle Foundation.

5. 4 Oklahoma hospitals allege BCBS breached contract

Four rural Oklahoma hospitals sued Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oklahoma for allegedly breaching contract amid an ongoing rate dispute.

6. WellCare more than doubles net income in Q3

Shares of WellCare, a Florida-based Medicaid and Medicare managed care plan, hit a record high Tuesday as the payer more than doubled its net income in the third quarter of fiscal year 2017.

7. Aetna's profits rise 39% despite revenue shortfall

Aetna saw revenues dip 5 percent in the third quarter of fiscal year 2017 compared to the year prior, but cost containment allowed the insurer to boost net income.

8. Health Partners Plans names Geralynn Boone VP of Medicare clinical operations: 5 takeaways

Philadelphia-based Health Partners Plans selected Geralynn Boone, MSN, RN, to serve as vice president of clinical operations, Medicare.

9. Horizon BCBS increases value-based payments by 43% to $95M

Physicians in Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey's network achieved $94.9 million in value-based payments last year, up 43 percent from the year prior.

10. Kaiser, Piedmont contract for in-network services through 2021

Piedmont Healthcare in Atlanta will offer Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente health plan members in-network access to all facilities under a new contract.

More articles on payer issues:

CMS proposes ACA benefit changes for 2019: 7 things to know

What's looming behind the proposed CVS Health-Aetna deal

Health Partners Plans names Geralynn Boone VP of Medicare clinical operations: 5 takeaways
UnitedHealthcare in Phoenix, part of the insurance branch of UnitedHealth Group, will lay off 381 employees, a company spokesperson told ABC 15.

The job cuts concern positions related to UnitedHealthcare's military and veterans Tricare contract. UnitedHealthcare managed benefits for Tricare's West Region, including Arizona, since 2012; however, the payer lost its bid to continue the contract in July 2016. UnitedHealthcare's contract concludes Dec. 31, after which Health Net, a subsidiary of Centene, will take over.



Affected employees were notified of the layoffs before the announcement, UnitedHealthcare said. The insurer is helping affected employees find open positions within the company.
Nurses at Commerce Charter Township, Mich.-based Detroit Medical Center Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital are alleging various patient safety violations at the facility.

The nurses, who are in contract negotiations with management, make the allegations in a report released Thursday by Michigan Nurses Association-affiliated Professional Nurses Association of Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital.

In the report, nurses allege patient safety has suffered due to short staffing since the formerly standalone nonprofit community hospital became part of Dallas-based for-profit hospital operator Tenet Healthcare via DMC.

The report specifically details more than 240 Assignment Despite Objection forms nurses filled out between Jan. 1, 2017 and Sept. 1, 2017. The union said reported situations included "patient falls in medical/surgical and intensive care units," "late medications," "failure to deliver basic hygiene and human care," and "patients left unattended during critical situations." The nurses also cite "over 150 instances of nurses going without breaks or lunches during shifts that last as long as 12 hours, despite the impact on patient care," among other incidents.

"When management pinches pennies by leaving us short staffed, it's our patients who feel the pain," said Pat Kampmann-Bush, RN, a recovery nurse who is chief steward of PNA-HVSH, in a statement. "Safe staffing is a top priority for our first contract  and we believe we have a professional responsibility to report the unsafe conditions we have witnessed and documented."

The union said it submitted the report to the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs for review. In addition to the report, the union also said Thursday it has filed a lawsuit in Oakland County Circuit Court alleging the hospital violated the whistle-blower provisions of the Michigan Public Health Code. "Hospital executives have repeatedly refused to accept reports of unsafe conditions in the hospital or respond within 60 days, as required by law," the union claims.

Lori Stallings-Sicard, RN, CNO of DMC Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital, denied the union's assertions in an emailed statement to Becker's Hospital Review.

"DMC Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital provides safe, quality care with staffing based upon daily census and level of patient acuity, which is consistent with industry standards. We continue to negotiate in good faith with the union representing our nurses to arrive at a mutually acceptable contract," she said.

"Unfortunately, the union has chosen to use patient safety as a bargaining tactic, which we will not do nor will we negotiate with them in the media. We maintain one robust system for monitoring quality of care that all staff are trained on and expected to use to submit potential patient or employee safety issue concerns. We question the validity and accuracy of information derived from any other non-approved tracking source," she added.

Ms. Stallings-Sicard also pointed to various recognitions the hospital has received. For instance, Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital has received an A grade for patient safety from Leapfrog twice annually since 2012. The hospital has also earned Magnet Recognition by The American Nurses Credentialing Center and has received the Michigan governor's Award of Excellence.
Here are 13 key notes on orthopedic and spine device companies from the past week.

Alphatec Spine and Patrick Miles filed a complaint against NuVasive in the Superior Court of California, County of San Diego, citing unfair competition and breach of contract, among other issues.

Stryker reported net earnings increased in the third quarter, despite headwinds related to the recall of certain Sage products and a sales slowdown due to hurricane damage.

Stryker is partnering with the Australian government, two Australian universities and St. Vincent's Hospital Melbourne to support a $9.3 million 3-D printing implant project.

Xtant Medical plans to close one of its Ohio facilities and lay off more than 50 employees.

Zimmer Biomet reported a slight decrease in third quarter net sales, owing to slow sales in the United States.

K2M saw total revenue of $62.7 million, reflecting a 6 percent year-over-year increase in the third quarter of 2017.

SeaSpine recorded $31.7 million in revenue in the third quarter of 2017.

Wright Medical Group reported net sales from continuing operations reached $170.5 million in its third quarter financial results and updated 2017 annual guidance.

Wright Medical Group unveiled its GRAVITY SYNCHFIX Syndesmosis Fixation Device.





Wright Medical Group enrolled the first patient into the U.S.-based Infinity Total Ankle System follow-up study.

For the third quarter 2017, InVivo Therapeutics reported a $9.4 million net loss, up significantly from the $6.2 million net loss reported at the end of the third quarter last year.





ConforMIS' total revenue was $18.4 million in the third quarter of 2017, a decrease of 1.2 percent year-over-year.

Claris Healthcare unveiled Claris Reflex, a medical device and patient monitoring system for total knee replacement recovery.
Hartford, Conn.-based St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center is collaborating with orthopedic surgeon group Lighthouse Surgery Holdings to build a surgery center, according to hartfordbusiness.com.

Here are six notes:

1. The organizations filed a certificate of need with Connecticut's Office of Health Care Access to build the new surgery center, Woodland Surgery Center, in Hartford.

2. The two groups predict outpatient joint replacements will skyrocket by 227.1 percent in the next decade in Hartford. Additionally, the proposal foresees outpatient spine procedures increasing by 43.9 percent in the next 10 years in the area.

3. The joint venture would give 35 percent ownership to St. Francis and 65 percent to the surgery center, managed by a group of independent orthopedic surgeons, pain specialists and anesthesiologists.

4. The proposed 33,000-square-foot surgery center would bear a price tag of $26.5 million.

5. The surgery center would offer foot orthopedic and pain care and hold six operating rooms, a procedure room and rehabilitation and physician areas.

6. If approved, the organizations hope to open the surgery center in June 2019.
Consumer confidence remained weak in Nebraska during October, according to the latest monthly surveys from the Bureau of Business Research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, while business confidence remained fairly strong.

The monthly Survey of Nebraska Households showed that Nebraskas consumer confidence index stood at 95.1 in October. While that was up from 93.5 in September  which had been the lowest level this year  it remained well below the neutral level of 100, indicating that consumer confidence is weak. Fifty-six percent of respondents cited cost concerns  such as the cost of living, health care costs, taxes and other major expenses  as the top financial issue they face.

Consumer confidence has been weak in Nebraska for the last two months, Eric Thompson, an economist who serves as bureau director, said in a news release.

By contrast, the monthly Survey of Nebraska Business indicated that Nebraskas business confidence remained strong, at 102.7 in October, although that was down from 105.2 in September.

Nebraska businesses remain confident about adding to both sales and employment in the coming months, Thompson said.

The surveys are sent each month to 500 randomly selected Nebraska businesses and households. During October, 151 businesses responded to the Survey of Nebraska Business, for a response rate of 30 percent. There were 115 respondents to the Survey of Nebraska Households, for a response rate of 23 percent.

The full survey report is available on the Bureau of Business Research website, www.bbr.unl.edu.
Atlanta-based Resurgens Orthopaedics experienced landmark growth in 2017, with the opening of a new location and addition of seven orthopedic surgeons.

"Resurgens Orthopaedics continues to proudly serve the people of metro Atlanta by delivering excellent care, provided by the best physicians, where the patients want to be seen," said John Gleason, MD, co-president of the practice.

Resurgens plans to open its Acworth, Ga., location in November, the 23rd location in the metropolitan Atlanta area. The practice also opened two Georgia-based surgery centers, in Covington and Fayetteville, and will finish the year with 102 physician partners.

"Our growth throughout 2017 and into the future illustrates our commitment to investing in our practice and to improving our patients' healthcare experience," said Dr. Gleason. The practice is looking forward to adding a new total joint replacement surgeon in the summer of 2018.
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The machine called Butterfly IQ is a pocket-sized ultrasound device that works by shooting sound waves into the body and capturing the echoes.

A team of researchers from Butterfly Network, a U.S. based start-up, have developed a novel smartphone-based portable ultrasound machine that can help detect cancer easily at home.

The machine called Butterfly IQ is a pocket-sized ultrasound device that works by shooting sound waves into the body and capturing the echoes. This machine uses 9,000 tiny drums etched onto a semiconductor chip.

The device was tested by John Martin, chief medical officer at Butterfly Network earlier this year, who had been having an uncomfortable feeling of thickness in his throat. He used the device, which was connected to his smartphone, to obtain black and grey images.

Eventually Martin discovered a cancerous mass in his own throat using this device. He found a three centimetre mass that was diagnosed as squamous-cell cancer, a form of skin cancer that develops in the cells of the outer layer of the skin.

The company now plans to combine the instrument with artificial-intelligence software that could help a novice position the probe, collect the right images, and interpret them.



By 2018, its software will let users automatically calculate how much blood a heart is pumping, or detect problems like aortic aneurisms.

The Butterfly IQ is the first solid-state ultrasound machine to reach the market in the US. The company plans to go on sale this year for $1,999-far less than any other model on the market.
US Department of Energy(WASHINGTON) -- The social media backlash was swift and brutal after Energy Secretary Rick Perry Wednesday suggested that fossil fuels would play a "positive role" in preventing sexual assault in Africa.



Perry, who last month traveled to Cape Town, South Africa to discuss oil and gas partnerships in Africa, on Wednesday tied the sexual assault issue to the lack of electricity on the continent:



"It's going to take fossil fuels to push power out into those villages in Africa," the secretary said at a forum hosted by Axios and NBC News. "A young girl told me to my face, one of the reasons that electricity is so important to me is not only because I'm not going to have to try to read by the light of a fire and have those fumes literally killing people, but also from the standpoint of sexual assault."



"When the lights are on, when you have light that shines, the righteousness, if you will, on those types of acts," he continued. "So from the standpoint of how you really affect people's lives, fossil fuels is going to play a role in that. I happen to think it's going to play a positive role."



Later on Thursday, the Department of Energy posted a statement to Twitter clarifying that "the Secretary was making the important point that while many Americans take electricity for granted there are people in other countries who are impacted by their lack of electricity."

"The Secretary just returned from Africa, where people made the point to him directly over and over about the impact that power has on their citizens. He was told how light can be a deterrent to sexual assault and can provide security in remote areas. Powerful stories like this stuck with him and that is what he was sharing with the crowd in Washington today."

Since long before Trump took office, Perry -- who oversaw an oil and gas boom during his tenure as governor of Texas -- has advocated for continued reliance on fossil fuels like coal and natural gas. On Wednesday, he told Chuck Todd, a moderator at the forum, that "the science is still out" on whether humans are driving climate change.



The science is mixed on the relationship between light and crime as well.



One report, published in 2008 by the Justice Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing, noted that while some scientific studies "found desirable effects from improved lighting... others did not," and noted that improving lighting in one area sometimes merely motivates criminals to move to more poorly-lit locations.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Shopko plans to cut the size of its store near 27th Street and Pine Lake Road by more than half, according to a commercial real estate listing.

Shopko officials did not respond to requests for comment, but according to a real estate listing online and a sign in front of the building, the store is offering about 60,000 square feet for sublease. The building has about 112,000 square feet of space.

The listing shows the building broken up into three spaces: One of about 50,000 square feet, one of 40,000 and another of 22,000. It also shows a proposed redevelopment of the entire shopping center, which also includes a Walgreens, with three new potential retail pad sites -- two along 27th Street and one along Pine Lake Road.

Representatives of the real estate broker advertising the property also did not respond to a request for comment.

The store is the newest and largest of the four Shopko locations in Lincoln. It opened in the fall of 2000, a few months after the Shopko near 27th and Cornhusker Highway opened. Shopko's other stores are at 66th and O streets and near 27th Street and Cornhusker Highway.

Shopko, like many other retailers, has struggled over the past few years. It closed two stores in the Omaha area late last year and is in the process of closing a third.

It also has shifted its focus to its smaller-format Shopko Hometown stores that are located mostly in small towns.

Company CEO Peter McMahon said last year in an interview with Stores Magazine that the chain hasn't opened a new large-format store in 15 years.
Yes Omaha is the winner! We will be announcing our new location on Facebook in the coming months. Check back with us for more updates!
Using 78 camera setups and 52 edits, Alfred Hitchcock and his collaborators crafted the most famous three minutes in horror movie history, maybe even all of movie history.

Ground-breakingly disturbing, the scene, shot in 1960, is filled with then-taboo near nudity and extreme, if not explicit violence -- a montage that created, to a large degree, the slasher movies of the '80s as it broke through the Motion Picture Production Code, beginning the end of the censorship of sex and violence in American film.

The three minutes of quick-cutting terror is, of course, the shower scene in Psycho in which Janet Leigh, playing a woman on the lam after stealing $40,000 is stabbed to death in a motel shower by the severely twisted Norman Bates, played by Anthony Perkins.

In the 90 minutes of 78/52, director Alexandre O. Philippe examines the shower scene from every possible angle, creating one of the most enlightening documentaries about movie making while reinforcing the continuing impact of the scene.

Among the notables Philippe gathered to talk about Psycho are: director Peter Bogdanovich, who talks about seeing the films first screening in New York when he was a reviewer; Jamie Lee Curtis, who makes a few reflections about her mother and the movie; composer Danny Elfman, who scores Tim Burton movies; director Guillermo del Toro; writer Bret Easton Ellis and actor Elijah Wood, who marvels that Leigh was able to keep her right eye open without blinking as Mary lies face down dead on the bathroom floor.

Even more comes from Marli Renfro, who served as Leighs body double in the shower scene, which took days to shoot -- yes, she was nude behind the shower curtain-- film scholar Howie Movshovitz and the directors of contemporary horror films that clearly draw on the scene.

Most illuminating of all is Oscar-winning editor Walter Murch, who goes through the scene cut by cut, spelling out how and why the each edit is made -- observations augmented by other editors , including another pair of Oscar winners, Chris Innes and Bob Murawski, who cut The Hurt Locker.

Smartly assembled by Phillippe, the commentary wraps around Psycho scenes, archival footage of Hitchcock, including the famous Psycho trailer and some clips from previous Hitchcock and horror films, pulling the viewer deeper into the scene while explaining its importance, its technical expertise and its revolutionary nature.

Equally as valuable, 78/52 provides insight into the work of an editor, in this case longtime Hitchcock collaborator George Tomasini, that, by extension, can be applied to every picture, an education of sorts that should be required viewing for every film student.

78/52 isnt perfect. Its opening montage uses actors who look nothing like Leigh and Perkins as it begins to reconstruct Psycho. But those images quickly flicker away, replaced by the captivating dissection of the shower scene. The only thing missing is the full scene itself -- which I had to find and watch with more appreciation and knowledge after seeing 78/52.
Theres no reason to suspect that Winnie the Pooh has its roots in the trenches of World War I. But that, in the view of Goodbye Christopher Robin, is just where the charming stories of a honey-eating bear, bouncing tiger, piglet and a kangaroo and its baby get their start.

For A.A. Milne wouldnt have penned the stories if he hadnt suffered from what we now call PTSD following his harrowing experiences in France and moved his wife, young son and their nanny to a rambling old house in the East Sussex countryside.

There, little Christopher Robin, known to his family as Billy Moon, played with his stuffed animals, creating their adventures in The Hundred Acre Wood that his father and an illustrator turned into the Winnie the Pooh books.

Thats just the start of Goodbye Christopher Robin, a very English period drama that follows the Milne family from the World War I horrors experienced by Alan (Domhnall Gleeson) to World War II, when Christopher Robin (Alex Lawther) goes off to fight.

But Simon Curtis film isnt a war picture. Rather it bookends Milnes story with conflicts and their devastating impact on the family, spinning the tale of the Milnes and Winnie in between.

A successful writer of comedic plays before the war, Milne disappoints his social-butterfly wife Daphne (Margot Robbie) by packing up the family and moving to the country, cutting her off from her friends and active social life.

As for little Christopher Robin (played as a child by Will Tilston), the move is just another adventure in his isolation from his parents. Daphne, who didnt want to have a baby, is disinterested in day-to-day child rearing. Alan, who wants to write an anti-war book, is distracted and distant.

That leaves him in the care of nanny Nou (Kelly Macdonald), who lives with the family almost full time until her mother takes gravely ill. With Daphne in London, claiming she wont return until Milne writes something, Alan is left to care for Billy Moon.

After a couple of weeks playing in the woods, a poem based on Christopher Robins nightly prayers emerges from Milne and, well theres no reason to divulge anything else except to note that, after the Winnie the Pooh books are published, Christopher Robin becomes a celebrity and the books threaten to overwhelm the family in unforeseen ways.

For most of the time,Goodbye Christopher Robin has a sweet charm, much of it provided by young Tilston who is perfect as Billy Moon. But its got an unsettling undercurrent, positing the Milnes as, basically, bad parents with the war coming at the end -- the movies framing device gives that away in the first scene.

Its very well acted, especially by Macdonald as the loving nanny and Gleeson as the deeply conflicted Milne. It also looks good and has a finely placed score, creating a classically styled period piece.

The story of Winnie the Pooh, however, takes the piece out of the usual stuffiness of these kind of English films, broadening its appeal and giving it a touching heart that, in the end, makes it satisfying.
International unions have threatened to lobby their governments for trade sanctions against the Australian government in response to last week's Australian Federal Police raids on Australian Workers Union offices.

The UK-based Workers Uniting and United Steelworkers in North America has issued a statement that threatens pushing for sanctions if the Australian government continues to attack workers' rights.

Workers leave the Australian Workers Union Sydney headquarters following the raid. Credit:AAP

The statement calls on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his government to "cease his intimidation of democratic trade unions".

"Should the Australian government continue its assault on workers' rights, we are prepared to demand that our governments take action to sanction the Turnbull government for its actions," the statement says.
Premier investments chairman Solomon Lew and CEO Mark McInnes. Credit:Wayne Taylor 'Doing well' For all the attention Lew's criticism has received, Myer's second-biggest owner, Anton Tagliaferro's fund management firm Investors Mutual, came away from Wednesday upbeat. "I think they're doing well in a tough retail environment," said Tagliaferro, who with 9.8 per cent of stock owns almost as much as Premier. "The shares have been disappointing, but I don't think the strategy as a whole is an incorrect one.

"We think they are making many of the necessary changes. Are they happening quickly enough? Maybe not." Tagliaferro says the company is stuck with a legacy footprint of underperforming stores, tied to leases that would be too expensive to tear up. But shrinking itself to health is firmly on Myer's agenda, saying there are 19 stores - almost a third of its network - which it will either shut or reduce floor space in if it can not negotiate cheaper rent or improve sales. Buy out?

Tagliaferro says Myer is very much "in play", and he sees the benefit of combining its operations with someone else. A takeover play was speculated as soon as Premier bought $100 million of Myer shares in March, but it says it has "no current intention of making a takeover offer". "I'm not sure what Premier Investments is waiting for," Tagliaferro tells Fairfax Media. "I don't think Solomon Lew seems like the sort of person that would go out and buy 10 per cent of Myer for a bit of sport. "Mr Lew is a retailer, he's also a very canny man and he understands the value of putting together his company and Myer."

Tagliaferro says there would be "absolutely huge" benefits in combining Premier and Myer, such as merging back offices, purchasing departments, and marketing and promotion teams. And for the right price, Tagliaferro would happily sell. Others are not so sure a takeover is on the cards. Citi analyst Bryan Raymond puts it at a 10 per cent likelihood (adding 10 to its 72 valuation), and Credit Suisse's Grant Saligari says it's "unlikely". Conflicts of interest Myer's board looked at how Lew's tentacles stretch through its business, and found he generates almost $200 million in sales every year through Myer stores. That comes from Premier's 10 Peter Alexander concession stores and Lew family companies which supply brands like Seed, FCUK, and Nine West, as well as private label apparel.

Lew is seen as a direct competitor because of his mid-market fashion chains Portmans, Dotti, Jacqui E. It is using this to argue Lew has too great a conflict of interest as both a competitor and supplier to be admitted to the board. There also concerns about Premier executives being privy to trading information about competitors who supply Myer or also have concession stores. Myer brushed off the suggestion of dealing with this through related party rules. "Why would you," when Lew's real ambition was to take control of Myer without paying other shareholders a proper premium, outgoing Paul McClintock told Fairfax Media. Its No.2 shareholder concurs. "Is Westpac going to invite a NAB director onto its board?" says Tagliaferro. "Does that qualify as good corporate governance? Or smart? It's ludicrous".

Tagliaferro agrees "100 per cent" however that Premier's management would have a positive influence on the running of Myer. "That's why they should own 100 per cent of Myer and take total control of it and reap the synergies from it," he says. 'Failed?' Lew has launched almost daily missives attacking Myer's "failed" strategy and painting its board and new board nominees - including chairman-elect Garry Hounsell - as feckless and without retail experience. Premier, meanwhile, heaves with retail heavyweights like Lew, the former Coles Myer chairman and veteran rag trader, and his offsider Mark McInnes, the former David Jones boss, who is considered one of the country's best retailers.

The Lew camp has been quick to compare the two companies' performances. Myer's rate of total return to shareholders - which includes dividends and share price movement - since 2009 when it floated at $4.10 a share is negative 60 per cent. Premier, meanwhile, is positive 194 per cent, against the ASX consumer discretionary index's 117 per cent. Children's stationery and accessory brand Smiggle has been the powerhouse behind Premier's recent success, with sales growing 80 per cent in the past two years to $238 million in 2017, as it expands rapidly internationally to a footprint of 297 stores - with more than half overseas. Pyjamas chain Peter Alexander has been the other standout, with sales up 14 per cent last year, helping Premier post an 8 per cent jump in total sales and a 5.7 per cent increase in underlying after-tax profit. But Premier's mass market apparel brands failed to escape the pain suffered by other Australian retailers, amid poor consumer sentiment, increased online shopping and the arrival of international competitors such as H&M.

There was modest sales growth at Just Jeans (1.5 per cent) but declines at Jay Jays (-1.6 per cent), Dotti (-3.6 per cent), Jacqui E (6.2 per cent), and Portmans (-8.6 per cent). Show down All eyes will now turn to Myer's annual general meeting on November 24. Premier again upped the stakes on Friday, calling on fellow shareholders to vote against not just the appointment of Myer's board nominees and incoming directors, but all resolutions Myer puts forward. Lew sent a form to all shareholders, inviting them to nominate Premier as their proxy at the AGM to vote against Myer's remuneration report, amendments to Myer's constitution and the granting of performance rights to Umbers. Even if the vote fails, it will be a test of shareholder sentiment and their appetite for renewal.
A health fund will repay $620,000 in total to tens of thousands of members after an investigation found it had changed the rules on "fixed" dental benefits in likely breach of the law.

An Australian Competition and Consumer Commission investigation found health insurer Australian Unity had changed the way the annual dental limit on couple and family extras policies worked, even though it had made assurances the benefits were fixed for the year.

Originally, members under one policy could choose how they wanted to use and split the annual dental limit, which was between $1600 and $2400 a year. For example, all of it could be used on braces for one child.

After the change, each member was only allowed to claim up to half of the annual limit.
A former Lorna Jane store manager has lost a bullying and injury lawsuit against the active wear chain after a judge found she was an "unreliable witness".

Amy Robinson was seeking more than $570,000 in damages after alleged social media bullying and fat-shaming by her manager purportedly caused her to develop a mental illness.

Former employee Amy Robinson unsuccessfully sued Lorna Jane. Credit:Facebook / Amy Robinson

The 41-year-old also claimed at trial that she suffered a bruised external haemorrhoid from lifting heavy boxes at the brand's Brisbane DFO store and was rostered on inappropriate hours for a mother of three.

But none of those claims were upheld after Brisbane District Court Judge Gregory Koppenol found she was an "unreliable witness with serious credibility issues".
Queensland police's ethical standards committee is investigating after an intoxicated officer allegedly assaulted a 13-year-old boy during a search of a vehicle in the state's north.

The ABC reports the officer allegedly assaulted the teen near Aboriginal community Kowanyama on Sunday evening.

Kowanyama mayor Michael Yam said police were "supposed to be helping us trying to prevent from alcohol from coming into the community".

A Queensland police spokeswoman said "a number of allegations" had been made by members of the Kowanyama community about the incident.

"Senior officers are continuing to work with elders and members of the community to address their concerns as well as provide policing services to the community," she said in a statement on Friday.
The foster mother of slain Queensland schoolgirl Tiahleigh Palmer has been ordered to spend the next six months behind bars for her "dreadful" crimes relating to the 12-year-old's disappearance.

Julene Thorburn faced Beenleigh District Court on Friday, where she pleaded guilty to one count each of perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Julene Thorburn arriving at Beenleigh Magistrates Court, where she pleaded guilty to perjury, Credit:Jono Searle/AAP

Judge Craig Chowdhury sentenced the 55-year-old to a head term of 18 months imprisonment, to be suspended after she has served six months, for her "dreadful offences".

Thorburn faced Beenleigh District Court on Friday, where she pleaded guilty to one count each of perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
The Nebraska State Patrol Foundation will use a $5,000 donation it accepted Friday to help the patrol's K-9 division.

Handlers showed off the skills of Bruin and Otto, two of the patrol's 11 service dogs. The program is looking to add another police dog, which would cost $10,000.

NSP is competing for a $5,000 grant in an online vote. People can vote through Tuesday at aftermath.com (click on K-9 grant).
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has slammed the door shut on a citizenship audit of all federal MPs, but Labor has responded by calling for the major parties to work together and end the citizenship crisis.

A fired-up Mr Turnbull arrived back in Australia on Friday and angrily hit back at calls for an audit of all parliamentarians' citizenship status, declaring "we have no place in Australia for witch-hunts" and slamming a report that suggested Energy and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg could be a dual Hungarian-Australian citizen.

But in a move that potentially wedges the government, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten extended an olive branch to the Prime Minister, proposing "a process such as universal disclosure to the Parliament" that, although short on detail, could offer a way through the impasse.

Fairfax Media spoke to seven members of Mr Turnbull's cabinet on Friday, and confirmed the subject of a citizenship audit was set to be discussed when cabinet next meets in Canberra on Monday night  though it is unlikely at this stage that public pressure will shift the government's position.
LNP leader Tim Nicholls has accused the Premier of putting thousands of jobs at risk by attempting to veto a federal loan to the Adani Carmichael mine.

Late on Friday, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk called a snap media conference to accuse the LNP in Canberra of a "smear" campaign against her and her partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers infrastructure advisory director Shaun Drabsch.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk wants to veto the almost $1 billion concessional loan to the Adani Carmichael mine. Credit:AAP/ Darren England

PwC acted for Adani on its application to the federal governments Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility for an almost $1 billion concessional loan for its rail link, and her partner was part of the PwC team.

Ms Palaszczuk accused federal LNP senators of circulating rumours of a "conflict of interest" and said she would exercise the Queensland government's veto of the NAIF loan to remove doubt of any perception of a conflict of interest.
The most striking difference, though, is not in the physical landscape but the mental one. "Sometimes people don't know their mother's birthday, but we have to know [the leaders'] birthdays." Credit:AP "Sometimes people don't know their mother's birthday, but we have to know their [the leaders'] birthdays," she says. "North Korean people cannot compare with others. There is no internet or information. Just about Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung, that's why, when Kim Jong-il died, you saw all the people crying ... It is true, 50 per cent of North Korea people believe everything." Eunhee now believes much of what she was taught was lies. But getting to this point has been a very long journey. "When I was 18 years old I decided I would escape my country because my grandma told me, 'if you want to have freedom and if you want to live like a human being, you can escape your country'," she says.

Her grandparents had a more open outlook than most. They visited relatives in China, and had a glimpse of a world outside of the secretive regime. American and South Korean movies were smuggled in on the black market and watched furtively. A dangerous crossing These small glimpses were enough to spark Eunhee's desire to escape. Once she had made the decision to flee, she distanced herself from her family to avoid suspicion. Four years later, at 22, she engaged a people smuggler. "It is true, 50 per cent of North Korea people believe everything." Credit:AP "I had a dream to go to other countries," she says. "It was OK, even if I died. Even if police caught me and killed me, it doesn't matter, I must go."

One night, wearing only the clothes on her back, she crossed the dangerous Yalu river at the border with China. Water reached her shoulders as she crossed with four other people, including an infant. "The baby started to cry, I was so worried because I thought the soldier would hear her crying and he would shoot his gun," she said. What followed was a seven-day journey through China via taxi, truck and track. The group hid in the secret compartment of a truck, where she was sexually harassed. "[There] were some guys ... three guys approached us and touched us but we couldn't say anything, we couldn't scream," she said. "Maybe the police would catch us and we'd go back to North Korea ... It was a terrible and horrible time for me."

Women for sale Sokeel Park is the South Korean country director at an organisation called Liberty in North Korea, which helps extricate refugees from North Korea, through China and reintegrate them once they've reached South Korea. He says 70 per cent of defectors are women, who are often left out of the workforce in North Korea's patriarchal society and relegated to the home. Sokeel Park is the South Korea country director of Liberty in North Korea. It gives them the opportunity to create their own source of income in black market trades. The other tragic reason for the large number of female defectors, he says, is that North Korean women are sometimes sold to Chinese men. For some it's a way out.

In her desperation to leave North Korea, it was an option Eunhee considered. But Eunhee's journey did not end in China. On the secret mountain track into Laos, Eunhee wondered if she'd made the right decision. "At the time I wanted to go back to North Korea because I couldn't imagine it was so hard," she said. She pressed ahead, and the trail led to Thailand, where she was jailed while waiting to be granted refugee status. "We stayed with real criminals," she says. "We wanted to fight with [the Thai authorities] but we don't have citizenship." After 50 days the group was taken to a South Korean detention centre. They stayed for three months.

"The [South Korean] government checked how we lived in North Korea and if one of us was a spy," she says. Blade runners and coffee After that it was another three months of de-conditioning, with North Korean refugees being taught history, how to use a computer and "Konglish", a version of Korean language which includes Americanisms. Sokeel says that for a North Korean, a Western city looks like "a nicer version of Blade Runner". "Some North Korean friends have described it as like coming out of a time machine to a future version of society," he adds.

"If you are from a provincial city, even more so if you are from rural Korea, you are looking at like 100 years back in time, in the towns, maybe it's like South Korea in the '60s or '70s." In Melbourne, Eunhee works in a cafe, but she did not learn how to order a coffee until her retraining in South Korea. She had to learn what a macchiato was, and a cappuccino. "We cannot remember everything because everything was new for us," she said. "I wanted to say, 'I'm a North Korean, even if North Koreans don't have information, I can do everything'." Credit:Nicole Precel "Six months I stayed with the government program and finally I got freedom in South Korea, but also I don't have time to think about a new country and new life." Eunhee says leaving North Korea has had its challenges.

Used to eating rice, kimchi, pork and fish, she had to get used to Western foods and beef (cattle are considered a working animal used only in farming). "We cannot eat American food in North Korea, because America is our enemy," she says. She has also enjoyed the trees in Melbourne. "Here there's a lot of nature, there are no trees [in Wonsan] because people use trees to make fire to cook," she said. Sokeel says LiNK helps defectors with the challenges they face, but also helps "fulfil their potential as agents of change".

"[Defectors] are an irreplaceable source of information and advocacy," he says. Isolation and ignorance Eunhee is often frustrated with misconceptions and closed-mindedness within Australia when it comes to North Korea and its population of 25 million people. "Sometimes it made me angry and upset, because [people] have to know that North Korea is also a country, there is a middle class and rich people, but they just [talk] about its poverty," she said. "That's why I came out and I wanted to say, 'I'm a North Korean, even if North Koreans don't have information, I can do everything'."

Sokeel says although the country is cut off, there are ways to re-establish contact with family and even send money. "They are speaking on Chinese mobile phones, being able to have these illicit phones, that information is accelerating economic and social change inside the country. We see those things happening and we think those things are  empowering the North Korean people for broader change in the long term," he said. Eunhee has only spoken to her grandma over the phone once, three years ago. "I didn't say anything. She cried, then I cried and she didn't even understand my talking because my accent and my pronunciation had changed," she said. Her grandma often appears in her dreams. "I miss her so much, I want to say, 'I love you and thank you for growing me for 20 years'," she said.
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Talk about an exciting Prospect!

Park Slope straphangers cheered the reopening of the R lines Prospect Avenue subway station on Thursday, which returned with a snazzy new look that commuters said was worth the nearly five-month-long wait.

Its a sight to behold, said Daren Ingram, who has lived near the stop for 29 years. Definitely money well spent. It looks fabulous!

Officials from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority allocated $72.1 million to refurbish several stations along the R line, including Prospect Avenue, which closed for repairs in June.

Riders who visited on its reopening day found a panoply of new digital displays showing travel advisories and train times  including monitors installed above the stairs leading from the street to the underground platforms  along with high-speed wireless internet and cell-phone-charging ports, upgrades that another commuter compared to modern marvels.

Im not going to lie, said Sunset Park resident Jose Tapia. It looks like the future.

Workers also installed sleek awnings above the stations entrances and waist-high benches on the platforms that fatigued straphangers can lean on and catch their breath.

First impression: Sleek awnings now cover the stops entrances. Community News Group / Colin Mixson

And a Brooklyn-based artist designed mosaics that decorate both the Bay Ridge and Manhattan-bound platforms and portray nearby destinations such as Sunset Parks Bush Terminal, which she hopes inspire riders to explore the borough.

I want them to connect where they are and where they can go, said Monika Bravo.

But perhaps the most remarkable upgrade is that the once dingy station is now brightly illuminated and  for the time being  pretty clean, according to Ingram.

Before it was dark, dank, scary, now its well lit, he said. Dude, Im super excited.

Other riders were less thrilled by the cosmetic enhancements, however, arguing that the money should have been spent to ensure the trains arrive on schedule and run smoothly.

Fixing the signal system and the service aspect of getting on the train are important, said Reyda Van, who lives near the Prospect Avenue stop. I want to get to work and get moving.

Reach reporter Colin Mixson at cmixs on@cn gloca l.com or by calling (718) 260-4505.
Russia's bailed-out bank Otkritie will not repay $500 million of loans raised in Ireland, potentially making it harder for other Russian private banks to borrow abroad and casting a cloud over Dublin as a "shadow banking" hub.

Otkritie's refusal to pay sees shockwaves from Russia's biggest ever bank bailout reach Ireland, which has been used by international firms including Russian banks to raise hundreds of billions of euros in such loans.

In a stock-exchange filing on Tuesday, OFCB, a vehicle that had issued $300 million of loan notes and lent the proceeds to Otkritie, said the Russian bank had "terminated" the repayment of the debt and more than $7 million of interest.

BKM Finance, another vehicle that borrowed $200 million on behalf of Otkritie, made a similar filing on Oct. 27, saying the bank could not repay the money and interest of $4.7 million.

A spokeswoman for Otkritie said it had "grounds to terminate its obligations related to subordinated instruments" and that it had acted in accordance with the law.

Russia's central bank, which orchestrated a multi-billion dollar rescue of Otkritie after a run on the bank, had earlier warned that subordinated debt could be hit.

OFCB has issued a further $500 million of subordinated debt, according to Otkritie's website, although the status of this was not immediately clear.

Otkritie's fall was dramatic for a group that, with support from President Vladimir Putin's inner circle, snapped up rivals and even Lukoil's diamond business to become Russia's biggest private bank.

"As Russia is gearing to raise more capital through international bonds ... this may well dampen investors' appetite for Russian assets," Anastasia Nesvetailova, an expert in financial crises at London's City University, said.

Sergey Dergachev, a bond investor with Germany's Union Investment, said he feared others could suffer a similar fate.

"If global economic conditions worsen, what will happen to Russia and its banks? I think the chances of seeing more subordinated debt out of Russian banks are slim."

Also potentially at stake is Ireland's shadow banking system, which has boomed since the financial crisis and given groups such as hedge funds increasing clout in global finance.

The International Monetary Fund and Financial Stability Board, which monitors the financial system, have highlighted concerns over Ireland's outsized financial sector.

The country is one of the euro zone's largest centres for financial special purpose vehicles, according to central bank data, many of which are used to borrow by international groups.

The sector had total assets such as loans of 345 billion euros in the middle of this year - bigger than the Irish economy. Russian companies have sponsored 14% of those vehicles in Ireland.

But fund raising by companies such as Otkritie, poses a potential threat to Ireland's standing, said James Stewart of Trinity College Dublin who has written a report on the issue.

"In terms of Ireland's reputation, these cases indicate a problem," said Stewart.

"It reveals the absence of regulation and oversight of this important market. They create a systemic risk, if not to Ireland, then internationally."

The Irish Stock Exchange, which listed the debt, declined to comment, while a spokeswoman for Ireland's central bank said the debt issues were restricted to "qualified investors" and that it had approved the prospectuses.

"The veracity of that information is the responsibility of the issuer and its directors," said a spokeswoman.

The Irish law underpinning special purpose vehicles was created by the government in the early 1990s to build an international financial services centre in a then derelict part of Dublin, a central plank to the country's economy and success.

Many vehicles are shell companies set up to borrow and critics, including Stewart, say similar conduits hosted by Ireland helped trigger bank problems in Germany during the financial crisis.

However, lobbyists, lawyers and many government officials want to keep the regime to attract business from London after Britain leaves the European Union. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Aer Lingus owner IAG said it was aiming for annual core earnings around 20% higher than previous targets on Friday as it stuck to its goals for earning-per-share growth and margins for the coming years.

IAG shares rose 1.7% after it said that it was targeting core earnings (EBITDAR) of 6.5 billion euros per year between 2018-2022, compared to a goal of an annual 5.3 billion euros between 2016-2020.

For the same period, the airlines group also provided higher targets for capital expenditure and capacity growth, measured in available seat kilometres (ASK) - a key metric for airlines.

IAG, which also owns Iberia, Aer Lingus and Vueling, a week ago said it expected profits to rise by nearly 20% this year. On Friday its senior management will update analysts at a capital markets day (CMD).

The group stuck to its target for return on invested capital (ROIC), which one analyst said was a disappointment.

"No increase in ROIC target of 15%, which is disappointing and we expect todays CMD to focus on how profit guidance is being raised but no lift to the return target," analysts at Goodbody said in a note.

The group said it was still targeting average EPS growth of over 12% each year, and its target for an annual operating profit margin between 12-15% was also unchanged. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Theres no question about it, wealth management is a crucial practice for every business and individual alike. While some businesses decide to invest in wealth management software to monitor the money they have, other businesses choose to invest on the basis of supervising financial activities. Businesses are then able to make informed decisions based on the valuable insights provided by their wealth manager to better the business and plan how to face risks. For more information on why you should invest in wealth management services, carry on reading.

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Large corporations are likely to have little, if any time at all, to develop a strategic development plan. But, wealth management services do! For your investments to be successful, it is crucial to create an accurate roadmap based on your current financial status. From here, you can set realistic goals and objectives for the business. While comprehensive wealth management involves strategic planning abilities, it also serves as the framework of your goals. Long-term goals especially, will identify the step you have to follow to meet your target, helping the business to grow and develop.

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Without a doubt, the comparison mate between your goals and current financial status is necessary to help you plan your actions carefully. A gap analysis enables you to evaluate your resources, and identifies the strengths and weakness of your plan so you can adjust it accordingly to avoid serious risks. As well as avoiding risks, a gap analysis will ensure that you are prepared for the deals you will be forced to confront to reach your ultimate goal. Without the help of a wealth management service, businesses may find it a challenge to correlate their financial status against their goals.

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In order for wealth management services to be effective, wealth managers require an in-depth understanding of the level of risk you are willing to take, including the extent of loss you can afford to suffer. The investments in your portfolio may involve a variety of risks, from the type of investments you hold to where your money is invested. Since some investments will take longer to be cashed in than others, your wealth manager should also be aware of if and when you may require access to part or all of your money, in order to build a successful investment portfolio.
U.S. President Donald Trump's @realdonaldtrump Twitter account was deactivated by a Twitter Inc employee who was leaving the company on Thursday and was down for 11 minutes before it was restored, the social media company said.

Trump has 41.7 million followers on Twitter and has made extensive use of it to send messages attacking his opponents and promoting his policies, both during the 2016 presidential campaign and since taking office in January.

"We have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer-support employee who did this on the employee's last day. We are conducting a full internal review," Twitter said in a tweet.

"We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again," the company said in an earlier tweet.

A Twitter representative declined to comment further.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In his first tweet after Thursday's outage, Trump wrote, "Great Tax Cut rollout today. The lobbyists are storming Capital Hill, but the Republicans will hold strong and do what is right for America!"

Thursday evening's incident raises a host of questions about how Twitter secures Trump's personal account, the official @potus presidential account and other accounts that could potentially influence world events.

It comes at a moment when technology companies, including Twitter, face sharp attack from U.S. lawmakers for failing to stem the spread of Russian propaganda and misinformation on their platforms.

Twitter, in particular, has long faced criticism for not doing enough to police its platform and respond to complaints of abuse.

The temporary deletion of the Trump account sparked a flood of criticism on Twitter itself. Reuters could not determine how many Twitter employees had the authority to delete accounts or tamper with them in in other ways, such as by sending counterfeit Tweets.

Twitter declined to provide further details. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Members of the Lincoln firefighters union donated about 1,000 American-made winter coats, along with stocking caps and gloves, to students at two local elementary schools this week.

The firefighters delivered the clothes to Everett Elementary, 1123 C St., on Wednesday and Huntington Elementary, 2900 N. 46th St., on Thursday.

This is the fourth year Lincoln firefighters have donated coats to local schools. They began fundraising for the program themselves in 2014 after being denied several grants in previous years.

Earlier recipients included students at Elliott, Clinton, Hartley and McPhee elementary schools.

"These firefighters give their lives to the community and continually work to serve the citizens on duty and off," the union said in a news release from its president, Ron Trouba. "This is just another way for them to give back."
Long, snaking lines formed outside Apple Inc stores in Asia early on Friday as fans flocked to buy the new iPhone X, a turnout that contrasts with the more lacklustre launches for the past two iterations of the premium smartphone.

Strong initial demand underscores Apple's upbeat sales forecast for the year-end holiday shopping season, provided just hours before iPhone X sales began.

In Australia, around 400 people queued outside Apple's flagship store in central Sydney to pay A$1,579 for the 10th-anniversary model, a glass-and-stainless-steel device that Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook billed as "the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone."

Just 30 people turned up for the September release of the iPhone 8, an incremental update of the iPhone 7.

"It's beautiful bro, what a feeling, I'm excited," builder Bishoy Behman, 18, told Reuters after picking up two iPhone X as the first in line. He said he camped outside the store for a week before paying to improve his place in the queue overnight.

The iPhone X comes a decade after the original iPhone, the product that powered Apple's rise to become the world's biggest technology company with a market capitalisation of $868 billion.

The firm opened pre-orders on Oct. 27 and has said demand was "off the charts." The handset features an edge-to-edge display designed for deeper colour rendition and an innovative camera for face-recognition identification.

Analysts have expressed concern that supply issues might stop Apple satisfying early demand. The camera, for instance, has never before been manufactured in the volume Apple demands.

Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri told Reuters on Thursday that Apple was "quite happy" with how manufacturing of the iPhone X was progressing.

"Production is growing every week, and that's very, very important during a ramp period," he said.

In Apple's Omotesando store in Tokyo, some 550 people were waiting in a line stretching to around 600 metres.

"I'm going home, and after having a rest, I'd like to have fun (with the phone)," said first-in-line Yamaura, a 21-year-old college student who spent six days in the queue.

In Singapore, two tourists from Thailand - which is not an initial launch market - were the first to receive pre-ordered phones at a flagship store in the Orchard shopping district.

Arbitrage traders were also in line in an attempt to take advantage of the strong demand. In Hong Kong, some buyers quickly resold iPhone X handsets for a profit, but the resale premium eased as waiting times fell and supply concerns eased.

Newly purchased iPhone X were reselling for HK$11,800 soon after sales began, but the price quickly fell to HK$10,300, a trader told Reuters. In mainland China - where Hong Kong traders often sell newly purchased goods - the anniversary model's starting price is 8,388 yuan.

K Yip in Hong Kong told Reuters his chain of small telecoms shops bought around 500 iPhone Xs for resale, mostly to mainland Chinese, but said the iPhone buzz was not as frenzied as before.

China iPhone sales have sagged in recent years as consumers switch to cheaper phones, while China becoming a launch market has hit demand for Hong Kong handsets.

"People in China can just go online to order, so there's less demand (in Hong Kong)," Yip said.

Zhou Ying, a Beijing-based iPhone trader since 2010, echoed the sentiment.

"It is getting harder and harder for us to scalp iPhones. It is not the same as before," Zhou said, adding she bought two at a premium of 300 yuan and hoped to make several hundred yuan in profit through resale.

Lines also started to form outside Apple's New York City stores on Thursday evening, with a salesperson at one shop in the Upper West Side telling Reuters about 20 people had queued up so far.

The most immediately noticeable change to the iPhone X from previous models is the removal of the physical home button and fingerprint sensor formerly used for unlocking. Instead, the iPhone X is unlocked with a so-called Face ID system, in which the user looks into a depth-sensing camera.

"I thought not having a home button would be an adjustment, but the new gestures are easy to learn and very natural," IT worker Greg Johnson told Reuters after testing his new phone in Sydney. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
CK Asset Holdings Ltd., controlled by 89-year-old Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, plans to sell The Center, the citys fifth-tallest building, to C.H.M.T. Peaceful Development Asia Property Ltd. for HK$40.2 billion ($5.15 billion). Photo: Visual China

Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing has agreed to sell a downtown skyscraper in one of the worlds biggest real estate deals ever, the latest in a series of Hong Kong and Chinese-mainland divestitures by the self-made mogul.

CK Asset Holdings Ltd., controlled by Li, plans to sell The Center, the citys fifth-tallest building, to consortium C.H.M.T. Peaceful Development Asia Property Ltd. for HK$40.2 billion ($5.15 billion), according to a Hong Kong Stock Exchange filing late Wednesday.

The sale is set to be the largest-ever of an office complex in the Asia-Pacific region. In October 2016, Lis Cheung Kong Property Holdings and Li Ka Shing (Overseas) Foundation sold their combined 100% stake in Shanghais Century Link Complex to a China Life Insurance Co. subsidiary for 20 billion yuan ($2.95 billion at the time).

The Qatar Investment Authority set the previous record in the region in July 2016 when it acquired Asia Square Tower 1 in Singapore for $2.45 billion, according to global real estate services firm JLL. The Center deal also approaches BlackRock Realtys world record-setting $5.4 billion purchase of two New York City properties in 2006.

CK Asset Holdings Ltd.'s planned $5.15 billion sale of The Center, Hong Kong's fifth-tallest building, will be the largest ever for an office complex in the Asia-Pacific region. Photo: Visual China

Located in Hong Kongs Central district, The Center, with 73 floors, has nearly 1.4 million square feet of floor space, and features an unusual all-steel structure without a concrete core.

CK Asset Holdings will receive HK$14.5 billion once the sale closes, the company said.

The buyer is a British Virgin Islands-registered company controlled by state-owned China Energy Reserve and Chemicals Group, which owns a 55% stake, according to Hong Kong media reports.

Lis culling of his portfolio in Hong Kong and on the mainland hasnt been limited to real estate assets. In July, his Hutchison Telecommunications sold its fixed-line phone subsidiary Hutchison Global Communications to a U.S. buyer for HK$14.5 billion.

Contact reporter Teng Jing Xuan (jingxuanteng@caixin.com)
Ma Desheng has been recognized as one of "the protagonists" of an artistic awakening that dawned during the tumultuous Cultural Revolution, said Dai Haoshi, a former curator for the Guimet Museum in Paris, home of one of the worlds largest Asian art collections. Photo: Andrew Cohen/ ArtAsiaPacific.com

Artist Ma Desheng was born in Beijing in 1952 and stricken with polio at a young age. Despite partial paralysis, he graduated from middle school and took a job at an electronics plant. Later, during the Cultural Revolution, he worked as a draftsman.

Ma yearned for something more out of life. Deep inside this young draftsman on crutches was an artists heart aching for an expressive outlet. He followed his heart, refusing to surrender to physical limitations.

Ma was particularly fascinated by Western oil paintings and wood carvings. He learned to paint, carve and write. Soon, the young Ma found himself a career path that carried him through the Cultural Revolution and shaped a successful, yet tragic, life as a popular artist.

An acrylic and mixed media piece titled Freedom in Nature by Ma Desheng. The piece was auctioned by Christies Hong Kong in 2012 and had an opening price of HK$212,500 ($27,230). The final bid price is unknown. Photo: Christies.com

In 1979, Ma and his fellow artist Huang Rui sponsored a small, outdoor exhibition for a few guests along an iron fence near the National Art Museum in Beijing. They hung several paintings and wood carvings on the fence and called the exhibition The Stars.

Word of the exhibition quickly spread, and soon the capital city was buzzing about the messages on that iron fence. The media praised the artworks and extolled Ma as a new standard-bearer for modern Chinese fine art.

Ma pursued various mediums of self-expression. He wrote an existential short story set in a desert called The Skinny Wretch. He produced woodblock prints based on the everyday struggles of common people: One depicted an exhausted garbage collector rolling a cigarette. In another, a peasant on his knees raises his hands to the sky.

During the Cultural Revolution, artistic self-expression and unorthodox ideas were severely criticized, and even punishable by internment and hard labor, according to a Ma retrospective written by arts reviewer Andrew Cohen for the March-April 2014 issue of Arts Asia Pacific magazine. Throughout this societal upheaval of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ma maintained a stony, conformist exterior while secretly honing a more radical sensibility with like-minded confidants.

In fact, Cohen wrote, Ma and his circle of artists and poet friends held underground meetings in dimly lit and smoke-filled hutong flats.

Ma explained: We kept our work at home, hidden. When we had girls pose as naked models, we would put black curtains over the windows so no one could see. If there was a knock on the door, the girl rushed to put her clothes on.

We lived under constant fear, moral pressure, Ma said. Theirs was a fear of being criticized and arrested.

Ma and Huang are recognized today as the protagonists of an artistic awakening that dawned during the tumultuous Cultural Revolution, said Dai Haoshi, a former curator for the Guimet Museum in Paris, home of one of the worlds largest Asian art collections.

The iron fence exhibition was taken down after two days by the local police and was not exhibited (again) until August 20, 1980, Dai said. But this time, the exhibition was finally held inside a gallery.

The gallery exhibit attracted more than 40,000 visitors within 10 days. It was the first, avant-garde art exhibition held in China since the Cultural Revolution.

Subsequently, Ma and Huang were invited by other artists to visit them in more than 20 big cities nationwide. As their popularity grew, they were invited to join a variety of debates and forums.

People noticed that a new art genre was being put forward, Dai said. It was spontaneous and irreversible.

At one street-side event, Ma faced a large crowd while leaning on his crutches and delivered a passionate speech. My compatriots! he said. What do our farmer brothers fill their stomachs with? They feed themselves merely with cabbage stalks!

Like many Chinese artists of his generation, Ma hungered for the kind of formal training denied during the Cultural Revolution years when art schools were forced to close. Earning a graduate degree would have given him an opportunity to work as an official, salaried artist.

In 1977, Ma applied to the then-recently re-established Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts. But entry was denied.

One reason for the rejection, Ma explains, was due to my handicap. The other was because I was a very liberal thinker.

Love and loss

Undeterred and with a sense of artistic destiny, Ma pressed forward with a personal training program. He relied on skills he learned as a factory draftsman to improve his talents as a woodblock printer. He did not surrender.

Ma was known to be straightforward, even tactless. He liked to drink, and whenever he got drunk he would become erratic and sometimes harmlessly bite the shoulders and arms of his companions.

Mas behavior drew attention from a group of foreigners living Beijing. They grew fond of his art and enjoyed his company. Among expatriates in the Chinese capital there was a saying when youre here in Beijing, go see the Great Wall first and then come see Ma Desheng.

Ma liked to dress in green military uniforms and wear shoulder-length hair, even though his appearance prevented him from being allowed to dine in at least one fancy restaurant.

As the story goes, Ma told a restaurant doorman who refused him, I am only here for a bowl of noodles. The doorman joked back, then go back to the Chongwenmen street food stands, please. But before he could go, the restaurant manager arrived and recognized the artist, who happened to be his personal guest.

Ma moved to Paris, where he lives today, in 1986. He was the first Chinese ink painter to have an exhibition sponsored by French Ministry of Culture. Ma has also continued writing, focusing on poetry.

Ma met his longtime companion Barbara Holesten in 1990 at a New York gallery that was hosting a Chinese painters exhibition.

Holesten was an attractive and wealthy German-American psychiatrist in her early 30s. She was also an art collector who frequented galleries.

Holesten and Ma communicated in French, their common language, and fell in love. Soon, they were living together in a New York apartment.

A devoted companion, Holesten left her office and returned to their apartment every noontime to prepare Mas lunch. She then went back to work.

Barbara wanted to marry, but Ma refused. He doubted he could earn enough in New York to be their breadwinner, and he did not want to financially rely on her. True, he could support himself by selling paintings in Europe. But the American market was different. They remained unmarried.

Once during a trip to a topless beach in Greece, Holesten asked Ma to strip and walk with her on the beach. At first, he was reluctant. But after she said I think your body is beautiful, he assented.

In 1992, Barbara bought a car specially equipped for a disabled driver and gave it to Ma. Later, on a highway during a road trip to Miami, their vehicle was struck head-on by a pickup. Barbara died instantly. Ma lost his legs.

Today, Ma lives in a Paris apartment and needs daily care. Only his hands function normally. Yet he can still use his hands to create.

In 2002, Ma completed several new, acrylic-on-canvas works depicting human figures with snow-like textures and traditional ink styles. He had not surrendered. He still has not.

Translation and additional reporting by Cai Tong Xu
Full convertibility will essentially increase the number of shares available for sale as H-shares in Hong Kong, as currently nonlisted domestic shares get added. Some analysts say a larger supply will keep a lid on H-share prices, but others predict the opposite. Photo: Visual China

As full convertibility of H-shares is back on the table now, market participants remain divided over what it will do the Hong Kong stock market.

Chinas State Council is considering letting two Chinese mainland companies freely convert nonlisted domestic shares into H-shares traded on the Hong Kong stock exchange, sources told Caixin Wednesday. The move is seen as China further loosening its grip on the financial market and allowing more foreign participation.

Such policy will essentially increase the number of shares available for sale as H-shares in Hong Kong, as currently nonlisted domestic shares are added to the pool. Some analysts say more supply may keep a lid on H-share prices, although others say the opposite  that H-share prices could rise now that investors can gain greater control of mainland firms, even if they are only buying H-shares.

Its obvious it (H-share convertibility) will have a positive effect, said Hong Hao, managing director and chief strategist at BOCOM International, the Hong Kong brokerage arm of Bank of Communications.

The full convertibility of H-shares will give investors the opportunity to obtain a so-called control premium  the amount a buyer is willing to pay above the market price to gain a controlling share in the company  and that will increase H-share valuations.

Most H-share companies have a large portion of nontradeable shares, which are held by founders and major shareholders. The percentage of nontradeable shares for mainland firms listed in Hong Kong often account for over half of a companys total share capital.

Currently, converting unlisted domestic shares to H-shares requires approval from the general shareholders meeting before getting the go-ahead from the China Securities Regulatory Commission and Hong Kongs exchange operator.

The proposed pilot program would increase the volume and velocity of H-share trades, a manager at a Chinese-invested fund in Hong Kong told Caixin. Share turnover rates for H-shares are between 40-50%, while mature stock markets have rates around 100%, he said, adding that share turnover for A-shares listed in the mainland can reach 200%.

But not all market watchers are positive about the benefits of floating unlisted shares.

Many H-share holders are sitting on a massive portion of a companys shares. If convertibility is allowed, there will be too much supply, which will result in large market adjustments, said Tan Shaoxing, chairman of the Hong Kong Institute of Investors, a nonprofit investor protection group.

The enormous amount of money involved in nontradeable shares means it might be difficult for these shareholders to reduce their holdings in the secondary market, said Zhang Xionglue, a researcher at Hong Kong Feng Sheng Asset Management.

I can see a situation where these major shareholders will reduce holdings through block trades  privately negotiated transactions  rather than selling to retail investors on the exchange, Zhang said.

Contact reporter Liu Xiao (liuxiao@caixin.com)
November 3, 2017 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada

Under the new Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today announced targeted sanctions against 52 individuals.

The sanctions target individuals who are, in the opinion of the Government of Canada, responsible for, or complicit in, gross violations of internationally recognized human rights or acts of significant corruption.

These sanctions place an asset freeze in Canada on all listed people, and render listed persons as inadmissible to Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
Without legacy systems to drag down their efforts, companies in emerging marketand China, in particularmay be poised to outpace U.S. and European counterparts developing InsurTech innovations.

Unencumbered by legacy systems, technology innovators in emerging markets are often able to create new solutions faster, Willis Towers Watson suggests in its Quarterly InsurTech Briefing for the third-quarter 2017, published by the global advisory and brokerage firm in collaboration with CB Insights.

The emerging markets businesses are also able to attract intellectual and financial capital from partnerships unseen in developed, heavily regulated countries with high penetration of insurance products.

And both technology and business models are exportable, said Rafal Walkiewicz, CEO of Willis Towers Watson Securities, in a video introducing the reports main ideas.

China, he said, is the worlds third largest insurance market. And the Chinese insurance revolution has led to both new mainstream products and new distribution models. Tech giants are making further waves with new digital distribution platforms like Taobao Insurance, he said.

The report describes Taobao Insurance as the insurance distribution platform of Taobao, which is Alibabas e-commerce platform, explaining that booming e-commerce in China is creating demand for new nonlife products, such as product return insurance.

Retailers in China had not historically offered free shipping for product returns, but growing e-commerce activity fueled the need for a free-return policy reimbursing merchants for shipping costs, providing added security to consumers that would increase sales. Taobao, established a partnership with Chinese insurer Huatai P&C, to introduce the first free-return shipping insurance product in China. According to the report, Huatai P&C was able to leverage data from Taobaos historical e-commerce transactions to develop a pricing model, which is further supported by the insurers risk management capabilities.

In 2016, the total e-commerce market in China grew 31 percent to exceed $700 billion, the report said, noting that increasing mobile penetration and a continued transition of retail sales to e-commerce will continue the growth trajectory.

Taobao Insurance now offers a variety of insurance products to Taobaos large customer base, which includes 529 million monthly active users through partnerships with more than 40 insurers in China, including Ping An, Taikang, AIG China and others. According to Willis Towers Watson, products include motor, A&H, travel, property and life insurance.

The report also refers to the role that Alibaba played in forming Zhong An, Chinas first online-only insurer established in 2013 by Ping An, Tencent and Alibaba in 2013. Zhong An is now one of only four companies nationwide in China to receive a license from the CIRC to sell insurance products online.

Zhong An, which also distributes free-return insurance through Taobao and Huatai P&C, offers more than 240 niche products. All are distributed digitally, mostly through the online platforms of the companys many ecosystem partners, the report says.

Zhong An has raised over $2.4 billion of capital to date, including its recent $1.5 billion IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (at a valuation in excess of $10 billion) in September 2017 and its $931 million Series A round funded by several private equity investors in 2015.

At one point, the report also notes that Chubb is repositioning its China strategy, beginning with its long-term preferred provider distribution agreement established in 2016 with Suning Commerce, the third largest e-commerce company in China.

Overall, the report demonstrates that InsurTech investment continues to increase in Emerging Asia. Although total InsurTech funding volume fell 68 percent to $312 million in the third quarter of 2017, compared to a record level of $985 million tallied by CB Insights for the second quarter, 48 property/casualty and life/health transactions in the third quarter represented the third most transactions completed in any quarter to dateand six companies in Emerging Asia, including three companies in China, raised capital during the third quarter.

Hong Kong-based insurance comparison platform CompareAsiaGroups $50 million round was the largest transaction in the third quarter.

The three China-based start-ups raised capital in the third-quarter, which was more than any country outside of the U.S. They included an online distribution platform leveraging big data to personalize group insurance products for small to midsized employers, a medical insurance platform for critical illness and a software provider that uses blockchain to streamline underwriting processes and manage risks for commercial and personal insurers.
Contact:

In Atlanta, Soyia Ellison, soyia.ellison@cartercenter.org

In Atlanta, Deanna Congileo, deanna.congileo@cartercenter.org

In New York, Daniel Mule, daniel.mule@cartercenter.org

In Brussels, Elisabeth Caesens, coordo@congomines.org

En francais

ATLANTA  The Carter Center today released the first part of a comprehensive report, A State Affair: Privatizing Congos Copper Sector, which is the culmination of years of research on the contractual and financial practices of the Democratic Republic of Congos state-owned mining company, Gecamines, and its most important investment partners.

The analysis is based on 200 interviews and a review of over 100 mining contracts, at least 1,000 corporate documents, and data from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative covering 20072014.

The first installment details how Congos state-owned copper broker, Gecamines, is operating as a parallel state. It documents how Gecamines has been able to use its privileged position to generate US$1.1 billion from copper and cobalt deals between 2011 and 2014. Nearly two-thirds of these revenues  or US$750 million  cannot be reliably tracked to its accounts. Key findings include:

Gecamines control of the countrys best mining permits has allowed it to act as the primary gatekeeper to Congos most desirable mining assets over the past two decades. A detailed analysis of mining registry data shows the company still holds approximately 100 exploitation permits, beyond the limits set forth in the countrys mining code, likely ensuring that Gecamines will maintain its gatekeeper status.

This privileged position has enabled Gecamines to generate substantial revenues from its partnerships, averaging US$262 million per year in royalties, bonuses, and other contractual fees from 2009 to 2014. Those revenues are not directed to the public treasury, and they are largely beyond the realm of public oversight.

While Gecamines has asserted that these revenues would contribute to its planned revival of mining production, in practice they appear to have been mainly used for other purposes. Nearly two-thirds of the US$1.1 billion the company was contractually entitled to between 2011 and 2014 cannot be reliably tracked to Gecamines accounts. This raises significant questions about the actual destination of Gecamines income.

Prior to both the 2006 and 2011 elections, deal-making by state-owned mining companies accelerated, generating significant proceeds that have been difficult to trace. As the country faces a period in which critical elections are supposed to take place, conditions are ripe for additional unreported sales and revenue diversion. It is troubling that Gecamines has refused to publish contracts for several mining deals that may have generated more than half a billion dollars in 2016-2017.

Though the DRC is rich in natural resources, its people are among the poorest in world. Despite billions of dollars in private investment in the extractive sector, the proceeds have thus far generated limited public benefits. The Carter Centers report presents recommendations to improve Gecamines transparency and accountability so that the company better contributes to the development of the DRC and the welfare of the Congolese people.

The DRC has the potential to overcome the legacy of mismanagement and corruption that has plagued its extractive industries, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter wrote in the reports foreword. I call on political leaders to work with the private sector, civil society, the international community, and others to ensure responsible stewardship of the DRCs natural resources.

In coming weeks, The Carter Center will release four case studies as part of A State Affair, focusing on some of the DRCs most important mining projects. These studies illustrate the overall trends of the sector in greater detail and shine a light on the decisions and practices that have deprived the DRC and its people of many of the benefits of Gecamines deal-making.

View full report >

Translations

Le Centre Carter publie un rapport exhaustif sur la societe miniere etatique du Congo et ses partenaires dinvestissement



Affaire dEtat : Privatisation du secteur du cuivre en Republique Democratique du Congo (PDF)

###

"Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope."

A not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization, The Carter Center has helped to improve life for people in over 80 countries by resolving conflicts; advancing democracy, human rights, and economic opportunity; preventing diseases; and improving mental health care. The Carter Center was founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, in partnership with Emory University, to advance peace and health worldwide.
Photo: YLW Most flights in and out of Kelowna have been cancelled Thursday night.

UPDATE: 8:10 p.m.

As the heavy snow and wind have caused havoc on mountain highways, local flights continue to be impacted by the storm.

Most of the departures and arrivals at Kelowna International Airport have been cancelled or delayed Thursday night.

YLW posted to Twitter just before 4 p.m. that there were several delays and cancellations today, and these have continued through the evening.

While many flights in and out of the airport are cancelled this evening, all morning flights are still expected to arrive on time and only three morning departures are currently cancelled.

ORIGINAL: 9:30 a.m.

Three departing flights at Kelowna International Airport were cancelled Thursday morning.

Air Canada Flight 8413 from Kelowna to Vancouver, Pacific Coastal flight 1522 from Kelowna to Victoria, and Air Canada flight 8410 to Vancouver were cancelled.

"The Cancellations are due to visibility and wind direction," said YLW communications director Jasmine Patrick.

Four flights arriving at YLW have also been delayed: flight 1521 from Victoria, 8398 from Vancouver, 3318 from Vancouver and flight 8401 from Calgary.

For more information on flights arriving and departing from YLW, click here.
If you have just started your journey in an online casino or are looking for a new site to play,...
Beumer appoint new director of customer support

03 November 2017

Beumer has appointed Guido Hesse, 50, as its new Director of Customer Support at the Beumer Group headquarters in Beckum, Germany. Mr Hesse controls and coordinates the global centre of competence and defines, together with his team, the technical and organisational principles of services and support for the Beumer products.



"We see our task not only in preventing malfunctions and machine breakdowns, which would lead to long downtimes," says Hesse. "No matter what industry, our customers have to meet the ever increasing market demands and improve the capacity of the equipment, for example. And we take care of this."



An industrial engineering graduate, Hesse's objective is to further advance the strategic development of his international team and ensure smooth communication between the different locations worldwide.



Since 2013 he has been working for Beumer Group. Prior to his appointment as director of Customer Support, he was managing director of the Mexican group company.

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It has become a familiar refrain from those that want to avoid any rational conversation about gun laws: What about Chicago? In the wake of the tragedy in Las Vegas, where 58 people were killed and hundreds were injured when Stephen Paddock opened fire on a concert from his Mandalay Bay suite, President Donald Trump and his surrogates were quick to dismiss calls for gun safety laws. Look at Chicago and all the gun violence! And thats the city with the strictest gun laws in America!

But the information we get on Chicagos violence is not always accurate. Because of all the false talking points, we took a look at what you really need to know about violence in Chicago and how it compares with other big cities.

Chicago hardly has the strictest gun laws

Speaking for the president following the incident in Las Vegas, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the following:

If you look to Chicago, where you had over 4,000 victims of gun-related crimes last year, they have the strictest gun laws in the country, Sanders said at a White House briefing. That certainly hasnt helped there.

Trump made similar points in the debates, and has followed that up on his Twitter account. According to Politifact, this rates somewhere from false to pants on fire. Thats thanks to Chicagos handgun ban being overruled by the Supreme Court in 2010 and Illinois passing concealed carry in 2012.

Because concealed carry applications are handled by the State of Illinois  while other major cities like New York and San Francisco handle applications on their own  its valid to argue that Chicago has less control on legal firearms than their big-city counterparts. Illinois, for its own part, doesnt require registration of firearms and restricts local jurisdictions (like Chicago) from enforcing such a law. The claims that Chicago has the most strict gun laws in America are simply not true.



Its not the most violent city (per capita)

Its no secret that Chicago saw a major murder spike in 2016. In total, 762 people were murdered within the city in 2016, which is up 59.4% over 2015. Gun violence makes up a large portion of that, as well. Nobody can argue against the facts.

But 2016 still didnt bring Chicago to title of Murder Capitol of America. When you consider the number of people murdered per 100,000, Chicago comes in at No. 8 with 27.9 people per 100,000. The cities where youre more likely to be murdered include Memphis, Newark, Cleveland, New Orleans, Detroit, Baltimore, and  coming in at No. 1 with 59.3 people murdered per 100,000  St. Louis.

Coming in at No. 8 is not really anything to brag about. But if you look at overall violence from 2011-2016, Chicago is even further down the list. During that five-year period, the Second City comes in at No. 12, with Detroit edging out St. Louis for the top spot. While Chicago has 18.4 murders per 100,000 people over that period, Detroit has a whopping 46.7.

Most illegal guns come from out of state

The other aspect of gun crime is that cities and states dont have rigid borders that are designed to keep out items brought in from other locations. Illinois  or any state  could ban guns all together, but if all the neighboring states had no restrictions, people would find a way. And thats exactly what is happning in Chicago, according to the Washington Post.

Between 2013 and 2016, six in 10 illegal guns recovered in Chicago came from outside Illinois, according to the report released Sunday. Neighboring Indiana was the state with the highest share of responsibility, with one in five illegal guns originating there, the report found.

When the Trump administration brings up how gun control hasnt created a reduction in violence in Chicago, its actually Vice President Mike Pences home state of Indiana that is a big part of the problem. But we cant point all the blame at Illinois neighbor to the east, because the same report stated that Wisconsin, Ohio, Mississippi, and Kentucky were also to blame. So while it could be argued that more strict gun laws wont work, the actual reason for it is the surrounding states with less-strict laws.

Gun violence is actually trending down

Even with all of that being known, the facts say that the rhetoric about Chicagos violence problem is overblown. The awful 2016 has been followed with progressive improvement in 2017, with eight consecutive months of decline in gun violence, according to ABC News. The month of October saw a 30% drop in murders from the previous year and a 34% drop in shootings. Overall, Chicago has seen a 10% reduction in murders.

According to Anthony Riccio, the chief of the Chicago police Organized Crime Bureau, this has a lot to do with a strategy known as predictive policing. It utilizes computer data and intel learned on the streets by officers to know where and when a crime may be committed.

Its been pretty accurate, said Riccio. All this information and analysis tells us where we believe were going to see violence. Its much more laser-focused than weve had in the past.

The black-on-black crime debate

For a lot of people wanting to take part in the discussion of violence in America, it always comes back to black-on-black crime. You want to discuss police brutality, but what about black-on-black crime? You want to discuss white nationalists and members of the Ku Klux Klan walking the streets in Charlottesville, Virginia, but what about black-on-black crime?

The argument is a thinly-veiled attempt at saying, You dont have a right to complain about injustice if you cant stop killing each other first. Which is incredibly wrong. Michael Harriot wrote in The Root about the falsehoods of the black-on-black crime narrative.

The reality is, in neighborhoods and cities across America, there are countless organizations, activists and movements dedicated to curbing violence in black communities. The number of Stop the Violence marches dwarfs the demonstrations against police brutality. Unity rallies and peace picnics happen every day. Scared Straight programs for at-risk youths, gang counseling, neighborhood watches, intervention specialists, youth counselors, and too many other people and groups to name all lead the charge against crime and violence. But those efforts dont make the evening news because they arent as salacious as people blocking traffic and protesting; nor do they serve the preconceived white confirmation bias. Besides, theres no way white people would know about this unless they stopped deflecting with trite questions and instead actually went into a minority neighborhood to selflessly join the effort to address the problems plaguing 

White-on-white crime and the urban poor

Another of the great points made by Harriot in the article is that crime doesnt appear, at least by official statistics, to be related to race. Its much more related to poverty. Here are some notes on the topic, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics:

Poor Hispanics (25.3 per 1,000) had lower rates of violence compared to poor whites (46.4 per 1,000) and poor blacks (43.4 per 1,000).

Poor persons living in urban areas (43.9 per 1,000) had violent victimization rates similar to poor persons living in rural areas (38.8 per 1,000).

Poor urban blacks (51.3 per 1,000) had rates of violence similar to poor urban whites (56.4 per 1,000).Persons in poor households at or below the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) (39.8 per 1,000) had more than double the rate of violent victimization as persons in high-income households (16.9 per 1,000).

This all goes back to some pretty familiar problems; wealth distribution, discrimination, underfunded schools, etc.

What does it all mean?

This all means a lot of stuff that should make the average American uncomfortable. We have someone go into a hotel room overlooking a concert with military-level artillery, but what about Chicago? We have white nationalists marching in Virginia, but what about black-on-black crime? Way too much energy is devoted to ignoring problems in the United States.

But if someone is truly instead in gun violence in Chicago or solving urban crime probelms, we should be looking at how the illegal guns get to Chicago in the first place. From there, maybe some common sense solutions could be found. Instead of worrying about black-on-black crime specifically, we could try to solve the problems that plague people in impoverished areas  such as rampant hunger, healthcare issues, and school funding.

Until we tackle these issues in a meaningful way instead of just using them as vapid talking points to protect a useless narrative, were failing as a society to improve ourselves.

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Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson has signaled support for South Dakota's bid to collect sales taxes from internet retailers, a case that could have nationwide implications for online shoppers.

On Friday, Peterson's office joined 34 other states and the District of Columbia urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review whether retailers can be required to collect sales taxes in states where they lack a physical presence.

Right now they cannot, which "exacts an ever-increasing toll" on state finances as online sales boom, the states wrote in their friend-of-the-court brief.

Nebraska loses an estimated $30 million to $40 million each year to e-commerce.

Some internet retailers collect state sales taxes voluntarily  online sales giant Amazon started doing so in Nebraska this year  but most don't.

For states to require online retailers to comply, the high court would need to overturn legal rulings, issued mostly before the internet shopping boom, that hamstring officials who want to collect sales taxes from out-of-state retailers.

States have pushed Congress to address the issue without success.

Peterson said his goal is to ensure Nebraska has legal authority to collect the taxes if it wants to.

"This case presents both important issues of state sovereignty and a direct opportunity for the court to reexamine its precedent," he said in a statement. "Until the court expressly addresses its prior holdings, efforts on the part of states to collect sales and use taxes from out of state retailers face clear and substantial legal hurdles."

Gov. Pete Ricketts said Peterson's decision to join the case "will encourage the U.S. Supreme Court to set clear parameters for this important issue."

However, the governor said he continues to oppose attempts in the Legislature to mandate online sales tax collection.

"I want to reemphasize that any attempt to enact a legislative bill before the U.S. Supreme Court or Congress provide further clarity will result in an unconstitutional law that could place the budget on shaky ground," Ricketts said in a news release.

The state's latest revenue forecast left a projected $195 million hole in the budget that was approved by the Legislature earlier this year.

Nebraskans are already required to report the amount of their online purchases and pay sales taxes themselves, but almost none do.

In May, legislation to provide for collection of internet sales taxes directly from retailers was roadblocked by a filibuster and held over for consideration until next year.

Sen. Dan Watermeier of Syracuse, sponsor of the bill (LB44), said he did not have the 33 votes required to end the filibuster after the measure advanced through one round of debate on a 28-13 vote.

Maybe next year, Watermeier said at the time.

Watermeiers bill would require online retailers to either collect and remit sales taxes on those purchases or notify Nebraska purchasers of their tax obligations.

Omaha Sen. Burke Harr said Watermeier's bill has a pending amendment, based on AG Peterson's recommendation in an opinion, that would provide a way to constitutionally collect the sales taxes.

"While the bill in its present form is unconstitutional, the Legislature has options to remedy these constitutional deficiencies," Peterson said in the opinion.

Watermeier has said his amendment makes clear that remote sellers may voluntarily collect and remit the sales tax, and it separates collection requirements from notice and reporting requirements.

South Dakota legislators passed a law last year requiring collection of the tax. The law was struck down in September by the state Supreme Court due to precedent. The state had welcomed the defeat so it could try to get the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case.

It takes four U.S. Supreme Court justices to vote to hear a case, or grant certiorari. South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley said he hopes the high court agrees to hear the case and issues a decision by June 2018.
Pro-life centers in California recently won a victory in court and will not be required to promote abortion within their clinics.

Currently, all pro-life pregnancy centers in the state are required to notify their clients that the state of California provides free or low-cost contraceptives and abortion under California law AB775.

The exact wording of the law states, "California has public programs that provide immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning services (including all FDA-approved methods of contraception), prenatal care and abortion for eligible women ..."

Pro-life advocates believe this law requiring the pro-life centers to post this notice in a place of prominence in their clinics is a violation of their freedom.

They took their case to court in The Scharpen Foundation vs. Kamala Harris, and won.

Riverside County Superior Court ruled that this law infringes upon the free speech rights of the pro-life centers and enforcement of the law is to be permanently halted.

To force pro-life crisis pregnancy centers to promote abortion is abhorrent," said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, which was representing the pro-life centers. "This kind of government coercive speech is exactly what the First Amendment was designed to guard against. To force a pro-life speaker to encourage death to innocent children is inconceivable. It is refreshing to see a court reach a correct conclusion that goes to the heart of free-speech protections."

Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com

Publication date: November 3, 2017
In an historic event, evangelical Christians met with Egypts president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. It has been noted that his meeting could mark a significant step forward in evangelical relations with the Arab worlds largest country.

The meeting is also especially important in light of increased attacks on Egypts Christian minority.

According to CBN News, both sides seemed to feel that the meeting went extremely well.

"Rarely have I been in a meeting that was scheduled for an hour that went for three hours and the conversation was clear, so authentic," stated Johnnie Moore, an author and leading Christian expert on the Middle East. "There was no hedging. It was like we were best friends for our entire life. It was historic yesterday."

Author and Middle East expert Joel Rosenberg, who hosted the meeting, agreed, stating, "I believe it is setting into motion an historic relationship between an Arab Muslim leader and the evangelical Christian movement. I have to tell you, I'm a fiction writer and if President Abdel el-Sisi didn't exist you'd have to make him up. I mean [he is] what are we looking for in an ally with the United States: people who want, people who are telling us I want a strong, strategic alliance with America. I'm fighting the same people you're fighting."

Both the evangelical leaders and el-Sisi affirmed their commitment to fighting ISIS and Islamic extremism.

Moore added that it is important, even from a biblical standpoint, for Christians to cultivate a good relationship with Egypt: "We, as Christians, love Egypt because the scriptures indicate that God has this great love for Egypt  not even just a general love," Moore said. "There are specific verses, specific prophecies about God's love. Isaiah 19 speaks of Egypt, My people."

Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com

Publication date: November 3, 2017
Muslim objections prompted the cancellation of an Indonesian prayer service meant to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation last week. The act renewed concerns over deteriorating tolerance in the nation once known for religious freedom.



The Reformed Evangelical Church of Indonesia planned an event at Kridosono Stadium in Yogyakarta, Java, for Oct. 25 but learned on Oct. 12 that stadium officials had canceled their rental agreement.



UCA News reported the Forum Ukhuwah Islamiyah (FUI), an arm of Indonesias top Muslim clerical body, asked stadium officials to prevent the gathering, claiming it was designed to convert Muslims and had potential to become an arena of apostasy under the guise of mass healing.



FUI threatened to disrupt the event. Local police denied that hardline Muslim pressure forced the cancellation, saying the church did not have a permit.



In a statement, the church rejected both claims, saying it followed all proper procedures to get permission and the Rev. Stephen Tong never performed physical healings.



The statement criticized favoritism shown to Islamists, saying, We are very concerned of the partiality shown toward intolerant groups that have continued to use security and peace as the basis of their intolerance.



Muslim scholar Achmad Nurcholish told UCA News, It's a sign that in our society it is difficult to accept people of different beliefs.



He warned, acts of intolerance will continue unless the government pays serious attention to it.

The church held other events celebrating the anniversary of the Refomation in Indonesia without incident.

Courtesy: WORLD News Service

Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com

Publication date: November 3, 2017
Archbishop of Canterbury urged to abandon Church insurers over 'derisory' settlements to abuse victims

The Archbishop of Canterbury is being urged by a clerical abuse survivor to abandon the Church's insurer in the wake of a scandal over its 'derisory and heartless' treatment of victims.

It comes after three bishops urged the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group (EIG) to review a settlement of 35,000 that was offered to Gilo, whose surname is withheld to protect his identity, saying they were 'very concerned about the way in which the claim was handled at the time'.

The Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler, the Bishop at Lambeth, Tim Thornton, and the Bishop of Buckingham, Alan Wilson, expressed their concern that 'horse-trading' between lawyers about settlement figures had 'little concern for the impact' on the survivor.

Now Gilo is urging the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to review the settlement offers made by EIG to abuse survivors and relieve the company of its responsibility to reach settlements.

'The way the Church and its insurers has treated survivors institutionally compounds the abuse we have already suffered,' he wrote in the letter to Welby.

Gilo said he suffers from long-term bi-polar disorder and long periods of severe illness as a result of the abuse he suffered at the hands of Garth Moore in the 1970s. Gilo told numerous figures within the Church, including three bishops, of his abuse over a period of four decades but none of the senior figures he told say they have any recollection of his disclosures and no records were kept.

'The effect on my quality of life and relationships has been substantial,' he said. 'And despite being reasonably intelligent, the long term impact on my employability and earning power has been considerable. Relative to this, the sum I received from EIG was by any standard of pastoral care, derisory and heartless, especially when delivered through the bewildering legal games that EIG plays out.'

He warns the settlements are offered 'under duress' because survivors know they cannot afford to challenge the amount in courts.

At the time EIG said they had no basis to revisit Gilo's settlement and insisted they had dealt with his case with 'with patience and sensitivity'.

In a statement, the EIG said: 'As independent insurers, we are not responsible for the abuse perpetrated by those for whom the church is accountable. Our role is to handle insured claims for financial compensation fairly for these acts of abuse.

'We and other insurers are bound by comprehensive, industry-wide regulation that oversees the way we operate and handle claims, and by the civil justice system.

"It is not in our gift to change civil law, which defines the claims process. Negotiations between lawyers  characterised in the bishops' letter as 'horse trading'  are a normal part of that process. So are full and final settlements, which bring certainty to all parties within the civil justice system.

'It is, however, in the Church of England's gift to provide further compensation as well as ongoing pastoral care to victims and survivors of clergy abuse if it so wishes.'

The Bishop at Lambeth, Tim Thornton, who was one of the bishops Gilo said he told of his abuse, spoke to Gilo earlier today to acknowledge receipt of the letter and said the Archbishop of Canterbury was in Kenya but would respond when he returned.

A Lambeth Palace spokesperson said: 'We take extremely seriously all communication from survivors and will be considering the contents of this letter very carefully in the weeks to come.'
Archbishop of Canterbury: We pray for a Palestinian state

The Archbishop of Canterbury is calling for Palestinian independence as he warns Britain's commitment to the Holy Land remains incomplete 100 years after the initial promise of an Israeli state.

Writing on the centenary of the Balfour Declaration in 1917, Justin Welby said the UK's failure to establish an independent Palestinian state 'remains the root cause of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians today'.

The article marks the anniversary of when then foreign secretary Arthur Balfour promised to Lord Rothschild, a leader in the UK's Jewish community, that the government would back 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object'.

The letter, which became known as the Balfour Declaration, went on to say: 'It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.'

Welby acknowledged the Jewish community 'continues to be confronted by prejudice, hostility and violence throughout the world' and promised 'to work to combat anti-Semitism wherever it appears and to pray for peace and security for Israel'.

But he said there 'is less clarity of intent for the Palestinian people' in Britain's original promise and warned the failure to plan for the 'consequences of the inevitable changes' led to the spiralling conflict.

'Palestinian communities were not given parity of provision for their own desire for independence, self-determination and statehood,' he wrote in the Telegraph.

'Later, as holders of the Mandate for Palestine, Britain assumed a "sacred trust of civilisation" for both the welfare of the Palestinian people and their path to independence. That aspiration for independent statehood has not been fulfilled yet and remains a root cause of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians today.'

He called for the Church to pray and 'cry out to God, lamenting the suffering of others and repenting of our own complicity, culpability and negligence in their plight'.

He wrote: 'For Palestinian self-determination to be realised, there is a need for significant investment of time, attention and diplomacy from the international community and especially Britain. No good can come from despair and a collective lack of hope. We commit ourselves to pray and to act for the flourishing of Palestinians and for the exercise of self-determination in the establishing of a viable and secure state.

'There can be no more fitting way to mark the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration than to commit ourselves to pray in thanksgiving for the land which provides a home for Israelis and Palestinians; for the thriving of Jews, Christians and Muslims there; and to pray too for the fulfilment of what remains unfinished in aspirations for statehood, security and peace.'
Egypt's President Sisi meets US evangelical leaders, promises to protect Christians

A delegation of evangelical leaders from the US has met with Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi at the presidential palace in Cairo.

Among them was Family Research Council president and Baptist pastor Tony Perkins, who told the Christian Post: 'I appreciate the opportunity to meet with President el-Sisi to discuss the concerns we have, as American evangelicals, for the plight of religious minorities in Egypt, especially those who are our brothers and sisters in Christ.'

Others present were religious freedom advocate and informal Trump administration adviser Johnnie Moore, evangelical writer Joel Rosenberg, Egyptian-born Christian pastor and author Michael Youssef, and former Republican presidential candidate and former US Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

The meeting was also attended by Rev Andrea Zaki, the leader of the Protestant community in Egypt and organised by Rosenberg, who is based in Jerusalem and met Sisi when he traveled to Washington for a state visit in April.

He told the Christian Post: 'I was going to say they rolled out the red carpet for us but I don't want to leave the impression that we are being treated like royalty. What they are doing is that it has become clear that they want a friendship, they want a relationship with evangelicals.

'We can speculate as to why. But the fact is, we were supposed to spend an hour with the president and it was almost three.'

He said that while Christians still faced persecution in Egypt, Sisi was 'trying to change the system'.

'As we asked about these issues, he said, "Christians are being attacked and we are working to fight the very radical Islamist terrorists that are endangering Muslims as well as Christians. But we are also doing very specific things to help Christians to make them equal Egyptians. They are not second-class citizens. We don't want to think of them as Christians or Muslims. We want to think of them as Egyptians,"' Rosenberg said.

Moore described Sisi as 'a great, great leader', recalling his commitment to rebuilding churches burned in 2013.

'He rebuilt the churches. He told us yesterday that will never happen again. It will never happen again. As long as he is in charge, that will never happen again.'

On Wednesday the delegation met with around 60 senior Egyptian Christian leaders who also expressed their admiration for el-Sisi.

'They didn't hesitate,' said Rosenberg. 'We are talking about a man who rescuing the country ... and their lives and freedoms have been saved.'
Exorcist recalls 'creepiest' case he ever worked on involving a Satanic high priestess who levitated

A prominent psychiatrist with decades of exorcism experience has shared details behind the "creepiest" case of demon possession he witnessed, in which a woman displayed unnatural strength and levitated from her bed.

Dr. Richard Gallagher, a board-certified psychiatrist who teaches at Columbia University and New York Medical College, said in an article published Tuesday in the National Catholic Register that in his 25 years as a consultant for a network of exorcists in America, the case of a woman named "Julia" remains the most disturbing.

Gallagher said that most reports of possession turn out not to be the case of actual demonic work, and that out of thousands of consultations he has done, he found that only about 100 were actual possessions.

Thirty-nine-year-old Julia, however, referred to herself as "the high priestess of a satanic cult," and dressed in dark flowing clothing and wore black eye shadow.

"Her life was filled with the paranormal," Gallagher recalled. "The night before I first saw her, our cats went wild in the middle of the night. When I met her the next day, she asked me: 'Dr. Gallagher, how did you like those cats?"

He shared another instance when he was on the phone with another priest talking about her case, when Julia's voice "came over the phone, screaming at the priest in a demonic voice," despite her being thousands of miles away.

"Julia was perfectly aware that she was possessed and she did not like that," he explained. "It turned out that she refused to leave the cult, so she was not someone who was going to be helped. But she was also afraid of the cult. She was torn."

The psychiatrist described the case as the most "amazing" one he has been involved with or heard of in the modern era, and said that Julia gave him permission to write her story.

During the actual exorcism ritual, a voice emanated from the woman, warning the priests to back off.

"The voice was sometimes guttural and vaguely masculine and high pitched at other times. Julia's comments usually expressed hatred for anything religious. Animal-like growls  un-human-like sounds  also came from her. Sometimes objects flew off shelves and Julia knew things about team members she had no natural way of knowing. For instance, she knew that Gallagher's mother had died from ovarian cancer," the article describes.

Gallagher noted that the woman, who only spoke English, used voices in Latin and Spanish, insulting the participants in crude ways.

"Julia also exhibited enormous strength. Despite the religious sisters and three others holding her down with all their might, they struggled to restrain her. Remarkably, for about 30 minutes, she actually levitated about half a foot in the air," he shared.

After eight exorcism sessions, Julia remained possessed. Ater a pause of one year, she said that she wanted to continue the sessions, revealing that she was dying of cancer.

Gallagher told her that he would discuss her request with his team but then she disappeared, never to be heard from again.

"We think she died," he concluded.

The psychiatrist's tale comes shortly after the publication of the first official English-language translation of a ritual book on exorcisms, which shares practices for getting rid of demons.

Fr. Andrew Menke, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat of Divine Worship, told Catholic News Service that the book, titled Exorcisms and Related Supplications, "makes it easier for a priest who might otherwise be a good exorcist but who would be intimidated by a requirement to use a Latin text. Having it available in the vernacular means he can concentrate on prayer and on the ritual, without needing to worry about working in another language."
How Jewish and Christian students are learning to listen to each other

How often do we hear the same old stereotypes about students? That they are lazy or delicate 'snowflakes'? Aside from being untrue, these stereotypes are frustrating because they stop the real story being heard.

Universities act as microcosms of society, bringing together a wide range of people. But where communities could stay separate, students are actively creating projects which build relationships between diverse groups. These students have valued the learning that can be gained through listening to people who hold different beliefs.

As Campus Leadership Manager at the Council of Christians and Jews (CCJ) I have been privileged to witness the impact faith students are making through interfaith projects. Given the history of these two faiths there are particular issues which can cause tension on campus, but the way students have handled these issues is very encouraging and we can learn a lot from their approach.

1. Be eager to learn

Universities provide unique opportunities for learning which go beyond the bounds of lectures and workshops. For students moving away from their local faith communities it is often a time for reflection and to develop their own faith. Meeting with people from a wide range of faith traditions provides opportunities for reflection and it has been encouraging to see students eager to find out more.

At the start of each academic year CCJ trains student leaders from different faiths and the supportive atmosphere allows students to ask the questions they have been too nervous to voice. One Jewish student asked 'who was Jesus? Nobody will tell me about him.' She did not wish to convert, but genuinely to understand the faith of Christian students and how this relates to her own faith, so that she could better engage with Christians.

2. Don't shy away from difficult discussions

With such a diverse group of people present on campus it is inevitable that some differences of opinion will take place. But when misunderstandings lead to serious conflicts, the root of these issues needs to be addressed for reconciliation to occur. Where lack of knowledge about Judaism exists unchallenged within Christian societies, Christian antisemitism can develop among Christian students. The only way successfully to manage this issue is to address the central ignorance through education.

At one university, ideas of supercessionism led Christian students to believe in a God who punished the Jewish people. Such views being openly addressed led to a shutdown of communication between Christian and Jewish students. Amidst such tension it might have been tempting to shy away from this issue and focus on building new relationships between students. Yet instead students created interfaith events which explored difficult passages from shared scriptures and raised awareness about antisemitism. Since this time Christian and Jewish students have started to attend each other's events. Only through engaging with these difficult issues could reconciliation occur.

3. Admit it when you are wrong

In a discussion the hardest thing can be admitting you were wrong. It can be tempting to continue a losing argument just to save face, but doing so means you cannot learn from your mistakes. When a Christian student came to an interfaith event held by the Jewish Society and gave her opinion that antisemitism no longer exists it seemed like a recipe for disaster. But when Jewish students told her about the Holocaust denial taking place on campus she realised she had been wrong. Her lack of knowledge inspired Christian students to work with Jewish students in providing opportunities for Holocaust education at their university. She listened, acknowledged her error and looked for a solution.

CCJ's Campus Leadership Programme has been operating on campus for just one year and already I have been impressed by the maturity these students have shown when faced with difficult issues. These are students who, despite working long hours on costly degrees, dedicate their free time to building cohesion between faith groups. With the start of the next academic year CCJ has trained students from seven universities who have already begun plans for student-led interfaith projects which respond to the real needs of each campus. The enthusiasm and collaboration between these students is so encouraging and they are providing an excellent example for people of all faith and none to follow. The time has truly come to dispel the belittling stereotypes about faith students and give them the credit they deserve for building relations between faith groups.

Katharine Crew is the Campus Leadership Manager of the Council of Christians and Jews.
Orthodox living: London council builds flats with automatic lifts and separate kitchens to suit Haredi Jews

A London council will build housing with features specifically aimed at the Orthodox Jewish community including lifts that don't require manual operating for the sabbath and separate kitchens to accommodate kosher rules.

Hackney council's Tower Court development in Stamford Hill, north-east London, where there is a large Jewish community, will include several larger than normal flats with four or five bedrooms to accommodate Orthodox Jewish families who often have seven or eight children.

The redevelopment is thought to the first of its kind, according to the Guardian, after some of Stamford Hill's 30,000 Haredi, or Orthodox, Jews were forced to form a new community in Essex because of a lack of housing.

A spokesman for Hackney council insisted the flats had not been designed exclusively for Haredi families and they would not be prioritised but the contractors were told to pay special attention to the housing requirements of the Haredi community.

'All homes for rent will be allocated according to housing needs,' the spokesman said.

Adam Khan Architects, which is responsible for designing the buildings, told the Guardian it held consultation session with Haredi representatives beforehand.

'We showed models and drawings, and we had people grabbing the pencils out of our hands to show us what they wanted,' said Khan. 'They were very generous in sharing intimate details of family life to give us a better understanding.'

The block will include both a lift system and a door entry system that fits with the strict rules of Shabbat  the Jewish sabbath  that prevent Jews from operating electrical equipment.

Some of the flats will also have balconies that allow for a 'sukkah' to be erected. The temporary enclosure is where Haredi Jews eat and sleep during the holiday of Sukkot. And they will also include enough storage space for separate meat and dairy kitchen equipment, according to Jewish kosher rules.

Rabbi Abraham Pinter, from the Stamford Hill Haredi community, said the development was 'really exciting'.

He told the Guardian: 'The council is putting a lot of effort into recognising the community's needs, which is quite difficult in an area of inner London where there are a lot of competing needs.

'This is a major development the council has initiated. It is appreciated, and hopefully it will lead to other developments.'
PAPILLION  The Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission has collected a fine assessed in 2006 against a Bellevue city councilman who'd run unsuccessfully for the state Legislature.

Councilman Pat Shannon was fined for inaccurately reporting contributions and seven other 2004 campaign violations. The original fine was $16,000 but had grown to about $17,800 with interest. He'd unsuccessfully appealed the commission's ruling.

Shannon's attorney says the commission found money in an Oklahoma estate that was to be paid to Shannon. Court filings in Oklahoma show the commission filed Oct. 11 to take the money from the estate.

The commission's Frank Daley says the estate attorney sent the commission a check to cover the fine and interest.
Pope's emotional anti-war plea at US military cemetery

Pope Francis has made an emotional anti-war address during a visit to a US military cemetery in Italy.

He said mass for several thousand people at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery in Nettuno, south of Rome.

The burial ground is the final resting place for 7,860 American soldiers who died in the liberation of southern Italy and Rome in 1943 and 1944.

Francis walked slowly and alone amid the rows of low white headstones in the shape of crosses and Stars of David, gently resting a white rose on about a dozen and stopping to pray silently before saying the Mass.

'Please Lord, stop. No more wars. No more of these useless massacres,' he said, speaking in hushed tones in an improvised homily.

Appearing to refer to the possibility of nuclear war, he said that 'today that the world once more is at war and is preparing to go even more forcefully into war'.

It is not the first time the Pope has spoken of his fears of war and warned against escalating tensions. He said during the summer as relations between the US and North Korea deteriorated that a nuclear conflict would destroy a large part of humanity and that a third country should try to mediate in a situation that had become 'too hot'.

US President Donald Trump said North Korea 'will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen' if it threatened the United States.

At the cemetery, Francis said: 'If today is a day of hope, it is also a day of tears.' He said humanity 'must not forget' the tears of mothers and wives who lost husbands and sons in past wars.

'Humanity has not learned the lesson and seems that it does not want to learn it,' he said.

On his way back to the Vatican, Francis stopped to pray at the Ardeatine Caves, where in March 1944 occupying Nazis killed 335 Italian men and boys as a reprisal for the killing of 33 German policemen by partisans.

They were all shot in the back of the neck. The Germans blew up the caves in a vain attempt to try to hide the massacre. Seventy-five of the victims were Jews.

He and Rome's chief rabbi, Riccardo Di Segni, each read a prayer. After walking past the tombs in the still dark caves, the pope wrote in the visitors' book: 'This is the fruit of war: hate, death, vendetta. Forgive us Lord'.

Additional reporting by Reuters.
'RHONJ' star Teresa Giudice slams Sofia Vergara, says 'immigrant' Vergara should act nice

A "Real Housewives of New Jersey" (RHONJ) star had stirred controversy anew with statements she made against the wife of "Magic Mike XXL" actor Joe Manganiello. Teresa Giudice slammed Sofia Vergara at an event which was attended by fellow "RHONJ" stars.

Giudice, in the Gettin' Real With the Housewives event in Mohegan Sun, Connecticut, lashed out at "Modern Family" actress Vergara, even calling her a bitch in one point. The reality tv star said to an audience of 400 that Vergara was her worst celebrity encounter. TMZ published the video of Giudice airing her rant. The heat stemmed from an alleged photo-op incident wherein the "RHONJ" claimed that Vergara stole the spotlight from her.

According to the reality star, a Bravo official said that she had to take a photo with Vergara, but when the moment came, the latter allegedly posed in front of her. Guidice exclaimed that she got mad but did not talk to Vergara. She added that she "cannot stand her." Guidice's makeup artist also allegedly heard Vergara asking the publicist why she needed to have a photo with the "RHONJ" star.

Giudice then went on to say that Vergara had a thicker accent than her and added, "You would think that she would be nice  she's an immigrant!" The event was graced as well by "RHONJ" stars Dolores Catania, Siggy Flicker, and Danielle Staub.

The remarks did not sit well with fans, who took to the comment section of a photo during the event posted on Giudice's Instagram account to vent their anger and disgust over the insensitive statement. User @xnyrkers noted that Giudice and her husband were immigrants as well and added that the 45-year-old celebrity should think about her daughter before making such decisions. Others called her ignorant and added that she crossed the line, while others stressed that they were not a fan of hers anymore after this major fiasco.
Two former trans men explain why they now regret having their sex change

Society might say there is nothing wrong with being gay or transgender, but two former trans men would beg to differ.

Paul and Taylor once thought that changing their gender from male to female would solve all of their problems, but they were bitterly disappointed after the transition took place.

Paul, 38, a computer programmer who is currently unemployed, shared with The Federalist that he is now "detransitioning" from the sex change he started a decade ago.

He recalled feeling ashamed over his "girlish" tendencies, so when he read about transgenderism, he thought he finally found the answer to his problems. "I wasn't deranged or simply gay, but instead I misunderstood what a 'woman' was, that the term was entirely social, and that my failure to be accepted as a man was because I was really a woman," he said.

He was prescribed male-to-female hormones in a San Francisco clinic and claims that he was not told about the risks or side effects. When Paul started having doubts about the sex-change surgery, it was too late. "After surgery, I went into shock at how thoroughly I'd been altered in both appearance and function," Paul recalled. "I was a sex addict, and sex was now disrupted. I also now found myself in a constant, low level of groin pain. A year later, the bleeding began. I was told to wait it out, see a specialist, and not to get a lawyer."

He started detransitioning and stopped taking the hormones that were making him more female. But he became suicidal after the surgery and his groin pain only worsened. Paul now considers himself a "monstrosity," but therapists insist he is suffering from gender dysphoria.

Taylor, meanwhile, started his transition at the age of 23. He said his mental health was very poor at the time, and his only thought was to become a woman or kill himself.

But he didn't find satisfaction in his new identity, so he started detransitioning a year later.

Looking back at the whole experience, he feels medical practitioners should deal with people like him differently.

"I wish I had been challenged by a doctor," he reflected. "I went to an endocrinologist, who gave me a prescription on the first visit, before my blood work results even came back. 'It'll be fine, congratulations!' was his attitude. The doctor should've challenged me."

For those wishing to have a sex change, both Paul and Taylor are strongly advising against it. Instead they are urging people to love the bodies they have.

"Our physical bodies, with genitalia and chromosomes, exist in reality, and part of having a body is hating your body. You are taught to hate your body no matter who you are, male or female, and you are falling for it," warned Taylor.
When Bill de Blasio ran for mayor in 2013, castigating his predecessor Michael Bloombergs record on homelessness was central to his Tale of Two Cities argument, in which he portrayed a city of deepening wealth divides. Since taking office, de Blasio has nearly doubled spending on homeless services, which now exceeds $2 billion. The results have been unimpressive, though. The numbers of homeless in all categoriessheltered and unsheltered, families and single adultshave risen on the mayors watch. To the extent that New Yorkers worry about a return to the ungovernable city days, homelessness is Exhibit A.

De Blasio at first dismissed criticisms of his homelessness policies but has more recently made a few changes. He let go his commissioner of the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) in December 2015, initiated a partial merger of the DHS and Human Resources Administration in April 2016, and, in February 2017, committed to opening 90 new homeless shelters across the city. Two other changes have proved even more significant. First, in late 2016, de Blasio persuaded the state government to tighten shelter-eligibility restrictions for homeless familiesa striking reversal of his position in the 2013 campaign, when he described the citys eligibility process as unfair and overly punitive. By my calculations, since making this shift, the de Blasio administration now grants 41 percent of all family shelter petitions, compared with 47 percent beforehand. The average monthly increase of families in the shelter system under de Blasio was 0.7 percent before the new screening procedures were put into place, compared with a 0.6 percent average monthly decrease since. Taking a more conservative approach to homeless policy has thus been more effective in reducing homelessness than the range of progressive policies that the administration usually touts. The Daily News aptly termed de Blasios course correction on shelter eligibility his mugged by reality moment on homelessness.

Second, de Blasio has lowered expectations about what he can achieve on homelessness. In his Turning the Tide master plan released earlier this year, the mayor projected a decline in the total homeless shelter census of a mere 4 percent over the next five years. At that rate, levels of homelessness in New York would still be much higher than under any administration in modern history.

In the near term, the two most important developments to watch will be what happens with the perhaps dozens of neighborhood siting controversies resulting from de Blasios expansion of the shelter system; and what the future of rental assistance will look like. At the core of de Blasios homelessness policy is a network of rental-subsidy programs. Some of these, such as preferential access to public housing and Section 8 vouchers, provide permanent benefits, but others, such as some of the Living in Communities voucher programs, are time-limited. This year, the progressive city council has begun a push to make the temporary programs permanent, though whether the city can find the funds for doing so remains to be seen.

Will the homeless fever ever break? During New Yorks bad old days, mayors got reelected while presiding over murder rates that look like a humanitarian crisis from a contemporary perspective. The voting public is now at risk of settling into a similar complacency on homelessness. When a social problem gets worse after government doubles spending on it, a dramatically different policy direction would seem warranted. Serious changes are unlikely, though, under de Blasios progressive administration.

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Just in case New Yorkers have never noticed that theyre strong, resilient, and undeterred in the face of terrorism, a swarm of elected leaders reminded them after Tuesdays attack in Lower Manhattan. But those officials never talked about the terrorist himself, Sayfullo Saipov, his cause, or the specific nature of the threat posed by his co-religionists worldwide. Nor did they seem much interested in the hard work of protecting the city.

Terror wont beat New York because we get back up stronger every time, said Governor Andrew Cuomo. New Yorkers are smarter and stronger and better than those who seek to harm us.

An act of terror was intended to break our spirit, chirped Mayor Bill de Blasio, but we know New Yorkers are strong and resilient.

We will not be intimidated. We will not be deterred, insisted Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

I am appalled and horrified at this deliberate act of terrorism, said City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. We are a resilient city and we will not be deterred by these cowardly acts.

Mark-Viverito herself certainly wasnt deterred by the cowardly acts of convicted terrorist Oscar Lopez-Rivera, when she arrangedwith the assistance of Schneiderman and the acquiescence of Cuomo and de Blasioto honor him at last springs annual Puerto Rican Day parade. Lopez-Rivera and his confederates maimed and murdered New Yorkers in Lower Manhattan 40-some years ago, crimes that fundamentally differed from Tuesdays attack only in objective: back then, it was Marxism. Today, its Islamism. But you would scarcely know what motivated Tuesdays attacker from listening to Gothams elected class mouth their platitudes.

Tuesdays pickup-truck slaughter was the third fatal terrorist attack in New York Citys 1st police precinct since 1993, preceded by the first World Trade Center bombing and 9/11each one carried out on behalf of radical Islam. The elected officials made no mention of this because candor would conflict with their political goals, undermining arguments supporting minimal national border security and sanctuary cities. Hard-core New York progressives like de Blasio, Schneiderman, Mark-Viverito, and, increasingly, Cuomo himself, wont let that happen. De Blasio, in particular, disdains aggressive counterterrorism effortshe began dismantling a hugely successful NYPD anti-terror unit soon after taking office. So, empty rhetoric rules.

In practical terms, of course, theres only so much that any city can do to protect itself from the kind of threat New York weathered Tuesday. But Cuomos insistence that the terrorist was a lone wolf is sheer excuse-mongering, suggesting helplessness while ignoring reality: the Islamist threat is an intricate, Internet-centric, near-transcendental presence that bloody-minded individualsacting alone, but hardly lone wolvescan step into or slip out of at will.

What local elected officials must do is face up to the hazard directly, avoid euphemism and evasion, and pledge unqualified support for responsible national efforts to combat an unconventional, lethal enemy. This means turning away from the sanctuary-city sensibilityand certainly shunning ceremonial celebrations of terrorists from days gone by.

Mark-Viverito instigated the Oscar Lopez-Rivera charade, but Schneiderman helped make it possible, while de Blasio marched in the parade and Cuomo barely mustered disapproval. But now they want their constituents to believe that theyre anti-terror to the core. It doesnt work that way: New Yorkers are not only strong and resilient and undeterredtheyre also cynical as hell. And who can blame them?

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Nebraska State Patrol officials are asking for the public's help finding a suspect involved in a high-speed chase in the Panhandle this week, an agency spokesman said.

Elijah Dunning, 21 of Commerce City, Colorado, fled a traffic stop and led authorities on a chase through Cheyenne and Kimball counties late Monday night into Tuesday, said Cody Thomas of the State Patrol.

Dunning got out of his vehicle and ran off, Thomas said. Authorities suspended their search at about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Inside the stolen white pickup Dunning had been driving, investigators found a handgun, methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, Thomas said.

The Kimball school district canceled Tuesday classes, and school buildings were locked down at nearby Potter-Dix School.

Dunning remained at large Friday.

Anyone who sees Dunning or knows his whereabouts should not approach him and immediately call the Nebraska State Patrol Troop E Headquarters at 308-632-1211 or the Cheyenne County Sheriffs Office at 308-254-2922.
The crash barriers have been going up all over Manhattannot directly because of Tuesdays Islamist terrorist attack on bicyclists and pedestrians, but in ad hoc attempts to prevent such violence. The Halloween afternoon carnage certainly means more such obstacles will be coming, to protect pedestrians and bicyclists from such attacks. These incremental efforts to secure the streets work, and unlike many other efforts to prevent terrorsuch as long lines at airport securitythey have ancillary benefits, rather than costs. Protecting pedestrians against terror protects them from more common accidental street carnage, too.

New York and many other cities are already familiar with the vehicle-as-weapon. In May, Richard Rojas, a Navy vet, rammed his car into a Times Square crowd, not because he was a radical Muslim but because he was mentally ill, angry, on drugs, or some combination of the three. He killed 18-year-old tourist Alyssa Elsman and critically injured four others. That attack was bad enough, but it could have been worse; anti-terror bollardsshort metal posts placed together closely in a linestopped Rojas from moving further into the dense area.

White nationalist James Fields, Jr., used his car to murder Heather Heyer in Charlottesville this past August. Europe, too, has seen attacks by similar angry young men who have embraced extremism. Radical Islamists have killed pedestrians in London, Barcelona, and Berlin in the past year. After each attack, New York, always observant of global trends, has responded by visibly altering its streetscape. Large cement blocks now keep drivers separate from walkers on sidewalks in Times Square; New Yorkers and tourists have adopted them as places to sit and check their phones. St. Patricks Cathedral recently received large stones to line its sidewalks and protect crowds from Fifth Avenue drivers, and Rockefeller Center, across the street, has heavy planters. Trump Tower, of course, got its anti-vehicle barriers last November, on Election Day. Europe, too, has altered its streets: in Paris, new bollards protect visitors to the Louvres pedestrian plaza.

In Gotham, police are also deploying empty trucks and cars as protection. Police and sanitation trucks now block off many entrances to parades and street fairs, where, even after 9/11, a mobile wooden barrier sufficed. In some cases, security measures mitigate problems created by other security measures. Ten years ago, patrons didnt line up for a security check before entering a Broadway theater; today, all theaters make an extra-theatrical event out of checking ladies purses, and high-profile shows wand guests with metal detectors. This process creates lines of hundreds of people outside, hemmed in by flimsy metal crowd-control barriers. To mitigate the risk of an attack on such lines, the NYPD has quietly begun shutting down some theater streets just before shows. On matinee days, drivers cant drop off their passengers near Hamilton; thwarted by empty police vans, they must leave them half a block away.

So far, many of these efforts seem temporary, the way that taking off ones shoes at the airport once seemed temporary. Theyre likely permanent, or at least indefinite. New York needs more such measures, and needs to deploy them in a systemic, rational manner. Its not clear, for example, why a Hamilton crowd merits a closed street, but a Cats crowd a few blocks away doesnt.

Its also unclear how the city will protect the masses of pedestrians in midtown over the Christmas season, which starts next Thursday with the arrival of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Concrete, stone, and metal can protect some sensitive buildings, but uncontrolled, unvetted drivers near throngs of pedestrians pose an unacceptable and growing risk. People on foot greatly outnumber those in large vehicles, and its impractical to wall them off altogether; such a step would create the risk of stampede. Pedestrians deserve more space, not less, and more protection.

On some of midtowns most crowded blocks, particularly around Rockefeller Center, Bryant Park, and Times Square, the city should shut down traffic altogether, with entrance only for delivery drivers who pass a checkpoint and for cab drivers transporting the handicapped or elderly. Likewise, city officials have long known that users of the Hudson River bike path were not adequately protected from bad driversand thus from people with malicious intent, as well. In 2006, a doctor and a recent NYU graduate were killed within six months of one another, mowed down by an NYPD tow-truck driver and a drunk driver, respectively. Last year, a hit-and-run driver killed another cyclist; he recently received a short prison sentence.

The greenway, the busiest such path in the nation, is vital transportation infrastructure. Yet cyclists and walkers must contend with far too many drivers turning off or onto the adjacent busy highway at high speed. If the city had properly reduced these conflicts by protecting more of the greenway, as de Blasio administration officials have now pledged to do, it likely could have prevented Tuesdays attack, or reduced its impact, just as Times Squares Bloomberg-era redesign blunted Rojass deadly drive.

Some might say that such changes mean the terrorists have won, but by extension, that means that the terrorists win when I consent to a search of my belongings to get on an airplane; like most people, I prefer that my fellow passengers undergo such searches rather than not. Moreover, many ways exist to fight terror. Prevention and mitigation at the street and sidewalk level is only one. Fixing the streets is also far easier, and yields clearer positive results, than some of the other measures Western countries have taken over the past 16 years, one month, and 21 days.

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
The London Voluntary Service Council has gone into voluntary liquidation, the charity announced today.

LVSC is the infrastructure body for charities working in London. The move to close it is part of the establishment of a new central hub to serve voluntary sector organisations in London, funded by the City Bridge Trust, which will provide many of the same services previously offered by LVSC.

As part of the preparation for the establishment of the new charity, LVSC's assets will be transferred to another charity, Greater London Volunteering, which will administer the new hub.

It is not yet clear how the services provided through the new hub will differ from those provided by LVSC.

LVSC said in a statement on its website said that it was placed into creditors' voluntary liquidation on 31 October 2017 and Adam Stephens and Finbarr O'Connell of Smith and Williamson LLP were appointed joint liquidators.

Pension issues may potentially have played a significant role in the decision to close LVSC. The charity had commitments to make annual payments for ten years from April 2013 to eliminate its pension deficit, which was around 60 per cent of its annual income. It was due to pay 23,445 to 2019 and 45,970 after that.

For the year ending March 2016 it has an income of 827,400, and an expenditure of 902,900.

The Charity Commissions website showed LVSC had eight employees at the year end of March 2016. At least one member of staff, Jonathan Slater, has moved over to GLV to become its employment and skills policy and project manager.

The hub follows the publication of a report, 'The Way Ahead - Civil Society at the Heart of London', funded by City Bridge Trust and produced in partnership with LVSC and GLV. The report recommended the establishment of a new central hub.

The board of LVSC said in a statement: After 107 years supporting London's thousands of civil society organisations so they can meet the needs of our communities, London Voluntary Service Council has transferred its remaining functions over to Greater London Volunteering in preparation for the establishment of a hub for London.

Our involvement with The Way Ahead has been the latest example of how LVSC has tried to best meet the needs of civil society groups. We are delighted that this proposal has secured funding from City Bridge Trust and will be recruiting soon.

We would like to thank the hundreds of members of staff, trustees and volunteers who have been involved with LVSC over the years.

Hub for London

The new charity support body, Hub for London, was awarded 350,000 towards the new organisation. The Hub aims to strengthen the charity sector in the capital by providing access to business, organisational, technical and enterprise support to civil society organisations, as well as online resources.

Membership of the hub will be open to any individual or organisation based in London.

City Bridge Trusts funding will secure the first year of operation for Hub for London, which will be run by GLV.

Cam Fitzwilliam-Grey, chair of GLV, said: We have long recognised the need for a cohesive, cross-sector approach to civil society in the capital. This funding will see us establish a Hub that, at its core, will aim to serve every Londoner.

We are very grateful to City Bridge Trust and continue to be inspired by their commitment to civil society infrastructure.
The gap between small charities and medium and large charities digital capability has increased in the last four years, according to a new report.

Now in its fourth year, the Lloyds Bank Business Digital Index 2017 was published earlier this week and measures how digitally capable small business and charities are and awards them a score out of 100. Just over 500 charities were surveyed for the benchmarking report.



Larger charities, those with between ten and 249 employees, scored 48 out of 100 for digital capability but smaller ones, with up to nine employees, scored 40. But In 2014 large charities scored 26 while small charities scored 23. So the gap has risen from three points to eight.

Overall charities scored 43, up one point on last year. The charity sector is still behind the small business sector, which had a score of 54, the same as last year.

Basic digital skills

This year the report found that 48 per cent of charities have basic digital skills, a slight drop on last year when it was 51 per cent.

But it said that 20 per cent were on the cusp of full basic digital skills, and have gained four of the five required skills.

Lloyds defines the five basic digital skills as transacting, communicating, creating, managing information and problem solving.

The skills where charities were most lacking were managing information and problem solving. This includes skills such as using and understanding analytics programmes and using digital products to reduce costs.

Barriers

The biggest barrier to charities doing more online is that being online is not seen as relevant for our charity, with 32 per cent citing this.

This year saw a drop in the number of charities reporting that lack of staff with digital skills was a problem. In previous reports this has been a barrier for around one-third of charities, but this year just 10 per cent said it was.

Fewer charities also reported cost being a barrier, with this falling form 13 per cent to 5 per cent.

The percentage of respondents say that they ware doing all we can online increased from 11 per cent last year to 29 per cent this year.

Civil Society Media is hosting its Charity Technology Conference next Thursday, and it is almost sold out. For more information, or to book one of the last few places, click here
THIS WEEK MARKS THE START of a truncated and interrupted Obamacare open enrollment season, during which numerous Americans will make critical decisions concerning their healthcare with less notice and support from advertisers and navigators. The Trump administration has both abbreviated and complicated enrollment; the process is across the board, hardermore of a labyrinth, writes The New Yorkers Amy Davidson Sorkin.

A review of Obamacare stories from regional news outlets published in the past several weeks suggest potential enrollees havent received the sort of navigational help many might need. Newspapers passed along GOP talking points about death spirals and an Obamacare collapse, or failed to explain the often incorrect recommendations from state insurance department officials. And too many newsrooms passed along that classic and trite consumer lineshop aroundwithout saying how people should do that.

ICYMI: Plagiarism scandal hits newspaper

The task of buying health insurance is always complex, even in the best circumstances. Without clear explanations of how the elements of an insurance policy work together to determine what someone pays for healthcare, potential enrollees are flying blind.

Indeed, confusion has become a fixture in coverage. In Miami-Dade, you have so many choices of plans, a health-policy expert told the Miami Herald. And now to work through the logistics and figure out the interaction between premiums, deductibles, co-payments, co-insurance rates, no cost-sharing reductions and a higher premium tax subsidy, it just becomes a very complex decision-making process that, I tell you, even with my PhD, I find it confusing. An enrollment advocate in Texas told an Austin-based NPR station that public confusion rivals that from Obamacares first year:

People dont understand that the Affordable Care Act is still the law. They dont understand the mandate is still in place to have insurance. So, there is a tremendous amount of confusion and that we are very concerned is going to limit enrollment this year.

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But confusion must be reckoned with. While health-insurance policies are complicated, reporters can play a critical role in helping enrollees navigate costs and benefits during enrollment.

CJR created a two-part primer to help reporters set the stage for enrollment and then guide their audiences through the process. In the first part, we outline three important pieces of context that can help prepare reporters and would-be enrollees for their encounters with the health exchanges. In the second, we examine four questions that reporters might use to help enrollees select a policy.

ICYMI: Reporter gets Trump administration statement. You can probably guess what happened an hour later

TRENDS TO EXPLAIN BEFORE ENROLLING

HIGHER PREMIUMS

Although the GOPs anti-Obamacare rhetoric has made it seem that the Affordable Care Act is responsible for high premiums this year, thats not entirely the case. Insurance premiums usually rise each year because the cost of medical care continues to go up, and because we are using more services every year. When setting premiums, insurance carriers also consider whether, in the previous year, they had more claims from sicker people than they had planned for. If a lot of people with policies got sick and cost a company lots of money, then that company will likely factor the continuing costs of those conditions into premiums. In general, fewer healthier people (who did not need to file many claims) signed up for 2017 to balance out those enrollees with costly health needs. Most companies anticipate that trend will continue in 2018.

Uncertainty sown by the Trump administration, no fan of the ACA, has also contributed to a rise in premiums.

Will the mandate requiring people to buy coverage be enforced? Yes, apparently.

Will the federal government continue to pay for cost-sharing reductions (CSRs), subsidies that help families with very low incomes afford their deductibles and coinsurance? No, but qualifying customers will still receive themthe government just wont reimburse insurers for providing the subsidies.

Anticipating that loss of income, insurers raised premiumsgenerally only for their silver plans in most statesto compensate.

HIGHER PREMIUM SUBSIDIES

Under the ACA, insurers can sell bronze, silver, gold, and platinum policies. Bronze plans offer the fewest benefits and, often, the lowest premiums. Platinum plans offer the most benefits and tout the highest premiums. Platinum plans were not always sold, so gold plans were usually the costliest plans on state exchanges. Silver plans were the most popular, because eligible shoppers had to buy them to get cost-sharing subsidies (CSRs).

For some families, these subsidies may be large enough to buy a bronze plan at no cost. Reporters can look for those policies on their state exchanges and flag them for their audiences.

This year is different. Both bronze and gold policies may have lower premiums than silver ones. Why? Because insurance commissioners in many states required or allowed insurance carriers to plan for the potential loss of government money by stacking the financial hit only on the silver policies, instead of requiring them to spread it across bronze, silver, gold, and platinum plans. That means shoppers will often find bronze and gold policies with lower premiums than the silver policies offered by an insurer. Logic would suggest, then, that gold policies might be a good deal this year.

The Affordable Care Act mandated another kind of subsidy, sometimes called a premium subsidy (other times, a tax credit subsidy), to help families with incomes below $98,000 lower their premiums. The value of that subsidy is based on the second lowest-priced silver plan in a coverage area. As a result, higher premiums for silver plans mean higher premium subsidies for all eligible shoppers.

Enrollees are getting a larger premium subsidy, more generous than they otherwise would have gotten had the federal government continued to reimburse insurers for CSR subsidies, says Jim OConnor, a consulting actuary at Milliman. These premium subsidies can be applied to any plan purchased on the exchange, not just silver plans. For some families, these subsidies may be large enough to buy a bronze plan at no cost. Reporters can look for those policies on their state exchanges and flag them for their audiences.

STICKER SHOCK FOR FAMILIES

Expect to pay a lot more for your children if you dont qualify for a premium subsidy. The federal government changed what are called age rating factors that insurers must use in pricing their policies. This year, the premium factor for kids up to age 14 increased by 20 percent. For kids ages 15 to 20, the increase is even higherfrom 31 to 53 percent.

People with three or more kids and little or no premium subsidy may really feel the impact of this change, says OConnor. While the adult portion of the premium may decrease slightly due to this change, the childrens portion of the premium will increase around 20 to 50 percent, depending on the childs age. This change, particularly coupled with other factors, could introduce sticker shock for those not receiving [any] government subsidies, says OConnor.

You cant base your decision solely on premiums, although many families do

QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE CHOOSING A POLICY

Choosing a policy involves some slogging through what will strike many would-be enrollees as a dizzying number of options on state shopping exchanges. I searched for policies on the Oregon exchange for a hypothetical familyhusband and wife, both age 51, with a 12-year-old child, $70,000 combined annual income, and a Portland zip code. I came up with 31 policiesway too many for anyone to process and make a wholly confident decision. (Reporters can do the same by shopping on their exchanges and sharing what they learn with their audiences.) Still, a decision must be made. The following four questions can help narrow optionsfor readers, and for reporters who hope to help them.

WHAT KIND OF SUBSIDIES WILL YOU RECEIVE?

Obamacare is based on subsidies to make it easier for people to afford insurance. The first thing to consider is whether your family is eligible to receive one. Premium subsidies are available for families with incomes under 400 percent of the federal poverty levelthis year, thats about $98,000 for a family of four, and $48,000 for a single person. Those people with the lowest incomes get the largest subsidies, while those with the highest incomes under 400 percent of the federal poverty level get the smallest. Because these subsidies gradually get smaller as income rises, families with incomes above the federal median income, $59,000, have felt the pinch of higher premiums during the past few years. Shoppers can find out whether they receive a subsidy, and how much it is, by logging onto the shopping exchange in their state. For the hypothetical Portland family, their monthly premium subsidy is $726.

Cost-sharing reduction subsidies help families with incomes below 250 percent of the federal poverty levelthis year, thats $61,500 for a four-person family, and $30,000 for an individual. Those subsidies reduce how much people have to pay for deductibles, coinsurance, and copayspolicy elements that determine your real cost of health insurance. How much that subsidy is worth also depends on family income. These subsidies cover 94 percent of the out-of-pocket costs for those whose incomes are right at the poverty level; they pay 73 percent for those with incomes at the 250 percent cutoff. They are a huge help to families with low incomes.

Cost-sharing reductions have been frequently featured in the news recently, so its important for reporters to explain how valuable they can be to familiesespecially given the high deductibles and coinsurance required by many policies.

HOW MUCH INSURANCE CAN YOU AFFORD?

The hypothetical Portland family could spend between $222 and $1,231 per month, depending on which plan they choose, after taking into account their premium subsidy of $726. But you cant base your decision solely on premiums, although many families do. All individual market policies sold on or off the Obamacare shopping exchanges must offer coverage for 10 essential medical services, which include hospital and doctor services, emergency care, pediatric care, mental health treatment, and drug coverage, among others. Drug coverage varies according to a plans formulary and to cost-sharing features like coinsurance. While all plans must cover other mandated services, they can vary the cost-sharing and care-management features. It is those cost-sharing features that differentiate plans and determine the real cost to you.

HOW MUCH RISK ARE YOU WILLING TO TOLERATE?

This is key to the true cost of a policy. If you are healthy, and think you (or the hypothetical Portland family) wont get sick during the year, then you might be brave enough to take your chances on an inexpensive policy. But the real cost of healthcare is the interplay between premiums, deductibles, coinsurance, and copays. Sales pitches, advertisements, and tweets like this one can act like lowball come-ons that leave people financially stranded if illness hits. If the thought of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs scares you, then youll need to pay more in premiums to protect yourself.

For healthcare reporters, questions about how much risk people in your community are willing to assume, or how large a bill they can comfortably pay, are good subjects for man-on-the-street interviews.

A policy with a low premium often comes with high deductibles and other high out-of-pocket costs. Lets look at our Portland family again.

With its monthly premium subsidy of $726, the Portland family decides to spend $222 each month for a bronze plan, which gets them a $13,000 family deductible and a $14,700 out-of-pocket maximum, the most any insurer can charge next year. After meeting the deductible, the family would still have to pay 50 percent coinsurancehalf the bill for emergency room care, or generic drugs, or visits to primary care doctors and specialists. If the family increased its premium to $1,231 for a gold plan, then the family deductible would drop to $2,000, and the out-of-pocket maximum would be reduced to $13,700. As a trade-off for the higher premium, the familys coinsurance and copays would be vastly reduced. The family would then pay only 20 percent coinsurance after paying the deductible for ER care, $10 for generic drugs, $20 for a primary care doctor visit, and $40 for specialists.

For healthcare reporters, questions about how much risk people in your community are willing to assume, or how large a bill they can comfortably pay, are good subjects for man-on-the-street interviews. Is the relationship between premiums and out-of-pocket costs well-understood by your audience? How will families pay for potentially high medical expenses in cases when their insurance wont pay?

CAN YOU BE SURE THE CARE PROVIDERS YOU WANT TO USE ARE IN THE PLANS NETWORK?

The short answer is no. You can never be certain. Booklets describing each policy may provide you with some insights, but sometimes they are out-of-date. You can call a physicians practice, but staff may not necessarily know, and office personnel have been known to make mistakes. You may, perhaps, require an operation, but not know whether all the doctors attending you are in the network. The result can be a surprise medical bill, a problem the health system has yet to solve. You may also encounter tiered networks, where insurance companies put pricier physicians and hospitals in a tier that comes with either higher premiums or higher out-of-pocket costs, a tradeoff that may be important.

With the open enrollment window shortened from three months to just six weeks and neutral navigators in short supply, reporters have an important responsibility to combat confusion on behalf of the American public. Lets hope they can do the job in half the time.

CJRs health care reporting is sponsored in part by a grant from the Commonwealth Fund.

ICYMI: NYTimes publishes stunning visual forensic investigation

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Trudy Lieberman is a longtime contributing editor to the Columbia Journalism Review. She is the lead writer for CJR's Covering the Health Care Fight. She also blogs for Health News Review and the Center for Health Journalism. Follow her on Twitter @Trudy_Lieberman.
A different level of crazy: Is civil war breaking out in the

Wall Street Journal

over the editorial boards coverage of Mueller?
One week after journalists at leading local New York news sites DNAinfo and Gothamist voted to unionize, the sites owner shut them down. At 5 pm Thursday, as reporters were filing stories and sitting in city courthouses, a post went up on both sites announcing that Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade, was pulling the plug.

Reaching this decision wasnt easy, and it wasnt one I made lightly, Ricketts wrote. He expressed pride in the impact of the sites reporting on tens of thousands of stories that have informed, impacted, and inspired millions of people. But he concluded that DNAinfo is, at the end of the day, a business, and businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure.

I just walked back from the bathroom to find out that everyone at @Gothamist and @DNAinfoNY has been laid off  Christopher Robbins (@ChristRobbins) November 2, 2017

ICYMI: Ouch! Here are some headlines editors probably wish they could take back

Ricketts vocally opposed his newsrooms unionization effort, writing on his blog, unions promote a corrosive us-against-them dynamic that destroys the esprit de corps businesses need to succeed. His decision to shutter his propertiesincluding sites in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Franciscowas viewed by staffers as retaliation for their vote to join the Writers Guild of America East. Ricketts built something that a lot of people have tried, and it was successful, Janon Fisher, a DNAinfo editor, said. This [decision] was out of spite.

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Rickettss decision not only puts 115 staffers out of work, it leaves a significant gap in local news coverage in several cities. The woeful financial state of journalism is well known, and local outlets delivering news to smaller audiences have been especially hard pressed. As newspapers, including The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, have scaled back their metro coverage, DNAinfos journalists filled the void, covering school board meetings and courthouse proceedings.

After the news broke, DNAinfo and Gothamist staff gathered Thursday evening at a bar on the Lower East Side in a sort of Irish wake for their outlets. Those I spoke with expressed plenty of anger at Ricketts, but also concern for the state of local news in the city. Its devastating, DNAinfo reporter Maya Rajamani said. This wasnt The New York Times, but for me it was a dream job. What we were doing was so important. Its a huge loss for New York City.

ICYMI: Plagiarism scandal hits newspaper

Below, more on Rickettss decision and the loss for local news.

The challenge of local news: The New York Timess Andy Newman and John Leland were the first to have a full story up about Rickettss decision. Their story includes a look at the state of local urban journalism in New York and around the country.

The New York Timess Andy Newman and John Leland were the first to have a full story up about Rickettss decision. Their story includes a look at the state of local urban journalism in New York and around the country. A dramatic change of fortune: CNNs Tom Kludt reports on the frustration of journalists who celebrated their unionization vote one week ago. Kludt reports that DNAinfo and Gothamist staffers will be placed on administrative leave and receive their full salary and benefits for three months.

CNNs Tom Kludt reports on the frustration of journalists who celebrated their unionization vote one week ago. Kludt reports that DNAinfo and Gothamist staffers will be placed on administrative leave and receive their full salary and benefits for three months. From the archives: Heres Armin Rosens 2011 profile of Gothamist for CJR.

Heres Armin Rosens 2011 profile of Gothamist for CJR. Another loss: The Washington Posts Glenn Dixon reports on the end of an era in Baltimore, where the City Paper is closing after 40 years.

Other notable stories

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Pete Vernon is a former CJR staff writer. Follow him on Twitter @ByPeteVernon.
It doesnt take a firearm or a bomb to wreak havoc. All it takes is a drivers license, a valid credit card, some proof of insurance  and as little as $19.

The attack on a riverfront bike path in New York City was carried out with a pickup truck that home contractors or do-it-yourself handymen can get with no background check and little worry it will raise red flags among law enforcement.

Eight people were killed and 12 seriously injured in the Tuesday afternoon attack when, authorities say, Sayfullo Saipov, a 29-year-old from Uzbekistan, barreled along the path for more than a dozen blocks.

Angela Hrdlicka, a former Secret Service agent who is now a private security consultant, said for the attackers, the rentals are a perfect recipe to carry out attacks: easy to get, cheap and with virtually no vetting.

Its easy to do and its very, very difficult to defend against, she said.

Home Depot officials said in an email to The Associated Press that it does not screen renters. All of its stores require a valid drivers license, insurance information and a credit card deposit. Other rental companies, including Hertz, Enterprise and U-Haul, mention similar guidelines on their websites. In most cases, the cost to rent a truck from Home Depot or U-Haul is much cheaper than a rental car.

Matthew Harrigan, a Home Depot spokesman, said theres no thought at this time to change how the company vets people who rent their vehicles.

John Miller, deputy commissioner for New York City Police, said Wednesday that authorities are working to put together a timeline of Saipovs whereabouts leading up to the attack.

New York City has a program called Project Shield in which law enforcement works with businesses to help identify potential threats. It wasnt immediately known if the store where Saipov rented the vehicle had been one of visited by authorities. So far in this case, Miller said, there was certainly nothing unusual enough to cause anybody to call.

Vehicles have been used in scores of terror attacks around the world, including the July 2016 attack in Nice, France, when a large cargo truck drove into a crowd on a promenade. Eighty-six people were killed. In March, a Hyundai sedan rammed into a crowd on Westminster Bridge in London, killing five.

In the United States, terrorists used a Ryder van to detonate a bomb at the World Trade Center in 1993. And in 1995, a rented Ryder truck was used by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols in the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168.

It doesnt have to be a big vehicle, Hrdlicka said. You can mow down just as many people almost with a minivan and a crowd like that. If you started making them do background checks on rental vehicles they could just steal one or borrow their neighbors or use their own personal vehicle. Thats not going to fix the potential risk.

Anthony Schilling, an adjunct professor of homeland security at the University of New Hampshire whos been involved in security since the 1970s, called it the nightmare scenario in a lone wolf attack. Vehicles are easy to rent and arent subject to deep background investigations. Even if you have a record, you can still rent a vehicle.

Bruce Alexander, a security and terrorism expert, said the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings proved decades ago how easy it is to use these vehicles for destructive purposes. Those attacks helped raise awareness about the easy ways one can weaponize commonly available tools. But theres always a balancing act.

Companies want to ensure the customers experience is as easy and simple as possible, and that vetting of customers is time and cost-effective.

It is very difficult to come up with a workable cost-effective model that also fits within the constraints of civil liberties and is also practical from a business standpoint, Alexander said.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
House Republicans are targeting environmental rules to allow faster approval for logging and other actions in national forests in response to deadly wildfires in the West.

Lawmakers are set to approve a bill to loosen environmental regulations for forest-thinning projects on federal lands.

Now more than ever, there is a needed urgency to protect our nations federal forests from the kind of devastation that California experienced, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said before a vote expected Wednesday. The GOP bill will help us stop forest fires before they occur, he said.

Republicans and the timber industry have long complained about environmental rules that block or delay plans to cut down trees to reduce fire risk. Democrats and environmentalists say GOP policies would bypass important environmental laws to clear-cut vast swaths of national forests, harming wildlife and the environment.

The GOP bill is one of at least three being considered in Congress to address wildfires and solve a longstanding fire borrowing problem that forces officials to take funds from fire prevention programs to put out increasingly dangerous wildfires.

The legislation comes as the Forest Service has spent a record $2.4 billion battling forest fires in one of the nations worst fire seasons. Wildfires have burned nearly 9 million acres across the country, with much of the devastation in California, Oregon and Montana.

The House bills sponsor, Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., said the recent wildfires show how years of unmanaged federal forests have wreaked havoc on our environment, polluting our air and water and destroying thousands of acres of wildlife habitat.

He and other Republicans say proactive management of forests  including prescribed burns, salvage logging of dead trees and projects to cut small trees and underbrush  reduces the risk of wildfires and lessens the severity of fires that occur.

Democrats say they support responsible projects to prevent fires, but accuse Republicans of using the current fires as an excuse to undermine the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act and other laws.

Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, senior Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said the GOP bill would elevate logging over all other uses, increasing logging companies access to public lands but doing little to prevent forest fires.

House Republicans know the bill has no future in the Senate and are pushing it anyway as a purely ideological exercise, Grijalva said.

Despite the acrimony, lawmakers from both parties are pushing to rework a federal funding formula that makes it hard for officials to budget for extreme wildfire seasons. The formula ties spending to a 10-year average for wildfires even as fires burn longer and hotter each year and forces officials to tap money meant for prevention to fight fires.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
U.S. Navy leaders are recommending a sweeping list of changes in sailor training, crew requirements and safety procedures to address systemic problems across the Pacific fleet that led to two deadly ship collisions earlier this year that killed 17 sailors, according to a copy of the report obtained by The Associated Press.

A critical report scheduled to be released Thursday calls for about 60 recommended improvements that range from improved training on seamanship, navigation and the use of ship equipment to more basic changes to increase sleep and stress management for sailors.

Another Navy report released Wednesday concluded that three collisions and a ship grounding this year were all avoidable, and resulted from widespread failures by the crews and commanders who didnt quickly recognize and respond to unfolding emergencies. Navy leaders publicly acknowledged those failings in a congressional hearing last month.

The USS John S. McCain and an oil tanker collided near Singapore in August, leaving 10 U.S. sailors dead. And seven sailors died in June when the USS Fitzgerald and a container ship collided off Japan. The USS Lake Champlain collided with a Korean fishing vessel in May and the USS Antietam struck bottom near a shoal in Tokyo Bay.

As a result of the two deadly accidents, eight top Navy officers, including the 7th Fleet commander, were fired from their jobs, and a number of other sailors received reprimands or other punishment that was not publicly released.

We are a Navy that learns from mistakes and the Navy is firmly committed to doing everything possible to prevent an accident like this from happening again, Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, said in a statement Wednesday. We will spend every effort needed to correct these problems and be stronger than before.

Richardson ordered a comprehensive review of the accidents, led by Adm. Philip Davidson, head of the Navys Fleet Forces Command. In a report spanning about 170 pages, Davidson notes that many of the lessons learned can be applied across the Navy. And he recommends the appointment of a senior Navy officer to oversee the implementation of the recommended changes across the fleet, both in the Pacific and  where needed  around the world.

Proposed changes focused on five main areas: fundamental skills, teamwork, operational safety, assessment procedures and culture. Specifically, the recommendations include beefing up qualification standards for sailors who stand watch  a key point of failure in the two deadly collisions. Others call for improved navigational skills and certifications for sailors, including better, more sophisticated training on radar, piloting, communications and other high-tech equipment.

The report acknowledges the fast-paced operations in the Pacific region, where the Navy is faced with an aggressive China and a growing threat from North Koreas pursuit of nuclear weapons. And it notes that ongoing budget constraints make it difficult to meet the requirements in the very busy Pacific region.

The ability to supply forces to the full demand is  and will remain  limited, the report said, adding that funding shortfalls for readiness across the Navy, did have an impact in putting more pressure to meet increasing demand for Japan-based assets without additional support from ships based in the United States.

Faced with the increasing demands, there was less time for crew members to do needed training or certifications, the report said.

The report also noted that despite the growing pressure and pace of operations, there was a can-do culture that persisted, and commanders failed to listen to their teams and were unable or unwilling to say no despite the risks.

Can-do should never mean must-do so we must continue to encourage our commanders to accept the risks when the benefit to be gained is worth the potential risk of failure, the report said.

A number of the recommendations points to fatigue and how the lack of sleep can lead to problems, particularly as sailors stand watch.

Sailors need to know when they must succumb to their own fatigue, be proactive about their fatigue management plan, and reach out to leadership, the report said. It also suggested that a mentorship program be set up, assigning experienced commanding officers to help sailors develop leadership skills and focus on seamanship, navigation, team building and operational safety.

Davidsons report was submitted to Richardson, and Navy officials said a number of the recommendations are already being addressed.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Needing a victory to validate their majorities, congressional Republicans have chosen not to emulate Shakespeare's Henry V before Agincourt. He advocated stiffening the sinews, summoning up the blood and lending the eye a terrible aspect. The Republicans would rather define victory down.

What began with a bang of promises of comprehensive tax reform will end with a whimper: The only large change will be to the national debt. Consider a small proposal -- repeal of the estate tax. It will be paid by an estimated 5,500 people dying this year, raising about $20 billion -- a pittance in the $3.88 trillion budget. Repeal's significance would be philosophic rather than economic.

In 1975, Phillies pitcher Tug McGraw explained what he would do with his $75,000 salary: "Ninety percent I'll spend on good times, women and Irish whiskey. The other 10 percent I'll probably waste." If you work hard, make a pile, then choose to squander it on dissipations, go ahead, it's a free country. But try to pass the pile to progeny, and grasping government will intervene.

Ending the estate tax would extinguish the government's delusion that it has the duty and skill to prevent the intergenerational transmission of family advantages (of which, money matters much less than transfers of social capital -- habits and aptitudes, which government cannot redistribute).

Desperate to propitiate impatient constituents, Republicans say this is no time (actually, there never is a time) to fret about the national debt, which was $9 trillion a decade ago and passed $20 trillion two months ago, having increased 22 percentage points under the Republican president who preceded the present one.

House Speaker Paul Ryan says do not worry, "We finally have a president who is willing to actually balance the budget." Ryan underestimates the president, who has promised to eliminate not just the budget deficit but the national debt in just eight years, without touching entitlements.

Beneath the froth of political discord, America's granite-like harmony persists. The comparatively superficial discord distracts attention from this bipartisan consensus: We shall have a generous entitlement state and not pay for it. Instead, we shall offload onto future generations a substantial portion of the costs of our current consumption of government.

As Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute naughtily reminds us, during half a century of Republican rhetoric of frugality, 1960 to 2010, entitlement spending grew 8 percent faster under Republican presidents than under Democrats.

In the ninth year of an unusually long expansion, and with the economy near full employment (ignore the dismal workforce participation rate), the budget deficit for the past fiscal year was $666 billion, up $80 billion from the previous year. To partially recoup revenue lost from reduced rates, Republicans reportedly flinched (Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz says his fellow Republicans were "asked to vote for a budget that nobody believes in so that we have a chance to vote for a tax bill that nobody's read") from a "border adjustment tax" on imports ($1 trillion in a decade) and now have gone wobbly about completely ending the deductibility of state and local taxes ($1.3 trillion).

Republicans might still be contemplating steep reductions in the amounts that individuals can put into tax-deferred 401(k) retirement accounts. This will displease the approximately 32 percent of workers who have 401(k)s, and will worsen the inadequate savings rate of a nation where defined-benefit pension plans are now mostly luxuries for government workers and where almost a majority of people approaching retirement have nothing saved for it. The current median Social Security payment is about $16,000 a year.

When the president said tax reform is "going to be so easy," he overlooked this fact: The tax code's baroque complexity that demands radical reform makes the code almost impervious to such reform. Every provision was put there to placate a muscular faction or to create a grateful faction.

Republicans should have heeded Dwight Eisenhower's axiom: "If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it." They should have made the case for large reforms that annoy democratically -- almost everyone, simultaneously -- but for a large purpose. The aim should have been a revenue system that stops subordinating economic efficiency to social engineering and rent-seeking, thereby maximizing the probability of economic growth sufficient to fund the entitlement state.

Such a bold aim requires a commensurately bold argument -- for a consumption tax or a carbon tax or a zero corporate tax rate or anything for which public-spirited people might stiffen their sinews and summon up their blood.
A few years ago, sisters Amra and Elma Beganovich had good, albeit self-described "unexciting," careers. Not for long. As Georgetown Law grad Elma told me recently, she was a former Capitol Hill intern, Department of Justice clerk and was busy practicing securities law. Amra was an economist for the World Bank. More from USA Today:

Millennials are meant for entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs, time to test your business knowledge

How can small businesses compete with Amazon?

Smart? You bet. Glamorous? Not so much. My, how times have changed. Today the sisters: Have well more than 2 million total social media followers on various accounts.

Run a top digital marketing agency that helps other influencers "make their brand explode."

Are a trending online brand themselves  actually, two brands, Club Fashionista and Amra and Elma ...

... And they have an incredibly popular fashion blog, create viral content and get paid big bucks to travel the world and post about it. Not a bad gig, not at all. Definitely not boring. And that begs the questions: How did they get from where they were to where they are (let's find out), and can you do the same? (Yes.) Elma and Amra started out by doing what entrepreneurs are always counseled to do  something they loved. In their case, almost on a whim and in their "spare time," they started blogging and posting about fashion, travel, makeup and so on. That they had a great eye and sense for what people liked didn't hurt. Within a few months, they started getting more than 100,000 visitors to their blog. Their visually striking content struck a nerve, big brands noticed and the sisters soon realized "this could be a business!" As their blog and brand grew, so did their social media following. Back then, you could get Amra and Elma to tweet about you for $99. These days they command $20,000 per sponsored Instagram post and up. But here's the deal: These are not just two smart and charming women who found a niche (though that is true, too), they worked hard, took calculated risks and learned their craft. Example: As their empire started to take off, the sisters went back to school to learn how to code. Sure, they could have hired someone to do this for them, but notably, they didn't.

So, can you, or anyone, become an influencer in your industry? You bet. Here are a few tips Amra and Elma say make a difference:

1. Decide on a brand that is different, better

As you create your online persona, the question to ask and answer is, how are you unique? How can you stand out from the crowd? Especially in today's crowded social media marketplace, this is vital.

2. Remember, content is king

The old maxim is true, Elma says. And if you look at their content, you know that they take this rule seriously. In their case, it is a matter of taking and posting great images  images that engage and are inviting (nowadays, they have a team of top photographers to help them.) But, Elma suggests, having good content is not enough. You have to get people to notice it.

3. Engage
Its hard to find a bipartisan cause these days.

Over the past months, we have been pleased to find that support for the National Endowment for the Humanities is one of the few that unites members of Congress across the aisle. We have seen affirmations from both Republicans and Democrats throughout the year that federal support for the NEH is a very worthy investment.

This support is rooted in an awareness of the critical work the NEH supports in Nebraska and across the nation. Last month, members of Congress had the opportunity to see one of Nebraskas cutting-edge humanities projects up close.

Dr. Kay Walter of the University of Nebraska-Lincolns Center for Digital Research joined Broadway star and humanities advocate Lin-Manuel Miranda on Capitol Hill to showcase the important humanities work happening at UNL.

Before an audience that included members of Congress, Walter described the nationally-significant humanities projects underway at UNL. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry also joined the showcase to introduce Dr. Walter and attest to the value of the humanities to our nations civic culture.

With the support of 23 grants from the NEH totaling more than $5.7 million, the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities is creating resources for use by scholars and the general public.

Scholars apply STEM methods and technologies to traditional humanities content: UNL senior Emma Himes is using the computing language R to code Willa Cather's letters, making it possible to perform statistical analysis on the documents. The letters, together with Cathers essays, stories and novels are available online on the Centers Willa Cather Archive.

This is just one example of the centers cutting-edge work to compile, digitize and share archival resources that foster new learning opportunities in Nebraska -- and anywhere with an internet connection. Other examples include the award-winning Whitman Archive, which compiles his poetry and other writing for public use, and Livingstone Online, a project illuminating the life of imperial explorer David Livingstone.

The center at UNL is a perfect example of the positive difference the NEH has been making across the country since its creation in 1965. NEH funding has provided critical support to UNL, enabling it to create a nationally-recognized digital humanities center that provides a valuable resource for people across the country while creating academic opportunities for students and professors in Lincoln.

NEH grants have had similarly catalytic effects in every state and territory. Through grants to institutions across the country, the NEH supports excellence in education and research, protects our cultural heritage, provides lifelong learning opportunities, and strengthens local economies.

October marked National Arts and Humanities Month, and we must unite to call on Congress to continue their support for the NEH. The humanities not only foster learning and creativity; they are part of the backbone of our local economies.

Join us by emailing or calling your U.S. senators and representatives in Congress to voice support for the NEH and its programs, including the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at UNL, and those like it across the country.
President Donald Trump's upcoming five-nation Asia tour is expected to strengthen ties with regional allies, but those gains could be diminished if the U.S. leader misses a key summit on the last leg of his trip. A major forum for political and economic cooperation among its 18 member countries, the annual East Asia Summit takes place on Nov. 13 to 14 in the Philippines this year. Trump will be in Manila on Nov. 13 but won't attend the event, according to the U.S. State Department. Instead, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will be representing the world's largest economy at the summit's plenary meeting on Nov. 14.

US President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in address the media prior to dinner in the State Dinning Room at the White House on June 29, 2017 in Washington, D.C. Kevin Dietsch Pool | Getty Images

Under former president Barack Obama, the East Asia Summit became a pillar in Washington's Asia relations. In 2011, the U.S. acquired membership under Obama's strategy of pivoting American foreign policy focus toward the Asia-Pacific region. Since then, the president attended every year except for 2013 when a U.S. government shutdown occurred. Trump's Asia tour is the longest trip to the continent by a sitting U.S. president this millennium but missing the East Asia Summit is still a big deal for local leaders, experts say. "The U.S. decision to join EAS was a milestone in U.S. engagement in Asia and a tradition that should be followed," said Thomas Hubbard, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea. "I hope Asians will focus on the unusually long time he will spend in Asia rather than on the one meeting he will miss." Donald Tusk from the European Council, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres are all expected to attend this year's meeting.

watch now

"Many Asian nations  rightly or wrongly  look at the U.S. president's attendance at the EAS as a barometer of America's enduring commitment to the Asia-Pacific, and arguably will even more so in the aftermath of Obama's rebalance," explained Ashley Townshend, acting director of the foreign policy, defense and strategy program at the Sydney-based United States Studies Center. An op-ed in the Washington Post citing unnamed officials said there were concerns the trip's length could make the president "cranky, leading to unpredictable or undiplomatic behavior."

Consequences

The commander-in-chief's absence could ultimately hurt U.S. influence in Asia, experts said. "Trump's decision not to participate in the East Asia Summit will reinforce regional perceptions that he is skeptical of the value of multilateralism and of a United States that is scaling back its engagement in Asia," said Meredith Miller, a former deputy director at the U.S. State Department's East Asia and Pacific bureau. A lack of participation also signals that "he is out of touch with what matters to America's regional partners," said Townshend. More concretely, Trump will miss a chance to add input on security challenges critical to U.S. interests. East Asian Summits usually produce a statement that touches on hot-button topics such as the South China Sea and North Korea. "Sitting down with the leaders there is an opportunity for the president to make his points on these issues," Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at conservative U.S. think tank The Heritage Foundation, said in a recent note. "It would help shape a consensus that can then be used in other diplomatic settings."

watch now
The natural world is full of wonders.

One such marvel is photosynthesis, a process in which plants use light energy from the sun to convert water and carbon dioxide into glucose and oxygen.

At San Diego State University (SDSU), researchers are looking to develop what is known as "artificial photosynthesis."



Jing Gu, an assistant professor at SDSU, told CNBC that they wanted "to learn from nature and want to mimic what nature does."



Gu added that her team wanted to convert what she described as "not so useful chemicals" into useful ones. One example she highlighted was the conversion of water into hydrogen as a fuel.



According to the European Commission, hydrogen is an energy carrier with "great potential for clean, efficient power in stationary, portable and transport applications."



Gu said that her team were using semi-conductor devices to directly capture solar light and at the same time produce hydrogen. These semi-conductor devices are boosted by the use of special catalysts.

"The major advantage of this process is (that) we use the source of solar energy rather than use the source of fossil fuels to produce hydrogen," she added.



A number of sources  from fossil fuels and solar to geothermal  can produce hydrogen using a range of methods, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. These include biological processes, thermochemical processes and electrolytic processes, the DOE says.



The catalyst is a crucial part of the process being worked on at SDSU. "If there is a big mountain which we need to climb in order to produce hydrogen, what (the) catalyst does is lower the height of the mountain so we can climb (it) in a much easier way," Gu said. In this way, the process can be sped up.

The semi conductors' exposure to sunlight and salty water can cause problems. With this in mind, the SDSU team is trying to protect the semi-conductors through the use of "thin film metal oxide layers."



According to Tony Trammel, a graduate student at the university, these layers are deposited uniformly onto the surface of a semi-conductor, preventing its degradation and increasing its stability within the system.
Hollywood star Gwyneth Paltrow may have made a name for herself in the business world over the last decade, but that doesn't mean the nerves didn't kick in when she first set foot on her entrepreneurial journey. In 2008, the Oscar-winning actress launched Goop, a "lifestyle brand" which started off as a weekly newsletter, aimed at providing information related to food, health and travel. "I think that I had a lot of trepidation about planting this little flag  and saying like 'I want to do this, but I don't know if this could be a business' or how I could execute the business; but it was scary for me to do it," she told CNBC's "Trailblazers." "Immediately, there was a lot of 'Why is she doing this?' I remember once I also had a movie coming out around the same time and there was a huge article in the New York Times about why am I doing this? And I thought, this seems extreme, like I'm just writing banana nut muffin recipes!"

Gwyneth Paltrow, founder and chief creative officer of Goop. Getty Images

"But I think almost immediately there was a lot of interest in what I was doing and why I was doing it, both in a positive and negative way  And I was such a neophyte. I had no experience," she added. Fast forward to the present day and Goop has transformed into an internationally-renowned business; one which has expanded into e-commerce, provides recommendations on travel, food and health. It has launched its own pop-up stores and in 2017 saw its own magazine and Wellness Summit materialize. It was only recently announced that Paltrow had been made CEO by the board. She told CNBC that she now felt ready to take her "seat at the table," adding that it was a "long, slow process."

Celebrity reputation

When asked about whether she believed having a celebrity status hinders the creation of a new start-up or project, Paltrow said the reputation provides both benefits and pitfalls. "I think the celebrity both helps and hurts equally at the same time. When you're a celebrity, people have a pretty clear preconceived notion of who you are and who you should be in the culture."

Gwyneth Paltrow (R) signs autographs for fans as she arrives to the premiere of 'Iron Man 3' at Le Grand Rex on April 11, 2013 in Paris, France. Laurent Emmanuel | WireImage | Getty Images

Paltrow isn't the only celebrity shaking up the entrepreneurial space. Actress Jessica Alba helped co-found The Honest Company in 2012, a goods maker that offers eco-friendly products; while Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and Victoria Beckham have launched their own fashion lines. For Paltrow herself, almost a decade in and Goop is an internationally renowned brand, but it wasn't always smooth sailing. "I just felt like I had a lot of wind in my face and I wasn't looked at just like an entrepreneur who was in her 30s and starting something. There was a lot of baggage that came with it," she said. "But then of course, the celebrity piece is an important lever that we can pull in the business when we need it. And I had sort of wondered because I, over my career, represented various brands and I thought what would it be like to leverage your own brand, for your own brand? Instead of a third-party brand."

Her top priority
Anthem CEO Joseph Swedish will step down, and Gail Boudreaux will take over, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

The timing is uncertain, though The Wall Street Journal reported the plan could be announced as early as next week. Swedish is expected to keep his title as chairman during the transition, the paper added.

Boudreaux previously served as CEO of UnitedHealth 's United HealthCare.

Anthem did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

Read the full Wall Street Journal report here.
The iPhone X is displayed during an Apple special event at the Steve Jobs Theatre on Sept. 12, 2017 in Cupertino, Calif.

More than 300 Apple iPhone X units were stolen from a UPS truck in San Francisco before the newest model was launched for sale, multiple outlets reported.

The thieves, who have yet to be caught, broke into the truck while its driver had been making a delivery at the Stonestown Galleria shopping mall in San Francisco, according to CBS SF Bay Area. With the iPhone X retailing at between $999 and $1,150 in the U.S., the value of the stolen goods would have amounted to at least about $300,000.

The police are looking for three suspects in hooded sweatshirts who drove a white Dodge van, the report said. The theft reportedly occurred between 11 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. Pacific time on Wednesday, website CNET reported, putting the value of the stolen goods at more than $370,000.

The iPhone X was launched for sale on Friday in more than 50 markets, including the U.S., China and the U.K. Thousands had formed snaking queues outside Apple stores around the world in the lead up to the launch.

Read more about the theft on CBS SF Bay Area's site.
The future of "Dreamers," children who arrived in the United States illegally, is pitting President Donald Trump against big tech.

And this week, big tech upped its opposition to Trump's effort to repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program by filing an amicus brief, or a legal statement of support, in California on Wednesday.

The amicus brief breaks down how damaging it would be to U.S. companies, workers and the economy for DACA to be repealed. The lawsuit says if DACA is rescinded, the U.S. economy would lose $460.3 billion over the next ten years. Contributions to Social Security and Medicare would be reduced by $24.6 billion in the same time frame, the lawsuit says.

In September, Trump decided to rescind DACA, which President Obama had established in 2012. Trump said he would allow the program to expire in March. Trump claimed Obama overreached his legislative authority to set up DACA, but the lawsuit big tech is supporting refutes this claim.

"DACA closely resembles deferred action programs adopted in the past, and complies fully with the applicable statute. The agency's rescission of DACA, predicated entirely on that erroneous legal conclusion, therefore cannot stand," the lawsuit says.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to around 2.345 percent at 2:44 p.m. ET, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was down at 2.823 percent. Bond yields move inversely to prices.

The number was strong enough to keep the Federal Reserve on track to raise rates in December, traders said. Yields dipped initially after the report because it fell short of Wall Street expectations, which had been anticipating a larger rebound after Hurricanes Harvey and Irma depressed the September jobs report.

U.S. government debt yields held steady and were little changed Friday after the Department of Labor reported that the economy added 260,000 jobs during the month of October.

Average hourly earnings were essentially unchanged for the month of October.

"You still have hurricane effects distorting the wages," said Michael Schumacher, director of rate strategy at Wells Fargo. "I wouldn't leap to any conclusions regarding this report."

The unemployment rate was 4.1 percent as labor conditions returned to normal following the storm-weakened September.

Bond traders were still assessing the new Fed Chairman nominee and what his policy on rates will be. President Donald Trump nominated Fed Governor Jay Powell as the person to take on the role as head of the Fed from February 2018. Powell will be replacing current Chair Janet Yellen when her tenure expires.

In the Federal Open Market Committee meeting this week, the policymaking body decided to hold rates steady. While Wall Street did not expect much news from the FOMC in November, there is consensus that the committee will increase rates in December for the third time this year.

In politics, House Republicans unveiled a plan Thursday to overhaul the tax code. As part of that reform package, the GOP aims to permanently lower the corporate tax rate to 20 percent. The House bill would also slash the number of income tax brackets from seven to four.

President Trump will be beginning his trip to Asia on Friday, stopping off in countries including Japan, South Korea, China and the Philippines, to strengthen the U.S.' relationship with Asian nations.

CNBC's Christine Wang and Patti Domm contributed to this report.
AIRED ON CNBC EUROPE ON NOVEMBER 2 AT 9PM GMT ON CNBC

In honest interview with CNBC's Tania Bryer, Paltrow talks Hollywood, the Boardroom and her family.

Click here to view the trailer.

Click here to download images

CNBC's "Trailblazers" with Tania Bryer will tonight meet Oscar winning legend Gwyneth Paltrow in Los Angeles. In tonight's programme Gwyneth talks about her move from Oscar winner to CEO; the relationship with her father and how she's stayed grounded and also comments on the Hollywood Harassment scandal:

On the Hollywood Harassment scandal

I think it's incredible what's happening. I think this is long overdue. There's been this incredible confluence of events that's really led to women coming together  and feeling safe in numbers to come forward and talk about their experiences across all different industries. It's my hope that this is the beginning of something important and different and that my daughter, when she goes into the workplace, won't experience what you, presumably you, and I and millions of other women have had to endure. So it feels important and I'm happy that I have played a small part in it.

On the relationship with her dad

"My father was really the rudder to the ship of my life. He was very pragmatic, very funny. Scrappy, really hardworking guy. He did not grow up with money and so he was very insistent on kind of instilling us with values and work ethic and having us understand that like where we were, and that it necessarily, that it wasn't by accidentThere was a period of time where he was like 'you're going off course here. You're like believing your own legend.' I was probably 27 or 28 years old. And I remember him sitting me down and saying 'you're kind of an asshole.' And I was like, 'oh, oh my god.' But it was so great b/c he was so clear and so straight and so loving and what he was pointing out was like 'this isn't you. Don't think you're something great. You know who you are and what you are is great. Don't get carried away with all this noise and fame and attention.' You know, it's pretty intense."

On becoming a CEO

"I think that I had a lot of trepidation about planting this little flag  and saying I want to do this but i don't know if this could be a business or how I could execute the business but it was scary for me to do it. Immediately there was a lot of 'why is she doing this?' I remember once I also had a movie coming out around the same time and there was a huge article in the NY Times about why am I doing this? And I thought, this seems extreme, like I'm just writing banana nut muffin recipes! But I think almost immediately there was a lot of interest in what I was doing and why I was doing it both in a positive and negative way. And I was such a neophyte. I had no experience."

On struggling as an entrepreneur

"It's funny, when I look back at those days in London and I had this very secret ambition that one day I would build something that we're on our way to building right now. And me alone trying to figure out Wordpress and Mailchimp.. and sending out a banana nut recipe.. I was like  man, what was I doing? But it's sort of the foundation of the brand, and it was always very from the heart and earnest. I started in this place where I had no idea, I had no concept of how to actually create a business, and what it would look like and how we would eventually monetize it. So it was a very long and slow process."

On why people don't want her to succeed

"I think the celebrity equally helps and hurts at the same time. When you're a celebrity, people have a pretty clear preconceived notion of who you are and who you should be in the culture. I just felt like I had a lot of wind in my face and I wasn't looked at just like an entrepreneur who was in her 30's and starting something. There was a lot of baggage that came with it. But then of course, the celebrity piece is an important lever that we can pull in the business when we need it. And I had sort of wondered, because I over my career represented various brands and I thought  what would it be like to leverage your own brand  for your own brand? Instead of a third-party brand. And how would that work?"

For the full transcript of the interview, contact Lee.Thompson@CNBC.com.

All creds should go to Tania Bryer and CNBC.
WHEN: Today, Friday, November 3, 2017

WHERE: CNBC's "Squawk on the Street"

Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC EXCLUSIVE interview with Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson and CNBC's Jim Cramer on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" (M-F 9AM-11AM) today, Friday, November 3rd. Following is a link to video from the interview on CNBC.com: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/11/03/starbucks-ceo-we-will-not-cede-ultra-premium-brand-to-anyone.html.

All references must be sourced to CNBC.

JIM CRAMER: Starbucks shares  you know, kind of doing a lot better than they were last night. Let's put it that way. After the company guided down its long-term projections of what it can do, joining us now in a CNBC EXCLUSIVE is Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson. Kevin, interesting description between what happened when you reported the number and then when you talked during the call. Which basically said look, we've got fabulous businesses, we've got some great growth, we're going to have a U.S. pickup soon. The numbers are going to be fine. I mean, do you think people have just kind of underestimated Starbucks? And we were overestimating maybe how much it could grow at one point. Maybe we felt you were going to guide down more and we ended up with a company with pretty good numbers for a senior growth company.

KEVIN JOHNSON: Well, Jim, you know, just to put it in context, it was 2010, we last revised our long term guidance. And since then we've more than doubled revenues, we've tripled our earnings and we've quadrupled the market cap of the company while adding 10,000 new stores. So we revised our long-term guidance yesterday high single digits revenue, 12% plus growth on earnings. And at our size and scale, you know, maintaining a growth posture at that size and scale and investing in the future and at the same time returning over $15 billion of cash to shareholders over the next three years in the form of dividends and buybacks, we think is a very, very strong growth company, postured to deliver.

CRAMER: Let's talk about the so-called mosh pit, which was a term by the way, that was introduced by Ron Shaich at Panera. I saw and spent time with Adam Brotman, as you acknowledged, who was in charge of trying to fix the problem. That problem is going away. Wouldn't that mean that you could conceivably have that acceleration? Some people were doubting if there could be acceleration in the U.S. But if you get mobile pay to where it's working, you will get that acceleration.

JOHNSON: Well, that's right, Jim. And the progress that's been made on increasing throughput at peak. Look, the morning peak is the most important day part for Starbucks. With the work that's gone on to increase throughput at peak, we are in the strongest position we've been as a company, which is why we committed now to start to open up mobile order and pay to all customers. We're going to start doing that in a phased approach throughout the year those things give me confidence in the U.S. comp growth numbers we've guided for.

CRAMER: You know, it's funny, there was a time, Kevin, where Young was a company that had very good growth core fund. And then growth slowed a bit in every country but China, and people wanted a play on China. Now I know you're not going to split the company apart because I know that would destroy the flywheel but China is growing at a level that makes me feel like I want to own Starbucks China. What do you do about the blended average that makes it so that China's pulled down by the rest of the world?

JOHNSON: Well, look, you point out, we just posted an 8% same store comparable growth in China. We just announced last quarter we acquired 100% of the joint venture in East China. So we're going to unify Mainland China as a company-operated market which allows us now to lean into the growth opportunity. In addition, we're opening a Flagship Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Shanghai next month. They presents decades of growth for us. Now we think having two powerful growth engines for the company, the U.S. and China, is what's going to fuel consistent long term profitable growth for shareholders and we think both of those growth engines are important.

CARL QUINTANILLA: Kevin, you told Reuters in an interview last night I guess, we're not going to get caught in the middle of the market and I just wonder for viewers, how should they think of the brand on the spectrum from McCafe to Blue Bottle?

JOHNSON: Look, Carl we've always had a lot of competition and certainly were serving over 90 million customer occasions a week. And part of that is addressing both the needs state of convenience and need state of connection. So we will not seed the high ground of the ultimate premium coffee experience to anyone, which is why we are investing in the Starbucks reserve brand. I'm sitting here today in the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Seattle. Next month we are opening an iconic roastery in Shanghai, China followed by Milan, New York, Tokyo, Chicago. All of that is fueling an ultra-premium coffee experience around the Starbucks Reserve Brand that is complimentary to the 27,000 stores that we now have around the world. So we're going to remain a premium coffee experience and we're investing in the Starbucks Reserve Brand to continue to elevate that experience on a global basis.

CRAMER: Let me ask you, Kevin, there's a report by Credit Suisse which says that you are even after the reset, looking too optimistically, that you have better visible than the street but they are questioning whether the margins will improve and any sort of acceleration in the U.S. What do you say to a Doubting Thomas like Credit Suisse that really doesn't believe the growth can reignite?

JOHNSON: Well, look, we study all of the data, certainly industry  industry studies and credit card data and certainly over this last year if you look in the U.S., it's fair to say that the overall U.S. retail restaurant industry has been very flat on sales and actually negative on transactions. The fact that we were able to build over 2,000 Starbucks stores globally that are performing at higher annual unit volumes than prior generations in an era where retailers are closing stores at the record pace gives us confidence that there's affinity for the brand. We then look at what we've done to increase throughput at peak, we look at our food and beverage innovation pipeline, we look at our digital flywheel and we have confidence. Look, over the last two years, we've been delivering U.S. comps kind of in that range of what we guided, but we do know that over time, away from home food and beverage is going to increase and so we've set a guidance set to -- accepting the fact that this is current  the current environment that we're operating in and with the work were doing on throughput, innovation, we're optimistic we can exceed that. Look, this quarter alone, we have a strong holiday planned and we're already off to a good start. So we're confident in our FY-18 guidance and long-term guidance that we've given.

CRAMER: What do you  I just want to go over the membership, this is the membership Starbucks reward. In q4 fiscal 2017, you said you had 13.3 million actives. Q3 you had 13.3 million actives. Q2, you had 13.3 million actives. Q1, you had 12.9 actives. Is there something wrong with the numbers? Because you do say you're up 11, up 8, up 11, what is the actual number of the active members in the Starbucks rewards?

JOHNSON: Yeah, we grew active members in Starbucks rewards 11% year on year, Jim. And what you see is seasonality in that. Think about this, when we get into holiday and we sell you know, billions of dollars' worth of Starbucks gift cards, many of those gift cards translate into rewards members. And so you have seasonality coming out of holiday where gift cards translate into rewards members. And so you have an uptick early in the year and then you hang on flat as you're engaging customers and do it again next year. So 11% growth in active rewards members we think is a good number and the fact that now we are opening up mobile order and pay to all customers, creates now a widening aperture of a digital mobile relationship, creates a feeder pool now for us to convert those customers into rewards customers. So we're very bullish on the work we've done and work we're -- we've gotten to plan for rewards program.

CRAMER: Cool. Well, Kevin Johnson, CEO of Starbucks, thank you so much for coming on the show and tell us how it's going. Really appreciate it.

JOHNSON: Thanks, Guys.

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After DuPont spun off paint manufacturer Axalta in 2012, the new stock initially spiked before spending a year trading sideways. This year, AkzoNobel expressed interest in buying Axalta , and Axalta's stock surged.

It's no secret that CNBC's Jim Cramer loves corporate breakups, but spinoffs, when a company separates from a smaller, undervalued segment, are slightly different.

"Look, not every spinoff is a success. I mean, it's just not that easy, right? But if you know what to look for, a good spinoff can often became a big winner," the "Mad Money" host said. "So let's talk about what works in a spinoff, what leads to an Axalta-type situation, and who could be the next Axalta."

In 2015, DuPont (which merged with Dow Chemical in September 2017 to become DowDuPont ) spun off its commodity chemical business into a new company called Chemours .

Cramer recommended Chemours for speculation in 2016 because its core business, titanium dioxide, started showing signs of a turnaround, and the new entity's management was aggressively cutting costs.

"My only regret is that I didn't pound the table even harder," Cramer said. "Since then, Chemours has vaulted from $7 to $55. That's a 647 percent gain, monster, crushing the performance of the broader market and its old parent company."

Cramer also got enthusiastic when Johnson Controls spun out Adient , its automotive seating business, in October 2016. He recommended Adient's stock in January of this year, and sure enough, it has rallied 41 percent since, outpacing both Johnson Controls and the .

"That's after Adient's stock sold off hard [Thursday], down 5 percent when the company reported what many people thought was a disappointing quarter," Cramer said. "I didn't see anything wrong with it. This might be the buying opportunity."

Not every spinoff works right away though, Cramer said, turning back to Axalta. Private equity giant The Carlyle Group bought Axalta from DuPont in 2012, taking it public shortly after.

Shares of Axalta surged until mid-2015, when sales weakness and Carlyle selling its majority stake in Axalta put pressure on its shares.

Since then, the stock has traded mostly sideways, even after Valspar sold its North American coatings business to Axalta cheaply as a part of its merger with Sherwin-Williams.

But chemical giant AkzoNobel's interest in Axalta restored the stocks momentum. Axalta shares popped 22 percent on the news, even as the company had just reported a sub-par quarter.

"Which brings me, again, to the other reason I love spinoffs: They can make very attractive takeover targets," Cramer said. "Often times, a big conglomerate will resist selling off one of its divisions to a competitor, but split that division off as a separate company, give it its own board of directors and its own shareholders, and suddenly, they become a lot more amenable to a takeover."

Where can investors find the next spinoff winners? Cramer pointed to Honeywell's plans to spin off two of its segments, car parts and home systems, into separate companies; DowDuPont's three-part breakup; and FMC Corp.'s potential spinoff of its lithium arm.

"Here's the bottom line: Spinoffs can be very lucrative. Even when they don't seem to be working, you can win anyway, maybe from a takeover if the stock just sits there like we saw in Axalta," the "Mad Money" host said.
GameStop Corp. : "I am concerned about GameStop. I have to tell you, if they're going to sell EA down and they're going to sell Activision Blizzard down It's going to be a very digital holiday season, and to me, that means that's bad for GameStop, so I'm going to have to say don't buy."

Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes : "It's up 193 percent. I would probably say it's up too much. You have to wait for a pullback on that one. We can't chase that. It's just not disciplined enough, I've got to be honest about it."

Park Hotels & Resorts : "I looked at Park Hotels and I liked it. I thought it was good. And I liked the yield."

Aurinia Pharmaceuticals Inc. : "We kind of like it. We like it. But remember: really risky and long term."
As recently as late September, his chief economic adviser, ex-Goldman Sachs executive Gary Cohn, insisted that the administration was set on closing what's also referred to as the "hedge-fund loophole," though hedge funds profit from it less than private-equity firms. "The president remains committed to ending the carried interest deduction," Cohn told CNBC . "As we continue to evolve on the framework, the president has made it clear to the tax writers and Congress. Carried interest is one of those loopholes that we talk about when we talk about getting rid of loopholes that affect wealthy Americans."

"They're paying nothing, and it's ridiculous," Trump said in August 2016. "These are guys that shift paper around and they get lucky." They were, he concluded, "getting away with murder."

From early in the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump swore he'd do away with the so-called carried-interest loophole, the notorious tax break that allows highly compensated private-equity managers, real estate investors and venture capitalists to be taxed at a much lower rate than other professionals.

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Yet the sweeping tax legislation released by House Republicans leaves the treatment of carried interest untouched.

The preservation of the loophole is only the latest and starkest example of how a policy that is increasingly attacked as unfair and unjustified by people on both sides of the aisle has managed to survive through the influence of its well-placed beneficiaries.

When it comes to the new tax bill, that influence surely included Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive of the Blackstone Group, one of the largest private-equity firms in the country. In 2010, when Congress, then controlled by Democrats, came close to closing the loophole, Schwarzman compared the proposal to the Nazi invasion of Poland. (He later apologized.) Schwarzman alone is estimated to have saved close to $100 million per year as a result of the treatment of carried interest, which makes up the vast bulk of his roughly $700 million annual income in recent years.

A major longtime donor to Republican candidates, Schwarzman did not give directly to Trump during the 2016 campaign, when Wall Street giving was in fact heavily tilted toward Hillary Clinton, even though she vowed to go even further in closing the loophole than Trump did. But Schwarzman quickly emerged earlier this year as a leading and highly influential advisor to Trump.

The loophole dates to almost a century ago, in the tax treatment of profits from oil-drilling partnerships, but its cost to the Treasury has exploded only in the past couple decades with the boom in the private equity industry. Those who manage the investments in private-equity funds are typically compensated in two different ways: with a 2 percent fee on the funds under management, and with a 20 percent cut of the gains they produce for investors  their "carried interest." That 20 percent cut is taxed under the capital gains rate, which currently amounts to 23.8 percent for the wealthy, instead of at the top rate for ordinary income, 39.6 percent, even though it is, essentially, part of the compensation that these investment managers are receiving for their labor, which is managing other people's money.

The loophole has also been very valuable to partners in large-scale real estate investment  such as Trump himself. Estimates of the loophole's total cost to the Treasury range from $1 billion per year to more than $10 billion.

Defenders of the loophole  who reject even the term "loophole"  have long argued that applying the lower capital gains rate to carried interest justly rewards the risk-taking involved in private-equity partnerships. But in recent years, even some people within the industry have grown more muted in their defense, as the loophole has become increasingly implicated in soaring incomes at the very top of the ladder.

For instance, David Rubenstein, the co-founder of another very large private equity firm, the Carlyle Group, in recent years has shifted from explicitly defending the loophole to rebuffing legislative attempts to close it by arguing that it would be better addressed as part of comprehensive tax reform. "I don't think anything will get done until comprehensive tax reform is discussed and everything's looked at," Rubenstein told this reporter in October 2015, at a New York event where he was being honored for his philanthropy.

That was an effective way to defer focused efforts to eliminate the tax break, without appearing to defend it outright. And now a comprehensive tax reform bill is finally on the table. And closing the loophole is not in it.
People visit the Tian'anmen Square on National Day on October 1, 2017 in Beijing, China. China is celebrating the 68th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

China is calling for constructive dialogue and negotiations ahead of the President Donald Trump's visit to Beijing next week as the world's second-largest economy balances practical diplomacy with its own growing assertiveness.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying demonstrated that balancing act when she addressed a question about the trade relationship with the U.S. on Thursday.

"With deepening and fast growing economic and trade cooperation, it is inevitable that certain differences and frictions may arise between China and the U.S. But we should be aware that this doesn't make [up] the mainstream of China-U.S. economic and trade relations," said Hua.

"We indeed hope that the U.S. will work with China for [shared goals, and] properly handle the relevant differences through dialogue and negotiation in a constructive way so as to ensure the steady and healthy development of China-U.S. economic and trade relations," Hua added, according to an official transcript.

After all, as the world's largest economies, the U.S. and China are "highly dependent" on each other, so "it's safe to say that we will swim or sink together," Hua said.

The official views were echoed by the state press which are painting a hopeful and positive picture of Trump's first presidential visit to Asia, where he will be meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing next week.

Leading English paper China Daily on Friday said Trump needs to reassure his hosts that the U.S. will make a "constructive contribution to regional issues."

"Much of the speculation ahead of Trump's visit to Asia, which began on Friday, stems from the conflicting messages that have previously been given by his administration," the editorial said. "A clear, consistent and positive message showing a willingness to cooperate and contribute constructively to resolving regional issues would go a long way toward making his trip a success."
Demand for veterinary professionals like Parsons is on the rise a byproduct of the booming pet-care industry, which is set to hit some $70 billion this year, and a growing world population, placing a greater emphasis on food safety and supply.

"People are interacting with animals every day, whether they're thinking about it or not in the foods we're eating and in the products we're using in a lot of different realms," the 25-year-old Parsons said.

Today, Parsons is a fourth-year student at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, studying in rotations, learning everything from large animal surgery to dairy production medicine.

"I was seeing the ways people depended on livestock for their livelihoods, for food every day, and it kind of made me start thinking differently about veterinary medicine," Parsons said.

Brianna Parsons grew up around animals in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, and always thought she'd be a small-animal vet, caring for cats and dogs. But after a study abroad trip to Tanzania during her undergrad years, she decided to change course.

Demand for vets is on the rise due to the booming pet-care industry and an increasing global population, with greater emphasis on food safety and health.

"A veterinarian's job is really to care for humanity by taking care of animals  we often talk about there only being one health. There's human, animal and environment and we serve all of that," said Dr. Joan Hendricks, dean of the UPenn's vet school.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, opportunities for veterinarians are set to climb by some 18 percent through 2026, while roles for vet technicians will rise by 20 percent in the same time frame. Salaries can reach into the high six-figures, depending on role and area of practice. And demand is so high that vet students often have two job offers when they graduate.

There aren't enough slots in U.S. vet schools to accommodate all applicants. Hendricks said there are about 4,000 spots for vet students across the country annually. UPenn now has 125 slots for students, up from 110, and the application process is highly competitive because the school can get up to 15 times more applicants than available slots.

Among the challenges for students is staying up to date on the "sheer amount of information" they need to know, she said. The information doubles every three years due to developments in biomedicine and in veterinary medicine, she added. The amount of training to become a vet is similar to what it takes to become a medical doctor.

"They just have to know a huge volume and be able to problem-solve," she said. "And they also have to be incredibly caring and intuitive and really good with animals."

Career options are plentiful once schooling is complete, from caring for companion animals to running one's own practice or even working for big pharmaceutical companies like Zoetis, which produces animal vaccines. The company is investing in research and development, supporting customers in companion animal practices and in working with food producers to ensure animals in the food supply chain are healthy.

"From a global perspective, there's been an increase in demand for the expertise that veterinarians provide to society," said Dr. Christine Jenkins, the company's chief medical officer for U.S. operations. "The demand is related to the increase in the size of the human population, an increase in affluence in developing countries, as well as an increase in overall urbanization."
"Having interacted with many companies over the years as an academic, I've seen companies where research was sort of like this side thing  there was always this frustration that it wasn't interacting with the core business," said Ghahramani, who has advised Microsoft Research and has received funding from Alphabet.

The lab has roughly doubled since then, with nearly 30 people out of Uber's more than 16,000 employees, Ghahramani told CNBC in an interview. And he's structured the team to avoid some of the historical issues that other big tech companies have faced in operating research organizations.

Rather than letting the start-up continue to function in New York, Uber brought the team to its San Francisco headquarters in March 2017. And while CEO Gary Marcus did leave just a few months after joining, Uber was quick to promote another cofounder, Zoubin Ghahramani, to be the new chief of the burgeoning lab.

The ride-hailing service has been staffing up in AI over the past year, thanks in large part to its December 2016 acquisition of Geometric Intelligence, a start-up incubated at New York University. The idea is to help the company do everything smarter  rides, food delivery, self-driving cars  as it faces competition from the likes of Alphabet , Amazon and Lyft.

Uber isn't about to be left behind in the race for artificial intelligence .

To try to avoid this sidelining, the Uber lab has two main programs: core and connections.

Core is about advancing basic AI research, which is a function of many corporate AI groups. Connections, meanwhile, is about working with all different parts of Uber.

For example, the lab needs to help figure out the best way to run Uber's main ride service in different cities  but it must also provide insight into the time required to prepare and deliver food in the Uber Eats business, automate some of the work of Uber's customer support department, and even contribute to the work of Uber's self-driving car group, Ghahramani said.

"Ironically, I've spent my whole academic career engaging with academics, publishing papers and spending my time in universities, and so on," he said. "What really excites me is the possibility of having an amazing material impact on our future world in a positive way. And so that's going to happen through the connections, the business of Uber."

At the same time, Uber's AI researchers are still centralized. They are not embedding themselves inside other groups at the company, as is the case at places like Pinterest. (The lab falls under Uber's advanced programs department, whose mandate is to work on future products.)

To help with recruiting, Uber is publishing research for anyone to read and build on. And on Friday the group took another step forward by releasing its software for free under an open-source license for the first time.

Uber is using the software, which goes by the name Pyro, to try to predict supply and demand for rides a few hours ahead of time. Pyro works on top of PyTorch, an AI framework that Facebook open-sourced earlier this year. The researchers are also bringing Pyro to Uber's finance department to build forecasts of the next few weeks and months of Uber's business.

The fact that Uber's business is fundamentally based in the physical world, rather than being purely about software or the internet, also helps the company recruit.

"The fact that we are so in the physical world, so in real time, so engaged with things like moving about and self driving and things like that that the actual artificial intelligence, cognitive science and machine learning problems are really pretty challenging and pretty different than a company that only interacts with people through a browser or something like that," Ghahramani said.

"The physical world is pretty complicated, and it makes you really stretch the stuff that you do."
A 46-year-old woman with a history of sleep disorder spent two weeks in a chamber with no clocks, no windows, television or internet  effectively nothing to let her know how much time had passed. The potentially crazy-making ordeal (subjects had regular check-ins with a psychologist throughout) helped scientists pinpoint the so-called night owl gene, a mutation in a gene called CRY1 that helps govern circadian rhythm, the 24-hour sleep/wake cycle present in all life on Earth. The experiment, published in April, built on the work of Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young, the three scientists who this year won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work they began more than 30 years ago. They isolated the master gene that controls circadian rhythm in fruit flies, which they called "period," and has since been found in all mammals.

Rockefeller University biologist Michael Young stands in his lab after winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine on October 2, 2017 in New York City. Young was one of the three scientists who discovered the molecular mechanism of circadian rhythm, which governs biological clocks that regulate sleep, eating behavior and metabolism. Spencer Platt | Getty Images staff

A mutation in CRY1 makes our internal clock run slower, contributing to delayed sleep phase disorder, according to the research. Whereas people with typical sleep tend to fall asleep around midnight and wake around seven or eight in the morning, people with DSPD typically fall asleep three to four hours later and wake up around 11 a.m. to noon. This has ramifications beyond sleep. The Nobel Prize, and continuing research, highlight how far sleep research has come: For many decades it had been neglected by the medical community, even though sleep, especially lack of it, can contribute to disease and cost society billions of dollars, a recent New Yorker magazine piece noted. Forty-seven million U.S. adults do not get a restorative sleep at night; workplace injuries and decreased productivity resulting from sleep deprivation are estimated to cost the United States billions annually; and tired drivers cause 20 percent of all car crashes, more than 1 million crashes a year. "There definitely are correlations between this late sleep pattern and a variety of secondary diseases, not all of which we understand," said Alina Patke, a research associate at Rockefeller University and the lead author on the night owl study conducted at Young's lab. "People who have this preferred late chronotype, this night owl behavior," tend to score higher on measures of depression and are also more likely to suffer from other serious conditions, including heart disease, diabetes and obesity. Patke's research established the genetic condition, but screen time in bed and other visual stimulants "can definitely make it worse," she said. CRY1 is not affected by light exposure in humans  night owls will be night owls  but late-night screens can exacerbate the condition. "Somebody might have a natural disposition to be up late that can be aggravated if that person sits in front of a bright computer screen till two am," Patke said. "That would be bad for anybody, but especially someone who has DSPD."

Godong | Contributor | Universal Images Group

Outside of good sleep hygiene, including turning off screens before bed, there aren't many treatment options for DSPD, although scientists are beginning to explore novel treatments targeting the biological clock for sleep disorders, and related health conditions. For those interested in whether they have a dominant night owl gene, short of going to a private lab there is no way to test for it currently. Patke said that her lab does not do that sort of testing (they have had inquiries) and it would in fact be illegal to do so without the necessary licensure for commercial testing.

Commercial mail-in DNA testing service 23andMe doesn't currently screen for this particular genetic variation, so it won't show up in their results. But Patke also stresses that even without a CRY1 mutation it is possible to have a sleep disorder, including DSPD. Patke is herself a night owl and tested her own DNA for the presence of the mutated gene  she doesn't have it. She fits the bill, however, and thinks she may yet have a sleep disorder that one day will be linked to specific genes. "We are looking for other genetic features" in DPSD, she said. "CRY1 is definitely one, but there will be others. ... If you understand the mechanism, you can maybe start interfering with it to direct it in the direction we want. We want to keep screening people to see what makes people tick," Patke said. Scientists are looking for genetic signatures in other sleep disorders, such as insomnia and narcolepsy, which all together affect an estimated 50 million to 70 million Americans. Sleep apnea  in which a person's airway closes during sleep  is as prevalent in the United States as mental illness, affecting millions of people.

Pharmaceutical interventions

About 9 million, or 1 in every 25 Americans, take prescription sleep medication, spending $41 billion on sleep aids in 2015. The industry is supposed to reach $52 billion by 2020. Typical sleep meds, including Ambien and Lunesta, work by targeting neurotransmitters, the chemical signalers in the brain, either by enhancing the effects of calming neurotransmitters or diminishing the effects of those involved in arousal. Although they are effective for many people, others, especially people with more intractable disorders such as insomnia and DSPD, don't respond as well or at all to prescription sleep medications, which also tend to have a high propensity for addiction. Only a couple of companies  pharmaceutical giant Merck and a small biotechnology start-up called Reset Therapeutics  are currently exploring potential therapeutic compounds that target the genes controlling the biological clock. More from Modern Medicine: To live longer, don't just eat less  eat less often Tech addition sweeps across US Rather than producing sleep medications, however, both companies are primarily focused on developing medications for the serious, secondary diseases associated with disordered sleep. "The same mechanism that drives circadian rhythm those rhythms exists in pretty much every cell in your body," explained Ross Bersot, president and CEO of Reset Therapeutics, based in San Francisco, which has developed drug compounds aimed at treating diabetes, non alcoholic fatty liver disease, hepatitis and other metabolic disorders by targeting CRY1 and other genes that control the sleep/wake cycle. "CRY1 has roles outside the circadian clock," Patke said. When we go to sleep and when we wake up has a cascading effect on the rest of the body's clocks, altering hormone levels throughout the day and impacting when the liver starts secreting certain enzymes, which affects the timing of when we get hungry, as well as glucose tolerance, insulin sensitivity and other factors that can contribute to the development of disease. "There are clocks in every organ and every tissue in your body, but they aren't in the same phase. In a body synchronized the way it should be, it could be New York time in brain, Paris time in liver and Beijing time in lungs," Patke said. Reset Therapeutics is now halfway through stage one of clinical testing to determine drug safety in humans. In earlier animal studies, molecular compounds designed to delay protein degradation were found to reduce insulin resistance in mice, as well as restore regular body temperature, which goes out of whack in diabetes. Reset's strategy is based on research by Joseph S. Takahashi, head of the neuroscience department at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and another pioneer in the field of circadian genetics who serves on Reset's Advisory Board. Even if all goes well (which it often doesn't in clinical trials), however, the company is still years away from FDA approval and bringing a drug to market. Reset Therapeutics is also developing an is Apart from an insomnia medication targeting biological clock genes other than CRY1, which is in an earlier phase of testing.

If it's at all possible and compatible with your lifestyle and the pressures with your everyday life, you are better off sleeping in accord with internal clock. Alina Patke research associate in the Rockefeller University lab of 2017 Nobel winner Michael Young

Another currently available option is Melatonin, a "darkness hormone" associated with sleep in humans, but that also exists in nocturnal animals. Studies have shown moderate effects on improving sleep for jet-lag sufferers and for night-shift workers taking melatonin, but not with insomnia and other sleep disorders. The effects of the hormone, which is available without a prescription, vary because each human body metabolizes it differently. People who suspect they may have DSPD, and most people, should avoid late-night screen time and practice overall good sleep hygiene: Avoid caffeine before bedtime, turn off electronics, and avoid lingering in bed in the morning. Also skip late-night eating and keep to a meal schedule, Patke said, as the "clocks" in the liver and rest of the digestive system can also have a reciprocal effect on the sleep/wake cycle.

Medicine isn't the only answer
Ordnancemen gesture before loading 'dummy' missiles onto an F/A-18 Hornet on the deck of the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier in the Atlantic ocean on October 25, 2017,

Earnings guidance for defense contractors could go higher if the Senate's $700 billion defense policy bill prevails, according to an industry analyst.

A House-Senate conference committee is still working out differences over the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, and it appears it may be close to finalizing a deal. Besides authorizing spending for everything from the F-35 fighter to warships, issues include the House bill to create a new so-called Space Corps.

Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and one of the conferees, told reporters last week before the meeting he was "confident" they could complete talks within a "few days."

"Congress is very supportive of increasing defense spending, especially among Republicans, and increasing force structure [or troop strength]," said Roman Schweizer, a Washington-based defense analyst at Cowen. "But on the other hand, there's some real immediate concerns about operations and maintenance, repairing existing systems, and also refilling munitions inventories that have been expended over the last several years."

In September, the Senate passed a roughly $700 billion authorization, which includes a base budget of $640 billion for national defense programs and $60 billion for the so-called Overseas Contingency Operations war funding. The House passed a companion bill in July, authorizing $621.5 billion in defense spending plus nearly $75 billion for the overseas contingency fund.

The two bills authorize more money for national defense than President Donald Trump's budget request.

"There seems to be a general recognition here that readiness is suffering, that we have a number of programs suffering, we have a lot of obsolete equipment, etc.," said Richard Safran, a defense industry analyst at Buckingham Research in New York. "There's just tacit recognition in the House and Senate that action needs to be taken sooner rather than later."

Safran said one of the things that came out of the third-quarter results for defense contractors was "a fairly soft" guidance for next year's financial results. He said a key reason for that was the outlook for many defense companies like Lockheed Martin was based on the president's defense budget request.

The analyst said earnings outlook for defense companies may trend upward, assuming the conference committee authorizes a defense budget closer to the Senate version with much higher defense spending than the White House sought.

"There's upside to defense company guides for 2018," Safran said. "If that's the case, you could start to see upward revisions starting in January."

Yet both versions of the defense bill are higher than the sequestration cap of $549 billion in defense spending authority set into place by the 2011 Budget Control Act. To amend those limits, it will take at least 60 votes in the GOP-controlled Senate, or support from every Republican and eight Democratic senators.

"In order to get that level of increased spending, you're to need a bipartisan deal  and that has really still yet to take shape," said Schweizer.

Meantime, the Senate's version authorizes more spending on total aircraft for the Navy and Air Force than the House's bill, and both versions are above the White House's request. The House version also increases the size of the Army by authorizing an additional 10,000 troops plus thousands more to the Army National Guard and Army Reserve.

One of the aircraft beneficiaries could be the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. The Senate authorizes $10.76 billion for procuring 94 of the stealth fighters, or about $3.1 billion and 24 aircraft more than the administration's request.

The fleet has around 250 F-35 stealth fighter aircraft, and the Pentagon has plans to ultimately have around 2,400. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor, and Northrop Grumman is the top subcontractor.

The Senate version also has more F/A-18 Super Hornets and P-8A Poseidon aircraft than what was requested by the administration. Both are manufactured by Boeing .

As for the Navy, the Senate authorizes more money to shipbuilding than the House bill and is above the White House's request. The Senate bill would fund 13 ships for $25 billion.

The Space Corps is not in the Senate bill, and the Air Force opposes the idea.

The Senate's version goes in a different direction on space, creating a new chief information warfare officer that falls under the secretary of Defense and gives that person responsibility for space and cyber.

"My bet would be they come up with a compromise somewhere in between and is different than those two ideas," said Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

Besides creating a sixth military branch, the head of the Space Corps would become a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The White House rejected the Space Corps plan this summer, calling it "premature at this time" and pointing out there's an assessment underway to study possible military space organization changes while also looking at budget implications.

The lawmaker behind the Space Corps effort is Alabama Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee. In a June hearing, Rogers said the Russians and Chinese have already reorganized their own space operations, adding "the Chinese literally have a space force today."
Twitter said that President Donald Trump's Twitter account was "inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee," after @realdonaldtrump appeared to be deleted for about 11 minutes Thursday night.

That employee was a contractor, according to a report in The New York Times, citing two sources briefed on the matter.

Twitter said earlier that the employee deactivated the account on their last day of work. The company said Friday that it had "implemented safeguards" in response to the incident, but declines to share details about its security precautions.

Trump tweet

Twitter Tweet

Updated Twitter Tweet

"The discovery highlights a difficult issue for Twitter, as well as other technology companies that rely on large amounts of contract workers to handle sensitive work," the Times wrote.

Hundreds of employees have the capability to delete the accounts of accounts belonging to users the company refers to as "very important tweeters" or VITs, according to the Times report.

Twitter did not respond to an emailed request for comment. The company said on Twitter that it was conducting an investigation into the deletion of the president's account. The official @POTUS account was not deleted.

Click here to read the full article from The New York Times.
British challenger bank OakNorth said Friday that Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC would take a 10 percent stake in the firm.

The state-owned investor has poured 90 million ($120 million) into the financial technology (fintech) company. Combined with another investment the lender scored last month, a total of 244 million ($318 million) has been raised.

"If you aggregate the two announcements about the primary and secondary rounds, it is the largest U.K. fintech financing to date," OakNorth Chief Executive Rishi Khosla, told CNBC Friday.

On Thursday, another U.K. fintech firm, Transferwise, said it had raised $280 million from asset management firm Old Mutual and Silicon Valley venture capital firm IVP.

Collectively, Transferwise and OakNorth's investments saw $400 million injected into the U.K.'s fintech sector in just two days.

OakNorth said the latest investment would enable it to boost lending in the U.K. by an additional 1.5 billion ($2 billion).

The firm plans to roll out its ACORN lending platform  which helps banks originate, underwrite, monitor and book transactions faster  to markets across the globe.

Khosla said: "What this financing round does is help us continue building the business in the U.K. but also taking the model to other markets around the world."

Khosla added that OakNorth would look into partnering with a more established bank further down the line, "as we look at other markets."
John Legere, chief executive officer of T-Mobile US.

Talks between Sprint and T-Mobile for a possible merger continue despite differences on key issues, sources told CNBC.

Last week, reports surfaced that SoftBank, the Japanese conglomerate that controls Sprint, was planning to end talks with T-Mobile, whose parent is Deutsche Telekom.

Deutsche Telekom representatives are believed to visit SoftBank's Masa Son this weekend, sources told CNBC.

The talks had lost momentum over price and governance issues.

 Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.
The typical image of a chief executive is a smartly-dressed man or woman in a boardroom or behind a desk.

Not so John Legere, the U.S. CEO and president of telecommunications company T-Mobile , who spends his day dressed in a company-branded tracksuit top and pink t-shirt and is often on social media.

The first thing he does each day is check Twitter, writing tweets to his 4.7 million followers. "I probably do 6 to 7 hours a day just on social," he told CNBC's "The Brave Ones."

CEOs need to write their own tweets or risk being seen as phony, he added. "You know one of the things you can't do in social is, it has to be you, if it ever becomes  and they can tell  if it's somebody being you, they vote you off the island."

TWEET

One of his famous followers is rapper Snoop Dogg, who featured in T-Mobile's Super Bowl commercial this year with Martha Stewart.

Stewart and Snoop have their own cookery show, "Martha & Snoop's Potluck Dinner Party," currently airing on VH1, and in January posted a tweet asking Legere to appear on it.

Legere also told "The Brave Ones" he likes to use social media to show off to his family.

"My daughters, they'll want to talk to so and so (celebrity) and I'll say: 'Watch this' and I'll text (trance group) Above and Beyond or I'll text Snoop Dogg and she'll say: 'You kidding me? Why would Snoop text you?' And I'll say: 'Honey, they all follow me on Twitter'," he said.

T-Mobile's U.S. operation is currently in talks to merge with Sprint, but discussions were said to be stalling Monday.
Lost amidst the debate over tax reform  seemingly caught between the interests of individuals and those of large companies  are small businesses. It's a big oversight, because small business is a vital and often overlooked engine of economic growth.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses accounted for 63 percent of net new jobs between 2010 and 2016. They comprise 99.9 percent of all firms and employ 47.8 percent of all private sector workers.

Small businesses are also fragile, with only about half surviving at least five years. In order to succeed, they need all the help they can get.

Many institutions, including government, impact whether businesses grow and thrive. UBS recently surveyed a sample of business owners (with an average of 56 employees and $8 million in annual revenue), and respondents were clear about how Washington can help them and the larger economy: provide tax relief for businesses, and quickly.

The broader economic impact comes in the tangible changes owners would make if business taxes are lowered. Nearly half of small business owners said they would invest more in their businesses and almost one-third said they would hire more workers, pumping money into the economy and lowering the unemployment rate.

Small business owners are eager for action, and policymakers have a great opportunity to leverage their confidence in the near-term future. More than half (65 percent) of owners are optimistic about the economy's performance over the next year and the vast majority (77 percent) expect to grow their enterprises over the same time period.

Tax reform is the most popular path for Washington to help stimulate small business activity, but it's not the only one. Regulations are another major obstacle. Almost three-fourths of small business owners want less regulation, nearly half would invest more in their business if regulations were streamlined and one-third would hire more workers. Lifting regulations that are overly burdensome or unnecessary would free up business owners to generate even more economic activity.

Washington's actions in the coming weeks and months could have a big impact on whether the country's ongoing economic momentum continues or starts slipping. Comprehensive tax reform is a great place to start, and it will better allow small businesses to do what they do best  create jobs, fill gaps in the marketplace and strengthen their communities. The administration and Congress have a golden opportunity to enact such a bill and should do so immediately.

Commentary by Tom Naratil, president of Wealth Management Americas and president of Americas at UBS. He is also a member of UBS Group AG's Group Executive Board.

For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.
A global coalition coordinating the effort to root out widespread corruption in the energy sector is decrying the Trump administration's decision to pull out of the effort.

The Interior Department informed the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative on Thursday that the United States is withdrawing as an implementing country. That means the United States will no longer align its rules and regulations to be fully compliant with the global effort to reduce corruption connected to drilling and mining in typically poor, resource-rich countries.

"This is a disappointing, backwards step. The EITI is making important gains in global efforts to address corruption and illicit financial flows," EITI Chairman Fredrik Reinfeldt said in a statement.

"It's important that resource-rich countries like the United States lead by example. This decision sends the wrong signal."

Earlier this year, an Interior Department spokesperson denied the agency was planning to pull out of EITI. The spokesperson made the claims after CNBC inquired about reports that Interior officials canceled all of the remaining scheduled meetings with nonprofit and industry groups linked to EITI.

On Thursday, the director of Interior's Office of Natural Resources Revenue said the United States would not become a full member because "domestic implementation of EITI does not fully account for the U.S. legal framework." The United States will remain a supporting country and "remains fully committed to institutionalizing the EITI principles of transparency and accountability consistent with U.S. law," Director Gregory Gould told Reinfeldt in a letter.
An Oval Office bill signing attended by lawmakers and financial services interest groups devolved into a venting session about Richard Cordray, the embattled director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to six people in the room and two people briefed on the conversation.



The bill signed into law Wednesday rolls back a CFPB rule banning language in financial services contracts that keeps customers from banding together in class-action lawsuits. The undoing of the CFPB's proposal, called the "arbitration rule," represents the latest usage by the White House and Congress of their ability to reverse new regulations before they are put into practice.



Rep. Jeb Hensarling, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee and will retire at the end of his term in 2018, remarked that President Donald Trump would expend less energy undoing the CFPB's actions if he removed Cordray. Republicans view Cordray's position as the sole figurehead atop an enforcement agency created by the Dodd-Frank Act as the symbol of postrecession regulatory overreach under President Barack Obama.



In response, Trump went around the room and asked what he should do about Cordray, who has three months until the Feb. 1 filing deadline to run for governor of Ohio. According to three of the attendees, the view shared by Trump and the White House view is not to make Cordray a "martyr"  the assumption being that ceremoniously ousting him would afford him hero status among the left and fundraising momentum in a key swing state.



Hensarling and Rep. Sean Duffy were said to push doggedly for Cordray to be fired, suggesting they could write letters to expedite the process. But a White House official notes the views were not unanimous, with Rep. Patrick McHenry disagreeing with his Capitol Hill colleagues.



As the signing was scheduled to wrap, White House chief of staff John Kelly entered the room and suggested the discussion be taken "offline," according to three attendees. Kelly's entrance into the Oval Office, in the words of one attendee, ended the conversation "in a New York second."



The conversation was described as light-hearted and short, but vigorous  with White House officials pointing to a broader strategy behind the thinking of not firing the director.

The White House declined to comment on the record. The signing ceremony was closed to the press but published to the official White House Instagram page. The CFPB declined to comment.



Sarah Flaim, a spokesperson for Hensarling, said the congressman "doesn't comment on private Oval Office conversations, but has made no secret his desire to see Cordray gone."



Hensarling in July asked the Office of Special Counsel to investigate Cordray over Hatch Act violations. In an opening statement at an April hearing, Hensarling called for Trump to dismiss Cordray "for all the harm inflicted upon consumers."

The Office of Special Counsel sent Cordray a letter dated October 12 notifying Cordray that the investigation "found no evidence that you have engaged in any of the types of preliminary activities directed toward candidacy that would violate the Hatch Act."
Turkey wants to manufacture the S-400 domestically in a joint venture with Russia as part of an overall effort by Ankara to build the country's military manufacturing expertise. However, that arrangement would mean the Russians would have to share the technology with Turkey, and all indications so far are Moscow probably wouldn't allow the transfer.

Last week, Gen. Petr Pavel, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, said during an event in Washington that Turkey should it go ahead with the acquisition would be "facing the consequences of that decision."

Regardless, the potential sale of the S-400 has been one of the irritants in U.S.-Turkish relations and also raised questions about Ankara's long-term motivations and its commitment to the NATO alliance.

"Don't be surprised if that deal for the S-400 system never actually sees the full light of day," said Richard Safran, a defense analyst at Buckingham Research in New York. "The Turkish situation on the surface appears to be degrading right now."

On Thursday, the CEO of Russia's state-owned Rostec defense company said the deal with Turkey exceeded $2 billion, according to Tass , the Russian news agency. It followed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in September announcing the longtime member of NATO had made a down payment to Moscow for the S-400 and that he and Vladimir Putin , the Russian president, "are determined on this issue."

While Russia continues to tout the planned sale of its S-400 strategic air-defense system to Turkey , some U.S. analysts are growing more skeptical about the deal.

Analysts say the sale has other problems too, including the Russian military equipment's lack of interoperability with NATO's armed forces. No NATO ally currently operates the S-400.

"I do not think it will happen," said Luke Coffey, director of the Allison Center for Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation, the Washington-based conservative think tank. First, he believes Ankara is using the Russians as leverage to get a better deal on an air-defense system from the U.S. or a European ally. Second, he doesn't believe Moscow will transfer the S-400 technology to Turkey.

Indeed, Turkish paper Hurriyet last month reported a Putin advisor, Vladimir Kojin, had said Russia would not provide the technology transfer sought by Ankara. Also, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was quoted by the Istanbul paper Aksam as saying: "If Russia doesn't want to comply, we'll make an arrangement with another country."

Wolfe Research analyst Hunter Keay said in a note last month that Erdogan "overruled" the comments by his foreign minister and also "pointed out having talks over the still-in-development S-500 missile system," a newer version of Russia's defense system.

Even so, Russian media have still played up Turkish interest in the S-400 for many months, noting that China was a buyer of the system. More recently, it's been reported that Saudi Arabia is interested in the air defense system.

Back in 2015, Turkey looked set to acquire China's export version of the FD-2000 long-range air-defense missile system for $3.4 billion but backed out after pressure from NATO. Also, the Chinese reportedly refused to budge on all of the Ankara government's technology-transfer demands.

"We're not expecting Turkey to switch course again, but further estrangement from the U.S./NATO and closer ties with Russia could create risks around existing programs like the F-35," said Keay.

Turkey is scheduled to get 100 F-35 stealth fighter jets, with the first aircraft delivery expected to happen in 2019.

Despite strains in the U.S.-Turkish alliance, analysts say the controversial Erdogan probably is playing to a domestic audience with the Russian hardware purchase since it fits into his strategy to continue consolidating power and demonstrating regional superpower status regardless of NATO.

"Turkey is doing a lot of posturing to show that it is capable of going elsewhere besides NATO for its weapons and its alliances," said Loren Thompson, a defense industry consultant and chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based public-policy think tank supported by U.S. defense giants.

Since a failed coup attempt in 2016, Erdogan's government has detained several Americans. Erdogan blames the West for helping alleged coup plotters and their sympathizers.

Other challenges in the U.S.-Turkish relationship stem from the U.S. alliance with the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces to defeat ISIS. The Kurdish YPG militia are a branch of the outlawed terrorist group PKK (or Kurdistan Workers' Party), which is accused of killing some 1,200 Turkish security forces and civilians.

Additionally, there's been a diplomatic dispute between Ankara and Washington that led Erdogan last month to accuse the U.S. of unfairly treating its longtime ally. There's also been a diplomatic spat and suspension of visa services to each other's citizens.

Meantime, Erdogan and Putin have worked to mend a relationship that was rocked after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet in late 2015. Putin has visited Turkey at least two times since ties between the two countries resumed last year.

"Maybe Erdogan and Putin get along personally, but these countries have been competitors and enemies on and off through the course of centuries," said Coffey. "The idea that they will all of a sudden become these close buddies goes against the grain of history."

Added Coffey, "Erdogan tries to play one off the other to advance Turkey's position in the region. He'll cooperate with Russia when he thinks it suits it, or then he'll go back to NATO and the U.S."
RACINE  Downtowns can make a comeback, but only if they continue to change and become places where people want to spend their time.

That was the message that travel industry expert Roger Brooks shared, along with some tips on how to improve area downtowns, during a talk at the SC Johnson Golden Rondelle Theater on Wednesday night.

At the start of the night, Dave Blank, the president and CEO of Real Racine, described how he surveyed the city and what it had to offer when he first visited for a job interview in 1997.

That same scenario happens every day, and now with Foxconn, its going to happen even more often, Blank said.

Brooks told the crowd why downtowns are making a comeback after storefronts began to empty following the invention of subdivisions in the late 1940s and the subsequent popularity of shopping centers. Now that online shopping is causing retail stores to close, its a chance for downtowns to flourish again.

Change is inevitable, Brooks said. And what happens is, downtowns didnt change.

Kelly Kruse, executive director of the Downtown Racine Corporation, said that it stuck with her when Brooks said tourism is the front door to a better residential economy.

We need to get people to see Racine for the first time in a positive light, she said.

Although Kruse believes that Downtown Racine is flourishing, she knows that it could do even better if businesses stayed open later.

Brooks informed the crowd that 70 percent of all retail spending happens after 6 p.m., a time when many Downtown Racine businesses are closed.

One of the most important things to revitalize a downtown, Brooks said, is to ensure theyre the places where people go to spend time at night and on the weekends, with the primary hours from 4 -10 p.m. Brooks advised that even downtown municipal buildings change hours of operation, to be open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., for example.

Even though she knows that some small, family owned businesses would struggle to stay open later, due to payroll concerns, Kruse suggested that Racine businesses focus on staying open later Friday through Sunday.

Brooks estimated that Foxconn will bring a minimum of 3,000 employees to the area, and the goal should be to ensure those people live here.

What you dont want is for 2,000 of them to live outside Racine, commute in, clog up your streets and then, when theyre done, go home and take all that money with them, Brooks said. You need to make Racine and your neighboring communities the place so the money stays here.

To determine what makes successful downtowns tick, Brooks and his team embarked on a seven-year study, looking at 2,000 downtowns and districts in the U.S. and Canada. From the 400 most successful downtowns, the team determined the common ingredients that made them flourish.

He stressed the importance of making sure downtown is a place where people want to spend time, whether theyre locals or visitors. This can be achieved by adding outdoor dining, live music and by making more space for pedestrians by closing lanes of traffic.

Kruse said that beginning on June 23, 2018, there will be live music at Monument Square from 2-5 p.m. every Saturday through Labor Day. The regular event, called Saturday Sounds on the Square, will be funded through donations from downtown merchants.

Its a small step toward our goal of getting more people downtown, she said.

Brooks said that having 2-hour parking, prevalent in Downtown Racine, is not a good way to keep people there. They wont spend as much at local stores if theyre checking their watches or if they get a ticket. Its also important to ensure that there are public restrooms.

Brooks also said it was actually a benefit for the downtown to be far away from the freeway, as it makes it more of a destination and less of a pass-through.

In answering a question about obstructionist thinking from the crowd, Brooks said it was usually important to get the mayor or a city council person on board to champion the downtown cause.

Brooks added that the location of the proposed event center, about a block from Downtown, in conjunction with some of his other recommendations could make for a thriving Downtown.

Kruse said that people with an interest in downtowns from several area communities including Racine, Waterford and Burlington met with Brooks on Thursday morning in a round table discussion. Brooks also spoke at the Wisconsin Fall Tourism Conference, which took place at the Delta Hotels by Marriott Racine in Mount Pleasant on Thursday and Friday.
Ethan Perlstein, founder of Perlara, shares his biotech fundraising tips Ethan Perlstein

The birth of a start-up is greeted with fanfare and expectation. As a culture, we're intoxicated by stories of entrepreneurial heroism. The larger and more oversubscribed the round  and the more earth-shattering the mission  the better. Nowhere is this ethos more true than Silicon Valley. It's for precisely that reason that my start-up Perlara was conceived and born three-and-a-half years ago. With our latest round of financing behind us, here are some learnings from a tour of duty pitching Sand Hill Road's venture capitalists. Listen up, founders.

Don't get strung along

My first hard-earned lesson? Don't take any meetings with a VC if their fund hasn't already invested in your space or vertical. The onus is on them to prove to you and their limited partners why your company should be first. As founders, we forget that VCs know exactly how it feels to walk in our shoes because they have to pitch limited partners to invest in them. I'm consistently surprised that founder empathy isn't the default disposition of every VC. The biggest mistake I made over and over again before I got wise was giving free tutoring sessions to "biocurious" tech investors (a term I heard while networking) who were not all that serious about investing in deep science, in particular biomedical science. I don't need to name names. Just cruise Sand Hill Road and pull into any office villa. You'll find them. Mercifully there were public transportation-accessible tech VCs located in San Francisco, which cut down on my travel time and opportunity cost.

No one talks about the dark underbelly of fundraising: Crippling self-doubt, loneliness, and personal tolls on all your other relationships.

It's deceptively easy to fall into the trap of being the accommodating founder who goes with the flow by dutifully scheduling follow-up meetings that will go nowhere. Never wrap up an investor meeting or call without taking their temperature. Most investors know within five minutes. That means there's never ever a reason to take more than two face-to-face meetings  one on their turf, one on your turf  with a prospective investor. Any more and you're being strung along. How do you know where an investor stands? Just ask. Here's what I suggest: "Are we a thesis fit and can you see yourself getting to conviction?" If a VC can't answer those two questions, they either weren't paying attention to your pitch, or they're not taking their job and your time seriously. Too many founders hear investors tell them that they're going to "circle up with the team," and believe them. Weeks of radio silence and several Monday VC partnership meetings later, founders maddeningly realize they've hit a dead end. Unfortunately, few investors come right out and say no. All too often they sugar coat rejection with unverifiable excuses about timing or purely ceremonious offers to help. You know as a founder that you've hit a wall when you hear things like, "we need 4-5 weeks to dig in," or "we prefer to lead," or "love your mission, tell me how I can help." You want to know how you can help? You can fund my company.

Don't expect feedback

Now there are some VCs that have an emotional connection with founders, however limited, and they provide supportive feedback that accompanies the rejection. In my personal experience, this is rare. That's why I counsel other founders to not waste their time pressing investors. It's like asking an ex-partner to list all the reasons they broke up with you. All you need to hear is a firm no. The only people who can improve your product with feedback are customers, so you can safely ignore almost every investor's advice about your business model. I'm not advocating burning bridges with VCs because they utter the words "no" or "pass." If their rejection is professional and well-defined, founders should return professionalism in kind. However, if a VC passes but ends the email with the open-ended entreaty, "Let's stay in touch for the next round"  don't! It's their job to keep tabs on you. That's why VC firms hire folks like principals and associates. Sometimes the sourcing spirit even moves managing partners.

Build your 'ride or die' crew

This advice doesn't come from a place of bitterness. Every company thinks they'll be the hot deal, but few will. Your existing investors are your base of support. You already wooed them; they're already in your corner. Always fundraise from your base. At the seed stage, particularly in the Bay Area, there are too many "one-and-done" investors who will never exercise pro rata, and who will probably never add more value to the company than their initial equity investment. Not every angel investor who invests in your company will cut a second check, and you shouldn't necessarily expect all of them to. Identify the early investors who will be your lifeline in years to come.

I counsel other founders to not waste their time pressing investors. It's like asking an ex-partner to list all the reasons they broke up with you.
The mobile-messaging application WhatsApp is displayed on an Apple iPhone

WhatsApp was hit by a major outage on Friday morning, preventing people around the globe from using the world's most popular messaging app.

Users of the Facebook -owned app could not send or receive messages as the service continued to say it was "connecting", though no connection was made.

According to DownDetector, there were problems across Europe although users in India, Pakistan, Singapore and Iraq also reported that they could not access the service.

Whatsappdown was the top trending item on Twitter in India, which is the app's largest market. Around 200 million of the messaging app's billion-plus users are based in India.

A spokesperson for Facebook in Singapore said the company was investigating the matter, Reuters reported.

The online messaging app went down in the U.K. at approximately 8:30 a.m. GMT (4.30 a.m. ET), before users were able to reconnect around 30 minutes later.

The reported connection error comes as Apple released the iPhone X on Friday, with people eagerly anticipating the tech giant's latest flagship phone in stores globally.

Facebook was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
Shoppers can expect to spend less this month, because it gets darker earlier. So, as daylight saving time ends, waving goodbye to those long days could actually help shoppers save  at the expense of retail businesses.

According to a report by JPMorgan Chase Institute, shoppers spend 3.5 percent less in grocery stores, gas stations and at retailers in the month following the end of daylight saving time. That percentage may not seem like much, but to businesses it can be a big deal.

"One business owner said she felt the sky was falling that month and was racking her brain about what was happening," said Marvin Monroe Ward Jr., a JPMorgan Chase researcher who worked on the study.

By comparing shopping habits in Phoenix, which does not use daylight saving time, to shopping habits in Los Angeles, Denver and San Diego, which do, researchers found that consumers make fewer trips to stores, resulting in fewer overall purchases.

In Los Angeles, for example, shoppers spent about 4.6 percent less on fuel, 4.8 percent less at retail stores and 5.9 percent less at grocery stores in the 30 days following the end of daylight saving time.

But if fewer impulse buys mean fuller wallets, do fuller wallets mean happier consumers? Not necessarily. Researchers believe the damage to businesses likely outweighs any perceived benefit to consumers.

"This is almost a subconscious thing. The shift in [consumers'] minds is largely consistent with their environment, in this case, less sunshine," Ward said.

Despite indicators that daylight saving time may be tough on retailers, the National Retail Federation is historically on board. The organization, which represents retailers across more than 45 countries, including the U.S., "strongly supports" daylight saving time, according to spokesperson Craig Shearman.

The U.S. adopted daylight saving time in 1918 to help reduce the cost of energy. Longer days, the U.S. Department of Transportation proposed, meant reduced electricity for lighting and appliances, with added bonuses of less crime and fewer traffic accidents.

Advocates also argue the yearly ritual boosts the economy by providing more hours during which consumers will be out spending money.

Ward's study seems to refute that claim, at least for the 30 days following the transition into or out of daylight saving time. But since researchers only looked at two months, rather than the stretches of time between the transitions, they can't say how lasting an impact the time change had on businesses.
Around the world, airlines are shrinking or phasing out first-class cabins entirely. Instead, they are investing heavily in pleasing a larger group of well-heeled travelers than the rare few who would shell out more than $25,000 for over-the-top luxury.

Airlines, including Delta and United , are rolling out business-class cabins with pods and suites reminiscent of the top-tier of commercial air travel, all in denser cabins, aimed at those flying for work. Rival Qatar Airways this year unveiled a business-class cabin that features side-by-seats that can be converted into a double bed.

Unlike the rare few who shell out for the five-figure fare for a seat in an international first class, a business traveler is a repeat customer. Airlines are betting that these travelers (or more likely, their employers) are willing to splurge on a seat that provides ample workspace and a lie-flat bed for a good night's sleep, and that it will boost their bottom lines. Elsewhere, these carriers are grappling with flyers constantly on the lookout for the latest rock-bottom fare.

Airlines are finding that they don't need first class and want to fill their planes with as many paying passengers as possible. Emirates, which offers a first-class product with a shower, said it will fly planes between Dubai and London this December with business class and economy only, on some flights, due to high demand.

Utility not luxury

"The majority of the high-value passengers prefer to be left alone than lavished upon," said Bruce Spear, a partner and a travel and transportation analyst at consulting firm Oliver Wyman. "It's utility that carries the day, not luxury."

Only 5.3 percent of travelers in the first seven months of 2017 flew in a premium-class cabin, which includes business class, but their contribution of airline revenue was 26 percent in that period, according to the International Air Transport Association, a trade group representing the world's biggest airlines.

But some airlines are clinging to first-class cabins, and making them more opulent than ever.

Singapore Airlines , whose luxurious first-class service has long been part of its marketing, this week unveiled its new flagship product: large suites that look more like flying hotel rooms than airplane seats. But these suites, which feature fold-out beds and swivel seats, are fewer now the revamped cabin reduced the number of suites on board the A380, the world's largest airplane from 12 to six.

It pits the carrier against Persian Gulf airlines, like Etihad, which offers a three-room suite it calls "The Residence."

Such a first-class product "creates a brand halo" for the airline.

But as lie-flat beds and pods in business class become the norm, carriers are looking at other ways to stand out in the premium cabin world, adding fancy bedding, food and amenities kits that include pajamas.

First-class freebies are fading

Airlines also want passengers to pay for these seats, and have scaled back on free upgrades and instead sell the bump to the better cabin, or sell the tickets outright.

When asked about why it is so difficult to get upgraded, United CEO Oscar Munoz told CNBC last month that passengers are paying for seats and "that's a good thing for our business."

A decade ago Delta would sell only about 15 percent of its first-class cabins and now between 50 and 60 percent is sold, Delta's CEO, Ed Bastian, told reporters last month. He recently said it was too early to determine the percentage of business-class seats that are sold, because its revamped Delta One cabins are brand new.

"Everybody loves a free something," Bastian said at a conference a month earlier. "Any business where you give the majority of your best product away, it doesn't work."
RACINE  When Dave Hazen was hired in 2007 as the Racine Unified School District chief financial officer, it was with a challenge from the School Board to organize and stabilize district operations.

Initially serving alongside Unified Superintendent Jackson Parker, Hazen wore a lot of hats in those early days with the administration. He became the districts chief operating officer two years ago when Marc Duff became chief financial officer.

On Friday, Hazen will retire from the district, having, as he describes it, worked himself out of a job. He leaves the district not only as a longtime administrator, but also as a former School Board member who helped to set policy for Unified between 1994 and 2003.

I think the most rewarding part of the job is trying to make a difference for the community, he said Thursday.

Central office to referendum

When Hazen first started at the district, he oversaw numerous departments, including human resources, finance, transportation and facilities.

Over the years, Hazen, along with Parker, subsequent superintendents and other staff, helped to build cohesive departments for each of those areas. Today, most departments are headed by their own chief.

Now, as I am leaving, the only department that is under my supervision is facilities, Hazen said.

As he worked to organize and strengthen the districts operations over the years, Hazen also implemented some of the districts biggest facilities projects.

Between 2010 and 2011, he oversaw the $9.6 million project that saw the districts central offices move from its former location at 2220 Northwestern Ave. to the districts renovated collection of building at the former Surgitek manufacturing campus at 3109 Mount Pleasant St.

He also played a major role in the Unifieds 2014 referendum. The 15-year referendum  backed by voters to fund school construction, maintenance, and technology improvements  has funded the construction of three new schools, as well as major additions and renovations at existing campuses.

Community support

Seeing the community support for the referendum was a proud moment for Hazen, who before being hired by the district also served as a Racine County Board supervisor from 2004 through the fall of 2007.

I think that really was a turning point for the community and the district, Hazen said. Schools are a very vital part of any community, and for the community to show that kind of support was important.

Hazen, himself a business owner, said hes also been happy to see the support the district has been getting from the business community.

I think the district is in the best place it has been in my time at the district for community support, he said. We still have a lot of work to do, but its great to know that I have been part of that over the years.

Unified Superintendent Lolli Haws on Thursday credited the districts excellent financial shape to Hazens leadership.

When you drive around our community, youll see new schools as well as new-and-improved facilities thanks to his foresight, planning and expertise, Haws added. Mr. Hazens legacy will be with us for decades to come. He made a day-to-day impact and we will truly miss him.

Next chapter

As he prepares to retire back to the private sector, and his responsibilities at General Technologies, a machine shop hes owned for 30 years, Hazen said hes learned that he was very fortunate to be surrounded by very competent people during his time with the district.

I never really look at (district successes) as my successes, I really look at them as the districts and the communitys successes, because there are so many that are involved, he said. I was just lucky enough to play a role in all of that.
Sources

Missourinet article, Oct. 2, 2017

House Bill 294, 2011

Email exchange, Anders Walker, St. Louis University School of Law Professor, Oct. 17, 2017

Phone Interview, Kevin Jamison, attorney and president of the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance, Oct. 18, 2017

Email exchange, Allen Rostron, UMKC School of Law, Law professor, Oct. 22, 2017

Email exchange, Amy Hunter, NRA-ILA Media Liaison, Oct. 23, 2017

Email exchange, Hannah Shearer, Staff Attorney and Second Amendment Litigation Director for the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Oct. 23, 2017

National Firearms Act, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives webpage, Dec. 1, 2016

Firearms Commerce in the United States, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, 2017

Firearms Owners Protection Act, 1985-1986

Machine Guns, Destructive Devices and Certain Other Firearms, U.S. Code, Title 26, Chapter 53

Machine Guns and 50-Caliber, Giffords Law Center

Giffords Law Center scorecard, Giffords Law Center
The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission form
Rosmorport is set for another seasonal cruise program aboard the Prince Vladimir in 2018, according to a statement from the Russian agency. Operating under the Black Sea Cruises banner, the company said it had a strong debut season offering week-long round-trip cruises from Sochi.

The 2017 season came to a close in October, and the ship will spend the winter laid up before a planned spring refurbishment. The 2018 cruise program is scheduled to begin in May, according to a spokesperson.

The 2017 itinerary package included calls in Novorossiysk and Sevastopol and an overnight in Yalta. Next year, the company will make slight adjustments offering an overnight in Sevastopol based on passenger feedback.

There are also ongoing discussions to add Istanbul to the ships deployment.

"As for calling at the port of Istanbul, at the moment there are negotiations with the Embassies and Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Russia and Turkey. We are ready to go to Istanbul next year, said Maxim Kondratenko, general director, Black Sea Cruises.

The ship will continue to depart on Sundays from Sochi, with interporting available in all ports.

Rosmorport said that 60 percent of its passengers embarked in Sochi, while 20 percent used Novorossiysk and the balance was split between Yalta and Sevastopol.

Guest ratings averaged 4.5 points on a 5-point scale, according to Rosmorport, who added the crew service and food and beverage scored the highest overall satisfaction ratings.
Ponant announced two new appointments to the companys North American sales team. Theresa Gatta has been named Vice President of Sales - North America, and Ellen Mcilvaine is the new Director of Business Development in the Pacific Northwest, according to a statement from the French brand.

As Vice President of Sales, Theresa Gatta will lead the development of growth with Ponant's travel agency partners and Consortia throughout North America, as well as oversee the U.S. based sales team.

With more than 25 years experience in the wholesale travel industry, including 16 years with Travel Impressions / Apple Leisure Group and American Express Vacations as VP of Global Sales, Gattas leadership positions have encompassed management of sales teams, national accounts, partnership marketing, product development and global strategy throughout North America, Europe and Latin America.

Earlier this month, Ellen McIlvaine joined Ponant where she manages clientele development in the northwest region that includes: Northern California, Washington, and British Columbia. Most recently, McIlvaine, who is based in Seattle, worked in business development at OceanGate, and previously held sales positions with Zegrahm Expeditions and Red Lantern Journeys. She has also lived and volunteered on projects in Nepal and South Korea.

With these appointments, Ponant, the leader in luxury expeditions, is aiming to broaden and strengthen its partnerships with travel advisors as well as growing awareness of our unmatched portfolio of products, said Navin Sawhney, Chief Executive Officer, Americas.
The Port of Seattle has announced that a record 1,071,594 revenue passenger came through its cruise terminals this year, with an estimated 1,092,345 expected in 2018. Larger vessels continue to drive passenger increases. Each cruise vessel is estimated to bring in $2.7 million for the local economy, bringing total revenue for the region to over $500 million, according to a prepared statement from the port.

By exceeding a million passengers this year, and more to come next year, the Port of Seattle continues to grow the cruise market, revenue and jobs for our region, said Port of Seattle Commissioner John Creighton. The Seattle cruise business means a half a billion dollars in local economic impact, and we want more passengers to experience Seattle while going to Alaska.

The Port saw a 9-percent increase in cruise passengers over 2016, which brought 983,539 revenue passengers. Seattles cruise businesscurrently claiming to lead all cruise homeports on the West Coast in passenger volumeis responsible for over 4,000 jobs, $501 million in annual business revenue, and $18.9 million annually in state and local tax revenues.

Seattles cruise business benefits everyone on the waterfront. They are a huge part of our business and really boost summer sales, said Andy Lipscomb, owner of The Frankfurter, the popular hot dog spot on Seattles waterfront for 42 years.

On May 30, 2018, the Port of Seattle welcomes the arrival of the Norwegian Bliss on its maiden voyage from shipyard to its first homeport terminal at Pier 66, recently renovated in a $30 million partnership with Norwegian Cruise Line. The 4,000-passenger Bliss will be the largest cruise ship to homeport at a West Coast port. The Bliss offers weekly Alaska cruises throughout summer 2018.
The saga of the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) infiltrating German tax authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) has come to an end with trial of Daniel Moser.

Mosers work was to penetrate and learn of the efforts of the NRW officials in their effort to identify German citizens who have private accounts in Switzerland. Moser had been working on behalf of the Swiss since 2012.

During the trial, according to the Digital Journal, Mosers attorney read a statement on behalf of his client. Moser did not view himself as a criminal. He characterized his actions of infiltrating the NRW tax authorities and purloining their information as patriotic.

While patriotism was his primary motivator, Moser said was also driven by the sense of adventure and profit. Moser, a former Swiss police officer and security officer within UBS in Switzerland, saw the righteousness in uncovering the criminal behavior on the part of the German tax authorities.

Swiss FIS paid Moser thousands of euros to ID German tax officers

The Swiss FIS paid Moser 13,000 euros for the names, addresses and telephone number of the three tax officials, according to Reuters. The FIS then paid an additional 60,000 euros for Moser to acquire an inside source within the tax authority. While the German authorities claim he planted a mole within NRW, Moser is adamant that he simply pocketed the 60,000 euros and never attempted to plant an insider in the NRW tax offices.

The trail also revealed the motivation on behalf of the Swiss FIS to identify the three German tax officers who successfully obtained private and restricted account information in violation of Switzerlands strict banking secrecy laws. So successful were the Germans in acquiring bank account owner identities that many Germans anticipated discovery and came forward to the tax authorities. End result? According to the Digital Journal, Germanys windfall boosted the country's economy by over a billion euros.

Moser also worked for the German tax officers

A bit of a twist that would have made Rube Goldberg proud has evolved. It appears that while Moser was helping the Swiss FIS identify the three German tax officers, Moser was also working on behalf of the Germans and purloined Swiss bank account data, which he transferred to a CD and turned over to a German contact. The German shared the information with both German and Swiss authorities. The Swiss authorities (not the FIS) arrested and interrogated Moser, during which he revealed his Swiss FIS efforts. The results of the Swiss law enforcement interrogation found their way into the hands of the intermediary, Werner Mauss, described in thelocal.de as Germanys James Bond.

While Moser, could face as much as five years in prison, the German prosecutors have asked for a two-year suspended sentence and 40,000 euro fine if he identifies his inside source within NRW, according to LOrient Le Jour (French).

Regardless of what occurs in Germany, it looks like Moser will also face economic espionage charges in Switzerland for sharing the banking data with Mauss, who put it in the hands of the German tax authorities.

This saga, while convoluted with a few unexpected turns, demonstrates the power of greed. In this instance, we find Moser had a relationship with one entity for acquiring information and then managed to work himself into a relationship to sell the same or similar data to the other side of the equation.

Moser, in fact, played both sides against the middle and got caught by both.
At Pelican State Credit Union in Baton Rouge, La., members in need of loans are more than credit scores. Theyre separate stories.

When we review the credit report, we ask a ton of questions, Jessica Oliver, director of financial outreach at the $311 million asset credit union, tells the CUNA News Podcast. We want to make sure the members story matches what were seeing in print.

Often, members who have blemishes on their credit report will say theyve had a family emergency, a death in the family, a job loss, or another life event that caused them to fall behind on paying their bills, she says.
You can learn how to improve your credit union website design in mere seconds with a Five Second Test. A Five Second Test asks visitors what information they can determine after viewing a page of your website after just five seconds. The users goal, in this short frame of time, is to be able to answer these three questions.

What is the name of the organization? What product(s) or service(s) do they offer? (I.e, What kind of organization are they?) How can the user benefit from the credit union?

A Five Second Test will tell you if your website is effectively communicating your credit unions brand, or not. Getting direct input from users can do wonders to help you get more leads for loans and deposits and a Five Second Test is a simple way to get started.

Five seconds might seem like a very short amount of time, but in website perception timewhich is kind of like doggy yearsfive seconds is an eon. In fact, Google found that first impressions of a website are formed in as little as 17 ms. Furthermore, according to the Missouri University of Science and Technology, people take just 2.6 seconds to stop scanning a whole webpage and focus on a single element.

How does a Five Second Test work?

In a Five Second Test, users are shown an image of a webpage for five seconds, then the image disappears. Next, the users are asked the three questions mentioned above.

To you, the answers to these questions might seem obvious. For example, you may feel certain your homepage clearly communicates your name, that youre a credit union, and how members benefit from membership. But can outsiders really determine all that info in just five seconds? You might be surprised by how many credit union website designs fail the test.

Real results from two Five Second Tests

Lets look at two different website designs and the results they got from Five Second Tests.

ICICI Bank

Take a look at this homepage design from ICICI bank:

Source: ICICI Bank

We ran an actual Five Second Test on ICICI Bankss homepage with five users and here are the results:

Question #1: What is the name of the organization?

Responses:

ICIU

icic bank

ICICI

?

Icici

Analysis:

Of the five users, two (40%) got the name of the bank correct, two (40%) more were close, and the fifth (20%) user didnt know. These results are not good, but could be worse; ICICI is not a very memorable name.

Question #2: What product(s) or service(s) do they offer? What kind of organization are they?

Responses:

Watches

Banking and app for it

They are a bank offering the usual checking/savings accounts.

Not sure

Watches

Analysis:

Of the five users, two (40%) correctly identified ICICI as a bank, two (40%) said they sell watches, and the fifth (20%) user didnt know. These results are poor because most users could not correctly answer the question.

Question #3: How can the user benefit from the organization?

Responses:

Style

They give a free watch if you use their app

They are offering a free watch with a new account

No idea

Unsure

Analysis:

Of the five users, two (40%) recognized that you get a free watch if you use one of ICICI Banks services, two (40%) didnt know how they can benefit from ICICI Bank, and the fifth (20%) user said, Style.

These results are are complete failure. To start with, most users (60%) couldnt answer the question correctly. Furthermore, even though two users (40%) recognized that you get a free watch if you use ICICI Banks app, is that the most important thing for people to learn about the bank in a first impression? I believe not. I would hope there is a deeper reason for me to borrow or deposit money with ICICI.

ICICIs design isnt bad in terms of color or layout, but its not immediately clear what they offer and why you should care. If you dont notice the logo at the top, you might expect them to be a watch store, rather than a financial institution.

OE Federal Credit Union

Now, check out OE Federal Credit Unions homepage, a website designed by BloomCU:

Source: OEFCU.org, a website designed by BloomCU

Question #1: What is the name of the organization?

Responses:

OEFEDERAL CREDIT UNION

OE Credit Union

credit union

CREDITUNION

OE Federal Credit Union

Analysis:

Of the five users, two (40%) got the name exactly correct, two (40%) just said, Credit Union, and the fifth (20%) got the name mostly right but emitted Federal. These results mostly good; perhaps OE Federal would be even more clear if we changed the headline to, OE Federal Puts the Union in Credit Union.

Question #2: What product(s) or service(s) do they offer? What kind of organization are they?

Responses:

BANK

Financial products to Union Members

credit union

LOANS, THEY ARE A BANK

Banking

Analysis:

Of the five users, three (60%) said OE Federal is a bank, one (20%) said OE Federal is a credit union, and the fifth (20%) user said they offer financial products to union members. Importantly, 100% correctly identified OE Federal as a financial institution.

Perhaps the word banks near the bottom of the screenshot caused most people to identify OE Federal as a bank, but it could also be because the word bank is more commonly understood in American vernacular, whereas people are not as familiar with credit unions; in other words, many people might define a credit union as a type of bank.

Question #3: How can the user benefit from the organization?

Responses:

PROVIDING BANKING OPTIONS

Specific offerings to help union members

bank stuff

GIVING THEM LOANS

I dont know

Analysis:

Of the five users, two (40%) said OE Federal offers banking services, one (20%) said they give loans, another (20%) said, Specific offerings to help union members, and the fifth user (20%) didnt know. With the exception of the fifth user, these results are good; 80% of users understood, at least in part, the benefit of banking with OE Federal.

On which pages should you do Five Second Tests?

First, do a Five Second Test on your homepage. Your homepage gets more visits than any other page of your website and its the face of your brand; therefore, its the most important place for users to be able to answer those three questions. After testing your homepage, you could move on to some of your popular product pages, such as pages for auto loans, checking accounts, etc.

Who should be your test audience?

Conducting Five Second Tests with your own field of membership is a great idea. However, Useful Usability makes the excellent point that the Five Second Test should not just apply to your specific audience. A credit union website design thats truly brilliant will be able to pass the Five Second Test with an even wider audience. If youre looking for an inexpensive and convenient way of recruiting testers, I recommend UserBobtheir pricing is the best Ive seen.

Pro Tip: Research shows you need only five users for an effective user test.

How do you conduct a Five Second Test?

Source: Prototyping and Usability Testing Your Designs, by Elizabeth Snowden

Create a Free Account on UsabilityHub

Usability Hub makes it really easy to conduct Five Second Tests, and its free to get started.

Prepare Screenshots

Youll need a screenshot of your homepage to upload to Usability Hub. You use a screenshot instead of your actual website so you can make certain users stay on the page thats being reviewed. If you dont, they might choose to click somewhere else in order to find more information and answer your questions.

(How to take a screenshot)

Test Your Audience

After each user has viewed your page for five seconds, have them answer the three questions to the best of their ability. UsabilityHub will help you get responses.

Review Your Results

From your UsabilityHub, you can easily view your results. However, you can also export your data to a CSV for further analysis, if needed. If you export to a CSV, put the data in a spreadsheet and grade each answer:

Correct Incorrect Partially Correct

Now, start looking at your total results. Were most people able to answer each question correctly? Which questions had the most wrong answers? The data can tell you where your credit union website design needs improvement.

For example, if most people could not recall the name of your credit union, you might want to change the size, colors, or placement of your logo. Or, you might need a new name altogether (e.g., ICICI Bank might be hard to recall no matter what the logo looks like).

If people have trouble determining that youre a credit union, consider your language and imagery. Is the term credit union clearly visible? Do you mention common credit union services? Are the images on your site recognizable or are they confusing?

As you analyze whats working and whats broken, youll produce an improved design that clearly shows who you are, what you offer, and why people should care. And once youve got that in the bag, youll likely get higher conversions and a better return on investment, because your website is now clearly communicating the value of your services. Congratulations, youre a marketing rockstar.
Ram Nath Kovind is heading to Africa this week on his maiden visit as Indias President and the government has rightly chosen Djibouti and Ethiopia as his destinations. As the ministry of external affairs has pointed out, Africa is chosen as the first destination of the Presidents overseas visit  an index of the importance attached to the African continent by the current government.

The Modi government has been keen on expanding its profile in Africa, a continent with which India has shared historic ties and one where major powers today are scrambling for influence.

Reactions

Djibouti is emerging as a key state in the Indian Ocean region. The construction of the Djibouti naval base  Chinas first military base abroad  has generated varied reactions around the world. The base is seen as a move pushing Chinas own limits to its foreign policy and underscores its growing security profile in Africa.

This new military foray in Africa, as explained by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi at a press conference in 2016, was part of Chinas willingness to play a constructive role in the political settlement of international and regional issues, so as to create a more secure and stable environment for Chinas development overseas, and to take on more international security responsibilities.

Indeed, Chinas growing military file in Africa is following its economic footprint in the continent. It is moving towards an ever more expansive definition of its global interests, as its business in Africa pushes it to create new mechanisms for securing those interests, including its own growing military footprint abroad.

Djibouti has been very welcoming of Indian presence in the country and had helped India during the time of evacuation from Yemen in 2015. With Ethiopia, India has had traditional ties and it remains the largest recipient of our concessional lines of credit in Africa. Both nations are key to Indias Africa outreach.

With the India-Africa summit in 2015, the Modi government had signalled its readiness to step up its engagement with Africa, a relationship which is centuries old, bolstered by trade across the Indian Ocean and a million-strong diaspora across Africa. Shared colonial legacy and post-Independence development experience have framed Indias relationship with Africa. Indias role as a champion of anti-colonialism and anti-racism after its Independence in 1947 drew it closer to the African nations.

Since the end of the Cold War and propelled by Chinas growing profile in Africa, India is re-invigorating its ties with the African continent. The cooperation framework agreed at past India-Africa summits and the Indian initiatives to scale up investment and aid to Africa have underscored Indias aim to foster a robust partnership between New Delhi and the African continent.

Focus

India today has growing stakes in Africa. With some of the fastest growing nations in the world, Africa of today is not the "dark continent" of yore. The needs of regional states are divergent and their strengths are varied. Indias focus over the last few decades has largely been on capacity building on the continent, providing more than $1 billion in technical assistance and training to personnel under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme. India has committed $7.5 billion (Rs 48,858 crore) to African infrastructure, covering 137 projects in more than 40 countries.

India has also offered duty-free market access to Africas least developed countries. But Indias trade with Africa remains far below potential. India wants a "developmental partnership" with Africa to be the cornerstone of its economic ties with the region. This also allows India to differentiate itself from the principles on which countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the traditional donors of foreign aid, have based their relations with the recipient nations.

Competition

Beijings policy of using financial and military aid to secure oil fields in Africa has resulted in New Delhi losing out. The fierce competition between China and India for resources and energy to fuel their economies has been likened to the so-called scramble for Africa among European countries in the 19th century.

This is a competition only in name as India lags far behind China in Africa. Where Chinas response toward the region has been well-coordinated across various government agencies, India has failed to project a united front. The Indian government will have to support its companies more proactively if it hopes to close the gap with China in terms of its economic profile on the continent.

Yet India has its own strengths in its dealings with Africa. Its democratic traditions make it a much more comfortable partner for the West compared to China in cooperating on Africa-related issues. India is viewed as a more productive partner by many in Africa because Indian companies are much better integrated into the African society and encourage technology transfers to its African partners. New Delhi will have to leverage its own strengths in making a lasting compact with Africa and regain its lost presence on the continent.

President Kovinds visit underlines the continuing salience of Africa in Indias foreign policy matrix and the resolve of New Delhi to build long-term partnerships with the African continent.
India is wasting both time and energy in its bid for a UN ban against JeM chief Masood Azhar. Repeated attempts by India to get the United Nations Security Councils sanctions committee to declare him a global terrorist has failed, thanks to China.

The JeM is already a UN-declared terrorist group. The attempt by India is to target Azhar individually. This would mean a freeze on his financial assets and an international travel ban.

The JeM was founded by Azhar after he was released from an Indian jail in 1999 in exchange for passengers of a hijacked Indian airlines plane from Kathmandu. The swap took place in Kandahar, when Afghanistan was under Taliban control.

This happened during Atal Bihari Vajpayees era and became a major political talking point - whether it was a wise move to let-off the dreaded terrorists.

Repeated attempts by India to get the UN Security Councils sanctions committee to declare him a global terrorist has failed, thanks to China.

Since then Jaish, like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, has been in the forefront of the anti-India groups stirring trouble in the country, especially Kashmir. Backed by Pakistan's army and the ISI, the terror outfits enjoy free run to plot terror strikes. For this, Masoods financial assets need not come into play nor does he need to travel outside Pakistan to plan these attacks.

Would proscribing Masood Azhar make any difference, considering the fact that the JeM has carried out several attacks in India despite being banned by the UN?

There are strong evidence of JeM's hand behind major strikes, including the 2001 Parliament attack and the car bomb explosion in J&K Assembly. JeM is also believed to have played a role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks as well as the assault inside the Pathankot air force base in 2016, which brought all peace talks between India and Pakistan to a halt.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had initially tried to restore ties with Islamabad, but groups like JeM and LeT made sure that the peace moves were thwarted. Following the Pathankot attack, India-Pakistan relations have deteriorated further.

The JeM, along with the Lashkar, is active in Kashmir and responsible for strikes on security camps and patrolling parties in the Valley. None of this can be stopped by the UN sanctions. Experts believe since the terror outfits have the backing of the Pakistan Army, there is little that the UN can do, considering it has no presence on the ground in Pakistan.

After all, it will depend on Pakistan to enforce whatever sanctions the UNSC declares on Azhar. Pakistan's "disregard" for the UN sanctions list is well-known - placing Azhar and others like him under house arrest whenever the pressure increases and letting them free once the international attention gets diverted.

Getting Masood Azar declared a global terrorist would play well with the domestic audience in India, but will make little difference on the ground.

The fact is even if China comes around and decides to support Indias move to designate Azhar a terrorist under the sanctions committee of the UNSC, it will not make India or its citizens any safer.

China, as a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council, has repeatedly blocked Indias move to designate Azhar a terrorist.

Earlier, China cited technical reasons to stop India's bid. However, this time around, it has said there is no consensus on the issue. New Delhi knows it very well that China, Pakistans all-weather friend, will bat for Islamabad. Perhaps India is hoping to embarrass China over its double standards on terror.

"India strongly believes that double standards and selective approaches will undermine the international communitys resolve to combat terrorism accommodating terrorism for narrow objectives is both short-sighted and counter-productive, the MEA said in response to Chinas latest move.

China, however, knows where its core interests lie. China and Pakistans interests are integrated now more than ever. While it has been supporting Pakistan in the past mainly for strategic reasons to checkmate India, the relationship for the first time has major economic interests, especially with its massive investments and development initiatives in Pakistan, including the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.
The following companies are subsidiares of American International Group: AGC Life Insurance Company, AIG APAC HOLDINGS PTE. LTD., AIG Aerospace Insurance Services Inc., AIG Asia Pacific Insurance Pte. Ltd., AIG Asset Management (Europe) Limited, AIG Asset Management (U.S.) LLC, AIG Assurance Company, AIG Australia Limited, AIG Brazil Holding I LLC, AIG CIS Investments LLC, AIG Canada Holdings Inc., AIG Capital Corporation, AIG Capital Services Inc., AIG Claims Inc., AIG Credit Management LLC, AIG Egypt Insurance Company S.A.E., AIG Employee Services Inc., AIG Europe Holdings S.a.r.l, AIG Europe S.A., AIG Federal Savings Bank, AIG Financial Products Corp., AIG General Insurance Co. Ltd., AIG Global Asset Management Holdings Corp., AIG Global Operations Inc., AIG Global Real Estate Investment Corp., AIG Global Reinsurance Operations, AIG Holdings Europe Limited, AIG Insurance (Thailand) Public Company Limited, AIG Insurance Company China Limited, AIG Insurance Company JSC, AIG Insurance Company of Canada, AIG Insurance Company-Puerto Rico, AIG Insurance Hong Kong Limited, AIG Insurance Management Services Inc., AIG Insurance New Zealand Limited, AIG International Holdings GmbH, AIG Investments UK Limited, AIG Israel Insurance Company Ltd, AIG Japan Holdings Kabushiki Kaisha, AIG Kenya Insurance Company Limited, AIG Korea Inc., AIG Latin America I.I., AIG Latin America Investments S.L., AIG Lebanon SAL, AIG Life Holdings Inc., AIG Life Limited, AIG Life South Africa Limited, AIG Life of Bermuda Ltd., AIG MEA Holdings Limited, AIG MEA Limited, AIG Malaysia Insurance Berhad, AIG Markets Inc., AIG Matched Funding Corp., AIG PC Global Services Inc., AIG Philippines Insurance Inc., AIG Property Casualty Company, AIG Property Casualty Inc., AIG Property Casualty International LLC, AIG Property Casualty U.S. Inc., AIG Re-Takaful (L) Berhad, AIG Resseguros Brasil S.A., AIG Seguros Brasil S.A., AIG Seguros Mexico S.A. de C.V., AIG South Africa Limited, AIG Specialty Insurance Company, AIG Technologies Inc., AIG Travel Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., AIG Travel Assist Inc., AIG Travel Assist Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., AIG Travel EMEA Limited, AIG Travel Inc., AIG Uganda Limited, AIG Vietnam Insurance Company Limited, AIG WarrantyGuard Inc., AIG-FP Pinestead Holdings Corp., AIG-Metropolitana Cia. de Seguros y Reaseguros S.A., AIGGRE Europe Real Estate Fund I GP S.a r.l., AIGGRE Europe Real Estate Fund II GP S.a r.l., AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund I GP LLC, AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund II GP LLC, AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund III GP LP, AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund IV GP LLC, AIU Insurance Company, AM Holdings LLC, Ageas Protect, AlphaCat Managers Ltd., American General Corporation, American General Life Insurance Company, American Home Assurance Co. Ltd., American Home Assurance Company, American International Group UK Limited, American International Realty LLC, American International Reinsurance Company Ltd., American International Underwriters del Ecuador-Holding S.A. en Liquidacion S.A., Arthur J. Glatfelter Agency Inc., Blackboard Insurance Company, Blackboard Specialty Insurance Company, Blackboard U.S. Holdings Inc., C.A. de Seguros American International, Commerce and Industry Insurance Company, Crop Risk Services Inc., Eaglestone Reinsurance Company, Ellipse, Franklin Life Insurance Company, Fuji Fire and Marine, Glatfelter Insurance Group, Glatfelter Underwriting Services Inc., Globe and Rutgers Insurance Group, Grand Isle SAC Limited, Granite State Insurance Company, Illinois National Insurance Co., Inversiones Segucasai C.A., Johannesburg Insurance Holdings (Proprietary) Limited, Laya Healthcare Limited, Lexington Insurance Company, Lexington Specialty Insurance Agency Inc., National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh Pa., National Union Fire Insurance Company of Vermont, New Hampshire Insurance Company, PCG 2019 Corporate Member Limited, PT AIG Insurance Indonesia, Pine Street Real Estate Holdings Corp., Risk Specialists Companies Insurance Agency Inc., SAFG Capital LLC, SAFG Retirement Services Inc., Service Net Warranty LLC, Stratford Insurance Company, SunAmerica Asset Management LLC, Talbot Holdings Ltd., Talbot Underwriting Holdings Ltd., Talbot Underwriting Ltd., The Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania, The United States Life Insurance Company in the City of New York, The Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company, Travel Guard, Travel Guard Group Canada Inc./Groupe Garde Voyage du Canada Inc., Travel Guard Group Inc., Tudor Insurance Company, VALIC Financial Advisors Inc., Valic Retirement Services Company, Validus Holdings, Validus Holdings (UK) Ltd., Validus Holdings Ltd., Validus Reinsurance (Switzerland) Ltd, Validus Reinsurance Ltd., Validus Ventures Ltd., Volunteer Firemen's Insurance Services Inc., and Western World Insurance Company.

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17 kg gold seized

Police seized 17kg gold from a man in Khudi, Lamjung, on Thursday. Pasang Lama of Nasong Rural Municipality-9, Manang, was held along with the gold and Rs 30,500 cash as he was heading towards Besishahar, the district headquarters, on a motorcycle.
Elections 2017: 4 female candidates contesting in Kailali

Four female candidates are contesting the upcoming federal and provincial polls under first-past-the-post (FPTP) system in Kailali.
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.
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Bibeksheel Sajha contesting for 60 seats, with focus on Valley

The newly-formed Bibeksheel Sajha Party (BSP) on Thursday filed its nominations under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system for the second phase of federal and provincial elections, scheduled for December 7. The second round of polls will take place in 45 districts for 128 federal seats and 256 provincial seats.
The following companies are subsidiares of Caterpillar: Advanced Tri-Gen Power Systems LLC, Anchor Coupling Inc., Asia Power Systems (Tianjin) Ltd., AsiaTrak (Tianjin) Ltd., Banco Caterpillar S.A., Berg Propulsion International Pte Ltd., Bucyrus, Bucyrus Australia Surface Pty. Ltd., Bucyrus Europe Holdings Ltd., Bucyrus Europe Limited, Bucyrus International (Chile) Limitada, Bucyrus International (Peru) S.A., Bucyrus Mining Australia Pty. Ltd., Bucyrus Mining China LLC, Bucyrus UK Limited, Cat Rental Kyushu LLC, Caterpillar (Africa) (Proprietary) Limited, Caterpillar (China) Financial Leasing Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (China) Machinery Components Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (HK) Limited, Caterpillar (Huainan) Machinery Service Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (Langfang) Mining Equipment Co. Ltd., Caterpillar (Luxembourg) Investment Co. S.a r.l., Caterpillar (NI) Limited, Caterpillar (Newberry) LLC, Caterpillar (Qingzhou) Ltd., Caterpillar (Shanghai) Trading Co. 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Ltd., Caterpillar Commercial LLC, Caterpillar Commercial Northern Europe Limited, Caterpillar Commercial S.A., Caterpillar Commercial S.A.R.L., Caterpillar Commercial Services S.A.R.L., Caterpillar Communications LLC, Caterpillar Corporativo Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Cote DIvoire, Caterpillar Credito S.A. de C.V. SOFOM E.N.R., Caterpillar DC Pension Trust Limited, Caterpillar Digital Services & Solutions SARL, Caterpillar Distribution International LLC, Caterpillar Distribution Services Europe B.V.B.A., Caterpillar East Real Estate Holding Ltd., Caterpillar Emissions Solutions Inc., Caterpillar Energy Solutions Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Caterpillar Energy Solutions GmbH, Caterpillar Energy Solutions Inc., Caterpillar Energy Solutions S.A., Caterpillar Energy System Technology (Beijing) Co. 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Ltd., Caterpillar Financial New Zealand Limited, Caterpillar Financial Nordic Services AB, Caterpillar Financial Nova Scotia Corporation, Caterpillar Financial OOO, Caterpillar Financial Receivables Corporation, Caterpillar Financial Renting S.A., Caterpillar Financial SARL, Caterpillar Financial Services (Dubai) Limited, Caterpillar Financial Services (Ireland) plc, Caterpillar Financial Services (UK) Limited, Caterpillar Financial Services Argentina S.A., Caterpillar Financial Services Asia Pte. 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Limited, Caterpillar Global Mining Hong Kong Limited, Caterpillar Global Mining LLC, Caterpillar Global Mining Mexico LLC, Caterpillar Global Mining Pty. Ltd., Caterpillar Global Mining SARL, Caterpillar Global Mining U.S. Parts LLC, Caterpillar Global Services LLC, Caterpillar Group Services S.A., Caterpillar Holding (France) S.A.S., Caterpillar Holding Germany GmbH, Caterpillar Holdings Australia Pty. Ltd., Caterpillar Hungary Components Manufacturing Ltd., Caterpillar Hydraulics Italia S.r.l., Caterpillar IPX LLC, Caterpillar IRB LLC, Caterpillar Impact Products Limited, Caterpillar India Private Limited, Caterpillar Industrial Inc., Caterpillar Industrias Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Industries (Pty) Ltd, Caterpillar Insurance Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Insurance Company, Caterpillar Insurance Holdings Inc., Caterpillar Insurance Services Corporation, Caterpillar International Finance Designated Activity Company, Caterpillar International Finance Luxembourg Holding S. a r.l., Caterpillar International Finance Luxembourg S. a r.l., Caterpillar International Holding S. a r.l., Caterpillar International Luxembourg I S. a r.l., Caterpillar International Luxembourg II S. a r.l., Caterpillar International Product SARL, Caterpillar International Services Corporation, Caterpillar International Services del Peru S.A., Caterpillar Investment Limited, Caterpillar Investment One SARL, Caterpillar Investment Two SARL, Caterpillar Investments, Caterpillar Japan LLC, Caterpillar Latin America Services S.R.L., Caterpillar Latin America Services de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Latin America Services de Panama S. de R.L., Caterpillar Latin America Servicios de Chile Limitada, Caterpillar Latin America Support Services S. DE R.L., Caterpillar Leasing (Thailand) Limited, Caterpillar Leasing Chile S.A., Caterpillar Leasing GmbH (Leipzig), Caterpillar Leasing Operativo Limitada, Caterpillar Life Insurance Company, Caterpillar Logistics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Logistics (UK) Limited, Caterpillar Logistics Inc., Caterpillar Logistics ML Services France S.A.S., Caterpillar Logistics Services China Limited, Caterpillar Luxembourg Group S.ar.l., Caterpillar Luxembourg LLC, Caterpillar Luxembourg S.a r.l., Caterpillar Machinery Nantong Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Marine Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Caterpillar Marine Asset Intelligence, Caterpillar Marine Power UK Limited, Caterpillar Marine Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Maroc SARL, Caterpillar Materiels Routiers SAS, Caterpillar Mexico LLC, Caterpillar Mexico S.A. de C.V., Caterpillar Mining Canada ULC, Caterpillar Mining Chile Servicios Limitada, Caterpillar Motoren (Guangdong) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Motoren GmbH & Co. KG, Caterpillar Motoren Henstedt-Ulzburg GmbH, Caterpillar Motoren Rostock GmbH, Caterpillar Motoren Verwaltungs-GmbH, Caterpillar Netherlands Holding B.V., Caterpillar North America C.V., Caterpillar Operator Training Ltd., Caterpillar Overseas Credit Corporation SARL, Caterpillar Overseas Investment Holding SARL, Caterpillar Overseas Limited, Caterpillar Overseas SARL, Caterpillar Panama Services S.A., Caterpillar Paving Products Inc., Caterpillar Paving Products Xuzhou Ltd., Caterpillar Pension Trust Limited, Caterpillar Poland Sp. z o.o., Caterpillar Power Generation Systems (Bangladesh) Limited, Caterpillar Power Generation Systems L.L.C., Caterpillar Power Systems Inc., Caterpillar Power Ventures International Ltd., Caterpillar Precision Seals Korea, Caterpillar Prodotti Stradali S.r.l., Caterpillar Product Services Corporation, Caterpillar Propulsion AB, Caterpillar Propulsion International Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Propulsion Italy S.R.L., Caterpillar Propulsion Namibia (Proprietary) Limited, Caterpillar Propulsion Production AB, Caterpillar Propulsion Pte. Ltd., Caterpillar Propulsion Singapore Pte. Ltd., Caterpillar R&D Center (China) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Ramos Arizpe LLC, Caterpillar Ramos Arizpe S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Ramos Arizpe Servicios S.A. de C.V., Caterpillar Reman Powertrain Indiana LLC, Caterpillar Remanufacturing Drivetrain LLC, Caterpillar Remanufacturing Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Renting France S.A.S., Caterpillar Reynosa S.A. de C.V., Caterpillar SARL, Caterpillar Services Germany GmbH, Caterpillar Servicios Limitada, Caterpillar Servicios Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Servizi Italia Srl, Caterpillar Shrewsbury Limited, Caterpillar Skinningrove Limited, Caterpillar Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd., Caterpillar Special Services Belgium S.P.R.L., Caterpillar Switchgear Americas LLC, Caterpillar Switchgear Holding Inc., Caterpillar Tianjin Ltd., Caterpillar Torreon S. de R.L. de C.V., Caterpillar Tosno L.L.C., Caterpillar Transmissions France S.A.R.L., Caterpillar Tunneling Canada Holdings Ltd., Caterpillar Tunnelling Canada Corporation, Caterpillar Tunnelling Europe Limited, Caterpillar UK Employee Trust Limited, Caterpillar UK Engines Company Limited, Caterpillar UK Group Limited, Caterpillar UK Holdings Limited, Caterpillar Undercarriage (Xuzhou) Co. Ltd., Caterpillar Underground Mining Pty. Ltd., Caterpillar Used Equipment Services Inc., Caterpillar Venture Capital Inc., Caterpillar Work Tools B.V., Caterpillar Work Tools Inc., Caterpillar World Trading Corporation, Caterpillar Xuzhou, Caterpillar of Australia Pty. Ltd., Caterpillar of Canada Corporation, Caterpillar of Delaware Inc., Centre de Distribution de Wallonie SPRL, CleanAir Systems, Downer Freight Rail, ECM Railway Evolution Romania s.r.l., ECM S.p.A., EDC European Excavator Design Center GmbH, EMC Holding Corp., EMD International Holdings Inc., ERA Information & Entertainment (BVI) Limited, ERA Mining Machinery Limited, Electro-Motive Diesel Limited, Electro-Motive Locomotive Technologies LLC, Electro-Motive Technical Consulting Co. (Beijing) Ltd., Energy Services International Limited, Equipos de Acuna S.A. de C.V., Eurenov S.A.S., F. G. Wilson (Proprietary) Limited, F. Perkins Limited, FG Wilson (Engineering) Limited, GB Holdco (China) Inc., GFCM Comercial Mexico S.A. de C.V. SOFOM E.N.R., GFCM Servicios S.A. de C.V., Gremada Industries - Assets, Hong Kong Siwei Holdings Limited, Inmobiliaria Conek S.A. de C.V., JCS Co., Kemper Valve & Fittings Corp., Leo Inc., Locomotive Demand Power Pty Ltd., Locomotoras Progress Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Lovat, M2M Data Corporation, MGE Equipamentos & Servicos Ferroviarios, MWM, MWM Austria GmbH, MWM Benelux B.V., MWM Energy Australia Pty Ltd, MWM France S.A.S, MWM Real Estate GmbH, MaK Americas Inc., MaK Americas Inc. (Canada), Magnum Power Products LLC, Marble, Maschinenbau Kiel GmbH, Mec-Track S.r.l., Metalmark Financial Services Limited, Motoren Steffens GmbH, Nippon Caterpillar LLC, P. T. Solar Services Indonesia, PT Caterpillar Finance Indonesia, PT. Bucyrus Indonesia, PT. Caterpillar Indonesia, PT. Caterpillar Indonesia Batam, PT. Caterpillar Remanufacturing Indonesia, Perkins Engines, Perkins Engines (Asia Pacific) Pte Ltd, Perkins Engines Group Limited, Perkins Engines Inc., Perkins Group Limited, Perkins Holdings Limited LLC, Perkins India Private Limited, Perkins International Inc., Perkins Japan LLC, Perkins Limited, Perkins Machinery (Changshu) Co. Ltd., Perkins Motores do Brasil Ltda., Perkins Power Systems Technology (Wuxi) Co. Ltd., Perkins Small Engines (Wuxi) Co. Ltd., Perkins Small Engines LLC, Perkins Small Engines Limited, Perkins Technology Inc., Progress Metal Reclamation Company, Progress Rail Arabia Limited Company, Progress Rail Australia Pty Ltd, Progress Rail Canada Corporation, Progress Rail Equipamentos e Servicos Ferroviarios do Brasil Ltda., Progress Rail Equipment Leasing Corporation, Progress Rail Holdings Inc., Progress Rail Innovations Private Limited, Progress Rail Inspection & Information Systems GmbH, Progress Rail Inspection & Information Systems S.r.l., Progress Rail International Corp., Progress Rail Leasing Canada Corporation, Progress Rail Leasing Corporation, Progress Rail Leasing de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Progress Rail Locomotivas (do Brasil) Ltda., Progress Rail Locomotive Canada Co., Progress Rail Locomotive Chile SpA, Progress Rail Locomotive Inc., Progress Rail Maintenance de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Progress Rail Manufacturing Corporation, Progress Rail Raceland Corporation, Progress Rail Rocklin Corporation, Progress Rail SA Proprietary Limited, Progress Rail Services Corporation, Progress Rail Services Holdings Corp., Progress Rail Services LLC, Progress Rail Services UK Limited, Progress Rail Switching Services LLC, Progress Rail Transcanada Corporation, Progress Rail Welding Corporation, Progress Rail Wildwood LLC, Progress Rail de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Pyroban Group, Pyroban Group, Pyrrha Investments B.V., Pyrrha Investments Limited, S&L Railroad LLC, SCM Singapore Holdings Pte. Ltd., SPL Software Alliance LLC, Sabre Engines, Servicios de Turbinas Solar S. de R.L. de C.V., Shandong SEM Machinery Co. Ltd., Solar Turbines, Solar Turbines, Solar Turbines (Beijing) Trading Services Co. Ltd., Solar Turbines (Thailand) Ltd., Solar Turbines CIS Limited Liability Company, Solar Turbines Canada Ltd./Ltee., Solar Turbines Central Asia Limited Liability Partnership, Solar Turbines EAME s.r.o., Solar Turbines Egypt Limited Liability Company, Solar Turbines Europe S.A., Solar Turbines India Private Limited, Solar Turbines International Company, Solar Turbines Italy S.R.L., Solar Turbines Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Solar Turbines Middle East Limited, Solar Turbines New Zealand Limited, Solar Turbines Saudi Arabia Limited, Solar Turbines Services Company, Solar Turbines Services Nigeria Limited, Solar Turbines Services of Argentina S.R.L., Solar Turbines Switzerland Sagl, Solar Turbines Trinidad & Tobago Limited, Solar Turbines West-Africa SARL, Tangshan DBT Machinery Co. Ltd., Tecnologia Modificada S.A. de C.V., Towmotor Corporation, Traction & Mining Motor Repairs Pty Ltd, Turbinas Solar S.A. de C.V., Turbinas Solar de Colombia S.A., Turbinas Solar de Venezuela C.A., Turbo Tecnologia de Reparaciones S.A. de C.V., Turbomach, Turbomach Endustriyel Gaz Turbinleri Sanayi Ve Ticaret Limited, Turbomach France SARL, Turbomach GmbH, Turbomach Netherlands B.V., Turbomach Pakistan (Private) Limited, Turbomach S.A. Unipersonal, Turbomach Sp. Z o.o., Turner Powertrain Systems Limited, UK Hose Assembly Limited, Underground Imaging Technologies Inc, United Industries LLC, VALA Inc., Vasky Energy Ltd., Wealdstone Engineering, Weir - Oil & Gas Division, West Virginia Auto Shredding Inc., Western Gear Machinery LLC, Wetland Sustainability Fund I LLC, Williams Technologies, Yard Club, Zhengzhou Siwei Mechanical and Electrical Equipment Sales Co. Ltd., and okyo Rental Ltd..

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Graco Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets systems and equipment used to move, measure, control, dispense, and spray fluid and powder materials worldwide. The company's Industrial segment offers proportioning systems to spray polyurethane foam and polyurea coatings; equipment that pumps, meters, mixes and dispenses sealant, adhesive, and composite materials; and gel-coat equipment, chop and wet-out systems, resin transfer molding systems and applicators, and precision dispensing solutions. It also provides liquid finishing equipment; paint circulating and supply pumps; paint circulating advanced control systems; plural component coating proportioners; spare parts and accessories; and powder finishing products to coat powder finishing on metals under the Gema and SAT brands. The company's Process segment offers pumps to move and dispense chemicals, water, wastewater, petroleum, food, lubricants, and other fluids; pressure valves used in the oil and natural gas industry, other industrial processes, and research facilities; and chemical injection pumping solutions for injection of chemicals into producing oil wells and pipelines. It also supplies pumps, hose reels, meters, valves, and accessories for fast oil change facilities, service garages, fleet service centers, automobile dealerships, auto parts stores, truck builders, and heavy equipment service centers; and systems, components, and accessories for the automatic lubrication of bearings, gears, and generators in industrial and commercial equipment, compressors, turbines, and on- and off-road vehicles. The company's Contractor segment offers sprayers to apply paint to walls and other structures; and viscous coatings to roofs, as well as markings on roads, parking lots, athletic fields, and floors. It sells its products through distributors, original equipment manufacturers, and home center channels; and directly to end-users. The company was incorporated in 1926 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Banco Santander (Brasil) S.A., together with its subsidiaries, provides various banking products and services to individuals, small and medium enterprises, and corporate customers in Brazil and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Commercial Banking and Global Wholesale Banking. It offers deposits and other bank funding instruments; debit and credit cards; digital prepaid solutions; payment platform; loyalty programs; employee benefit vouchers; payroll loans; digital lending and online debt renegotiation services; mortgages; home equity financing products; consumer credit; and local loans, commercial and trade finance, guarantees, structured loans, and cash management and funding solutions, as well as on-lending transfer services. It also provides funding and financial advisory services related to projects, origination and distribution of fixed-income securities in the debt capital markets, financing of acquisitions and syndicated loans, other structured financing arrangements, and subordinated debt and energy efficiency transactions; advisory services for mergers and acquisitions, and equity capital markets transactions; and stock brokerage and advisory, equity, and equity research services. In addition, the company structures and offers foreign exchange, derivative, and investment products for institutional investors, and corporate and retail customers; and provides market making services. Further, it offers instant payment services; range of products and services focused on the agribusiness sector; microfinance services; and online automotive listing and digital car insurance solutions, as well as digital trading platform. Additionally, it provides its financial services and products to its customers through multichannel distribution network comprising branches, mini-branches, ATMs, call centers, Internet banking, and mobile banking. Banco Santander (Brasil) S.A. was incorporated in 1985 and is headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Elections 2017: Candidates' lists infested with criminals, goons

Despite parties oft-repeated claims that they would go for socially respected and deserving candidates in the elections, a look at their lists of candidates could lead one to a different realisation.
Casting a shadow?

How the US presents itself in UN negotiations and how other major players react will shape the future of climate politics
Catalonia crisis: Protests as ex-ministers held in Spanish custody

Thousands of Catalans have protested against the detention of eight regional ministers sacked over Catalonia's push for independence from Spain.
The following companies are subsidiares of D.R. Horton: 10700 Pecan Park Austin Inc., 11241 Slater Avenue NE LLC, 2 C Development Company LLC, 8800 Roswell Road Bldg. B LLC, 91st Avenue & Happy Valley L.L.C., ANN & 215 LLC, Austin Data Inc., BP456 Inc., C. Richard Dobson Builders Inc., CH Funding LLC, CH Investments of Texas Inc., CHI Construction Company, CHM Partners L.P., CHTEX of Texas Inc., CV Mountain View 25 Inv LLC, Cane Island LLC, Continental Homes Inc., Continental Homes of Texas L.P., Continental Residential Inc., Continental Traditions LLC, Crown Operating Company Inc., Cypress Road L.P., D.R. Horton - CHAustin LLC, D.R. Horton - Colorado LLC, D.R. Horton - Crown LLC, D.R. Horton - Emerald Ltd., D.R. Horton - Georgia LLC, D.R. Horton - Hawaii LLC, D.R. Horton - Highland LLC, D.R. Horton - Indiana LLC, D.R. Horton - Iowa LLC, D.R. Horton - MV LLC, D.R. Horton - Nebraska LLC, D.R. Horton - Permian LLC, D.R. Horton - Regent LLC, D.R. Horton - Terramor LLC, D.R. Horton - Texas Ltd., D.R. Horton - WPH LLC, D.R. Horton - Wyoming LLC, D.R. Horton BAY Inc., D.R. Horton CA2 Inc., D.R. Horton CA3 Inc., D.R. Horton CA4 LLC, D.R. Horton Commercial Inc., D.R. Horton Cruces Construction Inc., D.R. Horton Inc. - Birmingham, D.R. Horton Inc. - Chicago, D.R. Horton Inc. - Denver, D.R. Horton Inc. - Dietz-Crane, D.R. Horton Inc. - Greensboro, D.R. Horton Inc. - Gulf Coast, D.R. Horton Inc. - Huntsville, D.R. Horton Inc. - Jacksonville, D.R. Horton Inc. - Louisville, D.R. Horton Inc. - Midwest, D.R. Horton Inc. - Minnesota, D.R. Horton Inc. - NNV, D.R. Horton Inc. - New Jersey, D.R. Horton Inc. - Portland, D.R. Horton Inc. - Torrey, D.R. Horton Inc. Foundation, D.R. Horton Insurance Agency Inc., D.R. Horton LA North Inc., D.R. Horton Life Insurance Agency Inc., D.R. Horton Los Angeles Holding Company Inc., D.R. Horton Management Company Ltd., D.R. Horton Materials Inc., D.R. Horton Realty LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Atlantic County LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Central Florida LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Delaware LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Georgia Inc., D.R. Horton Realty of Melbourne LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Northwest Florida LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Southeast Florida LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Southwest Florida LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Tampa LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Virginia LLC, D.R. Horton Seabridge Marina Inc., D.R. Horton Serenity Construction LLC, D.R. Horton Urban Renewal LLC, D.R. Horton VEN Inc., D.R. Horton  Corpus Christi LLC, DBC54 LLC, DHI Commercial - Lakeview LLC, DHI Commercial - Signal Butte LLC, DHI Commercial - Tamarron LLC, DHI Commercial Inc., DHI Communities Construction LLC, DHI Communities Construction of Arizona LLC, DHI Communities Construction of Colorado LLC, DHI Communities Construction of Florida LLC, DHI Communities Construction of Iowa LLC, DHI Communities Construction of Nevada LLC, DHI Communities Construction of North Carolina LLC, DHI Communities Construction of South Carolina LLC, DHI Communities Construction of Texas LLC, DHI Communities Construction of Utah LLC, DHI Communities Construction of Virginia LLC, DHI Communities II LLC, DHI Communities Inc., DHI Engineering LLC, DHI Insurance Inc., DHI Mortgage Company, DHI Mortgage Company GP Inc., DHI Mortgage Company LP Inc., DHI Mortgage Company Ltd., DHI Ranch Ltd., DHI Realty of Alabama LLC, DHI Realty of Mississippi LLC, DHI Title GP Inc., DHI Title LP Inc., DHI Title of Alabama Inc., DHI Title of Arizona Inc., DHI Title of Florida Inc., DHI Title of Minnesota Inc., DHI Title of Nevada Inc., DHI Title of Texas Ltd., DHI Title of Washington Inc., DHI Verandah South Shores Communities LLC, DHIC - Bridges LLC, DHIC - Brittmore LLC, DHIC - Carolina Forest LLC, DHIC - Desert Peak LLC, DHIC - Durbin Creek LLC, DHIC - Freestone LLC, DHIC - Hammock Landing LLC, DHIC - Heritage LLC, DHIC - Horizon Uptown LLC, DHIC - Jacobs Reserve LLC, DHIC - Lakeview LLC, DHIC - Lipoma LLC, DHIC - Minton Cove LLC, DHIC - Mountain Vista LLC, DHIC - Naco LLC, DHIC - Northshore LLC, DHIC - Prairie Village LLC, DHIC - South Creek LLC, DHIC - Tamarron LLC, DHIC - Valley Vista LLC, DHIC - Varina Gateway LLC, DHIC - Waterleigh II LLC, DHIC - Waterleigh III LLC, DHIC - Waterleigh LLC, DHIC - Westridge LLC, DHIC LLC, DHIC  Glendale LLC, DHIC  Grove West LLC, DHIC  South Park LLC, DHIC  Westinghouse LLC, DHIR - Aspen Vista LLC, DHIR - Avian Pointe LLC, DHIR - Emerald Lakes LLC, DHIR - Fosters Ridge LLC, DHIR - Gulf Stream LLC, DHIR - Parkview at Lynn Haven LLC, DHIR - Poplar Terrace LLC, DHIR - Properties I LLC, DHIR - Rock Ridge LLC, DHIR - Sunset Village LLC, DHIR - Village at Hickory Street LLC, DRH - ARK LLC, DRH - ASG LLC, DRH - HWY 114 LLC, DRH Cambridge Homes LLC, DRH Capital Trust I, DRH Capital Trust II, DRH Capital Trust III, DRH Colorado Realty Inc., DRH Construction Inc., DRH Energy Inc., DRH FS Mortgage Reinsurance Ltd., DRH Land Opportunities I Inc., DRH Land Opportunities II Inc., DRH Mountain View LLC, DRH Oil & Gas Inc., DRH Opportunities I Inc., DRH Properties Inc., DRH Realty Company Inc., DRH Realty of Iowa LLC, DRH Regrem L LLC, DRH Regrem LI LLC, DRH Regrem LII LLC, DRH Regrem LIII LLC, DRH Regrem LIV LLC, DRH Regrem LV LLC, DRH Regrem VII LP, DRH Regrem XII LP, DRH Regrem XIV Inc., DRH Regrem XIX Inc., DRH Regrem XLIX LLC, DRH Regrem XLV LLC, DRH Regrem XLVI LLC, DRH Regrem XLVII LLC, DRH Regrem XLVIII LLC, DRH Regrem XV Inc., DRH Regrem XVI Inc., DRH Regrem XVII Inc., DRH Regrem XVIII Inc., DRH Regrem XX Inc., DRH Regrem XXI Inc., DRH Regrem XXII Inc., DRH Regrem XXIII Inc., DRH Regrem XXIV Inc., DRH Regrem XXV Inc., DRH Southwest Construction Inc., DRH Tucson Construction Inc., DRHI Inc., Deer Valley Office Park LLC, Desert Ridge Phase I Partners, Emerald Creek No. 4 L.P., Emerald Realty of Alabama LLC, Emerald Realty of Central Florida LLC, Emerald Realty of North Florida LLC, Emerald Realty of Northwest Florida LLC, Emerald Realty of Southeast Florida LLC, Emerald Realty of Southwest Florida LLC, Encore II Inc., Encore Venture Partners II (California) L.P., Encore Venture Partners II (Texas) L.P., Encore Venture Partners L.P., Express Realty of Central Florida LLC, Express Realty of North Florida LLC, Express Realty of Northwest Florida LLC, Express Realty of Southeast Florida LLC, Express Realty of Southwest Florida LLC, Forestar Group, Forestar Group Inc., Founders Oil & Gas II LLC, Founders Oil & Gas III LLC, Founders Oil & Gas IV LLC, Founders Oil & Gas LLC, Founders Oil & Gas Operating LLC, GP-Encore Inc., Georgetown Data Inc., Germann & McQueen L.L.C., Grand Title Agency LLC, Grande Realty Incorporated, Grande Realty of Pennsylvania LLC, Greywes LLC, HPH Homebuilders 2000 L.P., Hadian LLC, KDB Homes Inc., Kaomalo LLC, Lexington Homes - DRH LLC, MRLF LLC, Martin Road Lake Forest LLC, McQueen & Willis LLC, Meadows I Ltd., Meadows II Ltd., Meadows IX Inc., Meadows VIII Ltd., Meadows X Inc., Melody Homes Inc., Pacific Ridge - DRH LLC, Rielly Carlsbad LLC, Rielly Homes Madison LLC, SFTEN LLC, SGS Communities at Grand Quay L.L.C, SHA Construction LLC, SHLR of California Inc., SHLR of Nevada Inc., SHLR of Washington Inc., SRHI LLC, SSHI LLC, Schuler Homes of Arizona LLC, Schuler Homes of California Inc., Schuler Homes of Oregon Inc., Schuler Homes of Washington Inc., Summerlin Pkwy & Cimarron LLC, Surprise Village North LLC, The Club at Cobblestone LLC, The Club at Hidden River LLC, Tierra Financial Advisors LLC, Travis County Title Company, Treasure Assets LLC, Venture Management of South Carolina LLC, Vertical Construction Corporation, WPH-Camino Ruiz LLC, WPH-Copper Canyon II LLC, WPH-Copper Canyon LLC, Walker Drive LLC, Western Pacific Brea Development LLC, Western Pacific Housing - Mountaingate L.P., Western Pacific Housing - SDG LLC, Western Pacific Housing - Westlake II L.P., Western Pacific Housing Inc., Western Pacific Housing Management Inc., Western Pacific Housing-Antigua LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Broadway LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Canyon Park LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Carrillo LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Communications Hill LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Copper Canyon LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Creekside LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Lomas Verdes LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Lyons Canyon Partners LLC, Western Pacific Housing-McGonigle Canyon LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Norco Estates LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Pacific Park II LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Park Avenue East LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Park Avenue West LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Playa Vista LLC, Western Pacific Housing-River Ridge LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Terra Bay Duets LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Torrey Meadows LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Torrey Village Center LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Windemere LLC, and Wilson Parker Homes.

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Pediatrix Medical Group, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides newborn, maternal-fetal, pediatric cardiology, and other pediatric subspecialty care services in the United States and Puerto Rico. It offers neonatal care services, such as clinical care to babies born prematurely or with complications within specific units at hospitals through neonatal physician subspecialists, neonatal nurse practitioners, and other pediatric clinicians. The company also provides maternal-fetal care services, including inpatient and office-based clinical care to expectant mothers and unborn babies through affiliated maternal-fetal medicine subspecialists, as well as obstetricians and other clinicians, including maternal-fetal nurse practitioners, certified nurse mid-wives, ultrasonographers, and genetic counselors. In addition, it offers pediatric cardiology care services comprising inpatient and office-based pediatric cardiology care of the fetus, infant, child, and adolescent patient with congenital heart defects and acquired heart disease, as well as adults with congenital heart defects through affiliated pediatric cardiologist subspecialists and other related clinical professionals; and specialized cardiac care to the fetus, neonatal and pediatric patients. Further, the company provides other pediatric subspecialty care services through pediatric subspecialists, such as pediatric intensivists, pediatric hospitalists, pediatric surgeons, and pediatric ophthalmologists, as well as pediatric ear, nose, and throat physicians; and support services in the areas of hospitals, primarily in the pediatric emergency rooms, labor and delivery areas, and nursery and pediatric departments. As of February 17, 2022, it operated a network of approximately 2,700 physicians. The company was formerly known as MEDNAX, Inc. and changed its name to Pediatrix Medical Group, Inc. in July 2022. Pediatrix Medical Group, Inc. was founded in 1979 and is based in Sunrise, Florida.
Complaints filed against 699 officials for not providing information

Complaints have been lodged against 699 local level information officials for not providing public information.
Twitter, Inc. operates as a platform for public self-expression and conversation in real-time. The company's primary product is Twitter, a platform that allows users to consume, create, distribute, and discover content. It also provides promoted products that enable advertisers to promote brands, products, and services, as well as enable advertisers to target an audience based on various factors, including who an account follows and actions taken on its platform, such as Tweets created and engagement with Tweets. Its promoted products consist of promoted ads and Twitter Amplify, Follower Ads, and Twitter takeover. In addition, the company offers monetization products for creators, including Tips to directly send small one-time payments on Twitter using various payment methods, including bitcoin; Super Follows, a paid monthly subscription, which includes bonus content, exclusive previews, and perks as a way to support and connect with creators on Twitter; and Ticketed Spaces to support creators on Twitter for their time and effort in hosting, speaking, and moderating the public conversation on Twitter Spaces. Further, it offers products for developers and data partners comprising Twitter Developer Platform, a platform that enables developers to build tools for people and businesses using its public application programming interface; and paid access to Twitter data for partners with commercial use cases. Twitter, Inc. was founded in 2006 and is based in San Francisco, California.
Death toll in Dhading bus accident climbs to 33

Death toll in Dhading bus accident has reached 33 after police recovered a body of a woman on Friday.
Dhungana makes a comeback to politics after 23 years

Daman Nath Dhungana. The name had stopped sounding political for a while. The first Speaker of Parliament after the restoration of democracy in 1990, Dhung-ana has returned to politics after a gap of 23 years.
Left bloc common manifesto lashes out at Congress

The left alliance of the CPN-UML and the CPN (Maoist Centre) has criticised its strong rival Nepali Congress in its election manifesto, accusing the oldest party of inviting foreign interference on many occasions, while maintaining a relatively softer tone on the Madhes-based parties.
NA soldier drowns during partol

A soldier drowned in Khauraha River during a security patrol in Bardiya National Park on Thursday.
NEA, CTGC to hold final talks to form Joint Venture firm

The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) is preparing to hold final talks with China Three Gorges Corporation (CTGC) to sign a joint venture agreement to construct the West Seti Hydropower Project in Farwest Nepal.
Trumps account was deactivated for 11 minutes on November 3. The company issued a tweet saying it was a human error and later revealed that it was done by an employee.

Donald Trumps Twitter account, @realdonaldtrump was deactivated for 11 minutes on November 3 by a Twitter employee. The social networking service posted a Tweet citing that a human error was the reason for deactivation. Twitter later revealed in a post that the account was deactivated by a Twitter employee who was on the last day of their job and that they are investigating the event.

The second Twitter post said, Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employees last day. We are conducting a full internal review. It is being speculated that this was done deliberately by the leaving employee.

Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employees last day. We are conducting a full internal review. https://t.co/mlarOgiaRF  Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017

In a statement to Buzzfeed, a former senior Twitter employee said that many employees can suspend a users account, however, only a few hundred have the right to deactivate one. Also, the company had discussed placing extra measures on verified or high-profile accounts, but they were never implemented. Trump had made threats to North Korea back in September and ever since then, his account has been asked to be suspended time and again. While many users said that Trumps tweets violate the terms of service and should be deactivated, Twitter has refused to so and said, We hold all accounts to the same Rules, and consider a number of factors when assessing whether Tweets violate our Rules 2/6.

Twitter had recently banned advertising from all accounts owned by Russia Today and Sputnik. The ban comes a week ahead of Twitter testifying before a US House Committee regarding its role in the supposed Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential polls. You can read more about this here.
The HTC U11 was intended to be the Pixel 2 XL but alas, Google went with LG to make the Pixel 2 XL and the HTC phone code named muskie became the HTC U11

According to The Verge, Google made an abrupt change to its Pixel phone plans this summer, shelving its original successor to the Pixel XL, which was codenamed Muskie, in favour of another device bearing the code title of taimen. Taimen went on to become the LG-manufactured Google Pixel 2 XL, while muskie seemed to fade into oblivion. Taimen didnt fade into oblivion. It became the HTC U 11.

The Verge has confirmed with sources close to both HTC and Google that muskie is indeed the HTC U11 Plus. Google apparently rejected it in favour of LGs design for the smartphone. For those unaware, this isnt the first time that LG made a phone for Google. The first phone made by LG for Google was the Nexus 4. LG went on to make the Nexus 5, and 5X for Google.

The Verge also spots a lot of similarities between the HTC U11 Plus and the Google Pixel 2 XL. The U11 Plus is the first HTC phone to feature a fingerprint sensor on the back for a long time, maybe as far back as the HTC One Max in 2013. When I spent some hands-on time with the U11 Plus, that fingerprint reader struck me as being essentially the same as that on Googles Pixel phones. Now we know why: thats what it was initially intended and designed to be.

The display size is also similar to what we find on the Pixel 2 XL. The U11 Plus has a 6-inch 18:9 display with a 2880 x 1440-pixel resolution. The difference, however, is with the panel. The Pixel 2 XL has LGs pOLED panel, whereas the U11 Plus has an LCD panel. With all the issues plaguing the Pixel 2 XLs display we wonder whether Google is happy with the choice of LG over HTC.

The HTC U11 Plus is priced at 699 pound (Rs 60,000 approx, directly converted) in the UK for the 6GB + 128GB variant. There is no information about an India launch for the smartphone.
Europe-focussed oil and gas exploration and production company Ascent Resources confirmed on Friday that export production has commenced from the Petisovci field in Slovenia, to INA in Croatia.

The AIM-traded firm said the recertification of the pipeline had been processed by the Croatian government, and on 2 November well Pg-10 was turned on, and gas flowed for the first time from the Petisovci field to the INA processing facility at Molve in Croatia.

In accordance with the commencement plan, production from Pg-11A was being added later on Friday morning.

Ascent has been involved with the Petisovci concession for more than ten years, and around 45m had been invested to bring the project to the current stage.

The commencement of export gas production marked a milestone for the company and the project, Ascents board said.

It said it had been made possible following more than two years of close cooperation among the joint venture partners, and with INA.

Significant operational and procedural obstacles have been overcome to bring this project to fruition to the benefit of all parties and the economies in both countries, the board explained in its statement.

The initial delivery of gas triggered the commencement of the previously-announced contract with INA, which has a minimum duration of one year.

Ascent said the supply to INA was expected to fully utilise all production from Pg-10 and Pg-11A.

Its focus for the next year would turn to planning for the re-entry and recompletion of suitable existing wells, it said.

At the same time, Ascent said it was continuing to work to have the IPPC Permit issued as final, after which it would seek to build its own processing facility.

Additionally, it explained that it would look for other attractive opportunities in the region from the position of being a profitable and cash generative company.

We are very happy to be finally exporting gas production from the Petisovci field, said CEO Colin Hutchinson.

We thank all of our employees, investors and advisers who have contributed to the project over the years.
Protesters have taken to the streets across Catalonia after eight former members of the regional government were sent to jail, the majority without bail, after being charged for rebellion, sedition and the misuse of public funds.

The officials appeared in front of Spains supreme court on Thursday to face the charges, while prosecutors have also issued an arrest warrant for ex-President Carles Puigdemont and four other former ministers.

Puigdemont was then in Brussels and had refused to travel back to Spain until he received specific guarantees over the charges he will face.

A judge said during the court appearance on Thursday that the former ministers had to be detained as they could potentially leave the country while they waited for trial.

Among those who jailed without bail were former deputy vice-president Oriol Junqueras and foreign affairs minister Raul Romeva.

A ninth official, Santi Vila, was granted bail after the former business minister quit the government ahead of the parliamentary vote for independence last week.

Local authorities organised and carried out an independence referendum in the region on 1 October, even after Spain's constitutional court declared the vote - which was marred by violence - illegal.

Previously, Madrid had called for elections in Catalonia on 21 December, with polls suggesting nationalist parties might lose their overall majority in the local parliament.
The US president has chosen Jerome Powell to succeed Janet Yellen at the head of the US central bank in what many observers see as the "continuist" option, although for some analysts he also has a "softer" approach when it comes to financial sector regulation.

Subject to Senate confirmation, Powell, who has been serving at the Federal Reserve since 2012, is considered as a relatively "centrist" candidate in terms of his monetary policy bias.

Nevertheless, in a note sent to clients the day before his nomination, Kathleen Brooks, research director at City Index, pointed out that there was still room for "surprises" at the Federal Reserve given that Donald Trump had yet to name another five members to the Federal Reserve, including to the important post of Vice chair.

The other candidates who were considered as possible replacements for Yellen included John Taylor, who was widely considered a 'policy hawk' and Kevin Warsh, an ex-investment banker from Morgan Stanley.

Powell on the other hand had experience working at the Treasury under George H.W. Bush, as Undersecretary of the Treasury, where he was charged for policy on financial institutions and the Treasury debt market.

Before joining the Fed board in 2012, he was a visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington DC, where he focused on fiscal issues at the federal and state government levels.

Previous to that he worked as a lawyer and investment banker, he was also a partner at private equity outfit The Carlyle Group between 1997 and 2005.
David Davis has said he would consider a Brexit clause which would allow UK citizens to retain their European citizenship.

Brexit secretary Davis said during a parliamentary session in the House of Commons that he would "look seriously" at such a proposal, which would allow some Britons to continue to be able to live and work on the continent.

Talks between negotiators on both sides have stalled in recent weeks over disagreements on issues such as how much the UK owes the EU following its departure.

The idea had been proposed by the EUs chief negotiator Guy Verhofstadt, who has included the suggestion in the European Parliaments main proposals for Brexit.

The idea had been proposed by the EUs chief negotiator Guy Verhofstadt

When asked about the issue by Tory backbencher Jeremy Lefroy on Thursday, Davis said that both sides were in agreement about it in principle.

"Yes, we will look at these altogether - I have spoken to Guy Verhofstadt about this briefly, not at great length, already," Davis said.

"I will be interested to hear from him what he hears from what they are proposing, and of course we will listen to anything of this nature."

Davis added that it would be part of a larger objective of introducing measures which would mutually benefit the UK and the EU.

"The aim of this exercise is to be good for Europe, good for Britain and that means good for the citizens of Europe and Britain and thats what well intend to do."
UK International Development Secretary Priti Patel found herself at the centre of a storm on Friday over undisclosed meetings in Israel while on holiday in August.

The BBC, citing unnamed sources, reported that Patel had been accompanied by a pro-Israel Conservative lobbyist. It added that she had not informed the Foreign Office of the meetings, defying usual protocol.

The report cited one source claiming that at least one meeting was held at the suggestion of the Israeli ambassador to London and that British diplomats in Israel were not informed about Patel's plans.

Patel was accompanied by Lord Polak, honorary president of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), a lobbying organisation that has access to wealthy party donors, the report stated.

Patel met Yair Lapid, the leader of one of Israels main political parties, and made visits to several organisations where official departmental business was reportedly discussed, it added.

A senior Downing Street source told the BBC Patel had done nothing wrong, while source at the minister's own department said it was a private holiday paid for by Patel herself.
Parties face hard time adjusting leaders

Major parties failure to accommodate some leaders while filing nominations for December 7 polls has forced some of them to stand against their parties official candidates in some places.
Europes largest carmaker is looking at opening a British bank to help to fund sales of its cars in the UK after Brexit. Talks with the Bank of England are expected to lead to Volkswagen making a formal application for a banking licence that will allow it for the first time to take savers money. - The Times

Hundreds of trainee GPs have not received their salaries from the outsourcing company responsible for paying them, forcing some to turn to charities for emergency funds. Some GPs have been unable to cover their mortgages because of the delays by Capita, which holds a contract to administer training grants for GPs through a body called Primary Care Services England. - Guardian

All the main suppliers of trains to Britains railways have been shortlisted to build the fastest and most prestigious carriages on the UK network. The bidding process to supply the 2.75 billion, 225mph trains for HS2 has included a wild-card bid from Patentes Talgo, the Spanish high-speed manufacturer that has no rolling stock operating in the UK or any facilities in the country. High Speed Two, the government agency charged with delivering the 55 billion London-Birmingham-Manchester-Leeds project, announced a shortlist of five: Bombardier Transportation, Hitachi Rail Europe, Alstom Transport, Siemens and Patentes Talgo. - The Times

Apple expects record sales of iPhones in the run-up to Christmas, and dismissed any talk of weaker demand for its iPhone 8 models saying they "instantly became out top 2 selling products" on release. The update sent Apple shares to an all-time-high in after hours trading, up 3.2pc, taking its market capitalisation above $900bn (670bn) for the first time. - Telegraph

The controversy over workers being being pushed into dubious self-employment has been reignited, with a parliamentary committee accusing a leisure group of egregious use of such contracts. On Thursday, parliaments work and pensions committee said it had written to The Gym Group, an operator of 89 low-cost UK gyms, questioning why its contracts classify its personal trainers as self-employed when it places restrictions on what they can charge clients and when they can take holidays. - Guardian

Oleg Deripaskas En+ Group has met scepticism among investors, leading to a London stock market debut at the bottom end of its price range. The aluminium and hydro-electricity producer will be priced at $14 per global depository receipt, valuing the business at $7 billion and raising $1 billion. - The Times

Argos is opening two new regional warehouses and creating 500 new jobs as it gears up to expand its same-day delivery service in time for Christmas. The former catalogue retailer, which was bought by Sainsburys last year in a bid an attempt to up its digital defences against Amazon, has opened two regional fulfillment centres in Birmingham and Reading. - Telegraph

Telit Communications, the troubled UK tech company, is the subject of enquiries from the financial regulator over its departed chief executive. The Aim-listed firm, whose shares had already fallen 42.5 per cent so far this year, dropped a further 2 per cent after it confirmed the Financial Conduct Authority was looking into various matters which were of concern. - The Times

Tesco executives stalled for more than a fortnight before telling their new boss about a 246m black hole in the company accounts, a court heard. Giving evidence in the trial of directors Carl Rogberg, 50, Chris Bush, 51, and John Scouler, 49, who face charges of fraud and false accounting, chief executive Dave Lewis said that once he was made aware of the shortage on September 19, 2014, it was very important for the matter to be looked into quickly. - Daily Mail

Virgin Media, the cable operator owned by Liberty Global, signed up nearly 150,000 new UK households to its cable network during the third quarter as it sought to accelerate an expansion drive that had fallen behind schedule earlier this year. Virgin Media said its cable network now reached a total of more than 14.7 million UK homes and businesses, an increase of 147,000 on the previous quarter. - The Times

Ferrari is on course to rake in a record 1bn (766m) profit this year as the worlds wealthy buy more supercars than ever before. Sergio Marchionne, the companys chief executive, said on Thursday that Ferraris adjusted profits for the first nine months of 2017 were up 24% and that the firm was on track to meet its target of 1bn annual profit two years ahead of target. - Guardian
Police head constable dies while on duty

A police head constable working at the Madhyapur Thimi Police Circle in Bhaktapur met with sudden death at 11 pm on Thursday.
Politicians in proportion

Women must be allowed to contest direct elections so as to develop leadership skills
Anup Ojha is a reporter for The Kathmandu Post primarily covering social issues and human interest stories. Before moving to the social beat, Ojha covered arts and culture for the Post for four years.
The Cloud Foundry Foundation on Wednesday launched Cloud Foundry Container Runtime, or CFCR, as the default deployment and management platform for containers using Kubernetes and BOSH.

The foundation announced Container Runtime, a project supported by The Linux Foundation, at its annual European user conference.

Cloud Foundry is an open source Platform as a Service offering used for building and managing applications in the cloud or in data centers.

CFCR is an updated release of the Kubo Project with a new name. The new default approach makes deploying and managing containers easier and more flexible, according to Cloud Foundry.

Donated to the foundation in June by Pivotal Software and Google, the project expands options for Cloud Foundrys enterprise user base, according to Devin Davis, vice president of marketing at Cloud Foundry.

Cloud Foundry users now can use Container Runtime to deploy Kubernetes or Application Runtime (previously Elastic Runtime) for a Cloud Application Platform.

In either case, BOSH underpins infrastructure provisioning for both Cloud Foundry runtimes.

Container Runtime also can provide default support for Istio, an open platform to connect, manage and secure microservices. CFCR now provides default support for persistence of Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services and Vsphere.

Application Runtime is the app-centric platform that focuses on simplifying the entire development lifecycle, Cloud Foundrys Davis told LinuxInsider.

Platform Pillars

The new project enables Cloud Foundry to continue expanding choices for users. For example, a Kubernetes user can deploy and manage Kubernetes clusters with BOSH. BOSH is Cloud Foundrys open source tool for deploying and managing distributed services.

The Cloud Foundry cloud application platform  Application Runtime  remains an option.

Container Runtime simply enhances Cloud Foundrys capabilities, said Davis, by using some of its best and most unique components  such as BOSH, which provides a uniform way to instantiate, deploy and manage highly available Kubernetes clusters on any cloud.

Both Cloud Foundry Application Runtime and Container Runtime are built with the developer in mind, he said. They provide the flexibility to run apps in any language or framework on any cloud.

This flexibility extends to services as well, Davis added.

Plenty of Options

The Cloud Foundry project bolsters the relevance of container and Kubernetes overall, suggested Chris Ciborowski, CEO of Nebulaworks. Quite a few organizations would like to deploy a container platform like Kubernetes but are looking for best practices to do so.

To this end, the CFCR (Kubo) is one option for organizations looking for this functionality, Ciborowski told LinuxInsider. For existing users of container platforms  like Google Container Engine, Amazon Elastic Container Service or Mesosphere DC/OS  the announcement is likely of little interest.

Other options exist, he said. There are a number of ways to achieve a production-ready Kubernetes environment that can be deployed across any infrastructure in an idempotent fashion.

For example, to help with this agnostic approach, Nebulaworks leverages a set of tools: Terraform and Packer, along with Kubeadm, which is a tool that is part of the Kubernetes project.

This approach achieves the same level of automated, agnostic deployments while allowing the use of a common set of tools that can do far more than just deploy Kubernetes, said Ciborowski.

Slow Adoption Rate

Despite continued interest in containers, only 25 percent of enterprise companies actually use them in production, based on a recent Cloud Foundry Foundation study. This represents a negligible rise of only 3 percent from 2016.

Enterprises are the colossal cargo ships of the industry. They move slowly, steadily, and with a rigorous navigation system, the Foundrys Devin said.

Enterprises cannot always afford to be as flexible or lithe as a smaller company  it takes time to evaluate new technologies before implementation.

Up until now, there has not been a solution in the market that could scale within the enterprise, Devin pointed out. Kubernetes is the first container option with enterprise-grade scale and functionality, and Cloud Foundry Container Runtime facilitates this enterprise-ready technology, thanks to the power of BOSH.

Key Development

As customers move more of their workloads to container-based systems, management and orchestration of those containers becomes increasingly important, observed Lee Atchison, senior director of strategic architecture at New Relic.

The industry as a whole has recognized the need for better container management and container orchestration tools, and Kubernetes is playing an increasingly important role in this area, he told LinuxInsider.

The Cloud Foundry announcement shows Pivotals leadership by adopting and standardizing on Kubernetes and related technologies. That has helped solve the important container management problems that customers have been experiencing, Atchison said.

Integrated Solution

Container runtime is not a mandatory upgrade or ideal replacement tool for all users, but it is significant for enterprises using containers now, and for those considering using them in the future, noted Davis.

Many enterprises are hesitant to invest in and adopt cutting-edge technologies, including containers. Container Runtime gives huge enterprises the opportunity to run containers at scale and in production. Cloud Foundrys enterprise user base relies on BOSH to run applications at scale  and CFCR enables Kubernetes to take advantage of BOSH, Davis explained.

Still, alternatives do exist. Cloud Foundry adopters can continue to use Cloud Foundry Application Runtime exactly as they have been without moving to CFCR.

Think of Container Runtime as a Lego piece you can snap into Application Runtime when you need it, said Davis. Our end users have wanted to utilize containers to achieve efficiency in their business processes, but until Container Runtime, there was not an enterprise-ready solution in the market that could meet their needs.

For cloud-native 12-factor applications, a cloud application platform likely will be the best deployment method, he said. If users need more flexibility and developer-built containers for apps, or it they are using prepackaged apps delivered in a container, then Container Runtime will add control over application delivery.
Complaints have been mounting over display and audio issues with Googles Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, launched just three weeks ago.

Consumers have reported a screen burn-in problem with the Pixel 2 XL, which refers to embedded functions leaving a ghost-like image on the display.

In addition to the Pixel 2 XL display issue, there have been numerous reports of high-pitched noises and strange clicking sounds occurring during calls on the Pixel 2.

The demand for Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL has exceeded our expectations, and were thrilled with the positive reaction to our new phones, both from the reviewers who have tried and tested our devices thoroughly and from consumers who are switching to Pixel, said Mario Queiroz, vice president, product management at Pixel. We take all reports of issues very seriously, and our engineers investigate quickly.

The company will provide updates as soon as it has conclusive data, he said.

The Pixel 2 XL uses pOLED screens, which can display a leftover image when fixed backgrounds or pictures remain on them for a long period of time, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

Anyone who has a pOLED device should be using active backgrounds and make sure no one image remains on the phone for an extended period of time, he told TechNewsWorld.

Some games do have fixed grids, suggesting long-time game players need to watch this as well, Enderle added.

Sales Slowdown

If the reports about the scope of the complaints turn out to be accurate, Google will face a major test in the marketplace, said Werner Goertz, research director for personal technologies at Gartner.

I think it is a grave concern that these devices have been put into the market, he told TechNewsWorld, though certainly with excellent features on paper.

Concern about Googles ability to field a quality device has the potential to impact not only future sales, but also pending deals, Goertz said, including the US$1 billion agreement to acquire HTCs smartphone business, announced last month.

There are people who are going to speculate on the upcoming HTC integration, he added. People will argue maybe in anticipation of new design resources coming on board that maybe they overlooked that.

Despite those concerns, Google has some inherent positives to fall back on, Goertz said, noting that the original Google Pixel did not have the same issues, suggesting that Google has its internal design capabilities in place.

Its unlikely that the reported display issues will lead back to LG, he said, noting that its a company that typically knows what it is doing.

Although the complaints may dampen Pixel sales, Google will be able to absorb the blow, said Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research.

Apple and Samsung have both had major product defects and survived, he told TechNewsWorld. Im sure Google will survive a product setback.

Every major company faces product issues like this at some point, McGregor said, often the result of too-aggressive scheduling.

Flagship Flounders

The Pixel 2 complaints come more than a year after Samsung went through a massive recall of its flagship Galaxy Note7 smartphones, which were the subject of a massive recall due to overheating batteries that exploded or caught fire.

Samsung ultimately halted production of the Note7 devices, because replacements were found to have similar problems.

Just over a month ago, iPhone and iPad users began reporting a host of problems with the upgraded iOS 11, the new mobile operating system from Apple. Consumers reported the new OS led to battery drainage issues, slow speeds, and problems with WiFi and Bluetooth.
Three held with 3 kg hashish in Kailali

Police on Friday arrested three persons in possession of three kg hashish from Attariya Bazaar of Godawari Municipality-1 in Kailali district.
Once just a hangout for teenagers, Snapchat has matured into an engaging and effective social media platform. If youre trying to reach a younger demographic, its somewhere you probably want to be.

Snapchat is the best channel to reach young people, as they count for more than two-thirds of its audience and are very active users, said Melissa Sanchot, head of marketing and communication atMakeMeReach.

Snapchat is its own world, though, and using it for marketing and advertising means working creatively with its unique features. With that in mind, here are five ways you can use it to interact with your audience, find new customers, and build your brand.

1. Engage Directly

Snapchat users typically are highly motivated and engaged, and youll want to find ways to use that engagement to your advantage.

Its a way to leverage instantness, Sanchot told the E-Commerce Times. Lets say youre a clothes brand and youre wondering which fabric is the best for your next collection. You can directly ask your followers and have immediate responses.

Updating your content regularly gives users a reason to interact with you and enhances their direct engagement with your brand.

Snapchat users are engaging with the app at a very high rate, observed Dario Sheikh, strategic partnership manager at Bidalgo.

They use it throughout the day. While its user base is relatively small, it has a highly relevant user base thats engaging with the app on a regular basis at a high frequency, he told the E-Commerce Times.

2. Influence the Influencers

One of the key features of Snapchat is the ability it offers to reach the followers of influential users. The ability to work with influencers expands your scope, so that your message travels far beyond those who directly follow your brand.

Its an incredible channel for influencers strategy, noted MakeMeReachs Sanchot. You can ask followers to post stories using your product, and make viral campaigns at very low cost.

3. Make Use of Filters

Snapchat offers various filters to business that want to promote their brand, their location, a particular event or a promotion. Experiment with these filters, since theyre a way of personalizing your message and getting it out there  not just to your followers, but to the followers of your followers.

Its a really organic way for your users to self-advertise your business or your offering to their Snapchat followers, said Sheikh. Its a great way for your own users to be brand advocates within their own network.

4. Tell Your Story

Snapchat allows you to use video, photos and text to tell the story of your company. Just remember that its a casual, informal platform. Dont worry about using perfect photos, and avoid any sense of staging, preplanning, or even official messaging.

Snapchat works best for telling behind-the-scenes stories  giving a personal and authentic glimpse into the workings of your company and brand.

5. Be Snappy

If theres one thing thats unique to Snapchat, its the ephemeral nature of snaps and stories. Make use of the fleeting nature of these posts, encouraging quick and direct engagement.

That might mean offering coupon codes to be used almost immediately, or telling stories that are as close to real time as possible.

You only have a day to get your message across and make an impact, which means marketers are pushed to make ads more fleeting and creative, remarked Elizabeth Closmore, global head of product evangelism at Sprinklr.

Snapchats Unique Style

Most importantly, make sure to use the unique marketing and advertising features of Snapchat, and create content thats designed specifically for this platform. In particular, Snapchat users like to do things, and to engage them you have to be fun and interactive.

The ads on Snapchat can be  and have to be  focused on actions to take: product to buy, events to go, things to do, said Sanchot. You cant be descriptive  its not enough.

In other words, become familiar with the language and rhythm of Snapchat, and use that awareness to your advantage.

Snapchat ads are not one-size-fits-all-social-networks, Closmore told the E-Commerce Times.

Marketers cant necessarily copy and paste their Facebook and Twitter strategies onto Snapchat, she pointed out. As such, Snapchat demands that brands create fresh content for its platform and really become familiar with its unique language and style.
IBM on Wednesday announced IBM Cloud Private, a software platform that allows enterprise customers to run applications and store critical data in an on-premises, private cloud environment.

The new service employs a Kubernetes-based container architecture that supports both Docker containers and Cloud Foundry.

IBM also introduced new container-optimized versions of core enterprise software including Websphere Liberty, Db2 and MQ.

Companies in heavily regulated industries like finance and healthcare have embraced private clouds as they plan their transitions to public cloud environments, IBM said. Companies will spend an estimated US$50 billion per year on these efforts and grow private cloud business at an estimated rate of between 15 percent and 20 percent per year.

Innovation and adoption of public cloud services has been constrained by the challenge of transitioning complex enterprise systems and applications into a true cloud native environment, said Arvind Krishna, senior vice president for IBM Hybrid Cloud.

IBM Cloud Private brings rapid application development and modernization to existing IT infrastructure, he said, and allows it to be combined with the services of public cloud technology.

Building Blocks

IBM has played a key role in the development of cloud-based computing for the enterprise. It is a founding member of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, and just last month open-sourced its WebSphere Liberty Code to support Java microservices. More than 12 million Java and enterprise developers are managing legacy WebSphere and Db2 applications, according to IBM.

IBM and Google last month announced plans to open-source the Grafeas project, which is designed to help developers deal with security issues when working with containers.

The Grafeas technology has been one of the key building blocks for IBM Cloud for many years, said Chip Childers, chief technology officer of Cloud Foundry.

Companies like American Airlines depend on IBM to provide an easy solution to deliver code to production, something Cloud Foundry Application Runtime excels at, he told the E-Commerce Times. This offering is a huge step in the right direction  it shows IBM doubling down on open source not just with Cloud Foundry, but also adding Kubernetes into the mix.

The Cloud Private software contains several key features to help enterprises manage their applications and data, IBM said, including the following:

Cloud Management Automation  streamlined management across cloud environments to help launch, monitor and manage services, and maintain security.

Security and Data Encryption  Security Vulnerability Advisor to scan for potential vulnerabilities and in-flight data encryption.

Core Cloud Platform  a container engine, Kubernetes orchestration, Cloud Foundry and essential management tools surrounding developer runtimes.

Infrastructure Choice  compatibility with systems from technology firms including Cisco, Dell EMC, Intel, Lenovo and NetApp, as well as IBM Power Systems, IBM Z, and IBM Hyperconverged Systems, powered by Nutanix.

Data and Analytics  integration with database services including IBM Db2, PostGreSQL and MongoDB.

Application Support and DevOps Tools  containerized versions of IBM WebSphere Liberty middleware, Open Liberty, MQ and Microservice Builder and other frameworks are included in software bundles. APM, Netcool and UrbanCode can be added for an additional fee.

Ready to Launch

IBM is running pilot programs with Finnish pension firm Illmarinen and Chiles Banco de Credito, according to spokesperson Joseph Collier. Illmarinen, which manages pensions that cover 900,000 people in that country, is expected to start regular production with Cloud Private by early 2018. BCIs schedule was not immediately available.

IBM has certain built in competitive advantages as it strives to expand its increasingly critical cloud computing business to compete against Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and other data and information companies, suggested Jeff Kaplan, managing director of ThinkStrategies.

IBMs greatest comparative advantage is its ability to appeal to its installed base of enterprise companies that have made enormous investments in traditional data center systems and software, and still believe they need to rely on private cloud resources to support their corporate operations and objectives, he told the E-Commerce Times.

The Cloud Private program is the newest example of how IBM embraces modernization technologies, Pund-IT Principal Analyst Charles King told the E-Commerce Times, to ensure the continued relevancy of its various platforms and services.
Walmart on Tuesday outlined plans to grow its critically important e-commerce business in the U.S. by 40 percent over the next fiscal year. The company intends to leverage a series of key acquisitions and its more than 4,600 brick-and-mortar locations to mount a direct challenge to Amazon for millennial customers.

Walmart  the largest retail operation in the world and the leading U.S. challenger to Amazon  presented its objectives at its annual meeting with Wall Street analysts, where CEO Doug McMillon said the company is committed to turning itself into a digital powerhouse.

No doubt we are in a transformational period of history, McMillon said at the meeting. Business is transforming, and Walmart is transforming too.

Not Your Fathers Big Box

Walmart plans an aggressive expansion of its online grocery business, with 1,000 new locations in the U.S., McMillon said. The company also has been experimenting with delivery to customers in the U.S., the use of automated towers to speed the in-store pickup experience, and ways to expand the use of Walmart Pay.

Customers who shop with Walmart both in stores and online spend almost twice as much as customers who shop with the retailer only in stores, McMillon noted.

Customers who started shopping at Walmart.com after previously shopping only in brick-and-mortar locations increased their in-store shopping as well, he pointed out.

The U.S. retail market is expected to reach US$3.5 trillion in 2017, based on data from Forrester Research, representing 3.8 percent growth, said McMillon. Brick- and-mortar sales are predicted to reach $3.1 trillion, growing at a little more than 2 percent. The e-commerce market, which is expected to grow 14 percent, will account for the remaining $450 billion in sales.

Online grocery shopping is an untapped market within the e-commerce space, and that category is a major focus for Walmart, according to McMillon.

Walmart hopes to leverage its ability to provide groceries directly from its thousands of stores, which are located in proximity to 90 percent of the U.S. population, and work with employees and outside services, such as Deliv, to fulfill online orders.

Deliv last month began testing in-refrigerator delivery with Walmart and smart-lock firm August in the San Francisco Bay area.

Analyst Enthusiasm

Walmart stunned Wall Street earlier this year when it announced surprising e-commerce inroads following last years $3 billion acquisition of Jet.com, as well as the purchase of several other brands, including mens apparel retailer Bonobos, outdoor apparel firm Moosejaw and womens vintage apparel retailer Modcloth.

I think Walmart is doing a great job challenging the status quo, said Robert Hetu, research director and agenda manager for retail at Gartner.

It took them a while to wake up, but the response has been a wave of transformational approaches, he told the E-Commerce Times.

E-commerce is still a small percentage of Walmarts overall mix, though, observed Paula Rosenblum, managing partner at RSR Research.

Rival big box stores like Target also have seen surges in e-commerce from a lower base figure, she told the E-Commerce Times.

During the first half of fiscal 2018, Walmart reported a stunning 62 percent growth in e-commerce sales, compared with 12 percent the prior period.

We want to be the destination for customers to save money no matter how they want to shop, said Marc Lore, CEO of Walmarts U.S. e-commerce business, at Tuesdays meeting.

The company is focused on elevating the Walmart.com brand, redesigning the website, elevating Jet.com to appeal more to higher-income millennial customers, and attracting more premium brands, he added.

Walmarts recent forays into innovative tech, from facial recognition to returns via their app, are bold, putting them into a category once reserved only for brands like Apple, said Andrew Park, senior director for customer experience strategy at InMoment.

The legacy discount retailers plan to grow their e-commerce business exponentially may be part of a larger strategy  that of creating a new digital sandbox where they can nimbly test, learn and iterate at a rate that rivals Amazon, he told the E-Commerce Times.

Surprisingly, Walmart emerged as a favorite brand of millennial shoppers in the 2017 Food Love List published by Conde Nast and Goldman Sachs, Park noted, and those customers may wonder whether the retailer can make the transition to a true e-commerce innovator.

These investments in technology, if done correctly, can convert this intrigue into long-term loyalty and trust, said Park, but the only way to do this successfully is to stay connected to the humans at the heart of every business, which includes both customers and employees.
Former Trump campaign aide and climate change denier Sam Clovis withdrew his nomination for the chief scientist position at the Department of Agriculture on Wednesday.

Clovis faced increasing scrutiny this week after it was revealed that he knew campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos was establishing contact with Russian officials in 2016. In an October letter to the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, which oversees to nominations to the Department of Agriculture, Clovis confirmed that he has published no peer-reviewed scientific work and has never taken any graduate-level courses in natural science.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who sits on the Senate Agriculture Committee, described Clovis as a comically bad nominee, even for this administration.

As reported by The Hill:

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), the panels top Democrat, said in a statement that Cloviss withdrawal is a victory for science and farmers. From day one, it was clear to me that Sam Clovis was the wrong choice for our farmers and ranchers, she said. His lack of qualifications and long history of politically divisive statements were disqualifying, and the recent news surrounding his time as co-chair of the Trump campaign has raised even more questions.'

POLITICO reported that Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) remains concerned over Clovis role as USDAs liaison to the White House and believes Clovis had no business trying to be USDAs top scientist.

This is one of the few jobs where theres a statutory requirement to have a scientific background, and he should have had the good sense to decline the nomination in the first place, Schatz said.

In addition to Clovis, another prominent climate denier is also preparing his exit this week: Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chair of the House Science Committee, announced Thursday that he would not seek reelection next year.

For a deeper dive:

Clovis: Washington Post, AP, New York Times, WSJ, POLITICO, The Hill, Bloomberg. Smith: POLITICO, Texas Tribune, Huffington Post, AP, The Hill

For more climate change and clean energy news, you can follow Climate Nexus on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up for daily Hot News.
The

Trump administration has withdrawn from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), an international anti-corruption initiative that requires member nations to report their oil, gas and mineral revenues, and for such extractive companies to report payments made to obtain these publicly owned natural resources.

The EITI Standard is implemented in about 50 countries around the world and provides the public information about how much government leaders receive in taxes, royalties and lease payments from such natural resource companies, as Bloomberg explained. For instance, this information would help ensure that revenue goes towards building or fixing roads and schools, rather than hiding away in foreign bank accounts.

This is a disappointing, backwards step, EITI Chair Fredrik Reinfeldt

said. The EITI is making important gains in global efforts to address corruption and illicit financial flows. Our work supports efforts to combat transnational crime and terrorist financing. Its important that resource-rich countries like the United States lead by example. This decision sends the wrong signal.

Gregory J. Gould, the director of the U.S. Office of Natural Resources Revenue, sent a letter to the EITI board on Thursday saying the decision was effective immediately.

It is clear that domestic implementation of EITI does not fully account for the U.S. legal framework, Gould wrote.

US pulls out of #EITI implementation. EITI Chair Reinfeldt: "This is a disappointing, backwards step." See more: https://t.co/FrJ4DDHaHD  EITI International (@EITIorg) November 2, 2017

Bloomberg reported that the withdrawal comes after the American Petroleum Institute, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. lobbied against a similar regulation compelling U.S. energy and mining companies to disclose those payments, which President Donald Trump rolled back earlier this year.

Its pretty disgraceful for the United States, Jana Morgan, director of Publish What You Pay, a coalition that urges financial transparency in the extractive industry, told Bloomberg. Chinese state-owned oil companies and Russian state-owned oil companies are disclosing payments.

So you literally have American companies that are less transparent than Russian and Chinese state-owned enterprises, she said.

Democrats also criticized the decision.

The Hill reported that the U.S. joined the agreement in 2011 after a joint effort from Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and former Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.).

In a joint statement, the Senators called the move an example of Big Oil and Gas money and influence and a painful abdication of American leadership on transparency and good governance.
By Jason Bittel

Scientists have discovered a new orangutan species in the mountainous forests of northern Sumatra. Of course, the Tapanuli orangutan has been here for quite a whilebut its new to us!

Discovering a new species of great ape in this day and age just shows how little we know about the world around us and how much there still is to learn, said Erik Meijaard, a conservation scientist at the Australian National University and one of the authors of the new paper about the discovery, published online today in the journal Current Biology.

The Tapanuli now joins the ranks of the other two known orangutans, the Sumatran (Pongo abelii) and the Bornean (Pongo pygmaeus), which lives across the Java Sea. Most of us might look at this new ape and just see another cinnamon-colored orangutan, but to experts, the differences are striking. The Tapanulis frizzy body hair distinguishes it from its Sumatran neighbor, whose hair is long and smooth, and its skull and teeth measure differently from those of its two cousins. The Tapanulis also have distinct mating calls and eat plant species that Meijaard says nobody has ever observed orangutans dining on before.

But even as the scientists are announcing this species existence, they are in the same breath also cautioning us on its potential extinction. With just 800 individuals in an area of only 386 square miles (roughly three-quarters the size of Los Angeles), the Tapanulis are in trouble. In fact, if the scientists population estimates are accurate, the International Union for Conservation of Nature will have no choice but to declare the new orangutan among the most endangered great apes on earth.

According to the teams population viability models, which take into account variables such as range size, life span (up to around 50 years) and how long it takes a species to reproduce (Bornean orangutans have young every seven to eight years, Sumatrans every nine years), the Tapanuli orangutans could be in danger of dying out if they lose more than 1 percent of their population yearly. That would mean just eight or so orangutans. Losing adult females would make the species outlook even worse, since they are in charge of raising the next generation, which takes up to seven years.

That puts the Tapanuli in a delicate position. Meijaard and his coauthors say the species is threatened by road construction, deforestation, hunting, the wildlife trade and conflicts with humans over crops. In fact, the skeleton the scientists measured that identified the ape as a new species was the result of a humanape incident. The researchers write that the animal, an adult male, died from wounds inflicted by local villagers in November 2013.

Combined with the species dwindling numbers is the possibility of dwindling genetic diversity. Although the scientists had access to the DNA of just two animals, they found a surprising amount of homozygosity in their genomes. In other words, the pair were a little too related, and the researchers suspect the population may already be inbreeding due to a lack of mating options.

Theres a possibility the Tapanulis could mix it up with the Sumatran orangutans, but their populations are about 62 miles apart. Any mating between the two would require a cross-island trek to even get within sniffing distance of each other. Plus, the Sumatran orangutan is itself critically endangered.

Living in remote forests can have its perks, though. One of the biggest dangers to orangutans at large is the clearing and burning of forests for palm oil plantations, but so far the Tapanulis have escaped this agricultural scourge. The habitat is too mountainous and oil palm growers prefer flat lowlands, said Meijaard.

That said, the geographic isolation concerns Stephanie Spehar, a primatologist at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh who is unaffiliated with the paper. If we want this population to be viable over the long term, it really cant afford to get any smaller or be fragmented any more than it already is, she said. Conservation measures must be implemented swiftly.

Of course, this is easier said than done. Spehar says conservation in Indonesia is usually difficult and complicated, requiring the cooperation of the government, local communities, private companies and NGOs. And unfortunately, she adds, there are typically more incentives for exploitation than for conservation.

Paper coauthor Ian Singleton, conservation director for the Orangutan Project, however, says the countrys changing political climate gives him hope. Indonesias younger generation understands the power of public pressure, he said. Theyve seen that protests can workin the late nineties, they even led to the end of three decades of corrupt rule under President Muhammad Suharto. Todays Indonesians also have the benefit of Internet access and more experience working with NGOs, which multiplied in the country after the devastating 2004 tsunami. Put it all together, says Singleton, and you have a whole new generation of well-informed citizens, which just may translate eventually into better management of the countrys natural resources.

I can see some improvements over the coming decades, said Singleton. The challenge, however, is to ensure there are still forests then.

As well as species to inhabit them, such as the Sumatran rhino, the Sumatran elephant, the Sumatran tiger and, of course, the islands now two species of orangutan.

Reposted with permission from our media associate onEarth.

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In recent years, the overall graduation rate for public school students nationwide has climbed to 83.2 percent and principals need to build on this momentum. Dig a little deeper into the data, and youll find that simply getting seniors out the door with a high school diploma in hand isnt enough.

Nearly 70 percent of youths ages 16 to 24 who graduated from any high school in 2016 were enrolled in college by the fall of that year. But the numbers have traditionally been much lower for public schools nationwide39 percent of high school seniors who graduated from public schools in 2011 attended four-year colleges in the fall compared to 64 percent of their private school counterparts, according to a 2016 report by the National Center for Education Statistics. That number was even lower for public schools that had more than three-quarters of their students approved for free and reduced-price lunch (29 percent attended college). This was also true of schools where students of color comprised half or more of the student body (33 percent).

I am the principal at Artesia High School in Lakewood, Calif., where our demographics are similar to other schools in low-income, urban neighborhoods: 15 percent of our students are English-language learners, 76 percent are Hispanic, and 79 percent are from low-income families. Many arrive their freshman year testing well below grade level in language arts and math.

But our school decided not to let ZIP codes, demographics, or socioeconomic status define our students success. In the past six years, weve taken concrete steps to ensure that all our students are college-ready and have the financial and educational support they need to enter higher education. This fall, an astounding 94 percent of Artesias most recent graduating class of 329 students started college74 percent of them as first-generation students. The others were set to attend trade schools or enlist in the military.

It is easy for school leaders to assume that readying students to attend colleges is the work of teachers and guidance counselors. But principals play a key role in students preparation. Improving academic outcomes for our students took the effort of our entire school staff, and theres no one-size-fits-all solution. Here are five effective strategies for principals that can help students achieve success after high school graduation:

1. Demand excellence.

Most school leaders want to make sure teachers, counselors, and students commit to excellence. That can mean having teachers who are willing to teach summer school to prepare students for upcoming Advanced Placement classes or participate in professional-development programs. But admistrators should give 100 percent as well. They should stay late, find funding to support extracurricular programs for students and professional development for their staff, and have an open-door policy for everyone in the school community throughout the year.

2. Make it personal.

Teachers, counselors, and administrators should encourage all students, even if they are struggling. At our school, we greet students by name and make sure to check in with them regularly. Teachers in all core subject areas regularly offer tutoring before and after school and privately identify a handful of students each quarter who would benefit from extra attention. Administrators and counselors also reach out to students to see how they are doing at home.

Principals play a key role in students' preparation. Improving academic outcomes for our students took the effort of our entire school staff."

3. Change the school culture.

When I began at Artesia in 2011, the school was known for gangs, violence, and little else. To get students to prioritize their education, we started a campaign to redefine cool. We created a public-recognition program that celebrates students who are high achieving or who have made improvements in their GPA. We also implemented an intervention program for students who were consistently tardy or absent and rewarded those who had perfect or improved attendance with home visits and Disneyland tickets. Now, instead of skipping class or coming late, students are motivated to show up ready to learn.

4. Create space for support.

Many students are driven to succeed but lack the know-how to apply to college. A designated area in the school building for college preparation can make all the difference. We built a student union within the school that offers students comfortable space for extra academic, career, and college assistance. Its also a space for regular presentations from colleges and college-application and financial-aid workshops.

5. Follow the data.

To find solutions for academic and behavioral problems, we research approaches that have worked at similar schools before trying them out for ourselves. For example, keeping data walls of test scores and pass rates in all classrooms so that teachers, parents, students, and administrators can see them allows for transparency and lets students track their progress. We also set ambitious improvement targets, such as a 15 percent gain in state test scores.

Of course, five steps arent enough to encompass every initiative school leaders can use to transform student success. Schools must continue to strive toward the goal of getting 100 percent of graduating seniors into college. Higher education is still the only institution that provides a clear gateway for students to escape poverty. It is our duty to open that gate for all.
Most teacher professional development focuses on formal workshops or mentorships, but Tennessee hopes to help teachers improve by leveraging the power of a friendly conversation over coffee or a quick word in the hallways with teacher colleagues.

The states Instructional Partnership Initiative pairs together educators who have complementary strengths and weaknesses so that they can help one another improve their teaching.

Jackson-Madison County schools participated in the original pilot of the initiative with fewer than 30 teachers, and has now expanded it to nearly 450 teachers in 11 schools.

The program is part of an ongoing project between the state and the Tennessee Education Research Alliance, a group of researchers testing out new ideas in teacher professional development. In a new statewide survey, 3 in 4 participating teachers said the evaluation and feedback improved their teaching, but nearly that many said they did not get professional development tailored to improve the skills that were identified.

The initiative is one of several pilots being scaled up around the state to provide more personalized support for teacher professional development.

Its a low-cost program  but it builds on whats already taking place and the knowledge and skills that already exist in schools to allow everyone to improve their practice, said Nate Schwartz, Tennessees chief research and strategy officer.

Make Me a Match

The high-poverty, 13,000-student district in West Tennessee has traditional teacher training workshops and mentorships for new teachers, but Rachel Lebo, the districts leader of professional development, said the partnership program has helped teachers grapple with practical daily problems more than the traditional sit-and-get PD.

We know job-embedded [professional development] is what moves our practice forward, and this is something that can be leveraged in that way, Lebo said.

The state began offering the program to all schools last year, and 100 to 150 of them have started implementation, with more than 1,250 teachers formally paired.

Tennessee evaluates teachers based on both their contributions to students test scores and on classroom observations in three areas: instructional design and planning, learning environment, and instruction. Within those broad areas, a teacher is rated on 19 different skills, from lesson plans and managing student behavior to strategies for questioning and giving students appropriate academic feedback.

A 2016 pilot study led by John Papay, an assistant professor of education and economics at Brown University, found that more than 40 percent of the teachers who were studied initially scored less than 3 out of 5 in at least one of the skill areas on the evaluation, and among those, teachers had low scores in nearly six different skills on average.

Each July, the state uses an algorithm to match teachers in each school based on their observation scores in the prior year. A teacher with a score of 2 or 3 out of 5 in, say, strategies for questioning students but a score of 4 in planning student work would be matched with a teacher with stronger questioning skills but worse work planning. The state only sends a school potential matches if it can find at least three pairs of teachers that have complementary strengths and weaknesses, said Papay. About half of teachers in a participating school are given potential matches, and the principal and teachers ultimately decide whether to participate.

Teachers of any subject or grade level can be paired, but first-year teacherswho have not yet been evaluatedcannot be matched, said Jason Grissom, an associate professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University who is studying implementation of the program.

It helps fill a need in some schools, because it can make matches across the teaching force, Grissom said, and creates space for more experienced teachers and teachers in special subjectsart, musicto get some support.

Teachers meet initially and set their own goals based on the areas they each need to improve. There arent many formal requirements, but Grissom said most teachers observe each others classes, plan lessons together, and debrief after administrative evaluations. Often, he said, paired teachers may just chat for a few minutes to talk over an upcoming lesson.

Its a very different model, Papay said. This is more of a management practice, a tool to encourage professional learning through peer collaboration. Its not something where we say teachers need to meet once a month for two hours to do X, Y, Z. Its designed to have teachers decide how to walk their own path.

Teachers do not receive stipends for working together, though some schools do help teachers schedule time to collaborate.

Brandi Hodge, a 7th-grade math teacher at E. A. Cox Middle School, said in a presentation on the program that pairing up helped her connect with a teacher of the same subject in a different grade level. Were like students in a way sometimes; we are creatures of habit and find our teachers that we know, so it kind of took us outside of our comfort zone, she said. In the 2016 pilot, students of initially low-performing teachers who participated in the partnership program performed significantly better on state math and language arts tests at the end of the year than students whose teachers had the same initial evaluation scores but did not participategains equal to the difference between being taught by an average teacher versus one in the lowest 25 percent.

Their growth was roughly equal to that of a student moving from a classroom taught by a teacher in the bottom 25 percent of performance to a classroom taught by an average teacher.

Positive Impressions

Also, veteran teachers improved a little more than those with less than 10 years experience, and the more closely teachers were matched on multiple target skills, the more they improved.

Some people who seem initially like an unlikely pair, by the end actually were more successful, because they had such differing ideas, Lebo said. As humans we tend to gravitate to the people who think very similar to the way we are, and what we found was when we put them with someone they wouldnt normally be with, the conversations remained very focused and they enjoyed the experienceand maybe even grew more than the others.

Teachers who participated in the partnership also developed a more positive overall impression of the states teacher-evaluation system than teachers who did not.

Bethany Bowman, the director of professional learning for the Professional Educators of Tennessee, the state teachers union, said the initiative appears to be an effective program to promote growth and collaboration, but expects it may take several years to determine whether the scale-up is effective.

Papay, Grissom, and their colleagues who studied the original pilot have not finished evaluating the program at scale. While districts have conducted teacher evaluations, Tennessee canceled statewide testing for 2016 after problems with its testing contractor, preventing the evaluators from figuring out if changes in teachers practices have led to improved student learning. Moreover, both Lebo and Bowman suggested the state will need to provide more support for teachers to leverage their new relationships.

Its not just a random conversation; its very goal-focused, Lebo said.
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Oct. 31, 2017--Blood biomarkers appear to be an early-warning signal for the accelerated loss of lung function and airway obstruction in firefighters who responded to the World Trade Center disaster, according to new research published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

In "Blood Leukocyte Concentrations, FEV1 Decline, and Airflow Limitation: a 15-year Longitudinal Study of WTC-exposed Firefighters," researchers report on a study of 9,434 firefighters conducted from Sept. 11, 2001, to Sept. 10, 2016.

In the aftermath of 9/11, New York City fire department rescue and recovery workers exposed to the caustic dust at the site experienced high rates of lung injury and excessive loss of lung function. After 2002, lung function stabilized in a majority of those exposed, but some firefighters continuing to lose lung function at an accelerated rate while some improved, according to the authors.

"We have previously observed some of our patients were doing worse than others and performed this study because we wanted to understand factors that increased the risk for excessive lung function loss," said senior study author Michael D. Weiden, MS, MD, associate professor of medicine and environmental medicine at New York University and a New York City Fire Department medical officer. "These findings could motivate future research to find other treatments for this group with ongoing lung injury."

The study goal was to determine if these different trajectories were associated with blood concentrations of eosinophils and neutrophils, two types of immune cells that play a role in many respiratory diseases and are routinely measured during medical evaluations.

The study found:

12.7 percent of participants experienced accelerated FEV1 loss (>64 ml/year loss beyond expected), while 8.3 percent showed improvement in FEV1, the maximum amount of air that can be exhaled in one second.

Both higher blood eosinophil (?300 cells/l) and neutrophil (?4,500 cells/l) concentrations were associated with accelerated FEV1 decline.

4,500 cells/l were associated with a higher risk of accelerated FEV1

Higher eosinophil, but not neutrophil, concentrations were also associated with airflow obstruction, defined as FEV1/FVC (Forced Vital Capacity, the air that can be expelled from the lungs after the deepest breath) <0.70.

Individuals with accelerated FEV1 decline were more than four times as likely to have airflow obstruction as those who had expected FEV1 decline.

In a subset of firefighters (4,303) who had blood counts before 9/11, there was an association between elevated eosinophil and neutrophil levels before 9/11 and afterwards, and those higher levels before 9/11 were associated with accelerated FEV1 decline.

The study adjusted for several factors, including age, race, length of Ground Zero exposure and smoking. There were significant interactions between smoking, eosinophil and neutrophil concentrations and FEV1 decline.

"After 9/11, about one in eight firefighters who worked at the World Trade Center had accelerated loss of lung function over the next 15 years," Dr. Weiden said. "Even in those who had never smoked we found that accelerated loss of lung function increased their risk of airway obstruction and COPD."

The authors said that this study may not be generalizable to another population exposed to caustic dust because of the massive nature of the exposure and the fact that the firefighters were overwhelmingly white men who had been healthy.

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About the Annals of the American Thoracic Society (AnnalsATS)

The AnnalsATS is a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Thoracic Society. The Journal delivers up-to-date and authoritative coverage of adult and pediatric pulmonary and respiratory sleep medicine and adult critical care. The scope of the Journal encompasses content that is applicable to clinical practice, the formative and continuing education of clinical specialists and the advancement of public health. Editor: David Lederer, MD, MS, associate professor of medicine and epidemiology and associate division chief for clinical and translational research at Columbia University.

About the American Thoracic Society

Founded in 1905, the American Thoracic Society is the world's leading medical association dedicated to advancing pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine. The Society's 15,000 members prevent and fight respiratory disease around the globe through research, education, patient care and advocacy. The ATS publishes three journals, the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology and the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

The ATS will hold its 2017 International Conference, May 19-24, in Washington, DC, where world-renowned experts will share the latest scientific research and clinical advances in pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine.
Researchers at Colorado State University and The Ohio State University have found that a cultural backlash stemming from the rise of populism may limit opportunities for state fish and wildlife agencies to adapt to changing social values in the United States. The team reached this conclusion by analyzing more than 12,000 surveys from 19 states and studying ballot initiatives related to hunting.

Based on the new study, researchers found that in states with the largest change in social values, individuals who held traditional values had lower levels of trust in the state wildlife agency. In contrast to traditional values, in which people believe wildlife exists for their benefit, the researchers describe an emerging set of values, in which wildlife and humans are seen as part of a connected social community, as mutualism.

In the case of human-wildlife conflict, traditionalists would be more likely to support lethal wildlife control methods while mutualists would be more supportive of restrictions on humans.

"With a growing proportion of mutualists in a state, traditionalists begin to lose trust in the state's fish and wildlife agency," said Michael Manfredo, lead author on the paper and head of CSU's Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources. "Based on our research, wildlife agencies, which focus on statewide mandates, increasingly engage with people who are mutualists, looking for common ground, and the traditionalists would feel this challenges their influence in policymaking."

The team found a growth in ballot initiatives to protect hunting rights from 2000 to 2016, in contrast with the number of ballot initiatives from the previous decade that sought to restrict certain hunting and trapping practices. Researchers said this indicates a culutural backlash that they predict will intensify conflicts over wildlife management and may constrain institutional change. Wildlife management agencies may need to explore new models of governance that encompass diverse values, the study authors said.

The study was published in September 2017 in Biological Conservation.

Populism in politics, wildlife management

The recent trend toward populist politics has occurred, in part, as a result of a cultural backlash, where select segments of society have rallied against progressive social changes of the later 20th and early 21st centuries. This trend includes the Brexit vote in England, election of Donald Trump as U.S. President, and increased representation of populist parties in European parliaments.

In the case of wildlife, researchers examined the clash of values held by different segments of the public. Over the latter half of the 20th century, traditional values that emphasize the priority of human uses of wildlife have slowly been giving way to mutualism values that shape views of wildlife as fellow beings in a common social community.

At the state level, this trend is associated with increases in urbanization, education and income. These opposing values contribute to conflict over support for various forms of wildlife policy.

One area where the researchers looked at for evidence of backlash was in the surge of wildlife-related ballot initiatives. In the 1990s, there was a rise in initiatives that limited certain forms of hunting and fishing. In Colorado, initiatives included a ban on spring bear hunting in 1992 and the elimination of recreational trapping in 1996.

Between the turn of the century and the present, however, there has been a counter surge of ballot initiatives, most of which focus on protecting the right to hunt. This trend, the authors said, offers evidence of actions among traditional groups to fight back against change.

To dig more deeply, the researchers used data from a 2004 study of wildlife values in which 12,673 people from 19 western states were surveyed. The researchers looked to see if they could determine the basis for backlash at what appeared to be a critical transition time.

Findings from the 2004 study support the presence of a backlash. While most agencies are primarily funded by the sale of fishing and hunting licenses, eight out of 10 mutualists support a funding model in which all residents pay and are all represented in the policymaking process. In contrast, only six in 10 traditionalists support that model. Using an approach that measures the potential for conflict across many issues, the authors also found that states with higher proportions of mutualists have a much greater likelihood of disputes over wildlife issues.

"With the diverse values held by citizens, wildlife managers and wildlife commissioners across the country are finding it more challenging to reach decisions that are socially acceptable and politically sustainable," said Chris Smith, western field representative for the Wildlife Management Institute.

The authors said that in the future, wildlife conservation faces daunting challenges such as resource degradation and overuse, human development, drought and climate change.

"The greatest challenge might be in finding ways to bring oppositional groups in the public together to address those issues," said Manfredo, a professor in the CSU W
A new optical device at Sandia National Laboratories that helps researchers image pollutants in combusting fuel sprays might lead to clearer skies in the future.

An optical setup developed by researchers at Sandia's Combustion Research Facility and the Technical University of Denmark can now quantify the formation of soot -- particulate matter consisting primarily of carbon -- as a function of time and space for a variety of combustion processes. Initially, the researchers have focused on the combustion of liquid fuel sprays found in engines, where the extreme pressures and temperatures create an environment that is optically challenging.

To meet future particulate matter emissions mandates without sacrificing fuel savings, engine developers need advanced combustion strategies to reduce the formation of soot in spray flames.

"The acquired data provides important insights into the fuel spray motion as well as the timing and quantity of soot formed under a wide range of conditions," said Sandia researcher Scott Skeen. "Engine developers can use this information to validate computer models and design advanced engine combustion strategies that will improve fuel economy for consumers while also lowering tailpipe pollutant emissions."

The work was published in an Applied Optics paper titled, "Diffuse back-illumination setup for high temporally resolved extinction imaging" and was selected as a "Spotlight on Optics" by the Optical Society in July. Authors included Fredrik Westlye and Anders Ivarsson from the Technical University of Denmark and Sandia researchers Keith Penney, Lyle Pickett and Skeen and former Sandia researcher Julien Manin. The work was funded by the Department of Energy's Vehicle Technologies Office.

High-speed diagnostics will shed light on future research

The optical setup was developed to quantify soot formation in high-pressure spray flames produced in Sandia's optically accessible, constant volume, pre-burn combustion chamber.

Imaging flames at temperatures and pressures found in engines can be difficult because of a phenomenon called "beam steering." Beam steering occurs when light passes through a medium with varying refractive indexes and is commonly observed as a "mirage" on the highway in the summer time. The hot pavement heats up nearby air, causing its refractive index to change. The sunlight changes direction as it passes from cooler air through hotter air, and these steered light rays give the impression that there is water in the road -- a mirage. In a similar way, a flame causes beam steering because of adjacent high- and low-temperature regions. The magnitude of beam steering increases significantly in an engine because of the high pressures. With optimized lighting and imaging optics, however, the effects of beam steering can be eliminated.

The special lighting was enabled by a custom engineered diffuser large enough to fill the area of Sandia's spray combustion chamber window (4 inches or 100 millimeters). The engineered diffuser was specifically designed to emit light rays with the same brightness over a specified angular range. In this way, a light ray that gets steered as it passes through the flame will be replaced by another ray having the same intensity.

The angle of the engineered diffuser is optimized based on the physical dimensions of the experimental facility, the magnitude of the anticipated beam steering and the collection angle of the imaging system. "In fact," Manin said, "without such a specific optical arrangement, quantifying soot via light attenuation in high-pressure spray flames, where beam steering is more severe, would not be possible."

Making cleaner engines

Skeen explains that although new diesel vehicles are cleaner than ever before, some of the latest generation gasoline engines emit as much particulate matter as older diesel engines. The increased particulate matter can be attributed to the adoption of a gasoline direct-injection fuel system, which results in improved fuel economy and therefore lower carbon dioxide emission per mile driven.

Gasoline direct injection involves spraying high-pressure liquid gasoline directly into the engine cylinder rather than mixing and vaporizing the fuel in the intake port outside the cylinder. This method reduces heat loss and allows for freer airflow. However, consumer savings at the pump come at the cost of higher particulate matter emissions. Unlike the much-maligned black smoke emitted from older diesel engines, soot emitted from gasoline direct injection engines is invisible to the naked eye because of the particles' very small size.

The diagnostic presented in the paper allows researchers to quantify the formation of particulate matter in combusting sprays with unprecedented temporal and spatial resolution. Insights gained and data acquired from the use of this diagnostic will inform and guide researchers and automotive manufacturers toward designs that maximize fuel efficiency while minimizing harmful tailpipe emissions.

A standardized method

The work is a significant contribution to the Engine Combustion Network established in 2010 by Pickett. The network promotes collaboration among engine researchers around the world. Although participation is voluntary and the network provides no financial support, more than 15 institutions have contributed experimental data.

"The network represents the power of a grass-roots movement," said Pickett. "We have accomplished 20 years' worth of research in one-fifth of the time."

One challenge of the wide-ranging collaborative effort within the network is the standardization of experimental diagnostics. "With so many researchers eager to participate, it is important to ensure that everyone contributes high-quality data acquired in a technically sound manner," said Pickett.

The optical technique developed in this work relies on light attenuation or extinction to quantify the amount of soot in a flame. As light enters the combustion vessel, it will be absorbed or scattered by soot particles. Light that is absorbed and some light that is scattered will not reach the camera sensor. This reduction in measured light intensity -- relative to a clear optical path -- can be related to the amount of soot present. To make implementation of this diagnostic tool convenient for network participants, the associated publication provides detailed guidance on the necessary equipment and instruction for sizing the illumination source and collection optics. The use of a Sandia-developed LED light source, as opposed to a high-speed laser, means the cost and complexity are significantly lower.

"This work aims to establish a standardized experimental method of extinction imaging that will increase the reliability and reproducibility of experimental measurements submitted to the network," Westlye said.

###

Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. Sandia Labs has major research and development responsibilities in nuclear deterrence, global security, defense, energy technologies and economic competitiveness, with main facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Livermore, California.
Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the Sun. It is a faint red dwarf lying just four light-years away in the southern constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur). It is orbited by the Earth-sized temperate world Proxima b, discovered in 2016 and the closest planet to the Solar System. But there is more to this system than just a single planet. The new ALMA observations reveal emission from clouds of cold cosmic dust surrounding the star.

The lead author of the new study, Guillem Anglada [1], from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (CSIC), Granada, Spain, explains the significance of this find: "The dust around Proxima is important because, following the discovery of the terrestrial planet Proxima b, it's the first indication of the presence of an elaborate planetary system, and not just a single planet, around the star closest to our Sun."

Dust belts are the remains of material that did not form into larger bodies such as planets. The particles of rock and ice in these belts vary in size from the tiniest dust grain, smaller than a millimetre across, up to asteroid-like bodies many kilometres in diameter [2].

Dust appears to lie in a belt that extends a few hundred million kilometres from Proxima Centauri and has a total mass of about one hundredth of the Earth's mass. This belt is estimated to have a temperature of about -230 degrees Celsius, as cold as that of the Kuiper Belt in the outer Solar System.

There are also hints in the ALMA data of another belt of even colder dust about ten times further out. If confirmed, the nature of an outer belt is intriguing, given its very cold environment far from a star that is cooler and fainter than the Sun. Both belts are much further from Proxima Centauri than the planet Proxima b, which orbits at just four million kilometres from its parent star [3].

Guillem Anglada explains the implications of the discovery: "This result suggests that Proxima Centauri may have a multiple planet system with a rich history of interactions that resulted in the formation of a dust belt. Further study may also provide information that might point to the locations of as yet unidentified additional planets."

Proxima Centauri's planetary system is also particularly interesting because there are plans -- the Starshot project -- for future direct exploration of the system with microprobes attached to laser-driven sails. A knowledge of the dust environment around the star is essential for planning such a mission.

Co-author Pedro Amado, also from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, explains that this observation is just the start: "These first results show that ALMA can detect dust structures orbiting around Proxima. Further observations will give us a more detailed picture of Proxima's planetary system. In combination with the study of protoplanetary discs around young stars, many of the details of the processes that led to the formation of the Earth and the Solar System about 4600 million years ago will be unveiled. What we are seeing now is just the appetiser compared to what is coming!"

###

Notes

[1] In a cosmic coincidence, the lead author of the study, Guillem Anglada shares his name with the astronomer who led the team that discovered Proxima Centauri b, Guillem Anglada-Escude, himself a co-author of the paper in which this research is published, although the two are not related.

[2] Proxima Centauri is quite an old star, of similar age to the Solar System. The dusty belts around it are probably similar to the residual dust in the Kuiper Belt and the asteroid belt in the Solar System and the dust that creates the Zodiacal Light. The spectacular discs that ALMA has imaged around much younger stars, such as HL Tauri, contain much more material that is in the process of forming planets.

[3] The apparent shape of the very faint outer belt, if confirmed, would give astronomers a way to estimate the inclination of the Proxima Centauri planetary system. It would appear elliptical due to the tilt of what is assumed to be in reality a circular ring. This would in turn allow a better determination of the mass of the Proxima b planet, which is currently known only as a lower limit.

More information

This research was presented in a paper entitled "ALMA Discovery of Dust Belts Around Proxima Centauri", by Guillem Anglada et al., to appear in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The team is composed of Guillem Anglada (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (CSIC), Granada, Spain [IAA-CSIC]), Pedro J. Amado (IAA-CSIC), Jose L. Ortiz (IAA-CSIC), Jose F. Gomez (IAA-CSIC), Enrique Macias (Boston University, Massachusetts, USA), Antxon Alberdi (IAA-CSIC), Mayra Osorio (IAA-CSIC), Jose L. Gomez (IAA-CSIC), Itziar de Gregorio-Monsalvo (ESO, Santiago, Chile; Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago, Chile), Miguel A. Perez-Torres (IAA-CSIC; Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain), Guillem Anglada-Escude (Queen Mary University of London, London, United Kingdom), Zaira M. Berdinas (Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile; IAA-CSIC), James S. Jenkins (Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile), Izaskun Jimenez-Serra (Queen Mary University of London, London, United Kingdom), Luisa M. Lara (IAA-CSIC), Maria J. Lopez-Gonzalez (IAA-CSIC), Manuel Lopez-Puertas (IAA-CSIC), Nicolas Morales (IAA-CSIC), Ignasi Ribas (Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai (IEEC-CSIC), Bellaterra, Spain), Anita M. S. Richards (JBCA, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom), Cristina Rodriguez-Lopez (IAA-CSIC) and Eloy Rodriguez (IAA-CSIC).

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and by Australia as a strategic partner. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky".

Links

* Research paper - https://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1735/eso1735a.pdf

* Photos of ALMA - http://eso.org/public/images/archive/category/alma/

* Press release about Proxima b discovery - http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1629/

Contacts

Guillem Anglada

Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (CSIC)

Granada, Spain

Email: guillem@iaa.es

Pedro J. Amado

Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (CSIC)

Granada, Spain

Email: pja@iaa.csic.es

Richard Hook

ESO Public Information Officer

Garching bei Munchen, Germany

Tel: +49 89 3200 6655

Cell: +49 151 1537 3591

Email: rhook@eso.org
The CALET Cosmic Ray experiment, led by Professor Shoji Torii from Waseda University in Japan, along with collaborators from LSU and other researchers in the U.S. and abroad, have successfully carried out the high-precision measurement of cosmic-ray electron spectrum up to 3 tera electron volts (TeV) by using the CALorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) on the Japanese Experimental Module, the Exposed Facility on the International Space Station (ISS). This experiment is the first to make direct measurements of such high energy electrons in space.

The CALET team published its first results in Physical Review Letters November 1 (O. Ariadne et al., Physical Review Letters 119, 181101, 2017).

The CALET experiment is funded by the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA), the Italian Space Agency (ASI), and NASA. John Wefel, professor emeritus in LSU's Department of Physics & Astronomy, serves as the spokesperson for the U.S. CALET team, which includes LSU (lead U.S. institution), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Washington University, and the University of Denver. Other LSU researchers working with the project are PhD student Nick Cannady, research associates Doug Granger and Amir Javaid, former LSU undergraduate Anthony Ficklin, and professors of physics and astronomy Greg Guzik and Mike Cherry.

"High energy electrons are difficult to measure, but important because they potentially provide information about nearby astrophysical sources of high energy radiation and/or dark matter," said Cherry. "The initial results provide a hint of anticipated structure in the high energy spectrum, which may indicate the presence of a nearby source of high energy particles like a pulsar or the annihilation of dark matter."

CALET was installed on the ISS in August 2015 and has been accumulating scientific data since October 2015 with a goal of five years of operation. CALET is the first Japanese-led space-based mission dedicated to cosmic ray observations.

The origin and acceleration of cosmic rays are still one of the cosmic mysteries, and cosmic-ray electrons are one of the most important targets of high-energy cosmic ray research. However, in order to observe high-energy electrons, it is required to have (1) high-precision energy measurement of each cosmic ray particle, (2) sensitivity to detect the very rare electron flux, and (3) the capability to identify electrons buried under the over 1,000 times higher flux of cosmic ray protons. Thus the measurement of electrons above 1 TeV has been a difficult goal to achieve.

The calorimeter of CALET, with its unique and crucial capabilities, enables scientists to perform accurate measurement of cosmic-ray electrons into the TeV region thanks to the long-term exposure available on the ISS.

This measurement demonstrates the ability of CALET to do a precise direct measurement of electrons above 1 TeV that was difficult for past experiments. With five years of observations, CALET will achieve nearly six times higher statistics compared to this first result, and will allow for reduction of the systematic uncertainties, including that from the detector response. The goal of the project is to push the energy limit to 20 TeV and to obtain the precise energy spectrum, hopefully making it possible to demonstrate definitively the presence of nearby astrophysical cosmic ray sources and/or to reveal the nature of dark matter.

For additional information about the science, see the CALET web site at http://calet.phys.lsu.edu and the NASA and JAXA press releases found there.

###
WASHINGTON, Nov. 3, 2017 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) today announced grants to support the development of environmentally and economically sustainable aquaculture in the U.S. These awards were made through the Aquaculture Research Program authorized by the Competitive Special and Facilities Research Grants Act, administered by NIFA.

"By 2030, it's estimated that nearly two-thirds of fish consumed globally will be produced through aquaculture," said NIFA Director, Sonny Ramaswamy. "It is important to foster a sustainable aquaculture industry in the United States to support nutritional security and job creation in rural America."

Aquaculture involves the breeding, rearing, and harvesting of freshwater and marine species of fish, shellfish, and aquatic plants. NIFA Aquaculture Research Program grants support the development of a globally competitive and profitable U.S. aquaculture industry through investments that help improve domestic aquaculture production efficiency, sustainability, safety, marketing, information sharing, and access to global science-based information and advanced technologies. NIFA provides leadership in coordinating federal activities related to aquaculture through the Interagency Working Group on Aquaculture, under the National Science and Technology Council's Committee on Science.

Grants are made through a competitive peer review process involving an external panel of experts. Four FY17 aquaculture grants totaling $1.2 million are recommended for funding:

Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, $320,883

Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, $261,613

University of Maryland Baltimore County, Catonsville, Maryland, $321,165

University of Maryland Baltimore County, Catonsville, Maryland, $320,984

Among the newly awarded projects, Auburn University will develop a cost-effective vaccine for the U.S. catfish industry to fight columnaris disease, which kills catfish and other cultured and ornamental freshwater fish worldwide. Another project at the University of Maryland Baltimore County will develop an oral vaccine to help combat infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV), a disease that affects trout and salmon.

More information on these projects is available on the NIFA Website.

Among previous aquaculture projects, Virginia Polytechnic Institute researchers looked at ways to improve the profitability of U.S. aquaculture and help newer markets attract and sustain capital. The research resulted in metrics that may increase domestic investment opportunities. Researchers at the University of Connecticut have helped foster environmentally and economically sustainable sugar kelp operations in southern New England by developing seeding and grow out techniques at the UConn lab and on seaweed farms on Long Island Sound. This project has helped boost the production of native kelp, providing a consistent supply while reducing the need to harvest wild seaweed.

NIFA's mission is to invest in and advance agricultural research, education, and extension to solve societal challenges. NIFA's investments in transformative science directly support the long-term prosperity and global preeminence of U.S. agriculture. To learn more about NIFA's impact on agricultural sciences, visit http://www.nifa.usda.gov/Impacts, sign up for updates, and follow us on Twitter @USDA_NIFA, #NIFAImpacts.

###

USDA is an equal opportunity lender, provider, and employer.
Using a molecular method likely to become widely adopted by the field, researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health have discovered brain circuitry essential for alertness, or vigilance - and for brain states more generally. Strikingly, the same cell types and circuits are engaged during alertness in zebra fish and mice, species whose evolutionary forebears parted ways hundreads of millions of years ago. This suggests that the human brain is likely similarly wired for this state critical to survival.

"Vigilance gone awry marks states such as mania and those seen in post-traumatic stress disorder and depression," explained Joshua Gordon, M.D., Ph.D., director of the NIH's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), which along with the National Institute on Drug Abuse, co-funded the study. "Gaining familiarity with the molecular players in a behavior - as this new tool promises - may someday lead to clinical interventions targeting dysfunctional brain states."

Karl Deisseroth, M.D., Ph.D., Matthew Lovett-Barron, Ph.D., and Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, colleagues, report on findings using a neural activity screening technology they call Multi-MAP (Multiplexed-alignment of Molecular and Activity Phenotypes) online Nov. 2, 2017 in the journal Cell.

For the first time, Multi-MAP makes it possible to see which neurons are activated in a behaving animal during a particular brain state - and subsequently molecularly analyze just those neurons to identify the subtypes and circuits involved.

In this case, the researchers used the technique to screen activity of neurons visible through the transparent heads of genetically-engineered larval zebra fish. They gauged vigilance by measuring how long it took the animals to swish their tails in response to a threatening stimulus.

A molecular analysis revealing subtypes led to identification of six suspect circuits composed of distinct populations of neurons that modulate neuronal activity, only one of which had previously been linked to vigilance. Virtually the same players were operative in follow-up experiments examining such reaction time-related circuitry in mouse brain. Using optogenetics - another breakthrough exploratory tool developed by Deisseroth and colleagues -- the researchers narrowed the field to three circuits that definitively boost alertness in mice, including the one previously known. The other three are thought to play a reportorial rather than regulatory role.

###

Video:

Neural Basis of Alertness Revealed

https://youtu.be/wGBHPrgwJ5Q

Reference:

Lovett-Barron M, Andalman AS, Allen WE, Vesuna S, Kauvar I, Burns VM, Deisseroth K. Ancestral Circuits for the Coordinated Modulation of Brain State. 2017, Cell 171, 1-13 December 14, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2017.10.021

For more information:

Novel technology pioneered by Stanford researchers ties brain circuits to alertness (Stanford news release) http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2017/11/novel-technology-ties-brain-circuits-to-alertness.html

About the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH): The mission of the NIMH is to transform the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses through basic and clinical research, paving the way for prevention, recovery and cure. For more information, visit the NIMH website, http://www.nimh.nih.gov.

About the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA): The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is a component of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIDA supports most of the world's research on the health aspects of drug use and addiction. The Institute carries out a large variety of programs to inform policy, improve practice, and advance addiction science. Fact sheets on the health effects of drugs and information on NIDA research and other activities can be found at http://www.drugabuse.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit the NIH website, http://www.nih.gov.

NIH...Turning Discovery Into Health
The Future Ready Schools - New Jersey (FRS-NJ) initiative advancing with the assistance of New Jersey Institute of Technology has honored 63 schools by awarding them certification for implementing effective digital learning policies and practices. The schools, the first to receive FRS certification, were formally recognized on October 24 at Workshop 2017, the state's largest convention for educational leaders, held in Atlantic City.

FRS-NJ is a partnership of the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE), the New Jersey School Boards Association (NJSBA) and NJIT. It is based on the National Future Ready Framework and the Sustainable Jersey for Schools Certification program.

The FRS-NJ program is designed to promote digital learning throughout New Jersey's elementary and secondary public schools, as well as to engage students in developing 21st-century skills by encouraging the best use of digital-learning tools by educators.

"It is our mission to ensure that each and every student across the state of New Jersey is ready for his or her future -- a future that requires technological knowledge and skills," said Education Commissioner Kimberley Harrington. "We launched the Future Ready Schools - New Jersey program as a road map for schools to help students meet the demands of today's technology-based economy, and I am excited that so many schools achieved certification in the first year of the program."

"NJIT is proud to be part of the Future Ready Schools Program and takes great pride in its work to build and diversify the pipeline of future STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) students and graduates who will fuel our economy and improve the quality of life in numerous ways," said NJIT President Joel S. Bloom.

"Future Ready Schools - New Jersey enables schools to use technology in ways that encourage enhanced student engagement, collaboration and individualized instruction," said Dr. Lawrence S. Feinsod, NJSBA executive director. "We congratulate the schools that are in the first 'class' to achieve certification and urge all New Jersey districts to participate in this program."

###

The list of 63 schools that were honored can be found on the FRS-NJ website.

Schools throughout the state are working to qualify for the 2018 FRS-NJ certification cycle. A series of Future Ready Resource events to assist schools are ongoing -- information about upcoming events can be viewed at http://www.frsnj.org/events.

The FRS-NJ team invites all educators, educational leaders and other educational stakeholders to join the 2018 task forces to help improve the program for future participants and ensure that all perspectives are considered in the program's continued development. Learn more about the task forces on the FRS-NJ website at http://www.frsnj.org/task-forces.

About NJIT

One of the nation's leading public technological universities, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) is a top-tier research university that prepares students to become leaders in the technology-dependent economy of the 21st century. NJIT's multidisciplinary curriculum and computing-intensive approach to education provide technological proficiency, business acumen and leadership skills. With an enrollment of 11,400 graduate and undergraduate students, NJIT offers small-campus intimacy with the resources of a major public research university. NJIT is a global leader in such fields as solar research, nanotechnology, resilient design, tissue engineering, and cybersecurity, in addition to others. NJIT is among the top U.S. polytechnic public universities in research expenditures, exceeding $130 million, and is among the top 1 percent of public colleges and universities in return on educational investment, according to PayScale.com. NJIT has a $1.74 billion annual economic impact on the State of New Jersey.
New research from OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland, Oregon, rebuts decades of previous scientific understanding, suggests opportunity to restore, reduce life-long impacts of brain injury

Premature infants are at risk for a broad spectrum of life-long cognitive and learning disabilities. Historically, these conditions were believed to be the result of lack of blood flow to the brain. However, a new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, finds that while limited blood flow may contribute, major disturbances are actually caused by low oxygen. Study: http://www.jneurosci.org/content/early/2017/10/31/JNEUROSCI.2396-17.2017

This research challenges more than a decade of scientific study and clinical understanding of brain development in preterm children, said the study's principal investigator Stephen Back, M.D., Ph.D., Clyde and Elda Munson Professor of Pediatric Research and Pediatrics, OHSU School of Medicine, OHSU Doernbecher.

"Previously, we thought lack of blood flow was causing preterm brain cells to die. Instead, these critically important cells simply fail to develop normally. This finding creates an opportunity to determine ways to restore oxygen loss and potentially reduce life-long impacts of preterm survivors."

Utilizing a preterm sheep model, Back and his team analyzed the response of fetal subplate neurons - cells that play a critical role in regulating preterm brain function and connectivity -- to disturbances of brain oxygenation. When the developing brain was exposed to lower than normal rates of oxygen for as short as 25 minutes, subplate neurons showed major long-term disturbances just one month following exposure.

"This brief exposure to low oxygen occurs frequently in preterm babies receiving care in a neonatal intensive care unit," said Back. "And this result better explains the long-term complications that these preterm babies sustain as they grow older, which include significant challenges with learning, memory and attention."

Although additional research is needed to determine the exact developmental timeframes for potential injury due to oxygen loss in infants, as well as the optimal concentration of oxygen necessary for early intervention therapies, Back believes these findings suggest a need to re-evaluate current practices in intensive care settings.

"Given this new range of opportunity to promote brain repair, clinicians must critically rethink how to interact with, stimulate and handle preterm babies during intensive care treatment. This will help to better manage transient low-oxygen states and determine what the preterm brain can and cannot tolerate."

###
David Balding of the University of Melbourne, Australia and Mikkel Andersen of Aalborg University in Denmark have developed new, open-source software that can help understand how many people in a population will match a single Y-chromosome profile detected at a crime scene, which they describe in a new study in PLOS Genetics.

Forensic analysis of Y-chromosome DNA is especially useful when a small amount of male DNA is mixed in with a large amount of female DNA, such as occurs in sexual assault cases. Explaining this evidence in court, however, is difficult because the Y chromosome passes down mostly unchanged from fathers to sons, so a single Y-chromosome profile can be shared by dozens of men in a population.

Instead of a match probability or database count, Balding and Andersen propose that courts be told about the likely number of matching males in the population, and the possible consequences of their relatedness, which is often more distant than uncle or cousin but much closer than for a random man. They also show how the distribution of matching males can be affected by database information, and suggest ways to present this information in court to make clear that Y-chromosome evidence cannot definitively identify the culprit, but can dramatically reduce the number of possible sources of the DNA. The court must then decide if it has enough other evidence to identify the suspect as the source of the Y-chromosome profile, rather than one of his matching (distant) relatives.

After the introduction of DNA profiling using non-sex chromosomes, the procedure had problems that, once addressed, made profiling a powerful tool that has revolutionized forensic science. Now, Y chromosome profiling must undergo the same process to quantify the results in a way that is valid and directly interpretable to courts. The new software presented in this study could be used to improve the accuracy of Y chromosome evidence and to increase its understanding by judges and jurors.

David Balding adds: "We think this work is going to make a big improvement to how Y profile evidence is presented in courts. We will soon extend this work to mixtures of Y-chromosome profiles from multiple males, and also address the corresponding problem for the maternally-inherited mtDNA profiles. Our approach also allows us to include information from any relatives of the suspect whose profile is already available, and we will be working to develop that aspect."

###

In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS Genetics:

http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1007028

Citation: Andersen MM, Balding DJ (2017) How convincing is a matching Y-chromosome profile? PLoS Genet 13(11): e1007028. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1007028

Image Credit: Mikkel Andersen

Image Caption: A simplified illustration of a simulated population of males, with lines indicating father-son links. The suspected source of the DNA, whose profile matches that from the crime scene, is shown in red and other males with matching Y profiles, who are often close relatives, are yellow. The dashed line separates the last three generations, those further back in time will typically be already dead or otherwise unlikely to be of interest (depending on the circumstances of the crime).

Funding: The authors wish to thank the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge UK, for support and hospitality during the programme Probability and Statistics in Forensic Science, where this paper was conceived. The programme was supported by EPSRC grant no EP/K032208/1. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
New research published today by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine concludes that patients registered to general practices owned by limited companies, including large organisations, reported worse experiences of their care than other patients. The research examined data for 7,949 general practices in England included in the General Practice Patient Survey 2013-2014.

The researchers, from Imperial College London, looked at five patient experience measures for the study: the frequency of consulting a preferred doctor; the ability to get a convenient appointment; rating of doctor communication skills; ease of contacting the practice by telephone; and the overall experience.

Dr Thomas Cowling, lead author of the research paper, said: "Across all contract and ownership types, patients generally reported positive experiences of their general practices. However, patients registered to general practices owned by limited companies reported worse experience of their care than patients registered to other practices on average."

The researchers found the sizes of the differences in experience varied from moderate to large across four outcome measures and were largest for the frequency of consulting a preferred doctor.

Dr Cowling said: "It is the responsibility of commissioners, regulators, clinicians and owners to guarantee that individual practices meet expected standards while ensuring that care quality is not systematically associated with the ownership.

"Commissioners also need to ensure that contracts offer good value for money, more so at a time when the NHS is very financially challenged."

###

Notes to editors

Contract and ownership type of general practices and patient experience in England: multilevel analysis of a national cross-sectional survey (DOI: 10.1177/0141076817738499) by Thomas E Cowling, Anthony A Laverty, Matthew J Harris, Hilary C Watt, Felix Greaves and Azeem Majeed will be published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine at 00:05 hrs (UK time) on Friday 3 November 2017.

The link for the paper when published will be:

https://doi.org/10.1177/0141076817738499

For further information or a copy of the paper please contact:

Rosalind Dewar

Media Office, Royal Society of Medicine

DL: +44 (0) 1580 764713

M: +44 (0) 7785 182732

media@rsm.ac.uk

The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (JRSM) is a leading voice in the UK and internationally for medicine and healthcare. Published continuously since 1809, JRSM features scholarly comment and clinical research. JRSM is editorially independent from the Royal Society of Medicine, and its editor is Dr Kamran Abbasi.

JRSM is a journal of the Royal Society of Medicine and it is published by Sage Publishing.

Sara Miller McCune founded SAGE Publishing in 1965 to support the dissemination of usable knowledge and educate a global community. SAGE is a leading international provider of innovative, high-quality content publishing more than 1000 journals and over 800 new books each year, spanning a wide range of subject areas. A growing selection of library products includes archives, data, case studies and video. SAGE remains majority owned by our founder and after her lifetime will become owned by a charitable trust that secures the company's continued independence. Principal offices are located in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC and Melbourne. http://www.sagepublishing.com
Prague, November 1, 2017 - The research team of Pavel Jungwirth from the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the CAS (IOCB Prague) in cooperation with scientists at the Lund University (Sweden) discovered a new way how peptides or proteins can bind to each other. The results of their research were published in the prestigious scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS).

We know from school that ions or charged groups carrying a charge of the same sign repel each other. In aqueous media, however, this electrostatic repulsion is significantly reduced and can be compensated by other molecular forces.

Scientists from Prague and Lund used this fact to unravel a new binding motif, wherein the positively charged side chains of arginine amino acids bind to each other in the presence of negatively charged terminal groups or side chains of peptides or proteins. Subsequently, they have identified an analogous motif in more than two hundred biologically significant structures in a protein database.

"This newly discovered binding motif will help us to rationalize why the peptides with a high content of arginine easily pass through cell membranes and how to use this knowledge for designing efficient transport of drug molecules into the cell," says Pavel Jungwirth.

Pavel Jungwirth's Group built upon their long-term research aimed at understanding the unusual properties of the arginine amino acid, which is sometimes referred to in biochemical circles as the "arginine magic".

###

Article: Giulio Tesei, Mario Vazdar, Malene Ringkjbing Jensen, Carolina Cragnell, Phil E. Mason, Jan Heyda, Marie Skepo, Pavel Jungwirth, and Mikael Lund. Self-association of a highly charged arginine-rich cell-penetrating peptide. PNAS 2017, 114 (43), 11428-11433.

The Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences / IOCB Prague is a leading scientific institution in the Czech Republic, recognized internationally. Its primary mission is basic research in the fields of chemical biology and medicinal chemistry, organic and material oriented chemistry, chemistry of natural compounds, biochemistry and molecular biology, physical chemistry, theoretical chemistry, and analytical chemistry. The Institute has a long tradition and expertise in medicinal chemistry and drug development together with the pharma industry. Antivirals discovered by Antonin Holy and developed further by Gilead Sciences revolutionized the treatment of AIDS and hepatitis B and have significantly improved lives of millions of people around the globe.

Prof. Pavel Jungwirth (born 1966, Prague) is a Czech physical chemist, university lecturer and science popularizer. He studied physics at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University (MMF UK), Prague with a major in chemical physics. He pursued a Ph.D. in computational chemistry at the J. Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry of the CAS, where his advisor was Prof. R. Zahradnik. He held postdoc and visiting scientist positions at University of California, Irvine, at South California University, Los Angeles, and at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Currently he is a Distinguished Chair at IOCB Prague and also a Full Professor (external faculty) in the Department of Chemical Physics and Optics, MFF UK and is a Finland Distinguished Professor at Technical University in Tampere.

Pavel Jungwirth has published over 300 original papers in prestigious journals including Science, Nature Chemistry, and PNAS with more than 11,000 citations. He is a senior editor of the Journal of Physical Chemistry published by the American Chemical Society. He is a member of the Learned Society of the Czech Republic and recipient of numerous awards, including the Spiers Prize by the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) and the Jaroslav Heyrovsky Honorary Medal for Merit in Chemical Sciences by the Czech Academy of Sciences. Popular science articles by Pavel Jungwirth have appeared in the weekly Respekt and in popular science shows broadcast by the Czech Radio and Czech TV.
Is it any wonder that most happiness idioms are associated with nature? Happy as a pig in muck, happy as a clam, happy camper.

A UBC researcher says there's truth to the idea that spending time outdoors is a direct line to happiness. In fact, Holli-Anne Passmore says if people simply take time to notice the nature around them, it will increase their general happiness and well-being.

Passmore, a PhD psychology student at UBC's Okanagan campus, recently published research examining the connection between taking a moment to look at something from the natural environment and personal well-being. A recent study involved a two-week 'intervention' where participants were asked to document how nature they encountered in their daily routine made them feel. They took a photo of the item that caught their attention and jotted down a short note about their feelings in response to it.

Other participants tracked their reactions to human-made objects, took a photo and jotted down their feelings, while a third group did neither. Passmore explains that examples of nature could be anything not human built: a house plant, a dandelion growing in a crack in a sidewalk, birds, or sun through a window.

"This wasn't about spending hours outdoors or going for long walks in the wilderness," Passmore says. "This is about the tree at a bus stop in the middle of a city and the positive effect that one tree can have on people."

Passmore, who studies wellness, says she was 'overwhelmed' not only by the response of her 395 study participants--more than 2,500 photos and descriptions of emotions were submitted--but also by the impact that simply noticing emotional responses to nearby nature had on personal well-being. And their prosocial orientation--a willingness to share resources and the value they placed on community.

There is scientific documentation that people who live in greenspaces generally seem to be happier, and may live longer than those who don't. Passmore is taking that research further. This study is one of a series by a research team in UBC Okanagan's psychology department known as the "Happy Team" which is providing evidence that nature can increase happiness.

"The difference in participants' well-being--their happiness, sense of elevation, and their level of connectedness to other people, not just nature--was significantly higher than participants in the group noticing how human-built objects made them feel and the control group."

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Passmore's research, recently published in the Journal of Positive Psychology, is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
A drug used to treat malaria does not, after all, create new insulin-producing cells, according to a new paper from researchers at the University of California, Davis. The work, published in Cell Metabolism Nov. 2, refutes a study published in Cell in January.

In the United States, around 30 million people live with diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So any news of a potential new treatment is a big deal.

"First we had hoped that we would be able to replicate the findings, but they didn't hold up," said Mark Huising, in the Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior, UC Davis College of Biological Sciences. "People with Type 1 diabetes, they see these stories come out and they think maybe there's something on the horizon and then nothing ever follows through," Huising said.

Understanding diabetes at the cellular level

The symptoms of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are quite similar but the underlying causes differ. In type 1 diabetes, the body fails to create enough insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas that regulates cellular intake of nutrients. In Type 2 diabetes, cells no longer respond efficiently to insulin.

Insulin is produced in hormone-producing regions of the pancreas called islets. Within the islets are alpha and beta cells. Beta cells are integral to creating insulin.

"That's the cell that if you lose (insulin production), you get Type 1 diabetes," said Huising. So there is always interest in any process that might generate new beta cells to replace those lost in Type 1 diabetes.

An eye-catching 'discovery'

In early 2017, in a paper published in the journal Cell, a European team reported that the antimalarial drug artemether could convert alpha cells into functional beta cells. While alpha cells converting into beta cells had been described before, this was the first time an existing drug had been reported to stimulate the process and it caused a lot of excitement in the field, Huising said.

Outfitted with the precision tools to capture alpha-to-beta cellular conversion, Huising enlisted graduate student Sharon Lee to assist with replicating the original experiment.

"We were hoping, expecting, to confirm," Huising said. "We weren't able to."

The importance of reproducibility

For her experiments, Lee used pancreatic islets derived from mice. After around four months of experiments with artemether, it was clear that the drug was not triggering alpha to beta cell conversion, as the initial Cell paper had claimed.

Lee and Huising's paper highlights the importance of reproducibility, a perennial and hotly contested topic of concern at all levels of scientific research. It also demonstrates how routine lab assignments meant to educate students can provide the foundations for published research.

"It's important to realize that our work has an impact in the real world," Huising said. "We should continuously strive to hold ourselves and our peers to a higher standard, particularly when we talk about discoveries that promise a possible cure for diabetes."

###

Huising also holds an appointment in the Department of Physiology and Membrane Biology, UC Davis School of Medicine. Contributors to the research include, at UC Davis, researcher and co-first author Talitha van der Meulen, graduate students Glyn Noguchi, Alex Mawla, Els Noordeloos and Michael Adams, and Cynthia Donaldson from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. The work was supported by an Individual Biomedical Research Award from the Hartwell Foundation and a Career Development Award from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Civil rights. Women's rights. Gay rights. Rallying calls for individual and minority rights has long been the domain of the political left.

But as fewer Americans identify as religious, a University of Cincinnati political researcher and author says conservative Christians are increasingly turning to the same playbook of their liberal counterparts to advance and defend priorities like free speech and religious liberty.

The result, says Andrew Lewis, an assistant professor of political science, is a growing conservative rights-based advocacy fueled by the politics of abortion.

Lewis, an expert in the intersection of American politics and religion, details this conservative baptism into political liberalism in his new book, "The Rights Turn in Conservative Christian Politics: How Abortion Transformed the Culture Wars."

The book, released by Cambridge University Press, chronicles the dramatic shift in America's political landscape and culture wars over the past four decades as religious conservatives pivoted from defending cultural and biblical morality to instead building a political strategy based on asserting individual rights.

This evolution, says Lewis, is monumental.

"Evangelicals have come to support radical protest and unfettered political speech in ways that would have been unthinkable only a generation or two ago," Lewis writes. "The result is a refashioning of the American 'culture war.'"

The right unites

Indeed, it was only two decades ago that some influential conservatives sharply rebuked so-called "rights talk," Lewis explains. So how and why did religious conservatives come to embrace the language of liberalism?

The politics of abortion, he says, is the key to understanding the right's shift on rights.

Traditionally, religious conservative politics have long been rooted in biblical conservatism. Whereas liberals typically emphasized individual and minority rights, conservatives tended instead to promote moral communities based on Christian values.

Then, the author notes, following the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, anti-abortion activists found themselves a political minority, an unfamiliar position that prompted a new focus among the ranks on free speech and religious liberty.

Still, it wasn't until the late 1970s that evangelicals became active in abortion politics and even longer still until they consistently applied a rights-based language to the cause. The strategy, says Lewis, was inspired by an unlikely source: Catholics.

As Lewis details, for much of American history, Catholics and evangelicals, particularly Baptists, were often foes in many public affairs battles.

For decades, Catholics had framed their anti-abortion position in the language of human rights -- the individual right to life. While evangelicals increasingly decried legalized abortion for a variety of reasons, including opposition to feminism and sexual freedom, abortion opposition was still mostly seen as a Catholic issue.

Enter Francis Schaeffer. In the mid-1970s, the evangelical theologian, pastor and political activist began to stoke fears among Christians that not only was America in a moral decline, but that its fall was inextricably linked to abortion. Lewis says his call for conservative Christians to join the anti-abortion crusade rallied evangelicals to action.

"In short order, evangelicals joined Catholics to promote opposition to abortion, as the former enemies became allies," says Lewis.

While the early evangelical anti-abortion movement contained a "stream of rights" consciousness, Lewis says that their turn toward rights would evolve over the next two decades.

"It was a better public argument, and it worked well as anti-abortion advocacy would be augmented by various First Amendment political and legal arguments," he explains.

These two rights-based claims in particular -- religious liberty and the right to life -- not only motivated evangelical conservatives to learn more about the power of individual rights arguments, but also informed a new political strategy by which they sought to claim them, explains Lewis

The rights paradox

After gaining political traction in the 1970s, the politics of abortion and a rights-based strategy to oppose it soon came to be a driving force in framing broader evangelical positions and issues, writes Lewis.

Free speech, for instance, was championed throughout most of the 20th century mostly by minority and radical political groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, Socialist Party, libertine social critics and so-called "smut peddlers" like Hustler founder Larry Flynt, many of whom were defended by liberal organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union.

However, in the past two decades, conservatives -- especially conservative evangelicals -- have become leading advocates of a broad, individual right to free speech, including unprecedented support for radical protest and unfettered political speech, writes Lewis.

But while conservative Christians may be more supportive of some individual liberties, they continue to reject many other forms of individual rights, especially those related to sexual morality, Lewis notes.

Evangelical conservatives, he explains, use rights-based claims rooted in abortion politics to thwart other liberal rights claims, such as access to contraceptive coverage, nondiscrimination provisions, gay marriage and national health care expansion.

Conservative rights claims are also wielded, he says, to counter liberal-backed policies such as limitations on campaign contributions and the separation of church and state.

"These rights claims use individualism to preserve traditional morality, if not for the entire country at least for the religious sect," writes Lewis. "In the process, conservative Christian activists are making legal and political justifications that would have been controversial, if not untenable, only a generation ago."

From moral majority to minority

The turn to rights by evangelical conservatives marks a seismic change in American politics and religious advocacy, Lewis argues.

And the arc of the movement, which picked up steam in the mid-1990s and has fast accelerated in the past decade, will continue to bend toward individual rights -- especially, Lewis says, as the moral majority of the 1970s increasingly becomes an embattled minority, both culturally and demographically.

"There is a decline going on that religious people, especially white Christians, are no longer in the majority. That matters," he insists. "They're operating in a different cultural environment, and it's forcing a rethinking, particularly among the younger cohorts."

Consider the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Lewis points out. Many evangelicals supported Donald Trump not because he would restore Christian majoritarian politics, but because he promised to safeguard religious liberties as well as advance the political goals of anti-abortion proponents and religious freedom advocates.

This current rethinking among conservative evangelicals has also led to an increased and newfound tolerance for the rights of other groups, even those they may not like or agree with, says Lewis.

Using extensive historical and survey data, Lewis reveals that when evangelical conservatives are primed to think about protecting their own rights as minorities, they became much more willing to extend the same rights to others.

"This is a real positive for our democratic politics," insists Lewis. "There really is a learning about rights that is going on. It's not perfect. It's very episodic. But the general trend is that religious conservatives are much more respectful about other people's rights than in the past century."

Lewis' book not only offers one of the most thorough historical and political analyses of the cultural changes in American evangelical politics, but also examines a brewing rift among the religious right in the wake of the 2016 presidential election.

"For some evangelicals and conservative Christians, it's a commitment to protecting their own rights and partnering with others to try and find certain religious freedom protections while existing as an active minority. For others, it's about trying to recapture the culture of generations past," Lewis explains.

Regardless of which side of the political spectrum readers may fall, "It's a fascinating time to study this stuff," says Lewis.

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University of Cincinnati researchers are examining racial and gender disparities in dialysis patients as well as the impact of poor functional status and pre-dialysis hospitalizations on elderly dialysis patients.

CINCINNATI--University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers are examining racial and gender disparities in dialysis patients as well as the impact of poor functional status and pre-dialysis hospitalizations on elderly dialysis patients. Silvi Shah, MD, assistant professor in the Division of Nephrology, Kidney CARE Program at the UC College of Medicine, presented this research at the American Society of Nephrology meetings in New Orleans, Oct. 31-Nov. 5.

The research team presented four separate studies, all based on data from the United States Renal Data System (USRDS), the largest database for patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD). Three of the four studies accounted for elderly patient pre-dialysis health status, while the fourth examined racial and gender disparities and the type of vascular access in hemodialysis patients.

"One in every four ESRD patients who gets started on dialysis is over 75 years of age," says Shah. "With increasing age, they have increasing frailty and higher prevalence of comorbidities, including congestive heart failure, hypertension and diabetes. In addition, acute hospitalizations are frequent in elderly patients with chronic kidney disease. The question at times becomes if they should be offered dialysis or be given more conservative treatment--no dialysis, just medical management."

The poster presentation, "Impact of Pre-Dialysis Hospitalizations on Outcomes Among Elderly Dialysis Patients" showed that pre-dialysis hospitalization is common and is associated with a higher risk of one-year mortality in elderly dialysis patients. The research analyzed data of more than 231,000 adult dialysis patients from 2007 through 2011. The data showed that 88 percent of the elderly patients had at least one acute care hospitalization, while 66 percent of them had two or more hospitalizations in the two years prior to the initiation of dialysis.

Pre-dialysis cardiovascular related hospitalization was associated with 48 percent higher risk of mortality, pre-dialysis infection related hospitalization was associated with 41 percent higher risk of mortality and a history of both cardiovascular and infection related hospitalization was associated with 83 percent higher risk of mortality. The researchers concluded that pre-ESRD hospitalization is very common and should be considered while comparing mortality as an indicator of quality of dialysis care.

Another key factor in the risk of one-year mortality of ESRD patients is functional status, as reflected in the presentation "Impact of Poor Functional Status on Outcomes Among Elderly Dialysis Patients." Poor functional status is defined as the inability to walk, the inability to move and/or needing assistance with daily activities. This research examined data on almost 50,000 dialysis patients in 2008, finding that poor functional status is associated with a 48 percent higher risk of one-year mortality.

"Physicians usually do not consider pre-dialysis health status like pre-dialysis hospitalizations or absence of nephrology care when they start elderly patients on dialysis," says Shah. The researchers found that patients with poor functional status have increased one-year mortality after adjusting for pre-dialysis health status and should be assessed for conservative treatment options instead of dialysis.

"Dialysis care, including one year mortality, continues to be under a microscope for quality, and payment for performance by Medicare," says Charuhas Thakar, MD, professor and director of the Division of Nephrology Kidney CARE program. "It is important that we leverage the advantage of large linked data sets like the USRDS and Medicare to learn about how pre-dialysis health status and disparities continue to impact post-dialysis care."

"We are fortunate to have developed teams with analytical expertise so as to mine such data, and learn ways to improve quality and efficiency of dialysis care," says Thakar, who serves as a mentor and a senior investigator on this project.

The study "Racial and Gender Disparities in Long Term Clinical Outcomes Among Elderly Dialysis Patients" is unique in that, according to Shah, previous studies looking at race and gender disparities in patients at the start of dialysis treatment haven't taken into account pre-dialysis health status.

"What we wanted to see in this study is if there is any difference across race and gender when we consider the pre-dialysis health status," says Shah. "What it tells us is blacks, Hispanics and Asians are less likely than whites to die within one year of initiating dialysis when we take into account pre-dialysis health status. Females were also less likely than males to die within one year of initiating dialysis. We have to further investigate why this is happening. It could be process of care factors or possibly genetics."

Race and gender were also examined as factors in the "Racial and Gender Disparities-Type of Vascular Access in Hemodialysis Patients" research presented. In treatment of dialysis patients, arteriovenous (AV) access is preferred over central venous catheters because of a reduced risk of infection. This study of almost 98,000 dialysis patients in 2008 found females are 17 percent less likely than males to initiate hemodialysis with AV access in adjusted analyses and in terms of race, Hispanics are 12 percent less likely to use AV access for first outpatient hemodialysis in adjusted analyses.

The data showed that despite receiving less pre-dialysis nephrology care, blacks are 7 percent more likely than whites to use AV access for first outpatient hemodialysis in adjusted analyses. The research team concluded that further investigation of biological and process of care factors is warranted to reduce these disparities.

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Researchers at the University of Louisville were part of a group that discovered an insidious new autoimmune disease that causes kidney failure.

The discovery of anti-brush border antibody (ABBA) disease was made in the UofL Core Proteomics Laboratory, led by Director Jon B. Klein, M.D., Ph.D., UofL School of Medicine vice dean for research and professor of medicine, and James Graham Brown Foundation Chair in Proteomics. Klein worked with the laboratory's Co-Director Michael Merchant, Ph.D., associate professor in the Division of Nephrology & Hypertension in the Department of Medicine at UofL.

Klein and co-investigators will present their findings Friday, Nov. 3, at the American Society of Nephrology's annual meeting in New Orleans.

"It's the first time in my career that I've described a new disease, and truthfully, most people in their career don't stumble on this," said Klein, who is internationally recognized for his expertise in biomarker discovery related to kidney disease and practices with UofL Physicians-Kidney Disease Program. "We don't know yet whether this causes kidney failure in a lot of people. It's early in the story."

The UofL lab identified ABBA after analyzing biopsied kidney tissue from 10 patients who had developed acute kidney injury, a sudden episode of kidney failure or damage that happens within a few hours or days. The condition causes a build-up of waste products in the blood and makes it difficult for kidneys to maintain adequate balance of fluid in the body.

For the first time, researchers discovered that in the nephrons, the functional units of the kidneys, antibodies had coated a specialized part of cells called brush borders, which help reabsorb and process proteins.

"The disease is rather insidious," Klein said. "It was documented in a group of older men who simply turned up with abnormal kidney function, and there were no symptoms until they had very advanced kidney failure."

Since it is an autoimmune disease, different approaches to suppress the immune system were used to treat the patients, but those efforts were unsuccessful, Klein said.

Further research will focus on defining demographics of patients with ABBA and the disease's prevalence. Also, determining where on the protein megalin - which acts as a sponge to absorb proteins and other compounds that enter the nephron - the antibody binds is key to treating the disease, Klein said.

It's unknown what stimulates the antibody formation.

"Antibodies have very specific targets; they bind to only certain proteins in autoimmune kidney diseases, and then to only certain portions of that protein," Klein said. "That's where you learn how to begin to block the antibody binding."

Klein said the disease had gone undetected because most people with abrupt kidney failure recover and do not get biopsies. In cases of ABBA, however, kidneys do not improve.

###

Lead investigators of the study are Laurence H. Beck, M.D., Ph.D., of Boston University School of Medicine, and Christopher P. Larsen, M.D., a nephropathologist at Arkana Laboratories in Little Rock, Ark.

Co-investigators include: Klein, Merchant, and Daniel W. Wilkey of UofL; Claire Trivin-Avillach, Paige Coles, Hong Ma and David J. Salant of Boston University School of Medicine; A. Bernard Collins, Ivy A. Rosales and Robert B. Colvin of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School; Josephine M. Ambruzs, Nidia C. Messias, L. Nicholas Cossey and Patrick D. Walker of Arkana Laboratories; and Thomas Wooldridge of Nephrology and Hypertension Associates in Tupelo, Miss.
Findings advocate for counseling patients on role of alcohol, weight, and use of anti-inflammatory drugs on the risk of liver disease

PHILADELPHIA -- Compared to controls, patients with psoriasis (PsO) are at higher risk for serious liver disease than patients with rheumatoid arthritis - two autoimmune diseases often treated with similar drugs that can cause liver damage, reports a study this week in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The study is the first population-based study to simultaneously address the risk for liver disease in patients with these inflammatory diseases and psoriatic arthritis (PsA), in a large population of more than 197,000 PsO patients, 12,000 PsA patients, 54,000 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, and 1.2 million matched controls.

Independent of risk factors commonly seen in liver disease, such as alcohol use and diabetes, the study found that patients with psoriatic skin or joint disease, particularly patients with more severe skin psoriasis, had an elevated risk for serious liver disease. Patients with psoriasis taking a systemic therapy drug like methotrexate (under brand names like Trexall, Rasuvo, and Otrexup PF), had the highest risk, particularly for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and cirrhosis, while RA patients taking the similar drugs had the lowest liver disease risk.

The study suggests systemic inflammation - which is present in all three diseases -- may play a significant role in development of liver disease, particularly in those with psoriasis. At the same time, certain medications use to treat these diseases also can cause liver toxicity. The authors note that future research should delve into whether adequate control of inflammation reduces liver disease risk.

The findings could provide relief for the approximately 7.5 million Americans who suffer from psoriasis each year, a chronic inflammatory disease most commonly evidenced by patches of raised, reddish skin covered with silvery-white scale, the American Academy of Dermatology reports.

"These findings offer evidence for the long held view that psoriasis patients may be more predisposed to liver disease than patients with rheumatoid arthritis," said first author Alexis Ogdie, MD, MSCE, an assistant professor of Medicine and Epidemiology. "Understanding the role of inflammation in liver disease and how the liver can perpetuate inflammation in these conditions can help us advise patients, and their clinicians, on how to more effectively manage their health."

Previous studies have shown an increased prevalence of liver disease in psoriasis patients than in the general population, but this new research adjusts for risk factors for liver disease to determine if having PsO or PsA increases an individual's risk of developing new liver disease, and sheds like on how common liver disease is among patients with these diseases.

The study also offers insights on how the liver responds to specific types and severity of chronic inflammation, and also yields information on how skin disease severity, obesity, diabetes, and medication use play a role in development of liver disease in patients with these conditions.

"Based on these data, physicians should educate psoriasis patients on the increased risk for liver disease and be cautious about the use of hepatoxic medications in these patients, especially when additional risk factors such as diabetes, obesity, or heavy alcohol use are present," said senior author Joel M. Gelfand, MD, MSCE, a professor of Dermatology and Epidemiology.

In addition to Ogdie and Gelfand, the other authors on this study are Sungat K. Grewal, Megan H. Noe, Daniel B. Shin, Junko Takeshita, Zelma C. Chiesa Fuxench, and Rotonya M. Carr, all from Penn.

Ogdie has served as a consultant for Pfizer and Takeda and is a co-investigator on a research grant from Pfizer. Gelfand has served as a consultant for Pfizer Inc., receiving honoraria; and receives research grants from Pfizer Inc. Pfizer had no role in the design, analysis, or reporting of the data.

This study was supported in part by grants from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (K24-AR064310, K23-AR063764, K23-AR068433), a Medical Dermatology Fellowship from The National Psoriasis Foundation, NIH Pharmacoepidemiology Training Grant T32-GM075766, NIH Training Grant T32-AR007465-32, Dermatology Foundation Career Development Award, an unrestricted grant from Pfizer to the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, an NIH grant (K08-AA021424, R01 AA026302-01), Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Award (7158), IDOM DRC Pilot Award (P30 DK019525) and NIH (P30-DK050306) and its pilot program, Health Resources and Services Administration (D34HP24459),Center of Excellence for Diversity in Health Education and Research, Perelman School of Medicine.

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Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania(founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $5.3 billion enterprise.

The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top five medical schools in the United States for the past 18 years, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $373 million awarded in the 2015 fiscal year.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center -- which are recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report -- Chester County Hospital; Lancaster General Health; Penn Wissahickon Hospice; and Pennsylvania Hospital -- the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional affiliated inpatient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region include Chestnut Hill Hospital and Good Shepherd Penn Partners, a partnership between Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network and Penn Medicine.

Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2015, Penn Medicine provided $253.3 million to benefit our community.
PITTSBURGH, Nov. 3, 2017 - An international team, led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, has identified the mechanism by which the immune system first learns that the fungus Candida albicans, which causes oral thrush, has invaded the body. The culprit is a fungal toxin called Candidalysin, which punches holes in cells lining the mouth and is sensed by the immune system, which then begins to mount a defense.

The new findings, published today in the journal Science Immunology, could eventually lead to better treatments for oral thrush, which can produce pain severe enough to cause difficulty eating and swallowing, as well as other fungal infections.

The mouth is home to a large number of microbes, termed commensals, which are harmless in healthy individuals. However, suppression of the immune system can lead to severe and reoccurring painful oral infections from these organisms, explained the study's co-senior author Sarah Gaffen, Ph.D., who holds the Gerald P. Rodnan Endowed Chair in the Division of Rheumatology & Clinical Immunology at Pitt.

One such example is the fungus Candida albicans. The harmless commensal form exists as a small single-celled organism, but when the immune system is compromised, Candida elongates into an invasive form, characterized by long filaments called hyphae, that causes a pervasive infection called oral candidiasis, or "thrush."

The immature immune systems of infants make them particularly susceptible to thrush, which can lead to a failure to thrive and nutritional deficiencies. The infection also is prevalent among HIV/AIDS patients, denture wearers and those on immunosuppressants, including chemotherapy and drugs to prevent the rejection of transplanted organs. In fact, at least 50 percent of HIV patients struggle with repeated thrush infections.

However, surprisingly little is known about how fungal immunity in the mouth operates, and, until now, it was unclear why Candida does not establish an invasive infection in healthy humans, said Gaffen.

Her lab previously showed that an immune hormone called interleukin-17 (IL-17) and the specific cells that make it -- a subclass of immune cells called helper T cells -- are essential to immunity against oral thrush.

Oral epithelial cells (OECs), which are part of the mucous membrane lining the inside of the mouth, are the first cells in the body to encounter Candida. They ignore the yeast until it begins to grow hyphae, at which point the OECs stimulate helper T cells to produce IL-17.

In the new study, the researchers used a combination of human OECs cultured in laboratory dishes and mice infected orally with Candida, to show the central importance of Candidalysin, a toxin secreted by Candida that allows the fungus to create holes in OECs and invade the tissue. Further experiments revealed that IL-17 and Candidalysin act in a synergistic manner to amplify antifungal signals in cultured OECs.

Candidalysin was discovered in 2016 by the study's other co-senior author, Julian Naglik, Ph.D., professor of fungal pathogenesis and immunology, King's College London, United Kingdom.

"To use a Game of Thrones analogy: the oral epithelial cells form a protective 'wall' that keeps the marauding Candida invaders at bay. Patrolling the wall are the helper T cells, which use IL-17 as their weapon to protect the kingdom," said the paper's first author, postdoctoral fellow Akash Verma, Ph.D.

Despite millions of fungal infections worldwide, there are no commercially available anti-fungal vaccines. "Our research provides vital clues to understand the immune defense network at barrier sites of the body. This knowledge may ultimately be harnessed to design antifungal vaccines," Gaffen said.

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Gaffen and Naglik recently were awarded a large National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to further explore the role of Candidalysin signaling in oral immunity. The grant received the prestigious MERIT designation given to only 5 percent of grants.

Contact:

Arvind Suresh

Office: 412-647-9966

Mobile: 412-509-8207

E-mail: SureshA2@upmc.edu

Allison Hydzik

Office: 412-647-9975

Mobile: 412-559-2431

E-mail: HydzikAM@upmc.edu

Additional authors on the study are: Chunsheng Zhou, B.S., Bianca Coleman, M.S., Kritika Ramani, Ph.D., Mandy McGeachy, Ph.D., Lawrence Kane, Ph.D., and Partha Biswas, Ph.D., all of Pitt; Jonathan Richardson, Ph.D., David Moyes, Ph.D., and Jemima Ho, Ph.D., of King's College London; Anna Huppler, M.D., of the Medical College of Wisconsin; Ilgiz Mufazalov, Ph.D., and Ari Waisman, Ph.D., of University Medical Center of Johannes-Gutenberg University, Germany; and Bernhard Hube, Ph.D., Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology, Hans Knoell Institute, Germany.

Funding was provided by NIH grants DE022550, DE023815, AI107825, AI103022, AI110822 and DK104680.

About the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

As one of the nation's leading academic centers for biomedical research, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine integrates advanced technology with basic science across a broad range of disciplines in a continuous quest to harness the power of new knowledge and improve the human condition. Driven mainly by the School of Medicine and its affiliates, Pitt has ranked among the top 10 recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health since 1998. In rankings recently released by the National Science Foundation, Pitt ranked fifth among all American universities in total federal science and engineering research and development support.

Likewise, the School of Medicine is equally committed to advancing the quality and strength of its medical and graduate education programs, for which it is recognized as an innovative leader, and to training highly skilled, compassionate clinicians and creative scientists well-equipped to engage in world-class research. The School of Medicine is the academic partner of UPMC, which has collaborated with the University to raise the standard of medical excellence in Pittsburgh and to position health care as a driving force behind the region's economy. For more information about the School of Medicine, see http://www.medschool.pitt.edu.

http://www.upmc.com/media
Stories have power, in both good and bad. According to Professor of Comparative Literature Hanna Meretoja from the University of Turku, Finland, some cultural practices of storytelling are connected to repressive mechanisms of power, while other practices are empowering. Professor Meretoja and Professor of French and Comparative Literature Colin Davis from Royal Holloway (University of London, England) have edited the publication Storytelling and Ethics which examines the ethical potential and risks of different storytelling practices, with focus on storytelling in relation to traumatic experiences.

Storytelling and Ethics: Literature, Visual Arts and the Power of Narrative (Routledge 2017) edited by Professors Hanna Meretoja and Colin Davis.

- The publication examines the ethical potential and risks of different storytelling practices. The focus is especially on the possibilities of different narrative strategies in dealing with traumatic historical events that are difficult to discuss. The publication emphasises the strong connection between remembering and imagining, and suggests that arts can develop our narrative, historical and ethical imagination, says Meretoja.

The articles of the multidisciplinary collection explore, for example, the possibilities and limitations of storytelling, the temporality of storytelling, and narrative engagements with violence and trauma in contemporary arts. At the end of the book, war photographer and journalist Louie Palu reflects on the ethical questions related to his work.

- The book suggests that stories have power in both good and bad. Some cultural practices of storytelling are connected to repressive mechanisms of power, while others are empowering. Instead of idealising or opposing storytelling practices as such, the book provides analytical tools for discerning the complex ethics of storytelling. It examines the possibilities and risks of narratives in building identities and communities, and in studying the relationship between the human and the non-human, says Professor Meretoja.

The publication is the main product of the research project The Experience of History and the Ethics of Storytelling in Contemporary Arts, funded by the Emil Aaltonen Foundation which supports Finnish academic research. Authors of the multidisciplinary collection include the project's researchers and partners. The partners are internationally leading researchers of narrative and cultural memory, from the fields of literary research, visual arts and trauma studies. The project is led by Professor Meretoja, who is the Director of SELMA: Centre for the Study of Storytelling, Experientiality and Memory at the University of Turku.

###

The international and interdisciplinary SELMA: Centre for the Study of Storytelling, Experientiality and Memory aims at crossing the borders between research and artistic creativity by creating dialogue, promoting social engagement and fostering international collaboration between scholars, artists and other people outside academia. SELMA's website: https://selmacentre.wordpress.com/

Storytelling and Ethics: Literature, Visual Arts and the Power of Narrative, Hanna Meretoja & Colin Davis (eds). Routledge 2017.

https://www.routledge.com/Storytelling-and-Ethics-Literature-Visual-Arts-and-the-Power-of-Narrative/Meretoja-Davis/p/book/9781138244061

http://www.utu.fi/en/news/news/Pages/New-Publication-Explores-the-Ethics-of-Storytelling-in-Different-Art-Forms.aspx
Frank Lewis, Moncrief-O'Donnell Endowed Chair at the University of Texas at Arlington Research Institute and professor in UTA's Department of Electrical Engineering, has added to his many achievements two new awards, the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award and the Liaoning China Friendship Award.

"The Albert Nelson Marquis Award introduces me into the Marquis' Who's Who Lifetime Achievers, which is a great honor as the Marquis Who's Who has been the standard for biographical data on leaders in multiple fields since 1899," Lewis said.

The Liaoning China Friendship Award is the People's Republic of China's highest award for foreign experts who have made outstanding contributions to the country's economic and social progress. Lewis said this award reflects twelve years of friendship with China, which has resulted in many Chinese students coming to UTA paid for by the Chinese Scholarship Council.

Lewis was also named a Thompson Reuters Highly Cited Scholar, with 44,800 citations in Google, half of them over the past five years.

"Dr. Lewis has had a distinguished career and has been influential across a range of research disciplines, and these new awards reflect the breadth and depth of his scholarship," said Peter E. Crouch, dean of the UTA College of Engineering. "His role in promoting strong relationships with Chinese institutions has also been critical for UTA's international projection."

Lewis' advanced controls and sensors group focuses on controls design for robotic, aerospace and autonomous systems and has garnered 80 competitive research grants worth more than $9 million since 1990. Recent funding has come from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center, the Office of Naval Research and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

His key contribution has been to add additional self-learning mechanisms to neural network controllers for dynamical systems, such as aircraft and robot systems, by making it possible to design and tune the neural adaptive controllers based on the patterns of use of different modes in the system. This tuning process provides greater reliability and stability for neural adaptive control.

Lewis is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Inventors, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the International Federation of Automatic Control and the U.K. Institute of Measurement and Control.

He joined UTA's College of Engineering in 1990 as the Moncrief-O'Donnell Chair of Electrical Engineering after earning advanced degrees from Rice University and Georgia Institute of Technology. Since then, he has become a recognized international authority on intelligent feedback control systems and presents workshops and courses worldwide.

He has published more than 300 journal papers and more than 400 refereed conference papers and authored 22 books. Among the many additional awards he has received are the Fulbright Research Award, the Neural Network Society's Gabor Award, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' Intelligent Systems Award, and the U.K. Instrumentation and Control Honeywell Field Engineering Medal.

Lewis also is an acclaimed professor who has won numerous awards for outstanding contributions and innovations in teaching, including the University of Texas System Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award, membership in the UTA Academy of Distinguished Teachers and the University's Graduate Dean's Excellence in Doctoral Mentoring Award. He has supervised more than 50 doctoral students, including three National Science Foundation CAREER Awardees and one Homeland Security Career Awardee.

###
On July 22, 1847, a scouting party from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stood above the Great Salt Lake Valley in modern-day Utah; by 1870, more than 18,000 followers had colonized the valley and surrounding region, displacing Native American populations to establish dispersed farming communities. While historians continue to debate the drivers of this colonization event, a new study from the University of Utah proposes that agricultural productivity drove dispersal patterns in a process that led the current distribution of Utah populations today.

Utah anthropologists adapted a well-known ecological model, and tested its predictions by combining satellite-derived measures of agricultural suitability with historical census data. They found that the model accurately predicted the patterns in which settlement occurred in Utah, as well as the present-day distribution of people.

"People are going to go where they can do the best for themselves and their families. For these early settlers, they're going to settle where the agriculture is best," said Peter Yaworsky, lead author and doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Utah.

The study published on Nov. 3, 2017 in the journal American Antiquity.

Settle the best place first, and most often

The researchers are the first to apply a model from population ecology to explain historical settlement data from the 19th and 20th centuries. Ecologists originally developed the model to study distribution patterns of wildlife populations. Anthropologists have since adopted it as a way to understand the decisions that individuals make when distributing themselves across a new area.

"We thought that we could use these same hypotheses, this same model, the same predictions, to talk about this colonization event, as well as others worldwide," said Yaworsky.

The paper shows that as Euro-Americans settled across Utah, they chose areas most suited for agriculture to make the best living possible for themselves and their families. As new families moved in and increased competition for water and land, the agricultural suitability of the region declined. As more newcomers arrived, they chose to settle in the area with the next-best agricultural potential, and so on.

"I was surprised how well it worked," said senior author Brian Codding, associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and director of the U's Archaeological Center. "I hope more anthropologists and historians will start to look at other historical events like this and try to explain these types of settler-colonial events in ecological terms."

Not only do these results help explain the past, but they illustrate why populations are distributed across the state the way they are today.

"From the model, we predicted that the best places should always have the most people," Yaworsky said. "This is why we see major cities on the Wasatch Front."

By settling the state to maximize agricultural productivity, early settlers set a process into motion that impacts us today.

"Where Utahns live today reflects the historical inertia of those early decisions, in addition to the distribution of resources that remain important today, like water," Codding said.

The beehive state

The researchers randomly selected 84 settlements of the 347 established between 1847 and 1950 across Utah, and tracked the population changes over time using extensive historical records and census data. Yaworsky then developed two measures of agricultural suitability from satellite and soils data compiled over the past 17 years. By utilizing Utah's historical records, the U researchers got the best of both worlds -- detailed data over a time scale long enough to see patterns emerge.

The model accurately predicted the order of settlements in Utah, with one surprise. "Settlers dispersed into poorer-quality habitats more rapidly than you'd expect," Yaworsky said.

One explanation could be that the early settlers were directed by the Mormon leader Brigham Young, who also sought to occupy as much land as possible in order to establish a Mormon state. To accomplish this, he may have directed families to settle in areas of poorer agricultural quality before it was absolutely necessary.

If this is true, then founding the beehive state may have required some settlers to sacrifice their agricultural production. However, "overall, we still see that people were doing the best they could for themselves and their families," Codding said.

A new tool to study migration

Validation of this tried and true ecological model with the use of historic human settlement gives Yaworsky and Codding hope that future studies will apply the model to better understand global colonization and migration events in the past, and those occurring today.

"Our study demonstrates that you can use these models to talk about colonization events worldwide. We can look for ecological or economical explanations for settlement not only in the past, but also in the present," said Yaworsky.

###
A class action lawsuit filed on behalf of numerous Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAOs) accuses pharmaceutical manufacturer Mallinckrodt (MNK) of engaging in a scheme to drastically inflate the price and reduce competition for its drug H.P. Acthar Gel (Acthar), a drug primarily prescribed for infants with epilepsy.

Mallinckrodt previously faced similar allegations brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Filed earlier this year, the complaint accused the company with violating federal antitrust laws and illegally maintaining a monopoly for Acthar. Mallinckrodt paid $100 million to settle the charges.

Attorneys R. Brent Wisner, Michael L. Baum, Adam M. Foster and Pedram Esfandiary of the law firm Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman filed the class action lawsuit on Oct. 30, 2017, in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (Case No. 2:17-cv-07928). The law firm of Pendley, Baudin & Coffin is also representing the plaintiffs in this case.

The plaintiffs in the Acthar class action are MSP Recovery Claims (MSP = Medicare Secondary Payer), Series LLC of Delaware; MAO-MSO Recovery II, LLC of Delaware; MSP Recovery LLC of Florida; and MSPA Claims 1 LLC of Florida. The parties are suing on behalf of themselves and other MAOs in dozens of states who were forced to buy Acthar at unlawfully elevated prices as a direct result of the defendants' alleged anti-competitive conduct.

The defendants are Mallinckrodt ARD Inc. (formerly Questcor Pharmaceuticals Inc.) of California; Mallinckrodt PLC of Ireland; and United BioSource Corporation (UBC) of Delaware. UBC is a subsidiary of a Mallinckrodt distributor.

The Acthar class action lawsuit accuses MNK and UBC of engaging in monopolistic, anti-competitive behavior by purchasing and shelving the only potential competitor to Acthar, which enabled them to raise the drug's price exponentially.

"If Martin Shkreli points a finger at you for price gouging, you really are in a league of your own," stated Brent Wisner, an attorney representing the plaintiffs.

The causes of action against MNK and UBC include:

What is Acthar?

Derived from the pituitary glands of slaughtered pigs, Acthar is the only therapeutic adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) product sold in the United States.

ACTH is the standard of care treatment for infantile spasms. These spasms involve dangerous seizures during the first two years of a child's life. Including the treatment of infantile spasms, Acthar has 19 different "indications," which means it can be used to treat 19 different ailments. Other common indications for the drug are for Lupus, nephrotic syndrome (a kidney disorder), rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and various dermatological diseases.

What Are Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAOs)?

The plaintiffs in this case represent Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAOs), which are private insurance companies that, for all practical and legal purposes, stand in the same shoes as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in providing Medicare benefits.

Traditional Medicare, administered by CMS, consists of Parts A and B of the Medicare Act. Part C is the Medicare Advantage program under which Medicare-eligible persons may elect to have an MAO provide Medicare benefits instead of CMS.

Under the Medicare Advantage program, an MAO administers the provision of Medicare benefits pursuant to a contract with CMS. CMS pays the MAO a fixed fee per enrollee for providing at least the same benefits that an enrollee would receive under traditional Medicare. The MAO must provide the services rendered under Parts A and B. Therefore, all regulations corresponding to Parts A and B apply to MAOs.

Medicare Part D, or the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit, is used to subsidize the costs of prescription drugs and prescription drug premiums for those on Medicare. Part D is only offered through private companies and CMS does not offer the benefits directly. Generally, MAOs offering Part C benefits include Part D benefits for a fee and then receive reimbursement for the beneficiaries as well.

MAOs exercise control over Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBM) and any other first tier and downstream entities. Included in the Medicare Act and Code of Federal Regulations (CFRs) are provisions that set forth the price that Medicare will pay for pharmaceuticals and the requirements that plan sponsors (in this case the class of MAOs) must utilize when contracting with the drug manufacturers.

Medicare's drug prices are set in conjunction with manufacturers. Accordingly, Medicare and MAOs have directly negotiated prices for Acthar and, due to the defendants' alleged monopolistic conduct, have over-paid for Acthar. As rightful assignees, the plaintiffs have been overpaying for Acthar, and thus have standing as direct payers via their MAO Assignors.

Factual Allegations in the Acthar Class Action Against Mallinckrodt and United BioSource Corporation

In 2001, Questcor purchased the rights to Acthar for $100,000. Roughly six years later, Questcor allegedly extinguished threats to its monopoly relating to Acthar by vertically integrating its sales and distribution through one exclusive distributor, Curascript. According to the lawsuit, this integration supercharged the defendants' ability to charge exponentially increasing eye-gouging prices for Acthar.

At the time Questcor purchased Acthar, the average price for a vial of the medication was about $40. In 2007, the price skyrocketed to $23,000 per vial. In 2015, Acthar's U.S. revenues exceeded $1 billion.

For the Assignor MAOs, Mallinckrodt (which purchased Questcor in 2014) now charges over $34,000 per vial of Acthar, an 85,000 percent increase from the 2001 cost. The Assignor MAOs paid these inflated prices, according to the lawsuit. For patients, purchasing an Acthar vial is typically not a one-time expensea course of Acthar treatment often requires multiple vials, costing in excess of $100,000

The graph above shows the average cost of Acthar for MAOs since 2013

Outside of the U.S., doctors treat patients suffering from the same conditions that Acthar is used to treat with a different drug called Synacthen Depot (Synacthen), which is a synthetic ACTH drug (Acthar is a natural ACTH drug). Novartis AG marketed and sold Synacthen abroad until 2013.

In 2011, Novartis decided to sell the rights to market Synacthen in the U.S. For years, Questcor viewed Synacthen as a significant, potential competitive threat to Acthar. Accordingly, Questcor bid nearly ten times more than what competitors offered to purchase the U.S. rights to Synacthen. The acquisition ensured that Acthar did not have any competition and allowed the company to create a market monopoly in the U.S.

The plaintiffs allege other companies that bid on the rights to Synacthen expected to profitably sell the drug at a price well below Acthar's price. This demonstrates that Acthar is currently priced at an anti-competitive level. Per the complaint, the lower prices that would prevail in a duopoly market containing Acthar and Synacthen show that MNK is currently positioning Acthar at an anti-competitive price.

According to the plaintiffs, the defendants' monopolistic actions "have had an adverse effect on plaintiffs who spent far more to purchase Acthar that they otherwise would."

"The entire market has been altered, as the defendants ensured that there would be no competition, harming the market as a whole by reducing innovation and competition. Domestic release of Synacthen would have instantly created competition for Acthar, resulting in a lower price for the drug. Defendants have no valid business reason for Acthar's inflated price."

The plaintiffs in the Acthar class action contend that the defendants violated federal antitrust laws by vertical price fixing and suffered harm by paying inflated anti-competitive prices for Acthar. "The collusion and monopolistic activity between defendants supplied an atmosphere which drove up the costs of Acthar, resulting in Class damages  Class members paid a price for Acthar that was higher than the but-for-price had there been no collusion or monopolistic activity between the defendants," the complaint states.

The plaintiffs and the class seek disgorgement of the defendants' ill-gotten gains, treble damages and any other equitable relief as the Court finds appropriate to redress defendants' violations of federal law or restore competition.

"Drug companies need to be held accountable for bilking taxpayers through price gouging and anti-competitive conduct," says John Cleary of MSP Recovery. "We are dedicated to protecting Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries and righting a wrong that impacts the lives of the most vulnerable in our society."

'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli Told FTC About Mallinckrodt in 2014

This is not the first time that Mallinckrodt has been accused of wrongdoing. In 2014, Martin Shkreli, who was recently convicted of securities and wire fraud, told the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) about the MNK's anti-competitive behavior regarding Acthar.

On Jan. 18, 2017, FTC filed a three-count complaint based on the facts laid out above against the defendants on behalf of the FTC and various State Attorneys General. These counts consisted of Monopolization in Violation of the FTC Act; Monopolization in Violation of the Sherman Act; and various state law claims.

Twelve days after the complaint was filed, the defendants settled with the FTC for $100 million. The FTC also required MNK to divest Synacthen.



"If Martin Shkreli points a finger at you for price gouging, you really are in a league of your own," stated Brent Wisner, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

About Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman

The law firm of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman has litigated thousands of personal injury, wrongful death and class action lawsuits against major pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Our attorneys have prevailed in some of the most highly publicized cases in the country.

Baum Hedlund has successfully secured over $1.5 billion* in verdicts and settlements on behalf of our clients. With decades of experience, our firm has developed a reputation for holding Fortune 500 companies accountable, influencing public policy, improving product safety and raising public awareness.

*Past results are not a guarantee of future outcomes.
Friday, November 3, 2017

DCist is among a group of local news sites shut down by owner Joe Ricketts, reports Technical.ly/DC, which added that all sites in the combined DNAInfo/Gothamist network redirected to a letter from Ricketts announcing the closure, leaving the news and features that the sites offered inaccessible. This leaves writers unable to access their clips.

Ricketts initially started DNAInfo in 2009, and the company acquired the Gothamist network in March 2017. In the letter, Ricketts cites struggles making the business work.

But DNAinfo is, at the end of the day, a business, and businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure, he wrote. And while we made important progress toward building DNAinfo into a successful business, in the end, that progress hasnt been sufficient to support the tremendous effort and expense needed to produce the type of journalism on which the company was founded.

As the New York Times reports, the abrupt shutdown came a week after the staff of the networks two New Yorkbased sties voted to unionize, which played a role in the decision.

The decision by the editorial team to unionize is simply another competitive obstacle making it harder for the business to be financially successful, a spokesman told the NYT.

Staffers of DCist, along with those in Chicago, San Francisco and L.A., were not in the union. The Times reports all 115 staff members of the network are receiving three months of paid administrative leave at full salaries, plus four weeks of severance.

It means the loss of a reliable, city-centered outlet covering news and culture. DCist had published a story earlier in the day that offered a guide to local news outlets in the District. For readers seeking other outlets following the shutdown, it was no longer available.
Friday, November 3, 2017

(NewsUSA) - If you're in the biotech industry and wondering what state is first in class for medical device and pharmaceuticals manufacturing, as well as research and development (R&D) in this industry, the answer doesn't lie in the west or the northeast. Florida is where you'll find that leadership and expertise.

In fact, the state retains more than 325 biotechnology companies and R&D institutes that are creating some of the most exciting advancements in innovation and discovery, particularly through patents and clinical trials. The high-tech center of Florida rivals some of the greatest in the country and the work of these researchers is turning heads.

Companies such as: BioFlorida, Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, the University of South Florida Research & Innovation, NSU Cell Therapy Institute, High-Tech Corridor, The Max Planck Institute, Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies, and Scripps Florida are working in the industry across the state.

The state's biotechnology industry would not be the powerhouse that it is today without the help of Florida's universities. The three public universities of the High-Tech Corridor, the University of Florida, University of South Florida and University of Central Florida, attract more than $230 million a year combined in research funding from National Institutions of Health.

Mark S. Long, Director of the University of Florida's Sid Martin Biotech Institute -; which is a biotech business incubator that receives $750 million in research funding annually, and serves biotech start up companies by helping with legal issues, management, accounting and mentoring -; says there is a huge research enterprise in Florida, making the state appealing for biotech business.

"There are many factors that make Florida attractive," Long says. "The weather, no state income tax and the commitment to education."

He also says that the workforce is key for every company.

Nothing is more important to a company's success than its workforce. More than 27,000 Floridians work in Florida's biotechnology, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and medical device manufacturing industries, and the universities are among the nation's top producers of STEM graduates, according to Enterprise Florida.

"Can I get the people I need to do this?" Long asks. "The answer is yes. There is a commitment here to education."

The strength of Florida's research universities make up the scope of Florida's biotechnology industry. Between 2012 and 2015, nearly 5,000 bioscience-related patents were issued and more than $1 billion in R&D was conducted. As a result, solid job growth in this field has increased drastically as more biotech companies relocate to Florida to be closer to the advancements in medical innovation.

Florida's life sciences industry continues to have a positive impacts on human well-being worldwide. The state has recruited acclaimed scientists and established expertise in critical areas of immuno-oncology, ophthalmology, cell therapy and regenerative medicine, marine biotechnology and neurodegenerative diseases.

"Across Florida, we are seeing multiple drivers of growth," says Nancy Bryan, President & CEO of BioFlorida, the voice of Florida's life sciences industry.

"Companies are choosing Florida to relocate, existing companies are expanding, universities and institutes are laying the framework for spinouts, and new and established incubators and accelerators are creating the right climate for growth."

For more information on biotech opportunities in Florida, visit enterpriseflorida.com.

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by Anthony Cervino | Fri, Nov 3rd 2:05pm EDT

NFL Network's Ian Rapoport is reporting Washington Redskins TE Jordan Reed (hamstring) is ruled out for Week 9 with a hamstring injury. (Ian Rapoport on Twitter)

Fantasy Impact:

As anticipated, Reed is out for Sunday's matchup against the Seahawks with a hamstring injury suffered early in last week's loss to Dallas. In Reed's absence, a resurged Vernon Davis will garner the start. A light position for fantasy studs this week, Davis is in the back-end TE1 tier in a solid Week 9 matchup.
COLUMBUS  Ohios agribusiness community, agricultural cooperatives and students in Ohio State Universitys College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) will have greater access to research, educational opportunities and technical expertise through a new, college-wide Center for Cooperatives.

The center, with staff based at CFAESs Ohio State University South Centers in Piketon, will have a faculty presence on the Columbus campus.

It will integrate the colleges current activities and operations that support cooperative business development, will engage directly with long-established cooperatives and will provide education both in the classroom and through CFAESs Ohio State University Extension program and other outreach activities.

The CFAES Center for Cooperatives is expected to be comprehensive and bring together all three mission areas of the college  teaching, research and Extension, OSU South Centers Director Tom Worley said.

Staff

Worley will oversee the center, with Ani Katchova, associate professor and farm income enhancement chair in CFAES, leading its research programs.

Hannah Scott, program manager at the South Centers, will lead the new centers Extension and outreach activities.

Programs

Programming for the center will occur within all major CFAES mission areas with a goal of extending knowledge to emerging and established agricultural cooperatives in Ohio and supporting rural economic development.

The center will also provide future agricultural professionals with interdisciplinary training and research opportunities.

Grant

Debbie Rausch from the Ohio office of the U.S. Department of Agricultures Rural Development program announced that CFAES has been awarded a Rural Cooperative Development Grant totaling nearly $200,000 to improve rural areas of Ohio and West Virginia through the development of cooperatives and other mutually owned businesses.
SALEM, Ohio  Its the time of year to start thinking about purchasing seeds for the next growing season. But how do you make sure the seeds you are buying come from a trusted source?

Quality seeds

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture recommends farmers steer clear of untested seed, sometimes packaged in an unlabeled brown bag, because its quality may be questionable. In addition to the risk of poor germination and inferior crops, the packages could contain unwanted weed seeds.

Last fall and earlier this spring, some farmers in western states discovered Palmer amaranth seeds had been included in pollinator mixes spread over land put into the Conservation Reserve Program.

On any seed purchase, producers want to make sure they are buying quality seeds, said John Armstrong, secretary-manager for the Ohio Seed Improvement Association.

Certification

The Ohio Seed Improvement Association (OSIA)  a third party field inspection and seed testing service  is the official seed certifying agency in Ohio.

According to the Ohio Revised Code, section 907, no person can used the words certified, registered, foundation, or any other term that would suggest a seed or tuber has been certified in their own labeling unless the seed has been certified by the (OSIA).

In Pennsylvania, Act 164 of 2005, also known as the Pennsylvania Seed Act, regulates the sale of plant seed in the commonwealth. It is illegal to sell seed in Pennsylvania that has not been tested and labeled.

Labeling

Ohio state law requires certified seed labels to include the growers name and address or producer number; Ohio Seed Improvement Association listed as the certifying agency; the origin of the seed, tuber or plant; the class, kind, variety, or germ plasm of the seed; and any other information required by the director of agriculture.

Pennsylvania state law requires that seed labels contain information such as complete name and address of the labeler, lot number, purity analysis, germination percentage, and the month and year in which the germination test was completed.

The label must be legible, in English and in a visible place on the outside of the container or bag.

Licensing

Any person labeling agricultural, vegetable or flower seeds for sale in Ohio must have a valid seed labeler permit. Applications should be filed with the Ohio Department of Agriculture annually, along with a $10 fee to obtain a license. Seed distributors  such as big box stores or farmer-owned stores  do not need a permit to sell labeled seed.

Pennsylvania seed distributors, whether an individual or a company whose name appears on the label, are required by law to purchase a $25 seed license each year from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. Distributors must follow established regulations to ensure seeds will perform as labeled.

Have questions?

If a producer suspects the seeds they are buying are not certified, they can contact their state Department of Agriculture and send in a seed label to have it verified, according to Chris Holton, plant health supervisor in the grain, feed and seed section at ODA.

Find certified seeds

Both Ohio and Pennsylvania offer directories of dealers and seeds that have been certified by the departments of agriculture:
Thieves have stolen more than 6,000 worth of machinery from a farm in Scotland.

The farm near, Coupar Angus in Perth and Kinross, was raided overnight between October 27 and October 28.

Thieves stole more than 20 pieces of equipment, including chainsaws, strimmers, angle grinders, reciprocating saws, cordless drills, strimmers, an electrical transformer, a space heater, a Yamaha boat engine, and 100 litres of diesel.

Police Scotland is urging farmers and rural homeowners to double check on the security of their outbuildings, barns and sheds following the theft, and is asking anyone with any information to get in touch.

The NFU has said criminals are treating rural businesses and farmers as 'criminal tourism', a report has said outlining the true human cost of rural crime.

A survey released in May showed showed 56% of respondents have been a victim of rural crime in the past 12 months.

The cost of rural crime in the UK reached 42.5 million in 2015.

The NFU is asking Government and the Home Office to ensure increased and fairer funding for rural policing.
Three people have been arrested in Kent as part of an investigation into modern slavery in the poultry industry by the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA).

Five warrants took place early on Thursday morning (November 2) in the Maidstone area by GLAA officers assisted by Kent Police.

Two men, aged 55 and 54 and a 55-year-old woman were arrested. They are now being held over the alleged enslavement of three Lithuanian men who worked in poultry factories in Kent.

The three men have now provide statements. They will also be assessed to establish if they are potential victims of trafficking or modern slavery.

Other agencies assisting on the operation included the Salvation Army, Maidstone Borough Council, the Womens Institute and the National Health Service.

The GLAA is designed to address labour exploitation and abuse in the UK, in particularly in the food, agricultural and horticultural industries.

It was formed in 2005 to protect vulnerable workers in the wake of the Morecambe Bay disaster when 23 Chinese cockle pickers drowned on the sands
The Welsh government has accused Westminster of trying to "constrain" Wales' powers over farming and the environment.

Wales' rural affairs secretary Lesley Griffiths explained that the UK government is determined to pursue a "constitutional conflict" within the UK over Brexit.

She told delegates at the NFU Cymru Conference that the Brexit bill is an attempt to "bypass devolution".

She explained that she could not accept the EU Withdrawal Bill in its current form because it doesn't hold enough "clarity and certainty" for Welsh farmers.

Ms Griffiths also said it was "unfortunate" that Mr Gove had only attended one meeting of a Joint Ministerial Council working group on the farming since being Defra Secretary in June.

Indeed, Mr Gove has even been criticised by Scotland's rural affairs minister Fergus Ewing for missing meetings.

The Scottish government previously said the Defra secretary should be taking the concerns of Scotland's agriculture sector seriously.

Mr Gove, however, described relations with the Welsh Government as "fantastic" when the two secretaries met for the first time at the Royal Welsh Agricultural Show in July.

Agricultural system

Nevertheless, Ms Griffiths is due to meet Defra Secretary Michael Gove on Monday (6 November) for an update on Brexit talks.

Mr Gove has previously said Wales could have its own agricultural system post-Brexit.

He told the Environment Audit Committee this week that devolved nations could have their own agricultural system and funds allocated to it, but only if negotiations surrounding access to the Single Market were not infringed.

NFU Cymru President Stephen James has also urged the UK Government to avoid a no deal Brexit scenario that could have severe implications for Welsh farmers.

He said the Welsh agricultural industry is "fast running out of patience" with the UK government and the EU over slow Brexit talks.

The warnings coming out of the NFU Cymru Conference is likely to make Westminster reiterate the need for a unified approach to dealing with Brexit.

Last week, the First Secretary of State Damian Green warned that farm "subsidy wars" between the devolved nations of the UK would be "counterproductive" and said there should be a single market across the UK.

Mr Green said there had to be a level playing field across the UK once Britain has left the EU.
Solar must go on rooftops instead of farmland, charity says


Queen D, Deepika Padukone has been rolling on the highway of success non-stop. After proving her mettle as one of the most promising actresses in Bollywood, Deepika made her big Hollywood debut this year opposite Vin Diesel in xXx: Return Of Xander Cage. Even though the film wasnt able to make a mark at the Indian box-office, it sure became one of the highest grossers in the international market.



In xXx, Deepika impressed the audiences mind with high-octane action scenes. If the memory of that film excites you, weve got new that will blow you away.



According to a recent report in a leading daily, the makers of the film are now planning to make a sequel to xXx and there are high chances of Deepika reprising her role in the sequel.



A source close to the makers of the film, told a leading daily, Deepika will, in all probability, be a part of the sequel because her contract reportedly has a clause that says if the box-office business of the film crosses the $170 million mark (which it did and did far more), she will definitely reprise the role of Serena. It also apparently specifies that her role will become meatier and longer in the next outing.



Thrilling isnt it? Were totally looking forward to seeing Deepika as Serena Unger once again.
SRK Denies The Rumours Of Doing Dhoom 4

"I have not signed any film at all. Even I keep reading reports. I think I should first finish this film, it is taking time," said Shahrukh.

I Don't Wanna To Waste Anushka-Katrina's Time: SRK

"I want to be available, I don't want to waste Anushka Sharma and Katrina Kaif's dates... I want to be very clear that I don't want to waste their dates. They have signed two films. Katrina has 'Thugs-of-Hindostan' and Anushka has 'Sui Dhaaga'. I want to be available," the actor said.

Is He Even In Talks With YRF?

On being prodded further about whether they have discussed the next film in Dhoom franchise, he said there has been no offer from the Yash Raj Films.

Not Thinking About Any Film Till December: SRK

"With Yash Raj there is no offer. They just tell me. But I have explained to Aditya Chopra, Karan Johar and my other director friends that I am not thinking of any other film till December, they understand and respect that," he said.
Rajput Karni Sena, which demolished the sets of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Padmavati in Jaipur and reportedly manhandled the director, has again warned him to show the movie with facts which are historically correct.

While talking to ANI, Pramod Rana, the national convener of Rajput Karni Sena said, "We cannot give permission to tamper with the rich history of India."

"The only thing that we want is that Sanjay Leela Bhansali should show the movie to some of the foremost people of our organisation and tell them that we are not tempering any fact of the history."

"If he has shown some wrong facts in the movie, then he should delete that scene. This matter is not about one caste. It is everyone's right to save the heritage of the Indian history."

He further added that, "I don't need to tell you what we will do. You saw Jaipur, Kolhapur, I don't think I need to tell you anything. We are doing a programme on November 12 in Gujarat. But if the movie releases with wrong facts, we won't leave Bhansali."

The movie is all set to hit the theatres on December 1, 2017.

See Pictures: Gauri Khan & Other Celebs Spotted At Gateway Of India
It was one of the most ambitious F1 engineering efforts of all time. The mission? Ultimate speed. Over a decade on, we remember Hondas extraordinary Bonneville 400 project, a quest that saw F1 machinery driven to previously unheard of velocity Pop quiz: whos the fastest driver in the F1 paddock? Those with a literal mind might go for Valtteri Bottas. According to Williams, the Finn hit an incredible 378km/h (234.9mph) during practice on the streets of Baku last year. But it isnt him. In fact the driver in question has never so much as started a Grand Prix - its FIA Medical Car driver Alan van der Merwe. Allow us to explain Back in 2006, during his time as a test driver for Honda, the South African became involved in one of the stranger side projects to be attempted by a Formula One team - the quest for 400km/h (248.5mph). On paper, the brief was simple: take a virtually standard F1 car (the very same machine that had been raced by Jenson Button and Takuma Sato in 2005) to Utahs world famous Bonneville Salt Flats and see how fast it could go over a flying mile. The answer, it turned out, was an FIA-sanctioned Formula One land speed record of 397.360km/h, though in testing in the Mojave Desert it hit a staggering 413.205km/h.

A ridiculous idea The project was conceived in ignorance, Van der Merwe explains with a wide smile. We knew it was a ridiculous idea because the marketing department [at BAR-Honda] had come up with this magic number of 400km/h. Wed said it wasnt possible: the cars do the speed they do on the track  360-370km/h with a tow  and thats it: you cant make them go faster. They said Just add more horsepower  but its not a case of simply turning a screw and adjusting a valve here and there. We thought wed need to double the horsepower to achieve 400km/h. Fortunately for the record books, F1 engineers tend to get highly motivated when told something cant be done. Over two years, with numerous blind alleys, false starts and a steep learning curve, the project gained in knowledge and credibility - culminating with the final runs on June 21, 2006, when the current records for the flying mile and flying kilometre were set.

The wrong tool for the job Initially, testing with the V10-engined car (a BAR 007, rechristened as a Honda RA106 when the Japanese company assumed ownership of the F1 team at the end of 2005) saw it run in something approximating Monza-spec low-downforce trim. Subsequently the car achieved a distinctiveness of its own when the rear wing was replaced by a stability fin. Otherwise it was, to all intents and purposes, the car that had finished the 2005 F1 season - and therefore something fundamentally unsuited to land speed record work on the dusty desert pavement in Mojave where running started. It was, says Van der Merwe, the wrong tool for the job. When we first opened the tail-lift [at Bonneville] the regulars were laughing. They are used to throwing down power and weight and we turn up with this tiny, precise machine. They found it hilarious. And sure enough, at first we couldnt get the thing out of first gear. The ECU couldnt handle that much wheel-spin. The car was too light, with huge, balloon tyres on slippery salt. It put everyones hopes on the floor. The Bonneville 400 team learnt on the job and the car began to perform and, in the cockpit, Van der Merwe began to experience higher and higher speeds - though experience may perhaps be the wrong word...

Pulling like crazy This is the funny thing: the first time I ran the car in its final spec was an aero test at RAF Lyneham in the UK. My engineer asked me to do a run at 280km/h. My dash showed temperatures and pressures  not speed  so I accelerated up to what I thought was 280km/h-ish and came back in. He told me Id done 360km/h. I misjudged it because the car was still accelerating so hard. It taught me about what we use as references: the car accelerates and then tails off and you feel extra drag if youre near the limit for the gear youre in, but this thing had massively long gears. I was probably in fourth or fifth and it was still pulling like crazy so I assumed it was 250-280km/h. For subsequent runs I had to calm down because we really didnt know how it would behave." Attempting a record at Bonneville  rather than an airfield in middle England  had historic and cinematic advantages, but the primary reason land speed records are set on the salt flats are the vast, open spaces. The tracks graded at Bonneville for land speed attempts are two or three times longer than the worlds longest runways.

An experience like no other Theres no feedback, recalls Van der Merwe. Youre surrounded by this vast whiteness. The track was 200m wide and 11 miles long. The only way you know youre going fast is because your helmet is getting pulled off your head and the car is screaming in seventh gear. We thought we were going to need something like three miles of track - but because of the low grip we needed five miles just to build up the speed, tickling the throttle, being patient. A little wheel spin might knock 5-10km/h over the timed mile. An FIA land speed record requires a pass over the measured mile or kilometre in both directions, the results being averaged to take wind-assistance out of the equation (hence why the 413.205km/h top speed set in Mojave didnt count). In a series of early morning runs at Bonneville the 007 did record one run of 400.454km/h but failed to repeat it on the return leg. At the end of the week, they had to settle for an F1 record of 397.360km/h - just shy of the mythical 400 theyd targeted.

Better than expected Far from being a disappointment, Van der Merwe looks back on the project with great affection. To be honest, we shouldnt have got that close! I think we would have needed a completely different tool for the job to do 400km/h but we had a lot of fun getting really, really close - and we have the record. It was a unique project and Im very lucky to have been part of it. It changed my point of view on land speed racing too. Because I was a circuit racer, at first I didnt get it. Id look at those 2000hp American things built in someones backyard and not get it. I understood that it must be fun but I couldnt see how people became addicted to it: just driving in a straight line out on the salt, trying to find that extra tenth of an mph. I didnt really see the point of that. Working on the project changed my point of view. We were 50 or 60 people and it took us two years to achieve what we achieved. You learn that what happens on the salt is the tip of the iceberg. Finding that extra tenth has maybe taken nine months of effort. Its the same as running a car on the track: everyone has to give 100 percent; everyone has to optimise their little bit and, if they dont, youre not going to find that tenth - but when you do, its very satisfying. I dont think anybody on the project looks back and thinks it was a waste of time - we all got something out of it.
Full Day Itinerary

This morning, set out on the Pan-American Highway to Otavalo. After driving through dramatic Andean scenery, arrive at the famous indigenous fair and the textile market of Otavalo.

Enjoy a visit to the charming Otovalo Market, showcasing brightly colored and unique handicrafts. Stroll by their many stalls filled with paintings, woven ponchos, scarves and blankets. You'll also see traditional hats, handbags, beaded jewelry and more. Try your hand at bargaining for something special to bring home, or just enjoy people watching in this bustling and historic environment.

Then proceed to Peguche, a nearby indigenous village, where local artisans weave in their homes. Learn about their culture and everyday life. Next, have lunch in one of the charming country inns or haciendas of the area.

After lunch, return to Quito and rest and freshen up at your airport hotel room until it is time to take the shuttle to the airport for your flight back to the USA. Arrive in the USA the following morning.
Glyphosate is the most widely used pesticide in the world and many UK arable growers insist they cannot farm without it.

However, an ongoing tug of war between scientific evidence and politics is threatening the very future of this vital herbicide.

EU member states failed to reach an agreement on a European Commission proposal to renew glyphosates licence for 10 years. The next vote, for a reduced five-year reauthorisation, could take place on 9 November in Brussels.

See also: Video  Farmers explain why glyphosate is vital

However, sources close to the regulatory process have told Farmers Weekly that it is only 50/50 that a vote will take place on that day. The current licence is due to expire on 15 December.

As this timeline shows, a pattern of ups and downs in the EU decision-making process for glyphosate over the past three years shows that anything could happen.

The NFU is urging farmers to make the case for glyphosate on social media  by posting comments on Twitter using the hashtag #glyphosateisvital  and to their MEPs, as the campaign to get it reapproved enters its crucial final phase.
An independent commission has been launched to investigate what people want from the countryside and agriculture as the UK leaves the EU.

The Commission on Food, Farming and Countryside is being run by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.

Launched in London on Wednesday (1 November), it will also look at measures to improve the publics health, the countryside and rural communities.

See also: Defra secretary Michael Gove defends post-Brexit farming plan

The commissions launch prospectus outlines some of the changes in the UKs food, farms and countryside since the UK joined what was then the EEC in 1973.

Members of the 15-strong commission include Beeswax Dyson Farming chairman David Fursdon, Soil Association chief executive Helen Browning and Sustain UK chief executive Kath Dalmeny.

The health sector is well represented too  by Shirley Kramer, chief executive of the Royal Society for the Publics Heath, and David Pencheon, who leads the Sustainable Development Unit for NHS England and Public Health England.

Commission chairman Ian Cheshire said: We rely on the countryside even when we dont see it; not only for food, but so much we take for granted, like clean water. Its part of who we are.

Shake-up

We have come to depend on EU laws and money, but they havent been working well enough, and they are set for the biggest shake-up in a generation.

Sir Ian said farmers groups, conservation charities and other rural and environmental stakeholders were already putting huge thought into Brexit and the countryside.

But they didnt have all the answers and might not agree.

The role of this commission is to learn what people want, as well as the established experts, whats working in communities around the country, to come up with some creative answers and find a way through.

Commission director Sue Pritchard said every single person in the UK had a stake in food, farming and countryside.

The UK has great strengths, but real challenges too. We are a global leader in food manufacturing, but we rely heavily on imported fruit and veg.

And while some people have more food choices than ever, inequality in the UK means for too many the reality is little choice and food poverty.

Time bomb

Whats on our plates affects all of us, and what is on our neighbours plates affects us too: the effect of food inequality is a public health time bomb.

So we need both optimism and realism in spades.

The commission will take this once-in-a-generation opportunity to renew our food, farming and countryside for the next 40 years and beyond, helping to turn our shared ambitions into actions.

Esmee Fairbairn chief executive Caroline Mason said the foundation had funded the commission because the food system was disjointed, but many people wanted to make it better.

People believed that higher-quality food could be produced in ways that were better for people and the environment, said Ms Mason.

The commission represents a perfectly timed, once-in-a-generation opportunity for people and communities to influence the role of food in their lives.
Canceled Google Pixel 2 XL 'Muskie' is reportedly re-branded as HTC U11 Plus News oi -Chandrika HTC yesterday unveiled the U11 Plus alongside U11 Life.

The 2016 models of Google Pixel phones was manufactured by HTC. This is why the Taiwanese company was expected to make the second generation of Pixel phones as well.

Earlier this year, the rumor mill had even revealed that the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL are codenamed as Walleye and Muskie. However, the Muskie phone was eventually dropped in favor of the larger LG-made Taimen, which would be later known as Pixel 2 XL. If you recall, the Muskie model was spotted on AOSP code files a few days earlier revealing some of its details.

Now, The Verge has come up with some interesting information. According to the website, the newly launched HTC U11 Plus was originally intended to be the Google Pixel 2XL. HTC apparently made some modifications to the Muskie model to launch it as the U11 Plus after it was rejected by Google.

Just to give you a better idea, the AOSP files had revealed that the HTC made Google Pixel 2 XL packs a battery of 3,830mAh capacity. The new U11 Plus makes use of a 3,393mAh battery. Pretty close, right?

Moreover, both U11 Plus and the Muskie feature the same 6-inch display with the aspect ratio of 18:9. While it might just be a coincidence, we think HTC didn't want to make one phone and then drop it just like that.

As far as the rest of the specifications are concerned, the U11 Plus is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor that is clubbed with 4GB/6GB of RAM and 64GB/128GB of internal storage. The storage space on both the variants can be further expanded via a microSD card.

In terms of optics, the smartphone features 12MP rear-facing camera with f/1.7 aperture and dual-LED flash. Likewise, there is an 8MP selfie camera at the front. The U11 Plus has the same camera hardware and software as the flagship U11.

On the software front, the smartphone runs on Android 8.0 Oreo OS out of the box. It also features an improved Edge Sense feature.

Best Mobiles in India
HTC to start launching dual-camera smartphones again next year News oi -Chandrika The HTC One M8 was the first ever smartphone to feature dual cameras.

While 2017 can be called the official year for smartphones with dual cameras, the first dual camera smartphone was launched way back in 2014. The HTC One M8 came with a dual rear camera setup which consists of a main UltraPixel sensor of 4MP and a secondary depth sensor.

However, after that, the Taiwanese giant has not launched a single smartphone that features dual cameras. Even the newly launched flagship U11 Plus lacks a dual camera setup. It does seem a bit odd as even the small OEMs are now coming up with dual camera smartphones. Well, the good news is HTC is soon going to re-enter the dual camera smartphone market.

We say this based on the statement made by the HTC President Chialin Chang. As reported by Engadget, Chang said, "We'll definitely be releasing a dual-camera phone next year, but we'll need to figure out how to make this feature stand out."

HTC has been lately focusing a lot on improving the camera aspect on its flagships. Notably, the U11 that was launched earlier this year managed to get an impressive score of 90 out of 100 on DxOMark. The brand-new U11 Plus, on the other hand, features the same camera but with some improvements.

As of now, the company president refused to delve into the details of the dual camera configuration on its upcoming flagship. Presumably, we could see a combination of Monochrome lens and Telephoto lens.

Chang further revealed that HTC will be launching only 5 to 6 smartphones in 2018 just like it this year. However, along with high-end phones, the company is also planning to release some mid-range smartphones especially meant for the Chinese market.

In addition to all these, he also said that the acquisition of HTC's Pixel smartphone division by Google is still in process and the deal could close in the beginning of next year.

Best Mobiles in India

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Motorola sends invites for Moto X4 launch in India on November 13 News oi -Abhinaya Prabhu Moto X4 launch is confirmed to happen on November 13.

Moto X4 First Impressions

Motorola announced the Moto X4 smartphone at the IFA 2017 tech show in Berlin back in September this year. Soon after the launch of the device, even the Android One variant of the same was also unveiled.

Later, there were claims that the Moto X4 will be launched in India on November 13. Following the same, the company has started sending out media invites for the launch event to happen on the specified date. The invite reads, "Experience 'perfection' crafted into a smartphone as Motorola brings to you the new Moto X4."

Back in the last week, the alleged pricing information of the Moto X4 was leaked via a leaked image of the retail box of the smartphone. From the same, it was stated that the smartphone might be priced at Rs. 23,999 in the country for the variant with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage space. The report also revealed that the device might be launched in Super Black and Sterling Blue color variants.

The highlights of the Moto X4 are its metal and glass design and the dual camera setup at its rear. The smartphone comes with the IP68 rating making it water and dust resistant. Also, the smartphone supports both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. The smartphone makes use of a 5.2-inch IPS FHD 1080p display topped with Gorilla Glass 4 protection. Under its hood, there is an octa-core Snapdragon 630 SoC. The device is believed to be launched in two variants - 3GB+32GB and 4GB+64GB.

The camera department comprises of a 12MP main camera sensor and an 8MP secondary sensor with a wide-angle lens at the rear. Up front, the Moto X4 features a 16MP selfie camera with LED flash. The device runs on Android 7.1 Nougat and gets the power from a 3000mAh battery that can render enough power for up to a day. There is a fingerprint sensor embedded into the home button at the front.

Best Mobiles in India
Xiaomi, Vivo, OPPO & Huawei remained the fastest growing smartphone brands in Q3: Counterpoint News oi -Priyanka Apart from China, India and South-East Asia is fast becoming the next battleground for these Chinese brands. A Chinese brand holds a top-five ranking in each of these markets.

According to the new Market Monitor report by research firm Counterpoint, Global smartphone shipments grew 5 percent YoY reaching 400 million units in Q3 2017.

Chinese brands Xiaomi, Vivo, OPPO & Huawei remained the fastest growing smartphone brands. Samsung, Apple, and LG also showed growth during the quarter, a report said.

"The global smartphone market continues to grow in single digits driven by growth in emerging markets. In such a scenario, we have seen key hardware differentiators proliferate to lower price points at much faster rates," said Jeff Fieldhack, Research Director at Counterpoint Research, in a statement.

"In addition, the increasing share of leading brands is putting additional pressure on smaller brands which can lead to consolidation in some of the OEM-crowded regions going forward," he said.

Apart from China, India and South-East Asia is fast becoming the next battleground for these Chinese brands. A Chinese brand holds a top-five ranking in each of these markets.

Samsung led the smartphone market by volume with a market share of 20.6 percent in Q3 2017. Its smartphone shipments recorded a growth of 9% annually during the quarter.

Sequentially, Samsung shipments grew 3 percent driven by the launch of the Note 8 and strong sales of new J-series. Revenues were down for Samsung due to higher sales of low and mid-end segment smartphones.

During the quarter, the leading smartphone players grew faster in international markets than domestic markets. This indicates that leading smartphone players are now gearing up to target higher price points in a bid to position their devices as quality products in the minds of the consumers," noted Research Analyst Shobhit Srivastava.

Apple shipments grew 3 percent annually in Q3 2017, reaching 46.7 million units globally.

Xiaomi emerged as the fastest growing brand YoY (over 81 percent) driven by strong sales in both China and India. Xiaomi was also the fastest growing brand in both China and India during the quarter.

Xiaomi shipped 28 million smartphones, capturing 7 percent market share in Q3 2017.

Best Mobiles in India

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U.S., Coalition Continue Strikes to Defeat ISIS in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, Nov. 2, 2017  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria yesterday, conducting 11 strikes consisting of 11 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 five strikes consisting of five engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Abu Kamal, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed an ISIS vehicle.

-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, three strikes engaged three ISIS tactical units, destroying a fighting position and damaging a line of communication.

-- Near Shaddadi, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed an ISIS vehicle.

Strikes in Iraq

In Iraq, coalition military forces conducted six strikes consisting of six engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Qaim, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit, destoying two ISIS vehicles and an encampment.

-- Near Rawa, three strikes engaged three ISIS tactical units, destroying two improvised explosive device factories and an encampment.

-- Near Qayyara, two strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit, resulting in key terrain denial and suppression of two weapons caches.

Officials also announced today that a strike consisting of eight engagements was conducted Oct. 31 near Qaim, engaging an ISIS tactical unit and damaging 10 ISIS supply routes.

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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Armenia, U.S. Celebrate Reopening of Zar Peacekeeping Training Area

From a U.S. European Command News Release

STUTTGART, Germany, Nov. 2, 2017  Armenian and U.S. leaders celebrated the reopening of the Zar Peacekeeping Training Area in Yerevan, Armenia, Oct. 31.

The training area is designed to increase the readiness and training of the 12th Peacekeeping Brigade, U.S. European Command officials said.

"By renovating this facility, the U.S. government is contributing to the Armenian Ministry of Defense's efforts to boost training readiness," said U.S. Embassy Armenia Charge d'Affaires Rafik Mansour. "This will have a noticeable impact on the 12th PKB's ability to deploy in support of peacekeeping operations worldwide."

Armenia and the United States have a long-standing partnership built on a common vision of a Europe that is whole, free and at peace, celebrating 25 years of diplomatic relations, officials said.

Symbol of Cooperation

"The opening of the Zar PTA is a strong symbol of the cooperation between the United States and Armenia," Air Force Brig. Gen. Dawne L. Deskins, Eucom's deputy director of partnering and missile defense, said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. "We look forward to many more years together bringing greater security throughout the region."

The training area's goal is to establish a permanent cadre and support staff that will provide regional and international partners continuous use of the facility, Eucom officials said.

The 12th PKB is an Armenian unit that contributes troops to multinational peacekeeping missions. Mansour noted Armenia's contributions to international peacekeeping operations.\

"Armenia's deployment of troops to places like Afghanistan, Kosovo and Lebanon has demonstrated a commitment to make the world a safer place," he said.

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Exercise Tests Interoperability of Army's Military Affiliated Radio System

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

FORT HUACHUCA, Ariz., Nov. 2, 2017  The Army's Network Enterprise Technology Command is calling on Military Auxiliary Radio System operators around the country to participate in a quarterly interoperability communications exercise Nov. 4-6.

The exercise will simulate a power-outage scenario, and it will not affect any public or private communications, officials said, noting that there will be no power outages of communications systems. The exercise is designed to improve readiness, build cooperation and public awareness, and better prepare to defend the nation, they added.

The Army Military Auxiliary Radio System, which is part of Netcom, conducts interoperability communications exercises on a regular basis and has been doing so since 2013. Interoperability exercises are designed to test communications links among the Army, the Defense Department and the hundreds of trained volunteers who are MARS members.

Redundant Communications Capability

This community helps to provide redundant communications capability in the event of a large-scale power or communications outage, as well as emergency reporting information about local conditions across the country on a rapid scale, officials said.

These exercises are scheduled at least a year in advance to maximize training opportunities and enhance the proficiency and readiness of MARS members and organizations they support, officials said. MARS operators' primary mission during these quarterly exercises is to serve as liaisons between supported organizations, emergency responders and the amateur radio community, they explained.

(From an Army Network Enterprise Technology Command news release.)

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2nd Cavalry Regiment 'Strykers' increase readiness, lethality with air assault training

By Staff Sgt. Jennifer Bunn November 2, 2017

GRAFENWOEHR, Germany -- Soldiers assigned to Nemesis Troop, 4th Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment conducted an air assault in support of a counter reconnaissance training exercise Oct. 26, 2017 in the Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany.

The Regiment, also known as a Stryker Brigade because their main mode of travel is in several Stryker Combat Vehicle variants, has been assigned a new Mission Essential Task List from the Army. A task added to 4th Squadron's mission is to be able to conduct air assaults to increase the Soldiers' mobility around the battlefield.

"The benefit of having our team air assault into a mission enables us to maneuver into the fight at a much quicker rate," said Sgt. Cody Anderson, a team leader in Nemesis Troop.

Alpha Company, 214th General Aviation Support Battalion, 12th Combat Aviation Brigade flew in UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters to support the training. Before being flown into the fight, the Soldiers received safety instructions from the crew and familiarized themselves with getting on and off the helicopter with full battle uniform, gear and weapons.

"This allows them to basically have the experience of getting on and off a (helicopter) to be able to quickly gain situational awareness upon exiting the (helicopter) then moving directly into a live fire," said 1st Lt. Joshua Cooksey, executive officer for Nemesis Troop.

Once the initial training was complete and they received their orders, the Soldiers loaded into the helicopters and flew to their objective. To mimic a real life battle scenario, targets popped up for the Soldiers to engage when they disembarked.

"(The Soldiers) did phenomenally well, they were knocking out targets; everything they engaged, they were hitting," said Cooksey. "So, they did very well with their lethality."

The gained operational reach by helicopter also gives the unit the ability to send reconnaissance elements forward so they can observe the objective before Stykers are moved up or if the vehicles cannot be driven through the terrain, Cooksey explained.

Capt. Matthew Whitehouse, commander for Nemesis Troop, is grateful for the opportunity for his Soldiers to train with aviation support.

"It was great having our aviation out here and allowing some of our enlisted junior Soldiers to get some experience on the (helicopter) and see what it is like for combined arm maneuver to be orchestrated and when it all comes together, what effects they can bring," he said.

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Military Intelligence Service provides training missions at Southern Strike 2018

By Cpl. Justin Humphreys November 2, 2017

GULFPORT, Miss. -- Southern Strike 2018 couldn't operate without the Armed Forces Joint Staff Military Intelligence Service creatively planning and organizing realistic missions individually tailored to participating units.

The Military Intelligence Service, or the J2 Shop, is in charge of planning and guiding the training missions during Southern Strike 2018.

"What we've done is basically take the overall picture, all the ground teams, we've set up a scenario and what we're trying to do is provide them intel that would realistically set up that mission and training event they want to accomplish," said Cpt. Jason Spradlin, the Military Intelligence Detachment commander of 2d Battalion, 20th Special Forces Group, Mississippi Army National Guard. "For instance, if they wanted to run a mission on a hostage rescue, we're creating the intelligence on the back end to lead them to that scenario."

Although the Mississippi Air National Guard hosts Southern Strike 2018, units from other branches and states are participating and providing support in the operation.

"Generally, with exercises all over the country you're going to have different units from different states coming together because in an overseas environment you could be working with people from anywhere," said Air Force 2nd Lt. Whitney Norris, Tactical Air Control Party intelligence officer and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance liaison officer of the 165th Air Support Operation Squadron, Georgia Air National Guard. "I think it's good networking and good practice at working with people you haven't usually worked with before."

The J2 staff must work together to provide missions to service members of all the branches as well as from foreign militaries, which is good training for the participants for future missions that will involve multiple branches working together.

"Joint training is the reality they're going to face when they're out in the real world, running real missions," said Spradlin. "No service, whether it's the Army, Air Force, Navy, or Marines, operates independently at all anymore. The Army couldn't do what they do without the other branches and - in this exercise in particular, the air side - to provide support for the ground units."

The exercise is also good training for the J2 staff and they can bring back their knowledge and training to their home units.

"Being able to do this in a joint exercise is a particular benefit to me because I get practice coordinating with other units, helping them develop their mission planning, and also incorporating these scenarios into realistic training," said Norris.

On top of being an optimal joint training exercise, Southern Strike also allows the participating units to show off their skills and abilities while working together.

"I just think this is a good opportunity to showcase what not only the Mississippi Army and Air National Guard do, but also to be working with our Guard partners from other states, our active duty counterparts, and even partner nation forces to bring those together and show what we're capable of as a whole when we work together," said Spradlin.

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HST Strike Group Conducts Live Fire Exercise

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS171102-04

Release Date: 11/2/2017 11:19:00 AM

By Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Kaysee Lohmann and Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ethan T. Miller, USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) Public Affairs

ATLANTIC OCEAN (NNS) -- USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), along with other surface ships from Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 8, performed multiple live-fire exercises Nov. 1, proving the capabilities of both Sailors and equipment.

"Integration and planning began several months ago with involvement from several commands and organizations," said Truman's operations officer, Capt. Brent Tornga. "To properly flex the combat systems, we integrated warfighting and technical expertise with administrative and operational support, culminating in the tactical scenario that we executed successfully today."

During the evolution, three unmanned aircraft were used to simulate enemy missiles being fired at Truman from shore. USS Normandy (CG 60) intercepted the first and second, firing two Standard Missile (SM) 2s, while Truman utilized its Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) system to destroy the third.

Additionally, USS Jason Dunham (DDG 109) and USS Bulkeley (DDG 84) also successfully used SM-2s to perform surface-to-air intercepts during simultaneous, independent exercises.

According to Chief Fire Controlman Harold Vernon, Truman's CS7 division leading chief petty officer, the test conducted by CSG-8 was a fleet exercise procedure (FXP) designed to assess the ability of the ship to defend itself in an emissions condition utilizing radar data from our guard ship.

"This missile exercise proves to our Sailors that their weapon systems work and that they themselves are capable of employing them," said Normandy Commanding Officer, Capt. Derek Trinque. "That's a significant step in being ready to deploy anywhere on the planet; ready to carry out any missions we might be assigned as a strike group."

As an added layer of complexity, Truman's and Normandy's part of the exercise was conducted with both ships operating solely using the radar systems aboard Normandy for defensive coordination. This flex of systems capabilities is so infrequent experts from multiple technical organizations, including the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, were on hand to observe the results.

The techniques and weapons systems tested during this evolution represent CSG-8's capability to protect itself at sea against air and missile threats, added Trinque.

"Our surface ships face many threats, including cruise missile threats, as recently demonstrated in the Red Sea," said Trinque. "Our ability to defend ourselves and high-value units from cruise missile attacks depends on our knowledge of and ability to operate our weapon systems proficiently, promptly, and without error."

CSG-8 ships conducted a number of drills and rehearsals prior to this event. Each time, learning points were debriefed and lessons were incorporated to ensure the Combat Operations team was building expertise, added Tornga.

"Each ship in a strike group brings awesome capability as a standalone combat force," said Tornga. "But integrated as a battle force, the capability is unmatched around the globe."

Truman has successfully completed its Tailored Shipboard Training Availability and Final Evaluation Problem (TSTA/FEP) and is underway preparing for future operations.

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Ethiopia sends thousands of troops to Somalia to fight al-Shabab

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 2, 2017 06:31PM

Ethiopia has deployed thousands of troops to neighboring Somalia to help a regional fight against the al-Shabab Takfiri group, the most feared terror outfit in Africa.

Villagers in western Somalia said Thursday they had witnessed Ethiopian troops passing through the border Thursday morning to enter the country.

Abdullahi Yusuf, an elder in Luq town, said tanks and armored vehicles carrying Ethiopian troops entered Somalia and made their way through southwestern territories.

Muhummed Muse, a resident of Dolow town, said he had witnessed dozens of armored vehicles passing through.

Ethiopian authorities confirmed the new deployment, saying it was a routine for the country's military to contribute to the ongoing fight against al-Shabab in Somalia.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Meles Alem, said the deployment was in line with Ethiopia's responsibilities as one of the troop-contributing countries of AMISOM, the African Union mission in Somalia.

"It is a routine or normal military activity of the Ethiopian contingent based in Somalia to support the fight against terrorism," said Alem.

The deployment follows a huge bombing in Somalia's capital Mogadishu on October 14 that left over 300 people killed. Though no group claimed responsibility, officials said al-Shabab, the main militant group in Somalia which has been behind decades of havoc in the Horn of Africa country, was responsible for the bomb attack.

The group also claimed a high-profile truck bombing and a siege on a hotel in Mogadishu, which left scores of people dead last week.

President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a dual US-Somali citizen, has been shuttling between regional capitals since the mid-October bombing in a bid to secure more military support for his country's fight against terrorism.

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Spanish prosecutors seek jail terms for eight former Catalan leaders

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 2, 2017 02:06PM

Former leaders of Catalonia's now-defunct government face jail terms as the Spanish government seeks to assert its rule following a controversial declaration of independence in the northeastern region.

Prosecutors asked Spain's National Court on Thursday that eight former members of Catalonia's government, which is now dismantled and has its leader in a self-imposed exile, be imprisoned until more investigation is conducted in relation to an independence drive in Catalonia.

The eight former officials appeared in the Madrid court on Thursday, two days after they were summoned by Spain's Supreme Court.

The eight had been summoned along deposed Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont and five other ministers over charges of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement. Puigdemont, who is now in Belgium and has demanded special legal guarantees to return home, did not attend the hearing alongside four of his ministers.

Madrid has also summoned other former officials of Catalonia, including influential figures in the region's parliament, over their contribution to the independence move.

Prosecutors said the court would free the ninth minister on Thursday if he could pay a bail of around 50,000 euros. The minister resigned before the Catalan parliament voted for independence.

Spanish newspaper, La Vanguardia, reported later on Thursday that a Spanish judge had issued a European arrest warrant for Catalan leader, Carles Puigdemont, and four members of his sacked cabinet, who are now in Belgium, after they failed to appear at a High Court hearing. However, Reuters reported that a spokeswoman for the High Court could not confirm the warrant had been issued.

The judge in the National Court has yet to decide on the jail requests that also would affect former Catalan vice-president Oriol Junqueras. Spanish law allows jail terms of up to 30 years if the former officials are convicted of the charges filed against them.

The political stand-off over Catalonia, the gravest to hit Spain since the return of democracy to the country in the late 1970s, was triggered by a referendum of independence in the region on October 1. Nearly half of Catalonia's eligible voters turned up in the vote which Spain had called illegal. Catalonia's government then built on the overwhelming yes vote and declared independence on October 27. That prompted Madrid to sack Puigdemont and his deputies and take over the control of the wealthy and economically-prosperous region.

Thousands staged a protest outside the presidential palace in Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, on Thursday to show their support for the former leaders of the region and condemn their prosecution by Madrid.

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Niger asks US to use armed drones against militants in African country

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 2, 2017 07:25AM

Niger has called on the United States to use armed drones against extremist militants operating on the African country's border with neighboring Mali.

Nigerien Defense Minister Kalla Mountari said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday that his country was open to allowing US drone strikes against terror outfits, nearly one month after a number of forces from a joint US-Nigerien patrol were killed in a militant ambush north of the capital, Niamey, and near Mali's border.

"I asked them (the Americans) some weeks ago to arm them (the drones) and use them as needed," Mountari said.

When asked if Washington had accepted the request, he said, "Our enemies will find out."

Meanwhile, an anonymous US official welcomed the Nigerien defense minister's comments, saying armed drones would be helpful in protecting US troops and potentially targeting militants. But he said he was unaware of any formal agreement having been reached between Niamey and Washington.

In the October 5 ambush, four US Special Forces troops along with five Nigerien soldiers were killed after coming under attack by the suspected members of the so-called al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

The US soldiers were reportedly providing "training and security assistance" to the Nigerien Armed Forces to fight against violent extremists in the country.

The US conducts controversial drone strikes in other parts of the world, including in Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. The drone attacks, often described by the US as "targeted" strikes, anger local populations, who say civilians are often killed in the attacks.

During a protest rally earlier this week, dozens of demonstrators chanted slogans against the presence of foreign troops in Niger.

The country is part of an African counter-terrorism task force known as the G5 Sahel, which also comprises troops from Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mauritania.

Washington recently announced that the American military was shifting its counter-terrorism strategy in Africa and would expand military operations in the continent.

US Defense Secretary James Mattis told lawmakers in Congress that the Pentagon would expand the ability to use lethal force against suspected terrorists in Africa and place decision-making authority in the hands of US commanders on the field.

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Corrosion Issues Spur Pentagon to Halt F-35 Deliveries

Sputnik News

23:36 02.11.2017

The US Defense Department refused to accept the delivery of F-35s from September 21 to October 20 after finding "corrosion exceeding technical limits" around fasteners holding the planes' exterior coatings to their airframes, company and government officials said Wednesday.

"All F-35 deliveries to our customers were temporarily suspended by the F-35 Joint Program Office" from September 21 until October 20, Lockheed announced Wednesday. Lockheed delivered 46 F-35s to the Pentagon in 2016 and was expected to drop off 66 more aircraft in 2017. The Pentagon said the delivery pause would not impact how many F-35s are accepted this year.

Lockheed Martin initiated a review to determine how many of the 250 jets that have already been produced for the US military suffer from the same issue.

The Pentagon said the issue "needs to be corrected to prevent future corrosion," however "it does not pose a flight risk to the F-35 fleet or affect current operations."

The corrosion problem is just one of the many problems already plaguing the F-35. Previously, the $1.5 trillion dollar jet program has worked through issues including engine fires, unsafe helmets that can snap pilots' necks, pilots experiencing hypoxia, flawed ejection seats, and being incapable of flying through thunderstorms. In September 2016 the US Air Force announced that insulation lining the jet's fuel tanks was "peeling and crumbling."

In addition to the US military, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, Turkey and the UK are slated to deploy F-35 aircraft, according to Lockheed's corporate site.

 Sputnik

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Bhutanese King Visits India Amid Growing Concern Over China's Buildup in Doklam

Sputnik News

17:44 02.11.2017(updated 18:14 02.11.2017)

This is the first high-level visit from the Bhutanese side after the Doklam crisis involving India and Bhutan on one side and China on the other. The crisis had witnessed India and China locked in a bitter military standoff for over two months earlier this year.

NEW DELHI (Sputnik)  The King of Bhutan, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck is currently on a four-day visit to India. He is accompanied by his wife, the Queen, Jetsun Pema Wangchuck and the Royal Prince.The Bhutanese King met with the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind and discussed issues of mutual interest. The mutual security concerns of the two countries were discussed with great priority.

"The President said that security concerns of India and Bhutan are indivisible and mutual. He conveyed deep appreciation for the King of Bhutan's personal involvement and guidance and the support provided by Bhutan in addressing the recent situation in the Doklam area. He added that the manner in which both India and Bhutan stood together to address the situation in the Doklam area is a clear testimony to our friendship," a statement issued by the President of India's office said.

King of Bhutan Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck also met the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi. Both the leaders expressed satisfaction at the current state of bilateral ties.

"The King of Bhutan and the Prime Minister of India expressed satisfaction at the excellent state of bilateral relations and reaffirmed their commitment to advance these exemplary across diverse sectors of cooperation," a statement by India's Ministry of External Affairs read.

Experts are of the opinion that the recent build-up of Chinese troops in the Doklam area, despite the agreement between India and China to maintain status quo in the region, has been a matter of grave concern for India as well as Bhutan, therefore, the Bhutanese King's visit to New Delhi at this juncture holds great significance.

"Bhutan's support is key for India to counter Chinese influence in the region. Although, both India and China had agreed to maintain status quo in the region, but recent reports of Chinese military build-up near the strategic Doklam area is a cause of concern for India and also for Bhutan. Therefore, Bhutan King's visit is important in view of the changing geopolitical situation of the region," Srikantha Kondapalli, an expert on China told Sputnik.

Bhutan and India share close historical ties and have maintained extremely cordial relations. Earlier this year, when the Chinese military attempted to build a road at the Doklam area (Doko La in Chinese)  a region claimed as its own by both Bhutan and China  India decided to step in and deploy a huge number of soldiers in the region to block the Chinese advancements. This resulted in a bitter standoff between the Indian and the Chinese military that lasted for over a month and ended with an agreement to maintain status-quo in the region in order to avoid the detrimental impact of a full-fledged war.

 Sputnik

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Niger Asks US to Launch Armed Drones Operations Against Militants

Sputnik News

12:36 02.11.2017(updated 12:38 02.11.2017)

The request came amid the growing controversy over the US military presence in Niger that was recently overshadowed by the death of four US Special Forces personnel in an ambush set up by extremists.

"I asked them [the US] some weeks ago to arm them [the drones] and use them as needed," Defense Minister Kalla Mountari told Reuters in an interview.

Asked if the US had accepted the request, the minister said, "Our enemies will find out."

The comment has raised the stakes in a controversial US counter-insurgent operation in Niger that was launched in 2013, under former President Barack Obama.

What started out as a small training campaign has now grown into an 800-strong force assisting the Nigerien military in intelligence gathering and other missions. The US is also building a $100 million drone base in Agadez from which the Pentagon would be able to launch reconnaissance operations and attack militants in Libya, Mali and Nigeria.

Speaking with Reuters, an unnamed US official welcomed Mountari's comments, suggesting that "armed drones would be helpful in protecting US troops and potentially targeting militants." The official, however, said that he was not aware of any agreement having been reached.

The US military campaign in Niger has recently run the gauntlet following a deadly ambush in Niger on October 4, in which Islamists killed four American soldiers who were on a joint patrol with local troops. Those were the first casualties of the US anti-terrorism operation in the African country.

According to Mountari, Niger regards the American forces in the country as close partners.

"We are working hand in hand. The clear proof is that the Americans and Nigeriens fell on the battlefield for the peace and security of our country," he said.

According to Reuters, an expansion of the US military presence in Niger could prove unpopular both with Americans and in the African country. Drone operations are also controversial because of the infamous civilian death tolls caused by drone strikes.

 Sputnik

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Spain to Issue Arrest Warrant for Puigdemont if He Doesn't Appear in Court

Sputnik News

12:33 02.11.2017(updated 14:07 02.11.2017)

Carles Puigdemont who was sacked by Madrid after invoking Article 155 of the Constitution is currently in Belgium.

The head of Spain's Supreme Court has announced that Madrid would issue an arrest warrant if former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont doesn't show up to testify.

"When someone doesn't appear after being cited by a judge to testify, in Spain or any other EU country, normally an arrest warrant is issued," Supreme Court President Carlos Lesmes said.

Puigdemont's lawyer Paul Bekaert who said earlier, his client had no intention of appearing before the Spanish court, has reiterated his statement on Thursday.

"The climate is not good, it is better to take some distance," lawyer Paul Bekaert told Reuters. "If they ask, he will cooperate with Spanish and Belgian justice," Bekaert added.

According to lawyer Maksim Shome cited by RTBF, Belgian authorities will have to extradite Puigdemont to Spain if Madrid issues the arrest warrant.

"If Carles Puigdemont agrees on the extradition, the process should be accomplished within a 10-days period. If he refuses, the extradition extends to 60 days," Shome said.

A judge in Spain on Thursday approved the prosecutor's office request to conduct police surveillance on Speaker of the Catalan Parliament Carme Forcadell and five other former lawmakers, El Pais newspaper reported.

The outlet added that police would track the whereabouts of the politicians until November 9, when they are scheduled to again appear in the Supreme Court to testify.

Puigdemont Flees to Belgium After Sacking

On Tuesday, the ousted Catalan leader said that he would only return to Catalonia from Belgium when he had "guarantees" for his safety. Some media reports indicate that Puigdemont's former advisers, who accompanied him to Belgium, have already returned to Barcelona.

Puigdemont's statement followed the decision of the Spanish Prosecutor General's Office to file lawsuits on Monday against the former Catalan leaders over rebellion, sedition and embezzlement of state funds and the request to appear before Spain's Audiencia Nacional on Thursday and Friday.

On October 27, the Catalan government adopted a resolution unilaterallly proclaiming the region's independence, which was followed by the decision by the Spanish Parliament's upper house to invoke Article 155 of the Constitution, introducing Madrid's direct rule in Catalonia.

The same day, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy dismissed the Catalan government and Puigdemont. Puigdemont has refused to recognize the dismissal and called for "democratic resistance" to direct rule by Madrid.

 Sputnik

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'Failure to broker peace' hinders solutions to displacement, UN refugee chief tells Security Council

2 November 2017  The head of the United Nations refugee agency on Thursday urged global leaders to find political solutions to the world's conflicts, if the swelling numbers of forcibly displaced people are ever to return home.

"Securing solutions for the millions of people uprooted around the world, and avoiding a repeat of the massive outflows that have taken place over recent years, ultimately rests on political solutions," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said as he briefed the UN Security Council in New York.

Painting a dire picture of the reality the international community now faces, he said that a succession of major new crises has caused massive displacement across virtually all regions of the globe, he said, noting that the number of people forcibly displaced worldwide is now approaching 66 million  up from 42 million in 2009.

This includes 17.2 million refugees under the responsibility of the High Commissioner's Office (UNHCR), a 70 per cent increase since then.

Mr. Grandi cited several ongoing crises, including in Syria and Iraq, which together accounted for a quarter of all those forcibly displaced. But new crises have developed, he said, with many unfolding "in ungoverned spaces, driven by varying combinations of poverty and underdevelopment, environmental degradation, inequality and persecution."

Recalling his recent visit to Bangladesh, at the border with Myanmar, he said he witnessed the most rapid refugee exodus since the massive population movements of the mid-1990s. Indeed, the Rohingya fight from Myanmar's Rakhine state is a stark illustration of what happens when the root causes of conflict and violence are not addressed, and the relationship between a State and some of its people breaks down.

"The result is a human tragedy on a dramatic scale," he stated.

At the same time, situations that appeared to have stabilized, such as those in Burundi, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, had been affected by new crises triggering new refugee outflows; while protracted situations, such as in Afghanistan and Somalia, remained entrenched.

'Have we become unable to broker peace?'

Mr. Grandi warned that the international community is failing to generate political solutions.

"Have we become unable to broker peace?" he asked. "I ask this question here, in the Security Council, whose raisons d'etre are conflict resolution and sustaining peace  because I see the direct impact of these failures, every day, on the lives of tens of millions of people, uprooted and forced to abandon their homes."

Outlining several action points for the Council, Mr. Grandi said the 15-member body first needs to support preventative measures to address the causes of conflict and avoid deepening displacement crises.

Humanitarian actors and peacekeepers should draw on their diverse strengths to help protect civilians affected by conflict, while at the same time preserving the neutral, impartial character of humanitarian action, he said.

Mr. Grandi also called for resolute action "to tackle the horrific abuses perpetrated by traffickers and identify and prosecute them."

Without the restoration of peace and security, however, it would be impossible for refugees and other displaced persons to return home.

"Only 500,000 refugees worldwide returned home last year. And very few displacement situations in the last decade have been brought to a definitive conclusion," he said.

"A full response to today's massive displacement flows can only be achieved through action to restore security, resolve conflict and build peace," he concluded.

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Suspected cholera cases in crisis-torn Yemen near 900,000 - UN

2 November 2017  Already struggling to cope with a dire humanitarian crisis, war-torn Yemen is now facing the fastest-growing cholera epidemic ever recorded, with some 895,000 suspected cases as of 1 November, the United Nations relief wing reported Thursday.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that nearly have the suspected cases are children. Overall, there have been nearly 2,200 associated deaths since 27 April.

The outbreak is affecting over 90 per cent of districts across 21 of the country's 22 governorates. Despite the enormous challenges, humanitarian partners have established 234 Diarrhoea Treatment Centres and 1,084 Oral Rehydration Corners in 225 affected districts in 20 governorates, according to OCHA.

Some 3.6 million people have been connected to disinfected water supply networks in 12 governorates. Over 17 million people in all governorates were reached with cholera prevention messages.

OCHA warned today that Yemen is also facing the world's largest food emergency and widespread population displacement. After more than two years of war, nearly 21 million people need urgent humanitarian assistance, seven million of whom are severely food insecure, staving off the threat of famine.

Despite challenging conditions and limited funding, the UN and its humanitarian partners provided direct assistance to more than seven million people this year.

"The humanitarian response to the world's worst hunger crisis and its worst cholera outbreak must be fully resourced", said UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock during his recent mission to Yemen. "With only two months left in the year, the UN Humanitarian Response Plan is only 56 per cent funded. I know that we can do more."

Against that background, he called on donors to step up their support to the Response Plan to ensure the most effective and coordinated response across the country.

"Across the country, and on both sides of the frontline, Yemenis are being kept alive by brave humanitarian aid workers, working under extremely difficult conditions," said Mr. Lowcock, who is also the UN Under-Secretary-General for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, stressing that while relief workers "are able to be effective because we remain impartial, neutral and independent [] we need to do more  and we need more support."

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UN Refugee Chief: Political Solutions Needed to Ease Global Crisis of Displacement

By Margaret Besheer November 02, 2017

The United Nations refugee chief says the growing crisis of global displacement is the result of weak international cooperation and the inability to prevent, contain and resolve conflicts.

"Have we become unable to broker peace?" U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi asked the U.N. Security Council, which is charged with maintaining international peace and security.

He noted that a series of new crises has caused massive displacement across virtually every region of the world.

"The number of people forcibly displaced worldwide is now approaching 66 million," Grandi said Thursday, adding that the wars in Syria and Iraq are responsible for a quarter of all persons forcibly displaced.

And while those conflicts grind on, new ones have developed and old ones have reignited, all causing untold suffering. Last year, only a half-million refugees worldwide returned home.

"When I meet refugees, their first question is not about food or shelter, but about peace and security  because it is security, and peace, that will convince them to return home," Grandi said.

"But giving hope to millions of uprooted people, and avoiding a repeat of recent, massive outflows, ultimately rests on political solutions," he told the council.

Rohingya crisis

Since August 25, more than 600,000 mostly minority Rohingya Muslims have fled from Myanmar's northern Rakhine state to neighboring Bangladesh, in the wake of a military operation against Rohingya militants.

The crisis has spiraled into the world's fastest-growing refugee emergency.

"People continue to come, so they don't feel safe there," Grandi said of the exodus, noting the Rohingya were unlikely to return home until violence stops and people feel they can return in safety.

He also urged the government to implement the recommendations in the Advisory Commission report led by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan, which include carrying out inclusive development in Rakhine, more access for humanitarian workers, and progress on the citizenship issue for the stateless Rohingya.

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UN Sounds Alarm on Humanitarian Crisis in Congo's Kasai

By Anita Powell November 02, 2017

An official from the United Nations' World Food Program has issued a warning about the situation in the southwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where conflict has left 3.2 million people severely hungry.

In the past year, about 1.4 million residents of Congo's Kasai region have been displaced by violence that has killed more than 3,000 people and destroyed entire villages, according to Claude Jibidar, who heads the WFP in Congo.

Jibidar says the situation is comparable to well-known crisis zones like Syria and Yemen. Congo, the massive central African nation, now has the highest burden of displaced people in Africa.

"The number of people displaced during that time period is more than Syria, than Yemen, than all the other emergencies that you know of," he said. "That just tells you about how serious the situation is in the DRC."

The WFP is not the only humanitarian group calling attention to the Kasai region. Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders recently warned of widespread malnutrition among children, with rates of severe acute malnutrition as high as 10 percent in some areas.

Horrific tales

The violence began last year after the killing of a tribal leader who defied longtime President Joseph Kabila, whose term officially ended in December 2016. Critics have accused Kabila of being slow to hold fresh elections, in what they say is a bid to cling to power.

The Kasai violence quickly spiraled into ethnic clashes, massacres and abuses at the hands of armed groups, including Congo's army. Jibidar, who visited the area last week, says many residents who had fled into the bush to escape violence emerged with horrific tales to tell.

"It is the use of machete; it is the systematical use of rape on women; it is really terrible, terrible things," he said. "Kasai has been characterized by the beheading of a lot of people. You have heard about the mass graves; it has been a terrible situation. People who are coming out, they are just traumatized. Traumatized."

Without significant increases in funding from donor nations, he says, the agency will run out of food by mid-November.

He says the bigger solution to Kasai's woes is beyond the scope of his U.N. agency. Jibidar noted the DRC government has made progress in restoring peace, along with the U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo.

"It is a question of sustained, long-term security and peace," he said. "That is the first thing. Without peace and security maintained, now it is calm, it has to remain calm. People have to regain confidence and they all have to come out of the bush."

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Liberia Supreme Court Halts Preparation for Runoff Vote

By Monique John November 02, 2017

Preparations for Liberia's presidential run-off election have come to a screeching halt just days before the scheduled vote. The Supreme Court ordered a stay while it hears a complaint filed by the third place finisher in the first round of polling.

The Liberty Party, led by Charles Brumskine, requested the writ of prohibition from the Supreme Court, alleging a host of irregularities in the first round vote that took place on October 10.

The National Elections Commission, or NEC filed its response to the court Wednesday.

Attorney Darryl Ambrose Nmah, the director of the Supreme Court's public information division, explains.

"There is no electoral dispute before the court as yet. All disputes are before NEC, and this petition is not looking at merits of elections," he said. "It's only looking at what Liberty Party is saying. They have a matter before NEC, and they want to exhaust that matter before the second round."

As of now, the runoff will be a contest between senator George Weah, who led the first round with 38 percent of votes, and Vice President Joseph Boakai, who took second with nearly 29 percent. Brumskine finished a distant third, winning nine percent.

His party's complaint cites alleged irregularities at polling stations, violations of electoral laws and fraud. It also accuses outgoing President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of meeting privately with election officials to influence the outcome  a charge her office promptly denied.

At least two other political parties have backed the complaint, including the ruling Unity Party.

Brumskine's chances of catapulting himself to the run-off are seen as slim. The National Secretary-General of the Liberty Party, Jacob Smith, says they're concerned with bringing credibility to the electoral process.

"These elections border on peace and stability of our country. It is not just a matter of somebody wanting to win the election We have to be able to implement all of the policy reform that we have put on the books," he said.

Political analyst Lawrence Yealue worries the process may reinforce perceptions of corruption.

"Legally, it's a healthy process but are the people going to understand this so that they don't go through some unrest? That's our fear. Most of our people are not educated to understand what this means," said Yealue.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments from the NEC and the Liberty Party on Friday. Only after those hearings will the Supreme Court announce whether it is postponing the Nov 7 runoff.

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Navy Cyber Mission Force Teams Achieve Full Operational Capability

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS171102-11

Release Date: 11/2/2017 2:51:00 PM

From U.S. Fleet Cyber Command/U.S. 10th Fleet Public Affairs

FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, Md. (NNS) -- On November 2nd, the U.S. Fleet Cyber Command/U.S. Tenth Fleet announced that all of the Navy's Cyber Mission Force teams achieved full operational capability (FOC) in early October, almost a full year ahead of schedule.

All 40 of the Navy's Cyber Mission Force teams were validated FOC by U.S. Cyber Command Oct. 6.

FOC is an assessment that a unit has achieved all manning, capability and training requirements necessary, as part of the Cyber Mission Force (CMF), to fully perform its assigned missions as validated by U.S. Cyber Command. FOC is not a measurement of overall combat readiness, rather it is an externally validated evaluation that the unit has met all its capability requirements and that it performs its mission as designed.

"Reaching FOC at this point in the development of the Navy's CMF teams is a testament to the extraordinary hard work invested in manning our teams and training our personnel," said Vice Adm. Mike Gilday, commander, U.S. Fleet Cyber Command/U.S. Tenth Fleet.

The focus of U.S. Cyber Command's Cyber Mission Force teams aligns with the DoD Cyber Strategy's three primary missions: defend DoD networks and ensure their data is held secure; support joint military commander objectives; and, when directed, defend U.S. critical infrastructure.

Reaching the FOC milestone represents a training throughput of over 18,000 course completions, 1,800 personnel, and 2,000 hours, executing full-spectrum operations during certification and training events. However, achieving FOC is only a waypoint as the Navy's operational need for a well-trained and motivated cyber workforce (active, reserve and civilian) will continue to grow in the coming years.

"Although reaching this milestone is a great accomplishment, the true challenge will be sustaining readiness and the prompt ability to 'answer all bells' when directed by U.S. Cyber Command," said Gilday.

U.S. Fleet Cyber Command serves as the Navy component command to U.S. Strategic Command and U.S. Cyber Command, and the Navy's Service Cryptologic Component commander under the National Security Agency/Central Security Service. Fleet Cyber Command also reports directly to the Chief of Naval Operations as an Echelon II command.

U.S. 10th Fleet is the operational arm of Fleet Cyber Command and executes its mission through a task force structure similar to other warfare commanders. In this role, C10F provides operational direction through its Maritime Operations Center located at Fort George Meade Md., executing command and control over assigned forces in support of Navy or joint missions in cyber/networks, information operations, electronic warfare, cryptologic/signals intelligence and space.

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Trump Reiterates Call For Death Penalty For New York Attack Suspect

RFE/RL November 02, 2017

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeated calls for an Uzbek immigrant accused of killing eight people in a New York truck rampage to get the death penalty.

However, Trump on November 2 backed away from his earlier call to send 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov to the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"Would love to send the NYC terrorist to Guantanamo but statistically that process takes much longer than going through the Federal system..." the U.S. president tweeted.

"...There is also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed. Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!" he wrote in separate post.

Trump had already said Saipov deserved the death penalty in a tweet late on November 1.

"NYC terrorist was happy as he asked to hang ISIS flag in his hospital room. He killed 8 people, badly injured 12. SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!" he wrote, using an alternate acronym for the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.

U.S. prosecutors brought terrorism charges against Saipov on November 1, saying he was inspired by Islamic State.

He is accused of driving a rented pickup truck that mowed down bicyclists and pedestrians on October 31, killing eight people and injuring 12. He was also charged with providing material support to a terrorist group.

In the attack, police say Saipov drove the vehicle along a bike path in Lower Manhattan before crashing into a school bus.

The suspect was shot by police after he jumped out of the pickup truck brandishing two air guns and yelling "God is great" in Arabic, authorities said.

Saipov was brought to a court in Manhattan in a wheelchair handcuffed and with his feet shackled to face the charges against him, which could bring the death penalty.

Prosecutors told the court that he asked to display IS's black flag in his hospital room after he was shot by police and said "he felt good about what he had done."

They said he openly confessed to the attack while being questioned in custody at a hospital after being shot.

Prosecutors also said that he had 90 videos and 3,800 photos on one of his two cell phones, many of them IS-related propaganda, including images of prisoners being beheaded, shot, or run over by a tank.

Court documents said that Saipov deliberately chose Halloween to stage the attack "because he believed there would be more civilians on the street" and more people would be killed.

Questioned in his hospital bed, Saipov said he had been inspired by the IS videos that he watched on his cell phone and began plotting an attack about a year ago, deciding to use a truck about two months ago, FBI agent Amber Tyree said in court papers.

During the last few weeks, Saipov searched the Internet for information on Halloween in New York City and for truck rentals, the agent said.

John Miller, deputy New York police commissioner for intelligence, said Saipov was not a subject of a criminal investigation before the attack, but he appears to have had links with people who were under investigation.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on November 1 that it had located another Uzbek man -- identified as 32-year-old Mukhammadzoir Kadirov -- wanted for questioning as a person of interest in the attack.

A law enforcement official was quoted as saying Kadirov was a friend of Saipov's.

In the past few years, IS online posts have exhorted followers to use vehicles, knives, or other readily available means of killing people in their home countries.

England, France, Sweden, Spain, and Germany are among the countries that have all seen similar deadly vehicle attacks since mid-2016.

With reporting by AFP, AP, Reuters, and dpa

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/white- house-considering-designating-new-york- attacker-uzbek-saipov-enemy-combatant -guantanamo-prison/28830486.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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Gitmo War Court Orders US General Jailed For Supporting Detainee's Legal Rights

Sputnik News

22:25 02.11.2017

On Wednesday, a judge in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, sentenced a US Marine in charge of a military court's legal representation to three weeks of confinement and ordered him to pay $1,000 for failure to follow orders concerning a case that involved the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000.

Brig. Gen. John Baker, 50, chief defense counsel for military commissions, received the sentence from US Air Force Judge Col. Vance Spath.

Spath said Baker failed to follow orders when he excused three Defense Department-paid attorneys  Rosia Eliades, Mary Spears, and Rick Kammen  from a military court case involving the USS Cole, something he did not have the authority to do, the Miami Herald reported. Spath said the decision to excuse them had been declared "null and void."

The attorneys sought to leave the case on the basis that they should be able to represent and defend clients without government surveillance  the Daily Beast reports that the attorneys believed the government was listening in on what should be privileged communications. Baker, supported their exit, and in standing up for this principle, was found in contempt of the court  a court, he argued, that had no proper jurisdiction over his actions in the first place.

The ruling was the first time the military tribunal in Cuba issued a ruling since 2008.

Appearing in the war court Wednesday, Baker argued that the court was set up to prosecute foreign terrorists and lacked jurisdiction to punish him since he was a US citizen. Baker was apparently denied the ability to defend himself after he made this assertion and was ordered to sit down.

"There are things I want to say, and you are not allowing me to say them," Baker told the judge, according to the Herald. "This is not a pleasant decision," the judge replied, adding that the legal proceedings were neither "fun" nor "lighthearted." Without the judge's ruling, though, he said there would be "havoc" in the justice system.

The particular case concerns Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a 52-year-old Saudi Arabian national who has been detained at Guantanamo for the past 11 years, two months. In 2008, CIA Dir. Michael Hayden confirmed al-Nashiri was among the al-Qaeda operatives the agency tortured.

Speaking at Georgetown University's 2016 NATSECDEF conference, Baker said that "put simply, the military commissions in their current state are a farce or as Rick Kammen  lead counsel for Mr. al-Nashiri  stated on the record last week, these commissions are 'hopelessly flawed.'"

 Sputnik

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Macedonian Court Convicts 33 People of Planning Terrorist Attacks

By VOA News November 02, 2017

A court in Macedonia on Thursday convicted 33 people of planning terrorist attacks as members of an ethnic Albanian militant group.

Heavy security, including helicopters flying overhead, protected the court proceedings in Skopje. Armored vehicles and at least 100 police officers deployed around the courthouse to safeguard the participants in the highly anticipated trial.

Seven of the accused were given life sentences, 13 got 40-year sentences, and the rest got sentences of 12 to 20 years, all on charges including terrorism and participating in a terrorist organization.

Four defendants were acquitted. Attorneys for the defendants said the proceedings were "a classic show trial" and derided the length of their clients' sentences.

"We didn't expect fair sentences, but we also didn't expect such a draconian ruling," said attorney Naser Raufi. He called for an independent investigation of the proceedings.

Those tried were arrested in a police raid and gunfight in the northern Macedonian town of Kumanovo on May 9, 2015. In the battle following the raid, 22 militants and eight Macedonian officers died.

The raid was conducted in response to an attack by armed men on a border post. Some of the attackers were former fighters from the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army, a militia that had fought in the 2001 insurgency in Macedonia that killed scores of people.

The insurgency ended with a deal providing greater rights for ethnic Albanians in Macedonia. Ethnic Albanians now make up about one-quarter of the Macedonian population of 2.1 million.

Some of the defendants were ethnic Albanians from Macedonia, while others were from neighboring Kosovo.

The Albanian National Liberation Army disbanded in 2002. Some of its leaders went into politics.

Lilica Kitanovska of VOA's Macedonian service contributed to this report.

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Poland May Receive 1st US Patriot Missile Defense Battery in 2019

Sputnik News

17:03 02.11.2017(updated 17:04 02.11.2017)

The agreement on the air defense system's supplies to Poland was signed during US President Donald Trump's visit to Warsaw.

WARSAW (Sputnik)  Poland has received a proposal by Raython, the US manufacturer of Patriot missile defense systems, according to which the first Patriot battery might be delivered there as early as 2019, according to Antoni Macierewicz, the minister of national defense.

"Under this proposal, the first battery will be delivered soon, but for the same price, and then will be modernized for the same price," Macierewicz has said in an interview to Rzeczpospolita newspaper, adding that in this case the first shipment will be expected in 2019.

According to the Polish official, the decision on the proposal would be taken within one month.

The Polish Ministry of National Defense and the US State Department of Defense signed an agreement on the deliveries of Patriot missile defense systems to Warsaw in July during US President Donald Trump's visit to the country. According to the initial deal, the systems should be handed over to Poland by 2022.

Patriot is a long-range, all-altitude, air defense system capable of countering tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and advanced aircraft. The United States supplies Patriot systems to a number of its allies, including Germany, Israel, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The upcoming supplies come in the wake of NATO boosting its presence in Eastern Europe under the pretext of an alleged "Russian threat," a claim strongly denied by Moscow, amid the Ukrainian internal conflict that erupted in 2014 following violent clashes in Kiev that resulted in a coup.

 Sputnik

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Military experts call reports about China building 6 nuclear submarines baloney

People's Daily Online

By Li Yan (People's Daily Online) 14:53, November 02, 2017

Indian media speculation that China is building six nuclear submarines at once is groundless, Chinese military experts said.

The reports said that the six nuclear-powered submarines, which they believe to be Type 096, are being constructed at a facility in Huludao, northeast China's Liaoning province, according to satellite imagery they obtained.

The speculation is not trustworthy, because India lacks the experience of building nuclear submarines, Yin Zhuo, a military expert, said in an interview with CCTV.

Countries normally build one or two submarines at the same time but not six simultaneously, because that would require a large amount of money, Yin said.

He added that submarines built and put into service simultaneously usually retire at a similar period of time, which would weaken military capabilities.

Another military expert, Cao Weidong, believes the speculation reflects the curiosity of the outside world about China's technical advancements, new strategies and tactics of the Chinese navy, and nuclear weapons strike capability improvements.

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'In reply message to N Korea, China hopes for better ties'

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 2, 2017 07:09AM

Chinese President Xi Jinping has reportedly responded to a message by the North Korean leader, hoping that Beijing and Pyongyang could enhance their relations, months after Beijing introduced strict restrictions on bilateral ties in response to Pyongyang's contentious missile and nuclear programs.

According to North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Thursday, the Chinese president made the remark in a reply message sent to the North's leader, Kim Jong-un, dated November 1.

"I wish that under the new situation, the Chinese side would make efforts with the DPRK (North Korea) side to promote relations between the two parties and the two countries to sustainable soundness and stable development and thus make a positive contribution to... defending regional peace and stability and common prosperity," the KCNA quoted Xi as saying in his message to Kim.

Xi's message was in reply to a congratulatory letter Kim had sent to the Chinese leader at the end of China's Communist Party Congress last week, when Xi was reappointed China's leader.

In his letter to Xi, dated October 25, Kim had wished the Chinese leader "great success" in his future tasks, hoping that bilateral ties would develop "in the interests of the peoples of the two countries."

Exchanges of personal messages between the leaders of the two countries have been rare. Back in May last year, Xi sent a congratulatory letter to Kim on his appointment as the chairman of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea.

The recent high-level communication was the first of its kind since China halted North Korean coal imports, banned new investments in North Korea, and stopped importing iron, seafood, and lead from the country some nine months ago.

Last month, China's major banks also suspended financial transactions for North Korean clients after the United Nations Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions against Pyongyang over its latest nuclear test back in early September.

Nevertheless, Beijing remains Pyongyang's closest and largest commercial partner, purchasing some 83 percent of the North's exports and selling 85 percent of the goods imported by the peninsular country.

But China has also had reservations about North Korea's rapidly advancing missile and nuclear programs.

China has also been under pressure by the international community, particularly by the United States, to use its influence on the North as leverage to convince Pyongyang to halt those programs. Beijing says statements of China's outsize influence on North Korea are inaccurate.

North Korea is under international pressure over its missile and military nuclear programs and has been subjected to an array of harsh sanctions by the UN Security Council. However, Pyongyang says it needs to continue and develop the programs as a deterrent against hostility by the US and its regional allies, including South Korea and Japan.

The US has substantial military presence in the region and has several times threatened North Korea with military action.

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To Avoid N Korea Pressing 'Their Button' Use Soft Power, Defector Warns Trump

Sputnik News

20:07 02.11.2017(updated 20:13 02.11.2017)

A North Korean diplomat who defected last year has told a US congressional hearing of the dire consequences of a military strike against Pyongyang. Thae Yong-ho urged Washington to use "soft power" to change Kim Jong-un's nuclear policy.

A former deputy chief of mission at the North Korean embassy in London has warned the United States against a pre-emptive military strike, adding that South Korea would inevitably pay the consequences.

Thae Yong-ho told a US Congress hearing on Wednesday, November 1, that Washington should use "soft power" to deter Kim Jong-un from aggression. Mr. Thae, the highest-level North Korean defector for decades, warned President Donald Trump of the "human sacrifice" South Koreans would pay if he acted hastily.

'Fingers on the Button'

"North Korean officers are trained to press their button without any further instructions from the general command if anything happens on their side," he told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

He said North Korea would inevitably launch short-range missiles and fire heavy artillery over the border if it was attacked by the US.

"We have to remember that tens of millions of South Korean population are living 70 to 80 kilometers away from this military demarcation line," said Mr. Thae.

The Trump administration has said it is considering a pre-empty military strike as one of its options as it seeks to deter Kim Jong-un  dubbed "Rocket Man" by Trump  from creating a nuclear missile capable of striking the United States or its key ally in Asia, Japan.

Tens of Thousands of Casualties

A Congressional Research Service report published last week said conservative estimates anticipate North Korean artillery along the frontier could cause tens of thousands of casualties in South Korea in the first few hours of a conflict.

The South Korean capital, and by far its largest city, Seoul, is barely 50 miles from the 49th parallel.

Mr. Thae said Washington should enforce sanctions and distribute information inside North Korea in order to challenge the regime's propaganda and turn people against Kim.

Pyongyang has accused Mr. Thae of embezzling government money and described him as "human scum."

'Massive Exodus'

Mr. Thae also suggested China could help by allowing an "exit route" for North Korean defectors and said a "massive exodus" would cause Kim's regime to collapse.

Mr. Trump, who has threatened the "total destruction" of the North, is due to visit South Korea on a five-nation tour of Asia which starts on Friday, November 3.

Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois and a decorated war heroine, wrote to Mr. Trump on Wednesday calling for him to provide the US public with declassified estimates of potential casualties, costs and outcomes from a war with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"I fear the country is being deprived of an accurate assessment of what war against the DPRK would entail," she wrote.

 Sputnik

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This is What Xi Jinping Told 'Comrade Chairman' Kim Jong-un in Rare Message

Sputnik News

15:13 02.11.2017(updated 15:53 02.11.2017)

In a rare message sent "out of politeness" Chinese President Xi Jinping has publicly communicated with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un after more than a year.

The note was sent in response to congratulations from Kim Jong-un last week for securing a second term as the head of China's ruling party.

"I wish that under the new situation the Chinese side will make efforts with the DPRK to promote relations between the two parties and the two countries to a sustainable soundness and stable development," Xi said, according to North Korea's KCNA news agency, addressing Kim as "Comrade Chairman."

Previously, Kim had offered Xi his "sincere congratulations" and expressed hope that their relations would develop "in the interests of the people of the two countries".

In a regular press briefing in Beijing on Thursday Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that the message from the North Korean leader was just one among many others received. Xi had responded "out of politeness," she said.

The last time KCNA reported a message from Xi was in July 2016.

Although Beijing and Pyongyang have exchanged greetings and congratulated each other on key anniversaries in the past, in recent times such exchanges have become very rare due to political tensions in the region.

Beijing has backed a new set of UN measures after North Korea launched a number of sporadic missiles and conducted its sixth nuclear test in September.

 Sputnik

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FinCEN Further Restricts North Korea's Access to the U.S. Financial System and Warns U.S. Financial Institutions of North Korean Schemes

U.S. Department of the Treasury

11/2/2017

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) today issued a final rule under Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act that severs Bank of Dandong, a Chinese bank that acts as a conduit for illicit North Korean financial activity, from the U.S. financial system. FinCEN also issued today an advisory to further alert financial institutions to schemes commonly used by North Korea to evade U.S. and United Nations (UN) sanctions, launder funds, and finance the North Korean regime's weapons programs.

"Today's actions will better protect the U.S. financial system from illicit schemes used by North Korea to evade sanctions and finance its weapons programs," said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. "Banks and businesses worldwide should take note that they must be vigilant against attempts by North Korea to conduct illicit financing and trade."

Section 311 Action against Bank of Dandong

On June 29, 2017, FinCEN found Bank of Dandong to be of "primary money laundering concern" for serving as a gateway for North Korea to access the U.S. and international financial systems despite U.S. and UN sanctions. As described in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), Bank of Dandong acts as a conduit for North Korea to access the U.S. and international financial systems, including by facilitating millions of dollars of transactions for companies involved in North Korea's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile programs. Bank of Dandong also facilitates financial activity for North Korean entities designated by the United States and listed by the UN for proliferation of WMDs, as well as for front companies acting on their behalf.

Today, FinCEN finalized this rulemaking by imposing a prohibition on U.S. financial institutions from opening or maintaining correspondent accounts for, or on behalf of, Bank of Dandong. Restricting Bank of Dandong from accessing the U.S. financial systemdirectly or indirectlyhelps protect the U.S. financial system from the illicit finance risks posed by Bank of Dandong and serves as an additional measure to prevent North Korea from accessing the U.S. financial system.

Advisory on North Korean Sanctions Evasion Schemes

FinCEN also issued today an advisory that provides red flags of illicit North Korean schemes, including the use of financial representatives, front and shell companies, trading companies, and financial institutions operating in areas bordering North Korea. The red flags are designed to assist financial institutions in identifying and reporting suspected illicit activity by North Korea and its financial institutions.

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North Korean Threat to Top Trump's Agenda in Asia

By Steve Herman November 02, 2017

On the eve of President Donald Trump's trip to Asia, the White House said Thursday that the threat from Pyongyang would be at the top of his agenda in his meetings with leaders and that denuclearization of North Korea was the only acceptable outcome.

If this is not achieved through pressure by economic sanctions and diplomacy, national security adviser General H.R. McMaster warned, the United States "will respond with all capabilities available to North Korean aggression."

Recent polls by NBC News/SurveyMonkey and Economist/YouGov show Americans consider North Korea to be the most immediate threat to the United States.

Trump is scheduled to visit South Korea, the North's rival, on November 7-8. It will be the second stop of his 12-day trip to five countries.

The president's talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and other world leaders are to center on questions about how to deal with Pyongyang's development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

"Our goal is not war, but rather the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," said Defense Secretary Jim Mattis last Friday at the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.

There is increasing anxiety on both sides of the Pacific about what Trump views as necessary to achieve his administration's vow to eliminate the threat to the United States posed by Pyongyang's weapons of mass destruction.

"I think we will come down to a point where  I liken it to a kind of a Cuban Missile Crisis  there's a finite time period where we have to make a decision, whether it's political or military, that really will change the political landscape of the Korean Peninsula," said Jae Ku, director of the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.

Highly charged rhetoric

The U.S. president and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently have had an unprecedented, highly charged exchange of rhetoric.

"The insults traded back and forth decrease the legitimacy of the United States and of the United States president," Thomas Countryman, former U.S. acting undersecretary for arms control and international security, told VOA. "It bothers me to see an American president sink to the same level of insults and threats that we have seen from the North Koreans over many years."

Asked whether Trump might tone down his "fire and fury" threat against North Korea during the trip, McMaster responded, "I don't think the president really modulates his language. Have you noticed him do that?"

The national security adviser said what's really inflammatory "is the North Korean regime and what they're doing to threaten the world."

Some in South Korea, including the main opposition conservative party, are pushing not only to have American tactical nuclear weapons brought back to the country but also for U.S. support to allow Seoul to possess its own nuclear arsenal.

"If the two countries push forward with redeploying tactical nuclear weapons, I'm certain it'll not only show the people of the two countries the solidarity of the alliance, but also prevent Kim Jong Un from having further desires to provoke," Liberty Korea Party Chairman Hong Joon-pyo said October 26 at the National Press Club in Washington.

Polls show 60 percent of South Koreans favor building nuclear weapons and nearly 70 percent want the reintroduction of American tactical nuclear weapons for battlefield use, which were withdrawn in 1991.

"You sense the anxiety, you sense the fear, you sense that this is something different that the Koreans are facing. And so, as a result, I think they have latched on to this idea that tactical nuclear weapons may provide that kind of security to them, and they haven't thought through all the messy issues that come with it," Ku, the U.S.-Korea Institute director, told VOA.

Denuclearization

South Korea's Moon is ruling this out.

"According to the joint agreement by the two Koreas on denuclearization, North Korea's nuclear state cannot be accepted or tolerated. We will not develop or possess nuclear weapons, either," Moon told the National Assembly in his state-of-the-nation address Wednesday.

Trump will address the National Assembly before flying from South Korea to Beijing. There, he will discuss the heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

China is North Korea's only remaining significant ally. China has expressed frustration with its smaller but increasingly provocative neighbor, but Trump is expected to request that Beijing apply even more pressure on Kim Jong Un.

"China is definitely doing more, but obviously it's not enough," McMaster told reporters at the White House on Thursday.

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Iran's Leader: Giving in to US will make it impudent

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Nov 2, IRNA -- Supreme Leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ail Khamenei said on Thursday, 'Giving in to the US will make it impudent; the only way is to resist.'

'The US animosity with Iran has blinded their calculation vision, leading them to repeat their mistakes,' said Ayatollah Khamenei in a meeting with thousands of school and university students in Tehran.

The meeting was held on the eve of the Iranian national Student Day which falls on November 4 this year.

Referring to the US frequent enmities with Iran the Leader added, 'They are using all the wickedness to destroy the fruit of the nuclear talks, i.e. the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).'

'The US is literally the nefarious and major enemy, and it is a fact established not through bias and pessimisms, but through experience, realization of issues, and field facts,' said Ayatollah Khamenei.

Commenting on the US President Donald Trump's calling Iranians a 'terrorist nation', the Leader said, 'These absurd words show that not only are the Americans an enemy of Iran's leader and government, but they also hold a grudge against Iranian people who have tirelessly resisted against them.'

Criticizing the ones who believe Iran should 'give in a little, so that the enmities abate', Ayatollah Khamenei said, 'Historical experiences indicate that the Americans don't have any mercy even for those who put hope in the US.' He added former Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq turned to the US and trusted them to counter Britain, but it was the Americans who deposed him in a coup.'

Mosaddeq, who nationalized the oil industry in Iran, was the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 until August 1953, when his government was toppled by the Central Intelligence Agency and the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service.

9417**1394

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Leader decries Trump's 'foolish' comments against Iranian nation

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 2, 2017 08:36AM

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has slammed US President Donald Trump's "foolish" remarks against Iranian people, saying such a stance is a clear sign of Washington's hostility towards the entire nation.

Ayatollah Khamenei made the remarks in a Thursday meeting with a large group of Iranian students ahead of the November 4 ceremonies marking National Day of Fight against Global Arrogance.

"As you witnessed recently, the head of US administration said the Iranian nation is a 'terrorist nation.' You see how foolish this attitude is? He calls a nation terrorist. He does not say the leader is terrorist; he does not say the government is terrorist; he says the Iranian nation is terrorist," the Leader said.

"Is it not hostility?" Ayatollah Khamenei asked.

"This foolish comment indicates that not only are the Americans the enemies of the Iranian leadership and government, they also show hostility and enmity towards the very existence of a nation that stands against them tirelessly," he added.

Ayatollah Khamenei underlined the need for identifying the enemy as the main condition for achieving national objectives and noted, "The US is, in the real sense of the word, the main evil enemy. This reality stems from true understanding of issues and the facts on the ground, not from prejudice and pessimism."

Americans, the Leader added, "are not capable of understanding the fact that a nation with such a rich history and culture cannot be eradicated."

Ayatollah Khamenei argued that the Americans' repeated mistakes and miscalculations stem from their deep animosity towards the Iranian nation

Touching on Washington's threats to withdraw from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with the world powers, the Leader said, "Now they are taking extremely mischievous actions to sabotage the results of the nuclear negotiations, namely the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action)."

Ayatollah Khamenei warned that making concessions with the US makes it even more aggressive, noting, "Resistance is the only way."

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Iraqi army recaptures key natural gas field from Daesh

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 2, 2017 05:44PM

Iraqi government forces have managed to liberate a major natural gas field from Daesh Takfiri terrorists in the country's embattled western province of Anbar as they are battling to drive the extremists out of their last remaining strongholds in the crisis-hit Arab country.

Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi told reporters in the capital Baghdad on Thursday that army troops had captured the Akkas gas field, which produces natural gas and condensate.

The total proven reserves of the field are estimated to be around 5.6 trillion cubic feet, and production reportedly stands at around 400 million cubic feet per day. The field is operated by Korea Gas Company (KOGAS) and is located in western Anbar province near the Syrian border.

Development of Iraq's Akkas gas field stopped Daesh terrorists seized swathes of land in Anbar in May 2014.

KOGAS halted development operations following multiple attacks by terrorists against the company's sites in the field.

Iraqi oil ministry officials have said that they have plans to send a crew to Akkas gas field to assess damages to its energy production facilities.

"We will make a field visit to write a report about the damages and what we need to bring back the field online as soon as possible," said Mohammed Ibrahim, an engineer who is a member of an oil ministry team supervising Akkas.

According to Ibrahim, the Iraqi government has plans to contact KOGAS officials soon to resume development operations at the field.

"Security forces are working to clean Akkas from landmines and booby traps that might be left by Daesh," Colonel Saad Hardan from Anbar police was quoted by Reuters as saying.

Earlier in the day, Nuaman al-Zawbai, commander of the 7th Division of al-Jazeera Operations Command, said government troops were in control of 85 percent of al-Qa'im town, located nearly 400 kilometers northwest of Baghdad.

"The local government, in cooperation with security forces, has prepared a plan to repatriate families that have been displaced from western regions. Officials have accordingly started to vet the official documents of interested families in a bid to prevent terrorists from disguising among ordinary civilians," Zawbai pointed out.

Meanwhile, intelligence sources speaking on condition of anonymity, also told Arabic-language Shafaaq news agency that Iraqi Air Force fighter jets had targeted and destroyed a Daesh convoy.

The sources said the ten-vehicle convoy was destroyed on the outskirts of Qa'im as extremists were fleeing to Syria's eastern border city of al-Bukamal.

Among those killed was the self-proclaimed Daesh governor of Qa'im, identified by the nom de guerre, Abu Ahmed al-Iraqi.

Separately, Daesh terrorists executed two fellow militant commanders in al-Bukamal on charges of escaping battles in al-Ebeidi town.

Government troops managed to retake al-Ebeidi from Daesh terrorists on Tuesday, and raised the national Iraqi flag over a number of buildings there.

Late last month, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi formally ordered the launch of operations to purge the towns of Rawah and Qa'im from Daesh terrorists.

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Daesh atrocities in Iraq's Mosul 'intl. crimes', must be tried by ICC: UN

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 2, 2017 02:49PM

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) says the atrocities committed by Daesh Takfiri terrorist group during its reign of terror in the Iraqi city of Mosul are "international crimes," urging Baghdad to accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the crimes.

A 52-page report compiled by the OHCHR, with the help of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), said on Thursday that Iraqi courts currently did not have jurisdiction over atrocities such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by Daesh against the residents of the northern city.

It also called on Baghdad to introduce amendments to Iraqi Criminal Law to grant jurisdiction to domestic courts over international crimes and to accept the ICC's jurisdiction with respect to the specific situation Iraq is experiencing.

The report, which was published on Thursday, particularly focused on the crimes committed by members of the terror outfit during nine months of fierce battle between city-based Daesh terrorists and government forces. The offensive commenced in October last year and lasted until July this year, resulting in the total liberation of Mosul from the grips of the Daesh terror group.

"Daesh's reign of terror has spared no one, inflicting untold suffering on unarmed residents whose only guilt is that they lived in the areas under ISIL (Daesh) control. Their evil acts did not stop at killing and terrorizing residents, as they wantonly destroyed cultural and religious monuments, including the city's iconic leaning minaret, al-Hadba, in total disregard of history and Islam," the report said.

The UN report also detailed various crimes the terror group committed against the desperate residents of Mosul, saying the information was mostly obtained directly from "the victims, survivors, or witnesses of violations and abuses of international human rights law and/or violations of international humanitarian law."

It also said that more than 2,500 people lost their lives during the nine months of the battle to liberate Mosul and 137,339 families (824,034 individuals) were displaced in the same period.

Daesh terrorists took Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, in the summer of 2014 and turned it into their de facto capital in the Arab country.

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Turkey Keeps Watchful Eye on Succession of Iraqi Kurd Leadership

By Dorian Jones November 02, 2017

Ankara is anticipating who will succeed Iraqi Kurdish President Masoud Barzani, following his announcement he plans to quit. Relations between Ankara and Iraqi Kurds, once close allies, collapsed after Barzani held an independence referendum. But Ankara could be eyeing his nephew as an ideal successor.

Turkey made little secret of its pleasure at Sunday's announcement by Iraqi Kurdish President Masoud Barzani that he is planning to step down. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed Barzani for holding an independence referendum, which Ankara feared could fuel similar secessionist demands among its own restive Kurdish minority.

At his weekly news conference, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin made clear Ankara was already looking to who will lead Iraqi Kurds going forward.

"A new tableau appears when the term of office of Masoud Barzani is not extended and there will be a transfer of his duties to Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani," Kalin said.

Nechirvan Barzani, a nephew of outgoing President Masoud Barzani, is widely seen as by Turkey as the ideal future leader. Being a regular visitor to Ankara, Nechirvan has developed close ties with Erdogan. The Iraqi Kurdish prime minister's coolness towards the independence referendum will likely enhance his credentials in Ankara.

His close ties with Turkey reportedly extend to significant personal business investments. Analysts say he is also seen by Turkey's political leaders as sympathetic to its calls for more help in its war against the Kurdish rebel group PKK, which is has many bases in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen established Turkey's consulate in Iraqi Kurdistan. He said while Nechirvan Barzani is viewed as the ideal new leader of Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkey is being careful not to be seen to be interfering in the succession process.

"We know that Mr. Nechirvan Barzani's relations with Ankara are best when compared to other political figures in Iraqi Kurdistan," he said. "So that would be seen as a welcome development [by Ankara], although judging by the statement of Mr. [Mevlut] Cavusolgu, who is the foreign minister of Turkey, the official position of Ankara is that this is the internal political affairs of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, so Ankara will not have an official reaction to this development."

Despite Nechirvan Barzani's close ties with Ankara, the Turkish president has refused to meet him along with the rest of the Iraqi Kurdish leadership for several months, a result of the collapse in relations between the once-close allies.

But Turkish presidential spokesman Kalin said a future request by the Iraqi Kurdish prime minister would now be considered, but will hinge on unspecified conditions being met by the Iraqi Kurds.Ankara is demanding the Iraqi Kurdish leadership annul the result of October's referendum vote, in which 93 percent of Kurds voted in favor of independence.

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Over half a million Rohingya Muslims must return to Myanmar's Rakhine as citizens: UN

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 2, 2017 07:08PM

The head of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says Myanmar must grant citizenship to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims so that they can return to the Southeast Asian country, where they fled government-run violence against the persecuted minority group.

"These people cannot remain stateless because this statelessness exposes them to discrimination and abuse, as has been the case in the past," said Filippo Grandi at a press conference after addressing the UN Security Council on Thursday.

More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have so far fled the predominantly-Buddhist Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh since August 25, when the crackdown on the Rohingya intensified in Rakhine state.

The massive exodus of distressed Muslims in Rakhine has also altered the demographic status of the state, where the military and Buddhist mobs have since last year been attacking Muslim Rohingya civilians.

Many of those who have fled have recounted harrowing accounts of rape, murder, and arson at the hands of Myanmar's forces and Buddhist mobs, in what has been branded "an ethnic cleansing campaign" against the Muslim minority group.

Estimates as to how many Muslims have been killed vary from 1,000 to 3,000.

"For people to go back and for this return to be sustainable, you need to address the very complex issue of citizenship," Grandi told reporters during the presser, adding, "No return will be sustainable ... if that issue is not unblocked."

Meanwhile, Myanmar's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, arrived in Rakhine's provincial capital of Sittwe, long after the government-sanctioned violence triggered the huge exodus. She has long been under fire by the international community for initially being silent on the violence and then defending the military's handling of the situation.

It was also not clear what her visit would entail, and whether the situation would in any way improve.

This is Suu Kyi's first trip to Rakhine since she assumed power in April last year following a landslide 2015 election victory. The majority of the residents in the northern parts of the state  some 1.5 million  were Muslims until the recent crisis.

At the root of the crisis is Myanmar's refusal to grant citizenship to the Muslim minority community. The government says the Rohingya should go to Bangladesh where they are originally from, while Bangladesh says that they are Myanmarese and that Dhaka accepts Rohingya refugees only on humanitarian grounds.

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Myanmar leader visits Rakhine long after crisis began

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 2, 2017 10:26AM

Myanmar's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has visited the country's Rakhine State, long after government-sanctioned violence against minority Muslims in the area drove out almost half of the Muslim population living there.

The Myanmarese leader arrived aboard a military helicopter in the provincial capital of Sittwe amid tight security on Thursday morning.

An exodus of distressed Muslims in Rakhine has altered the demographic status of the state, where the military and Buddhist mobs have since last year been attacking Muslim Rohingya civilians.

Suu Kyi has long been under fire by the international community initially keeping silent on the violence and then defending the military's handling of the situation.

According to Suu Kyi' spokesperson, Zaw Htay, she planned to visit the troubled border district of Maungdaw, which has seen the greatest exodus of Rohingya Muslims to Bangladesh.

"She will go to Maungdaw, and I cannot give any more details," he told Reuters.

It was also not clear what her visit would entail, and whether the situation would in any way improve.

This is Suu Kyi's first trip to Rakhine since she assumed power in April last year following a landslide 2015 election victory. The majority of the residents in the northern part of the state, which includes Maungdaw  some 1.5 million  was Muslims until the recent crisis.

More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have so far fled the predominantly-Buddhist Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh since August 25, when the crackdown on the Rohingya intensified in Rakhine State.

Many of those who have fled have told harrowing accounts of rape, murder, and arson at the hands of Myanmar's forces and Buddhist mobs, in what has been branded "an ethnic cleansing campaign" against the Muslim minority group.

Estimates as to how many Muslims have been killed vary from 1,000 to 3,000.

Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, has so far done almost nothing to end the violence in Rakhine. She has claimed that the widespread reports of killings and rape against the Rohingya were fake news.

Her government refuses to grant citizenship to the Muslim minority community.

So far, some 200 Rohingyas refugees have drowned as they attempted to cross a border river that separates Myanmar and Bangladesh.

The United Nations has described the Rohingya as the most persecuted community in the world.

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Pakistani Ex-Premier Sharif Returns Home For Anticorruption Trial

RFE/RL November 02, 2017

Pakistan's ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif returned home on November 2 to face trial in an anticorruption case focused on his family's offshore wealth.

Sharif, who had been in London with his wife as she received cancer treatment, is due to appear in court on November 3 over allegations linked to London properties the family owns, charges that could see the former premier jailed.

Allies of Sharif, who has served as prime minister twice and was toppled in a military coup in 1999, have called the proceedings a political vendetta and suggested the powerful Pakistani army might be behind it.

Sharif, 67, denounced the case in an interview on November 1 in London before flying home.

"This case in the National Accountability Bureau is highly bogus and fake, which doesn't have links to corruption," he told Geo TV, comparing the process to charges laid against him after General Pervez Musharraf seized power in 1999.

"There is no kickback or misappropriation of the national exchequer," he said.

The country's Supreme Court disqualified Sharif from office in July over unreported sources of annual income of about $10,000, which the former premier denies ever receiving.

The high court also ordered the country's National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to investigate and conduct a trial over the Sharif family's wider finances, including the London properties.

Sharif maintains control of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, which elected close ally Shahid Khaqi Abbasi as prime minister after Sharif was disqualified.

Also facing trial before the NAB court is Sharif's daughter Maryam and her husband, Muhammad Safdar. They have all pleaded not guilty.

The allegations against the family stem from the Panama Papers leaks in 2016 that appeared to show that Maryam and her two brothers owned offshore holding companies registered in the British Virgin Islands and used them to buy upscale flats in London.

A Supreme Court-appointed investigatory panel deemed that the family's wealth did not match its income, and accused Maryam and her brothers of signing forged documents to obscure ownership of offshore companies used to buy the London flats.

The panel's report was the basis for the Supreme Court ruling disqualifying Sharif and ordering the NAB investigation and a trial.

The high court ordered the trial to be concluded within six months, which would likely bring a verdict before general elections scheduled for next year.

With reporting by AP and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/pakistani-former- prime-minister-sharif-returns-home -anticorruption-trial-panama-papers -london-real-estate/28830552.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Syrian forces liberate more districts in Dayr al-Zawr city

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 2, 2017 07:17PM

Syrian army soldiers and allied fighters have managed to wrest control over three more neighborhoods in the eastern city of Dayr al-Zawr in their latest push against Daesh terrorists.

Syria's official SANA news agency announced the recapture of the al-Jbiliah, al-Abed, al-Jamaiat districts on Thursday.

A Syrian military source told SANA that the army units had inflicted heavy losses on terrorists' ranks and equipment.

Earlier reports said the Syrian troops had "tightened the siege" on Daesh militants in in Dayr al-Zawr city while the takfirist elements were using loudspeakers to urge their comrades "not to run away from the fighting, and to kill any member who tried to escape or surrender."

Meanwhile, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) confirmed the government forces' gains in Dayr al-Zawr, the capital of the oil-rich province of the same name.

The UK-based monitoring group said Daesh now controlled less than five percent of the city amid advances by pro-Damascus fighters under Russia's air cover.

If the Syrian government forces "succeed in continuing this offensive, they could bring an end to IS (Daesh)'s presence (in the city) in hours or days," the SOHR added.

Daesh once held large parts of Dayr al-Zawr city, and for almost three years laid siege to other areas under government control.

In early September, Syrian forces broke the Dayr al-Zawr siege.

Daesh has recently retreated from much of the territory under its control amid sweeping advances by Syrian soldiers and allied fighters on the battlefield.

Russia has been conducting air raids against Daesh and other terrorist groups inside Syria at the Damascus government's request since September 2015. The strikes have helped Syrian forces advance against anti-Damascus militants.

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Russian long-range bombers strike Daesh positions in Syria's Dayr al-Zawr province

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 2, 2017 05:20PM

The Russian military says six of its Tupolev Tu-22M3 long-range bombers have successfully pounded the positions of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in Syria's eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr for the second day in a row.

According to a statement by the Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday, the large bombers struck Daesh targets, including command centers, weapon depots and fortified areas, in the town of al-Bukamal, located in the vicinity of Syria's common border with Iraq, where the Syrian forces are making territorial gains against the terrorists.

The Thursday strike was "carried out in order to support the Syrian government forces to crush Daesh terrorists," added the statement, carried by the TASS news agency. The aerial raid on terrorists' positions in the war-torn country was commenced on Wednesday, after the long-range bombers flew over Iran and Iraq to reach the designated targets near the border town.

The statement said that the bombers returned safely to their bases in Russia after destroying an unspecified number of terror targets, adding that the planes were covered with a number of Su-30SM fighter jets from the Russia-run Hmeimim air base in Syria's western coastal province of Latakia during the operation.

In September, Syrian government forces, backed up by Russia's airstrikes, reached Dayr al-Zawr on the Euphrates River, breaking a three-year terrorist siege on the city and a nearby air base.

Russia has been conducting air raids against Daesh and other terrorist outfits in Syria at the Damascus government's request since September 2015. Moscow has also maintained a naval group in the Mediterranean since the start of its anti-terror campaign in the war-ravaged Arab country.

Daesh has recently retreated from much of the territory under its control amid sweeping advances by Syrian army soldiers and allied fighters on the battlefield.

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Syria urges UN action after fresh Israeli airstrikes

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 2, 2017 05:12PM

Syria has written two letters to the United Nations, calling on the world body to take swift action against Israel's attacks on the Arab country.

In the letters addressed to the UN chief and the Security Council chairman, the Syrian Foreign and Expatriates Ministry complained on Thursday about a recent Israeli airstrike on a copper factory for civil industries in the town of Hassia in Homs Province.

The Syrian ministry urged the UN Security Council to take "strict and immediate" measures to stop Israeli attacks.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group, claimed that Israeli warplanes had targeted an arms depot belonging either to the Syrian government or the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement.

Israel's Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz declined to comment on the strike, but repeated a threat to hit what he called "arms smuggling" to Hezbollah.

Syria's state television reported "an aggression" by Israel in Homs, adding that the army had "responded" by firing a surface-to-air missile at the aircraft. Israel's Channel 10 television said the Israeli jets were not hit and returned safely to base.

During the past few years, Israel has frequently attacked military targets in Syria in what is considered as an attempt to prop up terrorist groups that have been suffering heavy defeats against Syrian government forces.

On several occasions, the Syrian army has confiscated Israeli-made arms and military equipment from militants fighting pro-Damascus forces. Israel has also been providing medical treatment to the extremist militants wounded in Syria.

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France unhappy about Russia's forum on Syria, stresses Geneva process

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 2, 2017 04:55PM

France has expressed its objection to a Russian initiative to bring about a political solution to the crisis in Syria, saying Moscow should pursue efforts aligned with those of the United Nations.

French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes Romatet-Espagne said Thursday that the UN-mediated talks on Syria, generally known as the Geneva process, was the only appropriate forum to discuss a political solution to the war in the Arab country.

"International efforts, including those by Russia, must be within this framework," said Romatet-Espagne during a daily briefing with reporters in Paris, adding, "The Geneva process is the only appropriate and internationally-agreed forum to discuss political aspects of the Syrian crisis, especially for an election process and a new constitution."

The remarks came after Russian authorities announced that Moscow would convene the "Syrian Congress on National Dialogue" in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on November 18. Invitations have been sent to 33 Syrian groups and political parties to attend the meeting, which would bring together Syria's warring sides.

Russia has been a main supporter of the Syrian government in its six-year battle against terrorism and has been conducting strikes against the positions of terrorist groups in the Arab country since September 2015 at the official request of Damascus.

Russia, together with Iran and Turkey, has also been acting as a guarantor state in peace talks for Syria in Astana, Kazakhstan. The three countries have helped set up de-escalation zones across Syria to reduce fighting on the ground.

France, on the other side, has been among key supporters of Syria's armed opposition, especially the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) umbrella group, which is based in Saudi Arabia.

Previous rounds of UN-mediated talks mainly failed due to the opposition's insistence for the departure of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power.

But, the demand seems no bargaining chip in talks any more due to Syria's continued victories against terrorists.

During her briefing, Romatet-Espagne also said that all players in the Syrian conflict, including Russia, should abide by UN resolution 2254, which France and other Western countries say has laid the foundation for a future peaceful resolution of the conflict.

UN Security Council Resolution 2254 sets out a political transition process, including plans for a new constitution, UN-supervised elections and transparent and accountable governance, in Syria.

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HNC opposition group opposes Russia-proposed conference on Syria

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 2, 2017 11:16AM

Syria's Saudi-affiliated opposition group, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), has bulked at a peace conference agreed at the Astana talks with the aim of bringing Syria's warring sides to the negotiating table in Sochi, Russia, later this month.

The HNC claimed in a statement on Thursday that the peace conference represented a deviation from UN-led diplomacy and an attempt to rehabilitate President Bashar al-Assad's government, Reuters reported.

"We, in the High Negotiations Committee, insist on rejecting discussion of Syria's future outside the legal, UN framework," said the opposition bloc, which was founded in Riyadh in late 2015.

The Astana peace process has been underway since January with the mediation of Iran and Russia, the Syrian government's allies, and Turkey, which supports armed opposition groups.

The latest round of the talks was held late October, with the three guarantor states agreeing on the Russian initiative for holding a congress with the participation of Syria's conflicting sides in Sochi on November 18.

A joint statement published on the Russian Foreign Ministry's website at the end of the Astana talks listed 33 Syrian organizations invited to a "Congress of Syrian National Dialogue," which is to be held in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on November 18.

Russia says the key task of the event is to pave the way for constitutional reforms.

Damascus has backed the Russian plan, but opposition groups have rejected the idea.

The spokesman for the Turkey-based Syrian National Coalition (SNC) Ahmad Ramadan also said Wednesday that the plan seeks to circumvent the UN efforts to mediate Syrian peace talks in Geneva, adding, "The Coalition will not participate in any negotiations with the regime outside Geneva or without UN sponsorship."

Earlier on Thursday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov expressed hope that all Syrian opposition groups would attend the Moscow-backed Syrian congress despite some objections.

"We hope that everyone who believes that the fate of the country, its unity, its territorial integrity and its sovereignty are important will participate," Interfax cited Bogdanov as saying.

Six rounds of the negotiations took place on January 23-24, February 15-16, March 14-15, May 3-4, July 4-5 and September 14-15.

The fourth round of the Astana discussions in May resulted in an agreement on four de-escalation zones across Syria, which cover the provinces of Idlib and Homs as well as the Eastern Ghouta region near Damascus and Syria's southern border with Jordan.

The parties to the talks used the fifth round of the process to build up on the results of the May agreements.

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White House Calls On Russia To Stop Blocking UN Gas Attack Inquiry In Syria

RFE/RL November 02, 2017

The White House late on November 1 called on Russia to stop blocking efforts to renew the authority of a UN investigative body charged with determining who is behind chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

But the Kremlin on November 2 rejected the U.S. calls, with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov saying that "urgent and drastic measures must be taken to protect" the United Nations' body "and all activities along this track from U.S. diktat."

Authority for the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) of the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is due to expire on November 17.

Russia's Foreign Ministry later issued a statement saying that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson by phone that it is unacceptable to politicize the work of chemical weapons inspectors in Syria.

At the UN Security Council last week, Russia vetoed a renewal effort led by the United States that would have prolonged the JIM mandate until November 2018.

Also last week, the UN investigative team raised Russia's ire by finding that the Syrian government was responsible for an April sarin gas attack on the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun which killed dozens of people. Russia and Syria have denied the allegation.

"This unconscionable attack marks the fourth time that the JIM has confirmed that [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's] regime used chemical weapons, underscoring the brutal and horrifying barbarism of Bashar al-Assad and making the protection provided by Russia even more egregious," the White House said in a statement.

"Russia's attempts to undermine and eliminate the JIM show a callous disregard for the suffering and loss of life caused by the use of chemical weapons, and an utter lack of respect for international norms," it said.

"The United States implores the UN Security Council to renew the mandate of the JIM so that we may continue to identify the perpetrators of these horrific attacks and send a clear message that the use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated," the White House said.

The Assad government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons. It said its air strikes in Khan Sheikhoun hit a weapons depot belonging to rebel forces, a claim "excluded" by the UN's Commission of Inquiry on Syria chairman Paulo Pinheiro.

In vetoing the investigative team's renewal last week, Ryabkov cast doubt on its conclusion that Syria was behind the Khan Sheikhoun attack, saying the investigation involved "dubious witnesses and unconfirmed evidence," according to Russian news agency Interfax.

The Khan Sheikhoun attack prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to launch missile strikes on Syria's air base in Shayrat, which Western governments say was used to launch the gas attack.

After years of arguing over who is behind frequently reported chemical attacks in Syria, the UN council unanimously agreed to create the JIM in 2015. Its authority was renewed it for another year in 2016.

With reporting by Reuters, depa, and TASS

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/white-house- calls-on-russia-stop-blocking-un-gas-attack-inquiry -syria-khan-sheikhoun/28830540.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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Six Russian Long-Range Bombers Strike Daesh Command Posts in Deir-ez-Zor

Sputnik News

15:30 02.11.2017(updated 15:58 02.11.2017)

Russian long-range aviation has targeted Daesh targets in the town of Abu Kemal in the province of Deir ez-Zor for the second day in a row.

The Russian Defense Ministry has announced that six Tu-22M3 strategic bombers had launched a massive strike on Daesh's arms and ammunition depots, command posts and fortified areas that were confirmed to be destroyed by means of reconnaissance.

The November 2 strike "carried out in order to support thr Syrian government forces to crush Daesh terrorists," came just a day after the Russian long-range bombers that flew over the territory of Iran and Iraq carried out a strike destroying Daesh targets in the town of Abu Kemal.

The Syrian army assisted by the Russian Aerospace Forces is currently on an offensive launched after the historic liberation of the city of Deir ez-Zor and the lifting of its three-year terrorist blockade aiming to wipe Daesh out of the province. As a result of the operation, the Syrian army have already gained control of a number of areas in the Euphrates River valley and freed the once largest Daesh stronghold in the Deir ez-Zor province from terrorists that had been used by the jihadists to accumulate weapons and manpower to launch attacks on the cities of Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor.

Most lately, a Russian submarine launched a strike with the Kalibr cruise missiles from the Mediterranean on the Daesh targets in Abu Kemal to help the Syrian army's offensive on the ground.

While Russia's data says that over 90 percent of Syria has been liberated from Daesh, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has stated that the Russian military campaign launched at the request of President Bashar Assad in 2015 will be completed soon.

 Sputnik

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Russia Debunks UN-OPCW Report Blaming Damascus for Idlib Chemical Attack

Sputnik News

13:33 02.11.2017(updated 19:32 02.11.2017)

The Russian Defense Ministry, Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Industry and Trade have presented their own report on chemical attacks in Syria in the wake of a UN-OPCW document, which accuses Damascus of using chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhoun on April 4.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has stated that the risk of crimes related to chemical weapons use outside the Middle East is high.

"According to our assessment, the risk of chemical crimes spilling outside the borders of Syria and Iraq is very high, and even outside the Middle East such incidents could start taking place  in Afghanistan, in Russia, and in Western Europe."

Russia has voiced strong opposition to the use of chemical weapons, emphasizing that those guilty in such crimes should be brought to justice.

Claims that Russia is allegedly encouraging chemical weapons' use in Syria are "hysteria" and attempts to discredit Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry has stated, adding that it is unacceptable to blame Damascus for it based on media reports. Moscow believes that it makes no sense for Damascus to use chemical weapons as only the opposition could benefit from it.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the UN-OPCW report on the chemical weapons' use in Syria is biased, "unprofessional and amateur."

"Of course we expected that the mechanism and the OPCW fact-finding mission would ensure a completely unbiased and a highly professional manner of investigation to decidedly and conclusively establish the guilty party. I shall say straight away that these expectations were not met," the head of the Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Department of the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry Mikhail Ulyanov said at a briefing.

First investigators refused to visit the site of the alleged chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun in the Idlib province, the Russian ministry has recalled, adding that the probe had been conducted remotely.

"The investigation  was carried out remotely in New York and the Hague offices, as well as on the territory of one of the countries bordering Syria. This could not help but affect the quality of the investigation, which turned out to be extremely low."

Specialists had previously refused to visit the Shairat airbase, from where the chemical attack was allegedly conducted, according to the claims of Western countries explaining that visiting the airbase was "not a part of their mandate," but still visited the base in October.

"But experts categorically refused to collect samples in order to detect sarin saying that they did not have the relevant instructions," Ulyanov said, noting that Moscow suspects "sabotage" in the work of the experts.

"Actually, this is a scandal: this is an attempt to mislead the international community," he told reporters.

The report into the chemical attack contains words "supposedly," "likely," etc, which mean that the findings of the document can be questioned, according to Moscow.

Moscow Debunks All Three Points in Report Blaming Idlib Chemical Attack on Damascus

The report blamed Damascus for the Idlib chemical attack based on three claims that 1) a bomb with sarin has been dropped by the Syrian military aviation on Khan Sheikhoun; 2) photo and video from the site; 3) analysis of sarin.

According to Russia's findings, a Syrian warplane was in the area, but it was 5 km away from the site and couldn't drop the bomb on the site due to the plane's technical characteristics. Eyewitnesses also didn't see a jet above Khan Sheikhoun, a Russian Defense Ministry official has said, emphasizing that due to these facts it is incorrect to say that a Syrian Su-22 could have dropped a bomb on the town in Idlib.

"If the plane had flown on the route which was registered by the United States it could not have attacked Khan Sheikhoun from a simply technical point of view."

Moscow has been calling on OPCW-UN experts to probe whether the Khan Sheikhoin events had been staged but have received a negative response.

"The report [by the OPCW-UN] noted that in 57 out of 247 cases of requests for medical assistance, the victims were taken to medical facilities even before the incident took place. The incident took place between 6:45 and 7:00 a.m. [4:45-7:00 GMT], according to the JIM [Joint Investigative Mechanism]. They [57 alleged victims] accessed health services even before that, and these facts are recorded and documented," Ulyanov told a briefing, adding that some of the victims requested medical assistance in a hospital located 78 miles away from Khan Sheikhoun.

Based on the way the bomb crater looks, the ammunition that hit Khan Sheikhoun exploded on the ground, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

As a Russian chemistry expert has noted, claims of unique characteristics of sarin, which was confirmed to be used in Idlib, are baseless. According to the photos of White Helmets' volunteers, they touched the site with their bare hands, if it was sarin, they would have died.

"Look, these people are digging in a shell pit, collecting something there, while they use respirators and cotton gloves as protective equipment, which do not really protect from sarin. Meanwhile, these people, as you can see, feel quite normal, cheerful, healthy. If there was sarin in the shell pit, the picture would be quite different, terrifying," Ulyanov said, commenting on the video.

According to Ulyanov, the video gives all grounds to assume that an explosive was first blown up, forming a pit where White Helmets volunteers then carried out their manipulations for camera, and only later were these pits splashed with sarin.

"Otherwise, these people would have already been dead We drew the JIM's attention to this video, but they preferred to refrain from analyzing it and reflecting it in the report."

The ammunition shown in the OPCW report was self-made from a water-pipe, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

In conclusion, the Russian diplomat has said that the all findings of the report have been proved to be false by Moscow.

However, Moscow has welcomed that the report agreed that photos made by the White Helmets organization's volunteers who are believed to be connected with al-Nusra Front-linked are fake and staged.

Khan Sheikhoun Incident

The Khan Sheikhoun incident that took place in Syria's Idlib province on April 4, 2017, left 80 people dead and injured 200 more. While the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, supported by the United States, immediately blamed the Syrian government for using the chemical weapons against civilian population, Damascus has strongly denied the allegations and reiterated that it does not possess any chemical weapons' arsenal, the full destruction of which was confirmed by the OPCW.

Commenting on the accusations against the Syrian government, Russia has multiple times reiterated its position that all chemical weapons were taken out of Syria in mid-2014 with Washington's assistance and called for a thorough probe into the Khan Sheikhoun events.

Despite Washington immediately blaming Damascus for the alleged chemical attack even before the probe into it was launched, the US has admitted that terrorists in the country are in possession of such weapons.

According to the UN-OPCW report, the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad is allegedly responsible for the use of sarin in the Khan Shaykhun incident, while Daesh terrorist group is responsible for the use of sulfur mustard in Umm Hawsh. The Russian Permanent Mission to the United Nations has commented on the document, stating that the report looked more like an amateur document, and was based mostly on assumptions and the selective use of facts.

 Sputnik

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White House Accuses Russia of Undermining UN Panel Amid Chemical Weapons Probe

Sputnik News

07:23 02.11.2017(updated 08:27 02.11.2017)

White House claims that "Russia's attempts to undermine and eliminate" the OPCW investigative mechanism demonstrates an "utter lack of respect" for international norms.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  The White House has accused Russia of attempts to get rid of a UN-OPCW body researching the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria, in a statement from the press secretary.

Russia blocked a US-drafted UN Security Council resolution last Tuesday to renew the panel's mandate before it concluded the seventh report on the 2017 attack in the village of Khan Shaykhun and the 2016 incident in Um-Housh.

"Russia's attempts to undermine and eliminate the JIM show a callous disregard for the suffering and loss of life caused by the use of chemical weapons and an utter lack of respect for international norms," the statement read.

The UN-Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Joint Investigative Mechanism published its findings two days later, blaming the attack on the Syrian government. Its mandate expires on November 17.

The White House said it implored the UN to renew JIM's mandate, while accusing countries that "fail to support its work" of standing in "direct opposition of all standards of reasonable international conduct."

Russian envoy to the UN Vassily Nebenzia said the fate of the independent body, which was established by a unanimous UN Security Council vote, would be decided in due time once it was determined that the investigation was being conducted in a professional manner.

The Permanent Mission of Russia to the United Nations criticized the report, saying that it looked more like an amateur document and was based mostly on assumptions and the selective use of facts.

 Sputnik

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President Tsai promises sustained increase in defense spending

ROC Central News Agency

2017/11/02 18:27:26

The Solomon Islands, Nov. 2 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen () on Thursday reiterated her pledge to boost Taiwan's defense budget by at least 2 percent per year in the future in an effort to build a capable defense force.

"Although a fixed figure has not been set, we will increase the country's military spending based on GDP growth over the previous three years," Tsai said at a press conference in the Solomon Islands.

"If the need arises, the defense budget will be increased by 3 percent and a special reserve fund can be used for major military procurements," she added.

The goal is to build a capable defense force that will integrate all branches of the military, said Tsai, who is on the final leg of a state visit to three of Taiwan's diplomatic allies in the South Pacific.

"It is extremely important to show our allies that we are determined to strengthen our defense capability," she said.

In response to reporters' questions about Taiwan's arms procurement plans, Tsai said she will ask Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense to review the country's military procurement priorities based on its short-, mid- and long-term needs.

The president is scheduled to return to Taiwan Nov. 4 via Guam, after completing her visit to the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands.

(By Lu Hsin-hui and Flor Wang)

Enditem/pc

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8 Turkish troops, 5 PKK militants killed in SE Turkey clashes

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 2, 2017 08:22AM

At least eight Turkish forces and five members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) have been killed during fresh clashes in southeastern Turkey near the Iraqi border.

According to security and hospital sources, the casualties came on Thursday as Turkish forces launched a helicopter-backed operation in search of PKK militants.

The sources said that PKK militants sought to cross the border into the mountainous Semdinli district of Hakkari Province.

Over the past months, Turkish ground and air forces have been carrying out operations against the PKK positions in the country's southeastern border region as well as in northern Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Earlier in September, the Turkish General Staff said its troops had killed almost 100 PKK militants during operations carried out in different districts in the provinces of Sirnak and Hakkari.

Turkey has declared the PKK a terrorist organization and has banned it. The militant group has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984.

A shaky ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015. Attacks on Turkish security forces have soared ever since.

More than 40,000 people have been killed during the three-decade conflict between Turkey and the autonomy-seeking militant group.



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Statement from Defence Secretary, Gavin Williamson

2 November 2017

Statement from Defence Secretary, Gavin Williamson

Defence Secretary, Gavin Williamson, said:

"I am both honoured and excited to have been appointed Defence Secretary. I have always had the greatest admiration for the professionalism and valour of all those who serve in our country's Armed Forces."

"The United Kingdom faces rising threats in a worsening international security situation, making Defence's work all the more important. It is imperative that we continue to take the fight to Daesh and keep Britain safe. As we leave the European Union, and forge a new Global Britain, Defence has the opportunity to deepen old friendships and contribute to building new ones around the world."

"I am determined to ensure that the Armed Forces receive the recognition they deserve for the great work they do, including through the Armed Forces Covenant, and that they evolve both to meet the changing threats that we face, and to ensure that they properly represent the modern society that they defend."

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1. Yes. The ordinance goes against state law and is not in the best interest of the cities.

2. Yes. At the very least, it should be amended to give police officers some discretion.

3. No. Voters approved the ordinance by large majorities; the councils cant ignore that fact.

4. No. The petition process has to be given a chance to work. Leave the ordinance alone.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say how the cities should move forward regarding the ordinance.

Vote

View Results
Ukrainian Interior Minister's Son Released From Detention

RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service November 02, 2017

A Kyiv court has released the 29-year-old son of Ukraine's powerful interior minister after his arrest the day before by anticorruption officials on embezzlement charges.

Oleksandr Avakov, son of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, was released on November 1 on his own recognizance after agreeing to wear an ankle monitor and to hand in his passport.

Arsen Avakov had confirmed on October 31 that his son had been detained by the National Anticorruption Bureau (NABU) after his home in the eastern city of Kharkiv had been searched.

NABU had said in a statement that arrests had been made, including a deputy interior minister, in an embezzlement case, but it did not immediately release the suspects' names.

The younger Avakov faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted of "embezzling, wasting, or obtaining assets through abuse of power."

Prosecutors had asked the court to detain Avakov prior to his trial, but Kyiv's Solomyanskiy District Court ordered his release, with the requirement that he wear an ankle bracelet and report to a judge should he want to leave the capital.

Before his release, Avakov told the court that "I believe this case is completely politically motivated and has nothing to do with the rule of law."

Former Deputy Interior Minister Serhiy Chebotary was also detained, the authorities said.

Ukraine's Interior Ministry also said it considered NABU's actions "grounded in politics rather than the law."

"A hybrid war that is going on in Ukraine focuses on discrediting politicians and officials who firmly stand for reforming and improving state institutions, in particular the law enforcement system," a statement said.

The case centers on a 2014-15 government contract for the purchase of military backpacks that was awarded to a company controlled by Volodymyr Lytvyn, a friend of Oleksandr Avakov and a co-defendant in the case.

NABU alleges that Lytvyn's company sold the bags at an inflated price of about $111 each that cost the state some 14 million hryvnyas ($520,000).

The bureau's prosecutors accuse Oleksandr Avakov of being the middleman who illegally directed the deal toward Lytvyn.

The case threatens to split apart the slender majority of Ukraine's ruling coalition consisting of Arsen Avakov's People's Front and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's bloc.

Reports in the Ukrainian media have said that disagreements between Avakov and Poroshenko are intensifying, and Avakov said his son's detention was an attempt to put pressure on him.

With reporting by AFP, AP, 112.ua, and Ukraiynska Pravda

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-avakov-son- released-embezzlement-nabu/28830734.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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Ukraine Wants To Question Manafort, But Says Requests To U.S. Have Gone Unanswered

Iana Polianska, Christopher Miller November 02, 2017

KYIV -- Ukrainian prosecutors intend to ask the U.S. Justice Department for permission to interview President Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, following his indictment earlier this week, an official said.

Prosecutors also want U.S. authorities to share any evidence they might have pertaining to an ongoing criminal investigation of a former justice minister, Serhiy Horbatyuk, prosecutor for special investigations, told RFE/RL.

"Yes, of course, we will do it. We are preparing a request and will ask about [U.S. officials] conducting an interrogation or sharing documents," Horbatyuk said by phone on November 2.

Manafort, who has not been charged with a crime in Ukraine, is wanted by prosecutors to testify in a corruption case targeting Oleksandr Lavrynovych, who was justice minister under Viktor Yanukovych, the Moscow-friendly former president who fled to Russia in 2014.

Prosecutors accuse Lavrynovych of illegally funneling more than $1.1 million in government funds to a powerful U.S. law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

Lavrynovych was arrested in September on unrelated charges, accused of having participated in a "coup d'etat."

Lavrynovych had hired the U.S. law firm in 2011 to review the jailing of then-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was sentenced to seven years in prison for allegedly brokering an unfavorable gas deal with Russia. Her sentence was viewed by much of the international community -- including Russia -- as political in nature. Tymoshenko was released in February 2014 and later reelected to parliament.

Manafort became involved when he arranged for Skadden Arps to draft a report that was used by Yanukovych's allies to justify Tymoshenko's imprisonment.

Court documents in the case against Lavrynovych, seen by The New York Times, alleged that Manafort "designed a strategy" for Skadden Arps to "confirm the legality of the criminal prosecution of Yulia Tymoshenko andreject any political motives of such prosecution."

In June, Skadden Arps refunded $567,000 to the Ukrainian government, reportedly because the money had been placed "in escrow for future work" that never took place, according to The New York Times.

Horbatyuk told RFE/RL that his office has made several appeals for information regarding the Lavrynovych case to the FBI and U.S. Justice Department officials since December 2014 -- each of which contained exactly one question pertaining to Manafort.

"We want to find out Manafort's role in it," Horbatyuk said of the Lavrynovych case. "We sent a request for questioning representatives of the firm and also Manafort. We also asked about copies of documents [pertaining to the case]."

Horbatyuk said Washington has not responded to the requests about Manafort.

Horbatyuk also said his office has not provided any documents to Special ounsel Robert Mueller's office or U.S. law enforcement for their investigation of Manafort, who was indicted on October 30 on conspiracy and other financial crimes charges. The charges relate to Manafort's longtime work as a consultant for Yanukovych's former political party.

"Our cases are related to each other," Horbatyuk said. "Accordingly, we are interested in cooperating with the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI."

A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment when contacted by RFE/RL.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroysman, meanwhile, told CBC News during an official visit to Canada on November 1 that his government had not been contacted by Mueller's office or U.S. law enforcement.

"But if we receive a request we will, of course, provide the information we have," he said.

Manafort and his business partner, Rick Gates, turned themselves into the FBI on October 30 as Mueller's monthslong investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election gains momentum. They pleaded not guilty to all charges and were put under house arrest. A bail hearing was set for November 2.

The indictment focused chiefly on Manafort's work in Ukraine, alleging that more than $75 million flowed through the offshore accounts of Manafort and Gates, and that Manafort spent more than $18 million "to enjoy a lavish lifestyle in the United States without paying taxes on that income."

Yanukovych, for whom Manafort worked for nearly a decade, was driven from office in February 2014 after months of public demonstrations fueled by Ukrainian anger over the corruption that was seen as flourishing during his presidency.

News of Manafort's indictment was welcomed by Ukrainians, especially those who helped expose Yanukovych's alleged corruption and the slush fund reportedly used by his political party to make millions in off-the-books payments to Manafort between 2007 and 2012.

Asked whether Ukraine would try to recover any of money Manafort was paid by Yanukovych and his party, Horbatyuk said, "I will be able to answer it, when it will be clear that the money paid to Manafort had a criminal origin."

"Until then, it's hard to say," he said.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-wants-to-question- manafort-unanswered-trump-indictment/28831822.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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Many people complain about how long it takes entities that aren't Google to update their Android devices to the newest versions of the OS. After the new release is already available on Pixels and Nexuses, a few months usually pass before the likes of Samsung, Huawei, and Sony roll out the same Android version to their products.

Today Sony wants to explain why these things take so long, and it's doing that through an infographic (what else?). The company says it knows how exciting it is for its customers to have "a shiny new version of Android" breathing new life into their devices.

Sony thinks it has made "positive strides" over the past couple of years in delivering more timely updates, and in fact it's already released the Android 8.0 Oreo build for the Xperia XZ Premium. If you're still intrigued as to why that didn't appear sooner, have a look at "The Journey of an Android Software Rollout" infographic below.

Source
These are the best offers from our affiliate partners. We may get a commission from qualifying sales.




Haiti - Development : President Moise visits the site of the interchange of Carrefour





Yesterday Wednesday, President Jovenel Moise, accompanied by Fritz Caillot, Minister of Public Works went to the construction site of the interchange of Carrefour to learn about its progress and meet the responsible for the Dominican firm Estrella, responsible for this important infrastructure, under the supervision of the firm LGL SA. Project management is provided by the Public Works Department and the cost of this exchanger is estimated at approximately $14 millions.



Launched in October 2014 under the Martelly-Lamothe Government, construction work on the interchange of Carrefour aims to solve the problem of bottling on the Carrefour road, particularly at the intersection of the Haitian Navy.



During his visit, the Head of State insisted on the need to accelerate this project, the completion of which is planned for early 2019.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-8288-haiti-reconstruction-two-major-elevated-highway-interchange-in-delmas-and-carrefour.html



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - News : Zapping...





NOTICE : Carrying weapons

On the occasion of the 1st and 2nd of November, the Office of the Secretary of State for Public Security wishes everyone a happy holiday and takes the opportunity to bring to the attention of the VIP and Security Officer that it is not recommended to carry handguns or long-range inside the enclosures where the festive activities or any other social activities open to the public take place. This recommendation follows up on serial complaints received from various restaurant owners and nightclubs who bears the responsibility of securing their space.



A camp for displaced becomes a village...

An urban development project made it possible to transform an IDP camp in Tabarre into a village where life is good. The land securing of the site at parcel level allows 220 families including 169 women heads of families to settle legally in the long term. A good example of coordination of the international community: a project funded by Canada, implemented by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in collaboration with the Canadian Red Cross, French and Haitian. The project was completed thanks to the great involvement of the Town Hall of Tabarre and the frank collaboration with the Unit of Construction of Housing and Public Buildings.



Interview with the UNESCO Number 2

As part of the 39th session of UNESCO's General Conference in Paris (30 October to 14 November 2017), Pierre Josue Agenor Cadet, Minister of Education, met with Qiang Tang, the Deputy Director-General for Education for UNESCO. Qiang Tang said he was sensitive to the Haitian situation and promised to continue to support Haiti. The cooperation files between Unesco and the Ministry of Education of Haiti was at the center of the exchanges.



The Minister of Health on tour

Marie Greta Roy Clement, the Minister of Public Health embarked this week on a tour of community reference hospitals in the West Department.



Camps : the Government must make an extra effort

Between October 2016 and September 2017, 1,845 households in 28 sites were able to return to their home communities thanks to the intervention of Government partners. 1,570 households were assisted in Grand'Anse and 275 in the Southern Department. 36 displacement sites remain open in both departments while the hurricane season is underway. Of the sites open, 25 sites (hosting approximately 450 households) remain untargeted by partners for return assistance. An additional effort by the Government is needed to support the return of these families to their areas of origin.



Installation of the new Protector of Citizens

Tuesday, Max Rudolph Saint Albin the Minister of the Interior and Territorial Communities, proceeded to the installation of the new Protector of the Citizen, Me Renan Hedouville. In his speech of circumstance, Hedouville promised to carry out a campaign of proximity for the popularization of the notion of "Human Rights".





HL/ HaitiLibre


















Police Accountability Boards starting work in most Maryland counties

Mandated by state law after the killing of George Floyd, Police Accountability Boards have begun work in the majority of Maryland counties.
Every holiday I like to make themed baked goods. Since I usually end up making thee for my students at school they are semi-homemade. It's not that I don't think the kids wouldn't like my homemade baked goods, it's just that they care more about the decorations then how the desserts taste.

This year I made a box of chocolate cupcakes. I baked them according to the package directions and ended up with 24 of them. While you can use canned frosting for these I do prefer to make my own frosting. I just like the taste and consistency of my own frosting better then the canned stuff.

These Turkey Cupcakes are easy to decorate and they turned out really cute. After the cupcakes have cooled simply frost them with brown frosting to make them look like a turkey. Then you need to put the decorations on quickly before the frosting hardens.

The beak and face are made out of a chocolate kiss. I used a little bit of orange candy melts to put on the end of it for the beak. Then I used white and black candy melts to make the eyes. If I could have found candy eyes I would have just used those but there weren't any around here. I usually get them at the cake decorating store in Pittsburgh when I'm home.

The cupcakes are finished off with mini M&M's for the feathers. They are super cute and didn't take very long to make. They would be great for kids to help with and next year I think I might have the students decorate them by themselves. I think they'll enjoy it and it'll be fun for them!


S alvador Dalis famous lobster telephone paired with Marcel Duchamps infamous fountain  or urinal  are on billboards all over town to flag up a new show at the Royal Academy, Dali/Duchamp, until January 3.

Today you cant buy a lobster telephone as such, though the Royal Academy is selling a vintage-style look-alike handset for 100. Australian design firm Noddy Boffin has made a lobster holder for a mobile phone as a Dali tribute. And DIY Dali includes sewing your own embroidered patches of the lobster and eye images on a plain cushion or the corner of a curtain or table runner. They are exclusive to the Royal Academy shop for 18.

Melting clocks, lips and lobsters are all Dalis visual legacy. But the eyes definitely have it for Dali-esque furnishings. Kendra Dandy has stood eyes on end with lashes like a thick curtain fringe for a mural for Surface Surface. And George Douglas has eyeballs in overdrive on a wallpaper for Feathr.

A sofa inspired by a Dali painting popped up in Knightsbridge last week. Its creator is Vincent Darre, a design celebrity in Paris. Now London can sample his outre style at the Vis-A-Vis bedding boutique in Motcomb Street, SW1. See the Conversations sofa, with its backrest of two lovers in silhouette.

Fans of London fashion designer Philip Colberts wearable art for The Rodnik Band include Lady Gaga and Cara Delevingne. Relax into a sharks mouth for 449 or a lobster chair for 900.

For 6,000 you can buy a modern version of Dalis celebrated lips sofa, inspired by his 1935 portrait of Mae West, made in Italy by Gufram at design stores such as Chaplins.

Celebrity fans: Paintbrush chair and artwork by Philip Colbert (Bill Batten)

Theres a witty take on Dalis moustache by London designer Peter Ibruegger  a set of five shot glasses for 30, at the Royal Academy shop.

Italian artist Piero Fornasetti (1913-1988) even added a moustache for a bizarre wall plate (125). Many Fornasetti designs including an Architettonico Table for 1,300 are at Amara.

Also championing surrealism in the UK are Minehearts Brendan Young and Vanessa Battaglia, with printed cupboards, rugs and cushions. And Lucy St George has fashioned a huge golden human hand into a surreal table.
Hyatt Hotels Corporation ( NYSE: H) announced today the entry of the Hyatt House brand into the Turkish market with the opening of Hyatt House Gebze. The opening of the hotel is an important step towards increasing Hyatt"s brand presence throughout Europe and is the fifth Hyatt House branded hotel to open outside the U.S. in 2017.

The Hyatt House brand offers casual, authentic hospitality and purposeful service in a smartly designed, high-tech and contemporary environment. It allows guests to feel at home, whether they are staying for a night or a month. The design is rooted in extensive consumer insights which indicate that guests seek stylish, comfortable, seamless experiences that accommodate their lifestyles and familiar routines.

Located just 10 miles from Sabiha Gokcen International Airport and less than 40 miles from Istanbul, the 158-room upscale extended stay hotel features fully equipped kitchens, comfortable living rooms, spacious bedrooms and stylish bathrooms, making it the perfect place for guests to relax and pause before beginning the next part of their journey.

The H BAR provides a relaxing space for guests to unwind in the evening, whilst the H Market is designed to meet the everyday needs of guests, offering snacks and freshly prepared salads and sandwiches.

The hotel also features a 24-hour workout room and indoor pool, more than 98 square meters of flexible meeting space and is conveniently located adjacent to the Gebze Center Shopping Mall.

Hyatt House Gebze comprises of:

158 apartment-style Kitchen Suites with fully equipped kitchens, comfortable living rooms, spacious bedrooms, and stylish bathrooms

with fully equipped kitchens, comfortable living rooms, spacious bedrooms, and stylish bathrooms Free Wi-Fi throughout the hotel and guestrooms

throughout the hotel and guestrooms H BAR , a cozy space for Hyatt House guests to unwind in the evening, featuring a delicious menu and a comprehensive selection of premium beers, wines and cocktails

, a cozy space for Hyatt House guests to unwind in the evening, featuring a delicious menu and a comprehensive selection of premium beers, wines and cocktails The H Market meets the everyday needs of guests, from snacks and sundries to freshly prepared salads and sandwiches

meets the everyday needs of guests, from snacks and sundries to freshly prepared salads and sandwiches Gathering Rooms with more than 1,054 square feet (98 square meters) of flexible meeting space; all-inclusive packages will be available, and each meeting room will come fully serviced with extensive menu options, comprehensive event planning support and audio-visual equipment

with more than 1,054 square feet (98 square meters) of flexible meeting space; all-inclusive packages will be available, and each meeting room will come fully serviced with extensive menu options, comprehensive event planning support and audio-visual equipment A 24-hour Workout Room, sauna and indoor pool to keep fitness routines going

to keep fitness routines going Game and media room

Borrows Menu with often-forgotten items from phone charges to razors

with often-forgotten items from phone charges to razors Additional services, including 24-hour laundry room, complimentary breakfast and grocery shopping services

Hotel website
Bangkok -- Best Western Hotels & Resorts is delighted to announce that Venti, the team from Bangkok's Thammasat University, has won the inaugural Best Western Rewards Social Media Business Contest 2017.

This exciting initiative challenged undergraduate university students in Thailand to create a real-life business plan for Best Western Rewards - Best Western's industry-leading guest loyalty program. After more than two months and almost 50 entries, the top five teams were invited to take part in a live final event at Best Western Plus Wanda Grand Hotel, Bangkok, on Thursday October 19.

Presenting their business plans directly to an expert panel of seven judges, the teams were under pressure; but Venti kept their cool to emerge as the winners. The winners were awarded a fantastic all-expense paid four-day, three-night trip to Tokyo, with accommodations at the Best Western Tokyo Nishikasai Grande.

The runners-up, Muuvolteen Associates from Chulalongkorn University, were awarded an all-expense paid two-night holiday in Phuket, at the Best Western Patong Beach. Other finalists received Best Western Travel Cards valued at US $100 and certificates.

The expert panel of judges at the live final event included Top Koaysomboon, Editor-in-Chief of Time Out Bangkok, Sriwan Dawieang and Natthapong Auwhangsanti, the founders of lifestyle travel site, ChangTrixGet.com, plus five senior Best Western executives. Rodney Simpson, Best Western's Senior Regional Director of Operations  Asia, was the head judge.

"The Best Western Rewards Social Media Business Plan Contest really captured the imagination of students in Thailand," said Rodney. "When we launched the contest this summer, we wanted to provide students with the opportunity to develop their business skills in a real-life working environment. We have been absolutely delighted by the response."

"We received almost 50 entries from teams of students all across Thailand, the majority of which were creative, professionally presented and showed real business acumen. This contest proves that the future of business in Thailand is in very good hands. Perhaps we'll even see one of these students in a senior role with Best Western Hotels & Resorts in the years ahead."

"Congratulations to Venti for their winning entry, and many thanks to every team who entered and made this such a rewarding contest," he concluded.

With its regional head office for Asia located in Bangkok, Best Western Hotels & Resorts is dedicated to the development of young talent in Thailand. The Best Western Rewards Social Media Business Plan Contest was designed to provide Thai students with a platform to showcase their abilities, allowing them to gain real-life experience before they graduate and preparing them to enter the workplace.

About BWH Hotel Group

BWH Hotel Group is a leading, global hospitality network comprised of three hotel companies, including WorldHotels Collection, Best Western Hotels & Resorts and SureStay Hotel Group. The global network boasts approximately 4,500 hotels in over 100 countries and territories worldwide*. With 18 brands across every chain scale segment, from economy to luxury, BWH Hotel Group suits the needs of developers and guests in every market.

WorldHotels

WorldHotels Collection is a privately held hotel soft brand within the BWH Hotel Group global network. Founded by independent hoteliers dedicated to the art of hospitality, and celebrating its 50th year anniversary in 2021, WorldHotels offers one of the finest portfolios of independent hotels and resorts around the globe, expertly curated to inspire unique, life enriching experiences that connect people and places. WorldHotels is comprised of four unique collections, each with its own personality and style to appeal to the needs of today's traveler. The collections include: WorldHotels Luxury, WorldHotels Elite, WorldHotels Distinctive and WorldHotels Crafted. For more information visit WorldHotels.com.

*Numbers are approximate, may fluctuate, and include hotels currently in the development pipeline.

Sirimanas Maungrod

Marketing Communications Department - Best Western Hotels and Resorts  Asia

+66 2 656 1260

BWH Hotel Group
KINGSTON, Jamaica -- Kevin Hendrickson, Managing Director of The Courtleigh Hotel Group, was honored with one of Jamaica's highest civilian awards, The Order of Distinction in The Rank of Commander, as part of National Heroes Day celebrations held recently in Jamaica. A veteran of 35+ years in the Jamaica hospitality industry, Mr. Hendrickson was recognized as much for his success in developing several of Jamaica's leading hotels as his continuous support for the Jamaican community and the professional development of Courtleigh Hotel Group employees.

"I am sincerely overwhelmed to receive this tremendous honor," said Mr. Hendrickson. "My name may be the one etched on this award, but it's an honor I truly share with my loving wife and kids, as well as our extended family: the dedicated staff at our hotel properties throughout Jamaica. This honor genuinely reflects on us all."

Mr. Hendrickson began his hospitality career in 1981 serving as general manager of The Courtleigh Manor in Kingston. In 1997, after closure of the Courtleigh Manor, he purchased the former Skyline Hotel property and re-opened the new Courtleigh Hotel & Suites, initiating a steady progression of hotel acquisition and development that would eventually see him become one of the foremost hoteliers in Jamaica and the broader Caribbean region.

Currently, Mr. Hendrickson's Courtleigh Hotel Group controls more than 60% of all hotel accommodations in Jamaica's capital (870 rooms), counting The Knutsford Hotel, The Jamaica Pegasus, and the former Wyndham Kingston Hotel (now in re-development) together with The Courtleigh. The Hendrickson hospitality portfolio also includes the 518-room Holiday Inn Resort Montego Bay, a property long renowned for providing Jamaica's best all-inclusive vacation value.

Personalized service, elegance, and excellent value are hallmarks of every Hendrickson-owned hotel, ensuring optimal guest satisfaction. Mr. Hendrickson employs a hands-on approach to maintaining the high service levels for which his properties are known. Whether greeting guests in the lobby, overseeing new construction, or serving on the buffet line, Mr. Hendrickson isn't above doing whatever it takes to provide the ultimate guest experience.

This dedication to service excellence extends to the time and effort Mr. Hendrickson puts into supporting the professional development of Courtleigh Hotel Group employees. His concern for the careers of his employees reaches all levels of staff, with Mr. Hendrickson readily involving himself in professional guidance talks and one on one mentoring.

"We don't offer jobs at The Courtleigh Group, we offer careers," said Mr. Hendrickson. "I firmly believe that our organization can only be as strong as the investment we make in continually helping staff to realize their personal and professional life goals."

A strong believer in giving back to the community, Mr. Hendrickson also supports numerous charitable organizations, including Missionaries of the Poor, the Jamaica Cancer Society, Jamaica Christian Boy's Home, The Salvation Army, and Food for the Poor, among others.

For more information on Courtleigh Hotel Group properties in Kingston, please visit:

The Courtleigh Hotel & Suites  www.courtleigh.com

The Knutsford Court Hotel  www.knutsfordcourt.com

The Jamaica Pegasus Hotel  www.jamaicapegasus.com

For more information on the Holiday Inn Resort Montego Bay, visit www.caribbeanhi.com.

Steve Bennett

SBPR Corp. Travel + Lifestyle Communications

305-213-8074

The Courtleigh Group
Best Western Australasia (BWA) today confirmed that SureStay, its new 'white label' economy hotel brand, is coming to Australia and New Zealand.

Head of Commercial Steve Richards says fruitful discussions are under way with a number of hotels and anticipates the first property will go live in early 2018 with others to follow.

Richards says Best Western sees the economy sector as a major network growth opportunity, especially across regional areas with a lot of competition but little brand differentiation.

"We estimate there are 2000 economy hotels across Australia and New Zealand and that 80% of them are unbranded independents," said Richards.

"These are the hoteliers who will benefit most by joining SureStay  it's a new brand with great values that we think has enormous potential for increasing visibility, credibility and bookings for independent economy hotels."

He said to carry the 'SureStay Hotel by Best Western' brand hotels must be rated minimum 3.5 stars on TripAdvisor, offer guests good quality facilities and service, a continental breakfast and free wi-fi.

In return, Richards said SureStay branded hotels will have marketing support, access to Best Western's preferred travel agent and corporate agreements, scale, and global distribution through numerous channels including bestwestern.com and the Global Distribution Systems.

"We are also targeting the corporate market with SureStay, giving guests the opportunity to earn or redeem Best Western Rewards points, which is a real point of difference in the economy sector," Richards said.

SureStay was launched last year has now has 33 properties in the United States, Sweden and Thailand with another 44 in the pipeline.

There are three brand tiers - SureStay Hotel by Best Western, SureStay Plus Hotel by Best Western and SureStay Collection by Best Western.

Richards says BWA has decided to keep things simple from a brand management perspective and only bring entry-level SureStay Hotel by Best Western to Australia and New Zealand.

"We wanted to avoid any kind of confusion with our core brands, Best Western and Best Western Plus, where uniformly higher standards of facilities and service are required."

About BWH Hotel Group

BWH Hotel Group is a leading, global hospitality network comprised of three hotel companies, including WorldHotels Collection, Best Western Hotels & Resorts and SureStay Hotel Group. The global network boasts approximately 4,500 hotels in over 100 countries and territories worldwide*. With 18 brands across every chain scale segment, from economy to luxury, BWH Hotel Group suits the needs of developers and guests in every market.

WorldHotels

WorldHotels Collection is a privately held hotel soft brand within the BWH Hotel Group global network. Founded by independent hoteliers dedicated to the art of hospitality, and celebrating its 50th year anniversary in 2021, WorldHotels offers one of the finest portfolios of independent hotels and resorts around the globe, expertly curated to inspire unique, life enriching experiences that connect people and places. WorldHotels is comprised of four unique collections, each with its own personality and style to appeal to the needs of today's traveler. The collections include: WorldHotels Luxury, WorldHotels Elite, WorldHotels Distinctive and WorldHotels Crafted. For more information visit WorldHotels.com.

*Numbers are approximate, may fluctuate, and include hotels currently in the development pipeline.

Martin Kelly

(0414) 774-978

BWH Hotel Group
A hotel of today is much more than just a roof over your head and a bed to sleep in. Travellers around the world want to feel pampered in hotels that feature high-quality room amenities. They want luxury, and are ready to pay for it.

Actually, judging by PwC's Consumer Intelligence Series Report on hotel brand loyalty, room quality is the number one reason for choosing a hotel, for both business and leisure travellers. This doesn't necessarily mean a Jacuzzi or a saltwater aquarium in the room, but the basics that you provide should look and feel luxurious. Rest assured that guests notice those things, both in your online presentation and when they arrive. This list covers some of the basic room amenities that appeal to most guests and the ways you can upgrade them.

Soft, oversized towels

Average hotels provide one or two small, not-so-soft towels per guest. Using a towel that doesn't cover you is both inconvenient and awkward, especially if you share a room with someone other than your partner. Large, soft towels, on the other hand, feel luxurious. You can even encourage your guests to use the same towel more than once, but make sure they have a set of oversized fluffy towels when they check in; they will be more likely to hang them up and reuse them this way. Also, provide a set of multiple towels of different sizes.

Full-sized quality toiletries

Squeezing and tapping a tiny bottle for a few drops of no-name products is nobody's idea of a luxurious hotel experience. Not to mention the soap that makes your skin dry or the shampoo that makes your hair dull. Unfortunately, that's what most of the average hotels provide  a few small bottles of low-cost toiletries. Offer your guests a high-quality pH-balanced soap, shampoo and conditioner that'll make them feel clean, fresh and look better than good. The confidence and joy of an invigorating shower should last long after they step out and leave for sightseeing or an important meeting.

Breathable linens and plush pillows

After a 12-hour flight or an excruciating series of meetings and business events, a traveller seeks nothing more than a good night's sleep. Sub-par hotels often resort to universal polyester sheets of questionable softness and patterns that are rarely updated. Instead, offer your guests soft, breathable white or pastel sheets and rich pillows. Natural fibres and earthly tones allure the luxury and comfort of your beds even on your online profile images.

Complimentary refreshments

It's no secret that mini-bar fees are the priciest item on a room bill. While cheap plastic bottles of overpriced water, run-of-the-mill samples of snacks and pocket-sized liquor can make guests feel like they're being tricked, complimentary refreshments, on the other hand, make them feel cared for. After a long flight or a local nightlife binge, a bottle of water is just as welcoming as a jolt of caffeine first thing in the morning. Simple conveniences you can offer free of charge like water in actual glass bottles, samples of coffee and tea are an inexpensive way of showing your guests you care for them.

And then some more

When it all wraps up, hospitality is all about making your guests feel welcome and special. And what better way to achieve this than by treating each guest to something more than they paid for. Make every guest feel unique and they will keep returning, or at least give a stellar recommendation. For average hotels that little extra boils down to nothing, in most cases. Guests, on the other hand, want to feel special. A welcome cocktail, a plate of homemade biscuits or complimentary flowers is all it takes. Sometimes even a luxury item in the room, as a beautiful lavish rug can do the trick. Check out DecoRug's selection of designer rugs for inspiration.

Many hotels today are competing with each other by trying to cut back on what they see as unnecessary expenses. However, those that still go an extra mile to invest in simple luxuries for their guests will stand out. If you dare to be different and deliver a high standard of quality on the essential room amenities that matter most to the guests, you will definitely be noticed by travellers and reviewers alike.

Lillian Connors

Senior Digital Marketing Strategist

Bizzmark
Mississippi rapper Big K.R.I.T. recently delivered his potential magnum opus, the double-album 4Eva Is A Mighty Long Time. So far, early word is that the album stands among K.R.I.T.s best work, and its no surprise that theres a compelling narrative behind the project. Speaking of which, the rapper recently hit up The Breakfast Club for a conversation with Charlamagne Tha God, Angela Yee, and DJ Envy, in which they discussed 4Eva Is A Mighty Long Time, alcoholism, materialism, and much more.

K.R.I.T. goes on to talk about his semi-autobiographical track Price Of Fame, describing the backstory surrounding the track:

Its a reflection how far I got in my career at one point. You going out, you partying all that stuff, and you get back home and theres nobody to really share your successes with for real. So you find yourself indulging in your vices, and normally surrounding yourself around people who only there for the momentI started chasing all these accolades and seeing what my peers had, becoming super competitive, and I wasnt living life either. I kind of dialed it back and started paying attention to my surroundings and what I was doing to myself not only on a health level, but on a mental level.

He proceeds to reveal that hes been slowing down on the drinking, and, ever the romantic, thanks his girl for her role in his newfound perspective. Its a pretty inspirational interview, and K.R.I.Ts newfound lease on life really makes you appreciate his new album even more. Its always nice when an interview makes you appreciate an artist even more, and K.R.I.Ts humility and intelligence are most definitely refreshing. For more from Big K.R.I.T., be sure to catch the full conversation below.

Big K.R.I.T
For years now, Jordan Brand has released at least one Air Jordan 11 in December, as part of their annual Holiday Collection, and this year will be no different. In fact, Jordan Brand has already confirmed that two brand new Air Jordan 11s will be releasing before the year is over.

But, thats not all.

A womens exclusive Heiress Air Jordan 11 is also on tap for later this month- rumors suggest the kicks will be releasing on Black Friday (November 24th) in sizes ranging up to a 10.5. The black-based 11s, which will retail for $220, feature gold branding as well as stingray accents in place of the traditional patent leather.

Official images of the Heiress Air Jordan 11s still have not surfaced but you can check out the first look below.

In addition to the newly unveiled Heiress Air Jordan 11, Jordan Brand will also be releasing a UNC-inspired Win Like 82 11 and another Win Like 96 colorway which features an all-red build. The Win Like 82 joint will be releasing on November 11th, the Bulls-inspired pair is scheduled to drop on December 9th. Both of those kicks will be available in full family sizes.

Still not satisfied?

Jordan Brand will also be releasing a premium Bordeaux Air Jordan 5 and a Dark Grey Air Jordan 12 which swaps the leather upper for suede and nods to the original Taxi colorway by featuring gold lace eyelets.

On December 21st, the black and green Altitude Air Jordan 13 will be making its return to retailers for the first time since it debuted in 2005, and it will feature the all-leather OG construction.

Rounding out Jordan Brands Holiday Collection is the Golden Harvest and Elemental Gold lineup which includes Wheat renditions of the Air Jordan 1, Air Jordan 6 and Air Jordan 13. Each of these kicks feature soft suede materials and monochromatic color schemes.

Take a look at the 2017 Holiday Collection in the link below.

Heiress 11
A good chunk of America was seemingly at ease for a whole 11-minutes last night after a former Twitter employee deleted Donald Trumps account, making all of his current 36.3K statements unavailable.

https://twitter.com/_/status/926220903717003270



The verified Twitter Government account tweeted the news saying that a customer support employee pulled the plug on the Presidents account on his or her last day on the job. Donalds profile was shut down at 6:45 p.m. ET Thursday and was restored shortly after. The statement reads that a full internal review is being conducted.

https://twitter.com/_/status/926238960594178048

https://twitter.com/_/status/926267806261407744



Of course, Donald Trump noticed that one of his favourite social media platforms was temporarily unavailable, with a tweet suggesting hes finally made some sort of impact.

https://twitter.com/_/status/926401530013642765



Even though Donald is back on the Twitter grid, lots of users praised the former employee for doing the deed, calling the individual a hero.

https://twitter.com/_/status/926294154417790976

https://twitter.com/_/status/926352731425603585

https://twitter.com/_/status/926326551993389057

https://twitter.com/_/status/926295376596013057

https://twitter.com/_/status/926294256922300416

https://twitter.com/_/status/926231137869058053



Trump
Dr. Dre is undoubtedly a legend and one of the most influential producers ever. Aside from music, hes also built an extensive business resume that includes his BeatsByDre brand as well as endorsements from Dr. Pepper and Coors Light, among others. Despite his fame, he hasnt had to deal with any illegitimate children claiming hes the father but Dr. Dre had to clear up some rumors after someone was claiming to be his son on Instagram.

Dr. Dre recently hit Instagram last night to call out Instagram account, @jetpacknyc. The account is verified (or at least was) and was under the name Lou G. The description of his account said nothing other than Son of Dr. Dre. Dr. Dre got word of this and posted a series of images. Ones a screenshot of the mans profile and the other is a clear image of his face. The caption read, This person is claiming to be the son of Dr. Dre. He is not. He is a complete fake. There is no relation.

The man behind the account seemed to be doing pretty well. The account garnered 459K followers while he only followed 214. The posts on the account included shots at Asahd Khaleds recent birthday shindig, as well as the man hopping into a gifted Porsche. However, the @jetpacknyc handle is now private with only 3311 following, one follower and 388 posts. Dr. Dres screenshot only showed 24 posts. Theres another Instagram thats also private now under the handle @inactive.instaacount that shows the exact same followers/following ratio but has no images on it and isnt verified anymore. The account popped up after typing @jetpacknyc in the search bar on the app.

It seems Dr. Dre cant get out of these weird scenarios. At the tail end of August, he found himself in the middle of a strange South Korean marriage conspiracy. A 73-Year old man was fined after spreading online rumors that former South Korean leader, Kim Dae-jungs widow was about to marry the legendary producer. The rumor said the intention of the marriage was so she could launder slush funds that belonged to her late husband.

Check the Instagram post below:
The new season of the hit Netflix series Stranger Things has been all the binge-watching rage since its debut last month. Centered around a group of kids dealing with the sudden appearance of supernatural forces in small town Indiana, the new batch of episodes have gotten near-universally positive reviews. The series should prove to be a boon for Netflix as well, perhaps taking up the mantle left behind by House of Cards as the platforms signature original show. If industry players have seen the numbers that have trickled in thus far, every other TV entity should fear not only Netflix, but Stranger Things in particular.

According to Deadline, the new season of the program has pulled in a giant number of viewers in the short time since becoming available on Netflix. In the first 72 hours that it was live, Episode 1 averaged an incredible 15.8 million U.S. viewers, including almost 11 million in the demographic of people who are watching the series in their TVs. In addition, Nielsen, the showbiz entity who is keeping record of all these stats, said that each of the nine new episodes averaged 4 million viewers and 3 million in the TV demo during that time frame. The binge-watching line from before wasnt a lie either, as fans have turned out in droves to consume the new season in one gigantic bite. The report states that 361,000 people watched all nine episodes on the first day that they became available.

Nielsens method of monitoring Netflix viewing is relatively new and does not encompass those who may consume episodes of the series on mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets. In that case, the numbers for Stranger Things could conceivably be even higher than whats been reported.

This is far better news for the show than what transpired last week, when cast member Charlie Heaton was busted for cocaine possession at LAX. Sources say the Stranger Things star flew into the U.S. from London, but was barred from entering the country after a random baggage check revealed that he had drugs on him. He didnt have a previous record of narcotics-related infractions, so he was allowed to fly back home to the U.K.

Stranger Things 2
In case you missed it, Denver rapper Pries is releasing his brand new album Super Sega on Sunday, November 5th. In anticipation, Pries will be releasing a string of b-sides that didnt ultimately make the album. As the album is dropping in three days, that means three new Pries joints, including the first of the bunch, Roof On Fire. And no, its not a take on the popular chant. Instead, Pries comes through on a smooth, bouncy beat, which feels decidedly more upbeat than the majority of that modern trap sound. The chord progression is far from minor, and Pries sounds absolutely thrilled with the way his life is heading.

And why wouldnt be? After all, dude has an album coming out imminently, the weed is good, and the women are feeling the kid. Ultimately, Roof On Fire feels like a victory lap. Not for nothing Im onto something Im winning, Money over thot bitches but nothing under good women, raps Pries, out in LA for business so much fire in the hills, met a porn star yesterday, almost fucked just for the thrills. Despite Pries clear love of the fairer sex, it feels as if his true passion is rolling that loud. It makes sense, as he is a Colorado emcee after all. And while his earlier music may have celebrated some of the same themes as Roof On Fire, there lies a palpable difference. Now, Pries has the voice of experience under his built, and that goes a long way.

If youre feeling this, be sure to stay tuned for tomorrows drop. Remember, Super Sega drops on Sunday, and while thats an unconventional time for an album to be released, theres probably a method to the madness. Either way, well be getting even more Pries music as a result, and thats never a bad thing.

QUOTABLE LYRICS

Not for nothing Im onto something Im winning,

Money over thot bitches but nothing under good women

Out in LA for business so much fire in the hills

Met a porn star yesterday, almost fucked just for the thrills.
Ricky Gervais is known primarily for being a caustic, controversial comedian who sometimes brings beer on stage to comfort him during awkward stretches at high-profile hosting gigs. However, what most people may not know if that Gervais is actually a massive hip-hop fan  so much so that hes actually become a fan of how funny some of the lyrics written by legendary emcees can be. He recently sat down to chat with DJ Whoo Kid on his radio program The Whoolywood Shuffle and touched on the comedic genius of several big-name rappers, but one in particular stood out.

As youre able to see in the clip below, Ricky Gervais starts off by acknowledging the immensity of Tupacs Hit Em Up, a classic track from the rappers 1990s heyday. What a way to start a song, exclaimed the comedian, referring the opening line that reads as follows: I aint got no motherf**kin friends/Thats why I f**ked yo bitch, you fat motherf**ker! When I first heard that, I just thought, Who is this guy?, continued Gervais, with Whoo Kid chuckling along with delight. Next, the former cast member of the British version of The Office put forth the notion that most people dont know just how funny rap can be.

Like Eminem, he makes jokes, the comic explained. He makes jokes in the songs and its really great, its about big issues. He went on to say that rap lyricism has become a platform to not only express ones sense of humor, but also apply that skill to those massive issues in society and attack them with a more nuanced tool than others may possess. Even though rap is pretty mainstream now, relative to where it was positioned culturally maybe 20 or 25 years ago, Gervais still remembers how impressed he was when he was first introduced to the genre. I was just blown away that rap was this new art form that came out And going back even further, the first time I heard The Message by Grand Master Flash, I thought, Ive never seen this in pop.

Whats the best punchline youve ever heard in a hip-hop song? Let us know below.

Ricky Gervais
Today, Atlantas own Skippa Da Flippa came through with a brand new mixtape full of bangers, Flippa McFadden 2. And while the tape is pretty consistent from front to back, its hard not to get excited about a new feature from the talented Young Thug. With a musical chameleon like Thugger, you never quite know what style youll be getting, but the second you hear the Devo laced instrumental, you already know that Jeffery will be coming with the bars. Speaking of which, Skippa Da Flippa sets things off with a murderous, braggadocious verse, in which you can feel the sheer confidence bursting through the speakers.

Its an ATL affair, so you know the 808s will be intense. Appropriately, Skippa comes through with equal ferocity, setting things off with some hard opening bars. Im hip to the fashion, vacay in the cabins, before I take off recline the seat and mark sure the belts fastened, raps Skippa. My jewelry game tragic, my shoe game is drastic, told my mama bury me a G, Givenchy me clean in my casket. Its kind of sad that Skippa believes he will be dying his before his mama, but at least hes ensured plans to go out in style.

As for Young Thug, the Atlanta icon meets Skippas intensity with some bars of his own. People tend to forget that Thug can actually rap, and he lays down a standout verse, complete with some of his trademark wit. Pour red in the raspberry, my swag everlasting, raps Thug, with a melodic touch. Bitch, Im sharp I could stab ya, Im so fresh they dont wanna harass me. Overall, its a straightforward collaboration that finds two Atlanta rappers trading capable verses over a hard beat. Whats not to like? Download Flippa McFadden 2 by hitting the link above.

QUOTABLE LYRICS

Im hip to the fashion, vacay in the cabins,

Before I take off recline the seat and mark sure the belts fastened

My jewelry game tragic, my shoe game is drastic

Told my mama bury me a G, Givenchy me clean in my casket.
Coming off the drop of his banging Im Havin 3, Atlanta rapper Skippa Da Flippa has come through with his brand new mixtape Flippa McFadden 2. The former Quality Control emcee seems to be hitting a stride in 2017, and while his previous mixtape was undoubtedly fire, this new one is poised to be even better. This time around, Skippa has enlisted the talents of Young Thug, Sauce Walka, OT Genesis, and former label-mate Lil Yachty. Production is handled by the usual roundup of suspects, with hard-hitting contributions from Devo, Dot N Pro, Yung Lan, Murda Beatz, Stroud, and more.

While its unfortunate his partnership with QC ultimately didnt work out, perhaps it was for the best, as Skippa broke down the situation to XXL:

Thats always gonna be my family, but shit wasnt really working out the way it was supposed to be, he says of leaving Quality Control. As far as business wise, shit just wasnt right. Everything Ive been doing, Ive been doing on my own anyway, so I can continue to do it on my own and put my name on it, create my own little lane and brand myself. Everybody knows me for my logo and my term havin so I decided to just move on with that.

Songs like Fashion Forward (which features a nice verse from Thug), Ghost, and Yeah are definitely made for the whip, with dark, 808-heavy instrumentals. The closing finds Murda Beatz coming through with some ghost-like reverse synths, over which Skippa delivers some furious flows. Check out the tracklist and production for Flippa McFadden below, and be sure to support one of Atlantas most slept on.
Ohio native & former MMG rapper Stalley had been relatively quiet for the past couple years, last releasing an album in 2014 called Ohio, but thankfully he returned from his hiatus back in July to share a New Wave, a 14-song project with no features. Since then, Stalley has been busy rolling out new videos in its support, but decided to change things up last week when he dropped off a new 12-song project called Another Level, his second full length effort this year.

And just when we thought he was done releasing new music for a minute, it appears Stalley was just warming up and is now readying yet another new project for November 17th called Tell The Truth Shame The Devil. Today, he decided to give Ebro the green light to premiere its first single on Beats 1 Radio called My Line featuring ATL sensation Migos.

With Quavo on the hook, Stalley brings the title to life & raps about the bitches & guys constantly calling his phone line bothering him with non sense. Niggas aint talking about nothin/ Bitches aint talking bout nothing Quavo croons on the hook before dropping his respective verse. Highlighted by Migos verses & Quavos chorus, My Line is another strong addition to Stalleys growing catalogue of hits, even though it sounds more like a Migos record featuring Stalley, but itll definitely get the attention drawn to his upcoming project nevertheless. It follows up Migos latest single Motor Sport featuring Nicki Minaj & Cardi B.

Take a listen and let us know what you think. If youre a fan, be sure to show your support on iTunes. The Truth Shame The Devil & Culture 2 both on the way. Stay tuned.

Quotable Lyrics:

Dont call my phone you aint talkin about nothing

Dont interrupt my conversation

Im talkin to blue bitches what Migos want

Quavo got boats on the water

 Quavo
The legal drama wont let up when it comes to Lil Wayne and the business behind his Carter albums. The latest news from behind the scenes money issues stems from T-Pain claiming Weezy owes him a lump of cash from Tha Carter III.

TMZ reports that T-Pain is after Lil Wayne for $500,000 from the services Pain did on the third episode of the albums series. Nappy Boy Productions is suing Young Money, claiming that T-Pain has not received any of the promised royalties since producing and featuring on the track Got Money. Furthermore, the suit is also looking for funds since Young Fyre, one of T-Pains signees, produced How to Hate on Tha Carter IV.

2008s Tha Carter III sold more than 3.2 million copies in the United States alone, so the documents state that T-Pain is waiting on a big lump sum that he has yet to receive, which he estimates to be at least half a million.

As we recently reported, Lil Wayne is supposedly looking to shut down Young Money Records. Documents reveal that the issues Wayne is dealing with in regards to Cash Money and Birdman are now streaming down to his own imprint. Wayne reportedly wants the label to be dealt with properly or have it dissolved as a whole.

In documents filed by Weezy, he is asking the courts to appoint a receiver to supervise the operations of Young Money Label joint venture or order the termination of Young Money Label joint venture and appoint a liquidator. The reports add that Lil Wayne is sick of Birdman cashing in on all his hard work.

If the Young Money label comes to a close, it will be the end of a big era. The imprint served as a stepping stone for artists such as Drake and Nicki Minaj to make their mark in the hip-hop industry.

All this Young Money/Cash Money drama stems all the way back to 2014 when Wayne alleged that his Tha Carter V was not being released and that his $8 million dollar advance from Birdman was not being paid out.

T pain
YBN Nahmirs slowly bubbling up right now. Rubbin Off The Paint introduced the young artists to the masses and spawned an array of remixes from some of hip hops hottest artists. Today, he returns with a remix to Lil Pumps Gucci Gang.

YBN Nahmir takes the Gucci Gang beat and makes it his own with his remix. For a little over two minutes, Nahmir goes in on the infectious beat and wastes no time addressing naysayers and haters a like. It brings a whole new feeling to the song. While Pumps original version is an ignorant, turnt up banger, YBN flexes his own lyrical prowess throughout. His flow weaves in and out of the production, switching his flow when needed and generally, putting a riveting twist on another viral single from a young up and comer. His Gucci Gang remix is also different than his usual efforts. The production isnt in the vein of Rubbin Off The Paint or I Got A Stick and his flow is more concise and refined throughout.

YBN Nahmirs breakthrough single only dropped two months a go but hes made waves since then. With each release, his fan base continues to grow as he does as an artist. Hes dropped two free projects in the past but none of them had the reach as Rubbin Off The Paint. Now that he has more eyes on him, hopefully well get a project from Nahmir soon. The rapper has a lot to offer and has his own unique flare with his style. Hes Alabama based but has a lot of west coast in his sound.

Listen to his Gucci Gang remix and let us know what you think.

Quotable Lyrics

Bitch Im never lackin, I keep one in the head

That choppa bullet gon knock off your leg

You run up on me, then Im leaving you dead

Ill leave you dead if you talk to the feds
Five years on from the tragic and unnecessary death of Savita Halappanavar, the laws that prevented the abortion which could have saved her life still stand.

Every year, national vigils take place, most notably in Galway, where Savita lived and died. According to their press release, Galway Pro-Choice are this year holding a candlelit vigil to mark the passing of a brave, intelligent and beautiful woman, whose life was an inspiration and whose death humbled the nation.

Special care is taken every year to ensure that vigils dont become protests; events are coordinated with Savitas remaining family and friends in Galway, and care is taken to respect their wishes. Galway Pro-Choice hope that the family and friends of Savita find solace in the communal support of the Irish people, and the knowledge that we as a nation are doing everything in our power to ensure that a tragedy like this never happens again.
This UK Woman Hates Wearing Footwear, Calls It Prison For Feet
Burying a pair of underpants in a field may not seem the obvious starting point for the perfect roast, but farmers are being urged to dig deep for tastier meat.

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) and Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) claim interring a pair of cotton smalls in a pasture can reveal vital information about soil fertility.

According to the experts, sterile and lifeless soil will keep underwear intact, but organically thriving soil will eat away at the briefs, leaving nothing but the elastic waistband.

Dig up the pants after just two months, and it is possible to judge how healthy the land is.

Soil conditions on beef and sheep farms directly influence how well grass and forage crops grow and, consequently, the quality of the feed they produce. And better feed produces healthier, tastier animals.

Scottish farmer Iain Green, of Corskie Farm, near Elgin, in Moray, has been burying his pants in various fields since September.

"The theory behind the test is that the cotton will be devoured by the microbes and bacteria in the soil, so the more you have the better, he said.

"We buried them in different fields, some which we think have healthier soil and others which aren't as good."

Earlier this week fellow farmers and officials gathered at Mr Greens farm to dig up his underpants and analyse the findings. Some had entirely disintegrated while others looked like they had been recently buried.

Mr Green added: "I think quite a few of them were quite surprised and are away to try it for themselves.

"The results were very interesting. We have quite a wet field here and obviously that has been starved of oxygen and the underpants were hardly touched.

"However, with our arable fields, which are cultivated heavily, they were eaten away, but we do cover them with a lot of muck. It was a success and a simple and cheap way of testing soil.

"The cotton is the important thing, rather than the underpants."

The Soil my Undies challenge was first launched by the California Farmers Guild in July and is slowly being adopted by agricultural organisations across the world.

Healthy soil should be teeming with millions of tiny lifeforms such as bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, arthropods, earthworms, which all work to turn rotting material into nutrients to help plants thrive.

Evan Wiig, Executive Director of the California Farmers Guild, said: Cotton is an organic material and breaks down naturally just like anything else youd put in your compost pile. So if you bury cotton in soil teeming with life, all those creatures will begin to feast.

If you have dead soil, if it is totally lifeless you should be able to pull the pants out of the ground, throw it in the washing machine and put them on like nothing ever happened. If you have incredibly healthy soil, you should have nothing left but an elastic strap.

A spokesman for the QMS said they would like farmers across Britain to adopt the test as way of checking the productivity of their soil.
An artists impression of the data centre planned for Athenry in Co Galway

The Commercial Court has dismissed two challenge to an Apple data centre in Co Galway, the first stage of a planned 850m development of eight centres there.

Mr Justice Paul McDermott today rejected both challenges to the centre at Derrydonnell, Athenry.

Independent TD for Galway East Sean Canney and several members of Apple for Athenry, a group of local people who support the development, were in court for the judgments.

Apple had sought to have the cases fast-tracked in the Commercial Court, the big business division of the High Court, saying it was very anxious to proceed with the development.

It said the centre would create hundreds of jobs and is a critical piece of infrastructure necessary to deal with the exponential growth in demand for data processing and storage.

Both challenges were taken against An Bord Pleanala, with Apple Distribution Ireland, developer of the centre, as a notice party.

The first case was by Sinead Fitzpatrick and Allan Daly, whose home at Lisheenkyle, Athenry, is close to the proposed centre.

They claimed the Boards August 2016 permission for the development was invalid on grounds including alleged failure to carry out a proper Environmental Impact Assessment.

The second case was by Brian McDonagh who challenged the permission on various grounds.

Representing himself, Mr McDonagh, Unit 1, Ballymount Cross Business Park, Dublin, said he "did not oppose Apple coming to Athenry" but wanted to ensure compliance with "proper planning procedures".

Apple argued Mr McDonagh had made no submissions to Galway County Council in respect of the original planning application and nor had he appealed to the Board before bringing his case.
An artists impression of the data centre planned for Athenry in Co Galway

MAJOR doubts now hang over the 850m data centre planned for Athenry in Co Galway, Independent.ie can reveal.

It is understood Apple chief Tim Cook would not commit to the massive project during a private meeting with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

Apple announced the west of Ireland investment in 2015 but the scheme has been plagued by planning difficulties ever since.

Earlier this week the High Court appeared to clear the way for the development to begin.

But the tech giant is extremely frustrated that its plans have been delayed by over two years.

Now sources have told Independent.ie that Mr Cook stopped short of reassuring the Taoiseach the project will still go ahead. Plans for a similar plant in Denmark were also announced in 2015 and that centre is almost ready for operation. Apple is now expected to develop a second data centre in Denmark.

Mr Varadkar raised the company's plans for Athenry during a meeting with Mr Cook yesterday.

He impressed upon Mr Cook the value and importance that Irish Government attaches to the Athenry project. He also said that there was very strong support in the local community for the project.

However, Mr Cook only said they would "continue to consider Athenry in the context of their future plans".

This is a major step back from late September when the Taoiseach said officials at Apple had assured him the data centre would go ahead once the planning hurdles were clear.

Mr Varadkar is understood to have acknowledged that the planning delays that have affected the project to date were beyond Apple's control.

He outlined the changes that the Government is making to fast track these developments in the future, including specifically designating data centres as strategic infrastructure.

Apple has been contacted for comment.
A liquidator has been appointed to Brendan Investments Property Management, a company that was set up to manage Brendan Investments Pan European Property plc (BIPEP), the high profile investment company whose original promoters included financial adviser and TV personality Eddie Hobbs.

BIPEP went into liquidation in July, leaving 700 investors nursing losses.

New papers filed with the Companies Office show that Ultan McCarthy of McCarthy & Co in Dublin has been appointed liquidator of the separate firm Brendan Investments Property Management Ltd (BEPM), a related business with separate owners that was established to manage the funds raised in 2007. The directors of BEPM, Hugh O'Neill and Vincent Regan, were also the directors of BIPEP.

Mr McCarthy was named liquidator of BEPM on October 25, following a meeting of creditors at the Carrigaline Court Hotel, Main Street, Carrigaline, Co Cork.

The most recently filed accounts for BEPM are for the 12 months to August 31, 2016, and show it had investments valued at just over 350,000, largely consisting of the then value of shares in BIPEP.

The accounts show that BEPM was paid 145,000 by BIPEP in the year to the end of August 2016.

Under the structure of the original Brendan Investments, the Property Management company was separately owned by the original promotors of the larger fund, and was paid an annual fee of 1pc of the value of BIPEP assets. From the time the fund was raised in 2007 until this year's insolvency those fees are understood to have totalled around 2m.

Two of the original directors, Eddie Hobbs and Dermot Flanagan, stepped down from BEPM in 2014 and subsequently also stood down as directors of BIPEP.

In July, the main Brendan Investments Pan European Property was wound-up on foot of a petition to the High Court, owing more than 11m to around 700 Irish investors, who had pumped 12.6m into the business in 2007 in one of the biggest ever fund raisings of the kind here.

The original plan was to invest in a mix of European property over a 10-year period.

In the end, BIPEP lost most of its investors' money in failed property investments in Detroit, USA, and in Germany. It had assets of just 91,000 when it was wound up.

Aidan Garcia Diaz, of Collins Garcia, is overseeing the liquidation of BIPEP.
Canadian-owned insurer Irish Life has posted another 17pc increase in quarterly profits, contributing 42m to parent Great West Lifeco's earnings.

The latest figures for the three months ending in September, underscore the pace and strength of Irish Life's bounce back from the crash, when it was nationalised and split from sister company Permanent TSB before being sold by the State.

However the upbeat performance at the Irish subsidiary was not matched by its parent.

The Canadian insurance behemoth racked up losses of CA$175m in the third quarter, related to Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, which descended on the Americas over the past few months.

In contrast Irish Life matched a rise in profits recorded for the preceding quarter, delivering another 42m to the earnings of its Winnipeg-based owner.

Irish Life was nationalised during the crash at a cost of 1.3bn to the taxpayer. It was then sold for the same sum to Great West Lifeco, which merged it with its exiting Irish unit, Canada Life.

Since then the business has seen continued growth, and has paid up more than 210m in dividends to its new owners.

Commenting on the results, Irish Life's CEO, David Harney, highlighted the expansion of the company's investment management division.

He pointed out "we now have over 10.8bn invested in our multi-asset strategies including over 3.2bn by individual investors".

Irish Life launched the Multi-Asset Portfolio Funds (MAPS), four years ago and it now ranks as the biggest multi-asset investment fund for personal investors in Ireland.

Mr Harney said that in the past six months, the number of individual investors in the Irish Life MAPS fund has grown by 17pc, rising from 45,200 customers at the end of the first quarter of this year to "more than 54,000 customers currently".
Ryanair CEO Michael OLeary says that the airline can retain pricing advantage even with increases in pilot pay to keep talent. Photo: PA

Ryanair's passenger numbers grew at the slowest pace in three years last month after the carrier cancelled thousands of flights because of a failure to roster enough pilots.

The customer count rose by 8pc to 11.8 million, Ryanair said yesterday.

That's the smallest rise since October 2014, when the Dublin-based company posted a 5pc gain.

The October increase is also the first time growth has slowed to a single-digit percentage since 2014.

The number of additional passengers was also the lowest since March, though still came in at 900,000.

The airline has been adding passengers in part by acquiring aircraft and laying on new routes.

Ryanair announced on September 15 that it was scrapping 2,100 flights as it battled with a rostering "mess up".

Since then a further 18,000 flights have been cancelled, with the effects lasting well into next year.

As a result of the fisaco, Ryanair's net income for the three months to the end of Septmeber suffered a rare decline. The Irish operator has paid out 25m in refunds to more than 700,000 passengers hit by the cancellations, it said on Tuesday, when it announced financial results that were ultimately well received by the markets.

CEO Michael O'Leary said that the company can increase pilot pay in order to keep and attract crew, and still retain a pricing advantage over competitors.

Flight cancellations means the total number of passenger carried in 2017 is now expected to come in two million short of the original 131 million goal, while next year's passenger forecast has been cut by four million to 138 million.

Shares of Ryanair were down slightly at 17.25 each in Dublin following publication of the October traffic numbers, after gaining strongly early in the week. (Additional reporting Bloomberg)
An artists impression of the data centre planned for Athenry in Co Galway

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has confirmed that Apple boss Tim Cook refused to give "a definite commitment" to build the Athenry data centre during their meeting.

As revealed by Independent.ie, a serious question mark now hangs over the 850m investment planned for the Galway town.

Mr Varadkar told Apple executives that local people had protested in favour of the project going ahead despite the planning objections that had been lodged.

And he promised Mr Cook that the Irish Government "will do anything within our power to facilitate" the development.

However, Mr Cook would only commit to considering Athenry as a location for investment in the future.

"We didn't get a start date or a definite commitment or anything like that. But certainly from our point of view we really impressed on them very strongly how much the Government is behind this project and we will do anything that is within our power to facilitate it," Mr Varadkar said.

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Apple announced the West of Ireland investment in 2015 but the scheme has been plagued by planning difficulties ever since.

Earlier this week the High Court appeared to clear the way for the development to begin.

But the tech giant is extremely frustrated that its plans have been delayed by over two years.

Plans for a similar plant in Denmark were also announced in 2015 and that centre is almost ready for operation. Apple is now expected to develop a second data centre in Denmark.

Mr Varadkar is understood to have acknowledged that the planning delays that have affected the project to date were beyond Apple's control.

He outlined the changes that the Government is making to fast track these developments in the future, including specifically designating data centres as strategic infrastructure.
Giles Hurley breezes out of the conference room at the Heritage Killenard Hotel just outside Portarlington. The managing director of Aldi Ireland has just been rallying the troops - suppliers in this case - and fielding what he says were some tough questions.

About 400 delegates attended the day-long conference and got to meet Aldi's buyers face-to-face to talk about their products and what the German discounter is looking for.

"Our message was focused on some of the challenges there are now in the market for our suppliers," says Hurley, who's squeezing in an interview before he legs it to the airport to catch a flight to Scotland.

Brexit is an obvious challenge, but suppliers - Aldi has about 175 in Ireland - also quizzed Hurley about why they should be doing business, or more business, with the chain. This is no place for wallflowers.

"There's also unprecedented levels of competition, currency and (grocery) deflation, Brexit on the horizon and a general air of uncertainty," says Hurley (42), who lives in Warwick in the UK Midlands and commutes regularly to Ireland and Scotland in his role as an Aldi managing director with responsibility for the two countries .

He oversees almost 130 Aldi outlets in Ireland, having joined the group as an area manager 18 years ago when there were just five here.

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"We have known challenging times in Ireland, but this is a little different," he adds, pointing out that the conference with suppliers was about reassurance as much as anything else.

At least Aldi has a solid market position to console them, if that's what part of what they needed. The retailer is also neck-and-neck with fellow German discounter Lidl in terms of their share of the grocery market in Ireland.

According to the latest figures from research group Kantar Worldpanel, Aldi has an 11.6pc share of the market in terms of value of sales. Lidl has 11.7pc (Tesco and SuperValu are joint first, each with 22pc).

Back of the envelope calculations based on sales figures from SuperValu results in both Aldi and Lidl each likely generating annual sales in the region of 1.4bn in Ireland.

Aldi doesn't split out its numbers for Ireland, but the chains work on wafer-thin margins. Aldi's combined UK and Ireland operation posted revenue of 8.74bn (9.9bn) last year and a 255.6m (289.5m) profit. Sales were 13.5pc higher, but profits were down 17pc as the chain kept margins low amid intense competition.

Aldi and Lidl did well from the downturn, with their promise of lower-priced, quality produce resonating with hard-pressed consumers. And they have managed to hang on to shoppers who had ventured through their doors nursing their pay cheques.

Hurley says the customer remains "at the heart" of Aldi's decision-making, and that pushing products made in Ireland yields dividends for the chain. He also reckons that Aldi's share of sales volumes is probably "three of four percentage points higher" than the share based in value of sales.

"Consumers in Ireland want to buy Irish," he says. "With Irish product comes that sense of assurance and quality and of supporting our own."

There's no doubt that for many suppliers, the push by grocery chains here to stock innovative produce has spurred growth in the domestic food sector. New Irish products emerge all the time, with some, such as Kerrygold Shortbread Biscuits and dairy-free ice-cream maker Nobo, managing to quickly break into global markets.

Aldi spent about 700m buying from Irish suppliers last year. Among the companies doing well from a relationship with the chain is Waterford-based Blackwater Distillery. Its small-batch Boyle's Gin is being sold exclusively through Aldi, and the chain has bagged 15,000 cases worth 300,000 (340,000) to sell in its UK stores in the run-up to Christmas.

Aldi has a 6.9pc share of the UK grocery market, which is worth a total of about 180bn (204bn), so the potential for Irish suppliers that get a toehold in the market there is significant.

But could the focus by grocery retailers on beefing up their relationship with Irish suppliers and showcasing Irish food as a selling point become tired, now that all of the main grocery chains have latched on to it?

"The key is to continue to breathe life into it," says Hurley. "You have to continue to innovate and that means always working with the supplier base to find the best new products and opportunities." And those new opportunities include pushing sales of Irish products into other Aldi geographies, as has happened with Boyle's Gin.

"Having fostered these relationships, to support those suppliers to continue growing their volume is a great story," he says. "As their volumes grow, it's good for their cost base, and that's a benefit for us too."

Hurley insists that the provenance of food, especially for millennials, remains important in their grocery buying decisions.

But concerns over so-called food miles often evaporate when the cold, hard reality of pricing comes into the equation. Will consumers really pay more for a vegetable or fruit grown in Europe rather than one imported from say, Morocco?

"There is a bit of an irony," Hurley concedes. "Consumers would like everything, but they want it in a way that's sustainable. I think that's a bit of a challenge for retailers in terms of how we do that. But if Irish consumers want Irish strawberries in April, let's find a way to make that happen."

"People have to vote with the money in their pockets," he agrees. "Basmati rice is always going to come from India. Parma ham will always come from Italy, but there are lots of other areas where there are opportunities to innovate. And you don't have to have a hefty price tag to get quality."

Born in Surrey, Hurley might have a strong English accent, but his parents are Irish and he has spent a big chunk of his life in Ireland.

He was a boarder at the pricey Headfort primary school in Kells, Co Meath, before returning to the UK for his secondary education. He studied history in Trinity College, Dublin, and taught English in China before heading home and joining the McDonald's graduate training programme.

Hurley applied for his first Aldi job using his address in Donegal, despite being based in Dublin at the time.

"I think in those embryonic days in Ireland they thought: 'Oh there's somebody from Donegal and we've got a store in Letterkenny'," he says on first getting through the Aldi door.

The pace of investment quickly accelerated.

A study prepared for the chain this year estimated that Aldi, which employs 3,200 people here, has spent 1.2bn on capital expenditure in Ireland since its debut, and contributed 1.2bn to Ireland's gross domestic product last year.

Earlier this year, the chain embarked on a 60m project to expand its array of fresh foods at its stores in Ireland. That has also seen it move fresh produce to the front of stores, and also trial bakeries.

Hurley says that Aldi and Lidl played a key role making own-brand products, or exclusive brands as he likes to describe them, more mainstream in Ireland.

"You just need to track the popularity of brands in Ireland over the past 15 years to see how it's changed," he says. "We're 17pc of the nappy market in Ireland now for instance. That's a massive share and makes us the second-biggest brand in Ireland."

Aldi hopes to open about 10 new stores next year in Ireland, and has 100m "ring-fenced", says Hurley, to open a total of 20 new outlets in the next three years.

"It's slightly quieter than we would have liked this year," he says, adding that there is "plenty coming down the tracks".

"How big are we going to get? It's difficult to answer. We'll keep on adding stores as long as we're growing sales. Another 20 will bring us to 150 stores. Could there be another 50 stores after that? Yes, I think there could be. We're under-represented in Dublin. It's a big opportunity. It's a great complaint to have that we want to open more stores more quickly."
A parliamentary committee is demanding internet giant Twitter hands over lists of Russian-related accounts that may have attempted to interfere in the UK's democratic process.

The call from the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee came after Twitter told a US Congress inquiry it had detected thousands of Russian troll accounts posting material linked to American politics.

In a letter to Twitter chief executive officer Jack Dorsey, committee chairman Damian Collins said he wanted information on any Russian accounts posting about UK politics.

The committee is currently conducting an inquiry into the phenomenon of "fake news", in the wake of claims that social media may have been manipulated by overseas actors in an attempt to influence last year's EU referendum or the snap general election on June 8.

Twitter's acting general counsel Sean Edgett this week gave evidence to a Senate hearing that the organisation had traced 2,752 accounts to the Russia-based troll factory, the Internet Research Agency, which between them sent out 1.4 million messages in a span of just over two months.

Mr Collins told Mr Dorsey: "It has subsequently emerged that some of these accounts were also posting content that relates to the politics of the United Kingdom.

"Any interference by foreign actors in the democratic process of the United Kingdom is clearly a serious matter.

"I would therefore ask that Twitter provides to the Committee a list of accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency and any other Russian linked accounts that it has removed and examples of any posts from these accounts that are linked to the United Kingdom."

Mr Collins gave a deadline of the end of November for Twitter to provide the information.
Daft.ie has around 70,000 properties for rent or sale at any one time. Stock image

The millionaire Fallon brothers have shared a further 1.17 dividend windfall with other shareholders at their daft.ie firm.

New accounts filed by the Fallons' Daft Media show that the company returned to profit last year to record pre-tax profits of 2.66m.

This followed the company recording a pre-tax loss of 2.49m in 2015 which was attributable to the company writing off 5.5m it was owed by a connected firm that year.

The growth in the property market resulted in revenues at Daft Media increasing by 8pc from 7.5m to 8.16m in the 12 months to the end of December last.

The dividend payout to Eamonn and Brian Fallon and other shareholders since year end followed a dividend payout by Daft Media to shareholders of 2.36m in 2015 - a combined 4m over the three years.

This followed a 1m dividend payout to Eamonn and Brian Fallon and other shareholders in 2014 from their Distilled Media Group.

In 2011 and 2010, the Fallon brothers shared a 7.3m windfall with other shareholders.

The brothers established the daft.ie brand in 1997 when Eamonn was 20 and Brian was just 15.

Today, Daft.ie is the number one destination for property searches and enjoys an audience of 2.5m users each month generating 228m page impressions per month.

Daft.ie has around 70,000 properties for rent or sale at any one time.

Accumulated profits at Daft Media last year increased from 1.4m to 3.7m.

The company is currently hiring staff for a number of posts. Numbers employed last year increased from 39 to 44 with staff costs rising from 2.7m to 3.1m.

Pay to directors totalled 279,954.

Daft Media is a subsidiary of Distilled SCH Ltd and accounts for the group firm show that it recorded a pre-tax loss of 1.5m last year.

This followed revenues more than doubling from 10m to 22.4m though the prior period was only six months.

Distilled SCH was established in 2015 after daft.ie operations along with that of sister company, adverts.ie were merged with the Oslo-listed international media group, Schibsted Media's Done deal.ie.

The group recorded the loss as a result of non-cash amortisation of goodwill costs totalling 6m.

The group also incurred 406,827 in restructuring costs.

Numbers employed by the group last year increased from 126 to 141 with staff costs totalling 9.3m.

Emoluments to directors last year totalled 717,046.
When Tomi Reichental was six years old, the new pro-Nazi puppet regime in his native Slovakia made it illegal for Jews to attend national schools.

The wearing of yellow stars became mandatory, but that was only the start of the Slovakian Jews' problems, and by the time he was nine, Tomi was on a cattle truck to Bergen-Belsen, where untold horrors awaited. Miraculously, he, his brother and their parents survived, and in the late 1950s Tomi emigrated to Ireland, where he married and settled down.

He rarely spoke about his experiences until a decade or so ago, when his grandson asked Tomi to speak about the Holocaust to his class. The floodgates opened and since then, Reichental has written a memoir and collaborated on three documentaries. In this latest, he revisits his hometown of Merasice and stands forlornly on the patch of ground where his family home once was.

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Tomi lost 35 members of his extended family in the 'final solution', 70,000 of Slovakia's 90,000 Jews were exterminated, and this horror was merely a microcosm of a wider slaughter. It can never happen again, everyone said when the camps were discovered, but, of course, it has and Tomi moves beyond his own race's experiences when he explores the massacre of over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995. He cries now and then while listening to Srebrenica survivors: he shares their pain and understands only too well the importance of remembering.

Tomi Reichental: Condemned to Remember airs on RTE One at 9.35pm on Wednesday Feburary 14.
Ibrahim Halawa denied any involvement with the Muslim Brotherhood and addressed rumours surrounding his four year imprisonment in Eqypt on Friday's Late Late Show.

"Of course I'm not with the Muslim Brotherhood, at 17 you don't know what that is," he said.

The Irish man had been arrested in Cairo during mass protests in 2013 but was acquitted of all charges last month after a long legal battle.

The 21-year-old was released from prison in Cairo last month and returned home to Firhouse in Dublin last week.

He describes his life in Ireland prior to the arrest, opting to study engineering in college and planning to go on a Leaving Certificate holiday to Ibiza.

"The plan wasn't to go to prison. The plan was to go to Ibiza with my friends," he said.

Ibrahim said that his father encouraged him to first go to Egypt to visit his extended family. "It was a family holiday, some people say I went there for the protest but I didn't," he said.

"If I wanted to be politically active in Egypt I would have went [there] when the revolution was on...Racist people are going to be racist."

When asked by presenter Ryan Tubridy how a family holiday ended up with him seemingly forefront at the Cairo protest, Ibrahim said it all started with him "chilling" at the cinema.

"I didn't know there was a political game going on in Egypt, I didn't know anything about that," he said.

Ibrahim then translated his words from a clip shown of him on stage speaking at the protest.

"I said that I've just arrived from Ireland and the reason that I was on stage, getting politically involved, [because] I had two of my really close friends who were shot dead at an incident before that," he said.

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"At the end of the video I said: 'What do we want? Freedom. When do we want it? Now.'"

Ibrahim said he met friends at Rabaa Square who "shared their political views" but said he needed to see what the opposition was thinking so he went to Tahrir Square with his brother.

"I didn't agree with what was going on with the Muslim Brotherhood being in charge of the Government at the time - but they were the elected people and they were democratically elected whether anyone likes it or not," he said.

"I was saying 'use the ballot box to get them out', 'don't use a military coup that will kill people' and those two people were my friends."

Ibrahim said that the Rabaa massacre occurred two days before he sought refuge in a mosque and was later arrested.

"I was going back to Ireland in two days - but I was going back to a concert and my friends were going back to graves. I had to do something. I just had to give my opinion about that," he said.

Footage of Ibrahim being filmed as he took refuge in the mosque with his sisters was then shown on the RTE show.

"It's freedom of speech, I didn't think I was going to get arrested for it. That's why I seem so frustrated in the video," he said.

"It was my last words...you're a man and you're going to see your three sisters die."

Over the last four years, Ibrahim spent time in a total of nine prisons in Egypt, and shared some harrowing details of his prison life.

In his first four days, he said there was 170 people placed in a 30 person capacity cell and served scraps of food.

"We'd swap places sleeping, half of the people would sit for half an hour and the rest would be standing. Then we'd switch around," he said.

He describes a terrifying type of initiation process when he was moved to each prsion.

"There are very long two rows of soldiers, one on the right and one on the left, and you have to run through because every soldier has a different weapon that he's going to beat you with."

"They call it the 'party'; it's to show that 'this is my prison and this is how it is going to be'".

Ibrahim also spoke about what it is like to finally be free and what he intends on doing next.

"It's hard as you're in such a small space with so many people for four years and then you're just out in a huge space, it's just crazy. It's terrifying," he said.
Pat Stacey has trawled the weekend TV schedules so you don't have to...

TONIGHT

The Handmaids Tale, shown on Hulu in the United States and Channel 4 in this part of the world, was the most critically acclaimed, if not necessarily the most watched, series of 2017.

The mini-series Alias Grace (Netflix, now streaming), also based on a Margaret Atwood novel, is probably unlikely to have the same kind of impact, yet shares some of the same themes.

Inspired by a real 1800s case, it stars Sarah Gadon as Grace Marks, a young Irish immigrant to Canada whos imprisoned for colluding with a stable hand in the murder of his employer and his housekeeper.

Was she manipulated by a madman, or was she the real mastermind behind the crime? Both book and mini-series weave a speculative tale around the known facts that leaves the story open for several possible outcomes.

Edward Holcroft plays the (fictional) psychiatrist trying to prove Graces innocence as she languishes in prison, 15 years after the event.

Was Spartacus, who led the slave revolt against the Roman Republic in 73BC, really the heroic figure immortalised by Kirk Douglas in the famous movie, or has Hollywood legend eclipsed a more complex truth?

In episode two of the engrossing Eight Days that Made Rome (Channel 5, 9pm), Bettany Hughes explores the background to Spartacuss journey from slave to gladiator to leader, and looks at the wider impact of the uprising.

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Youd imagine at this stage that every existing piece of film and videotape of Queen has been shown to death on TV. But Queen: Rock the World (BBC4, 9pm) unearths some previously unseen footage.

Bob Harris tells the story behind the bands landmark 1977 album News of the World, released just as punk was upending the old order and featuring a more back-to-basics sound. Trivia note: the wonderful gatefold art, featuring a giant robot, was a reworking by artist Frank Kelly Freas of his 1953 cover for Astounding Science Fiction magazine. Roger Taylor happened to own a copy.

Theres a couple of other fine music documentaries tonight. The History of the Clash (Sky Arts, 9pm) does exactly what it says on the tin, while the final episode of Rock and Roll (Sky Atlantic, 10pm) focuses on the musics transcendent power. As well as talking heads Sting, Gene Simmons and Bob Geldof, theres fantastic footage of Sister Rosetta Tharpe performing in, of all places, a railway station in Manchester.

For some people, the main attraction of The Late Late Show (RTE1, 9.35pm) will no doubt be the pre-recorded interview with Conor McGregor; the rest of us, however, will be more interested in what Ibrahim Halawa, giving his first major TV interview, has to say.

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TOMORROW

Its November 4 today. Its November 4 in Gunpowder (BBC1, 9pm) too, which can mean only one thing: the day of reckoning has arrived for Robert Cateby (Kit Harington) and his fellow would-be assassins.

No prizes for guessing how it turns out, but the journey to this point has been a gripping, if sometimes stomach-churningly violent, one. Its also proved that quality drama aimed at a grown-up audience has a place in the Saturday night schedule.

And there promises to be more of it in Spanish series I Know Who You Are (BBC4, 9pm), which makes a swift reappearance on the heels of the well-liked first season back in July.

In tonights opening double-bill of episodes, an injured and unconscious Alicia narrowly avoids a grisly end. Juan Elias is convinced Santi Mur is the culprit, and prepares to prove his theory to Inspector Giralt.

There are more dark deeds afoot in Murder Beyond the Orient Express (Sky 1, 8pm). As the second movie adaptation of Agatha Christies classic murder mystery Murder on the Orient Express pulls into cinemas, with director Kenneth Branagh playing Hercule Poirot and quizzing an all-star cast of suspects that includes Judi Dench and Johnny Depp, Alex Zane looks at the enduring appeal of probably Christies best known title.

Ive regularly bemoaned the lack of quality guests on The Jonathan Ross Show (UTV/ITV, 10.05pm), which seems to be second in the queue behind The Graham Norton Show when it comes to bagging the A-listers. Thats not the case tonight.

Jonathan welcomes two genuinely iconic women: Jodie Foster, wholl no doubt be talking about the cinema re-release, in a gleaming new 4K print from the BFI, of The Silence of the Lambs, and Debbie Harry, wholl be shooting the breeze and then performing with Blondie.

Taking up the other places on the sofa are David Walliams and the hilarious Roisin Conaty from Man Down and GameFace.

SUNDAY

If Blue Planet II (BBC1, 8pm) is to be the final television work of David Attenborough, who toyed with the idea of retiring after his 90th birthday last year, then its one hell of a way to bid farewell.

This is a look at the most bizarre denizens of the deep, including bone-eating worms, fish that walk rather than swim, and creatures that live on the ocean bed in volcanic hotspots where the temperature is high enough to melt lead. Simply stunning.

More very promising drama tonight. Unspeakable (Channel 4, 9pm) is a one-off about a woman who receives an anonymous text message alleging her new live-in boyfriend is abusing her 11-year-old daughter. Unable to share her fears with anyone, she succumbs to paranoia over the course of a weekend.

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Sex, drugs and criminality are at the heart of new German-language thriller Babylon Berlin (Sky Atlantic, 9pm), which kicks off with a double-bill.

Volker Bruch stars as Gereon Rath, a detective and war veteran operating in 1920s Berlin, who keeps his PTSD at bay with morphine. A huge hit in Germany, its tipped to become a global sensation.

Finally, The Grease Story (Channel 5, 9pm) is the definitive history of the cheesy musical, telling how the original stage version (which starred Richard Gere) was toned down and cleaned up for the screen.
A jury has convicted retired consultant surgeon Michael Shine of indecently assaulting two young male patients in a hospital.

Shine (85), of Wellington Road, in Dublin, had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to eight charges of indecently assaulting six patients at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, and at his private clinic, both in Drogheda, Co Louth, on dates between 1964 and 1991.

On Wednesday, the jury of four men and eight women acquitted him of some of these charges.

Yesterday, having deliberated for just over six hours, the jury returned majority guilty verdicts on three outstanding counts of assaulting two teenage patients on dates between 1974 and 1976.

Shine had admitted attending to these patients, but denied that anything inappropriate was done during these medical examinations.

Giving evidence during the trial, he said that he would never do anything that would embarrass or upset a patient.

One victim testified that he was aged around 15 or 16 in 1976 when he attended the hospital with an ingrowing toenail. He told the trial that Dr Shine tied him to a bed with rubber bungee restraints and a blanket, and then slipped his hand under the blanket and started massaging his testicles.

He said he knew it was weird but didn't know if he could speak out because he was "just a young boy".

The second victim testified that during two follow up examinations at Shine's private clinic in Drogheda, Shine massaged the base of his penis. The victim was in his mid-teens at the time and told the trial that he told himself for years that there was nothing improper about what the doctor did.

Judge Cormac Quinn remanded Shine on continuing bail until December 1 for sentencing.

Shine had become unwell and arrangements were being made to take him to a GP, but he was present when the jury delivered its verdicts just before midday.

Mr Shine has previously been struck off by the Medical Council.

Five years ago, former patients of Mr Shine reached a multi-million euro settlement with the religious order that ran the hospital.

More than 100 former patients who claimed they were sexually abused by the struck-off medic agreed to a settlement, believed to exceed 8m.

It was reached with insurers Allianz.
Fugitive murderer Stephen Henry, who brutally killed a man with a Samurai sword, was on the loose in Dublin tonight, after he was released with a fine following his drunk arrest.

Killer Stephen Henry, 41, from Belfast who went on the run after failing to return to Magilligan Prison in the North earlier this week, was arrested drunk in Dublin Friday morning after being thrown out of a city-centre hostel and getting mugged.

Barely able to keep his eyes open, he was brought before to Dublin District Court this evening and let go after being fined 75 for a public order offence that does not carry a jail sentence.

A European Arrest Warrant had not been issued yet and could take a week, the court was told.

Henry, who used a Samurai-style sword in the murder of an acquaintance in 2004, did not return to prison on Monday after he was granted a day-release pass to visit his family. The PSNI launched a manhunt and appealed for information into the whereabouts of the 5ft 10 in murderer.

Henry was jailed for murdering father-of-two John Cooke in Lisburn. After failing to return to prison on Monday the PSNI issued a statement stating he may be in either the Craigavon or Belfast area.

However, he crossed the border on Tuesday and was picked up by gardai in Dublin today.

He was arrested at Merrion Road, Dublin 4, in citys south side at 8.50am on a charge under the Public Order Act for being intoxicated to an extent he might endanger himself or any other person in his vicinity. The offence can result in a fine of about 130 but no jail sentence.

Henry, who has tattoos on both upper arms and scars on his forehead and left ear, was brought before Judge Conal Gibbons at a late sitting of Dublin District Court.

Dressed in a black tracksuit, green and white shirt, and brown shoes, Henry, with two cuts on his forehead, remained silent during his hearing.

Garda David Carty told the court that Henry, who is currently of no fixed abode, had been brought to Irishtown Garda station and made no reply when charged.

He objected to bail, however, the judge pointed out that the charge did not carry a penal sanction just a fine and the High Court would not be pleased if he refused.

There was no charge before the court for being unlawfully at large and he also said that being homeless was not a reason for refusal of bail.

Defence solicitor Tracy Horan said she had voiced the same concerns and she agreed with the judge. She also said she thought it would take at least a week for a European Arrest Warrant to be issued.

Garda Carty said contact would be made with Interpol.

Judge Gibbons held that he had to grant bail but because Henry had no ties to the jurisdiction he was going to require him to lodge 50 cash.

However, Ms Horan said that her client had been robbed overnight; his bag and phone were taken. He had a brother in Dublin but did not have his number. She argued that asking for a cash lodgement was tantamount to refusing bail.

Judge Gibbons said the lodgement would be required because Henry had no ties to the State.

This would have resulted in him being remanded in custody for until the bail money was lodged.

The defence solicitor took instructions from Henry at the side of the court and then told the judge her client was pleading guilty.

Garda Carty said he observed Henry walking on Merrion Road, he had no shoes on and was completely unaware where he was. He was arrested for his own safety.

The court was told he was serving a sentence for murder in the North but did not return after being given day-release. He has no previous convictions in the Republic.

Pleading for leniency, Ms Horan said Henry had been robbed and his phone was taken on Thursday night. He was intoxicated at the time and it was a little bit a blur, she said.

Judge Gibbons gave him a 75 fine which must be paid within one month.

Henry, from Mountpottinger Road, Belfast, was jailed for life at Craigavon Crown Court in 2006 after pleading guilty to murdering an acquaintance with a Samurai-style sword.

The attack on father-of-two John Cooke (33) took place in a house in Lisburn in May 2004.

Mr Cooke had been drinking and taking drugs with Henry before a row broke out.

Henry had behaved like a savage who had attacked Mr Cooke as he begged for his life, the trial judge had said.
A 33-year-old construction worker has been granted bail after being charged with burglary at a business premises which is being converted into a juice bar in Ranelagh village in Dublin.

Graham Armstrong with an address at Wyckham Point, Dundrum, Dublin was ordered to obey bail conditions and was remanded to appear again on Dec. 15 next for directions from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to be obtained.
A vehicle testing firm found guilty of breaching health and safety laws in the testing of a school bus subsequently involved in a fatal crash has brought an appeal against conviction.

The bus went out of control near Clara, Co Offaly, on April 4, 2006. Michael White, (15), died as a result of injuries sustained.

OReilly Commercials Limited, of Ballinalack, Mullingar, Co Westmeath, had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to four charges of breaching health and safety laws when carrying out an official test on the bus between August 5 and 6, 2005.

The charges, brought under the Safety Health and Welfare at Work Act 1989, had alleged the firm failed to ensure persons were not exposed to risks to their safety or health as a result of the way the test was carried out.

A Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury deliberated for just under eight hours following a 23-day trial before returning a verdict of guilty on the first count which outlined a failure to note the modified rear suspension system. Verdicts of not guilty were returned on three other counts.

The company was fined 25,000 by Ms Justice Margaret Heneghan on July 29, 2013.

Opening an appeal against conviction today/yesterday(FRIDAY), counsel for O'Reilly Commercials, Sean Gillane SC, said the background to the case involved a tragic accident and the the death of a young school boy. That fact was not lost on the company, he said.

The court heard that the bus was carrying more than 30 students on a school run. It was a Mercedes vehicle originally registered in the UK. It had what was called leaf spring suspension on the rear axle but in or around 1991, this was modified or converted in the UK in the knowledge of British regulatory authorities.

Thereafter, the bus was registered in Ireland in 2001.

Mr Gillane said O'Reilly Commercials, who was the authorised tester, had a very good reputation in the testing business.

Central to the defence's case, Mr Gillane said, was that no pass was issued in August 2005.

He said the test was carried out on September 1, 2005 not in August and as a consequence, the 1989 Act did not apply. By the time the test had been carried out, that Act had been repealed, he submitted.

As such, no offence known to law was contained on the indictment, he submitted.

On the defence's case, Mr Gillane said a visual inspection was carried out in August. In the course of that, an internal document or checklist was generated of things that needed to be looked at ahead of the actual test.

Mr Gillane said it was akin to presenting your car for a pre-test at the same centre you get the test.

He said a witness from the Department of Environment indicated that this sort of thing shouldn't happen but it was a feature of life that it did.

Mr Gillane submitted a number of other grounds related to rulings by the trial judge and the proffering of an opinion by a witness which went further than ought to have been allowed.

Counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Caroline Biggs SC, said the test took place on August 6 and the retest was on September 1.

Ms Biggs said that statement was made by the principle of O'Reilly Commercials to an inspector. It came from the horse's mouth, she said, and was evidence on the face of it that the first stage of the test was carried out in August.

She said the date on which the test was carried out was a question of fact for resolution by the jury.

The jury knew the significance of the date, Ms Biggs said. It had been explained to the jury throughout.

It must be inferred from the verdict of the jury that the test was performed before September 1st, Ms Biggs submitted.

Mr Justice George Birmingham, who sat with Mr Justice John Edwards and Mr Justice John Hedigan, said the court would reserve judgment.
A sound engineer accused of carrying out a campaign of harassment against her ex-boyfriend was re-arrested and taken to court in custody after failing to turn up for a previous hearing.

Emma Butt (29), who allegedly hacked into her ex's social media accounts and blogged about their break-up, appeared before Dublin District Court after gardai executed a warrant for her arrest. However, after Judge Anthony Halpin granted her bail and released her from custody, she left the courtroom without signing her bail bond.
The scene of a fatal stabbing in Jobstown, Tallaght. Inset: Victim Reece Cullen

The two women that were arrested in connection with the fatal stabbing of Tallaght teenager Reece Cullen have been released from custody.

Earlier today, gardai have confirmed that two women, both aged in their 30s, were arrested in the Tallaght area shortly after 7am.

Both women were detained at Tallaght Garda Station pursuant to the provisions of Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act 1939/98.

The teenager (16) died on January 5 after he was attacked near his Dublin home.

The talented boxer, of Bawnlea Crescent, Jobstown, was rushed to Tallaght Hospital, where he later died as a result of his injuries.

A post-mortem examination determined that Reece suffered one stab wound to the heart when he was attacked.

Reece was discovered by a female neighbour bleeding to death at the foot of a staircase.

In an exclusive interview with the Herald earlier this year, his devastated girlfriend Sophie Evans told how she was on the phone to Reece at the time he was stabbed.

He was stabbed and I just heard him screaming. Then the phone went off, she said.

He was just saying he was walking out the front door to come around. Thats when he was struck.

He said Im on the way down to you baby, then I heard him screaming, saying My heart, my heart.

Then that was it, she said.
Protesters in Sant Jaume square, Barcelona demanding the freedom of the leaders of Catalan separatist organisations who were jailed by Spains High Court. Photo: Reuters

Dublin City councillors have voted in favour of flying the Catalan flag over City Hall next month.

The vote, which was put to the protocol committee in the council yesterday morning, was passed by a narrow margin of seven votes to five.

A motion was put forward by People Before Profit Councillor John Lyons following the violence in Catalonia last month during a vote on independence from Spain.

The motion read: "This council condemns the Spanish government's repression and violence perpetrated on citizens exercising their democratic right to vote and as such, in an act of solidarity and in recognition of this universal right to democracy and self-determination as established by international covenants, we agree to fly the Catalan flag over City Hall for one month."

It means that the decision will now go before the full city council at the December meeting, where it will then need to be ratified with a full council vote.

The motion was seconded by the city's Sinn Fein Lord Mayor Micheal Mac Donncha.

A Sinn Fein spokesman yesterday reaffirmed the party's total backing for the independence of Catalonia.

"We support the right of the Catalan people to decide their own future. They held a referendum on October 1 and the majority voted in favour of independence," the Sinn Fein spokesman said.

However, Fine Gael TD Noel Rock accused Sinn Fein of adopting contradictory positions. He told the Irish Independent: "It seems inconsistent that Sinn Fein wants to unite Ireland, wants to divide Spain and wants to do anything but the jobs it's elected to do both north and south of the Border."
Facebook is to create "several hundred" jobs in Ireland next year.

The tech giant has not yet finalised details for its latest expansion, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed there will be a substantial jobs boost "in the higher end of the hundreds", during a meeting with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

Ireland is home to Facebook's largest office outside of Silicon Valley, employing 2,200 people in Dublin and Cork.

It is understood most of the new jobs will be in Dublin, which is home to the social media company's international headquarters.

Speaking after his meeting with Mr Zuckerberg and other executives, Mr Varadkar said: "They have confirmed they are going to expand their operations in Ireland.

"That was a very positive announcement that Facebook is very committed to Ireland, very happy with its operations in Ireland, and is going to increase its employment levels and roles in Ireland by several hundred next year."

When Facebook opened its first offices in Ireland in 2009 it employed just 30 people.

The jobs come on top of a recent announcement that Facebook is expanding a data centre in Clonee, Co Meath.

Mr Varadkar said the jobs would be "expanding on existing facilities".

"They indicated that there will be several hundred additional roles in Ireland next year. We weren't able to disclose the exact figure, but it's certainly in the higher end of the hundreds," he said.

Asked whether he has any concerns that Ireland is becoming overly reliant on tech companies for employment, the Taoiseach said he does not believe we are overly exposed.

"One thing you always have to bear in mind in economics and politics is not to have all your eggs in one basket.

"We suffered very badly when there was too much happening in the construction sector, and when the construction sector collapsed, it brought down large parts of the economy with it, including banking and retail. But I think our economy is more diversified than it has ever been before."

Mr Varadkar also commented on moves by US President Donald Trump to cut corporation tax from 35pc to 20pc.

The president has repeatedly said the reduction is part of a plan to take US companies back from countries like Ireland.

However, the Taoiseach said he would not criticise one government's tax proposals when Ireland is constantly defending its own 12.5pc corporation tax rate.

"I don't think the US proposals will have much of an impact on us. As a country we believe individual countries should set their own tax rates, so it wouldn't make any sense for us to criticise," he said.
The traditional home pregnancy test could soon be obsolete, scientists have said, as they announced a new smartwatch system that alerts women when they conceive.

Trials in Switzerland have allowed researchers to identify for the first time a package of minute physiological changes, detectable by existing hardware, that take place when pregnancy starts.

They are now building an algorithm which learns the individual wearer's personal characteristics so it could not only signal the start of a pregnancy, but also highlight the best windows in which to try for a baby.

The technology promises to allow women to do away with the morning ritual of a home pregnancy test, which assesses levels of human chorionic gonadotropin (hcg) in urine.

The team behind the Ava bracelet, which is expected to cost around 225, plan to begin real-world tests of the system before the end of the year.

Presenting their research at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine annual congress in Texas, they described the subtle changes in skin temperature, breathing rate, pulse and heart rate variability, that occur when a women conceives.

Hormonal

They found a pulse variation of just 2.1 beats per minute, as well as a 0.2C change in skin temperature, was indicative of the onset of pregnancy, probably due to hormonal changes involving progesterone and oestrogen. The smartwatch is able to detect pregnancy around a week after conception, the same as the most sensitive pregnancy test.

In the future, it may be able to detect conception sooner, the developers believe.

Mohaned Shilaih, senior researcher at University Hospital Zurich, said: "Rather than waking up every morning and trying to pee on a stick to detect the rise in hcg, you would simply have the bracelet worn both night and day."

He described the standard method as "physiologically tedious" for women, adding: "This would partly take away this kind of pressure."

The Zurich researchers said the machine learning system would be continuously developed to monitor women during pregnancy, potentially providing early warning of serious conditions such as pre-eclampsia, which can force doctors to induce premature birth.

Hcg was first discovered to be linked to the fertilisation of eggs in the 1930s, however it was not until the 1970s that home-testing kits became widely available.

The Ava bracelet technology is not expected to provide an earlier indication of pregnancy than the current home-testing method because both ultimately rely on the same package of hormones being released.

The algorithm is already being used in an existing Ava device to indicate when best to try for a baby.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is to warn three of his ministers against travelling to North Korea because he doesn't want "anything beastly" to happen to them.

Responding to news that Independent Alliance TDs John Halligan, Shane Ross and Finian McGrath have sought a meeting with crazed dictator Kim Jung-un, the Taoiseach said he doesn't envisage such an event taking place.

The ministers wrote to the Korean embassy in London seeking a visit to North Korea - but did not inform the Taoiseach or Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney of their plans.

The idea has been rejected by the Taoiseach who indicated it would not be a suitable mission for the three ministers.

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Speaking tonight while on a trade mission in the United States, Mr Varadkar said: It is not something that I envisage going ahead. I am sure that it is motivated from good intentions on his part.

It is of course a dangerous place to go and I certainly wouldn't want anything beastly happening to any minister of state or member of Government."

The Department of Foreign Affairs is to arrange a briefing for Mr Halligan on the situation in North Korea next Monday.

Earlier Mr Halligan told RTE's Sean O'Rourke programme: The greatest threat to peace in the world is on the Korean peninsula.

Were not going as members of the government, were going as three politicians.

Any TD is at liberty to go to a country and visit, were not doing anything sensational, were not talking sides, were trying to initiate peace talks, he added.

Asked what he would say to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Mr Halligan replied: I would ask him to engage with democracy.
Tens of thousands of public service workers will spend an additional year in the workforce as plans are being advanced to increase the retirement age by one year to 66, the Irish Independent understands.

The Government is actively researching the impact of such a move on the public-sector workforce.

The retirement age in the public sector for most workers who joined before 2013 is 65 years, which constitutes the vast majority of those still working.

For those who joined since January 1, 2013, the retirement age is 66.

Sources say Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe considered an announcement as part of Budget 2018 that the retirement age of 66 will now extend to the majority of public service workers - gardai, firefighters and members of the Defence Forces have provisions for much earlier retirement - but decided to wait a "little longer before going public".

It comes as the number of people forced to retire at 65 years of age - but not entitled to a pension until 66 - is soaring.

An estimated 5,000 older people are currently in a 'no man's land' when it comes to social welfare entitlements.

These people are obliged to sign for the dole and formally pretend they are "available for work" until they qualify for the old-age pension 12 months after being forced out of the workplace.

It is anticipated that this figure could continue to increase by up to 5,000 annually, although it will vary year to year.

Unless changes to the system are introduced, the problem will be compounded in 2021 when the pension age increases to 67. And within a decade the pension age will have risen to 68.

It is understood the issue was discussed during the pre-Budget negotiations between Fine Gael and the Independent Alliance at the behest of Junior Minister Kevin 'Boxer' Moran.

"There was agreement on all sides that people should be allowed to work until 66 if they want, but it was felt that more work should be done before making an announcement," a source said.

In recent weeks, the Independent Alliance issued a largely unnoticed press statement calling for the retirement age to be raised.

"By giving workers the option to stay in the workplace until they reach 'pensionable age', this means that they will continue to contribute to the Exchequer and would not have to claim social welfare payments to carry them through to when the pension is payable," the statement said.

However, well-placed sources told the Irish Independent that changes were already "a done deal". "It's in train now and it will happen sooner rather than later," the source said.

Fianna Fail's social protection spokesman Willie O'Dea has previously called for the abolition of compulsory retirement at 65.

While there is no single fixed retirement age for employees, many workplaces do set 65 years as the exit date in their employee contracts.

The 2016 Census showed numbers aged over 65 had grown by 100,000 over the previous five years, to a total of 640,000.

The current pensions bill is put at 7.2bn, or over one-third of the entire spend on social welfare.

In 2013, the formal pension age was increased to 66 years and the so-called "retirement pension", which bridged the gap for those obliged to quit at 65, was abolished. Instead, many people in that position end up signing on the dole.
Pascal Donohoe has warned he is prepared to remove directors from bank boards if commitments to resolve the tracker mortgage scandal aren't delivered on.

The Finance Minister said it is just one of the actions he will take if the banks do not act. Mr Donohoe said the move is among those open to him if he decides to act as an "activist shareholder" in banks that are part-owned by the State.

Mr Donohoe hauled the bosses of the main banks into the Department of Finance last week to admonish them on the handling of tracker mortgages. As many as 20,000 householders may have been affected, losing money and in some cases their homes, after banks wrongfully took customers off tracker schemes.

The Central Bank is probing the issue, and after their meeting with Mr Donohoe the banks promised to repay and compensate the majority of the 13,000 affected customers identified so far by Christmas.

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Among the warnings delivered by the Government to bank chiefs is that the bank levy could be hiked. It has also been suggested that discussions won't happen on lifting the 500,000 salary cap unless they live up to their commitments on tracker mortgages.

Mr Donohoe last night confirmed that he may go as far as removing bank directors from boards if the promises that have been made aren't delivered on. He said he wouldn't be in favour of removing entire boards, as directors need to be in place to meet company law requirements.

However, he said he does include action relating to the role of individual directors as part of the options the Government may take as an activist shareholder.

"There are many actions that will be open to me next year if this matter is not resolved, including pay, including the tenure of individual directors, and including my role in relation to corporate resolutions.

"I'm willing to do any, or all, of them if the timeline for actions that have been committed to by the banks, that have been agreed by the Central Bank, are not met," he said.

Meanwhile, Transport Minister Shane Ross said the Independent Alliance would still like to see a criminal investigation into the issue, but its TDs are 100pc behind the Government's approach. Mr Ross said the Alliance would support any measures the minister may take as a shareholder, if he "finds the banks wanting in any way", including removing directors.
UK politics is embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal - but could a similar controversy ever engulf Leinster House?

That was the question posed by INM political correspondent Niall O Connor, when he was joined on the Floating Voter by correspondents Philip Ryan and Shona Murray.

Murray told the podcast that she has herself experienced it in the workplace - and that Dail Eireann is not immune from a similar controversy that has engulfed Westminster.

Ryan added that social media has brought a new dynamic to the saga - and has led to potentially dangerous claims being made online.

And, the latest garda breath test report has seen at least 400,000 extra errors found, how can this be?

Meanwhile, with the Dail in recess, we ask is new politics working and what is our new favourite phrase of the year? #FakeNews
It's that time of year again -the mornings suddenly seem chilly, the trees are changing colour and leaves are falling to the ground. I'm lucky, I enjoy autumn, but I know that there are many who do not. I usually look forward to the winter months too, but this year I notice myself being more influenced by 'doom and gloom' conversations about the weather, traffic, politics and the day-to-day pressures we all face.

I know I am not the only one who may be affected by others' dislike of winter. Here are 10 things you can do that will help turn things around and change your mindset for the better.

1 Stay in the present

It can be tempting to rush forward into the future. Advertisers are hoping that we do exactly that. How many ads have you seen already for children's toys? How many shops are already displaying Christmas decorations? Instead of jumping ahead and living in the future, check what date it is. Even better, first thing, every day, plan one thing that you will do before bedtime that will give you pleasure - and do it.

2 Keep a sense of balance

Yes, we will have dark mornings and we will have dark evenings. But we will have bright afternoons. We will have rain, but we will have beautiful winter sunshine. We will have slippery roads, but we will have grit. When you notice others focus on upsetting things, why not see if you can gently introduce some balance into the conversation by talking about something joyful that you associate with the colder months?

3 Keep warm

Yes, it does get colder, so this is an ideal time to get our cosy boots, hats, scarves and gloves all sorted. It is also the time to have porridge, hot soup and stews. While it is tempting to stay close to heat, it is also the time to get warm and keep warm through exercise. Just think of arriving home warm and relaxed from a brisk walk before you settle down to relax for the evening.

4 Reach out for fun

Some people copy the hedgehogs and do their best to hibernate for a few months. It can be tempting to do this. It takes effort to meet friends when the wind is howling and the rain is pouring. The technology that we often complain about means that we can speak to people we love without leaving home. We can even see them if we use Skype or Facetime. That is fine but not all the time. There are some family and friends who are absolutely worth the effort it might take to meet them in person.

5 Reach out to support

The Dalai Lama said: "Taking care of others, helping others, ultimately is the way to discover your own joy and to have a happy life." It can take very little to ensure that vulnerable people in our community are supported and cared for. Every community has groups of volunteers who are committed to ensuring that others have heat, food and companionship. They welcome and usually need more members, so maybe this is the time for you to put yourself forward to support others.

6 Learn a new skill

The concept of 'life-long education' has taken firm hold in Ireland. People gather in secondary schools and community halls throughout the country to learn a new language, or to develop their skills in a range of activities including cookery, music, art, painting or writing. Some sign up for evening classes for fun, not realising that they have just embarked on a whole new journey that can result in new friends and even new careers. Yes, it takes effort to get up and get out, but the effort is so worth it.

7 Take time out to play

Those of you of a certain age may remember a television programme from years ago called 'Why Don't You Just Switch off Your Television Set and Go Out and Do Something Less Boring Instead?' or 'Why Don't You?' for short. I remember watching it puzzled, knowing that if I turned off the television, I would not know what they were suggesting I did instead. The fear of missing out, (FOMO) attacked me at a young age. There is definitely merit in turning of the television and doing something that is fun instead. When did you last bake for pleasure? When did you last play Snakes and Ladders, Scrabble or card games? It is easy to forget how much enjoyment we can get from games that we used to play when we were children.

8 Clear out and tidy

This might not be as much fun as the other suggestions, but it can bring a deep sense of peace and relief. It only takes an hour here and there to clear presses of 'stuff' that we don't even know we have. Charity shops welcome clothes, shoes and books that we won't miss. Put on music you like and, even better, see if you can get some help and discover just how much extra space you can create in a few hours. You never know, you might even enjoy it.

9 Reflect

Do you remember those promises you may have made last January? They could well be the same ones that you will make next January. It is easy to focus on what we haven't done, should have done, wished we had done and absolutely will do sometime. Instead, why not take time during the next few months to reflect on what you have done during the year that you are proud of? Then think about things the people you love and care about have done that you are proud of too. You might even write these down in a notebook to be presented to them as a gift for Christmas. A great day to reflect is December 21. It marks the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. You can create your own way to reflect and celebrate.

10 Appreciate

As the Psalm and song says: 'To everything there is a season'. Let's make time to appreciate the gifts that the winter months bring us. These might be different for each person, but there will be at least one thing that each of us can anticipate with joy that is unique to this time of year. It might be Halloween, it might be Christmas or it might be an excuse to sit beside a warm fire. Whatever it is, let's notice it, appreciate it and tell others about it. Let's turn the conversation away from doom and gloom to what we enjoy and get pleasure from. Let's deliberately look forward to and enjoy the next few months.

* Dr. Claire Hayes is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and author of 'Finding Hope in the Age of Anxiety' and 'How to Cope'
People shop for kitchens in the same way they shop for clothes. They wander around the shops until something catches their eye. Then, if they can afford it, they buy it. Sure how else would you do it?

"One of the main mistakes that people make when they're choosing a kitchen is to buy a unit door and design the kitchen around it," says Michael Connolly of Lomi Design. "The kitchen is all about what's behind that door."

Kitchen retailers love to sell kitchens. It's what they do. But a kitchen is always an expensive purchase. Whether you spend 3,000 or 30,000, it's going to be a big chunk out of your savings. So the next time you see a pretty kitchen, keep your hand in your pocket until you've asked some searching questions.

Cheap kitchens are designed to look like expensive ones but sometimes their beauty is only skin deep. Units made from poor-quality chipboard, for example, don't stand up well to moisture. Cut-price drawers can buckle and sag. The look of a kitchen is only one part of the design. If it doesn't function, and continue to function over time, it may be a false economy.

Lomi Design is the Irish supplier for Cesar, an Italian brand with kitchens starting from around 15,000 (without appliances). While this is by no means the most affordable kitchen on the market, it's going to last. "The quality of the components is important to the longevity of the kitchen," Connolly explains. "The units are moisture-resistant. Typically, a base unit will have strengthening bars in aluminium, and the drawer runners are tested up to 70kg."

It's also important when you go kitchen shopping to consider how you are likely to use it. There is no point in spending money on a state-of-the-art oven when all you really need is a carefully concealed microwave. For open-plan spaces, the Cesar range has a kitchen-in-a-cupboard solution, complete with a pull-out stainless steel work surface.

"The pocket doors fold back into the unit so they're not in the way when you're using the kitchen. Then you can close the doors on the mess and nobody will be any the wiser," Connolly says. "Not everyone wants to look at their appliances."

In Ireland overall the overwhelming preference is for hand-painted kitchens. "Internationally, that would be considered a bit odd," Connolly reflects. "After a few years the units begin to look grubby and need a repaint." All the kitchens from Lomi Design come in factory finishes, which he describes as "a bit more like what you'd get on a car, only you can order them any colour you want".

The advantage of factory finishes over hand-painted units is that they last for much longer. The disadvantage is that it's not so easy to change the colour.

Metallic kitchen finishes are trending internationally, but they don't come cheap. If money is no object, the Cesar range includes stainless steel doors treated with a method called physical vapour deposition (PVD). This is a process used to colour the metal and to make it more resistant to scratching, wearing and corrosion. It's also more environmentally friendly than alternatives like electroplating and painting.

"PVD can make stainless steel look like brass, or bronze, or titanium," Connolly explains. "It certainly doesn't look like stainless steel." The catch is the price. A standard unit with a door in PVD finish could cost a whopping 1,060. If you like the look, melamine surfaces treated to appear like rusted or oxidised metal are a fraction of the price. A standard unit with a melamine door could cost 290.

Aisling O'Reilly of Tile Merchant also reports a public appetite for metallic finishes in tiling, taps and even countertops. Tile Merchant's new countertop product Neolith can be made to mimic stone or marble but also comes in alluring metallic finishes with names like Iron Moss and Iron Copper Satin. Neolith is a type of sintered stone, made from natural minerals subjected to intense pressure and heat. It's virtually indestructible.

"Marble is very delicate," says O'Reilly. "You need to use coasters and it can pick up stains from tomatoes or curry powder. Neolith is so tough, it's just not funny. You could use it as a chopping board, only you'd blunt the knife."

The prices aren't funny either. An average-sized kitchen worktop in Neolith would set you back at least 3,000.

The most popular countertop material at Tile Merchant is quartz, with prices starting around 1,700. "If you only have 800 to spend on a countertop, then you can't afford stone," O'Reilly explains. "That's the bottom line. We've been known to sell countertops for 20,000 in here. You'd want to get a chef with that!"

Sintered stone, O'Reilly feels, will gradually take over from natural materials. "People are willing to spend the extra not to have to worry about their worktops," she says. "I think in five years time, very few people will be having marble worktops." I put it to her that marble can be a cold-looking material. She agrees: "It can be like looking at a tombstone. There's a big turn back to warmer tones."

If you want to introduce warm metallic tones without taking out a second mortgage, consider tarting up your existing kitchen with brass taps and door knobs and some mid-century metal light fittings. The online boutique Skinflint has a good selection of rescued Eastern Bloc lights, but you can also buy new designs in a retro style.

In a recent project in Dublin, Kingston Lafferty Design used three Elegance brass pendants (301 each) from Mullan Lighting above a slightly chilly-looking kitchen island made of quartz.

The lights warm it up beautifully. They're dimmable - capable of shifting from ambient to functional task lighting and back again - and have a slightly industrial look that fits in well with the reclaimed-brick splashback and brassy taps.

The Elegance range also includes a wall light (270) that comes in antique brass, antique silver, polished brass and satin brass finishes. Even better, they're designed and made in Mullan Village, Co Monaghan.

See mullanlighting.com, tilemerchant.ie, lomi.ie, skinflintdesign.com and kingstonlaffertydesign.com
The tall homes that comprise Albany in Killiney may be period in style but their eco-credentials are fully 21st century, with an A3 BER making them cheaper to run than older piles in the affluent coastal suburb that became popular in the 1990s among rock stars seeking refuge from the paparazzi.

The Cairn Homes scheme is set amid the grounds of Albany House, a listed Victorian villa. The scheme is accessed from a new entrance at Killiney Hill Road and there is separate access to the Shanganagh Road to Albany House, which has been restored and reconfigured to create new semi-detached homes.

The new-builds surrounding Albany House originally launched in May 2016, and there are seven still available, as well as a refurbished three-bed period house on the site that's selling for 900,000.

Four of the new homes on the market at Albany are four-bed semi-detached properties priced from 895,000. Each has 2,131 sq ft of living space spread out over three floors.

There are also three five-bed detached homes, priced from 1.075m, that are extra tall - there's a fourth floor on top that houses a study and a master ensuite with walk-in wardrobes.

The kitchens at Albany are fitted with units from McNally and Neff appliances. Floor-to-ceiling windows and patio doors, as well as large skylights, allow in plenty of natural light. The living rooms have a feature gas-fire insert and there is recessed lighting to the nine-foot-high coffered ceilings.

Albany is within walking distance of Killiney's beach, village and Dart station, while Dalkey, Ballybrack and Shankill are also nearby. The centre of Dublin is 16km away.

Viewing is by appointment only.

Enquiries to: Sherry Fitzgerald New Homes (01) 6671888 or Kelly Walsh (01) 6645500
Reality TV star Ferne McCann has said she is "grateful" for the support she has received following news of her pregnancy as her ex-boyfriend is to appear in court charged in connection with an acid attack.

Confirming her pregnancy for the first time, a spokeswoman for McCann said: "'Ferne is grateful for the sympathetic way news of her pregnancy has been covered and people's support and obviously her first concern is for her child's health."

The statement added: "Accordingly she does not wish to discuss the pregnancy further given the early stage it is at and the immense strain that Ferne is currently under.

"Nor does she wish to discuss her ex-boyfriend who she does not recognise from the events of the last week.

Expand Close Arthur Collins, the boyfriend of reality TV star Ferne McCann. Picture: Metropolitan Police/PA Wire / Facebook

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Whatsapp Arthur Collins, the boyfriend of reality TV star Ferne McCann. Picture: Metropolitan Police/PA Wire

"Ferne is in no way seeking sympathy for her situation and is determined to do all she can to have a happy and healthy child and face the challenges of being a single parent with all her energy."

The statement ended with McCann offering her thoughts to the "victims of the horrific attack on Easter Monday".

Arthur Collins was due to appear in court on Monday charged in connection with the incident at an east London nightclub which left two revellers partially blinded and others disfigured.

The 24-year-old was arrested at an address in Rushden, Northamptonshire, on Saturday.

He was charged on Sunday with 14 counts of wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm (GBH) and one count of throwing corrosive fluid on a person with intent to cause GBH, Scotland Yard said.

Collins, of Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, will appear at Thames Magistrates' Court.

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A second man, Andre Phoenix, 21, will appear at the same court charged with seven counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Twenty clubbers were doused with a corrosive substance during a night out at the Mangle nightclub in Dalston on Easter Monday.

A 22-year-old woman and a 24-year-old man were both blinded in one eye, while several other revellers suffered burns.

A 33-year-old woman and a 24-year-old man were arrested and later released from custody.

Collins had been in a relationship with McCann, best known for her appearances on The Only Way Is Essex and I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here!ce
In this handout image released by the royal family of Spain, Leonor, Princess of the Asturias poses for an official portrait to commemorate her 12th birthday on October 31, 2017 in Madrid, Spain (Photo by Francisco Gomez / Casa de S.M. el Rey via Getty Images)

Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Prince George of Cambridge and Princess Charlotte of Cambridge view helicopter models H145 and H135 before departing from Hamburg airport on the last day of their official visit to Poland and Germany on July 21, 2017 in Hamburg, Germany. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia of Sweden with sons Prince Gabriel and Prince Alexander. Picture: Erika Gerdemark, The Royal Court, Sweden

Prince Carl Philip of Sweden and his wife Princess Sofia of Sweden salute the crowd after their marriage ceremony on June 13, 2015 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Ragnar Singsaas/Getty Images)

Sweden's royal family have released an adorable new picture of its youngest member - two-month-old Prince Gabriel.

Prince Carl Philip (37) and Princess Sofia (33) have shared sweet new pictures with their new arrival, who they welcomed in September, a little sibling for their two-year-old son Prince Alexander.

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They released the new pictures in honour of his upcoming christening, which will take place on December 1 at the church within Drottningholm Palace, where his brother was also baptised in 2015. In the black and white shot, his father is cradling the infant while his mother looks on.

Sofia (nee Hellqvist), a former model and reality tv star, described motherhood as "amazing". "He is very sweet and well-behaved. Hes a mixture of us both," she told Swedish publication Svenskdam last summer.

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"The first time does take some adjustment. But its still absolutely amazing and wonderful. It changes your whole life."

It's been a busy week for young European royals, Spain's Princess Leonor, whose official title is Princess of the Asturias, also had a new portrait released, to mark her 12th birthday. While she has grown accustomed to public life, often appearing in photoshoots alongside her parents King Felipe and Queen Letizia, it marks her first solo portrait.
CCTV image issued by the Metropolitan Police of Arthur Collins, 25, who police would like to speak to after a suspected acid attack injured 16 revellers at Mangle in Dalston, east London, early on Monday morning. Picture: Metropolitan Police/PA Wire

Ferne McCann attends the House Of Fraser British Academy Television Awards 2016 at the Royal Festival Hall on May 8, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images)

Ferne McCann attends the House Of Fraser British Academy Television Awards 2016 at the Royal Festival Hall on May 8, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images)

Ferne McCann attends the House Of Fraser British Academy Television Awards 2016 at the Royal Festival Hall on May 8, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images)

Ferne McCann attend the National Television Awards on January 25, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Anthony Harvey/Getty Images)

Arthur Collins, the boyfriend of reality TV star Ferne McCann, has been arrested in connection with the east London nightclub acid attack, which left two revellers partially blinded and others disfigured.

The 25-year-old was arrested at an address in Rushden, Northamptonshire, on Saturday, on suspicion of attempted murder.

Police sought Collins after a noxious substance was sprayed inside the Mangle club in Dalston on April 17.

Collins, from Hertfordshire, had been in a relationship with Ms McCann, best known for her appearances on The Only Way Is Essex and I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!

After the incident she urged him to contact police.

His arrest comes after a man was charged with in relation to the same incident.

Andre Phoenix was charged with seven counts of grievous bodily harm on Saturday, the Metropolitan Police said.

He will appear at Thames Magistrates' Court on Monday.

Around 20 clubbers suffered burns after being doused with the substance on Easter Monday, including a 22-year-old woman and a 24-year-old man who were both blinded in one eye.

Detective Inspector Lee McCullough of Hackney CID said: "The noxious substance used has not yet been confirmed but samples retrieved from the scene have been sent for analysis.

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"If you were there and saw anyone involved inside or leaving the nightclub, please get in touch."

The blinded man and another victim, a 29-year-old man, were transferred to a specialist burns hospital in Essex and have since been discharged, police said.

Police believe trouble brewed between two groups at the packed club and the acidic substance was flung directly over the pair.

A 24-year-old old man arrested in north London over the attack on Friday has since been released, police said.
Roz Purcell enjoying Brunch After Hours at the launch of new premium Irish gin, Bonac 24, in The Woollen Mills. Picture: Andres Poveda

Model Roz Purcell has opened up about her burgeoning relationship with music promoter Zach Desmond.

The 27-year-old beauty queen turned cookbook author said she is "totally fine" with dishing about her love life these days after keeping their romance under wraps when they first got together last summer. "Zach is so chilled. I can 100% be myself around him. I always thought I was being myself, but with him I definitely am and he really inspires me to travel more," she told the November issue of STELLAR magazine.

Expand Close Roz Purcell and boyfriend Zach Desmond. Picture: Instagram / Facebook

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And travel they have - the pair have jetted to Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Paris, New York with regular trips to London interspersed in just a few months. "I've turned into more of a yes woman. We have great fun just the two of us. He's my best friend. I think for a lot of people that's hard to find. And he's also the best Instagram boyfriend ever."

She credits the relationship with giving her a newfound confidence and joie de vivre. "I'm just having way more fun these days, I'm way more relaxed. I even switch off my phone a good bit more since I met him." Zach is no stranger to the spotlight: his parents Caroline Downey and Denis Desmond run MCD together, while Caroline also enjoyed a high profile television career, but she says he has no interest in pursuing fame.

"He's purposely always stayed away from the spotlight, but he's not awkward about people coming up to me when we're out or anything," she added. She previously dated musician Bressie for four years before splitting in early 2016.

Roz, who previously revealed she works out 10-11 times a week, said she's attracted to fitness for its physical and emotional health benefits. "Fitness is up there with food in terms of passion for me. A lot of people who aren't really into fitness wonder how I get up every morning and why I do it to myself, but it's not like that for me.

Expand Close Roz Purcell at the launch of lululemon at Brown Thomas Grafton Street. Picture: Anthony Woods / Facebook

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Whatsapp Roz Purcell at the launch of lululemon at Brown Thomas Grafton Street. Picture: Anthony Woods

"I really, really enjoy working out. If I don't train in a day, I feel like I'm missing something."
Busy Phillips and Michelle Williams attend the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Busy Phillips and Michelle Williams attend the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Anna Dello Russo attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Camilla Coehlo attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Urassaya Sperbund attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly attend the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Nicolas Ghesquiere and Cate Blanchett attend the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Alicia Vikander attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Alicia Vikander attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Michelle Williams attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Julianne Moore attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

(L to R) Alicia Vikander, Ruth Negga and Michelle Williams at the opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018

Riley Keough attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Julianne Moore attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Alicia Vikander attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Alicia Vikander attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Ruth Negga attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Ruth Negga attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Ruth Negga has been keeping a low profile lately and made sure it was worth the wait when she popped up during Paris Fashion Week.

The Irish actress (35) was among a host of stars who attended the opening of the Louis Vuitton Boutique in the city, flanked by brand ambassadors for the French fashion house and more Oscar winners than you can shake a stick at. Negga, from Limerick, was wrapped up in a multi-texture coat with suede, leather and a leopard print collar over a plain white t-shirt and cerulean satin skinnies. So far, so good.

But it's the white accessories that bring this look and add a touch of '90s nostalgia that has become synonymous with modern supermodel street style.

Expand Close Ruth Negga attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Ruth Negga attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Vuitton prefers to work with classic names rather than 'it' girls and after providing the former Love/Hate star with her glittering silver gown at the Golden Globes in January, a friendship has been forged. Much like Michelle Williams, who injected a serious throwback by accessorising her blush pink leather shift dress with a vintage LV mini bucket bag. Not to mention those white leather go-go boots.

Expand Close Michelle Williams attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Michelle Williams attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Swedish actress Alicia Vikander showed off her new Tomb Raider toning with her leopard print mini-skirt with a cut-out top and a clasp crossbody bag.

Expand Close Alicia Vikander attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Alicia Vikander attends the Opening Of The Louis Vuitton Boutique as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2018 on October 2, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Monday evening's event is just the precursor to the brand's Spring/Summer '18 fashion show tonight, in one of the final events of fashion month.
Kate Middleton looks on from the Royal Box on the fourth day of The Annual National Hunt Festival held at Cheltenham Racecourse on March 16, 2007 in Cheltenham, England. (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle applaud as they watch Wheelchair Tennis at the 2017 Invictus Games in Toronto, Canada. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Monday September 25, 2017. Photo credit should read: Danny Lawson/PA Wire

Britain's Prince Harry and his girlfriend actress Meghan Markle watch the wheelchair tennis event during the Invictus Games in Toronto, Ontario, Canada September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Mark Blinch

Downton Abbey fans may remember the moment when Dowager Countess Violet Grantham turned to rival matriarch Martha Levinson, and sneered: "You Americans never understand the importance of tradition."

The caustic quip came to mind when Meghan Markle (36) and Prince Harry (32) made their first official public appearance at the Invictus Games in Toronto, Canada, last weekend.

Markle dressed down for day three of the event, pairing ripped skinny jeans with a white shirt, while Harry wore his navy chinos  for the third day in a row.

The couples relaxed interpretation of smart-casual wasnt the only thing that got royal-watchers in a whip. The smelling salts had to be passed to those who deemed their public hand-holding a breach of royal etiquette.

Granted, their PDA was hardly Fergie-toe-sucking territory, but there is a cohort of traditionalists who would be inclined to agree with the Dowager Countess Violet Granthams assessment.

Many more are comparing Markles outfit choices, as she makes her public debut, to the ensembles that Kate Middleton put together during the early days of her romance with Prince William.

The future Queen looked like a geography teacher on a field trip when she joined Prince William at the Cheltenham Festival in 2007, where she kept a judicious distance from her now-husband lest anyone got the impression that they had something as unbecoming as a frisson.

Markle and Prince Harry, on the other hand, couldnt keep their hands off each other at the Invictus Games.

Expand Close Meghan Markle watches a Wheelchair Tennis match at the 2017 Invictus Games in Toronto, Canada / Facebook

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Whatsapp Meghan Markle watches a Wheelchair Tennis match at the 2017 Invictus Games in Toronto, Canada

It should be noted that Harry, who will be relegated to sixth-in-line to the throne when William and Kate welcome their third child next year, isnt under the same pressure to mind his Ps and Qs during public appearances.

Nonetheless, he seems determined to go against convention at every turn. Last year, he ordered Kensington Palace to release an unprecedented statement that detailed the wave of abuse and harassment that his girlfriend had been subjected to by the national media and social media trolls.

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The release read more like the work of a Hollywood publicist than a palace official, while the line This is not a game  it is her life and his sounded like something Liam Neeson might growl in Taken 4.

Markle has also proved herself to be more media-friendly than most royal girlfriends. She talked openly about her fledgling romance on the pages of Vanity Fair magazine, gushing about their love with the kind of emotional effusiveness that the stiff-upper-lipped British ruling class cant abide.

Expand Close Meghan Markle (center R, wearing maroon), girlfriend of Britain's Prince Harry, watches the opening ceremony of the Invictus Games in Toronto, Ontario, Canada September 23, 2017. REUTERS/Mark Blinch / Facebook

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Whatsapp Meghan Markle (center R, wearing maroon), girlfriend of Britain's Prince Harry, watches the opening ceremony of the Invictus Games in Toronto, Ontario, Canada September 23, 2017. REUTERS/Mark Blinch

I can tell you that at the end of the day I think its really simple, she said. Were two people who are really happy and in love. We were very quietly dating for about six months before it became news, and I was working during that whole time, and the only thing that changed was peoples perception. Nothing about me changed. Im still the same person that I am, and Ive never defined myself by my relationship.

Its telling that Markle, who plays the no-nonsense Rachel Zane in legal drama Suits, went to such lengths to assert her independence. The subtext is that she wont allow royal protocol to subdue her personality, and youll never catch her wearing tweed.

Perhaps the ripped jeans at her first official public outing were more than just a style statement. She is smart enough to know better, after all.

Markle double-majored in theatre and international relations, before working at the US Embassy in Argentina during her senior year. She later used her profile as an actress to raise awareness of womens issues alongside various charities, years before Angelina Jolie and Emma Watson carved out similar careers.

Expand Close MARCH 13 '07: Kate Middleton attends day 1 of the Cheltenham Horse Racing Festival on March 13, 2007 in Cheltenham, England. (Photo by Indigo/Getty Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp MARCH 13 '07: Kate Middleton attends day 1 of the Cheltenham Horse Racing Festival on March 13, 2007 in Cheltenham, England. (Photo by Indigo/Getty Images)

On paper, she is the perfect candidate for a regal lifestyle of walkabouts. But will she be asked to give up her acting career for the royal duties of hand-shaking, balcony-waving, baby-kissing, ribbon-cutting, and

mid-height heel-wearing?

The actress recently stepped away from her passion project, lifestyle blog The Tig, leading many to speculate that it was done in deference to the royal family.

Unfortunately she cant shut up her family as swiftly as she shut down her website.

Her half-brother, Thomas Markle Jr, recently urged Harry to get down on one knee with all the tact of a reality TV contestant. I hope Prince Harry proposes, he said. Shes a hot commodity right now  he better get on it.

Meanwhile, her half-sister Samantha Grant is already inking the deal on a tell-all memoir.

If only I could predict the media frenzy and racial slurs that would occur as a direct result of my beautiful baby sister possibly becoming the first bi-racial princess or duchess in royal history, she says in the publishers synopsis.

Even her ex-husband, producer Trevor Engelson, has jumped aboard the gravy train. Hes developing a TV comedy pilot about a man whose wife leaves him for a British prince.

Its an embarrassing turn of affairs for Markle but it is incumbent upon us to remember that Kate Middletons cocaine-snorting uncle Gary Goldsmith sold a story to Hello! magazine about the royal couples holiday in his unfortunately-named villa, La Maison de Bang Bang in Ibiza.

Its also important to note that Prince Harry once wore a Nazi uniform, complete with swastika armband, to a fancy dress party where his older brother  always the more sensible one  opted for a homemade lion and leopard outfit.

In other words, this is a new generation of the monarchy, coming of age in a world that is breaking free of social convention. Swedens Prince Carl Philip married a one-time glamour model and waitress; Frances President married a woman 25 years his senior, and a former reality TV star is the president of the United States. When we ask if the Queen could really give an American TV actress the royal seal of approval, we have to look at the culture were living in, as well as the royal candidates credentials.

Besides, its arguable that Prince William didnt feel any pressure from The Firm to find a polo-playing, blue-blooded wife because of how Charles and Dianas marriage turned out. So then, why should his brother?

Expand Close The October 2017 cover of Vanity Fair featuring actress Meghan Markle is seen in this handout photo obtained September 5, 2017. Peter Lindbergh exclusively for Vanity Fair/Handout via REUTERS / Facebook

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If Prince Harry and Meghan Markle walk down the aisle, she will become the first American to marry into the royal family since socialite Wallis Simpson. King Edward VIII abdicated to marry the divorcee, while Prince Charles only had to ask mumsy for permission to marry fellow divorcee Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005.

The same rules could probably be relaxed for divorcee Markle. Indeed, the couple could probably marry in Westminster Abbey if they so wished.

But thats not the point. The issue isnt that Markle is a divorcee. The issue is that she is a non-traditionalist who has made it clear, with ripped-jean rebellion, that she will not be locked in the gilded cage of monarchy.

Were a couple, she said to Vanity Fair. Were in love. Im sure there will be a time when we will have to come forward and present ourselves and have stories to tell, but I hope what people will understand is that this is our time. This is for us. Its part of what makes it so special, that its just ours. But were happy. Personally, I love a great love story.

We all do, but will Kensington Palace give two iconoclasts their happy ending?
The news that Donald Trumps Twitter account had been briefly deactivated received huge attention worldwide  with many offering rewards to the company employee who took it down.

The US presidents personal account, @RealDonaldTrump, was deactivated shortly before 11pm UK time and restored 11 minutes later.

Twitter took responsibility for the outage, saying the action had been taken by a customer support employee on their last day at the company.

With over 40 million followers, Trump has sent more than 36,000 tweets on his personal account  so even for 11 minutes, his absence was widely noted.

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While Twitter announced it was taking steps to prevent this from happening again, not everybody agreed that was the correct course of action.

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Twitters announcement that the deactivation of the account was the work of an employee also prompted a strong response.

Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu wanted to reward them with a pizza.

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But David Jolly, a former Republican congressman, felt a bigger reward was in order.

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Not everyone was impressed, however  some wanted to know how a customer support employee had the power to delete the presidents personal account.

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Meanwhile, this social media user expressed the hope that other employees at Twitter wouldnt suffer as a result of the deactivation.

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Trumps account was down for just 11 minutes, but he was soon back at the keyboard to let everybody know he would be appearing on Fox.

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It looks like normal service has been resumed.
A British man who now works as a cop in the US has been honoured for rescuing a woman from a burning car.

Detective Chris Godby, 31, was named one of the officers of the month with Grand Prairie Police in Texas, along with two colleagues who also helped save the unconscious woman.

Action filmed on Godbys bodycam shows the officers pulling the driver through the window to get her away from the flames.

Grand Prairie Officers Rescue Unconscious Woman from Burnin Officers Basile, Officer Gray, and Detective Godby were selected as Officers of the Month for the month of November for their efforts in saving a woman from a burning car.Just before midnight on September 14th, a woman crashed her vehicle on SE 14th St, striking a gas line and telephone pole. The driver's side door wouldn't open due to damage done in the accident. The window was down giving Officers Basile and Godby the opportunity to pull the unconscious woman out from the window and take her away from the burning vehicle. Officer Gray was working to put out the fire until GPFD arrived on scene. The officers will be receiving the lifesaving bar for their courageousness. Posted by Grand Prairie Police on Thursday, November 2, 2017

Godby, an Everton fan originally from Warrington and who moved to Texas in 2007, will receive the lifesaving bar for courageousness, according to the police forces Facebook page.

The accident happened on September 14 after the womans car collided with a telephone pole and struck a gas line, prompting the fire.

I didnt really have any time to react to it because I get out of my car and I can smell gas, Godby told the Press Association, recalling the incident. At the time I didnt realise that she had hit a gas main.

Im not sure if you can tell from the video but the vehicle kind of explodes within 10 seconds of pulling her out.

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As Godby and a colleague pulled the woman from the car, another colleague was working to put out the blaze until others from Grand Prairie Police arrived.

The woman was taken to hospital and has since recovered.

People watch police videos and they say what they would have done differently, said Godby. The reality is you have a second to make a decision on what youre going to do.

Its always an honour to get any kind of award, but I feel like theres police officers across the United States and across the world that are doing things like this on a daily basis, and we dont do these things for the awards.

We all took the same pledge to protect and serve, and if I was put in that situation again Id do the exact same thing, knowing that the car could probably explode. Its nice to be recognised.
Tourists ride in classic American convertible cars past the United States embassy, right, in Havana, Cuba. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa, File)

Cuba's foreign minister has accused the United States of lying about mysterious sonic attacks that American diplomats in Havana say left them with ailments including headaches, hearing problems and concussions.

Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said the US was "deliberately lying" and Cuba has denied any knowledge of the attacks.

Speaking at a news conference, Mr Rodriguez alleged the issue has been used "as a political pretext for damaging bilateral relations and eliminating the progress made" under US President Barack Obama.

Mr Rodriguez said the dispute has caused delays in proposed public health cooperation and technical meetings on agriculture as well as cultural, sporting and student events.

The Trump administration has said that 24 US officials or their relatives were subjected to deliberate attacks by a still-undetermined culprit.

Many officials reported being subjected to loud, grating noises before falling ill.

The US has not accused Cuba's government of carrying out the attacks, but says it has not met its obligation to protect diplomats on its territory.

Cuba has said it does not possess any technology capable of carrying out a sonic attack, and Rodriguez said the broad range of symptoms reported indicates they could not have a single cause.

The US has cut staffing at its Havana embassy by 60% in response to the incidents, expelled Cuban diplomats from their embassy in Washington, issued a travel warning for Americans going to Cuba and stopped issuing visas for Cubans in Havana.

The measures have sent US-Cuba relations plummeting from a high point under Obama and cut into the increasingly important flow of tourists to Cuba, whose economy went into recession last year for the first time in more than two decades.

AP
A sex grooming gang who used code names such as "Star" and "Shark Tooth" targeted vulnerable teenage girls, holding them in thrall with a constant supply of drink and drugs.

The four men, all asylum seekers who originally entered the UK illegally, abused and trafficked the youngsters who were as young as 13.

The Kurdish gang, who lived in Newcastle, would contact the girls on Facebook to discuss sex parties and on one occasion demanded sex in return for paying for a tattoo.

The girls, who were aged between 13-16 at the time, were plied with drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy, speed and cannabis.

Soran Azizi, 28, was convicted of two offences of trafficking for sexual exploitation.

Palla Pour, 25, was convicted of four offences of sexual activity with a child, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, supplying controlled drug to another and permitting his premises to be used for the supply of drugs.

Ribas Asad, 29, was convicted of sexual assault, supplying a controlled drug, causing a child to engage in sexual activity and sexual activity with a child.

Saman Obaid, 29, was convicted of four offences of supplying controlled drugs.

Azizi, Pour and Asad had been granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK, but could now face deportation after their conviction.

Obaid has failed so far in his asylum application.

Prosecutor Anne Richardson told Newcastle Crown Court: "The case involves sexual exploitation and trafficking of young women and girls in the Newcastle upon Tyne area of the North East.

"The alleged offences occurred over a number of years, namely between 2007 and 2014 and those who make these allegations are, for the most part, immature and vulnerable people.

"It was the Crown's case that these personality traits were exploited by the defendants and that each of the young women were lured to various houses and flats where drugs and or alcohol were made freely available to them.

"In return the complainants were expected and encouraged to provide sexual favours and services, not because they wanted so to do or through their own free will but because they were beholden and in thrall to these men."

The girls, some of whom had been placed in the care of social services, were sexually assaulted while too drunk to consent on some occasions.

One victim said in a statement it had had a massive impact on her life and she now suffered from panic attacks, PTSD and depression.

She also said her four children had been taken into care because she was unable to look after them.

Another girl said she had twice attempted suicide by overdose and hanging.

Judge Robert Spragg paid tribute to the "extraordinary courage these young women have shown in giving evidence in this case and relive those dreadful episodes in their lives".

He jailed Pour for 12-and-a-half years, Asad for nine-and-a-half years, Azizi for six years and Obaid for four years and nine months.

The judge said one of the girls had summed it up perfectly by saying "they were much older and pretended to be my friend and drove me around. But they were just totally using me for sex when I was a child".
The Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson has claimed the "dam has broken" on the Westminster sleaze scandal after Michael Fallon resigned as UK defence secretary.

Ms Davidson said that the "boys' own locker room culture" that has prevailed in "male-dominated professions" now "has got to stop".

She also warned that "pretty big shovels" will be required to clear out the Westminster "stable" in the weeks ahead.

Ms Davidson's intervention came as a tide of allegations and rumours relating to sexual harassment and abuse continues to grip Westminster.

The scandal claimed its first big scalp on Wednesday evening when Mr Fallon quit his post after admitting his behaviour had "fallen below the high standards required" in the role.

Standards

Ms Davidson told BBC Radio 4's 'Today' programme: "As lawmakers and people that make decisions we have to hold ourselves, our personal conduct, to a high standard, we have to run our offices, our personal offices, to the high standard as well as public office and the offices of state to a high standard.

"The dam has broken on this now and these male-dominated professions, overwhelmingly male-dominated professions, where the boys' own locker room culture has prevailed and it has all been a bit of a laugh has got to stop."

The Scottish Tory leader likened the need to clean up Westminster to Hercules's fifth labour, when he was ordered to clear out King Augeas's stables.

Speaking at the annual 'Spectator' magazine awards dinner on Wednesday night, she said: "Just because we have a woman in Number 10, at the top of the tree in Plaid Cymru, in the Scottish Conservatives and the SNP, in the DUP, doesn't mean that sexism and misogyny are somehow resigned to the dustbin of history when it comes to politics, nor when we look at some of the house-clearing that is going to be, and needs to happen in the next few weeks, months and years ahead are we going to say that we didn't need some pretty big shovels for the Augean stable."

Mr Fallon's shock announcement came after it emerged he had repeatedly put his hand on journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer's knee at a dinner in 2002. His resignation will fuel speculation that other ministers could also be forced to resign.

When allegations of sexual misconduct first began circulating last week, ministers were warned by Downing Street that "serious action" would be taken by UK Prime Minister Theresa May where necessary.

Two of Mr Fallon's former ministerial colleagues are the subject of probes.

Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood is looking into claims made against Mrs May's de facto deputy Damian Green.

The Cabinet Office investigation was launched after activist Kate Maltby, who is three decades younger than the first secretary of state, told 'The Times' that Mr Green "fleetingly" touched her knee during a meeting in a Waterloo pub in 2015, and claimed that a year later sent her a "suggestive" text message after she was pictured wearing a corset in the newspaper.

Mr Green said any allegation that he made sexual advances to Ms Maltby was "untrue (and) deeply hurtful".

He has strenuously denied the claims and has instructed libel lawyers, and is also prepared to release text messages he sent to her to try to prove his innocence.

The department is separately probing whether International Trade Minister Mark Garnier breached the ministerial code after he reportedly admitted asking his secretary to buy sex toys and calling her "sugar t**s".

Yesterday, Downing Street announced that Gavin Williamson had been appointed as Mr Fallon's successor.

Mr Williamson, who was the government's chief whip before this appointment, will take the job having never held ministerial office.

He left Downing Street with a military officer and got into a waiting car without speaking to reporters.

Replaced

Mr Williamson was replaced as chief whip by his former deputy Julian Smith, while Tatton MP Esther McVey - a former TV presenter who served as a minister in David Cameron's government - was made deputy chief whip.

The swift ascent of 41-year-old South Staffordshire MP Mr Williamson, who became one of Mrs May's inner circle after acting as parliamentary campaign manager in her successful bid for the Conservative leadership, was greeted with surprise in Westminster and appeared to cause some consternation in Tory ranks.

Apparently referring to Mr Williamson's promotion, Tory MP Sarah Wollaston tweeted: "There are times when offered a job that it would be better to advise that another would be more experienced and suited to the role."
Spain's state prosecutor yesterday asked a High Court judge to issue a European arrest warrant for ousted Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont after he failed to appear at a court hearing earlier in the day.

Mr Puigdemont's lawyer in Belgium, where he has travelled with four members of his sacked cabinet, said the climate in Spain was "not good", and his client wanted to maintain some distance; but he would co-operate with the courts.

In the absence of Mr Puigdemont, nine members of the deposed former Catalan president's cabinet were questioned by an investigating judge at Madrid's high court yesterday morning, after Spain's public prosecution service accused Catalonia's entire government of crimes against the state in organising an illegal referendum and declaring independence.

Mr Puigdemont travelled to Brussels at the start of the week, and decided to snub the Spanish judiciary by not attending yesterday's hearing.

Accusing the former regional ministers of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds - crimes that together could lead to maximum jail sentences of 30 years under Spanish law - the prosecutor has asked the judge to remand the politicians in custody without bail, with the reported exception of Santi Vila, who could pay bail under the prosecution's request.

Investigating magistrate Carmen Lamela must decide whether to proceed with the criminal investigation, and which security measures would be appropriate in that case.

Mr Vila arrived separately from his former colleagues after announcing this week that he wishes to lead Mr Puigdemont's PDeCAT party into elections called on December 21, in Catalonia.

The one-time business department chief has said he wants to "bring moderation back" to the campaign for independence in Catalonia.

In Spain's supreme court, the six members of the speaker's committee of Catalonia's parliament, facing the same criminal accusations as the ousted government, were granted a week-long postponement of the preliminary hearing after their lawyers requested more time to prepare their defence.

On arrival in Madrid, the Catalan politicians were met by a mixture of support from well-wishers, and jeers and insults from pro-Spain protesters, some of whom performed Nazi salutes.

Joe Boeta, a left-wing activist from Madrid, who was standing outside the high court entrance to support the accused, was shocked that police allowed an impromptu demonstration by a small far-right element to take place, while most pedestrians were told to keep circulating.
A woman has been sentenced to up to 12 years in prison for fatally pouring vodka into her disabled sons feeding tube.

Melissa Robitille, 41, from Hardwick, Vermont was sentenced on Tuesday to a minimum of four years in prison, WCAX-TV reports.

Prosecutors say that Robittile and her boyfriend gave 13-year-old Isaac alcohol in order to keep him quiet in August 2014. The boy needed his feeding tube to survive and died soon after from alcohol poisoning.

Robitille's boyfriend, Walter Richters, was convicted last year for manslaughter. He's already serving out a three-year sentence in prison.

Robitilles family felt that the sentence was not hard enough.

David Robitille, Isaac Robitille's uncle said: "The swath of destruction that this woman has laid behind her is wide and deep".

Robitille had previously been found guilty of manslaughter and her attorney argued the death was a tragic mistake.

Lottie Allen, Isaac's former foster mother said: He was a very smart, strong young man that adapted to all of his imperfections. He knew and could tell everyone that touched him by a sign that they gave him.
New York police are gathering evidence to arrest Harvey Weinsten after actress Paz de la Huerta claims the disgraced movie boss raped her twice in 2010.

The Boardwalk Empire actress told CBS News that the incidents took place months apart at her home in New York City.

Ms de la Huerta filed a police report and the New York Police Department has now opened an investigation into her claims.

Speaking at a press conference in Manhattan today, police said they are working to build a strong criminal case to arrest Weinsiten, who is currently in Arizona undergoing therapy.

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NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said Ms de la Huerta's case was credible because of her "ability to articulate each movement of the crime, where she was, where this happened".

"We have an actual case going forward," Chief Boyce said. "If this person was still in New York and it was recent we would go right away and make the arrest, no doubt. But we're talking about a seven-year-old case. And we have to move forward gathering evidence."

Police in London and Los Angeles are also investigating allegations against Weinsten, who has been accused of sexual assault or harassment by more than 90 women.
Donald Trump is turning on White House adviser Jared Kushner as the prospect of his impeachment becomes a real possibility, it has been claimed.

The US president is reported to be blaming his son-in-law for certain decisions that led to Robert Mueller being appointed to investigate claims of Russian collusion in the 2016 election campaign.

Specifically, he questioned his role in the firings of Michael Flynn and James Comey, sources told 'Vanity Fair'.

Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg told the publication Mr Kushner was the "worst political adviser in the White House in modern history", claiming: "I'm only saying publicly what everyone says behind the scenes at Fox News, in conservative media, and the Senate and Congress."

The report, citing sources "briefed on Trump's thinking," said Trump confided in Stephen Bannon, that he no longer trusts Kushner. Bannon for the first eight months of Trump's presidency was his top strategic adviser and reportedly clashed frequently with Kushner.

It comes just days after Mr Mueller issued indictments for two of Mr Trump's former campaign staffers, reportedly causing mass panic among Mr Trump's inner circle. "The walls are closing in," one senior Republican close to the White House told the 'New York Post'. "Everyone is freaking out."

The indictments included charges against Mr Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and former adviser George Papadopoulos.

Mr Nunberg said: "Here's what Manafort's indictment tells me: Mueller is going to go over every financial dealing of Jared Kushner and the Trump Organisation.

"Trump is at 33pc in Gallup. You can't go any lower. He's f***ed."

Mr Trump continued to dismiss the indictments as "fake news" after their release, and attempted to shift the focus to Hillary Clinton's dealings with Russia. However, a majority of voters said in a recent opinion poll they did not believe the Russia story was fake, and supported Mr Mueller's probe into the Trump campaign.
Donald Trump has called for the suspect in the New York terror attack to be put to death, raising fears the intervention could impact the trial.

Federal prosecutors brought terrorism charges on Wednesday against Sayfullo Saipov, the Uzbek immigrant accused in the truck rampage that left eight people dead.

Handcuffed and with his feet shackled, Mr Saipov appeared in court in a wheelchair after being shot by police before his arrest.

The charges against the 29-year-old could bring the death penalty.

Having allegedly been inspired by jihadist propaganda online, Mr Saipov even asked to display the flag of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) in his hospital room and said "he felt good about what he had done", prosecutors said in court papers.

"NYC terrorist was happy as he asked to hang Isil flag in his hospital room," the president tweeted.

"He killed 8 people, badly injured 12. SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!"

Earlier, Mr Saipov's appointed lawyer David Patton said he hoped "everyone lets the judicial process play out".

"I promise you that how we treat Mr Saipov in this judicial process will say a lot more about us than it will say about him," Mr Patton said.

It is extremely rare for a sitting president to comment on legal proceedings and legal experts expressed fears that Mr Trump's comments on Twitter could taint the court case.

Harder

"Mr President, we all know he should get the death penalty.

"But when *you* say it, it makes it harder for DOJ to make that happen," Andrew C McCarthy, former chief assistant US attorney, wrote on Twitter.

Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer, said: "This is called potentially tainting jury pool and could impact alleged perpetrator's ability to secure fair trial."

Mr Trump had already weighed in on the case earlier in the day, saying he was open to the idea of sending Mr Saipov to Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. "I would certainly consider that, send him to Gitmo," Mr Trump said, using the familiar shorthand for the detention centre.

The White House later reinforced that idea by saying it considered Mr Saipov to be an "enemy combatant", a designation that would curtail his legal rights.

Mr Trump called the suspect "this animal" and lambasted the US justice system for terrorism suspects as "a joke" and "a laughing stock."

Mr Trump has been an outspoken advocate for the death penalty in the past.

In 1989, he purchased a full-page advert in the 'New York Daily News' calling for New York to reinstate the death penalty after the rape and brutal assault of a jogger in Central Park.

"I want to hate these muggers and murderers," it read.

"They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes."

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Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
PureGym has been bought by the joint owner of Topshop (PA)

Britains biggest gym chain has changed hands following a 600 million swoop by the joint owner of Sir Philip Greens Topshop.

US private equity fund Leonard Green & Partners has snapped up a controlling stake in PureGym from CCMP Capital Advisors.

PureGym had been limbering up for a London Stock Market flotation, before calling time on the move in October last year as it grappled with choppy market conditions following the Brexit vote.

Humphrey Cobbold, chief executive of PureGym, said: We are absolutely delighted to be entering into a new partnership with Leonard Green & Partners, whose investment confirms the growth potential of our business.

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They have some big brands in their portfolio and an excellent track record of investing in the leisure and fitness industry.

PureGym, which launched in 2009 and has 950,000 members across 189 sites, had been an eyeing a raise of 190 million from its initial public offering (IPO) to underpin an expansion drive across the UK.

The move from Leonard Green & Partners adds the Leeds-based firm to its bumper portfolio of health and fitness businesses including PDC Brands and SoulCycle.

LGP partner Kris Galashan said: Over the years we have made numerous investments in the gym and fitness arena and we are very excited to be extending our involvement in the industry through this investment in PureGym.

We have been incredibly impressed by the business that Humphrey and the team at PureGym have built over the last few years and believe that the business has tremendous potential for the future.
Russian authorities are investigating whether scores of seals starved to death after their carcasses washed up in Siberia on the shoreline of the world's deepest lake.

The dead seals started appearing along the shore of Lake Baikal last weekend, the Irkutsk region's government said in a statement. Most of the 141 seals found so far were pregnant females.

The population of the Baikal earless seal, or nerpa, is estimated to be around 130,000.

The lake near the Mongolian border, 2,600 miles east of Moscow, contains 20% of the world's fresh water and is home to 1,500 species of plants and animals which exist nowhere else in the world.

Alexei Kalinin, environment prosecutor for West Baikal, told the Interfax news agency earlier this week that one of the likeliest causes of the deaths could be the scarcity of food because of the growing nerpa population.

"The dead animals were all hungry. There was no food in their stomachs," Mr Kalinin said.

Authorities have ruled out a disease outbreak, and say lab samples have not shown what could have killed the animals.

The population of the nerpa, Baikal's only mammal, shot up after hunting them was outlawed in 2009. A number of scientists and local leaders have called for allowing limited hunting to control the growing population.

AP
The Somali capital Mogadishu was hit by a huge terror attack last month (AP)

The US military for the first time has conducted two airstrikes against Islamic State group fighters in Somalia, where the extremists are a growing presence in a country long threatened by the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab.

The US Africa Command said the two drone strikes killed "several terrorists" in northeastern Somalia, the first around midnight local time and the second later on Friday morning.

The strikes were carried out in coordination with Somalia's government, the statement said.

Local officials confirmed the airstrikes. At least six missiles struck in Buqa, a remote mountainous village roughly 37 miles north of Qandala town in the northern state of Puntland, a Somali security official said.

The mayor of Qandala, Jama Mohamed, said the strikes sent terrified nomadic villagers and their animals fleeing.

The US military has carried out well over a dozen drone strikes against al-Shabab this year after the Trump administration approved expanded efforts against the group.

Al-Shabab was blamed for carrying out Somalia's deadliest attack last month, a massive truck bombing in the capital, Mogadishu, that killed more than 350 people.

Somalia's president has vowed a "state of war", with neighbours sending thousands of troops to help the local military and an African Union force.

But IS-linked fighters who have split from the Somalia-based al-Shabab in the past couple of years pose a growing threat, notably in a part of the country far from al-Shabab's strongholds in the south.

In May, IS claimed responsibility for a deadly bombing in Puntland - said to be the first time the extremist group had claimed an attack in the Horn of Africa nation.

Police said a suicide bomber detonated at a military checkpoint in the commercial hub of Bossaso, killing at least four people.

The group was formed in late 2015 when al-Shabab fighters in Puntland broke away, perhaps influenced by an IS social media campaign urging them to defect, and their leader Abdulqadir Mumin pledged allegiance, according to a report in January by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

"It is now believed that the group has between 100 and 200 fighters," the report says.

"Importantly, the Islamic State has not officially acknowledged Mumin's pledge... Nevertheless, operationally, ISS has arguably been the most powerful of the new Islamic State affiliates in sub-Saharan Africa."

The group briefly seized control of Qandala town late last year, "making the town the first territory the Islamic State has held inside Somalia," the report says.

A report by United Nations experts monitoring sanctions against the Islamic State group noted in a report circulated in August the "terrorist threat" posed by its affiliates in Puntland.

AP
Guwahati, Nov 3 : A team officers consisting Prabin Hazarika, Director of Horticulture and Food Processing, Assam; Mowsam Hazarika, Assistant Director of Agriculture; Khagendra Sarmah, Sub Divisional Agricultural Officer ( Horticulture) and Bakul Saikia, Senior Agricultural Development Officer and Nodal Officer of FPC from Directorate of Horticulture and Food Processing, Assam attended the 3- day long World Food India, 2017 held in New Delhi from Friday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi graced the event at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi as Chief Guest, where representative from various countries like Germany , Japan , Denmark, Italy, Netherlands etc participated in the mega event.



A global event to facilitate partnerships between Indian and international businesses and investors, World Food India (WFI) is a gateway to the Indian food economy and an opportunity to showcase, connect, and collaborate.



Organized by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Government of India, WFI will be the largest gathering of investors, manufacturers, producers, food processors, policy makers, and organizations from the global food ecosystem.



It aims to provides opportunities for both investment and trade in the food processing sector for leading Indian and international companies.



Encompassing the entire food spectrum from production to consumption, WFI is looking at creating a better sourcing environment, thereby enabling higher returns for farmers, creating employment, and fostering entrepreneurship.



WFI is held in partnership with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), at New Delhi, India on November 3-5, 2017.



Being an important Partner State of WFI, Assam has showcased different agri-horti produces in this mega event.



Altogether 6 nos. of Farmers Producers Company, namely , Ampri Orange Agro Producer Company, Brahmaputra Valley Honey Agro Producer Company, Janoki Agro Producer Company, Amlighat Banana Agro Producer Company, Merapani Agro Producer Company & Jirson Agro Producer Company, promoted by the Department of Horticulture and Food Processing, Assam participated in the World Food India, 2017 .



Kuhi Food Processing Unit of Assam also participated in the event.

Various Agri Horticultural produces like Ginger, Turmeric, Bhot Jolokia, Banana, Assam Lemon, Red Rice, Joha Rice, Black Rice, Organic Molasses and various processed foods draws attention to the visitors of foreign countries and various states of India.

Ranjit Dutta, Minister of Irrigation , Assam and K K Mittal, Additional Chief Secretary and Agricultural Production Commissioner, Assam visited the Horticultural Stall of WFI and appreciated the entrepreneurs attended in the Stall.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
London, Nov 3 (IBNS): The number of reported cases of child neglect in the United States of America increased as a result of the spike in unemployment following the financial crisis of 2007-08, according to new Oxford University research.

Defined as the physical, mental, sexual or emotional abuse or neglect of a person under the age of 18, child maltreatment is a prolific problem in American society, with about 700,000 cases reported in 2015 alone.

Neglect describes a situation when parents inability to provide for their childs basic needs harms the childs health, safety and/or wellbeing, read the Oxford University website.

Child maltreatment is widely understood to have significant consequences in later life, affecting mental health, the chances of employment and the likelihood of substance abuse, among other things. However, the causal effects of economic hardship, and the knock-on impact on maltreatment, are significantly less understood.

The first study of its kind suggests that unemployment can cause an increase in child neglect because parents have more limited access to the resources required to provide for a childs basic needs, such as clothing, food and medical care. The study, conducted by two researchers from Oxford University, has for the first time, considered and quantified these causal effects, specifically whether unemployment causes child maltreatment.

Using nearly a decades worth of data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), produced by the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (NDACAN), the team observed every reported incident of child abuse and neglect made to the state Child Protective Services for nearly every county in the U.S. from 2004 to 2012.

The findings reveal a significant link between unemployment and child neglect, with a 1 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate leading to a 20 percent increase in reported neglect. However there does not seem to be a relationship between unemployment and other forms of child abuse.

Elisabetta De Cao, Research Fellow in Oxfords Centre for Health Service Economics & Organisation, said: There is increasing research on the causal effect of economic conditions on domestic violence, but this work has never been done for children, which is a very different dynamic.

The research also considers the value and impact of social (government provided) and private safety nets (partner, family, friends, health insurance), and whether access to these resources can have a mitigating effect on unemployment.

Access to state provided unemployment benefits were found to make a huge difference. Initially offered to people for a maximum of 26 weeks pre-recession, during the economic crisis it was extended in some states, and ranged significantly from 48 weeks to up to 99. In states that were more generous, offering 87 weeks of unemployment benefits or more, child neglect increased by 14% but in states that offered a maximum of 55 weeks of benefits, reported incidents of child neglect rose by 21%.

Dan Brown, PhD student in Economics at Oxford University added: Our study shows that unemployment causes an increase in child neglect, with little evidence of an effect on other types of abuse. During hard times, if parents lose their jobs and dont have access to safety nets, they no longer have the means to provide for their children, which ultimately leads to neglect.

We also found an indication that after a job loss people spend less on basic goods, like food and beverages. In doing so, this can lead to a higher likelihood of neglect.

While state help offers significant value, the research revealed that access to private safety nets also has a positive effect. A key private safety net the authors looked at is health insurance. The effects of unemployment on child neglect were notably greater in counties where more children did not have health insurance, and were therefore less protected.

In terms of demography, African American children were found to be least likely to have two employed parents living with them, and were accordingly more at risk of neglect when one parent lost a job, than Caucasian or Hispanic children.

Of the potential policy implications of this report, and how the US government can use the findings to better protect children, Elisabetta said: In general policies that are designed to enable parents employment security could prove an important contribution to reducing child maltreatment. There is an indication that cutting these services will lead to an increase in neglect. We need to better understand whether parents face barriers to creating private safety nets, which could help people to cope during bad economic times.

If we can reduce the number of neglected children, it will have a positive long term impact on society. These children will go on to have better outcomes in adulthood, which will have positive labour, health and economic effects.

Although the team studied the effects of unemployment in the USA, they are in the process of replicating the study in the UK, which arguably has a more generous welfare system. The results of this work are expected in the next year.

Image: Internet Wallpaper
Srinagar, Nov 3 (IBNS) : The Jammu and Kashmir Government has issued an order disallowing opening of liquor shops at the Srinagar airport.

The Government says opening of liquor shops in the area "violates" the provisions of J&K excise Act and liquor License and Sales Rules.

It is here intimated that the J&K excise Department shall not grant Liquor license for opening of liquor shop/ vend at Srinagar International airport in violation of to the provisions of J&K excise Act, 1958 and liquor License and Sales Rules, 1984," the order issued by Excise Department of state on Friday reads.

"It is further intimated that opening of liquor vend/ shop at the international airport Srinagar will not be allowed/ permitted as such you may stop the process of any such proposal, as the Excise Department will not grant license required for opening of liquor vend/shop at the international airport." the order added.

Earlier, the Airports Authority of India had decided to open its first liquor shop at Srinagar International Airport as part of a central government initiative to set up such outlets in all aerodromes across the country.

However, AAI later cancelled the proposal.

(Reporting by Saleem Iqbal Qadri)

Image: Wikimedia Commons
Kolkata, Nov 3 (IBNS): West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh on Friday welcomed former TMC MP Mukul Roy's induction to the BJP and said the move will make the party stronger in West Bengal.

Speaking on former TMC MP Mukul Roy's BJP joining, BJP's West Bengal president Dilip Ghosh told IBNS, "After Mukul Roy joins BJP, our party becomes more powerful in Bengal."

"If anybody's link with Saradha or Narada or any other corruption/scam is proved, our party will never back him," Ghosh added.

Former Railway Minister Mukul Roy on Friday joined the ruling Bharatiya Jata Party (BJP).

Speaking at the event where Roy was inducted to the BJP, union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said :"We wholeheartedly welcome him."

Prasad expressed his hope that Roy's induction in the party will help the BJP in expanding its footprint in West Bengal.

"I am sure his coming to the party will help in expanding the BJP," he said.

Mukul Roy, who was suspended from the Trinamool Congress (TMC), quit as the Rajya Sabha MP last month.

Speaking at the event, Roy said: "I believe that BJP is a secular force. It is not at all a communal force."

The Trinamool Congress in September suspended former Railway Minister Mukul Roy for six years for 'anti party activities'.

Roy, one of the founding leaders of the Trinamool Congress, had long been regarded the second-in-command of the party after Mamata Banerjee

and the architect of TMC's organisational and electoral success in the state.

However, he fell from the grace of Banerjee following his interrogation by the CBI in connection with the multi-crore Sarada chit fund scam.
New Delhi, Nov 3 (IBNS): Maris Kucinskis, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Latvia, called on President of India Ram Nath Kovind, at Rashtrapati Bhavan here on Friday.

Welcoming the Latvian Prime Minister to India, the President said that this visit is of historic significance as it is the first ever visit of a Latvian Prime Minister to India. It takes place as we are celebrating 25 years of establishment of our diplomatic relations.

The President said that bilateral relations between India and Latvia are warm and friendly.

"We should work together to enhance our economic relations. We deeply appreciate Latvias participation in the World Food India 2017 event. Latvia has acquired strengths in the agro-food processing sector and the participation of Latvian companies at World Food India will benefit both sides," he said.

The President stated that the Government of India has introduced programmes like Make in India, Smart Cities, Digital India and Clean India which present opportunities for Latvian companies. Latvia can also gain from the strengths of Indian industry, particularly in the IT and pharma sectors.

The President said that we deeply value our strong cultural ties and people-to-people connect with Latvia.

He expressed happiness that the Centre for India Studies and Culture established in the University of Latvia is promoting yoga and Hindi.

He was glad that a new Centre for Baltic Culture and Studies has been opened at the Dev Sanskriti Vishwavidyalaya in Haridwar.

He stated that this will further deepen cultural and academic contacts between India and the Baltic region.

The President noted that the Latvian Prime Minister will be inaugurating the Honorary Consulate of Latvia and attending business meetings in Mumbai tomorrow. He expressed confidence that these will help in further strengthening our bilateral ties.
New Delhi, Nov 3 (IBNS): Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh chaired a high level meeting to review the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) situation in Chhattisgarh here on Friday.

The meeting was attended by Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, Chief Secretary of Chhattisgarh, DG CRPF and senior officers of the Union Home Ministry and the Chhattisgarh administration.

During the meeting, it was brought out that the declining trend of LWE violence continues across the country which has seen an overall reduction of 21% in violence incidents over corresponding period of last year.

The Left Wing Extremists continue to remain under pressure with ever shrinking influence, both in terms of geographical spread and public support.

Security and development related measures required to achieve the same were discussed.

The Home Minister assured the Chief Minister of all possible support to the State to achieve this objective.

Currently the Centre is providing security related assistance to the State which includes provision of CAPF Bns, helicopters, UAVs and CIAT Schools.

In addition, 11 India Reserve Bns and 02 Special India Reserve Bns have been sanctioned to the State. Funds have also been provided for fortification of 75 Police Stations and for capacity building of Special Forces under the Special Infrastructure Scheme.

As part of the multi-pronged strategy to deal with LWE, the Central Government gives equal focus to development measures to bring LWE affected districts at par with other areas. Towards this end, the Central Government has approved a Special Central Assistance Scheme for 35 worst affected LWE districts with an annual outlay of Rs 1000 cr.

Important development schemes include the Road Requirement Plan PhaseI under which Chhattisgarh was sanctioned 1988 km of road out of which 1351 km have been completed.

Under the newly launched RRP-II, Chhattisgarh has been sanctioned a further 891 km of road. To improve mobile connectivity, 519 mobile towers have been installed in Phase-I. Another 1028 towers are being planned in Phase-II of the project.

As part of efforts to enhance skill development, Chhattisgarh has been sanctioned 09 ITIs and 14 Skill Development Centres.

The initiatives taken to improve education infrastructure include approval of 02 Kendriya Vidyalayas at Bijapur and Sukma and 03 JNVs at Bijapur, Narayanpur and Kondagaon. Jagdalpur Medical College has been approved for up-gradation as Centre of Excellence at a cost of 200 Cr under PMSSY.

The Jagdalpur Airport has been included under the Regional Connectivity Scheme and work for making it operational is nearing completion. Financial inclusion initiatives include sanction of 707 post offices and opening of 108 ATMs and 81 bank branches in LWE affected districts in last two years.
Kolkata, Nov 3 (IBNS): A local court in West Bengal's South Dinajpur district on Friday granted a conditional anticipatory bail to expelled CPI-M Rajya Sabha MP Ritabrata Banerjee in connection with an alleged rape and cheating case.

South Dinajpur district judge Sudeb Mitra granted the anticipatory bail to Ritabrata Banerjee on a personal bail-bond of Rs. 5000.

The court has also directed Banerjee to surrender in next three weeks.

Earlier on Oct 5, techie Namrata Datta, who is a resident of Balurghat in South Dinajpur district, alleged that expelled CPI-M MP Ritabrata Banerjee had sex with her several times in Banerjee's Delhi residence in 2016 after the young communist leader promised to marry her.

Explaining the entire incident on micro-blogging site Twitter, the software engineer lodged a complaint at Balurghat Police Station on Tuesday (Oct 10).

After completing preliminary investigation, police converted the complaint into an FIR and have framed a charge under several IPC sections, including 417, 376(2)/(n), 214, 354, 506 and 509.

Medical tests of Namrata Dutta were done in Balurghat Hospital and she recorded her statements before South Dinajpur District Court's Judicial Magistrate(2nd Court), Aminur Rahaman, under CrPC section 164.

Later, West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) took over the probe and summoned Ritabrata Banerjee while Delhi Police are also investigating the matter.

Banerjee avoided all summons and had appealed for an anticipatory bail at Balurghat court.

Former CPI-M leader Ritabrata Banerjee, however, denied all allegations against him and claimed that the entire matter is a conspiracy against him to malign his image.

The expelled CPI-M leader also lodged a complaint against the woman at Garfa Police Station in Kolkata on Oct 9.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
FIChennai, Nov 3 (IBNS): A case was filed against veteran actor Kamal Haasan in a Varanasi court on Friday for his remark on "Hindu terror."

He has been booked under several sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) relating to defamation, attempt to cause offence, intent to hurt religious feelings and to incite communal disharmony.

The court will hear the case on Saturday.

In an article for a Tamil magazine, the veteran actor reportedly wrote: "In the past, Hindu right-wing groups would not indulge in violence, but they would hold a dialogue with the opposite parties on their arguments. But this old tactic was defeated and what they stated to do is use muscle power. They started indulging in violence.

The right wing cannot challenge talk of Hindu terrorists because terror has spread into their camp as well, he noted.


Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, Emirates Chairman and Chief Executive officiated the ceremony. He was joined at the event by Sir Tim Clark, President Emirates Airline; Tom Enders, Airbus Chief Executive Officer; Dominic Horwood, Rolls-Royce, Director - Customer and Services; His Excellency Ali Al Ahmed, UAE Ambassador to Germany and Frank Horch, Senator for Economy, Transport and Innovation of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.

Sheikh Ahmed said: This is a tremendous moment for Emirates, for Airbus and for our many partners involved in the A380 programme. There is no doubt that the A380 has had a big positive impact on aerospace manufacturing and the broader aviation industry, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs and stimulating innovation and new product development in many related areas such as ground handling, catering, airport facilities and cabin products, to name a few.

Importantly, the A380 also brought the flying experience for our customers to the next level. The aircraft itself is a showpiece of engineering. It is the worlds largest commercial passenger jet but it is quiet and efficient and at Emirates weve utilised the onboard real estate to redefine the thinking around inflight products and experience. Our flight crew love to fly it and our customers love to fly in it.

For Emirates, the A380 has been a success. Weve been able to utilise it at slot-constrained airports, as well as at regional and secondary airports where we have grown passenger demand. Each time we deploy an A380 onto a route, it typically stimulates further traffic and demand as travellers are attracted by our flagship A380 experience. We remain committed to the programme and will work closely with Airbus and our partners to continually enhance our A380 product as we look ahead to receiving our remaining 42 aircraft on order.

We are extremely proud of our long-standing relationship with Emirates  a partnership that has been integral to the A380 programme, said Tom Enders. It is a source of immense satisfaction for everyone at Airbus that such a visionary airline has believed in the A380 from the beginning and chosen it as its flagship and the backbone of its operations. And, of course, it is always exciting to hear positive feedback from our customers and passengers about the aircraft, while associating it with Dubais success as the worlds most dynamic air transport hub.

Dominic Horwood said: We would like to congratulate Emirates on this momentous occasion. We are very proud to be powering their 100th Airbus A380 and look forward to building on our strong relationship in years to come.

Powered by Rolls-Royce engines, Emirates 100th A380 is configured in three cabin classes, with 14 private suites in First class, 76 seats in Business and 426 seats in Economy. It also features the airlines newly revamped Onboard Lounge. It will be on display at the upcoming Dubai Air Show and will enter service afterwards.
New York, Nov 3(Just Earth News): The head of the United Nations refugee agency on Thursday urged global leaders to find political solutions to the world's conflicts, if the swelling numbers of forcibly displaced people are ever to return home.

Securing solutions for the millions of people uprooted around the world, and avoiding a repeat of the massive outflows that have taken place over recent years, ultimately rests on political solutions, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said as he briefed the UN Security Council in New York.

Painting a dire picture of the reality the international community now faces, he said that a succession of major new crises has caused massive displacement across virtually all regions of the globe, he said, noting that the number of people forcibly displaced worldwide is now approaching 66 million  up from 42 million in 2009.

This includes 17.2 million refugees under the responsibility of the High Commissioner's Office (UNHCR), a 70 per cent increase since then.

Grandi cited several ongoing crises, including in Syria and Iraq, which together accounted for a quarter of all those forcibly displaced. But new crises have developed, he said, with many unfolding in ungoverned spaces, driven by varying combinations of poverty and underdevelopment, environmental degradation, inequality and persecution.

Recalling his recent visit to Bangladesh, at the border with Myanmar, he said he witnessed the most rapid refugee exodus since the massive population movements of the mid-1990s. Indeed, the Rohingya fight from Myanmar's Rakhine state is a stark illustration of what happens when the root causes of conflict and violence are not addressed, and the relationship between a State and some of its people breaks down.

The result is a human tragedy on a dramatic scale, he stated.

At the same time, situations that appeared to have stabilized, such as those in Burundi, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, had been affected by new crises triggering new refugee outflows; while protracted situations, such as in Afghanistan and Somalia, remained entrenched.

'Have we become unable to broker peace?' UNHCR chief asks Council

Grandi warned that the international community is failing to generate political solutions.

Have we become unable to broker peace? he asked. I ask this question here, in the Security Council, whose raisons d'etre are conflict resolution and sustaining peace  because I see the direct impact of these failures, every day, on the lives of tens of millions of people, uprooted and forced to abandon their homes.

Outlining several action points for the Council, Grandi said the 15-member body first needs to support preventative measures to address the causes of conflict and avoid deepening displacement crises.

Humanitarian actors and peacekeepers should draw on their diverse strengths to help protect civilians affected by conflict, while at the same time preserving the neutral, impartial character of humanitarian action, he said.

Grandi also called for resolute action to tackle the horrific abuses perpetrated by traffickers and identify and prosecute them.

Without the restoration of peace and security, however, it would be impossible for refugees and other displaced persons to return home.

Only 500,000 refugees worldwide returned home last year. And very few displacement situations in the last decade have been brought to a definitive conclusion, he said.

A full response to on Thursday's massive displacement flows can only be achieved through action to restore security, resolve conflict and build peace, he concluded.

Photo: UNICEF/LeMoyne

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Sydney, Nov 3 (IBNS): Warning its citizens, Australian government on Friday said it has reliable information that terrorists may be planning to target Western interests in Bangladesh.

The Australian government said there is a high threat of terrorist attack in the Asian nation.

"There is a high threat of terrorist attack in Bangladesh. There is reliable information to suggest militants may be planning to target Western interests in Bangladesh," read a statement issued by the Australian government.

"Stay alert and maintain an active awareness of your environment. Ensure you have robust security plans in place," it said.

The statement further said: "The level of our advice has not changed. Reconsider your need to travel to Bangladesh."

Bangladesh had witnessed a major terrorist attack last year when a cafe in capital Dhaka was attacked.

The terrorist attack incident had left 20 people dead.

The deceased included foreign nationals.
Lashkargah, Nov 3 (IBNS): At least 11 Taliban militants were killed by air and artillery strikes conducted by the Afghan forces in Helmand province, local Khaama Press reported.

Several objects belonging to the Taliban militants were also confiscated by the forces, according to statement by local government officials.

A statement by the local government said that while artillery strike killed six militants, five were killed during the air strikes.

In a separate raid, army men seized at least 95 different types of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from different parts of Helmand.




Quetta, Nov 3 (IBNS): Going on the offensive, Baloch separatist leaders, who regularly slam Pakistan, have upped the tempo and have promised to make the country's government to pay for the inhuman treatment being meted out to the ethnic community.

Abdul Nawaz Bugti, the representative of Baloch Republican Party to the UNHRC has said, "As a Baloch I will never forget the way Pakistan disrespected the women of my nation. Promise well make you pay for this."

The leader of the BRP, Brahumdagh Bugti, brought up recent issues concerning the Baloch, on Twitter, and said, "Rise in abduction of families of Baloch activists by Pakistani forces exposes the inhuman face of the state & its defeat in #Balochistan."

Brahumdagh Bugti was referring to the recent detention of relatives of Allah Nazar Baloch by Pakistani forces.

Allah Nazar is a key separatist leader in Balochistan.

His family was detained on Oct 30 as reported by local sources quoting Baloch National Movement and the Baloch Students Organization (Azad).

According to the two organisations, the forces arrested Allah Nazar's wife along two more women and three children near the provincial capital, Quetta.

Meanwhile, when questioned, authorities confirmed arresting three women, however, they did not reveal their identities.

Reacting to the development, Akhtar Mengal, the president of the Balochistan National Party tweeted, Highly condemn the abduction of Dr Allah Nazars family.No culture in the world permits of disgraceful acts of targeting women & children."
Kabul, Nov 3 (IBNS): At least seven Taliban were killed during clash in Afghanistan's Arghandab district on Thursday, media reports said on Friday.

Deputy Police Chief Col. Ghulam Jilani Farahi told Pajhwok Afghan News the clash took place on Thursday night in the Bagh Bazaar area.

Bodies of two militants were recovered.

According to reports, weapons and some explosives were also found in the area where the clash occurred.

The incident left five Talibans wounded, media reports said.
New York, Nov 3(Just Earth News):As more than 3,000 desperate, tired and hungry Rohingya refugees have crossed into Bangladesh from Myanmar over the past two days, United Nations agencies and their partners are working around the clock to provide urgent life-saving aid and shelter to this latest influx.

Most people I talked to walked for eight to ten days to get to the border, Olivia Headon, a press officer for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said Friday, adding: They had nothing to eat or drink after the first few days.

Fleeing the violence which has convulsed their communities in Myanmar's Northern Rakhine state since late August, these latest arrivals, after waiting for low tide in the paddy fields near the border, join over 820,000 Rohingya refugees already living in some safety in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, where over 607,320 have arrived since 25 August.

Headon said the new arrivals expressed their desire to find family members who had already crossed into Bangladesh. Several explained they had hoped to leave Myanmar sooner, but had to wait to harvest and sell their grain to raise funds for their journey, she explained. One man told me he had to pay someone to carry his elderly mother.

Meanwhile, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), and partners have distributed tokens, direct food supplies, and offered medical care for those at the Anjuman Para border crossing.

A reception area at Balukhali in the Bangladeshi city of Cox's Bazar, run by the IOM, is providing emergency assistance and self-settlement kits to improve living condition for the new arrivals.

UNHCR is also scaling up relief efforts to cope with the new influx of refugees around Kutupalong camp near Cox's Bazar.

More than 2,000 of them have moved towards UNHCR's transit centre near Kutupalong camp, including some vulnerable refugees who were taken by bus, Babar Baloch, UNHCR spokesperson told reporters at the regular press briefing in Geneva.

He added that this comes as our staff just relocated over 400 recent arrivals to a new extension to Kutupalong camp.

In related news, preliminary data from a nutrition assessment conducted last week at Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox's Bazar shows a 7.5 per cent prevalence of life-threatening severe acute malnutrition  a rate double that seen among Rohingya child refugees in May 2017, UNICEF said.

The Rohingya children in the camp  who have survived horrors in Myanmar's northern Rakhine state and a dangerous journey here  are to already caught up in a catastrophe, said UNICEF Bangladesh Representative Edouard Beigbeder. Those with severe malnutrition are now at risk of dying from an entirely preventable and treatable cause.

UNICEF and partners are treating over 2,000 acutely malnourished children at 15 treatment centres, with six additional centres currently being set up. The agency is also working with health partners to identify and treat diarrhoea and pneumonia, and will be conducting mass vaccination and nutrition screening campaigns this month.

The humanitarian community needs to be able to do far more to treat and protect these extremely vulnerable children, Beigbeder said. For that we need far more attention to the crisis, and far more resources for the response. These children need help right now.

Photo: Olivia Headon/UN Migration Agency

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Toronto, Nov 3 (IBNS): Seven pedestrians and one cyclist were struck in separate collisions across Toronto on Friday morning, media reports said.

Eight collisions have taken place in total in the city.

One of the pedestrians, who had struck at the intersection of Steeles Ave. W and Dufferin Street, is suffering from life-threatening injuries.

An investigation was carried out at the spot following which the area had been closed. Later the area was opened.

Another pedestrian was struck at Finch Ave. W. and Albion Rd. in Etobicoke at around 7.30 in the morning.

The number of collisions actually goes up with the fall as the days become shorter and the visibility changes.

Toronto police Const. Clint Stibbe told CP24 told the frequency of collisions go up between mid-September and November end.

Stibbe said:"A lot of people are assuming that a driver may see them.

"Unfortunately some people are dying as a result. You need to make eye contact with each other, communicate, be predictable as a pedestrian, and as a driver  dont move that vehicle without taking that second look," he added.

In 2017, 1418 people were struck while the number was slightly higher in 2016. In 2016, 1500 people were struck.

Stibbe termed the figure as "nowhere near good enough".

Even Mayor John Tory expressed his frustration and displeasure over the figure.

(Reporting by Suman Das)
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Since the time the shooting of Sanjay Leela Bhansalis dream project Padmavati had begun, the movie has become an eye of the storm. Based on the epic fictionalised poem written by Malik Muhammad Jayasi, the movie is facing backlash for people doubt, there will be distortion of facts. Hence, demanding a pre-screening for Hindu and Kshatriya representatives, Gujarat BJP has asked for a delay in its release or a ban on the film.

Twitter

Padmavati and Khilji had never met in real life, says Gujarat BJP spokesperson I K Jadeja to PTI adding that EC should arrange for pre-release screening of the movie for select Kshatriya representatives to provide them a fair opportunity to prevent unnecessary tension ahead of Gujarat polls.

Furthermore, former Congress leader Shankersinh Vaghela has threatened that violent protests will be carried out if the movie is not screened prior to the release. So much so, that law and order may go out of control.

Screengrab

Also, Rajput Karni Sena is protesting against the release of the film. They have also warned the makers that they will burn cinema halls if theres distortion of facts in the movie.

Starring Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor, Padmavati is slated to hit the screens on Dec. 1.
Two twin brothers cheated death by surviving a life-threatening situation by cuddling with each other in the womb!

wenxuecity.com

Viky Plowright, a 30-year-old nurse was told that her twin babies were monoamniotic; meaning that they shared the same amniotic sac during a routine check-up 10 weeks after becoming pregnant.

This posed the threat of the babies entangling themselves with their umbilical cords, which would result in the shutting down of their oxygen supply ending both their lives.

I was devastated, as doctors explained it also meant the babies were at extremely high risk, around 50 percent, of not surviving the pregnancy, because of their close proximity, explained Plowright.

emisariosdefe.com

"They still had two umbilical cords, to deliver nourishment, which could become tangled, strangling them, which was so frightening to even imagine, added Plowright.

The condition is so rare that it only affects one in 35,000 and one in 60,000 twins in the UK.

12 weeks later, however, the sonographer told Plowright and her fiance Chris that her babies had moved into a life-saving embrace and were found cuddling and holding hands in another scan. To our astonishment, at the 12-week scan, we saw that they were cuddling each other and holding hands, Plowright recalled. They were keeping each other alive by staying still, so their umbilical cords didnt get tangled.

thesun.co.uk

By staying still in that position, theyd stopped the cords from becoming so badly tangled that it killed them, said Plowright. It really was a miracle.

Plowright arranged to meet the doctor once every week or two for check-ups until they reached 32 weeks. For the next few months, we were in a constant state of worry, said Vicky, who discovered at 17 weeks they were having boys.

I didnt feel I could get excited because I was so worried we were going to be told at every scan that our twins hadnt survived.

Plowright finally delivered the two twins at week 32, with Reuben arriving at 11:22 am and his identical twin arriving just a minute later.

dailymail.co.uk

Although Theo, twin number two, had stopped growing due to insufficient amounts of space in the womb. As a result, Reuben weighed in at 3lbs 14oz, while Theo arrived at 3lb 7oz.

Both of them came out screaming and, most importantly, they were alive, Plowright recalled.

Chris was sobbing next to me, as well. We were just so happy that theyd made it.

botasot.info

At 22 months old, the twins are close as ever. They are the best of friends, stated Plowright.

Before they even knew the world, they knew each other and grew together in such a small space that I knew they would have a special bond for the rest of their lives.

Reuben is the do-er and Theo the thinker, but they always have an eye on where the other one is.
Deep in the wilds of the Amazon rain forest, the Waiapi tribe is ready for its favourite activity: drinking vast quantities of homemade beer.

afp

Waiapi women grate manioc to prepare Caxiri, a craft beer imbibed daily by men, women and children when is not sour yet, at the Waiapi village in Amapa state in Brazil.

afp

Draining the salad-bowl-sized gourd, usually in one go, they send for a refill, which is scooped from an enormous hollowed-out log resembling a canoe, only brimming with beer.

afp

The tribesmen of Manilha village, dressed in red loincloths, black-and-red body art, and sashes made of bright beads, soon get merrily drunk.

The party, which kicks off after lunch and continues late into the star-filled night, was called in honour of the Waiapi river spirit, a giant anaconda-like serpent called Sucuri who demands constant appeasement.

afp

But the Waiapi need little excuse to organize drinking sessions, preferably with a sing-song.

When you drink, your vision changes. You lose shame. Happiness comes and your feet start moving, says Japarupi Waiapi, a 45-year-old chief visiting from a neighbouring community.

The Waiapi are self-sufficient, able to do without electricity, phones, cars, most clothes or even money. But while everything they need for survival can be found in the forest, daily life as hunters and subsistence farmers can be gruelling.

afp

Sometimes the tribesmen start in the morning for a casual sitdown and couple of pints. Sometimes its an elaborate affair, a full-blown party, with other villages invited and going on all night.

afp

These caxiri bouts were mentioned by numerous travellers in French Guiana in the 1800s. There is no doubt that getting drunk was an important Waiapi tradition, wrote anthropologist Alan Tormaid Campbell, who lived with the Waiapi in the 1970s, learned their language, and wrote a 2002 book Getting to know Waiwai.

afp

Behind the scenes, though, it takes back-breaking work to make the tradition happen. And women, who drink caxiri in lesser quantities, are responsible.

Caxiri is brewed from cassava or yams, with beige or purple versions, coming in varying degrees of potency.

afp

Within hours, the revellers at Manilhas party had drunk their way through the entire canoe of beer. Fortunately, a second canoe load awaited at the other end of the village.

The increasingly enthusiastic musicians, huddling together and holding on to each other, played the same two notes over and over in a tireless, hypnotic rhythm.

Dancing in a bobbing motion, they shuffled through the village like mad pipers. That's the life of the Waiapi.
Social media giant Twitter has blamed an employee who was leaving the company, for temporarily deactivating U.S. President Donald Trumps @realdonaldtrump Twitter account.

We have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer-support employee who did this on the last day. We are conducting a full internal review, Twitter said in a tweet.

Earlier today @realdonaldtrumps account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee. The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again.  Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017

We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again, the company said in an earlier tweet.

reuters

Trump has made extensive use of messages on Twitter to attack his opponents and promote his policies both during the 2016 presidential campaign and since taking office in January. He has 41.7 million followers on Twitter.

reuters

Great Tax Cut rollout today. The lobbyists are storming Capital Hill, but the Republicans will hold strong and do what is right for America! he wrote in his first tweet after Thursdays outage.

Many on twitter haild him as a hero.

Hi @jack. As a Twitter user I recommend the customer support worker who deactivated Trump's Twitter account be awarded Employee of the Year. pic.twitter.com/b30fJM9L4m  DocGamester (@DocGamester) November 3, 2017

Hooray for Donald Trump's temporary Twitter blackout. His account was shut down for 11 minutes by a member of staff on their last day. pic.twitter.com/a22i1PW26c  Jo Summerbell (@josummerbell) November 3, 2017

Joey...WHAT did you do with yourself during the entire 11 minutes Trump's Twitter feed was down yesterday? Did you have a panic attack?!  Patty Becker (@BrownEyedGirlOH) November 3, 2017

As I type this Twitter is spending more money to safeguard Trump's account from being taken down than they are stopping Russian ad influence  Warning: Not Kimmy (@EasyBakedOven) November 3, 2017

Make Twitter Great Again: On last day of work, rogue Twitter employee deactivated Trumps account https://t.co/YG7F2t7gQH #tech #feedly  mc McClure (@mcteba) November 3, 2017
On Halloween, Google told its Google G Suite users that this morning, we made a code push that incorrectly flagged a small percentage of Google Docs as abusive, which caused those documents to be automatically blocked. A fix is in place and all users should have full access to their docs.

That misfire reminded everyone that cloud providers have access to all your data. Many people worried that Google was scanning users documents in real time to determine if theyre being mean or somehow bad. You actually agree to such oversight in Google G Suites terms of service.

Those terms include include personal conduct stipulations and copyright protection, as well as adhering to program policies. Who knows what made the program that checks for abuse and other violations of the G Suite terms of service to go awry. But something did.

And its not just Google that has such terms. Chances are you or your employees have signed similar terms in the many agreements that people accept without reading.

The big concern from enterprises this week was not being locked out of Google Docs for a time but the fact that Google was scanning documents and other files. Even though this is spelled out in the terms of service, its uncomfortably Big Brother-ish, and raises anew questions about how confidential and secure corporate information really is in the cloud.

So, do SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS providers make it their business to go through your data? If you read their privacy policies (as I have), the good news is that most dont seem to. But have you actually read through them to know who, like Google, does have the right to scan and act on your data? Most enterprises do a good legal review for enterprise-level agreements, but much of the use of cloud services is by individuals or departments who dont get such IT or legal review.

Enterprises need to be proactive about reading the terms of service for cloud services used in their company, including those set up directly by individuals and departments. Its still your data, after all, and you should know how it is being used and could be used.

Typically, these terms are not negotiable, so you have to be prepared to block cloud providers whose terms are unacceptable and provide users an alternative. But cloud providers might be willing to rewrite portions of their terms of service over privacy concerns if you enterprise is large enoughso ask!

Perhaps the scariest part of this is that you typically have no way of auditing the public cloud to determine if they are checking out your data or not, whether or not their terms of service give them that right. At the end of the day, this comes down to trust. But you should at least be aware of what your providers can do, so you can decide whom to trust.
By Benjamin Jumbe:

President Yoweri Museveni has pledged to provide land for construction of a vocational training institute by the Emir of Sharjah, Sultan Bin Mohammed Al-Qasimi.

This followed a meeting held at the Sultans palace in Sharjah in which the Emir expressed interest in constructing a training institute in Uganda to support governments education infrastructure.

President Museveni said while government has been struggling with building the economic infrastructure, it has overcome most of the bottlenecks to development.

The two leaders in the meeting discussed cooperation in areas of education, health and vocational training.

The president earlier after a tour of the great Museum of the Union in Dubai hailed the leaders of the United Arab Emirates for transforming their weaknesses into strength and uniting their people.
Gold (GC) Weekly Doji Near Key 1800 Level Tradable Patterns - Tue Nov 15, 11:21PM CST Gold (GCZ22) is consolidating a second straight day just below the psychologically key 1800 whole figure level and the 38.2% Fib retrace of the March to October slide. GC is at risk ahead of the weekend... GCZ22 : 1,781.1 (+0.24%) GLD : 165.50 (+0.35%)

The Ongoing Coffee Plunge Best Weather Inc. - Tue Nov 15, 6:08PM CST Jim Roemer's video tells about the recent hail damage in Brazil and how he called the major down-move in coffee prices during the last two months. KCH23 : 159.50s (-4.43%) JO : 46.00 (-3.05%)

Cotton Rallies on Tuesday Barchart - Tue Nov 15, 4:22PM CST Tuesdays cotton trade bounced back with 285 to 346 point gains. New crop Dec rallied 184 points on the day, which discounted it to now 984 points under the spot Dec contract. The 11/14 Cotlook A Index... CTZ22 : 90.62 (+2.12%) CTH23 : 88.73 (+2.02%) CTK23 : 87.36 (+1.77%)

Wheats Gain on Tuesday Barchart - Tue Nov 15, 4:22PM CST Wheat markets ended the day with gains. At the high, Dec SRW was up to $8.43 for a 24 cent gain, but closed 9 3/4 cents higher. The other front months were 7 3/4 to 9 3/4 cents higher. KC wheats ended... ZWZ22 : 812-2 (-1.93%) ZWH23 : 832-6 (-1.80%) ZWPAES.CM : 7.6241 (+1.42%) KEZ22 : 952-2 (-1.12%) KEPAWS.CM : 9.2132 (+0.74%) MWZ22 : 964-0 (-1.03%)

Hogs Gain on Tuesday Barchart - Tue Nov 15, 4:22PM CST Tuesday hog futures closed with $0.45 to $1.12 gains through the front months. The USDA National Average Base Hog Price for Tuesday was $1.46 stronger to $85.54. The CME Lean Hog Index was $88.65 on 11/11,... HEZ22 : 85.325s (+0.53%) HEJ23 : 95.500s (+1.19%) KMZ22 : 95.900s (+0.24%)
A 63-year-old man faces prison time for fraud, forgery and other illegal activities at the two car dealerships he operated in western New York.

Richard Giza, of Lancaster, has pleaded guilty in Erie County Court to grand larceny, forgery, insurance fraud and falsifying business records. Prosecutors say he admitted taking payment for vehicles without transferring the titles or filing proper paperwork.

He also admitted falsifying Department of Motor Vehicle records, forging various documents and keeping more than $100,000 in sales taxes he collected from customers.

Giza operated KPS Carrs in Buffalo and Premier Motocar in Williamsville.

He faces mandatory state prison time with a maximum term of 15 years. Hell be sentenced on Feb. 5.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Auto Fraud New York
Lockton, the worlds largest privately held insurance broker, has appointed Gareth Davies as senior vice president, Property, in Bermuda.

He will focus on growing the business, particularly in the property area, in a market that could be difficult over the next couple of years, said Kansas City, Mo.-based Lockton in a statement.

Prior to joining Lockton, Davies was the CEO of JLT Bermuda and prior to that he was head of RK Harrison Bermuda. Davies has been a property broker in Bermuda for more than 20 years and brings vast experience of broking a wide range of industrial, multi-family habitational and energy clients. Davies also brings expertise in facultative reinsurance as well as alternative property solutions.

Davies is a Chartered Insurance Broker and an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute (ACII).

He can be contacted at: (441) 294-4863 or Gareth.davies@bm.lockton.com

Topics Property
An explosion at a newly commissioned unit of a coal-fired power plant in northern India killed 32 people, while about 80 are still recovering from injuries in one of the nations worst industrial disasters in recent years.

Flue gases and steam were released by the blast Wednesday afternoon at NTPC Ltd.s Unchahar power plant, Indias biggest electricity producer said in a statement. NTPC has shut the unit, which was commissioned in March and began commercial operations in September, while the rest of the facility is operating. The company raised the number of casualties at a press briefing in New Delhi on Friday from 29 earlier.

NTPC has formed a committee to investigate the accident, Federal Power Secretary A.K. Bhalla said by phone Friday. Officials from Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd., which supplied the boiler, are also at the site to investigate, he said.

Until now we were busy with rescue operations, Bhalla said. From today onward we will try to find out what went wrong and accordingly take action.

The death toll ranks among one of the highest from a power-plant accident in recent years. Seventy-five people lost their lives following an explosion at a hydropower station in Siberia in 2009. Dozens of fatalities have also been reported at Chinese plants.

Industrial Accidents

The Unchahar blast is the deadliest industrial accident in India since the 2009 collapse of an under construction power-plant chimney at Bharat Aluminium Co.s Korba project that killed 45 people, according to the Hindustan Times. India reported 809 accidental explosion incidents in 2015, causing 831 deaths, federal home ministry data show.

NTPC was little changed at 180.40 rupees as of 2:36 p.m. in Mumbai on Friday. Bharat Heavy Electricals gained 2.6 percent to 100.15 rupees. The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.3 percent.

While India relies on coal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made surprising progress on his ambitious goals for developing the countrys renewable energy, said Jason Bordoff, director of Columbia Universitys Center on Global Energy Policy. Renewables are the fastest-growing form of power and stand to challenge coals dominant position in the utility space.

As a share of the total energy mix, renewables will grow and coal will fall, Bordoff said. But thats a share of a pie thats getting massively bigger. That still means a lot more coal a decade or two from now than it does today.

The plant in Uttar Pradesh state has a total capacity of 1,550 megawatts, according to the company. NTPC has generating capacity of 51.7 gigawatts, almost 16 percent of Indias total 329.3 gigawatts capacity.

While safety standards at Indian power plants have improved in recent years, theres still some way to go, said Ravi Krishnan, who runs a specialized energy consultancy with offices in the U.S. and India. NTPC has had an impressive safety record overall, he said.

They have some of the best operating practices, he said. It surprised me when I saw this, it doesnt happen very frequently.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics India
Without legacy systems to drag down their efforts, companies in emerging marketand China, in particular  may be poised to outpace U.S. and European counterparts developing insurtech innovations.

Unencumbered by legacy systems, technology innovators in emerging markets are often able to create new solutions faster, Willis Towers Watson suggests in its Quarterly InsurTech Briefing for the third-quarter 2017, published by the global advisory and brokerage firm in collaboration with CB Insights.

The emerging markets businesses are also able to attract intellectual and financial capital from partnerships unseen in developed, heavily regulated countries with high penetration of insurance products.

And both technology and business models are exportable, said Rafal Walkiewicz, CEO of Willis Towers Watson Securities, in a video introducing the reports main ideas.

China, he said, is the worlds third largest insurance market. And the Chinese insurance revolution has led to both new mainstream products and new distribution models. Tech giants are making further waves with new digital distribution platforms like Taobao Insurance, he said.

The report describes Taobao Insurance as the insurance distribution platform of Taobao, which is Alibabas e-commerce platform, explaining that booming e-commerce in China is creating demand for new non-life products, such as product return insurance.

Retailers in China had not historically offered free shipping for product returns, but growing e-commerce activity fueled the need for a free-return policy reimbursing merchants for shipping costs, providing added security to consumers that would increase sales. Taobao, established a partnership with Chinese insurer Huatai P&C, to introduce the first free-return shipping insurance product in China. According to the report, Huatai P&C was able to leverage data from Taobaos historical e-commerce transactions to develop a pricing model, which is further supported by the insurers risk management capabilities.

In 2016, the total e-commerce market in China grew 31 percent to exceed $700 billion, the report said, noting that increasing mobile penetration and a continued transition of retail sales to e-commerce will continue the growth trajectory.

Taobao Insurance now offers a variety of insurance products to Taobaos large customer base, which includes 529 million monthly active users through partnerships with more than 40 insurers in China, including Ping An, Taikang, AIG China and others. According to Willis Towers Watson, products include motor, A&H, travel, property and life insurance.

The report also refers to the role that Alibaba played in forming Zhong An, Chinas first online-only insurer established in 2013 by Ping An, Tencent and Alibaba in 2013. Zhong An is now one of only four companies nationwide in China to receive a license from the CIRC to sell insurance products online.

Zhong An, which also distributes free-return insurance through Taobao and Huatai P&C, offers more than 240 niche products. All are distributed digitally, mostly through the online platforms of the companys many ecosystem partners, the report says.

Zhong An has raised over $2.4 billion of capital to date, including its recent $1.5 billion IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (at a valuation in excess of $10 billion) in September 2017 and its $931 million Series A round funded by several private equity investors in 2015.

At one point, the report also notes that Chubb is repositioning its China strategy, beginning with its long-term preferred provider distribution agreement established in 2016 with Suning Commerce, the third largest e-commerce company in China.

Overall, the report demonstrates that insurtech investment continues to increase in Emerging Asia. Although total insurtech funding volume fell 68 percent to $312 million in the third quarter of 2017, compared to a record level of $985 million tallied by CB Insights for the second quarter, 48 property/casualty and life/health transactions in the third quarter represented the third most transactions completed in any quarter to dateand six companies in Emerging Asia, including three companies in China, raised capital during the third quarter.

Hong Kong-based insurance comparison platform CompareAsiaGroups $50 million round was the largest transaction in the third quarter.

Three China-based start-ups raised capital in the third-quarter, which was more than any country outside of the U.S., including an online distribution platform leveraging big data to personalize group insurance products for small to mid-sized employers, a medical insurance platform for critical illness and a software provider that uses blockchain to streamline underwriting processes and manage risks for commercial and personal insurers.

Source: Willis Towers Watson

This article first appeared in Insurance Journals sister publication, Carrier Management.

Topics InsurTech Tech Europe Property Casualty Willis Towers Watson China
Combined Insurance in Chicago has named Sadaf Siddiqui senior vice president and general counsel. In her new role, Siddiqui will provide regulatory and legal counsel to the company.

Siddiqui comes to Combined from Chubb Canada, which she joined in 2012, supporting Chubbs legal operations throughout Canada, as well as Combined in Canada. Prior to Chubb, Siddiqui spent times as legal counsel at other insurance companies and in private practice. Siddiqui received her law degree from the University of Ottawa.

Combined Insurance provides individual supplemental accident, disability, health and life insurance products  and is a Chubb company.

Source: Combined Insurance

Topics Canada Chubb
If Aetna Inc. is eventually swallowed by CVS Health Corp., an important part of the health-care business will be changed  perhaps for good.

For years, pharmacy benefits were largely carved out from the rest of a medical coverage plan. But increasingly the two services are being combined, a move that in theory will make it easier to verify whether expensive drugs are worth the cost. A merger of the third-biggest health insurer with the largest U.S. drugstore chain, which also operates a pharmacy-benefit management company, could speed the process.

You are hearing the warning for the end of the road for the classic standalone pharmacy-benefit business, said Pratap Khedkar, managing principal at consulting firm ZS Associates.

Drugmakers are producing more pricey treatments for cancer and rare diseases. Combining drug and medical benefits in the same place is the only way payers will figure out whether such expensive new drugs are actually making people better and saving money by keeping them out of the hospital, he said.

A merger of CVS and Aetna would create a healthcare behemoth and put huge pressure on standalone players such as Express Scripts Holding Co. and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. Express Scripts would become the last major standalone pharmacy-benefit manager not allied with a major insurer.

All Channels

CVS and Aetna have held discussions about a potential deal, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified as the details arent public. A newly combined company would own the entire chain, from prescribing and filling prescriptions to the health plans that pay for them, said Michael Rea, of Rx Savings Solutions, which has an app that helps patients find lower cost drugs.

Under a combined roof, the insurance arm of CVS-Aetna could help keep costs down by routing patients needing basic urgent care to CVS-owned walk-in clinics and keeping them out of expensive hospital emergency rooms, analyst Ann Hynes of Mizuho Securities said in a note to clients. The company would also become a formidable competitor to UnitedHealth Group Inc., the biggest health insurer and owner of its own PBM unit, OptumRx.

But even with the new clout, a merger isnt likely to be derailed by federal antitrust authorities, said John Briggs, an antitrust attorney at Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider in Washington.

CVS and Aetna declined to comment.

Walgreens, the No. 2 drugstore operator, could also feel the pressure. A CVS-Aetna marriage could cause the drugstore chain to look for its own acquisition targets, with Express Scripts being the most likely, Charles Rhyee, an analyst at Cowen & Co., wrote in a note to clients Friday.

And then theres Amazon.com Inc., which recently gained drug-wholesaler licenses in 14 states. The looming threat of the e-commerce behemoth entering the mail-order pharmacy business and pushing down profit margins for drug distributors, benefit managers and retail pharmacies intensifies the pressure on standalone players.

For CVS, the move is a natural defense against the potential threat of Amazon entering the retail pharmacy market, Rhyee said.

Another possibility is that Amazon could buy Express Scripts. That would give the internet retailer an instant and large foothold in both the PBM industry and the mail-order pharmacy business.

Strong Model

Health insurer Anthem Inc., Express Scripts biggest current client, announced earlier this month that it would leave Express Scripts when its contract ends at the end of 2019 to form its own PBM unit. And Prime Therapeutics, another major player, manages drug benefits for nonprofit Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in numerous states.

Our model is strong and thriving, said Jennifer Luddy, a spokeswoman for Express Scripts. We believe in the value that we provide to our customers as an independent PBM.

On an earnings call this week, Express Scripts Chief Executive Officer Tim Wentworth said he was open to a deal with Amazon to help serve cash-paying patients.

Walgreens declined to comment.

In terms of the CVS-Aetna deal, antitrust authorities will look closely at the competition between the companies in selling Medicare Part D plans for the elderly, said Briggs, the attorney.

There could be fight between the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, which share antitrust enforcement, over which agency will investigate the merger, according to Briggs. The Justice Department handles insurer mergers and successfully stopped the combination of Aetna and Humana Inc. this year. The FTC investigates retail pharmacy deals. In September, it cleared Walgreens acquisition of 1,900 Rite Aid Corp. stores after Walgreens shrank the size of the deal.

Still, a CVS-Aetna deal would likely win approval because a number of other major players will remain in the Part D market, he said.

Thats an easy fix, Briggs said. The whole deal is not going to crater on account of Part D.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Amazon Drugs
U.S. money managers with reinsurance companies in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands could lose a valuable loophole under Republican proposals to overhaul the tax code unveiled on Thursday.

The plan includes a 20 percent excise payment on payments from domestic firms to foreign affiliates that could affect private equity firms and hedge funds that have overseas reinsurance operations.

The proposal would effectively kill the so-called Bermuda reinsurance loophole under which money managers are able to invest the premiums they raise as reinsurers in their funds without paying any tax on the gains.

The plan is part of a 429-page bill that would represent the largest overhaul of the U.S. tax system since the 1980s, and many analysts have raised doubts about the likelihood of it being passed.

Our base call is that this tax package will fail. That would remove the immediate threat to the Bermuda reinsurance loophole, said Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with Cowen Washington Research Group.

We cannot, however, say there is no risk here. This is because we do expect a smaller bill that deficit-finances temporary tax cuts that extend through the next presidential election. It is possible that there could be a few revenue offsets in that bill.

Shares in private equity firm Apollo ended down 3 percent on Thursday while its Bermuda-based division Athene Holding closed nearly 7 percent weaker. Athene reinsures retirement savings products for people and institutions and has helped drive profits at Apollo.

Third Point Re, the Bermuda-based reinsurance arm of hedge fund Third Point, finished 0.6 percent weaker while Greenlight Re, a Caymans reinsurer run by hedge fund Greenlight ended down 0.23 percent.

Representatives of Greenlight and Third Point were not immediately available to comment.

Included in the draft is also a proposal that would exclude non-traditional insurers based overseas, including hedge funds and other investors, from qualifying for favorable tax rates if certain insurance-related assets, such as some types of reserves and unearned premiums, represent less than 25 percent of their business.

The threshold in the bill is too high, said Bradley Kading, president and executive director of the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers.

These alternative capital vehicles took real losses from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, Kading said.

(Additional reporting by Greg Roumeliotis and Lawrence Delevingne. Writing by Carmel Crimmins; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Topics Reinsurance Politics
Digital small business insurer Attune has named Martha Dreiling as head of Analytics and Corporate Operations and Richard E. Stamets as head of Underwriting Strategy.

Dreiling oversees Attunes analytics, people and corporate functions. Stamets is responsible for Attunes underwriting strategies and portfolio of insurance offerings.

Prior to joining Attune, Dreiling served as senior vice president of Operations at OnDeck, an online lender for small businesses where she worked with James Hobson, Atunes CEO. While at OnDeck, she built the companys functions for collections, credit operations, customer service, quality assurance, and fraud prevention and detection. Dreiling was a member of the executive committee and the management team that took OnDeck public in 2014.

Stamets served most recently as vice president and head of Small Business at Starr, leading the direct-to-consumer and broker business. During his almost 30-year career in the insurance industry, he has held positions at AIG, CNA, Chubb and Hamilton USA.

Attune is backed by American International Group, Hamilton Insurance Group and Two Sigma Investments. When Brian Duperreault, former Hamilton CEO left Hamilton to become CEO at AIG, AIG agreed to acquire the tech-focused commercial lines platform Hamilton USA and to help Attune expand. Earlier this week, AIG announced it is renaming Hamilton USA as Blackboard.

Topics Carriers Commercial Lines Business Insurance
Insurance broker and consultant, NFP Corp., has hired Kevin Brown as a managing director in its Austin, Texas, office.

He will lead NFPs retail sales and distribution operation, serving the Central Texas market, and will report directly to Ed OMalley, president of Corporate Benefits and Individual Solutions at NFP.

Brown has more than 30 years of experience in the insurance industry. Prior to joining NFP, Brown was most recently a market president and statewide employee benefits practice leader at Frost Insurance. Previously, Brown served as vice president of key accounts in Central Texas at United Healthcare. Brown started his employee benefits career at Great-West Life.

Source: NFP Corp.

Topics Texas Talent Human Resources
Authorities in Georgia say a man is dead after being caught in a piece of machinery at a plant in north Georgia.

Whitfield County Coroner Greg Bates told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that 51-year-old Jesus Pimentel was caught between a moving part of a machine and a stationary steel I-beam Monday. Pimentel, an employee of Shaw Industries in Dalton, died on the scene.

Bates says the man apparently was trying to get something out of the machine. The coroner says another worker threw him a piece of rope and he was caught in the machine when he bent over to get the rope.

Dalton police spokesman Bruce Frazier told the Daily Citizen the death was accidental and authorities are not investigating.

Shaw Industries is a flooring products manufacturer and a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Georgia Manufacturing
Montana officials say they have secured $2.1 million in federal disaster aid for ongoing cleanup efforts in the town of Baker where a tornado tore up homes, leaving a lake covered in hundreds of tons of debris.

The Billings Gazette reports U.S. Sen. John Testers office announced this week that Fallon County would receive funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The state of Montana is putting another $700,000 for Bakers recovery efforts after the June 2016 tornado that hit the southwestern town.

Recovery work on Baker Lake began 16 month ago. Earlier this month, crews started working on dredging sediment from the lake.

The work is slated to be completed in June.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions Catastrophe Natural Disasters Windstorm
Specials Discrimination and Fear Hamper HIV Eradication in Myanmar

People living with HIV attend an INGO treatment center in Yangon. / Thet Tun Naing / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  While Myanmar has been celebrating triumphs in controlling its HIV epidemic, the country is facing a new challenge with infection rates among the gay community in major cities among the highest in Asia.

Myanmars number of deaths due to the virus have halved in just six years. State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi touted HIV as an area of greatest progress since her government took power last year in her diplomatic address in September.

But as international donors withdraw funding in the wake of the countrys perceived development, the government warned that its HIV program was facing a funding shortfall of US$150 million by 2020a third of what it says is needed to battle the disease.

The head of UNs HIV program in Myanmar, Oussama Tawil, said the country could lose some of the momentum it has gained over the last five years, if current investments decline and other funds are not mobilized.

With urban centers including Yangon and Mandalay having Asias highest rate of gay and bisexual men and transgender women infected with the virus27 and 22 percent respectively in in 2015some worry that the funding shortage would further exasperate what experts have described as the latest battle ground in tackling the epidemic.

The percentage of Myanmars new infections coming from this community nearly doubled to 13 percent in 2015 from five percent in 2000, making it one of the three populations most at risk to HIV, following people who inject drugs and sex workers.

Health experts said pervasive discrimination against homosexual, bisexual, or transgender people in Myanmar is preventing people from seeking medical help to prevent and treat HIV and Aids.

Intercourse between people of the same sex is illegal in Myanmar with the penal code punishing carnal intercourse against the order of nature with up to 14 years in prison.

Living in Fear



After a young man was diagnosed with HIV in 2009, he says he felt like committing suicide.

The 29-year-old from Kyaukme in Shan State who referred to himself as Ko Kyaw Kyaw was forced to quit his job at the restaurant he worked at as the company screened employees for HIV.

Destitute, Ko Kyaw Kyaw could not turn to his family for supporthe feared they would neither accept that he had had sex with a man nor that he was HIV positive.

There was just no one to take care of me, he told The Irrawaddy.

According to Ko Hla Myat, director of one of Myanmars largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) associations Colors Rainbow, the group is misunderstood by the public and face daily humiliation.

The majority of Myanmars population dont see them as humans with equal rights, so they experience lack of respect in all aspects of lifeat school, at work, in public health, housing, and even within their families, he told The Irrawaddy.

This pervasive discrimination deters individuals at-risk of HIV infection from seeking prevention and treatment services at public hospitals for fear of humiliation or mistreatment.

Like many of the gay or transgender people living with HIV the Irrawaddy spoke to, Ko Kyaw Kyaw avoided government clinics and instead sought help through an INGO when he became worried about his HIV status.

He said friends told him about humiliation at the hands of health professionals, and that some doctors and nurses were known to reprimand patients and tell them HIV infection was punishment for their lifestyle.

For UNAIDs Oussama Tawil, eliminating stigma and discrimination is of utmost importance for Myanmar to hit country targets in bringing the epidemic under control.

There is a need to continue to raise awareness among law enforcers, health and social-care providers to recognize and uphold rights of men who have sex with men, transgender and others as highlighted in the national plan on AIDS. he told The Irrawaddy.

Safe Spaces

Instead of public hospitals and government agencies, it is non-governmental and community- based organizations that provide prevention services for people like Ko Kyaw Kyaw. That includes providing information on safe-sex, handing out condoms, and encouraging HIV testing, and health facilities that provide treatment without discrimination.

But many users of LGBT-friendly health centerssuch as Aye Nyein Myittar and Population Services Internationaltold The Irrawaddy they feel uneasy over the future of these critical services as global funding dwindles and the government and INGOs struggle to keep up with the costs.

At the centers, counselors work to inform communities about the risks of HIV, the importance of testing and help patients deal with diagnosis and starting treatmenteven accompanying them to public hospitals if necessary.

Outreach workers at the centers travel to areas of the city frequented by LGBT, hold group sessions, offer pre- and post-HIV test counselling and have recently began reaching out to people through Facebook, Viber, B-talk and mobile applications popular with gay and bisexual menquadrupling the number of of gay and bisexual men getting tested for HIV and the number testing HIV-positive in just six months.

U Chit Ko Ko, a 60-year old retired natkadawa spirit medium that dresses in female attirewas one of the first people in Myanmar to speak out about being HIV positive and openly gay when he found out he had the virus in 2002.

He supported people in the community to get tested before setting up Lotusone of the first groups to reach out to those at risk.

After working with hundreds of people over more than a decade, he said discrimination and stigma in Myanmar were still preventing vulnerable people from receiving the services they needed.

Awareness is needed to fight discrimination, he told The Irrawaddy. Without talking about LGBT and HIV, you cant eliminate the disease.
Digital signature provider DocuSign plans to start offering its services from within Australia next year.

DocuSign's Australian services will run from Microsoft Azure's forthcoming Canberra regions.

DocuSign's intention is to meet Commonwealth Government requirements for handling classified and sensitive data.

The selection of Azure represents an expansion of DocuSign's existing relationship with Microsoft.

"We have been encouraged by the government's clear drive to create a tangible shift to the digital world - and we want to play our part by ensuring we're here to serve the public and the private sector's eSignature and digital transaction management needs," said DocuSign APAC vice-president Brad Newton.

"The investment in a local data centre is just part of our commitment to helping the government be 'digital-ready' by providing a simple way to meet its targets around customer-facing interactions taking place online. We're looking forward to supporting the next phase of digital transformation with the National Digital Economy Strategy in 2018."

Telstra, which owns a stake in DocuSign, plans to use the local service to offer customised digital services to the government.

"We welcome DocuSign's data centre plan and its commitment to digital transformation. Since Telstra Ventures invested in DocuSign in 2014, the company has grown significantly in Australia. We're now seeing strong potential for collaboration between DocuSign and our other portfolio companies such as Whispir; especially in the Government sector," said Telstra Ventures managing director Matthew Koertge.
The laying of the Hawaiki cable system from Sydney and then across the Pacific Ocean is poised to get underway, with more than 6500km of undersea fibre-optic cable on board the TE Subcom cable ship Responder berthed in the harbour city.

The 15000-km trans-Pacific cable will link Australia and New Zealand to the continental United States, as well as Hawaii and American Samoa, with options to expand to additional South Pacific islands.

Marine operations are now set to begin for the southern portion of the awaiki Trans-Pacific Submarine Cable System.

The Sydney operations follow the landing of Hawaiki cable in Pacific City, Oregon, and the start of marine deployment in the Northern hemisphere on 10 October.

The completion of marine installation, including the interconnection of both ends of the cable, is scheduled for March 2018 near Tokelau.

The TE SubCom cable ship Responder sailing through Sydney Heads and Sydney Harbour on Wednesday.

After end-to-end system testing, the Hawaiki cable will be ready for service in June 2018.

The SY4 facility of global data centre company, Equinix, located in Alexandria, has been selected as the landing location for the cable in Sydney. It will connect to the cable via Coogee Beach.

Remi Galasso, chief executive of Hawaiki Submarine Cable, said the southern leg of the project was a critical phase of a milestone piece of communications infrastructure, which would significantly increase capacity between Australia and the US, enabling much faster connectivity, which would also help bolster cloud service providers in Australia.

Connectivity requirements in Australia are booming, including the continuous roll-out of broadband networks and the implementation of new datacenters, he observed.

Hawaiki will provide direct access to the US market and deliver more than 43 Terabits of new capacity to the South Pacific region in 2018. This is about 10 times the current consumption of Australia and New Zealand combined.

Amazon Web Services has purchased capacity in the system to speed up performance and reduce latency for its cloud customers operating between Australia/New Zealand and the US.
Victoria is likely to be the state hardest hit by the National Australia Banks plans to cut up to 4000 jobs from its operations nationally over the next three years.

While the NAB has suggested a net gain of 2000 new digitally-focused positions will help offset the expected shedding of about 4000 jobs, it says positions will be cut at its headquarters in the Docklands in Melbourne.

And the banks announcement on Thursday sparked a reaction from Victorias Treasurer Tim Pallas who says he expects a "disproportionate number" of National Australia Bank job losses to have an impact on the State.

The NAB move to slash staff has been described by Melbournes Swinburne University Adjunct Professor from the Faculty of Business and Law, Steve Worthington, as a case of reshaping its operations for a digital future.

According to Worthington, NAB's net 4000 jobs reduction reflects the reality of the banking market now and in the future.

As customers of banks, we are going into bank branches less and less; using ATMs less and less and carrying less cash in our purses and wallets. We are more and more likely to transact our banking business on-line; use contactless cards instead of cash at the point-of sale and thus our inactions with our bank are increasingly 'digital'.

He said the NAB news was a stark example of how all the major banks are reacting to changing customer behaviour - less need for customer facing personnel-more need for staff who have 'digital' skills, who can operate in the digital future".

In an indication of an the impact on the banks Melbourne headquarters, NAB chief executive Andrew Thorburn has said administrative positions will likely be cut.

The banks decision to cut its workforce comes as it announced a massive full year net profit of $5.3 billion for 2017. It put the decision to slash staff largely down to the impact of new technology and digital transactions on traditional roles.

Thorburn says the banking industry is under pressure to reshape its workforce "as transactions move to digital channels, and this is driven by our customers, we will need fewer people".

Pallas is quoted as saying, "At the moment you would expect that a disproportionate number (of job losses)... will come from Victoria because the headquarters are based here".

"This is a three-year phasing period that they're proposing, so they should be able to manage this sensibly and I urge them to do so," he said.

The $5.3 billion net profit announced by the NAB was an increase of more than 1400% on 2016, while redundancies are expected to cost the bank up to $800 million.

The 2016 profit of $352 million was primarily due to the sale, at a loss, of its UK and life insurance businesses.

Thorburn says the job cuts are part of the banks plan to achieve $1 billion in annual savings through automation of processes previously performed manually, and a reduction in the number of products offered by the bank and changes to its branch network.

The bank chief has also flagged the closure of some bank branches, but the opening of new branches in the growth corridors in western Sydney and Melbourne.
Chip maker Qualcomm has filed yet another suit against Apple, this time accusing the latter of breaking a software licence contract in order to benefit Intel in the making of broadband modems.

A Reuters report said the suit, filed in California state court, alleged that Apple had used its commercial leverage to ask for broad access to Qualcomm's proprietary software.

Apple, which has been using chips from Qualcomm, first used the broadband modem chips from Intel in the iPhone 7.

There have been reports earlier this week that Apple would stop using chips from Qualcomm in its iPhones and iPads from next year.

The two companies have been on the warpath for a while since January, when Applea suit against Qualcomm in the US, followed byin China the same month. Two months later it filedin the UK.

In April, Apple upped the ante by saying that it would stop paying royalties to Qualcomm.

Qualcomm retaliated in July, asking the US International Trade Commission to block imports of iPads and iPhones that do not include its chipsets, and to prevent the sale of such devices that are already in the US.

On 19 July, Qualcomm said it had filed lawsuits against Apple in Germany, claiming violation of its patents.

The same month, Taiwan manufacturers Foxconn, Pegatron, Compal and Wistron joined Apple in the battle against Qualcomm, charging that the chip maker overcharges for patent licences and breaks anti-trust laws.

Qualcomm sued the four Apple contractors in May after they stopped paying royalties.

In September, Qualcomm filed lawsuits in China to try and stop Apple from selling and manufacturing phones in the country.

The lawsuits were filed in an intellectual property court in Beijing on 29 September, alleging patent infringement and asking the court for injunctive relief.

The patents mentioned in the Beijing lawsuit cover power management and Force Touch, a touch-screen technology that Apple uses in current iPhone models.

Qualcomm, based in San Diego, earns most of its sales from its processors for mobile phones. But most of its profits come from royalties on patents that cover the basics of all recent mobile devices.
Two technology experts have proposed a solution to the current NBN mess, whereby customers would pay about the same as they currently do but avoid the congestion and speed issues that have led to a massive rise in the number of complaints.

John de Ridder, an independent telecommunications economist, and Rod Tucker, Laureate Emeritus Professor at the University of Melbourne and a member of Labor's Expert Panel that advised on the NBN, put forward their proposal on Radio National's Money programme on Thursday night.

Currently, the NBN Co charges retail service providers a connectivity virtual circuit charge for building into the network; the amount charged depends on how much bandwidth the provider buys. Additionally, there is an access virtual circuit charge, which depends on each customer's connection  the RSP pays more if the customer takes one of the higher tier plans.

NBN Co has accused RSPs of buying less bandwidth than is needed by their customers in order to maximise their profits. RSPs have, in turn, said they can only pay so much of CVC charges, else they would go out of business.

And customers have opted for lower-tier plans in order to keep their outlay down.

According to Money host Richard Aedy, the plan proposed by Tucker and de Ridder would eliminate the CVC charge, and instead impose a fixed charge on all customers, much in the way that electricity customers pay a charge for their use of poles and wires.

There would be a separate charge based on the amount of data used  as electricity customers pay depending on the amount of power they use  with the AVC charge also scrapped. But customers would be given access to the full bandwidth available, meaning that there would be no speed tiers.

According to Aedy, this would eliminate the main complaint from customers  slow speeds  and earn the NBN Co about the same as it was earning now.

Independent telecommunications analyst Paul Budde, who also participated in the programme, said now that Australia had stopped building a fibre network, it would fall further and further behind the rest of the world as far as broadband speeds were concerned.

Dr Tooran Alizadeh, director of urban design at Sydney University's School of Architecture, Design and Planning, said there needed to be a great deal more openness around the NBN.

She said that analysis of data between 2007 and 2013 showed that political factors had played a part in which suburbs had been connected to the network earlier. She pointed to the case of Armidale and said its early connection was due to the fact that independent MP Tony Windsor, the member for this area, was one of three parliamentarians who was propping up a minority Labor Government.

Safe Coalition seats were the absolute losers in the early stages of the rollout, she claimed. As to whether the same trend was continuing, Dr Alizadeh said she could not say anything with confidence due to the lack of transparency.
Developers with blockchain skills have become the hottest commodity in the freelance marketplace, according to a new study.

Freelance employment website Upwork released its latest quarterly index of the 20 hottest job skills, which shows that job postings for workers with blockchain skills have grown exponentially this year.

In its last quarterly report, blockchain technologists were in second place behind those with skills in robotics.

"Blockchain appears to be the next uncharted, highly talked about technology similar to what the 'cloud' was back in the mid-2000's," the Upwork report says. "Its growth exceeded 2,000% for three quarters in a row on Upwork.com, and in Q1 it experienced more than 6,000% year-over-year growth, making it the fastest-growing skill out of more than 5,000 skills on the site."

According to another recent report from Upwork, 53% of hiring managers surveyed cite access to skills as their biggest hiring challenge, and the majority (59%) are already utilizing flexible talent.

Demand for workers with computer/mathematical skills exceeded supply by 17% this year, according to job data analytics firm Burning Glass Technologies.

There were 5,743 mostly full-time job openings calling for blockchain skills in the last 12 months, according to Burning Glass Technologies; that represents a growth of 320%.

The initial hype around blockchain has evolved as more enterprises take the distributed ledger technology seriously, according to Upwork. "Major companies such as Samsung and IBM are already leveraging it in innovative ways, while Salesforce is planning on unveiling a blockchain offering for its customers during Dreamforce in September," the report said.

Burning Glass Technologies

Bitcoin cryptocurrency developers were in third place for freelance skills in Upwork's previous quarterly report, but those technologists have since dropped out of the top 20 job skills list. Meanwhile, blockchain technologists are advertising their services for as much as $250 per hour, according to Upwork's listing site.

As skills become more specialized, companies either need to invest in re-skilling to prepare workers for the jobs of tomorrow or leverage freelance professionals who are nearly twice as likely as traditional employees to proactively take re-skilling upon themselves, Stephane Kasriel, CEO of Upwork, said in a statement. Many of todays Fortune 500 companies are already doing this, and adoption of flexible workers will increase as hiring gets harder.

The median income for fulltime blockchain developers in the U.S. is $140,000 a year, compared to general software developers, whose annual median pay is $105,000, according to Matt Sigelman, CEO of Burning Glass Technologies.

In high-tech regions of the U.S. such as Silicon Valley, blockchain developers earn as much as $163,000; in New York City, they can earn as much as $150,000, according to Sigelman.

"Most of the demand for blockchain developers is still concentrated [in high-tech regions]," Sigelman said.

Upwork

Blockchain becomes a disruptive skill

It's not hard to imagine blockchain as a "disruptive skill" that is both fast-growing and hard to find, according to Burning Glass. While the technology and hiring patterns are in their early stages, employers need to start figuring out where they will find blockchain talent, "even as they are still considering how the technology will change their business.

"Because of its connection with 'cryptocurrencies,' blockchain is associated with finance, and major banks like Liberty Mutual, Capital One and Bank of America have posted openings," Burning Glass Technologies said in its blog. "There are also companies devoted to building blockchain applications, like Consensys Corporation. But the demand for blockchain is much broader, including major consulting firms like Accenture and Deloitte and technology companies like IBM and SAP.

"This is additional evidence that the business world is starting to take blockchain seriously."

CME Group Inc., for example, announced this week it plans to launch bitcoin futures.

Cryptocurrency market capitalization has grown in recent years to $172 billion, with bitcoin representing $94 billion, or more than half of the total, according to CME Group.

Gartner forecasts the business value-add of blockchain will exceed $3.1 trillion by 2030, indicating that it shows promise in terms of utility for business and is a technology thats here to stay, the Upwork report said.

A recent survey by SAP found that 92% of business leaders view blockchain as an opportunity, with the most promising use cases ranked as:

Supply chain and IoT  63% Legal and regulatory  19% Cryptocurrency  8% Sustainability  3%

Additionally, the World Economic Forum just released a toolkit to help executives better understand whether blockchain is an appropriate and helpful tool for their business needs. As more executives try to navigate this technology, there is soaring demand for talented experts familiar with it who can help demystify it and explore potential uses, Upwork noted.

SAP

Enterprises are considering the ways blockchain distributed ledgers can create more efficiency by eliminating the need for central administration, as is required with a relational database.

Enterprises are also asking their tech vendors about blockchain for audit logging and/or verifiable logs, which is viewed as a reliable way of tracking what happened in an organization to satisfy regulatory auditors, according to Zulfikar Ramzan, CTO of RSA Security, a subsidiary of the Dell EMC Infrastructure Solutions Group.

"It's a very hot topic right now," Ramzan said in an earlier interview with Computerworld. "We are definitely getting a lot of inbound inquiries around blockchain and its implication within enterprise environments. I think it's driven largely by the fact that when there's a new technology out there, to some degree people want to be buzzword compliant with the latest and greatest."

The 20 fastest-growing freelance skills in the first three months of 2018 saw more than 130% year-over-year growth in demand, while demand for the top 10 skills grew more than 400% compared to the same time period last year (Q1 2017).

The top 20 fastest-growing skills, Q1 2018:

Blockchain Tensorflow Amazon DynamoDB Voice over Subtitling Art direction Content strategy Computer vision Microsoft Power BI Augmented reality Chatbot development React native Media buying Go development Information security Scala development Instagram API Adobe Premiere Machine learning AngularJS development

Banks are moving toward blockchain in droves for its ability to create an open, cross-border system for clearance and settlement of financial transactions. IBM, for instance, has built a new blockchain-based financial service for use as a cross-border currency exchange by several banks.

Last year, IBM partnered with a Polynesian payments system provider and an open-source FinTech payment network to implement a new international exchange based on the blockchain electronic ledger. The ledger will serve 12 different currencies across Pacific Islands as well as Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Mastercard is launching its own blockchain-based network to enable partner banks and merchants to make cross-border payments faster and more securely. The Mastercard blockchain service can be used to clear credit card transactions and eliminate administrative tasks using smart contract rules  thus, speeding transaction settlement.

JP Morgan Chase last October rolled out a blockchain pilot program for global payments. The financial services giant said the blockchain-based Interbank Information Network "will enhance the client experience, decreasing the amount of time  from weeks to hours  and costs associated with resolving payment delays."

Blockchain explained

Blockchain is an electronic ledger  similar to a relational database  that can be openly shared among disparate users to create an unchangeable record of their transactions, each one time-stamped and linked to the previous one. It can also be used as a private electronic ledger.

Each digital record or transaction in the thread is called a block (hence the name), and it allows either an open or controlled set of users to participate in the electronic ledger. Each block is linked to a specific participant.

Maersk Ninety percent of goods in global trade are carried by the ocean shipping industry each year. A new blockchain solution from IBM and Maersk will help manage and track the paper trail of tens of millions of shipping containers across the world by digitizing the supply chain process.

Blockchain can only be updated by consensus between participants in the system, and once new data is entered, it can never be erased. The blockchain contains a true and verifiable record of each and every transaction ever made in the system.

While blockchain skills initially showed up in artificial intelligence and automation fields, they've now spread into other, more traditional roles, such as software developers, financial quantatitive analysts, and network engineers.

"What's interesting here is what we refer to as the hybrid-job economy; that's the notion that increasingly jobs are combining skill sets. If you look at some of the jobs growing the fastest and are highest value to companies are those with a sort of mixed-skill genome," Sigelman said.

For example, mobile app developers may be asked if they have marketing and commerce skills that web developers aren't typically expected to have.

"And, blockchain is having a lot of the same characteristics for some reasons that aren't all that surprising becuase it's a foundational technology and fundemental re-think of the underpinnings of how we transact and connect," Sigeman said.

How to become a blockchain developer

The path to becoming a blockchain developer is relatively simple, said Sigelman, who has noticed online courses being offered by universities, such as Princeton, UC Berkeley and Stanford.

For example, Stanford University's Coursara, its venture-backed education-focused technology company, is offering online courses.

Many companies seeking blockchain developers are advertising for workers with Java Script and Python language coding experience, which are standard software skill sets. Others, however, are looking for developers with skills in cryptography and machine learning, Sigelman said.

"I think somebody who is on the leading edge of software development is not going to feel like these blockchain skill sets are new ground for them," Sigelman said.

While fiinancial services (see Bitcoin) was the first industry to jump on board the blockchain wagon, industries such as technology service providers, international shipping, healthcare, power utilities and real estate have been quick to explore its use, too, for everything from smart contracts that automatically execute when certain conditions are met to controlling security access to sensitive control systems.

One new company, ShelterZoom, created a blockchain for buying and selling real estate online thats in beta-testing now.

IBM Watson Health and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are exploring the use of blockchain for secure patient data exchange, including sensitive electronic medical records, clinical trials and data culled from mobile devices and wearables.

Blockchain is also making inroads into industries as diverse as retail sales, administrative services, transportation and warehousing, where it's being used as way to manage distributed supply chains.

Karim Lakhani, a professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School, compared blockchain's impact to that of the Internet because it creates an open, distributed network that allows anyone to share data in a secure manner.

"Settlement of [stock trades] takes time because you're going from one system to the next... and it can take days and cost a lot to transfer money across the world and across multiple systems...versus a direct message system on a network," Lakhani said. "If we have an open, distributed ledger where we can verify transactions taking place and we can build in a programmed logic of how actions take place, that the reduction in transactions costs and increase in the number of new novel applications that can be developed far outweighs the purported benefits of relational database systems."

"It's a whole new paradigm for the way information is stored, shared and acted upon," Lakhani added.
Chang Hopes Research Can Help Refugees Assimilate

Nov. 3, 2017

Hsin-Jou (Lily) Chang 18 discusses her research regarding how refugees who have resettled in the U.S. perform economically with Mark Israel 91.

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.  Inspired by her firsthand experience with refugees while studying abroad in Germany last year, Illinois Wesleyan senior Hsin-Jou (Lily) Chang 18 (Tainan, Taiwan) is delving deeper into research that she hopes can assist in solving the economic assimilation puzzle.

Based on my research, it seems like although all refugees start out worse economically, for some groups, they can excel pretty quickly, Chang said. Im concerned about those groups that are severely disadvantaged.

Recipient of the 2018 Mark A. Israel 91 Endowed Summer Research Fund in Economics, Chang earned a $4,000 stipend to research how refugees who have resettled in the U.S. perform economically.

According to Changs study, recent refugee arrivals from Iraq and Somalia are not assimilating within the U.S. labor market compared to earlier-arriving refugee groups from other countries. She presented these findings to Israel and a classroom of Illinois Wesleyan economics students on Oct. 25.



Chang hypothesized that refugees  fleeing for safety  would perform worse in the U.S. labor market upon arrival compared to natives and those immigrating for purely economic reasons, but that over time, refugees would develop U.S.-specific labor skills, experience decreased discrimination  and ultimately  assimilate economically. Chang studied data from eight refugee groups dating back to 1980.

Her hypothesis was proven true related to Afghan, Cambodian, Laotian, Romanian, Russian and Vietnamese refugees. But, according to Chang, Iraqi and Somali refugees show little to no economic assimilation.

I thought the findings about whats happened to recent immigrants from Iraq and Somalia and their inability to assimilate and close the gap is disturbing, Israel said following Changs presentation. I was struck by how different it was from previous immigrant groups. So, it seems like something to explore more.

Changs project is built upon a paper she wrote in a Labor Economics course, where she focused on labor market assimilation comparisons between Vietnamese refugees and other immigrant groups in the U.S. Her results showed that Vietnamese refugees received lower wages in the first decade upon arrival in the U.S., but over time, their earnings exceeded those of economic immigrants, as shown by data from 2010 to 2014.

After learning that she had received the endowed summer research fund to expand her paper, Chang collected literature and data, examined the relationships among variables, and analyzed the results. She received mentorship throughout the process from Robert S. Eckley Distinguished Professor of Economics Michael Seeborg before presenting her findings to Israel.

Hsin-Jou (Lily) Chang 18 presents her research regarding how refugees who have resettled in the U.S. perform economically to Mark Israel 91 and a classroom full of economics students.



It was definitely quite nerve-racking at first, but I was really glad to actually meet Mark in person and hear the feedback from him directly, Chang said following her presentation. I really appreciate that, because of Mark, I along with other econ students are able to enjoy this kind of opportunity to focus on something we really are interested in.

Based in Washington, D.C., Israel works as a Senior Managing Director at Compass Lexecon. He previously served as an Associate Professor at Northwestern Universitys Kellogg School of Management. Israel received his Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University in 2001 after graduating from Illinois Wesleyan in 1991.

I think doing this kind of research is something that a place like Illinois Wesleyan can offer that bigger places cant offer  that one-on-one collaboration with faculty members, Israel said. Michael Seeborg and I did lots of it, and it continued after I graduated. It was a big emphasis to what I ended up doing. So, I wanted to help more students have that same opportunity.

This spring, Chang plans to focus her senior honors paper specifically on why Iraqi and Somali refugee groups are not assimilating within the U.S. labor market.

What can we do to help refugees assimilate into their host countrys labor market faster? Chang wants to determine. How can we make their transition easier?

By John Twork
The Herald reports:

Jacinda Ardern says she doesnt support a new proposal by Ports of Auckland that would extend Bledisloe Wharf into the Waitemata Harbour.

Speaking after her first meeting as Prime Minister with Auckland Mayor Phil Goff, Ardern was asked about the port companys draft 30-year masterplan for the 77ha of land it owns on the citys doorstep.

What Im happy to say is that I have always opposed port expansion at its current site, she said.

That was in reference to plans for a 13m piled concrete extension at the end of Bledisloe Wharf, which the company says is essential for a new berth and the success of the other wharf projects.
An alley behind the Hamilton Hotel in Itaewon, central Seoul, swarms with Halloween partygoers on Saturday. / Korea Times photo by Kim Bo-eun

Itaewon, Seoul's expat enclave also known for its vibrant nightlife, was packed with Halloween partygoers as well as police over the weekend through Tuesday, which was Halloween.

According to Yonhap News Agency, Yongsan Police Station dispatched officers to places in Itaewon 372 times from Friday to Tuesday _ around 100 cases more than the same period a week earlier. From Friday 6 p.m. to Saturday 6 a.m., police were sent out 84 times.

Many of the cases were assaults that occurred due to trivial reasons exacerbated by alcohol, but there were also cases of theft and sexual assault at clubs.

On Sunday morning at 1:40 a.m., police received a report that coats and belongings which had been left in a locker at a club went missing.

The victims had dropped the locker key at the club, which three people including a man in his 20s had picked up, taking items and cash worth 5 million won ($4,490).

The police secured surveillance camera footage of the man and apprehended him in the area at around 6:30 a.m. The victims were able to get their belongings and cash back.

On Sunday at 4:50 a.m., a man was booked on charges of assaulting a woman at a club. The male college student had made an advance on the woman in her 20s, but after she rejected him, he told her she "needed to lose weight" and assaulted her.

Police mobilized twice as many patrolmen in Itaewon as usual for weekends. Yongsan Police Station was quoted as saying some of the patrolmen were mistaken as partygoers wearing police uniforms as their Halloween costume.

Itaewon's main alley behind Hamilton Hotel swarmed with masses of costumed partiers including U.S. President Donald Trump, Disney princesses and Jesus, who were busy taking photos with passersby. People lined up to get their faces painted with blood and gore at booths along the alley, and formed long lines to get into clubs. Bars along the alley were packed to the extent it was hard to find empty tables.

Crowds lined the streets to catch cabs in the early hours of the mornings, with many walking long distances to other areas for a better chance of getting a ride home.

Celebration of the Western-originated festival of Halloween has grown among young people here, due to the influence of American pop culture and the growing expat community.

The annual holiday of Halloween is celebrated on Oct. 31. It is believed to have originated from ancient Celtic or pagan traditions, and is held on the eve of the Christian feast of All Hallows' Day.




By Yoon Sung-won



Though it may sound a bit strange, both Koreas are aggressively pushing for ICBMs now.



For North Korea, the acronym refers to intercontinental ballistic missiles. In contrast, South Korea is expediting the introduction of the internet of things (IoT), cloud computing, big data and mobile (ICBM) technologies to prepare for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.



The Fourth Industrial Revolution, a term first used during the World Economic Forum in 2016, refers to dramatic changes on the industrial landscape fueled by artificial intelligence (AI) and ICBM technologies.



In the public sector, the Ministry of Science and ICT is heading the Moon Jae-in administration's drive to introduce AI and ICBM technologies to boost industrial efficiency and create more good jobs.



The President has stressed that AI and ICBM technologies should be introduced in a way that promotes human lives and does not deprive workers of their jobs.



Upon his inauguration in July, Science and ICT Minister You Young-min pledged to foster experts in AI and ICBM technologies who can lead industrial innovations while boosting applications of such technologies in the public sector such as national defense and education. You said the ministry will play the role of "enabler" in the nation's Fourth Industrial Revolution.



"We will be able to create better job opportunities through systematic cooperation between the public and the private sectors," You said in a recent forum in Seoul.



"Science and information and communication technologies are the foundation of such changes in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and are not separate but closely interconnected as one."



The presidential committee on the Fourth Industrial Revolution is also tasked with supporting the ministry's drive for national technological innovation. The committee led by veteran high-tech entrepreneur Chang Byung-gyu started operations, Oct. 12, as one of Moon's presidential pledges.



AI and ICBM



AI is widely considered to take center stage in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, as it may improve industries, not just in manufacturing, but also in research and development to accelerate technological advancement to an unprecedented level.



However, AI needs massive computing power and an extensive database, which are only achievable through IoT, cloud computing, big data analysis and a high-speed mobile network environment.



IoT refers to the hyper-connected environment where everything _ not just computers and mobile devices but also buildings, cars, home appliances and even living things  are interconnected through networks.



IoT devices vary by different sizes and purposes. Large-sized IoT devices can be used for homes to physically control facilities such as heating and cooling as well as locking and unlocking doors and windows.



Small-sized IoT chips, which have low energy consumption and are inexpensive, can be applied to factory equipment and public utility facilities to ceaselessly monitor their condition and collect data remotely and economically.



Tapping into such extensive applications for IoT technologies, mobile carriers SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus are already pushing for partnerships with diverse businesses such as construction, healthcare, energy, finance and electronics.



Cloud computing refers to the technology that can connect physically far-off computing systems through networks to make them work as a single system. This technology enables analysis of a massive database, collected and compiled through IoT, at a speed that is impossible to reach on conventional computing systems.



With Korea's cloud computing service market rapidly growing to reach 1 trillion won last year, Naver has been at the forefront in the tough competition with global giants such as Amazon, Microsoft and IBM.



The company established the Naver Business Platform as a subsidiary to provide its Naver Cloud Platform for business-to-business (B2B) services. KT and LG CNS are also pushing for B2B cloud services businesses based on cloud data centers they have built nationwide.



Naturally, securing, processing and using big data properly will also be the key to success in these industries.



According to the National Information Society Agency (NISA), Korea's big data market will grow from around 260 billion won in 2015 to 1 trillion won by 2020.



Retail businesses are already using big data on consumer tastes to boost marketing activities and develop new products. Card companies are also analyzing big data to look into consumption patterns and read market trends.



Though the speed of hardware upgrades in smartphones has gradually been slowed down in recent years, progress is still being made in software services provided through high-performance mobile devices.



Naver, Kakao and e-commerce businesses are expanding shopping and online-to-offline services on mobile devices, changing the way consumers buy not just actual products but also services such as getting a call taxi, making reservation for a parking lot space or arranging home cleaning.



Need for deregulation



Korea's introduction of ICBM technologies, however, has remained inadequate so far. According to NISA, only 4.3 percent of Korean enterprises were using big data at the end of 2015.



Both the public and private sector have blamed the government for a lack of legal support for technological innovation.



Rep. Shin Yong-hyun of the minor opposition People's Party urged the government to deregulate the new growth industries. She said the law should allow everything to foster new growth industries based on technologies such as AI and big data, except for areas that should be banned.



"Advanced countries such as Britain and Japan have already introduced the regulatory sandbox policy to ease regulations on new industries for specific time and space," Shin said in a forum at the National Assembly, Sept. 19. "China has become the world's leader in the drone and mobile payment service industries on the back of supportive policy programs. We need to follow their lead to prepare for the Fourth Industrial Revolution."
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Apr 27, 2021, 3 PM

A stamp honoring statehood is rumored to be part of a clue on the Nov. 3 Jeopardy! episode. Could it be the Mississippi Statehood stamp issued March 31?

By Michael Baadke

A cryptic clue from the United States Postal Service suggests that collectors should tune in to Fridays episode of the television game show Jeopardy!

A recent stamp that marks a states anniversary [is] slated to be a clue on the Jeopardy! episode  scheduled to air Friday, Nov. 3, was the message passed along by USPS spokesman Mark Saunders.

The most recent U.S. stamp celebrating statehood is the Mississippi Statehood forever stamp issued March 31 (Scott 5190), but Saunders might instead be referring to the Nebraska Statehood stamp issued March 1 (5179), or some other stamp altogether.

Stamp clues appear periodically on Jeopardy!, which challenges contestants with categories from almost every aspect of life and history.
Nov 3, 2017, 5 AM

The stamp hobby documentary Freaks & Errors: A Rare Collection, will be shown Dec. 2 at the Hotel Hermitage during the Monacophil 2017 exhibition in Monte Carlo.

By Michael Baadke

A documentary on the world of stamp collecting will be revealed to collectors at a prestigious semiannual stamp show.

Freaks & Errors: A Rare Collection is described as a film that uncovers the myths and facts of not only stamps, but a lifetime of owners, curators, seekers and admirers.

The film will premiere Dec. 2 during the Monacophil 2017 exhibition. The viewing will take place from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Hotel Hermitage, Square Beaumarchais, Monte-Carlo, Monaco.

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Filmmaker Mark Cwiakala, the movies executive creative director, told Linns Stamp News that he is now looking to partner with a distributor. He provided Linns with the following description of the film.

There was a time when stamp collecting was an attainable window to the world. A box of stamps would ignite the imagination with images of exotic cultures, native people, art, geography, history, music and literature, as well as a nations political climate.

Stamp collectors, or philatelists, as theyre commonly known, continue to be the curators of these mini time-capsules. In the film, we follow a select group of collectors that at first glance, seem to have only one thing in common, the love of postage stamps. A closer look though, reveals a slew of familiar traits that connects them to each other and uncovers the influence that the hobby has had in defining many aspects of their personal and social lives.

As we progress through their stories, we unveil a pattern  collecting as the primary vessel for friendship and community-building in a world where modern shifts in work/life dynamics, family structure, digital media and other factors threaten the relevance of all hobbies.

In addition to showcasing the lives of these collectors, the stamps have lives of their own.

One of the most famous stamps, the legendary Penny Magenta, a rare stamp with an amazing pedigree and outstanding worth and history has had a profound impact on the personal and financial lives of generations of collectors.

Recently, the stamp was launched out of traditional philatelic circles and permeated mainstream media with a high-profile sale to an unexpected buyer.

Though each characters background differs, the common motives for collecting create an undeniable bond.

Freaks and Errors: A Rare Collection, is a social commentary on how we all are searching for ways to control our worlds, connect with one another, and express our passions.

Several short clips from the film have been posted online at YouTube.com and can be accessed easily with a search for Freaks & Errors (without quotation marks). Stamp dealer George Holschauer, auctioneer Charles Shreve, author Lawrence Block, actress Jackie Tohn and former National Postal Museum curator Cheryl Ganz are among those who appear in some of those clips.

Additional details can be found online.
Pregnancy should be an exciting time, but for many women the fear of having a miscarriage can overshadow this.

There are many different kinds of miscarriage, however this overarching term is categorized as the spontaneous loss of a pregnancy before the 20th week, says Dr Evangelia Elenis (opens in new tab), chief physician in Obstetrics and Gynecology and chief medical advisor at AI-led fertility app Tilly (opens in new tab).

Whatever stage a miscarriage is at  whether it's five weeks or 20  it's still a pregnancy loss and if that pregnancy has been meticulously planned and anxiously awaited, it can be all the more devastating, adds midwife Kate Taylor, from The PEP Midwives (opens in new tab). It is grief at the end of the day and its very sad for all involved.

Miscarriages are relatively common  most happen during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, known as the first trimester and about 10-20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage (around 1 million a year in the US). But that doesnt mean its any less upsetting, especially if it happens multiple times. And because talking about miscarriage and grief can make people uncomfortable, its often a taboo subject.

No matter how common they are, miscarriages are sad, says Taylor. Afterwards, women can find it traumatizing to be around people who are pregnant, as well as adjusting to having a bump that no longer has a baby in it.

The good news is that, according to the American Pregnancy Association (opens in new tab), most women (about 85%) who miscarry will go on to have a healthy pregnancy later. In this article we talk to the experts to find out more about the signs, symptoms and causes of miscarriage.

Types of miscarriage

There are many types of miscarriage, but the following are the most common:

Chemical pregnancy

A chemical pregnancy is an early pregnancy loss that occurs within two to seven days after implantation, says Dr Elenis. Because chemical pregnancies occur so early on, ultrasounds arent able to detect the fetus, but pregnancy tests can still come up positive as the pregnancy hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is present in the body. Its very common for people to not know that theyre pregnant at this stage, and its most often noticed by those who are actively trying to conceive. Typically, chemical pregnancies occur because there is a problem with the embryos DNA that stops it from developing, but its often likely that the next embryo will develop without issue, if wider fertility complications are not at play.

Dr Evangelia Elenis, MD, PhD Dr Elenis is a chief physician in Obstetrics and Gynecology, and a subspecialist in Reproductive Medicine. She is a PhD and affiliated researcher at Uppsala University with postdoctoral studies at Harvard Medical School.

Early miscarriage

Early miscarriage is the most common type of miscarriage, and occurs in 10-20% of all pregnancies, typically before 12 weeks, says Dr Elenis. Because its so common, many people typically wait until after the first trimester to tell friends and family about their pregnancy. Early miscarriage typically occurs because the embryo does not develop correctly, often due to an abnormal number of chromosomes. Not all eggs and sperm contain a normal number of chromosomes and often fertilization or implantation doesnt happen at all (as in, you dont become pregnant), but if you do it will end in an early miscarriage.

Late miscarriage

Late miscarriage typically occurs from weeks 12-24, but these are are significantly less common, occuring in about 1-2% of pregnancies. These miscarriages can also be caused by chromosomal and genetic factors, but they tend to involve wider factors such as infections like bacterial vaginosis (BV), anatomical issues like the shape of the womb, placental problems, long term health issues like severe high blood pressure, or invasive prenatal tests (which have a very small risk of causing miscarriage), says Dr Elenis.

Recurrent miscarriage

Recurrent miscarriage, or recurrent pregnancy loss, is when a person has more than two or three consecutive miscarriages (the number varies by country). The diagnosis of recurrent miscarriages is uncommon and given to a very small number of women, around 1%, says Dr Elenis. When you have several miscarriages in a row, the chance that the reason is abnormal chromosomes decreases, and the risk for maternal underlying health conditions increases. Factors that can play a role involve issues with the thyroid, blood clots, genetics and the immune system, and its very important to get to the root of the issue with a medical expert in order to find a solution.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Other types of miscarriage include stillbirth, when a baby is born dead after 24 completed weeks of pregnancy, and a complete miscarriage, when all the pregnancy tissues come away without needing medical assistance, says Dr. Hana Patel (opens in new tab), who specializes in womens health. An incomplete miscarriage is when not all the pregnancy tissue comes away and medical assistance is required.

Who is at risk of miscarriage?

According to Patel, there are certain factors that put a woman more at risk of miscarriage, including being overweight, having particular chronic health conditions, previous history of miscarriage and other social risk factors such as alcohol intake and recreational drugs.

Other risk factors include:

Older mothers  With age, the average share of eggs with a normal number of chromosomes inevitably decreases, which not only makes it more difficult to become pregnant, but also increases the risk of miscarriage.

 With age, the average share of eggs with a normal number of chromosomes inevitably decreases, which not only makes it more difficult to become pregnant, but also increases the risk of miscarriage. Smokers  Eggs and sperm are cells, and their quality is harmed by everything that causes whats known as oxidative stress  an imbalance between free radicals and antioxidants in the body. As such, smoking causes more abnormal eggs and sperm, which can put smokers at a higher risk of miscarriage.

More widely, the following health conditions put mothers at higher risk of miscarriages:

Thyroid issues  Untreated thyroid conditions can cause problems for mothers and their baby during pregnancy and after birth, and have also been associated with miscarriage risks.

 Untreated thyroid conditions can cause problems for mothers and their baby during pregnancy and after birth, and have also been associated with miscarriage risks. Chromosomal issues  These can be caused by inherited chromosomal or genetic issues, or by balanced translocation, which occurs when a parent has a rearrangement of his or her chromosomes without experiencing any health issues.

 These can be caused by inherited chromosomal or genetic issues, or by balanced translocation, which occurs when a parent has a rearrangement of his or her chromosomes without experiencing any health issues. Overactive immune system  Research is still delving into this area of fertility. Its a hot topic amongst fertility specialists, and opinions vary country by country, but immunosuppressants are frequently given when recurrent miscarriages occur.

 Research is still delving into this area of fertility. Its a hot topic amongst fertility specialists, and opinions vary country by country, but immunosuppressants are frequently given when recurrent miscarriages occur. Anatomy  Structural abnormalities of the female reproductive organs are a recognized factor in recurrent miscarriage. These can include structural problems of the uterus, fibroids, adhesions and other acquired abnormalities, as well as a weakened cervix.

Wider issues such as blood clots (i.e. thrombophilia) and infections (i.e. bacterial vaginosis) can also put mothers at higher risk of miscarriage, adds Dr Elenis.

What are the warning signs?

The most common symptom of miscarriage is vaginal bleeding. According to Dr Elenis, this can range from light spotting, to brownish discharge, heavy bleeding and bright-red blood or clots, which can come and go over several days. However, it shouldnt exceed a week..

Its important to remember that light vaginal bleeding is relatively common in the early stages of pregnancy, but dont hesitate to contact your doctor if you feel concerned, she adds. You know your body, so always feel empowered to consult your physician whenever you feel its needed.

Other common symptoms of early miscarriage include cramping, pain in the lower stomach, vaginal discharge, and no longer experiencing the symptoms of pregnancy (i.e. nausea, breast tenderness etc.).

If you experience any of these symptoms, consult your doctor sooner rather than later to ensure youre looking after both your physical and mental wellbeing, Dr Elenis tells Live Science. And, if youve had more than two or three recurrent miscarriages and are worried, feel empowered to go straight to an early pregnancy unit for assessment.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Miscarriage vs period

Usually when we are pregnant, women do not have periods and are definitely unlikely to have a heavy period/ According to Dr Patel, if there is any bleeding in pregnancy, this is a concern and should be referred to your obstetrician or gynecologist.

Generally speaking, bleeding associated with a miscarriage tends to get heavier and last longer than a typical period, and you may experience cramping as your cervix starts to dilate, which will likely be more painful or acute than typical period cramps, says Dr Elenis. Talk to your doctor about conducting tests to confirm your experience either way, so that you can find the best route forward based on your situation.

How are miscarriages treated?

In many instances of early miscarriage, medical intervention isnt necessary because the pregnancy tissue hasnt built up in the womb, meaning theres nothing left behind to remove. However, if tissues have built up and arent exiting the womb, then you will have a couple of different options, which may vary by country.

The safest thing is to let the miscarriage happen naturally, says Dr Patel, If this takes longer than the normal three to four weeks, then you need to see your doctor as there is a risk of infection and other complications developing.

This first course of action is known as expectant management. According to Dr Elenis, it entails waiting for the tissue to pass out of your womb naturally. This route usually applies to miscarriage in the first trimester, and entails waiting seven to 14 days after miscarriage for the tissue to pass. However this route can take some time, and involves risk of infection.

As such, expectant management can be challenging for many, as the anxiety and stress around waiting can do more harm than good, she says. Its very important to make this decision with your healthcare provider based on your medical history, comfort levels, and personal preference. If youre not comfortable with this approach, dont hesitate to be vocal, and advocate for yourself until you find a solution that works best for you.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Its also common to treat miscarriage with medical management by taking medication, which spurs the womb to release pregnancy tissues. This treatment usually moves forward within two weeks of miscarriage if the tissues do not pass on their own, and the pessary-based medication usually kicks in within a few hours.

It works by opening the cervix, which allows the tissues to pass out of the womb, and will involve symptoms similar to a heavy period, with cramping and heavy vaginal bleeding being common, although bleeding can last up to three weeks, explains Dr Elenis.

Surgical management is another option, which involves manually removing the tissue from the uterus. This option typically moves forward immediately if continuous bleeding, infection, or expectant management has proven unsuccessful.

Surgery involves removing remaining tissue with a suction device, and will be performed under general or local anesthetic. Naturally, both treatments will be overseen by a doctor; some may involve a hospital stay, some may not  its often dependent on your situation and location.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

So which treatment is safest and is there any risk? The efficacy and safety of each procedure is dependent on each individual situation, Dr Elenis tells Live Science. Expectant management comes with the risk of infection but is often successful, and both medical and surgical management come with very little risk, while maintaining a high success rate.

Taylor says: It is completely normal to feel scared about your choices, just like with labor. No-one really knows how long these things will take, or if it will even happen at all. All the doctors can do is advise you on the safest options available to you at that time given the circumstances. It is a scary time and there are no hard and fast rules.

Its also very important to remember that while most treatment options focus solely on physical health, mental health care should be involved in your treatment plan  and dads-to-be need consideration too.

Miscarriage can take its toll the emotional and mental wellbeing of all involved, so dont hesitate to seek out a therapist, confide in your support network, or seek out those who may have experienced similar situations to ensure youre accessing comprehensive support, Dr Elenis says. Miscarriage is hard, and its not something you have to move past until youre ready.

The good news is that most couples who have experienced one or two miscarriages and who have no underlying medical problems, typically will go on to have a healthy, successful pregnancy.

What is a stillbirth?

Stillbirth is when a baby is born dead after 24 weeks of pregnancy. Dr Elenis says: The fetus cannot be evacuated by medication, and requires medical intervention, which usually involves either dilation and evacuation (known as a D&E), induced labor, or a cesarean section to remove the baby and pregnancy tissues from the womb.

In about half of all cases of stillbirths, no cause was found for the pregnancy loss, according to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

Many of the possible health and lifestyle reasons for miscarriage weve just heard about also apply to a stillbirth.

Other risk factors for stillbirth include placental problems, umbilical cord accidents, Rh disease (caused by a blood incompatibility between the mother and the fetus) and a lack of oxygen to the fetus during delivery.

Can you prevent a miscarriage?

Unfortunately there is no way to prevent a miscarriage once it has started. And while many women might experience feelings of guilt, shame and failure when they miscarry, its not their fault.

Read more: 6 myths about miscarriage

The father-to-bes grief and sadness is often dismissed by others after a miscarriage, with the focus on the woman. As youd expect, pregnancy loss among lesbian relationships is just as devastating, and the couple might also face other stressors, for example, a lack of support from those who disapproved of them becoming parents in the first place.

Alcohol, smoking, and recreational drug use have all been tied to increased miscarriage risk and should be avoided if youre looking to conceive, or have had a miscarriage, says Dr Elenis. The same goes for consuming large amounts of caffeine, with current recommendations still focusing on limiting coffee consumption while pregnant, however the exact guidelines vary between countries.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Some foods are often best avoided, too, as they can contain harmful bacteria  some cheeses and meat, for example, contain listeria which can bring on a miscarriage. Some medications can also increase the risk of miscarriage, so its always a good idea to look over any medication you might be taking and see if you need to seek out alternatives with your doctor, if youre trying to get pregnant.

One study by the School of Public Health (opens in new tab) found that the risk of miscarriage might increase during the summer, but more research is needed to understand the potential roles of extreme heat and other environmental connections to pregnancy loss.

Dr Patel says: If you are concerned about miscarriage, have a family history of personal history, or just want to discuss how to plan a healthy pregnancy, I would advise you make an appointment with your doctor to help you plan this, to reduce risks.

How long should you wait to try again after miscarriage?

The recommended time to wait before trying again after miscarriage in the U.S is three months, while the World Health Organization (WHO) guidance is six months.

However, this timeline was challenged by Dr Sohinee Bhattacharyas scientific review (opens in new tab), which found that women who tried to get pregnant again within six months cut their risk of a further miscarriage by a fifth.

The meta-analysis examined 16 studies of 1.04 million women and the impact of falling pregnant within six months.

Other research published in the journal BMJ (opens in new tab) found that out of more than 30,000 respondents who had a miscarriage and then a healthy pregnancy, those who conceived within six months of the loss were less likely to miscarry again than those who waited.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

If you are keen to try again after a miscarriage, speak to a medical professional first.

Its important to consult your doctor because every persons situation is different, and this will help you pursue the option thats best for your situation, says Dr Elenis. In general, you can typically start trying again once your bleeding has stopped, but this advice can differ, as some doctors recommend waiting until youve had your first period to try again.

Take the time you need to heal, and remember its okay to feel like you need a break  losing a baby is never easy, no matter how far into the pregnancy you were, so dont feel pressured to bounce back before youre ready.

Coping with miscarriage

When a pregnancy ends unexpectedly through a miscarriage, a woman's body may recover physically long before she heals from it emotionally. She may experience a range of intense emotions from guilt and sadness to anger and self-blame.

"People get through a miscarriage, they don't get over it," says Kristen Swanson, a professor and dean of the college of nursing at Seattle University, who has researched the emotional consequences of miscarriage.

The majority of women find a point of resolution 12 weeks after a miscarriage, Swanson says. By about 12 weeks, if the good times in a day don't outweigh the bad, a woman should seek help for her pregnancy loss because her grief may be complicated by other things in her life.

In her own research, Swanson found that men tend to grieve immediately after a miscarriage, and the resolution of their grief is generally faster than a woman's. She said it's not uncommon for a man to feel as though he's not only lost a baby but to some extent, he has also lost his partner.

When a woman receives safe and supportive care after a miscarriage  care that validates what she has been through and where her feelings receive a warm and gentle response  this can make a big difference to the way a woman moves through a pregnancy loss, Swanson said.

Tips for partners, family and friends following a miscarriage

As a result of her research on women and miscarriage, Swanson developed a caring theory. This five-step process can be used by a partner, family, friends and health professionals in caregiving roles.

Knowing  Try hard to understand what it's like for the woman and couple going through a pregnancy loss and what this event might mean in their lives.

 Try hard to understand what it's like for the woman and couple going through a pregnancy loss and what this event might mean in their lives. Being with  Be available and attentive, and allow a person to go through their emotional process, Swanson advises.

 Be available and attentive, and allow a person to go through their emotional process, Swanson advises. Doing for  Anticipate the small needs or kindnesses that may comfort a woman and make her feel safe.

 Anticipate the small needs or kindnesses that may comfort a woman and make her feel safe. Enabling  Help the individual get through this life transition by focusing on the event, being supportive, allowing and validating feelings, and giving feedback.

 Help the individual get through this life transition by focusing on the event, being supportive, allowing and validating feelings, and giving feedback. Maintaining belief  Sustain faith in a woman's ability to get through this difficult experience. Maintain a hope-filled attitude toward the future and offer realistic optimism. Even if a woman may be falling apart emotionally, recognize that there is a strong and capable person beneath, Swanson says.

This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.

Additional resources
The monks couldn't have foreseen this. A photo trending on Reddit of a bone-covered chapel is bringing a medieval "memento mori" to the modern Internet user today.

The post, with more than 20,000 upvotes on the popular social site, is simply labeled "Chapel of Bones." Zoom in, and the pebbled texture of the walls resolves into a wallpaper of bones and empty-eyed skulls. What is this place?

It's the Capela dos Ossos in Evora, Portugal. The chapel is a small portion of a larger (bone-free) church complex, the Igreja de Sao Francisco. Inside, it's lined with more than 5,000 skulls plus assorted other human bones. [11 Famous Places That Are Littered with Dead Bodies]

These bones once rested in the churchyard around Igreja de Sao Francisco, but in the 16th century, the graveyard was running out of space. The Franciscan monks who ran the place came up with the solution of exhuming old, long-defleshed bones and cementing them into the ossuary. This served the dual purpose of preserving the bones for the Day of Resurrection  a key belief in some Christian denominations that holds that at the end of the world, the dead will be restored to their physical bodies  and providing a site of contemplation for the living. The chapel's decor prompts personal philosophizing about death: Above the entrance is carved, "Nos ossos que aqui estamos, pelos vossos esperamo," which translates roughly to, "We bones that are here, await yours." [Top 10 Weird Ways We Deal With the Dead]

Built by Franciscan monks between 1460 and 1510, the chapel of bones is constructed from the bones of thousands of people. (Image credit: NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images)

Inside the chapel hangs a poem said to be written by parish priest Antonio da Ascencao Teles, who held that position in the 1840s. It reads, in part, "Recall how many have passed from this world/ Reflect on your similar end/ There is good reason to reflect/ If only all did the same."

The chapel also houses two partially skeletal, partially mummified bodies, of one adult and one child, which used to hang from ropes from the ceiling but now rest in glass cases.

Portugal isn't the only place where people got a hankering to build with bones. The Capuchin Crypt in Rome is a 17th-century chapel decorated with the bones of some 3,700 Capuchin friars. The building has multiple rooms with names like "The Crypt of the Pelvises," and in one, robed skeletons pose with scythes and scales, representing death and judgment.

Perhaps the record-holder in the category of "interior design with human bones," though, is the Sedlec Ossuary in Kutna Hora, Czech Republic. That church was constructed in 1400, and the land was covered with soil from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, said to be the spot where Jesus Christ was crucified. According to the ossuary's website, this holy soil made the church a popular place to be buried. Over time, as the graveyard became overcrowded, bones were moved into the church. In 1870, a local woodcarver named Frantisek Rint was given the task of organizing them; he created elaborate displays, including a bone chandelier and elaborate crests made of tibia, fibula and femurs. Bones from more than 40,000 individuals are said to decorate the Sedlec Ossuary.

Original article on Live Science.
Sunbathers flock to a crop circle in a farmer's field on July 15, 2013, in Wiltshire, England. The crop circle measures about 500 feet (150 meters) across and lies east of Hackpen Hill, a spot known for its crop circles.

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Editor's note: Dr. Paul Kingsbury presented some of his research on crop circles on Nov. 2 at the Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University.

Crop circles are some of the most beautiful, mysterious and controversial landscape phenomena in the contemporary world. They are found around the globe, appearing in countries with large areas of agricultural land. They are also central to a shift in culture with investigative approaches that mimic science and increasingly make the paranormal mainstream.

Unlike UFOs, ghosts and sasquatches, crop circles are tangible  people can touch and walk into them. At least 30 appeared in England last summer. In British Columbia, crop circle formations appeared in Vanderhoof, about 100 kilometres west of Prince George, in 1998 and 2001.

Crop circles and what people do with them represent one aspect of my ongoing four-year research project, which explores the recent growth of beliefs, practices and experiences related to the paranormal. My fieldwork studies investigative paranormal groups in the Vancouver area and paranormal conferences across North America and England.

Recent literature in the social sciences on paranormal cultures argues that despite the rise of a secular, post-religious society, paranormal discourses are becoming increasingly significant in people's lives (opens in new tab) in the West.

Because the paranormal refers to "events or phenomena that are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding," researchers have long acknowledged that the paranormal intersects with "normal" everyday life.

Recently, however, as a result of a paranormal influence in popular culture, the rise of new spiritualities and commodities associated with them  such as cauldrons, healing crystals and online psychic services  researchers have begun to question describing interest in the paranormal as subcultural or countercultural, rather than mainstream.

Paranormal goes mainstream and scientific

Investigative organizations and international conferences that mobilize paranormal feelings, knowledge and practices are central to the merger between the paranormal and the mainstream.

Drawing on the models and techniques that mimic conventional science, these conferences and organizations are open to the public and have led to the democratization of paranormal investigation and availability of paranormal experiences.

Researchers  especially in the humanities  acknowledge the relevance of the paranormal. Yet enduring skepticism in the social sciences about the legitimacy of the claims about paranormal phenomena and experiences has resulted in a lack of critical studies on how people are actually engaging with the paranormal.

Academic research has already acknowledged the importance of local paranormal groups and international conferences that engage paranormal phenomena  in particular ghosts, UFOs and cryptids such as sasquatch. Yet we know very little about the relationships between these groups and conferences, as well as why and how they shape people's everyday lives.

My study helps explain how paranormal organizations and conferences are contributing to these sociocultural changes.

Rationality conflicts with crop circles' mystery

Crop circle research or "cereology" exemplifies the tension between the ordinary and extraordinary.

No matter what one understands to be the cause of crop circles, whether they are all human-made or involve aquifers, ley lines, divine feminine energy, ancient sacred sites, ball lightning or even UFOs, crop circles bring to the fore a mysterious disconnection between language and the visible, as described in Jean-Francois Lyotard's book Discourse, Figure.

The French philosopher argues there is an unstable relationship between linguistic meaning and units of signification, that is, the visible patterns of words, dreams, symbols and visual art. Because there is no inherent meaning in any given signifier (meaning always relies on another word and a wider context), and art and symbols are conceptually opaque by default, they necessarily defy easy rational understanding.

Case in point: Events at the 2017 Summer Lectures Crop Circle Conference in Devizes, England, illustrated the difficulty of researching crop circles.

One day during the conference, I went to visit a crop circle with fellow researchers only to find a sign on a gate to the property: "Crop circle closed." The person representing an organization that liaises between farmers and crop-circle researchers was not present. Because we could not proceed without trespassing, we got back into the car.

Back at the conference, an argument erupted over the behaviour of some researchers who had ignored the "Crop circle closed" sign, climbed over the fence and walked to the crop circle.

For one researcher, this transgression was troubling because it exhibited the crass consumption of what he believed was a sacred phenomenon. Another researcher, who had ignored the sign, replied that he respected this opinion, but felt the crop circle was "calling out" to him and that it would be more disrespectful to ignore the pull of the sacred.

The researchers had differing views on whether a "Crop circle closed" sign, which demarcated a boundary, should be obeyed or whether it was an inappropriate obstacle to the "call" of the crop circle.

The tension between the appearances and meanings of crop circles also informed the tricky patience demanded in a sacred geometry workshop. As participants drew lines with compasses and protractors, they struggled to accurately reproduce the complex patterns of crop circles, losing small pieces of pencil lead and struggling to keep their compasses from slipping on the paper. Conference organizer Karen Alexander said the exercise gave the participants a better appreciation and intimate understanding of crop circles.

Interpreting paranormal cultures

As a part of my work, I explore the tensions between the visual and language, focusing on the complexity of crop-circle landscapes where enthusiasts struggle to navigate toward, inside and away from crop circles.

Lyotard aligns these events with "figural space"  elusive elements that disrupt and exceed the capture of language. Crucial here is how crop circles  unlike ghosts, UFOs and sasquatches  are highly tangible signs. But what they mean and what they are remains a mystery.

Despite claims by "circle-makers" that they are human-made, the sheer size and complexity of the circles belies a 100 per cent human-made explanation.

According to researchers at the conference, hoaxers, when questioned about how they were able to make 80 or so perfectly round circles without breaking or snapping cereal stalks, are unable to reproduce the patterns and ignore the researchers' questions.

Furthermore, finding and getting to the crop circles  navigating narrow and winding English countryside roads and locating their exact whereabouts in large fields of wheat or barley  is no small feat.

Like all the other paranormal investigation cultures I have studied so far, crop circle research blurs the distinction between the everyday and the extraordinary. Beyond this, one cannot discount the importance of geography in the micro-spaces of fields and conference venues. The regional nature and extent to which crop circles are landscape phenomena incites many people's desire to shape their encounters with the sublime.

Paul Kingsbury, Professor, Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, Simon Fraser University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
There are fewer than 800 individuals of the newfound Batang Toru orangutan species left in the wild.

An isolated group of orangutans hiding out in a forest in Sumatra is now considered an entirely new species and the world's most endangered great ape, researchers say.

Until now, scientists had long recognized six species of living great apes (not including humans): Sumatran orangutans, Bornean orangutans, eastern gorillas, western gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos. So, to describe a new great-ape species is rare, the researchers said. Fewer than 800 individuals of the newfound species, called Pongo tapanuliensis, survive in the Batang Toru forest.

"It isn't an everyday event that we find a new species of great ape, so indeed the discovery is very exciting," senior study author Michael Krutzen, a professor of evolutionary anthropology and genomics in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, said in a statement. [In Photos: Adorable Orangutan Shows Off Knot-Tying Skills]

Scientists didn't even know about this population, which lives south of what was thought to be the southern range of Sumatran orangutans, until 1997. After that, research had suggested this group had behavioral and genetic differences from other orangutan groups. But until now, scientists couldn't say for certain that these differences supported a new species designation, they said.

That changed in November 2013, when an adult male orangutan from Batang Toru died due to wounds sustained by local villagers. That event gave the researchers access to study material, and a careful examination revealed differences in the skull and teeth compared with other orangutans, they said.

The researchers found differences in features of the skull of Pongo tapanuliensis (shown here) compared with that of other orangutan species. (Image credit: Nater et al./Current Biology)

The researchers also studied the genomes of 37 orangutans, including P. tapanuliensis, and found that about 3.4 million years ago, the Batang Toru population and Bornean orangutans to the north of Lake Toba, in northern Sumatra, split to become separate species.Then, no more than 700,000 years ago, the Bornean and Sumatran orangutans diverged into separate species, the researchers said.

Their analysis and models describe a scenario in which orangutans from mainland Asia first entered a region called Sundaland, in southeastern Asia south of what is now Lake Toba. The lake formed in the caldera of the supervolcano Mount Toba, which was responsible for the largest eruption on Earth in the past 2.5 million years. Then, this ancestral population  of which P. tapanuliensis is a direct descendant  would have subsequently moved into what is now Borneo, Java and northern Sumatra.

"The Batang Toru orangutans appear to be direct descendants of the initial orangutans that had migrated from mainland Asia, and thus constitute the oldest evolutionary line within the genus Pongo," study researcher Alexander Nater, now at the University of Konstanz in Germany, said in the statement. "The Batang Toru population was connected to populations to the north until 10,000 or 20,000 years ago, after which it became isolated."

Currently, the survival of the Batang Toru orangutans is threatened by activities such as illegal road construction, killings during human-orangutan conflicts (over crops) and illegal trade of the animals, the researchers wrote in their paper, which was published online yesterday (Nov. 2) in the journal Current Biology. Perhaps an even more imminent threat, however, is the proposed development of a hydroelectric dam on Sumatra that could impact up to 8 percent of the Batang Toru population, the researchers said.

"To ensure long-term survival of P. tapanuliensis, conservation measures need to be implemented swiftly," they wrote.

Original article on Live Science.
The ozone hole over Antarctica shrunk to its smallest maximum-extent in September 2017. Here, in this false-color view of the monthly-averaged total ozone the blue and purple indicate areas with the least ozone, while yellows and reds mean the most ozone.

Higher temperatures over Antarctica this year shrank the hole in the ozone layer to the smallest it's been since 1988.

The ozone hole is a depletion of ozone gas (O3) in the stratosphere above Antarctica. The three-oxygen molecule is toxic at ground level, but high in the atmosphere, it deflects dangerous ultraviolet rays from reaching Earth's surface.

In 1985, scientists first detected the hole in the ozone layer and realized it was being caused by man-made chlorine and bromine, often found in chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), compounds used as refrigerants. In 1987, the Montreal Protocol initiated the phase-out of these chemicals. As they gradually leave the atmosphere, the ozone hole will heal, and scientists expect it to return to 1980s size by 2070.

Natural variability affects this healing year-to-year, however.

"The Antarctic ozone hole was exceptionally weak this year," Paul Newman, chief scientist for Earth Sciences at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement. "This is what we would expect to see given the weather conditions in the Antarctic stratosphere." [Infographic: Earth's Atmosphere Top to Bottom]

Weather and ozone

In the upper atmosphere, CFCs break apart, freeing chlorine to react with ozone molecules, a reaction that creates oxygen and chlorine monoxide. Similar reactions occur with bromine. Polar stratospheric clouds, which form in frigid temperatures, speed up this process by providing surfaces for the reactions to occur on. That's why the ozone hole worsens in the Southern Hemisphere winter.

The hole in Earth's protective ozone layer that forms over Antarctica each September was the smallest seen since 1988, according to NASA and NOAA. (Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Kathryn Mersmann)

Higher temperatures in the stratosphere, on the other hand, allow ozone to remain more stable in the atmosphere, meaning they keep the ozone hole smaller on a year-to-year basis. This year on Sept. 11, NASA measured the maximum extent of the hole at 7.6 million square miles (19.6 million square kilometers), 2.5 times the size of the United States.

That was smaller than in 2016, when the maximum extent was 8.9 million square miles (22.2 million square km), also a below-average size. According to NASA, the average maximum extent of the ozone hole since 1991 has hovered at about 10 million square miles (25.8 million square km).

Historic high

However, scientists said that two years of lower-than-usual ozone hole extent isn't a sign that the ozone layer is healing faster than expected. Instead, it's a side effect of the Antarctic vortex  a low-pressure system that rotates clockwise above the southernmost continent  undergoing a few years of instability and warmth, which prevented the proliferation of polar stratospheric clouds. [Image Gallery: Life at the South Pole]

Using an instrument called a Dobson spectrophotometer, NASA researchers monitor the concentration of ozone over Antarctica on a regular basis. On Sept. 25, the concentration of ozone reached a minimum of 136 Dobson Units, which is the highest minimum since 1988. However, that concentration is still low compared with the 1960s, before man-made compounds created the ozone hole. In that decade, ozone concentrations over Antarctica were between 250 and 350 Dobson Units.

Original article on Live Science.
Humans are to blame. That's the verdict of an executive-branch government report concluding that Homo sapiens are the dominant cause of planetary warming since the mid-20th century.

The climate report, released today (Nov. 3), paints a dire picture of the present and future effects of global climate change, from sea levels that could rise by as much as 8 feet (2.4 meters) by 2100, to more-frequent heat waves and other extreme weather events. It is also in stark contrast to climate change stances taken by President Donald Trump, who has ranged from calling it a hoax to saying he had an "open mind" about whether human-caused climate change is actually happening.

"Many lines of evidence demonstrate that it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century," the authors wrote. "Over the last century, there are no convincing alternative explanations supported by the extent of the observational evidence." [6 Unexpected Effects of Climate Change]

For instance, the global seas have risen an average of 7 to 8 inches (17.8 to 20.3 centimeters) since 1900, with nearly half of that (3 inches, or 7.6 cm) occurring since 1993, the report said.

"Human-caused climate change has made a substantial contribution to this rise since 1900, contributing to a rate of rise that is greater than during any preceding century in at least 2,800 years," the report said. "Global sea level rise has already affected the United States; the incidence of daily tidal flooding is accelerating in more than 25 Atlantic and Gulf Coast cities." [Photographic Proof of Climate Change: Time-Lapse Images of Retreating Glaciers]

And things are getting hotter, with annual average temperatures over the contiguous United States increasing by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) between 1901 and 2016. And over the next few decades, scientists predict those temperatures will rise by about 2.5 degrees F (1.3 degrees C) relative to the period of 1976 to 2005, the report said.

Assessing the science

The Climate Science Special Report (CSSR) is based on an analysis of peer-reviewed research, publicly available resources, and certain models and data sets related to climate change, according to the report's executive summary. The report was overseen by the U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program, which itself consists of 13 federal agencies that deal with environmental issues, ranging from NASA to the Department of Energy and the Department of State. The group assesses the current state of climate science as part of the National Climate Assessment (NCA) program. The new report is the first volume of the fourth-ever NCA (NCA4). The first NCA was published in 2000, the second in 2009 and the third in 2014.

Ultimately, the U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program is under the oversight of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). President Trump has yet to name a head for his administration's OSTP. Previous presidents have typically filled the role before they've taken office or within a few months of doing so, according to The Washington Post.

The new report's findings conflict with Trump's stated positions on climate change. Over the years, he has called human-caused climate change a "hoax," including in a 2013 tweet that read, "We should be focused on magnificently clean and healthy air and not distracted by the expensive hoax that is global warming!" During the presidential campaign, Trump was vague on his beliefs about climate change, sometimes indicating he did not believe it was a problem, but telling The New York Times editorial board in 2016 that he had an "open mind" on the issue.

In office, Trump said that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, an international agreement that aims to limit global warming to below 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) above preindustrial temperatures. The president also nominated Scott Pruitt, a former Oklahoma attorney general who rejects the evidence that human-made carbon dioxide emissions are driving climate change, to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Dire warnings

In addition to documenting changes in temperatures and sea levels, the new report warns that heavy rainfall events are increasing across the United States, as are heat waves and forest fires. Reduced snowpack and early spring melt are driving water scarcity in the western U.S., according to the report, threatening to bring about long-term drought by the end of the century.

Atlantic hurricanes are likely to bring greater amounts of precipitation on shore in a warming world and may increase in intensity, according to the report. Small tidal floods have already increased between five-fold and 10-fold since the 1960s in U.S. coastal cities, and the rate of these floods continues to increase in 25 cities along the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic Coasts.

"Without major reductions in emissions, the increase in annual average global temperature relative to preindustrial times could reach 9 degrees F (5 degrees C) or more by the end of this century," the report authors wrote. "With significant reductions in emissions, the increase in annual average global temperature could be limited to 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) or less."

Such reductions require a major effort that would need to start rapidly, the report continued.

"After accounting for the temperature effects of non-CO2 species [such as methane], cumulative global CO2 emissions must stay below about 800 GtC [gigatons of carbon] in order to provide a two-thirds likelihood of preventing 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) of warming," the authors wrote. "Given estimated cumulative emissions since 1870, no more than approximately 230 GtC may be emitted in the future in order to remain under this temperature limit."

As is, the authors wrote, emissions are likely to surpass that level within two decades.

Original article on Live Science.
The anthology rocked the house at the State Capitol, where the reading, along with several book festival programs and panels were held. This is the State Capitol of Huey P. Long fame, where the former governor was assassinated. The building also has an incredible view of Baton Rouge and beyond. The timely collection speaks not only to the current political climate and the man responsible for the title, but also to every injustice to women imaginable. Not surprising, many of the poems had the audience joining in laughter. The book contains 215 international contributors. There are readings taking place all over the country, including one at Beyond Baroque February 24.









Julie Kane and Melinda Palacio

















The book is so diverse and fun to read that it keeps selling out. I brought Steve and Alison along for the festivities and they were both duly impressed. Of the book and reading, Steve says: "Beautifully strong, self-posessed women, reading poetry that inspires tears of joy and outrage, and leaves me optimistic and hopeful."









View from top of the Louisiana State Capitol.













Poet and English Professor Grace Bauer came up with the idea for the anthology a day before the 2016 Presidential Election. She and co-editor, Julie Kane, put in long hours to get the anthology out as soon as possible. The Louisiana Book Festival was generous enough to feature sixteen poets in a prime time slot and room at the state capitol. It was nice reading to such a large audience. Andy Young closed our set with her beautiful poem about a woman who dances unabashedly on top of her son's casket in New Orleans.





Cheers to all the Nasty Women out there. I'm honored to be included. Much gratitude to the Louisiana Book Festival, especially Jim Davis, Robert Wilson and Rebecca Hamilton for hosting us.









Valentine Pierce













Poet Andy Young
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Healcerion, based in South Korea, was the first company to receive FDA clearance for their wireless, app-based ultrasound system back in 2015. The groundbreaking work done by South Korean engineers and scientists laid the foundation for the development of an ultrasound transducer that works with most smartphones or tablets. Since introducing the SONON 300C convex transducer, the company has been making progress to further advance this branch of ultrasound devices. Their latest, the SONON 300L linear transducer, weighs only 13 ounces (370 grams) including the battery, and features color doppler mode for easier musculoskeletal (MSK), vascular, small parts (breast, thyroid), lung imaging, and much more.



The SONON series can be used to connect and transmit through Wi-Fi as well as 3G/LTE, so doctors always have an Internet connection, even in many remote regions of the world. Its size, weight, and capabilities, along with the three hour scan time make it perfect for emergency and everyday use. The FDA approval for SONON 300L shows that app-based ultrasound is continuing to move forward. While it cannot yet replace conventional full-size ultrasound systems, its important to remember that computers used to take up whole rooms too, but now smartphones are even more powerful than those behemoths once were.

Healcerion CEO, Dr. Benjamin Ryu said, A pediatrician from Africa recently told us that when imaging a 2 month old baby, they found hydrocephalus, fluid buildup in the brain. The doctor took an image she captured with our system and sent it to a neurosurgeon through WhatsApp, who then determined that surgical intervention would be required to remove the fluid. This example shows the true potential of our system for telemedicine applications and beyond.

Heres more about the SONON device being used in Africa:

Heres an instructional video explaining how to use the device:

Product page: SONON 300L

Flashback: Healcerion SONON 300C, an FDA Approved Ultrasound As Small as a Transducer
by Sara Guaglione , November 3, 2017

DNAinfo and Gothamist are dead, and 115 employees are out of work. The billionaire owner of the local news sites, Joe Ricketts, pulled the plug just a week after employees at the two sites voted to join the Writers Guild East of America.

Ricketts, who is also the founder of TD Ameritrade, published a letter yesterday afternoon on the web addresses where the sites used to live.

DNAinfo is, at the end of the day, a business, and businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure. And while we made important progress toward building DNAinfo into a successful business, in the end, that progress hasn't been sufficient to support the tremendous effort and expense needed to produce the type of journalism on which the company was founded," he wrote.

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The New York Times reports Ricketts lost money every month of DNAinfos existence.

And the unionizing didnt help.

A spokeswoman for DNAinfo told the NYT: The decision by the editorial team to unionize is simply another competitive obstacle making it harder for the business to be financially successful.

Ricketts made it clear he did not support his employees decision to unionize. In September, he published a post on his blog titled Why Im Against Unions At Businesses I Create.

He argued that unions promote a corrosive us-against-them dynamic that destroys the esprit de corps businesses need to succeed.

The Writers Guild East of America union told the NYT in a statement: It is no secret that threats were made to these workers during the organizing drive. The Guild will be looking at all of our potential areas of recourse, and we will aggressively pursue our new members rights.

Ricketts shut down all the DNAinfo sites, including ones that did not vote to unionize, such as its Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington hubs.

DNAinfo acquired Gothamist in March. At the time, Gothamist cofounders Jen Chung and Jake Dobkin told readers it was time to take our growth to the next level, and DNAinfo offers us that opportunity.

Employees are getting three months paid administrative leave and an additional four weeks severance, per the NYT.

Multiple reports and tweets from DNAinfo and Gothamist staffers suggest employees were blindsided by Rickets decision.

DNAinfo and Gothamist attracted more than 9 million readers a month across its sites.

Local news isnt an easy business. This week, Cox Media Group put three local daily newspapers up for sale. The iconicclosed its print product in September.
by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, November 3, 2017

Siding with Google, a federal judge has granted the company's request to block enforcement of a takedown order issued by Canada's highest court.

The Canadian court's order "threatens free speech on the global internet," U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California wrote in a decision issued Thursday.

The order stems from a battle dating to 2011, when the technology company Equustek brought a suit in Canada against Datalink Technologies, which allegedly stole trade secrets and engaged in counterfeiting. Datalink defaulted in the case, resulting in a judgment in favor of Equustek.

Equustek then asked a British Columbia judge to order Google to remove search results for Datalink Technologies. The Canadian judge granted that request and issued a worldwide injunction prohibiting Google from displaying search results for Datalink. That order was upheld earlier this year by Canada's Supreme Court.

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In July, Google asked a U.S. court to declare the Canadian order invalid and to issue an injunction against its enforcement. On Thursday, Davila entered a preliminary injunction blocking the order.

Davila said that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act immunized Google from liability for displaying content created by outside companies like Datalink. "The Canadian order would eliminate Section 230 immunity for service providers that link to third-party websites," Davila wrote.

He also said that an injunction serves the public interest by preserving free speech online. "Congress recognized that free speech on the internet would be severely restricted if websites were to face tort liability for hosting user-generated content," he wrote.
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, November 3, 2017

Performics, Merkle, 360i, And iProspect led the list of Forrester's Search Marketing Agencies Wave, which the research firm released earlier this week.

The sixth Wave uses 25 factors to evaluate search marketing agencies, identifying the 12 most significant agencies in the 2017 report. 360i, acronym, Catalyst, Forward3D, iCrossing, iProspect, Merkle, Mirum, neo@Ogilvy, Performics, rise interactive, and Wpromote made the list.

The analysis details how each agency measures up and helps business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing professionals make the correct choices.

Forrester Analyst Collin Colburn -- the lead writer for the analysis -- and a team suggest that agencies differentiate themselves by supporting discovery beyond Google. The analysis looked more closely at each agencys reasons for supporting other biddable media such as display and social advertising.

advertisement advertisement

"Agencies that intentionally support display and social to elevate their search marketing offering fared better," according to the report.

When evaluating each agencys SEO offering, Forrester examined how they create a strategy across both traditional and non-traditional search engines and the tools they use to optimize in both places. '

The analysis also considered the agency's approach to non-traditional search engines such as Amazon and Pinterest. Forrester gave the agencies a boost in their rating if they managed clients across these two engines.

The analysis also considered the agencies current offerings, strategy and market presence.
Lead researcher Holli-Anne Passmore, a Ph.D. student in psychology at the University of British Columbias (UBC) Okanagan Campus in Kelowna, Canada, found that taking just a few moments each day to notice how things in nature make you feel will render you happier and improve your overall well-being.

According to a recent study, poets like Blake and Wordsworth were definitely on to something.

Or take another poem, by famous Romantic poet William Wordsworth, where he makes a similar point in describing the joy that a field of daffodils quivering in the breeze makes him feel: my heart with pleasure fills,/ And dances with the daffodils, he writes.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand/ And a Heaven in a Wild Flower  these lines from the 18th-century English poet William Blake are widely quoted, as they remind us that the smallest of things in nature can hold infinite beauty and grace.

If you see some blades of grass unexpectedly emerging from among the train tracks, or if your potted lavender plant has just bloomed, give yourself a moment to take it in, and notice how it makes you feel. Observing nature  wherever you may be  will make you feel happier, researchers say.

Dr. Passmore recruited 395 UBC undergraduate students who were then randomly split into three groups. One group was asked to take photos of natural objects or scenes that caught their eye  such as a beautiful sunset spied from the kitchen window, or a late-blooming flower  and jot down the feelings that these evoked in them.

The second group was asked to do the same, but focusing on manmade objects, such as buildings, or machines, while the third group acted as the control, and was not required to take any action.

For the tasks at hand, the participants were not asked to go out of their way; any scenes or objects noticed while they were carrying their normal, day-to-day activities, would do.

This wasnt about spending hours outdoors or going for long walks in the wilderness. This is about the tree at a bus stop in the middle of a city and the positive effect that one tree can have on people. Holli-Anne Passmore

The researcher was reportedly overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response from her participants, who submitted over 2,500 photos and written impressions.

Passmore found that the participants who had engaged in the nature observation task reported increased levels of happiness and overall well-being. They were also more open to social contact, and to sharing resources with their peers.

The difference in participants well-being  their happiness, sense of elevation, and their level of connectedness to other people, not just nature  was significantly higher than participants in the group noticing how human-built objects made them feel and the control group, she notes.

Previous studies have found that individuals who live in areas with more green spaces benefit from improved mental health, and may even live longer on average.

The UBC researcher is building on these and similar findings, to understand how proximity to nature can enrich our lives. She is part of the so-called Happy Team at UBC Okanagan: a group of researchers dedicated to study[ing] what is right with you (e.g., happiness) and how we promote it.
Jackson County members of the Bluebird Restoration Association of Wisconsin fledged 1,650 bluebirds this year that were in more than 400 bluebird boxes placed around the county.

Wisconsin is first in the U.S. for fledging bluebirds, and Jackson County is typically within the top five in the state for the number of fledges recorded.

Members said Jackson County has excellent habitat for bluebirds and that having good people monitoring the birds helps as well.

They also said that in large cities, the monitors have to drive a long distance to get to good habitat. In Jackson County trails are set up as close to the monitors homes as possible.

In the last seven years, members have fledged 12,546 bluebirds with an average of 1,792 per year in Jackson County, which is an average of 412 houses for a ratio of 4.35 bluebirds per house. Not only do the bird houses fledge bluebirds, but also tree swallows, wrens and chickadees.

The 2017 Jackson Co. Bluebird monitors are Larry Casper, Andy Chickoski (Badger Mining), Darrel and Marilyn Eberhardt, Sheryl Gilbertson, Jim Johnson, Greg Krueger, Bud Klepps, Darlene Neisner, Bill Schapfel and from Buffalo County, Marcel Kulas, Bruce Schaffner and Matt Wolfe. Badger Mining is one of the few corporate sponsors of BRAW.

If you think that being a monitor only involves setting up houses and thats it, you would be in for a surprise. There are a lot of problems that face bluebirds and their houses.

House sparrows are a big problem when bird houses are set up too close to a working farm. Cracked and ground corn, as well as bird seed mixtures bought from stores that have cracked or ground corn in them, are put into bird feeders and attract house sparrows, which kill bluebirds and other songbirds. Black flies are also a problem as well as raccoon and cats, but protective guards can usually keep them at bay.

When starting up as a monitor, the wood and posts for the bird houses are provided by BRAW free of charge as long as the bird houses are assembled, monitored and statistics are sent into the state.

The monitors in prior years have been recognized for their efforts. In 2010, the late Dolores Iliff of Black River Falls and in 2016 Darrel Eberhardt of Hixton were BRAW Monitors of the Year for the State of Wisconsin.

In the last three years, Larry Casper has fledged 986 bluebirds and in 2015 and 2016 Greg Krueger of Hixton was the top monitor in Jackson County, fledging an average of 7.3 bluebirds per house.

Darrel Eberhardt said that various shrubs and trees that can be planted are good for bluebirds and other songbirds. He said that Red Osier Dogwood, Sargent Crabapple, Service Berry Tree and Red Jade Crabapple are excellent. Other trees that are good include the Silky Dogwood, Arrowwood and Blue Muffin Viborium, Red Splendor and Red Jewell Crabapple and Russian Mountain Ash.

These shrubs and trees not only look pleasing, but bear high-volume berries. Remember to fertilize a little and water as needed to keep them stress free. Enjoy the song birds, Eberhardt said.
Space: the final frontier. But before we embark on voyages to strange new worlds, we must first find ways of keeping our astronauts brains from swelling and their hearts from being damaged. Researchers say we are on the right track. Share on Pinterest Astronauts face the hostile space environment on their travels. How can we keep them safe in their interstellar journeys? Like many others, I dreamt of being an astronaut when I was younger. Inspired by a trip to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in my early teens, I saw myself boldly going where no man had gone before. The problem is that I dont particularly like heights, or flying, for that matter. With my feet firmly rooted on the ground, my curiosity took me into the field of human biology instead. But my interest in all things to do with galaxies far, far away never faltered. So, I hope you appreciate my excitement about two new papers dealing with the effects of spaceflight on the human body. Many people will be familiar with the concept that during time in space, astronauts muscles shrink because of the lack of gravity. But its not just the muscles that are affected. The whole body is under stress in the space environment, and the different stressor (microgravity, radiation, psychological, etc.) are entangled, Prof. Marco Durante, from the Trento Institute for Fundamental Physics and Applications in Italy, told me. Prof. Durante and his colleagues published an article about the effects of space on the cardiovascular system in Nature Reviews Cardiology a couple of weeks ago. But, before we delve into the effects of extraterrestrial experiences on the heart, lets look first at research hot off the press on how space distorts the brain.

Brain shifts upward on long-term missions Astronauts live in virtually weightless conditions during their space travels. The scientific term for this is microgravity. Some astronauts aboard the International Space Station have experienced problems with their vision and increased pressure in their brains as a result of microgravity. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) call this visual impairment and intracranial pressure (VIIP) syndrome. To explore how microgravity affects the brain, neuroradiologists Drs. Donna R. Roberts and Michael U. Antonucci  both associate professors at Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston  and colleagues studied MRI scans of astronauts before and after both short-term and long-term space missions. The fascinating results were published yesterday in The New England Journal of Medicine. The study involved 18 astronauts on long-term missions to the International Space Station, lasting on average 164 days, and 16 astronauts who had been on short-term space shuttle flights averaging 13 days. The team found that 94 percent of the astronauts on long-term missions experienced a narrowing of a groove at the top of the brain, called the central sulcus, while this only happened in 19 percent of the space shuttle travelers. Additional data showing multiple sequential brain scans were available for a subset of the astronauts. Analysis of these revealed that the brains of all of the long-term space explorers, but not of those on short-term missions, had shifted upward in response to the microgravity conditions.

These are not the signs youre looking for Of the astronauts on long-term missions, three developed severe VIIP. But the team couldnt pinpoint any specific changes in their brains that could explain why they had developed VIIP. Dr. Antonucci told me, NASA has noted that approximately 60 percent of astronauts on long-duration missions experience decreased visual acuity and [roughly] 40 percent of astronauts are classified as having VIIP. In this study, he added, only astronauts with severe VIIP symptoms had follow-up assessments. The lack of additional data from those with less severe symptoms, made it challenging to draw conclusions about what causes the symptoms of VIIP. Ideally, a full complement of information would be available for each returning astronaut to allow a more thorough comparison of imaging findings with clinical symptoms and other non-imaging testing, Dr. Antonucci said. Exposure to the space environment has permanent effects on humans that we simply do not understand, Dr. Roberts comments not the findings. What astronauts experience in space must be mitigated to produce safer space travel for the public. The areas most affected during long-term space missions were those that control movement of the body and higher executive function, pretty essential to an astronaut on a space mission. What might happen on extended missions, like NASAs journey to Mars planned for the early 2030s, is as yet unclear. We know these long-duration flights take a big toll on the astronauts []; however, we dont know if the adverse effects on the body continue to progress or if they stabilize after some time in space. Dr. Roberts Well, we can only hope that our intrepid explorers brains will acclimatize during their extended time in space. But lets turn out attention now to matters of the heart.

Swollen veins and puffy faces A fully functioning ticker is essential to an astronauts health. The two biggest risk factors for the cardiovascular system in the extraterrestrial environment are microgravity and space radiation. The gravity that we experience on Earth causes a pressure gradient in our cardiovascular system. Take away gravity, and the pressure is the same across the body. Right after take-off, this means that blood rushes into the chest and head, causing swollen veins and puffy faces all around. In microgravity, the heart doesnt have to work as hard to pump the blood around the body. This is bad news because the system quickly becomes accommodated to what would equate to an extremely sedentary lifestyle on Earth. Blood vessel walls thicken and become stiffer, which might predispose the astronauts to cardiovascular disease. Radiation is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease, which in turn is a leading cause of death on Earth. Even quite low doses of radiation, such as 0.5 Grays (Gy or Grays are the units of absorbed radiation) are known to increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. For comparison, emergency workers involved in the cleanup after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 were left with a higher risk for cardiovascular disease at levels as low as 0.15 Grays.

Radiation potentially most important hazard Space is full of radiation, which doesnt sit well with our ambitions of exploring distant stellar objects. But, we really dont know enough about cosmic rays to be sure that they will have the same damaging effects as radiation back on Earth. Radiation is potentially the most important hazard. But this will depend very much on whether radiation effects have a threshold at low doses, say around 0.5 G[rays], Prof. Durante told me. Deep-space missions, like the one to Mars, would need to take the potential hazards of radiation into consideration and develop specific countermeasures, he added. More research is needed. Accelerator-based studies to identify cardiovascular damage at low doses are very urgent for answering this question, Prof. Durante said. He also told me that studying what happens to the cardiovascular system during space missions is no mean feat. One of the main problems is that the cardiovascular system is connected to essentially all other organs, so it is not easy to make a cause-effect distinction, he explained. So, how will our astronauts protect themselves on their journeys into uncharted territory? Prof. Durante thinks that we are on the right track to finding out. I am personally very optimist and we are making very fast progress. Countermeasures include physical exercise, antioxidants, nutraceuticals and, for radiation exposure, shielding. Prof. Durante
People of Gurugram should get ready to get lost inside IKEA now! I'm sure everyone has seen jokes and memes poking fun at the fact that you have to put together IKEA furniture yourself, like this :

 noitego

Or this :

 Twitter

And, obviously the iconic IKEA monkey.

 Twitter

Seems like a lot of people end up getting lost inside the store as well.

 Tumblr

And now, let's see how Indians will conquer the challenge that is to shop at IKEA, as the company is planning to open a lot of stores in the country.

In the biggest deal to be struck by Huda, the Haryana government's development agency, as IKEA, the Swedish home furnishings company has recently purchased 10 acres of land in Gurugram for Rs 842 crore.

 Reuters

And, this isn't the first investment IKEA has made in the country. Previously, the company has acquired land in Hyderabad, Mumbai and Bengaluru to set up stores.

Juvencio Maeztu, Chief Executive Officer, IKEA India, in a statement said, Delhi NCR is a strategic market for IKEA and will be one of our biggest markets in India. Along with retail stores, we will also focus on growing local sourcing and engage with local artisans and communities in many projects.

We can expect to see the first IKEA store in India early next year in Hyderabad, which will be followed by Mumbai in early 2019 and subsequently in Bangalore and Gurugram.

 Reuters

The land in Gurugram is located in Sec-47, and was acquired through an e-auction. In an effort to maximise local sourcing, IKEA is also in the process of growing the Indian manufacturing landscape.

Reportedly, the Swedish firm, headquartered in the Netherlands, plans to open 25 stores in India by 2025 with an investment of 10,500 crore.

So, in a few short years, we all can see if getting lost inside an IKEA store is as easy as the internet makes it out to be. But, just look at the size of the stores, they're gigantic.

 IKEA

But, just imagine how fun doing this would this be.
Not all heroes wear capes, some even work in the customer support team of Twitter. At least, that's what the Internet is talking about ever since a Twitter employee deactivated President Donald Trump's account for 11 minutes. While the official account POTUS was still active, his personal account that is infamous for some of the nastiest remarks and comments faced the wrath of this guy whose identity is still under wraps.

Just like we all were moved by Shah Rukh Khan for making us realize the significance of 70 minutes in 'Chak De India'; people are thanking this guy for giving them unforgettable joy for 11 minutes, when all that people could see was this page instead of Trump's account.

 Twitter

Basically, whoever looked for Donald Trump on Twitter to get updates on any latest controversy he stirred up, was welcomed by a message that read Sorry, that page doesn't exist!

After this incident, Twitter admitted to the accidental deactivation and said that it was a 'human error by a Twitter employee'.

Earlier today @realdonaldtrump's account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee. The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again.  Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) 3 November 2017

They further added in another tweet that this act was done by the employee on his last day at work. The tweet also added, We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again.

Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee's last day. We are conducting a full internal review. https://t.co/mlarOgiaRF  Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) 3 November 2017

Be it talking about a ban on transgender Americans serving in the military or taking a dig at 'Fake News' or when he went loggerheads with North Korea and the world thought that two BFFs were fighting over the same crush, Donald Trump has a record of sharing (with his 41 million followers) some of the most 'iconic' views on anything and everything that is of grave importance. He joined Twitter in 2009 and has since stirred controversy (we mean tweeted) approximately 36.3k times.

Although the account was restored after 11 minutes, Twitter had already found their 'accidental' hero in this employee by then. So all that was left for them was to cherish this short lived happiness and they did exactly that by flooding the Internet with their praises for his virtual bravery.

The best 11 minutes since November 8, 2016  Henry Foubister (@SirHFoubister) 3 November 2017

Now THIS is how you quit a job, motherfuckers https://t.co/1RQnkgZgGb  Katie?Notopoulos (@katienotopoulos) 3 November 2017

what is the appropriate kind of medal for this https://t.co/Va9FJoQCL2  Anthony V. (@fascinated) 3 November 2017

I'm not usually a person who covers the president's tweets. But. Um.  Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) 2 November 2017

We'll all remember where we were during the 10 minutes of peace while Donald Trump's Twitter account was down.  Mike Drucker (@MikeDrucker) 2 November 2017

Please don't... And give that employee a raise  Burt McGirt (@xBurtMcGirtx) 3 November 2017

How does one get elected to the Twitter Government?  Chuck Gruhn (@elrond70) 3 November 2017

That was no employee, that was a goddamn Hero!  Tom Carmody (@TomCarmodyCS) 3 November 2017

This is my best moment of 2017. pic.twitter.com/LNKGKwWBVm  I'm Sorry Aunt Lydia (@TinaMcGugan) 3 November 2017

Give this ex-employee a Nobel Peace Prize  Kat W (@MsKatWest) 3 November 2017

However, on a serious note, this is not a cool thing to do at all. We are talking about deactivating the personal account of the President of one of the most powerful countries in the world and no matter how much people are enjoying this chaos, we can't forget that this is a breach of privacy and there is no justification for this.

This incident only goes on to show, how flawed the security system of Twitter is and how insecure our accounts are, although we are sure no employee will have that much time in their hands to fiddle with our profiles.
There is no doubt in my mind that the Pixel 2 XL is a great smartphone. I've been using it for a week and I have not faced a single issue. Having said that, the smartphone has been plagued with a few issues since launch, such as the troublesome OLED display.

However, a new problem has been discovered by a Reddit user who claims he received a Pixel 2 XL that did not even have an operating system installed.

Basically, this is a smartphone from the production line that may have missed the stage where the operating system is installed. This is not the first time a fiasco like this has occurred with the Pixel smartphone. If you do a simple a Google search, you can find one other person who has faced a similar problem. The Pixel 2 XL is not available in India until November 15th and there is no way to say whether this problem might be present in some Indian variants as well.

 BCCL

The user who suffered the problem went on to add that Google is replacing the device and has been compensated with a Google Play Gift Card. Google is also expediting the shipping of the replacement phone to reduce any inconvenience caused.

 BCCL

Google has not commented on whether this is a one-off problem or an endemic issue with the Pixel 2 smartphones. Needless to say, Google has to step up their quality control game in order to avoid a PR disaster in the near future that may affect sales. As for this little incident, let us hope that Google puts more work in ensuring that its Pixel 2 XL comes with an OS before it ships out to the owner.

Source: 9to5Google
Jah Phinga, a 2017 All Africa Music Awards nominee, (AFRIMA) has released a music video for his first single on his My Dream album dubbed Glucklich

Glucklich, a German word which means Happy is an afropop party song which elaborates on forgetting ones worries and keeping a happy spirit irrespective of the challenges of life. Exceptionally well composed on a rave tune, Glucklich gets one to easily sing along.

The release comes after his nomination at the AFRIMA Award set to come off in Lagos Nigeria this November.

According to Jah Phinga, Glucklich release coincides with his being recognized by AFRIMA despite being an independent artiste and this brings him a lot of joy and happiness, hence Glucklich.

Glucklich is an anti-depressant song produced, mixed and mastered by an Austrian based Producer Matthias de Mink of Mink Productions and the video shot in Accra-Ghana.

Jah Phinga urged people to learn to make themselves happy no matter what life throws at them.

His My Dream album will be debuted in 2018.

Watch music here:


James Aboagye

03.11.2017 LISTEN

Indeed, until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters. Similarly, to know nothing of what happened before you were born, is to forever remain a child.

Undoubtedly, about 90% of Ghanas population have heard the name Kumawood but less than 0.5% do understand the origin of the only living Movie Industry in the country.

Kumawood movies  movies mostly produced in Kumasi and in Twi, are Ghanas pride as far as our movie industry is concerned.

According to popular opinion, Kumawood movies depict Ghanas pride because they are rich in true Ghanaian values, traditions and culture, have original and intriguing storylines; produces about 80% of the movies in Ghana and sells like pure water.

However, among the actors and actresses, some regard the brand word Kumawood as derogatory and so they get pissed off when theyre labelled as Kumawood actors.

On records, actresses Emelia Brobbey, Nana Ama McBrown, et al. have seen on many platforms tried to dissociate themselves from the Kumawood tag. Perhaps, they dont understand the pride origin of the Kumawood brand.

Its in the light of this that Kumawood movie producer, James Aboagye, CEO of 3 Units Media and producer of Kumasi Ynko has dedicated his time to highlight the etymology of Kumawood.

Mr. Aboagye was in the studios of Kessben 93.3FM when he was hosted by DJ Roar on Weekend Gruuv programme.

The first time the word Kumawood was mentioned happened to be at Trade Fair in Accra during the funeral rites of actor Kwame Owusu Ansah of blessed memories somewhere 2008.

Movie producers in Kumasi introduced Kwame Owusu Ansah into acting. Therefore, there was the need for Kumasi movie stakeholders to pay him their last respect. Sadly, Kumasi sympathizers who attended the funeral on the day were maltreated and discriminated, James Aboagye recounted.

As a result, Samuel Nyamekye, executive producer of Miracle Films, vehemently suggested that if the Accra actors, actress and producers (Ghallywood) wont respect their counterparts in Kumasi, then it was necessary for the twi actors to also have a brand name, hence Kumawood.

Fast forward, that pronouncement by Samuel Nyamekye gave birth to Kumawood, which has emerged to be the only thriving movie Industry in Ghana, currently, James Aboagye revealed.
03.11.2017 LISTEN

Maryann Charles-Dede, popularly called AnnyDee, born October 22, 1989, is a Lagos based Nigerian gospel Artiste.

She is a native of Rivers State, from a loving family that has always supported and encouraged her passion for music right from a tender age.

AnnyDee started her musical career from a tender age in the church and grew up doing very well as a praise and worship leader with a unique and powerful voice.

She attended Benson Idahosa University, Benin City, Nigeria, where she also had most of her musical experiences with the BIU mass choir and a group called DDC Crew, before she graduated with a B.A. in English Studies.

Besides her passion for music, she is also an entrepreneur with great skills in fashion and creative writing.

Her debut single, "Who's Like Unto Thee", expresses the Glory and beauty of God and His creation. It is a song that transcends time and season, and will always set your heart at worship.

https://cloudup.com/files/itrFUanmWCM/download
1. Help others

It almost seems contradictory that if you want to be great you need to help others become great. But through Marie's example we see that when you give, you end up receiving more than you sacrificed.

Marie and her older sister, Bronya, wanted more education, but they were not able to get it in their hometown, Warsaw. The girls banded together and made a plan. According to her biographyMarie would work to earn money for Bronya's school tuition. Once she was finished Bronya would work to pay for Marie to go to school as well. Marie sacrificed her time so her sister could get an education first.

Bronya repaid the debt and at age 24, and Marie was able to start earning her degree.

Today it is easier to get jealous than to offer help. We often find ourselves scrolling through our Instagram feed instead of talking to people. If we reached out, others would lift us in return.

2. Enjoy the simple things

It was in school that Marie met her husband Pierre Curie. They quickly fell in love. His parents gave them money for their wedding gift, and they chose to spend it on something simple - two bicycles. These bikes became a great tool to improve their marriage, spend time together and relax.

Today it seems that the only way to relax is to go on a beach-side vacation. But you can find simple things every day to escape reality like exercise, reading a book or going on a walk with someone.

3. Never give up

Madame Curie had a lot of fight in her. She would rather do it herself than have someone else do it for her. After her husband died she refused his pension; she said that she could provide for herself. And she did. She became head of her husband's laboratory and the first woman to teach at Sorbonne. From her research at the school, she later went on to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

We all handle grief differently, but Madame Curie knew what she was capable of and always tried her best. There is always something we can do every day to be a little better, and all we have to do is keep trying.

These three simple attitudes helped Marie Curie achieve greatness. By following these three things, you can achieve greatness too.
03.11.2017 LISTEN

Asanko Gold Mine, a mining company operating in the Amansie West, has established strong community presence to remove any tension and conflict with the people.

It has been assisting to grow local businesses and create jobs by outsourcing contracts to them.

Mr. Shadrach Ainoo, the acting Executive General Manager, said it was eager to co-exist peacefully with the people.

Speaking at a stakeholders' forum held to provide useful insights into the company's contract and procurement policies at Manso-Nkwanta, he added that, it had put the socio-economic development of the mining operation area at the heart of its thinking.

More than 300 people made up of chiefs, assembly members, opinion leaders and local contractors attended.

Mr. Ainoo underlined the unwavering determination of the mine to give support to efforts at lifting the people out of poverty, transform and make things better for them.

Its assistance towards community development projects - education, health, water and sanitation would be sustained.

Mr. William Bediako Asante, the District Chief Executive (DCE), applauded Asanko for being a good corporate citizen and living up to its corporate social responsibility.

Relatedly, Asanko in partnership with Peace and Love Hospital, had organized free breast cancer screening at Manso-Nkwanta, the district capital, as part of the campaign to create awareness and encourage the early report of the cancer to the hospital for treatment.

Over 500 women benefitted from the exercise.

Mrs. Bridget Nortey Mensah, a Physician Assistant, advised women to make sure that they promptly sought the help of medical professionals for any anomaly detected in the breast.

They should not wait for their situation to worsen - when it becomes too late to be saved by doctors.
Sunyani, Nov. 02, GNA - Pestle dealers at the Nana Bosoma Market also known as the Wednesday Market in Sunyani have appealed to government to review the ban on wood cutting to allow for a quota cut to promote their businesses.

They said the pestle, popularly called 'Woma' in the local akan parlance is made from specific type of wood, their main raw material which is naturally grown and obtained from the forest, but due to the enforcement of the ban, they are in shortage of it to make the product.

Under the country's environmental laws, it is an offence to cut trees in the forest or undertake any activity that may have great impact on the environment without obtaining the necessary environmental permit.

Pestle dealers who hitherto cut the wood from the forest indiscriminately for the product could no longer do so for fear of being arrested.

They made the appeal in an interview with Ghana News Agency (GNA) on Wednesday in Sunyani.

A 25-year-old Benjamin Obour, a pestle dealer told the GNA that he had been in the business since the last eight years, saying that now the ban by the Forest Commission (FC) was too stringent and that it was making the job hard for him and his colleagues.

He said these days they had to sneak into the forest to cut down the trees to make pestles and consequently had become difficult for them to get the needed quantity since they tried to avoid detection by forest guards.

When asked how the emergence of 'fufu' flour into the market was affecting business, Kwame Danso, aged 28 and also a dealer said business in Sunyani 'is not bad'.

He explained that most of the town folks preferred pounding either than cooked yam or a mixture of cooked plantain/cocoyam and cassava to get the staple food 'fufu'.
Trade and Industry minister Alan Kyerematen has revealed 192 business plans have been approved for take-off in the government's industrialization policy to establish one factory in every district.

The approved business plans represent 41% of 462 proposals submitted to the government after it reached out publicly to private investors.

A satisfied Trade and Industry Minister said private sector interest in the industrialization plan has been "very significant", stating the "1D,1F, is very much on track"

He said the commercially viable plans will cover 102 out of the 216 districts in the country.

The government has shown a preference to sit back and allow private businesses to lead in wealth and job creation while it provides support.

But he said the government would not shy away from taking the lead in establishing projects in districts where no private player has submitted a commercially viable plan.

In that case, the government will invest and incubate a project and then hand it over to a private investor.

But essentially, the one district, one factory initiative is not designed to be state enterprises, Alan Kyerematen who was also Trade Minister under the former NPP government said.

About 15 years ago, he was in charge of the John Agyekum Kufour-led NPP government's Presidential Special Initiatives, a plan to shift focus from Ghana's cash cow, cocoa.
Valerie! Valerie!! Valerie!!! And I called you thrice, too! I am disgusted just discussing you! We were raised to understand that running women down was bad, but I will make an exception because you accepted to be stretching your legs like many suspected you did during the erstwhile administration of shame in which you served as a dishonourable deputy Chief of Staff. I am not bemused at all about the collapse of our nation. At the time you were leg-stretching under JDMs rule, we should have expected the disaster Ghana turned out to be? The economy was channeled to pay twerking bottoms and fattened behinds. Was yours a specific case scenario?

I am only rebutting your garrulous nonsense because the undiscerned inconsistencies smacked of uninteresting foolishness. They actually make mockery of your fathers flatulent strife to educate you. It is very normal of a human being to fumble. Have you forgotten your John Evans Atta-Mills? He had to be spoon fed the oath of presidency because he knew he was swearing a lie! And the many fumbling feats of your biological father when he would read a statement during the Rawlings days as he watched his back lest a lash came at him from the cane-wielding lesson-teaching Papa J?

That notwithstanding, let me tell you about the Wa water project that was started by His Excellency J.A Kufuor, dumped and neglected by the NDC, and resurrected and inaugurated by Akufo-Addo. You see, what you are in constant denial of is your compounded ignorance and chronic blindness. After five years of NDC incompetence, John Mahama was advised to continue the project for propaganda purposes. Of course, lackadaisically as usual, he started to move a few blocks about, opening the opportunity for millions of Ghana Cedis to leak into some pockets. That was an opportunity to steal, which had escaped him. Normally, he would start something, and leave it mid-way. This case was no different! He took up the continuation of the Wa water project, and left it shortly after all the money got stolen. Do your homework well, and you will know that the agitation of the people of Wa over this was not unfounded at all. That was one of the many reasons your NDC lost five seats in the Upper West Region, fantastically! Do you remember the Bui Hydro-Electric Dam that President J.A Kuffuor started? It was abandoned for the same period, approximately, while Asiedu Ntetia started a whole cement works business to supply the project. When John Mahama prematurely ejaculated in his whimsical daydream, he inaugurated the Bui Dam as an achievement, taking credit for it. No sooner did he push the button to light up than phweep, the electricity went dead! Shame!!

The many rumours that I have heard about you sniffing cocaine might be true after all, because your recent media orgasms point to same. Again, you stretched your legs, hopefully it stopped right there, and realised that there might be a missing piece in the digital address system rolled out by Dr Mahmoud Bawumia. So you ignorantly wagged your tail, thinking that you had struck a jackpot. Did you say you were sitting on your patio? How much of Ghanas money went into tiling and fixing it comfortably enough to enable you stretch on it and do your la reve dance? Oh John Mahama! Oh Oh John Mahama!! Oh Oh Oh John Mahama!!! What have ye reduced thy nation to?

Anyway, let me explain about the digital address system. You see, the announcement was that it cost a certain amount. Of course it would, after all, nothing is free. We pay real prices for real services, you know, unlike the purchase of hundreds of bicycles at GHs 15,000 (fifteen thousand Ghana Cedis) per bicycle by your wicked government of NDC thieves. So the amount paid for the digital address system was the sum of various components of which the $400,000 (four hundred thousand US Dollars) google fee was one. This project brings Ghana a lot of convenience unlike the Bus Branding Saga for which you paid one million Dollars to post pictures of former presidents some of whom were thieves anyway!

Then you seem to want to claim this system as a John Mahama baby. Look here, thieves like Okoe Vanderpuye, who was alleged to have stolen 720 million US Dollars given to the NDC government in 2012 for the Accra Drainage project, which ultimately resulted in the worst disaster Ghana had ever seen at Circle, did the shoddiest job with the street naming exercise. That was a financial loss to the State in the millions of Cedis. 10th street, 11th street, 18th street, 22nd street, those were the kind of names given to streets in Accra! Are we in Ameluka (Lordina Mahamas pronunciation of America)? It was a total disgrace and a neglect of the ancestors of the land who should have been honoured with that exercise. Nyame b3 tua mo ka baako baako baako!

With new revelations about how Opuni allowed the NDC mafia to steal over $400 million dollars in a last minute frenzy after losing the 2016 elections, and many more recent discoveries of rot including illegalities like building an ultramodern guesthouse for John Mahama with State money, y3b3 toto wo tes3 akonf3m afa yahaya!

By the way what is the name of the smuggling syndicate I hear you operate? The diversion of transit goods that never make it out of our borders? With regards to the army worm issue, we shall do you logoligi wate!

#WoahonoAmane
03.11.2017 LISTEN

In just the past few weeks, a renowned investigative journalist was murdered by a bomb that booby-trapped her car; another was dismembered in the course of researching her story; and a photojournalist was found dead after being forced to leave his home at gunpoint.

From 2006 to 2016, 930 journalists and media workers were killed. Thousands of others routinely face sexual harassment, intimidation, detention and ill treatment.

Rampant impunity then compounds the crimes. In nine out of ten cases, the perpetrators are never brought to justice.

When journalists are targeted, societies as a whole also pay the price. The kind of news that gets silenced  corruption, conflicts of interest, illegal trafficking -- is exactly the kind of information the public needs to know.

The United Nations General Assembly, Security Council and Human Rights Council have all condemned attacks against journalists and called for ensuring their safety.

The United Nations system has also endorsed a Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity.

We are committed to helping to create the environment journalists need to perform their vital work. I am mobilizing a network of focal points from throughout the UN system to propose specific steps to intensify our efforts to enhance the safety of journalists and media workers.

On the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, I call for justice -- in memory of all journalists who have been killed, and in recognition of the importance of free and independent media in advancing development and peace.
Ministers of Tourism from 60 countries and leaders from private sector companies and associations will summon next week at the Ministers Summit organized by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the World Travel Market in London to discuss the challenges of sustainable tourism.

The 11th edition of the UNWTO/WTM Ministers Summit to be held on 7 November under the title Overtourism: growth is not the enemy; it is how we manage it, will address issues such as congestion management, the measurement of the impacts of tourism or the role of the private sector in promoting tourism as an effective tool to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

As stated by UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai Growth is not the enemy. Growing numbers are not the enemy. Growth is the eternal story of mankind. Tourism growth can and should lead to economic prosperity, jobs and resources to fund environmental protection and cultural preservation, as well as community development and progress needs, which would otherwise not be available.

The Summit will be moderated by CNN Internationals Max Foster. Confirmed speakers include:

- H.E. Mr. Mauricio Ventura Aragon, Minister of Tourism, Costa Rica

- H.E. Ms. Elena Kountoura, Minister of Tourism, Greece

- Mr. Ryoichi Matsuyama, President, Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO)

- H.E. Mr. Enrique de la Madrid, Secretary of Tourism, Mexico

- H.E. Mr. Khalid Jasim Al Midfa, Chairman, Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority (SCTDA), United Arab Emirates

- H.E. Mr. John Glen, Minister of Arts Heritage and Tourism, United Kingdom

- Mr. Istvan Ujhelyi, Vice-Chair of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, European Parliament

- Ms. Gloria Guevara, President and CEO, World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC)

- Mr. Patrick Robinson, Head of Policy for EMEA, Airbnb

- Ms. Inge Huijbrechts, Vice President Responsible Business, Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group

- Ms. Kate Gibson, Vice President,Global Corporate Responsibility, Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG)

- Mr. Manfredi Lefebvre dOvidio, Chairman, Silversea Cruises
03.11.2017 LISTEN

When sentencing wrongdoers, judges sometimes choose to mete out punishments that go beyond the usual fine or prison time.

That was the case last week for one Hawaii judge who ordered a defendant to write more than 140 nice things about his ex-girlfriend after he violated a protection order.

For every nasty thing you said about her, youre going to say a nice thing, 2nd Circuit Judge Rhonda Loo told Daren Young, 30, per the AP. No repeating words.

Young, of Kahului, Hawaii, was ordered in February to stop contacting his ex. But two months later, he called and texted her 144 times over the span of about three hours. According to the Maui News, he was arrested and spent 157 days in jail.

At his sentencing on Friday, Young received time served and was placed on two years probation. Loo also slapped him with $2,400 in fines and 200 hours of community service, then gave him the writing assignment.

Its so childish to think a grown man can be so thumb-happy, Loo told Young in court. I hope you dont have a phone anymore and, if you do, I hope you dont have her number anymore.

Other justices who have made headlines for their unusual sentences include Ohio Judge Michael Cicconetti and Texas Judge Mike Peters. Cicconetti once ordered two 19-year-olds to lead a donkey through the streets with a sign that said Sorry for the jackass offense after vandalizing a Nativity scene. In 2004, Peters sentenced a woman to 30 days in jail for starving two horses. On the first three days in prison, he ordered that she only be served bread and water.

Shes going to get more than her horses got, Peters said.
At a distance, I spotted the towering 236ft cruising schooner S/V Mandalay anchored in Grenadas St Georges bay. Sailing the Southern Caribbean, much like Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, was never on my radar, but seeing her in the distance, I understood the lure of the three-masted barkentine. I wondered why she wasnt coming closer, moving toward the dock for her passengers.

Were going to her, said my husband, who was as giddy as a two-year-old about our adventure on the high seas.

It had been a year earlier when he had discovered this seven-day photography excursion that would allow us to sail along the Grenadine island chain, part of the Windward Islands, and photograph some of the worlds most breathtaking locations. As professional travel photographers, it was a chance of a lifetime. Not giving much thought to the logistics or protocols, I signed up with the provision that water and I would not come in contact.

Now, some 400 yards away, a small launch barrelled toward us, bounding over the swells in the harbour, with two men aboard. Here comes our ride, my husband trumpeted.

Immediately, my stomach fell and sweat poured. Having cruised on large ships, I knew the boarding customs of walking down enclosed ramps with water nowhere in sight. Wed be high above the waterline and ocean movement usually went undetected. However, this was different; the vessel, built in 1923, was powered by sail and the roll of the sea. With only 25 passengers and a crew of 12, it was just us and the ocean. But, the kicker: the only way on and off the vessel was by way of a launch, up and down a small stairway as the ocean waves slapped at your feet.

Water terrifies me. It has always terrified me. Growing up in sweltering Georgia summers, I was the one who remained at the shallow end of the pool, gingerly sloshing waves of crystal blue chlorinated water over my lower body avoiding body parts above my elbows. And if I dared to dunk my head, I would finger-squeeze my nose, which immediately drew jeers of chicken and baby from water nymphs who bounced from side to side of the pool. I wasnt sure which was worse: drowning or doing the finger-squeeze.

All her life Garrison had been terrified of water (Credit: Judy Garrison)

From that moment forward, I became an expert in evaluating situations, avoiding any scenario that included water. I have never stood directly underneath a waterfall or a shower head. Jet skis absolutely terrify me. I missed many adventures, but I kept my feet on solid ground. However, my taking this trip was a direct result of wife-guilt, including a husbands promises of lifetime jaunts to destinations devoid of large bodies of water.

Approaching was the wooden launch that would pick me up and carry me to the Mother Ship. No barriers. No fixed sides. No safety nets. At that very moment, I was transported back, standing in the cross-hairs of chicken insults, only these were blasting inside my head.

As the launch arrived, two crewmen bounded onto the dock. I looked around at the stout adults with piles of bulky luggage to be placed in that bucket of a boat. I wanted to run. I slowly dragged myself to the back of the line.

With my heart pounding, I knew I had to rid myself of this fear, if not for me, then for my husband. We would be spending a week on the open seas being driven by the wind. For what would not be the last time, I summoned strength from my gut and stepped beside my husband. I can do this.

In order to board the schooner, Garrison first had to brave a ride in a tiny launch (Credit: Judy Garrison)

I took a crewmans hand and stepped onto the launchs seat, then the deck, and quickly sat down. I did not move. I eyed the life preservers. Good, I thought to myself, I can reach them. If everyone cooperates, makes no sudden movements, well be fine.

Approaching the ships massive posture  and the impending transfer  stirred my nerves. The launch pulled alongside the schooner, bouncing off her sides until ropes were heaved and tied to secure her position.

Leave all your things. We will get them to you, shouted the crewmen. Passengers eagerly stood and moved toward the steps, ascending onto another set. I watched carefully where feet and hands were placed, plotting my departure. I stood and caught my breath. As I attempted to do what others had done before me, I reached for the two handles on either side of the steps. As both feet were on the top step of the tender, I realised the next one would be onto the ships ladder, with nothing but water below.

Judy Garrison: Over the course of the next six days, I stepped on and off the launch  I moved myself out of my way, and I got the hang of it (Credit: Judy Garrison)

Left hand on red handle, the crewmen repeated. I grabbed the red handle with my left hand, and as I reached upward with my right, a stout hand of mammoth strength engulfed mine, pulling me to the top rung with one swift movement. Ive got you, he said as he locked his eyes with mine. I felt wood beneath my feet. Had I fallen, he would have scooped me up in an instant.

I would come to know Blaze as the crewman who steadied my fears. From that moment forward, water, other than its beauty, never entered my mind. Each time I left the schooner, Blaze was there with an open hand. With each robust touch, Blaze cast my fears overboard.

Over the course of the next six days, I stepped on and off the launch, island hopping around four times a day. By mid-week, I was first in line to jump from the launch, no longer requiring the hand of another. I moved myself out of my way, and I got the hang of it.

Every isle was movie-scene perfection, featuring a towel in the sand, sun peeping through the palm trees, the occasional inquisitive iguana  and of course, Mash-Up, the ships steward, who was ice-chest ready with local Carib beer. How could I have ever missed this?

Other stops included Union Island, Mayreau, Tobago Cays and Grenadas island of Carriacou, the largest island in the Grenadine chain. Locals hastily surrounded us upon disembarking, hoping we would choose them to lead us around their country.

Most memorable, our stop in Bequia, the Grenadines' second largest island and our captains homeland, where we boarded the back of a truck and held on tightly as it hurriedly climbed the narrow roads to the ruins of Hamilton Fort, a cannon battery and look-out constructed by the British in the 1700s. From our birds-eye view, the bay was dotted with sailboats on a sea of blue-green water, and in the distance, the S/V Mandalay.

We stopped at the local model boat builder, Sargeant Brothers Model Boat Shop, where 10 men were bunched in what was once a small home, now transformed into a workshop. Throughout the shop, hundreds of ship clones were in their beginning, middle and end stages. Out back, gumwood shavings littered the dirt. One man sat at a vice, carving, painting and turning wood into replicas of elegant sea vessels. In the window was a replica of our ship, the S/V Mandalay.

With the help of one of the crewmen, Garrison was able to conquer her fear of water (Credit: Judy Garrison)

Although I never jumped from the ships bow like my husband or snorkelled in the blue Caribbean waters, I wandered from my comfort zone at the request of another only to discover my own transformation as a traveller. Each time I climbed the launchs rickety ladder to board the ships equally precarious stairway, I chipped away at the fear that had consumed and contained me for decades. To others, I might still be the gal who never does the daring; to me, Im the one in the middle of it all. I realised that in order to see beyond the horizon, youve got to be willing to climb out of the boat.

It was Blaze and his stalwart grip that reminded me that without risk, there is no reward. On our last evening while sailing back to Grenada, the night sky offered up one of its most majestic rewards, only visible at this exact latitude  to my north, the North Star; to my south, the Southern Cross. And I was there to see them both.
03.11.2017 LISTEN

Personnel from the media, all protocol observed, ladies and gentlemen Good afternoon. It is with a great pleasure that we welcome you all to this noble gathering where we seek to express our displeasure at the unfortunate comment of Ghanas High Commissioner to South Africa during a program held at Kumasi Technical University.

Over the years, the very elements that have contributed to the development of our dear nation thus far are Unity and peaceful coexistence which emanated from the fairness of the existing systems. Many are the things that have happened since the commencement of the Nana Addo led administration that have sought to shred off this elements and is a signal of deceit to Ghanaians by the NPP.

The illusion that infrastructure wouldnt put food on the table of the average Ghanaian have been seen to be a deceit by the NPP as these same developments are not even sufficient to support their politically motivated promise such as the Free SHS thus having our brothers and sisters learning and eating under trees and sleeping in classrooms and in some cases open spaces all in the name of free SHS.

Having promised Ghanaians that; the NPP Government will secure peace and security for us, they were voted into power only to present us with the reality where even their own public officials are facing attacks from Delta forces, Invisible forces and all sort of other vigilante groups of their own party. This makes them unable to discharge their duties effectively and efficiently. This is clear deceit to Ghanaians and an exhibition of gross logical impotence and incapability.

Now to the substantive issue of focus today i.e. the unfortunate comment of the Ghanas High Commissioner to South Africa at Kumasi Technical University. We will want to begin by saying that; with gross maltreatment of Ghanaians by various foreign High commissions based in the country, one would have expected that a man of his caliber would be investing his energy together with the foreign affairs sub-committee of Parliament to probe into these cases of maltreatment and to provide for Ghanaians a remedy to this menace and having the opportunity to address energetic youth, he instead could have capitalize on that to share some light on how government intend to cause some high commissioners in the country to treat Ghanaians especially the youth with respect.

Instead Mr. George Ayisi Boateng has chosen to still be in the mood of political campaign. It is normal to honour an invitation of any association whatsoever regardless of your position in government. However, your actions and inactions wherever you go should depict your commitment to the service of the nation. It was rather unfortunate to have heard the comments made by Mr. George Ayisi Boateng when he was given the opportunity to address members of the Tertiary Educational Institutions Network of the NPP. His unfortunate comments were; The job market is choked and it is highly competitive and this government is doing its best to create job opportunities, me for instance, I told my people that it is NPP that is why I am in power so NPP man is my priority.

One would have thought that perhaps he was moved by the euphoria to make such comments. But Speaking to Abusua FM in Kumasi, he said;I said nothing bad, I stand by my words, what is wrong with my statement? I have helped many NDC members including E.T Mensah, I am not divisive, E.T Mensah can attest to it.This means that he shows no sign of remorse and further asking Ghanaians to either take it or leave it. Indeed we can take it or leave it and we have chosen to take it. We have come to a point in our lives as Ghanaians where we are told that there are some people who are much more Ghanaian than others. As such there should be preferential treatment to some Ghanaians who are more important than others.

We have taken the pain as intellectuals to research from all angles on who qualifies to be a more Ghanaian. But after exhausting our avenues, we found out that the number one gentleman of the state does not even qualify to be a more Ghanaian but rather a Ghanaian. Which means that all Ghanaians are equal. It is in this regard that the 1992 constitution in Article 12 clause 2 states that  Every person in Ghana, whatever his race, place of origin, political opinion, colour, religion, creed or gender shall be entitled to the fundamental human rights and freedoms of the individual contained in this Chapter but subject to respect for the rights and freedoms of others and for the public interest. Public interest here represents the good of the entire Ghanaian citizenry and not some memebrs and sympathizers of a governing party.

It is inevitable that these party sympathizers campaigned to help you regain power. However, there are more and more other floating voters who perhaps you successfully deceived to offer you their vote. Is this the best way to serve such people? In the wisdom of our law makers, it was prudent to bring in such a clause as enshrined in Article 12 (2) so that people who do not believe in a governments ideology are still granted their rights and privileges due them. This is why we see no reason why a government official will make such pronouncements to give preferential treatment to some people who are more Ghanaian. This is a gross act of discrimination which is a violation of Article 17 of the 1992 constitution. This is in clear contradiction with the CHANGE Agenda which sought to create prosperity and equal opportunity for all.

The president during his inauguration demanded from Ghanaians their active involvement when he used the words of President George Bush, even though plagiarized, asking Ghanaians to be citizens and not spectators. This he saw as a way to have everyone play an active part towards the realization of their Agenda for change. He subsequently has sought to unite the country and made no actions, decisions or statements that will tend to bring in an element of discrimination against some section of the Ghanaian citizenry. One would have thought that after making such statements and calls, the president will frown on any action of this nature and act immediately. But it is unfortunate that such a person is still yet to react after some days have gone by since this unfortunate statement was made.

Public officials before assuming office always take the official Oath under which they solemnly affirm to uphold, preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the republic of Ghana as by law established. In instances where they act contrary to their Oath, they are to avail themselves to face the consequence of their actions. It is in this regard that we the members of TEIN-ASHANTI REGIONAL CHAPTER are calling on H.E Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo to with immediate effect take due action and revoke the appointment of Mr. George Ayisi Boateng as the High Commissioner to South Africa.

This is because Mr. High commissioner has emphatically stated that he doesnt regret making such statements and so its difficult to believe that his apology is sincere. Some factions of the TESCON community like the GIMPA KUMASI CAMPUS are heavily lauding those comments even after the malnourished apology. His act is a slap on Article 12 and a violation of Article 17 of the 1992 constitution as well as his oath of office as High Commissioner.

We further again caution the president on any subsequent decision that will seek to put Mr. George Ayisi Boateng in another public office because he is unfit with this motive of his. It will be of no concern to us if the president out of sympathy would want to appeal to the NPP to create a new appointment for Mr. George Ayisi Boateng as the High Commissioner of the NPP to South Africa. This is because we believe he will have an independent and free will to implement his motive without having to act contrary to the code of his office. We also want to caution TESCON members and their leadership to desist from endorsing such embarrassing comments because it betrays their mandate as an intellectual wing. Ladies and gentlemen, this is our demand and we thank you all for making it a point to be here.

God bless our motherland Ghana!
ASA Savings and Loans Limited has shown benevolence to the New Life Nungua Childrens Home International with lots of items to improve the living condition of the children in the orphanage.

The items include bags of rice, bags of Gari, a bag of maize, a bag of sugar, 2 big gallons of oil, tin tomato pastes, Milo, Milk, packs of Biscuits, packs of Indomie, washing powder, soaps, diapers, toiletries, exercise books, note books and 30 bags of sachet water worth GH6,500.

The Deputy Managing Director of ASA Savings and Loans Limited, Mr. Shah Md Abdul Wahal, said the donation forms part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to support the less privileged in the community.

He noted that as a company whose work is driven by the passion and love for humanity has undertaken such efforts to ensure that life becomes more meaningful for the children in the orphanage.

Mr. Abdul Wahal added that similar donations have been made to Dzorwulu Special School, Teshie Orphanage in Accra and other regions last year.

The Deputy Managing Director indicated that aside the soft loans they offer, the company has allocated US$35,000 this year for free health screening on Hepatitis B, Sugar level, Malaria, Breast Cancer, Blood Pressure and free medicines for clients.

According to him, over 3,854 people in communities within the Ashanti, BrongAhafo, Tarkoradi and Greater Accra region have benefited from the free medical screening.

The Chief Executive Officer of New Life Nungua Childrens Home International, NiiAfoteyBotwe II expressed his gratitude to management of ASA Savings and Loans Limited for the kind gesture.

He appealed to the company and other corporate organisations to help them complete their new two storey building project which started in January 2016 after portion of the old facility got gutted by fire.
Former United States President, Barack Obama, will welcome global leaders, including Nigerias billionaire banker and chair of Heirs Holdings, Tony Elumelu, to Chicago as his foundation, Obama Foundation holds its first ever global summit.

This October, were bringing together hundreds of leaders from all around the world for a hands-on exchange of ideas in my hometown  the city of Chicago, the former US president said in a video clip posted on Twitter.

This leadership summit will be a place to gather and learn from one another and then go back to your communities to lead others in the hard work of change, he said.

Obama is known to advocate active citizenship and has been finding ways to implement his out-of-office blueprint for global progressive politics since he left office in January.

According to the conference organisers, Elumelu who is the only African to speak at the inaugural global summit was chosen as a model  a pioneer in the space  who brings an incredibly important perspective.

Elumelu who is the Founder of Tony Elumelu Foundation, which recently held the largest gathering of Africas entrepreneurs in Lagos, will speak on the panel Building Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Emerging Markets.

The two-day inaugural summit, taking place October 31 to November 1, according to the foundations website, will welcome hundreds of young leaders to exchange ideas, explore creative solutions to common problems and experience civic art, technology and music from around the world.

The Obama Foundation listed MatteoRenzi and Prince Harry among other speakers at the summit that will take place at the Marriott Marquis McCormick Place in the city of Chicago, United States.

The Summit will feature five main stage sessions with talks on topics ranging from motivating young people to choose a civic path to technologys role in creating equitable and inclusive communities.

The summit will also include breakout sessions on topics ranging from communicating across differences to art and cultures role in creating productive cities to understanding race in relation to ones civic identity. Breakout sessions will provide attendees with the opportunity to dive deeper into topics, engage directly in conversation, and learn new skills, Obama Foundation said.

Obama will be joined by his wife, Michelle, to hear and engage directly with leaders at the conference.

And what makes me so hopeful, so optimistic, is that so many of you have shown up, dived in and embraced the kind of active citizenship that makes our democracy work, Obama said in an earlier video.
03.11.2017 LISTEN

The Asanteman Council will impose a curfew in the Kumasi Metropolis on December 9, 2017 as the Ashanti Kingdom performs the final funeral rites of the late Asantehemaa, Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Ampem II.

As part of the arrangements, no one is to be seen on the streets of Kumasi; all shops and other business are not expected to operate on that day.

The Otumfuo Akyeamehene, Nana Nsuase Opoku Agyeman III, made the announcement at a press meeting at the Manhyia Palace on Thursday.

The Akyeamehene noted that the funeral rites which will commence from 1st December will end on the 11th of December this year.

"The funeral will last for eleven days, from 1st December to 11th December. There are a whole lot of activities within these days of which some are to be held privately, and that, everyone must take note of our orders," Nana Nsuase Opoku Agyeman III said.

During that period, no family will be allowed to conduct funerals in the Kumasi metropolis.

The Akyeamhene cautioned that anyone who defies their orders" will have himself or herself to blame".

He noted that there will also be a cleanup exercise in the Kumasi city, on the 2nd of December, as the day falls on a National Sanitation Day.

The event is to mark the final funeral rites of the late Asantehemaa. The "Doteyie" was held on 16th January 2017, to 19th January 2017.

Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Ampem II died in November last year at the age of 111.

She was the Asantehemaa for 39 years. She was enstooled in 1977 as the 13th queen mother of the Asante Kingdom after the late Nana Ama Serwaa Nyarko II who reigned from 1945 to 1977.
03.11.2017 LISTEN

Chief Teete Owusu-Nortey, a Fellow of Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, CCILT) and Chief Executive Officer of Logistics Movers has been re-appointed as the International Vice-President of the institute.

The Institute, which was established in 1919, aims at developing the science and art of transport and logistics a mandate that is achieved through talent development and professional education of its membership spanning over 33 countries throughout the world.

In a statement issued from the institute's headquarters in the United Kingdom, Chief Owusu-Nortey's appointment takes immediate effect, with an oversight responsibility for the African continent.

He is required to contribute to CILT's understanding of opportunities and challenges both in general and specific terms for the Africa region and put his expertise and support at the disposal of national councils, independent sections and branches in the region.

This is the second time he is assuming this position. He first served a mandatory 3 years term from 2007 to 2010. As a result of his transformational leadership, his tenure was extended to an additional two years, thus making it 5 years; the first of its kind in the annals of the institute's existence.

He handed over the International Vice President's office to his successor in 2012 during the institute's annual convention in Birmingham where Her Royal Highness Princess Ann the patron of the institute awarded him the Pegasus Award for exceptional hard work in serving the institute.

From 2012 to date he assumed a new role as the International Ambassador that was the first time such a position was created and meant for out-going officers whose contribution in the past would be needed from time to time in the running of the institute at different levels.

He is currently restructuring and reforming the institute's operations in Kenya and Uganda, where he is expected to encourage local councils and sections to promote and develop membership in the region and champion the cause of the countries in the region elected to the council.
03.11.2017 LISTEN

The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has called on Government to ratify the International Labour Organisation (ILO) convention on maternity protection as a sign of commitment towards its implementation.

This, it said, was crucial to the health and well-being of women as well as their children and to provide a measure of job security for the concerned women to make them more efficient and effective at the workplace.

The Convention which was adopted in the year 2000 states among other issues that maternity leave for working women should be 14 weeks instead of 12 weeks under the defunct Convention 103 as adopted in 1919 to enable them recuperate well after delivery.

It is premised on the assumption that women should not suffer unequal treatment at the workplace due to their reproductive functions.

Even though Ghana is a signatory to the Convention, it was yet to ratify it into its laws despite numerous labour agitations.

Madam Helena Awurusah, the GNAT National Co-ordinator for Gender, made the call during the maiden Biennial women empowerment summit of the Gomoa District GNAT-Ladies Society (GNAT-LAS) on Wednesday.

The summit provided the platform for lady teachers to deliberate on an array of pertinent issues affecting them.

Madam Awurusah, who was speaking on the topic: 'Rights, responsibilities and benefits in the female teacher's field of work' said the maternity protection encompass five major areas which included maternity leave but many were silent on them.

She said by the convention, women were entitled to cash benefits, job security, free healthcare for mother and child and non-discrimination at the workplace.

Madam Awurusah alleged many female teachers and other female workers were forfeiting their maternity leaves for fear of losing their position and this has led to various complications including the loss of lives.

She urged the ladies to strive to take leadership positions in the Association and also serve as role models for the young girls they teach.

Madam Phillipa Larsen, Acting National President of GNAT, said the campaign for the ratification of the Convention by Ghana was a just and legitimate social action because its provisions covered a wide range of issues which would enhance the performance of the female worker.

She said there is the need to make provision for child-care facilities such as special rooms for breastfeeding or crAche for the care of pre-school children at workplaces to support working mothers.

Madam Larson urged the female teachers to continue to upgrade themselves and sharpen their technological and methodological skills to enable them to take up leadership roles.

Ms Linda Abena Kwakyewaa, Gomoa District GNAT-LAS Coordinator, said women were more resourceful and better managers and urged Government and other educational stakeholders to create the enabling environment for them to excel.
The new Board of Directors of the Ghana News Agency has been tasked to support management of the Agency to find creative ways of bringing the relevance of the Agency to the fore.

Nana Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng, Chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC) who made the call at the inauguration of the eight-member Board on Thursday in Accra, said the relevance of the GNA was not in doubt, and the new board must therefore assist the Agency to be able to play its role in an even and more enhanced capacity.

The new Board, is chaired by Professor Olivia Adwoa Tiwaah Frimpong Kwapong, a lecturer at the Institute of Continuing Education, University of Ghana and has other members as; Dr Sarah Akrofi Quarcoo, a renowned broadcaster and a Journalism lecturer, Mr Charles Acheampong, a Communication Specialist with the National Communication Authority, and Mr Kofi Boakye, a Lawyer and Management Consultant.

The others are; Ms Ellen Avorgbedor, a veteran Broadcaster, Dr Kwame Nyamekye, a lecturer at the Methodist University College, Mr Albert Sam, a veteran Journalist, and the General Manager of the GNA.

Mr Gyan-Apenteng, who swore the Board into office, commended the Agency, and said he had his early journalism training at Agency, adding: 'when it comes to the gathering of news, we can't beat GNA. It has staff everywhere to gather hard core news from the districts'.

He expressed optimism that the current Board would continue from where the old one, chaired by Dr Wilberforce Dzisah, left off, to keep the GNA operational and relevant.

Mr Francis Rex Annan, Acting General Manager of GNA said the Agency since its establishment in 1957, had lived up to its expectation of disseminating credible news stories that had found an unchallenged place in any newspaper of standing.

'As an organ charged with the collection, processing and dissemination of information, the GNA has since its inception, on the eve of Ghana's independence, seen its role as consisting of helping in the process of mobilising the people for nation-building, economic and social development, national unity and integration and national image-building.

'The Agency therefore plays a big role in the national information set-up'.

He said, in its resolve to make an impact in the present media landscape, the Agency had put up a number of programmes including; the resolve to improve the quality of stories, develop other channels of disseminating news and to develop a comprehensive training programme.

'The GNA's training programme will be both theoretical and practical and will contribute to the debate about the media's role in society. In this regard, the programme will look at issues relating to conflict-sensitive media, based on the belief that the media in many societies can be a powerful force to reduce the causes of conflict and to enable emerging democratic societies to continue on the right path', Mr Annan noted.
03.11.2017 LISTEN

Refugees in Ghana have been urged to desist from interfering in local politics as this could create problems for them.

Mr Ambrose Dery, Minister of Interior, said Ghana upholds the rights and privileges of all citizens and foreigners as key to maintaining cordial relations with all nations.

The Minister gave the advice while addressing Ivorian Refugees at Egyeikrom Camp in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem (KEEA) Municipality of the Central Region on Wednesday.

The Camp was established in June 2011 due renewed armed conflicts in Cote d' Ivoire that displaced more than 3,000 people many of whom were women and children.

Ghana received over 2,500 of the Ivorian refugees but hosts 1,412 as at June 2017.

Mr Dery advised all foreign nationals especially refugees to obey the laws and regulations of the country to help maintain national peace, stability and tranquility at all times.

He said the country would continue to work towards improving Ghana's role in strong and vibrant regional markets by expanding intra-regional trade and economic cooperation.

In line with the Government's vision to resuscitate the economy, Mr Dery said, the Ministry would vigorously pursue an economic diplomacy agenda geared towards advancing the country's economic transformation agenda.

The Minister, however, allayed fears of the refugees at the camp of an alleged publication in an Ivorian media which suggested that Government was in the process of repatriating them.

Ms Ioli Kimyaci, Country Representative of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), lauded Ghana's warm reception at receiving referees and its dedication to ensure that their rights were not infringed upon.

She called for increased empowerment and capacity building for the refugees through job creation to facilitate their economic and social integration.

The UNHCR Country Representative also called on Government to extend it's policy of creating one factory on every district to the area to empower them.

Mr Michel Dayoro Jean, Chairman of the Refugees Camp, thanked the Government of Ghana, UNHCR, World Food Programme (WFP) among others for their commitment to maintaining the camp.
The Centre for Sustainable Rural Development (CESRUD), a Non- Governmental Organization (NGO), working at Sumbrungu in the Upper East Region has supported and empowered over 80 women groups in income generating activities.

CESRUD is a voluntary, humanitarian, community organization which aims at supporting local communities through training, economic empowerment and education to bring about sustainable development.

Mr Rex Asanga, the Founder and Executive Director of CESRUD, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga, said the NGO has over the years offered leadership and financial training and support to over 2000 women in the region and this has instilled in them business skills, confidence and awareness of women's rights and gender roles.

He said some of the women were engaged in basket weaving, pito brewing, groundnuts oil processing and other economic activities and were earning a decent living.

'We started with about ten groups at the time we were putting up the structure and the association was named Sumbrungu Business Women Association (SUBWA) but now the number has risen to about 80 groups with over 2000 members. The main objective was to promote women and income generating activities in the community. The women have been given leadership training and financial support in the form of revolving credit, goats' loan scheme and administrative expenses,' he said.

Mr Asanga said CENSRUD also collaborates effectively with Friends of Africa Village Library (FAVL) to institute community libraries to improve basic education in the communities.

'Through the partnership between CESRUD and FAVL, we have been able to construct three libraries in Sumbrungu, Sirigu and Gowrie Kunkua in the Bongo District and stocked them with current books and relevant materials for pupils to study for free. We also organize classes for the pupils during the holiday which has improved their performance especially at the BECE level', Mr Asanga said.

He said a Teachers Resource Centre had also been constructed to organize teacher refresher courses for trained teachers to keep them up to date with current issues.

Mr Asanga expressed concern over the lack of support from government after several appeals have been made to the Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly for assistance.

He urged government, particularity the Municipal Assembly to include community libraries in its annual budgets to expand and absorb the salaries of some of the staff so as to promote quality and sustained education in the region.
At least nine people will need to find a new place to live and about 20 others will need to find a winter home for their boats after receiving a letter Thursday requiring them to get their houseboats out of the water.

Now everybody is scrambling who has boats in the water, whether youre a live-aboard or you wanted to freeze your boat in, said Dennis Smalley, spokesman for the La Crosse Boat Harbor Neighborhood. I dont know if its shocking, but certainly it puts a lot of people in a financial hardship or time-constraint hardship.

The marina, at 1500 Joseph Houska Drive, has been at the center of a legal predicament after the city began evicting former operator Steve Mills last year, accusing him of defaulting on the terms of his lease. A judge ruled in May that the company cannot assume a new lease for the citys harbor, leaving the city without an agreement to operate the facility in 2018. There also are updates needed to bring the docks up to Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources standards.

The city allocated $1.8 million in October to replace the existing marina and has been moving forward with designs to remove the noncompliant Styrofoam floats and reconfigure the marina, as well as make it more handicapped accessible.

The city wants Rupel Lewandowski Holdings LLC to remove the docks and other assets by the end of November so work can begin as soon as possible, Mayor Tim Kabat said.

The most cost-effective way is for all the docks and the vessels to be out of the water so the new marina can be installed, Kabat said.

Its easier and cheaper to do the work on the ice in the winter, the mayor said.

When the spring comes and things thaw, its all in place, so they just connect it, he said.

Rupel Lewandowski Holdings, owned by Chris Rupel and Rick Lewandowski, finalized its purchase of the harbor assets Monday and has expressed interest in operating the marina.

According to the removal letter received by boaters, which was signed by Lewandowski, the company does not have a lease with the city and was informed by the city this week that it needed to have its newly purchased assets off of city property by Dec. 1. The letter apologizes for the inconvenience but serves notice that all boats need to be removed immediately and that the company has begun removing the docks.

Without removing the boats and subsequently the docks, Kabat said, the city cant guarantee the work will be done by May 1, the start of next years boating season. However, with the recent cold snap and windy, rainy weather, pulling the boats out isnt going to be easy.

Its not like your fishing boat, where youve got your trailer in your garage and back it into the water, load your boat and take it home, Smalley said. Thats not how it works.

Most houseboat owners dont have their own trailers, and its a time-consuming process for the few companies who do such removals. Smalley estimated four to five boats could be pulled in one day under perfect conditions, but wind and rain makes it difficult. Its also not cheap  costing $11 per foot  which can add up quickly, with some boats up to 50 feet long.

The whole timing of it, the short notice and trying to figure out what to do has put a lot of fear and anxiety into a lot of the boaters, Smalley said.

Once the boats are out of the water, finding a place to park them wont be easy.

Where is everybody going to go? Theyre going to have to go somewhere, Dick McKim said.

McKim has lived at the Isle la Plume marina since July 2008. He and his wife, Pam, sold their home and moved into their houseboat year-round after their children were out of the house.

Were trying to figure out what to do and whats going on, McKim said.

Living on the water isnt uncommon, even in places where the river freezes. While winterizing a houseboat means keeping it in place, there are plenty of heating options to keep the inside comfortable. Both the people who live there year-round and those who simply freeze their boats in the harbor pay for a slip lease from May through October and a second lease for November through April.

We were all kind of surprised, said TJ Ullery, who has lived at the marina for more than three years. I have no real succinct plan on what Im going to do.

Ullery, who lives with his three dogs and a pet snake, wasnt opposed to taking his boat out of the marina or the new docks, as long as theres a plan in place for him and his neighbors.

You can pull my boat out. I just need somewhere to go, Ullery said.

He hopes the city will consider a dock replacement that slows down its timeline and replaces them in parts.

It just seems like its all being done way too fast and kind of backward, Ullery said.

Part of the challenge from the citys perspective, Mayor Kabat said, has been its longtime removal from the day-to-day operations. Mills operated the marina for nearly 40 years, holding all of the leases and agreements.

We have no official information that there are people who live there year round, Kabat said.

The city has no agreements with anyone to reside in the harbor year-round, he added.

McKim was amazed to hear that from the mayor Friday.

This is my address. Its on my drivers license. Ive got a mailbox outside, and I get mail here, McKim said.

Its not like your fishing boat, where youve got your trailer in your garage and back it into the water, load your boat and take it home. Thats not how it works. Dennis Smalley, spokesman for the La Crosse Boat Harbor Neighborhood
A Chinese cultural troupe from the Henan Province of China has put up a splendid imaginative performance of Kungfu artisti and cultural dance to entertain a cross-section of the Ghanaian showbiz enthusiasts at the Ghana National Theatre in Accra.

The troupe also known as the WULIN HANYUN thrilled the excited audience with various kungfu styles, and demonstrated mastery of Chinese cultural diversity in art forms.

The performances included; weapons combat displays, bare hand and leg defense and attack demonstrations, amongst several others.

The Kungfu demonstrations were interspersed with Chinese cultural and musical performances, with a strong featuring of flute and violin play.

Madam Sun Baohung, Chinese Ambassador to Ghana, later explained that the display formed part of efforts to strengthen the China-Ghana friendship enjoyed over a long historical period and noted that Ghana was the second country in sub-Saharan Africa to establish diplomatic relations with China.

'Since the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government took office this January, the new government has firmly adhered to the friendly policy towards China, and is committed to building a stronger relationship,' she said.

Madam Sun said the aim of China's diplomacy was to build a community with a shared future for mankind.

'China will strengthen solidarity and cooperation with other developing countries, guided by the principle of upholding justice, while pursuing shared interests and the principle of sincerity, real results, affinity and good faith,' she said.

The Chinese Ambassador said there was the need for respect for the diversity of civilisations as estrangement had to be replaced with exchange, clashes with mutual learning, and superiority with coexistence in handling relations among civilizations.

'Chinese people are ready to work with the people of all other countries, to create a bright future for all of us,' said Madam Sun.

The show was supported by the Confucius Institute Headquarters/Hanban, and the Chinese Embassy in Ghana, as well as the Education Department, Henan Province of China, and the Confucius Institute of the University of Ghana.
Nyaho Medical Centre has opened a new branch within the Octagon building, Barnes Road, opposite the Accra City Hotel, Accra.

The new facility, which was inaugurated yesterday, would continue providing prompt quality clinical care in a serene atmosphere and a state of the art set up. It also offers faster diagnostics, as well as the introduction of a telemedicine support for remote specialist input and real-time access to patient records.

With this support, patients will have their information coordinated and intact, irrespective of location, as Doctors would have real-time access to all patient folders electronically available at any branch of Nyaho Medical Centre.

Patients can have access to over 50 top-level specialists, tried and tested referral pathways, as well as effective and safe clinical care.

The Managing Director of the Medical Centre, Dr. Elikem Christian Tamaklo noted that 'What we're looking at when it comes to healthcare is making sure the data is protected. We are registered with the National Communications Authority, in terms of making sure that everything is actually protected according to the Protection Act.

So, especially when it comes to telemedicine as well as images and video conferencing, all this would be on a secure network so that we can ensure patient data is protected at all times.'

He said with the growing demands of patients' quest for quality healthcare solutions at their convenience, it was imperative that as a patient-centred organization, they get closer to the doorstep of Ghanaians.

Dr. Tamaklo also hinted that the presence of an ambulance at the centre will ensure patients are transported when the need arises.

The Deputy Director of General of the Ghana Health Service Dr. Gloria Quansah Asare, commended the board and management of Nyaho Medical Centre for the efforts they put in delivering quality health care to Ghanaians.

Nyaho Medical Centre has been in existence for the past 47 years, boasts of excellent quality healthcare.
Mr Joseph Boahen Aidoo, Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod), says the government is investigating how an amount of $1.8 billion dollars secured for the 2016/17 cocoa purchases was utilised.

'As at January, 2017, the $1.8 billion had been fully drawn and utilised when only 587,125 metric tonnes of cocoa had been purchased,' he said, adding that the mystery surrounding the exhaustion of the funds would be made known to Ghanaians in due course.

Mr Aidoo, who was speaking at a press conference, said the government was saddled with a debt of GH 19.6 billion after taking over in January 2017.

Touching on the producer price of cocoa, Mr Aidoo said government had kept faith with the Ghanaian cocoa farmer to sustain their livelihoods by maintaining the producer price at GH7,600 for the 2017/18 season, which represents 83 per cent of the gross Free on Board.

Mr Aidoo said the price was maintained despite the drastic decline in cocoa prices on the international market.

The price of cocoa on the international market has witnessed a dramatic decline to a ten year low of $1,900 from $3,000 per tonne in recent months, forcing some countries to reduce the producer prices paid to farmers.

Mr Aidoo accused the previous management of undertaking actions, which were inimical to the development of the cocoa industry and causing huge losses to the Board.

He said for instance the Board lost $750,000 in 2015/16 season by trading in options while price discounts were given on cocoa sales for Cocobod's failure to honour contracts on due dates resulting in loses.

'The price discounts, which were executed at the blind side of appropriate approval channels, resulted in the loss of $12.4 million to COCOBOD,' Mr Aidoo said.

GNA
The National Entrepreneurship Innovation Plan (NEIP) has opened its first call of proposal from prospective applicants or businesses to enter application for its flagship programme dubbed 'Business Support Programme'.

The programme seeks to bring various actors to create enabling environment for start-ups and small business to thrive in Ghana.

All applicants are to complete a detailed online application form at www.neip.gov.gh from November 2 to December 3, 2017.

The application could be submitted online or printable form which could be scanned and submitted via [email protected]

Mr John Kumah, Chief Executive Officer of NEIP, who disclosed this at a media launch of the programme of NEIP Week celebrations scheduled from November 20 to November 24, 2017, said the forms are free of charge.

He said they are expecting 2000 applicants to apply but the number will be further be shortlisted to about 500 for the second phase of the programme and urged all eligible Ghanaians with extremely good business ideas to enter into the programme.

He said all those who will enter into the competition, either they are picked or not will have the chance to be trained.

NEIP is a policy initiative of the government of Ghana to provide an integrated national support for start-ups and small businesses, focusing on the provision of business development services, business incubators, and funding for youth-owned businesses.

It is set up within the context of Ghana's long-term strategic vision of consolidating it middle-income status, building an industry-driven economy capable of providing decent jobs that are suitable for development.

President Nana Addo Danquah Akuf-Addo launched NEIP in July this year with a seed capital of 10 million dollars, which is expected to be scaled up to 100 million dollars through the Private Sector Implementation Partner (PSIP).

Mr Kumah said the African SME organization (ASME), after a competitive tender process, emerged the favourite PSIP, which has been working with NEIP to build a strong support for the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Ghana.

He said NEIP exist not only to provide funding for businesses, but 'we are also the enablers for their entrepreneurship ecosystem in Ghana.

Mr Yaw Asamoah, Executive Director of ASME, said the Organisation came on board as PSIP for NEIP with a lot of experiences in the SME, entrepreneurship and innovation space after having three successive and successful summits over the past three years.

He said over the years, ASME have had over 5000 businesses both local and foreign talking part in their programmes and initiatives, over 1500 match making activities and more than six million media tractions, among others.

He said their approach to entrepreneurship and innovation is by building a solid business ecosystem, which is viable and could feed of itself.

Mr Asamoah said his Organisation intends rolling out several programmes and projects to made transacting business in Ghana easier by setting up co-working, incubation and accelerated spaces across the country.

He said the Organisation's target of raising a counterpart funding of 100 million dollars through grant, sponsorships, donations, debt, equity or any other instrument is achievable, and 'we hope that with a strong media backing we can exceed same, whiles creating new opportunities for Ghanaians'.
Government is to roll out a paperless tax exemption system from January next year to block the revenue leakages that recur with the current manual system.

This means that companies applying for tax exemptions will have to do so online.

Speaking at a training programme organised by the Ghana Community Network Services Limited (GCNet) on the Revised Electronic Exemption Process for Ministries, Department and Agencies, a Deputy Minister of Finance, Mr Kwaku Kwarteng, said the system would ensure that government keeps track of the exemption granted.

Mr Kwarteng said the new system would provide a faster means to ensure revenue leakages were reduced.

'We have done the paperless clearing of goods at the ports. We are still doing some manual work in respect of the granting of exemptions from the payment of duties and other taxes.

'The time has come to do the paperless approval regime for exemptions from taxes and import duties.

Mr Eben Engmann, TradeNet Manager GCNet, said the system would rely on the e- MDA portal through which investors or companies seeking tax exemption will apply with all supporting documents.

The application is scrutinised by the concerned ministry, department or agency (MDA) and then granted approval online and if rejected the exemption is sent back to applicant for resubmission of changes.

Mr Engmann said exemptions approved will be sent to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) which will undertake an assessment and if approved, a bill of entry (BoE) is created and then processed, with the trail kept from the beginning to the end.

However, when it is rejected by the GRA, it goes back to the MDA for processing and re-submission.

On the other hand, exemptions granted by Parliament will be billed into the system, and when the threshold allowed is exhausted, the system will automatically block any further exemption on the item, thereby saving the country taxes and duties it would have lost through the manual system.

Mr Engmann said the current system follows the same chain, it is manual and tends to be disorganised and lends itself to abuse, since it revolves around discretions.

Statistics from the GRA indicates a rise in imports associated with five per cent tax exemption from five per cent in 2014 to 14.20 per cent in the first half of 2015.

In the case of 20 per cent tax exemption, the figure had gone up from 20.44 per cent in 2014 to 22.43 per cent in the first half of 2015. By the end of 2015, the country has granted tax exemptions amounting to GH4.5 billion, according to GCNet statistics.

Mr Emmanuel Darko, the Deputy General Manager of the GCNet, said beyond enhancing government revenue, the new exemption system would create a platform for 'better record-keeping of the exemptions granted.

He said the new system would help curtail some of the irregularities in the old exemption process, which is open to abuse since all the approvals will be given on the e-MDA portal so that it could leave the trail.

Currently, more than 20 MDAs, including the Minerals Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drugs Authority, and the Ghana Free Zones Board are connected to the e-MDA portal which handles requests and approvals for permits and exemptions.
03.11.2017 LISTEN

Mr Ambrose Dery, Minister of Interior has condemned vigilante groups describing their them as people working against the fulfillment of President's manifesto promise to the people.

'You cannot claim to be true NPP people when your actions are against the President's manifesto promises'.

Mr Dery made the condemnation when he spoke to the media in Parliament after appearing before the House to respond to some questions from Members of Parliament (MPs).

Over the past weeks, aggrieved NPP supporters in the Karaga and Sissala West Districts of the Northern and Upper West regions engaged in lawless acts by locking up the offices of the Regional Coordinator of the Ghana School Feeding Programme and District Chief Executive respectively.

Mr Dery also noted that every true NPP member has a responsibility to ensure that the President delivered on his campaign promises, adding, t'his is a social contract between the President and Ghanaians.'

He said the promises made by the President were very important and as such there was the need for peace and security in the country.

He said the government would continue to enforce the rule of law regardless of the people that were involved.

Mr Dery also refuted claims by the Minority that government was only engaged in talking without taking action against the marauding hooligans.

He said the arrest of NPP party executives in Karaga and Gwolu West was not mere rhetorics, but action taken against such offenders.

'As I speak to you today, we have some of our members who have been convicted, there have been arrests at Karaga and Gwolu, in the case of Techiman the incident is a hoax' he added.

Mr Dery further explained that the remit of the government was to arrest, investigate and prosecute such perpetrators but the sentencing of the wrongdoers was the responsibility of the judiciary, adding the executive cannot interfere with the court's decision.

He said in the past issues like galamsey and land guards were put in the backburner so when the President decided to face those offences that had existed in the past it became necessary to get dedicated funding for those.

Mr Dery said in the case of the Fulani herdsmen, government had sent more Police men to Abetifi to beef up security in the area to protect life and property.

He said reports from the ground indicated that calm had returned to the area.

He said the Police in the area have been directed to provide security for teachers to return to those communities.
03.11.2017 LISTEN

Mr Robert Ahomka-Lindsey, a deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, said breaking the frontiers in intra-African trade is needed to propel the African continent into a higher economic growth and development.

He said Africa should be able to learn lessons from trade reforms in developed and emerging economies to guide the integration and liberalization process.

Mr Ahomka-Lindsay was speaking at the opening of the Kenya Trade Expo Ghana 2017 in Accra.

The three-day event, an initiative of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), Ministry of Trade and Industry- Ghana, Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Kenyan High Commission to West Africa, Ghana High Commission to East Africa, is on the theme:'Breaking New Frontiers in Intra-Africa Trade'.

The Expo would among others explore business opportunities for Ghana and Kenya with some focus on agriculture and agribusiness development, infrastructure investment, energy sector development, export strategy, role of banking and finance in enhancing trade, tourism development, land and real estate development and more.

He said the significance of economic integration as a means to promoting intra-Africa trade and accelerated growth and development in Africa should not be under-rated.

The Deputy Minister said African regional integration through a continental free trade area has become more critical hence the proposition and the conceptualisation of the action plan to implement a number of mega trade deals and agreements.

He said Ghana and Kenya could forge stronger strategic partnership and synergies that could boost intra-Africa trade and this could also deliver opportunities and jobs and prosperity to the people of the two countries.

Ms Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, said relatins between Ghana and Kenya dated back to our struggle for independence from British colonization, when the leadership of both countries forged close ties.

She said it was reassuring to note that, this relationship continues to grow and it is having a positive impact on our development including attracting investors from Kenya.

Ms Botchway said President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is commitment to the rapid structural transformation of Ghana's economy and that in August 2017 her outfit launched the Economic, Trade and Investment Bureau to coordinate the activities of the public and private sectors in support of the government's agenda.

She said a forum such as the Kenya Trade Expo Ghana 2017 is in line with the objectives of the Bureau and it is gratifying to note that the Bureau is part of this endeavour.

Mr Adan Mohammed, Cabinet Secretary, Kenya Ministry of Trade Industry and cooperatives Industry, said this collaboration was borne out of the signing of the Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) between Kenya and Ghana in Nairobi in 2014 to strengthen trade relations between two countries, through the B2B engagements of our entrepreneurs.

He said the Memorandum of Understanding between Kenya and Ghana that led to the subsequent signing of a Bilateral Trade Agreement identified areas of cooperation between our two countries highlighted the following sectors Agriculture, Horticulture, Manufacturing, Real Estate, Aviation, Information, Communication and Technology, among others.

'I would like to encourage the entrepreneurs to exploit opportunities per the purpose of wealth and employment creation and poverty reduction,' he said

Mr Yofi Grant, Chief Executive Officer of the GIPC, said there is a great potential in Africa and that intra-African trade and partnership is important for the economic growth and development of the continent.

He said the GIPC understands this and has set strategies to contribute towards engaging our African neighbours in the area of foreign direct investment.

'With twenty-five Kenyan projects registered by the GIPC in Ghana between 1994 and September 2017, most of which are in the manufacturing sector, there is much room to encourage a stronger partnership for mutual benefit.'

Mr Grant said the Centre was aware of the relationship between both countries, dating back to pre-colonial times, and expressed the beliefs that there was no better time than now to concretize this long standing friendship in terms of increased trade and investment.

He congratulated the organizers of the Expo and urged them to engage existing and potential investors during the Expo.

Madam Lee Nduati-lee, Co-Founder of the Kenya Trade Expo Ghana, called for the removal of the protocols that inhibit freedom of movement and trade within Africa in order to facilitate the development of intra-regional business.
Residents in most part of Kumasi metropolis are resorting to unhygienic sources of water following a water shortage blamed on unstable power supply to the citys water treatment sub-station at Barekese dam.

This, according to the Ashanti regional Director for Ghana Water Company Limited, Mr. Sampson Ampah, is due to a minor fault on one of their treatment plants as a result of unstable electricity power supply.

Some of the affected areas include Pankrono, Tech, Ashtown, Suame, Maakro, Tafo, Kronum and their environs.

In an interview on OTEC FMS political programme DWABREM, hosted by Agya Owusu Ansah, Mr. Ampah said immediately the problem started, we called the ECG officials to come and restore the problem of which they quickly adhered to, but because of the damage caused is severe, they are still working on it but I cannot say the exact time they will finish.

According to him, the problem started Wednesday, November 1, in the evening and they have called the services of Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to rectify the situation.

Some of the affected residents who called into the show expressed their anger and frustration, and narrated how they have resulted to unhygienic source of water, like streams, pond, among others, for house chores.

It has become very difficult doing the house chores, washing and cleaning. Even the water to bath is a problem and we dont know what the problem is because we cannot continue to endure this, one frustrated resident told the reporter.

Those who can pay for safe water have spent up to ten times more per liter for water service from private vendors.
03.11.2017 LISTEN

Coalition for Democratic Governance (CDG) has described the recent decision by government to purchase an app at a cost of $2.5 million to establish a digital address system for Ghana as fraudulent and a financial loss to the state.

The CDG recognises that this technological and financial fraud is just one of the outcomes of an New Patriotic Party (NPP) governance process, based on plagiarism and deliberate dishonesty obfuscating the implementation of otherwise laudable public policies and projects such as Planting for Food and Jobs, Free SHS, Nursing and Colleges of Education and others which were largely thoughtfully initiated by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government

Investigations conducted by CDG revealed that the Ghana Post GPS uses a Global Positioning System (GPS) based technology which is not a new technology contrary to what has been stated by the Vice President of The Republic of Ghana, Dr. MahamuduBawumia. It is important to note that GPS was invented in 1960s by Ivan A. Getting, Roger L. Easton and Bradford Parkinson to be used by the military; United State of America among the few countries that have their own GPS, Ghana on the other hand has none.

The Ghana Post GPS uses existing geographical coordinate (longitude and latitude) in Google Maps to generate a unique code that is already populated in the Ghana Post GPS App. This unique code is what the App refers to as POSTCODE. To verify this, one need to enter the longitude and latitude generated by the App into Google search bar or google map and the location will be given. By this revelation, CDG is of the view that, it is totally needless for government to spend such an amount to buy the Ghana Post GPS.

CDG is also raising issues of security of biodata of Ghanaians considering the fact that the Server for the Ghana Post GPS App is hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS) a cloud services platform where we don't have physical access to the server. It is worth noting that after a successful registration, one is asked to register his or her address by entering his ID Number and selecting the type of ID. That is passport, drivers license or voters ID. This comes with no validation with any of the ID types with any state institution whatsoever.

CDG want to know why Ghanaians should save their personal information into a server which is not hosted in Ghana and What happens if US government decide to force AWS to give up all sensitive data processed by Ghana Post GPS App to track users activities?

The coalition also wants to know who is paying for the monthly subscription as the server is hosted on AWS? Is it Vokacom as part of their $2.5m contract or Ghana Post and how much?

CDG is of the opinion that the App should not have cost more than $150,000 especially when the data stored is not an image but alphanumeric.

If Facebook app which has twenty (20) plus features and is integrated with Google maps can cost $500,000 to develop in 9months, how can just an App which is an integration of Google cost $2.5m?

All that Vokacom did was to build a front facing end application with a simple engine to tag unique codes to GPS coordinates

It will interest Ghanaians to note that after generating their address, one is given four options. That is Map, Route, Street and Share. Apart from share which does not work when given the Map View, the rest uses Google API integration.

A typical example:

Code: GA-221-3759;

Address: Guggisberg Ave, Accra, Ghana;

Map View: https://www.gps.ghanapost.com.gh/mobilemapview.html#GA2213759...

The map view does not work.

CDG is of the view that there is no value for money and the most important part is information provided by users are not secured as it falls into the hands of foreigners.

The coalition is by this statement calling on the NPP government to:

1. As a matter of urgency conduct an IT audit on the App to ensure security of biodata of Ghanaians.

2. Come clear on the procurement process leading to the purchasing of the said App

3. Come clear on the KPIs of the App.

4. Review the contract to ensure Ghanaians have value for money .

Lastly we are demanding an unqualified apology from the Vice president Dr. MahamuduBawumia, the head of Ghana Post and Ministry of Communication for misleading Ghanaians.

Dr. E. K. Hayford

Chief Convener, CDG.
November 2 marks the International Day to End Impunity for crimes against Journalists (IDEI); a day set aside by the United Nations General Assembly to raise awareness on impunity for crimes against journalists and to enforce action against violence towards journalists.

Impunity for crimes against journalists constitutes one of the main factors fueling the cycle of violence against the exercise of freedom of expression.

It wanes not only freedom of expression and access to information, but all other fundamental human rights and the principles of democracy.

The UN General Assemblys Resolutions adopted at its 68th session in 2013 also urges Member States to implement definite measures to counter the present culture of impunity for crimes against journalists.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists Global Impunity Index 2017 , after a decade since the index was launched seven countries out of worst twelve have been listed periodically with Somalia alone appearing thrice in a row for unsolved murders.

Nigeria is the only West African Country on the index with unsolved murders resulting from Boko Haram insurgency with its attendant attacks on journalists in their line of duty.

The index confirms that impunity thrives in conflict environments and autocratic regimes, where powerful actors often use violent intimidation to control media coverage, while weak-to-nonexistent law and order increases the likelihood of attacks.

Ghana, as a member state of the UN, is entreated to ensure the safety of its media persons in their line of duty. However, violence against journalists in the lead up to the 2016 Ghana elections and uncharacteristic attacks of journalists and media houses in recent times require the need to throw sunshine on this issue and measures drawn to safeguard the autonomous and fundamental rights of journalists in their line of work.

The recently adopted international 2030 framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adds impetus to the challenge of ensuring journalist safety and ending impunity. Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions is particularly relevant to the issue of safety of journalists, as it calls for the promotion of the rule of law and equal access to justice for all, as well as ensuring public access to information and protecting fundamental freedoms (target 16.10). In this regard, the online safety of media persons cannot be left out especially as censorship and internet shutdowns are on the rise.

In a recent study by the MFWA , 10 internet-related incidents were recorded in eight African countries in the second quarter of 2017 alone. Such incidents included nation-wide internet shutdown, cyber-attacks on individuals and abuse of rights on social media. These abuses were identified as major threats to freedom of expression online.

The Ivorian government reportedly attempted to introduce a repressive media law which could have stifled online expression. There were however no recorded incidents in Ghana, Togo, The Gambia and Niger as at June 2017.

According to UNESCO, attacks on media professionals in non-conflict areas are often perpetrated by organised crime groups, militia, security personnel, politicians and even local police, making local journalists among the most vulnerable.

These attacks include murder, abductions, harassment, intimidation, illegal arrest, and arbitrary detention.

The safety of journalists and ending impunity for crimes against them are major assets in ensuring fundamental freedoms and human rights, in particular freedom of expression and public access to information.

Penplusbytes on this day urges Government and agencies and departments in charge of the rights and freedom of the media to work towards developing and implementing all-inclusive internet-related policies that will secure the safety of persons online as well as deal with perpetrators who use the medium to commit crimes.

Penplusbytes also adds it voice to those calling for the passage of the Right to Information Bill into law as it is a step towards guaranteeing access to information.

We take this opportunity to admonish online users particularly journalists to abide by the ethics of the profession and seek redress whenever their fundamental rights are violated.
With work on Wisconsins biennial state budget finally done, two of La Crosse Countys elected representatives in Madison have introduced legislation to pave the way for a special tax the county has promised to use to pay for road work. The countys third representative, however, is not backing the bills.

State Sen. Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, and state Rep. Steve Doyle, D-Onalaska, both have introduced bills that would permit La Crosse County to become the first county in the state to have a half-percent premier resort area tax. State Rep. Jill Billings, D-La Crosse, is not supporting the legislation, however.

The tax, which would be collected on any taxable items or services sold at businesses designated by the state as tourism related, would raise an estimated $6.6 million per year, according to the state Revenue Department. The county intends to use money raised from the tax exclusively for improvement and maintenance of roads and bridges, spending $5 million per year to catch up on an $87 million backlog of road work. The remaining 25 percent of the tax proceeds would be split among the countys 18 municipalities.

State law allows premier resort area taxes to be used to pay for infrastructure other than roads and bridges, including parking ramps, park improvements or a civic center, for example. The county board, however, has formally gone on record with an official resolution committing itself to spend the money only on roads and bridges.

State law allows any municipality or county that has at least 40 percent of its equalized property value in tourism-related businesses to charge the tax. Those that fall short like La Crosse County, which has only 5 percent, must seek an exception from the Legislature.

Gov. Scott Walker has indicated that he would sign La Crosse Countys bill as long as it contains a provision requiring a binding referendum before the tax can be implemented, which it does. I think thats very significant, Doyle said. I think thats the governor saying he respects the idea of local control.

Billings said she understands and appreciates the jam the county is in over the road funding shortfall, but said she cant support the special sales tax approach, even though a nonbinding referendum last spring on the sales tax was approved by 55 percent of the countys voters and just under 56 percent of the voters in the city of La Crosse.

I have a problem with it because Ive heard from so many people about the adverse effects on brick-and-mortar businesses, especially downtown, Billings said. I have to say that I understand that the county is trying to be creative. But I think the state needs to come up with solutions to this, with a reliable revenue stream.  I would like to see a funding stream thats more directly related to users.

A user-related funding stream could be higher gas taxes or vehicle registration fees, for example, but the Republican-controlled Legislature opted not to go for boosting these revenue sources in the recently approved biennial budget. If the budget had included those tax hikes, Walker had promised a veto.

Doyle and Shilling, who is Senate minority leader, agree with Billings that a state solution to the countys road woes would be preferable. I would prefer to have a statewide fix to transportation so we would have enough revenue to renovate, rehabilitate and maintain our crumbling roads and bridges, Shilling said.

In the past week, Shilling and Doyle both noted, the bills they are sponsoring were given numbers (SB493 in the Senate, AB610 in the Assembly). They also were assigned to committees, and Doyle and Shilling must work with the chairs to get the bills scheduled for public hearings before the committees, a necessary step before they can move on to final votes in the Senate and Assembly.

In the Senate, Shillings bill goes to the Economic Development, Commerce and Local Government Committee. In the Assembly, the bill will go before the Ways and Means Committee, on which Doyle sits. As Doyle sees it, the assignment to his committee could be a positive sign for the legislation getting a hearing and a committee vote.

On the other hand, Billingss lack of support for the bill doesnt help. At least shes acknowledging the problem, Doyle said. This isnt an easy issue. The referendum got 55 percent in the county, which shows that it got support, but it also shows theres opposition.

And the opposition is organized. During the recent annual Oktoberfest in the Capitol event in Madison, members of the La Crosse Area Chamber of Commerce, La Crosse County Republican Party Chairman Bill Feehan and others actively lobbied lawmakers to oppose the countys bid to win approval for the premier resort area tax.

Feehan argues that half the tax revenue would be paid for by city of La Crosse residents, but little of the money would go to fix roads in the city.

Doyle, who serves on the La Crosse County Board as well as in the Assembly, noted that the county is responsible for some roads within cities and villages.

And as an acknowledgement that municipal roads are in need of attention, too, the county board approved designating 25 percent of the proceeds from the tourism tax will be split every year among the countys 18 municipalities.

Jane Klekamp, the countys associate administrator, has been meeting with municipal officials to discuss how the county would divide the municipalities share of the tax proceeds. So far, the preferred method is to base the split on the total municipal road mileage.

The municipalities estimated $1.6 million share of the tax revenue would amount to $2,116 per year for each of the 756 miles of city, village and town roads. By comparison, the county would get $17,730 annually for each of the countys 282 miles of road.

The city of La Crosse has the most municipal road miles at just over 192, and it would get $406,960 in additional annual funding based on the proposed split, which means a 21 percent overall funding increase for roads when combined with state general transportation aid.

The city of Onalaska has 89 miles and would get a boost of $188,365, a 28 percent increase. Holmen would get $85,488 (up 41 percent), West Salem would get $47,578 (up 36 percent) and Bangor would get $17,453 (up 34 percent). Campbells road funding would go up by 50 percent, with a $41,020 increase, while Shelby would see a 68 percent hike with $95,986 in additional revenue.

Rural towns would feel the most benefit from a split based on road mileage, with 10 towns getting a 96 percent bump in funding, nearly double their current levels. Four towns  Hamilton, Holland, Onalaska and Shelby  would get more money than Holmen as they have higher road mileage totals, and the town of Farmington would get nearly as much as Holmen.

Doyle hopes to get a committee hearing for his bill before the holidays, but a full Assembly vote probably wouldnt happen until next year. If the bill passes and wins Walkers signature to make it law, the county board would have to pass a resolution by a two-thirds margin to send it to a binding voter referendum.

One thing Doyle will emphasize in urging support for the bill is that the bill does not raise anybodys taxes. What it does is give the voters the ability to decide if they want to raise their own taxes, he said. Its what school districts do every time they have a referendum.
03.11.2017 LISTEN

If bush-telegraph-filla that some officials at the presidency are allegedly busy exploiting their positions to make money for themselves, has some factual basis, then the more responsible sections of the Ghanaian media must henceforth be on red alert. Ebeeii. So soon?

Haaba. The question is: Have such self-seeking and hard-of-hearing government appointees forgotten that their regime was elected to govern our nation precisely because the vast majority of Ghanaians who voted for the New Patriotic Party(NPP) in the December 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections, did so because they believed the party's campaign messages that implied that a regime led by President Akufo-Addo, would take all the necessary steps needed to halt high-level corruption in Ghana, once and for all? Amazing.

A few words of caution to those now in power for whom the cap fits, so to speak: It will be a huge error of judgement on the part of any of those appointed by President Akufo-Addo to help him fulfil the election campaign promises he made to the people of Ghana, which won power for the NPP, to think that they can enrich themselves at the expense of Ghanaians and their nation and get away with it.

They will not get away with it. Never. Ever. Full stop. So let no one in this regime think that pursuing a stealth-career as a secret member of the greedy-thieves-in-high-places-brigade will not end in tears and disgrace for him or her. The days of impunity are gone for good, for their information. As it happens, today, anyone who rips-off Mother Ghana will pay for it by going to jail. Eventually. No question.
NDC BOLE-BAMBOI CONSTITUENCY: OFFICIAL RESPONSE TO BOAHEN AIDOO

The Bole Bamboi Constituency woke up to the shocking headline on Citi Fm online portal:

"COCOBOD BUILT BOLE GUEST HOUSE FOR MAHAMA'S COMFORT", by which The Chief Executive Officer of Ghana cocobod Mr. Joseph Boahen Aidoo, tagged the construction of the guest house in the premises of the Bole branch of the cocoa research institute as "frivolous activities". We consider the statement highly unfortunate and regrettable.

Considering the continuous baseless attacks on President Mahama since 7th January, It's becoming clearer, the NPP has one agenda: to make President Mahama unattractive to the good people of Ghana after they've realized, the very people who voted them into power are beginning to get disappointed in their administration as day goes by.

If not, how can a mere renovation of an existing CRIG guest house be a Mahama's wrong deed.

If the NPP is already jittery about the President's current political waves, then they better fasten their belts because the instability in their party, after any official announcement for his 2020 contest, will be extremely unbearable. No dirt, mud thrown at him will stick.

To begin with, we are demanding an unqualified apology from the CEO for insinuating the renovation of the facility in Bole, as undeserving. An indirect pointer to the people of Bole as second class humans.

The CEO should have done his background checks before coming out with those insulting comments.

It must be made emphatically clear that the Bole cocoa research institute guest house existed as a property of COCOBOD before Mahama became a Member of Parliament for the Bole-Bamboi constituency.

The former President started lodging in the guest house after he was made a running mate to the late professor Mills of blessed memory. That decision was made in fulfilment to security protocol. Otherwise former President John Dramani Mahama has a more befitting home he can spend his holidays in anytime he visits home.

The renovation of the facility was necessary because it was defacing in value and not accommodating to some very important personalities and officials of cocobod, and other equal VIP state officials. Cocobod therefore took that decision to renovate the entire facility in the interest of the board and nation .

Bugri Naabu, the Northern regional Chairman of the NPP and the current Northern regional minister, always choose to reside in that guest house anytime they visit Bole. Please has Mr John Boahen Aidoo asked the reasons why government appointees chose that guest house over the numerous hotels in town?

The amount of revenue accrued by the guest house in a year to cocoa research institute is so significant that, the renovation shouldn't have been described as frivolous.

It must also be made known to Mr CEO that Mahama took no pesewa from the revenue generated by the guest house during his tenure as President and has not taken any cedi as a former President from the guest house.

If a CEO of COCOBOD can describe the building and renovation of a guest house as a "frivolous activity", then any wonder why most several construction works initiated by the then NDC government have been halted in the district since their assumption of power.? Many are asking whether the CEO would have described the renovated facility as frivolous if it was located in Kyebi.

I believe strongly that other appointees of this Nana Addo led government shares the same view with Mr John Boahen Aidoo and that is why the construction of our Training college, Nursing college, several road works are on halt across the breadth and length of the district.

We are on this note calling on the CEO to leave the former President alone and concentrate on bettering the lives suffering of cocoa farmers, who have virtually lost trust and hope in this government.

SIGNED

Abdulai Abdul-Jalilu (Deputy Communication officer)

NDC Bole-Bamboi Constituency
03.11.2017 LISTEN

Muslim clerics from different sects and organizations have expressed worry over some individuals playing tribal card against the Hajj Board Chairman, Sheikh I.C Quaye and discribed it as unislamic.

This came to light when this reporter went round the various Muslim communities to solicit views and opinion from some clerics and Muslim organizations on this years Hajj.

However, information reaching the ghananewsarena.com indicate that some masked members of the Ghana Hajj Board in an attempt to sabotage and unseat the current hajj Board chairman Sheikh I.C Quaye will soon issue a press Release and subsequently hold a press conference in Accra.

According to the source, some members of the Hajj Board with the assistance of some prominent Individuals behind the veil are sponsoring a group of people to come out with a press conference against the hajj chairman in favour of their prefered choice who is of the Northern Extraction.

This according to the source has compelled the group to create a WhatsApp platform initially dubbed "Justice for Hajj" which has now been changed to Forum for Transperancy & Accountability in Hajj (FoTAH) which will create an impression that the Muslim community is calling for justice and accountability for this years Hajj. which is never the case

The source revealed that the group intend to hide behind this Created Pressure group to create the impression that they are fighting and protecting the interest of the zango People but in disguise want to clear Sheikh IC Quaye to make way for their own.

It is clear that people within the Muslim communities have much interest in the activities of hajj operations, this compelled most of them to reveal this information to the Media.

A sources within the Muslim community and a cleric described the plan as unislamic and feels guilty to watch. One of the members of an Islamic organisation also confirmed that, the group which is made up of the current hajj Communications Director A. R Gomda and one of his Duputy communicators one Alhaji Abubakar Marzuk with over forty members whose aim is to ensure that the current hajj chairman is cleared from his position.

The source stated that the attempt to sabotage the chairman was as a results of measures he put in place to prevent some scrupulous members from penetrating the VISA acquisition system in the name of protocol. The reported VISA fraud issue which a name; Adul-Rahman Zark was all over recently.

Another source has also disclosed one Abass Abubakar alias Paa Willy who is known to be an errand boy to the hajj communications Director Alhaji A.R Gomda has also surfaced, with mention of the possibility of A .R Gomda's hands being soiled according to the source.

Another source futher revealed that, some selfish individuals are covering their wrong doings to push for the Northern Agenda of thier Pay masters thus by misleading the public under the cover of Forum for Transparency and Accountability for Hajj.

There has been evidence from some pilgrims clearly indicating that some of these same officers have a hand in a case reported at the Police Headquarters and Airport Police station.

Some Pilgrims who were defrauded by so-call party synthesizers of the ruling government during the Hajj operations were backed by some of those saboteurs who are planing for the Press Release and conference soon; The source disclosed.

All efforts were made to contact the Ghana Hajj Board communication team yield no results.
You dont give you opponents ammunition and turn around to blame them for shooting at you, says author Gordon Offin-Amaniampong

As tactless and embossing as it may seem Ghanas High Commissioner to South Africa George Ayisi Boateng has doubled down his undiplomatic commentsthat have spawned public outcry amid calls for his removal.

Mr. Ayisi Boateng is on record to have said that his priority is NPP members and not Ghana. He believes the governing party gained power through the hard work by its loyalists, strategists, foot soldiers and supporters. The comments have caught fire since.

So can the embattled Ambassador survive the heatwave ?

It all beganin a setting supposedly friendly. But what happened there didnt stay there it dripped beyond the four walls of the venue and its still dripping. The High Commissioner was addressing members of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and its student wing, the Tertiary Students Confederacy Network (TESCON) of Kumasi TechnicalUniversity.

And fired up by the students Mr. Ayisi Boateng said they are his priority in his dealings while at his duty post in South Africa. He said: Your hard work brought us into power and so I think the right thing to do is to pay you back.

The Ambassador urged other government appointees to do same.

Is it bad to take care of the hand that feeds the mouth?

Not at all, but wait, dont draw your conclusion yet. Obviously his comments were in bad taste and theywould probably require a culinary expert (a chef) to examine exactly what triggered the distasteful food and why it was made that way.

Believe me I didnt want to return from my hiatus clutching on a piece of bone like a starved German Sheperd dog. Id heard about the meowing cat and then the mooing cow and then the zooming car. I thought I had had enough but perhaps the biggest one was yet to docknot from afar but from my backyard. It was Mr.Ayisi Boatengs ballistic comments.

Indeed the commentserupted like volcano from underneath the Earth. And to say theyre in bad taste is an understatement. The irony however, is he sees nothing wrong about his comments and has even doubled down or tried to justify his actions. And let me state it in plain words here:

Mr. Ambassador your statement or commentssuck!

Theyre divisive and very acrimonious. Theyre distasteful and unhealthy. Theyre twisted and I think they portray narrow-mindedness. I beg to say, thats not what the Akufo-Addo government epitomises. You may attempt to dress it all up with all kind of jargons or put some cosmetics on them. But it is what it is. A pig is a pig even with a lipstick on.

Theres something wrong. Indeed you got it all wrong Mr. Ambassador. And I beseech you to tear down the defensive wall youre building and render unqualified apologies to Ghanaians, the government of Ghana and the party New Patriotic Party (NPP). That isnt what the party represents and thats not what Ghanaians voted for.

The people of Republic of Ghana voted for a government that views Ghanaians as one people regardless of party affiliations or political inclinations. Regardless of what they stand for and what they espouse. They voted for the NPP because it was found to be a useful alternative party. One that has a listening ear and is sensitive to the plights of its citizenry, Ghanaians voted for a party thats result-oriented and not a do-nothing one. Yes the people voted for a government that would include everyone without regard to ethnic background, religion, gender or class.

So how did we end up on this pathway?

Where a High Commissioner beat s up his chest like a gorilla and exclaims:

Indeed Im not boasting, but Ive started meeting the NPP groups. Every weekend I meet some group members and I tell you if I had my way, every job opportunity that will come will go to a TESCON member before any other person.

And I know my colleague appointees also have the same feeling except that because of IMF we cannot do anything now, he added.

This government is doing its best to create job opportunities and me for instance, I told my people over there [that], it is because of NPP that Im here, so the NPP man is my priority. I told them when NDC was in power it was Kwesi Ahwoi who was there, now we are in power, so Ayisi-Boateng is here with you. My topmost priority is the problems of an NPP person before any other Ghanaian take it or leave it, he said.

Despite the backlash his comments have received vis -avis nationwide condemnation, TESCON has lent their support to Mr. Ayisi Boateng.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, past TESCON presidents of three institutions said they are proud of the Ambassador. You have been our source of inspiration during our days in opposition and you continue to inspire us. Travelling from South Africa to attend our programs alone tells us to do more since there is hope for the future because we are always remembered by you.

"Onipa nua" affectionately called has proven beyond reasonable doubt that he has TESCON members at heart and we also pledge to be present any time you call on us, we are going to be present, they said.

Meanwhile, a political science lecturer at the University of Ghana, Professor Ransford Gyampo, has also weighed into the national debate. According to him Mr. Ayisi Boatengs attempt to justify his comments makes him feel sad.

The reason is that he sought to cite bad occurrences in previous regimes to support what he said. It is something we shouldnt condone or commend.
03.11.2017 LISTEN

Valerie! Valerie!! Valerie!!! And I called you thrice, too! I am disgusted just discussing you! We were raised to understand that running women down was bad, but I will make an exception because you accepted to be stretching your legs like many suspected you did during the erstwhile administration of shame in which you served as a dishonourable deputy Chief of Staff. I am not bemused at all about the collapse of our nation.

At the time you were leg-stretching under JDMs rule, we should have expected the disaster Ghana turned out to be? The economy was channeled to pay twerking bottoms and fattened behinds. Was yours a specific case scenario?

I am only rebutting your garrulous nonsense because the undiscerned inconsistencies smacked of uninteresting foolishness. They actually make mockery of your fathers flatulent strife to educate you. It is very normal of a human being to fumble. Have you forgotten your John Evans Atta-Mills?He had to be spoon fed the oath of presidency because he knew he was swearing a lie! And the many fumbling feats of your biological fatherwhen he would read a statement during the Rawlingsdays as he watched his back lest a lash came at him from the cane-wielding lesson-teaching Papa J?

That notwithstanding, let me tell you about the Wa water project that was started by His Excellency J.A Kufuor, dumped and neglected by the NDC, and resurrected and inaugurated by Akufo-Addo. You see, what you are in constant denial of is your compounded ignorance and chronic blindness. After five years of NDC incompetence, John Mahama was advised to continue the project for propaganda purposes. Of course, lackadaisically as usual, he started to move a few blocks about,opening the opportunity for millions of Ghana Cedisto leak into some pockets. That was an opportunity to steal, which had escaped him. Normally, he would start something, and leave it mid-way. This case was no different! He took up the continuation of the Wa water project, and left it shortly after all the money got stolen. Do your homework well, and you will know that the agitation of the people of Waover this was not unfounded at all.That was one of the many reasons your NDC lost five seats in the Upper West Region, fantastically! Do you remember the Bui Hydro-Electric Dam that President J.A Kuffuor started? It was abandoned for the same period, approximately, while AsieduNtetia started a whole cement works business to supply the project. When John Mahama prematurely ejaculated in his whimsical daydream,he inaugurated the Bui Dam as an achievement, taking credit for it. No sooner did he push the button to light up thanphweep, the electricity went dead! Shame!!

The manyrumours that I have heard about you sniffing cocaine might be true after all, because your recent media orgasms point to same.Again, you stretched your legs, hopefully it stopped right there, andrealised that there might be a missing piece in the digital address system rolled out by Dr Mahmoud Bawumia. So you ignorantly wagged your tail, thinking that you had struck a jackpot. Did you say you were sitting on your patio? How much of Ghanas money went into tiling and fixing it comfortably enough to enable you stretch on it and do your la reve dance? Oh John Mahama! Oh Oh John Mahama!! Oh OhOh John Mahama!!! What have ye reduced thy nation to?

Anyway, let me explain about the digital address system. You see, the announcement was that it cost a certain amount. Of course it would, after all, nothing is free. We pay real prices for real services, you know, unlike the purchase of hundreds of bicycles at GHs 15,000 (fifteen thousand Ghana Cedis) per bicycle by your wicked government of NDC thieves. So the amount paid for the digital address system was the sum of various components of which the $400,000 (four hundred thousand US Dollars) google fee was one. This project brings Ghana a lot of convenience unlike the Bus Branding Saga for which you paid one million Dollars to post pictures of former presidents some of whom were thieves anyway!

Then you seem to want to claim this system as a John Mahama baby. Look here, thieves like OkoeVanderpuye, who was alleged to have stolen 720 million US Dollars given to the NDC government in 2012 for the Accra Drainage project, which ultimately resulted in the worst disaster Ghana had ever seen at Circle, did the shoddiest job with the street naming exercise. That was a financial loss to the State in the millions of Cedis. 10th street, 11th street, 18th street, 22nd street, those were the kind of names given to streets in Accra! Are we in Ameluka (LordinaMahamas pronunciation of America)? It was a total disgrace and a neglect of the ancestors of the land who should have been honoured with that exercise. Nyame b3 tuamokabaakobaakobaako!

With new revelations about how Opuni allowed the NDC mafia to steal over $400 million dollars in a last minute frenzy after losing the 2016 elections, and many more recent discoveries of rot including illegalities like building an ultramodern guesthouse for John Mahama with State money, y3b3 toto wo tes3 akonf3m afayahaya!

By the way what is the name of the smuggling syndicate I hear you operate? The diversion of transit goods that never make it out of our borders? With regards to the army worm issue, we shall do you logoligiwate!

#WoahonoAmane
Why does Africa remain poor despite its resources? After independence African countries still depend on foreign companies to explore, excavate and manufacture finished products in 2017! It is true that these are big companies that need special technologies. Yet there are Africans in many fields spread all over the globe that can be enticed into regions where division of labor based on countrys technology is assigned. Europeans argue about trade, we fight on ethnicity.

Ghana should not at this point be depending of the Chinese to mine its gold, Nigeria should not be depending on the British to refine its oil and Congo should not be depending on Americans to refine its diamond. Instead of going it alone or trading everything individually abroad, each African country should be assigned a technology based on the amount of resources it produced, by African skilled experts to be enticed home or other formula deliberated by African Union.

China , Russia and United States have abundant natural resources, yet they buy up Africas because ours are cheap compared to their finished products they sell to us. Common sense tells us that we will always have a deficit if we buy more expensive products we are too lazy to make from the cheap raw material we sell. We have a great deal to learn from China because when they were starving and had to institute one child per family, Nigeria was feeding its neighbors.

The recent controversy about exportation of yams from Nigeria points to another mentality of exporting raw materials as yam, cassava and cocoyam while turning around to import starch. In Uganda , the majority of imported starch is used by the pharmaceutical industry (53.6%) followed by paperboard (32.5%), food processing (13.5%) and commercial laundries (0.4%). We have enough raw agricultural products for bread but prefer the taste of refined wheat abroad.

Yams, belonging to the genus Dioscorea, are staple root crops cultivated in many parts of Africa and South East Asia. Their high starch content, ranging from 70% to 80% of the dry weight, and cheap cost have made them potential source of industrial starch which could be explored commercially in the food and pharmaceutical industries  Adebayo & Itiola 1998 .

While Osu Sate revives old biofuel tech; Nigerians scoffed at Sokoto backing (MOU) signed by Oldang International Limited, Chinas Halkoff Logistics and Hornson Dev. Ltd, to produce non-fossil energy cars for Nigerias entry into the global shift to electric cars from January 2018.

If the government does not create enabling environment, there must be something we could do to make a difference. We all complain about lack of amenities, well equipped laboratories and machineries but we fail to improvise, copy and study and break foreign patent laws. If it is Okrika or Ijebu made, we reject it and ask for original. It simply means it has to be made in U.K or America before it can meet our standard. Some prefer Japanese used card to new cheapo.

We also sap all our energy fighting one another while others spend their time creating arms we can use to fight, thinking about how to make life easier for themselves and the future of their children. Nature blessed Africa with enough population that we can exploit and trade across the Continent but we prefer to trade with others because we appreciate their products more. This is true, even if their products are the same or inferior Chinese plastics turned into anything.

Until we start looking at exploration for manufacturing finished products, our raw materials will never be able to pay off others for their finished products, no matter how much of each natural resources we have. Since independence, all we have been fed with are finished products paid for by abundant and dwindling natural resources. At some point, we will run out while foreign countries load up on our natural resources in addition to theirs.

It is very embarrassing that we echo others in condemning ourselves that nothing good could come out of Africa except misery and asking for handouts as portrayed on foreign televisions. Most news about Africa is negative except when our children prosper in Diaspora. Actually some are relying or claiming that only those children could come back and save Africa.

False, only Africans in Africa can save Africa. Putting so much burden on Africans in Diaspora working against all odd while we fail to grab our future at home is unrealistic, procrastinating and share wishful thinking. While it is true that some of us have seized some opportunities in Diaspora that were not available at home, it is because we have given up on our potentials. Indeed, harsh difficult environment can stimulate inventions by one person for a whole world.

Hubert Ogunde was asked if he could have heightened his dramatic skills more had he gone overseas for training in one of the universities. He replied that it would have changed or killed his instinct. This Hamitic hypothesis that everything that looks great in Africa is brought here by Hamites or Caucasians must be stopped by our own will to contribute to humanity. There are better ways to control our bulging population. We do not have to fight ourselves to finish!

Nurse Justina Ejelonu and Dr Ameyo Adadevoh died treating Nigeria first Ebola patient. Nigeria displayed a rare scientific prowess during this outbreak. Though government doctors were on strike in Lagos; aides, senior and private doctors took the bull by the horn; followed quarantine protocol, contact tracing the old fashioned way. From plane passengers to Airport officers with Ebola contact. It showed the rest of the world, we could! Resilient primary healthcare saved us.

Credit must be given to these frontline workers of physicians, nurses and aides that physically restrained Mr. Taylor losing their lives in the process. Lately, this writer realized that there was another hero that confirmed the diagnosis of Ebola in Edes Redeem University laboratory in 48 hours. By the time all the world experts rushed to Nigeria, Professor Christian Happi told them to hold their horses because Nigerians knew what to do, and indeed, had confirmed Ebola!

When Professor Happi related this story at Harvards conference on Contagion: Exploring Next Modern Epidemics, the house burst into applause. Not only has Prof. Happi trained students from different countries on their method of molecular biochemistry in diagnosis, others rubbed on him claiming joint ventures in solving the next epidemic. Leadership in Arts and Science must come from some of these universities we have in Africa to gain world respect.
In the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, local politics is a deadly game, with at least 40 people killed in politically motivated shootings since last year.

A battle for control is raging ahead of a conference of the African National Congress to choose a new leader when President Jacob Zuma steps down as ANC chief in December

Violence has spread across the province on the country's east coast, but much of the killing can be traced back to hitmen hired from the notorious Glebelands complex of hostels in the provincial capital Durban.

The 71 lawless hostel blocks -- originally built to house migrant workers -- are home to about 20,000 people, often crowded into decrepit accommodation, sleeping more than 30 to an apartment and sharing a single toilet.

"Hitmen here are being used by the politicians," one Glebelands resident, a father of five dressed in a grey tracksuit and sitting under a bullet-scarred shelter, told AFP.

"It looks like we have no government. We have been forgotten," said the 48-year-old man, adding that giving his name would put his life in danger.

Around 20,000 people live in the crowded hostels. Sometimes there are more than 30 people to an apartment, sharing a single toilet

Vanessa Burger, a community rights activist who works with Glebelands victims' families, has kept a detailed log of each killing by hitmen living in or hired from the hostels.

Burger's log now stands at 93 dead since 2014, with many of the victims linked to politics through factional fighting, tit-for-tat revenge killings and criminal associates.

But there have been few arrests. The low number fuels allegations that murders are sanctioned by some parts of local ANC branches and ignored by the police.

"If you are using hitmen from a specific area to take out rivals... that must have political support, otherwise they would have been removed a long time ago," said Burger.

"It needs political will to change the situation and I don't see that happening in the near future."

After sitting for a year, a judicial inquiry into the killings was due to complete its hearings last month, but has asked for more time to gather evidence.

"We have to extend until March next year because it's only now that the commission is gaining momentum," said Solo Mdledle, secretary of the Moerane Commission.

Culture of violence

KwaZulu-Natal is the ANC's heartland. Whoever controls the province could determine the party's next leader from December.

In the run-up to the party conference, few weeks go by without an ANC provincial official or elected councillor being murdered in the struggle for power, jobs, money and lucrative government contracts.

African National Congress (ANC) ward candidate Khanyisile Ngobese-Sibisi, murdered in July 2016, was among dozens of victims of politically-motivated killings

The victims are gunned down in their cars, shot dead outside their homes or killed at public events, but the police and authorities seem helpless.

When former ANC Youth League secretary-general Sindiso Magaqa died in September after being shot 15 times in an ambush in July, his family laid the blame squarely with the party.

"We love [the ANC] but when they do thisas we are scared... Everything points to December," Magaqa's uncle said at his funeral.

The culture of violence in KwaZulu-Natal was graphically demonstrated recently by an internet video of two bodyguards of an ANC regional secretary bragging they were about to kill someone.

"That dog is going to die today," one said as they sat in a car and cocked their pistols and an assault rifle.

KwaZulu-Natal is not new to political unrest.

It endured the worst of the violence in the final days of apartheid as the ANC fought against another black party, the Inkatha Freedom Party.

Zuma, who was born in KwaZulu-Natal, will remain in office after giving up the party chief post in December, but the new ANC leader will have a strong chance of succeeding him as president in 2019 elections.

'Shockingly commonplace'

The province is seen as divided among supporters of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, Zuma's ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Zweli Mkhize, the party's treasurer.

Speaking in the small town of Harding, where four government officials have recently been murdered, Dlamini-Zuma told AFP that the killings must stop.

"We cannot continue with this kind of culture. Killing is a crime... so we cannot tolerate it," she said after addressing party supporters.

Graca Machel, widow of former ANC leader Nelson Mandela, has also voiced disgust at the bloodshed, saying political assassinations were "shockingly commonplace".

"Death threats is a completely normal mechanism for enforcing political control in that part of the country," said Richard Pithouse, a professor at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

The country's Police Minister Fikile Mbalula recently said he was "very much confident that we will make major breakthroughs in relation to the killings".

But many analysts and activists worry that the violence points to a volatile general election in 2019.

The ANC provincial leadership, which admits that corruption and the battle for local positions are fuelling the assassinations, have vowed to stamp out the killings.

"We must address these things swiftly before the violence escalates," said ANC's provincial chairman Sihle Zikalala.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Bole-Bamboi Constituency, has called on the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ghana COCOBOD, Mr. Joseph Boahen Aidoo to leave the former President John Mahama alone and concentrate on bettering the lives suffering of cocoa farmers, who have virtually lost trust and hope in the NPP's government.

Background

Mr. Boahen Aidoo was speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, November 1, 2017 to respond to allegations of mismanagement of the cocoa sector by the Minority in Parliament, where he leveled a number of allegations against the Mahama government.

The penchant to siphon funds through inflated contracts was rampant in the NDC-Opuni administration through ill-conceived construction contracts in the cocoa sector.

These contracts were awarded without proper value for money analysis, bringing into question the motive for the contract for instance, to construct a guest house at Bole in the Northern Region, which was needless at the time it was awarded. President John Mahama was said to have influenced the awarding to enable him enjoy a comfortable holiday during his visit to his constituency, he said.

In a statement issued on Friday, November 3, 2017 and by the Deputy Communication Officer for Bole-Bamboi Constituency of NDC, Abdulai Abdul Jalilu, said the statement made by Mr. Joseph Boahen Aidoo against the former President John Mahama on the controversial COCOBOD Bole guest house as highly unfortunate and regrettable.

According to him NPP has one agenda to make former President John Mahama unattractive to Ghanaians after they have realized, the very people who voted them into power are beginning to get disappointed in their administration as day goes by.

"If not, how can a mere renovation of an existing CRIG guest house be a Mahama's wrong deed", he added.

"If the NPP is ready jittery about the President's current political waves, then they better fasten their belts because the instability in their party, after any official announcement for his 2020 contest, will be extremely unbearable. No dirt, mud thrown at him will stick".

He is, therefore, demanding an unqualified apology from the CEO for insinuating the renovation of the facility in Bole, as undeserving. "An indirect pointer to the people of Bole as second class humans".

Below is the full statement;

NDC BOLE-- BAMBOI CONSTITUENCY, RESPONSE TO BOAHEN AIDOO.

The Bole Bamboi Constituency woke up to the shocking headline on Citi Fm online portal:

"COCOBOD BUILT BOLE GUEST HOUSE FOR MAHAMA'S COMFORT", by which The Chief Executive Officer of Ghana cocobod Mr. Joseph Boahen Aidoo, tagged the construction of the guest house in the premises of the Bole branch of the cocoa research institute as "frivolous activities". We consider the statement highly unfortunate and regrettable.

Considering the continuous baseless attacks on President Mahama since 7th January, It's becoming clearer, the NPP has one agenda: to make President Mahama unattractive to the good people of Ghana after they've realized, the very people who voted them into power are beginning to get disappointed in their administration as day goes by.

If not, how can a mere renovation of an existing CRIG guest house be a Mahama's wrong deed?

If the NPP is already jittery about the President's current political waves, then they better fasten their belts because the instability in their party, after an official announcement for his 2020 contest, will be extremely unbearable. No dirt, mud thrown at him will stick.

To begin with, we are demanding an unqualified apology from the CEO for insinuating the renovation of the facility in Bole, as undeserving. An indirect pointer to the people of Bole as second-class humans.

The CEO should have done his background checks before coming out with those insulting comments.

It must be made emphatically clear that the Bole cocoa research institute guest house existed as a property of COCOBOD before Mahama became a Member of Parliament for the Bole-Bamboi constituency.

The former President started lodging in the guest house after he was made a running mate to the late professor Mills of blessed memory. That decision was made in fulfilment of security protocol. Otherwise, former President John Dramani Mahama has a more befitting home he can spend his holidays in anytime he visits home.

The renovation of the facility was necessary because it was defacing in value and not accommodating to some very important personalities and officials of cocobod, and other equal VIP state officials. Cocobod, therefore, took that decision to renovate the entire facility in the interest of the board and nation.

Bugri Naabu, the Northern Regional Chairman of the NPP and the current Northern regional minister, always choose to reside in that guest house anytime they visit Bole. Please has Mr John Boahen Aidoo asked the reasons why government appointees chose that guest house over the numerous hotels in town?

The amount of revenue accrued by the guest house in a year to cocoa research institute is so significant that, the renovation shouldn't have been described as frivolous.

It must also be made known to Mr CEO that Mahama took no pesewa from the revenue generated by the guest house during his tenure as President and has not taken any cedi as a former President from the guest house.

If a CEO of COCOBOD can describe the building and renovation of a guest house as a "frivolous activity", then any wonder why most several construction works initiated by the then NDC government have been halted in the district since their assumption of power.? Many are asking whether the CEO would have described the renovated facility as frivolous if it was located in Kyebi.

I believe strongly that other appointees of this Nana Addo led government shares the same view with Mr John Boahen Aidoo and that is why the construction of our Training college, Nursing college, several roadworks are on halt across the breadth and length of the district.

We are on this note calling on the CEO to leave the former President alone and concentrate on bettering the lives suffering of cocoa farmers, who have virtually lost trust and hope in this government.

...Signed..

Abdulai Abdul-Jalilu (Deputy Communication officer)

NDC Bole-Bamboi Constituency

Source: Daniel Kaku
Claims that former President John Mahama influenced the construction of the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana Research Station Guest House in his hometown of Bole in the Northern Region with COCOBOD funds for his personal comfort, was shot down on Thursday by the former Presidents special aide.

Whilst the office of the former President has described the claims as false, the Manager in charge of operations at COCOBOD, appears to have somewhat given a rather different account of what his boss had said.

The response by the former Presidents office was that, the guest house it question was an old building put up in the 70s, and was therefore not built by John Mahama, as alleged by the COCOBOD CEO, Joseph Boahen Aidoo.

The COCOBO CEO made the claims at a news conference to respond to several allegations of mismanagement of the cocoa sector, put forward by the NDC minority in parliament.

However, the COCOBOD CEOs Office Manager, Fiifi Boafo, told Citi Eyewitness News that GHC 5 million was spent by the Mahama government not only to refurbish the old guest house at Bole, but also to construct additional facilities.

Fiifi Boafos response, appears to have corroborated the position of Mahamas aide, that the guest house referenced by the COCOBOD CEO, wasnt a new facility, and that it was only renovated.

In order to ascertain the veracity of the claims from both sides, Citi News' Upper West Regional Correspondent, Latif Mahama, visited the said facility on Thursday, to get the facts on the ground.

Citi FMs Latif Mahama

Giving a detailed description of the said guest house, Latif Mahama said  The guest house is a very beautiful edifice with two compounds. The first compound is a huge storey-building to my right, and the second compound is a beautiful apartment close to the storey-building. I must say that the entire guest house is painted white with green roofing, and it is surrounded by beautiful flowers with very good road network. If you are here, one will not be wrong to say that this facility is the most beautiful place in the entire Bole township.

According to Latif, the guest house is located around the Western part of Bole, the capital town of the Bole District.

Latif Mahama quoted the Manager of the Guest House , Julius Yeboah as saying that, the building existed years before Mr. John Dramani Mahama became President of Ghana.

Latif further indicated that, the Manager however pointed out that, in February last year [2016], a construction company by name Gazelle Enterprise Limited based in Cantonments in Accra, arrived at the Guest House and served notice that they will be undertaking some construction works at the said facility.

He added that they [Hotel Managers], had to evacuate their belongings and other facilities at the Guest House by March, to pave way for some kind of refurbishment to be done to the facility.

Just about 20 meters away from the old facility, according to Latif, is a huge storey-building which comprises a five bedroom house, and was constructed from March last year, with another apartment comprising four rooms.

New facility not in use

Latif reported that, the new facility that had been constructed was however not in use as completion is not yet done.

There was nothing like furniture or bed in this new facility that is yet to even be handed over to the Institute. I was told that four months ago, they gave him[Dr. Yeboah] keys to this huge building, but because they had not furnished the facility, the Institute is yet to use it so it is idling there with the security man sitting in front of it . Nobody has ever used that facility. It is a new facility so it will be wrong for anyone to suggest that former President slept in this new facility, Latif said.

He however confirmed that, the old facility was in use.

According to Latif, the manager of the Hotel confirmed to him, that the former President John Mahama, indeed visited and slept in that old but refurbished guest house occasionally when he is in Bole.

He however could not confirm the claim that the former President influenced the extension of the renovation of the old facility or the new extension.

I specifically asked Dr. Yeboah and he told me that he is unable to answer he was just here and the contractor from Cantonments came here and introduced himself to him and said that he was coming from COCOBOD to do the extension, but he said the contractor introduced himself as one coming from COCOBOD, Latif said.



By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @EfeAnsah
President of Mens Health Foundation Ghana

03.11.2017 LISTEN

Ghana-based media network and publishers of www.fnnewsonline.com, FN Network, has shortlisted Mens Health Foundation Ghana; the national peak body of prostate cancer and mens charity working with men affected by prostate cancer for the first edition of its newly launched FN Business Awards, 2017. FN Business Awards is an annual awards ceremony instituted to honour and celebrates growing Ghanaian businesses, start-ups, SMEs, and individuals making meaningful impacts on society.

Mens Health Foundation under the auspices of Dr. Raphael Nyarkotey Obu, a prostate cancer advocate and researcher has done extensive work in raising awareness, and the screening of prostate cancer in Ghana. The charity pushed for the declaration of Fathers Day as national prostate cancer day in Ghana. The charity has screened over 100, 000 men in Ghana and Nigeria for prostate health. The charity is currently the only mens charity in the country working to improve the health needs of men. The charity based in Dodowa has done several national policies on prostate cancer and ultimately bringing the disease to the doorsteps of political leadership. The charity was instrumental in helping Nigeria to launch the mens health version at Ikeja, Lagos.

The president of the Men's Health Foundation, Ghana was recently honored with the Nigeria Legend Award in Lagos and appointed the first National president of the Alternative Medical Association of Ghana (AMAG). He has in the past called for the creation of a Traditional and alternative medicine Ministry. He has published numerous papers and articles on prostate cancer and is a columnist for the Chronicle newspaper in Ghana, and a frequent speaker on the subject of prostate cancer on radio, TV, churches, tertiary institutions.

He recently won the Young Health Research Personality of the Year Award held at the British Council by the Health Legend Foundation Africa, 2017 nominee for forty under 40 Ghana. His school; Sheffield Hallam University, UK alumni recently wrote on his work on prostate cancer on their alumni Face book page. He studied the Masters program in Prostate cancer care organized by the school and Prostate cancer UK. He is a Member of the Prostate Cancer Transatlantic Consortium (CaPTC), a firm researching into prostate cancer in black men in West Africa.

Dr. Nyarkotey is currently a faculty member at Da Vinci College of Holistic Medicine. He is a cofounder of the RNG Medicine Research Lab; the first Research Lab for alternative medicine in Ghana. He is also the Medical Director of RNG Holistic Hospital and Prostate Research Lab at Tema Community 18.

He is currently, the only Holistic Medical Practitioner in Ghana who has specialized and conducted extensive research into Naturopathic and holistic Urology. The Mens Health Foundation Ghana is a member of the Global Prostate Cancer Alliance Network. The awards is slated for December 02 at Lou-Ralph Hotel, Dome Pillar 2
03.11.2017 LISTEN

In an effort to support the problematic drinking water prone communities,two newly completed boreholes projects were recently commissioned in the Bosomtwi district of the Ashanti Region

The projects were commissioned in Aduabeng and Asiping zongo in the district respectively at the weekend

The two projects which cost about Ghc30,000 was sponsored by Well Foundations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The two boreholes serves as the 62nd and 63rd Wells Foundation charity projects in various communities in the Ashanti Region.

Sheikh Abdul Mushin Baafi, the country representative said, these interventions will go a long way in addressing some of the challenges facing the host communities especially when school children have to treck miles to get water for domestic use.

He said the completed projects are part of the foundations interventions aiming to support drinking water in deprived communities and other sectors.

Sheikh Baafi express happiness about the generous hospitality of the host community and hoped for the best.

Yaa Twumasi, a resident of Aduabeng said, it was very good intervention especially when the dry season is approaching.

She was over-joyed about the borehole gesture and hope the community maintain them properly and use it for the intended purposes.
03.11.2017 LISTEN

The FN Network has announced the final shortlisted nominees for its maiden edition of the FN Business Awards after a thorough sorting.

Nomination for the awards was opened to the public on September 20, to October 20, 2017 where close to five hundred applications were received.

.In a press statement signed by the CEO of FN Network, Mr. Frederick Noamesi indicates that the awards scheme is to fish out and celebrate Ghanaian businesses which fall in line with the vision of the President of Ghana.

The awards ceremony which comes off at the Lou-Ralph Hotel, Pillar 2 in Accra will be held on Saturday, 2nd December 2017.

Public voting has also been opened on www.fnnewsonline.com/vote and will be closed on Thursday, 16th November, 2017.

The FN Business Awards is being sponsored by Senyo Global, Lou Ralph Hotel with media partnership from Awake Africa, Gentlemen Radio, BravoAfrica.org, Nanansem.com and supported by Swanzy Music Network (SMNGH) and The Radio Advertising People.

Below are the Shortlisted Nominees in their Award Categories;

Online Business of the year

Pizarea.com Supreme Africa Groupe KBLGH Sessi Consult KofiExpress.com

Photography/Video Business of the Year

100% Amezado Multimedia M. G Studio Productions Cedi Pictures KP Photography Wyse Multimedia

Food/Beverages Business of the Year

Dough Man Foods Nuels Foodzone A1 Bread Koko King Joenaa cakes & bakes

Online Broadcasting Business of the Year

Bjrlive FM Gentlemradio Lens Radio Supreme Africa Ghanatalks.com

Event Management Business of the Year

Supreme Africa Limited JAD Events Gold Modelling Agency

Fashion House of the Year

Jenny Beads And Training Center JAD Events Pafric Africa Heel the World Purple Trendz Ghana Kente Master

Agriculture Business of the Year

Maame Serwah Donkor Trotro Tractor Incubation TV Big Samps AgroMindset

Social Enterprise/ NGO of the Year

Mawulolo Youth Network Mens Health Foundation Pilolo Ghana My Friends Club GC Foundation Ghana GOIMSELF Golden Age Leaders (GALs World)

Celebrity Foundation of the Year
Our governments have committed to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 but without concerted action, the promises will barely remain a mirage. For instance, unless social influencers of tuberculosis (TB) get due attention from all different sectors that have a role to play, we cannot end TB.

Also with rapid urbanization, we need to address TB in the context of urban planning and development, that is rapidly and aggressively taking place globally. Although burden of TB varies across countries, but one trend is undeniably too common to miss: the alarming manner in which TB is concentrated in vulnerable populations not just in least developed and developing nations but also in the developed world.

Ethnic minorities, migrant groups, indigenous peoples, those with poor access to medical care, among others, are at at higher risk of TB everywhere globally. These populations often end up living in marginal urban neighborhoods with poor living conditions, overcrowding, economic inequality, social and gender inequities, unemployment and violence.

What adds fuel to the fire is the fragmented and fragile health systems, disjointed health and development programmes, and the failure to adapt TB care which is tailored to the unique needs of the most disadvantaged populations, such as ethnic minorities, women, children, migrant workers, injecting drug users, people living with HIV, elderly, among others.

Hopefully the forthcoming WHO Global Ministerial Conference: Ending TB in the SDG era: A multi-sectoral response, in Moscow, Russia (16-17 November 2017), will not miss this golden chance of engaging different health and non-health ministries and sectors, around urban TB, as well. A United Nations High Level Meeting on TB in 2018 could be another forum to bring world's attention on urban TB.

At the recently concluded 48th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Guadalajara, Mexico, a day-long workshop focussed on urban TB. It was organized by KNCV with support from Eli Lilly. The 'house full' sign outside the hall in which it was facilitated, indicated high level of interest among the delegates in urban TB. Hope lessons shared in this workshop ripple beyond and influence policy making and programming to address urban TB in countries globally.

Dr Netty Kamp, senior advisor in TB control for KNCV, shared with CNS (Citizen News Service) that "Ending TB is not only dependent upon medical care alone but also has everything to do with social determinants. The way forward to control TB is to take into account these social determinants and other sectors that can influence these social determinants. This is about urban TB and is more prominent because rapid urbanization is happening worldwide. In future we will live more in cities than in rural settings. TB will be more difficult to eradicate if we do not take into account the urban circumstances and context. That is the reason why we had put together this workshop to highlight the different components of urban TB control."

Urban TB, and not slum TB

Using a framework which was developed in the Americas with help from the Pan American Health Organization/ World Health Organization (PAHO/ WHO), the workshop highlighted several issues around addressing urban TB: identifying target groups in urban settings in local contexts, intersectoral work, health systems, private sector, social protection schemes, insurance schemes, among others. "When we say social protection we do not only mean incentives for TB but social protection beyond the health sector so that people are not as vulnerable when they get sick with TB as they are now. Also it can highly contribute to the reduction of patients' catastrophic costs. Intersectoral work has been proven to work already" shared Netty Kamp.

Mexico, where this world lung health conference was held, provides an example of making efforts to address TB in urban settings. This framework is being applied after being adapted to Mexican and local contexts in 30 cities. Epidemiological mapping has been done, different target groups were identified, a plan was developed to engage specific sectors and specific groups within those sectors. For example, prioritising working with factories where people are all together without much ventilation and without free time to go out for seeking healthcare. "There are different contexts and each cities can be different in each country. There are slums scattered all over the urban area and affects TB transmission between the slums and the rest of the population. So we cannot say that we are not affected. That is why we call it urban TB and not slum TB" reflected Dr Netty Kamp.

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTORS NEED TO UNITE TO END URBAN TB

In south India, Chennai case study was shared with participants on how they involved the private sector while having an interface with the national TB programme in the country (formally called the Revised National TB Control Programme - RNTCP). Chennai model is based upon private-private collaboration. They are working with an interface with RNTCP but there is a need to network with a range of different type of private providers. Pharmacy is the most used first point of care which can refer the patient to the private sector which is engaged in TB control. This model shows it works in those settings. Private sector engagement was paid attention since the very beginning of the project and their concerns addressed. For instance, giving them access to proper diagnostic tools, technical updates and feedback and being able to keep their patients with interface NGOs treatment support enhanced their collaboration. The project resulted in rapid increase in number of doctors, specialists and family doctors, engaged as a result of which the private sector notification of TB cases shot up. Using the right diagnostics and treatment yielded better treatment success rates.

Examples of addressing urban TB in African settings were also part of the workshop. Experiences from Nigeria focussed on improving quality of care in private sector. The argument that goes against private sector usually is 'the government national TB programme cannot work with private sector because they do not know their job'. But in several countries it is the private sector where TB patients first go to for seeking care. So not engaging private sector can be counter-productive in efforts to end TB! "This Lagos model in Nigeria showed we can do quality improvement in TB care but again there is a cost associated to it, as we have to get supervisors trained etc. This is replicable once it finishes in one and half years from now. Chennai model also will be available for replication by end of this year" said Dr Kamp.

"This was the first time when we could share a Latin American experience with the Urban TB framework of PAHO/ WHO with the rest of the world" remarked Dr Netty Kamp.

IF THERE IS A WAY TO DO IT BETTER, FIND IT!

These Edison's verses come to mind when we see the mountainous challenge urban TB presents in current context of urbanization, and the positive results of adapting and implementing this framework. But there is no doubt, best can be made better! Agrees Dr Netty Kamp: "We have to strengthen the framework as there are some weaknesses. Also with the experience of other countries like Nepal, Nigeria, Mexico, India, among others, there are lessons to be learnt to make this framework even more effective in addressing urban TB. Urban TB must be much higher on the agenda at all levels because that is where TB cases might be aggregating! It does not mean that we should stop working for rest of the country but we can focus on urban TB and factors that contribute to TB but are beyond the health sector."

SYNCHRONIZE HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES

The way forward for sustainable development is through a united and well-coordinated approach. Different health and non-health programmes need to find synergies and optimize resources to have the maximal impact. Hope that governments meeting next month in Moscow for WHO Global Ministerial Conference and UN High Level Meeting on TB next year, will find newer ways to synchronize different health and development programmes to not only end TB but also to enhance development outcomes.

Bobby Ramakant, CNS (Citizen News Service)

(Bobby Ramakant is the Policy Director at CNS (Citizen News Service) and a WHO Director General's WNTD Awardee (2008). Follow him on twitter: @bobbyramakant or visit www.citizen-news.org)
Officials of NCA (left) in a pose with some Kayayeis after the presentation

03.11.2017 LISTEN

The National Communication Authority (NCA) has donated desktop computers to the Kejetia Kayayei Resettlement Center in Kumasi. The facility is part of the Pamela Bridgewater project of providing future and welfare to needy girls through education, training, advocacy, and protection.

At a ceremony in Accra to present the computers, the Director General of the NCA, Mr Joe Anokye, said the promotion of computer literacy programs among Ghanaians, especially girls, should be esteemed. An artwork was also presented by a group of Kayayei to the NCA in appreciation.

"My outfit is keen on promoting computer literacy due to its socioeconomic importance to Ghana as a whole, particularly among the youth". Mr Anokye added.

The project director of the Pamela Bridgewater Project, Mr Yahaya Alhassan, said the center would give proper health care to the needy girls and the anti-human trafficking unit of the center would be named after the US Ambassador to Ghana, Robert Jackson, in honour of his continuous fight against child trafficking in Ghana.

He revealed that the Kejetia market and lorry terminal in Kumasi has become a transit route for Kayayei traffickers and indicated that a special anti-human trafficking taskforce needs to be constituted to halt the activities of these traffickers.

He revealed that the center will collect data on the disadvantaged girls and a public address system mounted on the roof of the facility would be used for education and sharing of information to the Kayayeis.

The center also houses a unit to receive complaints on all forms of abuse meted against Kayayeis. The girls will also receive counselling against teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
President Edgar Lungu has warned Zambia's judges against blocking him from running in 2021 elections, saying a judicial intervention like that in Kenya could plunge the country into chaos.

Lungu is expected to contest the 2021 race but may face a legal challenge from opposition parties which claim it would be unconstitutional as he has already served two terms -- the maximum permitted by law.

"Don't become a copycat and think that you are a hero if you plunge this country into chaos," Lungu told supporters at an event in Solwezi, north west Zambia, that was broadcast on state radio late Thursday.

"I want to close by saying that those people who don't like peace and freedom will say 'President Lungu is intimidating the courts of law' -- I am not intimidating the judiciary.

"I am just warning you because I have information that some of you want to be adventurous, your adventure should not plunge us into chaos please."

The warning comes after Kenya was rocked by two months of political drama and acrimony, triggered by the Supreme Court's decision to overturn an election in August over widespread irregularities.

If Lungu formally registered his candidacy to contest 2021's polls then opposition parties could seek to have the bid ruled illegal by the constitutional court.

The country's constitution says that a president can serve only two terms of five years.

Lungu, who became president in January 2015 after the death of Michael Sata, was controversially reelected in 2016 but it remains unclear whether that would count as two terms under the law.

"I want to make it very clear. People are saying Zambian courts should emulate Kenyan courts," said Lungu. "People are saying Zambian courts should be brave and make decisions which are in the interest of the people -- but look at what's happening in Kenya now.

"Whether I am eligible to stand or not in 2021 should not be dependent on the case in Kenya."
And the following were some of the reactions to them. 'Political vigilantism: NPP reaping what they sowedMahama. 'Former President John Mahama has observed that the increasing spate of political vigilantism and hooliganism in the country, involving foot soldiers of the governing party, is as a result of what the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has nurtured its supporters to become.' That was the intro of the Daily Graphic report in as far as the recent vigilantism of some alleged NPP youth in some Districts in the country, particularly in the Northern part of this country where public facilities were attacked. Ignore the fact that such happened in worse cases under his leadership of the country.

'Rise up and condemn acts of lawlessnessRev. Korankye Ankrah. This was another headline in the same paper of October 31, 2017. He is reported, 'The General Overseer of the Royal House Chapel, Rev. Sam Korankye Ankrah has asked the various church councils in the country to rise up and condemn acts of lawlessness being exhibited by some youth within the New Patriotic Party (NPP). Again ignore the known fact that under the NDC, he never condemned any of the egregious human rights abuses inflicted on both government officials and non-government officials in the name of political vigilantism.

On and on, there have been calls from other well meaning citizens for government to bring an end to these acts of hooliganism. And whether those making those appeals or criticisms are for the party or against it, the issue is, are they right in their positions on the activities of some of our party people?

On the other hand, there have been reminders of some reports of the acts of the NDC in power as far as vigilantism is concerned. Read on 'I am not a Policeman', says President Atta Mills. This was in relation to public outcry on acts of vandalism by NDC foot soldiers during his reign and the pressure from the public on him to act to bring a halt to those abhorrent acts.

'Police Arrest 25 Rampaging NDC Youth Over Nkwanta North Violence (August 2013).

'Angry Banda Youth ransack DCE's Office (August 2014), 'NDC Youth On Rampage In Yendi', 'NDC Youth lock down Jirapa DCE's Office', 'Irate NDC Youth chase out Sisala DCE, impound his car.'

These and many more of such reported cases of similar occurrences during the NDC era have come out from the NPP in our usual equalization of what is palpably wrong in the eyes of right thinking people and pungent to good conscience. Sometimes, the gown of hypocrisy which has draped all of us, paves the way for people from the other political divide who themselves may not agree with the political menace confronting this country to rise up against some otherwise noble citizens in our society because of their dead silence in time past when their preferred political party was in power. They either suffered temporary blindness or were too busy or comfortable to feel threatened by the hooliganism of party people from their stable.

Be that as it may, this country is gradually turning into a jungle because of the political 'colourization' we attach to almost every bad thing done by political party followers instead of looking at the law. No matter how bad some political actors operated in the past, no serious member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) must be seen to be engaging in acts the majority of the populace would frown upon.

The founding fathers of this party and its key followers suffered a lot of physical and emotional violence particularly during the transition from the PNDC authoritarianism to the coming into force of the 1992 4th Republican Constitution. Indeed even when the Constitution became the biggest bulwark against arbitrariness and open discrimination and harassment, many NPP people suffered various degrees of injuries ranging from loss of jobs, open destruction of their businesses, detention without trial, name them.

The leaders of the party, in all these provocations preached calm, patience and tolerance. We were made to hold ourselves towards the party's goals, going forward. We swallowed our pride and managed the situation until the NPP eventually got power in 2000. Between 2001 and 2009, no such internal hooliganism by party people occurred as far as the party is concerned. It does not mean that everybody who had worked for the party since 1992 had a meaningful work to do under the Kufuor administration.

This scenario of party people resorting to violence and intimidation to attract attention and recognition is very sickening and very bad for the respect the world has for the great NPP. The actions of the party members is dwarfing the efforts of the government at filling the deep financial hole created by the NDC by its create, loot and share policy which impoverished this country. The modest achievement of the government within its first year of office has been crowded by the reckless and irresponsible actions of a handful of our compatriots.

There are still thousands of very qualified members of the party who used their time, energies and brains to help the party win the last elections. They have had nothing, they are quiet and minding their own business and finding a decent means of survival. After all, they have survived under the eight year rule of the NDC, and by extension, can survive under NPP, with or without official appointments.

It is very disheartening to see party people breaking the laws of this country and engaging in criminal acts just because they have no jobs. While I admit that the greatest challenge confronting this country is the massive unemployment confronting the youth in particular, resorting to criminal acts to draw attention is unacceptable and an insult to those who find themselves in the same situation but are exercising restraints and hoping into the future.

Those senseless actors in the political arena of vigilantism and hooliganism, coming from both political parties, should know that the decision by the electorate to vote for a particular political party includes how party people organize themselves publicly. One of the reasons the NDC lost the last elections massively was their disrespect towards the public and the open exhibition of hooliganism and lawlessness towards our society.

What has happened to our party and government over the last 10 months in the name of party foot soldiers and vigilantes is unacceptable to the ethics and tenets of the NPP and I am happy to state that the President of the Republic is very livid about these crude acts by crude minds. It is silly and foolish in all senses.

I am very happy to hear the Minister of Interior, being very angry with the Police for not acting in times when crimes have obviously been committed by citizens of this country, be they NDC people or NPP people. As a Service, it is part of the problem of political indiscipline in our society today. Officers in any place where acts of criminalities are committed in the name of political vigilantism must be held responsible if they do not act. Enough of these nonsense in the name of politics. We need to build a sane society with sane minds.

UNDIPLOMATIC DIPLOMACY

I have personally never met Mr. Ayisi Boateng. I remember in the year 2000 when I was the Editor of the Daily Guide, he used to write articles for publication in the paper. I loved his thoughts and published them. I know him as a dye in the wool believer of the NPP and its philosophy, but I do not think he hates our beloved country called Ghana and the people who live in it.

We have lived in this country in the most political difficult times not because we loved the regimes, but we loved Ghana and the people in it the more. We should not allow political differences and the misbehavior of a few people from other camps of the political divide force us to exhibit hatred towards other Ghanaians. We are same people and will remain so.

Mr. Ayisi Boateng did not exhibit diplomacy in his utterances and defence of his speech. All he has done is to put pressure on President Akufo Addo. Sad is the word.

From Kwesi Biney
From faraway Benue State of the Federal Republic of Nigeria comes a template we might wish to consider and modify for addressing our near-intractable Fulani challenge.

Conflict over land for grazing is not restricted to Ghana but other places where the antiquated free-range mode of cattle rearing persists.

With the occupation of cattle-breeding now commercialized, no longer confined to people of northern extraction and Fulani but engaged in by various brackets of persons- from politicians to retired military and police officers and even serving ones- the need for modernizing it cannot be overlooked. No longer can we allow the free range mode and its attendant drawbacks of destruction of food and cash crops by the grazing cattle be allowed as it used to be.

Emanating from the foregone reality is the fact that cattle as they are herded would veer into farms and the destructions which follow would generate conflicts. With the herdsmen now armed and the farm owners uncompromising, the result is what is making the headlines of late regarding the Fulani and indigenes of towns on the grassland areas.

Unless the challenge is addressed and soonest the avoidable bloodshed would unfortunately be played out incessantly given, especially, the obstinacy of the Fulani. They would do everything to protect the cattle which represent their wealth and lives.

Those who still look at cattle breeding with the lens of years gone by even as we are in modern times with peculiar realities, should rethink.

In Nigeria, fatalities continue to be recorded especially on the grass-rich Benue/Plateau zone because the Fulani and their cows destroy farms resulting in clashes. In Ghana, governments have over the years sought to address the challenge to no avail. We recall 'Operation Cow Leg' a military operation which was effective only when it lasted.

Eureka! A state in the middle belt of Nigeria which has experienced bloody incidents with the nomads has unfurled a new template breach of which attracts a jail term.

Free-range cattle rearing have been banned forthwith and persons who breach the law are liable upon conviction to a jail term not below five years.

We as a people should begin to follow this footstep so we can bring a closure to this seasonal bloodshed with the Fulani. If we don't, it would not be long before we have Ghanaians responding to the threats of the nomads by taking the law into their own hands. We do not have to wait for matters to degenerate into this state before we adopt an effective response as the government of Benue State of Nigeria has done.

With our flagship 'One District One Dam' agenda cattle ranching, replicating the Benue State response would afford employment to the youth and indeed encourage others to invest in it across the country.

In our grassland areas government may wish to consider another layer to its flagship programmes- 'One District Multiple Ranches'.

A legislation outlawing free-ranging must be considered as a matter of urgency as have Benue State.
03.11.2017 LISTEN

In 1982 when the late Ikemba Nnewi, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu returned to Nigeria from exile, many of his contemporaries had expected him to join the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) widely seen as Igbo party because it was led by the late Owele of Onitsha, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, but to their greatest suprise, the late Ikemba joined the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) which was Nigeria's ruling party in the second republic.

Reporters who were curious went to Ikemba and asked him why he did not join the NPP seen as Igbo party, Ojukwu told them that he joined the NPN because he wanted to bring the Igbo race back to national politics so that they would be part of the mainstream politics where decisions that affects the entire nation are taken.

After the 1983 governorship race in the old Anambra State, the governorship candidate of NPN, Chief Chukwuma Onoh won the election thereby denying the candidate of the NPP, Chief Jim Nwobodo who was loyal to Dr. Azikiwe re-election.

Ever since then, the Igbo race have always identified with national politics until the 2015 general elections.

Because of the bitter experience he had when he was an opposition governor of the old Anambra State in 1979 especially how beneficial projects that would have boosted the socio-economic and political wellbeing of the southeast region were taken away from him simply because he was an opposition governor, Chief Jim Nwobodo wanting to prevent the repeat of what transpired during the second republic hurriedly moved large chunk of southeast leaders to the ruling All Progressive Congress, (APC).

Before I delve in to the current political gymnastics in Anambra State and the entire southeast region, I want to state that Ndi-Igbo have never played opposition politics before. Apart from the fact that their political disposition is one that makes things happen which was responsible for why they have been in national politics right from 1960, the Igbos does not have the ingredients needed to play opposition politics in Nigeria.

They are not in control of the media which is very indispensable for vibrant opposition. They are rich but does not have the type of slush fund required for vibrant opposition politics. The monthly federal allocation of the entire states in the southeast region is not up to what Lagos State earns monthly as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).

When the APC was in opposition, it took Lagos State and some high net worth individuals to keep the party afloat and vibrant until it was able to win the 2015 Presidential race. But, no southeast state can do that for PDP or APGA because some of them are still having issues with the payment of workers salary. So, the only way for Igbos to regain their lost identity in national politics is by embracing the ruling All Progressives Congress so as to be part of the mainstream decision making process in the country.

Hence, with about two weeks to the November 18 governorship race in Anambra State, Nigerians and friends of Ndi-Igbo are watching with keen interest to see which direction the region would go because Anambra State is the mirror of the entire southeast region and it will tell the world what to expect from the zone in 2019.

The outcome of the Anambra election will also prove to national strategists as to whether the southeast region is ready to play politics of reason or they are still interested in the politics of sentiments they played in 2015.

We have seen from events across the globe that sentiment is not a strategy. Sentiment is myopic, it is suicidal and it does not help or influence anything positive.

The fact of the matter is that, the southeast region made some terrible mistakes in 2015 because they allowed many unreasonable factors to sway their main interests which Anambra race presents an opportunity to correct.

As usual, some of the terrible leaders who led the region to the worst political tsunami in 2015 are at it again trying to use the Anambra race to drive the region in to Hurricane Katrina just because they want to advance their selfish political and financial interest without giving a hoot to what becomes of the Southeast region after the polls.

Already, they are many candidates jostling for Anambra Government House, but the race as it is today is a tripartite race between the All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). APGA is only constricted to Anambra State without any hope of expansion now or in the future. PDP is a party rejected by Nigerians in 2015 for so many reasons.

One had thought the PDP had learnt some bitter lessons on what made it to lose the 2015 rounds of election both at the centre and in some states. But its August primary election for Anambra State shows the party learnt no lesson.

One of the reasons that made Nigerians to sack PDP from power in the said year was because it imposed unqualified candidates on party members against popular wishes. The same feat was repeated in Anambra PDP primary this year. Instead of using authentic delegates list for the conduct of the Primary, doctored delegates lists were used in conducting the shambolic primary.

How can we explain a situation whereby people who were not members of the PDP as of January this year were brought in to be party flag bearers? The PDP constitution clearly stated that before any defector is allowed to run for any elective post in the party, such person must have stayed in the party for at least two good years, instead of allowing the law to run on its full course, the law was breached to allow somebody who as of January this year was not a PDP member to fly its flag.

The PDP Constitution also stated that the only condition that will allow a defector to fly its flag is when the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party grants waiver to such a defector, but the party NEC meeting was not held as at the time the primary was conducted let alone granting the party's waiver to anybody, yet a defector was allowed to fly its flag. Does that show any sign of remorse on the side of a party that woefully lost the 2015 elections on the account of impunity? Or how can a party that does not respect its own constitution respect the entire constitution of Nigeria?

The APC has a very young, dynamic and vibrant candidate which also reflects the yearnings and aspirations of the people of the zone. Tony Nwoye is also a good and sellable candidate which has already put the party at a very advantageous position ahead of the polls.

Apart from using the November 18 governorship election in Anambra State to gauge which direction the southeast region would go in 2019, it will also prove the sincerity and commitment of the people of the zone to their clamour for the inclusion of youths in governance.

Whichever angle anybody views it from, the fact remains that the southeast region needs a comeback to national politics and the November 18 polls will show the political direction of the zone.

Therefore, if I am to chose among the tripartite candidates, I would rather go for Comrade Tony Nwoye because of the greater stake the Igbos have to protect in project Nigeria.

Mr. Brown Justice writes from Abuja
ACCRA, November 3, 2017  Delta Air Lines has been recognized by the Ghana CSR Excellence Awards for its commitment to raising awareness of and funding vital screenings to help eradicate breast cancer in Ghana. The airline has supported the work of Breast Care International (BCI) for more than 12 months funding vital screenings for women and men across the country.

Delta joined a number of local and global companies at the Ghana CSR Excellence Awards, which are now in their seventh year. The organizers cited Deltas long-term involvement to raise funds for Breast Cancer research and valuable support to the Ghanaian market as key factors for the recognition when presenting the award to Delta.

Through Deltas partnership, BCI has screened more than 11,600 people for signs of breast cancer in rural regions throughout the country and of these detected almost 1,300 suspected cases, said Tad Hutcheson, Deltas Managing Director Community Engagement. We are very proud of this work and humbled that together we are changing lives.

Globally, Delta has been a supporter of breast cancer charities for the past 12 years and in that time has raised $12.8 million and funded more than 40 research projects to help end the disease. At Ghanas Kotoka International Airport, the airline decorated its check-in and gate area and sales office pink throughout October to mark breast cancer awareness Month. Its staff also wore pink uniforms and pink products were offered on board, including pink lemonade and pink headsets, while Delta One customers each received a special pink amenity kit.

Delta has operated flights to Ghana since 2006 and operates nonstop service four times a week to New York-JFK. In Africa, it also serves Lagos, Nigeria; Dakar, Senegal; and Johannesburg, South Africa. Through the hubs in Atlanta and New York-JFK, the airline offers an unsurpassed network of hundreds of convenient onward connections throughout North America, Latin America and the Caribbean.
South African prosecutors argued Friday that Oscar Pistorius' six-year jail sentence for murder must be increased, saying he failed to show genuine remorse after killing his girlfriend.

The Paralympic athlete shot dead Reeva Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine's Day in 2013 when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet.

He pleaded not guilty at his trial in 2014 and has always denied that he killed Steenkamp in a rage, saying he mistook her for a burglar.

At a one-day hearing at the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, state prosecutors fought for the right to appeal against what they described as a "shockingly lenient" sentence.

Pistorius, 30, was not present for the latest stage of his long legal case, but Steenkamp's mother June was in the public gallery.

"One of the essential ingredients of a balanced sentence is that it must reflect the seriousness of the offence," Andrea Johnson, of the National Prosecution Authority, told the court.

"Genuine remorse is missing -- namely a reason from the respondent for firing the four fatal shots.

"One cannot say his regret absolves him from the crime."

In 2015, Pistorius found was guilty of murder, irrespective of whoever was behind the door when he opened fire with a pistol he kept under his bed.

Too lenient?

The prosecution believes Pistorius has not shown "genuine remorse"

He was given less than half of the minimum 15 years in jail for murder, in a ruling that the prosecution authority has fought to challenge.

Pistorius was originally convicted of culpable homicide -- the equivalent of manslaughter -- but the appeal court upgraded his conviction.

Pistorius' lawyer Barry Roux launched a strong defence of the judge who handed down the six-year sentence, saying she took into account his claim that he believed he was shooting an intruder.

"She balanced what he did with the circumstances," Roux said, adding that the judge understood Pistorius was "a broken man" after the killing and had repeatedly apologised to Steenkamp's family.

"It was a comprehensive judgement. Leave to appeal should not be granted," Roux said.

Members of the ruling African National Congress women's league, who have attended many of the court sessions, criticised the sentence for failing to send a message against domestic violence.

"We are not satisfied and we are not going to keep quiet until justice is served," local ANCWL chairwoman Mapaseka Nkoane told reporters.

"The only thing that could bring justice and peace to all the women in South Africa... is when he receives the necessary sentence.

"We have men and women in prison who have killed their spouses who are serving... more than 20 years. Why is Oscar Pistorius an exception in this case? Is it because he has got money?"

'Law must run its course'

Previously a role model for disabled people worldwide, Pistorius was released from jail in 2015 after serving one year of a five-year term for culpable homicide.

Reeva Steenkamp's parents June and Barry Steenkamp "believe in the justice system", their lawyer says

He returned behind bars after his conviction for murder, and is being held at a prison in Pretoria.

The year before he killed Steenkamp, Pistorius became the first double-amputee to race at the Olympics when he competed at the London 2012 games.

In a television interview, he said he believed an intruder was in the house and "instant fear" drove him to grab his gun and walk on his stumps towards the bathroom.

"All of a sudden I hear a noise, at the toilet. I presumed it was the toilet door opening and before I knew it, I'd fired four shots," he said.

Outside the court on Friday, June Steenkamp's lawyer Tania Koen said that family were focused on honouring her memory.

"The family believe in the justice system, and they support the state," Koen said. "The law must run its course."

The court reserved judgement until an unspecified later date.
Even though a lot of Ghanaians operate in the informal sector, only 1.2 million people out of the 28 million citizens pay taxes.

Emmanuel Kofi Nti, acting Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), made this known yesterday in Accra during his outfit's national voluntary tax compliance campaign dubbed, OurTaxOurFuture.

The acting Commissioner General said, Out of this number, about one million are in the formal sector, leaving only 200,000 in the formal sector.

The result of this situation is that for a long time, the contribution of the informal sector to total tax revenue has remained below 5 percent. This is in spite of the fact that the economy is dominated by the informal sector.

He said it had become urgent to reverse such disturbing situation and rope in as many people as possible into the tax net and help bridge the gap between public expenditure and revenue.

He said the national tax campaign was aimed at creating awareness among Ghanaians about their civic responsibilities so as to be prepared to contribute to the national purse.

Over the next one month, a number of awareness creation and educational events, as well as media programmes would take place.

And GRA is collaborating with the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Information Services Department (ISD) and the media to do this.

Paa Kofi Ansong, a member of the Council of State, in a speech, congratulated the leadership of GRA for agreeing to promote tax compliance and education.

This campaign is a call to action for all of us. Can we afford to look on uncommitted as our country lacks the basic infrastructure to empower our youth and businesses to grow? #OurTaxesOurFuture is calling you and me to pay our taxes for a better future, he stated.

He added that if workers are not able to harness the taxes, then the future looks bleak for us and our children.
MCOTTLEY CAPITAL, the best growing investment bank, has officially announced the opening of a new branch in Tamale.

The new branch will serve the people in the northern part of Ghana with tailor-made investment solutions for their financial needs. It adds to McOttley Capital's five thriving branches in Accra, Kumasi, Obuasi, Takoradi, and Tarkwa.

Happy Forson, Managing Director of McOttley Capital, commented that McOttley is committed to providing investment services which will help to empower Ghanaians in every part of the country.

Our presence here in Tamale shows our dedication to both our individual and corporate clients in northern Ghana.

The Tamale office is spacious, user-friendly and has modern efficient operational facilities designed for customer satisfaction.

We are greatly honoured to offer our services to the good people in the north. Our office is set up to accommodate clients, and we are prepared to help them achieve economic empowerment through our tailor-made products and services, the Branch Manager for the Tamale branch, Muniratu Seidu remarked.

Chief of Tamale, Dakpema Naa Dawuni Alhassan, who inaugurated the new office, commended McOttley for establishing a branch in Tamale.

He said this shows that Tamale is a peaceful place to do business.

Dakpema Naa Dawuni Alhassan invited other businesses to do same and encouraged everyone present to save for the future.

Sagnarigu DCE, Mariam Iddrisu; Board Chairman of McOttley Capital, Ambassador Kabral Blay-Amihere; Group CEO of McOttley Holdings, Richard Kokoih and other notable stakeholders were in attendance.

The event ended with a float through the principal streets of Tamale, as company officials and staff announced their presence and used the opportunity to engage and educate the people on the importance of investment.

McOttley Capital has received numerous accolades, including the Best Growing New Investment Bank of the Year 2015.
An unexpected gust of cool air greets visitors to the new archives centre in Tiznit in the mountains of southern Morocco, even without air-conditioning despite extreme heat outside its walls.

That is thanks to the ancestral building methods used by Salima Naji, a French-educated Moroccan architect who specialises in construction that blends in with the environment and local traditions.

Rather than concrete, she used adobe and mudbrick, and built in high air vents for circulation.

A granary in the oasis village of Amtoudi restored by Moroccan architect Salima Naji and local artisans

"First I look at what's available on the scene, rather than bring things in from elsewhere," said the architect who has a second degree in anthropology and who has restored several historical buildings.

The priority is always two-fold: to protect local traditions and the environment.

Naji said she was baffled as to why "at a certain time people stopped building with local materials" and how they had "turned their back on this heritage".

'Landscape falling apart'

Adobe, rock, limestone, palm tree wood -- this is the heritage that she refuses to abandon.

Traditional buildings in the oasis village of Amtoudi restored by Moroccan architect Salima Naji

Naji, 47, daughter of a Moroccan father and French mother, started working with traditional construction methods and materials for private clients.

Then she realised that "it's all very well building for the rich but the landscape is in the process of falling apart," she said.

She started to restore old ksours, or fortified villages, former mosques and communal granaries at the oasis settlement of Amtoudi.

In Tiznit, a town about 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Agadir where she lives in a small traditional house, she has stayed loyal to tradition with a new museum, the archives centre and a community hall.

Despite her aversion to the material, she had to use some concrete to respect Morocco's urban code for public buildings.

Traditional buildings in the oasis village of Amtoudi restored by Moroccan architect Salima Naji

"I don't understand how we can credit this material that has no value, not historical, not in terms of climate control, not aesthetically, and its expensive!" she said.

"It's cold in winter, hot in summer."

'Traditions are alive'

Traditional buildings in the oasis village of Amtoudi restored by Moroccan architect Salima Naji

The essential thing for Naji is that "in Morocco, traditions are alive, slowing down of course, but not dead like elsewhere".

She worked on the Amtoudi granaries with local artisans, although it was a challenge to persuade the youngest among them to learn old methods.

Apart from being an architect and anthropologist, she has also had to serve as an advocate for the use of local materials and ancestral techniques.

She was warned that her constructions would not hold up to the rains.

Traditional buildings in the oasis village of Amtoudi restored by Moroccan architect Salima Naji

But she insists that sound construction and good maintenance provide a longer-term foil to the elements than concrete, as proven by the ancient ramparts of the Moroccan capital Rabat where she was born.

Her campaign is to find "alternatives to an all-concrete way of life" and she remains optimistic.

"I've seen people who want change in this country, who want something beautiful, intelligent, something which turns to the future without forgetting the past," she said.
"But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God". [Acts 20:24]

From the excerpt above, the apostle Paul is saying he has received a ministry and this ministry is testifying of the gospel of the Lord Jesus. In Acts 21, we are told of a story where the apostle was questioned of his going to Jerusalem but he said he was ready not to be bound only but to also die for the Lord. He was laying down his life because he wanted the word to reach far or scatter abroad. This was a place the man knew he was going to be imprisoned yet he wished to go there. In our dispensation, we are quick in selecting places where we termed are good, leaving the deprived areas. Doom awaits everyone who is in for better places in ministry. I am not saying the cities are not good to stay but we need to go to the rural areas too.

In Genesis 13, Abraham told Lot to choose any part of the land. Bible says he chose the better place; little did he know that was going to be his end. Abraham chose the worst of places yet he was fruitful. Again, if I am to submit to you the apostle Paul went to a place with Jesus yet while he was alive, he proclaimed he had fully preached the gospel. [Romans 5:19]

When we talk of going all out, we mean everything playing a part in the system within our limit; not some, not most, not certain, not much, not part and not many but all your abilities including your mobile phones.

Seven reasons why we need to go all out:

People are perishing.

How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? [Romans 10:14]

From where we stand, we say people are gradually drifting away because there are no preachers. From the perspective of the Scripture, until ones goes out to preach people would be perishing. One day I was praying in my closet and the Lord said to me; the generation in which we are now have adopted the Cain way of living where we say am I my brother's keeper? Others are of the view that they work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. Beloved it is good to work out your own salvation but there are a lot of people who need the salvation you have gotten. All you need to do is rise and take your place by sharing the gospel.

It is a command.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nation... [Matt. 28:19]

Today, when people sleep and dream of some dead relative appearing to them and giving them some numbers while asleep, they wake up and they do not joke with those numbers. The first thing they do is to assume is a lotto number and they go and stake the number. But for us, we did not receive this word in a dream. The master himself gave the words out. This part of the bible is called the "Great Commission" but call it the "Great Omission". We have omitted this portion of the bible. This is a command and it is not negotiable so rise up and start spreading the good news.

The workers are few.

Then he told his disciples, The harvest is vast, but the workers are few. [Matt 9:37]

We are told that the population of the world is over 7 billion. How on earth would we reach all the people with very few workers? For the harvest to be cultivated, there is the need for people to join the train of workers in the kingdom. On account of Ephesians 4 the pastors are only to perfect the congregation for them to go out to preach.

God is not limited.

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. [Luke 14:23]

Some people all over the world try to limit God in numbers but God cannot be limited. Having a big congregation and it being full does not mean God is limited. On the basis of this text, there was a feast and the master tasked his servant to go and get people for this feast. The servant went and returned yet there was still room for guests and the master said all this spaces need to be filled with people so go back and get some more that my house may be filled. Adopt this strategy into our churches today. We need to go all out so that the spaces in our churches will be filled.

It is a necessity.

For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! [1Cor. 9:16]

When I talk of necessity I am referring to a requirement for the Christian life. I believe the apostles saying: woe unto me if I dont preach meant a lot. I am trying to believe there are punishments if one refuses to go all out for Jesus. In order to escape this punishment, let us make up our minds to go with the gospel. Because the bible says it is a necessity does not mean we should go and gather people and say we are preaching to them. This preaching we are talking about can be done on a one on one affair.

We already have the anointing to go all out.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor... [Luke 4:18]

I have had the opportunity to speak to quite a number of people on the subject and to speak the word to the world. These are people I genuinely know can do the work yet they were afraid to go because they thought they didn't have utterance. Then I told them; you have been given an anointing for that. The only reason why you do not see the anointing is because you are not putting it to work. Another group also have their own hymn (I am shy). The anointing kills shyness therefore stand on your feet with the word and go preaching.

Doors are opened when we go all out.

Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord... [2 Cor. 2:12]

Preaching and teaching is what we are supposed to do and this is not to share our own gospel but the gospel of Christ. I believe this is what so many people are missing in the church. Hence when they see their pastors flourish they tend to say he is using their money as a church. It's only in preaching and teaching the word of God that is when you get open doors.

Finally, I want to conclude by saying, as I was growing, Christianity was the fastest growing religion but now it is not. We have had other religions with us. Let us rise up to the task and glory awaits us. Matthew 21:43 Therefore say I unto you, tyhe kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.

Written by

Fianoo Isaac Nevis
Zimbabwean police arrested a US citizen on Friday for allegedly tweeting that President Robert Mugabe is a "goblin whose wife and step-son bought a Rolls-Royce," lawyers said.

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) said officers detained Martha O'Donovan in a dawn raid at her home just weeks after Mugabe appointed a cyber security minister charged with policing social media.

Police confiscated her laptop and transferred O'Donovan, who works for Harare-based Magamba TV, to the city's central police station, the group added in its statement.

"The reported offensive and insulting tweet does not make any mention of the president's name," ZLHR said.

However Mugabe's stepson with his wife and first-lady Grace, Russell Goreraza, is thought to have recently imported two Rolls-Royce vehicles into the country, local media reported.

The British-built cars -- both Rolls-Royce Ghosts that sell for around $220,000 (190,000 euros) and have a top speed of 155 miles per hour -- are marketed by the manufacturer as "more measured, more realistic" than the $300,000 Rolls-Royce Phantom.

Grace Mugabe's son is also reported to have purchased two Range Rover 4X4s, two Mercedes-Benz S-Class limousines and an Aston Martin, while Grace herself is also thought to have acquired a Rolls-Royce.

"The US embassy has been in contact with the American who has been arrested and her counsel," an embassy spokesman told AFP. "We will continue to monitor the situation."

Police did not respond to calls for comment.

There have been several arrests in recent years for actions deemed to undermine the president, although no one has been convicted.

Two men were arrested separately on Friday after they allegedly said they would not vote for the ruling ZANU-PF party and comparing Mugabe to a dog.

The new cyber-security ministry is "an attempt to clamp down on social media movements that pose a big threat to his regime ahead of the election," Bulawayo-based analyst Dumisani Mpofu previously told AFP.

Mugabe has already been named by ZANU-PF party as its presidential candidate for the 2018 poll.

Zimbabwe has an unemployment of more than 90 percent and rising levels of poverty.
PLANS ARE in the pipeline for the construction of a Burkina Faso consulate in Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti Region, very soon.

The move is geared towards helping to deepen the economic, social and political relations between Ghana and Burkina Faso.

Burkina Faso officials in the country have already held discussions with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, regarding their intentions.

The Burkinabe officials have been given the green light to start the construction of the consulate and they are now searching for a land in Kumasi.

The Burkinabe Ambassador to Ghana, His Excellency, Pingrenoma Zagre, made these known in Kumasi during last Saturday.

This was when he paid a courtesy call on the Chief Executive of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, Osei Assibey Antwi.

The two top dignitaries interacted mainly on what should be done by Ghana and Burkina Faso to help transform the two countries for their mutual benefit.

His Excellency Zagre appealed to the Kumasi Mayor to help in getting a big tract of land for the construction of the proposed consulate.

According to him, Kumasi is centrally located and is a vibrant business arena therefore siting a consulate in the city is in the right direction.

He said Burkina Faso and Ghana have deep ties, which dates back to several years, and it is high time the relationship is taken to the next level.

Osei Assibey Antwi assured that the assembly would take the necessary steps to help in securing a land for the Burkinabe consulate.

He also acknowledged that Ghana and Burkina Faso have close ties and it is good that the relationship is taken a step further.
The Eastern Corridor Road from Hohoe to Jasikan has become so bad. In fact it is now a death trap. The road is no more motorable.

Those were the words of the Adontehene of Buem Traditional Area, Nana Buatsi expressing his displeasure over the nature of the famous Eastern Corridor road, particularly the Hohoe to Jasikan stretch.

Background

The Jasikan-Hohoe stretch is part of the larger eastern corridor road which stretches from Tema in the Greater Accra region, through the Eastern Region, Volta Region to the Northern part of Ghana. The geography of Volta Region makes it a host of a greater portion of the road.

Unfortunately, the road has stalled for a while now after initial surfacing was started over a year ago.

Residents Unhappy

The situation has become so bad that divers using the Hohoe-Jasikan road have now diverted their route through Lolobi, Teteman, and Bodada to avoid the difficulty and the risk of getting stuck on the way.

According to the drivers, the 30-minute journey from Hohoe to Jasikan has now become about two hours due to the bad nature of the road.

Chief's Appeal

The Adontenhene has therefore appealed to government to, as a matter of urgency, fix the Hohoe-Jasikan road which he described as a 'death trap.'

Nana Buatsi who made the appeal when the Volta Regional Minister, Dr. Archibald Letsa paid a working visit to the Jasikan district noted that the road has become unbearable.

The Paramount queen of the area, Nana Apaubia also made a passionate appeal to the government to provide the Jasikan District Hospital with an ambulance and other medical equipment to ensure quality health care delivery.

She said the unavailability of ambulance makes it very difficult for the transportation of patients who are being referred from the health facility to other bigger hospitals and as a result, some lose their lives.

Minister's Response

The Regional Minister, Dr. Letsa assured the people of government's commitment to fix the road. He said plans are far advanced to establish a starch factory at Jasikan and therefore urged farmers in the district to register for the planting for food and job policy.
Renowned Mathematician, Professor Francis Kofi Ampenyin Allotey, 85, is reported to have passed away Thursday night after complaining of discomfort.

A family member, Sarah Ofei, told Peace FM, the professor passed at about 10 pm after he was rushed to the hospital.

Around 10 am Thursday morning he complained he did not feel well so we sent him to the hospital, she said.

The Nuclear Physicist was discharged the same day, but the family rushed him back to the hospital after the discomfort resurfaced in the evening.

In less than 30 minutes after arriving at the hospital, he passed on, she said.

Mrs Offei said Ghanas first professor of mathematics was not sick and was preparing for a UNESCO conference on Saturday where he was to be honoured.

Prof. Allotey born in 1932 in Saltpond in the Central region took a passion for science after reading books on scientists sold by his father.

In a March 2017 interview at Imperial College in the UK where he completed his first degree in 1950, Prof Allotey said after class was over, he had to go help his father to repack the books.

I was drawn to those about science and the big names in science who were explaining the universe; Einstein, Hubble, Eddington.I read it and thought I have to be a scientist so that I can also explain the workings of the universe.

It was at Imperial College that he met his mentor  Professor Abdus Salam.

After completing an education at Imperial College, he would go on to gain advanced degrees at Princeton University before returning to Ghana to become the country's first full Professor of Mathematics at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

There is a theorgy named after him  the Allotey Formalism which is a technique used to determine matter in outer space.

He was President of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences , Ghana, President of the Society of African Physicists and Mathematicians, a founding fellow and former vice President of the African Academy of Sciences .

He was also Vice President at Large of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and former President of Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences .

To recognize his achievement to the promotion of science development, the government of Ghana issued a postage stamp with his portrait.

Looking back at his life, Prof Allotey said;

I am lucky. I'm lucky that I had my father's bookstore and I was able to read biographical books of scientists.

Then I had good mentors who made me a better student. They became my friends  they were very welcoming, even one professor inviting me and my wife to his house in Surrey.

I don't know why  maybe it was the first time they had seen an African try to do mathematics!

-Myjoyonline
Tullow Ghana Limited has been praised for maintaining a high level of safety in operating its two Floating Production Storage and Offloading Vessels (FPSO).

Defence Minister, Dominic Ntiwul, gave strong endorsement of safety standards maintained by Tullow Ghana in its operations during a tour of the Tweneboa, Enyera and Ntomme (TEN) FPSO offshore Western Region on Tuesday.

The tour by Defence Minister Dominic Ntiwul, Chief of Defence Staff, General Obed Akwa and other high level officers allowed them to familiarise themselves with the FPSO which produces oil from the TEN oil fields operated by Tullow Ghana.

Mr. Ntiwul said of the TEN FPSO, my first impression is that the people here are doing very well. I think the way they are going about their protection arrangement and complying with protective regulation is good for us. What I would urge is for Ghanaians to co-operate with them; at the end of the day they are doing work for all of us.

The tour was facilitated by TEN FPSO Offshore Installation Managers for Tullow Prince Amoako and Contactors MODEC, Gary Fearn tour. Both emphasised safety as the bedrock of smooth operations at the facility.

Mr. Ntiwul was concerned about operations of fishermen in the area but the Offshore Installation Managers indicated the fishermen are not allowed within 500 meters of the TEN FPSO, for their own safety.

The TEN FPSO is Tullow Ghanas second producing asset and is named after late President John Evans Atta Mills. TEN began production in August 2016 and has produced more than 15 million barrels of oil.
In this report, Odimegwu Onwumere unearths that the utilisation of the local content in the oil and gas sector is still a tall dream since the Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act was enacted in 2010; and $380b dollars or more have been lost in 50 years in the industry, upon the billions of dollars also being pumped in, to sustain the scheme

Stakeholders in the oil and gas sector and the federal government have been gasping for breath to fashion out a lasting plan for the utilisation of the local content in the sector since the Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act was enacted in 2010. This socio-economic term, which is as old as man, has had setbacks in several occasions in the country with companies and the authorities pumping in money into the initiative that is habitually never accomplished. The incessant hope given by opinion leaders pointing out that by making use of local content, about $191 billion could be maintained, while 300,000 new nonstop job opportunities were green in such areas as engineering, sciences, technical services and manufacturing of the oil and gas sector, might have been dashed by the oil companies and Nigerian authorities.

The exploration, production, manufacturing, fabrication, procurement and allied services sectors of the oil business which were the canons for the implementation of local content in the oil and gas sector are not being realised with the attendant results they deserve. Most times, while the stakeholders push to accomplish the value added in local oil industries, they make loss upon creating proposed chances and heartening indigenous oil companies to vigorously take part in maximizing local content.

Investigation by this writer has revealed that the local content, which was supposed to be a win-win affair, has been laced with controversies by the different stakeholders; hence there is a gap in promoting alliance amid national oil companies, local companies and international organization. The local content initiative is still struggling to be all inclusive, because there is drought of enabling environment for business, therefore leading to un-optimized moves to carry out Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by the companies involved and not insuring utmost earnings for all.

Billions Of Dollars On Local Content

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), defines local content in the oil and gas company as The quantum of composite value added or created in the Nigerian economy through the utilization of Nigerian human and material resources for the provision of goods and services to the petroleum industry within acceptable quality, health, safety and environment standards in order to stimulate the development of indigenous capabilities.

To realise this, experts have said that the government of Nigeria made mammoth venture up to $10 billion USD yearly to achieve 70% local content goal by the end of 2010 in the oil and gas sector. But as spectators have seen, the aim was defeated.

However, just on October 16, 2017, Vice Chairman/ Managing Director of Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC), Mr. Massimo Insulla, while speaking during this years Nigerian Content Activities, hosted by Eni in Yenagoa, disclosed that the company spent over $5.4 billion in making sure that the Nigerian content gets to the peak in the last six years.

This is even as Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL) said it spent $2.5 billion on local content development in Nigerias oil and gas sector, "representing 65 per cent of the total Nigerian goods and services expenditures for the year."

According to Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Chevron, John Watson, We do so through partnerships with national and local governments, national oil companies, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), and development agencies.

Upon Companies Boast Of Expending Billion Dollars

Meanwhile, the Federal Government by August 24, 2017, had geared up to launch $200m (about N61bn at the official exchange rate of N305 to a dollar) local content interference fund. This was apart from its unyielding billions of dollars expended yearly to end local content quagmire by the end of 2010 that never came to light.

According to the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the novel move was in pursuant of the Business Environment and Investment Drive Component of the #7BIGWINS, known as a document of the ministry that focuses on the short and medium-term priorities targeted at growing the nations oil and gas industry between 2015 and 2019.

But on the contrary, the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) might not be certain with its compass's navigation on the local content. On September 25 2017, in Lagos, the NCDMB said that it was looking up that the Nigerian Content Intervention (NCI) fund would hit $1 billion in the next three years. It could be sensed that the NCDMB was using permutation in carrying out its national duty than it was using betting. This is even as it had said through its Executive Secretary, Engr. Simbi Kesiye Wabote at a public hearing conducted by the Joint Senate Committee on Petroleum Upstream and Gas in Abuja on July 26 2017 that it intended to establish a Local Content Bank of Nigeria.

While the NCDMB might not be certain with accountability of the funds to the tone of trillions of naira dished out for various projects over the years, media reports affirmed, "The bank when set up will focus on establishment of facilities for domiciliation of services with emphasis on the optimal use of local resource inputs."

Buttressing this, Wabote in December 2016, (during a media dialogue on his plans to make these companies to meet the terms with the Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act 2010 by making a payment to the Fund) gave an insight that some companies do not remit their one per cent contributions to the Nigerian Content Intervention (NCI) Fund.

Explaining, those who know better said, "The NCI Fund is a pool made available by the NCDMB to meet the funding needs of manufacturers, service providers and other key players in the Nigerian oil and gas industry. It was however, gathered that some upstream companies do not contribute to the NCI Fund at all.

Meanwhile, this is contrary to a July 27 2017 report, stating, On the Nigerian Content Development Fund (NCDF), the Executive Secretary reported that international oil companies comply reasonably in remitting one percent of the value of their contracts but some service companies and indigenous operating firms default in their payment.

$380bn Lost In Oil/Gas Sector Due To Lack Of Local Content

While Nigeria was boasting of the billions of dollars she had expended in boosting local content in the oil and gas sector, by September 2017, while speaking at an oil and gas forum held in Accra, Ghana, Wabote disclosed that a whooping sum of $380b dollars or more have been lost in 50 years in oil and gas industry in the country.

This capital flight is due to the absence of regulation on local content development in the oil and gas industry, said the source.

However, Wabote added, saying, Local content development in Nigeria has brought about the domiciliation and domestication of value addition in the oil sector, culminating in 26 percent in-country value retention compared to the five percent prior to the enactment of the Local Content Act in 2010.

While this lasted, at the opening of the sixth Practical Nigerian Content Conference, in Abuja, in September 2016, to enlarge implementation of the local content policy to the midstream and downstream of the oil and gas sector, Wabote had explained that a blueprint would soon be unveiled to attract the needed investment to the sector. And besides the creation of industrial parks for the sector, the NCDMB is also working towards the establishment of three pipe mills across the country."

100% Local Fabrication Of Modular Refineries

At the same time, Nigeria can be seen is confused on how to go about her local content, whereas in 1962 when Norways offshore oil industry took off, the country recorded a huge growth in its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and by 1965, the Norwegian Petroleum Law was enshrined and by 1972, the local content law was enacted in Article 54 of the Royal Decree of 1972.

According to reports, "The Royal Decree of 1972 mandated that Norwegian government should vigorously pursue the goal of insuring that Norwegian goods and services be given preference in the running of the oil and gas industry, provided they were competitive in terms of price, quality, schedule and service." But since the 50s oil was explored in Nigeria at Oloibiri, a small community in Ogbia LGA located in Bayelsa State, Nigeria was by August 24, 2017 still initiating plans to achieve 100 per cent local fabrication and this is especially of modular refineries in Nigeria.

A discussion with the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM), the federal government was also not certain when to achieve a lasting use of local content in the oil and gas sector. Just as it has been pumping billions of dollars in order to realise the local content by the end of 2010, the federal government through the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu was not certain when the deadline for the local fabrication of oil vessels and Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading vessels (FPSO), would berth. This is even as the Bank of Industry said the newly launched $200 million intervention fund could be used for contract financing and loan refinancing for oil companies.

According to the media, Speaking at the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signing ceremony on the implementation of the $200 million Nigerian Content Intervention Fund (NCIF), between BoI and the Nigerian Content Development Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Kachikwu said Nigeria would not continue to award contracts, but set deadlines on when to localise most of the vessels and projects in the country.

Senate Uncertain With Local Content Implementation In Oil Industry

While the Malaysian oil industry began in the 1950s and objectives set for Malaysias oil and gas policy, which was to "maximise local benefits through the development of local capabilities and industrial base to support the growing onshore and offshore oil and gas industry", Nigeria was thus far probing the local content implementation in the oil and gas industry in the country by July 18 2017.

The Red Chambers at the National Assembly was afraid that investors were not considering Nigerian companies while investing, hence the senate referred the investors to Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act, which states inter alia: Investors were mandated to consider Nigerian companies as an important element in their project development and management.

According to news reports, The Senate Joint Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) and Gas Resources has commenced investigation into the implementation of local content in the oil and gas industry in the country.

Opening the session of an investigative hearing on the issue on Tuesday in Abuja, President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, who was represented by the Leader of the Senate, Sen. Ahmed Lawan, said the National Assembly was concerned with the level of implementation of local content in Nigeria.

It is expected that the stakeholders in the oil and gas sector will get the local content right this time with Wabote saying recently that NCDMB was presently putting into practice a 10-year tactical roadmap fastened on transporting five pillars of sustainable local content, with an intention of attaining 70 per cent of local content in the next 10 years.

Odimegwu Onwumere is a Poet, Writer and Media Consultant based in Rivers State. Tel: +2348032552855. Email: [email protected]
Denmark is a Scandinavian country comprising the Jutland Peninsula and numerous islands. It is linked to nearby Sweden via the Oresund bridge. Copenhagen, its capital, is home to royal palaces and the colorful Nyhavn harbor, plus the Tivoli Amusement Park and the iconic Little Mermaid statue. In more recent times, Denmark has developed a highly competitive service-based economy with high employment levels and a generous social security system.

Ghana and Denmark enjoy a longstanding cooperation now positioned as a unique platform for leveraging a new strategic partnership, which seeks to strengthen the political alliance and also benefit growth and employment in both countries. From Ghanas independence in 1957, Denmark has been a trusted partner to Ghana  a partnership based on development cooperation in social and economic sectors, human rights, and good governance.

After Ghana achieved middle income status in the year 2011, it became necessary for Denmark to review its partnership with Ghana. This was followed by a decision to gradually phase out development cooperation and replace it with a new partnership driven by trade, investments, political cooperation and research.

At the recently held Ghana Beyond Aid forum, the Embassy of Denmark in Ghana together with the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ghana and the Embassy of the Kingdom of Norway in Ghana shared key lessons learnt from private sector development in Ghana. This was after the Vice-President of Ghana, H.E Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia had set the tone for the event. This was followed by the presentation of publications on results and lessons learnt by the three countries in private sector development in Ghana to the Ghanaian Vice President.

On Wednesday 25th October 2017, I was privileged to have an interaction with the Danish Ambassador to Ghana, H.E. Ms. Tove Degnbol, at the Embassy of Denmark located at North Ridge, in Accra. I would say she was very welcoming, frank and honest. It didnt take a long time for me to discover her passion to work across the African continent to make a meaningful impact on lives

Happily married with three children, H.E. Ms. Tove Degnbol presented a background to the existing partnership between Denmark and Ghana. Danida has supported numerous individual partnerships between private Danish and Ghanaian companies. From 2003, Danidas support to Ghanas private sector gradually evolved from individual projects to broader programme support. We have contributed to strengthening the capacity of the private sector to do business advocacy, to request law reforms among others from government and have also been in the forefront of supporting skills development and rural finance. We have remained focused and committed to this partnership, however, we are very particular about what our funds are used for. We have always ensured it goes into projects it is intended for and not otherwise, she said.

On the renewed partnership, Ambassador Degnbol indicated that replacing development cooperation with commercial cooperation is not because Denmark does not believe in development cooperation or think there is too much corruption as some people might assume. Rather, development cooperation is more relevant in poorer countries such as South Sudan, Mali and Burkina Faso. Unlike these countries, Ghana has achieved a lot of progress and moved on from being a poor country.

Our decision now to move from development cooperation to commercial cooperation is solely based on the level of development in Ghana. At the moment, there are much more resources in Ghana and therefore our development cooperation is much less needed. When you look at the total figures for Ghana, the total development cooperation to Ghana will amount to just about 1 or 1.5 percent of the gross domestic product. This is not a significant source of income in the society as such. But there certainly will be particular sectors that depend on development cooperation and we are trying to do the phasing out in a responsible manner. But overall, there are many resources in the Ghanaian society and what is required is prioritizing and also looking at new ways of generating an increased domestic revenue, she added.

As Denmark looks forward to moving its relationship with Ghana from aid to trade by the year 2020, Ambassador Degnbol lauded the Ghanaian government for certain policies it has implemented recently to create a convenient atmosphere for businesses to thrive and also position the private sector as an engine of growth.

According to her, before we phase out our development cooperation by 2020, we will commit some of our funds to strengthening government tax systems to enable the country to generate funds from taxes and customs. We are very encouraged by the governments initiative to have paperless operations at the Tema port. We have been told by Danish companies how this has made a major difference in the number of processing days and reduced the requests for payment of illegal fees. We believe that this will pave the way for the generation of more funds for the government. There are a lot of encouraging things when we look at the business environment and digitization is one major and bold step.

Denmark pursues its zero-tolerance on corruption in policy and practice in Ghana. The Danish Anti-Corruption network for private companies was launched by the Danish embassy in Accra in the early part of the year and it supplements several other Danish anti-corruption efforts over the years. For several years, Denmark has supported the fight against corruption through the Good Governance Programme. In Ghana, Denmark has primarily given broader support to institutions such as the courts and human rights institutions as well as other organizations, including the GII, the Ghanaian chapter of Transparency International for training and advocacy. According to Ambassador Degnbol, whenever there is a suspicion of corruption, a detailed investigation into the matter is made and in instances of misappropriation of funds for a project, the Embassy goes the extra mile to ensure those funds are retrieved.

At the invitation of His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Denmarks Head of State, Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II, will be visiting Ghana from 23th to 24th November 2017 on an official state visit. Ahead of this all important visit, the Danish government is hosting selected Ghanaian journalists on a press trip to Denmark from October 30 to November 2, 2017. This will include a unique opportunity for a press conference with Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II.

Commenting on the visit, Ambassador Degnbol said this is a very important visit for us and it will be great to have Her Majesty the Queen in Ghana. It will be a way to confirm the very good and long-lasting relationship between Ghana and Denmark as well as reaffirming our willingness to continue our cooperation now based on trade and investments. The visit also puts Ghana in the spotlight and brings it to the attention of Danish companies and investors as well as opening avenues for possible partnerships to lead to economic development. As we transition from aid to trade, this visit becomes very significant to pave the way for Danish companies to work with Ghanaian companies.

Our interaction ended on the challenges faced by the Embassy of Denmark in Ghana in its operations. Interestingly, it is rather quite easy to work in Ghana as we get access to high level decision makers and this relates to all the years we have been doing development cooperation. We have also built an extensive network within the private sector and civil society organizations. Our years of research in several fields have brought us into contact with the major think-tanks and the general conditions in Ghana have made it possible for our smooth operations. There are times when we need to come to the aid of Danish companies experiencing challenges which includes acquisition of land amongst other sensitive issues. We are usually able to assist them either directly or we refer them to the right agencies or organizations where they can get expert advice to address or mitigate the challenges they encounter, she indicated.
The new British High Commissioner, Iain Walker paid a visit to the Factory of the Booomers to look at first hand the activities of the company. Mr. Walker assumed office as the British High Commissioner to Ghana after Mr. Jon Benjamin who left in June this year. His visit formed part of his first visit of the Asante Region since his assumption of Office. He paid a courtesy call on the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II before making his way to the Booomers Factory.

Mr. Walker said he had heard a lot about the exploits of Booomers and its impacts on the local communities. He said, Booomers have earned a reputation for itself as one of the successful businesses which had support from the ENGINE programme, a multi-year donor program funded by the UKAID and implemented by TEchnoserve from Ghana. The ENGINE program is designed to support small businesses with seed finding and business support services. In 2014, Booomers was one of the companies to have benefitted from that.

Booomers International, is a bamboo processing company based in the Asante Region of Ghana with direct workforce of about 40 employees. These include 32 employees and 8 trainees. The company currently produces different ranges of bicycles including mountain, city, road and electric bikes from Bamboo.

They have also introduced the bamboo tricycles, balance bikes, bicycles baskets, bicycle stands and a host of new products which are mainly exported to different countries. The company has been described by other industry players, especially distributors as the biggest producer of bamboo bikes and accessories in Africa.

The company currently have their products being in Germany, Netherlands, Canada, United States, Italy, France, Belgium and will be launching in the UK in March next year. The CEO, Mr. Kwabena Danso said he will forever be grateful to the ENGINE programme and the UKAID for the support they gave him.

He said, we started this whole project with four people in a single room of about 13 feet square and today, with the linkages and support services we had, we now have a fully -fledged factory. To Mr. Danso, his greatest vision if the build the biggest bamboo industry in Africa. The company has also started a 50-acre bamboo plantation to provide sustainable raw materials to the factory and provide further employment.

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The frequency of scandals bedeviling the Buhari administration in recent times would require an app to keep track of them. It certainly is beyond human capacity to do so.

While Nigerians were yet to grapple with the dirty details coming from the $25bn NNPC saga and the obvious crass lack of corporate governance that reigns there, the putrefying news came of Abdulrasheed Mainas reabsorption and double promotion to the grade of a director after absconding from duty for four years and being on the wanted list of security agencies for alleged embezzlement of pension funds running into billions of naira.

Sadly, President Muhammadu Buhari was not only aware of the whole mess but also ignored warnings against such moves.

The question Nigerians are asking is how did a wanted man who absconded from duty and fled the country four years ago under the administration of former president Goodluck Jonathan in a bid to evade our laws not only find his way back into the country but also got reabsorbed and rewarded with double promotion by the Buhari government?

The blame trade between the Buhari government officials over who was responsible only further exposes the fact that this administration is peopled by fugithieves who are willing, eager, ready and able to conspire with criminals to dupe us of our scarce commonwealth, subvert our laws and ridicule our system while blaming others for their self-inflicted woes and audacious criminal activities.

The revelation by Head of Service of the Federation, Mrs Eyo-Itta, that she warned the president about the implications of recalling and reabsorbing Maina into the civil service but that the president paid no attention, confirms to the whole world what many doubters have always known about Buhari: a pretender in the avowed fight against corruption!

This also confirms what Mainas family said earlier on that it was the presidency that actually invited Maina to come help them in their Change Agenda. It is only a government of fugitives that would surreptitiously invite a fugitive to come help them achieve their pre-election campaign promises.

What this means is that APCs pre-election anti-corruption campaign promises that were flaunted and announced at every given opportunity with pomp and circumstance were conceived in deceit, packaged in sophistry, sold in fallacy and delivered in treachery!

To add salt to the injuries their deceitful acts have caused Nigerians, they deliberately allowed the man to escape a second time after he was exposed by the media and the rage of Nigerians that followed, only for the EFCC to embark on a charade of sealing the fugitives properties shortly after they made way for him to go underground. The evil machinations and cover-ups of these set of executhieves will leave even the devil speechless!

Before his recent sack necessitated by the Maina saga, Babachir Lawal, the immediate past Secretary to the Government of the Federation had asked, which presidency? in response to a question by journalists on reports of sanctions against him following his grass-cutting scandal. That rhetoric simply implied that no one in the presidency could sanction him since, it was assumed, they were all working in cahoots to defraud the IDPs. Although he has just been sacked, he is yet to be arrested by any of the relevant agencies and may remain free until Nigerians embark on another round of outrage.

Let us not forget that the Senate had investigated him and declared that he had a case to answer. But as usual, the presidency covered up for him until they cracked under pressure from both the senate and the generality of Nigerians as they were forced to set up an investigative panel headed by another fugithief, the minister of justice, Abubakar Malami, who is known in almost all quarters to have had a knack for using his exalted office to clear criminal friends and associates of the presidency but persecute with hateful venom innocent opposition voices.

That panel, as expected, cleared Babachir Lawal, claiming he had done nothing wrong. Buhari subsequently gave the clearance a presidential seal and also put same in writing to the senate. But outrage from Nigerians greeted the clearance which led to the formation of another committee whose report obviously found Lawal guilty and the president was subsequently forced to suspend and sack him long after.

But for the insistence of Nigerians, one of Buharis fugithieves, the minister of Justice, would have used, yet, his office to clear a co-fugithief in government.

Such clearance of Buharis criminal friends in government is true to type.

Buhari once said that the late General Sani Abacha never looted the nations treasury, yet, the Buhari administration is not only aggressively pursuing the return of Abachas loots in foreign lands but is also actually receiving same from Switzerland and other places. It takes a fugithief to clear a fugithief!

So, rather than the EFCC or other relevant security agencies arrest and prosecute Lawal, he insults our sensibilities by frolicking around as if he is a candidate for canonization because he enjoys the presidents protection.

When the president ordered the probe of arms procurement in the military from 2007 to 2015, reports had it that Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau, current minister of interior, was among the former officers indicted in the probe. But in order to protect one of their own, the presidency quickly reduced the period of the probe report to 2010  2015, as Dambazau, one of the nations chief fugithieves was chief of army staff between 2008  2010.

Another fugithief in the Buhari presidency is Ibrahim Magu, the Acting Chairman of EFCC. Recall that the DSS had written a damning detailed report with incontrovertible evidence incriminating him in several shady deals on whose strength the senate refused to confirm him. But as usual, Magu is still at his job because he enjoys the protection of Mr President. Today, the EFCC is accusing the cabal in the presidency of trying to buy properties in foreign lands in Magus name in order to implicate him.

The DSS, the EFCC, Magu, and the cabal all belong to the same presidency. That is how inchoate, incoherent, rudderless and dirty this presidency is!

However, the same presidency has turned around to point accusing fingers at the PDP in all of this mess as if the ministers of justice, and interior are PDP members; or, as if the police, the immigration and similar security agencies are under the control of PDP; or, as if Babachir Lawal has not been a long time ally of Buhari; or, as if Ibrahim Magu is not an appointee of the current president.

No matter how much Buahri and his co-travellers of fugithieves try to cover their tracks, they have been exposed for who they really are: hypocrites who are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.

Surely, this Buhari presidency stinks. Sadly, for Nigerians, it is not yet uhuru!

---[email protected] ; Twitter: Stjudendukwe
03.11.2017 LISTEN

The news of her usual pabulum of tirades this time around came under several headlines. But the one that yours truly has chosen to rejoin is captioned Mustapha Hamid in a Dilemma; Trying to Clean Up Akufo-Addos Pooh  Valerie Sawyerr Ghanaweb.com 11/2/17). As usual, the former Mahama Chief-of-Staff Second-Bananas has nothing substantive to add to the ongoing discourse on our national development, except to desperately cadge credit for her former boss from President Addo DankwaAkufo-Addo where absolutely none is due.

Actually, Dr. ValerieSawyerr uses her scurrilous tirades to capture undeserved public attention. I suppose by Nana Akufo-Addos pooh, the widely discredited daughter of legendary and venerable statesman and lawyer Mr. Harry Sawyerr means poop. You cant blame a self-elected Accra street floozy for being so repulsively low and lewd. This is where the remarkable enlightenment, both moral and cultural, that is routinely associated with high academic and professional training has absolutely no heft. It is like pouring tons of buckets of water onto the feathers of a duck.

Her tirades have absolutely no value beyond the well needed comic relief after a dizzying week of anti-New Patriotic Party (NPP) vigilantism across the northern-half of the country:the traditional stronghold of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC). Reader, dont be the least bit surprised if thorough national security investigations turn up the heat on the Parliamentary Minority and the NDCs top-brass. The Tamale, Bolgatanga and Wa NDC Abongo Boys may very well have masterminded this seemingly capricious season of vigilantism with the deftly calculated collaboration of some disgruntled and disaffected ruling party malcontents. The jury is definitely out on the certain possibility of the latter deftly orchestrated possibility.

But what is indubitably curious here is Ms. Sawyerrs characteristically uncouth and rude demand that Nana Akufo-Addo apportion credit to his immediate predecessor where the record books are deafeningly silent on any worthwhile achievements of the Mahama regime, except such abjectly criminal mischief as SADA and AMERI DEAL. I also dont know which part of the voters resoundingly blistering routing of her former boss it is that Ms. Sawyerr finds so extremely difficult to appreciate and accept. It is also rather pathetic that nearly every single one of the purported achievements claimed for her former boss by Dr. Sawyerr has to do with the facile expansion of already established and robustly functioning projects initiated by previous regimes.

In other words, there is absolutely nothing for which the former Chief Resident of the Flagstaff Houses Chief-of-Staff Second-Bananas seeks credit for the Mills-Mahama-led National Democratic Congress that was originated or built from scratch by the democratically ousted Gonja petty chieftain. And nearly every one of them is about some waterworks in some remote rural community of the country. The irony here, though, is that there is absolutely no mention of any attempt to solving the age-old Salaga, Gonjaland, water crisis which the paramount chief of Gonjaland bitterly complained about a couple of years ago, when Mr. Mahama took to the hustings bragging imperiously about having constructed one of the finest trunk roads linking up his home area with the rest of the northern-half of the country. And so whatever happened to the tired, old mantra of Charity Must Begin at Home?

Or in this latter instance also, like the mythological guinea fowls, Charity decided to take a hike and a long vacation in Ouagadougou throughout the four-and-half years that Mr. Mahama occupied the Flagstaff House? I mean, is this some sort of weird menopausal conniption or Valerie Sawyerr is simply too traumatized to fully appreciate the fact that the resounding vote-of-no-confidence delivered to the doorstep of then-President John Dramani Mahama last December was the most definitive credit ever delivered to any incumbent postcolonial Ghanaian leader? Get with the program, Valerie, you say? Well, I say, Get over your funk of total defeat and hallucinatory self-delusion of grandeur. It is a wholly new day, and one in which stale food belongs to yesterdays garbage heap.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs
From the farm to your plate, discover the journey.

03.11.2017 LISTEN



The Patron and chief guest H.E Saud Salim Al Mazrouei, Director of SAIF Zone and Hamriya Free Zone Food Park, has praised the very first Meet The Farmers Conference as a great initiative that will connect African farmers to the GCC market.

We are delighted to be partnering with Meet the Farmers Conference where we will showcase Hamriyah Free Zone's Food Park and offerings to the Food and Agri Business Community of Africa. We give our full support to investors and look forward to strengthening the trade and cooperation between UAE and Africa, said Al Mazrouei.

The two day conference that will take place on Tuesday 21st and Wednesday 22nd November at the Waldorf Astoria, Palm Jumeirah aims to provide a platform for African Agro producers to meet GCC top buyers and investors for trade opportunities and exchange of knowledge to promote innovation in the agriculture sector.

Farmers will also get to share their inspirational stories of humble beginnings to large-scale exports and how societies gain from the entire food chain.

Speakers will discuss health requirements on food import, procurement policies and best practices as well as Islamic laws on farming among others.

Key speaker Mr. Bing Zhao, Director World Food Program  Purchase for Progress said, It is a great privilege to be representing the UN World Food Program (WFP) at the Meet the Farmers Conference. I see this as an opportunity to forge new partnerships and engage in dialogue with key stakeholders in the agricultural sector. Leaving no one behind is a core WFP responsibility. To this degree, providing smallholder farmers with an entry point into formal markets and the necessary capacity to increase their yields is fundamental in alleviating poverty and contributing to food security.

An event like this is very important in growing the awareness within the Middle East that Africa can supply high quality agri products to the market, said Ingrid Van Ginkel of Verde Beef Ltd.

Crenov8 DMCC, the organizers of the conference, expect over 100 exhibitors and are excited to be connecting African farmers to the GCC market.

The previous Global Business Forum on African in Dubai attracted more than 1000 participants and saw over 100 bilateral potential business talks which were held at the event.

To sign up and know more about the event, visit www.mtfc.crenov8.com or call +971 4 5144 558

Contact: Ola Kalu

Tel: +971554657352

Email: [email protected]


Hundreds of Tunisian policemen demonstrated on Friday in the central city of Sfax, demanding that parliament adopt a law on "protecting" them which civil groups have called "dangerous" for democracy.

The demonstrations come two days after an Islamist extremist stabbed two policemen outside parliament. One died on Thursday of his wounds.

The protesters, some in their police uniforms, marched in the city before rallying outside the prefecture, holding up signs that read: "We demand a law that bans attacks against policemen."

Another sign said: "Such a law is a right, not a favour."

Similar demonstrations were held in other cities including Gabes in the south and Bizerte and Siliana in the north, media reported.

Wednesday's attack in front of parliament came as Tunisia debates the contentious proposed law.

The bill calls for "the protection of agents of the armed forces (police, soldiers, customs guards)" against "attacks threatening their security and their lives, in order to guarantee the stability" of the country.

But several civil society groups have said the bill "threatens freedom of expression and of demonstration", and would create a "special immunity" for police and the military.

NGOs say the law would be "dangerous" for democracy.

Unions representing the security forces have warned lawmakers of protests if they do not pass the bill.

In the wake of Wednesday's stabbing, President Beji Caid Essebsi underscored the "necessity of giving absolute priority" to the legislation.

Thursday's death of one of the policemen, Commander Riadh Barrouta who was knifed in the neck, rekindled the debate over the proposed law.
Accra, Nov. 3, CDA Consult - The Third African Judicial Dialogue, organised by the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights under the auspices of the African Union (AU), in collaboration with the World Bank, the German Cooperation (GiZ) and the European Union (EU), will be held from 8 to 10 November, 2017 in Abidjan, Cote dIvoire.

The Dialogue will be attended by about 150 delegates from AU Member States, including Chief Justices, Presidents of Supreme and Constitutional Courts from the 55 AU Member States, as well as regional and international judicial bodies and other relevant stakeholders, a statement copied to the CDA Consult in Accra stated.

This year, the theme of the biennial meeting is:  Improving Judicial Efficiency in Africa, and is a follow up to the first edition held in November 2013 in Arusha, Tanzania, and second in November 2015, also in Arusha.

The overall objective of the Dialogue is to explore ways of enhancing judicial efficiency in Africa, said the President of the African Court Justice Sylvain Ore has stated.

Justice Ore added that the three-day meeting would provide an important forum for Africas top judiciary officials to exchange experiences on the on-going continental judicial reforms, trends on human rights jurisprudence, continuing judicial education and management of judicial institutions on the continent.
In a cloud of ochre dust, a column of army pickup trucks slowly advances on a dirt road near Mali's border with Burkina Faso -- one of the world's hotspots for jihadism.

The national flag of Mali flaps in the wind: an appropriate symbol for a brand-new force whose first task is to assure terrified locals that governance is returning to lawless lands.

"We are here to secure the zone and to reassure people that they can live a normal life," Lieutenant Gaoussou Diara, who commands 100 Malian troops in the convoy, told AFP.

"The track between Tessit and Kayrougouten (in central Mali) is a major route, used by traders and the population."

The new force, called the G5 Sahel, aims at pooling the military resources of five desert nations -- Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger -- that are reeling from years of jihadist attacks.

Thousands of civilians have died, many of them in suicide bombings, and tens of thousands have fled their homes. Villagers or nomads who fall under jihadist rule are subject to vicious punishments in the supposed name of Islamic justice.

The idea behind the 5,000-troop force dates back to November 2015, but it took another two years to become operational, with its first forays launched this week.

Funding remains a major challenge, given the extreme poverty of the five nations. France, the former colonial power in the Sahel, is the scheme's biggest political backer and is providing a hefty dose of support to help the multinational force get going.

Border fear -

Priority number one is to re-establish authority in the frontier region, especially in the "tri-border" area where the frontiers of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso converge.

Here, the stony landscape, sparsely interspersed by trees, sprawls to the horizon.

It is nominally inhabited by nomadic cattle farmers -- but it has also become a blood-stained haven for jihadist groups linked to the so-called Islamic State and al-Qaeda, and for traffickers of almost every hue.

In Tillit, a Malian village located several dozen kilometres from the Burkinabe border, bears the scars of these overlords.

In the middle of a cluster of poor houses made of daub stands a sign bearing the jihadist insignia. The village's mayor and teacher, threatened, have fled. On the school's blackboard is written the date that children last had a lesson: June 1, 2017.

"I cannot talk to you, I cannot sell anything," the owner of a modest grocery apologises to the visitor.

Mamadou, an interpreter, explains. "The people here are afraid. The Malian security forces do not often come here."

Five-nation force

On paper, the G5 Sahel plans to number up to 5,000 military, police and civilian troops by March 2018, placed under the leadership of a Malian general, Didier Dacko, at a command post in the Niger capital Niamey.

The troops will comprise two battalions each from Mali and Niger and one each from Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania.

In these very early stages, the national contingents are not being mixed, as operational procedures are hammered out.

And French support -- providing training, air and armoured backup and logistical support -- is critical.

About 20 armoured vehicles drawn from France's forces in the Sahel, known as Operation Barkhane, were part in the G5's first border convoy this week. France intervened militarily in northern Mali in 2013 to help drive out al-Qaeda-linked gunmen.

"We don't have the same resources as Barkhane, but we have acquired a lot of experience with them," said a Malian lieutenant who spoke on condition of identification only by his first name, Diara.

He had just ordered his troops to carry out security checks on two motorbikes that came near the convoy.

Support from France's Barkhane anti-jihadist mission is vital for the G5 force in its fledgling stages. Ultimately, says France, the five Sahel nations will be able to ensure their own security in the troubled region

"Today, we are the ones who are leading the patrol, and our French friends are in support."

A French infantry captain, Gauthier, pointed out that the Malians had a unique skills set.

"This is their country, and it is easier for them to distinguish between a farmer and a terrorist -- and their knowledge of the terrain is critical."

As if to prove the point, his armoured vehicle was guided by Malian troops to the safest point for crossing a dried-out riverbed.

"The goal is for these countries to be able to work together to ensure their own security. We are there to help them gain capability," said a French lieutenant colonel, who gave his name as Marc-Antoine.

"Ultimately, these operations aim at providing an exit door for French forces" in the Sahel, he said. "We do not wish to become an army of occupation."
03.11.2017 LISTEN

The Accra Regional Police Command has warned of a car-stealing syndicate purposely targeted at commercial drivers, by incapacitating them with drinks laced with sedatives.

The police, in a statement said the perpetrators normally struck halfway through a journey on the pretense of courtesy.

The Police has observed that victims of this trend hired by a member of the syndicate at good offers, and sedated halfway through the journey after being offered water or an energy drink. The targeted driver is then hauled from the car and the vehicle driven away.

The police has therefore advised commercial drivers to be extra vigilant, and avoid accepting consumables from strangers and passengers.

Find below the full police statement





By: citifmonline.com/Ghana
When will this idiotic legislature, Kennedy Agyapong learn to speak with facts? It is sometimes not worth responding to some characters of his calibre considering the fact that he has never substantiated any of his wild allegations he shamelessly makes on his one corner TV and Radio stations. Was he not even the same person who said his own party, the NPP did not win the 2016 elections on fair grounds? Even before I educate him on his real personality, it is important we help him understand that the University is neither a campaign grounds nor extension of the NPP headquarters. He has the rights to make his irresponsible statements, but should as well keep those attitudes in the political setting and not come close to the University. We as Alumni love our Alma Mater! He is a disgrace to Parliament of Ghana as UEW council chair just as the Pro VC are also disgrace to professorship. He was given documents on some PVs of UEW and he thinks those who gave the documents to him are clean. Has Kennedy ever asked his BLACK CASSOCK man Afful-Broni where he got money from to put up a story building at Assin Asempanaye within some months after he took office as Pro VC in 2013? As Kennedy is battling with government contracts and he is not getting, he thinks UEW is a hub for him to get contracts. He must understand that contracts are not awarded in Universities. We are all watching the President of Ghana as people who had once thought a change was needed. He must live beyond the belt and act by keeping most of these his educated illiterates off some national issues. I am wondering how grown-ups like professors, Kennedy Agyapong, Nana Ghartey, etc. will lie low for a young self-seeking MP of Effutu, Freemason Treacherous Devil Incarnate Alex Afenyo Markin. Once again, Kennedy should know that UEW is not an extension of NPP party headquarters.

Before you continue to read a write-up from someone who has UEW at heart, let me make some comments on a write-up by Alhassan Salifu Bawah (son of a foolish peasant farmer) titled Rejoinder: Why Avoke and Five Others are CLEAN in the UEW Case? In the said Article, Bawah wants us to believe that Afful-Bronis CASSOCK is white. Instead of bringing out the facts, he will attack individuals and later put out unnecessary stuffs that his so called UEW Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) levels 200 and 300 students will not even think of doing. I am beginning to believe the claim that Bawah was dismissed from the UK army and it is affecting him mentally. Bawah, how many times do want to be apologising on your infantile write-ups?

Victor K. Owusu (An Alumnus of UEW)

[email protected]

The following is a write-up from a level headed person.

Kennedy's rantings is as a result of "Assin Solidarity". He has been promised by the Pro VC, his Assin compatriot. He was on campus last week with some Chinese, so his rantings can be understood in that direction... Obviously, he is looking for contracts or have been promised same. Otherwise, why will he overlook the dates and signatures on the said documents and claim that the VC and FO are corrupt. If that is the case then it is his own kin who is corrupt, because he approved many of the payments under the said contracts. If he is blind, then he should go for a surgery to correct his impairment. Let it be known to him that if it is the GUSSS projects he is targeting then he is in for a long haul. This is a private voluntary pension scheme of its own board. It has nothing to do with the public and any attempt to play with it will lead to massive withdrawal and thus total collapse of the scheme. He and his cohorts should dare us and they will reap the repercussions. Kennedy Agyapong, hands off our GUSSS!!! We will not allow you and your criminally minded Catholic priest to toy with our pensions. No way!!! This is a murder and traitor of a Catholic Priest. The Church as a symbol of light and salt has lost its relevance because of curses of priests like this Afful-Broni man.

Note: Latest but a failing strategy being used by the Abakah led vigilante group in UEW championing the coup against the legally appointed VC of UEW is to organise some irresponsible TESCON members of the university to protest in front of Parliament of Ghana.

God being a Just God, as the time of their arrival, Parliament wasn't in session, Parliament had closed. Any means saturated with these evil intentions taken by God's grace will always be exposed. This wicked move was monitored on 03/11/17.
The United Nations reported 31 new allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation in three months Friday, with nearly half of those involving staff or partner organizations of the UN refugee agency.

From July to September, there were 12 new cases reported in six peacekeeping missions in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Liberia, Mali and South Sudan.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR reported 15 allegations, while three new cases involved staff at the International Organisation on Migration and one allegation was directed against the UN children's agency UNICEF.

One allegation at UNHCR has been substantiated, while two others are still under investigation. The other cases are being reviewed, according to UN information.

In all, 14 investigations have been launched during the three months.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has made fighting sexual abuse by peacekeepers and UN staff a priority of his tenure.

The UN chief is "obviously disappointed and saddened that these actions continue," said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

The United Nations has been damaged by a wave of rape cases involving peacekeepers in the Central African Republic, prompting former UN chief Ban Ki-moon to fire the mission commander.

Of the 31 cases, 12 took place this year, two were from last year and six in 2015. The dates have not been established for the remaining 11 allegations.

The United Nations is monitoring staff who have been involved in cases to ensure that when the allegations are substantiated they are not re-hired by the world body, said the spokesman.
Ahead of the yearly Peace Education Campaign in Nigeria, the newly crowned Miss Ambassador for Peace Africa Queen Aminu Sabiqoh Akeelah has sealed Partnership deal with Ukraine Embassy as the team plan to flag off the campaign this November.

The team led by the project director Amb. Kingsley Amafibe visited the Embassy in company of the Queen, Prof. Steve Azaiki and Mr Segun in Abuja yesterday to confirm global partnership for peace. Speaking to the Ukraine Ambassador to Nigeria, Amafibe said it was necessary to achieve the peace Objective globally to foster bilateral relationship with Ukraine on the platform of peace education campaign.

Amb. Valerii Aleksandruk was elated to receive the Peace Ambassador Agency team and promised to offer them the needed support in the project as well as a all necessary assistance to travel to Ukraine and other countries to continue the campaign as they have always done every year.
Leading women's rights campaign organization, Women Arise, and Childs right NGO, CEEHOPE have led a team of campaigners Ebute-Metta magistrate court to seek justice to Lagos-based engineer, Lawrence Idoko who was murdered by wife Mrs Folashade Idoko.

33 year-old Lawrence Idoko was stabbed to death by his wife at their residence at 20, Kosoko Street, Ayetoro area of Lagos State on August 20, 2017 for allegedly receiving a text message from a girlfriend.

Neighbours including the landlord of the deceased, Chief Gani Akanni, testified of how the victim tolerated several physical attacks from his wife who was also known for fighting other neighbours and vandalizing properties at will. Chief Akanni also explained how he had giving the couple several notice of eviction owing the womans violent tendencies.

President of Women Arise, Dr. Joe Okei Odumakin while speaking to newsmen outside the courtroom said, For men experiencing domestic violence, silence is no longer golden, speak up before it is too late. Violence against men in matrimonial setups is on the increase and we must end this menace

"We believe that injustice to one is injustice to all. We believe that just like women, men can also be victims of domestic violence. We stand for #JusticeForLawrence and we have no doubt that justice will be served in this case. Again, we believe that it will serve as a deterrence to persons who perpetuate gender -based violence be it men or women" CEE-HOPEs Betty Abah added.

The case has however been adjourned to December 4, 2017 to allow for legal advice from the Lagos State Department of Public Prosecution (DPP) while the accused remains in prison custody.
In this Real News Network interview, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) responds to former interim chair Donna Braziles revelation that the Clinton campaign had effective control of the DNC. Gabbard was a vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee until February 28, 2016, when she resigned to endorse Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic Primary.

Brazile published her book excerpt in Politico, Inside Hillary Clintons Secret Takeover of the DNC. If youve yet to read it, dont miss.

AARON MATE: Its The Real News. Im Aaron Mate. During the 2016 Democratic primary, supporters of Bernie Sanders complained that the Democratic National Committee was plagued by internal corruption, and rigging the nomination for Hillary Clinton. Well today, the former interim chair of the DNC has come out to say exactly that. Writing for Politico, Donna Brazile details a scheme wherein the Clinton campaign effectively took over the DNC. Facing a major funding shortfall, the DNC agreed to let the Clinton campaign control the partys finances, strategy, donations, and staffing decisions in exchange for the Clinton campaigns financial help.

But, this did not happen after Clinton became the nominee. In fact, this agreement was made in August 2015, months before a single primary vote was cast. Among many things, this meant that the DNC was able to act as a money laundering operation for the Clinton campaign. Tens of millions of dollars in donations to state democrats across the country ultimately was kicked back to Clinton headquarters in Brooklyn, well, earlier I spoke to someone who has been a prominent vocal critic of the DNC process from the start. Congressmember Tulsi Gabbard represents Hawaiis second congressional district. She was vice chair of the DNC until February 2016 when she resigned to endorse senator Bernie Sanders. I spoke to her about Donna Brazils revelations. Congressmember Gabbard, welcome. Your response, what weve heard from Donna Brazile today.

TULSI GABBARD: I was not surprised to read what she was detailing in what was printed today. This was something that when I was vice chair of the DNC I didnt have knowledge of the details, but it was something that some folks were actually talking about and were concerned about at that time

AARON MATE: I want to quote more from Donna Brazile. She writes If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead. This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the partys integrity. Shes referring especially to this financial arrangement in which the Clinton camp gives the DNC money but in exchange, the DNC hands over control of basically every single decision. Your thoughts on that? Were you surprised by her revelation?

TULSI GABBARD: Again, this is not something I wasnt privy to the inner workings of how these decisions were made, because at that time the decisions were really ultimately coming from the chair of the DNC. But I had heard some concerns from folks from different state parties actually. Executive directors and chairs and people who were involved in the grassroots organizing and trying to again increase involvement in the process. Their concerns around this joint fundraising agreement that Donna Brazile talked about in her article and her book was that the funds that were being raised through this agreement were not actually benefiting the party, but they were kind of being used as a pass through for lack of a better word. Their concerns again were about getting more support for the work that parties do on the ground and grassroots organizing. Turning out the vote, going and knocking on doors. Doing all the things that happened on the ground in states all across the country. Again, this was not something that I was terribly surprised by in reading that Donna detailed, but its something that hasnt been laid out in the way that she has in this way.

AARON MATE: Yeah. She provides a figure when it comes to the money element. She says that of $82 million that was raised in state fundraisers, less than half of 1%, half of 1% got to go to the state parties, and said the rest went back to Brooklyn for the Clinton campaign. What kind of difference do you think that made on the election outcome when it comes to democratic efforts at the state level?

TULSI GABBARD: Its hard to say. I cant exactly quantify that. But I do know that some of the state party officials who I had spoken to at different times during the campaign had actually expressed these concerns and decided not to sign onto this joint fundraising agreement for that specific reason. They saw at that point, look were not going to be used by anyones campaign. If you want to talk about how to help strengthen local parties, lets have that conversation, but this was clearly not an effort in that direction.

AARON MATE: You recently spoke out about some more decisions by the DNC at the national level, in terms of their staffing of key committees. Can you comment there on what you were most upset by, and your thoughts on what should be done?

TULSI GABBARD: At a time when many people and many voices are calling for unity within the Democratic party, it was really disturbing to see that there was kind of a purge of party officials from both the at large committee, as well as the executive committee within the DNC. That really had one common thread of the people who were booted out of those seats that they had held. Some for decades. The commonality was that these were people who had either supported Bernie Sanders for president or supported Keith Ellison for DNC chair, or both. If the message is that were going to get rid of people who may have dissenting opinions, or may be calling for different kinds of reform or retaliating for positions that theyve taken this is not the direction that the democratic party should be going in. The democratic party should be going in the direction of openness, inclusiveness, transparency, accountability, which is why Ive been calling for two major but very basic kinds of reform. Getting rid of the non democratic superdelegates who make up one third of all of the votes cast that a nominee needs to secure the nomination, and to secure open or same day registration primaries so that again, open the doors. Lets let everybody in and get involved in the process.

AARON MATE: In your statement about these recent DNC appointments, you said that we must put people over profits.

TULSI GABBARD: We must put people over profits and progress over special interests.

AARON MATE: In what way is the DNC right now or have they been putting profits over people?

TULSI GABBARD: You know, a friend of mine, Jim Zogby, he was the only Arab American there who was on the executive committee. He was someone whos been very active in democratic politics probably for over two decades, and actually going out and organizing, and getting people more engaged and involved with the process. Connecting with minorities, whether they be religious minorities, ethnic minorities, minorities in underprivileged communities. He is somebody who was booted out and a lobbyist or someone else came in and took his place. I dont have the full list in front of me, but the fact that you would take out somebody who has been so committed like Jim Zogby, again the only Arab American there, and replace him with somebody who is a lobbyist or a consultant for the DNC, to me it doesnt represent democratic values.

AARON MATE: Finally congresswoman Gabbard, you resigned in February 2016 from the DNC as vice chair to openly endorse for Bernie Sanders. Do you feel betrayed that those who stayed behind were working behind the scenes to elect Sanders opponent?

TULSI GABBARD: Its not about me, Aaron. This isnt about me or my feelings or what impact theyve had on me. I think the important question here is what has the impact been on our democracy. That is the critical point. Thats what we should all be concerned about. I dont care who you supported in the presidential election, whether it was Hillary or Bernie or somebody else. The point here is about strengthening our democracy and coming together to enact real reforms that will actually do that in a real way. I think the time for kind of pointing fingers and infighting and bickering is long past. There is so much at stake here. Im just encouraging people whether youre involved with Democratic politics in a very direct way or if youre not involved at all, now is the time for us all to stand up and raise our voices and say this is the kind of democracy that we want and actually fight for those changes to make it happen.

AARON MATE: Congressmember Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaiis second congressional district, thanks very much.TULSI GABBARD: Thanks Aaron. Aloha.AARON MATE: Aloha and thank you for joining us on The Real News.
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 Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday voted unanimously to approve Hester Peirce and Robert J. Jackson, Jr. as members of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Their nominations now move to the full Senate for confirmation.

If, as expected, these two nominees are soon confirmed, the five-member bench of SEC commissioners will be up to full strength for the first time in two years. Chairman Jay Clayton, a former Sullivan & Cromwell partner as chair, has been assertively pursuing a deregulatory agenda, as I discussed in Doubling Down on Deregulation: SEC Extends JOBS Act Benefit in Elusive Quest to Goose IPO Market. With five commissioners seated, it will be much easierfor the agency to meet baseline quorum requirements and to conduct day to day business.

Peirce, a Republican, is currently a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and director of the Financial Markets Working Group. Prior to the Mercatus gig, she served on Senator Richard Shelbys staff on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Shes also been an SEC staff attorney and as counsel to (former) commissioner Paul Atkins, according to her biography on the Mercatus Centers website.

Robert J. Jackson Jr., a Democrat, is a professor of law and director of the Program on Corporate Law and Policy at Columbia Law School. Before joining the Columbia faculty in 2010, Jackson served as an adviser to senior officials at the Department of the Treasury and in the Office of the Special Master for TARP Executive Compensation. And before that, Jackson practiced in the executive compensation department of elite New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz, according to his biography on the Columbia Law School website.

Weakened Enforcement Priorities?

Last week, the WSJ reported that Steven Peikin, the SECs current co-director of enforcement, signaled a pivot away from the prosecutorial approach to enforcement that the agency pursued after the financial crisis (see SEC Signals Pullback From Prosecutorial Approach to Enforcement).

Peikins remarks were made at at Securities Dockets annual Securities Enforcement Forum in Washington, as BNA.com reported in SEC Should Clarify Path to Cooperation Perks in Cases: Official.

I should mention in passing that Steve Peikin and I were law school classmates (HLS 91) and were indeed in the same section meaning we took all our first year core classes together. And, most recently, he was a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, the firm where I was once an associate. So, while I can say I would certainly recognize him across a crowded room, I cannot claim I really knew him, nor have I any recollection of even being in the same room as he since our Cambridge days.

According to the WSJ:

[Peikin] indicated the regulator would drop the broken windows strategy of pursuing many cases over even the smallest legal violations, and may also pull back from trying to make some companies admit to wrongdoing as a condition of settling with the SEC.

As Ive discussed further in Financial Regulatory Rollback Proceeds, no new legislation is necessary for financial regulation to be loosened in many key areas and enforcement priorities will be of major importance.

In particular:

Mr. Peikin cast doubt about the future of a signature element of the SECs enforcement program over the past four years: admissions of wrongdoing. Under former Chairman Mary Jo White, an Obama appointee, the SEC sought admissions of fault by firms and individuals in select cases, rather than allowing defendants to resolve probes by paying penalties but neither admitting nor denying the allegations.

Instead, Peikin pledged:

would continue to run a tough enforcement program, with the goal of rooting out intentional wrongdoing that results in losses for investors. He signaled the SEC could still seek admissions of wrongdoing in certain cases, including those where a defendant admitted guilt in a related criminal case.

Now, I dont dispute that the SEC intends to dial back its commitment to seeking admissions. Yet I want to raise here: How much of a policy change does this announced shift actually represent?

And as an answer to that question, a closer reading of the WSJ piece suggests an answer that reflects less of a policy change than meets the eye. While its certainly true that the agency purported to be pursuing a tougher enforcement line, post 2013, when it announced a policy change with much fanfare:

In 2013, under [then chair Mary Jo] Whites leadership, the SEC announced it would make companies and individuals admit wrongdoing as a condition of settling civil charges in certain cases. Critics of the SECs practice of settling cases without fault admissions, including U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff, said it made enforcement cases look like the cost of doing business for Wall Street.

The WSJ largely buys the agencys claim that this announcement then resulted in an actual, quantifiable, meaningful change. Yet in this regard, as in so many other policy areas, especially involving legal issues, the reality didnt match the rhetoric as Ive argued elsewhere in previous writing about Whites performance. In fact, her tenure as SEC chair was so disappointing it led Senator Elizabeth Warren to call for Whites firing. (For further details, see this post, in which I debunked Whites claim that the SEC pursued bold and unrelenting results in enforcement, News Flash: Mary Jo White Claims SEC Produces Bold and Unrelenting Results. And I refer interested readers to this post, the headline of which states my core point clearly: Mary Jo White Leaves Behind a Weakened SEC for Trump to Weaken Further.)

(I am of course aware that White was chair, not director of enforcement; but she clearly set a tone, and as the bold and unrelenting results post described at greater length, took credit for the agencys enforcement record. So criticizing her enforcement claims is fair game.)

Now, this is by no means a unique interpretation on my part. In fact, the very same WSJ article goes onto produce statistics suggesting the announced policy was in fact honored more in the breach than not (my emphasis):

During Ms. Whites tenure, few settlements involved admissions of wrongdoing. Only about 2% of 2,063 cases filed from 2014 through 2017 involved admissions, according to research by David Rosenfeld, a professor at the Northern Illinois University College of Law. Just 22 entities admitted fault in the most serious type of fraud cases, according to Mr. Rosenfelds paper, which is slated to appear in the Iowa Law Review. Its used so infrequently that it smacks of being somewhat unfair, said Linda Chatman Thomsen, a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP who defends companies and individuals targeted in SEC enforcement probes.

So,while the current SEC may be dialing this policy back, its doing so from a measly starting point.

Frozen Budget, Shrinking Enforcement Staff

That means that this enforcement change, per se, is not one thatll keep me awake at night.

Much more worrying in my opinion is that the SECs budget is essentially frozen, and will lead to a staff decimation, as the same WSJ article reports:

It may be the case that we have to be selective and bring a few cases to send a broader message rather than sweep the entire field, Mr. Peikin told a securities conference Thursday. He said the enforcement division, which had about 1,400 employees in 2016, might have 100 fewer investigators and supervisors by next September by not replacing those who leave.

I should close by mentioning that before ascending to his S & C partnership, Peikin was a respected prosecutor, an assistant US attorney for the southern district of New York. Despite my passing acquaintance, I have no special insight into how vigorously hell pursue enforcement goals. I am not naive and am aware of course of the special conflicts problems raised by the revolving door. But I also do believe that lawyers can (and certainly have, at least in the past), managed to take different positions, based on the demand of different roles.

This is all a rather speculative, and may be a moot point, since no matter how aggressive Peikin might like to be in rooting out corporate wrongdoing, that will be a difficult goal to achieve, with a frozen budget and a shrinking staff.

Which is no doubt exactly what our current crop of Congresscritters intended
Jerri-Lynn here: This short post analyzes what the impact on the soaring U.S. solar industry would be of imposing a 35% tariff on solar panels, as recommended earlier this week by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). Although the ITC has recommended a tariff be imposed, the final decision rests with Trump, who has until January to determine whether to implement or ignore the ITCs recommendation, or craft a completely different policy.

By Nick Cunningham, a Pittsburgh-based writer on n oil and gas, renewable energy, climate change, energy policy and geopolitics. You can follow him on Twitter: @nickcunningham1. Originally published at OilPrice

The U.S. solar industry has surged in recent years, accounting for the largest source of new electric capacity in the past year, with plenty of room to grow. However, the Trump administration is weighing a trade tariff that could seriously curtail the explosive growth figures for U.S. solar.

On Tuesday, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) recommended a 35 percent tariff on imported solar panels in response to a complaint from a U.S.-based solar manufacturer over cheap imported panels. The trade case has been cited by the solar industry as one of the most significant dangers to its otherwise bright future, labeling potential tariffs an existential threat. Many solar project developers use cheaper panels imported from places like China, and trade barriers could upend the economics of new solar projects.

But all is not lost. The 35 percent tariff proposed by the ITC is actually less than what Suniva Inc., the company lodging the complaint, had asked for. Suniva filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, blaming a wave of cheap imported panels for its demise. Suniva wanted tariffs on the order of 32 cents per watt, which is roughly equivalent to the full price for a panel on a per-watt basis. The proposed 35 percent tariff would translate into about 10 to 11 cents per watt, about a third of the 32 cents Suniva wanted.

As a result, the solar industry is breathing a sigh of relief, having potentially dodged a massive bullet. Thats below the price that people have been hoarding panels for, Jeffrey Osborne, an analyst at Cowen & Co., told Bloomberg. On the demand side, jobs cuts wont be as bad as feared, but on the manufacturing side, job creation wont be as big. This would have a limited effect.

But its not as if the tariffs would have no impact. Adding 10 to 11 cents per watt to the price of a solar panel would set the cost structure of developers back to about September 2016, erasing a years worth of gains, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).

Still, solar developers believe it could have been much worse. Nobody likes to pay more for their products, said Nathan Serota of BNEF. But its hard to see how much better of an outcome the industry reasonably could have asked for. For its part, Suniva said the ITCs recommendation didnt go far enough, and well see very shortly the extinction of what remains of this manufacturing sector, and the jobs of American workers.

The recommendation is still just a recommendation, and it will be sent to the desk of President Donald Trump, who faces a January deadline to decide what course of action to take. He doesnt have to adhere to the recommendation and actually has a lot of leeway to come up with a solution. He could do nothing, stick with the recommendation, or go further.

There are some unexpected alliances forming over the tariff fight. Conservative groups, often hostile to renewable energy, have come to the defense of solar developers. Ten conservative, free-market groups wrote a joint letter to President Trump to oppose any tariffs on imported panels. If trade restrictions are imposed, the cost of solar products in the United States could double, endangering tens of thousands of good-paying domestic jobs within the solar industry, the conservative groups wrote. The tariffs would amount to nothing more than a crony capitalist giveaway to failing foreign-owned companies, the letter read. Also, Fox News host and key Trump ally Sean Hannity has railed against the proposed tariff, blaming foreign companies for trying to manipulate U.S. trade laws to get preferential treatment from the White House. Sunivas majority owner is a Chinese company.

For solar installers, the hope is that the proposed tariff doesnt take away the substantial momentum that was built up in recent years. In 2015 and 2016, for example, solar accounted for 30 percent and 39 percent of total installed electricity capacity, respectively. That is a larger market share than any other source of new electricity, including natural gas (which had a 29 percent share in both years).

Costs have plunged by roughly 75 percent in the past eight years, and will continue to fall, making solar one of the cheapest forms of electricity in the near future. The trade barriers under consideration by the Trump administration might be the only thing that could slow the industry down.
(Natural News) Are you having a hard time getting a good nights rest or have been wanting to extend your sleeping hours? We have good news for you. A new study reveals that drinking cherry juice, particularly Montmorency tart cherry juice one hour before you sleep will give you 84 minutes of extra sleep, as reported by The Daily Mail.

In the study by researchers from Louisiana State University, eight participants who were 50-years-old and older with chronic insomnia were examined. All of the participants reported sleeping around 9 p.m. to midnight. Each participant was asked to fast for 10 hours, except water, before they had their blood tested. After that, they were asked to answer a survey regarding their insomnia. They were randomly given either 240 ml or eight oz. of cherry juice or a placebo that looked and tasted similarly to the cherry juice. Participants consumed their assigned drink twice a day, one in the morning and another an hour before their bedtime, for 14 days. Two weeks after, they were asked to answer the survey again and the groups switched over.

Results showed that insomniacs who drank Montmorency tart cherry juice had 84 minutes longer sleep time compared to the placebo group. Moreover, cherry juice-drinkers had more efficient sleep. The researchers, after examining the blood samples, found that cherry juice decreased the levels of kynurenine, which is a factor in sleep disturbances and raised the amount of tryptophan in the blood  an amino acid that assists in causing sleepiness. Furthermore, they discovered that cherry juice stopped the production of indoleanmine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), which can delay the release of tryptophan. It can also reduce inflammation as it is known to stop the development of PGE2, a biomarker of inflammation.

Jack Losso, lead author of the study, explained that many people do not want to depend on medications to help them sleep, so natural sleep remedies are increasingly of interest and in demand. (Related: Beating insomnia: Eight surprisingly simple tips.)

The study was published in the American Journal of Therapeutics and was partly funded by the Cherry Marketing Institute.

Fast facts on insomnia

Doctors recommend sleeping for at least seven or more hours a night. However, there are 50 to 70 million people in the United States who suffer from sleep disorders, with insomnia being the most common.

Insomnia is quite common among older adults and it can lead to a range of health issues if left untreated, Losso said.

People with insomnia have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep. They feel discontented with their rest. Moreover, they typically experience symptoms such as fatigue, low energy, difficulty concentrating, mood disturbances, and bad performance in work or at school. There are two types of insomnia based on their duration  acute and chronic insomnia. Acute insomnia is disrupted sleep that is short and usually occurs because of life situations such as a breakup. On the other hand, chronic insomnia is disrupted sleep that happens at least three nights a week and lasts for at least three months. Insomnia has been linked to varies diseases such as cancer, diabetes, dementia, heart disease, and depression.

Find more natural remedies at AlternativeMedicine.news.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

SleepAssociation.org

SleepFoundation.org
After years of heavy criticism and scathing audits, the San Francisco Housing Authority is in the process of turning over more than 6,000 public housing units to new management consisting of mostly private organizations.

The transition is part of a nationwide effort to fix deplorable living conditions for low-income residents. While the federal program has been hailed as a much needed fix for the nations aging public housing stock, an NBC Bay Area investigation revealed how the elderly and disabled can still be left living in poor conditions.

Ive been bullied, been abused, been mistreated, disrespected as a human being, said 57-year-old Kimberly Colemon, a former MUNI driver who now lives in subsidized housing in San Francisco.

A traffic accident in March 2007 left Colemon disabled with a traumatic brain injury. She now struggles to speak and is mostly confined to a wheelchair. One rainy morning last year, Colemon says she awoke to puddles of water spewing from an old cable duct, about one foot away from an electrical outlet.

I got out the bed and the water  splashed up to me, Colemon said. I thought I was in a horror movie.

Colemon lives in Clementina Towers, a low-income building owned by the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp. (TNDC). Colemon complained about the water leak but said for months building management relied on plastic bags taped to her wall to catch the leaking water. When the bags became too full, Colemon had to submit a maintenance request form to management in order to have the bag replaced.

San Francisco Dept. of Building Inspection

Frustrated, Colemon reported her problem to the city. The unit was deemed uninhabitable, and building inspectors ordered TNDC to fix the leak and walls.

Colemon was eventually relocated to another studio apartment in Clementina Towers but says the moving company hired by her building damaged much of her furniture, including her dresser. Coleman said the damage forced her to leave her belongings in boxes on the floor, making it impossible to get across the apartment in her wheelchair.

NBC Bay Area

They should have taken care of me a long time ago and not put me in this situation, Colemon said.

TNDC CEO Don Falk told NBC Bay Area that his team worked for months to fix Colemans leak but said finding the source took longer than expected.

I can imagine how people would look at that situation and say that seems crazy. Why didn't this group, you know, respond to her in a better way, Falk told NBC Bay Area. I think it is in the nature, unfortunately, of what we're doing in terms of taking over marginal housing  in terms of the quality of its current condition  and trying to operate it as best we can.

TNDC took ownership of Clementina Towers in October 2016 from the San Francisco Housing Authority as part of the federal governments Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program.

NBC Bay Area

RAD allows local housing authorities to sell their public housing to private groups that agree to renovate and maintain those buildings for low-income residents. The program aims to fix deplorable and sometimes dangerous living conditions that are the result of a roughly $26 billion "backlog of deferred maintenance" at public housing developments across the country.

In San Francisco, the deal allows the city to maintain control of the public housing land, while private groups own the buildings.

During the past two years, 3,491 units -- more than half of San Franciscos public housing stock -- have been sold to nonprofits through RAD, according to the Mayors Office of Housing and Community Development.

The San Francisco Housing Authority still runs 1,601 public housing units; however, new management is expected to take over by 2020.

TNDC now owns and maintains five public housing developments, but Falk said the group had trouble determining exactly what needed to be fixed.

One of the challenges is the Housing Authoritys lack of documentation and a lack of records in a fairly comprehensive way, Falk said. The kind of things that we might have hoped for when we're buying the existing building from a seller, a lot of it was missing.

At 350 Ellis St., Falk said the conditions were so poor under the Housing Authority, 20 percent of the apartments had to be left vacant.

NBC Bay Area

Acting Executive Director for the Housing Authority, Barbara Smith, declined an on-camera interview but in a statement defended the agencys management of public housing.

"For nearly 80 years, the San Francisco Housing Authority has served low-income residents living throughout the city of San Francisco, Smith wrote.

As the aging public housing stock became obsolete and federal funding dwindled, the SFHA explored ways to rehabilitate older developments for our residents so that these properties could be transformed into vibrant and viable housing for the future.

The federal government listed the San Francisco Housing Authority as one of the worst in the nation for five consecutive years from 2011 to 2015. The poor rating was based on several factors, including overall management of the agency and the poor condition of its public housing.

We have resources that the Housing Authority simply didnt have. Falk said.

TNDC has managed subsidized housing in San Francisco since the early 1980s. To examine its track record, the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit reviewed building inspection reports for TNDCs roughly 40 properties in San Francisco.

Records show 74 violations since 2010, including expired boiler permits, rodent infestations, mold and sewage leaks.

The violations, according to Falk, represent a small fraction of the work TNDC performs on buildings each year.

TNDC responds to something in the order of 20,000 work orders a year, Falk said. We own a lot of properties, most of them are a hundred years or older because these are old buildings that we acquired and renovated in the Tenderloin. So in that kind of context, it's a very, very small percentage of the overall work that's happening.

Since Colemon first contacted NBC Bay Area, TNDC bought her a brand-new nightstand, dresser and bed frame and moved her back into her original apartment, which has been completely renovated. TNDC is also in the process of upgrading its maintenance tracking system to make it easier to spot delays.

NBC Bay Area

While Coleman appreciates the fixes and renovations, she believes they should have come earlier.

Yeah, it was too long, Colemon said. I feel I should have just been moved immediately into a safe place.

______________________________________
Students at Dublin High School were dismissed early from class Thursday afternoon due to a bomb threat investigation.

Dublin police said no explosives were located at the campus.

School officials said all afternoon events, scheduled practices and games were canceled due to the investigation.

No other information was immediately available.
Hundreds of Oakland city workers walked off the job Thursday, staging a strike as Mayor Libby Schaaf prepared to deliver her State of the City address.

Libraries, senior centers and recreation facilities closed early as disgruntled workers walked picket lines.

Union leaders say workers have been without a contact for nearly five months. They say staffing levels havent changed since 2008, making response times to issues such as Oaklands growing homelessness problem difficult and dangerous.

The mayor said the city values its workers and added that a resolution is close. In the meantime libraries, senior centers and other city facilities were shut down for the day.

"Theyre not offering us enough to cover the cost of living," said Sarina Baldwin, Oakland's revenue collector.

Folks who work at the Oakland city library say theyve been overworked and underpaid for years.

"The library is a great place. We are a public institution, always been open to any and every person who walks through our doors," library aide Lina Hernandez said. "We work the jobs of two, three people sometimes."

Felipe Cuevas, SEIU chapter president, agreed, saying there are fewer workers doing as much work as they can but having trouble keeping up with it.

Schaaf responded to the protest ahead of her speech.

"The City shares many of the same concerns the workers do," she said in a statement. "We all want a clean beautiful safe city. We all believe in the dignity of work."

Striking workers outside the building where the mayor was set to deliver her address said they were there to let the city of Oakland know whats really going on and what the actual state of the city is.
A Santa Clara police officer lawfully shot and killed a mentally ill and suicidal man during a standoff back in March, the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office has announced.

Jesus Geney-Montes, who had previously stabbed himself in the chest and told police that he had a gun and would open fire either on himself or at officers, was shot and killed on March 9 when he moved toward veteran Officer Colin Stewart, according to the District Attorney's Office. Stewart tried to first use a stun gun when Geney-Montes "rushed toward him," but it "was not effective." Stewart resorted to firing his gun.

"Seeing Geney-Montes charging towards him and believing his life was in danger, Officer Stewart chose to defend himself by discharging his weapon," prosecutor Carolyn Powell wrote in a public report regarding the officer-involved shooting. "Under the facts, circumstances and applicable law in this matter, Officer Colin Stewarts use of force was in response to an objectively reasonable belief that he was facing an immediate threat of great bodily injury or death."

Officers later learned that Geney-Montes was not armed when he was shot, according to the District Attorney's Office.

During the standoff, officers with guns drawn asked Geney-Montes to show his hands multiple times as he stood on an embankment behind a housing complex with his hand in his pocket. Officers could also be heard telling Geney-Montes, "You're not going to die today" and "Nobody wants to hurt you," according to body camera footage.

Officers continued to try to offer help to Geney-Montes as the standoff prolonged, but he remained on the embankment and later took off running. Stewart followed and when Geney-Montes moved in his direction, the officer opened fire.

Before the shooting, officers on March 9 had visited the home where Geney-Montes was four times, according to the DA's office. Geney-Montes barricaded himself in a bedroom, threatened his family members and told officers he had a gun and would shoot if law enforcement entered the room. Police determined that no crimes had been committed and decided to leave the scene each time.

Geney-Montes stepfather, Richard Sommers, said he and his wife called the police three times that day because the 24-year-old had been acting erratically.

"We were hoping either they crash the room, break a window, we dont care. We wanted help," Sommers said. "What I saw was flat out murder. They said they Tased him. I never saw a Tasing. I never saw nothing. I saw him in the bushes getting shot. He was against a fence."

It was on the fifth call that police learned that Geney-Montes had stabbed himself and fled the home, according to the DA's office.

The family has filed a lawsuit against the city of Santa Clara.

NBC Bay Area's Sergio Quintana contributed to this report.
A mountain pass that runs through Yosemite National Park will close to traffic Thursday ahead of winter-like storms expected to dump up to 2 feet of snow on the highest peaks, park officials said.

Tioga Road, the soaring eastern entry to the park, will close to vehicular traffic at 5 p.m. Thursday. Officials will also close Glacier Point Road, which offers sweeping views of Yosemite Valley. No overnight parking will be permitted on either roadway, National Park Service officials said.

Both roads will be closed through Monday, when the storms are expected to dissipate and road conditions can be assessed.

State transportation officials closed Ebbetts Pass, or State Route 4, Thursday afternoon and planned to close Sonora Pass, or State Route 108, at midnight Thursday.

Light rain over the northern mountains is expected as early as Thursday afternoon. But heavier rain and snow will likely fall Friday night through Saturday, with a second storm coming Sunday.

Up to 2 feet of snow are forecast to fall in elevations above 8,000 feet, and at least a foot of snow is expected in Donner and Tioga passes and other areas above 6,000 feet and up, forecasters said. The storms coming in from the Gulf of Alaska will also bring rain to the San Francisco Bay Area, including North Bay counties still recovering from last month's fires.

The first storm will clear by Sunday afternoon. But a second storm system is expected to hit the area Sunday night.

So far, the only Lake Tahoe-area ski resort to open is Mt. Rose area on the Nevada side. But the forecast snowstorms are getting skiers excited about the upcoming ski season.

"We are so excited for the coming storms and to see the first 30 inches of snow cover the Sierra over the next few weeks," said Marcie Bradley, a spokeswoman with Northstar Ski Resort in Truckee, which is scheduled to open Nov. 17. "We are ecstatic to see what bounty Mother Nature brings."

In Southern California, light rain is possible throughout the weekend.
President Donald Trump wants to end the Diversity Visa Program because that's how the suspect in New York's terror attack entered the U.S. But some Massachusetts residents who used the same program to get here hope he reconsiders.

Alex Pavluchenko is a wedding photographer on Cape Cod. The Belarus native moved his family there last year after they won a green card through the Diversity Visa Program.

"In all aspects, our lives got better," he said.

The program started in 1990. Every year, more than 10 million apply for a chance to get a green card. The U.S. only hands out 50,000 a year. They enroll online between October and November and they're notified in May if they win. They have to come from a qualifying country  one with low immigration numbers to the U.S.  and they have to have a high school degree.

Immigration attorney Greg Romanovsky says folks who win consider it a golden ticket. He says his law partner came from Romania through this program, and her husband, who's a doctor, did as well.

"It's a wonderful opportunity for people with no other chance, to come to the U.S., to contribute to society," he said.

Romanovsky says all applicants are vetted the same way other immigrants would be, very thoroughly. He points to a 76-page application they'd have to fill out, just as a starter. For Alex and his family, he says he hopes the president reconsiders, so other families like his can have a chance at the American dream.

"A lot of our friends are playing [the Diversity Visa Lottery]," he said. "It's the only chance to get here to the United States for a good life."
As allegations of misconduct against Illinois lawmakers continue to emerge, a new revelation indicates some of those claims may escape not only penalty, but even an investigation.

For the past three years, Illinois has not had a legislative inspector general in office. In that time, 27 complaints have been filed, but not acted upon.

But now, there is a new urgency to hire someone, as there is a statute of limitations on when an investigation can be conducted into complaints about lawmakers' behavior.

State Sen. Karen McConnaughay (R-St. Charles) pointed out Wednesday that the legislative ethics commission has a one-year statute of limitations.

"An investigation may not be initiated more than one year after the most recent act of the alleged violation," Illinois law reads - meaning some complaints may never be examined at all.

Earlier in the week, a public allegation of sex harassment was made against state Sen. Ira Silverstein (D-Chicago), with his accuser saying that a complaint was filed to the empty inspector general's office nearly a year ago.

And with more and more headlines coming out about harassment in Springfield, legislators on both sides of the aisle want action.

"We're going make some demands and hopefully they will be met," state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago) said.

"I'm not saying that names are not going to come out. I think that thats inevitable, but I really want to stay focused on fixing this." she added.

State Rep. Jeanne Ives, now a Republican candidate for governor, blamed the leaders for leaving the office open.

"You have to have leaders that enforce and model good behavior and nip it in the bud when they see it. And when it comes forward, they confront it right away and they tell their staff: we will not tolerate this," she said.

"You have got to have a way for people to process a complaint and get resolution on it," she continued.

Lawmakers now say they'll soon agree to hire an inspector general - but that will be just the first step, as whoever takes the role will have a lot of work to catch up on.
Actor Lou Diamond Phillips has been charged with DWI in Texas just hours before a scheduled appearance in Corpus Christi.

Police in nearby Portland arrested Phillips early Friday. Jail records show bond wasn't immediately set for Phillips, who starred in "La Bamba."

Police Chief Mark Cory says an officer was conducting an unrelated traffic stop when the 55-year-old Phillips drove up and asked for directions. Cory says the officer suspected Phillips had been drinking. His blood alcohol level was .20  more than twice the legal limit for driving.

Cory says Phillips, who listed a California address, was cooperative.

Jail records didn't indicate an attorney for Phillips, a 1980 graduate of Corpus Christi's Flour Bluff High School. Phillips was scheduled to appear Friday afternoon at a Corpus Christi historical event.
A masked gunman opened fire in an Uptown Starbucks coffee shop Thursday night on Chicago's North Side, killing one man and wounding two other people, including a 12-year-old boy, authorities said.

The shootings occurred about 8:15 p.m. in the 4700 block of North Broadway Street, police said.

The 12-year-old was shot in the groin and taken to Lurie Childrens Hospital in critical condition, police said. The boy's condition later stabilized.

The wounded man, who police said was in his 20s, was shot and took himself to Weiss Hospital. His condition was not immediately known. Another man, also in his 20s, was shot and pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

The man killed was identified Friday morning as 28-year-old Sauvignon Watkins of Chicago's Avalon Park neighborhood, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office.

Chicago police Cmdr. Marc Buslik, of the 19th District, told reporters outside the Starbucks the shooting was possibly preceded by a botched drug deal between the shooter and the man who died in the coffee shop. He said the deal might have occurred on Wilson Avenue east of Broadway Street.

The man was chased into the Starbucks by the shooter, who was wearing a mask of some sort and dressed in dark clothing, Buslik said. The shooter opened fire inside the coffee shop, he said, fatally striking the man. The two others who were wounded were standing near the man who was killed, police said.

Buslik said police believe the wounded boy and man knew the dead man but did not elaborate on their relationship.

"We believe that the three victims did know each other," he said, adding that he did not know if either of the men were the childs father.

A person who answered the phone at the Starbucks location calmly said he was not allowed to talk to media.

Starbucks spokesman Reggie Borges said the company was "dismayed" by the shooting.

"We are working with law enforcement to better learn specifics of what transpired and support our customers and partners," he said. "We hope to provide updates as soon as we learn more.

A statement on the company's website Thursday said the store would be closed Friday morning "as we focus on our local store partners, ensuring they have the support they need."

Kendra Nance said she was walking by the coffee shop with her boyfriend when they heard gunshots.

"I thought it was firecrackers," she said. "But when I seen people coming out, they started crying  I seen blood everywhere  I seen a dead body."



No one was in custody and Area North detectives were investigating.
Jarianny Marquez and Lesmer Jurado had only been married a few months before their love was put to the ultimate test and the pair was faced with a devastating tragedy.

The Venezuelan couple had moved to Bolivia to begin their new married life together when they were involved in a terrifying bus accident in February.

The driver of the bus lost control of the vehicle and hit another car head-on, Marquez said.

Two people died in the accident and the 26-year-old Marquez ultimately lost her right arm. Her left arm was also severely damaged, left hanging on by a single strip of flesh.

"When I saw her, it really is the strongest pain I have ever experienced in my life," Jurado said.

The young journalist went on to spend months in the hospital as doctors furiously tried to save the function of her left arm.

The doctors told me that it would be easier to have my left arm amputated, but I insisted on fighting for it, despite the fact that this meant disfiguring my legs and abdomen to transplant skin to my arm, she wrote on a fundraising page for her medical needs.

Ten surgeries and less than a year later, and Marquez and Jurado, with the help of another family, have come to Chicago in a desperate search for new medical treatments.

The answer, however, has led to another massive challenge.

On her left side, Marquez said doctors in Chicago told her she has early ankylosis, or the fusing of her bones, which has rendered her left elbow immobile.

This means that I can only swing my shoulder, she wrote. I cant bend my elbow, nor straighten my arm, and I have very little mobility in my hand and fingers due to the severity of the injuries to my bone, nerves, arteries and skin. The doctors have emphasized that any further surgery would be dangerous, and that I should consider the current disability of my left arm to be permanent.

Still, doctors said Marquez qualified for a life-changing prosthesis on her right side.

"It is very important for us, the right arm, because at this time, my husband's hands are mine," said Marquez.

The prosthesis that Marquez needs costs more than $94,000 and the couple does not have health insurance, they said. So, they started a You Caring fundraising campaign.

Due to the fact that I cannot use my left arm, this prosthesis for my right arm is the only way I will be able to function on my own again, she wrote. With this prosthetic arm, I will be able to eat, go to the bathroom, open doors, and get dressed on my own. What I most desire is to go on with my life, caring for my husband and our future children, and achieving the career of my dreams as a journalist.

So far, the fundraising campaign has raised $2,000 of the $100,000 goal.

Those looking to help the young couple can also send checks referencing Jarianny Marquez to Hanger Clinic, located at 11231 W. Cermak Rd., in Westchester, Illinois.
UPDATE: The mayor's office has received a check for $38,432.24 from Pan Am Railways.

The City of New Britain is threatening legal action against Pan Am Railways after asking them to reimburse the city for the thousands of dollars it cost to deal with a December 2016 derailment.

The derailment cost the city just over $78,000. New Britain city officials told NBC Connecticut that Pan Am Railways wanted to settle for $38,432, which totals the approximate cost of the citys emergency response, equipment and overtime, after a Pan Am train derailed on Columbus Boulevard.

Part of a settlement states that Pan Am, who was at fault for the derailment, would remove the rest of a brick wall that was damaged.

After the city said they reached an agreement with the railroad company, they were supposed to receive half of the money in September and the other half in October, but the city said they have not received a dime.

"They originally agreed on the settlement price of and now theyre turning their back on that and saying weve changed our mind. Well, you promised us that you would reimburse us and now youre changing your mind? We want to know why," Mayor Erin Stewart said.

"They have a deadline of November 15 to pay up the amount of money that they owe us and if not, well be moving forward with a lawsuit for the damages that we had to incur," the mayor continued.

Prior to the settlement agreement, Stewart said it took getting state senators involved so that the city could hear back from Pan Am.

Pan Am chose not to comment.
Southbury is considering whether to ban firearms at all town properties and on all town-owned land.

Residents lined up at the Board of Selectmen meeting to the auditorium of Pomperaug High School on Judd Road on Thursday night.

"I want to be safe when I go to a public place and a public meeting," Mary Ellen Cleary, of Southbury, told NBC Connecticut News.

After three hours of people pleading their cases, the Board of Selectmen ended the discussion because the school needed to be locked up. They've delayed a decision about whether the town should look into the potential ban until Nov. 16.

Town Democrats proposed the ordinance. During a meeting in October, several people spoke about the ordinance, expressing support or disapproval.

"The Constitution is not up for cherry picking. This is a right and people are trying to usurp a Constitutional right," Linda Czaplinski, of Oxford, said on Thursday night.



The Republican-American reports that advocates argue the ordinance would put everyone on an even playing field and several other nearby towns have ordinances, such as Ansonia, Meriden and East Haven.

"Gun-free zones actually invite criminals to carry, to come into the situation," one speaker said at the meeting.

The National Rifle Association is strictly opposing the ordinance and said its an attempt to turn the town into a gun-free zone.

"This is an attempt by misguided gun control activists to turn the town into a 'gun-free zone.' Time and again we have seen that gun-free zones leave law-abiding citizens as sitting ducks for criminals intent on doing us harm. The NRA is urging our members and supporters to oppose this ordinance," Catherine Mortensen, NRA spokesperson, said in a statement.

The NRA urged gun advocates to attend the meeting.

"The NRA, CCDL and their supporters say guns make us safer," another speaker said. "But that is simply not true."


Joe Biden will be running for President of the United States in 2020  no ifs, ands or buts, at least according to Chris Matthews, host of MSNBCs "Hardball."

"Ive talked to his family. Hes running. OK? Fact," Matthews said Friday following an appearance at NBC10 promoting his new book, "Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit."

Biden, President Obama's vice president and a popular seven-time senator from Delaware, is a "regular guy," Matthews says, who would rather summer at casual Rehoboth Beach than tony Marthas Vineyard.

Its Bidens everyday sensibility that could help him attract working-class whites, a group Matthews believes Democrats need to woo once again.

"The Democrats gotta get back to being the party of regular people: firefighters, waitresses, cops. Regular people," Matthews said. "I dont like talking ethnically, but thats a fact. Theyve lost the working class whites and theyve got to get them back."

Biden has been opaque about his intentions for the 2020 election cycle. He told Vanity Fair last month that he hadnt made up his mind.

"I havent decided to run. But Ive decided Im not going to decide not to run. Well see what happens," he said.

A spokesman for Biden told NBC10 Friday afternoon that they had no official comment on Matthews' comments and pointed to Biden's Vanity Fair interview.



Biden has run for president twice, in 1988 and 2008  the latter ending with him joining Obamas ticket. He also considered running in the 2016 election. But after delaying a decision for months, he decided to sit out.

He said his family asked him not to run after the May 2015 death of his son, Beau Biden, the former Attorney General of Delaware. It's a decision Biden told NBC Connecticut in January that he regrets "every day" but that was right for his family.

Since leaving the White House, Biden has launched academic centers at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Delaware.



Matthews says if the 74-year-old can show he has a youthful mindset and survive inevitable gaffes from slips of his tongue, he could make it to the general election.

"If Joe has the spirit of a young guy, I think he can put together a ticket, perhaps with Kamala Harris from California, and that ticket could be pretty powerful," Matthews said.


Twin 67-year-old sisters from Texas and Arizona died after being swept into the ocean by a massive wave in Mexico.

Barbara Thomas, of McKinney, and Beverly Skrimpsky, of Scottsdale, were hit by the rogue wave while vacationing in Cabo San Lucas on Sunday.

The twins were lifelong best friends who traveled the world.

"They're special people. Anybody that knew them loved them," said Steve Thomas, Barbara's husband of 45 years.

Thomas said he went looking for his wife and her sister when they didn't return from a morning walk on the beach and ended up running for his life.



"All of a sudden a five foot wave was a 10 foot wave, it was a 15 foot wave, it was a 20 foot wave all in the matter of time that it took for me to just tell you that. That's how fast it happened," Thomas said.



Thomas said he knew something was wrong when he spotted one of the women's sandals on the shore.



Security notified him when he returned to his rental house that the coast guard found the women in the water, he said.



"It's hard," Thomas said. "When you have somebody that you love that much that they've been your life your whole life."



It wasn't the first time an accident like this happened recently.



Steven Urycki, of Illinois, died after being swept into the ocean the week before.



"A guy dies five days before this and nobody says a word?" Thomas asked.

He said he had no idea the threat of a rogue wave even existed and hoped that sharing the story prevents others from meeting the same fate.



"I've lost the love of my life just because she's out walking on the beach," he said.



The U.S. Embassy in Mexico is warning travelers to Cabo about dangerous wave conditions with strong currents, rip tides and rogue waves.

"Not all hazardous beaches in this area are clearly marked. Swimmers, waders and even people simply walking along the beaches have been washed into the ocean by rogue waves," the warning says. "Some have drowned and others have disappeared."
A California couple and their two young daughters, who had been missing since Sunday when pirates attacked their boat in the Amazon River delta area, have been found alive.

Adam and Emily Harteau and their 3- and 7-year-old daughters were found by Riberinhos, the Amazon's river dwellers, near the Jacare Grande river. According to a local resident, villagers found the family sitting on top of a surfboard in a ravine, Brazil's O Globo reported.



Except for insect bites and scratches, the family was in good condition and will spend the night in a hospital in the small city of Breves, not far from where they were found, law enforcement officials in Brazil's northern jungle state of Para said Wednesday.

The Harteaus were headed to Breves when gunmen boarded the boat they were on and forced it to go the city of Porto dos Dias, said Sergio Chene, a spokesman for Para's Public Safety Department.

There crew and passengers were held hostage for several hours and stripped of their personal belongings before the pirates fled, Chene said. The ferry docked at a nearby port and contacted local police. According to a spokesman for Brazil's Secretary of State for Public Security (SEGUP), when officers initially responded to the port at 3:30 a.m. Monday, the Harteau family was still on board the vessel.

Police gathered information from the crew and passengers and left to investigate the area, deputy chief of SEGUP in Para, Andre Cunha, told Globo in an interview Wednesday. Officers found several of the stolen items thrown nearby in the jungle, including a notebook of pictures the family kept detailing their trip. When they returned to the port at about 6:30 a.m. and looked for the family so they could give them the notebook, the Harteaus' van was abandoned and they were nowhere to be found, Cunha said. Inside their van, police found marijuana, he said, noting the amount appeared to be for "personal consumption" and not an indication of drug trafficking.

"We really don't know why they left the vessel. If they got off because they were afraid in light of what they just experienced or maybe if they were scared because they were in possession of a certain amount of drugs, which was ceased by the Federal Police in Macapa," Cunha said. "The fact is: after the police left to go investigate, at some point between 3:30 and 6:30, they got off the vessel."



Colby Guillory, a Los Angeles resident acting as a family spokesman, said friends and relatives think the Harteaus decided to flee the boat to get away from the pirates and have been walking in the jungle since.

"Me knowing Adam, he probably took it upon himself to save his family," Guillory said. "We just know that sometime between pirates overtaking the boat and leaving the boat, (the Harteaus) went missing. We think they jumped."

When Guillory heard his good friends were safe he said he began "super excited ugly-crying."

"We just can't wait to have them home," he said.

Adam Harteau's brother, Keith Harteau, told The Associated Press earlier that the attack happened as the family was on its way to move back to California. They were set to arrive in Los Angeles on Nov. 15.

The couple's youngest daughter was born in Florianopolis, Brazil, the Federal University of Santa Catarina's University Hospital confirmed to O Globo. Keith Harteau said the couple wanted to be closer to home and for their girls to be near their family.

"It was their time to get a little bit of foundation," he said.

He said Emily Harteau grew up in Sacramento and Adam grew up in Juniper Hills in the San Gabriel Mountains just northeast of Los Angeles.

The Harteaus had recently been living in the southern Brazil city of Florianopolis. They have been using a website to document their journey around South America, which began in 2012 as a plan to travel to Patagonia in their Volkswagen van and return to California one year later.

But the Harteaus fell in love with South America and have been there since after they "decided to embrace a future unknown and the rewards of slow travel," according to their site, which says Adam is an artist and Emily a fashion designer.

They wanted their site to "serve as a modern family portrait, as they shed their robes of comfort to re-examine the American Dream."

"They hope to inspire others to create, eat well, spend quality time together, and adventure into their own great backyards," the site says.
A trove of Facebook ads made public Wednesday by Congress depicts Russia's extraordinary cyber intrusion into American life in 2016 aimed at upending the nation's democratic debate and fomenting discord over such disparate issues as immigration, gun control and politics.

The ads, seen by vast numbers of people, encouraged street demonstrations against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and fostered support and opposition to Bernie Sanders, Muslims, gays, blacks and the icons of the Civil Rights movement.

The few dozen ads, a small sampling of the roughly 3,000 Russian-connected ones that Facebook has identified and turned over to Congress, were released amid two consecutive days of tough and sometimes caustic questioning by House and Senate lawmakers about why social media giants hadn't done more to combat Russian interference on their sites.

The ads underscore how foreign agents sought to sow confusion, anger and discord among Americans through messages on hot-button topics. U.S. intelligence services say the Russian use of social media was part of a broad effort to sway the 2016 presidential election in favor of Trump. Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether the Kremlin worked with the Trump campaign to influence voters.

Many of the ads show careful targeting, with messages geared toward particular audiences. One ad, aimed at those with an interest in civil rights and their leaders, highlights a man who claims to be Bill Clinton's illegitimate son. Another video parodying Trump was targeted at blacks who also are interested in BlackNews.com, HuffPost Politics or HuffPost Black Voices. It was shown 716 times and got 42 clicks.

Though officials at Facebook and other social media giants were initially reluctant to acknowledge Russian success on their sites in swaying popular opinion, company leaders have struck a different tone in recent weeks and disclosed steps to Congress they say are intended to prevent future meddling by foreign agents.

Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke to NBC News Lester Holt that its not social media ads from foreign governments, "The bigger issue are these trolls are used to divide people, to manipulate people, to get fake news to a broad people, to influence people."



In preparation for hearings this week, Facebook disclosed that content generated by a Russian group, the Internet Research Agency, potentially reached as many as 126 million users. Company executives said that going forward they would verify political ad buyers in federal elections, requiring them to reveal correct names and locations. The site will also create new graphics where users can click on the ads and find out more about who's behind them.

But that did not prevent hours of questioning during two days of hearings, with lawmakers expressing exasperation at the seeming inability to thwart foreign intervention.

At one point during a hearing Tuesday, Sen. Al Franken shook his head after he couldn't get all the companies to commit to not accepting political ads bought with foreign currency. Several ads touting Facebook pages called "Back the Badge," ''Being Patriotic," ''Blacktivist," ''South United" and "Woke Blacks" were labeled as being paid for in rubles using Qiwi, a Moscow-based payment provider that aims to serve "the new generation in Russia" and former Soviet republics, according to the company's website.

"Google has all knowledge that man has ever developed," the Minnesota Democrat said. "You can't put together rubles with a political ad and go like, 'Hmmm, those data points spell out something pretty bad?' "

Besides the ads released by lawmakers on the House intelligence committee, Democrats on the panel also released four tweets from RT, a Russian state-sponsored television network, and more than 2,700 Twitter handles active during the final months of the election campaign.

Taken together, they show how actual news events and stories helped shape surreptitious Russian messaging.

One advertisement cited a real October 2016 news story  about a gunman's battle with Boston police officers  then used it to attack Hillary Clinton as "the main hardliner against cops" and to promote Trump as the candidate who can "defend the police from terrorists." It received 761 clicks.

Three of the tweets referenced Clinton, including one that linked to an RT story about the release of a batch of hacked emails from her campaign chairman, John Podesta. Another featured a video of Clinton falling while getting into a van. "What impact will this stumble have on #Hillary's campaign?" it read.

Some 34,000 Trump supporters were shown an ad calling for Clinton's removal from the ballot, citing "dynastic succession of the Clinton family" as a breach of core principles laid out by the Founding Fathers. Clicking on it took Facebook users to a petition at WhiteHouse.gov. Another, seen by more than 15,000 people and getting some 1,300 clicks, equated Clinton with President Barack Obama's "anti-police and anti-constitutional propaganda."

AP/Jon Elswick

Though U.S. intelligence officials believe the social media effort was aimed at aiding Trump, there are other indications it was intended to sow general divisions.

One ad promoted a Nov. 12 anti-Trump rally in New York City, titled "Not My President." Large anti-Trump rallies actually did take place around the country that day in major American cities. That doesn't mean the Russian accounts planned the events, but rather that they were piggybacking on existing protests and promoting them to like-minded people.

Lawmakers said some Russian-linked ads, including one from an account purporting to be linked to the Tennessee Republican Party, were shared not only by ordinary Americans, but by members of the Trump campaign and administration, including Trump's son Donald Jr. and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.

Not all of Russia's activity was intended to intervene in the election, said Salve Regina University professor James Ludes, who has written on Russia's influence on the United States.

The ads on divisive issues such as race and gun ownership  or even organizing opposing rallies across the street from each other  are meant to "attack political cohesion" and make Americans turn against one another, he said.

"It's not intended to benefit once candidate or another per se, but raise political temperature," Ludes said. "Make us feel like we are coming apart at the seams."

Associated Press writers Chad Day in Alexandria, Virginia, Ryan Nakashima in Menlo Park, California, Barbara Ortutay in New York and Matt O'Brien in Cambridge, Massachusetts contributed to this report.
Days after an E. Coli outbreak at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego (MCRD), 86 recruits remain sickened, 19 of which recently fell ill, officials confirmed Thursday in an update.

The E. Coli exposure affects both MCRD San Diego and the command field's training facilities at Edson Range on Camp Pendleton.

The outbreak was first announced Monday when diarrheal illness sickened more than 300 Marine recruits, an MCRD spokesperson said. More than 5,500 recruits are in training.

Since then, hundreds have gotten better.

Eighty-six recruits remain symptomatic with the diarrheal illness, authorities said. Nineteen of those are new cases.

"The command is continuing to take precautionary measures and care for those who are affected," said Brig. Gen. William Jurney, commanding general, MCRD San Diego and the Western Recruiting Region, in a statement.



Sixteen recruits have been admitted to an off-base medical facility. The other cases are being treated aboard the base.

On Friday, more than 500 Marines from Hotel Company will graduate from recruit training. As an added precaution, new Marines who previously showed symptoms of the bacteria will remain aboard the installation for continued observation.

An investigation is underway to determine the source of the E. Coli bacteria. Some of the cases are infected with the Shiga toxin causing E. Coli bacteria.



We are working to identify the cause of the sickness, making sure our affected recruits can return to training as soon as possible and continuing training for recruits not influenced," added Jurney.

While the command searches for the source of the outbreak, they will implement the following preventative actions:

Recruits with E. Coli symptoms will be isolated to prevent spreading the sickness to their peers.

There will be increased hygiene requirements with an emphasis on handwashing.

MCRD San Diego will undergo extensive cleaning to ensure proper sanitization.

Naval Medical Center San Diego's Preventative Medicine Unit will inspect barracks, chow halls and common areas.

Recruits will receive guidance on how to identify symptoms.

The MCRD will notify families if the outbreak affects a recruit's graduation date due to missed training, if the recruit is to remain aboard the installation or if their recruit is hospitalized.

Officials will provide additional updates to keep families informed on Twitter until the outbreak subsides.
More victims of the destructive Northern California wildfires are joining a legal battle against electric utility PG&E.

Lawsuits are mounting after the fires, which ignited on the night of Oct. 8 and are 100 percent contained as of this week, killed 43 people, burned nearly 6,200 homes, wiped out 2,000 outbuildings and destroyed about 150 commercial buildings.

Three families joined 12 other victims on Friday in suing the San Francisco-based utility company for what their legal team calls "gross negligence" on the part of PG&E when it comes to maintaining its equipment and for allowing vegetation and trees to grow too close to power lines.

"For these people, the damages are that they lost everything  their houses, their personal property," said attorney Mary Alexander outside San Francisco Superior Court, adding that photographs and family heirlooms can never be replaced.

Added to that, Alexander said, "There's also the trauma ... the emotional toll, the mental anguish of escaping with their lives."

One of the plaintiffs, Nemesio Ruiz, said he and his family fled for their lives when flames threatened their Redwood Valley home in Mendocino County on the first day of the fires.

There was "fire all over the place," he said, which was "very scary."

"My kids are devastated because they lost everything ... and we're looking for justice," Ruiz said.

He echoed Alexander's viewpoint, saying that PG&E's downed power lines could have sparked the deadly inferno.

"We are certain that this is the cause and that it will be, eventually, the official cause," Alexander said.

Alexander is also the designated attorney  or liaison counsel  to the plaintiffs in the Ghost Ship fire that killed 36 people in Oakland on Dec. 2, 2016. In that case too, she blames PG&E.

"We are suing PG&E for the Ghost Fire and it's the same thing," she stressed. "They're not maintaining their lines."



In a statement to NBC Bay Area, PG&E wrote: "Nothing is more important to us than the safety and well-being of our customers and communities we serve. Our thoughts are with everyone impacted by these devastating wildfires.

"We are aware that lawsuits have been filed. Beyond that, were going to be focused on doing everything we can to help these communities rebuild and recover."
The first filing happened in 2015 with claims Phoenix Warehouse of California was withholding overtime pay. But when multiple cases started to come forward, attorneys for alleged victims were able to get the case changed to a class action.

"If you want to talk about wide spread, it's pretty much everyone who worked for their company from 2009 through 2016," says Glendale-based attorney David Yeremian. "We point the finger at Phoenix."



Employees who spoke with NBC4 say their jobs were to take pallets of goods for local big box stores like Walmart, Target and Home Goods that came in from the Port of LA and to sort them for shipping to Southern California stores.

But they say often their managers would refuse to allow them to take breaks  for lunch or for the bathroom  and at least one victim claims in court documents that if she turned down sexual advances from her manager, she wouldn't get paid for the day.



"They wouldn't let me rest," says former employee Yadira Espinoza. "I would work 13 to 15 hours a day."



Yeremian says the employees were hired through three different staffing agencies, also named in the lawsuit, and that employees would clock in for 40 hours under one agency, then work additional hours under another without any overtime compensation.



"It's Phoenix managers who are in charge of these warehouses, who are dictating the terms of employment, when they clock in, when they clock out, when they take lunch breaks, when they have to continue working," Yeremian says.



In a statement from Steve Brennan, an attorney representing Phoenix, he denies the allegations and questions the motives of the plaintiffs' attorneys:



"Phoenix Warehouse of California denies the allegations of the Espinoza class action and will continue to vigorously defend its position in Court. It should be noted that the Court denied plaintiffs' original application for class certification because they failed to provide evidence that other workers support their claims, while Phoenix all of which is a matter of public record. Ultimately, the claims of these few former workers will be weighed against testimony of a much greater number of who refute those claims. Phoenix believes that plaintiffs" current publicity campaign, occurring over four-and-a-half years into the lawsuit, is evidence they continue to lack meaningful co-worker support for their claims. Finally, Phoenix considers the representations made by plaintiffs and their counsel in their campaign to be defamatory and is investigating bringing an appropriate responsive action."



One of the named staffing agencies sent a statement as well, also denying the allegations. Justine Schmidt wrote this: "Fairway Staffing Services denies the allegations in the complaint. Fairway provides a service to the community by providing both long and short term staffing jobs to those seeking employment. Fairway has been vigorously defending this matter for years and will continue its defense up and though trial if necessary."



There is no set date for trial yet but former employees say they're ready to fight to the end, claiming their fears of deportation stopped them before  but not any more.



"People need to speak up," Espinoza says, "we cannot be quiet."


Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich filed a petition Thursday with the United States Supreme Court, challenging the conviction on which he is currently serving a 14-year sentence in federal prison.

The Blagojevich appeal rests on two main pillars: that he never violated campaign laws as defined in a previous landmark Supreme Court case, and that his sentence was especially harsh compared with other politicians who have been jailed on corruption charges.

Indeed, Blagojevich maintains that his sentence is more than twice as long as the penalties levied on others found guilty of the same, or even more egregious, conduct. And he insists under the Courts decision in a case known as McCormick v. the United States, none of his fundraising activities should have been considered illegal.

The McCormick case said that in order to have committed a corrupt act, a politician must have made an explicit promise that he would commit to an official act in exchange for the donors campaign money. Another decision, Evans v. the United States, permits conviction based on an implied promise of an official act. In asking the Supreme Court to take the former governors case, Blagojevich attorney Leonard Goodman argues the time is right for the court to clear up the rules once and for all.

The majority of circuits to have considered the question, treat McCormick as setting the standard for campaign contribution cases, Goodman writes, arguing that the looser Evans standard applies to bribes or favors offered for non-campaign related payments.

The location of the line between lawful campaign solicitation and felony extortion is a question of undeniable practical importance to candidates throughout the country, Goodman argues. The present uncertainty also implicates constitutional concerns of the highest order.

From the prison where he has served more than five years of his sentence, Blagojevich still maintains he did nothing wrong.

I was always careful in fundraising, to stay on the right side of the line, the former governor told NBC5 in July, his first interview since entering federal custody. Its a very simple rule---you cant promise anything in exchange for a campaign contribution, and I didnt!

Blagojevich has long insisted that his jury received improper instructions, and that the governing McCormick standard was never properly applied in his case.

The prosecutors listened to all the tapes, they knew there were no specific promises, he said. So instead, what they did was they moved the line on me, they convicted meon a lesser standard that moved the McCormick line.

The petition marks Blagojevichs second trip to the Supreme Court. After his first petition, prosecutors successfully argued that the appellate process had not been fully exhausted.

Our petition lays out a compelling case that the Supreme Court needs to settle the confusion among federal courts about the dividing line between campaign fundraising, something all elected officials are required to do (unless they are billionaires), and the federal crimes of extortion and bribery, Goodman told NBC5. The prosecutors in this case took advantage of this confusion to impose one of the most severe sentences ever handed out in a political corruption case to a governor who never sought a bribe or a kickback and never took a penny from his campaign fund for his personal use.

Failing at the high court, the former governors only avenue to freedom would be a petition for commutation of his sentence, currently pending before President Donald Trump.
Cans of Spam have become a common item that's being stolen from Honolulu stores and then sold on the streets for quick cash, according to authorities.

Ra Long, who owns a convenience store in the city, said shoplifters have typically targeted alcohol in the past, but recently more cans of Spam have gone missing, Hawaii News Now reported.

"I mean you try to keep an eye on it, but if they run, you just can't leave the counter and chase them," Long said. "So you just got to take the hit."

Honolulu police said they took a report of a man lifting a case of the canned meat from a store earlier this month.

Kimo Carvalho, a spokesman for the Institute for Human Services, said people are stealing Spam because it's easy to sell. "It's quick cash for quick drug money," Carvalho said.

Hawaiians eat millions of cans of Spam a year, the nation's highest per-capita consumption of the processed meat, which is cobbled together from a mixture of pork shoulder, ham, sugar and salt.

The state's love affair with Spam began during World War II, when rationing created just the right conditions for the rise of a meat that needs no refrigeration and has a remarkably long shelf life (indefinitely, the company says).

Ann Kondo Corum, who grew up in Hawaii in the 1950s and has written several Spam-inspired cookbooks, has attributed Spam's popularity partly to Hawaii's large Asian population. "Asians eat a lot of rice. Spam is salty, and it goes well with rice," she told The Associated Press in 2009.
Days after the firing of six firefighters from a Miami station where a noose was found hanging over a black firefighter's family photo ruined by lewd drawings, city officials expressed their fury over the incident during a Friday press conference.

Termination letters sent to The Associated Press on Thursday said the fired firefighters drew or helped draw pictures of penises on personal photos of a colleague. Two of them were supervisors. One of them failed to report the incident and lied to investigators and the other one.

"What happened is difficult to digest," Mayor Tomas Regalado said Friday in front of City Hall in Coconut Grove. " The city of Miami is one of the most diverse cities in the United States. Everyone looks different, but we all live, work and play together."

Photos released by the department show the defaced family photos. A noose hangs over one photo and the others have lewd, obscene images drawn on them.

The letters don't say who created the noose, as city manager Daniel Alfonso says the investigation continues and none of the men fired admitted to placing the noose so that could not be placed in their termination letters.

"In the Miami Fire Department, we hold honor, integrity and respect for our fellow firefighters in the highest regard," Fire Chief Joseph Zahralban said. "If you do not believe in this philosophy, I promise you will struggle in our organization."

A Miami Fire Rescue Department public information officer said the incident occurred at Miami Fire Station 12 located at 1455 Northwest 46 Street.

The city manager said he and the fire department's chief found out on Sept. 10 about an incident "involving sexually explicit and racially offensive conduct" and transferred employees to other stations. After the police department began an internal investigation, 11 firefighters were suspended without pay. Of the six firefighters who were fired, two were supervisors who lied to investigators, according to the dismissal letters. One of them is accused of encouraging and helping subordinates draw lewd pictures on the photos.

The fired firefighters were identified as Cpt. William Bryson, Lt. Alejandro Sese, Kevin Meizoso, Justin Rumbaugh, David Rivera and Harold Santana. The firefighters have denied the allegations.



The firefighters have up to 10 days to dispute their termination before Zahralban. During Friday's press conference, Alfonso said the dismissed men could eventually be reinstated if an arbitrator is brought in to resolve the case.

"It would be sad, but something we should be mindful of," Alfonso said.

It is the second incident involving a noose and firefighters in South Florida this year. In June, a noose was found hanging over the chair of a black firefighter recruit in a training session in Pompano Beach, leading to one firing and three resignations.

Experts have pointed out an increase in the use of hate symbols such as nooses and swastikas around the country. Nooses have appeared in the last few months in numerous public places from museums in Washington to universities in Maryland and Kansas, a high school in Oklahoma and a church in Alabama.
Cuba's foreign minister on Thursday accused the United States of lying about mysterious sonic attacks that U.S. diplomats in Havana say left them with ailments including headaches, hearing problems and concussions.

Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said the U.S. was "deliberately lying" about the attacks, which Cuba's government has denied any knowledge of.

Speaking at a news conference, Rodriguez alleged the issue has been used "as a political pretext for damaging bilateral relations and eliminating the progress made" under U.S. President Barack Obama.

Rodriguez said the dispute has caused delays in proposed public health cooperation and technical meetings on agriculture as well as cultural, sporting and student events.

The Trump administration has said that 24 U.S. officials or their relatives were subjected to deliberate attacks by a still-undetermined culprit. Many officials reported being subjected to loud, grating noises before falling ill.

The U.S. has not accused Cuba's government of carrying out the attacks, but says it has not met its obligation to protect diplomats on its territory.

Cuba has said it does not possess any technology capable of carrying out a sonic attack, and Rodriguez said the broad range of symptoms reported indicates they could not have a single cause.

The U.S. has cut staffing at its Havana embassy by 60 percent in response to the incidents, expelled Cuban diplomats from their embassy in Washington, issued a travel warning for Americans going to Cuba and stopped issuing visas for Cubans in Havana.

The measures have sent U.S.-Cuba relations plummeting from a high point under Obama and cut into the increasingly important flow of tourists to Cuba, whose economy went into recession last year for the first time in more than two decades.
A student at Florida International University made a threat targeting Miami Beach's Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, which led to a bomb squad being called and an Israeli Consulate event being canceled.

"Law enforcement located the student. While the student was being interviewed, an FIU Police dog alerted to possible explosives in the students vehicle, located in the FIU Blue Garage," FIU said in a statement.

Following the dog's alert, a bomb squad was called for the Blue Garage and police also responded to the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. Both locations were deemed safe.

"As a precaution, an evening event at the museum was canceled,"

The Consulate General of Israel in Miami said Thursday's Balfour Declaration event in Miami Beach was canceled due to threats about the same time the FIU incident began.

"Law enforcement located the student. While the student was being interviewed, an FIU Police dog alerted to possible explosives in the students vehicle, located in the FIU Blue Garage," FIU said in a statement.

Following the dog's alert, a bomb squad was called to the Blue Garage and police also responded to the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. Both locations were deemed safe.

"As a precaution, an evening event at the museum was canceled," FIU added.

The Consulate General of Israel in Miami said Thursday's Balfour Declaration event in Miami Beach was canceled due to threats at about the same time the FIU incident began.



FIU issued an all-clear notice hours after the bomb squad reached the university.

"Evacuate Blue Garage. Everyone stay away until further notice. Police Activity," the university wrote on Twitter announcing the incident.

The Blue Garage at FIU is located beside the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum near Parking Lot 4 on the southeast part of campus.

None were injured.

The FIU Police Department previously said it was investigating a possible explosive alert, adding that the incident at the Blue Garage "poses no immediate threat or safety concerns to the FIU community."

The Miami-Dade Police Department identified the student as 21-year-old Oscar Aguayo. Officials will determine whether he will face charges.
A man who shot and killed a doctor outside an abortion clinic in 1993 should not be released from prison for 25 more years, Florida's parole board decided Wednesday.

The state's Commission on Offender Review set a March 9, 2043, release date for Michael Griffin, who was convicted of shooting Dr. David Gunn three times in the back on March 10, 1993, as Gunn arrived to work at an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Florida.

Griffin, who is serving a life sentence at Blackwater River Correctional Facility in Milton, was convicted of first-degree murder in 1994. This was the first time that his case came before the commission, due to the state's mandatory minimum sentencing of 25 years.

The commission also voted not to consider Griffin's case again until July 2024, the maximum time they can set. A state investigator had recommended a presumptive release date of April 9, 2018.

Gunn's murder marked the beginning of a wave of deadly anti-abortion violence. Gunn was the first U.S. doctor killed during an abortion protest. The shooting followed clinic bombings and regular protests against abortion in the city.

Gunn's son and daughter testified against Griffin's release, noting that he has not apologized or shown remorse for the murder. They also cited a 2010 interview Griffin gave to "60 Minutes Australia" where he said "the only people who should be in fear and terror are the abortion doctors . they've got to have a reckoning one day with God."

"They saw the evidence that was provided and the interview, demonstrating he can be a clear and present danger. We are absolutely pleased with the sentence handed down," said David Gunn Jr. after the hearing. "He has demonstrated he can hurt people, and who he can influence. Other people have murdered in this state and in this country influenced by him."

At the time of his death, Gunn was one of the few doctors performing abortions in the South, working at clinics in Montgomery, Alabama, and Columbus, Georgia, when he wasn't in Pensacola. He commuted to work from his home in Eufaula, Alabama, near the Georgia state line.

Months after Gunn was slain, another abortion doctor was shot to death outside another clinic in Pensacola by a gunman who wrote about being inspired by Griffin's actions.

Dr. John Bayard Britton was killed along with a volunteer escort, James H. Barrett, while arriving for work at a clinic in July 1994. Former minister and abortion protester Paul J. Hill was convicted in the slayings and the wounding of Barrett's wife, and was executed in 2003.

The National Abortion Federation says there have been 11 killings, 26 attempted killings, 42 bombings and 186 arsons directed at abortion providers. The most recent death was on Nov. 27, 2015, when Robert Lewis Dear killed a police officer and two people accompanying friends to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. Nine others were also wounded.

Griffin's mother, Lillian Ferreira, and another supporter were supposed to attend the hearing but sent letters asking for an earlier release.

David Gunn Jr. said Wednesday's decision should set a precedent for when other cases come up for parole.

"I certainly hope it will send a message that it will be taken seriously. Every killer that has taken the same action that he took has cited him as an influence," he said. "It is and has been a very influential case. Unfortunately it is the wrong kind of influence."
November is here, which means some beloved South Florida traditions are being rekindled. From indulging in strawberry milkshakes at Knaus Berry Farm to enjoying a spectacular laser show at the Frost Planeterium, here are six things to do this weekend in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area.

Knaus Berry Farm

Craving a sticky cinnamon bun or strawberry milkshake? Head over to the Knaus Berry Farm in Homestead for some freshly baked goods and farm-fresh produce. The iconic South Florida landmark re-opened on Oct. 31 and will be in-operation from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (or until they sell out.) The farm is open on Mondays through Saturdays and is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Day. Be sure to plan ahead if you make the trip, as the lines are known to get long very fast. For more information, click here.

Santas Enchanted Forest

Nothing says Christmas in South Florida like the return of Santas Enchanted Forest (and the familiar jingle on the radio). Miamis premiere holiday theme park re-opened on Nov. 2, bringing more than 100 carnival-themed rides and a glittering canopy of holiday lights and Christmas trees. Ticket prices vary depending on the type of pass you get. The park is open until Jan. 7 and is open on all major holidays. Click here for more information.

Ft. Lauderdale International Boat Show

One of the largest boat shows in the world sailed into South Florida on Wednesday, and it will be afloat until Nov. 5. The 58th annual Ft. Lauderdale International Boat show is expected to draw in a massive fleet of onlookers, as more than 100,000 buyers and sellers are estimated to be there. More than 1,200 boats will be on display and there will be activities for everyone, like kids fishing clinics and family boats. People from over 30 countries will be in the area for the show. For more information, click here.

Vintage Auto Shows

For the car lovers out there  there will be some vintage auto shows in Broward County and Miami-Dade this weekend. The Deering Estate, along with the Antique Automotive Club of America  South Florida Region, will host a show in Miami featuring historic tractors and a variety of vintage cars. For more information on the Nov. 5 event, click here. In Hollywood, there will be another vintage car show on Nov. 5 called the Dream Car Classic. Modern and custom cars, trucks, hot rods and classics will be on display during the event. For more details, click here.

Florida Day of the Dead Celebration

On Nov. 2, the living can trek to downtown Fort Lauderdale to honor those who have passed. The festival features mariachi musicians and community members dressed in skeleton costumes and masks. The event begins at 6:30 p.m. and the processional begins at Huizenga Plaza. For more information, click here.

Laser Fridays

Nov. 3 is the first Friday of the month  which means its a Laser Friday at the Frost Planetarium. For $10 (or $8 for kids), you can jam out to a retro laser show under the Planetariums 67-foot dome. Guests can choose from The Beatles, Lady Gaga, Queen and Pink Floyd. Laser Fridays are on the first and third Friday of each month. For more information click here.
Facebook, Twitter and Google acknowledged to U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday that Russian-linked accounts began exploiting their services in 2015 to sway last year's presidential election. Lawyers for the companies were grilled about why they didn't notice how their platforms were misused earlier, and about what they have done  and will do  to prevent such abuse from happening again.

Here are five things the companies need to tell Congress:

WHY SO LATE?

The election was nearly a year ago. Why did it take so long for Facebook, Google and Twitter to see how their platforms were used by foreign actors to influence the election?

Congress would really like to know. As Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., put it: "People are buying ads on your platform with rubles. They are political ads. You put billions of data points together all the time, that's what I hear that these platforms do. They are the most sophisticated things invented by man, ever. Google has all knowledge that man has ever developed. You can't put together rubles with a political ad and go like, 'Hmmm, those data points spell out something pretty bad.'"

In hindsight, Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch acknowledged, the company should have had a "broader lens." He also noted that the company published research in April disclosing that governments and other malicious non-state actors were using its social network to influence elections  though the company didn't directly name Russia at the time.

WAS IT JUST RUSSIA?

It's already illegal for Russians and other foreigners to pay for U.S. political ads. But some lawmakers suggested there was no way for tech companies to know if entities from other countries  like China, North Korea, or, in one memorable exchange, Turkmenistan  had also misused their platforms. After all, they didn't know about Russia's efforts for a long time, either.

With 5 million advertisers every month, Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy asked of Facebook, "How can you be aware?" Especially, he said, when companies and others can hide behind shell companies to mask their true identities.

Stretch stopped short of saying with certainty that other countries didn't purchase misleading or false ads on Facebook.

PUBLISHERS OR PLATFORMS?

Kennedy also asked Richard Salgado, Google's director of law enforcement and information security, whether the company is a "newspaper" or a neutral tech platform. Salgado replied that Google is a tech company, to which Kennedy quipped, "that's what I thought you'd say."

The other two companies also consider themselves technology platforms that merely allow newspapers and other media companies to share information. But at a time when millions of Americans count Facebook, Twitter and Google their primary news sources, the companies will likely have to try harder to convince lawmakers and the public that they are not in the media business.

The distinction is important when it comes to regulation. Tech platforms are generally not responsible for the content on their sites. Media companies are.

IS THERE MORE?

Facebook has already disclosed that content generated by a Russian internet agency potentially reached as many as 126 million users. Twitter told the same subcommittee that it has uncovered and shut down 2,752 accounts linked to Russia's Internet Research Agency, which is known for promoting pro-Russian government positions.

And Google said it found evidence of "limited" misuse of its services by the Russian group, as well as some YouTube channels that were likely backed by Russian agents.

But was this all? The companies are not done with their investigations into Russian interference  and Congress may just be getting warmed up.

CAN THEY FIX THE PROBLEMS WITHOUT REGULATION?

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar pressed representatives of Facebook, Google and Twitter to declare whether they will support the "Honest Ads" bill she has introduced with Sen. Mark Warner, which would bring political ad rules from TV, radio and print to the internet. Each of the tech giants offered only qualified support rather than a straight "yes."

Klobuchar noted that none of the companies included "issue ads" in their updated advertising policies  even though that's what the majority of the Russia-linked ads were. Rather than outright supporting a political candidate, these ads deal with hot-button issues like race and immigration and are designed to sow discord among the public.

"Obviously it would be easier if everyone had the same rules," she said.
What to Know Sen. Menendez is accused of accepting bribes from Salomon Melgen in exchange for helping his friend with business disputes

Menendez and Melgen had contended in court filings that the gifts were evidence of the pair's longtime friendship, not a corrupt agreement

Both men faced multiple fraud and bribery charges; Menendez had pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing

Sen. Bob Menendez was the "personal senator" of a wealthy donor who plied him with flights on his private jet and other gifts, a prosecutor told jurors in closing arguments at the pair's bribery trial Thursday.

Jurors are scheduled to hear from both sides Thursday, and begin deliberations Monday. They have heard more than two months of testimony.

The New Jersey Democrat is charged with accepting gifts from Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen, his longtime friend, in exchange for using his political influence.

Prosecutors have sought to show that Melgen lavished Menendez with flights on his private jet and luxury vacations so Menendez would help him with issues including a $9 million Medicare reimbursement dispute.

Menendez lied on his Senate disclosure forms by not reporting the gifts, Justice Department prosecutor J.P. Cooney told jurors.

"What was he so determined to hide? That he'd been bought by Dr. Melgen to serve as Dr. Melgen's personal senator," he said. "These two defendants can no longer hide behind their power and their wealth, or behind their staff members or their friendship."

Defense attorneys for both men were due to give their closing arguments. They contend Menendez and Melgen were longtime friends who weren't involved in bribery and that Menendez was focused on policy issues when he met with executive branch officials.

Neither man testified during the trial.

Menendez, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 before filling the U.S. Senate seat vacated when Democrat Jon Corzine became New Jersey governor in 2006, also is charged with making false statements for not disclosing the gifts on Senate ethics forms.

If Menendez is convicted and steps down or is voted out by a two-thirds majority, outgoing Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie could appoint a replacement, which could alter the makeup of the Senate.

The trial has lacked a blockbuster witness, but prosecutors have introduced emails and testimony they believe will convince jurors that a bribery scheme existed between 2006 and 2013.

They allege Melgen plied Menendez with gifts including flights on his private jet to the doctor's home in the Dominican Republic, a weekend at a luxury hotel in Punta Cana, and a stay at a $1,500-a-night Paris hotel.

They say these gifts, along with more than $600,000 in contributions to political organizations supporting Menendez's 2012 re-election campaign, were inducements to get Menendez to pressure government officials to resolve two of Melgen's major problems: an $8.9 million billing dispute with Medicare and a stalled contract for port screening equipment in the Dominican Republic.

They also say Menendez interceded in the visa applications of three women purported to be Melgen's girlfriends.

Defense attorneys say the gifts were an outgrowth of the two men's friendship, and that Menendez regularly paid his own way to visit Melgen in the Dominican Republic dating to the 1990s.

They attacked the government for allegedly using a "mix and match" strategy to tie flights Menendez took on Melgen's private jet with meetings or conversations he had with government officials weeks or months later, in some cases. Menendez's meetings with government officials were about policy issues and not Melgen's specific disputes, they contend.

The trial is the first major federal bribery trial since a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturned the conviction of former Republican Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and narrowed the definition of official bribery.
What to Know A 32-year-old former Bronx and Brooklyn resident has been arrested in Sarajevo and extradited to the U.S. on terrorism charges

Federal prosecutors allege he was a major recruiter and propagandist for the Islamic State after heading to Iraq and Syria several years ago

Authorities allege he recruited extremists form the US, UK, Australia and other countries, and promoted the Islamic State on Twitter

A New York man has been arraigned on federal terrorism charges after he was arrested overseas this week and accused of being a major recruiter and propagandist for the Islamic State.

Misrad Kandic, 36, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in Brooklyn federal court Wednesday afternoon following his extradition to the U.S. from Bosnia's capital city of Sarajevo Tuesday night. A judge granted a request for him to be detained pending trial.

Authorities say Kandic is a legal U.S. resident who lived in Brooklyn and the Bronx before traveling to Istanbul, Turkey, in 2013 to join the Islamic State.

Kandic allegedly wanted to kill or maim U.S. military forces and used fake documents to overcome a no-fly designation and go to Turkey before joining the Islamic State, or ISIS.

"From Turkey, he proceeded to recruit others to join ISIS, swelling their ranks and helping them commit terrorist acts," Acting U.S. Attorney Bridget Rohde said in a statement announcing the indictment Wednesday.

Kandic allegedly became a recruiter for the terror group and was in contact with jihadists across the globe. Authorities allege he helped foreign fighters from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and elsewhere travel to ISIS-controlled territories in Syria and Iraq.

Among the people he recruited was 18-year-old Jake Bilardi, an Australian who carried out a deadly suicide bombing in Ramadi, Iraq, on March 11, 2015, according to the indictment.

Kandic and Bilardi corresponded on Twitter before the bombing, according to authorities. During their conversations, Bilardi allegedly told his recruiter, "just went to look at my target today for my operation."

"May Allah reward you immensely," Kandic allegedly replied, later adding, "May Allah make there (sic) inner organs implode."

After Bilardi blew himself up, Kandic promoted the suicide bombing on at least one of the 100 or more Twitter accounts he used to provide updates about ISIS attacks and territorial gains, authorities say.

Kandic faces life in prison if convicted of two of the six federal terrorism counts against him; five of the counts are for providing material support to ISIS and the sixth is for conspiracy.

Kandic's lawyer, James Branden, told NBC 4 New York the two of them had only spoken briefly but that "he seemed nice, personable." He didn't comment on the charges against his client.



News of the arrest comes a day after a 29-year-old U.S. man was arrested for allegedly renting a truck and barreling through a Manhattan bike lane for more than a dozen blocks in the deadliest terror attack in New York since Sept. 11, 2001. At least eight people were killed and a dozen more injured before the suspect was shot and injured by police.
What to Know Residents around Manhattan College say their apartment building is being littered with trash and vomit because of obnoxious party-goers

Councilman Andrew Cohen says he has attended dozens of meetings with residents complaining to him, the police and the school

A Manhattan College spokesperson students who have been found to violate community standards have been "disciplined appropriately"

Residents around Manhattan College in the Bronx are raising complaints after they say rambunctious party-goers are leaving behind trash, empty beer cans and even trails of vomit around their quiet community.

The out-of-control parties are sometimes so loud the building will shake, Sarah Lang and Julia Lorusso said. Sometimes trails of vomit will end up on parked cars and even the occasional parade of rowdy college students will be heard marching through the area.

Now some local leaders and nearby college are doing something about it.

Councilman Andrew Cohen says he has attended dozens of meetings with residents complaining to him, the police and the school.

The Full 2018 List of New York City's 72 Michelin-Starred Restaurants

The kids are drinking all of the time, all over the place, he said. The amount of drinking that takes place at Manhattan College is out of control and the school takes no responsibility for the kids off campus.

A Manhattan College spokesperson disagreed with Cohen.

Any students who have been found to violate our community standards and code of conduct, on or off campus, have been disciplined appropriately, Manhattan College Spokesperson Peter McHugh said in a statement to NBC 4 New York.

A student who lives in one of the apartments residents have complained about said its other apartments also and said its nothing that serious.

The school said it will continue to work on improving the relationship between students and families. However, some residents said they have been complaining for years and have little hope things will change.

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What to Know The students allegedly hazed pledges by urinating and vomiting on them, making them drink alcohol and forcing them to eat food off the floor

21 SUNY Plattsburgh students face charges in the hazing; campus police were told about the alleged abuse in late September

The fraternity, Pi Alpha Nu, has been suspended by the college

Twenty-one students at a New York college have been charged with hazing fraternity pledges by making them drink alcohol, forcing them to eat food off the floor, and vomiting and urinating on them.

State University of New York at Plattsburgh authorities say campus police were told in late September that pledges to the Pi Alpha Nu fraternity had been subjected to demeaning and abusive behavior that included being hit on the buttocks with a paddle.

University officials say the charges include hazing, criminal nuisance and unlawfully dealing with a child, which pertains to providing alcohol to people under 21.

University police say the abuse happened off-campus in February and September. Six former Plattsburgh students are also expected to be charged.

The college has suspended the fraternity. The Associated Press sent an email to the fraternity's president seeking comment, but it wasn't immediately returned.

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The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court said Friday she is seeking an investigation of alleged war crimes committed in the war in Afghanistan, an unprecedented probe that could involve U.S. troops.

Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a statement that a preliminary examination found "a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity" were committed in Afghanistan after U.S.-led troops moved in following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Once the prosecutor submits her investigation request to the court, which is based in the Dutch city of The Hague, it's then up to the tribunal's judges to decide whether to open one. Bensouda's office said her request will be filed publicly "in the days to come."

An Afghanistan probe would be exceptional because up until now all ICC trials have dealt with alleged crimes in Africa. The only case currently under investigation outside Africa is in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

Human Rights Watch welcomed the announcement as a step toward ending impunity for crimes in Afghanistan.

"Thousands and thousands of Afghans have suffered horrendous human rights abuses and war crimes over the years and there has been no accountability," Richard Dicker of the group's international justice program told The Associated Press. "The announcement today by the prosecutor opens the door to the possibility that for the first time there may be some justice possible for the victims."

Bensouda said in a report last year that U.S. forces and CIA agents may have committed war crimes by torturing detainees in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2014. That opens the possibility that Americans could be among those investigated for possible prosecution, even though the U.S. is not among the court's more than 120 members.

Taliban and Afghan government forces also may have used torture and committed other atrocities in Afghanistan's long and bitter conflict, the report said.

Bensouda said in a statement Friday that if judges approve an investigation, her office "will investigate, within its mandate and means, in an independent, impartial and objective way, crimes within the Court's jurisdiction allegedly committed by any party to the armed conflict."

Americans could face prosecution if their alleged crimes took place in a country that is an International Criminal Court member, such as Afghanistan, and if they were not prosecuted at home.

However, legal experts say the chances of American service members being charged and sent to face justice at the ICC are remote.

Katherine Gallagher, senior staff attorney at the U.S. rights organization the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the possibility that Americans could be charged sends a "long overdue message that no one is above the law."

Established in 2002, the International Criminal Court is the world's first permanent court set up to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton signed the Rome treaty that established the court, but President George W. Bush renounced the signature, citing fears that Americans would be unfairly prosecuted for political reasons.

Bensouda's 2016 report said the alleged U.S. war crimes "were not the abuses of a few isolated individuals. Rather, they appear to have been committed as part of approved interrogation techniques in an attempt to extract 'actionable intelligence' from detainees."

The prosecutor's report noted that U.S. authorities have conducted dozens of investigations and court-martial cases.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration allowed the use of waterboarding, which simulates drowning, and other interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists. President Barack Obama banned such practices after taking office in 2009.

A full-scale investigation, if approved by judges, could take months or more before the prosecutor decides whether to file charges. Then it remains to be seen if suspects can be detained and handed to the court for trial.

"We have seen that arrest and surrender is the Achilles heel of international justice," Dicker said.

Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
At $7,500 apiece, the handmade custom suits former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort wore were meant to dazzle and impress.

An indictment unsealed Monday detailing conspiracy and money laundering charges against him suggest they certainly caught the eye of special counsel Robert Mueller.

A luxury clothing store in New York is among 19 vendors Manafort paid some $12 million to between 2008 and 2014 from foreign bank accounts he didn't disclose, using offshore companies registered in countries such as Cyprus and the Grenadines to make the purchases, court papers allege.

Besides the suits, Manafort used the money to buy antique rugs and art, make payments on three Range Rovers and install an $112,825 audio-visual system in his Hamptons home  all without paying taxes on that income, the indictment charges.

Manafort, who Mueller has charged with working as an undisclosed foreign agent for Ukrainian interests, turned himself in Monday. He hasn't commented but has previously denied any wrongdoing. He and former deputy Rick Gates pleaded not guilty during a Monday afternoon court appearance. His lawyer, Kevin Downing, called the indictment's charges that Manafort used offshore accounts to conceal funds from the government "ridiculous."

The 19 vendors aren't named in the indictment. But government investigators probing Manafort's work in the Ukraine and elsewhere have been curious about his six-figure spending on custom-made blazers and trousers for years, according to people familiar with the case.

For investigators, getting into the precise nature of what Manafort did in Ukraine posed plenty of problems, not least because of its distance from the U.S. and the reliability of sources there. A simpler approach was to demonstrate whether Manafort controlled overseas bank accounts that had never been reported to the IRS, and that he had spent that money in the United States.

At one point federal investigators theorized the purchases might have been on behalf of his clients from the former Soviet Union, whose reputations in the West Manafort was being paid to improve, said one of the people, who wasn't authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

After FBI agents raided Manafort's Virginia home in July, investigators reportedly photographed the suits in his closet. Manafort spent nearly $900,000 at a luxury clothing store in New York dubbed "Vendor E" in court papers.

Documents obtained by The Associated Press show Manafort has made past payments to a New York tailor named Eugene Venanzi, whose former store on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue advertised in Trump Magazine and sold to fund managers, financiers and celebrities, court records show.

In the span of just six days in July 2008, the records show, Manafort spent close to $100,000 on $8,500-a-piece custom cashmere and silk sport coats, bespoke trousers, multiple $7,000 suits and other items.

Venanzi, who pleaded guilty in 1999 to a bank larceny charge, said in a 2007 deposition in a civil suit brought against the company by a former employee that the company never made any money and sometimes failed to pay payroll taxes.

His former business partner, Anthony Fortunato, told the AP his business relationship with Venanzi soured and he put a lien on the tailor's Connecticut home to recover money he was owed.

Reached by phone on Monday, Venanzi, 74, said he'd not been contacted by the authorities but declined further comment before hanging up.

In a deposition, he said he took a trip to Russia "to develop a market with certain clientele of Russian origin" but didn't pursue any deals there because he didn't feel safe there and "didn't want to take the risk."

The indictment says Manafort also paid $520,440 to "Vendor H," a clothing store in Beverly Hills, California.

That might be a reference to the famed men's clothing store House of Bijan, where Manafort spent generously, according to someone familiar with his lifestyle. An email sent to the store wasn't immediately returned and calls to the store rang unanswered.

Daniel Alonso, the former chief of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn, said paying for suits and other items in the U.S. via an offshore account registered in Cyprus was "a very, very odd way" to make such purchases.

"A hallmark of money laundering is trying to make illegitimate money look legitimate," he said.

Associated Press writer Jeff Horwitz in Washington contributed to this report.
Prosecutors say a drug counselor provided her boyfriend clean urine samples and helped him avoid an arrest before he died from a drug overdose.

In an announcement Thursday, Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin said 25-year-old Kristianna Belotto, of Bethlehem, is now facing charges of tampering with evidence, obstructing the administration of law and furnishing drug-free urine.

Martin says Allentown police responding to reports of a drug overdose Oct. 28 found 29-year-old Michael Rubery dead with heroin and needles around his body.

Police seized a cellphone found nearby, and investigators uncovered 23,000 text messages between Rubery and a contact named "Tianna Maria" that revealed a romantic relationship between the two, Martin said. Police later determined "Tianna Maria" to be Belotto.

Martin says Belotto, who served as Rubery's drug counselor at an Allentown facility, helped Rubery pass drug tests, informed him about an impending arrest and hid his location from law enforcement after the arrest warrant was issued Oct. 20.

Belotto posted bail Thursday. Court records don't list an attorney who could comment on her behalf.
Breakfast is serious business for this Ohio man.

At 3:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, a man pointed a gun at a McDonald's employee in Warren, Ohio when she informed him there were no Egg McMuffins available. The employee was unharmed during the incident.

Warren police say two males in their twenties entered the drive-thru at the Warren McDonald's, located 60 miles south of Cleveland.

According to the employee, the driver drew his gun and yelled obscenities at her before speeding away.

Warren police are still searching for the suspect.
With new losses Friday, the Islamic State group has been driven from more than 96 percent of the large parts of Iraq and Syria it once held, crushing its goal of establishing a "caliphate" in the region.

Syrian President Bashar Assad's military announced the capture of the eastern Syrian city of Deir el-Zour, while Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi proclaimed victory in retaking the town of Qaim on the border, the militants' last significant urban area in Iraq.

The militants are left fighting for a final stretch inside Syria and desert regions along the Iraq-Syria border. Three years ago, they had defiantly erased that line, knocking down berms marking the frontier.

Since then, they have lost infrastructure, resources, supply routes, control over about 8 million people and  most importantly  administration of a contiguous territory. The extremist group may still prove to be a major challenge for months as it turns to a clandestine insurgency.

What the group lost in the last 11 months, and what is left:

QAIM

Iraqi forces' last conventional military fight against ISIS played out in Qaim, on the western edge of Anbar province along the border with Syria. Operations began there in the last week of October. On Friday, Iraq said it now controls the town and the nearby border crossing with Syria.

The crossing in the Euphrates River Valley was used by ISIS to move fighters and supplies between the two countries when the group controlled nearly a third of Iraqi territory.

Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy for the fight against the Islamic State, said Thursday the group is now facing "annihilation" with the losses in western Iraq and nearly 96 percent of its territory. He earlier said 6.6 million people have been liberated as the group lost over 90,000 square kilometers (35,000 square miles) in the last year.

The Islamic State "has not reclaimed single meter of this ground. Migrant and refugee flows reversed," McGurk tweeted Thursday.

DEIR EL-ZOUR

The Syrian government declared Friday that it has taken full control of Deir el-Zour, where its troops and tens of thousands of civilians have been besieged by IS militants for nearly three years.

Gen. Ali Mayhoub, spokesman for the Syrian army, called it a strategic victory, noting Deir el-Zour's location on a crossroads linking Syria's eastern, northern and central regions, and its role in distributing the province's oil.

Mayhoub said ISIS militants are now isolated and encircled in the countryside east of the city. Government forces are focused on Boukamal, the last ISIS urban center in Syria.

Kurdish forces backed by the U.S. also are making a bid for the strategic border town from the other side of the Euphrates, renewing fears of a confrontation between the two forces seeking to control the border area.

RAQQA

Raqqa, the ISIS group's de-facto capital, fell to Kurdish-led forces on Oct. 17, four months after operations to reclaim it began. The city was the group's hub of operations, and its capture was a major symbolic blow.

The first city to fall into ISIS hands, foreign fighters flocked to Raqqa. The U.S.-led coalition estimated that 40,000 fighters from Europe, North Africa and Asia once flowed into IS territory.

The group carried out beheadings and other killings in a public square in Raqqa to try to project its ruthless nature. The city also was the center of its media operations, where videos about the benefits of life under ISIS were produced.

Planning for some of the major violence in Europe was traced to Raqqa, including the deadly attacks in Paris in 2015 and in Brussels in 2016.

MAYADEEN

On Oct. 14, the Syrian government said its troops and allied fighters seized the town of Mayadeen, on the western bank of the Euphrates River. The town had become a refuge for the militant group's leaders from fighting in Raqqa and Deir el-Zour to the north and Iraq to the east.

Mayadeen was also a major point in the race for control of the oil-rich eastern Deir el-Zour province. Washington has feared advances by Syrian troops and allied fighters toward the Iraqi border could help Iran expand its influence in the region and establish a "Shiite corridor" of land links from Iraq to Lebanon, and all the way to Israel. Iran backs militias fighting alongside the Syrian military.

The Syrian government had feared that U.S.-backed forces would get to Mayadeen first, but the militants pulled back a few days after the battle began, disappearing into the desert.

HAWIJA

It took 20 days to liberate Hawija, depriving ISIS of its last significant urban area in Iraq.

Iraqi forces fought alongside the Kurdish peshmerga to retake the city in oil-rich Kirkuk province on Oct. 10. Hundreds of ISIS fighters and their families surrendered to the Kurdish forces.

The fall of the city also eliminated a unifying factor for the peshmerga and the Iraqi military and federal police along with their Shiite militia allies. That opened the way for the tension that followed among the former allies.

TAL AFAR

The town was liberated by coalition-backed Iraqi forces Aug. 30, ending the IS presence in northern Iraq. Thousands of IS fighters and their families turned themselves over to Iraqi and Kurdish forces as the town fell, the first instance of mass surrenders of ISIS fighters on the heels of a military victory.

Unlike the nine-month battle for Mosul, the swift military victory in Tal Afar was the first sign of the battlefield losses had weakened ISIS as a conventional military force, according to the coalition.

MOSUL

Iraqi forces declared victory in Mosul on July 10. While clashes continued between small groups of IS fighters in tunnels under the old city for weeks after, the loss of Mosul effectively broke the back of the caliphate.

Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul was a hub for meetings of the ISIS leadership. It was the largest city under the militants' control and was an important site of facilities for making car bombs, smaller explosives and mortar rounds. The militants used civilians as shields to prevent the weapons factories from being targeted by coalition airstrikes.

The fight for Mosul was long and costly, killing thousands of civilians and Iraqi security forces. ISIS fighters used years of tight control of the city to build defenses that prolonged the battle and caused widespread death and destruction.

WHAT IS LEFT

The Syrian city of Boukamal is the last major urban center in the hands of ISIS.

The group also is spread along the Syria-Iraq border in villages in the provinces of Hassakeh and Deir el-Zour in eastern Syria.

There also are small ISIS cells in Iraq's Nineveh, Anbar and Salahudin provinces, where the central government has lacked strong control for years.

Along this thin line on the border of the two countries, the militants still have a presence in a region running west of the Euphrates River toward the Syrian desert, between Deir el-Zour and Homs provinces. There also is a small ISIS presence near Damascus.

In a briefing last week, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said small numbers of ISIS leaders are "attempting to leverage local insurgencies" in Africa and Asia as they lose territory in Iraq and Syria.

The group's militants and local affiliates in Egypt, Libya, the Sahel area of Africa and the Philippines continue to challenge authorities, carrying out regular attacks.

George reported from Baghdad. Brian Rohan in Cairo contributed.
What to Know Sayfullo Saipov was charged in federal court Wednesday with providing material support to a terrorist organization

The 29-year-old man, a Uzbek national who's been in the U.S. since 2010, drove a truck down a Manhattan bike path, killing 8 and injuring 12

According to court documents, Saipov said he was inspired to carry out the truck attack by ISIS videos he watched on his cell phone

The truck driver suspected of mowing people down on a riverfront bike path near the World Trade Center, killing eight people and injuring a dozen others, was charged in federal court Wednesday evening.



Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, 29, entered federal court in a wheelchair, handcuffed and with feet shackled, to face terrorism charges. He did not enter a plea. He used headphones to listen to a Russian translation of court proceedings, but answered the judge in English, saying, "Thanks."

His attorney David Patton said they were not seeking bail. A judge set his next court date for Nov. 15.

Announcing the charges in a news conference Wednesday, acting U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim said, "Alleged terrorists like Saipov view this city as a prime target for their hate-filled crimes. The thing is, for the alleged terrorists like Saipov, they will find in New York City something else: justice."

"They will find, and have found, that law enforcement and everyday people in this city are not afraid of their evil. They see through their false hateful rhetoric and are committed to bringing them to justice. And that is what we intend to do with Sayfullo Saipov," said Kim.

In terms of casualties, the truck rampage was the worst terror attack in New York City since Sept. 11, 2001, authorities said.



Saipov was set to head to jail after court Wednesday night, not back to the hospital. His public defender, David Patton, said that he was in "significant pain," however, and asked that Saipov be prescribed medication for the gunshot wound he sustained as he ran in traffic with a pellet gun and paintball gun.

"How we treat Mr. Saipov in this judicial process says a lot more about us than him," Patton said after the hearing.

Saipov told the FBI in his interviews that he planned the attack for a year and had decided to carry it out on Halloween; investigators told them he picked the day because he knew the streets would be crowded.

According to the complaint, he intended to drive a rented truck and strike pedestrians in the area of the West Side Highway, then proceed to the Brooklyn Bridge, where he'd continue to hit pedestrians. He allegedly said he wanted to kill as many people as he could.

Saipov also wanted to display ISIS flags in the front and back of the truck during the attack but decided against it because he did not want to draw attention, according to the complaint.

He waived his Miranda rights after he was arrested, and told law enforcement during questioning that he felt good about what he'd done. Officials said he asked for an ISIS flag to be displayed in the hospital room where he was taken after he was shot in the abdomen by a police officer.

Saipov allegedly said he was inspired to carry out the truck attack by ISIS videos he watched on his cellphone. The FBI said they searched his phones and found approximately 90 videos with ISIS propaganda, and 3,800 images that appeared to be ISIS propaganda.

He allegedly told investigators he began planning the attack in the U.S. approximately two months ago.



The complaint also says Saipov rented a truck on Oct. 22 so he could practice making turns with the truck in advance of his attack.

The federal complaint corroborates what NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller said at a news briefing earlier Wednesday: that Saipov appeared to have been planning the attack for a number of weeks.

"He appears to have followed almost exactly to a T these instructions that ISIS has put out on its social media channels before with instructions to their followers on how to carry out such an attack," said Miller.

[NATL] In Photos: Aftermath of Deadly Truck Rampage in Manhattan

Saipov, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, actively read ISIS propaganda, a review of his online accounts showed. He left a note in the damaged Home Depot truck he had rented that translates to "ISIS endures forever," though at this point, investigators consider the rampage to be a "lone wolf" attack. Multiple knives were also recovered in and around the vehicle, along with a paintball gun and a pellet gun.



Saipov was familiar with the area of the attack, investigators say. A senior official tells News 4 that Saipov made multiple drives to the West Side Highway near the World Trade Center in recent weeks. The travels were "inconsistent with his employment as an Uber driver," suggesting that the trips were efforts of reconnaissance and planning.



Listen as emergency responders react to reports of an out of control box truck in lower Manhattan. For the latest on the deadly incident click here.

Hundreds of detectives have been scouring the West Side Highway since Tuesday, going up and down both sides of the street, "meticulously trying to pick up every piece of video from every security camera, every traffic camera, every bank camera, anything that will help us put together this timeline so we can reconstruct a much as possible," Miller said. The highway will remain shut down south of 14th Street through at least Wednesday evening.

Detectives are also reviewing license plate readers to reconstruct Saipov's movements in the days leading up to the attack. A number of search warrants were already executed overnight, and more witnesses may be interviewed.



Police and the FBI urged members of the public to give them any photos or video that could help by uploading them at fbi.gov/nyctribeca.

The mayhem Tuesday set off panic in the neighborhood and left the pavement strewn with mangled bicycles and bodies that were soon covered with sheets. Eight people were killed and a dozen injured in a Halloween afternoon attack that Mayor de Blasio called "a particularly cowardly act of terror."

While police didn't specifically blame any group for the strike, Trump railed against the Islamic State and declared "enough!" and "NOT IN THE U.S.A.!"



Mayor Bill De Blasio speaks out against the cowardly act of terror that killed at least 8 people in lower Manhattan Tuesday afternoon.

Investigators say Saipov came to the United States legally in 2010 through a diversity visa lottery program. He has a Florida driver's license but may have been staying in New Jersey off and on, they said. Law enforcement cordoned off an apartment building in nearby Paterson on Wednesday as well. Officers searched a garage. The building's manager told The Record he lived with his wife and two children in a two-bedroom apartment on Genessee Avenue. An official says his wife is in Paterson with authorities.



Saipov was never the subject of an investigation by the NYPD Intelligence Bureau or by the FBI -- but it appears he's been connected to other people who have been investigated by the NYPD or FBI, according to Miller.

"We're looking for how he has touched the subjects of other investigations, what his connectivity is to those people," said Miller. "We're kind of building out in concentric circles to try and document that."



Another law enforcement official tells NBC News that Saipov was interviewed in 2015 by an agent from Homeland Security Investigations (which is part of ICE, which is part of Department of Homeland Security) because he was listed as a point of contact by two other men that HSI was investigating at the time for overstaying their tourist visas. This was done while the agent was part of a Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York, the official told NBC News.

Records show Saipov was a commercial truck driver who formed a pair of businesses in Ohio. An Ohio marriage license shows that a truck driver with one of Saipov's addresses and his name, spelled slightly differently, married a fellow Uzbek in 2013.

Uber said Saipov had passed a background test to drive for the service while he was living in New Jersey, and that he had been banned from accessing the app after Tuesday's attack. The company added that it is reviewing Saipov's history with the service and cooperating with the FBI. Lyft said it is also cooperating with law enforcement.



Saipov pleaded guilty to two traffic offenses in Pennsylvania between 2012 and 2015, according to records from the Keystone State. He was also arrested for failing to appear in court after getting another traffic citation in Missouri in 2015; he later paid a fine and served no jail time. It's not clear if he had any other criminal history beyond the traffic offenses.



A 29-year-old Uzbek national, identified as Sayfullo Saipov, drove a Home Depot rental pickup truck at least 10 blocks down the popular West Side Highway bike path from West Houston to Chambers streets, hitting nearly a dozen pedestrians. Eight people were killed.

Police have said the attacker rented the truck at about 2 p.m. at a New Jersey Home Depot and then went into New York City over the George Washington Bridge, entering the bike path about an hour later and speeding toward the World Trade Center, the site of the deadliest terror attack in U.S. history.

He barreled along the bike path in the truck for the equivalent of about 14 blocks, or around eight-tenths of a mile, before deliberately slamming into a small yellow school bus near Stuyvesant High School and P.S. 89, injuring two staff members and two children.

"A person hopped out of the car with two guns and started yelling and screaming," said a 12-year-old student who had just left a nearby school. "They were yelling 'Allahu Akbar.'"

The student, whose mother asked that his name be withheld, said he ran back into the school, where students cried and huddled in a corner.

Video shot by bystanders showed Saipov walking through traffic wielding what looked like two handguns, but which police later said were a paintball gun and a pellet gun. A police officer shot Saipov when he wouldn't drop the weapons, police said.



Witness video shows the suspect in a Lower Manhattan truck rampage running through traffic with what looks like two weapons. For the latest updates on this story click here.
A court order issued Thursday banned three protesters from entering SeaWorld San Diego and Aquatica San Diego for the next three years due to a demonstration that took place at the amusement park over the summer.

The Superior Court of the State of California County of San Diego issued a court order banning Lisa Marie Lange, Ricky Chavez Rodriguez, and Lyanne Fernandez from entering the two parks in San Diego and Chula Vista and from harassing, intimidating, attacking or threatening protected SeaWorld employees.

All three protesters are with the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). On July 24, the trio, along with a few others, protested in the park during an Orca Encounter presentation alongside "Babe" actor James Cromwell.

SeaWorld claims the protesters were behaving aggressively and refused to leave the park. PETA said the protest was peaceful.

Following the incident, SeaWorld sought a workplace violence restraining order against Lange, Rodriguez, and Fernandez. This court order resolved that case by agreement.

Marilyn Hannes, president of SeaWorld San Diego, said the company is pleased with the outcome adding, in a press release: "We will not tolerate this type of behavior in our parks."

In a statement, PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said the organization will continue to hold peaceful protests.

"PETA will continue to hold peaceful protests against SeaWorld as the company feels the impact of falling attendance and public pressure to stop confining sensitive marine mammals to tiny tanks, thereby denying them any semblance of a fulfilling life. We ask decent people to come together to protest such cruelty by all lawful means available."



PETA and SeaWorld have been at odds over the treatment of the animals living at company's amusement parks.

In early 2016, SeaWorld said it would not breed killer whales and would stop using them in shows. SeaWorld San Diego has since ended its theatrical orca shows and breeding program. Parks in Orlando and San Antonio will follow suit by 2019.

In recent years, the San Diego amusement park has struggled with a drop in attendance connected, in part, to the release of the controversial 2013 documentary Blackfish, which criticized the treatment of the parks killer whales.

Since the release of the film, SeaWorld San Diego has rolled out new rides, attractions and ticket deals in an attempt to increase attendance.
When marijuana becomes legal for recreational use in January, customers could be shocked by the high cost of getting high.

Thats because taxes on legal marijuana might eventually add 45 percent, or more, to the cost of the product in San Diego.

There will be a 15 percent excise tax on marijuana sales state-wide. Add state and local taxes of 7.75 percent in the city of San Diego, plus another 5 percent marijuana tax, approved by San Diego voters, last year.

That Cannabis Business Tax will increase to eight percent on July 1, 2019, and the city council can increase the tax to a maximum of 15 percent at any time after July 2019.

According to a Fitch Ratings report, pot farmers will also be taxed $9.25 per ounce for marijuana flowers, and $2.75 per ounce for leaves.

That cost will passed on to consumers.

The Fitch report warns that additional taxes, added to the cost of the product, could dampen demand for legal marijuana sold by licensed dispensaries.

If we continue to impose too many regulations and (taxes) on marijuana, then well continue to have the black market, said Kelly Cunningham, senior economist at the National University System in La Jolla.

Cunningham said research reveals that taxes of up to 50 percent on marijuana now sold legally in other states has pushed some users to buy their pot from illegal dispensaries or street dealers, who dont pay taxes, and have lower, or no, overhead costs.

He pointed to studies that show a tax rate of 33 percent in Colorado has hindered that states effort to wipe out the black market for marijuana.

Cunningham said basic economic rules of supply-and-demand and competitiveness will determine what happens in San Diego, but he thinks even a 33 percent tax will encourage some customers to buy their pot on the black market.

Zack Lazarus, co-founder a licensed Otay Mesa dispensary, disagreed.

He predicts that despite a more expensive product, local customers will be (buying) from licensed, regulated, controlled facilities, where its safe, and youre able to get your cannabis without any issues.

Lazarus said his industry will educate voters on the positive impact of the taxes they pay.

For example, he said revenue from the states 15 percent excise tax will pay for youth programs, public safety and environmental clean-ups.

I think its great that were giving back to the health, safety and welfare of the community, Lazarus said. I think its wonderful that were creating jobs off this taxation.
The town of Shelby and city of La Crosse recently announced an agreement in principle to a boundary agreement.

The proposed agreement has been negotiated over the past couple of years and it is an exciting document that brings the two municipalities together in planning developments and sharing in the revenues generated by these developments, and setting the stage for more working together.

There are some areas of the agreement that do not please some. However, few agreements are accepted by all.

While many of the meetings during the negotiations were in closed session, as negotiations usually are, emphasis now is on communicating the elements of the agreement to the public, to allow for their input on the agreement.

Members of the Town Board have met with many groups to explain the agreement, and outlines of the agreement have been mailed to all Shelby homes and businesses. My thanks to the city representatives who worked with Shelby on this.

A goal of the agreement is to create orderly development along the Hwy 14/61 corridor. This is a growth area for the city and over time a portion of the area will be annexed to the city. The area to be annexed has been identied and no annexations may occur outside of the designated area for a period of 20 years. Annexations in the past have always been at the request of the property owner.

Shelby, as a town, does not give land to the city as annexed property. This agreement establishes set boundaries for the term of the agreement and puts an end to annexations out of the designated area.

The agreement calls for Shelby to pay a set amount to La Crosse for each residence in Shelby. The amount starts at $30 and increases to $34. While this is a cost to Shelby, the amount will be offset by taxes generated by the new developments in both the city and town, and also by savings from Shelby residents who will no longer pay non-resident rates for city services, such as park and recreational fees and fees for parking.

l am encouraged by the cooperation with the city representatives on this agreement and look forward to working on other areas where the two municipalities can be cooperative.

An example is library services. Shelby pays in excess of $140,000 to the County Library System and Shelbys use is less than 1 percent of the total users. However, Shelby residents represent over 8 percent of the city of La Crosse Public Library system. The agreement mentions this as a future area of collaboration. The town has no plans for its own library. In addition, police and fire departments will be exploring other areas to work together.

I urge all Shelby residents to review details of the agreement and attend the informational meeting at 6 p.m. Nov. 7 at the Central High School Auditorium in La Crosse.
Authorities are searching for two women who walked away from the Custody to Community Transitional Reentry Program (CCTRP) Thursday.

Karen Flores, 26, and Gisselle Rivas, 20, both participants in the program, walked away from the facility on Armstrong Street, according to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) officials.

When authorities searched their room on Thursday, CCTRP staff found a cell phone in the room.

Soon after, staff were alerted that the women had removed their ankle monitors.

Staff conducted an emergency count at 11:50 a.m. and a facility-wide search, where they found one angle monitor on program grounds.

Flores is described as a 5 feet 1 inch tall and 168 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. Flores came from Los Angeles County to serve two years, eight months for second-degree robbery and grand theft. She had been participating in CCTRP since May 2017 and was scheduled to be released Sept. 2018.

Rivas is described as 5 feet 1 inch tall and 148 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. She came from Los Angeles County to serve four years for first-degree burglary and vehicle theft. She has been in this program since June 2017 and was scheduled to be released in April 2018.

CCTRP lets eligible participants serve the remainder of their sentence in a community program, in place of a state prison. The program provides a series of rehabilitative services that help with alcohol and drug recovery, employment, education, social support and more.

Local law enforcement agencies and CDCR's Office of Correctional Safety are searching for the women.

Anyone with information regarding either of these women is asked to call (916) 464-4169 or local law enforcement.


A Florida woman was arrested Thursday for allegedly riding a horse while intoxicated, according to the Polk County Sheriffs Office.

Donna Byrne, 53, was charged with a DUI and animal neglect for putting the horse in danger of being injured or killed, the department said. According to officers, she smelled of alcohol, had watery, red eyes and was staggering while saddled on the creature.

Byrne was riding the horse on Combee Road near North Crystal Lake Road in Lakeland when officers responded to the scene. An onlooker initially reported the incident to police, saying Byrne looked like she was confused or in danger.

After arriving on scene, officers conducted a field sobriety test and found that Byrne had a breath alcohol level of .157 and .161. The legal limit in Florida is .08. Byrne was then arrested and the horse was transported to the Polk County Sheriffs Animal Control livestock facility.

Byrne has previously been charged with five felonies and 10 misdemeanors, including cruelty to animals, drug possession, probation violation and criminal traffic.
Exasperated U.S. senators harshly criticized representatives of Facebook, Twitter and Google at a hearing Tuesday for not doing more to prevent Russian agents interfering with the American political process as early as 2015.

At one point, Sen. Al Franken shook his head after he couldn't get all the companies to commit to not accepting political ads bought with North Korean currency.

The hearing by a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary panel was moved last week into a cavernous hearing room usually reserved for high-profile events like Supreme Court confirmations. About 50 people waited to get in as senators fired pointed questions and waved at cardboard displays of outrageous ads.

"People are buying ads on your platform with rubles. They are political ads," Franken fumed. "You put billions of data points together all the time. ... Google has all knowledge that man has ever developed. You can't put together rubles with a political ad and go like, 'Hmmm, those data points spell out something pretty bad?' "

Technology company representatives fumbled at points. After Franken pointed out foreign spending on U.S. political campaigns is illegal, Google's director of law enforcement and information security, Richard Salgado, replied only that the search giant would refuse political ads paid with foreign currency "if it's a good enough signal on illegality."

"In hindsight, we should have had a broader lens," said Facebook's general counsel, Colin Stretch.

The companies all pledged to do more and politely said they understood the seriousness with which lawmakers are taking the question of Russian meddling.

PRESSURED TO SUPPORT LEGISLATION

Sen. Amy Klobuchar pressured the representatives to support her "Honest Ads" bill, which she is co-sponsoring with Sen. Mark Warner and Sen. John McCain, and which would bring political ad rules from TV, radio and print to the internet.

She dismissed pledges from the companies this week to be more transparent about political ads as an unenforceable "patchwork" of self-policing.

"We're not waiting for legislation," said Stretch, before Klobuchar cut him off and repeated her demand for a yes or no answer.

"We stand ready to work with you and your co-sponsors on that legislation going forward," Stretch replied, echoed by Twitter's and Google's representatives.

Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy browbeat Stretch into admitting that Facebook had no way of knowing the true identity of all of the 5 million advertisers that use its platform every month.

"Of course, the answer is no," Stretch said.

INVESTIGATIONS HEATING UP

The hearing  the first of three this week in which the three tech giants face a public grilling  comes amid the increasing pace of investigations into the Trump administration's possible link to Russia.

Court papers unsealed Monday revealed an indictment against President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and a guilty plea by another adviser, who admitted to lying to the FBI about meetings with Russian intermediaries.

Just five of the full committee's 11 Republicans attended the Senate subcommittee hearing, while all nine Democrats showed up.

On Wednesday, representatives of all three companies face hearings by the House and Senate intelligence committees.

MASSIVE REACH

In preparation for Tuesday's hearing, Facebook disclosed that content generated by Russia's infamous troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, potentially reached as many as 126 million users.

The company said IRA-linked accounts generated 80,000 posts on 120 pages between January 2015 and August 2017. Possible views reached the millions after people liked the posts and shared them.

Facebook had earlier turned over more than 3,000 advertisements linked to the agency. The ads  many of which focused on divisive social issues like immigration and gay rights  pointed people to the agency's pages, where they could then like or share its material.

Twitter said it uncovered and shut down 2,752 accounts linked to the IRA, nearly 14 times as many as it handed over to congressional committees three weeks ago.

The Russia-linked accounts put out 1.4 million election-related tweets from September through Nov. 15 last year  nearly half of them automated. The company also found nine Russian accounts that bought ads, most of which came from the state-backed news service RT, previously known as Russia Today.

And Google said it found evidence of "limited" misuse of its services by the Russian group, as well as some YouTube channels that were likely backed by Russian agents.

Google said two accounts linked to the Russian group spent $4,700 on ads on its platforms during the 2016 election. The company also found 18 YouTube channels likely backed by Russian agents. Those channels hosted 1,108 videos with 43 hours of material, although they racked up just 309,000 views in the U.S. between June 2015 and November 2016, Google said.

MISLEADING ADS REVEALED

Sen. Richard Blumenthal revealed some of the ads taken out by Russians, including one that showed comedian Aziz Ansari holding up a sign that said "Save time, avoid the line, vote from home," a message that falsely suggested voters could cast ballots by text message.

Another Twitter post urged voters to text "Hillary" to 59925 to cast their vote.

Blumenthal pressed Twitter's acting general counsel Sean Edgett to commit to researching how many voters may have been misled into incorrectly believing they had voted because of the posts.

Nakashima reported from San Francisco. Barbara Ortutay in New York, Michael Liedtke in San Francisco and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this story.
A man assaulted a woman and a man before running them over and leaving them dead along a Frederick County, Maryland, road Thursday morning, the Frederick County Sheriff's Office said.

Deputies were called to Acacia Court at 5:10 a.m. for a report of an assault in progress. When they arrived, they found the victims suffering from serious injuries in the roadway. Both victims were pronounced dead at the scene.

According to police, 24-year-old Delajhi Joyner physically assaulted 37-year-old Shondre Janelle Brown Naylor and 19-year-old Jermaine Langley Hill Jr. in the roadway. He then got into a Chevy Malibu, putting it in reverse and backed up over Naylor and Hill -- dragging them for a distance, police said.

Joyner then drove the car forward and ran over Naylor and Hill again before fleeing from the car, police said.

Police found puncture wounds on Hill's body and a knife blade was recovered from the scene.

Police believe Joyner, Naylor and Hill arrived to Acadia Court together about 4:30 a.m. in the Malibu. The Malibu was registered to Naylor, police said.

Investigators are still looking into the relationship between the suspect and victims and the motive for the killings.

Joyner has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and remaind in custody.
The American Legion and other supporters of a cross-shaped war monument on a Maryland highway median just outside Washington have asked a federal appeals court to reconsider a ruling that found having the memorial on public land violates the U.S. Constitution.

Supporters asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to hold a hearing by the full court. Last month, a three-judge panel found that the 92-year-old world War I monument known as the Peace Cross "excessively entangles the government in religion."

On Wednesday, the 4th Circuit temporarily suspended its ruling until it decides whether to hold a rehearing.

The American Humanist Association challenged the constitutionality of the 40-foot (12-meter) cross in Bladensburg, saying it endorses Christianity while ignoring non-Christian veterans.

After the court ruled the memorial unconstitutional, Gov. Larry Hogan directed Maryland's attorney general to support a legal challenge against the ruling.

In a letter, Hogan noted that the Peace Cross in Bladensburg is a memorial to 49 Prince George's County residents who died in World War I. The governor also noted that the cross, which is on a state highway median just outside Washington, has been in place for more than 90 years.

"The conclusion that this memorial honoring veterans violates the (Constitution's) Establishment clause offends common sense, is an affront to all veterans, and should not be allowed to stand," Hogan, a Republican, wrote in the letter to Frosh, a Democrat. "I believe, very strongly, that this cherished community memorial does not violate the Constitution. Your office will be Maryland's legal voice in this important litigation."

Raquel Coombs, a spokeswoman for Frosh, wrote in an email that the attorney general's office has received the letter and is reviewing it.
Students found a substitute teacher passed out and under the influence of alcohol in a Virginia classroom, police say.

Konbeh Koroma, 24, of Springfield, was arrested Friday and faces charges of public drunkenness, police said.

Koroma was substituting for a 10th, 11th and 12th grade art teacher at Robinson High School in Fairfax.

Students found him passed out at his desk, police said.

According to police, he was unresponsive when students tried to wake him.

A school resource officer was called and officials discovered Korama was under the influence of alcohol, police said.

He was taken to jail, police said.
Massachusetts lawmakers have agreed on language that calls for a ban on "bump stocks," devices that can increase the firing rate of a weapon.

The state would be the first to ban bump stocks since the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Investigators say the gunman who opened fire on a Las Vegas music festival, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds more, used the device that allows a semi-automatic firearm to mimic a fully automatic one.

The proposed ban was added to an $85 million budget bill. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker supports a ban.

Lawmakers were initially considering banning any device that attaches to a rifle or shotgun to increase the discharge rate, which gun rights advocates opposed.

They adopted narrower language specifically prohibiting bump stocks and trigger cranks.
Recently unsealed court documents reveal that the suspect in a deadly shooting over the summer in New Hampshire may have buried his victim alive.

Richard Tripaldi is charged with the murder of James Brock in Franklin. But the details uncovered in the documents are so disturbing that people in town say the whole story makes them sick to their stomachs.

"I wanted to vomit, it made me shudder to think he was right down the hall from me," said a longtime resident who didn't want to be identified.

She says she has a unique connection to the suspect, who police say shot and killed his friend over the summer.

"Truthfully, he never said a thing to me, not even 'thank you' after what I did for him," she said.

What's being revealed in court documents this week paints a nightmarish picture.

"It's incomprehensible," the woman said.

According to the affidavit, Tripaldi admitted to his sisters that he shot Brock in the head and then buried him while he was still breathing.

"It's horrible," said April Gauthier, another Franklin resident. "You don't hear about it around here."

Tripaldi's sisters went to police and led them to the spot in the woods off Flaghole Road where Tripaldi told them he buried Brock at their campsite.

Investigators discovered a decomposing body, a skull with a bullet hole in it, and a shovel.

"He seemed like a very odd person," said the Franklin resident.

She says a week before the crime, she was the one who revived Tripaldi with Narcan when he overdosed in the building where she lives.

"I brought him back," she said. "To find out a week later what I found out, it was so very unnerving."

Tripaldi allegedly told his sister that he killed Brock for his car, his money and his drugs, a motive Franklin residents say, these days, is believable, and heartbreaking at the same time.

Tripaldi is being held without bail and is due back in court in December.
Maine's governor has vetoed a bill regulating the legal retail sale of marijuana.

In a letter explaining his veto, LePage said he was rejecting the bill because of the uncertainty surrounding legal recreational marijuana on a federal level, even as more states move forward toward regulating the retail sale of the plant.

He also cited issues within the bill regarding marijuana regulation.

"The drafters of this bill chose to ignore the significant effects that this new program -- one with different levels of regulatory oversight and a different tax structure -- will have on the existing medical marijuana program, its patients and the public health and safety of the Maine people," LePage wrote.

He also said he had reservations about expanding marijuana's legalization.

"The dangers of legalizing marijuana and normalizing its use in our society cannot be understated," he said, pointing out Maine's opioid crisis. "Sending a message, especially to our young people, that some drugs are still illegal under federal law are now sanctioned by the state may have unintended and grave consequences."

The Maine Legislature will return Monday to face this veto, and possibly another should LePage delay implementation of ranked-choice voting.

Observers had previously said it was unlikely LePage would have signed the marijuana bill into law because he has called it a gateway drug, but he said in 2014 that the choice should be left up to voters. The other option he had regarding this bill was letting it become law without his signature.

The bill that sets rules and taxes on marijuana passed with a two-thirds majority in the Senate, but not in the House. A two-thirds vote is necessary to override the veto.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren asked the Environmental Protection Agency to look into discolored water coming out of faucets in one town after people living in the area reported pale yellow to dark brown water.

"It looks like sewage pouring from our faucets," said Norton homeowner Penny Heida.

Some homeowners in Norton say their water looks discolored several days a week.

"It comes out looking like iced tea, coffee, root beer and if you let the bottle actually settle you can see the sediment form basically an inch barrier at the bottom," said Norton mother Lauren DoVale.

A mother of four kids, DoVale has been keeping samples of the water, which range from yellow to dark brown.

"Anybody can look at this and see this isnt safe to drink, its ruining our tubs, our dishwashers, what is it doing to our bodies?" she said.

"I dont put the kids in the shower because theyre not getting any cleaner than they were a minute ago," said resident Tony Falciano.

These residents say the town has repeatedly told them its due to ongoing flushing of the towns water main and hydrants and that the water meets health standards.

"They always say its flushing, were flushing, but thats a bunch of baloney because theyre not flushing all the time," said DoVale.

Sen. Warrens office is calling on the EPA to investigate whether the water does in fact meet health standards.

"I urge you to interact with the town of Norton, Massachusetts and the Commonwealth to ensure that the water does indeed meet health standards, and further provide assistance in confidently determining the exact cause of the discoloration," the Democrat wrote. "Additionally, I urge EPA to work with town officials to aid the Town of Norton and the Commonwealth in mitigating this discoloration issue. The residents of Norton deserve nothing short of absolute confidence in the quality of their drinking water."



As Heida fills her bathtub with yellow water, she says shes skeptical anything will change after years of discolored water.

"Its frightening, its scary, I dont feed my dogs the water here," said Heida.
A man from Vermonts Franklin County underwent an emergency surgery that stretched from late Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, following what fellow Fairfax town employees called a "freak accident" on the job.

D.J. Leach, 61, was a part of the massive cleanup effort still ongoing across Vermont, following Monday mornings violent wind storm that knocked down trees and power poles in many communities.

A lifelong resident of Fairfax, and town employee for more than 30 years, the highway department foreman was part of a team clearing toppled trees Monday that were blocking a busy part of Fletcher Road.

While Leach was cutting and removing trees, somehow, one snapped and hit him.

A fellow highway department worker is an EMT and tended to Leach right away.

Leachs son Jay said his dad suffered brain swelling, a broken sternum and ribs, and early Wednesday morning, got out of a spinal fusion surgery at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington.

Leach said his happy-go-lucky father had limited feeling in his legs, but was hopeful thatll improve.

"We wish him the best," said Amy Sears, the manager of Fairfaxs utility department.

Sears and Fairfax Select Board member Randy DeVine said everyone in Fairfax is pulling for this well-known, outgoing fixture in town.

They described him as the kind of guy who wakes up and cant wait to get to work and help people.

"We respect his dedication in this town," DeVine said. "Our thoughts and prayers are [with him] every minute of the dayits devastating."

As communities across Vermont and New England continue clearing fallen trees, power poles, and other damage from those intense blasts of wind, Sears had a message from the community of Fairfax.

"Be safeto any of the road crews out there, the power crews out there,"Sears said. "Theres still lots of clean up in lots of towns."

Jay Leach said he knows his dad has a long road ahead of him, including a probably lengthy stay at a post-surgical care center for physical rehab.

However, Jay Leach said his family is optimistic that D.J.s enthusiasm for life and support from the Fairfax community will help get him through this.
Will the GOP tax overhaul be bad for Massachusetts residents? Some local lawmakers think so.

House Republicans on Thursday unveiled a tax cut plan that would slash the corporate rate and lower the personal taxes of most Americans but also limit a cherished deduction for homeowners, as President Donald Trump and the GOP seek to deliver on the first tax revamp in three decades.

Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin said this week that he is "very alarmed" at efforts by the Trump administration to eliminate the ability of taxpayers to deduct state and local tax payments from their federal income tax. The proposal would also limit deductions of property taxes to $10,000 per year.

"Eliminating the state and local tax deduction would disproportionately harm Massachusetts taxpayers," Galvin, a Democrat, said. "Capping the property tax deduction at $10,000 would hurt middle-class homeowners in many Massachusetts communities and the rest of the Northeast, where property tax bills can easily exceed that amount."

The Boston Globe said the new tax plan would have the greatest impact on anyone buying homes around Boston where the median home prices exceed $625,000, potentially costing them thousands.

Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, also expressed concern with the GOP tax cuts.

"Governor Baker has serious concerns about the impact that eliminating the state and local tax deduction would have on Massachusetts families," his office told the Boston Herald. "The Baker-Polito Administration works with a bipartisan group of legislators to ensure Massachusetts remains a competitive place for economic growth and encourages the President and Congress to do the same as they pursue federal tax reform."

U.S. Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said the bill "falls short of reform, falls short of middle-class tax relief and falls short of the fiscal principles to which Republicans have long held themselves."

He added that the proposal "tilts the tax code farther from the middle-class and more towards the well-off and well connected."
Car designers do it with wind tunnels. Architects do it models. But how do you test the design of a complex IoT system?

It isnt easy with potentially thousands of sensors sending millions of readings continuously. How do you check to make sure that your IoT design will work properly in real life? Check to make sure that different error conditions are handled properly, and corrective action taken on time?

Simulated IoT devices can eliminate the guesswork from designing complex systems.

Background

Dr. Michael Grieves at the University of Michigan first proposed the idea of a digital twin. A digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical device to make sure that the design performs as intended. He defined Digital Twin Prototype (DTP) as an assets information. Such as a 3D model of the device, its Bill of Materials and Processes to fully describe the asset and how it should work. These digital proxies generate sensor readings and communicate just as their physical counterparts and help IoT designers with:

Visibility in the operations of the machines and larger interconnected systems such as a manufacturing plant or an airport. Predictive modeling to forecast the future state of the machine with physics and math based techniques. What if analysis to simulate various conditions that are impractical to create in real life and ask the what-if questions of the model. Understanding of the behavior of an individual machine or thousands of devices under different situations. Network design to see how to connect sensors with backend business applications such as supply chain operations, manufacturing and logistics.

Why is creating a realistic digital twin so hard? The sensor readings that it generates must reflect whats going to happen in the real world and cant just be a replay of a single set of readings. Consider someones heart rate for instance. Measuring it for five minutes and then replaying that recording isnt adequate as it doesnt consider physical activity, weight gain or changing temperature. A digital twin must accurately represent changing conditions.

Warehouse operation case study

Take for instance a warehouse with dozens for forklifts transporting hundreds of containers. Each forklift has multiple sensor reporting things such as location, engine temperature, tire pressure and brake wear. Some of the functions such as tire pressure and brake wear (for instance) impact each other. The usage of the forklifts fluctuates based on time of day and when large shipments reach the warehouse. Sensor readings are sent to the cloud for routing the forklifts and scheduling preventative maintenance so that operations are optimized.

For the IoT designer of this warehouse application, its extremely valuable to simulate the forklifts, communication bottlenecks and possible breakdowns to design the optimal solution.

Oracles virtual twin

Oracle helps tackle this challenge with a cloud-based, virtual representation of the physical devices needed in the design. The solution has two elements (as you would expect from twins):

Digital twin which can include a description of the devices, a 3D rendering, and details on all the sensors in the device. It continuously generates sensor readings that simulate real life operations. Predictive twin which models the future state and behavior of the device. This is based on historical data from other device which can simulate breakdowns and other situations that need attention.

A designer can then use a digital twin to spawn dozens of virtual forklifts and have them send sensor readings to a cloud based IoT monitoring system. Different error conditions can be simulated to see if alerts are generated properly and the supplies needed to repair forklifts are correctly ordered. This enable the IoT design to be stress tested and refined well before its deployed.

Anticipating problems

Kaoru Ishikawa pioneered quality management design processes. He proposed that proactively identifying potential failure points is essential for well-designed solutions. The design process should take into account the whole system as well as contextual data. His Ishikawa diagram approach identifies problems, by analyzing the 5Ms: Man, Machine, Method, Material, and Management. The digital twin applies this 5M model in IoT by considering all five factors in designing the solution.

A wind tunnel for testing IoT devices may never materialize. But IoT designers can come close with some advanced planning and simulation with tools such as Oracles digital twin.
Destinations to study abroad without burning a hole in your pocket

New Delhi , Oct 27 : Access to education is one of the basic rights of people across the world, and many are extremely lucky to have had the chance to complete at least high school.





(Posted on 27 October 2017, 1668589468 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/travel-india-news.php  (Posted on 27 October 2017, 1668589468 173O212O198O32)

However, when it comes to pursuing higher education from reputed institutions, especially those that are based in an international destination, it seems there are only few who can afford to study abroad in the destination of their choice.Although there are several student loans and scholarships made available for young scholars who demonstrate academic excellence, there are external factors like cost and standard of living that determine the overall cost of studying abroad.While strict financial planning / management is one way to manage costs while pursuing studies in an international university, it is extremely important for students hoping to study abroad to choose from those countries that have considerably lower cost of living than most nations.Gurinder Bhatti, Chairman and Managing Director, ESS Global suggests some of the most affordable destinations, in terms of cost of living from lowest to highest for students hoping to study abroad:-Germany - As an emerging education destination, Germany saw a 14 per cent increase in number of international students from 282,201 to 321,569, enrolled in its universities between 2013 and 2015. Additionally, it has one of the best education infrastructures in the world, and is also considered by many as one of the top countries to specialize in engineering and technology.Despite being a central-European nation, cost of living in Germany is quite low compared to other European countries. Apart from little to no tuition fees for studying in German universities, the country has a lower cost of living than Denmark, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. According to the German Academic Exchange Service, international students spend an average of 725 euros on daily expenses, while German students spend 864 euros for their expenses.-Canada - Canada has been a favourite destination among international students for quite some time now. Apart from being one of the most peaceful, safe, and student friendly nation, Canada is also known for its high standard of living and low cost of living for students. International students typically spend anywhere between 20,000 to 30,000 Canadian dollars annually that covers their tuition as well as living expenses.-New Zealand - New Zealand has an excellent and flexible education system that suits the budget of every student. While the annual living expenses of international students are determined by the university chosen by them, the New Zealand government suggests that students have at least 15,000 dollars to cover their expenses during their first year.-Australia - Australia has one of the best cost of living in the world, with living and tuition costs significantly lower than either the United States of America or the United Kingdom. However, the Australian government still advises international students to prepare a budget for the duration of their stay in the country prior to enrolling in any university to manage their finances better. Students can also check if they are eligible for scholarships, which could help reduce their financial burden by a certain margin.-The United Kingdom - Just like New Zealand, the overall cost of living in the United Kingdom is determined by the place and/or university selected by a student. For example: University of Liverpool suggests that students have at least A5,500-7,000to spend per year on cost of living (excluding college and tuition fees). Apart from that, the country's official website for international students suggests preparing a budget that includes college fees (including tuition), food, accommodation rent, travel, and other miscellaneous expenses.No matter where a student chooses to study, it is evident that planning well in advance and preparing a budget can go a long way in ensuring they have a comfortable and fruitful stay through the duration of their course.
NTPC Explosion: Death toll rises to 16

New Delhi , November 1 : Uttar Pradesh principal secretary (home) Arvind Kumar on Wednesday confirmed that at least 16 people have died after an ash-pipe exploded due to pressure at National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) plant in Unchahar area of Uttar Pradesh's Raebareli district.





(Posted on 02 November 2017, 1668589469 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/india-news.php  (Posted on 02 November 2017, 1668589469 173O212O198O32)

Meanwhile, UP's Health Minister Siddharth Nath Singh told ANI that "more than 50 ambulances are pressed into service; we are making arrangements in all big hospitals in Lucknow"."An enquiry has been set up by NTPC management to investigate the reasons for the accident," said NTPC authorities.Hours after the incident, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced an ex-gratia of Rs. 2 lakh for the kin of deceased, Rs. 50,000 for critically injured and Rs. 25,000 for injured.A 32-member team of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) had left for Unchahar in Raebareli.The authorities of NTPC said, "Rescue operations are underway in close coordination with District Administration. Injured people have been shifted to nearby district hospitals. An unfortunate accident in the boiler of 500 MW under trial unit of NTPC in Unchahar occurred this afternoon.""NTPC's senior management is rushing to the site to coordinate the efforts," NTPC Corporation Communication Department said.Union Health Minister J P Nadda spoke to UP Health Minister and Union Health Secretary to extend all possible help.The blast reportedly took place when a boiler tube exploded at the unit."Ash-pipe exploded due to pressure at NTPC plant in Rae Bareli," the District Magistrate informed.NTPC operates a 1550 Mega Watt power plant of Uttar Pradesh, which is named after Feroze Gandhi, the husband of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Greenland's ice more at risk than previously believed

Washington D.C. [USA], Nov 2 : According to new maps of Greenland's coastal seafloor and bedrock beneath its massive ice sheet, two to four times as many coastal glaciers are at risk of accelerated melting as had previously been thought.





(Posted on 02 November 2017, 1668589469 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/world-news.php  (Posted on 02 November 2017, 1668589469 173O212O198O32)

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, NASA and 30 other institutions have published the most comprehensive, accurate and high-resolution relief maps ever made of Greenland's bedrock and coastal seafloor. Among the many data sources incorporated into the new maps is data from NASA's Ocean Melting Greenland campaign.Lead author Mathieu Morlighem of UCI had demonstrated in an earlier study that data from OMG's survey of the shape and depth, or bathymetry, of the seafloor in Greenland's fjords improved scientists' understanding of both the coastline and the inland bedrock beneath glaciers that flow into the ocean. That's because the bathymetry at a glacier's front limits the possibilities for the shape of bedrock farther upstream.The nearer to the shoreline, the more valuable the bathymetry data are for understanding on-shore topography, Morlighem said. "What made OMG unique compared to other campaigns is that they got right into the fjords, as close as possible to the glacier fronts. That's a big help for bedrock mapping," he added.The new maps revealed that two to four times more oceanfront glaciers extend deeper than 600 feet (200 meters) below sea level than earlier maps showed. That's bad news, because the top 600 feet of water around Greenland comes from the Arctic and is relatively cold. The water below it comes from farther south and is 6 to 8 eight degrees Fahrenheit (3 to 4 degrees Celsius) warmer than the water above. Deeper-seated glaciers are exposed to this warmer water, which melts them more rapidly.Morlighem's team used the maps to refine their estimate of Greenland's total volume of ice and its potential to add to global sea level rise if the ice were to melt completely, which is not expected to occur within the next few hundred years. The new estimate is higher by 2.76 inches (7 centimeters) for a total of 24.34 feet (7.42 meters).OMG principal investigator Josh Willis of JPL said, "These results suggest that Greenland's ice is more threatened by changing climate than we had anticipated."
Former Bihar CM slams JD(U) leader for remark against Nitish Kumar

Patna (Bihar) , November 2 : Former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi on Thursday lashed out at senior Janata Dal (United) leader Uday Narayan Choudhary over his remark against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's policy for Dalits and questioned why he never spoke about the issues when he was in power.





(Posted on 02 November 2017, 1668589471 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/more-news.php  (Posted on 02 November 2017, 1668589471 173O212O198O32)

Manjhi's remark came after Choudhary said Nitish was "no longer focussed on Dalit welfare", and warned that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would continue to "ill-treat" him."Why are they raising the issue now? Why did they never raise the issue when he was in power? That simply means even he was scared to lose the post," Manjhi told ANI.Backing Nitish, Manjhi said everybody had a specific way of performing a task and the Bihar chief minister was working according to his own way."I believe when I was there or now when Nitish Kumar is there, we have always followed particular steps for the upliftment of the poor. The new steps will also be beneficial for the people. But I don't consider them a miracle. I know that the chief minister is very concerned about the Dalits," he said.Earlier on Monday, Choudhary and JD(U) general secretary Shyam Rajak opposed the demand for a review of the reservation policy in the state.They said that the Narendra Modi-led Government at the Centre wanted to do away with quota in promotions as well as introduce creamy layers for SCs and STs.The Bihar cabinet had, on Wednesday, given its nod to reservations in government services outsourced to private agencies.
Tri-nation bike expedition to boost border ties

Agartala (Tripura) , Nov 2 : A 33 member bikers' team of Assam Rifles (AR) troupes arrived in Tripura through Akhaura checkpoint from Bangladesh on Thursday.





(Posted on 02 November 2017, 1668589472 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/india-news.php  (Posted on 02 November 2017, 1668589472 173O212O198O32)

The bikers are conducting a Tri-Nation Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel Unity and Heritage Motorcycle Expedition. They will be traveling in India, Bangladesh and Myanmar in a 7-day tour.The tour was flagged off by Meghalaya Governor Ganga Prasad from Shillong to Sylhet in Bangladesh on 30 October.The team met freedom fighter of 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War at various stopover points.Brigadier Ashwani Nayyar of Commander 21 Sector AR said, "It will foster friendship and greater bonhomie and coordination between our border guarding forces. Also, it will improve the contacts between two security forces and the two governments and foster friendship between the nations."The expedition team will pass through the six Northeastern states of Meghalaya, Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram and Tripura to enter Myanmar to complete the 2150 km long expedition tour.The team will also pay homage at various war memorials and graves of Indian martyrs during the Second World War on the foreign soil.The aim of the Expedition is to foster force to force connection with border guarding forces of Bangladesh, Myanmar and India, besides bringing bonhomie between the three nations as well as the role in ensuring the security and stability in the North East region.The entire expedition has been designed to spread the message of peace, harmony and national integration across the states and the International border.
Andhra CM to attend 'World Food India-2017' conference

New Delhi , November 2 : Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu will participate in the inaugural session of international conference 'World Food India (WFI) 2017' on November 3 in Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi.





(Posted on 02 November 2017, 1668589473 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/andhra-pradesh-news.php  (Posted on 02 November 2017, 1668589473 173O212O198O32)

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the three day international event 'World Food India-2017', being organized by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Government of India in association with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) from November 3-5, Chandrababu Naidu will participate in the inaugural session of the event.The event will be the largest gathering of investors, manufacturers, producers, food processors, policy makers, and organizations from the global food ecosystem.Andhra Pradesh being one of the partner states for the event will hold a special session on November 3 to showcase the potential and advantages of Food Processing sector in the state to the global community.It is noted that Andhra Pradesh is one of the leading agricultural states in India, popularly known as "Rice Bowl of India".Andhra Pradesh, under the leadership of Chandrababu Naidu is marching towards the goal that no citizen should have to face hunger by 2030.Recently, on World Food Day on October 16, Andhra Pradesh Government signed a record of 108 Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) with food processing and agro companies to rope in an investment worth Rs. 855 Crores and create 9477 jobs.It also signed 23 Memorandum of Co-operations (MoCs) with premier government institutions in the country in post-harvest management to support Food Processing sector in the state for a period of five years.As another initiation of the Chief Minister, the state government is pursuing to setup a separate corporation for developing cold chain infrastructure in Andhra Pradesh. The guidelines are being formulated and the corporation is expected to be operational by January 2018 which will solve lack of cold storage facilities for farmers before taking their produce to markets.
Rahul-Hardik bonhomie to hoodwink people of Gujarat: Jitendra Singh

Surat (Gujarat) Nov. 2 : Union Minister of State Dr. Jitendra Singh said that Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) convenor Hardik Patel bonhomie is to hoodwink people of Gujarat.





(Posted on 02 November 2017, 1668589473 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/gujarat-news.php  (Posted on 02 November 2017, 1668589473 173O212O198O32)

Hardik Patel on Thursday said that the PAAS will extend its support to the Congress in the upcoming Gujarat Assembly elections only if their reservation demand is met.Talking to ANI, Singh, "Few days back when I was asked about Hardik and Rahul bonhomie, I made an observation that one loser trying to clutch on the other loser which might ultimately spell the dome. Now, the nation must question the Congress party that what is their stand on what Hardik says; what is their stand on the OBC quota. And therefore just hoodwinking the people of India, particularly the people of Gujarat on the eve of elections, is not going to work."He further added, "India 2017 and Gujarat 2017 has population below 40 and majority of voters ask for evidence and reasoning. This is the reason that PAAS committee has in fact questioned the stand of Hardik, Rahul and Congress. This vindicates what the BJP stands for."Six social organisations of the Patidar community have slammed Hardik Patel's demand seeking reservation for Patidars under the OBC category.The heads of the six organisations have come on the front foot against the Patidar leader's demand to include the Patels in the OBC and give reservation to the community for education and jobs.The organisations that are opposing Hardik's demand, include Umiya Mata Sanstha from Unjh, Khodaldham Kagwad in Rajkot, Vishwa Umiya Foundation, Samast Patidar Samaj in Surat, Umiya Mataji Mandir in Sidsar and Sardar Dham in Ahmedabad.Earlier in the day, Hardik told ANI that "if the Congress takes steps in support of our issue (reservation), we will directly or indirectly support the party... The andolan is still on".He informed that Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi came to meet him on Diwali.When asked if he is going to join the Congress to pursue the reservation issue, the PAAS convenor said, "I am not going to join any political party for the next two and a half years. Rahul visited to wish me during Diwali like any other people who come to meet me," said Patel.Hardik's reservation demand has come in the wake of the upcoming assembly election in Gujarat, wherein the Congress party is trying to woo the Patidar community.The Congress is counting on the Patidar votes to sway the election results of Gujarat polls in their favour and uproot the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been in power since 1995 in the state.The polls will be conducted in Gujarat in two phases. The polling for the first phase will be held on December 9 and for the second phase on December 14.The counting of the votes will be held on December 18.
Dickey's Barbecue Pit Opens Their Doors and Fires Up Their Pit in Kingwood

KINGWOOD, Texas: Dickey's Barbecue Pit opens their newest location this Thursday, October 26 in Kingwood, TX with four weeks of specials and giveaways including free barbecue for a year for one lucky guest. The new location will be opened by new Dickey's franchisee Kash Kahn.





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"The Dickey's Barbecue Pit family is thrilled to have Kash Khan as one of our own and we greatly look forward to the success of his first location," says Laura Rea Dickey, CEO of Dickey's Barbecue Restaurants, Inc. "We are always so proud when we are able to expand in our home state of Texas, especially with great franchisees such as Khan."Dickey's will offer the following specials and giveaways for the next four weeks:Thirsty Thursdays: Guests will receive a free Big Yellow Cup with free refills all day.Philanthropy Fridays: "You Give, We Give" - Guests who donate to Dickey's charitable foundation, Barbecue, Boots & Badges, will receive a gift card as a thank you for their donation. All uniformed first responders also receive 50 percent off their meal.Smokin' Saturday: Guests may purchase $2 Pulled Pork Sandwiches all day. Limit two.Kids Eat Free Sundays: Kids eat free with an adult purchase of $10 or more.The Kingwood location is the first Dickey's Barbecue Pit location opened by Khan. "I greatly look forward to opening my first location and serving the residents of Kingwood Dickey's slow-smoked barbecue," says Khan.To join Dickey's Big Yellow Cup Club and receive members-only specials and discounts, click here.The new Dickey's Barbecue Pit in Kingwood is located at 1800 Northpark Dr. Kingwood, TX 77339. The phone number is 281-358-5047.
Barton Associates to Add 50+ Immediate Job Openings to the North Shore Community

PEABODY, Mass: Barton Associates, a leading nationwide recruitment firm in the USD 3.6 billion healthcare staffing (locum tenens) market, is hiring for more than 50 new job opportunities at its headquarters in Peabody, Massachusetts.





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Peabody is one of Barton's eight locations across six states, including offices in Hardwick, MA; Worcester, MA; Keene, NH; West Palm Beach, FL; Windsor, CT; Austin, TX; and Tempe, AZ. Barton is slated to open two more offices in Las Vegas in early 2018, bringing more than 100 sales career opportunities to a new area of the country. The Peabody office is hiring account managers and recruiters who work together to place physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and dentists in short- and long-term locum tenens assignments throughout the United States.Barton built its career platform around hiring young professionals and providing them opportunities to grow, both professionally and financially. Barton offers a competitive base salary, world-class training, industry-leading incentive programs, and a comprehensive benefits package. Employees at the Peabody office, located just off of Route 1, also have access to a variety of nearby conveniences, including restaurants, an on-site gym, shopping malls, pharmacies, banks, and more.Barton takes advantage of the best talent from the area's new graduates and operates with a strong promote-from-within philosophy. Barton is currently hiring for various sales and corporate/support roles in all its offices.
Chicago Auto Show Launches New Website, Announces 2018 Show Dates

CHICAGO: As auto show season swings into high gear, the Chicago Auto Show announces its 2018 public show dates, Feb. 10-19, and debuts an all-new website boasting responsive design, improved navigation and dedicated sponsor, exhibitor and media microsites. ChicagoAutoShow.com hosts more than 1 million visitors in Q1 each year and nearly 1.5 million visitors annually.





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The 2018 version of ChicagoAutoShow.com is now fully functional for all devices - desktop, tablet and mobile - allowing users the same experience whether they are at home or on the go. As well, the show's rich past is on full display in pictures and videos in the site's Show History. Finally, online and mobile ticketing are improved, allowing purchasers to share and save tickets with their mobile device.The show's website also includes innovative functionality that allows site visitors and app users to interact with exhibitors as if they were on the show floor. No auto show has ever offered this feature, and, in conjunction with the site's Vehicles on Display section and DriveChicago.com inventory solution, the Chicago Auto Show website is unmatched in customer-to-exhibitor interaction.The website's Vehicles on Display section adds real-time inventory from Chicagoland's new-car dealers, provided by DriveChicago.com. This allows site visitors to sort through more than 40,000 new cars directly on ChicagoAutoShow.com as they are browsing their favorite vehicles.Highlighting its extremely active social media channels, the show's website features Facebook and Twitter conversations site-wide and boasts a live Instagram feed on its homepage. In addition, the site hosts a social media wall that's constantly updated with the latest conversations across all social media channels including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest."We want our attendees to connect to the show on every level," said 2018 Chicago Auto Show Chairman John Hennessy. "We will be providing free high-speed WiFi at the show to allow show goers to share their experience through social media, our website and our official Chicago Auto Show app."Also new to ChicagoAutoShow.com is an enhanced sponsor section featuring an interactive landing page where prospective sponsors can gather key information and demographic data on Chicago Auto Show attendees and view a wide range of opportunities that may align with sponsor objectives - from consumer show activations to business-to-business industry events to onsite and digital branding. More information can be found at www.chicagoautoshow.com/sponsor/.Media visiting the website are now able to register for media credentials, download high-resolution Chicago Auto Show images and video, locate recent news releases, view a show floor map and obtain the show's 2018 press kit. The media section of the site is found at www.chicagoautoshow.com/media/.Web development company Americaneagle.com continues to be a valuable partner in the success of ChicagoAutoShow.com and the official show smartphone app."The Chicago Auto Show has been a longtime customer of ours and their outstanding team is one of the biggest contributors to the site's growing and continued success," said Michael Svanascini, president of Americaneagle.com. "Our goal is to give Chicago Auto Show fans a dynamic, optimal online experience, not only on the show dates but all year round."The 2018 Chicago Auto Show will run Saturday, Feb. 10 through Monday, Feb. 19. Public show hours will be 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day except for the last day, Presidents Day, when the show closes at 8 p.m. Special themed days include Women's Day on Feb. 13, Telemundo Hispanic Heritage Day on Feb. 16, Family Day on Feb. 19 and A Safe Haven Chicago Auto Show Food Drive on Feb. 14-16.Tickets will be available for purchase online at www.chicagoautoshow.com beginning in November or at McCormick Place ticket booths throughout the public show. Ticket prices are $13 for adults, $7 for seniors aged 62 or older, $7 for children ages 7-12 and free admission for children 6 and younger when accompanied by a paying adult.The show's 2018 Media Preview will be Feb. 8-9 and its black-tie charity fundraiser gala, First Look for Charity, will be held the evening of Friday, Feb. 9 at McCormick Place.
New Study Finds That While Overall Satisfaction Has Risen, Banks Are At Greater Risk Of Losing Customers

BOSTON: ath Power Consulting, a leading financial services research and strategy firm, today announces its release of the latest ath Power Ideal Banking Study, a detailed assessment of the desires and behaviors of today's retail banking consumers across the U.S. and Canada.





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Results found that credit unions and community banks continue to lead in overall customer satisfaction, however, the largest 4 U.S. banks (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo) showed the most improvement with an 18-point climb since 2010."New competitors, increased innovation, and higher customer expectations are forcing financial institutions to change with the times, or risk being left behind," stated Frank Aloi, ath Power Founder and CEO. "Banks and credit unions must respond to consumer demand, and for some institutions, that means re-inventing the way they serve their client base. Both the number and type of branches are an area of focus."Study findings revealed that almost six-in-ten respondents (57%) find open-layout, cafe-like branches attractive, with 46% liking self-service devices at branches. Video tellers are an important component of branch strategies for some of the larger banks and are favored by 21% of respondents. Their popularity will likely grow over time as customers become more familiar with them, and newer and more capable models emerge.Results also showed that 59% of Millennials express a preference for self-service devices (e.g. kiosks and tablets) in branches, while only 40% of Baby Boomers would welcome them. Even with the expanded and key role that self-service channels have in banking today, there remains a need for human interaction at times - particularly in matters requiring education or advice, or ones that are complex. 36% of this year's survey respondents say that having access to employees who are knowledgeable about the bank's products makes for an "ideal banking experience," a 10-point increase from five years ago.When asked which banking innovations are of interest to them, respondents largely chose capabilities that go beyond transactions and include the coordinated planning, management, and forecasting of their funds and money movement. More than three-in-ten cited interest in innovations that meet these criteria, such as wanting a coordinated digital banking platform (33%), their bank being a single-source of banking and payments apps (32%), or to help them plan or manage budgets (31%).Millennials, in particular, would welcome help with budgeting and managing finances: 43% say so, compared to just 22% of Baby Boomers. Similarly, Millennials are three times as likely as Baby Boomers (19% vs. 6%) to want to be able to compare their spending and savings activity with those of their anonymous peers. Aloi noted that, "These findings reflect formidable challenges faced by Millennials compared to earlier generations, including student loan debt, limited job prospects, and low incomes."Not surprisingly, mobile banking continues to gain importance with consumers, particularly the younger generation, with 27% of Millennials citing it as the one banking feature they could not live without, while just 11% of Baby Boomers feel the same way."Millennials do not value - or are not happy with - the personal touch to the same degree as older generations and instead seek out automation and self-service," stated Aloi. "This will likely favor larger institutions over time, given their heavy investments in digital banking and branch automation."Notably, 25% of respondents indicated a preference for their bank or credit union to be a single point of contact for all financial needs. This suggests that customers are open and receptive to their primary financial institution playing a greater and more central role across all their financial needs. However, in order to do so, banks and credit unions must evolve to serve them where, when, and how they wish to be served or else risk losing them, or at least some of their financial activities (especially those that are payments-related), to challenger banks, FinTechs, and others.Overall, this year's study suggests that the banking sector continues to have disgruntled customers: one-in-five (21%) customers say they may change primary financial institutions within the next year, a 4-point increase from our previous study. Customers of the largest 4 U.S. banks are the most likely (26%) to indicate an intent to leave their current primary bank while credit union members (13%) are the least likely to do so. The rapidly growing Millennial segment appears most at risk for attrition with 25% of them saying they are 'somewhat' or 'extremely' likely to switch primary institutions within the next year. Baby Boomers (19%) and Generation X'ers (22%) are less so inclined.The top three reasons respondents cited for switching from their previous bank or credit union to their current institution are unchanged from the previous study, though poor customer service has risen to be the leading reason for a customer's departure, and relocating took the second-place spot. Fees - the previous top reason for leaving - are becoming less of a concern and are now the third most cited reason, perhaps reflecting an improved economy.So, what would it take to get a customer not planning to switch banks to make the move? Among those expecting to stay put, more than one-in-three (37%) indicated they could be enticed away by incentives, such as a rewards program, while almost as many (31%) might be sufficiently motivated by lower fees.
Canada's Safest Employers Presents Packers Plus with 2017 Wellness Award

CALGARY: Packers Plus Energy Services Inc. is proud to have received the 2017 Silver Wellness Award from Canada's Safest Employers. The award was presented at a gala on October 24, 2017 in Toronto, Ontario.





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"Packers Plus has created an energetic, employee-empowered culture with a strong emphasis on safety and wellness," says Ian Bryant, Packers Plus President. "Our supportive environment plays a key role in the continued growth and success of the company, which prides itself on providing an ideal workplace for employee well-being. We are very pleased to have received this recognition."Since Packers Plus began operations in 2000, the company has continued to expand on its safety, health and environment program, providing a positive atmosphere that is proactive and prevention-driven. The company fosters a culture of safety, encouraging each employee to engage in safe behaviour in the field, in the office and at home. At Packers Plus, the well-being of employees is always the first priority.
BD Breaks Ground on USD 60 Million Expansion of Nebraska Manufacturing Facility

COLUMBUS, Neb: BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) (NYSE: BDX), a leading global medical technology company, was joined today by Gov. Pete Ricketts and other state and local leaders to break ground on a USD 60 million upgrade of its Columbus-East facility.





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The 69,000 sq. ft. expansion will transform the Columbus-East facility into the flagship plastic injection molding manufacturing facility for BD, and it will become one of the largest and most sophisticated plastic molding plants in the world. The project is expected to be completed by 2021."This is an exciting day for growing the community of Columbus and the State of Nebraska," said Governor Ricketts. "BD's $60 million expansion at their Columbus-East facility is another example of how the industry's faith in our state can help create new opportunities in our communities. With facilities in Columbus, Holdrege, and Broken Bow, BD has been a great partner in growing the Good Life and we appreciate their ongoing investment in Nebraska."In addition to Gov. Ricketts, Columbus Mayor Jim Bulkley and Councilman John Lohr also offered words of support for the expansion. Duane Ostdiek, plant manager for the BD Columbus-West facility highlighted the 50th anniversary of cannula (metal part of a needle used in a variety of health care applications) manufacturing at that facility. Bill Campbell, plant manager of the BD Columbus-East facility also was present to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the BD Columbus-East plant."BD is one of the largest users of plastic injection molded products in the world, with hundreds of billions of units produced internally each year," said James Borzi, executive vice president and chief supply chain officer of BD. "The new facility will centralize a majority of BD's North American plastic molding production and will support multiple business units in the U.S. and around the world."Laurie Reagan, the plant manager for the new plastic molding facility, also spoke at the event and highlighted BD's plans to invest $7 million to retain and retrain its associates for the different skill sets needed for plastic molding manufacturing or to facilitate their transfer to its other manufacturing facility in Columbus or other sites across the BD network. BD is partnering with Central Community College to create customized curriculum for its retraining needs.In addition to Columbus, BD also has operations in Holdrege and Broken Bow, Neb. and employs approximately 2,500 people across the state. In September 2016, BD announced a $100 million investment in its Holdrege facility to expand its insulin syringe manufacturing operations.
Steelworkers' Taxi Workers Council Will Provide Strong Voice for Taxi Workers in Western Canada

SASKATOON: The United Steelworkers (USW) commitment to providing a strong voice for taxi workers has taken a significant step forward today with the creation of the District 3 Taxi Workers Council, which will represent taxi drivers and dispatchers across Western Canada.





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The Council brings together representatives from USW local unions to work together on the specific issues faced by taxi drivers and dispatchers, to provide leadership that will ensure that USW taxi workers are at the forefront of building a safe and fair taxi industry.The Chair of the newly created District 3 Taxi Workers Council says taxi drivers are standing together to fight for their rights as workers."The establishment of the District 3 Taxi Workers Council demonstrates the USW's commitment to ensuring that every taxi driver in every province is treated with the respect and dignity that they deserve as workers," says Malik Umar Drab of USW Local 2014 in Saskatoon.Over two days of meetings, USW members employed in the taxi industry strategized about how to bring forward solutions to the many issues faced by taxi drivers and dispatchers; and how to grow their membership and ensure that more taxi workers benefit from the strength and voice that comes with belonging to the Steelworkers."As Canada's most diverse union, we are proud of our record of fighting for workers in many different industries and sectors of the economy. I'm proud that we are building on our work representing taxi drivers and dispatchers by creating the District 3 Taxi Workers Council," says USW District 3 Director Stephen Hunt."Together, we will make progress for taxi workers and ensure they have a seat at the table."From a growing number of incidents of workplace violence, to challenging working conditions and issues like Uber, Lyft and others, taxi workers face many daunting matters. The District 3 Taxi Workers Council will provide the forum and leadership to address these issues and pursue respect, fairness and dignity.
Osmosis Pur Medical Skincare Accepts Settlement from State of Iowa over Harmonized Water Supplements

EVERGREEN, Colo: Osmosis Pur Medical Skincare is excited to announce that it has accepted a settlement offer from the State of Iowa regarding our Harmonized Water Supplements. This will terminate the pending lawsuit without any finding or admission of any wrongdoing by Osmosis.





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After a short period, during which Osmosis will in good faith be modifying some of the marketing used to describe our cutting-edge technology, Osmosis will resume sales of all Harmonized Water products into Iowa. Osmosis continues to sell its Harmonized Water supplements worldwide.It is worth mentioning that after the State of Iowa spent hundreds of hours talking to our customers, clients and the scientific directors of the 2 double-blind, placebo controlled clinical trials, they found no evidence that the frequency waters were ineffective or that refuted the remarkable results of the clinical trials. At no time has there been a single Iowa Harmonized Water customer who complained of the water's efficacy or reported being hurt by any of the formulas. Nevertheless, Osmosis decided to pay an amount of $70,000, virtually all of which will be used for future consumer protection efforts, as an alternative to spending much more than that in protracted litigation and a trial where we remain quite confident that we would have been victorious.We feel it is important to reiterate that Harmonized Water is based on the current scientific fact in quantum physics that everything in nature and the universe is both a wave and a particle at the same time (aka "Wave-Particle Duality"). Our technology allows us to coerce some of the existing waves in water into beneficial frequencies based on NASA data amongst other science.Founder, Dr. Ben Johnson states, "We hope everyone will look at the definitive success of our clinical trials, the undeniable test results from independent laboratories and our loyal, expanding clientele's rave reviews and be open to trying this powerful technology."Harmonized Water products are not intended to replace treatment for medical conditions. If you have a medical condition, consult a doctor.
'World Food India to bring employment in Chhattisgarh'

New Delhi , November 3 : Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh on Friday asserted that the 'World Food India 2017' has opened possibilities of employment in Chhattisgarh.





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"This event has opened possibilities of employment in Chhattisgarh. I will also be meeting companies interested in investing in the state. Chhattisgarh has a big share in the agriculture sector, and we are growing towards it," Raman Singh told ANI.Applauding Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Singh said that the prime minister's speech on the possibilities of food processing was unique."This event also shows how all the states can use these possibilities to improve production, and different food processing units," Raman Singh asserted.Singh added that food processing is also one sector, which is so wide that its tapping still needs to be done, adding that every state in India has variety of food and they can work upon developing it.The chief minister was attending the World Food India 2017, which is a three day-long event, organised by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, and is set to host a congregation of global investors and business leaders of major food companies from November 3 to 5 in New Delhi.
NTPC blast: 32 casualties, committee to submit report in 30 days

New Delhi , November 3 : National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC) chairman Gurdeep Singh on Friday said the committee formed to probe the Unchahar power plant explosion in Uttar Pradesh's Raebareli will submit its report in the next 30 days.





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The chairman's statement came two days after the tragic incident in which the unit boiler exploded at the NTPC site, killing 32 people and injuring more than hundred others.While addressing the media here, Singh said, "The committee formed to investigate the incident will submit its report in 30 days. The recommendations of the report will be implemented as a safety measure to the present as well as future units, and will be shared with other plants as well."On the condition of the injured undergoing treatment in Uttar Pradesh hospital, he said seven critically injured had been shifted from Lucknow to Delhi last night."We shifted seven people to Delhi yesterday night, with the help of the Indian Government that provided an IAF plane, which helped in the shifting of the injured," said Singh.He added that about 48 people had been admitted in different hospitals in Uttar Pradesh and 12 had already been shifted to the national capital."We will ensure that they are provided with the best possible treatment," he said.Terming the allegations that no proper inspection was done in the plant as ''preconceived notions'', Singh said that it would be wrong to blame anyone and anything until the probe reports are presented."The commission on the plant was supposed to be on December 2016 but was done on March 2017," Singh asserted.He further said that they had conducted a thorough investigation of the plant."Our engineers, having experience of 28 to 30 years in the field, were also present during the accident," the chairman said.He further stated that an additional general manager along with two engineers from different sectors were during the explosion."The Additional General Manager yesterday succumbed to his injuries in Lucknow, while two others had been shifted to Delhi," he added.Stating that there were three competent engineers present on the spot during the incident, the chairman asserted, "Saying that everything was done in haste, would be a wrong thing to say."He said that the sequence of events and data log will be analysed, after which the reason behind the blast could be ascertained.Rae Bareli is the parliamentary constituency of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced an ex-gratia of Rs. 2 lakh each for the next of kin of those killed in the explosion.The incident took place on Wednesday when the ash-pipe exploded due to pressure at the NTPC plant in Unchahar area.NTPC operates a 1550 Mega Watt power plant of Uttar Pradesh, which is named after Feroze Gandhi, the husband of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Composite biomass energy helps generate renewable energy in Japan

Toyohashi [Japan], Nov. 3 : The construction, operation and maintenance of public facilities with private commercial support are increasing in Japan. This makes it possible to reduce expenditures and provide higher quality services. Through a public and private partnership with private finance initiative, the construction of a composite biomass energy facility has been completed and begun operating in Toyohashi city in Aichi prefecture.





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This facility will combine the methane fermentation treatment of sewage sludge, human waste/septic tank sludge and food waste at a single facility, which, until now, had been treated at separate facilities, and to generate electric power. The remaining fermentation residue will be converted to fuel and energy."By mixing these sewage sludge, food waste and human waste/septic tank sludge together, become the mixed sludge as the material for fermentation. Putting into methane fermentation tank, keeping for about 20 days with temperature control, there will be methane fermentation occurs," said a guide staff at JFE Engineering Corporation."We collect and treat sewage sludge, garbage, and human waste from 380,000 residents living in Toyohashi city, making it Japan's largest combined biomass energy facility. We have received many inquiries from municipalities across the country. We expect this to become a model case, because it will reduce the cost of treating waste and perform treatment in a single facility," added Yoko Yamaguchi, Assistant Manager, Toyohashi Biomass Project Team, JFE Engineering Corporation.With rapid urbanisation advances in each country of Southeast Asia, the shortage of electrical power generation as well as the processing of sewage sludge and food waste has become a major problem.
Padmavati represents Indian woman: Uma Bharti

New Delhi , November 3 : Union Minister Uma Bharti on Friday said the film 'Padmavati' should not be attached with the Rajput community as it represents the pride of Indian woman.





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"I cannot remain neutral on the subject of Rani Padmavati. I request for not associating the film 'Padmavati' with the Rajput community instead with the pride of Indian woman," the Union Minister tweeted.She added that prior to the release of the film, historians, filmmakers and the censor board together should form a committee and then come up with a decision.Meanwhile, Rajasthan's Chittorgarh was closed on Friday protesting Sanjay Leela Bhansali's film 'Padmavati', which is schedule to release next month.The period drama starring Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor has been facing flak from various communal groups, including Shree Rajput Karni Sena, for tampering historical facts.These groups are vehemently supporting the 'bandh'.In October, an agitated group even destroyed a huge Padmavati-inspired rangoli made by one artist from Surat on the occasion of Diwali.
Michelle Pfeiffer reveals Judi Dench made her cry

London [UK], November 3 : American actor Michelle Pfeiffer was in tears when she first met veteran Hollywood star Judi Dench.





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Director Kenneth Branagh has made an interesting revelation that Pfeiffer was so much in awe of her fellow co-star that she was reduced to tears the moment she saw the veteran actress."The first time they met on the platform I was on the train watching them all getting ready to come on. They were so sort of shy with each other; it was like the first day at school" Branagh said, as reported by express.co.uk.Pfeiffer and Dench are sharing screen space in Branagh's directorial venture 'Murder on the Orient Express', which hits the screens today.Branagh further praised Dench as the "den mother", recalling how the 82-year-old actress never got off the train during the shoot.'Murder on the Orient Express' is the screen adaptation of Agatha Christie's detective novel of the same name. While the director himself has played a significant role, the movie also stars Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, and Daisy Ridley among others.
Members of European Parliament Visit UAE-Jordanian Camp Mrajeeb Al Fhood for Syrian Refugees

Amman, Jordan : The UAE Federal National Council (FNC), the consultative council and UAE parliamentary body, in cooperation with the Emirates Red Crescent, organized a field visit for a delegation of members from the European Parliament (MEPs) of the EU-UAE Parliamentary Friendship Group to the UAE-Jordanian Mrajeeb Al Fhood camp for Syrian refugees.





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The visit marks the first of its kind by a European parliamentary delegation since the opening of the camp in April 2013 to support the hapless refugees of the Syrian civil war. Funded by the UAE, the camp currently provides high-quality health care, shelter and education to 9,700 Syrian refugees.During the visit, MEP Antonio Lopez-Isturiz, President of the EU-UAE Parliamentary Friendship Group, Secretary-General of the European People's Party and Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, emphasized that the EU appreciates the UAE's continued commitment to supporting regional and global efforts to provide protection and assistance to refugees and displaced persons throughout the world and in the Middle East in particular.Antonio Lopez-Isturiz added that the UAE's approach in supporting Syrian refugees aligns with the country's values and its firm belief in human dignity and human rights. Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, the UAE has granted residence permits to more than 127,000 Syrians. It has also agreed to receive over 15,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years to join the UAE's Syrian community of 242,000. The UAE is home to more than 200 nationalities.Antonio Lopez-Isturiz said: "It is important for us as Europeans, because this proves how the EU and the UAE share common values and concerns, especially with regard to the support of Syrian refugees. We were very impressed with the overall services and assistance provided for the Syrians here at the Mrajeeb Al Fhood refugee camp.Dr Amal Al Qubaisi, President of FNC, stated: "The UAE has a solid track record in implementing charitable, relief and humanitarian initiatives. The UAE is among the largest international donors per capita and was ranked the world's top donor in 2016. Over the past two years, the UAE has provided humanitarian aid exceeding US$854 million to Syrian refugees."
Altemia Achieves Successful Clinical Results in Pediatric Patients with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD)

Riviera Beach, Fla., United States : Sancilio Pharmaceuticals Company, Inc. (SPCI) announced positive top line results from a clinical study evaluating the efficacy and safety of AltemiaTM, an oral soft gelatin dosage form, in pediatric sickle cell patients aged 5-17 years (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02973360).





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Sickle cell disease is characterized by an imbalance of certain fatty acids in blood cell membranes resulting in an increase in blood cell adhesion, chronic inflammation, increased coagulation activity and red blood cell hemolysis, all factors that lead to pain episodes, VOCs, and organ damage.Based on research, SPCI developed Altemia, a combination of specific lipids formulated with the Company's proprietary Advanced Lipid Technologies platform (ALT), to restore the appropriate balance to blood cell membranes affected by the disease.The primary endpoint was the measurement of the change from baseline compared to placebo in blood cell membranes' fatty acids concentration. Statistical significance was achieved within 4 weeks in patients treated with AltemiaTM.Statistically significant improvements in markers of coagulation (D-Dimer), inflammation (C-Reactive Protein) and adhesion (E-selectin), key elements associated with the clinical manifestations of SCD, were seen after 8 weeks of treatment. A clinically meaningful reduction of VOC was also observed. No treatment related SAEs were reported.Ninety-four percent (94%) of subjects completed the study and the majority have chosen to participate in the open label extension phase that will continue monitoring the safety and effectiveness of the drug."An effective and safe treatment of Sickle Cell Disease has been elusive for decades. The findings from this successful double blinded randomized controlled multi-center clinical study may lead to a new treatment which is safe and effective for patients wordlwide with this devastating disease," said Dr. Frederick D. Sancilio, President and Chief Executive Officer of SPCI."A safe and well tolerated treatment, presented as a small soft gelatin capsule, administered once a day, will be a major and novel breakthrough in the treatment of Sickle Cell Disease. The clinical efficacy and safety profile of AltemiaTM clearly warrants further advancement of the program," said Adrian L. Rabinowicz, MD, Chief Medical Officer of SPCI.Additional analysis of the data is ongoing, and SPCI plans to present detailed data from this study in peer reviewed journals and upcoming scientific conferences. The Company plans to meet with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as European Medicines Agency (EMA) to address next steps for AltemiaTM.About Sickle Cell Disease (SCD)Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is a group of genetic disorders that results in dysfunctional hemoglobin (HbS) and a depletion of certain lipids in the walls of blood cells. These abnormalities create an inflammatory state and an increase in the red and white blood cells' tendency to adhere to each other, resulting in episodic occlusions of blood vessels, reperfusion damage and excruciating pain. Ultimately, many children develop organ damage and strokes. There are approximately 100,000 cases of SCD in the United States and treatment options are limited. The cost of care for this group may exceed $5 billion.
UAE, Represented by DEWA, Ranks First in the World in Getting Electricity as per World Bank's Report

Dubai, United Arab Emirates : The UAE, represented by Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), ranked first in the world in getting electricity, as per the World Bank's Doing Business 2018 report. The report uses multiple criteria to measure the ease of doing business in 190 countries.





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DEWA's Al Namoos (Emirati word that describes a race winner) service provides consultants and contractors with electricity connections of up to 150 kilowatts (kW) in just two steps within 10 days. The first step takes 8 days, and includes the application for electricity connections through low-voltage cables, with the first monthly bill postponed until after the electricity is connected. The second step takes two days and includes technical inspection and operation of the final service."We work to achieve the vision of our wise leadership, represented by HH Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE; and HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to shape the future and adopt innovation to enhance the sustainability of development across all sectors. This supports the objectives of the UAE Centennial 2071 to secure a brighter future for generations to come, and make the UAE the best country in the world," said HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of DEWA.Al Tayer commended the role of contractors and consultants who actively participated in the creativity labs and seminars that DEWA organised. Participants made recommendations for continuous improvements that facilitate and accelerate the mechanism of access to electricity services, in accordance with the highest international standards and practices.DEWA has achieved competitive results in efficiency and reliability, compared to European and American utilities. It has reduced losses from electricity transmission and distribution networks to 3.3% compared to 6-7% in Europe and the US, and water network losses were reduced to 8%, compared to 15% in North America, which is one of best results in the world. DEWA also achieved 3.28 customer minutes lost per year compared to 15 minutes in Europe.
GSMA Report Highlights Impact of Taxation on Mobile Connectivity in Latin America

BOGOTA, Colombia : The GSMA announced findings from its latest report, 'Taxing Mobile Connectivity in Latin America: A review of mobile sector taxation and its impact on digital inclusion'.





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The report provides an overview of the tax and fee regime applied to mobile services and its impact on the affordability of mobile and investment in Latin America. While recognising the need of governments to balance the competing objectives of revenue maximisation and growth, the study explores how mobile sector taxation can raise the affordability barrier in the region, undermining digital inclusion efforts.It also discusses how uncertain and complex taxation regimes affect operators' ability to invest in infrastructure rollout."Mobile connectivity is a significant enabler of digital inclusion and economic and social development, however, in many countries the mobile sector is over-taxed, which may hinder the continued development of the sector," said Sebastian Cabello, Head of Latin America, GSMA. "In Latin America, the total cost of mobile ownership is above the five per cent of income threshold recommended by the UN Broadband Commission. Some governments in the region apply additional sector-specific taxes on consumers and mobile operators, leading to negative affordability and investment impacts. In the current economic climate, it is paramount for governments to foster, not hinder, growth."Key Report FindingsThe report showed that the mobile industry in Latin America and the Caribbean contributed more than $260 billion to the regional economy in 2016 or five per cent of the region's GDP, supporting 1.7 million jobs. Findings from the research demonstrate the distortionary impact of sector-specific taxation, highlighting the potential economic benefits of rebalancing sector-specific taxes and regulatory fees:In Latin America, only half of the population subscribes to the mobile internet, in comparison to more than 65 per cent of the population in Europe and the US;In 2016, the mobile sector in Latin America paid, on average, 25 per cent of its revenues in the form of taxes and regulatory fees;Consumers face sector-specific taxation in addition to general VAT in 11 out of the 20 countries studied;Markets featuring higher levels of sector-specific taxes as a proportion of market revenue tend to have lower affordability levels;For all countries in the region where data is available, the total cost of mobile ownership for purchasing a handset and 1GB of data per month is above the five per cent of income threshold recommended by the UN Broadband Commission; andMobile network operators have invested considerably in the region by launching more than 108 4G networks between 2011-2016, despite a challenging reduction to average revenue of 15 per cent per connection during the same period.RecommendationsRebalancing sector-specific taxes and regulatory fees can promote connectivity, economic growth, investment and fiscal stability. A number of principles for reforming sector-specific taxation and fees should be considered by governments in Latin America in order to align mobile taxation with that applied to other sectors and with the best practices recommended by international organisations such as the World Bank and the IMF:Reduce sector-specific taxes and fees to help increase demand for mobile services and incentivise investment, which would lead to an overall growth in government tax revenues over the medium term;Avoid excessive regulatory fees and taxes on revenues, and reduce Universal Service Fund (USF) contributions where the existing funds are underutilised;Reduce complexity and uncertainty of taxes and fees on the mobile sector;Reduce or remove import duties, for example, on network equipment;Remove consumer taxes that target access to mobile services, which would help ease the burden on affordability for the lowest earners in the region;Support effective pricing of spectrum to facilitate better quality and more affordable services;Avoid excessive spectrum auction prices being used as revenue raising mechanism for the government over and above mobile operators' fair tax contributions;Remove taxes on international incoming calls; andImplement supportive taxation for emerging services such as the Internet of Things.The report can be found at: https://www.gsmaintelligence.com/research/?file=61a38952cab354d09537f6675ed9772d&download (English)https://www.gsmaintelligence.com/research/?file=78b12aeccb5227f2ca06369b9b4332f3&download (Spanish)
Damanganga - Pinjal River Inter-linking Project can Quench the Thirst of Mumbai and the MMR, Dr Niranjan Hiranandani

Mumbai : The State Governments of Maharashtra and Gujarat will sign an agreement on the Damanganga - Pinjal river inter-linking project in the next few days, according to a statement by Union Water Resources Minister, Nitin Gadkari.





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"This is positive news for Mumbai's long-term water requirements and augurs well for the citizens of this bustling metropolis," said Dr Niranjan Hiranandani, CMD, Hiranandani Communities.The importance of water resources has been acutely felt in Mumbai and the peripheral areas surrounding the city and suburbs. With existing water resources struggling to keep pace with rising demand across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), it is time to tap resources further away from Mumbai's peripheral areas. In line with this, the Damanganga - Pinjal interstate river link project is among the important projects that could quench the thirst of Mumbai and the MMR, said Dr Niranjan Hiranandani.The Damanganga-Pinjal project proposes to divert the surplus water of the Bhugad and Khargihill reservoirs in the Damanganga basin to Mumbai, via the Pinjal dam on the Pinjal River in the Vaitarna basin, said Dr Niranjan Hiranandani. "The project is expected to provide 909 mld water daily, which will ensure drinking water supply to Mumbai till 2060," he added.The Union water resources minister, who is also the Union road transport and shipping minister made this comment at the 31st annual general meeting of the National Water Development Agency, which is working on the river inter-linking projects. The Hon'ble Minister said he had already spoken with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and his Gujarat counterpart, Vijay Rupani, on the issue and added that both had consented to move ahead with the project, which aimed at taking care of the water requirements of Mumbai.Dr Niranjan Hiranandani is Founder & CMD, Hiranandani Group. His recent initiative is Hiranandani Communities. He is the Founder and First President (Maharashtra), National Real Estate Development Council (NAREDCO), which works under the aegis of Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India.
Adda52 is Nearing the Milestone of 100 Million Hands

Kolkata : Adda52.com is heading towards completing its journey of 100 million hands, which has been in the making for 5 years. It is currently standing at about 98 million hands and has another 2 million to go. This stands as a hallmark of Adda52's legacy as India's largest poker site.





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Observing this monumental achievement, the site credits its growth to its patron and invites them to be a part of this historic poker moment by giving away 10 Lacs.Adda52.com announces a special promotion called 'Road to 100 Million Leaderboard' which starts from 6th November and continues till the poker site hits 100 million mark. The top 20 poker players with Max Hands during this exclusive promotion period will equally share 5 Lacs in prizepool with each player getting 5K in Instant Bonus and 20K in Locked Bonus.Another 5 Lacs will be claimed by the players who have been dealt this milestone hand. 40% of the prizepool will go to the winner of the hand and the rest of the prize money will be distributed equally among the remaining players in the hand. The winner of the hand will also receive 2N/3D Deltin Royale Poker VIP Package.The countdown has begun and the road is set to go all the way to 100 million hands in the next few weeks. Play your favored poker game on the platform and you could create Indian poker history by hitting this historic hand.Details can be found here.About Adda52.comAdda52.com is a gaming portal owned by Gaussian Networks Pvt Ltd. Gaussian Networks believes in the highest values of business conduct. Adda52 has been certified from iTech labs for fair play and random number generator (RNG). The company has also tied up with multiple banks and payments gateways to process payments of customers. The company also facilitates its users to reach out for any query on e-mail (info@adda52.com) or call at 1800-3000-0611 (9AM to 12PM).
Subway Celebrates World Sandwich Day with Charitable Donations in India and Around the Globe

New Delhi : Subway is taking National Sandwich Day global. On Friday, November 03, 2017, more than 40,000 Subway restaurants in more than 60 countries will invite customers to join its Live Feed by enjoying a special offer that will help fight hunger around the world.





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In India, Subway has partnered with Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation (KSCF), a country-wide organisation, dedicated to the welfare of children, headed by Nobel Peace Laureate Shri Kailash Satyarthi.Mr Ranjit Talwar, Country Director, South Asia, Subway said, "A very large proportion of Subway guests are very alive to fulfil the need for freedom and nutrition which is the principal focus of KSCF. This convergence of interest between Subway and KSCF would be synergistic."On this association, Rear Admiral Rahul Kumar Shrawat AVSM (Retd), Managing Director, Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation said, "We are very happy with this association with Subway, I am confident that this effort will reach out to the young generation of India effectively."For every order placed at each of the 600-plus Subway restaurants in India on World Sandwich Day, Subway will contribute a committed amount to the KSCF fund for the welfare of children. "With a view to encourage Subway customers to celebrate World Sandwich Day by contributing to a good cause, Subway will run a 'Buy Two Pay Half' offer on Friday, November 03, 2017 across all its restaurants in India," said Mr Sanjiv Pandey, Marketing Manager, South Asia, Subway. The offer would be valid on submarine sandwiches, salads, wraps, drinks, sides and add-ons.Participating restaurants around the world are inviting customers to join the "Live Feed" and help Subway donate meals to local hunger-relief charities worldwide. To track the global impact of World Sandwich Day, Subway is launching its "Subway Live Feed Headquarters" on the World Sandwich Day in New York City."As a global food company, we are passionate about the fight against hunger. We want to ensure everyone has access to nutritious food," said Suzanne Greco, President and CEO, Subway. "On World Sandwich Day, we are offering more than a free sandwich to our loyal customers, we are also offering a chance to fight hunger around the world."About Kailash Satyarthi Children's FoundationThe Foundation's mission is to create, implement and advocate child-friendly policies that ensure the holistic development and empowerment of children. For achieving these goals, the Foundation encourages government, businesses, civil society as well as children and the youth to participate in strategies and action that will safeguard children from the worst forms of abuse, including lack of education and health. For more information, visit: www.satyarthi.org.inAbout Subway RestaurantsSubway offers a fresh alternative to traditional fast food, serving 7 million made-to-order sandwiches a day. Guests choose from 37 million combinations of quality proteins, fresh vegetables, and bread baked daily. The world's largest restaurant chain serves nutritious and delicious subs, soups, and salads at more than 44,000 restaurants in 113 countries. The Subway experience is also delivered online at www.Subway.com and through the Subway App, available in select markets at the Apple App Store and Google Play.Founded by then 17-year-old Fred DeLuca and family friend Dr. Peter Buck more than 52 years ago, Subway is still a family-owned business today working with more than 21,000 dedicated franchisees in communities around the world.Subway is a registered trademark of Subway IP Inc.